PART II.

----Rushing along, leaving innumerable chimneys behind pouring out sempiternal smoke; the air filled with a perpetual clank of hammers, the crashing of enormous wheels, and jangling of colossal chains; every human being within sight being as black as a negro, and the gust from the shore giving the closest resemblance to a blast between the tropics. Our steamer played her part handsomely in this general effort to stifle the population, and threw columns of smoke, right and left, as she moved through the bends of the river, thick enough to have choked an army of coal-heavers. I am as little of a sentimentalist as any man; I have always pronounced Rousseau an impostor. I regretted that the pillory has been abolished in the days of the modern novelists of France; but I was nearly in a state of suffocation, and some allowance must be made for the wrath of asphyxia. As I looked on the fuliginous sky, and the cineritious earth, on the ember-coloured trees, and half vitrified villas, the whole calcined landscape, I involuntarily asked myself, what is the good of all this hammering, forging, and roasting alive? Is man to be made perfect in the manner of a Westphalia ham? or is it to be the crowning glory of a nation, that she is the great nail-maker to the civilized globe? Is her whole soul to be absorbed in the making of chain-cables and cotton-twist? Are all her aspirations to breathe only linsey-woolsey, Yorkshire broadcloth, and Birmingham buttons? Are the cheeks of her maids to grow pallid, for the sake of clothing the lower portion of a Hindoo mountaineer in flannel, and the forehead of an African savage in book-muslin? Or are our men, by nature the finest race in the world, to be crippled into the physiognomy and faculties of baboons, merely to make shawls for the Queen of Madagascar, or slippers for the great Mogul?

I was startled, by an universal run towards the head of the steamer. Men, women, children, lap-dogs, and all rushed forward, followed by an avalanche of bandboxes, which, heaped half chimney high, had heaved with a sudden lurch of the helm, and over-spread the deck with a chaos of caps, bonnets, and inferior appendages to the toilet. In the cloud of smoke above, around, and below, we had as nearly as possible run ashore upon the Isle of Dogs. The captain, as all the regular reports on occasions of disaster say, behaved in this extremity “with a coolness, a firmness, and a sagacity worthy of all admiration.” He had made nine hundred and ninety-nine voyages, to Margate before; it was therefore wholly impossible that he could have shot the head of his ship into the mud of the left bank of the Thames on his thousandth transit. The fact, however, seemed rather against the theory. But as I was not drowned, was not a shareholder in the vessel, and have an antipathy to courts-martial, I turned from the brawling of the present, to the bulletins of the past, and thought of Dog-land in its glory.

THE ISLE OF DOGS.

“_On Linden when the sun was low._”

Ten thousand years the Isle of Dogs, Lay sunk in mire, and hid in fogs, Rats, cats and bats, and snakes and frogs-- The tenants of its scenery.

No pic-nic parties came from town, To dance with nymphs, