berkeieyN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
^^^- 
 
 HISTORICAL 
 
 LITERARY CELEBRITIES. 
 
-NaFULKUN's aUAVK AT ST HlCJ^EXA. 
 
HISTORICAL 
 
 LITERARY CELEBRITIES 
 
 BEING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
 
 SELECTED FROM 
 
 CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 
 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH, 
 
^3 30 3^^00 
 
 fjV) 
 
 Edinburgh : 
 Printed by W. and R. Chambyrs. 
 

 ,/^A//V 
 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 LOUIS-PHILIPPE. 
 
 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 SIB KOBERT PEEL. 
 
 LOKD BROUGHAM. 
 
 THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 CONFUCIUS. 
 
 FICHTB : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 HETNE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 WASHINGTON AND HIS C0TBMP0RARIK8. 
 
 CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 408 
 
^ 
 
*^^ffll HE last relic of the Buonapartes was found in the person of an 
 Ki^Vi old ecclesiastic, a wealtliy canon of the Abbey of San-:\iiniato. 
 m^ The chief of the stock took refuge in tlie small island of Corsica, 
 W\^ ^"'^ settled at Ajaccio, among whose rude nobility his descend- 
 /^^ '^""-^ ""'^^'^ enrolled, and even admitted to all the privileges then 
 ^V/"S) accorded to that jealous distinction. In spite of the heroic 
 efforts of the celebrated Paoli to preserve the independence 
 of Corsica, it passed under the dominion of the crown of France, 
 after which it was assimilated in its internal administration to 
 the other provinces of France, and had provincial states composed of 
 the three orders of nobility, clergy, and commonalty or tliird estate. It 
 
 i 
 
CHAIMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 likewise pi'eservecl a supreme magistracy of twelve nobles, in whom the govern- 
 ment of the country was vested ; and to this high tribunal Charles Buonaparte 
 was attached as assessor, a place preparatory to his elevation into the Council. 
 This Charles was the only son of Joseph Buonaparte, the eldest of three 
 brothers, the two other of whom died without male issue. He inherited the 
 family property, which was not very considerable, consisting of a house in 
 Ajaccio, and a small estate on the shore of the island, where a dilapidated 
 villa served as a summer residence. As is usual in southern climates, he 
 married at the early age of nineteen, and won for his wife from numerous 
 competitors the reigning beauty of the world of Corsica, the young Letitia 
 Eamolino, who was remarkable not only for her personal charms, but also for 
 the courage and fortitude of her character. In 1779 the noblesse elected him 
 the deputy of their order to the court of Versailles, and in this capacity he 
 was obliged to make frequent journeys into France, which, notwithstanding 
 the liberal grants he received from the government of Louis XVI., appear to 
 have reduced his fortune within the narrowest limits ; for upon his death at 
 Montpellier in 1785, Avhither he had repaired in the vain hope of being re- 
 lieved from the malady which afflicted him — cancer in the stomach ; a disease 
 often hereditary in families — he left his widow in very straitened circumstances, 
 and dependent in a great measure for the suj)port and education of her 
 children on their uncle the Archdeacon Lucien, who was head of the chajDter 
 of Ajaccio, and who cheerfully undertook to perform the part of father to the 
 bereaved orphans. 
 
 These were no fewer than eight in number, the survivors of thirteen whom 
 the fruitful Letitia had borne to her husband, although, at the time of his 
 death, she had not completed her thirty-fifth year. Five were sons, and three 
 daughters, the eldest of whom, Joseph, was seventeen years old, and the 
 youngest, Jerome, only two months. The second son was Napoleon, the 
 third Lucien, and the fourth Louis ; the three daughters were jMarianna Eliza, 
 Pauline, and Caroline, also called Annonciada, who was nearly three years 
 old at the death of her father. In his visits to France, Charles Buonaparte 
 had taken with him his two eldest sons for the benefit of their education ; 
 Joseph being placed in a school at Autun, with the view of following the 
 ecclesiastical profession under the patronage of Marboeuf, Archbishop of 
 Lyons, brotlier of the governor of Corsica, who, as a friend of the family, was 
 on liis part instrumental in procuring the introduction of Napoleon into the 
 military school of Brienne, whence he was afterwards removed to that of 
 Paris. This second son was always a favourite with his fathoi', who delighted 
 to regard him as the fixture hero of his race ; and the young Napoleon himself 
 was fondly attached to an indulgent parent, whose loss he long deplored, 
 regretting, above all, that the mournful consolation of attending liis deathbed 
 had been denied to him, which fell, on the contrary, to the lot of Joseph and 
 the Abbe Fesch, a half-brother of their mother. In the succeeding years, 
 Lucien likewise received his education at Brienne and at Aix in Provence ; 
 and when the mighty era of 1789 dawned, all the sons were assembled in 
 Corsica, where the cause of the Kevolution was from the first embraced by 
 its inhabitants with the greatest ardour. Tlic young Buonapartes were 
 among its most eager partisans; and Lucien, in particular, who was only six- 
 teen years of age, distinguished himself as an orator in the popular clul)S of 
 the island. Joseph had abjured the priestly calling, and having entered into 
 the civil service of the department, was enabled to assist his motlier in 
 ^ 2 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAJnLY. 
 
 tlic management and maintenance of the family. Napoleon held a com- 
 mission from the king of France as a lieutenant of artillery, and was re- 
 markable chiefly for his love of solitude and the laborious studies in which 
 he passed his time. Already he had ceased to look upon Corsica as his 
 country ; France opened to him a wider theatre for the play of his aspiring 
 spirit, and he readily merged his feelings of patriotism in the ambition of 
 partaking the dangers and the glories of the new competition about to arise 
 from the crash of feudalism. 
 
 It was very dificrent with the old patriot of the island — Paoli. As a 
 venerated cliampion of freedom, the National Assembly of France had 
 invited him to return from his long exile in England ; and in 1792 he re- 
 appeared among his countrymen with all the lustre of a name endeared to 
 them by his services and his suiferings. He was hailed with a boundless 
 enthusiasm, especially by the mountaineers, who revered him as then- 
 tutelary chief. In Ajaccio he was received with triumph, and Lucien 
 Buonaparte records with exultation that he pronounced a discourse before 
 him which, by its touching pathos, drew tears from the honoured veteran. 
 So lively, indeed, was the impression made npon him by this fei'vent orator, 
 that Paoli took him to his residence of Rostino, and kept him near his 
 person for many months, during which he sought to instil into the mind of 
 his pupil, as the latter himself relates with grief, that England was the only 
 land of real freedom, and the British constitution far superior to any which 
 the legislators of France were likely to frame. Notwithstanding his vene- 
 ration for the patriotic sage, Lucien was too zealous for the credit of France 
 and the virtue of republicanism to admit the force of this doctrine, and he 
 began to entertain suspicions of the orthodoxy of Paoli in the precepts of 
 the revolutionary code. This first alarm was verified when the execution 
 of Louis XVI. aroused the indignation of the vu'tuous patriot, and stirred 
 him to an open denunciation of the sanguinary monsters who were dis- 
 gracing the sacred cause of liberty. Paoli declared he would no longer 
 belong to France, neither he nor his brave mountaineers ; and he called 
 upon the sons of his old companion in the war of independence, Charles 
 Buonaparte, to join him in a fresh struggle against a more terrible tyranny 
 than had ever yet oppressed the island. But to this appeal the Buona- 
 partes were deaf, for their ambition lay in the very opposite direction ; and 
 Paoli having summoned around him an army of mountaineers, prepared to 
 march on Ajaccio, which was the only town that had refused, at his com- 
 mand, to lower the tricolour flag. His rage, if we are to credit Lucien, 
 was principally dkected against the Buonapartes, and he ordered them to 
 be taken dead or alive. Joseph and Napoleon were both absent at this 
 critical moment ; Lucien had proceeded to France as the head of a deputa- 
 tion to crave succours from the Jacobins ; but the heroic Letitia, who had 
 in earlier days fought by the side of her husband, was fully equal to the 
 task of providing for the safety of her younger progeny. In the dead of 
 niglit she was aroused by intelligence of the approach of her exasperated 
 enemy, Avho was intent, above all, to seize her person as a hostage for the 
 submission of her sons ; and, escorted by a village chieftain named Costa, 
 she hastened from the city to seek refuge in the fastnesses of the hills 
 and forests. Under the shade of darkness, amidst a small band of faithful 
 followers, she marched with her young children, and before daylight reached 
 
 3 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 a secluded spot on the sea-shore, whence from an elevation she could 
 see her house in flames. Undaunted by the sad spectacle, she exclaimed, 
 * Never mind, we will build it up again much better : Vive la France ! ' 
 After a concealment of two days and niglits in the recesses of the woods, 
 the fugitives were at length gladdened by the sight of a French frigate, on 
 board of which were Joseph and Napoleon with the deputies of the Con- 
 vention on a mission to Corsica. In this vessel the whole party at once 
 embai'ked, and as no hope remained of finding security in Corsica, it was 
 straightway steered for France. Marseilles was its i^ort of destination, 
 and there it accordingly landed the family of exiles, destitute of every 
 remnant of property, but unbroken, it would seem, in coiirage and health. 
 Madame Buonapai'te was fain to receive with thankfuhiess the rations 
 of bread distributed by the municipality to refugee patriots. Joseph 
 speedily received an appointment as a commissary of war; and he and 
 Napoleon contributed to the support of the family from their scanty 
 allowances ; but there is no doubt that, during the first years of theii- 
 residence in France, these obscure exiles, who even spoke the language of 
 their adopted country with difficulty, suffered all the inconveniences of a 
 sordid penury. 
 
 France was at this time a prey to all the horrors of civil war, as well as 
 to the dangers of a foreign invasion. The principal cities of the Republic 
 had revolted against the central authority of Paris and the bloody domina- 
 tion of the Jacobins, and among the rest Marseilles was distinguished in 
 the great federalist movement. But the reduction of Lyons, and the ter- 
 rible vengeance inflicted on it, restored the supremacy of the redoubtable 
 Committee of Public Safety. Many thousands of the inhabitants of Mar- 
 seilles fled in terror on the approach of the Jacobin forces, and sought 
 protection in Toulon, which had not only cast off the yoke of the Conven- 
 tion, but called in the aid of the British and Spanish fleets to uphold the 
 desperate cause of royalty. In this general flight, liowever, the Buona- 
 partes did not participate, since they in truth belonged to the triumphant 
 faction. 
 
 This was a connection which may principally be ascribed to Lucien, 
 who was by far the most hot-headed of the family, and who, by dint 
 of inflammatory harangues, had recommended himself to an adminis- 
 trative appointment at St Maximin, a small to'svn a few leagues distant 
 from Marseilles. Here he assumed the name of Brutus, and in conjunc- 
 tion with a renegade monk, who styled himself Epaminondas, exeixised a 
 petty dictatorship, filling the prisons with unfortunate victims, as suspected 
 royalists and aristocrats. But it is his boast that, with unlimited power 
 in his hands, and at so youthful an age, he shed no blood, notwithstanding 
 the influence of the examples around him. He even opposed the mandate 
 of the commissioners, sent by the Convention to restore its authority at 
 JIarseilles, for the removal of his prisoners to be tried or ratlier guillo- 
 tined at Orange — an act which exposed him to the anger of the com- 
 missioners, Barras and Freron, and nevertheless failed to save him from 
 the imputation of being a Terrorist when the day of reaction arrived. 
 In this revolutionary career Lucien was of service to his family : Joseph, 
 wlio continued to reside at Marseilles with his mother, was of too mild and 
 unobtrusive a character to gain credit with the powers of Jacobhiism, 
 4 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 whilst Napoleon was as yet an unkno-wn subaltern, jostling among the 
 crowd of rivals for preferment. In the person of the Abbe Feseli, who 
 had accompanied liis sister in her exile, the positive danger was incurred 
 of harbouring a priest, then the most obnoxious to popular wrath of all 
 delinquents. However, when the portents of the storm were gathering, 
 the abbe prudently discarded his clerical robe, and sought a safer calling 
 as a keeper of stores in the army of General Montesquiou, who, in the 
 autumn of 1793, overran the country of Savoy. It was at a later period of 
 the same year that an event occurred which laid the foundation of mighty 
 changes, involving not only the fortunes of the Corsican refugees, but 
 deranging the destinies of all tlic nations of Christendom. 
 
 Toulon alone of all the revolted cities still held out against the victorious 
 banner of the Republic. The energies of the goveiuiment were directed 
 against it witli the greater virulence, that the flag of England, the most hated 
 of the foes of France, floated on its traitorous ramparts. General Carteaux 
 ■was despatched to undei'take the siege at the head of a force amount- 
 ing to 30,000 men of all arms ; but carrying on the operations with less 
 vigom' than suited the impatience of the sovereign Committee, he was 
 displaced, and succeeded by Dugommier, who had been provided by the 
 celebrated Carnot with a detailed plan for his guidance in the reduction of 
 the place. During the temporary absence of the senior officer in com- 
 mand, and in a happy moment of inspiration, Dugommier confided the 
 charge of the artillery to the young engineer of Ajaccio, who had been 
 recently promoted to a colonelcy of brigade, and who recommended a plan 
 of operation so much more feasible than the one dictated by the Committee, 
 that it was at once adopted, with the preliminary sanction, nevertheless, of 
 the Representatives on mission with the army. This plan consisted in 
 carrying the more distant forts which commanded the harbour of Toulon^ 
 instead of pursuing the attack against the main body of the place. It was 
 calculated that they would thus insure either the destruction of the hostile 
 fleet, or its hasty removal out of range of the guns. In either case, the 
 reduction of Toulon Avas certain and immediate without much waste of blood, 
 since it would be no longer tenable by the foreign garrison, which consti- 
 tuted the chief means of its defence. The plan being finally determined 
 upon, Napoleon applied himself to its execution with his characteristic ar- 
 dour ; and such was his exercise of scientific skill, combined with a personal 
 heroism remarkable even in those days of matchless daring, that on the 
 eighteenth day from unmasking his batteries he was enabled to carry by 
 assault the fort called Little Gibraltar, the possession of which gave the 
 republican arms that decisive predominance he had contemplated. Lord 
 Hood immediately evacuated the harbour with his ships ; the garrison pre- 
 pared for a gradual abandonment of the defensive posts; the wretched 
 inhabitants flocked to the quays, imploring protection from their fugitive 
 aUies; the galley-slaves burst from then- chains, and commenced a general 
 plunder; the arsenal was set on fire, and the huge vessels of war roared with 
 the flames of devastation ; the raging conquerors rushed into the devoted 
 city, and then was consummated a scene of horror which it is impossible for 
 the pen to describe. 
 
 Such was the achievement by which Napoleon Buonaparte first emerged 
 from among that swarm of youthful heroes who in this famous era had flung 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 themselves into the sei-vice of France. Li this early stage of his career he 
 met two young soldiers, still struggling against the frowns of fortune, whom 
 he attached to himself by the notice he took of their cool intrepidity in the 
 midst of danger. These were Junot and Duroc, who retained for him ever 
 afterwards an affection and admiration which were wholly independent of 
 his waxing fortunes. The Eepresentatives of the Convention and Dugom- 
 mier freely acknowledged the value of Napoleon's services ; and the Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, which rewarded and punished with equal promp- 
 titude, at once elevated him to the rank of general of brigade. He was 
 henceforth attached to the army of the Alps under Dumorbion, who, bemg 
 old, and diffident of hhnself, willingly relincpished to his more vigorous lieu- 
 tenant the conduct of a campaign which, owing to the rugged nature of the 
 country and the absolute destitution of the soldiers, was beset with unusual 
 difficulties. To this army were delegated the same commissioners who 
 had superintended the siege of Toulon, all men of note and influence in the 
 Republic at the time, and two of whom at least manifested a perfect appre- 
 ciation of the merits of the new commandant of artillery. One of these 
 was the younger Robespierre, brother of the chief dictator among the ruling 
 decemvirs ; the other was Barras, who affected military knowledge, and was 
 fresh from the massacres of Marseilles: the thii-d commissioner was Sali- 
 cetti, himself a Corsicau, but nourishing a bitter envy of his rising country- 
 man. The first, indeed, formed with Napoleon an intimacy which had 
 nearly led to momentous consequences. Although the atrocities of the 
 Jacobins were extremely revolting to him — for his temperament was ut- 
 terly averse to their horrible system of government — Napoleon was not 
 insensible to the advantage of cultivating a friendship with the brother of 
 their most potential leader, whose favour was the surest avenue to distinc- 
 tion. Moreover, the younger Robespierre, who was really estimable for 
 many virtues, laboured to convince him that Maximilian was far from being 
 the bloody tyrant his actions seemed to indicate. It is not singular, 
 therefore, that Napoleon tm-ned his eyes with some predilection towards 
 one so capable of promoting his interests, and whom he might sujipose an 
 involuntary agent of bloodshed, or at least not so vulgar and complete a 
 vHlaiu as some of his colleagues. Thus he became connected with Robes- 
 pierre, who entertained the idea of conferring on him the command of the 
 Parisian sans-culottes m lieu of the miserable Henriot, whose blustering 
 incompetence he had the sagacity to detect. The proposition was even 
 made to hun by the younger brother, who repeatedly urged him to accom- 
 pany him to Paris, whither he himself was recalled by the perils bcgmning to 
 threaten the contmuance of the existing dominion. But Napoleon resolutely 
 resisted all such solicitations, for however Robespierre might have unposed 
 on hun by professions of moderation, he could not consent to wear the actual 
 livery of such a master, whose character of sternness and implacability he 
 was not anxious to encounter too closely. ' There is no honourable place 
 for me at present but tlie army ; the time is not yet come, hut it icill come, 
 when I shall command at Paris,^ are the prophetic words which Lucicn does 
 not hesitate to put into his moutli on this occasion. Yet notwithstanding 
 his refusal to identify himself with Robespierre, he was involved in the 
 downfall of that monster; and after the glorious 9th of Thcrmidor ('27th 
 of July 1794), he was arrested as an adherent and partisan of the fallen 
 6 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 tyrant.* Being cast into prison witli other more avowed Terrorists, 
 he narrowly escaped the death which awaited them under tlie violence of 
 reaction; but he was eventually set at liberty tlu-ough the force of his 
 o^vn remonstrances and tlie plaintive pleadmgs of his humble friend Junot. 
 Nevertheless tliis release did not jirevent the loss of his rank in the army, 
 and of all the other fruits of the brilliant reputation he had won : at the age 
 of twenty-five he was thrown as an outcast upon the world, ignominiously 
 expelled from tlie profession in which he had ah-cady begun to gather laurels* 
 His brothers shared in the reverses of the ilfcmeut : Joseph saved himself 
 by a temporary retreat to Genoa, but Lucien incurred the hoiTors of the 
 incarceration he had so liberally admmistered to others, albeit he protested 
 against so ungrateful a return for the boon of life he had usually granted to 
 his victims. 
 
 This may be considered the second i:)hase in the calamities of the illus- 
 trious House of Buonaparte. "Whilst all France was ringing with the j oy 
 of its deliverance from the detestable tlu-aldom of mm-derers, tlie heaviest 
 gloom hung upon the hopes of those forlorn strangers in the land. Pro- 
 scription and degradation Avere now their lot, in addition to the poverty from 
 Avhich they had partially emerged. In this extremity Joseph became the 
 prop and support of the family, by his maniage with the daughter of a 
 wealthy merchant of ^Marseilles named Clary. By the dowiy he got with 
 his wife, he was raised into almost affluent cu-cumstances, and obtained a 
 position which enabled him to be of essential benefit to his mother and the 
 children still remainiug under her charge. Lucien had been liberated from 
 the prison of Aix after a detention of six weeks, during which he escaped 
 almost miraculously the massacres then perpetrating by the Eoyalists on 
 the imprisoned Jacobins in the southern departments of France, and he re- 
 tm-ned to Marseilles from liis incarceration in very dismal plight. He, too, 
 had contracted fnatrimony during his residence at St Maximin, where the 
 daughter of an innkeeper called Boyer had fixed his wayward affections. 
 Unlike his eldest brother, however, he received no fortime with his partner; 
 and m the existuig condition of his finances she proved rather an inoppor- 
 time encumbrance. But he was fondly attached to her, portionless as she 
 was, for she was very beautiful and very amiable, and his sangume temper 
 foimd consolation for present indigence in visions of future prosperity. 
 
 After his discharge from the army and from captivity, Napoleon had pro- 
 ceeded to Paris, with the 'S'iew of claimmg from the new government repara- 
 tion of the wi'ongs he had suffered. His fonner friend Barras was now in 
 an influential station, in consequence of the unportant part he had borne in 
 the overthrow of Eobespien-e. But although he experienced from that per- 
 sonage a friendly reception, he derived no advantage from his advocacy, if 
 it were ever sincerely exerted, which it probably was not, since Barras might 
 well dread to implicate himself by too earnest a recommendation of one 
 involved in the odium of tei-rorism. Being, as is well kno'svn, imsuccessful 
 in his suit, and denied further employment, the extraordmary youth 
 who earned with him the destinies of Europe fell into the condition of an 
 
 * Napoleon accused Salieetti of provoking his arrest by his vile machinations, 
 and he subsequently revenged the perfidious deed by facilitating that personage's 
 escape from the vengeance of the Convention after the event of the 1st Prairial 
 (•20th May 1795). 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 almost houseless -wanderer of the streets, and even contemplated at one 
 time making an escape from his wretchedness by flinging himself into the 
 Seine. It was not tUl public affairs took a new turn that fortmie once 
 more stood his friend. The Convention was about to close its stormy ex- 
 istence after promulgating a new constitution for France, by which an exe- 
 cutive government was created of five directors, with a legislature divided 
 into two chambers, one to be called the Chamber of Ancients, the other the 
 Chamber of Five Hundred. By supplemental statutes, two-thirds of the 
 old Conventionalists were to form part of the new legislature, and against 
 this provision the Reactionists protested with vehemence. The sections of 
 Paris were furious in their opposition; and failing to intimidate the Con- 
 vention by menaces, they resolved to coerce it by an armed insurrection. 
 To meet this threatened danger, the Convention appointed Barras to com- 
 mand the forces at its disposal, which consisted of about 6000 troops of 
 the regular army; and he, calling to mind that energetic officer whom he 
 had known in the campaign of the Maritime Alps, wisely judged that he 
 was better qualified than himself to conduct the military operations fitted 
 for the occasion. He accordingly applied to Napoleon, who was forthwith 
 nominated to be second in command. A subordinate part, however, was 
 not suited to one of Napoleon's temperament, and he at once assumed the 
 principal direction of affairs. As the Sectionaries far exceeded in nume- 
 rical strength the army of the Convention, he determined to act strictly on 
 the defensive, and with this view surrounded the National Palace with 
 cannon, and intrenched his soldiers on all the approaches which led to it. 
 On the morning of the 13th Vendemaire (5th October 1795) the insurgents 
 assembled to the number of 30,000 men, and about three in the afternoon 
 appeared with their heads of columns on the Place du Carrousel, the open 
 square in front of the Tuileries. Instantly Napoleon opened upon them a 
 terrific discharge of gi-ape-shot, which staggered, overthrew, and routed 
 them. The battle was neither long nor obstinate; the Sectionaries could 
 make no head against the tempest of baUs vomited against them by then- 
 pitiless and scientific enemy. Retreating in afli-ight, part of them attempted 
 "to make a stand on the steps of the Cliurch of St Roch in the Rue St 
 Honore, but Napoleon followed them with his murderous gims, and made 
 dreadful havoc. Shortly the insurgent army was in open flight ; the insur- 
 rection was suppressed, and the Convention victorious. The conqueror 
 was hailed with acclamations by the grateful Assembly, and in reward of 
 his services he was nominated general of the Army of the Interior. 
 
 Henceforth the path of fortune lay wide and smooth before Napoleon. 
 Happy accidents almost poiu-ed upon him, and none was more singularly 
 auspicious than that which introduced him to a wife. As a consequence of 
 their defeat in Vendemaire, the reactionary citizens of Paris were deprived 
 of their arms, which were delivered into the possession of the general of 
 the Army of the Interior. One day he was applied to by a boy not more 
 than ten years of age for the restoration of his father's sword, which had 
 been seized in the general search, although its OMnier was long since dead. 
 The ingenuous earnestness of the youth pleaded in his favour, and Napoleon 
 not only restored him the sword, but was induced to inquire into the cir- 
 cumstances of the fiimily to which he belonged. His fether, Alexander de 
 Bcauharnais, had commanded one of the armies of the Republic, but had 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAOTLY. 
 
 lost Ills head in the Reign of Terror; his mother, Josephine, still survived, 
 having narrowly escaped the same fate by the fortunate execution of 
 Robespierre within a few hoiu-s of her intended condemnation. Slie was a 
 native of Martinique, and was enveloped in a strange interest, from the 
 remarkable prophecies that had been made concerning her. In one of 
 these, delivered by an old negi-ess, she herself put faith with the super- 
 stition natural to her clime. It was said that she should witness the death 
 of her lirst husband, be plunged into the deepest misery, but ultimately be 
 raised above the estate of a queen. Tliat such a prediction had been made 
 there is positive evidence, although of course with about as much actual 
 foresight on the part of the negrcss as resides in those famed gipsies who, 
 for a corresponding fee, will promise any extent of sublunary grandeur. 
 To Napoleon the lady was recommended by the inimitable graces of her 
 person and manners, and by an influence which she had acquned over Bar- 
 ras, who, having been elected one of the new directors, was now possessed 
 of greater power than ever. As Napoleon aspired to the very highest and 
 most unportant command in the service of the Republic, it was politic in 
 him to strengthen his pretensions by an alliance fortified with such per- 
 suasive ties. 
 
 From associations which had their origin in predilections of sundry 
 kinds, uidividual and professional, Italy was the field on which Napoleon 
 panted to make his great essay in arras. It was a country he had pro- 
 foundly studied m a military aspect, and at an earlier period he had sub- 
 mitted to the government plans for its invasion, which had been well 
 appreciated, but postponed through the pressure of many conflicting cu-- 
 cumstances. He renewed his propositions under the present more 
 favourable auspices, and as they met the approbation of Carnot, who had 
 succeeded to a place in the Directory, and was considered the highest 
 military authority of the day, he received the appomtment he so much 
 coveted, and was named on the 1st of March 1796 generalissimo of the 
 Ai-my of Italy. This army was both the least numerous and the worst 
 provided of all those arrayed by France in that eventful year for foreign 
 aggression and domestic w-arfare. Young Hoche had 100,000 men assigned 
 him for the subjugation of La Vendee ; Jourdan and Moreau commanded 
 armies of 80,000 men each on the Upper and Lower Rhine ; while Buona- 
 parte had only 30,000 starved and naked troops to realise his daring pro- 
 ject of conquering Piedmont, and wresting Lombardy from the Austrians. 
 It is true that the French, by the victory of Loano, under Scherer, in the 
 previous November, had surmounted all the difficulties of the mountain 
 passages, and stood prepared to descend into the Italian plains Avhenever 
 opportunity might seem to invite them; but for offensive operations, certain 
 supplies at all events are considered mdispensable. Now, such was the 
 penury of the French exchequer, that it possessed no means of furnishing 
 such supplies ; and during the whole winter these valiant troops had been 
 exposed to hardships and privations which severely tested their fortitude 
 as well as discipline. Even in spring, the utmost efibrts of the govern- 
 ment were mcompetent to feed or clothe them adequately ; and all that 
 could be efiected was to provide them with such stores of munitions as 
 were absolutely necessaiy to enter upon a campaign. Means of transit 
 were ahnost entu-ely wanting, for the system of forced requisitions was of 
 1 . 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 uo avail in a mountainous country from which the meagi-e cultivators had 
 fled in dismay. But in that extraordinary era armies were subsisted and 
 moved in a manner which defies calculation ; and the martial enthusiasm of 
 the soldiers made amends for deficiencies which would have paralysed more 
 methodical and mercenary hosts. Once across an enemy's frontier, the 
 French were at ease, for they carried with them the boon of liberty, and 
 held themselves justified m living at the expense of the disenthralled popu- 
 lations. To propel his army from the Alpine range into the fertile valleys 
 below. Napoleon received from the Directory the sum of 2000 louis-d'or in 
 specie ; and never surely was so gigantic an undertaking contemplated with 
 such slender resources. Yet he was animated with a fervour and self- 
 confidence which set at nought all impediments : and he said joyously to 
 his friends as he started, ' Li three months you will see me again at Paris, 
 or hear of me at Milan.' 
 
 Two armies were opposed to him— one of Piedmontese 20,000 strong, 
 and the other of Austrians 35,000 strong, between which he poured with his 
 emaciated complement of 30,000. Already, under the revolutionary impulse, 
 the tactics of war had been materially changed from the old-established 
 routine ; and the generals of the Coalition had sufi'ered untimely reverses, 
 inflicted on them, as they complained, contrary to the rules of art. But 
 such changes were trifling in comparison with those introduced by Napoleon 
 Buonaparte, who struck by blows so sure and rapid, that his enemy was 
 overpowered before he well knew that operations had coiamenced; and 
 campaigns which, under the old system of even Marlborough and Frederick, 
 would have lingered for years, were decided in a few weeks, sometimes ui 
 a few days. Thus he hurled the Piedmontese and Austrians before liim ou 
 separate routes of retreat with a precipitation which anniliilated resistance : 
 in less than two months he had fought six battles, reduced Sardinia to sue 
 for peace, entered Milan in triumph, and expelled the Austrians from Lom- 
 bard}^, driving them across the Adige, and into the fastnesses of the Tp-ol. 
 Such a series of exploits, accomplished in so short a time, wi'ought a bound- 
 less amazement, and the hero of them was extoUed as a prodigy superior to 
 all warriors of ancient or modern fame. Priestly and royal dominations 
 crouched before him ; and the proud oligarchy of Venice sent himible inter- 
 cessions to propitiate his wrath. Yet his possession of Lombardy was very 
 insecure, for the House of Austria was making prodigious exertions to 
 wrest it from him. Four successive armies of 60,000 men each were pushed 
 down the gorges of the Tyrol and across the Brenta, under veteran leaders 
 of exalted reputation, to dislodge him from his central position of Verona, 
 and thence dislodged, to inflict on him an inevitable ruin. Against these 
 he contended with a union of skill and energy altogether unexampled. 
 The conflicts of Lonato, Castiglione, Bassano, Arcole, and Rivoli, although 
 not attended with the stupendous results for which his later victories were 
 celeln-ated, must ever be esteemed as the most truly brilliant and marvel- 
 lous of his military successes. They assured to him the definitive posses- 
 sion of Italy, and enabled him in a subsequent campaign to cross the Noric 
 Alps, and advance within twenty-five leagues of Vicima, where he extorted 
 from the emperor the famous treaty of Campo-Formio, which secured to 
 France all the vast accessions of territory she had gained from the first out- 
 break of the revolutionary war. At no period of her history had she con- 
 10 
 
THE BONATARTE FAIULY. 
 
 eluded so glorious and advantageous a peace ; and in his double capacity of 
 waiTior and pacificator, Napoleon was received in Paris with an euthusiasm 
 beiittmg the gi"eat services he had performed. 
 
 The elevation of this member of the family failed not to liave a bene- 
 ficial influence on the fortimes of the rest. After his example, they 
 all dropped the Italian orthogxaphy of their name, and to render it 
 more nearly French, wi-ote it henceforth ' Bonaparte.' Joseph, who had 
 ah-eady tilled a similar appomtment in the Army of the Alps, was 
 named likewise a commissary of war under his brother in Italy. The 
 same favour was conferred on the ex-abb^ Fesch, who is accused of having 
 shared in the illegitimate profits of the contractors. Lucien gladly answered 
 a summons to Paris from his irksome retreat at Marseilles, and was forth- 
 with attached in the like quality of commissary to the Army of the 
 Rhme under Moreau, where he m.ade himself obnoxious by his passion for 
 wrangling and disputation, and also by the negligent discharge of his 
 duties. Such, indeed, were his egi-egious arrogance and incompetence, 
 that he would have been expelled from his emplo}Tnent but for the pro- 
 tective influence of Napoleon, whom he thought fit to join in Italy when 
 his triumphant progi-ess opened so profitable a field of speculation. Young 
 Louis, too, was pro\'ided for by the same fostering care, and although only 
 seventeen years of age, with the grade of a lieutenant, was appointed an 
 aide-de-camp to his puissant brother. He had passed a short time at the 
 militaiy school of Chalons, preparatory to his entering the artillery, and 
 having been from the first under the tutelage of Napoleon, he regarded 
 him not only with gi'eat affection, but with almost the deference due to 
 a father. Of all the sons, therefore, Jerome alone remained with his 
 mother, whose household was further reduced in 1797 by the marriage of 
 her eldest daughter Eliza mth Felix Bacchiochi, a coimtrpnan of her own, 
 and at that tune a captain of artillery. This match was highly disapproved 
 by Napoleon, who justly considered himself the head of the family, and 
 already an-ogated a right of disposal over his dependent kinsfolk in ma- 
 trimony ; but he nevertheless promoted his new brother-in-law, mak- 
 ing him first a colonel, and then a general of brigade. In the same 
 year Joseph, and in the following year Lucien, were returned to the 
 Council of Five Hundi-ed as representatives of the district of Liamone in 
 Corsica, from which Paoli had once more fled. Subsequently to the 18th 
 Fructidor (4th September 1797), when the Directory, with the connivance 
 of Napoleon, established a virtual despotism in France, Joseph was 
 despatched as ambassador of the Eepublic to Rome, whence he shortly 
 retu-ed, in consequence of a popular tumult, amidst which he nearly lost 
 his life, and for which the recalcitrant pope suffered the penalty of deposi- 
 tion. Thus the Bonapartes began to form an important power in the state, 
 and already no post in the government was deemed too exalted to occupy 
 the talents or satisfy the claims of then* resplendent chief. 
 
 But the time was not yet come for his participation in or assumption of 
 the government ; he must yet gather fresh laurels, and the country be 
 overwhelmed with disasters, ere he could aspire to seize supreme autho- 
 rity in the Republic. It was not at a period when he had raised it to the 
 pinnacle of ,gi-eatness it would voluntarily accept him for a sovereign ; a 
 season of calamity was needed to point him out as an indispensable iastru- 
 
 n 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ment of salvation. His position at Paris was irksome both to himself and 
 to the Directory, and it Avas equally the wish of both that he should forth- 
 with betake himself again to active employment. The Directory was 
 intent on invading England or Ireland, and at no period could such an 
 enterprise have been attended with a better chance of success ; accordingly 
 it had nominated Napoleon general of the Ai-my of England, the opportune 
 death of Hoche having removed a rival who alone could have stood against 
 him in the lists of competition. Napoleon had a difterent project of his own, 
 which was more agreeable to those early fancies he had so fondly indulged. 
 In Egypt he saw the commencement of his visionary subjugation of Asia, 
 or his dethronement of the Ottoman sultan, and an expedition to conquer it 
 was suthciently plausible to be defended on the ground of interest to France. 
 The possession of Malta and Egypt was a prodigious step towards the accom- 
 plishment of the grand traditionary scheme of rendermg the Mediterranean 
 a French lake, whilst, by opening the readiest route to India, it would faci- 
 litate the destruction of England in a more certain manner than by a du-ect 
 invasion. Upon these ai-guments he mamtained the superior merits of his 
 project, and the Du-ectory was obliged to yield to them a reluctant acquies- 
 cence. He embarked on his extravagant but magnificent enterprise, accom- 
 panied by the largest naval and military armament that had ever crossed a 
 wide expanse of sea ; and before the aim of his expedition was known to the 
 world, he had planted the republican banner on the hitherto impregnable 
 ramparts of Malta, as well as the ruined towers of Alexandria, and the 
 glittering minarets of the city of the Caliphs. The battles of the Pyramids 
 and Mount Tabor, fought on fields of such imperishable and hallowed recol- 
 lection, shed a lustre on the French arms which was all the brighter for the 
 distance of the scene, and for the unkno\\Ti regions that had witnessed them. 
 The French were thrown into raptures, for the predominant idea of their 
 Kevolution had now become military glory and conquest, to the exclusion of 
 all earlier chimeras touchmg liberty and fraternity, and the reverses they 
 were sustainmg in Europe gave to the tidings a character of peculiar con- 
 solation. The Directoiy was composed of vulgar and violent men, Avho 
 displayed an insatiable self-love in aggressions on the neighbours of France, 
 Soon its detestable usurpation drew upon it the indignation of com- 
 bined Europe, and its desolating armies Avere driven back Avith mfamy into 
 the confines of France itself. But for the inveterate cupidity of Austria, 
 and the astounding imbecility of England, the Republic must have been 
 overthro\vn ; as it was, it was reduced to a state of depression and misery 
 luiexampled among the retributions that liaA^e been Adsited on the sms of 
 nations. In this dismal crisis all eyes reverted to the indomitable liero who 
 had already elevated France to such a pitch of grandeur, from Avhich she had 
 fallen the moment his SAvord Avas Avithdrawn, and Avho alone still upheld the 
 fame of her victorious flag ; Avhen at the critical moment the desired saviour 
 appeared, and converted the gloom of his disconsolate countrymen into the 
 joy of an anticipated redemption. 
 
 Never Avas a country so ripe to receive a master, fitted to cm-b its licen- 
 tious factions, and to restore its vitality, as France in the latter part of 1799. 
 For ten years she had been engaged in a career of revolution, and at the end 
 of that time her fervent prayer was for the institution of a despotism to 
 relieve her from the greater horrors of anarchy and a social dissolution. The 
 12 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 master she required in her necessities she found in the person to whom her 
 hopes had instinctively turned — in Napoleon Bonaparte. On the 9th of 
 November, the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire, the last of the series since 
 1790, constituted him First Consul of the French Republic, with an almost 
 absolute executive authority. His brother Lucicn was of great assistance in 
 accomplisliing this object, displaying in his capacity of President of the Coun- 
 cil of Five Hundred a firmness and courage which secured the success of the 
 project when almost on the point of failure. Two subordinate Consuls were 
 at the same time created, together with a Senate, a Council of State, a Legis- 
 lative Bodv, and a Tribunate. All the chief appomtments were vested in the 
 First Consul, Avho had consequently abundant means of rewarding his friends 
 and partisans. The policy he jmrsued was the beneficent one of amalga- 
 mating parties and interests, and of substituting for the violent systems of 
 preceding governments one of conciliation and clemency. The measures he 
 took for the restoration of order and tranquillity were singulaidy judicious 
 and effective, and in a short time he wrought an incredible change in the 
 condition of France, which joyfully threw itself mto his arms, reposing con- 
 fidently on his superior intelligence and capacity. But internal ameliorations 
 were of secondary importance to the still greater object of delivering France 
 from the pressure of foreign enemies, and to this Napoleon directed his un- 
 remitting energies. His overtures for peace being contemptuously rejected 
 by the inflated governments of England and Austria, he prepared to strike a 
 blow which, by its force and suddenness, should confound them, and anni- 
 hilate their pretensions. AVith an army, of whose very existence they were 
 ignorant, he crossed the gi'eat chain of the Alps, and debouched into the 
 plains of Italy, directly on the rear of the Austrians, who were beyond the 
 Apennines, contemplating an immediate invasion of Provence. These, 
 precipitately retrogi-ading, to regain theii- communications, he encountered 
 and vanquished on the memorable field of IMarengo, thi'ough which event 
 he again became, in the course of a few days, complete master of Italy. 
 Austria was smitten to the heart by so unlooked-for and miraculous a 
 disaster, and she sent an envoy with plaintive propositions to treat of 
 peace. England strove to revive her palsied courage by dint of subsidies, 
 and she was induced, with desperate resolution, to try the fortune of 
 another campaign. This proved equally calamitous, and nothing remained 
 for her but to submit to the will of the conqueror she had unwisely defied. 
 At Luneville, accordingly, on the 9th of February 1801, she signed a treaty 
 infinitely more disadvantageous to her than that of Campo-Formio, and one 
 which assured to France an aggrandisement wholly inconsistent with the 
 old balance of power in Europe. Nevertheless, to this sad termination of 
 all her struggles against the Revolution, England herself was reduced to 
 accede : placed in melancholy isolation agamst the power of the colossal 
 Republic, she, too, succumbed, and concluded a treaty at Amiens in March 
 1802, in order to gain at least a temporary respite from the afflictions of 
 war. Thus did Napoleon lift France from an abyss of degi-adation to the 
 very highest rank among the nations of the earth ; and whilst he endowed 
 her with this envied supremacy, he healed the festering sores of her in- 
 ternal maladies, and conferred on her a peace and prosperity she had never 
 kno'vsTi since she embarked in her wild crusade against kings, nobles, and 
 priests. Commensurate was the gi-atitude of her enraptured people, who 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 were ready to testify it by any inordinate expression agreeable to the 
 ambition of tlieir benefactor and idol. 
 
 During the short interval between the 18th Brumau-e and the peace of 
 Amiens, Napoleon appears clothed with a majesty and glory which throw 
 far into shade the lustre of monarchs cradled in royalty. Not only did he 
 beat to pieces the formidable coalition arrayed to extinguish France, but 
 aU his conduct ui this happy era of his life was marked by a wisdom and 
 beneficence which stand in dazzling contrast with the folly and iniquities 
 of his subsequent career. In his restoration of religion alone, against the 
 inveterate prejudices formed in the course of the Eevolution, he rendered 
 to a benighted land the gi-eatest good it coiild receive, but which it would 
 certainly not have accepted from any hands save his. Yet rarely has the 
 intoxication of power been so quick and overwhelming in its corruption 
 of the heart and the understanding as in the instance of this extraordinary 
 individual. He almost straightway became the slave of passions that 
 grew in their evil intensity with every gTatification which fed them, until 
 they reached a height which overmastered his reason, and transformed 
 Mm into the very curse of humanity. The an-ogance of the language he 
 used towards foreign courts, particularly the British, was altogether insuf- 
 ferable ; whilst he seized upon dominions with a recklessness that showed 
 him regardless of all guarantees imposed by good faith, policy, or public 
 law. Thus he rendered relations of peace impossible with him, unless 
 on the part of miserable trucklers like the king of Prussia ; and he again 
 drew upon France the combiued hostility of tlu-ee-fourths of Europe. But 
 in the interior he had manifested his sovereignty by two deeds, very dis- 
 suTiUar in their complexion, but equally striking in their tendency and 
 effect. Enraged by the conspiracies of the Eoyalists to destroy him, he 
 seized a young prince of the House of Bourbon loitering upon the confines 
 of his expanded reahn, and, in the mere spu-it of revenge and bravado, 
 wickedly put him to death. Encouraged by the admiration and homage 
 of the whole nation of Frenchmen, he constituted himself their Emperor ; 
 and amidst an adulation exceeding the abjectness of degenerate Greece, 
 established an empire unmatched for the rigour of its despotism and the 
 splendour of its emblazonries. To consecrate this culminatmg phase of 
 the Eevolution, he summoned to Paris the head of the Catholic chm-ch, and 
 exhibited to the astonished world the spectacle of a pope anointing in 
 Notre-Dame the plebeian but august warrior, who had rectified indeed the 
 errors of intolerant democracy, but still left the Papacy shorn of the terri- 
 torial grandeur it had laboured so hard m bygone ages to secure. 
 
 Among all the vices of Napoleon's character, he cannot assm-edly be 
 charged with want of affection for his family, since he displayed towards 
 those connected with him an attaclmient and regard which were often 
 detrimental to his interest. His wife Josephine was particularly dear to 
 him, although her conduct on many occasions was far from bemg blameless. 
 His letters to her at every period of then- imion are replete with expres- 
 sions of the warmest devotion ; and if at any time she failed to reciprocate 
 his love, it was tlu-ough a wayward levity which left her scarcely mistress 
 of herself. He was supremely happy in her society, for her disposition 
 was of the sweetest and most amiable character ; and her influence over 
 him was always exercised to kind and benevolent pm-poses. That she had 
 14 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 borne liim no cliiklrcn was a subject of inconsolable regret, but he cherished 
 those of her former husband as if they -were his o^vTl. These were two — a 
 sou and daughter — Eugene and Hortense. Both of them possessed in an 
 emment degree the attractive qualities of their mother; and Napoleon 
 heaped upon them contmual evidences of his aftection. Eugene had acted 
 as his aide-de-camp both in Italy and in Egypt ; at Marengo he had com- 
 manded a brigade of the Guard ; in 1804 he was made an imperial prince 
 and arch-chancellor of state ; in 1805, innnediately after Napoleon's coro- 
 nation at Milan, he was nomuiated viceroy of Italy, and subsequently 
 Prince of Venice, and heir of the Lombardo- Venetian crowni. Hortense 
 was designed by Napoleon to be given m marriage to his favourite aide-de- 
 camp Duroc, whose handsome person and gallant bearing had already won 
 her girlish admmition. But Josephine artfully opposed this arrangement, 
 from a natural anxiety she laboured under of drawing still closer the ties 
 that imited her with her husband ; for lier want of children to Napoleon 
 had already become the theme of opprobrium on the part of Joseph and 
 Lucien, who laboured assiduously with their brother to impress upon him 
 the expediency of a divorce. On this account she was intent to bring 
 about a mai-riage between Louis Bonaparte and Hortense, through which 
 she hoped to defeat the insidious suggestions of her enemies. But serious 
 obstacles stood in the way of her accomplishing her design; for the young 
 couple had an absolute antipathy to each other, and they were respectively 
 in love with other persons. Louis had become enamoured of Josephme's 
 niece — Louise-EmUie, daughter of Francis, Marquis de Beauharnais, her 
 fii-st Imsbaud's elder brother — ^^vithout, however, eugagmg the young lady's 
 affections in return. This Francis de Beauharnais was an emigrant, and 
 consequently an alliance with hun was to be shunned by a brother of 
 Napoleon, who was then only a general of the Republic, and bound to be 
 carefid of exciting distrust m his zeal. Accordmgiy, to prevent mischief, 
 the general despatched his brother hastily from Paris ; and just previously 
 to startmg for Egj^t, married Mademoiselle Beauharnais to Lavalette, one 
 of his aides-de-camp, for whose safety she aftei-wards figm-ed in a romantic 
 adventure. Louis, whose character was natm-ally of a pensive cast, took 
 this disappointment grievously to heart ; and, joined to an infu-m state of 
 health, it produced in him a melancholy which preyed on him all the re- 
 mainder of his life. He never ceased to mourn the loss he had sustained ; 
 and when the proposition of a union with Hortense was made to him, he 
 recoiled from it with abhorrence. He resisted aU persuasions with a settled 
 determmation ; and it was only by much skilful manoeuvi-mg that Josephine 
 at length succeeded in extorting his consent. She had wrung from her 
 daughter, too, an unwiUiug acquiescence ; and on the 4th of January 1802 
 the ill-assorted knot was tied — the gloomy countenances of the affianced 
 belymg the factitious joy of the com-tly retinue that graced then- inauspi- 
 cious nuptials. 
 
 Joseph, whose abilities were mediocre, but who was of the tractable dis- 
 position which Napoleon preferred m his dependents, stood high in the 
 favour of his predominant brother. On him had been conferred the honom- 
 of concluding the famous treaties of Limeville and Amiens, and also the 
 • equally famous Concordat with the pope. He was named a gi-and officer 
 of the Legion of Honour on the institution of that remarkable order ; and 
 
 1.5 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 On the establishment of the Empire, he became, in common with all his 
 brothers, an imperial prince. At the same time he was created Grand- 
 Elector, as was Louis Constable of France. The fate of Lucien was some- 
 what different. After the 18th Brumaire, he had been appointed Minister 
 of the Interior ; in which office he displayed great activity, but was fre- 
 quently embroiled in angry discussions with the First Consul. He natu- 
 rally plumed himself on the merit of his services in the critical conjuncture 
 of Brumaire, and asphed to play a much more important part in the ad- 
 ministration of affahs than Napoleon was at all disposed to allow bun. He 
 was of an impetuous and unbending character, full of personal pretensions, 
 and unsuited to act m subservience perhaps to any master, much more so 
 to his own brother. Hence they had repeated quarrels ; and on more than 
 one occasion Lucien flung down his portfolio m a passion, exclaiming that 
 he would no longer serve such a despot. Once, in a paroxysm of rage, he 
 dashed his watch on the floor, and crushing it with his heel, cried out, ' You 
 wiU one day be smashed to atoms as I now smash this watch ; take warning 
 'in time, or you will not have a restingplace for your head, and you will 
 involve all your family in the same ruin ! ' This was a very good prophecy, 
 doubtless, as it turned out ; but such scenes rendered the longer continu- 
 ■ance of Lucien in the ministry impossible. He was accordingly sent as 
 ambassador to Spam, where he again contrived to draw upon himself the 
 anger of the Fkst Consul. Contrary to his instructions, he participated in 
 the treaty concluded by the infamous Godoy with the court of Portugal, 
 by which the invasion of the latter kmgdom was averted, to the mexpres- 
 sible mortification of Napoleon, who was still engaged in negotiations with 
 England, and was intent to occupy Portugal as a make-weight in the 
 adjustment of terms. The court of Lisbon paid for the boon 30,000,000 
 francs ; and it is said that Lucien received about 10,000,000 for his share 
 of the spoil. It is certain he returned from the embassy with a prodigious 
 fortune, the acquirement of which cannot be accounted for on any other sup- 
 position, since it was the only opportunity he ever had of amassing wealth. 
 Although recaUed in disgrace. Napoleon afterwards put him into the Tri- 
 bunate, where he was of use in passing through that reluctant body the 
 measure for the institution of the Legion of Honour, of which he was him- 
 self also appointed a grandmaster. From this time he began to live in 
 great splendour, furnished sumptuously a magnificent hotel, and commenced 
 the collection of one of the finest galleries in Europe. He became a marked 
 patron of the arts, and might have continued to flourish in dignified afflu- 
 ence, but for his unhappy aptitude to oftend his imperious brother. He set 
 himself in opposition to him in all family matters, and inspirited even the 
 placid Joseph to assume a mutinous demeanour, pi-evailing on him to refuse, 
 first the presidency of the Senate, and next the dependent crown of Italy. 
 But it was by his owir marriage he irritated Napoleon to the highest pitch. 
 His first ^vife, the daughter of tlie innkeeper at St Maximin, having died, 
 he married in 1803 a widow, IMadamc Jouberteau, a very beautiful and 
 accomplished woman, but of tainted reputation. This alliance Napoleon 
 insisted upon his dissolving ; and upon his positive refusal, he threatened 
 him so roughly, that Lucien thouglit fit to witlidraw to Eome. There he 
 took up his permanent abode, purcliasing a large estate at Canino. living 
 in ostentatious luxury, and enjoying the intimacy of the benignant pontiJff 
 16 
 
TUE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 Pius VII. The exile of Lucicn has been often ascribed to his disapproval 
 of Napoleon's assumption of the imperial dignity; whereas, in reality, he 
 had ahvays been an advocate of tliat step, and was much more urgent for 
 its adoption than seemed meet in the eyes of more discreet partisans. ]^ut 
 he henceforth displayed a blind animosity against tlie Emperor, and even 
 reared his children in prmciples of hatred against the dominating member 
 of his house. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that Napoleon, even had he felt little regard 
 for his mother, would have allowed her to remain in obscurity at Marseilles 
 after he had attained supreme power in France. But he entertained 
 towards her a very affectionate remembrance, for he rightly attributed to 
 her early lessons the foundation of liis greatness. Upon the event of the 
 18th Brumaire she removed to Paris, where, however, she lived in a very 
 retired manner, which was equally in accordance with her own tastes, and 
 agreeable to the wishes of the First Consul, who could not venture at that 
 tune to give the females of his family any distinctive rank or prominence. 
 From the trials and misfortunes to which she had been exposed, she had 
 acquii-ed a provident disposition, and rigidly condemned superfluous expen- 
 diture on the part of her children, saying, with a foreboding gesture, that 
 they knew not what they might come to notwithstanding their present 
 prosperity. She took part with Lucien in his quaiTel with Napoleon, and, 
 greatly to the chagrin of the latter, followed him to Rome, displaying in 
 her condvict the sternness and independence which were characteristic of 
 her. When upbraided by Napoleon with an undue partiality for Lucien, 
 she answered sharply that an unfortunate son would always be the most 
 dear to her ; which she proved to himself afterwards by a memorable de- 
 votion. Shortly after the creation of the Empire, however, she was induced 
 to return to Paris, whither the new Emperor invited her by tender solici- 
 tations, and offers of a splendid establishment. In truth he settled upon 
 her an annual income of 1,000,000 francs (£40,000), assigned her a separate 
 court, and gave her position as Madajne-Mere, equivalent to the title of 
 Empress-Mother. She took up her residence in the sumptuous mansion 
 furnished by Lucien, but she was far from maintaining the princely state 
 and hospitality of that self-banished magnate. She adhered to the frugal 
 habits she had formed in adversity, not from an ignoble love of gold, but 
 from a dread she could never discard, tliat poverty and Avant might agam 
 become the portion of the family, and that all her savings woidd be needed 
 m the hour of calamity. ' "^lio knows but I may have one day to keep all 
 these kings and queens ? ' she was accustomed to remark, even in tliose 
 halcyon days when fortune wore her serenest smile, and crowns glittered 
 on the heads of her rejoicing sons and daughters. 
 
 Of his sisters. Napoleon was fondest and proudest of Pauline, who, with 
 a sad accompaniment of vanity and frivolity, had emerged into womanhood 
 a very paragon of beauty. At the age of sixteen, she had displayed a very 
 reprehensible taste in a warm attachment she formed for Frei'on, one of the 
 bloodhounds of the Committee of Public Safety, and who superintended 
 the operation of the guillotine at ^Marseilles until the death of Robespierre. 
 Fortunately saved from the pollution of a union with such a wi-etch, and 
 her reputation becoming endangered by the crowd of admirers she encou- 
 raged, her brother hastened her marriage with young Leclerc, an officer of 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 humble origin, but of considerable promise, whom he immediately elevated 
 to the rank of general. Pauline was by no means Inclined to this union, 
 and In fact, when her husband was appointed in 1801 to head the expedition 
 to St Domingo, she refused to accompany him, and it required all the 
 authority of Napoleon, who wished to silence the calumnies of his enemies 
 by so signal a proof of his faith In the success of the enterprise, to compel 
 her compliance with conjugal duty. She went out to the Antilles accord- 
 ingly, and by her enlivening entertainments, struggled for a time against 
 the desolations of pestilence ; but after the death of Leclerc, she gladly 
 escaped from so dismal a scene ; and carrying back his embalmed body and 
 her treasures in the same coffin, she hurried with mdecent alacrity to enjoy 
 again the pleasures of luxurious Paris. Never did a more gay or fascinat- 
 ing widow flutter in the brilliant circles of that dissipated capital. Her 
 ambition was to outstrip in attractions the graceful Josephine, whom, with 
 all her beauty, she could never rival In the inimitable tastefulness of her 
 dress. Her displays were theatrical and indelicate, whUst in envy she 
 exceeded the usual measure of female weakness, although In other respects 
 she was full of generosity and good-nature. She often provoked the dis- 
 pleasm-e of Napoleon, but never failed to pacify him by her blandishments, 
 for he knew she was reaUy attached to him, and he willingly suffered him- 
 self to be coaxed into pardon of her foUies. Nevertheless he deemed it 
 prudent that she should take again, with aU despatch, another husband, 
 who might at least tlu'ow over her the mantle of the conjugal name. Ac- 
 cordingly, m 1803 she was married to the Prmce CamlUe Borghese, an 
 Italian of historic name and large possessions. In the following year the 
 Emperor of the French created her an Imperial princess, and in 1806 he 
 endowed her with the rich dependencies of GuasteUa and Placenza, which 
 she bartered, however, for an equivalent in money, not Avishing to exchange 
 the pomps and revekies of Paris for the barren cares of an obscm-e sove- 
 reignty. 
 
 Eliza, the eldest of the sisters, was perhaps more esteemed than beloved 
 by her puissant brother. She affected rather the masculine vu-tues than the 
 softer graces of womanhood, and was distinguished, moreover, for literary 
 propensities, which often impart an air of pretension less pleasing than im- 
 posing In a woman of real superiority. She was the tu'st preferred by Napo- 
 leon to the dignity of a vassal of his empire, being made by him Grand- 
 Duchess of Lucca and Plombino on the occasion of his coronation as King 
 of Italy. At this extraordinary step, in conjunction with the annexation 
 to France of Piedmont and Genoa, the powers of Europe took just umbrage, 
 seeing in It the commencement of a system which threatened to end in a 
 universal dommion. In after -times he transferred also Tuscany to this 
 ' Semu-amis of Lucca,' as Talleyi-and in his flattery designated her. He 
 had first given this little state to two miserable puppets of the Spanish 
 Bourbons in exchange for Louisiana ; then he had taken it from the sur- 
 vivor, upon the promise of an Illusory cro-mi in Portugal ; lastly, he had 
 held it before the eyes of Ferdinand to Induce his renunciation of the 
 crown of Spain. In short, he regarded the Tuscans, more than any other 
 of his enslaved communities, as a herd of cattle, to be trafficked In any way 
 he thought fit, to be sold and conveyed to an opportmie bidder like a gang 
 of American slaves. Nevertheless, the Prmcess Eliza ruled these imibrtu- 
 18 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 nate Italians witli a gentle and intelligent sway, transacting the aflfairs of 
 administration with gi'cat industry, and jealously excluding from all autho- 
 rity her husband Bacciochi, who was content to abandon himself to the 
 grosser enjoyments of fortime. Li personal deportment she was apt to 
 imitate the abrupt manners of the Emperor ; in her goverament slie gave 
 literary tastes to the winds, and busied herself instead with reviews of 
 soldiers — an occupation more germane, as she thought, to a kinswoman of 
 the mighty conqueror. 
 
 The youngest sister of the Imperial House was Caroline, and she fell 
 to the lot of Joachun Murat, a cavahy officer who had risen from the ranks, 
 and who, since the event of the 13th Veudemairc, had been closely at- 
 tached to the person of Napoleon. Althougli lacking the perfect sym- 
 metry and attractive beauty of Pauline, she was eminently handsome, and 
 of a i»old and ambitious chai'acter, which rendered her the most aspiring of 
 the whole family. Murat had of himself claims upon the gratitude of the 
 Emperor, who raised him to be a prince and marshal of France, and also 
 endowed him with the anomalous title of Grand-Admiral. But Caroline was 
 continually dissatisfied with the share of grandeur allotted to her husband, 
 and so teazed Napoleon with importimate comparisons, that he one day ex- 
 claimed to her in a passion, ' To hear you talk, one would really suppose that 
 I had deprived you of the inheritance left by the kuig yom- father ! ' StUl, he 
 "was solicitous to gratify her cravings, and sought by promises to flatter her 
 hopes and allay her impatience. These he was enabled fuUy to redeem, 
 and in the end no members of his family were more richly dowered than 
 the vain and empty-headed Joachim A^ith his haughty spouse of ever- 
 insatiable pretensions. 
 
 M. Fesch, the half-brother of Madame-Mere, had, with the restoration 
 of religion in France, returned to his original profession, and having been 
 received again by the benignant pope into the bosom of the Church, he 
 participated largely in the ecclesiastical benefits showered upon the GaUican 
 clerg}-. He left the commissariat with a somewhat unclean name, but does 
 not appear to have made the worse priest on that accoimt. It is true that 
 Napoleon insisted upon his undergoing an ordeal of pm-ification m a seminary 
 before being admitted to a seat in the new hierarchy; but he immediately 
 afterwards nominated him to the archbislioprick of Lyons, and the pope con- 
 ferred on him the superior grade of a cai'dinal. He afterwards represented 
 his imperial nephew at the com*t of Rome, where he gamed in a remarkable 
 degree the favour and confidence of the holy pontiff, whose interests he 
 espoused with ardour against the imseemly violence of Napoleon. It is 
 certainly a suqirising fact that, after aU the extraordmary benefits kuashed 
 upon his relatives by the great Emperor, none of them seem to have been 
 actuated by a corresponding gratitude towards him, and that they all more 
 or less thwarted his views, and proved refractory to his authority. Doubt- 
 less his arrogance and tp-anny became insupportable to tliera as to all others. 
 Having so poor an opinion of men, that he never supposed them capable of 
 heeding other uiducements than those of selfish interest, it is not probable 
 that he conferred favom-s even upon his nearest relations in a spuit calcu- 
 lated to conciliate affection. However it was, there is no doubt that he 
 foimd his worst enemies in the bosom of liis own family. There was, 
 however, one veiy decided exception to this rule in the person of Jerome, 
 
 19 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ■ liis youngest brother, who was not competent, through lack of capacity, to 
 contest his will. This youth he had sent into the navy, hoping to throw 
 some lustre by his presence on that discredited service. Being appointed 
 on a cruise off the Amexican coast, the young sailor got entangled in a 
 match with a lady of Baltimore, a Miss Paterson, whom, in 1805, he 
 brought to Europe as his bride. Napoleon refused to aUow her even to 
 land on any part of the continent, and she was obliged to seek a refuge in 
 England. He took his scape-grace brother most severely to task for this 
 outrage on the dignity of the family, and insisted that he should forthwith 
 repudiate so improper a connection. The poor youth was in reality much 
 attached to his pretty wife, and, being instigated by the marplot Lucien, lie 
 for some time ventured to withstand the stern commands of the incensed 
 Emperor. He was again hurried oif to sea as captain of a 74, and having 
 effected what was then considered a gi-eat feat in the French navy — namely, 
 crossed the Atlantic, and got back again without being captured — he was 
 extolled in the columns of the ' Moniteur ' as a paragon of seamen, and as 
 destined to eclipse in fame aU the admirals of England, with the barbarian 
 Nelson at their head. Nevertheless, Napoleon changed his opinion touching 
 these prospects of his brother, for he shortly afterwards annulled his marine 
 career altogether, and converted him into a soldier, designing him to gather 
 laurels on a more likely held under his own immediate guidance. 
 
 Such being the state of the Bonaparte family at the institution of the 
 Empire, it became of paramount importance with the founder of the d}iiasty 
 to decide how and by whom it was to be perpetuated. He had himself no 
 offspring, and therefore must, choose a collateral heir. In the first place, 
 the imperial crown was settled on Napoleon Bonaparte and his direct issue 
 in the male line, with a power of adoption under certain restrictions; 
 secondly, on Joseph Bonaparte and the heirs-male of his body; and third!)/, 
 on Louis Bonaparte and the heirs-male of his body. At the same time it 
 was provided that the marriage of a French prince, without the consent of 
 the head of the Empire, should entail the loss of all hereditary right in the 
 offending prince and his offspring. This exclusion struck directly at Lucien 
 and Jerome, who were already in the category of delinquents on that score, 
 and they accordingly remained in the Imperial Constitutions debarred from 
 the right of succession. A chance of reinstatement was, however, left them 
 by the dissolution of their obnoxious marriages, and a repentant obe- 
 dience to the will of the outraged chief. In accordance with the old Salic 
 law of the monarchy, females were perpetually excluded. By this excep- 
 tional limitation Napoleon sufficiently marked his dissatisfaction with the 
 truant Lucien, and also with the hairbrained Jerome : against the first 
 he was heartily exasperated ; the latter he trusted to reclaim by a course 
 of wholesome discipline. 
 
 Having thus settled the foundations of his empire, as he deemed, on an 
 imperishable basis, the warlike Corsican prepared to wage battle against 
 the confederated powers of Europe, and exalt his greatness to a yet more 
 colossal height. The armies of the continent wci'C extinguished by him with 
 a facility which might well inflate him with notions of his omnipotence on 
 earth. At Lllm and Austerlitz he prostrated the Austrian empire; at Jena 
 he dissolved in a day the accumulated dominion of Frederick and the House 
 of Brandenburg; at Friedland he annihilated the martial host of barbaric 
 20 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY, 
 
 Russia; at Tilsit ho bound the successor of the savage Eomanzoffs captive 
 to his chai'iot. Then a supreme dominator of tlie potentates whora he 
 suffered to reign in corners of tlieir former territories, he trod upon their 
 necks with a pride and insolence which have had few parallels in European 
 history. From Naples he expelled the hostile race of Bourbons, and placed 
 on its throne his brother Joseph; in Holland he planted Louis as king; 
 and at Cassel, across the llhine, over a heterogeneous compound called the 
 kingdom of Westphalia, he tixed Jerome as monarch. Caroline he gratified 
 by making her husband Grand-Duke of Berg, constituting him a sovereign 
 over 300,000 -wretched Germans. This system of vassal-tiefs he completed 
 by the Confederation of the Rhine, in which he em-oUed the second-class 
 powers of Germany as his immediate dependents — such as Saxony, Bavaria, 
 and Wurtemburg, whose reigning princes he created kings. Thus he obli- 
 terated the ancient German empire, and absorbed the greater part of it 
 •within the folds of his exorbitant ascendancy. But even such aggrandise- 
 ments were insufficient to appease the devouring lusts of his heart. He 
 must needs form alliances v/ith sovereign houses. Accordingly, he united 
 his adopted son Eugene to the eldest daughter of the king of Bavaria; and 
 having compelled Jerome to discard the fair American, he extorted from 
 the reluctant king of Wurtemburg his daughter Catherme as a wife for his 
 graceless majesty of Westphalia. A niece of the Empress Josephine, 
 Stephanie de Beauharnais, he married to the hereditary Prince of Baden; 
 whilst another niece of nearer kith. Mademoiselle de Tascher, being created 
 a French princess for the occasion, was given in wedlock to the young heir 
 of the House of Aremberg. By these courtly alliances he thought to con- 
 solidate his sway, to extend the ramitications 'of his influence, and to wipe 
 away the blots of heraldry from his escutcheon. 
 
 After appropriating so large a share of Gennany, and the whole of Italy, 
 in which the pope alone stiU preserved a shadow of the old patrimony of 
 St Peter, it behoved the all-grasping conqueror to culminate his ' system' 
 by the reduction of Spain and Portugal into a corresponding state of vassal- 
 age. Of Portugal he deemed himself justly entitled to take possession, 
 because that power had the audacity to trade with Great Britam, a sin in 
 his eyes sufficient to warrant the subjugation of any independent nation. 
 Accordingly, after the peace of Tilsit had relieved him from all immediate 
 solicitude in the north and east of Europe, he despatched Junot with an 
 army to seize Lisbon, whence at his bare approach the degenerate Braganza 
 fled across the Atlantic. As Spain happened to be a very faithful and sub- 
 servient ally of his own. he could scarcely pursue so abrupt a course with 
 regard to it, and he was therefore reduced to adopt a conduct towards its 
 imbecile monarch and his family which, for baseness and perfidy, surpasses 
 everything in history. It was suffered to succeed for a time. Having en- 
 trapped all the members of the Bourbon dynasty into his toils at Bayonne, 
 he consigned them to different prisons in France, allowmg them insignificant 
 pensions, which he had the additional meanness not to pay with regularity. 
 It is true that the royal family of Spain was the most degraded and flagitious 
 that could be imagined, the old Queen Louisa especially, and her minion 
 Godoy, Prince of Peace, being perfect samples of all that is detestable in 
 the governors of kingdoms ; whilst old Charles IV. was weak and besotted 
 to an inconceivable degree. But if the Spaniards thought fit to tolerate 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 sucli rulers, it was no business of Napoleon to depose them, and establish in 
 their stead a usurpation which was yet more odious and revolting to a 
 people not utterly dead to the feelings of honour and patriotism. 
 
 In connection with his contemplated seizure of the two Peninsular crowns, 
 Napoleon had held a singidar inteiwiew with his brother Lucien at Mantua 
 during a journey he made into Italy in December 1807. Notwithstanding 
 his laiowledge of Lucien's intractable temper, he was deshous of making 
 him a puppet kmg like the rest of his brethren, and he proposed at the 
 moment to give him for a sovereignty the reahn of Portugal. He had not 
 yet formed his determination touching Spain, still wavering as to the policy 
 of dethroning the reigning djoiasty, or of attaching it to him by a marriage 
 between a princess of his house and Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, who 
 eagerly demanded the honour and protection of such an alliance. He had 
 therefore a twofold object to attain in his interview with Lucien : first, to 
 induce his consent to become king of Portugal; and secomlhj, to obtain from 
 him his eldest daughter to be educated imder his o\ra. eye, with the view of 
 her being united to Ferdinand in case that scheme was ultimately adopted. 
 But this offer of Lusitanian royalty was clogged with the condition that 
 Lucien should dissolve his existing marriage, which he peremptorily refused 
 to do ; and consequently the brothers parted on as bad terms as ever. How- 
 ever, although Lucien withstood for himself aU temptation, his wife, with 
 great nobleness of mind, m'ging him to accede, he agreed to part with his 
 daughter, the first-boni of the bar-maid of St Maximm, that she might be con- 
 verted into a princess under the auspices of her uncle. She was accordingly 
 sent to Paris, and placed with her gi-andmother, IMadame-Slere ; but in a very 
 ludicrous manner her sojourn "there was cut short. It was part of Napoleon's 
 habits to be for ever prying mto the m.ost trifling concerns of those around 
 him, particularly of the women attached to the court, whose actions and 
 discom-ses were minutely reported to him. Thus, with regard to his newly- 
 recovered niece, he caused her letters to be intercepted at the post-office ; 
 and havmg discovered that the chUd wrote to her parents in a very irreve- 
 rent strain regarding himself and her relatives generally, he called together 
 a family-council, before which he laid these terrible communications. The 
 yoimg lady was of a sathical vein, and had touched up with biting himiour 
 the foibles of her imperial uncles and aunts, not sparing the old grandmamma 
 herself; therefore, by the unanimous verdict of the council, she was adjudged 
 to be sent back in disgrace to her father, who had instilled mto her such 
 traitorous sentiments. The Emperor signed an ordinance for her removal 
 within twenty-four hours ; and so ended the magnificent project of a union 
 in her person between the rival tribes of Bourbon and Bonaparte. She 
 returned to Rome, laughing heartUy at the indignation she had excited in 
 the dominator of Europe ; and poor Ferdinand was put into durance at 
 Valen^ay, mstead of figuring as a monarch in the bedizened halls of San- 
 Lorenzo and Ai'anjuez. 
 
 The inherent vice of the Spanish occupation was rendered fatal to Napoleon 
 by his mjudicious choice of Joseph to fill the vacant throne. That honest 
 personage and his estimable consort. Queen Julia, performed the part of 
 royalty at Naples pretty well, and certainly more respectably than their 
 discreditable predecessors. But he was totally unsuited to the proud and 
 irascible Spaniards, to whom the very mildness of his character was a subject 
 22 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 of scorn and reproach. The first gi-eat disaster which hcrakled the coming 
 catastrophe was the surrender of Dupont at Baylcn, with an army of 20,000 
 men, to a horde of midisciplined Andahisians under Castanos. This was fol- 
 lowed by the immediate flight of Joseph from Madrid, after a residence in his 
 new capital of only ten days. Then came the capitulation of Junot at Lisbon 
 to a British force, and Europe was in a fennent at events which destroyed tke 
 prestige of Napoleon's uivariable success. Yet from these primary reverses 
 he rose for a time more triumphant and prosperous than ever. At the mag- 
 nificent congi-ess of Erfurth, he confirmed the liussian autocrat in his subser- 
 vient alliance; he poured 300,000 soldiers into the Penmsula, and at Madrid 
 gave back to Joseph in person his reconquered kingdom ; at Eckmiild and 
 Wagram he again prevailed over his able adversary the Archduke Charles, 
 and the Austrian monarchy lay at his absolute disposal. Glimmerings of 
 the necessity for the actual subjugation of Russia to sustain his expanded 
 supremacy, prompted him to act with moderation in the peace he made 
 with the Emperor Francis, upon whom, however, he imposed sundry heavy 
 sacrifices. Within a few months of this last conquest and accommodation, 
 he sought to form a closer alliance with an enemy who had hitherto so 
 pertuiaciously opposed him, but whom he wished now to conciliate, and rank 
 as one of his future supporters. In March 1810 he made a formal proposi- 
 tion for the hand of Maria-Louisa, the eldest daughter of Francis, and it was 
 joyfully conceded by the humbled cabinet of Vienna. This marriage was 
 necessarily preceded by his divoi'ce from Josephine, which he had deter- 
 mined upon with reluctance, but which he deemed essential to the stability 
 of his empire and dynasty. The new Empress arrived at Paris in Apiil, 
 and the nuptial ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp in the 
 palace of the Tuileries. The felicity of Napoleon was at its summit when 
 in the following year she was delivered of a son, the destined heir of all 
 his greatness, and who received in the cradle the majestic title of King of 
 Rome. 
 
 But the lowermg portents began to accimiulate apace. The solemn 
 anathemas of the pope, whom he had at length made prisoner at Grenoble, 
 he might affect to deride, though they were not without effect in kindling 
 the conflagration by which he was to be consumed. But the simultaneous 
 flight of two of his brothers struck him with a mortal disquietude, and 
 exhibited m a palpable light the intolerable tyi'anny of his rule. Lucien 
 was warned that the imperial vengeance was about to fall heavily upon 
 him, and with the assistance of Mtirat, who had succeeded Joseph as king 
 of Naples, he made arrangements for proceeding to America ; but being 
 captured by a British cruiser, he was carried to England, where he re- 
 mained mitil the termination of the war. Louis refused any longer to be 
 an instrument of oppression in Holland, and under the shelter of night, fled 
 from the Hague into Bohemia, where he olDtained an asylum from the 
 Austrian government. He left behmd him an abdication in favour of his 
 son ; but Napoleon immediately absorbed the Dutch Netherlands into the 
 French Empire. From Jerome at the same time he took a considerable 
 share of the territories he had assigned him, and administered to hmi 
 severe lectures on the dissolute courses which he pursued. He often 
 reviled him in opprobrious language, and harshly upbraided him with his 
 total want of corn-age, capacity, and virtue. To increase these fraternal 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 afflictions, Joseph was continually demanding to be relieved from the 
 horrors of his situation in Spain ; and Joachim, instigated by his ambitious 
 queen, chafed in petulant anger against the humiliations unposed upon him 
 in his tinsel dignity of King of the Two Sicilies. 
 
 In 1812 the Emperor of the West set forth on his memorable expedition 
 to chastise the faithlessness of Alexander, who had eventually found his 
 alliance too onerous to be longer endured. With half a million of soldiers 
 Napoleon crossed the Niemen, and through fearful difficulties prosecuted 
 his perilous enterprise even to Moscow, where he attained indeed the acme 
 of his glory, but found arrayed against him the destructive agencies of fire, 
 famine, and frost. He commenced his retreat over the wasted route by 
 which he had advanced, and before he again reached Poland, his army 
 had perished. This was the u-remediable disaster which struck him down. 
 But never Avere the extraordinary resources of his character displayed with 
 such brilliancy as in his gigantic eflbrts to retrieve it. Myriads of em- 
 battled enemies marched to crush him, and populations rose to avenge 
 their long-suffered miseries ; but he stood an impregnable bulwark against 
 a world in arms. StiU he fought and conquered ; the fields of Lutzen, 
 Bautzen, Dresden, attested the superiority of his genius, until ever-accu- 
 mulating numbers overmastered him ; and at Leipzig his power received 
 an incurable stab. Driven back into France, he still showed a hardy 
 front ; the campaign of 1814 recalled all the heroism of the renowned 
 1796 ; and with 50,000 men, he kept at bay the swarming hosts of in- 
 vaders, numbering upwards of 300,000. The French, who of all people in 
 the Avorld are least able to endure defeat, were now thed of Napoleon, and 
 began to expatiate on the evils of war and ambition ; accorduigly, amid a 
 universal hallelujah, the mighty Napoleon was extinguished (1814). In 
 exchange for the empu-e of the world, he was assigned the island of Elba, 
 to which he was conveyed on board a British frigate. The members of his 
 family were for ever banished from the soU of France : his wife returned to 
 her ancestral home, bearing with her his child ; and the white flag of the 
 Bourbons was seen once more waving over the prostrate and repentant sons 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 The monarchs and diplomatists of Europe assembled at Vienna to re- 
 arrange the soil of liberated Europe. When they were slowly pursuing 
 then- task, intelligence reached them that the imprisoned eagle was again 
 upon the wing. Straightway they separated in tumultuous confusion, for 
 the bare name of Napoleon bore with it a terror greater than that of a 
 thousand legions, and they hastened to make preparations for their final 
 deliverance from him. The story of the return from Elba, the triumphant 
 march to Paris, the flight of Louis XVIII. , the reign of tlie Hundred Days 
 — is it not written in imperishable records ? Waterloo, the most fatal day 
 for France in all her annals, terminated this fleeting phase of the great 
 drama, and definitively relieved Europe from its oppressor. Then feU 
 indeed the imperial idol without a hope of resurrection : transferred to a 
 distant island, he was consigned to a living tomb under tlie ban of man- 
 kind at large, but still encircled with a halo of historical greatness which 
 never can entirely fade. 
 
 In the calamity of 1814 the wliole family of the Bonapartcs shared 
 with one exception. Joachim Murat had sought, by a timely defection, 
 24 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 to make his peace with the Allies, and by taking part against his brother- 
 in-law, to preserve his throne. In this object he succeeded for the 
 moment, but with little prospect of ultimately securing the advantage lie 
 expected. The other members of the family retired into Italy, and chicHy 
 to Rome, where the reinstated pope aflbrded them a hospitable recep- 
 tion. Even Lucien left his home in England, and joined the circle in the 
 Eternal City, commanding a cordial welcome from his pontifical friend, 
 who looked upon him as a fellow-victim of the same injustice, and who 
 gratified him with the title of Prince of Canino and Musignano. Taught 
 now by experience how entirely dependent they were on Napoleon, the 
 whole of them, mother, uncle, brothers, and sisters, concurred in promot- 
 ing his return, and none with greater zeal than the refractory Lucien or the 
 light-headed and remorseful Murat. jNIadame-Mere and Pauline repaired 
 to Elba, Avhere they aflected to hold a mimic court, but m reality were the 
 medium through which many of the necessary negotiations were conducted. 
 Upon the successful execution of the entei-prise, Joseph, Lucien, and 
 Jerome, followed by Cardinal Fesch, hastened to Paris, and assisted with 
 all their power the re-establishment of the Emperor. Lucien, in particular, 
 distinguished himself by energetic services, and Jerome di'ew upon him- 
 self the eulogy of Napoleon by his intrepidity at Waterloo. The second 
 occupation of Paris by the Allies crushed every hope, and thenceforth aU 
 who bore the name of Bonaparte had the mark of proscription set upon 
 them : they became exiles from the land which had ^vitnessed then- great- 
 ness, and were scattered into various regions as wanderers who had lost 
 their place in the world. 
 
 Joseph had accompanied Napoleon in his melancholy journey to Roche- 
 fort, with the view of effecting an escape to America. The deposed Em- 
 peror was circumvented in that design, but the ex -king of Spain was 
 allowed to prosecute the voyage. He landed at New York in the month 
 of September 1815, and estabUshed his residence in the state of Penn- 
 sylvania, not far from the town of Phikdelphia. He pmx'hased a con- 
 siderable estate, built a large mansion, maintained a nmnerous retinue of 
 dependents, and lived in a splendour which surprised the simple denizens 
 of the great Quaker community. The Americans were flattered by his 
 choice of a retreat among them ; and as he was unifonnly gi-acious in his 
 demeanour, disbursing money with an unwonted munificence, he com- 
 manded their respect and esteem in a very emment degree. He passed 
 much of his time in agricultural pursuits, and was doubtless happier than 
 in the more bustling periods of bis life, although he was denied the satis- 
 faction of the society of his w'ife and daughters. In 1832 he revisited 
 Europe, where he appeared under the title of the Count de Survilliers, 
 which he had assumed from his first landing in America. Three years 
 subsequently he returned to his transatlantic home, whence he took his 
 final departure in 1841, and repaired to Italy, there to lay his bones in the 
 original seat of his family. He died at Florence in August 1844, at tlie 
 age of seventy-six, leaving two daughters, who had married theii- first 
 cousins, the sons of Lucien and Louis Bonaparte. 
 
 The activity of Lucien, when debarred from a political career by the 
 severity of Napoleon, had found vent in literary pursuits and antiquarian 
 researches, prosecuted on his domain of Canino. In England, he finished 
 
 25 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 liis gi'and epic poem of ' Charlemagne' in 24 books, and he subsequently 
 composed another poem in twelve cantos, called ' La Cirneide,' or ' Corsica 
 Saved.' These works have not elevated him to a place among the epic 
 poets of France, as he fondly expected ; and notwithstanding the labour 
 bestowed upon them, and the distinguished name of their author, they have 
 already passed into oblivion ; yet they do not wholly merit the con- 
 temptuous criticisms they have encountered. Lucien continued during 
 the remainder of his life in the papal dominions, maintainuig a splendid 
 establishment in Eome, and afforeliug a bright example to aU proprietors 
 by a diligent cultivation of his estates. He was eminently successful in 
 his excavations of antiquities, and formed a gallery of Etruscan relics 
 unsurpassed for its extent. In 1836 he publislied a volume of memoirs, 
 which certainly reflected little credit on his ability in any capacity. He 
 hved under four pontificates, and died at Viterbo on the 29th July 1840, 
 leaving behind him a numerous progeny. 
 
 To ahnost every mdividual of the elder generation Italy became even- 
 tually an abode and a restingplace. After a residence in Styria and 
 Switzerland, under tlie title of the Count de St Leu, derived from an estate 
 which he possessed near Paris, Louis, who had been separated from his 
 wife Hortense since his flight from Holland, settled at Florence in 1826, 
 and there he died twenty years after. Jerome had followed his wife mta 
 Wurtemburg, where he was at first veiy iU received by his royal father-in- 
 law, who wislied his daughter to discard him as a ruined adventurer. But 
 she clung with true female constancy to her dethroned husband, and at length 
 obtamed from her father a grant of laud in his favour, and also a patent 
 of nobility, by which he was created Duke of IMontfort. He remamed for 
 some years in Germany, subsequently roamed into Switzerland — where 
 the Princess Catherine died in 1835 — purchased property in the JNIarch of 
 Ajicona, and fixed his head-quarters, like Louis, at Florence, whence the 
 revolution of February 1848 caUed him to France. Meanwhile aU the 
 females of the family were dead : Madame-Mere at Eome, at the extreme 
 age of eighty-six, on the 2d February 1836 ; Paulme and Caroline at 
 Florence — the former m 1825, and the latter in 1839. After the tragical 
 end of Murat, who was shot at Pizzo in Calabria on the 13th October 
 1815, Caroline retired to Trieste under the protection of the Austrian 
 government, and there she continued to reside imtil 1836. In that to'wn 
 her sister Eliza, the wife of Bacciochi, had died in 1820. The ci-devant 
 Grand-Duchess of Tuscany left a son and a daughter — the former being 
 killed by a fall from his horse at Eome in 1833, and the latter married in 
 1825 to the Couut Camarata, a noble of Ancona. The beautiful Pauline 
 alone departed this life without oflspring. As Napoleon had died at St 
 Helena in 1821, the whole original Corsican stock was now extinguished, 
 save the youngest of all — Jerome, formerly king of Westphalia, and at 
 present governor of the Hotel des Invalides at Paris. 
 
 No family, plebeian or patrician, has ever become so truly cosmopolitan 
 as that of the Bonapartes through the ramifications of alliances. Except 
 that not one of them is united to a native of France, they have been distri- 
 buted in all the principal countries of the M'orld — Italy, Germany, Eussia, 
 Sweden, Portugal, Great Britain, and the United States. The children of 
 Lucien sm-viviug at his death were tliree sons and several daughters 
 26 
 
THE BONAPARTE FASHLV.. 
 
 The eldest son, Charles, now Prince of Canine, married Letitia, the eldest 
 daughter of his uncle Joseph, and at present is in the forty-seventh year of 
 his age. He has distinguished himself by researches in natural history, 
 and in particular by an extended edition of Wilson's American Ornitho- 
 logy. The appropriate section of the British Association is pretty regu- 
 larly honoured witli the presence of a little, middle-aged, dark-complexioned 
 gentleman, the very image of the great Emperor, seated m the midst of 
 books, papers, and specimens, to which he makes frequent reference in the 
 course of the proceedings — an extraordinary position for a man who is in 
 more respects than one the repi'esentative of Napoleon Bonaparte, but one 
 which probably is not the less productive of a happy life. The two 
 younger sons — Pien-e and Antoine — were compelled to flee from Rome 
 in 183G on an accusation of murder; for which the fomier was con- 
 demned to death, but his sentence was commuted by Pope Gregory into 
 one of banislmient. They retu-ed into the United States, whence they 
 returned in 1838, and Pierre has since been elected a member of the French 
 National Assembly for the department of Coi'sica — in which capacity he 
 has rendered himself more notorious for his pugnacious propensities than 
 for his political wisdom. Of the daughters, Charlotte, the eldest, she who 
 was intended to be the wife of Ferdinand VII., married in 1815 Prince 
 GabrieUi, a Eoman noble ; the second, Cluristme, a Swedish count of the 
 name of Posse. This latter marriage "n'as dissolved, and Christme then 
 became the wife of Lord Dudley Stuart, a younger brother of the last 
 Marquis of Bute. Letitia, the third daughter, likewise married a British 
 subject, Mr (now Sir) Thomas Wyse, who, as member for the city of Water- 
 ford, is favourably known for his exertions in the cause of education. This 
 imion was unfortimate ; and it is reported that certain romantic incidents 
 arising out of it have been embellished in a novel by the Viscount 
 d'Arlincourt, called ' Le Pelerin.' 
 
 By the charming Hortense, who excited in him so unnatural a repugnance, 
 Louis had three sons, the eldest of whom was reared by Napoleon as his 
 future heii'. The child died, however, when he was only fom* years old ; 
 and of the smwivors — Napoleon-Louis and Charles-Louis-Napoleon — the 
 latter, born in 1808, alone is still living. The former married his cousin 
 Charlotte, daughter of Joseph ; and after taking part in the revolutionaiy 
 disturbances at Rome in 1831, died of inflammation at Forli. Both the 
 sons had chmg to their mother, who with difficulty extricated the youngest 
 fi'om the consequences of the abortive enterprise at Rome, and retired 
 with him to the castle of Ai'enenberg in Switzerland, where she had pre- 
 viously fixed her residence, and brought up with maternal care her two 
 imperial scions. 
 
 Previous to his repudiation of Miss Paterson, Jerome had a son, who 
 accompanied his mother to America, and has smce married in that country. 
 The admii-able Catherine of Wiu'tembiu-g bore him tlu-ee childi-en — two sons, 
 and a daughter. Jerome Napoleon, the eldest, born in 1814, was remark- 
 able for his extraordinary resemblance to the Emperor; but died in 1846, 
 without having distinguished himself in any way. Napoleon, the youngest, 
 bom in 1823, has been elected to sit in both the National Assemblies of 
 France suice the last Revolution, and is known as a member of the party 
 called the Red Republicans. The daughter, Letitia Matilda, married in 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 1841 a wealthy Eussian nobleman, Count Anatole Demicloff, with whom she 
 passes her time between St Petersburg and Paris. 
 
 The unfortunate Murat left two sons and two daughters. The eldest, 
 Achille, born in 1801, ex-Crown Prince of Naples, has run through a very- 
 chequered career. He emigrated to America like so many of his family, 
 and became a naturalised citizen of the States. He practised as a lawyer 
 in Georgia, took to himself a wife, and purchased a tract of waste land in 
 Florida. The revolutionary tocsin of 1830 brought him back to Europe, 
 and he served in Belgium as colonel of the Foreign Legion. He returned 
 to America ; but the heaving portents of the times induced him once more 
 to revisit Europe, where he died, just previous to the last revolutionary out- 
 break. His brother Lucien, born in 1803, accompanied him to America, 
 where, after preliminary studies, he took post among the legal fraternity of 
 New York, and married a demoiselle of that state. Discontented with 
 so ignoble a lot, he also made his way back to Europe, and now fills the 
 more appropriate position of a representative of the French people. The 
 two daughters of Joachim and Caroline are married to Italian magnates : 
 the younger, Louisa, to Count Easponi, whose patrimonial homestead lies 
 in the exarchate of Eavenna. 
 
 Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, had, immediately after the events of 
 1814, repaired to the court of his father-in-law, the good king of Bavaria, who 
 received him with open arms, and showered upon him every benefit in his 
 power. He conferred on him the principality of Eichstadt, and gave huu 
 the title of Duke of Leuchtenberg. Eugene died from the effects of an 
 accident in 1824, in the forty-fourth year of his age, leaving six childi-en 
 — two sons, and four daughters. Most of these have made what may be 
 called foi'tunato matches. The eldest daughter, Josephine, is the present 
 queen of Sweden, having married Oscar, son of Bernadotte, in 1823. The 
 second is the Avife of a German prince, titular of HohenzoUern-Hechingen ; 
 the third married Don Pedro, ex- emperor of Brazil, and thereby became the 
 mother-in-law of her o\fa brother ; the fourth married a certain Count of 
 Wurtemburg. Of the sons, Augustus espoused in 1835 the young queen of 
 Portugal, Donna Maria, daughter of Don Pedro, but he unfortimately died 
 shortly after the nuptials ; the youngest, Maximilian, now Duke of Leuch- 
 tenberg, obtained in 1839 the hand of the Grand-Duchess Maria, daughter 
 of Nicholas, autocrat of all the Eussias. To complete the medley of 
 nationalities involved in the Beauharnais connection, the daughter of 
 Stephanie, Grand-Duchess of Baden, and niece of the Empress Josephine, 
 has been united to a Scotch nobleman, the Marquis of Douglas, only son of 
 the Duke of Hamilton, ranking as one of the highest among the British 
 peerage for historical ancestry and vast possessions. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these diversified and brilliant unions, the name of 
 Bonaparte had fallen into a species of oblivion mitil tlie Revolution of 1830, 
 which overturned the crude dominion of the restored Bourbons. Amid the 
 conflict that ensued in France, the young Napoleon was put forward by a 
 party as the legitunate claimant of a revolutionary crown ; but overshadowing 
 considerations served to stifle his pretensions. He had remained luider 
 Austrian tutelage since the fatal era of 1814, and though treated with great 
 affection by his gi-andfather, pains had been taken to rear him as a German, 
 and as little as possible as a Frenchman. The unfortunate youth, ueveilhe' 
 28 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 less, conned his father's wonderful history, and secretly longed to follow in 
 his footsteps. He early betrayed the delicate constitution which hurried 
 hun to a premature grave ; and cut oflf trom his natural associations, and 
 formed in so anomalous a mould, it Avas better perhaps that he should die. 
 How melancholy a position for the son of Napoleon to be an officer in a 
 German army, or to be the mediatized lord of Slavonian serfs, under such a 
 title as that of Duke of Eeichstadt ! On his death in 1832, a singular competi- 
 tion broke out — Who thereby became the representative of the Emperor ? 
 Joseph certainly was alive, but he had wisely abjured all idea of political 
 strife. Lucien, it is suspected, was not inclined to undergo a similar nega- 
 tion ; and if his eldest son Charles had been more energetically disposed, 
 instead of being immersed m his congenial studies of natural history, he 
 might have exhibited a more active prosecution of his claims. Louis was 
 obliterated, as if he had descended into a cloister; but his survivmg son, 
 Charles-Louis-Napoleon, or, as he called himself, Louis-Napoleon, was 
 not a person to forego any pretensions he derived from his birth. By 
 the Senatus-Consultum establishing the Empke, the limitation, after the 
 failure of direct heirs, was to Joseph and Louis, and their respective heirs- 
 male. Under this provision Louis-Napoleon assumed the position of head 
 of the family and heir of his imperial uncle, Joseph and Louis being set 
 aside as etiete, and he prepared to make known his succession by a startling 
 manifestation. 
 
 Endowed with considerable activity of mind, and stirred by a restless 
 ambition, his first endeavours were to invest his name with such a degi'ee 
 of lustre as literary efforts might suffice to win. Thus he composed in 
 Switzerland an essay on that confederation, and a work on artillery, which 
 gained him a certain measure of applause, and the honorary citizenship of 
 the canton Thurgau. He seems to have at length felt that in mascu- 
 line daring and enterprise alone could he hope to acquu-e personal distinc- 
 tion. In a work he had published, intended for the political atmosphere of 
 France, and entitled ' Reveries Politiques,' he manifested republican ten- 
 dencies mingled with a leaven of the unperial regime, attempting therein 
 to embody perhaps the fantastic creation imagined by Lafayette of ' a 
 monarchy SLUTOunded by republican institutions.' With this as his manual 
 of politics, Louis-Napoleon proceeded to tamper with the fidelity of the 
 garrisons along the eastern frontiers of France, and it appears that he 
 received much encouragement, particularly in that of Strasburg. A Co- 
 lonel Vaudrey and several other officers of the 4th regiment of artillery — 
 that in Avhich his uncle had first served — were gained over. Early in the 
 morning of the 30th October, 1836, he made his appearance at the Auster- 
 litz barracks, where that regiment lay, and was received by it with the 
 gi-eatest enthusiasm. It followed him with the utmost cordiality to the 
 Finkmatt barracks, where he was to make a similar attempt upon the 
 infantry. But by some unlucky chance, the person who was to have 
 announced his coming did not duly precede him. He came upon the 
 troops comparatively by surprise, and in the crowd it was difficult to 
 distinguish him. Through this cause, and his want of all resemblance to 
 the great Emperor, he failed in his eflbrt at a personal appeal. Colonel 
 Taillandier adroitly turned the tide against him by denouncing him as an 
 impostor. A dreadful tumult ensued ; but, deserted even by the bulk of 
 
CHASIBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the artillerymen, wlio had hitherto attended hun, he was soon compelled 
 to yield himself a prisoner. 
 
 The government of Louis-Philippe, although there was abmidant proof 
 that this had been a dangerous attempt against it, treated the young 
 enthusiast rather with the pity due to a madman than the severity 
 usually shoT^Ti to a conspirator. He was pmiished merely by a voj^age 
 across the Atlantic m a frigate appointed for the purpose. Being dis- 
 goi'ged on the soil of America, he soon foimd his way back to Switzer- 
 land, where, on the 3d October 1837, he closed the eyes of his devoted 
 mother Hortense, Duchess of St Leu. L-ritated by his unexpected re- 
 appearance within a year of his traitorous adventure, the French govern- 
 ment procured his expulsion from Switzerland, and he rethed to England, 
 whence, in the year 1840, he made a new attempt agamst France. 
 
 At this time, by the generosity of Louis-Philippe's government, the re- 
 mains of the great Emperor were about to be transferred to Paris. The ex- 
 citement of the day gave Louis-Napoleon the conviction that the crisis had 
 at length arrived for his effectmg a revolution in France m the style of that 
 of his uncle in 1815. With General Coimt IMontholon, General Voisson, 
 and upwards of fifty other followers, he sailed in the City of Edmburgh 
 steamer for the French coast, and early in the mornmg of the 6tli August 
 effected an undisturbed landing at a village about two and a-half miles 
 from Boidogue. They entered the town, shouting ' Vive TEmpereur ! ' and 
 distributing a manifesto, in which it was declared that the dynasty of Or- 
 leans Lad ceased to reign, and M. Theirs was announced as chief of the 
 Provisional Government at Paris. The scheme was disappointed by the 
 fidelity of the troops and national guards, by whom the party was speedily 
 overpowered. It has always been stated that the prince, as an important 
 part of the arrangements for tliis enterprise, had brought with him a tame 
 eagle, imagining that it would help to revive the recollection of his uncle 
 among the troops ; but it appears that the animal had iDcen seen by accident 
 at Gravesend, and bought by one of the followers of the prince, who him- 
 self was ignorant of its existence. The expedition was nevertheless in 
 all other respects so ridiculous, that mercy was again shown to its chief, 
 who, after a trial before the Com-t of Peers, was sentenced to perpetual 
 imprisonment in the fortress of Ham. This clemency was the more 
 remarkable, that Louis-Napoleon, in his assault upon the barracks at 
 Boulogne, had shot a soldier, who died the same day. 
 
 After endurmg his imprisonment for nearly six years, the prince succeeded 
 in effecting his escape by a clever disguise, and returned to his obscure life 
 in London. Before proceedmg on this last expedition, he had issued a 
 preparatory work entitled 'Idees Napoleoniennes,' in which he expounded 
 not only his own views on manifold important topics, but those also of liis 
 deceased and illustrious uncle. In this singular production he makes the 
 Emperor talk after a peculiar fjxshion, discoursing largely on glory, liberty, po- 
 pular sovereignty, division of property, and many other matters of complex 
 character. He would represent the heau ideal oi a monarch suited to France* 
 A man encircled by military glory he must be, but withal truly benevolent 
 and philantlu'opic in his sentiments ; maintainuig stupendous armies and 
 fleets, yet anxious to alleviate the burthens of taxation, and devoutly attached 
 to peace; a little despotic at times, but with a rare love of national liberties, 
 30 
 
THE BONAPARTE FAMILY. 
 
 and especially of their best guardian — the independence of the press. But 
 it is objected to this elaborate compound of monarchical vuiues that the 
 military element is found obtrusively preponderating : and as Louis-Napo- 
 leon placed his principal hopes on the army, this preference was probably 
 marked by design. Whilst in Ham, he beguiled the time by compilations 
 of a different complexion. In the ' Fragmcns Historiques,' he assimilates 
 the revolutionar}' episodes of France and England, showing all the Bour- 
 bons to be exact parallels of the Stuarts, and keeps up a rimning coni- 
 mentaiy on himself in the character of the Duke of Monmouth. In a 
 tractate on the question of sugar, which forms a sort of cora-law contro- 
 versy in France, he is unpleasantly divided in his sympathies. As an 
 imperial creation, he upholds protection to the native beet-root ; but being 
 a gi-andson of Josephine, he is extremely favourable to the interests of 
 West-India planters : accordingly, he labours to demonstrate his equal 
 solicitude for the antagonist causes. In another work entitled ' L'Extinc- 
 tion du Pauperisme,' he handles the most difficult subject of modem times, 
 but foils to emerge fi-om the impracticable theories of the visionaiy school. 
 He expatiates on the merits of agi-icultural colonies, but without giving any 
 more feasible plan than the enthusiast Fourier. The development of manu- 
 factui-es also is a favourite notion of his, and this he thinks, contrary to the 
 doctrines of economists, will be materially aided, if not effectually accom- 
 plished, by the use of artUlery — a sentiment which is probably not ill 
 adapted to the notions of the people over whom the writer longed to 
 exercise authority. 
 
 During his residence in London, Louis -Napoleon attracted no regard 
 from men of any eminence in the walks of literatm-e, or science, or politics. 
 Even in polite society he held no distinguished place. The report of a 
 London journal on his private life is probably near the truth : — ' His 
 chief associates were certain gentlemen and ladies bearing aristocratic 
 names, but of questionable character — speculators on the variations of 
 stocks, gamblers, money -hunters, diners -out, haunters of the saloons of 
 second-rate fashion, and of the nameless I'esorts of vice and dissipation. 
 He was unscrupulous in contractmg obligations which were wholly beyond 
 his means of repajTnent ; and his most serious pursuit was the study of 
 alchjTny, by which he expected to an-ive at the discover^' of the philoso- 
 pher's stone. So firm was his faith in the charlatan whom he employed 
 to aid him in transmuting the baser metals into gold, that he is said to 
 liave appropriated his revenues in anticipation, and to have devoted the 
 first milliard of his gains to the payment of the national debt of France, 
 in order thus to acquu-e an imperial tlu'one by purchase.' 
 
 It was nevertheless the fate of this extraordinary adventurer to attain, 
 in a measure, the object of his wishes. The revolution of February 1848 
 detlu-oned the prince who had conducted the difficult government of France 
 for eigliteen years. The series of events which quickly followed brought 
 penitence upon the nation, and the necessity was felt for some personality 
 apart from the two branches of the Bourbon family, romid which the 
 people could rally in their efforts to regam, at whatever cost, a finn order 
 of things. At the close of September, Louis -Napoleon was elected a 
 representative for the department of the Seine by a large majority. He 
 appeared at Paris, and quickly became the centre of a powerful party. On 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 the 10th of December he was elected President of the Eepublic by an 
 immense majority over his competitors : the votes for him being 5,534,520 
 against 1,448,302 for General Cavaignac, the candidate next on the lists. 
 The result occasioned general sm-prise throughout Europe, mingled with 
 which was a feeling of something like pity for the French people, for so 
 mortifying a termination to then- efforts at political regeneration. 
 
 At the time when we write (January 1850), Louis-Napoleon continues 
 to rule in France. His conduct has been, upon the whole, more discreet 
 than was expected : it has even given occasion to a general disposition to 
 review his past history in a favourable light ; but calm thinkers must yet 
 be far from having confidence in one so evidently anunated by mere 
 personal ambition. 
 
 It is this last passion which has at once made all the greatness of the 
 Bonapartes, and brought about their failures. And it is just here that they 
 supply a lesson to mankind. 
 
 Throughout the whole career of Napoleon Bonaparte, the leading aim of 
 the man is to distinguish himself. His actions are brilliant, but they have 
 no other purpose than to raise himself yet another stage in external great- 
 ness. He is never heard to express one generous or confiding sentiment 
 regarding the people over whom he triumphed. On the contrary, his 
 favourite maxun was, that men are to be led by their weaknesses and 
 passions. A rigid imperious rule, centered in his ovm person, was his one 
 political idea. Even his blood-relations had to take satellite places round 
 him, and reflect his lustre, or there was no place for them within tlie scope 
 of his power. This entirely selfish and egotistical system succeeded for a 
 while by dint of the extraordinary mental energy and the unfaltering self- 
 confidence of the man; but it was an imsound thing, and came to a great and 
 calamitous downfall. The sentence of the just ruler of the world is read in 
 the utter annihilation of the upstart dynasty which for a little while had 
 spread itself over the nations. You look for it, and it is not. It is not, 
 because, not based on the sole basis of all true personal greatness — ' good- 
 will towards men' — it did not deserve to be. 
 
 In the extraordinary rise of Louis-Napoleon, the name seems to liave 
 been allowed once more a chance of showing itself in a right relation to 
 mankind. The people of France desire to see the nephew of their great 
 Emperor taking the duty of consolidating their republican institutions. If 
 he does so in the self-denying spirit of a Washington, he will secure for 
 himself an illustrious name. The appearances seem rather to show that 
 he aims at securing power for himself. Should this prove to be the case, 
 circumstances may enable him, like liis uncle, to prosper for a time ; but, 
 as sure as there is a just law presiding over the destinies of mankind, so 
 sure is it that, sooner or later, he must go down again into obscurity. 
 
OUD have been the praises bestowed upon the 
 illustrious 'Bourbyns,' by many historiographers, 
 especially by M. Desormeaux, whose book was 
 printed at the ' Imprimerie Koyale,' Paris, in 
 1788. He recounts in an ecstasy of loyal exulta- 
 tion, that from the parent stock of this great 
 family there had already proceeded thirty-five 
 kings of France, thirteen of Sicily, twenty-three of Portugal, eleven of 
 Navarre, four of Spain, four of Hungary, Croatia, and Slavonia, seven 
 emperors of Constantinople, one hundred dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, 
 Anjou, Lorraine, Bourbon, and Brabant, besides crowned and ermined 
 vassals of the royal house without number : an enumeration of thrones, 
 principalities, and powers enough to take away the breath of any less 
 enthusiastic man than the historian of the famous house, who had yet 
 power to exclaim exultingly, as he concluded the glittermg muster-roll. 
 Tu regere iniperio populos, Galle memento! The long list of high, 
 dread, and puissant lords and princes, of serene and august ladies and 
 
 1 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 princesses, is one for the most part rather to blush for than exult over 
 — to excite grief and indignation rather than reverence or respect. Yet 
 not without pure and bright passages are the leaves Avhich bear the 
 impress of the fightings, victories, perjuries, massacres, by which the 
 Bourbon race distinguished themselves in an age when such things were 
 accounted glorious or venial. Let us not, while glancing over liistories 
 which record many acts at which humanity shudders, forget to bear in 
 mind that the world made withal great and real progi'ess during the 
 period in which these men and women reigned — that wonderful results 
 were achieved in their time upon which our own higher civilisation is 
 mainly based and reared. To dwell only upon the -sdces and failings of 
 governments without looking to discover if there is no bright side to the 
 dark and troubled picture, is only less absurd and disingenuous than 
 the practice of carefully enumerating the persecutions and cruelties per- 
 petrated in the name of outraged Cliristianity, while the overwhelming 
 balance on the other side — the multitude of broken hearts it has bound 
 up, the tears it has wiped away, the hopes it has kindled and pm-iiied, 
 the lives it has redeemed and exalted, and the deaths it has soothed 
 and sanctified — is ignored or overlooked. 
 
 The towering fortunes of the Bourbon family, like those of most other 
 royalties, arose out of the natural working of the feudal system — a system 
 wliich, originating in the necessities of conquest, fell naturally before the 
 advancement of the great body of the people in knowledge and its con- 
 sequence, power. The kings, or rather military chieftains, who reigned in 
 Europe after the destruction of the Eoman Empire, chiefly owed their 
 continually-disputed supremacy either to their actual fame and prowess as 
 warriors, or to then- individual possessions in land and command over 
 vassals holding directly from them by the tenure of military service. 
 Private war being permitted, though strictly confined to possessors of fiefs 
 on knightly tenure — contests by the great feudatories, sometimes against 
 the crown, but chiefly among themselves, in conjunction with alliances by 
 marriage, alternately elevated or depressed the relative power of the sove- 
 reign and the individual barons. The state was rather, in France and 
 Germany especially, an aggregation of petty sovereignties, a federation 
 of essentially independent despotisms, than a homogeneous kingdom. 
 Every gentleman who held a fief on knightly tenure legally exercised 
 the right of pillaging and imprisoning whomsoever was not sufficiently 
 powerful to resist his authority ; and even that of ' gaUows tree,' held 
 in strict legality to be a jewel of the royal or imperial crown, he not 
 unfrequently usurped and exercised. The people, where they had a 
 choice, generally sided with the monarch against the tyivanny whose name 
 was legion ; and it is curious to remark how mainly king and people were 
 aided in putting an end to the grosser enormities of the feudal system by 
 the invention of such apparently-unpromising aids to civilisation as gun- 
 powder and fire-arms. So long as knights and barons could issue from 
 their castles, generally built in a naturally strong position, clothed in 
 armour which the arrows of the serfs and common people could not pene- 
 trate, and their foray over, retire witliin their impregnable fiistncsses, it 
 seemed difficult to set limits to the duration of such knightly pastimes. 
 2 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 Combats of that period are recorded in which a few score knights routed 
 and slew, without loss or danger to themselves, thousands of naked serfs 
 and common people. But when the naked serf, possessing only the skiU 
 to point an iron tube, was placed upon a physical equality with the most 
 redoubtable knight in Christendom, and cannon knocked the impregnable 
 castles about the ancestral ears of the barons, it was time to think of 
 other devices to secure or retain power, and of less violent means of live- 
 Uliood ; and, as Froissart pleasantly remarks, the baronage perforce ceased 
 to rob on the highway ( ' Cesserent de voler sur le gi-and chemin'). One 
 of these gi-eat feudatories, with whom war was a pastime, and the attain- 
 ment of extended power over the community an end which justified any 
 and every species of fraud and violence, was Robert the Strong, Count of 
 Paris, and Duke of France. He had gi-adually built up his ducal house 
 till it overshadowed the dwarfed and sinking throne of the IMerovingian 
 kings of France ; and Hugh Capet, his gi-andson, availing himself with 
 skUl and boldness of the feebleness and contempt iato which the succes- 
 sors of Clovis had fallen, seized the crown, and by arms and policy so 
 strengthened himself in his usui-ped seat, as not only to secvu-e the regal 
 authority to himself and immediate descendants, but to transmit it thi-ough 
 the Valois and Bom*bon branches of his house to oiu: ovna. time — the 
 sceptre of France havuag been continuously wielded by his posterity, with 
 the exception of less than a quarter of a century which elapsed between 
 the death of Louis XVI. and the accession of Louis XVHI., tUl the 
 Revolution of 1848. Hugh Capet was crowned at Rheims on the 3d of 
 July 987. The Valois line of his house succeeded to the thi-one on the 
 1st of April 1328 ; the eldest Bourbon branch on the 2d of August 1589 ; 
 and the younger Bourbons on the 9 th of August 1830. 
 
 Neither the race of kings in direct line from Hugh Capet, nor those of 
 the Valois branch of the royal house, who descended from a brother of 
 Philip the Fair, need detain us long. Their histories for the most part are 
 chiefly records of fightings, treacheries, intrigues, of no possible interest to 
 the present reader. One gi-eat name, however, gleams out of the crowd of 
 mediocrities, and claims a passing notice. We, unimaginative peoples of the 
 north, have, it is well known, a constitutional objection to saints, insisting 
 upon their lieing strictly confined to the primitive age of the church; and 
 this may perhaps be the reason why the name of St Louis has been so 
 depreciatingly treated by certain English winters, for it cannot be seriously 
 or justly denied that St Louis was in every sense a great monarch, and a 
 wise, enlightened man, ruling his people with a courage, sagacity, firmness, 
 and gentleness of which the world has seen but few examples. Louis XL, 
 too, of whom Sir Walter Scott in his ' Quentin Dm-ward' has stamped so 
 vivid and revolting an impression upon the reading world, however indi- 
 vidually hateful or contemptible, was a great monarch : he governed France 
 wisely and well; and spite of his Plessis - les - Tours atrocities, and his 
 wretched superstitions, must ever be a.ccounted one of the ablest, as unques- 
 tionably he was one of the most popular, kings that ever ruled the destinies 
 of the French people. The nobles, it is true, detested him ; for he curbed 
 their insolence, and restrained and curtailed their privileges. Louis XL not 
 only disliked, and, as much as possible, avoided war, but refused to allow the 
 seigneurs of France the imliraited right of chase over everybody's grounds, 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 to which they held themselves entitled by right of birth! ' A terrible state 
 of things,' remarks Philip de Comines, ' for men who knew only how to 
 hunt and fight.' No marvel the kmg should only esteem himself safe from 
 such gentry within his castles, and surrounded by his Scottish guards ! 
 His life, amidst all his gloomy gi'andeur, was, as one might expect, a most 
 unhappy one. ' I knew him,' writes Comines, ' and served him in the 
 flower of his age, and in his great prosperity, yet never saw I him free from 
 toil of body and trouble of mind.' It may be doubted if governing, to any 
 man really capable of it, and of estimating its terrible responsibility, can be 
 other than a burthen to him — his diadem but a crown of thorns, his life an 
 unceasing, thankless martyrdom ! Louis XI., on whom the title of ' Most 
 Christian King' was first conferred by the Pope, was succeeded by Henry 
 VIII., a boy so unbecile that his father declared he should be satisfied if 
 his son could only attain such a degree of learning as would enable him to 
 translate and rightly comprehend the Latin sentence, qui nescit disswiulare, 
 nescit regnare. Anne, the young king's eldest sister, and the wife of the 
 Sire de Beaussu, who afterwards succeeded to the titles and estates of the 
 Duke of Bom-bon, governed the kingdom with remarkable ability during 
 Henry's minority ; not as regent, for the states-general, summoned to decide 
 between her and Louis of Orleans, who had married Jeanne, Louis Xl.'a 
 youngest daughter, right to that office, did not confer the title on her ; 
 but ' Madame,' as she is called, remained possessed of, and exercised with. 
 great benefit to the people, the royal authority. 
 
 The chief efforts of the sovereigns of France, it may be briefly stated, 
 were du-ected during many years to fuse the disjointed feudalities, ducliies, 
 of the realm, mto one compact and harmonious whole. They gradually 
 succeeded. Normandy was broken into subjection to the French crown^ 
 and ultimately all the independent jurisdictions of Brittany, Burgundy, 
 Bourbon, and others, were annexed to the monaixhy. The pretensions of 
 the English kings to the diadem of France, spite of the dazzling efforts 
 of our Edwards and Harries, the names of whose ' glorious ' victories- 
 BtiU survive in song, and the sacrifice of innumerable ' vulgar ' lives, for 
 whom Fame has no trumpet, not even a wooden one, were finally set at 
 rest; and at the accession of Francis I., contemporary with our Henry 
 Vin., Calais alone remained to England of all that had been so dearly 
 purchased, and, as we now perceive, so fortunately lost. Very sacred and 
 precious in the eyes of the English people seems to have been this slight 
 trophy of persevering and stupendous folly ; for it may be doubted if the 
 persecutions of Mary, in whose reign it was regained to France, contributed 
 to her unpopularity in any degree like the loss of that place — the gate of 
 France, as it was called. So keenly did the impressionable heart of Mary 
 feel the stroke, that she declared the name of Calais would at her death 
 be found written on it! 
 
 The reign of Francis I. is mainly remarkable in the eyes of the observant 
 student of history for the spectacle it exliibits of the almost total absorp- 
 tion of the feudal, by the process we have previously glanced at, in the 
 monarchical power. Standing annies raised by the authority of the king 
 now first constituted the chief force of the realm, instead of the more or 
 less independent levies of the barons. Charles V., king of Spain and 
 emperor of Germany, successfully piu'sued the same policy. Francis stiU 
 4 
 
THE liOUUliUN FA.MllA'. 
 
 holds a somewhat conspicuous place in the galaxy of Frencli kings ; but 
 warlike, rash, volatile, he left sliglit benelicial impress upon the nation he 
 was called to govern. It was in this reign that the branch of the royal 
 house with wliich in these pages we are more immediately concerned came 
 into especial notice. This bi'anch, that of Bourbon, was descended from 
 Robert, Count de Clermont, sixtli and youngest son of St Louis, who 
 married Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress of John of Burgundy, Baron of 
 Charalois, and Agnes, Lady of Bourbon, daughter of Archambault, Sire de 
 Bourbon. The great accession of property acquired by this marriage, 
 together with his appanage of Clermont, rendered him the most powerful 
 feudatory in the kingdom. The family name of Bourbon he assumed as 
 the patronymic of his race. Louis, the eldest son of Robert, was the 
 first who bore the title of Duke of Bourbon, which figures so prominently 
 m the annals of France. Peter, tlie sixth duke in descent from Louis, 
 dyhig without male issue in 1503, the estates devolved, by virtue of the 
 original entails, on Charles, Count de Montpensier, head of the col- 
 lateral line of Bourbon -Montpensier, then only fourteen years old. It 
 had been the object of the deceased duke to get these entails modified 
 in favour of his daughter Susannah, who was betrothed to the Duke 
 d'Alen9on — a prince of the blood in close proximity to the throne ; but 
 after his death, to avoid the disputes that would have ensued from conflict- 
 ing claims, his widow, Anne of France, gave Susannah in marriage to the 
 young Montpensier, who immediately assumed the style and dignity of 
 Duke of Bourbon. This is the celebrated Constable Bourbon, who, living 
 in an age crowded with memorable events — the disruption of the papal 
 power by Luther ; the gigantic efforts of Charles V. to brmg the continent 
 of Europe under his sway — made himself heard and felt for a brief space 
 amidst aU the din and tumult of the world. His military talents were of 
 A high order, and these were devoted to the service of France as long as 
 its rulers sufliciently rewarded the devotion of the successful soldier. But 
 when the king — instigated, as some have it, by his mother, the Duchess 
 d'Angouleme, whom Bourbon, we are told, treated slightmgly — dismissed 
 him from his command, and otherwise injured him, the celebrated hero 
 turned his sword against his country, and helped Charles V. to win the 
 battle of Pavia, in which Francis I. was made prisoner, suffering after- 
 wards a long confinement at Madrid. But the action which shines with 
 the gi-eatest brilliancy of war-tinsel in this Constable of Bourbon's history, 
 was his march through the Apennines upon Rome, at the head of a large 
 army of ruflians of various nations — Gennans, Italians, Spaniards (' Bour- 
 bon's Black Banditti')— after plundering and desolating other parts of 
 Italy. Arrived before the walls of a city incapable of successfid defence, 
 and of which the weakness, if not its great memories, ought to shield from 
 violence, the chivakous Bourbon ordered an assault, which was successful, 
 though himself was struck down by a musket-shot as he ascended a scaling- 
 ladder. The instinct of conquest could only in him be extinguished with 
 life ; and fearing his soldiers miglit be dispu-ited if they heard of his fall, 
 be ordered a cloak to be thrown over his body, so that his death might be 
 concealed. Murder, pillage, every species of violence and outrage, fol- 
 lowed the storming of the city of Rome — the last and greatest exploit of 
 the 'renowned' and 'illustrious' Constable of Bourbon. The science of 
 
 5 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 proper names, there can be no doubt, is as yet in its infancy. Lord Byron 
 in his 'Deformed Transformed' makes a hero of this Charles de Bourbon. 
 One of the dramatis personce, Arnold, says the Constable ' o'erlooked the 
 world, and saw no equal ; ' while the devil, who, in the disguise of the 
 deformed Ctesar, is another of the noble poet's personages, says ' Good- 
 night, Lord Constable ; thou wert a man ! ' — and one, we should think, 
 very much after the speaker's own heart. 
 
 Of all the branches of the royal family, time had only respected those of 
 Valois, Alenfon, and Boiu-bon ; and at the death of the great Constable, 
 Charles, Duke of Vendome, who had married one of the co-heiresses of the 
 Duke d'Alen9on, became the head of the House of Bom-bon. From his 
 eldest son, Antoine de Bourbon, descend the Bourbons of France, Spain, 
 and Naples, mcluding the Orleans branch ; and from his yoimgest son Louis, 
 first Prince of Conde, the now extinct line of Conde and Conti. 
 
 Antoine de Bourbon espoused Jeanne, daughter and hekess of Henry 
 d'Albret, king of Navarre, and a Huguenot or Calvinist. A son was the 
 issue of this marriage, who, after many years of desolating warfare, became, 
 by the extinction of the male line of Valois, and his own solemn renuncia- 
 tion of the reformed faith in which he had been reared, Hemy IV. of 
 France, and the fii'st of the Bourbon kings. The memory of this monarch, " 
 one can hardly tell why, is stUl held in some respect in France, and not 
 solely by Legitimists. The present titular Henry V. invokes the memory 
 of his ancestral namesake much more frequently than he does that of St 
 Louis; and the famous air of the once national song, ' Vive Henri Quatre,' 
 was gi'eatly relied upon by the restored family to keep alive the fainting 
 loyalty of the troops sent to oppose the advance of Napoleon on his 
 retm-n from Elba. The success of the exertions of the regunental bands 
 was not, as we are all aware, commensm-ate with their zeal and industry. 
 One verse of this same song gives the character of Henri Quatre veiy 
 pithily — 
 
 ' Ce diable a quatre 
 A le triple talent 
 De boire et de battre, 
 Et d'etre le vert galant I ■" 
 
 Of such stuff were the heroes made whom France, in the sixteenth centuiy, 
 delighted to honour. If, however, the life of this king was chiefly spent 
 in drmking, fightmg, and courting, he had the sagacity to discern and em- 
 ploy an able minister — the illustrious Sully — whose administration of the 
 business of the kmgdom was marked alike by moderation, energy, and pru- 
 dence. For upwards of thu-ty years previous to Hemy IV. 's accession 
 in 1589, France had been the theatre and prey of anarchy and strife : 
 Catholic and Protestant warred with each other m the desecrated name of 
 One who ever retui-ned cursmg by blessing, and who never stretched forth 
 His hand but to heal and save ! This was the era of the war of the League — 
 of the massacre of St Bartholomew, one of the darkest spots in the annals 
 of France. The personages who stand out most prommently in the fore- 
 ground of the hideous hurly-burly, are Catherine dc Medicis, the Guises, 
 the kmg of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., Coligny, and the Prince of 
 Conde ; and twice we discern the graceful form and beautiful face of INIary, 
 Queen of Scots, flit across the troubled scene — once in her bridal robes as 
 6 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 Queen of France and spouse of Francis TI. ; next in the insignia of widow- 
 hood, on her retiu-n to Scothvnd, escorted by her imcles, the Guises. The 
 king of Navarre and the Prince of Cond^ were the chief leaders of the 
 Huguenots ; neither of them reflected any honour on a struggle for the 
 rights of conscience. The monarch's character has been already sufficiently 
 intimated; and Conde appears to have been a duodecimo edition, physically 
 considered, of his stalwart sovereign and kinsman, both in his pursuits 
 and in his popidarity. A quatrain published at the time thus speaks of 
 Mm — 
 
 ' That little man so pleasant looks — 
 
 Always chatting, always joking. 
 
 And always kissing where lie can. 
 
 God save from ill that little man ! ' 
 
 How lamentably a near -^Hiew detracts from the brilliancy of the halo 
 which at a distance appears to encii-cle such high-soimding names as Henri 
 Quatre, Conde, and similar heroes ! Those who love to dwell amid 
 illusions should be careful not to disturb the ' awful hoar' which time, 
 with charitable tenderness, strews over the memories of such men : they 
 should leave them alone with their glory. 
 
 Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre, Hemy IV. 's mother, appears to have been 
 a woman of iii'mness and principle ; and these qualities in such an age of 
 venality and crime excuse the apparent bigotry with which they were asso- 
 ciated. To the intreaties of Catherine de Medicis that, for her son's sake, 
 she would conform to the religion of the great majority of the French 
 people, Jeamae replied : ' Madame, if I had my son and my kingdom in my 
 hand, I would throw them both to the bottom of the sea sooner than go 
 to mass!' Her son, we have seen, was made of less determined stuff; but 
 his solemn confonnation to the Catholic church did not, it appears, efface 
 from the mmds of some of the more zealous fanatics of the commimion he 
 had hesitatingly joiued the memory of his origmal heresy ; and he was 
 stabbed to the heart in his coach on the 14th of May 1610, by one EavaUlac, 
 who was instigated, it was said, to the crune by the Jesuits. Kavaillac was 
 put to death by the most frightful toiTaents. 
 
 Henry IV. was succeeded by his son Louis XIH., a boy of nine 
 years of age, whose mother, Mary of Medicis, held the office of regent diu-- 
 ing his minority. Dm'iag this reign France was governed for many years 
 by the masterly genius and ii-on will of Cardinal Richelieu, who carried 
 on the work commenced by Louis XL, of crushing the nobility into subjec- 
 tion to the croMTi, and establishmg one great, overwhelming, in-esponsible 
 authority in France — that of the monarch. That Richelieu effected a grea^t 
 service in even partially trampling under foot baronial and knightly jiu-is- 
 dictions there can be little doubt; his error or his crime was, that he did 
 not provide for the permanence and beneficial operation of his work by 
 bucklering the just authority of the crown and the liberties of the great 
 body of the people with the power of a representative assembly, of which 
 a sufficient model existed on this side of the Channel. The great cardinal 
 did but half his work ; and the noUesse, crowding into the antechambers of 
 the king, soon regained by sycophancy and intrigue the power to oppress 
 and dominate the people, which they had temporarily lost. This mistake 
 of Richelieu — for there can be no question that he was sincerely devoted 
 
'Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 to what he believed to be the gloiy and interest of Fi-ance — ^proved ulti- 
 matel}- as fatal to the monarchy and noUesse as to the iDeople. The once- 
 celebrated parliaments of Paris were reduced by the cardmal to worse than 
 iiisigniticance, for he coerced them into becoming the most contemptibly- 
 servUe adulators of the occupant of the throne it is possible to conceive. 
 On the occasion of holding, 13th August 1631, a ' bed of justice,' as it was 
 termed — that is, a sittmg holden to register the royal decrees — the president 
 of the parliament thus addressed his majesty: ' Sire, kings are the visible 
 gods of men, as God is the invisible Iving of men! God is seated on high, 
 to protect those who are below, and also to command them : His functions 
 are identical with those of the kings of the earth ! ' In Richelieu, the cardinal 
 of Rome was equally conspicuous as the minister of the French crown. The 
 Huguenots were repressed with a stern, inexorable severity. The siege of 
 Rochelle, their head-quai'ters, which the English Duke of Buckingham so 
 disgracefully failed to relieve, was urged and concluded vmder the personal 
 superintendence of the ubiquitous minister. Richelieu greatly embellished 
 Paris — the Palais-Royal, so long the residence of the Orleans family, was 
 built by him. He also founded the French Academy, with the view, it is 
 asserted— but the motive appears to be as inadequate as it is preposte- 
 rously contemptible and absurd — to elicit an adverse criticism on the Cid; 
 Corneille having been heard to express a slighting opinion of a youthful 
 dramatic folly of the cardinal. The infant printmg-press during Richelieu's 
 rule could only put forth its nascent powers imder his guidance and direc- 
 tion ; and to the last moment of his existence every faculty of his mind was 
 exerted to curb and bend alike nobles and people under an unreasoning, 
 haughty, irresponsible, but, as he understood it, paternal and beneficent 
 despotism. 
 
 Anne of Austria, the wife of Louis XIH., bore her husband a son in the 
 twenty- third year of their maiTiage. This event, which the nation had ceased 
 to hope for, was esteemed an especial favour of Divine Providence, and 
 the child was greeted with the appellation of ' Dieu-Donue ' ( ' God-Given'). 
 This Heaven-born son succeeded to the throne in 1643, when only five 
 years of age, under the title of Louis XIV. Anne of Austria's second son, 
 born not long after her first child, was the progenitor of the present family 
 ' of Orleans. The regency of the kingdom devolved during the minority of 
 Louis XIV. on Anne his mother; but her authority was disputed, the country 
 was again distracted by civil tumult, and the war of the Fronde — a blmd, 
 •misdirected efibrt chiefly of the people of Paris to rid themselves of an im- 
 qualified and onerous despotism, which appeared to them to be incarnated 
 in the person of the hated minister Conde — desolated a considerable por- 
 tion of France. It was at last a^jpeased. The chiefs made the best bar- 
 gains for themselves they could; and all the people gained by the strife was 
 a large addition to the hoarded elements of hate and vengeance slowly 
 accumulating for a great and terrible day of final reckoning. This great 
 Prince of Conde held his allegiance to his country as lightly as did the 
 illustrious Constable Bourbon. In order to avenge real or supposed 
 injuries and affronts oS"ered him by the court, he made no scruple to ally 
 himself with Spain, and make war ui)on France, lie was forgiven — the 
 French people whose relatives he had slain were of course not consulted — 
 and he was employed with the famous I'urenne to illustrate the glory of 
 8 
 
Tin: couuEON family. 
 
 France by making war iipon lier less powerful neighbours. lie had the 
 pleasure of seeing how CromweU's veterans fouglit at tlie taking of Dun- 
 kirk, where about 4000 of those iron soldiers overtln-ew the then cele- 
 brated Spanish infantry almost without an effort, and carried at a run an 
 entrenchment which the great ^larshal Turenne had a few hours pre- 
 viously pronounced impregnable. This Dunkirk, Oliver, an entirely pi-ac- 
 tical man, kept for the pains he had taken in its acquirement. Charles 
 II. afterwards sold it for a certain number of pounds sterling. The 
 unprmcipled ambition of Louis XIV., seconded by the warlike energy 
 of the French people, and the genius of his fiimous marshals, continued 
 triumphantly in the ascendant for many desolatmg years ; and it was not 
 till Great Britain, under the leadership of Marlborough, entered I'eso- 
 lutely into the contest, that the aggressive tide was effectually turned, 
 and the haughty invader of other states was taught to tremble for the 
 safety and integrity of his own. The victories of Malplaquet, Ramilies, 
 and Blenheim, broke the military power of France ; and it was only 
 by a change of ministry in England, brought about by the agency of 
 Abigail Masham, Queen Amie's waiting-woman, that Marlborough's appa- 
 rition upon the heights of Montmartre was prevented. Louis obtained 
 a peace much more favourable to France than her ruler had a right to 
 expect ; but the false glitter of his reign was effaced, and as the phantasm 
 of glory faded from before the eyes of the French people, they awoke to 
 a sense of the incalculable evils of a reign which, having endured seventy- 
 two years, left the country, after all its prodigious expenditure of blood 
 and treasure, in debt to the then almost fabulous amount of £140,000,000 
 sterling. Louis XIV., once so idolised, expired amidst the scarcely sup- 
 pressed murmurs and execrations of his subjects, bequeathing an inheri- 
 tance of danger and difficulty to his successor, which nothuig but the wisest 
 forethought, the most consummate prudence could hope to dissipate or 
 overcome. These qualities were not found in his grandson Louis XV., 
 and the throne of the Bourbons visibly tottered to its fall. Louis XIV. 
 raised the permanent taxes of France to the enormous annual sum of 
 750,000,000 francs, or £30,000,000 sterlmg. He also organised and per- 
 fected the destructive system of constantly maintaining an immense mili- 
 tary force, whereby a correspondingly onerous necessity is imposed on all 
 surroimdmg states ; so that since his time peace has been only an armed 
 truce between nations — a policy well-nigh as injurious to the finances, and 
 consequently to the prosperity and progress of a people, as actual war. 
 This Louis is known in the histories of legitimate France as emphatically 
 ' Le Grand Monarque.' 
 
 One of the motives which excited the hostility of Great Britain against 
 the French monarch remains to be explained. The ceaseless craving for per- 
 sonal aggrandisement which characterised Louis XIV. — for France, in the 
 arrogant king's opinion, was synonymous with himself — 'L'Etat! C'est moi!' 
 — induced him to aim at compassing by every art which imscrupulous rulers 
 believe themselves privileged to employ fur the furtherance of an ambitious 
 purpose, the substitution of a Bourbon for an Austrian djTiasty on the 
 throne of Spain. This darling object was at last accomplished. The last 
 king of Spain of the Austrian line nominated, by a will extorted from him by 
 the menaces and cajoleries of Louis, and the solemn councils of the pope, the 
 2.5 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Duke of Anjou, Louis XIV.'s grandson, to succeed him as king of Spain. 
 The actual accession of the Duke of Anjou, under the title of Philip V., 
 naturally aroused the fears and kindled the resentment of statesmen accus- 
 tomed to look upon the conservation of the ' balance of power ' in Europe 
 as the best means of securing the independence of its several states. Louis 
 XIV. gave colour to the fears which beset the minds of men who regarded 
 the more or less intimate connection of royal families as an essential element 
 in the union and friendship of nations, by a sentence in his speech to his 
 grandson, when the new king of Spain took public leave of him : ' II n'y a 
 plus de Pyr&ees ! ' — (' The Pyrenees no longer exist ! ') exclaimed the vain- 
 glorious monarch ; and war was eagerly waged to prevent the realisation, 
 or to x-esent the utterance, of one of the silliest boasts that ever fell from 
 the lips of self-glorifying vanity. Tlie ultimate result was, that in the 
 final treaty of peace it was solemnly agreed that one prince should not 
 be at the same time king of France and Spain. Lord Pahnerston, in his 
 protests against the Spanish marriages, gives a wider signification to the 
 conditions of the treaty. He insists that its essential intent and meaning 
 was to forbid any future more intimate connection than what akeady 
 existed between the French and Spanish Bourbons ; and spite of M. Guizot's 
 clever special pleading, there can be little doubt that the British minister 
 is right. ^Tiether it was worth while to discuss with so much heat and 
 seriousness an incident which, in the present age of the world, could scarcely 
 have any serious result, is of course another affair. M. Guizot certainly 
 proclaimed at the French tribune that the marriage of M. de Montpen- 
 sier with the Spanish Infanta was the gi-andest thing France had, un- 
 aided, eff'ected for many long years ; but a less sagacious man than Lord 
 Palmerston, one would suppose, might have contented himself with a quiet 
 smile at such a vaunt instead of flying into a passion about it. 
 
 The ambition of the Bourbon family was not even satisfied by the acqui- 
 sition of Spain. The crown of the Two Sicilies was obtained by war for 
 Philip V.'s second son, Charles ; so that France, Spain, and Naples had now 
 become the dominion of this aspiring race ! At the death of Ferdinand VI. 
 without issue in 1759, the crown of Spain devolved on his brother, ah-eady 
 king of the Two Sicilies. That monarch, setting aside his eldest son as 
 imbecile, nominated his second, Charles, to succeed him in Spain, and 
 bestowed the crown of Naples on Ferdinand, his third son. The treaty 
 of Vienna had provided that the crowns of Spain and Naples should 
 remain separate ; and by that of Aix-la-Chapelle the duchies of Parma 
 and Placentia were confirmed to another personage of the same fortunate 
 family, Don Philip, who had espoused Marie, daughter of the duke of 
 those petty territories. The Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons are there- 
 fore the lineal descendants of Louis XIV. through his grandson the Duke 
 of Anjou, the first Bourbon king of Spain. 
 
 Louis XV. succeeded his grandfather on the French throne while still 
 a child. The regency, during the king's minority, was conferred on Philip, 
 Duke of Orleans, son of the late king's brother. The mask of outward 
 decency Avhich the superstitious instincts — they cannot be called religious 
 sentiments — of Louis XIV., and the prudery of Madame de Maintcnon, 
 had obliged the court to wear during the latter yeai's of the previous 
 10 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 reign, was during this regency cast contemptuously aside ; and a spectacle 
 of unblusliing profligacy was exhibited, to whicli the annals of civilised 
 society afford no parallel. This, too, was the era of Law's famous Mis- 
 sissippi juggle. A universal torrent of venality and conniption threatened 
 to sweep away every vestige of nobleness and virtue, and to convert the 
 palaces of the Most Christian King into haunts of the lowest, the most 
 demoralising licentiousness and vice. We forbear even to recapitulate 
 the names of the persons who figured during this regency and the suc- 
 ceeding reign as the coroneted, diademed incarnations of the scandalous 
 manners of the time. It is a spectacle from which we gladly avert our 
 eyes ; but in order to show those who may still be deceived by the 
 ornate eloquence which has been employed to gild over the licentiousness 
 of a state of society in which we are told 'vice lost half its evil by 
 losing all its grossness,' we supply a few passages from the ' Memoirs of 
 the Court of Louis XIV.,' by the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of the 
 regent, published after her death. She thus speaks of the magnificent 
 king himself, Louis the Great, as he is usually styled : — ' Louis XIV., 
 as all the rest of the family, with the exception of my son, hated readhig. 
 Neither the king nor Monsieur had been taught anything : they scarcely 
 knew how to read or T\Tite. He (the king) had natural wit, but was 
 extremely ignorant ; and so much ashamed of it, that it became the fashion 
 of his courtiers to turn learned men into ridicule.' The Revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes was a natural consequence of the superstitious bigotry of 
 this great Bourbon. ' It is impossible,' wi-ites the duchess, * for a man 
 to be more ignorant of religion than the king was. I cannot imderstand 
 how his mother the queen could have brought him up with so little 
 knowledge on this subject. That old Maintenon and Pere la Chaise had 
 persuaded him that all the sins he had committed would be pardoned, if 
 he persecuted and extirpated the professors of the reformed religion, and 
 that this was the only path to Heaven. The poor king believed it fer- 
 vently, and the persecution commenced. He was earnest enough himself, 
 and it was not his fault that hypocrisy reigned at court.' One or two 
 extracts will sufficiently illustrate the refinement of manners prevalent in 
 the ^vielle cour :'' — 'The Duchess of Bourbon can drink very copiously 
 without being affected : her daughters would fain imitate her, but they 
 soon get tipsy, and cannot control themselves as their mother does. 
 Madame de IMontespan and her eldest daughter could drink a large 
 quantity of wine without being affected by it. I have seen them drink 
 six bumpers of strong Tm-in Rosa Solis, beside the wine they had taken 
 before : I expected to see them fall imder the table ; but, on the contrary, 
 it affected them no more than a draught of water.' ' Three years before 
 her death the dauphiness changed greatly for the better: she played 
 no more foolish tricks, and left off drinking to excess. Instead of that 
 untameable manner which she had before, she became polite and sensible, 
 kept up her dignity, and did not permit the younger ladies to be too familiar 
 with her by dipping then* fingers into her dish, rolUng upon the bed, and 
 similar elegancies.' Law, it appears from these memoirs, had submitted 
 his scheme to Louis XIV. ; but the tempting bait was rejected, not 
 from any penetration of its impudent absurdity by the king, but, as his 
 majesty himself assured the duchess, * because Law was not a Roman 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Catholic, and therefore he ought not to confide in him.' Mmed and hollow 
 as was the ground under the French court and aristocracy, the thin surface 
 upon which they danced, frolicked, laughed away their lives, gave as yet 
 no token of the volcano slumbering beneath. ' ]Mr Law,' says the Duchess 
 of Orleans, ' has taken refuge m the Palais-Royal. The populace have 
 done him no harm, but his coachman has been pelted on his return, and 
 the carriage broken to pieces. I heard the people talking. They said 
 nothing agamst my son, and bestowed benedictions on me.' If this be 
 true, a more patient, long-suffermg, charitable people than the French — of 
 this period at least — could nowhere be found. 
 
 The reign of Louis XV. was one continued downward progress towards 
 utter confusion and ruin m every department of the state. Imprisonments 
 in the Bastile, and other of the king's castles — to use Mr Burke's respect- 
 ful expression when writing regretfully of the violent destruction of that 
 place of sighs — ordered by royal lettres-de-cachet, or sealed orders from the 
 king, grew and multiplied : the use of these letters ad libitum was one of the 
 most valued privileges of the favourite lady of the court. The noblesse, as in 
 the rampant days of feudalism, claiming entire exemption from the bmlhens 
 of the state, except military and naA^al service, the chief grades of which 
 they monopolised, preyed upon the people, who bore all the pubhc charges, 
 without let or hindrance. Unfortunate people ! so truly described in those 
 days as one ' taillable et corveable a merci et a misericorde ; ' whose 
 wives and daughters were to be frequently seen yoked like oxen to the 
 plough, whilst the sons and daughters of idleness and vanity were trifling 
 away their lives in the perfumed atmosphere of a corrupt and licentious 
 court ; and still more unfoi-tunate, that there appeared to be no peaceful 
 issue from the gulf of misery and degradation mto which they were 
 trampled ; and that the only course left, if they would not remain plunged 
 therein for ever, was, like that of Milton's Evil Spii'it towards Paradise, 
 through Chaos accompanied by Sin and Death ! 
 
 This king was not without able advisers, who, had he listened to them, 
 might perhaps have averted the ruin which all men clearly saw was swiftly 
 gathering for the near future ; but the Bourbon race seemed doomed — 
 ' Ephraim is given to idols — let him alone ! ' Choiseul, a sagacious man 
 who had endured much, could not submit to the Dubarry domination, and 
 threw up his employments in uncontrollable disgust. The catastrophe 
 was at hand. The small-pox carried off Louis XV. after a brief illness : 
 his body was hurried, without the slightest royal pomp or ceremonial, to 
 the tomb ; and his grandson, Louis XVI., encumbered and weighed down 
 by the debts and sins of his predecessors — of the two last especially — 
 ascended the Bourbon throne. A king more unsuited to the evU days on 
 which he had fallen than this amiable, well-intentioned sovereign, never 
 assumed the diadem. The necessities of his position required a man of 
 inflexible will, of eagle discernment, of iron courage and resolution ; and 
 he, unfortunate pi'ince ! was plastic as wax, weak as infancy itself in the 
 hands of those he esteemed and trusted — of his wife especially. And 
 Marie Antoinette, with all her early foibles and vanities, if compared with 
 those who had preceded her in that court — or indeed judged by any 
 standard, for it is an insult to the memory of the royal and most unhappy 
 wife and mother to suggest such a comparison — was a pure-hearted, high- 
 12 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 minded woman, upon whose memory, spite of the malignant industry of 
 her calumniators, there rests no imputation save that of a thoughtless 
 gaiety of speech and manners — very bitterly expiated ! 
 
 We need not recount the steps which led swiftly and directly to the 
 abyss. Cooler and wiser heads than those of Louis XVI. and his consort 
 would have lost their balance aniidst the tumultuous and hourly-increas- 
 ing rage and fury of the at last uprisen people. Many causes have been 
 assigned by ingenious connnentatoi-s to account for this sudden frenzy, as 
 they tcnn it, of the French nation. The comedies of Beaumarchais, the 
 mocking persiflage of Voltaire, the Contrat-Social of Eousseau, the specu- 
 lations of the Encyclopedists, were, we are sometimes gravely told, the 
 agencies which brought about the terrible convulsion. Without denying 
 that these writings might have produced some effect upon those who read 
 them, it seems difficult to comprehend how they could have stirred and 
 inflamed the passions of the raging multitudes who really made the revolu- 
 tion, not one in a liundred of whom could read, or had ever heard of them ! 
 No — it was not u-reverent persiflage, it was not dreamy speculations upon 
 the origui of society, which kindled that consuming fire : it was the squalor 
 of the ragged peasant in contrast with the efl:eminate splendom- of the 
 privileged noble — the pallid faces and wasted forms of the innumerable 
 wretches who, accordmg to the testimony of all impartial witnesses, 
 prowled, famine and fever-stricken, through the highways and byways of 
 the land — the hopeless, helpless degradation and poverty of the great 
 body of the French people — the corruption and heartlessness of the mass 
 of the privileged orders in both chiu'ch and state — this was the burning 
 irony, this the bitter writing traced in characters as huge as death and 
 ruin, which the multitude read with flaming eyes, and sprang madly, 
 blindly to their feet to revenge and to efface — 
 
 ' The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to scourge us.' 
 
 Yet, except It were a crime in Louis XVT. that he was wanting in the 
 energy and ability required to even partially atone for and repair the errors 
 and follies of his race, he had done nothing worthy of bonds, much less of 
 death. He had not, like Charles I. of England, made war upon his people, 
 sought to destroy their liberties, endeavoured to convert a constitutional 
 crown into an absolute one! But this is not the place to discuss the 
 general question of the French Eevolution : the personal fortimes of the 
 Bourbon family mainly concern us in these pages. The trial of Louis, 
 passively defending himself before the executioners of the Convention by 
 a mild placidity and benevolence of aspect against which the epithets of 
 * tyrant,' ' despot,' strike blunt and innocuous, appears, viewed by itself, a 
 sad and terrible position for the head of so illustrious a race to be placed 
 in ; but in comparison -n-ith that assumed by another Bourbon, Philip, Duke 
 of Orleans, the father of Louis-Philippe, who ascended the tribune of the haU 
 of judgment, and with unfaltering voice said, ' I vote for death!' it is one to 
 exult and glory in. Egalite would have added reasons for his judgment — 
 did, it is said ; but they were unheard amidst the abhorrent mm-murs of an 
 assembly who, albeit they sympathised with ]\Iarat and IMaximiliau Eobes- 
 
 13 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 pierre, had hearts, many of them at least, that yet vibrated to some touch 
 of human feelmg. 
 
 The death of the king was followed by the still more utterly inexcusable 
 and detestable execution of the queen ; and then justice was done upon 
 D'Orleans. His son, the young Duke of Chartres, involved somewhat in 
 Dumouriez' intrigues, happily escaped ; and the only Bom-bon remaining 
 in the power of the revolutionists was the youthful son of the slain 
 monarch, and on him was inflicted their fullest measure of vengeance, by 
 the hands of a ruffian whose mission it was to dwarf, debase, and crush the 
 mind and spii'it of the young prince : happily in the process the frail tene- 
 ment of earth gave way, and the husk and shell of what had once been the 
 liek of France alone remained in the power of the brutal jailor. 
 
 Upwards of twenty years of exile had passed over the heads of the 
 expatriated Bourbons, when the reaction consequent upon the devouring 
 ambition and unprincipled violence of Bonaparte drove that remorseless 
 despot from the French throne, and replaced the Bourbons in the vacated 
 chair. During the long interval that had elapsed since the execution of 
 Louis XVI., only one incident m the fortunes of the French Bourbons 
 requires notice in this place : this was the assassination of the Duke 
 d'Enghien, seized in the neutral territory of Baden by order of Bona- 
 parte, and, by that potentate's directions, shot at the castle of Vincennes 
 the night after his capture. For this atrocity not the slightest excuse 
 of any worth has ever been offered by the Emperor's apologists; and 
 in sooth it was scarcely worth while to attempt a defence ; for what 
 matters one spot more or less on the crimson imperial -robe ? This young 
 prince — he was thhty-two years of age — is said to have been a very 
 amiable person, and to have entertained in a high degree the admiration 
 of the conquering exploits of the French ruler, which still faintly lingers 
 in the world. With him the race of Conde became vu-tuaUy extinct, 
 although his father, the Duke of Bourbon, survived till 1830. The mili- 
 tary council nominated by Murat, by whose immediate order he was slain, 
 was presided over by one Guiton, a general of brigade. The chief accu- 
 sation against the unfortunate young man, in support of which no evidence 
 whatever, wi-itten or oral, was produced, was, that he had leagued himself 
 with the English government — ' enemy of France ' — to assa.ssinate Bona- 
 parte, and to assist in the invasion of that country by the said government 
 — ' enemy of France.' This phrase varies in the act of accusation from the 
 old style, which used to be, the English government as incarnated in Mr 
 Pitt, ' enemy of the human race^ (ennemi du genre humain). Its general 
 iiiimity had, it seems, become localised. The Duke d'Enghien died in the 
 twelfth year of the Republic, month Ventose — that is, March 1804. 
 
 ' There is only one Frenchman the more !' said Louis XVIII. , when he 
 again found himself at the Tuileries ; and truly, if to place him there had 
 been the object of such gigantic effort and waste of gallant lives, an end 
 less worthy of the means employed could scarcely be conceived. But in 
 truth the replacement of the Bourbons on the throne of France formed no 
 part of the policy of this country in the determined, immitigable war which 
 it waged against Napoleon. The object of the war was pithUy indicated 
 in Lord Eldon's reply when asked what England had gained by the result 
 14 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 of the contest ? ' England has gained,' replied the learned lord, ' aU that 
 she has not lost.' It was not only an enormous indiscretion, therefore, but 
 a puerile vanity in the Bourbons to represent the attack upon France as 
 having been undertaken with no other purpose than to thrust them upon 
 a reluctant people. Then* succession was the incidental consequence of 
 the expulsion of Bonaparte ; but, assuredly, to reinvest them with the 
 sovereignty of France fonned no part of the war-policy of Great Britain. 
 Being there, however, by the grace of circumstances, it behoved them, if 
 they coidd, to maintain their position. Unfortimately, before Louis XVIII. 
 had weU settled himself in the imaccustomed seat. Napoleon retm-ned, 
 and the Bourbons were compelled to set out on their travels once more. 
 Only one member of the family, the Duchess d'Angouleme — the sole 
 man among them, Bonaparte used to say — made any courageous eflfort 
 to withstand the ton-ent which was once more sweeping them into exile. 
 The duchess — a daughter of Louis XVI. — harangued the troops at Bor- 
 deaux, and passionately invoked St Louis, Henri Quatre, and other glories 
 of old France. It would not do : the days of chivalry were gone : no 
 swords leaped from their scabbards in answer to her eloquent appeals, 
 and the royal lady perforce embarked once more for England. But the 
 eagle's flight, audacious as it seemed, was this time feeble and transitory. 
 Waterloo, the grave and monument of the imperial fortimes, was lost and 
 won ; and Louis XVIII., the Coimt d'Ai-tois, the Duke and Duchess 
 d'Angouleme, and the Duke de Berri, were once more in Paris. Louis 
 XVIII. has the reputation — how acquired it would be difficidt to say — of 
 ability, or at least cleverness. At all events he was not quite so unteach- 
 able by experience as other members of his family, as the charter he pro- 
 mulgated (la cliarte octroyee) siifficiently testifies. The representative 
 government established by that celebrated instrument was not so broadly 
 based as might have been wished ; stiU, it was an immense advance from 
 the leaden chains and fetters of the imperial regime, gilded as they might 
 be by the rays of a false and fantastic gloiy. In his foreign policy Louis 
 showed himself to be as selfish and incomgible as any of his race, and 
 anxious rather to promote the power and splendour of his House than the 
 interests, prosperity, and freedom of France. The Spanish people having, 
 as they unquestionably had a right to do, improvised a new constitution, 
 the French ai-mies advanced into the Iberian peninsula in 1822 to the relief 
 of Ferdinand the Beloved, monarch of that coimtry, in whose opinion the 
 new constitution was subversive of many of liis royal Bourbon rights. The 
 invading troops were commanded by the Duke d'Angoideme ; and the hero 
 of the Trocadero, besides emblazoning that great victoiy upon the roU 
 which records the military triumphs of France, had the satisfaction of 
 restoring his absolute crown to the Spanish Bom-bon. This scandalous 
 violation of national independence was defended and excused by the showy 
 periods and shining sophisms of M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, at that 
 time French minister for foreign afiairs. 
 
 Previous to this military exploit two events occurred which alternately 
 depressed with sorrow and elevated with joy the elder Bourbons and their 
 partisans. The Duke de Berri, who married Caroline of Naples, sister to 
 Maria Christina, the present queen-mother of Spain, had taken leave of 
 his wife at the entrance of the Opera-House, which she had just left, and 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people, 
 
 ■was himself returning to his seat, when he was stabbed with a stiletto by a 
 man of the name of Louvel. The unfortunate prince was carried into one 
 of the saloons of the Opera-House, where he soon afterwards expu-ed in 
 great agony. This event occurred on the 14th February 1820. Louvel 
 was secured, and subsequently executed. On the 29th of September in the 
 same year the widow of the murdered prince gave birth to a male child, 
 whose advent into the world w^as hailed with delirious joy by the Royalists, 
 whose exultation took several extravagant forms of expression. Like Louis 
 XIV., the infant was hailed as the especial ' Gift of God ; ' and at the baptis- 
 mal font, in addition to his first name of Henri, he received the appellation 
 of Dieu-Donne. His precise designation, as given by the orthodox Alma- 
 nach de Saxe-Gotha, is Prince Henri-Charles-Ferdinand-Marie-Dieu-Donne 
 d'Artois, Due de Bourdeaux. This event was nearly contempoi-aneous with 
 the death of the ex-emperor at St Helena, and a number of the diplomatic 
 body, in an address to his grandfather, afterwards Charles X., were pleased 
 to style the young Duke of Bordeaux the ' ChUd of Europe ' — inasmuch 
 as he was, in their judgment, a pledge of monarchical stability, and a gua- 
 rantee against any future revolution in France. It will be long apparently 
 before diplomatists cast aside the ti-aditions of their craft which connect 
 the peace and stability of states with the births, marriages, and deaths of 
 princely families. The Royalists recorded their satisfaction in a very 
 substantial and gi-atifying manner : they subscribed to purchase an estate 
 for the infant prince, the name of which has lately supplied him with a 
 convenient title — that of the Count de Chambord. 
 
 Louis XVIII. died in 1824, and was succeeded by his brother Charles 
 X. In the month of July 1830 — after a protracted parliamentary struggle, 
 initiated by the king's appointment of an ultra-royalist ministry, at the 
 head of which was the Prince Polignac — the famous ordinances appeared 
 in the ' Moniteur,' by which the constitution granted by Louis XVIII. was 
 revoked by a stroke of his successor's pen, and a government of pure, 
 kingly loill sought to be established in its stead. After three days' bloody 
 but unavailing struggle in the streets of Paris, Charles X. with his family 
 withdrew, escorted by the troops remaining faithful to him, to Rambouillet. 
 The Parisians followed, and at first appeared anxious to attack him there. 
 The king, to his honour be it said, refused to permit his troops to assault 
 the people ; feeling, doubtless, that no triumph he could achieve in such a 
 combat could permanently win back his crown, and that it was useless to 
 spill more blood in a vain effort. A negotiation ensued, and the de- 
 throned king, who — with the sanction and concurrence of the Duke d'An- 
 gouleme, who declared that he renounced all worldly pomps and dignities 
 at the foot of the cross — had previously abdicated in favour of the 
 Duke de Bordeaux, agreed to leave the country by stated marches in a 
 given direction. He did so, leisurely and slowly. There is an air of 
 dignity in this deliberate departure of the gray, discrowned king, holding 
 his grandson by the hand, supported on the arm of the heroic daughter of 
 Louis XVI., and escorted by his household troops, which contrasts favour- 
 ably with a more recent royal fiight. The young prince, only about 
 ten years of age, it is minutely recorded, was greatly affected by the 
 weight of the shadowy crown thus devolved upon him, shed a flood of tears, 
 and did not dui-ing the entire day partake of any of his ordinary amusc- 
 16 
 
THE BOUEBON FAMILY. 
 
 ments. The captain of the guard received his orders, by the direction of 
 Charles X., from the juvenile and imaginary sovereign, during the remainder 
 of the journey. 
 
 The march was withal a very melancholy one. The contrast between 
 the compelled adulation which had been offered not long before to tlie 
 Duke and Duchess d'AngoulGme, when journeying in royal state through 
 the very portion of France they were now traversing with lingering steps 
 and slow, with the always sullen, and not infrequently openly insulting, 
 aversion manifested by the populace, surprised and saddened the duchess. 
 ' Ah, mon Dieu ! ' she frequently exclaimed ; ' quelle difference ! ' The 
 lesson came too late. 
 
 The ex-king's escort took leave of him at the place of embarkation ; and 
 Charles, with his family and suite, proceeded to England, where he for a 
 short time took up his abode at Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire, spontaneously 
 placed at his disposal by the generous feeling of Mr Weld, an English 
 Catholic gentleman. He did not remain there long, in consequence, it was 
 said, of nervous apprehension lest— Lulwoilh Castle being so near the sea- 
 coast — the youthful heir of France should be seized and spirited away. 
 This morbid anxiety was not relieved, the ' Sherborne Journal ' remarked, 
 by the presence of a police officer, who had been latterly appointed to 
 watch and counteract any project of the sort that might be entertained by 
 the usurping government of France. The dethroned monarch, the Duke de 
 Bordeaux, and suite, next embarked at Poole for Scotland, and proceeded 
 to Edinburgh, where they resided in the palace of Holyrood for nearly 
 two years. While sojourning in this northern capital, the yoimg Duke de 
 Bordeaux was constantly sun-ounded by a body of attendants, who, when- 
 ever he appeared abroad, clustered round him in real or affected dread 
 of a design to assassinate him, charitably attributed to Louis -Philippe, 
 Duke of Orleans, and then possessor of the recently-vacated throne of 
 France, under the title of Louis-Philippe, the first King of the French. 
 
 The life of the remarkable personage who had thus, as it were, picked 
 up the tarnished diadem of France from amidst the dust of the streets of 
 Paris, had before this crowning event been one of considerable vicissitude. 
 Trained in his boyhood by the unreal and sentimental formularies of 
 Madame de Genlis, his youth found him gazing in terrified amazement, 
 and reluctant, half-voluntary admiration at the volcanic outburst of the 
 Revolution. Whether to flee from or attempt to make friends with the 
 prodigy that had sprung up, as it were, from the bowels of the earth, would 
 have puzzled — looking at the magnitude of the stake at issue — wiser heads 
 than his father's or even his own. They both at length resolved to be 
 friends with the monster ; and doffing their coronets, stretched out 
 trembling hands in token of friendship and esteem. Their advances were 
 civilly received. Egalite, as he was self-entitled, entered the Convention, 
 where we have seen him ; the Duke de Chartres obtained a commission in 
 the Republican army, and served with reputation at the cannonade of Valmy 
 and the combat at Jemappes. The death by guillotine of his father warned 
 the future King of the French that the air of France was dangerous to 
 royalty, trick itself out as it might in the trappings of republicanism, 
 and the prince wisely gallopped across the frontier— his only present 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 resources a stout heart, a fair education, and habits of industry. In order 
 to live tUl a supply of money could be obtained, the youthful Duke of 
 Orleans taught mathematics in the college of the Grisons, Switzerland. 
 From thence he was after a time driven by the jealousy of the French 
 Directory. So it is said ; but the probabUity is that he voluntarily discon- 
 tinued teaching the instant he had received remittances from the wealthy 
 and powerful members of his princely family, still seated on the tlirones of 
 Spain and Naples, and otherwise occupying splendid positions in the world. 
 Louis-PhUippe now set off on his much-talked-of travels ; and here we must 
 observe, for the encouragement of the sensitive reader, that there is nothing 
 in the slightest degree alarming or dangerous in the youthful adventui-es of 
 his majesty Louis-Philippe ; and but for the rank of the wandering prince, 
 nothing at aU in them interesting, novel, or exciting. He visited Sweden, 
 Denmark, Norway, looked at the famous Maelstrom, and reached in a 
 northerly direction to within thirteen degrees of the pole. In 1796 
 he crossed over to the United States m company with his two yomiger 
 brothers, and explored it in various directions. He saw and conversed 
 with Washington, and paid a visit to the Duke of Kent at Halifax. He 
 then returned to Em-ope, and took up his abode— a very pleasant one — at 
 Twickenham in England. There is evidently nothing in all this to excite 
 the tear of sensibility. It has, on the contrary, rather an inviting aspect, 
 tempting those who have the means to go and do likewise. While residing 
 in England, the Duke of Orleans sought and obtained an interview with 
 Stamlas-Zavier, Count of Provence, then titular, and afterwards cle facto, 
 Louis XVIII. of France. This prince had taken up his abode at Hartwell, 
 Buckinghamshire, after having been expelled, in consequence of the treaty 
 of TUsit, from the teiTitory of the emperor of all the Eussias, where he had 
 resided at Mittau in Courland. In fact Great Britain was the sole refuge 
 in those days left to persons distasteful to the French Emperor ; and it is a 
 proud boast that this country never, amid the compelled and general sub- 
 serviency of Europe, stooped for an instant from her defiant, unquaUing 
 attitude — 
 
 ' Still, as in olden time. 
 Sheltering within her dreadless arms 
 Exiles of every clime' — 
 
 albeit that she stood alone and amid ruins. A curious and significant 
 anecdote relative to this interview found its way a few days ago into 
 the public prints. The 'London Morning Chronicle' of June 12 pub- 
 lished the following extract from a memorandum purporting to have been 
 written by the late Duke of Buckmgham : — ' When Louis XVIII. was at 
 Stowe, the then Duke of Orleans (Louis -Philippe), whom he had not 
 admitted to his presence since the period of the Revolution, came to Stowe, 
 and saw his uncle for the first time. My father and I were present at the 
 meeting in the library. We, too, stood at the fireplace near the print- 
 room. Louis and his nephew walked up and down the library conversing 
 for some time. At length, just as they came opposite the table near the 
 print-room door, we heard a clatter and noise, and turning round I saw the 
 Duke of Orleans, on his knees before his uncle, seize his liand, and I heard 
 him say, " Ah, mon oncle! I ask pardon of my king, of God, and man, for 
 18 
 
THE BOURBON FAJULY. 
 
 having worn that accursed (maudit) national cockade." Louis XVlllt 
 raised him up saying, " C'est bien mon neveu, c'est bien je te pardonne." 
 I can point to the very spot on the floor -nhcre this happened.' 
 
 Lord Nugent, the brother of the late Duke of Buckingham, viTOte on the 
 following day to the ' Chronicle,' impugning the authenticity of the memo- 
 randum, chiefly on the very questionable ground that Louis XVIIL and 
 the Duke of Orleans could never have addressed each other as uncle 
 and nephew. True ; but it docs not therefore follow that the Duke of 
 Buckingham, while accurately relating the substance of what occurred, 
 might not have committed such a blunder. Lord Nugent, from his own 
 recollection, gives another version of the interview. ' Louis XVllI.,' his 
 lordship says, ' did not walk up and down the library with the Duke of Or- 
 leans ; for at that time Louis was little able, from infirmity and corpulence, 
 to walk farther than from one room to another, and that with diiBculty and 
 rarely. I remember perfectly that when the Duke of Orleans entered the 
 room Louis rose from his chau-, and the Duke of Orleans di-opped on one knee 
 to kiss his hand, in total silence. The king raised him, saying, " Levez 
 vous, mon cousin. Mes maliieurs me font pardonner tout." Although I 
 was in my boyhood when I was a witness to this scene, the whole of it, 
 and especially the words used, remain fixed on my memory; so that T can 
 now speak distinctly to the correctness of the statement I am now making. 
 And Avhat impresses above all on me the conviction that my brother could 
 never have given this memorandum as a true narrative of what passed is, 
 that often, and many years after, in talking over the scene with him, I 
 found that we agreed entu*ely in the contrast we drew between the discre- 
 tion of the Duke of Orleans in saying nothing, and the exceeding bad taste 
 and feeling of Louis X\T;II. in a phrase which unphed that it was his mis- 
 fortimes only that made him forgive his kinsman.' 
 
 There is no very important difference in the two versions. The cold 
 dislike and aversion of Louis XVUI. for the Duke of Orleans is more appa- 
 rent in his lordship's account than in that of the Duke of Buckingham ; 
 but one does not well see how the words ' Mes maUiem-s me font pardonner 
 tout ' could have been addi-essed to a man who did not apologise for some 
 real or supposed offence. Whether the duke really expressed viva voce his 
 hatred of a spnbol which must have been as detestable to himself as to 
 the head of the elder House of Boiu:bon, is of slight moment. It was of 
 course implied, whether spoken or not. At all events, the antipathy con- 
 stantly manifested by Louis XVIIL to the astute chief of the younger 
 branch of Bourbon was not, as his after-conduct very abundantly proved, in 
 the slightest degree modified by this simulated reconciliation. The dis- 
 taste of the unwieldy monarch for his comparatively youtliful kinsman is by 
 Louis-Philippe's friends stigmatised as an imreasonable prejudice ; by the 
 partisans of the elder house it is held to indicate a keen appreciation of 
 character. 
 
 After a not very lengthened abode at Twickenham, the exiled duke 
 removed to ilalta, with the hope of prolonging the life of his surviving 
 brother, who had been attacked by the fatal disease of consumption. This 
 hope frustrated, he proceeded to Sicily, where his sister Adelaide was 
 residmg under the protection of the Neapolitan Bourbons. He there 
 married, on the 25th of November 1809, his amiable consoi-t, Am^lie, 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 daughter of the king of Naples, and thenceforth chiefly resided at Palermo, 
 ■which he did not finally leave till the overtlu'ow of Bonaparte restored him 
 to France, and placed in his possession the vast domains of his family, 
 which, fortunately had not been ' nationalised ' during the Revolution. 
 
 Certain rather important passages in the life of this prince, while resid- 
 ing in Sicily, familiar to few Enghsh readers, have been held by persons 
 not friendly to him to throw a strong and imfavourable light upon his 
 character. The people of Sicily have been long accustomed to look towards 
 Great Britain for ultimate deliverance from the yoke of the Neapolitan 
 Bourbons, always submitted to with profound reluctance. The commercial 
 intercourse between England and Sicily is very considerable ; but the cir- 
 cumstance which has of course chiefly directed the attention of Sicilians 
 anxious or actually struggling for freedom towards this coimtry, is the 
 geogi-aphical fact of Sicily being an island, and its independence and 
 liberation being therefore to be effected by a serious word from the mis- 
 tress of the seas — a consummation which no continental state, however 
 powerful on land, could prevent. Various considerations — chiefly, we 
 fear, selfish ones — have from time to tune induced successive English 
 ministries to favour this disposition of the Sicilian people ; and especially 
 during the terrific struggle with Bonaparte, against whose overwhehnmg 
 power it was found necessary to sharpen every available weapon, was 
 this not very honourable coquetting manifested. The patriotism of the 
 Sicilians was stimulated, at the instance of Lord WiUiam Bentinck, by 
 the promulgation of a constitution, after the approved British pattern of 
 king, lords, and commons. There was of course a vehement struggle 
 between the Absolutists, actively favoured by the court, and the Eeformers, 
 or Constitutionalists. Thanks, however, to the British influence, freely 
 exerted by Lord William Bentinck, and especially to the active enthu- 
 siasm in the national cause of the Duke of Orleans, who from his jDosition 
 was so able to soften or remove difficulties, the popular cause triumphed. 
 The exultation was unbounded, and in the first blush of it, it was proposed 
 to increase the dowry of the Princess Amelie, then Duchess of Orleans, to 
 nearly five times the amount usually bestowed in such cases — namely, from 
 5000 to 24,000 ounces, or 300,000 francs (£12,000) per annum. This 
 enormous revenue from such a people was decreed almost unanimously. 
 There Avere, however, dissentients to this policy amongst the liberal or 
 constitutional party, who expressed themselves with great freedom upon 
 the subject. ' You are the dupes,' they told then* chiefs, ' of a liberalism 
 assumed for the occasion (liberalisme de cu-constance). The Duke of 
 Orleans cares no more for the Sicilian charter than he does for that of 
 China — if the Celestials have one — and has merely simulated devotion to 
 the only party which could effectually help him to the coveted 300,000 
 francs per annum ; and,' they added, ' to expect a Bourbon to be a real 
 friend to liberty and charters is an absurdity.' All this was pronounced 
 to be ungenerous, and calumnious. A change was, however, at hand. Tlie 
 destruction of Napoleon's army in 1813 appearing to render the friendship 
 of Great Britain no longer a question of life or death to the Bourbon ro\al 
 family, the famous Caroline, queen of Naples and Sicily — lier husband was 
 a cipher in the government — directed her energies towards the destruc- 
 tion of the new order of things : a constitution being to her as hateful as 
 20 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 Bonaparte. Tliis is tlic lady who, wliilst lier husband's council was sitting 
 to deliberate upon Nelson's request to be permitted to revietual his fleet iu 
 the Neapolitan ports — which, from apprehension of the vengeance of the 
 French repulilican government, towards whom such an act would be 
 a detiancc, they determined to refuse — gave Lady Hamilton the written 
 order granting the admiral's request, which so nnich i*ejoiced Nelson, and 
 but for which the battle of the Nile could not have been fought. This 
 energetic prmcess, it is said — but we tlimk erroneously, for she had sense 
 and method in her rage — attempted to organise a i)lot for the assassination 
 of the English garrison in Palermo, a sort of second edition of the biciliau 
 vespers, which was discovered and bafHed by the English minister. That 
 which is quite certain is, that by a series of well-got-up popular emeutes, or 
 riots, she effectually put down the constitutional party, and abrogated the 
 charter. As soon as the crisis became imminent, the chiefs of the liberal 
 party natm-ally looked for assistance to the Duke of Orleans. They 
 looked in vain ; for, unfortunately, at that precise moment his royal high- 
 ness determined on a voyage to the Ionian Islands. He embarkecl with his 
 family m a British vessel, and did not return till all was thoroughly over. 
 The comments of the Sicilians upon this inopportune departure were of 
 course angry and vehement, possibly unjust. As to the English ministry 
 — towards whom the Constitutionalists turned in their extremity for help — 
 they also were not just then ' i' the vein.' Lord Castlereagh announced 
 that, albeit the British government wished well to Lord William Bentinck's 
 Constitution, they could not undertake to guarantee or to enforce it. And 
 thus the matter for the time ended. 
 
 The reputation the duke thus acquired, perhaps unmeritedly, for prac- 
 tical sagacity and aptitude for intrigue, did not cause Louis XVIH. to 
 look less coldly upon him. He appears, however, to have given no 
 tangible cause of offence till the birth of the Duke of Bordeaux, which, 
 by destroying his hope of succession to the crown through the failure 
 of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon, elicited an explosion of 
 passion which but too clearly intimated that if his ambition apparently 
 slept, it was not for that the less dangerous and vu-ile. Statements, 
 of which the source was sufficiently obvious, appeared simultaneously in 
 several English and foreign journals, impugning the genuineness of the 
 Duke do Bordeaux's birth, and quite enough transpired to keep alive the 
 jealousy of a less suspicious man than the then king of France. However, 
 the rumours on the subject gradually died away ; and on the accession of 
 Chai'les X. the Duke of Orleans reappeared at court, and maintained with 
 that personally-amiable monarch the most friendly relations up to the day 
 of his detlrronement. The name of the Duke of Orleans soon became, 
 whether with or without his sanction it is perhaps difficult to say positively, 
 the rallying cry of the liberal party ; and when the success of the resist- 
 ance offered to Charles's despotic measures was assured and complete, the 
 leaders of that party turned their regards instinctively and simultaneously 
 towards his royal higlmess. The duke was first appointed lieutenant- 
 general of the kingdom ; and a day or two afterwards he was called to the 
 throne, under paper conditions, which Lafayette and others told the people 
 would assure to them the best of all possible governments — namely, 'a 
 monarchy surrounded by republican institutions.' 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The only active repugnance manifested in any part of France to the 
 new authority was by a portion of La Vendee, and that was so speedily 
 and thoroughly pacined with fire and sword by General Lamarque, that 
 when the Duchess de Berri, entering some time afterwards that pro^^nce 
 in disguise, endeavoured to excite the peasantry to rise in favour of her 
 son, she found them not at all disposed to renew a quarrel in which 
 at all events they could be no gainers. The romantic enterprise of the 
 duchess, as it was called — mad, or foolish, would be a better term — 
 faUed egregiously ; and M. Thiers pmxhased the secret of the weak 
 lady's retreat from a Jew, to whom it had been intrusted. Louis - 
 Philijjpe locked up his royal kinswoman in the castle of Blaye, and 
 General Bugeaud condescended to be her jaUor. There she was kept 
 tUl her frailty, concealable no longer, was confessed, and pubHshed by 
 the king to the whole world. The duchess stated that she had been 
 privately married to Count Luchessi Palli ; and after such newspaper 
 publicity had been given to the affau* as to obliterate utterly any senti- 
 ment of chivalrous compassion which the struggle of a brave mother for 
 what she believed the right of her son might have naturally produced, 
 the duchess was sent home to her husband. Policy, we suppose, justi- 
 fies such acts as these in the ruler of a state ; but apart from policy a 
 more ungenerous proceeding can scarcely be imagmed. 
 
 The government of Louis-Philippe gradually acquired by its continued 
 success in keeping down domestic faction, and maintaining the friendly 
 relations of France with foreign powers, a high reputation for wisdom and 
 firmness. The peace of Europe was supposed to be in the French king's 
 hands ; and men congratulated themselves that so vast and important a 
 trust should be gi-asped by a monarch at once so able and so honest. 
 The resources of France by the mei-e force of its mternal and external 
 tranquiUity i-apidly developed themselves, and the enterprise of the French 
 people appeared to be at length dhected to worthier and higher objects than 
 triumphs, ruinoiis alike to the victor and the vanquished, in fields of strife. 
 The epithets of ' Nestor,' ' Ulysses,' and other flattering designations, were 
 liberally bestowed on the citizen-king by persons who, now that events 
 have pronounced against their once much-extolled hero, seem disposed to 
 deny him the possession of a fair average of common sense and judgment. 
 It is useless complainmg of this fickleness of opinion, for the world always 
 has judged, and probably ever will judge, of ability by its apparent success ; 
 and it would be perhaps impossible to supply a better general test, albeit 
 the exceptions to the rule are numerous and strikmg. That Louis-PhUippe 
 was an astute, sagacious ruler, it would be absurd to deny, but his saga- 
 city unfortunately was of that order which in certain lights and circum- 
 stances looks very like cunning. His majesty was skUled in diplomatic 
 craft ; and it became notorious that the ostensible agents of his govern- 
 ment were thwarted at foreign com-ts by persons who held then* mission 
 du-ectly from the king. Louis -Philippe aspired to govern as well as 
 reign ; and, much woi-se than that, he was determined — we have the 
 Prince de JomviUe's word for it — that everybody should know and feel 
 that he personally governed. This is a very dangerous coui'se for a 
 constitutional monarch to pursue, for it concentrates on his cmi head 
 all the griefs, disappointments, and resentments, which would else dis- 
 22 ' 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 charge themselves upon tlic ostensible and I'esponsible government. A 
 sovereign must ever exercise immense influence on the action of the 
 executive ; but tlie less that influence is flaunted in the eyes of tho 
 nation, the better for the peace and security of the monarch. It began 
 also to be hinted that his majesty of France was much too clever; and 
 such an adept, moreover, at the game of mystification, that the real 
 policy of his government could in nowise be i^rcdicated from its expressed 
 intentions. This feeling, shared by the representatives of all the gi-eat 
 powers, led to the apparently rude exclusion of France from all participa- 
 tion in the forcible settlement of the Turco-Egyptian question — an exclu- 
 sion wiiich she so fiercely resented, and whicli at one time seemed likely to 
 pliuige Europe into a general war. M. Guizot, who was the ambassador of 
 France at the English court at the time, declared afterwards in the Chamber 
 of Deputies that nobody believed one word he said as to the intentions of 
 the government he represented — gave no credit whatever to any assurance 
 he offered in its name. ' They heard me with politeness,' said M. Guizot ; 
 ' smiled, bowed, uttered words of course in acknowledgment, but I saw I 
 was not believed.' This general impression could only have been pro- 
 duced by a course of policy which, however clever it might seem, was 
 certainly not wise. In affairs of state, as in ordinary life, a frank and 
 simple honesty is of mfinitely more worth than all the craft in the uni- 
 verse. Nevertheless, the throne of Louis-Philippe continued up to the 
 moment of its fall to exhibit many of the external marks of firamess and 
 durability. The suddenness, the completeness of that faU shook conti- 
 nental Europe to its centre ; and the scorched and blackened soil still 
 heaves and trembles with the shock. It has since become the fashion to 
 assert and repeat that the government of the French kmg was overturned 
 by a ' surprise ' — that if men could have had time to recover from the 
 unaccoimtable panic with which they were seized, all would have been well. 
 It will not be difiicult to show that this view of the matter is anything but 
 an exact or correct one. But previous to doing so, we must reciu* for a 
 brief space to the Spanish Boiu'bons. 
 
 The descendants of Hugh Capet have not proved an unalloyed blessing 
 to the people of Spain any more than to the people of France. There have 
 been drawbacks in both countries. Ferdmand VII., remarkable for skiU 
 in petticoat embroidery, if for nothing else, married Maria Christina, sister 
 to the present king of Naples, and of the Duchess de Berri. This lady, by 
 her beauty and blandishments, prevailed on her royal husband, to whom she 
 had borne two children, both females, to annul the Salique law, which pre- 
 vailed in Spain as in France, and to bequeath his sceptre to his eldest 
 daughter Isabella, and failing her, to her sister Dona Luisa the Infanta. 
 This was done ; and the ancient Cortes of the kingdom were summoned 
 to recognise and swear fealty to the heiress of the throne. By the same 
 instrument Maria Christma was appointed governing queen, or regent, m 
 the event of Ferdinand dying before Isabella had attained her majority. 
 The Cortes, a merely cei'emonial body, possessing no deliberative fimctions 
 whatever, gave a formal assent to the arrangement ; and on the death of 
 her husband Queen Christina assumed the direction of the govei'ument, 
 which she successfully held— with the exception of the brief interval when 
 
 2^ 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Espartero's star was in tlie ascendant — till her daughter, Isabella 11., 
 ascended the throne ; and even to this day Christina, it is well understood, 
 is the virtual sovereign of Spain. At the death of Ferdinand the queen- 
 regent announced through her minister M. Zea Bermudez, that there 
 would be no change in the form of government, and only such admini- 
 strative reforms as prudence, enlightened by experience, called for and 
 justified. 
 
 Christina in thus acting was only attempting to carry out the policy 
 recommended and enforced by her deceased husband, all the more willingly, 
 no doubt, that it was agreeable to her own keen sense and love of power ; 
 a quality which both she and her sisters appear to have inherited in 
 unmitigated virulence from their mother. That paternal sovereign, in the 
 swilled msolence of his despotic sway, had replied to the manifestations of 
 feeling in some parts of Spam, excited by the success of the French people 
 against Charles X., by a decree or proclamation of sheer, michangeable 
 absolutism. In this instrument, the arrogant monarch assured his vassals 
 — his vassals, not subjects — that no change should ever take place in the 
 legal form of the Spanish government, nor any chamber or similar institu- 
 tion, under whatever denomination, be permitted to be established ! This 
 pleasant assurance given, ' he was pleased to inform all the vassals of his 
 dominions that he would treat them according to their deserts, putting in 
 force the laws against those who infringed them, and protecting those who 
 observed them.' So glibly did this Bourbon king babble of the omnipo- 
 tence of a sceptre just departing from hun, of the stability of an absolute 
 throne mined in all directions beneath his tottering feet ! 
 
 The pretensions of Don Carlos, the late king's nephew, who, by the 
 Salique law of succession, was the rightful heir of the crown, soon com- 
 pelled Christma to fortify her daughter's title with somethmg of more 
 potent validity than the will of Ferdinand. A 'royal statute,' di-awn up 
 by M. Martinez de la Eosa, was promulgated, by which two deliberative 
 chambers were constituted — one hereditary, consisting of the peers of the 
 kingdom ; the other composed of deputies elected by the people. In the 
 meantime Don Carlos, though hotly pursued by Christuia's troops, had 
 escaped in a British ship of war — the sure refuge of all political fugitives, 
 whether fleeing from the tender mercies of mobs or monarchs — and landed 
 safely in England. His banner had been triumphantly uplifted in the 
 north of Spain by the famous Zumalacarreguy, and such progress did his 
 partisans make, that Don Carlos withdrew quietly from England, and in 
 company with the Baron de los Vallos passed through France safely in dis- 
 guise, and jomed his adherents. The queen-regent now found that she 
 needed more efficient assistance to make effectual head against the Carlists 
 — who were secretly but actively supported by the absolutist powers of 
 Europe — than the liberals of Spain could render, who, though an intelligent, 
 and, in the cities, influential body of men, are much less numerous than 
 might be wished. Negotiations with France and England were commenced, 
 and the result was the treaty of Quadruple Alliance, whereby France, 
 England, Spam, and Portugal, boimd themselves to each other to secure 
 the throne of Spain to the female line of the Spanish Boui-bons, to the 
 exclusion of Don Carlos and his heirs ; and that of Portugal to the female 
 line of the House of Braganza, to the exclusion of Don Miguel and his 
 24 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 successors. The ultimate result of this alliance was the overthrow of Don 
 Carlos, who escaped from Spain only to be made prisoner by his cousin 
 the French king. He subsequently resigned his pretensions to his son. 
 a younger Carlos, now called the Count de jNIontemolin ; and he, as well 
 as Don Miguel, is now located, we hope comfortably, in this island of 
 refuge for all distressed notabilities. During the temporary ascendancy 
 of Espartero as regent of Spain, Christina took refuge in Paris, and was 
 courteously and respectfully received by the King of the French ; a dis- 
 tinction by no means entirely due to her Bourbon blood. Her children, 
 over Avhom she was known to have, and naturally, unbounded influence, 
 were still the queen and Infanta of Spain, and Louis-PhUippe was far too 
 shrewd a personage to neglect showing civilities to a lady with whom the 
 choice of husbands for those interesting young persons would be sm-e to 
 rest. Christina was far from abandoning the struggle for power as hopeless. 
 She published a long manifesto to the Spanish people, in which she ex- 
 pressed a very decided opinion upon her own merits, and verj- liberally 
 rebuked the scandalous ingratitude with which traitors and incendiaries 
 had treated so 'just and clement a queen,' and hinted that she should soon 
 be recalled by acclamation. No one seems to have better read and under- 
 stood the Spanish character than this princess. The power of Espartero 
 melted away like snow before a summer's sun, and he owed it to the speed 
 of his horse that he got safe on board a British ship of war at Cadiz. 
 The retmTi of Christina to Madrid was a prolonged triiunph. A ciu-ious 
 coincidence occun-ed on her entry into the capital. She was seated 
 beside her two daughters, who had been to meet her as far as Ai-an- 
 juez, when a funeral procession was seen to traverse the street at some 
 distance, and for a moment checked the progress of the triumphal 
 cortege. It was that of Ai-gueUes, the ' divine ArgueUes,' as the Liberals 
 of Spain called him for his eloquence. He had been one of the queen- 
 regent's most earnest opponents, and he held mider Espartero's govern- 
 ment the official guardianship of the royal children. His death was said 
 to have been hastened by gi-ief for the apprehended do-uTifall of the 
 constitutional cause, which, latterly, he had identified with Espartero. 
 Christina, stooping foi^wards, inquu-ed of one of the escort whose funeral 
 it was. She was informed, and her hasty injunction to the officer, as the 
 name struck her ear, is not only a eulogy on ArgueUes, but a sufficient 
 answer to the calumnies which imputed to Espartero and his subordinates a 
 harsh and overbearing demeanour towards the yoimg queen and her sister. 
 ' Hush ! ' said the queen-mother; ' speak lower: the children loved him.' 
 
 The Spanish government became in some degree consolidated, and it was 
 at length time to seek fitting matrimonial alliances for the youthful Queen 
 and Infanta of Spain. It is needless to weary the reader by a repetition of 
 the details of the intrigue which led to the much-talked-of Spanish mar- 
 riages. The broad and salient facts of the case are these: Louis-Philippe 
 and his minister Guizot agreed with Queen Victoria and Lord Aberdeen 
 on the occasion of her Majesty's visit at Eu, that no attempt should be 
 made to unite M. de Montpensier, Louis-Philippe's youngest son, with the 
 Infanta of Spain, not only till after her sister's marriage, but till there 
 appeared a prospect at least of a du-ect heir to the throne. This pei'sonal 
 promise was broken : of this there can be no doubt after the perusal of the 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 excusatory letter addressed by Louis-Philippe to the Queen of England, a 
 copy of which was found amongst the ex-king's papers, and published by 
 the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Isabella II. was 
 married to her cousin, Don Francisco de Assis, at the same time that M. 
 de Montpensier espoused her sister the Infanta. M. Guizot hunself, whose 
 general honour and integrity are unquestioned and unquestionable, does 
 not appear in a very advantageous light in this transaction. Pei'haps, as 
 he boasted the Spanish match to be the greatest thing France had for 
 years effected by her unaided resources, the magnitude and splendour of 
 the object to be gained dazzled and bewildered for a moment his perceptions 
 of rectitude and honour. Any person knowing how celebrated M. Guizot 
 is or has been as a philosophic historian, will scarcely believe his eyes as 
 he reads that gentleman's triumphant gi-atulations on M. de Montpensier's 
 nuptials. He must class them in charity with the many ' foUies of the wise' 
 which at various times have startled and amused the world. The natural 
 desii'e of a father to connect his son advantageously pleads strongly in 
 extenuation of the conduct of Louis-Philippe. The Infanta is said to be a 
 very amiable and charming person, and her dowry, moreover, amounted to 
 the magnificent sum of two millions of francs. This lady -has already 
 bome an heiress to the united honom-s of the French and Spanish Bour- 
 bons ; and happily for the peace of mind of Lord Palmerston, Isabella is, it 
 appears, likely to provide a dhect successor to the throne. 
 
 Thus much for the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon. Its off- 
 shoot in Naples appears to be in a state of great contentment since the 
 suppression of the insurrection in Sicily, and the restoration of government 
 by executions there. King Ferdinand, Christina of Spain's brother, is, by 
 virtue of the loyal devotion of his affectionate lazzaroni, as absolute a 
 monarch as heart could wish, although he has not as yet, we are informed, 
 put the paper constitution in the fire which the Paris insurrection of 1848 
 induced him to sign rather hastily. These twigs disposed of, we retm-n to 
 the mightier lunb of the family tree in Paris. 
 
 The jubilations on the royal marriages over, and the snubbing of Great 
 Britain as complete as could be desired, the French people suddenly found 
 leisure to bethink themselves that a great government like thehs might turn 
 its energies to better purposes than the adroit management of court mtrigues : 
 might, for instance, endeavour to devise means for safely, and in a really 
 conservative spirit, widening the basis upon which the institutions of the 
 country, so constantly and vehemently assailed, rested ; might, furthermore, 
 contrive to at least equalise the national expenditure and receipts, instead 
 of contracting loan upon loan to make up for the annual deficit, and this in 
 a time of profound peace and a greatly-increased revenue ! Means, too, of 
 extending the commerce of France with foreign nations, so contemptible in 
 extent for a nation so rich in resources of natural wealth, industry, and 
 skill, might surely be attempted by a really able and patriotic government. 
 These aspirations — it seems to us quite reasonable ones — ^were very mo- 
 derately expressed. Progi-ess was prayed for — progress in the right 
 du-ection — not headlong haste and change. To all these representations 
 and prayers Louis-Philippe and M. Guizot remained obstinately deaf, blind, 
 BUent. The actual electors for aU France amounted to only about 80,000 
 26 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 persons; and the means in the hands of government of corrupting a majority 
 of these were, it was urged, so enormous as to be utterly destructive of the 
 principle of representation. Would the minister promise to take the sub- 
 ject into consideration? M. Guizot gave no sign, would make no promise! 
 And herein we perceive the radical defect of this gentleman's character as 
 a statesman. He is essentially a theorist, or rather, if we may use the 
 phrase without offence — a system-monger. He studies, an-anges, accepts a 
 theory of legahty, which, the premises admitted, is logically unassailable ; 
 and by that theory he will abide unswervingly to the death ! That highest, 
 most diiiicult art of government, which consists in knowing when and how 
 to yield, M. Guizot never studied, or at all events has never learned. 
 Probably he does not rank ' yielding' as an art; beheves it, we daresay, 
 to be a weakness, and nought else. He has also a remarkable theory upon 
 the English revolutions of 1640-88, which, as he is not likely to be a 
 minister of this country, is not of much mterest to us, except as an 
 illustration of logical fallacy. M. Guizot appears not to have understood 
 the character of his own coimtrymen any better than he does that of ours. 
 The slightest yielding, the mei"est mmimum of reform, would have satisfied 
 the enlightened, moderate — moderate because enlightened — citizens of 
 France. These are the natm-al supports of a constitutional throne, and to 
 indispose them towards the government is simply to place that government 
 at the mercy of the tu'st accident which may cross its path. M. Guizot 
 and the king did by then- unreasoning ob&im&cj— firmness they called it — 
 alienate and indispose the natural supporters of the government ; and the 
 cry against it increased daily in energy and wrath : it was a government of 
 corruption men said. A minister, M. Teste, it was proved, had received 
 an enormous bribe to prostitute the powers of his otfice in favom* of the 
 briber ; and a gi-owmg suspicion that corruption, rottenness, was at the heart 
 of the administration, pervaded almost all classes of men. Then the 
 dreadful tragedy of the Prasliu family revived in the public mind the 
 French instmct of disHke to a titled noblesse. It was a time of un- 
 quiet, suspicion, imeasiness. Still a word of concession, of conciliation, 
 would, it is plain, have saved the government ; but that word the govern- 
 ment would not speak. Its attitude was silent, cahn, observant — the cahn, 
 silent observance of resolute contempt which has counted its bayonets, and 
 knows — or thinks it knows — how gi-eatly it may dare with perfect safety ; 
 an attitude and expression the most uTitating that can be imagined to a 
 high-spu-ited, sensitive people like the French. The king and ministry 
 believed the proposed Paris Reforai Banquet to be illegal, though the law 
 was admittedly doubtful ; and the men of system prohibited it — Europe 
 feels and knows with what result. And now, forsooth, the Orleans 
 dpiasty was overtm-ned by a ' sm-prise !' Call it so if you wUl ; but at the 
 same time you must admit that all the obstacles to the success of such a 
 surprise had been perseveringly, obstinately cast aside by the king and his 
 ministers; and that conceded, as it must be, the ' surprise' appears marvel- 
 lously to resemble a natm-al consequence ! No ; spite of all the special 
 pleading that has been wasted upon the subject, this much is certain, that 
 histox-y will not acquit M. Guizot and Louis-Philippe of the charge of 
 having rendered the Revolution of 1848 not only possible, but com- 
 paratively easy of accomplishment. 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 The personal conduct of the men of the House of Orleans who were in 
 Paris at the outbreak was not of a very heroic character. Of the hasty- 
 flight of the aged king Ave will only say tliat all testimonies agree that 
 Queen Amelie displayed a dignity and self-possession which her husband's 
 example did not call forth. M. de Montpensier was, we believe, at Vin- 
 cennes when the tumult began; but at aU events he did not abandon the 
 Infanta: they escaped together. M. and Madame de Nemours saved 
 themselves each in the best possible manner, and were fortunately reunited 
 in England. The widowed Duchess of Orleans appears alone to have 
 displayed the heroic qualities supposed to be hereditary in illustrious 
 families. Her appearance, holding her son by the hand in the Chamber 
 of Deputies, amidst all that hideous uproar and commotion, standing un- 
 blenched there whilst ruffians levelled muskets at her — turned aside by 
 French gentlemen, some of them of the humblest class — was a touch- 
 ing spectacle. It is wonderful how Lamartine, a poet, could, in the pre- 
 sence of that woman and child — weakness, innocence, and gi-ace m their 
 most affecting forms — have given his potential voice for a republic. 
 
 The Prince de JoinviUe and the Duke d'Aumale were m Algeria. Many 
 persons believe that had they been present the insurrection would have 
 had another issue. However that might have been, it is certam that the 
 numerous and popular family of Louis-Philippe were always regarded as 
 the most efficient safeguards of his throne. His eldest son, the Duke of 
 Orleans, who married a Princess of IMecklenburg-Schwerin, was, from 
 his engaging and popular qualities, an especial favourite with the nation. 
 Unfortunately a fatal accident terminated his life on the 13th July 
 1842. This much-lamented prince was returning from Neuilly, when 
 the horses of his carriage took fright, and he, in a momentary panic, 
 attempting to jump out, his foot caught either in his sword or his cloak, 
 and he fell on his forehead in the road. Congestion of the bram re- 
 sulted, and his death soon after. Two sons had been born to hun — 
 the first on the 24th of August 1838, whom Louis-Philippe created Count 
 of Paris, reviving a pristine title of the family for the especial gi-ati- 
 fication of the Parisians. The second son, born in 1840, was created 
 Duke of Chartres. They reside with their mother, the widowed duchess, 
 to whom the French National Assembly have recently restored tlie 
 revenue, with its arrears, apportioned to her by marriage settlement. 
 Louis-Philippe and the Due d'Aumale, we may also here mention, are 
 again in the enjoyment of their vast properties. The Duke de Nemours, 
 the second son of the King of the French, and the proposed future 
 regent, should his majesty have died before the Count of Paris attained 
 his majoi'ity, was perhaps the least popular of all the king's sons. He 
 married a daughter of the Duke of Saxe - Gotha, a cousin of Pruice 
 Albert, the consort of the Queen of England. Tlie Prince de Joinville, 
 admiral of the French navy, was a great favourite of all classes of the 
 people. He is said to be an expert seaman, though one must suppose 
 that the extreme deafness Avith Avhich he is afflicted cannot but greatly 
 impair his efficiency as a naval commander. His name a fcAV years since 
 acquired considerable notoriety in England in consequence of his pamjihlet 
 on the French Navy ('Brochure sur la Marine '), Avhich was strangely repre- 
 sented by a portion of the English press, that certainly could not have 
 28 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 read it, as a glorification of the French war-na\y at the expense of that of 
 Great Britain, and an incitement to the Frcncli government to use their sea- 
 force to burn the towns and villages on the English coasts. There could 
 not be a more preposterous misrepresentation. The aim of the pamphlet 
 was evidently to arouse the attention of the naval autliorities of France to 
 what De Joinville asserted to be the utter incapability of the French 
 maruie to contend, upon anything like equal terms, -vvith that of Great 
 Britain or of any other great maritime power. It should be read as a cor- 
 rective of the Jeremiads published on our side of the water upon the 
 ■weakness and inefiiciency of the British navy. There is not a line in the 
 brochure inciting to ill-will towards the British people, or, fairly taken 
 with the context, provocative of jealous or angry feeling. De Joinville is 
 married to a princess of Brazil, sister to the queen of Portugal ; the Duke 
 d'Aumale, who has succeeded to the estates of the now extmct Conde 
 branch of the Bourbons, married a daughter of the Sicilian Prince of 
 Salerno ; the youngest son, M. de Montpensier, as we have already stated, 
 is the husband of the Infanta of Spam. All these marriages have been 
 fruitful in progeny, so that should France ever decree the restoration of 
 the House of Orleans, there will be no lack of heirs to avaQ themselves of 
 the invitation. Tlie two surviving daughters of Louis-Philip23e are mar- 
 ried — one to the king of the Belgians ; the other to Augustus, Prince of 
 Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Madame Adelaide, Louis -Philippe's tenderly- 
 beloved and attached sister, whose coimsels he is said to have greatly 
 deferred to, died not long before the catastrophe of 1848. 
 
 The extinction of the celebrated line of Conde in the year 1830, by the 
 death, without surviving issue, of Louis, Henry, Joseph de Bourbon and 
 Prince de Conde, must not be omitted in this brief glance at the history 
 of the Bourbon race. He committed suicide at the Castle of St Leu, by 
 hanging himself with his handkerchief in his bedi'oom on the 27th of 
 August 1830, being then seventy-five years of age. There have been 
 various causes assigned for the insanity which prompted the dreadful 
 act. The prevalent opinion is, that his mind, never a very strong one, 
 was harassed by the conflicting claims to his allegiance of the elder and 
 junior branches of the Bourbons — whether he should swear fealty to the 
 monarch de facto, Louis-Philippe, or follow the king, de jure, according to 
 orthodox legitimacy, into exile. Incapable of deciding, he hanged himself. 
 More than half a century before his death — in 1776 — this prince fought a 
 duel with the very Charles X. who had just been driven from the throne ; 
 and as an illustration of the princely manners of the time, it may be as 
 well to subjoin an account of it. Charles, then Count D'Artois, was walk- 
 ing with a lady, both being masked. The Duchess of Bourbon, desirous, 
 doubtless, of ascertaining the coimt's identity, pulled his mask by the 
 beard ; the strings broke, and he was discovered. Enraged at this, the 
 Count d'Artois seized the duchess's mask, and broke it. The Duke of 
 Bom-bon, it appears, thought that the sex of the duchess ought to have 
 shielded her from retaliation, and challenged the count to mortal combat. 
 The combatants met in the Bois de Boulogne, where they fouglit with 
 swords, till the Chevalier de Cru-';sal, imagining that the count's sword 
 passed under the ai-m of the duke, and that he was therefore wounded, 
 Stopped the light; and the rsdoulitable knights, the honour of each of 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 them as free from wound or scratch as his body, left the groimd. The 
 will of the Duke of Bom-bon testiiied to a weakness or aberration of intel- 
 lect quite sufficient to account for his unhappy death. An Englishwoman, 
 Sophia Dawes, once a bar-maid, but created Baroness de Feucheres, was 
 living with him at the tune of his death. To her he bequeathed 2,000,000 
 francs in money, and for life the chateau and park of Saint-Leu ; the 
 chateau and estate of Boisny with all then* dependencies ; the forest of 
 Montmorency and dependencies ; the chateau and estate of Morfontaine 
 and dependencies ; the PaviUon occupied by her and her servants at the 
 Palais-Bourbon, as weU as its dependencies ; the furniture of said Pavilion, 
 and the horses and carriages appertaining to the lady's estabhshment — all 
 free from costs or expenses chargeable upon bequeathed property. The 
 residuary legatee was the Duke d'Aumale. After some litigation, an 
 arrangement was effected with Mrs Sophia Dawes, and the Duo d'Aumale 
 now possesses the vast property. 
 
 Thus briefly, and, as we believe, faithfully, have we traced the rise, pro- 
 gress, and present condition of this remarkable famdy, which, it wiU have 
 been observed, even in its present condition of comparative humility, still, 
 in addition to enormous wealth, reckons crowns and coronets in considerable 
 number divided among its members. 
 
 The dethroned monarch of the elder Bourbons, Charles X., has long 
 since passed to his account ; the Duke d'Angouleme has followed him ; 
 but the duchess, the widowed daughter of Louis XVI., stiU lingers in her 
 earthly pilgrimage. She awaits her summons from this, to her doleful and 
 unintelligible world at Froshdrof in Germany, where she dwells in strictest 
 retirement. Early on the morning of each anniversary of her parents' 
 execution this daughter of sorrows secludes herself in a chamber hung 
 round with the insignia of death ; and with the black silk vest in which 
 Louis died, and other relics of the mai-tyred king and queen before her, 
 remains in solitary prayer and meditation till the midnight chimes announce 
 that another anniversary of a fatal day has passed into eternity. 
 
 The Duke de Bordeaux, Count de Chambord, or whatever title may 
 please him best, is now the cynosure of the legitimate eyes of France. 
 This young prince, who is said to be very amiable and intelligent, married 
 in 1846 a daughter of the late Duke of Modena. The lady was possessed 
 of what is considered on the continent an immense fortime ; but the union 
 has not yet produced any possible successor to the regal honours of the 
 elder line of Bourbon. The Duke de Bordeaux, nursed as he has been in 
 the illusions of legitimacy, as it is very incorrectly termed, naturally regards 
 all that is now passing in France as the phantasmagoria of a wild, but, as 
 he trusts, passing hallucination, to be succeeded at no distant day by the 
 solid reality of a Henry V., Dei gratia^ et cetera. The Duke of Bordeaux 
 has a sister a year older than himself, who is now the wife of the reigning 
 Duke of Parma. She left j^leasing impressions of her beauty and affability 
 among many of the inhabitants of the Canongate, Edinburgh, when she 
 resided thei"e during the sojourn of the royal exiles at Holyrood. 
 
 Tlie Bourbons shine in exile. Men differ as to the character and merits 
 of King Louis-Philippe, but not the slightest diversity of opinion exists 
 as to the amiability of disposition and dignified propriety of conduct 
 30 
 
THE BOURBON FAMILY. 
 
 exhibited by the Comte de Neuilly and the distinguished family who now 
 chiefly reside at Chiremont. May the count — spite of the sinister fore- 
 bodings for some time rife in the public ear — and his venerable consort 
 yet live many happy, useful years, each as it flits diminishing their natural 
 regrets for the loss of a crown ! Theu- family cannot, we think, fail to read 
 a lesson in what they witness here which, rightly pondered and laid to 
 heart, will perhaps — for the unrolled scroll of futurity may have characters 
 little now dreamed of engi-aved upon it — prove hereafter of inestimable 
 service to them, or to some one among them. It is this : ' That the safety 
 of a throne consists not in the multitude of its armed and disciplined guards, 
 nor in the astute devices of kingcraft, but in so reigning that no man shall 
 feel a wish, a desii-e, to pull down or assail a crown which presents only 
 towards the people an aspect of sympathy, kindness, and respect.' 
 
 It may be perhaps expected that we should offer an opinion upon the 
 struggle still going on in France between the parties into which that great 
 coimtry is divided ; and as to whether the Bourbons, and which branch 
 of them, have, as we read the future, a chance of regaining authority over 
 the French nation. We confess our utter inability to reply satisfactorily 
 to questions so interesting. We do not profess prophecy ; and in place 
 of an unavailing attempt at prediction, beg to present the reader with an 
 anecdote of fact, related by a French writer, Paul Louis Courier, Ancien 
 Canonier a Cheval et Vigneron, as an illustration of the only infallible 
 mode of acquiring a reputation for soimd judgment in French politics ; 
 premising only that, not having the book at hand, we quote from 
 memory : — 
 
 ' There was a village,' says Courier, ' in the wine districts of France, 
 which, lying quite out of the high road of the great world, its inhabitants 
 only came into contact with any considerable portions of it upon great 
 occasions, and these were fortunately rare. These simple people had been 
 accustomed, at all public displays where they chanced to tind themselves, 
 to shout " Vive le Roi ! " It was an old respectable tradition this " Vive 
 le Eoi ! " of which these quiet folk did not profess to penetrate the iimer 
 meaning, if it had one. Enough for them that their fathers and fathers' 
 fathers shouted as they shouted " Vive le Roi !" Well, it happened that all 
 at once my country friends found themselves very roughly compelled to drop 
 " Vive le Roi !" at a moment's warning, and to commence learning quite a 
 new creed — " Vive la Republique, une et indivisible ! " This was difficult, 
 for the phi-ase was long, and our primitive friends were no scholars. Still, 
 being very docile, they set to work with a good heart, and were getting on 
 very well, when — hake ! — they were aU wrong. They should, if they were 
 honest citizens and good Frenchmen, cry " Vive le Premier Consul !" All 
 this, you may depend upon it, was very perplexing ; and I doubt if they ever 
 quite understood the " Consul," which was, they were informed in strictness, 
 " one and tripartite ;" a depth of mystery of which they did not attempt to 
 skim the surface, much less to fathom the bottom. They were, however, 
 beginning to get used even to consul, when another, and this time very per- 
 emptory injunction was issued, commanding all men to repeat, at all possible 
 opportunities, the only orthodox confession of faith — namely, " Vive I'Em- 
 pereur!" It was a long time before my friends, who, I confess, are rather 
 slow — no wonder, poor fellows ! living so far as they do fi-om the capital 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of civilisation — it was a long time, I say, before my friends got thoroughly 
 broken into the new refrain; but it was accomplished at last, and charm- 
 ingly they gave it, as if not the voice alone but the heart shouted ! Well, 
 this went on admirably, till one fine day a party of them had been to 
 market, and being a little merry, roared out " Vive I'Empereur !" as they 
 passed some gendarmes, with more than usual gusto and effect ; and, to 
 their unspeakable disgust, got knocked on the mazzard, and di-agged to 
 jail for uttering seditious cries! It was "Vive le Roi," they were informed, 
 that aU respectable people who wished to avoid jails and gendarmes gave 
 joyous utterance to ! That same night a council of the old men was called, 
 and after mature deliberation it was resolved, that " Seeing the extreme diffi- 
 culty of knowing at what precise time either Vive ie Roi, Vive la Repub- 
 lique, Vive I'Empereur, or Vive anything else, was quite appropriate 
 (convenable), it would be advisable, till further notice, to abstain from 
 shouting at all." This decision gave gi-eat satisfaction ; and being rigorously 
 acted upon, acquired for the villagers,' says Courier, ' an unmense reputa- 
 tion for solid sense and sound discernment, so that it was likely their 
 example would soon be very generally followed.' 
 
 But whatever may be the form of government in France, whether Bour- 
 bonic, Bonapartist, Imperial, Royal, or Republican, we can answer for it 
 that the people of this comitry wish their French neighbours God-speed in 
 their endeavours to establish an enlightened, stable, and progi'essive system 
 of polity. Both nations have too much earnest work calling, upon tre- 
 mendous penalties, for immediate performance, to waste then" tune for ever 
 in devising modes of government. That France, under whatever rule she 
 may choose for herself, may enter earnestly and successfully upon the great 
 domestic task lying before her — as before all other nations — must be the 
 desu-e of all sensible Englishmen. A selfish aspiration after all ; for it is 
 impossible for England or France to be peaceful and prosperous without 
 theii- neighbours participating in a more or less degree in that peace and 
 prosperity. 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 SOME doubt has been allowed to rest upon both the date and place 
 of the bu-th of this illustrious man ; but after some rigorous 
 investigations, it appears tolei'ably certain, that he was born in Merrion 
 Square, Dublin, on the 29th of April 1769. His father. Garret, Earl 
 of Mornington, was noted as an amateur in musical composition, and 
 some glees by him are still much admired. The mother was Anne, 
 eldest daughter of Arthur Viscount Dungannon. The Wellesleys, or, 
 as they long entitled themselves, Wesleys, had been eminent in Ireland 
 from the time of the first invasion under Henry II., whom their progenitor 
 served as standard-bearer. But the family of the Duke of "Wellington 
 had only assumed this uame on succeeding to the property of Garret 
 Wesley of Dangan, who had married a collateral relation of the subject 
 of this memoir. The original family name was Colley or Cowley, and 
 the paternal ancestor of the illustrious Duke had come into Ireland as 
 a lawyer in the reign of Henry VIII. Richard Colley, Esq., originally 
 proprietor of Castle-Carbery, a moderate estate in King's County, and 
 afterwards, by bequest, of the estate of the Wesleys m Meath, represented 
 the borough of Trim in parliament, and, in 1746, was ennobled as Baron 
 IMomington — a title which his son exchanged in 1760 for an eai'ldom. By 
 birth and ancestral history, the Duke was thus connected with Ireland, 
 although few of her sons have ever exhibited less affinity to the prevalent 
 traits of the national character. 
 
 A startling and significant page in the world's history was opened, and 
 its giant characters were partly traced, during the youth of the future 
 tield-marshal. The military power of Great Britain had been successfully 
 withstood by tlie infant States of America ; and the soldiers of despotic 
 France, who had assisted in the vindication of the liberties of tlie British 
 colonists, returned to their homes, wei-e repeating to eagerly-attentive 
 audiences the strange and thrilling words they had become familiar with 
 in the far-off western world. Daily the fierce and angry murmur grew 
 and strengthened, and it required little sagacity to foresee that men of the 
 sword must reap abundant harvests ere the new principles inaugurated by 
 the rifle-volleys of Bunker's Hill, and so ominously echoed in the most 
 powerful of the continental states of old Europe, should either become 
 96 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 permanently triumphant, or be trampled out beneath the heels of the still 
 vigorous though decaying feudalism against which they were so audaciously 
 arrayed. Arthur WeUesley, with the full consent of his relatives, chose the 
 army for a profession ; Richard, his eldest brother, by his father's death 
 Lord Mornington, and afterwards IMarquis of Wellesley, decided for the civil 
 service of the state ; and both were at an early age removed from Eton — 
 Richard to the university of Oxford, and Arthur to the military school of 
 Augiers in France, then under the du-ection of the celebrated Engineer 
 Pignerol. Napoleon Bonaparte Avas at the same time receivmg instruction 
 at the sister- school of Brienne. 
 
 Arthur Wellesley returned to England soon after completing his seven- 
 teenth year, and on the 7th of jMarch 1787 was gazetted ensign in the 
 73d Regiment. His elder brother, Richard, on attaining his majority was 
 returned to pai-liament for the borough of Beer-Alston, a seat which he 
 subsequently exchanged for that of the royal borough of Windsor. He 
 early succeeded in obtaining place under Mr Pitt, and was appointed one 
 of the commissioners for the affairs of India. Family influence and 
 connection told rapidly also upon the advancement of the young soldier, 
 who, gazetted ensign on the 7th of March 1787, was on the 25th of 
 December in the same year a lieutenant in the 76th. The following month 
 he exchanged into the 41st. In 1790, he was returned to parliament for 
 the borough of Trim, a portion of the Mornington estate. On the 30th 
 of June 1791 he was promoted to a company in the 58th Foot, which, m the 
 following yeai', he exchanged for a troop in the 12th Dragoons. On the 
 30th of April 1793 he was gazetted major of the 33d, and on the 30th of 
 September following he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the same 
 regiment ; having in little more than five years passed through the various 
 grades from that of an ensign to a lieutenant- colonelcy, and the actual 
 command of a veteran regiment. 
 
 The young lieutenant-colonel had not greatly distinguished himself in the 
 House of Commons. He spoke seldom, and then merely to give confused 
 and ineffective utterance to the family-borough politics, the main points of 
 which, like others originating in the same sources, appeared to be the con- 
 tinued, peremptory exclusion of Catholics from the privileges of citizens, and 
 the advancement of the personal interests of the Trim proprietary. But 
 the curtain was about to rise on a fitter theatre for the development of 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Wellesley's genius than the House of Commons. The 
 sullen murmurs of which we spoke just now had by this time broken into 
 a tumultuous roar of hate and mdignation. The king and queen of 
 France, and those of the nobility and clergy who were bold enough to 
 confront the hurricane of rage that had burst forth, all perished miserably. 
 Public feeling in England, artfully and eloquently stimulated, rose quickly 
 to fever-heat, and amidst the frantic applause of almost the entire nation 
 Mr Pitt declared war to the death against the French Republic. A 
 British army was not long afterwards despatched to Flanders under the 
 command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York — a general and bishop 
 by virtue of his royal birtli alone, and about as well-fitted to direct the 
 operations of an army as to fill the episcopal chair of Osnaburg. In 1794 
 reinforcements were despatched, rather with a view to enable the prince- 
 general to retreat in tolerable order and safety, than with any reasonable 
 2 
 
THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 
 
 hope of arresting the trmmphant progress of the French armies. Amongst 
 others the 33(1 Regiment was ordered to embark, and marched to Cork for 
 that purpose. 
 
 The troops arrived at their destination in time to learn tliat the Duke of 
 York had been already driven into Holland, and that an immediate re- 
 embarkation was necessary in order to reach Antwerp by the Scheldt. This 
 was effected; and in the following January (1795), Lieutenant - Colonel 
 Wellesley, as senior officer, commanded three battalions in the retreat 
 through Holland, and early in the spring embarked with the troops at 
 Bremen for England. 
 
 The superiority of Lieutenant-Colonel Wellesley as a regimental officer 
 •was clearly manifested by the celerity with which the 33d, which had 
 greatly suffered, was reorganised and reported fit for service. It joined 
 the camp near Southampton, and in October 1795 was embarked in the 
 fleet destined for the "West Indies, under the command of Admiral Chris- 
 tian. Baffling storm and tempest, against which they vainly struggled for 
 six weeks, drove them back, and the destination of the 33d was afterwai'ds 
 changed to India, for which country the regiment sailed in April 1796, 
 ai'riving at Bengal in September, accompanied by Colonel WeUesley, who 
 had joined it at the Cape of Good Hope in June, ilhiess having prevented 
 him from taking his departm-e with it from England. 
 
 Nothing i-equiring remark occurred till 1798, when Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Wellesley's regiment was attached to the Madras establishment, where pre- 
 parations for a manifestly inevitable conflict with Tippoo Sultan, the ruler 
 of the Mysore territory, were, under the direction of the new governor- 
 general, in course of rapid progress. The new governor - general was 
 Colonel Wellesley's elder brother. Lord Mornington, who had succeeded 
 Sir John Shore in that high and responsible office. Never perhaps had the 
 government of British India been assumed imder gi'aver circumstances. 
 The storm raging in Europe had given life and energy to the tempo- 
 rarily - subdued or overawed native princes and potentates, to whom the 
 increasing power of the English was obnoxious, either from the memory 
 of past defeats, or apprehension that the signal chastisement already 
 inflicted upon some of their number might ultimately reach all. French 
 officers abounded in the armies of the native princes, especially in those of 
 the Mahratta chiefs Dowlut, Rao Scindiah, and Holkar, of the Nizam, 
 and of Tippoo Sultan. Those officers naturally availed themselves of then- 
 position to excite the princes of India against the nation that had driven 
 the French out of the country, and which was now at war with the 
 French Republic ; and there was unfortunately no lack of inflammable 
 materials for the fire which they nothing doubted of being able to kindle 
 into a tempest of flame that would wither up and consume every vestige of 
 British rule m the Indian Peninsula. Above all, Tippoo Sultan, the son 
 of Hyder Ali, and a fanatic Mussulman, nourished the fiercest hatred of the 
 power that, by the treaty dictated by Cornwallis in 1792, had stripped 
 him of half his territories, treasure to an immense amount, 800 pieces 
 of cannon, and carried off two of his sons as hostages for the due fulfilment 
 of his engagements. The agents of the French republic fed his hopes of 
 vengeance by the most lavish promises of support, and Tippoo listened, 
 fatally for himself, to assurances of aid which Nelson's victory of the 
 
 3 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Nile, and the prompt, decisive measures of the governor-general, prevented 
 the French, however sincere may have been their intentions, from 
 redeeming. Tippoo not only greatly caressed the officers of that nation^ 
 whom he permitted to form a Jacobin club at Seringapatam, in which 
 war was proclaimed against all kings, except of course Tippoo himself, 
 but made earnest overtures to the great Mahratta chiefs, to induce them to 
 join in his purposed invasion of the Carnatic. His proposals were favourably 
 received, but the indolent, procrastinating habits of Asiatic rulers were no 
 match for the virile energy of the new governor-general, and long before 
 any effectual combination could be realised, the capital of Tippoo was in 
 the hands of the English, and himself deprived of life as well as empire. 
 In order that our readers should thoroughly comprehend the full extent of 
 the peril from which the Marquis of Wellesley, one of the ablest proconsuls 
 this country ever sent forth, saved the mighty interests confided to him, it 
 is necessary to direct their attention for a brief space to the map of the Indian 
 Peninsula. The three presidential cities, they will perceive, of Calcutta, 
 Bombay, and Madras, are so situated that lines drawn from one to the 
 other would intersect the large portion of territory south of the Nerbudda 
 Eiver, forming the centre of the penmsula; but these presidencies, 
 admkably situated as strategic points, were but as dots and fringes along 
 the eastern and western coasts compared with the extent of the vast 
 country, which from north to south, from Delhi to the Toombuddra River, 
 measures 1000 miles, and in width from the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf 
 of Candy, 900 miles, gradually diminishing to its southern extremity. The 
 country north of the Nerbudda is Hindostan proper ; l)etween the Nerbudda 
 and the Kistnah are Poonah, the dominions of the Nizam, and Berar ; and 
 south of the Kistnah, the Deccan, Mysore, and the Carnatic — Madi-as and 
 the Carnatic lying to the east of Seringapatam and the Mysore country. 
 All that immense territory, with the exception of the Mysore and the 
 Nizam's dominions, and of course the British provinces, were nominally 
 under the government of the Rajah of Sattarah, but reaUy, so far as any 
 actual power existed, under that of the Peshwah — a hereditary muiister, who 
 ruled in the rajah's name at Poonah, a city not far distant from Bombay. 
 The aggregate army of this power amounted to 300,000 men, and if 
 directed by one single will in feet, as it was in theory, would have been 
 extremely formidable. This, however, was far from being the case, the 
 Mahratta territories nominally under the Peshwah's rule being divided into 
 five military jurisdictions, each governed by a rajah. Of these chieftains, 
 Scindiah and Holkar, whose territories were in the Malwah country, 
 north of the Nerbudda, were the most powerful, and, as well as the less 
 potent Rajah of Berar, determined, though not as yet open enemies of the 
 intrusive English. Scindiah had greatly strengthened himself by his con- 
 quests in the north as far as Delhi, and by his influence at Poonah, where 
 he in effect held the Peshwah in subjection. Of Scindiah's army, 40,000 
 infantry, 9000 cavalry, and 150 pieces of artillery, liad been organised and 
 disciplined by M. De Boigne, a native of Savoy in France, who entered 
 Scindiah's service in 1784. He was succeeded by M. I'erron, who at this 
 time commanded at Delhi and the northern provinces. Two-thirds of the 
 officers of the army tlius disciplined were Frenchmen or other Europeans. 
 Holkar, a rival Mahratta chief, in order to strengthen himself against the 
 4 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 growing power of Scindiah, liad also engaged great numbers of French 
 officers, and liis numerous army was also in a high state of efficiency. 
 Menaced by such formidal)le neighbours, who, although jealous of each 
 other, were well disposed to combine against their common enemy the 
 English, it behoved the governor-general to be prompt and decided if he 
 -would avert or dissipate the tempest rapidly gathering around him. lie was 
 swift and deadly. War was declared against Tippoo Sultan, and an admir- 
 ably-appointed army of 80,000 men, previously assembled at Bellore, 
 inarched on the lOthMarch 1799 under General Harris upon Serhigapatara. 
 With the army of the Carnatic moved the Nizam's contingent, to which the 
 33d European Kegiment had been attached under the command of Colonel 
 Wellesley. This force operated on the right, and were somewhat harassed 
 during the march by the sultan's troops. At Mallavilly Tippoo drew up 
 in position, and offered hesitating battle to Wellesley's force, which, 
 reinforced by some squadrons of horse under Sir John Floyd, the father-in- 
 law of the late Sir Eobert Feel, overthrew him with slight loss to them- 
 selves ; and the troops continuing their rapid march, arrived with the bulk 
 of the army on the 3d of April before Seringapatam — an irregularly but 
 strongly fortified city, situated on an island formed by the confluence of the 
 Cauvery and Coleroon. The Cauvery was passed, active operations against 
 the sultan's capital commenced at once, and were urged forward with 
 untiring energy and zeal. On the night of the 5th of April Colonel 
 Wellesley was du-ected to attack the Sultaun-pettah Tope, a kind of copse 
 or grove intersected with water-courses and ruined habitations, from which 
 the troops were frequently assailed by rockets. The 33d and two native 
 Bengal regiments were ordered on this service. The night was extremely 
 dark; Colonel Wellesley and his troops lost their way, and after many vain 
 efforts to remedy the mischance, it was found necessary to withdraw the 
 men ; but this was not done, unfortunately, till after twelve grenadiers of 
 the 33d had been cut oft' and carried into Seringapatam, where they were 
 savagely murdered by Tippoo's order. Colonel Wellesley, separated from 
 his soldiers, wandered blindly about in the thick darkness till nearly twelve 
 o'clock, when he recovered the track, and as soon as possible presented 
 himself before General Harris in a state of great agitation, to announce 
 that the attack had failed. This is the plain, unvarnished history of an 
 affair which the decriers of the Duke's military reputation have magnified 
 into a disgraceful defeat ; attended with we know not what inglorious circum- 
 stance, involving want of discretion, presence of mind, and even personal 
 bravery. Such imputations are simply ridiculous, and but for the Duke's 
 subsequent dazzling career,- in which an action less brilliant than the rest 
 shews like a shadow or a stain, would, we may be sure, never have been 
 heard of. Sir David Baird, who scoured another Tope with cavalry on the 
 same night, also lost his way on returning. It was, in fact, one of those 
 misfortunes which neither prudence nor skill nor daring can at times 
 prevent, and is only one amongst scores of instances of the risks that must 
 ever attend night-attacks, especially in tangled and broken localities, with 
 which neither officers nor soldiers are acquainted. The next day the 
 attempt was renewed by Colonel Wellesley, the attacking force being 
 increased by the 94th Scotch Regiment. It was completely successful, and 
 Tippoo Sultan began to feel some misgivings that his frequently-repeated 
 
 5 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 boastful exclamation — ' Wlio can take Seringapatam ? ' — might receive a 
 fatal solution. He wrote to General Harris, suggesting a negotiation. 
 The reply was decisive : half his territory to be ceded, the expenses of 
 the war to be paid in full, and hostages given for the performance of those 
 hard conditions. There could be no parleying or negotiation. The fanatic 
 sovereign of Mysore turned suUenly away from such ruinous terms of 
 peace, and continued the defence. Daily, hourly, the walls of the devoted 
 city crumbled beneath the thunder-strokes of the English batteries, and at 
 noon on the 4th of May the glittering ranks of the troops destined for the 
 assault were seen from Seringapatam, drawn up in two columns, and 
 waiting only for the signal that should loose them on their quarry. It was 
 speedily given ; and led by Sir David Baird, who had volunteered for the 
 service, the assaidting columns, preceded by their respective forlorn-hopes, 
 advanced swiftly against the breach. The reserve in tlie trenches was 
 commanded by Colonel Wellesley. The preparations for the decisive 
 struggle, visible from the walls, had been duly reported to Tippoo, who 
 received the uitelligence with a smile of disdainful unbelief in the possi- 
 bility of an assault upon the impregnable city in broad daylight. He was 
 sitting, on this the last hour of his life, still obstinately incredulous as to 
 the reality of the attack, with some members of his family in the open air, 
 under a kind of penthouse, when messengers, whose tidings were terribly 
 confirmed by the increasing din and uproar of the assault, announced with 
 quivering lips that the storming of the city had not only begun in earnest, 
 but was already partially successful. 
 
 Tippoo, at length convinced, calmly arose, finished his religious 
 exercises, and then hastened to the scene of conflict. It was all too 
 true. The city, on his arrival, was substantially won ; and after a brief 
 struggle, Tippoo, mounted on horseback, was borne away by a crowd 
 of panic-stricken soldiers, who, hotly pursued, endeavoured to escape 
 by the covered gateway leading to the interior of the city. The sultan 
 strove to force his way through the dense mass of fugitives ; but in 
 that terrible hour his once all-potent menaces had lost their influence: 
 the living barrier before him could not be passed, whilst nearer and 
 nearer behind him flashed and thundered the fatal volleys of his pursuers. 
 Presently his horse was shot, and with difficulty his faithful attendants 
 raised and placed him in a palanquin. His foes were soon at hand-grip 
 with him. A soldier made a furious grasp at a glittering jewel in his 
 turban — the hallowed turban, dipped in the sacred waters of the Zem- 
 Zem — Tippoo struck feebly at the man with his scimitar, inflicting a 
 slight wound, and the mfuriated soldier the next instant sent a bullet 
 through his head. His attendants were next despatched, and in a few 
 minutes sultan, servants, palanquin, were hidden beneath a heap of dead, 
 pitilessly sacrificed by troops whose vengeful passions had been Ivindled to 
 fury by the too-authentic stories related of Tippoo's cruelties towards the 
 British prisoners that had fallen into his hands. Efiective resistance was 
 at an end ; but those alone who have witnessed the revolting spectacle of a 
 crowded city in the power of a soldiery, drunk with tlie triumph of a 
 desperate and sanguinary assault, can realise the confusion, uproar, terror 
 that accompanied the entrance of the victorious troops mto Sei'ingapatam, 
 and which continued not only during the afternoon but through the 
 c 
 
THE DUKE OF WELUNGTON. 
 
 night, and far into the next day. So universal at first was the disorder, 
 that tlie officers could not for some time prevent the men from plundering 
 the sultan's treasury ; and before an efficient guard could be marclied in 
 from the reserve by Colonel Wellesley, an immense booty was carried off. 
 This important service effected, inquiries were made for Tippoo, and an 
 active search set on foot to discover him. He could not be found, and it 
 began to be feared that he had escaped, when word was brought tliat he 
 was supposed to have fallen in the covered gateway. This was a fact of 
 too great impoi'tance to be left in doubt, and Sir David Baird with Colonel 
 Wellesley immediately proceeded to ascertain the truth of the report with 
 their own eyes. By the time they arrived at the indicated spot darkness 
 had fallen ; but torches being procured, the bodies of the slain were 
 removed under the immediate inspection of the two officers. As the 
 frightful heap diminished, first Tippoo's palanquin, then his attendants, 
 wei-e disinterred, and immediately beneath them the corpse of the sultan 
 presented itself Tlie features of Tippoo were serene and composed as if 
 he slept ; so completely so indeed, that it was for a moment thought he 
 Avas merely feigning death. To satisfy himself. Colonel Wellesley stepped 
 close to the body, placed his hand upon the pulse and then upon the heart. 
 ' He is dead fast enough,' was the remark ; and orders were immediately 
 given to convey the corpse to the habitation of the family of the deceased 
 ruler, over which a strong protective-guard had been placed. 
 
 St George's flag waved proudly in the morning sunlight from the towers 
 of the captured city, from which there still went up to Heaven the shouts 
 and din and curses of mibridled violence and outrage. It was full time to 
 queU the disorder, and with this \aew Colonel Wellesley was appointed 
 commandant and governor of Seringapatam. He set to work at once, and 
 vigorously, as the following brief extracts from letters hurriedly despatched 
 to General Harris during the day amply testify : — 
 
 ^ \Q XM., 5th May. 
 
 ' My dear Sir — We are in such confusion that I recommend it to you 
 not to come in till to-morrow, or at soonest late this evening.' 
 
 ' Half-past Ticelve. — I wish you would send the provost here, and put 
 him under my orders. Until some of the plimderers are hanged, it is vain 
 to expect to stop the plunder.' 
 
 ' Tioo o'clock P.M. — Things are better than they were, but they are 
 still very bad; and vmtil the provost executes three or four people, it is 
 impossible to expect order or indeed safety.' 
 
 The provost was gi-anted; four of the plunderers were caught red-handed, 
 briefly doomed, and hanged without loss of time. This is not pleasant 
 reading, for even the justice of war shocks one as a frightful cruelty ; but 
 the severity appears to have been imperatively necessary, and it certainly 
 answered its purpose, inasmuch as Colonel WeUesley was enabled on 
 the next day to wi-ite as follows : — 
 
 ' 2Iai/ 6. — Plunder is stopped. The fires are all extinguished, and the 
 inhabitants are returning to theu- homes fast. I am now burying the dead, 
 which I hope will be completed to-day, particularly if you send me all the 
 pioneers.' 
 
 Some idea of the value of the plunder carried off by the soldiery may be 
 di-awn from the well- attested fact, that some diamonds purchased of a 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 private by Dr Mein for a trifle were afterwards sold for £32,000 sterling. 
 With all such drawbacks, however, upon the amount of valuables officially 
 captured, the victorious general carried off treasure to the enormous 
 amount, as set down in the returns, of 45,580,350 star pagodas! 
 
 The war, as far as the Mysore country was concerned, was now over; 
 and the bulk of the army retraced its steps, after the youthful grandson 
 of the ruler whom Hyder Ali had deposed had been restored to the rajah- 
 ship of Mysore, in accordance with British-Indian policy. The restored 
 rajah was of course for the future merely the puppet - monarch of a 
 diminished teiTitory, really as much governed by the Company's officers 
 as that portion of the Mysore over which they ostensibly ruled. 
 
 Colonel AVellesley was appointed civil and military governor of Seringa- 
 patam and Mysore, and in that dual capacity is admitted to have displayed 
 administrative talents of a high order. However deaf and steini to tlie 
 pleadings for mercy towards proved oftenders against the rigours of positive 
 law this great soldier may have shewn himself throughout his remarkable 
 career — a peculiarity of character which may perhaps account for the 
 indisputable fact, that whilst he extorted the respect and confidence of the 
 troops under his command, accustoming them as he did to look upon the 
 day of battle as one of assured victory, he was never regarded by liis 
 soldiers with personal affection, much less enthusiasm, like that, for 
 instance, which Nelson inspired — still it cannot be denied that he ever held 
 the balance of his iron justice fairly between the highest and the lowest. 
 A more depressed, ill-used body of men than the coolies of India could 
 not perhaps be found upon the face of the earth. Of a servile and 
 degraded caste, they are accustomed from earliest childhood to submit with 
 the resignation of despair to the most flagrant wrong; and British officers 
 "were not, it appears from Colonel Wellesley's correspondence, ashamed to 
 cheat and plunder the helpless, miserable people. Coolies are the carriers 
 and porters of India, and it was a common practice to engage them for 
 short journeys at a small sum, and then insist upon their perfoi-ming a 
 much greater distance without any additional remuneration. This scanda- 
 lous oppression was peremptorily checked by Colonel Wellesley, as the 
 
 following extracts will shew : — ' The history of Captain 's conduct 
 
 is quite shocking. The system is not bearable ; it must be abolished 
 entirely, or so arranged and modified as to render it certain that the 
 unfortunate people employed as coolies are paid, are not carried farther 
 
 than the usual stage, and are not ill-treated. Besides Captain , I 
 
 have another Bombay gentleman in my eye, who has lately come through 
 the country with a convoy of arrack, and I suspect played the same tricks 
 —that is to say, never paid the people pressed and employed by him in 
 the public service. I have directed inquiries to be made upon the subject, 
 and if I find my conjectures to be well founded, I shall try him at the 
 same time with Captain .' 
 
 The oppressed coolies must have been as much bewildered as surprised 
 to find the mighty governor of Mysore insisting that despised outcasts 
 such as they should receive equitable treatment at the liands of the exalted 
 and magnificent persons that British officers in India are held to be. 
 
 Colonel Wellesley's command in the Mysore continued with only one 
 temporary inteiTuption till he left India. In 1801 he left iSeringapatam 
 8 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 for Trincomalee, where a force of 3000 men were assembled to act against 
 the Mauritius ; but the duplicate copy of an overland dispatch to the 
 governor-general, commanding liim to detach the same number of men to 
 Egypt, having been placed in Colonel Wellesley's hands by Mr Dundas, he 
 immediately determined on sailing with the troops to Bombay, in order 
 that they should be ready to start at once for Egypt. Tliis decision 
 was approved of by the governor -general, and Sir David Baird being 
 appomted to command the expedition. Colonel "\A'ellesley was attached 
 to the force as second to that general. An attack, of fever, by whicli he 
 was for a time prostrated, prevented him from accompanying the troops, 
 and on his recovery he was restored to his command in tlie I^Iysore 
 territory. 
 
 The first considerable interruption to his energetic administration of 
 affairs was caused by the incursions of Dhoondiah "Waugh, a Mahratta 
 trooper, who at the fall of Seringapatam had been liberated from one of 
 its dungeons. He was a dashing, daring adventurer, and by his success 
 as a highwayman and freebooter soon gathered round him a great 
 number of desperate vagabonds, eager to join in the same gainful trade. 
 So rapidly did his followers increase, that he was soon at the head 
 of a large, and, so far as numbers went, a powerfid army. His self- 
 estimation grew even faster than his apparent power, and he assumed the 
 magnificent title of ' King of the Two Worlds.' This great monarch, after 
 receiving several checks from detachments of the British forces, was, 
 unfortunately for himself, come up with at Conaghale on the 10th Sep- 
 tember 1800 by Colonel Wellesley, after a forced and rapid mai-ch with 
 the 19th, 25th, and 22d Light Dragoons, and the 1st and 2d Eegiments of 
 Native Cavalry. The attack was instantaneous, and the rout total, the 
 King of the Two Worlds being himself amongst the slain. An anecdote 
 is related of Colonel Wellesley in connection with the extinction of this 
 freebooter which does him honour. One of the captives was the favourite 
 son of Dhoondiah — a beautiful boy, called Sulaboth Khan — and Colonel 
 Wellesley, commiserating his forlorn state, took him under his especial 
 protection, had him properly educated, and ultimately procured him 
 employment in the service of the Rajah of Mysore, which he retained till 
 his death by cholera in 1822. 
 
 The Mahratta chiefs, Scindiah and Holkar, instead of vigorously assisting 
 Tippoo Sidtan in his extremity, had got up a Avar between themselves ; 
 and in October 1802 Holkar defeated the combined forces of Scindiah and 
 the Peshwah, and seated a puppet of his own on the musnud. Tlie 
 Peshwah, previous to leaving Poonah after his defeat, applied to the 
 Company's resident for help and protection. The application, on reference 
 to the governor -general, was favourably entertained; a treaty of alliance 
 was entered into with the expelled Peshwah; and it was determmed to put 
 down not only Holkar, who, in the elation of his triumph over the Peshwah, 
 menaced the Nizam's dominions with mvasion, but Scindiah and the 
 Rajah of Berar. A force sufficient for the purpose was assembled at 
 Hurryhur, and placed under the command of Major- General Wellesley. 
 This rank the governor-general had conferred upon his brother on the 2d 
 of April 1802. We have previously given the dates of the unearned 
 military gi-ades conferred upon the Duke of Wellington, and it may be as 
 
 96 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 well now to set down those for which he was indebted, not to the accident 
 of birth and family connection, but to his great services. His commission 
 of colonel was conferred on the 3d of May 1796; that of major-general, 
 2d of April 1802; of lieutenant-general, 25th April 1808; of general hi 
 Spain and Portugal, 31st July 1811; of field-marshal, 21st June 1813. 
 
 We have space only for a glance at General Wellesley's chief exploits 
 during this Mahratta war, as it is called. The army, consisting of about 
 20,000 troops of all arms, moved from Hurryhur on the 9th of March 
 1803, and without encountering any serious opposition arrived at Poonah 
 on the 20th of April. On the 13th of May the Peshwah was replaced on 
 the musnud. Supreme civil and military authority in the territories of 
 the Nizam, the Peshwah, and the Mahratta States, was soon afterwards 
 conferred on General "VVellesley, and on the 6th of August he took the 
 field against Scindiah and his allies. Pettah, a native town, garrisoned by 
 3000 Mahratta troops and 1500 Arab mercenaries, was, without stopping 
 to breach the wall, stormed by the help of a few scalmg-ladders, and the 
 loss of only 140 men. Gocklah, a Mahratta chief, wrote the following 
 account of this affair to his friends at Poonah : — ' These English are a 
 strange people, and their general is a wonderful man. They came here in 
 the morning, looked at the Pettah wall, walked over it, killed all the 
 garrison, and returned to breakfast. What can withstand them ? ' The 
 strong forti'ess of Ahmednuggur was next attacked, and compelled to 
 surrender. There was a palace in the interior which contained an immense 
 quantity of valuables, and of so tempting a kind that the general was 
 compelled to hang two native soldiers in the gateway before he coidd 
 quietly secure the booty for distribution in the proper way. The fort of 
 Baroach shared the fate of Ahmednuggur little more than a fortnight 
 afterwards, and so successful were General Wellesley's operations, that if 
 a good blow could be struck at Scindiah's army — reputed to be extremely 
 formidable, not only from its numbers but the excellent discipline of the 
 infantry, and its powerful, well-organised artillery — the Mahratta difficulty 
 in that part of the peninsula at least might be considered terminated. To 
 effect this desirable object no effort was spared, and on the 22d of September 
 the hurkai-us or scouts brought intelligence that the army of Scmdiah 
 was posted at Bohendur, no very great distance off. General Wellesley 
 immediately divided his army into two divisions, one of which he placed 
 under the command of Colonel Stevenson, with directions to make a detour 
 to the west, in order to avoid passing through a narrow and dangerous 
 defile ; whilst he himself took the more direct easterly route. Stevenson 
 was to rejoin him late in the evening of the 23d. Early on the morning 
 of that day General Wellesley was informed by the hurkarus that 
 Scindiah's cavalry had gone off, but that the infantry still remained at 
 Bohendur. Wellesley put himself in motion instantly, leaving his 
 baggage behind under a sufficient guard, and after a sultry, hurried march, 
 found himself about noon suddenlj'- in the presence of an army of 50,000 
 men, of which full 30,000 were cavalry, drawn up between the rivers Juah 
 and Ketnah, the village of Assye on the Juah being nearly in the centre 
 of the line ! The hurkarus had either wilfuUy or ignorantly deceived 
 him. 
 As this terrible battle elicited the first unmistakable proof that General 
 10 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Wellesley possessed those rare and indispensable attributes of a great 
 commander — the eagle sweep which takes in at a glance all the essential 
 points of the situation, however terrible it may be, or however suddenly 
 presented, and the prompt sagacity and daring that at once decides upon 
 and executes the tittest means of overcoming the threatened danger — a 
 somewhat detailed account of the unequal conflict may be desirable. 
 
 The Mahratta forces -were, as -we have said, drawn up between the rivers 
 Juah andKetnah: which streams gi-adually approaching each other, met on 
 their left. In this naiTOw part of the peninsula, as we may call the ground 
 thus marked by the confluence of the two rivers, the infantry, a disciplined 
 body of about 12,000 men, were posted ; in the centre 100 guns fully 
 manned were ranged ; and on the right, in the broader and still widening 
 space leading up to Bohendur, upwards of 30,000 well-mounted horsemen, 
 glittering in all the rainbow splendour of Eastern costume, were encamped — 
 their apparently innumerable and various-coloured tents presenting all the 
 life and bustle of a town, with jewellers, smiths, and other trades, pursuing 
 their avocations as if within the walls of a peaceful and crowded city. The 
 British force, amounting to no more than 8700 sabres and bayonets, with 
 seventeen guns, arrived directly in front of this numerous and formidable 
 cavalry, the river Ketnah running along their front till its junction with the 
 Juah. It was a startling as well as magnificent spectacle, and so apparently 
 desperate were the odds that General WeUesley has been frequently blamed 
 by rule-and-lme tacticians for hazarding a battle in which he had, according 
 to them, no right to expect success. He should have retired, say they, and 
 declined a battle till Stevenson had joined. Such reasoners appear to 
 foi"get that there is a relative force and weakness of armies that cannot 
 be estimated by merely counting their proportionate numbers. Above the 
 colours of the English battalions there floated a halo which, however 
 boldly the lilahratta soldiers might carry it, disquieted them more than 
 would thrice the number of men, however brave and disciplined, who 
 lacked it. The crash of the falling towers of Seringapatam, the swift 
 destruction that had overtaken the King of the Two Worlds, the storming 
 of Pettah, the capture of the strongholds of Ahmednuggur and Baroach, 
 must have been vividly present to the imaginations of those impressionable 
 children of the East, exciting dread and apprehension which no array of 
 cannon nor of numbers on their own side could diminish, much less dissi- 
 pate. To display fear or hesitation would be to throw away that mighty 
 moral force ; to retreat, to turn back before that numerous cavalry, would 
 be ruin ! 
 
 Wliatever General Wellesley felt on finding himself unexpectedly before 
 so imposing an array, no look or word betrayed the slightest surprise or 
 dismay. A few minutes decided his plan of attack, which was as vigor- 
 ously executed as it was ably conceived. The troops wheeled off quickly 
 to the right, towards the confluence of the two rivers, and passing the ford 
 of Peepulgao near the extremity of the narrowing peninsula, turned the 
 left of the Mahratta force, compelling the infantry that composed it to 
 change their front, and draw up in sevei'al lines across the peninsula, their 
 right resting on the Ketnah, and their left on a nullah or stream which 
 flowed parallel with the Ketnah, on the Juah side, by Assye. By this 
 change of position it is evident the Mahratta cavalry could not fairly 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 operate till their infantry and artillery, now between them and the British 
 force, were either beaten or victorious. A furious battle at once com- 
 menced ; but it was soon found that the seventeen field-pieces possessed by 
 the British could make no eliectual reply to the numerous and well-served 
 guns of the enemy, and General Wellesley commanded an attack by the 
 bayonet along the entire front. A loud cheer greeted the welcome and 
 decisive order ; an advancing line of levelled steel glittered through the 
 driving cannon-smoke ; and with a fierce and rapid step the British soldiers 
 closed upon their numerous foes. They were not waited for : the 
 Mahratta infantry fired a feeble, ineffective volley, then broke and fled ; 
 the British left, which General Wellesley led in person, pursuing them 
 with terrible slaugliter, and capturing all their guns. The British right, 
 composed of the 74th Kegiment and some pickets, were equally success- 
 ful in the charge ; but in following it up, the officer in command, 
 instead of taking a more sheltered circuitous course towards Assye, 
 led his men across level ground, which the Mahratta artillery swept like a 
 glacis, and the men fell by dozens. Seeing this, an immense body of 
 Mahratta horse crept round by Assye, and fell upon the staggering English 
 infantry. At this crisis of the battle. Colonel Maxwell was ordered to 
 charge with the 19th Dragoons and a sepoy cavalry regiment. He did so 
 valiantly, swept through, over, the Mahratta horse, cut down as he passed 
 the gunners at their pieces, and broke through Scindiah's left with irresistible 
 fury, utterly routing it. This gallant charge, successful as it was, was an 
 exhausting one ; and a cloud of Mahratta cavalry, which, drawn up on an 
 eminence, had as yet only overlooked the battle, now joined m it, rallying 
 as they came on the dispersed artillerymen and broken infantry. This 
 movement the British general had foreseen and prepared for. The 78th 
 Regiment and one of native horse had been held in reserve, and these, with 
 the survivors of the 74th, vehemently charged the but as yet half-beaten 
 Mahratta forces : Maxwell's brigade, who had in the meantime breathed 
 their horses, joined in the fierce onslaught, and in a few minutes Scindiah's 
 army, horse and foot, was a mass of panic-sti'icken fugitives, abandoning 
 and throwing away in their headlong flight cannon, tents, arms, and 
 stores, after losing in slain and wounded men and prisoners nearly twice 
 the number of their assailants. 
 
 The victory was a splendid one, but it was dearly purchased. The 
 British loss in killed and wounded amounted to 1584 men, according to the 
 official lists ; and amongst the former was the gallant Colonel Maxwell, who 
 Avas slain in the pursuit. General Wellesley had two horses sliot imder 
 him : ' one of them,' he wrote the next day, ' was Diomed, Colonel Aston's 
 horse.' The loss fell, as usual in Indian battles, in much the greatest 
 proportion upon the British part of the attacking force. The 74th 
 especially suffered severely, and a picket that went into action with one 
 officer and 150 men, mustered after the battle only four rank-and-file ! 
 
 The Mahratta chiefs never recovered this heavy blow, followed as it was 
 by the less remarkable, though quite as decisive victory of Argaum and the 
 capture of Asseerghur and Gawulgur. They sued for peace, and Lord Lake 
 having been quite as successful in the nortliern provinces and at Delhi 
 against M. Perron, terms dictated by the conquerors were agreed upon, and 
 on the 30tli of December 1803 the Mahratta war terminated. 
 12 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 The work of General Wellesley in India was now accomplished, and he 
 was anxious to return to Europe, wlierc no soldier had yet appeared 
 capable of measuring himself against the marshals of France, who, with 
 their redoubted chief, had not only inspired tlie continent with a panic- 
 terror of their arms, but were again threatening a descent upon England. 
 He embarked for Europe on the 10th of iMarch 1805 in the Trident frigate, 
 after having received from the officers of the army he had commanded, the 
 merchants of Calcutta, and the native inhabitants of Seringapatam, highly 
 gratifying and substantial tokens of admiration and esteem. The officers 
 of the army subscribed for a gold vase, to be inscribed with the name of 
 his great victory, Assye — this was subsequently changed to a service of 
 plate ; the merchants of Calcutta presented him with a sword valued at a 
 thousand guineas ; and a far more honouring tribute than these — the native 
 people of Seringapatam presented him with an address, containing a 
 prayer ' to the God of all castes and colours,' to bless and reward him 
 for his just and equal rule in the Mysore. He had been previously, on the 
 1st September 1804, created a Knight-Companion of the Bath, and was 
 consequently now Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.C.B. 
 
 The cannon of Trafalgar awoke Napoleon from his day-dream of a 
 successful invasion of England ; and the British ministiy, relieved from 
 the idea of a French army advancing upon London, that had so long 
 haunted them, despatched Earl Cathcart and General Don with a Britisli 
 force to Northern Germany, to assist in the confidently-predicted march 
 to Paris of the now allied Austrian and Russian armies. The recently- 
 arrived young ' General of Sepoys' — as the scribes of the ' Moniteur,' 
 not yet knowing him quite so well as in afteryears, sneermgly called Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley — was ordered to join them there. By the time he 
 arrived Lord Cathcart had i-eceived intelligence of the battle of Austerlitz, 
 and the detachment against him of Augereau with 40,000 men of the 
 Grand Army. The earl's first thought on receiving this news was of 
 the transport-ships, and his next to summon a council of war, to decide 
 upon embarking. It was of course attended by Major-General Wellesley, 
 who was the youngest general-officer present. The elders of the council 
 were unanimous in their opinion of the desirableness of getting back to 
 England as speedily as possible, although of course for different, but all 
 equally cogent reasons. The sole dissentient was Sir Arthur Wellesley. 
 He was of opinion that a heavy blow might be struck through Augereau at 
 the supei-stition of French invincibility which prevailed throughout the 
 continent, that would go far to rekindle the hopes extinguished in the 
 blood of Austerlitz. ' Say,' argued the young general — ' say that 
 Augereau has forty thousand men : they will be greatly diminished before 
 he can reach us by his hurried march through a wasted and unfriendly 
 country. And even if otherwise, strongly posted and abundantly supplied 
 as we are, we ought to beat him. A victory might have immense results, 
 and a defeat Avould not be ruinous, as we could always embark under 
 cover of the shipping. That is a sure and ought to be a last resource.' 
 The seniors listened to the inexperienced soldier with elevated eyebrows 
 and good-natured superiority. He might know how to win such battles 
 as Assye, but what was that to encountering such terrible fellows as 
 Augereau and forty thousand men of ' the Grand Army ! ' The rash 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 advice was spurned, and Wellesley, with a cold disdainful smile playing 
 about his keen gray eyes and thin compressed lips, left the council, and 
 soon afterwards was again in England. 
 
 On the 10th of April 1806 Sir Arthur Wellesley married the Honourable 
 Catherine Pakenham, third daughter of Edward Michael, second Lord 
 Longford. By this marriage he had issue two sons : Ai-thur, born 3d of 
 February 1807, at Harley Street, London ; and Charles, born 16th Januaiy 
 1808, at the Secretary's Lodge, near Dublin. 
 
 In 1806 Sir Arthur was returned to parliament for the borough of Rye, 
 and on the 3d of April 1807 he accepted the office of chief-secretary for 
 Ireland ; with the express understanding, however, with the minister, that 
 his secretaryship should not stand m the way of his military employment 
 should occasion require his services. His administration of Irisli affairs 
 was characterised by an unbending hai'shness, that rendered him very 
 unpopular there — for which probably he did not care one straw. He was 
 the author of the famous Insurrection Act, which, amongst other pleasant 
 provisions, enacted that any Irishman found out of his house after sun- 
 down in the proclaimed districts should be liable to transportation. Sir 
 Arthur organised a police for Dublin, and in this is said to have rendered 
 good service to the Irish metropolis. But work for which he was much 
 better fitted was again preparing for him. 
 
 The Austro-Russian combination ended by Austerlitz and the treaty of 
 Tilsit instead of the march to Paris and the dethronement of the French 
 Emperor ; and after some scandalous transactions between Napoleon and 
 Alexander, by which, for the sake of a Russian alliance against Great 
 Britain, the ruler of France agreed to transfer Wallachia and JNIoldavia 
 to the northern potentate, with a half promise to throw in Constantinople 
 over the bargain at some futvu-e day, the two emperors solemnly and 
 magnanimously offered peace to England — a peace to be based upon the 
 principle that each power should retain all it had acquu-ed during the war. 
 France, her continental acquisitions, including Spain, which Bonaparte, by 
 shameless perfidy and force, had just taken military possession of; Russia, 
 the two principalities we have mentioned; and England, the sugar- islands — 
 colonies, even Malta, once so vehemently refused by Napoleon, that she had 
 wrested from France, Spain, and Holland. This proposal, made with 
 great form and circumstance, was substantially repelled at once, the British 
 government in then- reply refusing to treat without their allies, including 
 the Spanish insurgents, as the tzar and the emperor styled the outraged 
 and indignant Spanish nation. Prosperity must have weakened Napoleon's 
 ordinary observation, if it be true, as M. Thiers intimates, that he 
 believed his new alliance would terrify this country into the abandonment 
 of Spain and Turkey, and the acceptance of an unstable, futile peace. 
 Russia, in any possible combination against Great Britain, must count for 
 next to nothing, from not possessing any efficient means of offensive action 
 against her, for the ' march to India' is nothing more than a dream. But 
 there was a nearer and much greater fear : the Crown-Prince of Denmark, 
 who had been for some time coquetting with Bonaparte, and who was 
 known to be extremely anxious to retain his continental possessions — 
 the portion of Germany that has lately been the cause and theatre of 
 so much strife and bloodshed, and which in 1807 was completely in the 
 U 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 power of the French ruler — had a numerous fleet at Copenhagen, that, 
 if added to the French navy, might have redressed the catastroplie of 
 Trafalgar, and this was therefore for England a veritable danger. Under 
 these circumstances the British ministry determined on sending a naval 
 and military expedition to the Danish capital, to enforce the suiTender 
 of the fleet to England, in trust, tiU the conclusion of a general peace. 
 We shall not attempt to defend the much - controverted morality of this 
 enterprise : indeed the morality of the most approved war-tactics is, if it 
 exist at all, of so subtile and fugitive a nature, that, if willing, we should 
 be quite unable to say what is or what is not in harmony with it ; but 
 this at least is certain, that subsequent disclosures proved irrefragably 
 that if the Danish fleet had not been forcibly taken possession of by the 
 English, it would have been handed over to Napoleon. But whatever the 
 justice or expediency of the project, its execution was complete and 
 masterly. The military force was nominally under the orders of Earl 
 Cathcart, but Sir Arthui- Wellesley, second in command, was virtually the 
 leader of the expedition ; and he, by the vigour and rapidity of his operations, 
 left little else for the naval commander, Admiral Gambler, to do, than to 
 escort the sm-rendered fleet safely home. Immediately on the arrival of the 
 troops in the Isle of Zealand, the brief campaign commenced. The Danish 
 forces offered a brave opposition at Kioge ; but they were pushed aside, or 
 driven headlong upon Copenliagen, with the loss of 1100 prisoners, including 
 sixty officers and ten pieces of cannon. The cannonade and bombardment 
 of the Danish capital followed quickly afterwards : it was in flames on 
 the 4th, and on the 5th of September 1808, just as the storming forces 
 were about to attack the breach, the Crown -Prince capitulated. The 
 Danish fleet, consisting of sixteen sail of the line, nine frigates, fourteen 
 sloops, with an immense quantity of naval stores, were given up to the 
 British admiral, and conveyed to England. Two ships on the stocks 
 were also taken to pieces and carried away, and two others were burnt. 
 The operations were throughout conducted by Sir Arthur Wellesley — the 
 Earl Cathcart, much to his credit for good sense, having confined himself to 
 receiving and perusing the dispatches to head-quarters of his skilful and 
 audacious second in command. For this service Sir Arthm-, and of coiurse 
 Earl Cathcart and Admiral Gambler, received the thanks of the crown and 
 parliament. 
 
 Lord Roslyn, who accompanied the expedition, took a favom'ite mare 
 with him, which proved with foal in the isle of Zealand. On her return 
 home a colt was produced, which was named Copenhagen and was the 
 famous horse that carried the Duke through the day of Waterloo, and was 
 bm-ied with military honours at Stratfleldsaye in 1835. 
 
 The desperate though badly organised and unsuccessful resistance of the 
 insurgent Spanish people to the infamous seizure of then- country by Bona- 
 parte, and the occupation of Lisbon by Marshal Junot, Duke of Abrantes, 
 induced the British government to send an auxiliary army to the Peninsula, 
 and the command of the troops assembled at Cork for that purpose was given 
 to Sir Arthur Wellesley. The ardent general arrived at Corunna on the 
 20th of July 1808, and was there informed by the vapouring junta that 
 Spain had plenty of soldiers : she only wanted money. They added that 
 the British army could not be better employed than in clearing Portugal of 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the French force under Junot. The unacconntable surrender of Dupont at 
 Baylen had in fact turned the brains of the juntas throughout Spain, and 
 it required many and bitter lessons to bring tliem back to modesty and 
 reason. Sir Arthur immediately sailed for the Tagus, and after an inter- 
 view with Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, who was blockading a Russian 
 squadron that had taken refuge in that river, decided on landing at the 
 mouth of the Mondego, an operation which was effected on the 3d of 
 August 1808. General Spencer had joined, and their united forces 
 amounted to nearly 20,000 men, but were utterly deficient in cavalry, there 
 being only a few hundred badly-mounted horsemen with the force. Sir 
 John Moore, Sir Arthur's senior officer, was daily expected with a lai-ge 
 reinforcement; but General Wellesley, naturally anxious to strike a good 
 blow before another arrived to snatch the command from him, marched 
 rapidly along the coast towards Lisbon. General Bernardin Freire, a 
 Portuguese officer, at the head of about 6000 men, accompanied Wellesley 
 for some distance ; but as they neared the French, a rooted disbelief in the 
 possibility of vanquishing Napoleon's generals grew upon him, and casting 
 about for an excuse to avoid the approaching conflict, he hit upon the 
 singular one of demanding that the British general should supply the 
 Portuguese troops with rations! This absurd requisition was of course 
 refused ; indeed it was impossible to comply with it, and Don Bernardin 
 separated himself from the English commander, leaving, however, at the 
 request of the latter — who was anxious to retain the moral support with 
 the country people of the presence of native troops — one regiment with 
 the British, whom Sir Arthur undertook to supply with rations. The first 
 resistance encountered was at Roli^a, where the French general, Laborde, 
 resolutely defended some difficult, tangled passes, retiring slowly step by 
 step, and inflicting great loss upon the British, who could not from the 
 nature of the ground return his incessant, well-directed fu'e with any 
 efiect. This destruction accomplished, Laborde retreated rapidly and 
 skilfully before the English could reach him in any sufficient force. The 
 day after this bitter fight, the army resumed its route, and received intelli- 
 gence that Junot had marched out of Lisbon — after threatening to fire it on 
 his return if, during his absence, there should be any effort at revolt — had 
 rallied Laborde and Loyson, and was coming on with the fixed intention of 
 ' driving the Leopai'ds into the sea ;' this being the stereotyped ' Moniteur' 
 phrase for beating and drowning the English armies. Meanwhile the 
 ' Leopards,' confident in their general and themselves, were in the highest 
 spirits, nothing doubting that a gazette - extraordinary would, before many 
 days elapsed, silence the exasperating sneers of certain eloquent English 
 politicians at the folly and rashness, as they were pleased to term it, of 
 opposing the 'pipe-clayed soldiers of Whitehall' to the war - accustomed 
 veterans of France. A dark cloud came between them and their hopes. 
 A dispatch from Lord Castlereagh had informed Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 that Sir Harry Burrard was on his way to supersede him in tlie command 
 of the troops, and that shortly afterwards Sir Hew Dalrymple might be 
 expected to supersede Sir Hai-ry. The first instalment of tlie threatened 
 calamity had arrived. General Burrard's presence on boai'd a frigate oflf 
 the coast was signalled, and Sir Arthur, as in duty bound, waited upon him, 
 and reported the state of affairs. He related what had been already 
 16 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ■done, and announced his intention of marching to meet Junot at dawn 
 the next morning. Sir Harry IJurrard would not hear of sucli a proceeding, 
 than which nothing, lie said, could be more rash. ' Offer battle without 
 cavalry, and with artillery horses, as Sir Harry Burrard understood, good 
 for nothing! Sir Arthur must not think of such a thing: no battle must 
 be offered till the arrival of the reinforcements under Sir John Moore.' 
 Vainly did Sir Arthur urge his reasons for desiring immediate battle, and 
 assure General Burrard that success was as certain as any not yet accom- 
 plished event in war could be. It was useless : the advance of the army 
 was peremptorily forbidden ; and one can easily believe that as Sir Arthur 
 stepped into the boat that was to convey him ashore, the same bitter 
 smile which had been observed in Earl Cathcart's council -room again 
 played about his lips with increased intensity, and that a flushed and angry 
 brow surmounted the tlashing eyes. Fortune made amends for the 
 injustice of his official superior. The morning disclosed the gratifying 
 sight of Junot's army in full march towards the English, and without a 
 shameful flight, battle was inevitable. Sir Arthur's dispositions were 
 quickly made, and with perfect tranquillity and confidence he awaited 
 Junot's approach. The French attacked with their usual valour and 
 impetuosity, and after an obstinate conflict were driven back in utter 
 confusion upon all points, leaving in the power of the British thirteen guns 
 and many hundred prisoners, amongst whom was a general-officer. It was 
 now twelve o'clock; Sir Harry Burrard, who had landed a short time 
 previously, assumed the command, and Sir Arthur's order for two divisions 
 of the army to press fiercely upon the disordered French and drive them 
 over the Sierra de Baraguedo, whilst Hill, Anstruther, and I'ane by a 
 rapid flank-march gained the Pass of Torres-Vedras, and cut Junot off from 
 Lisbon — which would have been equivalent, or nearly so, to the French 
 commander's surrendering at discretion — was countermanded. Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley expostulated warmly it is said. General Burrard gave his 
 reasons : — Enough had been done ; the English had no cavalry; the French 
 were rallying; the artillery -traces were damaged, etcetera. In line, he 
 would hear of no pursuit ; especially of no flank-march upon Lisbon, which 
 was a thing contrary to all rule. Sir Arthur, obliged to yield, turned to 
 one of the staff', and said : ' We had better see about getting some dinner, 
 as there is nothing more for soldiers to do to-day.' Thus ended the 
 battle of Vimeira. 
 
 Junot, thanks to Sir Harry Burrard, got safely back to Lisbon, and 
 there dictated a bulletin explanatory of the reasons why he had not 
 driven the Leopards into the sea, afterwards published in the 'Moniteur'as 
 materials for history. Sir Hew Dalrymple arrived soon afterwards, and he 
 and Sir Harry Burrard, with General Wellesley's sullen assent — for in the 
 present posture of affairs nothing better seemed likely to be done — concluded 
 the famous Convention, called of Cintra, Avhy it is difficult to say, by 
 virtue of which the French army were to evacuate Portugal, on condition 
 of being comfortably conveyed with all their arms, horses, artillery, 
 baggage (plunder), to the nearest French port, in British vessels! One of 
 the conditions granted by Dalrymple was that the Russian fleet should be 
 permitted to leave the Tagus, and be given certain law or distance, as 
 sportsmen do to a fox, before the British admiral started in pursuit. 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 This article required the consent of Sir Charles Cotton, and -was at once 
 rejected by that officer. This news arriving m the British camp caused 
 immense exultation there, from the belief that the hated Convention -was 
 consequently at an end. Sir Hew Dalrymple thought so too, and wrote 
 in that sense to Junot ; but the marshal was too well satisfied with the 
 Convention to hesitate at the sacrifice of the Russian fleet; and at once 
 signed it, quite regardless of the omission of the stipulation in behalf of 
 the French Emperor's august ally. 
 
 Sh- Arthm- WeUesley got away home as quickly as he could, and 
 resumed his duties as Irish secretary, grimly awaiting a time when he 
 might measure himself with those famous French marshals unfettered and 
 uncrippled by such well-meanmg, old-world generals as Burrard and 
 Dalrymple. 
 
 The burst of indignation excited in England by the news of the Conven- 
 tion of Cintra compelled the mmistry to appoint a court of inquiry, which, 
 under the presidence of Earl Moira, met at Chelsea. It led to no result, 
 and would scarcely have been worth mentioning here except for the 
 purpose of relating a very honourable, although apparently trifling incident 
 in so crowded a life as that of the Duke of Wellington. Sir Arthur was 
 questioned relative to the refusal of Sir Harry Burrard to permit the flank- 
 march upon Lisbon after the victory of Vimeira. He generously excused 
 Burrard, although of course maintaming that he had judged rightly in 
 ordering the movement which that general had countermanded. ' I would 
 do so agaui,' said Sir Ai'thur, ' under similar circumstances ; still, I am 
 bound to say that Sir Harry Burrard decided on fair military reasons.' No 
 doubt of it. The only difference was, that Sir Arthur could see farther and 
 more clearly than the aged veteran, who, there can be no doubt, decided, 
 as he believed, for the best. 
 
 The able but disastrous campaign of Sir John Moore followed — a 
 campaign flippantly condemned by the glittermg rhetoric of Mr Canning 
 and other orators, but of which the Duke of Wellington has written 
 the following defence: — 'The only error I can discern in Sir John 
 Moore's campaign is, that he ought to have looked upon the advance 
 to SeJiagun as a movement in retreat, and have sent officers to the 
 rear to mark and arrange the halting-points of each brigade. But this 
 is an opinion formed after a long experience of war, and especially 
 of Spanish war, which must be seen to be understood. Finally, it is an 
 opinion formed after the event.' Mai'shal Soult, who commanded the 
 French at Corunna, speaks thus of the English general : ' General Moore 
 opposed every possible obstacle to me during a long and difficult retreat, 
 and died in a battle which does honour to his memor}'.' These testimonies 
 are as honourable to the commanders who penned them as to the gallant 
 but ill-fated soldier whose fame they vindicate. 
 
 The deliverance of the Peninsula was still a prime object with the people 
 of Great Britain, and it was determined to make another strenuous effoi^t 
 towards its accomplishment. Sir Arthur WeUesley, upon the distinct 
 understanding that he should not be again superseded without reasonable 
 cause, accepted the command of the army in Portugal; finally resigned the 
 office of Irish Secretary; and arrived at Lisbon on tlie 22d of April 1809, 
 Sir John Cradock, who had previously commanded there, returning home. 
 18 
 
THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 
 
 Active preparations for immediate hostilities at once commenced, and were 
 urged witli such unflagging vigour by Sii* Arthur that in little more than a 
 fortnight after his arrival in Portugal he was enabled to strike the terrible 
 blow at Soult which, reverberating throughout Europe, first roused the 
 nations to a perception of the great fact that a general had at last entered 
 the lists against France, wlio in skill, promptitude, and daring was to the 
 full the equal of the distinguished military chieftains that had sprung from 
 that soldier-teeming soil. Our space will forbid us to do more than glance 
 at the series of brilliant triumphs that illuminate the history of the 
 Peninsular campaign : we can only hurriedly point to the more salient and 
 conspicuous heights along which leaped the flame of victory till it shone 
 upon the startled land of France. And let us not be misunderstood in 
 thus speaking of the skill and hardihood displayed by our countrymen 
 in the strictly -defensive contest waged in behalf of the betrayed and 
 downtrodden peoples of Spain and Portugal. We yield to none in our 
 dislike of war. Successful violence and wrong, however gilded over with 
 fine-sounding phrases, however blazoned in history and song, are still with 
 us detestable violence and wrong. But the spirit which prompts resistance 
 to insolent invasion, and vaUant defiance of triumphant oppression, is a 
 virtue, a true hei-oism: its aim, the vindication of justice — its final victory, 
 peace. 
 
 Marshal Soult had some time previously invaded Portugal from Orense 
 in Galicia, and after dissipating the undisciplined forces opposed to him, 
 and committing or permitting many cruel excesses, established his head- 
 quarters at Oporto, on the Douro, with about 25,000 men. Marshal 
 Victor, with another considerable French army, was at Almeida. It was 
 desirable to attack them separately, and at once; and the British general, 
 after providing against danger from Victor, marched with the step of a 
 giant upon Oporto. Arrived on the borders of the Douro, he found Soult 
 quietly reposing in the subjugated city, after taking the precaution of 
 destroying the bridge and secm-ing all the boats to his own side of a river 
 thi-ee hundred yards wide. This done, he felt perfectly satisfied that 
 he could not be attacked except by sea, and without receiving full 
 notice of the intention of his enemy. He was slumbering in a fool's 
 paradise. Sir Arthur "VVellesley first despatched Beresford to seize the 
 bridge at Amarante held by Loyson, and prevent Soult's escape by that 
 road ; then Sir John Murray, with the British cavalry, was sent off to 
 cross the Dom-o some miles further up; and at dawn of day on the 12th of 
 May, Sir Arthur with his staff, partially concealed from the unsuspicious 
 French outposts by a bend in the river, was eagerly searching for means 
 of crossing to the other side. The eye of the British general rested upon 
 a large unfinished building on the opposite shore, called a seminary. 
 Could he find or contrive means of crossing, it would, he saw, afford a 
 strong ^oini d'apptd for the passage of the troops. At this moment Colonel 
 Waters, a zealous and adventurous staff- oflicer, brought the welcome 
 intelligence that, having met a poor barber crossing in a skiff at some 
 distance up the river, he, aided by the influence of the prior of Amarante, 
 had persuaded the barber not only to lend his boat, but to retvu-n with 
 them to the other side, and assist in unfastening and bringing across three 
 barges. This was great news. The barges were quickly reported ready, 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 and a brief ' Let the men cross,' gave the order for this daring enterprise. 
 The first detachment landed unobserved, and took quiet possession of the 
 unfinished seminary ; the second and the third were equally fortunate ; 
 but before the fourth could cross, the quick firing of the French sentinels, 
 soon followed by the hurried roll of Soult's drums, announced that they 
 were discovered; and the British troops, who had hitherto been kept out 
 of si"-ht, crowded to the banks of the river, and greeted the French — who 
 presently poured out of Oporto in order to attack the seminary before its 
 defenders became too numerous — with loud shouts of exultation and 
 defiance. The struggle at the seminary soon became furious — deadly. 
 Paget was wounded. Hill succeeded him, but so doubtful at one time 
 appeared the issue that Sir Arthur, but for the remonstrances of his staff, 
 and the reflection that Hill would do all that man could to maintain the 
 position, would himself have crossed over. Presently loud shouts were 
 heard from the quays of the awakened city, whose inhabitants, roused 
 from their slumbers by the din and tumult of the surprise and contest, 
 were unchaining the boats, and rowing them with frantic eagerness across the 
 river. The British now crossed by hundreds, and it was not long before a 
 cloud of dust, through which glimmered the flashing sabres of the English 
 cavalry, announced the approach of Sir John Murray. Soult saw that the 
 game was lost; and abandoning the city, his sick, stores, baggage, and 
 artillery, everything with the exception of a few light field-pieces, went 
 off rapidly in the direction of the bridge of Amarante, which he expected 
 to find in the safe-keeping of the 3000 men under Loyson. This hurried 
 retreat must at once have changed to a headlong flight but for the 
 unaccountable inaction of Sir John Murray, who kept his impatient 
 squadrons immovable in their ranks whilst the disordered stream of 
 soldiery swept past. General Stewart, now Marquis of Londonderry, 
 impatient of this strange inactivity, charged without, or rather in defiance 
 of ordei'S, at the head of the 14th Dragoons alone, right through the 
 retiring columns ; but remaining unsupported by Murray, got roughly 
 handled, and lost a considerable number of men. Soult, eagerly followed 
 by the British army as soon as it could be got in order for that purpose, 
 crossed the Souza River, and there, to his mortification and dismay, met 
 Loyson's force, which had hastily retired from before Beresford. The 
 French marshal's position now appeared desperate, and Loyson suggested 
 the idea of a convention like that of Cintra. Soult, hopeless in all proba- 
 bility of cheating out of the fruits of his calculated daring the general 
 who had struck him the blow he was writhing under, rejected the pro- 
 posal; and having found a Spanish pedler, who informed him there was 
 a road which led over the Sierra Catarina to Guimaraens, the marshal 
 abandoned Loyson's and his own remaining cannon, baggage, military 
 chest, and boldly followed his Spanisli guide across the mountains. 
 Everything was thrown away that could in the slightest degree impede 
 this terrible retreat — terrible not only to the French, whose stragglers 
 were mercilessly slain by the peasantry, roused into ferocious activity by 
 the unlooked-for sight of the discomfiture and rout of the so -lately 
 recklessly triumphant troops — 
 
 ' The desolator desolate, the victor overthrown' — 
 20 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 but to the wretched country people in the line of march, whom the French 
 in retaliation for the cruelties inflicted in their sight upon the mainiud and 
 footsore of their own people, shot without scruple or remorse, at the same 
 time tiring their dwellings, thus marlving every step of their Hight with 
 blood and flame and rum. It was doubtful, too, if after all tiiey would 
 escape, for at every pause for scanty rest the tramp and gallop of tlie 
 British army sounded more and more distinctly in tlieir rear, and tidings 
 reached Soult that the only bridge by which escape was possible — that of 
 Ponte Nova, on the Cavado — was partly cut, and in possession of a 
 Portuguese guard. Sending for Major Dulong, an ofticer of distinguished 
 bravery, the marshal, after briefly explainhig the situation, said : ' Take a 
 hundred grenadiers and twenty-five liorsemen, and endeavour to surprise 
 and repair the bridge. If you are successful, let me know immediately; 
 if you fail, you need send no message — your silence will be enough.' 
 Dulong, favoured by the storm and darkness of the night, succeeded in his 
 perilous and welhiigh desperate enterprise. Only a narrow ledge of the 
 bridge remained passable, and over this he and his grenadiers crawled in 
 single rile upon their hands and feet. One soldier lost his hold and feU 
 into the Cavado, his cry of agony, fortunately for liis comrades, being 
 drowned in the roar and splash of the howling storm and rusliing waters. 
 The Poi'tuguese sentmel was surprised and slain, and the heedless guard 
 were overpowered and dispersed. The bridge was hastily repaired, and 
 the French army was enabled to pass slowly over, a portion of the British ' 
 artillery only arriving in time to strew the passage and defile the river 
 ■with numerous dead and woimded men of the rearguard. Soult ultimately 
 reached Orense in Galicia, and there the British cavaby desisted from 
 further pursuit. The French marshal had left that town eleven weeks 
 previously with 25,000 veteran troops, fifty- eight pieces of artillery, 
 numerous stores, and valuable baggage. He returned to it with 19,000 
 men, destitute of everything but the arms in their hands and the ragged 
 clothing on their backs. With such passages in this terrific war as this 
 frightful retreat or rather flight presents, and with the dreadful misery 
 and ruin inflicted and suftered fresh in the memory — the war, it is 
 impossible to deny, originating in the insatiable ambition of the French 
 Emperor — the recollection of the sentimental cry set up against the cruelty 
 of Napoleon's imprisonment at St Helena strikes the mind with a feeling 
 of astonishment at the infinitely -varied and discordant scale by which 
 human actions are sometimes judged in this strange world of ours. 
 
 Marshal Victor, on hearing of tlie disaster which had befallen Soult, 
 united himself with Jourdan and King Joseph, and, conjointly witli tliem, 
 on the 28th and 29th of July, fought the battle of Talavera de la lieyna 
 against General Wellesley's army and the Spanish force under Cuesta. 
 This battle would never have been hazarded by the British general had he 
 not been misled into an almost inextricable jjosition by the imbecility and 
 braggadocia of Cuesta. The Spanish soldiers, individually as brave per- 
 haps as others, were so wretchedly organised, so inefticiently commanded, 
 that they, on the day of trial, proved almost useless. The position of the 
 British army when it was ascertained that Cuesta's army could not be 
 relied upon was manifestly one of extreme peril. Joseph, Victor, and 
 Jourdan, were in front with an army immensely superior to that commanded 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 by General Wellesley ; and Soult, -who with veteran readiness had ah-eady 
 re-organised and re-equipped liis so lately-beaten force, -which had more- 
 over been powei'fully reinforced, was in full march upon Sir Ai'thur's com- 
 munications with Portugal, with the intention of falling upon the British 
 rear. Soult sent messenger after messenger to King Joseph, begging him 
 not to fight till he (Soult) could get up. Fortunately Victor's presumption 
 and Joseph's pliancy prevented this wary counsel from being adopted. 
 Talavera was fought : the French, after a tremendous contest, were driven 
 beyond the Alberche with the loss of ten guns, and Sir Arthur Wellesley, 
 whom victory alone could enable to retreat, withdrew his army, by this 
 time reduced to 17,000 men, by the line of the Tagus into Portugal. 
 The Spanish troops, now become a mere armed mob, followed, hotly pur- 
 sued by Marshal Victor, who captured the British hospitals, unavoidably 
 left for a brief space under Cuesta's charge. General Craufurd's brigade 
 was sixty-two miles distant from Talavera when he first heard of the immi- 
 nence of the unequal fight. He instantly put his troops in motion, marched 
 without rest towards the scene of action, his own and his soldiers' 
 impatience but stimulated by meeting scores of runaways from the first 
 day's fight — not all of them Spaniards, nor private soldiers — who asserted 
 that the British were beaten and in full retreat. Craufurd crossed the 
 field of battle on the evening of the victory, having brought his men in 
 heavy marching-order sixty-two miles in twenty-six hours, and this, too, in 
 the July of a Spanish summer. That ground had been traversed a short 
 time before his arrival by a far deadlier enemy than the French. The tall 
 dry grass had by some accident caught fire, and hundreds of wounded 
 soldiers thickly scattered over the field of death perished miserably in the 
 flames. For this battle, and the passage of the Douro, the British general 
 was on the 26th of the following August created a peer of England by the 
 title of Baron Douro and Viscount Wellington. He also received the 
 thanks of parliament for Talavera, a battle m which he had unquestionably 
 displayed consummate mastery in the art of handling troops in the face of 
 an enemy, and abundant resources in moments of perilous emergency. 
 On the 10th of February 1810, the Commons voted Lord Wellington a 
 pension of £2000 a year, with succession for two generations. 
 
 Determmed never again to trust to the co-operation of Spanish generals 
 or armies, Lord Wellington now anxiously directed his attention to the 
 best mode of effectually defending Portugal by the British army, aided by 
 the Portuguese regiments which were being disciplined, organised, and 
 officered under the direction of General Beresford, created for that purpose 
 a marshal in the Portuguese sei'vice. His meditations resulted in the 
 conception of the celebrated lines of Torres -Vedras, which were at once 
 commenced, but without the slightest ostentation or hint of the purpose 
 to which they were destined. 
 
 Li the spring of 1810 Marshal Massena, ' the spoiled child of victory,' as 
 he was designated by Napoleon, was appointed to the as yet baffled task of 
 driving, with Ney's assistance, the English Leopards into the sea ; but the 
 renowned commander quickly found that Dame Fortune has frowns as well 
 as favours for the most indulged of her children. Massena crowed loudly, 
 assuring tlie French Emperor that he was certain of success, and the aspect 
 of affairs appeared to justify his vaunting arrogance. The French army 
 22 
 
THE DUKE or AYELLINGTON. 
 
 destined to operate against Wellington had been increased to 90,000 men, 
 chiefly veteran soldiers, to whom the English general could not oppose 
 more than 40,000 Britisli troops, the remainder of his army being composed 
 of the as yet untried Portuguese regiments. The thousands of gallant men 
 sent to perish in the pestilential marshes of the low countries might indeed 
 have more than restored the balance ; but they died uselessly, victims of 
 the presumptuous ignorance of such men as Perceval and Canning, who, 
 unwarned by failure, icould persist in directing the military operations of 
 Great Britain. Massena opened the campaign with great spirit, and 
 advanced with elate step towards Lord Wellington, who, having concen- 
 trated his force, slowly retired, to give time to the Portuguese people to 
 retire, as he commanded, with all the provisions and property they could 
 take with them to Lisbon, after destroying and laying waste that which 
 could not be can-ied off. 
 
 These orders were in general cheerfuUy obeyed. His plan of defence, as 
 yet not guessed at by the French marshal, worked efficiently : and in order 
 to give a hopeful tone to the mind of a nation whom imperious necessity 
 compelled to submit to such terrible sacrifices, as well as to check the 
 exulting tide of French impetuosity, he halted and offered battle at Busaco. 
 He was unhesitatingly attacked, Xey leading one of the divisions — all of 
 which were defeated, and hurled back with hea^y loss and discomfiture. 
 Not the slightest impression could be made by 'the spoiled child of victory;' 
 and after waiting in position a sufficient time to enable Massena to renew 
 the attack, if he had so willed, Wellington, in pursuance of his settled 
 purpose, leisurely withdrew to the lines of Torres-Yedras, which he reached 
 and occupied on the 10th of October. The French marshal, with confi- 
 dence restored by this retrograde movement, eagerly followed through a 
 wasted countiy an enemy whom he fondly imagined was retreating to the 
 shelter of his ships. On the 12th Massena arrived in front of the lines and 
 looked at them. He did no more, remaining in a state of stupor and 
 inaction tiU the 16th of November, when no food of any kind, not even 
 pulse or horse-flesh, being any longer attainable, his suffering, demoralised 
 army retreated, pursued by Wellington, who had been reinforced seaward, 
 and the enemy were idtimately driven out of Portugal. 
 
 In 1811 Lord Wellington received the thanks of the British crown and 
 parliament for the liberation of Portugal. We have no space to recount 
 the incidents of the battles of Fuentes d'Onor on the 3d and 5th of May, 
 wherein victory, as was her wont, rested with the British general; nor 
 those of the terrific fight at Albuera, in which the desperate braveiy and 
 hardihood of the rifle-brigade, under the dii-ection of Captain, now Lord 
 Hardinge, retrieved a battle perilled by the hesitation or incapacity of 
 Marshal Beresford ; and the dashing enterprise of General Hill at Arroyo 
 de Molinos — where that gallant officer surprised Girard, dispersed his force, 
 captured all his cannon, and 1700 cavalry of the Imperial Guard — must 
 be passed over. ' The spoiled child of victory ' had been recalled, and his 
 place filled by Marshal Marmont, who was ordered to finish with the 
 British general at any sacrifice ; and that he might do so, the army placed 
 under his orders was powerfully reinforced by numerous battalions of the 
 Imperial Guard. 
 
 Marmont very speedily concentrated between 60,000 and 70,000 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 admirable soldiers, who, confident of victory, marched exultingly to battle. 
 The first rencontre of Marmont's troops with the British was in a slight 
 aflair, as far as numbers were concerned, at El-Bodon, and remarkable only 
 for the proof it afforded of the impossibility of overthrowing a valiant, 
 well-disciplined infantry, by charges of cavalry, however brave, numerous, 
 and determined may be the horsemen. 
 
 When this combat occurred, the British general, now Earl of Wellington, 
 was makmg a retrograde movement for the purpose of uniting his some- 
 what widely-sundered army. He himself took post at Guinaldo ; Craufurd, 
 who with the light division was about sixteen miles distant, was ordered to 
 join him there immediately; the left of the army under Graham was ten 
 miles off; and the 6th division was at Parfo, in the mountains, twelve miles 
 distant. In this situation of the army, Craufurd's disobedience or neglect 
 of orders, but for the iron nei've of the British general, would have lost the 
 light division. Instead of marching witliout pause upon Guinaldo, he 
 halted for the day, after accomplishing about four miles only. This gave 
 time for the concentration of Marmont's imposing force, consisting, as we 
 have before stated, of nearly 70,000 excellent soldiers, in front of the posi- 
 tion occupied by the Earl of Wellington at Guinaldo, with not more than 
 14,000 men ! To leave the post without waiting for the light division was 
 to abandon the latter to certain destruction or capture; and during that 
 evening and night, and the next day till three o'clock in the afternoon, when 
 the light division was out of danger, the British general held tlie position at 
 Guinaldo so confidently that Marmont firmly believed himself to be in front 
 of Wellington's entire army ; and wliilst meditating the best mode of 
 attack, displayed his splendid troops by a grand parade in the plains below. 
 The apparent coolness of Wellington, upon whose impassive countenance, 
 as he looked upon the brilliant show beneath, only a gi-im smile was seen 
 occasionally to pass, excited the wonder of his staff, all of whom were of 
 course aware of the extreme peril of the situation. At last an officer 
 galloped up to announce the safe arrival of the light division, when a long- 
 drawn, heavy breath, and a broken exclamation of joy, which escaped the 
 British general, shewed how keen had been the anxiety concealed beneath 
 the marble exterior. The troops were mstantly withdrawn, and an able 
 concentric movement united the army on the following day. 
 
 The astonishment of Marmont on becoming aware of what had occurred 
 was extreme, and his pre-occupation for several hours afterwards was 
 remarked by all who approached him. During a conversation with the 
 officers of his staff, one of them happened to speak of Napoleon's brilliant 
 star. ' And this Wellington,' said Marmont, looking suddenly up and 
 speaking with vivacity, ' his star is brilliant too.' The remark was a 
 prophetic one, as the French marshal before many days had passed learned 
 to his cost. 
 
 We now come to the astonishing winter -campaign of 1812, but even 
 that we may but briefly dwell upon. And here a statement must be 
 made that will greatly surprise those readers who remember what 
 enormous subsidies were squandered during the war by successive Eng- 
 lish ministries upon inefficient foreign armies. Lord Wellington, whose 
 victories were the sole aliment of hope to the struggling peoples of 
 the contment, was, spite of the most urgent, almost pathetic entreaties, 
 24 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 kept nearly penniless for weeks and months together. At the close of 
 the year 1811, he Avas involved in enormous debt, contracted for the 
 supply of his troops ; and after all he could raise by way of credit, the 
 pay of the army was more than three months in arrear, and that of 
 the muleteers eight months! Half and quarter rations were frequently 
 served out, and more than once the soldiers were without bread for 
 three days together. An official personage wrote as follows to the 
 harassed general: 'I have clamoured for money — money — money for 
 you in every office, aud everywhere with no effect. Our gi'eat men 
 {Messrs Perceval and Canning) seem just now more occupied with the 
 0. P. playhouse riots than with your necessities.' The clothing, too, of 
 the British troops had become so patched and variegated, that a regiment 
 could scarcely be distinguished by its uniform ; and yet these scantily-fed 
 and barely-clad troops had withal become terribly efficient in the tield — 
 rough, stubborn soldiers, who would hesitate at no odds however great, 
 shrink from no danger however imminent and terrible ; would, in fact, in 
 their general's words, 'go anywhere and do anything.' Lord Wellington 
 was extremely anxious to strike a great blow, if it could be done with 
 any chance of success, not only to gratify the British people — who little 
 imagined how miserably, since the Marquis of Wellesley had ceased to 
 influence the British councils, their gallant army and favourite general were 
 starved and stinted — but to fan the rising flame of resistance, once more 
 beginning to shew itself in the east and north of Europe. In order to do 
 this, it was necessary to make even his needs subservient to his audacious 
 purpose. There were two French armies at no great distance : one under 
 Marmont ; the other commanded by Soult in Andalusia. These armies 
 remained separate, from the clear impossibility of both finding subsistence 
 in one locality. The French marshals were informed by their numerous 
 spies of the destitution in many important respects of their great antagonist, 
 and he determined they should continue to believe him to be in every way 
 helplessly crippled. His object was to storm the two strong and important 
 Spanish fortresses, both garrisoned by choice French troops, of Ciudad 
 Rodrigo and Badajos, and so conceal and time his entei-prise that neither 
 Soult nor Marmont should be able to aftbrd either of the garrisons any 
 effectual relief or assistance. To effect this the closest secrecy as to his 
 purpose was of course absolutely necessary. Hitherto his intentions, if 
 intrusted to subordinate officers, or communicated to ministers, always by 
 some means or other found their way into the English newspapers, trans- 
 lations of which were made in Paris and transmitted to the French com- 
 manders. He determined this time to put the ubiquitous journals on a wrong 
 scent, and succeeded admirably. General Quartermaster Murray, request- 
 ing leave of absence, was granted it immediately, ' as nothing could be done 
 till the spring.' This was repeated by General Murray on his arrival in 
 England, and extracts from the London newspapers in due time certified the 
 fact to the anxious French marshals. Even the chief engineers of the army 
 only guessed that a siege or the semblance of a siege was contemplated. 
 He hit upon a still more effectual mode of deceiving the French generals. 
 A splendid iron battering -train had arrived at Lisbon from England. 
 Wellington had it reshipped with some ostentation for Cadiz, causing it to be 
 met at sea by vessels of light draught, into which the cannon were shifted, 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 and conveyed first to Oporto and then in boats to Lamego, wliilst the ships 
 •went on to Cadiz. At length, his preparations thoroughly complete, and 
 his project unguessed even by his own soldiers, he suddenly put the army 
 in motion, reached, battered, and stormed Ciudad Rodrigo. " Its fall on 
 the 16th of January 1812 came like a thunderbolt upon the French marshals, 
 ■who did not at first credit the intelligence. There was, however, no help 
 for it ; and as their spies informed them that Wellington was returning 
 to his old quarters, after a little idle bustle, they gradually settled into 
 quietude again. The thunder of the English cannon, directed against the 
 crumblhig walls of Badajos, awoke them a second time from their dream of 
 security; but before any efi'ectual combination could be concerted, that 
 fortress too had fallen. It was stormed on the night of the 6th of April, 
 at a sacrifice of life so frightful as to overcome for a moment the iron stern- 
 ness of the British general, who, at the sight of the thousands of his gallant 
 veterans that had fallen before an entrance could be won, burst into tears. 
 Philippon, the commandant of Badajos, preserved Soult from a worse 
 disaster than had yet befallen him, by conveying to him timely intelligence 
 of the fall of that fortress. The Duke of Dalmatia was marching to Philip- 
 pon's assistance when the messenger reached him, and he had just time to 
 retrace his steps, and escape the signal overthrow that General Hill, who 
 had been lying in wait for his advance, would unquestionably have inflicted 
 upon him, seconded as he would now have been by the whole of the 
 disengaged army. 
 
 In the beginning of July the opposing armies once more gradually 
 approached each other near Salamanca. A contest of manoeuvres took 
 place on the Tormes, in which neither side for some time gained any 
 advantage. At length Lord Wellington, becoming utterly destitute of the 
 means of keeping the field, reluctantly determined on retiring by the road 
 to Ciudad Rodrigo, and dispositions with that view were made. His 
 inability to prosecute the campaign arose entirely from the supineness of 
 the English ministry, who had failed to afford him the necessary supplies. 
 ' I have never,' he wrote at the time, ' been in such distress as at present, 
 and some serious misfortune must happen if the government does not 
 attend to the subject, and supply us regularly with money.' Marmont 
 divined the intention of the British commander, and on the 22d of July 
 hazarded a move which, had a less skilful player been opposed to him, 
 might have been successful, but attempted against Wellington it turned 
 out to be a disastrous blunder, ruinous alike to the French army and 
 the marshal's own reputation. He despatched Thomiere's corps cVarmee 
 with fifty guns by a circuitous route to turn the left of the British army, 
 and thus prevent its retreat by Ciudad Rodrigo. Owing to tlie nature 
 of the ground, this movement was not observed by the English officers till 
 about two hours after it had commenced. It was of course immediately 
 communicated to Lord Wellington, who saw at a glance its full signifi- 
 cance. He sprang to his feet so eagerly that he overturned the table at 
 which he had been sitting, and exclaimed Avith irrepressible exultation : 
 ' If that be so, Marmont's good -fortune has for once deserted him.' It 
 was quite true. Thomiere's corps cVarmie, extending two or three miles 
 m length, was hopelessly sundered from the main body of Marmont's 
 troops. The blunder was an enormous one, and the British general 
 2C 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 quickly rendered it irrepai-able. Staff-oflicers went off at a gallop in every 
 dii'ection ; the infantry stood to their arms; tlic cavah-y vaulted to their 
 saddles; the artillery unlimbered ; and Marniont's weakened army was 
 instantly attacked in overwhelmuig force. The French marshal saw his 
 error, and officer after officer was despatched to command the return of 
 Thomiere. They never readied him. As the head of Thomiere's leading 
 column emerged upon the Ciudad Eodrigo road, where they expected to 
 find the British in full retreat, Pakenham fell like a thunderbolt upon his 
 rear, and roUed up the long, straggling line with hideous slaughter, to 
 which no effectual resistance could be opposed. Marmont's heart died 
 withm him at the sight. Brave as steel, however, as most French soldiers 
 are, he struggled desperately to maintain the combat, but the explosion of 
 a shell grievously woundmg him, he was carried out of the battle. Clausel 
 succeeded to the command, but the fortune of the day could not be 
 changed. The French army was utterly defeated, and driven off the field, 
 with the loss of its artillery, several thousand prisoners, and a vast number 
 of slain and wounded men. General Foy, who exerted himself zealously to 
 protect the retreat, writing of Salamanca, said : ' It was a battle in w^iicli 
 forty thousand men were beaten in forty minutes.' The news of Marmont's 
 signal defeat reached the French Emperor just as he had crossed the Boro- 
 dino, and must have fallen as a dread and evil omen upon that superstitious 
 votary and child of destiny. Salamanca was by far the completest victory 
 yet gained by the British general over the French armies, and was always 
 that upon which he chiefly prided himself. ' I saw him,' remarks tlie 
 historian. General Napier — ' I saw him late in the evening of that great 
 day, when the advancing flashes of cannon and musketry shewed how well 
 the field was won : he was alone. The flush of victory was upon his brow, 
 and his eyes were eager and watchful, but his voice was cahii and even gentle. 
 With a prescient pride he seemed to accept this glory as an earnest of 
 greater things to come.' The valour and enthusiasm displayed by all ranks 
 of the victorious army on this occasion historians speak of as remarkable ; 
 and one of the weaker and better sex exhibited a heroic disregard of 
 danger that would not have shamed the bravest soldier there. ' The wife 
 of Colonel Dalbiac,' says the author we have just quoted, ' a delicate 
 and timid English lady, rode deep into the fire, actuated by a fear stronger 
 than that of death.' A daughter of this lady is, we believe, the present 
 Duchess of Eoxburghe. 
 
 On the 12th of August following, Wellington made his triumphant entry 
 into Madrid amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants, and was imme- 
 diately afterwards appointed generalissimo of the Spanish armies. On the 
 18th of the same month he was created Marquis of Wellington by the 
 Prince-Regent of England. 
 
 The next great incidents of the war were the imsuccessful attack upon 
 the fortress of Burgos, numerously garrisoned by French troops commanded 
 by Marshal Clausel, the consequent retreat upon Portugal, and the evacua- 
 tion of Madrid. 
 
 In the beginning of 1813, the Marquis of Wellington, upon whom the 
 colonelcy of the royal regiment of Hoi;seguards had been previously 
 conferred, was created a Knight of the Garter. He visited Cadiz, and sailed 
 thence to Lisbon, where he was received by the population with great 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 enthusiasm. Hope of permanent deliverance had revived in the hearts of 
 the people. The news of the disastrous issue of Napoleon's Russian cam- 
 paign had been published, and everywhere a determination to press the 
 French ai-mies vigorously was manifested. The Marquis of Wellington's 
 army advanced rapidly through Spain, King Joseph and his marshals retiring 
 to concentrate their forces near Vittoria, where, on the '21st June 1813, they 
 accepted battle, and the total irremediable rout of the French army was the 
 result. That army lost their cannon, stores, a vast number of killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners, and the intrusive monarch his carriages, treasure, 
 and baggage, glad doubtless to escape with life from his imaginary kingdom. 
 Marshal Jourdan, in the hurry of his flight, left his truncheon behind him 
 a trophy for the victors, which on 3d of July the Gazette announced had 
 been conferred by the Prince-Regent upon Field-Marshal the Marquis of 
 Wellington. Honours and rewards were thickly showered about this time 
 upon the triumphant British general. One hundred thousand pounds for 
 the purchase of an estate had been voted him by the English parliament, 
 and he was now created by the Spanish authorities Duque de Ciudad 
 Rodrigo, and a grandee of Spain of the first class. The estate of Soto de 
 Roma, of which the unhappily celebrated Prince of Peace had been 
 despoiled, was bestowed upon him by the Cadiz Cortes, ' in testimony of 
 the gratitude of the Spanish nation.' He accepted the gift, but the 
 proceeds of the estate were devoted during the war to the public service. 
 
 These honours, gifts, and compliments were, so far as the Cortes and 
 ruling powers of Spain were concerned, mere veils to hide from the world 
 their envy and dislike both of the English nation and their general. All 
 fear of the French having passed away, the instinctive Spanish aversion to 
 foreigners seized anew upon the soldiers and people, to whom, it galled 
 their pride to be compelled to confess, they were mainly indebted for the 
 recovery of their national independence. They did not want plausible 
 e.xcuses either for their enmity towards the British army. The horroi'S 
 enacted at St Sebastian by some of the furious soldiers — who, during five 
 hours of dreadful battle at the breach, had seen nearly 3000 men struck 
 down around them by the fierce destruction vomited forth from the at last 
 captured town — were published with many exaggerations by the munici- 
 pality of the ill-fated city, and created naturally a strong sensation 
 throughout Spain. The town, it was Avell known, had been fired by the 
 French garrison as tliey retired through it to the citadel ; but the fact was 
 purposely concealed, and every horror of the fearful time — flame, robbery, 
 murder — were attributed, not alone to the infuriated ruflSans who had 
 perpetrated the outrages, but to the entire soldiery : a gross injustice, the 
 mass of the troops, as well as the officers who risked their lives, and in two 
 instances lost them, to calm the dreadful tumult, being as indignant at the 
 excesses committed as the Spaniards themselves could be. Two-thirds of 
 the oflicers of the storming force were unfortunately killed or hurt, and it 
 was for some hours impossible to maintain or restore discipline. Lord 
 Wellington was not present on the day of the successfid assault, although 
 he had intended to be .so, when, angered by the former failure of the 5th 
 division, he issued his requisition, demanding fifteen volunteers from each 
 of the regiments composing the 1st, 4th, and light divisions — ' men who 
 could shew other troops how to mount a breach' — an appeal answered by 
 28 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 750 gallant men, who nearly all perished. Sir Thomas Graham (Lord 
 LjTiedoch) commanded, but the day after the assault Wellington arrived : 
 some severe examples were made, and order was restored with a rigorous, 
 unsparing hand. Tliese calumnies on the army appear to have irritated 
 the British general much more than the numerous libels directed personally 
 against himself. Amongst other things he was accused of plotting to get 
 himself made king of Spain by the nobles, and some of the grandees 
 thought it worth while to publish a solemn contradiction of the rumour. 
 The quarrel became at last so envenomed, that when about to enter France 
 he fully expected a civil war to break out upon his communications, and 
 wrote home that if he were the government the army should not remain in 
 the country another hour. Happily these disputes were checked before 
 they could break out into open violence : the mass of the population, the 
 soldiers, and regimental officers had no confidence but in his leadership ; 
 the turbulent spirits of the Cortes were overawed, and decorum, if not 
 content, was re-established. 
 
 The French Emperor sent Soult from Germany, with full powers as his 
 lieutenant to take the command of all the French troops in Spain, in order 
 if possible to arrest the conquering march of Wellington upon France. 
 This task Soult gallantly, if vainly, attempted. But the hour of defeat had 
 struck. Step by step all intervening obstacles, whether of man or nature, 
 were pushed aside or overleaped, and in November 1813 the standards 
 that three years before had floated over the last dike at Ton-es-Vedras, 
 which withstood the irruptive torrent of the Imperial armies, now waved in 
 retributive triumph over the vainly-imagined ' sacred soil' from whence the 
 armed invasion had come forth. We need not further dwell upon the 
 incidents of a struggle, terminated by the bitter tight before Toulouse, 
 that, dm-ing six years, had desolated the Peninsula. Enough has been 
 written to shew how terrible was the strife, and how great and constant 
 were the skill and courage ultimately crowned with victory. 
 
 The peace of 1814 terminated the war, it was hoped permanently, 
 and the British troops returned home. Their renowned commander 
 was created, on the 3d of May of that year, Marquis of Douro and 
 Duke of Wellington ; and in June £400,000, making, with the previous 
 grant of £100,000, half a million of money, was awarded him by the 
 House of Commons. On the 28th of the same month the Duke took his 
 seat in the House of Peers, and subscribed the parliamentary -roll, the 
 patents of aU his titles having been tirst read by the officer of the 
 House. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington was at the Congress of Kings in Vienna when 
 the news of Bonaparte's return from Elba startled the world from its 
 transient dream of peace, and speedily afterwards we find him in Belgium, to 
 use his own expression, at the head — with the exception of his old soldiers 
 who had fought in Spain — ' of the most infamous army m the world.' 
 The British troops with the Duke, it must be remembered, did not exceed 
 35,000 men, the rest of the army, with some brilliant exceptions, being 
 composed of troops better fitted for a parade than a stubborn battle. Had 
 the 70,000 men led by Wellington been all men who had gone through the 
 fiery ordeal of the Peninsular campaigns, it is no disparagement to the 
 unquestionable bravery of the French army — many of whom were mere 
 
 ■2) 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 conscripts — to say that the struggle ■would have been nothing like so long 
 and obstinate as it proved. 
 
 The events of the 16tli and 18th of June 1815 are too familiar to every 
 reader in the British Empire to need recapitulation here. There is, however, 
 one cii'cumstance in connection with them, with i-espect to which delusion 
 still extensively prevails, chiefly perhaps because some of Lord Byron's 
 best verses chronicle the fiction : we mean those relative to the way in 
 which the Duke of Welluigton and his officers are represented as being 
 suddenly startled by the sound of cannon whilst dancing — unconscious of 
 the approach of danger — at the Duchess of Eichmond's ball on the night of 
 the 15th, at Brussels. They commence thus — 
 
 ' There was a sound of rerelry by night ; ' 
 
 and presently we are told that, amidst the voluptuous swell of music the 
 sudden booming of the French artillery arrested the flying feet of the 
 dancers, paled the cheeks of the fair dames, and pressed innumerable 
 sighs from out young hearts. Nothing can be prettier, only there is 
 not a particle of truth in the story. It would have been odd if there 
 were, the French attack on the Prussians at Charleroi commencing in the 
 morning and closing before dark: the echoes of the ' opening roar' of the 
 guns must have taken an immense time on the road only to reach Brussels 
 at midnight. But the truth is, that long before a ball-candle was lighted, or 
 a ball-dress fitted on, every officer and man in the army knew of the attack 
 of the French on the Sambre, and had received orders from the quarter- 
 master to be in readiness to march at daybreak. The last order issued by 
 the Duke of Wellington on the evening of the ball was dated ' a Bruxelles, 
 ce 15 Juin, 9J p.m.,' and directs the Due de Berri to send what force he had 
 to Alost by daybreak. Brunswick's ' fated chieftain ' had, before going to 
 the ' surprise '-ball, directed his corps, by order of the British field-marshal, 
 to assemble and bivouac on the high-road between Brussels and Bivorde, 
 in readiness for the march at dawn. Provided the invited officers had made 
 the necessaiy preparations for departure, there could be no possible objec- 
 tion to their attending the ball for a few hours — the reverse rather ; for 
 men do not now, any more than in the days of paladins and tournaments, 
 fight the less bravely for the actual or recent presence of graceful and 
 beautiful women. The whole story is an invention, not one whit truer 
 than the words ascribed to the Duke of Wellington during the great fight, 
 ' Would that the night or Blucher were come ! ' And, in truth, spite of 
 all the fables and assumptions of both French and Prussian writers — excus- 
 able perhaps under the circumstances — Blucher's army took no efiective 
 part in the fight, invaluable as they proved themselves in tlie pursuit. If 
 this were not so, the Prussian authorities would scarcely have studiously 
 omitted to publish an official list of their killed and wounded in the battle. 
 
 The capitulation of Paris, agreed to between I\Iai"shal Davoust, Prince of 
 Eckmul, acting on behalf of the provisional government, at the head of 
 which was Fouchd, Due d'Otrantc, and Wellington and Blucher, was 
 signed on the 3d of July 1815, and the French army occupying Paris 
 retired beyond the Loire. 
 
 Two days after the Convention was signed. Marshal Ney, who, on being 
 intrusted by Louis XVIII. with the command of a body of troops to arrest 
 30 
 
THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON. 
 
 the march of Napoleon upon Paris, had solemnly promised the Bonrhon 
 monarch to bring his old master to Paris in an iron cage, and after- 
 wards went over with his troops to the retunied Emperor, obtained a 
 passport of Fouchd, Due d'Otrante, in a feigned name, with the purpose of 
 escaping from France. He might have succeeded ; but foolishly dallying 
 with opportunity, he was recognised, and ai-rested by one Locard at an 
 obscure cabaret in the wildest part of old Auvergne, and brought back to 
 Paris. He was tried by order of the restored government before the 
 Chamber of Peers for high treason, and sentenced to death. During the 
 trial nothing was heard with respect to Ney being protected by the 12th 
 article of the capitulation of Paris, which set forth in substance that 
 every person in the capital should continue in possession of their rights 
 and liberties, and should not be pursued or disquieted for any political 
 acts they might have committed, nor on account of any post they 
 might have filled, nor for the political opinions they entertained ; but as 
 soon as sentence was pronounced, the condemned marshal appealed to 
 Wellington for protection under the capitulation. The Duke replied that 
 the Convention of Paris guaranteed the inhabitants of Paris only against 
 being disquieted or injured by the miUtarj- authority of those who signed 
 it, and could not be considered as at all binding on the French government. 
 He therefore refused to interfere. 
 
 The English field-marshal was appointed, by the imanimous consent and 
 approbation of the powers, to command the Allied Aniiy of Observation, a 
 delicate and onerous duty, which he discharged in the most satisfoctory and 
 efficient manner; and on the final evacuation of France on the 1st of 
 November 1818, he returned to England, and soon afterwards entered Lord 
 Liverpool's cabinet as Master-General of the Ordnance. An extra gi-ant 
 of £200,000 was voted him in 1815, making in all £700,000 in money, 
 besides the pension of £2000 a year, and many lucrative appointments 
 bestowed upon him by the government— an amomit of pecimiary reward as 
 unexampled as the military services it recompensed. 
 
 The remainder of his Grace's career belongs to the ci^al history of the 
 country, and we the less regret the want of space necessary for the briefest 
 review of it, as it has been already written in that of Sir Robert Peel, by 
 whose judgment his Grace, as minister, was constantly guided. After that 
 great man's death, the Duke seldom spoke in parliament. One of the last 
 speeches he delivered in the House of Peers, was spoken in a voice broken 
 with emotion. Yet he seemed to stand more erect than he had lately 
 done, and his eyes kindled somewhat with their old fire as, looking round 
 with a sort of defiance upon the assembly — many of whom he knew were 
 in the bitterness of their political opposition almost personal enemies 
 of his deceased friend — he pronounced the emphatic eulogium upon Sir 
 Piobert Peel, that he, above all men he ever knew, was governed in every 
 action of his life by a love of truth and justice. 
 
 The temperate, regular habits of the Duke enabled him to reach an age 
 granted to few men so much engrossed in public affairs; and even in his 
 eighty-third year, he continued to participate in many of the gaieties of 
 life. Somewhat bent in body, but with intellect clear and decisive as ever, 
 he performed the arduous duties of his situation as commander-in-chief, to 
 the satisfaction of the whole community. Death came in abruptly at last. 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 On the morning of the 14th of September 1852, he awoke in his usual 
 health, but almost immediately after complained of slight indisposition. 
 He soon fell into a succession of fits, which ended in his death at three in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 The qualities, mental and moral, of the illustrious field-marshal, are 
 written in such firm and vivid characters in his life, that none but the 
 wilfully blind can fail to perceive their significance and appreciate their 
 value. That he was a magnificent leader of armies, a general marvellously 
 skilled in the art of handling troops in the field, and strong to encounter 
 and overcome adverse fortune by indomitable courage and unswerving 
 constancy, is as undeniably true as that he was in no sense a great states- 
 man. There was no breadth, no largeness in his notions and maxims of civil 
 polity: he appeared to have no faith in the progress of humanity, no feeling 
 of the strength and majesty of moral power. It may serve to illustrate the 
 routine habit of his mind, when employed on other than strictly professional 
 questions, that he lays it down repeatedly over and over again in his volu- 
 minous correspondence, that the alliance of Portugal is before aU others 
 important to the interests and welfare of this country. But, with all this, 
 the record of his life is a great epitaph. We have run it over briefly — 
 faithfully : we do not dip our pencil in fancy hues, in order to write fantastic 
 panegyrics on his name ; but we not the less hold it to be certain, that the 
 name of Ai-thur, Duke of Wellington, will, whenever uttered in ages yet to 
 come, recall the memory of a great soldier, and an earnest-minded though 
 not eminent statesman. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington's titles and offices were perhaps the most 
 exalted and numerous ever conferred upon a single individual. We 
 subjoin the list: Duke and Viscount Wellington ; Baron Douro; Knight 
 of the Gai'ter, and Grand Cross of the Bath ; Prince of Waterloo in the 
 Netherlands ; Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, and Grandee of Spain ; Duke of 
 Vittoria; Marquis of Torres-Vedras; Count Vimeira in Portugal ; Knight 
 of the foreign oi'ders of the Guelph of Hanover, St Andrew of Pussia, the 
 Black Eagle of Prussia, the Golden Fleece of Spain, the Elephant of 
 Denmark, St Ferdinand of Merit, and St Januarius of the Two Sicilies ; 
 Maximilian-Joseph of Bavaria, Maria-Theresa of Austria, the Sword of 
 Sweden, of William of the Netherlands ; Field-Marshal in the armies of 
 Austria, Russia, Prussia, Portugal, the Netherlands ; Captain-General of 
 Spain; Commander-in-chief; Colonel of Grenadier Guards; Colonel-in- 
 chief of Rifle Brigade ; Constable of the Tower and Dover Castle ; Warden 
 of the Cinque Ports; Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire and the Tower 
 Hamlets; Chancellor of the University of Oxford; Master of Trinity 
 House; Vice-President of the Scottish Naval and Military Academy; 
 Governor of King's College ; and D.C.L. 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 THE intense and general emotion which the intelligence of the pre- 
 mature death of Sir Robert Peel excited La all classes of society 
 was an instinctive, and with many persons an involuntary, homage to the 
 eminence of that distinguished man. The falling of the column revealed 
 the largeness of the space it had occupied in the public eye, and men were 
 startled by the magnitude of the void which thus suddenly flashed upon 
 them. With the natural regret felt by generous minds on witnessing high 
 hopes overthrown, the pulses of a yet manly and honourable ambition for 
 ever stilled, the warm current of vigorous life arrested by the sudden grasp 
 of death, there mingled a startled apprehensiveness of the consequences 
 likely to result to the nation from the demise of a statesman who exercised 
 so great and paramount an influence over its destinies, and whose name, 
 whatever the merits or demerits of his policy, is indissolubly associated 
 with some of the most important events in modern British history. That 
 painful emotion wiU not speedily subside ; but already there succeeds to the 
 natural outburst of regretful encomium which followed the sudden with- 
 drawal of a great man from the scene where he played so distinguished a 
 part, the first faint whispers of the spirit of detraction by which he was in 
 life pm-sued, and which, shamed into momentary sUence, is again taking 
 heart, and reviving aspersions by which it has so industriously sought to 
 dwarf and stain a lofty reputation and a great memory. Be it our task, then, 
 calmly to inquire if there be any reason to doubt of an ultimately favourable 
 verdict of posterity on the acts and motives of Sir Robert Peel; a verdict, 
 by the way, which if it be true that foreign nations are a kind of contempo- 
 raneous posterity, has never been for a moment doubtful. Happily, violence 
 and passion, unreasoning clamour and abuse, will avail nothing to influence 
 the judgment of the next generation. No contemporary condemnation of Sir 
 Robert Peel pronounced by the voices, phrase-eloquent as they may be, of 
 envy, hatred, and imcharitableness, will be ratified by posterity. The award 
 to which Time will give validity and enduring power will be spoken by other 
 tongues than those of men who, once his parasites, have since become his 
 imscrupulous calumniators; and from other tribunals than those presided 
 over or influenced by persons who saw only in his fall from power a niche 
 left vacant which themselves, if sufSciently bold and reckless, might hope 
 to fiU. A necessarily brief, but unreserved and faithful, tracing of the chief 
 incidents of his life and political career will enable us to anticipate with 
 32 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 probable correctness the nature of that cahn and reasoned judgment — 
 whether it will confirm or reverse the emphatic declaration pronounced in 
 the House of Lords by the Duke of Wellington — a man whose blunt honesty 
 of speech and keen insight into character no one will deny — that in every 
 action of his life, Sir Eobert Peel, above all other men he knew, was guided 
 by a love of truth and justice. 
 
 The chief measures which the deceased statesman has been instrumental 
 in placing on the statute book, mark, it cannot be denied, great and 
 distinct epochs in the monetary, religious, and commercial policy of this 
 country — the turning-points of a system which, suddenly abandoning the 
 beaten but narrow and miry road, darkly- visible in the doubtful and fading 
 light of decaying traditions, stepped confidently into a firmer and broader 
 path, illumined by the lights of reason, common sense, and the spirit of 
 social impartiality. These changes, whatever fond illusions may be 
 indulged in by a few persons representing ages long past, and dreaming 
 rather than living in the present day, are irreversible. No instance can be 
 pointed out in which this country has receded from a policy urged upon 
 the government by long, continuous, and peaceful efforts of the people, and 
 slowly, reluctantly acquiesced in by the legislature. In such cases all the 
 conditions and guai-antees of permanence have been fulfilled, and an effec- 
 tual reaction is out of the question. Mr Vansittart's dictum, that an incon- 
 vertible one-pound note and a shilling were, and always would be, equal in 
 exchangeable value to a guinea of full weight and fineness, is as capable of 
 restoration to our statute book as the law forbidding an Irish Catholic to 
 take part m the legislation of his own countiy. The same with the duties 
 on corn : they are as dead as the close boroughs ; and gentlemen who trade 
 in delusion might as reasonably promise their followers a revival of Old 
 Sarum as of the sliding scale. With these irrevocable departures from a 
 narrow and restrictive policy, it has been the fortune of Sir Robert Peel to 
 inseparably connect his name, whilst, unfortunately for his reputation, 
 according to his adversaries, the precise measures relative to Currency, 
 Catholics, and Corn — to use a quaint, alliterative phrase — upon which his 
 fame as a statesman must ultimately rest, are precisely those which he had 
 previously distinguished himself by denouncing and combating. In 1810 
 ne voted for Mr Vansittart's currency absurdities in opposition to Mr 
 Francis Horner. In 1819 he adopted Mr Horner's propositions, eliciting 
 from the House of Commons explosions of hilarious mirth at the trans- 
 parent folly he had before supported. Until 1829 he had uniformly, if 
 hesitatingly, opposed the admission of Roman Catholics to equal civil rights 
 with other subjects of the realm. In that year he not only renounced his 
 opposition to those claims, but led the assault upon the exclusive Pro- 
 testant constitution, of which he had till then been the favourite champion. 
 Finally, in 1846, he recanted his previous opinions upon the Corn-Laws, and 
 in the face of his bewildered and astonished party, gave legislative effect to 
 doctrines concerning which they had chiefly gathered around him as their 
 leader to denounce and oppose. It is by his conduct with reference to 
 these three questions that Sir Robert Peel's moral and intellectual qualities 
 as a public man must be chiefly tested, for his various administrative 
 reforms, and his amendment of the criminal law and practice of the coim- 
 try, though sufficient, under other circumstances, to make the reputation of 
 2 
 
ilR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 a great statesman, pale their ineffectual light before the guilt or greatness 
 of such acts as these. Having thus broadly and unreservedly indicated the 
 nature of the indictment preferred at the bar of public opinion against the 
 departed minister, we proceed at once to call up the evidence of his entire 
 life to answer the imputation of sinister and unworthy motives which it 
 is presumed to involve. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel had little in the way of ancestral dignity to boast of. 
 The family motto, ' Industria,' was the patent by which its wealth was 
 created and its eminence established. About the year 1760, when calico- 
 printing — first practised in this country on the banks of the Thames by 
 some of the French, exiled in consequence of the revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes — was introduced into Lancashire, the grandfather of the right 
 honourable baronet, residing in Fish Lane, in the town of Blackburn, 
 devoted himself at once, and with great usefulness and success, to the im- 
 provement of an art which now furnishes employment to hundreds of thou- 
 sands of families. He was called ' Parsley Peel,' * from his first experimental 
 and successful pattern having been a parsley leaf. The ironing, a substitute 
 for calendering, was, says tradition, performed by one of Mr Peel's family ; 
 another account says by one Mrs Milton, a neighbouring cottager. Be 
 this as it may, it is quite clear that the beginning in life of the late prime 
 minister's grandfather was a very humble one, and that it was by his own 
 perseverance and commercial sagacity that he laid the foundation of the 
 now princely fortunes of the Peel family. He early succeeded in establish- 
 ing considerable and profitable spinning and printworks at Brookside, 
 near Blackburn. Robert, his third son, appears to have displayed from 
 his youth peculiar aptitude for business, and to have been early possessed 
 of a notion that he should become the founder of a family. To realise 
 this object, he tasked his energies during a long and busy life. The works 
 at Brookside, he soon saw, afforded too narrow a field for the exertions of 
 himself and brothers, and at his own request he was sent to his maternal 
 imcle, Mr Haworth of Bury, where he was introduced to a Mr Yates, who, 
 infected by the prevalent mania for cotton- spinning, weaving, and printing, 
 had sold his business in Blackburn — he had kept the Black Bull public- 
 house there — and erected works on the banks of the Irwell. He does not 
 appear to have been very successful till fortune threw Robert Peel in his 
 way, who married his daughter. The father and son-in-law entered into 
 partnership together, and a rapid accumulation of wealth followed. Mr 
 Robert Peel afterwards established extensive works near Burton-upon- 
 Trent, and so vast a business did he transact, that it is said there were 
 frequently not less than fifteen thousand persons employed in his factories. 
 He ultimately purchased large estates in several counties, amongst which 
 was Drayton Manor, near Tamworth, where the expenditure of his capital 
 rendered him so popular with the inhabitants of that previously decaying 
 borough, that his influence speedily superseded that of the aristocratic 
 Townshend famUy, and he was returned as one of its representatives to par- 
 
 * The name of the family, which has given rise to so many undignified jests, is in 
 reality of no mean significancy. A castle was in former times called a peel or pee/- 
 house, and it was probably from a place consequently so named that the family 
 derived its appellation. 
 
 a 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 liament. His son, the late baronet, was bom February 5, 1788, at Chamber 
 Hall, m the neighbourhood of Bury — the oldest of a family consisting of 
 five sons and three daughters. 
 
 Mr Robert Peel had the prudence to keep himself aloof from 
 active politics till he had realised a magnificent fortune; and his 
 reputation for wisdom would not have suffered greatly had he persisted 
 in that wise abstinence from public afiairs. In politics he appears to 
 have been governed by one dominant idea, which was, that Mr Pitt was 
 the greatest of all possible ministers. Pitt and paper-money, Pitt and 
 suspension of cash-payments, Pitt's war-policy, Pitt and the national debt, 
 were the themes of his incessant eulogies — the formulae of his poUtical 
 creed. He thoroughly believed Mr Pitt to be in very truth a ' Heaven- 
 born minister,' and he exercised his literary-genius in a work entitled ' The 
 National Debt Productive of National Prosperity,' which has been long 
 since charitably forgotten. He not only raised several companies of Bury 
 Loyal Volunteers, of which he was the lieutenant-colonel, but in his 
 martial ardour subscribed the munificent sum of ten thousand pounds 
 towards the so-called Patriotic Fund, designed to assist the government in 
 carrying on the war against France with vigour. To this circumstance, 
 according to Cobbett — a very doubtful authority, by the way, in matters 
 which excited his passions of envy or dislike — he owed the baronetcy, 
 which was conferred upon him November 29, 1800. On one question only 
 could he bring himself to oppose Mr Pitt. It was that of the slave-trade. 
 His veneration for the great minister could not reconcile him to the aboli- 
 tion of that gainful traffic. No hand, not even that of Mr Pitt, should 
 with his consent be stretched forth to restrain or punish the African man- 
 stealers. Such was the political Gamaliel at whose feet the late baronet 
 imbibed those early lessons which in after-life it is so difficult to correct or 
 eradicate. In this home-atmosphere he dwelt during school and college 
 racations, day by day instructed by loved and honoured lips in the theories 
 and maxims of a narrow class and creed exclusiveness. Without intending 
 any disrespect to Harrow or Oxford, it may be confidently assumed that 
 his home-education was not likely to be corrected in a liberal sense by his 
 scholastic studies and examples. Lord Byron supplies us with a glimpse, 
 "through his own self-glorifying spectacles, of the future premier at Harrow. 
 ' Peel,' observes his lordship, ' the orator and statesman that is, or is to be, 
 was my form-fellow, and we were both at the top of our class. We were 
 on good terms ; but his brother was my intimate friend. There were 
 always great hopes of Peel amongst us all, masters and scholars, and he 
 has not disappointed them. As a scholar, he was greatly my superior; as 
 a declaimer and actor, I was reckoned at least his equal. As a schoolboy, 
 out of school, I was always in scrapes, and he never. In school he always 
 knew his lesson, and I rarely ; but when I knew it, I knew it nearly as 
 well. In general information, history, &c. I tliink I was his superior (?), 
 as well as of most boys of my standing.' Thus far his lordship. That, 
 however, which is certain is, that Mr Peel greatly distinguished himself at 
 Oxford, obtaining in 1808 double first-class honours — first in classics, first 
 in mathematics. Mr Peel was the first man who achieved this success. 
 
 Thus prepared by educational and parental precept and example, Mr 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 l*eel was thrust forward into public life by his proud and anxious father 
 to commit himself to opinions formed for him by others, and to find him- 
 self in a few years hailed, boy as he was, as the champion of a party with 
 which accident, not nature, had united him. He was just turned twenty- 
 one years of age when, in 1809, he took his seat in the House of Commons 
 for the borough of Cashel. A few months afterwards, on the 23d of 
 January in the following year, Mr Peel was selected by the Perceval admi- 
 nistration to second the address in the Commons, in reply to the speech 
 from the tlirone. The chief topic upon which the debate was expected to 
 turn was the fatal Walcheren expedition, in which thousands of gallant 
 soldiers were sent to perish in pestilential marshes, at the very moment 
 that the Duke of Wellington was struggling against perilous odds for the 
 deliverance of the Peninsula — the only field in which England could effec- 
 tually encounter the military power of Napoleon, and where alone, as all 
 sensible men saw, the continental struggle, as far as England was concerned, 
 would be lost or won. Mr Peel's apology for that disastrous blimder was 
 smart and lively enough, as far as mere phrase-making went, but of course 
 essentially weak and worthless ; not more so, however, than that of Mr 
 Canning, who had not, like Mr Peel, the excuse of extreme youth and 
 inexperience to plead for his heartless sophistries. One point in Mr Peel's 
 speech is worth quoting, inasmuch as it supplies an authentic contradiction 
 to Napoleon Bonaparte's assertion, when paintmg in fancy colours his own 
 portrait at St Helena, relative to the great effect produced by his Berlin 
 and MUan decrees, which not only forbade the admittance of British manu- 
 factures into any of the ports of the continent, but commanded the British 
 islands to consider themselves in a state of fanciful blockade. ' England,' 
 said Mr Peel, ' desires peace, not war ; but she will suffer no indignity, and 
 will make no unbecoming concession. With every engine of power and 
 perfidy arrayed against us, the situation of this country has demonstrated 
 to Bonaparte that it is invulnerable in the very point to which all his 
 efforts have been directed. The accounts of the exports of British manu- 
 factures would be found to exceed by several millions those of any former 
 period.' Mr Perceval was so pleased with, and so hopeful of, the young 
 orator, that he, a few months afterwards, appointed him Under-Secretary 
 of State for the Home department. 
 
 In 1810 a Bullion Committee, as it was termed, was appointed by the 
 Commons to inquire into the state of the currency, and to suggest such 
 means as they might deem advisable for replacing the circulating medium of 
 the country upon a sound basis. The suspension of cash-payments by the 
 Bank of England in 1797, in virtue of an order in council — which council, 
 by the way, so great was the supposed necessity for haste, sat on a Sunday 
 — had been since continued from time to time by legislative enactment, 
 and in this year of grace 1810, the depreciation in value of the inconvertible 
 notes had become so great, as to alarm the more timid admirers of Mr 
 Pitt's great scheme of paper finance : a guinea really exchanging for a one- 
 pound note and from four to seven shillings. On the 8th of May 1811, the 
 resolutions of Mr Horner, embodying the report of the committee, which 
 in substance declared ' that the only certain and adequate security to be 
 provided against the excess of a paper currency, and for maintaining the 
 relative value of the circulating medium of the realm, is the legal converti- 
 
 6 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 bility, upon demand, of all paper currency into lawful coin of the realm,* 
 were met by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Vansittart) with counter 
 resolutions, pledging the House to the audacious fiction, ' that the (incon- 
 vertible) promissoiy-notes of the Bank have hitherto been, and are at this 
 time, held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the 
 realm, and accepted as such in all pecuniary transactions to which such coin 
 is lawfully applicable.' Mr Vansittart not only called upon the House to 
 affirm this resolution, in the teeth of facts as notoi-ious as the existence of the 
 House itself, but expressed a desire that they would pledge theii* belief that, 
 as Philosopher Square would express it, an inconvertible one-pound note 
 and a shilling must always, in the eternal fitness of things, be of precisely 
 the same value as an unclipped, unsweated, golden guinea. This astound- 
 ing minister further declared, that to talk of a metallic standard of value 
 was simply an absurdity : a pound was an abstraction, depending for its 
 exchangeable value upon the pleasure of the sovereign for the time being, 
 ■who had an indefeasible right to clip, lighten, or debase the coin of the 
 realm in such manner as to his or her wisdom might seem fit. In such 
 an assembly it was not to be supposed that Mr Huskisson's merely com- 
 mon-sense exposition, ' that coin was of no value except with reference 
 to the gold and silver it contained, and that paper was of no permanent 
 value but in reference to the coin it represented,' would meet with favour 
 or support. Prosaic realities could have no charms for men dazzled and 
 bewildered by the Chancellor's flights of fancy. Mr Vansittart's resolu- 
 tion passed by a majority of two to one, tlie late Sir Robert Peel voting 
 with his father in the majcrrity. Assuredly it was more his father's vote 
 than his own. That gentleman, it has been previously remarked, was 
 vehement in his admiration of bank-notes, provided nobody was under 
 any legal obligation to change them. He fully believed that Bonaparte 
 had, chiefly by their agency, been kept at bay so long, and that to them 
 — their unchangeableness that is — the victories of the Nile and Trafalgar, 
 the passing of the Douro in the face of Soult's army by Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley, and the impregnability of the lines of Torres Vedras, were all 
 maiidy attributable. His enthusiasm carried his son with him ; and the 
 late baronet endorsed Mr Vansittart's intrepid fiction by his vote. Subse- 
 quently to the passmg of these resolutions. Earl Stanhope introduced a 
 bill rendering it penal to refuse bank-note paper in payment, either at 
 less than its nominal value, or at more, it was added with unconscious 
 irony. Both the Peels, father and son, voted also for this bill, which was 
 duly carried; and to use the expression of an inconvertible enthusiast, the 
 constitution, which had been in imminent danger of ship\vi-eck — Magna 
 Charta, Habeas Corpus, Bill of Eights inclusive — was again firmly placed 
 on an imperishable basis of — paper ! 
 
 <r On the 11th of May 1812 this ministry, the last formed upon the prin- 
 ciple of unanimous and uncompromising hostility to the Catholic claims, 
 was brought to an end by the assassination of Mr Perceval, who was shot 
 by a madman of the name of Bellingliam in the lobby of tlie House of 
 Commons. After some delay, the Liverpool administration was formed, 
 and on the 12th of September, in the same year, Mr Peel accepted the 
 important ofiice of Chief Secretary for Ireland. 
 6 
 
SIB ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 The injunction of Sacred Writ, not to place a blind reliance in the faith 
 of princes, was too late remembered by Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Straf- 
 ford, in the prison cell from whence he might never more depart, save to 
 the scaffold. In 1812 the Catholics of Ireland were fain to acknowledge in 
 bitterness of spirit the wisdom of this maxim of the inspired penman. 
 The Prince Regent, not only when Prince of Wales, but till the restrictions 
 on the regency had lapsed, permitted himself to be ostentatiously put forth 
 as a friend to Catholic emancipation — as a great and generous prince who, 
 once invested with the full prerogative and power of the crown, would in- 
 stantly remedy the gi-ievances and wrongs of centuries ; but to the astonish- 
 ment of that enthusiastic people, the chivalrous prince, when possessed of 
 unshackled authority, was pleased to cast his emancipation predilections, 
 if indeed he had ever seriously entertained them, to the winds, and to 
 express his approval in very decided terms of the measures which suc- 
 cessive Lord-Lieutenants had recourse to for the purpose of stifling all 
 expression of Catholic feeling. 
 
 This tergiversation of the prince was attributed ' to the witchery of an 
 unworthy secret influence.' In other and plainer words, the violation of 
 the implied promises of the regent was said to be the consequence of the 
 ascendancy which Lady Yarmouth (Marchioness of Hertford) had, it was 
 alleged, obtained over the royal mind. From whatever motive or influence 
 the feeling arose, it is quite certain that the prince had become thoroughly 
 adverse to the Catholic claims, and remained so to the end of his days. 
 Lord Eldon, writing to ' Dear Swu-e,' on the 13th of March 1813, says, 
 after remarking upon the appointment of Dr Parsons to the see of Peter- 
 borough, ' He is a stout fellow, and right in all controversial points, on the 
 Catholic question particularly; and my young master (the prince was 
 about fifty years of age), who is as eager as his father was upon that, and 
 of the same way of thinking, seems to me to be looking out for those who 
 are able to support the church and state as we have had them in times 
 past.' Thus if we are to believe Lord Eldon, the Catholic Board, which at 
 the aggregate meeting, June 18, 1812, Lord Fingal in the chair, passed a 
 resolution distinctly imputing the change in the prince ' to the witchery of 
 an unworthy secret influence,' was in manifest error, the change in the 
 royal mind having been the natural and legitimate result of the conscien- 
 tious repentance of a pious prince. 
 
 It was at this very crisis that ^Ir Peel, a mere boy in age, and of yet 
 more juvenile politics, was appointed chief Secretary for Ireland ! That 
 which must grieve intelligent men is the contemptuous audacity of such an 
 appointment, rather than the comparative failure of a young man pushed 
 to an unearned and bewildering pre-eminence. Mr Peel nevertheless, 
 environed as he was by difi&culties, conducted himself with much deconmi. 
 He kept scrupulously aloof from the vulgar orgies of the Lord-Lieutenant 
 (the Duke of Richmond) ; effected valuable reforms in his own ofiice ; sup- 
 ported the National Board of Education established by the "VMiigs ; and so 
 quickly adopted a more liberal and enlightened course, as to extort from 
 Mr Grattan in 1814 the high praise ' that his measures " for the better 
 execution of the laws of Ireland " had been introduced with a candour and 
 temper that did him honour, and were equally mUd and judicious.' The 
 Irish constabulary, known to this day amongst the commonalty as 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ' Peelers,' owes its efficiency to his admirable organization of the force. 
 His recognition of ' the exuberant loyalty ' of the Orange section of the 
 nation, whose character and aims he appears to have at first mistaken, 
 may be excused when it is remembered how the youthful secretary — 
 Orange Peel, as they delighted to call him — was feted and fawned upon by 
 the chiefs of that party, especially as no act of his tended to augment the 
 power and pretensions of a confederacy who, because their spiritual belief 
 was held to be purer than that of then* neighbours, were always clamouring 
 for a monopoly of worldly privilege and enjoyment. Mr Peel was early, 
 and, it will hardly be denied, coarsely and unjustly, assailed by Mr O'Con- 
 neU, especially on occasion of the celebrated but abortive veto project. It 
 was one of Mr Pitt's schemes for consolidating the legislative union of 
 England and Ireland to concede a qualified emancipation of the Catholics, 
 on condition that the crown should have a veto on the appointment of 
 Catholic bishops — an arrangement, it should seem, something in the nature 
 of a concordat ; and the Liverpool administration appointed a commission, 
 at the head of which were the Lord-Lieutenant and Mr Secretary Peel, to 
 examine if such a measure would be consistent with adequate secm-ity to 
 the established church. The contemplated arrangement was, it appeared 
 by Quarantelli's rescript, viewed approvingly at Rome ; but Mr O'Connell 
 and his friends declared that, although conscientious Catholics, they were 
 no ' slaves of Rome,' and vehemently denounced the project as a disgrace- 
 pful compromise of an indefeasible British right. * And whom,' exclaimed 
 I the Irish tribune, ' are we to have at the head of this commission issued by 
 I that sulky and sullen enemy of the Catholics, the Duke of Richmond ? 
 1 Why, that ludicrous enemy of ours, who has got in jest the name he 
 deserves in earnest, " Orange Peel ; " a raw youth, squeezed out of the 
 Lworkings of I know not what factory in England.' Mr Peel revenged 
 [himself for this sarcasm, on Sir Henry Parnell's motion in favour of the 
 Catholic claims, by quoting a number of violent passages from Mr O'Con- 
 nell's speeches, interspersed with a running commentary of his own. These 
 elegant extracts appear to have made a considerable impression on the 
 House, and Sir Henry Parnell's motion was negatived by a considerable 
 majority. Mr O'Connell was excessively wroth, and the first time he again 
 spoke in public, made use, with a good deal of ostentatious defiance in his 
 tone and manner, of the following language : — ' Mr Peel would not dare ia 
 my presence, nor in any place where he was liable to personal account, to 
 use a single expression derogatory to my character or honour.' Mr Peel 
 immediately sent Sir Charles Saxton, Under-Secretary for Ireland, to Mr 
 O'Connell, to say that he waived his parliamentary privilege, and held 
 himself personally responsible for what he had uttered in the House of 
 Commons. Mr Lidwell, O'ConneU's friend, could not aiTange with Sir 
 Charles Saxton who should be the challenger, his principal declining to call 
 out Mr Peel, though perfectly willing to meet him if challenged to do so. 
 To end the matter as quickly as possible, Mr Peel sent Colonel Brown 
 with a directly hostile message ; but the new envoy so blundered his foolish 
 business, that Mrs O'Connell divined what was going on, and applied to 
 Sheriff Fleming, who held her husband to bail to keep the peace witliin 
 the United Kingdom. A meeting was subsequently arranged to take place 
 at Ostend, where Mr Peel and the two seconds safely arrived ; but Mr 
 8 
 
BIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 O'Connell was arrested as he was passing through London by a warrant 
 issued by Lord Chief- Justice EUenborough, and bound in lieavy sureties 
 not to leave the kingdom. In this compelled absence of one of the prin- 
 cipals, the two seconds exchanged shots, happily without effect ; and Mr 
 Peel, who appears to have been extremely anxious to shoot at somebody, 
 expressed a wish for a separate duel with Mr Lidwell. This, however, was 
 demurred to by that gentleman as altogether unreasonable, and the duel- 
 lists returned home unscathed. It was with reference to this affair that 
 Lord Norbury indulged, a short time afterwards, in an amusing, but, in a 
 judge, unseemly jest, at Mr O'Connell's expense. Mr O'Connell was 
 addressing his lordship, who seemed to pay but indifferent attention to 
 what he was saying. ' I am afraid, my lord,' said O'Connell, pausing in 
 his argument, ' that your lordship does not apprehend me ? ' '1 beg your 
 pardon,' promptly replied the facetious judge, ' I do perfectly ; and indeed 
 no one is more easily apprehended than Mr O'Connell when he wishes to be.'' 
 In 1817 a vacancy occurred in the representation of the university of 
 Oxford, in consequence of the elevation of Mr Abbott, who had for many 
 years tilled the office of Speaker, to the House of Lords by the title of 
 Lord Colchester. By the active influence of Lord Eldon and other zealous 
 opponents of the Catholic claims, the much-coveted seat was conferred on 
 Mr Peel, who at the time sat for the borough of Chippenham in Wiltshire. 
 When Mr Canning arrived at Oxford, a few days after the vacancy was 
 announced, he found the election virtually settled, and of course declined 
 entering upon a fruitless contest. There can be no doubt that Mr Peel 
 was solely indebted for this honour to his anti-Catholic opinions. In other 
 respects Mr Canning was held to possess higher claims to the distinction, 
 but his ' pro-Popery ' leanings, to use the jargon of the time, forbade 
 him to entertain any hope of success. Mr Canning is said to have felt the 
 disappointment acutely, a seat for the university having been an object of 
 his earliest and fondest ambition. 
 
 In the following year Mr Peel resigned the Irish Secretaryship, and 
 did not again take office till 1822, when he succeeded Lord Sidmouth in 
 the Home Office. The intervening years he, however, employed in active 
 political life. In 1818 he was appointed chairman of a new Bullion Com- 
 mittee, and in May 1819 it was his duty to bring in a biU in accordance 
 with the committee's report to compel the Bank of England to fulfil its 
 obligations by a resumption of cash payments within a specified period. 
 This was his first important recantation of opinion, and it will be agreed 
 that he made it in a remarkably bold and open manner. The elder 
 Peel had not, however, in the slightest degree modified his views upon 
 this or any other subject. At a meeting held on the 8th of May at the 
 London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, the veteran admirer of Pitt and paper- 
 money was called upon the table by Mr Bainbridge, the chairman, to open 
 the proceedings. He unfortunately commenced — he probably could not 
 help it — with a high-flown panegyric upon the character of Mr Pitt, which 
 called forth a storm of hisses from the auditory. After stammering out a 
 few sentences, to the efi"ect that cash payments would cause the downfall 
 of the constitution and the entire ruin of the country, he withdrew in 
 high dudgeon. Mr Q. Pearson was one of the speakers, and he drew a 
 32 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 picture of the distresses of the working -classes in those good, old, highly- 
 protected times, both startling and instructive. Seven shillings a week, 
 he averred, were the ordinary wages of a manufacturing workman who 
 toiled sixteen hours a day, and had perhaps a wife and children to main- 
 tain. ' By evidence,' said Mr Pearson, ' taken before a committee of the 
 House of Commons, it has been demonstrated that the working-classes are 
 labouring under difficulties too great for human nature long to endure. 
 Those who have read the evidence to which I allude will have seen that the 
 poor of Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Nottingham, are condemned, by 
 the vile system of which the Bank-Kestriction Act is the parent, to a life of 
 hopeless misery.' Mr Owen of Lanark contributed his quota of wisdom, 
 by assuring the meeting that ' if the resumption of cash payments were 
 attempted, it would no longer be possible to continue even the present 
 low rate of wages to tlie labourer.' The Socialist sage, however, suggested 
 consolation to the afflicted admirers of a fictitious currency : ' Cash pay- 
 ments,' quoth he, ' cannot be resumed, for there is not sufficient specie in 
 the world for the piu-pose ! ' This announcement ought in all reason to 
 have calmed the anxieties of the partisans of an irresponsible bank, but 
 it did not ; and after some peculiar oratory from Messieurs Hunt, Wooler, 
 and Cartwi-ight, the meeting, having first passed a resolution in favour 
 of cash payments, broke up in disorder and confusion. 
 
 A few evenings afterwards Mr Peel rose in the House of Commons to 
 move the resolutions of which he had given notice, which it will be seen 
 did not in the slightest degree interfere with the legitimate uses of repre- 
 sentative paper-money ; they merely repressed the abuse of non-represen- 
 tative paper, by enacting that the issuers should, upon demand, redeem 
 their promises to pay in coin of a settled weight and fineness. They were 
 in substance as follows : — On and after the 1st of October 1820, tlie Bank 
 should be compelled to redeem their notes in gold of standard fineness, at 
 the rate of not more than £3, 19s. 6d. per ounce, if the notes tendered for 
 payment amounted in value, in one tender, to sixty ounces of that gold ; 
 on the 1st of May 1821, at the rate of £3, 17s. lO^d. per ounce, on the 
 pre-cited condition; and finally, on and after the 1st of May 1823, to pay 
 all their notes on demand in standard gold, at the rate of £3, 17s. lO^d. 
 per ounce. Previous to his son addressing the House, the elder Peel made 
 a curious and characteristic speech. He complained of the conduct of the 
 persons who had disturbed the assembly at the London Tavern. ' The 
 gentlemen,' remarked the worthy baronet, at once mounting his favourite 
 hobby — ' the gentlemen who opposed me at the meeting of which I have 
 spoken were indignant at my mentioning the name of Mr Pitt. My impres- 
 sion is certainly a strong one in his favour ; I always thought him the first 
 man in the country : and to see tiie noble lord (Castlereagli) and my 
 honourable friends on the one hand, and Messieurs Hunt and Cartwriglit on 
 the other, united to pull down the fabric erected by the immortal Pitt, is 
 at once ludicrous and painful.' After a few intermediate sentences, this 
 amiable gentleman alluded to the changed opinions of his son, whom he 
 somewhat superfluously called his 'near relation:' — ' To-niglit,' lie said, 'I 
 shall iiave to oppose a very near and dear relation. But as I have a duty 
 to perform, 1 respect those who do theirs, and who consider tliat duty to 
 be paramount to all other considerations. 1 have mentioned the name of 
 10 
 
8TR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 Mr Pitt. My own impression is certainly a strong one in favour of that 
 great man. All of us have some bias, and I always thought him the first 
 man in the country. I well remember, when the near and dear relation 
 alluded to was a child, I observed to some friends that the man who dis- 
 charged his duty to his country in tlie manner Mr Pitt had done, was the 
 man of all the world the most to be admired, and the most to be imitated: 
 and I thought at that moment, if my life and that of my dear relation 
 were spared, I would one day present him to his country to follow in tho 
 same path. It is very natural tiiat such should be my wish, and I wiLl 
 only say further of him, that though he is deviating from the right path iii 
 this instance, his head and heart are in the right place, and 1 think they 
 will soon recall him to the right way.' 
 
 Mr Peel's face, during the delivery of his father's speech, must have 
 been worth looking at by a man of melancholy temperament. He appears 
 to have quickly recovered from it, for almost immediately afterwards he 
 rose and made the first really able speech of his parliamentary life. It wa? 
 the first utterance of his own opinions — the free expression of a mind seU- 
 emancipated from one at least of the carefully-instUled prejudices of his 
 nonage. The recantation was thorough and explicit ; and substituting the 
 name of Homer for that of Cobden, we might almost fancy we were listen- 
 ing to the great valedictory speech of 1846. ' Here,' said Mr Peel, after 
 explaining the purport of the resolutions, ' I feel myself bound to state 
 that, since I have entered the committee, my own opinion has undergone 
 an entire change. I went into the inquiry determined to dismiss all former 
 impressions that I might have received, and to obliterate from my memory 
 the vote which I gave some years since when the same subject was dis- 
 cussed. I resolved to apply to it my undivided and unprejudiced atten- 
 tion, and to adopt every inference that authentic information or mature 
 reflection should offer to the mind. The statement I am about to make in, 
 I can assure the House, made without the slightest scruple or remorse. I 
 voted against the former resolutions proposed by Mr Horner; and it is 
 now my duty, as an honest man, to admit that they represented the true 
 nature and laws of our monetary system, and to declare my concurrence, 
 with very little qualification, in all their principles. I am ready to affirm 
 them; and I feel neither shame nor repentance in paying this tribute to 
 the memory of one with whom I indeed differed on general politics, but 
 whose character and talents no one more highly respects than myseh.' 
 
 Mr Peel's ridicule of the abstract - pound philosophers was not only 
 eminently rich and pertinent — so much so, that he could not forbear treat- 
 ing the public, in his Bank-Charter speech of 1843, to a second and diluted 
 edition of it — but admirably adapted to the capacities of his audience. 
 'The main question,' said Mr Peel, 'is this : Can we go on safely without 
 a standard of value ? AU the witnesses examined by the committee agreed 
 that we could not, except one, a Mr Smith ; who, on being asked if there 
 should be no standard, said he would retain the " pound." Upon being 
 further asked what a pound was, he said it was difficult to explain, but 
 that there was no gentleman in England who did not know what a pound 
 was! He added that a pound was a standard which had existed in this 
 country eight hundred years — three hundred years before the introduction 
 of gold coin! I confess,' continued Mr Peel, ' that I can form no idea of a 
 
 11 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 pound, or a shilling, as detached from a definite quantity of the precious 
 metals. I have the same difficulties to encounter as had Martinus Scriblerus 
 in following the metaphysical speculations of his tutor, the philosophic 
 Crarabe. Being asked if he could form an idea of a universal man, he 
 replied, that he conceived him to be a knight of the shire, or the burgess 
 of a corporation, who represented a great number of individuals, but that 
 he could form no other idea of a universal man. Still further to puzzle 
 him, he was asked if he could not form the universal idea of a lord mayor. 
 To which he replied, that never having seen but one lord mayor, the idea 
 of that lord mayor always returned to his mind, and that he had therefore 
 great difficulty to abstract a lord mayor from his gold chain and furred 
 gown ; and that, moreover, unfortunately the only time he saw a lord 
 mayor he was on horseback, and that the horse on which he rode conse- 
 quently not a little disturbed his imagination. Upon this, says the his- 
 tory, Crambe, like the gentlemen who can form an abstract idea of a 
 pound, swore that he could frame a conception of a lord mayor not only 
 without his horse, gown, and gold chain, but even without stature, feature, 
 colour, hands, feet, or any body whatever ; and this, he contended, was the 
 true universal idea of a lord mayor.' 
 
 Those who have heard the late baronet, may conceive the shouts of 
 laughter which an illustration like this, delivered in the right honourable 
 gentleman's best manner, must have elicited from the House. The reso- 
 lutions were affirmed, and a bill founded on them passed both Houses 
 without encountering any serious opposition ; and that bill has never been 
 suspended or modified since. Out of doors, especially in the money- 
 mongering circles, the outcry was terrific ; so much so, that between one 
 
 ^.settling day and another the funds fell within a fraction of 10 per cent. 
 
 ' Poor Cobbett — whose mental vision, powerful and microscopic as it was, 
 ever looked upon one only, and that usually the wrong side of a question 
 — denounced ' Peel's Bill ' from America, where he at the time temporarily 
 resided, with merciless ridicule and invective. His famous declaration — 
 that should the bill be carried mto efiiect, he would cheerfully consent to 
 be roasted on a gridiron, whilst Peel stirred tlie coals, and Canning stood 
 by to make a jest of his groans — is now remembered only as one of the 
 amusing crotchets of a powerful but undisciplined and erratic mtellect. 
 Cobbett never forgave the success of ' Peel's Bill ; ' and when member 
 for Oldham, in the reformed parliament, moved that an humble address 
 be presented to his majesty, praying him to strike Sir Eobert Peel's 
 name off the list of privy -councillors, for having been instrumental in 
 passing that measure. This thoroughly-absurd proceeding, especially from 
 a man like Cobbett, who had ever blindly opposed the use of paper-money, 
 however guaranteed or restricted, was supported only by three other 
 members, and after an overwhelming speech from Su- Eobert Peel, was ex- 
 punged from the journals of the House. After all, perhaps, Cobbett's notion 
 
 - of the effect of the biU was not nuich more absurd than those of many 
 of its supporters. The ' Times,' for instance, of the 27th May 1819, 
 remarking on the success of the bill, augured immense results from its 
 wonder -workmg powers. Governmental extravagance, it opined, now 
 that money could not be manufactured ad lihitum, would be no longer 
 possible. What the new system would effect might be estimated by what 
 12 
 
SIR KOBEKT PEEL. 
 
 that which it superseded did not effect. ' If,' quoth tlie leading journal— 
 ' if we had been now in the year 1819, in that state which, under a propei 
 system of economy we may be in a year or two, America would not have 
 dared to take Florida without our leave, nor Spain to give it ; and General 
 Jackson would have sooner hanged himself than shot Ambrister.' Time 
 has put both alarmists and optimists out of court, and since the constitu- 
 tion has not, as prophesied, gone out with the unchangeable notes, we 
 may console ourselves that tiieir disappearance has not enabled this 
 country to bully others into compliance with the whims and caprices of 
 its governors — who, with reverence be it spoken, have not always ex- 
 hibited the wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 We have now to record an important event in the life of the late honour-^ 
 able baronet. On the 8th of June 1820 he was married at Upper Sey- 
 mour Street, London, to Julia, youngest daughter of General Sir John 
 Floyd. The portraits of this lady, engraved from an admirable likeness 
 by Sir Thomas Laurence, have made the public familiar with the graces 
 of her person ; and to those of her mind her distinguished husband has 
 made on several occasions feeling allusion. The bride was in her twenty^^ 
 fifth, the bridegroom in the thirty-third year of his age. 
 
 It was soon apparent that the resolute casting off of one of the mental 
 bandages in which he had been swathed, was not without its effect in 
 loosening the hold on Mr Peel's mind of other early-riveted fetters. On 
 the 28th of February 1821, Mr Plimkett, in one of the most remarkable 
 speeches ever delivered in the House of Commons, moved for leave to 
 bring in a bill to repeal the Catholic disabilities. After solemnly enumerat- 
 ing the names of the departed statesmen. Fox, Grattan, Ponsonby, Romilly, 
 Whitbread, who had supported the Catholic claims— walking, as he ex- 
 pressed it, in long unbroken funeral procession before the sacred images 
 of the dead, he appealed in the following words to the distinguished 
 member for the university of Oxford : — ' I am well aware,' he said, ' that 
 there is no statesman likely to be more influential on the subject, and I may 
 add that there is no person whose adherence to what I must call unfounded 
 prejudices is likely to work such serious injury to the countrj'.' Mr Peel 
 was evidently startled by this direct appeal to his good-sense and patriot- 
 ism. He visibly trembled, as if under a suddenly-awakened sense of the 
 responsibility he was incurring by his opposition to claims so heralded 
 and sanctioned. He thus replied to that earnest adjuration as soon as 
 his shaken self-possession was restored: — 'Does the honourable and 
 learned gentleman suppose that T view the existing state of things with 
 complacency? No: I never could hear those names mentioned which are 
 arrayed in such high authority against me, and feel altogether satisfied. . . . 
 I can most conscientiously assure the House that no result of this debate 
 can give me unqualified satisfaction. I am of course bound to wish that 
 the opinions which I honestly feel may prevail, but theii* prevalence must 
 still be mingled with regret when I know that the success of those opinions 
 must inflict pain on a large portion of my fellow-subjects.' On a subse- 
 quent occasion, when speaking on Sir Francis Burdett's motion on the 
 same subject, he perhaps still more distinctly revealed his staggering faith 
 in the soundness of his early impressions : — ' I must own that if I were 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 perfectly satisfied that concession would lead to peace and harmony, if 
 [ thought it would put an end to animosities, I for one would not, on a 
 mere theory of tlie constitution, oppose the measure when concession 
 would secure such immense practical results.' Mr Peel also spoke openly, 
 and with undisguised alarm and displeasure, of the Duke of York's 
 famous declaration against the Catholic claims, which occasioned such 
 obstreperous joy amongst the ultras of the ascendancy party ; and in other 
 ways unmistakingly evinced a desire for a compromise, which, however, 
 he was not as yet sufficiently matured in resolution to propose himself. 
 After this it certainly appears somewhat strange that Mr Peel should have 
 been looked upon as the uncompromising champion, under all circumstances, 
 and in all eventualities, of Orange exclusiveness! Unlimited confidence 
 in his resolute intolerance continued, albeit, to be felt or simulated; 
 and his and Lord Eldon's presence in the cabinet was as loudly as ever 
 proclaimed to be a suificient guarantee that Catholic exclusion would be 
 at all risks and perils steadfastly mamtained. 
 
 A great change was at hand. In 1827 Lord Livei-pool was struck by 
 apoplexy, and an almost entire change of ministry was the immediate con- 
 sequence. Mr Canning was appouited Prime Mmister, and the Duke of 
 Wellington, the Lords Eldon, Bathurst, Westmoreland, Melville, and Mr 
 Peel declining to serve under him, withdrew from the cabinet. Mr Canning 
 owed his appointment, it was rumoured at the time, to the mfluence of 
 the Marchioness of Conyngham ; and Lord Eldon's letters, since published 
 by Mr Horace Twiss, m his life of the Chancellor, leave no doubt that it 
 was so. Lord Eldon, moreover, as the following extract of a letter addressed 
 to his brother, Lord Stowell, in September 1823, amply testifies, had long 
 anticipated the muiisterial catastrophe which had now arrived: — 'The 
 appointment of Lord Francis Conyngham in the Foreign Office has, by 
 female influence, put Canning beyond the reach of anytliing to affect him, 
 and will assuredly enable him to turn those out whom he does not wish to 
 remain in. The king is in such thraldom, that one has nobody to fall back 
 upon. The devil of it is, there is no consistency in anybody. Again, upon 
 " ne cede malis," it is better to go out than be turned out. — Yours affec- 
 tionately, Eldon.' 
 
 In another letter written at the same period, he says, ' Wliat makes it 
 worse is, tiiat the great man of all (the king) has a hundred times most 
 solemnly declared that no connections of a certam person (Canning) should 
 come in.' This angry lord also attributed, we may here mention, his not 
 obtaining the office of President of tlie Council in the Duke of Wellington's 
 cabinet of 1828 to 'a certain lady having mterposed her all-powerful veto.' 
 This passage occurs in a note dated January 30, 1828, addressed to his 
 daughter. Lady F. J. Bankes. These strange revelations did not meet the 
 public eye till many years afterwards; and Mr Canning's elevation, however 
 he had reached it, was generally looked upon as damaging to the cause of 
 Orange ascendancy — why, or how it is somewliat difficuU to understand. The 
 right lionourable premier not only repeated in the House his determination 
 to resist all, or any reform in the rciiresentation of tlie people, and to oppose 
 the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, but announced tliut the 
 Catholic question itself was indefinitely adjourned, and would at no time be 
 mtroduced as a cabmet or governmental measure. This condition, it was 
 
 14 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 hinted at tlie time, had been assented to by Mr Canning as the price of 
 office; and with perfect trutii, for we tind, again quoting Lord Eldon's 
 'Life,' that on the 28th of iMardi 1829, George IV. emphatically assured 
 the ex-chanccUor, wiio had paid him a visit, wliicii is stated to have lasted 
 four hours, to induce him to withliold his consent, even at the eleventh 
 hour, to the Catliolic Relief Bill, ' that Mr Canning had engaged that he 
 would never allow him (tiie king) to be troubled aljout tiie Roman Catholic 
 question.' The new premier's excuse before the public for the ostentatious 
 postponement of claims he had so long and eloquently urged was widely 
 different from the true one; and was, it will be admitted, very felicitously, 
 or, at all events, very curiously expressed. The mind of tiie people of 
 England, according to him, was slumbering upon the question, and he feared 
 to awalcen that somnolent bigotry. ' No consideration,' lie said, ' should 
 induce him to run hostile to the quiet, tacit mode of resistance wliich pre- 
 vailed in Enghmd. Me valued a week of peace in England before the 
 accomplishment of any theoretic or practical (sic.') advantage whatever; and,' 
 continued the gifted orator, 'it never shall be said that I, the advocate of 
 freedom of conscience, have ever attempted to force conscience to consent 
 to freedom.' How many pleasant illusions a peep behind tiie scenes destroys! 
 Tills charmingly-turned piirase, wiiatever the meaning of it may be, was 
 gi-eatly cheered, and it was held by the unanimous consent of all parties 
 that Mr Canning's occupancy of the premiership was 'a gi-eat fact' in favour 
 of the Catholics— a moral promotion of tlieir cause, with which, if they were 
 not the most unreasonable people in the world, they could not but remain 
 abundantly satisfied. Curious! And wliat perliaps is still more so, to this 
 day we hear and read abuse of Sir Robert Peel for having prevented Mr 
 Canning from carrying an emancipation bill, in order to appropriate at no 
 distant day the glory of the achievement to himself! The opposition of 
 Mr Feel was in truth of the mildest kind, although that of some of his 
 followers, ever plus royalists que le mi, was violent and absurd enougli. 
 In his explanatory speech, May 1, 1827, Mr Peel stated that, long before, 
 upon finding iumself in a minority on tiie Catholic question, he had told the 
 Earl of Liverpool that he tliought an effort sliould lie made to settle that 
 question, and had tendered his resignation to further, it should seem, that 
 object. Mr Peel's impression appears to have been, tliat an arrangement 
 of the Catholic claims was very desirable, and would become impera- 
 tive; but that he should personally prefer being in opposition when 
 the measure was carried, and it may be reasonably presumed that the 
 chief dissatisfaction felt by liim with the new cabinet was, that tlie pre- 
 mier had bound himself not to attempt the settlement of an embarrassing 
 claim, which the member for the university of Oxford knew must be 
 sooner or later adjusted, and possildy he might even then dimly foresee, 
 at the sacrifice of his own reputation for party faitlifulness and consist- 
 ency. Mr Peel did not exhibit the slightest personal virulence towards 
 Mr Canning, and it subsequently appeared that he had remained on terms 
 of friendly uitimacy with that gentleman till the day of his decease. 
 The only real opposition arrayed against Mr Canning's cabinet was 
 that of the Duke of Newcastle and Earl Grey, wliich was hideed bitter 
 and unrelenting. In one of the most witiiering denunciations that poli- 
 tical enmity, aided by consummate oratorical talent, ever hurled at an 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 antagonist, Earl Grey demolished, one after another, every pretence to 
 enlightened liberality put forth in behalf of the new premier. For the 
 last thirty years, according to Earl Grey, there had been no inroad upon 
 civil liberty which had not been urged and advocated by Mr Canning. 
 Especially his jibing denunciations of pai'liamentary reform and reformers, 
 and his present abandonment of the one sole virtue of his political life, the 
 advocacy of Catholic emancipation, were dwelt upon with an eloquent 
 virulence seldom equalled, never perhaps surpassed. This speech im- 
 mensely damaged the cabinet, and if political opposition had anything to 
 do with Mr Canning's death, Earl Grey must assuredly bear the weight of 
 the accusation. ' Men,' observes Rosalind, ' men have died, and worms 
 have eaten them, but not for love.' In the same spirit we may fairly assert 
 , that the notion of an old stager in politics, like Mr Canning, having been 
 1 ' hunted to death ' by words however bitter — he, too, that had always been 
 I so liberal with taunt and invective towards others — is consummately absurd. 
 ; ' Coralie,' boasts the French coxcomb in the farce, ' Coralie died of love for 
 I me and — a defluxion on the chest ;' and Mr Canning died of Earl Grey's 
 I speech and — acute inflammation of the intestines. 
 
 Mr Peel concluded his explanatory speech on this occasion with the 
 following memorable observations : — ' I have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that every institution, civil and military connected with my office, during 
 the last live years, has been subjected to close inspection and strict review, 
 and that I have been able to make such temperate and gradual reforms as 
 I thought consistent with their general and permanent good. I have also 
 the gi-atilication of knowing that every law found on the statute book when 
 I entered office, which imposed any temporary or any extraordinary restric- 
 tion on the liberty of the subject, has been either repealed or allowed to 
 expire. I may be a Tory, 1 may be illiberal, but the fact is undeniable 
 that those laws have been effiiced. Tory as I may be, I have tiie further 
 satisfaction of knowing that there is not a single law connected with my 
 name which had not for its object some mitigation 'of the severity of the 
 criminal law, some prevention of abuse in the exercise of it, or some secu- 
 rity for its impartial administration. I may also recollect with pleasure, 
 that during the severest trials to which the manufacturing interests have 
 ever been exposed, during the winters of the last two years, I have pre- 
 served internal tranquillity without applying to this House for extraordinary 
 and exceptional measures.' 
 
 Mr Canning died after possessing the premiership for about four months 
 only. The right lionourable gentleman's health liad been long declining. 
 Lord Eldon, writing to his daughter, February 18, 1827, of Lord Liver- 
 pool's sudden attack of apoplexy, thus alludes to it : — ' Pleaven knows 
 who will succeed him. I should suppose Canning's health will not allow 
 him to undertake the labours of the situation : but ambition will attempt 
 anything.' This highly-gifted and much-lamented gentleman expired in 
 great agony at Chiswick, in the same room where Mr Fox had died. It is 
 not a little curious and suggestive, that the London newspaper which most 
 vehemently supported the charge which Lord George Bentinck and Mr 
 D'Israeli, after a silence of eighteen years, brought against Sir Robert Peel, 
 of having ' hunted' Mr Canning to deatli. was the papei- — the only one, be 
 i stated, for the honour of the English press — which insinuated that Mr 
 lb 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 Canning had died an atheist, because there happened to be no minister of 
 religion in the death-cluimber when he expired! 
 
 After the death of Mr Canning, an administration, headed by Lord 
 Godcrich, maintained a rickety existence for a few montlis ; but not ven- 
 turing, after the battle of Navarino, to meet parliament, dissolved itself, 
 and was succeeded by the Duke of Wellington's ministry, in which Mr 
 Peel held his former office of Home Secretary. All went smoothly enough 
 with the new cabinet till the 26th of February 1828, when Lord John 
 Russell introduced a bill to repeal the test and corporation acts. Mr 
 Peel opposed the motion, but in such a way as to show that his mind 
 was well - nigh completely purged of the bigotry with which it had been 
 early leavened. 'If,' said he, 'this motion be defeated, any emotion of 
 triumph will be greatly abated by the reflection that a class of persons for 
 whom I have the highest respect will be grieved and disappointed by 
 Buch a result.' Lord John Russell's proposition was carried by a majority 
 of 44; and on the 18th of March the bill was adopted by the government, 
 and successfully carried through both Houses. 
 
 This great blow at intolerance was the precursor of a yet heavier one. 
 The ' great apostacy,' as many gentlemen yet love to designate it, was at 
 hand. The Irish Catholic Association had become extremely formidable, 
 and how to put it down with a House of Commons that was constantly 
 passing an Emancipation Bill, which the Lords as regularly threw out, 
 might well make a minister responsible for the tranquillity of the country 
 pause and hesitate. The Duke of Wellington and Mr Peel saw no possible 
 course of action save putting down the association by force — provoking 
 civil war, in fact, in opposition to a principle repeatedly affirmed by the 
 House of Commons, or the frank concession of the Catholic claims. From 
 the tirst alternative even the war-accustomed soldier shrank, and how much 
 more likely was it that the pacific civilian should recoil from so terrible an 
 enterprise? The cabinet unanimously determined that a Relief Bill should 
 be proposed as a government measure, and the Duke of Wellington, with 
 indomitable, iron perseverance, wrung a reluctant assent from the king 
 to its introduction. His majesty afterwards told Lord Eldon that he 
 had been as much really coerced into consent 'as if a pistol had been 
 held to his head, or that he had been threatened, in case of refusal, to 
 be thro^vn from a five-pair-of-stairs window.' Mr Peel wished to i-etire 
 from office, at the same time agreeing to support the bill with all his 
 might; but the duke declaring that if the Home Secretary withdrew 
 from the ministry, he could not hope to overcome the difficulties of the 
 situation, Mr Peel consented to remain, and undertake the management 
 of the bill in the Commons. Thus resolutely, unshrinkingly, did Mr Peel 
 sacrifice private and public attachments to a sense — tardily awakened 
 if you will — of imperative duty, voluntarily descended from the lofty 
 pedestal to which he had been raised by the suffi-ages of a numerous and 
 influential body of his countrymen, and cast at their feet, not in anger, 
 but in sorrow, the partisan crown which they had placed upon his brow, 
 content to suffer calumny, misrepresentation, every species of insult and 
 abuse that the malignity of irritated and unscrupulous opponents could 
 shower upon him, rather than persist in a course which, however gratifying 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 to his self-love, and apparently essential to his personal importance, would 
 risk, he was now painlully aware, the tranquillity and safety of the country. 
 It seems impossible to imagine any motive save a pure and honourable one 
 for this great sacritice of party and personal interests. The subsequent 
 immense and tumukuous meetings on Fenenden Heath, and in numerous 
 other places, testified how easy it would have been for Mr Peel to have 
 arrayed the weU-meaning but bitterly-prejudiced people against the claims 
 of the Catholics to equality of civil riglits. Happily he cliose tlie better 
 path, and achieved a task vainly essayed by other, and, it may be in some 
 respects, greater men — with infinite self-subduing eftbrt, well expressed by 
 himself on the introduction of the measm-e, accomplished it — 
 
 • Tis said with ease, but oh ! how hardly tried. 
 By haughty souls to liuman honour tied, 
 Oh! sharp, convulsive pangs of agonizing pride! ' 
 
 Mr Peel in his speech mainly rested the defence of his conduct upon the 
 repeated divisions in successive Houses of Commons in favour of the dis- 
 puted claims, and consequent impossibility, in the face of the dangerous 
 power that had been recently organized in Ireland, of carrying on the 
 government of the country with vigour and ethciency. ' Sucli,' said the 
 right honourable gentleman, ' is the conclusion to which I found myself 
 compelled by the irresistible force of circumstances; and I will adhere to it, 
 ay, and I will act upon it, unchanged by the scurrility of abuse — by the 
 expression of opposite opinions, however veliement or however general — 
 unchanged by the deprivation of political confidence, or by the far heavier 
 sacritice of private friendships and afiections. Looking back upon the 
 past, surveying the present, and fore-judging the prospects of the future, 
 again I declare that the time is come when this question must be settled.' 
 On the House dividijig, there appeared in favour of the measure 348, 
 against it 160. The number of peers suddenly converted by the ministry 
 to a sense of the necessity of concession was unexpectedly large, the second 
 reading of the bill having been carried in their lordships' House by a 
 majority of 105. On the 13th of April the royal assent was reluctantly 
 signified to the measure. Lord Eldon, whose intolerance was of the sm- 
 cerest kind, wrote the next day the following distracted note to his daughter. 
 Lady F. J. Bankes: — 'The fatal bills received the royal assent yesterday 
 afternoon. After all I luive heard in my visits, not an liour's delay! 
 God bless us and his church!' God bless us indeed! The constitution, 
 which had someliow remahied beliind the unchangeable bank-notes, was 
 clean gone at last! As his lordship pathetically expressed it, 'the sun 
 of England was [once more] set for ever.' It is suii)rising how many times, 
 even in one's own recollection, this curious phenomenon has occurred; so 
 frequently, indeed, that most people have become not only reconciled, but 
 rather pleased witli it — the result perhaps of habit, which is, it is said, a 
 kind of second nature. 
 
 Mr Peel, with his accustomed candour — candid Peel, as lie has been called 
 by certain witlings, believing not unnaturally tliat they enunciate a joke by 
 the expression of a serious truth — disclaimed for himself any lionour tliat 
 might attacli to tlie successful carrying of the Emancipation Bills, ascribing 
 it to tliose men — Komilly, Grattau, Canning, Plunkett. and others — who had 
 
 m 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 during so many years unsuccessfully urged the measure upon the con- 
 sideration of parliament. 
 
 Mr Peel sat for the close borough of Westbury during the passing of the 
 Emancipation Bill, and for the remainder of the session, he having deemed 
 it a point of honour to vacate his seat for the university of (Jxford. Sir 
 R. H. Inglis, at the election which ensued, was returned in his stead, 
 though considering how vigorously the ' drum ecclesiastic' was beaten to 
 summon the partisans of uitolerance to the rescue of trutii, about, it should 
 seem, to be jeopardised by act of parliament, by the narrow n)ajority of 755 
 to 009. Mr Peel's father died the following year at the good old age of 
 eighty, and reconciled, we believe, to his son's change of ojiinion. At all 
 events, he made no alteration in the disposition of his vast property ; and 
 the late baronet succeeded not only to the title, but to a magnificent 
 fortune. Whether any serious risk of partial disinheritance had been 
 incurred or not is of course only known to the parties personally con- 
 cerned: it was, however, commonly rumoured at the time, both in the 
 press and in society, that the Home Secretary had perilled fortune as well 
 as political eminence by his conduct on the Catholic question. 
 
 Very fortunate for tliis country it was that this great remedial measure 
 had been conceded before the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1830. 
 As it was, that great event excited a movement in this country which led 
 to very important consequences. The Duke of Wellington's cabinet, which 
 had struggled on with tolerable success during the remainder of tlie sessiou, 
 found itself in a minority in the new parliainent, necessarily summoned on 
 the demise of the crown, by a combination of Tories, \\']iigs, and Radicals, 
 on Sir Henry Parnell's motion for a committee on the civil list : the 
 minority of course resigned, and the famous administration of Earl Grey 
 succeeded to power. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, as acknowledged chief of the Opposition — his eminent 
 debating talents having been pronounced mdispensable by tlie wiser heads 
 of the party, his ' apostacy' was at once forgiven — oi)posed with fervour 
 and much misapplied eloquence the great Reform measure of the Grey 
 cabinet. His speeches, however, did not go the length of denying the 
 necessity of some effectual reform of the representation of the people. 
 His chief objections were directed towards points — essential ones unques- 
 tionably — of detail. One of them is now admitted to have been reasonable 
 and valid — namely, that the ten-pound qualification would injuriously 
 diminish the number of voters in small provincial towns, whilst it unneces- 
 sarily, according to him, augmented it in large towns or cities. AMien 
 the Duke of Wellington, on tlie refusal of the king to create a sufficient 
 number of peers to overcome the resistance of the House of Lords to the 
 passing of the Reform measure, attempted to form a cabinet. Sir Robert 
 Peel refused to associate himself in so mad a project, and the duke aban- 
 doned the enterprise. The bill passed in its hitegrity ; and Sir Robei't 
 Peel soon afterwards declared his frank acceptance of it vith all its con- 
 sequences. Those consequences, according to him, were, that tlie balance 
 of the government by means of the antagonism of i)arties, more or less 
 influenced by public opinion, was no longer possilile, and that the 
 popular will, as embodied in the votes of the constituencies, must be for 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 (the future paramount. As a corollary to this creed, he held, and subse- 
 quently exemplified his belief in his measures, that it v/ould be found ^viser 
 to yield to the impulses of popular opinion than wait to be overthrown by 
 its compressed, but when at last inevitably liberated, overpowering force. 
 In the reformed parliament, Sir Robert Peel, according to Sir R. H. Inglis 
 — charitably forgetful of ' the treason to the church ' — gave by his speeches 
 'fame and dignity' to its proceedings; and the ministry, vehemently 
 assailed by Mr O'Connell and others, gladly accepted his occasional sup- 
 port. Earl Grey retired, and the premiership was grasped by the coiitident, 
 but light and inexperienced, hand of Lord Melbourne. A feeble and va- 
 cillating administration of public affairs followed till towards the close of 
 the year 1834, when the death of Earl Spencer, and consequent removal of 
 Lord Althorp to the House of Lords, determined the king — who had, 
 moreover, been greatly scandalised by some of the pranks of Chancelloi 
 Brougham — to dismiss his ministry, and ultimately, on the advice of the 
 Duke of Wellington, to call Sir Robert Peel to his councils. The missive 
 of the sovereign reached the baronet at Rome on the 26th of November, 
 and he at once hastened homewards to clutch the glittering prize, so 
 unexpectedly proffered for his acceptance. In his address to the electors 
 of Tamworth soon after his arrival in England, Sir Robert Peel enunciated 
 with sufficient clearness, though in somewhat periphrastic periods, the 
 policy he intended to pursue. He would not advise the crown to rescind 
 the commission that had been issued to inquire into and report upon the 
 workings and the modes of election of municipal corporations ; he would 
 reform the church — temperately of covirse ; and, in brief, he would endea- 
 vour to act faithfully in what he conceived to be the spirit of the Reform 
 Act ; and he emphatically protested against the doctrine, that, because he 
 had opposed that measure, he was thereby incapacitated, now that it had 
 become the law of the land, to administer the affairs of the country under 
 its control. The dissolution of parliament which followed, although it 
 added greatly to the Conservative ranks in the House of Commons, still 
 left the minister in a minority there; and he was beaten on the very 
 threshold of the session by the election of Mr Abercrombie to the Speaker- 
 ship, in place of Mr Mtinners Sutton, afterwards created Viscount Canter- 
 bury. Sir Robert Peel was ultimately expelled from office by a vote of 
 the House declaratory in effect that any future surplus of Irish tithe, after 
 the due maintenance of the established church of that country had been 
 provided for, should be devoted to general educational purposes. The 
 eloquent and zealous promoters of this resolution have since practically 
 repudiated it. It, however, sufficed to replace them on the Treasury bench, 
 and Sir Robert Peel was once more in opposition. The ability, the high 
 moral courage he displayed during this brief tenure of office went to the 
 heart of the country ; and even William Cobbett, forgetting for once in his 
 life his bitter antipathies, remarked with something of sadness in his 
 ' Register,' the fruitless exertion of talents ' of which the country miglit 
 well be proud.' The premier evinced on two occasions during this short 
 ministerial reign a surprising infirmity of temper, which elicited the best, 
 and, we believe, only joke — always excepting his essay on tlie immense 
 aggressive forces of Russia — that can be fairly attributed to the honourable 
 and gallant member for the city of Westminster, General de I.Acy Evans. 
 20 
 
8IR ROBEBT PEEL. 
 
 Dr Lushington having uttered some disparaging words of the minister, 
 received a peremptory note requiring a satisi'actory apology, or the usual 
 alternative amongst gentlemen, as the phrase runs. The doctor, like a sen- 
 sible man, apologised. Next Mr Hume, having remarked in his place in 
 the House of Commons that he would not have acted in the manner Sir 
 Kobert Peel had, received a written missive, after the rising of the House, 
 demanding a retractation. Mr Hume, an altogether pacilic and sane indi- 
 vidual, explained to the challenger that the words were used in a purely 
 parliamentary sense, and the quarrel had no further result. General 
 Evans, who appeared to think tliat nobody but regular professors of the 
 sword ought to indulge in such hre-eating tastes, was greatly scandalised at 
 the premier's behaviour, and the following evening remarked upon it in the 
 House of Commons. ' The right honourable gentleman,' said the gallant 
 officer, ' is a regular fire-eater. First he sends a hostile message to an 
 ecclesiastical judge, and then he challenges that entirely peaceable and 
 prudent gentleman, Mr Hume ; and I sincerely advise the pacific member 
 for Durham (Joseph Pease, the Quaker) to be very careful of his words, or 
 as sure as fate he will be the next person called out by the warlike pre- 
 mier.' The general's witticism was immensely enjoyed by the House, and 
 by no one apparently more than by Sir Robert Peel himself. 
 
 Soon after the right honourable baronet's ejection from office on this 
 occasion, the great banquet at Merchant Tailors Hall was given him by 
 300 members of the House of Commons. It was on this occasion that he 
 infused such vitality and ardour into the Conservative organization of the 
 country — at the same time giving it a legitimate and healtiiy direction — by 
 his emphatic warning, that the Refoi-m Bill, which had deprived him of 
 power, was a great and irresistible fact ; and that the battle of the Consti- 
 tution must thenceforth be fought in the Registration Courts. His advice 
 to ' register — register — register,' was promptly acted upon ; and the con- 
 stituencies were greatly increased — not, as the sagacious baronet clearly 
 foresaw, in an exclusive and sectarian, but in a liberally-conservative and 
 moderate direction. In the .following year Sir Robert Peel was elected 
 Lord Rector of Glasgow university, beating Sir Jolin, now Lord Campbell, 
 by a considerable majority. His inaugural speech was accounted one of 
 his happiest oratorical efforts, remarkable alike for practical wisdom and 
 the purest eloquence. 
 
 The Conservative party, under Sir Robert Peel's judicious guidance and 
 advice, grew daily in parliamentary and popular strength, so that he was 
 not unfrequently obliged to repress the intolerant zeal and folly of its more 
 audacious members, who reckoned too confidently on the increasing power 
 of the party. In one especial instance he effected a remarkable service. 
 The English Corporation Reform Act had been so grossly mutilated by 
 Lord Lyndhurst and a majority of the peers, as to render it altogether 
 nugatory as a remedial measure. The Melbourne ministry were thorougldy 
 at a loss how to proceed when it came back to the House of Commons : to 
 accept such an abortion in place of then: own fair-proportioned offspring 
 was manifestly impossible, but could they hope to induce the Lords to 
 rescind their amendments ? Sir Robert Peel, who had left to^\Ti — it wa^j 
 near the close of the session — immediately hastened back to their assist- 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people, 
 
 ance and rescue, assisted by speech and vote to disallow the most objec- 
 tionable of the peers' amendments ; and Lord Lyndhurst was obliged — for 
 'the duke,' as usual, ranged himself on the side of Peel — to reluctantly 
 acquiesce in tlie restoration of the bill to something like its former state, 
 and the measure as it now exists passed. Tlie eager ultra men of the 
 party were greatly exasperated, and denounced in unmeasured terms the 
 treaclierous conduct, as they termed it, of their great but unmanageable 
 leader. That ' Peel had no pluck ' became a received and favourite piirase 
 with them, and but for a haunting consciousness that they were powerless 
 without him, he would unquestionably have been deposed. As it was, they 
 sullenly acquiesced ; and the continued vacillations, the infirm and abortive 
 purposes of the cabinet — the constantly failing revenue, vainly propped by 
 an increase of Excise taxes, and other clumsy and ineffective expedients — 
 revived their hopes of ultimate triumph, and with the increasing hostility 
 of Sir Robert Peel's parliamentary tone and action, reconciled them some- 
 what to his previous moderation and forbearance. The famous ' ladies-of- 
 the- bedchamber ' interlude took place during this period, in which the only 
 party that appears to have acted with perfect dignity and good sense was 
 the Queen herself. The cabinet, on being thrown into a virtual minority 
 on the .Jamaica Constitution-Suspension Act, withdrew, the male portion of 
 them, from her majesty's service, leaving, as Lord Brougham humorously 
 expressed it, their better halves behind them; and Sir Robert Peel, with 
 sufficient adroitness, caught at the circumstance to relieve himself from the 
 acceptance of office at an inopportune moment. His time was not yet 
 come; and perhaps no man has ever displayed more sagacity than the right 
 honourable baronet in seizing upon the right hour for the right work. 
 The reinstated ministry staggered on as well as they could till 1841, when, 
 alarmed at the deficiency of the revenue to meet the expenditure, they 
 hastily caught up, as a last resource, an eight-shilling fixed duty on corn, 
 and proposed it to parliament in lieu of the sliding-scale; hinting at tlie 
 same time very intelligibly, that if parliament raised the duty to ten or 
 twelve shillings, they would acquiesce, arjd resign themselves to con- 
 tinuance in office. This proposal obtained neither the confidence nor the 
 support of the Free-trade party, and Sir Robert met it by a motion of 
 want of confidence in ministers, which was carried by a majority of one! 
 Parliament was dissolved, and in the new House of Commons the want-of- 
 confidence motion, renewed as an amendment to the address in reply to the 
 speech from the throne, was carried by a majority of ninety-one. 
 
 Sir Robert having thus, and greatly by the aid of the agricultural party, 
 stormed office, was immediately hi vested by the Queen with the direction 
 of affairs. His cabinet was strengthened by the accession of the some time 
 Wliigs, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, and a more powerful ministry, 
 in a parliamentary and party sense, never perhaps existed in the country. 
 The new premier succeeded to office at a critical and disastrous time. 
 The revenue was several millions below the expenditure: two bad harvests 
 in succession, with other concurrent causes, liad produced ajipalling distress 
 in the manufacturing districts : the most frighti'ul destitution prevailed in 
 Paisley, Glasgow, Manchester, and other centres of trade. Foreign affairs 
 wore an equally gloomy aspect. France, exasperated, alienated by the 
 vigorous and successful expedition against ]\le]iemet Ali, expressed both in 
 22 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 the Chambers and the press the bitterest hostility towards this country; 
 the American Maine boundary dispute was ripening rapidly into an open 
 quarrel; the Chinese war was apparently as far as ever from a termination; 
 and, to crown all, news not very long afterwards arrived of the military 
 disasters in Affghanistan! Sir Robert Peel faced these difficulties with 
 energy and resolution, though keenly sensible of their magnitude and 
 weight. ' 'VMiat have you done with the revenue I left you?' exclaimed 
 the premier, addressing the late ministers, who objected to the Income Tax, 
 by which he proposed to meet his financial embarrassments. ' In the year 
 1835 you, the ministry, found the affairs of the two gi-eat empires in this 
 state: — In the United Kingdom the surplus of income over expenditure was 
 £1,376,000; in India, £1,556,000. You had then a nett suqjlus approach- 
 ing to three millions! How> have you left matters? You say I overstate 
 the difficulties. Can you deny that you found a surplus of three millions, 
 and have left a deficiency of five millions? On the 5th of April 1842, the 
 deficit of the revenue of the United Kingdom, compared with its expendi- 
 ture, was £2,570,000; of India, £2,430,000. The dilference then against 
 this country and its credit is eight millions as compared with 1835!' 
 
 Although Sir Robert Peel had offered the best defence of a sliding scale 
 of com duties of which it is susceptible, he did not, it was early apparent, 
 enjoy the entire confidence of the chiefs of the Protectionist party. They 
 appear to have felt a lurking suspicion that a man of Sir Robert Peel's 
 sagacity could not for ever continue blind to the injustice of taxing one 
 class, and that the most numerous and most helpless in the community, for 
 the support of another class; and they knew by repeated example, that, 
 once convinced he had been in error, no consideration on earth would 
 induce him to forbear acting upon that conviction ! The Duke of Rich- 
 mond declared, immediately after the result of the elections was known, 
 that if the minister did not please the agricultural members, they, by whose 
 aid he would be placed in office, would turn him out again. To this taimt 
 Sir Robert quietly replied, that he should take office to give effect not 
 to the opmions of others, but to his own. His first reformation of the 
 sliding-scale confirmed the suspicions entertained by the Protectionist 
 party, and his Grace of Buckingliam openly refused to disgrace himself by 
 an alliance with so dangerous and deceptive a mmister. Indeed it was 
 soon evident to all men not wilfully blind, that the tendency of the minis- 
 terial policy, quickened doubtless by the rapid development of the Anti- 
 Corn- Law League, was towards an abolition of the taxes on food. The 
 ministry from the first was one of progress — slow perhaps, but marked and 
 determined in its du-ection ; and if it be objected that the prosecution of 
 Mr O'ConneU was harsh or unnecessary, it cannot be denied that Sir Robert 
 Peel manifested by his Maynooth gi'ant, about which such a hubbub was 
 raised, a strong desire to conciliate the Catholic population of Ireland. 
 At length, towards the close of 1845, immediately after the failure of the 
 potato crop had been ascertauied, the astounding announcement appeared 
 in the ' Times ' newspaper that the Conservative cabinet had determined on 
 abolishing the corn-duties — on capitidating, as Protectionist writers termed 
 it, with the Anti-Com-Law confederacy. This news, partially disbelieved 
 at first, was afterwards confirmed, but only as far as the Prime Minister and 
 a majority of the cabinet were concerned ; for the Duke of "Wellington and 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Lord Stanley having refused their consent to the proposition, Sir Robert 
 Peel tendered the collective resignation of the cabinet, which her Majesty, 
 on the 6th of December, reluctantly accepted. There can be no doubt 
 entertained that Sir Robert Peel was anxiously desirous that the repeal of 
 the corn duties should be effected by his political opponents, wlio, by the 
 voices of Lords John Russell and Morpeth had announced their conversion 
 to the doctrine and necessity of total repeal two or three weeks previously ; 
 but again, as in 1829, he was doomed to the task of reversing the policy 
 of his party, and for the same reason — that no other man than himself 
 could be found capable of reversing it. 
 
 Lord John Russell, earnestly supported by her Majesty, attempted to 
 form a ministry; but after consulting with his proposed colleagues, and 
 carefully surveying the situation, abandoned -the effort in despair, thus 
 virtually confessing himself unequal to the task of repealing the obnoxious 
 laws, even with the cordial assistance of Sir Robert Peel out of office. 
 The right honourable baronet was immediately resummoned to the royal 
 councils, and his powerful and ever-faithful friend at a pinch, the Duke 
 of Wellington, who could alone enable him to o'erleap the barrier of the 
 House of Lords, having returned to his aid, Sir Robert, confident of suc- 
 cess, again threw all personal motives, all personal ties, all considera- 
 tions of power, office, patronage, to the winds, in order to carry a mea- 
 sure which time and circumstance had convinced him was essential to the 
 permanent welfare of the country. The Duke of Wellington, who must 
 be held to be as good a judge of what constitutes personal honour as 
 most men, expressed himself in his explanatory speech ' delighted with 
 his right honourable fi-iend ' for resuming office under such circumstances, 
 and avowed his determination to support him by every means at his com- 
 mand : the other members of the administration concurred in the duke's 
 opinion and resolve, Avith the exception of Lord Stanley, who went into 
 opposition ; and the minister met parliament at the head of a united 
 cabinet with his corn-law repeal measures ready in his hand. 
 
 It has been said of Burke with partial truth — 
 
 ' that he narrowed his mind, 
 
 And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.' 
 
 The precise converse of this proposition is true of the late Sir Robert 
 Peel. It is manifestly absurd to deny the purity and disinterestedness 
 of his motives in thus acting, and the reasonable solution of his conduct 
 is this — that, unlike gentlemen whose youthful illumination of intellect 
 enables them to discern accurately, and to decide justly, every incident 
 and experience of the longest life. Sir Robert Peel grew wiser as he grew 
 older : in other words, that knowledge with him was not intuitive and 
 spontaneous, but the result of observation and experience. All men are 
 not gifted with d priori intellects ; and Sir Robert appears in this respect 
 to have been less fortunately gifted than such gentlemen as the lionourable 
 member for Lincoln, whose gray hairs seem to cover the precisely same 
 amount of wisdom as the curly locks of their boyhood ; whose motto, like 
 that of the Latin Churcli, is semper idem ; and who pridefully acknowledge 
 with the returned French emigres, ' qu' ils n'ont rien oublid, ni rien appris ' 
 —have neither forgotten nor learned anything. 
 24 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 « Power,' said Sir Robert Peel in defending his change of opinion on 
 the Com Laws — ' power to effect great objects is really valuable ; but for 
 my part I can say with perfect truth, that even for those objects I do not 
 covet it. Still I am ready to incur its responsibilities, to bear its sacrifices, 
 to affront its perils; but I will not retain it with mutilated power and 
 shackled authority. I will not stand at the helm during dark and tem- 
 pestuous weather, if that helm is not allowed to freely traverse ; and I 
 will not undertake to direct the course of the vessel now by observations 
 taken in 1842.' He thus addressed himself to the taunt of inconsistency 
 — ' I will not withhold the homage due to the progress of reason, and to 
 truth, by denying that my opinions on the subject of Protection have 
 undergone a change. It may be supposed that there is something humi- 
 liating in making such an admission. Sir, I feel no such humiliation ; but 
 I should feel the deepest humihation if, having changed or modified my 
 opinions, I declined to acknowledge the change for the base fear of en- 
 countering the charge of inconsistency.' ParUament deferred to the advice 
 of the minister ; and after a protracted struggle of nearly six months' 
 duration, the commercial measures of the cabinet were carried through 
 both Houses of Parliament by large majorities, and received the cheerful 
 and personally-given assent of the sovereign. Sir Robert Peel, as he had 
 always anticipated, was overthrown by a division of the House upon the 
 Irish ' Arms Bill,' in which Liberals, Whigs, and Protectionists, united to 
 deprive him of power. It was a curious circumstance that the corn-duties 
 repeal bill finally passed the Lords on the same evening, the arrival of 
 the masters in Chancery to make the announcement to the Commons hav- 
 ing interrupted Mr Charles Buller's speech upon the Irish Bill. As soon 
 as the vociferous cheers of the members greeting the consummation of the 
 minister's crowning triumph had died away, the honourable gentleman 
 continued his speech, and the House a few hours afterwards expelled that 
 minister from power ! Ibrahim Pacha was present under the gallery, and 
 must have been sadly puzzled, one would think, to reconcile the congratu- 
 latory cheers with the vindictive division ! 
 
 It was during this debate that Mr D'Israeli, after reciting a more than , 
 ordinary number of carefully - arranged sneers and sarcasms — impromptus 
 made at leisure — relative to Sir Robert Peel's deficiency, not only in moral, 
 but intellectual qualities — an accusation, by the way, which excited far 
 more general and derisive laughter without than party cheers within the 
 House — again alluded to the charge respecting Mr Canning, who, according 
 to the honourable member, was ' an eagle,' whilst Sir Robert Peel was only 
 * a vulture ; ' and Mr Canning, moreover, ' rode the Commons as Alexander 
 did his horse Bucephalus, both, in the days of Gatton and Old Sarum, 
 when the pulse of England beat higher than it does now, worthy of each 
 Other!' The peroration of the present leader of the gentlemen of Eng- 
 land suggested, as the best excuse doubtless that could be given for the 
 coming vote on the Arms Bill, that it had been brought about by a general 
 desire amongst honourable gentlemen of all parties, to avenge the very- 
 mild opposition which Sir Robert Peel, following hngo intervalh in the 
 wake of the Duke of Newcastle and Earl Grey, offered to Mr Cannuig's 
 administration. ' He must feel,' said the honourable member — ' he must 
 feel that it is a Nemesis that dictates this vote and regulates this decision, 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 and that is about to stamp with its seal the catastrophe of a siaister 
 career.' 
 
 , The value of this diatribe can be best estunated by those who remember 
 the speeches of Mr D'Israeli in 1841 — fourteen years after Mr Canning had 
 been ' hunted' to death. The honourable gentleman at that time com- 
 plimented Sir Robert Peel, ' that, placed in an age of rapid civilisation 
 and rapid ti-ansition, he had adapted the practical character of his measures 
 to the condition of the times ; ' and he emphatically remarked, that Sir 
 Robert ' was indeed a gi-eat man, who had never employed his influence for 
 factious purposes, never been stimulated in his exertions by a disordered 
 desire of obtaining office, and he (Mr D'Israeli) looked anxiously for- 
 ward to the time when the right honourable baronet would have an oppor- 
 tunity of establishing a government which would have the confidence of 
 the education, the property, and, as he thoroughly believed, of the great 
 body of the nation.' What can one say after this, except to repeat the 
 opinion expressed by Lord Chancellor Eldon, in one of the letters akeady 
 quoted — ' the devU of it, there is no consistency in anybody ' — not even in 
 Mr D'IsraeU ! 
 
 On the 30th of June 1846 Su' Robert Peel resigned the power which he 
 had wielded to such important, and, in the opinion of the vast majority of 
 the nation, to such magnificent results. Never had he appeared so great 
 and puissant as when casting ofi" power — ^never half so formidable in the 
 hour of triumph as in that of apparent defeat. The robes of office cast 
 aside, he seemed to dilate in unfettered pride and strength. Dui-ing the 
 speech in which he recounted the achievements of his gi-eat administration — 
 the flourishing state of the revenue — restored amity with France — the suc- 
 cessful conclusion of the Chinese war — the triumphant effacement of the 
 reverses in India — the honourable settlement of the Oregon dispute, of which 
 the official announcement had that day reached him from Mr Pakenham, as 
 if to gild his fall with superadded glory — the reduction he had effected on 
 the interest of a considerable portion of the National Debt — the success of 
 his financial measures generally — and finally, and above all, the erasure from 
 the statute book of the obnoxious Corn Laws — a more than Roman triumph 
 seemed to pass before the eyes of his entranced and admuing auditory. 
 The commanding tone was that of a conqueror rather than that of a 
 minister whose staff of office had just been broken in his grasp, as he not 
 only pointed with pardonable exultation to the triumphs of the past, but 
 traced with victorious, authoritative finger the course which his successors 
 mmt pursue, so fii-mly and irrevocably had he launched the vessel of the 
 state in the track which common sense, enlightened pliilosophy, and gene- 
 rous patriotism had pointed out. 
 
 Yet in this moment of triumphant laying down of office. Sir Robert Peel 
 cheerfully and thoroughly recognised the claims of the men who had borne 
 the heat and burthen of the day, and marshalled and disciplined the forces 
 wliich, his great claim to honour, he had led to victory — a victory which, 
 but for him, must have been indefinitely postponed. ' The name,' said he, 
 * which ought to be, and which will be associated with these measures, is 
 not miue, nor that of Lord John Russell: it is that of a man who, acting, 
 as I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, and with untu-ing energy, 
 26 
 
SIR ROBERT PEUL. 
 
 by appeals to reason, enforced their necessity with an eloquence the more 
 to be admired because it is unaffected and unadorned — the name which will 
 be associated witli the success of these measures is that of Richard Cobden.' 
 This act of justice performed, he thus eloquently as modestly preferred his 
 own claim to the generous thoughts of his countrymen : — ' I shall leave a 
 name severely censured, I fear, by many honourable persons, who, from no 
 interested motives, have adhered to the principle of Protection, as important 
 to the interest and welfare of the country — I shall leave a name execrated by 
 every monopolist who, from less worthy motives, maintains Protection for 
 his own benefit ; but it may be I shall leave a name sometimes remembered 
 with expressions of good-will in those places which are the abode of men 
 whose lot it is to labour and earn their daily bread by the sweat of their 
 brow — a name remembered with expressions of good-will when they shall 
 recreate their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the 
 sweeter because no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.' 
 
 Enthusiastic cheers greeted the delivery of these words — ^words which 
 will dwell in the national heart when the calumnies, the insults indulged 
 in by the great minister's opponents, are utterly forgotten, or remembered 
 only with a smile of pity and regi-et that Englishmen could have been found 
 to utter them. His prophetic ear had akeady caught the far-off echoes oi 
 the time in whose all hail ! the rancorous party - clamour raised against 
 him was destined to be drowned, extinguished, lost ! He fell from official 
 power into the arms of the people, whose enthusiastic plaudits accompanied 
 him, on the evening of his resignation of office, to his residence in White- 
 hall Gardens. The spontaneous feeling of gratitude and respect which 
 prompted those plaudits has since widened, strengthened, deepened, and 
 will become more and more vivid and intense as the moral grandeur of his 
 motives — the unselfish, self-sacrificing spirit which dictated his public con- 
 duct — pierce tlirough, and consume in tlie clear and brilliant light of that 
 truth and justice which, we are assured by an illusti-ious authority, has 
 ever inspired his acts, the calumnious misrepresentations so imsparingly 
 heaped upon him. By his humbler coimtrymen, that testimony to the 
 moral worth of the departed statesman was not waited for, nor needed. 
 They felt instinctively that he must be pure and single-minded, as he 
 was intellectually vigorous and great ; for what had he, raised aloft upon 
 the bucklers of a powerful and wealthy party, to gain by stooping from 
 that dazzling height, to raise up the humble and the lowly from the mire 
 into which ignorant and partial legislation had so long trampled them ? 
 This feeling of sympathy, of reverence, manifested by far higher eloquence 
 than words can reach in the mute sorrow of the anxious crowd who hur- 
 riedly gathered in boding silence round the mansion of the dying statesman, 
 to hear the sad bulletins which chronicled his passage to the tomb, is even 
 now all but universal. Especially in the great centres of the busy life of 
 these kingdoms is the feeling of regret and sympathy sincere and profound 
 — a sure warranty not only that the hope so affectingly expressed by Sir 
 Robert Peel— that his name would be remembered with expressions of 
 good-will by his working, hard-handed countrymen — will be amply fulfilled, 
 but that the principles which his death may be said to have consecrated 
 wUl be maintained in their integrity by the strength, the energy, and the 
 intelligence of the country. 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 The period, just four years, which elapsed since the retirement of Sir 
 Robert Peel from office imtil the 29th of June last — when an accident, the 
 sudden restiveness of a usually quiet horse, resulted in the loss of a life 
 not much past its meridian * — were years of unostentatious public services 
 In parUament, and private efforts, which, from the elevation of his social and 
 moral position, necessarily partook of a public character, to advance the 
 wellbeing of those sections of the community with whom liis individual life 
 was more especially connected. In parliament the Encumbered Estates 
 Bill, by which it is hoped that a real Irish proprietary may be substi- 
 tuted for a fictitious one, is mainly due to his suggestion; and the 
 hasty efforts recently witnessed to amend the defective rules and sluggish 
 processes of the Courts of Equity are distinctly traceable to the sudden 
 alarm which his contemptuous denunciation of their cumbrous inefficiency 
 excited in the gentlemen of the long robe. His support of the ministry by 
 whom he had been supplanted was, by their own confession, generous, sin- 
 cere, unostentatious ; and the last speech he ever uttered, when reluctantly 
 compelled to oppose them or sacrifice his own convictions upon a question 
 of great importance, breathed a spirit of the utmost forbearance, concilia- 
 tion, and respect. In his private capacity he was especially zealous to 
 promote the interests of agriculture, with which his own fortunes were so 
 intimately bound up. Although refusing to promote the interests of the 
 cultivators of the soil at the expense of other classes of the community, he 
 was eager to secure for them the real and permanent advantages derivable 
 from an intelligent combination and exercise of capital, industry, and skill. 
 Sir Robert established at Taraworth a school for the superior education of 
 the children of the middle classes — thereby evincing, even more than by his 
 bold institution of the Irish provincial colleges, how anxious he was that 
 knowledge should keep pace with privilege. He once remarked that the 
 repeal of the Com Laws was the greatest educational measure ever 
 passed. Of course he alluded to the increased means and leisure which 
 the abolition of the taxes on food would afford parents — especially those 
 of the working-classes — to educate their children. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, anxious as he ever showed himself to advance the mate- 
 rial interests of the people, to keep Great Britain in the van of other 
 nations by the aids which scientific discoveries and enterprise afford, was 
 
 * The accident whieli resulted in the death of the right honourable baronet oc- 
 curred on Saturday evening, June 29 — scarcely ten hours after he had taken part in 
 the protracted debate on the merits of Lord Palmerston's foreign policy. Sir Robert 
 left Whitehall Gardens shortly before five o'clock, on horseback, attended by his 
 groom. Proceeding through the Park, he had called at Buckingham Palace, and 
 was riding up Constitution Hill, when he met some ladies of his acquaintance, who 
 were returning home on horseback from their afternoon's ride. These ladies were 
 attended by a groom, who rode a somewhat skittish horse ; and when Sir Robert 
 approached him, the animal on which he was riding began also to plunge and rear. 
 The effect of this action was, that Sir Robert was instantly unhorsed, and fell heavily 
 on his fane in the road. Although rendered insensible by the fall. Sir Robert for 
 the moment retained hold of his bridle ; and the horse being thus suddenly checked, 
 came down with force, his knees striking the right honourable baronet about the 
 centre of his back. From the time of the melancholy occurrence up to Tuesday 
 morning, July 2, faint hopes were entertained of his recovery ; but during the day 
 the symptoms became more alarming, and at nine minutes after eleven o'clock, the 
 distinguished statesman breathed his last in the presence of nearly all the members 
 of his family. 
 28 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 equally zealous to foster and promote the arts which refine and elevate 
 mankind. The cultivation of gifted intellect, in whatever branch of art 
 exercised, found in him a munificent, ardent, and enlightened patron. No 
 man has done more, perhaps none so much, to diffuse a taste for the 
 elevating influences of art by rendering the national collections of the 
 works of genius accessible to the body of the people. He ever strenuously 
 reprobated the assertion that the working-classes of Great Britain could not 
 be safely trusted, like the peoples of the continent, with unrestricted 
 admission to ornamental grounds, or to museums, and galleries of curio- 
 sities and art. * It is not,' he once exclaimed, ' the intelligent artisan, but 
 the vulgar rich, who deface and injure statues, pictures, and ornamental 
 trees.' The celebrities of literature, uTCspective of party distinction or 
 party services, ever found in him a warm sympathising friend rather than 
 patron. Southey and Wordsworth were awarded a pension of £300 a 
 year each : Tennyson, £200 per annum : M'Culloch and Tytler the same : 
 James Montgomery obtained £150 annual pension ; and the widow of 
 Thomas Hood £100 yearly : Mrs Hemans he placed on the pension list, 
 and procured situations for her sons under the crown : Frances Brown, the 
 blind poetess, was pensioned from a fund which custom places at the dis- 
 posal of the wife of the prime-minister : and a son of Allan Cunningham 
 obtained an appointment at Sir Robert's hands, from respect to the genius 
 of his father. In science his patronage was extended towards Faraday the 
 eminent chemist, on whom a pension of £300 a year was bestowed. Mrs 
 Somerville, the author of the 'Connection of the Sciences,' was equally 
 fortunate ; the geologist, Dr Buckland, he created Dean of Westmin- 
 ster; and Professor Airy owes to him his appointment as Astronomer- 
 Royal. Others, eminent in science and literature, and who stood not in 
 need of extraneous aid, he encouraged in their onward path alike by his 
 cordial attentions and friendly hospitalities. 
 
 The late baronet's collection of paintings is extensive, as well as admir- 
 ably selected, and he was especially a munificent patron of native artists. 
 Lawrence, Wilkie, Collins, Roberts, Stanfield, Haydon, and many others, 
 received liberal commissions from him. The sudden and terrible death of 
 the last-mentioned gifted but wayward artist, who, on the 23d June 1846, 
 was found with his white hairs dabbled with blood, lifeless, self-destroyed, 
 at the foot of his painting of ' Alfred and the first British Jury,' uplifted a 
 comer of the usually impenetrable screen with which the late Sir Robert 
 Peel veiled from the crowd his genial and extensive charities. At the inquest 
 held on the body by Mr Wakley, Haydon's diary, a sad transcript of his 
 withered hopes and deepening calamities, written, it may be truly said, in 
 the blood of his own heart, was read, and from it we extract the following 
 passages, as given hi the 'Times ' of June 25, 1846: — 
 
 '•June 16. — Sat from 2 to 5 o'clock staring at my pictures like an idiot. 
 My brain pressed down by anxiety, and the anxious looks of ray family, 
 whom I have been compelled to inform of my condition. We have raised 
 money on all our silver, to keep us from want in case of accident. I have 
 
 written to Sir Robert Peel, to , and to , stating that I have a 
 
 heavy sum to pay. I have ofiered the " Duke's Study " to . Who 
 
 answered first? Tormented by D'Israeli, harassed by public business, up 
 came the following letter; — 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " Wldteliall, June 16. 
 
 " Sir — ^I am sorry to hear of your continued embarrassments. From a 
 limited fund which I have at my disposal, I send as a contribution for your 
 relief from those embarrassments the sum of fifty pounds. I remain, sir, 
 your obedient servant, Robert Peel." 
 
 * That's Peel! Will or answer ? 
 
 ^June 18. — This morning, fearing I should be involved, I returned to a 
 young bookseller some books for which I had not paid him. No reply 
 from or . And this Peel is the man who has no heart ! ' 
 
 This, it will be remembered, is the chance revealment of a generous act, 
 performed when the donor was himself exposed to the jibing tongues of 
 relentless and exasperated adversaries; and when the defence of self, it 
 might have been supposed, would have engrossed aU his thoughts and 
 sympathies. 
 
 Our brief pencilling of this distinguished man draws towards a close. 
 The reader wiU judge for himself of the degree of honour to be awarded to 
 a man who, early placed in a false position by being prematurely committed 
 to the advocacy of opinions which his mature judgment convinced him were 
 pernicious and unsound, one by one cast off the trammels of early pre- 
 judice, and always at the sacrifice of the purely selfish object which the 
 herd of politicians regard as their highest prize and reward — party honour 
 and distinction. It is, it seems to us, his especial glory to have always 
 risen above personal considerations when the welfare of his country was 
 in issue, and to have ever held allegiance to a party subservient to the 
 infinitely higher duty of advancing the interests of a people. 
 
 His sudden death has elicited a general expression of sorrow from gene- 
 rous hearts throughout Christendom ; the graceful tribute rendered to his 
 memory by the monarch and parliament of the United Kingdom was cor- 
 dially and spontaneously echoed by the National Assembly of France, in 
 this the faithful interpreter of the voices not only of that country, but of 
 Europe. Perhaps no British statesman ever so thoroughly conciliated the 
 good-wiU of other nations as did the late baronet ; and this from no un- 
 worthy truckling to foreign states, for although a sincere lover of peace, it 
 was not peace at any price, peace with dishonour, he desired or would accept 
 of. This, his determined and peremptory attitude and language on the Prit- 
 chard and Oregon disputes, amply testified. The secret of his popularity 
 abroad seems to have been, that while sensitively jealous for the honour of 
 his own country, he was ever scrupulously alive to that of others, and 
 constantly bore in mind that, as regarded foreign nations, words from one 
 in his position were to a great extent equivalent to deeds. 
 
 The oratory of Sir Robert Peel was in some respects inferior to that of 
 the great masters of parliamentary eloquence. As a speaker, he was not so 
 sonorous and stately as Pitt, so varied and discursive as Brougham, glitter- 
 ing and epigrammatic as Shiel, nor logical and brilliant as Macaulay ; but 
 in persuasive effect upon a miscellaneous auditory like the House of Com- 
 mons, he was immeasurably superior to eitlier of them, and for ready 
 debating powers he had confessedly no equal in that assembly. The 
 singular fascination of his manner was greatly enhanced by the charm of a 
 rich and finely -modulated voice ; and no one could hear him speak for five 
 SO 
 
SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 minutes upon an important subject, without feeling that he was listening to 
 an orator marvellously skilled in the art of influencing the convictions and 
 swaying the wills of his audience. A still higher praise is, that however 
 excited by debate, he never addressed a spiteful or ill-natured remark to an 
 opponent ; and even when coarsely attacked himself, disdained to retort in 
 kind upon his assailant. ' I have no time to waste in bandying personali- 
 ties with the honourable member,' was his calmly-contemptuous notice of a 
 cartload of abuse hurled at him on a memorable occasion. He wisely left 
 his vindication to time and the suffrages of his countrymen. Greater, 
 more brilliant statesmen, in a certain sense — men of showier gifts — there 
 may have been : the fervid declamation of Chatham — the stately periods 
 and haughty vehemence of Pitt — the nervous eloquence of Fox — the glitter- 
 ing rhetoric of Canning — will always perhaps excite in a numerous class of 
 minds stronger feeluigs of admiration than are usually associated with the 
 name of Sir Robert Peel. But should domestic confusion and peril, such 
 as the continent has lately suffered under, and which we, thanks to the 
 timely settlement of the exasperating corn-law question, happily escaped, 
 menace this country, the national mind will sorrowfully revert to the calm, 
 conciliating, moderate statesman, whose practical wisdom adapted itself 
 readily and with marvellous sagacity to the exigencies of the time, whose 
 clear prescience discerned the portents of approaching night and stonn 
 whilst the summer sun was still high above the horison, and whose patriot- 
 ism shrank from no labour, hesitated at no sacrifice, requu-ed for the safety 
 or well-being of the country he loved so well and served so faithfully. 
 
 Death, suddenly and unlooked-for as it came, found not the eminent and 
 stUl active statesman unprepared. His house had been long since put in 
 order, his family thoroughly instructed in his wishes and commands, con- 
 tingent on his decease. Tliose wishes and commands vividly illustrate the 
 simplicity and singleness of his ambition, and the sovereign contempt he 
 felt for the fripperies of show and titles. His remains were to be placed, 
 without funeral ostentation or parade, in the modest restingplace at Dray- 
 ton-Bassett Church, beside his father's; and when her Majesty, with the 
 graceful consideration by which she is distinguished, offered to ' ennoble ' 
 the family of her departed minister, the respectful reply of Lady Peel in- 
 formed the queen not only that she herself desired only to be known by 
 the name her husband had borne, but that he had left his family a solemn 
 injunction to accept of no title that might be offered them in recompense 
 for the services it might be deemed that he had rendered the state. The 
 much-coveted ' blue ribbon ' he had twice in his life declined — we can easily 
 imagine with what supreme though veiled indifference and contempt. Such 
 toys are for the common herd of politicians ; his was an infinitely higher 
 ambition — that of so writing his name upon the history of his country, that 
 it should in all time be remembered with emotions of good-will and esteem 
 by the people from whom he sprung, and to promote whose permanent and 
 substantial welfare he had cheerfully sacrificed ease and health, endured 
 unwearied obloquy and reproach, and finally turned exultmgly away from 
 the enthralling allurements and vanities of power. 
 
 Of the private or domestic life of this eminent person we have no mis- 
 sion to speak here. It may be gathered from the glance of unutterable 
 anguish which we have all been informed was seen to pass between Lady 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Peel and the dying man, when his bruised and pallid countenance met hers, 
 as he was borne across the threshold he was never more to pass with life, 
 from the profound affliction of every man who was honoured by his friend- 
 ship; and from the tears and blessings of the population of all ranks who 
 followed his body to the tomb in Drayton-Bassett Church, whose emotion 
 could scarcely have been greater had death swept off the best-beloved of 
 every family amongst them, so individual and intense was the expression 
 of grief and sympathy. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel has left, besides his widow, a family of seven children — 
 five sons and two daughters. The eldest, Robert, the present baronet 
 and member for Tamworth, has been long connected with the Swiss 
 embassy; Frederick represents Leominster — his speeches on the admission 
 of Jews to parliament and on other occasions exhibit good promise; 
 WiUiam, the third son, though only twenty-five years of age, is a captain in 
 the royal navy, in which service he early distinguished himself — 'a very 
 promising youngster indeed,' Admiral Napier, who had seen him under fire 
 at Acre, pronounced him to be in the House of Commons some years ago ; 
 John Floyd Peel is an officer in the Scots Fusdier Guards ; and Arthxir 
 Wellesley Peel, the youngest son, is stiU at college. Miss Peel married, a 
 few years since. Viscount Villiers, the eldest son of the Earl of Jersey ; 
 Eliza, the youngest daughter, is unmarried. There is yet nothing accu- 
 rately known of the disposition of the vast personal property of the 
 deceased baronet, but it will be no doubt, after the example of his father, 
 found to be equitably distributed among his children. 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 IN 1830 Henry Brougham was placed by the suffrages of the electors of 
 Yorkshire at the head of the parliamentaiy representation of the United 
 Kingdom, amidst the plaudits of the great majority of the British people. 
 This distinguished position in William IV. 's first House of Commons was 
 the reward of a parliamentary career extending over more than twenty 
 years, and presumedly as frank, sincere, and unselfish, as it was unquestion- 
 ably varied, brilliant, and successful. He had conquered the repugnance of 
 the great Yorkshire constituency to being represented by a practising 
 barrister by the sheer force of his masculine and impassioned oratory, his 
 energetic and unquailing defence of a persecuted lady against the wiles and 
 oppressions of a powerful and unscrupulous court and ministry ; by his 
 vehement denunciation of the tyrannies of creed, caste, colour, under what- 
 ever pretence enacted or exercised ; by his iterated exposures of the law's 
 injustice, extortion, and delay ; and his untiring advocacy of the necessity, 
 the justice, and the wisdom, of an efficient scheme of national education. 
 The favour of the people was ratified by the monarch. A short time after 
 the opening of the new parliament, the member for Yorkshire was created 
 Baron Brougham and Vaux, and took his seat on the woolsack as Lord 
 High Chancellor of England — with the exception of the members of the 
 royal famUy, the first subject of the reahn in eminence and dignity. 
 
 A giddy elevation ! upon which it is difficult for men of the finnest, tlie 
 most evenly -balanced minds to stand ei'ect and undazzled. The new , 
 chancellor had himself no misgivings : not a shadow of apprehension 
 clouded for a moment the brilliancy of the prospect which lay invitingly 
 before him. No suggestion of wise self - distrust, it was evident, from 
 the first words he addressed to the half-amused, half-angry Peers, mingled 
 with the natural exultation called forth by the sudden and unexpected 
 elevation to which he had attained. ' The thing which dazzled me 
 most,' said his lordship, speaking from the woolsack — ' the thing which 
 dazzled me most in the prospect opened to me by the acceptance of 
 office, was not the gewgaw splendour of the place, but because it seemed 
 to afford me — if I were honest, on which I could rely ; if I were 
 consistent, which I knew to be a matter of absolute necessity in my 
 nature ; if I were able as I was honest and consistent — a field of 
 more extended exertions. That by which the Great Seal dazzled my 
 eyes and induced me to quit a station which tiU that time I deemed 
 88 I 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPEKS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the proudest which an Englishman could enjoy, was that it seemed 
 to hold out to me the gratifying prospect that in serving my king I 
 should better be able to serve my country.' These confident words were 
 uttered on the evening of Friday the 26th November 1830. On the 15th 
 November 1834, not quite four years afterwards, the ' Times'' newspaper 
 announced that the Whig cabinet, of which the noble and learned lord was 
 80 able and eminent a member, had been summarUy, almost insultingly, 
 turned out of office by the king ; and so thoroughly had those few years of 
 power, whether by his own fault or the people's caprice, stripped the 
 ejected chancellor of the popularity he had before enjoyed, that his fall 
 alone, of aU the cabinet, excited neither sympathy, regret, nor indignation. 
 And so deeply rooted has proved this disfavour, indifference, ingratitude, 
 or whatever else it may be called, that although the dismissed ministry was 
 not long afterwards restored to office by the House of Commons, and that 
 the Whigs have since, with the exception of Sir Robert Peel's last great 
 administration, continued in the enjoyment of power. Lord Brougham, with 
 his formidable oratorical and debating talents as brilliant and effective, his 
 all-embracing industry as unflagging, as ever, has never been invited to 
 re-enter the cabinet; and perhaps stranger still, no general desire that 
 he should resume his place in the royal councils has been heard from the 
 people with whom he was once so powerful and popular ! How may we 
 account for this extraordinary change ? Must we ascribe it, with Lord 
 Brougham's thorough-going partisans, to the mean and rancorous jealousy 
 of former colleagues, impatient of his manifest superiority — the scandalous 
 misrepresentations of a truculent and mendacious press, and the imdis- 
 ceming, imreasoning caprice of a fickle people ? Or, adopting the assertions 
 put forth by his lordship's habitual detractors, must we say that his splendid 
 and mighty efforts to loosen the bonds of the slave, his vehement denun- 
 ciation of fraud and oppression, his strenuous advocacy of extended popular 
 rights and the diffusion of popular instruction, were all mere promptmgs 
 of a restless and insatiable vanity, to gratify which he would and did sacri- 
 fice the cause of progress, and the best interests of a people whom he only 
 looked upon as the instruments of an intolerable, self-seeking ambition, and 
 mihesitatingly abandoned the moment his selfish purpose was achieved ? 
 A heavy charge ! — one easily made ; and however essentially false, not 
 difficult to be showily supported by one-sided and garbled views and 
 quotations of the acts and speeches of a public man who has been 
 busily engaged in the political struggles and vicissitudes of the last forty 
 years of change and strife ! 
 
 Is not the truth rather that Lord Brougham and the more eager, impa- 
 tient reformers were mutually self-deceived; that he was never half so 
 popularly disposed, in a democratic sense, as they — misled by occasional 
 bursts of fiery eloquence — believed him to be ; and that he, if not mistaken 
 in the direction of the tide of popular opinion, underrated its depth, con- 
 stancy, and force ; and in endeavouring to arrest its progress at the limits 
 which he thought desirable, found himself tossed aside, with no other 
 resource left but to rail at the power of a movement wliich he had neither 
 desu-ed nor anticipated, and no longer possessed strength to guide or to 
 control? Add to this an inveterate habit of indulging in exaggerated 
 invective, cruel and undiscriminating sarcasm, together with a few eccentric 
 2 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 peculiarities of manner and expression, and you have a sufficient key to 
 Lord Brougham's public character and conduct, to the secret of his 
 popularity and unpopularity, without the necessity of seeking for it in 
 groundless hypotheses of personal unworthiness, and selfish disregard of 
 party and national obligations. This at least is our impression. Whether 
 the reader, after glancing over the following slight sketch of the noble and 
 learned lord's literary, forensic, parliamentary, and judicial career, will 
 arrive at the same conclusion, we cannot of course venture to predicate ; 
 but at all events we can confidently promise that it shall not be exaggerated 
 or distorted in outline, nor falsely and delusively coloured or disguised. 
 
 Henry Lord Brougham and Vaux, although essentially the architect of 
 his own fortunes and position, claims to be descended from a very ancient 
 if not very distuiguished family. The genealogists trace his descent from 
 the De Burghams, an English territorial family settled in Cumberland and 
 Westmoreland long before the Slys and others came in with the Conqueror. 
 Where Brougham Hall now stands, Walter de Burgham in the time of 
 Edward, Saint and Confessor, was possessed of the manor of De Burgham. 
 In Henry H.'s reign Odard de Burgham distinguished himself from the 
 crowd of forgotten nobodies by incurring with others a heavy fine for 
 unworthily surrendering the castle of Appleby to the Scots. Setting, 
 however, aside these and other dim traditions, it appears certain that one 
 Henry Burgham or Brougham did really marry, towards the close of the 
 seventeenth century, ' the fair Miss Slee, daughter of Mr Slee of Carlisle, 
 a jovial gentleman of three hundred a year.' It is also sufficiently clear 
 that the Broughams were high sheriffs of Cumberland in the reigns of 
 George I. and II. This ancient stock, somewhat shorn it should seem, 
 not of its honours but of its manors — a more tangible loss — intermarried by 
 its representative, Henry Brougham of Scales Hall, in Cumberland, and 
 Brougham Hall, Westmoreland, with a highly-respectable Scotch family; 
 the said Henry having espoused, on the 22d August 1777, Eleanor, only 
 child of the Kev. James Syme, by Mary, sister of Dr Robertson, the 
 historian of Charles V. and America. This marriage had numerous issue, 
 the eldest of whom was Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham and Vaux, and 
 Lord High Chancellor. He claims also to be heir-general and representative 
 of the ancient and noble House of Vaux. His motto, discovered by the 
 Heralds Office to be the ancient one of his House, is ' Pro rege, lege, grege ;' 
 and his crest is a hand and arm in armour holding a luce, argent : on the 
 elbow a rose, gules. He was bom in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, on 
 the 19th September 1779, and received his preliminary education at the 
 High School of that city. When only fifteen years of age he entered the 
 university. An insatiable thirst after and love of knowledge, a singular 
 power and aptitude for acquiring it, combined with unbounded self- 
 confidence, appear to have characterised him from the first dawn of his 
 discursive, ambitious, and splendid career. He was little more tlian si.xteen 
 when he transmitted to the Royal Society a paper desci-ibing a series of 
 experiments in optics, and an exposition, more showy and pretentious than 
 sound and philosophical, of the principles which govern that science. The 
 Eoyal Society thought sufficiently well of the paper to print it in the ' Philo- 
 sophical Transactions' of 1796. They conferred the same honour in 1798 
 upon a dissertation he sent them on ' Certain Principles in Geometry.' 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE, 
 
 These precocious labours called forth replies and refutations from Professor 
 Prevost of Geneva and others ; and the youthful sciolist was soon busily 
 engaged in a Latin correspondence with philosophers of European reputa- 
 tion, on multifarious scientific questions, most of which he is said to have 
 treated with his accustomed briUiance and audacity. Neither was Eiu-opean 
 travel, such as then could be obtained, wanting to the development of his 
 lively mtellect. He made a tour through the northern countries of the 
 continent in company with Mr Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothsay, 
 and on his return was duly called to the Scottish bar, where he practised 
 with fair success tiU the year 1807, when he finally took up his abode in 
 London. 
 
 Many and various were the modes by which, in addition to the study and 
 illustration of Scots and civil law, he kept his restless energies in full 
 activity. He was a distinguished member of the Speculative Society of 
 Edinburgh — a school of exercise for embryo orators and essayists connected 
 with the university of that city — over which the great success in after- 
 life of several of its members has thrown a lustre it did not probably in 
 itself deserve. The aspect of the time was troubled and stormy. Consti- 
 tuted authorities were angered and dismayed at the moral phenomena 
 which everywhere gleamed through the thick darkness generated by 
 centuries of leaden despotism and inert social apathy and ignorance, now 
 bursting into baleful and destructive flame, and now sending forth a holy, 
 regenerative light. In Scotland, as elsewhere, alarmed officials were fulmi- 
 nating decrees of fine, imprisonment, transportation, against the favourers of 
 the new opinions with merciless severity — a comparatively modern illus- 
 tration of an old truth, that fear is always cruel. The natural consequence 
 in such a state of society as that of Edinburgh ensued : reprobation of 
 the errors or faults of the sufferers was lost in the indignation excited by 
 the excess of punishment inflicted. The leading sphits of the Speculative 
 Society kindled into ardent Whiggism, and for a time perhaps something 
 more; and when sufficiently matured in intellectual power, started in 
 1802 — with the assistance of that prince of argumentative humorists, the 
 Eev. Sydney Smith — the world-famous 'Edinburgh Review;' the first 
 number of which 
 
 ' Waved its light wings of saffron and of blue' 
 
 under the reverend gentleman's guidance, and at once soared into a far 
 higher region of critical disquisition than the then feeble and drowsy 
 arbiters of literary fame had ever striven, or indeed had power to 
 reach. It appears from a paper left by Lord Jeffrey, that, owing 
 to a fear of Smith for the indiscreet tongue of Brougham, the latter 
 was not at first admitted to the secret consultations of the critical 
 confederacy. He was, however, from the first a copious contributor, 
 writing fourteen articles in the first three numbers. Nay — and it is 
 certainly a curious particular in the history of our literature — one entire 
 number was written by Henry Brougham, in order, as we have heard, 
 to obtain from Mr Constable a sum of money required for some par- 
 ticular purpose. Amongst his multifarious contributions appeared the 
 much-talked-of notice, in 1808, of Lord BjTon's 'Hours of Idleness' — a 
 rather smart piece of writing, but which would have perished and been 
 4 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 forgotten with other ephemera of the season, had it not been for the angry 
 response which it elicited from the enraged author, and the striking contra- 
 diction given to the prediction of the critic by the poet's subsequent success. 
 The criticism was, however, substantially just, contemptuously expressed 
 as it may be. The noble lord's juvenile volume contained no indication of 
 the fervid genius he afterwards displayed ; and a critic not professing to be 
 endowed with second-sight must surely be excused for not discerning in 
 the sentimental prettiness of the ' Hours of Idleness ' the developed beauty 
 and passion of ' The Giaour,' or the haughty misanthropy and eloquent 
 scorn of the ' Childe Harold.' The brief review is written in a tone of 
 light baduiage which Brougham was often very happy in. The best hit is 
 the passage we subjoin, relative to the author's implied claim to admiration 
 on account of his verses having been written at a very early age. This 
 juvenile plea is handled with considerable hiunour : — ' The law upon this 
 point,' says the reviewer, ' we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea 
 available only to the defendant ; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary 
 ground of action. Thus if any suit could be brouglit against Lord Byron 
 for the pm-pose of compellmg him to pay into court a certain quantity 
 of poetry, and judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that 
 an exception would be taken were he to deliver for poetiy the contents 
 of this volume. To this he might plead minority ; but as he now makes 
 voluntary tender of the article, he has no right to sue on that ground for 
 the price in good cm-rent praise should the goods be unmarketable.' There 
 was nothmg very truculent or savage in this, and a laugh would have been 
 a far better answer than the elaborate bitterness of the ' English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers,' which, clever as it may be, certainly did not prove the 
 * Hours of Idleness' to be a work of genius. Had Byron lived, he would 
 long since have discovered that, although happening to be quite right in 
 the particular instance under discussion, the judgment of his early censor 
 as regards ' poetry' was of very little worth. Of this we shall have pre- 
 sently to offer proof; but in the meantime we must turn from these 
 by-paths of non-political literature, into which Lord Brougham only occa- 
 sionally digressed, till the multiplying shadows of the giant years he had 
 passed, and the more and more distinct echoes of his daUy lonelier footfall, 
 gave solemn warning of his near approach to the setting sim — to the broad 
 high-road of his crowded public life. In 1803 he published a treatise in 
 two volumes, on the ' Colonial Policy of the European Powers,' which 
 attracted a good deal of attention. In this work the most careless eye will 
 readily discern the germ of those peculiarities of temperament, thought, 
 and style, which afterwards developed themselves into such luxm-iance. 
 Vigour and faciUty of expression, bitter sarcasm, exaggerated state- 
 ments, and singular brilliancy of illustration, run through volumes 
 intended to elucidate and enforce a theory of colonial policy which sub- 
 sequent events have deprived of all interest or present applicability. 
 The burning indignation afterwards displayed by Lord Brougham in his 
 speeches denouncing negro-slavery is very coldly if at all manifested in 
 this work ; indeed one or two of the passages were frequently quoted 
 against him, during the struggle for slave-emancipation, as evidence of his 
 opinion of the natural mferiority and subjection of the coloured race to the 
 white. This, though literally, is not morally accurate. The book was 
 
 S 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 •written solely with a view to enforce the policy, on the part of the Euro- 
 pean powers, of putting down the slave-trade, the success of which efforts, 
 amongst other advantages, would, he contended, ' render all the planters 
 more careful of their stock, and more disposed to encourage breeding : ' the 
 diminished supply would, he also thought, have the ultimate effect of 
 bringing the slaves into ' the same condition as the bondsmen of ancient 
 Em-ope and the slaves of the classic times.' The question of negro-slavery, 
 as afterwards raised in this country, is not discussed in the book. 
 
 Wliilst thus writing and reviewing, Mr Brougham contmued to practise 
 at the Scottish bar, and gradually acquired a reputation, if not as a 
 remarkably sound lawyer, stiU as a bold and able speaker. On one occa- 
 sion he appeared before the House of Lords as one of the counsel in the 
 case of Lady Essex Ker, involving the title and estates of the dukedom of 
 Roxburgh. At last, impatient of the slow progress he was making, and 
 believing London presented a more ample field for the profitable exercise 
 of his peculiar talents than the northern metropolis afforded, he entered 
 himself at Lincoln's Inn, and was in due course called to the English bar, 
 at which he soon acquired a considerable practice. Shortly before taking 
 up his abode in England he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 
 
 In 1810 Mr Brougham was heard at the bar of the House of Lords two 
 days consecutively, as counsel for certain London, Liverpool, and Man- 
 chester merchants against the celebrated Orders in Council, issued in 
 retaliation of Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees, which, besides estab- 
 lishing a paper-blockade of Great Britain and its dependencies, forbade 
 the continent — then for the most part at the feet of the French emperor — 
 to have any commercial intercourse whatever with the hated and dreaded 
 English, The retaliatory Orders in Council declared all the coasts of 
 France, and those of every country under Bonaparte's control, to be in a 
 state of permanent blockade, and empowered the British cruisers to capture 
 any neutral vessel which should attempt to enter any of the enemy's ports, 
 until after touching at a British port and paying heavy duties on articles not 
 contraband of war. The legitimate law of blockade is well known. It is 
 that only an efficient, real blockade, by a sufficient number of vessels to 
 practically enforce it, is valid and legal. Mere paper-decrees, or an insuffi- 
 cient force to fairly carry out its ostensible purpose, international law does 
 not recognise as constituting a valid blockade. It is clear, therefore, that 
 even Great Britain, with the thousand vessels of war she had then in 
 commission, could not fulfil the requisite legal conditions ; and as for the 
 decree of France, it was simply an absurdity. Not only were the Orders 
 in Council manifestly unjust in regard to neutrals, but they operated most 
 injuriously upon the export of English merchandise to America, whose 
 lucrative carrying - trade was crippled by the British cruisers. Remon- 
 strances poured in on all sides, and an angry spirit was evoked in the United 
 States, which ultimately found vent in the subsequent absurd and purpose- 
 less war. Speaking in the House of Commons upon the subject in 1812, 
 Mr Brougham drew the following picture of the distress of the cotton- 
 weavers and spinners consequent upon the ministerial Orders : — ' The food 
 which now sustains them is reduced to the lowest kinds, and of tliat there 
 is not nearly a sufficient supply ; bread, or even potatoes are now out of 
 the question ; the luxuries of animal food, or even milk, they have long 
 6 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 ceased to think of. Their looks as well as their apparel proclaim the sad 
 change in their situation.' This is we daresay a somewhat overcoloured 
 sketch of the condition of factory-workers in the good old war-times — the 
 speaker's imagination, and the necessities of liis striking oratory, forbidding 
 a strict adherence to prosaic accuracy ; still there can be no doubt that the 
 retaliatory measures were very injurious to trade ; and so fiercely did the 
 popular clamour rage, that ministers were finally compelled to rescind them 
 — not, however, till after a bitter and protracted struggle, in which Mr 
 Brougham was the most effectual combatant on the side of plain justice and 
 equitj'. Amongst the articles which the Orders peremptorily prohibited 
 to be conveyed to France by neutrals was Jesuits' bark. This ' bark'- 
 warfare against Napoleon was an especially favourite mode of battle with 
 Mr Perceval. He did not place much reliance upon Wellington and his 
 army; but he had unbounded confidence that his own pro-fever tactics 
 would prove more than a match for the military prowess of the French 
 ruler. A more legitimate mark for Mr Brougham's unrivalled sarcasm 
 can scarcely be imagined, and the opportunity was not neglected. The 
 Orders were, as we have said, rescinded, but not till after Mr Perceval's 
 death. 
 
 Mr Brougham entered parliament in 1810 as the nominee of the Earl of 
 Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland. The noble earl returned him 
 for his borough of Camelford, vacated by the translation of Lord Heiu-y 
 Petty to the Upper House as Marquis of Lansdowne. The new member 
 of course attached himself to the Whig Opposition of those days ; an 
 opposition which, from various causes — the chief of which was the 
 slight sympathy expressed by some of the leaders with the successes of 
 the British arms against tlie French emperor — was about the feeblest 
 and most unpopular known to the annals of English party -wai'fare. It 
 was not till the war had ceased, and the echoes of its triumpha-nt conclusion 
 had died away — or, to speak more correctly, had changed to a dismal, 
 lugubrious wail at the enormous charges entailed by so much glory — that 
 discredited Whiggery raised its head, and ' aggravated ' its voice in time 
 and unison with the rising storm of discontent, which at no distant day 
 resolved itself into a passionate demand for parliamentary reform, realised 
 to a great extent by the famous measure of Earl Grey for transferring the 
 nomination of the House of Commons from the close-borough proprietary 
 to the middle-classes of the three kingdoms. Besides his speeches relative 
 to the Orders in Council, Mr Brougham's parliamentary efforts, till the 
 dissolution in 1812, were chiefly confined to the slavery question, upon 
 which he early associated himself with Clarkson, GranviUe Sharp, Wilber- 
 force, and other leading abolitionists. It was greatly owing to his exertions 
 that in 1811 it was made felony for any British subject to engage in the 
 slave-traffic. At the dissolution he contested Liverpool against Mr Canning. 
 He was beaten by a large majority, and remained out of parliament tdl 
 1816, when he was again nominated by the Earl of DarUngton, this time 
 for his lordship's borough of Winchelsea. Mr Brougham was consequently 
 not in the House when Mr Frederick Robinson (the Earl of Ripon) brought 
 in, and, by the aid of ministers and the country party, caxTied (1815) his 
 famous bill for maintaining wheat at ' the fair, legitimate ' price of 80s. 
 a quarter. In a speech, however, which he delivered on the 19th of April 
 
 7 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 1816 upon agricultural distress — a disease -which appears to be ineradicable 
 in this country by any mode of state treatment — he remarlied 'that he was 
 disposed to think favourably of it.' The distress on this particular occasion 
 was said to have resulted from an agency over which acts of parliament, 
 however craftily framed, have no control — namely, a baffling continuance 
 of fine weather, propitious seed-time and harvest-time, bringing forth such 
 heavy crops that down corn would come spite of all the law-props in the 
 world. This misfortune Lord Castlereagh said was not confined to Great 
 Britain. ' In many parts of the continent,' quoth he, ' com was such a drug 
 that it would not pay for the labour of reaping !' Mr Brougham himself, 
 if the truth must be told, was scarcely less brilliant upon the calamity of 
 abundance than the secretary for foreign affairs. He, however, did not 
 impute the distress so much to the favourable harvest-weather as to ' excess 
 of cultivation;' and not entirely either to excess of cultivation, as the 
 following passage of his speech clearly shews : — ' Excess of cultivation is 
 not the only cause of the evil we complain of, and may warn us against the 
 error of imputing it to any one cause alone, for I am certainly disposed to 
 rank the great extension of cultivation among the principal causes, or at 
 least to regard it as lying at and near the foundation of the mischief.' 
 "VNlio shall say that inconsistency of opinion is not a vu-tue when he per- 
 ceives the folly which such a man as Brougham could utter in 1816, upon 
 a subject he discussed with truthful power and eloquence a quarter of a 
 century afterwards ? The reasoning we have quoted, however statesman- 
 like and philosophical the ministry and their supporters might consider it, 
 did not at all satisfy the country gentlemen, who insisted that as there 
 was an act of parliament avowedly intended to keep wheat at 80s., 
 it ought by some means or other to be raised, and then the country might 
 have a chance of getting through its difficulties. They had not, unhappily, 
 long to wait. To the plethora of agricultural distress succeeded scarcity 
 and commercial ruin. On the 13th of March 1817, manufacturing distress 
 was the sad theme of Mr Brougham's eloquence, and a frightful picture of 
 the state of the northern counties was exhibited to the House. Seasons of 
 partial dearth followed, and a stem cry from famishing millions rang 
 through the land against the legislation which had interposed between 
 labour and a free supply of food. This was the era of tumults, riots, 
 menacing assemblages of men and women, with hunger at their hearts and 
 unreasoning grief and rage in their thoughts and upon their tongues — 
 stifled for awhile by the blood poured forth at Manchester, and the stringent 
 provisions of the Six Acts. A mournful time for all men, save indeed 
 the reckless demagogue and incendiary, who traded on the deep indig- 
 nation of the multitude, and incited them to deeds which gave a colour of 
 necessity to the high-handed measures of the cabinet. Mr Brougham and 
 others resisted the more objectionable of the new enactments, unsuccessfully 
 of course. The measures passed, some misguided people were made 
 examples of, and discontent was exultingly said to be 'put down' — after 
 the old fashion of thrusting it out of sight — there to germinate in a rank, 
 untended soil, and in due season again burst forth with augmented power 
 and unabated virulence. 
 
 About this time Mr Brougham directed his attention to the flagrant 
 abuses which in the lapse of time had crept into the numerous educational 
 8 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 and other corporation charities of England, in respect of which he dis- 
 covered and exposed practices the most scandalous and revolting. After 
 several able speeches, which enlisted a large amount of public opinion in 
 his support, an expensive commission was appointed to inquire into and 
 report upon the alleged abases. Little ultimate good was effected, if we 
 are to believe Jeremy Bentham, who many years afterwards accused 
 Brougham of allowing the subject to be frittered away, and declared that 
 the only result was a batch of expensive Chancery suits. The utilitarian 
 sage, it is well to remark, had no very great esteem or liking for Brougham. 
 Bentham, a man of much originality of thought and considerable mental 
 power, had one grand fixed idea, to which aU others were subsidiary, and 
 this was, that utilitarian ' codification ' was the sovereign panacea for all 
 human ills : ' a system whereby,' remarks Mr Carlyle with his usual 
 caustic humour, ' any people, for a reasonable consideration, may be accom- 
 modated with a patent code — more easily than curious individuals with 
 patent breeches, for the people does not need to be measured first.' Mr 
 Brougham, although friendly to many of the law reforms suggested by the 
 great master of codification, demvured to many of his suggestions, and a 
 kind of civil enmity arose between them. Bentham thought, too, that 
 Brougham had set the ' Edinburgh Review ' upon him, and informed him 
 of his suspicion. Mr Brougham indignantly denied the dishonouring 
 imputation. ' How can you imagine,' he says in a note dated November 
 21, 1831, Hill Square, ' that I could ever have let slip the dogs in E. E. at 
 you ? ' A preposterous accusation truly : indeed it was declared in the same 
 note that Lord Brougham — this was after he was chancellor — had almost 
 quarrelled with his friend Jeffrey for inserting the offensive article. 
 Jeremy Bentham does not appear to have been withal effectually mollified ; 
 and for this supposed offence, or other more positive ones, he indited the 
 following lines, which his editor, Dr Bowring, calls a jeu (V esprit : its more 
 appropriate title is that of a, jeu de mots; and not, to our judgment, a very 
 brilliant one either : — 
 
 * Brougham ! a strange mystery you are ; 
 Nil fuit unquam sibi tarn dispar : 
 So foolish and so wise, so great, so small, 
 EverythiDg now — to-morrow nought at all.' 
 
 Tt is quite evident, therefore, that we must receive Mr Bentham's dictum 
 upon the utter failure of Mr Brougham's exertions in the matter of cor- 
 poration-charities with much reserve. The learned gentleman's letter to 
 Sir Samuel Romilly upon the subject breathes a tone of earnest sincerity, 
 of resolute indignation, which justifies the belief that nothing was neglected 
 on his part to correct the evils which he so eloquently denounced. And a 
 large allowance must be made for the powerful influences which, in those 
 days especially, could be brought into successful opposition to the exertions 
 of an individual member of parliament, however sincere, able, and earnest 
 he might be. 
 
 A series of events which shook the kingdom to its centre, affording as 
 
 they did a rallying-cry for all the otherwise discordant gi-iefs, resentments, 
 
 discontents of the people, occuiTed in 1820. We allude to the arrival in 
 
 England of Queen Caroline, to claim the crown-matrimonial, legally devolved 
 
 88 d 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 upon her by the demise of George III., and the subsequent proceedings 
 before the House of Lords. Mr Brougham had been ^or some time law- 
 adviser to the unfortunate lady when Princess of Wales : he was now her 
 majesty's attorney- general — Mr, now Lord Denman, was the queen's 
 solicitor-general — Mr Wilde, the present lord chancellor — Mr Tindal, who 
 died chief-justice of the Common Pleas — Mr Williams, who succeeded to 
 the bench — and Dr Lushington, were also of counsel to her majesty. We 
 have no wish to revive the painful memories connected with the prosecution 
 of the queen — to recall what were on every account best forgotten. We 
 have merely to remark that Mr Brougham and his able coadjutors dis- 
 played great professional talent and vigorous eloquence in the conduct of 
 a case beset with unexampled difficulties, and urged with unscrupulous 
 legal acumen and power. Mr Sergeant Copley (Lord Lyndhurst) was the 
 king's solicitor-general : upon him fell the chief burden of the prosecution, 
 and it cannot be denied that he sustained it with giant vigour and ability. 
 The speech of Mr Brougham in defence, after the hearing of the king's 
 witnesses in support of the Bill of Pains and Penalties, produced a great 
 effect at the time out of doors ; but read now, when emotions of compassion, 
 soiTow, indignation, no longer colour and light up the speaker's periods, 
 affects the mmd but feebly. It displays much logical acuteness, skilful 
 contrasts of evidence, abundance of the supp-cssio veri and suggestio falsi, 
 ever freely indulged in by practised and successful counsel, but there are 
 few bursts of the electric eloquence which one might have expected to 
 leap from the burning lips of a fiery and indignant orator in presence of 
 such an accusation. The peroration, which has been much praised, is short 
 enough for quotation : — ' My lords, I pray you to pause : I do earnestly 
 beseech you to take heed. You are standing on the brink of a precipice 
 — then beware. It will go forth your judgment if sentence shall go 
 against the queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced 
 which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon 
 those who gave it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this 
 catastrophe ; save yourselves from this peril ; rescue the country, of which 
 you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer when 
 severed from the people than the blossom when cut off from the roots and 
 stem of the tree. Save the country, that you may continue to adorn it ; 
 save the crown, which is jeopardised — the aristocracy, which is shaken ; 
 save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred 
 throne. You have said, my lords — you have willed — the church and the 
 king have willed — that the queen should be deprived of its solemn service. 
 She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. 
 She wants no prayer of mine ; but I do now pour forth my humble 
 supplication at the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down 
 upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers deserve, 
 and that your hearts may be turned to justice.' 
 
 The accessories of a crowded, eminent, and attentive auditory — the presence 
 of the distinguished, ill-starred personage whose fate was trembling in the 
 balance — the breathless excitement of the people, gave a force and effect to 
 this elaborate rhetoric which intrinsically it cannot be said to possess. 
 Indeed the most successful speeches upon subjects of passing interest are 
 generally the least readable in aftertimes, and for the very obvious 
 10 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 reason, that the personal allusions, the telling sneer, the veiled but 
 bitter virulence, wliich elicit the applause of a contemporary audience, 
 lose all point with the passing away of the circumstances and memories 
 •which gave them significance and power. It is this which renders 
 Hansard such dismal reading, and has wrecked every effort made to force 
 political speeches into the abiding literature of the country. 
 
 The shining phrases we have quoted were lost upon the Peers, who read 
 the Bill of Pains and Penalties a second time by a considerable majority. 
 In consequence, however, of the retention of the divorce-clause — voted for 
 by the Whigs— several of the supporters of the bLU divided against the third 
 reading, which, being carried by a majority of nine only, the measure was 
 abandoned amidst the jubilant exultation of the great majority of the 
 nation, and Mr Brougham was a power in the state. 
 
 The obstreperous applause which greeted Mr Brougham's successful 
 exertions in defence of liis royal client drowned the mui-murs which a 
 remarkable bill he brought into parliament on the 28th of June 1820 — with 
 a view to provide gratuitous education for the poor of England and Wales 
 — excited amongst dissidents from the established church, or ' squeamish 
 sectaries,' as the learned gentleman politely termed them. It was nothing 
 less than a scheme for placing the education of the people under the 
 sole, irresponsible control of the established clergy. Schools were to be 
 founded upon the recommendation or presentment of a grand jury — of 
 a rector, vicar, perpetual curate or actual incumbent of a parish — or of two 
 justices of the peace acting for an ecclesiastical district, the appeal as to 
 the necessity of the school lying to the magistrates at quarter-sessions. 
 The salary of the schoolmaster was to be not less than £20 nor more 
 than £30 a year, and no one could be a candidate for the office 
 without a certificate of character and ability from a clergyman of the 
 establishment. The rate-payers might, however, at a properly-convened 
 meeting presided by the senior parish-officer, raise the master's salary, * with 
 the permission of the resident parson.' But the most extraordinary feature 
 of the measure, coming from such a quarter, was the absolute veto given to 
 the clergyman upon the appointment of the master, as well as a power of 
 summary dismissal ; and if the rate-payers elected a person whom he dis- 
 approved, he could peremptorily annul their choice, and order a fresh elec- 
 tion. This, as Mr Brougham emphatically remarked, ' would give the parson 
 a veto not nominal but real.' No question that it would ; but why the rate- 
 payers were to assemble and go through the farce of an illusive nomination 
 is difficult of comprehension. The improvement of the old educational 
 establishments of the country was also a professed object of the bill. The 
 introductory speech was thoroughly an established - church speech. Mr 
 Brougham's first principle was, that a religious education was the great 
 desideratum — the indispensably one thing needful ; and from this premise 
 it followed, according to him, that that which could alone afford a security 
 * that this system would be a religious one, was placing it imder the control 
 of those who taught the doctrines of the church.' ' Let the House,' said the 
 learned gentleman, ' look at the al2?rity, the zeal, the established clergy 
 
 manifested for the education of tLe poor The clergy were the 
 
 teachers of the poor — not only teachers of religion, but, in the eye of the law, 
 teachers generally. W^hat, then, he asked, could be more natural than that 
 
 II 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 they should have control over those who were elected to assist them ? . . . . 
 It did appear to him that the system of public education should be closely 
 connected with the church of England as established by law. He stated 
 this after mature consideration, and he was anxious to make the statement, 
 because on a former occasion he did not go quite so far as he now did. He 
 had then abstained from going so far, because he dreaded the opposition of 
 the sectaries.' 
 
 In another passage of this curious speech he alludes to the high salaries 
 of masters of grammar-schools upon ancient foundations, which he would 
 not, if he had the power, by any means reduce, although contrasting so 
 strangely with the bare existence allotted by his bill to the new school- 
 masters. The disparity, he said, * would be an advantage analogous to that 
 which existed in the church. Many persons objected that in the church 
 one individual should have £20,000 a year, while another laboured for £50 
 a year ; but the good must be weighed with the bad, and this good would 
 be found in the disparity of income, that by how much £20,000 was 
 superior to £50, was the character improved and the class raised of the 
 person who had £50, but who had a prospect of obtaining £20,000.' 
 
 We offer no opinion upon the wisdom or justice of the scheme of educa- 
 tion proposed by Mr Brougham's measure, and illustrated by his speech. 
 Many, very many sincere, estimable persons, we are quite aware, are of 
 opinion that to the church, and to the church alone, as by law established, 
 should the education of the people be confided. Many others, equally 
 estimable and sincere, may, for aught we know, agree with Mr Brougham, 
 that a splendidly-endowed hierarchy, in contrast with a wretchedly under- 
 paid working clergy, is advantageous, and piomotes the efficiency of 
 humble, earnest, self-sacrificing pastors : that, in fact, according to the 
 quotation from Burke, with which Mr Brougham enforced his proposition, 
 ' the church raises her mitred head in palaces,' not to gratify and enrich 
 the wearer of the mitre, the dweller in the palace — by no means ; quite 
 the reverse indeed — and solely for the sake of the poor curate vegetating 
 upon £50 a year. We offer in this place, we repeat, no opinion upon the 
 abstract truth, wisdom, and beauty of these dicta, but we do confidently 
 affirm that they do not at all harmonise with the general idea entertained 
 of Mr Brougham in his palmy and triumphant days ; and for this amongst 
 other reasons we think that he was from the first in a great degree mis- 
 imderstood, and that his loss of popularity has been brought about, not so 
 much because he has retrograded in liberality of sentiment, as because 
 his former admirers have discovered their partial mistake. 
 
 There was ample excuse for the general error. In the year 1821 Mr 
 John Ambrose Williams, the proprietor of the ' Durham Chronicle,' pub- 
 lished an article in that paper upon the refusal of the Durham clergy 
 to allow the church -bells to be tolled on occasion of the death of the 
 ' murdered ' queen, as she was frequently designated, which so offended 
 those gentlemen that they caused a criminal information to be filed against 
 Mr Williams for libel; and in 1822 the case came before a jury at Durham, 
 Mr Scarlett, attorney-general for the palatinate, appearing for the prose- 
 cution. Mr Brougham was retained for the defence ; and in a speech 
 overflowing with the bitterest irony, regaled the public with quite another 
 dissertation upon the advantages of a magnificently - endowed church 
 12 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 hierarchy from that which he had delivered in the House of Commons. 
 The following passage cannot perhaps be equalled, certainly it cannot be 
 surpassed, as a specimen of mocking persiflage : — ' His majesty,' said 
 Mr Brougham, 'almost at the time I am now speaking, is about to 
 make a progress through the northern provinces of this island, accom- 
 panied by certain of his chosen counsellors— a portion of men who enjoy 
 unenvied, and in an equal degree, the admiration of other countries and 
 the wonder of their own. In Scotland the prince will find much loyalty, 
 great learning, and some splendour — the remains of a great monarchy and 
 the institutions which made it flourish ; but, strange as it may seem, and to 
 many who hear me incredible, from one end of the country to the other 
 there is no such a thuig as a bishop— not such a thing to be found from 
 the Tweed to John o'Groat's House; not a mitre, no; nor so much as a 
 minor canon, or even a rural dean, so entirely rude and barbarous are they 
 in Scotland. In such utter darkness do they sit that they support no 
 cathedral, maintam no pluralists, suffer no non-residence ; nay, the poor, 
 benighted creatures are ignorant even of tithes ! Not a sheep nor a lamb, 
 nor a pig nor the value of a plough-penny, do the hapless mortals render 
 from year's end to year's end. Piteous as their lot is, what makes it 
 infinitely more touching is to witness the return of good for evil in the 
 demeanour of this wretched race. Under all this cruel neglect of their 
 spiritual concerns they are actually the most loyal, contented, moral, and 
 religious people anywhere perhaps to be found in the world. Let us hope 
 (many indeed there are not far off who will with unfeigned devotion pray) 
 that his majesty may return safe from his excursion to such a country — 
 an excursion most perilous to a certain portion of the church should the 
 royal mind be infected with a taste for cheap establishments, a working 
 clergy, and a pious congregation.' 
 
 And when did irreverence indulge in more bitter jibing than the eulogist 
 of the state establishment permitted himself in the following sentences ? — 
 * If there is any part of England in which an ample licence ought to more 
 especially be admitted in discussing such matters, I say without hesitation 
 it is in this very bishopric where, in the nineteenth century, you live under 
 a palatine prince — the Lord of Durham; where the endowment of the 
 hierarchy, I may not call it enormous, but I trust I shall be permitted 
 without offence to term it splendid ; where the establishment, I dare not 
 whisper proves grinding to the people, but I will rather say is an incal- 
 culable, inscrutable blessing, only it is prodigiously large ; showered down 
 in a profusion somewhat overpowering, and laying the inhabitants under a 
 load of obligation overwhelming by its weight.' 
 
 This irritating sarcasm could not have been necessary for the defence 
 of Mr Brougham's client. It would rather insure a conviction from a 
 Durham special jury, and a heavy sentence, if the judge had been as hotly 
 zealous for the establishment as the counsel for the defendant shewed 
 himself in his speech on the abortive Education BiU. In fact, John 
 Ambrose Williams was found guilty, but owing to a technical defect in the 
 proceedings he was never called up to receive judgment. AVe do not 
 quote these widely - opposite speeches with any view to raise the cuckoo- 
 cry of inconsistency against Mr Brougham. All wise men are necessarily 
 inconsistent men — always with the exception of these highly- favoured 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 persons who have enjoyed the inestimable privilege of being born wise. 
 Congenital wisdom and experience are, few will deny, rare gifts, 
 deficiency in which may indeed be a misfortune, but can scarcely be 
 deemed a crime ; we therefore merely reproduce the passages we have 
 transcribed, as examples of the rhetorical exaggeration which has induced 
 so many persons to doubt the honesty and purity of Lord Brougham's 
 motives. The pendulum's centre of gravity is the mean of its oscillations ; 
 and we have no doubt that both when dilating upon the great blessing, in a 
 national sense, of a splendidly -endowed hierarchy and an indigent, working 
 ministry, and triumphantly contrasting the assumed apostolical sim- 
 plicity of the Scottish kii-k with the gorgeous English state establish- 
 ment, Mr Brougham was tmly and sincerely the friend of a modestly 
 yet amply - endowed church; and in contending for a monopoly of 
 education being secured to the orthodox clergy, intended merely that 
 liberty of education should only be so far trammelled as to insure that 
 infidelity or atheism should not be promulgated at the expense of a 
 Christian community. But men of the world, busy in their vocations, 
 have no time to reconcile such apparent contradictions, and hence have 
 rashly concluded that Lord Brougham has been chiefly anxious to shew 
 how admirably, and with what force and verve, he can argue either side of 
 a question, however complicated, difficult, or abstruse it may be. Hence 
 want of confidence in the reality of his convictions, followed by coldness 
 and distrust. 
 
 During the proceedings against Queen Caroline, Mr Canning, wlio had 
 previously declared that he would be no party to the prosecution about to 
 be instituted against a lady whom he had known as ' the life, grace, and 
 ornament of society,' went over, on a well-paid special embassy, to Lisbon. 
 What he effected, or for what public purpose he proceeded thither, is only 
 known to persons having access to the archives of the Foreign Office. His 
 appointment to this lucrative mission kept him at all events out of the 
 turmoU of party- politics till the grave had closed over Mr Brougham's 
 illustrious client. Subsequently Mr Canning was about to proceed to India 
 as governor-general, when the death, by his own hand, of Lord Castle- 
 reagh opened the way to his re-entry of the cabinet as secretary of state 
 for foreign affairs. Mr Canning had always been a strenuous advocate of 
 Catholic emancipation, but it was now rumoured ' that he had taken office 
 with a secret understanding to abandon the question in substance while 
 he continued to sustain it in words.' This charge was, it is now well 
 known from Lord Eldon's published correspondence, true of the right 
 honourable gentleman when, in 1827, he obtained the premiership, but 
 whether the same corrupt understanding existed when he entered the 
 Liverpool cabinet as foreign secretary we have no positive means of 
 judging. Mr Brougham at all events believed so ; and in the course of 
 his speech, on the 17th April 1823, in advocacy of the Catholic claims, 
 accused Mr Canning of ' the most monstrous truckling for the purpose of 
 obtaining office that the whole history of political tergiversation could 
 present.' As these words passed the orator's lips, Mr Canning started to 
 his feet, and exclaimed in a clear, sonorous voice : ' 1 rise to say that 
 this is false!' A dead silence of some duration ensued; then mutual 
 friends interposed ; the good offices and authority of Mr Speaker were 
 14 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 invoked and exercised ; and, finally, the offensive words on both sides were 
 declared to have been uttered in a parliamentary sense only, and were 
 therefore without meaning or signilicance. The papers of the following 
 day remarked approvingly upon the magnanimity displayed by the two 
 gentlemen, who were seen, not long after the painful occurrence, to shake 
 liands in the lobby of the House, with a resigned acquiescence in the 
 peaceful termination of the quarrel quite touching. 
 
 In 1825 Mr Brougham was elected lord rector of the university of 
 Glasgow, beating Sir Walter Scott by one vote — that of Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh. The inaugural discourse was written, the author states, during the 
 business of the northern circuit. There is nothing in it which might not 
 have been so written by a much less gifted man than Mr Brougham. Its 
 chief aun was to impress upon the students the intinite superiority of 
 classical learning, as the erudition embalmed in the dead languages is 
 termed, over all other as a means of disciplining the intellect and forming 
 the taste of the scholar. This assumption, which time— the generally 
 slow but infallible solver of ingenious fallacies — is now rapidly disposing of, 
 is made to include the art of poetry. ' The great things of poetry and 
 eloquence,' says Mr Brougham, ' have been done by men who cultivated 
 the mighty exemplars of Athenian genius with daily and with nightly 
 devotion.' This is nothing like the truth as regards English, Scottish, 
 and American poetry and eloquence. Emerson forcibly remarks upon the 
 absurdity of insisting that the mind of the country should be du-ected in 
 its best yeai's on studies which lead to nothing. Greek and Latin, it 
 appears from him, went suddenly out of fashion with the shrewd students 
 of America ; and ' to the astonishment of all, the self-made men took even 
 ground at once with the oldest of the regular graduates, and in a few 
 months the most conservative circles of Boston and New York had quite 
 forgotten who of their gownsmen was college -bred and who was not.' 
 This is perhaps an overstatement of the objections to the dead-language 
 idolism which has so long, for many easily-appreciable reasons, prevailed ; 
 but as regards ' poetry ' there can be no question of the incorrectness 
 of Mr Brougham's dictum. Indeed in another sentence of the inaugural 
 discourse we have a hesitating admission of its fallacy. ' Among poets,' 
 he says, ' there is hardly an exception to this rule, unless may be so deemed 
 Shakspeare — an exception to all rules.' A very significant exception, 
 it must be admitted ; and Burns ! how could a Scotsman forget the decisive 
 exception which Bums presents to this pretended rule ? Take from Anglo- 
 Saxon poetry and eloquence all which has been written and uttered by 
 men who knew ' little Latin and less Greek,' and you might in very truth 
 cry ' Ichabod, Ichabod — the glory is departed!' The discourse has the 
 following vigorous passage, in the practical verity of which we sliould be 
 happy to believe : — ' The great truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of 
 the earth, that man shall no longer render an account to man for his belief, 
 which he can no more control than he can the height of his stature or 
 the colour of his hair.' Mr Brougham's assertion of the superiority of 
 literary pursuits to all others — especially over those of ambitious, worldly 
 men — might have produced more effect on the students if the practice of 
 the moralist had been in harmony with his precepts. ' To me,' exclaims 
 the lord rector — ' to me, calmly revolving these things, such pursuits 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Beera far more noble objects of ambition than any upon which the vulgar 
 herd of busy men lavish prodigal their restless exertions.' This is a 
 venerable saying, but its truth is not so incontestable as its age. With 
 all deference to the eloquent orator, that pursuit is the most noble which 
 is the most useful to humanity, not that which is most pleasant or self- 
 honouring; and it may not be doubted that in the busy walks of ambitious 
 life there are means and opportunities of usefulness as manifold and great 
 as can be found in studious leisure and retirement. Work, useful work, 
 is always noble, of whatever kind it be, the sole difference being that 
 the capability of useful literary exertion is confined to comparatively few 
 persons ; but the nobleness of the work is to be measured by the spirit 
 and motive of the worker, not by the rarity of the power which is brought 
 to the task. To shut one's self up in bookish seclusion from Ae world 
 in order to gratify a love of study for its own sake is anything but noble, 
 resulting as it clearly must from the hennit-spirit, than which nothing 
 can be more entirely, thoroughly selfish ; for is it not prompted by a desire 
 to escape from the duties, anxieties, and cares of active life to the self- 
 hugging quietude and safety of a solitary, unsympathising joy? Taken 
 as a whole, the inaugural discourse must, we think, be pronounced inferior 
 to orations by other lord rectors, and of course to what Mr Brougham, had 
 he given himself more time, might unquestionably have himself produced. 
 
 The parliamentary life of Mr Brougham till 1830 was one of brilliant 
 and useful exertion. Champion of Roman Catholic emancipation, friend 
 of the slave, denouncer of the Holy Alliance, his fearless and mighty 
 advocacy of freedom and the rights of conscience stirred and elated the 
 national heart with remarkable power and eff'ect. Who will forget that 
 heard the following denunciation of the despotic league which had just 
 put down liberty in the Italian and Tberian peninsulas ? — and who can think 
 without pain and mortification that the Henry Brougham who, on the 
 4th February 1823, so eloquently denounced and defied the oppressors of 
 the continent, is the Lord Brougham who, a quarter of a century later, 
 cheered on Austria and Eussia to their evil work, praised ' the noble 
 conduct of the Austrian captains,' and mocked the efforts of ' the rebellious 
 clubs of Milan ? ' ' It is not,' said Mr Brougham — ' it is not against freedom 
 on the Ebro or freedom on the Minoio they make war: it is against 
 freedom — against freedom wherever it is to be found — freedom by whom- 
 soever enjoyed — freedom by whatever means achieved, by whatever institu- 
 tions secured. Freedom is the object of their implacable hate. For its 
 destruction they are ready to exhaust every resource of force and fraud. 
 All the blessings which it bestows, all the establishments in which it is 
 embodied, the monuments that are raised to it, and the miracles that are 
 wrought by it, they hate with the malignity of demons, who tremble while 
 they are compelled to adore, for they quiver by instinct at the sound of its 
 name. And let us not deceive ourselves : these despots can have but little 
 liking towards this nation and its institutions ; more especially our parlia- 
 ment and press. As long as England remains unenslaved, as long as th« 
 parliament continues a free and open tribunal, to which the oppressed of 
 all nations under the sun can appeal against their oppressors, however 
 mighty and exalted, so long will England be the object of tlieir hate, and 
 of machinations 'sometimes carried on covertly, sometimes openly, but 
 16 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 always pursued with the same unremitting activity and pointed to the 
 same end.' To perceive how lamentably time and circumstance have 
 dimnced and distorted the once clear views of this great orator upon the 
 foreign policy of Great Britain, it is only necessary to glance at the 
 following recommendation, addressed in 1849 to the House of Lords 
 upon the desirableness of an intimate political alliance with Russia : — ' We 
 should avail ourselves of the establishment of a republic in France to ally 
 ourselves with a mighty empire which is impregnable in itself, and has 
 resources which no other country possesses, even pecuniary, as well as 
 military resources.' This was said but a few days before the ruler of the 
 * mighty empire,' possessed of unrivalled pecuniary resources, was under 
 the necessity of asking the English people to lend him money, at an 
 exorbitaht rate of interest, to finish the railway from St Petersburg to 
 Moscow ! 
 
 But let us not dwell upon so painful a contrast. The law -reforms 
 urged by Mr Brougham, eloquently, but for the moment unsuccessfully, 
 were of the wisest, and did him honour ; and in the settlement of the 
 emancipation question in 1829, he took a zealous and decided part, 
 supporting the Wellington - Peel cabinet with his utmost power. His 
 popularity increased daUy ; and althougli he still sat for a close 
 borough — that of Knaresborough, the Duke of Cleveland, his former 
 nominator, supporting the general policy of the Wellington ministry 
 — he was one of the most important members of the House, as well as 
 one of the most influential men in the country. We may here remark 
 that Mr Brougham always exhibited a great deal of shyness and indeci- 
 sion in the matter of parliamentary reform. Not only did he treat Jeremy 
 Bentham's scheme of universal suflfrage — not excluding idiots (this was 
 one of the utilitarian philosopher's amusing crotchets) with unsparmg 
 ridicule, but others of a moderate and sober character met with but faint 
 support at his hands. At one time his plan of organic reform appears 
 only to have contemplated the reconstruction and enlargement of the 
 Scottish constituencies, and this chiefly as an experiment to ascertain how 
 far innovation was likely to prove safe and expedient. William Cobbett was 
 constantly twitting * Lawyer Brougham' with his indifference or hostility 
 to parliamentary reform. Mr Brougham's own experience had not hitherto 
 been of a nature to incluie him to regard large constituencies with afi"ec- 
 tion or esteem. He had been, as before stated, defeated at Liverpool by 
 Mr Canning, and twice he unsuccessfully contested the county of West- 
 moreland with the Lowther family. The time at last arrived for a striking 
 reversal of this apparent denial of confidence on the part of the electoral 
 body. In 1830 the tomb closed over his Majesty George IV., and a 
 numerous and influential requisition soon afterwards invited Mr Brougham 
 to ofier himself as a candidate for the representation of the great county of 
 York. He complied with the invitation ; and although second on the poll 
 to Lord Morpeth, there can be no question that Henry Brougham, with 
 no claim on the sufirages of the electors but his public character and quali- 
 fications, was, as he proudly styled himself, the representative of Yorkshire, 
 in a more strict and positive sense than the noble and amiable lord and 
 others, who owed their seats in a great degree to traditional and family 
 influence. It was a stirring time on the continent as weU as in England. 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 The long pent-up indignation of the French people against the assumptions 
 of an ignoble despotism had at last exploded, and shattered to atoms the 
 throne of the elder Bourbons. The new government had not yet had time 
 to develop its true character and mission, although 
 
 ' What seemed its head 
 The likeness of a kingly crown had on ; ' 
 
 and the victorious shouts of the French people were re-echoed from almost 
 every hustings, and from every popular body in Great Britain. The aspect 
 of the Opposition on the meeting of parliament was exulting, defiant. Mr 
 Brougham, the acknowledged leader of the liberal party in the House of 
 Commons, was brunful of triumph ; not that he expected, nor would, so 
 he said, accept of office under any circumstances. ' When I was returned 
 for Yorkshhe,' he exclaimed, ' I made my election between power and the 
 people.' But he rejoiced m the nation's joy, and eagerly girded up his 
 loins for the great struggle which he and all men felt instinctively was 
 close at hand. The abrupt and impolitic declaration of the Duke of 
 Wellmgton against any change in the representation of the people kindled 
 the zeal of the Opposition both within and without the walls of parliament 
 into a blaze, and Henry Brougham was the conducting- rod which dis- 
 charged the consuming flame upon the heads of the ministry. After a 
 fierce preliminary invective in allusion to the Duke of Wellington's speech, 
 he exclaimed, looking Sir Robert Peel and Sir George Mun-ay full in the 
 face : ' Him we scorn not ; it is you we scorn — you, his mean, base, fawning 
 parasites!' Sir Robert was in a moment on his feet, and in a voice as 
 angry and contemptuous as that of his assailant, denied ' that he was the 
 parasite of any man.' The uproar and confusion excited by language so 
 unusual lasted for some time ; but at length, according to immemorial usage 
 on such occasions, the offensive expressions were pronounced to be merely 
 parliamentary, and Mr Brougham went on with his speech. Very soon 
 afterwards the ministry were out of office, and the country knew that 
 Earl Grey had been sent for, and had undertaken to construct a cabinet 
 upon the principles of peace, retrenchment, and reform. It seemed at first 
 that Mr Brougham would not be in the ministry. He himself declared he 
 should not, and he gave notice in the House of Commons that he would 
 bring forward his motion on parliamentary reform let who would be 
 minister. There was evidently some hitch or hesitation about his appoint- 
 ment to or acceptance of office. Some of the newspapers adverse to the 
 cabinet in embryo asserted that Mr Brougham was first ofi'ered the attorney- 
 generalship by Earl Grey, and that the only answer the learned gentleman 
 made to the insulting proposition was tearing and tramplmg upon the 
 official letter in presence of the messenger who brought it. He, the 
 leader of the Opposition in the Lower House, and the member for 
 Yorkshire, attorney -general ! Monstrous ! At last it was announced 
 that Mr Brougham was to be lord liigh chancellor! The news was 
 received, literally, with a shout of mingled terror and exultation. 
 Henry Brougham a lord ! and, moreover, a lord chancellor ! "SMiy, that 
 alone in those days looked like a revolution. Mr Croker immediately 
 accused tlie noble and learned baron of gross inconsistency in accepting 
 office immediately after his declaration that he would not do so ; to which 
 18 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 the Lord Chancellor indirectly replied in the speech of which we have 
 already quoted the most important sentences. The deed was done — was 
 irrevocable ; and the astonished lords went home to muse and moralise 
 upon the ominous coincidence of Brougham's appearance at the head of the 
 House of Peers and the advent of the Asiatic cholera, just declared to be 
 certain and imminent in these distracted kingdoms. 
 
 The admirers of the noble and learned lord, wliose name was legion, felt 
 great anxiety as to how their favourite would deport himself amongst 
 tlie grave and reverend seigniors with whom he found himself so unex- 
 pectedly associated. He did not disappoint their expectations. Night 
 after night, especially during the first session subsequent to his elevation, 
 the lords were assailed and overborne by a torrent of sparklmg and 
 nervous eloquence utterly new ani.strange to their noble House. It was 
 a tribune of the people haranguing against privilege and prescription from 
 the woolsack of the hereditary Peers ! Sight so portentous they had 
 never seen, and it was some time before they could look the danger calmly 
 in the face. "Wlien they did so, they quickly found there was no great 
 cause for fear. The new chancellor they perceived was anything but the 
 turbulent and irreverent demagogue they at first apprehended him to be ; 
 and the feeling of virulent antagonism gradually subsided. It was long, 
 however, before the atmosphere of the august chamber had so far subdued 
 his impetuous temperament that they could feel tolerably secure against a 
 sudden infringement of the dignified courtesy usual to their House. On 
 one occasion, we think in the third year of his chancellorship, a charac- 
 teristic and amusing scene occurred. The House was thinly attended, and 
 the Dukes of Wellington and Cumberland were sitting close to each other, 
 conversing in a low tone of voice. The debate was a dull one, and the 
 Lord Chancellor when speaking took occasion to remark that the epithet 
 * illustrious ' was sometimes used in a conventional sense, implying no real 
 merit or eminence in the person so designated. ' For instance,' said he, 
 looking sharply in the direction of the two conversing dukes, ' the Duke of 
 Cumberland is illustrious by " courtesy" only, but the Duke of Wellington 
 is illustrious by his character and services.' A bombshell falling at the feet 
 of the astonished dukes could not have more startled them — Wellington 
 probably not so much. His Eoyal Highness of Cumberland was exceed- 
 ingly indignant. ' Why,' he angrily demanded, ' had he, who had taken 
 no part in the discussion, was not even listening to it, been dragged into it 
 in that unseemly manner?' The Lord Chancellor coolly replied, ' that it 
 had suddenly occurred to him that his Royal Highness and the Duke of 
 Wellington afforded apt illustration of the truth he was endeavouring to 
 enforce — that there was a vast and essential difference between individuals 
 illustrious " by courtesy " and those who were illustrious by achievements 
 and success.' This was making matters worse ; and it was som.e time before 
 the Duke of Cumberland could be pacified — his irritation being naturally 
 greatly increased by the ironical nonchalance of the chancellor and the 
 partially-suppressed hilarity of other peers. 
 
 The vicissitudes which marked the progress of the Reform Bill we need 
 not dwell upon. Lord Brougham throughout the struggle displayed the 
 restless energy which then distinguished him. The taunts he addressed 
 to the Peers upon the insignificancy, even in point of wealth, of the aris- 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 tocracy, ' with all their castles, manors, rights of warren and rights of 
 chase, and their broad acres reckoned at fifty years' purchase,' when 
 compared with the vast possessions of the middle-classes ; his assertion of 
 their lordships' inferiority to the industrious men of England— not mdeed 
 in grace of manners or refined elegance of taste, but in sober, practical 
 wisdom — were applauded to the echo, and helped to confirm and extend 
 the delusion which prevailed as to the democratic tendencies of Lord 
 Brougham's mind. His greatly-praised speech upon the second reading 
 of the bill strikes us, on perusing it now, as scarcely worthy of the speaker 
 or of the occasion. It is far inferior to the addresses of Francis Jeftey 
 and Sir James Mackintosh on the same subject, both of which, because 
 they were superior to the sparkling mediocrity best adapted to a miscel- 
 laneous audience, fell dead and cold upon the House. There was also in 
 Lord Brougham's address a manifest indication of a wish for compromise, 
 cleverly veiled as it may be, which would have greatly lowered his lordship 
 in the estimation of the more eager reformers had it not been lost sight of 
 in the glitter of the more showy passages, of the peroration especially, 
 with its illustration, always effective, hackneyed as it is, of the fabled 
 Sibyl's diminishing books and increasing price. The opening of the speech 
 offers a striking specimen of the exaggeration which at times so greatly 
 marred the beauty and effect of his lordship's oratory : — ' If I, now standing 
 with your lordships on the brink of the most momentous decision that 
 ever human assembly came to at any period of the world, and seeking to 
 arrest you while it is yet time, in that position, could by any divination of 
 the future have foreseen in my earliest years that I should have to appear 
 here and to act as your adviser on a question of such awful importance, 
 not only to yourselves but to your remotest posterity, I should have 
 devoted every day and every hour of that life to preparing myself for the 
 task which I now almost sink under.' It is quite certain that if he had so 
 devoted every day and hour of his life, he would never have delivered that 
 or any other speech from the woolsack. The first general election under 
 the new law gave the Grey ministry an overwhelming majority. As the 
 returns came in, the new danger, the great peril in this country of a too 
 great success, broke for a moment upon Lord Brougham's mind, and he 
 exclaimed, ' We shall be too strong ! ' Prophetic words, as the sequel 
 abundantly proved. The ministry had encountered a fierce, able, almost 
 desperate opposition, and the deadlier the struggle the more powerful did 
 they emerge from it. They were now to grapple with a more insidious 
 and fatal enemy — almost absolute political power ; and they fell in public 
 opinion almost as rapidly as they had risen. The first act of the reformed 
 parliament was to repeal the habeas-corpus act in Ireland, to substitute 
 courts - martial for jury -trial, and to prohibit popular meetings in that 
 country. However much Mr O'Connell's turbulence might appear to 
 justify measures of repression, the passing of such an act at the dictation 
 of a ministry could not but destroy the prestige of the new House — not 
 perhaps in the opinion of those who opposed the Reform measure, but 
 certainly in that of the men who had so fiercely struggled to obtain it. 
 Lord Brougham, as if desirous of attracting towards himself more than his 
 due share of popular odium, ran riot in his advocacy of this penal enact- 
 ment, and exulted with rampant delight over the expedients devised for 
 20 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 putting down ' agitation ' — language which from his lips sounded very 
 strangely. To crown all, Sir Andrew Agnew's preposterous bill for 
 insuring the ' bitter ' observance of the Sabbath, although subsequently 
 defeated, was read a second time by tlie decision of a majority of the new 
 House. The disappointment was general, intense — unreasonably so, as 
 subsequent experience has proved. Sir Itobert Peel read the new signs of 
 the times with keen sagacity. The enthusiasm for the Whig ministry 
 having utterly vanished, the next dissolution, whenever it should come, 
 must tell a tale, aud the far-sighted baronet immediately began to organise 
 ' liberal conservatism.' The maintenance of the corn-laws ' in their 
 integrity ' was made a cabinet question ; and coldness and disgust rapidly 
 overgrew the once ardent and hopeful minds of the great movement party. 
 Still it cannot be denied that great and wise measures were subsequently 
 brought forward and passed by the Grey cabinet. For proof of this, we 
 need only mention the Slave-Emancipation Act — the throwing open of the 
 China trade — the modification, in a liberal sense, of the East India Com- 
 pany's charter — the chancellor's bankruptcy reforms — and the promise, at 
 all events, of a popular reconstruction of municipal corporations. They 
 failed, however, to win back the confidence of the people. The early 
 retirement of Lord Durham from the cabinet also told gravely upon the 
 public mind : it was believed, and there is now no doubt correctly 
 believed, that to him the comparatively wide sweep of the Reform Bill — 
 especially the total disfranchisement of the close boroughs — was mainly 
 attributable. Lord Brougham was not for going so far. At a meeting of 
 liberal members held in 1830, on the day after the resignation of the 
 Wellington-Peel cabinet, at Lord Althorp's chambers, he said he should 
 propose to cut off one member from every close borough, and to absolutely 
 disfranchise some, ' but he greatly questioned the expediency of wholly 
 abolishing this class of seats.' In the session of 1834 the squabbles, 
 accusations, criminations, explanations of the ministry relative to the 
 renewal of the court-martial clauses of the Irish Coercion Bill, still further 
 damaged the cabinet in public estimation. Lord Grey ultimately withdrew 
 from office, and after much caballing and negotiation. Lord Melbourne's 
 ' lath - and - plaster ' cabinet, as the 'Times' called it, was duly installed. 
 The virulence which a portion of the Conservative press had never ceased 
 to manifest against Lord Brougham burst forth at this time with tenfold 
 bitterness. Amongst other agreeable imputations, he was accused over 
 and over again, and in almost direct terms, of habitual addiction to drink — 
 a charge covertly repeated in the House of Lords by the Duke of 
 Buckingham, who remarked that the noble and learned lord would no 
 doubt carouse ' pottle deep ' over the success of the intrigues which had 
 removed Earl Grey from office. The Lord Chancellor retorted angrily 
 upon his Grace for assailing him with such ' alehouse slang ; ' and the 
 dispute was apparently growing serious, when it was suggested, in behalf 
 of the duke, that the words ' pottle deep ' were Shakspeare's, and conse- 
 quently legitimate — orthodox; with which Shakspearian explanation the 
 Chancellor professed himself satisfied, and in his turn said that ' alehouse 
 slang ' was merely a parliamentary periphrasis, conveying no meaning of a 
 personally offensive or uncivil nature. The accusation so perseveringly 
 urged against Lord Brougham was a false and scandalous one. Intemperance 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of speech he might be fairly enough charged with, but intemperance in 
 drink was an utterly baseless and audacious falsehood. But worse, infinitely 
 worse than the renewed rancour of the Conservative press and peers, was 
 the tone assumed by the liberal papers, which either joined in the cry 
 against the Chancellor, or coldly and feebly defended him. His foibles, 
 once so carefully ignored or concealed, were openly and industriously 
 paraded before the public eye, of course not without much exaggerative 
 colouring. The following hit from an old friend, the ' Times,' seems a 
 cruel and ungenerous one. It was called forth by an article in the 
 ' Caledonian Mercury,' which denounced the arrogance of the leading 
 journal, and accused it of aiming at the direction of the royal counsels. 
 This article a correspondent of the ' Times ' imputed to Lord Brougham. 
 The ' Times ' thus replied : ' If we have sought to du-ect the royal 
 counsels in the formation of a cabinet, we have not played contemptible 
 and mountebank tricks to persuade people that we did direct those counsels, 
 and that we were actually (when we were not) authorised to share with 
 Lord Melbourne in the trust of submitting a cabinet to his majesty. We 
 did not pretend to be honoured with the king's commands, nor with the 
 royal confidence, while we knew the king would sooner behold a mad dog 
 enter his council-chamber than see us approach within five miles of Windsor. 
 We never gave out to servants and hangers - on that we were going to 
 Windsor when we ordered a postchaise to take us no further than Putney 
 Bridge.' All these imputations were untrue, and the fact is certain that 
 Lord Brougham did receive the king's commands. Other graceful amenities, 
 such as calling the Chancellor ' the cracked and crazy weathercock of the 
 House of Lords,' were showered upon him by the same journal with liberal 
 profusion. But this bitter and undisguised hostility was not shewn till 
 after Lord Brougham's speech upon the New Poor-Law had delivered him 
 into his enemies' hands. In order that the reader may fully appreciate the 
 indiscretion committed by the noble and learned lord, it wiU be necessary 
 to run over a few of the circumstances connected with the introduction and 
 enactment of that much-controverted measure. 
 
 In 1832 a Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the growth of 
 pauperism in England was appointed by the Grey government. The 
 commissioners' report determined the ministry to bring in a bill to provide, 
 by a central board, possessed of ample powers, for the better, more 
 economical, more salutary administration of relief to the poor and destitute 
 than could be hoped for from the discordant action of thousands of 
 independent local boards, all more or less liable to be acted upon by 
 disturbing causes, which could have no influence over a central imperial 
 authority. This bill, although a very stringent one in many of its 
 provisions, maintained and embodied the principle of the old law — namely, 
 that every necessitous person has an absolute claim or i-ight to relief. It 
 passed during Lord Melbourne's administration, safely and without encoun- 
 tering any very formidable opposition, through the House of Commons, 
 under the judicious and temperate management of Lord Althorp, although 
 the rumbling of the Times' ' thunder,' and other indications of the tendency 
 of popular opinion, emphatically demonstrated that great circumspection 
 and prudence were required in order to weaken or allay the growing 
 apprehension already entertained by many thousands of persons, who 
 22 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 suspected the new bill was a device conceived by the owners of fixed 
 property to destroy not only the abuses, but the very existence of a law 
 which nude the relief of destitution a legal obligation as well as a moral 
 duty. Under these circumstances the Chancellor moved the second 
 reading, in a speech which, spite of the innumerable mterpretations, 
 explanations, and excuses afterwards offered in its defence, not only gave 
 the finishing blow to his own popularity, but excited a storm of reprobation 
 throughout the country, due not to the measure itself, but to tlie intro- 
 ductory speech with which the opponents of the bill took care effectually, 
 and for a time inextricably, to confound it. The new law, as we have 
 before observed, embodied, like the old one, the principle that every 
 necessitous person in England has a right to relief, while Lord 
 Brougham's exceedingly clever speech was mainly directed to prove 
 ' that the right to a share in a fixed fund is the grand mischief of the poor- 
 laws, with the seeds of which they were originally pregnant.' As if this 
 were not enough aliment to feed the rising clamour out of doors, his 
 lordship launched into a laudation of the Rev. Mr Malthus and his 
 doctrines, and with only one well - defined exception, denounced the 
 institution of hospitals for the shelter and relief of the sick and feeble. 
 ' The safest, and perhaps the only perfect charity,' said the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, ' is a hospital for accidents or violent diseases, because no man is 
 secure against such calamities. Next to this, perhaps a dispensary is the 
 safest ; but this is doubtful, because a dispensary is liable to abuse, and 
 because, strictly speaking, sickness is a thing which a prudent man should 
 
 look forward to and provide against as part of the ills of life But 
 
 when I come to hospitals for old men — and old age is before all men, and 
 every man is every day nearer to that goal — all prudent men of independent 
 spirit will in the vigour of their days lay by sufficient to maintain them 
 when age shall have ended their labour. Hospitals, therefore, for the 
 support of old men and women may, strictly speaking, be regarded as 
 injurious in their effect upon the community.' Language like this from 
 the lips of a fortunate lawyer in the actual enjoyment of £14,000 a year, 
 with a secured pension of £5000 on retirement from office, seemed to the 
 embittered spirits out of doors very like triumphant mockery of care and 
 toil-worn men, although of course not so meant by the unaccommodating 
 orator. The plain-speaking he indulged m with respect to the ' wide- 
 wasting ruin' produced by the old poor-law — foreshadowing the swallowing 
 up of their lordships' rentals unless some sharp remedy were speedily 
 applied — may be judged of from the following sentences : ' I will not say 
 that many farms have been actually abandoned : I will not say that many 
 parishes have been wholly given up to waste for want of occupants (I know 
 that there are instances of farms here and there, and of a parish — I think 
 in the county of Bucks — which have been reduced to this state) ; but I 
 will not say that as yet the system has so worked as to lay waste any 
 considerable portion of territory.' All this was founded in truth, and the 
 details of the facts alluded to were fully given by Mr George Nicholls, after- 
 wards one of the Poor-Law Commissioners ; but it was answered that no 
 considerable portion of the territory of England could as yet have been 
 thrown out of cultivation, since it was well known that year after year 
 * enclosure bills' for the reclamation and cultui'e of poor lands liad been 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 more and more numerous. One statement he made relative to the world- 
 famous Deal boatmen called forth a very angry and indignant remonstrance. 
 Their hardihood and daring had, he declared, vanished under the operation 
 of the poor-law, for being able to procure twelve shillings a week fi'om the 
 parish, they refused to put to sea except in fine calm weather. This 
 declamation was not indiscreet because the facts were untrue, but because 
 they were offensive, and whoUy unnecessary to induce the Peers to pass 
 the bill. We need not say, however, that many wise, and good, and great 
 men rank to this day on the side of Lord Brougham in the vexed question 
 of the poor-law. 
 
 Of course the outcry against what the ' Times' called ' the shocking 
 intimation given in one part of the Chancellor's speech against relieving 
 even the aged, the helpless, and the sick,' became furious and unappeasable ; 
 and calmly-judging men saw that the fall of the cabinet was at no distant 
 date inevitable. One word as to the excess of population and anti-poor- 
 law theories propounded by the Rev. Mr Malthus, and eulogised by Lord 
 Brougham. Without wishing to question the humanity of the reverend 
 gentleman, or disputing the soundness of his views under certain circum- 
 stances — not certainly the circumstances of Great Britain, with her 
 magnificent colonies calling with the myriad voices of their glorious but 
 solitary rivers, their giant woods and fertile, far-stretching plains, upon 
 the English, and Scotch, and Irishman, to come forth and cultivate the fair 
 earth which the Creator has given them — we may be permitted to doubt 
 the possibility of successfully applying his principles in such a state of 
 society as we see in England. We do not misrepresent the views of 
 Mr Malthus when we say they point to a day as early as may be consistent 
 with prudence and self-safety, when the state shall inexorably refuse to 
 relieve destitution, however incurred or however lamentable. This may, 
 for auglit we care to know, be true humanity, far - seeing wisdom, but it 
 certainly could not be carried out in England. A few deaths from the 
 refusal of food and shelter — and such results must under the most favourable 
 circumstances be expected as long as improvidence, disease, misfortune, 
 are incidental to humanity — would raise a hurricane of popular indignation, 
 in which not only the obnoxious law, but the most valued institutions of 
 the country — property itself perhaps not excepted — ^would be swept away 
 amidst the tumult and uproar of a strongly-feeling, and, upon this matter, 
 excitable and passionate people. The new poor-law proposition became 
 law. It has since been purged of its more repulsive provisions, softened 
 into a charitable but still firm and enlightened code, and is, we believe, in 
 the main both considerate and corrective in its general operation. 
 
 Another and a very painful incident which occurred about this time 
 added greatly to the disfavour into which the Melbourne cabinet and its 
 chancellor had fallen. Mr Justice Williams, a newly - created Whig 
 judge, sentenced six Dorchester labourers to be transported for seven 
 years under colour of an obsolete statute against taking illegal oaths, 
 originally enacted to repress mutiny in the navy, but in reality for being 
 members of an agricultural trades-union. This cruel, impolitic, unjust 
 sentence Lord Brougham defended in his place in parliament as wise, 
 legal, and even merciful. He spoke to the winds, and a subsequent 
 ministry were compelled to rescind the sentence. 
 24 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 Immediately after the prorogation of parliament Lord Brougham made 
 a tour through the north. In Scotland the popularity of the venerable 
 Earl Grey had not suffered nearly so much as in the southern part of 
 the island. The mock -representation of that country under the old 
 system, administered in modem times by the ' dynasty of Dundas,' was 
 more illusory and insulting than that of England; and the Scottish 
 reformers, anxious to testify their gratitude to the distinguished man 
 ■who had been chiefly instrumental in giving them a potential voice in 
 the national councils, gave the earl a magnificent banquet on the Caltoii 
 Hill, at which, it was said, 2768 persons were present from first to last. 
 Lord Brougham was there, and made, as he always did, an able, telling 
 speech. ' Fellow-citizens of Edinburgh,' exclaimed the noble and learned 
 lord with eloquent egotism — ' fellow-citizens of Edinburgh, these hands 
 are pure ! In taking office, in holding office, in retaining office, I have 
 sacrificed no feeling of a public nature, I have deserted no friend, I have 
 abandoned no principle, I have forfeited no pledge, I have done no job, I 
 have promoted no unworthy man, to the best of my knowledge ; I have not 
 abused the ear of my royal master, and I have not deserted the cause of the 
 people.' In another part of his harangue he went out of his way to declaim 
 against the rash and too eager innovators who wished to go faster than he. 
 Lord Brougham, thought safe or expedient. This was caught up and 
 observed upon by the Earl of Durham, whose remark, delivered with 
 strong emphasis, that ' he for one regretted every hour which passed over 
 the existence of recognised and unreformed abuses,' was received with 
 shouts of applause. The Lord Chancellor listened to the earl's significant 
 words, and the echoing cheers which followed them, with a flushed brow 
 and kindling eye, but he offered no comment at the time. This incident 
 was but a distincter revelation than had before been publicly given of a 
 feud of some standing between the two noble lords. Lord Durham was by 
 this time well known to entertain more decided opinions than the Chan- 
 cellor ; and by his early retirement from the Grey cabinet, after the passing 
 of the Reform Act, he had avoided being compromised by their unpopular 
 and halting measures. The quarrel was fanned and envenomed by the 
 partisans on either side, and Lord Brougham threw out a defiance at Salis- 
 bury, which the Earl of Durham promptly replied to at the Glasgow 
 banquet given in his honour. ' He has been pleased,' said Lord Durham, 
 ' to challenge me to meet him in the House of Lords. I know well the 
 meaning of the taunt. He is aware of his great superiority over me in one 
 respect : he is a practised orator and powerful debater. I am not. I 
 speak but seldom in parliament, and always with reluctance in an assembly 
 where I meet with no sympathy from an unwilKng majority. He knows 
 full well the advantage he has over me ; and he knows, too, that in any 
 attack which he may make on me in the House of Lords he will be warmly 
 and cordially supported by them. With all these advantages I fear him 
 not, and I will meet him there if it be unfortunately necessary to repeat 
 what he has been pleased to term " my criticisms." ' The wager of battle 
 was thus by mutual consent to come off in the House of Peers on the 
 meeting of parliament. Long before that time arrived the following para- 
 graph in the ' Times' of November 15, 1834, announced the sudden 
 dissolution of the Melbourne cabinet : — ' The king has taken the oppor- 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS 3 PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 tunity of Lord Spencer's death to turn out the ministry, and there is every 
 reason to believe that the Duke of Wellington has been sent for. The 
 queen has done it all.' 
 
 This note, it was reported at the time, was communicated to the ' Times' 
 by Lord Brougham himself. Be this as it may, its at first suspected 
 authenticity the lapse of a few hours placed beyond doubt. The Whigs 
 were out, and Sir Robert Peel, then at Rome, was, by the advice of the 
 Duke of Wellington, immediately sent for. The Lord Chancellor was 
 permitted to retain office for a short time, in order that he might decide 
 some partly -heard Chancery cases; but at length a summons being 
 received from the king to attend at the palace to deliver up the Great 
 Seal, Lord Brougham bade a final adieu to official power. On the 
 reinstalment of the Melbourne ministry in 1835, the Whigs, who, said the 
 Times, ' had sworn at Lord Brougham, abjured him, heaped the oppro- 
 brium of all then: manifold miscarriages on his head, scouted in all 
 companies the notion of again co-operating with, much less applying to 
 him again,' placed the Great Seal in commission; and in order to the 
 prevention of unseemly quarrels or awkward disclosures in the House 
 of Peers, the Earl of Durham was prevailed upon to accept the embassy 
 to St Petersburg. 
 
 The official life of Lord Brougham having thus terminated, many persons 
 hoped that, removed from the Delilah-lap of power, his old strength 
 and usefulness might return. His eminent talents were as vigorous, his 
 industry as untiring as ever. Could he but resign himself frankly to his 
 position — prefer rendering sober services to the exhibition of brilliant per- 
 sonal displays — a great career was still unquestionably before him, in addition 
 to abundant opportunities for the cultivation of literature ; so much more 
 noble, as he told the students of Glasgow University, than the avocations 
 of worldly, ambitious men. Before turning over the page on which time 
 has written his reply to the aspirations of Lord Brougham's political well- 
 wishers, let us briefly glance at the noble and learned lord's performances 
 in the world of letters, to which leisure and inclination now invited him. 
 
 There is an anecdote told, we thmk by Sir Walter Scott, of a French 
 gentleman, who, finding himself possessed of a faculty for rhyming — or, as 
 Wordsworth more elegantly expresses it, ' the accomplishment of verse' — 
 and having a good deal of spare time on his hands, resolved on turning the 
 book of Job into ' poetry.' In a much less absurd certainly, but similar 
 spirit, Lord Brougham, relieved of the cares of office, and conscious of con- 
 siderable controversial power, set himself to amend, or rather supersede, 
 Paley's immortal and unrivalled work on ' Natural Theology,' by a discourse 
 thereon, and the contribution of various addenda, chiefly relative to mental 
 phenomena, which rather confuse and darken than confirm or illuminate 
 the conclusions of that great and popular deductive writer. Paley's 
 work, which Lord Brougham insinuates to be a mere plagiarism from 
 Derham, has encountered more formidable rivals than the confident dis- 
 sertations of the noble lord without its pre-eminence having been in the 
 slightest degree affected. We may instance the Bridgewater treatises, 
 which certainly display immense research, and the results of skilled and 
 accurate observation ; but they strike the mind merely as subsidiary con- 
 firmations of the great truth demonstrated beyond cavil by Paley's homely, 
 26 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 common-sense, irrefragable illustrations — namely the foresight, purpose, 
 benevolence, divinely -artistic skill and arrangement manifested in the visible 
 creation. But indeed the mists of familiarity, to use an expressive plirase of 
 Shelley's, can scarcely blind the dullest of us to the evidences of prescience 
 and design which surround us on every hand, albeit they were never so 
 clearly, so admirably stated as by Paley. Lately, indeed, we have seen 
 some faint symptoms of imputing the attributes we have enumerated as 
 clearly deducible from the facts of creation, to electricity; but this is 
 merely an aberration of minds confused and dazzled by the late brilliant 
 discoveries of the properties of that mighty agent, and is a kind of fire- 
 worship which in this age and coimtry can scarcely be esteemed so 
 respectable as that of the Ghebers. Lord Brougham's chief position is — that 
 the existence of mind, that which thinks, ' I,' ' We,' apart from matter, is 
 more demonstrable than the existence of matter itself; but ' I,' ' We,' that 
 is consciousness of existence, must be possessed by the inferior animals — by 
 the cat, the snail, the grasshopper ; and how can this help the proof of an 
 immortal spirit in man ? The truth is that the whole argument, apart 
 from revelation, and derived from the study of natural theology, as it is 
 termed, amounts exactly to this — that creation indisputably proves the 
 Creator to be all-wise, all - powerful, and all-just : that He has created 
 nothing in vain — no aspiration, no faculty, no expectation, merely to balk 
 and mock it : that man has aspirations after immortality, and progressive 
 faculties fitted for an eternity of development, the noblest of which are 
 even here, in this their nascent condition, only evoked by the hope of fame — 
 that is, enduring life — immortality ! The entire Gospel, if we rely only 
 on natural theology, is admirably summed up by Tennyson in his hymn 
 to the Strong Son of God, immortal love : — 
 
 ' Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why; 
 He thinks he was not made to die; 
 And Thou hast made him : Thou art just.' 
 
 This is all — a transcendant all, no doubt — that man by searching can 
 discover of God and the future. Lord Brougham strenuously insists upon 
 the importance of the study whereon he confidently discourses. We are 
 rather inclined to think that he somewhat exaggerates its undoubted 
 value ; and we know that both science and religion have been retarded 
 and dishonoured by attempts to make or break creeds by the necessarily 
 ill - understood and imperfect evidence of— speaking comparatively — the 
 partial and scanty facts which the utmost research of man has been or will 
 ever be able to arrive at a knowledge of. Ignorance is not more certainly 
 the parent of credulity than partial knowledge — and human knowledge in 
 these matters must ever be confined and partial — divorced from wise 
 humility is of the bigotry of unbelief. Pascal observes of the mocking 
 sceptics who had counted the ' countless stars' and found them to consist 
 of an exact number, that the telescope taught them to retract their 
 presumptuous sneer. The spirit of that remark is of wide application ; and 
 we may be sure that spite of all the universe-made-easy dissertations of 
 Lord Brougham and others, it will ever remain true, to again quote Blaise 
 Pascal, that ' creation confounds reason.' It is a study, too, we may be 
 
 27 
 
CHAMEERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 permitted to remark in conclusion, not to be lightly indulged in. Who 
 that has gazed with the eye of speculative philosophy upon the marvel- 
 lous revelations of astronomy, with its galaxies of innumerable stars and 
 suns, and seen that the central orb, with his attendant planets of 
 our system, is scarcely discernible amid the vast and countless globes 
 which at inconceivable velocities rush through the infinite void which 
 men caU space — who thus gazing has not, we say, felt his heart die 
 within him at the reflection of his own apparent insignificance, and 
 chat of the spot, on which he rides amidst the winged and stupendous 
 universe, which the science of the heavens unfolds ? — and as the mind 
 staggers beneath an overwhelming sense of infinite magnificence and 
 power, how readily does the mournful thought well up from the 
 troubled soul — ' What is man, Lord, that thou art mindful of him ? 
 and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? ' Take comfort, child of 
 earth ! He who willed and rules those myriads of glorious worlds which 
 speed in their ceaseless and awful course through the illimitable void, has 
 also willed that to you they shall only present an aspect of divine cahn, 
 and peace, and brightness. For you the rushing of those mighty orbs 
 is arrested ; and Sirius, Arcturus, and Aldebaran are commanded to look 
 down with a tremulous and tender light, mantling this earth of ours with 
 the mild, silver glory in which young lovers stray and read each other's 
 eyes ; and the contemplative man finds hope and solace, and a livelier 
 appreciation of the infinite love which thus condescends to soften and 
 conform the awful and unspeakable splendours of His universe to the 
 weakness of humanity ! 
 
 But our space warns us to proceed to other topics. Lord Brougham has 
 published brief memoirs of the distinguished statesmen and men of science 
 and letters who flourished during the reign of George IIL They are 
 remarkable for freedom and vigour of style; and the critical opinions 
 enunciated are generally just and pertinent. One flagrant exception occurs 
 relative to the poetic merits of M. de Voltaire. ' The tragedies of Voltau-e,' 
 says his lordship, ' are the works of an extraordinary genius.' This may 
 be admitted, for unquestionably Voltaire was a person of extraordinary 
 genius ; but that genius was not, as unquestionably, dramatic genius. With 
 this opinion Lord Brougham in another sentence agrees; for Voltaire's 
 tragedies, he says, are deficient in real pathos and real passion, whether of 
 tenderness, terror, or horror. Still, according to his lordship, no one but ' a 
 great poet' could have produced them. Voltaire was about as much a 
 great poet as Lord Brougham himself. The value of his lordship's opinion 
 as to this point is easily settled by quoting the lines which he pronounces 
 to be fine poetry. ' Few things in poetry,' he says, ' are finer — (he is 
 speaking of Voltaire's play of ' Zaire ') — than Lusignan's simple answer to 
 Chatillon, who tells him that he was impotent to save his children : 
 
 Chatillon. Mon bras chargd de fers ne les put pas s^courir. 
 Lusignan. Helas! et j'etois pere, et je ne pus mourir.' 
 
 The reader has only to compare this lackadaisical lament with the last scene 
 in ' Lear ' to estimate it accurately as an expression of the volcanic grief of 
 parental bereavement. Lord Brougham also stands intrepidly up, as others 
 have done before him, for the extreme force and poetic beauty of the lines 
 28 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 of Orosmane : ' Zaire — vous pleurez ! ' and ' Zaire — vous m'aimez ! ' 
 Tliis alone would be quite sufficient proof, were the fait doubtful, tliat 
 Francis Jefirey, not Henry Brougham, was the poetical critic of the 
 'Edinburgh Review.' Lord Brougham, in giving vent in his place in 
 parliament to the dislike he entertained for the Provisional Government of 
 France, took occasion to call M. Lamartine ' a middling poet and worse 
 historian.' M. Lamartine may console himself: the critic who pronounces 
 that unrivalled master of persiflage, M. de Voltaire, 'a great poet,' was 
 scarcely likely to appreciate the tenderness and beauty of the ' Meditations 
 Po^tiques.' Lord Brougham has also given the world a translation of the 
 oration of Demosthenes upon the Crown, which had the honour of being 
 most viciously attacked m the 'Times' — by, according to the gossip of 
 journalism, ]\Ir Tyas. 
 
 Returning from this digression to the thorny field of politics, we find 
 his lordship actively engaged as a volunteer skirmisher, now acting on 
 one side and now on the other; at one moment assaulting the Conservative 
 ranks, and the next carrying confusion into the camp and counsels of his 
 old friends the "Whigs. His enemies stigmatised this condiict by their 
 favoui-ite term eccentricity. The time, it would appear, had not come 
 when a public man could be imagined to exist independently of party. It 
 was not possible to conceive that Lord Brougham could be actuated by 
 conscientious motives ; and accordingly, when advocating this measure, and 
 attacking that, he was said to be attaching himself alternately to the 
 cliques by which the measm-es were originated ! But there is one passage 
 in this changeful and desultory warfare, the necessity for which all 
 who respect and admire him for the spirit and power with which he 
 has at various times combated for right and justice could not but look 
 upon with soiTOw and regret. We have before alluded to the angry 
 outbreak between his lordship and the Earl of Durham, which the sudden 
 dismissal of Lord Melbourne's ministry, and the subsequent departure 
 of the earl for St Petersburg, prevented from being renewed in the 
 House of Peers. The rebellion of Lower Canada at the close of 1837, 
 put down by Sir John Colbome, necessitated in the opinion of the 
 ministry a temporary suspension of the constitution of that province : it was 
 at the same time thought expedient that Lord Durham — whose character 
 for firmness and liberality would, it was rightly conjectured, be felt as a 
 guarantee that no permanently despotic measures were in contemplation — 
 should go to Canada, invested as Her Majesty's lord high commissioner, 
 with large discretionary powers. The noble earl very reluctantly con- 
 sented to undertake a mission, the difficulties and embarrassments of which 
 he clearly foresaw. 'I feel,' he said, 'that I can accomplish the task 
 assigned me only by the cordial, energetic support — a support which I 
 am siu-e I shall obtain — of my noble friends the members of Her 
 Majesty's government — by the co-operation of the imperial parliament; 
 and, permit me to say, by the generous forbearance of the noble lords 
 opposite, to whom I have always been politically opposed.' On arriving 
 at his destination. Lord Durham found Upper Canada also in an alarming 
 condition, chiefly brought about by the valorous eccentricities of its 
 governor, Sir Francis Head — the author of other bubbles besides those 
 from the Brimnens of Nassau. Tranquillity was soon restored. Lord 
 
 29 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Durham induced the commander of the Queen's forces in the Upper 
 Province to forego all thoughts of hanging the rebels he had captured, 
 and to proclaim a general amnesty. The chief difficulty still remained — 
 as to what was to be done with the ringleaders of the revolt, confined in 
 Montreal prison. To try them, unless the juries were corruptly packed, 
 was simply to afford them the triumph of an acquittal. Lord Durham 
 thought it better to avaU himself of a petition sent him by the prisoners 
 themselves, pleading guilty, and placing themselves at his lordship's 
 discretion — in order, as they said, to avoid the risk and agitation of a trial 
 in the still feverish and unsettled state of the country. On the anniversary 
 of Her Majesty's coronation, an ordinance appeared proclaiming a general 
 amnesty to all political offenders, with the exception of the eight prisoners 
 that had pleaded guilty, who were to be transported to Bermuda: others 
 who had fled, would be liable, the document stated, to the punishment 
 of death if they returned. As soon as this technically Ulegal but just 
 and merciful ordinance reached England, great was the outcry amongst 
 the lawyers. Lord Brougham led the attack, and displayed a virulence 
 which the Duke of Wellington felt it necessary to reprove. The noble 
 and learned lord's bill, declaratory of the illegality of the ordinance, was 
 carried by a considerable majority; and the cabinet, although certain of 
 adequate support in the Commons, sacrificed the lord high commissioner 
 to the resentments of his political and personal enemies. Lord Durham 
 thus relentlessly assailed, and shamefully abandoned, returned at once to 
 England : his health gave way beneath the slights and insults to which he 
 had been exposed, and living only long enough to instruct his successor, 
 Mr Poulett Thompson (Lord Sydenham), in the plans he had conceived 
 for the better government of the Canadas, he expired at Cowes, in the Isle 
 of Wight, on the 28th of July 1840. No thinking person will assume that 
 Lord Brougham acted in this matter from any other motive than that of 
 a strong sense of public duty; and imperious indeed must that sense of 
 duty have been, to compel him to appear to those who could not appreciate, 
 or did not believe in the painfulness of the sacrifice, in the light of a man 
 seeking to gratify private malice under the mask of public patriotism. 
 
 The opinions of Lord Brougham relative to the operation of the corn- 
 laws, and the causes of the agricultural distress which since 1815 has 
 periodically visited this country, were not at one time, as we have seen, 
 very enlightened ones. Much to his credit he speedily, out of office, 
 became wiser upon the subject, and he addressed the House of Lords 
 several times very eloquently in furtherance of the repeal of the corn-duties. 
 The motions with which he concluded his speeches were all of course 
 negatived without a division. The question in the meantime had fallen 
 into the hands of the more practical and energetic of the two Houses ; the 
 pressure from witliout daily increased in power and intensity ; the wisest 
 statesman of his time yielded to it; and the measure of 1846 was the 
 result. It seemed strange that Lord Brougham, who had so strenuously 
 insisted upon the necessity of rescinding the obnoxious duties, should rise 
 in his place — now that so desirable a repeal, according to his own shewing, 
 was about to be carried— and vehemently abuse the Anti-Corn Law League; 
 declare that it was unconstitutional — all but unlawful ; and that he never 
 had yielded, and never would yield to ' any pressure from without.' 
 .30 
 
LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 According to newspaper morals, no man was to deprecate the employment 
 of what he conceived to be unconstitutional means, since it had chanced to 
 answer a good purpose. The surprise of the Earl of Radnor was of course 
 extreme ; and Lord Brougham's reply, when reminded of the means by which 
 Catholic emancipation and the Keform Bill had been carried, must have 
 greatly increased his astonishment. Those measures, Catholic emancipation 
 especially, had been passed by the pure force of eloquence and reason, not 
 by any pressure from without, which was altogether a despicable and 
 unclean thing. Lord Brougham, however, both spoke and voted for the 
 repeal of the coru-duties. Two years afterwards he spoke and voted against 
 the change in the navigation laws, for what reason consistent with his 
 previous approval of the change in the commercial policy of the country 
 we do not profess to comprehend. 
 
 Let us pass lightly over the remaining pages of the public life of this 
 unquestionably highly-gifted and extraordinary man — especially we will 
 not dwell upon his speeches and writings on the late French Revolution, 
 and the superlative virtue and grandeur of Louis-Philippe's government. 
 The parliamentary session of 1850 was also anything but a satisfactory one 
 to the noble lord's admirers. Passing by his lordship's strangely-diverse 
 speeches and motions relative to the Great Exhibition, what shall we say 
 to his passionate deprecation of any interference with the discipline of the 
 universities of Oxford and Cambridge ? ' I hope,' said he, ' that no Ger- 
 manic proceedings, and no German discipline wUl be introduced into our 
 ancient and hitherto flourishing universities.' This was clearly aimed at 
 the extension, through Prince Albert's influence, of the curriculum of the 
 university of Cambridge to the inclusion of modern languages and useful 
 sciences. The report that the place at the Board of Green Cloth, vacant 
 by the death of Sir Thomas Marrable, was not to be filled up, greatly 
 excited his ire ; he beheld in it the commencement of a diabolical court- 
 plan for lowering the aristocracy, by depriving them of the snug salaries 
 constitutionally pertaining to boards of green cloth. ' If any person,' 
 exclaimed Lord Brougham — ' if any person should have said — as was said 
 to his late lamented Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, by whom it 
 was received with the reprobation which the phantasy, the foreign phantasy 
 deserved — that the time had come for lowering the English aristocracy ; 
 if any one should have had the folly, the presumption so to speak, who- 
 ever they might be, must know now that parliament is resolved not to 
 lower the English aristocracy. And the English aristocracy would be 
 lowered if such things were allowed to pass as he knew were now passing 
 — namely, that a lady of the highest rank, connected with the families of 
 dukes and marquises by the nearest ties, was reduced to the humiliating 
 necessity of advertising for necessary support.' 
 
 His lordship was also grievously amazed at the audacity of a committee 
 of the House of Commons who dared to recommend the House to make 
 large reductions in the salaries of ambassadors and of various judicial 
 officers — especially of Masters in Chancery. Lord Brougham said the 
 scanty emoluments of those learned persons were meddled with by 
 thoroughly ignorant men, ' in order that the ruin of our home - service 
 should keep pace with that of our foreign affiiirs.' ' Friend Bright' 
 retorted in tlie Commons, that the ex -Chancellor had written to the 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 chairman of the committee, tendering himself for examination, in order 
 to enlighten them on the subject of their deliberations, and that the com- 
 mittee had unanimously declined the favour, on the ground that it was 
 not at all probable his lordship could offer any suggestion or communicate 
 any information of the slightest value.' Lord Brougham has been always 
 a stanch advocate for the dignity and pre-eminence of law courts and 
 judges ; he holds, spite of the general experience of this as well as other 
 countries, that the liberties of the subject are safer under the aegis of legal 
 tribimals than of parliaments. This notion or prejudice it was which 
 governed his conduct on the ' privilege' question — a notion or prejudice 
 which out of Westminster Hall is not happily veiy widely entertained. 
 
 Lord Brougham was mamed in 1819 to the widow of John Spalding, 
 Esq., and the niece of the Lords Auckland and Henley. Two children, 
 daughters, have been born to him : the first, Eleanor Sarah, died in 
 infancy ; the second, Eleanor Louisa, died on the 30th of November 1839. 
 His lordship's mother died on the last day of the same year, the 31st of 
 December 1839. 
 
 His lordship, except during the sitting of parliament, resides cliiefly at 
 Cannes, in the south of France, where he has built a chateau, embedded in 
 orange-groves, and led to by a long avenue of fruit-trees. His residence 
 and expenditure have, according to Mr Baillie Cochrane, greatly benefited 
 the neighbourhood, where he is much liked and respected. This choice 
 of a residence abroad, this ' foreign phantasy,' to quote his lordship's words, 
 has, there can be no doubt, increased the disfavour with which he has been 
 of late years regarded. This disfavour is said to have been painfully 
 manifested by the want of public sympathy on a recent occasion when 
 Lord Brougham announced that the state of his health rendered it probable 
 that he was then in his place in the House of Lords for the last time. But 
 Lord Brougham could not expect to fill the mind of the nation for so long 
 a period to the exclusion of every other subject. Men's thoughts were at 
 the time concentrated on other topics, and there was nothing practical or 
 urgent enough in the misgivings of an invalid to recall them. Such was 
 not the case when it was reported some years before that he was dead. 
 Then was political enmity disarmed ; then were even cliques forgotten ; 
 then was the Man judged of apart from the turmoil of polemics that had 
 so long hissed ai'ound him ; and then did the press and the people declare 
 with one voice that a noble and mighty sphit had departed from among us. 
 
 It is now said that Lord Brougham's health is improving ; and we 
 may fau-ly indulge a hope, that a long, calm evening may yet remain to 
 liim which, if wanting the fervid brilliancy of his day of life, may glow 
 with a more equable and genial light, and be rendered subservient to the 
 unselfish aims of a wise and pure ambition. 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 THOMAS jMOORE, ca man of brilliant gifts and large acquirements, if 
 not an inspired poet, was born on the 28th of May 1780, in Augier 
 Street, Dublin, where his father carried on a respectable business as a 
 grocer and spirit-dealer. Both his parents were strict Eoman Catholics, 
 and he of course was educated in the same faith ; at that time under the 
 ban not only of penal statutes, but of influential opinion both in Great 
 Britain and Ireland. Thus humble and unpromising were the birth and 
 early prospects of an author who — thanks to the possession of great popular 
 talent, very industriously cultivated and exercised, together with consider- 
 able tact and prudence, and pleasing social accomplishments — won for 
 himself not only the general fame which ordinarily attends the successful 
 display of genius, but the especial sympathy and admiration of his 
 countrymen and fellow religionists, and the smiles and patronage of a large 
 and powerful section of the English aristocracy, at whose tables and in 
 whose drawing-i-ooms his sparkling wit and melodious patriotism rendered 
 him an ever-welcome guest. Few men, indeed, have passed more pleasantly 
 through the world than Thomas Moore. His day of life was one continual 
 sunshme, just sufficiently tempered and shaded by passing clouds — ' mere 
 crumpling of the rose-leaves' — as to soften and enhance its general gaiety 
 and brightness. With its evening thick shadows came — the crushing loss 
 of children — and the gray-haired poet, pressed by his heavy grief, has 
 turned in his latter years from the gay vanities of brilliant society, and 
 sought peace and consolation in seclusion, and the zealous observance of 
 the precepts and discipline of the church to which he is, not only from 
 eai-ly training and association, but by temperament and turn of mind, 
 devotedly attached. 
 
 As a child, jMoore was, we are told, remarkable for personal beauty, and 
 might have sat, says a writer not over-friendly to him, ' as Cupid for a 
 picture.' This early promise was not fulfilled. Sir Walter Scott, speaking 
 of him in 1825, says : ' He is a little, very little man — less, I think, than 
 Lewis, whom he resembles ; his countenance is plain, but veiy animated 
 when speaking or singing.' The lo-miess of his stature was a sore subject 
 with Moore — almost as much, and as absurdly so, as the malformation of 
 his foot was with Lord Byron. Leigh Hunt, in a work published between 
 twenty and thirty years ago, gives the following detailed portrait of the 
 Irish poet : — ' His forehead is boay and full of character, with bumps of 
 t<0 ' 1 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ■wit large and radiant enough to transport a plirenologist ; his eyes are as 
 dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves ; his 
 mouth, generous and good-humoured, with dimples ; " his nose, sensual and 
 prominent, and at the same time the reverse of aquiline : there is a very 
 peculiar characteristic in it — as if it were looking forward to and scenting a 
 feast or an orchard." The face, upon the whole, is Irish, not unruffled by 
 care and passion, but festivity is the predominant expression.' In Mr 
 Hunt's autobiography, not long since published, this portrait is repeated, 
 with the exception of the words we have enclosed within double inverted 
 commas — struck out possibly from a lately - awakened sense of their 
 injustice ; and it is added that ' his (Moore's) manner was as bright as 
 his talk was full of the wish to please and be pleased.' To these testi- 
 monials as to the personal appearance and manners of Thomas Moore we 
 can only add that of Mr Joseph Atkinson, one of the poet's most ultimate 
 and attached friends. This gentleman, when speaking to an acquaintance 
 of the author of the ' Melodies,' said that to him ' Moore always seemed an 
 infant sporting on the bosom of Venus.' This somewhat perplexing idea 
 of the mature author of the songs under discussion was no doubt suggested 
 by the speaker's recollections of his friend's childhood. 
 
 Whatever the personal graces or defects of Mr Mooi'e, it is quite certain 
 at all events that he early exhibited considerable mental power and 
 imitative faculty. He was placed when very young with Mr Samuel 
 Wliyte, who kept a respectable school in Grafton Street, Dublin. This 
 was the Mr Wliyte who attempted to educate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 
 and pronounced him to be ' an incorrigible dunce ' — a verdict in which at 
 the time the mother of the future author of the 'School for Scandal' fuUy 
 concurred. Mr Whyte, it seems, delighted in private theatricals, and his 
 labours in this mode of diffusing entertaining knowledge were, it appeal's, 
 a good deal patronised by the Dublin aristocracy. Master Moore was his 
 ' show-actor,' and played frequently at Lady Borrowes's private theatre. 
 On one occasion the printed bills announced ' An Epilogue — A Squeeze 
 at St PauVs, by Master Moore,' in which he is said to have been verj' 
 successful. These theatricals were attended by several members of the 
 ducal family of Leinster, the Latouches of Dublin, with many other Irish 
 notabilities ; and it was probably here that Moore contracted the taste for 
 aristocratic society which afterwards became a passion with him. 
 
 The obstinate exclusion of the Catholics from the common rights of 
 citizenship naturally excited violent and growing discontent amongst that 
 body of religionists ; and Thomas Moore's parents, albeit prudent, wary 
 folk, were, like thousands of other naturally sensible and pacific people, 
 carried away for a moment by the tremendous outburst of the French 
 Revolution. The meteor-blaze which suddenly leaped forth and dazzled 
 the astonished world seemed a light from Heaven to the oppressed nations 
 of Europe ; and in Ireland especially it was hailed as the dawn of a great 
 deliverance by millions whom an unwise legislation had alienated and 
 almost maddened. Young Moore, when little more than twelve years of 
 age, sat upon his father's knee at a great ])anquet in Dublin, where the 
 toast — 'May the breezes from France fan our Irish oak into verdure!' was 
 received with a frantic vehemence which, child as he was, left an impression 
 upon him that did not pass away with many years. The Day-star of 
 2 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 Liberty, as it was termed, which arose in France, set in blood and tempest ; 
 but the government, alarmed at the ominous aspect of the times, relaxed 
 (1793) the penal laws, and Catholics for the first time were eligible for 
 admission to the Dublin University : eligible — that is, to partake of the 
 instruction conferred at the national seat of learning, but not for its honours 
 or rewards. These were still jealously reserved for the dominant caste. 
 Yoimg Moore was immediately entered of Ti'inity College ; and although he 
 succeeded by his assiduity and ability in extorting an acknowledgment 
 from the authorities that he had earned a classical degree, he was, for 
 religion's sake, as a matter of course denied it. Some English verses, 
 however, which he presented at one of the quarterly examinations in lieu 
 of the usual Latin metre, were extolled ; and he received a well-bound 
 copy of the ' Travels of Anarchasis ' as a reward. The young student's 
 proficiency in the Greek and Latin languages was also acknowledged, 
 though not officially. 
 
 For several previous years the thunder-cloud which burst so fatally in 
 1798 had been slowly gathering in Ireland. Mooi-e sympathised with the 
 object, if not with the mode, of operation contemplated by the opponents of 
 English rule in tliat country ; and he appears to have been only saved from 
 serious if not fatal implication in the rebellion by the wise admonitions of 
 his excellent mother, aided by his own instinctive aversion to the committal 
 of any act which might compromise his present and future position, by 
 placing him amongst extreme men in the front and forlorn-hope of the 
 battle, instead of amidst the wiser respectabilities of liberalism, from whose 
 ranks a man of wit and genius may, he knew, shoot his diamond-tipt 
 arrows at the enemy not only without danger, but with almost certain fame 
 and profit to himself. Moore was intimate with the two Emmets, and an 
 active member of a debating-club, in which the eldest, the unfortunate 
 Eobert, endeavoiu-ed to mature his oratorical powers against the time 
 when his dream of political regeneration should be realised. Towards the 
 close of the year 1797, the at the time celebrated newspaper called ' The 
 Press' was started by Arthur O'Connor, the Emmets, and other chiefs of 
 the United Irishmen. It was published twice a week, and although, 
 Mr Moore says, not distinguished at all for talent, had a large cu-culation 
 amongst the excited masses. Moore first contributed a poetical effusion — 
 anonymously of course— and soon growing bolder with impunity, contri- 
 buted a fiery letter, which had the questionable honour of being afterwards 
 quoted in the House of Commons by the minister as one of his proofs that 
 severe repressive measures were required to put down the dangerous spirit 
 manifested in Ireland. On the evening this letter appeared, young IMoore 
 i-ead it after supper to the assembled family — his heart beating violently all 
 the while lest the sentiments it contained, and the style in which they were 
 expressed, should reveal the eloquent author. His fears were groundless : 
 no one suspected him; and the only remark elicited by the violent 
 letter was a quiet one from his sister — ' that it was rather strong ! ' Next 
 day his mother, tlirough the mdiscretion of a person connected with the 
 newspaper, disc-overed his secret, and commanded him, as he valued her 
 blessing, to disconnect himself at once from so dangerous a pursuit and 
 companionship. The young man obeyed, and the storm of 1798 passed 
 over harmlessly for him. Moore was once slightly questioned upon the 
 
 3 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 subject of the apprehended conspiracy by Lord Chancellor Clare, who 
 insisted upon compelling a disclosure, upon oath, of any knowledge the 
 students of the imiversity might possess of the persons and plans of the 
 plotters. Moore at first declined being sworn, alleging in excuse that he 
 had never taken an oath, and although perfectly unconscious himself of 
 offence against the government, that he might unwittingly compromise 
 others. This odd excuse Lord Clare, after consultmg with Duigenan, 
 famous for his anti-papist polemics, declined to receive, and JMoore was 
 sworn. Three or four questions were asked as to his knowledge of any 
 conspiracy to ovei'throw the government by violence ; and these briefly 
 answered, the matter ended. This is Mr Moore's own version of a scene 
 which has been rendered in various amusing and exaggerated forms. 
 
 The precocity of Moore's rhyming genius had been also exemplitied by a 
 sonnet, written when he was only fourteen years of age, and inserted in a 
 Dublin magazine called ' The Anthologia.' Two or three years later he 
 composed a Masque, which was performed by himself, his elder sister, and 
 some yoimg friends, in the little drawing-room over the shop in Augier 
 Street, a friend, afterwards a celebrated musician, enacting orchestra on the 
 pianoforte. One of the songs of the masque was written to the air of 
 Haydn's Spirit Song, and obtained great applause. Master Moore belonged, 
 moreover, to a band of gay spirits who occasionally amused themselves 
 by a visit to Dalkey, a small island in the Bay of Dublin, electing one 
 Stephen Armitage, a respectable pawnbroker, and ' very agreeable singer,' 
 King of that Ilk. On one of these coronation days King Stephen conferred 
 the honour of knighthood upon Incledon, with the title of Sir Charles 
 Melody ; and he created Miss Battier, a rhyming lady, Henrietta, Countess 
 of Laurel, and His Majesty's Poetess-Laureate. The working laureate was, 
 however. Master Moore, and in that capacity he first tried his hand at 
 political squibbing, by launching some not very brilliant sarcasms against 
 governments in general. Lord Clare, we are told, was half alarmed at this 
 Dalkey court and its poets, and insisted upon an explanation from one of 
 tlie mock officials. This is, however, we believe, a fable, though at the 
 time a current one. 
 
 In 1799, being then only in his twentieth year, Thomas Moore arrived 
 in London for the pm'pose of entering himself of the Middle Temple, and 
 publishing his translation of the Odes of Anacreon. He had already 
 obtained the friendship of Earl Moira, and that nobleman procured him 
 permission to dedicate the work to the Prince of Wales. His poetical 
 career may now be said to have fairly commenced. It was a long and 
 brilliant one, most of his works having rapidly passed through numerous 
 editions, and been perhaps more extensively read than those of any con- 
 temporary author, always excepting the romances of Scott. There can be 
 no reasonable doubt that Moore owed much of this popularity and success 
 to the accident of his position, and the favouring circumstances of the times 
 in which he wrote. The enfant gate of high and influential circles, as well 
 as the melodious expositor and poet-champion of the wrongs of a nation to 
 whose glorious music he lias happily, for himself, married much of his 
 sweetest verse, he dwelt in a peculiar aiul irradiating atmosphere, which 
 greatly enhanced his real magnitude and brightness. Even now, when the 
 deceptive medium has lost its influence, it is somewhat difficult, and may 
 4 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 seem ungracious, to assign his true place in the splendid galaxy of British 
 poets to a writer who has contributed so largely to the delight of the 
 reading and musical population of these kingdoms. His verse is so 
 pleasantly - graceful and melodious, that one liardly likes to shew that it 
 owes its chief attraction to the elaborate polish and musical flow of its 
 brilliant fancies, rather than to its intrinsic light and truth and beauty. 
 Critics desirous of assigning a high place to the poetry of Moore, and 
 therefore, to avoid testing him by the standard of our great imaginative 
 poets, have invented a new theory, or rather have revived an old fallacy, 
 with regard to the qualities and direction of a poet's mind as exhibited in 
 his works. They say Moore is the poet of fancy, not of imagination — of 
 artificial life, not of nature ; and therefore not to be truly estimated by 
 comparing him with poets of imagination and of nature. Imagination and 
 fancy they assert to be two entirely distinct attributes, and that a poet 
 may be deficient in the first and eminent in the second. This is a manifest 
 though ingenious error. The difference is one of degi^ee, not of nature. 
 Fancy is imagination, but imagination of inferior power and range ; and 
 they bear precisely the same relation to each other as the gi-aceful and the 
 pretty do to the noble and the beautiful. An example will illustrate our 
 meaning better than many words. Moore thus describes the coming on of 
 evening : — 
 
 ' 'Twas one of those ambrosial eves 
 
 A day of storm so often leaves, 
 
 At its calm setting, when the West 
 
 Opens her golden bowers of rest, 
 
 And a moist radiance from the skies 
 
 Shoots trembling down, as from the eyes 
 
 Of some meek penitent, whose last 
 
 Bright hours atone for dark ones past; 
 
 And whose sweet tears o'er wrong forgiven. 
 
 Shine as they fall with light from Heaven.' 
 
 Milton has the following lines on a sufficiently similar theme : — 
 
 ' Now came still Evening on, and Twilight grey, 
 Had in her sober livery all things clad. 
 Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird 
 Those to their grassy couch, these to their nests 
 "Were slunk : All but the wakeful nightingale : 
 She all night long her amorous descant sung. 
 Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament 
 With living sapphires. Hesperus that led 
 The starry host rode brightest, till the moon. 
 Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
 Apparent Queen, unveiled her peerless light. 
 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.' 
 
 It cannot be seriously denied that imagination is displayed in both these 
 extracts : the difference is, that in the first it is dwarfed and enfeebled to 
 fancy; in the last, it is exalted and kindled into inspiration. Those 
 therefore who, abandoning the high ground sometimes claimed for Moore, 
 content themselves with asserting that he is par excellence the poet of 
 fancy, in effect say that he is a poet of confined and inferior imaginative 
 power. The other canon, that he is the poet of artificial life, and there- 
 fore not to he measured or compared with a poet of nature, is still more 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 easily disposed of. By artificial life is of cou-rse meant human social 
 life : it does not imply or contemplate the difference between poetical 
 descriptions of flowers and shrubs ranged in a conservatory, or the scene- 
 paintings of a theatre, and poetical transcripts of the natural world, with 
 its streams and woods and flowers. Well, then, all human life is artificial, 
 from the highest to tlie lowest. Burns's simplest maiden is artificial — 
 highly so : there is not one of us but is ' sophisticated.' Perliaps high, 
 courtly, artificial life is meant. But Rosalind, Beatrice, Juliet, Ophelia, 
 were court ladies ; Constance and Catherine were queens ; and are they 
 not exquisitely natural ? — and was not he who drew them as much 
 the poet of nature as when he stamped Aubrey, or a Carrier, or the 
 Sailor in the ' Tempest,' or Shallow, on his glorious canvas? Choking gi-ief, 
 and burning indignation, and yearning tenderness, are felt and expressed 
 in marble palaces as keenly as in the poor man's hut ; and there, too. 
 may be found exuberant mkth, and pleasant wit, and gentlest tears and 
 smiles. 
 
 If indeed be meant by artificial life the masks and -m-appings, the 
 adjuncts of highly-artificial life — that is, the court-dresses and plimies, the 
 perfume and silk-hangings, the conventional speech hefore comj^amj — tlie 
 phrase of ' the poet of artificial life' is intelligible ; but to apply it in that 
 sense to Mr Moore is to lower and insult, not to defend and honour 
 him. Let us, before subscribing to so depreciatory a judgment, stroll 
 through the gay parterre of the poet's works, and I think we shall find, 
 when we compare notes at the close, that although his writings are not 
 radiant with the divine gems which high poetic genius scatters along 
 its starry path, they at all events sparkle with beautiful fancies, and 
 breathe a music which, if not of the spheres, is of the sweetest of earth's 
 melodies. 
 
 The Odes of Anacreon obtained much present popularity at a time when 
 the moralities of respectable literature were not so strictly enforced by 
 public opinion as m the present day. Many of tliera are paraphrases 
 rather than translations, containing, as Dr Laurence, Burke's friend, re- 
 marked at the time, ' pretty turns not to be found in Anacreon.' ]\[r 
 Moore in his preface battles stoutly for the qualified morality of the Bard 
 of Teos. ' His morality,' he says, ' was relaxed, not abandoned, and Virtue 
 with her zone loosened may be an emblem of the character of Anacreon.' 
 This prettily-expressed nonsense is perhaps the best excuse that can be 
 offered for the sensuous gaiety, the utterly material philosophy, displayed 
 and mculcated in the Odes. More attention and respect are due to another 
 of the prefatorial excuses : ' To infer,' says the translator, ' the moral dis- 
 position of a poet from the tone of sentiment which pervades his work, is 
 sometimes a very fallacious analogy.' This may be so ' sometimes,' and 
 indeed we are quite willing to admit its truth with regard to Mr Moore 
 himself, who, in the relations of son, husband, and father, was a very 
 estimable person, and as different from the compound of Blue-Beard and 
 Lovelace that his earlier poems especially would imply as light from dark- 
 ness. But with respect to Anacreon the analogy is not, we apprehend, a 
 fallacious one. He died at eighty-five, as he had lived, a debauchee, choked 
 with agrape-stone, as it is recorded — a figurative mode probably of express- 
 ing that he died under the influence of the wine whose praises he was per- 
 6 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 petually singing. He was, too, it appears from liis own confession, horribly- 
 afraid in his latter years of Pluto's dread abode — a terror that could 
 scarcely have beset him for mere wine -bibbing under a mythology in 
 which Bacchus was deified. Be this as it may, there can be no douljt tliat 
 the light gaiety and sensuous joyousness of the Odes are more skilfully 
 rendered by IMoore than in any previous English translation of the Teian 
 Muse. Some, howevei', of his favourite similes are greatly overdone. Mr 
 Richard Swiveller himself was not fonder of the ' rosy ' than the poet in 
 these paraphrastic translations. Couleur de rose pervades the whole series 
 in overpowering profusion — rosy lips, rosy cheeks, I'osy hands, rosy breath, 
 rosy smiles, we almost think rosy tears and rosy teeth, both of which we 
 all know should be invariably ' pearly.' But enough of Anacreon, whose 
 verses are rapidly passing away before the uifluence of a purer taste and a 
 manlier, healthier tone of mhid than prevailed when he could be either 
 popular or dangerous. ' Thomas Little's Poems, Songs,' &c. given to the 
 world by Mr Moore in 1801, are a collection of puerile rhapsodies still more 
 objectionable than the Anacreontic Odes ; and the only excuse for them was 
 the extreme youth of the writer. Bp-on thus alluded to the book m his 
 once famous satire : — • 
 
 ' Tis Little, young Catullus of his day, 
 As sweet but as immoral iu his lay.' 
 
 Many years afterwards his lordship, in a letter to Moore (1820), reverted, 
 half in jest half in earnest, to the work in these words : ' I believe all the 
 mischief I have ever done or sung has been owing to that confounded book 
 of yours.' The most objectionable of these songs have been omitted from 
 the recent editions of Moore's works, and we believe no one has more 
 deplored theii* original publication than the author himself. 
 
 In 1803, thanks to his verses and Lord Moira's patronage, Moore obtained 
 a place under the government — that of Registrar to the Court of Admiralty 
 at Bermuda. The unrespective favouritism which in those days governed 
 nominations in the public service is pleasantly illustrated by this appoint- 
 ment. ' II fallut un calculateur : ce fut un danseur qui I'obtuit ! ' was 
 Beaumarchais's sarcasm on Monsieur de Calonne's nomination. A similar 
 principle was followed here. An accountant and man of business was 
 wanted at Bermuda ; but as there was a young poet to reward, all vulgar 
 common-sense considerations were thrust aside, and the youthful ti-anslator 
 of Anacreon received the appointment. Moore sailed in the Phcenix frigate, 
 and took formal possession of his post ; but he soon wearied of the social 
 monotony of the ' still vexed Bermoothes,' hastily appointed a deputy to 
 perform aU the duties of his office for a share of the income, and betook 
 himself to America. He was as much out of his proper element there as 
 in Bermuda. The rugged republicanism of the States disgusted him, and 
 after a brief glance at Canada he returned to England, having been absent 
 about fifteen months. 
 
 Soon after his return he favoured the world with his impressions of 
 Bermuda, the United States, and Canada. His sketches of Bermudan 
 scenery have been pronounced by Captain Basil Hall and others to be 
 extremely accurate and vivid. On the truthfulness of his American social 
 and political pictures aud prophecies, Time — a much higher authority — has 
 
t)HAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 unmistakably delivered judgment. We extract one or two of their minor 
 
 beauties : 
 
 ' While yet upon Columbia's rising brow 
 The showy smile of young Presumption plays, 
 Her bloom is poisoned and her heart decays 
 Even now in dawn of life ; her sickly breath 
 Burns with the taint of empires near their death -, 
 And, like the nymphs of her own withering clime, 
 She's old in youth, she's blasted in her prime.' 
 
 This, it must be confessed, like his gunpowder letter in Arthur O'Connor's 
 paper, is ' rather strong ' than civil. It will also be admitted to be some- 
 what perplexing that the poet who, but for his mother's interference and 
 his own wise second-thoughts, would have joined the confederacy of United 
 Irishmen, and wlio has since then shed melodious tears over tlie graves of 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Robert Emmet, sliould denounce the errors 
 and deficiencies of America as — 
 
 ' The ills, the vices of the land where first 
 Those rebel fiends that rack the world were nurst.' 
 
 But let us pass on to a pleasanter subject. While in Canada ]\Ir Moore 
 composed the popular ' Boat-song,' the words and air of which were, he says, 
 inspired by the sceneiy and circumstances which the verses portray, and 
 by the measured chant of the Canadian rowers. Captain Hall also testifies 
 to the fidelity of this descriptive song. 
 
 The republication in 1806 of Juvenile Songs, Odes, etcetera, elicited a fierce 
 and contemptuous denunciation of them from the Edinburgh Eeview, and 
 this led to a hostile meeting between the editor of that publication, the late 
 Lord Jeffrey, and Mr Moore. They met at Chalk Farm, near Hampstead ; 
 but the progress of the duel was interrupted by police-ofiicers, who, on 
 examining the pistols of the baffled combatants, found that they had been 
 charged with powder only. This was probably a sensible device — it was not 
 I at all an uncommon one — on the part of the seconds to prevent mischief; or 
 ) I it might have been, as is usually believed, that the bullets dropped out of 
 one or both of the pistols by the jolting of the carriages in which the com- 
 batants reached the field of expected battle ; but of course the discovery 
 \ created a great laugh at the time. Moore indignantly denied through 
 j the newspapers that he was cognisant of the innocent state of Mr Jeffrey's 
 , \ pistol — an assertion there cannot be the slightest reason for doubting. 
 This droll incident led to his subsequent acquaintance with Lord 
 iByron, who, unmindful or regardless of Mr Moore's denial of the 
 , ,* calumny,' repeated it with variations in his ' English Bards and Scotch 
 ij^' Reviewers,' chiefly with a view to annoy Mr Jeffrey. Moore was again 
 indignant, and demanded an apology or satisfiiction. His letter did not, 
 ( Tiowever, reach the noble lord till many months afterwards, Avlien expla- 
 nations ensued, and the affair terminated liy a dinner at the house of Mr 
 Rogers, where the fovu- poets, Byron, CampbclL Moore, and Rogers, met 
 each other for the first time. 
 
 The intimacy thus commenced, if we may judge from the biography of 
 
 Byron, ripened into a lasting friendship on the part of Moore. This 
 
 feeling Avas but faintly reciprocated by Byron. Indeed, if we are to 
 
 believe his own statement, made in one of liis latest letters, the noble poet 
 
 8 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 •was almost incapable of friendsliip, ' never having,' he says, * except 
 towards Lord Clare, whom he had known from infancy, and perliaps little 
 Moore,' experienced any such emotion. ' I^ittle Tommy dearly loves 
 a lord,' was B^-ron's sneering expression more than once ; and perhaps he 
 believed Moore's loudly-expressed regard for himself to be chiefly based on 
 that predilection. 
 
 Jloore had before this married a Miss Dyke, who is described as a lady 
 of great beauty and amiability, and moreover distinguished for considerable 
 decision of character and strong common-sense — qualities wliich more than 
 once proved of essential service to her husband. They had several 
 childix-n, the loss of whom, as we have before stated, has darkened and em- 
 bittered the close of the poet's days. 
 
 Two political satires, called ' Corruption ' and ' Intolerance,' were next 
 published, and followed by ' The Sceptic,' described as a philosophical 
 essay. Neither of them reached a second edition. The aim of ' The Sceptic' 
 ■was to set forth in sober seriousness the beauty, true enlightenment, and 
 amiability of Ignorance, with whom Faith, Hope, Charity, and Patience, 
 fleeing in disgust from such contradictor}" sciolists as Newton, Descartes, 
 Locke, &c. are represented as dwelling in content and love. In his 
 enthusiasm for the leaden goddess, Moore exclaims — 
 
 ' Hail, modest Ignorance I — the goal and prize. 
 The last, best knowledge of the simply wise.' 
 
 This philosophic ignorance he further opines to be ' the only daughter of 
 the schools that can safely be selected as the handmaid of Piety.' Fiuaro's 
 exclamation — ' Que les gens d'esprit sont betes!' has received frequent 
 serious contirmation, and never perhaps more so than in this panegyric on 
 Ignorance by Thomas Moore. 
 
 The 'Intercepted Letters; or the Twopenny Post -Bag, by Thomas 
 Brown, the Younger,' was Moore's next successful work. It is a collection 
 of sarcastic jeux cTesprits levelled at the Prince - Regent and the ruling 
 politicians of the day. They had a gi-eat but necessarily transitory success. 
 Such pieces cToccasion inevitably lose then- force and piquancy by the 
 passing into oblivion of the ephemera against which they were directed. 
 It may sufficiently indicate the slight permanency and limited range of 
 such pin-points, however sharp and polished, to state, that of all Moore's 
 sarcastic verse, excellent in its way, as everybody admits it to be, only one 
 piece — 
 
 ' There was a little man, 
 And he had a little soul,' 
 
 has had the honour of translation into a foreign language. Wit which 
 strikes at indi%-iduals dies with the world's remembrance of the crimes or 
 follies of the persons assailed ; and who cares now for the brilliant butter- 
 flies of Carlton House, or the gilded gadflies, social or political, which 
 infested the atmosphere of the vain regent's court? It has been frequently 
 made a reproach to Moore, that in aiming the light aiTOws of his wit at the 
 prince, he was ungratefidly assailing one who had heaped favours and 
 benefits upon him. ' These favours and benefits,' replies Mr Moore, ' are 
 very easily summed up : I was allowed to dedicate " Anacreon" to his 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Royal Higliness ; I twice dined at Carlton House ; and T made one of the 
 fifteen hundred envied guests at the prince's gi-and fete in 1815 !' 
 
 In 1811 Moore made a first and last appearance before the world as a 
 dramatist, by the production at the Lyceum theatre of an operatic piece 
 called ' An M.P. ; or the Blue Stockmg.' It was emphatically damned, 
 notwithstanding two or tlu-ee pleasing songs, which somewhat redeemed 
 its dull and vapid impertinence. The very pretty song of ' Young Love 
 lived once in an humble shed' occurs in this piece. Moore's acquaintance 
 with Leigh Hunt dates from the acting of the ' Blue Stocking.' Mr Hunt 
 was at the time editor of the 'Examiner' newspaper, in which he had 
 just before paid some compliments to Moore's poetry ; and the nervous dra- 
 matist, naturally anxious to propitiate a critic whose opinion was esteemed 
 oracular in certain circles, wrote him a rather fulsome letter, in which he 
 set forth, as an ad misericordiam plea for lenient judgment, that he had 
 rashly been induced to promise Arnold a piece for his theatre, m conse- 
 quence of the state of attenuation to which tlie purses of poets are prover- 
 bially liable. The ' M.P.' was, as we have said, condemned, and Esojj's dis- 
 appointed fox received another illustration. 'Writing bad jokes,' quoth Mr 
 Moore, ' for the Lyceum to make the galleries laugh is in itself sulficiently 
 degrading ; but to try to make them laugh, and fail to do so, is indeed 
 deplorable.' In sooth, to make ' galleries' either laugh or weep was never 
 Mr Moore's aim or vocation. His eye was ever fixed upon the ga.\ company 
 of the ' boxes,' occasionally only glancing apprehensively aside from its 
 flattering homage to scan the faces of the soiu- critics of the pit. And 
 yet to make the galleries of the theatre and the world laugh has tasked 
 and evidenced wit and humour, in comparison with which the gayest 
 sallies, the most sparkling of Mr Moore's fancies, are vapidity itself. 
 The mortified dramatist gave up play -writing for ever, or, as he con- 
 temptuously expressed it, ' made a hearty abjui-ation of the stage and aU 
 its heresies of pun, equivoque, and clap-trap.' He was wise in doing so. 
 The discretion evinced by the hasty retreat was only exceeded by the 
 rashness of the venture. 
 
 The mtimacy of Thomas Moore and Leigh Hunt continued for some 
 years. Moore, in company with Lord Byron, dined once or twice with 
 Hunt in prison during his confinement for a pretended libel upon the 
 regent. A pertinent anecdote, throwing some light on Byron's sneer 
 respecting Moore's love of lords, is told of one of these visits. The three 
 friends, Byron, Moore, and Hunt, were walking before dinner in tlie prison 
 garden, when a shower of rain came on, and Moore ran into the house, 
 and up stairs, leaving his companions to follow as they best might. 
 Consciousness of the discourtesy of such behaviour towards his noble 
 companion quickly flashed upon him, and he was overwlielmed with con- 
 fusion. Mr Hunt tried to console him. ' I quite forgot at the moment,' 
 said Moore, ' whom I was walking with ; but I was forced to remember it 
 by his not coming up. I could not in decency go on, and to return was 
 awkward.' This anxiety — on account of Byron's lameness — Mr Hunt 
 remarks, appeared to him very amiable. 
 
 This friendship came to an abrupt and unpleasant close. Lord Byron 
 agreed with Hunt and Shelley to start a new periodical, to be called ' The 
 Liberal,' the profits of which were to go to Leigh Hunt. B}'Ton's parody 
 10 
 
 J 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 on Southey's ' Vision of Judgment ' appeared in it, and ultimately William 
 Hazlitt became a contributor. Moore immediately became alarmed for 
 his noble friend's character, which he thought would be compromised l}y 
 his connection with Hunt and Hazlitt, and wrote to entreat liim to 
 withdraw himself from a work which had ' a taint in it,' and from asso- 
 ciation witli men upon whom society ' had set a mark.' His prayer 
 was complied with, and the two last-named gentlemen were very angry, 
 as well tliey might be. There has been a good deal of crimination and 
 recrimination between the parties on the subject, not at all worth 
 reproducing. The truth is that both Hunt and Hazlitt, but especially the 
 latter, were at the time under the ban of influential society and a then 
 powerful Tory press ; and Moore, with his usual prudence, declining to 
 be mad-dog'd m their company and for their sakes, deliberately cut two 
 such extreme Radicals, and induced his noble friend to do likewise. How 
 could a prudent man who had given hostages to fortune, which Moore 
 by this time had, in a wife and children, act otherwise? 
 
 IMoore had long cherished a hope of allying his poetry with the expressive 
 music of Ireland ; of giving appropriate vocal utterance to the sti-ains which 
 had broken fitfully from out the tumults and tramplings of centuries of 
 unblest rule. A noble task ! in which even partial success demands great 
 powers and deserves high praise. The execution of the long -meditated 
 design now commenced ; and the ' Melodies,' as they appeared, obtained 
 immense and well- deserved popularity. It is upon these his fame as a 
 poet will mainly rest ; and no one can deny that, as a whole, they exhibit 
 great felicity of expression, and much graceful tenderness of thought and 
 feeling, frequently relieved ])y flashes of gay and genial wit and humour. 
 No one could be more keenly aware, or could more gracefully acknowledge 
 than Moore, the great help to a poet's present reputation of connecting his 
 verse with national or local associations. He instances in proof of its 
 value the popularity in Bermuda of a song comparatively valueless in 
 itself — a popularity owing to its association with a well-known tree growing 
 uear Walsingham in that group of islets — 
 
 ' 'Twa3 there in the shade of the calabash tree, 
 With a few who could feel and remember like me,' &c. 
 
 Mr Dudley Costello brought him home a goblet, the inscription on which 
 states that it was formed of one of the fruit-shells of the tree which he 
 had rendered famous, and which now bears his name. But it must be con- 
 fessed that this kind of appreciative association, however gi-atifying 
 to an author's vanity, or decisive of present success, is but a frail, unpro- 
 mising plank to float down to posterity upon. If the poetry of a song is 
 only remembered because it recalls local incidents, or objects, or memories, 
 its power must be a very confined and fleeting one. The man who had 
 sung or heard Moore's song under the calabash tree, if a sojourner in 
 distant lands, would dwell upon its words and air with pleasure for no 
 other reason than because he liad so sung or heard them ; but not so his 
 son — not so his descendants : it must for them have a distinct self-existent 
 beauty of its own, or it will pass from their lips and language. If, there- 
 fore, Moore's songs are, as we are frequently told, to perpetuate the music 
 and poetry and romance of Ireland in distant climes, it must be for some 
 
CHAMBEKS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 other reason than because they were once heard on the banks of the Shannon, 
 or that they alhide mcidentally to Irish events, or bear Irish names. It is 
 not from individual local association that the song of the ' Captives of 
 Israel ' awakens a tide of gushing emotions in the Jewish soul. The song 
 embodies an enduring national sentiment, expresses and enshruies a 
 national lamentation and a national hope, in strains exclusively of Israel. 
 Do Moore's graceful, and tender, and witty melodies do this ? How many 
 of them are Irish songs in the sense in which those of Beranger are French 
 — those of Burns Scotch — idiomatic, national, racy of the soil? There 
 are not veiy many of them that even allude to Irisli topics, and those that 
 do — ' Oh ! breathe not his Name ! ' ' The Harp that once through Tara's 
 HaUs,' and a dozen others — are essentially English songs — always except- 
 ing the air, to the magical beauty of which English music has no pretence 
 — English in then- mode of thought and turn of expression. And the 
 gay, witty melodies — ' Wreathe the Bowl,' ' FiU the Bumpers Fair,' and 
 many others, not even excepting the brilliant song of ' Through Erin's 
 Isle ' — are theirs tlie wit and humour^the Irish wit and humour Avhich 
 the graphic pens of Edgeworth and others have made familiar to us, and of 
 which such ballads as ' Rory O'More ' give a faithful reflex, though a pale 
 and faint one ? It is just as much English, French, Italian w^it and humour 
 as Irish. Again, what distinctive Irisli character, or what distinctive national 
 sentiment is enshrined in the great mass of the more tender and graceful 
 melodies — ' Flow on, thou Shining River !' ' Fly not Yet,' ' The Young May 
 Moon,' ' Go where Glory waits Thee,' or ' Love's Young Dream ? ' Take, 
 for instance, the concluding verse of tlie last song, where a hackneyed 
 thought— common to all countries — by the aid of the beautiful Irish aii' 
 sinks with such a dying fall upon the ear — 
 
 ' Oh that hallowed form is ne'er forgot, 
 Which first love traced ; 
 It fondly haunts the greenest spot, 
 
 On memorv's waste : 
 'Tis odour fled, as soon as shed — 
 'Tis morning's winged dream — 
 'Tis a light that ne'er will shine again 
 On life's dull stream ! ' 
 
 The melody of these lines glides into the heart and sparkles in the 
 brain of young and old — harmonising with the fresh romance of youth, 
 and recalling to the aged the fiir-off music of their prime ; but surely the 
 sentiment the verses embody is cosmopolitan, not Irish, chiefly or espe- 
 cially ? Moore, whether for good or evil, lias, temporarily at least, 
 divorced Irish music — at all events, in the great majority of instances — from 
 Irish sentiment ; and the national airs, as illustrated and rendered vocal 
 by him, wiU recall to the exile and the wayfarer not memories of Ireland, 
 but of the home where tlie brother or the lover first heard a sister or a 
 mistress sing them — be tliat Iiome in the Green Isle, in Scotland, England, 
 or wherever else the English race dwell and English song is cultivated. In 
 his war-melodies Moore fails, not from coldness of national partisanship, 
 but from want of power. Compare the best of them with tlie ' Battle- 
 Song ' of Burns, and the diftcrence between the two men in liigh poetic 
 faculty will be at once apparent. The ' Minstrel Boy,' and ' Let Erin 
 12 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 Remember the Days of Old,' would find appropriate expression from a lady's 
 voice and a pianoforte accompaniment. Burns's ' War Ode ' would most 
 fitly resound from the lips of valiant men in the very shoclc and grasp of 
 battle, accompanied by the Hash of swords and the roar of cannon. 
 
 Moore is not the poet of strong emotions. Yet is there genuine pathos 
 in many of his beautiful songs ; but it is pathos of the gentle kind, such as 
 a cambric liandkerchief wipes away, to leave the eyes of the fair songstress 
 only tlie more radiant for such sweet tears, and revealing an expression, 
 or rather realising one of the most charming similes Moore himself has 
 ever penned — 
 
 ' Her floating eyes ! Oh, they resemble 
 Blue water-lilies, when the breeze 
 Is making the waves around them tremble !' 
 
 It must not, however, be foi-gotten, in estimating the value of Moore's 
 ballads, that before his time fashionable English songs were, almost without 
 exception, as far as words went, mere rubbish. He effected a valuable 
 reform in this depai-tment of poetry and verse, and hosts of imitators 
 maintain the improvement so well that it is sometimes difficult to distin- 
 guish between the productions of the master and those of some of his self- 
 constituted pupils and followers. His wit, however, cannot be so easily 
 imitated ; and there is certainly a wide difference between the classical and 
 polished fancies of Moore and the tinsel conceits of the mass of our 
 later song-writers. 
 
 In 1812 Moore determined on writing an Eastern tale in verse; and his 
 friend Mr Perry of the ' Chronicle ' accompanied him to Messrs Longman, 
 the publishers, to arrange for the sale of a work of which the proposed 
 author had not yet written a line nor even settled the subject. Mr 
 Perry appears to have been an invaluable intermediary. He proposed at 
 once, as the basis of the negotiation, that Moore should have the largest 
 sum ever given for such a work. ' That,' observed the Messrs Longman, 
 'was three thousand guineas.' And three thousand guineas it was ulti- 
 mately covenanted the price should be, thanks to Moore's reputation, 
 and the business abilities of his friend Perry. It was further agreed that 
 the manuscript should be furnished at whatever time might best suit the 
 author's convenience, and that Messrs Longman should accept it for better 
 for worse, and have no power or right to suggest alterations or changes of 
 any kind. The bargain was altogether a safe one on Moore's side, and 
 luckily it turned out equally profitable for the publishers. 
 
 In order to obtain the necessary leisure and quiet for the composition of 
 such a woi-k, Moore resolved to retire from the gaieties of Holland and Lans- 
 downe Houses, and other mansions of his distinguished patrons and friends, 
 to the seclusion and tranquillity of the country. He made choice of May- 
 field Cottage, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire, and not far distant from 
 Donnington Park, Lord Moira's country-seat, where an excellent library 
 was at his service. It may be as well to mention that when this eai'ly and 
 influential friend of Mooi'e went out to India as governor -general, he 
 apologised for not being able to present his poetical protege with anything 
 worth his acceptance in that country. ' But,' said Lord i\Ioira (IMarquis of 
 Hastings), 'I can perhaps barter a piece of India patronage against some- 
 thing at home that miglit suit you.' This offer, which would have gravely 
 
 13 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 compromised Moore with his Wliig friends, he -with some asperity declined. 
 The governor- general went to India, and Moore retired to Derbyshire, 
 remaining, with the exception of his Bermudan registrarship, placeless. 
 This offer and refusal Moore communicated by letter to Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Mayfield Cottage, when the poet and his wife arrived to view it, wore 
 anything but an inviting aspect. ' It was a poor place,' Moore wi-ote, 
 ' little better than a barn ; but we at once took it, and set about making it 
 habitable and comfortable.' He now commenced the formidable task of 
 working himself up into a proper Oriental state of mind for the accom- 
 plishment of his work. The first part of this process consisted m reading 
 every work of authority that treated of the topography, climate, zoology, 
 ornithology, entomology, floriculture, horticulture, agriculture, manners, 
 -customs, religion, ceremonies, and languages of the East. Asiatic registers, 
 D'Herbelot, Jones, Tavernier, Flemming, and a host of other wi-iters, were 
 industriously consulted; and so perfect did Mr Moore become in these 
 various branches of knowledge, that a great Eastern traveller, after reading 
 ' Lalla Eookh,' and being assured that tlie poet had never visited the 
 scenes in which he placed his stories, remarked that if it were so, a man 
 might leani as much of those countries by readmg books as by riding on 
 the back of a camel ! This, however, was but a part of the requisite 
 preparation. ' I am,' says Mr Moore, ' a slow, painstaking workman, and 
 at once very imaginative and very matter-of-fact ;' and he goes on to say 
 that the slightest exterior interruption or contradiction to the imaginary 
 state of things he was endeavouring to conjure up in his bram threw all his 
 ideas into confusion and disarray. It was necessary, therefore, to surround 
 himself in some way or other with an Eastern atmosphere. How this could 
 be managed in the face of the snows of three Derbyshhe wmters, during 
 which the four stories which compose 'Lalla liookh' were wi-itten, it is 
 difficult to conceive, and perhaps to the fact that it could not be effectually 
 done, must be ascribed the ill success which beset the poet durmg an 
 entire twelvemonth. Vainly did he string together peris and bulbuls, 
 and sunny apples of Totkahar : the inspiration would not come. It was 
 aU ' Double, double, toil and trouble,' to no purpose. Each story, however 
 trippingly it began, soon flagged, drooped, and, less fortimate than that of 
 
 ' The bear and fiddle, 
 
 Begun and broke off in tlie middle,' 
 
 expired of collapse after a brief career of a few score lines only, frequently 
 nothing like so many. Some of these fragments have since been published. 
 One of them, ' The Peri's Daughter,' ran to some length, and is rather pretty 
 and sparkling. 
 
 We subjoin a brief specimen. A peri had married the 'rightful Prince 
 of Ormuz,' and must be supposed to have left this heir-apparent de jure 
 to the crown of Ormuz, as after a time she comes floating back to her 
 husband's bower with a charming present in her care : — 
 
 * Within the boat a baby slept, 
 Like a young pearl within its shell, 
 While one, who seemed of rijier years, 
 But not of earth or earth-like spheres. 
 Her watch beside the slumberer kept j 
 U 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 Gracefully waving in her hand 
 The feathers of some holy bird, 
 AVith which from time to time she stirr'd 
 The fragrant air, and coolly fann'd 
 The baby's brow, or brush'd away 
 The butterflies that bright and blue 
 As on the mountains of Malay 
 Around the sleeping infant flew. 
 And now the fairy boat hath stopp'd 
 Beside the bank — the nymph has dropp'd 
 Her golden anchor in the stream.' 
 
 Here concluded both tlie peri's voyage and the ' Peri's Daughter,' both 
 muse and boat coming alike to a dead stop ; and Mr Moore, finding the 
 'Peri's Daughter' — spite of his most desperate eiibrts to get on — immovably 
 aground, abandoned the lady, the chUd, the ferry-boat, and the golden 
 anchor, notwithstanding the rightful prmce was, and is to this day, 
 anxiously but vamly expecting his peri-wife and semi-peri child. 
 
 This uninspiring state of things seemed mterminable — the three thousand 
 gumeas were as far off as ever ; and apprehension of the necessity of a 
 bodily journey to the East, in order to get at the genuine ' atmosphere,' 
 must have suggested itself, when a gleam of light, in the idea of the 
 ' Fii-e-Worshippers,' broke m upon the poet ; the multifarious collection of 
 Eastern materials deposited m the chambers of his brain arranged them- 
 selves in flowing numbers, without encountering any further accident ; and 
 at the end of three years ' Lalla Rookh' was ushered before an admiring world. 
 Its success was immense, and the work ran rapidly through many editions. 
 ' Paradise and the Peri,' the second story, although not so much praised as 
 the first and third, is, we fancy, much the most read of the four ; and from 
 its light, ringing tone, its delicate and tender sentunent, its gracefid and 
 musical flow, will always be a principal favourite with the admirers of 
 Thomas Moore's poetry. Amongst the numerous testimonials to the merits 
 of ' Lalla Rookh' there is one, pridefully recorded by the author, that must 
 have compensated hun a thousandfold for the coarse remark of Hazlitt, 
 that Moore ought not to have published ' Lalla Eookh' even for three 
 thousand guineas. Its chief incidents were represented by tableaux vkans 
 at the Chateau -Royal, Berlin, in 1822, by, amongst others, the imperial 
 and royal personages whose names appear in the following extract from a 
 printed French programme of the entertainments : — 
 
 * Fadladin, Grand Nasir, - Comte Haach, Mare'chale de Cour. 
 
 Aliris, Roi de Bucharie, - S. A. I. Le Grand Due Nicholas de Russie. 
 
 Lalla Roukh, - - - S. A. I. La Grande Duchesse. 
 
 Arungzebed, le Grand Mogul, S. A. R. Le Prince Guillaume (Frere du Roi.) 
 
 Abdallah, Pere d' Aliris, - S. A. R. Le Due de Cumberland. 
 
 La Reine, son epouse, - S. A. R. La Princesse Louise de Radzivil.' 
 
 Some portions of the scenery were magnificent, especially the gate of 
 Eden, with its crystal bar, and occasional glimpses of splendour jetting 
 through and falling upon the repentant Peri. At the close of the enter- 
 tainments. Son Altesse Imperiale la Grande Duchesse, and now Empress 
 of all the Russias, made, it is said, the following speech : — ' Is it, then, all 
 over ? Ai'e we now at the close of all that has given us so much delight ? 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 And lives there no poet who -will impart to others and to future times some 
 notion of the happiness we have enjoyed this evening ?' In answer to this 
 n-resistible appeal one of the actors, the poetical Baron de la Motte Fouque, 
 stepped gallantly forward, and vowed that he would give the poem to the 
 world in a German dress. On hearing which the Empress Lalla Rookh 
 ' graciously smiled.' This story, we beg to observe, rests for its authority 
 on the preface to Monsieur Le Baron de la j\Iotte Fouque's translation, 
 and whether, consequently, the speech of the Grand Duchess is a veritable 
 imperial speech or a trade puff we cannot take upon ourselves, from internal 
 evidence alone, to determine. 
 
 It has been already remarked that the local descriptions in ' Lalla Rookh' 
 have been pronounced by excellent authority to be surprisingly accurate. 
 The trees and the birds are all called by their proper names, the right sort 
 of perfumes are used, eyelids and finger-nails are stained of the correct 
 colour, Eastern ceremonial is truly described, and men in these tales wear 
 turbans and swear by Allah, with many other accuracies of the same kind. 
 All this is said to constitute their beauty and excellence as Oriental 
 romances. With all proper deference to the critical authority which thus 
 pronounces, we beg to demur to such a dictum. The mechanical and 
 elaborate accuracy so much extolled relates only to the dress, the externals 
 of Eastern society, and does not touch its life, its peculiar modes of thought, 
 impulse, action. If to dress people in Eastern clothes, and to take care 
 that neither they in their speech, nor the author in his descriptions, miscall 
 anything, nor make any considerable blunder in the conventional language 
 of ceremony, be to write an Eastern tale, then are Racine's Frenchmen, 
 witli classical tropes and figures in their mouths, and tunics and togas on 
 their backs — Pyrrhus, Orestes, Britannicus— true Greeks and Romans, and 
 Shakspeare's Coriolanus, Brutus, Antony, Avho talk very little mythology, 
 and utter not a few anachronisms, are not true tj^es — real living incarna- 
 tions of the Roman character and spirit. Neither is Juliet — in whose glow- 
 ing, impassioned speech we hear nothmg about mjTtles, or sunny skies, 
 or Madonas — a true Italian woman ! Surely that which stamps men 
 and women, Greeks, Italians, Turks, is the character which religion, 
 manners, usages, climate, institutions, impress upon their minds, giving 
 to each separate, well-defined nationality its peculiar ideas, expression, 
 action ! Judged by this test, where is the Orientalism of these tales ? The 
 actors in them, so far as they have any individuality, are all Europeans — 
 chiefly English and Irish. Hafed talks lofty patriotism, just as Captain 
 Rock would had he the faculty of verse — Al Hassan is the stereotyped 
 European tyrant. The love of Azib has not a tint of Orientalism about 
 it ; and Zelica, an enthusiastic young lady, cruelly deceived by a monster — 
 not an uncommon result, we grieve to say iiere, although not often attended 
 by such extremely fatal results as in her case — has, mucli to her credit, 
 notions of purity and marriage entirely in accordance with those of the 
 thousands of fair readers who have wept through the twenty editions of her 
 griefs. The Peri ! Well, perhaps we must let tlie East have tlie Peri, 
 although even she looks at times remarkably like a young and gentle Irish 
 Sister of Mercy. As forFadladeen, he is a very ' old courtier of the Queen's,' 
 and Mokanna dates as far back as the invention of minor theatres and blue 
 tlame. No — no ; ' Lalla Rookh ' sparkles with pretty fancies we admit, and 
 16 
 
THOMAS MOOKIC. 
 
 contains passages of considerable l)cauty, but Oriental, in the meaning which 
 ought to attach to the word, the work is not. Nor do we hold that the 
 poetic fame of the writer of the ' Melodies' will be at all enhanced by it as 
 a whole, although Paradise and the Peri will perhaps always be attractive 
 for innocent and gentle natures. It is in the more impassioned portions of 
 this series of poems that Moore chiefly fails. The light wings of his lyric 
 muse are not litted for cither lofty or lengthened flights. A brief, gay 
 theme, a lively or tender sentiment breathed through a song — these are 
 Moore's triumphs, and in tliis varied, if confined, range of composition, he 
 has no superior, perhaps, taken altogether, no equal ; but of highly imagina- 
 tive or sustained poetry lie is hopelessly incapaljle ; and when he c/of,? attempt 
 to scale the lofty heights of human passion, the descent is lamentable. It 
 were easy to give proofs of this from the tragic portions of ' Lalla Kookh, ' 
 but the task is an ungracious one, and we decline it. Still one may hold 
 this opinion of the comparative inferiority of these poems without sub- 
 scribing to Hazlitt's remark — that Moore ought not, for his fame's sake, to 
 have written them for three thousand guineas. Whatever is vital in his 
 writings will survive, spite of the earthy matter with which it may be for a 
 time associated and partially confounded. It is difficult besides to pro- 
 nounce dogmatically upon what a man who has his bread to earn should 
 not do for three thousand guineas, if it may be done without moral ofience. 
 Mr Hazlitt could not be entitled to pronounce such a judgment until after 
 he had himself been similarly tempted, and had not fallen. 
 
 An odd anecdote illustrative of Moore's increasing and widely-spread 
 fame may here be given. He was surprised one day at receiving from 
 Sweden an offer to be elected a knight of the ancient Order of St Joachim. 
 This distinction, it was announced in the missive, which purported to come 
 from the chancellor of the order, was tendered as a mark of the admira- 
 tion entertained by the honourable fraternity for his A'ery charming poetry. 
 Moore was puzzled — mystified. He had never before heard of the Order 
 of St Joachim, and vehemently suspected some kind friend of seeking to 
 play him a malicious trick. St Joachim ! Might it not turn out to be St 
 Jok'em? He, however, stealthily inquired amongst persons versed in 
 knightly orders, and was informed that there really was a Swedish 
 knighthood of the name mentioned, and that several presentable persons 
 had belonged to it. Still, after due deliberation, he resolved to decline the 
 generously-proffered honour. It was too hazardous. Sir Joke'm Moore ! 
 He was a man to face the battery of a three-decker cheerfully rather than 
 risk the possibility of such a sobriquet as that ! 
 
 The bow so long bent required relaxation, and in the first flush of his 
 gi'eat success, while his ears were still ringing with the applauses, and 
 his nostrils still titillating with the incense which the press showered upon 
 ' Lalla Rookli,' pronounced by general consent — ' when they do agree, their 
 imanimity is wonderful ' — to be unrivalled as a work of melody, beauty, 
 and power, Moore set out on a continental tour with his friend and 
 brother-poet Rogers. On his return to England he published the ' Fudge 
 Family ' — not a very brilliant performance, and which, with the exception 
 of its political hits, is but an imitation of ' Les Anglaises Pour Eire.' He 
 also worked at the ' Melodies,' and wrote articles for the ' Edinburgh 
 Review.' In 1818 one of the most pleasing incidents in his life occurred. 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 A public dinner was given in liis honour at Dublin, the Earl of Charle- 
 mont in the chair — the poet's venerable father, Garret Moore, beuig pre- 
 sent on the chairman's right hand, the honoured and delighted witness of 
 the enthusiastic welcome bestowed upon his son by his warm-hearted 
 fellow-countrymen. Moore made a graceful, cleverly-turned speech ; but 
 he was no orator : few literary men are. He could not think upon his 
 legs ; and you could see by the abstraction of his look that he was not 
 speaking in the popular sense, but reciting what had previously been care- 
 fully composed and committed to memory. Such speeches frequently read 
 well, but if long, they are terrible things to sit and hear. 
 
 The following year Moore accompanied Lord John Eussell on a conti- 
 nental tour, taking the road of the Simplou to Italy. Lord John went 
 on to Genoa, and Moore directed his steps toward Venice, for the purpose 
 of seeing Byron. It was during this visit that the noble lord made 
 Moore a present of his personal memoirs, for publication after the wi-iter's 
 death. Moore gives the following account of the transaction : — ' We were 
 conversing together when Byron rose and went out. In a minute or two he 
 returned carrying a white leathern bag. " Look here ! " he said, holding it 
 up, " this would be worth something to Murray, though you, I daresay, would 
 not give sixpence for it." " What is it? " I asked. " My life and adven- 
 tures," he answered. On hearing this I raised my hands in a gesture. 
 " It is not a thing that can be published during my life, but you may 
 have it if you like : then do whatever you please with it." In taking the 
 bag, and tliankmg him most warmly, I added : " This wiU make a nice 
 legacy for my little Tom, who shall astonish the latter end of the nine- 
 teenth century with it." He then added : " You may shew it to any of 
 your friends you think worthy of it." This is as nearly as I can recollect 
 aU that passed.' These memoirs Moore sold to Mr Murray for two thou- 
 sand guineas, but at Lord Byron's death, his executors and family induced 
 Moore to repay Mr Murray, and destroy the manuscript. The precise 
 reasons which decided Moore to yield to the solicitations of the deceased 
 lord's friends and family are not known, but there can be little doubt that 
 they were urgent, and in a moral sense irresistible. A man does not 
 usually throw away two thousand guineas for a caprice, even of his 
 own, much less for that of others. It is not likely that the world has 
 lost much by the destruction of these memoirs. Lord Byron's life is 
 sufficiently wi'itten in his published works for all piu'poses save that of 
 the gratification of a morbid curiosity and vulgar appetite for scandal. 
 
 During the journey to and from Italy, Moore sketched the ' Rhymes on 
 the Road,' which were soon afterwards published. There is notliing 
 remarkable about them except his abuse of Rousseau and Madame Warens, 
 a propos of a visit to Les Charmettes. Moore was violently assailed for 
 this by writers, who held that as he had himself translated Anacrcon, and 
 written juvenile songs of an immoral tendency, he was thereby incapacitated 
 from fy, fying naughty people in his maturcr and better years. This seems 
 hardly a reasonable maxim, and would, if strictly interpreted and enforced, 
 silence much grave and learned eloquence, oral as well as written. His 
 denunciations of the eccentric and faucitul author of the ' Confessions,' wliich 
 twenty years before he would probably have called the enunciations of 
 * Virtue with her zone loosened,' were certainly violent and unmeasiu'ed, 
 ]8 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 and not perhaps iii the very best taste. The following little bit is genuine 
 Moore : — 
 
 * And doubtless 'mong the grave and good, 
 
 And gentle of their neighbourhood, 
 
 If known at all, they were but known 
 
 As strange, low people — low and bad. 
 
 Madame herself 
 
 But it is scarcely Avorth -while continuing the quotation. The man in 
 Goldsmith's play had nothing like the intense horror of anything low which 
 Moore had, and this with him, if a weakness, was also a safeguard. The 
 pity and indignation witli which, now in his fortieth year of discretion, he 
 looked upon literary talent if applied to other than pui-e and holy purposes, 
 he traces in quite tiery lines— 
 
 ' Out on the craft! I'd rather be 
 
 One of those hinds that round me tread. 
 
 With just enough of sense to see 
 
 The noonday sun that's o'er ray head, 
 
 Than thus with high-trust genius curst, 
 
 That hath no heart for its foundation, 
 
 Be all at once that's brightest, worst, 
 
 Sublimest, meanest in creation.' 
 
 Poor Jean Jacques had little of the ' sublime ' to boast of, and we have met 
 in otir time with much meaner people than the half- mad pauper, as Sir 
 Moore pleasantly terms him. 
 
 During the joiurney to Italy Lord John Russell hinted to his companion 
 that he seriously contemplated retiring from public life. Mr Moore was 
 distressed by the contemplation of such a possibility, and addressed a 
 miscellaneous poem soon afterwards to his lordship. It is called a 
 ' Remonstrance,' and concludes with the following somewhat bizarre 
 verse : — 
 
 ' Like the boughs of that laurel by Delphic decree. 
 Set apart for the fane and its service dirine, 
 So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree, 
 Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine.' 
 
 This is certainly not one of Moore's most brilliant hits. 
 
 Pecimiary difficidties, arising from the misconduct of his deputy in 
 Bermuda, now threatened Mr Moore, and flight to France — for process 
 against him had issued from tlie Coiu-t of Admhalty — became immediately 
 necessary. The deputy-registrar, from whom Mr Moore had exacted no 
 securities, had m.ade free with the cargoes of several American vessels, and 
 immediately decamped with the proceeds, leaving his principal liable, it 
 was feared, to the serious amount of six thousand poimds. Active and 
 successful efforts were, however, made by Moore's friends to compromise 
 the claims, and tdtimately they were all adjusted by the payment of one 
 thousand guineas. Three hundred pounds towards this sum were con- 
 tributed by the delmquent's uncle, a London merchant ; so that Moore's 
 ultimate loss was seven hundred and fifty poimds only. During the progress, 
 and at the close of these negotiations, numerous offers of pecuniary assist- 
 ance were addressed to Mr Moore, all of which he gratefully but firmly 
 declined. 
 
 Whilst the matter was pending, Moore resided near Paris at La Butte 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers foe the people. 
 
 Coaslln, on the road to Belle Vue. This was also the residence of some 
 agreeable Spanish friends of the poet. Kenny the dramatic Avriter lived also 
 in the neighbonrhood. Here Moore composed his ' Loves of the Angels,' 
 passing his days, when they were fine, in walkmg up and down the park of 
 Saint Cloud, ' polishing verses and making them run easy,' and the evenings 
 in singing Italian duets with his Spanish friends. Previous to leaving Paris 
 at the close of 1822, he attended a banquet got up in his honour by many 
 of the most distinguished and wealthy of the English residents in that gay 
 city. His speech on this occasion was a high-flo'mi panegp'ic upon 
 England and everything English, and gi-ievously astonished Byron, Shelley, 
 Hunt, and others, when they read it in Italy. Either they thought the tone 
 of some of the Irish melodies was wrong, or the speech was. They did not 
 reflect that a judicious speaker always adapts his speech to his audience. 
 Apt words in apt places are the essentials of true eloquence. 
 
 Moore's publishers' account, delivered in the following June, exhibited a 
 very pleasing aspect. He was credited with one thousand pounds for the 
 ' Loves of the Angels,' and five hundred pounds for ' Fables for the Holy 
 Alliance.' These were the halcyon days of poetry. There was truth as 
 well as mirthful jest in Sir Walter Scott's remai'k a few yeai's afterwards, 
 in reply to Moore's observation, ' that hardly a magazine is now published 
 but contains verses which would once have made a reputation.' ' Ecod ! ' 
 exclaimed the baronet, ' we were very lucky to come before these fellows ! ' 
 
 The ' Loves of the Angels ' is throughout but a prolonged, melodious 
 echo of Mr Moore's previous love -poetry. The angels talk of woman's 
 eyes, lips, voices, grace, precisely after the manner of his amatory songs. 
 The opening lines, which are flowing and pretty, seem a kmd of peri- 
 phrasis of the Hebrew verse — 'When the morning stars sang together, 
 and the sons of God shouted for joy ' — 
 
 ' 'Twas when the world was in its prime, 
 When the fresh stars had just begun 
 Their race of glory, and young Time 
 Told his first birthdays by the sun.' 
 
 The three angel-stories, told in very graceful verse, are gromaded upon 
 rabbinical and mythological fables and precedents, and excite but the 
 faintest interest in the reader. It is difficult to remember anything about 
 them five minutes after their perusal — the sensation produced resembling 
 that which one feels after listening for half an hour to the silvery murmur- 
 ing of a brook in the summer month of June. Just as dreamy and inar- 
 ticulate as that sound is the musical and cadenced flow of love-verses, 
 destitute, or nearly so, of interest, true tenderness, or passion. In proof 
 of our assertion that this poem is but a repetition of Mr Moore's early and 
 earthly painting of female beauty, -we have only to quote the following 
 lines from the second angel's story : — 
 
 ' You both remember well the dnj, 
 When unto Eden's new-made bowers 
 Alia invoked the bright array 
 Of his supreme angelic powers, 
 To witness the one wonder yet. 
 Beyond man, angel, star, or sun, 
 He must achieve, er:; lie could set 
 His seal upon the world as done ; 
 20 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 To see that last perfection rise — 
 That crowning of Creation's birth — 
 "When 'mid the worship anil surprise 
 Of circling angels, Woman's eyes 
 First opened upon heaven and earth. 
 And from their lids a thrill was sent. 
 That through each living spirit went, 
 Like first light through the firmament. 
 * * * * 
 
 Can you forget her blush, when round 
 Through Eden's lone, enchanted ground, 
 She looked and saw the sea, the skies, 
 And heard the rush of many a wing 
 On high behests then vanishing. 
 And saw the last few angel eyes 
 Still ling'ring, mine among the rest, 
 Reluctant leaving scenes so blest ?' 
 
 In this passage mere jingling exaggeration supplies the place of 
 poetical enthusiasm ; and were it not migenerous to quote Milton twice 
 against Moore, we should be tempted to contrast it with the awakening of 
 the true Eve beside the fountain in the ' Paradise Lost.' But the reader's 
 mmd will have spontaneously referred to it, and that must suffice. As 
 this is the last of Mr Moore's poetry we shall have to notice, we would 
 fain take leave of it with a more favourable specimen. The foUowmg lines 
 from the close of the book are pleasing, and, moreover, possess a touch 
 of human feeling. One of the angels, we should say, is condemned to 
 waste his immortality on earth ; and to console hun in his wanderings, 
 the fair one for whom he has temporarily lost heaven is to be his undying 
 companion : — 
 
 ' In what lone region of the earth 
 These pilgrims now may roam or dwell, 
 God and his angels, who look forth 
 To watch their steps, alone can tell. 
 But should we in our wanderings 
 Meet a young pair whose beauty wants 
 But the adornment of bright wings 
 To look like Heaven's inhabitants ; 
 Who shine where'er they tread, and yet 
 Are humble in their earthly lot, 
 As is the waj'side violet 
 That shines unseen, and were it not 
 For its sweet breath, would be forgot ; 
 Whose hearts in every thought are one. 
 Whose voices utter the same wills. 
 Answering as echo doth some tone 
 Of fairy music 'mong the hills — 
 So like itself we seek in vain 
 Which is the echo, which the strain ; 
 Whose piety is love, whose love, 
 Though close as 'twere their soul's embrace. 
 Is not of earth but from above ; 
 Like two fair mirrors face to face. 
 Whose light from one to the other throwa 
 Is Heaven's reflection and their own : 
 Should we e'er meet with aught so fair. 
 So perfect here, we may be sure 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 'Tis Zaraph and his bride we see ; 
 And call young lorers round to view 
 The pilgrim pair, as they pursue 
 Their pathway towards Eternity.' 
 
 In 1825 Moore paid a visit to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. The 
 meeting was a cordial one, and the Baronet, Mr Lockhart informs us, pro- 
 nounced Mr Moore * to be the prettiest warbler' he ever knew, "\\liat 
 somewhat diminishes the value of this praise is, that, according to the 
 warbler himself. Sir Walter — but the thing seems incredible — had no 
 genuine love or taste for music, except indeed for the Jacobite chorus of 
 ' Hey tuttie, tattie,' now indissolubly united to ' Scots wha hae wi' Wal- 
 lace bled!' which, when sung after supper by the company, with hands 
 clasped across each other, and waving up and down, he hugely delighted 
 in. Scott accompanied Moore to Edinburgh, and both of them, with 
 Mr Lockhart and his lady, went to the theatre on the same evening that it 
 was honoured by the presence of the celebrated Mrs Coutts, afterwards 
 Duchess of St Albans. Soon after their at first unmarked entrance, the 
 attention of the audience, which had till then been engrossed by the lady- 
 millionaire, was directed towards the new-comers, and according to a 
 newspaper report, copied and published by Mr Moore in one of his last 
 prefaces, considerable excitement immediately prevailed. * Eh ! ' exclaimed 
 a man in the pit — ^'eh! yon's Sir Walter, wi' Lockhart and his wife; 
 and wha 's the wee body wi' the pawkie een ? Wow, but it 's Tam Moore 
 just!' ' Scott— Scott ! Moore — Moore!' immediately resounded through 
 the house. Scott would not rise : Moore did, and bowed several times 
 with his hand on his heart. Scott afterwards acknowledged the plaudits 
 of his countrymen, and the orchestra durmg the rest of the evening played 
 alternately Scotch and Irish airs. 
 
 At the request of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who was desirous that he 
 should reside near him, Moore at this period took a journey into ATiltshire, 
 to look at a house in the village of Bromham, near Bowood, the seat of the 
 noble ]Marquis, which it was thought might suit him. He, however, pro- 
 nounced it to be too large, and declined taking it. On his return he told 
 his Avife there was a cottage in a thickly-wooded lane in the neighbourhood 
 to let, which he thought might be made to do. Mrs Moore immediately left 
 town, secured it, and there they shortly afterwards took up their permanent 
 abode. They have greatly improved and enlarged Sloperton Cottage ; and 
 covered almost as its front and two porches are with roses and clematis, 
 with the trim miniature lawn and garden in front, along which runs a raised 
 walk enclosed with evergreens, from which a fine view is obtained, it pre- 
 sents an entirely satisfactory aspect of well-ordered neatness, prettiness, and 
 comfort. It is situated witliin about two miles of Devizes, and is within 
 easy reach of the country residence of Lord Lansdowne. It was here lie 
 wrote the biographies of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Byi'on, and 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of which we need only remark that they are 
 industriously compiled and pleasantly wi-itten. 
 
 In 1824, five years before the passing of the Catholic Relief Act, Moore 
 publislied ' The Memoirs of Captain Rock, written by Himself.' It is a 
 bitter, rhapsodical, and of course one-sided commentary upon the govern- 
 ment of Ireland by England, not only since the Reformation, but from the 
 22 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 time of Pope Adrian's famous bull, Avliich is t^^-isted into an exclusively 
 English grievance and insult. Captain Rock, assisted at the commence- 
 ment by a sour gentleman in a flaxen wig and green spectacles, is of course 
 the grim mouthpiece through which Mr Moore pours the amauris liquidus of 
 his unpent wrath upon the devoted heads of the oppressors of his country. 
 Truly a terrible fellow, if one were to believe him in serious earnest, is 
 this tremendous captam — 
 
 ' Through Connaught, Leinster, Ulster, Munster, 
 He 'a the boy to make the fun stir.' 
 
 But to take him at his word would be a very great mistake indeed, and 
 especially, we are sure, annoying, if not alarming to himself. He is not 
 half such a ten-ible desperado as he looks, for all his cut- throat- looking beard 
 and whiskers. They are shams put on for the nonce to hide a decidedly 
 festive physiognomy — ' a mouth good-humoured, with dimples, and a nose 
 not aquiline, but,' says the literal painter, ' with a character of scenting feasts 
 and orchards.' These are not the features of men fitted to the pulling 
 down of strongholds and plucking kings by the beard. In truth, rebellion 
 was never at all Lu ^Ir Moore's line. It lay in his way ; he foolishly 
 stumbled over it ; and instantly cut its acquaintance, except in so far as a 
 pretty song or musical sentiment may be held to constitute the continuance 
 of a tender and fragile connection. A poet less likely than Moore to 
 kindle a nation into a blaze never perhaps existed. ' Revolutions,' said 
 Napoleon, ' are not made with rose-water.' Nor with rose-verse neither, 
 fortunately, or the Bard of Erin might have found himself suddenly raised 
 upon bucklers to a position in which he would have made the strangest 
 figure, and one too as difficult to get down from as to climb up to. Happily, 
 much of the injustice of which Captain Eock is made to declaim so 
 scholarly against has been remedied since the book was wi-itten ; and as the 
 in-itating memories of the dead and biu-ied past, fade away, we may hope to 
 see no more editions of a gentleman who, however amiably disposed in 
 reality, certainly talks in a very fierce and alarming manner. The style of 
 the book, moreover, proves very clearly that its author, unlike Moliere's 
 ' Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' had not been talking prose aU his life ; for 
 intelligible, honest prose it is not. Neither is it verse ; for the lines are not 
 cut into quantities and rhymed, but it has aU the tropes and figures which 
 are found in certam kinds of poetry. Changes in the personality of the 
 vice-regal government are said to resemble Penelope's web ! The ignoring 
 the existence of an Irish Catholic — Meres Hibernus — by certain of the 
 penal statutes, finds a parallel in Slilton's devils, who occupied no space in 
 Pandemonium. The death of Lord Stralibrd, with which wicked or 
 righteous deed the Irish certainly had nothing to do, is like the awful 
 mementos in the Egyptian banqueting-rooms — placed there to chasten 
 pride and check the exuberance of riot ; and throughout the book Cleo- 
 patra and the Rapparees, Pericles and Irish Grand-Juries, Limerick and 
 Pharsalia, Orangemen and the Bucentaur of Venice, jostle each other in 
 the oddest manner conceivable ; presenting a partycoloured melange 
 which, but for the sad truths it occasionally sets forth, and the vigorous 
 blows now and then struck at enactments which no longer stain the 
 statute-book, would be purely ludicrous. 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 The next considerable work of Moore's — for his light, Parthian warfare 
 in the politics of the hour continued as usual, and with about the same 
 success, as in his younger days — was ' The Travels of an Irish Gentleman 
 in Search of a Religion' — a perfectly serious and earnest book in defence of 
 the Roman Catholic faith. There is a vast amount of erudition displayed 
 in its pages ; and remembering how slow and painstaking a workman 
 Moore declared himself to be, it must, one would suppose, have been the 
 work of years. The author's object is to prove, from the writings of the 
 early fathei'S and other evidence, that the peculiar dogmas and discipline 
 and practice of the Church of Rome date from the apostolic age, or at least 
 from the first centuries of the Christian era, and are consequently true. 
 This the writer does entirely, at least to his own satisfaction, which is the 
 case, we believe, with controversial writers generally. The book concludes 
 with the following words, addressed to the Catholic Church, which his 
 after-life proves to have been earnest and sincere : — ' In the shadow of thy 
 sacred mysteries let my soul henceforth repose, remote alike from the 
 infidel who scoffs at their darkness, and the rash believer Avho would pry 
 into its recesses.' 
 
 These imaginary travels were published anonymously, but the book was 
 always known to be Moore's. Apart from any other evidence, the poetic 
 translations of portions of the writings of ancient bishops would have 
 amply sufficed to determine the authorship. Without adverting to the 
 elegant and tender stanzas addressed to ' A Fallen Virgin' by St Basil, 
 which the gravest bishop might be proud of, Avho, let us ask, save the 
 author of the ' Loves of the Angels,' would have raked amongst the 
 homilies of St Chrysostom till he lit upon the following one, and who but 
 Moore would have paraphrased it into such verse ? The homily selected is 
 one which is said to have been composed by St Chrysostom in reprobation 
 of the ladies of Constantmople, who in his day, before the cross had sunk 
 before the crescent in the Eastern metropolis, were accustomed to go too 
 finely dressed to chui-ch. Moore's version begins thus : — 
 
 ' Why come ye to the House of Prayer 
 With jewels in your braided hair ? 
 And wherefore is the House of God 
 By glittering feet profanely trod ? 
 As if, vain things, ye came to keep 
 Some festival, and not to weep. 
 » * * 
 
 Vainly to angered Heaven ye raise 
 Luxurious hands where diamonds blaze, 
 And she who conies in broidered veil 
 To weep her frailty, still is frail.' 
 
 This is very well, and may likely enough have been fairly rendered from 
 the venerable bishop's homily ; but if the following be not pretty nearly 
 unadulterated JMoore — Chrysostom's prose bearing about the same propor- 
 tion to the verse as Falstaff's ha'porth of bread to the intolerable quantity of 
 sack— we have been strangely misled as to the stern and ascetic character of 
 the celebrated opponent and victim of tlic Empress Eudoxia. Chrysostom 
 is made to reply as follows to the supposed excuses of the more plainly- 
 dressed females of his congregation : — 
 24 
 
THOMAS MOOEE, 
 
 ' Rehold ! thou say'st my gown is plain, 
 My sandals are of texture rude : 
 Is this like one whose heart is vain. 
 Like one who dresses to be wooed ? 
 Deceive not thus, young maid, thy heart; 
 For far more oft in sinii)le gown 
 Doth beauty play the Tempter's part 
 Than in brocades of rich renown ; 
 And homeliest garb hath oft been found, 
 When typed and fitted to the shape. 
 To deal such shafts of mischief round 
 As wisest men can scarce escape.' 
 
 There is nothing objectionable in these lines in themselves, nor in these 
 which INIr Moore attributes, though with some hesitation, to St Basil — 
 ' Not charming only when she talks, 
 
 Her very silence speaks and shines — 
 
 Love gilds her pathway when she walks. 
 
 And lights her couch when she reclines.' 
 
 But it does startle one to find such words placed in the mouths of the great 
 bishops of Constantinople and Cesarea, who, according to other authorities, 
 were hardly conscious of the existence of any beauty save that of holiness, 
 or that there was any deformity in the world but that of sin. The style 
 of these travels is a great improvement on the ornate slipshod of Captain 
 Eock. Great liveliness of manner is exhibited thi-oughout, and some of 
 the political hits are capital. 
 
 The last, and, according to Moore's own authority, one of the most suc- 
 cessful of his works, as far as a great sale constitutes success, was the prose 
 romance of ' The Epicurean.' There is much learning displayed in this book, 
 and it contains some striking descriptions. We also meet occasionally with 
 passages of sunple and natural beauty and eloquence, the more striking and 
 effective from the contrast they afford to the cumbrous and ambitious 
 rhetoric through which they are sparsely scattered. It was commenced in 
 verse, and gradually reached to a considerable length in that form, but ulti- 
 mately, like the ' Peri's Daughter,' broke down irretrievably. No one who 
 respects Mr Moore's poetical fame will regret this after reading the fragment 
 which has been published. ' The Epicurean ' is a moral and religious story ; 
 and it has this great merit, that it has very little of the merely sensuous 
 imagery in which Mr Moore generally indulged. The plot is of the most 
 commonplace kind, and the conduct of the story so entirely languid and 
 lulling, that it may be freely indulged in without the slightest fear of ill con- 
 sequences by the most nervous and impressionable lady-reader in the three 
 kingdoms. Let us glance it through. The hero is Alciphron, the chief of the 
 sect of Epicureans established at Athens. Those philosophic votaries of 
 Pleasure, whilst following out the essential principle of their founder — a 
 dangerous deceit, if there was ever one, plausibly and ingeniously as it has 
 been defended, necessarily rejecting, as it does, self-sacrifice, without which 
 virtue is a mere sound — these votaries, we repeat, whilst adhering strictly to 
 the principle of their founder, that pleasure is the highest good, had 
 neglected his subsidiary, and, strictly speaking, inconsequent teachings, that 
 the highest pleasure must be found in the gi-atification of the purest and 
 simplest tastes. Upon that — the goal to be obtained, pleasure, being the 
 prime end of the philosophy — each disciple would of course have his 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ovm. opinion. "Well, Alciplu'on had di'unk deep of ' pleasure,' had drained 
 the cup of indulgence to its dregs, and was unsatisfied. Man delighted not 
 him, nor woman neither, and he was weaiy of aU things beneath the sun. A 
 passionate longing to throw off the burthen of the mystery, which to his 
 eyes hung like a pall over a world without a pm*pose, an existence without 
 an object, jjossessed and consumed him. 
 
 The ' perhaps' of Hamlet incarnated, or, more coiTectly speaking, 
 shadowed forth in that divine soliloquy, was with Alciphron, as with all of 
 us who think, 'the question.' Finally, determined by a dream, he journeys 
 to Egypt, with a view to discover if possible the ' sacred iaterior meaning ' 
 of the religion of its priests, and ascertain if therein lay the key to the 
 riddle of the universe. Alciphron, not long after his aiTival in Egj^t, 
 penetrates by accident into the subterranean Elysium of the priests, beneath 
 the PjTamids. Once there, the thousand-and-one magical deceptions of 
 heathen priestcraft famUiar to most readers are played off upon the dis- 
 tinguished Greek, whom Orcus, the Egyptian high priest, and an 
 irredeemable villain of course, is deshous of winning to the faith of the 
 Pharaohs. His high-flying verbosities, however, produce but slight effect 
 upon the refined and subtle Epicurean — the dark riddle appears as insoluble 
 as ever — and of all that surrounds him he believes only in the beauty of a 
 young priestess of the moon, Alethe, with whom he falls desperately in 
 love ; which sentiment, we need hardly say, is fervently reciprocated by 
 Alethe. Even the eager questioning of Alciphron's restless spirit upon 
 creation, destmy, life, and death, is hushed in the presence of the young 
 beauty, and the Athenian philosopher is made to rhapsodise thus : ' The 
 future was now but of secondary consideration ; the present, and that deity 
 of the present, woman, were the objects that engrossed my whole soul. It 
 was indeed for the sake of such beings alone that I considered immortality 
 desu'able ; nor without them would eternal life have appeared worth a single 
 prayer.' The fair priestess of the moon is secretly attached to the religion 
 of Christ, though as yet but dimly so ; a glimpse only of its radiant and con- 
 soling light and truth having reached her from her mother, who had some 
 time before her death been mstructed in the new and elevating faith then 
 dawning upon the dark horrors of bewildered and bewildering heathenism. 
 She bears about with her the emblem of the religion of sorrow, and hope, 
 and love — a small gold cross, of which Alciphron once or twice obtains a 
 glimpse. Finally, Alethe, during the progi'ess of one of the gorgeous 
 illusions got up for the especial edification of Alciphron, contrives her own 
 and his escape from the subterranean Elysium. They fortunately reach 
 undiscovered a very curious and convenient carriage, used by the high- 
 priest in his journeys to the outer world. It runs in grooves, and when 
 they have comfortably seated themselves, it at once flies down the inclined 
 plain immediately before it, and by the impetus of its descent climbs up the 
 next acclivity ; and so on, up and down, without pause or intermission. 
 As there was only one of these surprising carriages in the establishment, 
 successful pursuit was out of the question. They get clear off, ascend the 
 Nile, and reach a Christian hermitage. The venerable recluse dwelling 
 there knew Alethe's mother, and receives her with great joy. Alciphron 
 is also warmly welcomed. The venerable father discourses to him of the 
 Christian fa;th, and supplies him with a copy of the Scriptures, which, read 
 26 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 by the light of Alethe's eyes, rapidly produce conviction in the mind of the 
 enamoured Greek. Tlie lovers are ultimately betrothed to each other ; and 
 we seem to be approaching a pleasant, matrimonial catastrophe, when the 
 bright prospect is suddenly overcast — gloom, tlumder, and eclipse succeed, 
 and continue till the curtain falls. A terrible decree of the lioman 
 emperor against the Christians is fulminated, and the ferocious edict is as 
 remorselessly enforced on the banks of the Nile as on those of the Tiber — 
 the facile polytheism of Rome tolerating and enforcing all religions save 
 that alone, which not only glides into the cell of the captive, whispering hope 
 and consolation, but mounts the steps of the loftiest tlu-one to speak of life, 
 death, and judgment to come. The recluse and Alethe are seized, with 
 many others — hurried before the Roman governor and Orcus the high- 
 priest— and commanded, as a proof of theii- renunciation of Christianity, to 
 burn incense before idols. They refuse, and the old man is instantly sacri- 
 ficed. Alethe is about to undergo the same fate, when the Roman governor, 
 touched by her beauty and gentleness, adjourns her punishment till the 
 morrow, spite of the opposition of Orcus, who is furious at the thought of 
 the renegade priestess escaping her terrible doom. The Roman chief ex- 
 presses a hope that reflection will induce Alethe to save her life by an act 
 so easy of performance as that of casting a few grains of mcense upon the 
 idol altars, and she is borne away in custody; not, however, till after 
 Orcus, in mockery of an ornament and ceremony usual with Christian 
 maidens when about to suffer martyrdom, has caused a fillet of coral- 
 berries to be fastened round her brows. Alciphron, who in the meanwhile 
 had been distracted with grief and terror, obtains access to Alethe 
 through the mtervention of a Roman officer whom he had known at Athens, 
 and finds her resigned, constant, and cheerful, but for a burning, throbbing 
 pain in her temples. Alciphron fancying the coral-chaplet might be too 
 tightly bound, unties and endeavours to take it off. It resists his efibrts. 
 
 ' It would not come away ! ' exclaims Alciphron ; and he repeats these 
 passionate, despairing, agonising words, wrung from him by the overwhelming 
 bitterness and horror of the moment — ' It would not come away ! ' The 
 berries, it is discovered, had been saturated with a deadly poison by order 
 of Orcus, in order to insure the destruction of his victim. Alethe, after 
 smiling placidly upon her betrothed husband, dies. This is the catastrophe 
 of the Epicurean — melancholy and distressing, no doubt, but so feebly, so 
 inartistically told, that it merely shocks the reader ; and the tumultuous 
 emotions of pity, love, grief, mdignation, which the death of the beautiful, 
 the innocent, the young, brought about by violence, should excite, are 
 scarcely more awakened than by a newspaper report of a fatal accident 
 having befellen a person whom the reader had never seen or heard of 
 before. The book has already virtually fallen out of the literature of the 
 country. Fashion and the influence of a popular name may rule for a time, 
 but in the long-run common-sense and a cidtivated taste will pronounce 
 the irreversible verdict. 
 
 On the 30th of June 1827, the day after the publication of 'The Epi- 
 curean,' Moore was one of the gay and distinguished assemblage at a magni- 
 ficent fete at Boyle Farm, in the environs of London, the cost of which had 
 been clubbed by five or six rich young lords. It appears by Mr Moore's 
 description to have been a very brilliant aftair. There were crowds of the 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 €lite of society present of both sexes; well-dressed men and groups of fair 
 women, ' all looking theii- best ;' together with dancing, music, the Tyrolese 
 minstrels, and Madame Vestris and Fanny Ayton, rowing up and down 
 the river, singing Moore's ' Oh come to Me when Daylight sets !' and so on. 
 The author of ' The Epicurean ' relates all this for the purpose of intro- 
 ducin"' an anecdote concerning his book, and we notice it for the same 
 reason. During one of the pauses of the music, the Marquis of Palmella — 
 Moore disguises the name of the Portuguese ambassador in this impene- 
 trable mode, the Marquis of P-lm a — approaching the poet, remarked 
 
 upon the magnificence of the fete. Moore agreed. ' The tents,' he 
 remarked, 'had a fine effect.' 'Nay,' said the marquis, 'I was thmking 
 of your fete at Athens. I read it this morning in the newspaper.' ' Confound 
 the newspaper!' Moore had a great aversion to having his laest morcemix 
 served up without the context in that manner ; but worse remained behind. 
 
 A Mr D accosted him a few minutes afterwards, and mentioning the 
 
 book, added these flattering words : ' I never read anything so touching as 
 the death of your heroine.' ' What !' exclaimed the delighted author, ' have 
 yovi got so far as that already?' ' Oh dear, no, I have not seen the book — I 
 read what I mentioned in the Literary Gazette.' ' Shameful ! ' says Jlr 
 Moore, 'to anticipate my catastrophe in that manner!' Perhaps so; but 
 that which we should like especially to know is whether Mr B — — m, who is 
 mentioned as being present at the enunciation of these courtesies, was Mr 
 Brougham. If so, the flash of the keen gray eyes that followed the com- 
 pliment on the touching death of Alethe, must, to an observant looker-on, 
 have been one of the most entertaining incidents of the fete. 
 
 The smart political squibs, scattered like fireflies through the dreary 
 waste of journalism during the last active years of Moore's life, are not 
 obnoxious to criticism. Squire Corn, Famished Cotton, Weeping Chan- 
 cellors, Salmagundian Kings, and knavish Benthamites, as pencilled by 
 Moore, have passed from the domain of wit and verse into that of the his- 
 torian and the antiquary, into the hands of the collector of forgotten trifles; 
 and there we very willingly leave them, pleasant, piquant, and welcome, as 
 we fully admit them in their day to have been. Moore has also wintten 
 several pieces of religious verse, which, although not of very high merit as 
 poetry, finely at times bring out and illustrate the Christian spirit in its 
 most engaging aspect — unalloyed, unclouded by the mists of fanatic 
 sectarianism. As, for instance, in this verse — 
 
 ' The turf shall be my fragrant shrine. 
 
 My temple, Lord ! that arch of thine, 
 
 My censer's breath, the mountain airs, 
 
 And silent thoughts my only prayers.' 
 
 The spirit that inspired these lines is infinitely more spiritual and 
 Chi'istian than that which breathes upon and gives galvanic momentary life 
 to the dry bones of mouldering controversial bigotry. Such a hymn is 
 worth the 'Travels of an Irish Gentleman' a thousand times over, and 
 Sullivan's replies to them into the bargain. 
 
 Our brief passage through the trim gardens, gay with flowers, sparkling 
 
 with light, and vocal with melody, of J\Ioore"s poetry, verse and prose, here 
 
 concludes, and we have now, it may be presumed, the means of forming a 
 
 sound judgment upon his pretensions as poet, romancist, and politician. 
 
 28 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 First, then, as to his rank as poet. Whilst freely expressing our opinion as 
 to his deticiency in highly-imaginative, sustained, poetical genius, and his 
 entire want of dramatic power, we have at the same time done justice to the 
 point and quickness of his wit, tlie varied brilliancy of his sparkling fancies, 
 and the tine harmony and cadenced flow of his verse. That he was not an 
 inspired creative poet like Shakspeare, ^lilton, Burns, and a few others, is 
 true ; but beneath those heaven-reaching heights there are many still lofty 
 eminences upon which gifted spirits sit enthroned, their brows encircled 
 with coronets bright with gems of purest ray, serene, thougli pale, indeed, 
 and dim in presence of the radiant crowns of the kings of poetry and song, 
 between whom also there are degrees of gloiy; for immeasurably above 
 all, far beyond even the constellated splendour 
 
 * Of the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,' 
 
 soars Shakspeare, palm-An-eathed and diademed with stars. One of 
 these lesser heights and circlets must unquestionably be awarded to 
 Thomas IMoore. His wing, it must be admitted, is feeble, requiring 
 artificial stimulants and help to lift him above the ground a sufficient time 
 for warbling a brief melody. He did not sing as a flower exhales — from the 
 law and necessity of its nature ; still there is at times a gi-ace, and tender- 
 ness, and music, about his carefully-polished snatches of song, which the 
 world is not sufticiently rich in to willingly let die. The truly-inspired 
 poet, we need hardly add, requires no artificial preparations of congenial 
 ' atmospheres' to perfect and pour forth the divine thoughts and harmonies 
 which crowd his brain, inflame his blood, and stir his heart. He sings 
 because it is a vital condition of his life that he should do so. The 
 thoughts of Burns kindled into glorious song as he followed his plough 
 along the level field or mountain-side. The ' Mary in Heaven' welled up 
 from his throbbing heart as the sudden inrush of tumultuous memories 
 brought back the image of the loved and lost, and came forth with stifling 
 sobs and blinding tears of passionate regret and tenderness ; and as the 
 Poet of all Time lay dreaming in his youth by the silver Avon, the 
 immortal creations with which he has peopled the world, thronged dimly in 
 his brain, with a confused murmur of the sorrows, the remorse, the griefs, 
 the agonies, the mirth, the wit, the joys, the tears, the love, afterwards 
 incarnated and winged forth from amid the din and drudgery of a play- 
 house. Who can read the accoimt of Moore's painful three years' incuba- 
 tion at Mayfield Cottage — which we have given nearly in his own words — 
 and for another moment believe in his poetic inspiration ? Fancy a really 
 inspired man, possessed of the necessary faculty of verse, coming forth, 
 after brooding for that long period over his work, and presenting to tlie 
 world a pretty, perfumed, spangled lay-figure like ' Lalla Eookh,' as a true, 
 living creation, radiant with the light and vital with the breath of poetry ! 
 
 With respect to the somewhat objectionable character of Moore's earlier 
 productions, much excuse is to be found in the heartless, soulless, meretri- 
 cious, withered state of society — not in which he was born, that was sound 
 and healthy, if somewhat perverse, but in which he chiefly passed his 
 youth and prime of manhood. The debased and debasing tone of ' good' 
 L*ish society, at a time when such men as Toler and others of the same 
 stamp could rise by dint of unblushing subserviency and hau--trigger 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 pistols to the highest and most dignified offices in the state, and when 
 corruption in its unveiled loathsomeness was the admitted principle of 
 government, can only be truly estimated by those who, for their sins 
 doubtless, have been compelled to rake in the private histories of that 
 altogether disreputable period. This fetid atmosphere necessarily affected 
 the imitative and impressionable genius of Moore, and his Juvenile Songs 
 may be said to have been but a reflex — a refined one too — of the reckless, 
 debauched, bacchanalian, sensuous tone of sentiment and manners then so 
 fatally prevalent. The air of the regent's court was scarcely healthier or 
 more purifying; and exposed to such influences — poor, and ambitious of 
 applause, intoxicated by the smiles of exclusive fashionable circles, in 
 which he was not indeed born, but which gradually became a necessity of 
 his existence, and whose continued favour could onty be pm-chased by 
 ministering to theu' tastes — Moore, under such circumstances, should be 
 forgiven much. As public sentiment acquired a healthier tone, so did his 
 writings ; and his last considerable effort, ' The Epicurean,' is as distin- 
 guished for the reticence of its language and the purity of its sentiment 
 as for the absence of the fanciful genius which threw a glittering veil over 
 the productions of his earlier life. This excusatory suggestion has been 
 forestalled by Moore himself, and is well expressed in the following verse 
 of one of his songs : — 
 
 ' Oh blame not the Bard if he fly to the bowers, 
 Where Pleasure lies carelessly smiling at Fame : 
 He was born for much more, and in happier hours 
 His soul might have burned with a holier flame !' 
 
 We very heartily believe it ; and in estimating frailties of this nature, so 
 powerfully influenced by the strong god Circumstance, we should do well, 
 whilst reading Moore's somewhat boastful excuse, to bear also in mind the 
 words of a far greater man — 
 
 ' What 's done we partly may compute, 
 But know not what 's resisted.' 
 
 Turnmg from Moore the poet to Moore the politician, there is not much 
 to remark upon ; neither certainly is there place for two opinions. Moore 
 ■\vi-ote politics at times — pointed, bitter, rankling politics — but he was really 
 at heart no politician. There was no earnestness in what he did in tliis 
 way, and it was early and abundantly evident from his alternate eulogies 
 and vituperation of democratic institutions, that he had no firmly-based 
 convictions. His love for Ireland was a sentiment only : it never rose to 
 the dignity of a passion. Not one of his patriotic songs breathes the fiery 
 energy, the martyr zeal, the heroic hate and love, which pulsate in the 
 veins of men who ardently sympathise with a people really oppressed, or 
 presumed to be so. But let us hasten to say, that if there was little of the 
 hero or martyr, there was nothmg of the renegade or traitor about Tliomas 
 Moore. The pension of three hundred a year obtained for him of the 
 crown by his influential friends was not the reward of baseness or of 
 political tergiversation. It was the prize and reward of his eminence as 
 a writer, and his varied social accomplishments. If iie did not feel strongly, 
 he at all events felt lionestly; and altliougli he had no mission to evoke 
 the lightning of the national spirit, and hurl its consuming fire at the men 
 30 
 
THOMAS MOORE. 
 
 who, had they possessed the power, would have riveted the bondage of 
 his people, he could and did soothe their angry paroxysms with lulling 
 words of praise and hope, and, transforming their terribly real, physical, and 
 moral griefs and ills into picturesque and sentimental sorrows, awakened 
 a languid admiration, and a passing sympathy for a nation which could 
 boast such beautiful music, and whose woes were so agreeably, so chami- 
 ingly sung. Liberal opinions Moore supported by tongue and pen, but 
 then they were fashionable within a sufticiently-extensive circle of nota- 
 bilities, and had nothing of the coarseness and downrightness of vulgar 
 Radicalism about tliem. The political idiosyncrasy of Moore is developed 
 in the same essential aspect in his memoir of Lord Edward Fitzgerald as 
 in his national songs. Tiiere is nothing impassioned, nothing which hurries 
 the pulse or kindles the eye — but a graceful regret, a carefully-guarded 
 appreciation of the acts and motives of that unfortunate and misguided 
 nobleman run throughout. Moore was what men call a fair-weather 
 politician — wliich means, not that storms do not frequently suiTOund them 
 but that by a prudent forethought, a happy avoidance of prematurely 
 committing themselves, they contrive to make fan- weather for themselves, 
 however dark and tempestuous may be the time to other and less sagacious 
 men, and who, when tlieir sun does at last slmie, come out with extreme 
 effulgence and brilliancy. Moore, therefore, as a politician, was quite 
 unexceptionable, though not eminent. He was at once a pensioned and 
 unpurchased, and, we verily believe, unpurchasable partisan; an honest, 
 sincere, and very mild patriot; a faithful, and at the same time prudent 
 and circumspect lover of his country, its people, and its faith. There are 
 very high-sounding names in the list of political celebrities, of whom it 
 would be well if such real though not higlily-flattering praise could be 
 truly spoken. 
 
 jNIoore's prose works requii-e but little notice at our hands beyond that 
 incidentally bestowed upon them in our passage through his works. None 
 of them that we are acquainted with add at all to the reputation for genius 
 acquired by his poetry. The flow and rhyme of verse are indispensable to 
 carry the reader through stories without probability or interest, and to 
 render men and women, not only without originality — that frequently 
 happens — but destitute of individualism, decently tolerable. We are 
 ignorant of the conti-ibutions to the 'Edinburgh Review;' but they could 
 scarcely have much enhanced the power and attractiveness of a periodical 
 which in his time numbered amongst its contributors such names as 
 Jeffrey, Brougham, Sidney Smith, Hallam, Macaulay, and others of that 
 mint and standard. Moore is assigned by his friends a high rank amongst 
 the defenders or apologists of the Church of Rome ; and we believe his 
 ' Travels,' like Cobbett's ' Reformation,' have been translated by papal 
 authority and command into most of the languages of Europe. Of his 
 merits in this department of literature, which is quite out of our way, we 
 do not presume to offer an opinion. His book unquestionably displays a 
 vast deal of research and learning; but whether it is so entirely perverse 
 as its adversaries contend, or so pre-eminently irrefragable and convincing 
 as its admirers assert, we really cannot say. 
 
 It is, after all, in the home-life of individuals that their true character 
 must be read and studied. Tlie poet and the politician — the latter more 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 especially — dwell, as regards their vocations, apart from the household tests 
 which really measure the worth, the truth, the kindliness of individual men 
 and women. Moore, we are pleased to be able to repeat, as a son, a 
 husband, a father, a friend and neighbour, bore, and deservedly, the highest 
 character. His domestic affections were ardent, tender, and sincere, and 
 the brilliant accomplishments which caused his society to be courted by the 
 great ones of the world shed its genial charm over the quiet fu-eside at 
 whicli sat his wife, and in whose light and warmth the children whose loss 
 have bowed him to the grave gi-ew up only to bloom and perish. Thei'e 
 have been much greater poets, more self-sacrificing, though perhaps no moi'O 
 sincere lovers of their country; but in the intimate relations of domestic 
 life, and the discharge of its common, every-day, but sacred obligations, 
 there are few men who have borne a more unspotted and deservedly-high 
 reputation than Thomas I\Ioore. 
 
 One word as to the music — the airs of the melodies. They were for the 
 most part, it is well known, arranged, and the accompaniments gene- 
 rally written, by Sir John Stevenson. The changes in the melody which not 
 unfrequently occur, whether hurtfully or otherwise individual taste must 
 determine, were, Moore himself empliatically assures us, uivariably his 
 own. 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 THIS poet, whose Avorks now occupy so large a space in English 
 literature, was born at Cockermoutli in Cumberland, in April 1770. 
 His father was law-agent to the Earl of Lonsdale, and that noble family 
 in after years always kept a kindly watch over the welfare of the son. 
 One of his brothers, Christopher, was afterwards well known as Dr Words- 
 worth, the master of Trinity College. The poet dedicated the ' Sonnets to 
 the Duddon ' to him, and at his death committed to his son the preparation 
 of his biography. Another brother was commander of the Abergavenny 
 East Indiaman, and jjerished in that ill-fated vessel. He seems to have 
 been a man of susceptible temperament, and of a gentle and affectionate 
 disposition, and his untimely fate was among the heaviest blows William 
 ever experienced. His sister Emmeline was the constant companion of the 
 poet down to the day of her death, and has left one or two of her poetical 
 effusions mingled among his. She was a woman of exquisite sensibility, 
 and of pure and well-stored mind, and was a great favourite not only with 
 her brother, who has commemorated her in numerous beautiful pieces, but 
 of all with whom she came in contact. Coleridge, one of the finest judges 
 of female character, was charmed with her, and has left in one of his letters 
 a delightful sketch of her manners and appearance. Wordsworth seems to 
 have considered the domestic hearth too sacred for defined portraiture, and 
 he has left no picture of his father, and, except in the ' Prelude,' only a 
 single one of his mother. It depicts her watching him with fluttering heart, 
 as he appeared before the vicar with his companions — 
 
 ' A trembling, earnest company.' 
 
 ' How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me, 
 Beloved mother ! Thou whose happy hand 
 Had bound the flowers I wore with faithful tie : 
 Sweet flowers, at whose inaudible command 
 Her countenance, phantom-like, doth reappear; 
 Oh lost too early for the frequent tear. 
 And ill-requited by this heartfelt sigh.' 
 
 It was into the bosom of this cultivated English family that the old English 
 spirit chose to descend in one of its noblest and purest forms. 
 
 In due time the young poet was sent to Hawkeshead Grammar School, 
 which was then under the mastership of a relative. We have few notices 
 40. 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 of his schoolboy life, but it is stated tliat he prosecuted with gi*eat zeal 
 the study of the classics ; and there can be no doubt, from such poems as 
 ' Dion' and ' Laodamia,' that the stately and sculptm-al sphit of the highest 
 classic poetry must have entered into and become a part of his very being. 
 It is not unlikely that this would combine, with his passionate devotion to 
 nature, to heighten his radical disinclination to join in the every-day occu- 
 pations and sympathise with the ordmary interests of the world. If there 
 be no high moral law by which a great poet is produced in immediate 
 contact with the scenes most fitted to develop his peculiar genius — a law in 
 no degree more inconceivable than that bj'^ which the camel is located 
 among the sands of Ai-abia — it was, at all events, a happy accident which 
 cast "Wordsworth's lot among the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland. 
 That whole district may be said to stand single in the world, and to have 
 in the peculiar character of its beauty no parallel elsewhere. It is in the 
 concentration of every variety of loveliness into a compass which in extent 
 does not gi'eatly tax the powers of the pedestrian, that it fahly defies 
 rivalry, and afi"ords the richest pabulmn to the poetical faculty. There 
 every form of momitain, rock, lake, stream, wood, and plain, from the 
 confoiTnation of the country, is crowded with the most prodigal abundance 
 into a few square mUes. Coleridge characterises it as a ' cabinet of beau- 
 ties.' ' Each thing,' says he, ' is beautiful hi itself; and the very passage 
 from one lake, mountain, or valley to another is itself a beautiful thing 
 again.' Wordsworth, in liis own ' Description of the Countiy of the 
 Lakes,' dwells with the zest and minuteness of idolatry upon every featm-e 
 of that treasury of landscape. The idea he gives of the locality is very 
 perfect and graphic. If the tourist were seated on a cloud midway 
 between Great Gavel and Scafell, and only a few yards above thek 
 highest elevation, he would look down to tlie westward on no fewer than 
 nme different valleys, diverging away from that point, Uke spokes from the 
 nave of a wheel, towards the vast rim formed by the sands of the Irish Sea. 
 These vales — Langdale, Coniston, Duddon, Eskdale, Wastdale, Ennerdale, 
 Buttermere, Borrowdale, and Keswick — are of every variety of character ; 
 some with, and some without lakes ; some richly fertile, and some awfully 
 desolate. Shifting from the cloud, if the tourist were to fly a few miles 
 eastward, to the ridge of old lielveUjoi, he would find the wheel completed 
 by the vales of Wythebm-n, Ulswater, Hawswater, Grasmere, Rydal, and 
 Ambleside, which bring the eye romid again to Winandermere, in the vale 
 of Langdale, from which it set out. From the sea or plain country all 
 round the chcumference of this foiry-land, along the gradually-swelling 
 uplands, to the mighty moimtains that group themselves in the centre, 
 the infinite varieties of view may be imagined — varieties made still 
 more luxuriant by the different position of each valley towards the rismg 
 or setting sun. Thus a spectator in the vale of Winandermere will in 
 summer see its golden orb going down over the mountains, while the spec- 
 tator in Keswick will at the same moment mai-k it diffusing its glories over 
 the low grounds. In this delicious land, dyed in a splendour of ever- 
 shifting colours, the old customs and manners of England still lingered in 
 the youth of Wordsworth, and took a lura hold of his heart, modifying all 
 his habits and opmions. Tliough a deluge of strangers had begun to set 
 in towards this retreat, and even the spirit of the factory threatened 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 to invade it, still the dalesmen were impressed with that character of 
 steadiness, repose, and rustic dignity, which has always possessed irresis- 
 tible charms for the poet. Their cottages, which, from the numerous 
 irregular additions made to them, seemed rather to have gi-own than to 
 have been built, were covered over witli lichens and mosses, and blended 
 insensibly into the landscape, as if they were not human creations, but 
 constituent parts of its own loveliness. In this old English Eden, all 
 his schoolboy days, Wordsworth Avandered restlessly, drawn hither and 
 thither by his kresistible passion for nature, and receiving into his 
 soul those remarkable photographs which were afterwards to delight his 
 countrymen. There can be no doubt that the charms of this lake scenery 
 added stiU more strength to the poet's peculiar tendencies, and developed 
 a conservative sentiment, wliich, though temporarily overcome, aftei-wards 
 reared itself up in haughtier majesty than before. The poet was naturally 
 led to indulge much in out-of-door wanderings and pastimes, such as skating, 
 of which he has left a picture unapproachable in its vividness and precision. 
 Considering the effect of Wordsworth's subsequent theories upon his 
 style, it is remarkable how pure, unaffected, and dignified it was at this 
 time. Indeed, so far as style is concerned, he never, even in the vigour of 
 manhood, excelled his juvenile productions. In 1786 he wrote some verses 
 in anticipation of leaving school, which are chaste and sweet. Thus, in 
 illustration of the idea, that wherever he might be, he would ever turn his 
 look backward to his native regions— he says — 
 
 'Thus from the precincts of the west 
 Tlie sun, while sinking dowii to rest. 
 Though Jiis departing radiance fail 
 To ilhiminate tlie hollow vale, 
 A lingering lustre fondly tlirows 
 On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.' 
 
 Among his sonnets there is one written in very early youth, which is 
 remarkable for precocious maturity of diction : — 
 
 ^ ' Calm is all nature as a resting wheel : 
 
 The kine are couched upon the dewy grass ; 
 
 The liorse alone, seen dimly as I pass, 
 
 Is cropping audibly his later meal : 
 
 Dark is the ground ; a slumber seems to steal 
 
 O'er vale and mountain and tiie starless sky. 
 
 Now in this blank of things a harmony, 
 
 Home-felt and home-created, comes to heal 
 
 That grief for wliich the senses still supply 
 
 Fresh food, for only then when memory 
 
 Is hushed am I at rest. My Friends ! restrain 
 
 Tliose busy cares that would allay my pain ; 
 
 Oh leave me to myself, nor let me feel 
 
 The officious touch that makes me droop again ! ' 
 
 In the year 1789, also, two small pieces were produced wliich in sim- 
 plicity and melody he never afterwards surpassed. The one is thai 
 beginning — 
 
 ' Glide gently, thus for ever glide,' 
 
 which has been always much admii-ed; the other is brief enough for 
 
 3 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 quotation. It is entitled, ' Lines Written while Sailing in a Boat at 
 Evening ' — 
 
 ' How richly glows the water's breast 
 
 Before us, tinged with evening hues, 
 
 While, facing thus the crimson west, 
 
 The boat her silent course pursues ! 
 
 And see how dark the backward stream ! 
 
 A little moment past so smiling ; 
 
 And still perhaps witli faithless gleam 
 
 Some other loiterers beguiling. 
 
 Such views the youthful bard allure ; 
 
 But heedless of the following gloom. 
 
 He deems their colours shall endure 
 
 Till peace go with him to the tomb. 
 
 And let him nurse his fond deceit ; 
 
 And what if he must die in sorrow.' 
 
 Who would not cherisli dreams so sweet, 
 
 Though grief and pain may come to-morrow ? ' 
 
 In 1787 Wordsworth went to Cambridge, but at every convenient 
 opportunity he seems to have made his escape, and pedestrianised among 
 his beloved lakes and mountains. Even at this early date he had fixed 
 on Grasmere as his future place of abode. In the ' Evening Walk,' 
 which he was engaged in composing during this and the two following 
 years, and which consisted of a series of very sti'iking pictures of the Lake 
 country, he thus alludes to this darling object of his life: — 
 
 ' Even now hope decks for me a distant scene 
 (For dark and broad the gulf of time between), 
 Gilding that cottage with her fairest ray 
 (Sole bourne, sole wish, sole object of my way; 
 How fair its lawns and sheltering woods appear ! 
 How sweet its streamlet murmurs in mine ear!) 
 Where we, my friend, to happy days shall rise. 
 Till our small share of hardly-paining sighs 
 (For sighs will ever trouble human breath) 
 Creep hushed into the tranquil breast of death.' 
 
 He varied these, trips by a tour among the magnificent mountains of Wales 
 with Mr Jones, afterwards a clergyman of the Church of England : and in 
 1790 the two made a pedestrian journey through France and Switzerland 
 to the north of Italy. The ' Descriptive Sketches' arose out of this ramble. 
 It is strikingly illustrative of the eftect of the first French Revolution on 
 the European mind, that even the inflexible intellect of Wordsworth was 
 carried away in the general whirl. Indeed he seems at this time to have 
 been subject to a subdued melancholy, or even misanthropy, in looking on 
 the ordinary ways of men, and particularly of politicians. The uprising of 
 the French stirred his blood like ' the sound of a trumpet ; ' and in common 
 with all the young and ardent spirits of the time, he looked for the advent 
 of a new and more blessed era. He seems by the tone of his ' Sketches' 
 to have thought with Rousseau, that the ' state of nature' is the condition 
 most favourable to virtue and dignity ; and with Shelley, that it is the rulers 
 of the world who ' blast the human flower in its bud.' Southey and Cole- 
 ridge, no less eagerly than Byron, were gazing across the Channel on the 
 great drama enacting before the eyes of an excited world ; while Words- 
 worth, strange to say, more impetuous than any of them, placed his knap- 
 4 
 
WIUilAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 sack on his back, and with staff in his hand, set out on his pilgrimage to 
 the promised land. All France was in a delirium of enthusiasm : every- 
 where the rattle of arms and the flapping of the tri- coloured banner. 
 Every warlike sound was music to Wordsworth's ear as he plodded along 
 the endless avenues of elms. To him it seemed that 
 
 ' From every cot the watchful bird 
 Crowed witli ear-piercing power till then unheard.' 
 
 The following prayer shows how deeply the youthful poet had imbibed 
 the revolutionary infection : — 
 
 ' Grant that every sceptred child of clay 
 AVho cries, presumptuous, " Here the flood shall stay I " 
 May in its progress see thy guiding hand. 
 And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand ; 
 Or swept in anger from the insulted shore, 
 Sink -with his servile bands to rise no more.' 
 
 In this wild exaltation of feeling he ascended among the mists and cata- 
 racts of the Swiss mountains ; and the style and language in which he 
 has embodied his recollections are totally unlike those usual to him, and 
 sometimes remind one of flames crackling and forcing upward through the 
 narrow crater of a volcano. Still, however, his exquisite poetical taste 
 enabled him to extract from his tour more pleasure than is possible to the 
 ordmary pedestrian. He has recorded his experiences and ideas of such 
 perambulations in lines which ought to be learned by rote, as the poetic 
 manual of all travellers on foot. These and future excursions must at that 
 time have cost money ; and from a sonnet composed in gratitude to Raisley 
 Calvert, we are led to believe that he was considerably indebted to that 
 gentleman for at least a part of his power to rove wherever fancy 
 carried him. 
 
 Thus between desultory study and pei-petual wandering his college time 
 was spent. He has himself recorded in his posthumous work the ' Prelude' 
 the development of his mmd at Cambridge, so far as it was possible to do 
 so with accuracy, looking back from a more mature period of life. In his 
 first session he seems to have given himself up with all the zest of a 
 novice to the boatings, the drivings, the fetes, and the frivolities that 
 enlivened the banks of the Cam. These unusual gaieties relaxed to some 
 extent the tone of his imagination ; and even the delight he felt on first 
 revisiting the scenes of his boyhood scarcely reawakened the poesy witliin 
 liim. But the old familiar objects, and the mipressive changes that had 
 passed during his brief absence over many dear friends among the moun- 
 tains, tended to solemnise his thoughts ; and when he returned to the 
 university, it was with a deeper love towards the spiritual world of books. 
 His studies, howevei", do not appear to have been pursued on any rigid 
 system. He affected, as his inclinations led him, occasionally the classics, 
 and occasionally the abstract sciences ; and even in his riper years he felt 
 it difficult to determine whether this careless roving of the intellect tended 
 more to strengthen or to debilitate. 
 
 In 1793 he graduated, and published his first poetical venture, ' The 
 Evening Walk,' and ■ Descriptive Sketches,' already referred to. These works 
 contained no trace whatever of any tendency to that theory which after- 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 wards led him to adopt a style sometimes bordering on the mean. On the 
 contrary, the style was remarkably dignified and forcible, the faults being 
 too much luxuriance and splendour rather than meagreness and vulgarity. 
 The matter consisted merely of descriptions of scenery, intermingled with 
 a few pensive reflections, and some crude and juvenile theories, if they merit 
 so dignified a title, of man and the world. The best criticism on these 
 pieces in the smallest compass is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. That extra- 
 ordinary man laid his hands on them in 1794, while spending his last 
 session at Cambridge, and at once discovered the indisputable marks of an 
 original poetic genius. ' There is,' says he in his ' Biographia,' ' a harshness 
 and acerbity connected and combined with words and images all aglow 
 which might recall those products of the vegetable world where gorgeous 
 blossoms rise out of a hard and thorny rind or shell, within which the rich 
 fruit is elaborating. The language is not only peculiar and strong, but at 
 times knotty and contorted, as by its own impatient strength ; while the 
 novelty and struggling crowd of images, acting in conjunction with the 
 difBculties of the style, demand always a greater attention than poetry, at 
 all events than descriptive poetry, has a right to claim.' A few lines will 
 exemplify the golden splendour of the diction, and prove that their writer 
 did not adopt the meagre phraseology of one or two of the lyrical ballads 
 from poverty of fancy : — 
 
 ' Here half a village shines in gold arrayed, 
 Bright as the moon ; half hides itself in shade; 
 Wliile, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire, 
 Restlessly flasliing, seems to mount lilie fire : 
 There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw 
 Rich golden verdure on the lake below. 
 Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore. 
 And steals into the shade the lazy oar ; 
 Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs. 
 And amorous music on the waters dies.' 
 
 After leaving the university, Wordsworth, who was uneasy about his 
 future lot, planted himself do-wn in the midst of the metropolis. He had 
 often heard of it in his schoolboy days as of some city paved with gold, 
 and peopled with princes. Even now he plunged amid its crowds with 
 the eagerness and delight of a chdd. He rushed to every sight, and 
 frequented every spectacle and every place of public resort. His imagina- 
 tion was deeply impressed with London ; and he found an unlimited field 
 of thought in its endless variety of character. It is curious how little its 
 wonders permanently affected or modified his mind, and how few contribu- 
 tions to his poesy appear to be drawn from this era in his activity. Per- 
 haps this may be partly explained by the fact, that his whole soul was now 
 riveted on the scenes that were rapidly succeeding each other on the other 
 side of the Straits — the drama of France was fsist rismg into breathless 
 interest. The Royalist legions were mustering in masses on the far bank 
 of the Rhine, and the fate of the new-born Liberty trembled in the balance. 
 The suspense was too great for the poet. He could not breatlie in Eng- 
 land. Its atmosphere was too stagnant for his wild hopes, and he hurried 
 across the strip of water that severed hun from the Revolution. He fixed 
 his abode on the banks of the Loire, where he resided for two successive 
 ■winters. During aU this time he was lapped in a delicious day-dream. 
 6 
 
T7ILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 He believed that the old -world was passing away, and that all things 
 were to become new. His unsuspecting faith is affecting even in the 
 mere faint description of it given by himself when its ardour had 
 passed away before the stem realities of the world. He princi- 
 pally associated with some Royalist officers, and was favoured with 
 their confidences. But he only smiled at their menaces and their 
 prayers for the destruction of the patriots. All Woi'dsworth's sympa- 
 thies were with the latter ; and one military man, a patriot, of whom 
 he has left a charming picture, was frequently the companion of his 
 walks. The delighted pair talked in rapt language of the millennium that 
 was approaching. One day they met a poor half-starved and half-naked 
 girl ; the patriot pointed to the sad object, and said it was their mission to 
 banish such spectacles. Wordsworth believed it, and his heart warmed. 
 The old and new systems were now in the death-grapple. The crisis 
 speedily came. The Royalists were driven over the frontier. The imprison- 
 ment of the king and the September massacres followed. Wordsworth 
 hurried up to Paris while the blood of the unhappy \actinis was scarcely 
 yet dried upon the streets. He had never anticipated such libations to 
 freedom. His mind was at this period wrought up to a kind of half 
 frenzy. He listened to all the street orators as well as to the orators of 
 the legislation. He saw what kind of men were at the head of aflfau's, 
 and divined too truly what was to come. He felt in his solitary attic as 
 if the air of Paris was too stifling for him to breathe. Yet he never once 
 faltered in his republican faith ; and he has himself solemnly left it on 
 record, that if he had had even ordinary qualifications as an orator, or as 
 a political writer, he would have plunged at once into the heat of the 
 struggle as the enemy of the faction of Robespierre, and probably have 
 perished obscurely in that terrible convulsion. Fortunately, it was other- 
 wise ordained ; and the poet fled from the blood-stained soil of France 
 back to his own country. He did not, however, abandon one jot of his 
 creed. The Girondins perished ; things went into utter confusion ; hoiTor 
 followed horror, yet still Wordsworth, afterwards so conservative, clung 
 with undiminished fervom- to the fortunes of the republic. The interven- 
 tion of Great Britain filled him with abhoiTcnce. He retked more deeply 
 into his inner speculations, and fell into a state of utter doubt, in which 
 the best-established maxims and doctrines were subjected to a mercUess 
 scrutiny. This painfid condition proved very prejudicial to his higher 
 poetical powers ; and it was long till the conversation of his sister, and 
 communion with his beloved natm-e, produced a renovating process of 
 reaction in his spiritual fi-ame. He then turned himself from his excited 
 dreams to investigate the heart of man, and examine what true hope it 
 might afford him of a more glorious future, and thus gradually attained 
 that firm faith in mankind, and in the progi'ess of the people, to which he 
 may be said, through his posthumous publications, to give melodious utter- 
 ance from the sepulchre. This whole episode in Wordsworth's inward 
 history is worthy of attention, both morally and psychologically. Cole- 
 ridge's Gallomania had subsided before 1793; Wordsworth's lasted for 
 some years afterwards. Indeed his mind appears, if we are to trust his 
 * Prelude,' to have been in a continual mood of gloomy discontent with 
 established institutions : — 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people, 
 
 ■ I rejoiced, 
 
 Yea afterwards — truth most painful to record ! — 
 
 Exulted in the triumph of my soul, 
 
 When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown. 
 
 Left without glory in the field, or driven, 
 
 Brave hearts, to shameful flight. It was a grief — 
 
 Grief call it not, 'twas anything but that — 
 
 A conflict of sensations without name. 
 
 Of which he only, who may love the sight 
 
 Of a village steeple as I do, can judge, 
 
 When in the congregation bending all 
 
 To their great Father, prayers were oftered up. 
 
 Or praises for our country's victories ; 
 
 And 'mid the simple worshippers, perchance 
 
 I only, like an uninvited guest, 
 
 Whom no one owned, sat silent — shall I add ? 
 
 Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come.' 
 
 Bat his somewhat scholarly distrust and dislike of the curreut ways of 
 the world were perhaps the very influences that turned his hopes to the 
 abnormal force of the Revolution, and the spectacle of its miserable 
 results must in time have tended to confirm this distrust and dislike 
 beyond the possibility of eradication. By and by he emerged the constant 
 advocate of a strong government, which should rigidly administer the 
 institutions matured in a long course of ages, and only sufler them to be 
 altered slowly and gi'adually according to the dictates of experience. 
 
 In 1794 the step was taken by which those remarkable men, afterwards 
 known in popular parlance as the Lakers, Avere brought mto contiguity. 
 In that year Coleridge, Southey, Robert Lovell, and George Burnet, came 
 down to Bristol, as the most convenient port from which they could embark 
 for the wild banks of the Susquehana. On that remote river they were 
 to found a Platonic Republic, where everything was to be in common, and 
 from which vice and selfishness were to be for ever excluded. These 
 ardent and intellectual adventurers had made elaborate calculations how 
 long it would take them to procure the necessaries of life and to buUd 
 then- barns, and how they should spend then- leisure in what Coleridge 
 sung as 
 
 ' Freedom's undivided dell. 
 Where toil and health with mellowed love shall dwell ; 
 
 Far from folly, far from men, 
 
 In the rude romantic glen.' 
 
 Yet, it is supposed, they knew nothing of the Susquehana more than of 
 any other American river, except that its name was musical and sonorous ; 
 and far fi-om having anything wherewith to convey themselves and their 
 movables across the Atlantic, they had to borrow five pounds to make up 
 their lodging bill. This sum was advanced tliem with unalloyed pleasure 
 by Mr Cottle, a bookseller in the town, a benevolent and worthy man, who 
 seems almost to have been located there for no other purpose than to 
 introduce the three chief Lake Poets to the world. 
 
 The bubble of the Susquehana, or, as it was called, Pantisocracy, was 
 exploded by Southey, Coleridge, and Lovell all getting into the bonds of 
 matrimony, which have a miraculous virtue in testing the solidity of schemes 
 of life. They married three sisters of the name of Fricker. It was the 
 perpetual restlessness of Coleridge which first brought him and his com- 
 8 
 
AVILLIAM WORDSAVORTII. 
 
 panions into contact with Wordsworth. The former wonderful man, in 
 cajmbilities perhaps tlie mightiest of that illustrious group, and in his 
 mental constitution one of the most puzzling psycliological phenomena which 
 lunnan nature has ever presented, was tlie originator of the Pantisocratic 
 proposal. lie was of luxurious imagination, deep emotiveness, various 
 learning, and an exquisite nervous susceptibility. In 1795 he was making 
 excui'sions through the lovely and tranquil scenery of Somersetshire, when 
 he became acquainted with a most excellent man, Mr Poole, resident in 
 the quiet village of Stowey. On his return to Bristol, where he got 
 married, he still exliibited his usual uneasiness. First lie removed to his 
 immortal rose-bound cottage at Clevedon, then back to the pent-up houses 
 of Redclitf Hill, and from these agaui to the more open situation of Kings- 
 down. Nothing would then satisfy him but he must set up a political 
 serial, to be called ' The Watchman ; ' and his own sketches of his travel- 
 ling canvass for that periodical might take rank with some chapters of 
 Quixote. Take, for instance, this picture of a great patriot at Birming- 
 ham, to whom he applied for his magniticent patronage : — He was ' a rigid 
 Calvinist, a tallow-chandler by trade. He was a tall, dingy man, in whom 
 length was so predominant over breadth, that he might almost have been 
 borrowed as a foundry poker ! Oh that face ! — a face kkt ly. (paa-n ! I have 
 it before me at this moment. The lank, black, twine-like hair, pingui- 
 nitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin, gun- 
 powder eyebrows, that looked like a scorched aftermath from a last week's 
 shaving. His coat-collar behind, in perfect unison, both of colour and 
 lustre, with the coarse yet glib cordage which I suppose he called his hau', 
 and which, with a bend inward at the nape of the neck — the only approach 
 to flexure in his whole figure — slunk m behind his waistcoat ; while the 
 countenance — lank, dark, very hard, and Avith strong pei'pendicular furrows 
 — gave me a dim notion of some one looking at me through a used gridiron, 
 all soot, grease, and kon.' This thoroughbred lover of liberty, wlio had 
 proved that Mr Pitt was one of the horns of the second beast in the Reve- 
 lations that spake as a dragon, nevertheless declined to take ' The Watch- 
 man ; ' and in short, after a disastrous career, that serial died a natural 
 death. The disappointed editor took refuge for a brief season with Mr 
 Poole at Stowey, and there, for the first time, he met AVordsworth, who 
 then resided about twenty miles off, at Racedoun in Dorsetshire. He 
 afterwards went on a visit, for a few days, to Wordsworth's mansion. 
 Coleridge was at that time busy with a tragedy, and his host was in the very 
 heat of a similar effort. Wordsworth submitted his to his guest, who in a 
 letter to Cottle pronounced it 'absolutely wonderful.' '1 speak,' said Cole- 
 ridge, 'with absolute sincerity, and I think unblinded judgment, when I tell 
 you that I feel myself a little man by his side, and yet I do not think 
 myself a less man than I formerly thought myself.' Coleridge procured an 
 introduction for his friend's tragedy to Harris, the manager of Covent 
 Garden, who pledged himself without delay to decide on its fate ; but as it 
 does not appear what followed, it is probable that this potentate, as usual, 
 gave himself little farther trouble on the subject. Indeed it is not likely 
 that a drama by a man so stately and unimpassioned as Woi'dsworth 
 would be found adapted to the meridian of the stage. But it is curious 
 that many great geniuses have in early youth aimed at this distinction, 
 40 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 The list includes -enters as far removed from each other, ui the character 
 of their minds, as Plato and Beranger. 
 
 Coleridge returned for a shoi-t time to Bristol, but in Januaiy 1797 he 
 removed to Stowey, where he rented a small cottage. This must have 
 been a pleasant episode in the lives of the gifted individuals whom it 
 brought together in that sweet village. Wordsworth, who was now 
 twenty-seven, had come with his sister to Allfoxden, which was withLa 
 two miles of Stowey. Charles Lloyd, a young man of most sensitive and 
 graceful mind, and of great poetical susceptibility, resided in family with 
 Coleridge. Charles Lamb, then in the spring-time of his life, was also a 
 frequent inmate ; and often afterwards, under the cloud which lowered 
 over his noble devotedness in London, his fancy wandered back to that 
 happy valley. Why, says he to Charles Lloyd, who unexpectedly looked 
 in upon him in the great Babylon — 
 
 ' Why seeks my Lloyd tlie stranger out? 
 
 What ofFeririg can the stranger bring 
 Of social scenes, homebred delights. 
 
 That him in auglit compensate may 
 For Stowey's pleasant -wdnter-nights. 
 
 For loves and friendships far away?' 
 
 The Pantisocratist, George Burnet, was also a visitor. Mrs Coleridge 
 herself had a poetical taste, and there is one very graceful piece of hers 
 wi'itten on the receipt of a thimble from her kind friend Mr Cottle. Just 
 such a thimble, sings Sarah Coleridge — 
 
 ' Just such a one, mow clier ami 
 (The finger-shield of industry), 
 The inventive gods, I deem, to Pallas gave, 
 Wliat time the vain Arachne, madly brave, 
 Challenged the blue-eyed virgin of the sky 
 A duel in embroidered work to try. 
 And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas 
 To the erring needle's point was more than callous. 
 But, ah ! the poor Arachne ! she, unarmed. 
 Blundering through hasty eagerness, alarmed 
 With all a rival's hopes, a mortal's fears. 
 Still missed the stitch, and stained the web ^\'ith tears.' 
 
 Hartley Coleridge, the aerial child who awakened the fears and sympathies 
 of Wordsworth, was a fine boy, rejoichig his parents' hearts; and the happy 
 pair had cut a road into their neighbours' orchards, that they might pass 
 to their firesides under arches of blossoms, and witli a speed suiting their 
 affections. Alas ! that sweet Stowey. Cottle, in his old age, has painted 
 one or two pictures of it and of its gifted habitants, now in their graves, 
 that go to the heart. Take the scene with Coleridge in the jasmine 
 arbour, where the tripod table was laden with delicious bread and cheese, 
 and a mug of the true brown Taunton ale. ' "Wliile the dappled sunbeams,' 
 says the old man calling up kindly memories, ' played on our table through 
 the umbrageous canopy, the very birds seemed to participate in our feli- 
 cities, and poured forth their selectest anthems. As we sat in our sylvan 
 hall of splendour, a company of the happiest mortals, tlie bright blue 
 heavens, the sporting insects, the balmy zephyrs, the feathered choristers, 
 the sympathy of friends, all augmented the pleasurable to the highest 
 10 
 
"WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 point this side the celestial. . . . "WHiile tlius elevated in the universal 
 current of our feelings, Mrs Coleridge approaclied with her fine Hartley ; 
 we all smiled, but the father's eye beamed transcendental joy. But all 
 things have an end ! Yet pleasant it is for memory to treasure up in her 
 choicest depository a few such scenes (those sunny spots in existence), on 
 which the spirit may repose when the rough adverse winds shake and 
 disfigure all besides.' Or take the more lively visit to Allfoxden on 
 Wordsworth s invitation. Away they all went from Stowey ; the poet 
 and Emmeline, Coleridge and Cottle. They were to dine on philoso- 
 pher's fare — a bottle of brandy, a loaf, a piece of cheese, and fresh lettuces 
 from Wordsworth's garden. The first mishap was the theftuous abstrac- 
 tion of the cheese ; and, on the back of it, Coleridge, in the very act of 
 praising the brandy as a substitute, upset the bottle, and knocked it 
 to pieces. Then all tried to take off the harness from the horse. Cottle 
 tried it, then the bard of Rydal ; but in vain. Coleridge, who had served 
 his apprenticeship as Silas Comberbatch in the cavaliy, then twisted the 
 poor animal's neck almost to strangulation ; but was at last compelled to 
 pronounce that the horse's head must have grown since the collar was put 
 on ! It was useless, said he, to try to force so huge an os frontis through 
 so narrow a collar. All had given up, when lo ! the servant-girl turned 
 the coUar upside down, and slipped it off in an instant, to the inconceivable 
 wonder and humiliation of the poets, who proceeded to solace themselves 
 with the brown bread, the lettuces, and a jug of sparkling water. TSTio, 
 knowing the subsequent fates of the tenants of Stowey, would not love to 
 dwell on these delightful pictures of their better days ? 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that the tempter never entered into 
 this Eden ; but when he did so, it was generally through the mischief- 
 making pranks of Coleridge, who constantly kept his friends in hot water. 
 He and Lamb had just published a joint volume of poems, and Coleridge 
 could not refrain from satu-ising and parodying their offspring in the 
 newspapers. Take this epigram as a specimen : — 
 
 ' TO THE AUTHOR OF THE AXCIENT MARINER. 
 
 Your poem must eternal be — 
 
 Dear Sir, it cannot fail ; 
 For 'tis incomprehensible, 
 
 And without head or tail.' 
 
 Of course nobody could suspect Coleridge of this; and indeed, to his 
 infinite amusement, a vain fellow affected to hesitate about being intro- 
 duced to him, on the ground that he had mortally injured him by the 
 writing of this very epigi-am ! But Lamb could not fail to obsei-\'e the 
 doings of the poet-metaphysician more closely, and the result was a quarrel, 
 which induced that 'gentle creature' to send him an unnaturally bitter 
 series of theological questions, such as — ' "WTiether the vision beatific be 
 anything more or less than a perpetual representment, to each individual 
 angel, of his o-w-n present attainments and future capabilities, somehow in 
 the manner of mortal looking-glasses, reflecting a perpetual complacency 
 and self-satisfaction?' Troubles from without added to this confusion 
 within. The village wiseacres, to whom the habits of Wordsworth and his 
 eccentric friend were totally incomprehensible, had decided that they 
 
 11 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 were terrible scoundrels, who required to be looked after. One sage had 
 seen Wordsworth look strangely at the moon ; another had overheard him 
 mutter in some unintelligible and outlandish brogue. Some thought him a 
 conjurer; some a smuggler, from his perpetually haunting the sea-beach; 
 some asserted that he kept a snug private still in his cellar, as they knew 
 by their noses at a hundred yards' distance ; while others were convinced 
 that he was ' surely a desperate French Jacobin, for he was so silent and 
 dark that nobody ever heard him say one word about politics.' "While the 
 saturnine and stately Wordsworth was thus slanderously assailed, his fluent 
 and witty associate could not expect to escape. One day, accordingly, 
 while on a pedestrian excursion, Coleridge met a woman who, not knowmg 
 who he was, abused him to himself in unmeasured Billingsgate for a whole 
 hour, as a vile Jacobin villain, who had misled George Burnet of her parish. 
 * I listened,' wrote the poet to a friend, ' very particularly, appearing to 
 approve all she said, exclaimmg, "Dear me!" two or three times; and, in 
 fine, so completely won her heart by my civilities, that I had not courage 
 enough to undeceive her.' This is all very ludicrous and amusing now; 
 but at the time its effect was such, that the person who had the letting 
 of Allfoxden House refused point-blank to relet it to Wordsworth. This 
 was of course a gi-eat vexation to Poole and Coleridge, who set about 
 trying to procm-e another house m the vicinity. 
 
 But the two bards were not a subject of jealousy and suspicion to the 
 ignorant peasantry alone. A country gentleman of the locality became so 
 alarmed, that he called in the aid of that tremendous abstraction — the state; 
 and a spy was sent down from headquarters, and lodged in mysterious 
 privacy in Stowey Inn. The poets could never stir out but this gentleman 
 was at their heels, and they scarcely ever had an out-of-door conversation 
 which he did not overhear. He used to hide behind a bank at the seaside, 
 which was a favourite seat of theirs. At that time they used to talk a 
 great deal of Spinosa ; and as their confidential attendant had a notable 
 Bardolph nose, he at first took it into his head that they were making light of 
 his importance by nicknaming him 'Spy Nosy;' but was soon convinced that 
 that was the name of a man ' who had made a book, and lived long ago.' 
 On one occasion Bardolph assumed the character of a Jacobin, to draw 
 Coleridge out ; but such was the bard's indignant exposure of the Revolu- 
 tionists, that even the spy felt ashamed that he had put Jacobinism on. 
 Poor Coleridge was so unsuspicious, that he felt happy he had been the 
 means of shaking the convictions of this awful partisan, and doing the 
 unhappy man some good. At last the spy reported favourably, to the 
 great disgust of the rural magnate who had engaged his services, and who 
 now tried to elicit fresh grounds of suspicion from the village innkeeper. 
 But that worthy was obstinate in his belief that it was totally impossible 
 for Coleridge to harangue the inhabitants, as he talked ' real Hebrew- 
 Greek,' which their limited intellects could not understand. This, however, 
 only exasperated his inquisitor, who demanded whether Coleridge had not 
 been seen roving about, taking charts and maps of the district. The poor 
 innkeeper replied, that though he did not wish to say any ill of anybody, 
 yet he must confess he had heard tliat Coleridge was a poet, and intended 
 to put Quantock into prmt. Thus the friends escaped this peril, which 
 was then a formidable one. Coleridge was at the tune wandering about 
 12 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 among the romantic coombes of the Quantock Hills, making studies for a 
 poem on the plan afterwards followed out by "Wordsworth in his ' Sonnets to 
 the Duddon ;' and in the heat of the moment he resolved to dedicate it to 
 Government, as containing the traitorous plans which he was to submit to 
 the French, in order to facilitate their schemes of invasion. ' And these, 
 too,' says he, ' for a tract of coast that from Clevedon to Minehead scarcely 
 permits the approach of a iishing-boat.' 
 
 These troubles and vexations did not, however, prevent Wordsworth 
 from prosecuting his poetical undertakings. His industry must have 
 been incessant. At this time ' Peter Bell' was composed, with ' An 
 Adventure on Salisbury Plain,' and many smaller pieces. But it is curious 
 that he appears to have been principally concerned about his tragedy. 
 Coleridge and he had now formed a plan for making a tour to Germany in 
 company, and it was necessary to raise funds. For this purpose they 
 resolved on making a sacrifice of their darling tragedies, and the ever- 
 sers'iceable Cottle was applied to. Accordingly, in 1798, Coleridge made a 
 formal offer to that benevolent bookseller of these works, and also of a 
 volume of his friend's pieces, to contain ' Salisbury Plain,' ' Tale of a 
 Woman,' a few minor poems and notes. The tragedies extended, along 
 ■with the stage directions, to 6000 lines, and the price was to be paid 
 doAvn within four months. Cottle offered thii-ty guineas for each of them, 
 which, however, was not accepted at the time, owing to the hope enter- 
 tained by the authors that they might yet succeed in getting them brought 
 upon the stage. Wordsworth asked thirty guineas for the volume of 
 poems ; but no arrangement was concluded in respect to it. 
 
 In the meantime the ' Lyrical Ballads ' were fast maturing. The plan 
 had been concocted jointly by the two poets, and a distinct part in its 
 execution had been assigned to each. It had originated in the idea that a 
 series of poems might be composed of two sorts — the one, in which the 
 incidents and agents were to be in part supernatural ; the other, in which 
 the subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life. Accordingly, the super- 
 natural and romantic department was assigned to Coleridge, while Words- 
 worth was ' to give the charm of novelty to things of every day,' and to 
 ' awaken the mind's attention to the lethargy of custom, and direct it to 
 the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us.' This noble task 
 was not so easy then as it is now. A continuous series of poets had con- 
 centrated the world's admiration on extravagant and melodramatic cha- 
 racters and plots, and had substituted for the truthfulness of nature and the 
 simplicity of diction requisite for its expression, images drawn from the 
 commonplaces of the poetical treasury, and words and phrases which made 
 up for their inapplicability by a fine sonorousness and by pleasant associa- 
 tions. Cowper and Burns had done much to shake this artificial and 
 ruinous system, but in 1798 it was still rampant in literature. Words- 
 worth, however, from his haughty and uncordial nature, did not proceed on 
 his delicate duty with tact, but sometimes, instead of pruning the poetic 
 tree, stripped it at once of fruit, flowers, and leaves. For in his anxiety 
 to recommend a dignified simplicity of style and the virtues of lowly life, 
 he occasionally fell into poverty of diction and phrases polluted by mean 
 associations, and delivered philosophic lectures and refined sentiments 
 through characters most unlikely to entertain them. These faults were, 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 however, merely exceptional, and would have escaped general censure but 
 for an imprudence to be afterwards noticed. Notwithstanding the rich 
 luxuriance of Coleridge's own style, it is not vmlikely that he had a con- 
 siderable share in carrying his friend to these extremes. 'V\nbile at Christ's 
 Hospital he had been rigidly tutored by old Bowyer to cut away aU super- 
 fluous words, and to reject pompous phrases and metaphors. He recalls 
 that veteran's commands with delightful raciness. ' Lute, harp, and lyre,^ 
 says he, ' Muse, Muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippo- 
 crene, were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him 
 now exclaiming — " Harp ? harp ? lyre ? Pen and ink, boy, you mean ! 
 Muse, boy ; Muse ? Your nurse's daughtei-, you mean ! Pierian spring ? 
 Oh ay ; the cloister pump, I suppose ! " ' 
 
 At his first interview with Wordsworth, Cottle had heard some of the 
 lyrical poems read, and had earnestly advised theu* publication, offering 
 for them the same sum he had given to Coleridge and Southey for their 
 works, and stating flatteringly that no provincial bookseller might ever 
 again have the honour of ushering such a trio to renown. Wordsworth, 
 however, strongly objected to publication ; but in April 1798 the poet 
 sent for Cottle to hear them recited ' under the old trees in the park.' 
 Coleridge despatched a confirmatory invitation. ' We will procure a 
 horse,' wi'ote persuasive Samuel Taylor, ' easy as thy own soul, and we will 
 >£/ go on a roam to Linton and Limouth, which, if thou comest in May, wiU 
 
 / be in all their pride of woods and waterfalls, not to speak of its august 
 cliffs, and the gi-een ocean, and the vast Valley of Stones, aU which live 
 disdainful of the seasons, or accept new honours only from the winter's 
 snow.' The three friends did go on their romantic excursion, saw sweet 
 
 A Linton and Limouth, and arranged the publication of the first volume of 
 the ' Lyrical liallads.' Accordingly it appeared in the summer of that 
 year, and was chiefly composed of Wordsworth's pieces, but contained the 
 ' Ancient Marmer,' and other poems, by Coleridge. 
 
 Li September the two authors set off for the continent. Their different 
 temperaments displayed themselves very remarkably on the voyage. The 
 bard of Eydal seems to have kept very quiet ; but his mercurial com- 
 panion, after indulging in most questionable potations with a motley group 
 of eccentric foreigners, got up and danced with them a succession of dances, 
 which, he says, might very appropriately have been termed reels. Where 
 Wordsworth was may be conjectured from Coleridge's remark, that those 
 ' who lay below in all the agonies of sea-sickness must have found our 
 Bacchanalian meiTiment 
 
 " a tune 
 
 Harsh and of dissonant mood from their complaint." ' 
 
 One of the party was a Dane, a vain and disgusting coxcomb, whose con- 
 versation with Coleridge, whom he first took for a ' Doctor Teology,' and 
 then for ' un philosophe,' actually outburlesqued burlesque. The astounded 
 bard for the first time in his life took notes of a dialogue, of which a single 
 sample is enough . — 
 
 The Dane. Vat imagination ! vat language ! vat vast science ! vat eyes ! 
 vat a milkwhite forehead ! Oh my heafen ! vy, you're a got ! 
 
 Answer. You do me too much honour, sir. 
 14 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Tlie Dane. Oh me, if you should tink I is flattering you ! No, no, no. 
 T haf ten tousand a year — yes, ten tousand a year — yes, ten tousand pound 
 a year ! Veil, and vat is dhat ? Vy, a mere trifle ! I 'ouldn't gif my 
 sincere lieai-t for ten times dhe money ! Yes, you're a got ! — I a mere 
 man ! But, my dear friend, dhink of me as a man ! Is — is — I mean to 
 ask you now, my dear friend — is I not very eloquent ? Is I not speak 
 English very fine ? 
 
 And so his Daneship, in this extraordinary style, went on fishing for 
 compliments, and asking whether he did not speak just like Plato, and 
 Cato, and Socrates, till he lost all opinion of Coleridge on finding that he 
 was a Christian. The discarded poet then wrapped himself in his gi-eat- 
 coat, and looked at the water, covered with foam and stars of flame, wliUe 
 every now and tlien detachments of it ' darted off from the vessel's side, 
 each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight 
 like a Tartar troop over a wilderness.' By and by he lay down, and ' look- 
 ing up at two or thi-ee stars, which oscUlated with the motion of the sails, 
 fell asleep.' 
 
 They landed at Hambm-g, on the Elbe Stairs, at the Boom-House. 
 Wordswoi'th, with a French emigrant, whose acquaintance he had culti- 
 vated at sea, went in search of a hotel, and put up at ' Die WUde Man,' 
 while the other wild man, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, strolled about, amusmg 
 hunself with looking at the ' Dutch women, with large umbrella hats shoot- 
 ing out half a yard before them, and a prodigal plumpness of petticoat 
 behind,' and many similar striking and unusual spectacles. 
 
 In Hamburg the pau- were introduced to the brother of the poet Klop- 
 stock, and to Professor Ebeling, a lively and intelligent man, but so deaf 
 that they had to ' di'op all then- pearls into a huge ear-trumpet.' At LIr 
 Klopstock's they saw a bust of the poet, whom they afterwards visited. 
 It had a solemn and heavy greatness in the countenance, which corre- 
 sponded with the notions entertained by Coleridge of his style and genius, 
 and which were afterwards discovered not to exist in the protot}"pe him- 
 self. Coleridge, whose chief object in coming to Germany was to become 
 acquainted with the Gennan language and literature, left Wordsworth in 
 Hamburg, and went to Eatzeburg, where he boarded in the pastor's house. 
 He returned, however, for a few days, to take final leave of his fi-iend, and 
 the two paid a visit to Klopstock together. His house was one of a row of 
 what appeared small summer-houses, with four or five rows of young 
 meagre elms in front, and beyond these a green, boimded by a dead flat. 
 The bard's physiognomy disappointed them as much as his domicile. 
 Coleridge recognised in it no likeness to the bust, and no traces either of 
 sublimity or enthusiasm. Klopstock could only speak French and German, 
 and Coleridge only English and Latin, so that Wordsworth, who was 
 accomplished in French, acted as interpreter. It may here be mentioned 
 that this ignorance of Coleridge's brought upon him a peculiar sort of 
 civility at Eatzeburg. The amtmann of that place, anxious to be civil, 
 and totally unable to find any medium of communication, every day they 
 met, as the only courtesy he had it in his power to offer, addressed to him 
 
 the whole stock of English he possessed, whicli was to this effect : — ' 
 
 ddam yoiu- ploot unt eyes, my dearest Englander, vhee goes it?' The 
 conversation with Klopstock turned entirely upon English and Gennan 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 literature, and in the course of it Wordsworth gave ample proofs of his 
 great taste, industry, and information, and even showed that he was better 
 acquainted with the highest German writers than the author of the ' l\Ies- 
 siah ' himself. On his informing the latter that Coleridge intended to trans- 
 late some of his odes, the old man said to Coleridge — ' I wish you would 
 render into English some select passages of the " Messiah," and revenge me 
 of your countrymen.' ' This,' says Coleridge, ' was the liveliest thuig he 
 produced in the whole conversation.' That genius was, however, deeply 
 moved, but could not help being disgusted with the venerable bard's snow- 
 white periwig, which felt to his eye what Mr Virgil would have been to his 
 ear. After this Coleridge left Hamburg, and resided four months in Ratze- 
 burg, and five in Gottingen. Wordsworth had two subsequent interviews 
 with Klopstock, and dined with him. He kept notes of these conversa- 
 tions, some of which are given in ' Satyrane's Letters,' in the second volume 
 of the ' Biographia Literaria.' One or two incidents strongly illustrate 
 Wordsworth's peculiar character and poetical taste. He complained, for 
 example, of Lessing making the interest of the ' Oberon ' turn upon mere 
 appetite. ' Well, but,' said lOopstock, ' you see that such poems please 
 everybody.' He immediately replied, that ' it was the province of a great 
 poet to raise people up to his owa level — not to descend to theirs.' Klop- 
 stock afterwards found fault with the Fool In ' Lear,' when Wordsworth 
 observed that ' he gave a terrible wildness to the distress ' — a remark which 
 evinced a deep appreciation of that awful drama. Wordsworth subse- 
 quently made a short tour, and visited Coleridge at Gottingen on his 
 return. 
 
 During their absence their jomt venture had fared ill. Some congenial 
 spirits had indeed mai-ked it with prophetic eye. Wilson, then in the 
 heyday of his life, noted the advent of a great poet, and it seemed to him 
 as ' if a new sun had risen on mid-day.' Hannah More also used to express 
 herself strongly on the subject, and made Cottle read over the ' Lyrical 
 Ballads' to her at her mansion of Barleywood. She was much delighted 
 with the universally-decried ' Harry Gill ;' and when Cottle came to tlie 
 words, ' Oh may he never more be warm ! ' she held up her hands in smilmg 
 horror. But the reviews were very severe ; and though the miglity organs 
 of criticism had not yet arisen, and their formidable artillery still slept in 
 the arsenal of the future, the volume was almost dead-born. Mr Arch, a 
 London bookseller, to whom the first edition had been sold, made nothing 
 of it. On Coleridge's return to Bristol, he and Cottle went on a visit to 
 Wordsworth, then in the north. At this interview the ' Ballads,' being a 
 sore subject, were only once alluded to by the chief party interested, and 
 that merely to account for their failure, which he attributed partly to the 
 reviews, and partly to the unintelligibility of the ' Ancient Mariner !' On 
 his return Cottle went to London, and sold the copyright of the 'Ballads' 
 to Longman and Rees, who on a subsequent occasion told him that the 
 valuator had estimated it at nothing, and at his request gave it back to 
 him. Cottle then presented it to Wordsworth, who has thus reaped all 
 the profits of this part of his works. 
 
 Probably this is the fittest place to notice the few love poems of Words- 
 worth, as most of them bear date in 1799. These refer to a girl whom he 
 denominates Lucy, and speaks of as dead ; but wliether she was a real or 
 16 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 an imaginary character does not appear. IMore probably she was real; 
 and his pieces relating to her may be taken as representing tlie utmost 
 what he was capable of in that department. There are few writers who 
 have depicted female character in all its loveable features moi-e graphi- 
 cally and delicately than Wordsworth, or have more charmingly given 
 uttei-ance to the domestic and fomily afl'ections. He himself took the 
 stockdove as his emblem. Nay, in one or two pieces he even describes 
 with highly-polished taste, and in rich strains of poetry, the sufferings 
 and the woes of lovers. But even in the most exquisite passages of 
 * Vaudracour and Julia,' he always appears to describe the passion of 
 love from without, and never to penetrate it from within itself. Indeed 
 he was without strong passions, except his single passion for external 
 nature ; and in particular, he was defective in that most dithyrambic of all 
 passions — love ; which, during its brief sway in its most exalted phases, 
 suspends calculation, and emerges in the character of the beautiful and 
 winged, but blmd child, which the fancy of the ancients has represented. 
 Accordingly, not his power only, but even his taste, abandons him in his 
 attempts to body foi-th the feeling of love. Thus in one fine lyric, 
 expressly wi-itten to commemorate a ' strange fit of passion,' he gives some 
 exquisite pictures of the effects of the moon's apparent motions on a 
 dreamy mind equal to anything in ' Christabel.' He is riding towards 
 Lucy's cot — 
 
 ' My horse moved on ; hoof after hoof 
 He raised, and never stopped, 
 When down behind the cottage roof 
 At once the bright moon dropped.' 
 
 But just as he has wrought up the reader to expect a fine development of 
 the superstitious feeling pointed at, he suddenly strikes upon the rock 
 ahead of love, and goes sheer down a thousand fathoms — 
 
 ' What fond and wayward thoughts will slide 
 Into a lover's head ! , 
 
 " Oh mercy f'' to myself I cried — 
 ^^ If Lucy should he dead!'''' ' 
 
 Another love lyric he closes in this way — 
 
 ' Few could know 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave ; and oh, 
 Tlie difference to me!'' 
 
 And in another he sings of his dead Lucy as if she had been a fossil in 
 some sepulchral mine — ■ 
 
 ' No motion has she now, no force ; 
 She neither hears nor sees ; 
 Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, 
 With rocks, and stones, and trees.' 
 
 Lideed where his love verses are most graceful, and even faultlessly beau- 
 tiful, the rhythm, the cadence, the dying fall, the tremulous tenderness — 
 in short, the spirit and divinity of the passion — are totally wanting. Thus 
 the fine poem — 
 
 ' They say that men have died for love,' 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 which in its music and style is perfect, yet seems a succession of conceits, 
 like those of the Italian sonnetteers, rather than the utterance of passion , 
 and this becomes the more manifest on comparing it with the effusions of 
 great and emotive minds. Thus the verse — 
 
 ' Thou thrush ! that singest loud, and loud, and free, 
 Into yon row of willows flit, 
 Upon that alder sit. 
 Or sing another song, or choose anotlier tree!' 
 
 is in itself undoubtedly a fine one, but contains not a trace of that inex- 
 pressible plaintiveness which seems to breathe even more from the rhythm 
 than the words of the similar piece in Bm-ns — 
 
 which ends- 
 
 ' Oil stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay!' 
 
 ' For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair. 
 Or my poor heart is broken.' 
 
 And even the most fiery sparkles of Wordsworth in his fieriest moods pale 
 before the glow of such passages as those of Rousseau in the chamber of 
 Heloise, or Goethe when he depicts his Wilhelm Meister at the door of the 
 youtliful acti'ess, while the moon whitened the poplars overhead, and the 
 music of the wandering minstrels came through the silent midnight. The 
 moderns are uniformly inferior to the ancients in everything of the dithy- 
 rambic species, amorous or not, and have never reproduced any work 
 analogous to those Grecian religious dithyrambs, where the heat and hurry 
 of the poet melted a score of words into one, which stretched its giant 
 length through half-a-dozen lines. And of all modern poets, Words- 
 worth is the least successful in this style. Thus his ode to the lark — 
 
 ' Up with me — up with me into the clouds ' — 
 
 is by no means equal to Shelley's fierce lyi-ic to the same bird — 
 
 •■ ' Like a cloud of fire 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest — 
 And singing ever soarest. 
 And soaring ever singest.' 
 
 Nor can it stand comparison with Keats's wild verses to the nightingale, Id 
 which he longs with that melodist 
 
 ' To fade away into the forest dim.' 
 
 In 1800 we find that Wordsworth, who was doubtless by this time 
 quite cured of his Lucy- mania, had attracted Coleridge down to the Lake 
 country. The latter arrived in Keswick, where he resided for so many 
 years, m July, and so fascmated his landlord, that he at fii-st refused to 
 take any rent, and at last consented to accept about half what he would 
 have got from others. Wordsworth hved twelve miles off; and close at 
 hand was the eccentric Guilfred Lawson — a countiy knight, who kept 
 wild beasts as playthings, to whom Coleridge in a letter laughingly 
 alludes, mentioning particularly an epistle which that magnate received, 
 ending in a postscript of two lines, coolly asking whether the writer 
 might forward him a buffalo and a rhinoceros. Ilere Coleridge agreed 
 18 
 
■\VILLIAJI WOKDSTVORTir. 
 
 to supply Wordsworth -with a poem for the second volume of the 
 'Lyrical Ballads,' to be called ' Christabel ; ' but notwithstanding solitary 
 walks on the misty mountain-tops, his brain was exhausted by ' AVallen- 
 stein,' and was utterly paralysed. At last by chance, when dining out, 
 he got what ordinary men would call drunk ; and next day his poetic 
 power returned, and poured forth verses so exuberant and rich, that 
 Wordsworth now declined the contribution both as too long and too 
 good. The ' Lyrical Ballads ' were therefore published without the 
 ' Christabel ; ' and this time they excited even more intense hostility than 
 at lirst. This was not owing enthely to the causes formerly mentioned, 
 and inherent in the origmal plan of the work, but more to a preface con- 
 taining certain canons of poetry which he laid down as the main articles 
 of his poetical creed. The substance of these may be expressed in two or 
 tlu-ee propositions : — First, he purposely chose his incidents and situations 
 from low and rustic life, because in it our elementary feelings coexist in a 
 state of greater simplicity, and consequently may be more accurately con- 
 templated and more forcibly communicated ; and in it also the passions 
 of men are incorporated with the beautiful and lasting forms of nature. 
 Second, he preferred the language of low and rustic life (purified from what 
 appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dis- 
 gust), because in that condition men commmiicate hoiu'ly with the best 
 objects from which the best part of language is derived, and convey their 
 notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. And third, he asserted 
 that the language of poetry is in noway different, except in respect to 
 metre, from that of good prose. It is needless to enter into an elaborate 
 argument, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge has ah-eady done with unsurpassable 
 ability, to expose these principles, and to show that what is new in them 
 is not true, and what is true, not new. 
 
 It is probable that Wordsworth did not propound them in the unlimited 
 sense in which they were interpreted by his critics ; and in a subsequent 
 edition the preface in which they were contained was removed to a sub- 
 ordmate position. But there can be no doubt that this theory induced Mm 
 to be needlessly prolix and tedious on feelings and mcidents without poetical 
 interest, and occasionally to use mean phrases, and language polluted by 
 imdignified, or even disagreeable associations. These were indeed rare and 
 exceptional cases, for his own naturally stately and dignified genius pro- 
 tected him from frequent transgressions. But though a hundred lines de- 
 leted might have made all right, the public, who felt outraged by his critical 
 defiance, took these hundred lines as illustrating the predominant character 
 of two volumes of very beautiful and various poetry. The critics rose en 
 masse against him. Jeffrey's first assault was in 1802, in a critique on 
 Southey's ' Thalaba,' and was directed against the Lakers as a school. It 
 is amusing to observe his then idea of their characteristics. He chai-ges 
 them in a body with the antisocial principles of Rousseau, his discontent 
 at things as they are, his paradoxical morality, and his hankering after a 
 state of voluptuous vu-tue and perfection ; and endows them with the 
 simplicity and energy of Schiller and Kotzebue, the homeliness and harsh- 
 ness of Cowper, the innocence of Ambrose Phillips, and the quaintness 
 of Quarles and Dr Donne. The storm continued year by year to increase ; 
 and the charges multiplied so ludicrously fast, that Southey in his ' Doctor ' 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 thus satirised them : — ' The poet Southey is said to carry shaving to its 'n^ 
 plus ultra of independency, for he shaves sans looking-glass, sans shaving- 
 brush, sans soap, or substitute for soap, sans hot water, sans cold water, 
 
 sans everything except a razor But on reflection I am not certain 
 
 whether it is of the poet Southey that this is said, or of the poet Words- 
 worth. I may easily have confused one Avith the other in my recollec- 
 tions, just as what was said of Komulus might have been repeated of Remus 
 
 while they were both living and flourishing together Indeed we 
 
 should never repeat what is said of pviblic characters without qualifying it 
 as a common report or magazine authority. It is very possible that the 
 Lake poets may both of them shave after the manner of other men.' 
 
 With all the defects before-mentioned, it cannot now be disputed that 
 the prevailing features of the ' Lyrical Ballads ' were aptness and simplicity, 
 and occasionally dignity and richness of diction — a power of picturing 
 objects and landscapes with much precision of outline — tenderness and 
 delicacy of feeling — and a tendency to dhect the eye to all that is really 
 beautiful and elevating in the ordinary incidents of common life : a tendency 
 at times leading to portraitures purely ideal. The ' Pet-Lamb,' and ' We 
 are Seven,' are well-known examples. The following is a fine picture of 
 the dawning from the loudly-decried ' Idiot Boy:' — 
 
 ' By this the stars were almost gone — 
 Tlie moon was setting on the hill, 
 So pale you scarcely looked at her ; 
 The little birds began to stir. 
 Though yet their tongues were still.' 
 
 And how gorgeous are some of the verses of ' Ruth :' — 
 
 ' He told of the magnolia spread 
 High as a cloud, high over head ! 
 The cypress and her spire ; 
 Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 
 Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 
 To set the hills on fire. 
 
 The youth of green savannas spake, 
 And many an endless, endless lake, 
 With all its fairy crowds 
 Of islands that together lie 
 As quietly as spots of sky 
 Among the evening clouds.' 
 
 Of his feminine tenderness of feeling, the fine pastoral of ' Michael ' is 
 an example. Space forbids all but one brief quotation, but few wiU be 
 able to read the poem itself without the relief of tears : — 
 
 ' Thus living on through such a length of years 
 The shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs 
 Have loved his helpmate ; but to Michaers heart 
 This son of his old age was yet more dear — 
 Less fi'om instinctive tenderness, the same 
 Pond spirit that blindly works in tlie blood of all, 
 Than that a child, more than all other gifts 
 That earth can offer to declining man. 
 Brings hope witli it, and forward-looking thoughts 
 And stirrings of inquietude, when they, 
 By tendency of nature, needs must fail.' 
 20 
 
■WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 But, indeed, wlnlc blamed for his mean diction, he had ah-eady commenced 
 the composition of those Sonnets, not frequently rivalled in the English 
 language in purity, precision, and dignity — qualities which find fit 
 representation in this dedication : — 
 
 ' Happy the fcclinp: from tlie bosom thrown 
 In perfect shape (wliose beauty Time shall spare 
 Though a breath made it) like a bubble blown 
 For summer pastime into wanton air : 
 Happy the tliought liest likened to a stone 
 Of the sca-bcach, when polished with nice care 
 Veins it discovers exquisite and rare, 
 Whicli for the loss of that moist gleam atone 
 That tempted first to gatlier it. That here, 
 Oh chief of friends! such feelings I present 
 To thy regard, with thoughts so fortunate, 
 Were a vain notion ; but tlie hope is dear, 
 That thou, if not with partial joy elate. 
 Wilt smile upon this gift with more than mild content.' 
 
 Wordsworth was not latterly inaccessible to conviction in regard to the 
 phraseology of some parts of his ' Ballads,' and has altered it, sometimes 
 for the worse. Thus, in the ' Leech-Gatherer,' the lines — 
 
 ' He answered me with pleasure and surprise, 
 And there was while he spoke a lire about his eyes,' 
 
 has been altered into 
 
 ' Ere he replied, a flasli of mild surprise 
 Broke from the sable orbs of his yet vivid eyes.' 
 
 Indeed his defects were all the more remarkable, that he was all along 
 fastidiously studious of his words, and his criticisms upon some of his own 
 lines and plirases are veiy striking. Thus in his lines in the ' Ode to the 
 Cuckoo ' — 
 
 ' Shall I call thee bird— 
 Or but a wandering Voice ?' 
 
 he remarks — ' This concise inteiTogation characterises the seeming ubiquity 
 of the voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a corpo- 
 real existence; the imagination being tempted to this exertion of her 
 power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost per- 
 petually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an 
 object of sight.' It was by this fine combination of critical acumen, 
 great industry, and pei-petual self-examination, united to a cool and 
 stately flow of temper, that Wordsworth produced those splendid series 
 of sonnets which — whatever cotemporary criticism may have said — are 
 rapidly taking rank with those of Milton and Shakspeare. 
 
 In 1802 he bade a brief adieu to his beautiful cottage at Grasmere in 
 some delightful verses, which did not forget even the primroses on the 
 rocks, and set off to bring home one who was to share henceforth in all his 
 pleasures and attachments. This was his cousin, Miss Mary Hutchinson 
 of Penrith, to whom he now united himself in marriage. In August he 
 made a very short trip to France, returning in September. By this time 
 he had imbibed a rooted hatred of the tuni which events had taken m that 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 country, and particularly of its tyrannical interference with the liberties of 
 other nations. The day he spent in Calais saw Bonaparte Consul for life, 
 and wrung from the poet one or two bitter but beautiful sonnets, con- 
 trasting the pretentious pomp of that occasion with the wild delirium of 
 exultation which met hun at every step as he plodded along, a younger 
 man, in the joyous July of 1790. It was with undisguised emotion he 
 once more recognised old England in 
 
 ' Tlie cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound 
 Of bells : those boys who in yon meadow-ground 
 In white-sleeved shirts are playing ; and the roar 
 Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore.' 
 
 From that day his anti-Gallican fervour increased continually. Burying 
 himself, with scarcely laudable gratulation on his own tranquillity, in the 
 peaceful solitudes of Grasmere, he watched with increasing mdignation the 
 march of the Corsican towards empire, and launched sonnet after sonnet at 
 each successive step of his triumph, till he rose to a climax of almost 
 divine wrath ; which passed into an equally divine furor of thanksgiving 
 on the flight from Eussia and the rout at Waterloo. His ode on the last 
 occasion has a dithyi'ambic audacity akin to the wildest rhapsodies of 
 Pindar : — 
 
 ' We laud 
 And magnify thy name, Almighty God! 
 But thy most a\A-ful instrument 
 In working out a pure intent 
 Is man — arrayed for mutual slaughter — 
 Yea, Carnage is thy daughter ! ' 
 
 In 1803, after the birth of his first child, the poet paid a \'isit to Scot- 
 land; and, as on every future occasion, he appeared to mdicate a dislike to 
 Edinburgh, the headquarters of the hostile Re\aewers, passing it by with 
 marked slight, so that Clu'istopher North complained long aftei-wards, and 
 pleaded that Auld Reekie was as much worth a few days' stay as Glasgow, 
 even though it had no such phenomenon to exhibit as the Glasgow 
 Gander. Wordsworth on this occasion visited the grave of Burns, the 
 Braes of Kirtle, Loch -Lomond, Loch Awe, Loch Katerine, and many 
 other spots hallowed either by their own beauty or by traditional asso- 
 ciations, wherever he wandered marking his track with song. His sister, 
 who accompanied him, kept a very interesting diary. On their return 
 they called on Sir Walter Scott, to whom Wordsworth had been already 
 spoken of by mutual friends ; and the party went together to Roslm, and 
 all the interesting localities of that district. Wordsworth was delighted 
 vrith Sir Walter's manly nature, and with his recitations of his ' Last 
 Minstrel,' and everywhere found his name an ' Open Sesame.' At Hawick 
 the landlady would on no account listen to the southern's putting up in 
 Scott's bedroom till she heard what the ' sherra' himself had to say. At 
 this time the cu-cuit court was holding at Jedburgh, and the minstrel was 
 anxious that his friends should not enter the presence of justice, and catch 
 him in his horrible official costume. But they, nevertheless, managed to 
 get a glimpse of him in the procession, marching along m a cocked-hat 
 and sword to the music of a solitary cracked trumpet. This visit to the 
 Great ]\Iagician was long remembered with muniuglcd pleasure. 
 22 
 
WILLIAM WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 On Wordsworth's return to Grasmci-e, which he heralded, as usual, by a 
 very beautiful sonnet, he went to Keswick, to visit Coleridge, and there 
 became acquainted with Southey, who had just arrived in the Lake Country 
 from Bristol. In October, Ilazlitt came do^vii on a visit, and painted a 
 portrait of Wordsworth, who was his beau ideal of physiognomical perfec- 
 tion, in so hideous a style, that a wag wrote underneath, ' At the gallows, 
 deeply aftected by his deserved fate, but determined to die like a man!' 
 There was a dignitied and stately flow of enjoyment in the life which these 
 great poets now led in their romantic reti'cat, but broken, alas ! by the sad 
 incidents of humanity. Charles Lamb, who came among them, was greatly 
 changed from the frolicsome youth of Stowey; and Coleridge was already 
 visited with those terrible nervous disorders which formed an apology for 
 his ruinous vice of opium-eating. On one occasion, when he stayed a 
 month at Grasmere, Mrs and Miss Wordsworth used to sit up with him 
 all night, and waken him at the slightest symptom of the approach of his 
 paroxysmal dreams. His screams were so heartrending, that these ladies 
 often shed tears for him even in their sleep. 
 
 Wordsworth seems now to have retreated wholly into the sanctuary 
 of family duties and affections, and to have retired from the every-day 
 bustle of the social and political world, in the pride of a philosophy 
 which was certainly not the loftiest nor the widest, though perhaps the 
 best fitted to his own saturnine and contemplative nature. Indeed even 
 Southey saw him but rarely ; and Scott, who could not manage to draw 
 an epistle out of him, used to inquu-e at the laureate about him in these 
 somewhat emphatic terms — ' Wliat the devil is Wordsworth about?' In 
 1805, however, Scott visited Grasmere in person, and ascended with the 
 solitary to the top of Helvellyn. In the same year the latter met with a 
 sore affliction, in the loss of his brother in the Abergavenny East Tndiaman. 
 It is curious that about this period, notwithstanding the ultra-Conservatism 
 of Southey and Wordsworth, Lord Somerville, who dined with them at 
 General Peachey's, said everywhere, that however they had got mto good 
 society, they were beyond doubt Jacobins at the heart. In 1806 Words- 
 worth read ' The Wagoner' in manuscript to Charles Lamb. This airy and 
 truly humorous poem commemorates a misadventure which induced Cole- 
 ridge's landlord to turn one of his wagoners out of his service. This fellow 
 was a genuine original, and years after his mishap, on meeting his immor- 
 taliser, he refeiTcd to his successor very contemptuously, as ' a man of no 
 ideas,^ who would never do. 
 
 In 1807 Jeffrey launched his first special review at Wordsworth. In the 
 same year, in the ' Montlily Literary Recreations,' Byi'on inserted a very 
 favourable critique, particularly noting the poet's sunplicity and contempt 
 for inane and tinsel phraseology. No doubt in his letter to Bowles he 
 spoke more bitterly, when he hinted that the Roman toga was more 
 poetical than the tattooed skin of a New Zealander, even though simg 
 by William Wordsworth; but he seems never to have greatly disliked 
 him, though Hogg's imprudence in showing the Lakers a letter from his 
 lordship, speaking lightly of their fishing and angling, made him fancy 
 that they detested him. Moore and Shelley, however, were always urging 
 Wordsworth's merits on him ; and he certainly repented of his attack in 
 tLe ' English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' and drew his pen through it in 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 his own copy. The following is his estimate of Wordsworth at a subse- 
 quent period : — 
 
 W. /\ Scott, 
 
 Byron often visited Sir George Beaumont, to whom Wordsworth was 
 much attached. Sir George supplied illustrations for the edition of the 
 latter's poems hi 1815. Wordsworth was a great admirer of the art of the 
 painter, and his pieces on it are worthy of a place side by side with Keats's 
 ' Lines on a Grecian Urn.' He addressed warm poetical tributes of praise to 
 the illustrious and imhappy Haydon, to Sir George himself, and to GiUies, 
 whose relative, in gratitude, painted one of the best portraits of the bard. 
 At this time Wordsworth was composing his ' Immortality.' He also visited 
 Bolton Priory in Yorkshhe, and began, in connection with its traditions, 
 his gi-aceful poem of ' The White Doe.' He had met with a severe family 
 affliction, in which he and his bereaved wife found some consolation in the 
 beautiful Spenserian allegory of ' Heavenly Una with her Milk-white 
 Lamb ;' and the mysterious ' White Doe' was designed as a companion to 
 that beautiful wanderer in fairy-land. 
 
 In 1810 Jeffrey paid his famous visit to Keswick, where he met with a 
 courteous reception from Southey ; but was much more fascinated by the 
 still brilliant Coleridge, who walked him and lectured him through the fields 
 all the forenoon, dined with him m the inn in the afternoon, and disarmed 
 the terrible king of criticism so completely by his witcheries, that he pro- 
 mised to remove his name from the proscribed catalogue of the Lakers. 
 It was afterwards made a bitter charge against Jeffrey, that in spite of 
 the hospitable ti-eatment he received he waxed fiercer than ever against 
 his entertainers and their school. In 1812 the reviewer put Wilson's 
 name in the black list ; and if gloi'ious rackets on the green margins of the 
 lakes, and triumphal galas on Wastwater m their company, constituted 
 Christopher a Laker, the charge was assuredly well deserved. Horace 
 Smith now published his well-known ' Rejected Addresses.' purporting 
 to be written by most of the living poets on the opening of Drury-Lane ; 
 and, as might have been anticipated, Wordsworth was not omitted from 
 the Immortals who were stretched on the rack of pai'ody. His Address 
 was put into the mouth of a little girl drawn on the stage in a go-cart, 
 and maundering in this style of supposed Wordsworthian simphcity : — 
 
 ' Wliat a large floor ! 'Tis like a towii. 
 The carpet, when tlicy lay it down 
 Wont hide it, I'll be bound ; 
 24 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 And there's a row of lamps — my eye! 
 
 How they do blaze ! I wonder why 
 
 Tlicy keep them on the ground?' 
 
 The ever -watchful JeflVey of course did not fnil to follow up the blow 
 by declaring that the parody was a flattering imitation of the poet's style ! 
 In 1814 Wordsworth made a second trip to Scotland, and this time visited 
 YaiTow, which he commemorated in a beautiful piece called ' Yarrow 
 Visited.' He was now appointed collector of stamps for his native district, 
 which post he held for a long time witliout any sacrifice of real dignity, 
 except, perhaps, on a single occasion, bitterly alluded to by Southey, when 
 the government sent liim a circular requesting him to employ spies to buy 
 some prohibited article, and then give information. In this year, also, tlie 
 great poem of ' The Excursion ' was published, and provoked a furious 
 onslaught from JeflVey. 
 
 This poem consists of slcetches of life and manners among the mountains, 
 intermingled with moral and devotional reflections. It is merely a part of 
 a larger poem, which was to be entitled ' The Recluse,' and to be prefaced 
 by a minor one delineating the growth of the author's mind, publislied 
 since his death under the name of ' The Prelude.' ' The Eecluse ' was to be 
 divided into three parts. ' The Excursion ' forms the second of these. The 
 first book of the first part is extant in manuscript, but the rest of the work 
 was never completed. With respect to what has been given to the world, 
 there is neither poverty in the style nor meagreness in the diction, but botli, 
 on the contrary, are clear, musical, and dignified. The sketches of character 
 being derived from his own actual observation, are striking and truthful, 
 though often highly idealised, and have an mherent pathos that touches the 
 unsophisticated heart. They are all, however, the production of one who 
 feels for his personages from an unapproachable eminence, and not of one 
 who mingles and sympathises with them ; and the tone on that account, not 
 seldom, has a certain coldness and uncordiality attaching to it. His pictures 
 of landscape are remarkably definite in the outline and minute in the tracings, 
 and his figures seem as deeply cut as sculptures, and impress the mind like 
 objects of sense. The moral is a stern inculcation of duty, and the religion 
 a half-sylvan Christianity, evasive of some of the doctrines, and without 
 that precision which it seems afterwards to have assumed in his mind. For 
 the philosophy, it is a complete delusion to search for any system in ' The 
 Excursion.' The poet's feelings, however, had one or two highly-deve- 
 loped tendencies — such as his devotion to nature, and reverence for the 
 humble and the ordinary ; and the extravagance with which these master 
 sentiments are often expressed, and the uniformity with which every other 
 thought and feeling group themselves round these spiritual poles, simulates 
 the appearance of a philosophical system. The purification of the soul is to 
 a great extent placed on the basis of a continual communion with the more 
 permanent forms of nature, while the expression of the belief, that the 
 ever-varying phases even of these majestic objects extricates withm the 
 sphitual depths the consciousness that they are but garments in which the 
 Everlasting clothes himself, is apt to the hasty reader to as.sume the shape 
 of a semi-Pantheism. The faith in immortality is in Wordsworth's poems 
 generally attributed to an innate consciousness, which only becomes 
 eclipsed as the child grows into the man. These constitute almost the 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 entire cycle of the philosophy of the poet, in whom, though it is not safe 
 to judge of his doctrmes from casual pieces, some prominent points of 
 Christianity afterwards assumed more force and occupied more space, and 
 whom all his tendencies, political and moral, gradually led more and more 
 into complete harmony with the Established Chm-ch, though he was imi- 
 formly catholic and tolerant — so far as he ever ventured to express himself 
 — in his doctrinal views. 'The Excursion' is, however, faulty in occupy- 
 ing too much space with ideas which are uninteresting to average men. 
 It is often tedious and prolix, and on the whole, as a work of art, it is 
 clumsily and inartisticaUy constructed. The following extract, part of the 
 reflections of the pedlar, who is the hero of the poem, in Margaret's 
 deserted garden, will exemplify the style and manner : — 
 
 ' I see around me here 
 
 Things which you cannot see. "VVe die, my friend, 
 
 Nor we alone, but that whicli each man loved 
 
 Or prized in liis peculiar nook of earth 
 
 Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon 
 
 Even of the good is no memorial left. 
 
 Tlie poets, in their elegies and songs. 
 
 Lamenting the departed, call the groves. 
 
 They call upon the hills and streams to mourn, 
 
 And senseless rocks; nor idly, for they speak 
 
 In these their invocations wth a voice 
 
 Obedient to the strong creative power 
 
 Of human passion. Sympathies there are 
 
 More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth, 
 
 That steal upon the meditative mind. 
 
 And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood 
 
 And eyed its waters, till we seemed to feel 
 
 One sadness, they and I. For them a bond 
 
 Of brotherhood is broken : time has been 
 
 When every day the touch of human hand 
 
 Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up 
 
 In mortal stillness ; and they ministered 
 
 To human comfort. Stooping down to drink, 
 
 Upon the slimy footstone I espied 
 
 The useless fragment of a wooden bowl 
 
 Green with the moss of years, and subject only 
 
 To the soft handling of tlie elements. 
 
 There let it lie ! How foolish are such thoughts ! 
 
 Forgive them. Never — never did my steps 
 
 Approach this door but she who dwelt within 
 
 A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her 
 
 As my own child. Oh, sir, the good die first. 
 
 And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
 
 Bum to the socket. Many a passenger 
 
 Had blessed poor Margaret for her gentle looks 
 
 When she uplield the cool refreshment drawn 
 
 From that forsaken spring; and no one came 
 
 But he was welcome ; no one went away 
 
 But that it seemed she loved him. She is dead. 
 
 The hght extinguished of her lonely hut. 
 
 The hut itself abandoned to decay. 
 
 And she forgotten in the quiet grave.' 
 
 The unpardonable audacity which put these sentiments into the mouth of 
 a man ' of tapes and staylaces,' as well as other faults, exasperated Jeffrey^ 
 and he gi-eatly increased the storm against the writer by a furious critique, 
 beginning — ' This will never do,' and evincing a mind clear and acute, but 
 26 
 
TOLLIAM WOKDSWOKTH. 
 
 with less of the broad and creative. Tlie assault was renewed with equal 
 bitterness on the appearance, in 1815, of the 'White Doe;' an extremely 
 graceful and airy legendary poem. The ' Quarterly ' rather aided than other- 
 wise in these attacks, and ' Blackwood,' with a semblance of neutrality, was 
 also unfavourable. The periodicals accurately mirrored the general mind, 
 which is curiously illustrated by some letters in Maga about this period. 
 A letter by Wordsworth to Dr Gray, ccnsm-ing tlie spirit in which Cui-rie's 
 ' Life of Burns ' was wi'itten, gave rise to a war of words in its pages ; and 
 one of the combatants taunts the bard of Rydal with the fact, that on his 
 name being on one occasion mentioned in a large and polished circle, it was 
 inunediately uiquired, in temis too emphatic for repetition, who this fellow 
 Wordsworth was ; and that, having afterwai'ds written to Glasgow College 
 Library for a copy of his works, he received it uncut, and with carte blanche 
 to keep it as long as he pleased, as nobody had ever asked after it. These 
 bitter assaults gave rise to a school of devoted Wordsworthians, whose 
 maxim was, that Wordsworth could do no wrong. These ardent disciples 
 tended more and more to brmg then* king into ridicule. A writer in Black- 
 wood for November 1829, gives an amusing sketch of a party where the 
 ' Intimations of Immortality,' revered by the initiated as the ' Revelation,' 
 were read aloud by a true disciple, in a kind of unimaginable chant then 
 peculiar to the sect. There were many true believers present, with a few 
 neophytes, and one or two absolute and wicked sceptics ! No sooner had 
 the recitation fairly commenced, than ' one of the sceptics, of laugliing pro- 
 pensities, crammed his handkerchief half-way down his throat ; the others 
 looked keen and composed ; the disciples gi-oaned, and the neophytes shook 
 their heads in deep conviction.' The reciter proceeded with deeper and 
 deeper unction, till, on being asked by a neophyte to give an explanation, 
 which he was unable to give, he got angiy, and ' roundly declared that 
 things so out of the common way, so sublime, and so abstruse, could be 
 conveyed in no language but their own.' When the reciter came to the 
 words, ' Callings from us,' the neophyte again timidly requested an expla- 
 nation, and was informed by one of the sceptics that they meant the child's 
 transitory gleams of a glorious pre-existence that fall away and vanish 
 almost as soon as they appear. The obstinate neophyte only replied, in a 
 tone of melancholy, ' W"hen I think of my childhood, I have only visions 
 of traps and balls, and whippings. I never remember being " haimted by 
 the external mind." To be sure I did ask a great many questions, and was 
 tolerably obstinate, but I fear these are not the " obstinate questionings " 
 of which Mr Wordsworth speaks.' This is but a small sample of the 
 Wordsworthian scenes and disputations then of every-day occurrence. In 
 1816 a kind of shadow of Horace Smith again took the field. It seems 
 that Hogg intended to publish an anthology of the living British bards, 
 and had written to some of them for specunens. A wag, who had heard 
 of the project, immediately issued an anthology, purporting to be this, but 
 containing merely the coinage of his own bi-ain. As may be imagined, 
 Wordsworth occupied a prominent corner ; and indeed some of the imita- 
 tions — for most were rather imitations than parodies — did him no discredit. 
 The ' Flying Tailor,' however, was not an infelicitous burlesque of the 
 poet's blank verse : — 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ' Ere he was put 
 By his mother into breeches, Nature strung 
 The muscular part of his anatomy 
 To an unusual strength; and he could leap, 
 All unimpeded by his petticoats. 
 Over the stool on which his mother sat. 
 More than six inches — o'er the astonished stool ! ' 
 
 All undismayed by this tempest of criticism and parody, Wordswoi-th 
 went on issuing work after work. In 1818 he contributed to the Liveqiool 
 ' Winter's Wreath,' the first provincial souvenir. At this time Southey, 
 Coleridge, Lamb, Macaulay, and other gi-eat wi'iters, contributed some 
 very beautiful pieces to these annuals. In 1819 ' The Wagoner,' a short 
 poem, of highly-polished humour and lively fancy, was published, and also 
 the renowned ' Peter Bell,' which was intended to show the effect of 
 Nature's workings m bringing a hardened potter to repentance, and which, 
 though abounding in the richest poesy, and flowing on in a current of 
 melody, yet, from its being still tainted by some of its author's defects, 
 inartistic construction, prolixity, grotesque associations, and a partially 
 inaccurate conception of human character in the concrete, still farther 
 irritated the critics and alienated the public. Yet it may truly be said 
 that the most delicious strains of Coleridge did not surpass some of the 
 verses in the ' Peter BeU.' The character of the potter is very graphic, but 
 we can only give a verse or two : — 
 
 ' A savage wildness round him hung. 
 As of a dweller out of doors. 
 In his whole figure and his mien 
 A savage cliaracter was seen 
 Of mountains and of dreary moors. 
 
 To all the unshaped, half-human thoughts. 
 
 Which solitary nature feeds 
 
 'Mid summer storms or winter's ice, 
 
 Had Peter .ioined whatever vice 
 
 The cruel city breeds. 
 
 His face was keen as is the wind 
 That cuts along the hawthorn fence: 
 Of courage you saw little there. 
 But in its stead a medley air 
 Of cunning and of impudence. 
 
 He had a dark and sidelong walk. 
 And long and slouching was his gait ; 
 Beneath his looks, so bare and bold, 
 You might perceive his spirit cold 
 Was playing with some inward bait.' 
 
 In 1820 Wordsworth took a short tour on the continent, of which he 
 afterwards published ' Memorials.' On his return he published his beau- 
 tiful ' Sonnets to the Eiver Duddon.' Ilis mind was now becommg more 
 and, more conservative, and a walk with a friend to survey the site of a 
 new church suggested his ' Ecclesiastical Sonnets ;' a noble and varied 
 series, which were given to the world in 1822. Southey was at the same 
 time writing his ' Book of the Church,' and fondly regarded his fi'iend's 
 work as a poetical companion to his own. A year or two after this, Sir 
 28 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Walter Scott, on his return from Ireland, was escorted by Wilson to Mr 
 Bolton's villa on Windermere on Canning's invitation. Wordsworth and 
 a large party were there. These were tiie days ! What cavalcades through 
 the woods in the mornings, and boatings on the lakes in the evenings ! 
 Then there was a magnificent regatta in honour of the Minstrel ; and on 
 the arrival of tlie long procession of fifty barges, the bards of the Lakes 
 led the cheer which hailed his triumph. Afterwards Scott visited 
 Wordsworth at Kydal, and accompanied him to Southey's, and then to 
 Lord Lonsdale's, where they spent two days in the midst of a splendid 
 circle. In truth Wordsworth was now fast rising, and becoming courtly ; 
 and after this date we find greater polish and subdued smoothness, with 
 less vigour in his style, and a gradual multiplication of such gentle pieces 
 as Verses to Needlecases and Gold-Fishes. A portrait of him was painted 
 by Pickersgill for the university of Cambridge, so like as to draw tears 
 fi"om him. Jeflrey now began visibly to relent, and even cited from the 
 'Spirit of the Age' an extract speaking of Wordsworth in very high 
 terms. In 1827 we find Wordsworth with the laureate at the fashionable 
 Avatering-place of Harrowgate, and both in so high an odour of sanctity, 
 that a very pious lady sent them her album for contributions. Unluckily 
 it was found full of effusions by Calvinistic preachers. ' As some of these 
 worthies,' says the laureate playfully, ' had written in it texts in Hebrew, 
 Chinese, and Arabic, I wrote in Greek, " If we say that we have no sin;" 
 and I did not write in it these lines which the tempting occasion suggested: 
 
 ' What ? will we, nill we, are we thrust 
 
 Among the Calvinistics? , 
 
 The covenanted sons of schism, 
 
 Rebellious pugilistics? ' 
 
 Needs must we then ourselves array '■ 
 
 Against these state tormentors ; 
 Hurrah ! for Church and King we say, 
 
 And down with the Dissenters.' 
 
 A year or two before this Wordsworth took a tour in Wales, and in 
 1828 he and Coleridge revisited their old haunts on the continent. In 1830 
 he was chiefly occupied in writing romaunts — as the ' Egyptian Maid,' the 
 ' Russian Fugitive,' and the ' Ai-menian Lady's Love.' Next year he 
 revisited Yarrow, Loch Katrine, and his old favourite spots in Scotland. 
 On his way he had an affecting interview — the last he ever had — with Sir 
 Walter Scott. The Great Magician was rapidly failing, and was about 
 to set off for an Italian clime. The evening of the 22d September was 
 a very sad one in his antique library. Lockhart was there, and Allan the 
 historical painter. Wordsworth was also feeble in health, and sat with 
 a green shade over his eyes, and bent shoulders, between his daughter 
 and Sir Walter. The conversation was melancholy, and Sir Walter re- 
 marked that Smollett and Fielding had both been driven abroad by declining 
 health, and had never returned. Next morning lie left Abbotsford, and 
 his guests retired with sorrowful hearts. Wordsworth has preserved a 
 memento of his own feelings in a beautiful sonnet. In 1833 he visited 
 Staffa and lona: 1834 was a sort of era in his life, by the publication of 
 his complete works in four volumes. His friends, however, now began to 
 fall around him. That year poor Coleridge bade adieu to his weary life. 
 
 29 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 This must have touched many a chord of association in Wordsworth's 
 heart. In 1836 liis sister and constant friend and companion died, and 
 blow followed blow m fatal succession. Many a melancholy phantom must 
 in his late years have haunted the poet's memory by the margia of sUent 
 Rydal. He was not an impromptu writer, but in his works there is one 
 wild wailing impromptu wrung from him by these afflictions. ' How fast,' 
 says the poet — 
 
 ' How fast has "brother followed brother, 
 
 From sunshine to the sunless land ! 
 Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers 
 
 Were earlier raised, remain to hear 
 A timid voice that asks in whispers, 
 
 Who next vnW drop and disappear? 
 Our haughty life is cro'mied -^v-ith darkness. 
 
 Like London with its own black wreath.' 
 
 A note is appended to this piece like a bare tombstone. It is this : — 
 
 ' Walter Scott died 21st September, 1832. 
 S.T.Coleridge ... 25th July, 1834. 
 Charles Lamb ... 27th December, 1834. 
 George Crabbe ... 3d February, 1832. 
 Felicia Hemans ... 16th May, 1835.' 
 
 Many a noble name in literature was added to this funereal list before 
 Wordsworth was laid in his last resting-place among his native lakes. 
 
 Honours now flowed fast upon him. In 1835 ' Blackwood,' under the 
 inspu-ation of WUson, raised an u-resistible arm in his defence. In 1839, 
 amid the acclamations of the students, he received a degree from Oxford 
 University. In 1842 he published a tragedy, and some veiy early and 
 very late poems, and resigned liis office in favour of his son. Next year 
 he was appointed to the laureateship, left vacant by the melancholy fate of 
 Southey. In 1844 Lord Jefirey, in republishing his contributions to the 
 * Edinbm"gh,' took occasion to pay a warm tribute of praise to Wordsworth. 
 In 1845 the poet contributed to ' Home's Modernisations of Chaucer;' but 
 though pre-eminently fitted for the task, he was pronoimced by Wilson, a 
 most able judge, to have failed. Take a single verse. Chaucer has it — 
 
 ' The God of Love I a benedicite! 
 How mighty and how gret a Lord is he ! 
 For he can make of lowe hertes liighe. 
 Of highe lowe, and like for to die, 
 And harde hertes he can maken fre.' 
 
 Wordsworth's modernisation is — 
 
 ' Tlie God of Love ! ah benedicite ! 
 How mighty and how great a Lord is he! 
 For he of low hearts can make high, of liigh 
 He can make low, and unto deatli bring nigh, 
 And hard hearts he can make tliem kind and free.' 
 
 ' The simplicity of the words is kept,' observes Wilson, ' for they are the 
 very words ; and yet something is gone, and in that something everjthing.' 
 'The love itself,' adds Christoplier, 'here is not;' and concludes that 
 ' there is nothing else to be done with a gi'eat poet than to leave him iu 
 his glory.' 
 30 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Up to his death on the 23d of April 1850, Wordsworth lived a quiet and 
 dignified life at Rydal, evincing little apparent sympathy -with the arduous 
 duties and activities of the every-day world. At times he exhibited an 
 impatience at the changes which were passing over society, deteriorating his 
 mountains, and invading the solitude of his lakes with the noise of railway 
 trains; but in many parts of his works he shows that he had a perfect ap- 
 preciation of the great destinies of machinery, and was only afraid that in the 
 hun-y to get rich by its means, important social interests should be neglected 
 and ruined. The public feeling at his death was the best proof of the uni- 
 versal consciousness that a gi-eat English poet had then taken his departure. 
 Smce his death, ' The Prelude,' already alluded to, has been given to the 
 world. This poem may be said to be the exercise by which he set himself 
 to scrutinise his own soul, and measure its capabilities for the production 
 of the gi'eat poem of ' The Kecluse.' It was begim in 1799, and finished in 
 1805. It is thus the product of the most vigorous period of his poetical life, 
 and as it lay by him unpublished to the end of his career, it had the benefit 
 of all the improvements that a ripe and highly-polished taste could devise. 
 It is in everyway worthy of the poet, and is as pure, clear, and spai-kling 
 as a diamond. The style is remarkably chaste, vigorous, and musical, and 
 the sentiments are uniformly pleasing and dignified. The poem is, besides, 
 interestmg from its suigular chai-acter and subject. It is something to be 
 thus admitted to the arcana of a poet's development, and it may be ob- 
 served that Wordsworth appears in this production to lay bare his inner- 
 most thoughts and feelings with accuracy and honesty. He commences 
 with his childhood, and traces his spiritual conditions through his school- 
 boy and college career, to his return from France. 
 
 Wordsworth's prose vsTitings were confined to one or two critical essays 
 on his own theories, a political pamphlet, a letter on ' Cun-ie's Life of 
 Bums,' an ' Essay on Epitaphs,' and a ' Description of the Country of the 
 Lakes.' They e^ince, however, great skill in prose composition, and are 
 uniformly couched in a clear, manly, and highly -polished English style. 
 
 To sum up what has been ah-eady said of his poetic character and 
 position : — His devotion to external nature had the power and pervasive- 
 ness of a passion ; his perception of its most minute beauties was exquisitely 
 fine ; and his portraitures, both of landscapes and figures, were so distinctly 
 outlined as to impress them on the mind almost as vividly and deeply as 
 the sight of them could have done. Yet his pictures, so to speak, are 
 inodorous, and there is a certain want of richness, which may arise from 
 his deficiency in the sense of smell. He was defective in the stronger 
 passions, and hence, in spite of the minuteness of his portraitm-es of cha- 
 racter, he faded to produce real human beings capable of stirring the blood; 
 and what was even more serious, he himself was incapacitated from feeling 
 a genial and warm sympathy in the struggles of modern man, on whom ha 
 rather looked as from a distant height M'ith the commiseration of some 
 loftier nature. From the characteristics enumerated arose the great faults 
 of his works. His landscape paintings are often much too minute. He 
 dwells too tediously on every small object and detail, and from his over- 
 intense appreciation of them, which magnifies their importance, rejects 
 all extrinsic ornaments, and occasionally, though exceptionally, adopts a 
 
 3! 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 style bare and meagre, and even plu-ases tainted with mean associations. 
 Hence all his personages — being without reality- — fail to attract, and 
 even his strong domestic affections, and his love for everything pure 
 and simple, do not give a sufficient human interest to his poems. His 
 prolixity and tediousness are aggravated by a want of artistic skill in 
 construction ; and, it is owing to this that he is most perfect in the 
 sonnet, which renders the development of these faults an impossibility, 
 while it gives free play to his naturally pure, tasteful, and lofty diction. 
 His imagination was majestic; his fancy lively and sparkling; and he 
 had a refined and Attic humom*, which, however, he seldom called into 
 exercise. He was naturally conservative ; and after the heat of youth 
 cooled down, he became more and more in harmony with the system of 
 the conservative party in church and state, modified so much in appear- 
 ance by his peculiar tendencies, as to simulate the features of a peculiar 
 religious and philosophical creed. As might have been anticipated, he 
 spent most of his life in retirement, and left the solitudes of the lakes 
 principally to wander through other solitudes elsewhere. Indeed as a 
 whole range of signs in algebra is often expressed by a smgle sign, so the 
 activities of Wordsworth's life may be aptly enough expressed as the con- 
 tinuous development of a passion for nature, while the entire cycle of his 
 poetry is the efflux of this in song. This occupied him wholly even in 
 those fervent years when youth is generally stirred by more social passions. 
 It was through the agency of this that the old institutions of his country, 
 and the old legends and manners of his district, took so fu'ra a hold of his 
 heart, and made him peculiarly the poet of the old English spirit, in con- 
 tradistinction to the new influences invading it from abroad or developing 
 from itself. With volcanic power in the heat of his earlier days it drove 
 him into the wild mountains of Wales, and into the recesses of the Alps ; 
 and gradually abating its impetus, and contracting its successive sweeps as 
 the chill of age came on, at last left him to die in peace by those beloved 
 lakes among which he was born. With much that might with advantage 
 be cui-tailed or altogether forgotten, the poems of William Wordsworth, 
 though never likely to be extensively popular, will ever occupy a place in 
 literature next to the highest. 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 THE biogi'aphy of a literary man is to be found in the history of hi3 
 ■works ; startling incident and romantic adventure are not to be 
 expected. The development of the progress of genius can alone supply 
 the record of its existence. That of a poet ranking so high as Thomas 
 Campbell discovers no exception to this general law. 
 
 He was born on the 27th of Jidy 1777, in his father's house, situated in 
 the High Street, Glasgow, subsequently demolished. The poet's father 
 was Alexander, the youngest of three brothers, the sons of Archibald 
 Campbell of Kirnan, belonging to a family which had been long settled at 
 a place of that name, on the borders of Inverary. The estate produced 
 a small independent rental, and came by inheritance to Robert Campbell, 
 the eldest son of Aixhibald, and the poet's uncle, who ultimately sold 
 it, and died in London. The name of the second son was Archi- 
 bald : he went out to Jamaica as a Presbyterian clergyman, and remov- 
 ing from that island to Virginia, in the United States, died there very 
 much esteemed by all who knew him. Through his descendants a legacy 
 of four thousand five hundred pounds came eventually to the subject of 
 this memou". 
 
 Alexander Campbell went in early life to America. By trade a mer- 
 chant, he was stUl comiected with that country after his return to Glasgow. 
 Here he carried on his business in partnership with Daniel Campbell, who, 
 though of the same name, was not a relative of the family. Tliis Daniel's 
 sister became afterwards the wife of Alexander, and the poet's mother. 
 Her name was ^Margaret, and he was married to her at Glasgow in 
 1756, when he was forty-nine and she had just numbered her twentieth 
 year. The business of the partnership flourished imtil the American 
 war broke out. In 1775, Alexander, then in his sixty-fifth year, found 
 his house ruined, as was the case with numerous other firms similarly 
 connected with the colonies at the commencement of that unnatural con- 
 test. Alexander Campbell was an acute and well-informed man, religiously 
 disposed, and of mild manners. He was sixty-seven wlien the poet, his 
 youngest child, was bom, and he died in Edinburgh, in Marcli 1801, aged 
 ninety-one. 
 
 Margaret Campbell, the poet's mother, was bom in 1736, and died in 
 Febniary 1812, aged seventy-six. She was a woman of a decided character, 
 in person thin, with dark eyes and hair, comely, shrewd, of a friendly cha- 
 24 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 racter among her neighbours, but at home, and m her family, a firm 
 disciplinarian. She was an excellent domestic manager, and conducted 
 herself with exen^plary judgment and good conduct under the severe trial 
 of her husband's failure, two years before the poet's birth, at a time when 
 she naturally looked forward, as well as her husband, to that ease and 
 tranquillity which are so desirable in the downfall of life. 
 
 The family of Alexander and Margaret Campbell consisted, according 
 to some accounts, of only ten children, but, more correctly, of eleven, 
 one having died in infancy. The eldest, and last surviving except the 
 poet, named Mary, died in Edinburgh in 1843, aged eighty-six. There 
 were two other daughters, Isabella and Elizabeth, who both died in 
 Edmburgh — the former in 1837, aged seventy-nine; the last in 1829, aged 
 sixty-four. The sons were seven — Arcliibald, who died in Virginia in 
 1830, had been a planter in Berbice; Alexander, who returned from 
 Berbice to Glasgow, died there in 1826 ; Jolm, who having settled at 
 Pemerara, died there m 1806 ; Daniel, who died an infant ; Robert, who 
 went to the United States, a merchant, and man-ied a daughter of the 
 well-known Patrick Henry in Virginia, and died in 1807 ; James, drowned 
 while bathing m the Clyde in 1783; Daniel, born in 1773, who was a 
 cotton-manufacturer in Glasgow, but making little progi'ess in business, 
 went to France, and managed a considerable manufactory at Rouen, 
 whence no account of his death ever reached his family; and lastly, 
 Thomas, the poet, the sui-vivor of them all, and the favom-ite of his 
 parents. 
 
 The poet was nanjed Thomas after Dr Reid, the professor of moral 
 philosophy in the university of Glasgow, who officiated at the font. 
 Thomas was the Benjamin of his parents ; the more beloved, perhaps, for 
 coming apart from the rest of the family under then* fallen fortunes. 
 He was the favourite son of both his parents, whose regrets at their mis- 
 fortunes his playfulness and active disposition helped them at times to 
 beguile. He was taught to read by his favourite sister, who was nineteen 
 years his senior. In the eighth year of his age, in 1785, he was sent 
 to the grammar school in Glasgow, then under the care of Mr Alison, 
 who was noted for his ability in teaching the classics. A generous system 
 of encouragement was all that was required to give young Campbell an 
 ardent thu'st after excellence : he was ambitious in the right way, but highly 
 sensitive. His father assisted him in his tasks; and his progress was 
 commensurate with the sanguine hopes of his instructors ; but by the excite- 
 ment produced through emulation it was found that his health suffered. 
 He was removed, therefore, from school into country air for a short time, 
 which had the desired effect, and he returned to his studies with renewed 
 vigour. His course was highly satisfactory. At eleven years of age he 
 begun to compose verses, crude enough, it is true ; but among others were 
 stanzas on a parrot, equal at all events to tliose which Samuel Johnson 
 made upon his duck. Somewhat lame in metre, they indicated the ten- 
 dency of the youthfid mind, but by no means rivalled what others have 
 produced at the same age, giving little promise of the appearance in 
 another decade of the ' Pleasures of Hope,' in which the lines are so 
 exquisitely modulated. Hif translations from the Greek in his twelfth year 
 are remarkable only for being made at that early age. His attachment to 
 2 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 Greek poetry beginning time early, lie soon obtained prizes for his pro- 
 ficiency in translation — his first being gained in 1789, when he was in his 
 twelfth year. 
 
 The father of the poet, as before observed, was strictly religious, and 
 early imbued his son with the same feeling. Young Campbell soon became 
 a reader of some of the more noted divines, and their lessons frequently 
 raised a conflict in his mind between his boyish follies and his sense of 
 religious obligation. He was of a joyous temperament, the sallies of 
 which were often daunted by the whispers of conscience through the 
 impressions thus effected. Even thus young, and under such impressions, 
 he and his schoolfellows would commit lapses occasionally that excited the 
 reprobation of their friends ; and getting tired of the long sermons of one of 
 the clergymen under whom they sat, young Campbell and his companions 
 fm-ned some of the good man's repetitions mto a lampoon. His school- 
 fellows were not exempted from his turn for playful satire; some specimens 
 of which, as well as his school exercises and translations, have been pre- 
 served through the partiality of friends. They exhibit a great superiority 
 over the productions of the generality of schoolboys at so early an age ; 
 marking a certain precocity of mtellect, and a power of close application, 
 however desultory, rare in youth of so vivacious a temperament. 
 
 In his thirteenth year the poet quitted the grammar school for the uni- 
 versity. There he gained three prizes the first year: one for Latin, another 
 for English verse, and a thu-d a bursary on Leighton's foundation.. The last 
 was not won without a severe struggle in competition with one considered 
 a good scholar, and very much his senior in years. This struggle involved 
 a competition in construing and writing Latin before the entire faculty. At 
 the university he read some of the more celebrated of the English authors, 
 both in poetry and prose; and bore off prizes for exercises and transla- 
 tions in Greek as well as Latiu. These successes were the more extraor- 
 dinary, as, from his necessities, owing to the scanty income of his parents, 
 he had not only the labour of his own studies upon his hands, but he had 
 to instruct others. His own studies were quite sufficient to tiy the con- 
 Btitution, and to exhaust the mental efforts of one so delicate in bodily 
 frame ; but he was obliged, to the neglecting of sevei'al heads of study, 
 to give elementary instruction to the younger lads : to exhaust himself in 
 teaching while he should have been learning. This drudgery reacted upon 
 the poet in after-life, and when he had attained middle age, stamped upon 
 him a reluctance to mental exertion which it was at times impossible for him 
 to overcome. 
 
 In the midst of this toil the poet went on with his metrical compositions, 
 both origmal and translated. It was in 1791, and in his thirteenth year, 
 that he himself confessed to his fu-st published Imes, entitled ' Morven and 
 Fillan :' he styled them ' Ossianic Verses.' His next printed production 
 consisted of ' Verses on the Queen of France,' published, he said, in a 
 Glasgow newspaper when he was fifteen; and in his eighteenth year he 
 brought out 'Love and Madness.' The 'Pleasures of Hope' appeared 
 before he had completed his twenty-second year. 
 
 Not only was young Campbell successful in gaining classical honours : 
 he obtained a prize in the logic class under Professor Jardme, and was 
 
 3 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 made one of the earliest examiners of the exercises sent in by the other 
 students in that class. His prose exercises in English were remarkable 
 for their accurate style and manly argument ; and he also received a third 
 Greek prize for good conduct. He wrote some verses about this time 
 to the Glasgow volunteers, but they possessed no merit beyond the high 
 patriotic spirit they exhibited. Once asking leave of absence, which 
 was conceded for his good conduct, he walked to Edinburgh, where he 
 was present at the trial of Gerald, who, ^vith ]\Iuu', Palmer, and others, was 
 arrested on the charge of sedition. It filled the poet with the same hoiTor 
 it did every other reflecting person, as the parties accused had never 
 uttered a word stronger than had been used by "William Pitt himself in 
 pai'Uament. The trial of Gerald made a deep impression upon his mind, 
 and he inveighed against the unfairness with which those processes 
 were conducted, and the indecent conduct of the judges towards the 
 prisoner Gerald. It was some time before he recovered the shock thus 
 received. 
 
 Soon afterwards he gamed fresh honours in the imiversity by a poetical 
 ' Essay on the Origm of Evil ' in English, and a Greek translation of pas- 
 sages from the ' Clouds of ^.ristophanes.' The latter was pronoimced to 
 be the best version ever sent in by any student of the university. The poet 
 now began to think of some employment by which he might attam inde- 
 pendence. His mclination led him to a civil rather than an ecclesiastical 
 profession, but here he had to combat the want of the requisite finances. 
 He was of too sensitive a temperament to withstand the sight of a surgical 
 operation, much less take a part in it ; and physic was allied too nearly to 
 surgery. A mercantile pursuit suggested itself; and thus perplexed he 
 remained in a distressing state of incertitiide. Nor could he find a fixed 
 object whereupon to rest. He was then in his sixteenth year; and whQe 
 in this painful state of indecision, and thinking about the church, he vrrote 
 some lines beginning — 
 
 ' \Mien Jordan hushed liis waters still;' 
 
 printed in early editions of his works, but excluded from the later, because 
 he said they were no better than a Christmas carol. 
 
 In his seventeenth year the failure of a lawsuit straitened more than 
 ever the circumstances of his father; who being left only a small income 
 derived from certain mercantile annuities, young Campbell felt his depen- 
 dent position moi*e keenly. His father was now eighty-five years of age, 
 and his family still numerous. Under such circumstances the poet, recom- 
 mended by several of the professors of Glasgow university, accepted a 
 temporary situation as an instructor of pupils in the western islands, where 
 Mull was his destination for six months. He travelled with a friend as 
 far as Oban, saving a boy from being di-owned on the way. Thence he 
 crossed over to Mull, and traversed on foot the length of the island, 
 thirty miles, m one day, and without a guide, to the place of his desti- 
 nation. This was the house of Mrs Campbell of Sunipol near the Point 
 of Callioch. Here, besides attending to his pupils, he continued his 
 translation of the ' Clouds of Ai-istophanes,' and portions of ' .^ischylus,' 
 and composed some of the best lines he had \\Titten previous to that 
 
 4 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL, 
 
 period, entitled ' An Elegy Written in JIull.' Tliese lines have not been 
 printed, so far as wc know, in any edition of his works. 
 
 ELEGY WRITTEN IK MULL. 
 
 The tempest blackens on the dusky moor. 
 
 And billows lash the long-resounding shore ; 
 
 In pensive mood I roam the desert ground. 
 
 And vainly sigh for scenes no longer found. 
 
 Oh whither fled the pleasurable hours 
 
 That chased each care, and fired the muse's powers — 
 
 The classic haunts of youth for ever gay, 
 
 Where mirth and ft-icndship cheered the close of day — 
 
 The well-known valleys where I wont to roam. 
 
 The native sports, the nameless joys of home? 
 
 Far ditFercnt scenes allure my wondering eye : 
 
 The white wave foaming to the distant sky ; 
 
 The cloudy heavens, uublest by summer's smile ; 
 
 Tlie sounding storm that sweeps the rugged isle. 
 
 The chill, bleak summit of eternal snow, 
 
 The wide, wild glen — the pathless plains below. 
 
 The dark, blue rocks, in barren grandeur piled, 
 
 The cuckoo sighing to the pensive wild ! 
 
 Far different these from all that charmed before. 
 
 The grassy banks of Clutha's winding shore. 
 
 Her sloping vales, with waving forests lined. 
 
 Her smooth blue lakes, unruflled by the wind. 
 
 Hail, happy Clutha ! glad shall I survey 
 
 Thy gilded turrets from the distant way ! 
 
 Thy sight shall cheer the weary traveller's toil, 
 
 And joy shall hail me to my native soil. ^ 
 
 He was attacked for a short time with mdisposition and lowness of spirits 
 at Sunipol ; yet while there he visited Staffa and Icolmkill. In his corres- 
 j)ondenee with his friends, he expressed his high admiration of the scenery 
 which he had explored among the Hebrides. It left an impression on his 
 mind to which he often alluded. 
 
 At Sunipol, although kindly treated, he appeared to tire, and longed to 
 return to Glasgow. It was during his residence at Sunipol that he wrote 
 his verses to ' Carolme,' a young lady of Inverary, who was there upon 
 a visit. He also wrote some lines to 'A Rural Beauty in MuU;' but 
 neither exhibits aught of passion, though wiitten in love's full age. Both, 
 however, are redolent of gentle admiration and dispassionate tenderness. 
 Here he resided five months, and then returned home. Diuring the winter 
 of 1795-6 he supported himself by private tuition; numbering among his 
 pupils Mr, afterwards Lord Cuninghame of the Justiciary Court of Edin- 
 biu-gh. At this period, and indeed throughout life, the poet was a warm 
 advocate of free principles, which were strengthened by his admii-ation of 
 John Millar, the professor of law in the imiversity of Glasgow, a zealous 
 Whig. Campbell has left the professor's character on record : ' Wliether 
 John IMillar's doctrmes were always right is one question ; but that they 
 were generally so, and that right doctrines could not be expoimded by a 
 better teacher, 1 believe is questioned by none who ever listened to him. 
 His writings always seem to me to be imperfect casts of his mind, like 
 those casts of sculpture which want the diaphanous polish of the origuial 
 Eiarble. I heard him when I was sixteen lecture on the Koraan law. A 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 dry subject enough it would have been in common hands, but in his 
 Heineccius was made a feast to the attention.' 
 
 The poet quitted the university in 1796, and became domesticated at 
 Downie. He had previously been a member of a debating society, where 
 the customary class of topics was discussed, and took a part in the proceed- 
 ings. He gained two prizes for poems this year — one for a chorus in the 
 ' Medea ' of Euripides, the other for the ' Choephora ' of Aristophanes. 
 
 At Downie he became the tutor of Su* William Napier of MUiken ; and 
 here he had some leisure time, which he devoted to reading and writing. 
 Here, too, he composed his lines entitled ' Love and Madness,' on the murder 
 of her lover by a Miss Broderick. At Downie he was near a particular 
 friend, the Rev. H. Paul of Inverary, and became intimate in the family of 
 the ' Caroline ' on whom he had written the verses at Sunipol. He and his 
 friends used sometimes to dine together at the Inverary Arms ; and on 
 those occasions, as in after years, he exhibited all the joyousness of boy- 
 hood. He would talk of turning pilgrun in search of adventures — at that 
 time a favourite notion with him. His friend Paiil always prophesied he 
 would be a great poet, saying, ' Thomas, from the way in which poetry is 
 coming upon you, I see that whatever other profession you may try, that 
 will be the one through which you will be distinguished-' 
 
 At Downie, Campbell seems to have dwelt upon his favourite pursuit, 
 his first great work in poetry being designed there. Downie is a little way 
 to the southward of the mouth of the Crinan Canal, at the southern end of 
 Loch F}Tie. The room which was the poet's study is still shown. From 
 this place he returned to Glasgow in considerable depression of mind, owing 
 to the gloom that rested upon his future prospects, and for a time he be- 
 came indisposed. After a renewal of his preceding anxieties and conflicts 
 between different professions, and finding reasons but too valid for again 
 rejecting all, he determined to go to Edinburgh with little money in his 
 pocket, but full of sanguine hopes. A wUd notion of establishing a perio- 
 dical, of wi-iting for the booksellers, of getting into a law^^er's office, all 
 passed thi'ough his inexperienced mind. He fancied, with that erroneous 
 judgment which is the fruit of mexperience, that booksellers might be 
 foimd to publish two of his translations from Euripides and -ffischylus. 
 
 Such were the thoughts with which the poet set out. He reached 
 Edinburgh, and tried his hand at the horrible drudgery of a copying law- 
 clerk. He next obtained a place in another office, somewhat better, and 
 got an introduction soon afterwards through accident to Dr Anderson, 
 who was struck with the verses he had written in Mull, and desired to 
 see their author. Upon this incident turned the after-fortunes of the poet. 
 He was brought to Dr Anderson's house — his appearance, his handsome face 
 and pleasing address, at once won the favour of the doctor, who was a highly- 
 gifted, kind, and good man. Employment was found of a literary nature 
 for the young poet by an introduction to Mundell the Edinburgh pubhsher. 
 He also received an offer of twenty guineas to .abridge Edwards's ' West 
 Indies.' To complete his task he quitted his drudgery in the law office, 
 anathematising the law, its peculations, toUs, and meannesses. After giving 
 his hearty thanks to Dr Anderson for his kindness towards him, he returned 
 to Glasgow on foot ; principally in the hope, which proved to be vain, of 
 6 
 
tllOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 meeting his second brother from South America, who was daily expected, 
 and wliom he had never beheld. He continued to employ himself witli 
 plans, always abortive, for literary undertakings, but proceeded with his 
 abridgment of Edwards. In the same winter of 1797 he wrote the 'Wounded 
 Hussar,' which was sung as a ballad about the streets of Glasgow, and which 
 was originally composed for adaptation to tlie music of some Scottish melo- 
 dies, for a lady at the house of whose father the poet was on a visit. He 
 went to Cathcart this year, and paid a visit to a family where there were 
 two young ladies named Hill, and Miss Grahame, a sister of the author of 
 ' The Sabbath.' Here he wrote a poetical epistle to three ladies on the 
 banks of the Cart ; and about the same time he composed the ' Dirge of 
 AVaUace,' in a different manner from that m which it subsequently appeared. 
 He altered, retouched, and made it Lii all respects a worthy poem in 
 every estimation but his own. 
 
 Campbell returned from Glasgow to Edinburgh in his twentieth year, 
 taking leave of his ftwourite professors at the university before he started, 
 and getting his parents to promise, if possible, to take up their residence 
 in Edinburgh near him. Still uncertain about his future pursuits, he set 
 out on foot upon his jom-ney. He had thoughts at times of gouig to tlie 
 United States, of studying the law once more, and even physic again. 
 There are few situations in life more painful than this kmd of heart 
 sickness from uncertainty — those conflicts of the spirit : to one of Camp- 
 bell's sensitiveness this state Avas doubly grievous. He had now the 
 booksellers' scanty patronage, and one or two pupils obtained in Edin- 
 burgh, for his sole dependence. These had been the sum of his pros- 
 pects, when his attention was agaui drawn towards emigration by one of 
 his brothers ; and he began to prepare himself for taking his departure. 
 The interference of another of his near relatives, however, frustrated his 
 intention, and he turned towards Edinburgh once more, to resume his 
 labour for the booksellers, and to take pupils. 
 
 It was now that he proceeded with the 'Pleasures of Hope' again, partly 
 supporting himself by giving instructions in the Greek and Latin languages. 
 He did not remain long without additions to the number of his friends. 
 He became acquainted with Francis, aftei'wards Lord Jeffrey, who suc- 
 ceeded to the editorship of the ' Edinburgh Review ' upon the resigna- 
 tion of Sydney Smith, with Thomas Brown, Henry Brougham, now Lord 
 Brougham, and with Anne Bannerman. Then began an acquaintance with 
 John Richardson, which ripened into a close and lasting friendship until 
 death terminated it — the closest perhaps of all his friendships excepting 
 that with Mr Thompson of Clithero, who had been his fellow-student, and 
 with whom also he corresponded to the end of life. He renewed his in- 
 timacy with Grahame, author of 'The Sabbath,' who died in 1811. His 
 father and mother removed to Edinburgh in 1798. 
 
 In the meantime the ' Pleasiu-es of Hope ' proceeded steadily. It was 
 first proposed to publish it by subscription ; but this design was abandoned, 
 and Dr Anderson negotiated the publication with Mundell and Company. 
 The price was two luuidred copies of the work in quu'es, which would bring 
 the author, if he could dispose of them at the full price, about fifty-six 
 pounds, or, if otherwise, between forty and fifty. The author always said he 
 received only ' fifty pounds,^ and made no mention of the mode of pajmient ; 
 
 7 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 but documents signed by himself, and dated July 13, 1799, are in existence, 
 establishing the real arrangement. He had much vanity, -which was 
 •wounded by a confession that he had received only paper for paper. 
 
 Dr Anderson, whose love of poetry and attachment to letters is well 
 known from his publications, introduced the poet to several of his more 
 intimate friends, at the houses of all of whom he became a welcome visitor. 
 Dr Moore, whom he already knew, introduced him to Dugald Stewart ; and 
 he became acquainted with Mr Fletcher, an advocate of good standing ; and 
 likewise with Leyden. Campbell and Leyden were at first in close intimacy, 
 but afterwards a quarrel arose between them, which terminated in little less 
 than mutual hatred. The cause did not originate with the poet. Some one 
 had said, speaking figuratively, in describing Campbell's first visit to Edin- 
 bm-gh in 1797, that his situation was so desperate that he thought he 
 might as well drown hunself. From this arose a report that he had been 
 actually about to commit suicide. An Edinburgh paper reiterated this 
 I'eport after the poet's decease — namely, that Campbell had once been seen 
 gouig to destroy himself, after having concealed himself, and been reduced 
 to the verge of despair, and had been turned from his purpose by Dr 
 Anderson. This was the revival of an untruth which the poet had contra- 
 dicted at the time, and traced to its author Leyden, who denied it; but 
 Campbell declared there was the clearest evidence against him. Hence 
 it was that when Scott, who had been introduced to Campbell by Leyden, 
 afterwards repeated ' Hohenlinden' to him, Leyden said, ' Dash it, man, tell 
 the fellow that I hate him ! But, dash him, he has wi'itten the finest verses 
 that have been published these fifty years ! ' Scott conveyed the message 
 faithfully, and got this reply from the poet : ' Tell Leyden that I detest 
 liim, but I know the value of his critical approbation!' This rests upon 
 the testimony of Sir Walter Scott himself. Leyden and Erskine, the latter 
 likewise an acquaintance of the poet's, went aftei^wards to India, and in 
 literary pursuits were in some way connected there. ' When Leyden 
 returns from the East,' said Campbell, ' what cannibals he will have 
 eaten, and what tigers have torn to pieces ! ' There is no doubt he 
 felt deeply wounded at the report alluded to. No one was more sensi- 
 tive, had more latent vanity, or was more tremblingly alive to the opinions 
 of the world about himself and his writings, than Campbell. 
 
 It would appear that while composing the ' Pleasures of Hope ' he was 
 nervous and restless in no inconsiderable degree ; but much more so after- 
 wards, when his success was expected to be complete, according to the 
 evidence of his friends, who were undoubted judges of literary merit. 
 While the work was going through the press, the alternations of hope and 
 fear in his mind made him leap from deep gloom into sudden men-iment, 
 from despondency to joy, almost upon a breath. At one time he would 
 think all he had written was worthless — he would be solitary, silent, and 
 downcast. Anon he would be merry, and even uproarious, without any 
 change of circumstances to account for it. Governed by the pressure of the 
 thought that was uppermost at the moment, he yielded until it glided away, 
 and another, perhaps of a character diametrically opposite, took its place. 
 This fitful moodiness accompanied him more or less through life. The 
 work of correcting and passing his poems through the press must have 
 been a grievous task, from a natural impatience and habitual want of atten- 
 8 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 tion to such details. Bnt -n-licn, brooding over liis uncertain prospects, and 
 the frustration of his fomicr plans, he imagined that his poem might not 
 be judged of by the -world as his friends had judged of it, tlie result was 
 a degree of excitement which could hardly be comprehended by one of a 
 different temperament. 
 
 There were various passages in the ' Pleasures of Hope ' written two and 
 three times over. The liints of Dr Anderson made the poet exert himself. 
 How much the labour of the author was taxed by the fastidiousness of the 
 critic; how his feelings were elevated and depressed by that imagined lack 
 of merit which is the best proof of its existence : all this must be left to 
 the imagination of the sensitive and refined. At times he was obser\-ed 
 .sauntering alone, as was sometimes his custom in later years, unobservant 
 of all around him, but evidently in deep thought, and employed in working 
 out his vei-ses mentally, or weavmg flattering visions of success — for al- 
 though possessing little energy, he was far from being unambitious. 
 
 The poet asserted, that although he was indebted to friends for their 
 critical opinions, still the ideas and aiTangement of the poem were his own 
 — that here he relied wholly upon himself. He composed the different 
 sections of the work separately, as there was no continuous story, and then 
 arranged them in proper order. The ' Pleasm-es of Hope ' began, in the 
 original draught, in a very different manner from that in wliich it at present 
 appears. In place of 
 
 ' At summer eve, when heaven's etliereal bow 
 Spans with bright arch the ghttering hills below,' &e. 
 
 it ran — 
 
 ' Seven lingering moons have crossed the starry line 
 Since Beauty's form, or Nature's face divine. 
 Had power the sombre of my soul to turn — 
 Had power to wake my strings and bid them bum.' 
 
 The whole of the original draught consists of only 400 lines, and has been 
 preser\"ed by a gentleman in Scotland in the poet's haudwi-iting. Though 
 full of beauty, it is but a mere foil to the printed poem, which exhibits in a 
 remarkable manner the advantage of care and scholarship. 
 
 Campbell wanted just three months of completing his twenty-second 
 year when the ' Pleasures of Hope ' was published. It was enthusiastically 
 received in the Scottish capital, and was as ardently welcomed in England. 
 The young author found himself at once sui-rounded with new acquaintances, 
 among the more celebrated characters of the day — Dr Gregory, Telford, 
 Mackenzie, author of the ' Man of Feeling,' the Eev. A. Alison, Gillies, 
 Laing, and others. Scott, whose name is delightful to every lover of lite- 
 rature, and than whom none had a more friendly heart, introduced him into 
 his own chcle of friends, all new to him. He was feted and complimented 
 on all sides. Dr Anderson, too, felt how grateful to the .spirit is the reward 
 of disinterested virtue : the poet's plaudits he shared, less conspicuously, 
 but with a noble gratification to his own upright heart. 
 
 This astonishing success made the low terms on v,'hich the copjTiglit 
 had been parted with somewhat mortifying to the author. The conduct of 
 Mundell and Company, the publishers, however, was highly praiseworthy. 
 They presented him with £25 upon the appearance of every edition of a 
 
 24 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 thousand copies, and in this manner he received £150 ; nor -were these 
 presents discontinued until a misunderstanding arose between them. Messrs 
 MundeU some time afterwards permitted Campbell to print an elegant 
 edition in quarto for his own benefit, by subscription. This, the seventh 
 edition, produced him of itself £600 ; so that, in the whole, he received 
 little less than £900 for a poem of 1100 lines. In no previous instance 
 did any poet ever derive so much money from his first production ; nor 
 would Campbell have done so in tlie ordinary routine of business. 
 
 In the same year Campbell planned a poem to be called the ' Queen of 
 the North,' intended to be highly illustrated ; but this came to nothing, 
 like the other innumerable projects of his life. He also composed the 
 verses in his published works entitled ' Gilderoy ' in that year. The 
 publication of the ' Pleasures of Hope,' and the incense of public praise 
 which followed, cured the poet of all desire to emigrate to America. He 
 complained of his own indolence in the midst of applauses that would 
 have stirred others into activity. But the truth was, that none had ever 
 laboured harder than he had done through youth to manhood, none had 
 been so tried by painful uncertainties, and after such a great success it 
 was but natural that the bow should for a little time at least be vmstrung. 
 Sucli an excuse, however, could be valid only for a season. 
 
 Edition after edition of the ' Pleasures of Hope ' had sold. He now felt 
 a desire to visit Gemiany, out of curiosity to see the literati of that countrj', 
 and because he thought he was not yet able to appear in London to the 
 best advantage. He projected ' wi'iting a few more books ' before visitmg 
 the British metropolis; and looked forward to delivering on his return 
 from Germany a course of lectures on the beUes lettres m London or 
 Dublin, for he expressed his dislike at remaining long in one place. In 
 his disposition he was restless and unsettled. In the pursuance of his 
 design he embarked in June 1800 at Leith for Hamburg. It was only 
 al)out a year previously that Scott had translated and published Goethe's 
 ' Goetz von Berlinchengen ; ' and the same author's 'Sorrows of Werter ' 
 were still in vogue, full of sentimentality, and not very pure moraUty. 
 These had no doubt tended to heighten the poet's deshe to visit the land 
 from Avhence they had emanated, and to see their writers face to face. It 
 was the taste of the day: everybody talked of Germany. His friend 
 Eichardson was to follow him, and they were to travel in company, visit 
 remarkable places and individuals, and lay the result of aU before the 
 public. The ' Queen of the North,' the new poem, was to be finished dur- 
 ing this foreign tour, however uncongenial continual movement might 
 appear to poetical composition upon a local subject. 
 
 Having sevei-al letters of introduction to persons residing at Hamburg, 
 he landed there after a few days' sail. His plan was to proceed to 
 Ratisbon, in which city there was a Scottish college, and he could travel 
 easily from thence to Vienna. He was introduced to the poet Ivlopstock, 
 just two years before the decease of that veteran in his country's litera- 
 ture. This fine old German, who resided near Hamburg, was then seventy- 
 seven years of age, a plain, unpretending man, of gentle manners, and kind 
 disposition. Their conversation was carried on in Latin. A copy of the 
 ' Pleasures of Hope' was presented to the venerable German by its author. 
 10 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 From Hamburg Campbell proceeded to Eatisbon, where he arrived in tlie 
 beginuing of August. He fell iu with a division of Austrian troops on his 
 way, marchuig into Bohemia, and arrived in Ilatisbon only three days 
 before it was entered by the victorious French, who had driven the Austrian 
 general Klenau across the Danube. 
 
 At Eatisbon the poet was disappointed of a boat to take him down the 
 Danube to Vienna. He visited the Benedictine monks of St James, who 
 received him kmdly, and he witnessed the retreat of the Hungarians cover- 
 ing the retiring Austrian army, heard the distant artillery, and saw some 
 skii-mishuig between the advanced forces and the Austrian rear. He stood 
 among the monks, and observed a charge of Austrian cavahy made upon 
 the French just without the city walls. Under these a battery of guns drew 
 up, which fired during the action, and several men were killed in the poet's 
 sight. This view of the dead and dying filled his mmd afterwards at times 
 with fearful images. 
 
 The poet was much pleased with the French officers, whom he described 
 as ' famous fellows,' highly popular among the citizens. They were thus 
 friendly at a time when the English newspapers were describing them as 
 monsters, dishonest, tyrannical, and everywhere detested for then: cruelties. 
 The poet made excm-sions from the city over the ground where the engage- 
 ment had taken place, and ventured to scale the heights whence, after the 
 last battle, the Austrians were driven over the Danube. He was now in 
 a great measure dependent upon his gratuitous receipts from Mundell and 
 Company, and upon a newspaper correspondence with Perry for the ' Morn- 
 ing Chronicle.' A French field-officer gave him a protection to pass through 
 the army of General Moreau; and he was presented to Madame Moreau 
 when visiting IMunich, from whence he returned to Eatisbon by the valley 
 of the Isar, without proceeding, as he had intended, to Vienna. Seeing no 
 chance but of the renewal of hostilities, and not knowing how far his per- 
 sonal safety might be compromised if he proceeded, according to liis original 
 intention, or even if he remained at Eatisbon, he returned by Leipsic to 
 Hamburg, and took up his residence at Altona in November. 
 
 Once more at Hamburg among the friends whom he had made there 
 when he first arrived, he planned excursions into Himgary and elsewhere 
 wliich he never made, and literary works which went no further than the 
 ideal outline. During his first visit he had become acquamted with 
 Anthony M'Cann, one of those whom the Irish government of 1798 had 
 driven into exile on the charge of being concerned iu rebellion. There 
 were several other refugees there at that time, who often used to meet 
 together and spend a convivial hour. Campbell was particularly struck 
 with M'Cann, who was an honest, upright, uncompromising lover of his 
 country. Seeing him walking low-spirited and pensive near the river, the 
 poet gave the impressions he felt at the sight in those beautiful stanzas, 
 unsurpassed in pathos and touching sentiment, ' The ExUe of Erin.' At 
 Hambm-g he wrote thu-teen or fourteen different pieces of poetry, of which 
 he admitted only four into his published works — namely, ' The Exile of 
 Erin,' ' Lmes on Visitmg a Scene in Argyleshke,' 'The Beech-Tree's 
 Petition,' and an ' Ode to Wmter,' which originally appeared in the ' Morn- 
 ing Chronicle.' In that paper, too, appeared ' Ye Mariners of England.' 
 
 Of various statements made by the poet relative to the scenes he wit- 
 
 11 
 
Chambers's papers foe the people, 
 
 nessed during the short space that hostilities continued while he was on the 
 Danube, no connected account can be made out. It vras generally said 
 that he had been on the field at Hohenlinden the day after the battle. This 
 could not have been the case, because the poet was in Altona at the 
 time. He had witnessed a battle, however, from Eatisbon, which took 
 place without the walls, as already stated. Hohenlinden might have been 
 mistaken for Eatisbon or some other place ; but at anyrate it is indis- 
 putable, on the evidence of friends who have survived him, that he spoke 
 of crossing a field of battle on or during snow, and that the vehicle in 
 which he was seated was left by the driver for the purpose of collecting 
 the tails of the horses lying on the field. Having accumulated a consider- 
 able quantity of this singular booty, he now piled them on the can-iage, 
 and they proceeded. It is certain, too, that he spoke of the different 
 appearances of the bodies on the field, both the Germans and French ; and 
 to one friend he mentioned having seen some of the French cavalry wipe 
 their gory swords on their horses' tails. He made several short excursions 
 from the city, besides visiting Munich and Salzburg, and was on the battle^ 
 field of Ingolstadt, which place he saw in ruins. 
 
 The poet was stiU at Altona in the beginning of 1801, when Lord Nelson 
 visited Hambiu-g. He composed his lines on ' Judith of Altona' there, his 
 ' Ode to Content,' and some other pieces. He reckoned upon being soon 
 joined by his friend Eichardson, and on setting out upon his travels anew, 
 when he fomid that hostilities were about to commence between England 
 and Denmark. Nelson with his fleet was already in the Sound. Altona 
 was no longer safe as a residence for Englishmen, and the poet embarked 
 in all haste for England. The vessel in which he took his passage was 
 chased into Yarmouth by a privateer, and landing there, he proceeded 
 to London, havmg but a few shillings in his pocket. There he called on 
 Perry of the ' Morning Chronicle,' who introduced him to Lord Holland, Sir 
 James Mackintosh, Eogers, and others, at a club to which they all belonged, 
 and he was beginning to congratulate himself upon his good fortune, when 
 he received the news from Edinburgh of his father's decease. Dr Anderson 
 had paid great attention to his father dui-ing his latter days, and Campbell 
 gratefully acknowledged his kindness. ' You have known and forgiven 
 many errors of my life, my dearly valued friend. You know withal that 
 my feelings, though turbulent, are sincere. I ever esteemed — I now most 
 deeply feel — the value of your friendship. What I would say overcomes- 
 my power of expression. To have been the guardian of my dying father, 
 and the comforter of my mother, was more than I deserved, and all that I 
 could have wished from a friend. "V\nien my heart has done penance for 
 being so far away from the last duties I owed to the best of men, I shall 
 recover tranquillity.' 
 
 The poet next visited Edinburgh, and went by sea. One of the pas- 
 sengers told him that he had been arrested on a charge of high treason, 
 and sent to the Tower; and the disgraceful system of espionage then com- 
 monly used by the government had been extended to Campbell. His letters 
 from the continent had no doubt been opened, and sealed up again ; for 
 a suspicious sentence in those days was enough to put a man on trial for 
 his life. He found his mother in great fears for his safety ; but he went 
 at once to the sheriff, who told him there was a warrant out against liim for 
 12 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 high treason — that he had been conspiring with General Moreau and the 
 Irish exiles to land troops in Ireland! Campbell laughed outright, and 
 asked the sheriff if he could credit such an absurdity, as that a youth like 
 himself should conspire against the British empire. The reply was, that 
 he had attended Jacobin clubs in Hamburg, and was a passenger in the 
 same vessel with one Donovan, who had commanded a regiment three years 
 before at Vinegar Hill. The poet declared he had never heard of Jacobin 
 clubs at Hamburg, and knew nothing of Donovan until he saw him upon 
 the deck of the vessel. He demanded that the matter should be minutely 
 investigated; and the sheriff fixed the time. The harpies of the spy sys- 
 tem at Yarmouth had seized a box which the poet had sent from that 
 place to Edinburgh, and its contents were examined, when among them 
 was found the draught of * Ye Mariners of England ! ' The sheriff said 
 something indignantly about Hamburg spies, and a bottle of wine wound 
 up the affair. 
 
 Campbell foimd his mother's circumstances bad, and though with little 
 means of his own, he determined to do all he could to relieve them. Mun- 
 dell and Company occasionally paid her small sums due to him by his 
 directions. Perry of the ' Morning Chronicle ' had paid him with a liberal 
 hand. But however he might straiten himself, he resolved that his mother, 
 and his sisters residing with her, should never cause his conscience a reproach 
 on the score of want of attention. Scanty as his resources were he shared 
 them with his family. He solicited subscriptions for the new edition of the 
 ' Pleasures of Hope,' which Mundell and Company had conceded to him. He 
 composed some verses under the title of the * Mobiade,' in consequence of 
 the riots of the fishwomen in Scotland about the high price of bread ; but 
 they possessed none of the humour which their author intended. He had no 
 skill in humorous composition, although he would not admit his deficiency. 
 But no one could relate a humorous incident with more effect. He was 
 introduced to Lord Minto by Dugald Stewart, and a friendly intercourse 
 commenced between them, which contmued until the peer's decease in 1814. 
 His lordship invited him to his house in London, and Campbell determined 
 to avail himself of so favourable an opportunity to visit again the metropolis 
 of the empire. He set out by way of Liverpool, and there made acquaint- 
 ance with Dr Currie, and with the justly-celebrated Roscoe. He after- 
 wards reached Lord Minto's house in Hanover Street, and whUe there 
 occasionally acted as his amanuensis. He had a room appropriated to his 
 use, superintended the printing of his splendid quarto of the ' Pleasures of 
 Hope' by Bensley, and was introduced into the best literary society of the 
 metropolis. He occasionally visited Mrs Siddons and her brother John, 
 the latter of whom he had previously known. His admiration for Mrs 
 Siddons was constant and extraordmary. All the poet's friends indeed 
 were exceptions to the rest of mankind; but Mrs Siddons was supernal. 
 Another intimate friend was Mr Telford the engineer. ' Lochiel ' and 
 ' Hohenlinden ' were written at this time, intended for his quarto then in 
 hand; but he printed them anonymously, and inscribed them to Mr 
 Alison. It was a remarkable proof of the poet's instability of mind, that 
 when he published his poems afterwards in a collected form he discarded 
 his previous dedications as preposterous things. Yet in his latter years 
 he adopted them again. 
 
 18 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 In August 1802 he left London on a visit to Lord Minto at Minto 
 in Scotland. Wliile there he wrote to Scott to express his delight at 
 the verses upon Cadzow Castle. His superb edition of the ' Pleasures 
 of Hope,' in quarto, was stiU unfinished. His literary labour at this 
 time, besides the task of correction, was the compilation of a prose 
 work called the ' Annals of Great Britain,' in thi-ee volumes, for which he 
 was to receive £300. The work was to appear without his name, as he 
 said it was ' written for employment.' This was well, because it was not 
 at aU calculated to increase the literary reputation of its author, and fell 
 stillborn from the press. Campbell quitted Edinburgh for London again 
 in March 1803, proceeding first to Liverpool, where he spent ten days visit- 
 ing his friends Roscoe and Currie. He remained a few days with another 
 friend, Mr Stevenson, at the Potteries in Staffordshire, and made there the 
 acquaintance of the celebrated Wedgewood, to whose taste so much is 
 due for the improvement of British pottery. On reachmg London, he 
 first lodged with his friend Mr Telford the engineer, whose quarters were 
 at the Salopian at Charing Cross. From some reason not given, IMr 
 Telford thought that his experience and friendly care might be useful to 
 his young and ardent friend, flung upon a great city without a home. 
 
 The poet was not at first reconciled to the noise and never-endmg con- 
 fusion of the metropolis. He complained of headaches and want of rest, 
 in announcing which to his friends in the north, he added that Leyden, 
 with whom he had quarrelled, had been ' dubbed doctor, and had gone to 
 diminish the population of India.' He next took lodgings at 61 South 
 Molton Street, where he completed the correction of his splendid quarto. 
 
 Everything now looked bright in the poet's imagination, and marriage 
 alone seemed wantmg to complete his happiness. This golden consum- 
 mation was at hand. He had become enamoured of his cousin Matilda 
 Sinclair, the daughter of Mr Sinclair, once a merchant of Greenock, but 
 then in business in Trinity Square, in the city of London, and he led her 
 to the altar on the 10th of September 1803. She was handsome, lively, 
 under the middle size in person, had fine dark eyes, and something of the 
 Scotch patois in speaking. The newly-man*ied pair lived first at 35 in 
 Upper Eaton Street, Pimlico ; where the commencement of the marriage 
 state, domestic comfort, and the novelty of his position, seem to have had 
 a happy effect upon the poet's mind. Horner, his old friend, remarked to 
 Lady Mackintosh, that matrimony had made a great improvement in liis 
 manners and temper. Of aU men Campbell stood most in need of a home. 
 He had till then been a wanderer, and regular in nothmg. He was now 
 fixed, and during the period of his married life he was vmquestionably very 
 different in his habits and in the society he kept from what he afterwards 
 became. Horner seems to hint at his bachelorhood bemg open to the 
 same remarks as his widowhood ; and himself spoke of his early Edinburgh 
 indulgences as having been rather too lively, and of his having escaped 
 them in London. 
 
 The son who survives him, Thomas Telford Campbell, was bom June 
 
 2, 1804, in Eaton Street. The description of his child to his friends at 
 
 this time was fidl of kindness mingled with apprehension. ' Oh,' said 
 
 he, ' that I were sure he would live to the days when I could take him on 
 
 14 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 my knee and feel tlie strong plumpness of childishness waxing into 
 vigorous youth ! My poor boy ! shall I have the ecstasy of teaching liim 
 thoughts, and knowledge, and reciprocity of love to me? It is bold to 
 enter into futurity so far ! ' Alas ! how differently the poet was destined 
 to look upon that son nearly twenty years afterwards ! 
 
 He took a plain brick-house at Sydenham in Kent in 1804 : it was 
 the last of a row on the side of a hill, and had nothing but its retired 
 situation to recommend it. He was then in his twenty-seventh year. He 
 became indisposed just after his removal, and was advised by Sir James 
 Mackintosh to drink water, and abstain from all fermented liquors, in 
 order to strengthen his nerves. This he did for some time, but found 
 no benefit from the change ; for his mental labour, before his frame had 
 been knit into manhood, had been too severe ; and this liad communicated 
 a certain debility to his nervous system which was never removed, and 
 which his careless I'egimen did not tend to counteract or diminish. Over- 
 excitement of the mind in youth is continually traced in some form or 
 another throughout life. To this perhaps is to be attributed the early 
 exhaustion of the poet's genius, and his subsequent indolence as to literary 
 labour. He translated the foreign papers for the ' Star- ' this year at £200 
 per annum, and wrote in the ' Philosophical Magazine.' 
 
 Campbell's second son, Alison, was born upon the 2d of June 1805, 
 just a year after his brother Thomas Telford. He described his two 
 sons — the one about a twelvemonth, and the other a few weeks old — in a 
 letter to Mr Alison in a style of some humour. ' Your beloved namesake 
 is grov-ing a sweet and beautiful child. The elder Telford I am sorry to 
 send you less favourable accounts of. Don't alarm yourself, however, for 
 his health : it is his moral disposition which is become rude and savage. 
 He talks a language like man in his pristine state of barbarity, consisting 
 of 'unmodulated and indefinite sounds. He is rapacious, and would eat 
 bread and milk until the day of judgment ; but he is obliged to stint his 
 stomach to five loaves, and as many pints of milk per diem, besides occa- 
 sional repasts. He is mischievous, and watches every opportunity to poke 
 out little Alison's eyes, and tear the unformed nose from his face. He had 
 not been christened, but only named, till Alison and he were converted to 
 Christianity together. The watering of the yoimg plants was a very uncom- 
 mon scene. Telford scolded the clergyman, and dashed down the bowl witli 
 one smash of his Herculean arms. He continued boasting and scolding the 
 priest till a wild cry of " Y-a-men " from the clerk astonished him into 
 silence. The first meeting of Telford and his young friend was diverting. 
 Telford had seen no live animal of the same size, except the lambs on the 
 common, which he had been taught to salute by the appellation oi B-a-a! 
 This was for some time his nickname for your namesake.' 
 
 Campbell was offered the Regent's Chair in the university of "Wilna in 
 Russian-Poland, and was very near acceptmg it, as ' the wood and Botany 
 Bay were preferable to uncertainty at home : ' he was deterred solely by the 
 fear of Russian despotism. It was a singular event that he should, many 
 years subsequently, have had a professorsliip in the same country at his 
 disposal, which he tended_to his literary coadjutor. He remarked of his 
 literary labour at this time, very close to the state of facts with most literary 
 men, ' I get tlarough a tenth of my labour in one day, but innumerable inter- 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 niptions occur. What was written to-day, may have to be re-written 
 to-morrow. The grocer who sells a pound of figs and puts a shilling, includ- 
 ing threepence profit, into his till, is a more gainful vocation.' 'Lord 
 UUin's Daughter,' ' The Turkish Lady,' and ' The Soldier's Daughter' were 
 written this year ; and the ' Battle of the Baltic ' reduced to a mere moiety 
 of the original sketch. 
 
 He now projected an edition of the British poets ; and as Scott had 
 adopted the same idea, they thought of bringing it out jointly. Both 
 insisted upon insertuig lives which the booksellers opposed; and this 
 interference put a stop to a most valuable collection of the poets by two 
 distinguished poets — a loss never to be repaii^ed. The men of trade in 
 consequence applied to a hack to bring out an edition for £300, which 
 gave rise to the publication of the ' Specimens of the British Poets ' 
 thirteen years afterwards by Campbell alone. In 1805 a collection of 
 Irish melodies was projected by him, which went no farther in his 
 hands, but was afterwards nobly carried out by Moore. In the mean- 
 time his 'Annals' were still unfinished, when, in October 1805, it was 
 announced that a pension of £200 per annum had been granted to him, as 
 was generally supposed through the interest of Lord Mmto. He imagined 
 it was through Fox and Lord Holland ; but Pitt was then in ofiice, and 
 Campbell was an avowed disciple of the Whigs. The mmister, on the 
 other hand, only three weeks before his decease, put his name down as a 
 subscriber for the poet's works. Fees and income-tax reduced the pension 
 to £168 per annum. The poet met Fox for the first time the year following 
 at Lord Holland's. The statesman was then in office, and invited Campbell 
 to St Ann's HiU, but died before the latter had an opportunity of accepting 
 the invitation. The poet revised an edition of ' Johnson's Lives of the 
 Poets ' this year ; and Mr Murray, wiser than his brother booksellers had 
 been before, ofifered Campbell and Scott £1000 for the lives of the poets 
 on their old plan ; but the latter was now too much engaged to undertake 
 any portion of the labour. Campbell, for the most part, lived retired at 
 Sydenham during 1806. He had complained that too much conviviality 
 made him feel worse, and yet company continually led him into it. He 
 remarked that he had had warning he should not be a Methuselah. 
 
 The next publication of Campbell's was a step gained m poetical beauty 
 even upon the ' Pleasures of Hope.' It Avas not so exquisitely worked up 
 and polished ; but in sentiment and subject it was superior. The ' Pleasures 
 of Hope ' was didactic. It contained touching passages, but had no con- 
 tinuity of story, which, though feeble in ' Gertrude of Wyoming,' enhances 
 the interest of the poem. It may therefore be considered a superior 
 development of the poet's skill : in fact, the highest flight his muse 
 ever essayed. This was his own opinion, although the infallibility of 
 the judgment of writers in regard to the merit of their own produc- 
 tions can never be admitted. In the same volume m which ' Ger- 
 trude of Wyoming ' was printed, thei'e were included the two noble odes 
 of the ' Battle of the Baltic ' and the ' Manners of England,' together 
 with ' Hohenlinden, ' ' Glenara,' ' Lord Ullin's Daughter, ' and ' O'Con- 
 nor's Child ; ' composing a collection of poetry by one individual so fresh, 
 so varied, and of a merit so rare, that it may be questioned if works 
 16 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 of such enduring excellence ever before appeared at one time in a single 
 publication of any of our poets. The lapse of years since has but con- 
 firmed the opinion of the excellence of these poems, which have never 
 diminished in public estimation from the day on which they first saw the 
 light. It may be questioned whether, after such works, destined to exist 
 as long as the language in which they are written — a language becoming 
 almost universally vernacular — enougli had not been achieved for the fame 
 of one individual. At anyrate the efibrts thus made seem to have 
 exhausted the poet's powers ; and some half-a-dozen short pieces more, 
 written during the next thirty years of his life, although beautiful in lan- 
 guage, made no approach in power to their predecessors. The diversities 
 of genius upon record show some of its sons destined to continue to delight 
 mankind from youth to age, while others flame out at once, and darken to 
 the end. Waller wTote as well at eighty as at twenty : Dryden wrote 
 nothing worthy of his name until he was between thirty and forty : in 
 Campbell the poetical intensity was ardent for a limited period : all his 
 better works were published before he was thirty-two. 
 
 ' Gertrude of Wyoming' was completed in 1808, and published in 1809 ; 
 and a second edition followed the next year. The story is deficient in 
 invention, in which the other works of the poet show that he did not 
 shine. There is enough to carry the simple details required, but no more ; 
 and the excellences consist in an all-pervading sweetness and tenderness of 
 handling, in the purity of the sentiment, the richness and splendoiu-, and 
 the pointed vigour displayed in many of the passages. If it does not 
 sparkle like the ' Pleasures of Hope,' or attract so much by its polish and 
 the artifice of its verse, it possesses a wider range of vision, and touches 
 more deeply the sympathies of the reader. 
 
 When JeSrey read ' Gertrude,' he wrote to the author, and with that 
 perspicacity which so well adapted him for the post of a reviewer, said 
 that the poem ended abruptly. ' Not but that there is great spirit in the 
 description,' he added, ' but a spirit not quite suitable to the soft and 
 soothing tenor of the poem. The most dangerous faults, however, are 
 your faults of diction. There is still a good deal of obscurity in many 
 passages, and in others a strained and unnatural expression — an appear- 
 ance of labour and hardness. You have hammered the metal in some 
 places till it has lost all its ductility. These are not great faults, but 
 they are blemishes; and as dunces will find them out, noodles will see 
 them when they are pointed to. I wish you had had courage to correct 
 or rather avoid them ; for with you they are faults of over-finishing, not of 
 negligence. I have another fault to charge you with in private, for which I 
 am more angry than all the rest. Your timidity, or fastidiousness, or some 
 other knavish quality, wUl not let you give your conceptions glowing, and 
 bold, and powerful, as they present themselves ; but you must chasten, and 
 refine, and soften them forsooth, till half their nature and grandeur is 
 chiselled away from them.' This was a sound advice, friendly, and worthy 
 of the critic. This criticism came home to the poet's fiudts, which in his 
 better days were too close an adherence to that nicety of verbal polish and 
 disregard of the more manly sense, which are distinguishing traits of uni- 
 versity practice in exercise and translation. There were other eiTors. In the 
 'Pleasui-es of Hope ' he had introduced panthers on the shores of Lake Erie; 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people, 
 
 but there is no such anunal in the United States — the ounce-like creature 
 the cougar or jaguar, and the puma, in the south, not being the panthers or 
 leopards of the old world, but a distinct species, although the Yankees may 
 confound the names. Then the flamingo, the aloe, and pahn-tree of the 
 tropics are placed in the severe climate of Pennsylvania, in -which plants 
 that flourish well in England perish during the intensity of its winter. 
 These, however, were blemishes which only served to set oflf the merits 
 of the poem in other respects. The 'Edinburgh Eeview' passed high enco- 
 miums upon it ; Dugald Stewart was delighted with it ; Mr Alison con 
 veyed to the author the admiration of his Edinburgh friends in glowing 
 colours. The poet wi-ote in consequence to a friend — ' Ahson's letter is 
 a thing belonging to the heart. Poor Stewart's tears are at present no 
 certain test ; liis great, but always susceptible mind, is reduced, I daresay, 
 to almost puerile weakness, if I may say it with due reverence to his name' 
 (he was suffering under a domestic affliction). ' Now, let me ask, is it veiy 
 great ostentation to betray the first symptoms of doubtful success to you ? 
 To you who are so dear to my heart that you will excuse even its foibles ? 
 I must not exclude your family from hearmg something of " Gertrude." 
 Ay, ay, I am like the whale in the gulf of Malstrom, I feel myself getting 
 into the whhlpool of vanity in communicating the puff from Alison. I may 
 roar and repent, but into the gulf I must go ! But I love you verj^ much, 
 and that is the reason I do not fear you. Say your worst, bating that I 
 am a sUly, vain creature — bite my nails, &c. — bray much about Montague 
 Street, when I have dined — and envy Sydney Smith ! Except these faults, 
 I defy you to say black is the white of my eye ! ' 
 
 In 1811 Campbell was invited to give five lectures at the Eoyal Insti- 
 tution, and having consented, set about preparing them. Two were to 
 be delivered before Easter 1812, and three after, for which he was to 
 receive a hundred guineas. He seems at this time to have had as much 
 work upon his hands as he could well get through. His mother's death 
 took place in February. He said that he felt more at the news of her lii-st 
 shock of the palsy than at her decease. ' It is only,' said he, ' when I 
 imagine her alive in my dreams that I feel strongly on the subject.' In 
 the meanwhile the time approached for the delivery of his lectiu-es. The 
 first was on the principles of poetry ; then upon Hebrew and Greek 
 poetry, two lectures ; the fourth on the troubadour and Italian poetry ; 
 the fifth on the French theatre, and on English poets and poetry. Sir 
 Humphrey Davy had borne off the palm from all preceding lecturers at the 
 institution, particularly with the fair sex, principally owing to the illustra- 
 tion of his subject by numerous pleasing experiments ; but Campbell 
 came off well, though he felt no little timid anxiety about the result. 
 Describing his first lecture, he observed, 'Ai-chdeacon Nares fidgetted 
 about and said, " That's new, at least quite new to me." I could not look 
 in my friend's face ; and I threatened to divorce my wife if she came. All 
 friends struck me blind, except my chieftain's lovely daughter, and now 
 next-door neighbour on the common, Lady Charlotte Campbell. I tliought 
 she had a feudal right to have the lecturer's looks to herself. But chiefly 
 did I repose my awkward eyes on the face of a little yellow unknown 
 man, with a face and a smile of approbation indescribably ludicrous.' 
 
 The poet now became a visitor at the residence of the unfortunate Queen 
 18 
 
THOMAS CAMri3ELL. 
 
 Caroline, at Blackhcath, danced reels with royalty, attended operas, and 
 for a season was as gay as liis nature permitted. He denied that there 
 was anything coarse or indelicate about the queen's conduct. He seems 
 to have thought of her precisely as Canning did. He described her as good- 
 humoured, kind-hearted, acute, naive, and entertaining, but as blundering 
 60 comically in speaking English as to be almost equivocal at times. In 
 1812 he seems to have made the acquauitance of Thomas Hill, at Sydenham. 
 There, too, congregated the two Smiths, James and Horace, Theodore Hook, 
 Mathews, Du Bois, and other choice spirits of the time, the poet being as 
 lively as the gayest of them. 
 
 The next year Madame de Stael visited England from Sweden, and took 
 up her residence m Argyle Street. She -vM'ote to the poet from Stockholm, 
 speakmg of the pleasure she had derived from reading the Episode ot 
 Ellinore in the ' Pleasures of Hope.' He had previously offered to super- 
 intend the translation of a work she was bringing out. He greatly 
 feared, about the same time, that a pleurisy witli which he was attacked 
 would disable him from proceeding with his lectures; but he recovered, and 
 delivered a second course with great eclat. It was observed that he was 
 imeven in his enunciation. ' Campbell,' says B^Ton of him at this time, 
 ' looks well, seems pleased, and dresses sprucely. A blue coat becomes 
 him ; so does his new wig.' (He was bald at twenty-four years old.) ' He 
 really looked as if Apollo had sent him a birthday suit, or a wedding- 
 garment.' Mrs Grant said of him, ' He is one who has suffered much from 
 neither understanding the world nor being understood by it. He encoun- 
 tered every evil of poverty but that of being ashamed of his circumstances ; 
 in that respect he was nobly indifferent to opinion, and his good, gentle, 
 patient, little wife was so frugal, so simple, and so sweet-tempered, that 
 she disarmed poverty itself of half its evils.' 
 
 It would appear that Coleridge had lectured against Campbell's poetry 
 two or three years before the latter appeared at the Royal Institution, at 
 least such was the statement of Byron, on the authority of Rogers. ' We 
 are going to hear that Manichean,' adds the noble bard. Campbell, who 
 was very sensitive about such attacks, felt little good -will aftei-wards 
 towards Coleridge, who attacked everything and everybody for the sake of 
 talking. It was wonderful how far Campbell can-ied this kind of anti- 
 pathy, nor did he ever trouble himself whether the matter that gave hun 
 offence was well or ill-founded. His introduction to Byron took place 
 at the table of Rogers, on whom he had accidentally called, where Moore 
 and Byron had previously been invited to meet, to clear up some misun- 
 derstanding. It was rarely that four such men, poets of so liigh a repu- 
 tation, had met together and alone. 
 
 In 1813 he visited Brighton for the benefit of his health. He kept a 
 light sort of diary upon this occasion, but it had no real humour. Here 
 he met Dr Herschel, and was much struck with some of his hypotheses 
 respecting the heavenly bodies ; subjects with which Campbell himself does 
 not appear to have been very familiar, smce he mistook the obvious mean- 
 ing of the astronomer. 
 
 "VMien peace returned in 1814 Campbell visited Paris, and found there 
 Madame de Stael, with Mrs Siddons, and her brother John, for whom he had 
 such a strong, unabated friendship. He visited the Galleries of Art ; he 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 dined with Humboldt and Schlegel ; and was introduced to the Duke of 
 Wellington as ' Mr Campbell.' The duke passed over the introduction as a 
 matter of coiu-se, supposing the poet, as he himself observed, to be one 
 of the thousand of that name ; but when he found his mistake he took 
 down the poet's address, stating that he was sorry he was not sooner 
 undeceived. Campbell had numerous conversations with Schlegel, in 
 which they diiFered considerably upon the mode of studying philosophy ; 
 and these friendly contests were afterwards carried on in England, durmg 
 Schlegel's visits, with the same warmth and the same futility. He was 
 struck with the Apollo Belvidere in the Louvre, and confessed that its busts 
 he had before seen with indifference. This he attributed to his inexperience 
 in art; for although versed in the principles, he was by no means a judge 
 of the details of artistic objects, his ideas having been formed by reading, 
 not by the study of the objects themselves. 
 
 Campbell remained in Paris two months, and then retui-ned to London. 
 There is an epitaph to the memory of Mrs Shute of Sydenham, and her 
 two daughters, who were drowned at Chepstow, written by him this year, 
 and engraved on their monument in Monkton Combe, Somerset, which 
 has not appeared in his works : — 
 
 ' In deep submission to tlie Will above, 
 
 Yet with no common cause for human tears, 
 This stone to the lost partner of his love, 
 
 And for his children lost, a mourner rears. 
 One fatal moment, one o'erwhelming doom, 
 
 Tore, tlireefold, from his heart the ties of earth : 
 His Mary, Margaret, in tlieir early bloom. 
 
 And her who gave them life and taught them worth. 
 Farewell, ye broken pillars of my fate ! 
 
 My life's companion, and my two first-born; 
 Yet while this silent stone I consecrate 
 
 To conjugal, paternal, love forlorn — 
 Oh may each passer-by the lesson learn, 
 
 Which can alone the bleeding heart sustain, 
 Where friendship weeps at virtue's funeral urn, 
 
 That to the pure in heart to die is gain ! ' 
 
 In 1815 Campbell visited Scotland. On his return he used all his inte- 
 rest to patronise Mrs AUsop, the daughter of Mrs Jordan, who had come 
 out upon the London stage. It appeared that she wanted expression on 
 the boards. But through Lord Byron our poet procured for her a stage 
 engagement of considerable advantage. 
 
 In 1816 Sir Walter Scott, with that kindness towards his brother labourers 
 in literature which ever distinguished him, suggested a plan to obtain two 
 classes for Campbell in the university of Edinburgh, which might be made 
 lucrative. His plan, however, came to nothmg. 
 
 Campbell now proceeded towards the completion of his ' Specimens of 
 the Poets' for Mr Mm-ray, which had proceeded very slowly. There wa« 
 a proposal by Mr Murray regarding the publication of his lectures prior 
 to the ' Specimens.' What became of the lectures alluded to is not clear ; 
 but the poet afterwards recomposcd them for the ' New Monthly ^laga- 
 zine,' in which it was stipulated they siiould appear. A very small por- 
 tion of the seven volumes of the ' Specimens,' which were not published 
 20 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 until 1819, is original matter, and the errors in the first edition were very 
 considerable. Mr Murray had only engaged to give the poet £500 for his 
 labours ; but he generously doubled the amount, besides presents of books 
 worth £200 more. Campbell had expected a second edition of this work 
 three or four years after it was published ; for it seems lie applied to his 
 coadjutor in tlie ' New Monthly,' when he became editor of tliat perio- 
 dical, for a life of Dr Wolcot (Peter Pindar), whom he considered to be 
 one of the most original of English poets, although he had neglected him 
 for want of materials, of which his friend, he knew, had possession. The 
 'Specimens' did not come to a second edition till 1841, when, on being 
 applied to for the correction of the numerous eiTors in biographical and 
 bibliographical information which existed in tlie former edition, the poet 
 refused to make them. The generous conduct of Mr Murray merited a 
 better return. These errors were generally in dates, and about localities, 
 arising from want of care or from oversight. This duty was obliged to be 
 performed by another. But at the time alluded to (1841), the poet's mental 
 powers were in rapid decadence, and his horror of such laboiu- was pro- 
 verbial. The essay prefixed to the work is one of Campbell's best prose 
 productions. 
 
 In a conversation between Scott and Washington Irving, Scott said of 
 Campbell, ' He don't know or wont trust his own strength. Even when 
 lie has done a thing well, he has often misgiA-ings about it. He left out 
 several fine passages in " Lochiel," but I got him to restore some of them. 
 Wliat a grand idea is that about prophetic boding, or, in common par- 
 lance, second sight — 
 
 " Coming events cast their shadows before !" 
 
 It is a noble thought, and nobly expressed. And there's that glorious 
 little poem, too, of " Hohenlinden." After he had written it he did not 
 seem to think much of it — " Damned drum-and-trumpet lines ! " I got hirn 
 to recite it to me ; and I believe the delight I felt and expressed had an 
 efiiect in inducing him to pi-int it. The fact is, Campbell is in a manner 
 a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment 
 to all his further efibrts. He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame 
 casts before him.' 
 
 In 1817 he lost his friend Francis Horner, and this year made an acquaint- 
 ance with Crabbe at Holland House. Crabbe, Rogers, and Moore, after- 
 wards dined with liim at Sydenham, making a second repast of a similar 
 character at which four distinguished poets had figured together. The 
 former had taken place at Rogers's, where Byron took the place of Crabbe. 
 
 The poet was much attached to clubs, and had belonged to several both 
 in England and Scotland. He proposed one, to be called the Bees' or 
 Poets' Club; but Peny of the ' Chronicle' put an end to the scheme by 
 saying people would call it the 'Wasps.' Campbell, daunted at once by 
 the chance of being made ridiculous, gave up the project. 
 
 He wrote some lines in 1817 upon the death of the Princess Charlotte, 
 with which Prince Leopold was much pleased. He continued to work on 
 his ' Specimens' in 1818; Roscoe of Liverpool solicited him to lecture there 
 in 1819. He accepted the terms, went down, and was enthusiastically 
 received. He profited by these lectures to the amount of £350. He also 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE, 
 
 received £100 for delivering them at Birmingham on his way back to town. 
 At Birmingham, too, he visited the two Watts, father and son ; the elder 
 being then in the last year of his useful and protracted life. A younger 
 son, named Gregory, who died early, was the class-fellow and friend of the 
 poet at Glasgow college. 
 
 A passage in the ' Essay on English Poetry' in the * Specimens,' producei'i 
 a remarkable discussion. Campbell had censured the Rev. Mr Bowles for 
 undervaluing the merit of Pope ; and Bowles rejoined in a letter to Camp- 
 bell, in defence of what were called his ' invariable principles of poetry.' 
 Campbell's usual indolence prevented his replying otherwise than by a note 
 affixed to one of his poetical lectures ; but Byron, Roscoe, Gilchrist, and 
 others not so fond of pleading a want of leisure which did not exist, took 
 up the affah ; and the original disputant remained an unconcerned spec- 
 tator of the contest he had provoked and cooled upon, which was always 
 his manner to avoid trouble. The admission of Bowles's theory was to 
 degrade Pope from his high poetical station, and was unquestionably 
 pushed too far. His argument was, that images drawn from the sublime 
 and beautiful in nature are more poetical than any drawn from art, and 
 that those passions of the heart which belong to nature in general are more 
 adapted to the higher order of poetry than those derived from transient 
 manners. So far might be admitted; but Bowles travelled fuiiher, and 
 intimated that the mere presence of such images was to determine the 
 merits of the poet, with little regard to the skill in working up the mate- 
 rials. In this dispute which Campbell had raised, and then looked upon 
 so quietly as it proceeded, even the old jurisconsult, Jeremy Bentham, 
 muigled himself. It was clear that no system of exclusion could be true. 
 Was the enchanter who called up at his own wUl the most beautiful \"isions, 
 and peopled with their own creations the mighty void, to be reduced to 
 the level of hun whose only merit consisted in the selection of a happier 
 theme? Under Bowles's principles the Venus de Medicis could not be 
 natui'al, because that statue is composed of the most perfect portions of 
 the female form, too perfect for existing nature. 
 
 Campbell proposed next to extend his lectures, and print them in two 
 quarto volumes, making extracts to aid him at Bonn, whither he intended 
 to go, and where he should find W. A. Schlegel. He completed the delivery 
 of a second course of his lectures in May. He signed a document, binding 
 himself to undertake the editorship of the ' New Montlily ]\Iagazine ' in 
 December 1820, so as to commence on the 1st of January following; the 
 lectures, or twelve of them, to be mserted without charge, and his salary 
 to be £600 per annum for three years. He then embarked for Germany 
 by way of Rotterdam, and visited likewise Haarlem, Amsterdam, and 
 the Hague. He found Schlegel at Bonn, who gave him a hearty welcome, 
 and introduced him to several other professors of note. At Frankfort he 
 left his wife and son, and proceeded from thence to Ratisbon, over the 
 ground where the battle he saw in 1800 had beeil fought, and where Napo- 
 leon fought a much more important one ten years afterwards. He visited 
 the Scotch College, and found only two of the brotherhood surviving out of 
 a dozen he had known there twenty years before. He left Ratisbon in a 
 boat on the Danube for Vienna. There he hired apartments, nobly fur- 
 nished, for four pounds a month. He- climbed to the summit of St Stephen's 
 22 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 spire, and looked over the field of Aspern and the Isle of Lobau, so 
 renowned in warfare. He was welcomed as a celebrity by the learned of 
 Vienna, and his ' Mariners of England,' and most of his shorter pieces, he 
 found translated into German. He returned to Bonn from Vienna by way 
 of Frankfort — leaving his son under the care of Dr Meyer at Bonn, to pro- 
 ceed with his education — and reached home witii Mrs Campbell towards 
 the end of November 1820. Between Dover and London tlie coach was 
 overturned, and he received so severe an uijury m the shoulder, that he 
 was compelled to remain at an inn on the road for several days. 
 
 He now began to think of the duties of his editorsliip. They were of a 
 ohai'acter wholly novel to him ; for although his higli acquirements and 
 pure taste enabled him to select the best matter in a literary sense, yet to 
 combine a pleasing variety of articles was to him a formidable under- 
 taking. He wanted tact; and although settuig about his task with the 
 ardour which marked his conduct at the commencement of any new under- 
 taking, he became impatient under it. His labours began in December 
 1820, but it was the middle of the month before anything but his own lec- 
 ture and poetry was ready. He felt the task confuse him ; and as the pub- 
 lisher had promised to provide a sub-editor, the necessary personage was 
 found in Edward du Bois, the author of ' My Pocket-Book,' which had 
 led to a lawsuit many years before, in which Lord EUenborough and a 
 jury clearly vindicated the rights of literary criticism. This gentleman was 
 well versed in periodical literature. The small print of the magazine was 
 committed to a separate hand — that of Cyrus Redding. In this way the 
 first number appeared. Du Bois, who soon perceived that the poet had 
 had no practice in periodical literature, gave him his opinions too freely 
 upon some points of moment ; and although they had been well acquamted, 
 for Du Bois used to make one of the Sydenham guests at Thomas Hill's, 
 Campbell declared he could not proceed with his sub-editor. Mr Redding 
 therefore added to his own previous duties the assistance of Campbell m 
 his portion of the labour ; and the periodical proceeded to the satisfaction 
 of eveiybody concerned during ten years, distancing all its competitors. 
 
 The poet, loath to leave it, kept his house at Sydenham for nearly two 
 " years after his editorship began, lodgmg fu-st in Margaret Street, Caven- 
 dish Square, and then in Foley Place. Here his son returned to him with 
 symptoms of incipient insanity. He resigned, with feeUngs of considerable 
 regret, his country domicile, so much endeared to him in recollection, and 
 took a house in Upper Seymour Street "West, near Connaught Place. 
 
 It was a singular circumstance that the poet had never inquhed about 
 the politics of the work he had undertaken to manage. These had been 
 Ultra Tory ; and many of his old friends, in consequence, evaded giving 
 him assistance when he requested it of them. It was not to be supposed 
 that Campbell would support the old principles of the magazine, but the 
 truth was, that he had thought nothing about them. Perry of the ' Morn- 
 ing Chronicle,' who was an old friend of the poet, never mentioned the 
 subject to him ; but told a friend that he must be excused for doing anything 
 in behalf of the magaziue, because it had stolen the title of another work 
 for party purposes. Attack sentiments and principles, he said, it was all 
 right. There was a * New Times ' started against the ' Times.' ' How 
 should I,' said Perry, ' like a " New Morning Chronicle " to be started, 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 evading the law by adding a word for that purpose ? I know CampbeD 
 had nothing to do with that : it was before his time. He will not, 1 
 know, support its old sentiments, but it is sanctioning a bad principle.' 
 Campbell confessed that the matter had never crossed his mind ; and this 
 was perfectly in unison with his character. The work flourished notwith- 
 standing, but few of the poet's old Whig friends became contributors. His 
 contributions were comparatively few besides his lectures. These were of 
 high excellence, perhaps too learned for general readers. They were 
 written in that neat and pure style which their author exhibited in prose 
 as Avell as verse. He was sometimes so assiduous in the perfect completion 
 of a sentence, that there seemed a forgetfulness of connection. He gene- 
 rally perfected in his mind the sentence he thus wrote before committing it 
 to paper, but would sometimes even then repolish and alter, so that com- 
 position was exceedingly laborious to him. Besides his lectures, he pub- 
 lished about thirty pieces of poetry during his ten years' editorship. Of 
 these ' The Eainbow,' the ' Last Man,' ' A Dream,' and his stanzas begin- 
 ning ' Men of England,' are the best. Some of these pieces only consisted 
 of a few lines. 
 
 The prose contributions of Campbell to the magazine, besides his twelve 
 lectures, were inconsiderable. They consisted chiefly of ' A Letter to Mr 
 Brant, the son of a Mohawk Chief;' ' Letters to the Students of the Glas- 
 gow University ; ' an article on ' The University of London ; ' two or three 
 reviews, one of which was on Milton's theological tract ; another of the four 
 first volumes of Las Casas's Napoleon, ' Hugh's Travels,' ' Moore's Byron 
 and Sequel,' with articles on the ' Civilisation of Africa,' on the ' Sonnets of 
 Shakspeare,' and on ' Flaxman's Lectures.' He also wrote a few small print 
 criticisms, some very hurriedly, and others more carefully. He would also, 
 when a friend died, give two or three lines of memorial for the obituary. 
 Of these articles the paper on Flaxman was the most remarkable, from 
 having been just published and read to Sir Thomas Laurence when that 
 artist was dying. The painter and poet had long been intimate friends 
 and the latter was much shocked at the intelligence of Laurence's decease, 
 which came upon him unexpectedly on a chance meeting with Sir James 
 Mackintosh, as he was starting with a friend upon a walk to Dulwicb. 
 The article in the Edinburgh Eeview on Flaxman, which gave rise to 
 Campbell's paper, was supposed to be wi-itten by some friend of Chantrey 
 the sculptor. The poet defended Flaxman's opinion, that anatomy was 
 a necessary study for a sculptor ; but Chantrey undervalued what he had 
 never learned. 
 
 In 1824, while connected with the magazine, Campbell published the 
 ' Last Man,' one of his happier efforts. He fancied that Byron, in the 
 poem of ' Darkness,' had stolen his idea. It was singular that he imagined 
 the idea of a ' last man ' to be novel, for it is found in a poem printed m the 
 beginning of the century ; and in Bishop Home's sermon on the ' Death of 
 the Old Year,' the same idea occurs of eartli being sunk in a molten 
 deluge, and ' one man standing in the world the only survivor.' Yet the 
 poet wi-ote a letter to the Edinburgh reviewers, in which, because they 
 hinted that he had taken his idea from Byron, he charged Byron with 
 taking it from himself fifteen years before. The idea, however, was so 
 obvious, that it must have struck many persons. This year Campbell also 
 24 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 began to push his scheme for a university in London ; and at the com- 
 mencement of the next year, 1825, after enlisting Mr Brougham, Mr Hume, 
 and others in its behalf, he paid a visit to some of the continental uni- 
 versities, particularly to that of Berlin, to improve his knowledge of such 
 institutions, with a view to the internal regulation of one in London. His 
 subsequent interference in the scheme was little, Brougham taking the lead. 
 On the foregoing visit to the continent Campbell went to Hamburg, where, 
 after an absence of twenty-five years, he saw some of his old friends of 
 1800, particularly the Exile of Erin, Anthony M'Cann, for whom he had in 
 vain tried to obtain leave to return to his native land. 
 
 Our author next began a life of Laurence, the materials being in great 
 part collected by himself: the labour commenced, was quickly aban- 
 doned, and the work handed over to a friend. During his engagement 
 with the magazine, he was one day waited upon by a friend of Mr 
 Brant, the son of the Indian chief to whom he alluded in his Gertrude 
 as the ]\Iohawk Brant, charging him with cruelty. The sou was an ac- 
 complished gentleman in the British service, and a field-officer. The 
 Indian chief. Brant, as it appeared, was not present at the sack of 
 Wyoming ; and Campbell attached an exculpatory note to the subsequent 
 edition of his poems, stating that the name of Brant must be esteemed 
 fictitious. 
 
 Soon after the resignation of his editorship, Campbell sought for a recon- 
 ciliation with his brother poet Thomas Moore. There had been a coolness 
 between these two distinguished men from the time the former undertook a 
 defence of Lady Byi'on in an article in the magazine. He had treated 
 Moore with a roughness by no means merited, and now addressed a letter to 
 him apologising for his vehemence. At the same time he declared, with that 
 Latent self-respect which formed a part of his character even to vanity, that 
 his sentiments upon the point of difference ' v, ere imaltered.' He only 
 desired the forgiveness of Moore for his heat. The cause of the difference 
 was owing to that impulsive action for right or wrong, continually preced- 
 ing reflection, which was a part of Campbell's nature. Of his forgiving 
 temper there were proofs in cases of less moment to others than himself. 
 Hence his character was often mistaken by those who were not aware of 
 his peculiar disposition. 
 
 During his editorship of the magazine, Campbell had been elected Lord 
 Eector of Glasgow university, having a considerable majority over the other 
 two candidates— Cannmg and Sir Thomas Brisbane. He immediately re- 
 paired to Glasgow, where a political dinner was proposed to be given to 
 him, which he declined. He delivered his maugural address in the begui- 
 ning of 1827, having been elected m the previous November. Ardently at- 
 tached to his native city, and the place of his education, where he was now 
 so honoured, he can-ied his feeling of gi-atification almost to weakness. He 
 annexed to the office an importance, even out of Glasgow, which no one else 
 would have thought of doing, and which it coiild hardly bear. But his 
 temperament, excited by the recall of early sensations and feelings, ren- 
 dered this very excusable. He dined with the Senatus Academicus in the 
 room where he had never been but once before in his life, and that was 
 when a youth on a charge of breaking the windows of the college church I 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAP1:RS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 All the documents relative to tlie university -were laid before him, and he was 
 treated with great politeness and cordiality by the professors. He was very 
 popular with the students, distributed the college prizes to them, and after 
 nearly two months' absence, returned home full of almost youthful joyous- 
 ness. He left London for Glasgow again at the close of the year, and was 
 re-elected in November. Three of his letters to the Glasgow students 
 appeared that year in print, exhibiting proofs of his previous laborious ac- 
 quirements in their seminary. The diction of these letters was remarkably 
 neat and pure. He left Scotland towards the end of November for London, 
 having that year been absent nearly four months. He came back full of a 
 plan for a classical encyclopaedia, to be continued through the assistance 
 of the Glasgow students who were most advanced. This plan shared the fate 
 of the poet's other thousand-and-one projects. 
 
 While in Glasgow he was attacked with indisposition, suspected to 
 originate in the livei", but recovered under the influence of medicine. This 
 seems to have been the first time the seat of his disorder was suspected, 
 and which, by care, he might have checked. He was for some time wholly 
 unfit for literary labour. Sir Thomas Laurence now made an offer to 
 liim on behalf of the Glasgow students, to paint then- Lord Rector's 
 picture for the Great Hall of the Museum at a reduced price ; an instance 
 of kindness on the part of Sir Thomas which merits record ; but the 
 matter was not proceeded with. In the meanwhile the copyright of the 
 ' Pleasures of Hope' had returned to him by the expiration of the copy- 
 right act. He now planned a new and complete edition of his works, to 
 be handsomely printed and illustrated; and had scarcely taken a pre- 
 luninary step in the matter, when his wife was attacked with an illness 
 which proved fatal on the 9th of May 1828. Two months before her 
 decease, the state of uncertainty in which she lay completely unhinged the 
 poet for any kind of work. Anxious to see a complete edition of his 
 poems, and declaring his utter inability to execute a task at the moment 
 of the utmost importance to his interests, he became impatient and excited. 
 He was attacked with temporaiy blindness, and was completely incapaci- 
 tated for business of any kind. His friend Cyi-us Redding imdertook to 
 bring out the collected edition of liis poems in his behalf; but Campbell 
 was in such a state of mind, that he could with difficulty be got to decide 
 whether some of the pieces attributed to him were his own or not. This 
 edition appeared in two volumes, with a likeness of the author, from a 
 portrait by Laurence. 
 
 He was mvited to stand a third time for the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow 
 at the close of that year. This honour was flattering; but Scott was now set 
 up against him, and the voting was even. The casting-vote was then given 
 illegally by the poet's OAvn vice-rector against him ; and Scott, with that noble 
 feeling which always distuiguished his intercourse with literary men, at 
 once declined the honour. Campbell, therefore, was installed for the third 
 time. He had left London just before his election, prior to which he had 
 given a ' legal ' authority to his friend Redding to act as he might see fit 
 about his son under any circumstances that might ai'ise. The condition of 
 his son made him at the moment exceedingly anxious. On arriving in 
 Edinburgh he found his eldest sister ill. ' Everj'thing,' he wrote, ' and 
 ev2ry face in Glasgow are a stab to my recollections of the past. I left 
 26 
 
THOMAS! CAMPBELL. 
 
 my son in a ticklish frame of mind, and I have the prospect of not long 
 possessing the nearest and the dearest of my cartlily relations.' This sister 
 survived until the year before his OAvn decease. 
 
 About tliis time a club was founded among the students in the uni- 
 versity of Glasgow, called the Campbell Club. His inaugural address this 
 year on his installation was sensible and well-written. It announced two 
 silver and two gold medals : the silver for 'gowned' students, the gold for 
 ' ungowned.' The first was to be for the best English essay ' On the Evils 
 of Intolerance towards those who Differ from us in Religion ;' the second, 
 ' On the Comparative Importance of Scientific and Classical Instruction in 
 the General Education of Mankind,' Ho wound up by recommending to 
 the students, that ' if any feuds had sprung up among them in consequence 
 of the election, that they should bury them all in generous oblivion.' He 
 visited Scotland again hi the beginning of April, in a little more than three 
 months after his former journey, and remained about a month. Upon his 
 return from this journey, he changed his residence from Seymour Street 
 West to Middle Scotland Yard, Whitehall. There he began to give parties. 
 This did not endure long. His fondness for clubs once more exhibited 
 itself in the formation of the Literary Union. This society, which 
 promised well at first, aftenvards degenerated into an ordinary club, 
 and expired of inanition not long before the poet's decease. The original 
 idea was good, but the poet was not one possessing a character of steadi- 
 ness to carry it out with the needful requisites. His principal desire 
 was to connect it with literary views and objects. He was chairman of 
 the committee, and produced scheme after scheme, which passed away ; 
 and though one or two literary papers were read, the institution degenerated 
 into a commonplace thing. The committee even found it difficult to confine 
 their chairman to the routine of the common weekly business. Figures 
 and accounts he held in impatient distaste : he would jest and talk politics, 
 and scarcely attend to business when told time was precious. 
 
 In 1831 Campbell and his former coadjutor became connected with the 
 * Metropolitan.' The poet at first was only bound to lend his name, and 
 to furnish something for the work now and then. He was to receive half 
 the income he had enjoyed from the old magazine, and to reside where he 
 pleased. He had by this time left Scotland Yard, and gone for a trine to 
 Hastings, or rather St Leonard's, in Sussex. Soon after the work began, a 
 naval officer, who had been a contributor, thinking the speculation was good, 
 took a large share from the bookseller, and became in law his partner. 
 Unluckily for him he was totally unacquainted with trade, and with the 
 hazard of being involved with a person who might be destitute of capital. 
 Thus imprudent, he offered Campbell a share for a few hundred poimds. 
 The bad state of the bookseller's affairs was unfortunately but too soon dis- 
 covered, and by an honourable conduct on the part of the individual alluded 
 to, who had involved himself and the poet, the latter got back the money 
 he had advanced ; but the imfortunate officer, striving to avoid being made 
 a partner with a bankrupt tradesman, lost his lawsuit, and had to pay some 
 thousands of pounds. The work, which had been pledged to the prhiter, 
 then fell into the hands of Captain Marryat, the novelist, who bought it 
 with the design of being his own editor, but made no hand of that duty. 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 At Christmas 1832 the work rested wholly, both property and editorship, 
 with him. Prior to that period it had had contributions from Campbell, 
 Moore, and Montgomery of Sheffield, both in prose and verse ; and had it 
 been sustained by proper funds, would no doubt have flourished. Before 
 the establishment of the ' Metropolitan,' the poet had taken up with 
 ■warmth the cause of the Polish exiles. When he pubHshed the ' Pleasures 
 of Hope,' the poem had been speedily translated into several European 
 languages. It had found its way mto Poland, was admired there, and 
 the mention of the fall of Polish liberty in the ' Pleasures of Hope ' ren- 
 dered Campbell's name a favourite in the extinguished kingdom. He had 
 kept up a con-espondence with some of the leading Poles afterwards, long 
 before the last attempt they made at emancipation. 
 
 Besides the Poles, in whose behalf he was incessantly engaged, he began 
 the ' Life of Mrs Siddons' with far more scanty materials than he had pos- 
 sessed for tliat of Sir Thomas Laurence. He took up his lodgmgs m Duke 
 Street, St James's, at what were called the Pohsh Chambers, where the 
 zeal displayed by Mr Bach, secretary to the Polish Association, attached the 
 poet to him strongly: nor was the attachment less strong on the other side. 
 There was a remote attic in the house, where the poet could be as retired 
 and studious as he pleased without the knowledge of any one but his friend 
 Bach. Here, after the poet's decease, under promise of its preserva- 
 tion by the landlord of the house, ]\Ii- Bach had a marble tablet placed, 
 with the following mscription so honourable to his friendship : — ' In this 
 attic Thomas Campbell, Hope's Bard, and mourning Freedom's Hope, 
 lived and thought, A. D. 1832, while at the head of the Literary Associa- 
 tion of the Friends of Poland, his creation. Divinse vu-tutis pietati ami- 
 citia, 1847.' 
 
 The ' Life of Mrs Siddons' was a difficult task to execute, owing to the 
 paucity of materials. The booksellers would not look at it in less than 
 two volumes. Matter was laboriously collected to eke out the required 
 quantity; but the middle of the year 1834 had an-ived before the biogi-ajDhy 
 made its appearance. It was printed in t}^e larger than the ordinary 
 size, to make it extend to a second volume. Campbell considered that in 
 completing this undertaking he was fulfilling a sacred promise to one whom 
 he had long known and esteemed. The work did not go off well. The 
 public expectation had been too long upon the stretch of expectation, and 
 curiosity had subsided. Besides, the style was indifferent ; and the author 
 was not fitted for the task by any acquaintance with the small-talk of the 
 theatre. 
 
 This biography being published, the poet visited Paris after twenty 
 years of absence. There the Polish Literary Society gave him the honour 
 of a public dmner, at which Prince Czartoyisky presided. He began, too, 
 while there, but soon dropped, a work on the ' Geography of Classical 
 Literature.' He then proposed to visit Italy; but the mention of Algiers 
 caused him to cliange his direction to Africa, and his impatience made 
 liim embark at Marseilles in a crazy merchant-vessel, which fortunately 
 arrived safely. The result of his visit he published in his ' Letters from 
 the South.' He was kiudly treated by the French military, and visited 
 Oran and Bona in turn ; but was mucli affected in health by the climate. 
 While he sojourned in Africa, the death of his old friend Telford took 
 28 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 place. He left the poet £1000. Campbell returned from Algiers in 
 1835, and an-iving in Paris was presented to King Louis-Philippe. 
 
 After his return home he proceeded with the publication of an illus- 
 trated edition of his poems. He also visited Scotland the next year, 
 where he was entertained at the Campbell Club in his native city, together 
 with Professor AVilson, and other distinguished friends. No difference in 
 politics ever interrupted the friendship between Campbell and Wilson. In 
 Scotland the poet launched his anathemas against tlie despot of Russia, 
 as was his custom in London and Paris, both in public and private society. 
 At Edinburgh he was presented with the freedom of the city. Camp- 
 bell made a speech here, in which he paid a pleasing ti-ibute to Professor 
 Wilson as a genius of the highest order, of whom Scotland might well be 
 proud. He visited Edinburgh again in the following year, and took the 
 chair at a Printers' Festival in that city on the 7th of June. Towards 
 the close of this year he edited an annual, these ephemera being then 
 nearly gone out of vogue. This, in his better days, he would not have 
 done, or lent his name to do. He was getting senile, and when he wanted 
 money less than before, he became more eager to acquire it. He had left 
 his chambers in St James's Street before he went to Scotland. On his 
 return he took lodgings in Alfred Place, Tottenham-Com-t lioad ; and then 
 removed, towards the end of 1837, into chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 He squandered considerable sums in these changes. He could not do 
 without his books and furniture, and every change required fresh fittings 
 and cases. While complaining of the narrowness of his income, now 
 never less than £600 or £700 per annum, he did not put down these 
 expenses, almost annually incurred, as of any moment, for he was a bad 
 financier. 
 
 The engravings for his illustrated woi-ks still proceeded. Turner exe- 
 cuted twenty-five of the drawings. It sold vexy well, as did a cheap 
 edition published by Moxon the bookseller. In 1838 he placed his name 
 to a life of Shakspeare, which he overlooked; but his name was the 
 only advantage the edition derived from his connection Avith it. He 
 was past all literary labour requiring research and thought. The Queen 
 accepted from him the present of his works ; and the poet, in gi-atetul 
 acknowledgment, went to court. Her Majesty soon afterwai'ds did him the 
 honour to send him her picture. This picture, and the silver goblet pre- 
 sented him by the students of the Glasgow university, became so mucli 
 his favourites, that he afterwards made allusions to them with a frequency 
 that too surely indicated the change which time had wrought upon him, 
 and how small a thing called out a display of the vanity he would have 
 concealed in earlier days. Notwithstanding, he began a ' Life of Pe- 
 ti-arch,' or rather a dressing up of Archdeacon Cox's Life, while in Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. Upon this subject his friend Foscolo had years before told 
 him that nothing new could be said. It could not add to his reputation, 
 much less could a small volume of poems he afterwards published in 1842, 
 the prmcipal of which was called the 'Pilgrim of Glencoe,' and which was 
 far below mediocrity. A retrospective glance at the poet's former glorious 
 works made the world feel the change that had occurred in the valueless 
 character of this volume more strongly. With the advance of years, that 
 pride of feeling, that lofty self-respect which marked the poet's career for 
 
 29 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 two-thii'ds of his life in literature, had disappeared. The incitement of 
 money made him go even further, and he subsequently placed his name to 
 a ' Life of Frederick the Great,' as being compiled under his revision : a 
 poor effort in biographical composition. 
 
 Even m 1839 his appearance had greatly changed in the eyes of those 
 who saw him only at intervals. In 1840 this change was more strongly 
 marked ; yet he talked of founding a club, to be called The Alpha, and of 
 new designs. He seems after his short residence in Lincoln's Inn Fields to 
 have become tired of the spot. He had been a wanderer after his wife's 
 death. He had tried the same kind of domestic establishment for a year 
 or two, and could not find his former comfort. His son he had sent to an 
 asylum at Epping. He then went from lodging to lodging, visited and 
 jom-neyed, but was still far from discovering a rest for his feet, as of old. 
 He spent time in company which he would otherwise have passed at the 
 domestic hearth. After all his desultoriness, he came back in 1840 to 
 what he hoped would give him domestic life again. He bought the lease 
 of a house in Victoria Square, Pimlico, and sent to Scotland for Mary 
 Campbell, a niece, the daughter of his second brother. He corrected the 
 last proofs of * Petrarch ' liere, and promised himself once more that peace 
 from which he had been long estranged. But he could not re\dve the past. 
 His health, not mended, made him stiU whimsical and restless. He had 
 seen a pretty child one day as he entered the Park, and its face haunted 
 him. He fancied a second sight would be gratifying, and he actually 
 advertised for this indulgence, relying upon his own description for a suc- 
 cess, Avliich, it need not be added, he did not find. 
 
 In an ailing state of body he paid a visit to the baths of Wiesbaden, but 
 returned with his health no way amended. It was evident that he was 
 rapidly declining tlu-oughout 1841 and 1842 ; yet amidst all he never lost 
 sight of his usual pursuits. In 1842 he talked of publishers and their exac- 
 tions, as if they were new to him, and pi-ojected fresh undertakings. We 
 are all reluctant to wound our self-love by giving credit to any diminution 
 of our ability. This year he made his will, and bequeathed all he might 
 leave behind him to his niece, Maiy Campbell. His son was provided for 
 by the interest of the legacy from the Ascoy estates, being the interest on 
 £4500, about £200 per annum. He became as unsettled, restless, appre- 
 hensive, and even irregular as usual. His countenance exhibited anxiety 
 and bodily decay. His former neat appearance vanished, and he was 
 negligent in his dress. Sometimes he lit up in a mode that recalled what 
 he had once been, but this was seldom. Yet his kindness to his friends 
 suffered no diminution, and he was stiU active in his habits. He 
 visited Cheltenham, but without any benefit. 
 
 In 1843 he lost his only surviving sister, and by this the sum of £800 
 came mto his hands. He had an idea that even with his pension of £300 
 a year, the mterest of the legacy from the Ascoy estates, and the profits of 
 his works, between £600 and £700 a year at least, he might still find 
 liimself want. He therefore msured his life injudiciously, and lost £500. 
 This made him think of going to the continent, to live frugally, disregard- 
 ing the hea\'y expenses of removal with his library, and a certain loss on 
 the lease of liis house, which would balance any saving. Undetermined 
 30 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 for some time whither to proceed, he fixed upon Boulogne. At the com- 
 mencement of October 1843 he removed there. His house was in a bad 
 situation. It was cokl, and the severity of tlie winter soon acted per- 
 niciously upon his debilitated frame : he then talked of removing more to 
 the southward as soon as he was able. Day by day he complained of the 
 chilliness he felt, at the same time not paying any attention to his mode of 
 life. In February 1844 he was too weak to write even a few lines without 
 pain. He complained that the climate made him torpid. In April he 
 seemed to revive for a time with the softening atmosphere. Through May 
 this improvement did not continue. 
 
 At the commencement of June it was seen that his case was utterly 
 hopeless. For a long while he held no conversation with any one, and 
 his appearance was more altered. When questioned about his health, he 
 either complained of weakness and chilliness, or replied in a general 
 way ' tolerably well.' His countenance beti-ayed great anxiousness, and 
 he was usually in a state of half slumber to appearance, but retaining the 
 full use of his mind. A few days before he departed, in order to try if 
 he was sensible, the question was asked near his bed, if some one, giving 
 a name, had not wi-itten ' Hohenlinden.' The poet calmly and distinctly 
 replied, ' It was one Tom Campbell ! ' They talked of taking him to the 
 seaside if he gi-ew better, but he gave a look incredulous of that possibility. 
 His respiration now became impeded, but he talked a little at intervals. 
 This was at the end of the first week in June, ffidema of the riglit ancle 
 was at this time perceived. He was calm, and said his mind was quite 
 easy ; that he had entire control over it. On the 8th of June he exhibited 
 oedema of the left leg and foot. Some one saymg he was better, he ob- 
 served, ' I am glad you think so.' In reply to a communication, he requested 
 his niece to vtrite to Cyi'us Redding, his old literary coadjutor, the state 
 of his health, with his kind remembrance. On the 10th of Jime every 
 favourable symptom had disappeared. He complained of his strength sulk- 
 ing, but had still a perfect command over his mind, and was quite calm. It 
 being observed that he had gi-eat patience, he said, ' I do suffer.' The 
 next day he thought he felt stronger, and he had a look of cheerfulness, 
 but this was succeeded by difficulty of breathing. He repeated that his 
 mind was quite easy. The next night was passed easily, and the follov.r- 
 ing day but one, the 13th, while his breathing was more laborious, he was 
 Btill quite sensible, and listened attentively to all going on around. A 
 friend from London arriving, the poet said he was glad to see him. On 
 the 14th he spoke with some effort inarticulately, saying ' tolei'able !' to all 
 inquiries. His respiration now became more hurried, but he was still 
 conscious. His lips were firm, as if he were disposed to meet the last 
 struggle with manliness. At one time appearing to sleep, his lips were 
 observed to move, and he said in a slow distmct whisper, ' We shall see 
 
 to-morrow,' naming a departed friend. He appeared to be losing the 
 
 consciousness and self-possession which marked him before from that time. 
 On giving him something he said, ' Thank you — much obliged ! ' These 
 were the last words he uttered clearly and intelligibly. The next day was 
 the poet's last : he answered a question put by his niece with much difh- 
 culty, but with great kindness, and soon after slumbered. There was no 
 more restlessness; his appearance was serene, except when convulsive 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papeks foe the people, 
 
 breathings took place as he reposed upon his side. Two hours after noon 
 he opened his eyes, and then closed them for ever. He expired without a 
 struggle at a quarter past four p. m. 
 
 The foregomg statement is mostly from that of his medical attendant 
 and executor, Dr William Beattie, who was at the poet's bedside when he 
 expired, and who, with every professional attention, united the kindly 
 concern of a friend. 
 
 The task yet remains to assign to Campbell that place in the ranks of the 
 British poets to which his works entitle him. One proof of his merit is 
 that he has been quoted more than any modern poet in the senate, by public 
 orators, and by cotemporary literati. He had, too, the rare happiness of 
 living to see his fame fixed upon an unshaken basis. His verses cannot be 
 mistaken for those of any other English poet ; his odes do not resemble 
 those of Dryden, Collms, or Gray : they stand alone. His manner was 
 . smgular : Scott said he could imitate all the modern poets but Tom Camp- 
 bell ; he could not imitate him, because his peculiarity was more in the 
 matter than the manner, \\liatever niche in the temple of fame is here- 
 after assigned to him, liis works are such as fame will not easily let die. 
 
 The remains of the poet were brought to England, and interred in West- 
 minster Abbey by the side of the ashes of Sheridan, on the 3d of Jidy 
 1844. The funeral was numerously attended by the titled and untitled, by 
 the literary and non-literary. The Eev. Mr Millman read the bm-ial ser- 
 vice; and at the bom- of noon, the dust of him whose works had so long 
 been the delight of his native land was left to its last long repose. 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 THE recent death of the most distinguished citizen of Edinburgh, the 
 Hon. Francis JeSirey, and the national importance of his career as 
 a man of letters, a lawyer, and a politician, have suggested that some 
 brief record of him should appear in this miscellany. A durable and 
 fitting memorial of his life and services will soon, we trust, be raised by 
 worthy hands, but in the meantime we may be allowed, like the Roman 
 soldier at the grave of his general, to collect some fragments for the 
 funeral pile. The history of Francis Jeffrey is of interest to all classes. 
 It furnishes one of those examples which are the peculiar glory of a free 
 state ; for it exhibits talents, integrity, and perseverance — without extrinsic 
 aid, and without one shade of subserviency or moral debasement — conduct- 
 ing its possessor to the highest professional i-ank, to opulence, and fame. 
 It is instructive to note the stages in his onward march, as difficulties dis- 
 appear, and honours gather round his name, and to perceive that, though 
 endowed by nature with various and exquisite powers, he was no less 
 remarkable for indefatigable study and patient application. It was by the 
 union of those intellectual gifts and acquirements with inflexible principle, 
 with energy, and with the graces of private hfe, that he won his way to 
 public and social distinction. His course was long and prosperous. 
 
 ' Another race hath been, and other palms are won.' 
 
 His work was accomplished. His early and courageous championship of 
 toleration and freedom had been crowned with success; the school of 
 criticism, which he had founded and built up with such incessant care, 
 was crowded with new and worthy disciples, and its essential principles 
 had spread into all lands. He was stiU able, however, to serve his country 
 on the judicial seat as a most upright, laborious, and penetrating judge. 
 He was stiU able to counsel and direct, and to dispense a generous but not 
 ostentatious hospitality. There was a sunset brilliancy and benignity in 
 his latter days that made his age beloved as well as venerable. 
 
 It is to the honour of the profession of the law that some of its most 
 eminent members have been great also in literature and science, and have 
 dignified their legal career with important pubhc services. The names of 
 Sir Thomas More, of Bacon, Coke, and Selden — of Clarendon and Somers 
 — of Mansfield, Blackstone, and Sir William Jones — the imrivalled forensic 
 oratory of Erskine, and the enlightened humanity of EomiUy and Mack- 
 16 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 intosh— form a splendid bead-roll. The Scottish list is less brilliant; 
 but we may instance, not without pride, Viscount Stair, whose 'Insti- 
 tutes' form the text -book of the Scottish la-\vyer, and who was also a 
 philosopher and statesman ; Lord FountainhaU, who resisted the tyranny 
 of the Stuarts, and viadicated the independence of the bar ; Sir George 
 Mackenzie, who, though the persecutor of the Covenanters, was an elegant 
 author, the friend of Dryden, and the founder of the Advocates' Library ; 
 Duncan Forbes, the upright and intrepid judge, the scholar, and the pure 
 self-sacrificing patriot ; and Lord HaUes, the early and accurate explorer 
 of Scottish history, and the opponent of Gibbon. We may notice the 
 metaphysical acuteness and learning of Kames and Monboddo, and the 
 accomplished associates of the ' Mirror ' and ' Lounger,' with their chief, 
 Henry Mackenzie, the ' Man of Feeling.' To these might be added many 
 living instances of the happy union of law and literature. The world is 
 slow to admit that a man can excel pre-eminently in more than one pur- 
 suit, but even the proverbial severity of legal studies need not exclude 
 from more elegant attainments, and extensive legal practice need not 
 extinguish taste or patriotism. 
 
 Francis Jeffrey — who was destined to afford one more illustrious 
 instance of this intellectual and moral combination — was born in the 
 city of Edinburgh on the 23d of October 1773. He could boast of no 
 high lineage. His family was one of humble industrious Edinburgh 
 citizens ; but his father, Mr George Jeflfrey, being bred to the law, had 
 attained to the position of a depute-clerk of session, an office now infer- 
 ring a salary of about four hundred pounds a year. He has been de- 
 scribed as a writer or attorney in respectable practice, chiefly from the 
 northern counties. His wife's name was Henrietta Loudon, and she was a 
 native of Lanarkshire. This worthy, careful, and respected couple had 
 several children, of whom Francis was the eldest. The exact spot of his 
 birth has been disputed, and the sarcastic line of Byron — 
 
 ' The sixteenth storey where himself was bom' — 
 
 would of itself give interest to the question in what part of the town he 
 first saw the light. We may therefore state on authority that Francis 
 Jeffi-ey was bom in the fourth storey, or flat, of a house in Buchanan's 
 Court, Lawnmarket, nearly opposite Bank Street. The Lawnmarket 
 is one of the upper sections of that great line of buildings extendmg 
 about a mile in length from Holyrood Palace to the Castle, and which, 
 from the stupendous height of the houses, their air of antiquity, the steep- 
 ness of the ascent, the crowded and various population, and the historical 
 associations connected with the Old Town, is perhaps the most remarkable 
 and unique street in Europe. The lines of Scott — which it is impossible 
 not to recall — give a glowing yet accurate picture of the outline of this 
 great thoroughfare : — 
 
 ' Such dusky grandeur clothed the height 
 Where the huge castle holds its state, 
 
 And all the steep slope down, 
 Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, 
 Piled deep and massy, close and high — 
 
 Mine ovsn romantic townl ' 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 It lias been related, though we cannot give the anecdote authoritatively 
 that when Francis Jeffrey was about a year old, his father's house 
 took fire, and in the alarm and confusion of the moment, the child, wlio 
 was in his crib in the garret, was forgotten. At length one of tlie 
 neighbours, a slater, volunteered to rescue the infont. "VYith much diffi- 
 culty, and no little danger, he succeeded in carrying him out of the 
 burning house, and delivered him to his anxious parents. Many years 
 afterwards, when Mr Jeffrey had gone to the bar, the slater, being, 
 through no fault of his own, involved in a series of legal troubles, applied 
 to him for his professional assistance. This was readily and gratefully 
 extended, and with such success, as soon to replace the honest tradesman 
 in comparatively easy cu-cumstances. 
 
 Francis Jeffrey was of a slight and delicate frame. From his infancy he 
 evinced the greatest quickness of apprehension and lively curiosity ; and 
 he could read well when only in his fourth year.* Having made rapid 
 progress at a day-school, he was sent to the High School of Edinburgh, 
 and in October 1781 (when he had about completed his eighth year) was 
 entered in the second Latin class, then taught by Mr Luke Fraser. He 
 remained under Mr Fraser four years, until October 1785, when, according 
 to the usual routine, he was transferred to the class of the rector, Dr Adam, 
 where he continued two years. In Fraser's class Jeffrey distinguished him- 
 self; although in the higher department of the rector he never attained 
 the honour of dux. He was, however, a good Latin scholar ; and in 1825, 
 when the High School was rebuilt, chiefly by public subscription, he signi- 
 fied his gratitude to the institution by contributing the sum of fifty pounds. 
 
 From the High School of Edinburgh Jeffrey proceeded to the university 
 of Glasgow. He matriculated as a student of the logic class, under Pro- 
 fessor Jardine, in the session of 1787-8, having just completed his four- 
 teenth year. Glasgow was then famous for its professors. Mr Young, 
 who held the Greek chair, was one of the most eminent philologists of his 
 day, and a highly successful teacher. Professor Jardine was not less able in 
 his department of logic and belles lettres ; and Jefirey said he owed to the 
 judicious instructions of this gentleman his taste for letters, and any Kterary 
 distinction he had attained. Dr John Millar, was then professor of law ; 
 and being himself a zealous Whig, he seems to have instilled his own 
 opinions into the minds of his admiring pupUs. ' By his learning, saga- 
 city, and wit,' says Thomas Campbell, ' John Millar made many converts.' 
 Jeffrey has also borne testimony to Millar's extensive learning and pene- 
 trating judgment, and to the ' magical vivacity' which he infused into his 
 lectures and conversation. The chair of moral philosophy was held 
 
 * Tlie late Mr Alexander Smellie printer (son of William Smellie the naturalist, 
 and correspondent of Bums), used to relate the story of Jeflfrey's debut at school. It 
 took place at a seminary situated in a now unapproachable deu of the Old Town, 
 called Bailie Fj-fe's Close. Smellie was in the Collection Class, so called from the 
 book taught being a ' Collection of the Beauties of English Authors,' and which is 
 usually introduced about the third year of an ordinary English course. Jeffrey 
 came, a small creature in petticoats, and was put into the lowest class. From the 
 marvellous quickness of parts shown by the tiny scholar, he was soon transferred to 
 the Collection Class, the top of which he gained in half an hour. Cockbum, the 
 schoolmaster, prophesied that the little fellow would come to something; and 
 Smellie cried heartily at being so completely beaten by a child not yet deemed fit 
 for male attire. 
 
Chambers's papees for the people. 
 
 by Professor Arthur, but his great predecessor, Dr Thomas Reid, still 
 superintended the progress of the class — ' hallowing,' as Jefirey has finely 
 remarked, ' with the sanctity of his venerable age, and the primitive sim- 
 plicity of his character, the scene over which his genius has thrown so 
 imperishable a lustre.' 
 
 With such able and congenial instructors, it is to be regretted that Mr 
 Jefirey did not remain longer than two sessions. His academical career 
 was desultory and incomplete ; but he was always preparing himself for 
 the profession of the law, to which he was early destined. In December 
 1789, his name appears in the records of the university of Edinburgh as a 
 student in the Scots Law Class, taught by Professor Hume. The following 
 winter he was again at the university of Glasgow. In 1791 he proceeded 
 to Oxford, and was entered of Queen's College.* His journey southwards 
 had been very leisurely performed, for he was twelve days in getting to 
 London, and he remained a week in the metropolis. He seems to have 
 entered Oxford with no prepossessions in favour of that ancient seat of 
 learning. Its classical renown had no inspiration for the yoimg metaphy- 
 sical law-student, and its stately Toryism was alien to his nature. It was a 
 jocular remark of Johnson that much might be made of a Scotchman if he 
 was caught young ; but Jefirey would not be caught. In a letter written 
 six days after his arrival, and addressed to one of his coUege companions 
 in Glasgow, he says — ' Separated as I am from aU my friends, and confined 
 to the society of the students of one college, I shall not cease to regret the 
 liberty and variety of intercourse which was permitted, and I hope not 
 abused, at Glasgow. I have been too much in the company of ladies and 
 relations to be much interested with the conversation of pedants, coxcombs, 
 and strangers.' In a second letter to the same friend, without date, but 
 apparently about a month after the former, the young student writes — 
 ' You ask me to drop you some English ideas. My dear fellow, I am as 
 much, nay, more a Scotchman, than I was while an inhabitant of Scotland. 
 My opinions, ideas, prejudices, and systems, are aU Scotch. The only part 
 of a Scotchman I mean to abandon is the language, and language is all that 
 I expect to learn in England. And indeed, except it be prayers and druik- 
 ing, I see nothing else that it seems possible to acquire in this place.' He 
 then describes the scenes of uproar and dissipation which took place among 
 the students, and the fragments of broken doors, windows, and stairs, which 
 lay scattered about. Of the fellows and heads of colleges he gives a very 
 unfavourable account. ' They are men,' he says, ' who had in their youth, 
 by dint of regular, persevering, and indefatigable study, painfully acquired 
 a considerable knowledge of the requisite branches of science, which know- 
 ledge served only to make them pedants, and to render still more austere 
 and disgusting that torpid insensibility and awkwardness which they had 
 contracted in the course of their painful retirement from the world — men 
 who accustomed themselves to a vile and sycophantical reverence to their 
 superiors while they had them, now insist upon a similar adoration and 
 observance to themselves. If you add to this a violent attachment to the 
 
 * Tlie following is an extract from the Register of Matriculations of the University 
 of Oxford: — 'Termino Sti. Michselis, 1791. Oct. 17, Coll. RKGiN.fi. Franciscns 
 Jeffrey, 17, Georgii de Civitate Edinburgi annigeri Filius.' He was, liowever, in 
 Lis eighteenth year. 
 
 .4 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 game of whist, and to the wine called port, you will have a pretty accurat« 
 conception of tlie venerable men to whose hands I am now committed.' In 
 a third letter he indulges in the same querulous and lachrymose strain : 
 the home-sickness was evidently strong upon him : — 
 
 ' As for the times, I know little more of them than that they are such as 
 have succeeded to the past, and must pass away before the future can come 
 on ; that they are measured out by hours, and days, and years ; and that 
 people observe their lapse with the same testifications of joy and sorrow as 
 have divided their sensations from the creation of the world. To say the 
 truth, I know less of the world than almost any man alive in it. I hardly 
 ever see a newspaper, politics are banished from our conversation, and a 
 man may spend ten years in Oxford without hearing anything but the 
 history of foxes and fox-chases, and riots and trials. Such an institute as 
 your Juridical Society, which seems to occupy so much of your time, would 
 have no more chance of succeeding here than an institution which required 
 a sermon from each of its members once a week. The collected and accu- 
 mulated study of an Oxonian in a whole year is not in general equivalent 
 to the reflection you bestow upon one of your orations. But I would 
 labour to no purpose to give you an idea of the indolence which prevails 
 here. For my own part, I would attempt to persuade you that I am 
 an exception ; but I hate to tell lies, and I had better say nothing at all 
 about it.' 
 
 These graphic sketches are probably a little exaggerated. The writer, 
 like most young artists, may have been more intent on force and liveliness 
 of colouring than on correctness of outline or literal truth. His oppor- 
 tunities for observation had at least been too limited to justify such 
 wholesale censure of the fellows and heads of colleges. It is clear that the 
 atmosphere of Oxford did not agree with his Scottish tastes and feelings. 
 He might not have been prepared to appreciate the importance which is 
 attached to classical learning at that university, and his patience would be 
 sorely tried by the syllogisms of Aristotle and the system of college tutors, 
 so different from popular lectures in natural and moral philosophy, and 
 from the social studies to which he had been accustomed. That there was 
 at that time, and long previously, as well as afterwards, no small share of 
 bigotry and careless discipline in the colleges and halls of Oxford, has been 
 proved from various sources. Jeffrey's statements agree in a remarkable 
 manner— even to the port-wine potations — with the experiences of Gibbon, 
 which he could not have seen (for the Memoir by Lord Sheffield was not 
 published till 1795); and it is obvious, from the constitution of the colleges, 
 that, along with the quiet and retirement of the monastic life, a considerable 
 portion of its indolence and prejudice had descended to those venerable 
 institutions. It is unfortunate, as Adam Smith had said long before, that 
 the Oxford professors are secure in the enjoyment of a fixed stipend, 
 without the necessity of labour or the apprehension of control. The system 
 is now considerably improved ; but the vast wealth of the university can 
 never be efficiently employed until it be freed from the ancient statutes, 
 which fetter its powers of teaching, and directly encourage sloth and 
 inactivity. 
 
 The letters of Jeflfrey at this early period evince his acuteness and difi- 
 crimination, his love of intellectual pursuits, and that strong attachment 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 to home and friends whicli marked him throughout life. Even the style of 
 his composition seems to have been formed. Its flexibility, vigour, and 
 copiousness are already there, and no small portion of the polish which 
 afterwards more highly distinguished it. In nearly all of his letters be 
 makes apologies for writing so much at length, and this was another pecu- 
 liarity in his character. He was always a voluminous letter-wi-iter, and 
 was seldom a day absent from his family or familiar friends without com- 
 municating with them in long and lively epistles. 
 
 It is a tradition at Queen's College that Jefirey left Oxford in disgust at 
 the intense idleness which prevailed at the time. He remained only one 
 session, and consequently did not graduate at the imiversity. On his 
 return to Edinburgh he resumed his legal studies. In the session of 
 1791-2 he again attended the Scots Law Class under Professor Hume. 
 In the session of 1792-3 he repeated his attendance at this class, adding 
 to it the study of civil law under Professor Wilde, and that of civil his- 
 tory and Greek and Roman antiquities under Professor Tytler. He is 
 not entered as having attended any of Dugald Stewart's classes, which is 
 the more remarkable, considering his partiality for ethical studies, and the 
 high reputation of the professor. He may, however, have been present 
 occasionally at the lectures without being enrolled as a student. 
 
 In December 1792 Mr Jeffrey became a member of the Speculative 
 Society — an extra-academical school of oratory and debate, and of literary 
 composition, connected with the university of Edinburgh, and sanctioned 
 by the Senatus Academicus. Institutions of this kind have long been 
 popular with young and ambitious students, as affording a ready mode of 
 trying their scarce-fledged powers in generous rivalry with their fellows, 
 and of preparing them for a higher flight. Of all our modern orators or 
 statesmen, the second William Pitt was perhaps the only one who, when 
 barely of age, started into full maturity as a public speaker. The flower 
 and the fruit were of simultaneous growth. But his rivals and compatriots, 
 Burke, Sheridan, Curran, &c. were early members of Debating Clubs. The 
 Speculative Society of Edinburgh is an institution of a higher class : the 
 members are nearly aU, or have been, students at the university. They are 
 required to produce written essays, as well as take part in debates on 
 questions of political economy, legislation, and philosophical history ; and 
 the rules with regard to attendance, the selection of topics, and the conduct 
 of the proceedings, are judicious and rigid. The society has been in 
 existence since the year 1764, and many of the greatest Scottish lawyers 
 and professors disciplined their minds in its exciting discussions. There 
 Dugald Stewart, the most accomplished and eloquent of all commentators 
 on moral philosophy, read his first essay; there Sir James Mackintosh 
 made his first speech ; there Playfair, so distinguished in physical science, 
 and the classic Dr James Gregory, found a fitting audience. Divines 
 mingled with lawyers and philosophers ; for two of oiu: greatest theolo- 
 gians, Professor HiU and Sir Henry Moncreiff, were members of the 
 Speculative. Baron Hume the able lecturer on Scots law, John Clerk 
 (Lord Eldon), Malcolm Laing the historian, Benjamin Constant the FVench 
 economist and statesman, and Sir Astley Cooper the eminent physician, 
 participated at the same period in its debates ; and when Jeffrey entered, 
 to add new attraction and celebrity to the society, he found Walter Scott 
 6 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 officiating as its secretary. In a few years he was joined by Henry 
 Brougham, by Francis Homer, Jolin Archibald Murray, James Moncreiff, 
 and Henry Cockbum. Tliree students destined to eminence as British 
 statesmen — the Marquis of Lansdo^TOe, Lord Glenelg, and Lord John 
 Russell — were subsequently members of this society. An institution 
 boasting such an aiTay of varied and commanding talent, and enriched with 
 historical associiitions, might well breathe an invigorating spirit and gene- 
 rous emulation into all its members. Its fame and importance imposed 
 the necessity for careful preparation ; knowledge was acquired in its 
 debates ; and the practice it gave in the mechanical part of public speaking 
 was of inestimable importance to the future advocate or senator. 
 
 The meetings of the Speculative Society were held once a week in the 
 evening, dm-ing the whiter session of the university, from November to 
 May. At the meeting when Jeffrey first saw Scott, who was for several 
 years secretary and treasurer, the future prince of novelists read an essay 
 on ballads, which so much interested the new member, that he requested 
 to be introduced to him. Mr Jeffrey called on him next evening, and 
 they adjourned to a tavern and supped together. ' Such,' says Jilr 
 Lockhart, ' was the commencement of an acquaintance, which by degrees 
 ripened into friendsliip, between the two most distinguished men of 
 letters whom Edinburgh produced in their time.' The secretary must 
 have been gi-atified by the kindred ardour which his new acquaintance 
 evinced in the business of the society. He was a frequent speaker, 
 and during four sessions, from 1794^5 to 1797-8, he was annually elected 
 one of the presidents. We find he brought forward the following ques- 
 tions : — 
 
 1793. Feb. 12. Is a System of Influence necessary to the Support of a Free Govern- 
 
 ment ? Carried in the afBrmative by 8 to 3 votes. 
 Dec. 17. Is the National Debt to be considered as a Grievance.' Carried 
 unanimously in the afiirmative. 
 
 1794. Jan. 21. Is Monarchy more Favourable than Democracy to Excellence in the 
 
 Arts and Sciences ? Carried in the aliirmative by 3 to 1. 
 Feb. 3. WTiether is Theism or Polj-theism most natural to a rude state.' 
 Carried by a majority of 3 that polytheism is most natural. 
 
 The essays contributed by ]\lr Jeffrey were on the following subjects : — 
 1. Nobihty ; 2. Effects derived to Europe from the discovery of America ; 
 3. Authenticity of Ossian's Poems (a subject on which he had already 
 produced two essays) ; 4. Metrical Harmony ; 5. The Character of Com- 
 mercial Nations. The titles of these early prelections indicate the writer's 
 prevailing tastes and studies. 
 
 In the discussions of the Speculative Society questions of party politics 
 and religion were proliibited; and m 1798, when the celebrated Irish barris- 
 ter, Thomas Addis Emmet, became a member of the Executive Directory of 
 the Irish Union, and was privy to the carrying on a treasonable correspond- 
 ence with France, his name was expunged from the records of the society. 
 This was done at the instance of Henry Brougham. But notwithstanding 
 the prudent caution and abstinence of the members, the Speculative Society 
 fell under the ban of one of the poUtical parties of the day. The French 
 Revolution had roused the fears and jealousies of men in authority. The 
 ' Reflections ' of Burke, followed by the ' Vindicise Gallicae ' of Macldntosh, 
 had made political discussion the favourite exercise of young and ardent 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 minds. Then came the stormy debates in parliament, the secret asso- 
 ciations, and state trials throughout the kingdom — aU filling the minds of 
 the timid and anxious with suspicion and alarm. There were years of 
 agitation and doubt, during which the constitution was in danger both from 
 the excesses of revolutionary zeal and the uncontrolled exercise of arbitrary 
 power. The ci'isis passed, but parties were not reconciled : 
 
 ' They stood aloof, the sears remaining, 
 Like cliffs that had been rent asunder.' 
 
 Jefirey was no unmoved spectator of the rapidly-shifting scenes of this 
 great drama. He had been present at the trials of Muir, Palmer, and 
 Gerald (1793-4 and 5), and was deeply affected by what he witnessed. 
 The lofty bearing of the accused parties, their romantic enthusiasm, and 
 the severity of the sentences inflicted on them, deepened his convictions in 
 favom- of reform. Another eminent Scotsman — Thomas Campbell, then a 
 youth of sixteen — had walked from Glasgow to Edinburgh to witness the 
 trial of Gerald, and from that day was a sworn enemy to oppression. 
 Jefirey was less of a democrat than Campbell. He was a Whig of the 
 school of Fox and Burke, before Burke had receded from his ancient prin- 
 ciples, scared by the horrors of the French Revolution. His leanings were 
 all towards the popular branch of the constitution, but without the slightest 
 tincture of democratic violence. He conceived that the prerogatives of 
 the crown had encroached on the rights of the commons, and requu-ed to 
 be curtailed. He saw state prosecutions conducted with oppressive rigour, 
 and he contended for freedom of opinion, and the impartial administration 
 of justice. There was a native independence in his character, and a 
 jealousy of all power and control, which kept him apart from the slavish 
 adherents of party and the unscrupulous dispensers of patronage. 
 
 The suspicion that the Speculative Society, under the guise of acade- 
 mical debate, had been converted into a political club, led to the secession 
 of above twenty of its members. Mr Jefii-ey exerted himself to protect the 
 institution. He joined in drawing up an earnest appeal ; and committees 
 of the Senatus Academicus and the town-council having investigated the 
 charge, it was found to be groxmdless. The society soon regained its popu- 
 larity and influence ; and from 1797 to 1805 — with the exception of the 
 temporary cloud we have alluded to — has been considered the most splen- 
 did period of its history. Long afterwards, Jefii-ey delighted to recall 
 his connection with the society. He was present at two great anni- 
 versary dinners of the old members — one in 1814, and another in 1835. 
 At the latter he presided. Several of his early associates were gone — 
 dropt through the broken arches of the Bridge of Life. Horner had been 
 cut off in his prime, and the unrivalled genius of Scott had been extin- 
 guished amidst delirium and gloom. Mackintosh also had departed. But 
 around him were Cockburn, Murray, and Moncreiff — now aU Scottish 
 judges — and he had risen to be a judge himself. Henry Brougham was a 
 peer, and had been chancellor of England. These were examples of the 
 advantages of such institutions in training men at an early period of life to 
 vigorous exertion and to the use of their minds. ' For my own part,' said 
 Jeffrey, ' in looking back to that period of my life when I had experience of 
 this society, I can hardly conceive anything in after-life more to be envied 
 8 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 than the recollection of that first burst of intellect, when, free from 
 scholastic restraint, and throwing off the thraldom of a somewhat servile 
 docility, the mind first aspired to reason and question nature for itself; 
 and half wondering at its own temerity, first ventured without a guide into 
 the mazes of speculation, or tried its unaided flight into the regions of 
 intellectual adventure, to revel uncontrolled through the bright and bound- 
 less realms of literature and science.' 
 
 Having duly qualified himself by his studies in the classes of Scots and 
 Civil Law, Mr Jeffrey passed his trials, and was called to the bar. The 
 official record bears, that on the 13th of December 1794 Francis Jefirey 
 was ' publicly examined on Title 7, Lib. 50, Pand. de Legationibus, and 
 was found siifficiently qualified.' The minute is signed by the witty and 
 famous Henry Erskine, then dean of the Faculty of Advocates. The study 
 of the Pandects and Institutes — Roman jurisprudence and Scots law- 
 would now be varied by attendance at the Parliament House and the 
 drudgery of Session papers. Mr Jeffrey applied himself with his usual 
 energy to his profession. Success at the bar, however, is seldom attained 
 until after years of dreary toil and perseverance. Sir Walter Scott, though 
 assisted by business from his father— a Writer to the Signet, in good prac- 
 tice—was four years an advocate ere his professional earnings amounted to 
 £100 per annum. He ascribed his failure mainly ' to the prejudices of the 
 Scotch solicitors against employing, in weighty cases at least, any barrister 
 supposed to be strongly imbued with the love of literature;' and he in- 
 stanced the case of his friend Jeffrey as almost the solitary instance within 
 his experience of such prejudices being entirely overcome. Overcome they 
 were at last, but not without a tedious and disheartening probation. The 
 really valuable part of the practice was engrossed by his seniors, who had 
 toiled up the steep ascent, or by plodding junior counsel, who never 
 diverged into the flowery paths of literature, or presumed to meddle with 
 politics. So late as 1803, in writing to his brother in America, and dis- 
 cussing the possible effect which literary pursuits might have on his busi- 
 ness, Mr Jefirey expressed indifference on the subject, because, he said, he 
 had never in any one year made £100 by his profession. His indifferent 
 success, however, did not prevent him from assuming the dignity of a 
 housekeeper, and giving, as Lord Bacon has said, ' hostages to fortune.' 
 On the 1st of November 1801, Mr Jefirey was married to Miss Catherine 
 Wilson, daughter of the Rev. Charles Wilson, professor of ecclesiastical 
 history in St Mary's College, St Andrews. This lady (described by Mrs 
 Grant of Laggan as a ' beloved and very deserving wife ') survived the 
 union only a few years : she died August 8, 1805. 
 
 It was obvious that the intellectual activity of Jeffirey and his associates, 
 urged by ambition and conscious power, could not long be restrained 
 within the narrow professional channels to which it was then confiLued. 
 Literary and scientific societies might afford better scope for argument and 
 oratory than they could find at the bar, but these were only a preparatory 
 exercising-ground. They were private, and the youthfid aspu-ants longed 
 for a public theatre and more numerous audience. Their social circle had 
 received a valuable addition by the arrival in Edinburgh, in the year 1797, 
 of an accomplished Englisliman — ^the Rev. Sydney Smith, one of the most 
 
 16 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 original and genial of wits, with the classical learning of an Oxford M. A. ; 
 aad with a fund of natural sagacity, toleration, and manly simplicity, which 
 kept him free from the slightest tinge of pedantry. Mr Smith had been a 
 curate, as he has humorously told the world, ' in the middle of Salisbury 
 Plain' — at Netheravon, near Amesbury. 'The squire of the parish,' he 
 adds, ' took a fancy to me, and requested me to go with his son to feside 
 at the university of Weimar. Before we could get there, Germany became 
 the seat of war ; and in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh, where I 
 remained five years. Among the first persons with whom I became ac- 
 quainted were Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, and Lord Brougham ; aU of 
 them maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too liberal for the 
 dynasty of Dundas, then exercising supreme power over the northern 
 division of the island. One day we happened to meet, in the eighth or 
 ninth storey, or flat, in Buccleuch Place, the elevated residence of the then 
 Mr Jeffirey. I proposed that we should set up a Review ; this was acceded 
 to with acclamation. I was appointed editor, and remained long enough 
 in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the " Edinburgh Review." The 
 motto I proposed for the Review was — 
 
 " Tenui musam meditamur avena.''^ 
 " We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal." 
 
 But this was too near the truth to be admitted; and so we took our 
 present grave motto from " Publius Syrus," * of whom none of us had, I am 
 sure, ever read a single line. And so began what has since turned out to 
 be a very important and able journal. When I left Edinburgh, it fell into 
 the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, and reached the 
 liighest point of popularity and success.' 
 
 We are happy at being able to produce a still more interesting and 
 detailed statement of the cu-cumstances attending the commencement of 
 the Review — a document hitherto unpublished, and wi-itten by Lord Jeffrey, 
 at the request of Mr Robert Chambers, in November 1846. It is as 
 follows : — ' I cannot say exactly where the project of the " Edinburgh 
 Review" was first talked of among the projectors. But the first serious 
 consultations about it — and which led to our application to a publisher — 
 were held in a small house, where I then lived, m Buccleuch Place (I forget 
 the number). They were attended by S. Smith, F. Horner, Dr Thomas 
 Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr 
 John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were 
 given to the publisher — he taking the risk, and defraying the charges. 
 There was then no individual editor, but as many of us as could be got to 
 attend used to meet in a dingy room of WiUison's printing-office in Craig'a 
 Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked 
 upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts 
 which were then offiered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go 
 through with this ; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible 
 
 * [Jvdex damnattir cum nocens ahsolvUur. Literally: 'The judge is condemned 
 ■when the guilty ig absolved.' Tliis famous motto was much canvassed at the time. 
 The adventurers, it was said, had hung out the bloody flag on their title-page. ' It 
 was a sort of imprecation on themselves and their infant publication, if they with- 
 held their arm from battle for pity, need, or respect of persons.' — Scott,'\ 
 10 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY, 
 
 editor, and the office was pressed upon me. About the same time Constable 
 was told that he must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contributors, to 
 which he at once assented ; and not long after, tlie minimum was raised to 
 sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two-thirds of 
 the articles were paid much higher — averaging, I should think, from twenty 
 to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, I might say, 
 an unlimited discretion in this respect, and must do the publishers the 
 justice to say that they never made the slightest objection. Indeed, as we 
 all knew that they had (for a long time at least) a very great profit, they 
 probably felt that they were at our mercy. 
 
 ' Smith was by far the most timid of the confederacy, and believed that, 
 unless our incognito was strictly maintained, we could not go on a day; 
 and this was his object for making us hold our dark divans at Willison's 
 office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and by back approaches 
 or different lanes ! He also had so strong an impression of Brougham's 
 indiscretion and rashness, that he would not let him be a member of our 
 association, though wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, however, 
 after the third number, and did more work for us than anybody. Brown 
 took offence at some alterations Smith had made in a trifling article of his 
 in the second number, and left us thus early ; publishing at the same time 
 in a magazine the fact of his secession — a step which we all deeply 
 regretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provocation. Nothing of 
 the kind occurred ever after.' 
 
 In this document (which must be regarded as an important contribution 
 to literary history) the distinguished writer has made no mention of his 
 own emoluments as editor of the Review. The principal publisher was 
 Mr Archibald Constable — a liberal and enterprising bookseller, the 
 Maecenas of Scottish authors, whose highest pride it was to elevate the 
 literary reputation of liis country, and associate his name with aU its 
 triumphs. Constable remunerated the editor of the Edinburgh Review 
 on a scale of what must then have appeared princely liberality. From 
 1803 to 1809 a sum of 200 guineas was given for editing each number. 
 The account-books are missing for three years after 1809, but from 1813 
 on to 1826 Mr Jeffi-ey is credited ' for editing ' £700 a number, so that his 
 salary appears to have been more than trebled. 
 
 The youth of the Edinburgh critics was at first a fertile subject of com- 
 ment and ridicule. The Review was pronounced to be the result of ' a 
 conspiracy of beardless boys,' and the veteran Richard Cumberland wrote 
 against the young gentlemen of the ' Edinburgh Review.' It may be as well, 
 therefore, for the sake of accuracy, to note the respective ages of the lead- 
 ing contributors. The youngest of the band, it will be seen, was about as 
 old as Pitt when he became a cabinet minister and chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer. In 1802 Sydney Smith was in his 34th year, Jeffrey was 29,' 
 Dr Thomas Brown 24, Horner 24, Brougham 23, Allen 32, Dr John 
 Thomson 38, and Thomas Thomson 32.* The title of the work, and some 
 parts of its general plan, were most probably suggested by a periodical of a 
 superior class, bearing the name of ' The Edinburgh Review,' which was 
 
 • Of this fraternity, Lord Brougham and Mr Thomas Thomson are now (1850) the 
 only survivors. — Ed. 
 
 II 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 started in 1755 under the auspices of Adam Smith, Kobertson, and Blair, 
 but which was discontinued for want of encouragement after two half- 
 yearly numbers had been issued. As a medium between the half-yearly 
 plan and the ordinary monthly term, the quarterly form of publication was 
 a happy and judicious arrangement. It allowed the critics a greater variety 
 of selection than the shorter period could furnish, as well as more time and 
 space for their lucubrations. They were not under the necessity of noticing 
 the trivial and ephemeral works which the press throws off in the summer 
 months when pubUshers rarely launch their important ventures, but which 
 were indispensable towards filhng the pages of the monthly misceUany ; 
 and they had no occasion, within their enlarged bounds, to continue any 
 article from one number to another. Thus a generally grave and per- 
 manent character was given to the work, distinguishing it from all its criti- 
 cal contemporaries of that period. The liberal copyright allowance made 
 to the writers was also a novel and judicious feature in the scheme. It 
 tempted and rewarded study, and no contributor could be degraded by 
 what was one of the conditions of authorship imposed upon aU. 
 
 A still more favourable circumstance for the new adventurers was the 
 low state into which periodical criticism had then fallen. The ' Monthly 
 Review ' was the principal critical journal of that day, and it had been 
 much improved in its management since the time that poor Goldsmith 
 groaned under the tyranny of Griffiths and his wife. Sir James Mackintosh, 
 William Taylor of Norwich, Southey, and other men of talent, made it the 
 repository of their political and literary theories. There were other re- 
 spectable literary journals, but none of an independent or commanding 
 character, none supported by an organised body of able well-paid contri- 
 butors, working on a regular plan, and exempt from bookselling influence 
 and control. The general complexion of the whole was that of insipid 
 compliment and tame imiformity, and both writing and quotation were 
 dealt out in scanty measure. The advent of the northern Rhadamanthus 
 in the midst of this rose-water criticism was an event startling to authors 
 and booksellers, but sure to arrest in a strong degree the attention of the 
 public, who have a malicious satisfaction in witnessing high pretensions 
 brought low, or drowsy learning and gentle dulness routed by the lively 
 forces of wit and satire. 
 
 The first number of the ' Edinburgh Review ' appeared on the 1st of 
 November 1802. The greater part had been wi"itten, and even printed, 
 Bome months previous, but it was suggested by Constable that the publi- 
 cation should be deferred until the commencement of the winter season. 
 The number of copies printed was 750. The demand, however, exceeded 
 this limited supply : 750 more were thrown off, and successive editions 
 still more numerous were called for. In 1808 the quarterly circulation of 
 the Review had risen to about 9000 ; and it is believed to have reached 
 its maximum about 1813, when 12,000 or 13,000 copies were printed. 
 Before the poems of Byron and the novels of Scott had taken the public, 
 as it were, by storm, this success was unprecedented. 
 
 Never again perhaps will one generation of critics have such a splendid 
 
 harvest to reap — such a magnificent vintage to gather in. Could the editor 
 
 have surveyed the thirty years' produce that lay before him, awaiting his 
 
 critical distribution, he must have been overwhelmed by its prodigality and 
 
 12 
 
FRANCIS JEFFKEY. 
 
 richness. There vras the poetry of Crabhe, of Campbell, Moore, Southey, 
 Coleridge, and "Wordsworth — types of different schools; there was the 
 gorgeous chivalry of Scott, with his long file of novels and romances, like 
 an endless procession of the representatives of all ages, conditions, and 
 countries ; there was the Oriental splendour and grace of Byron, alternat- 
 ing with his fierce energy and gloomy philosophy — the still more erring 
 and extravagant genius of Shelley — and the youthful bloom of Keats ; 
 there were the tales of Maria Edgeworth, of Miss Austen, Gait, Wilson, 
 and other not imworthy associates ; the histories of Hallam, and the his- 
 torical pictures of Macaulay ; innumerable biographies of great contempo- 
 raries who had gone before — the Sheridans, CuiTans, Wilberforces, and 
 Hebers ; innumerable books of travels, that threw open the world to our 
 curious gaze ; the gossipping treasures of Strawberry Hill and other 
 family repositories, that revived the wits, and poets, and beauties of a 
 past age ; the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys ; the inimitable letters of 
 Co^vper drawn from their sacred privacy; the policy and intrigues of 
 courts laid bare ; the whole world of literature and the living world of 
 Europe stirred to their inmost depths. What rich materials in the wars 
 and politics of the times — in the rise and fall of Napoleon — in the over- 
 throw of kings and dynasties — in the perturbations even of the mighty 
 heart of England throbbing to be free ! What discoveries in science and 
 the arts — steam, gas, railways, and all that facilitates and sweetens social 
 intercourse ! Over such vast and interesting fields had the ' Edinburgh 
 Review ' to travel, moving firmly under the guidance of its editor, with 
 elate and confident step, and attended by thousands who caught its enthu- 
 siasm, and echoed its sentiments and opinions. 
 
 We have traced some of the circumstances which imparted interest and 
 novelty to the plan of the Review. Its grand distinction, however, and 
 the genuine source of its success, was the ability and genius it displayed, 
 coupled with the perfect independence and boldness of the writers. Within 
 the small circle of its projectors were men qualified to deal with questions 
 in physical science, in political economy (the chosen field of Homer), in 
 politics (the favourite ground of Brougham), in law, poetry, and the beUes 
 lettres. They had wit, irony, and sarcasm at wUl, with the higher attri- 
 butes of eloquence, correct principles of reasoning and analysis, strong 
 sense, and a love of freedom. They were free from aU external restraint ; 
 they were yoimg, and had both fortune and reputation to achieve. To give 
 consistency and stability to the scheme, the editor laboured with unceasing 
 attention and judgment. No other member of the fraternity could have 
 supplied his place. His own contributions were also from the first the 
 most popular and effective in the work. He selected the departments of 
 poetry, biography, and moral philosophy, with occasional excursions into 
 the neighbouring domains of history and politics. The first number of the 
 Review displayed the leading characteristics of his style and manner. 
 It could not show the whole extent and richness of the vein, but we saw 
 its peculiar quality, and could form an estimate of its probable value. The 
 opening paper is a critique on the now-forgotten work of M. Mounier on 
 the ' Causes of the French Revolution,' and it is distinguished by great 
 abUity in tracing and comparing political events, and trying them by the 
 tests of history and philosophy. Some of the reviewer's distinctions and 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 illustrations are very happy, and a high moral tone is preserved thirt)ughout 
 the whole. This first effort is a key-note to much of Jeffrey's reasoning and 
 to his clear and pointed expression. Subsequently his style became more 
 loose and oratorical — from his increased practice at the bar, and the haste 
 with which he wrote many of his reviews — but it gained also in power and 
 copiousness. To the state of society and literature in France at this pe- 
 riod he paid much attention ; and his admirable articles on Marmontel, on 
 Grimm, on Madame du Duffand, &c. are invaluable for the moral lessons 
 they inculcate, and the earnestness with which the importance of our social 
 and domestic duties is portrayed and recommended. The reviewer pene- 
 trated thi'ough the gaiety and glitter of the salons of Paris, and showed 
 how little of real worth or of real happiness was contained amidst all their 
 splendour. He delighted to expatiate on the superiority of those humble 
 virtues which are of daily use and benefit, which brighten the domestic 
 hearth, and shed contentment and joy on all the private and ordinary rela- 
 tions of life. And in this respect the example of the critic was in beautiful 
 accordance with his precepts. He was the most afiectionate relation — ' not 
 in the least ambitious of new or distinguished acquaintances, nor by any 
 means fond of large parties or the show and bustle of life ; there was no 
 one to whom all the charities of home and kindred were more endeared.'* 
 
 In the first number of the Review Mr Jefii'ey also propounded his 
 canons of poetical criticism, and began his warfare with the Lake Poets. 
 He produced an elaborate critique on Southey's ' Thalaba,' prefaced with 
 observations on the perverted taste for simplicity, which he considered as 
 the distinguishing mark of the modern school of poetry, of which Words- 
 worth, Coleridge, Southey, and Lamb, were represented as the masters or 
 disciples. The gauntlet was thus thrown down. It was obvious that the 
 great critic of the ' Edinburgh Review ' had taken his stand on certain 
 limited principles of taste, and that however tolerant he might be of poli- 
 tical innovation, he was to be strongly conservative in poetry. His rules 
 were calculated to make correct poets, not great ones. He forgot that 
 
 ' Tlie native bards first plunged the deep 
 Before the artful dared to leap.' 
 
 The same circumstances which had convulsed society, and laid bare the 
 whole organisation of governments, gave an impulse to the powers of crea- 
 tive genius, and led it into new fields free from the conventionalism of the 
 old regime. Notwithstanding aU the errors and puerilities of the modem 
 school — ^aided by importations from the German dramatists — it had in- 
 finitely more of nature, of originality, and boldness, than the artificial system 
 it sought to supplant. The critic's severe and restricted standard of 
 poetical excellence was further illustrated by his criticism on Scott's 
 poetry. He concluded that the popularity of the ' Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel' would be obstructed by the locality of the subject, while this very 
 circumstance was in reality one great cause of its success. The old Border 
 coimtry was consecrated to song and romantic traditions. The aged 
 minstrel, the chivalrous and superstitious incidents, and the feudal man- 
 ners of the poem, were all native to the ' Braes of Yarrow,' and familiar to 
 
 * Memoir and CoTrespondence of Mrs Grant of Laggan. 
 14 
 
FKANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 the lovers of poetiy. * Marmion ' was still more unmercifully dealt with. 
 Its errors were dwelt upon with iteration and emphasis, and little or no 
 sympathy was evinced with respect to the nobler passages which redeem 
 the work, and which rendered it so universally popular. The miscalcula- 
 tions of the critic as to the probable success of Scott's poems, and the 
 effect of such mmute painting of ancient manners, arose from the limited 
 faith he liad in the power of genius to mould the national taste and 
 awaken enthusiasm. Scott broke through the rules of criticism in writing 
 a modem romance of chivalry, but he infused into it the life and fire of 
 genius, and many of the popular elements of poetry. 
 
 In the same number of the Review which contained the depreciatory 
 critique on ' Marmion,' appeared one not less elaborate on the poems of 
 Crabbe. The simultaneous publication of the two articles was an unlucky 
 combination, for the principles laid down in one cannot be well reconciled 
 with those in the other. If the ingenious critic be right in condemning the 
 minute descriptions of Scott as deficient in interest and dignity, the same 
 rule must be applicable to Crabbe, who is still more prolix and minute, and 
 whose descriptions are of the hiunblest and lowest character. The account 
 of Lord Marmion, with his mail of ^lilan steel, the blue ribbons on his 
 horse's mane, and his blue velvet housings — even the attire of his men-at- 
 arms — was as natui-al and necessary to the poet of chivahy as the cottage 
 furniture, the cock-fights, the dirt and squalor of village life, were necessary 
 to enable the poet of tlie poor to complete his pictures. The critic was 
 inconsistent. Scott had not profited by his former schooling, and the lash, 
 therefore, was laid on without mercy. In Crabbe, too, there was more of 
 real life, of keen observation, and suitiple pathos, which possessed a greater 
 charm for the mind and feelings of Jeffrey than the warlike chivahy and 
 tournaments of the middle ages. He saw and felt the truth of these 
 village paintings, and he forgave their Dutch-like minuteness in conside- 
 ration of theh- reality. The works of Campbell and llogers Jeffrey was 
 peculiarly qualified to feel and appreciate, and friendship for the authors 
 may have led to a warmth of praise unusual with the stem reviewer. 
 
 Poetry has many mansions, and even Francis Jeffrey had not then 
 a key to all, or else he wilfuUy refused to enter some of its most select 
 and august chambers. In the epic creations of Southey, and particularly 
 in his ' Curse of Kehama,' there are sublime conceptions, and an affluence 
 of poetical resources, which the critic did not rightly estimate ; the fine 
 imagination and rich diction of Coleridge he neglected or contemned ; and 
 to Wordsworth he was uniformly unjust. It required some courage to re- 
 print in 1844 the critique on ' The Excursion,' beginning ' This wiU never 
 do,' after the world had decided that it would do, and had reversed his 
 judgment by calling for successive editions of the poem. The purity and 
 elevation of Wordsworth's poetry, his profoxmd sympathy with external 
 nature and humanity, and the consecration of his whole mind and genius 
 to his art, woidd have formed a noble and congenial theme for Jeffrey ; but 
 he saw only the puerilities and ridiculous theories of some of the ' Lyrical 
 BaDads,' which no more represent the great body of Wordsworth's poetry 
 than the weeds of a garden represent its flowers and fruits. 
 
 In his disquisitions on the old masters of our literature Jeffrey did good 
 service. His reviews of the writers of the Elizabethan age and of later 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPEES FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 periods are generally excellent. He revelled among the creations of Shak- 
 speare, Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher, and dwelt with cordial de- 
 light on the ornate graces of Jeremy Taylor, or Sir Thomas Browne, as on 
 the milder chai-ms of Addison, the sweep of Dryden's versification, and the 
 pointed brilliancy of Pope. The modem revival of a taste for those great 
 authors may be partly ascribed to the ' Edinburgh Review.' And for the 
 critic's severity m assailing those on the lower slopes of Parnassus who 
 departed from such models, he had this excuse — that he conceived it to be 
 his duty to punish all sins of irregularity and conceit, that he might keep 
 the public taste from corruption, and reform the offender. He had another 
 apology common to periodical writers, and which, in his genial frankness 
 and acknowledged supremacy, he could afford to produce. Wlien recant- 
 ing some of his strictures on the character of Burns, he said — ' A certain 
 tone of exaggeration is incident, we fear, to the sort of writing in which we 
 are engaged. Reckoning a little too much perhaps on the dulness of our 
 readers, we are often unconsciously led to overstate our sentiments in order 
 to make them understood ; and when a little controversial warmth is added 
 to a little love of effect, an excess of colouring is apt to steal over the 
 canvas, which ultimately offends no eye so much as our own.' He seems 
 also to have aimed at blending a conversational freedom and carelessness 
 Avith his criticisms, as if ambitious, like Congreve, to be more of the gentle- 
 man than the author. This contributed to the tone of superiority which 
 the ' Review' assumed from its commencement, and which the suffering 
 authors felt to be peculiarly galling. It unquestionably made the articles 
 more piquant ; and when the revicAver rose above the conventional level, 
 the contrast afforded by his finer passages was the more conspicuous and 
 effective. If he had been more profound in imagination or feeling, he must 
 have lost some of that airy elegance, and fancy, and spontaneous grace, 
 which contributed so much to his success. Another distinctive quality was 
 the great taste with which Jeffrey made selections from the works he 
 reviewed. "WTiatever was new or striking, solemn, picturesque, or figura- 
 tive in language or matter, was sure to be extracted. The finest scenes in 
 a new novel, the best passages of a poem, a book of travels, or a work of 
 biography, were generally to be found in the ' Edinburgh Review,' and 
 the criticism with which the whole was linked together, or the manner in 
 which the plot was desci'ibed by the acute and lively critic, rivalled, if it 
 did not excel, the work of the author. The setting was as precious as the 
 jewels. 
 
 ^1/ One of the most memorable incidents in the critical and personal history 
 
 y^ J of Mr Jeffrey was his rencounter with Moore the poet. In this case the 
 , sentiment that no man should write with his pen what he is not prepared 
 
 ff I ( to defend with his sword, was substantially verified ; for though in the 
 modem duello the instrument of warfare has been changed, the danger has 
 not thereby been lessened. Literary duels, still common in France, have 
 always been rare in this country. The effusion of ink sufficed to revenge 
 
 w^ ' ' ' ef en the truculent satires of Dryden and the stmging sarcasms of Pope. 
 Dr Johnson laughed at the Drawcausir threats and hostile message of 
 Macpherson, though he seems to have considered duelling a species of 
 self-defence that might be justified on the same gi-ounds as public war. 
 Happily the force of opinion has now all but abolished the practice. When 
 16 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 literary men have been prompted to manifestations of this kind, it will 
 generally be found that the demon of politics was present ; and this, we 
 suspect, was the case in the misunderstanding between Moore and Jeffrey. 
 In the spring of 1806, the former published his ' Epistles, Odes, and other 
 Poems.' The poet enjoyed considerable social and fashionable celebrity. 
 lie was supposed to be a boon companion of the Prince of Wales. His 
 poems were dedicated to the Earl of Moira ; one of the epistles was ad- 
 dressed to Viscount Strangford, and others to the Lady Charlotte Rawdon- 
 to Viscount Forbes, the Hon. William Spencer, &c. In all of these really 
 graceful and sparkling poetical offerings, democratic America, with its 
 ' piebald polity' and its ' fustian flag,' was heartily anathematised — French 
 pliilosophy and liberty were denounced as unclean things — England was 
 warned to beware of the mob mania — and over every page of the hand- 
 some hot-pressed quarto volume was spread an air of courtly fastidiousness 
 and superiority. All this must have grated on the popular sympathies 
 and "Whiggish feelings of the Edinburgh reviewer ; but he had a still more 
 serious ground of offence. Many of the poems were tainted with licen- 
 tiousness. Amidst the sweet and melodious versification, the glittering 
 fancy, and rich exotic imagery, lixrked this insidious poison of unmorality 
 — only the more seductive from its being half hidden with flowers — and 
 Jeffrey, like the Good Knight in Spenser, set himself resolutely to trample 
 down the whole. He reviewed the poems in the number for July 1806. 
 Little was said of the literary qualities of the work ; few citations were 
 made, and those only of an unfavourable description ; but the author was 
 charged with deliberate immorality — ^with seeking to impose corruption 
 upon his readers under the mask of refinement — and with insulting the 
 delicacy and attacking the purity of the female sex. Some peculiarly 
 mortifying personal imputations were also thrown out by the reviewer. 
 Allusion was made to ' patrons who were entitled to respectful remon- 
 strance,' and the following lines from an old poet were quoted as a pro- 
 phetic description of Mr Moore's iniquities : — 
 
 ' Thereto he could fine loving verses frame. 
 And play the poet oft. But ah, for shame! 
 Let not sweet poets praise whose only pride 
 Is virtue to advance and vice deride, 
 Be with the work of losel's wit defamed, 
 Ne let such verses poetry be named. 
 Yet he the name on him would rashly take, 
 Maugre the sacred Muses, and it make 
 A servant to the vile affection 
 Of such as he depended most upon,' &c. 
 
 Spenser's Mother Hubbard^s Tale. 
 
 Youthful flesh and blood — and particularly Irish flesh and blood — could 
 hardly refrain from resenting this charge of mercenary immorality. Mr 
 Moore resorted to the mode then sanctioned as the blind arbiter of quarrels. 
 He sent a challenge to his critic, who happened to be at the time in Lon- 
 don, and the parties met, August 12, 1806, at Chalk Farm. Fortunately 
 information of the affair had been given at Bow Street, and officers an-ived 
 just as the parties had taken their places to fire. It was afterwards found 
 that the ball with which Mr Jefirey's pistol was loaded had dropt out 
 either on the field when the pistol was snatched from his hand by the 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 officer, or on the way to town, and some wag circulated a report that both 
 pistols were leadless ! Hence the sarcastic allusion in Byron's ' English 
 Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' which was afterwards nearly causing a duel 
 between the noble poet and Moore, but ultimately led to their acquaint- 
 ance and friendship : — 
 
 ' Health to great Jeffrey ! 
 Can none remember that eventful day, 
 That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray, 
 When Little's leadless pistol met his eye, 
 And Bow Street myrmidons stood laughing by?' 
 
 This was of course a false representation of what occurred, but it served as 
 a subject of raillery, not the less, we may believe, because Mr Moore was 
 known to be sensitive on the subject, and had even taken the trouble to 
 contradict the report in the newspapers. In a letter written a few days 
 after the occurrence, addressed to the editor of the ' Morning Chronicle,' 
 Mr Moore vindicated his conduct. ' The quarrel,' he said, ' was not to be 
 considered as literary. Though by no means indiflferent to the decrees of 
 criticism, I am aware that they are not to be reversed by an appeal to the 
 pistol. The review, however, which Mr Jeffi'ey had written appeared to 
 me to contain more personality than criticism ; to impute to me motives 
 which my heart disclaims and detests ; and to assail me altogether much 
 more as a man than as a writer. Conceiving, therefore, that in the present 
 state of manners no gentleman can hold such language to another with 
 impunity, I returned a contradiction to the assertions of Mr Jefirey in 
 terms too plain to be misunderstood, and the meeting of which the public 
 has heard was the consequence.' The poet then anxiously explains that 
 the pistol which the officer took from him was found to be regularly loaded, 
 though, from some accident in the carriage of the pistols to town, that of 
 Mr Jeffi-ey was certainly without a ball ! 
 
 In this ridiculous afiair the public was generally on the side of the critic. 
 It was acknowledged that the prurient muse of the English Anacreon 
 required to be checked and rebuked, and that though the moral censor 
 might have gone too far, he went in the right direction. There was, hoAf- 
 ever, too much wit, talent, and real worth on both sides for the estrange- 
 ment to continue long. Habits of intimacy commenced shortly afterwards, 
 and Mr Moore himself became an Edinburgh Reviewer. To the number 
 for September 1814 he contributed a critique on Lord Thurlow's poetry, 
 in which he almost rivalled the editor in critical severity. In one of the 
 prefaces to his collected works, Mr Moore has said — ' In the most formid- 
 able of all my censors — the great master of the art of criticism in our day 
 — ^I have found since one of the most cordial of all my friends ; ' and on the 
 occasion of his visiting Scotland in 1825, the poet passed some days with 
 Lord Jeffi-ey at ' his agreeable retreat, Craigcrook,' where he sang his last 
 new song, ' Ship Ahoy!' and was caUed upon to repeat it so often, that 
 ' the upland echoes of Craigcrook ought long to have had its burden by 
 heart.' 
 
 The famous critique on Lord Byron's 'Juvenile Poems' (January 1808) 
 was still more remarkable in its results than that on Mr Moore. The merci- 
 less severity of the attack was intended to crush the minor poet, but it only 
 nerved him for further exertion, and impelled him on in that poetical career 
 18 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 which was destined to be so fertile and glorious. Had Byron's first critic 
 not pronounced his poetry to be a deadjlat, which the author could neither 
 get above nor below, and had he not counselled him to abandon poetry, we 
 should never have had that vigorous satire, ' English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers,' and miglit have waited long even for ' Childe Harold.' There 
 was some danger at this period that Byron would sink into the idle dissi- 
 pation and frivolity of a to^vn life ; and from such a descent the reviewer 
 called him, though with no friendly voice, and added his name to the proud 
 roll of our national poets. Byron's diaries and letters afford evidence that 
 he considered the critique in the ' Edinburgh Review' to be the work of 
 Mr (now Lord) Brougham. We believe this is no longer matter of doubt ; 
 though Jefirey afterwai-ds made amends to the noble poet's feelings by his 
 criticism on his greater works. If Sir Walter Scott's critiques on Byron in 
 the 'Quarterly Review' be compared with those of Jeffrey in the ' Edin- 
 burgh,' it will be seen that, beautiful as the former are in style and spirit — 
 approachuig almost to feminine tenderness, and overflowing with illustration 
 — the professional critic has greatly the advantage in force, discrimination, 
 and eloquence. The early crudities of his poetical faith and opinions had 
 been mellowed down by time and reflection ; the range of his poetical emo- 
 tion was extended ; and in the poetry of Byron he had subjects worthy of 
 all his powers and sensibilities. The poet felt the generosity of his critic. 
 He had heard Jeffrey, he said, most higlily commended by those who knew 
 him for things independent of his talents, and he admired him for his 
 liberality towards himself. 'None but a great soul dared hazard it; a 
 little scribbler would have gone on cavilling to the end of the chapter.' In 
 the tenth canto of 'Don Juan,' written at Pisa in 1822— when all his 
 ' little feuds ' were over, and his brief career was drawing to a close — Byron 
 paid a noble tribute to his former antagonist, blended with rich allusions 
 to Scotland, to auld langsyne, and to his boyish feelings and dreams, as 
 must ever render the passage one of the finest and most interesting 
 episodes in his poetry and his life.* 
 
 As the Review advanced in public favour, it assumed a bolder tone in 
 politics. The war in Spain ranged the nation into two parties — one, like 
 Scott, animated with a strong anti-Gallican spirit; and another, like Jeflfrey, 
 predicting that we should reap nothing but disaster and disgrace from the 
 struggle. An article by Brougham on the ' French Usurpation m Spain,' 
 bemg a review of a work by Don Cevallos (1808), seemed to mduce a crisis 
 in the affau-s of the Review. ' The Tories,' said Jeffrey m a letter to 
 Horner, ' having got a handle, are running us down with all their might, 
 and the ghosts of all the miserables we have slain are rising to join the 
 vengeance. Walter Scott and William Erskine, and about twenty-five 
 persons of consideration, have forbidden the Review to enter then- doors. 
 The Earl of Buchan, I am informed, opened his street-door, and actually 
 kicked it out ! ' The editor resolved to eschew party politics, and to prac- 
 
 * See 'Don Juan,' canto x., stanzas 11 to 19. In one line — 'A legal broom's a 
 moral chimney-sweeper' — there seems to be a punning allusion to the poet's sup- 
 posed critic, Mr Brougham. Captain Medwin, in his conversations with Lord Byron 
 in Italy, reports the poet to have said that Jefirey disowned the article ; and though 
 he would not give up the author, promised to convince Byron, if ever he came to 
 Scotland, who the person was. 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 tise exemplary moderation for the future ; but this could not well be done. 
 The public events were too exciting to be passed over in silence. Brougham 
 and Horner were now in parliament, and connected with the Opposition. 
 The editor himself was become too conspicuous to preserve an obscure 
 neutrality. Friends required to be supported, and opponents encountered ; 
 and it was almost inevitable that the Review, to keep its ground, and 
 preserve consistency, should become the recognised organ, defender, and 
 exponent of the Whig party. A cry of infidelity was also raised against 
 the Review, and it was grounded on articles written by an orthodox clergy- 
 man ! Sydney Smith had commented in 1807 on Foreign Missions, and 
 tried, as he said, ' to rout the nests of consecrated cobblers ' with their 
 Methodistic cant, in a style so daring and ludicrous, that it gave serious 
 offence to many excellent persons, besides arming the political opponents 
 of the powerful journal with new weapons of assault. 
 
 During all this time Mr Jeffrey was steadily advancing in his practice 
 and reputation at the bar. In assiduity he rivalled the dullest plodder ; 
 for he took no fee without conscientiously studying the case, and he 
 spared no pains to procure a verdict for his client. His fluency and 
 vivacity, and the constant stream of his illustrations, poured out with the 
 rapidity of a cataract, were sometimes too elevated and recondite for a 
 common jury, but in important criminal trials he was highly effective. In 
 political cases he was the intrepid defender of constitutional freedom. In 
 the trials for sedition between 1817 and 1822 he was ever in the front 
 rank. He also took part in public meetings, condemning the system of 
 intimidation which was then adopted to repress the evils of discontent ; 
 he spoke at the Fox anniversaries ; he wrote for the instruction of the 
 discontented mechanics ; and on all occasions, when oppression or slavery 
 was to be stigmatised, or toleration and liberty promoted, he was ready with 
 his displays of high eloquence, intermingled with effusions of wit or fancy. 
 We need not dwell on those party conflicts ; on the meetings in the Pan- 
 theon or county-haUs ; on the dinners to Hume or Brougham (in the latter 
 case he disappointed his auditory, as if paralysed by the fierce invectives 
 and tremendous power of Brougham) ; or attempt to depict the glowing 
 scenes of rivalry and contention that have happily passed away. In 1816 
 the institution of the court for the trial of civil cases by jury in Scotland 
 threw a vast accession of business into the hands of Mr Jeffrey. He was 
 engaged in almost every case ; his knowledge, acuteness, and subtle argu- 
 mentation having there an appropriate field for exertion. In the intervals 
 of his busy toils he made occasional excursions to the Highlands or to the 
 English lakes. In 1811 he made a pilgrimage on foot through the wilds 
 of Inverness-shire, and by the parallel roads of Glenroy. In 1815 we find 
 him in France, noting in his journal that Cambray was famed for ' its 
 cambric, its league, and its Fenelon.' He had about this time taken a 
 country-house — his residence of Craigcrook — 'an old turreted mansion, 
 much patched in the whole mass of its structure,' beautifully situated at 
 the foot of the Corstorphine Hills, about three miles from Edinburgh. His 
 windows looked out upon a wooded hill : he had a good garden, and some 
 fields for rural occupation and pleasure. The charms of this old chateau 
 and summer retreat were enhanced by the presence of a lady who added 
 20 
 
FBANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 much to his happiness, and who now mourns his loss. In 1811 M. Simond 
 (the weU-kno\vn French author), his wife, and niece, visited Edinburgh. 
 Mr Jeffrey saw much of them during their stay, and some time afterwards 
 the intercourse was renewed in London. In 1813 Mr Jeffrey followed his 
 visitors to America, and was there married to the young lady, Miss Wilkes, 
 a grand-niece of the celebrated John Wilkes.* 
 
 The exuberant fancy and imagery scattered throughout Jeffrey's essays 
 and speeches, and which were constantly sparkling up like a perennial 
 fountain in his conversation, led many to believe that nature had marked 
 him out for a poet, and that, as in the cases of Lord Mansfield and Sir 
 William Blackstone, the goddess Themis, so jealous of her rights, had 
 defrauded the Muses. Rarely have rhetoricians had such command of the 
 elements of poetry as was possessed by Jeffrey. 
 
 • The following anecdote is related of his transatlantic marriage-journey: — 'He 
 met in America a large and brilliant party, who endeavoured to extort political 
 opinions from him. The paltry and unnecessary war between the United States 
 and Great Britain was then in progress, and one American statesman, in a very 
 marked manner, asked, " And now, Mr Jeffrey, what is said of the war in Grreat 
 Britain ? " Jeffrey was determined to mortify the national vanity of the Americans, 
 and he replied, " War — war ? Oh yes, I did hear some talk of it in Liverpool ! " The 
 insignificance of the struggle, and the little interest it excited in this country, could 
 not have been more happily or sarcastically illustrated.' 
 
 A few personal traits and anecdotes may be here given. It was the custom of 
 Jeffrey, when reviewing the works of his friends, to give them the perusal of the 
 proof-sheets before publication. In doing this to Mrs Grant of Laggan, he remarked, 
 ' I let them know what I say of them before they are led out to e^recution. When I 
 take up my reviewing pen, I consider myself as entering the temple of truth, and 
 bound to say what I think.' He courageously sent the proof-sheets of his critique 
 on ' Marmion ' to Scott, having to dine with the poet the same day. Scott pre- 
 served his equanimity, as may be seen from the detail in Lockhart's Life ; but Mrs 
 Scott could not help saying in her broken English, when her guest was departing, 
 ' Well, good-night, Mr Jeffrey ; dey tell me you have abused Scott in de Review, 
 and I hope Mr Constable has paid you well for writing it.' 
 
 Mr Willison, the early printer of the Review, in sending one of the proofs to the 
 editor, wrote on the margin that ' there appeared to be some obscurity in it.' The 
 sheet was returned with this reply — ' Mr J. sees no obscurity here, except such as 
 arises from the great number of commas, which Mr W. seems to keep in a pepper- 
 box beside him for the purpose of dusting all his proofs with.' Jeffrey was some- 
 what peculiar in the punctuation of his vkTitings, as in his handwriting, which was 
 wretched. 
 
 It has been confidently stated that Jeffrey sent the late Mr Hazlitt a sum of £50, 
 to relieve him from difficulty in his last illness. This generosity is alluded to in the 
 ' Life of Charles Lamb.' 
 
 Mr William M'G^vin, a Glasgow merchant, and author of a series of letters entitled 
 ' The Protestant,' was tried and convicted for a libel on the Catholic priest at Glasgow. 
 Jeffrey was retained for the pursuer, and brought his eloquence to bear with a very 
 lively eflFect on M'Gavin. The latter sat, in mute astonishment, gazing on Jeffrey, 
 while, minute after minute, there rolled forth periods of the fiercest invective against 
 himself. At length the mortified ' Protestant ' took out his watch, and calculated 
 how many words Jeffrey spoke in a minute. He afterwards publislied, that having 
 compared Johnson's Dictionary with Jeff'rey's speech, he found tliat the voluble 
 gentleman had in tw^o hours spoken the English language three times over! 
 
 As so much has been said about Jeffrey and the Lake Poets, we may mention 
 that the critic had little personal intercourse with them. He liad met Southey in 
 Edinburgh and Keswick, and Coleridge once only at Keswick. Mr Wordsworth and 
 his critical antagonist had one meeting. This was in June 1828, at an evening 
 party in tlie house of Sir James Mackintosh in London. It was at his own request 
 that the critic was introduced to the poet by their courteous and benevolent host. 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 • Oh ! many are the poets that are sown 
 By nature ; men endowed with highest gifts, 
 The vision and the faculty divine. 
 Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.' 
 
 The Excursion. 
 
 This is the declaration of a high authority, but of one who would not 
 perhaps have included the brilliant reviewer among his own silent brethren. 
 To epic or tragic power, indeed, Jefirey could have made no approach : the 
 divine afflatus was wanting. But in that middle class of poetry, of which 
 Horace was the great master and exemplar — imiting knowledge of the 
 world and slirewd observation with pictures of manners, just sentiment, 
 wit, and elegance — Jefirey, we think, might have attained to a respectable 
 rank. We do not know that he ever attempted translation. The following 
 stanzas from his pen appeared in one of the Annuals in the year 1829, 
 entitled ' Verses Inscribed in a Lady's Album.' They belong to the higher 
 class oi vers-de-societe : — 
 
 Why write my name 'midst songs and flowers 
 
 To meet the eye of lady gay ? 
 I have no voice for lady's bowers, 
 
 For page like this no fitting lay. 
 
 Yet though my heart no more must bound 
 
 At witching call of sprightly joys, 
 Mine is the brow that never frowned 
 
 On laughing lips or sparkling eyes. 
 
 No, though behind me now is closed 
 
 The youthful Paradise of Love, 
 Yet I can bless, with soul composed, 
 
 The lingerers in that happy grove. 
 
 Take, then, fair girls, my blessing take, 
 
 Wliere'er amid its charms you roam. 
 Or where, by western hill or lake. 
 
 You brighten a serener home. 
 
 And while the youtliful lover's name 
 
 Here with the sister beauty's blends. 
 Laugh not to scorn the humbler aim 
 
 That to the list would add a friend's. 
 
 There is more poetry in the following specimen of his prose. In treating 
 of the beauty of landscapes, as connected with the law of association, in a 
 critique on Alison's Essay on Taste (1811), Mr Jeffiey draws tliis exquisite 
 parallel : — 
 
 'Take, for instance, the case of a common English landscape — ^green 
 meadows, with fat cattle — canals or navigable rivers — well-fenced, well- 
 cultivated fields — neat, clean, scattered cottages — humble antique chiu-ch, 
 with churchyard elms, and crossing hedgerows — all seen vmder bright 
 skies, and in good weather: there is much beauty, as every one will 
 acknowledge, in such a scene. But in what does the beauty consist? 
 Not certamly in the mere mixture of colours and foiTns — for colours more 
 pleasing, and lines more graceful (according to any theory of grace that 
 may be preferred), might be spread upon a board, or a painter's palette, 
 without engaging the eye to a second glance, or raising the least emotion 
 22 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 in the mind — but in the picture of human happiness that is presented to 
 our imaginations and affections — in tlie visible and unequivocal signs of 
 comfort, and cheerful and peaceful enjoyment — and of that secure and suc- 
 cessful industry that insures its continuance — and of the piety by which it 
 is exalted — and of the simplicity by which it is contrasted with the guilt 
 and the fever of a city life — in the images of health and temperance and 
 plenty which it exhibits to every eye —and in the glimpses which it affords 
 to warmer imaginations, of those primitive or fabulous times when man 
 was uncorrupted by luxury and ambition, and of those humble retreats in 
 which we still delight to imagine that love and philosophy may find an 
 unpolluted asylum. At all events, however, it is human feeling that 
 excites our sympathy, and forms the object of our emotions. It is man, 
 and man alone, that we see in the beauties of the earth which he inhabits ; 
 or, if a more sensitive and extended sympathy connect us with the lower 
 families of animated nature, and make us rejoice with the Iambs that bleat 
 on the uplands, or the cattle that ruminate in the valley, or even with the 
 living plants that drink the bright sun and the balmy air beside them, it is 
 still the idea of enjoyment — of feelings that animate the existence of sen- 
 tient beings — that calls forth all our emotions, and is the parent of all the 
 beauty with which we proceed to invest the inanimate creation around us. 
 
 ' Instead of this quiet and tame English landscape, let us now take a 
 Welsh or a Highland scene, and see whether its beauties will admit of 
 being explained on the same principle. Here we shall have lofty moun- 
 tains, and rocky and lonely recesses — tufted woods hung over precipices — 
 lakes intersected with casteled promontories — ample solitudes of im- 
 ploughed and untrodden valleys — nameless and gigantic ruins — and moun- 
 tain echoes repeating the scream of the eagle and the roar of the cataract. 
 This, too, is beautiful; and to those who can interpret the language it 
 speaks, far more beautiful than the prosperous scene with which we have 
 contrasted it. Yet lonely as it is, it is to the recollection of man and of 
 human feelings that its beauty also is owing. The mere forms and colours 
 that compose its visible appearance are no more capable of exciting any 
 emotion in the mind than the forms and colours of a Turkey carpet. It is 
 sympathy with the present or the past, or the imaginary inhabitants of such 
 a region, that alone gives it either interest or beauty ; and the delight of 
 those who behold it will always be found to be in exact proportion to the 
 force of their imaginations and the warmth of their social affections. The 
 leading impressions here are those of romantic seclusion and primeval sim- 
 plicity ; lovers sequestered in these blissful solitudes, " from towns and 
 toUs remote ; " and rustic poets and philosophers communing with nature, 
 at a distance from the low pvirsuits and selfish malignity of ordinary mor- 
 tals ; then there is the sublime impression of the Mighty Power which piled 
 the massive cliffs upon one another, and rent the mountains asunder, and 
 scattered their giant fragments at their base — and all the images connected 
 with the monuments of ancient magnificence and extinguished hostility — 
 the feuds, and the combats, and the triumphs of its wild and primitive in- 
 habitants, contrasted with the stillness and desolation of the scenes where 
 they lie interred — and the romantic ideas attached to their ancient tradi- 
 tions and the peculiarities of their present life — their wild and enthusiastic 
 poetry — their gloomy superstitions — their attachment to their chiefs — ^the 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papees for the people. 
 
 dangers, and the hardships, and enjoyments of their lonely huntings and 
 fishings — their pastoral sheilings on the mountains in summer — and the 
 tales and the sports that amuse the little groups that are frozen into their 
 vast and trackless valleys in the winter. Add to all this the traces of vast 
 and obscure antiquity that are impressed on the language and the habits of 
 the people, and on the clifis and caves, and gulfy torrents of the land — and 
 the solemn and touching reflection perpetually recurring of the weakness 
 and insignificance of perishable man, whose generations thus pass away 
 into oblivion with all their toils and ambition, while nature holds on her 
 unvarying course, and pours out her streams, and renews her forests, with 
 undecaying activity, regardless of the fate of her proud and perishable 
 sovereign.' 
 
 In 1820 Mr Jeffi-ey was elected Lord Rector of the university of Glas- 
 gow. The principle of election for this high academical distinction is of a 
 popular character. By the original statutes, dated so far back as 1450, the 
 sufirage is vested in the whole of the matriculated students, with whom are 
 joined the dean and principal professors. In the earlier periods of our 
 history, before civil rights were extended and defined, the rector possessed 
 vast powers civil and criminal. His court was almost as absolute as the 
 Star Chamber. The duties and powers of the ofiice are now, however, 
 almost nominal. The appointment is an honorary distinction, and is 
 generally bestowed on some eminent public character with whose political 
 sentiments, genius, or learning, the majority of the students sympathise. 
 Burke filled the ofiice in the year 1784 : Adam Smith was installed in 1787. 
 Of late years the names of Sir James Mackintosh, Brougham, Campbell, 
 Peel, and Macaulay, shed honour on the office of Lord Rector, and on the 
 choice of the young students. Jefirey was elected in a time of considerable 
 excitement by an overwhelming majority, and his appointment was a grace- 
 ful tribute to his talents and political consistency, rendered the more 
 appropriate by his having studied at Glasgow university. He delivered 
 his inaugural address on Thursday, December 28, and spoke warmly of the 
 grateful and flattering honour conferred upon him. 
 
 ' It was here,' he said, ' that, now more than thirty years ago, I received 
 the earliest and by far the most valuable part of my academical education, 
 and first imbibed that relish and veneration for letters which has cheered 
 and directed the wliole course of my after-Ufe ; and to which, amidst all the 
 distractions of rather too busy an existence, I have never failed to return 
 with fresh and unabated enjoyment. Nor is it merely by those distant and 
 pleasing recollections — by the touching retrospect of those scenes of guilt- 
 less ambition and youthful delight, when everything around and before me 
 was bright with novelty and hope, that this place, and all the images it 
 recalls, are at this moment endeared to my heart. Though I have been able, 
 I fear, to do but little to honour this early nurse of my studies since I was 
 first separated from her bosom, I wiU yet presume to say that I have been, 
 during all that interval, an afiectionate and not an inattentive son. For the 
 whole of that period I have watched over her progress, and gloried in her 
 fame; and at your literary Olympics, where your prizes are distributed, and 
 the mature swarm annually cast ofi" to ply its busy task in the wider circuit 
 of the world, I have generally been found a fond and eager spectator of that 
 youthful prowess in which I had ceased to be a sharer, and a delighted 
 24 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 chronicler of that excellence which never ceased to be supplied. And thus 
 the tie which originally bound me to the place was never allowed to be 
 broken ; and when called to the high office which I this day assume, I felt 
 that I could not be considered as a stranger, even by the youngest portion 
 of the society over which I was to preside.' 
 
 Mr Jeffrey, according to the usual custom, was re-elected Lord Rector at 
 the expiration of his first year of office. He delivered a second inaugural 
 address on the 3d of January 1822, in which he annoimced that he had 
 determined to give a prize, ' to be awarded by the young men themselves, 
 to the individuals who shall excel in recitation and declamation — a science 
 in the study and knowledge of which we are so much behind our southern 
 neighbours : the prize, a gold medal, to be confined to the two classes where 
 such an excitement seems more particularly called for — the Greek and 
 Latin classes — to each of which it will be given alternately, commencing 
 with the Greek.' By a subsequent arrangement on the part of the Lord 
 Rector, this prize was confined to the most distinguished student in the 
 Greek class, the award to be made by the votes of his fellow-students. In 
 order to place the medal on a permanent footing, the generous donor, in 
 1849, remitted to the coUege factor the sum of £120, of which ten guineas 
 ■were to be applied in procuring two medal dies, the remainder to be in- 
 vested by the faculty for the purpose of ' providing and engraving annually, 
 in all time coming, a gold medal, of such value as can be obtained for the 
 amount of the yearly interest.' 
 
 In 1829 Mr Jeffrey was chosen Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, an 
 honour unanimously conferred upon him by his brethren of the bar, and 
 which was justly regarded not only as a token of personal confidence and 
 respect, but as an unequivocal recognition of his having reached the sum- 
 mit of his profession as an advocate. On his election to this office he 
 resigned the editorship of the * Edinburgh Review ' into the hands of Mr 
 Macvey Napier. He still, however, took a lively interest in its manage- , 
 ment, and was consulted by his successor whenever any difficulty occurred. 
 
 The year 1830 brought Mr Jeffrey prominently into public life. It was 
 truly an annus mirahilis. "We had the revolution in France agitating all 
 Europe, and the scarcely less decided revolution in England, which began 
 with the overthrow of the Duke of Wellington's administration (consi- 
 dered as impregnable as the lines of Torres Vedras), and the accession of 
 the Whig party to power. Jeffrey was now to reap the honours of the 
 well -fought field, and to receive the plaudits of the nation as one 
 of the victors. With the French success he cordially sympathised, and 
 he joined with his fellow-citizens in publicly conunemorating the valour, 
 moderation, and heroism of the people of France. A few months after- 
 wards, he was appointed Lord Advocate in the administration of Earl 
 Grey. This office must always be one of high responsibility, as including 
 the functions of crown lawyer and public prosecutor, and the exercise of 
 political influence and patronage. The Lord Advocate is the minister for 
 Scotland. The duties of the appointment were also rendered more arduous 
 and delicate at this time, when a party had acceded to power on popular 
 principles, and pledged to extensive reforms. To charm the popular voice 
 into submission and contentment after a period of such imboxmded excite- 
 
 23 
 
GHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ment and expectation, required more energy and prudence than were 
 necessary at first to secure success. Mr Jeffrey said he accepted office 
 with sincere reluctance ; for he had to leave the retirement of private life, 
 in which he had his chief solace and delight. He did not covet the office ; 
 it had come to him from no solicitation on his part, but from the circum- 
 stance that the new government formed by the crown professed all the 
 most important principles it had been the study of his life to assert and 
 maintain. It was necessary that the Lord Advocate should have a seat 
 in parliament. He became a candidate for the representation of the dis- 
 trict of burghs including Perth, Dundee, St Andrews, Cupar, and Forfar, 
 for so many important towns were then linked together in imnatural union 
 to return one member to parliament ! The tliree first-mentioned voted 
 for the Lord Advocate ; the two last for his opponent, Captain OgUvy of 
 the ' noble House of Airly ;' and as Forfar was the retm-ning burgh, and 
 had a casting vote, both candidates claimed to be elected. Mr Jeffrey 
 was declared the sitting member, and Captain Ogilvy petitioned against 
 liis return. Mr Jeffrey took his seat in the House of Commons on the 
 opening of parliament in February 1831. He had thus an opportunity of 
 aiding his friends in the great debate on the second reading of the Eeform 
 Bill, which, after a four-nights' discussion, was carried on the 22d of March. 
 Four days afterwards, the election committee decided in favour of Captain 
 Ogilvy. The Lord Advocate, however, found refuge in the smaU burgh 
 of Malton in Yorkshire, where the influence of Earl FitzwiUiam predo- 
 minated. Su- James Scarlett, who had opposed the Reform BUI, retired ; 
 and Mr Jeffrey succeeded him as member for Malton on the 12th of April. 
 In less than a fortnight the House of Lords had rejected the Reform BUI, 
 and parliament was dissolved. Mr Jeffrey then solicited the suffrages of 
 his native city, and no less tlian 17,400 of the inhabitants petitioned the 
 elective body, the town-councU, in his favour. He was, however, defeated 
 by the narrow majority of three — fourteen members of councU voting for 
 him, and seventeen for his opponent, Mr R. A. Dundas (now Mr Chris- 
 topher). So indignant was the populace at the rejection of their favourite 
 candidate, that serious riots took place, and the Lord Provost had to be 
 escorted home by a party of dragoons. The whole nation was at this 
 period (to use the phrase of an old politician) ' intoxicated by the elevation 
 of a spirit too highly rectified.' The Lord Advocate was again returned 
 — and on a valid jelection — for the Forfar burghs, his seat in Malton being 
 at the same time kept open till his election was secured. He again 
 co-operated in carrying the Reform BUI through the Commons. The 
 peers gave way, the bUl became law ; and under the new constituency Mr 
 Jeffrey, and his friend Mr Abercrombie (now Lord Dunfermline), were 
 almost unanimously elected the representatives for the city of Edinburgh. 
 The Lord Advocate retained his seat untU May 1834, when he gladly 
 exchanged the turmoU of party politics for the duties of a judge. He was 
 appointed to the bench on the retirement of an aged judge, Lord Craigie ; 
 his parliamentary career having thus extended over a period of three years 
 and three months. 
 
 The impression was universal that Mr Jeffrey had faUed in parliament. 
 The case of Erskine was cited as a parallel one, and we were reminded of 
 the saying, that the floor of the House of Commons was strewed with the 
 26 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 wreck of eminent lawyers' reputations. All such broad unqualified state- 
 ments must be received with caution. With the examples of Mansfield 
 and Wedderburne, of Thurlow, Scarlett, and Brougham, before us, it is 
 idle to say that eminent lawyers do not succeed in the House of Commons. 
 Erskine's failure was only comparative. He could not rival Pitt, or Fox, 
 or Sheridan ; and he did not apply himself sedulously to cultivate the arts 
 necessary to success in debate. His previous reputation as a forensic 
 orator was so great, that scarcely any appearance could have realised the 
 expectations formed by his friends. Mr Jefii-ey laboured under the same 
 disadvantage. His fame was already higli — filled to the brim. He had 
 to contend not only with practised rivals, who waited for his halting, but 
 with the prepossessions and hopes created by his own genius. He made 
 one brilliant speech in support of the Reform Bill — one of the best which 
 the discussion called forth ; but he made no attempt to shine as a debater, 
 and this is the most attractive and valuable accomplishment in a popular 
 assembly. A clever retort or sarcasm, a personal sally, or a strain of 
 witty exaggeration dhected against an opponent, wiU always meet with a 
 better reception in the House of Conunons than a speech which deals with 
 the first principles of a question, though abounding in the finest analysis 
 or illustration, and appealing to history and reason. A familiarity with 
 the forms and personnel of the house, a knowledge of parties, and a certain 
 style of masculine plaimiess and vigour, are also requisite ; and these can 
 rarely be acquired except by early practice and long perseverance. A 
 gentleman who sat with the Lord Advocate in parliament, and was a 
 strenuous supporter of his principles, wi-ites to us as follows on the im- 
 pression made on the House by his distinguished friend : — 
 
 ' That Jefirey failed in securing the attention of the House of Commons 
 in a manner commensurate with his extraordinaiy genius, and his talents 
 as a public speaker in other respects, is, I believe, certain. As to the 
 causes of his being imperfectly listened to, I may begin by saying that 
 his voice was far from clear and distinct, and that he was subject to a 
 tendency to bronchitis. His utterance was also extremely rapid. His 
 pronunciation, though not broad, was not easily followed by an Enghsli 
 ear. The shape in which he clothed his thoughts was not veiy intelligible 
 to an English audience. There was a spontaneous flow of imagery in his 
 ordinary language which it was not easy for him to restrain. There was 
 a good deal of metaphysical theory, and a considerable sprinkling of 
 technical phraseology, which, though quite familiar to his audiences in 
 Edinburgh, was very imperfectly understood in the House of Conunons. 
 Besides all this, he did not enter the House tUl on the borders of sixty, 
 at which no eminent speaker ever commenced his career.' 
 
 These physical impediments could never have been whoUy got over; 
 but at this time Mr Jefirey laboured under severe indisposition and debi- 
 lity, which disqualified him for active exertion. He was often confined 
 to his house, or could only exchange it for the purer air of the country, 
 free from the stir and noise of the Great Babel. If we glance at the 
 few and imperfectly- reported speeches delivered by the Lord Advocate in 
 the debates on the Reform Bill, we shall find no trace of mental weakness, 
 or any cause of parliamentary failure. How few men in the House could 
 have struck ofi" the following brief and philosophical summary ! — 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ' It could not be denied that if they looked back to the career of glory 
 which England had run during the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts, they 
 found that England during those periods held a high rank among nations 
 for wealth and splendour, and even then was regarded by other nations 
 as the country where the principles of liberty were best understood and 
 practised. But could it be argued that because England held that rank 
 among the nations during the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts, the country 
 was now to be satisfied with the institutions of those days ? Why, this 
 was an argument contrary to all history ; and, independent of history, it 
 was contrary to all principle. In infant states, the first things in order 
 were wealth and prosperity, and these might exist for a short time without 
 either liberal institutions or freedom ; but the fruit of wealth and pros- 
 perity was necessarily freedom. The first stage of what might be called 
 civilised society was generally that in which a munificent and prudent 
 tyrant ruled the destinies of a state, and encouraged those persons described 
 in the book of Ecclesiasticus, as men who wrought with their own hands, 
 and were cunning in works of wood, and brass, and iron. When wealth 
 increased, liberty followed ; for liberty was the daughter, not the mother, 
 of wealth. This was the case with the Italian republics, with the free 
 towns of Germany, with the ancient state of Corinth, and other Grecian 
 republics; and, latterly, with the towns and corporations of England. 
 Works of the utmost splendour and genius rendered England as proud a 
 name then as it had been since ; but was that any reason that when society 
 became enlarged, and the various links of it became more multiplied, the 
 basis of the constitution should not be widened, and room be found for 
 the multiplied children of freedom ? ' 
 
 He argued that the greatest of all dangers was, that the reaUy distressed 
 or aggrieved in the country should be led to tolerate doctrines of anarchy 
 in despair of legitimate redress. ' If the reasonably discontented were 
 propitiated and satisfied, would they not feel themselves the stronger, and 
 be the better able to deal with the unreasonable ? He wanted, amid the 
 political chaos, to establish a firmament which should separate the waters 
 above from the infernal Stygian below.' 
 
 In advocating the Scots Reform BiU, which it was his official duty to 
 prepare and superintend in its progress tlurough the House, IVIr Jeffrey 
 gave a lucid and eff'ective exposition of the anomalous and illusory system 
 of representation which then prevailed. We may quote his account of 
 Bute as a happy and remarkable illustration : — 
 
 ' All the voters in the county of Bute were twenty-one, and it was 
 ludicrous to state that twenty out of those twenty-one had no property 
 whatever in that county ; so that in that county there was only a single 
 voter connected with it by property, who, like a sovereign, was uncon- 
 trolled within it. At one election there, within the memory of man, when 
 the day of election came, only one person qualified to vote attended ; and 
 that person was the sheriff. He read the writ to the meeting as sheriff". 
 Then he constituted the meeting. Then, having constituted the meeting, 
 he called over the names on the roll. Then he answered to the names 
 himself Then he put the vote for a preses to the meeting ; he elected 
 himself preses ; he read over the minutes of the last meeting ; he moved 
 that they should be confirmed; he confirmed them himself; and, last of 
 28 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREY. 
 
 all, he put the representation to the vote ; and being himself the whole 
 meeting, made a mianimous return.' 
 
 If Jeffrey retired from parliament without one additional leaf of laurel — 
 harassed with party tactics, and worn out with late divisions — he retired 
 ■also without one stain on his honesty or disinterestedness as a politician. 
 He was welcomed to the Supreme Court by all the legal profession and by 
 the pubUc ; for all had confidence in his learning, his discernment, and his 
 industry. He earned a high reputation as a judge. Suitors were anxious 
 that their cases should be decided by him. He devoted the most careful 
 consideration to every question that came before him ; consulting autho- 
 rities and maturing his opinions in private, and stating fully in court, with 
 his usual candour and precision, the various grounds of his decisions. His 
 quickness in detecting sophistry and error sometimes led him to mterrupt 
 the counsel with significant and puzzling questions ; and there was at times 
 an over- solicitude and over-refinement in his mode of handling a case ; 
 partly arising from his conscientious sense of duty, and partly from his intel- 
 lectual liabits of subtle investigation and nice inquiry. Tliis, however, was 
 counteracted by the alacrity with which he could set to any amount of 
 labour, and his aversion to the accumulation of arrears. No better monument 
 to his legal skill and perseverance need be given than the records of cases 
 decided in the Court of Session within the last fifteen years. His judici&J 
 labours were relieved by his unabated love of literature. He contributed a 
 few articles to the ' Edinburgh Review,' including critiques on the Lives of 
 Mackintosh and Wilberforce ; and at length he consented to the publication 
 of a selection from the whole of his contributions, similar collections having 
 been made and pubUshed with great success from the writings of Macaulay 
 and Sydney Smith. Lord Jefiirey's work appeared in 1844, in four volumes, 
 being only about a third of what he had actually written for the Review. 
 The volumes were accompanied by a graceful, half-apologetic preface, and 
 by explanatory notes couched in a gentle and subdued sphit. All traces 
 of the keen invective and caustic frony had disappeared. The ' lord of the 
 unerring bow ' had sheathed his arrows. There was a full admission of the 
 errors and indiscretions of the earUer numbers of the Review, and of its 
 ' excesses both of party zeal, overweening confidence, and intemperate 
 blame.' Lord Jeffrey acknowledged that he had said ' petulant and pro- 
 voking things ' of Mr Southey, and that he had in many places spoken 
 ' rather too bitterly and confidently of the faults ' of Mr Wordsworth's 
 poetry. But in these cases, though regretting the manner of his strictures, 
 he still adhered substantially to the judgments he had given. Having 
 acknowledged his faults, he intimates his claim to the merit of having 
 more imiformly and earnestly than any preceding critic made the moral 
 tendencies of the works under consideration a leading subject of discus- 
 sion. The praise to which he aspired was, ' that of having constantly 
 endeavoured to combine ethical precepts with literary criticism, and 
 earnestly sought to impress his readers with a sense both of the close 
 connection between sound intellectual attainments and the higher elements 
 of duty and enjoyment, and of the just and ultimate subordination of the 
 former to the latter.' 
 
 The great critic realised all he aspired to, and much more. He made 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 good his claim to ' titles manifold.' His four volumes, though not contain- 
 ing all his most original or striking essays, are a repertory of sound and 
 valuable maxims, fine conceptions, and correct definitions. The actual 
 ■writings, however, afibrd no just criterion of the benefits which Jeflfrey 
 conferred upon his country. Who can calculate the impulse which he gave 
 to thought and opinion, to the whole current of our literatiure, to correct 
 principles of taste and reasoning, to enlarged views of government, of pub- 
 lic duty, and private morality ! Much that is valuable and instrumental in 
 periodical writing perishes in their use. The arguments necessary to help 
 on any great cause become to a certain extent superfluous and antiquated 
 when that cause is won, as elementary dissertations on law or morals 
 cease to interest in an advanced state of society. During his twenty-six 
 years of active duty as editor and reviewer, Jeffrey had stored the public 
 mind with principles and opinions which we have seen reduced to practice, 
 and which no party would now dispute, but which were violently assailed 
 •when presented in the pages of the ' Edinburgh Review.' To appreciate 
 him aright, we must go back to the times in which he wrote, when literary 
 criticism was low and servile, and political independence a rare and dan- 
 gerous quality — when he had to contend with discouragements on every 
 hand, and to inspire or cherish the taste and feelings of wliich we now reap 
 the advantages. Some of the reviews in his collected works, devoted 
 entirely to political questions — to Ireland, the nature of our relations with 
 America, the state of parties in England, and the subjects of parliamentary 
 reform and criminal jurisprudence — are solid and valuable constitutional 
 treatises. He not merely lightens on his subject — ^lie reasons closely on it, 
 and is logical as well as brilliant. 
 
 He loved to play with metaphysical abstractions ; and tliis, which was 
 one of his early triiunphs, now impedes instead of advancing his popularity. 
 He was just in time to catch the last gleams of metaphysical science from 
 Eeid, Stewart, and Alison; but the ' shadowy tribes of mind' retreated 
 before the certain light of physical science, and the delineation of human 
 passions and manners. The vivacity and ability with which Jeflfrey 
 could expoimd these mental theories astonished his contemporaries, and 
 certainly have never been exceeded. He had an exhaustless armoury 
 of language of all descriptions, to suit every shade of meanmg, and he 
 was always as definite and exact as he was copious and animated. Yet 
 the adventurous critic was very sceptical as to the utility of metaphy- 
 sical speculations. Instead of endeavouring to bring out a theory of his 
 own, he set himself to investigate critically all the theories most prevalent 
 in his day — to disentangle them from what he deemed doubtful and 
 obscure, and to exhibit within the smallest possible compass what is satis- 
 factory to our reason, or what bears in any degree on practical purposes. 
 Thus he considers the principle of veracity and the principle of credulity, 
 which Reid held to be original principles in human nature, to be merely 
 excrescences on that philosopher's system, and umiecessary to carry out 
 his views. He also cut off from Alison's theory of association the notion 
 of long trains of ideas and sensations, which he held to be equally super- 
 fluous. Jefirey's exposition of Alison's theory is one of his most elaborate 
 and complete metaphysical dissertations, and it is enriched with some of his 
 most picturesque and beautiful writing. He enlarged the article, and 
 SO 
 
FRANCIS JEFFREV. 
 
 rftprinted it as an essay on Beauty in the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica.' lie 
 evidently regarded it as the comer-stone of his fame. 
 
 His great superiority consists in the versatility of his powers, and the 
 perfect command he had over his faculties and acquirements. There was 
 scarcely a region of the intellectual world that he had not explored, yet 
 his natural endowments were greater than his acquisitions. The demands 
 of a laborious profession precluded any profound knowledge in the sciences 
 or abstruser branches of learning. He was more a man of the world than 
 an erudite scholar — more of a popular orator and lawj^er than an author , 
 yet how few have been able to rival him in mental philosophy or polite 
 literature ! His perceptions were so quick, as to seem intuitive, and his 
 sensibilities so keen, as to include every species of emotion. No poet could 
 have a greater admiration of the beauties of external nature, yet his fertile 
 imagination was but the handmaid of his clear and'powerful understanding. 
 His reasons and arguments on any subject were as strong and distinct as 
 his illustrations were rich and fanciful. When these were aided by the 
 fire of his eye, the animated expression of his countenance, and that flow 
 of language which seemed as if it were never to cease running and sparkling, 
 and which never made one abrupt or half-formed sentence, the impression 
 made by his genius and acquirements on all minds of the slightest suscep- 
 tibility was indescribable. Mrs Hemans compared the effect of his conver- ' 
 sation to drinking champagne. But Jeffrey aimed at higher things than 
 these. Both by his voice and his pen he sought to make men better, and 
 wiser, and happier. He had a deep sympathy with his kind in all its joys 
 and sorrows — a love of whatever was fair and good, and a scorn of whatever 
 was base, or mean, or hypocritical. His candour was as transparent as his 
 tnith. His highest flights as an orator or writer were connected with the 
 best feelings and interests of humanity. ' 
 
 At a late period of his life Lord Jeffrey was called upon, in his judicial 
 capacity, to deliver judgment in a case connected with the political re- 
 formers, Muir, Palmer, and Gerald. It was proposed in the year 1845 to 
 erect a monument to their memory, but the scheme was objected to chiefly 
 on political grounds. The Court of Session, by a majority of its body, 
 overruled the objection. Lord Jeffrey concurring. ' The thoughts,' he said, 
 ' which such a monument should suggest, even to those most opposed to 
 the views and opinions of its founders, are naturally of a solemn and 
 sobering character. And if, in some, they may stUl be too much mixed 
 up with feelings of anger at supposed injustice, and in others of immerciful 
 reprobation of offences, of which the mischief and the penalties have been 
 long ago consummated, I can only say that the blame will be with those 
 who continue, on either side, to cherish sentiments so uncharitable ; and 
 that, if there be any place where the iofluences of the scene in which they 
 are suggested are likely to soften them down to a more humane and in- 
 dulgent standard, it is when that scene is laid where the ■wicked cease from 
 troubling, and the weary rest ; and where everything should remind us of 
 our own fraU mortality, and of that awfid Seat of Judgment before which 
 none of us can hope to be justified — except tlu-ough mercy.' 
 
 This solemn and touching admonition may prepare us for the fast- 
 approaching sequel of our narrative. Lord Jeffrey's health had been 
 shaken by several severe attacks. His cheerfulness and clearness of 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 intellect, however, were undiminished. He scarcely seemed old even at 
 seventy-six. His evening parties at Craigcrcok, or at his house in Moray 
 Place, were the special delight of his friends ; his acts of generosity and 
 charity and unaffected kindness were stiU more numerous. Recent cir- 
 cumstances had revived his interest in the ' Edinburgh Review.' His only 
 child, a daughter, was married to IVIr Empson, professor of law in the 
 East India College at Haileybury; and in 1847, on the death of Mr 
 Macvey Napier, Mr Empson succeeded to the editorship of that journal 
 from which his illustrious relative had derived such solid and lasting 
 honours. Lord Jeffrey might now be seen in his leisure hours turning 
 over the leaves of a critique destined for publication, and perhaps suggest- 
 ing some golden thought or happy illustration to be set like a ' coigne of 
 vantage ' in the text. He was so engaged within one week of his death ! 
 Within four days of that event he sat in court, not having missed a day 
 during the season ; and one of his last writings was a letter, full of tender- 
 ness, addressed to the widow of his early friend, Sydney Smith, who had 
 sent him a printed copy of the Lectures on Moral Philosophy delivered by 
 Mr Smith so far back as 1806. His early associates and occupations — the 
 names and the duties so long familiar — were thus vividly before him at 
 the last ! The closuig hours were linked in beautiful sequency and uni- 
 formity with the morning splendour. On returning from the court on Tues- 
 day, January 26, 1850, Lord Jeffrey had a slight accession of cold, which 
 brought on his constitutional complaint, bronchitis ; fever followed, and at 
 six o'clock on Saturday afternoon, while his medical attendant was in the 
 act of feeling his pulse, life became extinct. His remains were interred 
 in the Western Cemetery, without any funereal pomp, as was his own 
 desire, but mom-ned deeply and widely with no common sorrow. He had 
 lived and died among his own people ; and his native country, amidst her 
 grief, rejoiced, and will long rejoice — in his fame. 
 
 ,-:C^ 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 AMONG the books which may be reckoned as belonging to the world's 
 acknowledged stereotypes, there are probably few that have been 
 read more fi-equently, or proved acceptable to a greater variety of tastes, 
 than the illustrious ' Robinson Crusoe.' TNliile, however, in connection 
 with this performance the author's name has become so extensively familiar, 
 it is principally by means of it that he continues to be remembered. The 
 generality of modern readers know little of the extent and merit of De 
 Foe's political and controversial writings, or of the conspicuous position 
 which he occupied on account of them with his contemporaries. Having 
 reference chiefly to the disputes and contentions of his times, these produc- 
 tions have naturally lost much of their original interest, and their value has 
 been therefore considerably diminished. It is nevei'theless conceived that 
 they are Avorthy of a more general investigation and attention ; and accord- 
 ingly it is here intended to fm-nish some account of them, and also to 
 present such an outline of the wi-iter's personal history, character, sufferings, 
 and disappointments, for conscience' sake and otherwise, as can be con- 
 veniently rendered withm the limits of the present Paper. 
 
 De Foe's entire works consist of more than two hmach-ed separate publi- 
 cations, embracing a vast variety of subjects, and all exhibiting evidences 
 of great ability, honesty of intention, and a keen perception of just and 
 wholesome principles. As a politician, he was throughout his whole 
 career the steady advocate of liberal interests, the manly and upright 
 champion of justice, of tolerance, and of all those citizen -rights valued 
 by honest EngUshmen. Living in a turbulent era of our history, when 
 tlie pretensions of rival and selfish factions were agitated with an 
 uiveterate and unprincipled animosity, he seems to have been m great 
 part proof against the prevalent contagion, and to have entertained the 
 questions in dispute with a scrupulous regard to their truthfulness or 
 reasonable expediency. By being an honester man than the generality, he 
 became the object of general misapprehension and opprobrium. Few men 
 had more of the world's notice in his day ; none more of its calumny and 
 persecution. In a more than ordinary degree he shared the fate of every 
 man who, by genius or cultivation, is m advance of his own times. The 
 party whose aims and schemmgs he opposed he very naturally offended ; 
 but he was also not unfrequently misrepresented and calumniated by the 
 36 i 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 very party -whose interests lie endeavoured to promote. This party con- 
 sisted of tlie nonconforming Presbyterians, wlio, as the successors of the 
 Puritans of the foregoing age, continued to protest against the narrowness 
 and dominancy of the Protestantism of the Reformation. De Foe is in a 
 certain sense tlie representative of tlie aims and spirit of modern Indepen- 
 dency : he was in creed and political principle a dissenting Presbyterian, 
 and he advocated most of the clauns and opinions by vhich the dissenting 
 sects were then, and are still in part, distinguished ; but he seems, upon the 
 whole, to have been greatly superior to his party, inasmuch as he was less 
 sectarian, and more liberal and catholic in his sentiments. 
 
 In proceeding to nari'ate the principal events and transactions of his life, 
 it may be well to mention at the outset that the particle De — for reasons 
 which cannot now be ascertained — was adopted, and not inherited, by our 
 author ; his original family name being simply Foe, without any euphonious 
 or ornamental prefix. Of his ancestry or immediate progenitors there is 
 very little known. The earliest that has been mentioned is his grandfather, 
 Daniel Foe, who was a substantial English yeoman, and farmed his own estate 
 at Elton in Northamptonshire. He is supposed to have been attached to the 
 Cavalier and High Church party ; and as an evidence of his respectability, 
 it has been recorded that he kept a pack of hounds for his diversion. 
 Daniel pleasantly relates, that his grandfather's huntsman had the irreverent 
 habit of naming his dogs after the most illustrious officers in the Puritan 
 and Royal forces : ' he had his Roundhead and his Cavalier, his Goring 
 and his Waller, and all the generals in both armies were hounds in his 
 pack ; till the times turning, the old gentlenaan was fain to scatter the 
 pack, and make them up of more dog-like surnames.' Besides scattering 
 his hounds, it would seem that Mr Foe had also to disperse his family, for 
 we find that James Foe, who is presumed to have been a younger son, 
 was ' sent at a proper age to London,' and there apprenticed to a butcher. 
 In this calling he became afterwards established in St Giles's, Cripplegate, 
 and after flourishing in business for many years, he ultimately retired upon 
 a decent competency, which he enjoyed until his death. He was the father 
 of our celebrated Daniel, who was born in the parish of St Giles's afore- 
 said in the year 1661. 
 
 His parents having embraced the Nonconformists' principles, the boy 
 was accordingly brought up in their ftiith. Of the manner in which 
 he spent his early years there is no existing record. The imagination 
 is left to picture him as it can. A lively and pleasant fellow we con- 
 ceive him to have been, of quick and generous impulses, not backward 
 to contend in feats of sport or warfare, but nowise given to the ex- 
 action of unfair advantages, for he says he ' learned from a boxing 
 English boy not to strike an enemy when he is down.' One cannot readily 
 bring his figure and appearance very near to us ; but there assuredly, in St 
 Giles's parish, Cripplegate, he once visibly lived and Avent to school with 
 his contemporaries. Nightly for some years was he perhaps seated at the 
 family table in the sitting-room — a little back parloiu-, as we foncy, behind 
 the butcher's shop — conning lessons for the coming day, and possibly 
 relieving his strained attention by counting the flies upon the ceiling. 
 There were times, doubtless, when he road !)Ooks for his ovn\ amusement : 
 most likely the historical portions of the Bible, and probably the wondrous 
 2 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 allegory of the ' Pilgi-im's Progress.' On Sundays he had to put on a 
 grave face, and go fortli witli tlie family to the ' meethig-house in Little 
 St Helen's, Bishopsgate Street,' to hear the Kev. Dr Annelsey, ' an esteemed 
 Presbyterian minister,' wlio had been formerly ejected from the incumbency 
 of Cripplegate. There, with subdued and steady countenance, in the gi-ave 
 Presbyterian congregation, Daniel undoubtedly sat and listened to the 
 fervid eloquence of the preacher, and imbibed from it somethuig of the 
 manly independence and invincible love of liberty which he was destined 
 afterwards to display in his ovm career. It is even conceivable that the 
 good minister sometimes visited his father's house, and it is not unlikely 
 that, on suitable occasions, he may have put his hand on the boy's head, and 
 bade him remember to stand resolutely by the prmciples and religious 
 doctrines in which he had been instructed. 
 
 It were interesting to know Avhether Daniel ever earned a butcher's 
 tray, and what was the price of mutton, as his father retailed it to cus- 
 tomers, two hundred years ago. To such questions as these, however, we 
 can now obtain no answer. But judging from the prosperous cu-cum- 
 stances of his family, and from the fact that young De Foe was early des- 
 tined for the Presbj'terian ministry, it seems improbable that he was ever 
 actively connected with his father's business. At the age of foui-teen, 
 after he had been sufficiently qualified by inferior teachers, he was sent to 
 a Nonconfonnist college, or academy, at Newington, then under the direc- 
 tion of the Eev. Charles Morton, a gentleman who had the reputation of 
 being a ' polite and profound scholar.' Here he is reported to have had 
 great advantages for learning, and to have lived in very agreeable society. 
 Little, however, is known of his manner of life, or of the progi-ess which he 
 made while residing at this institution ; but it has been concluded, fi'om 
 certahi passages in his wi-itings, that he had not failed to turn his oppor- 
 tunities to account. He has informed us that he had in his tune been 
 master of five languages, and that he had studied the mathematics, natural 
 philosophy, logic, geography, and history. With the theory and practical 
 capabilities of the Englisli constitution he was thoroughly acquainted : and 
 he sometimes boasts of having investigated politics as a science. Under 
 the duection of his tutor, he went through the authorised courses of theo- 
 logy, in which he acquu-ed such a proficiency as enabled him to cope with 
 the acutest ^vriters of the disputatious age in which he lived. His know- 
 ledge of ecclesiastical history was also very considerable ; and indeed his 
 attainments in all departments of general information were such as to 
 entitle him to be considered a person of gi-eat intelligence and cultivation. 
 A man of deep or extensive * learning,' in the technical acceptation, he 
 certainly never was, nor as such was he ever desu-ous of being regarded ; 
 but that he was anything like the 'illiterate person' which some of his 
 opponents delighted to represent him to be, there is evidence enough 
 in his writings to disprove. The poet Gay, adopting the cant of the 
 Scriblerus Club, speaks of him as ' a fellow who had excellent natural 
 parts, but wanted a small foundation of learning,' and cites him as ' a lively 
 instance of those wits who, as an ingenious author says, will endiu-e but 
 one skimming;' but this is a judgment which time has since emphatically 
 reversed ; and it is not likely that it will be agam referred to, either in 
 depreciation of De Foe, or by way of illustrating the poet's penetration. 
 
 3 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 At what time De Foe quitted the Newington institution is not distinctly 
 known ; neither is it apparent what induced him to abandon the design of 
 entering the Presbyterian ministry. Perhaps he had no sufficient sense of 
 any call to the work. It has even been surmised that the volatility of his 
 disposition might have proved incompatible with that dignified vocation. 
 An early turn for authorship, and an inveterate tendency for satire, may 
 have contributed to unfit him for entering into the ministry with an exclu- 
 sive devotion to its duties, and may possibly have determined him to 
 renounce his purpose, for the sake of addressing himself more freely to 
 literary and political pursuits. At anyrate, at the age of twenty-one he 
 came forth boldly as an author, embracmg the popular side in politics. His 
 first production was a spu-ited lampoon, levelled at the noted Roger 
 L'Estrange, who, in a work entitled a ' Guide to the Inferior Clergy,' had 
 recently advanced some highly illiberal notions. De Foe's pamphlet bore the 
 title of ' Speculum Crape-Gownorum ; or a Looking-Glass for the Young 
 Academicks, new Foyl'd : with Reflections on some of the late High-flown 
 Sermons, to which is added an Essay towards a Sermon of the Newest 
 Fashion. By a Guide to the Inferior Clergy. London : 1682.' The 
 title was adopted in allusion to the crape-gowns then in use among the 
 inferior clergy, and the banter was sufficiently effective to put them out of 
 fashion, and thereby damage the respectability of the material, against 
 which, however, the author had no particular antipathy. The design of 
 the work was to expose and ridicule the pretensions of the High Church 
 faction. The most amusing portion is the sermon, which is a clever parody 
 of the pulpit discourses of the times, and was especially intended to satirise 
 the ' crape-gown men' for their interferences Avith politics, ' that they may 
 see how ridiculous they are, when they stand fretting, and fuming, and 
 heating themselves about state affairs in their pulpits.' Its success with 
 the tovm, and the fertility of the subject, induced the author to follow it 
 up with a second part, in which, however, he deals more seriously with 
 the government on account of its severity to Dissenters, and by exhibitmg 
 the practical effects of persecution, cleverly exposes its absurdity. The 
 work seems to have attracted attention enough to lead some one to reply 
 to it, as the same year we have notice of a publication bearmg the title of 
 'Reflections upon Two Scurrilous Libels, called Speculum Crape-Gownorum.' 
 The author is commonly supposed to have been L'Estrange himself. 
 
 Three years after the publication of his pamphlet — namely, in the sum- 
 mer of 1685 — De Foe engaged in practical hostility against the government 
 of James 11., by joining the standard of the Duke of Monmouth when he 
 landed in Dorsetshire with his hundred and fifty men, for the purpose of 
 delivering the country from the dominion of arbitrary rule, and the antici- 
 pated sway of popery, and thereby gaining for himself the crown of Eng- 
 land — ' a romantic kind of invasion,' says Welwood, ' which is scarcely 
 paralleled in history.' On the suppression of this rebellion, our adven- 
 turous volunteer narrowly escaped beuig taken prisoner. Eluding pursuit, 
 however, he managed to save his head ; and being personally unknown in 
 that part of the kingdom which was the seat of the insurrection, he does 
 not appear to have been afterwards suspected, and therefore was never 
 brought to trial for liis treason. Returning subsequently to London, he 
 next proceeded to settle himself peaceably in business, resolved, if possibly, 
 4 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 to refrain from interfering furtlier in public or polemical affairs. In Free- 
 man's Court, near the thoroiiglifare of Cornliill, he accordingly became 
 established as a hose-factor, designing to live by a reasonable commission 
 on the sale of stockings. In 1(j88, being a freeman by birth, he was 
 admitted into the livory of London. For ten years he devoted himself 
 more or less to business ; but the times were too unfavourable to permit 
 him to succeed. The discontents and agitations of the country, occasioned 
 by the arbitrary proceeduigs of the king, who was aiming at absolute 
 power over the lives and consciences of his subjects, and fomented by the 
 disputes and controversies of the several factions into which the nation 
 was divided, were of too exciting and interesting a character for a man of 
 De Foe's active and earnest tempei'ament to refrain from taking part in 
 tliem. Mixing continually in company, in coffee-houses and in taverns, he 
 seems to have spent more of his time in discussing the movements and 
 pretensions of the parties, and the bearhigs of political disputes, than in 
 attending to his personal interests at the counter. With hun, it would 
 appear, there was no altei-native : when the wellbeing of the nation, and 
 the most important liberties of the people were endangered, all private 
 convenience and advantage ceased, in comparison, to have any sensible 
 hold on his regards. He therefore stood forth boldly in defence of the 
 popular rights, speaking and writing whatsoever might seem to hun 
 calculated to consolidate and support them. 
 
 One of the prominent dogmas of the day, and one which served the 
 cause of despotism more effectually than any other, was the absurd preten- 
 sion of the unlimited and unconditional divine right of kings. ' It was for 
 many years,' says De Foe, ' and I am witness to it, that the pulpit sounded 
 nothing but the duty of absolute submission, obedience without reserve, 
 subjection to princes as God's vicegerents, accountable to none, to be 
 withstood in nothing, and by no person. I have heard it publicly preached, 
 that if the king commanded ray head, and sent his messengers to fetch it, 
 I was bound to submit, and stand still while it was cut off.' That the 
 reader may be assured that this is really no caricature of the opinions 
 which then prevailed, let him take the following delectable passage from a 
 published sermon of the bishop of Chester in those days, who undoubtedly 
 spoke only what were the common sentiments of the clergy : — ' Though 
 the king,' saith he, ' should not please or humour us — though he rend off 
 the mantle from our bodies, as Saul did from Samuel — nay, though he 
 should sentence us to death, of which, blessed be God and the king, there 
 is no danger ; yet, if we were living members of the Church of England, 
 we must neither open our mouths nor lift up our hands against him, but 
 honour him before the eldei's and people of Israel ; nor must we ask our 
 prince why he governs us otherwise than we please to be governed our- 
 selves ; we must neither call him to account for his religion, nor question 
 his policy in civil matters, for he is made oiu: king by God's law, of which 
 the law of the land is only declarative ! ' * 
 
 To tliis sort of doctrine De Foe altogether objected to subscribe, and 
 scrupled not to denounce it as an abominable heresy. Such a presump- 
 tuous exaltation of the divine right of kings he considered to be entirely 
 
 * Somers's Tracts, ix. 129. 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 subversive of the divine rights of men ; and rather than acknowledge 
 it, or sanction its acknowledgment, he was constrained to try the case by- 
 logical disputation, and was even nowise disinclined to try it by argument 
 of battle. To this disposition, indeed, the whole country came at last. 
 James II., in attempting to carry the current dogmas into practice, aroused 
 a imiversal opposition to his schemes and government ; and Church of 
 England people and Dissenters finally combined to expel him from the 
 kingdom. The 4th of November, the day on which the Prince of Orange 
 landed, De Foe is reported to have commemorated ever afterwards as a 
 sort of sacred holiday. 'It is a day,' said he, 'famous on various 
 accounts, and every one of them dear to Britons who love their country, 
 value the Protestant interest, or who have an aversion to tyranny and 
 oppression.' In the following year, when King William and Queen Mary 
 visited the City, our exulting Dissenter rode on horseback in the proces- 
 sion as a member of a royal regiment of volunteers. 
 
 The Revolution being settled, De Foe appears for some time to have 
 abstained from politics, and to have directed his attention principally to 
 affairs of trade. For some years past he had been engaged in ' commercial 
 speculations with Spain and Portugal ; ' but being repeatedly unsuccessful, he 
 finally failed in business. The occupations of trade seldom assort well with 
 literary genius, and it is thought that De Foe's lively and discursive talents 
 were the principal hindrance to his- success. ' With the usual imprudence 
 of superior genius,' says Mr Chahners, ' he was carried by his vivacity into 
 companies who were gratified by his wit. He spent those hours with a 
 small society for the cultivation of polite learning which he ought to have 
 employed in the calculations of the counting-house ; and being obliged to 
 abscond from his creditors in 1692, he naturally attributed those mis- 
 fortimes to the war which were probably owing to his own misconduct.' 
 Be this as it may, it is very evident that his failure was no impeachment 
 to his honesty. An angry creditor, indeed, took out a commission of 
 bankruptcy against him ; but this was shortly afterwards superseded, on 
 the petition of those to whom he was most indebted, and who accepted a 
 composition on his single bond. This was punctually paid, as he became 
 capable of paymg it, by efforts of unwearied diligence. Some of his 
 creditors who had been thus satisfied, falling afterwards into difficulties 
 themselves, De Foe voluntarily paid up their entire claim — ' an example 
 of honesty,' says Mr Chahners, ' which it would be unjust to De Foe and 
 to the world to conceal.' The amount for which he failed cannot now be 
 ascertained, but it must have been considerable, and shows that he was no 
 peddling or petty trader, such as his political enemies delighted m repre- 
 senting him. Bemg repi'oached by Lord liaversham as a mercenary, Do 
 Foe tells him, in 1705, that ' with a numerous family, and no help but his 
 own industry, he had forced his way, with undiscouraged diligence, through 
 a sea of misfortunes, and reduced his debts, exchisive of composition, from 
 seventeen thousand to less than five thousand pounds.' * 
 
 As the estimate to be taken of De Foe's moral character must be 
 in great part determmed by his conduct under these pecuniary difil- 
 
 * Eeply to Lord Haversliam's Vindication. 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 culties, it is essential that wliatcvcr evidence there may be now exist- 
 ing iUustrative of liis integrity sliould be fairly stated. In the tirst 
 place, it would appear that liis personal probity was unsuspected ; for ' so 
 high a sense of his lionour was entertained by his creditors, that they 
 agreed to take his own personal security for the amount of composition 
 upon his debts.' The confidence reposed in him seems likewise to have 
 been justitied, inasmuch as he returned ultimately to all or the greater 
 number of his creditors the full amount of their original claim. ' This,' 
 says Mr Wilson, ' was a fine illustration of the effect of moral principle, 
 and an exemplification of the advice he gave to others.' Which advice is : 
 ' Never thmk yourselves discharged m conscience, though you may be 
 discharged in law. The obligation of an honest mind can never die. No 
 title of honour, no recorded merit, no mark of distinction, can exceed that 
 lastmg appellation— an lionest man. He that lies biu'ied under such aa. 
 epitaph has more said of liim than volumes of history can contain. The 
 payment of debts, after fair discharges, is the clearest title to such a 
 character that I know ; and how any man can begin agam, and hope for a 
 blessing from Heaven, or fiivour from man, without such a resolution, I 
 know not.' * We thus see that De Foe's notions of obligation were nowise 
 lax or latitudinarian. As an illustration of his practice, let us take the 
 followmg recorded testimony to his honesty, by one w^ho was no friend of 
 liis, £i-om a pamphlet entitled, ' A Dialogue between a Dissenter and the 
 Observator,' published m 1702. ' I must do one piece of justice to the 
 man,' observes the writer, ' though I love him no better than you do. It 
 is this, that meeting a gentleman in a coffee-house, when I and every- 
 body else were railing at him, the gentleman took us up with this short 
 speech—" Gentlemen," said he, " I know this De Foe as well as any of 
 you, for I was one of his creditors, compomided with him, and discharged 
 him fully. Several years afterwards he sent for me, and though he was 
 clearly discharged, he paid me all the remainder of his debt voluntarily, 
 and of his own accord ; and he told me, that as far as God should enable 
 him, he mtended to do so with everybody. TNTien he had done, he desu-ed 
 me to set my hand to a paper to acknowledge it, which I readily did, and 
 foimd a great many names to the paper before me ; and I thmk myself 
 bound to own it, though I am no fi-iend to the book he -nTOte any more 
 than you." ' The v.'ork alluded to was the ' Shortest Way with the Dis- 
 senters,' of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 
 
 De Foe is thus as far as possible exonerated from blame, and in this 
 unhappy failure must be regarded rather as an unfortunate than as a 
 fraudulent or miprincipled speculator — as many of the contemporary 
 scribblers, without knowing him sufficiently, were accustomed to consider 
 him. The passage just quoted affords as satisfactory a proof of his upright 
 and honom-able efforts and intentions as can be reasonably desu-ed. To 
 avoid the operation of the harsh and crushing laws, however, that were 
 then in force against insolvents, he appears to have absconded, and lived 
 in hiding for some time under a blighted reputation. To what part of the 
 kingdom he retired is not clearly kno'rni; but as it was ascertained 
 that he once resided for a wliile at Bristol, it has been supposed that he 
 
 * Review, iii. 147-48. 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 did so at the time wlien lie was under appreliensions from liis creditors. 
 There is even a tradition wliich seems to countenance tlie supposition. A 
 gentleman of that city informed Mr Wilson that one of his ancestors had a 
 distinct recollection of De Foe, and often spoke of having seen him walkmg 
 in the streets of Bristol, accoutred in the fashion of the times, with a tuie 
 flowing wig, lace ruffles, and a sword by his side : also that he there 
 obtained the name of ' The Sunday Gentleman,' because, through fear of 
 bailiffs, he did not dax'e to appear in public upon any other day. The 
 fact of De Foe's residence in Bristol, either at this or some later period 
 of his life, is further corroborated by another circumstance, mentioned to 
 Mr Wilson by the friend alluded to. By this it appears that there was 
 formerly a tavern in Castle Street, known by the sign of the Red Lion, and 
 kept by one Mark Watkins, ' an intelligent man, who had been in better 
 circumstances,' and whose house was in considerable repute among the 
 Bristol tradesmen, who were then in the habit of resorting to it after 
 dmner for the purpose of smoking then* pipes, and hearing the news and 
 small talk of the day. Here De Foe, following the custom of the times, 
 is reported to have spent an occasional afternoon among the company, and 
 was well known to the landlord under the same name of ' The Sunday 
 Gentleman.' Mark Watkins, who appears to have been a humourist, is said 
 to have entertamed his guests in after-tunes with a very whimsical account 
 ■of a strange man, who went about Bristol clothed m goat-skms, and who 
 he affirmed was none other than the celebrated Kobinson Crusoe.* The 
 house, we believe, is still standmg, but has been latterly reduced to a 
 mere pot-house, so that none need go there to make mquiries about 
 De Foe. 
 
 Having at length come to a satisfactory arrangement with his creditors, 
 De Foe was enabled to emerge from his retirement. For two years he had 
 been living m unpleasant and involuntary leisure : not indeed altogether 
 idly ; for notwithstanding the pressure of his affairs, he contrived to write a 
 book. This was his ' Essay upon Projects,' which, however, he did not tind 
 ■ it convenient to publish till nearly live years afterwards. Of his proceed- 
 • ings subsequent to his liberation he himself gives us the followmg accovmt : — 
 " ' Misfortunes in business having unhinged me from matters of trade, it was 
 -about 1694 when I was invited by some mex'chants, with whom I had cor- 
 responded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz in Spain ; and 
 that with the offers of very good commissions. But Providence, which had 
 other work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind to quitting 
 England upon any account, and made me refuse the offers of that kind, 
 to be concerned Avith some eminent persons at home, in proposing ways 
 and means to the government for raising money to supply the occasions of 
 the war then newly begun. '-j- The war m question was an expensive one 
 with Fi-ance, entered on in support of the title of King William, and for 
 the purpose of arresting the conquests of Louis XIV. ; and it was part of 
 De Foe's business to devise and suggest taxes, to enable the government 
 to carry on the enterprise. 'Some time after. this,' says he in continua- 
 tion of the statement just quoted, ' I was, without the least application 
 
 * De Foe's Life and Times, by Walter Wilson. 
 f Appeal to Honour and Justice, pp. 5-6. 
 
DANIEL DE I'OE. 
 
 of mine, and being then seventy miles from London, sent fox* to be tlia- 
 accountant to the Commissioners of the Ghiss-Duty, in whidi service I 
 continued to the determination of their connnission.' This appointment lie 
 received in 1G95, and licld it till the suppression of the tax in August IG'J'J. 
 
 About this time, or somewhat earlier, De Foe became a partner in certain 
 tile-and-brick-kiln works at Tilbury in Essex, and continued to be the 
 actmg secretary of the concern for several years. Here he had a country- 
 house, overlooking the river Thames, and seems to have lived for some 
 time in thriving circumstances. With his share of the proceeds of the 
 business, and his settled salary as accountant to the Glass Commissioners, 
 he is once more in a condition to pay his way, and by dint of thrift do 
 something to reduce his former debts. As a scheme, perhaps, for raising 
 additional ways and means, he now, in 179G, ventured on the publication 
 of the before-mentioned ' Essay upon Projects.' Herein he descants largely 
 and sensibly on ' politics, commerce, and benevolence.' He expatiates on 
 banks, highways, and bankruptcy ; and amongst other thmgs advocates a 
 plan for the promotion of friendly societies, ' formed by mutual assurance, 
 for the relief of the members in seasons of distress.' By way of experi- 
 ment, he proposes to establish one for the support of destitute widows, 
 and another for the assistance of seamen. ' The same thought,' says he, 
 ' might be improved into methods that should prevent the general misery 
 and poverty of mankind, and at once secure us against beggars, parish- 
 poor, alms-houses, and hospitals ; by which not a creature so miserable or 
 so poor but should claim subsistence as their due, and not ask it of charity.' 
 AYe have here the seminal idea of all the friendly clubs, savings' banks, 
 and mutual associations, that have since been established in the country. 
 Another of his projects was the formation of institutions for cultivating 
 certain neglected branches of education. He conceived that there might 
 be some academy or society for correcting, purifying, and estabbshing the 
 English language, such as had been fomided in France under Cardinal 
 liichelieu. ' The work of this society,' says he, ' should be to encourage 
 polite leai-ning, to polish and retine the English tongue, and advance the so- 
 much-neglected faculty of correct language ; also to establish purity and 
 propriety of style, and to purge it from all the irregular additions that 
 igTiorance and affectation have introduced ; and all those innovations of 
 speech, if I may call them such, which some dogmatic wi-iters have the 
 confidence to foster upon their native language, as if their authority were 
 sufficient to make their own fancy legitimate.' A similar notion had been 
 started m the time of Charles H. by Lord Roscommon and the poet 
 Dryden ; and when De Foe had thus revived it, it was agam renewed by 
 Prior, and subsequently by Swift ; though in spite of promises from various 
 influential persons, no attempt was ever made to carry it into practical 
 effect, and it remains to this day as a matter worthy of consideration. 
 
 Schemes for military schools, and for lunatic asylums of an educational 
 description, were also ingeniously propounded, and their practicability and 
 advantages very ably stated in this treatise. But perhaps the most inte- 
 resting of all the author's projects is that of an institution for the better 
 education of young women. As De Foe's remarks on such a subject will 
 tend to illustrate the comparative progress which has been made m female 
 culture since the time at which he wrote, let us here insert some sentences 
 X 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 on the dignity of woman. ' We reproach the sex every day,' says he, 
 ' with folly and impertinence, while I am confident had they the advantages 
 of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.' He 
 complains that the women of his time were taught merely the mechanical 
 parts of knowledge — such as reading, wi'iting, and sewing — instead of being 
 exalted into rational companions ; and he argues that men in the same class 
 of society would cut a sorry figure if then- education were to be equally 
 neglected. ' The soul,' he observes, ' was placed in the body like a rough 
 diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And 
 it is manifest, that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so 
 education carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than 
 others. Why, then, should women be denied the benefit of instruction ? If 
 knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God 
 would never have given them capacities, for he made nothing needless. 
 Wliat has woman done to forfeit the privilege of bemg taught ? Does she 
 plague us with her pride and impertinence ? ^^^ly do we not let her learn, 
 that she may have more wit ? Shall we upbraid woman with folly, when 
 it is only the error of this inhuman custom that hmders her being made 
 wiser ? . . . . Women, in my observation of them, have little or no diflfer- 
 ence, but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers, 
 indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing 
 part is their breeding. If a woman be well-bred, and taught the proper 
 management of her natural wit, she proves generally veiy sensible and 
 retentive : and, without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the 
 finest and most delicate part of God's creation, the glory of her Maker, 
 and the great mstance of his singular regard to man, to whom he gave the 
 best gift either God could bestow or man receive : and it is the sordidest 
 piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the 
 due lustre which the advantages of education give to the natural beauty of 
 their minds. A woman, well-bred and well taught, furnished with the 
 additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavioui-, is a creature 
 without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments ; 
 she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight ; she is every way 
 suitable to the sublimest wish ; and the man that has such a one to his 
 portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thanlvfuL' Persons 
 imperfectly acquainted with De Foe will have probably been unprepared to 
 give him credit for so much elegance and delicacy of sentiment as are here 
 displayed, and which certainly were nowise very common among the wits 
 and gentlemen of his age. 
 
 With regard to the substance and execution of this work, Mr Walter 
 Wilson has accurately remarked, that ' it abounds in strong sense, couched 
 in nervous language, and contains some specimens of good writing. His 
 sentiments upon the various topics discussed are delivered with diffidence, 
 but at the same time with becoming freedom; and they discover a versatility 
 of genius, accompanied by correct thinking, that are not often united in 
 the same individual.'* It is a book, indeed, which is now but little known, 
 and rarely read, but it is nevertheless in several respects worthy of perusal. 
 Of its sterlmg and substantial merit there needs no better testimony 
 
 * De Foe's Life and Times. 
 10 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 than that of Dr Franklin, who found it in his Other's library, and, alluding 
 to it, says, he received impressions from it which influenced some of the 
 principal events of his after-life. 
 
 After the publication of this perfomnance I)e Foe several times exercised 
 his pen in writing pamphlets on various political topics, but produced 
 nothing of any moment till in 1G98 he came fonvard with a tract designed 
 to further the reformation of manners in the nation. The exceeding dis- 
 soluteness of the times had oflended the moral sense of the constitutional 
 monarch, who had been used to stricter ways, and accordingly, in his 
 speech of the present year, he signified a desire for improvement. ' I 
 esteem it,' said he, ' one of the greatest advantages of the peace (which 
 had lately been concluded), that I shall now have leisure to rectify such 
 corruptions and abuses as have crept into any part of the administration 
 during the war, and eft'ectually to discourage profaneness and immorality.' 
 The House of Commons, m tlieir address to the king shortly afterwards, 
 commended his design, declarnig their readiness to support him ; and ' in 
 concui-rence with his majesty's pious intentions, they most humbly desired 
 that his majesty would issue out his royal proclamation, commanding all 
 judges, justices of the peace, and other magistrates, to put m speedy exe- 
 cution the good laws that were now in force against profaneness and immo- 
 rality, giving encouragement to all such as did their duty therein.' The 
 king, in reply, said that ' he could not but be veiy well pleased with an 
 address of this nature, and he would give immediate du-ections to the 
 several particulars they desired.' Accordingly, a proclamation was issued 
 for preventing and punishing the crimes and vices specified ; and the par- 
 liament passed a bill to the same effect. In the like spu-it the archbishop 
 of Canterbury drew up some ' excellent rules for the government of the 
 clergy,' which he communicated in a circular letter to the bishops of his 
 province. These several proceedings De Foe looked upon with interest, 
 but only with a partial satisfaction, inasmuch as he perceived that the 
 pains and penalties instituted to effect the intended reforaiation were all 
 likely to have a one-sided and exclusive operation, and would fall mainly, 
 if not entirely, on those classes of society who were called the ' common 
 people.' To serve the cause of these, he therefore published ' The Poor 
 Man's Plea, in relation to all the Proclamations, Declarations, Acts of 
 Parliament, &c. which have been or shall be made, or Published, for a 
 Reformation of Manners, and Suppressing Immorality in the Nation ; ' and 
 in this production he presented the public with a view of the subject not 
 theretofore considered, and facetiously suggested a variety of reformations 
 which, in his opinion, were required to insure the success of the rigorous 
 measures contemplated. 
 
 'In searching for the proper cure of an epidemic disease,' says he, 
 * physicians tell us it is fu'st necessary to know the cause. Immorality is 
 without doubt the present reigning distemper of the nation ; and the king 
 and parliament, who are indeed the proper physicians, seem nobly inclined 
 to undertake the cure. But as a person under the violence of a disease 
 sends in vain for a physician, unless he resolves to make use of his pre- 
 scription, so in vain does the king attempt to reform a nation, unless they 
 are willing to reform themselves.' After noticing with due commendation 
 the efforts of the public authorities, he says — ' These are gi'eat things, and, if 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPEES FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 well improved, would give an undoubted overthrow to tlie tyranny of vice. 
 Be we of the Plehil lind ourselves justly aggrieved in all this work of 
 reformation, and the partiality of the reforming rigour makes the real 
 work impossible. Our laws against all manner of vicious practices are 
 very severe ; but these are all cobweb laws, in which the small flies 
 are caught, and the great ones break through. My Lord Mayor has 
 whipped about the poor beggars, and a few scandalous females have 
 been sent to the House of Correction ; some alehouse keepers and vintners 
 have been fined for di-awing drmk on the Sabbath-day ; but all this falls 
 upon us of the mob, as if all the vice lay among us. We appeal to your- 
 selves, whether laws or proclamations are capable of having any effect 
 while the very benches of our justices are infected ? 'Tis hard, gentlemen, 
 to be punished for a crime by a man as guilty as ourselves : this is really 
 pimishing men for bemg poor, which is no crime" at all ; as a thief may be 
 said to be hanged not for the theft, but for being taken.' De Foe is not 
 backward to acknowledge that in the upper classes are to be found many 
 persons of honour and good morals, but their partiality in the execution of 
 the laws rendered them almost as criminal as the vicious. ' The quality 
 of the person,' he observes, ' has been a license to the open exercise of the 
 worst crimes ; as if there were any baronets, knights, or esquires in the 
 next world, who, because of those little steps custom had raised them on 
 higher than their neighbours, they should be exempted from the divine 
 judicature ; or, as Captam Vratz, who was hanged for miu'dering Esquire 
 Thynne, said, " God would show them some respect, as they were gentle- 
 men." ' 
 
 Upon the importance of example in the higher orders, he remarks — ' If 
 my own watch goes false, it deceives me and no one else ; but if the town 
 clock goes false, it deceives the whole parish. The gentry are the leaders 
 of the mob : if they are lewd and drunken, the others strive to imitate 
 them ; if they discourage vice and intemperance, the others will not be so 
 forward in it, nor so fond of it.' Of another class of persons who, by the 
 theory of their position, should be patterns of all goodness, he observes — 
 ' The clergy also ought not to count themselves exempted in this matter, 
 whose lives have been, and in some places still are, so vicious and so loose 
 that it is well for England we are not subject to be much priest-ridden. 
 The parson preaches a thundering sermon against drunkenness, and the 
 justice of peace sets my poor neighbour in the stocks, and I am like to be 
 ^uch the better for either, when I know, perhaps, that this same parson 
 and this same justice were both drunk together but the night before. A 
 vicious parson that preaches well, but lives iU, may be likened to an un- 
 skilful -liorseman who opens a gate on the wrong side, and lets other folks 
 through, but shuts himself out. The application of this rough doctrine,' 
 he concludes, ' is, in short, both to the gentry and clergy — Physicians, lical 
 yourselves!^ 
 
 For his own labours in the cause of reformation, De Foe informs us that 
 he was signally ill treated, and calumniated ' as a reproachor of magistrates, 
 a reviler of the rulers of the people, and a meddler with what was not his 
 own business.' The work, however, was not without its influence on the 
 public: we are told that 'an lionest, learned, and judicious clergyman, was 
 even pleased to commend it from the pulpit ' — though, as De Foe relates, he 
 12 
 
 J 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 was censiired for the sermon, and ' is hated to this day (eight years after- 
 wards) by all the leading men of the parish of St J , not far from the 
 
 city of London.' The offence which the book occasioned no doubt arose 
 out of its truthfulness, and its close and cutting application to the actual 
 conditions of the times. The WTiter was obviously correct in his position, 
 that unless wickedness in high places could be reduced, it would be both 
 folly and unfaii-ness to attempt its suppression in the low. 
 
 Some time towards the close of the century, De Foe appears to have 
 taken up his residence at Hackney, for the sake, probably, of being nearer 
 to the metropolis, the grand scene of political movements and adventures. 
 Here we lind him with a settled household, a married man with children 
 aroimd him, one of which was born here in 1701, as is evidenced by an 
 entry of baptism in the parish register. How long he had been mamed, or 
 what fair lady he had linked his fate with, are points of his biography 
 which have never come to light. Being, however, on the verge of forty, 
 it is probable that he was by this time a paternal personage of some 
 standing, since in his writings there are repeated allusions to his large 
 family. For instance, in 1706 he speaks of seven children; and subse- 
 quently, in 1712, he refers to six, one having died in infancy during the 
 interval, in 1707. For the rest we can obtain no authentic information 
 about his circumstances, though, from what subsequently transpked, and 
 will be related in its course, we have reason to presume that he continued 
 to maintain a prosperous and respectable position. Meanwhile, with every 
 occasion involving the interests or honour of the country, he is certain to 
 be ready with a pamphlet. On aU questions he can find a shrewd word to 
 say — standing armies, changes of ministry, international diplomacy, the 
 qualifications necessary for a member of parliament — on all these, and on 
 whatever else may for the time be uppermost as a topic for discussion, 
 he will boldly and emphatically, like a genuine Englishman, speak his 
 mind. Nor can it be denied that what he says is often extremely perti- 
 nent to the subject. Take, for instance, one brief sentence of advice from 
 his ' Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man,' published on the 
 occasion of a general election in 1701. It is his opinion that the persons 
 chosen should be thoroughly satisfied with the order of thmgs established 
 at the Revolution ; therefore neither Papists nor Jacobites, nor other 
 declared or supposed friends of James H., can be reasonably considered 
 eligible. To such he has nothing to say provided they keep the peace, and 
 do not push themselves into public notice : ' but,' says he, ' to single out 
 such men to serve the nation in a Protestant parliament, and to advise 
 King "William in matters of the highest importance, is a thing so prepos- 
 terous, that I know not what to say to it : 'tis like gomg to the devil with 
 a case of conscience.' It seems to us, that at the time when this was 
 written, it was a most necessary and important caution, and precisely the 
 one which a wise and prudent man would give in order to guard against the 
 dangers that were then most threatening to the state. There is a pene- 
 trating and statesmanlike discernment in it, much beyond the capacity of 
 ordinary politicians, who are famous for never seeing a diflicidty till they 
 find themselves no longer able to contend with it. 
 
 Now, however, about this same year of 1701, the serpents of faction are 
 
 13 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 beginning to raise their heads and hiss, malignantly designating our respect- 
 able Dutch monarch by the opprobrious epithet of ' foreigner.' This term 
 had then a very offensive meanmg, and there -was even danger that simple- 
 minded people might be signally misled by it. De Foe therefore puts 
 saddle and bridle upon a sort of Pony-Pegasus, and valiantly rides forth 
 with a poetical satire called the ' True-born Englishman.' It opens with 
 the memorable lines, which have since become a proverb — 
 
 ' Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
 The devil always builds a chapel there ; 
 And 'twill be found upon examination 
 The latter has the largest congregation.' 
 
 The object of the satire is to reproach the author's discontented country- 
 men with ingratitude for abusing Kmg WiUiam as a foreigner, and to 
 humble their pride for despising some of the newly-created nobility on the 
 same accoimt. He accoi'dingly traces the elevation of our ancient families 
 to the favour of the Norman Conqueror, who partitioned out the country 
 among liis followers, and by his usurped prerogative made them lords and 
 denizens. He conceives that the descendants of a nobility so created have 
 not much to boast of; and he thus strongly exposes their inordinate pride 
 of ancestry : — 
 
 ' These are the heroes who despise the Dutch, 
 And rail at new-come foreigners so much ; 
 Forgetting that themselves are all derived 
 From the most scoundrel race that ever lived — 
 A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones, 
 "Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns. 
 The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot, 
 By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought ; 
 Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, 
 Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains ; 
 Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed. 
 From whence your True-born Englishmen proceed ; 
 And lest by length of time it be pretended 
 The climate may the modern race have mended, 
 Wise Providence, to keep us where we are. 
 Mixes us daily with exceeding care.' 
 
 Descending to the age of Elizabeth, the satirist notices the further 
 mixture of the breed by the influx of foreigniers, who fled hither on account 
 of persecution ; as also happened from another reason in the time of her 
 successor — 
 
 , ' The first seven years of whose pacific reign 
 
 Made him and half his nation Englishmen.' 
 
 To rebuke the vanity of ancestry, he adds-^ 
 
 ' 'Tis well that virtue gives nobility, 
 Else God knows where we had our gentry ; 
 Since scarce one family is left alive 
 Which does not from some foreigner derive. 
 Of sixty thousand English gentlemen 
 Whose names and arms in registers remain, 
 W^e challenge all our heralds to declare 
 Ten families which English-Saxcn are.' 
 14 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 Wherefore, he goes on to say — 
 
 ' A True-born Englishman's a contradiction — 
 In speech an irony, in fact a fiction ; 
 A metaphor invented to express 
 A man akin to all the universe.' 
 
 From tliiis exploring the origin of the race, De Foe proceeds next to 
 discuss its character — 
 
 ' Fierce as the Briton, as the Roman brave, 
 And less inclined to conquer than to save ; 
 Eager to fight, and lavish of their blood. 
 And equally of fear and forecast void. 
 The Pict has made 'em sour, the Dane morose. 
 False from the Scot, and from the Norman worse. 
 What honesty they have the Saxons gave them, 
 And that, now they grow old, begins to leave them. 
 The climate makes them terrible and bold ; 
 And English beef their courage does uphold ; 
 No danger can their daring spirit pall. 
 Always provided with their bellies full.' 
 
 The remainder of the work is chiefly occupied iu laudations of King 
 William, and in exposing the ingratitude of the nation towards its 
 deliverer. After reviewing his principal exploits, and the services and 
 virtues of some of his associates in the Eevolution, the author concludes 
 his poem by aigserting the pre-eminence and supreme nobility of cha- 
 racter — 
 
 ' Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate. 
 And see their offspring thus degenerate ; 
 How we contend for birth and names unknown. 
 And build on their past actions, not our own ; 
 They'd cancel records, and their tombs deface, 
 And then disown the vile degenerate race ; 
 For fame of families is all a cheat, 
 
 'TiS P£RSO>AL VIRTUE OKLY MAKES US GREAT !' 
 
 It should be mentioned that the immediate occasion of this perform- 
 ance was the previous publication of a sorry pamplilet, in ill-natured 
 verse, and called ' The Foreigners,' by a -m-iter whom De Foe alludes to as 
 ' one Mr Tutchin.' It seems to have been quite a scurrilous affair : and it 
 was to correct the impression which it was making on the public that the 
 ' True-born Englishman ' was produced. De Foe's work had a wonderful 
 success, having passed in a short period thi'ough not less than nine autho- 
 rised editions, and appears to have been pirated to an almost unlimited 
 extent. Of the cheap editions published without the author's concurrence 
 or assent, it is said that not less than 80,000 copies were disposed of in the 
 public streets of London.* He tells us, that had he been permitted to 
 enjoy the profits of his own labour, this production would have yielded 
 him above a thousand pomids.f 
 
 It is difficult to judge of the merit of a satire when the occasion which 
 produced it has passed away ; but if, as seems reasonable, we are to esti- 
 
 * Life and Times, by Walter Wilson. 
 
 + Preface to the Collection of his Writings, voL ii. 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 mate Its value by its effects, we shall be justified in considering the ' True- 
 born Englishman' as an excellent performance. Its poetical attractions, to 
 be sure, are nowise extraordinary — there being in the entire work scarcely 
 an inkling of what we are now accustomed to esteem poetry. Yet the 
 versification is often good, and the Avhole piece is replete with sense, vigour, 
 and ingenuity. It discouraged that vain reliance upon the mei'its of rank 
 and ancestry which it was intended to expose ; it reproved, and so far 
 modei'ated the national vanity, as to silence the absurd pretensions to 
 superiority over other nations which were then so commonly indulged in ; 
 and it contributed to the promotion of a more general respect for natural 
 talent and personal integrity in the kingdom. Of its reformatory efficacy 
 the author appears to have been individually satisfied. Many years after 
 its publication he said in allusion to it : ' None of cm' countrymen have 
 been known to boast of being True-horn Englislwim, or so much as to use 
 the word as a title or appellation, ever since a late satu-e upon that national 
 folly was published, though almost thirty years ago. Nothing was more 
 frequent in our mouths before that— nothmg so universally blushed for and 
 laughed at since. The time I believe is yet to come for any author to print 
 it, or any man of sense to speak of it in earnest, whei-eas, before, you had 
 it in the best wi'iters, and in the most florid speeches, before the most 
 august assemblies, upon the most solemn occasions.' * 
 
 Notwithstanding the injuries which he sustained by the piratical prac- 
 tices of the times, the publication of the ' True-born Enghshman ' had a 
 favourable effect upon the author's fortunes, inasmuch as it gained for him 
 a personal introduction to King WiUiara. Having read and admired the 
 poem, his majesty desired to become acquainted with De Foe, and accord- 
 ingly sent for him to the palace, and subsequently employed liim in various 
 state transactions, the nature of which, however, has been scrupulously kept 
 secret. It is nevertheless apparent that he was held in great estimation by 
 the king, and received from him many substantial marks of his approba- 
 tion. This is indeed the most prosperous period in his private history. 
 By royal favour and the character of events, by success and popularity in 
 authorship, he has now attained to considerable elevation iir worldly 
 respectability, and is even understood to keep his carriage. 
 
 The best of times, nevertheless, as the proverb goes, are liable to change. 
 On the 8th of March 1702, King William, after a reign of thirteen years, is 
 lying dead at Kensington ; and De Foe speedily discovers that he has no 
 longer any friend at court. The new reign appears propitious for reaction. 
 The Wliigs, whose influence in the national councils had been declining 
 during the latter days of William, now find themselves entirely displaced 
 by their old enemies the Tories. Moreover, High-Church sectarianism is 
 lifting up the darkness of its countenance, and intolerance and persecution 
 are at work, striving to coerce pi-ivate consciences. A grand controvers}-- 
 arises about 'occasional conformity;' argumentations begin, all more or less 
 affectmg the interests and comfort of Dissenters. Now also arose tliat 
 eminent distinction between ///r//t Church and Loiv, which was destined to 
 play so large a part in the history of those days, and to survive even down 
 
 * Use and Abuse of the Marriagc-Bcd, pp. 400-1. 
 IG 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 to the present writing. According to Burnet, all that were opposed to 
 rational liberty, held np the standard of persecution for the faith, and were 
 inclined to practise extreme and violent measures against Dissenters, were 
 called High Churchmen — and some of them gloried in the name — while all 
 that treated the Dissenters with temper and moderation, diligently laboured 
 in their cures, and approved of the principles of the Revolution, were con- 
 sidered to be ill affected to the interests of the church, and were therefore 
 denominated Loio Churchmen. The High-Church faction being now in 
 the ascendancy, all toleration was repudiated, and the most strenuous 
 exertions made to subject the Nonconformists to tyi-annous and degrading 
 disabilities. Parson Sacheverell, probably the greatest blackguai'd of his 
 day, sounded the ' pulpit drum ' at Oxford, declaring that every man who 
 desired the true welfare of the church ' ought to hang out the bloody flag 
 and banner of defiance ' against Dissenters. Great was the war of pam- 
 phlets thereupon — newspapers having not as yet become sufficiently estab- 
 lished to be the organs of party contests. 
 
 In such a threatening state of things, De Foe could not fail to advance 
 into the fray, to the help of the oppressed against the mighty. Tract after 
 tract, loaded with argument and sharp derision, was accordingly fired off in 
 rapid and continuous succession — wounding and convincing some, and irri- 
 tating and offending many more. Ai-gument, however, was upon the whole 
 sadly ineffective, and fell for the most part as harmlessly as cannon-balls 
 on feather-beds. Defoe therefore thinks it well to change his tactics, and 
 instead of argument to try the force of satire. Being well acquainted with 
 the writings of his opponents, and seeing the absurd lengths to which their 
 intemperate dispositions urged them, it occurred to him that by personating 
 the character of a High Churchman, and judiciously employing his gift of 
 irony, he might perhaps be able to expose the wickedness and folly of the 
 ascendant faction in such a way as would in some sort frustrate their 
 intolerant designs. With this view he produced and published ' The 
 Shortest Way with the Dissenters ; or Proposals for the Establishment of 
 the Church. London, 1702 ' — a work which apparently recommended the 
 infliction of the harshest pains and penalties on those unquiet people, and 
 which, being published without the author's name, was at first misappre- 
 hended, as well by the party whom it was designed to serve as by that 
 against whose malignity and perverseness it was intentionally directed. 
 At the two universities it was accepted as the work of a violent Higli 
 Churchman, and under that impression was considerably applauded ; while 
 the Dissenters, on the other hand, gave proof of their incapacity for mider- 
 standing banter, by being seriously alarmed lest the inflictions derisively 
 proposed should be actually put in exercise. 
 
 The work begins with some bitter reflections on the principles and con- 
 duct of Dissenters, showing how inimical they are to the peace and well- 
 being of the nation. Then, after a review of then- fanatical irregidarities 
 from the period of their original secession, and some remarks on the 
 injudicious lenity' which had been exercised towards them by all preceding 
 governments, the author proceeds to propose and justify a resolute course of 
 perseciition. He declares that ' we can never enjoy a settled, uninterrupted 
 union and tranquillity in this nation till the spirit of Whiggism, faction, and 
 schism is melted doAvn, like the old money.' Accordingly, the Dissenters 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPEES FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 must be all exterminated. Nothing short of theu- absolute destruction 
 ■wUl suffice to render us ' a national and immixed church.' ' I do not 
 prescribe fire and fagot,' says he ; ' but as Scipio said of Carthage, Delenda 
 est Carthago— they are to be rooted out of this nation, if ever -we will live 
 in peace, serve God, or enjoy our own.' How so desirable a consummation 
 is to be effected he declines to say, leaving it ' to those who have a right 
 to execute God's justice on the nation's and the church's enemies.' For 
 the rest, he continues — ' 'Tis vain to trifle in this matter. The light, foolish 
 liandling of them by fines is their glory and advantage. If the gallows 
 instead of the compter, and the galleys instead of the fines, were the reward 
 of going to a conventicle, tliere would not be so many sufferers. The spkit 
 of martyrdom is over. They that wiU go to church to be chosen sheriffs 
 and mayors would go to forty churches rather than be hanged. If one 
 severe law was made, and punctually executed, that whoever was found at 
 a conventicle should be banished the nation, and the preacher hanged, we 
 should soon see an end of the tale — they would all come to church, and 
 one age Avould make us all one again. To talk of five shillings a month for 
 not coming to the sacrament, and of one shilling a week for not coming to 
 church, is such a way of converting people as never was known! This is 
 selling them a liberty to transgress for so much money. If it be not a 
 crime, why don't we give them full license ? And if it be, no price ought 
 to compound for the committing it, for that is selling a liberty to people to 
 sin against God and the government. We hang men for trifles, and banish 
 them for things not worth nammg ; but an offence against God and the 
 church — against the welfare of the world and the dignity of religion — shall 
 be bought off for five shillings ! This is such a shame to a Christian govern- 
 ment, that 'tis with regret I transmit it to posterity.' 
 
 One wonders how any human heads could have been so obtuse as not 
 to pei'ceive the irony of passages such as this. Perceived, however, it 
 was not, but was, as we have said, entirely mistaken both by Churchmen 
 and Dissenters. In one of his later works our author says — ' The wisest 
 Churchmen in the nation were deceived by this book. Those whose temper 
 fell in with the times hugged and embraced it — applauded the proposal — • 
 filled their mouths with the arguments made use of therein ; and an 
 eminent Churchman in the country wrote a letter to his friend m London, 
 who had sent him the book, in the following words : — " SiK — I received 
 yours, and with it that pamphlet which makes so much noise, called ' The 
 Shortest Way with the Dissenters,' for which I thank you. I join with 
 that author in all he says, and have such a value for the book that, next 
 to the Holy Bible and the sacred comments, I take it for the most valuable 
 piece I have. I pray God put it into her majesty's heart to put what is 
 there proposed ui execution. Yours, &c." ' In 1705 De Foe stated in his 
 'Review' that he had the original of this letter then m his possession. A 
 similar story is related by Oldmixon, which it is unnecessary to repeat. 
 
 As soon as it was discovered that De Foe was the author of tlie ' Shortest 
 Way,' the Church and Tory party were at no loss to comprehend his object ; 
 and that which had been lately lauded as a production inferior only to the 
 ' Holy Bible and the sacred comments,' was now denounced as mfamous, and 
 its author deemed deserving of a public prosecution. As the tempest of rage 
 began to rise, De Foe thought it prudent to conceal himself, though it was 
 18 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 soon apparent that any lengtliencd concealment would be impossible: 
 witness the 'Gazette' of London for the lOtli of January 1703, oQering a 
 rsAvard for his apprehension, on the grounds that he is 'charged with 
 writing a scandalous and seditious pamphlet.' We are much indebted to 
 this document for preserving to us an intelligible description of his 
 outward man. ' He is,' says the Gazette, ' a middle-sized, spare man, about 
 forty yeai'S old ; of a bi-own complexion, and dark-brown coloured hair, but 
 wears a wig ; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near 
 his mouth ; was born in London, and for many years was a hose-fector in 
 Freeman's Yard in Cornhill, and is now owner of the brick and pantile 
 works near Tilbury Fort in Essex. Whoever shall discover the said 
 Daniel De Foe to one of her majesty's justices of the peace, so he may be 
 apprehended, shall have a reward of £50, which her majesty has ordered 
 immediately to be paid upon such discovery.' On the 25th of February, 
 as an instance of further animosity against De Foe, a formal complaint was 
 made of his publication in the House of Commons, when some of the 
 obnoxious passages being read, it was resolved — 'That this book, being 
 full of false and scandalous reflections on this parliament, and tending to 
 promote sedition, be burnt by the hands of the common hangman to-morrow 
 in New Palace- Yard.' 
 
 Accordingly, on the morrow, in New Palace-Yard there is a remarkable ^ 
 display of tii-e-works. The Calcraft of the day, Avith drimken, bewildered 
 countenance, m second-hand, uncertain small clothes, indefinite jerkin, and 
 other nondescript apparel, has been summoned to execute the ' last severity 
 of the law ' upon a book. Suitable official persons, indignant zealots, and 
 the universal ' tag-rag and bob-tail' of the neighbourhood are also assembled 
 to see it done ; and there, amid execrations and huzzaings, the free-spoken 
 thought of a bold man, so far as authority can do it, is suppressed. By 
 every burnt book, however, the world is more effectually enlightened; 
 and ' every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth 
 from side to side. ' There always comes a day of stern retaliation for such 
 indignities. ' The minds of men are at last aroused ; reason looks out, and 
 justifies her own, and malice finds all her work m vam.'* Nay, are not the 
 author's popiilarity and importance, even at the time, thereby extended and 
 advanced? In one of his works De Foe relates that he had heard a 
 bookseller in Kmg James's time aflirm, that if he desired a book to sell, he 
 would, if possible, have it burnt by the hands of the common hangman. 
 
 The book being thus, as we suppose, burnt, the printer and publisher 
 were next taken into custody, and thereupon De Foe came forward and 
 sm'rendered. AVhile in retu-ement he had prepared ' A Brief Explanation 
 of a late Pamphlet,' hoping by its publication to correct the misunder- 
 standmg which had led to a hasty censure of his book : nevertheless, he 
 was indicted for libel and sedition, and was subsequently brought to trial 
 on the charge. Bench, bar, and jury were alike prejudiced against him, 
 so that there was little difficulty in obtaining a verdict favourable to his 
 prosecutors. Being pronounced guilty, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 
 200 marks to the queen ; stand three times in the pillory ; find sureties for 
 Ills good behaviour for seven years ; and be imprisoned during the pleasure 
 
 * Emerson. 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 •of her majesty. In retired durance under lock and key in Newgate, he has 
 accordingly to compose himself as well as possible, and contemplate his 
 prospects. To a man who lately ' kept his carriage,' and is now in a manner 
 ruined, tliat side of things can hardly present anything very cheering. 
 However, it is consolatory to him to reflect that his misfortunes 
 have befallen him, not as the consequences of his misconduct, but as 
 an unjust and violent infliction from malicious men on account of deeds 
 whereof his conscience can approve. He therefore abates not a jot of heart 
 or hope. The indignities awarded him can neither humble his erect spirit, 
 nor cover his manifest integi'ity with disgi-ace. 
 
 But now, will the reader endeavour to imagine a warm July day — say 
 the 29th — of the year 1703, and go with us to Cornhill, and see what is domg 
 near the Eoyal Exchange there ? There is rather a great crowd, and much 
 anxiety among certain parties to behold a man who has been largely talked 
 about, and is now expected to be visible, standing in the pillory. 
 
 ' Fearless on high stood unabashed De Foe.' 
 
 He conceives, indeed, that he has not any cause to be abashed. In the 
 calm consciousness of honour, he can brave the jeers and insults of his 
 enemies, and is even protected from their missiles by the presence and 
 activity of many steadfast friends. The ignominy of his situation is all 
 reflected on his persecutors. The very populace regard him with sympathy 
 and interest, and in generous 'fraternity' greet him with triumphant 
 acclamations. Instead of pelting him with stones, they deck the piUory 
 with garlands, and raising a voluntary contribution, in strong liquor 
 purchased with the same, audaciously proceed to drinh his health ! 
 
 That same night, too, a ' Hymn to the Pillory' was proclaimed about the 
 streets — a new and daring satire, in which De Foe denounced the injus- 
 tice and defied the power of the ministry, and boldly vindicated his own 
 integrity. With mingled playfulness and sadness he begins — 
 
 ' Hail ! hieroglyphic state-machine, 
 Contrived to punish fancy in ; 
 Men that are men in thee can feel no pain, 
 And all thy insignificance disdain. 
 Contempt, that false new word for shame, 
 Is, without crime, an empty name ; 
 A shadow to amuse mankind, 
 But never frights the wise or well-fixed mind. 
 Virtue despises human scorn, 
 And scandals innocence adorn.' 
 
 Apostrophising still furtlier this ' State-Trap of the Law,' he says — 
 
 * Thou art no shame to truth and honestj', 
 Nor is the character of such defaced by thee 
 Who suffer by oppressive injury. 
 Shame, like the exhalations of the sun. 
 Falls back where first the motion was begun ; 
 And he who for no crime shall on thy brows appear. 
 Bears less reproach than they who placed him there.' 
 20 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 Then, in a burst of indignation, he commands the pillory to break silence, 
 and publish forth the facts and merits of his case to all the world — 
 
 ' Thou bugbear of the law ! stand up and speak ; 
 Thy long misconstrued silence break ; 
 Tell us who 'tis upon thy ridge stands there, 
 So full of fault, and yet so void of fear ; 
 And from the paper in his hat, 
 Let all mankind be told for what. 
 Tell them it was because he was too bold. 
 And told those truths which should not ha' been told ; 
 Extol the justice of the land 
 Who punish what they will not understand.' 
 
 The last lines are stinging — 
 
 ' Tell them the men that placed him here 
 Are scandals to the times — 
 Are at a loss to find his guilt. 
 And can'c commit his crimes.' 
 
 By this discreditable prosecution De Foe was once more ruined in his cu*- 
 cumstances. In consequence of his imprisonment, he could no longer attend 
 personally to his pantile works, from which his income was principally de- 
 rived; and owing to his lengthened absence, they were finally obliged to be 
 given up. By this affau-, he tells us, he lost no less a sum than £3500. He 
 had now a wife and six children dependent upon him for support, and was 
 utterly without resources, save such as must be realised by the produce of 
 his pen. In this trying situation his virtue appears to have been put to a 
 rather severe test. It is reported by Oldmixon, that the Earl of Notting- 
 ham, one of the ministers who had been most prominently concerned in the 
 prosecution, either went or sent to him in Newgate, offering him the mercy 
 of the government if he would discover who set him on to write the 
 'Shortest Way.' But this was a needless piece of tampering, and was 
 treated with the contempt which it deserved. The same writer observes, 
 that all who were acquainted with De Foe were satisfied that ' he needed no 
 setting on to put such a trick on a party of whose understandings as well as 
 principles he had no good opinion.' The calumny propagated by Leslie in 
 his ' Rehearsal,' to the effect that he would have made any submission toy 
 have been excused the pillory, seems to be entirely without foundation. 
 Alluding to it afterwards, De Foe remarked — ' Till he can tell the world 
 what submissions they were he offered to make, it must stand for one of 
 the most scandalous slanders any man that pretends to truth can be guilty 
 of.'* As the unscrupulous Leslie does not appear to have ever furnished 
 the requested information, the matter stands precisely as it did at the time 
 when his statement was contradicted. 
 
 De Foe remained in Newgate for nearly two years. He did not, how- 
 ever, sit down, idly and disconsolately to lament his fate. An honest man 
 may even live in prison, and turn his hours to account. Pen and ink 
 Avere not denied him, nor had he lost the habit or ability for using tiiem. 
 It is true he had to cultivate literature under difficulties ; but he never- 
 theless at this time produced various political works of merit, and also 
 
 * Review, iii. 218. 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 collected and republished a new edition of most of his former pieces. As 
 an occasional recreation, he set himself to study the habits and characters 
 of the prisoners, which he afterwards turned to use when writing such 
 works as ' Colonel Jacque' and ' Captain Singleton.' Moreover, he started 
 a ' Eeview,' apparently the first that was ever published in the country. 
 It differed materially from the Eeviews of modern days, being rather akin 
 to the Tatlers and Spectators which succeeded it, and were partly modelled 
 on its plan. In this work De Foe discoursed from week to week on all the 
 various questions relating to trade, politics, and ecclesiastical affairs, which 
 occupied the popular attention, much after the fashion of Cobbett's Eegister 
 — the work being also conducted with as much boldness and unflagging- 
 energy as ever distinguislied Cobbett ; while in point of moral consistency 
 and genuine liberality of scope, it was far superior to anythmg the latter at 
 anytime wrote or contemplated. The 'Eeview' was published without 
 intermission for nine years — during the greater part of the period tlu'ee 
 times a Aveek, and was exclusively the production of De Foe himself — a 
 feat of authorship which few men (perhaps Cobbett alone) can parallel. 
 Possibly a collection of its best parts, if judiciously selected and arranged, 
 might still be worth tlie reading. The same remark would indeed apply 
 to sevei'al of the author's now neglected writings. His ' Eeasons against a 
 War with France' has been characterised as one of the finest political tracts 
 in the English language. 
 
 By such a round of occupations as we have indicated, De Foe was 
 enabled to render his incarceration tolerable, and to realise in some degree 
 that fine sentiment of Lovelace — 
 
 ' Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 That for a hermitage.' 
 
 Meanwhile, by his unrelenting wit, and powers of argument and satire, he 
 continued to assail and mortify the ruling powers, until at length, it is said, 
 they ' tried hard to enlist him in their service,' and thus sUence his oppo- 
 sition. De Foe, however, ' preferred poverty to the shame of serving a 
 cause which his soul abhorred.' He would nowise condescend to release 
 himself from prison by the sacrifice of his integrity ; and accordingly he 
 continued in confinement as long as his persecutors remained in power. A 
 change of ministry was at length the occasion of his deliverance. The 
 high-flying administration had so embarrassed and distracted the country, 
 that it became at last a matter of necessity to transfer the government to 
 men of more moderate and enlightened principles. Shortly after Harley's 
 accession to office, in 1704, the queen, through him, became acquainted 
 with the merits of De Foe, and was made conscious of the injustice of his 
 punishment. Desirous of mitigating it, she sent relief to his wife and 
 family through Lord Godolphin, and CA-en forwarded a sufficient sum to 
 De Foe himself for the payment of his fine, and for the rest of the expenses 
 attending his discharge from prison. Mr Chalmers has observed that 
 ' Harley approved probably of the principles and conduct of De Foe, and 
 doubtless foresaw that during a factious age such a genius miglit be con- 
 verted to many uses.' Be this as it may, in the beginning of August 
 22 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 1704 Daniel found himself at large, without, as far as we can learn, having 
 stipulated to render any political service to the government. 
 
 On his liberation, De Foe quitted London, and went down to the ' Mont- 
 pelier of Suffolk ' — in other words, to Bury St Edmund's, in that county — 
 *a town famous for its pleasant situation and wholesome air; famous also 
 for the number of gentry who reside in the vicinity, and for tlie polite and 
 agreeable conversation of the company resortmg there.'* Here, among 
 excellent and steady friends, he appears to have enjoyed for a while the 
 sweets of recovered liberty. It was, however, only for a while, for, ere 
 many months had passed, certain slanderous ' news- writers' in London had 
 propagated a report that he had fled from justice, and that warrants were 
 out for his apprehension. This was something of an annoyance to De Foe ; 
 but to set the matter right, he immediately wrote to the secretary of state 
 to inform him wliere he was, and offered to go up to London by post, to 
 answer any charge that should be brought against him. In reply to this, 
 he was informed that there was no charge whatever against him, nor load 
 any officer, messenger, or other person received any order or warrant to 
 apprehend him, or was in anyway authorised to disturb him m his avocations. 
 A statement of all this De Foe published in his ' Eeview,' ' in justice to 
 the government and himself,' as the only course open to liira for effectually 
 silencing tlie slander. 
 
 Of the kind and amount of persecution which De Foe endured we 
 can have in these days no adequate conception, much less anything 
 at all corresponding to it in experience. By his political enemies he 
 was not only subjected to perpetual slander and abuse, but was even 
 frequently necessitated to guard himself from violence. His wi-itings 
 were scandalously misquoted, and even reprinted in a garbled and muti- 
 lated state, to suit party purposes ; his works pii-ated and hawked about, 
 to defraud him of the emolument arising from the legal sale of them; 
 his property intercepted, and made away with in the most lawless 
 manner; his Reviews were stolen out of coffee-houses, to prevent them 
 from being read ; his debts were bought up, that proceedings might be 
 instituted against him ; and he was even at last obliged to ■ndthhold his 
 name from his works, as the only chance of successfully introducing them 
 to the public. The published attacks upon him were endless. ' 'Tis really 
 something hard,' said he on one occasion, ' that after all the mortification 
 they think they have put upon a poor abdicated author, in their scuitUous 
 street-ribaldry and bear-garden usage, some in prose, and some in theu* 
 terrible luies they call verse, they cannot yet be quiet ; but whenever any- 
 thing comes out that does not please them, I come in for a sliare of the 
 answer, whatever I did in the question. Everything they thmk an author 
 deserves to be abused for must be mine.'f He was subjected to a similar 
 ill-treatment in connection with many of his personal transactions. The 
 following statement may be given as a curious specimen of the manner in 
 ■which his conduct was watched and punished even by private individuals. 
 * On board of a ship,' says he, ' I loaded some goods. The master is a 
 
 * Tour tlirough Great Britain, i.; Letter i. p. 71. 
 
 ■j" Preface to an Elegy on the Author of the True-born Englishman. 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 WTiig, of a kind more particular than ordinary. He comes to the port, my 
 bill of lading is produced, my title to my goods undisputed ; no claim, no 
 pretence — but my goods cannot be found. The ship sailed again, and I 
 am told my goods are carried back ; and all the reason given is, that they 
 belong to De Foe, author of tlie Eeview, and he is turned about, and 
 writes for keeping up public credit. Thus, gentlemen. I am ready to be 
 assassmated, arrested without warrant, robbed and plundered by all sides ; 
 I can neither trade nor live ; and what is it all for ? Only, as I can yet 
 see, because, there bemg faults on both sides, I tell both sides of it too 
 plainly.' * It needed a brave and steadfast spirit to bear up under long 
 years of treatment such as this ; and few things are more honourable to 
 De Foe than the perfect and manly patience with which he sustained so 
 many hardships and vexatious trials. With a gay but yet resolute self- 
 possession, he set his face against the slings of fortune, and, like Luther 
 under supernatural illusion, hurled his ink-stand at the devil ! 
 
 Some time after his release from Newgate, De Foe wrote voluminously 
 on the subject of the Union then pending between England and Scotland, 
 and thus acquired a measure of ministerial favour which led to his employ- 
 ment in the service of the government. His acquirements and genei-al 
 knowledge, in combination with his acuteness and moral probity, seemed to 
 render him well qualihed to undertake matters of delicate diplomacy, and 
 he was therefore sent to Scotland to further and facilitate the Union. It 
 appears that his laljours in that country obtained for him general appro- 
 bation. While m Edinburgh, he took occasion to publish a complimentary 
 poem, under the title of ' Caledonia,' ' in honour of Scotland and the Scottish 
 nation.' In his Review, which continued to be regularly published in his 
 absence, he carefully represented the advantages which would succeed to 
 the Union in a favourable, but not delusive light ; and lie appears to have 
 exercised his influence and performed his mission most judiciously and 
 beneficially. Writing on the subject, he says — ' I have told Scotland of 
 improvement in trade, wealth, and shipping, that shall accrue to them on 
 the happy conclusion of this afiair ; and I am pleased doubly with this, that 
 I am likely to be one of the first men that shall give them the pleasure of 
 the experiment.' On returning to London, at the begmning of 1708, he 
 was rewarded with a fixed salary and an appomtment under government. 
 In the course of the two succeedmg years he several times visited Scotland, 
 and when the Union was completed, lie published in Edinburgh the first 
 edition of his work on ' The Union of Great Britain.' 
 
 Though De Foe had accepted employment under a Tory government, he 
 does not appear to have ever rendered the ministry any service in the way 
 of advocating their expressly Tory measures. He not unnaturally abstamed 
 from writing against the cabinet which employed him ; but less perhaps 
 from any sympathy with their general proceedings, than from the perception 
 that his former labours had been imperfectly comprehended, and ungene- 
 rously received by the pai-ty he had designed to benefit. The ' popular 
 cause' of tlie day had become unfaithful to itself. De Foe desired 
 universal toleration; but it needed only to raise the absurd cry of the 
 ' Church in danger ! ' to divert the people from the pursuit of their personal 
 
 * Review, vii. 490. 
 24 
 
 i 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 and proper liberties. Any one at all acquainted with the history of- the 
 period will remember the disturbiuices and intense excitement occasioned 
 by the proceedings of Sacheverell, wlio at one time went about London 
 with a mob at his heels, demolisliing dissenting meeting-houses ; and being 
 unwisely brought to trial by the goveriunent, could not be more than 
 nominally punished, by reason of his popularity, and the boundless sym- 
 pathy which his insensate conduct excited in tlie public. During the early 
 part of 1710 the nation was almost wholly occupied witii the political 
 aberrations and ill-judged trial of this notorious di\ine. For the time, 
 nothing was so fashionable as discussions on church politics : the very 
 women and children, and even the desolate street-gentry, who might have 
 been supposed likely to remain neutral in such a matter, an-anged and 
 paraded themselves in the hostile attitudes of party, vociferously demanding 
 of their neighbours, and of everybody they encountered, ' "WTiat side, 
 friend, takest thou in this important controversy?' De Foe has given us 
 a felicitous parody of this astonishing state of things, which pleasantly 
 reminds us 'of Camille Desmoulins's pithy sketches of the movements and 
 debates of the Palais Eoyal during the earlier days of the first French 
 Revolution. He says — ' The women lay aside their tea and chocolate, 
 leave off visiting after dinner, and forming themselves into cabals, turn 
 privy-counsellors, and settle the affairs of state. Every lady of qualitj^ has 
 her head more particularly full of business than usual ; nay, some of the 
 ladies talk of keeping female secretaries, and none will be fit for the office 
 but such as can speak French, Dutch, and Latin. Gallantry and gaiety are 
 now laid aside for business ; matters of government and affairs of state are 
 become the province of the ladies; and no wonder if they are too much 
 engaged to concern themselves about the common impertinences of life. 
 Indeed they have hardly leisure to live, little time to eat and sleep, and 
 none at all to say their prayers. If you turn your eye to the park, the 
 ladies are not there — even the church is thinner than usual, for you know 
 the mode is for privy-councils to meet on Sundays. The very playhouse 
 feels the effects of it, and the gi-eat Betterton died a beggar on this account. 
 Nay, the Tatler, the immortal Tatler, the gi-eat Bickerstaff himself, was 
 fain to leave off talking to the ladies during the doctor's trial, and turn his 
 sagacious pen to the dark subjects of death and the next world, though he 
 has not yet decided the ancient debate — whether Pluto's regions were, in 
 point of government, a kingdom or a commonwealth.'* Under circumstances 
 such as these, though De Foe never altogether abstained from writing, 
 he for a considerable time remained comparatively quiet — deeming it best 
 to restrict himself mainly to observation, and to await the issue of events. 
 
 There are men born into the world who cannot rest. They seem to be 
 ' driven by the spirit ' into wildernesses of strife, difficulty, enterprise, and 
 ceaseless labour. They must do or die. The old Ulysses returns after 
 long years of warfare and adventure from the conquest and desolation of 
 the towers and plains of Troy, and seeks to repose his age on his ' still 
 hearth' in Ithaca, and to live in the blameless dispensation of laws befitting 
 to the people over whom he rules. Much has he seen and known — 'cities 
 
 * Review, vii. 69. 
 
 25 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 of men and manners, climates, councils, governments ;' himself ' not least, 
 but honom-ed of them all ;' yet finds that ' aU experience is an arch where- 
 through gleams that imtravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for 
 ever when he moves.' He cannot rest from travel — 
 
 ' How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unburnished, not to shine in use !' 
 
 He counts it vile to ' store and hoard' himself, while his ' gray spirit' is 
 still ' yearning in desire to follow knowledge, like a sinking star, beyond 
 the utmost bound of human thought.' Therefore wiU he quit again his 
 patrimonial dominions, and say to his brave comrades — 
 
 -' My purpose holds 
 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until 1 die.' 
 
 So likewise om* hardy De Foe, after reposing for a while in ' easy circum- 
 stances' at Newington, ventures forth again on the troublous waters of 
 political contention, with the view of opening people's eyes to the advan- 
 tages of the Protestant succession, and the danger to be apprehended from 
 the success of the Pretender. 
 
 He first of all wrote, ' A Seasonable Caution and Warning against 
 the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender. 
 London : 1712.' But finding that this, although an argumentative and per- 
 suasive pamphlet, did not produce the etfect which he desired, he pursued 
 the subject in thi-ee other successive publications, all written in that style 
 of keen and subtle u'ony which he had employed so ingeniously in the 
 ' Shortest Way -with the Dissenters.' The titles of the pamphlets, as 
 remarked by i\Ii" Wilson, ' corresponded with the ruse de guerre which he 
 played oif in their contents:' being — 1. 'An Answer to the Question 
 that Nobody thinks of — namely. What if the Queen should Die?' 2. 
 ' Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover ; With an 
 Inquuy how far the Abdication of King James, supposing it to be Legal, 
 ought to affect the Person of the Pretender. Si pojmlus vuU decepi 
 decipiatur.'' 3. ' And what if the Pretender should Come ? or Some Con- 
 siderations on the Advantages and Real Consequences of the Pretender's 
 Possessing the Crown of Great Britain.' Li these papers De Foe sought, 
 by a caricatured use of the Jacobite arguments then in vogue, to expose 
 the absurd and dangerous pretensions of that party, and thus to consolidate 
 the interests of the Protestant succession. While ironically urging the 
 people to bruig in the Pretender to settle then- existing differences, he was 
 m reality ridiculing the folly of such a coiu-se of action. Unluckily, neitlier 
 Wliig nor Tory could understand irony, so that De Foe's pamphlets were 
 collectively construed into a libel against the ' glorious constitution,' and 
 he -was suspected and represented to be in league with the discarded 
 Stuarts. Worse still, a certam stupid patriot of the Whig connection — 
 William Benson by name — was so totally blinded and bewildered in the 
 affau", as to institute proceedings against tlie autlior, with the view of 
 bringing him to trial for high treason. One morning there enters a sinister- 
 looking mortal with a 'judge's warrant,' and carries off De Foe a second 
 time into the limbo of Newgate ! Harley, however, interferes — assures 
 26 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 the queen's majesty that this prosecution has been instigated by projiuh'ce 
 and slieer mistake, and succeeds in presently obtaining tiie prisoner's 
 release. Such, nevertheless, was the inijiortunity of his enemies, tliat 
 his ministerial friends considered it advisable to certify his acquittal 
 \mder cover of a formal royal pardon — a circumstance to which De Foe 
 could never afterwards allude without expressions of astonishment, saying 
 sarcastically that he might have been as reasonably accused of being a 
 Mohammedan ; and he playfully desired it might be ' engraved upon his 
 tomb, that he was the only Englishman who had been obliged to seek a 
 royal pardon for writing in behalf of the Hanoverian succession.' 
 
 All this happened in 1713. On the 1st of August in the following year 
 there were signs of mourning about the royal palace. Queen Anne had 
 given up the ghost, and Elector George of Hanover reigned in her stead. 
 The AVhigs were now again installed in the admhiistration, and the govern- 
 ment of the country went on — as it happened. That seems to be the 
 peculiarity of a "Whig cabinet. Having been connected with the former 
 ministry, De Foe was entirely discountenanced, though he, more than any 
 man, had advocated and supported zealously aU the most important prin- 
 ciples and political doctrines which the Whigs pretended to admire. His 
 public career was now drawing to its close. He had been a political winter 
 for moi-e than thirty years ; the blossoms of old age were springing about 
 his head ; the fires of life, which had long blazed fiercely, were fading at 
 length into quiet embers ; and so, with a still regret, but with a spu'it 
 resigned to the inevitable, he gradually withdrew from the turbulence of 
 political agitation. His spirit is saddened, but not broken ; though for- 
 saken and calumniated, he is not cast down ; yet the long years of enmity 
 and persecution, whose progress has marked his brow and surrounded his 
 eyes with wrinkles, have left him little either to hope for or enjoy. With 
 a plaintive complacency he can. say — 
 
 ' No man has tasted different fortunes more, 
 And thirteen times I have been rich and poor.' 
 
 Pondering over the manifold iU-usage he had received both from enemies 
 and friends, and mindful of the aggravated misconstruction that had been 
 put upon liis acts and writings, he detennined, as a final labour, to furnish 
 a defence of his life and conduct ; and with that intent began to WTite ' An 
 Appeal to Houom- and Justice.' Thereby he trusted to justify himself 
 before his candid contemporaries and posterity ; but ere the work was 
 propei'ly completed, the wearied and overburthened man was suddenly 
 struck and prostrated by a fit of apoplexy. For a time he lay m helpless 
 stupor, and hovering apparently on the brink of dissolution ; but eventually 
 his vigorous constitution recovered from the attack, he regained compara- 
 tive health and vigour of mind and heart, and came back into the world as 
 from the resurrection of the dead. 
 
 Now it was that, quitting the thorny tracks and encumbered regions of 
 contemporary party interests, he came forth to entertain society as a po- 
 pular author for aU time. Numerous instructive and amusing works sprung 
 rapidly from his pen, which, like another Aaron's rod, seemed to blossom 
 with imexpected buds of pleasantness. Among these, in 1719, appeared 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 the first part of the famous ' Eobinson Crusoe,' which, notwithstanding De 
 Foe's well-known capacity for producing saleable and popular books, had 
 to be 'carried round the trade' before he could obtain a purchaser for the 
 copyright. Happy and astonished was the publisher when, after selling four 
 editions in as many months, he discovered that he had cleared a thousand 
 pounds by his lucky bargain ! The amount of the author's remimeration 
 is not known, but considering the difficulties attending the publication, it 
 may be reasonably supposed to have been nowise very large. The success 
 of the Avork, however, induced him to produce a continuation, or second 
 part, which was also well received, and obtained as great a popularity as 
 the first. From that day to the present 'Robinson Crusoe' has been a 
 familiar and household book ; and it seems no more likely to become 
 obsolete than the use of household bread, or the faculties of the mind to 
 which it is addressed. 
 
 We have no space to speak at any length of the great and peculiar 
 merits of this production. The first thing that strikes every reader of 
 discrimination is the easy matter-of-fact character of the narrative. The 
 whole story reads like a reality. The incidents and adventm-es are for the 
 most part extraordinary — that is to say, are altogether out of the ordinary 
 courses and chances of experience ; yet they are so related, so ingeniously 
 and beautifully woven, that the mind feels it difficult to regard them as 
 anyway fictitious or imaginary. Such an air of plausibility pervades the 
 story, that you say at once, ' If this thing were really true in fact, it would 
 be thus, and thus only, represented.' Then consider the boundless extent 
 of details, the vast and various knowledge here cunningly but unobtrusively 
 set forth. What insight into the inventive and constructive powers of 
 man — what extensive and accurate geography — what large acquaintance 
 v/ith the manners and customs of savages, seamen, mechanics, husbandmen, 
 merchants, travellers, adventurers — what knowledge of the surface and 
 productions of the earth, the institutions and characteristics of different 
 countries and races of mankind — what inexhaustible and natural invention ! 
 From the beginning to the end, the author seems to write of what he 
 Ttnoivs. He can put a face of fact on the most inconsiderable adventure. 
 You would say he has seen the things which he describes, and knoAvn inti- 
 mately every character he delineates. Along with the wonderful reality of 
 the narrative must Ije taken the appropriate and natural reflections by 
 which it is diversified. What a store of worldly prudence — what exquisite 
 illustrations of the mysteries of life and Providence — how calm and benign 
 a vindication of the ways of God to man ! Then how fine a revelation 
 have we of the author's sentiments and sympathies — with what generous 
 interest and compassion does he look upon the varied creeds, systems, and 
 opinions of his fellow-beings, and with what just discernment does he detect 
 some presence of goodness in them all, thereby teaching us a kindly tolera- 
 tion, and soliciting us by insinuation to exercise that holy charity ' which 
 hopeth all things ! ' Here and there too are strains of pathos — gentle and 
 tender as the sighings of a living heart in deep distress, or as the mournful 
 reverberances of winds dying away upon the sea. But the grand pecu- 
 liarity of the work is its immense display of worldly tvisdom, its wide and 
 varied representation of the interests, motives, rewards, and considerations 
 whereby men are actuated to their weUare or their sorrow — its deep and 
 28 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 thoughtful lessons of a soul most largely learned in the daily and hourly 
 experiences of human life. This is a (quality in the work which is rarely 
 noted, inasmuch as few people read it at a time of life when it would be 
 observable : the impressions of the generality are derived from the throng 
 of interesting incidents, the wild charm of the situation, the fascinat- 
 ing and wondrous tale that took possession of their curiosity when that 
 was the only faculty they were desii-ous of gratifying. But the book 
 is imbued with a deep philosophy of experience, liousseau was not 
 beside himself when he called it ' a most excellent treatise on natural 
 education.' In the province of common sense there are few things wiser 
 than some of De Foe's maxims and observations. And none of these are 
 elaborated or introduced obtrusively, but arise naturally out of the story, 
 and are brought in, if not precisely in the right place, at least exactly 
 where they would appear, supposing the narrator to have been dealing in 
 actual matter of fact. Then the style of the book, though homely and 
 unpretenduig, is really beautiful in its simplicity, reminding one of a plain 
 face lighted up with the glow of excellent conversation. Altogether, we 
 cannot wonder at the exceeding popularity of this work, seeing that it is 
 adapted to every imderstanding, is calculated to excite the dullest curiosity, 
 appeals generously and naturally to the sympathies, and though not devoid 
 of prejudices, nor even of superstitions, is nevertheless, upon the whole, 
 admhably replete with the best instruction, and tends by its pure truth- 
 fulness and simplicity to exalt and edify the moral nature, while it seems 
 designed mainly to delight the imagination. If the poet Gray may be 
 excused for his indolent and luxurious desire to be lymg continually on 
 sofas, reading ' eternal new novels of Crebillon and INIarivaux,' it seems to 
 om- fancy that every schoolboy might be far more reasonably justified in 
 saying, what has doubtless some time been the longing of his soul, ' Be it 
 mine to loU for ever under shady summer ti-ees, and read everlasting 
 volumes of Robinson Crusoe.' 
 
 Of De Foe's minor fictions we shaU not be able to say much. The most 
 notable are — ' The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain 
 Singleton' — 'The History of Duncan Campbell' — 'The Fortunes and Mis- 
 fortunes of Moll Flanders' — ' Colonel Jacque ' — 'The Foi-tunate ]\Iistress; 
 or, the Life of Roxana' — and ' Memoirs of a Cavalier.' In all these there is 
 the same simplicity of design, the same graphic minuteness, the same prompt 
 invention and unvarying attractiveness — in short, all the qualities that are 
 displayed in a more prominent degi'ee in the author's most memorable 
 production. There is in all the same significant sign of genius — the power 
 of imagining a character within a certain natm-al range of action and 
 existence, and of investing the conception with that breath of life and 
 individuality which it is the privilege of genius alone to give. They 
 all, hoAvever, belong obviously to a period less pure in external manners 
 than our own. Some of them contain scenes and descriptions of profli- 
 gacy and ci'ime which cannot be recommended to indiscriminate perusal ; 
 and though De Foe professes to have, and really has, a moral aim in what 
 he wi'ites, yet it is more than doubtful whether the exciting pictures of vice 
 and passion which he represents wUl not generally prove more attractive 
 to uncultivated fancies than the moralities he would inculcate. One thing, 
 nevertheless, may be said in favour of these works — they do not outrage 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 nature or consistency. De Foe's villains never prosper ; they find the whole 
 course and force of the world agaiast them ; misery walks behind them like 
 their shadows ; and in the end they either die ui misery, or are reformed 
 through the discipline of a severe repentance. Vice is exhibited only that it 
 may be detested and avoided. StUl, Falstaff 's observation about the polluting 
 tendencies oi pitch is deserving of remembrance ; and those who cannot handle 
 it without danger of defilement, will always do wisest not to meddle with it. 
 
 In any notice of De Foe's smaller fictions, the curious ' Eelation of the 
 Apparition of Mrs Veal,' published m 1705, ought not to be omitted. 
 Could a ghost story, under any cu'cumstances, be true, one could not fail to 
 believe this : it seems as plain and indubitable matter of fact as ever passed 
 before one's eyes. The air of credibility ia it is astonishing. As Sir 
 Walter Scott says, ' The whole is so distinctly cu'cumstantial, that were it 
 not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at least, of such an occur- 
 rence, the evidence could not but suppoi-t the story.' One regrets that it 
 should have been published with no worthier mtention than that of puffing 
 a dull book which the publisher could not sell — ' Dreliucourt's Book of 
 Consolations against the Fear of Death.' This work is incidentally spoken 
 of approvmgly by the ghost, and the story, as desired, had the effect of 
 creating a large demand for it. The whole thing of course was a bold 
 and indefensible imposition — one of the few transactions of De Foe which 
 we can neither justify nor are careful about excusing, though we do not 
 know that it is a whit more discreditable than any of the imiumerable other 
 forms of puffery now regularly practised by people who pass muster for 
 very honourable men. 
 
 Besides the works akeady mentioned, De Foe published several other 
 popular pi-oductions, some of which stiU continue in circulation. There is 
 the ' Religious Com'tship,' known familiarly to most serious servant-maids, 
 and formerly a favourite companion of then- mistresses. ' Chi'istian Con- 
 versation' and the ' Family Instructor' have likewise then- admirers in 
 certain quai-ters; and the ' Complete Tradesman' is also now and then 
 republished for the benefit of apprentices who may have pocket-money to 
 invest in it. But by far the most beautiful and interesting of these 
 popular compositions is the ' Journal of the Plague -Year' — a work 
 which is often received as a veritable history, but which is in fact as much 
 a fiction as ' Robinson Crusoe' or ' Captain Smgleton.' It is true that in this 
 touchmg narrative the author has contrived to mingle much that is authentic 
 with the inventions of his own brain ; but it is unpossible to distinguish the 
 real from the imaginary ; and the whole is such a likeness to the di'ead 
 original, ' as to confound the sceptic, and encu-cle him with enchantments.' 
 'So faithful,' says one, 'is the portrait of that distressing calamity — so 
 entire its accordance with what has been delivered by other Avi-iters — so 
 probable the chcumstances of all the stories, and so artless the style in 
 which they are delivered, that it would baffle the ingenuity of any one but 
 De Foe to frame a history with so many attributes of truth upon the basis 
 of fiction.'* ' Had he not been the author of Robinson Crusoe,' says Scott, 
 *DeFoe would have deserved immortality for the genius which he has 
 displayed in this work.' 
 
 * De Foe's Life aod Times, by Walter Wilson. 
 30 
 
DANIEL DE FOE. 
 
 The whole of De Foe's later writings were exceedingly successful, and 
 enjoyed an extensive circulation. Wiiile these were severally proceeding 
 in rapid succession from his pen, he occasionally inteiTupted them to bring 
 out some temporary pamphlet. In a preface to one such publication he 
 alludes to his growing intirmitics and advancing age, but holds himself 
 prepared to devote his stiU remaining days to the advocacy of the pulilic 
 interests. ' I hope,' says he, ' the reader will excuse the vanity of an 
 officious old man, if, like Cato, I inquire whether or no I can yet do 
 anything for my country ? ' 
 
 In all his latter years De Foe appears to have realised a reasonable 
 income by his writings ; yet it is melancholy to contemplate him journeying 
 heavily towards the end, tormented witli severe diseases, and plundered and 
 abandoned by an ungrateful son, whose despicable worthlessness fulfilled 
 old Jacob's most intolerable apprehension — liun-ying down his father's gi'ay 
 and venerable hairs with sorrow to the grave. He passed out of this 
 earthly existence on the 24th April 1731, and his remains were interred 
 in the burial-ground of Bunhill Fields. 
 
 We have thus bi-iefly traced the life of the greatest political pamphleteer, 
 and most ingenious, ready writer for the million that England has pro- 
 duced. We have necessarily left unnoticed an immense number of his 
 writings ; but we have, nevertlieless, seen something of the manner of man 
 he was. It seems to us that he is of a kind who will bear looking at. A 
 brawny, resolute, substantial Englishman : one who, with right on his side, 
 was afraid of neither man nor devil. Not entirely a pacific man, but 
 i-ather constitutionally pugnacious ; and decidedly given to interfere with 
 anything and everything about him which he might fancy to be going 
 wrong. Judging from these two hundred publications, it would appear 
 that he did not particularly cultivate the ordinarily commendable ' talent 
 of silence.' He had very little talent of that kind. He was a downright 
 noisy man ; prompt to controvert, contentious, prone to disjDutation ; a 
 perpetual motion of thoughts and thick -flowing fancies, which he had 
 neither power nor disposition to suppress, but of which, on the contrary, 
 he must and would deliver himself. But what he had to say was full of 
 sense and spirit, and therefore worthy of the saying. People listened to 
 him too with more than common attention. There is no doubt that 
 De Foe's influence among the masses was gi'eater than that of any of the 
 political wi-iters of his age. He was the Cobbett of the Revolution. But he 
 was a greater and a better man than Cobbett — a man of firmer principle, and 
 of a larger candour and liberality. He is considerately tolerant : he is a 
 lover of faii-ness— a faithful respecter and adorer of the truth. The views 
 he gives you have been arrived at by just insight, or at anyi-ate by a 
 careful examination of the things and circumstances to which they are 
 related. 
 
 As a man, he seems to have been eminently sincere in his opinions. 
 T^Tiatsoever he believed, that he boldly professed, and manifested in his 
 conduct without disguise. There is no trimming to party notions, no 
 adroit subserviency, no cunning dodgery to avoid the censures of such as 
 may think fit to take offence, but a direct and manly expression of all 
 he thmks and feels. Honesty is engrained in his constitution. We have 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 seen how he stood by his obligations in the midst of his misfortunes, and 
 how he strove to reaUse in his transactions the high integrity which he 
 admired and recommended in his teachings. He is the same man in 
 his life as in his writings. In these he has a keen regard for whatsoever is 
 graphic, interestmg, and effective. Though he hopes to instruct, he desires 
 to be entertaining ; but in every case he mamtains a purpose, and writes 
 for the accomplishment of an end. There are few instances in history of 
 so entire a surrendering of a man's self to popular and public interests. 
 He lives, moves, and has his being in one lifelong effort to advance the 
 public welfare. As a politician, all his aims are honest, liberal, and 
 thoroughgoing. In all his endeavours he seeks to advance Ms object, and 
 not himself; and in this respect he is worthy of universal admiration. 
 How immeasurably superior, in this respect, to many a popular champion 
 of later times ! His patriotism and philanthropy are not 2^'>'ofessional — are 
 not assumed for purposes of vanity or ambition ; but they are real and 
 earnest, and he grudges not to suffer penalties on their account. There 
 is in him an admirable self-abandonment — a prodigal generosity, which 
 sacrifices comfort, interest, and reputation for the sake of a cherished cause 
 that has been conscientiously and deliberately embraced. This, indeed, is 
 the sign of a true patriot — that he will give himself, and boast nothing of 
 his devotion ; counting lightly of all losses and chagrins, and, if needs be, 
 accepting even Danton's reckless and stern alternative — ' Let my 7iame be 
 blighted, if so only the good cause may prosper!' De Foe evidently lived 
 much under a ' blighted name ; ' but he endured it with a noble patience, 
 and along with it manifold persecutions, exposures in the pillory, and 
 imprisonments — and all for an able and manly advocacy of principles 
 and sentiments whose truth and rightfulness time has since asserted and 
 confirmed. Whoso marcheth in the van of the unborn events, under the 
 contempt and hootings of the faithless, let him courageously hold ou 
 along the path of his aspirations — 
 
 ' My faith is large in Time, 
 And that which shapes it to some perfect end.' 
 
CONFUCIUS. i^ 
 
 THE most instructive chapter in tlie compreliensive records of philosophy 
 is example. There its principles are illustrated in action ; its spirit 
 typitied in life. By this agency has the Divine Being most perfectly 
 revealed himself; and by it, in the moral economy of his universe, are 
 the virtuous energies of humanity continually renewed. The happiest 
 inspiration of which society is the source is tiie influence diffused through 
 it in various attractive forms by its most distinguished members. Cole- 
 ridge has beautifully, and with his accustomed significance, remarked that 
 ' it is only by celestial observations that even terrestrial charts can be 
 constructed scientifically.' To gaze steadfastly at the intellectual and 
 moral lights of the world is at once the criterion and pledge of our own 
 advancement ; and in that constellation there are for all of us some briglit 
 particular stars, which, on account of the brilliancy with which they have 
 shone forth upon mankind under the most peculiar circumstances, should 
 be most earnestly and studiously regarded. Such a one was Confucius : 
 a man who, to use the language of a distinguished living writer, ' six 
 centuries before Christ, considered the outward economy of an empire a 
 worthier object of study than all hidden and abstracted lore ; who prized 
 maxims of life and conduct more than all speculations regarding the 
 Divinity ; who had actually anticipated some of the most modern propo- 
 sitions respecting the governor and tlie governed. This man was not a 
 mere name for a set of opinions : he had a distinct, marked personality. 
 And his words and acts have not been limited to a narrow circle or to one 
 or two centuries. He has left an impression of himself upon the most 
 populous empire in the world. After two thousand years his authority is 
 still sacred among the people, the mandarins, the emperors of China ; his ~ 
 influence is felt in every portion of that vast and con;plicated society.' Of 
 this man it is our intention here to give some account. 
 
 Koong-foo-tse, or Confucius, as his name has been Latinised by the 
 Jesuits, was born in the autumn of the year 551 B.C. at Shang-Ping, in 
 the kingdom of Loo, within the district now called Keo-fow Hiew, just to 
 the eastward of the great canal, in Shan-tung province. It will be observed 
 from the date that he was a contemporary of Pythagoras. Various pro- 
 digies, as in other instances, were, we are told, the forerunners of hie 
 birth. On the eve of his appearance upon earth, two dragons encircled 
 tlie house, live celestial sages entered it at the moment of the portentous 
 77 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 birth, and vocal and instrumental music filled the air. "\Mien he was bom 
 this inscription appeared on his breast : ' The maker of a rule for settling 
 the world.' His pedigi-ee is traced back in a summary maimer to the my- 
 thological monarch Hoang-hj, who is said to have lived more than two 
 thousand years before Christ. His father was a magistrate in his native 
 kingdom ; for China was then divided into a number of small feudal states, 
 nominally dependent on one head, but each ruled by its own laws. Con- 
 fucius, therefore, undoubtedly belonged to the literary class from which the 
 mandarins are chosen ; and it is said that from liis infancy he distinguished 
 himself by his remarkable progress in philosophy. Certain it is that he 
 made those advances in rank and dignity which in China could not be 
 made without much study and an acquaintance with the works of his 
 predecessors in different brandies of learning ; for he became, say his bio- 
 graphers, one of the first mandarins in the kingdom of Loo. 
 
 The early part of his life, as recorded by his followers, presents some 
 curious traits. He was but three years old, says the tale, when his father, 
 Shuh-Leang-Ho, died in a state of honourable poverty, leaving young Con- 
 fucius to the care of his wife Yan-She. The young philosopher, we are 
 told, took no delight in playing like other boys — a very bad symptom, 
 as we should have apprehended, of the vigour of his intellectual facul- 
 ties, but which is, of coui'se, recorded to his honour. He was remarkably 
 grave and serious in his deportment, and endeavoured in all things to 
 imitate his grandfather. For this old gentleman he entertained an ex- 
 traordinary degree of veneration, but nevertheless he one day ventured to 
 reprove him with much philosophic dignity. The occasion was as follows : 
 the grandfather was sitting absorbed in a melancholy reverie, in the 
 course of which he frequently sighed deeply. The child observing him, 
 after some time approached him, and, with many bows and formal reve- 
 rences, spoke thus : ' If I may presume, without violating the respect 
 which I owe you, sir, to inquire into the cause of your grief, I would gladly 
 do so. Perhaps you fear that I, who am descended from you, may reflect 
 discredit on your memory by failing to imitate your virtues.' His grand- 
 father, astonished, asked him from whom he had learned to speak in such a 
 manner. ' From yourself, sir,' replied the boy. ' I listen attentively to 
 your words, and I often hear you say that a son who does not imitate the 
 virtues of his forefathers is not worthy to bear their name.' The result of 
 this sage discourse is not mentioned, but it is evidently a story fabricated 
 to hold him up to admiration among a people whose distinguishing 
 character is that of filial respect for then- parents. Another tale is told to 
 exemplify his veneration for the ancients. After the death of his grand- 
 father, which happened when Confucius was a mere child, the latter pur- 
 sued his studies under a learned doctor, who was likewise a magistrate and 
 governor, although a teacher in a public school, by whose instruction he was 
 soon enabled to read and comprehend many ancient works long since lost. 
 This progress he had made at the age of sixteen, when he fell into company 
 with a person of high rank, and more than twice as old as himself. The 
 great man, who did not entertain so high a respect as Confucius for the 
 woi-ks in question, declared that they were obscure, and not worth the 
 trouble of studying. Whereupon our young student sharply reproved 
 him, saying : ' The books which you despise are full of profound knowledge, 
 2 
 
coNFucros. 
 
 and their obscurity is a recommendation to them. In consequence of this 
 they can only be understood by the wise and learned. If they were plain 
 and intelligible to the people in general, the people would despise them. 
 It is very necessary to the subordination and tranquillity of society that 
 there should be degrees of knowledge, to render the ignorant dependent on 
 the wise. As society could not exist with equality of power, so it could as 
 little exist with equality of knowledge ; for every one would wish to govern, 
 and no one would be willing to obey. I have heard from a low, ignorant 
 person, the same observation which you now make, and it did not surprise 
 me from him, but I am astonished to hear it from a person of your rank 
 and dignity, who ought to be so much better informed.' The story goes on 
 to say that the mandarm, incensed at tlie rebuke, and unable to reply to it 
 by reasoning, would have fallen upon the young logician, and given him a 
 sound beating, if he had not been prevented by those who stood by. 
 
 He was now made a subordinate magistrate, with the duty of inspecting 
 the sale and distribution of corn, and distinguished himself by his industrj- 
 and energy in repressing fraud and introducing order and integrity into the 
 whole business. This led to a higher appointment — that of inspector- 
 general of pastures and flocks — which he entered upon when in his twenty- 
 first year; and the result of his judicious measures, we are told, was a 
 general improvement in the cultivation of the country and the condition 
 of the people. Before this he had entered into the holy estate of matri- 
 mony. Early marriages are common in China ; and Confucius, who seems 
 to have had a peculiar aptitude for conforming to established customs, 
 took to himself a wife at the age of nineteen. The lady was Ke-K wan-She, 
 of an ancient family in Sung, and by her he had one son, named Pe-Yu, 
 who died before his father at the age of fifty, but left a son, named Tsu- 
 Tse, who grew up in the paths pointed out to him by his grandfather, 
 became very learned, and attained to the highest honours of the state. 
 Confucius, who appears to have entertained no great regard for the fair 
 sex, divorced his wife four years after marriage, for no other reason than 
 that he might attend the better to his books, and be able to discharge more 
 efficiently his duties as a mandarm and superintendent of the agriculture 
 of the province. 
 
 The death of his mother, which happened when he was twenty-three years 
 of age, interrupted his administrative functions. According to the 
 ancient and almost forgotten laws of China, children were obliged to resign 
 all public employments on the death of either of their parents ; and Con- 
 fucius, desirous of renewing the observance in his native land of all the 
 practices of venerable antiquity, did not fail to conform to this enactment. 
 He further resolved that instead of consigning the dead, as was now cus- 
 tomary m China, to any piece of waste ground at hand, the obsequies of 
 his mother should be celebrated with a decorum and magnificence which 
 should be an example to the whole country. This spectacle, in which 
 pomp imited with propriety, struck his fellow-citizens with astonishment, 
 and inspired them with such touching recollections, that they determined 
 to restore the observance of what were supposed to be the ancient funeral 
 rites, and to bury their dead in future witli all tlie honours of antiquity. 
 This example was soon followed by the inhabitants of the neighbouring 
 states, and the whole nation, excepting the poorest class, has continued 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the practice to the present day. Confucius, however, was not satisfied 
 with a splendid ceremony, which might be forgotten before the ' funeral 
 baked meats' were cold. He inculcated the necessity of repeating acts of 
 homage and respect at stated times, either at the gi-ave, or in a part of the 
 dwelling-house consecrated for the purpose. Hence the ' hall of ancestors ' 
 and anniversary feasts of the dead which now distinguish China as a nation^ 
 and in which, unfortunately, the Confucian testimonials of affection and 
 respect have degenerated into idolatrous woi-ship. Delighted at the success 
 of his experiment, Confucius shut himself up in his house, to pass in 
 solitude the three years of mourning for his mother. 
 
 This period of retirement was not lost to philosophy, for he devoted 
 the whole of it to study. He reflected deeply on the eternal laws of 
 morality, ti-aced them to their source, imbued his mind with a sense of 
 the duties which they impose indiscriminately on all men, and determined 
 to make them the immutable rules of all his actions. Renouncing the 
 repose, fortune, and honours to which his birth and talents entitled him 
 to aspire, he magnanimously resolved to devote his life to the instruction, 
 of his counti-ymen. He undertook to revive amongst them respect and 
 attachment to those ancient rites and usages, with the performance of 
 wliich, in his vievr, all social and political virtues were connected. Not 
 content with explaining to all classes of his fellow-citizens the invariable 
 precepts of morality, he proposed to found a school, and train up disciples 
 to aid him in disseminating his doctrines through all parts of the empire, 
 and to continue to teach them after his death. He further intended ta 
 compose a series of books which should serve as depositories for his 
 maxims, and hand down his doctrines to after-ages, in the same form in 
 which he had himself promulgated them. 
 
 At this time the most eminent of his contemporaries in philosophy was 
 Laou-tze, who was born B.C. G04, and enjoyed a gi-eat reputation. He 
 was the ' prince of the doctrine of the Taou ;' a word which, according to 
 some, means Reason, and to others, I{jiowledge, and bears a certain resem- 
 blance to the contemporaneous Logos of the Platonic school. His father 
 and mother were poor peasants, the former seventy and the latter fifty 
 years of age at the time of his birth, which tradition ascribes to the agency 
 of a falling star. However this may be, the expectant mother seems to 
 have forsaken or been thrust forth from her dwelling ; and while wander- 
 ing in the fields, when the critical time arrived she lay down beneath a 
 peai'-tree, and there the wonderful child was born. The ' Book of Reason 
 and Virtue,' the gospel of the Taou, has never been translated ; and it is so 
 obscure, both in style and matter, as to be imperfectly known even to 
 Chinese scholars. The general account of it, however, is, that it presents a 
 scheme of morals of too transcendental and mystical a character to be of 
 any practical use. Laou-tze, during the greater part of his life, was a 
 visionary recluse, wi-apped up in metaphysical speculations, and treating 
 with contempt the things of the external world. The darkness of liis. 
 thoughts was made still deeper by an extraordinary compression of style ; 
 and hence the dreamers of succeeding times found in his writings a warrant 
 for their wildest imaginations. He was a believer in the original goodness 
 of human nature, and ascribed its vitiation to the circumstances by which 
 men are surrounded in the world. Above all things, tlierefore, he insisted 
 4 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 apon tlic importance of self-knowledge and self-subjection ; holding that 
 he alone is truly enlightened wlio knows himself, and he alone truly power- 
 ful who is able to conquer himself. It is difficult in the present state of 
 our acquaintance with the ' Book of lieason and Virtue ' to understand 
 how it could have been made the foundation for a system of demonology — 
 but so it is : the sect of the Taou are the demon-worshippers of China. 
 ' If we imagine,' says a recent writer, ' the liermits and other ascetics of the 
 ■earlier ages of Christianity bringing with them into the desert, together 
 with their ignorant superstitions and fevered imaginations, the pure 
 morality of the Gospel, we shall be able to form some idea of the disciples 
 of Laou-tze. The national love of order had originated, from an early 
 period, a classification of the spirits whicli haunt and infest the material 
 ■world ; and this philosopher, or more probably his discijiles, is supposed to 
 have been the first who systematised the whole, beginning with the doctrine 
 of the Divine Logos. These spirits are said to have been originally men ; 
 but in the pantheism which runs through the whole of Chinese faith, it 
 would be equally proper to say that men were originally these spirits. 
 Some are lords and rulers of the upper world ; some are genii and hobgob- 
 lins, wandering among groves and caverns ; and some are demons of the 
 abyss, whose business on earth is mischief, and whose fate is hell and 
 torment. Laou-tze gave himself out to be one of the genii who preside 
 over the destinies of men ; and he is still supposed by his worshippers to 
 be engaged in this supreme office. His followers were retired and studious 
 men. They were the high chemists of China, who supposed that the 
 process of analysis would discover something more than physical elements ; 
 and, believing in the spiritual world, they invested with mystic qualities 
 the world of matter, and devoted their lives to the search after the elixir 
 of immortality and the philosopher's stone. They were originally virtuous 
 recluses, and by means of their ignorant experiments acquired eventually 
 some knowledge of medicine ; but the body, as might be expected, was at 
 all times vitiated by quacks and intriguers ; and as their doctrines came 
 but little home to the common business and bosoms of men, they could not 
 make any permanent head against the more practical Confucians. 
 
 ' Like the state religionists, they worship idols representing the innumer- 
 able spirits which haunt the world ; but their priests are not merely 
 enthusiasts, but being without any general allowance, and depending 
 *!olely upon the people, they work upon their fears as well as hopes, and, 
 by means of animal magnetism and other mystic secrets, pass frequently 
 for soothsayers and magicians. 
 
 ' At present they have a high priest who never dies, possessing the same 
 kind of immortality as the Lama of Thibet ; and who presides over deities 
 and devils alike. He grants patents for worship, and defines the jurisdic- 
 tion of the new gods ; and, like his inferior clergy, derives a revenue from 
 the sale of amulets to preserve men from the influence of the demons.' 
 
 The chief of the new sect, it may be supposed, was curious to see his 
 gi'eat rival ; and we may mention here, although interrupting the chrono- 
 logy, a highly characteristic interview which took place between them when 
 Laou-tze was in his eighty-seventh and Confucius in his thirty-fifth year. 
 The latter philosopher appeared in all the pomp of office, with a tribe of 
 followers behind him ; and the old ascetic began his discourse by 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 reproaching him with his vanity and worldly -mindedness. 'The wise 
 man,' he said, ' loves obscm-ity ; and so far from courting employments, he 
 shuns them. He studies the times : if they be favourable, he speaks ; if 
 corrupt, he yields to the storm. He who is truly virtuous makes no 
 parade of his virtue : he does not proclaim to all the world that he is a 
 sage. This is all I have to say to you : make the best of it you can.' 
 Confucius listened in respectful silence ; and his replies afterwards to the 
 eager questions of his disciples were brief and obscure. ' 1 know the 
 habits of birds, beasts, and fishes,' he said ; ' but as to the dragon ' — the 
 type of the celestial genii — ' I cannot understand how he can raise himself 
 into the heavens.' 
 
 When Confucius determined to supersede the dreams of the mystics and 
 solitaries by a practical system of morals, he at first, after his three years' 
 mourning were expired, shut himself up to study and meditate. His 
 professed object was to acquire the ' wisdom of tlie ancients ;' but we 
 entertain a strong suspicion that his famous golden age of virtue, under 
 the rule of the early kings, was merely a figment of his own, invented by 
 way of obtaining a warrant for his maxims which should pass unquestioned 
 with a people so devoted as the Chinese to antiquity and the authority of 
 the past. However this may be, when his studies or his meditations 
 were over, he determined to travel, and correct the lessons of wisdom by 
 those of experience and observation. He visited the state of Kin, where 
 he perfected himself in music, and then traversed Tse and Wei. He 
 returned to Tse m the employment of the prince, as a public reformer ; 
 but his efforts, though continued for a year, do not appear to have been 
 attended with any beneficial result. Pie was now invited to the imperial 
 court, where he remained for several months, inspecting the historical 
 records, and lamenting the degeneracy of the time. It was while here he 
 visited Laou-tze at Seih-tae. He at length returned to Loo, where 
 disciples began to flock to him in such great numbers, that in a short 
 space of time they amounted, it is said, to three thousand, of whom 
 rive hundred were mandarins, holding the highest offices in that and 
 the neighbouring states. Some extravagant fictions have been related 
 of the school of Confucius. It has been said that all his followers formed 
 a society, among whom a community of goods was established ; and tliat, 
 in order to detach then- minds from the affairs of the world, they appointed 
 one of their number to purchase their food and clothing, and to manage 
 their funds for the good of the whole association. Nothing of this has 
 any foundation. Confucius, like Socrates, seems to have wished to fit 
 men for conducting themselves honourably and usefully in those stations 
 which the public good required that they should fill. His disciples were 
 for the most part men of full age, who lived in their own families, and 
 followed their separate pursuits, resorting to him to propose their doubts, 
 or to collect his opinions and instruction, and oftentimes accompanying 
 him in the different journeys which he thought fit to undertake. Ho 
 divided his scholars into four classes : to the first he taught morals ; to the 
 second, rhetoric ; to the third, politics ; and to the fourth, the perfection of 
 their style in written compositions. The first was the necessary introduc- 
 tion to the others. Confucius was well aware, tliat Avithout a distinct 
 perception of moral excellence there was no such thing as good taste in 
 6 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 eloquence or in writing, nor any practical skill to be attained in the direc- 
 tion of political affairs. He therefore directed his iirst care to tlio formation 
 of the mind for the attainment of this perception ; and in order to do so 
 he taught tliat it was necessary to clear the intellect from tliose mists and 
 obscurities which prevent its distinguishing trutii from falsehood. Tiiese, 
 he said, arise from vices early sown, or springing up in the heart, which it 
 must therefore be our primary care to eradicate ; as the good husbandman 
 begins by rooting out weeds and noxious plants before he commits to the 
 earth the hope of a future harvest. 
 
 This residence at Loo was an important time for Confucius and for the 
 Chinese world. Here the philosopher revelled in music, which was not to 
 him, as he declares, a passing recreation, which gi-atifies the ear without 
 leaving a trace upon the mind, but the origmator of distinct images and 
 ideas, which remained after tlie sounds had ceased. He was likewise a 
 mighty hunter, for which he found warrant in ancient prescription — tlie chase 
 having been inculcated under the early kings as a duty, and enforced by 
 legal penalties. During the same period he worked Industi'iously — often 
 night and day — upon the historical works, wearing out by frequent use no 
 less than thi-ee sets of the bamboo bundles, which were then the form of 
 Chinese volumes. He abridged the ' She-king' and the ' Shoo-king,' and 
 restored the 'Yeh-king' from the obscurity into which it had sunk, and by 
 his comments placed it in that supremacy to which it was entitled both by 
 its purity and wisdom. He had accepted a petty magistracy, which, on 
 an unworthy change of magistrates, he threw up in disgust ; and at length 
 he determined to resume his travels. 
 
 He tirst proceeded to Chen, where his reception was indifferent ; and he 
 then revisited, with better success, the state of Tze. Here the prince, 
 surrounded with all the pomp and circumstance of royalty, received the 
 philosopher as his superior, and would insist upon his takmg precedence, 
 urging that a ' sage is higher than a king.' Confucius, however, though 
 not questioning so reasonable a proposition, was the last man ui China to 
 submit to so unheard of a solecism in ceremony ; and he flatly refused to 
 indulge his majesty. He was made one of the ministers, howevei', but 
 kept his appointment only for a short time. The intrigues of the court 
 were too strong for his wisdom, and our philosopher returned again to his 
 native country. 
 
 The reputation of Confucius was now so widely spread that the king of 
 Loo offered him no longer an inferior magistracy, but the post of ' governor 
 of the people ' m the capital. Confucius, in this office, testified in a remark- 
 able manner his great abilities, so that even in a few months the change in 
 public morals excited the astonishment of the king. He was now ordered 
 into the royal presence, and invested with the dignity of Sze-haon, wliich 
 placed him at the head of the magistracy, both civil and criminal, through- 
 out the kingdom, and conferred upon him an authority only second to that 
 of the king himself. In this high office he commenced his career by an 
 act — which indeed he had informed the king, previously to his investiture, 
 was a stern necessity of the time — of surprising vigour and daring, the 
 public execution of one of the chief ministers, whose villauies had been the 
 principal cause of the evils which afflicted the kingdom. This proceeding 
 terrified the kmg, and astounded even the disciples of the philosopher: 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ' but the event shewed he was right in liis calculation — that such a criminal 
 might have adherents while he was in life and in powei", but could have no 
 friends to deplore or avenge him. The execution was conducted with all 
 Ihe terrors of the law, and the inexorable magistrate attended in person, 
 and ordered the exposure of the body for three days. 
 
 During the administration of Confucius the affairs of the kingdom 
 flourished ; and at one time he had the satisfaction of preserving his 
 prince from a snare set for him by a rival king of Tze. The latter, 
 however, at length succeeded in counteracting the effect of the philoso- 
 pher's counsels, and in a way highly characteristic of such courts. He 
 selected eighty beautiful young ladies, accomplished singers and dancers, 
 and sent this formidable host against the refined court of Loo ; where they 
 were not only able to resist the powerful impression of the Confucian 
 precepts, and the general example of the whole kingdom, but to dislodge 
 the philosoplier from his stronghold, to overturn the edifice of morality 
 ■which he had constructed, and to drive him in utter despair from the 
 scene of his most splendid triumph. The most beautiful and accom- 
 plislied of these females fastened on the king, while the others, in the 
 i^egular gradation of their charms, attached themselves to the grandees 
 in proportion to their rank. The result was such as we believe never 
 happened in any other country from a sudden importation of ladies 
 — namely, that from an extraordinary austerity of morals the whole 
 nation was at once dissolved in luxury and pleasure ; the business of the 
 Btate stood still; the courtiers occupied themselves only in feasting, danc- 
 ing, shows, and dissipation ; and the shopkeepers consoled themselves for 
 the wickedness of their superiors by cutting off part of their reformed 
 measures, tiling down their weights, and making one scale an ounce heavier 
 than the other. 
 
 Confucius, who had first protested against admitting into the kingdom 
 
 ' the insidious visitors, employed his eloquence for some time after their 
 ■arrival in endeavouring to persuade the old grandees to have nothing to 
 
 ' do with these lovely foreigners ; but his harangues, which a few weeks 
 before had been omnipotent against the charms of the women of Loo, were 
 
 •wholly ineffectual against those of the Tzean ladies. Vexed, therefore, as 
 
 "^ philosopher naturally would be at such a discovery, he soon resigned in 
 disgust, and went abroad in seai'ch of disciples less vacillating than his 
 countrymen of Loo. 
 
 He now tried several of the Chinese states, one after another, but in 
 vain. All were satisfied with their anarchy and demoralisation ; and tlie 
 answer of the king of AVei to the more refined nobles, who besought him 
 to give employment to the wandering sage, may be taken as cliaracteristic 
 of the whole. ' We are now quiet,' said he ; ' but if the philosopher of 
 Loo once gets a finger in the government, under the plausible pretext of 
 reform, all will be thro'wii into confusion. I am old : I do not love change : 
 let things go on as usual : my successor can do as he pleases.' Confucius 
 passed on his way, consoling himself with the idea, that ' the wise man is 
 everywhere at home — the wliole earth is his.' But each home was as 
 turbulent and as hostile as the last. Sometimes tlie people received his 
 doctrines with acclamation ; but this only drew upon lilm the persecution of 
 the authorities, and occasionally the meetings of his followers were dis- 
 8 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 pcrsctl at tlic point of the sword. Once lie was placed in confinement, and 
 himself and disciples even straitened for food. Confucius was now in liis 
 sixty-sixth year ; and hearing of the death of his wife, he seems to have 
 regarded it as a warning of his own. 
 
 He had the misfortune to live in times when men were ambitious, 
 avaricious, and voluptuous ; when rebellions, wars, and tumults every- 
 where prevailed ; and though he was fortunate enough to make a vast 
 number of proselytes among the most eminent persons wherever lie went, 
 yet he fell into extreme poverty, and was greatly oppressed and perse- 
 cuted. At length, tinding that :i public life to him was beset with dangers 
 and trials, he retired to Loo, and in the company of his chosen disciples, 
 employed himself in composing or compiling those celebrated works which 
 have handed down his reputation to posterity, and become the sacred 
 books of China. When seventy years of age, his favourite disciple died. 
 Confucius being greatly concerned for the continuance and propagation of 
 his doctrines, and having entertained great hopes of this person, was 
 inconsolable for his loss, and wept bitterly, exclaiming : ' Heaven has 
 destroyed — Heaven has destroyed me ! ' In his seventy-third year, a few 
 days before his death, he moved about, leaning on his staff, and sighed> 
 as he exclaimed — 
 
 ' The mountain is crumbling, 
 The strong beam is yielding. 
 The sage is withering like a, plant.' 
 
 He observed to a disciple that the empire had long been in a state of 
 anarchy, and mentioned a dream of the previous night, which he regarded 
 as the presage of his own departure ; and so it came to pass, for, after seven 
 days of lethargy, he expired in the year 479 n. c. The eighteenth day 
 of the second moon is kept sacred by the Chinese as the anniversary of 
 their sage's death. 
 
 The eyes of the deceased were closed by two of his disciples, who, after 
 putting three pinches of rice into the mouth, arrayed the body in the robes 
 of a minister of state. It was laid, with all the ceremonies so dear to the 
 philosopher when living, in a piece of ground purchased for the purpose 
 to the north of the city ; and, to mark the spot, three mounds of earth were 
 raised, and a tree planted, which is said to exist at this day. The disciple 
 who had acted the part of chief mourner extended his period of mourning 
 to six years, residing constantly near the tomb. Crowds came to the place 
 with their families, and erected habitations, till a village arose, which gra- 
 dually waxed to a city of the third order, called Kea-foo-heen. 
 
 Notwithstanding the general demoralisation of his contemporaries, he 
 was no sooner dead than men of all sorts began to venerate his memory. 
 Upon hearing of the event, the king of Loo burst into tears, exclaiming: 
 ' Heaven is displeased with me, since He has taken from me the most 
 precious treasure of my kingdom.' The same sentiments prevailed through 
 all the surroundmg countries ; which, from that very moment, say the 
 historians, began to honour him as a saint. In the Han dynasty, long 
 subsequent to his death, he was dignified with the highest title of 
 honour; and he was subsequently styled The Sovereign Teacher. The 
 Ming, or Chinese dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols, called him The 
 77 ' 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 most holy teacher of ancient times — a title which the present Tartar family 
 has continued. 
 
 Though only a single descendant (his gi'andson) survived Confucius, the 
 succession has continued through sixty-seven or sixty-eight generations to 
 the present day, in the very district where their gi-eat ancestor was born. 
 Various honours and privileges have always distinguished the family, and 
 its heads have enjoyed the rank of nobility. In every city, down to those 
 of the third order, there is a temple dedicated to Confucius. ' In the most 
 honourable place of this temple,' says D'Avity, ' is seen his statue, or at 
 least his name, in letters a cubit long. By his side are seen the statues of 
 some of his disciples, whom the Chinese esteem as saints or divinities of a 
 lower rank. All the magistrates of the cities assemble, together with those 
 who are proclaimed bachelors, in each fuU and new moon in the temple, and 
 offer a kind of adoration to their master with inclinations of the head, and 
 bendings of the knee, and with burning of incense and torches. They also 
 present to him food on his birthday, and at some other periods, thanking 
 him for his doctrines, but neither making a prayer to him nor asking 
 anything from him.' Other writers say that there are no statues to Con- 
 fucius, but simply tablets with his name. The number of temples dedicated 
 to hira in China is stated to be 1560, in which are sacrificed annually 62,000 
 victims (chiefly pigs and rabbits), besides other offerings. Time has but 
 added to the reputation which he left behind him ; and he is now, at the 
 distance of more than two thousand years, held in universal veneration 
 throughout China by all persons, even by those who reject his doctrines. 
 
 ' Confucius,' says Professor Maurice, ' could not have produced the effect 
 which he has produced upon the empii-e of China ; could not be recognised 
 in the character in which he has been recognised for so many ages, if his 
 mind had not been the very highest type of the Chinese mind ; that in 
 which we may read Avliat it was aiming at both before and after he appeared 
 to enlighten it. We may, therefore, acquiesce without difficulty in the 
 opinion, that the Chinese religion was from the first of a much less high 
 and mysterious quality than that of almost any people upon the eai-th ; that 
 the belief of the eternal, as distinct from and opposed to the temporal, 
 existed very dimly and imperfectly in it, and was supplied only by a 
 reverence for the past ; that the sense of connection or communion with any 
 invisible powers, though not absent, must have been weak and slightly 
 developed ; that the emperor must have been regarded always as the 
 highest utterer of the divine mind ; that the priest must have been chiefly 
 valued as a minister of the ceremonial of the court ; that rites and 
 ceremonies must have had m this land a substantive value independent of 
 all significance, which they have scarcely ever possessed elsewhere ; that 
 there was united with this tendency one which to some may seem incom- 
 patible Avith it — an attachment to whatever is useful and practical ; that the 
 Chinese must have entertained a profound I'espect for family relationships ; 
 that the relationship of father and son will, however, have so overshadowed 
 all the rest, that they will have been regarded merely as different forms of 
 it, or as to be sacrificed for the sake of it ; that implicit obedience to 
 authority will have been the virtue which every institution existed to 
 enforce, which was to be their only preserver. If we suppose the reverence 
 
 10 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 for the shades of ancestors, for the person of the emperor, for the dignity 
 of the father, to liave been joined with something of a Sab.Tfin worship, 
 with some astrology and speculation about the future, we shall perhaps 
 arrive at a tolerably near conception of China as it may have existed under 
 the old emperors, to whom the sage continually refers with admiration and 
 regret.' 
 
 These old institutions and this old creed of his country Confucius had 
 studied most profoundly, and was most earnestly desirous to preserve. No 
 one aspired less to be an innovator: his main object was to remove 
 innovations. ' I teach you nothing,' he often repeated, ' but what you 
 miglit learn yourselves, if you made a proper use of your faculties. What 
 can be more simple and natural than the principles of that moral code, the 
 maxims of which I inculcate? All I tell you, our ancient sages have 
 practised before us in the remotest times — namely, the observance of the 
 three fundamental laws of relation between sovereign and subject, father 
 and child, husband and wife ; and the five capital virtues — namely, univer- 
 sal charity, impartial justice, conformity to ceremonies and established 
 usages, rectitude of heart and mind, and pure sincerity.' ' This,' says 
 Mr Thornton in his laboriously-accurate ' History of China,' to which we 
 have been indebted for various details, ' is a concise summary of the whole 
 moral system of Confucius.' We are told by another writer, that the 
 Confucian theory has preserved its influence because it was precisely 
 adapted to the singularly practical mind of the Chinese : ' To understand 
 Confucius is to understand China. He had no idiosyncrasy. He was an 
 incarnation of the national character, a mouthpiece of the national feelings ; 
 and he was only greater than the rest of his countrymen by being imbued 
 with that genius which gives vitality and energy to thoughts that lie 
 dormant, though existing, in the minds of meaner men. He was the mental 
 light which touches, as Dryden expresses it, " the sleeping images of 
 things;" and at his appearance all became visible that before was obscure, 
 all distinct that before was unintelligible, and the tumultuous ideas 
 of a great nation fell gradually into peace, and order, and harmony. 
 
 He appealed to no general passions, to no principles that are 
 
 catholic in man. He allured the intellectual by no metaphysical subtleties, 
 tlie ignorant by no splendour of imagination, the credulous by no super- 
 natural pretensions : in point of fact, his ethical system, with the exception 
 of the golden rule, " Do unto others as you would they should do imto 
 you," reproduced in Christianity five hundred years later, never soars 
 beyond the most obvious commonplace. Confucius, notwithstanding, was 
 hailed asThe Messiah of the Chinese ; the national mind rested, as it were, 
 upon his writings ; and from that day to this it has never advanced a step 
 beyond them.' A summary view of the original works or compilations 
 which have come down from the age of Confucius and his disciples, 
 will best enable us to form some judgment respecting that school of 
 philosophy and literature of which he was the head, and which con- 
 stitutes at this day the standard of Chinese orthodoxy. These classical 
 or sacred works consist in all of nine— that is to say, the ' Four Books,' 
 and the ' Five Canonical Works.' In the coui-se of a regular education, 
 the former of these are the first studied and committed to memory, 
 being subsequently followed up bv the others ; and a complete know- 
 
 U 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ledge of the whole of them, as well as of the standard notes ant? 
 criticisms by which they are elucidated, is an mdispensable condition 
 towards the attainment of the higher grades of literary and official rank. 
 The original text of these works is comprised within a very moderate 
 compass ; but the numerous commentaries which from time to time have 
 been added contribute to swell the whole to a formidable bulk. The art 
 of printing, however, which gives the Chinese such an advantage over 
 otlier Asiatic nations, together with the extreme cheapness of paper, has 
 contributed to multiply the copies ad infinitum, and to bring these and 
 most other books of the countiy within the reach of almost everybody. 
 
 I. The first of the four books is the ' Ta-heo,' or ' Great Study.' This 
 little work consists of a brief text by Confucius, with an explanation by 
 his disciple Theng-tsen. Though very brief (containing less than two 
 thousand words), it may, in one point of view, be regai'ded as the most 
 precious of all the writings of our philosopher, as it exhibits in the 
 highest degree the employment of a logical method ; which shews that its 
 author, although unacquainted with the profound syllogistic proceedings 
 taught and practised by the Greek and Hindoo philosophers, had at least 
 reduced his philosophy to a scientitic state, and was not confined to the 
 aphoristic expression of moral ideas. The ' Ta-heo ' is intended to shew 
 that in the knowledge and government of one's self the economy and govern- 
 ment of a family must originate; and going on thence to extend the 
 principle of domestic rule to the administration of a province, it deduces 
 from this last the rules and maxims which should prevail in the ordering of 
 the whole empire. The end and aim of the work is evidently political ; 
 and in this instance, as in others, the philosopher and statesman of China 
 commences with morals as the foundation of politics ; with the conduct of 
 an individual father in his family as the prototype of a sovereign's sway 
 over his people. 
 
 In the sixth section of this work the ' beauty of virtue ' is inculcated 
 somewhat in the manner of the Stoics, and its practice recommended as a 
 species of enjoyment. Much wisdom also is shewn in pointing out the 
 importance and utility of rectifying ' the motives of action.' In the tenth 
 section good advice is given to kings and statesmen, as in these sentences : 
 ' He who gains the hearts of the people secures the throne ; and he who 
 loses the people's hearts loses the throne.' ' Let those who produce 
 revenue be many, and those who consume it few ; let the producers have 
 every facility, and let the consumers practise economy ; thus there Avill 
 be constantly a sufficiency of revenue' — and he might have added, no 
 national debts. 
 
 n. The second sacred book is the ' Chung-yung,' or 'The Invariable 
 in the Mean.' It is an application of the Greek maxim — n Si /uKroTr,; iv -rain* 
 aa-puXtffTt^u, that 'the middle is in all things the safest course.' This 
 doctrine of the mean, in the opinion of the Chmese, contains the very 
 essence of all philosophy. It has been tims explained by Professor 
 Maurice : ' Each duty involves another. What is the first duty from 
 which all derive their sanction — the performance of whicli makes the 
 performance of the others possible? It is difficult to find; often we seem 
 to be moving in a circle. But evidently all duties involve a rule. To be 
 right is to be regular. Irregularity must be the common expression for the 
 12 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 violation of all relations. But irregularity is clearly the effect of some bias 
 determining us to one side or another. Tlie law of rectitude, then, must be 
 the law of tlie mean. All study and discipline must be for the preservation 
 of this.' In continuation of this explanation he quotes the following passage 
 from the Cfiiuirj-yiinij : 'Before joy, satisfaction, anger, sorrow, have 
 been produced in the soul, the state in which we are found is called the 
 mean. When once tliey have been produced in the soul, and they liave 
 not transgressed certain limits, the state in which we are is called Harmonic. 
 This mean is the great foundation of the world. Harmony is the universal 
 and permanent law of it. When the Mean and the Harmony have been 
 carried to the point of perfection, heaven and earth are in a state of perfect 
 tranquillity, and all beings receive tlieir full development. Confucius 
 said: The man of superior virtue perseveres invariably in tlie mean; the 
 vulgar or unprincipled man is constantly in opposition to this invariable 
 mean. Few men are there, he cried at another time, who know how to 
 keep long in the right way; I know the reason: cultivated men pass beyond 
 it; ignorant men do not attain it; men of strong virtue go too far; men of 
 feeble virtue stop short.' 
 
 ' Here,' continues Mr Maurice, ' we have the very marrow of Chinese 
 life, Chinese morals, Chinese politics. Hence we may explain that 
 passion for minute ceremony which seems to western people so ridiculous 
 and intolerable. Hence it arises that the most affectionate disciples of a 
 man really so honest and simple as Confucius was, should spend whole 
 pages in informing us that if he had to salute persons who presented them- 
 selves to him either on the right or the left, his robe behind and before 
 always fell straight and well-arranged ; that his step was quickened when 
 lie introduced guests, and that he held his arms extended like the wings of 
 a bird ; that when he entered under the gate of the palace, he bent his 
 body as if the gate had not been sufficiently high to let him pass ; that in 
 passing before the throne, his countenance changed all at once, his step 
 being grave and measured, as if he had fetters on, and his words being as 
 embarrassed as his feet ; that, taking his robe with his two hands, he 
 ascended into the hall of the palace, his body bent and holding his breath, 
 as if he had not dared to breathe ; that his night-dress was always half as 
 long again as his body ; that he never ate meat which was not cut in 
 straight lines ; that if a meat had not the sauce which belonged to it, he 
 never touched it : with a thousand other particulars, of which these are 
 fair specimens, and which we willingly omit, lest we should diminish our 
 readers' respect for a really remarkable man, when our intention is only to 
 tlirow light upon the national chai-acter, and to shew how entirely the 
 philosophy of Confucius gi-ew out of it, and was determined by it. That 
 philosophy is not a mere collection of dry formalities : it is based upon a 
 large experience ; brings out the idea of duty as it was never brought out 
 in the west till Greek philosophy was remoulded by the Latin mind. It 
 suggests very deep thoughts respecting the connection of social and indivi- 
 dual life ; it may help us as much by that which it fails to recognise as by 
 that which it actually proclaims. But the blanks which are so significant 
 to us have been filled up in China, as they could only be filled up, by new 
 maxims, a more rigid ceremonial, an intense self-conceit and self-satis- 
 faction. The true Confucian clings to his classical books, learns them bv 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 heart, dwells on the rules of equity, the contempt of money, the reverence 
 for antiquity which they enforce ; and shews by the contradictions of his 
 acts and life what truth there is in these maxims, and what powerlessness ; 
 how faithfully they foretell the decline of a country in which they are not 
 obeyed ; and how utterly unable they are to produce obedience.' 
 
 The following passages, extracted from the ' Chung -yung,' will give 
 some idea of the political philosophy of Confucius. He thus explains his 
 notions of good government : ' Koong-foo-tse was questioned on the 
 constitutive principles of a good government. The philosopher said: 
 The laws of the ancient kings were consigned to bamboo tablets ; if 
 their ministers were living now their laws would be in vigour ; their 
 ministers have ceased to be, and their principles of good government are 
 no longer followed. The combined virtues and qualities of the ministers 
 of a prince make the administration of a state good, as the fertile virtue 
 of the earth, uniting the moist and the dry, produces and makes to grow 
 the plants which cover its surface. This good administration resembles 
 the reeds which are on the borders of rivers : it springs up naturally on a 
 soil that is suitable to it. Thus the good administration of a state depends 
 upon the ministers Avho are set over it. A prince who wishes to imitate 
 the excellent government of the ancient kuigs must choose his ministers 
 according to his own sentiments, which must always be inspired by the 
 public good. That his sentiments may always have the public good for 
 their moving principle, he must conform himself to the great law of duty ; 
 and this great law of duty must be sought for in humanity, that fine virtue 
 of the heart which is the principle of love for all men. This humanity is 
 man himself: regard for relations is its first duty.' 
 
 He next describes what is necessary in a prince : ' The prince can never 
 cease to correct himself and bring himself to perfection. With the inten- 
 tion of cori-ecting and perfecting himself, he cannot dispense with rendering 
 to his relations that which is their due. Having the intention to render to 
 his relations their due, he cannot dispense with the acquaintance of wise 
 men, that he may honour them, and that they may instruct him in his 
 duties. Having the intention to become acquainted with wise men, he 
 cannot dispense with the knowledge of Heaven, nor with the law which 
 directs in the practice of prescribed duties.' 
 
 The various duties of man are then enumerated. ' The most universal 
 duties for the human race are five in number, and man possesses three 
 natural faculties for practising them. These five duties are — the relations 
 which subsist between the prince and his ministers, the father and his 
 children, the husband and his wife, the elder and younger brothers, and 
 those of friends among themselves. Conscience, which is the light of 
 intelligence to distinguish good and evil ; humanity, which is the equity of 
 the heart ; moral courage, which is the strength of the soul — these are the 
 tliree grand and universal moral faculties of man.' 
 
 Results he considers to be more important than the method of arriving 
 at them. ' Wliether nature is sufficient for the knowledge of these universal 
 duties ; whether study is necessary to apprehend them ; whether the know- 
 ledge is arrived at with great difliculty or not — when one has got the know- 
 ledge, the result is the same. Whether we practise these duties naturally 
 and without effort, or whether we practise them for the sake of getting 
 14 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 profit and personal advantage from tliem — wlien we Lave succeeded in 
 
 accomplishing meritorious works, the result is the same.' 
 
 lie then goes on to teach that practice leads to knowledge. ' lie who 
 loves study, or the application of his intelligence to the search of the law 
 of duty, is very near the acquirement of moral science. He who devotes 
 all his efforts to practise his moral duties, is near that devotion to the 
 happiness of men which is called humanity. He who knows how to 
 blush for his weakness in the practice of his duties, is very near acquiring 
 the force of mind necessary to their accomplishment.' 
 
 Rulers are next informed how they may make the condition of an empire 
 blessed and enviable. ' So soon as the prince shall have well regulated 
 and improved himself, straightway the universal duties will be accomplished 
 towards him. So soon as he shall have learned to revere wise men, straight- 
 way he will no longer have any doubt about the principles of truth and 
 falsehood, of good and evil. So soon as his parents shall be the objects of 
 the affection which is due to them, straightway there will be no more dis- 
 sensions between his inicles, his elder brother, and his younger brothers. 
 Bo soon as he shall treat with fitting respect all public functionaries and 
 secondary magisti-ates, the doctors and literary men will zealously acquit 
 themselves of their duties in the ceremonies. So soon as he shall love and 
 treat the people as his son, the people will be drawn to imitate their 
 superior. So soon as he shall have collected about him all the learned men 
 and artists, his wealth will be advantageously spent. So soon as he shall 
 entertain agreeably persons who come from a distance, straightway will men 
 from the four ends of the empire flock in crowds to his state, to share in 
 the benefits he bestows. So soon as he shall treat his great vassals with 
 kindness, straightway he will be respected throughout the whole empire.' 
 
 We must not separate these political axioms from the following, which 
 are more purely moral. Resolutions, he says, is the gi'eatest element of 
 action : ' AH virtuous deeds, all duties which have been resolved on before- 
 hand, are thereby accomplished ; if they are not resolved on, they are 
 thereby in a state of infraction. If we have determined beforehand the 
 words which we must speak, we shall experience no hesitation. If we 
 have predetermined our affairs and occupations in the world, they will 
 thereby be easily accomplished. If we have predetermined on moral 
 conduct in life, we shall feel no anguish of soul. If we resolve beforehand 
 to obey the law of duty, it will never fail us.' 
 
 He thus distinguishes between the samt and the sage. 'The perfect, the 
 true, disengaged from all mixture, is the law of Heaven. The process of 
 perfection, wliich consists in using all one's efforts to discover the celestial 
 law, the true principle of the mandate of Heaven, is the law of man. The 
 perfect man attains this law witiiout help from without ; he has no need of 
 meditation or long reflection to obtain it ; he arrives at it with calmness and 
 tranquillity. This is the holy man. He who is continually tending towards 
 perfection ; who chooses the good and attaches himself strongly to it for 
 fear of losing it, is the sage. He must study much to learn all that is good ; 
 he must inquire with discernment, to seek information about all that is 
 good ; he must watch carefully over all that is good, for fear of losing it, 
 and meditate upon it in his soul; he must continually strive to become 
 acquainted with all that is good, and take great care to distinguish it 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 from all that is evil ; and then he must firmly and constantly practise thi? 
 good.' 
 
 We conclude our notice of this book with the following testimony to 
 perseverance : — ' He who shall truly follow the rule of perseverance, 
 however ignorant he may be, he will necessarily become enlightened ; 
 however feeble he may be, he will necessarily become strong.' 
 
 III. The tliird of the Chinese classical books is the ' Lun-yu,' or ' Philoso- 
 phical Dialogues.' We have hero the recorded sayings of Confucius, which 
 bear far more internal evidence of genuineness than those which are com- 
 monly attributed to the founders of the Greek scliools. We have also th'^ 
 testimonies of affectionate disciples respecting him, which, if they are noi 
 wholly to be trusted, at least give us different impressions of his character, 
 out of which we may form one for ourselves. Sir J. F. Davis calls the 
 Lun-yu 'a complete Chinese Boswell;' M. Panthier, who has recently 
 translated it into French, compares its dialogues to those in wliich Socrates 
 is the hero. It is, in truth, in these Philosophical Dialogues that we 
 become best acquainted with the lofty mind of Confucius — his passion for 
 virtue, his ardent love of humanity, and desire for the happiness of all men. 
 No sentiment of vanity or pride, of menace or fear, tarnishes the purity and 
 authority of his words. ' I was not born endowed with knowledge,' he says ; 
 ' I am a man who loved the ancients, and made all exertions to acquire their 
 information.' His disciples said of him : ' He was a man exempt from four 
 faults: self-love, prejudice, egotism, and obstinacy. He was mild, yet firm; 
 "majestic, though not harsh; grave, yet agreeable.' 
 
 Study — that is, the search after the good, the true, and the virtuous — was, 
 in his view, the surest means of attaining perfection. ' I have passed,' he 
 said, ' whole days without food, and entire nights without sleep, that 1 
 might give myself up to meditation, but it was no use: .study is far prefer- 
 able.' He soon added : ' The superior cares only about the right way, and 
 does not think about eating and drinking. If you cultivate the earth, 
 hunger often presents itself in your midst; if you study, felicity is your 
 constant companion. The superior man is anxious only to keejD in the 
 right way; he does not trouble himself about poverty.' With what admi- 
 ration he speaks of one of his disciples, who, in the midst of the greatest 
 privations, devoted liimsclf to the study of wisdom with unabated perse- 
 verance! 'Oh! how wise was Hoei! he had a dish of bamboo to eat 
 from, and a common cup to drink from, and he lived in a humble hovel in 
 a narrow and deserted street; any other man but himself would have sunk 
 under his privations and sufferings. But nothing could affect the serenity 
 of Hoei; oh! what a wise man was Hoei!' But if he could thus lionour 
 poverty, he was no less energetic in denouncing a material, idle, and useless 
 life. ' Those,' he said, ' who do nothing but eat and drink during the whole 
 day, without employing their intellects in some worthy occupation, excite 
 my pity. Is there not the trade of bargemen? Let them practise it; 
 then they will be sages in comparison with what they are now.' 
 
 It is a well-known fact that many of the ancient (Ireek philosophers had 
 two doctrines — one public and the other secret ; one for the A'ulgar, the other 
 for the initiated. Such was not the case with Confucius; he plainly 
 declared that he had no esoterical doctrine. ' Do you fancy, my disciples, 
 that I have any doctrines that I conceal from you? I have none: I have 
 IC 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 ■done nothing that I have not communicated to you, oh my disciples!' He 
 appears, indeed, according to Mr Thornton, to have been particularly 
 anxious not to appear anything higher than he really was. ' Amongst the 
 .•mecdotes related respecting Confucius at this period, there is one which 
 evinces his desire to disclaim supernatural knowledge. In one of their 
 walks he advised his disciples to provide themselves with umbrellas, since, 
 ■nlthough the sky was perfectly fair, there would soon be rain. The event, 
 contrary to their expectation, corresponded with his prediction, and one of 
 them inquired what spirit had revealed to him this secret. " There is no 
 spirit in the matter," said Confucius ingenuously; "a verse in the She-kin;] 
 says, that ' when the moon rises in the constellation ^jc, gi-cat rain may be 
 expected.' Last night I saw the moon in that constellation. This is the 
 Avhole secret.'" 
 
 That our readers may not be unacquainted with the form, such as It is, of 
 this Chinese book, through our desire to cull choice sentences that fell from 
 -the lips of Confucius, we will give the substance of one or two of the chapters 
 which seem best to explain his character and manner of thinking, putting 
 headings of our own to each paragraph for convenience of reference. 
 
 1. Pleasures of Study. — ' The philosopher said: He who devotes himself 
 to the study of the true and the good, witli perseverance and without 
 relaxation, derives therefrom gi-eat satisfaction.' 
 
 2. External Appearances. — 'Khoong-tseu said: Ornate and flowerv 
 expressions, an exterior that is carefully got up and full of affectation, are 
 rarely allied with sincere virtue.' 
 
 3. Thorough Knoidedge. — ' The philosopher said : Make yourself com- 
 pletely master of what you have learned, and be always learning something 
 new; you may then become an instructor of men.' 
 
 4. A superior Man. — 'Tseu-Koong asked who was a superior man; the 
 philosopher said : He is a man who first puts his words into practice, and 
 then speaks conformably to his actions. The superior man is one who 
 entertains an equal feeling of benevolence towards all men, and has no 
 egotism or partiality. The vulgar man is he who has none but sentiments 
 of egotism, without any benevolent disposition towards all men in general.' 
 
 5. Rules of Conduct. — ' Tseu-chang studied with the view of obtaining 
 the functions of a governor. The philosopher said to him: Listen much, 
 so as to diminish your doubts ; be attentive to what you say, that you mav 
 say nothing superfluous — then you will rarely commit faults. IjOok much, 
 that you may diminish the dangers into which you might run through not 
 being informed of what is passing. AVatch attentively over your actions, 
 and you will rarely have cause to repent. If in your words you seldom 
 commit faults, and if your actions seldom give you cause to repent, you 
 possess already the charge to which you aspire.' 
 
 6. Sinceritu and Fideliti/. — ' The philosopher said : A man devoid of 
 sincerity and fidelity is an incomprehensible being in my eyes : he is a 
 great chariot without an axle, a little chariot without a pole ; how can he 
 guide himself along the road of life ? ' 
 
 7. Country Life. — ' The philosopher said : Humanity, or sentiments of 
 benevolence towards others, is admirably practised in the country ; he who. 
 in selecting a residence, refuses to dwell in the coimtry, cannot be con- 
 sidered wise.' 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 8. Honesty. — The philosopher said : Riches and honour are the objects 
 of human desire ; if they cannot be obtained by honest and right means, 
 they must be renounced. Poverty, and a humble or vile condition, are 
 the objects of human hatred and contempt ; if you cannot escape therefrom 
 by honest and right means, you must remain in them.' 
 
 9. Preparation for Death. — ' The philosopher said : If in the morning 
 you have heard the voice of celestial reason, in the evening you wlU be fit 
 to die.' 
 
 10. Consequences of Avarice. — ' The philosopher said : Apply yourself 
 solely to gains and profits, and your actions will make you many enemies.' 
 
 11. Actions and Words. — ' The philosopher said : At the commencement 
 of my relations with men, I listened to their words, and I thought that 
 their actions would be in conformity to them. Now, in my relations with 
 men, I listen to their words, but I look to thek actions.' 
 
 12. Love for the Past. — ' The philosopher said : I illustrate and comment 
 upon the old books, but I do not compose new ones. I have faith in the 
 ancients — I love them ; T have the highest respect for our Lao-pang' (a sage 
 of the Chang dynasty.) 
 
 13. Ideal of a Great Man. — ' The philosopher said : To meditate in 
 silence, and to recall to one's memory the objects of one's meditations ; to 
 devote one's self to study and not to be discouraged ; to instruct men and 
 not to suffer one's self to be cast down — how shall I attain to the possession 
 of these virtues ? ' 
 
 14. Lamentations over the Age. — 'The philosopher said: Vu-tue is not 
 cultivated — study is not manfully pursued : if the principles of justice and 
 equity are professed, they are not followed ; the wicked and the perverse 
 will not amend — that is the cause of my sorrow.' 
 
 15. Self- Education necessary. — ' The philosopher said : If a man makes 
 no efi"orts to develop his O'wn mind, I shall not develop it for him. If a 
 man does not choose to make use of his faculty of speech (so as to make 
 himself intelligible), I shall not penetrate the sense of his expressions. If, 
 after having enabled him to know one angle of a square, he does not dis- 
 cover the measm-e of the other three, I do not repeat the demonstration.' 
 
 16. Mere Courage no Virtue. — ' Tseu-lou said : If you were leading three 
 bodies of troops of 12,500 men each, which of us would you take for a 
 lieutenant ? The philosopher answered : The man who with his ovra 
 hands would engage us in a combat with a tiger ; who without any motive 
 would wish us to ford a river ; who would throw away his life without 
 reason or remorse — I certainly would not take for my lieutenant. I 
 should want a man who would maintain a steady vigilance in the direction 
 of afiairs ; who was capable of forming plans and of executing them.' 
 
 17. filches letter than Respectability. — ' The philosopher said : To get 
 riches in a fair way, I would certainly engage in a low occupation, if it were 
 necessary ; but if the means were not honest, I would prefer to apply 
 myself to that which I love.' 
 
 18. Love of Music. — ' The philosopher being in the kingdom of Tsi, 
 heard the music which is called Tchao, and was so much affected by it that 
 for three months he did not know the taste of his food. He said : I do not 
 fancy that, since the composition of that music, so high a point of perfec- 
 tion has ever been attained.' 
 
 18 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 19. Independence of the Wise Man. — ' The philosopher said : To feed 
 upon a little rice, to drink water, to have nothing but one's bent arm to 
 lean upon, is a state which has its own satisfaction. To get riches and 
 honours by untau- means seems to me like a cloud driven along by the 
 wind.' 
 
 20. Study of Books. — ' The philosopher said: If it were granted to me to 
 add a number of years to my life, I would ask tifty to study the Y-King, 
 that I might free myself from great faults.' 
 
 21. Confticius^s Account of Himself — ' Ye-Kong questioned Tseu-loo about 
 Ivoong-foo-tse. Tseu-loo did not answer him. The philosopher said : Why 
 have you not answered him ? Koong is a man who in his eagerness to 
 acquire knowledge often forgets to take nourishment ; who in the joy which 
 he feels at having acquired it, forgets the pains which it has cost him ; and 
 who is not disquieted at the approach of old age. Now you know about 
 hini.' 
 
 22. All Men are Teachers. — ' The philosopher said : If three of us were 
 journeying together, I should necessarily find two instructors (in my travel- 
 ling companions) ; I would choose the good man for imitation, and the bad 
 man for correction.' 
 
 23. Virtue is Strength. — ' The philosopher said : Heaven has planted 
 virtue in me; what, then, can Hoan-loui do to me?' 
 
 24. Hypocrisy Difficult. — ' The philosopher said : To want everything, 
 and to act as if one had abundance of possessions ; to be empty, and shew 
 one's self full ; to be small, and shew one's self great — is a part very difficult 
 to support steadily.' 
 
 25. Action must follow Reflection. — ' The philosopher said : How is it that 
 there are men who act without knowing what they do? I should not wish 
 to behave myself so. We must hear the advice of many people ; choose what 
 is good in their counsels, and follow it ; see much, and reflect maturely upon 
 what we have seen : this is the second step in knowledge.' 
 
 26. Exclusiveness reproved. — ' The inhabitants of a city were hard 
 to teach; one of their young men came to visit the disciples of the philo- 
 sopher, and they deliberated whether or not they should receive him 
 amongst them. The philosopher said : I have admitted him into the 
 number of my disciples ; I have not admitted him to go away. Whence 
 comes this opposition on your part ? This man has purified and renewed 
 himself in order to enter ray school. Praise him for having done this ; I 
 cannot answer for his past or future actions.' 
 
 27. Humility of Confucius. — ' The philosopher said : In literature I am 
 not the equal of other men. If I tliink of a man who unites holiness to the 
 virtue of humanity, how could I dare to compare myself to him? All I 
 know is, that 1 force myself to practise these virtues, and to teach them to 
 others, without being disheartened.' 
 
 28. Devotion of Confucius. — ' The philosopher being very ill, Tseu-loo 
 begged him to allow his disciples to address prayers for him to the spirits 
 and genii. Tlie philosopher said : Is it right to do so? Tseu-loo answered 
 respectfully : It is right ; it is said in the book called Loui, " Address your 
 prayers to the spirits and genii above and below." The philosopher 
 answered : The prayer of Koong-foo-tse is constant.' 
 
 29. Disobedience. — ' The philosopher said : If a man is prodigal and 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 addicted to luxury, he is not submissive. If he is too parsimonious, he is 
 vile and abject. Baseness is, however, far better than disobedience.' 
 
 30. Sovereign Virtue. — 'The philosopher said: Tai-pe might be called 
 sovereignly virtuous ! I know not how anything could be added to his 
 virtue : thrice he refused the empire, and the people saw nothing admirable 
 in his conduct.' 
 
 31. How Virtues hecome Mischievous. — 'The philosopher said: If deference 
 and respect towards others are not regulated by the rites or by education, 
 they are mere gratifications of our own fancy. If vigilance and carefulness 
 are not regulated by education, they are only other names for extravagant 
 cowardice. If manly courage is not regulated by education, it means only 
 insubordination. If rectitude is not regulated by education, it entails the 
 greatest confusion.' 
 
 32. Limits of Power. — ' The philosopher said : We may force the people 
 to follow the principles of justice and reason, but we cannot force them to 
 conqjrehend them.' 
 
 33. How to he Virtuous. — ' The philosopher said : He who has an unalter- 
 able faith in truth, and who is passionately fond of study, preserves to his 
 death the principles of virtue, which are the consequences of this faith and 
 love.' 
 
 34. Causes of SItame. — ' The philosopher said : If a state is governed by 
 the principles of reason, poverty and misery are a cause of shame. If a 
 state is not governed by the jJi'iuciples of reason, riches and honours are 
 then the subjects of shame.' 
 
 35. Qualities of a Great Man. — ' The philosopher said : I see no defect in 
 Yu ; he was sober in eating and drinking, and devoutly pious towards the 
 .spirits and genii. His ordinary clothing was poor and mean ; but how 
 beautiful and glorious his robes were at the ceremonies ! He inhabited a 
 humble dwelling ; but he directed all his energies to the making of 
 trenches and cutting canals for the conveyance of water.' 
 
 36. Good Ministers. — ' The philosopher said : Those whom I call great 
 ministers are men who serve their prince ac9ording to. the principles of 
 reason and justice, and not according to the wishes of the prince : if they 
 cannot do so, they retire.' 
 
 37. Anti- Capital Punishments. — ' Ki-kang-tseu questioned Koong-foo-tse 
 with regard to the method of governing, and said : If I put to death those 
 who respect no law to favour those who observe the laws, what will be 
 the result ? Koong replied with deference : What need have you, who are 
 iit the head of public affairs, to employ punishments? Love virtue, and 
 the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the 
 wind, and those of a vulgar man, like the grass ; when the wind passes 
 over the grass, the latter bends before it.' 
 
 38. How to Govern. — ' Tseu-loo put a question regarding the method of 
 governing rightly. The philosopher said : Be the first to give the people 
 an example of virtue in your own person ; be the first to give the people an 
 example of industry in your own person.' 
 
 39. Use of Speech. — ' The philosopher said : If the state is governed by 
 rhe principles of reason and justice, speak boldly and Avorthily, act nobly 
 aud honourably. If the state is not governed by justice and reason, still 
 act noblv and honourably, but speak moderately and with precaution.' 
 
 •20 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 40. Difficulties of Poverty. — ' TIic pliilosoplicr said: It is diflicult to be 
 poor, and to feel no resentments ; it is easy in comparison to be rich, and 
 not to be proud.' 
 
 41. Modesty. — "The philosopher said : Tlie superior man bluslies with 
 fear lest his words should exceed his actions.' 
 
 42. Good People arc Scarce. — ' The philosopher said : Yeou, tliose who 
 are acquainted with virtue are very rare !' 
 
 43. Love of Beauty. — ' The pliilosopher said : Alas ! hitiierto I liave seen 
 no one who prefen-ed virtue to personal beauty.' 
 
 44. The Way to Please. — ' The philosopher said : 15e severe in your 
 judgment of yourselves, and indulgent towards others; thus you will avoid 
 ill-will.' 
 
 45. Education should be General. — ' Tlie philosopher said : Provide 
 instruction for all, without distinction of class or rank.' 
 
 46. Friends. — ' Koong-foo-tse said : There are three sorts of friends who 
 are useful, and three sorts wlio are hurtful. Straightforward and trutlr- 
 telling friends, faithful and virtuous friends, educated and intelligent friends, 
 are useful ; friends who outwardly affect a gravity wliich they do not pos- 
 sess, friends who are lavish of praises and liollow flatteries, friends who 
 are loquacious without being intelligent, are hurtful.' 
 
 47. Sources of Pleasure. — ' Koong-foo-tse said : There are three sorti* 
 of joys or satisfactions which are useful, and three sorts which are hurtful. 
 The satisfaction of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the rites and 
 with music, the satisfaction of instructing men in the principles of virtue, 
 the satisfaction of possessing the friendship of a lai'ge number of wise men 
 — these are useful. The satisfaction derived from vanity or pride, the 
 satisfaction imparted by laziness and sloth, the satisfaction caused by good 
 cheer and pleasures — these are injurious.' 
 
 48. Useless Lives. — ' Tseu-cliang said : Those who embrace virtue with- 
 out giving it any development ; who have acquired a knowledge of the- 
 principles of justice and reason without putting them into practice ; 
 what difference would it have made to the world if these men had never 
 existed ? ' 
 
 49. Self -Examination. — ' Thseng-tseu said : I examine myself daily on 
 three principal points : Have I attended to the business of others with as 
 much zeal and integi-ity as to my own ? Have I been sincere in my rela- 
 tions with my friends and fellow- disciples ? Have I carefully preserved 
 and practised the doctrines imparted to me by my instructors ? ' 
 
 50. A Retrospect. — ' The philosopher said : At the age of fifteen, my 
 mind was continually occupied with study ; at thirty, my principles were 
 solid and unchangeable ; at forty, I felt no more doubts or hesitation ; at 
 fifty, I was acquainted with the law of Heaven (that is, the constitutional 
 law conferred by Heaven on each being of nature for the regular accom- 
 plishment of its destiny) ; at sixty, I easily discerned the causes of 
 events ; at seventy, I satisfied the desires of my heart, without, howeveiv 
 exceeding moderation.' 
 
 We conclude these maxims with some observations by Professor Maurice 
 upon a very remarkable one, but which Mr Thornton refers to the Chuiuj- 
 yung : — ' There is a passage,' says the professor, ' in which one of tiie 
 disciples of Confucius declares that the doctrine of his master consists 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 simply in having rectitude of heart, and in loving our neighbour as our 
 selves. M. Pauthier apologises for giving this form to his translation, 
 but says he could find no other so accurate. Till some greater scholar 
 contradicts him, we are bound to accept his statement. If he supposes 
 that those who believe that these words proceeded from higher lips will 
 be scandalised by it, we think he mistakes the matter altogether. Those 
 who attach the most awful significance to the utterances of these lips, and 
 to the person from whom they fell, will be the least disposed to look 
 upon him as the propouuder of great maxims, and not rather as the 
 giver of a new life ; will be the least likely to grudge a Chinese teacher 
 any glimpses which may have been vouchsafed to him of that which the 
 true regenerator of humanity should elTect for it.' In Mr Thornton's work 
 the passage is given in the original Chinese ; then a Latin translation, 
 which retains a very close resemblance ; and then the meaning in English 
 in the following words : — ' He who is conscientious, and who feels towards 
 others the same sentiments he has for himself, is not far from the taou : 
 I what he does not wish should be done to him, let him not himself do to 
 others.' 
 
 IV. We should do great injustice to China if we said nothing of the 
 fourth of the classical books, which bears another name than that of the 
 great teacher and reformer; of a man, however, who was a teacher and 
 reformei", who considered Confucius the great legislator of the world, 
 and laboured in a society which had become again degenerated to 
 restore his precepts and his practice. Mang-tze, or Mencius, was born 
 between the years B. c. 374 and 372. His birth was, as usual, said to have 
 been attended with prodigies; but the less fabulous part of the legend 
 attributes his virtues and learning to the excellent precepts and example 
 which he received from his mother. Such was her care of the boy, that 
 she thrice changed her residence on account of some fault in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Satisfied at length on this point, she sent her son to school, 
 while she, a poor widow, remained at home to spin and weave for a subsist- 
 ence. Not pleased with his progress, she learned, on inquiry, that he was 
 wayward and idle; upon which she rent the web which she was weaving 
 asunder, partly from vexation, and partly as a figurative expression of what 
 she wished him to remember; for when the afi'righted boy asked the reason 
 of her conduct, she made him understand that, without diligence and effort, 
 his attending school would be as useless to his progress in learnmg as 
 her beginning a web, and destroying it when half done, would be to the 
 procuring of food and clothing. He took the hint, applied himself to study 
 with unwearied perseverance, and eventually became a sage, second only 
 to Confucius himself. One anecdote of the mother of Mencius deserves 
 notice. The boy, on seeing some animals killed, asked her what was going 
 to be done with them. She in jest said: ' They are killed to feed you ;' but 
 on recollecting herself, she repented of this, because it might teach him to 
 lie : so she bought some of the meat, and gave it to him, that the fact might 
 agree with what she had uttered. The Chinese hold her up as the pattern 
 of mothers. 
 
 The life of Mencius was spent in travelling about with his disciples, teaching 
 all ranks and conditions of men, speaking as freely in the palace of the 
 king as in the hut of the peasant. ' There was a greater boldness and 
 22 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 decision in the character of Mang-tzo tlian in that of Confucius, qualitIeK 
 which are visible in his writings. In a parallel between these two per- 
 sonages, drawn by Chang-tze, it is said : " Confucius, through prudence 
 or modesty, often dissimulated : he did not aUvays say what he might liave 
 said. Mang-tze, on the contrary, was incapable of constraining himself: 
 he spoke what he thought, and without the least fear or reserve. He 
 resembles ice of the purest water, through which we can see distinctly all 
 its defects as well as its beauties : Confucius, on the other hand, is like a 
 precious gem, which, though not so pellucid as ice, has more strength and 
 solidity." ' He died at the age of eighty-four, and his memory remained 
 without any particular marks of honour, until an emperor of the Sung 
 dynasty, about A. D. 1005, reared a temple to him in Shan-tung province, 
 where his remains had been interred. He then obtained a niche in the 
 temple of Confucius, to whom, however, in the opinion of the Chinese, he 
 was far inferior. Inferior he probably was — inferior in quietness and self- 
 control, and in perfect adaptation to the habits of the people with whom 
 he conversed. We can quite imagine that he never would have been a 
 great legislator, or have left any deep impression upon the mind of his 
 country, if Confucius had not led the way. But in place of the solemnity 
 and general dryness of his master, there appears to have been in Mencius 
 real humour, a very earnest dislike of oppression, a courage in telling dis- 
 agreeable truths to the highest personages, and a power of perceiving the 
 practical application of sound maxims to the details of government, which 
 cannot be contemplated without admiration and profit. 
 
 The contents of the book of Mencius exceed the aggregate of the other 
 three, and the main object of the work is to inculcate that great principle 
 of Confucius — philanthropic government. To our taste it is by far the best 
 of the whole; and while it must be confessed to contain a great deal that Is 
 obscure and perhaps worthless, there are passages in it which would not 
 disgrace the productions of more modern and enlightened times. It opens 
 with a conversation between Mencius and the prince of the tovra of Seang. 
 The latter had invited the worthies and philosophers of the day to his 
 court, and Mencius went among the rest. On his entering, the king 
 accosted him, saying: ' Venerable sage, I suppose yon come to increase the 
 gains of my coimtry ? ' To which he replied : ' King, what need is there to 
 speak of gain? Benevolence and justice are all in all.' And he illustrated 
 this by shewing that if a spirit of selfish avarice went abroad among all 
 ranks, from the prince downwards, mutual strife and anarchy must be the 
 result: upon which the king, as if convinced, repeated his words, saying; 
 ' Benevolence and justice are all in all.' 
 
 We commend the following conversation to the notice of disputants 
 respecting the game-laws : — ' Siouan-wang, king of Tze, interrogated Mang- 
 tze in these terms : I have been told that the park of the king Wen-wang 
 was seven leagues in circumference; was that the case ? — Mang-tze answered 
 respectfully : History tells us so. The king said : If so, was not its extent 
 excessive ? — Mang-tze said : The people considered it too small. The king 
 continued : My insignificance has a park only four leagues in circumference, 
 and the people consider it too large; whence this difference? — Mang- 
 tze answered : The park of Wen-wang was seven leagues in circuit, but 
 thither resorted all those who wanted to cut gi-ass or wood : thither went 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 all who wanted to catch pheasants or hares. As the king had his park in 
 common with the people, the people thought it small, though it was seven 
 leagues round ; was not that natural ? I, your servant, when I was about 
 to cross the frontier, took care to inform myself of what was especially 
 forbidden m your kingdom before I dared to venture further. Your servant 
 learned that there was within your line of customs a park four leagues round, 
 and that the man who killed a stag there was punished with death, as if he 
 had murdered a human being. So that there is an actual pit of death, of 
 four leagues in circumference, opened in the very midst of your kingdom. 
 Are not the people right in thinking that park too large?' 
 
 From a very long conversation with the same prince, all of which well 
 deserves to be extx-acted, we take a passage which is not so illustrative of 
 the talent of Mencius as many others, but it will at least prove that his 
 philosophy is not obsolete, as it explains how the crimes of the poor are 
 connected with their poverty. ' To want things necessary for life, and yet 
 to preserve an equal and virtuous mind, is only possible for men whose 
 cultivated intellect raises them above the multitude. As for the common 
 people, when they want the necessaries of life, they want also an equal 
 and virtuous mind. Then follow violation of justice, depravity of heart, 
 licentiousness of vice, excess of debauchery ; indeed there is nothing which 
 they are not capable of doing. If they go so far as to violate the law, you 
 prosecute them, and tliey suffer punishments ; so you catch the people in 
 a net. If a man truly endowed with the virtue of humanity occupied the 
 throne, could he commit this criminal action of thus catchmg the people 
 in a snare ? ' 
 
 He tlien draws the following picture of the condition of China at that 
 time ; — ' At present, the constitution of the private property of the people 
 is such, that the children have not wherewithal to minister to their fathers 
 and mothers, and the fathers have not whei-ewithal to supply their wives 
 and children. In years of abundance, tlie people suffer to the end of life 
 pain and misery ; in years of calamity, they are not preserved from famine 
 and death. In such extremities the people think only of escaping from 
 death. What time can they have to study moral doctrines, that they may 
 learn therefrom how to conduct themselves according to the principles of 
 equity and justice?' He concludes by suggesting various remedies — such 
 as improved cultivation of the land, plantation of trees, rearing of animals, 
 the manufacture of silk, and above all, education. 
 
 One of his great maxims is, that the monarch should always share his 
 pleasures with his people. ' If a prince rejoices in the joy of his people, 
 the people also rejoice in his joy. If a prince sorrows at the sorrows of his 
 people, the people also grieve at his grief. Let a prince rejoice with every- 
 body and sorrow with everybody ; in so doing, it is impossible for him to 
 lind any difficulty in reigning.' 
 
 Mencius one day quoted the following passage from the Book of Verses : — 
 We may be rich and powerful, but we should have compassion on unhappy 
 widowers, widows, and orphans. ' King Siouan-wang said : How admirable 
 are the words which I have just heard. — Mang-tze replied : king ! if 
 you find them so admirable, why do you not practise them ? The 
 king answered : My insignificance has a defect ; my insignilicance loves 
 riches. — Meng-tseu answered respectfully : Formerly Kong-Sieou loved 
 24 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 riches, but he shared them with liis people. king! if you love riches, 
 «se them as he did ; what ditUcult y will you then find in reigning ? The 
 king said : My insignificance has another defect — my insignificance loves 
 pleasure. Meng-tseu answered respectfully : Formerly Tai-wang loved 
 pleasure — he cherished his wife ; so he contrived that in his whole kingdom 
 there should be no celibates. O king ! if you love pleasure, love it as Tai- 
 wang did : render it common to the whole population.' 
 
 The following is still more pointed; it is a conversation with the same 
 patient prince : — ' Suppose a servant of the king has sufficient confidence 
 in a friend to intrust to his care his wife and children, just as he is about 
 to set out for a journey ; if on his return he finds that his wife and children 
 have suffered cold and hunger, what must he do? — The king said: He must 
 break with his friend entirely. Mang-tze added: If the chief judge 
 fannot govern the magistrates who are subordinate to him, what course 
 must be pursued respecting him '? — The king said : He must be deposed. 
 Mang-tze went on : If the provinces situated at the extreme limits of the 
 kingdom are not well governed, what must be done ? — The king, feigning 
 not to imderstand him, looked to the right and left, and turned the 
 conversation.' 
 
 Speaking of the ambition of the wise man, Mencius said : ' The great 
 man has three satisfactions : to have his father and mother still living 
 without any cause of dissatisfaction or dissension between the elder and 
 the younger brother is the first ; to have nothing to blush for in the face 
 of Heaven or of man is the second ; to meet wise and virtuous men among 
 those of his generation is the third. These are the three causes of 
 satisfaction to a wise man. To rule an empire is not included among 
 them.' 
 
 Mencius considered a hearty love of good a compensation for the want 
 of intellectual gifts in a minister. ' When the Prince of Loo desired that 
 Lo-ching-tze, a disciple of Mang-tze, should undertake the whole admi- 
 nistration of his kingdom, Mang-tze said : Since I have heard that news, I 
 cannot sleep for joy. Kung-sun-cheou said: AVhat ! has he a great deal 
 of energy? — Mang-tze answered: Not at all. Has he prudence, and a 
 mind capable of forming gi-eat designs? — Not at all. Has he studied 
 much, and does he possess very extensive knowledge ? — No. If this is 
 the case, why do you lie awake for joy at his promotion? — Because he 
 is a man who loves what is good. Is that enough ? — Yes, to love 
 •what is good is more than enough to govern the whole empire, much 
 more to govern the kingdom of Loo ! If a man who is intrusted with the 
 administration of a state loves that which is good, then the good men who 
 dwell within the four seas (that is, in Cluna) will think it a slight task to 
 travel a hundred leagues to come and give him good advice. But if he 
 does not love that which is good, these men will say to themselves : '• He is 
 a self-satisfied man who answers, ' I knew that a long while ago,' Avhenever 
 you give him any counsel." Such a tone and air will drive good counsellors 
 a hundred leagues away from him. If they go, then calumniators, 
 flatterers, people whose countenances assent to all he says, will arrive in 
 crowds. In such company, if he wishes to govern well, how can he ? ' 
 
 The following is in a yet higher strain : — ' Chun came to the empire 
 from the midst of the fields ; Fou-youe, originally a mason, was raised to 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the rank of a minister of state ; Kiao-he was taken from his fishmongerV 
 stall to become a councillor of King Wen-wang ; Kouan-i-ou became a 
 mmister from a jailor ; Sun-cho-ngao rose from obscm-ity to a high dignity 
 in the empire ; and Pe-li-hi left a workshop to become a councillor of 
 state. Thus when Heaven wishes to confer a great office or an important 
 mission upon its chosen men, it begins always by proving their souls and 
 intellects in the bittei'ness of days of hardship ; their nerves and their 
 bones are worn out by hard toil; their flesh is tormented with hunger; 
 their persons are reduced to all the privations of misery and want ; their 
 actions produce results contrary to those which they wish to obtain. 
 Thus their souls are stimulated, their natures hardened, then" strengtii 
 augmented by an energy without which they would have been unable to 
 accomplish their high destiny. Men always begin by committing faults 
 before they are able to correct themselves. They first experience anguish 
 of heart, they are hindered in their projects, till at last they come fortli. 
 It is universally true that life comes through pains and trials, death througli 
 pleasures and repose.' 
 
 'The hearts of the people' are stated to be the only legitimate foun- 
 dations of empire or of permanent rule. ' He who subdues men by force,' 
 says Mencius, ' is a tyrant ; he who subdues them by philanthropy is a 
 king. Those who subdue by force do not subdue the heart ; but tliose 
 who subdue men by virtue gain the hearts of the subdued, and their 
 submission is sincere.' He at the same time explains very well the 
 necessity for governments, as well as for the inequalities in the conditions 
 of different orders of society. It may be questioned whether the argument 
 could be better put than he has put it in the fifth chapter of his book, 
 where the illustration he makes use of demonstrates at the same time 
 the advantages resulting from the division of labour. Let it be remem- 
 bered that this was all written more than two thousand years ago. In 
 reply to the objection, that one portion of the community is obliged to 
 produce food for the other, Mencius inquired : ' Does the farmer weave 
 the cloth, or make the woollen cap which he wears ?— By no means : lie 
 gives grain in exchange for them. Why does he not manufacture them 
 for himself? — Because it would interfere with his farming operations, and 
 probably ruin him. Does he make his own cooking- vessels and agricul- 
 tui'al implements? — No; he gives grain in barter for them : it would never 
 do for him to unite the labour of the artisan with that of the husbandman. 
 So, then, the government of an empire is, in your opinion, the only 
 occupation which can advantageously be united with the business of tlie 
 farmer? — There are employments proper to men of superior station as 
 well as to those in inferior conditions. Hence it has been observed, some 
 labour with their minds, and some with their hands. Those who labour 
 with their minds govern men ; those who work with their hands are 
 governed by men. Those who are governed supply men with food ; those 
 who govern are supplied with food. Tliis is the universal law of tlie 
 world.' The dictum of the Chinese philosopher corresponds exactly with 
 Pope's line : 
 
 ' And those who think still govern those who toil.' 
 
 * V. After the Four Books come the five canonical works called 'King,' 
 26 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 of each of which Confucius was either the author or compiler. 1. The 
 ' She-king,' or Book of ' Sacred Songs,' is a collection of about three hundred 
 short poems, selected by Confucius himself. Every well-educated Chinese 
 has the most celebrated of these pieces by heart, and constant allusion is 
 made to them in the works of modem writers. They all have a character 
 of the most primitive simplicity, and many of them would be utterly 
 miintelligible but for tlie minute commentai-y by which they are accom- 
 panied. But although without value on the score of poetical merit, they 
 are eminently interesting as having all been composed at least twenty-three 
 centuries before our time. 2. The ' Shoo-king ' is a history of the deliberations 
 between the Emperors Yaou and Shun, and other personages wlio are called 
 by Confucius the ancient himjs, and for whose maxims and actions he 
 had the highest veneration. Their notions of good government, as here 
 explained, are founded on excellent principles, ' which, being observed, 
 there is order ; if abandoned, there is anarchy.' ' It is vain to expect,' they 
 add, ' that good government can proceed from vicious minds ; ' and when 
 the people rise against the tyranny of their ruler, they are justified by the 
 maxim, that ' the people's hearts and Heaven's decree are the same ;' which 
 is nothing else, m fact, than vox populi vox Dei. 3. The 'Le-king,' or 'Book 
 of Eites,' which is the next in order, may be considered as the foundation 
 of the present state of Chinese manners, and one of the causes of their 
 uniform unchangeableness. The ceremonial .usages of the country are 
 commonly estimated at three thousand, as prescribed in the ritual ; and 
 one of the six tribunals at Peking, called Ly-poo, is especially charged 
 with the guardianship and interpretation of these important matters, which 
 really form a portion of the religion of the Chinese. 4. The 'Chun-tsieu' is 
 a histoiy, by Confucius, of his own times, and of the times which imme- 
 diately preceded them. It possesses very little intrinsic interest, and was 
 apparently intended to aiFord warnings and examples to the rulers of the 
 country, reproving their misgovernment, and incidcating the maxims of the 
 ancient kmgs for their guidance. 5. The last of the canonical woi-ks is the 
 ' Ye-king ; ' a mystical exposition of what some consider to be a very ancient 
 theory of creation, and of the changes that are perpetually occm-rmg in 
 nature. This theory may be styled a sexual system of the universe ; 
 indeed this notion pervades every department of knowledge m China. 
 Some of its developments are curious enough ; for instance, even numbers 
 have their genders — odd numbers being male, and even numbers female ; 
 but on this topic we cannot dwell. 
 
 We have now sketched, though briefly, the life of Confucius, and given 
 a rapid summary of his writings. It remains for us to speak of his views 
 on religion, morals, and politics, and the effect they have produced upon 
 liis countrymen. 
 
 On the first point, his religious feelings, we cannot do better than quote 
 the remarks of Professor Maurice. Alluding to some remarks of Confucius 
 respecting sacrifices, he says : ' There appeared to him a mystery in the 
 sacrifice which he could not penetrate ; he was far from wishing to deny it ; 
 he would not for the world abolish the expression of it ; but what it meant 
 he did not know, or probably seek to know. He valued the sacrifice not 
 for its own sake, not for any benefit which he expected from it, but as 
 part of an august and awful ceremonial. He worshipped the spu-its and 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Mic genii because it was the ancient law, the established custom ; therein 
 consisted their sacredness in his eyes ; but he did not speak of them, he 
 had nothing to tell respecting them. It must not be concluded from this 
 statement that he pretended to a faith, for the sake of the vulgar, which he 
 secretly disowned, or that he looked upon the worship as a mere invention 
 to maintain the government. There are evidences of sincerity in his own 
 conduct which negative the first supposition ; his demand for sincerity in 
 ministers and emperors disproves the second. The main principle of this 
 eminent teacher seems to be this : ceremonies, formalities, etiquette— in 
 one word, social customs — embody the principle of reason, the very secret of 
 .order among men. This principle of reason is the divinest thing he knows 
 of: traditional habits and forms are the most accurate expressions of it. 
 These are the great restraints upon mere self-will ; adherence to them is 
 the sign of the ruler who desires to be in sympathy with his people. The 
 perception of what they signify is the great privilege and endowment of 
 the wise man — that which he is to communicate, so far as he can at least 
 without any intentional reserve, to his disciples ; that which it is the great 
 business of education to impress upon the minds both of rulers and subjects. 
 But after all, this wisdom cannot be expressed very much better than in 
 the forms themselves : it must be attained by observation, practice, habitual 
 discipline ; it must come out in conduct, in gestures, in looks as much as 
 in words ; it must be uttered, so far as it is capable of utterance, in short 
 maxims and somewhat enigmatical poetry — which will interpret themselves 
 slowly to the person who combines an honest purpose, diligence, and poli- 
 tical experience. 
 
 ' The philosopher, it is said, spoke rarely of destiny or of the command 
 of Heaven. Perhaps the philosopher did not know precisely what he meant 
 by heaven ; but he did know that he meant something which was real and 
 not imaginary. It is consistent with the character which we have attri- 
 buted to the original Chinese worship, and with the character of his own 
 mind, that he should have been profoundly impressed with the order of the 
 heavenly bodies — with the evenness, calmness, steadfastness which the 
 succession of day and night reveals to us. Such an order he desired and 
 sought for in the transactions of human society. Such an order he believed 
 tliat the imperial dignity was intended to represent and uphold. It was 
 executing the mandate of Heaven when it actually presented the image of 
 this order; disobeying the mandate of Heaven when it forgot this principle, 
 and promoted or permitted derangement or confusion.' Mr Thornton is 
 not exactly of this opinion as regards sacrifices, and in the following sen- 
 tences we believe he gives the true sentiments of Confucius : — That Confu- 
 cius believed, or professed to believe, in the existence of super-mundane 
 beings, subordinate to the Deity, is most true ; and so do all Christians. But 
 the broad distinction between the Confucian and the Taou sects is, that the 
 latter regard the shin and the kivei as superior, the former as subordinate 
 agents. In sacrificing to them, lie merely complied with a practice prescribed 
 by the ancients, apparently considering this appendage to the Avorship of tlie 
 Shang-te as harmless in itself, aiul that an attempt to disturb tlie estab- 
 lislied faith, or to impair the veneration paid to ancient maxims, miglit 
 lead to injurious consequences. Thus we are told that, when liis disciple, 
 Tsze-kung, objected to certain sacrifices called yung, on the return of the 
 28 
 
CONFUCIUS, 
 
 year, Confucius replied that the abolition of an ancient rite might bring 
 religion into disrepute.' 
 
 The Sha>ifj-te is the Creator, with tlie attributes of omnipotence, justice, 
 providence, wisdom, and goodness; and the Teen is tlie visible heavens, the 
 emblem of the deity. Tliese two are sometimes confounded, as in tlie fol- 
 lowing passage ; but Confucius states very clearly that the object of all wor- 
 ship is ultimately the Almighty. ' " The Teen," said he, " is the universal 
 principle and prolitic source of all things. Our ancestors, who sprung from 
 this source, are themselves the source of succeeding generations. The first 
 duty of mankind is gratitude to Heaven; the second, gratitude to those from 
 whom Ave sprung. It was to inculcate, at the same time, this double obliga- 
 tion, that Fuh-he established the rites in honour of Heaven and of ancestors, 
 requiring that, immediately after sacriticing to the Shang-te, homage should 
 be rendered to our progenitors. But as neither the one nor the other was 
 visible by the bodily organs, he sought emblems of them in the material 
 heavens. The Shang-te is represented under the general emblem of the visible 
 firmament, as well as under the particular symbols of the sun, the moon, and 
 the earth, because by their means we enjoy the gifts of the Shang-te. The 
 sun is the source of life and light; the moon illuminates the world by 
 night. By observing the course of these luminaries, mankind are enabled to 
 distinguish times and seasons. The ancients, with the view of connecting 
 the act with its object, when they established the practice of sacrificing to 
 the Shang-te, fixed the day of the winter solstice, because the sun, after 
 having passed through the twelve palaces assigned apparently by the 
 Shang-te as its annual residence, began its career anew, to distribute 
 blessings throughout the earth. After evinchig, in some measure, their 
 obligations to the Shang-te, to whom, as the universal principle of exist- 
 ence, they owed life and all that sustains it, the hearts of tlie sacrificers 
 turned with a natural impulse towards those by whom the life they 
 enjoyed had been successively transmitted to them; and they founded a 
 ceremonial of respect to their honour, as the complement of the solemn 
 worship due to the Shang-te. The Chow princes have added another rite — 
 a sacrifice to the Shang-te in the spring season, to render thanks to him 
 for the fruits of the earth, and to implore him to preserve tliem." After 
 describmg various existing forms of sacrifice, he continued: "Thus, under 
 whatever denomination our worship is paid, wliatever be the apparent 
 object, and of what kind soever be its external forms, it is invariably the 
 Shang-te to whom it is addressed: the Shang-te is the direct and chief 
 object of our veneration." ' 
 
 We pass fi'om his religion to his moral philosophy. This has been 
 invested by most writers on the subject with an imaginary purity manifestly 
 borrowed from Christianity itself. But although many striking moral 
 verities were enunciated and taught by the Chinese philosopher, his ethics 
 are characterised by a generally utilitarian and selfish tone. In some 
 respects Confucius would sustain a most advantageous comparison with 
 any other moralist whose speculations have been independent of Christi- 
 anity. As to most of the virtues essential to the constitution of domestic 
 and social life, his standard is exceedingly high. But his system (equally 
 with others which hold with it concurrent jurisdiction) entirely lacks the 
 heroic element. It admits no motive that addresses the higher nature ; it 
 
 29 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ignores disinterestedness, generosity, and self-sacrifice. It recognises only 
 those forms of goodness which have their reward visibly and at once, and 
 derives none of its sanctions from aught within, above, or beyond the 
 external condition and relations of the individual. The case has been far 
 otherwise with extra-Christian systems in general. Whatever their defects 
 or vices, they have seldom been merely material in their philosophy. 
 They have appealed to the spiritual nature of man, and to the whole range 
 of unobjective sentiments and affections. They have presented posthu- 
 mous fame, the consciousness of right, or the favour of the immortals, as 
 motives for deeds which could bring no immediate recompense, and might 
 be attended with danger or sacrifice. They have often elevated mere 
 enterprise or hardihood above the less obtrusive but essential virtues of 
 common life. And Christianity, while it gives the place of honour to such 
 virtues as may be exercised by all men, and under every posture of circum- 
 stances, yet cherishes, in all who are endowed beyond mediocrity, the 
 disposition to make themselves felt, to leave their mark on society, to 
 enlarge their sphere of effort, to sow for posterity, and trust to the distant 
 gratitude of the reapers. Now moral enterprise and heroism, more or less 
 free from base admixtures, create the movements and propagate the 
 impulses that result in the progress of society. To be sure the earnest, 
 disinterested spirits are few compared with the selfish and inert ; but the 
 mere willingness to confer unrecompensed benefits, of itself creates power, 
 and enables individuals, ' unpropped by ancestry' or office, to mould masses 
 and rule multitudes ; so that every stage in the advancement of civilised 
 man has been but a new verification of the Scriptural maxim : ' If any man 
 will be great among you, let him be your servant.' Once let a man cast 
 himself upon God, on conscience, or on postei'ity, for whatever of personal 
 revenue is to accrue to him from invention, discovery, toil, or sacrifice, and 
 : he has planted his lever where he can move the world. Now we can find 
 in no form or phasis of Chinese theology or ethics any element that can 
 create or inspire these file-leaders in the ' march of mind.' We doubt 
 whether there is a nation upon earth (we exclude not the most savage) 
 where self-seeking is so universal. It is on this principle solely that 
 Chinese society is organised ; and the only reason why order and mutual 
 subordination are so sacredly observed is, that the intensity of each indi- 
 vidual selfishness keeps every other in check. 
 
 But in order to form a true conception of Confucius we must regai'd 
 him as a politician. He began his career as a man of business — a Chinese 
 official. The affairs of the empire were his study all his life through, and 
 he trained his disciples to take part in them. To ascertain the ends of 
 government, and the means of accomplishing those ends, was the one 
 function of the sage, and to this all was subordinated. He was a strenuous 
 advocate of general education ; but ail education was to be for the sake of 
 government, as in his view the one was essential to tlie other. Our quota- 
 tions from the ' Lun-yu ' shew that he was enthusiastically fond of music ; 
 but he considered it important only as an instrument of education and 
 government ; and this is the only point in wliich he bears a resemblance to 
 Plato. Morals he considered as the foundation of politics ; the conduct of 
 an individual father in his family as the prototype of a sovereign's sway 
 over his people. The following noble principles seem to form the basis of 
 30 
 
CONFUCIUS. 
 
 his political system : — 1. That tlie sovereign should be considered as the 
 father of his people ; 2. Tliat all offices should be given to merit alone ; 3. 
 Tliat the military power should be entirely subject to the civil ; and 4. That 
 the state should not interfere with the religious opinions of the individual. 
 The application of these principles to practice would have produced an 
 admirable system of civil polity in tlie liands of men of deep knowledge 
 and practical experience, but this could not reasonably have been expected 
 from the natives of a semi-barbarous state ; and tlie result has been, that 
 the first two of the principles above stated resolved themselves into pure 
 despotism, the third into absolute cowardice, and the last into a total 
 absence of real religious feeling. Such at least is the present state of 
 China. 
 
 It maybe interesting to illustrate these remarks by the observations of a 
 recent traveller in the country : — ' A short inspection,' says Mr Williams, 
 ' will shew that the gi-eat leading principles by which the present Chinese 
 government preserves its power over the people consist in a system of 
 strict surveillance and mutual responsibility among all classes. These are 
 aided in their efficiency by the geographical isolation of the country, by a 
 difficult language, and a general system of political education and official 
 examinations. They are enforced by such a minute gradation of rank and 
 subordination of officers as to give the government more of a military 
 character than at first appears ; and the whole system is such as to make 
 it one of the most unmixed despotisms now existing. It is like a network 
 extending over the whole face of society, each individual being isolated in 
 liis o^vn mesh, and responsibly connected with all around him. The man 
 who knows that it is almost impossible, except by entire seclusion, to 
 escape from the company of secret or acknowledged emissaries of govern- 
 ment, will be cautious of offending the laws of the country, knowing, as 
 he must, that though he should himself escape, yet his family, his kindred, 
 or liis neighbours, will suffer for his offence ; that if unable to recompense 
 the sufferers, it will probably be dangerous for him to return home ; or if 
 lie does, it will be most likely to find his property in the possession of 
 neighbours or officers of the government, who feel conscious of security in 
 plundering one whose offences have for ever placed him under the ban of 
 the implacable law. 
 
 ' The effect of these two causes upon the mass of the people is to 
 imbue them with a gi-eat fear of the government, both of its officers and 
 its operations ; each man considers that safety is to be found alone in 
 absolute withdrawal. This mutual surveillance and responsibility, though 
 only partially extended throughout the people, necessarily undermines 
 every principle of confidence, and infuses universal distrust ; and this 
 object of complete isolation, though at the expense of justice, truth, honesty, 
 and natural affection, is what the government strives to accomplish, and 
 actually does to a wonderful degree. The idea of government in the 
 minds of the people is like the sword of Damocles ; and so far has this 
 undefined fear of some untoward result, when connected with it, coun- 
 teracted the real vigour of the Chinese, that much of their indifference to 
 improvement, contentment with what is already known and possessed, and 
 submission to petty spoliation of individuals, may be referred to it. 
 
 ' Men are deterred, too, by distrust of each other, as much as by fear of 
 
 .".1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 the police, from combining in an intelligent manner to resist governmental 
 exactions because opposed to principles of equity, or joining with their 
 rulers to uphold good order ; no such men, and no such instances as John 
 Hampden going to prison for refusing to conti'ibute to a loan, or Ezekiel 
 Williams and his companions throwing the tea ovei'board in Boston Harbour, 
 ever occurred in China or any other Asiatic country. They dread illegal 
 societies quite as much from the ci'uelties this same principle induces the 
 leaders to exercise over recreant or suspected members, as from appre- 
 hension of arrest and punishment by the regular authorities. Thus with 
 a state of society sometimes upon the verge of insurrection, this mass of 
 people is kept in check by the threefold cord of responsibility, fear, and 
 isolation, each of them strengthening the others, and all of them depend- 
 ing upon the character of the people for much of their efficiency. Smce 
 all the officers of government received their intellectual training, when 
 plebeians, under these influences, it is easy to understand why the supreme 
 powers are so averse to improvement and to foreign intercourse ; from both 
 which causes, in truth, the state has the greatest reason to dread lest the 
 charm of its power be broken and its sceptre pass away.' 
 
 These are results painful to contemplate ; but although we must admit 
 that the value of every political and social system is to be tested by the 
 effects it produces, yet in this case the fault is not to be laid to the charge 
 of Confucius. He did but lay a foundation ; it was for other men to 
 complete the edifice. His part of the construction was nobly planned and 
 executed ; the failure was on the part of his successors. We feel no 
 hesitation, therefore, in assigning to the Chinese philosopher the high niche 
 in the temple of fame allotted him by Pope m his well-known lines — 
 
 ' Superior and alone Confucius stood, 
 Who tausrht that noble science — to be good.' 
 
FICHTE: A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 IN the middle of the eighteenth century, at the village of Rammenau, 
 near Pulsnitz, in Upper Lusatia, there lived and worked among his 
 contemporaries a certain manufiicturer of ribbons, named Christian Fichte. 
 He, recently married, and reputably established in trade there, paying rates 
 and taxes, and other like dues and imposts, cheerfully fronted the world, 
 and took thankfully from fortune whatever benetits she sent him. 
 
 Among the most memorable of these was a first-born son, who struggled 
 into existence on the 19th of May 1762. This is he who, being sub- 
 sequently baptised according to orthodox prescription, was thereafter 
 called by the name of Johann Gottlieb Fichte — a name since considerably 
 well known, and not indifferently respected, by all persons who are anywise 
 acquainted with German Transcendentalism. 
 
 As the boy grew up he shewed signs of extraordinary capacity, and 
 waxed steadily in favour with all who were interested in his welfare. Long 
 before he was old enough to be sent to school his father had taught him to 
 read; taught him also a number of pious songs and proverbs, and initiated 
 him somewhat into the higher mysteries of Bible-history and the Catechism. 
 Often, by way of entertaining his curiosity, the father would relate to him 
 the story of his personal wanderings in Saxony and Franconia, whither, in 
 conformity with a well-known German usage, he had gone in former years 
 for improvement in his calling. To these recitals young Gottlieb listened 
 with exceeding interest, and was thereby awakened into some vague sym- 
 pathy with the existing outward world. The wonder and manifold tram 
 of feelings thus excited fostered in the boy a fondness for solitary rambles, 
 and often impelled him forth into the lonely and quiet fields, where for 
 many hours he would hold a still communion with his thoughts. A quiet, 
 pensive child, he was already receiving influences and forming habits which 
 were aftei'wards to grow to great results. 
 
 Among the persons whose attention young Fichte very soon attracted 
 was the clergyman of the village, who, perceiving his talents, often assisted 
 him with insti'uction. Happening one day to ask him how much he thought 
 he could remember of the last Sunday's sermon, the boy astonished the 
 good pastor by giving a very correct account of the course of argument 
 pursued m the discourse, and also of the several texts of Scripture quoted 
 in illustration. This circumstance was subsequently mentioned incidentally 
 to a nobleman residmg in the village ; and when, a short time afterwards. 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 a certain Baron von IMiltitz, who was on a visit at the castle, chanced to 
 express his regret at having arrived too late for sermon on the Sinaday 
 morning, he was half-jestingly apprised that it was of very little conse- 
 quence, as there was a boy in the neighbom-hood who was capable of 
 repeatmg it from memory, and might easily be sent for, if desired, to 
 reproduce it for the baron's edification. A messenger was presently des- 
 patched for little Gottlieb, who very soon appeared, dressed ia a clean 
 smock-frock, and bearing in his hand a most enormous nosegay, as a token 
 of respect from his mother to the mistress of the castle. He answered all 
 questions put to him with a quiet and natural simplicity; and on being 
 requested to repeat as much as he could recollect of the morning's sermon, 
 he proceeded to deliver a long and eloquent discourse, which, from its gi-ave 
 and impressive tendency, tlu-eatened rather to discompose the gaiety of the 
 company. Deshmg to escape this consummation, the count thought it 
 necessary to interrupt him, signifying doubtless that, of an admhable 
 memory and good natural powers of elocution, a sufficient proof had been 
 exhibited. The young preacher, however, interested his auditory greatly, 
 and more especially the baron, who, after making some inquiries of the 
 clergyman, which were favourably answered, determined to undertake the 
 charge of the boy's education. The consent of the parents having been 
 with difficulty obtained, young Fichte was shortly consigned to the care 
 of his new patron, and departed with him, as it seemed, for foreign pai'ts. 
 
 His destination was the castle of Siebeneichen, a country seat of the 
 baron, situated on the Elbe, near Meissen. Here the heart of the poor boy 
 sank within him, as he daily contemplated the gloomy grandem- of the 
 baronial hall, and the mountains and dark forests by which it was surrounded. 
 His first sorrow, his earliest trial, had come to him in the shape of what a 
 misjudging world might regard as a singular piece of good fortune ; and so 
 deep a dejection fell on him, as seriously endangered his health. His kind 
 fosterfather, entering into the feelings of the child, prudently removed him 
 from the lordly mansion to the residence of a country clergyman in the 
 neighbourhood, who, though himself without family, was greatly attached 
 to children. Under the care of this worthy pastor and his wife, Fichte 
 passed some of the happiest years of his life, and ever afterwards looked 
 back upon them Avith tenderness and gratitude. Here he received his 
 first instruction in the ancient languages, in which, however, he was left 
 pretty much to his own efforts, seldom receiving what might be called a 
 regular lesson from his teacher. This plan, though it might invigorate and 
 sharpen his faculties, left him imperfectly acquainted with grammatical 
 principles, and retarded to some extent his subsequent progress. He, 
 nevertheless, made rapid advances; and his preceptor soon perceived the 
 insufficiency of his own attainments for furthering the studies of a pupil 
 so promising, and therefore urged upon his patron the desirability of 
 sending him to some public school. He was accordingly sent, first to the 
 town school of Meissen, and afterwards to a higher seminary at Pforta, 
 near Raumburg. 
 
 This latter establishment retained many traces of a monkish origin : the 
 teachers and pupils lived in cells, and the boys were pennitted to leave the 
 interior only once a week, and then under inspection, to visit a particular 
 play-gi-ound in the neighbourhood. The sthfest formality pervaded the 
 
nCHTE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whole economy of the place ; the living spirit of knowledge was unrecog- 
 nised in its antiquated routine, and the generous desire of excellence 
 excluded by the petty artifices of jealousy. The system of fagguig existed 
 in full force, and with it the usual consequences — tyranny on the one side, 
 and cunning and dissimulation on the other. Fichtc's native strength of 
 character guarded him somewhat from the evil influences arpund him, yet 
 he confessed that his life at Pforta was anything but fiivourable to his 
 integrity. He found himself gradually reconciled to the constraiut of 
 ruling his conduct by the opmion of his companions, and compelled to 
 practise occasionally the same artifices as others. 
 
 Fichte was scarcely thhteen years of age when he entered this seminary. 
 Most painful was the transition to its gloomy monastic buildings from the 
 joyous freedom of fields and woods, where he had been accustomed to wander 
 at will; but still more painful were the solitude and aridity of the moral 
 desert into which he was introduced. His sadness and tears exposed him 
 to the derision of his schoolfellows ; and he, shy and retu-ing, shrimk 
 within himself, restrained his tears, or suffered them to flow only in secret. 
 Here, however, he learned the useful lesson of self-reliance — so well, though 
 so bitterly taught, by the absence of sympathy m those around us ; and from 
 this time to the close of his life it was never forgotten. The wretched- 
 ness of his situation, meanwhile, led him to contemplate escape. He had 
 met with a copy of ' Robinson Crusoe,' and his imagination was so fascinated 
 by the wild solitary life therein depicted, that he conceived the project of 
 seeking out some similar seclusion. On some far-off island of the ocean, 
 beyond the reach of men and pedagogues, and of the sneering students that 
 mocked at his distress, he would fix his solitary dwellmg-place, and live 
 golden days of happiness and freedom ! The manner m which he attempted 
 to carry his notion into execution favom'ably illustrates the bent of his 
 character. Nothing could have been easier for him than to have departed 
 unperceived on one of the days when the scholars went out to the play- 
 ground ; but he scorned to steal away m secret ; he wished to make it 
 evident that his departm-e was occasioned by necessity, and was taken with 
 deliberate determination. He therefore made a formal declaration to his 
 superior, a lad who had made a cruel and oppressive use of the brief autho- 
 rity intrusted to him, that he would no longer ■ endure the treatment he 
 received, and that if not amended, he would leave the school on the first 
 opportunity. This announcement, as may be supposed, was received with 
 laughter and contempt, and Fichte thenceforth considered himself in honoiur 
 free to fulfil his resolution. 
 
 Accordingly, one morning he departs, having previously studied his 
 intended route upon the map. He is off on the highway to Raumburg: the 
 world is all before him, and the desert island in the distance. But now, as 
 he walks along, he remembers a saying of his dear old friend the pastor, 
 that one should never begin an important undertaking without a prayer for 
 Divine assistance. He tm-ns, tlierefore, and kneeling down on a hUlock 
 by the side of the road, in the imiocent sincerity of his heart he unplores 
 the blessing of Heaven on his wanderings. As he prayed it occurred to 
 him that his disappearance must occasion great grief to his parents : 
 ' never, perhaps, might he see them again !' This terrible thought over- 
 came him ; the joy which he had felt in his emancipation was changed into 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 contrition; and he resolved to return, and meet all the punishments that, 
 might be in reserve for him, so that he should be able to ' look once more 
 on the face of his mother.' On his way back he met those who had been 
 sent in pursuit of him ; for as soon as he had been missed, the conversation 
 between him and his superior had been reported to the authorities. When 
 taken before the rector, Fichte immediately admitted that it had been his 
 intention to run away, but at the same time related the whole story of his 
 persecutions, and of the motives which had influenced him in taking the 
 step, witli such straightforward simplicity and openness, that the rector 
 became interested in his behalf, and not only remitted his punishment, but 
 selected for him, from among the elder scholars, another senior, who treated 
 him with the gi'eatest kindness, and to whom he became warmly attached, 
 the two being subsequently friends at the same university. 
 
 From this time Fichte's residence at Pforta was rendered gradually more 
 tolerable to him. He entered zealously upon his studies, and by continued 
 industry supplied the defects of his previous education. In 1780, at the 
 age of eighteen, he entered the university of Jena. He attached himself 
 to the theological faculty, his inclinations at this time being towards the 
 calling of a clergyman. Subsequently he x-emoved to Leipsic, and there 
 attended a course of dogmatic lectures, though, as it afterwards appeared, 
 with little satisfaction. In attempting to obtain a clear comprehension 
 of the theological doctrine of the Divine attributes, the creation, freedom 
 of the will, and other like questions, he encountered unexpected difficul- 
 ties, which led him into a wider circle of inquiry, and finally resulted 
 in his abandoning theology for philosophy. Some hints of the early 
 direction of his philosophical studies may be gathered from his letters 
 written at this period. The question which chiefly engaged his atten- 
 tion appears to have been the very common one of Liberty and Neces- 
 sity ; in regard to which he seems to have rejected the doctrine of fi-ee-wUl, 
 considered as absolute indiflerent self-determination, and to have adopted 
 the view which, to distinguish it from Fatalism, has been named Determinism. 
 According to this, every complete and consistent philosophy exhibits a 
 deterministic side ; the idea of an ultimate and all-directing Unity being 
 the beginning and end of metaphysical mvestigation. Thus while Fatalism 
 sees in this highest unity only an unconscious and mechanical necessity, 
 Determinism recognises it as the highest disposing reason — the infinite 
 originative influence to which the determmation of each living being 
 is not only to be referred, but in which it is fundamentally subsistent. 
 
 On communicating his opinions to a Saxon preacher who had consider- 
 able reputation for his philosophical attainments, Fichte was told that he 
 had adopted Spinozism. Up to this time he was unacquainted with 
 Spinoza's writings, and his first knowledge of them was subsequently 
 derived through Wolff's refutation. His attention being turned in this 
 direction, he applied himself to the study of Spinoza's Ethics, which made 
 a powerful impression upon his mind, and confirmed him for a time in the 
 opinions he had adopted. In afteryears, however, the deterministic theory 
 left him dissatisfied; the indestructible feeling of independence and freedom 
 of Avhich he was inwardly conscious, and which was also powerfully con- 
 firmed by tlie energy of his own cliaracter, not being explainable on 
 exclusively deterministic principles, be Avas constrained to abandon that 
 
FICHTE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 point of view, and accept the doctrine of free self-determination as the 
 only true and intelligible basis of being. This is the gi'ound-principle of 
 his philosophic creed, which so far stands opposed to the doctrine of 
 Spinoza, although a general harmony of details is observable in the two 
 ■systems ; botli, nevertheless, shewing marks of individual character, and 
 each being properly the ' scientific expression of the spiritual life of its 
 originator.' 
 
 Whilst engaged in these lofty speculations, Ficlite received intelligence 
 of the death of his benefactor, and found himself thrown upon his own 
 resources. These, unhappily, Avere of the most unpromising description. 
 Nevertheless he adjusted himself to his fortunes, and for four years earned 
 a precarious livelihood as an occasional tutor in various houses in Saxony. 
 His studies were desultory, and subject to continual interruption ; he had 
 no means for procuring books, no opportunities of intercourse with 
 persons of cultivated and matured mind : his life was daily little better 
 than a sacrifice to the mere necessity of living. He had, however, a very 
 sufficient fund of courage, an iron resolution, and a hopeful elasticity of 
 disposition, that would not readily yield to disappointment. He learned to 
 regard the privilege of existence apail from its contingencies, and manfully 
 determined to live obediently to the high and imperative law of his con- 
 science, and abide by the result. ' It is our business,' said he, ' to be true 
 to ourselves ; the consequence is altogether m the hands of Pi-ovidence.' 
 Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, he went on his Avay doing what came 
 to hand ; thankful for the day of small things, and trustful for the 
 future. 
 
 His favourite plan of life at this period, and for some time afterwards, 
 was to become a village clergyman in Saxony, and amid the leisure which 
 ■such an occupation would afford him, to prosecute without disturbance his 
 own mtellectual culture. But this scheme could not be carried into prac- 
 tice, inasmuch as he had not completed his theological studies, and was 
 without the means required for continuing them. With a view to supply 
 his deficiencies in this respect, he, in 1787, addressed a letter to the presi- 
 dent of the Consistory of Leipsic, requesting to be allowed a share of the 
 support often granted to poor students at the Saxon universities, irntd the 
 following Easter, at which time he promised to present himself before the 
 Consistory for examination. ' Without this,' said he, ' my residence at 
 Leipsic is of no avail to me, for I am compelled to give all my time to 
 extraneous pursuits, in order to obtain a livelihood.' No notice, however, 
 was taken of his request : that blissful Saxon parsonage, with its abimdant 
 leisure for cultivating litei'ature, so pleasant to contemplate, remained, 
 unhappily, or perhaps happily, incapable of being realised. 
 
 Put not your trust in princes, nor in any president of Consistory, for, 
 as thou perceivest, dear Fichte, there is no help in them ! That selfsame 
 'poverty' of thine, which thou sayest can be so 'clearly proved,' is, as 
 matters go, no recommendation to preferment. For the present thou must 
 continue to make that thin resource of private teaching serve thee, and 
 crush into annihilation all thy prouder aspirations. Fichte contrives to 
 make it serve him for a time ; but alas ! that also, like every feeble soil 
 that is much wrought in, runs more and more into barrenness. The ' pre- 
 carious subsistence' which he had for some time gained in this way 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPEES FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 went on gradually diminisliing, and ultimately failed altogether. ' In 
 May 1788 every prospect had closed around him, and every honourable 
 means of advancement seemed to be exhausted. The present was utterly 
 ban-en, and there was no liope in the future.' 
 
 It is the eve of his birthday, in this same month of May. The pensive 
 fancy figures him walking disconsolately about the environs of Leipsic, 
 the balmy evening air blowing fresh upon his cheek ; birds of various note 
 warblmg softly then- May -night ves^iers, or nestling with placid mui-murings 
 in the fields. He walks, as we said, disconsolately ; pondering with unavail- 
 ing anxiety all the projects which it has entered into his mind to devise, 
 and finds them all alike hopeless. The world has cast him out — his coimtry 
 has refused him bread ; this approaching bhthday, for aught he can tell, 
 may prove to be his last. Doubtless people have died of starvation — wliy 
 not he ? Full of bitter thoughts, he returns, as it appears likely for the 
 last time, to his solitary and uncheerful lodging. 
 
 Can this be really a letter lying on the table ? Yes, Fichte, even so ; 
 or say rather, a hastily-written note — a note from friend Weisse, the tax- 
 collector, requesting thee to step over to his house without delay. "WTiat 
 can so peremptory a summons signify ? It tm'ns out that friend Weisse 
 is authorised to make him the offer of a tutorship in a private family at 
 Zurich. Here is fortune returning to shake hands with us after havhig 
 resentfully bidden adieu : or call it, if you will, a friendly rope thrown 
 to us by an unknown Providence, at the very moment when we were iu the 
 extremity of sinking. The sad, disconsolate face brightens up into a joy- 
 ous smile; the bitterness of despondency is past; warm-hearted thanks 
 ensue, and confidential explanations. The offer is straightway accepted — the 
 worthy tax-collector undertaking to advance the needful for the jom-ney. 
 
 How Fichte lived in the intei-v'al does not appear ; but behold him now 
 in August setting out for Switzerland. His scanty finances compel him to 
 travel on foot ; but liis heart is as light as his purse, and fresh youthful 
 hopes, mingling with the harvest sunbeams, shine brightly on his path. 
 Disappointment and privation seem left behind him, morose companions of 
 his foregone pUgrimage ; for yonder in Liberty's own mountain fastnesses, 
 which Tell has consecrated by the light of bravery and of genius for ever- 
 more, he is now to find a welcome and a home. So feels and muses om- 
 incipient philosopher, journeying on foot to that private tutorship at 
 Zurich. 
 
 Thither he arrived on the 1st of September, and was immediately installed 
 into his office. His duties occupying liim the greater part of the day, his 
 philosophical studies were necessarily laid aside, but he nevertheless foimd 
 time for some minor literaiy pursuits. He preached occasionally in 
 Zurich, and at several places in the neighbourhood, as it is said, with very 
 distinguished acceptance and success. During liis residence here he became 
 acquainted with Lavater and several other literary men : through some of 
 whom he was introduced to a local notability named Rahn, whose house is 
 said to have been ' in a manner the centre of the society of Zurich.' This 
 Halm had married a sister of Klopstock, who, hoAvever, was at this time 
 dead, having left behind her, among other representatives, a rather inte- 
 resting eldest daughter. 
 
 Fichte has already tolerable skill in languages ; but now, for his behoof 
 G 
 
FICHTE : A BIOaiiAPllY. 
 
 he is about to learn another. He gets to understand the alpliabet of 
 bright eyes, and is shortly qualified to construe the fine Delectus of a 
 woman's love. His teaclier in this case, as the reader is probably prepared 
 to hear, was this same ' interesting eldest daughter ' of collateral-poetical 
 relationship — Johaima JNIaria Ealm. She seeing him, and hearing him 
 speak oftentimes manfully at her fother's table, cast kind glances on him, 
 as one wortliy of a maiden's blessmg. Her generous pure-mindedness 
 gave her assurance here of the presence of a man such as hi moments of 
 maidenly meditation she might perchance have fancied she could rather 
 love tlum otherwise. He, truly, is but a poor tutor, and somewhat proud 
 withal, with a dash of blunt honesty and impetuosity ; very unlike the 
 ' nice young men ' of ordinary tea-parties, whom, it would seem, the good 
 Johanna persisted m keeping at a distance ; for we arc authentically 
 informed that she, in lier time, had refused a moderate number of ' very 
 excellent offers.' Fichte, however, belongs to quite another category. 
 Accordingly, from glances it gets to smiles and signs of welcome recogni- 
 tion, and so onwards to a more perfect understanding. We suspect that 
 Father Ealm did not at first perceive the turn things were taking in his 
 household ; nevertheless, we are prepared to justify Fichte and his fair 
 beloved before any mamier of tribunal, if needs be, for the decided 
 fashion in which they set about loving each other (bemg thereto 
 inwardly necessitated) without leave asked of any one. If our Othello 
 had gone, cap in hand, to the old burgher, and respectfully ex- 
 plained his intentions in the beginning — Fichte being, as we know, a 
 poor, unprovided tutor, and his Desdemona the daughter of a Zurich 
 notability with expectations — it is highly probable that he would have 
 been refused, and he must thereby have lost a veiy admh-able wife ; as, 
 on the other hand, the lady\ herself would have also lost an extremely 
 desu-able husband; which, according to our notions, would have been a 
 great misfortime for both parties. As it was, hoAvever, the affau- went on 
 agreeably, and ultimately prospered. There seems to have been a good 
 deal of correspondence between them, even while Fichte remained in 
 Zurich ; which circumstance leads us to suj^pose that opportunities for 
 private inter\iew were far from behig frequent. As love-letters, distin- 
 guished by genuine common sense, warmth of feelmg, and the absence of 
 absurdity, are held to be extremely rare, and might with certain persons 
 be matters of curiosity, we regret that lack of space prevents us from 
 inserting here some few select passages from these epistles of Fichte to 
 Johanna. Let readers of sentiment be nevertheless assured that here, in 
 old Zm-ich, went on and unfolded itself, in pleasing sequence and variety, 
 an actual and beautiful romance ; which romance also was destined to be 
 chequered by a few unwelcome shades of anxiety and disappointment. 
 
 For now, at the end of two years, Fichte's engagement reaches its termi- 
 nation. There is consequently a painful, regretful partmg, sorrowfid pro- 
 fessions of heart-anguish, earnest and solemn interchange of vows, an 
 unspeakable immutable attachment on both sides passionately declared; 
 and so they are separated for a time. For the rest, Fichte's tutorship, 
 besides being distinguished by his zealous performance of its duties, had 
 also been remarkable for a rigorous moral supervision extending to all 
 parties concerned in it. The parents of his pupils, although neither per- 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 fectly compreliending liis plans, nor approving of that part which they did 
 comprehend, were nevertheless such admirers of his character, and stood in 
 such respectful awe of him, that they were induced to sul^mit thek own 
 conduct towards their children to his judgment. In furtherance of his 
 object, Fichte kept a journal, which he laid before them every week, and in 
 which he had noted the faults of conduct whereof he conceived them to 
 have been guilty. Of course such a domestic censorship could not last 
 long ; and that it should have lasted so long as it did, has been justly con- 
 sidered sufficient evidence of the respect in which his character was held. 
 In less than two years, however, it had become irksome, insupportable, and 
 ended at length in mutual dissatisfaction. Eahn, to whom the attachment 
 between Fichte and his daughter had been in due time communicated, 
 endeavoured to obtain for him a superior situation through certain of his 
 connections in Denmark, but appears to have been unsuccessful in the 
 attempt: Fichte was therefore thro-mi once more upon the world, his 
 'outward prospects as uncei'tain as when he first entered Switzerland. 
 
 Towards the close of March 1790 he left Zurich on his return to his 
 own country, bearing with him some letters of introduction to persons of 
 influence at the courts of Weimar and Wirtemberg. As formerly, he per- 
 formed the gi-eater part of his journey on foot. He reached Stuttgard in 
 the beginning of April; but not finding his recommendations to the Wirt- 
 emberg court of much advantage, he shook off the dust from his feet, and 
 trudged on to Saxony. Visiting Weimar, he expected to see Herder. 
 Goethe, and Schiller, but here again was disappointed ; Herder was ill, Goethe 
 in Italy, and Schiller too much engaged with his historical professorship at 
 Jena to receive visitors. About the middle of May he is once more in 
 Leipzic, his small stock of money exhausted by the expenses of his 
 journey. Friend Weisse receives him kindly, but for the rest he meets 
 with little welcome. The old practice of private teachmg is resorted to 
 — unhappily with small success. Meanwhile the natural cravings and 
 imspeakable necessity for bread and cheese get rather pressing. What is 
 there that an honest incipient philosopher can turn his brains to and live 
 thereby ? 
 
 Fichte has long had a secret turn for authorship, and has by him even 
 now certain miscellaneous essays, which the kind Johanna, with charac- 
 "teristic simpUcity, had desired him to publish while at Zurich, and thereby 
 create a sensation. He, with profounder judgment, had answered that 
 such a publication could not have the wonderful effect which she expected — 
 that same capacity for producing a ' sensation ' being neither in him nor 
 his compositions. But now the need of provender growing paramount, lie 
 seriously applies himself to literature, that being, as all the world knows, 
 a universal refuge for the destitute. He conceived the plan of a monthly 
 literary journal, ' the principal objects of which should be to expose the 
 dangerous tendencies of the prevalent literature of the day; to shew the 
 mutual influence of correct taste and pure morality, and to direct its 
 readers to the best authors, both of past and present times.' This pro- 
 jected undertaking was considered excellent by all to whom it was com- 
 municated, and even admitted to be a decided requirement of the times, 
 but was nevertheless held to be liable to one grave objection — he would 
 never find a publisher. The thing was too much opposed to the mterests 
 8 
 
 I 
 
FICIITE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the booksellers to meet with any countenance from them. 'I have 
 therefore,' said Fichte, ' out of sorrow, cunimunicatcd my plan to no book- 
 seller, and 1 must now write — not peniioious writings, that I will never 
 do, but something tiiat is neither good nor bad, in order to earn a little 
 money. I am at present engaged upon a tragedy, a business which, of all 
 possible occupations, least belongs to me, and of which I shall certainly 
 make nothing; and upon novels, small romantic stories, a kind of reading 
 which is good for nothing but to kill time; this, however, it seems, is what 
 the booksellers will accept and pay for.' 
 
 Fancy Isaac Newton, with the confused elements of a ' Principia' circu- 
 lathig in his brain, constrained to write installation odes or opera criti- 
 cisms for the ' Jlorning Post ;' or fancy, if you will, some impetuous 
 rhinoceros set to draw water from the well at Carisbrook Castle, in the 
 place of the celebrated donkey so long accustomed to it ; and you will have 
 some notion of Fichte's tragical labour of writing tragedies and short 
 romantic stories, adaptable for purposes of temporicide. It was sufficiently 
 intolerable while it lasted, and utterly fruitless in results. Moreover, the 
 difficulty of obtaining regular employment at it put him upon the necessity 
 of trying other schemes ; his life was one of continual shifts and expedients, 
 whereby, with his utmost efforts, he could scarcely realise the scantiest sub- 
 sistence. Once he ^vTites : ' In regard to authorship, I have been able to 
 do little or nothing, for I am so distracted and tossed about by constant 
 schemes and undertakings, that I have had few quiet days.' Finally, by 
 way of abandonment of the whole despicable business, he determines that 
 if ever he becomes an author, it shall be on his o\vn account. ' Author- 
 ship, as a trade,' says he, ' is unfit for me. It is mcredible how much 
 labour it costs me to accomplish something with which, after all, I am but 
 half satisfied. The more I write, the more ditiicult does it become. I 
 perceive that I want the living fire.' 
 
 With regard to his other schemes and occupations, we can gather no very 
 clear account. At one time he gives ' a lesson in Greek to a young man 
 between eleven and twelve o'clock,' and spends the remainder of the day 
 ' in study and starvation.' A lady at Weimar had a plan for obtaining him 
 ' a good situation;' but speaking of this, Fichte said: 'It must certainly 
 have failed, for I have not heard from her for the last two months.' Of 
 other prospects which he had reckoned on as ' almost certain,' he thinks it 
 at length the best course to ' be silent.' Contemplating his affiiu's in the 
 month of August, he says : ' Providence either has something else in store 
 for me, and hence will give me nothing to do here, as indeed has been the 
 case ; or intends by these troubles to exercise and invigorate me stiU 
 farther. I have lost almost everything except my courage.' Then we 
 hear of a distant prospect of going to Vienna, to prosecute some new 
 literary plans, and thus being nearer to Zurich, and even visiting it on his 
 way. Subsequently he writes: ' This week seems to be a critical time 
 with me ; every one of my prospects, even the last, has vanished.' In 
 respect to a project for engaging him in the ministry, he expresses himself 
 in terms of strong disgust at the ' crmging' and ' dissembling' which would 
 be requu-ed to get him forward, and declares at last, ' I will be no preacher 
 in Saxony.' 
 
 Thus Fichte, like Gulliver among the LiUiputians, is pamfully entangled 
 72 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 with a complexity of mean embarrassments, and can make no progi'ess. A 
 strong man, in most ignoble captivity, whose every struggle towards free voli- 
 tion brings down upon him sharp puny arrows, vexing and irritating hun at 
 every pore. His case is by no means an uncommon one, but his sphit and 
 deportment under it are far beyond the average manifestations of that kind. 
 In the midst of destitution, anxiety, and neglect, he approves himself a 
 man, nowise debasing the faculty within him, sinking neither into syco- 
 phancy, pusillanimity, nor stormful indignation against fate. The brave 
 Fichte ! how like a colossal statue he stands uprightly, with his bosom 
 bared to the weather, majestic and unflinchmg, with a proud insensibility 
 to cold and rain, and, when the sim shines out again, looking refreshed and 
 brighter for the showers. Misery and want press hard upon him, but 
 engender no envy in his heart ; he entertains no hatred, cherishes no 
 resentment, complains of no neglect. He braves his misfortunes as he 
 can, soliciting neither pity nor admiration, sustaining himself by the 
 strength of his own integrity. A right healthful self-sufficient man ; 
 patient under evil, trustful in the good ; in faithful endeavouring and 
 endurance manfully holding on his way. 
 
 But now, in the winter of 1790, his private teaching operations appear 
 to have become a trifle more successful ; whereby his outward ch-cumstauces 
 were in some degree improved, and his mind left at greater ease and liberty 
 for engaging in intellectual pursuits. The critical philosophy of Kant was 
 at this time the subject of much discussion in Germany, and to it Fichte's 
 attention was now accidentally directed. The system of deterministic 
 necessity before alluded to was never m much harmony with his personal 
 character ; and if we are at liberty to regard certain passages of his work 
 on the ' Destination of Man ' as the expression of his own earlier state of 
 mind, it would appear that the theory wliich had satisfied his understanding 
 had long stood in opposition to his feelmgs. His introduction to the 
 •wi'itings of Kant produced a complete revolution in his opinions. Many 
 of his former doubts vanished, and the pm'pose of man's life, his faculties 
 and endowments, acquired a new and nobler significance in his beUef. 
 This event was probably more important, and exercised a gi-eater influence 
 upon him than any other that occurred m connection with his sphitual 
 culture. The terms in which he speaks of it sufficiently testify the high 
 estimation in which it was regarded by himself. Writmg to Johanna, he 
 says : — 
 
 ' My scheming spirit has now found rest, and I thank Providence that 
 shortly before all my hopes were frustrated, I was placed in a position 
 which enabled me to bear the disappomtment with cheerfulness. A cir- 
 cumstance, which seemed dependent on mere chance, led me to give myself 
 up to the study of the Kantean philosophy — a philosophy that restrains 
 the imagination (which in my case was always too powerful), gives reason 
 the dominion, and raises the soul to an elevation above earthly concerns. 
 I have accepted a new and nobler morality; and instead of occupying my- 
 self with outward things, I am employed more exclusively witli my own 
 being. This has given me a peace such as I have never before experienced ; 
 for amid uncertain worldly prospects I have spent my happiest days. I 
 propose to devote some years of my life to this pliilosophy ; and all that 
 I write, at least for some time to come, shall have reference to it. It is 
 10 
 
FICHTE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 difficult beyond conception, and stands greatly in need of simplification 
 
 The principles indeed are hard speculations, having no direct bearing on 
 human life, but their consequences are extremely important to an age 
 whose morality is coiTupted at the very fountain ; and to set these conse- 
 quences before the world m a clear light would, I believe, be doing it good 
 
 service I am now thoi'ouglily convinced that the human will is free, 
 
 and that to be happy is not the purpose of our being, but rather to deserve 
 happiness.' 
 
 Under the influence of this new inspiration, Fichte addressed hunself 
 once more to literary composition. He commenced an explanatoiy abridg- 
 ment of Kant's ' Critical Incpiiry into the Facidty of Judgment,' designed 
 to further and facilitate the study of the new philosophy, and obviating 
 somewhat the repidsive terminology in which it was involved. This under- 
 taking, however, he did not complete, and the portion which he wi-ote was 
 never published, owing chiefly to the pre-appearance of other similar publi- 
 cations, which, as he anticipated, had been rapidly vamped up to profit by the 
 excitement which the new doctrines had occasioned. In regard to German 
 literatiu-e in general, he believed that its golden age was at hand, dis- 
 cerning intimations of a promise in Goethe, SchUler, and others, which 
 has now in good part been fulfilled. In the wondrous revolutions of the 
 new school, the critical philosophy operated with considerable effect ; and 
 in this department, first by way of exposition, and subsequently in further 
 development and new investigation, Fichte was destined to be distin- 
 guished. 
 
 As yet, however, he is biding his time, and has a variety of fortunes to 
 undergo in the interim. Early in the year 1791, without any perceptible 
 improvement in his circumstances, preparations are in progi-ess for his 
 marriage. The generous Johanna, bethinking her that she was ' a person 
 with expectations,' and didy or undidy considering the applicability of 
 these to the ordinary requirements of domestic economy, and discerning, 
 as she believed, no difiiculty which faith and a good purpose might not 
 overcome, resolved within herself that, Fichte being willing, they two 
 should, without further dalliance or delay, try the unspeakable possibilities 
 of wedlock, and commit the consequences to the gracious concern and 
 kindly interpretation of the Higher Powers. By this arrangement 
 Fichte woidd be enabled to piu-sue his own literary projects peacefully, 
 free from the immediate necessity of wasting his time and energies in the 
 distressing struggle for a scanty subsistence from day to day, and with 
 the ultimate prospect of acquiring some settled provision through his 
 unimpeded activity in the provinces of philosophy and letters. Whatever 
 scruples he might entertain respecting the propriety of marrying without 
 having first secured an independence for himself, appear to have been over- 
 ruled. Father Rahn had consented to the alliance ; Fichte was of course 
 eagerly inclined to it ; and thus, all obstacles being seemingly removed, he 
 awaited the event with pleasurable anticipation. 
 
 And so at length, as he believes, all his brightest dreams are to be fid- 
 filled ; his cup is brimming with delight ; the draught of unutterable joy is 
 sparkling at his lips. Alas for the stability of human expectations ! Here 
 is the hand that is to dash his anticipated pleasures to the gi-oimd. The 
 day of his departure was already fixed, when the bankruptcy of a mercantile 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Louse, to which Eahn had intrusted his property, threw his affairs into dis- 
 order, threatening even to reduce him to indigence. There was an end to all 
 plans foimded in reference to his prosperity. The shock brought upon the 
 old man a lingering illness, whereby his life was for some time endangei'ed; 
 but by the unremitting attention and tenderness of his daughter, he was 
 finally restored to his accustomed state of health. She, with that noble 
 devotion which bears suffei'ing without a murmiu', and merges every element 
 of self in the genei'ous offices of affection, mmistered to the good old 
 father's helplessness, cheering and consoling him under the visitations of 
 calamity, and crushing meanwhile the withered blossoms of her own hopes 
 into the silent places of her memory. 
 
 As for Fichte, he must out again upon the bleak wilderness of life, and 
 adjust himself to such weather as shall befall. The world, with its diffi- 
 culties and obstructions, is again before him; but his is the indomitable spirit 
 which shall rise superior to them all. For the present, he obtained a private 
 tutorship in the house of a Polish nobleman at Warsaw; and having 
 announced the chcumstance to Johanna, bidding her at the same time to be 
 of courage, and assuring her of his continued faithfulness, he resumed his 
 staff, and quitted Leipzic. In the course of the journey he halted at 
 Rammenau, to pay a visit to his parents. ' The good, honest, kmd father !' 
 said Fichte, ' his look, his tone, his reasoning, how much good they always 
 do me ! Take away all my learning, and make me such a worthy, true, and 
 faitliful man, how much should I gain by the exchange ! ' 
 
 On the 7th of June he arrived at Warsaw, and immediately waited upon 
 
 his employer, a certam Count Von P , a good easy man, though 
 
 suffering immoderately from henpeck. Here, it seems, the gray mare is 
 the better horse : in other words, the countess leads the orchesti-a ; nay, as 
 it turns out, is the sole fiddler in the establishment. Fichte finds her music 
 unpleasantly discordant, and herself, withal, ' a vain, haughty, and whimsical 
 woman.' The elect tutor perceives himself regarded as a mere appendage 
 to the supreme petticoats; no respect is paid to the dignity of his pro- 
 fession; his pronunciation of the French language proves unsatisfactory; 
 and his German bluntness of demeanour teUs not the less to his disad- 
 vantage. "WTiat shaU the proud Fichte do but resign his office without 
 having entered upon its duties; constrain the countess, %vith some difficulty, 
 to grant hun a slight compensation of travel-money, sufficient for his main- 
 tenance for the two succeedmg months ; and with this limited supply once 
 more journey homewards ? 
 
 First, however, he resolves to visit Konigsberg : there lives the much 
 renowned Immanuel Kant, the master of the new philosophy ; him would 
 Fichte see visibly in the flesh, and reverently take counsel of. With that 
 intent he departs from Warsaw on the 25th of June. 
 
 On his arrival at Konigsberg, he, with all the ardour of a pilgrim of 
 knowledge, straightway presents himself to Kant ; finds the critical philo- 
 sopher less enthusiastic than he had supposed ; meets with only a formal 
 reception ; and retkes deeply disappointed. Unwillmg, however, to aban- 
 don his purpose, he reflects a little how he may obtain ' a more free and 
 earnest interview ; ' but for some time does not perceive in what way it can 
 be effected. At last he determines to write a ' Critique of all Kcvclation,' 
 with which, as a battering-ram, he will storm the philosophic citadel, and 
 12 
 
FICHTE : A BIOQRAPHT. 
 
 gain, if possible, some inspection of its wonders. Tlie work is finished by 
 the 18th of August, and submitted to tlic transcendcntalist for judgment. 
 The philosopher unbends a little, even praises the performance ; but neither 
 by it does Fichte attain his object, which, it seems, was the establishment 
 between liimself and Kant of a ' free scientific confidence.' In regard to 
 his many philosophic doubts, he receives little in the way of answer — for 
 solution of these Kant merely refers him to the ' Critique of Pure Reason : ' 
 is it not all written there, so that whosoever runs, and has a touch of philo- 
 sophic capacity, may read to satisfaction ? 
 
 Fichte now meditates publication ; but on revising his production, thinks 
 it does not fitly express his profoundest thoughts on the subject, and there- 
 fore he undertakes to remodel it, and give it some further graces of compo- 
 sition. But here once more arises a grave difficulty. He, like here and 
 there a Chancellor of Exchequer, as well as many a private person, is in a 
 dilemma of ways and means. Counting his meagre stock of money, and 
 distributing it pi-ospectively over such a space of time as with utmost 
 attenuation it is capable of covering, he finds that it will not last him 
 beyond a fortnight. Whereupon come no small perplexity and serious 
 questionmgs as to what is to be done. He strives to obtain some employ- 
 ment through certain of Kant's friends to whom he had been introduced ; 
 but the friends are wanting either in influence or zeal : nothing can Fichte 
 get to do. Alone, and in a strange country, what shall he resolve upon? 
 It occurs to him that the great transcendcntalist is doubtless a man of 
 kindly and enlarged sympathies ; for does not greatness of intellect always 
 imply abundant generosity ? He writes a manly, noble letter to Kant, 
 highly characteristic of himself, and therein reveals to him the nakedness 
 of his cii'cumstances, discloses somewhat of his personal history, and, with 
 delicate frankness, requests the loan of a small sum of money to defray the 
 expenses of his journey to the humble roof yet open to him in Fatherland. 
 For security and guarantee of subsequent repayment, Fichte oflfers all he 
 has to give in such a case — his honour and integrity as a man. He feels 
 the singularity of the pledge, and admits its inadmissibility as an ordinary 
 bond. ' I know no one,' says he, ' except yourself, to whom I could offer 
 this security without fear of being laughed at to my face.' However, he 
 proceeds : ' It is my maxim never to ask anything from another without 
 having first of all examined whether I myself, were the circumstances 
 inverted, would do the same thing for some one else. In the present case I 
 have found that, supposing I had it in my power, I would do this for any 
 person whom I believed to be animated by the principles by wliich I know 
 that I myself am now governed.' It is not without a sense of humiliation, 
 that the proud noble heart of the man is thus reduced to mortgage its 
 sincerity. ' I am so convinced,' he continues, ' of a certain sacrifice of 
 honour in thus placing it in pledge, that the very necessity of giving you 
 this assurance seems to deprive me of a part of it myself. .... So far, 
 however, I can rely upon my principles, that were I capable of forfeiting 
 my word pledged to you, I should despise myself for ever afterwards, and 
 could never again venture to cast a glance into my own soul — principles 
 which constantly reminded me of you, and of my o-\vn dishonour, must 
 need be cast aside altogether, in order to free me from this most painful 
 self-reproach.' For the tone of mental independence and manly self- 
 
 13 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPEKS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 respect which predominates in the letter, Fichte solicits no pardon: he 
 even declares that he cannot ask it, alleging that ' it is one of the distinctions 
 of sages, that he who speaks to them speaks as a man/o men.' The letter 
 being written and transmitted, he awaits the issue with composure. This 
 memorable day was the 2d of September 1791. 
 
 Next morning there comes from Kant an invitation to dinner. He 
 receives his needy visitor with his usual cordiality. A magnanimous reader 
 anticipates that now, of a surety, Fichte's pressing necessities wUl be suit- 
 ably provided for. Alas, no ! A critical philosopher is in no condition to 
 lend money ; for indeed, however celebrated, transcendentahsm brings but 
 little grist to the household mill. Philosophy is profitable for much, but 
 for want of its long-sought, and as yet undiscoverable stone, cannot coin 
 dollars. The intangible idea of doUars is aU that philosophy can take note 
 of; and as Kant said on another occasion, and in reference to quite another 
 question, ' there is considerable difference between thinking we possess a 
 hundred dollars, and really possessing them ! ' Hegel's declaration, that 
 ' philosophy does not concern itself with such things as a hundred doUars,' 
 though no sufficient answer to Kant's remark, is nevertheless, in an un- 
 transcendental sense, very obviously true. Kant, as we said, cannot lend 
 money, at least he is ui no possibility of doing so for the next fortnight — 
 then 2^erhaps he may. MeanwhUe Fichte shall be welcome to occasional 
 pot-luck. 
 
 In his own hired attic, however, things are getting daily more cheerless ; 
 the image of grim Scarcity sits before him in his lonely room aU day long ; 
 the autumn evenings are growing chiU, and on his hearth are only the 
 ashes of extinguished fires. The spkit of despondency overshadows him, 
 and his brave heart is sick from hope so long deferred. Visions of the 
 parental fireside, and its cheerful evening faces, far away in nativeland, 
 visit him at mtervals, making him to feel, by contrast, more keenly the 
 hardships of his lot. Neither is the image of his fair Johanna Rahn ever 
 absent from him long ; but as a serene angel of consolation shines beckon- 
 ing in the distance, and does at least partially iUummate his melancholy 
 thoughts. Nevertheless the present tune is pressing ; Fichte has fallen 
 into painful extremity. But why not sell the manuscript of that ' Critique 
 of aU Revelation ? ' Kant says it is admhably written, and does not need to 
 be reconstructed. Truly, nothing shall hinder, provided one can get a 
 publisher. Kant recommends him to offer it to Hartung, a Konigsberg 
 bookseller of some distinction; but unhappily the worthy Hartung is 
 from home. With him, therefore, at present, there is no dealing. Fichte 
 tries to dispose of the work elsewhere, but utterly without success ; no 
 publisher to whom he applies is disposed to ixndertake any article of that 
 description. On the 12th of September Fichte wTites down this passage 
 in his journal : — ' I wanted to work to-day, but could do nothing. How 
 wiU this end ? What will become of me a week hence ? Then aU my 
 money will be gone.' 
 
 The darkness is gathering thick around Fichte's prospects — no star is 
 visible in the whole heaven of his observation. Fichte, however, is not to 
 die of destitution. Fortune has tried him hardly ; and now, if no star, she 
 reveals at least a comfortable show of candlelight. An invitation reaches 
 him, through court-preacher Schulz, to repair into the neighbourhood of 
 14 
 
FICIITE : A EIOGKAPIIY, 
 
 Dantzic ; there, in the family of the Count of Krokow, a tutorship awaits 
 him. Tutorsliips are Fichte's abomination, and his views were now 
 directed to a life of literary exertion ; nevertheless, as necessity consults 
 no man's convenience, he accepts the proposal. Whence he obtained 
 money for the journey does not appear; but at anyrate the journey 
 is perfonned. Fichte meets with the most friendly reception ; and 
 entering on his new employment, experiences the kindest attentions 
 therein. This coimtess proves herself from the first a woman of 
 ' amiable character and excellent abihties,' and she renders Fichte's 
 residence in her family ' not only happy, but interesting and instruc- 
 tive.' The kindly Countess Ki-okow! blessings on her fah, noble head, 
 though, alas ! that is long since laid at rest ! 
 
 This fortmiate appointment was the beginning of many years of unin- 
 terrupted prosperity. Very shortly, through the agency of his friends at 
 Konigsberg, Fichte is enabled to make aiTangements with Hartimg for 
 pubhshing the ' Critique of all Revelation.' The terms are settled, and 
 the process of type-setting is going on. But who is this solemn incarna- 
 tion of pomposity, stopping the pruiting-presses at Halle, and vociferously 
 aimouncing the discovery of a cloven foot? This is the dean of the 
 Theological Faculty, who refuses his sanction to the publication, on 
 account of certain principles contained in the book, which he, in his 
 straitlacedness, conceives to be unorthodox. Fichte has to urge that his 
 book is not theological, but philosophical, and therefore does not properly 
 come imder the cognisance of the Theological Facidty ; but this plea is 
 held to be in-elevant. Friends advise him to withdraw the obnoxious 
 passages ; but Fichte is inflexible : having wi'itten nothing which he does not 
 solemnly believe, and can give some show of reason for, he is determined 
 that the book shall be printed entu-e, or printed not at all. Kant is con- 
 sulted on the subject, as a man whose judgment is of the highest authority 
 in such matters ; and Kant confirms the soundness of the principles in dis- 
 pute. Abiding by liis position, Fichte has to wait awhile and see what 
 may become of it. As it chances, he has not to wait long ; the difficulty 
 is happily got rid of by a change in the censorship. The new dean, not 
 partaking in the scruples of his predecessor, gave his consent to the 
 publication, and the work accordingly appeared in the spring of 1792. 
 
 A new era now opens upon Fichte. All jouraals devoted to the criti- 
 cal philosophy are loud in their praises of his work. Would a curious 
 reading pubUc 'know wherefore, let them take note of this one circumstance: 
 Certain editors of ability have got an impression that this is a new book 
 by Kant, which he, for reasons of his own, chooses to publish anonymously. 
 Wliat, therefore, is so becoming for all able editors and indiscriminating 
 suckHngs of the Ci'itical Philosophy, as to chant a stave, according to 
 ability, m honour of the gi-eat master? The book was not of a nature to 
 force itself immediately into notice, and it probably owes not a little of its 
 first success to this mistake respecting its paternity. Kant, however, 
 publicly disclaims the authorship, and discloses the name of the writer. 
 Fichte, as it turns out, can bear to stand on his own basis ; and the sounder 
 heads among his coimtrymen soon fail not to welcome him as one of the 
 profoimdest of German thinkers. 
 
 Any analysis or adequate description of this remarkable book cannot be 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 attempted here. Such an account of it as we could render by a brief 
 aUusion to its principles would almost certainly create a false impression 
 of its purpose. Whoever would know it as Fichte designed it to be 
 known, let him bring with him a clear head, a mind open to conviction, and a 
 resolution strong enough to abide by the truth when he has learned it. Let 
 us take, however, one sentence from the preface, and mark m what spii'it 
 Fichte approaches the inquiry : ' To truth,' says he, ' I solemnly devote 
 myself, at my iirst entrance into public life. Without respect of party or 
 of reputation, I shall always aclaioioledge that to be truth which I recognise 
 as such, come whence it may ; and never acknowledge that which I do not 
 believe. It may be of little importance to the world to receive this 
 assurance, but it is of importance to me to call upon it to bear witness to 
 this my solemn vow.' A noble vow, nobly fuliilled, and one which the 
 humblest of the sons of Adam might enjoin upon himself, and abide by to 
 advantage. 
 
 Glancing back a little, we now perceive with satisfaction that the pro- 
 spective father-in-law's affairs have got somewhat righted. Fichte is 
 already a rising man , so the time has come when he may safely wed. 
 Accordingly, in March 1793, he wi-ites to the fair Johanna that he shall be 
 with her in June, or at latest in July, with a view to that agreeable con- 
 summation. He contemplates the event with deepest pleasure, but also 
 with much solemnity of feeling. An overflowing thankfulness fills his 
 heart ; the magnitude of the happiness which awaits him seems too great 
 for his unworthiness. The strong, stern soul of the thinker, Avith its rock- 
 like stability and earnestness, touched by affection's gentle rod, gushes out 
 in streams of tenderness. Then there are kindly leave-takings, half-sorrow- 
 ful, with his worthy friends at Dantzic, ' who are unwilling to let him go ; ' 
 plans and preparations for the future ; above all, a visit to his well- 
 beloved parents, and his ' seven sisters,' who have heard somewhat of his 
 honours in authorship, and now give him their blessing and approval of 
 the course on which he is about to enter. Fichte, doubtless, tells them 
 something of his wanderings and endurances, and how a benignant Provi- 
 dence had helped him in his extremity ; nor, amidst his many wondrous 
 relations, can that grand interview with Kant fail to be spoken of. There, 
 in the old Lusatian home, they are gathered, speaking and listening by 
 turns, happy as this world can make them ; and as they speak and listen, 
 the proud old father's eyes are glistening with tears. The patient mother, 
 too, feels well rewarded for all her care and many anxieties for this noble 
 son ; and the assiduous sisters are bountiful of all kindly ministrations. 
 Far into the night they sit, parting at length with sad, yet happy faces, 
 and silent prayers for mutual welfare. 
 
 Early in the month of June he takes his leave of them, and journeys to 
 the bride-home in the land of mountains. On the 16th he is drawing nigh 
 to the very spot. Pleasantly glance the rays of the summer sun about 
 the old walls of Zurich ; there, in her father's house, is the loug-belovcd, 
 waiting with expectation to become his wife. The echo of liis footsteps 
 through the rather silent summer streets is unheard by him, for before him 
 is the bride-father's house ; and his entrance there is one of pleasant 
 greetings. 
 
 But what means this new vexation coming upon us unexpectedly, and 
 16 
 
FICIITE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 positively putting off the marricage ? It arises simply out of certain ' laws of 
 the state affecting foreigners,' whicli liappily will only occasion a few months' 
 delay. On the 22d of October the marriage takes place, and Ficlite is 
 away with the bride to enjoy a short ' tour in Switzerland.' Returning 
 home, he takes up his residence in the good father-in-law's house : here hi 
 friendly Zurich, with the distant mountains frowning down on him with a 
 grand benignity, he will rest for a time, and gain a livelihood by his pen. 
 For several months he enjoyed ' a life of undisturbed repose,' sweetened 
 by the society of her whose love had been his stay in times of adversity, 
 and now gave a holier living purpose to the prosperous hour. 
 
 In the peaceful Swiss canton all is yet liappincss and security ; but the 
 rest of Europe is shaken with a new-born terror ; and tidings are abroad 
 of that grand convulsion called the French Revolution. Old Feudal 
 Europe, with its obsolete usages, and establishments of ancient power 
 grown intolerable, has fallen into distraction and decadence. Folly and 
 oppression have ruled it long, but now has come the dawn of a world's 
 deliverance. France has spoken forth a word of terrilic prophecy, which 
 the assembled nations have quailed to hear, though all have long been 
 struggling to utter it ; everywhere is promise and expectancy ; the new- 
 born giant of democracy is chanting loud his daring hymns to freedom ; 
 the genius of humanity, so long discomfited and trodden down, has mounted 
 a pinnacle of unheard-of glory, whence, as from a throne, she shall dis- 
 pense the bounties of a golden age. Alas ! these prospects are all delusive, 
 and the struggle proves no deliverance, but only a bewildered agony and 
 madness — a convulsive irregular tumult of unconsecrated indignation ; like 
 the mournful catastrophe of a blind Samson's strength, -when he threw down 
 the pavilion of the Philistines, and buried himself and his oppressors in 
 the ruins. 
 
 Yet, doubt it not, the French Revolution had a meaning in it of great 
 significance, which is going on even now unto fulfilment. Read it truly, it 
 is, as one has said, a reproclamation, as amidst ' infernal splendours,' of the 
 everlasting majesty of Justice, whose divine right of government had been 
 foully overthrown. Whosoever will look may perceive that the old feudal 
 incarnation of humanity is abolished and dead, and men are now burying 
 its remains ; the new development towards which we are progi'essing is 
 the dominion and supremacy of Industry, which, however, is not likely to 
 be founded without difficulty. Nevertheless, courage to brave hearts ! 
 Wliat is dead need not be lamented ; in the conflict of principles and 
 institutions the new^ spirit proves ever triumphant ; for humanity is as a 
 phoenix, from the ashes of whose despair springs a nobler birth of hope. 
 
 Fichte, looking on at this revolutionary procedure from his Swiss retire- 
 ment, conceived that there was much misunderstanding respecting it, and 
 accordingly wrote and published his ' Contributions to the Correction of 
 Public Opinion ' thereupon. Instead of execrating or eulogising the Revo- 
 lution, Fichte adopts a far preferable course, and endeavours to understand 
 it, which, indeed, was strictly his business as a philosopher. And this is 
 the leading principle of his work : — ' That there is, and can be, no abso- 
 lutely unchangeable political constitution, because none absolutely perfect 
 can be realised ; the relatively best constitution must therefore carry within 
 itself the principle of change and improvement. And if it be asked from 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 whom this improvement should proceed, it is replied that all parties to the 
 political contract ought equally to possess this right. And by this political 
 contract is to be understood, not any actual and recorded agreement — for 
 both the old and the new opponents of this view think they can destroy it 
 at once by the easy remark, that we have no historical proof of the exist- 
 ence of such a contract — but the abstract idea of a state, which, as the 
 peculiar foundation of aU rights, should lie at the bottom of every political 
 fabric' This book subjected Fichte to the charge of being a democrat, 
 which, however, in the popular English sense of the term, he really never 
 was, as from his work on the ' Principles of Natural Law ' may sufficiently 
 be seen. 
 
 These political speculations, however, were not the most important upon 
 which Fichte was engaged during the period of liis residence in Zm-ich. 
 We are told of ' several powerful and searching criticisms ' which appeared 
 in a leading philosophical journal, and in which discerning eyes had dis- 
 covered the hand that wrote the ' Critique of Revelation.' Furthermore, 
 at the instigation of venerable Parson Lavater, he prepared a short com"se 
 of lectures, a sort of critical philosophy made easy, by means whereof, 
 since the fame of Kant's achievement had reached Switzerland, the 
 worthy pastor proposed to indoctrinate his friends, that they, as well as 
 others, might be enabled to discuss the same whenever thi-own into 
 philosophical society. It need not sui-prise us, that ' tliis excellent 
 man retained the warmest feelings of friendship towards the philo- 
 sopher,' inasmuch as Fichte was right worthy of anybody's friendship, be 
 he who he might. For the rest, it seems Fichte lived in close retkement ; 
 the manners of the Zurich burghers not pleasing him, he ' seldom went out 
 into society.' His own wife, his father - in - law, the unexceptionable 
 Lavater, and certain indefinite people, described as ' a few others,' made 
 up the circle of his acquaintance. He had considerable correspondence, 
 however, with several distinguished persons, amongst whom prominently 
 appears Reinhold, then professor of philosophy at Jena, and recognised 
 leading Kantist of the day — known also for certain fanciful modifica- 
 tions of the original doctrine, and by him called ' philosophy without 
 nickname.' 
 
 But apart from these secondary occupations, Fichte was to some extent 
 engaged in plannmg the philosophical system upon which his reputation 
 mainly rests. Further meditation has convinced him that even the sage of 
 Konigsberg is not mfallible ; and that mdeed much remains to be done before 
 the cycle of philosophy is complete. In this very month of October 1793, 
 whether before marriage or afterwards the present writer knoweth not, he 
 wi'ites to a friend thus significantly : — My conviction is that Kant has only 
 indicated the truth, but neither unfolded nor proved it.' Subsequently he 
 announces : ' I have discovered a new principle, from which all philosophy 
 can be easily deduced ; ' and he even has the audacity to prophesy that ' in 
 a couple of years we shall have a system distinguished by all the clearness 
 of geometrical evidence.' Fichte of com-se is to produce it, and is even 
 now devoting all the enei'gies of his intellect to that end. His intellect is 
 of the subtlest, and he works m liis vocation with the zealous energy of 
 one who loves the truth with undivided earnestness ; but alas for the pro- 
 mised philosophy with the clearness of geometric evidence — that, we 
 18 
 
FICUTE : A BIOGKAPHY. 
 
 believe, is still waited for, and perhaps need scarcely be expected before 
 doomsday — rather late in the evening ! 
 
 However, Fichte for the present believes otherwise, and, so believing, 
 will intrepidly pursue his speculations, and see what may become of them. 
 He is invited to undertake the education of the Prince of Mecklenburg- 
 Strelitz, a tutorship with good appointments and prospects of court 
 patronrfge, all of which Fichte firmly and modestly declmes. ' I desire 
 nothing,' says he, ' but leisure to execute my plan — then fortime may do 
 with me what it will.' Here is a man, evidently, Avho will not compromise 
 philosophy for pudding. Nevertheless his studies ai-e interrupted. Without 
 solicitation of liis, he is appointed Professor Supernumerarius of Pliilosophy 
 at the univei'sity of Jena, in room of friend Keinhold, who, it seems, has 
 removed to Kiel, there to edify a new set of students by that fanciful 
 ' philosophy without nickname.' Court tutorships may be declined 
 without compunction, but not a professorship of philosophy; Fichte 
 accordingly accepts it, on condition that he shall be allowed to devote the 
 greater portion of the lii'st year to study. 
 
 The university of Jena was at this time the most distinguished university 
 in Germany. Its contiguity to the com-t at Weimar connected it with the 
 highest literary names of the age. The Grand Duke Charles Augustus, 
 having an eye and reverence for talent, had adorned his little Saxon court 
 by the presence of such men as Wieland, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, 
 and, as one might reasonably suppose, found them very tolerable company. 
 Indeed the intellectual brilliancy of the Weimar ckcle seems to have had in 
 modern times no parallel elsewhere; so that it might stand in quite envious 
 comparison with the courts of many a larger state, some of whicli can boast 
 of nothing higher than an occasional 'apothesis of a Beau Brummel.' To 
 this brilliant and busy scene was Fichte translated from his Swiss retire- 
 ment — to the society of the greatest living men — to the office of instructor 
 to a thronging ci'owd of students ' from aU surrounding nations.' 
 
 Mark, however, the supremacy of genius, and how a man possessed of 
 that does not fail to acquit himself right nobly. His already considerable 
 reputation, and the bold originality of his philosophic system, as displayed 
 in the published programme of his lectures, had raised the public expec- 
 tation to the utmost ; so that his position was one of no little difficulty, 
 inasmuch as he might possibly prove imequal to what had been expected 
 of him. Arrived at Jena on the 18th of May 1794, he was received with 
 gi-eat kindness by his colleagues at the university. On the 23d he 
 delivered his first lecture — to an audience so numerous, that the largest 
 haU in Jena, although crowded to the roof, proved insufficient to contain 
 all who had assembled. The impression which he made even exceeded aU 
 prior expectation. His singular and commanduig address, his fervid, 
 impetuous eloquence, the profoundness and rich profusion of his thoughts, 
 poured forth in the most convincing sequence, and, fashioned with a 
 wondrous precision, astonished and delighted his hearers. The rugged, 
 earnest force of his uncommon character, strengthened by long silence, 
 and perfected by inward struggle, bm-st forth with the first occasion in a 
 grandem* of origmality not to be otherwise attamed ; resembling that vol- 
 canic vehemence which, from the central depths of the earth, darts upwards 
 through barriers of perennial ice, and flames forth aloft an object of asto- 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 nishment. Ficlite's first appearance in his new capacity was quite 
 triumphant : we are told that ' he left the hall the most popular professor 
 of the greatest university of Germany.' 
 
 Of that astonishing popularity we do not account much; happily for 
 himself, Fichte also knew what estimate to put upon it. Not for popu- 
 larity, or breath of vain applause did he live ; but that out of the unshaped 
 possibilities of his life, he might build up a pillar of completed duty. "\^Tiat 
 else, indeed, does every true man live for, if not for this? ^Hiat else, 
 except this, is all men's mission and prescribed destiny in this fluctuating 
 life of time ! 
 
 Fichte's residence at Jena was nowise distinguished for its peacefulness. 
 German students are proverbially obstreperous. Then, as now, they were 
 united in certain irregular orders or unions, known by the name of Lands- 
 mannschaften, then* proceedings being marked by great turbulence and 
 licence. In Fichte's time, riots of the most violent description were of 
 common occurrence; houses were broken into and robbed, either by way 
 of a pleasant excitement, or for the purpose of obtaining means of sensual 
 indulgence. Legal authority was impotent to restrain these excesses; so 
 bold indeed had the unionists become, that on one occasion, when the house 
 of a professor had been ransacked, five hundi'ed students openly demanded 
 from the duke an amnesty for the offence. It seems to have been con- 
 sidered a highly commendable and interesting achievement to plunder a 
 professor. The academical authorities had made frequent efi"orts to suppress 
 these societies ; but on such occasions the students unifoi-mly broke out 
 into more frightful in-egularities. For, indeed, is not ' Liberty for ever ' 
 the undeniable right of men and students? Whosoever, therefore, would 
 restrain established Burschen privileges, immemorial rights of ' academical 
 freedom,' let him look out for broken windows, and deem himself happy if 
 he can hide liis wine ! 
 
 But now, cannot an indomitable Fichte, with his manifest strength of 
 character, do something in the way of reforming this unpleasant state of 
 things ? Most willingly would he do it ; but the question is, how can it be 
 done ? Try logic. German students have a certain share of understanding, 
 and perhaps they possess some kind of succedaneum for conscience — who 
 knows? On this flattering hypothesis, Fichte commences a course of 
 public lectures on * Academical Morality ; ' in which proceeding he appears 
 to prosper almost beyond his hopes. These lectures, and his own personal 
 influence among the students, are attended with the happiest efi"ects. The 
 three ordey-s then existing at Jena are smitten with penitence ; and express 
 their willingness to dissolve their union, on condition that the past should 
 be forgotten. To Fichte they delivered over the books and papers of theu* 
 society, for the purpose of being destroyed as soon as he can make their 
 peace with the court at Weimar, and i-eceive commission to administer to 
 them the ' oath of renunciation,' which, however, they will receive from 
 no one but himself. Fichte seems to have accomplished, by the sole force 
 of his individual character, what the university authorities, armed with the 
 rigour of the law and implements of punishment, had been unable to effect. 
 
 And yet it would seem that every reformation can be only partial. A 
 very Jjuther, with his strong ' battle-voice,' and defiant, lifelong warfare 
 against prmcipalities and powers, cannot make a whole Europe Protestaut. 
 20 
 
FICUTE : A BIOGRAPUY. 
 
 So too it happens with the reformer Fichte. That expected commission 
 from "Weimar is somewhat tardy in arriving. It is even whispered tliat 
 the university authorities, jealous of the success of an individual professor, 
 who had done by himself what they could not do in their collective 
 capacity, are enviously raising obstacles. AVhercupon arise suspicions, 
 stupid rumours of all sorts, and dissatisfaction on account of the delay; 
 and, by way of practical consequence, one of the tlu"ee orders withdraws 
 from the engagement, turning with gi'eat virulence against Fichte, as a 
 man suspected of deceiving them. 
 
 The success, as we said, is only partial. Still, two orders gained over is 
 some encouragement. Were it not well, therefore, to put on an extra 
 pressm-e of logic, with a view to reduce likewise the rebellious third ? 
 Fichte accordingly determines to deliver, during the winter session of 1794, 
 another course of lectures, ' calculated to arouse and sustain a spirit of 
 honour and morality among the students.' To accomplish his purpose 
 thoroughly, it -was necessary that these lectures should take place at a time 
 not devoted to any other course, so that he might assemble an audience 
 from among all the several classes. But every horn- from eight o'clock in 
 the morning till seven in the evening, of every six days in the week, was 
 ah-eady occupied by other lectures. No way seemed open to him but to 
 deliver these moral discoui-ses on the Simday. Before adopting this plan, 
 however, he made diligent inquiry whether any law, either of the state or 
 the university, forbade such a proceedmg. Discovering no such prohibi- 
 tion, he examined into the practice of other universities, and found many 
 precedents to justify Sunday lectures. Finally, he asked the opinion of some 
 of the oldest professors, none of whom saw any objection to his proposal, 
 provided he did not encroach upon the time set apart for divine service. 
 ' If plays are permitted on Sundays,' said Schiitz, ' wdiy not moral lectures?' 
 Fichte, therefore, fixed upon nine in the morning as the hour, and commenced 
 his course under favourable prospects. A large concourse of students from 
 all the different classes attended, together with several of the professors, 
 who wiUmgly acknowledged that they derived great benefit from the dis- 
 courses. 
 
 Fichte believes himself to be in the way of duty. Nevertheless ' the 
 best -laid schemes of mice and men,' not to say professors, ' gang aft agley;' 
 and Fichte finds that the worthiest intentions, and conduct the most pru- 
 dent, are no protection against calumny. A political pruit, of the anony- 
 mous slanderous description, 'distinguished by crawling sycophancy towards 
 power,' du'ects its wondrous sagacity to the consideration of this phenome- 
 non, and traces a very intimate connection between the Sunday lectures 
 and the French Revolution ! If a discerning public will believe this anony- 
 mous slanderous publication, here is a ' formal attempt to overturn the 
 established religious services of Christianity, and to erect the worship of 
 Reason in their stead ! ' A stupid, wndisceming public to some extent 
 believes it, and the Consistory of Jena conceive it to be their duty to 
 forward a complaint on the subject to the High Consistory at "Weimar. 
 Finally, an assembly lodges an accusation before the duke and privy 
 council against Professor Fichte, for ' a deliberate attempt to overthrow the 
 public religious services of the country.' Inquiry is thereupon directed to 
 be made ; meantime let Professor Fichte suspend his lectures. 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Fichte suspends, but will in tlie interim take occasion to defend himself. 
 The best way of doing so is to give a ' simple narrative of the real facts,' 
 and to make government acquainted with his projects for the moral improve- 
 ment of the students. This done, the charge is effectually demolished. 
 The duke forthwith gives judgment, ' dated 25th January 1795,' whereby 
 Fichte ' is freely acquitted of the utterly-gi-oundless suspicion which had 
 been attached to him;' his wisdom and prudence are mentioned with 
 approbation ; and he receives assurances of the ' continued good opinion ' 
 of the prince. The Sunday lectures, accordingly, are resmned, avoiding, as 
 heretofore, the hours of divine service. 
 
 Meanwhile, that outstanding third union, or Belial - fraternity, proves 
 utterly invincible by logic, and its outrageous proceedings are beginning to 
 render Fichte's residence at Jena not only uncomfortable, but even danger- 
 ous. The good wife Johanna has been several times insulted on the 
 public streets ; his own person is not always safe ; and his property has 
 been subjected to repeated outrages. Obviously the town of Jena is in great 
 want of new police. In lack of such desirable force^ Fichte is constrained 
 to apply to the senate of the university for protection. The senate declares 
 it can do nothing more than authorise self-defence, in case of necessity ; 
 except remind him that he has brought his difficulties upon himself, by 
 bringing the conduct of the orders under the notice of the state, without 
 the senatorial sanction. If more protection than the academy can aflford 
 him be desirable, Fichte is at liberty to apply to his friends at court. Such 
 is the position of affairs till towards the close of the winter session. Then 
 we have a crisis. In the middle of the night (date unknown) a party of 
 the Belial-fraternity made an attack upon Fichte's house, perpetrated con- 
 siderable damage, and caused much alarm, the worthy father-in-law, who 
 it seems was now living with our professor, narrowly escaping with his 
 life. It appears high time for the household to be moving. Accord- 
 ingly Fichte applied to the duke for permission to leave Jena, which 
 being granted, he took up his residence at Osmanstadt, a village about 
 two miles from Weimar. 
 
 About this time, if we mistake not, Fichte completed his speculations 
 which were begun at Zurich, and published them under the title of ' Wis- 
 senschaftslehre,' which, being interpreted into our vernacular, signifies 
 ' Doctrine of Science.' This is the scientific development of his philoso- 
 phical system — the systematic co-ordination of those 'materials for a 
 science,' which he conceived Kant to have discovered but not developed. 
 In this he endeavoured to construct a priori the whole system of human 
 knowledge upon the original basis of consciousness ; as from the funda- 
 mental principles here evolved, he designed to construct a complete system 
 of morals. 
 
 It has been said that the peculiarities of Fichte's philosophy are so inti- 
 mately bound up with the personal character of its author, that both lose 
 something of their completeness when considered apart from the other. 
 So far, at least, as ideal and actual may approximate, the one is the idea 
 whereof the other is the visible realisation. The two mutually illustrate 
 each other. Nevertheless, to attempt any sufficient exposition of the 
 system in this place would be futile. It were easy to bewilder iminitiated 
 readers with the transcendental phraseology — but what profit? The 
 22 
 
FICHTE : A BlOGKAniY. 
 
 thing solely essential in the case were to make it understood. But Fichte 
 is not to be understood -without much sedulous and patient study. His is 
 nowise what the Germans call a 'parlour-fire philosophy;' but a rugged 
 obstinate element, which one must contend witli lustily before it will yield 
 us any result. Whoever has corn-age and opportunity for such an enter- 
 prise will probably find himself ultimately rewarded for the pains be- 
 stowed upon it ; whatever may be his conclusions as to the value or truth 
 of the opinions he wiU here encounter, a due consideration of them will of 
 itself be an admirable discipline of his understanding. 
 
 Here, however, it is curious to observe how any new system, or im- 
 portant modification of an old one, is uniformly met with outciy and dis- 
 trust. Let a man, or any number of men, be settled down into any given 
 habitude, either of thought or of mere material arrangement, and how 
 difficult and unpleasant it is to move out of it. It has often occurred to us 
 that our numerous railways must have many times proved marvellous 
 annoyances in this respect. Fancy a retired burgher, who has built for 
 himself a quiet snuggery, a little way out of town, all precisely accordant 
 with his own notions of a private residence, thinking to dwell there unmo- 
 lested for the rest of his lifetime. Lo, suddenly, some cosy afternoon, 
 when he is perhaps congratulating himself on the qiiietude of his retreat, 
 he receives the astounding intimation, that it is proposed to carry the 
 Donner and Blitz Eailway slap through his drawmg-room ! Here is a 
 touch of unexpected electricity for him ! Wliat does he do but straightway 
 begin to anathematise the project, and predict all manner of evil concern- 
 ing it ? Just so is it with that whole class of thinkers who have com- 
 placently settled all that appertains to man and the universe according to 
 some quiet life -theory of their own. That there should be anythmg in 
 heaven or earth not ' dreamt of m their philosophy ' is what they cannot be 
 prevailed upon to admit. Many at this period were the self-satisfied retu-ed 
 thinkers, inhabiting suburban boxes in the vicinity of the capital city of 
 Transcendentalism. How very imcomfortable now to be dispossessed, ■^dth 
 no better prospect for some time to come than that of furnished lodgings ! 
 Really it is difficult for any retired individual, man of business or philoso- 
 pher, to reconcile himself to so unpleasant a predicament. Accordingly, 
 one need not wonder greatly at the many attacks which the Wissenschafts- 
 lehre sustained from some of the philosophical journals of the day. To 
 these for some time Fichte paid little or no regard ; but becoming at length 
 more frequent and importunate, he was in a manner constrained to reply 
 to them. He did this in a very decided fashion. Take, for instance, a 
 glance at the measure dealt out to a certain Herr Schmidt, a very stolid 
 and troublesome antagonist. ' My philosophy,' says Fichte, ' is nothing to 
 Herr Schmidt from incapacity ; his is nothing to me from insight. From 
 this time forth I look upon all that Herr Schmidt may say, either du-ectly 
 or indirectly about my philosophy, as somethmg which, so far as I am 
 concerned, has no meaning, and upon Herr Schmidt himself as a philoso- 
 pher who, in relation to me, is non-existent.' Here at anyrate is no lack 
 of emphasis, whatever one may think about courtesy. A perfectly fair 
 mind might regret the tone of contemptuousness and asperity here and else- 
 where observable in Fichte's treatment of his opponents ; nevertheless, in 
 judging of it, it were well to consider the specific circumstances under 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 which it was adopted. He himself was never the assailant, but desired 
 if possible to avoid controversy, and entered into it only when he seemed 
 impelled by persecution and abuse. Besides, he always professed himself 
 to contend, not for distinction, but for truth. ' With him to whom truth 
 is not above all other things ' — said he, ' above his own petty personality — 
 the Wissenschaftslehre can have nothing to do.' And again : ' It fiUs me 
 with scorn which I cannot describe, when I look on the present want of 
 any truthfulness of vision, on the deep darkness, entanglement, and per- 
 version, which now prevail.' He admits that he had not handled Herr 
 Schmidt very tenderly ; but says that every just person, knowing many 
 things that were not before the public, would give him credit for the 
 ' mildness of an angel.' Fichte complains of nothing more distinctly than 
 that his system was misapprehended; that his opponents would not take the 
 trouble to understand it, or admit their inability if they could not : above 
 all, that they would not refrain from pronouncing against it, even when 
 they hneio that it was not understood by them. Nothing more natural 
 than that he should consider such conduct foolish and unreasonable, and 
 treat it accorduigly. ' It is surely to be expected,' said he, ' fi-om every 
 scholar — not that he should understand everything — but that he should at 
 least know whether he does understand it or not ; and of every honest 
 man, that he should not pass judgment on anything before he is conscious 
 of undei-standing it.' 
 
 While, however, the Wissenschaftslehre was indifferently received, and 
 indifferently comprehended by many of his philosophic brethren, it was 
 not without success in other quarters. Men of genius, not so exclusively 
 devoted to metaphysical speculation, accepted it with much avidity and 
 welcome, as considerably the most serviceable philosophy they had met 
 with. Foremost amongst these, as foremost among all German men, was 
 the poet Goethe. Knowmg Fichte well, and entertaining a high opmion of 
 his character and ability, he requested that the work might be sent to him, 
 sheet by sheet, as it went through the press ; and he afterwards acknow- 
 ledged that the study of it had been of essential service to his culture. 
 
 The distui'bances which had driven Fichte out of residence at Jena 
 gradually subsiding, his academical life went on for some time unmolested, 
 and he appears to have devoted himself assiduously to literary exertion. 
 His contributions to the ' Philosophical Journal,' of which he became joint- 
 editor with his friend Niethammer, hi 1795, form an important part of his 
 works, and are directed chiefly to the further scientific development of his 
 system. In 1796 appeared his ' Doctrine of Law,' and in 1798 his ' Doc- 
 trine of Morals,' wherein the fundamental principles of the Wissenschafts- 
 lehre are applied to practical departments of knowledge. 
 
 Meanwhile two events had transpired in connection with his domestic 
 relations : the death of the good father-in-law in September 1795, and 
 subsequently the birth of a son, Avho, we believe, is at this present writ- 
 ing a professor of philosophy m the university of Tubingen. Fichte's 
 household life throughout appears to have been distinguished by peaceful 
 simplicity and general uniformity of happiness, varied only by such solici- 
 tudes and trivial uifelicities as are understood to chequer the most favour- 
 able matrimonial alliances. 
 
 Now, however, diligent literary exertion, domestic comfort, academical 
 24 
 
FICHTE : A lilOGRAPHY. 
 
 reputation, and even the future prospects of his life, are about to be blasted 
 by an unexpected blow. Fichte, who has already suffered much, must 
 adjust himself to a greater calamity than has hitherto befallen him. He 
 may nerve his strong heart, and shield him well in his integrity, for tlio 
 powers of malice and stupidity are coming down upon him from the high 
 places, to lay waste the little garden of his peace ! This man, whose life 
 has been a continual adoration of the Infinite, to whom the immeasurable 
 xmiverse has been but as a vast and solemn temple, wherein his earnest 
 spirit has mused and worshipped ; whose heroic sentiments and lofty con- 
 templations tend pre-eminently to inculcate and exalt a faith in the God- 
 like, and to make it manifest in the consciences and visible activities of 
 men — this man of steadfast virtue, and of humble, trustful piety, is now to 
 stand publicly accused of atheism ! 
 
 This is a charge which has been oftentimes preferred against philoso- 
 phers, whose speculations, from their novelty and the imperfections of 
 language, have on their first announcement been generally misunderstood. 
 The popular mind in all ages has been apt to misconstrue the discoveries 
 and further developments of truth, which new and greater uitellecta 
 occasionally reveal, into a profane interference with established opinions. 
 It is ever the lot of the man who outstrips his contemporaries in spi- 
 ritual discernment, to be first misinterpreted, and then denounced. The 
 catalogue of noble names who have thus suffered would be comparatively 
 endless. Accusations of atheism and infidelity swell everywhere the re- 
 cords of history and of literature ; a reader of any compass of comprehen- 
 sion comes gradually to regard them as only sorrowful instances of that 
 mental and moral perversion which inevitably results from imperfect culti- 
 vation. For, really, atheism as a faith is manifestly incredible. Who 
 ever knew an atheist from conviction — a man who, using his senses and 
 understanding, yet believed there was no God ? It is only the fool that 
 hath said so in his heart, and wished it might be true. 
 
 The accusation agamst Fichte was founded upon an article which he 
 published in the ' Philosophical Journal ' for 1798, ' On the Grounds of our 
 Faith in a Divine Government of the World.' In this he examines the 
 true foundations of our belief in regard to a moral government of the 
 universe; not, indeed, for the purpose of establishing faith by demon- 
 stration, but to shew the fundamental elements of a faith already subsistent 
 in man, and indestructibly rooted in his nature. The absurd charge of 
 atheism must have originated from an utter misapprehension of the writer's 
 purpose; which, so far from controverting the existence and superinten- 
 dency of a moral ruler, was solely directed to inculcate clearer and more 
 comprehensive conceptions respecting his attributes and supremacy. Into 
 further particulars of the calumny we have here no space to enter, and can 
 only mention that the matter was brought before the court at Weimar for 
 investigation, and that the proceedings terminated with a decision suffi- 
 ciently exonerating Fichte from the charge pi-eferred against him, though 
 a strong disapprobation was expressed in regard to the ' imprudence ' 
 whereof he was considered chargeable in giving publicity to his doctrines 
 in terms offensive to the popular understanding. Dissatisfied with the 
 qualified character of the decision, Fichte resigned his professorship at the 
 university, and indignantly quitted Jena. 
 
 25 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 In the summer of 1799 we fmd liim in Berlin, writing his book on the 
 Destiny of Man.' In the progress of this work he took a deeper glance 
 into religion than he had ever done before. In allusion to it he says : 
 * In me the emotions of the heart proceed only from perfect mtellectual 
 clearness ; it cannot be but that the clearness I have now attained on this 
 subject shall also take possession of my heart. To this disposition is to 
 be ascribed in a great measure my steadfast cheerfulness, and the mildness 
 with which I look upon the injustice of my opponents. I do not believe 
 that without this dispute, and its evU consequences, I should ever have 
 come to this clear insight and this disposition of heart which I now enjoy; 
 and so the violence we have experienced has had a result which neither 
 you nor I can reasonably regret.' So writes he to the good frau Johanna, 
 still left behmd at Jena. Fichte seems to have understood what Shak- 
 speare meant when he said : ' There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
 would men observingly distil it out.' 
 
 His economical circumstances, meanwhile, were none of the brightest. 
 Towards the end of the year, however, he succeeded in removing his 
 family to Berlin, in which place he thenceforth continued to reside. Here, 
 surrounded by a ' small ch-cle of friends worthy of his attachment and 
 esteem,' he appears to have lived for some time privately and happily, 
 ' cultivating literature upon a little oatmeal' — like the illustrious projectors 
 of the ' Edinburgh Eeview.' Unmterrupted by public duties, he applied 
 himself diligently to the perfecting of his philosophy. At the close of 
 1799 he pubhshed his ' Destiny of Man;' and during the two following 
 years he was occupied with certain preliminary treatises, designed to pre- 
 pare the public mmd for the complete reception of his doctrines, by shew- 
 ing then* application to subjects of general interest. These introductory 
 writings he intended to follow up with a more strict and complete exjjosi- 
 tion of his scientific method, designed solely for the philosophic reader. 
 This purpose, however, was for a time postponed, owing partly, it would 
 seem, to the doubts which he entertained respecting the best mode of cora- 
 mmiicating with the public, and partly, it is said, to his personal dissatis- 
 faction Avith the reception which his works had hitherto received. For 
 one reason or another, he refrained from publishing anythmg for the space 
 of sis years, with the exception of one or two minor works of a contro- 
 versial character which appeared in 1801. 
 
 Fichte, nevertheless, could not remain altogether inactive, nor restrict 
 himself wholly to a contemplative life. Shut out, as he conceived, from 
 the readmg public, he sought to collect around him a listening one, to 
 whom he might verbaUy impart such message as he had. This, indeed, is 
 said to have always been his favourite mode of communication ; as m the 
 lecture-room he found a freer scope for his peculiar powers than the form 
 of a literary work Avould admit of. A cncle of pupils was gradually 
 gathered about him m Berlin, to whom from tune to time he delivered 
 private lectures. Many distmguishcd scholars and statesmen were also 
 among his auditory, it being soon genei-ally understood tliat Ficlite was a 
 man worth going to hear. There, accordingly, for aAvhile, m his o^ra 
 hired lecture-room, he addressed ht audiences on some of the toughest 
 subjects that could engage the understanding. 
 
 In 1804, thi-ough the influence of certain ministerial friends, he was 
 26 
 
FICHTE : A BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 appointed professor of philosophy at the university of Erlangen, with pri- 
 vilege to return to Berlin during -wiiitcr to continue his lectures in that 
 city; and in this new appoijitment he achieved as brilliant a success as he 
 liad formerly gained at Jena. Here he addressed, to all the students of 
 the university, his memorable lectures on the ' Nature of the Scholar.' 
 These he subsequently published as an amended edition of a former course 
 on the same subject which he had given to the public, twelve years before, 
 whilst resident at Jena. In these singular disquisitions the characteristics 
 and duties of the scholar are deduced with a rigorous scientific precision, 
 and presented, as Carlyle has said, ' in all their sacredness and grandeur, 
 with an austere brevity more impressive than any rhetoric' 
 
 Fichte's outward historj' is now for some time imdistinguished by any- 
 thing of general interest : we accordingly pass over a number of minor 
 details, to contemplate his attitude and behaviom- under new cu-cumstances 
 of trouble and privation. In 1806, the dominion of Napoleon had become 
 extended over nearly the whole of Germany; and Prussia, which alone 
 maintained its independence, was sun-ouuded on all sides by his annies or 
 auxiliaries. WhUe preparations were in progress to oppose the advances 
 of the enemy, Fichte made an application to the king to be permitted to 
 accompany the troops in the capacity of patriotic orator — thmking he 
 might, by force of eloquence, inspire his fighting coimti'yTnen with some 
 additional coiu-age and a resolute invincibility of resistance. The pro- 
 posal was honourably received, but declined as incompatible with military 
 arrangements. The impending struggle, moreover, was very briefly settled : 
 the invader marching successfully from Auerstadt and Jena, and so onward 
 to a triumphant occupation of Berlin. This event rendered it necessary 
 for all who had identified themselves with the interests of their coimtry 
 to seek refuge in flight or concealment. Fichte resolved not to tender 
 submission to the conqueror, and seeing no especial beauty m remaining to 
 be shot as a rebellious partisan of a vanquished cause, timeously betook 
 himself to cover. Leaving his wife to take charge of his household, he with 
 his friend Hufeland fled beyond the Oder. Awaiting the issue of the war, 
 the two took up their residence at Konigsberg, where Fichte was so far 
 fortunate as to get appointed provisional professor of philosophy during 
 his stay. In Konigsberg University he accordingly lectm-es throughout 
 the winter with his usual ability and zeal. 
 
 As was natural in the case, the good wife Johanna many times entreats 
 him to retiurn home to Berlin ; the French soldieiy proving nowise trouble- 
 some to quietly-disposed people, but being, on the whole, and especially 
 the officers, rather amiable fellows. Fichte, notwithstanding, cannot be 
 prevailed on to return, but obstinately declares it to be his duty to submit 
 to every privation and discomfort rather than give an indu-ect sanction to 
 the presence of the enemy by sitting down quietly under their dominion, 
 even could he do so with perfect safety to himself. ' Such a retummg,' 
 said he, ' would be du-ectly contradictory of the declarations made in my 
 addresses to the king, out of which my present circumstances have resulted. 
 And if no other keep me to my word, it is just so much the more impei'a- 
 tive on me to hold myself to it. It is precisely when other scholars of 
 note in om- countrj- are wavering that he who has been liitherto true should 
 stand firmer in his uprightness.' 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papees for the people. 
 
 This was bravely spoken. But now, on the 8th of February 1807, 
 the battle of Eylau rendered Konigsberg no longer safe as a residence : 
 were it not, therefore, well to quit quarters there, and repair to others 
 somewhat more remote? Fichte thinks so, and accordingly removes to 
 Copenhagen. Thither he arrives on the 9th of July, ' having been detained 
 for several weeks at Memel and at sea by unfavourable winds.' It is 
 ordained, however, that he shall not long remain there ; for peace between 
 Fatherland and the enemy is shortly afterwards concluded, Berlin evacuated, 
 the gallantries of French soldiers suddenly cut short, and towards the 
 end of August the philosopher is again stationed under his hired roof- 
 tree, with his family, in the Prussian capital. 
 
 With the establishment of peace, the Prussian government sought to 
 repair the loss of political significance by fostering among its citizens the 
 desire of intellectual distinction and a spirit of freer speculation. It seemed 
 needful to ' rebuild the temple of German independence' on altogether new 
 foundations. The liberty Avhich had been swept away must be succeeded 
 by a fresh manifestation proceeding from a deeper principle, and nurtured 
 by a nobler means of culture. One of the first modes which suggested 
 itself for the attainment of this end was the establishment at Berlin of ' a 
 new school of higher education, free from the imperfections of the old 
 universities, from whence, as from the spiritual heart of the community, a 
 current of life and energy might be poured through all its members.' 
 Fichte was chosen as the man best fitted for the work, and unlimited power 
 was given him to frame for the proposed university a constitution. No 
 employment could have been more congenial to Fichte's inclinations. 
 Here, indeed, had arrived at last the long-desired opportunity of developing 
 a systematic plan of instruction founded on the spiritual elements of 
 humanity. He entered with ardour upon the undertaking; and by the 
 end of 1807 his plan, well digested and arranged, was ready for adoption : 
 though the university was not actually established until 1810. Then, 
 however, Fichte was elected rector; and it is said that during the two 
 years in which he held the office, he laid for the institution the foundation 
 of the character which it still maintains — that of being the best regulated, 
 as well as one of the most efficient schools in Germany. 
 
 The course of events brings us down to the year of 1812, when the 
 commotions and contentions of the European continent are working out 
 a series of new and significant results. Napoleon the Grand, hitherto 
 conceived to be invincible, has become at length Napoleon overthrown : 
 Russian snows and Moscow conflagrations contributing to that unantici- 
 pated consummation. Now, it seems, the time has come when, by the 
 blessing of Providence, and a seasonable use of gunpowder, the Germans 
 may recover their lamented independence. Wise in his generation, the 
 king of Prussia enters into an alliance with the Russian emperor, and 
 straightway from Breslau sends forth a proclamation, calling upon the 
 young and active men of the country to arm themselves for the restora- 
 tion of its liberty. The Germans aforetime have suffered much defeat, 
 in spite of skilful and experienced commanders ; nevertheless they do 
 not hesitate to answer to the summons, but with grim consent march 
 forwards to fight for freedom, or in default thereof, to get themselves 
 patriotically shot ! 
 28 
 
FICUTE : A BIOGRAPny, 
 
 An earnest Ficlite shall now assuredly have a chance of exhibiting hie 
 mettle. He renews his application to be appointed military orator, that so 
 he might share the dangers and animate the courage of the ' army of 
 liberation.' But there are difficulties of the insuperable sort which exclude 
 him from any such appointment. It seems that of all that warlike oratory 
 with which he is inwardly and so intensely burning, he cannot get himself 
 satisftxctorily delivered. In which exigency it appears best to remain 
 stationary in Berlin, and there lecture ' On the Idea of a True War.' Mean- 
 time he and other patriot professors can organise an army of reserve of the 
 volunteer description, and announce its readiness to contribute personally, 
 when called for, to the defence of Fatherland. Professors and literati also 
 institute, on novel principles, a sort of impromptu life-assurance society, 
 whereby the widows and cliildren of such as may faU in battle shall be 
 provided for by the amenities of siu'vivors. 
 
 But who is this stealing upon us in tlie solemn night-time with moody, 
 sinister aspect, and air of affrightened courage, like one who had recently 
 killed a brother sinner in a duel, and needed absolution ? Him we discern, 
 after due scrutiny, to be a veritable Captain Swing, or untimely resurrec- 
 tion of Guy Faux — student of philosophy notwithstanding — who, taking 
 counsel of the powers of darkness, has conceived a plan for firing the 
 magazine of the enemy by stealth, and thus blowing them compendiously 
 out of the planet. Fichte, to whom the scheme is revealed, will be no 
 partner in such atrocity. With cool alacrity he is oft' by break of day to 
 the superintendent of police, and has the whole abominable business 
 timeously prevented. If the powers on high are indifferent to interfere in 
 the defence of right, the devil shall in no case be invited to condescend 
 with his assistance ! The sacred cause of freedom shall not be sullied by 
 that kind of partnership. 
 
 Captain Swing retii'es with his tinder-box to the subterranean shades of 
 an ignominious obscurity, and Fichte meantime continues lecturmg on the 
 perils and disasters of the times. ' With a clearness and energy of thought 
 which seemed to increase with the difficulties and danger of his country,' 
 he keeps alive in the people an imquenchable animosity to the compromise 
 of liberty, or to any terms or conditions of peace which did not recognise 
 the unlimited mdependence of the German kingdoms. Austria, it is true, 
 mediates, and persuades to compromise, whereby ensues only a nominal 
 independence ; but a ' brave and earnest people,' seeking for ' true freedom,' 
 express imanimous dissatisfaction with the comiterfeit, and are obviously 
 inclined towards violation of the amnesty. Hostilities are accordingly 
 recommenced, and go on through the autumn and winter mouths of 1813. 
 
 It was at the commencement of this campaign that the multitudinous 
 students of Berlin were one day assembled to hear Professor Fichte lectm'e 
 on the imposing topic of ' Duty.' There is breathless waitmg and expecta- 
 tion ; whispered prurient criticisms on the gi-eat master, whom all are never- 
 theless met reverently to hear ; interchange of college gossip, reminiscences 
 of Burschen jollity, small talk and scandal, wi-ath and eftervescence of 
 independency, vapid jests and commonplace solemnities, with a marvellous 
 redolence of stale tobacco ; here and there a flash of native wit of charac- 
 teristic brilliancy, but oftener only an involuntary parody of some loftier 
 Bpeculation, stated in a phraseology so vague as to make the speaker seem 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAFERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 profound, and like one who would probably understand his subject but for 
 the impediment of stupidity. Such, as near as we can guess, is the scene 
 and the occasion. Behold, however, Fichte has arrived, calm and modest 
 as a lion, standmg in unconscious lordliness under the shade of forest- 
 trees. There is hush of miscellaneous tongues, and a simultaneous pre- 
 paration for listening — as when the sun shines forth upon the hemisphere, 
 provident householders disperse their candle-lights. He lectures with lais 
 usual dignity and calmness, rising at intervals into fiery bui-sts of elo- 
 quence, but governed always by a wondrous tact of logic, such as few men 
 could equal. From the topic of Duty in the abstract he leads his 
 audience to the present state of national aflfah-s. On them he glows and 
 expands with animation ; the rolling of drums without meanwhile fre- 
 quently drownmg his voice, but inspiring him with fi-esh spnit to proceed. 
 He paints the desolation of liis coimtry — the withering hideousness of 
 usurpation — the boundless ravages and ambition of the foe; he sweUs with 
 a sublime hatred and indignation against oppressors ; and passionately 
 enforces it as the duty of every one before him to consecrate his individual 
 strength and faculty to the rescue of his native land. ' Gentlemen,' he 
 exclaims finally, ' this course of lectm'es will be suspended till the end of 
 the campaign. We will resume them in a free country, or die in the 
 attempt to recover her liberties !' The hall reverberates with loud responsive 
 shoutings ; the rolling of the outward dimms is answered by the clapping 
 of innumerable hands, and the stampings of a thousand feet ; every German 
 heart there present is moved to resolution, and pants for conquest or for 
 martyi-dom. The orator, like the fabled Oi-pheus, by the impassioned 
 melody of his words has achieved the mu-acle of moving stones — stones 
 reputed to have been quarried out of Harzgebirge rock, and shaped by 
 supreme powers into Saxon men. Fichte descends from his place, passes 
 through the crowd, and places himself in the ranks of a corps of volunteers 
 then departing for the aiTQy. 
 
 The war went on in the neighbourhood of Berlin. The victories of 
 Grossbeer and Dennewiz secured the capital from danger; but from its 
 nearness to the scene of action it became a general hospital for the sick and 
 wounded. The public institutions for then* reception were speedily 
 crowded, and soon entirely unequal to the demands made upon their means 
 of relief. The authorities, therefore, called upon the inhabitants to come to 
 their assistance with extraordinary contributions, and solicited the women 
 to take charge of the sick. Foremost among those that devoted themselves 
 to this amiable ministry was the wife of Fichte, who, as a patient nurse 
 and dispensing angel of gruel and consolation, exerted herself sedulously 
 for the space of five months. In the distribution of clothes, and food, and 
 medicine — in the exercise of pious offices around the beds of the dying and 
 unknown, by generous and womanly solicitude in many ways — she day by 
 day contributed to the alleviation of no inconsiderable suffering and sorrow. 
 
 As a consequence of her long uninterrupted exei'tions in the hospitals, 
 she began at length to feel alarming symptoms of illness. In January 
 1814 she was attacked by a violent nervous fever, which had been preva- 
 lent among the wounded. It shortly became so dangerous as to leave 
 hardly a hope of her recovery. On the very day when she was in greatest 
 peril, Fichte, who had been engaged in close and assiduous attendance 
 30 
 
FICHTE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 upon her from the commencement of her illness, was compelled to leave 
 her, to deliver the first of a course of Icctm-cs which he had previously- 
 announced. With wondrous self-command he spoke for two hours on the 
 most abstract subjects, scarcely hoping to find, on his return, his beloved 
 companion still alive. This, as it happened, was the crisis of her disorder. 
 With transports of givatitude and joy he hailed the indications of recovery; 
 those who witnessed the excess of his delight were alone able to estimate 
 the almost superhuman power of control which he had exercised while 
 engaged in his academical vocation. 
 
 Beautiful are the tremblings of aifection, and the graceful tenderness 
 of those who, after danger or anxiety, look thankfully in each other's 
 faces on delivery from fear. Beautiful the ncw-bom flowerage of love 
 that springs from past calamity. Yet often does it happen, in our 
 world of vicissitude and care, that at the very time when we have been 
 gi'aciously relieved from apprehension, then does some new and ten-ible 
 distress befall us. Even so it was fated to be now. As his wife was being 
 restored to him with health, Fichte himself caught the infection. Its first 
 symptom was a nervous sleeplessness, which resisted the effect of baths 
 and the ordinary remedies applied for its relief. Then he was attacked 
 by a wild delirium, in which the memories of past activity mingled 
 confusedly with the phantasma of present pain. The valiant soul in 
 its bewilderment held conflict with imaginary enemies, and struggled with 
 deadly passion against the invisible furies of a distempered fancy. At 
 times he conceived that only will and resolution were required to conquer 
 the disease, and would strive desperately to resist the msidious agonies 
 which were vanquishing his strength. In one of his lucid' intervals, which 
 were brief and seldom, he was told of Blucher's passage of the Rhme, and 
 the final expidsion of the French from Germany. Then rose before him 
 resplendent visions of future blessedness for Fatherland, and he imagined 
 himself to be contending in the fray for the restoration of its liberties. AU 
 this feverish excitement and restlessness wore away his life. Once when 
 his son was approaching him with medicine, he said, with a look of much 
 affection, ' Leave it alone ; I need no more of that : I feel that I am well.' 
 He passed some hom-s in profoimd and unbroken sleep ; nevertheless, on 
 the eleventh day of his illness, during the night of the 27th of January 
 1814, he died. He died in his fifty-second year, while his bodily and 
 mental faculties were as yet unimpaired by age ; his fine black hair 
 unshaded by any signs of gray ; his step still firm, and his whole ap- 
 pearance vigorous and well sustained. ' So robust an intellect — a soul so 
 calm, so lofty, massive, and commanding,' the world shall not see again for 
 many days. 
 
 And so, reader, we have come abruptly to the strong man's end. We 
 have followed him — not without a sympathising admiration — through the 
 changes and chances of his life ; and now we must pause in reverence over 
 the untimely grave of his mortality. His life has been ' a battle and a 
 march' against the principalities of evil and temptation — a conflict with 
 error and insincerity, in others and in himself; and now the valiant soul 
 has attained to its rest, the strong courageous fighter goes home with 
 victory. The doctrine which he taught, and practically asserted by his 
 life, is a justification of that higher hope which dawns in all times upon 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE, 
 
 earnest and enthusiastic souls — that lofty aud commanding faith in the 
 integi'ity of the moral principle in man, which seeks to transform the world 
 into the image of the ideal. If it be true, as has been said, that the whole 
 value of history and biography is to increase our self-trust, by demonstrat- 
 ing what is possible to man, then shall the life of this man be an encourage- 
 ment and mdication to them who would strive to fashion their own in 
 accordance with the eternal realities of things. In severe rectitude, in 
 endurance that would not shrink, in energy, and perseverance, and resolu- 
 tion, in incorruptible integi'ity aud devout heroism of character, he is 
 admhable for ever : ' as a man approved by action and suffering, in his 
 life and in his death, he ranks with a class of men who were common only 
 in better ages than ours,' but who were needed in no age more imperatively 
 than now. The grand moral of his life, did any one still need to ask it, is 
 to shew the possibilities of worth and virtue which are yet open to other 
 men. Farewell, thou brave Fichte ! and may the love of good men every- 
 where embalm thee in their memory ! * 
 
 * The facts related in this Paper are principally derived from a Life of Fichte by 
 his son. Tlie writer has been partly aided in shaping them to the present result by 
 an English ' Memoir ' by William Smith ; whose excellent translations of several of 
 Fichte 's writings he takes the opportunity of recommending to the attention of 
 studious and intelUgent readers. 
 
HEYNE: A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 THE struggle of genius -with adversity, though oftentimes represented^ 
 never ceases to be interesting. Every variation of this story has its 
 own graces, and conveys its separate and peculiar lesson. Whoso passes 
 worthily through the straits and perils of difficult and painful circumstances 
 is thereby recommended to the sympathy and admiration of mankind. Men 
 love to trace the paths by which he join-neyed — to contemplate, as from 
 a quiet and retired distance, the obstacles and dangers he survived and 
 overcame — to witness, with a wondering and pensive interest, the whole 
 intricate drama of his bafHed and renewed endeavours — and are not without 
 a disposition to rejoice in the result, when it is seen that a manly and 
 consistent purpose has been followed by success. The biographies of 
 diligent and able persons are, accordingly, among the most attractive and 
 encouraging studies which can engage the attention of hopeful and aspiring 
 natures ; being at once mementoes of triumphant energy and pledges of 
 the possibilities which are open to further and corresponding enterprises. 
 He that can succeed in delineating the outward and inward being and 
 history of a man — especially of a man esteemed eminent and worthy in 
 his generation — will not alone impart a rational and exalted pleasui'e to 
 those who may attentively consider the delineation, but will likewise 
 contribute something to illustrate and promote that intellectual and spiri- 
 tual advancement whereof all men are more or less capable, and are 
 morally enjoined to aim after. With some such intent, though on a 
 small and very imperfect scale, it is here proposed to portray the life 
 and experiences of Professor Heyne — a scholar whose reputation has now 
 been long established among the learned, not only in Germany, his native 
 country, but likcAvise in France and England, and indeed throughout 
 Europe generally. By common acknowledgment of all competent and 
 enlightened scholars, he was a man of solid and excellent attainments, and 
 of a character in nearly all respects remarkable : upright, persevering, 
 steadfast-minded; m what he did and what he sufiered a notable example 
 of high intelligence, of quiet and sedulous endeavour, personal energy and 
 helpfulness ; and also of a pure, modest, and unpretending probity. Any 
 relation which shall represent, however faintly, the attempts, labours, and 
 performances of such a man, cannot fail to be acceptable to many readers, 
 and to some may possibly prove more instructive, and perhaps no less 
 entertaining, than more voluminous and ambitious publications. 
 
 48 1. 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Christian Gottlob Heyne was born at Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony, in 
 the month of September 1729. His father, George Heyne, was a weaver 
 in humble, and even impoverished circumstances. The manufactures of 
 Saxony were in his day visibly declining ; and consequently the miseries 
 of his class were almost daily accumulatmg, and their prospects becoming 
 constantly more and more hopeless. Scarcely could the workman, with 
 his utmost diligence, earn a sufficiency for his own support, still less 
 was he capable of adequately providmg for his family. Heyne was 
 accordingly nurtm-ed and brought up in the most extreme and bitter 
 poverty. ' The earliest companion of my childhood,' says he, ' was want ; 
 and my first impressions came from the tears of my mother, who had 
 not bread to give her children.' He was also the first-born of the family, 
 and had therefore the completest opportunities for witnessing the various 
 phases of destitution which the household from time to time pre- 
 sented. Many a piteous and distressing spectacle appears to have been 
 exhibited in that poor weaver's cottage, where the father often worked 
 through long weary days — from early morning until late at night — and 
 then perhaps could not find a pm-chaser for the product of his labour. 
 Scenes of memorable sadness, hunger-pangs, the still despair of stricken 
 industry, were things familiar to the boy from earliest infancy ; and with 
 the sti-auge bewildered sympathy of a child, he often looked upward to 
 his mother's face, and wept to see her sorrowful. His was a childhood 
 of that unhappy sort Avhich Charles Lamb has so touchingly depicted — 
 a childhood which has ' no childishness in its dwellings,' no toys, no pas- 
 times, no pleasant or sweet remembrances — nothing but the keen expe- 
 riences of a premature worldliness, Saturday - night anxieties, tlie dull 
 oppression and the bondage of despondency. How painful a thing is 
 it tliat a chUd should have any curiosity about the price of bread, or be 
 so conditioned as to entertain a fear of being sent away as creditless 
 from a baker's shop ! "Whoever has seen a child in such extremity — not 
 yet hardened or rendered callous by long familiarity with wretchedness — 
 will not readily forget the deplorable dejection of its countenance. 
 
 Young Christian Heyne suffered many such rebuffs ; suffered them until 
 his young heart grew vindictive and rebellious. It is little knoA\ni how 
 much unnatural exasperation is kindled in even tender minds by harassing 
 and straitened circumstances. To this poor boy, as he began to apprehend 
 some little of the discrepancies of society, it appeared that people were 
 everywhere combined, as in hostile consi^iracy, to render him and those 
 who were dear to him unhappy. The distress occasioned to his parents by 
 the haughty bearing of ' purse-proud ' traders — forestallers, who bought up 
 the linen made by the poorer people at the lowest, and often unjust prices, 
 to sell in other districts at the highest — aroused and fostered in him a 
 burning indignation. Often, on Saturday nights, had he seen his mother 
 ' wringing her hands and weeping,' when it happened that she had come 
 back with the web of the father's weaving — the product of a week's hard 
 toil, and not unfrequently of sleepless nights — having been unable to find 
 any one to buy it. On such occasions the boy or his sister would sometimes 
 be sent out with the same piece of cloth, to try if tJicij could get rid of it, 
 at anj'- of the places where the mother's application liad been unsuccessful. 
 Necessity as Hevne has related, often constrained the poorer sort to sell 
 2 
 
HEYNE : A BIOGRAPnY. 
 
 the sweat of their brows for anything the forostallers thouglit well to 
 offer, and to make up the tleficiency between tlic price and value in star- 
 vation. Tlie imperiousncss and petty tyranny of these unjust dealers so 
 powerfully and painfully laid hold upon his mind, that when afterwards, at 
 school, he lirst heard of ' tyrannicide,' he says lie conceived the project of 
 acting the part of a Brutus on all those ' oppressors of the poor ' who had 
 so often cast his fjither and mother into straits, deeming that it would be a 
 noble deed to rid the earth of them for ever. ' And here,' adds he, ' I had 
 the first instance or illustration of a truth which I have since frequently 
 had occasion to obsei've — that if the man who is armed with a feeling of his 
 wrongs, and possessed of any considerable strength of soul, does not risk 
 the worst, and become an open ci-iminal, it is solely owing to the beneficent 
 effect of the circumstances wherein Providence has placed him, which, by 
 fettering his activity, guard him from attempting the destructive enterprises 
 Lis excited passions may suggest. That the oppressing portion of man- 
 kind should be secured against the oppressed is apparently regarded, in 
 the scheme of the inscrutable Wisdom, as a most important element of 
 the present system of things.' 
 
 Ileyne's parents, though thus miserably situated, did what they could 
 to procure him some little education. At an early age he was sent to one 
 of the humbler sort of schools, where he soon obtained the praise of taking 
 delight in learning, and of making more than ordinary progress. Before 
 he was ten years old he even began to assist in raising the money for his 
 school fees, by giving lessons to a neighbour's child in reading and in pen- 
 manship. When the common school course had carried him as far as he 
 could be advanced by it, he became desirous, as he says, of ' proceeding 
 into Latin.' Unluckily, it was beyond his parents' means to provide the 
 money for such a purpose. This was a great grief to the boy, and he 
 bore it about with him for many days, perceiving little likelihood of ever 
 being delivered from it. However, one day when he was greatly dis- 
 tressed, even to sobs and tears, by pondering on his cheerless prospects, 
 he happened to be sent to fetch a loaf from the shop of a baker, who 
 was his godfather, and a near relation of his mother ; and as it chanced, 
 was questioned by the worthy man concerning his discomposure, which, 
 after a stream of tears, the boy succeeded in revealing, and presently 
 had good i-eason to be comforted. The godfather was in easy cu'cum- 
 stances, and as Heyne records, he magnanimously offered to pay out of 
 his own pocket the weekly sum required for the desu-ed teaching, imposing 
 in return only one condition upon the pupil — namely, that he should 
 come to him every Sunday, and repeat such part of the Gospel as he 
 had learned by heart : an arrangement which Heyne considered had one 
 very good effect upon him, masmuch as it exercised his memory, and 
 taught him to recite without bashfulness or hesitation. 
 
 Overjoyed by his unexpected fortune, the boy started off homewards 
 to proclaim the grand intelligence, triumphantly tossing up his loaf into the 
 air, and capering with barefooted adroitness to catch it as it descended. 
 His ahnost delirious excitement was naturally detrimental to the suc- 
 cessful management of sleights-of-hand, and after a few surprisuig hits, 
 the loaf fell into a puddle : an unfortunate circumstance, which brought 
 the elated experimenter a little more to his senses. However, the cliid- 
 
 3 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ings which he anticipated turned out nowise serious, as his mother was 
 also lieartily delighted by the news which he communicated. The father, 
 it seems, was less content, thinking possibly that the boy was smitten 
 with an ambition beyond his circumstances, and that all this eagerness 
 for learning, in one so unfavoui-ably conditioned, could prove ultimately 
 little other than the root of manifold vexations, if not of lifelong disappoint- 
 ments. Nevertheless, the boy remained at school, making as much pro- 
 gress as he could under many great impediments, the respectable god- 
 father continuing all along to pay the fees with commendable regularity. 
 At the end of two years the schoolmaster discovered that the pupil had 
 pretty weU exhausted his own scholarship : a discovery which Heyne 
 declares he himself had made before, but had entertamed an uncomfort- 
 able delicacy about announcing it. 
 
 It now seemed likely that Heyne's education was to be considered as 
 completed. As in straitened households every accession of help, how- 
 ever small, is of consequence, it was naturally enough the desire of his 
 parents that he shoidd, as soon as possible, quit his school-books, and try 
 his hand at weaving. To this the boy evinced an inveterate repugnance, 
 and in opposition to the wishes of his father, entertained a ' longing to get 
 into the grammar-school of the town,' where he hoped to prosecute with 
 more effect the studies he had begun. Often with a sad and wistful look 
 did he linger by the walls of the school-house as he passed, and sighed as 
 he reflected on the hardship of being excluded from participating in the 
 advantages enjoyed there by many who had probably far less reverence 
 for knowledge. What bliss would it have been to have exchanged places 
 with some miserable truant, whose slow brains were so jaded with immea- 
 surable taskwork as to be in danger of being crushed by the burthens 
 laid on them, and to whom the very name of ' school' was grown an 
 abomination, suggesting only an evei'lasting weariness, like that of Sisy- 
 phus in the dreary shades, rolling his huge stone up to the mountain-top, 
 to return for ever on his head ! 
 
 However, the Fates- are sometimes generous, and even that which we 
 most despair of shall now and then, by some rare and unexpected acci- 
 dent, turn out an actual event. An eccenti-ic clergyman, who was Heyne's 
 second godfather, came by chance to hear of the boy's unusual anxiety 
 after learning, and had the curiosity to send for him, for the purpose 
 of testing both his knowledge and capability by an examination. The 
 result was satisfactory, and the good parson promised that he ' should go 
 to the town school,' and that he himself would pay the charges. What 
 a sudden turn of happmess for Heyne ! He declares it to be impossible to 
 express the joy which ravished him on that occasion. Away, then, is he 
 despatched to the ' first teacher,' is examined in customary form, and 
 ' placed with approbation in the second class.' The second class, however, 
 having conceited notions of its respectability, almost declines to tolerate 
 the poor boy's presence. ' Weakly from infancy,' says he, ' pressed down 
 with want and sorrow, having never had any cheerful enjoyment of child- 
 hood or of youth, I was still but small in stature, and my class-fellows, 
 judging by appearances, had a very slight opinion of me.' Nevertheless, 
 ' various proofs of diligence,' and praises from the master, gradually 
 convince the fellows that he is worthy of his place. His diligence, 
 4 
 
BEYNE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 indeed, was not a little hampered by want of books. Sebastian Seydel, 
 the eccentric clergyman, appears to have kept his promise somewhat 
 too closely to the letter : he paid the quarterly fees, provided the pupil 
 with the requisite blue-cloak — rather a coarse one, says Ileync, but 
 perhaps not on that account the worse for use — and gave him a mul- 
 titude of useless volumes that were lying on his shelves ; but to supply 
 him with appropriate and sufficient school-books was not in the bond. 
 The truth is, the eccentric Sebastian was often short of cash, and had 
 need at all times to exercise a rather rigid thrift. A man of magni- 
 ficent liberality of intention, but of insufficient means, he appears to have 
 been as charitable as he could well afford to be ; and his memory is worthy 
 of respect among poor students everywhere, as one who really helped a 
 brother scholar in extremity, when riclier, and probably more highly 
 ' resprctabie ' persons, turned indifferently away, and, like the Levite of the 
 parable, ' passed by on the other side.' 
 
 To meet the inequalities of his situation, Heyne had every day to 
 borrow the books of some of his class-fellows, and to copy out such parts 
 as were assigned for the lesson ; a practice which, though it kept him in 
 a manner always more or less dependent, was not unserviceable so far as 
 his progress in study was concerned. On the other hand, the honest 
 Seyclel would exercise a rigorous supervision of his proceedings, and gave 
 him from time to time certain hours of instruction in the Latin tongue. 
 Sebastian in his youth had learned to make Latin verses, and it seemed 
 to him that the grandest accomplishment of a classical education was even 
 that of making Latin verses. Accordingly Heyne had to adjust himself to 
 this Egyptian taskwork of brick-making without straw. ' Scarcely,' says 
 he, 'was " Erasmus de Civilitate Morum" got over, when I, too, must take 
 to verse-making, and all this before I had read any authors, or could pos- 
 sibly possess a suitable store of words.' There is every evidence that the 
 good Sebastian was a pedant — a meagre, contracted man, whose meaning 
 might be well enough, but whose insight cannot be honestly commended. 
 He was also, says Heyne, ' passionate and rigorous — in every point repul- 
 sive ; ' a stiff-necked, self-willed, desperate ' old bachelor,' and vain to 
 absurdity of his ridiculous gift of Latinity. ' These qualities of his,' con- 
 tinues Heyne, ' all contributed to overload my youth, and nip away in the 
 bud every enjoyment of its pleasures.' 
 
 While thus burthened and depressed by the Sebastian task-labours, he 
 was likewise impeded and held down by almost every sort of want, vexa- 
 tion, and discouragement. ' The school-course was bad : nothing but the 
 old routine — vocables, translations, exercises ; all without spirit or any 
 proper purpose.' Still, so far as the virtue of such matters went, he 
 appears to have made a very excellent proficiency. In the course of time 
 he became competent to write both Latin and Greek verses, and could 
 even render in that shape the ' discourses which he heard at church.' 
 Some ' ray of hope' thereupon began to shine within his mind. A certain 
 small degree of self-respect and self-confidence was also now awakened m 
 him by his success in a school examination, conducted in the presence of 
 the superintendent or chief inspector of schools, who happened to call in 
 his vocation at the Chemnitz Grammar-school. Dr Theodor Kriiger, as 
 Heyne informs us, was 'a theologian of some learning for his time;' and 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 while at liis visit the rector was teaching ex cathedra, the doctor suddenly- 
 interrupted him, and put the question, Who among the scholars could tell 
 him what might be made by way of anagram from the word Austria? It 
 seems that this whim had entered the inspector's head from the circum- 
 stance that the ' first Silesian war' was just begun, and some such anagram, 
 reckoned extremely happy, had recently appeared in a certain newspaper. 
 None of the boys knew what an anagram really was : the very rector 
 looked blank and considerably perplexed. As none answered, however, 
 he began to give ' a description of anagrams in general.' Heyne instantly 
 set himself to work, and sprung forth with his discovery — Vastari! This 
 differed somewhat from the newspaper one, and of course was all the 
 better. ' So much greater was the superintendent's admiration ; and the 
 more, as the successful aspirant was a little boy on the lowest bench of the 
 secunda.^ Dr Theodor growled applause; but in so doing he set the 
 entu-e school about the ears of Heyne, ' as he stoutly upbraided them with 
 being beaten by an mfimus.'' 
 
 It was this ' pedantic adventure,' as Heyne calls it, which first gave an 
 impulse to the development of his powers. He began to take some little 
 credit for himself, and in spite of all the oppression and contempt in which 
 he languished, resolved on struggling forward. Still, he says, this first 
 struggle was sadly ineffectual — was soon, indeed, regarded as a piece of 
 mex'e conceit, and brought on him ' a thousand humiliations and dis- 
 quietudes.' The perverse way, too, in which the old parson treated him — 
 the discontent of his parents, and especially of his father, who thought 
 that, had the boy stuck by weaving, the household might have been to 
 some extent improved in circumstances — the pressure of want, and the 
 almost grudging entertainment he received at home — the feeling of back- 
 wardness and degradation which accompanied him continually — all this 
 would allow of ' no cheerful thought, no sentiment of worth,' to spring up 
 within him for the adornment or elevation of his nature. ' A timorous, 
 bashful, awkward carriage shut me out still farther from all exterior 
 attractions. Wliere could I learn good manners, elegance, a right way of 
 thought ? Wliere could I attain any cultm-e for heart and spirit ? ' Up- 
 wards, however, he still strove with resolution. ' A feeling of honour, a 
 wish for something better, an effort to work myself out of this abasement, 
 incessantly attended me ; but being without direction, it led me for the 
 most part into clownishness, suUenness, and misanthropy.' At length, by 
 a favourable turn of circumstance, a place was opened for him where some 
 training in these respects became obtainable. There was a young gentle- 
 man, lately introduced into society, at the 'west end' of Chemnitz, for 
 whom his friends desired a little private instruction in the languages. He 
 was too select a fjersonage to be sent to school, and not old enough for 
 college ; therefore it came to pass that Heyne, being heard of and recom- 
 mended, was chosen for his temporary tutor. ' As these private lessons 
 brought me in a gulden monthly (that is to say, about two-and-sixpence 
 sterlmg), I now began to defend myself a little against the grumbling of 
 my parents. Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work occasionally, 
 that I might not be told I contributed nothing to the earning of my bread ; 
 clothes and oil for my lamp I had earned by teaching in the house ; these 
 things I could now relinquish ; and thus my condition was in some dcgi'ee 
 6 
 
HEYNE: A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 improved. On the other liand, I had the opportunity of seemg persons of 
 better education. I gained tlie good-will of the family; so that, besides 
 the lesson hours, I generally lived thei'e. Such society afibrdcd me some 
 culture, extended my conceptions and opinions, and also polished a little 
 the rudeness of my exterior.' 
 
 In this new situation Ileyne appears to have had at least some partial 
 enjoyment of existence. Indeed he fell privately in love with his pupil's 
 sister, made and desti'oyed innumerable Greek and Latin verses in celebra- 
 tion of her charms, and had the audacity to ' dream of sometime rising 
 high enough to be worthy of her.' This, however, was but a flattering 
 delusion, though he did succeed in acquiring the friendship both of herself 
 and of her mother. The grand concern which meanwhile occupied his 
 thoughts was, how he should be able to get to the imiversity at Leipzig. 
 Old Sebastian, with his munificent ' liberality of intention,' had promised 
 to stand good on this occasion ; and it is thouglit he would have done 
 so with the greatest pleasure, had it cost him nothing : as it was, he merely 
 gave extremely liberal promises, but could not by any device be brought 
 to produce a fraction of hard cash ; and elsewhere for Heyne there was 
 no resource. At length, wearied, it is sui-mised, by the youth's impor- 
 tunity, he determined to bestu- himself; and accordingly he directed his 
 assistant, who was then going to Leipzig, to conduct HejTie thither — 
 the latter doubting not but that at the end of the journey something 
 pleasant would tm-n up. The two arrived in safety ; but when the 
 anxious student made inquiries respecting the arrangements which he sup- 
 posed his patron had made for him at college, he fouiad none whatever had 
 been made, and moreover, that there was not a groschen of money provided 
 to meet any of his necessities. This information the assistant gave him, 
 and then left him at a lodging-house, declaring that anything fm-ther was 
 not in his commission. 
 
 He}Tie had in his pocket exactly two gulden, and not the slightest 
 prospect of obtaining any more when these should be expended. Starva- 
 tion stood visibly before him at not many days' distance. A youth with- 
 out connections, in a strange place, shabbily attired, and destitute of books, 
 with simply live shillings in his pm-se, he found himself set down at the 
 threshold of Leipzig University, ' to study all learning,' and build his 
 fortunes out of chaos. No wonder that sheer despondency at first over- 
 mastered him. He speedily fell sick ; and, as he says, recovered only ' to 
 fall mto conditions of life wherein he became the prey of desperation.' 
 All the miseries which, from ages immemorial, the ' poor scholar' has been 
 heir to, were now, for long years, 'to be his only portion. How he con- 
 trived to live, much more how he managed to study, it is utterly impossible 
 to make out. The hapless Sebastian Seydel, it appears, did occasionally 
 send some churlish pittance, but never until ' after unspeakable solicita- 
 tions,' and then ' in quantities that were consumed by inextinguishable 
 debt,' and commonly accompanied by disagreeable admonitions. On one 
 occasion he even addressed a letter externally — ' A^ M. Heyne, Etudlant 
 Negligeant :'' a veritable and aggravated slander; for, so for from being a 
 'student negligent,' He}Tie was perhaps of all students the most endeavour- 
 ing and diligent. Witness, for instance, one of his modes of ' pursuing 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 knowledge under difficulties.' Having no money to jiay class-fees, it was 
 only to what are caUed ' open lectures ' he could usually gain admission. 
 There were, however, certain ' ill-guarded class-rooms ' mto which a needy 
 student might occasionally insinuate himself with little or no fear of being 
 noticed as an intruder. Of such class-rooms Heyne appears to have 
 availed himself according to opportunity, and to have picked up such 
 casual crumbs of knowledge as were thus procurable. It was in this 
 way he studied philosophy under Winkler. Unluckily, the frequency of 
 his attendance excited jealousy among the students, and one day they 
 received him with a violent scraping of the feet — a sort of derisive cheering 
 which was anything but pleasant. Heyne could not venture back ; and 
 when the beadle came to him some time afterwards, demanding the fee, he 
 says he had ' many shifts to make before he could raise it.' 
 
 For half a year he would be left utterly without help ; then, as if smitten 
 with sudden penitence for his sins, the incorrigible Sebastian would promise 
 to come and see him ; but often when he came would ' return without leav- 
 ing him a penny.' Notwithstanding numerous applications, Heyne never 
 could obtain any public assistance : no free table or stipendium was at any 
 time procurable. Often he had no regular meal, and not even money 
 enough to buy a loaf to satisfy his hunger. Darkness and the gloom of 
 discontent fell in heavy shadows over his spirit. He longed to die and be 
 at rest, knowing that in the grave there is no want. Yet there is always 
 mercy in the world, and the kindliness of gentle hearts ever gushes, 
 even among the arid places where the most unhappy wander. ' One good 
 heart alone,' but yet one, did Heyne find in that parched and boundless 
 wilderness of indifferency in which he lived : one good heart, and that a 
 woman's — beating with sympathy in the sound and honest bosom of 
 the poor servant-girl of the house at which he lodged. She beheld 
 liim with compassion, and with a rich benevolence that shames the givings 
 of the wealthy, she brought him of her scanty store — nay, risked almost 
 ■everything she had, to relieve him in his frightful need. The noble 
 womanly Samaritan ! ' Could I but find thee,' said Heyne, when years of 
 better fortune had attended him — * could I but find thee, even now, thou 
 good and pious soul, that I might repay thee what thou tlien didst for me !' 
 
 How he was sustained under so much pressing and protracted misery 
 HejTie declares to be to himself a mystery. ' "Wliat carried me forward,' 
 says he, 'was not ambition — any youthful dream of one day taking a place, 
 or aiming to take one, among the learned. It is true the bitter feeling of 
 debasement, of deficiency in education and external polish— the conscious- 
 ness of awkwardness in social life, incessantly accompanied me. But my 
 chief strength lay in a certain defiance of fate. This gave me courage 
 not to yield — everywhere to try to the uttermost whether I was doomed 
 without remedy never to rise from this degradation.' 
 
 Among the Leipzig professors, the only one from whom Hejnie appears 
 to have derived any advantage was Ernesti. In some way, which is not 
 very clear to us, he succeeded in gaining admittance to Ernesti's lectures ; 
 and here, as his biographer Heeren has remarked, he first learned ' Avliat 
 interpretation of the classics meant.' Another professor, named Crist, a 
 rather singular and fentastic personage, who dwelt considerably on ' taste, 
 elegance of manners, and the like,' was pleased to take some notice of hiin^ 
 8 
 
HEYNE: AlilOGIlAPIlY. 
 
 and procured him occasional employment as a private teacher. He also" 
 sought to direct him a little in his studies, advising him ' to imitate >Scaliger, 
 and read the ancients, so as to begin with the most ancient, and proceed 
 regularly to the latest' — a sage recommendation, reminding one of (iold- 
 smith's pleasantry about the folly of presenting a man with ruffles who was 
 destitute of a shirt. Of all teachers, however, it is clear, as Mr Carlyle 
 observes, that Heyne's best teacher was himself. ' No pressure of distress, 
 no want of books, advisers, or encouragement, not hunger itself, could 
 abate his resolute perseverance. What books he could come at he bor- 
 rowed ; and such was his excess of zeal in reading, that for a whole half 
 year he allowed liimself only two nights of sleep in the week, till at last a 
 fever obliged him to be more moderate. His diligence was undirected or 
 ill-directed, but it never rested, never paused, and must at length prevail. 
 Fortune had cast him into a cavern, and he was groping darkly round ; but 
 the prisoner was a giant, and would at length burst forth as a giant into 
 the light of day. Heyne, without any clear aim, almost without any hope, 
 had set his heart on obtaining knowledge ; a force as of instinct drove him 
 on, and no promise and no threat could turn him back.' In the depth of 
 his destitution he had the almost unparalleled temerity to refuse a tutor- 
 ship, which promised to be a comfortable appointment, but which he con- 
 sidered it advisable to decline, inasmuch as it would remove him from the 
 university. Crist, aw^re of the urgency of his circumstances, had sent for 
 him one Sunday, and made him the proposal ; ' and thereupon,' says Heyne, 
 ' there arose a violent struggle within me, which agitated me for several 
 days ; and to this hour it is incomprehensible to me where I found resolu- 
 tion to determine on renouncing the offer, and to follow out my object in 
 Leipzig.' It was extremely difficult for a man in his extremity to ascer- 
 tain the wisest course ; and doubtless every considerate and ' practical ' 
 person, who might have been consulted, would have advised the contrary 
 of what Heyne decided on ; but yet there is ever truth in the soul's 
 instincts, and he who accepts their intimations with purity and singleness 
 of purpose, may rely on them with contidence, and esteem them the best 
 guides of his volition. 
 
 Heyne remained at the university ; and by dint of starving, and the 
 precarious employment of private teaching, managed both to keep the life 
 in him, and prosecute his studies. It is utterly impossible to tell how ; 
 neither his own narrative, nor the ' Biographical Portraiture ' by Professor 
 Heeren, affords us any sufficient information in regard to these jjarticulars. 
 All we can gather is, that he lived ' in a dreary vicissitude of want,' 
 spinning out his existence from day to day, unwarmed by any ray of com- 
 fort, except the ' iii'e that burned or smouldered unquenchably in his own 
 bosom.' It appears that his sole means were the scanty gratuities of 
 Sebastian, and the casual and inconsiderable fees which he earned by pri- 
 vate teaching. Sometimes perhaps he miglit Avork a little in that capacity 
 which the Gennans call ' classical hodmanship ' — translating and transcrib- 
 ing passages of Greek and Latin for the use of authors and philosophers 
 who were somewhat ' rusted ' in their languages, or who could turn their 
 talents to better account as builders than would be practicable while acting 
 as ' hodmen ' for themselves. At one time he had an engagement of this 
 sort under the once famous but now forgotten Crusius, who was then 
 
 48 9 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ' first professor of theology ' at Leipzig — with -what remuneration is not 
 apparent. One thing we can discern with satisfaction, that in such 
 employments as are open to him Heyne does not fail to acquit himself 
 with credit. As a consequence, his talents and endeavours began by 
 degrees to attract notice, and his perverse situation to excite a little 
 sympathy ; and ' here and there some well-wisher had his eye on him, and 
 stood ready to do him a service.'' 
 
 In this way had Heyne struggled up to manhood. Two-and-twenty 
 years had he endured as severe hardship as happened to any man of his 
 generation. Moreover, his difficulties were yet far from being ended. In 
 the latter days of his college life he had betaken himself to the study of 
 the law, though without the slightest prospect of being able to turn it to 
 any immediate practical account. Other branches of learning he continued 
 meanwhile to prosecute, and indeed held himself ready to lay hold of any- 
 thing that might turn up to his advantage. While thus waiting, as it 
 were, to catch the strings of possibility, a trifling incident occurred, some- 
 thing akin to that ' pedantic adventure ' before mentioned, wliieh brought 
 about important changes in his situation. Among the persons in Leipzig 
 who had extended towards him some little measure of favour was a French 
 preacher named Lacoste, who, dying suddenly, was by Heyne somewhat 
 lamented ; and he, as it is said, inspu-ed by personal sorrow, composed a 
 long Latin Epicedium on the occasion — a poem nowise intended for the 
 press, but which certain of the deceased's hearers were so extremely 
 pleased with as to cause it to be printed ' in the finest style of typography 
 and decoration.' Now, among the students m Leipzig at that time were 
 the respectable and respected sons of Count Briihl — prime minister and 
 favourite of the Elector of Saxony, and also a person of high repute 
 for his shining patronage of literature. Briihl's sons, it is surmised, sent 
 home to Dresden a copy of Hejme's elegantly-decorated Epicedium ; and 
 the count, struck "wdth the decorations, was pleased to express himself 
 well contented with the poem, and to say, moreover, he should like to have 
 the author in his service. 
 
 ' A prime minister's words,' says one who has wi'itten on this matter, 
 ' are not as water spilt upon the gi'ound, which cannot be gathered ; but 
 rather as heavenly manna, which is treasured up and eaten, not without a 
 religious sentiment. Heyne was forthwith wTitten to from all quarters 
 that his fortune was made : he had but to show himself in Dresden, said 
 his friends with one voice, and golden showers from the ministerial cornu- 
 copia would refresh'liim almost to saturation ; for was not the count taken 
 with him '? and who in all Saxony, not excepting serene highness itself, 
 covdd gainsay the count? Over-persuaded, and against his will, llcyne at 
 length determined on the journey, for which, as an indispensable prelimi- 
 nary, " fifty-one thalers " had to be borrowed ; and so, following tliis hopeful 
 quest, lie actually arrived at Dresden in April 1752. Count Briihl received 
 him with the most captivating smiles, and even assured him in words that 
 he, Count Briihl, would take care of him. But a prime minister has so 
 much to take care of! Heyne danced attendance all spring and summer, 
 happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had not to " blow his fingers in 
 a cold lobby," the weather being warm ; and obtained not only promises, 
 10 
 
HEYNE: a BIOGRAniY. 
 
 but ^iseful experience of their value at courts. He was to 1)c made a secre- 
 tary, with live hundred, with four hundred, or even witli throe lumdred 
 thalers of income ; only iu the meanwhile his old stock of tifty-onc had 
 quite run out, and he had nothing to live upon.' 
 
 Heyne is convinced at length that he must look about him for some- 
 thing more tangible than Count Bruhl's promises. By good-luck he ob- 
 tained some employment in his old craft of private teaching, which 
 sustained him through the winter; but when this ceased he remained 
 without resources. What to do he could not well conceive. In Dresden, 
 however, there are publishers and booksellers ; so He}Tie goes to some of 
 them to solicit work in authorship, lie is so far fortunate as to get 
 intrusted with a few translations ; but, as the writer just quoted says, ' his 
 emoluments would scarcely furnish him with salt, not to speak of victuals.' 
 In a short time he was so far reduced as to be obliged to sell the few 
 books he possessed ; and by and by he even finds himself with only 
 the universal canopy for the ceiling of his bedchamber. * A licentiate in 
 divinity, one Sonntag, took pity on his houselessness, and sliared a garret 
 with him ; where, as there was no unoccupied bed, He}Tie slept on the 
 floor, with a few folios for his pillow. So fared he as to lodging: in 
 regard to boai'd, he gathered empty peascods, and had them boiled : 
 this was not unfrequently his only meal.' The dogs of any Lazarus 
 in any generation have fared better. However, after ' incredible solicita- 
 tions,' Heyne at length, in the autumn of 1753, obtained — not his promised 
 secretaryship at five or four hundred thalers, but the subordhiate post of 
 under-clerk in the Briihl library, with one hundred thalers — a salaiy 
 scarcely enough to preserve him from starvation, but which was doubt- 
 less very welcome. In this way was Heyne ' taken care of ' by the illus- 
 trious Count Bi-iihl. Let young scholars think of it, and as far as mortals 
 are concerned, depend on no one but themselves. 
 
 Heyne may be nevertheless considered as having now in some sort got 
 to gi'ound. After struggling long with the rough tempestuous breakers 
 that surge above the shoals of worldly life, he is finally waslied ashore — 
 on a barren and uninhabited island — an island also Avellnigh uninhabit- 
 able, and needing more than Crusoe ingenuity to yield anything worth 
 the gathering. He}nie, however, sets to work, and, out of such available 
 soil as he finds in the Briihl Library, produces his first book. This was 
 a cai-efully-prepared edition of ' Tibullus,' which was printed at Leipzig 
 in 1755 — a work reported to exhibit remarkable talent, inasmuch as ' the 
 rudiments of all those excellences by which HejTie afterwards became 
 distinguished as a commentator on the classics are more or less apparent 
 in it.' To whom should the same be dedicated but to the ' Illustrious 
 Henry Count von Briihl ? ' So accordingly stands it on the title-page in 
 highly -imposmg Latin — Illustrissimo Domino Henrico Comili de Bi-iihl 
 insa-ipta. But though thus propitiated, the illustrious Briihl paid no regard 
 to it ; nor indeed did Germany at large pav much ; though in another 
 country it fell into the hands of Khunken, by whom it was rightly estimated, 
 and with him lay waiting, as appeared thereafter, to be ' the pledge of 
 better fortune for its author.' 
 
 The profits of the ' Tibullus ' were not enormous, though it appears 
 they served to cancel a few outstanding debts ; and thus, with the aid of 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPI.E. 
 
 the hundred thalers' regular income, the steam of life •n^as languidly kept 
 up. Unhappily for Heyne as well as others, in 1756 the very memorable 
 Seven-Years' AVar broke out ; Frederick of Prussia advanced on 1 'resden, 
 ' animated with especial fury against Briihl,' whose palaces and high places 
 were accordingly ere long reduced to ashes, and, with other Avreck and 
 devastation, there was an end of ' seventy thousand splendid volumes.' 
 Heyne, it seems, had been engaged in studying Epictetus, and publishing 
 an edition of his ' Enchiridion ; ' from which work his biographer lieeren 
 affirms ' his great soul had acquired much stoical nourishment.' Heyne 
 had evidently need of all the support Epictetus could yield him, for now 
 he was again cast homeless on the world. By translating pamphlets, 
 writing articles for newspapers, and by other such journeywork of author- 
 ship as happened to turn up, he contrived, though narrowly, to elude starva- 
 tion, and save the authorities of Dresden the expense of a parish coffin. At 
 a time when he was desperately ' hard up,' the poet Rubener, with whom 
 he had some slight acquaintance, came to him with the offer of a tutor- 
 ship, which Hejme, knowing the penalty, dared not at the moment do 
 otherwise than accept. Tutorships he habitually abominated ; but Want, 
 like Death, regards no man's scruples or conveniences. 
 
 The tutorship did not prove so bad as he expected. Indeed we come 
 now upon a little ' cypress-and-myrtle oasis ' of romance — a thmg one 
 could scarcely have calculated on in so hard and stony a history as 
 Heyne's. He was engaged to teach the son of a Herr von Schonberg; 
 and on entering the Schonberg house, he says he was ' ushered into a room 
 where sat several ladies engaged, with gay youthful sportiveness, in 
 friendly confidential talk. Frau von Schonberg, but lately married, yet at 
 this time distant from her husband, was preparing for a journey to hira 
 at Prague, where his business detained him. On her brow still beamed 
 the pure innocence of youth ; in her eyes you saw a glad soft vernal sky ; 
 a smiling, loving complaisance accompanied her discourse. This, too, 
 seemed one of those souls clear and uncontaminated as they come from 
 the hands of their Maker. By reason of her brother, in her tender love of 
 him, I must have been to her no unimportant guest. Beside her stood a 
 young lady, dignified in aspect, of fair, slender shape, not regular in fea- 
 ture, yet soul in every glance. Her words, her looks, her every movement, 
 impressed you with respect : another sort of respect than what is paid to 
 rank and birth. Good sense, good feeling disclosed itself in all she did. 
 You foi-got that more beauty, more softness might have been demanded ; 
 you felt yourself under the influence of something noble, something 
 stately and earnest, something decisive that lay in her look, in her ges- 
 tures, not less attracted to her than compelled to reverence her.' 
 
 This latter lady bore the name of Theresa AVeiss ; she was the orphan 
 daughter of some musical professor, and was present here as the humble 
 companion, having formerly been the schoolmate, of the Frau von Schon- 
 berg, whose young brother the destinies had assigned to Heyne for a pupil. 
 The first sight of Theresa seems oidy to have inspired him with esteem. 
 ' What I noticed most,' says he, ' were the efibrts she made to relieve my 
 embarrassment, the fruit of my do^vn-bent pride, and to keep me, a stranger, 
 entering among familiar acquaintances, in easy conversation. Iler good 
 heart reminded her how much the unfortunate requires encouragement, 
 12 
 
HEYNE : A RIOGRAPHY. 
 
 especially when placed, as I was, among tliosc to whose protection he mnst 
 look up. Thus was my first kindness for her awakened by that good- 
 heartetlness which made her among thousands a beneficent angel.' 
 
 In a few days Heync commenced his duties, and saw the esteemed 
 Theresa no more till the next spring, she having accompanied the Frau 
 von SchiJnberg in her journey to Prague. With tlie pleasant breath and 
 goodly verdure of the month of May, he had, however, the pleasure of en- 
 joying some days in her society, in agreeable countiy quarters at JEnsdorf, 
 whither he had been invited to follow the family with his pupil. This 
 is perhaps the most delicious season in tlie whole of Heyne's life. Though 
 nowise a poetical man, he almost rises hito poetry when reproducing it from 
 memory. ' The society of two cultivated women,' says he, ' who were of 
 the noblest of their sex, and the desire to acquire their esteem, contributed 
 to form my own character. Nature and religion were the ol)jccts of my 
 daily contemplation ; I began to act and live on principles of which till 
 now I had never thought ; these, too, formed the subject of our constant 
 conversation. The loveliness of nature and the charms of solitude exalted 
 our feelings to a pious and absorbing ecstacy.' 
 
 Heyne informs us further tiiat Theresa discovered, sooner than he, that 
 her friendship for him was growing into a passion. Does he mean to 
 insinuate that Theresa first acknowledged her susceptibility ? If she did, 
 there were doubtless reasons for it : Heyne was a slow man, remarkably 
 imexcitable, and needing, like a flint, to be struck before he could exhibit 
 fire. He seems to have been a man of almost preternatural bashfulness. 
 He may have found it difficult to receive the notion that any interesting 
 woman would ever love him. There are some rare examples of men of 
 this description. And what if the amiable Theresa could perceive all this, 
 and with a womanly compassion take it upon her to smoothe the way, and 
 by some very gentle hint, given at the right time, indicate her tender 
 inclinations ? Let none condemn Theresa should such turn out to be the 
 fact. But it is hardly likely to be ascertained now whether or not it was 
 the fact. It may suffice for us to know that, in one way or another, Heyne 
 and Theresa were led to consider themselves as lovers. Glad hours of 
 a most exquisite communion were for a while their portion, and then fate 
 cast them wide asimder ; and the gulf of distance and of difficulty between 
 them was but slenderly bridged over by an enthusiastic and melancholy 
 correspondence. 
 
 Heyne accompanied his pupil to the university of Wittenberg, where he 
 I'emained for about a year, studying meanwhile, for his own behoof, in 
 philosophy and German history ; but at the end of that time the Prussian 
 cannon demolished the university, and sent the students to seek accom- 
 modation in other places. The young Schonberg went subsequently to 
 Erlangen, and Heyne was left in Dresden without employment. Theresa 
 was living in his neighbourhood, and is supposed to have rendered him 
 several lover's kindnesses. ' Twice,' says he, ' I received letters from an 
 unknown hand containing money, which greatly alleviated my difficulties.' 
 Who sent them, think you, but Theresa ? However, as the cannonading 
 became warmer, she was compelled to take to flight, having first confided 
 her little property to Heyne's charge. Resourceless persons must neces- 
 sarily stand the brunt of popular calamities, and it was accordingly Heyne's 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 lot to abide the issue of the Prussian siege. On the 18th of July 1760 the 
 bombardment of Dresden began. ' I passed several nights,' says Heyne, 
 * in company with others, in a tavern, and the days in my room ; so that I 
 could hear the balls from the battery, as they tlew through the streets, 
 Avhizzing past my windows. An indifference to danger and to life took 
 such possession of me, that on the last morning of the siege I went early 
 to bed, and amid the frightfuUest ci'ashing of bombs and grenades, fell 
 fast asleep of fatigue, and lay sound till mid- day. On awakening, I 
 huddled on my clothes, and ran down stairs, but found the whole house 
 deserted. I had returned to my room, considering what I was to do, 
 whither, at all events, I was to take my chest, when, with a tremendous 
 crash, a bomb came down in»the court of the house ; did not, indeed, set 
 fii-e to it, but on all sides shattered everything to pieces. The thought 
 that where one bomb fell more would soon follow gave me wings ; I darted 
 down stairs, found the house-door locked, ran to and fro ; at last got 
 entrance into one of the under rooms, and sprang through the window into 
 the street.' There was evidently no time to lose if he meant to escape 
 destruction. The next morning he was allowed, with other fugitives, to 
 pass out of the city, and found himself at large in the open country with 
 not a groschen of money, or any particle of property except a cloak which 
 he had caught up from a tavern. 
 
 The thought soon struck him, ^liither bound? It seemed that the 
 best thing he could do was to take the road to ^nsdorf, where Theresa 
 and her friend were then staying. They on his arrival received him 
 warmly. He was not favoured, however, with any pressing invitation 
 to remain ; for, as he appeared in the chai'acter of an altogether 
 destitute man, the family entertained him coolly. In a few days he took 
 his leave; the excellent Theresa being unspeakably distressed by the 
 shabby treatment he received, in which, we are glad to find it said, the 
 noble lady Frau Schonberg had no participation. Spurning at destiny, 
 and hardening his heart, Hejme now roved reckless about the country, 
 and with the earliest opportunity returned to Dresden. He thought there 
 might be just a possibility that his lodgmg had been saved. 'With heavy 
 heart I entered the city, hastened to the place where I had lived, and found 
 — a heap of ashes ! ' 
 
 Heyne took up his quarters in the vacant and dilapidated rooms of the 
 Briihl Library. These for a while he had liberty to occupy rent-free, but 
 with the utmost scarcity of rations. For many months his condition 
 was extremely destitute and unsettled — wars and penury tossing him 
 hither and thither like a ball. To increase his troubles, in the course of 
 the winter the good Theresa, who had returned to Dresden, fell violently 
 sick, and was given up by the physicians as beyond recovery ; slie even 
 received ' extreme imction,' according to the rites of the Romish church 
 (being a member of that community) ; and for some hours was actually 
 considered to be dead. Dead, however, she was not, but became gradually 
 restored to sense and convalescence. Moreover, with her returning strength, 
 she gave intimations of a desire to renounce the Catliolic faith, and to 
 become publicly a Protestant. The difference of their religious views had 
 long been a matter of anxiety between Heyne and herself, and she now 
 thought she could see sufficient reasons for conforming to his creed. All 
 14 
 
IIEYNE : A BIOGRAPITY. 
 
 tho representations that were made to her of the conventional disgrace and 
 estrangement of licr friends that would ensue were of no avail in diverting 
 her from licr purpose ; and accordingly, after a public renunciation of her 
 foi'mer faith, she was received as a convert to tlie Church of tlic Reforma- 
 tion. She had not the sliglitest expectation at this time of ever being 
 united to Ileyne upon earth; but she trusted that a common creed might 
 unite tliem in a kindred destiny in another world. Indeed Ileyne himself 
 had at tliis time fallen ill, and it was only tlu'ough her nursing and attention 
 that he escaped narrowly Avith his life. The circumstances of botli were 
 now alike cheerless and distracted. Theresa's change of faith had caused 
 her to be forsaken by most of her acquaintances, and her little property had 
 been destroyed in the late calamitous bombardment. In all the wide world 
 she had no true friend but Ileyne. He saw that, with a noble courage, she 
 bore up bravely under the consequences which conscience had commanded 
 her to incur, and that even extremest poverty could not compel her beautiful 
 and gentle liead to bend or swerve from its serene steadfastness ; and so, 
 moved by the influences of love and duty, he said to her, ' Come to me, 
 thou dear one, and let us link our hopeless fates in unison ; and if not 
 otherwise, yet in our united helplessness we will be as one : where I dwell 
 thou slialt dwell, and whatsoever of fortune or mischance may be in store 
 for us, we will meekly share together.' This was a determination which 
 could not but expose him to the universal censure of the ' prudent ; ' yet 
 under the circumstances, it was unquestionably commendable, and Heyne 
 had never any reason to regret it. They were married at iEnsdorf on the 
 4th of June 1761. Theresa proved a noble wife to hun, and with the orna- 
 ments that sprung out of her fine afi"ection, adorned and beautified his 
 destiny. 
 
 As to the vulgar necessaries of life, they were in some sort realised by 
 Heyne's occasional labours for the booksellers. The clouds and disturb- 
 ances of war began gradually to clear away, and the hospitalities of friends 
 contributed to eke out the insufficiencies of the still poorly-furnished house- 
 hold. For a while Heyne seems to have been engaged as a sort of factor, 
 or overseer of general afisiirs, under a certain Herr von Loben, who was a 
 kind friend to him, and left him in possession of his country-house when 
 he himself was driven from it by alarms of war ; in which capacity HejTie 
 says he gained some little notion of ' land-economy ; ' and Heeren records 
 that he had, amongst other concerns, to superintend ' a candle manufactory.' 
 "While here, an incident occurred which favourably illustrates the character 
 of Theresa. ' Soon after tlie departure of the family, there came upon us 
 an u-ruption of Cossacks — disguised Prussians, as we subsequently learned 
 — who, after drinking to intoxication in the cellars, set about plundering. 
 Pursued by them, I ran up-stairs, and no door being open but that of the 
 room where my wife was with her infant, I rushed into it. She arose 
 courageously, and placed herself, with the child on her arm, at the door 
 against the robbers. This courage saved me, and also tlie treasure which 
 lay hidden in the chamber.' One almost regi-ets that Heyne should have 
 condescended to save his life by an undignified retreat behind such frail 
 bastion-works as petticoats ; yet it is beautiful to see that even bloody- 
 pui'posed Cossacks, or ' disguised Prussians,' have a certain inextinguish- 
 able reverence for the courageous defencelessness of a woman, standing at 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 their mercy with her infant at her bosom. Surely human nature, in its 
 lowest and worst forms, is never utterly diabolical ! 
 
 Shortly after this, there arose for Heyne the dawn of better cu'cum- 
 stances. Long and weary are the nights, gloomy and cheerless, too, the 
 days of our protracted northern winter ; but yet the spring comes in at 
 last, even though it be sometimes rather late in summer : so to honesty 
 and faithfulness, and a manful endeavouring to ' realise our aspirations,' 
 there commonly succeeds some intelligible success ; and that ' tide ' which 
 is in the affairs of men being taken at the full, leads on, if not to ' for- 
 tune,' to at least some practical satisfaction and contentment. ' On our 
 retui'n to Dresden,' says Heyne, ' I learned that inquiries had been 
 made after me from Hanover.' Now what can such unwonted Hano- 
 verian curiosity signify ? Heyne is for some time left to guess, but has 
 no gift for guessing right. Nevertheless, tlie singular enigma is by and 
 by unriddled. Heyne learns that Professor Gessner, of the university of 
 Gottingen, has lately been translated from this sublunary life ; and there- 
 ■fore a successor was required to occupy his vacant chair of ' Eloquence.' 
 The prime minister of Hanover, in whom the patronage was vested, had 
 written to Ernesti for advice ; and Ernesti, knowing no proper man in 
 Germany, recommended Ehunken of Leyden as a highly desirable person, 
 could he only be prevailed on to take the post. Ehunken declined to 
 leave his country, but ventured to propose a man whose qualitications he 
 deemed worthy of consideration. ' Why,' said he, ' do you seek out of 
 Germany what Germany itself offers you ? Why not, for Gessner's suc- 
 cessor, take Christian Gottlob Heyne, that true pupil of Ei-nesti, and man 
 of excellent talent, who has shown how much he knows of Latin literature 
 by his " Tibullus," and of Greek by his "Epictetus?" In my opinion, 
 Heyne is the only one that can replace your Gessner. Nor let any one tell 
 me that Heyne's fame is not sufhciently illustrious and extended. Believe 
 me, there is in this man such a richness of genius and learning, that before 
 long all Europe Avill ring with his praises.' Ehunken knew nothing of 
 Heyne otherwise than by his writings ; nevertheless, his generous and 
 boldly-spoken verdict was accepted. Heyne was sought after, and with 
 difficulty discovered ; the appointment was conferred on him ; and in June 
 1763 he became finally settled in Gottingen, with an ' official income of 
 eight hundred thalers,' which subsequently, by various additions, was 
 increased to twelve hundred — a sum, indeed, nowise very considerable, but 
 yet quite sufficient for the needs of a modest and unambitious man of 
 learning like our Heyne, who does not appear to have conceived it to be 
 any part of the schohvr's object to be rich, or that the glory of his life 
 consists in living sumptuously. 
 
 This, then, is the culmination of Heyne's personal history. He has 
 reached the position for which nature seems to have intended him. What 
 greater blessedness can happen to any man in life ? Henceforth his 
 existence is as quiet and fertile in activity as it had previously been 
 desolate and distracted. He lived witli little interruption for many years, 
 ' in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.' He became an incarnation, 
 or walking library of profound learning. Though several times solicited to 
 accept appointments of higher distinction and importance, he never quitted 
 16 
 
heyne: a biography. 
 
 Obttingen; but with a steady devotion to tlie institution which first afforded 
 scope lor his diligence and abilities, and farnisiied him with the comforts 
 of a settled and honourable position, he remained calmly and contentedly 
 connected with it throughout his life. With the punctuality of the sun he 
 arose each day to renewed intellectual exertion, working sedulously in his 
 vocation as a teacher, and continually adding new aiid important acquisi- 
 tions to his treasury of personal knowledge. "With unresting diligence he 
 reads and examines into all manner of ancient records, difficult manu- 
 scripts, ponderous tomes of accumulated lore and rubbish, and with a 
 keen and ready discrimination, draws from them, for his uses, whatever 
 essence of true and serviceable learning they may contain. Thus hiving 
 knowledge with each studious year, he grows gradually and progressively 
 in influence and consideration Avith his contemporaries ; fails not to be 
 honoured with the reverence and esteem of the learned and the studious 
 both at home and in foreign countries ; and even eventually attains to that 
 position of eminence and reputation which Rhunken predicted for him, and 
 is recognised as being, in his own peculiar domain of intelligence and 
 research, unsurpassed, and even without an equal, in Europe. 
 
 Heyne, moreover, as a stationed and accredited professor, has now 
 become a person of some civic consequence and elevation. He has a fixed 
 and reputable household, respectable comings in, charges and relations of a 
 civil and public character, audiences with the learned, interests and vanities 
 to adjust and regulate, Burschen irregularities to admonish and restrain, 
 and, upon the whole, a veiy considerable multiplicity of affairs to superin- 
 tend and keep in order. He seems to correspond with the poles and the 
 equator — writing ' letters by the hundred to all parts of the world, and on 
 all conceivable subjects;' he teaches three classes daily in his college; 
 appoints and recommends professors ; supei'intends a multitude of public 
 schools ; has under his inspection for a number of years the veiy freytische, 
 or free tables of the university, settluig the bills of cooks, and being the 
 authorised purveyor of ' commons,' or recognised students' provider ; and 
 is, besides, a kind of genei-al administi-ator of things in ordinary within 
 the entire collegiate jurisdiction. Yet amid all this diversity of labour he 
 is constantly pursuing some private and mdependent study ; he collates 
 and edits, with elaborate annotations, and publishes m a variety of forms, 
 and in manifold editions, many of the most estimable and illustrious master- 
 pieces of ancient literature ; Amtes endless reviews and learned disquisi- 
 tions, essays, eulogies, verses, and translations, until at length the works of 
 his single head are almost numerous enough to fill the rooms of a public 
 library. Nor are they mere mdigested accumulations of learned lumber, 
 not classical pumicestone or indiscriminate ' shot rubbish' — cartloads of 
 ashes, with a sprinkling of pearls and diamonds— not even rugged ore, like 
 the uncoined hills of California ; but, as one has said, ' regularly smelted 
 metal, for the most part exhibiting the essence, and only the essence, 
 of very great research, and enlightened by a philosophy which, if it does 
 not always wisely order its results, has looked far and deeply in collecting 
 them.' Of the most important works to which this estimate ai^plies, some 
 brief account shall by and by be rendered. 
 
 In his domestic relations Heyne must be reckoned as being upon the 
 whole favourably circumstanced. The good Theresa, though of a melan- 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOK THE PEOPLE. 
 
 clioly temperament, and of a somewhat irritable susceptibility, vras never- 
 theless an amiable and gentle wile to him. Patient and enduring in 
 adversity, she had also the qualities whicli failed not to grace and beautify 
 the home of his prosperity. Children, too, spring up about their knees 
 to share their love, and to unite them more intimately in the bonds of 
 life ; and though some of them died early, making the house to appear 
 vacant which had formerly been rendered cheerful by their presence, yet 
 none of these bereavements left them utterly disconsolate ; but out of 
 the pious sorrow engendered by their loss there sprang up graceful and 
 enduring tendernesses, which reconciled the mourners to then- fate. Thus 
 amid light and shadow, and the alternations of gladness and distress, the 
 days of their pilgrimage went on m a calm and not ungenial equanimity. 
 
 And so the years spin round, until 1775, when the excellent Theresa 
 was called away — away utterly from this land of change, and from sickness 
 which she had suffered long, to another v/ondrous state of being, wliere 
 change and sickness shall be no more. Now shall the eyes that have 
 seldom wept shed tears : now shall the pangs that are ' beyond the 
 pitch of human feeling ' pierce into the soul which, under all calamities 
 hitherto, has borne itself as with the cahnness and indifference of ada- 
 mant. In deep grief, in speechless agony and anguish, he bends over 
 the form of his beloved with a yearning that is unutterable; and it is as 
 though his desolate affections were driven forth in banishment into bound- 
 less loneliness for ever. All life and nature are painfully transfigured by 
 his sorrow ; the whole earth seems wrapt in sadness, and the star-lighted 
 heavens look dim and immeasurably remote. And as they bore her away 
 to the ' still dwelling ' whose doors may never more be opened, it seemed 
 as if the closing of those a\vful portals had everlastingly extinguished the 
 presence of hope and love from out the world. ' There,' said he, ' reposes 
 what is left of the dearest that Heaven gave me ;' there, in still unconscious 
 slumber, in silent dreamlessness for ever, she sleeps the sleep from which 
 there is no awakening; among the dust and the perishing sliapes of her 
 four children, that went before her to tliat restingplace, she is gathered in 
 the prime and beauty of her days. To him who stands there, beckoning 
 his sorrowing farewells over the chasm that yawns between eternity and 
 time, and in recognition whereof no sign is rendered — to him it now appears, 
 while contemplating that almost perfect love with which the dead had 
 blessed him, that it was indeed ' the strongest and the truest that ever 
 inspired the heart of woman ' — a love which made him many a time the 
 happiest of mortals, though it was withal to him the ' fountain of a thousand 
 distresses, inquietudes, and cares.' He remembers that when tears flowed 
 over their cheeks there was sometimes a nameless and yet exquisite delight 
 streaming through his consciousness — a rushing and gracious unison of the 
 currents of joy and sorrow, more sweet, more blessed than any ordinary 
 gladness. And thus it even cheers him to reflect that he shall come one 
 day to rest beside her — ' rest from all the carking care, from aU the griefs 
 which so often have imbittered to him the enjoyment of his life.' 
 
 But apart from these or any kindred consolations, it was not in Keyne's 
 
 nature to brood long over any sorrow. To persist in lamenting tlie 
 
 inevitable is at once contrary to philosophy and religion, and is a hindrance 
 
 to the right accomplishment of the remaining tasks of life. Accordingly, 
 
 18 
 
hetne: a biography. 
 
 Heyne, in conformity with an cstablislied plan of his, shortly began to 
 reckon up his several grounds of sorrow, and having fairly written them 
 down on paper, he next wi-ote over against them his ' gi'ounds of consola- 
 tion;' and on contrasting them, and striking a balance of the account, he 
 appears to have been satisfied that he had still much to be contented with. 
 ' So,' he piously concludes, ' for all these sorrows too, and these trials, do I 
 thank thee, oh God! And now I will again turn me with undivided purpose 
 to my duty; and thou, my gloritied and buried friend, dost even smile on 
 me with approval !' And thus, from the valley of the shadow of death, 
 the scholar and philosopher comes forth again to participate in the light 
 and active interests of the living. 
 
 From the sublime to the ridiculous there is often but a step, and here we 
 have the saying once more veritied. In less than twelve months after the 
 good Theresa's funeral, Heyne became actually entangled in another court- 
 ship! Oh that tliere were some despotic ukase in operation, to defend 
 elderly and middle-aged gentlemen from makmg fools of themselves ! The 
 match appears to have been brought about in this wise : some time in the 
 summer of 1776, the Hanoverian covu-t physician, Zimmerman, who is 
 popularly known by a meditative work on ' Solitude,' was spending some 
 months in company with one Eeich, a Leipzig bookseller, at the Pyrmont 
 Baths. There also came Brandes, the Hanoverian minister of instruction 
 for the time; and with him he brought a daughter, at present unmarried, 
 but to all appearance highly marriageable. On her did Zimmerman and 
 Eeich cast sympathising looks, and putting their sensible heads together, 
 concerted a scheme to provide her with a husband. Heyne was but little 
 knowm to Zimmerman, yet the latter was impressed with the conceit, that 
 it would be rendering hmi a service to find another wife for him. The 
 author of ' Solitude ' accordingly ventured to consult him, to point out the 
 desirableness of such a mate as was this interesting daughter of the 
 minister, and to offer the aid of himself and other friends to bring matters 
 to a pleasant issue, without giving Heyne any particular trouble in the 
 affair. An agreeable wife, if procurable on such easy terms, Heyne coidd 
 not find it in him to reject. He, however, comported himself with the most 
 philosophical indifierence, transacted the gi-eater portion of his courtship at 
 second-hand, and was indeed in all respects as compliant to the plans and 
 wishes of his friends as might be any respectable and commonplace inheritor 
 of royal blood, whose marriage is an affair of international diplomacy. 
 The damsel, too, was of an extremely accommodating temper, having neither 
 preferences nor dislikes, but being dutifully disposed to be guided in a 
 matter so important by the more experienced sense and practised judgment 
 of her father. The father, on his part, was everything that could be 
 desired by a suitor; and thus it came to pass that Heyne was enabled to 
 take home to him, on the 9th of April 1777, a second and very interesting 
 bride, won for him with less perplexity than many a town or countiy 
 damsel may have experienced m selecting a bunch of artificial flowers, or a 
 ribbon for her Sunday bonnet. 
 
 Here was a fortunate event in Heyne's life brought about very foolishly. 
 The majority of chances was obviously against such a match turning out 
 well ; but the odd chance, by lucky accident, was hit, and it turned out 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 admirably. This second wife is said to have proved herself in all respects 
 a true and worthy one. She was a most cheerful and meet companion for 
 her husband ; kept his house in the most admirable order ; managed and 
 brought up her children, and those of the deceased Theresa, like a genuine 
 and faithful mother ; and loved and assiduously assisted Heyne m many of 
 the concerns which he undertook. Iler love was quieter, and apparently 
 less romantic, than that of her predecessor, and probably, to such a man as 
 our professor, it was therefore considerably more suitable ; for He}iie, 
 throughout his life, was rather a solid than a brilliant man ; and his affec- 
 tions, though firm and unwavering as a rock, were little accustomed to 
 display themselves in fanciful exercitations. Altogether, as we have said, 
 Heyne may be reasonably considered as having been more than ordinarily 
 fortunate in his personal relations. 
 
 In his public capacity also nearly all things went favourably with him. 
 As the years proceed, he rises by degrees to be both in name and office 
 the chief man of his establisliment. ' His character stood high with the 
 learned of all countries; and the best fruits of external reputation — increased 
 respect in his own circle — was not denied to him.' Besides his claims to 
 distinction as a teacher and a scholar, Heeren represents him as being an 
 expert negotiator and active man of business — modes of activity for which 
 it seems Heyne himself considered his talents to be peculiarly fitted. In 
 proof and illustration of this notion, the ingenious biographer furnishes 
 considerable details of our professor's procedure in managing the secular 
 concerns of his university — a procedure involving almost intinite finesse, 
 and an extremely complicated correspondence with the state-appointed 
 ministers who, from time to time, presided over the educational depart- 
 ment. Be all this as it may, it is clearly evident that Heyne everywhere 
 inspired confidence in his capabilities and integrity, everywhere was 
 honoured with the consideration and esteem of his contemporaries. In 
 Gottingen, where he was best known, he was an object of general I'eve- 
 rence, and appears to have been regarded by the inhabitants as a sort 
 of incarnation of all learning. He rendered many a good service to the 
 worthy burghers, and on one occasion more especially delighted them 
 by reorganising their respected gymnasium, or iovm. school. A further 
 and even more important benefit Heyne was also privileged to perform 
 for them, in the troublesome and dangerous period when Napoleon was 
 subjugating the continent under his splendid usurpation. Heyne was 
 now in his old age, and nothing was so desirable to him as quiet. He 
 in his time had seen the horrors of sacked cities, aiul he felt that it now 
 behoved him to do his utmost to divert the possibility of such evils from 
 the worthy people among whom he lived. Accordingly, in the belief per- 
 haps that Napoleon was intrinsically a liumane man, Heyne made a modest 
 and deferential application to liim, soliciting protection (should it please 
 him) for the Gottingen university and its libraries ; and even succeeded in 
 obtaining not only protection for the university, but also immunity from 
 hostile invasion for the whole surrounding district. Thus we may perceive 
 that sometimes an old and prudent man may be the deliverer of a city. It 
 is even said, that as matters actually turned out, Gottingen was rather a 
 gainer than a sufferer by the war, inasmuch as under Jerome of AVest- 
 phalia all benefices were paid with the greatest punctuality, and even raaui- 
 20 
 
HEYNE : A BIOGKAPnY. 
 
 fold improvements were effected in the university's affairs ; among which 
 may be mentioned, as considerably the most important, a new and liaiid- 
 yonie extension of tlie buildings ot the library, erected at the special cost 
 of government. 
 
 The interest of He}nie's life is now pretty well exhausted. For some 
 pages past it has had a tendency to Hag. Readers are naturally indilferent 
 about tlie details of prosperity. It is only with the stnujrjle of the hero, 
 and not with his repose or the quiet industry which follows victory, that 
 they care to be concerned. Nobody minded Washington after he took to 
 planting cabbages. When you can sit under your own vine, and eat of 
 your own iig-tree, the interest of mankind is ended in respect to your pro- 
 ceedings. It is the penalty which a man pays for his success, that his 
 history thenceforth dwindles into commonplace. ISo at least it is with all 
 such men as Heyne. Barren of incident, fruitful only in inward progress, 
 in regular uninterrupted industry, embodied in a long series of literary- 
 productions, his life for many years seems to have been little other than a 
 succession of studious and quiet days, any one of which would be a tit 
 and almost perfect representative of the rest. 
 
 In personal character and outward bearing Heyne appears to have been 
 a kmdly and worthy man. Among his townsmen and fellow- collegians, as 
 "we have noted, he was held in the highest veneration. In aU his relations 
 he is acknowledged to have been just, generously considerate, friendly, and 
 compassionately disposed. He lived in great simplicity, and delighted in all 
 simple and unostentatious pleasures. Had you been passing through Gottiu- 
 gen any time at the beginning of the present century, you might probably 
 have seen him in his garden, moving about with a pair of scissors, trimming 
 the numerous rose-bushes in which his house was pleasantly embowered. 
 He had a love for roses which almost amounted to a passion, and always in 
 the season he kept a large bouquet of them in water upon his desk. Such 
 a delight in the sight and scent of natural beauty would surely be indicative 
 of a gentle heart. That he was really possessed of one, there are even 
 more decided evidences. Though in external appearance he Avas the 
 grave and methodical professor — the stiff, almost piedantic seeming com- 
 mentator, and to an undiscerning eye scarcely anything besides ; yet under 
 his cold, learned, rock-like exterior there were wells of native pity, which 
 were really never dry, but, as occasion called, would gush forth in deeds of 
 kindliness and sympathy. His own early difficulties and distresses never 
 left his memory. What was better still, when similar distresses were made 
 known to him, he never failed to render something of the encouragement 
 and help which they demanded. Not many authenticated stories of the 
 kind can be positively related, for it is understood that all his charities of 
 this sprt were managed according to the divine rule, which recommends 
 that the left hand shall not know what the right hand doetli. It quite 
 contented Heyne to do the good — if possible, to do it furtively and with 
 as little semblance of chariUj as was practicable — leavuig it quietly behind 
 him when it was done, and going on his way, as the winds pass when they 
 have scattered the seeds which will some day replenish and repair the 
 forest. 
 
 Heeren relates that Heyne had great fondness for the charms of natural 
 scenery. He dehghted in the fields mid skies, and would lie for houi-s 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 reading on the gi-ass. His endless communion A\-ith books, such as were 
 nowise calculated to entertam the im.agination, had not materially impaired 
 in him one of the finest and most ethereal of human feelings. His love of 
 nature, however, is not to be understood as being particularly fastidious or 
 sentimental. There is nnthhig of the ' view-hunter' in the man : no sickly 
 yearning for the picturesque ; but he has the quiet, healthful taste which 
 finds beauty in almost every object — in common hedgerows and pasture- 
 lands, and the humblest flowers that adorn the waysides and the heaths. 
 He cannot affect raptures, nor deliberately indite sonnets to foimtains or 
 the moon ; but wherever the beautiful shines along his path, he has the 
 sense which can discern, and accept it with satisfaction. 
 
 In his intercourse with friends or strangers, of whom many hundreds 
 visited him, Heyne is represented to have been uniformly courteous. In 
 social conversation his urbanity and politeness were perhaps sometimes 
 excessive, though he is reported to have had a habit of ' yawning' when 
 he came in contact with persons who talked largely without saying any- 
 thing to the purpose. It is therefore evident he was but mdifferently 
 qualified to prosper in polite society. He appeai-s, however, to have been 
 well received among the magnates and quality of Gottingen. As evidences 
 of the consideration paid to him, we may mention, that m the latter years 
 of his life the magistracy exempted him, by special act, from aU public 
 assessments ; and in 1809, when he was eighty years of age, the public 
 boards and learned faculties came together in procession to congratulate 
 him on his birthday ; students assembled to do him reverence, and young 
 ladies sent him garlands ; and for that day old Gottingen was a place 
 of perfect jubilee, and as far as such things could delight him, the good 
 Heyne had a sufficiency of happiness and honour. 
 
 Not the least part of his good fortune must be reckoned the ckcumstance 
 that he lived to complete all his cherished undertakings. In the month of 
 April 1812, he saw tlie last volume of his works in print, and is said 
 to have expressed great thankfulness that he had been permitted to per- 
 form so much. He was too old now to think of entering upon other pro- 
 jects. What remained to him of life he was content to spend in a quiet 
 and contemplative waitmg for the end. And the end came gently, and 
 like a sleep, or as the falling of ripened fruit in the stillness of the autumn. 
 The 11th of July, of this same 1812, was a day of public and popular 
 interest in Gottingen — some anniversary, or other celebration connected 
 with the Eoyal Society of that city — on which occasion Hej-ne, as one of 
 the celebrities belonging to it, is reported to have spoken largely, and with 
 more than ordinary vivacity and clearness. The next day, Heeren savs he 
 saw him for the last time. It was Sunday evening, and the old man was 
 resting in his chair, very evidently exhausted by the fatigue of yesterday. 
 However, on the Monday mornmg ' he once more entered his class-room, 
 and held his Semmarium.' Afterwards, ' m the afternoon, he prepared his 
 letters, domestic as well as foreign,' sealed them with aU neatness, save one, 
 which was Nvi-itten in Latm, to Professor Thoi-lacius at Copenhagen, and 
 which Heeren found open, though finished, on the writer's desk. At 
 supper, being alone with his elder daughter, he conversed cheerfully, and 
 at his usual time retired to his bedroom. In the night, the servant-gu-I, 
 who slept under his apartment, lieard him walkuig uj) and down — a prac- 
 22 
 
HEYNE: A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tice to which he was mvicli addictoil wlicu he couhl not sleep. Subsequently 
 lie went to bed again, and shortly after tive in the morning he rose as 
 usual. When the girl inquired how he had been in the night, he replied 
 to her in a strain of jocularity, and seemed in moderately good spirits. 
 She left him to prepare his coftee ; and returning with it about a quartet* of 
 an hour afterwards, slie found him fallen do^\Ti before his washing-stand. 
 His hands being still wet, it appeared that death had overtaken him while 
 wasliing. His medical attendant was hastily called in, but Ileyne was 
 gone whither no sl<ill could call liim back. Thus in the eighty-third year 
 of an honourable old age, he died a painless and peaceful death, like the 
 last of winter nights falling softly into the mild embraces of the spring. 
 
 IlejTie was buried with appropriate solemnities — with pomps and im- 
 posing ceremonials such as were deemed fitting for one of his puljlic and 
 dignified position. Neither was there wanting an emphatic recognition of 
 his merits as a man who had risen from obscurity into notable eminence 
 among the learned. It is written that at Chemnitz, where he was bom 
 and nurtured in deep poverty, a grand company of the illustrious and 
 respectable of the land was drawn together and assembled, under the con- 
 stituted authorities of the place, to celebrate his memory. On thi§ magni- 
 ficent occasion, the old school album, in which the little starveling boy had 
 inscribed his name, was produced and exhibited for the admiration of the 
 visitors, many hundreds of whom went afterwards to see the poor dilapi- 
 dated cottage wherein Heyne's father had once weaved, and he himself had 
 cultivated the rudiments of learning in the lowest stages of his fortune. 
 Then there was a Avondrous display of oratory ; high-flown speeches were 
 delivered and reported ; gi-andiloquent eulogiums lavished without measure ; 
 loud plaudits of astonishment and silly wonder ; till the whole jubilation 
 was at length ended through sheer exhaustion and debility of the articu- 
 lative organs. Oh this canting aflectation, which is so eager to honour 
 the talent that has been already honoured ! — this hollow reverberating 
 applausiveness, which delights in sounding forth its empty gi-atulations 
 among the tombs and forsaken habitations of them that have been distin- 
 guished ! — would that it could cease, and leave the memories of modest 
 men at rest ! For how many, tliink you, out of that respectable multitude 
 had penetration enough to have discerned any merit in such a man as 
 Heyne while he slept bedless in Sonntag's garret with folios for his pillow, 
 and dined grimly in the tAviliglit on a dish of peascods without sauce ? 
 Perhaps it is difiicult to honour a man at all in any popular and public 
 fashion apart from his position ; but it is obvious that all such honouring 
 as this is but a conventional and ceremonial triviality. Heyne's proper 
 honour is that which is paid to him by the conscious or imconscious admi- 
 ration of men of his o-^vn class— by the scholars and the students who 
 perceive and can appreciate the services he performed in the way of 
 facilitating the study of ancient literature. This is the only honour which 
 coidd have any meaning for Heyne, or for any other person of the like 
 acquloitions and endowments. 
 
 In looking over the life and performances of HejTie, the lirst thing which 
 strikes us is the man's amazing diligence. The quantity of work which he 
 performed is ahnost sufficient to justify Hazlitt's assertion, that human life 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 is long enough to crowd into it all the arts and sciences. A very brief 
 notice of his most important labours, without any attempt to estimate their 
 individual excellences or deficiences, is all that can be rendered in the 
 present pages : — ■ 
 
 The first editions of his 'TibuUus' and 'Epictetus' have been already 
 mentioned. These were Heyne's achievements while he was still under 
 probation, and, as the reader has seen, were prepared in the midst of cir- 
 cumstances in the highest degree unfavourable for such pursuits. The 
 ' TibuUus ' was subsequently republished in two other editions, each time 
 with large extensions and improvements; and the 'Epictetus' also went 
 through a second edition, with similar emendations. Among Heyne's- 
 further labours there are not less than six separate editions of ' Vkgil,' 
 published in various forms at different times, from 1767 to 1803 ; next 
 we have two editions of ' Pliny,' one in 1790, and the other in 1811 ; then 
 there are two editions of ' AppoUodorus,' wliich appeared respectively in 
 1787 and 1803 ; three editions of ' Pindar,' published successively in 1774, 
 1797, and 1798, the last very considerably enlarged ; ' Conon and Par- 
 thenius ' in 1798 ; and lastly, an elaborate edition of ' Homer,' in eight 
 volumes, 1802 ; and a second, contracted edition m two volumes, 1804. 
 
 In addition to the above, which could have been produced only by 
 means of immense labour and research, we have a countless medley of 
 translations from all languages ; amongst which, as being a work of no 
 inconsiderable extent, may be mentioned an improved version of Guthrie 
 and Gray's ' Universal History.' There are, besides, about a dozen goodly 
 volumes of miscellaneous essays, treating of all imaginable subjects ; six 
 volumes of wliich are also known in a separate shape, under the title 
 of ' OjDuscula,' and are said to contain some highly valuable writings. 
 Finally, it appears, according to Heeren's computation, that Heyne was 
 the author of between seven and eight thousand reviews of books ! — an 
 astonishing feat of authorship, had he even never produced a line in any 
 other department of human literature. 
 
 Any one will admit that here surely is an autlior first-rate in point 
 of quantity. Were it possible to think and write, as weU as print, by 
 steam-machinery, one could scarcely calculate upon a literary engine, of 
 average practicable power, being brouglit to the cajoability of producing 
 more. Indeed Heyne seems to have been in great part a sort of animated 
 classical machine — though we believe it must be admitted that he was a 
 machine invested with a faculty of rational discrimination and discern- 
 ment. If he works after the manner of a machine, there is nevertheless 
 a human head active enough in directing the wheels. Still, in such a 
 mass of writings as he has left, it is hardly to be expected that elegance or 
 nicety of composition should be a very prevailing feature. Heyne, we 
 believe, is considered by his own countrymen as a very indifferent writer of 
 the German tongue. His object, indeed, had no respect to excellence in this 
 particular. His Latin style, which is his commonest medium of expression 
 in his learned works, is of that sort whicli is esteemed weU enough for a 
 commentator, but is utterly without pretensions to literary grace. 
 
 The value of Heyne's writhigs is altogether apart from style : it lies in 
 his deep research, in his powers as an interpreter, in his keen-eyed skill in 
 exposition and emendation — whereby the real qualities of classical literature 
 24 
 
HEYNE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 become intelligibly apparent, to an extent not before attainable by its 
 gtudents. In Gei'many — and indeed now for a long time in Europe 
 generally — Heyne is regarded as the founder of a new epoch in classical 
 investigations. He is esteemed as the lirst eminent scholar ' who with any 
 decisiveness attempted to translate fairly beyond the letter of the classics ; 
 to read in the wTitings of the ancients, not their language only, or even 
 their detached records and opinions, but their very spirit and character, 
 their way of life and thought ;' how, in short, the world and human life 
 were represented to the minds of men in the olden foi'egone ages, and what 
 manner of living and acting persons the Greeks and Romans really were. 
 By his minute inquiries into antiquity, more especially as regards its 
 politics and mythology, Heyne is believed to have opened a shaft into some 
 of the most important mysteries of ancient times. Since his day this has 
 been extended by other diligent labourers into a wide and productive mine, 
 . so that now the state of classical learning is advanced far beyond the point 
 at which Heyne left it. Yet as the originator, in gi-eat part, of a new 
 method of interpretation, his merits are unquestionable, and even sufficient 
 to justify the exalted praises which have been universally awarded to him 
 on their account. 
 
 While, however, his distinction as a commentator is thus considerable, 
 he cannot properly be regarded intellectually as a great, or even perfectly 
 accomplished man. He remains to us little other than a painstaking 
 plodding commentator after all; excellent in this department, but indif- 
 ferently endowed Avith the gifts which could entitle him to a loftier 
 reputation. Great perspicuity of exposition, and unwearied diligence in 
 prosecuting his learned investigations to serviceable results, are perhaps to 
 be reckoned as his principal characteristics ; to any important clearness or 
 superior polish of thought or of expression, to any philosophical order, or 
 artistic classical adjustment, it is not commonly believed that he has any 
 just pretension. Nay, it is even said that he is not unfrequently involved in 
 ' tortuous verbosities,' akin to the defects of the old-school commentators, 
 whom his foremost admirers are apt to boast that he displaced. Writing 
 from long habit in a dead language, he may probably be pardoned for 
 sometimes writing heavily; yet there are judges in these matters who 
 are not scrapidous in asserting that Heyne's learned harness became at 
 length the most imposing portion of the man, and that, like Don Quixote, 
 he could not go abroad on tlie most frivolous adventure without the 
 pedantry of encasmg himself in this awkward and fantastic armour. There 
 is undoubtedly a possibility that a man may be too ' learned.' The growth 
 of all extraneous encasements is apt to be prejudicial to the living poAver 
 that inhabits them : naturalists and fishermen can tell you that a redun- 
 dancy of shell is to the detriment of the oyster. Heyne perhaps grew to 
 be a somewhat too exclusive impersonation of the vmiversity professor, 
 seems to have been stereotj-ped into a ' learned man ' from a comparatively 
 early period of his career, and to have taken his estimate of men and things 
 too generally from the appearances they presented tlu'ough a pair of 
 college-tinted spectacles. 
 
 Under the moral manifestation, Hejme seems likewise to have exhibited 
 something of this pedant-like contractedncss. It has been said that there 
 was in his manner a certain hardness, and even apparent insensibility, 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 verging towards repiilsiveness, wliicli was nevertheless no portion of his 
 intrinsic character. The grave professorial habit was so ingrained in him, 
 that he passed for a man of less kmdliness and less enthusiasm than he 
 really was. Among the warmer sort of religious people he was scarcely 
 considered to be religious ; yet we suppose that would nowise be the 
 opinion of any discerning reader who has looked into his autobiography', or 
 seen his deportment under circumstances of calamity. Cold and insensible 
 as he looked, all who have followed us through the several revolutions of 
 his history will not have failed to observe beautiful miderlying streams of 
 tenderness and affection Avhich, at the call of strong occasions, would well 
 upwards in fountains of pure and gentle feeling. He has throughout a 
 quiet and steady confidence in the justness and perfect wisdom of the 
 providential oversight, in the everlasting goodness of the divine appoint- 
 ments and conditions. Only in his way of signifying his sense of these he 
 displays an awkwardness and reserve which seem to indicate an insensi- 
 tive disposition. There is a want of heartiness and earnestness in his 
 demeanour Avhich is calculated to excite suspicion that he is devoid of 
 generous and earnest qualities. But there are indeed no grounds for such 
 suspicion. The imperfection is but a consequence of incomplete develop- 
 ment, of the damaging influences of his circumstances and peculiar 
 employments. The thick atmosphere of learned mannerism in which he 
 ■works and lives, is too dense to admit of the undistorted shining of his 
 modest virtue. The man is a good man enough, but he has no capacity 
 for letting his light shine cheerfully and profitably among other men. 
 He is so encumbered with learned casings, as to be almost in the condition 
 of that singular garment which the ' Tale of the Tub ' makes mention of, 
 and which had, in the progress of refinement, become so overladen with 
 extraneous ornament, as to give rise to a controversy respecting the 
 original colour of the cloth. 
 
 After aU deductions, however, Heyne is well entitled to respect as a 
 highly able and meritorious man. He lived through that which to many 
 would have been death, or moral ruin. His life, upon the whole, is a noble 
 spectacle, an admirable encouragement to steady mdustry and perseverance. 
 Scarcely is there anywhere upon record an instance of more mvincible per- 
 tinacity and steadfastness in the pursuit of a worthy object, in following 
 out an aim which involved so much protracted anxiety and distress — such 
 immovable decisiveness in abiding by a purpose which, though nowise 
 clear at first, appears still to have been attended by an intense convic- 
 tion or presentiment that that was verily the purpose which it behoved 
 him to strive after. His history is highly valuable, independently of 
 his fame as a man of learning. It exhibits a man working under 
 the most unfavoiu'able circmnstances, with scarcely any means to start 
 with, and yet, by resolute persistency, surmomiting every obstacle, and 
 rising at last into dignity and reputation. It reveals to us something of 
 that partial omnipotence which resides in the human will, and gives us 
 token how a purpose, honestly and intently prosecuted, can scarcely fail to 
 be successful. Heyne's genius was not of the loftiest, nor his object perhaps 
 of the noblest ; but still his instinct for the pursuits to which he devoted 
 himself seems deservhig of the name of genius, and his object was unques- 
 tionably a worthy and important one. Jt was to help forward the cause of 
 26 
 
JTEYNE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Inie intelligence in the world, to clear up some of the errors and difficul- 
 ties wliieh lay opposed to the perfect understanding of those records of 
 thouglit and character which the ancients have left us for our study and 
 entertainment ; and it cannot be denied that in this remote but yet useful 
 province he wrought with admirable energy and success. By his labours 
 tlie people of antiquity have been brought more intimately before us, and 
 the spirit and characteristics of their culture more accurately and ade- 
 quately expounded ; so that, upon the whole, our knowledge of them and 
 their proceedings has been enlarged, and their history and achievements 
 have thus been rendered matters of a profounder and more profitable 
 interest. This is a praise which tlie learned generally appear disposed to 
 award to Heyne, and it is obviously one which assigns to him a position of 
 no inconsiderable distinction. 
 
 The interest of Heyne's biogi-aphy, however, will rest mainly in the 
 imfavourableness of his personal circumstances, and in the spirit of endea- 
 vour which enabled him to triumph over them. He is a witness to the 
 tiiith, that a man is not altogether the product of circumstances, but 
 that he is competent to modify, and even in some degree to subjugate 
 them. Human power has a dominion over fortune, "^liile it is not to 
 be denied that adversity is oftentimes the means of marring and intei-- 
 rupting the fair development of a man's capacities, it is yet true that 
 he may advance to very considerable heights of culture, both morally and 
 intellectually, in spite of the worst external hindrances. Nay, it is matter 
 of experience, that the ablest and greatest men, in nearly all departments 
 of aftau-s, have been actually benelited and invigorated by the press of 
 temporary difficulties, and have risen to higher elevations tlu'ough the 
 strength which they had gathered in conflict with misfortune. The man 
 that can Avalk only in smooth and unobstructed paths, is not likely to pro- 
 ceed very successfully on any important journey. Great, almost incal- 
 culable, is the power of persistency. This is the conquering quality, more 
 than any other, which HejTie's career illustrates. He is a personal exem- 
 plification of the force of persevering eflbrt, of resolute and unwavering 
 abidance by an approved pursuit, and of final triumph thereby over a most 
 hostile array of circumstances. Thus is his life an encouragement to all 
 aspirants ; not especially on accoimt of the material rewards which attended 
 his exertions, but most emphatically in regard to that higher and more 
 permanent success which is realised through the true unfolding and mani- 
 festation of a man's predominating talents.* 
 
 In contemplating the career of a scholar such as Heyne, one cannot fail 
 to be struck with the wide dissimilarities between the scholar -life of 
 Germany and that of England. Overlooking such obvious differences as 
 exist in the social conditions and habits of English and German students, 
 we are inclmed to draw attention to the kinds of encom'agement which 
 men of parts are accustomed to receive from the learned institutions 
 of the two countries. Here we have no instance of a man making 
 
 * Tlie facts of the preceding narrative are derived from Professor Heeren's Life 
 of HejTic ; and some of tlie translated passages have been taken from an article on 
 Heyne in ' Carlyle's iUscellanies,' which has also in other respects been serviceable 
 to the writer. 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 his way to university honoui-s by independent force of scholarship — 
 no example of any one rising into eminence at the seats of learning, who 
 did not first study after an orthodox and prescribed plan, involving a very 
 considerable personal expense, and therefore altogether excluding the 
 poorer sort from any participation in its benefits. There have been 
 instances, it is true, of persons caught up out of the humbler ranks of life, 
 and sent to study in our colleges, where the chances of advancement were 
 undoubtedly as free to them as others — witness, for example, the cases of 
 Kirke White and William Gifford; but the univei'sities are meanwhile 
 utterly inaccessible to all such as are not supported or befriended by the 
 like extraneous patronage. In England, Heyne, working under kindred 
 circumstances to those which encumbered him in Germany, could by no 
 possibility have obtained a classical professorship. No matter what 
 amount of learning he had acquired, or what degi'ee of aptitude he 
 might evince for investigating or enlarging its acquisitions, he would 
 have been entirely debarred by his poverty from ever gaining any im- 
 portant collegiate rank or distinction. And though perhaps this might 
 have been no lasting impediment to the fame and ultimate influence of the 
 man, yet it must have been an unquestionable hindrance to the progress of 
 erudition in his generation, and would certainly have precluded him from 
 occupying that eminent position among his contemporaries which he so 
 well deserved, and was so admirably qualified to fill, and to which, through 
 his most praiseworthy endeavours and exertions, he was enabled to attain 
 among his countrymen. 
 
 The impassable bar or obstacle whereof we speak, and which so mani- 
 festly prevents the impoverished or unaided sons of genius from gaining 
 access to our universities, and exercising an influence within them, is 
 probably one of the most significant causes of the stagnant condition of 
 learning which is so commonly admitted to prevail in those institutions. 
 The men who succeed in obtaining distinctions and emoluments in them 
 are not generally the most gifted or enlightened, but persons who, by dint 
 of cramming, have prepared themselves expressly for tlie situations which 
 by that process are procurable : they commonly enter with no other object 
 than that of reaping the rewards of learning — of rising by means of the lite- 
 rary honours they may obtain into some desirable conventional position — a 
 position which they are apt to regard more for its secular and connectional 
 benefits, than for the opportimities it may afl'ord for a patient and disin- 
 terested cultivation of truth and knowledge — the very realities which all 
 colleges and universities were originally instituted to preserve and pro- 
 gressively unfold, to the end that human life and the wellbeing of men 
 might be advanced, and their characters permanently perfected and 
 adorned. Where the rewards of knowledge are not especially in request, 
 a university education is sought after as being necessary to a man's con- 
 dition or rank in life ; and in this case it is looked upon as a sort of 
 accredited ornament which, by the demands of society, is needful to be 
 worn. The genuine loivrs and devotees of learning for its own sake, or 
 for the sake of the advancement of humanity, are accordingly, in our age 
 and country, extremely rai'e exceptions to the ordinary run of persons Avho 
 enter upon such pursuits. The high importance attached to tlie conven- 
 tional position it confers (when prosecuted according to the prescribed 
 2S 
 
IIEYNE : A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 courses), is such as to drive out of all minds, except the purest and most 
 disinterested, tliat just estimate of the wortli and significance of knowledge 
 which should be sedulously and reverently cultivated, and witliout which 
 knowledge can never be prosecuted with any beneficial success. 'The 
 sciences,' said Jean Paul, ' are my heaven.' In them he could expatiate 
 with an incessant and perpetual joy ; whatsoever rewards he might reap 
 from the world m return for his devotion to them, he could thankfully 
 accept, and proceed onwards with an encouraged spirit ; but he, and all 
 others such as he, would have deemed it a desecration to have regarded 
 science or literature as only the convenient stepping-stones for their 
 ambition, or to have followed them for any inferior satisfaction than tliat 
 which they themselves will yield to their faithful cultivators and adherents. 
 In Germany, it would seem that if a man will prosecute knowledge or 
 learning for its own sake, the institutions of the country, to some extent, 
 further him in doing so, and his poverty will be no final impediment to his 
 attainment of honourable distinction among the learned. He has only to 
 give proofs of a superior intelligence, and the highest posts of learned 
 eminence are open to his acceptance. He needs no further recommenda- 
 tion than the superiority of his qualifications. The consequence is, that 
 men of the highest attainments are always adequately provided for, and 
 rise to the exact position in which they can best and most effectually carry 
 out then- undertakmgs. The painful probation through which many of 
 them have to pass is not entirely an evil, since by proving themselves 
 ■worthy of encouragement or promotion, they are almost certain to obtain 
 it in due season ; for it appears that all over Germany there is a constant 
 inquiry going on respecting the qualifications and merits of men of 
 learning and abUity, and a pei-petual desire and eifort to obtain their ser- 
 vices in places of influence and distinction. It is said that the prime 
 minister of every State is always in regular correspondence with some 
 eminent director of the learned institutions : he oversees and takes note of 
 all their proceedings and operations, and knows the character not only of 
 every professor, but of every pupil who gives signs of promise. ' He is 
 continually purchasuig books, drawings, models ; treating for this or the 
 other help or advantage to the establishment. He has his eye over all 
 Germany ; and nowhere does a man of any decided talent show himself, 
 but he strains every nerve to acquire him' — often, indeed, without success, 
 for a similar assiduity seems to actuate every minister of education 
 throughout the country. Many of them are in frequent communication 
 with each other — corresponding, inquiring, negotiating ; ' everywhere there 
 seems a canvassing, less for places than for the best men to fill them.' 
 
 By way of contrast to such a state of things, it may not be amiss to 
 brmg to mind an incident in our own literary history of the last age. A 
 few years before the time when Heyne, after his stem novitiate, was enter- 
 ing upon the comfortable and reputable ofiice which his learning had obtained 
 for him in Gbttingen, Samuel Johnson was striving to snatch a livelihood 
 in London, by translating and performing other literary hackwork for the 
 booksellers. It may be remembered that on one occasion the stalwart Samuel 
 subscribed himself in a letter to Sylvanus Urban — ' Yours, impransus, Sam. 
 Johnson ; ' that is to say, the man was dinnerless. Harassed and heart- 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE, 
 
 weary with his irksome and precarious way of life, and willing to turn him- 
 self to anything, however humble, which promised him a certain income, 
 Johnson sought to get appointed to the mastership of a country school, to 
 which was attached a salaiy of sixty pounds a year. The trustees were 
 willing to appoint huu, being well satisfied with his attainments ; but the 
 statutes of the school requhed that the master should have taken the 
 degi-ee of Master of Arts at one of the universities. Johnson had been 
 at Oxford, but had taken no degree, inasmuch as his circumstances pre- 
 vented hun from continuing a sufficient length of time ; though there 
 appears to be every reason for believing that he was far enough advanced 
 in learning to have passed a creditable examination. His scholarship, per- 
 haps, was never of the highest order ; but unquestionably degi'ees were 
 taken by many students whose acquisitions were much inferior. There 
 never was a doubt entertained as to his being amply qualified for the 
 appointment which he sought, and only a degi'ee was needed to enable him 
 to obtain it. Under the chcumstances, application was made m his behalf 
 to the university of Oxford, soliciting, by way of favour, that the desu-ed 
 degree might be granted him, with the understanding that he was ' not 
 afraid of the strictest examination.' There can be no question that had he 
 been examined, he would have proved himself worthy of the requked 
 honour; but the university was so hampered by forms and practices, 
 as to be obliged to refuse the application, or else the authorities 
 were indisposed to help a deserving man in hLs extremity. Anyway, the 
 favour asked was deemed too great a favour to be conferred. Johnson 
 was constrained to continue working in his Egj^tian task-field in London, 
 and the heads of Oxford university lost the honour which they might have 
 earned by befriending a praiseworthy scholar. They refused him, indeed, 
 the serviceable credentials to which he was intrinsically entitled ; and by 
 their indolence and heedlessness they cast an unmerited slight upon the 
 unexceptionable qualifications which he was seeking to tm'u honestly to 
 account as the means of earnmg his daily bread. 
 
 Now, we are not prepared to say that it was not really better in the end, 
 both for Johnson and the world, that the application here in question proved 
 a failure, since, considering his particular temperament, his natural sluggish- 
 ness, his frequent indisposition to exertion unless urged by the spur of neces- 
 sity, some of his ablest writings might perhaps have never been produced ; 
 but with regard to the functions of our universities, it is not the less 
 apparent that they offer no help to men of learning under any of the cir- 
 cumstances in which they most requhe help, but are positive hindrances to 
 such scholars at least as, from msufficiency of means, have been irregularly 
 educated, howsoever complete may be their scholarship ; nor do they take 
 the slightest recognition of that single-minded devotedness to intelligence 
 which is to be found mainly among those hard-faring and struggling 
 students who flinch not to strive and suffer out of earnest zeal for its acqui- 
 sition and advancement. The universities of England superciliously igiiore 
 the existence of any scholarship that has not been derived from their own 
 teaching. They claim to be the popes of learning, and assume a pope's 
 infallibility, designating as heresy in letters whatsoever may not agree with 
 their own antiquated and peculiar standards. They have the keys of the 
 kingdom of knowledge, and into the select fellowship of the saints of their 
 30 
 
nEYNE : A BIOGRArnV. 
 
 communion they admit none who do not bow in reverence to their perfec- 
 tions <aiul supremacy. Now it appears to us that in respect to real catholic 
 utility, or to the promotion of the best interests of learning, these honoured 
 and wealthy institutions stand in quite unfavourable contrast with the more 
 liberally-constituted universities of Germany. We repeat that in England 
 a man like Heyne, under the same conditions of life, could not have gained 
 a university professorship. Being hindered by his poverty from passing 
 through the prescribed gradations of study, in conformity with collegiate 
 systems, he could not have obtained that authoritative acknowledgment of 
 his attainments which would be needed to qualify him to enter upon any 
 university appointment. He would have been entirely excluded from 
 any place or position of the kind. Yet in Germany Heyne became the 
 foremost classical scholar of his age. There is surely some gi-ave defect 
 in the institutions which, m this country, would have been unable to avail 
 themselves of a capacity so eminent. England would have lost the benefit 
 of such a man's activity. There Avould have been no place for him, just 
 as there was no degree for Samuel Johnson, unless, perhaps, as in Johnson's 
 case, the university might have condescendingly bestowed some honorary 
 distinction on him at a time when he had made his own way in the woi-ld, 
 and had no longer any special need of it. Oxford favoiu-ed Johnson 
 with a diploma when he had executed the most useful, and, everything 
 considered, the greatest work of English scholarship that was produced in 
 his OAvn age — his famous English Dictionary ; but it was then a greater 
 honour to the university for Johnson to accept such a degree, than it was 
 to Jolmson to have it gi-anted him. What he said of Chesterfield's 
 patronage might have been as reasonably said of this university distinction — 
 ' Had it been earlier, it had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am 
 indifi'erent, and cannot enjoy it — till I am known, and do not want it.' All 
 sucli distinctions are extremely paltry when compared with the services 
 which a university might render to the struggling aspkants and devotees 
 of learning, were it so constituted as to admit them to examinations, inde- 
 pendently of residence or tests, and grant' degrees or testimonials corres- 
 ponding to their actual proficiency. Here, indeed, would be a noble van- 
 tage-ground wherefrom the poor and honest student might, if duly gifted 
 and industrious, rise to honour in spite of poverty and its- concomitant 
 obstacles; it would set him in good measure square with his richer 
 competitors ; and give a freer and wider scope for the success of a manly 
 and enterprising emulation, 
 
 lu conclusion, we submit, with due respect, whether, in any contemplated 
 enlargements of the usages and usefulness of our universities, it may 
 not be well and possible to make some provision for the admission of 
 our English Heynes, should any such arise, seeing that for the due and 
 perfect prosecution of learning there should be men thoroughly and 
 earnestly devoted to it, without respect to its conventional immunities ; 
 and wliile public encouragement is requisite for the furtherance of all 
 diflicult and abstruse studies, it is surely just that the same should be 
 liberally and fairly accessible to all who may manifest any aptitude or 
 diligence in regard to them. One thing, we tJiink, may be aflirmed with 
 safety, which is — that so long as imiversity dignities and emoluments are 
 
 31 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 obtainable almost exclusively by the mere mechanical crammers — which, 
 we hear it said, is quite the general rule — and so long also as these positions 
 are sought solely or mainly out of regard for then- advantages as places of 
 mere material estimation and respectability, the condition of learning in 
 England cannot be satisfactorily progressive, nor the universities them- 
 selves continue to be held in that high respect which formerly they 
 merited. That cause or interest is always the best advanced which can 
 command the willing services of those who are devoted to it with pure and 
 disinterested intents ; not that we undervalue the advantages to be derived 
 from a regular and systematic traming, but that we claim for genius, for 
 talent and industry, wherever found, or in whomsoever they may appear, 
 that freedom of development, that respect and honour, those privileges 
 and those rewards, to which, by their own intrinsic merits, they are so 
 righteously entitled. 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 THOUGH a great deal has lately been written on the Indian Archi- 
 pelago, particularly in connexion with Sir James Brooke and the 
 pirates, nothing like an adequate knowledge of that part of the world ia 
 yet possessed by the public. This at first sight may seem surprising. 
 An intercourse of three hundred years carried on between Europe and 
 that portion of Asia ought to have familiarised us not merely with its 
 geography, but likewise with its productions and inhabitants, of which, 
 however, we are only now beginning to form something like a correct idea. 
 And had events pursued their ordinary course, ages might still have 
 rolled on and left us buried in profound ignorance ; but the adventurous 
 spirit of an individual, united with enlarged views and a generous philan- 
 thropy, has at length awakened the curiosity of civilisation, and rivetted 
 it upon the Twelve Thousand Islands, so that in all probability we shall, 
 in the course of a few years, have completely explored them, and rendered 
 all their rich and varied resources accessible to the commerce of the West. 
 
 AVlien the Ai-abs first penetrated beyond the golden Chersonese, and 
 beheld group after group studding the waters of those sunny and tranquil 
 seas, they bestowed on that mighty Archipelago the name of the Twelve 
 Thousand Islands, making use of a definite expression to signify an indefinite 
 number. Geographical pedants have cavilled at the appellation, as they 
 have at that which the same poetical people, in the fii'st burst of admi- 
 ration, gave to the Maldives. But exactness in such cases is not sought, the 
 object being to produce deep impressions, and by exciting the fancy, to 
 rouse and keep awake the spirit of enterprise. We shall therefore, for the 
 sake of variety, employ the Arab phrase as a synonyme of the Indian 
 Archipelago, having entered into the above brief statement merely to guard 
 against misapprehension. 
 
 This immense system of islands, extending through nearly fifty-five 
 degrees of longitude, and thirty-two of latitude, is about 3600 miles in 
 length by 2200 in breadth. Lying on both sides of the equator, it enjoys 
 throughout its whole extent something like perpetual summer, except where 
 the elevation of the mountains produces a temperature approaching to 
 that of more northern climates. It wUl be readily conceived that the 
 productions of so vast an Archipelago must be extremely varied. Indeed, 
 when the whole comes to be explored, it will probably be found that 
 34 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 almost every island, small or great, grows something peculiar to itself in 
 addition to many productions which are common to the entire group. 
 
 Entering at the Straits of Malacca, and sailing eastwards, you may be 
 said to enjoy a perpetually-shifting panorama, whose features are richer 
 and more magniticent than can be viewed anywhere else in the world. 
 Here you observe innumerable islets, level or pyramidal, floating like so 
 many green nests upon the waves ; there you seem to be sailing along the 
 coasts of large continents or of islands, which you could not chcumnavigate 
 in many months. Sometimes, as you advance towards the rising sim, you 
 behold a succession of verdant plains or savannas, which are then sud- 
 denly interchanged for Alpine regions, covered with gorgeous vegetation to 
 the summit, which is often lost in the clouds. In one place the seas are 
 narrow as rivers, intersected by coral-reefs, studded with feathery islets, 
 sheltered by mountams overhung by cliffs and precipices, and painted 
 with a variety of brilliant colours by tlie superb reflection of the shores. 
 Elsewhere, the waters unfold themselves into sunny expanses, on which for 
 whole days you may lose sight of land, though always made conscious of 
 its vicinity by tlie flight of birds, or the appearance of small prahus, which 
 could not venture their frail construction upon the ocean. 
 
 The reflection which naturally suggests itself to the mind is, that you 
 are passing over the ruins of a submerged continent, the pinnacles only of 
 which now appear above water. At other times you are induced, on the 
 contrary, to believe that a portion of the earth's crust, upheaved by vol- 
 canic agency, is preparing to prolong indefinitely the southern limits of 
 Asia, already too vast to be regarded as one division of the globe. But 
 wliatever turn your geological speculations may take, you cannot avoid 
 regarding with extreme mterest the ever-varying aspect of the groups 
 around you, peopled by millions of human beings in very different stages 
 of civilisation. Here you observe fleets of prahus laden with the mer- 
 chandise of Europe, making their way with oars and sails towai'ds the 
 Aroo Islands and the coasts of New Guinea ; there you encounter other 
 fleets of similar embarkation steering towards Macassar, Labuan, Sara- 
 wak, or Singapore, with the rich commodities found among the islands on 
 tlie eastern verge of the Archipelago. In these simple, but hardy and active 
 agents of civilisation, you cannot fail to be deeply hiterested. The impulse 
 by which they are moved to imdertake voyages so protracted and full of 
 perU is no doubt the love of gain : their mental horison is bounded by their 
 own welfare and that of their famiUes ; they are guided by no enlarged 
 philosophy; contemplate no extensive or lasting results; speculate on no 
 golden awards of fame, on no second life in the grateful emotions of dis- 
 tant ages, benefited by their patriotism or their enterprise. But they 
 nevertheless perform, and faithfully too, the duties of civilisation's primitive 
 apostles — imiting innumerable islands and groups by the links of com- 
 merce, whose golden touch everwhere awakens industry, and incites men, 
 otherwise lethargic, to serve their neighbours by beneliting themselves. 
 
 By this beneficent process the wliole circle of the Twelve 'i'housand Islands 
 might in time be brought to taste the blessings of refinement, were not tlie 
 operations of trade obstructed by some blighting influence. From time 
 immemorial such an influence has unfortunately existed in that system of 
 piracy which, making its operations coextensive with those of commerce, 
 2 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 has for ages plunged the whole Archipelago in barbarism, from which, to 
 all appearance, there would have been no hope of escape through the 
 exertion of native energ}\ It was necessary that assistance should come 
 from without ; that a people elevated by superior knowledge, and invested 
 with superior power, should counteract the evil influences so long at work, 
 and deliver the numerous populations of the Indian Ocean from the incubus 
 whicli pressed upon and paralysed their energies. 
 
 The Arcliipelago may be said to have found its deliverer in Sir James 
 Brooke, who, appearing suddenly among its tribes, organized and brought 
 into play that system of policy which in all likelihood will ultimately 
 insure to them most of the arts and advantages of civilised life. It was not 
 to be expected that he would be suffered to carry out so grand a design 
 without encountering opposition ; such is not the fashion of this world. 
 To do good, you must often consent to be suspected of evil. There is a 
 natural antipathy between littleness and greatness which incites all those 
 tormented by the consciousness that, imder similar circumstances, they could 
 not go and do likewise, to calumniate and persecute Sir James Brooke; to 
 misrepresent his motives, and, as far as their petty means enable them, to 
 thwart his purposes and blast the hopes of the Archipelago. 
 
 With the chai-acter, powers, and objects of many of these individuals we 
 are well acquainted, and know them to be wholly incapable of achieving 
 anything themselves ; but the offices of petty obstruction are within every 
 man's reach. If he cannot perform gi-eat actions himself, it is at least 
 always possible for him to cast aspersions on those who can ; and to a 
 ceitain class of minds this is productive of some satisfaction. But we 
 happen to be acquainted with Sir James Brooke also, and know him to be 
 actuated by the noblest motives, to be swayed by the soundest and most 
 comprehensive views of policy, and to be possessed of an intrepid soul, 
 which will enable him to brave all the assaults of envy or malice ; and by 
 the exercise of exalted and persevering virtue, to acquire lasting honour for 
 himself, while he heaps shame and confusion of face upon his adversaries. 
 
 When history comes to delineate the characters of these times, it will 
 find few greater than that of Sir James Brooke. ^lany men are wealthier 
 — many are distinguished by loftier titles and more pompous pretensions, 
 but no one has exhibited more originality in sketching out for himself a 
 plan of action, or more energy and perseverance in pursuing his design. 
 It may be that he is ambitious, for what great man is not? But, fortunately 
 for his fame, it is his ambition to become the benefactor of mankind — to 
 enUghten the ignorant, to protect the weak, to paralyse cadence and 
 injustice, and to erect a superb fabric of civilisation where he found nothing 
 but darkness, barbarism, and crime. This is his ambition, and not even 
 Columbus himself was actuated by a nobler. It will, however, be long, 
 very long, before the European public are in a condition to appreciate 
 correctly the achievements of this distinguished man, merely to compre- 
 hend whose designs is obviously beyond the reach of a majority of his 
 contemporaries. The mere wish, however, to do him justice, implies the 
 possession of honourable feelings, and a certain amount of courage and 
 sagacity; for calumny has been so actively at work, that his actions must 
 necessarily be misunderstood by many, and his character by many more. 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Sir James Brooke was born on the 29th April 1803, at his father's seat at 
 Coombe Grove, in the neighbourhood of Bath. Some have supposed Benares 
 to have been the place of his birth, but erroneously, though the long 
 residence of his father in the Bengal presidency very naturally gave rise 
 to the mistake. Over the early development of his mind his mother — a 
 woman of remarkable abilities — presided with the tenderest care. After- 
 wards he received in the schools the usual education of English gentlemen, 
 and being designed for the military profession, was sent out very young to 
 India. Shortly afterwards, on the breaking out of the Burmese war, he 
 accompanied his regiment to the valley of the Brahmapootra, where, in the 
 neighbourhood of Eungpore, he received during an engagement a shot in 
 the lungs. This dangei'ous wound occasioned his return to Europe, and 
 led ultimately to his abandonment of the service. He then proceeded in the 
 Castle Huntly to China, and it was during this voyage that he formed the 
 grand design to the accomplishment of which he has since devoted his life. 
 The spending many months at sea, whatever may be the studies or pur- 
 suits of the voyager, is in most cases felt to be extremely tedious. People 
 torture their invention, therefore, to hit upon new methods of kUling time. 
 Sir James (then Mr) Brooke and his friends plamied for this purpose the 
 publication of a newspaper, to be written in verse. Sir James was chosen 
 editor, and supplied numerous conti'ibutions under the formidable signature 
 of Cholera -MORBUS. Mr St Jolm has published a specimen of the 
 poetry in his ' Views in Borneo ; ' and there are several others before us 
 in manuscript of much merit, but filled with allusions to persons and cir- 
 cumstances of the hour, which would require a commentary to render 
 them generally intelligible. But everywhere, in the midst of much gaiety, 
 we discover traces of a thoughtfulness approaching to melancholy, with a 
 strong relish of the beauties of external nature, and a tendency towards 
 solitude and meditation. A second voyage to the Celestial Empire only 
 served to confirm him in his purpose, by disclosing the commercial value of 
 the Archipelago, and suggesting the means by which a civilising influence 
 might be communicated to its vast and varied population. 
 
 From studyuag the history of the group, he perceived that, besides the 
 evils resulting from the wild passions of the natives, other causes mate- 
 rially contributed to repress commerce and mdustry. The Spaniai-ds in the 
 north, and the Dutch in the south, pursuing a narrow and debasing policy, 
 reduced the population under their sway to a state of helpless effeminacy. 
 Sloth and superstition combined to check aU progress in the Philippines, 
 while a savage and relentless system of monopoly shed a perpetual blight 
 over Java, Sumatra, and the Moluccas. Even the mighty island of Borneo 
 — as, in imitation of the Spaniards, we denominate the Pulo Kalamantan of 
 the natives — was not free from the encroaching and pernicious policy of 
 the Netherlands ; which, while Great Britain neglected to assert the rights 
 secured to her by treaty, proceeded with remorseless ambition and cruelty 
 to subjugate one aboriginal tribe after another, everywhere estabhshing, 
 together with its authority, that jealous system of exclusion which has 
 invariably characterised the commercial transactions of Holland. 
 
 Succeeding, on the death of his father, to a large fortune, Sir Jamee 
 Brooke fitted out a handsome yacht, and, with vast ideas in his mind, bent 
 his course towai'ds the extremities of the Indian Ocean. At a distance 
 * 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 perhaps the imagination may contrive to invest with something like 
 grandeur the fierce and vindictive struggles of barbarians. But war, 
 ten-ible in all its aspects, becomes at once revolting and contemptible when 
 we discover on what paltry principles, and in how pitiful and degrading a 
 manner, it is carried on among the Malays, for example, and Dyaks of 
 Borneo. In immense systems of operations, the littleness of the motives 
 in which they originate is often lost sight of; but when avarice, revenge, 
 treacliery, cruelty, and a cunning scarcely worthy of the inferior animals, 
 appear in all their naked deformity before us, they irresistibly excite our 
 detestation and our scorn, and inspire us with the wish that any equitable 
 means could be discovered of arresting their progi-ess. 
 
 It is this feeling that induces us to follow with so deep a sympathy the 
 career of Sir James Brooke. On his arrival in Sarawak — the capital of 
 which, now dignified by the name of the province, was then called Cuching 
 — he found the Rajah Muda Hassim engaged m hostilities with several of 
 the Dyak tribes. Through the instrumentality of this man, to whom Sir 
 James Brooke afforded important aid, he was enabled to obtain a footing in 
 the island ; his own courage, prudence, and generosity did the rest. As 
 was natural, the unfortunate aborigines immediately became bound by a 
 strong attachment to him. To them kindness and disinterestedness were 
 things altogether new. From the Malays they had never experienced 
 anything but oppression ; and therefore, on seeing a man invested with 
 power without exhibiting an inclination to make use of it to their detri- 
 ment, their hearts were tilled with unwonted pleasure, and his influence 
 over them became unbounded. At the bidding of their new ruler they 
 relinquished their immemorial habits and prejudices, gradually abandoning 
 the slaughter of men and women for their heads, and, what was stiU more 
 wonderful in savages, exchanged the enjoyment of sloth and listless indo- 
 lence for the painful processes of industry. 
 
 On the arrival of Sir James Brooke, the capital of Sarawak numbered no 
 more than from 1500 to 1800 inhabitants, including the Malays, who had 
 come thither with Muda Hassim from Brunt?. No sooner, however, had the 
 Englishman been proclaimed rajah, and given proofs of the mildness and 
 equity of his rule, than the population began insensibly to augment. Until 
 then, the province, from the seacoast to the mountams, had presented 
 little to the eye but the iiTegular undulations of one vast forest. Here 
 and there, indeed, in spots so diminutive as to be almost imperceptible, tlie 
 wretched Dyaks had cut do^vn a few trees, erected small hamlets, and 
 commenced an imperfect and scanty cultivation. Everywhere else nature 
 reigned in all her wild magnificence. Trees of enormous height were 
 united to each other by screens and canopies of parasites, whose bright 
 flowers at particular seasons of the year seem to set the forest in a blaze. 
 The smaller rivers ran during nearly their whole course under leafy arches, 
 and even the larger streams appeared, as you ascended tliem, to be over- 
 hung with cloistered roofs, rent and shattered by time, so far and so 
 densely did the trees project their mighty boughs over them. 
 
 A change was soon visible. The clearings commenced in the neighbour- 
 hood of the capital, where, upon what had so lately been the site of the 
 pruneval wilderness, you beheld trun gardens and plantations of cocoa-nut 
 trees. The sound of the axe was perpetually heard among the forests, and 
 
Chambers's papers for the people, 
 
 the song of the woodman mingled with the crash of falling timber, the low- 
 ing of kine, and the shouts and laughter of children. The city increased 
 as if by magic. Trading prahus crowded thither from all the neighbouring 
 provhices, mingling with English ships of war, and square-rigged merchant 
 vessels from Singapore, Pinang, and other British settlements. Scarcely 
 had Singapore or Aden risen to importance with greater rapidity. From 
 the dimensions of an insignificant vUlage, Sarawak swelled, in the course 
 of a few years, mto a city, with a population which at the present moment 
 falls in all likelihood but little short of 20,000. 
 
 A similar growth and improvement have taken place throughout the 
 country, where the villages are enlarging and multiplying, cultivation 
 extending its empke over hill and valley, gold-washmgs carried on with 
 activity, mines sunk, and trade daily acquiring fresh development. An 
 English church, with its unpicturesque. Puritanical architecture, is now 
 rearing its head beside a Mohammedan mosque ; schools have been opened 
 for the education of Malays and Dyaks ; and printing-presses, we under- 
 stand, will soon be at woi'k to diffuse the knowledge of the West among 
 the natives, and send information to Europe of the progress made by 
 Borneo in knowledge and civilisation. 
 
 From the point of time at which we now stand it is impossible to foresee 
 all the consequences of the movement which has been commenced by our 
 adventurous and noble coimtryman. We make no doubt, however, that 
 the whole interior of Borneo will soon be penetrated and quickened by his 
 influence. Unfortunately insuperable obstacles stand in the way of our 
 discovering what is thought among the tribes of the interior of the new 
 light at this moment beheld blazing on the coast ; but we know that no- 
 thing is done in Sarawak the consequences of which do not immediately 
 vibrate through the whole population, including even those tribes whose 
 very names are not with certainty known to the Malays. As on the 
 discovery of America messengers carried across the whole continent news 
 of the arrival of the strangers, so Sir James Brooke's advent in Sarawak 
 was notified to the chiefs and sultans whose territories are situated on the 
 extreme limits of Pulo Kalamantan towards the East. Opinion, therefore, it 
 is certam, is already over the entire surface of the island preparing the way 
 for a better order of things. Among listless savages the first and chief 
 step is to arouse attention, to awaken hope, or even to excite terror. No- 
 thing is so fatal to man as mere stagnation, which now no longer exists in 
 Borneo, except where the deadening influence of the Netherlands draws a 
 wall of circumvallation around the tributary natives. 
 
 But whatever may be the remote consequences of Sir James Brooke's 
 operations in the Ai'chipelago, it is certain that many hostile influences 
 must be overcome before any great amount of good can be effected. No 
 sooner had he set foot in Borneo, than the jealousy of Spain and Holland 
 was awakened. The Dutch pretended that by the treaty of 1824 the 
 English were entirely excluded from holding any possessions in the Archi- 
 pelago ; and they chose to regard Sir James Brooke's proceedings as 
 originating with the nation to which he belonged. A wholesome fear, 
 however, of the anger of Great Britain restrained them from acts of 
 violence. They contented themselves with calumniating and maligning 
 6 
 
UAJAIl DKOOKE AND liOKNEO. 
 
 him ; and, as we shall presently see, it was not long before they found 
 coadjutors in this honourable task among our own countrymen. 
 
 The most formidable difficulties, however, remain still to be described. 
 In various parts of the Archipelago were found communities of Malay or 
 Arab descent, strengthened frequently by alliance with native tribes, which, 
 relying on their superior intelligence, and restrained by no motives of 
 morality or religion, addicted themselves, without disguise, to the practice 
 of piracy. The term, indeed, requires in their case to be understood in a 
 sense somewhat dift'erent from that in wliich it is employed by Europeans. 
 It does not, in the Twelve Thousand Islands, exclusively signify robbing 
 on the high seas, but includes the burning and plunder of villages, the 
 wanton ravaging of sea-coasts, the capturing of women and children, and 
 wholesale dealing in slaves. Of tlie number of those engaged in working 
 this dreadful sj-stem no exact idea can perhaps be formed ; but their force 
 is so great, that it suffices, when dispersed and scattered, to carry on opera- 
 tions upon nearly aU points of the Archipelago at once. Persons ignorant 
 of the truth, or interested in misrepresenting it, have recently endeavoured 
 to propagate extremely eiToneous views of these piratical hordes ; of whom, 
 with the artifices of vulgar rhetoric, they have spoken, according to the 
 purpose of the moment, in friendly or contemptuous language. According 
 to them, there exists beyond the Straits of IMjilacca no such thing as 
 piracy. What we designate by that name, they, under the impulse of a 
 more enlarged humanity, denominate * intertribual wars,' with which, as 
 they interpret the laws of nations, we have no right to interfere. 
 
 To enter into discussion -with such individuals would be utterly unavail- 
 ing : their arguments are as untenable as their doctrines are false and dan- 
 gerous ; because, while making large professions of philanthropy, the efiect 
 of then* proceedings would, if successful, be to abandon to mutual extermi- 
 nation the rude or half-ciNilised inhabitants of numerous rich and spacious 
 islands or groups. Their cry, incessantly repeated, is, that the piracy of 
 the Malays and Dyaks, supposing it to deserve the name, does not interfere 
 ■with the commerce of Europeans. It confines its attacks entirely, as they 
 maintain, to the aborigines of the Twelve Thousand Islands ; for which 
 reason, according to their principles of policy, we should look on with 
 imperturbable indifi'erence, however general may be the deluge of misery 
 it Inflicts upon the populations of the Archipelago. 
 
 We win not, however, insult the people of this country so far as to 
 imagine they can possibly be indifiereut to the sufferings even of the most 
 barbarous tribes, whose ignorance or want of refinement does not place 
 them beyond the cii'cle of humanity. To carry on hostilities against bar- 
 barism, we must derive fresh resources from the veiy process itself. This 
 we can only do through the development of commerce. A man ceases to 
 be a savage when you awaken in him the desire to buy and sell. He 
 thenceforward turns his attention to some form of industry : to the collec- 
 tion of gimis, or feathers, or shells, or birds'-nests, or canes, or aromatic 
 barks, or other wild productions of the forest. He ceases to think exclu- 
 sively of bloodshed ; and if the life of man does not immediately become 
 more sacred in his eyes, to take it certainly ceases to be tliought so desir- 
 able as fonnerly. He prefers trafficking with to killing him; and by a sort 
 of invisible network of profit and loss, he thus comiects himself with other 
 
 7 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 members of his species, and recovers the oi'iginal conviction of our race- 
 that we are all brethren. 
 
 In what way precisely these ideas take root and germinate in his mind, 
 it exceeds our metaphysics to explain ; but experience indisputably proves 
 that a strong taste for commerce leads by the shortest road to civilisation. 
 At the same time it must not be forgotten that in rude conditions of 
 society various influences apparently contradictory are at work. Thus 
 where trade lias made considerable progress, it is generally accompanied 
 by piracy ; and the reason is plain : there are in all societies large bodies 
 of men with the taste for such enjoyments as wealth can purchase, but 
 without those habits of patient industry which would enable them to 
 acquu-e wealth ; to these arms supply a short road to enjoyment. They 
 seize by force what others have created or amassed ; and finding the 
 method agreeable, pursue and convert it into a profession. 
 
 In the Indian Archipelago, long before the advent of Europeans, men of 
 this class everywhere abounded. As the temptations to rob on the high 
 seas always existed, so likewise perhaps did pirates ; but they began to 
 multiply and appear in gi-eat force towards the decline of the native govern- 
 ments, particularly in Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. 
 Similar phenomena have accompanied the decay of most empires, but in 
 that part of the Avorld many causes concurred to produce the same effect. 
 However, the chief impulse seems to have been derived from the interven- 
 tion of Western enterprise, which, by destroying the power of the native 
 princes without immediately setting up anything in its place, left the 
 bucaneering chiefs a clear stage for their ambition. Accordingly, in nearly 
 all the groups of islands, from Papua on the east, to Sumatra on the west, 
 the sea-marauders flourished and became numerous. The nature of the seas 
 afforded them every possible advantage for carrying on their calling success- 
 fully : large and endless coral-reefs, of which they alone perhaps knew the 
 secret entrances and exits ; narrow channels between islands ; gulfs, shoals, 
 creeks, and bays ; and on the great islands innumerable rivers ; with a vast 
 network of branches, channels, deltas, sandbanks, and diverging mouths. 
 In this way trade was everywhere beset by formidable enemies. It may 
 perhaps excite surprise that obstacles so great and so numerous did not 
 altogether deter native merchants from entering upon the speculations ot 
 commerce ; but they acted under the same influence with the pirates them- 
 selves—namely, the love of gain ; which, if it did not render them insen- 
 sible to danger, at least enabled them to encounter it. Besides, there is a 
 principle in human nature which produces a flux and reflux in all such 
 affairs, and this sometimes gave the ascendancy to the enemies of trade ; 
 sometimes, by exciting the merchants to resistance, it led to the cultivation 
 on then* part of warlike habits, which again frequently produced equally 
 evil results ; for traders who had been triumphant in their encounter with 
 pirates, acquu-ed fearlessness and proneness to contention, which at times 
 induced them to attack persons who were not pirates ; or, in other words, 
 to become bucaneers themselves. 
 
 By such means were the populations of the Archipelago corrupted and 
 
 deteriorated till the period of Sir James Brooke's arrival. The mischief 
 
 had acquired its greatest development, and become formidable even to the 
 
 commerce of the West. For nothing can be more absurd than the oft- 
 
 8 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND DOUNEO. 
 
 repeated assertion, that the ph-ates of those seas never attack square-rigged 
 vessels, or any craft manned by European sailors. To introduce a dry list 
 of the ships captured, and of the crews reduced by the Malays or Dyaks 
 to servitude, would be totally beside our purpose. But we may observe in 
 general terms, that both European and American vessels have been assailed 
 and plundered by the bucaneers of the Archipelago ; and that not once or 
 twice, but frequently. Sir James Brooke himself ransomed from slavery 
 several unfortunate crews, partly Lascar, and partly English, who, by the 
 ■wrecking of their barks, had been thrown into the hands of the piratical 
 tribes ; and there ai'e on record numerous other examples, particularly on 
 the Sulu group, whither the Illanuns and Balanini usually conveyed their 
 unfortunate captives for sale. 
 
 We have, besides, in favour of this view of the subject tlie testimony of 
 the Dutch writers, not one of whom has ever attempted to deny the exist- 
 ence in tlie Archipelago of a formidable system of piracy. They main- 
 tain that every portion of the vast group teems with bucaneers, and 
 recount with laborious industry the efforts made, during 147 years, by the 
 Netherlands government for the extirpation of the system. Among the 
 regulations put in force by the Dutch, both in Java and the Moluccas, and 
 indeed in various parts of Borneo itself, there was one which indicates the 
 extreme difficulty encountered by our neighboui-s in the undertaking: 
 they forbade the natives in all the islands nominally under their sway 
 to arm their prahus, or to have, under any pretence, more than a certain 
 number of men on board, whether crew or passengers. 
 
 The consequences might have been foreseen : the bolder and more 
 spirited among the natives disregarded the absurd injunction, while those 
 who obeyed it fell an easy prey to the pirates. Had the Dutch been lords- 
 paramount throughout the Archipelago, or had they even possessed a fleet 
 sufficiently powerful to punish the piratical communities, one after another, 
 the result might have been different. As it was, they only multiplied the 
 victims of dishonesty by placing all trading prahus belonging to countries 
 under their influence at the mercy of the bucaneers. 
 
 Another important point must not be lost sight of : finding itself alto- 
 gether incapable of dealing single-handed with the evil, the Netherlands 
 government, upon the recovery of its Eastern possessions, stipulated by 
 treaty that Great Britain should aid it in reducing to obedience such 
 native tribes as still addicted themselves to piracy. Had Holland itself 
 been equal to the performance of this task, its natural jealousy woidd have 
 prevented it from seeking our co-operation. But the experience of a cen- 
 tuiy and a-half had sufficed to convince it of its incapacity. Even its ships 
 of war had been often defeated or captured by the native prahus ; and 
 examples are related of Dutch officers having been sold for slaves, and 
 ransomed from captivity by Chinese merchants. Besides, disguise it how 
 they may, no doubt can be entertained that both Javanese and Dutch 
 ladies have been taken from their own dwellings in Java, and transferred 
 to the harems of the native chiefs on the eastern coast of Borneo. Those 
 wi-iters, consequently, who now seek to propagate the belief that Malay 
 and Dyak piracy, though a nuisance, is not formidable, argue an entire 
 ignorance of the facts, or else dishonestly misrepresent them. Precisely 
 the same remark will apply to those speakers in parliament who have 
 34 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 recently rendered themselves somewhat notorious by their hostility towards 
 the civilising operations of the rajah of Sarawak. 
 
 Returning to the pirates, we may now venture to take it for granted that 
 they are at once numerous and formidable. But the English government, 
 though by treaty it promised assistance to Holland, neglected for many 
 years to redeem its pledge. Little progress was therefore made towards 
 removing the obstacles which had so long obstructed the ti-ack of commerce 
 in the Archipelago. Left to themselves, the Dutch adopted that course of 
 policy which they found most practicable — attacking the pirates when it 
 was in their power, at other times avoiding quarrels with them, or even, as 
 has been reported, conniving at their misdeeds, and lending them the 
 countenance of their national flag. Wlio supplied the marauders with 
 ammunition is not exactly known : several nations have been suspected, 
 we ourselves among the rest. But the greatest weight of evidence seems 
 to be cast into the scale against the Netherlanders, Avho have never been 
 too scrupulous in the exercise of their craft and calling as merchants. 
 
 The reader will by tliis time be disposed to experience no surprise at 
 beholding the piratical system taking root in every part of the Archi- 
 pelago, springing up into luxuriance, and rendering itself foi-raidable, both 
 to the native governments and to traders from the West. Scarcely a single 
 tribe of warlike people escaped the taint. There is a charm in danger 
 — a fascination in the look of death which often allures brave men from 
 the path of duty. They forget the ethics of the case, and stimulated by 
 their courage, rush to conflict, that they may enjoy its intense excitement. 
 Civilisation curbs this appetite, but can never eradicate it. All men, at 
 the bottom of their hearts, feel a propensity towards strife ; and even when 
 most refined, have the original savage very easily awakened in them. 
 
 It accordingly requires no great efi'ort of the imagination to comprehend 
 the force of temptation held out to wild and dai-ing barbai-ians by the ap- 
 pearance of a piratical fleet preparing to put to sea. "We must pictiure to 
 ourselves nearly all the men of a tribe descending from then- dwellmgs 
 towards the beach, accompanied so far by their wives and children, by tlieir 
 encouragement and applause urging them to battle. Let us imagine hun- 
 dreds of gallant prahus, heaving and tossing on the waves, tom-toms 
 beating, streamers of all colours flying, guns, spears, matchlocks, and 
 krises flashing in the sun, and thousands of dusky visages inflamed with 
 flery passions. Over such men the public opmion of distant commimities 
 can be expected to exercise no influence. They have a public opinion of 
 their ouai, and this incites them to brave death and danger in piu-suit of 
 plunder. They may possibly, if they ever reason on tlie matter at all, con- 
 found their predatory expeditions with legitimate warfare, since it is a pre- 
 valent practice of mankind as far as possible to colour their vices with 
 some appearances of virtue. But then- warfare, if it deserve the name, is 
 carried on indiscriminately against all they meet, even their next-door 
 neighbours and countrymen. Whatever weaker than themselves they en- 
 counter on tlie sea is prey, as those pseudo-philanthropists, who so perti- 
 naciouiily declaim about their innocence, would be very speedily taught had 
 tliey tlie ill-luck to be found in their way. 
 
 Of the strengtli of the bucaneering fleets the most varied estimate must 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 be formed, since they have sometimes been known to amount to 400 
 prahus, and occasionally not to exceed five or six. No useful purpose 
 could be served by exaggeration. We will therefore suppose that when 
 writers speak of a fleet of 400 prahus, they mean to include small boats 
 and canoes, or perhaps indulge in a mere rough approximation. Could 
 we, however, adopt their view, we must believe that 20,000 pirates, at 
 the lowest reckoning, have sometimes gone forth on the same expedition, 
 in which case it would be dithcult to exaggerate the disastrous conse- 
 quences to the industrious and peaceful among the natives. In our own 
 day rumour has spoken of fleets fallmg little short of 200 prahus; but 
 we believe the largest actually seen by Sir James Brooke contained no 
 more than ninety- eight. But even of these the united crews could not 
 fall much short of 3000 men, all armed to the teeth, and inspured by an 
 insatiable appetite for rapine and plimder. 
 
 The very history of an expedition of this sort must suffice to convince 
 all reasonable persons that it is not to be regarded as any modification 
 whatsoever of legitimate warfare. For the fleet does not proceed to 
 attack the ports or fleets of any neighbouring or hostile tribe, as might 
 be inferred from the vocabulary of those who employ the phrase of ' in- 
 tertribual wars,' but taking the widest possible range, extends its ravages 
 to the most distant islands of the Ai'chipelago, and sometimes ventures 
 even to include Singapore within the scope of its operations. It is 
 an mdisputable fact, that small vessels belongmg to that British port 
 had been captured amongst the intricate channels of the neighbouring 
 groups, after which the bucaneers, disguising themselves as fishermen or 
 honest traders, have boldly entered the harbour, and sold both the vessels 
 and the merchandise they contamed to the Kling, Chinese, or Malay 
 residents. Of course the crews of such unfortunate vessels were otherwise 
 disposed of — that is, were either murdered in cold blood, or sold for slaves 
 in some distant island. 
 
 On other occasions, when the pirates confine their ambition to humbler 
 achievements, they sweep along the coast of some gi-eat island, such as 
 Pulo Kalamantan, plundering, ravaging, burning, and collecting captives 
 as they advance. When their force is sufficiently gi-eat to inspire them 
 with confidence, they ascend some river, and attack in succession all the 
 towns erected on its banks. The plan they pursue is generally this : a 
 party disembarks, and penetrating through the jungle, hems in the de- 
 voted settlement on the land side, wliQe a cordon of prahus develops 
 itself along the beach. The inhabitants rush to arms, and defend them- 
 selves, sometimes not without success, attacking perhaps and burning the 
 enemies' vessels. More commonly, however, the assailants triumph, the 
 village is sacked and destroyed, and the unfortunate inhabitants driven 
 into the wilderness. 
 
 Sometimes they carry out their design in a more diaboUcal manner. 
 Approaching the village under cover of night, with the utmost silence and 
 secrecy they surround it completely on all sides; and while the main 
 body stand ready with their spears and matchlocks to slaughter all who 
 may attempt escape, a few kindle torches, and advance and fire the 
 houses. A loud shout is then simultaneously raised, the more completely 
 to bewilder the inmates, who, awaking in the midst of noise and flames, 
 
 U 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 rush forth blindly in the first impulse of terror, and are easily speared 
 by the pirates. On all the men death is inflicted m this way, but the 
 women and children are as far as possible preserved, to be disposed of in 
 the slave-markets. This strongly reminds us of the slave-hunts in the 
 interior of Africa, which indeed are conducted on precisely the same 
 principles, and with the same objects. 
 
 There are, however, some ciixumstances in the condition of the pirates 
 of the Archipelago which may assist considerably m misleading the pro- 
 fessional philanthropists of the West. The marauders do not entu-ely 
 subsist by plundering on the high seas: in the intervals between their 
 depredations they closely resemble their neighbours in manners and occu- 
 pations, applying themselves to fishing, trading, collecting the produce of 
 the surrounding forests, or even cultivating the soil, the process least re- 
 concilable with the habits of a bucaneer. An author, who, though ac- 
 quainted with the Archipelago, is, upon the whole, more remarkable for 
 his injudicious zeal than for his accuracy, mamtams that the pursuit of 
 gardening is incompatible with dishonesty. Whether or not he is borne 
 out by the experience of mankhid, we shall not undertake to determme ; 
 but this we know, that what he regards as a law of universal application, 
 by no means holds good beyond the states of Malacca. The fact may run 
 counter to the principle of this ^vl•iter's Utopia, but a fact it unfortunately 
 is, and there is consequently no getting rid of it. 
 
 As we have observed, then, the Malays, Dyaks, and Arabs, who in the 
 Archipelago chiefly subsist by making war upon industry, are neveilheless 
 at intervals themselves mdustrious. Pitching upon a suitable situation, 
 they erect for themselves neat and capacious villages, which, because they 
 are extremely peculiar, it may perhaps be worth while to describe briefly. 
 In Borneo, as generally in all fertile countries near the equator, the trees 
 attain an immense bulk and height, and in the primeval wilderness grow 
 close together. With a taste and originality of conception, suggested at 
 first perhaps by the nature of the climate, they ascend these vast denizens 
 of the forest, and cut off the head and projecting branches at the height of 
 about forty or fifty feet from the ground, and by barking, to prevent growth, 
 convert them into so many pillars. On the summit of these they lay the 
 foundations of their future village, Avhich thus, even in the most swampy 
 situations, is airy, cool, and healthy. The dwellings are formed with timber 
 and light cane-work, and witli republican simplicity are made all of equal 
 height and dimensions. Along its whole length runs a broad gallery or 
 veranda, witli low lattice-work in front, to prevent the children from 
 tumbling over. Frequently this gallery surrounds the whole village, and 
 commands magnificent prospects over the river and country. Ilei-e, in a 
 sort of cloistered shade and breezy elevation, the female pirates may be 
 seen sitting at work, or nursing their babes, while their husbands are on 
 their distant and dangerous depredations, or engaged in tending their 
 gardens, paddy plantations, or cocoa-nut groves. 
 
 It may perhaps be conjectured that the fondness for gardens has been 
 introduced by the Chinese into Pulo Kalamantan and other parts of tluB 
 Ai'chipelago ; for these people, rude and sensual in many otlier respects, 
 are highly poetical m their partiality for horticulture. Doubtless Euro- 
 peans, attached to their own theories in everything, would discover much 
 12 
 
RAJAII DROOKE AXD BORNEO. 
 
 to find fault witli in these piratical paradises. But with their trim beds, 
 their carefully-laid out alleys, their plants, llowers, and luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion, they must still present an extremely pleasing feature to the fancy. 
 Close at hand also are the cocoa-nut groves with their cleared stems 
 and clustering fruit, and long pendulous leaves waving lazily in the wind. 
 
 In the dwellings of the pirates the imagination may likewise tind some- 
 thing with which to interest itself. "^Tiere the Dyaks predominate, one 
 of the most remarkable objects perceived on entering is a number of 
 human heads, smoke-dried, and suspended in festoons or strings. These, 
 regarded as warlike trophies, are exhibited with pride by the inmates ; and 
 if any of those pei'ipatetic philanthropists who speak of them to the 
 credulous part of the public as simple and innocent natives, were to enter 
 one of these habitations, his sensibilities might perhaps be shocked by 
 the look of savage triumph with which the sanguinary master of the house 
 woiUd point out the accumulated trophies to his guest. 
 
 ' See,' he would exclaim, ' the undeniable proofs of how many villages 
 I have sacked, how many pralius T have captured, and how many men 
 and women I have decapitated. There are their grinning skulls, smoke- 
 dried, and preserved according to the traditional practice of my ancestors. 
 Stranger from the West! admire my prowess, and learn to respect the 
 hardihood with which I hazard my own life in order to take that of my 
 neighbour! This is corn-age, this is what we call war! The blood of all 
 the individuals to whom those heads belong would, if collected, float a 
 prahu ! In them, therefore, do you behold the record of my achievements 
 — the proof that I belong to that independent race whose hand is against 
 every man, and every man's hand against it ! ' 
 
 AJaother cu-cumstance connected with this exhibition of human heads 
 must not be overlooked. In many Dyak villages there is a large building 
 set apart, in which they are all collected, and transmitted from one genera- 
 tion to another. This is at once their guest-house and their temple, so 
 that superstition may be suspected of stepping in and affording its sanc- 
 tion to this mimemorial system of decapitation : — 
 
 ' Tanta potuit religio suadere malorum ! ' 
 
 Still we must not forget that although some of the boldest and bravest 
 among the pirates of the Aixhipelago are Dyaks, the Malays also and Ai-abs 
 occasionally betake themselves to the same profession, and subsist by 
 the plunder of the merchant. That there should be Arabs at aU in that 
 distant part of Asia may justly excite the reader's surprise, especially when 
 he learns their numbers, and the amount of power they have at times 
 ^\'ielded among the native tribes. Unfortunately we may almost be said 
 to knoAv as much of the irruption of the Heracleidse mto the Peloponnesus, 
 as of the emigi-ation of these men eastwards from the Ai-abian peninsula. 
 We must suppose, however, that when Islamism was communicating its 
 mighty impulse to the populations of Western Asia, and throwing them 
 forth like lava streams, to overflow the neighbouring countries in all direc- 
 tions, a section of the bold race, half-prophets, half-adventurers, carried the 
 sword of the faith to the very gates of the Celestial Empire, everwhere 
 triumphing, either by the force of their arras or by the superiority of their 
 knowledge and understandings. "VMien the Moslems, elevated into a subli- 
 
 13 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 inity of character by their belief in the unity of God, first left their homes, 
 there was not a region in the world in which they would not find themselves 
 superior to all they met. With unparalleled disinterestedness, singleness 
 of purpose, and enthusiasm, they undertook the conquest of the world, 
 not so much to acquire riches and dominion for themselves, as to insure 
 reverence to the truths they taught, and the morality which, for a time, 
 they unquestionably practised. 
 
 Arriving m the Twelve Thousand Islands, they easily acquu-ed among 
 the rude natives both respect and power. Teachers first, they soon 
 became rulers, magistrates, and lawgivers. Being few in number, they 
 yet inspu-ed terror by the energy of then- character, and their indomitable 
 courage. Unsusceptible of the passion of fear, they exposed themselves, 
 without shrinking, to the greatest danger, firmly persuaded that they 
 must obtain power on earth or the crown of martyrdom in heaven. 
 
 This ardoui", by the operation of those laws which, though their in- 
 fluence may be eluded for a season, universally govern human nature, 
 cooled by degi-ees, and became intermingled with more secular passions. 
 The Arabs were soon tempted to carry on the work of proselyte-making 
 for the purpose of securing sceptres to themselves. They taught, that they 
 might subdue ; indoctrinated, that they might govern. Their faith in El 
 Islam might be sincere, but it was profitable ; and they discovered a mighty 
 El Dorado in the feeble and flexible intelligences of the heathen nations 
 around them. What was first apostleship, therefore, speedily became ambi- 
 tion ; and the chikken of Mohammed achieved for themselves sovereignties, 
 erected palaces, organized harems, and delighted their epicurean fancies 
 with a blaze of gi-andeur and magnificence scarcely known to the sultans 
 of Egypt, or the still more voluptuous shahs of Iran. 
 
 Within the limits we have traced out for ourselves, it would be impos- 
 sible to give even a sketch of the history of the Mohammedan kingdoms, 
 which, in a wonderfully short space of time, were erected in the Archi- 
 pelago. Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Timor, and Borneo, submitted to the 
 sway of Moslem princes, who, possessing the elements of a civilisation 
 elevated very far above that of the natives, may be said to have done good 
 service by enlightening and humanising their subjects. Were it practicable 
 to follow the footsteps of the Arabs, with their descendants and disciples, 
 through the Twelve Thousand Islands, we might possibly delineate a 
 picture as curious and instructive as any in history ; but for this adequate 
 materials no longer exist, or exist only in the unknown libraries of the 
 Archipelago itself. What the Ai-abs of Egypt, of the Hejaz, of Yemen, of 
 Oman, Bagdad, and Kufa, thought of the achievements of their countrymen 
 in the East may be learned from the narratives of the ' Thousand-and-One 
 Nights.' Our knowledge does not enable us always to fix the scenes of 
 those marvellous fictions, but in every page we discover evidence that the 
 imagination of the Moslems figured to itself a boundless world m the 
 recesses of the Eastern ocean, where islands and continents of miimaginable 
 extent and fabulous opulence stretched away intenninably towards the 
 rising sun. There it was supposed merchants might wander for ever from 
 isle to isle among barbarians and cannibals, reluctantly subject to sultans 
 instructed in the principles of El Islam. 
 
 The sultanate of Mataram in Java, and tliat of Brune in Pulo Kala- 
 
 14 
 
RA.IAII BROOKE AND BOUNEO. 
 
 mantan, acquired extraordinary lead and authority ; and we should perhaps 
 be within the limits of truth were we to assert that tiiere was not one 
 large island, in tlie whole of the mighty group, which did not experience 
 more or less the influence of Mohammedanism. 
 
 What direction this civilisation might have taken had it been left 
 freely to develop itself, cannot now of course be determined, because, in 
 the midst of its career, the natives of the West made their appearance 
 in the Archipelago, and subverted or threw into inextricable confusion 
 the whole of this extraordinary system of society. The Portuguese 
 iuid Spaniards took the lead, and for a while reaped a golden harvest ; 
 but the former at least were not destined to obtain a permanent footmg 
 in the Twelve Thousand Islands. Drifting away towards China and 
 Japan, where, at the outset, they met with gi-eater encouragement, they 
 left the Castilians to struggle with the Dutch for supremacy in the 
 Archipelago, where the rich and beautiful group of the Philippines 
 still yields obedience to Spain. 
 
 It is impossible to relate without regret the deeds perpetrated here 
 by the adventurers from Western Europe. At the suggestion of national 
 pride and sectarian anunosity the Spaniards diffused everywhere through 
 the islands the belief that the English and Dutch were rebels and pirates, 
 who, having subverted theu- governments, and trampled their religion under 
 foot, were sailing at random over the ocean in search of plunder or new 
 settlements. As far as our countrymen were concerned, their plan suc- 
 ceeded, for, after repeated attempts to open a lucrative trade, and estab- 
 lish factories in that part of the world, tliey found themselves distanced 
 by their competitors, and retreated, though unwillingly, from the tield. 
 But between the Spaniards and the Dutch the conflict was long con- 
 tinued, and indeed can scarcely be said to be ended yet, since, though 
 the southern division of tlie islands owns more or less the sway of 
 Holland, all the groups to the north of the equator are either subject 
 to the successors of Ferdinand and Isabella, or regard them with more 
 friendly sentiments. 
 
 Reverting to the past, it was a sad day for the Mohammedan sultans 
 when the Dutch, emerging from the Straits of Sunda, made their appearance 
 on the northern coast of Java. Not that they displayed any peculiar 
 hostility to the believers in the Koran, but with the impartiality of 
 ignorance and cupidity, assailed with equal relentlessness tlie heretical 
 sectaries of Brahminism and the believers in the aboriginal superstitions of 
 the islands. To enter into the details of their sanguinary proceedings would 
 be incompatible with oiu- design. We shall scarcely allude, therefore, to 
 the sad catastroplie of Madura, to the cruelties practised at Bantam, 
 or to that treacherous policy by which one native prince was armed 
 against another, until they were all degraded or subdued. 
 
 Had the civilisation of the West been substituted at once for the 
 system introduced by the Arabs, little evil miglit perhaps have ensued. 
 The islands would have changed masters, but they would not liave been 
 thrust back into barbarism. Through the course, liowever, which events 
 actually took, one set of institutions was destroyed, not to be succeeded 
 by another, but by that armed despotism which signifies the absence of 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBEBS'S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 everything desei'ving the name of an institution. Spain has no doubt 
 much to answer for in the East as well as in the West ; and were the 
 exhibition of her crimes our present object, we should animadvert on her 
 delinquencies with becoming severity. But what the people of this 
 country cliiefly designate when they speak of the Indian Archipelago, is 
 that portion of the Twelve Thousand Islands which has had the misfor- 
 tmie to be governed, directly or indirectly, for a long series of years, 
 through the medium of Dutch policy, probably the most corrupting that 
 has ever exercised its influence over half-civilised nations. 
 
 It may seem a paradox, but is yet a plain truth borne out by expe- 
 rience, that conquests effected by overwhelming force are preferable in 
 every respect to conquests brought about by craft, because in the fonner 
 case the viitue of the subjugated nation may not be wholly extirpated by 
 its fall, whereas in the latter it is its very degradation that leads to its 
 enslavement. AU subjection to foreign power is in itself an evil, because 
 the absence of sympathy between the governors and the governed neces- 
 sarily produces a secret struggle, which must either lead to the overthrow 
 of authority, or to the moral corruption and degeneracy of the subject 
 race. If there be any exception to this rule, it takes place when they 
 who establish the new dommiou are so tilled with the consciousness of 
 Iheu- o^vn just intentions, as to entertain no fear for their supremacy. 
 They then exert themselves to elevate the ethical condition of the people 
 among whom their lot is cast, and measure the success of their policy by 
 the prosperity and contentment of the greater number. 
 
 Such of late years has been the system pursued in our Asiatic empire, 
 where we have earnestly and sincerely labom-ed to sow the seeds of 
 knowledge, morality, and religion ; but it is in the power of no principles 
 of politics or civilisation to alter the laws of nature, and therefore, in spite 
 of our enlarged and enlightened statesmanship, the subjugated nations of 
 India must still pay the penalty of having forfeited their independence. 
 
 Throughout the Oriental Archipelago the Dutch have illustrated by 
 their policy a principle of conquest the very reverse of ours. Their object 
 has been to establish at any price their own security, which they have 
 sought to effect by rendering wortliless and effeminate the populations 
 under their sway; and the mode in which they have extended their 
 authority lies no less open to objection than the manner in which they 
 have exercised it when acquired. Their practice is to inveigle one native 
 prince after another mto signing a commercial treaty with them — than 
 which, at first sight, nothing can appear more simple. The unfortunate 
 ruler whom it is designed to entrap is assured that nothing more is 
 signified by the treaty than that he will give a preference to the Dutch 
 merchants over those of other nations. It is not to be denied that Asiatic 
 politicians are themselves much given to craft and deception ; but the 
 hypocrisy of a barbarian is easily detected and seen through by a Euro- 
 pean diplomatist, who has derived from civilisation no advantage which 
 he values equally with the power to perplex, overreach, and enslave the 
 natives of less enlightened countries. 
 
 Accordingly, there has not been a single treaty concluded by the Dutch 
 with any sultan, rajah, or chief throughout the whole extent of insular 
 Asia, which ought not to be regarded as a monument of the superiority of 
 16 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 Europeans over those islanders in cunning. Adroitly, and with the most 
 exquisite sophistry, articles have been introduced into these conventions, 
 which, perfectly harmless in appearance, have concealed bcncatli a mass of 
 verbiage a recognition on the part of the native prince of the supremacy 
 of Holland. Without at all perceivmg it, ho has placed himself in the 
 position of a slave, deprived himself of the power to enter into negotia- 
 tions with any other European people, to have any commercial dealings 
 with them, or even to exercise over his own subjects certain rights of sove- 
 reignty. Experience has taught the Dutch that barbarians are never scrupu- 
 lous in the observance of commercial or political stipulations; and if it were 
 not so, they take care to make it difficult for their ally to avoid infringing 
 some of the conditions of the treaty. Ignorantly, and perhaps innocently, 
 he departs from the spirit of his mysterious engagement, upon which the 
 wretched man discovers for the first time that the signing of that fatal docu- 
 ment was tantamount to abdication; for that, instead of being master of his 
 own territories, he has dwindled into a Dutch agent, and has no longer any 
 power over his own actions. Should he disobey, in the minutest particular, 
 an envoy in a ship of war from Batavia soon arrives to admonish him, and the 
 fiery passions of the East almost mevitably betray hun mto some error, of 
 which the imperturbable sang froul of his allies takes instant advantage. 
 Indignant at having been outwitted, he now, too late perhaps, has recourse 
 to arms — is defeated and deposed, while his country is either confiscated or 
 placed in the hands of some chief who will consent to conduct its afiairs in 
 strict subservience to Dutch interest. 
 
 This, divested of names and dates, is the history of the subjugation of 
 numerous princes in Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. 
 Recently, the same atrocious maxuns of policy were attempted to be put 
 in practice m Bali and Lombok, and not entirely without success. The 
 Balinese expected succour from Great Britam, which, with a deference by 
 no means due to the Netherlands government, our mmisters refused to afford 
 them. In diplomacy, the reason by which their policy was regulated may be 
 good, but common sense, unversed in the arts of statesmanship, would pro- 
 nounce it pre-eminently unsatisfactory. It was merely the proximity of Bali 
 to Java which it was feared would make our intei-ference appear extremely 
 invidious. However, the wishes of the Balinese, over whom the Nether- 
 lands had no authority, ought to have been paramount in the British 
 cabinet, which so far, therefore, may be charged with having abandoned a 
 brave and independent people to the effect of the Dutch system — the most 
 pernicious that can possibly prevail. 
 
 Whatever ought, in strict justice, to be the determming reason of states 
 in their political proceedings, experience will not suffer us to doubt that 
 interest really exercises the most powerful influence. We ought to inquire, 
 therefore, into the wealth, actual or possible, of the Archipelago, in order 
 that we may convince a people chiefly swayed by commercial considera- 
 tions that we should be justified by prudence in carrying out the grand 
 scheme of policy which originated with Sir James Brooke. 
 
 Something has already been said of the productions of the Twelve Thou- 
 sand Islands, and every fact connected with them that has come to the 
 knowledge of Europeans goes to show their great wealth and importance. 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBERS'8 PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 On landing on a desert island, the navigator conjectures the quality of tlie 
 soil from the character and quantity of the timber it produces. But when an 
 island is peopled, a different rule of judgment is adopted, and an inference 
 favourable or otherwise is drawn from the number, wealth, and opulence of 
 the inhabitants. We may here adopt both these means towards arriving at 
 a correct conclusion. In all the islands, small or great, if we except a few 
 barren rocks, the vegetable kingdom is beyond expression rich and magni- 
 ficent. Nowhere else on the surface of the globe does the earth appear to 
 possess a more prolific virtue : trees of gigantic size, shrubs and creepers of 
 unparalleled beauty and luxuriance, flowers of the most gorgeous colours 
 and exquisite forms, and fruits unrivalled for then- fragrance and flavour, 
 present themselves to the traveller. The forests abound with odoriferous 
 gums, the seas and rivers with fish, the earth with the most costly gems and 
 with the most valuable minerals and metals. Nor are the inhabitants 
 without enterprise or ingenuity to turn these gifts of nature to account. 
 All the first processes of civilisation are in many parts carried on, and 
 it only needs the fostering influence of a just government to bring the 
 social system to maturity. 
 
 When we state that any particular division of the earth contains a cer- 
 tain number of people, we obviously imply that its resources, natural or 
 artificial, are adequate to their maintenance. Could we discover, therefore, 
 what is the exact population of the Archipelago, we should possess the 
 means of forming an estimate of its wealth and civilisation. But on this, 
 as on many other points, we are in the dark. The Dutch, for reasons not 
 difficult to be imagined, seek to propagate extremely false notions on the 
 subject. According to them, population has increased in an exact ratio to 
 the extent and stability of their power, and has reached its culminating 
 point in Java, which in all respects may be regarded as a province of 
 Holland. As you recede from the seat of their power, the population 
 becomes thinner and more scattered — first in Sumatra, then in the Spice 
 Islands, then in Celebes, and lastly in Borneo, which it suits their purpose 
 to represent as nearly depopulated. No doubt can be entertained that this 
 vast island, supposing it subjected to the empire of civilisation, could easily 
 support 70,000,000 of inhabitants, since it is nearly all rich and fertile; 
 the great deserts in the interior being purely the creations of the fancy 
 of a fantastic wi-iter, who has a particular end to serve by dealing in fabu- 
 lous descriptions. But what number of inhabitants do the Dutch assign 
 to this prodigious island? Very little more than 600,000 ! 
 
 Let our reader unfold before him the map of the Twelve Thousand 
 Islands, and glance over it from Papua in the east to the northern pomt 
 of Sumatra in the west, and ask himself if he can believe that considerably 
 more than half the population of the whole is concentrated in the island of 
 Java, to which our neighbours assign upwards of 10,000,000 of inhabitants. 
 Eecent investigations have proved that the natives of the Archipelago run 
 strangely enough mto exaggeration, in a direction the reverse of that which 
 we usually observe among other barbarous races. Having but imperfect 
 ideas of number, they greatly underrate the population of tlieir towns and 
 villages, and thus unintentionally mislead inquirers. But allowing for the 
 accidents of savage life, and drawing rational inferences from the history, 
 commerce, and natural condition of the various groups, we are convinced 
 18 
 
RAJAll BROOKE AND nORNEO. 
 
 that, by the most moderate computation, we may estimate the inhabitants 
 of the entire Archipelago at 40,000,000 in round numbers. 
 
 To say how tiiese numbers are distributed, would, in the present con- 
 dition of our knowledge, be impossible. "We accept the Dutch calculation 
 with respect to Java, and presume it to contain ten millions of people, 
 while the population of Sumatra ranges between five and six millions. 
 Bali, small as it is in dimensions, is supposed by many to possess 1,000,000 
 of inhabitants, so that there remains for Boraeo, Celebes, Papua, the Philip- 
 pmes, Magindanao, Palawan, the Molucca, and the Sulu islands, little more 
 than 23,000,000, which we hold to be absurd. Still, to avoid the slightest 
 risk of exaggeration, we adopt the low estimate we have mentioned. It 
 remains to be ascertained with how large a proportion of these England 
 could open a trade, supposing her to possess a sufficient number of settle- 
 ments on various parts of the Archipelago. We know that, until very 
 lately, it fomied one of the chief objects of Dutch policy to exclude us 
 from all participation in the commerce of Java, Sumatra, Celebes, and 
 Borneo. By oiu* owa weakness we have been excluded from the Spice 
 Islands ever since we restored them to our migrateful neighbours. Re- 
 cently, however, the pressure of circumstances at home has compelled 
 our ministers to scrutinise the treaties by which we were long supposed to 
 be excluded from the Aixhipelago ; and the result has been, to deny the 
 Dutch interpretation of those conventions, and in some measure to restore 
 their rights to the merchants of this country. By the adoption of a foreign 
 policy, in entire harmony with the spirit of the age, our merchants would 
 obtain access to every portion of the Twelve Thousand Islands — that is 
 to say, would be pemiitted to supply more or less largely with goods 
 40,000,000 of people. Many of these are still no doubt in a low stage of 
 civilisation. But supposing the piratical system to be at an end, there is 
 not a single island in the immense group which would not contribute valu- 
 able materials to the commerce of the world. Our imagination is too apt 
 to be dazzled by the mention of gold, and diamonds, and spices, and odori- 
 ferous gums, and all those other costly articles of luxury with wliich nearly 
 every part of Asia abounds. The Archipelago is not wanting in these fas- 
 cinating commodities. Gold and diamonds exist in great quantities in 
 Borneo ; but it is not on that account that we should desire to behold British 
 influence predominate in the island. To benefit the inhabitants as well as 
 ourselves, we should seek to call into play the productive powers of the soil — 
 far surer sources of riches than the most costly ores and gems. What these 
 resources are no man yet knows, though the late discovery of the qualities 
 of gutta percha may serve to justify the belief that thousands of articles 
 which might be converted to the use of civilised man still lie concealed in 
 the forests of the Archipelago. The finding of coal on Labuan and the 
 opposite shores of the greater island must suggest the propriety of 
 examining the natural wealth of the gi-oup. It has been suggested, too, 
 that the maritime districts of Pulo Kalamantan would produce cotton not 
 inferior in quality to that grown in the uplands of Georgia. 
 
 In this case no language can exaggerate the importance of the island to 
 Great Britain, for doubtless a time will come when the United States, 
 applying themselves more extensively to manufactures, will consume the 
 whole of the cotton grown m the southern proA^nces, when we shall be 
 
 19 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 obviously dependent for a supply on the various provinces of India and the 
 islands of the Archipelago. The cotton grown in Sarawak, of which we 
 have examined several specimens, is line, though somewhat short-stapled ; 
 but carrying our ideas further northwards to the mountainous regions in 
 the vicinity of Kene Balu, it seems probable that districts far more favour- 
 able to cotton cultivation will there be discovered. 
 
 No great stress should doubtless be laid on any branch of commerce 
 which owes its existence to a caprice of luxury. Yet, while the influence 
 of that caprice continues, it must clearly be the duty of merchants and 
 others to turn it to advantage. "VVe allude to the traffic in edible birds'- 
 nests, which, found almost eveiywhere in the Archipelago, are conveyed in 
 great numbers to China, where they have occasionally been disposed of 
 for their weight in gold. On the materials and construction of the nests 
 various ideas prevail. They are made by the sea-swaUow, which finds the 
 principal ingredient among the foam of the waves. This it collects as the 
 bee collects honey from flowers, and conveying it to the hollows of distant 
 rocks, builds with it there its 'pendent bed and procreant cradle.' What 
 the substance is, chemical analysis has hitherto been unable to discover; 
 but it is semi-transparent and glutinous, and when flavoured with the 
 juices, and scented with the perfume of plants and flowers, it is admitted 
 to fonn a rich and agreeable basis for soup. To this the Chinese attribute 
 many wonderful virtues, which, if real, will probably hereafter insui-e for 
 the nests an extensive sale in Europe. 
 
 The collection of this article afibrds occupation to a numerous and hardy 
 class of men. In some instances, the business may be carried on without 
 danger, when the bird builds in low caves, or in the hollows of inland rocks 
 or trees, or in the face of precipices. But in some cases the occupation 
 is dismal, and fuU of danger, for disturbed, perhaps, in the process of incu- 
 bation, the bird selects for safety the summit of lofty caverns, into which 
 the waves of the ocean incessantly roll. There is one particular cavern of 
 this description in the north of Java where the nests are found at the 
 height of nearly two hundred feet above the level of the sea, on a desolate 
 part of the coast lashed with almost incessant breakers. Into this deep 
 cavern the nest-collectors penetrate with much difficulty. The apparatus 
 they make use of is not described, but the slightest slip would precipitate 
 them into the boiling waves below. 
 
 As we have observed, however, this branch of trade is less important 
 than sevei'al others which may be carried on by the untutored natives. Of 
 these many subsist by collecting camphor in the forests, or the briUiant 
 and beautiful feathers of birds, or cutting canes or sandalwood. Others 
 addict themselves to the cultivation of rice, of cocoa-nuts, pepper, cloves, 
 nutmegs, and cinnamon. 
 
 But the numbers that live by carrying on these rude operations are 
 small compared with those who would find employment were the trade 
 properly developed. An example may serve to illustrate what may be 
 done by encouragement, and how very speedily neglect dries up the sources 
 of mdustry. Many years ago, when the government of Brune was in the 
 hands of a sensible man, a small colony of Chinese settled there, and 
 betook themselves to agriculture. The woods were cut down, the thickets 
 cleared away, the soil industriously broken up, and very soon gardens, 
 20 
 
KAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 orchards, and pepper-plantations covered the hills, which had a short time 
 ago formed the site of the primeval wildeniess. What they produced, 
 traders from all parts of the world consumed ; they acquired wealtli, built 
 themselves handsome dwelling-houses, and enriched the coffers of the state. 
 "When things had arrived at this pass, the sultan by whom they were 
 favoured was gathered to his fathers, and a new sultan arose in his stead, 
 who, understandmg nothing of political economy, looked with envy upon 
 the Chinese residents, and began to oppress and plunder them. At lirst, 
 the force of local attachments prevailed over the indignation excited by 
 injustice; but by degrees repeated insults and nijuries reawakened the 
 spirit of emigration, and the Chinese left Brune, carrying away with them 
 all the property they could. Their houses, gardens, and plantations they 
 were compelled to abandon ; and among the most recent visitors to the 
 ancient capital of Borneo, one has particularly pointed out the sad prospect 
 of the Chinese grounds relapsing into the dominions of the wilderness 
 — their gardens being choked up by weeds, their houses crumbling to ruins, 
 and their gi-oves and plantations encroached upon by the rank vegetation 
 of the forest. Still further migrations are at present going on — the 
 industrious portion of the population passing over in great numbers 
 to our lately-acquired island of Labuan ; so that in the course of a few 
 years, should the spirit of the government continue unchanged, it is to be 
 feared that this considerable city, once the capital of the northern divi- 
 sion of the island, will be utterly deserted. 
 
 In many parts of the Archipelago the natives themselves display great 
 enterprise and ingenuity in manufactures and trade. Celebes has a repu- 
 tation for its cotton goods, Pulo Kalamantan for its arms ; and if inquiry 
 were to be made, nearly every one of the larger islands in which civilisa- 
 tion has taken root would perhaps be found to excel in some particular 
 production. Asiatics generally display a remarkable aptitude for the finer 
 varieties of manufactures : the Hindus, for example, have at several 
 periods of their history exhibited a marked superiority over all other 
 nations in the finest works of the loom ; and though the people of Celebes, 
 from whatever stock descended, can make no pretensions to be compared 
 with the Hindus, their fabrics are so much more lasting and beautiful 
 than any imported from Europe, that they have hitherto beaten our goods 
 out of the market. 
 
 To enumerate all the articles, natural or manufactured, obtained from 
 the several islands, would be tedious, and, as many of the names could 
 convey no ideas to the reader's mind, would be likewise useless. Kature 
 is there as prolific in vegetable and mineral riches as in animal life. 
 Borneo produces the Mias Papan, or Wild Man of the Woods — of all the 
 inferior animals, the least removed from the human species ; the rhinoceros, 
 and in former times the elephant. At pi'esent, this last animal is supposed 
 not to be found wUd in the forests of the interior, though in one district 
 near Cape Unsang it is said to have been seen in its natural state within 
 the memory of persons still living. 
 
 To illustrate what might be accomplished in the Archipelago by enter- 
 prise and industry, we may adduce the example of an English gentleman 
 who settled many years ago at Lombok. Arriving in somewhat humble 
 circumstances, as it would appear, he speedily ingratiated himself with one 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 chief after another, until he had at length included the sultan himself 
 among his friends. The profession he followed was that of a merchant. 
 He bought ; he sold ; he realised gi-eat profits ; he purchased lands ; he built 
 himself houses ; and came at length to be regarded in the light of a great 
 personage. Wealth is the natural aUy of power ; and the prince, standing 
 much in need of the pecuniary aid of the merchant, soon bethought him of 
 the regular Oriental method of attaching him to himself. He gave him 
 two of his daughters to live in his harem, and be among the number of his 
 wives ; and the contracting of this double alliance raised the stranger to the 
 highest eminence in the state. 
 
 Had not the Englishman been gifted with rare prudence and many other 
 distinguished qualities, his rapid success might have proved his ruin ; since 
 in despotisms, small as well as great, the envy that accompanies the 
 monarch's favom- is to be appeased or warded off with extreme difficulty. 
 Our countryman, however, steered safely between the ScyUa and Charybdis 
 of court patronage and the malice it inspu-es among the nobility. All the 
 subordinate chiefs in the island sought to be numbered among his relatives 
 or friends, so that his harem soon rivalled that of a Persian Shah, while he 
 enjoyed almost a monopoly of the trade of the island. 
 
 All oiScer in the navy, who happened, some years ago, to touch at 
 Lombok, was entertained by this princely merchant, and invited by him to 
 witness a grand procession and assembly which took place on the occasion 
 of some public act of rejoicing. The nobles thronged to the capital from 
 all the distant provinces, and vied with each other in displays of mag- 
 nificence. Nothing coidd exceed the barbaric splendour of their appear- 
 ance. Numbers of led horses, caparisoned with cloth of gold, and adorned 
 with jewelled ornaments, accompanied each chief; together with standard- 
 bearers supporting brilliant and costly banners, horsemen gorgeously 
 equipped, and a long retinue of dependents in sumptuous apparel. The 
 sultan, seated on a tlxrone beneath a gorgeous canopy, had the English 
 merchant on his right hand, to whom, indeed, he was indebted for much 
 of the opulence displayed by his court and his favourites. 
 
 Another and a greater proof of the power and mfluence exercised by 
 the strange merchant may be discovered in the part he played during the 
 late war between the Dutch and Balinese. "When the sti-uggle broke out, 
 both parties were desirous of obtaining assistance from the sultan of Lom- 
 bok, who, however, by the advice of his European counsellor, kept himself 
 as far as possible aloof from the quarrel. He, howe^'er, despatched the 
 merchant, as his plenipotentiary, to the seat of action ; and, at his own 
 suggestion, authorised him to act as a medium of communication between 
 the hostile parties, in the hope of bringing about a friendly understanding. 
 The ability of the negotiator would probably have eflected this humane 
 purpose, had it been the wish of Holland to avoid hostilities. But her 
 object was the subjugation of Bali ; and therefore, instead of thanking 
 those who laboured to promote peace, she rather looked upon them as 
 new enemies, whom she would some day chastise for their interference. 
 
 The island of Lombok contains much rich pasturage and meadow- 
 lands, watered by innumerable streams, which here and there expand into 
 marshes, or sheets of water like lakes. These natural features have led to 
 the cultivation of a peculiar species of industry — namely, the keeping of 
 22 
 
EAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 immense flights of ducks, of which some individuals possess tens of thou- 
 sands. These birds, valuable at once for their flesh, their feathers, and 
 their eggs, are kept m farms, where at night they are shut up in capacious 
 buildings erected for the purpose. Early m the morning the ducks pro- 
 ceed to the marshes imder the care of a keeper, who is furnished with a 
 long flap-whip, by which he restrains the numerous members of his flock 
 from mixing with that of liis neighbour. In the marshes they are kept 
 equally separate with comparative little trouble, the force of liabit co- 
 operating with tlie diligence of the di-ivers in I'estraining the nomadic pro- 
 pensities of the animals. 
 
 Of the native trade, by far the greater portion is carried on through the 
 instrumentality of the Bugis, settled in Celebes, or on the eastern coast of 
 Kalamantan. These hardy and adventurous people make annually a visit 
 to Singapore, where tliey purchase considerable quantities of British goods, 
 which they pay for either in specie or with native produce. When they 
 have laden their prahus, which sail in small fleets for mutual protection, 
 they turn their faces eastward, and visiting nearly all the gi'oups and 
 islands lying between Sumatra and the distant Papua, distribute, as they 
 go, the productions of the West, taking in exchange such articles as the 
 natives can supply. 
 
 For various reasons they do not extend their voyage to New Guinea, but 
 stop a little short of it — at Dubbo, among the Ai-oo islands, where one of 
 the most curious phenomena in the development of Eastern commerce may 
 every year be witnessed. In the mterval between the departm-e and arrival 
 of the merchants, Dubbo wears very much the appearance of a deserted 
 isle, the sand on whose solitaiy beach is pei-petually washed by the waves. 
 For some months nothing but aquatic bu'ds is beheld skimmmg along the 
 shore ; but on a given day in a particular month, the sails of two or three 
 Bugis prahus are seen in the offing, upon wliich the natives, from all parts 
 of the Ai'oo group, crowd towards the sandy promontory, where, with great 
 speed and ingenuity, they run up a number of rude dwellings for the accom- 
 modation of the strangers. Scarcely have the Bugis landed, when natives 
 from all parts of the Harafura Sea likewise make then* appearance, with 
 gold, and ebony, and birds of paradise. Thither also come the Javanese, 
 the Balinese, and natives from Timor and Timor Laut, and people from 
 Solor and Lombok, and Malays from the western islands of the Archi- 
 pelago, with natives from the Philippines and Moluccas. In this motley 
 assemblage you behold ahnost every variety of Oriental costume, from the 
 sober garments of the Arab to the gay and flaunting dresses aflected by the 
 inhabitants of the further East. Kj-ises, swords, and matchlocks flash per- 
 petually in the sun ; a sort of rude police is improvised on the spot, and 
 considerable order prevails in this sudden Babel. As you pass from booth 
 to booth, you observe side by side the productions of men in the rudest 
 stages of barbarism and those of the highest civilisation of the West — that 
 is to say, cotton-prints from Manchester and Glasgow beside the natural 
 wealth of Papuan forests. The mart of Dubbo may be adduced as a proof 
 of the civilising influence of trade ; for notwithstanding that every man 
 there is animated by a keen sense of his own interest, serious quarrels 
 would appear to be few, and crimes against life or property still fewer. 
 Indeed we know of no weU-authenticated instance of any outrage being 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 committed. Like the Arabs of Northern Africa, they seem to shout, and 
 gesticulate, and bawl, and abuse each other with great vehemence while 
 conducting their bargains ; but all these things are looked upon as matters 
 of course — so much seasoning, as it were, to the ordinary dulness of busi- 
 ness, which lead to no disagreeable consequences. Usually, therefore, men 
 depart content with themselves and with their neighbours, and every visit 
 to the mart constitutes a new step in the progress of civilisation. Dealings 
 are carried on in this way for eight or nme months, though very few mer- 
 chants remam during the whole of that period. On the contrary, there is 
 a perpetual influx of strangers ; while others, having completed then* trans- 
 actions, sail away, to make room for them. Suddenly, when the entu-e 
 cycle of business has been completed, the prahus disappear, the tents are 
 struck, the booths and huts are cleared away, and the sandy promontory is 
 abandoned once more to the sea-fowl. 
 
 The organization of this mart, which woidd seem to have existed from 
 time immemoi'ial, might have been expected to produce far more important 
 effects than have probably flowed from it. But here, again, the influence of 
 commerce has not been permitted to develop itself freely. The merchants 
 on theii- way to and from Dubbo have to encounter the worst dangers to 
 which seafaring men are exposed — the plunder and violence inflicted by 
 pirates, and the chances of being made captives, and sold for slaves ; and it 
 ■was to prevent such sad catastrophes that Sir James Brooke urged upon 
 the British government the necessity of employing a portion of its navy in 
 securing to these enterprising but peaceful men immvmity from pillage and 
 massacre on the high seas. 
 
 Shortly after his establishment as Rajah of Sarawak, our intrepid and 
 large-minded countryman began to develop his plans for the emancipation 
 of the native races. His own power was obviously unequal to the clear- 
 ance of the seas ; piratical fleets, issuing from various rivers, swept do■\^^l 
 the coast of his own territories, ascended the Sarawak river, landed in 
 several places, and plundered and destroyed the villages and plantations : 
 for it is a characteristic of these savages not to be content with robbery, 
 but, with a wanton indulgence in mischief for mischief's sake, they cut down 
 fruit-trees, destroyed the enclosures of gardens, and trampled every attempt 
 at cidtivation under foot. 
 
 At length the day of vengeance began to dawn in which the pirates were 
 to be called upon to expiate their innumerable off'ences against society. 
 Permission was given to several officers of the royal na^vy to act in concert 
 with Sir James Brooke, or to place themselves under his direction, or in 
 some cases orders were sent them to carry on a system of independent 
 operations. The history of these transactions has been Amtten by various 
 authors, but chiefly by the able and conscientious pen of Sir James Brooke 
 himself. It would therefore be superfluous to enter into minute details, 
 which would only be to compile materials already before the public in a 
 popidar form. This is by no means our object. What we desire to do is, 
 to present our readers with the philosophy of the whole matter, that they 
 may be able to explain to themselves the political principles on which 
 Great Britain has acted through the instrumentality of Sir James Brooke. 
 
 Whoever has had any experience in Asia, need not be told that to 
 24 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AKD BORNEO. 
 
 negotiate with barbarians is an undertaking of extraordinary difficulty. If 
 you conduct yourself towards them with politeness, deference, and gentle- 
 ness, they set it down to weakness and fear, and repay your humanity with 
 insolence; and if you behave towards them with a high hand, things are 
 soon brought to extremities, and you have to repress force with force. 
 This we have found in Central Asia, m the Ked Sea, in India, in China, 
 and wherever else we have made the attempt. The Oriental Aixhipelago 
 forms no exception ; but when Sir James Brooke sought to inspire the 
 piratical chiefs and tribes with ideas of peace, order, and ci\'ilisation, they 
 treated him with the utmost scorn ; mterpreted his pacific efforts into 
 proofs of weakness ; and hinted the most insulting defiance against him 
 and the comitry to wliich he belonged. 
 
 This led to a series of warlike operations at Tampasuk, at Pandasan, at 
 Malludu Bay, on the Rejang, in the Mambakut, and afterwards in the 
 Brune river. Durmg these conflicts it is not to be denied that much blood 
 was shed. The pirates, attacked in their strongholds, fought with an 
 intrepidity bordering at times on desperation. Accustomed to inspire 
 ten'or in others, it was not easy for them to pass into the opposite cate- 
 gory, and experience apprehensions themselves. However, Sir James 
 Brooke, and the officers of the British navy who were associated with him 
 in this gi-eat work of civilisation, performed their painful task with im- 
 flinching justice. To have spared and converted them to the principles of 
 humanity would have been far more agreeable; but the attempt would 
 only have excited the laughter of the bucaneers, who spurned all gentle 
 counsels, and knew no law but that of arms. 
 
 It would nevertheless be unjust not to admit that even these fierce 
 marauders gave proof occasionally that the human heart is nowhere 
 entirely corrupt : pirates are husbands and fathers ; and some of the most 
 obdurate and sanguinary characters often displayed extraordinary afi"ection 
 for their waives and children. To those, however, who comprehend the 
 laws which regulate human nature, this will not appear at all surprising. 
 In men of strong passions love is generally as powerful as cruelty, so that 
 their attachment to their own friends is equal to their hatred of their 
 enemies. In some cases these bloody marauders stood side by side like a 
 wall before their women, and received the shots like hail in their breasts, to 
 afford them an opportimity of escape ; and there is an anecdote told of one 
 of these ruffians which would do honour to a father in any stage of society. 
 The piratical chief in question had a favourite child, a boy, whom he 
 doubtless meant to bring up to his own lawless calling : when his strong- 
 hold was stormed and burned, he took the child on his left firm, and 
 holding the dripping ki-ise in his right, defended him with desperate energy, 
 retreating as he fought. Having received several wounds, and feeling 
 himself grow faint from loss of blood, he laid the child gently on the 
 ground, and then giving him one long, last, fond look, plunged into the 
 woods, and was never heard of more. That death speedily overtook him is 
 most probable, for when his pursuers lost sight of him he was covered with 
 wounds and blood. Indeed he only yielded up his burthen through sheer 
 incapacity to bear it any longer. 
 
 It would doubtless be a great triumph to bring over men so intrepid, so 
 gallant, and enterprising, to the service of civilisation. Theirs, indeed, 
 
 25 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 may in some sense be regarded as the best and bravest blood of the Ar- 
 chipelago ; but they have unfortunately taken up arms against society, and 
 can only be brought to reason by the application of superior force. The 
 mock philanthropists who affect here in Europe to commiserate them, are 
 incapable of experiencing a thousandth part of the sympathy with which 
 Sir James Brooke regards them. As a brave man, he sympathises with 
 bravery, and would make any personal sacrifice to preserve the lives of 
 these heroic robbers; any sacrifice, we mean, short of principle. But 
 courage and daring are not the only virtues of man ; and when tempted to 
 hold his hand in pity, he remembers the thousands of innocent natives 
 who must be sacrificed if these are spared, and this steels his heart against 
 a false and unavailing compassion. 
 
 No one can have known Sir James Brooke without being aware of the 
 long series of effoi'ts he has made to check piracy by negotiations ; what 
 repeated representations he has sent to the various chiefs, and how 
 earnestly and pertinaciously he has striven to wean them from their 
 inhuman practices. While the philanthropic declaimers in parliament or 
 at public meetings, and the manufacturers of articles for the press, have 
 been dozing comfortably in their beds, he has been passing sleepless nights 
 in the endeavour to devise means for checking the effusion of blood in 
 the Ai-chipelago. But though, as we have observed, he cannot refuse his 
 sympathy to the brave, even when they are the scourges of their brethren, 
 his chief anxiety is for the upright and the honest. He does not belong 
 to that class whose humanity exhausts itself on criminals, but has no ear 
 for those who suffer from their villany. But no meditation, no experience, 
 can teach the means of compelling dishonest men to prefer industry to 
 ph'acy : chastisement only can effect then- cure, and he resolved therefore 
 to administer it with stern severity. Yet in all cases the policy pursued 
 has been to afford the offenders a chance of retrieving their characters. 
 Threats have been again and again employed ; and a large force has been 
 brought to the very threshold of the piratical stronghold, and paused there 
 if there appeared to be the slightest hope of amendment in the inmates. 
 This was the case particularly at Kanowitz ; and the same course was 
 sought to be pursued towards the Sarebas and SakaiTan Dyaks ; but with- 
 out success. These two tribes, strong and numerous, addicted to piracy 
 from time immemorial, and puffed up by a long series of sanguinarj' 
 triumphs, received his pacific overtures with scorn. The classical reader 
 will remember that when the king of Persia, after the battle of Kunaxa, 
 sent messengers requiring the little band of Greeks who had accompanied 
 liis brother into the heart of his kingdom to deliver up their arms, those 
 heroic republicans replied that he might come and take them ; an enter- 
 prise upon which his Persian majesty could not venture. In the same 
 spirit, though not in quite so good a cause, the Sarebas and Sakarrans 
 answered Sir James Brooke that if he wished them to disarm, he might 
 come and disarm them. But in the true temper of barbarians, they added 
 gross insult to defiance, observing that he was an old woman, and only 
 withheld by fear from entering their rivers. On a man of Sir James 
 Brooke's character taunts like these could produce no effect, except that 
 of convincing him that, liowever reluctantly, he would have to employ 
 force before they could be brought to reason. 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 ITiis, therefore, he resolved to do ; and about the middle of summer (1849) 
 proceeded with the Nemesis and a small force in native boats towards the 
 mouth of the Sarebas river, resolved to punish the bucaneers who refused 
 to relinquish their plundering expeditions, and treated contemptuously the 
 power and authority of Great Britain. It was somewhat surprising that the 
 chastisement of Brune, to which they had formerly been subject, should not 
 have inspired tliem with some apprehension for tlie iate that might over- 
 take them. They had beheld tlieir ancient sultan driven from his capital, 
 and compelled to return by the menaces of strangers : they had seen him 
 forced to break oft' his connexion with the pirates ; nay, league against his 
 old friends, and bind himself by solemn treaty never again to afford them 
 either countenance or encouragement. 
 
 But this did not inspu'e the Sarebas and Sakarrans with prudence or 
 moderation. They could brhig into action 12,000 tigliting-men, 6000 from 
 either tribe ; and relying on their numbers, which appeared to them irre- 
 sistible, they resolved to adhere to their piratical profession, and live by 
 the plunder of their inferiors in numbers, courage, and arms. Accordingly, 
 they sent out a considerable fleet of bankongs, which tracked and 
 plundered all the trading prahus it encountered at sea. Some of these 
 were afterwards found smeared with clotted blood and human hair, 
 drifting about at the mercy of the waves — the crews having been mur- 
 dered, and hurled into the sea. Many small craft from Singapore met 
 with this fate, and three villages on the coast had been stormed, plundered, 
 and burned. The bankongs were numerous, strongly manned, and fur- 
 nished with abundance of arms and provisions. No thought of peace 
 seems to have entered the minds of the pirates. They were resolved to 
 face the English, not having as yet experienced the terrors of their power, 
 or known what it was to oppose undisciplined ferocity to calm and well- 
 regulated courage. 
 
 When the news reached the English, Sir James Brooke was lying ill in 
 his prahu eight or nine miles from the piratical fleet ; and the wind not 
 serving for sailing-craft, the Nemesis only was able to make her way by 
 steam towards the scene of action. The battle began towards the close 
 of day, and lasted, without intermission, throughout the night, the steamer 
 incessantly plying her guns, and the pu-ates, with the most obstinate per- 
 severance, returning her tire. At rapid intervals the waves on the shore 
 were lighted up by the flashes of the guns, while their thunder passed 
 along in protracted reverberations. As might have been expected, the 
 number of casualties was considerable in the piratical fleet, no fewer than 
 350 having been killed on the spot. 
 
 It has been made a reproach to Sir James Brooke that he did not inter- 
 fere his authority to stop the effusion of blood ; but, in the flrst place, he 
 was, as we have already observed, at the distance of eight or nine miles 
 from the scene of action, lying ill in his bed from a severe attack of 
 dysentery. However, had he been present, how could he have interfered 
 to preserve the pirates, so long as they continued to off"er resistance? 
 They had not thrown down then- arms — they had not asked for quarter ; 
 but, on tlie contrary, seemed to be animated by the hope of victory, and 
 tightmg under the persuasion that their own fii-e had proved no less 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 destructive to the English than theirs had to them. Besides, it could 
 have answered no useful purpose to leave the Sarebas and Sakarrans, -with 
 their spirit unbroken, to renew the conflict in the course of a few months 
 or weeks. The object was to disgust them with their profession, and 
 impress on their minds the necessity of earning an honest livelihood, 
 which was not to be accomplished while they knew no higher power, 
 and while their strength remained imimpahed. 
 
 Another fact, which does not appear to be known to the philanthropists, 
 should not be lost sight of: it is of coui'se quite clear now that the Nemesis 
 was more than a match for the piratical bankongs while they remained 
 at a distance, and with a rash policy exposed themselves to a raking fire ; 
 but had they approached, and boarded her, the event might have been 
 very different ; and more than once during the night, Sampans starting from 
 the scene of action, brought the intelligence to the rajah that the English 
 had been beaten. It could scarcely enter into the imaginations of the 
 natives that the dreaded Sea Dyaks could be overcome by any one. 
 Fame had represented them as invincible ; and up to the very last moment, 
 it is not to be doubted that, with the exception of the few English, all those 
 with Sir James Brooke confidently anticipated defeat. Again, although 
 the officers and men of the Nemesis doubtless expected that their guns 
 would do considerable execution among the piratical bankongs, they 
 could scarcely believe that the bucaneers would continue the action after 
 experiencing so severe a loss as they actually did. It was natural to 
 suppose that they would have taken to flight ; but as they continued the 
 engagement, and kept up their fire without slackening, the only rational 
 inference was, that they were not without hope of victory. The destruc- 
 tion of life, however, was great. As we have already remarked, 350 men 
 were killed during the battle, 50, after the pirates had taken refuge in the 
 jungle, were cut off by the hostile Dyaks, and about 400 are said to have 
 died of their wounds after they returned to their own country. Several 
 of the marauders fell into the hands of the natives in alliance with the 
 English, and these were all ransomed by Sir James Brooke, and imme- 
 diately sent back to their friends, except some few women, who preferred 
 remaining with their captors. 
 
 This, though brief, is a faithful account of the combat between the Nemesis 
 and the Sarebas and Sakarran Dyaks. We have omitted entering into 
 minute details, which the reader would find tiresome, as the names of 
 persons and places would then have to be mtroduced — barbarous in them- 
 selves, and extremely unmusical to our European ears. 
 
 We have alluded cursorily to a circumstance which ought perhaps to 
 be explained at gi-eater length — we mean Sir James Brooke's ransom of 
 prisoners. They who seek to earn a reputation for humanity by libelling 
 and calumniating him, do so, we will charitably suppose, in entire igno- 
 rance of his character and proceedings. But the public should be made 
 acquainted with the real state of the case, that it may perceive how little 
 reliance is to be placed on the statement of mere traders in benevolence, 
 who sound a trumpet before them when about to do anything which they 
 consider praiseworthy; thinking, and perhaps correctly, they might other- 
 wise lose their rewai'd, which is notoriety. While they preacli, however, 
 ,Str James Brooke is practising humanity. Instead of confining lus soli- 
 28 
 
 i 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 citude to himself, instead of expending his fortune in hiring trumpeters 
 in Europe, he generously applies his surplus resources to the alleviation 
 of the miseries of barbarism. No act is more comtnon with him than that 
 of ransoming men, women, and children from captivity, so that many a 
 savage hearth once desolate has been rendered bright by his genuine 
 philanthropy. It is believed by those who know him that he expends in 
 this way more than all the sum he receives annually from government as 
 Ck)mmissioner to the Indian Arcliipelago. As the amount thus disbursed 
 must of necessity vary from year to year, we cannot pretend to have 
 ascertained it exactly; but the fact we give not as a mere vague rumour or 
 report, but as a thing of which we ourselves can vouch the accuracy. 
 
 It remams for us to take a glance of what further has been done in the 
 Ai'chipelago towards effecting the suppression of pu-acy and the establish- 
 ment of civilisation. Within the last few years arrangements have been 
 entered into with numerous chiefs of tribes, who have bound themselves 
 by solemn engagements to abandon the practice of plundering on the high 
 seas. That all these will abide honestly by their stipulations is more than 
 can be expected. They will probably m some instances relapse occasion- 
 ally, succumbmg to the old temptations to dishonesty. But even under 
 such circumstances somethmg will have been gained, since it is not to be 
 supposed that they can ever display that hardihood in iniquity to which 
 they were formerly accustomed. They will carry on their depredations 
 by stealth, with apprehension and timidity, since even the most reckless 
 savages experience some degree of shame when detected in breaking their 
 solemn engagements. 
 
 This may be inferred from the recent conduct of the sultan of Brune, 
 who, when signing his fii'st treaty with England, would seem to have looked 
 upon it merely as a means of putting off the evil day. He afterwards found, 
 however, to his extreme astonishment, that he would be expected to act in 
 conformity with the treaty he had concluded ; and that the other higli con- 
 tracting party, to borrow a phrase from diplomacy, was in a condition to 
 enforce the keeping of his word. From this one of two results must inevit- 
 ably follow : either he will, together with his subjects, addict himself to 
 an honest course of policy, and in that way insure his own and their pros- 
 perity, or if the wages of iniquity cannot be dispensed with without pro- 
 ducing ruin, Brune, its rulers and people, must sink into utter annihilation. 
 
 The same thing may with equal justice be remarked of the sultan of Sulu 
 — a group of islands of which European geographers do not as yet know the 
 number or names. Sir James Brooke has paid two visits to that state, once 
 denommated an empire, comprehending under its sway the northern divi- 
 sion of Borneo, with a part, perhaps the whole, of Palawan and Magin- 
 dauao. About the Sulu Islands we possess extremely curious information, 
 which it would be impossible, however, to compress into the pi-esent Paper. 
 It may perhaps be sufficient to say that they are himdreds in number, and 
 in some places grouped so as to resemble the atolls of the Maldives. Many 
 are extremely diminutive, while others are of considerable magnitude, fer- 
 tile, cultivated, and possessing ports admirably adapted to trade. 
 
 Shortly after his return from England to the Archipelago, Sir James 
 Brooke paid a fii'st and a second visit to the Sulu capital, and concluded a 
 
 20 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 treaty with the sultan, which was immediately sent home for ratification. 
 By this convention the ruler of Sulu has bound himself to hold no farther 
 communication with pii'ates, and as far as m^iy be in his power, to expei 
 them his dominions. This last clause is aimed at the Illanuns, the Bali- 
 nini, and Sea-Gipsies, found scattered without a home or country amid the 
 more secluded groups of the Twelve Thousand Islands. 
 
 Almost while we wi'ite, however, society in that part of the world is 
 assuming new forms, by the meltmg of one tribe uito another, and the 
 disappeai'ance of certain names which may be said to have become famous 
 in the history of the Archipelago. Thus the Sakarran Dyaks now no 
 longer exist as a separate tribe, having been merged by circumstances into 
 the Sarebas, while the Balinini are supposed to have been destroyed by 
 the Spaniards. Destruction, however, in this case is synonymous with 
 dispersion ; because it is BOt to be supposed that all the individual men 
 and women once known collectively under the name of the Balinini have 
 actually perished, though we no longer meet with them on the sea in 
 bankongs or prahus of their own. 
 
 Respecting the Sea-Gipsies our knowledge is extremely imperfect. In 
 their original condition they were not pirates, but, under the name of 
 Bajows, led a wandering life upon the ocean, confining themselves entirely 
 to their boats, and earning their subsistence by fishing and an irregular 
 species of trade. They were said to shift then- place according to the 
 season, flying before the violence of the monsoons, and casting anchor in 
 tranquil waters to which long experience directed them. A fleet of Sea- 
 Gipsies, passing through some narrow frith at night, used to present to the 
 mariner an extraordinary spectacle, the prow of each btmkong being illu- 
 minated with lamps, which glimmered like so many huge glow-worms on the 
 sea. Probably their disposition was never very pacific, and at all events it 
 seems to have required little temptation to transform them from fishermen 
 into pirates. Latterly, they woidd appear to have withdrawn almost 
 entirely from the more-frequented latitudes, and to have taken refuge in 
 those intricate and little-frequented seas lymg on the eastern skirts of the 
 Moluccas. Here they will probably disappear from history, melting away 
 into those populations which, more numerous and powerful than them- 
 selves, may display a disposition to conform to the new principles of 
 society introduced from the West. 
 
 In the cruize which our enterprising countrpnan took to effect this 
 important object, he visited Balam Bangan and ]\Iagindanao ; and during 
 the third voyage, in which he is probably engaged at present, it is to be 
 hoped he may find it practicable to explore the latter of these islands, so 
 little known to any save those who happened to have fallen in with the 
 works of the Spanish Jesuits. Palawan, too, is all but a tei-ra incognita; 
 and even of the Philippines our knowledge is extremely imperfect. Many 
 portions of the Moluccas may likewise be said to be unkno^ni to us, parti- 
 cularly the islands of Giloolo and Ceram, of whicli our navigators have 
 obtained but impei'fect glimpses. An expedition is now engaged in siu-- 
 veying New Guinea or Papua, under tlic direction of a very superior 
 officer ; and when the result comes to be laid bcibre the public, we may 
 confidently hope, therefore, that a veil will be withdrawn from .the most 
 distant and least- kno'svn portion of the Archipelago. 
 30 
 
RAJAH BROOKE AND BORNEO. 
 
 Illness may be said in some measure to have interfered of late -with Sir 
 James Brooke's proceedings. He has l)een residing, after a severe attack 
 of fever, at the agreeable retreat of I'inang Hill, from which, when the 
 last advices left the Archipelago, he was about to proceed to iSiam, Kam- 
 bodia, and Cochin-China. With those countries our trade has never 
 hitherto been placed on a proper footing. Instead of being conciliated by 
 the vicinity of Singapore and the recent settlement on Labuan, the sultan 
 of Siani, in particular, would seem to have been inspired with increased 
 hostility, alternating with paroxysms of friendsliip. Though probably con- 
 scious of his weakness, the general Oriental passion for monopoly betrays 
 him at frequent intervals into insults to the British flag; after which, 
 terrified at what he has done, he attempts the fortification of Bankok, 
 obstructs the channels of the river, and trembles and prepares for flight at 
 the departm-e of every war-steamer from Singapore. With the suavity 
 and superior powers of diplomacy, Sir James will calm and reassure 
 the mmd of this barbarian, at the same time that he will probably 
 convince him of the necessity of adopting a more just policy towards 
 Great Britam. In this case we may confidently reckon on a large increase 
 to oui- trade beyond the Straits of Malacca, since the kingdom of Siam 
 could consume immense quantities of British goods, and possesses abun- 
 dant resomxes with which to pay for them. 
 
 Again, in Kambodia and Cochin-China it is possible to lay the founda- 
 tions of an extremely lucrative commerce, at present almost entirely mono- 
 polised by the merchants of the Celestial Empire, who send do^vn annually 
 a number of junks, which, passing along the coast, take up its merchan- 
 dise at several points, and proceed sometimes to Singapore. In Cochin- 
 China the French also have for many years possessed great mfluence, 
 though this has occasionally led to disastrous misunderstandings. 
 
 Neither here, however, nor in any other country belonging to the Hindu- 
 Chinese nations, has there ever existed a proper outlet for the superfluous 
 productions of the soil, which might be profitably exchanged for the com- 
 modities, manufactured or natural, of other parts of the world. To awaken 
 in them the spirit of enterprise, and to bring them within the commercial 
 circle, may be said to have been one of the principal objects aimed at by 
 the settlement on Labuan. They constitute a part of the great market of 
 the Archipelago, producing much that its natives require, and consuming 
 large quantities of what they produce. As the representative of the Archi- 
 pelago, they will probably receive Sir James Brooke with respect, because 
 with the friendship of Great Britain he can offer them immediate profit and 
 protection from the violence of any other nation. 
 
 Another consequence of our recent movements in the Archipelago will 
 in all likelihood be a mission to Japan, an empire which, for more than two 
 centuries, has been closed against the commerce of the West. This arbi- 
 trary and tyrannical policy exerted a most baneful influence on the Archi- 
 pelago, once perpetually visited by Japanese junks bringing cargoes of the 
 precious metals, and taking in exchange the merchandise of the various 
 islands. To throw open this channel to the trade of the world would be 
 an achievement worthy of Great Britain : to persist in sullen seclusion is 
 a crime against the laws of natm-e, because it wantonly inflicts injury on 
 millions of the human race. No truth is more important than this — that 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 mankind are brethren ; and if, therefore, any one portion of them withdraws 
 itself from the commerce of the rest, it is as unjust as if it committed 
 robbery to the amount of what is lost by its seclusion. Not to understand 
 this is to be ignorant of the first principles of society ; and therefore, in the 
 face of the whole civilised world. Great Bi-itain would be fuUy justified 
 were it to employ tl;e ultima ratio regum to compel the Japanese back into 
 the great circle of human brotherhood. 
 
 We have thus cast a rapid glance over the Archipelago and its external 
 relations, doubtless leaving much unsaid that might easily have been 
 brought forward did our limits permit, but still touching, we hope, however 
 briefly, on all the impoi-tant parts of the subject. To satisfy the reader, 
 however, with such a sketch would be impossible. Discovery, though it 
 has not been very actively at work in that part of the world, has still laid 
 open innumerable sources of interest which it would requu-e whole volumes 
 to describe. The utmost we have attempted is to awaken the reader's 
 curiosity, after which the materials of knowledge will be easily discover- 
 able on all sides. There exists, indeed, no proper history of the Indian Ar- 
 chipelago, the publications once circulated under that name possessing 
 nothing to justify such a title. Recent events, however, have attracted 
 and rivetted public attention on that part of the East, so that we may 
 confidently look for a series of works in connexion with it, based on con- 
 scientious research, which will enable the nations of the West to sjnnpa- 
 thise with the populations of insular Asia, which may at present be said to 
 be wrapped in darkness, since no one has hitherto penetrated into their 
 mental constitution, or drawn aside the veil which conceals their thoughts, 
 their opinions, and feelings, from the scrutiny of the civilised world. 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 ''piIE nature ol' tlio series of events wliich forced tlic Lritish dwellers in 
 -I- America to oppose an armed resistance to the aggi-essive measures of 
 tlie ministers of tlie English crowai, and the characters and motives of the 
 distinguished men who conducted that resistance to a successful issue, are 
 still strangely misrepresented, alike by persons who maintain the divme 
 riglit of the colonial office to administer the affairs of Englishmen — pro- 
 vided they live a great Avay off — after its own good pleasure, and by those 
 Avho regard the issue of the memorable struggle as a great blow struck for the 
 common liberties of mankmd. The example of its chief hero, Washington, 
 is to this hour absurdly pleaded by every man who fancies that the violent 
 subversion of existing governments is the sole means of establishing im- 
 proved and lasting ones. To the heroes of such convulsions — and the 
 remark ought now to strike the ear as the expression of a mere truism — 
 the illustrious American bears not the faintest resemblance, any more than 
 he does to ]\Iahomet or to Napoleon Bonaparte. Neither he nor his great 
 associates, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, luiox— not even excepting Thomas 
 Jefferson, subsequently the idol of the ultra-democracy of the States — were 
 in any fair sense revolutionists ; nor were they republicans, in our idea of 
 the term. Though native-born Americans, they were, bv breeding and 
 tastes, English gentlemen : nothing at first was more distressed to their feel- 
 ings than a repudiation of monarchical principles, nor did tliey finally resign 
 tliese principles till after all chance of accommodation with the British crown 
 liad passed away. Republican institutions, m the essential meaning of the 
 phrase, they had mdeed lived under for upwards of a centuiy — Ehode 
 Island, for mstance, perhaps the most democratic state in the Union, though 
 the differences between the constitutions of the various states are ununpor- 
 tant, is still governed by Charles's charter of 1GG3 — and those institutions 
 they were thoroughly resolved to defend ; but, provided they practically 
 enjoyed self-government, they, and the people whom they represented, 
 were anything but anxious that the apex of the political column should be 
 surmounted by an elective president in place of the hereditary monarch. 
 Their position was throughout purely a defensive one : they stood upon the 
 ancient legal ways of the constitution ; but being firmly resolved to resist, 
 at whatever cost or sacrifice, the unlawful violence with which they were 
 menaced, and having accepted the appeal to arms forced upon them by the 
 madness of successive British ministries with profound regret, if without 
 10. I 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 mistrust, tliey determined, to use the words of their great chief, ' never to 
 sheathe the sword they liad been compelled reluctantly to draw in defence 
 of then- country and its liberties till that object had been accomplished, 
 but to prefer falling with it in their hands to the relinquishment thereof.' 
 And so little of wild theory mingled with the practical and sober aspu-a- 
 tions of those thoughtful and earnest men, that when the contest was ter- 
 minated, and they were free to choose any form of constitution they pleased, 
 they decided on changing as little as possible — weU knowing that for the 
 present to firmly and permanently influence the future, it must itself remain 
 connected with, and lean upon, the past. The difierence between the British 
 and American forms of government — allowance being made for the distm-b- 
 ing effects of certain social mfluences — is, after all, much more nominal 
 than real. Trial by jury. Habeas Corpus, mviolability of domicile, the 
 independence of the courts, the subjection of every act of the executive to 
 the ordinary operation and restraints of the law — a pomt so fatally over- 
 looked by our coutmental neighbours — the distribution of power, by con- 
 fiding local self-government to popular bodies thoroughly independent of 
 the central authority — these, and other safeguards which constitute the 
 essence of British freedom, were, and are, jealously preserved by our trans- 
 atlantic bretlu-en. The defenders of the liberties of America erected a 
 noble, and — regard being had to the requhemeuts of their geogi'aphical 
 and social position — possibly m some respects an improved, poUtical edifice, 
 compared with that beneath which they had been reared to the moral 
 height and dignity of freemen ; but that their work wiU endure when other, 
 and, in appearance, more symmetrical structm-es shall have crumbled into 
 dust, is chiefly because they were modest enough and wise enough to build 
 upon the old and ti'ied foundations. 
 
 It may be doubted, too, whether the term 'hero,' which has slipped 
 from our pen, ought to be applied to George Washmgton — a man plam 
 of speech and purpose, of gentlest affections, and quiet, domestic tastes ; 
 having neither the start, the swagger, the cm-t pomposity, nor the 
 varnished mask and glittering plumes of the historic hero, who, ever pre- 
 ceded by flourishes of imiuraerable brazen instruments, is mdustriously 
 paraded on the world's stage, till, the remorseless hand of Time having 
 stripped him, bit by bit, of his tinsel glories, the blmdest worshipper per- 
 ceives what a poor humanity it was, after all, that had been audaciously 
 tricked out for the admiration and observance of mankind. Neither 
 had he, though impetuously brave and daring, as was abundantly proved — 
 not only at the fatal massacre at Monongahela, but on numerous other 
 occasions — that love and admiration of war and tightmg which distinguish 
 the conventional hero. His sword, with hun only a means, and a sad one, 
 to a righteous and otherwise unattainable end, was much more joyfully 
 sheathed than drawn ; and with war, he fervently desu'ed that all its glorious 
 and hateful memories might expire. Washington, too, appears to liavc had 
 a deep sense of the responsibility he was under to iiis Creator for tiie riglit 
 use of the faculties and opportunities contided to him. Upon the arrival 
 of the intelligence in Virginia tliat all hope of inducing tlie Englisli ministry 
 to abandon the illegal and tyrannous course upon which ihcy had entered 
 was at an end, and tliat war was consequently inevitable, he, wc find from his 
 diary, ' went to church, and fasted all day.' Finally, having obtained supreme 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 power, triumplied alike over foreign aggression and domestic faction, he 
 quietly put off the glittering burthen, and ascended — for surely we must 
 call it so— to the dignity of private life, feeling only surprised, in the noble 
 simplicity and unconscious greatness of his nature, that men should admire 
 as a sacrilice that which he esteemed not only an imperative duty, but an 
 unspeakable relief. Whether, with these qualities and deficiencies, Wash- 
 ington is fau'ly entitled to the appellation of ' hero,' either in tlie genuine 
 or conventional sense of the term, we must leave the reader to decide. It 
 must be, we suppose, a matter, after all, of feeluig and of taste — precisely 
 as may be the comparative splendour of the brilliant fire-wonders of our 
 pleasure-gardens, and that of the cahn and silent stars, upon whicii perhaps 
 a Vauxhall audience, and others who might be named, would differ in 
 opinion. Still, as the word ' hero ' is dowTi, it may remain. 
 
 Thus much premised, we may, without danger of misconception, proceed 
 to mete out equal justice to the assailants and the defenders of the British 
 states of America during the revolutionary war. A retrospective glance 
 at the chief incidents of that great event must be at all times interesting, 
 especially to Englishmen, the present generation of w^hom may possibly be 
 called upon to meet and decide a question akm to that of which the bar- 
 barous and sanguinaiy solution cost their country, between seventy and 
 eighty years ago, so temble a sacrifice of blood and treasm-e. The question 
 of colonial connection and independence is fortmiately no longer exclusively 
 viewed tlurough the blinding mists of a vainglorious and spurious patriotism. 
 Experience has effectually disposed of some of the grosser fallacies pro- 
 claimed in those days by the wisdom of our ancestors. It would scarcely 
 be possible now, one would hope, to call do^vn the applauding shouts of 
 the Commons by Lord North's declaration, so loudly cheered in 1775 — 
 ' that absolute sovereignty over our colonies is a question vulually inter- 
 woven with not the increase, but the maintenance, of commerce with them.' 
 Neither, we imagine, are there many persons in this age and countrj', 
 however nervous and impressionable, that would feel gi-eatly alarmed at 
 the repetition, by any tongue however sonorous and eloquent, of the 
 Earl of Chatham's oracular counsel to his admiring peers — ' When the 
 power of tliis country ceases to be sovereign and supreme over America, I 
 would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, and embark for that coim- 
 try.' As we have unquestionably outgi-own such puerilities as these, we 
 may reasonably hope that others of less transparent, but not less real, 
 absurdity will in time pass away from the national mind ; and that, warned 
 by the errors of the blundei'ing past, a more honourable, a more rational 
 determmation of the vexed question of colonial dependence and imperial 
 dominion may in future be arrived at ; and that, should the necessity arise, 
 the last grasp of the hand exchanged by this country with any of its giant 
 children, in token of merely political separation, will be a pledge of good- 
 will and hearty sj-mpathy — the precursor and sign of a true and real 
 alliance of interests, purposes, affections, cemented by community of origin, 
 of language, of literature, and of religion. 
 
 A consummation tliis devoutly to be wished ; and no means seem more 
 likely to assure it than to place vividly before the public eye the conse- 
 quences resulting from the adoption of a different poUcy. Sad t<vsk 1 For 
 
 3 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 there is no passage wliicli an Engllsliman, jealous for the honour of his coun- 
 try, would more gladly tear out and efl'ace from its heroic history than the 
 story of the American struggle for independence. This feeling of regret is 
 not caused by the failure of the attempt to subjugate the British people 
 inhabiting America : far from it. The separation of England and the 
 United States is now felt to have been one, sooner or later, of necessity. 
 No one m the present day pretends that the restless, enterprismg millions 
 of North America could be safely or satisfactorily governed by any amount 
 (jf wisdom which might happen to be enthroned in Downing Street ; and 
 assuredly no sane Englishman can regret the rapid growth in numbers and 
 resources of a kindred people, who exchange, and, we venture to say, will 
 continue to exchange, the rich surplus of their varied climate and fertile 
 soil for the products of the skilled industry of Great Britain : nor is it 
 caused by any emotion of wounded national pride or vanity ; for if he have 
 made himself master of the subject, he knows that at no period have the 
 inilitary qualities which distinguish the British race been more conspi- 
 cuously and brilliantly displayed than throughout that disastrous conflict. 
 His regret is, that tlie silly sophistries of pretended statesmen, aided by 
 the illusions of a blind and narrow patriotism, should have induced the 
 English people to lavish their blood and treasure in the vain hope and 
 purpose of bending their distant coimtrymen to a yoke themselves had, 
 after many fierce and sanguinary struggles, cast off and trampled beneath 
 their feet. Yet not wholly without redeemmg lights is that dark and 
 troubled picture. The heart swells with mournful pride, and the moistened 
 eye kindles with a subdued exultation, as we mark the development upon 
 a distant soil of the old spirit whicli has placed an island, almost lost 
 amidst the storms and tempests of the Northern Ocean, in the van of civi- 
 lisation — the calm speech and the determined purpose, the resolution, at all 
 hazards, to hold fast by the sacred rights bequeathed by a great ancestry. 
 No spasmodic outburst there of passionate, unstable discontent — no ' straw 
 on fire' of hot, inconstant passion. ' We have counted the cost,' they say, 
 ' and find nothing so dreadful as slavery.' They had been else unworthy 
 of their name and race ; for were not the elite of these people the descend- 
 ants, the immediate descendants, of the men who had left tlie Britisli 
 shores during the intervals of triumphant despotism which occurred during 
 the long struggle termmatcd by the Revolution of 1688? — men amongst 
 whom, but for an accident, would liave been Hampden, Cromwell, Ireton ; 
 the stubborn old Puritan breed, in short, witli all its virtues and all its pre- 
 judices ; Solemn-League-aud-Covenant hill-side folk — the very last people, 
 one should suppose, with whom a wise minister would seek to play a 
 liigli prerogative game ? The old fire had fi'equently blazed fortli, too, in 
 the new States. The authoi-ities of Massachusetts sheltered Gofie and 
 Whalley, who had sat in judgment upon Charles I., from the vengeance of 
 his son ; and when compelled to proclaim tlie Restoration, strictly forbade 
 all rejoicings, even to tlie drinking the king's liealth. This feeling was 
 probajjly strengthened, if not chiefly excited, by the savage deaths inflicted 
 by the restored government upon tliat sincere, enthusiastic fanatic Hugh 
 Peters, and the celebrated Sir Harry Vane. Peters, a native of Massaclm- 
 setts, had been for many years a favourite preacher at Salem. A iaw hours 
 before he was hanged, lie bade his only child, a daughter, ' go home to 
 4 
 
"WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 New En2;lan(l, and trust in God there.' Sir Harry Vane, wlio, spite of 
 (.'romweirs dfiumciativc exclamation, was a -great and sterling patriot, 
 and mild, tolerant withal upon religious matters — a rare virtue in those 
 days — had been an exceedingly popular governor of Massachusetts; 
 and there, as well as in Kliode Island, to which he had also been a great 
 benefactor, his memory was held in honour, aiul his violent and illegal 
 death, it would seem, vindictively mourned. This State declared 
 in 1692 ' that no tax could l)e valid without the consent of the local 
 authorities;' for the project of taxing tlie unrepresented colonies was. 
 it must be bonie in nund, no sudden inspiration of George III. and his 
 advisers. It had been long contemplated, although, till Mr Grenville, no 
 statesman had been found mad enough to attempt to carry the design into 
 execution. Sir Robert M'alpolc, not the most scrupulous or constitutional 
 minister this country has known, when defeated in his Excise sclieme, was 
 urged by Sir AVilliam Keith, the governor of Virginia, to tax the American 
 colonies. The wary baronet was wiser than his counsellor. ' I have,' he 
 replied, ' Old England against me already ; do you thmk I want New 
 England also?' In 1704 the protest of Massachusetts was renewed by 
 New York and other States. Nay, "N'irginia, where, and in the Carolinas. 
 the British connection was the most ardently cherished, declared as early 
 as 1651 * that the right of taxation rested solely in the House of Burgesses' 
 — so thoroughly warned were the British ministers of the certain resistance 
 they must encoimter ! It must not be forgotten either by persons desirous 
 of accurately measurmg the extent of the wisdom and foresight displayed 
 by those gentlemen, that the British colonists, at the time it was resolved 
 to carry the long-meditated design into execution, had enormously in- 
 creased in power and resources, and were placed in much more favourable 
 circumstances for defence and resistance than at any foiTner period of their 
 history. The victory of "Wolfe, and other triumphs, sealed by the treaty 
 of 1763, had relieved them of their late powerful and dangerous neighbours 
 the French, and their allies the Indians. Then- numbers were not much 
 short of three miUious, and the development of their commercial enterprise 
 was so great — m the whale-fishery, for example — as detailed in 1775 before 
 the House of Commons, as to cause Mr Burke to exclaun, ' What in the 
 Avorld is equal to it ? ' Having attained this degi-ee of gi-owth and pros- 
 perity, it was resolved to tax them for the benetit of the imperial revenue, 
 on the by no means invalid plea, that as great expenses had been incurred 
 in expelling the French, and giving peace to the colonies, they should con- 
 tribute something towards the imperial exchequer. At the same time, 
 however, the colonists were told they could have no representation in the 
 British House of Commons. And on this bigoted notion, that the House 
 of Commons was already made up — complete — perfect — and could bear no 
 fresh intrusion, the whole affair hinged. "What a lesson is this fact cal- 
 culated to teach ! 
 
 ^Ii" George Grenville, lu-ged by George III. — who, it clearly appears 
 from his since published private correspondence with Lord North, was 
 throughout fanatical in his insistance upon the right and duty of England 
 to tax America — gave the signal for confusion, tumult, and ultimate war. 
 by passing, ]March 1765, with the concuiTence of large majorities in both 
 houses of parliament, a biU to impose stamp duties on the peaceful and 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 loyal colonists, who requii-ed nothing of this country but pennission to love 
 and respect her, and leave to contribute, by the recognised authority of 
 their OAvn representative assemblies, such expenses as it might appear 
 England had incidentally taken upon herself on theh behalf or in their 
 defence. Happily the fortunes of Great Britain are beyond the power of 
 acts of parliament to permanently damage — the spirit and energy of the 
 people sufficing to redeem, though sometimes at a frightful cost, the 
 mistakes of legislators. "Were it not for the lamentable consequences which 
 resulted from the doings of the difierent ministries that led and contuaued 
 the attack upon the franchises and immunities of our separated comitry- 
 men, it would be amusing to remai'k their alternate rashness and cowardice, 
 their bold words and childish acts, then- high-sounding promises and impo- 
 tent conclusions. A glance, though only a brief one, is mstructive. 
 
 The American Stamp Duties Bill was of course indignantly rejected by 
 the colonists. Mobs paraded the cities, bearuig aloft the obnoxious act, 
 surmoimted by a death's head, and the words, ' England's foUy and 
 America's ruin ; ' law^'ers bound themselves to the nation and each other 
 to use only unstamped paper ; women formed themselves into associa- 
 tions, pledged not to speak to, much less marry, any of the other sex who 
 should presume to buy or use stamps ; the entire people, in a word, entered 
 into a solemn league and covenant to resist by every means in then- power 
 the odious edict. Well, the Grenville ministry quitted office, and the 
 Rockingham administration, which succeeded, repealed tlie hated and 
 tmproductive biU ; but at the same time deprived tlie repeal of all efficacy 
 or value by a solemn reservation of the only point reaUy m dispute — the 
 right of parliament to tax tlie unrepresented colonies ! 
 
 Another cabmet succeeded ; and Mr Charles Townshend mtroduced and 
 cai'ried a bill, intended, doubtless, in the plenitude of the ministerial 
 wisdom, to benefit hotli coimtries, by levv^ing duties on British manufac- 
 tm-ed goods — glass, china, paper, painters' colours — imported into the 
 colonies, besides a duty of threepence per pomid on tea. This cmuous 
 measure excited as fierce an opposition as the stamp act. Tlie death 
 of Mr Townshend caused the break-up of this ministry, of which the 
 Earl of Chatham, it must be stated, was the nominal, though inactive 
 chief. The Duke of Grafton next succeeded to power, or at least to 
 office ; and Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state, wrote to the governors 
 of the American provinces to state that the cabinet intended uitroducing 
 a bill for the repeal of the duties on ' paper, glass, chma, and colours,' as 
 ' contrary to the true principles of commerce.' After some delay, this 
 promise was redeemed, but it was at the same time resolved that the 
 impost upon tea should remain! Upon the firm maintenance of that 
 tlu-eepenny duty both ministers and parliament resolved, as upon a thing 
 necessary for the dignity of the king's crown, the mtegrity and prosperity 
 of the empire, the supremacy of parliament, the safety of the constitu- 
 tion, and many other admirable things very eloquently dilated upon at 
 the time, but scarcely worth recapitulating now. 
 
 The scene again changes, and we find ourselves in the presence of the 
 cabinet of Lord North (son of the Earl of Guilford). The opposition of 
 the indignant colonists to the miserable and aggressive measures of the 
 C 
 
AVASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPOKARIES. 
 
 British ministers continuing as vohcincnt as ever, and niercluints and 
 manufacturers Ijeginning to find, in consequence of tlie general refusal of 
 tlic colonists to purcliase any Uritish commodities, tliat trade and com- 
 merce were rapidly declining under tlie exijcdients devised for tiieir main- 
 tenance and extension, a stroke of remarkaljle financial generalsliip was 
 resolved upon by the new administration. They gi-anted such a reduction 
 on the British duty on tea as enabled the East India Company to sell the 
 article to the colonists at so reduced a rate, that the tax of threepence 
 per pound would not raise the price to the consumer. Tliis device was 
 much applauded at the time. The partisans of the minister were con- 
 fident tliat it would reconcile all difterences ; the Americans would of 
 course surrender the principle so long contended for, if they could only 
 save their pockets ; and the king's government, by giving back with 
 one hand what they snatched with the other, would prove themselves 
 alike the able champions of the prerogative of the crown and the welfare 
 of the people. 
 
 The success of this scheme did not at all correspond with the expec- 
 tations of its promoters. The tea cargoes were in some ports for- 
 bidden by the authorities to be landed ; and in Boston harbour, on the 
 IStli of December 1773, a mob of persons, disguised as Mohawk Indians, 
 boarded the Dartmouth East "India tea-ship, and threw its cargo overboard. 
 This done, they rethed without committing any other damage, or ofteruig 
 any violence or insult to the crew. 
 
 It was determined by the British ministiy to visit the consequences of 
 this outrage upon the entu'e community of the State in which it was com- 
 mitted. A bill was passed to fine the town of Boston to the value of the 
 tea thrown overboard. This was seriously defended upon the precedents 
 tliat Loudon had been fined in the time of Charles II. because some 
 unkno\\m persons had slain Dr Lamb ; and that Edinburgli had been 
 amerced in a large sum for not having prevented the mob from hanging 
 Captain Porteous. They might as well have adduced the law of the 
 Conqueror, which le^ded a fine on any county or hundred where a Norman 
 should be found slain. The essential distinction that London and Edin- 
 burgh, whether justly or unjustly, were pimished by recognised authorities, 
 was overlooked, or treated as of no unportance. Boston was also deprived 
 of its privileges as a port of customs, which were transferred to Salem. 
 These measures, m the opinion of those who maintain the right of the 
 English parliament to tax and bind America, may have some show of 
 justice, but not even they can justify the subsequent acts of the minister, 
 who, m his bill ' for the better regulating government m the provmce of 
 Massachusetts,' entirely repealed the charter of William and Maiy, and 
 vested the nommation of councillors, judges, magistrates, and sheriffs m the 
 cro'wn, and in some cases in the governor. In other words, the ministry, 
 with the aid of parliament, trampled under foot the constitution of Massa- 
 chusetts, and erected an unmitigated despotism m its stead ! It was also 
 enacted that any person accused of treason, murder, or other capital 
 offence, if alleged to be committed in defence of the measures of the 
 British government, might, at the pleasure of the governor, be removed to 
 England for trial — that is to say, as every lawyer knows, and knew, be 
 v.ithdi-awn from all chance of punishment. 
 
CHAMBERS 3 PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 These outrageous proceedings, ■which it is impossible to palliate, much 
 less to justify, were carried with a very high hand indeed. Mr Ballon, the 
 agent for Massachusetts, was refused a hearing by the House of Commons : 
 and the respectful prayer of the Americans resident in London, that hon- 
 ourable gentlemen ' would not drive a long-suffering and gallant people to 
 the last resources of despair,' was ti-eated with contemptuous indifference. 
 The truth was, the ministry were determined to put down all resistance bv 
 force, and they replied only Ijy a lofty and disdainful silence to every effort 
 made to turn them from their fatal com-se. 
 
 The colonists were thoroughly persuaded that the outrage in Boston 
 harbour was but a pretext eagerly seized upon by the mmistry to carry into 
 effect a long-smce-foregone determination — that of restrictmg the general 
 liberties of America. This suspicion derived countenance from the pre- 
 vious discovery of a number of letters written by Governor Hutchin- 
 son and Judge Oliver of Massachusetts to Mr Whately, a member of par- 
 liament, and secretary to the minister, Mr George Grenville. Hutchinson 
 and Oliver urged upon the ministry that the colonists were not fit 'for what 
 are called English liberties,' and recommended the adoption of measures to 
 modify, in a despotic sense, the popular constitutions of the American pro- 
 vinces. This treasonable correspondence — it was surely nothing less in a 
 moral point of view, coming from men who had sworn to respect and main- 
 tain those liberties? — had been placed in Dr Franklin's hands by a Dr Hugh 
 Williamson, with an injunction to keep secret the source from which he 
 obtained it. Franklin immediately transmitted them to America, where 
 their publication produced an immense sensation ; and the impeachment of 
 Governor Hutchinson was soon afterwards demanded. Dr Fi'anklin, whose 
 incessant and zealous efforts to heal the unhappy differences between the 
 mother country and the colonies had been warmly and frequently acknow- 
 ledged by the most eminent persons — amongst others, by Chief-Justice 
 Pratt, the judge who first held that ' general warrants ' were illegal, and 
 better known as Lord Camden — was summoned before the council relative 
 to the demand of impeachment. The abuse with which the single-minded 
 and amiable philosopher was assailed by AVedderburne, the attorney- 
 general, afterwards Lord Loughborougli, a man now only remembered 
 because he did abuse Dr Franklin, is an amusing specimen of the A-irulence 
 of a loose-tongued lawyer, salaried to exhibit simulated indignation. First 
 charging Franklin Avith having obtained the letters by fraudulent and cor- 
 rupt means — ' unless, indeed, he stole them from the person who stole tliem ' 
 — Wedderburne thus proceeded : ' I hope, my lords, you will brand this man 
 for the honour of his country, of Europe, of mankuid. . . . Into what 
 company will he hereafter appear with an unembarrassed face, or the honest 
 expression of virtue? I ask, my lords, if the revengeful temper attributed 
 by poetic fiction only to the bloody African is not surpassed by tlie coolness 
 and apathy of the wily American?' This rabid nonsense, according to Dr 
 Priestley, thrcAv the lords of the council into ecstasies of mirth : ' even 
 Lord Gower laughed ; and the only man who behaved with decency Avas 
 Lord North.' Franklin listened to it all in silence, returning not a word ; 
 only, when he took off the court suit of Maneliester spotted velvet which he 
 had Avorn on the occasion, he mentally resolved never to put it on again; 
 nor did he break that resolution till the tJtli of February 1778, when he 
 8 
 
WASHINGTON AND JUS COTEilPORAKIES. 
 
 signed at Versailles a treaty ol" alliance, offensive and defensive, between 
 France and the United States. Dr Fninklin not long afterwards left Eng- 
 land for America, disgusted with the conduct of the liritish ministry, and 
 not very well pleased with that of the states he represented. 15y tlie 
 cabinet he was contemned as a violent American; while some of the more 
 hot and impatient of his conntrynum feared lest his j)artiality for England 
 might prevent him from acting witli sullicient vigour in the crisis which all 
 could see was rapidly approaching. Other agents were appointed, and the 
 catastrophe came swiftly on. 
 
 The hitemperate proceedings of the ministry derived no countenance 
 from the acts or speeches of the colonists. The language of the different 
 assemblies was invariably respectful, though iirm. As late as November 
 1774, the first congress of the American people, assembled at Philadelphia, 
 in its address to the king, thus unanimously expressed itself: — ' We ask but 
 for peace, liberty, and safety ; we wish not a dimhuition of the prerogative, 
 nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in our favour: your royal 
 authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always 
 cheerfully and zealously maintain.' Washington, in a letter to Captain 
 liobert Mackenzie, gave the following testimony : — ' You are taught to- 
 believe that the people are rebellious, setting up for independency, and 
 Avhat not. Give me leave, my good friend, to tell you you are abused — 
 gTOSsly abused. Give me leave to add, and I think I can answer for it as a 
 fact, that it is not the wish of any government here, separately or collec- 
 tively, to set up for independence; but this you may at the same time rely 
 on, that none of them will ever submit to the loss of those valuable privi- 
 leges which are essential to the happiness of every free state, and without 
 which life, liberty, and property are rendered totally insecure.' Jefferson 
 himself thus wrote to Peyton Randolph, president of the first congress : — 
 ' Believe me, my dear su', there is not throughout the British empire a man 
 who more cordially cherishes a union with Great Britain than I do ; but, 
 by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I accept that union 
 upon the terms proposed by the parliament ! and in this I believe I speak 
 the sentiments of America. We want neither motives nor power to effect 
 a separation — the ir'dl alone is wanting.' So general, indeed, was the 
 expression of loyal attachment to the parent country, and of a desire to 
 remam at peace and amity with her, that Lord Camden remarked upon it 
 with some surprise to Dr Franklin, and predicted that the tone of the 
 colonists Avould soon change into a demand for independence. ' Not,' 
 replied Franklin, whose almost fanatical anxiety to maintain what he 
 deemed the ' unity' of the British empire — that ' costly and beautiful vase' 
 — is so well knoATO — ' not unless we are scandalously treated.' ' It is pre- 
 cisely because I foresee that you will be so treated,' rejoined his lordship, 
 ' that I make that prophecy.' 
 
 Many eloquent voices, it is consolatory to remember, were raised on 
 behalf of those distant Englishmen, even hi the parliaments which backed 
 the insanity of ministers by such overwhelming majorities. Ch.atham, Burke, 
 Fox, vehemently combated the right of parliament to tax America. Lord 
 Chatham m a few striking sentences placed the matter m a clear and vivid 
 light. He supposes the House of Commons to be enactmg a ' supply' bill : 
 ' We, your majesty's faithful Commons of Great Britam, give and grant to 
 10. 9 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPEKS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 your majesty — what? our OAvn property? No; but the property of the 
 Commons of America ! ' And yet this nobleman, who placed the intolerable 
 assumption of the parliament in so clear a view, with the same breath 
 maintained, in the strongest terms, ' that parliament might bind the trade 
 of the colonists, confine their manufactm'es, and exercise over them every 
 right except that of taking their money without their consent.' Strange 
 obliquity of vision, that could not see how ' bindmg their trade, contining 
 then' manufactures,' was as much taking then- money without theu* consent 
 as any direct means could be ! The nervous eloquence of the noble earl, 
 the conciliatory suggestions of Burke, ai'rayed as they were in gorgeous 
 and soimding periods, made no uupression on the infatuated ministry. 
 They were determined to ride rough-shod over the colonies, and they con- 
 fidently anticipated a certain and easy victory. Nothing in this wretched 
 business appears more ludicrous than the notion which noble lords, gene- 
 rals, and other official personages entertained of the personal cowardice of 
 the British colonists. Doubtless they must have had some theory of the 
 enervating effect of the chmate of America upon the Anglo-Saxon race ; 
 for if there was one pomt upon which they were aU fuUy agreed, it was 
 that the descendants of the Puritans, of the Solemn-League-and-Covenant 
 men, would not tight ! ' Cowardly, undisciplmed, and incapable of discipline,' 
 the ' country gentlemen ' were night after night assured the Americans were. 
 General Burgoyne, who had dramatised Richard Coeur de Lion in a now 
 forgotten operetta, and who afterwards made a splendid American cam- 
 paign, ending at Saratoga, declared that a regiment of discipluied English 
 soldiers might march without encountering any serious opposition through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land. Another authority pronounced 
 ' that four or five frigates would effectually settle the business.' My Lord 
 Sandwich was quite jocular upon the subject. ' Suppose,' he said, ' the 
 colonies abound in men — what then ? They are raw, undisciplined, and 
 cowardly. I wish, instead of forty thousand or fifty thousand of these brave 
 fellows with which we are threatened, they would produce two hundred 
 thousand. If they did not rim away, which there is little doubt they 
 would, they would assuredly starve themselves into compliance with our 
 measures.' Compare this vapou.rLng with the long, dull, melancholy 
 silence which pervaded the ranks of the ' comitry gentlemen ' at the con- 
 clusion of Lord North's speech in the House of Commons, February 17, 
 1778, m the third year of the war, and after the sm-render of boasting 
 Bm-goyne, in which the minister formally renounced the right to tax Ame- 
 rica, and restored the constitution of ALassachusetts, whilst ' too late — too 
 late,' surged tlu-ough the dullest braui hi the assembly, and avoid, if you 
 can, a feeling of profound humiliation that such men should have had 
 power to hound against each other two kmdred peoples, wliose great past, 
 and, we wUl hope, still greater future, are so essentially and mtunately 
 blended and associated with each other. The ' countiy party,' however, 
 though with much pouting, carried the ' conciliatory ' measures of the 
 minister with the same decisive numbers as they had his coercive bills ; 
 and the majority against the tliirteen United States remained firm and 
 intact, till the day they were formally recognised as * a free, sovereign, and 
 independent state.' 
 
 In common justice and candour, we must here record that this persistent 
 10 
 
WASraNGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 subserviency to ministers on the part of the great country party, to wliose 
 sound constitutional maxims we arc taught to look in any real national 
 extremity for practical wisdom and guidance, was once during these events 
 in slight and momentary danger of mtcrruption. It arose thus : — His 
 majesty George III., in a speech from the throne, informed the Houses 
 that, ' in testimony of his affection for his people, who could have no cause 
 in which he was not equally interested, he had sent to Gibraltar and Port 
 ISIahon a portion of his Electoral troops.' This was of course done with 
 the benevolent intention of liberating the British garrisons for war-service 
 in the colonies. Strange to say, this paternal consideration of the king for 
 his subjects, as Lord North termed it, the country gentlemen viewed with 
 highly constitutional indignation. Ministers might send Hessians, Hano- 
 verians, Pandours, Croats, to slay and trample the British people of Ame- 
 rica; they might even employ Indian savages, as they did, for that purpose. 
 All that was proper and constitutional ; but to partially gaiTison Gibraltar 
 and Port Mahon with foreign troops was a violation of British liberties ; 
 and unless some pledge was given that this paternal act would not be 
 drawn mto a precedent, they, the countrj^ gentlemen, woidd deem it their 
 unpleasant duty to withdraw a portion at least of then- gi-acious counte- 
 nance from the administration. An implied pledge ^oas given : the Ger- 
 mans went to America, and all was well. 
 
 A plea in mitigation of the conduct of the British ministry is fre- 
 quently set forth, which it may be as well at once to dispose of. It is 
 this — that no human foresight could have predicted the issues of the war ; 
 and that, however imtowardly events ultimately occurred, there was a 
 fair and reasonable prospect of success at the outset of the contest. This 
 excusatory plea vnll not bear a moment's serious examination. In the 
 lirst place, no person acquainted with the requirements and exigencies 
 of modern warfare could hope to overcome nearly three millions of people, 
 three thousand miles distant, provided they were but moderately true to 
 themselves, by any force which Great Britain or any other power could 
 send against them. But apart from this consideration, let any person 
 glance at the state of Eui'ope at the time, and say whether the colonists 
 had not a perfect right to calculate on the support of the chief powers in 
 the event of a serious conflict with England ? The recent ' glorious ' jjeace 
 of 1763 — thanks to the triiunphs of Wolfe m America, Clive in India, and 
 the brilliant successes of the British fleets — had stripped France of Canada, 
 the whole of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, and her possessions in the 
 East Indies, besides various islands of more or less commercial value. Spain 
 had also been humbled, and despoiled of Mmorca and various colonial sove- 
 reignties. Victories, however splendid, ever create more enemies than they 
 destroy, and who could doubt that these countries, hiunbled in theu- self-love, 
 but imtouched in substantial power, would seek to avenge their losses and 
 defeats the instant a favourable opportunity presented itself? Then Hol- 
 land had humiliations inflicted by the giant of the seas to wipe out ; and 
 the other secondary naval powers naturally regarded the maritime supre- 
 macy of Great Britain -with envious dislike. The spurious liberalism of 
 the courts of St Petersburg and Berlin, of Catherine the ' Great ' and 
 Frederick the ' Great,' who partitioned Poland, and patronised Voltaire, 
 
 11 
 
CHAJIBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 was sure to display itself by a cheap, unhazardous sympathy for a people 
 whose principles would, they knew, never reach the ears of the Prussian, 
 and Russian serfs, but whose arms might strike a good blow at an envied 
 rival. The ' great ' Frederick especially had a strong, if somewhat con- 
 fused notion, like a still more modern conqueror, that the prosperity of 
 Great Britain is somehow or other bound up with the power of keeping 
 expensive guard over distant communities of Englishmen quite capable of 
 guarding themselves. AU this, which was clearly foreseen by the leaders 
 of the colonists, but entirely vmsuspected by the British mmistry, speedily, 
 as we are aU aware, came to pass. France supplied a fleet and army, be- 
 sides considerable sums of money. The motives of her statesmen for that 
 act — whatever might have been the individual impulses of enthusiastic, 
 chivalrous men, such as Lafayette — are now well understood, and are as 
 old and corrupt as human nature. Spain, prompted by the same feeling, 
 lent, though hesitatmgly, her armed assistance. Holland followed ; and 
 Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, with Prussia for a silent confederate, ar- 
 rayed themselves m what was called ' an armed neutrality ' — that is, they 
 diligently prepared themselves to strike in against Great Britain the mstant 
 she had become sufficiently weakened by the tremendous struggle to afford 
 them a chance of success. Thus England, strangely enough, found all the 
 despotisms of Europe arrayed against her in pretended defence of the liber- 
 ties of America, but in very truth from the motives we have just indicated. 
 The ultimate issue of the strife would in all human probability have been 
 the same had no foreign power interfered ; for, whatever help the subsidies 
 of their allies afforded the colonists, their fleets and armies, highly dis- 
 ciplmed and gallant as they doubtless were, proved but of sliglit active 
 assistance ; indeed the last great incident of the war was the utter destruc- 
 tion of the French grand fleet by Sir George Rodney. Still, so vast an 
 an-ay of power necessitated gigantic and exhausting efforts on the part of 
 this country, and the probability of such a combination ought to have been 
 foreseen. The plea of Lord North, that he did not anticipate it, knowing 
 as he did how fresh and recent were the wounds inflicted upon France and 
 Spam by the victorious sword of England, is only another proof of his 
 ignorance of the springs of human action, and his consequent deplorable 
 incapacity as a statesman. 
 
 With the passmg of the coercive measures for Massachusetts legislative 
 action ceased, and the minister devolved on the armed force in America 
 the duty of enforcing his paper decrees. That force, altogether hiadequate 
 to such a task, shut up in Boston, and commanded by General Gage, was 
 surrounded and hemmed in by daily-hicreasing swarms of armed colonists, 
 chiefly commanded by Colonel Putnam, an English officer settled in 
 America, who had served with great distinction. Gage offered him, it is 
 said, high rank m his old service if he Avould join the kmg's forces. This 
 ofter Putnam peremptorily declined ; and the instant the news arrived that 
 all chance of a peaceful accommodation was over, he joined the resisting 
 colonists. The first encounter of the British soldiers with the armed 
 countryfolk was upon the occasion of a small body of troops being pushed 
 on to Concord to destroy some military stores there. The object w;vs 
 accomplished ; but on the return of the detachment, the gathering couutry- 
 12 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 men pursued them with a fire so fierce and deadly, from tree, liedgerow, 
 hillock, bush, that but for the opportune arrival of Lord Percy with a rein- 
 forcement and a few pieces of artillery, it is doubtful if the destroying 
 detachment would have regained Boston. As it was, they re-entered it 
 much harassed and duninished in numbers, and, with their comrades, re- 
 mained quietly in their quarters till the morning of the IGth of June 1775, 
 when the cannon of the Lirehj sloop of war awoke General Gage to the 
 astounding discovery that a large body of colonists had been busy during 
 the short summer night erecting a redoubt, and throwing up a breast-work 
 on Breed's, or rather, as the mistake has become historical, on Bimker's 
 Hill, at the entrance of the peninsula of Charlestown, and commanding 
 Boston. This audacity was not to be borne, and the instant roll of the 
 British drums mustered the soldiery in hot haste to force with the bayonet 
 intrenchments upon which the tire of several ships of war, active and inces- 
 sant as it was, made not the faintest impression. The troops, to the number, 
 from first to last — accordmg to the letter of General Gage to the Earl of 
 Dartmouth — of about 2000, landed, imder the command of Generals Howe 
 and Pigot, at Moreton's Point. The Americans report their muster — a 
 common practice — at much less; but there seems little reason to doubt that, 
 as regards numerical force, both sides were about equal — the British, how- 
 ever, superior by discipline, and in the constant use of arms ; the colonists, 
 by their intrenched position, and in the fatal accuracy of their aim. The 
 attackmg force, consisting of ten companies of gi-enadiers, ten of light m- 
 fantry, and the 5th, 38th, 43d, and 52d battalions, formed into three lines, 
 advanced slowly, but steadily, as on parade agamst the silent colonists : they 
 were commanded by Putnam, who was riding hurriedly up and down the 
 intrenchments iterating his command — ' Not to fire till the whites of the 
 soldiers' eyes could be seen, and then to aim at their waistbands,' and 
 threatening to cut down any man who disobeyed his orders. The troops, 
 halting occasionally, to atford time for the field-pieces to open on the 
 enemy, gradually approached the intrenchments, which they knew could only 
 be carried by the bayonet. Nearer — still nearer — and it seemed that the 
 front line must have paralysed by their mere appearance — for the fire of the 
 artillery had been entu'ely thrown away — the rash colonists, trembling, 
 doubtless, behind their hastily-constructed earth-works. Another moment, 
 and these silent men raised, levelled, pointed their fatal rifles ; a stream of 
 fire burst forth, followed by a stunning crash ; and as tlie smoke quickly 
 whirled away, it was seen that that gallant front line had been rent into 
 frightful gaps, and that the survivors, stunned, bewildered, scattered, were 
 falling back in disorder upon the 5tli and 8th battalions, who, with quick- 
 ened step, were pressing forwards to retrieve and avenge the repulse and 
 slaughter of then- comrades. Again, as the soldiers approached within 
 half pistol-shot of the breast-work, the rifle-volleys were poured forth — 
 quick, deadly, annihilating! The third line had joined; but what men 
 could withstand that fiery tempest ? The soldiers who had escaped the 
 carnage staggered back in utter disarray beyond musket-shot, spite of 
 the efforts of then- ofiicei-s, who were frantic with rage and shame at the 
 lailure of the attack. ^Yhat would be said in England ? — in Boston, where 
 thousands of eyes were lookmg on at their discomfiture? At length the 
 men were again marshalled into order, again ascended the hill, and were 
 
 13 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOK THE PEOPLE. 
 
 again hurled back from before that unpassable wall of fii-e ; and there were 
 not soldiers enough left to form another line ! In this second attack an 
 incident occurred which vividly illustrates alike the destructive nature of 
 the conflict and its fratricidal character. ]\Iajor Small remauaed standing 
 alone amidst the dead and dying, the only one of aU that suiTOunded hun 
 v.'ho had escaped the fire of the colonists. ' I glanced my eye,' we quote 
 the major's own words — ' I glanced my eye towards the enemy, and saw 
 several young men levelling their pieces at me. I knew then- excellence 
 as marksmen, and considered myself gone. At this moment my old friend 
 and comi-ade Putnam rushed forward, and striking up the muzzles of thek 
 pieces, exclauned, " For God's sake, my lads, don't fire at that man : I love 
 him as my brother!" We were so near to each other, that I heard his 
 words distinctly. He was obeyed : I bowed, thanked hun, and walked 
 away immolested.' 
 
 The failure of the troops was observed from Boston, and a reinforcement 
 under the personal and volimteered command of General Clmton, who had 
 but recently arrived from England, was immediately despatched. It con- 
 sisted of four companies of grenadiers and light infantry, the 47th battalion, 
 and a battalion of marines. On its amval the troops were again formed. 
 The men, by fatal experience, made aware that the nature of the work in 
 hand, if it was to be done at all, admitted of no parade, encumbrance, or 
 display, took off then knapsacks, to be lighter and readier for a rush. After a 
 brief but spnited exhortation from Clinton, those indomitable soldiers once 
 more sprang forward to attack the intrenchments, from which, without the 
 power of resistance, they had been swept down like grass. The advance 
 was this time as rapid as it was firm; and the instant they reached the boun- 
 dary marked by the red heaps of slain and wounded men, the rifle- volleys 
 again burst forth, swift, destructive, terrible as before, but not with the 
 same result. The fierce shouts of the excited soldiery replied to the deadly 
 voUeys of the Americans, and with a wild rush they closed with then- an- 
 tagonists, and the battle of Bunker's Hill was — won ! The colonists fled 
 rapidly, but m tolerable order, across Charlestown neck, piu-sued by the 
 Ih-e of the Glasgow frigate, which, however, it would appear, was not very 
 effective ; and the victorious but astonished general had tune and leisure to 
 estunate the probable cost of conquering a country defended by a nation 
 of such men as those who, m the few brief moments during which the 
 contest really lasted, had wounded and slain 1124 out of, according to 
 General Gage, 2000 gallant soldiers ! — a destruction, in proportion to the 
 numbers engaged, and the duration of the conflict, unapproaclied in any 
 battle of ancient, or modern times. There were also about 600 colonists 
 killed and hurt; and there remained m General Clinton's power, if that 
 could yield him satisfaction, a few score prisoners, the accents, of many 
 of whom testified at how comparatively recent a period they had left 
 the Cornish and Avestern coasts of England. They, and a few pieces of 
 cannon of small calibre, were the trophies of his triiunph. 
 
 General Gage sent home a glowing account of his victory by the Cerbe- 
 rus, Captam Chadds, the effect of whicli glorious news, arriving there on 
 the 25th of July, was to cause troops to be assembled and hurried off with 
 all possible speed to the assistance of the victorious general ; and to silence 
 for ever the senseless depreciation of the courage of the British colonists, 
 14 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS C0TEMP0RARIE8. 
 
 wliicli had been so long and so freely indulged in by men who ought, one 
 would suppose, to have known better, The news, too, soon afterwards 
 reached England of the capture of the forts of Crown Point and Ticon- 
 deroga, which had cost so many lives to wrest from the French during the 
 last war. They had been surprised by a mere handful of the absurdly- 
 despised colonists. Two hundred and seventy Connecticut ' Green Moun- 
 tain boys ' under Colonel Alien, reinforced by a small party mider Arnold, 
 reached the lakes, and secured the forts without a blow, as well as the sloop 
 of war Enter]yr{se. ' In whose name,' demanded the officer commanding at 
 Ticonderoga, sui-prised in his bed — ' in whose name do you caU on me to 
 surrender?' ' In the name of the gi-eat Jehovah and of Congress!' was 
 Allen's reply. The climate of America liad not, then, it was quite mani- 
 fest, spite of my Lord Sandwicli, enervated the British race dwelling 
 there ! 
 
 The sword once irrevocably drawn, the colonists threw away the scab- 
 bard. The blood wantonly shed created an impassable gulf between 
 them and reconciliation with the English crown, and in due time a 
 ' Declaration of Independence ' was promulgated by Congress, preceded by 
 a long mdictment agamst the British monarch, to the fullilment of which 
 the subscribers, all men of eminence in America, pledged ' their lives, their 
 fortunes, and then- sacred honour.' Before, however, that celebrated mani- 
 festo was fuhninated, Colonel Washington, appointed, by a unanimous vote 
 of Congress, commander-in-chief of the American forces, arrived soon after 
 the fight of Bunker's Hill at the camp near Boston. He soon afterwards 
 conceived a plan for aii attack on the British troops there, with a view to 
 strike a great and decisive blow before the expected reinforcements coidd 
 arrive from England ; but his calculated and wise daring was overruled by 
 the opinion of three successive coimcils of war — a result that Washington, 
 both then and in after-tunes, bitterly regretted, and which determined him 
 seldom agam to permit his own decisions to be reviewed by war coimcils — 
 an assemblage of fighting-men that proverbially never decide on fighting. 
 He also remonstrated with General Gage upon his brutal ti-eatment of the 
 prisoners made in his great ' victor)^.' Gage, with whom A^'ashmgton had 
 served twenty years before in Braddock's fatal expedition, replied, ' That 
 rebels taken with arms m therr hands ought to be grateful for any treat- 
 ment short of the gallows ! ' The fii-st impulse of Washington's indigna- 
 tion on receivmg this reply was to send ofi' directions to retaliate on such 
 English officers and soldiers as were within his power. His momently-dis- 
 turbed equanimity happily soon returned, and long before his orders could 
 be carried into execution, they were coimtermanded. He determined 
 wisely, as justly, not to return e^ol for evil. 
 
 Whilst this Vu-gmian colonel, checked in his mUitaiy ardour by the 
 more tunid councils of his officers, is endeavouring to organise an army 
 capable of measuring itself against the disciplined forces on their way to 
 reinforce the factor of Bimker's Hill, we shall have time to present the 
 reader with a brief sketch of his previous history. 
 
 The experience of England, it has been frequently remarked, as well 
 as that of America, is opposed to the generally-received axiom, that a 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 -scientific apprenticesliip to the arts of war and diplomacy is an indispens- 
 able condition of great success in those national crafts. No bolder or more 
 skilful soldier than he who turned the tide of victory at Marston Moor 
 and Naseby, and few eyes more keen than those which marked the descent 
 of tlie Scottish forces from the heights of Dunbar, can be pointed out in the 
 long roll of educated military chieftains. Other instances might be easily 
 adduced as conclusive, if not so striking, as that of Cromwell. It was the 
 same Avith the great men of British America, who, at the sudden call of 
 their startled country, sprang at once to the full altitude of eminent 
 warriors, statesmen, and diplomatists ; approving themselves at the very 
 outset of their career a full match for the keenest and most practised of 
 their trained opponents. Franklin displayed talents of the first order as a 
 diplomatist both in London and Paris ; Alexander Hamilton and Thomas 
 Jefferson, it will scarcely be denied, rank Avith the highest intellects that 
 have devoted themselves to the study and elucidation of the complex ques- 
 tions of governmental and social policy ; and finally, we have George 
 Washington, a man eminently gifted for the duties of war and peace — 
 eminent in council as in the field. "VMiat were these men, and others that 
 might be named, before the necessities of the time called them to the front 
 rank of their nation ? Printers, agriculturists, land-surveyors, lawyers of 
 small pi-actice — militia soldiers of less ! Nor do we find that the military 
 chieftain of America manifested in his early days any constitutional pre- 
 disposition to render the earth a chess-board, on which, with living men for 
 pawns, he might thereafter play a bloody game for fortune and renown. 
 When a boy, he neither delighted in playing at soldiers, like Charles XIL. 
 nor at mimic fights with snow-balls, like Napoleon Bonaparte. The eldest 
 son of Augustine Washington, a respectable planter, whose grandfather 
 emigrated from Yorkshire in 1657, and settled in Westmoreland county, 
 Virginia, he appears to have exhibited only the ordinary charac- 
 teristics of a well-disposed lad — very tractable, very obedient to his 
 excellent mother, eai"ly left a widow Avith five children. He was a tall, 
 well-made, athletic youth, passionately fond of field-sports, and darmg 
 in a high degi'ee by temperament, and withal modest, reasonable, very 
 methodical in all things, fond of mathematics, and perfectly contented 
 with his destined profession of land-surveyor — except during one brief 
 period, when he appears to have been dazzled by the British naval uniform, 
 and prevailed upon his Uncle Laurence to procure him a midsliipman's 
 warrant in that distinguished service. 
 
 His mother disapproved of that step, and Washington at once aban- 
 doning his intention, almost immediately set off witli his rule and com- 
 passes for the Alleghany Mountains. It Avas during his sojourn there 
 that Ave first obtain a glimpse of a phase in this distinguished soldier and 
 statesman's character Avhich Avill come upon many readers Avith surprise : 
 we mean his extreme suscej^tilnlity to the charms of the gentle sex. His 
 first recorded love Avas, it appears from one of his early papers, a ' Loav- 
 land beauty.' What her name Avas, and indeed any particulars concern 
 ing her, except that she Avas a Scottish lassie, it is difficult to decide or 
 ascertain. Washington thus Avrites of her from tlie Alleghanies to 'lii^ 
 dear friend Eobin : ' — ' My place of residence is at his lordship's (Lord 
 Fairfax), Avlierc I might, Avere my heart disengaged, pass my time very 
 16 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young lady in the house — (!?olonel 
 George Fairfax's wife's sister. But that only adds fresh fuel to the firo ; 
 as being often and unavoidably in her company, with her revives my former 
 passion for your Lowland beauty, whereas were I to live more retired 
 from young women, I might in some measure alleviate my son'ow, and 
 bury that chaste and troublesome passion in oblivion ; and 1 am very well 
 assured this will be the only antidote and remedy.' Other letters are in 
 the same desponding tone ; and it moreover appears that he had never 
 been alile to muster sufficient courage to tell the lady of the mischief she 
 was playing with his hcai't. It is fair to suppose that he adopted tiic 
 remedy his letter to ' dear Kobin' indicates, for we tind him not very long 
 afterwards in such full vigour of body and clearness of intellect, as to be 
 selected by the governor of Virginia, Dinwiddle, for the delicate mission of 
 ascertaining by personal inspection and inquiry the real position and inten- 
 tions of the French forces — which, it was rumoured, were building a cliaiu 
 'Of forts intended to connect Canada with Louisiana, and thus confine the 
 British settlements to the east of the Alleghanies. This commission, a 
 striking proof of the high estimation in which the modest, retu'ing young 
 man — he was little more than one-and-twenty years of age — was already 
 held by men skilled in the reading of character, Major Washington — the 
 militia i-ank conferred by the governor — discharged with remarkable dis- 
 cretion, courage, and sagacity. He easily penetrated the views of the 
 French commander through all his artificial wrappings and disguises, and, 
 thanks to his skill in drawing, brought away a complete plan of the fort — 
 afterwards called Fort Duquesne — which the French were erecting on a 
 branch of French Creek, about iifteen miles south of Lake Erie. His 
 conduct gave such entire satisfaction to the provincial authorities, that he 
 was soon afterwards despatched on a similar errand at the head of a small 
 body of the Virginian militia. "Whilst engaged on this service, he had 
 a sanguinary skirmish with a detachment of French soldiers, commanded 
 by Lieutenant Jumonville, in which that officer and a considerable number 
 of his men were slain. This affair has been gi'ievously misrepresented by 
 certain French writers as a wanton and unjustifiable treachery. M. Guizot, 
 however, in his essay on the character of Washington, fully exonerates him 
 from all blame in the matter, frankly admitting that his conduct was en- 
 tirely in accordance with the acknowledged usages of war. During this 
 skirmishing campaign the young major of militia built Fort Necessity, and 
 fought what has been rather ambitiously called 'the battle of the Great 
 Meadows ;' and altogether so distinguished himself, as to be promoted, 
 on his return, to the rank of colonel, and not long afterwards he was 
 appointed commander-in-chief of the local Virginian forces. Not a verv 
 extensive command certainly, but an unmistakeable testimony of the 
 high estimation in which his character and abilities were already held 
 by his countrj'men. 
 
 The next year he volunteered his services on the stafi" of General 
 Braddock, who was about to march at the head of 2000 regular troops, 
 to di'ive back the French from their new establishments on the western 
 frontier. He had also with him a body of Virginian provincials, as 
 they were sometimes called. Arrived at Wills' Creek, the general 
 found that a very insufficient number of wagons had been provided by 
 
 17 
 
CUAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 the local authorities to enable him to proceed. We here obtain h 
 glimpse of Benjamin Franklin, postmaster, who, waiting upon the per- 
 plexed general on matters relative to Pennsylvania, no sooner ascer- 
 tamed the state of affau-s, than he volunteered to procure the neces- 
 sary number of wagons without delay. His offer was gladly accepted : 
 Franklin fulfilled his engagement, and the troops moved on. "V\Tien 
 near the scene of action, Washington earnestly intreated the general to 
 take precautions against sm-prise. This counsel, coming from a yomig 
 man supposed to be totally ignorant of military science, was contemp- 
 tuously disregarded ; and Braddock, confident in the valour and discip- 
 line of his troops to bear down aU opposition, moved boldly on ; the van 
 led by Major Gage, who, twenty years afterwards, commanded in chief at 
 Boston. Washmgton is reported to have said that he never witnessed 
 a more splendid sight than the advance of the British troops on tliat 
 fatal occasion : their fine soldierly appearance, their bm-nished arms 
 glittering in the morning sun as they marched, with the celerity and 
 precision of a parade day, along the southern bank of the Monongahela, 
 the river running on then* right. AiTived at a ford within about ten miles 
 of Fort Duquesne, the troops prepared to cross over to the north bank of 
 the river; and Washington again intreated that the Vu-ginian scouts might 
 be allowed to reconnoitre the wood and ravines in front and flank before 
 the troops crossed. His counsel was spurned. Braddock gave the order 
 to advance ; and that which Washmgton foresaw happened. No sooner 
 were the soldiers fauly across, than a deadly fii'e from innumerable foes 
 concealed in ravines and thick woods opened on the front and flanks of 
 the sacrificed troops. They were swept down by companies ; and mstead 
 of allowmg the men to close as they best could with their invisible foes, 
 Braddock persisted in manoeuvi'ing them as if he had been fighting a 
 scientific battle m an open plana ! Braddock fell at last ; most of the 
 officers were also slain, picked off by the rifles of the Indian allies of the 
 French. Ultimately a remnant of the troops were extricated from then- 
 terrible position, and fled, unpursued by the victors. Washmgton, who, by 
 the testimony of all, exposed himself m the most reckless manner, exhort- 
 ing, commanding, rallymg the men in every part of the tumultuous and 
 terrific scene, escaped, as if by miracle, unhurt. His clothes were torn 
 in several places by bullets, and he had two horses kUled imder him. 
 Years afterwards, when his fame had found wider echoes than the back- 
 woods of America afford, an Indian, who had expressed a wish to see 
 the commander-in-chief, recognised him as the officer whom he had 
 covered with his rifle twenty times at Monongahela, but always without 
 effect, and whom he therefore at tlie time believed to bear a ' charmed life.' 
 This may or may not be true — for such stories, it must be admitted, are 
 easily invented — but certam it is, that if the advice of the yomig militia 
 officer had been taken, the massacre at Monongahela Avould not have 
 occun-ed ; and it is equally certain that that officer daringly fronted the 
 pei'il wliich his counsel would have averted. 
 
 Washington continued to serve in command of tlie Vu"ginian forces 
 
 tUl the peace of 1763, by which tlie French resigned all their possessions 
 
 in North America, with the exception of the portion of Louisiana west 
 
 of the Mississippi, afterwards purchased of France, at the instigation of 
 
 IS 
 
■WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Jefferson, for the sum of sixteen million dollars. His name had be- 
 come famous amongst his countrymen. An enthusiastic preacher, of 
 the name of Sanmel Davics, prophesied of him before crowded and 
 approving congregations, as a man miraculously presei-ved to be a leader 
 and lawgiver of his country. A still unconcjuerably-modest man withal, 
 and possessed of no gift of ready eloquence whatever. When he took his 
 seat, on being elected to the Virginian House of Bui-gesses, Mr Robinson 
 the Speaker Avarmly congratulated him upon his appearance there. 
 Colonel AVashington hesitated, stammered, blushed like a school-girl : 
 the words he should have spoken ivoidd not come. ' Be seated, Colonel 
 Washington,' said the Speaker kindly ; ' your deeds speak more eloquently 
 than could any phrase of speech.' His mtellectual superiority, however, 
 notwithstandhig his deficiency of talkmg power, never failed to manifest 
 itself strikingly. Patrick Henry, on being asked whom he considered the 
 greatest man in the first Congress, replied, ' If you mean for eloquence, 
 John Eutlodge of Carolina; but if you speak of information and sound 
 judgment, unquestionably Colonel Washingion.' 
 
 In 1759 Washington, then in his twenty-eighth year, married jMrs Martha 
 Custis, a widow with two children, but still young. Slie was three months 
 his jimior, and, moreover, beautiful, and possessed of considerable landed 
 estates, besides forty-five thousand pounds in cash — an enormous fortune 
 at that time, and in that country. He now settled at Mount Vernon, and 
 busily engaged in his tavourite pursuit of agriculture. Previous, however, 
 to meetmg with the lady destined by the fates for liis wife, he had fallen 
 mto another love-scrape, which appears to have had no matrimonial result, 
 from the same cause that m all probability deprived the ' Lowland beauty' 
 of the honour of becoming the lady of the first president of the great 
 western republic — namely, his excessive diffidence. The soldier who could 
 face a battery of twelve-pounders without a perceptible variation of pulse, 
 could by no dint of preparation muster suflicieut courage to disclose his 
 passion to the fan- object of it. This time — it was m 1756 — the lady's name 
 was Mary Philipps, sister to the wife of his friend Mr Beverly Robinson, and 
 residing with her sister at New York. Washmgton looked, loved, Imgered 
 for many days about the spot, departed for Boston, returned, and was agam 
 received as cordially as ever. He departed again ; not, however, till he 
 had unparted his hopes and fears to a friend, who promised to keep him 
 constantly informed of what was going on. This promise appears to have 
 been faithfully and amply fulfilled ; but in a few months intelligence 
 reached AVashmgton that a rival was in the field, and that some decisive 
 step must be taken at once. Wliether the futm-e president of America 
 Avas doubtful of success if he ventured, or whether the duties of the camp 
 occupied his mind to the exclusion of Mary Philipps, does not appear. 
 He never saw her again till she was the wife of Captain iMorris, and himself 
 the husband of Mrs Martha Custis, who possibly — we have no right to 
 venture further, if so lar — making considerate allowance, like the Speaker 
 of the House of Burgesses, for AVasliington's want of oral eloquence, availed 
 herself of a widow's privilege to suggest encouragement to her bashful 
 wooer ! One does not well see how else the marriage of the American 
 commander-in-chief — a very happy one, for the wife Avas worthy of the 
 husband — could have been brought about ! 
 
 19 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 This, then, was tlie general, and these his antecedents, upon whom the 
 American people had devolved the great and difficult task of successfully 
 encountering the forces which an im-English administration had despatched 
 across the Atlantic to put down English liberties in America. 
 
 The battles — skirmishes which ensued between the disciplined forces of 
 Great Britain and the raw levies of the colonists — were almost invariably, as 
 far as regarded the tield of action, adverse to the Americans. Still, Wash- 
 ington, surrounded by difficulties and discouragements of every kind, some- 
 tunes in consequence of the sluggish co-operation of Congi-ess, and the faulty 
 mode of enlisting the troops; at other times from causes impossible for 
 Congress to adequately remedy — want of money, of clothing, of arms, stores 
 of all soi'ts — abated not one jot of heart or hope. By masterly retreats he 
 avoided otherwise certain defeats in the field ; and when the national pulse 
 flagged, and despair of ultimate success would tempoi-arily cloud the bravest 
 spirits, he would strike a sudden and impetuous blow, which rallied the faint- 
 ing energies of the people, and flushed with ncAV hope the pale doubters of 
 the justice and providence of God. In 1776 the campaign had been little 
 ■else than a series of disasters and defeats. The British generals had con- 
 quered possession of the Jerseys, of Long, Rhode, and Staten Islands, and 
 the subjugation of Pennsylvania appeared imminent and certain. A procla- 
 mation by the brotliers Lord and Sir William Howe, promising the kmg's 
 pardon to all who should make submission within sixty days, had been is- 
 sued, and by many of the wealthier classes had been complied with. It was 
 a time of gloom and dismay, almost of despair. ' What will you do,' the 
 commander-in-chief was asked, ' if Philadelphia be taken? ' ' Retire behind 
 the Susquehanna, and if necessary to the Alleghanies,' was the reply. At this 
 moment, when, in the opinion of the timid and the wavering, all hope seemed 
 lost, and English generals were wi-iting home that the subjugation of the 
 colonists was virtually achieved, he struck a blow which not only restored 
 the national pulse to its old vigour, but taught his vaunting opponents that 
 the conquest of America had yet to be achieved. He had retreated across 
 the Delaware, when he ascertained that three regiments of Hessians, about 
 1500 men, hned from Gei-many to assist m putting down the British colo- 
 nists, were posted, with a troop of British horse, at Trenton. On a bitter 
 Christmas night Washington recrossed the Delaware, and foil with the 
 suddenness of a thunderbolt upon the astonished foreign mercenaries, cap- 
 tured 1000 of them, with 1100 or 1200 stand of arms, and six field-pieces : 
 the British horse escaped, and the Hessians who were not killed or captured 
 dispersed in various directions. Washington was again across the Dela- 
 ware with his prisoners and booty before the British general thoroughly 
 comprehended what had taken place. The capture of the redoubtable 
 Hessians, of whom immense things liad been expected, cost the Americans, 
 who were not at all superior in numbers to their enemies, two men killed, 
 and two frozen to death ! 
 
 As a proof of the vast moral ascendancy which the acliievements 
 and character of Washington had acquired for him, as well as of the 
 consummate foresight and prudence which distinguished liim — and not 
 a little revelative, too, of hereditary Yorkshire blood and prejudice — 
 we need onlv glance at his decision upon the proposed attack upon 
 20 
 
WASHINGTON AM) HIS COTK.Ml'OR.VniKS. 
 
 Canada by the expected — tliis -was in 1778 — French auxiliaries. Ac- 
 cording to the proposed scheme — the details of which were to be arran^eii 
 in Paris by J^alayette and Franklin — a French fleet was to asccjid the 
 yt Lawrence, and a large body of French troops were to attack Quebec. 
 Congress unanimously approved the project, as a powerful diversion in 
 favour of the States : not so Washuigton. He earnestly remonstrated 
 against the entertainment of such a design. ' Canada,' he wrote to 
 Congress, ' formerly belonged to France, and had been severed from her 
 in a manner which, if not humiliating to lier, contributed nothing to her 
 glory. Would she not be eager to recover the lost province? If it 
 should be recovered by her aid, would she not claim it at the peace as 
 rightfully belonging to her, and be able to advance plausible reasons for 
 such a demand?' lie added various military and political arguments in 
 support of his views, and concluded by suggesting, that as he could not 
 lorite all he Avished to say upon the subject, a conference with some of 
 the leading members of Congxess might be advantageous. This was 
 readily acceded to, and upon the advice of the members to Avhom he 
 detailed his reasons for objecting to the plan, it was at once and unani- 
 mously abandoned. 
 
 The limits of this Paper forbid us, if we had the inclination, to 
 enter into further details of this melancholy war. Suffice it to say, that 
 at no time was there a chance of subduing the British people of Ame- 
 rica. In 1778 Burgoyne surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga ; a 
 treaty of alliance between France and the United States was signed ; and 
 Spain and Holland soon added themselves to the list of belligerents against 
 Great Britain. Count D'Estaing arrived on the American coast with the 
 first division of the French gi-and fleet, and Count Rocharabeau followed 
 with an army, amongst whom was the Marquis Lafayette. This division 
 of the French fleet Avas, not very long afterwards, blockaded in Ne^n^ort by 
 Admiral Arbutlmot, and Rochambeau's army was obliged to remain there 
 for its protection. The second division Avas blockaded m Brest, and never 
 appeared on the American coast at all. Nevertheless, Lafayette skirmished 
 Avith considerable success with the outlying forces of CoruAA^allis in Virginia 
 and the Carolinas. Finally, Lord CornA\-allis not being succoured, as he 
 expected, by Clinton, whom Washington had thoroughly outgeneralled 
 surrendered at York-ToAvn to the combined American and French forces 
 commanded by Washington in person. This capitulation was contrary to 
 the advice of many of the British general's subordinates — of Colonel 
 Tarleton especially, from Avliom Jefferson had so narrow an escape at 
 Monticello, and one of the most daring and successful officers in the serA'ice. 
 He offered, if Cornwallis Avould alloAv him only tAvo thousand men, to 
 break through the enemy's lines, and jom Clinton. Tarleton AA-as probably 
 right in a merely military point of view; but fortunately for humanity 
 wiser counsels prcA-ailed, and the surrender Avas accomplished. With 
 this event the Avar, Avhich had endured eight years, virtually ended. Sir 
 Guy Carleton soon afterwards arrived from England to arrange the basis 
 of a pacification ; and peace, which Rodney's splendid victory deprived 
 of a portion of its sting, was, after no great delay, concluded ; his majestA' 
 George III. acknowledging the United States to be a free, sovereign, and 
 independent nation. 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Thus was happily, but, on the pai-t of Great Britain, ingloriously, tenni- 
 nated the war of American Independence — a war begun in aiTogance and 
 folly, and concluded in bitterness and discomfiture, by a peace only re- 
 deemed from mtolei'able humiliation by the devotion of the gallant service 
 whose traditional valour has ever shone most brilliantly when the clouds of 
 danger have gathered thickest round the national fortunes. Beside the 
 immense sums squandered durmg those eight years of fratricidal strife, the 
 future industry of the country was mortgaged to the extent of upwards of 
 A himdred millions sterling ! And all for what — even supposmg the object 
 of the war to have been obtamed ? Merely to keep our own countrymen in 
 such a state of tutelage and subjection as we would not om-selves submit to 
 at home, and to render a connection, which, were a wise and friendly policy 
 pursued, must necessarily be one of mutual honour and advantage, both 
 worthless and degrading — a source of weakness to the parent country in- 
 stead of strength, and profitable only to the class which provides us with 
 governors, lieutenant-governors, field-marshals, and then- apparently inse- 
 parable corollaries — loan-mongers and national debts ! 
 
 The sword was sheathed ; but the truly glorious portion of the task 
 assigned by Providence to the man who had conducted the contest to a 
 successful issue only now began. Peace has its victories far more renowned 
 than war ; and the laurels which Washington was destined to reap m that 
 higher and better service will flourish round his brows when the breath of 
 truth has withered the coronals of every conqueror that has plagued mankind 
 from Nimrod to Napoleon. The dazzling prize, ' supreme power,' which 
 men called ' great ' have in all ages of the world, by absurd and lying pre- 
 texts of various patterns and degrees, induced their tools and dupes to win 
 for them by then- ovni sacrifice and humiliation, was early ofiered to the 
 victorious leader of the American armies, and by him refused with cahn 
 contempt. Many well-meanmg and intelligent Americans appear to have 
 doubted at the time of the possibility of erecting a stable republican go- 
 vernment. Franklin himself, judging from the remarkable sentence m liis 
 will, after the clause bequeathmg his 'fine crab -tree walking-stick to his 
 friend, and the friend of mankind. General AVashington,' would appear to 
 have been secretly at least of that opmion. ' If,' wi'ote the philosopher, 
 ' if it were a sceptre, he has merited it, aiid v:ould become it.^ It is no 
 marvel, then, that the officers, and the army generally — by all of whom 
 Washington was almost idoUsed, and who had, or imagmed they had, 
 cause of complaint agauast the Congress — should have taken the same ^'iew 
 of affairs, and cast about to raise their leader to a position not only, they 
 might believe, essential to the permanent welftire of the country, but bene- 
 ficial to themselves and humbling to their fancied enemies. Tliis dispo- 
 sition of the troops and their officers was communicated to Washington in 
 wi'iting by a colonel of one of the regiments. Here is the reply : — ' I am 
 much at a loss to conceive Avhat part of my conduct could have given en- 
 couragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mis- 
 fortunes tliat can befall a country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge 
 of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes were 
 more disagi-eeable. Let me conjure you, if you luxve any regard for your 
 country, concern for yourself or posterity, to banish such thoughts from 
 your mind.' Thus did this single-minded man disdainfully thrust aside 
 22 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEJII'ORARIES. 
 
 the proffered toys of a chikli.sli uml vulgar aniljition. His rcproacliful re- 
 jection of tlioir proposition seems to have at once anniliilatctl tlic scliomes 
 and intrigues of the men who, from various motives, were still hankering 
 for a nionarcliy. 
 
 Anxious to put off as speedily as possible the splendid harness he had 
 so long worn, and deeming tlie blessed time had at length arrived when 
 he might, without injury to the public service, retire into private life, 
 Washington, who declined receiving from Congress any pecuniary recom- 
 pense whatever for his services, bade adieu to his brother soldiers on the 
 4th December 1783 in the following simple and touching address : — 'With 
 a heart full of gi-atitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish 
 that your latter days may be as prosperous and honourable as yom* former 
 ones have been glorious and honourable.' Not at all an eloquent man, 
 one perceives, even now. He seems not to have m the least improved in 
 the art of clothing poor thoughts in grandiose expressions : his speech 
 is merely simple, sincere, to the purpose, like the man himself — no- 
 thing more. General Ivnox stood next to him, and with liim the retu'ing 
 commander-in-chief first warmly shook hands, afterwards with the others 
 in succession — for every one of whom he had a kind wish or expression — 
 and then tranquilly withdrew, and was soon on his unescorted road 
 homewards. 
 
 Unescorted that is by soldiers, for the nation may be said to have lined 
 the road along which he passed to formally surrender his power to Con- 
 gress, which body had adjourned from Princeto^vn to Aimapolis in Mary- 
 land. He was compelled to travel slowly, in consequence of the enthusiastic 
 felicitations, congratulations, addresses, and benedictions which greeted him 
 from every city, village, and hamlet tlu'ough or near which he passed — all 
 requhing gi-ateful acknowledgment and respectful reply. It was not till 
 the 23d of the month that he arrived at the seat of Congress, and officially 
 rendered back the great trust confided to him. ' Having,' said Washington 
 amidst the solenm hush of the assembly — ' having now finished the work 
 assigned me, I rethe from the scene of action ; and bidding an affectionate 
 farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I 
 here return my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of 
 public life.' He then advanced and placed his commission in the hands of 
 the president. Not a soimd broke the sacred silence which accompanied 
 this act, for a parallel to which, in its simplicity of greatness, the mmd 
 vainly stretches back through the wi-eck-strewed ages of the past ; and it 
 was not till several minutes after the unconscious hero had left the hall, 
 that the members found vent for the emotion which oppressed them in 
 ordmary applause and common mutual felicitations. 
 
 The next day Washington reached Mount Vemon, from which he had been 
 absent within a few days of eight years and a-half, having during that entire 
 period onlyvisited his home as he hurriedly passed with Rochambeau towards 
 York-To^vn, and again as briefly as he returned from tliat expedition. His 
 delight at escaping from the turmoil of public affxirs seems to have been 
 intense. To General Knox he ^\Tites : — ' 1 feel now as I conceive a wearied 
 traveller must do, who, after treading many a painful steji with a heavy 
 burthen on his shoulders, is eased of the latter — having reached the haven 
 to which all the former were du-ected, and from his house-top is looking 
 
 23 
 
, CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 back, and tracing with an eager eye the meanders by which he escaped tlie 
 quicksands and mires where none but the all-poweri'ul Guide and Disposer 
 of events could have prevented him from falling.' To Lafayette he thus 
 expresses himself : — ' Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with 
 all ; and this being the order of my march, I will move quietly down the 
 stream of life, imtil I sleep with my fathers.' 
 
 The state of public affairs did not, however, permit our hero to re- 
 main long in his beloved retirement, and he was not a man to consult 
 inclination when duty spoke. He actively assisted at the settlement of 
 the federal constitution of 1789, which he accepted without reserve ; 
 not because he thought it by any means perfect, but that, under the 
 circumstances — the conflicting views and interests of several of the states 
 with regard to negi-o slavery especially — it was the best that could be 
 obtained. That constitution is essentially based upon the prmciple, that 
 whatever power is not distinctly, and in terms, transferred to the cen- 
 tral, or rather federal authority, remains with each state as an inde^ 
 pendent republic. This federal government is but an enlarged copy of 
 each state government. The president of the United States corresponds 
 to the governor of an mdividual state. The legislatm-e of each state, 
 like the general Congress, consists of a Senate and House of Eepresen- 
 tatives, with then- respective and independent executives. From the first 
 there were two great parties in America, called Federalists and Democrats 
 — the one anxious to consolidate and enlarge the power of the general 
 government, and the other desirous of maintaining and extending the prin- 
 ciple of the distribution of independent political power over the country. 
 Adams, the second president, Alexander Hamilton, and Knox, were the 
 rirst chiefs of federalism ; Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, Gallatin, the able 
 and ultimately triumphant cliampions of a more ultra democracy. ]\lany 
 of the mistakes which Englishmen fall mto with respect to American 
 legislation arise from not keeping in view the narrow limits to which tlie 
 action of the federal government is confined. It possesses no such general 
 powers as the British parliament. The southern states, for instance, deny 
 the right of Congress to levy a high protective tariff on foreign manufac- 
 tured goods — a light duty for the purposes of general revenue is of course 
 another matter — the effect of which would be to tax the Vu-guiian planter 
 for the benefit, real or supposed, of the manufacturer of the northern 
 states ; and the state legislatures of the south have not, as we know, 
 hesitated to 'nullify' acts of Congress of that nature, and would no doubt 
 do so again should the necessity arise; which, however, is not very 
 probable. They also deny the right of Congress to legislate on the subject 
 of slavery — no such power havuig, as they contend, been conferred upon 
 it. Unless this distribution and antagonism of independent power is 
 borne hi mind by the reader, the complications of American legislation will 
 frequently be incomprehensible. 
 
 Under this constitution AVashingtou was elected by acclamation the 
 first president ; and he, believing it to be his duty, accepted the great and 
 onerous trust conferred upon him. His progress from Mount V^ernon 
 towards the seat of government to assume his high functions was one 
 continued triumph. The people crowded tumultuously on his path, iu- 
 24 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMroitAItlKS. 
 
 voking with streaming eyes blessings on the head of ' the Fatlier of his 
 Coinitry.' It was a general jubilee of joy, of gratitude, of mutual iVlici- 
 tation : and yet this very people — a noisy portion of them at least — had 
 not very long before been as eager to traduce and vilify this great man as 
 they were now fervent in doing him honour. AN'ashington, who had borne 
 patiently with the people's mistakes, was not intoxicaterl with their homage. 
 He knew both their weakness and their strength, and could excuse their 
 follies for the sake of their virtues. He had always confidence in them 
 that, however temporarily misled by passion or prejudice, they would 
 come right at last. Some time before his election to the presidency, when 
 calumnies of all sorts were rife .against him, and wild coimscls, Avhich, if 
 embodied in action, would infallibly have brought ruin to the state, had 
 obtained an ephemeral popularity, he thus expressed himself: — 'I cannot 
 think that Trovidence has done so much for us for nothing. I cannot but 
 hope that the good sense of the people will prevail over its prejudices. 
 The Miglity Sovereign of the Universe has conducted us too long on the 
 path to happiness and fame to abandon us in the midst. By our folly and 
 evil conduct we may for a time wander from the way, but I have con- 
 lidence there remains sufficient sense and virtue amongst us to regain 
 the right road before we are utterly lost.' AVe shall presently see this 
 now mucli-lauded hero again exposed to popular odium and insult, and 
 again behold him triumph over it by his former principles — clear rectitude 
 and inflexible justice ! 
 
 The first presidency of this illustrious man was unmarked by any inci- 
 dent of a disturbing character. His cabinet, in which were Hamilton and 
 Jefferson, Ivnox and Randolph, testified how entu'ely he was uninfluenced 
 by party prejudices, and desirous only of securing the services of able and 
 honest men, to whatever section of politics they belonged. The business 
 ot the country was firmly and expeditiously transacted, and order gi-adually 
 arose out of the chaos in which the war had left every department of public 
 affairs. In 1793, during his second term of office, an event, or rather series 
 of events occuiTed, which, but for the clear sagacity, the firm decision, the 
 vast moral authority of the president, must have again exposed America to 
 the calamities, physical and moral, of a war of the most tremendous and 
 destructive character. The French Revolution had occurred, and M. Genet, 
 the newly-appointed ambassador of that countiy — merely, as it seemed, be- 
 cause France, like America, had adopted a republican form of government 
 — took upon himself the right, on landing at Charleston in Virginia, to 
 direct the fitting-out and arming of cruisers to act as privateers against 
 Great Bi-itain, with whom the French republic was at w^ar. This extraor- 
 dinary gentleman had not as yet been even presented to the government, 
 whose authority and functions he so audaciously usurped. Washington was 
 not, however, a man to be bearded with impunity, and he issued orders to 
 put a stop by force to M. Genet's proceedings. M. Genet, who appears to 
 have laboured imder the delusion that the bellicose oratorj' of the violent 
 democi-ats, or rather anarchists, by whom he was encouraged and supported, 
 w-as the expression of the deliberate opinion of the calm and sober majoritv 
 of the American people, attempted to defy the president, and talked of a]i- 
 pealmg from the government to the nation. The ferment in the country was. 
 there is no doulit, terrific, and might have frightened a man less resolute 
 
 25 
 
CIIAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 in the right than AVashmgton from his piu-pose. He, however, was as little 
 disposed to yield to the despotism of a mob as of a monarch ; and heedless 
 of. the storm of abuse and calumny with which he was assailed, steadfastly 
 pursued the path which duty and the law of nations pointed out. The calm- 
 ness of his resolution, as weU as of his contempt for his vilitiers, he thus 
 expressed m a letter to the governor of jMaryland, who had urged hun to 
 prosecute the assailants of his tame and character : — ' I have some time 
 since resolved to let my calumniators proceed without any notice being 
 taken of theu' invectives by myseK, or by any other with my participation 
 or knowledge. Their views are, I daresay, readily perceived by all the en- 
 lightened part of the community ; and by the records of my administration, 
 and not by the voice of faction, I expect to be acquitted or condemned here- 
 after.' The recall of M. Genet was peremptorily demanded of the French 
 executive, and the ports of the United States were closed by the authority 
 and power of the federal government against the entrance of English mer- 
 chant prizes ; and when the British government demanded restitution of such 
 captures as had already been made, the demand was promptly complied with 
 and enforced. Washmgton, and all who abetted hun, were of course furiously 
 denounced as traitors and villains, as the friends and mercenaries of Eng- 
 land — of that England which had desolated America by a war of which the 
 wounds still bled and festered ! 
 
 At this tune, too, it unfortunately happened that the relations of the 
 United States with this country were of a very unsettled and imsatis- 
 factory character. Some of the frontier posts agreed to be surrendered 
 by Great Britam had not yet been given up ; British cruisers did not 
 hesitate to impress seamen on board American vessels, vinder the plea, 
 real or pretended, that they were Englishmen ; and there were other 
 points in the commercial mtercourse of the two countries of an unsatis- 
 factory and irritating nature. Washington despatched Mr Jay to Eng- 
 land to negotiate a treaty which shoidd place matters upon an amicable 
 footing. In 1794 that gentleman returned with a connnercial treaty, in 
 which, though the British ministers had made some concessions, tliere 
 were other, and, as Washington himself thought, important stipulations 
 which had not been acceded to. The arrival of Mr Jay renewed tlie outcry 
 in favour of France and against England. The articles of tlie treaty were 
 carried by a tumultuous mob through the streets of Philadelphia, and 
 burned before the doors of the minister and the Britisli consul. Washing- 
 ton was at Mount Vernon at the tune, but intelligence of these proceedings 
 brought hun instantly to Philadelphia. His cabinet, which had been pre- 
 viously much weakened by the retirement of Hamilton and Knox, was 
 imcertain and divided ; but he, regardless of the difficulties which beset 
 him, acted at once, and with his usual vigour and decision. He sent the 
 treaty to the senate, with a recommendation that they should accept it. 
 Tliat body, sustained by the undismayed attitude of the president, accepted 
 the treaty, although only by the bare legal majority of two-thirds of then- 
 number, but stipulated for an important modiiication previous to its 
 being signed by the president. Washington saw the danger of delay, and 
 signed it at once without waiting for tlie required modiiication. Eandolpli 
 immediately withdrew from the cabinet, and the popular mdignation was 
 of course tremendous. An unmense number of addresses poured in upon 
 26 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 the president, all more or less mciiacing in their tone, and requiring him to 
 desist from the course he had entered upon. Washington made tlic follow- 
 ing reply to one of tlie most influential of tlie deputations that waited upon 
 him ; and his answers to all the others were the same in substance; — ' With- 
 out any predilection for my own judgment, I have weiglied with attention 
 every argument wliich lias at any time been brought into view. But the 
 constitution is the guide whicli I can never abandon. It has assigned to 
 the president the power of making treaties with the consent and advice of 
 the senate. It was doubtless supposed that those two bi-anches of govern- 
 ment would combine without passion, and with the best means of informa- 
 tion, those facts and principles upon which our foreign relations depend, 
 and that they ought not to substitute for their owni conviction the 
 opuiions of others, or to seek truth through any other channel than 
 that of a temperate and well-informed investigation. Under these 
 cu-cumstances, I have resolved on the niamier of executing the duty 
 before me. To the high responsibility attached to it I freely submit, 
 and you, gentlemen, are at perfect liberty to state these as the grounds 
 of my procedure. T\niilst I feel the most lively gratitude for the many 
 instances of approbation I have received from my country, I can no other- 
 wise deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my own conscience.' Not 
 only was the finnness of the president assailed by public meetings and 
 addi-esses, but the House of Eepresentatives, by an immense majority, de- 
 manded that all papers and correspondence relatmg to the obnoxious treaty 
 should be laid before them. This Washington civiUy but peremptorily 
 declined to comply with, on the plea that to do so would be injurious to 
 the public service ; and the iierce uproar redoubled, if that were pos- 
 sible, in rage and violence. The Britisli ministers, however, foi'tunately 
 yielded the modification requu'ed, and in their turn ratified the treaty. 
 Still, the legislative action of Congress was required to give effect to the 
 provisions of the treaty, and the struggle that ensued between the 
 House of Representatives and the president was bitter and intense. At 
 length, after a six Aveeks' contest, tlie House, dcspahing of overcoming the 
 firmness of Washington, yielded the point, and the enactments requh'ed 
 to give force to the provisions of the treaty were carried by a majority 
 of three. 
 
 The resignation of the secretaryship of state by jMr Randolph, though it 
 added greatly to the immediate embarrassments of the chief of the exe- 
 cutive, was not quite voluntary on the part of that gentleman. A letter 
 which M. Fauchet, the French envoy who succeeded M. Genet, had de- 
 spatched to his government, had been intercepted at sea by the English, 
 and was, by order of the British government, placed in the president's hands. 
 A perusal of it rendered it evident that either M. Fauchet was grossly mis- 
 leading the French Directory, or that Mr Randolph was mixed up witli the 
 French party in a manner totally mconsistent with his duty not only to 
 the president, but to his country. Washmgton entered the cabinet, and 
 placing the letter in the secretary's hands, demanded an explanation. 
 Randolph, exceedingly astonished, complamed that the president ought to 
 liave spoken privately to him on the subject. Washmgton thought dif- 
 fei'ently, and the secretary resigned his ofiice, which step was of course 
 attributed by the people solely to his disapproval of Washmgton signmg 
 
 27 
 
ciiAinu:Ks's papers for the people. 
 
 (the commercial treaty with England before the required modification had 
 been obtained. The vacant post was instantly fiUed np by Mr Pickering, 
 and Mr Randolph appealed from the jud,gment of the president to that of 
 the people. Having loudly proclaimed that papers necessary for his de- 
 fence were withheld from him, more especially one addressed to him by 
 Washington himself, the president sent him the following reply : — ' That 
 you may have no cause to complain of the withholding of any paper, how- 
 ever private and confidential, which you may thmk necessary in a case of 
 so serious a nature, I have directed that you should have the inspection of 
 my letter, as you request ; and you are at full liberty to publish, without 
 reserve, any and every private and confidential letter I ever Avrote to you — 
 nay more, every word I ever uttered to you, or in your hearing, from 
 wlience you can derive any advantage in your vindication.' The unfavour- 
 able impression conceived by Washington of Mr Randolph's integi-ity, spite 
 of that gentleman's ingenious defence, was soon participated in by the 
 public, and was perhaps rather confirmed than weakened by a written 
 testimonial to his perfect innocence which he obtained from M. Fauchet. 
 His position as a public man was gone for ever. 
 
 The popularity of the president did not long sufier eclipse. The sense 
 and virtue of the country rallied in his defence ; the clouds of prejudice 
 and passion gradually exhaled hi the mcreasing light of truth ; and before 
 liis second presidency had expired, Washington was again tlie idol — the 
 ' father of his people.' Such magic is there in right ! 
 
 Amity with England, in tlie \ocabulary of the French government of 
 that period, was synonymous with enmity to France, and war was loudly 
 threatened by the chance, ephemeral rulers of that country. Washington 
 was anxious to mamtain peace between the two republics, though he 
 would make no unworthy compliances to obtain it. He accredited (1797) 
 three commissioners — Messrs Finckney, INIarshall, and Gerry — to the Direc- 
 tory, Avith a view to tlie pacific arrangement of existing difficulties. The 
 Directory, like M. Genet, seem to have been impressed witli the notion 
 that the opinions of the American people were opposed to those of the 
 American government, and that they might therefore dictate their own 
 terms. The commissioners were received in the most al)surdly-hauglity 
 manner; and M. Talleyrand had even the eifrontery to inform them, 
 that, as a preliminary to any possible negotiation, ' D'argent, heau- 
 eoup d^argenf!''- — (' Money, plenty of money!') — must be forthcoming. 
 The grave Americans laughed in the fantastical ex-bishop's iace, and 
 then quietly assured him it was not by tliat mode the United States 
 negotiated peace. They soon afterwards returned to America, and pre- 
 parations for war commenced in good earnest. 
 
 In the meanwhile Wasliington's second presidency had expired ; and 
 firmly declining to be a third time elected, he withdrew to jNIount Vernon, 
 as spotless in integrity, as pure in heart, as unselfish in his patriotism, as 
 on the day that he first pledged for the deliverance of his country ' his life, 
 his fortune, and his sacred honour.' The following anecdote related by 
 Bishop White is very instructive and significant : — ' On the day before 
 President Washington retired from office a large company dined with him. 
 Among them were the foreign ministers and their ladies, and other cou 
 28 
 
WASHINGTON AND 11I.S LUlKMI'UHAKIKri. 
 
 apicuous persons of Itoth sexes. During dinner much liilarity prevailed; 
 but on the reniovjil of the I'lotli, it was undesignedly put an end to by the. 
 president. Having lilled his glass, he addressed the company with a smile 
 in nearly the following words: — '' Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last 
 time I shall drink your healths as a public man. I do it with sincerity, 
 wishing you all possible happiness."' There was an end of all pleasantr}'. 
 I happened to turn my eyes in the direction of the lady of the British 
 minister, Mrs Liston, and tears I saw Avere rapidly coursing each other 
 down her cheeks ! ' 
 
 ' Behold the man ! ye crowned and erniined train, 
 And learn from him the royal art to reign ; 
 No guards surround him, or his walks infest, 
 No cuirass meanly shields his noble breast ; 
 His the defence which despots ne'er can find. 
 The love, the pr.ayers, the interest of mankind. 
 Ask ye what spoils his far-famed arms have won, 
 What cities sacked, what hapless realms undone ? 
 Though Monmouth's field supports no vulgar fame. 
 Though captured York shall long preserve his name, 
 I quote not these — a nobler scene behold, 
 Wide cultured fields fast ripening into gold ! 
 There, as his toil the cheerful peasant plies. 
 New marts are opening, and new spires arise ; 
 Here commerce smiles, and there en groupe are seen 
 The useful arts and those of sprightlier mien : 
 To cheer the whole the Muses tune their lyre. 
 And Independence leads the white-robed choir. 
 Trophies like these, to vulgar minds unknown. 
 Were sought and prized by W^ashington alone : 
 From these, with all his country's honours crowned. 
 As sage in councils as in arms renowned ; 
 All of a piece, and faithful to the last, 
 Great in this action as in all the past, 
 He turns, and urges as his last request. 
 Remote from power his weary head to rest.' * 
 
 But no permanent rest could, it seems, be allowed the now aged veteran : 
 he must perforce die with harness on his back. The new president, Adams, 
 preparmg hastily for war with France, wrote to Washington, begging him 
 to accept the post of commander-in-chief of the army. ' Your name,' 
 observed Mr Adams, ' will be a host.' Washington could not refuse ; but 
 he accompanied his acceptance of the office by the condition that Hamilton 
 should be his second in command : no higher compliment could have been 
 paid that gifted man. The different modes by which the troops of France 
 and Great Britain should be encountered he thus expressed : — ' In the last 
 war it was necessary to wear out the English veterans by a desultory, 
 harassing wartai-e, but we must meet and tight the French soldiers step by 
 step.' Fortunately the advent of the First Consul to the direction of 
 alTairs removed all apprehension of war. Napoleon Bonaparte was too 
 wise to add America to the list of the foes of France ; and an equitable 
 arrangement was soon effected ; not, unfortunately, however, till a naval 
 engagement had taken place between the United States frigate Constella- 
 
 * St John Honcvwood, an American poet, and cotemporary of Washington. 
 
 :i9 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 iion and the French frigate L' Insurgente, in which the latter, after a spirited 
 action, was captured by Commander Truxton. 
 
 The news came too late to reach the ear of Washington. The List scene 
 of life's strange and always tragic drama had arrived for him. A brief 
 illness, the immediate cause of which was his being caught in a shower of 
 rain whilst out riding on his estate at Mount Vernon, terminated his event- 
 ful career on the 14th of December 1799. He expired surrounded by his 
 weeping family and friends, his servants amongst the most sorrowmg of 
 those friends. He suffered considerably, but no murmur of complamt or 
 impatience escaped him. ' I am dying hard,' he observed with a faint, 
 pale smile to the physician in attendance, ' but it will soon be over.' Thus 
 calmly and resignedly passed away that childlike, giant man ; and, his 
 earthly mission well accomplished, he slept peacefully with his fathers, 
 having lived sixty-eight years. 
 
 ' Let me be buried privately, and let no funeral oration be pronounced 
 over my remains,' was one of his last mjunctions. Those who have dis- 
 obeyed that solemn command have done so vainly, for Time alone can write 
 his fittmg epitaph — that future and advancing Time, in whose clear day 
 the grim and fantastic shadows mistaken for true heroes in the darkness 
 and twilight of the world are destined to pass away and be forgotten, but 
 which light from heaven will only add new lustre to the aureole of moral 
 beauty, dignity, and worth which encircles the brows of the great 
 American. 
 
 The will of George Washington contains, as we read it, not only a great 
 lesson for the world, but an especial admonition to his countrymen. The 
 admonition is contained, veiled if you will, in the first paragraph after the 
 general bequest to his wife, in which, with so much solemn earnestness, he 
 decrees the freedom of all his slaves at the death of Mrs Washington, 
 lamenting that he durst not order theu- immediate liberation because of the 
 misery that would result to themselves in consequence of their intermar- 
 riage with the dower slaves, over whom he had no control. He further 
 orders, that when the time for freeing thenl shall have arrived, those amongst 
 them that may from age or infirmity be incapable of supporting themselves, 
 shall be comfortably fed and clothed by his heirs : the children he directs 
 to be educated and provided for till they are twenty-five years of age. 
 'These dispositions,' he writes, 'I solemnly and pointedly enjoin on 
 my heirs to see religiously fulfilled.' To us it appears evident that Wash- 
 ington bitterly felt and lamented the foul blot which negro slavery — 
 the sad inheritance, we must not forget, bequeathed by the vicious policy 
 of former governments — stamps upon the glory of the stars and stripes ; 
 and that, possessing no power to abate the evil by legislative action, he 
 was desirous of showing by his own example — recorded in the most solemn 
 document man can frame, for it is his last — how necessary he esteemed it, 
 if his countrymen would not continue to give the lie to their professions of 
 natural freedom and equality, to rid themselves, at the earliest moment it 
 could be done, without creating a greater evil than it was intended to 
 abolish, of an institution inconsistent alike with real safety and true great- 
 ness. The lesson to the world, and especially to conquerors and tiieir 
 .•30 
 
WASHINGTON AND HIS COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 dupes and tools, is the oft-quoted passage in which he bequeaths his 
 swords to his nephews: — 'These swords are accompanied with an injunction 
 not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for 
 self-defence, or in defence of tlieir country and its liberties ; and in the 
 latter case, to keep them unsheatlicd till the object be accomplished, and 
 prefer tailing with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof.' 
 Words which, whilst they express his and every just person's abhorrence 
 of aggressive war, must ever stir as with a trumpet the heart of every man 
 compelled to arm in defence of home, freedom, and country. 
 
 There is not much requiring remark in the after-career of any of the 
 distinguished associates of this great man ; their public acts were for the 
 most part modelled upon his. ""Adams and Jefl'erson, the second and third 
 presidents, by a remarkable coincidence, both died on the same day, the 
 fiftieth anniversary of ' Independence' — one at the age of eighty-four, and 
 the other ninety-one years of age. The last days of Jefferson were unfor- 
 tunately embittered by pecuniary difficulties. The inscription on his 
 tomb, wTitten by himself, records that he was the author of the ' Declara- 
 tion of Independence,' and the ' Vu-ginian Statute of Religious Freedom,' 
 and the ' Father of the University of Virginia.' No mention is made of 
 Jiis having been president of the United States. Franklin died some years 
 before Washington. The quaint epitaph composed for himself by the 
 calm-minded philosopher, though familiar to most readers, will always be 
 woi-th quoting as long as the absurd notion shall linger m the dark holes 
 and corners of the world, that a belief in the immortality of the soul is 
 inconsistent with a knowledge and love of natural science : — ' The body of 
 Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book with its con- 
 tents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding), lies here food for 
 worms : yet the work itself shall not be lost ; for it will (as he believed) 
 appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and 
 amended by the Author.' Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel by 
 the notorious Colonel BuiT. The mention of this person's name reminds us 
 of an anecdote connected with Washington, which rests, we believe, upon his 
 (Colonel Burr's) authority. It was reported in America that George III., 
 on being told by some one that the newly-appointed American commander- 
 in-chief once asserted that ' he loved the whistling of bullets,' had remarked 
 that the Virginian officer said that because he had heard so few. Many 
 years afterwards Washington was asked if he could ever have made use of 
 such an expression ? ' I thmk not,' replied the veteran ; ' but if I did, it 
 must have been when I was very young ! ' 
 
 Here this brief summary of an important chapter of the world's history 
 naturally concludes ; and we may, without rendering ourselves justly 
 obnoxious to the charge of passing rash judgments, draw the follow- 
 hig conclusions from the premises : — \st, That admiration of the con- 
 duct of the leaders of American resistance is perfectly consistent with 
 the higliest respect for monarchical institutions, inasmuch as the liberties 
 which those leaders armed to defend were liberties enjoyed under char- 
 ters consecrated by successive English monarchs ; 2dly, That the resist- 
 ance of the Bi'itish colonists was strictly a defensive one, and the real 
 
 Ml 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 re\oliitionists therefore the British ministers, who made unlawful war upon 
 an unotfendmg, loyal, and peaceable people ; 'idly^ and lastly, That the 
 very worst use to which the valour and resources of the British people can 
 be directed, is an endeavour to subject distant communities of English- 
 men to a yoke they would not themselves endure at home, or to set 
 about converting, by the employment of violence and insult, a kindred 
 and friendly people mto a Jealous and hostile one. The hateful memories 
 of former unjust violence towards tlie American States are now happily 
 passmg away, and the old influences arising from identity of race, lan- 
 guage, and ancestral achievement, are resummg then* natural sway. It is 
 the mclmation — whatever mcendiaries may say or sing — as well as the duty 
 and interest of this country, to aid that return to old feelings of mutual 
 friendship and respect ; for assuredly if there is one nation in the world 
 on which Englishmen ought to look with pride, it is America; just as it 
 is equally natural and true that the ' Old Country' is the only kingdom iii 
 Europe whicli our American brethren regard with aft'ectiou and esteem. 
 
CROMWELL .mD HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 MR HUME'S perversions of the reign of Charles I., once so popular, 
 and still quoted as authority in certain quarters, have, thanks to the 
 industry and zeal of modern historians and commentators, lost all claim to 
 respect ; and the i-eaction naturally consequent upon a discovery of the 
 injustice that had been done the great men of the Commonwealth, has 
 reached to such a height, that there now seems a tendency to canonise as 
 spotless saints and heroes the very persons whom it was so long the fashion 
 to slander and depreciate. The truth, as ever, lies not in either extreme. 
 Cromwell and his associates were men of like passions to ourselves ; their 
 motives, as their acts, a mingled yarn of good and evil, of spirituality 
 and earthliness : the good survives to bless us ; the evil has descended 
 with their bodies to the grave. And even that dust, rendered sacred by 
 the memory of their struggles, their toils, their sufifermgs, their apparent 
 defeat — dying, as many of them did, amidst the shouts and execrations of 
 an ephemeral restoration — we would reverently approach, remembering how 
 many of the errors — crimes if you will — with which they have been charged 
 are fairly attributable to the circumstances of the time in which their lot 
 was cast, rather than to their own wills and purposes. 
 
 The aspect of Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century must 
 have suggested utter despah- to the timid lover of freedom — to the pale 
 doubter in the progress of humanity. Despotism, enthroned on the ruins 
 of the feudal system, and surrounded by disciplined armies dependent on 
 the sole will of the monarch, had extinguished or enslaved all the inde- 
 pendent jurisdictions of the continent. The Parliaments of Paris, which 
 the war of the Fronde vainly strove to raamtain in virility and powei*, were 
 vii'tually subjugated; and in that country a government of autocratic loill 
 was, by the genius of Kichelieu, rapidly consolidated, and covered by the 
 fegis of success and victory. The Councils of Castile and Arragon had 
 long since disappeared ; and many years previously Cardinal Ximenes 
 told the deputies of Castile— pomting from a window to the armed bat- 
 talions of Charles V. — that it was by virtue of those men the king of Arra- 
 gon commanded in Castile. The United Provinces was a republic but in 
 name and form, so that the faintly-acknowledged liberties of these countries 
 were the sole rights remaining to the human race. Happily for Europe, 
 for the world, the English and Scottish peoples were faithful to then- great 
 trust, and neither kingly nor sacerdotal force or fraud was found able to 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 bend tliem to the yoke imposed upon the nations of the continent. To 
 the Puritans and Covenanters of that period even Mr Hume was compelled 
 to admit we owe the freedom which we, and if we, Europe, now enjoy. 
 The parliamentary leaders — and there can be no higher praise — were equal 
 to the high mission imposed by the time ; and no unprejudiced man, versed 
 in their histories, can refuse acquiescence in the testimony borne to their 
 merits by Bishop Warburton, ' that the interests of liberty were conducted 
 and supported by a set of the greatest geniuses for government that the 
 world ever saw embarked together in a common cause.' 
 
 Constitutions, other than paper and ephemeral ones, it has been remarked 
 with profound truth, are not, cannot be, made — they grow • and it is both 
 curious and instructive to mark the growth of this English one, which, 
 albeit that it envelops the entire land of Britain, guards our free homes, 
 speaks million -voiced in our assemblies and countless printing-presses, 
 cannot, it is often sneeringly reproached to us, be found neatly copied out 
 and duly labelled in the pigeon-hole of any desk in the kingdom. It began, 
 some tell us, with Magna Charta : the mailed barons set their seals, not 
 being able to write, to the first assertion of English liberties. A very great 
 mistake this of the eulogists of the illiterate lords. Those liberties date 
 from before Alfred, and Magna Charta was more a declaratory than an 
 enacting statute. A very valuable one certainly : litera scripta manet (the 
 written thmg remaineth). And there, in plain old text, principles were copied 
 out which could always be appealed to, and which no minister or judge 
 could successfully explain away. Slight thanks are, however, due to the 
 iron barons for that great piece of service, for nothmg is more certain than 
 that they looked upon the instrument solely as a means of protecting 
 themselves from the encroachments of the sovereign; and it was with as 
 much surprise as indignation they afterwards found that the same weapon 
 which restrained royal prerogative was equally potent to curtail baronial 
 privilege. The reign of Edward III., the English Justinian, as he has been 
 called, marks great and lasting progress on the pai-t of the people. Tlie 
 nation had thoroughly recovered from the shock and stupefaction caused 
 by the Norman invasion. The victories of Cressy and Poitiers had amply 
 vindicated, in the eyes of the dazzled world, the reputation of English 
 valour, ignorantly deemed to have been tarnished by the result of Hastings ; 
 the English language, the language of the people, illustrated by the genius 
 of Chaucer, was again that of the government ; the ' Commons ' of England 
 were a distinct and recognised estate of the realm; and the old foundations, 
 deep and broad, were everywhere zealously widened and strengthened for 
 the gi-adual erection of the system of government under which the British 
 people have long dwelt in peace, freedom, and security, by example teach- 
 ing ' the nations how to live.' The deposition of Richard II. is also an 
 important passage in the constitutional liistory of this country — a practical 
 verification of the theory which professes to restrain or punish prerogative. 
 It was the Commons who gave validity and force to Henry IV. 's title 
 and power ; and no one was more thoroughly impressed with tliat trutli 
 than himself. In the reign of his renowned son, the fifth Harry, tlie 
 'privileges' of the Commons, tliat especially which debars the sovcreigu 
 from taking cognisance, eitlier personally or tlu-ough any of his courts 
 of law, of the speeches or acts of the Commons when assembled ju 
 
CROaiWELL AND HIS CONTExMPORARIES. 
 
 session, were granted or confirmed. This ' privilege,' we shall find, 
 was the weapon which, reinforced by the terrible one of ' impeachment,' 
 mauily enabled the Commons to bring the conflict of freedom with pre- 
 rogative to a successful issue. Of the succeeding reigns, till the close 
 of that of Elizabeth, there need little here be said. The wars for the 
 retention of France, the conflicts of the White and Red Hoses, the troubles, 
 confiscations, persecutions, strife, and discontents, occasioned by the change 
 of religion, and the alternate triumphs of Catholic and Protestant, thrust 
 for a time all constitutional theories and maxims out of sight. They 
 seemed lost amid the tumultuous hurly-burly of polemical warfare and 
 sanguinary reaction ; but they were rock-based, and again raised their sunlit 
 pinnacles above the deep as the fury of the social storm subsided. The 
 long and wary reign of Elizabeth closed amidst the rising murmurs of the 
 people against the despotic authority which, taking advantage of the 
 troubles of the time, had dared to tax the people by means of patents for 
 monopolies, without leave of parliament. Cecd, going down to the House 
 on the 25th November 1601, was alarmed at the expression of the gi-owing 
 discontent, and warned the Commons that a dangerous spirit was abroad. 
 His royal mistress would withdraw those patents, since they had proved 
 hurtful to her people. ' But, gentlemen,' continued the minister, ' remember 
 that whatsoever is subject to public expectation cannot be good while the 
 parliament matters are ordinary talk in the streets. I have heard myself, 
 being in my coach, these words spoken aloud — " God prosper those that 
 further the overthrow of these monopolies ! God send the prerogative 
 touch not our liberties!" I think those persons would be glad that all 
 sovereignty were converted into popularity, we being here but the popular 
 mouth, and om- liberty but the liberty of the subject.' Elizabeth soon 
 afterwards died, and James I. ascended the throne, his head full of notions 
 of divine right, and confident that the devices of king-craft, on which he 
 plumed himself, would enable him to successfully govern the most restive 
 and stubborn nation in the world : a perilous experiment at all times, but 
 especially so now, when the printing-press had become a power, and men 
 were reading their Bibles after their o^vn interpretation, by the light of the 
 fires of Smithfield, and garnering up thoughts and aspirations — debased, it 
 is true, but at the same time hardened, strengthened, by alloy of bigotry — 
 which were anything but favourable to domination of any kind over the 
 wills and consciences of men. The pai-liaments which the necessities of 
 James obliged him to have recourse to, were much more lavish of advice 
 and remonstrance than of money; a mode of help which terribly exasperated 
 the upon the whole good-natured, well-meaning king. It was in this 
 reign that the Commons again drew forth theu- ancient but long-disused 
 weapon of impeachment. The first person that sank before it was the 
 Lord Chancellor Verulam (Bacon), accused of receiving bribes from the 
 suitors in his court, and prosecuted to conviction. The Lord Treasurer, 
 Cranford, Earl of Middlesex, was next impeached of both oppression and 
 corruption, and convicted. The Duke of Buckingham — the favourite of 
 the king and of Prince Charles — a weak, haughty man, in a fit of popular 
 caprice coincided with and supported the Commons in their attacks upon 
 the great officers of state. James, who, although not quite the Solomon 
 the elder D'Israeli would have us believe, was a shrewd observer, warned 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Buckingham — Steenie, as he called him — of the dangerous nature of tho 
 weapon the Commons were wielding with such decisive effect. ' By God, 
 Steenie ! ' exclaimed the king, ' you are a fool, and will shortly repent this 
 folly ; and will find that in this fit of popularity you are making a rod with 
 which your own breech will be scourged. You will live to have your 
 bellyful of parliamentary impeachments.' James, in this instance at least, 
 was a true prophet ; but he did not live to witness the fulfilment of his 
 prediction, having died ' mysteriously,' as was said, on the 1st June 1624 — • 
 not, however, till some time after he had with his own hand torn out of 
 the journal-book of the House of Commons ' an insolent remonstrance' of 
 that body, and had sent Pym, Sir Edward Coke, and several other members 
 to prison, avowedly for their* speeches and doings in parliament. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Charles I., at the age of twenty-five, 
 ascended the throne, his head as full as that of his father— more so, perhaps 
 — of notions of a king's divine, indefeasible right to absolute sovereignty. 
 He was no doubt willing enough to govern with a parliament, provided 
 the parliament willed what he willed, but otherwise quite resolved to rule 
 by ' other counsels.' The nation was in an ill-humour for such assump- 
 tions ; and it was evident from the first, to all calmly-reasoning men, that 
 there was nothmg for it but to frankly and sincerely accept the situation 
 as it presented itself, and submit to conduct the afiairs of the kingdom iu 
 accordance with the views of the Commons' House, now grown too power- 
 ful to be permanently controlled, much less ignored, by the sovereign. 
 The new king thought otherwise; and when his tu'st parliament, which 
 met in 1625, after granting the usual subsidy, showed a disposition to 
 inquire into ' grievances,' especially that ' grievance of grievances,' the 
 Duke of Buckingham, whose insolence of power and manifold corruptions 
 had not only disgusted the nation with the favourite, but partially alienated 
 its affections from the crown, Charles, under pretence of the plague, then 
 raging, hastily dissolved it. In 1626 a new parliament, 'a great, warm, 
 ruffling parliament,' as Wliitelock calls it, was summoned to Westminster 
 to aid the king with counsel and money. The former part of their" duty 
 they set about with great alacrity: a 'committee of grievances' was 
 appointed, and an unmistakeable determination shown to put an end ta 
 the government of favouritism and corruption which marked the com- 
 mencement of the young king's reign. ' Are not honours,' exclaimed Sir 
 John Eliot of famous memory, ' sold and made despicable ? Are not 
 judicial places sold, and do they not sell justice again?' The king's rage 
 was excessive. 'I must let you know,' said his majesty, 'that I will not 
 allow any of my servants to be questioned amongst you, much less such as 
 are of eminent place and near my person. I see you especially aim at the 
 Duke of Buckingham. I would have you hasten my supply, or else it will 
 be worse for yourselves!' Brave words these, but utterly thrown away 
 upon the stubborn Commons. The preparations to impeach the Duke of 
 Buckingham, 'the source from which all this bitterness fiows,' went on as 
 vigorously as ever. Amongst his other crimes, Buckingliam was indirectly 
 accused of assassinating the late king, by administering to him 'a plaister 
 and a posset-drink' without tho knowledge or authority of the royal phy- 
 sicians. In a transport of fury the king arrested Sir John Eliot and Sir 
 4 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Dudley Digges, and committed tlicm to the Tower. This manifest breach 
 of 'privilege' the monarch liad speedy reason to regret. The Commons 
 not only declared their approval of all the imprisoned members had said, 
 but refused to proceed -without them. After eight days' confinement, they 
 were released, and the accusation agahist Buckingham was pressed as 
 earnestly as before. All eflbrts to subdue the spirit, or mollify the resent- 
 ment, of the Commons having failed, tlie parliament was dissolved, the 
 king determining thenceforth to be governed by the ' new counsels,' of 
 "which he had previously forewarned the opposers of his will. 
 
 The new counsels, it soon appeared, were simply counsels to mulct and 
 oppress the people under form and colour of law, and by the naked exercise 
 of the prerogative. Forced loans, as they were mockingly termed, were 
 demanded, chiefly of gentlemen obnoxious to the court party, under threat 
 of imprisonment. Commissions were appointed, armed with the most 
 inquisitorial powers for extracting ' Benevolences' from reluctant subjects. 
 In the words of the royal wan-ant, ' they were to treat apart with every one 
 of those who were to lend, or should make delay or excuses, and persist in 
 their obstinacy, that they examine such persons on their oath, whether they 
 had been dealt with to deny, to refuse, or to delay to lend, or make an 
 excuse for not lending!' Charles, moreover, in order to give his new 
 counsels a fair chance of success, in imitation of the practice of Elizabeth, 
 'tuned' his pulpits, as it was popularly termed, and reverend doctors were 
 found to preach illimitable obedience to the king, vmder pain of illimitable 
 damnation. Those of the clergy that refused to lend themselves to so 
 impious a device were persecuted without mercy, at the suggestion of 
 William Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, who had drawn up the 
 instructions for the clergy, and who not very long afterwards, for that 
 essential service, was made archbishop of Canterbury. Beside the loans, 
 tonnage and poundage, or import and export duties, unvoted by parliament, 
 were forciby levied. The city of London was peremptorily commanded to 
 furnish the king's majesty with £120,000 ; the outports were compelled to 
 equip a number of war- vessels, under pretence of danger of invasion ; and 
 the lords-lieutenant of the counties were ordered to impress and train men 
 to arms to put down civil tumult. These lawless proceedings, instead of 
 intimidating, served but to inflame and exasperate the public mind. Mr 
 John Hampden of Buckinghamshu-e refused to subscribe to the king's loan, 
 so did Sir Thomas Wentworth, John Pym, Sir John Eliot, and more than a 
 hundred other of the principal gentry of the kingdom. They were all 
 throAvn into prison for then- refusal. Hampden was first confined in the 
 Gate-House, London, and afterwards imprisoned in Hampshire. Went- 
 worth and Pym were incarcerated in the country. Mr George Catesby of 
 Northampton, when imprisoned in the Gate-House, was visited by the 
 Lord President, to whom he pleaded that he did not care for the money 
 required of him, but that he feared to violate IMagna Charta, and that his 
 compliance might be construed as a precedent. The Lord President told 
 the man in bonds that ' he lied !' ' I came not here to dispute with your 
 lordship,' was Catesby's ansAver, ' but to sufier ! ' As for the common file 
 ■who resisted, they were sent to serve in the king's ships, impressed as 
 soldiei's, treated, in short, as our trusty and well-beloved commissioners 
 deemed fitting and proper. The parasites of the court were especially 
 
 5 
 
Chambers's papeks for the people. 
 
 delighted to find that tlie judges of the land were all on their side. Law, 
 
 if its dignitaries were to be believed, was clearly against gentlemen impri- 
 soned for refusing, or for being unable to lend the king any sum of money 
 his majesty chose to name. Sii' Thomas Darnel, Sir Jolui Corbet, and 
 others sued out then- habeas corpus, and demanded to be released ; but the 
 judges refused all relief. The kmg's warrant, according to them, justified 
 everything. Not, however, without shame and remorse was this done by 
 the learned judges. ' The Commons little know,' exclaimed one of them, 
 ' what letters and commands we receive ! ' Certainly the Commons did 
 not ; neither tiU long afterwards were they aware that the wording of the 
 judges' patents had been changed from the old clause, quamdiu se hene 
 ffesserit, to durante bene placcto. How could they suspect dignified 
 functionaries of accepting offices under such disgraceful conditions ? 
 
 Wlien all was done, these torturings, imprisonings were found to avail 
 but very poorly and insufficiently in procuring money for the king's neces- 
 sities, however mnch they might have gi'atified his pride and love of 
 power. He was daily getting poorer and poorer — could not with all his 
 counsels and contrivances find any adequate remedy for that consumption 
 of the purse — and as a last and desperate resource, again m 1628 summoned 
 his faithfid Commons to meet him at Westminster. Charles on this 
 occasion, in order, our historians tell us, to show a magnanimous example, 
 released all the gentlemen, nearly eighty in number, wliom he held caged 
 for non-compliance with the voluntary loan ; and the people, grateful as 
 his majesty was magnanunous, retm'ned nearly all of them to the new 
 parliament. Yorkshire sent Wentworth ; Cornwall, Eliot ; Hampden sat 
 for Wendover ; Pyra for Grampound. 
 
 The meeting of the king's third parliament was a very notable event in 
 the world's history. The old leaders were all there, and another was 
 now added to them. A stout, strongly- framed man, of very 'slovenly' 
 appearance, as gentlemen curious in tailoring deemed him, entered the 
 House for the first time, accompanied by ]\Ir Hampden, who introduced 
 him to Eliot, Pym, and others congregated about the Speaker's chair, 
 as ' my kinsman, Mr Oliver Cromwell, member for Huntmgdon.' 
 Pym was soon in deep conversation»with the stranger: there was some- 
 thing in him, he soon perceived, more than even the massive forehead, 
 swift - glancing eyes, and firm -set lips at first indicated. He was not 
 much of a speaker this Cromwell. Sir Philip Warwick says his voice 
 was untunable and harsh ; and he (Sir Philip) marvelled that so great an 
 assemblage should have listened with so great a respect to such an ungainly 
 feUow. He had a habit, too, we are told, of suddenly grasping the hilt of 
 his sword with a fierceness that would have probably crushed Sir I'hilip's 
 dainty fingers to a jelly, as if there, in his mmd, lay the true argument, or at 
 all events, that which would, aU others failing, assuredly prevail. ' Who is 
 that sloven you came in Avith ?' asked Digby of Hampden. ' That sloven,' 
 was the reply, ' if we should ever — which (iod forbid '.—come to a I'upture 
 with the king, will be the greatest man in England.' The calm, keen eyes 
 of Cromwell's kinsman had, we are now aware, read the character of the 
 new member for Huntingdon aright, and it is supremely absurd to suppose 
 that a man who could suggest sucli a prophecy to a mind like Hampden's, 
 was the confused, heavy dullard, and hypocritical buffoon wliich prejudice 
 G 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 and folly -would have us believe. Not an eloquent phrase-maker, if you 
 will, but clearly of the true metal which discerning men had but to sound 
 in order to discover its essential and sterling qualities. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell — to briefly recapitulate all that history has told us of 
 trustworthy of his youth and early manhood — was the son of Mr llobert 
 Cromwell, a gentleman of good family and moderate means, settled at 
 Huntingdon — a brewer there, some say, but without much likelLliood of 
 truth. The Cavaliers used, we know, to call Harrison a butcher, for the 
 excellent reason that his father was a large grazing fanner. Be this, 
 however, as it may, Oliver, since his father's death, managed his mother's 
 business, whatever it was, whether farming or brewing, and succeeded in 
 doing so reasonably well. He had also received a good education, or at 
 all events, what in those days passed for one ; for we tind lie was entered 
 of Sussex College, Cambridge, on the very day, it is not uninteresthig to 
 remark, that Shakspeare died 1 The stories told of the dissoluteness of 
 Oliver's youth may equally, with the prophetic marvels which, after he had 
 achieved greatness, were said to have marked his infancy and boyhood, be 
 dismissed with almost entire incredidity. He was related to Hampden by 
 marriage only, having espoused, on the 22d of August 1620, Elizabeth, 
 daughter of Sir John Bourchier, a kinsman of the anciently -descended 
 famUy of Buckinghamshire. Cromwell appears to have been a thoroughly 
 sincere and fervidly-pious man ; and well would it have been had the 
 charity of his religious zeal equalled its earnestness and fervom*. An 
 excellent neighbour too, helpful to aU who needed help, and a zealous 
 protector of the Nonconforming lecturers, whom Laud was hunting and 
 persecuting through the comitry ; a man, in short, fitted for the perilous 
 and anxious time ; watchful and patient of passing events ; eagle-visioned 
 to the dawnings of the future ; and, to use Milton's expression, ' nom-ishing 
 his g i'eat soul in silence,' whilst calmly but mournfully awaiting the moment 
 when the contest, now thickening, should be removed to a more decisive 
 arena than that of the Commons' House, and men of bold deeds more than 
 of eloquent words would be requu-ed. 
 
 The shadow of that time already lowered visibly over the land. The 
 king was in no humour to part with the reality of the despotic power he 
 had usurped, though he was profuse of promises that he woiUd for the 
 futiu-e, out of his own royal grace and favour, deal tenderly with the 
 liberties of his subjects. It was not for a moment to be supposed that the 
 Commons would be satisfied with mere words, and after agreeing to grant 
 the king five subsidies, they clogged the gift with the precedent condition 
 of redress of grievance, especially the intolerable one of arbitrary imprison- 
 ment, which his majesty claimed of divine, hereditary right. All m vain 
 was it that the court party, seconded by the Lords, urged that, the aifec- 
 tionate duty of the Commons shown by passing the supply bills, the 
 monarch would be in a more complying humour, and likelier to accede to 
 their demands. A Petition, or, more correctly, a Declaration of Right, was 
 framed by the House on the basis of the following resolutions : — 1st, That 
 no freemen ought to be restrained or unprisoned unless some lawful cause 
 of such restraint or imprisonment be expressed; 2d, That the writ of 
 habeas corpus ought to be granted to every man imprisoned or restrained, 
 though it be at the command of the king or privy-council, if he pray for 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 the same ; Bd, That when the return expresses no lawful cause of commit- 
 ment or restraint, the pai-ty ought to be delivered or bailed ; 4th, That it 
 is the ancient and undoubted right of every Englishman that he hath a full 
 and absolute pi'opei-ty in his goods and estate, and that no tax, loan, or 
 benevolence ought to be levied by the king or his ministers without 
 consent of parliament. This Petition of Right was eloquently enforced by 
 Sir John Eliot, Sir Thomas Wentworth, and others. Wentworth, afterwards 
 Earl of Strafford, who had not yet abandoned the cause of the people, said 
 — ' We vindicate what ? A new thing? No! but our ancient, legal, and 
 vital liberties, by reinforcing the laws made by our ancestors by setting 
 such a seal on them that no libertine spirit shall dare hereafter to disregard 
 them.' Coke and Selden argued unanswerably for the legal soundness of 
 the position assumed by the Commons. ' It is not under Mr Attorney's 
 cap,' exclaimed Coke, Avith natural exultation, ' to answer one of our argu- 
 ments.' But the king could not be persuaded to forego the power of 
 arbitrary imprisonment, and the peers declared that the king's word was, 
 after all, the chief security. ' The wrath of a king,' said theh lordships, 
 ' is like the roaring of a lion ; and all laws with his A\Tath are of no effect ; 
 but the king's favour is like the dew on the grass — then all will prosper.' 
 His majesty, moreover, condescended to send a letter to the Commons, 
 stating 'that he would not part with the power of imprisoning the 
 subject, but would promise not in future to imprison any man for refusing 
 a loan, nor for any cause which in his judgment and conscience he did 
 not conceive necessary for the public good.' The House, we find by 
 the journals, 'laid the king's letter aside.' They could only take his 
 majesty's word in a parliamentary way, and they sent the bill embody- 
 ing the Declaration of Right up to the Lords. The peers passed it 
 with the addition of a clause, ' reserving his majesty's sovereign power.' 
 ' Let us take heed,' exclaimed Coke, when the biU came back to the Com- 
 mons with this amendment tacked to it — ' let us take heed what we yield 
 unto. Magna Charta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign.' 
 The amendment was struck out, and the peers reluctantly acquiesced. 
 Nothing now remained but the king's formal concurrence ; and that given, 
 the coveted subsidies were at his disposal. Charles hesitated long, but 
 finding the Commons inexorable, came do-wn to the Lords, and the Lower 
 House was summoned in due form to hear the royal assent given to the 
 bill. To the surprise and indignation of all who heard him, the king, 
 instead of using the legal formula, 'Soit droit fait comme il est desir^' 
 ('Let right be done as desired'), said, 'The king willeth that right be done 
 ■ according to the laws and customs of the realm, and that the statutes be 
 ;put in due execution, that his subjects may have no cause to complain of 
 ^nv wi-ong or oppression contrary to their just rights and privileges, 
 wherein he holds himself bound in conscience as well as obliged of his 
 own prerogative.' The wrath of the Commons against the advisers of this 
 subterfuge was unbounded. Sir John Eliot thundered against the Duke of 
 Buckingham as the prime source of all the evils which afflicted the nation ; 
 and the fatal weapon of the Commons, impeachment, was again about to be 
 drawn forth, when the king, alarmed at wliat was gomg on, hastened down to 
 the Lords, and gave liis assent to the Bill of Right in the accustomed legal 
 form. The money-bills were at once voted, and London was in a blaze of 
 
CROMWELL AND inS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 illumination at the supposed triumphant termination of the struggle witb 
 prerogative. They reckoned too hastily. The subsidies secured, the king 
 immediately prorogued tlie parliament, remarking to the astonislied Com- 
 mons, who had been debating a bill on tonnage and poundage, that 'as for 
 tonnage and poundage, it is a thing I cannot want, and was never intended 
 by you to ask, nor meant, I am sure, by mc to grant.' The statute em- 
 bodying the Petition of Right was also published with the king's qualified 
 assent, as at first given by his majesty, instead of with the legal form of 
 words — a manifest treachery, which greatly increased the exasperation of 
 both parliament and people. 
 
 Soon after this prorogation, Sir Thomas Wentworth abandoned the ranks 
 of opposition, and obtained a reconciliation with Buckingham and the court 
 party by the sacrifice of his former principles and friends. Eliot had always 
 suspected this man's sincerity ; Pym, who was his intimate friend, had, on 
 the contrary, strenuously vouched for his perfect ti-uth and honour. The 
 indignation of Pym was therefore, it may be imagined, extreme, when 
 Wentworth — we have the anecdote on the authority of Dr Welland — 
 sent for him to Greenwich, and began, as gently as possible, to break the 
 tidings to his old friend. ' Say no more ! ' interrupted Pym ; ' I understand 
 it all ; but remember what I tell you — you are going to be undone.^ And 
 remember, also, that though you leave us now, I will never leave 7jou whilst 
 your head is on your shoulders ! ' Wentworth smiled in superior scorn ; 
 and well, apparently, might he do so, for before the year was out he was a 
 baron, then an earl, and finally lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and speedily 
 approved himself the ablest and most devoted of the instruments by whom 
 it was hoped these nations might be reduced to the condition of the peoples 
 of the continent. Not long after this important accession to the ranks of 
 the king's friends, Buckingham was assassinated at Portsmouth by a fanatic 
 of the name of Felton. 
 
 The parliament reassembled in January 1629, and the dispute between 
 the Commons and the monarch became more vehement and envenomed 
 than ever. At length, March the 2d, Sir John Eliot rose to move a formal 
 remonstrance against the levying of tonnage and poimdage without authority 
 of parliament. The Speaker informed Sir John that he could not entertain 
 the motion, having been ordered by the king to adjourn the House. A 
 great tumult immediately ensued. The doors of the House were locked, 
 and the Speaker was held forcibly in his chau- by Holies and Valentine, 
 whilst a resolution passed, ' That whatever merchant paid tonnage or 
 poundage was a traitor to the liberties of England.' Whilst this extra- 
 ordinary scene was gomg on, Charles had come down to the Lords, and 
 commanded, in the usual fomi, the attendance of the Commons. His 
 messenger found the doors closed. His majesty next sent for the sergeant- 
 at-arms, but that oflicer was not permitted to obey the kmg's order ; and 
 Charles finally du-ected the captain of his guard to break in the doors of the 
 House. Before this order could be executed, the Commons had adjourned 
 to the 10th of March. The king, in his speech on dissolving the parlia- 
 ment, denounced the leading members of the opposition as * vipers who 
 ehould suffer for then- conduct.' He was as good, or rather as bad as his 
 word. Sir John Eliot, Holies, Valentme, and several others, were, notwith- 
 standing the formal passing of the Bill of Eight, arrested by his order, and 
 
 58 y 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 thrown into prison. They each sued out a writ of haljeas corpus ; but 
 Charles changed the custody the evening before the return was made, and 
 the judges refused a hearing to the prisoners' counsel in the absence of 
 the fraudulently-withheld bodies of their clients! Soon afterwards, Mr 
 Attorney-General filed a criminal information against Sir John Eliot in 
 the Court of King's Bench. Eliot demurred to the jurisdiction of that or 
 any other court of law or equity, none of whom had power to review the 
 proceedings of the Commons' House of Parliament. The judges, however, 
 decided that they had jurisdiction, inasmuch as parliamentary privilege 
 only shielded parliamentary behaviour ; but anything extra-parliamentary 
 — extra parliamentum — was within their cognizance. Eliot, disdaining 
 to notice so sorry a subterfuge, steadily refused to acknowledge or plead 
 to their authority, and was condemned, in default, to pay a tine of £2000 
 to the king, and to be imprisoned till he made submission to his majesty 
 — a sentence of death, as it proved, but not wittingly so, we may hope, 
 on the part of the judges of the King's Bench, for they doubtless esti- 
 mated the resolution of such a mind as Eliot's by the shrinking tremors 
 of their own hearts. He was rich — he would of course pay the line, 
 and make any submission, however humiliating, which the king might 
 require. Themselves would, they knew, and why not he ? Only because 
 Sir John Eliot was cast in quite a different mould from that in which they 
 were framed ; was in truth one of God's own noblemen, and disdained to 
 purchase ease of body, pleasantness of life, or personal freedom, by the 
 surrender of what he esteemed a great principle. His estates, in contem- 
 plation of such a sentence, had been passed to trustees ; his two sons were 
 intrusted to the generous care and guidance of Hampden, and Eliot 
 resigned himself to bear as patiently as might be all that the vindictive 
 malice of the king could inflict. He perished gradually, that heroic man, 
 by slow, lingering degrees — perished of the rigour of the confinement to 
 which he was subjected, and which was constantly increased in harslmess 
 and brutality. On the 26th of December 1631 — a winter of remarkable 
 severity — he wrote to Hampden, ' that his lodgings were removed, and that 
 he was now where candlelight might indeed be suffered, but scarcely lire.' 
 At last the prisoner, feeling that his end was rapidly approaching, did 
 solicit the king to allow him a little freedom, if only for a brief space. 
 Liberty to breathe once more his native air, ere the worn but constant 
 spirit returned to God who gave it. ' Not humble enough,' was the king's 
 pitiless reply. The frail tenement was in sad truth destroyed. His 
 majesty had triumphed over that : it had become wasted, haggard, ruined, 
 a pitiable spectacle, as the portrait the martyr had painted of himself a 
 short time before his death, and still preserved at Port Eliot, a family seat 
 of the Earl St Germains, the lineal descendant, we believe, of Sir John, 
 testifies ; but the tameless spirit was as vigorous and triumphant as 
 ever. He died on the 27th November 1632. His son sent a petition to 
 the king, a very humble one, praying for his father's body. He wished to 
 give it honourable sepulture in the family mausoleum. ' Let Sir Jolin 
 Eliot be buried in the parish in which he died,' was the king's reply, written 
 at the foot of the son's petition. 
 
 The slovenly, ungainly-looking member for Huntingdon Avas at this time, 
 1632, a farmer at St Ives, a place about five miles eastward of that borough, 
 10 
 
CKOMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 and was, according to Mr Hume, in the constant habit of pouring forth long 
 prayers before Iiis friends, neighbours, and labourers, to the great waste of 
 his time, says the same authority, and consequent detriment to his estate. 
 His hand, we may be sure, as the recital of the close of the tragedy we 
 have just related fell upon his ear, most probably from Hampden's lips, 
 closed upon tiie hilt of his sword with convulsive force, and the prayer that 
 ascended that night to Heaven from the stern Puritan's lips — ' How long, 
 Lord? — how long, Lord, holy and true?' — sounds to us distinctly 
 audible through all tlie tumult and uproar of intervening centuries. 
 
 Immediately after the dissolution of the celebrated third parliament, a 
 course of government began which, for illegality and violence, has no 
 parallel in our annals of regular administration. Patents conferring mono- 
 polies in every article of consumption were publicly and unblushingly sold. 
 There was scarcely an article which the hands of monopoly did not grasp : 
 salt, starch, coals, iron, wine, pens, cards and dice, beavers, felt, bone-lace, 
 meat dressed in taverns, tobacco, brewuig and distilling, kelp and sea- 
 weed, linen cloth, hops, butter, hats, spectacles, combs, tobacco-pipes, 
 saltpetre, gunpowder, down to the privilege of rag-gathering. Next, a 
 commission issued for ' curing defects in titles to land,' from whom any 
 one, for a money consideration, could purchase a title good against all 
 claimants. ' For the better support,' says my Lord Clarendon, ' of tliese 
 extraordinary w^ays, to protect the agents and instruments, and to suppress 
 all bold inquu-ers and opposers, the Council table and Star Chamber 
 enlarged themselves to a vast extent — holding for honourable that which 
 pleased, for just that which pi'ofited.' According to the same high and 
 loyal authority, Finch, the lord-keeper of the Great Seal, declared that 
 whilst he was keeper no man should dispute the orders of the Council : 
 the wisdom of that board should be always ground enough for him to 
 make a decree in Chancery ! ' And yet the noble historian who testiiies to 
 these iniquities, avers that one of the reasons which induced the people 
 to welcome the Restoration was, that it promised to restore ' the old course 
 of justice!' 
 
 The common-law courts were not a whit ])ehind the equity jurisdiction 
 in subserviency to the crown. Richard Chambei-s, a higldy- respected 
 London merchant, having refused to pay the illegal tonnage and poundage 
 demanded of him, had his goods seized and sold. He applied to the 
 courts for summary redress, and was refused. He then sued out a writ 
 of replevin to recover his property : the Court of Exchequer superseded 
 that writ ! Chambers was next summoned before the Star Chamber, and 
 commanded to make submission : he refused, and was committed to prison, 
 from which, twelve years afterwards, he was released by the Long Par- 
 liament — a beggar ! 
 
 The ingenuity of Mr Attorney- General, Noy, afterwards devised a new 
 and very profitable expedient. ' A writ,' says Lord Clarendon, ' was framed 
 in a form of law, and directed to the sheriff of every county in England, com- 
 manding them to provide a ship of war for the king's service, and to send 
 it amply fitted such a day to such a place, and with that writ were sent 
 to each sheritf Listructions that instead of a ship he should levy upon his 
 county such a sum of money, and return the same to the treasurer of the 
 navy, iu his majesty's name.' This device, enforced by threat and inflic- 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 tion of fine and imprisonment, brought in the king full £200,000 per 
 annum. This was indeed a windfall, or rather lawyer-fall, for his majesty 
 knowing that the writ was deemed illegal by the great body of the nation, 
 consulted the judges, for the relief of the royal conscience, upon, in sub- 
 stance, the two following points : — 1st, Could the kuig, m case of necessity, 
 lawfully issue writs to sheriffs of inland and other counties commanding them 
 to levy the money value of ships of war ? 2d, Was the king the sole judge 
 of such necessity? To these queries then- lordships, who delivered their 
 opinions in the haU of Sergeant's Inn, answered in the affirmative, by a 
 majority of ten to two. This decision of course mightily pleased the court. 
 It was immediately promulgated in the Council and Star Chambers, and the 
 judges were ordered to read and enforce it at the assizes. 
 
 The fraudulent illegality of the writ, whatever the judges might say, was 
 nevertheless so plain to common sense, that it was resisted by eveiy man 
 possessed of sufficient energy and courage to do so. Amongst many others 
 less celebrated, by Mr John Hampden, who had already, the reader is 
 aware, suffered imprisonment for refusing to subscribe to the ' voluntary ' 
 loan. He was of an ancient Saxon famUy, dating from beyond the 
 Confessor, and possessed extensive estates in Buckinghamshire. Nothing 
 daunted by previous imprisonment, he firmly refused to pay the twenty 
 shillings demanded of him as ' ship-money.' With leave of the king — for 
 without Mr Attorney's concurrence the learned judges would hear nothing 
 impugning his majesty's prerogative — Lord Say and Sele for one, vainly 
 endeavoured to be heard by counsel against ' ship-money.' Hampden 
 brought the matter before the Court of Exchequer. It was said that the 
 king, sure of his judges, preferred having a man of the ' rare temper and 
 modesty ' of Hampden as plaintifi' to any other person. The case was 
 elaborately argued ; on the pai-t of Hampden with consummate talent by 
 Mr St John. It was learning and labour tin-own away. Judgment was 
 given for the cro'wn by nine out of the twelve judges ; and of the three 
 dissentients — Hutton, Croke, and Denham — the first-named, Hutton, after- 
 wards excused his unwonted uprightness in a cringmg letter to the Earl of 
 Strafford, with whom he was apparently on terms of intimacy. The 
 faltering corn-age of Croke was sustained by his wife, a lady of great piety 
 and resolution, who urged her husband to do his duty, regardless of the 
 consequences either to himself or to his family. 
 
 This result threw the court party into ecstasies ; and in very truth, as 
 far as the lawyers were concerned, the liberties of England were surren- 
 dered. The Earl of Strafford saw at a glance the legitimate consequence 
 of the judgment. ' This decision,' wrote the noble earl, ' well fortified, 
 will for ever vindicate the royalty at home from under the conditions and 
 restraints of subjects.' Then arguing that the same principle manifestly 
 applied to land as well as sea forces, his lordship emphatically added — 
 ' This decision of the judges will therefore make the kuig absolute at home 
 and formidable abroad.' 
 
 As far, then, as legal resistance to usurping power went, the matter was 
 concluded; and no one, except it might be that praying farmer of St Ives, 
 seemed as yet to contemplate any other mode of settlement. But beaten 
 down as resistance was in England in the year of grace 1G37, there was 
 stiU hope in the north, where Janet Geddes, backed by a large and fui-ious 
 12 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS C0NTEMP0RAME8. 
 
 430ngregation, was seen to throw a footstool at the head of one of Laud's 
 deans or bishops in the cathedral church of Edinburgh. How this came 
 about, and what it portended, we shall presently briefly relate ; but first 
 ■we must conclude our summary of prerogative doings in England. 
 
 William Laud, now archbishop of Canterbury, a man of the paltriest 
 intellect and narrowest views, as his diary abundantly testifies, was a 
 church reformer in the ' high ' sense of the term —that is, he was zealous 
 for sui-plices, prayings towards the east, and other formalities very repug- 
 nant and disagi'eeable to many even of the established parochial clergy. 
 Those who did not conform to the archbishop's teachings were mercilessly 
 hunted out of their livings, banished the country, and many of them very 
 happy to escape so. Nonconformists, lay as well as clerical, he held in 
 supreme abhon-ence, and the Star Chamber was the ever-ready instrument 
 of his cruel rage. We have only space to enumerate a few instances of 
 his mode of propagating the religion of the Saviour. Leighton, a Scotch 
 divine, for having libelled Laud and his coadjutors, was fined £10,000, 
 publicly whipped in Palace-Yard, Westminster, had one ear cut off, one 
 nostril slit open, and one cheek branded with the letters S. S. — Sower of 
 Sedition. At the expiration of a week, the same operations were performed 
 on the other ear, nostril, and cheek ! The sufferer was then thrown into 
 jail, from which he did not emerge till ten years afterwards, and then by 
 grace of the Long Parliament. Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton were pilloried, 
 and had their ears cut off, for similar offences ; and indeed scarcely a week 
 passed but some spectacle of human suffering was exhibited in the public 
 streets. The terror of the people at these atrocities had risen to such 
 a pitch, that vast numbers, in utter despair of England, embarked for 
 the new states of America. But even this refuge was after a while denied 
 by Laud and his helpers to the oppressed. An order was issued, that 
 no person should embark for the New World without leave of the king ; 
 and on the 1st of May 1638 eight vessels bound for New England were 
 arrested in the Thames. It has been said that Hampden, Pym, Crom- 
 well, and Haselrig were on board these vessels. There is no truth in this 
 generally- accredited story; though there is no doubt that subsequently 
 to this time, but for a lucky and promising turn of public affairs, m.ost of 
 those persons, and many others of the same position and opinions, would 
 have emigrated to America. Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford 
 mutually supported and encouraged each other in the tyrannous proceed- 
 ings we have but very partially disclosed. The earl's favourite expression 
 was, that he would be ' thorough and thorough in the matter,' no scruple or 
 remorse should check him ; and ' thorough and thorough ' was echoed back 
 to the noble lord by the archbishop. 
 
 During these doings there was little heard of Farmer Cromwell. He had, 
 however, manifested his quality very distinctly in his own locality and 
 neighbourhood. The Bedford Level in the fen county was in process of 
 reclamation, when the king's commissioners quarrelled, not only with the 
 Earl of Bedford, a popular nobleman, but with a number of small pro- 
 prietors, relative to the spoil accruing to the crown from the drainage that 
 was going on. Matters looked badly, when Oliver struck in, and by his 
 fierce, restless energy, agitating here, haranguing there, so scared the trusty 
 and well-beloved commissioners, that they gave over the business in despaii-, 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 and Oliver was unanimously decreed the title of ' Lord of the Fens.' He 
 was by this time the father of a somewhat numerous family, tlu-ee sons and 
 four daughters, besides two boys who died m then- infancy. Hampden, 
 whose vade mecMin during those long years of government without par- 
 liaments was, we are told, a history of the civil wars, frequently visited 
 his farmer-kinsman. It may be doubted whether the marching and coim- 
 termarching of York and Lancaster much interested CromweU. How, 
 rather, soldiers should be obtained, disciplined, made really soldiers, would 
 be his thought. That once weU accomplished, to lead and wield them 
 efficiently would not, he must have felt instinctively, prove very difficult to 
 a man of swift eye, bold heart, and ready arm ! 
 
 We can only so far glance at the uprising of the Scottish people against 
 Charles, as may be necessary to render the current of events in Avhich the 
 leaders of the Commonwealth became involved intelligible and clear. The 
 king of England was, our readers are aware, also king of Scotland ; but the 
 two kmgdoms, except being under one monarch, remained essentially distmct 
 from each other till the passing of the act of Union. Laud, the primate 
 of England, would also try Ms hand on the Episcopal Church of Scotland. 
 His service-book was carefuUy prepared, and the virtual subjugation of the 
 Scottish clergy to English prelatic rule or influence seemed imminent, when 
 in Edinburgh, on the 23d July 1637, the dean who read the new service, 
 and the bishop who attempted to addi-ess the people, were assaulted by the 
 people, stimulated by the example of Janet Geddes — indignant that tliey 
 should be ' saying mass at her lug ! ' — and driven forth of the sacred edifice 
 amidst a storm of vituperation. The feeling against the attempted inno- 
 A'ation, as far as regarded the Lowlands, was a national one; and finally, 
 after many fruitless attempts to patch up a reconciliation, an army was 
 raised, which in 1639 marched southward to maintain the ecclesiastical 
 independence of the Scottish Church, and what the Covenanters deemed its 
 spiritual purity. The words, ' For Christ's Crown and Covenant,' were 
 conspicuously displayed at the entrance of each captain's tent. Those 
 sturdy Presbyterians encountered no real opposition. The king advanced 
 to meet them, it is true, at the head of what seemed a splendid army — 
 got together by tyrannies and oppressions manifold — and the Marquis of 
 Hamilton was despatched by sea to the Firth of Forth with a force of 5000 
 men. It was all a vain show. For the first time in English history an 
 English army refused to fight — positively retreated before the Scottish 
 skirmishers ! and the king, finding how matters stood, was fain to consent 
 to wliat was called the ' Pacification of Berwick.' A good understanding 
 liad been early arrived at between the Scotch and English malcontents. At 
 the London meetings of the Scottish conveners, headed by Lords Loudon 
 and Dumferling, it is well known that not only Pym and Hampden 
 took an active part, but also the Earls of Essex, Holland, Bedford, and 
 Lord Say and Sele ; and that it was to the sagacity and genius of Sir Harry 
 Vane that we owe the subsequent union between the English and Scottish 
 peoples, which had so important an eti'ect in the armed struggle against 
 Charles. This natural alliance the cro\vn lawyers denounced as high 
 trejison. Sensible men called it a measm-e of common sense, suggested by 
 a feeling of common danger. 
 
 The Earl of Strafi"ord was in the meanwhile getting on prosperously in 
 14 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Ireland. He established the linen-trade there, and l)y various high-handed 
 measures put down all opposition to his will. He had got togctlier a 
 considerable army, with which he suggested to the king his majesty 
 'might subjugate tftis kingdom.' This was the grave and fatal charge urged 
 against him by the Commons in support of their impeachment ; and his 
 defence of it was, that ' this kingdom ' referred not to I'Jigland, but to 
 Scotland ! — a merely technical quibble, as it seems to us, and certainly 
 leaving the essential iniquity of such counsel untouched. 
 
 The Scottish disorders were skinned and filmed only — not healed ; and 
 the king eagerly longed to inflict exemplary vengeance on the insolent 
 rebels to his will. But his exchequer was empty — his credit naught ; and 
 no resource was left, after all his expedients, but the distasteful and 
 dangerous one of a — parliament ! And now we come, passing over as 
 immaterial the short-lived fourth parliament, to the famous one which 
 met in November 1640, ultimately overthrew the monarchy, and remained 
 supreme rulers of the nation till the day on which they, in their turn, were 
 compelled to yield to masterful violence. In this great assembly Hampden 
 was member for Buckinghamshire ; Cromwell represented Cambridge, where 
 he had been elected by a majority of one over Wheattield the poet, or 
 rather, not to profane that name, the rhymer — a defeat which Wheattield 
 afterwards revenged by exceedingly bad verses on the Protector. Coke 
 and Eliot were dead, but Pym, Su- Han-y Vane, Holies, Denzil, Valentine, 
 had again been returned. The hour was come, and the men were ready ! 
 The king opened the session with a threat, though he in the same scornful 
 breath said * he disdained to threaten any but his equals ; ' and the chiefs 
 of the opposing parties were at last fairly in presence of each other. The 
 Earl of Strafford had come over from Ireland, where he had summoned a 
 parliament, and not only procured from them a supply of money, but a 
 declaration that they were ready to aid his majesty with their lives and 
 fortimes in all eventualities. The earl, it was rumoured, had obtained 
 ■written, incontestable proofs of the collusive ' treason ' of the Scotch and 
 English leaders, and meant in a few days to make efficient use of them. 
 On the 11th of November, the day on which he was expected to open his 
 charge, the House of Commons was observed to be sitting with closed doors. 
 Four hours the House remained in secret conclave, then the doors were 
 suddenly thrown open, and forth issued the Commons of England, nearly 
 four hundred in number, headed by Pym, with their great weapon of 
 impeachment boldly drawn, and flashing in then- front. ' The Commons of 
 England,' pealed forth the firm, sonorous voice of Pym, ' impeach Thomas 
 Weutworth, Earl of Strafford, of high treason ! ' The astounded peers could 
 not, after the recent examples of Bacon and Middlesex, refuse or delay to 
 entertain the accusation ; and my Lord Strafford, ignorant of what had 
 passed, was suddenly arrested as he walked gravely into the House with 
 his hands full of official papers, and innnediately hurried off in custody to 
 tlie Tower. His carriage was not m attendance, and he would have waited 
 for it. 'You must go m mine,' said Maxwell the usher. There was no 
 help for it, and the so lately haughty lord passed forth — 'no man,' says 
 Baillie, ' capphig to him, before whom that morning the greatest in 
 England would have stood discovered.' This blow for a time paralysed 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 the court. Mr Secretary Windebanke and the Lord-Keeper Finch fled at 
 once — one to France, and the other to Holland. Archbishop Laud was 
 next impeached. His Grace began explaining, protesting. ' Order ! 
 order!' exclaimed Lord Say and others. No defence could be permitted 
 at that stage of the proceedings. His Grace must to prison, and ultimately 
 to the Tower— next, unhappy old man, to Tower-Hill ! The sheriffs who 
 had executed the writs of ship-money and other vexatious exactions, were 
 passed over in this retributive visitation ; not so the judges who, through 
 corruption or cowardice, had pronounced manifestly false judgments. They 
 were subjected to the fuU penalty of their misdeeds. Sir Robert Berkeley, 
 one of the most forward of them, was dragged from his seat in the King's 
 Bench to prison, and the others were obliged to find heavy bail to answer 
 the charges to be brought against them. The Commons soon afterwards 
 declared their sittings permanent, and the revolution might be said to have 
 fau-ly begun. One significant circumstance occurred early in the spring of 
 this year, 1641 — a large number of long, heavy swords, marked in the hilt 
 with the letters 0. C, arrived at St Ives, and were distributed as ordered". 
 
 The Earl of Strafford was convicted, and the king, with great pain and 
 reluctance, gave his formal assent to the bill of attainder, which sent the 
 ablest, the most devoted, and the most unscrupulous of his friends and 
 servants to the scaffold — partly, it appears, induced to do so by a roman- 
 ticaUv-generous letter from the prisoner, absolving him from his promise to 
 save his, the Earl of Strafford's, life, and requesting that no thought or care 
 for the attainted victim should be permitted to interfere with the chances 
 of a reconciliation between the king and his people ! That the earl never 
 for a moment believed the monarch he had unhesitatingly served would 
 take him at his word, is manifest from his indignant and reproachful 
 exclamation when the news of the king's assent was brought to him — 
 • Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men, for in them there is 
 no salvation.' The unfortunate earl, a man perhaps as much sinned against 
 as sinning, soon recovered his usual sad equanimity. He died calmly, 
 almost heroically. Nothing in his life, it may with perfect truth be said, 
 became him like the leaving it.* Pym's vindictive threat was fulfilled. 
 
 There is not much else of importance to be noted till the begimihig of 
 January 1642, when the attorney -general preferred a criminal information 
 before the Lords against Lord Kimbolton and five members of the House 
 of Commons— Hampden, Pym, Haselrig, Halden, and Stroud — and warmly 
 requested their lordships would order their immediate arrest. The peers, 
 all aghast, hesitated — knew not what to do : they would, however, search 
 for precedents, and report thereon. The next day the king, having, we 
 suppose, no faith ui precedents, went personally to the House of Commons, 
 accompanied by a large number of feather-headed swash-bucklers, all of 
 them armed, and many, it was said, intoxicated, to demand the five mem- 
 bers. His majesty entered the House, but the birds were flown : they had 
 
 * The eloquent passage in Lord Strafford's defence, wherein he alludes to his 
 children as pledges left him by a saiut in hcaveu, is familiar to most readers. 
 Unhappily there is little reason to doubt that the wife so affectingly alluded to died 
 of a blow on the breast, inflicted when she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, 
 by the noble lord in a moment of strong irritation — very bitterly repented of, tliere 
 can be no doubt. 
 16 
 
CROSrWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 taken refuge in the city. The king seated himself in the Speaker's cliair — 
 endeavoured to assume an air of ease and dignity — excused himself— 
 protested, as usual, his excellent intentions — and went away amidst ominous 
 murmurs of ' Privilege ! privilege !' Four days afterwards the five members 
 returned to the House by water, escorted by the civic authorities and two 
 thousand armed seamen. Four thousand horsemen came up from Bucking- 
 hamshire to receive and greet their representative, and it was evident to 
 the dullest eyes that the decision of the question had passed from the men 
 of the gown to the men of the sword. The king retired, first to Hampton 
 Court, next to York, and finally set up his standard at Nottingham — as 
 nearly as may be the centre of the kingdom — on the 22d of August 
 1642. To your tents, Israel I 
 
 The commissions of array were not yet issued ; the parliamentary 
 commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex, had not received authority to 
 levy forces and do battle, in the legal jargon of the time, for the king and 
 parliament, when Cromwell was at work do\\Ti there at St Ives and Hunting- 
 don, getting his long-since morally-disciplined troopers into something like 
 order and practical soldiership. The friends, neighbours, with whom he 
 had so long held spiritual communion, eagerly enrolled themselves to fight 
 what they deemed the 'battle of the Lord' under his guidance. They 
 formed the nucleus of the world-famous Ironsides, so called from the long, 
 heavy swords they wore ; and their leader was indefatigable in his exertions 
 to train them for efficient and decisive service. Incessantly active also was 
 that leader in other matters besides drilling. He promptly stopped the 
 plate of the Cambridge imiversity from being sent off to be melted down 
 for the king's use, then waited upon his uncle, Sir Oliver, a stanch 
 Eoyalist, accompanied by a few troopers — craved his blessing, would by 
 no means be covered in his presence, but at the same time respectfully and 
 positively insisted that Sir Oliver's plate must be delivered up, as security 
 merely, that it might not be misappropriated — ^nought else ! At Lowestofi'e 
 in Suffolk, where a considerable amount of arms and stores had been 
 collected, a meeting of persons of influence and distinction, partisans of the 
 king, was held to devise plans for his majesty's sustainment. Thiiiy-two 
 gentlemen attended, and so did Cromwell with a sufficient number of his 
 haK-driUed troopers, and carried the meeting unanimously off, not forgetting 
 the stores and weapons. This was esteemed a great piece of service by 
 men who could appreciate its value. The next act of this terrible farmer 
 was to seize the stately person of Sir Thomas Coningsby, high-sheriff of 
 Herts, who, one market-day at St Albans, was readuig to the shouting 
 populace a proclamation of the king, which declared the Earl of Essex, the 
 parliamentary general, and all who should aid or abet him, to be traitors. 
 Six of Cromwell's troopers first dived into the mob after the high-sherifl", 
 but were repulsed ; then twenty, and Sir Thomas was effectually secured, 
 proclamation and all, and trundled up to London. Cromwell was rewarded 
 for these ser^'ices by the commission of a colonel of cavalry, and the inde- 
 pendent command of a thousand horse, which he was to raise, arm, and 
 train, as speedily as possible. He set to work at once, and with a will. 
 Night and day he drilled and exercised his stalwart yeomen, nearly all 
 freeholders or the sons of freeholders — preaching, exhorting, mstructing, 
 with tameless activity and zeal, and fully determined to undertake no 
 
 17 
 
Chambers's papers foe the people. 
 
 ■work of importance till his men sat in their saddles as if they grew there, 
 and handled their long, heavy swords as freely as if they had been willow- 
 wands. Whilst the future Lord Protector is thus engaged, let us glance at 
 what was going on elsewhere. 
 
 Every county, city, village, and hamlet of England resounded with the 
 din of warlike preparation. The queen, Henrietta of France, was sped to 
 Holland to pawn the crown jewels for arras and ammunition. The great 
 mass of the nobility, gentry, and populace, except that of London, were 
 gathering, or preparmg to gather, round the king. The burgess class and 
 the yeomanry, especially of the south, west, and midland covmties, were 
 arming for the parliament. In London, four thousand men enlisted in one 
 day. Hampden was down in Buckinghamshire at the first signal, and soon 
 got together two thousand men, dressed in green coats, and waved over by 
 smart flags, on which their leader's motto. Vestigia nulla retrorsum, was 
 gaily blazoned. The Earl of Essex, Sir William Waller, the Earl of Man- 
 chester (Lord Kimbolton), held chief commands in the parliamentary 
 army. Hampden served as colonel in the forces under the Earl of Essex. 
 Neither of the parliamentary generals were possessed of military talent, 
 though mdividually as brave as most men. The opposing armies first met, 
 it is well known, at Edge HiU, and fought an indecisive battle there. The 
 king's nephew, Prince Eupert — or Prince Eobbei-, as he was popularly 
 called, from his inveterate propensity, as soon as he had overthrown the 
 forces opposed to him, to go scampering ofi" in search of the baggage — was 
 met, pursuing his favourite object, at Keyning, three miles from the field 
 of battle, by Hampden, at the head of his green-coats, and Grantham's 
 regiment, and sent quickly to the right about. Hampden, however, it 
 seems, could not follow. It is unnecessary to enumerate the marchings 
 and countermarchings of Essex, Waller, Eupert, Newcastle, and others. 
 Their victories, when they gained any, were indecisive. Neither the fate 
 of Charles nor that of England lay with them. 
 
 At last Cromwell had got his thousand troopers ready. They were dis- 
 ciplined to perfection, and every man of them was brimming over with 
 enthusiasm for ' the good old cause.' One more test applied to ascertain if 
 there were perchance any cravens amongst them, and then for action. He 
 posted. Heath tells us, a number of trusty men in ambush, who, as his 
 soldiers trotted by at exercise, were to suddenly burst forth upon them 
 with blare of trumpet and war-shoutings. It fell out as Cromwell desii'ed; 
 and his keen eye marked about twenty men affected by panic. Men liable 
 to panic were not fit soldiers for him ; and having called them together, he 
 mildly pointed out that, willing and zealous as they might be, they were 
 not fitting instruments for the required service, and they would not, there- 
 fore, he trusted, object to transfer their horses and accoutrements — their 
 own property, be it remembered — to men more capable of fighting the 
 battle of the Lord. They acquiesced with as good a gi-ace as, under the 
 circumstances, was possible ; and now, all being ready, tlie men drawn up 
 in iron array, and awaiting the signal for departure, Cromwell, in order 
 that there might be no misunderstanding upon essential points, thus 
 addressed tliem : — He would not, he said, seek to perplex tliem as others 
 did, about fighting for the king and parliament. He was a plain man like 
 themselves, and did not understand such subtleties. It was for parliament 
 18 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 alone, for the liberties of the lane, for the establishment of God's righteous 
 rule OQ earth, that they were about to light. For liimself, he declared that 
 if he met King Cliarles, he would as soon discharge his pistol upon him as 
 upon any private man ; and any soldier present who was troubled witii a 
 conscience that might not let him do the like, lie would advise to retire at 
 once from the ranks. A tierce shout from the Ironsides was the expected 
 and welcome answer ; the trumpet sounded, and away went the iirst levy 
 of that astonislung cavalry, the most decisive soldiers the world has 
 perhaps ever seen — men who never hesitated before any odds however 
 great, or any enterprise however perilous, and with whom the day of battle 
 was mvariably that of victory. 
 
 On they swept through Lincolnshire, overawing, disarming malignants 
 as they passed. Stamford and Burleigh House were taken, and they at 
 length came up, near Grantham, Avith young General Cavendish, in our 
 histories said to be son of the Marquis of Newcastle, but in reality his 
 cousui only, and second son to the Earl of Devonshire. Cavendish was at 
 tlie head of a large body of cavalry, ' 21 colours of horse and 4 of dragoons' 
 — rather more than double the number commanded by CromweU. He had 
 been despatched to secure Lincolnshire for the king. After some slight 
 skirmishing, Cromwell gave the order to charge ; and the Ironsides, com- 
 mencing with ' a pretty round trot,' burst furiously upon the lioyalists, 
 and overthrew them with prodigious slaughter. Many prisoners, colours, 
 horses, and arms, were the result of the action. ' I believe,' says Cromwell 
 in his letter — ' I believe some of our soldiers slew two or three men a-piece.' 
 
 Cromwell's next considerable exploit — for the sleepless man rested not 
 by day, and scarcely, it should seem, by night, and numerous services, 
 small, singly considered, but of immense general result, must be omitted 
 from this brief summary — was the relief of Gainsborough, unprovided 
 against the attack of Newcastle's army, who, having beaten Fairfax at 
 Atherton Moor, was advancing against it. When Cromwell's cavalry 
 arrived in sight of Gamsborough, they found they had been anticipated by 
 the advanced division of Newcastle's army, which, in thrice the numbers of 
 the Ironsides, were drawn up upon an eminence commanding the town, 
 and the only means of approaching which was through a narrow gap in a 
 high, impassable fence. CromweU did not pause a second, liegardless of 
 a plunging tire of artillery, he passed his men through the gap, drew them 
 up section by section, and then charged at their head up the hill upon the 
 opposing force, pushed them fiercely over the ridge, and pursuing them 
 into a bog, slew them without mercy ! Young Cavendish was slain — ' killed,' 
 says Cromwell's letter, ' by a thrust under the short ribs by my captain- 
 lieutenant.' Gainsborough Avas provisioned with powder and other stores, 
 and then it behoved Cromwell to retire, for the main body of Newcastle's 
 victorious army was coming swiftly on. The Ironsides retreated slowly, 
 disdainfully, before that overwhehning force, halting occasionally in defi- 
 ance, and to pour forth, in unwavering chorus, a verse of a psalm, and then 
 again slowly, leisurely retiring. Newcastle, it appears, thought it better to 
 let them go quietly — was very glad, hideed, that tliey did go, slowly as it 
 might be. This exploit not only flashed the name of Cromwell vividly before 
 the eyes of the nation, but procured the victorious colonel a distinguished 
 associate : Ireton, once a B.A. of Oxford, and at the breaking out of the 
 
 19 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 war an embryo barrister, eating his terms in the Middle Temple, but now 
 •a captain in Thornhaugh's regiment, ' was so charmed,' Mrs Hutchinson 
 says, ' with Colonel Cromwell's conduct in the Gainsborough affau-, that he 
 immediately exchanged into the Ironsides, and two or three years after- 
 wards married Bridget, Cromwell's eldest daughter.' Ireton, a valiant and 
 sagacious soldier, saw at a glance where the true hope of the revolution 
 lay, and very wisely associated himself with the rising fortunes of the 
 farmer of St Ives. 
 
 The successes of Cromwell were gratefully recognised by the parliament, 
 and he was empowered to increase his cavalry to three thousand men, or as 
 many more as he could contrive to mount and discipline — a permission of 
 which he actively availed himself. Recruits, attracted by the commander's 
 growing fame, were numerous ; but none but God-fearing men, and of them 
 ■only the strong-limbed and bold-hearted, were accepted. The di-illing of 
 these men, as heretofore, was mcessant. Cromwell prayed with them, 
 exhorted them, showed them especially how a cavalry soldier should always 
 have his horse well fed and in good condition, himself a secure seat, his 
 sword sharp-edged and freely-liandled, his powder always dry, his trust in 
 God perfect and unchangeable. 
 
 The campaign of 1643 was disastrous to the parliamentary armies, and 
 one death-note especially, which rang through the heart of the nation in 
 June of that year, awakened emotions of the deepest sympathy and grief. 
 Hampden had fallen ! — had perished, too, in consequence of the sluggish 
 incapacity of the Earl of Essex. It happened thus-wise : — After the fall 
 of Reading in Berkshire, so loose a discipline was maintained by Essex, 
 and so uncareful a watch was kept on the enemy's movements, that Prince 
 Rupert, in a marauding expedition from Oxford, surprised two regiments 
 at Portcombe and Chuinor, and slew them almost to a man. Colonel 
 Hampden was indignant, for some time before he had remonstrated against 
 the exposed position of the troops. A few days after this disaster, news 
 was brought him that Rupert had attacked a detachment posted at Walling- 
 ford. First despatching a hasty message to the Earl of Essex to occupy 
 Chiselhampton Bridge, which would have effectually intercepted the prince's 
 retreat, Hampden threw himself on horseback, and hastened, at the head 
 of Captain ShefBeld's horse, to engage Rupert till a sufficient force could 
 be collected to bar his return to Oxford. Hampden encountered the prince 
 at Chalgrove, and in the unequal fight which ensued was struck by two 
 carbine balls, mortally ; and Rupert ultimately got safely back to his quar- 
 ters unmolested by the parliamentary general. Hampden withdrew slowly 
 from the fight, with bridle ungi-asped and loose, and his arms dropped 
 nervelessly upon his horse's neck. It is said that he was seen to turn for 
 a moment wistfully towards the house of his father-in-law. Sir Richard 
 Symeon, visible from Chalgrove, from whence in his youth he had borne 
 his first wife, Elizabeth, as if he would fain die there ; but Rupert's 
 troopers ranging between him and the desired haven forbade the attempt. 
 Very slowly, and in great agony, he continued on his way towards Thame, 
 reached at last the house of one Ezekiel Browne, and was there assisted off 
 liis horse, and carried to his deathbed. Several days of extreme anguish 
 were patiently endured, and then with the words ' Lord, save my 
 country! Lord, be merciful to' trembling from his choked and 
 
 20 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 fainting voice, the noble spirit fled, which, if permitted to remain a few- 
 years more on eartli, might have saved tlic Commonwealth from perishing 
 by its own excesses, and converted the brute victory of the sword into a 
 moral and lasting triumph of justice, moderation, and peace. He was 
 buried amid the Chiltern woods with military funereal honours : his sor- 
 rowing soldiers followed with reversed arms and craped banners; the 
 melancholy strains of the forty-third psalm mingled and alternated with 
 the lonely wail of the trumpet and the muttered rolling of the muffled 
 drums, and all felt, as they left him to the hallowed slumber of the good 
 and brave, 
 
 ' Who sink to rest 
 
 By all their country's wishes blest,' 
 
 that a true hero had depailed — that a great light had been extinguished ! 
 
 The news of his great kmsman's death found Cromwell still busy with 
 the organization of his new levies, and he must have felt on hearing it — 
 knowing, as no man better than he did, the military incapacity and half- 
 lieartedness in the cause of the chief parliamentary generals — that a greater 
 burthen, a still heavier responsibility than ever had devolved upon himself 
 — upon hun upon whose skill and vigour he well knew the country now 
 entirely depended for bringing the terrible conflict in which it was engaged 
 to a successful issue. Is it not also very probable that amidst the natural 
 regret excited by the sudden taking away of an intimate friend and wise 
 counsellor, a feeling of something like relief, as from the removal of a, 
 restraint, would sweep through his mind? — for it can scarcely be doubted 
 that by this time there mingled with his earnest enthusiasm for the civil 
 and religious liberties of his country, and the aspu-ations of his thorouglily- 
 sincere, if fanatical piety, evil suggestions, pointing towards personal emi- 
 nence, and imchallenged supremacy and command. 
 
 In the fall of the year, the Earl of Manchester was ordered to join 
 Cromwell with about 7000 infantry, and Sir Thomas Fairfax's horse. 
 The junction was effected on the 9th of October, and on the 11th the 
 earl, m-ged into activity by the restless zeal of Cromwell, commenced the 
 campaign. On the 12th, Sir John Henderson, at the head of a considerable 
 body of troops, intercepted Fakfax and Cromwell's march at Waisby Field 
 near Homcastle. Slow-moving Manchester was several hours behind 
 with the infantry, and the royal troops greatly outnumbered Cromwell's 
 force. It is said that both he and Fan-fax hesitated for a moment, for 
 Henderson was an experienced leader, and his troops tried soldiers. The 
 keen eye of Cromwell glanced eagerly along the serried ranks of his 
 troopers: there was no hesitation there, and his own vanished in an. 
 instant ! The words ' Peace and Hope ' were passed along the line, the 
 triumphant psalm pealed forth, and as its last accents died on the ear, the 
 swords of the Ironsides flashed in the sun, the piercing tones of Cromwell,, 
 as he gallopped along then- front, bade them charge home, ' in the name of 
 the most High God ! ' — the trumpet rang forth its signal-peal, and away 
 they went, a destroying whirlwind! A close volley, tired in their very 
 faces, did not for an instant check their speed; they closed upon the 
 astonished Royalists, and resistance soon became as hopeless as it was 
 desperate. Cromwell's horse was killed, and he himself wounded, it was 
 
 21 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 said by Sir Ingram Hopton : luckily he caught the ' sorry horse ' of a slain 
 soldier, and was again in the melee, massacre rather, for Henderson's 
 troops gave way in utter confusion and hopeless rout; pursued with 
 terrible slaughter for upwards of six mUes. Those who escaped did 
 not, it was said, cease their headlong flight tiU they had reached the gates 
 of Lincoln. The epithet of ' Slash Lane ' still marks the locality or 
 neighbourhood of this murderous tight. Many prisoners, stores, and otlier 
 trophies rewarded the victors, who at last, turning from the pursuit, wiped 
 their red swords, dripping with brothers' blood, on their horses' manes, 
 sheathed them, and again uplifted the triumphant psalm to the God of 
 mercy and compassion! So nearly allied sometimes is fanaticism with 
 impiety. 
 
 This success tlu-ew a gleam of triumph over the otherwise unfortunate 
 campaign, and taught Charles that his absolute crown was yet to win. * I 
 would,' exclaimed the king, when he heard of Henderson's defeat — ' I would 
 that some one would do me the good service of brmging me this Cromwell, 
 alive or dead.' Bring him Cromwell ! They could as easily have brought 
 him the Tower of London or the Peak of Derbyshhe ! Soon after this 
 combat the Earl of Manchester persisted, after the fashion of those times, 
 in going into winter quarters, and Cromwell was compelled to acquiesce. 
 He was soon, however, busy in the Isle of Ely and other places in various 
 modes preparing for the next campaign. 
 
 Early in the following year the arrangements of Vane with the Scottish 
 leaders bore fruit. Twenty thousand troops of that nation, chiefly veteran 
 soldiers, under the command of Lord Loudon and General Leshe, entered 
 England in aid of the parliamentary cause. As far, however, as numbers 
 were concerned, this timely reinforcement was counterbalanced by the 
 arrival of numerous detachments of the Irish anny to the assistance of the 
 king, the troubles m that country having been appeased. Indeed Ireland 
 remained devoted to Charles throughout the struggle : it was his gi'eat 
 recruiting held ; and this accounts for, though it in nothing excuses, the 
 revengeful animosity afterwards displayed by Cromwell and others towards 
 that country. One of the Irish detachments, consistuig of about 3000 
 men, under the command of Lord Byron, laid siege to Nantwich. They 
 were attacked by Fan-fax, and utterly routed. Monk, afterwards Duke of 
 Albemarle, was amongst the prisoners. After a short conflnemeut as a 
 prisoner of war, he purchased his liberty by abandoning the king's service, 
 and obtained, as the price of his desertion, a commission in the army of 
 the parliament. This is believed to have been Monk's first treason. 
 
 The main body of the Scottish army laid siege to Yoi'k, numerously 
 garrisoned by the forces under the Marquis of Newcastle. They were soon 
 joined by the admirably-disciplined soldiers, in number about 14,000, under 
 the command of Manchester and Cromwell, now Lieutenant-general Crom- 
 well, and the siege was pushed with vigour. The armies of Essex and 
 Waller were at this time marching and countermarching m the vicinity of 
 Oxford and Worcester, marking time with that of the king, who in this 
 playing-at-soldiers' game seems to have possessed considerable talent. At 
 aU events he puzzled and out-bothered the parliamentary generals; and 
 Essex, tired of the exercise, went off with his forces to the west, leaving 
 Waller to try conclusions with his majesty as lie best might alone, and 
 22 
 
CROmVELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Waller got of course very roughly handled. l)ut before this happened, 
 the king had sent off a jiressing order to Prince Ku))ert, wiio was success- 
 fully engaged in Cheshire and Lancashire, where he had been powerfully 
 i-einforced from Ii-eland, to hasten to the relief of York, and in conjunction 
 with Newcastle, attack and disperse the English and Scottish forces. 
 Kupert obeyed, and at his approach the siege of York was raised, and the 
 investing army — much to the disgust of Cromwell and Fairfax, who, it is 
 said, vainly opposed Loudon and Manchester — instead of lighting, retreated. 
 Prince Kupert, with his characteristic impetuosity, determined, spite of the 
 remonstrances of Newcastle, to pursue the retiring forces, and compel them 
 to an action. It was necessary, he said, 'to disperse — annihilate' those 
 audacious rebels. Newcastle had seen at Gainsborough some of the troops 
 whom the prince had determined to ' disperse and annihilate,' and he 
 smiled derisively. Stung, however, by an implied taunt on liis personal 
 courage, he gave way to Rupert's counsels, and the combined Royalists 
 marched in pursuit of the Scotch and English forces. They soon overtook 
 them, drawn up in grim array on Marston Moor, in a position excellent as 
 a defensive one, but not suitable for attack. Along the front of the par- 
 liamentarians ran a deep, wide drain ; theu- left, where Cromwell com- 
 manded, was protected, and at the same time held back, by an extensive 
 tract of broken and difficult gi'ound. The right was free and clear. 
 Rupert hesitated to attack men so strongly posted, and the two armies, 
 together perhaps about 60,000 men, stood gazing at each other till a 
 quarter past seven o'clock in the evening of the 4th of July 1644. Crom- 
 well could remain inactive no longer, and with a brief, passionate address 
 to his Ironsides, he went off to make a cu'cuit on the left, in order to fall 
 upon the flank of the ' dissolute Goring.' Manchester and Loudon, seeing 
 this, advanced their infantry, and the battle on the right commenced at the 
 same time. The tight in the centi-e was terrific : the infantry and cavalry 
 of Newcastle and Goring sweeping the men as they emerged from the 
 drain they were compelled to pass with fiery destruction. Accounts vary 
 with respect to this attack of the main body of the Scotch and English 
 infantry. Some writers assert that the parliamentary troops were, after 
 prodigious efforts, thrown into irretrievable confusion, and that Manchester, 
 Loudon, Fairfax, and others, abandoned, or were about to abandon the 
 field. Others say that the fight in the centre was obstinately and equally 
 disputed. It is, however, quite certain that the right, whei'e Fan-fax com- 
 manded, was broken through, defeated, and dispersed. It was more than 
 half-past eight o'clock when the dark squadrons of thp Ironsides, having at 
 last extricated themselves from the broken and tangled ground, were seen 
 charging upon Newcastle's flank. In brief space the aspect of affairs 
 changed, and the royalist infantry were either dispersed or slain. But the 
 victory was not yet won. There was Rupert's triumphant cavalry returned 
 from victorious pursuit, and far more numerous than Cromwell's horsemen, 
 to encounter. The ranks of the Ironsides, slightly disordered by ^'ictory, 
 closed sternly up at the call of their chief, and again his piercing tones, 
 echoed by thousands of voices, rang along the line — ' The sword of the 
 Lord and of Gideon ! ' — and Prince Rupert was literally swept from the 
 field, with frightful carnage. Cromwell, in his letter to the Speaker of the 
 Commons, dated July 5, 1644, says — ' God made them as stubble to our 
 
 23 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOE THE PEOPLE. 
 
 swords;' and of the large army the prince brought mto the field, Oliver, 
 though he was too hurried at that moment to give the particulars, is of 
 opinion ' that Eupert has not more than 4000 men remaining with him.' 
 It was ten o'clock before the battle and pursuit had ended, and the summer 
 moon, as she arose, threw her pale, melancholy light upon the white death- 
 faces of 6000 Scotch and Englishmen, slain there by kindred hands ! 
 
 The Scotch and English forces soon separated, the former remaining in 
 the north, whilst Manchester and Cromwell turned to encounter the king, 
 who was strongly posted at Newbery. The left of the royalist forces was 
 protected by the castle of Bennington, and the centre and riglit were held 
 by numerous troops, masked and shielded from attack by the nature of the 
 ground, and the numerous buildings by which it was dotted. An attack 
 was, however, determined on, and that on the left, by CromweU, was 
 thoroughly successful. Spite of an obstinate resistance, supported by 
 the fire of the castle, the king's position was forced, and the royalist 
 troops driven into the town. Manchester's attack on the right failed, and 
 it was a dra^vn battle. The king, however, finding that, from the success 
 of the Ironsides, his position was no longer tenable, withdrew silently in the 
 night. The sleepless vigilance of Cromwell detected this movement, and 
 hurrying to Manchester's tent, he urged him to throw himself at once upon 
 the kmg's flank. The earl refused. ' A forward movement of the horse 
 then?' 'No.' The commander-in-chief would not permit it, and in 
 gloomy discontent Oliver returned to his quarters, not, we may be sure, to 
 sleep. What was perhaps worse, Manchester refused to assault the castle 
 of Dennington; and the king, reinforced by Prince Eupert, returned in 
 little more than a week, and carried ofi" the heavy guns and stores he had 
 left in that fortress, in the face of the parliamentary troops. 
 
 What was to be done ? must have been the incessant self-questioning of 
 Cromwell, WaUer had been beaten all to pieces at Devizes ; Essex had 
 got cooped up in Cornwall, and though his cavalry, bursting through the 
 royalist lines, had escaped, the infantry had surrendered, and the earl 
 had narrowly saved himself from capture m a fishing-boat, which had 
 landed him at Plymouth ; and now this Earl of Manchester was refusing to 
 fight, or to allow others to do so ! A sad termination this to a campaign 
 that had witnessed Marston Moor ! Oliver's mind was soon made up. He 
 was ofi" to London, and was immediately in close conference with Sir Harry 
 Vane. The result of their counsels was the proposition to the Commons of 
 what was called the ' Self-Denying Ordinance,' which enacted that no member 
 of either House should be competent to hold any civil or military commis- 
 sion. The proposal had all tlie gloss of high-flying patriotism ; and it 
 apparently aimed at Cromwell himself as member for Cambridge, as well 
 as the military earls. After much opposition in both Houses, the ordi- 
 nance passed, and the noble commanders were in consequence deprived 
 of their commissions and authority — a measure which perhaps could not 
 have been efi"ected in any otlier manner. The army generally was also 
 remodelled — weeded of all whom the party of 'Independents' deemed 
 untrustworthy or faint-hearted. The king appears to have been much 
 pleased with the new arrangements that were going on in the army of his 
 foes. The new commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, although as bi-ave 
 24 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 as steel, was a general of slight capacity ; and the royal forces had never 
 been so numerous, so completely equipped, or in higlier spirits. His 
 majesty opened the campaign of 1045 by taking Leicester, garrisoned l)y 
 1500 men ; and he Avrote to the queen, on whom he appears to have literally 
 doted, ' that his affairs were never in so hopeful a way.' Tiie dreaded 
 Cromwell was no longer in his path, and the crown appeared once more 
 within his reach. He little knew the men with whom he had to cope. If 
 he could have perused the resolutions of the Commons ^ iwrmitting Sir 
 Thomas Fairfax to confer the command of the horse upon Lieutenant- 
 general Cromwell as long as the House should be pleased to dispense with 
 that honourable member's services,' it might have enlightened him as to 
 the fatal signiticance of the recent changes. The welcome resolution was 
 instantly communicated to Faii-fiix, and he the same day wrote to Crom- 
 well soliciting his immediate presence with the army, menaced by the king 
 with an overpowering force. The letter reached Cromwell on the 9th of 
 June, and on the 11th he had joined Fairfax at Northampton with 1000 
 chosen horse. 'Well! where was the king — the king's armyV Fairfa.K 
 did not quite know — but certainly in the neighbourhood. Cromwell 
 suggested that this material point should be ascertained at once. Fairfax 
 acquiesced, and Ii-eton, taking a few colours of horse with him, drove in 
 one or two of the king's outposts ; and from the prisoners he brought in, 
 it was ascertained that Charles was posted in strong and splendid array a 
 few miles distant on a rising ground, not far from Harborough, or Haver- 
 browe, as it was then called. Cromwell at once decided for battle — decisive, 
 thorough battle on the next day. Fairfax agreed, and the generals, with 
 Ireton, immediately sui'veyed the ground in the neighbourhood, and 
 selected a fallow-field about a mile and a-half in width, about half-way 
 between Harborough and Naseby, as an eligible spot whereon to intercept 
 and encounter the king's numerous and formidable forces. There, accord- 
 ingly, the parliamentary army drew up at sunrise the following morning. 
 Cromwell was on the right with his Ironsides ; Fairfax and Skippon 
 commanded the infantry in the centre ; and Ireton, with a strong body of 
 horse, was posted on the left. They lay there motionless for several 
 hours, singing psalms at intervals — their swords thoroughly sharp, their 
 powder perfectly dry, and their confidence in the triumph of the righteous 
 cause unbounded. 
 
 Charles, yielding to Rupert's impatience, advanced to battle. The main 
 body of the king's infantry, more than 15,000 men, was commanded by Lord 
 Ashley ; and Rupert on the right. Sir Marmaduke Langdale on the left, 
 headed his fine and numerous cavalry. The liing's Life-guards, Prince Ru- 
 pert's regiment, and the Royal Horse-guards, formed the reserve, commanded 
 by the king in person. Rupert's impetuous charge on the king's right, spite 
 of Ireton's fierce and valiant resistance, was completely successful. Ireton 
 himself was wounded, and taken prisoner, but rescued during the subsequent 
 rout. Rupert, as usual, went off in search of the baggage, from which, how- 
 ever, he was driven back by a few smart discharges of the strongly-posted 
 baggage-guard. The fight in the centre was bloody and obstinate. Fairfax 
 and Skippon, forgetting, in the growing confusion and thickening danger of 
 defeat, their position as generals, fought desperately in the ranks. Spite, 
 however, of their frenzied efforts, their troops were manifestly giving way 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 before the terrible odds opposed to them, when decisive help came as ever 
 from that astonishing farmer of St Ives. He had pushed Langdale com- 
 pletely off the held, and leaving one or two squadrons to hinder him from 
 rallying, now wheeled with the mass of his Ironsides full upon the flank of 
 the almost victorious royal centre. The shock was decisive ; the king's 
 infantry gave way at once, and the reserve shared the same fate : one 
 regiment, more obstinate than the rest, was destroyed almost to a man. 
 Kupert returned to the field ; but his exhortations, aided by the prayers 
 and commands of the king, failed to induce his cavalry to encounter that of 
 CromweU. They had made acquaintance with those gentlemen at Marston 
 Moor, and nothing could induce them to renew it. They fled, and with 
 them the last hope of King Charles. The victory was thoroughly decisive. 
 8000 prisoners, a hundred colours, the royal standard, the king's carriage 
 and his cabinet of letters — sad but incontestable evidence of his majesty's 
 utter want of sincerity — remamed in the hands of the victors ; and all effec- 
 tual resistance on the part of the Royalists was over. ' Honest men,' said 
 CromweU, wi-iting from the field to the Speaker of the Commons — ' honest 
 men served you faithfully and well. Sir, they are trusty. I beseecli you, 
 in the name of God, not to disturb them.' They were not disturbed ; and 
 Cromwell, sometimes with Fairfax, but more frequently alone, swept like a 
 destroying tempest through the land. Taimton, besieged by the ' dissolute' 
 Goring, and defended by Blake, afterwai'ds the great admhal, was relieved. 
 Leicester had been instantly retaken. Bristol, into which Rupert had 
 thrown himself, surrendered upon terms after one assault. Devizes, 
 Cromwell carried by storm. Berkeley Castle and Winchester surrendered 
 to him. Basing House, held by the Marquis of Winchester, and in those 
 days esteemed almost impregnable, was carried by assault. ' Sh, I thank 
 God,' wrote Ohver on the 14th October 1645— 'I thank God I can give 
 you a good account of Basing.' Sweeping westward, he overthrew Lord 
 AVentworth at Bovey Tray almost without an effort, capturing 500 
 prisoners and six standards. Lord Hopton he routed at Torriugton. The 
 last English force in the field for the king was about 3000 cavalry, com- 
 manded by Sir Jacob Astley. These were overthrown, and Sir Jacob 
 himself made prisoner. 'Your work is done,' said the baronet to his 
 captors, ' unless, indeed, you choose to fall out and fight among yourselves.' 
 Cromwell was now approaching Oxford, where the king had sought 
 refuge. His majesty could not but perceive that he had lost the game. 
 The defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh had quenched the hopes raised by 
 the meteor successes of that remarkable man in Scotland, and by the 
 advice of Montreuil, the French envoy, the king left Oxford, disguised as a 
 gi-oom following his master Ashburnham, and surrendered himself to the 
 Scottish forces at Kelham. We have no space for any details of the 
 complicated negotiations which ensued — of the deceptive, and, for himself, 
 fatal game which Charles attempted to play, not only when with the Scots, 
 but for nearly three years afterwards, persisting to the last as he did in his 
 effoi'ts to deceive and play off one party against another. The English 
 parliament at length claimed the custody of the king, and the Scottish 
 generals reluctantly surrendered him for, it has been said, a sum of money 
 — £200,000. This statement is not borne out by the facts ; for the whole 
 of tiie £200,000 was voted, as appears by the Commons' Journals, on the 
 26 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 2l6t, 27th Augnst, and 1st of September, though the final settlement of the 
 vote did not take place till the 8th of December, being arrears of pay due 
 under contract to tlie Scottish army ; and it was not till after tlie last date 
 (December tlie 8th) that negotiations for the surrender of the king com- 
 menced. Whether, however, the parliament would have actually paid 
 them if they had persisted in retaining Charles, is another matter. Neither 
 is it needful to dwell upon the seizure of the royal person by ColonelJoyce, 
 his subsequent escape from Hampton Court, recapture by Colonel Ham- 
 mond, and confinement in the Isle of AVight. Tlie catastrophe, a sad and 
 melancholy one however viewed, it was evident, in the beginning of 1648, 
 would not bo long delayed. Events were occurring which convinced 
 the victorious chiefs of the army and parliament that some decisive 
 step ought to be taken without delay, and showed Cromwell, who had 
 been received in London with extraorduiary honours, and had had a 
 pension of £2500 per annum settled on him, that his work was as yet but 
 half performed. 
 
 Captivity and misfortune, especially of fallen greatness, appeal strongly 
 to the sympathies and imaginations of mankind, and thousands of persons 
 who had strenuously resisted Charles the despot, were moved with com- 
 passion for Charles the humble captive. An insiu-rection in his favour, 
 headed by Colonel Poyer, broke out in Wales : the English fleet, consisting 
 of six ships of war fully equipped, mutinied, and sailed for Helvoetsluys, to 
 place themselves under the command of the young Duke of York ; and 
 worse than all, the Scotch government, having secretly concluded a treaty 
 with the king to restore him upon conditions, for the due performance 
 of which they were to hold certam of the English northern towns, sent an 
 army across the Tweed under the Duke of Hamilton, a nobleman who 
 does not appear to have possessed one quality fitting him for such a com- 
 mand. The Scottish army, reckonuig the four thousand cavaliers under 
 Langdale that were with them, did not exceed two or tlu-ee-and-twenty 
 thousand men — a force altogether inadequate to contend against the veterans 
 of Cromwell, when he should have done with the Welsh outbreak. 
 Hamilton appears to have been conscious of this, for he came on with such 
 timidity that in forty days he had only marched eighty miles, though 
 opposed only by Lambert with inadequate forces, that slowly retired as he 
 advanced. At length Cromwell, havmg finished with Colonel Poyer and 
 the Welsh insurgents, hastened with rapid strides to the north. Hamilton 
 was near Preston, on the left bank of the Ribble, when Cromwell joined 
 Lambert at Otley Park ; but his rearguai'd under Munroe were miles off, 
 at Kirby Lonsdale. Cromwell, as usual, attacked at once, and Hamilton 
 and Langdale were overtlu-own with immense loss. Except stragglers, 
 only the regiments commanded by Munroe regained their native land, and 
 when Baillie surrendered at Warrington he had but three thousand men 
 with him. Hamilton escaped with the cavalry to Uttoxeter, where his 
 men mutmied, and the duke took refuge with Lord Grey of Groby. 
 Cromwell marched northward. The defeat of the Scottish Eoyalists induced 
 the Covenanters of that kingdom to rise in arms again ; and headed by 
 Lords Loudon and Eglhigton, the Whiggamores marched on Edinburgh. 
 They could not, however, have successfully withstood the disciplmed forces 
 luider Lanark and Munroe, and Cromwell proffered his assistance. It was 
 
 27 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 accepted, and Oliver marched to Edinburgh : matters were arranged, and 
 the English general turned slowly towards the south. So slowly indeed did 
 he, usually so fiery-active, march, that he contrived not to arrive in London 
 tUl the ' purification ' of the parliament, by the expulsion of every Presby- 
 terian or other member opposed to the designs of the prevailing party, had 
 been efiected by military violence — by Colonel Pride's purge, as it Ls 
 called — that officer professing to act under the orders of Sir Thomas 
 Fairfax. 
 
 The army, through its ofiicers, now openly demanded judgment on the 
 king ; and the ' purified ' Commons sent up a declaratory vote to the Peers, 
 ' that it is high treason in the king of England to make war upon his 
 people.' The Peers' House, consisting of but twelve members, negatived 
 the proposition. They would, however, make it treasonable in any future 
 king to do so. On the next day they again met, to the number of six, 
 disposed of some formal business, and adjourned till the morrow. That 
 mon'ow was the 25th of April 1660, for a few hours after their adjournment 
 the Commons voted their Lordships' House * useless and dangerous,' and 
 abolished it. 
 
 With the particulars known of the trial and execution of Charles I. for 
 high treason every reader must be abundantly famUiar. That in those 
 days, when a divinity did reaUy hedge a king, it was a deed of unexampled 
 boldness maybe readily admitted; and it is perhaps true, as Mr Carlyle 
 expresses it, that it struck a chill to the heart of universal flunkeyism from 
 which it has not since recovered ; but it seems impossible to coincide in 
 that writer's apparently unqualified admhation of the act. In the first 
 place — and this surely ought to have excited Mr Carlyle's indignation — all 
 that solemn preparation and apparatus for trying the king was a huge 
 sham — an unreal simulation of a grave investigation! The men who 
 presided there were executioners — righteous ones some may hold — but cer- 
 tainly not judges met to inquire into the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, 
 and to decide calmly and impartially according to the e'sddence. It was pre- 
 viously determined to execute the king ; and better far — more manlj- and 
 honest at all events would it have been — to have pronounced his doom 
 without going through all that hideous and mocking fomiality. The 
 palpable hypocrisy of the whole affair makes even the king's assumptions 
 of divine irresponsibility appear respectable. And if the putting the 
 monarch to death under the pretext set up was a crime, it was far more 
 conclusively a blunder : the instant the head of Charles I. rolled on the 
 scaff'old, Charles IT., who was beyond the reach of parliament, started into 
 life. The dramatic dialogue at the place of execution between the king 
 and the bishop, true or false, or partly true and partly false, as it may be, 
 gained thousands of parti.sans to the cause of trampled royalty ; and occa- 
 sion for the publication or invention of such a scene should have been 
 carefully avoided by wise statesmen. Few can read the account of the 
 last moments of the king without emotions of sorrow and compassion; and 
 only that the pale face and wasted form of Eliot obtrude before tliat 
 sadly-proud complaining eye, and the broken petition — ' A little air, your 
 majesty, that I may gather strength to die' — drowns the sonorous tones of 
 the king and his prelate, it would seem impossible not only to forbear 
 pronouncing the execution of the monarch to have been an act of unjus- 
 28 
 
CROMWELL AND HIS CONTEMPOUARIES. 
 
 tifiable vengeance, but that the king himself ■w.as a victim deserving the 
 profoundest respect, pity, and compassion. 
 
 There was much work yet to be done by Cromwell. The royal cause 
 was again in the ascendant in Ireland. The revolted fleet under Princo 
 Itupcrt rode triumphantly along the coast, for Sir Harry Vane had not yet 
 had time to organize the dreaded fleets which afterwards won England the 
 sovereignty of the seas. Inchiquin in Munster, the Scottish regiments in 
 Ulster, and the great body of the Catholic population, had proclaimed the 
 king. Cromwell, armed with the highest civil and military authority, must 
 go over Avith his Ironsides, and quench that mischief. He did so efl'ec- 
 tually and remorselessly. We cannot, after a careful perusal of the pleas 
 put forward in defence of those Irish massacres, find any, the slightest valid 
 excuse for them. They appear to have been as unnecessary as they were 
 frightful, hideous. It is, however, right to give the lord-general's own 
 defence of them. Here it is. He is writing of the slaughter at Tredagh : — 
 ' I am persuaded this is a righteous judgment of God upon those barbai-ous 
 wretches Avho have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and 
 that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are 
 the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work 
 remorse and regret.' 
 
 Scotland again rose for the king. Charles 11. was invited over and 
 croAvned there. This was esteemed a declaration of war against England, 
 and Cromwell hastened from his Irish command to meet the new danger. 
 He crossed the Tweed at the head of 20,000 veterans, before the raw levies 
 of the Scots were m any condition to encounter him. The battle of 
 Dunbar followed ; Cromwell was once more in Edinburgh ; and although his 
 military measures were vigorously directed to put down armed resistance 
 to the parliament, he appears to have treated the Scottish people with 
 respect and consideration. Some years afterwards, in his correspondence 
 with New England in America, he expressed to the Puritans there — whom, 
 by the way, he sti-engthened and supported in every possible manner— the 
 deep regret he felt at fightmg against the Scottish Covenanters. ' He was 
 afraid he had slain many of the godly at Dunbar.' In the next campaign 
 his flag waved over Perth ; and further resistance seemed hopeless, when 
 the young king, seeing that the country was clear towards the south, pre- 
 vailed upon his Scottish army to mai-ch upon England. A wilder project, 
 with such a general as Cromwell in his rear, was perhaps never conceived. 
 Oliver, as soon as he heard of the king's march, which was not till three 
 days after it had commenced, despatched letters to the parliament to be 
 under no alarm at the southward movement of the king ; and to Harrison 
 he sent directions to press on the flank of the Scottish forces from New- 
 castle. Lambert he at once despatched from Fifeshire to hang upon the 
 king's rear, and as speedily as possible followed himself with 10,000 
 veterans along the east coast towards Yorkshu-e. Charles was overtaken 
 at Worcester, and spite of the gallant i-esistance offered by the Scottish 
 troops — ' five hours of the hottest fighting he had known ' — Cromwell 
 obtained a complete victory on the 3d of September 1652, the anniversary 
 of ths battle of Dunbar, and thenceforth called his ' lucky day.' The 
 young king, at the head of a brigade of cavalry, burst out of the city by the 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBEBS S PAPERS FOR TUE PEOPLE. 
 
 northern road, and escaped. This event Cromwell called ' a crowning 
 mercy.' It was the last military resistance offered in England to the 
 Commonwealth whilst he lived. 
 
 The next important page in this eventful history records the dissolution 
 of the remainmg members — the Eump, as they were called — of the Long 
 Parliament by the Lord-General Cromwell, who, with the aid of his soldiers, 
 turned them unceremoniously out of the House, locked the doors after 
 them, and walked home to Whitehall with the keys in his pocket. The 
 parliament had just before been debating, and were about to pass a 'reform 
 bill,' of which one of the provisions was, that the present members should 
 continue to sit without re-election. 
 
 The only possible justification of this act of violence would have been to 
 immediately assemble a new, full, and legal House of Commons. But that 
 course was opposed to the lust of power which now, whatever his excusers 
 may say, dommated the mmd of Cromwell. A parliament of a certain sort 
 was, it is true, summoned. Gospel ministers were directed to take the sense 
 of congregational churches in the several counties, and return the names of 
 ' faithful men, fearing God and hating covetousness ; ' and out of these the 
 Council, in the presence of the lord-general, selected 139 for England, 6 for 
 Wales, 6 for Ireland, and 5 for Scotland. These men assembled, only two 
 being absent, on the 4th of July 1653, and set about reforming the common 
 law and abolishing the Court of Chancery, mitil one fine day Colonel 
 Sydenham proposed, that as they evidently had no talent for govenunent, 
 they should resign their authority into the hands of the lord - general. 
 This was accomplished by the aid of a little gentle violence, and the ' Little 
 Parliament,' as it was termed, was dismissed. Others followed of various 
 patterns and devices, none of which, however, suited Cromwell, now Lord 
 Protector, with a civil list of £200,000 per annum. In 1658, the last new 
 constitution had extemporised two Houses, and we find his Highness 
 addressing the new parliament as ' My Lords and Gentlemen ! ' To further 
 show how power had corrupted, dwarfed, vulgarised, shrunk up, this once 
 great, vigorous-minded man, we make one quotation from the ' Court 
 Circular ' of that day : — ' Yesterday afternoon, his Highness went to Hamp- 
 ton Court; and this day the most illustrious lady, the Lady Mary Cromwell, 
 third daughter of his Highness the Lord Protector, was there married to 
 the most noble the Lord Fauconbridge, in the presence of then* Highnesses 
 and many noble persons.' — Merc. Pol. Nov. 19, 1657. 
 
 The old fire had not yet burned out ; but its flashes were visible only in 
 the Puritan-farmer's foreign policy. ' I will make the English name more 
 terrible than ever the Eoman's was,' was Cromwell's vaunting expression ; 
 and had life been granted him, he appeared likely to have gone nigh 
 to realise the vainglorious boast. The till then undisputed maritime 
 supremacy of the Dutch, supported as it was by the genius and bravery of 
 Van Tromp, De Ruyter, and l)e Witte, was destroyed during his protec- 
 torate chiefly by the skill and valour of Blake. Prince Rupert, Avho had 
 been roving the seas at the head of the revolted Engli.sli fleet, took refugt 
 from the pursuit of that admiral in the Tagus. Blake demanded permis- 
 sion to pursue and attack ' tliat pirate' there. Don John, king of Por- 
 tugal, refused, and Blake made reprisals upon tlie Portuguese conunerce. 
 Don John was forced ultimately to submit, paid a large sum of money foi 
 30 
 
CROMWELL ANI> HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 tlie expenses of the war, and conceded a commercial treaty which secured 
 great end unexampled privileges to the merchants of Britain. The 
 piratical powers of liarbary were humbled ; Spain was crippled on the sea, 
 and despoiled not only of wealth, but of territory. Jamaica was wrested 
 from her ; and the last exploit of Blake was the destruction of the Spanish 
 fleet in the harbour, and defended by the batteries, of Vera Cruz. France 
 courted the Protector's alliance, and four thousand of his veterans co- 
 operated with Turenne in the reduction of Dunkirk. 
 
 But the bright page m the Protector's foreign policy was the firni and 
 resolute stand he made in defence of the Vaudois, persecuted by the Duke 
 of Savoy ' for conscience' sake.' The Princes of Piedmont were hunting 
 them down like animals of prey, when the stern voice of Cromwell echoed 
 amidst those Alpine wastes, and the persecutor turned in teiTor and dismay 
 from his work of blood. The reader familiar with Milton's invocation 
 beginning with — 
 
 ' Avenge, oh Lord ! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,' 
 
 may conceive the excitement of the Ironsides, eager as bloodhounds on the 
 start, to tight ' the battle of the Lord' against the partisans of Rome. The 
 Protector informed the Vaudois through Stouppe that they might count 
 u])on his instant help ; eager preparations were commenced ; the pope was 
 plainly told that if the persecution of 'the people of God' continued, the 
 English cannon should be heard in St Angelo — when the Duke of Savoy, 
 wisely counselled by France, abandoned his violent measures, and restored 
 to the Vaudois their religious privileges and immunities. Cromwell is said 
 to have heard the announcement of the Duke of Savoy's submission, 
 conveyed through the French ambassador, with grim discontent. He 
 would rather have effected his object by the sharp swords of his valiant 
 soldiers. Perhaps, too, he thought he might have recovered in that ' holy' 
 war, as he would have deemed it, a portion of the moral health and vigour 
 lost to him since he had dwelt in the perfumed atmosphere of palaces, and 
 amidst the glittering shows of a court. 
 
 It was not to be. The once lion-hearted man, betrayed from the high 
 path he had once so firmly trod by the enticements of power, and vainly 
 struggling in the mires of intrigue and fair-seeming falsehood, visibly 
 declined in mind and body; became even personally afraid of the miserable 
 Royalists who threatened him with private assassination. Cromwell afraid ! 
 What miracle is this? No miracle, reader! True courage dwells not 
 M-ith usurping violence ; and how could he be otherwise than afraid as the 
 names of Eliot, Hampden, gleamed through his troubled brain, and he felt 
 that he had betrayed the gi-eat cause for which they died ; brought it in 
 the eyes of the unreflecting into derision and contempt? Albeit as the 
 l>ord Protector, after patient watching by the lingering deathbed of his 
 ta\ourite daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Clavpole, came himself visibly 
 witiiin the shadow of the tomb, his old spiritual strength seemed to return 
 again. The world with its vain shows was vanishing, and as it rolled 
 away, the Heaven of his youth and healthy manhood flashed, with its awful 
 -.ad unspeakable splendours, light upon his soul. They read to him. at his 
 own request, a passage of St Paul to the Philippians — ' Not that I speak 
 
 ;n 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith 
 to be content. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.' 
 As these words fell upon his ear, he ejaculated in broken accents, ' This 
 Scripture did once save my life when my eldest son — died ; which went as 
 a dagger to my heart : mdeed it did.' He alluded to his son Oliver, slain 
 in the civd war, but at what place or under what circumstances remams 
 unascertained. He is supposed to have served in Harrison's troop. The 
 day before the Protector died, when his wife and children were weeping 
 round his bed, he exclaimed, speaking of the Covenant of God with man — 
 ' It is holy and true — it is holy and true — it is holy and true ! Who made 
 it holy and true ? The Mediator of the Covenant ! The Covenant is one. 
 And even if I do not. He remains faithful. Love not the world,' he con- 
 tinued, addressmg his family : ' no, my children, live like Christians, i 
 leave you the Covenant to feed upon.' ' Yea, my true one,' adds Mr Car- 
 lyle, commenting on this scene. ' Even so : the Covenant, and the eternal 
 soul of Covenants remains sure to all the faithful : deeper than the founda- 
 tions of this world — earlier than they— more lasting than they.' 
 
 The tempest of the night of the 2d of September 1658, extending to the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, and strewing land and sea with wreck, was 
 the appropriate death-dirge of that great, stormy bemg ; and on the mor- 
 row—his fortunate day, the 3d of September — the mighty, reverential, eiTuig 
 — for he was human — spirit passed from earth, its last aspiration a prayer 
 for the country he had strongly loved and bravely served. 
 
 Of the brief Protectorate under Eichard Cromwell which followed, and 
 of the subsequent restoration of the king, we have not here to speak. We 
 may merely notice, in conclusion, that in the first year of the restored 
 monarch's reign, the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Blake were dug out 
 of their graves, dragged on hurdles to Tyburn, exposed on the gallows, and 
 then huddled uito a pit amidst the shouts of a brutal populace — and, hark ! 
 — there is an echo to those shouts! It is the thunder of De Ruyter's 
 Dutch cannon in the Thames ! 
 
 The widow of the Protector died at the house of her widowed son-in-law, 
 Claypole, October 8, 1672 ; his daughter Mary, Lady Fauconbridge, died 
 14th of March 1712 ; Frances, first Mrs Rich, then Lady Russel, December 
 27, 1720; Bridget, married first to Ireton, then to Fleetwood, on the 
 11th September 1681, at Stoke-Newington, near London. His successor in 
 the Protectorate, Pdchard, died at Cheshunt, July 12, 1712; Henry on 
 tlie 23d March 1673. 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 THE recent abolition of the laws which gave our landed proprietors a 
 monopoly in the supply of food for the teeming millions of these 
 islands is not a subject to which we would willingly allude in the language 
 of exultation. The event is past, and let it go : all of us, we suppose, 
 would now gladly bury the remembi'ance of the struggle in oblivion. And 
 yet the subject of the late com-laws cannot be so tossed aside ; for if they 
 did nothing else, they gave birth to sentiments which surs-ive in the litera- 
 ture of the nation, and will not soon be forgotten. The bread-tax, as it 
 was emphatically called, had many expositors among the middle classes ; 
 l^eginning of course cautiously and reverently, walking gingerly among the 
 ' vested interests' of the aristocracy, and pi-ofessing much respect for a 
 monopoly, which they Avished to curtail only so far as would enable the 
 people to live and work. But among the people themselves it commenced 
 ■with a man whose part it was not to expound, but to feel — not to reason, 
 but to sing. The prophetess Poetry is ever sure to make her appearance 
 in troublous times ; and her voice is ever heard the richest and wildest 
 amid the clash of arms. Her words are truth : for a feeling is a fact, and 
 her direct action is upon the heart, moving through that the mind and the 
 will. Her knowledge is intuitive, her convictions inspu-ations, and she will 
 therefore hear of no compromise : caution with her is a coward, and expe- 
 diency a knave. The people had not by this time begim to submit to 
 other influences. The winged ministers of civilisation had not yet com- 
 menced their flight, scattering a cheap and wholesome literature, like vivi- 
 fying dew, throughout the land. Lecturers were few, mechanics' institu- 
 tions none ; and the sons of poverty and toil would not have comprehended 
 any other than the voice which spoke to them, as of old, in songs and 
 ballads. But the voice came : it always comes when wanted. It is bom of 
 nature and necessity ; for it is a cry from a stricken breast — so true it is 
 that men (whether they understand the cause of the befalling evil or not) — 
 
 ' Are cradled into poetry by wrong, 
 And learn in suffering what they teach in song.' 
 
 It was the voice of Ebenezer Elliott, an individual who was specially bom 
 and bred for the occasion. If in another class of society, lie would have been 
 heard with suspicion ; if possessing more refinement, he would have been 
 unintelligible. Coarse in the external coarseness of his degree, -wrathful, 
 Litter, presumptuous, intolerant, and unreasoning, he was exactly the man to 
 8. 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 be listened to by the working-classes of his own generation ; but soft, gentle, 
 and kindly — because a poet — in everything without the pale of political 
 warfare, elevated by noble aspirings and humanising sympathies, and full 
 of the taste of nature and the fire of genius, his rhymes will now command 
 a wider audience. The life of this person has no interest in its events 
 — not even the interest arising from the struggles of abject poverty 
 and seemingly hopeless ignorance. He is merely a Voice crying in the 
 wilderness of the undistinguished world — -a Light rising in the obscurities 
 of society, and throwing illumination upon everything but its own source. 
 Yet, in obedience to what seems a natural craving of humanity, we must try 
 to draw from the scanty materials that come in our way some portraitm-e 
 or outline of the individual man, and ascertain, if possible, by what process 
 of circumstances he was shaped into a poet of the people. We are enabled 
 to do this chiefly by an autobiographic sketch of the earlier part of his life, 
 which Elliott placed in the hands of Mr William Tait, the bookseller of 
 Edinburgh ; embodying the substance of a series of letters addi-essed by 
 the Rliymer to his friend Dr HoUand, expressly with the view of their 
 serving as the basis of a posthumous memoii' in the event of such being 
 wanted.* 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott was bom on the 17th March 1781 at the New Foundry, 
 Masborough, in the parish of Rotherham, where he was probably baptized 
 by a tinker of Barnesly, a co-religionist of his father, who belonged to the 
 Berean denomination. This father was a brave man, come of a line, as the 
 poet loved to believe, of stout Border thieves, although he was himself 
 apprenticed, with a premium of £50, to the house of Landell and Chambers, 
 wholesale ironmongers of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The grandsire who provided 
 so well for his son was a tinsmith, married to a Scotchwoman of the 
 peaceful and pastoral name of Sheepshanks — a person of vigorous and self- 
 willed character, but yet whom her husband lamented with tears long after 
 her death, and even untU his own — ' especially when he was drunk.' Miss 
 Sheepshanks appears in history as the first of her race ; for her ancestry 
 never could be ascertained — a circumstance which the poet regretted, his 
 great difficulty in drawing up the memoir being a want of materials. WHien 
 his father left Landell and Chambers, he became a clerk at Masborough, 
 where he fu-st saw his destined wife, one of the daughters of a yeoman at 
 Ozzins, near Penistone, where his ancestors had lived time out of mind on 
 their fifty or sixty acres of land. ' I think, then,' quoth the autobiographer, 
 ' I have made out my descent, if. not from very fuie folks, certainly from 
 respectables, as (getting every day comparatively scarcer) tliey are called 
 in these days of ten dogs to one bone.' 
 
 Ebenezer was fu-st sent to a dame's school, and then to the IloUis 
 School, where he learned little more than to write, partly, it would seem, 
 owing to the nervous temperament and constitutional awkwardness he 
 derived from his mother. The life of tliis poor woman was a continuous 
 disease, although she reared eight out of her eleven cliilch-en to a(hilt age. 
 Tlie father, however, is a more interestmg character, and he conferred upon 
 
 * Tliis sketch has been printed in the ' Athena?um,' but only partirilly, the editor 
 omittinp; (and generally with good taste) such passages as tlie critic would require 
 to condemn, but which furnisli pregnant materials for the biographer. 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 that of his son a tone which, working upon the maternal timidity, made 
 him eventually u poet and a politician. In the memoir he makes his first 
 appearance in a vision related to her son by the mother, who was a first- 
 rate dreamer, and a firm believer in dreams. 'I had placed under my 
 pillow,' she said, ' a shank-bone of mutton to dream upon ; and I dreamed 
 that I saw a little, broad-set, dark, ill-favoured man, with black hair, black 
 eyes, thick stob nose, and tup shins : it was thy father.' This father was a 
 fanatic in religion and poUtics, but a brave, strong-minded man. In 
 bathing his children in the canal, he made it a rule to duck them three 
 times, and to keep them the third time some seconds under the water, 
 which produced in Ebenezer a horror of suffocation that only increased 
 with his years. To avoid this infliction, the boy bathed without his 
 father's assistance, and in consequence was on one occasion nearly drowned 
 — ' the more the pity, I have often said since.' His father, he tells us, 
 had much humorous and satiric power, and would have made a good comic 
 actor ; yet his political sagacity was such that he was popularly known as 
 'Devil Elliott.' 
 
 The family changed their abode at Masborough, Mr EUiott having obtained 
 a clerkship in the emplojnnent of Messrs Walker of the New Fomidry, with 
 a salary of £60 or £70 a year, and house, candles, and coal. ' Well do I 
 remember some of those days of affluence and pit-coal fires — for glorious 
 fires we had : no fear of coal bills in those days. There, at the New 
 Foundry, under the room where I was bom, in a little parlour like the 
 cabin of a ship, yearly painted gi-een, and blessed with a beautiful 
 thoroughfare of light — for there was no window-tax in those days — he 
 used to preach every fourth Sunday to persons who came from distances 
 of twelve and fourteen mUes to hear his tremendous doctrines of ultra- 
 Calvinism (he called himself a Berean), and hell hung round with span-long 
 children ! On other days, pointing to the aquatint pictures on the walls, 
 he delighted to declaim on the virtues of slandered Cromwell, and of 
 Washington the rebel ; or, shaking his sides vdth laughter, explained the 
 glories of " The glorious ^^ctory of His Majesty's forces over the Rebels at 
 Bunker's HiU ! " Here the reader has a key which wiU unlock aU my 
 future politics.' Mr Elliott became eventually nominal proprietor of the 
 foundry, the partners having sold him their shares on credit ; but the new 
 dignity was far from being attended by pecuniai-y advantage. 
 
 Touching the ' bravery ' of Elliott senior an absurd story is told, in 
 which he is represented as thrashing a cavahy officer with a stick, his 
 antagonist being at the time on horseback, sword in hand ! After receiving 
 his chastisement, the officer took to flight, and never afterwards met the 
 victor without touching ids hat, and saying, ' How do you do, Mr EUiott ?' 
 The affairs of tlie stout iron-founder, however, went wrong, and he died in 
 poverty, yet self-sustained, and not in distress. 
 
 During his father's scene with the di'agoon, Ebenezer, then in his fifteenth 
 year, was ' ten-ibly frightened,' although he must iiave been sufficiently 
 familiar with such disturbances, it being the custom of the cavahy to back 
 their horses so as to break the windows of the Jacobin's shop. ' But I, 
 alas!' says he. 'am the son of my mother; yet on emergencies, and in the 
 hour of calamity, the single drop of northern blood which my father put 
 into my heart has more than once befriended me.' 
 
 3 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 His poetical education, however, commenced long before this, and per- 
 haps was not uninfluenced by the results of the smallpox, which he had in 
 his sixth year, and which left him frightfully disfigured. In a year or two 
 after we find him constructing in the foundry-yard an imitation of the 
 natural scenery on which poets feed. This he contrived by sinking in a 
 stone heap in the midst of a little wilderness of magwort and wormwood 
 a shallow iron vessel, which he fiUed with water. This served as a foun- 
 tain, in which the solitary child saw the reflection of the sky and clouds, 
 and of the surrounding weeds, and which he seldom failed to visit at noon 
 when the sun was over it. In a few years more came of course the Egeria 
 of the place, a young woman ' to whom I never spoke a word in my life, 
 and the sound of whose voice, to this day, I have never heard ; yet if I 
 thought she saw me as I passed her father's house, I felt as if weights were 
 fastened to my feet.' 
 
 He had another taste, however, of a less pleasing kind. He not only 
 loved to look upon fountains and sweet faces, but felt a horrible impulse to 
 gaze upon the features of those who had met a violent death — why, he 
 knew not, for they made his life a burthen, following him wherever he went, 
 sleeping with him, and haunting him in his dreams. The sight of a dead 
 body which had been six weeks in the canal cured him of this monomania 
 by its surpassing horror : it never left him for months, sleeping or waking, 
 and ever after he shrunk with teiTor from spectacles he had before sought 
 as an indulgence. At this time he was alone, even in a neighbourhood 
 swanning with children. He had no companions, and was not only con- 
 sidered to be somewhat wanting in intellect, but might have reaUy been 
 deficient in his stock of ideas from his holding no intercommunication with 
 other children. He was, however, a capital kite-maker and ship-builder ; 
 and he constructed, while still a boy, a model of an eighteen-gun ship, which 
 passed into the possession of the present Earl Fitzwilliam. 
 
 Then came one of those escapades by which the headlong spirit of boy- 
 hood so frequently seeks to anticipate the adventures of life. His father 
 having constructed a pan weighmg several tons for his brother at Thurle- 
 stone, Ebenezer considered that it would be a convenient vehicle in which 
 to visit the world. He accordingly crept into it unperceived, after it had 
 been hoisted on a truck, and hiding himself under some hay which it con- 
 tained, set out soon after sunset ; and travelling all night beneath the 
 solemn stars, arrived at his destination on the following morning. ' It is 
 remarkable,' says he, ' that I never in after-life succeeded in any plan 
 which I did not accomplish in a similar way : if I ask advice, either the 
 plan is never executed, or it is unsuccessful.' At Thurlestone he was soon 
 home-sick ; but it was a diflicult thing to attempt to retrace a i-oute which 
 he had passed in the night-time, having merely to place himself in a moving 
 machine, and allow himself to be carried wherever the fates willed. He 
 made no effort to get back to liis mother, for whom lie pined ; but on 
 retui'ning from the school, to which his uncle sent him, he used to spend 
 his evenings in looking from the back of the house in the direction where 
 he was told Masborough lay; and when the sun went doAvn, lie turned indig- 
 nantly away, feeling himself to be the victim of some great -wTong. In 
 this exile he spent a year and a-half, when at length he was taken home by 
 his fatlier ; and so ended his tirst irruption into tlie great world. ' Is it 
 4 
 
KBENEZEK ELLIOTT. 
 
 not strange,' says he, moralising on this event in his liistory, ' that a man 
 who from his childhood has dreamed of visiting foreign countries, and yet 
 fl,t the age of sixty believes that he sliall sec tlic Falls of Niagara, has never 
 been twenty miles out of England, and has yet to see for the lirst time the 
 beautiful scenery of Cumberland, Wales, and Scotland?' 
 
 He was again sent to Ilollis School, J)ut with no better -result than 
 before — employuig, as he did, a comrade to do his tasks for him in 
 the simpler rules of arithmetic, and thus arriving at the Rule of Three 
 while still profoundly ignorant of multiplication, addition, subtraction, and 
 division. His parents growing desperate at his apparent stupidity, trans- 
 I'en-ed him to Dalton School, at two miles' distance ; and although his 
 memory did not serve him for letters, he recollected distinctly half a cen- 
 tury afterwards the kingfisher sliooting along the Don, as he traversed the 
 Aldwark meadows on his way. The schoolmaster was ' one of the best of 
 living creatures — a sad-looking, half-starved angel without wings,' who 
 probably never suspected that the dunce who stood for hours beside his 
 desk, with the tears running dovm his face, had never learnt the preliminary 
 rules. Ebenezer, in fact, did not know that these were necessaiy, and he 
 ' looked on a boy who could do a sum in vulgar fractions as a sort of 
 magician.' During the summer months of the second year he played 
 truant, roammg, vagabond-like, about the neighbourhood, and on one 
 occasion stealing duck-eggs in mistake for the eggs of wild birds. This 
 was a miserable time, for the sense of his indolence preyed upon him 
 like guilt, and he was terrified to meet his father's eye. The father, how- 
 ever, set him to work in the foundry, as a punishment either for his stu- 
 pidity or stubbornness ; but this, so far from actuig as it was intended, 
 restored the culprit to his self-respect, by proving that he was as capable 
 as other lads of at least manual labour. Then came the otlier weaknesses 
 of an idle and truant disposition, brought into everyday contact with vulgar 
 spirits ; and the attractions of the village alehouse rivalled those of the 
 woods and fields, of the birds and flowers. 
 
 But they did not outbalance them. The impression was laid. The 
 beauty of nature had entered the soul of the future poet ; and his thoughts 
 and his footsteps often wandered away from the coarse enjoyments of the 
 alehouse to the banks of the canal, which were golden with the ' yellow 
 ladies' bed-straw.' His religious impressions likewise contributed to keep 
 pure his inner soul, notwithstanding the crust of vulgarity that had 
 gathered on the surface ; and he seldom missed attending chapel, some- 
 times under the ministry of a Dominie Sampson, and sometimes of ' one of 
 the most eloquent and dignified of men.' 
 
 It was probably at this time that the political tendencies of Ebenezer 
 Elliott were developed, under the united influences of ale, poetry, and reli- 
 gion. ' When I look back,' says he, ' on the days of rabid Toryism through 
 which I have passed, and consider the then almost universal tendency to 
 worship the powei'S that be and their worst mistakes, I feel astonished that a 
 nerve-shaken man, whose affrighted imagination in boyhood and youth slept 
 with dead men's faces — a man whose first sensation on standing up to address 
 a public meeting is that of his knees giving way under him — should have been 
 able to retain his political integi-ity without abjuring one article of his fear- 
 less father's creed ! ' The rationale of this creed is a little obscure, since 
 
 5 
 
CHAMBERS S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 it adhered alike to free-trade and trade-strikes ; but Ebenezer, though a 
 hot politician, knew no more of politics than of the Rule of Three. An 
 instance he gives of the terrible crmiinality of the law exhibits in a half 
 amusing half painful manner the wrongheadedness of a man of genius. 
 
 * I wUl relate the circumstances,' says he, ' precisely as they were related 
 to me by an eye-witness. A youth called Yates, a native of Masborough, 
 but apprenticed at Sheffield, instigated by his master, stole a fowl, for 
 which crime he was tried at Rotherham, and convicted on clear evidence. 
 The chairman of the court, in passing sentence, gave him his choice of 
 transportation or the army. He chose the former. Down, black as thun- 
 der, came the frown of authority ! " No ; you shall be flogged ! " — and he 
 was flogged. But why ? For stealing a fowl, or for refusing to enter the 
 army ? ' 
 
 Dreadful tyi-anny ! But what would Ebenezer have said if the lad, in- 
 stead of being flogged for a petty theft, had, even in compliance with his 
 own desperate desire, been actually transported ? The sentence was 
 obviously mtended as a mercy ; and accordingly, although one of the blows 
 through accident fell upon the culprit's mouth, when the whole were inflicted, 
 he put on his shirt and jacket, and darted away through the crowd ! ' So 
 barbarous,' contmues he, ' were the deeds done in that time under the name 
 of law, and so painful was the impression they made upon me when I was 
 about sixteen years old, that I should certainly have emigrated to the 
 United States had I possessed sufficient funds for that purpose ; nor should 
 I, I fear, have been very scrupulous as to the means of obtaining them — so 
 fully had the idea of emigration obtained possession of me, so passionately 
 had my mind embraced it, and so poetically had I associated with it Crusoe 
 notions of self-dependence and isolation. It is not unproper to blush for 
 uncommitted ofi"ences. Even now, when forty-five years have been added 
 to my previous existence, I shudder if I chance to meet an expedience- 
 monger, who tells me " that the end justifies the means" — a false doctrine 
 and fatal faith, that have wrought the fall of many an all-shmmed brother, 
 and of ill-starred sisters numberless, once imstained as the angels.' 
 
 But we come now to the circumstance which appears to have first 
 developed the poetical tendencies which lay smothered in the breast of 
 this wayward and ungainly young man. He had an aunt of tlie name 
 of Robinson, a widow, Avho lived respectably on £30 a year, and gave 
 her two sons an education which even in that Tory-ridden time made 
 them both gentlemen. On this respectable person he called one evening, 
 awkward and suspicious from the consciousness of having been intoxicated 
 the night before ; but whether cognisant of the fact or not, she made no 
 mention of it. ' After a minute's silence, she rose and laid before me a 
 number of " Sowerby's English Botany," which her son Benjamin, then 
 apprenticed to Dr Stamforth of Sheffield, was purchasing monthly. Never 
 shall I forget the impression made on me by the beautiful plates. I actually 
 touched the figure of the primrose, half convinced that the mealiness on the 
 leaves was real. I felt hurt when she removed the book from me, but she 
 removed it only to show me how to draw the figures, by holding them to the 
 light with a thin piece of paper before them. On finding that I could so 
 draw them correctly, I was lifted at once above tlie inmates of the alehouse 
 at least a foot in mental stature. My first efi'ort was a copy from the 
 6 
 
EBENEZER ELUOTT. 
 
 primrose, under which (always fond of fine words) I wrote its Latin name, 
 Primula veris vulgaris. So thenceforward, when I happened to Iiave a 
 spare hour, I went to my aunt's to draw. But slie had not yet sliown me 
 ail the wealth of her Benjamin. The next revealed marvel was his book 
 of di'ied plants. Columbus, when he discovered the new world, was not a 
 greater man than I at that moment ; for no misgiving crossed my mind 
 that the discoveiy was not my own, and no ^Vmerigo Vespucius disputed 
 the honour of it with me. But (alas for the strength of my religious im- 
 pressions !) thenceforward often did I'arson Allard inquire why Eb. was 
 not at chapel ? — for I passed my Sundays in gathering flowers, that I miglit 
 make pictures of them. I had then, as now, no taste for the science of 
 botany, the classitications of which seemed to me to be like preparations 
 for sending flowers to prison. I began, however, to feel manish. There 
 was mystery about me. People stopped me with my plants, and asked 
 what diseases I was going to cui-e ? 13ut I was not in the least aware that 
 I was learning the art of poetry, which I then hated, especially Pope's, 
 which gave me the headache if I heard it read aloud. My wandermgs, 
 however, soon made me acquainted with the nightingales in Basingthorpe 
 Sprmg, where, I am told, they still sing sweetly ; and with a beautiful 
 gi-een snake, about a yard long, which on the line Sabbath mornings, about 
 ten o'clock, seemed to expect me at the top of Primrose Lane. It became 
 so famUiar, that it ceased to uncm-1 at my approach. I have sat on the 
 stile beside it tUl it seemed unconscious of my presence ; and when I rose 
 to go, it would only lift the scales behind its head, or the skin beneath 
 them, and they shone in the sun like tire. I know not how often this 
 beautiful and hannless chUd of God may have " sat for liis picture " in my 
 writings; a dozen times at least; but wherever I might happen to meet with 
 any of its brethren or sisters— at Thistlebed Ford, where they are all 
 vipers, black or brown ; or in the Aldwark meadows, on the banks of the 
 Don, with the kingfisher above, and the dragon-fly below them ; or on 
 Boston Castle ridge ; or in the Clough deU, where they swarm ; or in Cank- 
 low Quarr}' ; or by the Pother, near Hail-Mary Wood — whatever the scene 
 might be, the portrait, if di-awn, was siu-e to be that of my fii-st snake- 
 love.' 
 
 Ebenezer now called his book of specimens his 'hortus siccus;' and, 
 ravenous of unaccustomed praise, permitted the wondering neighbours to 
 suppose that his figiu-es of plants were not copied at second-hand, but from 
 nature. The spark smouldering in his mental constitution had been 
 kindled. ' Thomson's Seasons,' which he heard his wondrous brother 
 Giles read, ' who was beautiful as an angel while he was ugliness itself,' 
 gave him the first hint of the eternal alliance between poetry and natui-e ; 
 and in fine the smitten rock opened, and the Rhymer rhymed ! 
 
 The change was a revolution, and it was not efi'ected without a struggle 
 and a shock which afiiected his bodily health. He became pale and thin. 
 But he had work to do. He was ignorant and illiterate, yet beyond the 
 age when school learning of the ordinary kiud is attainable ia his station. 
 It was necessary to learn his own language without being taught, and he 
 purchased a grammar. An English grammar ! He might as well have 
 purchased a Greek one. He tried to leam the rules, and always failed. 
 Subsequently he obtained a ' Key,' but it would not unlock ; and it was 
 
 7 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 only 'by reflection, and by supplying elisions' — meaning, no doubt, by 
 making a grammar for himself by the study of the language in books — 
 that he fathomed the mystery. ' At this moment,' says he, ' I do not 
 know a single rule of grammar ; and yet I can now, I flatter myself, wa-ite 
 English as correctly as Samuel Johnson could, and detect errors in a 
 . greater author — Samuel Bailey.' Flushed with success, he thought the 
 Vhole world of learning lay before him, and to the great delight of his 
 father he proceeded to French. But it would not do. The indolent habits 
 of his mind were not to be conquered by the desire of a mere accomplish- 
 ment : he could not remember what he learnt, and, as he informs us with 
 gi-eat naivete, after a few weeks' study, he gave up the attempt in despair. 
 A legacy of a few books which his father received coming in at this 
 
 juncture was very serviceable, and they paved the way for better ones. 
 According to his own account, he was nourished only on strong meats. 
 ' I never could read a feeble book through : it follows that I read master- 
 pieces only, the best thoughts of the highest minds — after Milton, Shak- 
 speare ; then Ossian ; then Junius, with my father's Jacobinism for a com- 
 mentary; Paine's " Common Sense ;" Swift's " Tale of a Tub ;" " Joan of 
 Arc;" Schiller's "Robbers;" Burger's " Leonora;" Gibbon's "Decline and 
 Fall ; " and, long afterwards, Tasso, Dante, De Stael, Schlegel, Hazlitt, and 
 the " Westminster Review." A man of genius, whose daily literary food 
 
 • consisted exclusively of masterpieces, might have been expected to grow 
 into something extraordinary ! But all seemed wonderful in the confuied 
 sphere of our Rhymer, who knew nothing, and could imagine nothing of 
 
 --the mighty space beyond. 
 
 ' From my sixteenth to my twenty-third year,' says he, ' I worked 
 
 - for my father at Masbro' as laboriously as any servant he had, and without 
 wages, except an occasional shilling or tAvo for pocket-money : weighing 
 every morning all the unfinished castings as they were made, and after- 
 wards in their finished state, besides opening and closing the shop in 
 Rotherham when my brother happened to be ill or absent. "Why, then, 
 may I not call myself a working-man? But I am not aware that I ever 
 did so call myself ; certainly never as an excuse for my poetry, if bad ; or 
 if good, as a claim for wonder. There are only two lines in my writings 
 which could enable the reader to guess at my condition in life. I wi'ote 
 them to show that, whatever else I might be, I was not of the genus " Dung- 
 hill Spurner," for in this land of castes the dunghill-sprung with good coats 
 on their backs are not yet generally anxious to claim relationship witli 
 hard-handed usefulness. But as a literary man I claim to be self-taught ; 
 not because none of my teachers ever read to me, or required me to read, a 
 page of English gi-ammar, but because I have of my oyn\ will read some 
 of the best books in our language, original and translated, and the best 
 only — laboriously forming my mind on the highest models. If unlettered 
 women and even children write good poetry, I, who have studied and 
 practised the art during more than forty years, ought to understand it, or I 
 must be a dunce indeed.' 
 
 All this is a tissue of mistakes. Elliott was not a working-man because 
 he served his father for pocket-money ; he was not a poet because ho 
 studied the art for forty years ; and he was not self-taught because he read 
 voluntarily a few of the best books in the language. A working man, in 
 
tUENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 the true and noble sense of the word, lives by his wages, battling stoutly 
 with the world, without beuig indebted to favour or affection; a poet 
 pours forth his numbers, because the numbers come without being called : 
 and a self-taught genius is one against whom the schools arc shut, and 
 books sealed, either by poverty or position, or some other material circum- 
 stance, but who nevertheless attains to the hidden treasures through 
 industry, energy, and indomitable Avill. There w;is nothmg peculiar m 
 Elliott's position. He was not thrown into the battle of life without friends 
 and backers. He was merely an indolent-minded boy, who neglected his 
 opportiuiities at school, but made up manfully for his folly afterwards. 
 We have all a germ of usefulness within us — we have all some business to 
 do m the world ; but till the spark is kindled, till the chord of our govern- 
 uig sympathy is struck, our minds are dark and silent. Some of us work 
 with the head, some with the hand ; some sing for the amusement of those 
 who toil ; some apply the lessons of the past ; some prophesy of the future; 
 some elevate the souls of then- fellows above their daily employments, 
 seeking to identify the spirit of man with the spirit of universal nature. 
 These last be the poets ; and of these was Ebenezer Elliott. But just as 
 he overrates his domgs he unden-ates his havings. ' My thoughts,' quoth 
 he, ' are all exterior ; my mind is the mind of my own eyes. A primrose 
 is to me a primrose, and nothing more ; I love it because it is notliing 
 more. There is not in my writmgs one good idea that has not been sug- 
 gested to me by some real occurrence, or by some object actually before 
 my eyes, or by some remembered object or occurrence, or by the thoughts 
 of other men, heard or read. If I possess any power at all allied to genius, 
 it is that of making other men's thoughts suggest thoughts to me which, 
 whether original or not, are to me new.' "WTiy, this is just what all poets 
 did and do. This is the work of genius in the world. Our very dreams 
 are but pieces, travestied though they be, of our waking experience ; and 
 the loftiest creations of mind are built of materials supplied by the senses. 
 Poetry reaches to the fiiTnament, but her foot is upon the earth. 
 
 Another mistake of the Rhpner is of more consequence : it pervades his 
 whole works, and goes at least a certain length in neutralising the good 
 they ai-e otherwise calculated to effect. ' When a labourer writes a poem,' 
 says he, ' the fact is an incident in the history of poets — a class of persons 
 proverbially unable to earn their bread ; but if there is merit in the poem, 
 why marvel at the slave-di-iver's wonder-cry? I never felt any respect for the 
 patrons of inspu-ed milkmaids and ploughmen, for milkmaids and plough- 
 men, if mspired, cannot long need patronage ; but I know that, univilling to 
 believe au{jht good of the poor, the rich, lohen a i^oor mail's deed shames theirs, 
 ii-amform the individual into a marvel at the expense of his class ; because, 
 having icronged, they hate it.' This is pithily expressed, as it is so likewise 
 by Bm-ns and a multitude of other poets and prose writers ; but it is one 
 of those originalities whose beguuiings are lost in the shades of antiquity. 
 Tliat it had its foimdation in truth there can be no doubt ; and indeed it is 
 at this day applicable as a truth to societies exhibiting the legal distinc- 
 tions of hereditary freedom and slavery : but its point is not so easily seen 
 with reference to the ever-undulating masses of a popidation like ours. In 
 this country wealth and poverty are not prescriptive conditions. The poor 
 man waxes rich, and the rich man poor ; the lieii' of thousands of acres 
 8. 9 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 sinks into destitution, and his estate becomes the property of the man of 
 yesterday. Under such circumstances there may be antagonism of indi- 
 viduals, but there can be no rational antagonism of classes. The poor, 
 smarting under the evils of poverty, may hate the rich to-day ; but if the 
 poor become rich to-moiTow, are they to enter upon the inheritance of 
 hatred along with the wealth their industry or good fortune has ac- 
 quired ? What is there in riches more than in poverty to make their pos- 
 sessor an object of detestation? Is not the presumption rather in favour, 
 than otherwise, of the man of knowledge and refinement ? Do we not, for 
 instance, know it to be a fact established by statistics that crime diminishes 
 in proportion to the diffusion of education ? But this mischievous error, 
 luckily, is all on one side. In the upper ranks of society people repel the 
 charge of underrating their poorer brethren as they would that of some 
 mean and base vulgarity; in the lower ranks they pique themselves on 
 their rabid hostility to a class from which they are separated by mere social 
 accidents, but by no legal or presci'iptive disqualification. The cause of 
 this difference is knowledge on the one side and ignorance on the other ; 
 and the difierence will continue till the elevation of the lower level enables 
 all to see that philosophical meanmg which Burns himself missed in his 
 own verses : ' The rank ' — that is, the condition, external and adventitious, 
 whether high or low — 
 
 ' The rank is but the guinea stamp : 
 The man's the gowd for a' that ! ' 
 
 We have now come to the end of that portion of Elliott's life on which 
 some light is thrown by his autobiography. ' The history of my manhood 
 and its misfortunes,' says he ' (your famous people have a knack of being 
 unfortunate, and of calling their faults misfortunes), remains to be wi'itten. 
 It would not, I have said, even if honestly wintten, be more instructive 
 than an honest history of ahnost any other man ; but when I said so, I 
 forgot that it would be, in part, a history of the terrific changes of fortune, 
 the alternations of prosperity and sufiering, caused by over-issues or by 
 the sudden withdi-awal of inconvertible paper-money, in those days " when 
 none but knaves throve, and none but madmen laughed — when servants 
 took their masters by the nose, and beggared masters slunk aside to die — 
 when men fought with shadows, and were slain — while, in dreadful calm, 
 the viewless stoi-m increased, most fatal when least di-eaded, and nearest 
 Avhen least expected." I am not yet prepared — not yet sufficiently petri- 
 fied in heart and brain by time and trouble — to tell a tale, in telling which 
 I must necessarily live over again months and years of living death.' 
 
 But even if the tale were told, we have no mind to repeat it ; for the cir- 
 cumstances of commercial disaster are neither interesting nor conclusive in 
 the cases of individuals, in each of which, if closely examined, there may 
 exist some extraneous influence. All that is necessary to say of the 
 fortune of the Corn-law Eliymer is very little. He made two trials of 
 business m Sheffield, in one of which he fiiiled. The second com- 
 menced in 1821, when he had reached the ripe age of forty; but even 
 then the struggle must have been great, as he is said to have started 
 witli a borrowed capital of £150. He never allowed his intellectual 
 piu-suits to interfere with business. He was a close shopkeeper, and an 
 10 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 acute buyer and seller ; and the trade of the place being tlien in a pros- 
 perous state, he succeeded as a matter of course. Mr llowitt describes his 
 warehouse as a dingy place, full of bars of iron of all sizes, standing in 
 heaps everywhere around, so tliat there was only just room for passage — 
 and m the midst a large cast of Shakspeare. A small room opening from 
 this, but crowded likewise witli iron bars, was at once the study and the 
 counting-house of the Corn-law llhymcr; and tliere the scene of dirt and 
 confusion was presided over by plaster casts of Achilles, Ajax, and Napo- 
 leon. Mr Howitt did not visit tliis home and haunt of the poet till Elliott 
 had retii'ed from business and from Sheffield ; but Mr Stanton, an American 
 "VVTiter, was more fortunate. 
 
 ' I inquired,' says he, ' of a young man dressed in a frock besmeared 
 with iron and coal for the liead of tlie establishment. " My father," said 
 he, " is just gone : you'll find him at his house yonder." I repaired 
 thither. The Corn-law Rliymer stood on the thresliold in his stocking feet, 
 holding a pair of coarse shoes in his hand. His frank " Walk in " assured 
 me I was welcome. I had just left the residence of Montgomeiy. The 
 transition could hardly have been greater — from James Montgomery to 
 Ebenezer Elliott. The former was polished in his manners, exquisitely 
 neat in his personal appearance, and his bland conversation never rose 
 above a cahn level, except once, when he spoke with an indignation which 
 years had not abated of his repeated imprisonment in York Castle for the 
 publication — fii'st in verse, and then in prose — of liberal and humane senti- 
 ments, which offended the government. And now I was confronted with a 
 biu-ly ironmonger, rapid m speech, glowing with enthusiasm, putting and 
 answering a dozen questions in a breath; eulogising American republican- 
 ism, and denouncing British aristocracy ; throwing sarcasms at the Duke of 
 Wellington, and anomting General Jackson with the oil of flattery ; pour- 
 ing out a flood of racy talk about church establishments, poetry, politics, 
 the price of iron, and the price of corn ; while ever and anon he thrust his 
 damp feet in the embers, and hung his shoes on the grate to dry.' This 
 was indeed a strange study, not for a political rh}Tner, but for a true poet, 
 a worshipper of nature, full of grace and sweetness, and with a heart (apart 
 from the accursed politics) overflowing with the milk of human kindness. 
 His associates all liis life were rude unsophisticated men, and flowers, bu"ds, 
 woods, waters, wmds, and sunshine. These coidd teach him none of the 
 hypocrisies of society, and accordingly, in his look and conversation, you 
 saw the man as he was. You saw a man of gentle manners, and an expres- 
 sion of tender and compassionate feeling ; yet if roused by political discus- 
 sion, every muscle of his countenance evinced the excitement ; his cold 
 blue eye fired with indignation, resembling, as a visitor said, a wmtry sky 
 flashing with lightning, and his dark bushy brows wiuthing above it like the 
 thimder-cloud. 
 
 In Sheffield he grew and flourished exceedingly. He could sit in his chair 
 and make his twenty poimds a day without even seeing the goods he dealt 
 in, which were sold from the wharf as they an-ived. In these prosperous days 
 he buUt a handsome villa in the suburbs, at a place where he could mount the 
 hills by a footpath at the back of his Jiouse, and see all Sheffield smoking 
 or blazing at his feet, and then dive do\\Ti by the opposite declivity into 
 the valley of the Rivelin, made famous in liis songs. Then came, as Mr 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Howitt repoils from his owii lips, the operation of the corn-laws, and then 
 the gi'eat panic and revulsion of 1837, which swept away a considerable 
 portion of his little fortune. On this subject he himself -writes to Mr Tait 
 from Argilt Hill near Barnsley : — 
 
 ' In 1837, when the commercial revulsion began, I ought to have retu-ed 
 from all business, as I tlien mtended, bemg aware that without free trade 
 no tradesman could be safe. But my unwillingness to lead an idle life 
 (which, being intei-preted, means my unwillmgness to resign the profits of 
 business) tempted me to wait for the crash — a crash unlike all other crashes 
 
 in my experience I lost fully one-third of all my savings, and after 
 
 enabling my six boys to quit the nest, got out of the fracas with about 
 £6000, which I will try to keep. Had I built my house on my land at 
 Foxley, three miles from Sheffield, as I proposed to do in 1836, I should 
 now have been liable to be dragged mto public meetings, subscriptions, &c. 
 and deluged with the visits of casual strangers, as I was at Upperthorpe. 
 Here, out of the way of great temptations, and visited only by persons who 
 respect me (alas, by how few of them !), I can perhaps live within my reduced 
 income.' 
 
 Here, then — we mean at the beginning of his commercial disasters — we 
 have reached the origin of the com-law rhymes. They are no amusement of 
 a poet's imagination, but stern and bitter realities. The flourishing days of 
 Sheffield were gone by, and the reaction had come. Small dealers in bar- 
 iron could no longer make £20 a day sitting on their chairs. The profits 
 became smaller, and the competition more himgiy and despei'ate. Credit 
 received a daily shock from daily failures : suspicion, anger, and dismay 
 were in every face, and envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness in 
 every heart. The name Elliott gave to this complication of disorders was 
 Bread-tax; and since a name was necessary, it was the best possible name 
 that could be devised. To prevent an impoverished people from purchas- 
 ing bread wherever they can obtam it cheapest, because a class of that 
 people — dealers in bread themselves — suppose it would mihtate against 
 their pecuniaiy interest, is Monopoly in its most unpopular phase. It is 
 true the question was industriously mixed up with the complications of our 
 highly-artificial system of society; but rough common sense, throAving aside 
 the refinements of dialectics, went straight to the visible, tangible, practical 
 point. 
 
 But Bread-tax, although a poetical subject in the abstract, is anything 
 but that when it comes home to men's busmess and bosoms in the form of 
 hunger, and environed by the names of its abettors. It is then to poetry 
 what politics is to political philosophy, and instead of the higher order of 
 feelings supposed to be pecidiar to the lofty rhyme, it leads to personal 
 animosities and vulgar abuse. Elliott did not sing, but scream; he did not 
 lament, but blaspheme : his verses were cm-ses showered right and left with 
 indiscriminate frenzy. No matter : they stirred the heart of the multitude, 
 and roused the curiosity of the refined ; and at length it was aU on a sudden 
 discovered that this Corn-law llhymer — an unknown but voluminous autlior 
 before then — was a true poet! The Corn-law Ehymer is the name by 
 which he is known, just as Bread-tax is the name he gave to the compli- 
 cated rottenness in our state of Denmark ; but if he had written nothing 
 12 
 
EBENEZEU ELLIOTT. 
 
 else than corn-law rhymes, the world would not come to his grave, as it 
 does now, to (luestion with eager sympathy, ' What manner of man was 
 this?' Even in the Corn-law JJhymcs, however, coarse and vulgar as many 
 of them arc, there is a touch of true poetic fire. We extract three speci- 
 mens, all origmal, and all powerful — although the last we give merely as 
 a grotesque curiosity : — 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Child, is thy father dead ? 
 
 Father is gone! 
 Why did they tax his bread! 
 
 God's will be done ! 
 Mother has sold her bed ; 
 Better to die than wed ! 
 Where shall she lay her head ? 
 
 Home we have none ! 
 
 Father clamm'd * thrice a week — 
 
 God's will be done ! k 
 
 Long for work did he seek, 
 
 Work he found none. 
 Tears on his hollow cheek 
 Told what no tongue could speak: 
 Why did his master break ? 
 
 God's will be done ! 
 
 Doctor said air was best — 
 
 Food we had none; 
 Father, with panting breast, 
 
 Groaned to be gone : 
 Now he is with the blest — 
 Mother says death is best! 
 We have no place of rest — 
 
 Yes, ye have one! 
 
 CAGED KATS. 
 
 Ye coop us up, and tax our bread, 
 
 And wonder why we piue; 
 But ye are fat, and round, and red, 
 
 And filled with tax-bought wine. 
 Thus twelve rats starve while three rats thrive. 
 
 (Like you on mine and me,) 
 When fifteen rats are caged alive, 
 
 With food for nine and three. 
 
 Haste! Havoc's torch begins to glow — 
 
 The ending is begun ; 
 Make haste! Destruction thinks ye slow; 
 
 Make haste to be undone! 
 Why are ye called ' my Lord,' and ' Squire,' 
 
 While fed by mine and me, 
 And wringing food, and clothes, and fire, 
 
 From bread-taxed misery? 
 
 • Hungered. 
 
 1» 
 
CHAMBEKS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Make haste, slow rogues ! prohibit trade. 
 
 Prohibit honest gain; 
 Turn all the good that God hath made 
 
 To fear, and hate, and pain ; 
 Till beggars all, assassins all, 
 
 All cannibals we be, 
 And death shall have no funeral 
 
 From shipless sea to sea. 
 
 ARTHUR BREAD -TAX-WINNER. 
 
 "Who is praised by dolt and sinnerl 
 
 Who serves masters more than one? 
 Blucherloo, the bread-tax-winner; 
 
 Bread-tax -winning Famineton. 
 
 Blucherloo, the bread-tax-winner! 
 
 Whom enriched thy battles won? 
 Whom does Dirt-grub ask to dinner? — 
 
 Bre»d-tax-winning Famineton. 
 
 Whom feeds Arthur Bread-tax-winner? — 
 
 All our rivals, sire and son, 
 Foreign cutler, foreign spinner, 
 
 Bless their patron, Famineton. 
 
 Prussia fattens — we get thinner! 
 
 Bread-tax barters all for none: 
 Bravo! Arthur Bread-tax-winner! 
 
 Shallow half-brained Famineton ! 
 
 Empty thinks the devil's in her: 
 
 Take will grin, when Make is gone ! 
 Bread-tax teaches saint and sinner, 
 
 Grinning flint-faced Famineton ! 
 
 The writer of these strange and original rhymes was an author of twenty 
 years' standing before he emerged from obscurity; and when at length he 
 did so, it appeared to have been by the accident of his volumes falling into 
 the hands of one or two persons who had the means of givmg then- opinions 
 pubUcity. In 1832 he was noticed by Southey in the ' Quarterly Review,' 
 by Carlyle in the ' Edmburgh Review,' by Bulwer in the ' New Monthly 
 Magazine,' and by Miss Jewsbury in the ' Athenseum;' but yet, six years 
 afterwards, he writes to Mr Tait, ' the poor, you are aware, can neither 
 buy nor imderstand my wi-itings; and the rich, for whose salvation they 
 were wi-itten, despise both them and me.' He was even then, however, on 
 the flowing tide; and m 1840 a cheap collection of his works appeared, the 
 success of which stamped him at once as a popidar poet. 
 
 "VNTien the merit of the more serious poems is considered, there seems to 
 be something remarkable m their history; but there can be no doubt that 
 the social position of the individual influences, at least for some considerable 
 space, the fate of his writings. If Elliott had been really a working-man, 
 his literary fortune would have been made long before : but he was simply 
 an ironmonger in a small but respectable busmcss, carried on in a pro- 
 vincial town; and thus an idea of vulgarity was associated with his writings. 
 14 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 This is a terrible thing m a superfine society like ours. It takes genius of 
 a very high order to overcome it in any reasonable time : unless, indeed, 
 there is something grotesque and unconunoii about the man himself, or 
 his language and style. Let a respectable ironmonger, however, write 
 with the pen of an angel, and if he has the misfortune to acquit him- 
 self in the performance like an educated person, and to have in society the 
 reputation of an amiable man and a good husband and father, he will find 
 it desperately uphill work. For our own part, we ai-e not sure that those 
 enviable rogues the ploughmen and blacksmiths have so much to boast 
 of in their non-education. Southey makes the pregnant remai-k, that ' the 
 gi'eater number of those who are called uneducated poets in the present age 
 have actually received more education in their favourite art than those upon 
 whom the utmost pains of regular culture were bestowed fifty years ago.' 
 By this he means that they have almost unlimited access to the best books, 
 ■which could by no means be said of any former generation. It was not the 
 grammar, or even its hey, which made Elliott an author, but Shakspeare, 
 Shelly, Byron: he was better educated than Shakspeare, because he had 
 Shakspeare to read at wUl. 
 
 But Ave have stUl to complete our picture of the man before coming to 
 the poet, and the following delightful letter to Mr Tait wUl assist us 
 greatly:— 
 
 'I chose this place (as poets choose) for its beauty, which, as is usual in 
 afiau's of the heart, is invisible to all but the enamoured. Eising veiy 
 early one morning, I took a beautiful walk of eighteen miles, through 
 parks, wild lanes, and footpaths, reached the place, liked it, and returning 
 the same day, resolved to buy it. Supposing the cottage which stood upon 
 it, and which now forms a part of my house, to be worth £60, I gave £180 
 for the land, say £18 per acre. It was a wild land, having been a wood and 
 fox cover ; called on the maps ArgUt Hill or Wood. I have laid out upon 
 it (land and all) about a thousand guineas. If I am reasonable in expecting 
 it to bring in £30 per annum clear, I shall not stand at more than twenty 
 gumeas rent ; which cannot be said by every sage who perpeti'ates domestic 
 architecture for his own particular inconvenience ; and I have the poetical 
 advantage of living in a house wretchedly planned by the bard. The advan- 
 tages of the situation are — pure air and water, good roads without toll-bars, 
 and the best and cheapest coal. It is true I cannot see the periodicals, read 
 new books, buy a pork -chop or a fish by crossing the road, or get to a 
 railway station without walking or riding three miles, or thence to Shef- 
 field in less than three-quarters of an hour ; but I have reason to believe 
 that there wUl soon be a station within a mile and a-half of me, from which 
 I shall be able in eight minutes to reach Barnsley, a town of fifteen thou- 
 sand inhabitants. I claim the merit of having no bad neighbours ; and, on 
 the whole, it is just possible that I have not been quite so unwise in coming 
 hither as I sometimes imagine. 
 
 ' My family here consists of Mrs Elliott, my two daughters — or ratlier one 
 daughter, for they keep house for one of my sons in Sheffield, month by 
 month, m tui-n — a servant-maid, and a man who works for me occasionally: 
 rid the cora-laws, and I shall not be without dim visions of a flunky. My 
 establishment is illustrious for a St Bernard dog, and a Welsh pony, the 
 
 15 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 ■ebserved of all observers, which, m its green old age of twenty years, di'aws 
 a small gig, both untaxed. I also run my only Sheffield carriage, the 
 wheelbarrow, besides a pony cart ; and I have set up a gi'uidstone. Con- 
 ceive of me, then, possessed of a mare, gig, and harness, which, with repau-s, 
 cost altogether £8, 10s. ; a dog almost as big as the mare, and much wiser 
 than his master; a pony cart ; a wheelbarrow ; and a grindstone — and turn 
 up your nose if you like ! 
 
 ' My eldest son Ebenezer, whom you saw at Sheffield, is a clerg}Tnan of 
 the establishment, being at Lothedale, near Skipton, on a salary of about 
 £140 per annum, and a house, better far than mine, rent free. He has 
 married a lady of gi-eat merit, Avho has a fortune of a hundred a year, made 
 safe to herself, and which is in Chancery. Perhaps a more simple-mannered, 
 unassuming man never lived. He is no poet, and yet there is a touch of 
 the poetic in all he does or suffers. If he opens his snuff-box to a stranger, 
 he spills the snuff of coiu'se; and he gets on best when lie stumbles. His 
 mother thinks he has some resemblance to me. 
 
 ' My son Benjamin, unwarned by his father's losses, is carrying on a steel 
 trade at Sheffield m my old premises, where (as he thinks, poor fellow! for 
 he is a gi-eater hoper) he has some prospect ; in any other country he would 
 already have made an independency. He endures privations such as no 
 man of his pretensions ought to endure anywhere, and such as no man will 
 here endure if free trade be obtained before all is lost. He is a fine young 
 man, upwards of six feet high, of superior abilities, and the highest moral 
 worth — but, alas ! not unindebted to his gi-andmother ! 
 
 ' My sons Henry and Francis (as I wish them to do) are living as bachelors 
 on the interest of money earned and saved by themselves, and increased by 
 gifts from me. Henry is tall, handsome, and mechanical ; he ought to 
 'have been apprenticed to engineering. Francis is tall and good-looking, 
 but he has the misfortune to be a born poet ; for my mother has trans- 
 mitted to hun through me her nervous constitution and body-consuming 
 sensibilities. Is poetic genius, then, a disease ? My seventh son Edwin is 
 a clergyman of the established church, for which he may be almost said 
 to have educated himself, and into which he has won his way by his own 
 efforts. Less assisted by me than any of my other sons, he is now a rector 
 in the West Indies, where he has, I am told, a better income than I have 
 been able to secure after all my toils. He is a Lytton-Bulwer-looking 
 person, not unlike a well-grown young clergy-justice, with forehead enough 
 for tlu"ee. At school he was remarkable for laughmg hostility into kind- 
 ness — a favourite wherever lie went. We always called him the gentle- 
 man of the family. Having observed, when quite a youth, that fine folks 
 ride, he broke upon his thrift-box, and with the contents (after drawmg 
 tears and kisses from his mother) bought an ass of a Tory's son (all his 
 associates were Tories), who sold it because it was starving. Edwin knew 
 that he had nothing for it to eat ; but the ass, accustomed to hope in 
 despau-, had expectations. It commenced business at my place in Burgus 
 Street, by thrusting its lean neck through the kitchen window and eating a 
 pound of butter. The servant lass, suspecting it to be a thief, kicked it 
 into the street. From the street it got into the fields, and thence into the 
 pin-fold. To prevent the lad's heart from breaking, I paid 7s. 4d. for 
 trespass, and released the famished creature. What then was to be done? 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 Mark tlie difference between tlic Tories and the toried ! At laHt, after vast 
 efforts in stockfecding, I made a present of it to a small manufacturing freo- 
 lioldcr wlio always voted blue. He fattened it by night in his neigiibour's 
 field, and then sold it to him for two guineas. 
 
 ' My poor son .John, the weakling — kind-hearted, intelligent, five feet four 
 inches high, and almost blind — is druggisting at ShefKeld in a sort of 
 chimney called a shop, for which he pays £40 a year. He is engaged, 
 almost without a moment's pause, from seven in the moniing until ten at 
 night in dealing out halfpennyworths of drugs ; yet I, wlio have been accus- 
 tomed to sell goods by tons, thhik that he is as likely to tlirive as most of 
 his neighbours, and believe that there are thousands of persons in Sheffield 
 who would gladly change places with him. But what can our institution 
 be worth, if it should tuni out at last that my sons Henry and Francis 
 living poorly on the interest of their earnings, are wiser in their generation 
 than the trade-troubled ? Tlie worst I wish the Dukes of liichmond and 
 Buckingham is, that they may be forced in my time to earn their living as 
 my sons Benjamin and John eami theirs. Old as I am, I would engage to 
 liop a mile without changing leg, or die rather than not, to see them at it ; 
 for their iniholy legislation, I impute it, that of my six sons, the only two 
 who could afford to many may be said to be maintained by the labour of 
 others. 
 
 ' Of my thirteen children, five are gone — William, Thomas, Charles, and 
 the two unclu-istened ones. They left behind them no memorial, and the 
 inscription has departed from the grave of Charles. But they are safe in 
 the bosom of Mercy, and not yet quite forgotten even here.' 
 
 "WTien Mr Elliott became well known, he lectured occasionally on 
 poetry and other subjects. The following is his frank estimate of his 
 own powers as a lecturer: — 'You ask if I am eloquent? Yes, when I 
 have got the steam up. But I cannot manage details well, and conse- 
 quently am not fit to lecture on the corn-laws. I have more thoughts 
 than words ; but I can condense long arguments into short phrases, and 
 give, like a blow from a whip of fire, the result of thinking witliout the 
 cold process.' 
 
 The first notice of serious illness we find in his letters is dated May 
 1838. 'I have been lately troubled,' says he, 'with' a disease which the 
 doctors tell me is not dangerous, although it may become so, unless I 
 remove some of the causes of it. It is a spasmodic affection of the nerves, 
 caused or exasperated by over-excitement of any kind, and particularly 
 public speaking. Even lecturing, I am told, is injurious. T must then 
 lecture no more. 
 
 ' 21st December 1839. — I am warned that I cannot speak at public meet- 
 ings without great danger of sudden death. You are not aware, perhaps, 
 that I have been for two years or more lial)le, after excitement of any kind, 
 to dreadful breathlessness— a sensation of being hanged without a rope — 
 resulting, I suppose, from a change at head-quarters. 1 have been better, 
 however, smce the great Chartist meetmg here, when the hustings fell. 
 Something gave way in my left side, or rather towards it, as if two lingers 
 had been thrust do^\^^ it inside. 
 
 ' Great Hovghton, near Barnsley. — If vou print this article, I will accept 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBEES'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 'lothing for it. It is quite unworthy of the subject, and yet I have done 
 my best. My mind is gone.' 
 
 This continued to torment him at intervals for sis years, when a more 
 serious complaint took its place. 
 
 ' Argilt Hill, near Barnsley, ^th May 1849. — Four years ago I had 
 got rid of the breatulessness which often frightened me at Sheffield, and I 
 thought I never was stronger ; but I have since been two and a-half years 
 ill of a bowel complaint, suffering intense pain by day and night, ex- 
 cept when dozed with laudanum. About a month ago the disease was 
 discovered to be that of which Talma died — stricture of the great gut, 
 tlu-eatening enclosure. For some days I have been rather better ; and 
 if I recover, I shall certainly bestow my tediousness upon you in a High- 
 land torn*. 19iA September. — I have been for some months very, very Ul. 
 Here these letters stop suddenly ; and in little more than two months — 
 that is, on the 1st December 1849 — the struggles of their writer, first with 
 ignorance, then with fortune, then with bread-tax, then with disease — 
 touched and elevated throughout by gleams of poetry, and of pm-e, gentle, 
 and beautiful feeling — terminated in death. This event took place on the 
 1st December 1849, at his own viUa, Argilt HUl, near Barnsley. 
 
 We have akeady given some specimens of the lyrical bitterness of 
 Elliott, which a quarterly critic supposes to embody the vehemence of 
 Churchill and the wit and point of Beranger. But this bitterness is only 
 one element of his genius. The same writer who stings and curses all 
 who diflfer from him in political sentiment, and who pursues them in fancy 
 with a vengeance that extends to the other world, devotes his energies 
 with equal earnestness to the task of refining and elevating the character of 
 the poor and ignorant ! This will appear a strange inconsistency if we do 
 not bear constantly in mind that to his ardent imagination bread-tax was 
 not simply a duty on the importation of corn, but social evil in the 
 abstract. It was ignorance, tyranny, sloth, drunkenness, baseness of every 
 kind ; and its abettors trode with hon heel upon the very heai-t of industry, 
 knowledge, and worth. Thus, when a visitor ventured to remark to him in 
 his old age, that notwithstanding the faults of the landlords as a class, 
 there were amiable individuals among them, tlie latent fire of the Com-Law 
 Rhymer blazed up, and starting from his chair, he paced the room in 
 agitation, exclaiming, ' Amiable men ! — amiable robbers, thieves, and mur- 
 derers ! Sir, I do not like to hear robbers, thieves, and murderers called 
 amiable men. Amiable men indeed ! Who are they that have ruined 
 trade, made bread dear, made murder wholesale, put poverty into prison, 
 and made crimes of ic;norance and misery ! Sir, I do not like to hear such 
 terms used for such men!' The gentler and nobler element, then, of his 
 genius which we have mentioned is not an inconsistency. It is a holy 
 compassion for the oppressed, a yearning after the welfore of the poor, an 
 earnest longing to raise up those who have been cast down. 
 
 In the following singular piece we have a key to many of the Rhymer's 
 rhymes. It is the complaint of a heart breaking for want of human 
 sympathy, and taking hold, in the yearnings of its tender nature, upon 
 household pets where there are no home companions ; — 
 18 
 
EBENEZER ELUOTT. 
 
 POOR ANDREW ! 
 
 The loving poor !— So envy calls 
 
 The ever-toilinj; poor; 
 But oh ! I choke, my heart grows faint, 
 
 When I approach my door ! 
 Behind it there are living things, 
 
 Whose silent frontlets say 
 They'd rather see me out than in — 
 
 Feet-foremost borne away ! 
 My heart grows sick when home I come — 
 
 May God the thought forgive ! 
 If 'twere not for my cat and dog, 
 
 I think I could not live. 
 
 My cat and dog, when I come home, 
 
 Run out to welcome me — 
 She mewing, with her tail on end, 
 
 While wagging his comes he. 
 They listen for my homeward steps, 
 
 My smothered sob they hear, 
 When down my heart sinks, deathly down, 
 
 Because my home is near. 
 My heart grows faint when home I come — 
 
 May God the thought forgive ! 
 If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
 
 I think I could not live. 
 
 I'd rather be a happy bird. 
 
 Than, scorned and loathed, a king; 
 But man should live while for him lives 
 
 The meanest loving thing. 
 Thou busy bee ! how canst thou choose 
 
 So far and wide to roam ? 
 Oh blessed bee ! thy glad wings say 
 
 Thou hast a happy home ! 
 But I, when I come home — oh God ! 
 
 Wilt thou the thought forgive 2 
 If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
 
 I think I could not live. 
 
 Why come they not ? They do not come 
 
 My breaking heart to meet ! 
 A heavier darkness on me falls — 
 
 I cannot lift my feet. 
 Oh yes, they come ! — they never fail 
 
 To listen for my sighs; 
 My poor heart brightens when it meets 
 
 The sunshine of cheir eyes. 
 Again they come to meet nie — God! 
 
 Wilt thou the thought forgive i 
 If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
 
 I think I could not live. 
 
 This heart is like a churchyard stone ; 
 
 My home is comfort's grave; 
 My playful cat and honest dog 
 
 Are all the friends I have; 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 And yet my house is filled with friends — 
 
 But foes they seem, and are. 
 What makes them hostile? Ignorance; 
 
 Then let me not despair. 
 But oh ! I sigh when home I come — 
 
 May God the thought forgive ! 
 If 'twere not for my dog and cat, 
 
 I think I could not live. 
 
 Ill the following piece we see the hostility of ignorance overcome : the 
 cat and dog are replaced by human bemgs ; and the home of taste is the 
 home of happiness : — 
 
 THE HOME OF TASTE. 
 
 You seek the home of taste, and find 
 
 The proud mechanic there, 
 Rich as a king, and less a slave. 
 
 Throned in his elbow-chair! 
 Or on his sofa reading Locke, 
 
 Beside his open door! 
 Why start? — why envy worth like his 
 
 The carpet on his floor? 
 
 You seek the home of sluttery — 
 
 ' Is John at home ? ' you say. 
 ' No, sir; he's at the " Sportsman's Arms;" 
 
 The dog fight 's o'er the way.* 
 Oh lift the workman's heart and mind 
 
 Above low sensual sin ! 
 Give him a home ! the home of taste ! 
 
 Outbid the house of gin ! 
 
 Oh give him taste ! it is the link 
 
 Which binds us to the skies — 
 A bridge of rainbows thrown across 
 
 The gulf of tears and sighs; 
 Or like a widower's little one — 
 
 An angel in a child — 
 That leads him to her mother's chair. 
 
 And shows him how she smiled. 
 
 Another of these pictures, exquisite in their simplicity, may be supposed 
 to be di'awn for the same home of taste, although m reality we have culled 
 tliem all from different portions of the miscellaneous poems : — 
 
 SATURDAY. 
 
 To-morrow will be Sunday, Ann — 
 
 Get up, my child, with me ; 
 Thy father rose at four o'clock 
 
 To toil for me and thee. 
 
 The fine folks use the plate he makes, 
 
 And praise it when they dine ; 
 For John has taste — so we'll be neat. 
 
 Although we can't be fine. 
 20 
 
 i 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 Then let us shake the carpet well, 
 
 And wash aiul scour the floor, 
 And hang the weather-glass he made 
 
 Beside the cupboard-door. 
 
 And polish thou the grate, my love; 
 
 I'll mend the sof.i arm; 
 The autumn winds blow damp and chill ; 
 
 And John loves to be warm. 
 
 And bring the new white curtain out, 
 
 And string the pink tape on — 
 ^lechanics should be neat and clean : 
 
 And I'll take heed for John. 
 
 And brush the little table, child, 
 
 And fetch the ancient books — 
 John loves to read ; and when he reads, 
 
 How like a king he looks ! 
 
 And fill the music-glasses up 
 
 With water fresh and clear ; 
 To-morrow, when he sings and plays. 
 
 The street will stop to hear. 
 
 And throw the dead flowers from the vase, 
 
 And rub it till it glows ; 
 For in the leafless garden yet 
 
 He'll find a winter rose. 
 
 And lichen from the wood he'll bring, 
 
 And mosses from the dell ; 
 .\iid from the sheltered stubble-field 
 
 The scarlet pimpernell. 
 
 All this preparation is made for the father of the family, tlie poor mechanic 
 ■who has got to the end of his week of toil, and is coming home — Jiome ! — 
 not only to look like a king, but to be a king for two nights and a day. 
 Do we say the ^Mor mechanic ? Why, there is no kmg m Europe so rich I 
 He has earned his ' otium cum dignitate ; ' it is his rigid, not inherited 
 from dead men, but the achievement of his own power and will ; and for the 
 bows, and grimaces, and lip service of hollow courtiers, he is surrounded by 
 loving looks, and sympathising hearts, and willing hands. But let us see 
 this poor mechanic in his summer-house in the garden, where he receives 
 visitors on state occasions : — 
 
 THE SUMMER-HOUSE. 
 
 Go, Mary, to the summer-house. 
 
 And sweep the wooden floor, 
 And light the little fire, and wash 
 
 The pretty varnished door ; 
 For there the London gentleman. 
 
 Who lately lectured here, 
 Will smoke a pipe with Jonathan, 
 
 And taste our home-brewed beer. 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 Go, bind the dahlias, that our guest 
 
 May praise their fading dyes ; 
 -But strip of everj' withered bloom 
 
 The flower that won the prize ! 
 And take thy father's knife, and prune 
 
 The roses that remain ; 
 And let the fallen hollyhock 
 
 Peep through the broken pane. 
 
 And sponge his view of Blacklowscar, 
 
 Till bright on moor and town, 
 The painted sun and stormy crest, 
 
 O'er leagues of cloud look down. 
 He rose at three, to work till four — 
 
 The evenings still are long — 
 And still for every lingering flower 
 
 The redbreast hath a song. 
 
 I'll follow in an hour or two ; 
 
 Be sure I will not fail 
 To bring his flute and spying-glass. 
 
 The pipes and bottled ale ; 
 And that grand music which he made 
 
 About the child in bless, 
 Our guest shall hear it sung and played. 
 
 And feel how grand it is ! 
 
 But Jolin, or Jonathan, or Tom, or Harry, whatever his name may be, is 
 not alone in such sovereignty. There are plenty of true kings in the 
 ranks of laboui", and, alas ! plenty of slaves. The difference lies in taste 
 and knowledge, and as these increase, the very meanest mounts, and 
 mounts, tUl he ascends the social throne. On the occasion of a holiday, 
 all are apparently equal, for all are exposed to the same influences ; but 
 even the enjoyment here is proportioned to the condition of the mind that 
 tastes it. A holiday, however, that gives the children of labour, not to 
 the public house, but to the hills and fields, is a blessed thing. It is to 
 many of them the beginning of good ; and the light of the sky, the fresh- 
 ness of the au", the song of the birds, the fragrance of the flowers, enter 
 into and reanimate then- withered hearts. What would Elliott have been 
 without the ministering of these angels of nature? A mere brawling dema- 
 gogue — a fierce, factious, bloodthirsty malignant ! WeU may he sing of 
 the holiday which gives the mechanic to the mfluences of heaA'en ! — 
 
 HOLIDAY. 
 
 Oh blessed ! when some holiday 
 
 Brings townsmen to the moor, 
 And in the sunbeams brighten up 
 
 The sad looks of the poor. 
 The bee puts on his richest gold, 
 
 As if that worker knew — ■ 
 How hardly (and for little) they 
 
 Their sunless task pursue. 
 But from their souls the sense of wrong 
 
 On dove-like pinion flies; 
 And, throned o'er all, forgiveness sees 
 
 His image in their eyes. 
 22 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 Soon tired, the street-born lad lies down 
 
 On marjoram and thyme. 
 And throuf^h his grated fingers seeB 
 
 Tiie falcon's flight sublime; 
 Then his pale eyes, so bluely dull. 
 
 Grow darkly blue with liglit, 
 And his lips redden like the bloom 
 
 O'er miles of mountains bright. 
 The little lovely maiden-hair 
 
 Turns up its happy face, 
 And saith unto the poor man's heart, 
 
 ' Thou'rt welcome to this place.' 
 The infant river leapeth free 
 
 Amid the bracken tall, 
 And cries, * i"OR ever there is one 
 
 Who reigneth over all; 
 And unto Ilini, as unto me, 
 
 Thou'rt welcome to partake 
 His gift of light. His gift of air. 
 
 O'er mountain, glen, and lake. 
 Our father loves us, want-worn man! 
 
 And know thou this from me, 
 The pride that makes thy pain his couch, 
 
 May wake to envy thee. 
 Hard, hard to bear are want and toil. 
 
 As thy worn features tell; 
 But Wealth is armed with fortitude, 
 
 And bears thy sufferings well.' 
 
 But leisure is born of work : no man knew that better than Ebenezer. 
 Not a walk did he mdulge by the banks of the llivelin, but was bought 
 by a commensurate number of hours of steady application in the murky- 
 den of u'on we have described ; and from the staple of his trade he has 
 drawn a poetical imag^ that suggests an important practical lesson : — 
 
 RUB OR RUST. 
 
 Idler, why lie down to die? 
 
 Better rub than rust. 
 Hark ! the lark sings in the sky — 
 
 ' Die when die thou must ! 
 Day is waking, leaves are shaking. 
 
 Better rub than rust.' 
 
 In the grave there's sleep enough — 
 
 ' Better rub than rust : 
 Death perhaps is hunger-proof, 
 
 Die when die thou must ; 
 Men are mowing, breezes blowing, 
 
 Better rub than rust.' 
 
 He who will not work, shall want ; 
 
 Nought for nought is just — 
 Wont do, must do, when he can't; 
 
 ' Better rub than rust. 
 Bees are flying, sloth is dying, 
 
 Better rub than rust.' 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 "We now present a mor9eau of another and a more poetical kind, but 
 still of a cognate nature with the foregoing, and we shall then turn to a 
 new element of the genius of the Corn-Law RhjTner : — 
 
 A GHOST AT NOON. 
 
 The day was dark, save when the beam 
 
 (Jf noon through darkness broke ; 
 In gloom I sat, as in a dream, 
 
 Beneath my orchard oak ; 
 Lo ! splendour, like a spirit, came, 
 
 A shadow like a tree ! 
 While there I sat, and named her name, 
 
 Who once sat there with me. 
 
 I started from the seat in fear ; 
 
 I looked around in awe ; 
 But saw no beauteous spirit near, 
 
 Though all that was I saw ; 
 The seat, the tree, where oft in tears 
 
 She mourned her hopes o'erthrown, 
 Her joys cut off in early years. 
 
 Like gathered flowers half-blown. 
 
 Again the bud and breeze were met, 
 
 But Mary did not come ; 
 And e'en the rose which she had set 
 
 Was fated ne'er to bloom ! 
 The thrush proclaimed in accents sweet 
 
 That winter's rain was o'er ; 
 The bluebells thronged around my feet ; 
 
 But Mary came no more. 
 
 I think, I feel — but when will she , 
 
 Awake to thought again 1 
 A voice of comfort answers me 
 
 That God does nought in vain : 
 He wastes nor flower, nor bud, nor leaf. 
 
 Nor wind, nor cloud, nor wave ; 
 And will he waste the hope which grief 
 
 Hath planted in the grave ? 
 
 We come now, as we have said, to a new element, although one at least 
 hinted at in the ' Holiday.' But let not the sequence and coherency of 
 the whole be lost sight of, or you break up the genius of our friend 
 Ebenezer into small inconsequential bits, incapable of great results. The 
 political rhymer — the poet of taste and of the affections — and the wor- 
 shipper and prophet of nature — these three are one. The three great 
 qualities, the three great capacities, are molten into a smgle gi'eat quality, 
 a suigle great capacity, each one, when largely considered, acting upon the 
 others, infusmg power into mere will, and giving energy to mere beauty, 
 and grace to mere strength. Many there be in these last days (and some 
 who assume higher rank than Elliott) who raise their voices in wrath or 
 lamentation, and fancy they have done their errand when they have shown 
 tliat thei'e are things over wliich avc ought to rave or grieve. But the 
 heart of the brave Eliymer, though bitter as gall, was true and tough as 
 24 
 
EBENEZER ELLIOTT. 
 
 (he steel he bought and sold. His teaching is of self-reliance, self-eman- 
 cipation. His pliilosophy declares that tliere is an inborn leaven in the 
 human mind fit to elevate and expand — to dignify and crown it, as it were 
 — beyond the control of mere material circumstances ; and his poetry— of 
 the kmd we arc now to consider — opens out to us a rich and gorgeous 
 world, where the lord and the mechanic meet on terms of as perfect equality 
 as they will do in the world beyond the grave. The kingdom of nature 
 is a misnomer : nature is a republic. The sunshine, the sky, the stars, 
 the clouds, the winds, the murmur of waters, the perfume of flowers— the 
 innumerable sights and sounds in which God reveals himself to the human 
 soiU — all these arc tiie inheritance of the very meanest among us. And 
 they are an inheritance which consoles us for the want of every other, for 
 it restores us to a sense of our ovrn dignity, cast down by the buftetings 
 and contumelies of the world. A mechanic in the crowded town plays his 
 part as a drudge — proudly, it may be independently, as conscious of merely 
 giving one thing in exchange for another : but still as a drudge. In com- 
 munion with nature, his position changes. He is there the co-heir of his 
 employer, and there he feels instinctively as a substantive fact that which 
 philosophy has striven, with many words and in many tomes, to demon- 
 strate — the natural equality of mankind. He who assists the working- 
 classes to take possession of this inheritance — for it is not bestowed, but 
 merely offered — is the benefactor of his species ; and on this point Ebenezer 
 Elliott is supremely worthy of our love and admiration. We have seen him 
 teaching the mechanic that it is in his power, by the mere cultivation of 
 taste, to elevate his position, and become an object of love and resjject to 
 all around him ; and we shall now see developed in himself the highest of 
 all tastes — the perception of the beautiful in tlie things of nature — and 
 observe how it elevates and glorifies the being of the man to be able to 
 discern and hold communion with the living soul of the imiverse. 
 
 The longer poems, in which alone this faculty is observable to any 
 remarkable extent, are those on which his fame as a poet will depend. 
 The finest of these, to our thinking, is the ' Village Patriarch,' and the 
 * Ranter ' next. The ' Splendid Village ' is a satire, but it has likewise its 
 beauties ; and the drama of ' Bothwell and Kirhonah' has some tine pictures 
 and some energetic feeling. But from ' Spii'its and Men,' a piece, as a whole, 
 of comparatively inferior merit, we extract the followmg, as it will exhibit 
 our Rhymer in a new light as a poet, and at the same time recall to the 
 reader the associations of those earlier years we have so rapidly run 
 through : — 
 
 ' Flowers, yc remind me of rock, vale, and wood, 
 Haunts of my early days, and still loved well: 
 Bloom not your sisters fair in Locksley's dell? 
 And where the sun, o'er purple moorlands wide. 
 Gilds Wharnclitfe's oaks, while Don is dark below ? 
 And where the blackbird sings on Rother's side ? 
 And where Time spares the age of Conisbro' ! 
 Sweet flowers, remembered well ! your hues, your breath, 
 Call up the dead to combat still with death : 
 The spirits of ray buried years arise ! 
 Again a child, where childhood roved I run; 
 While groups of speedwell, with their bright blue eyes, 
 Like happy children, cluster in the sun. 
 
 85 
 
Chambers's papers foe the people. 
 
 Still the wan primrose hath a golden core; 
 The millfoil, thousand-leafed, as heretofore, 
 Displays a little world of flow'rets gray; 
 And tiny maids might hither come to cull 
 The wo-marked cowslip of the dewy May; 
 And still the fragrant thorn is beautiful. 
 I do not dream! Is it, indeed, a rose 
 That yonder in the deepening sunset glows? 
 Methinks the orchis of the fountalned wold 
 Hath, in its well-known beauty, something new. 
 Do I not know thy lofty disk of gold, 
 Thou, that still woo'st the sun, with passion true ? 
 No, splendid stranger ! haply, I have seen 
 One not unlike thee, but with humbler mien, 
 Watching her lord. Oh lily, fair as aught 
 Beneath the sky ! thy pallid petals glow 
 In evening's blush; but evening borrows nought 
 Of thee, thou rival of the stainless snow — 
 For thou art scentless. Lo ! this fingered flower. 
 That round the cottage window weaves a bower. 
 Is not the woodbine; but that lowlier one, 
 With thick green leaves, and spike of dusky fire, 
 Enamoured of the thatch it grows upon. 
 Might be the house-leek of rude Hallamshire, 
 And would awake, beyond divorcing seas. 
 Thoughts of green England's peaceful cottages. 
 Yes, and this blue-eyed child of earth, that bends 
 Its head on leaves with liquid diamonds set, 
 A heavenly fragrance in its sighing sends ; 
 And though 'tis not our downcast violet. 
 Yet might it, haply, to the zephyr tell 
 That 'tis beloved by village maids as well.' 
 
 This ' burly ironmonger' had a passion for flowers — of all passions the 
 most elegant and mnocent. They glow m every page of his works, and 
 perfume the very book. His pictm-e of a meclianic's garden is deUghtful 
 in its homely simplicity ; but when the poor blind patriarch of the village 
 comes to the spot where his early loves used to bloom, and bends fondly 
 over them, and bids them 
 
 ' Speak to a poor blind man. And thou canst speak 
 To the lone blind. Still, still thy tones can reach 
 His listening heart, and soothe, or bid it break' — 
 
 we — that is, if we be in good moral health and true manliness of nature — 
 are startled uito tears. 
 
 This VUlage Patriarch is not a narrative poem ; it is rather a kind of 
 Childe Harold — with a difference. Tlie village is not the ' lone mother of 
 dead empires,' but of dead friends, lost loves, withered feelings, forgotten 
 customs, and neglected gi-aves. Hear how the music swells from that 
 group of women engaged in unwomanly toil : — 
 
 ' Hark ! music still is here ! How wildly sweet, 
 Like flute-notes in a storm, the psalm ascends 
 From yonder pile, in traffic's dirtiest street ! 
 There hapless woman at her labour bends. 
 While with the rattling fly her shrill voice blends; 
 26 
 
EBENEZliR ELUOTT. 
 
 And ever, as she cuts the headless nail, 
 
 She sings — " I waited long, and sought the Lord, 
 
 And patiently did bear." A deeper wail 
 
 Of sister voices joins, in sad accord — 
 
 " He set my feet upon his rock adored !" 
 
 And then, perchance — " Oh God, on man look down ! " 
 
 "We are glad to break away from these melancholy voices ; and lo, what 
 is before us ! — 
 
 * Five rivers, like the fingers of a hand, 
 Flung from black mountains, mingle, and are one 
 Where sweetest valleys quit the wild and grand. 
 And eldest forests, o'er the sylvan Don, 
 Bid their immortal brother journey on, 
 A stately pilgrim, watched by all the hills. 
 Say, shall we wander where, through warriors' graves. 
 The infant Yewden, mountain-cradled, trills 
 Her Doric notes ? Or where the Locksley raves 
 Of broil and battle, and the rocks and caves 
 Dream yet of ancient days ? Or where the sky 
 Darkens o'er Rivelin, the clear and cold, 
 That throws his blue length, like a snake, from high ? 
 Or where deep azure brightens into gold. 
 O'er Sheaf, that mourns in Eden ? Or where rolled 
 On tawny sands, through regions passion-wild, 
 And groves of love, in jealous beauty dark. 
 Complains the Porter, Nature's thwarted child. 
 Bom in the waste, like headlong Wiming ? Hark ! 
 The poised hawk calls thee. Village Patriarch I 
 He calls thee to his mountains! Up, awayl 
 Up, up to Stanedge ! higher still ascend. 
 Till kindred rivers, from the summit gray. 
 To distant seas their course in beauty bend, 
 And, like the lives of human millions, blend. 
 Disparted waves in one immensity! ' 
 
 But this fine poem, ennobling in its very sadness, does not want for 
 a certain stem himiom- as well as personal interest. The rude grinder, for 
 instance, is one of the most poetical of vagabonds ; and the hasty, dashing, 
 careless way in which the author alludes to his blackguax'd life, and the 
 certainty of his untimely doom, if not the result of pure accident and long 
 familiarity with the subject, is one of the finest things in literature : — 
 
 ' Where toils the mill, by ancient woods embraced. 
 Hark how the cold steel screams in hissing fire ! 
 But Enoch sees the grinder's wheel no more, 
 Couched beneath rocks and forests, that admire 
 Their beauty in the waters, ere they roar. 
 Dashed in white foam, the swift circumference o'er. 
 There draws the grinder his laborious breath; 
 There, coughing, at his deadly trade he bends. 
 Born to die young, he fears nor man nor death; 
 Scorning the future, what he earns he spends; 
 Debauch and riot are his bosom friends. 
 He plays the Tory, sultan-like and well: 
 Wo to the traitor that dares disobey 
 The Dey of Straps ! as rattan'd tools shall tell. 
 Full many a lordly freak by night, by day, 
 Illustrates gloriously his lawless sway. 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Behold his failings ! hath he virtues too ? 
 
 He is no pauper, blackguard though he be. 
 
 Full well he knows what minds combined can do — 
 
 Full well maintains his birthright — he is free ! 
 
 And, frown for frown, outstares monopoly ! 
 
 Yet Abraham and Elliot, both in vain. 
 
 Bid science on his cheek prolong the bloom ; 
 
 He will not live ! he seems in haste to gain 
 
 The undisturbed asylum of the tomb. 
 
 And, old at two-and-thirty, meets his doom ! ' 
 
 A grinder sits on a block of wood, which he calls his grinding-horse, 
 and his gi'indstone is before hun, turned on an axle by steam or water. 
 To this he applies the article to be gi-ound, and a spray of fire rises at 
 every touch. But the fire is not the worst. The grindstone itself wears 
 away in foam-like surges that fill the lungs, and in a certain number of 
 years, calculated by statistics to a nicety, kill the principle of life. A 
 dry-grinder does not reach thirty-five, but a wet-grinder may defy death 
 for nearly ten years more. Of the former is the grinder of table-forks — 
 of the latter the grmder of table-knives. See what a trifle involves ten 
 years of a man's life ! We do not think, while sitting at table, that the 
 knives and forks before us are guilty of more human blood than swords 
 and spears ! Why should we ? The men themselves — and they number 
 between two and tlu-ee thousand in Sheffield — like then- fate rather than 
 otherwise. This is a fact proved by the Report of Government Commis- 
 sioners, and alluded to in the poem ; for the Abraham and Elliot named 
 there were the mventors of a preservative which the grinders will not use, 
 although it is nothing more than a flue introduced into the wheel to carry 
 oflf the dust. The men msist on their trade retaming its fatal noxiousness, 
 because, if this were removed, there would be a greater competition of hands, 
 their high wages would come down, and their deep drinking be cut short. 
 Did Ebenezer include this in his Bread-Tax ? Did he not feel that there 
 are deeper depravities, more sickening horrors, in the very midst of us 
 than can be amended by any political or fiscal reforms ? Yes ; the poet 
 felt what escaped the rhymer ; and he sought for the class of mechanics 
 that moral emancipation without which no other can be of any a\'ail. 
 
 But in the meantune the Patriarch waits. We must allow the blind 
 old man to depart in peace ; and here is an ending to his life and to the 
 poem, to which an equal will not readily be found even among the finest 
 masterpieces of genius : — 
 
 * And when the woodbine's clustered trumpet blows; 
 And when the pink's melodious hues shall speak, 
 In unison of sweetness with the rose, 
 Joining the song of every bird that knows 
 How sweet it is of wedded love to sing ; 
 And when the fells, fresh- bathed in azure air. 
 Wide as the summer day's all golden wing. 
 Shall blush to Heaven, that nature is so fair, 
 And man condemned to labour, in despair ; 
 Then the gay gnat, that sports its little hour ; 
 The falcon, wheeling from the ancient wood ; 
 The redbreast, fluttering o'er its fragrant bower ; 
 The yellow-bellied lizard of the flood ; 
 And dewy morn, and evening — in her hood 
 28 
 
EBENEZEU ELLIOTT. 
 
 Of crimson, fringed with lucid shadows grand — 
 
 Shall miss the Patriarch ; at hie cottage door 
 
 The bee shall seek to settle on his hand, 
 
 But from the vacant bench haste to the moor. 
 
 Mourning the last of England's high-souled poor. 
 
 And bid the mountains weep for Enoch Wray ! 
 
 And for themselves ! — albeit of things that last 
 
 Unaltered most ; for they shall pass away 
 
 Like Enoch, though their iron roots seem fast 
 
 Bound to the eternal future, as the past; 
 
 The Patriarch died ! and they shall be no more. 
 
 Yes, and the sailless worlds, which navigate 
 
 The unutterable deep, that hath no shore, 
 
 Will lose their starry splendour soon or late ! 
 
 Like tapers, quenched by Him whose will is fate ! 
 
 Yes, and the Angel of Eternity, 
 
 Who numbers worlds, and writes their names in light, 
 
 Ere long, oh Earth, will look in vain for thee ! 
 
 And start, and stop, in his unerring flight. 
 
 And, with his wings of sorrow and affright, 
 
 Veil his impassioned brow and heavenly tears ! ' 
 
 The ' Village Patriarch,' after all, has not enough of the definite to take 
 a firm hold of the mind. It is remembered only like broken strains of 
 suggestive music, all seeming to tend to some articulate and intelligible 
 whole, but fainting, as it were, in their purpose, and at last dying away m 
 lofty but mdistinct wailings, and leaving behind an impression rather than 
 a conception, a dream more than a memory. The ' Ranter ' has been more 
 popidar, because it is shorter, and more easily grasped ; but it is nothing 
 more than a corn-law sermon, introduced by some exquisite touches of 
 character and description that have nothing to do with the piece. The 
 Ranter is a mechanic, who preaches on Sundays ' beneath the autumnal 
 tree,' and the widow in whose house he lodges rises betimes on the parti- 
 cular day to light her fire, and spread her board 
 
 ' With Sabbath coffee, toast, and cups for three.' 
 
 The third is her son, whom she climbs the narrow stair to awake, but 
 hesitates before I'ousing ' the poor o'er-laboured youth,' on 
 
 ' Whose forehead bare. 
 Like jewels ringed on sleeping beauty's hands. 
 Tired labour's gems are set in beaded bands.' 
 
 But he would chide her if she failed on an occasion like this, and the lad 
 wakes up : — 
 
 * Up, sluggards, up! the mountains one by one 
 Ascend in light; and slow the mists retire 
 From vale and plain. The cloud on Stannington 
 Beholds a rocket — No, 'tis Morthen spire! 
 The sun is risen! cries Stanedge, tipped with fire; 
 On Norwood's flowers the dew-drops shine and shake; 
 Up, sluggards, up! and drink the morning breeze. 
 The birds on cloud-left Osgathorpe awake; 
 And Wincobank is waving all his trees 
 O'er subject towns, and farms, and villages, 
 
 29 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 And gleaming streams, and wood, and waterfalls. 
 Up! climb the oak-crowned summit! Hoober Stand 
 And Keppel's Pillar gaze on Wentworth's halls, 
 And misty lakes, that brighten and expand. 
 And distant hills, that watch the western strand. 
 Up! trace God's foot-prints, where they paint the mould 
 With heavenly green, and hues that blush and glow 
 Like angel's wings; while skies of blue and gold 
 Stoop to Miles Gordon on the mountain's brow.' 
 
 This is all. Miles Gordon delivers his sermon; and at the conclusion his 
 congregation disperse in tears, seeing in his wan and wasted features the 
 token of swift-coming death. It is strange the fascination exercised by this 
 simple piece ; but the ' Ranter ' follows us like the memory of a man, 
 while the ' Patriarch ' only haunts our slumbrous reveries like a spirit. 
 
 But let it not be supposed, from the inabiLity of EUiott to do more than 
 shadow dimly forth (as in the ' Patriarch') the majestic form of an epic, that 
 there is anything vague or misty in his genius. On the contrary, he is pre- 
 eminently practical. He is a copyist, as he tells us himself — but a copyist 
 from nature. His pictures, characters, incidents, feelings, all are local ; 
 and therefore are they true, not only in individual truth, but as poetical 
 generalities. He is ' an earnest, truth-speaking man,' as the ' Edinbm-gh 
 Review ' acknowledged, though with something of an air of condescension. 
 ' No theoriser, or sentimentaliser, but a practical man of work and endea- 
 vour, a man of sufferance and endurance.' The same character is distinctly 
 traceable in his personal history. His political misgivings never made 
 him doubt his business. He amassed a pecuniary independence out of less 
 than nothing, and died at last in a house of his own, on his own land. His 
 whole life was a straggle. He conquered success in literature just as he 
 did in trade, and after the scornful neglect of tweixty years, became a 
 popular author. 
 
 Perhaps the genius of the Rhymer may have received its peculiar tone 
 and determination from the character of the scenery which surroimded him. 
 Some notion of that may be gathered from the \'iew from the Gospel-tree, 
 described in our extract from the ' Ranter.' This is an ash-tree on the 
 ridge of the hills to the east of the town. The Rivelin, so frequently 
 alluded to, is one of five moorland streams that meet near Sheffield. With 
 here and there steep banks and overhanging woods, brown in colour, 
 as showing its peat origin, and impeded by masses of rock peculiar to 
 the mountain-born, it would be in itself a striking feature in a striking 
 landscape ; but the forges starting suddenly out from the wooded nooks 
 as you advance, with flames darting from their chimney-tops, and the 
 blast roaring and the hammer resounding within, supei-add a wild and 
 extraordinary, but not inharmonious character. Here and there among 
 the forges are the grinding-wheels we have alluded to : low buildings, pro- 
 vided with a huge external wheel tunied by steam. Before the introduc- 
 tion of steam, these mills were met with among the hills wherever there 
 was a stream of force enough to turn them ; but now they foiTn a principal 
 feature only where the waxing river approaches the tOAvn, while further 
 away, towards the moorland, their picturesque ruins are seen falling to 
 decay. 
 30 
 
EBENEZER ELUOTT. 
 
 Such was the picture that met habitually the eyes of the Rhymer. But 
 to comprehend it fuUy, you must people these murky forges with the ' red 
 sons of the furnace,' and these rushing mills with the desperate grinders, 
 spuming with wild gaiety the means of life, mingling the groans of pain 
 and the cough of oppressed lungs with Bacchanalian songs, and meeting 
 deliberately the death to which they had deliberately sold themselves. 
 Such was the pabulum of Elliott's poetic genius ; and it is no wonder that 
 it should have been impressed with a wild and swarthy character, solem- 
 nising his gentlest thoughts, and taming his most fervent hopes — all save 
 the hopes which point to that world where the wicked cease from troubling, 
 and the weary are at rest. 
 
 We may be thought to have passed over his political songs too lightly ; 
 but in an estimate of his character as a poet, they are in reality of little 
 importance, while they are absolute contradictions to his character as a 
 man. At the same time we are by no means insensible to the influence 
 they exercised in that great question which still stirs in the minds of men, as 
 the sea continues to heave after the storm is laid. Elliott was the pioneer 
 of the Corn-Law League. For seven years before the organisation of that 
 remarkable body, he saturated the people with his songs and diatribes, 
 provoking eveiywhere scorn, anger, fury — but still discussion. He after 
 all roused but a portion of the toiling classes, amongst whom some other 
 objects became paramount to the exclusion of this grand question ; and it 
 was in the middle classes, who were not readers of corn-law rhjTnes, that 
 the war against monopoly raised its first effective cries. The Rhymer lived 
 to see the early dream of his life accomplished, but he did not live to see 
 the results his poetical enthusiasm had predicted. The bread-tax repealed 
 was not his bread-tax : it was only one devil cast forth out of a legion ! 
 There is no regenerating society by wholesale : nay, if all our political 
 ■RTongs together were set right, it would do notliing more than prepare a 
 clear stage for reform to begin. 
 
 This reform must come from within. Good men must and will have 
 good institutions ; but good institutions bestowed upon the mean, the 
 ignorant, and the depraved, are of little worth. To refine and elevate this 
 meanness, to enlighten this ignorance, and to amend this depra^^ty, are a 
 far higher task than that of the Com-I>aw League ; and Elliott's delightful 
 poetical lessons to the mechanics will thrQl through their hearts and 
 ennoble their natiu-es long after his political rh}Tnes are foi'gotten. And 
 these simple lessons will not be confined to theh simplicity ; for through 
 this preparation his true and lofty poetry will steal into their souls — a 
 consolation, a hope, and a joy for ever. 
 
 Elliott's publications, so far as they are known to the reading world, are 
 as follows: — L Corn-Law RhjTnes. II. Love, a poem. III. The Village 
 Patriarch, a poem. IV. Poetical Works. V. More Verse and Prose by 
 the Corn-Law Rhj-mer, in two volumes. The last, tliough prepared by 
 the poet himself, is a posthumous publication, and exhibits the prevailing 
 merits as well as defects of the other volumes. In the ' Year of Seeds,' 
 more especially, there are passages not surpassed in his best works. 
 
 We have now, in the confined space allotted to us, sliown something of 
 the consanguinity between the poet and the man — almost as it is painted 
 by himself in the subjoined epitaph. It was for that we have thus dis- 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 quieted thee to bring thee up. And now, stout Elliott! brave Ebenezer! 
 return to your rest, and may the flowers you loved in life perfume your 
 grave ! — 
 
 A poet's EPITAPfl. 
 
 Stop, ilortal! Here thy brother lies. 
 
 The Poet of the Poor. 
 His books were rivers, woods, and skies, 
 
 The meadow and the moor; 
 His teachers were the torn hearts' wail, 
 
 The tyrant, and the slave. 
 The street, the factory, the jail, 
 
 The palace — and the grave! 
 The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm, 
 
 He feared to scorn or hate; 
 And honoured in a peasant's form 
 
 The equal of the great. 
 But if he loved the rich who make 
 
 The poor man's little more, 
 111 could he praise the rich who take 
 
 From plundered labour's store. 
 A hand to do, a head to plan, 
 
 A heart to feel and dare — 
 Tell man's worst foes, here lies the man 
 
 Who drew them as they are. 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 IT is now fully a century and a half since Lady Mary Wortley ]\Iontagu 
 first flashed before the admiring eyes of her contemporaries, adorning 
 with her beauty, and enlivening with lier most rare wit, the very highest 
 platform of English aristocratic society. 
 
 In looking back through this long vista of years, thronged though it he 
 with many graceful forms of the good and the gifted, tliat social luminary 
 seems to suffer no eclipse. We see her, in conjunction with all the nota- 
 bilities of her day, almost worshipped in foreign countries, and the object 
 of universal interest in her own. We hear her conversing sagaciously 
 with statesmen and philosophers ; or addressing a hon mot, sparkling as the 
 glances of her bright eye, to some admiring poet or wit of her train ; or we 
 readily conjure up that peculiar smile, at once playful and recklessly mis- 
 chievous, with which she is detailing, in one of her matchless letters, some 
 new bit of scandal, or satire, or doiihle-entendre, so racy, and sharp, and 
 sparkling, that it must undoubtedly have too often dyed the cheeks of the 
 alarmed yet amused correspondent. But whatever the circumstance, mood, 
 attitude, or occupation, in it we are at once able to recognise her as she 
 stands prominently out in the high relief of her singular individuality. 
 And we are as little apt to confound her, in the intellectual beauty of her 
 prime, with the Eastern houris of Constantinople, as we are Avith anybody 
 else in the world, while we picture her in her old age and mysterious exile, 
 expatiating with the keen epicurean relish which never deserts her among 
 her violets and nightingales, her bees and her silkworms, her fifteen bowers, 
 with different views, and dining-room of verdure ; at the same time that she 
 tells us she has not glanced into a looking-glass for eleven years, because 
 the last look was not a pleasant one. 
 
 It will not, therefore, be matter of wonder, that much should have been 
 both spoken and written about so remarkable a personage. Several notices 
 of her life have been long before the world. In 1803 Dr Dallaway pub- 
 lished, from original documents, her correspondence, poems, and essays, 
 prefaced by a memoir, in five volumes. In 183G her great-grandson, the 
 late Lord Wliarncliffe, republislied the works m a much more complete 
 form, in three large octavo volumes, still prefixing Dr Dallaway's memoir, 
 but with notes in explanation and correction, and supplying the interesting 
 addition of an ample introduction in the form of biographical anecdotes, 
 well known to be from the pen of Lady Louisa Stuart, the only surviving 
 d4 1 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 daughter of Lord and Lady Bute. This lady, though only five years old 
 at the death of her celebrated grandmother, could remember having seen 
 her ; having had many conversations about her with Lady Bute ; and 
 having been shewn by her part of a journal kept by Lady Mary through- 
 out her whole life, but which delicacy towards people still alive, and pro- 
 bably a prudent regard for her mother's reputation, induced the scrupulous 
 Lady Bute to destroy before her death. 
 
 Lady Mary was too satirical and formidable a person not to have 
 made many and bitter enemies among her contemporaries. It is to be 
 feared, moreover, that there are passages in her life iU calculated to stand 
 the test of a very severe scrutiny. Lord Wharncliffe's work revived much 
 discussion of her chai-acter by the periodical press of the day ; and singu- 
 larly candid and impartial as the biography was on all sides allowed to be, 
 as a whole, some of the statements were controverted and cavilled at ; while 
 others were maliciously perverted, and held as admissions in corroboratioii 
 of the most scandalous of the stories circulated against her. 
 
 Without pretending to fathom the depths of aU the vexed questions 
 involving the reputation of Lady Mary, it is the purpose of this Paper to 
 give, from the most authentic sources, as full a sketch of her life, wi-itings, 
 and character, as its limits will allow — drawing chiefly upon Lord "VMiarn- 
 clifle's book, and the notices to which it gave rise, for the matei-ials of the 
 memoir — and being guided in our estimate of her character by the indi- 
 cations of it that appear in her own woi-ks, and the testimony of numerous 
 contemporary writers — making due allowance always for the boldness and 
 freedom which universally characterised the modes of expression in her 
 day. No one who has been endowed by the Creator with large fiiculties, 
 whether they have been used for evil or for good, will be found, when 
 properly viewed, to have lived altogether in vain. His outward manifesta- 
 tion may only arrest the eye, as a beacon to deter ; or it may sound grate- 
 fully on the ear like a friendly cheer from the gamed shore, reviving the 
 sinking heart of the still tossed mariner ; but of such a one it may be con- 
 fidently affirmed, that he has fulfilled his destiny in the ever-progressing 
 development of the species. It cannot, then, be either an uninteresting 
 or an uninstructive task for our readers to glance briefly with us over 
 the life and conversation of one who played so important a part in the 
 great world-drama of her own day ; who, besides leaving behmd her in her 
 writings many monuments of her genius, has a strong claim on the gra- 
 titude of posterity for having saved the lives of thousands by the intro- 
 duction into England o^ the Turkish method of modifying the dreadful 
 scourge of smallpox — shewing both moral and maternal courage in trying 
 the experiment on her own son ; of one, above all, who was so strong, 
 and yet so weak ; so flattered, and so reviled ; so beloved, and so hated. 
 
 Lady Mary Pierrepont, eldest daughter of Evelyn, first Duke of liing- 
 ston. by the Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of William, Earl of Denbigh, 
 was born at Thoresby in Nottinghamshire in the year 1690. She had 
 two sisters by the same parents (for the duke had two more daughters by 
 a second wife), and an only brother, who died of smallpox durmg his 
 father's lifetime, and whose son became the second and last Duke of 
 Kingston. The elder of her two sisters, Lady Frances — to whom some of 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 her best letters were addressed — was married to John Erskine, Earl of 
 Mar ; and the other, Lady Evelyn, to John, Karl of Gower. 
 
 It is interesting to note that, both by father's and mother's side. Lady 
 Mary came of an active and energetic race. The Fieldings, as well as tlie 
 I'ien-eponts, were deeply engaged in the civil war, and apparently from indi- 
 vidual convictions — two brothers among the latter, and a father and son 
 among the former, having cliosen dillerent sides. Lady Mary, in one of her 
 letters, boasts of her gi-eat-grandfatlier having earned by his sagacity and 
 prudence the surname of TI7.se "William ; and Leigh Hunt tells us these 
 were not the highest qualities to which she might have laid claim by 
 inheritance. Genius and wit had also manifested themselves in the family 
 before her day — George Villiers, the witty Duke of Buckingham, having 
 been her great -uncle ; and Beaiunont, the dramatist, also her relation, his 
 mother being a PieiTcpont of the same stock. 
 
 Lady Mary, to her gi-eat misfortune, lost her mother at tlie early age of 
 four years ; and though she speaks highly of her grandmother, the Countess- 
 Dowager of Denbigh and Desmond, as having had a superior understanding, 
 and having retained it to an extraordinarily advanced age, that lady appears 
 to have done but little towards supplying to her the important maternal 
 duties. Indeed the want of a ceitain delicacy of mind and feminine self- 
 restraint, the usual results of careful training, caused in all probability 
 mucli of the suffering which embittered her afterlife. 
 
 Though Lady Kingston died so early, her husband continued a widower 
 till all his children were grown up and married. Lady Mary gives us the 
 character of both her parents in one sentence, when she says that Richard- 
 son, without knowing it, drew their portraits in Sir Thomas and Lady 
 Grandison. But though probably too much a man of pleasure to distm-b 
 himself with any overanxious concern for the best interests of his children, 
 a little incident which Lady Mary loved to recall, proves that she was, at 
 least in her childhood, the object of Lord Kingston's pride and fondness. 
 As the scene is at once characteristic of the times and of the dramatis per- 
 sonoi, we shall give it entire in Lady Louisa Stuart's lively words, on 
 whom, as Lord AMiarncliffe justly remarks, ' a ray of Lady Mary's talent 
 seems to have fallen : ' — 
 
 ' As a leader of the fashionable world, and a strenuous "Wliig in party, 
 he (Lord Kmgston) belonged to the Kit-cat Club. One day, at a meetmg 
 to choose toasts for the year, a whim seized him to nominate her, then not 
 eight years old, a candidate, alleging that she was far prettier than any 
 lady on their list. The other members demurred, because the rules of the 
 club forbade them to select a beauty whom they had never seen. " Then 
 you shall see her," cried he; and in the gaiety of the moment sent orders to 
 have her finely dressed, and brought to him at the tavern, where she was 
 received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health 
 drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form iTpon a 
 drinking-glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men 
 in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to 
 the arms of another ; was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with 
 caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard 
 her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasm-e, she said, was 
 too poor a word to express her sensations — they amounted to ecstasy : 
 
 3 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 never again throughout her whole future life did she pass so happy a dav. 
 Nor, indeed, could she ; for the love of admiration, which this scene was 
 calculated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully gratified. 
 There is always some alloying mgredient in the cup, some drawback upon 
 the triumphs of grown people : her father carried on the frolic, and, we 
 may conclude, confirmed the taste, by having her picture painted for the 
 club-room, that she might be enrolled a regular toast.' 
 
 True as it may be that the dawn of her genius opened auspiciously, 
 there seems but little ground for Dr Dallaway's assertion, that Lady Mary's 
 father had bestowed on her the best classical education. If it had been 
 so, she would hardly, in afteryears, while so earnestly recommending a 
 learned education for women, have spoken of her own as * one of the 
 worst in the world, being exactly the same as Clai-issa Harlowe's.' Quick 
 and ambitious as she was, she may have picked up ' small Latin and less 
 Greek ' by the side of her brother; but it could not be much, for Lady Bute 
 expressly said that her mother understood little or no Greek ; and we find 
 Lady Mary herself writing to Mrs Anne Wortley in 1709, when she must 
 have been nineteen years old, that she was then trying whether it was 
 possible to learn Latin without a master. 
 
 No doubt the good homespun governess of whom she often speaks 
 would lay the necessary foundation, and a beautiful girl of good parts is 
 sure of finding, as she grows up, plenty of instructors in what may be 
 termed masculine knowledge. Lady Mary acknowledges her obligations 
 to Bishop Burnet for ' condescending to direct the studies of a girl ;' and 
 we find her cori-esponding with him on the subject of a translation she had 
 made, under his eye, of the Latin version of Epictetus. But while she 
 strengthened her mind by such exercises, she did not neglect to indulge and 
 amuse it by the study of every work of fancy or fiction that came in her way. 
 She delighted in the romances of the old French school, and possessed, and 
 left behind her, the entire library of Mrs Lennox's Female Quixote ' Cas- 
 sandra," Alice,' &c.; on the blank leaf of a volume of which (the 'Astrea') she 
 had written out, in ' her fairest youthful hand,' the names and characteristic 
 qualities of the cliief personages, thus : — The beautiful Diana, the volatile 
 Climene, the melancholy Doris, Celadon the faithful, Adamas the wise ; ' 
 and so on, to the extent of two long columns. Her earliest-known poetic 
 effusion, which is an epistle from Julia to Ovid, wi-itten at the age of 
 twelve, is quite in accordance with these tastes ; and though not equal 
 to some of Pope's at the same age, shews a remarkable power of harmo- 
 nious versification. 
 
 At tlie age of fourteen, we find her lamenting, in a melodious 
 couplet, that she has in vain souglit truth either in town, court, or sanc- 
 tuary ; at fifteen, she is busy with the project of establishing a nunnery 
 in England, of which she intends one day to be the lady abbess ; and at 
 twenty she translates the Enchiridion, and complains to her friend the 
 bishop, in a sober and dignified strain, of the injustice and neglect shewn 
 to women, supporting her views by a Latin quotation from Erasmus. 
 
 But what probably aided more than any other advantage could have 
 
 done in the development of Lady ]\Iary's genius, was the secluded leisure 
 
 of her life during these important early ycai's. They were passed partly 
 
 at Thoresby, partly at Acton near London ; but at both places in a retire- 
 
 4 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 merit unbroken except by a visit now and then from one of her few early 
 companions, or when her fatlier, Lord Dorchester, who appears not to 
 have spent much of his time with liis family, chose, as he sometimes did, 
 to entertain a large party of his friends at home. The dolce far nknte 
 permitted now-a-days to a lady at the head of her own table, is curiously 
 enough contrasted in the picture Lady Louisa Stuart draws of the custom 
 of our ancestors on such occasions : — 
 
 ' Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his table at 
 Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter as soon as she had 
 bodily strength for the office, which in those days required no small share ; 
 for the mistress of a country mansion was not only to invite — that is, urge 
 and tease — her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently 
 swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands. The 
 gi-eater the lady, tlie more indispensable the duty. Each joint was carried 
 up ill its turn to be operated upon by her, and her alone, since the peers 
 and knights on either hand were so far from being bound to offer their 
 assistance, that the very master of the house, posted opposite to her, might 
 not act as her croupier : liis department was to push the bottle after dinner. 
 As for the crowd of guests, the most inconsiderable among them — the 
 curate, or subaltern, or squu-e's younger brother — if suffered, through 
 her neglect, to help himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, 
 would have chewed it in bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half 
 inclined to give a wrong vote at the next election. There were then pro- 
 fessed carving- masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically ; from 
 one of whom Lady Mary said she took lessons three times a week, that 
 she might be perfect on her father's public days, when, in order to perform 
 her functions without interruption, she was forced to eat her own duiner 
 alone an hour or two beforehand.' 
 
 One of Lady Mary's early companions was the thoughtless but beautiful 
 Dolly Walpole, Sir Kobert's sister, whom she both liked and laughed at ; 
 and another was the Lady Anne Vaughan, afterwards Duchess of Bolton, 
 the only child of Lord Carberry — the last of a family noted for having 
 given that eloquent divine, Jeremy Taylor, an asylum at Golden Grove. 
 But her most intimate and most beloved friend was Miss or (as it was 
 then the custom to call unmarried ladies) Mrs Anne Wortley, the favourite 
 sister of Mr Edward Wortley Montagu, whose father, one of the sons of 
 the Earl of Sandwich, had prefixed the name of Wortley to Montagu — 
 having married the heu-ess of the Wortley estate in Yorkshire. 
 
 We now approach the most important epoch of our heroine's life — her 
 courtship and maiTiage ; and though love may be well said to be second 
 only to death in its power of levelling, or bringing the whole world into 
 kindred, it will be allowed that Lady Mary's individuality of mind and 
 feeling, as developed in her love-letters, must certainly rescue her from the 
 fate of being mixed up and confounded with the common mass of lovers. 
 This Mr Edward Wortley, the brother of her friend, who is described as 
 a handsome, accomplished youth, of good sense, and much learning, the 
 constant associate of Addison, Steele, Congreve, and other notable men of 
 the time, happening to meet Lady Mary one day quite accidentally in his 
 sister's apartments, was immediately captivated by her surpassing beauty, 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 and on conversing with her, was scarcely less charmed with her sense and 
 brilliant wit. Finding, to his infinite surprise, that she understood his 
 favourite classics, he a few days afterwards presented her with a superb 
 edition of ' Quintus Curtius,' which she had mentioned as not having read, 
 accompanied by a copy of verses, which, though not strikingly good, were 
 quite conclusive as to the impression her wit and beauty had made on his 
 imagination. As may be supposed, Mrs Anne Wortley was quite as ready 
 to fan her brother's flame as to transcribe to her friend his glowing 
 encomiums ; but she did not live long to be the medium tlii'ough which 
 the electric spark was to pass. A more direct communication begun during 
 her life, was secretly carried on after her death ; and fortunately for us, Mr 
 Wortley and Lady Mary, after their marriage, agreed to put by or preserve, 
 as mementos of their days of courtship, these singular love-letters, which 
 give so much insight into the minds and dispositions of both. 
 
 It is at once apparent that her ladyship, though endowed with a lively 
 imagination, was but little susceptible of tender emotions; that, with aU her 
 elevation of mind and splendid talents, she was quite incapable of that 
 strong, true womanly devotedness of heart, the crowning glory and vii'tue 
 of which is far more potent than either talent or beauty in investing human 
 life with its bi'ightest cliarms ; and that Mr Wortley was from the 
 first suspicious of this defect in her nature. Though captivated by her 
 beauty and liveliness, he seems by no means so blindly in love as to take 
 everything for granted in her reception of his addresses. On the contrary, 
 he hesitates, and prudently sets before her his doubts of her affection 
 for him, as well as the danger to their mutual happiness from her love of 
 distinction and the admiration of other men ; and her ladyship, though too 
 honest to take credit for a degree of sensibility she neither possesses nor 
 approves of, with much cleverness and power of reasonmg endeavours thus 
 to reassure him on the other points : — 
 
 ' I am surprised at one of the " Tatlers" you send me. Is it pos- 
 sible to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes capable of having 
 such trifling inclmations ? Mr Bickerstafi" has very wrong notions of our 
 sex. I can say there are some of us that despise charms of show, and all 
 the pageantry of greatness, perhaps with more ease than any of the philo- 
 sophers. In contemning the world, they seem to take pains to contemn 
 it ; we despise it, without taking the pains to read lessons of morality to 
 make us do it. At least I know I have always looked upon it with con- 
 tempt, without being at the expense of one serious reflection to oblige me 
 to it. I carry the matter yet further : was I to choose of £'2000 a year or 
 £20,000, the first would be my choice. There is something of an unavoid- 
 able embarras in making what is caUed a great figure in the world; it 
 takes off from the happiness of life. I hate the noise and hurry inseparable 
 from great estates or titles, and look upon both as blessings Avhich ought 
 only to be given to fools ; for 'tis only to them that they are blessings. 
 The pretty fellows you speak of, I own, entertain me sometimes ; but is it 
 impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a 
 puppet-show, and at the same time know that there is nothing in it worth 
 my attention or regard. General notions are generally wrong. Ignorance 
 and folly are thought the best foundations for virtue, as if not knowing wliat 
 a good wife is was necessary to make one so. I confess that can never be 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 my way of reasoning: as I always forgive an injury when I tliink it not 
 done out of malice, I can never think myself ohliijed by what is done witii- 
 out design. Give me leave to say it (I know it sounds vain), I know how 
 to make a man of sense happy ; but then tliat man must resolve to con- 
 tribute something towards it himself. I have so much esteem for you, I 
 should be very sorry to hear you was unhappy ; but, for the world, I would 
 not be the instrument of makhig you so ; which (of the humours you are) 
 is hardly to be avoided if I am your wife. You distrust me : I can neither 
 be easy nor loved where I am distrusted. Nor do I believe your passion 
 for me is what you pretend it ; at least I am sure, was I in love, I could 
 not talk as you do.' 
 
 In her next she hits still harder at his sentimental exactions : — 
 
 ' Your letter is to tell me you should think yourself undone if you 
 maiTied me ; but if I would be so tender as to confess I should break my 
 heart if you did not, then you'd consider whether you woidd or no ; but 
 yet you hoped you shouldn't. I take this to be tlie right interpretation of 
 " even your kindness can't destroy me of a sudden. I hope I am not in 
 your power. I would give a good deal to be satisfied," ' &c. &c. 
 
 It is plain that Mr Wortley, though feeling himself no match for her in 
 the encounter of wits, was not convinced by these lively banterings ; indeed 
 Lady Lousia tells us, ' they were perpetually on the point of breaking alto- 
 gether ; he felt and knew that they suited each other very ill; he saw, or 
 thought he saw, his rivals encouraged, if not preferred ; he was more 
 affronted than satisfied with her assurances of a sober esteem and regard ; 
 and yet eveiy struggle to get free did but end where it set out — leaving him 
 still a captive, galled by his chain, but unable to sever one link of it efi'ec- 
 tually.' In other words, he was only a man of plain understanding, and she 
 a brilliant wit ; and as he was I'easoning against his inclination, and she on 
 the side of hers, it is plain where the victory would lie. Such letters as 
 the following could not have been easily answered by him except in one 
 way :— 
 
 ' I will state the case to you as plamly as I can, and then ask your- 
 self if you use me well. I have shewed, in every action of my life, an 
 esteem for you, that at least challenges a grateful regard ; I have trusted 
 my reputation in your hands ; I have made no scruple of giving you, under 
 my own hand, an assurance of my friendship. After all this, I exact no- 
 thing from you ; if you find it inconvenient for your affairs to take so small 
 a fortune, I desire you to sacrifice nothing for me ; I pretend no tie upon 
 your honour ; but, in recompense for so clear and so disinterested a proceed- 
 ing, must I ever receive injuries or ill-usage? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps I have been indiscreet ; I came young into the hurry of the 
 world ; a great innocence and an undesigning gaiety may possibly have 
 been construed coquetry, and a desu-e of being followed, though never meant 
 by me. I cannot answer for the observations that may be made on me. 
 All who are malicious attack the careless and defenceless ; I o^wn myself to 
 be both. I know not anything I can say more to shew my perfect desii'e of 
 pleasing you and making you easy, than to proffer to be confined with you 
 in <what manner you please. Would any woman but me renoimce all tlie 
 world for one ? or would any man but you be uisensible of such a proof of 
 sincerity ? 
 
 7 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ' One pai't of my character is not so good, nor t'other so bad, as you fancy 
 it. Should we ever live together, you would be disappomted both ways : 
 you would find an easy equality of temper you do not expect, and a thou- 
 sand faults you do not imagine. You think, if you married me, I should be 
 passionately fond of you one month, and of somebody else the next. Neither 
 would happen : I can esteem, I can be a friend ; but I don't know whether 
 I can love. Expect all that is complaisant and easy, but never what is fond, 
 in me. 
 
 ' If you can resolve to live with a companion that will have all the defe- 
 rence due to your superiority of good sense, and that your proposals can be 
 agreeable to those on whom I depend, I have nothing to say against them. 
 As to travelling, 'tis what I should do with great pleasure, and could easily 
 quit London upon your account : but a retirement in the country is not so 
 disagreeable to me, as I know a few months would make it tiresome to you. 
 "When people are tied for life, 'tis their mutual interest not to grow weary 
 of one another. If I had all the personal charms that I want — a face is too 
 slight a foundation for happiness — you would be soon tired with seeing 
 every day the same thing. Where you saw nothing else, you would have 
 leisure to remark all the defects ; which would increase in proportion as 
 the novelty lessened, that is always a great charm. I should have the dis- 
 pleasure of seeing a coldness which, though I could not reasonably blame 
 you for, being involuntary, yet it would render me uneasy ; and the more, 
 because I know a love may be revived which absence, inconstancy, or even 
 infidelity, has extinguished ; but there is no returnmg from a deguut given 
 by satiety.' 
 
 After many disputes and lovers' quaiTcls, Mr Wortley was at last 
 sufficiently convinced and reassured to resolve on making his proposals to 
 Lord Dorchester, who received them graciously ; and all went on well till 
 the momentous questions of portion and settlement came under conside- 
 ration, when he suddenly broke off the match in a great indignation, the 
 cause of which Lady Louisa thus explains : — ' We see how the practice of 
 a man's entailing his estate upon his eldest son while as yet an unborn child, 
 an unknown being, is ridiculed in the "Tatler"and "Spectator," whose 
 authors, it may be observed, had not estates to entail. Mr Wortley, who 
 had^ entertained the same opinions. Possibly they were originally his own, 
 and promulgated by Addison and Steele at his suggestion ; for, as he always 
 liked to think for himself, many of his notions were singular and speculative. 
 However this might be, he upheld the system, and acted upon it, offering to 
 make the best provision in his power for Lady Mary, but steadily refusing 
 to settle his landed property upon a son Avho, for aught he knew, might 
 prove unworthy to possess it — might be a spendthrift, an idiot, or a villain. 
 
 ' Lord Dorchester, on the other hand, said that these philosophic theories 
 were very fine, but his grandchildren should not run the risk of being left 
 beggars ; and as he had to do with a person of no ordinary firmness, the 
 treaty ended there. The secret correspondence and intercom-se, however, 
 went on as before ; and shortly Lady Mary acquainted her lover that she 
 was peremptorily commanded to accept the offers of another suitor ready 
 to close with all her father's terms ; to settle handsome pin-money, jointure, 
 provision for heirs, and so forth ; and, moreover, concede the point most 
 agreeable to herself — that of giving her a tlxed establishment in London ; 
 8 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 which, by the by, Mr "Wortley liad always protested against. Lord 
 Dorchester seems to have asked no questions touching her inclination iti 
 either instance ; for a young lady in those days to mterfere or claim a right 
 of choice was almost thouglit, as it still is in France, a species of indelicacy. 
 Lady Mary nevertheless declared, though timidly, her utter antipathy to 
 the person proposed for her. Upon this her father summoned her to his 
 awful presence, and after expressing surprise at her presumption in ques- 
 tioning his judgment, assured her lie would not give her a single sixpence 
 if she married anybody else. She sought the usual resomxe of poor damsels 
 in the like case — begging permission not to marry at all ; but he answered 
 that then she should be immediately sent to a remote place in the country, 
 reside there during his Hfe, and at his death have no portion save a 
 moderate annuity. Relying upon the effect of these threats, he proceeded 
 as if she had given her fullest and freest consent : settlements were drawn, 
 wedding -clothes bought, the day Avas appointed, and everything made ready, 
 when she left the house to many Mr Wortley !' Lady Mary tells all tliis 
 better, though at greater length, in her letters to Mr AVortley ; and there 
 is much more in this antenuptial correspondence illustrative of her mascu- 
 line sense and strength of character, which we should gladly have quoted 
 had our limits permitted. One more letter we shall give, which, though 
 exhibiting her in a less favourable point of view, is remarkably characteris- 
 tic of the mixture of prudent calculation and unwomanly boldness with 
 wliich she misguided some parts of her future Hie. It is written on the 
 eve of her elopement : — 
 
 ' Reflect now, for the last time, in what manner you must take me. I 
 shall come to you with only a night-gown and petticoat ; and that is aU you 
 will get by me. I told a lady of my friends what I intend to do. You will 
 think her a very good friend when I tell you she proffered to lend us her 
 house. I did not accept of this till I had let you know it. If you think 
 it more convenient to cany me to your lodging, make no scruple of it. 
 Let it be where it will : if I am your wife, I shall think no place unfit for 
 me where you are. I beg we may leave London next morning, wherever 
 you intend to go. I should wish to go out of England, if it suits your 
 affairs. You may endeavour to make your father admit of seemg me, and 
 treat with mine (though I persist in thmkmg it will be to no purpose.) 
 But I cannot think of living in the midst of my relations and acquaintances 
 after so unjustifiable a step — so unjustifiable to the world ; but I think I 
 can justily myself to myself. 
 
 ' You can shew me no goodness I shall not be sensible of. However, 
 think again, and resolve never to think of me if you have the least doubr, 
 or that it is hkely to make you imeasy in your fortune. I believe to travel 
 is the most likely way to make a solitude agreeable, and not tiresome : 
 remember you have promised it. 
 
 ' 'Tis something odd for a woman that brings nothing to expect any- 
 thing ; but, after the way of my education, I dare not pretend to live but in 
 some degree suitable to it. I had rather die than return to a dependency 
 upon relations I have disobhged. Save me from that fear if you love me. 
 If you cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere, and teU me so. 
 'Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a short happmess, involve 
 myself in ages of misery. Do not imagine 1 shall be angry at anytliing 
 64 9 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 you can tell me. Let it be sincere : do not impose on a woman that leaves 
 all things for you.' 
 
 Leigh Hunt mentions rather a curious account of Lady ]\Iary's last 
 unmarried days, given by Spence, who professes to have heard it from 
 herself; and it seems so characteristic of her strange character, both in 
 youth and middle age, that we cannot refrain from quoting it. Mr Spence 
 makes her acquaintance at Rome in 1740, and thus writes of her : — 
 
 ' She is one of the most shining characters in the world, but shines like a 
 comet : she is all irregularity, and always wandering ; the most wise, most 
 imprudent ; loveliest, most disagreeable ; best natured, cruellest woman in 
 the world — " all things by turns, and nothing long." She was married 
 young, and she told me, with that freedom much travelling gives, that she 
 was never in so great a hurry of thought as the month before she was mar- 
 ried — she scarce slept any one night that month. You know she was one 
 of the most celebrated beauties of her day, and had a vast number of offers, 
 and the thing that kept her awake was who to fix upon. She was deter- 
 mined as to two points from the first — that is, to be married to somebody ; 
 and not to be married to the man her father advised her to have. The 
 la.st night of tlie month she determined, and in the morning left the hus- 
 band of her father's choice buying the wedding-ring, and scuttled away to 
 be married to Mr Wortley.' 
 
 This very undignified account of an affair so important to her, though 
 probably a little burlesqued, by her ladyship's desire to be witty, and to 
 laugh, though at her own expense, seems not to be entirely without founda- 
 tion, from some of her expressions to Mr Wortley at the time — such as, ' I 
 wanted courage to i-esist at first the will of my relations — I have examined 
 my own heart, whether I can leave everything to you ; I think I can. If I 
 change my mind, you shall know l^efore Sunday,' &c. 
 
 There are no dates to any of these letters ; but as their marriage, by 
 special licence, which took place a few days after the ceremony which she 
 describes herself as scuttling away to, bears the date of August 12, 1712, 
 and as the correspondence lasted two years, they must have been written 
 between Lady Mary's twentieth and twenty-second years. Her letters are 
 certainly remarkable productions for a woman at that or any other age — so 
 cool and wise, that they at once strike us as coming from the head i-ather than 
 the heart. Mr Wortley, with his jealousies and vacillations, though often 
 tiresome, and playing a very inferior part throughout the correspondence, has 
 at least the merit of looking something like a lover. She tires of his senti- 
 mental doubts of her love, and reiterated wishes that he could ' only know 
 what was passing in her heart ;' and asks him at last in a tone of pique, * Pray, 
 which way would you see into my heart ? You can frame no guesses about 
 it from either my speaking or writing ; and supposing I should attempt to 
 shew it to you, I know no other way.' But if most of the love was on his 
 side before marriage, it only makes the enthe change which soon took 
 place the more unaccountable. He was at that time member of parliament 
 for the town of Huntingdon ; and Lady Mary, for the next tliree years, 
 resided sometimes there and sometimes in Yorkshire, where, in 1713, her 
 oidy son Edwai-d was born. 
 
 As if in full justification of the opinion with which she had all along 
 10 
 
LADY MARY WOKTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 been endeavouring to impress him of the substantial excellency and modera- 
 tion of her own character and views, she seems to liavc been ready at once to 
 settle down into the quiet, domestic, affectionate wife lie had never been 
 able to picture her; while he, taking advantage of his parliamentary duties, 
 appears to have been almost constantly away from home, keeping iier in tlie 
 country while he was in town, and often seeing neither her nor his son for 
 five or six months together. Her letters to him at tliis time are alternately 
 affectionate and upbraiding. The following are specimens : — 
 
 ' Your absence increases my melancholy so much, that I friglit myself 
 with imaglnaiy horrors ; there wants but little of my being afraid of the 
 smallpox for you ; so unreasonable are my fears, which, liowever, proceed 
 from an unlimited love. If I lose you — I cannot bear that ?/— which I bless 
 God is without probability; but since the loss of my poor unhappy brother, 
 I dread every evil. I have been to-day at Acton to see my poor bi'other's 
 melancholy f;\mily. I cannot describe how much it has sunk my spirits. 
 
 ' 'Tis the most cruel thing in the world to tliink one has reason to com- 
 plain of what one loves. How can you be so careless ! 
 
 ' I am concerned I have not heard from you. I am in abundance of pain 
 about our dear child : though I am convinced it is both silly and wicked to 
 set my heart too fondly on anything in this world, yet I cannot overcome 
 myself so far as to thmk of parting with him with the resignation I ought 
 to do. I hope and beg of God he may live to be a comfort to us both.' 
 
 AU this ought surely to have affected him ; but there is no amendment, 
 for her next takes even a more remonstrative tone : — 
 
 'I know very well that nobody was ever teased into a liking; and 'tis 
 perhaps harder to revive a past one than to overcome an aversion ; but I 
 cannot forbear any longer telling you I think you use me very vmkindly. 
 I don't say so much of your absence as I should do, if you was in tlie 
 country and I m London — because I would not have you believe tliat I am 
 impatient to be in town ; but I am very sensible I parted with you in July, 
 and it is now the middle of November. As if this was not hardship enough, 
 you do not tell me you are sorry for it. You wi-ite seldom, and with so 
 much indifference, as shews you hardly think of me at aU. I complain of 
 ill health, and you only say you hope it is not so bad as I make it. You 
 never inquire after your child. I would fain flatter myself you have more 
 kindness for him and me than you express ; but I reflect with gi'ief tliat a 
 man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable, is gene- 
 rally proud of those that are shameful and silly.' 
 
 In considering all these expressions of her affectionate regard for ]Mr 
 Wortley, which are evidently genuine, as well as her tender and natural 
 anxiety about her son, and which our knowledge of his subsequent career 
 makes only the more affecting, we cannot help askuig ourselves, whether 
 Lady Mary might not have tm-ned out a very different person from tiie 
 hard, soured, sarcastic woman of the world we find her in afteryears, if 
 she had met with the respectful, lovuig treatment she had reason to look 
 for at the hands of one who had so often assured her of his passionate 
 regard, and who had proposed to himself the ' highest satisfaction from her, 
 and from no other?' We think she might. We have already said slie 
 had little of that womanly tenderness of lieai't and devotedness of nature 
 which, almost without any other possession, have power to make life a 
 
 11 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 delight and a romance to the very humblest of her sex. But she had, 
 what is scarcely second to these, at least for the respectable conduct of the 
 outer life, the most exquisite good sense. And no one can read through 
 her letters to Mr Wortley before marriage without seeing, from a thousand 
 expressions, that her ideal of life was shaped out of some of the best ele- 
 ments of om- nature. Speaking of her sentiments towards him, ' I rather 
 choose,' she says, ' to use the word friendship than love ; because, in the 
 general sense that word is spoke, it signities a passion rather fomided on 
 fancy than reason.' And then she explains — ' By friendship I mean an 
 entire communication of thoughts, wishes, interests, and pleasure ; a mutual 
 esteem, Avhich naturally carries with it a pleasing sweetness of conversation, 
 and terminates in the desire of making one another happy.' 
 
 But, with his ever-increasing alienation from her, these expressions on 
 her pai't of fondness, or even of lively interest in his concerns, naturally 
 diminish, and after a while change gi"adually into that peculiar tone of 
 quiet, careful respect, with which she continvies to ■m-ite both of and to him 
 to the end of his life. With all due deference to the high opinion Mr 
 Wortley's descendants seem to entertain of him, we suspect him to have 
 been one of those men, by no means rare in the world, who, though 
 attracted by genius or brilliant qualities, and ambitious of entering into 
 such relations with them as are likely to reflect honour and glory on them- 
 selves, are too essentially selfish ever to be able to identify themselves 
 with the most intimate objects of their love ; and having neither generosity 
 enough to admhe at their own expense, nor magnanimity to pardon in a 
 companion, the very superiority which tirst attracted them, either live on 
 in jealous im easiness, or are glad to avoid being dwarfed in their own 
 eyes, by keepmg at a convenient distance. After a year or two of this 
 unhappy manner of life, Mr Wortley, on his friends commg into power at 
 the death of Queen Anne, was appointed one of the lords of the treasury. 
 He was then of course obliged to bring Lady Mary to court, where her wit 
 and beauty soon attracted all eyes towards her. The kmg (George I.) is 
 described as not allowhig her to leave one of his parties without ' compli- 
 mentary remonstrances ;' and the Prince of Wales cries out to his princess, 
 ' in a rapture,' to look ' how becomingly Lady Mary was dressed.' ' Lady 
 Mary always dresses well,' answers the prmcess di'yly, and returns to her 
 cards. At this time she was also the intimate associate of Addison, Steele, 
 Congi-eve, Pope, and all the other noted men of letters of the day ; but was 
 ready, on the first oppoi'tunity, to relinquish without regret the caresses of 
 crowned heads, as well as the flatteries of wits and poets, for the long- 
 desired pleasure of travelling and seeing new countries and peoples. 
 
 In the year 1716 the embassy to the Porte became vacant; and as the 
 war between the Turks and Imperialists was raging violently, the other 
 powers of Europe were desirous of a mediation between them. Mr Wortley 
 not having succeeded to his own satisfaction as a minister at home, had 
 resigned his post, and was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, whither 
 his wife accompanied him. They travelled through Holland, Germany, and 
 Hungary, staying some time at Vienna, and presentmg themselves at the 
 various courts by the way in proper ambassador style. Lady Mary's 
 beauty and tact secured them favour everywhere ; and her letters to her 
 sister Lady Mar, Pope, and others, which begin at Kotterdam, give a vivid 
 12 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 description of every novelty she saw. Cities and governments, men and 
 women, and tlicir modes and practices, seem always to have interested lier 
 lively fancy far more than the most striking or varied aspects of natural 
 scenery ; and us travellers who could describe well were very rare in those 
 days, it may ho supposed that such communications as hers were received 
 at home Avith no ordinary degree of interest. She had, in return, constant 
 letters from her noted associates in England ; and a very few words from 
 Tope's first epistle to her, dated the 18th of August 1716, only a fortnight 
 after her departure, are quoted, to shew the style of his addresses to her, 
 as well as to prepare the way for a discussion of what afterwards took place 
 between them : — 
 
 ' You may easily imagine (he writes) how desirous I must be of a cor- 
 respondence with a person who had taught me, long ago, that it was as 
 possible to esteem at lirst-sight as to love, and who has since ruined me 
 for all the conversation of one sex, and almost all the friendsliip of the 
 other. I am but too sensiljle. through your means, tliat the company of 
 men wants a certain softness to recommend it, and that of women wants 
 everything else. How often have 1 been quietly going to take possession 
 of that tranquillity and indolence I had so long found in the country, when 
 one evening of your conversation has spoiled me for a solitaire too ! Books 
 have lost their effect upon me ; and I was convinced, since I saw you, that 
 there is something more powerful than philosophy ; and since I heard you, 
 that there is one alone wiser than all the sages.' 
 
 Nothing can be more like a kind woman and a lady than her ready answer 
 to all these studied compliments : — 
 
 ' Perhaps you '11 laugh at me,' she says, ' for thanking you very gravely 
 for all the obliging concern you express for me. 'Tis certain that I may, if 
 I please, take the fine things you say to me for wit and raillery, and it may 
 be it would be taking them right. But I never in my life was half so well 
 disposed to believe you in earnest; and that distance which makes the con- 
 tinuation of your friendship improbable, has very much increased my faith 
 in it.' Pity that anything less polite and cordial should ever have passed 
 between them ! 
 
 After havmg, for some political reason, not explained in the letters or 
 biography, returned from Vienna to Hanover, where George I. then was, 
 they again retraced their steps ; and owing to these marches and counter- 
 marches, only arrived at Adrianople on the 1st of April 1717, having been 
 eight months on the road. 
 
 Lady Mary was enchanted with Turkey, as a paradise of the senses ; 
 and her letters from thence picture so vividly the luxurious life of that 
 indolent and luxurious people, that we seem almost to feel the sunshine 
 and smell the perfume. The portraiture is so exact, that Dr Dallaway, 
 who followed in the same route eighty years after her, is not only ready to 
 vouch for the truth of every description, but insists on seeing, in her 
 thorough understanding of Turkish taste and feeling (although they told 
 him to the contrary), the long-supposed fact, finally disproved by the bio- 
 graphical anecdotes, of her having been admitted inside the harem. 
 
 In one of her first letters from Adrianople, she thus describes the process 
 of inoculation as she found it : — ' Aprojws of distempers, I am going to 
 tell you a thing that will make you wish vourself here. The smallpox, bo 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 fatal and so general among us, is here entirely harmless by the invention 
 of engrafting, which is the term they give it. Thei'e is a set of old women 
 Avho make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the 
 month of September, when the heat is abated. People send to one 
 another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the smallpox. 
 They make parties for this purpose ; and when they are met (commonly 
 fifteen or sixteen together), the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of 
 the matter of the best sort of smallpox, and asks what vein you please to 
 have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her with a 
 large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and 
 puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of the needle, 
 and after that binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in 
 this manner opens four or five veins. The children or young patients play 
 together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health till the eighth. 
 Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days — 
 very seldom three. They have rarely above twenty or thirty on their 
 faces, which never mark ; and in eight days' time they are as well as before 
 their illness. Wlien they are wounded, there remain runnmg sores during 
 the distemper, which I don't doubt is a great relief to it. Every year 
 thousands undergo this operation ; and the French ambassador says plea- 
 santly, that they take the smallpox here by way of diversion, as they take 
 the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has 
 died of it ; and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of the 
 experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. 
 
 ' I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention into 
 fashion in England ; and I should not fail to wi-ite to some of our doctors 
 very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that had virtue 
 enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue for the 
 good of mankind. But that distemper is too beneficial to them not to 
 expose to all their resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to 
 put an end to it.' 
 
 We shall transcribe another letter from the Levant as a sort of didce 
 to this tdile, and we give it not only for the charming subject, but as 
 a specimen of the sparkling beauty of Lady Mary's best style. It 
 describes her own visit to the young Sultana Fatima ; which, as Leigh 
 Hunt most happily says, ' is as if all English beauty, in her shape, had 
 gone to compare notes with all Tui-kish : ' — 
 
 ' I was met at the door by two black eunuchs, who led me through a 
 long gallery between two ranks of beautifid young girls, with their hair 
 finely plaited, almost hanging to their feet, all dressed in fine light 
 damasks, brocaded with silver. I was sorry that decency did not permit 
 me to stop to consider them nearer. But that thought was lost upon my 
 entrance into a large room, or rather pavilion, built round with gilded 
 sashes, which were most of them thrown up, and the trees planted near 
 them gave an agreeable shade, which hindered the sun from being trouble- 
 some. The jessamines and honeysuckles that twisted round their trunks 
 shed a soft perfume, increased by a white marble fountain playing sweet 
 water in tlie lower part of the room, which fell into three or four basins 
 with a pleasing sound. The roof was painted with all sorts of flowers, 
 falling out of gilded baskets, that seemed tumbling down, (What an artful 
 14 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 heightening of the beauty, by tlie idea of profusion !) On a sofa, raised 
 three steps, and covered with fine I'ersian carpets, sat the Kiyaya's lady, 
 leaning on cusliions of white satin embroidered ; and at her feet sat two 
 young girls about twelve years old, lovely as angels, dressed perfectly 
 rich, and almost covered with jewels. Jjut they were hardly seen near 
 tlie fair Fatima (for that was her name), so nuich her beauty effaced every 
 thing I have seen ; nay, all that has been called lovely either in England 
 or Germany. I must own that I never saw anything so gloriously beau- 
 tifid, nor can I recollect a face that would have been taken notice of near 
 hers. She stood up to receive me, saluting me after their fashion, putting 
 her hand to her heart with a sweetness full of majesty, that no court-breed- 
 ing could ever give. She ordered cushions to be given me, and took care 
 to place me in the corner, which is the place of honour. I confess, though 
 the Greek lady before had given me a great opinion of her beauty, I was 
 so struck with admiration that I could not for some time speak to her. 
 That surprising harmony of features — that charming result of the whole — 
 that exact proportion of body — that lovely bloom of complexion unsullied 
 by art — the unutterable enchantment of her smile ! But her eyes ! — large 
 and black, with all the soft languishment of the blue ; every turn of her 
 face discovering a new grace. She was dressed in a caftan of gold brocade, 
 flowered with silver, veiy well fitted to her shape, and shewing to admira • 
 tion the beauty of her bosom, only shaded by the thin gauze of her shift. 
 Her drawers were pale pink ; her waistcoat green and silver ; her slippers 
 white satin, finely embroidered ; her lovely arms adorned with bracelets 
 of diamonds ; and her broad girdle set romid with diamonds ; upon her 
 head a rich Turkish handkerchief of pink and silver ; her own tine black 
 hair hanging a great length in various tresses, and on one side of her head 
 some bodkins of jewels. I am afraid you will accuse me of extravagance 
 in this description. The gi-eatest writers have spoken with great warmth 
 of some celebrated pictures and statues. The workmanship of heaven cer- 
 tainly excels all our weak imitations, and I think has a much better claim 
 to our praise. For my part, I am not ashamed to own I took more 
 pleasure in looking on the beauteous Fatima than the iinest piece of sculp- 
 ture could have given me. 
 
 ' She told me the two girls at her feet were her daughters, though she 
 appeared too young to be then- mother. Her fau- maids were ranged 
 below the sofa to the number of twenty, and put me in mind of the ancient 
 nymphs. I did not tliink all nature coidd have furnished such a scene of 
 beauty. She made a sign to them to play and dance. Four of them imme- 
 diately began to play some soft airs on instruments between a lute and a 
 guitar, which they accompanied with their voices ; whUe the others danced 
 by turns. When the dance was over, four fair slaves came into the room 
 with silver censers in their hands, and perfumed the air with amber, aloes- 
 wood, and other scents. After this they served rae coffee upon theu- knees 
 in the finest japan china, with soucoups of silver gilt. The lovely Fatima 
 entertained me all this while in the most polite, agreeable manner, calling 
 me often Guzel Sultamim, or the beaidiful sidtana, and desiring my friend- 
 ship with the best grace in the world, lamenting that she could not enter- 
 tain me in my o-svn language. When I took my leave, two maids brought 
 in a fine silver basket of embroidered handkerchiefs. She begged I would 
 
 15 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 wear the richest for her sake, and gave the others to my woman and 
 interpretess.' 
 
 There is scarcely anything, even in the far-famed ' Arabian Nights' 
 Entertainments,' equal to this description in sensuous beauty ; and most 
 of her letters from Turkey breathe the same luxurious and poetic strain, 
 at the same time that they are full of evidences of her reading and powers 
 of satire. 
 
 ' I read over your Homer here,' she writes to Pope, ' with an infinite 
 pleasui'e, and found several little passages explained that I did not before 
 entirely comprehend the beauty of; many of the customs, and much of 
 the dress then in fashion, being yet retained. I don't wonder to find more 
 remains here of an age so distant than is to be found in any other country, 
 the Turks not taking that pains to introduce their own manners as has 
 been generally practised by other nations that imagine themselves more 
 polite. I can assure you that the princesses and great ladies pass their 
 time at their looms, erabroidermg veils and robes, surrounded by their 
 maids, who are always very numerous, in the same manner as we find 
 Andromache and Helen described.' 
 
 Nor is she less at home in the matters of religion, government, and 
 morals of the East. Indeed these letters, which seem to be addi-essed to 
 the public rather than to particular correspondents, give us a far higher 
 notion both of her genius and leaniing than anytliing else she ever wi'ote. 
 Mr Wortley's name is seldom mentioned in them, and never in the way 
 either of praise or blame ; so that we are apt to forget his existence. On 
 their return, they sailed through the Archipelago, touching at the coast 
 of Africa ; and having crossed the Mediterranean to Genoa, reached home 
 through Lyons and Paris about the end of the year 1718, having been 
 almost two years on their travels. 
 
 Soon after their return. Lady Mary set herself in good earnest to the 
 task of introducing moculation for smallpox. She had had good reason 
 to dread the disease, having lost her only brother by it, as well as her 
 own beautiful eyelashes. She always said that she meant the Flavia of 
 one of her Town - Eclogues for herself, and had expressed in that poem 
 her own sensations while slowly recovering, under the apprehension of 
 being totally disfigured. With courageous love she began upon her own 
 offsprmg, inoculating her daughter as soon as it was safe to do so ; and 
 havmg persevered, in spite of great opposition from the narrow jealousy 
 of the Faculty and the vulgar clamour of the ignorant, she lived to see 
 the inoculation quite triumphant, and to feel that she had been the means 
 of preserving life as well as beauty to thousands. Philanthropists of our 
 own day, who are inclined to retire in disgust from the war at all times to 
 be waged with more or less of ignorance and prejudice, would do well to 
 compare the reception which such blessed discoveries as those of the 
 beneficial application of sulphuric ether or chloroform have lately met with 
 in the world, with that encountered very little more than a century ago by 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her attempt to introduce the practice of 
 inoculation. The clamour raised against it, and of course against her, was 
 beyond belief. Her descendant tells us, that ' the clergy descanted from 
 their pulpits on tlie impiety of thus seeking to take events out of the hand 
 lis 
 
LADY MARY WORTLCY MONTAGU. 
 
 of Providence ; and the common people were taught to hoot at lier as an 
 unnatural mother, who had risked the lives of her own children.' Lady 
 Mary herself records, that ' tlie four great physicians deputed by govern- 
 ment to watch tlie progi-ess of her daughter's inoculation, betrayed not 
 only such mcredulity as to its success, but such an unwillingness to have 
 it succeed — such an evident spirit of rancour and malignity — tliat she 
 never cared to leave the child alone with them one second, lest it should in 
 some secret way sufler from their interference.' It is to be hoped her 
 maternal anxiety may have somewhat overrated the danger ; but she seems 
 to have been quite enough troubled and tormented in the cause to make 
 us pardon her the expression of some disgust, and an occasional regret 
 that even the prospect of future good to the world should have induced 
 her to incur so much present personal evil. 
 
 But Lady Mary's hours were not aU occupied in fighting the inoculation 
 battle at this time. Her company seems to have been more than ever 
 prized by the highest circles in London on accomit of her foreign travels; 
 and for some years after her return, she lived m the very whii-l of the 
 gayest and brightest society. She renewed her intimacy with the wits and 
 poets, speculated in the South Sea Scheme, wrote brilliant verses and 
 letters, danced, laughed, satirised her acquaintances, and, m short, lived a 
 life veiy much to her own taste — could it only have lasted ! ' For my own 
 part ' (as she writes to her sister Lady Mar, who had gone to live in 
 Paris, on account of some embarrassment of her affairs), ' I have some 
 coteries where wit and pleasure reign, and I should not fail to amuse 
 myself tolerably enough, but for the horrid quality of gi"owuig older and 
 older every day, and my present joys are made imperfect by my fears for 
 the future ; ' and again, in the highest good-humour, ' the town improves 
 daily; all people seem to make the best of the talent God has given them.' 
 Such sunshme was not, however, likely to be long unclouded ; and accordingly 
 we soon have such a sigh as this, dated Twickenham, 1721 : ' London was 
 never more gay than it is at present ; but I don't know how, I woidd fain 
 be ten years younger. I love flattery so well, I would fain have some 
 circumstances of probability added to it.' But this was probably written 
 on some morning when her eyes looked red, from having, as she says, 
 ' been such a beast as to sit up late last night ; ' for never was she so much 
 courted and admired as during these years. 
 
 Mr Pope had written many letters to her during the embassy, and soon 
 after her return, had not only prevailed on her to sit to Sir Godfrey IvjieUer 
 for a portrait, which was to embellish his villa at Twickenham, but had 
 had the influence to persuade Mr Wortley to purchase a house there, that 
 they might be his neighbours during the summer months. His notes at 
 this time breathe the warmest and most anxious friendship. Her will is 
 his law; he sees her every day; 'he knows not whether with more pleasure 
 or more respect ; submits to her in all things — nay, in the manner of all 
 things ; understands her as she would be understood, with a real re- 
 spect and resignation when an}i;hing is denied, and a liearty gratitude 
 when it is granted.' Alas ! that such dear delights should be so dan- 
 gerous ! 
 
 How long it was before these glowing expressions of admiration and 
 friendship biurst into a flame of passion, so violent as to consume all 
 
 17 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 prudence and propriety on the poet's side, is not very clearly made out. 
 Lady Mary seems pretty soon to have grown a little shy, for we tind her 
 in 1720 writing to her sister Mar from his near neighbom-hood — ' I see 
 sometimes Mr Congreve, and very seldom Mr Pope, who continues to 
 embellish his house. He has made a subterranean grotto, which he has 
 furnished with looking-glasses, and they tell me it has a very good effect.' 
 She transcribes at the same time a copy of verses addressed by Pope to 
 Gay in her praise, adding, with some consciousness, ' I stifled them here, 
 and beg they may die the same death at Paris, and never go farther than 
 your closet.' 
 
 The lines are very beautiful ; and as they are conclusive as to the poor 
 poet's passion, we shall give them here. Only the last eight lines are pub 
 lished in his works : — 
 
 ' Ah, friend, 'tis true — this truth you lovers know — 
 In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow ; 
 In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes 
 Of hanging mountains and of sloping greens : 
 Joy lives not here ; to happier seats it flies. 
 And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes. 
 
 "What are the gay parterre, the chequered shade, 
 The morning bower, the evening colonnade, 
 But soft recesses of uneasy minds, 
 To sigh unheard in to the passing winds ? 
 So the struck deer in some sequestered part 
 Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart ; 
 There stretched unseen in coverts hid from day, 
 Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.' 
 
 That some outbreak of his did occasion the quarrel between them, 
 which was followed by so much unmanly vituperation on his part, and 
 unwomanly abuse and contempt on hers, is no longer a matter of doubt : 
 it is so set forth in the introductory anecdotes ; and truly the heart sickens 
 at the recital ; and it would be difficult, indeed, to decide on which of the 
 two the greater share of censure ought to fall. ' Her OAvn statement was 
 this — that at some ill-chosen time, when she least expected what romancers 
 call a declaration, he made such passionate love to her, as, in spite of her 
 utmost endeavours to be angry and look grave, provoked an immoderate 
 fit of laughter; from which moment he became her implacable enemy.' 
 Oh, oh ! If she had been till that moment ignorant of the change in his 
 sentiments towards her, her emotion would certainly not have been one of 
 hard-hearted levity ; and if she did understand the state of his feelings, of 
 which we have little doubt, far less tact tlian that possessed by her clever 
 ladyship would have enabled her to put an end for ever to his presumption 
 before the possibility of a declaration. Pity she should have so completely 
 forgotten her own smart triplet, written only a few years before — 
 
 ' Let this great maxim be ray virtue's guide — 
 In part she is to blame that has been tried ; 
 He comes too near that comes to be denied.' 
 
 That delightful poet, Mr Leigh Hunt, in his notice of Lord Wharncliffe's Life 
 of Lady Mary, has a passage on this subject which is at once so appropriate 
 18 
 
LADY MARY WOKTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 and so characteristic of his own luimanc and most genial nature, that onr 
 readers will tliank us for transcribing it. Having given this statement, 
 ■which he calls ' a very tremendous one for all its levity,' he says: 'A pause 
 conies upon the spirit and tlie tongue at liearing such an explanation as 
 this — a pause in wliich no one of any imagination can help having a deep 
 sense of the blackness of the mortification with whicli tlie poor, misshapeil, 
 applauded poet must have felt his lustre smitten, and his future recollec- 
 tions degi*aded. To say that he had any right to make love to her is one 
 thing ; yet to believe that her manners and cast of character, as well as the 
 nature of the times and of the circles in which she moved, had given no 
 licence, no encouragement, no pardoning hope to the presumption, is 
 impossible ; and to trample in tliis way upon the whole miserable body of 
 his vanity and humility, upon all wliich the consciousness of acceptability 
 and glory among his fellow-creatures had given to sustain himself, and all 
 which in so poor, and dwarfed, and degradmg a shape required so much to 
 be sustained — assuredly it was inexcusable — it was inhuman. At all 
 events, it would have been inexcusable had anything in poor human nature 
 been inexcusable, and had a thousand things not encouraged the flattered 
 beauty to resent a hope so presumptuous from one unlike herself. But if 
 she was astonished, as she professed to be, at his thus trespassing beyond 
 barriers which she had continually suffered to be approached, she might 
 have been more humane in her astonishment. A little pity might at least 
 have divided the moment with contempt. It was not necessary to be quite 
 so cruel with one so insignificant. She had address ; could she not have 
 had recourse to a little of it under circumstances which would have done it 
 such special honour ? She had every advantage on her side ; could not 
 even this induce her to put a little more heart and consideration into her 
 repulse ? Oh, Lady Mary ! A duke's daughter wert thou, and a beauty, 
 and a wit, and a very triumphant and flattered personage, and covered wirh 
 glory as with lute-string and diamonds ; and yet false measure didst thou 
 take of thy superiority, and didst not see how small thou becamest in the 
 comparison, when thou didst thus trample under foot the poor little 
 immortal! ' 
 
 But if her inconsistent and harsh treatment of him is thus, by her own 
 confession, made fully manifest, the littleness both of the man and his love 
 are no less plainly and painfully apparent in the manner he afterwards 
 allowed himself to write of her. The greatest of poets has told us, that 
 
 ' Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds ;' 
 
 and Avithout putting such a love as that of our little immortal to so severe 
 a test, we might surely expect a feeling which had slidden from a real 
 admiration and respect into a strong though wi-ong passion, would have 
 been one of the last likely to have found vent in bitter satire and personal 
 slander and abuse ; yet so it is. Alas ! alas ! that 
 
 ' Poets themselves must fall, like those they sing.' 
 
 Lady Maiy, however, holds on her gay course, without remorse, and 
 in spite of the trampled writhings of her victim, though they were not with- 
 out the power to sting. Her letters at this, the gayest period of her lile, 
 
 19 
 
CHAMBKRS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 are full of high sphits, brilliant sallies, and bold, scandalous anecdotes — far 
 more often amusing than either true or delicate. No consideration of 
 prudence or propriety ever seems to stop the full flow of her lively wit ; 
 though no doubt she feels that her sister Mar knows both her world and 
 herself, when she ventures on such a gay effusion as the following, which 
 we give as a specimen of her most brilliant style : — 
 
 ' October 31, 1723. 
 
 ' T write you at this time piping hot from the birth-night, my brain 
 warmed with all the agreeable ideas that fine clothes, fine gentlemen, brisk 
 tunes, and lively dances can raise there. It is to be hoped that my letter 
 will entertain you ; at least you wUl certainly have the freshest account of 
 all passages on that glorious day. First, you must know that I led up the 
 ball, which you '11 stare at ; but, what is more, I believe m my conscience I 
 made one of the best figures there : to say truth, people are grown so 
 extravagantly ugly, that we old beauties are forced to come out on show- 
 days, to keep the court in countenance. I saw Mrs Murray there, through 
 whose hands this epistle will be conveyed. I do not know whether she 
 will make the same complamt to you that I do. Mrs West was with her, 
 who is a great prude, having but two lovei's at a time. I think those are 
 Lord Haddington and Mr Lindsay — the one for use, the other for show. 
 
 ' The world improves in one virtue to a violent degree — I mean plain- 
 dealing. Hypocrisy being, as the Scripture declares, a damnable sin, I 
 hope our publicans and sinners will be saved by tlie open profession of the 
 contrary virtue. I was told by a very good author, who is deep in the 
 secret, that at this very minute there is a bill cookmg up at a hunting-seat 
 in Norfolk (Houghton, Mr, afterwards Sir Robert Walpole's, then prime 
 minister), to have not taken out of the commandments, and clapped into 
 the creed, the ensuing session of parliament. This bold attempt for the 
 liberty of the subject is wholly projected by Mr Walpole, who proposed it 
 to the Secret Committee in his parlour. William Young seconded it, and 
 answered for all his acquaintance voting right to a man ; Doddington very 
 gravely objected, that the obstinacy of human nature was such, that he 
 feared, when they had positive commands to do so, perhaps people would 
 not commit adultery, and bear false witness against their neighbours, with 
 the readiness and cheerfulness they do at present. This objection seemed 
 to sink deep mto the minds of the greatest politicians at the board ; and I 
 don't know whether the bill wont be dropped, though it is certain it might 
 be carried on with great ease, the world being enth'ely revenue de la baga- 
 telle; and honour, virtue, reputation, &c. which we used to hear of in our 
 nursery, is as much laid aside and forgotten as crumpled ribbons. To 
 speak plainly, I am very sorry for the forlorn state of matrimony, which is 
 as much ridiculed by our young ladies as it used to be by young fellows ; 
 in short, both sexes have found the inconveniences of it, and the appella- 
 tion of " rake " is as genteel in a woman as a man of quality : it is no 
 
 scandal to say — •' Miss , the maid of honour, looks very well now she 
 
 is up again ; and poor Biddy Noel has never been quite well since her last 
 confinement." You may imagine we married women look very silly : we 
 have nothing to excuse ourselves, but that it was done a great while ago, 
 or we were very young when we did it.' 
 20 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 Occupied as she was with the pleasures of society at tliis mid-time of her 
 life and zenith of her power, Lady Mary seems by no means to have been 
 negligent as a mother. A fond or a very devoted and anxious mother she 
 probably never was : it was scarcely in her nature to be so. liut we have 
 seen the deep interest she expressed in her son while yet an infant ; and 
 though he soon betrayed symptoms of tiie weakness and want of rectitude 
 which afterwards caused his ruin, she was forbearing and reasonably indul- 
 gent, and most unwilling to abandon the hope of his improvement ; wliile 
 to Lady Bute, who appears always to have been safe-going and amiable, 
 though certainly partaking more of her father's staid prudence than either 
 her mother's brilliancy or her beauty, she seems then, as well as through- 
 out her whole life, to have been attentive and alYectionate. Interspersed 
 with lively sallies expressive of her fears of growing old, or ugly, or, above 
 all, ^clse, are frequent allusions, in her letters to her sister, of her 
 daughter's progress, and the pleasure she takes in her society. ' With 
 live thousand needles and pins running into my heart,' she says, ' I try to 
 console myself with a small damsel, who is at present everything I like ;' 
 though she is quite aware she is far from being beautiful ; for, after giving 
 her sister an account of her scapegrace son's having run away, and being 
 found at Oxford, she adds : ' It happens very luckily that the sobriety and 
 discretion are of my daughter's side : I am sorry the ugliness is so too, for 
 my son grows extremely handsome.' 
 
 In 1726 Lady Mary lost her father. The duke had, a few years before 
 his death, married the Lady Belle Bentinck, daughter of the Duke of Port- 
 land, and one of the most admired beauties of London. Lady Mary thought 
 she had married him with the hope of soon becoming a rich widow, and 
 by no means regarded her with partiality. If she did, however, she had 
 not long the expected benefit ; for she only survived her husband two 
 years. In the introductory anecdotes there is rather an interesting remi- 
 niscence of the duke by Lady Bute, which also gives a curious picture of 
 bygone manners. ' Lady Bute remembered having seen her grandiather 
 once only, but that in a manner likely to leave some impression on the 
 mind of a child. Her mother was dressing, and she playing about the 
 room, when there entered an elderly stranger (of dignified appearance, and 
 still handsome) with the authoritative air of a person entitled to admittance 
 at all times ; upon which, to her great surprise, Lady Mary instantly 
 starting up from the toilet-table, dishevelled as she was, fell on her knees 
 to ask his blessing — a proof that even in the great and gay world this 
 primitive custom Avas still universal.' 
 
 Her most intimate friends, after her quarrel with Pope (through which 
 she seems to have lost the friendship of Swi^t, Gay, and others), were 
 Lord Hervey, privy seal to George II., and his wife ; the Countesses of 
 Pomfret and Oxford ; Lady Rich ; Miss Shirret, afterwards Lady AValpole ; 
 and the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, of whom she was one of 
 the few lasting favourites. In the same poem in which Pope so grossly 
 stigmatises Lady Mary, he speaks thus contemptuously of Lord Hervey's 
 poetical genius : — 
 
 ' The lines are weak, another's pleased to say, 
 Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.' 
 
 21 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 And when called to account in a copy of verses of which Lady Mary and 
 Lord Ilervey were jointly the authors, he meanly enough denies the 
 infamous allusion to have been meant for her, and tries to silence them 
 botli by this equivocal compliment : ' I had no misunderstanding,' he says, 
 ' with that lady till after I was the author of my own misfortune, in dis- 
 continuing her acquaintance. I may ventm-e to own a truth, which cannot 
 be unpleasing to either of you : I assure you my reason for so doing was 
 merely that you had both too much wit for me, and tliat I could not do 
 with mine many things which you could with yours.' It is more pleasing 
 to tind her corresponding with Dr Edward Young about assisting Savage 
 the poet in his difficulties — in which, it is said, she was most liberal ; and 
 also giving Dr Young himself the benefit of her excellent judgment on his 
 tragedy of ' The Brothers.' Of Henry Fielding she was at all times a 
 sincere friend and cordial admirer, though it is a little painful to remark 
 the humble distance fi'om which he addresses her. They were cousins, 
 being descended in the same degree from George, Earl of Desmond ; and 
 it does not fail to strike us as a sign of the backward days in which they 
 lived, that such distance was felt to be necessary between a duke's daughter 
 and one of her own blood, who was her equal both in genius and attain- 
 ments, although only ' the poor son of the poor son of a younger brother.' 
 However, he himself seems to have taken no offence at what hurts us. 
 He dedicated to her his first comedy of ' Love in Several Masks,' and 
 addressed and counselled her on many subjects ; while she often expressed 
 in private her regard for him, pitied his misfortunes, excused his failings, 
 and admired his best writings, particularly ' Tom Jones,' in her own 
 copy of which she wrote ne plus ultra. She was acquainted also with his 
 beloved first wife, whose picture he drew in his ' Amelia,' and said that 
 the glowing language he had employed did no more than justice to the 
 delightful qualities of the original ; or to her beauty, although that had 
 suffered from the accident related in the novel — a frightful overturn, which 
 had a little injured the bridge of her nose. 
 
 Such, for many years, was the life of Lady Mary Wortley in the world 
 of fashion and literature. Her daughter, who married the Earl of Bute, 
 never seems to have given her a moment's uneasiness ; but the continued 
 misconduct of her son was a bitter source of distress both to her and to 
 his father. He was a man of showy person and superficial accomplish- 
 ments ; and his various adventures, both at home and abroad, were much 
 talked of in his day, though, as his conduct was always weak and profli- 
 gate, they must have sounded painfully on the ears of those who were 
 the most interested. His first exploit of running away from school was 
 followed by a long succession of follies, until he finally completed his ruin 
 by marrying, while under age, one who is described as a low-born, low- 
 bred woman, for whom he could scarcely have felt more than a momentary 
 liking, since he forsook her in a few weeks, and never sought to see Iier 
 again, although her life lasted nearly as long as liis own. 
 
 We have seen that in her early letters Lady Mary often indicated a 
 
 desire to live abroad, particularly in Italy ; and the history sets forth that, 
 
 having been confirmed in her preference by what she saw of that country 
 
 on her return from Constantinople, she, in 1739, being then in declining 
 
 22 
 
LADY MAKY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 health, took the resolution of spending the remainder of licr days there. 
 She left London, therefore, in July, and going direct to Venice, remained 
 in that interesting city for above a year, forming many connections with 
 its noble inhabitants. She then made a short tour to Florence, for the 
 purpose of meeting her friend Lady Pomfret ; and having visited liome, 
 returned to spend the winter at Avignon or Chambery. She afterwards 
 fixed her residence at Louvere, on the shores of the lake Isco, in tlie 
 Venetian territory, whither she had at first gone on account of tlie mineral 
 waters, which she found beneficial to her liealth. At tliat primitive but 
 beautiful place she took possession of a deserted palace, and was almost 
 deified by the simple inhabitants of the town, whom she instructed in 
 bread-baking, butter-making, and other domestic arts. There she planned 
 her garden, occupied herself with the interests of a country life, and was 
 happy in the superintendence of her vineyard and silkworms. For many 
 years she lived in great retirement, content with books for her society, and 
 occasionally going to visit the cities of Genoa and Padua, till about the year 
 1758, when she quitted her solitude, and settled entu-ely at Venice, where, 
 in spite of continual quarrels with j\Ir Murray, the political resident, she 
 remained till the death of Mr Wortley in 17G1. 
 
 The cause of this separation from her family, and long absence from her 
 own countiy and the society she seems so much to have enjoyed, has been 
 one of the much-debated points in Lady Mary's history. Let us hear 
 what her descendants say in explanation of it in the ' Biographical Anec- 
 dotes: — ' "Why Lady Mary Wortley left her own country, and spent tlie 
 last two-and-twenty years of her life in a foreign land, is a question which 
 has been repeatedly asked, and never can be answered with certainty, for 
 want of any positive evidence on the subject. It is very possible, how- 
 ever, that the solution of this supposed mysterj", like that of some riddles 
 which put the ingenuity of guessers to the furthest stretch, would prove 
 so simple as to leave curiosity blank and baffled. Lady Mary, writing 
 from Venice (as it appears, in the first year of her absence), tells Lady 
 Pomfret that she had long been persuaduig Mr Wortley to go abroad, and 
 at last, tired of delay, had set out alone, he promising to follow her, which 
 as yet, parliamentary attendance and other business had prevented his 
 doing ; but, till she knew whether to expect him or not, she could not pro- 
 ceed to meet her (Lady Pomfret) at Eome. If this was the real truth — 
 and there seems no reason to doubt it — we may easily conceive further 
 delays to have taken place ; and their reunion to have been so deferred 
 from time to time, that, insensibly, living asunder became like the natural 
 order of things, in which both acquiesced without any great reluctance. 
 But if, on the contrary, it was only the colour they chose to give the afiau-; 
 if the husband and wife — she in her fiftieth year, he several years older — 
 had determined upon a separation, nothing can be more likely than they 
 settled it quietly and deliberately between themselves, neither proclaimuig 
 it to the world nor considting any third person ; since tlieir daughter 
 was married, theii* son disjoined and alienated from them, and tliere existed 
 nobody who had a i"ight to call them to an account, or inquire into what 
 was solely then- own business. It admits of little doubt that their dispo- 
 sitions were unsuitable, and Mr Wortley had sensibly felt it even while a 
 lover. When at length convinced that in their case the approach of iige 
 
 23 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 would not have the harmonising effect which it has sometimes been known 
 to produce upon minds originally but ill-assorted, he was the very man to 
 think within himself — " If we cannot add to each other's happiness, why 
 should we do the reverse ? Let us be the friends at a distance which we 
 could not hope to remain by continuing uneasily yoked together ? " And 
 that Lady Mary's wishes had always pointed to a foreign residence, is 
 clearly to be mferred from a letter she wrote to him before then* marriage, 
 when it was in debate where they should live while confined to a very 
 narrow income. How infinitely bett-er would it be, she urges, to fix their 
 abode in Italy, amidst every source of enjoyment, every object that could 
 interest the mind and amuse the fancy, than to vegetate — she does not use 
 the word, but one may detect the thought — in an obscui'e country retire- 
 ment at home ! 
 
 ' These arguments, it is allowed, rest upon surmise and conjecture; but 
 there is proof that Lady Maiy's departure from England was not by any 
 means hasty or sudden ; for in a letter to Lady Pomfret, dated the 2d 
 of May 1739, she announces her design of going abroad that summer; 
 and she did not begin her journey till the end of July, three months 
 afterwards. Other letters are extant, affording equal proof that Mr 
 Wortley and she parted upon the most friendly terms, and indeed as no 
 couple could have done who had had any recent quarrel, or cause of 
 quarrel. She wrote to him from Dartford, her first stage ; again a few 
 lines from Dover ; and again the moment she arrived at Calais. Could 
 this have passed, or would the petty details about servants, carriages, 
 prices, &c. have been entered into between persons in a state of mutual 
 displeasure ? Not to mention that his preserving, docketing, and indorsing 
 with his own hand even these slight notes, as weU as all her subsequent 
 letters, shews that he received nothing which came from her with indiffe- 
 rence. His confidence in her was also very strongly testified by a transac- 
 tion that took place when she had been abroad about two years. Be- 
 lieving that her influence and persuasions might stiU have some effect 
 upon their unfortunate son, he entreated her to appoint a meeting with 
 him, form a judgment of his present dispositions, and decide Avhat course 
 it would be best to take, either in furthering or opposing his future pro- 
 jects. On the head of money, too, she was to determine with how much 
 he should be supplied, and very particularly enjoined to make him suppose 
 it came, not from his father, but herself. These were full powers to dele- 
 gate, such as every woman would not be trusted with in the families 
 where conjugal union is supposed to reign most uninterruptedly.' 
 
 All this is properly and delicately expressed in the circumstances, and 
 we are not inclined to quarrel with it for looking a little like what it is — the 
 line of argument that would naturally occur to a counsel whose business it 
 was to prove that certain parties were living in tolerable comfort together ; 
 at the same time that very, very suspicious marks of their disagreement 
 were abundantly visible upon the faces of both. The opposite counsel 
 would probably have drawn totally different conclusions even from tlie 
 facts laid down. Viewing the matter from neutral ground, we are of the 
 same opinion with the author of the ' Biographical Anecdotes,' in so far as 
 regards the full and entire understanding there seems to have existed between 
 Lady Mary and her husband. Hypocrisy towards each other was certainly 
 24 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 not the vice of either ; but that she left him with any hope of his ever 
 rejoining her, or remained in her unnatural banishment on any otlier tlian 
 compulsory grounds, we do not sec the smallest reason to believe. No 
 doubt she tells Lady Pomfret that lie is to follow her in six weeks, but 
 never in any of the cold notices slie was sending him, at the same time, of 
 her health and movements — and which iiave far more the air of wary 
 bulletins written by stipulation, than tlie careless communications to have 
 been looked for between a couple merely inditlerent to each otlier— is tliere 
 the remotest allusion made to his rejoining her, which there certainly must 
 have been had he ever intended or she expected it ; and though once, and 
 once only, in the course of her whole correspondence with her daughter, she 
 oflfers to come home if she can be of any use to Lady Bute's ' fatlier or her 
 family,' there are, on the other hand, so many and such bitter allusions to 
 herself as an alien and an exile, that we cannot for a moment suppose that 
 tliis unnatural banishment was self-imposed. No ! it is evident tliat the 
 time liad come when the same country was no longer to hold both wife and 
 husband. He can leave his parliamentary duties when either health or 
 hiclination may dictate the change ; but it is to some part of the continent, 
 distant enough from the spot she inhabits, to which he cautiously directs 
 his steps ; and never again till after his death — though immediately after — 
 does she find herself at liberty to revisit riie land which contains every 
 individual in whom she takes an interest. 
 
 But in considering Lady Mary's character as set forth in this extraor- 
 dinary correspondence, the wonder is, rather that such a separation should 
 have been so long delayed, than that it took place when it did ; and the 
 delay probably says more for Mr Wortley's patience and his desire to avoid 
 eclat and public scandal, than for his nice sense of what was due to him ac- 
 cording to the common sense of mankind. Whether Lady Mary were really 
 capable of becoming the true wife and affectionate friend she knew very 
 well how to picture, seems at best a little doubtful ; but when we add to 
 her natural temperament and disposition the tryhig circumstances m which 
 she was placed, we at once expect the reverse that we tind. One such 
 embarrassing circumstance as that set forth m the appendix to Lord 
 WharnclifFe's book (which our readers must take our word for) as havmg 
 occurred to her in 1721, however glossed over by a reference to the money- 
 speculations so prevalent in all classes at the time, or the liberty of conduct 
 allowed in certain circles of society, must have given Mr Wortley pretty 
 sufficient grounds for seeking an early separation, had carelessness and the 
 love of present ease and quiet not prevented him; and considering the 
 manner of her life, and the license of tone she constantly allows herself in 
 remarking upon other people, it would be very extraordinary indeed if her 
 conduct during all these years had not afforded him further opportunities. 
 We cannot doubt that it did ; and her quiet acquiescence in the separation, 
 when perhaps, ' without any recent quarrel or cause of quan-el,' he was at 
 last, by her habitual indiscretion of tongue and behaviour, wearied out of his 
 unmanly apathy, only shews her entire consciousness of the fact. The 
 argument of his consulting her about their son, and allowing her to deter- 
 mine with how much money he should be supplied, goes no length against 
 this view. She was the only person in the world equally interested witli 
 himself in the unfortunate young man ; and he must have known enough of 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 her shrewdness, as well as of her being no spendthi-ift, to be fully aware 
 that on such a subject she was not only the natural, but the safest adviser 
 he could have called to the support of his own economical views. Nor 
 need we wonder to find her ' entering into petty details about seiwants, 
 carriages, prices,' &c. Since the separation was not to be a legal one, and 
 was evidently wished to be as little as possible the subject of public gossip, 
 some show of correspondence was necessary to satisfy inquiry ; and in a 
 false position like that in which they stood to each other, what could be 
 more embarrassing than to find proper topics, or more natural than to seize 
 on whatever was most obvious or ordinary? As maybe expected in the 
 circumstances, she loses no opportunity of letting him know how much she 
 is thought of and courted wherever she goes — that being no doubt the 
 pleasantest way of proving to him how enthely u-reproachable must be her 
 conduct. ' I am visited,' she wi-ites from Venice, ' by the most consider- 
 able people of the town, and all the foreign ministers. They could not 
 have shewn me more honour if I had been an ambassadress.' And again — 
 ' Lord Fitzwilliam arrived here three days ago ; he came to see me the next 
 day, as all the English do, who are much surprised at the civilities and the 
 familiarities with which I am received by the noble ladies ; and I own I 
 have a little vanity in it.' And sometimes she is disposed to be compli- 
 mentary to him as well as to herself — 'It is impossible to be better treated 
 — I may even say more courted — than I am here. I am very glad of your 
 good fortune at London. You may remember I have always told you it 
 was in your power to make the first figure in the House of Commons ;' 
 and more than once, in WTiting to her daughter, she shews her sense of his 
 forbearance and handsome conduct towards her, by speaking highly of his 
 character for good sense, firmness, and generosity ; while his answers to 
 her letters are characteristically curt and commonplace, treating chiefly of 
 the weather and health, though shewing the kmd of interest m her move- 
 ments necessary to enable him to talk safely of her. * I wish,' he asks ' (if 
 it be easy), you would be exact and clear in your facts, because I shall lay 
 by carefully what you write of your travels.' 
 
 During this, Lady Mary's last residence abroad, she wrote a gi-eat 
 many letters, by far the best and most interesting of which are those 
 addressed to Lady Bute, and the worst to Sir James and Lady Stuart — 
 recent and accidental acquaintances, to whom she writes in a flippant, 
 empty, reckless manner, that is far from pleasing. To Lady Oxford, a 
 formal, high-bred old lady, she adopts — perhaps unconsciously — a formal, 
 lofty manner, full of grace and respectful professions of friendship ; and 
 to Lady Pomfret, who seems to have been learned, and somewhat exacting, 
 she is full of compliments and excuses — not always quite sincere — inter- 
 spersed with bits of antiquarian information and literature. But with Lady 
 Bute she is always natural, and apparently open and confidential, express- 
 ing a real and motherly mterest in her happiness and family concerns, and 
 minutely describing her own manner of life, and her views, feelings, and 
 opinions on every subject that occurs to her. When she has no longer 
 a variety of interesting people to discuss, her vigorous and lively mind 
 returns upoift the past, or philosophises on the present and future ; and she 
 sometimes rises to an elevation of thought and sentiment that would seem 
 fully to entitle her to our love and approbation, if we could either believe in 
 26 
 
LADY MAllV WOKTLEV MONTAGU. 
 
 an entire cliansre of nature, or liad not learned, from painful experience, that 
 people may often be capable of thinking, and even of feeling, finely and 
 rightly, without a corresponding propriety of action. Lady liute did not 
 write in return so fully and frequently as was either satisfactory to her 
 mother, or justifialile in the correct, dutiful daughter she is represented, 
 and in all other respects, seems really to have been. That she neither 
 entirely compi-ehended her mother intellectually, nor shewed a decent 
 toleration and respect for the difference of interest and occupation inevit- 
 able between a mother and daughter so very differently situated,. Avas 
 evidently owing to limitation of mind rather than of affection ; yet, when 
 we see the real pleasure and resource Lady Mary found in her solitude in 
 the Avorks of imagination sent to her from England— inferior as that species 
 of literature might be in her day as compared with the present — we scarcely 
 forgive the commonplace daughter the loise contemijt which must have 
 called forth the following lively and philosophical rebuke : — 
 
 ' Daughter ! daughter ! don't call names ; you are always abusing my 
 pleasures, which is what no mortal will bear. Trash, lumber, sad stuff", are 
 the titles you give to my favourite amusement. If I call a white staff a 
 stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and the ensigns of illustrious 
 orders coloured strings, this may be philosophically true, but would be 
 very ill received. We have all our playthings : happy are those tliat can 
 be contented with those they can obtain. Those hours are spent in the 
 wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least pro- 
 ductive of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in reading 
 the adventures of imaginary people, than the Duchess of Marlborough, 
 who passed the latter years of her life in paddling with her will, and con- 
 triving schemes of plaguing some, and extracting praises from others, to no 
 purpose, eternally disappointed, and eternally fretting. The active scenes 
 are over at my age. I indulge, with all the art I can, my taste for reading. 
 If I would confine it to valuable books, they are almost as rare as valuable 
 men. I must be content with what I can find. As I approach a second 
 childhood, I endeavour to enter mto the pleasures of it. Your youngest 
 son is perhaps, at this very moment, riding on a poker with great delight, 
 not at all regretting that it is not a gold one, and much less wishing it an 
 Arabian horse, which he could not know how to manage. I am reading an 
 idle tale, not expecting wit or truth in it, and am very glad that it is not 
 metaphysics to puzzle my judgment, or history to mislead my opinion. 
 He fortifies his health with exercise ; I calm my cares by oblivion. The 
 methods may appear low to busy people ; but if he improves his strength, 
 and I forget my infirmities, we both attain very desirable ends.' 
 
 It is impossible not to regi'et that one so alive to the charm there is, 
 more or less, in all imaginative literature, should not have enjoyed it in the 
 excellence to which the art of novel and romance writing has reached in 
 our own day. To think of her surprise and delight on opening one of the 
 book parcels Lady Bute so abused and sent, if, instead of some of the well- 
 meaning but flat productions of Charlotte Lennox, or, still worse, some 
 flimsy frivolity of Sally Fielding's, she had lighted on the ' Antiquary,' or 
 ' Guy Mannering,' how she would have wondered and exclaimed ! and sat 
 up all night, and, in total defiance of the organic laws, to which she in 
 general paid such wholesome respect, would have devoured the entire three 
 
 27 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 volumes in one long and delicious meal ! With her fine sense and lively 
 imagination, she must at once have set her seal to the truth of the Great 
 Northern Wizard. At the same time we cannot deny having a little misgiv- 
 ing that she would have had the very questionable taste to call Alexander 
 Dumas her favourite among our livmg authors. Yes, the gorgeous beauty 
 and sensualism of the wicked Margarite de Valois would too probably have 
 dazzled her Epicurean fancy as much as the Sultana Fatima did her eyes. 
 And these three dashing Musketeers — to whom she would have given her 
 choice appellation of ' pretty fellows ' — would, we fear, have been scarcely 
 less attractive and delightful to her than to the princesses and other gi-eat 
 ladies of their own oi'bit. 
 
 But we must hasten from such speculations to shew our heroine once 
 more, on her return to her native land from this long exile, which is indeed 
 her final appearance on the stage of life ; and first, in Lady Louisa Stuart's 
 account : — 
 
 ' She survived her return home too short a time to afi'ord much more 
 matter for anecdotes. Those who could remember her arrival, spoke with 
 delight of the cleaimess, vivacity, and raciness of her conversation, and the 
 youthful vigour which seemed to animate her mind. She did not appear 
 displeased at the general curiosity to see her, nor void of curiosity herself 
 concerning the new things and people that her native country presented to 
 her view after so long an absence : yet, had her life lasted half as many 
 years as it did months, the probability is, that she would have gone abroad 
 again; for her habits had become completely foreign in all those little 
 circumstances, the sum of which must constitute the comfort or discomfort 
 of every passing day. She was accustomed to foreign servants, and to tJie 
 spaciousness of a foreign dwelling. Her description of the harpsichord - 
 shaped house she inhabited in one of the streets bordering upon Hanover 
 Square grew into a proverbial phrase : " I am most handsomely lodged," 
 said she ; " I have two very decent closets and a cupboard on each floor." 
 This served to laugh at, but could not be a pleasant exchange for the Italian 
 palazzo. 
 
 * However, all earthly good and evil were very soon terminated by a fatal 
 malady, the growth of which she had long concealed. The fatigues she 
 undei^went in her journey to England tended to exasperate its symptoms ; 
 it increased rapidly ; and before ten months were over, she died in the 
 seventy-third year of her age.' 
 
 Horace Walpole, who was ever the bitter enemy of Lady Mary, probably 
 because she had so often ridiculed and even scandalised his mother, and 
 was, besides, the bosom friend of Miss Skerrit, his father's second wife, 
 whom he detested, describes her in ridiculous terms as ' masquerading in 
 a domino ' when he saw her in Italy, and wearing what he calls a ' horse- 
 man's coat' on her return ; insinuating, with his usual malice, that she must 
 have had private and improper reasons for her eccentric costumes. How 
 cruel this appears, when we find that she had suffered long, and with silent 
 fortitude, from the fatal disease of cancer in the breast, which probably 
 rendered the weai-ing of a loose dress absolutely necessary ! She died on 
 the 21st of August 17G2. 
 
 Mr Hunt gives the following account of her last days, as having been 
 28 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 written by Mrs Montagu, wlio married her husband's cousin, to a friend at 
 Naples. It is published among Mrs Montagu's collected letters : — 
 
 • You have lately returned us from Italy a very extraordinary personage — 
 Lady Mary Wortley. When nature is at the trouble of making a very 
 singular person, time does right in respecting it. Medals are preserved 
 Avhen common coin is worn out ; and as great geniuses are rather matters 
 of curiosity than use, this lady seems to be reserved for a wonder to more 
 than one generation. She docs not look older than when she went abroad; 
 has more than the vivacity of fifteen ; and a memory which is perhaps 
 unique. Several people visited her out of curiosity, wliich she did not like. 
 I visit her because her husband and mine were cousin-germans ; and though 
 she has not any foolish partiality for her husband and his relations, I was 
 very graciously received, and, you may imagine, entertained by one who 
 neither thinks, speaks, acts, nor dresses like anybody else. Iler domestic 
 establishment is made up of all nations ; and when you get into her drawing- 
 room, you imagine you are in the tirst storey of the Tower of Babel. A 
 Hungarian servant takes your name at the door ; he gives it to an Italian, 
 who delivers it to a Frenchman ; the Frenchman to a Swiss ; and the Swiss 
 to a Folander ; so that by the time you get to her ladyship's presence, you 
 have changed your name five times without the expense of an act of 
 pai'liament.' 
 
 In a letter written after Lady Mary's death, the same writer says : 
 ' Lady Mary W. Montagu returned to England, as it were, to finish where 
 she had began. T wish she had given us an account of the events that 
 filled the space between. She had a ten-ible distemper — the most virulent 
 cancer ever heard of, which soon "carried her off. I met her at my Lady 
 Bute's in June, and she then looked well ; in three weeks after, at my 
 return to London, I heard she was given over. The hemlock kept her 
 drowsy and free from pain ; and the physicians thought, if it liad been 
 given early, it might have saved her. 
 
 ' She left her son One guinea. He is too much of a sage to be concerned 
 about money, I presume. When I first knew him a rake and a beau, I did 
 not imagine he would addict himself to rabbinical learning, and then travel 
 all over the East, the gi-eat itinerant savant of the world. One has read 
 that the great believers in the transmigi-ation of souls suppose a man who 
 has been rapacious and cunning does penance in the shape of a fox ; 
 another, cruel and bloody, enters the body of a wolf ; but I believe my 
 poor cousin, in his pre-existent state, having broken all moral laws, has 
 been sentenced to suffer in aU the various characters of human life. He 
 has run tlirough them all successfully enough. His dispute with Mr 
 Needham was compaunicated to me by a gentleman of the museum, and I 
 think he will gain no laurels there ; but he speaks as decisively as if he 
 had been bred at Pharaoh's court in all the learning of the Eg\-ptians. He 
 has certainly very uncommon parts ; but too much of the rapidity of his 
 mother's genius.' 
 
 This gives rather a more favourable impression of young Wortley than 
 is given either by his mother or her descendants. He seems to have been 
 the most uncomfortable of sons— weak, flighty, and false ; and neither of his 
 parents was at all blind to his demerits. He was constantly plaguing 
 them for money: and as Mr Wortley, senior, is said to have been immensely 
 
 2U 
 
CHAMBERS'S PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 rich — leaving at his death £300,000 — the annuity of £300 to which he 
 chose to restrict his sou was a most inadequate allowance : a mistake, ii 
 meant to guard him from the temptation of expensive pleasures ; and a still 
 graver error, if arising, which we suspect it chiefly did, from a desire not 
 unfrequently manifested by both parents, either to hoard money, or to keep 
 it for their own pleasures. The latter part of this extraordinary man's 
 history is thus given by Lord WharnclifFe : — ' It was not until a conviction 
 of his being irreclaimable was forced upon Mr Wortley, that he adopted 
 the severe measure of depriving him by his will of the succession to the 
 family estate ; but even this step was not taken without a sufficient 
 provision being made for him ; and in the event of his having an heir 
 legitimately born, the estate was to return to that heir, to the exclusion of 
 his sister Lady Bute's children. This provision in Mr Wortley's will 
 he endeavoured to take advantage of in a manner wliich is highly charac- 
 teristic. Mr Edward Woilley, early in life, was married in a way then not 
 uncommon — namely, a Fleet marriage. With that wife he did not live 
 long, and he had no issue. After his father's death, he lived several 
 years in Egjqjt, and there is supposed to have professed the religion of 
 Mohammed. In 1776 Mr E. Wortley, then living at Venice — his wife 
 being dead — through the agency, as is supposed, of his friend Romney the 
 painter, caused an advertisement to be inserted in the ' Public Advertiser' 
 of April 16 in that year, in the following words : — 'A gentleman who has 
 filled two successive seats in parliament, is nearly sixty years of age, lives 
 in great splendour and hospitality, and from wliom a considerable estate 
 must pass away if he dies without issue, hath no objection to marry a 
 widow or single lady, provided the party be of genteel birth, polite 
 manners, and is five or six months gone in her pregnancy. Letters directed 
 
 to Brecknock, Esq., at Will's Coffee-House, will be honoured with 
 
 due attention, secrecy, and every mark of respect.' ' It has always been 
 believed in the family that this advertisement was successful, and that a 
 woman having the qualifications required by it was actually sent to Paris 
 to meet Mr E. Wortley, who got as far as Lyons on his way thither. 
 There, however, while eating a beccafigue for supper, a bone stuck in his 
 throat, and occasioned his death, thus putting an end to this honest 
 scheme.' 
 
 Besides her letters. Lady Mary left many poems, a few trifling essays, 
 and a short prose piece, entitled an ' Account of the Court of George I. 
 at his Accession ;' which is written much in the manner of Horace Wal- 
 pole's ' Reminiscences ' — gay, bold, and highly seasoned with scandalous 
 gossip of the pei'sonal kind. Her poems have been well named veis de 
 societe, as they abomid in lively images, and clever, irritating sarcasms on 
 people and things around her : they had naturally very considerable popu- 
 larity in her own day. But they are rhymed satu-e or rhymed wit, and 
 that by no means of the most delicate sort, rather than real poetry, and 
 have been already much longer forgotten than they were ever remembered. 
 It is, therefore, on her letters that her fame as a writer cntu-ely rests ; but 
 these will not soon be forgotten. Besides the charm of their mere style — 
 so clear, forcilile, and easy, and yet so seldom inelegant; so perfectly 
 natural and off-hand, that it sounds oftener like the fresh, unfettered, 
 30 
 
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 
 
 nnconscious utterance of genius in conversation, than what is called 
 composition even of the most fiimiliar kind — they arc full of clever insiglit, 
 lively wit, and striking reflections. Unfortunately, many of tlicm are also 
 disfigured by a coarseness of expression and indelicacy of sentiment 
 bordering on, or rather indeed altogether touching, the licentious ; -wliich 
 no reference to the liberty permitted in a less refined age either reconciles 
 us to, or will even induce us to pardon. Notliing but limitation of space 
 prevents us from quoting largely from these inimitable productions. 
 
 We have already given specimens which seemed to illustrate her feelings 
 and her life as it was passing. One or two more sentences we shall have 
 room foi', and they shall be of different kinds : tlie first is addressed to 
 her husband in their early life, and may be called an exhortation to 
 impudence : — ' I am glad you think of serving your friends : I hope it 
 will put you in mind of serving yourself. I need not enlarge upon the 
 advantages of money; everything we see and everything we hear puts 
 us in remembrance of it. If it were possible to restore liberty to your 
 country, or limit the encroachments of the prerogative, by reducing 
 yourself to a garret, I should be pleased to share so glorious a prerogative 
 with you ; but as the world is, and will be, 'tis a sort of duty to be rich, 
 that it may be in one's power to do good — riches being another word for 
 power ; towards the obtaining of which the first necessary qualification is 
 impudence, and (as Demosthenes said of pronunciation in oratory) the 
 second is impudence, and the third still impudence ! No modest man 
 ever did or ever will make his fortune. Your friend Lord Halifax, R. 
 Walpole, and all other remarkable instances of quick advancement, have 
 been remarkably impudent. The ministry is like a play at court : there's 
 a little door to get in, and a great crowd without, shoving and tlu-usting 
 who shall be foremost ; people who knock others with their elbows, 
 disregard a little kick of the shins, and still thrust heartily forwai-ds, are 
 sure of a good place. Your modest man stands behind in the crowd, and 
 is shoved about by everybody, his clothes torn, almost squeezed to death, 
 and sees a thousand get in before him that don't make so good a figure as 
 himself. If this letter is impertinent, it is founded upon an opinion of 
 your merit, which, if it is a mistake, I would not be undeceived ; it is my 
 interest to believe (as I do) that you deserve everything, and are capable 
 of everything ; but nobody else will believe it if they see you get nothing.' 
 
 To her daughter she -rn-ites in this candid and reasonable tone of the 
 relation between parent and child: — 'I am so far persuaded of the goodness 
 of your heart, I have often had a mind to write you a consolatory epistle 
 on my own death, which I believe will be some affliction, thougli my life 
 is wholly useless to you. That part of it which we passed together you 
 have reason to remember with gratitude, though I think you misplace it : 
 you are no more obliged to me for bringing you into the world, than I am 
 to you for coming into it, and I never made use of that commonplace 
 (and, like most commonplace, false) argument as exacting any return of 
 affection. There was a mutual necessity on us both to part at that time, 
 and no obligation on either side. In the case of your infancy there was so 
 great a mixture of instinct, I can scarce even put that in the number of 
 the proofs I have given you of my love ; but I confess I think it a groat 
 one if you compare my after conduct towards you with that of other 
 
 31 
 
Chambers's papers for the people. 
 
 mothers, who generally look on children as devoted to their pleasures, 
 and bound by duty to have no sentiments but what they please to 
 give them ; playthings at first, and afterwards the objects on which they 
 may exercise their spleen, tyranny, or ill-humour. I have always thought 
 of you in a different manner. Your happiness was my first wish, and the 
 pursuit of all my actions, divested of all selfish interest so far. I think 
 you ought, and believe you do, remember me as your real friend.' 
 
 Only one more, on the philosophy of second childhood : — ' Age, when it 
 does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally returns to the 
 milky disposition of infancy. Time has the same effect on the mind as on 
 the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more 
 conspicuous from the others retiring ; the various views of life are aban- 
 doned, from want of ability to preserve them, as the fine complexion is 
 lost in wrinkles ; but as surely as a large nose gi-ows longer, and a wide 
 mouth wider, the tender child in your nursery will be a tender old woman, 
 though perhaps reason may have restrained the appearance of it till the 
 mind, relaxed, is no longer capable of concealing its weakness.' 
 
 To these hundreds more might be added in proof of her wit, sagacity, 
 and power of satirical reviling, as well as of the less laudable licence in 
 which, as we have just hinted, she too often indulged. 
 
 In taking leave of this remai-kable woman, her whole character seems to 
 rise up before us like one of Salvator's striking landscapes, full of power, 
 and passion, and beauty ; there ' are the same bright gleams of sunshine, 
 gorgeous valleys, and purple summits, on which the eye would fain linger 
 in delight, but dare not ; for the lurid cloud is there, and the bowed trees 
 are whispering that the hurricane is not far distant; while masses of 
 impenetrable shade are suggestive to the imagination of rocks akeady 
 riven by the lightiimg, and dark and gloomy caves the abodes of doleful 
 creatures. 
 
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GENERAL LIBRARY U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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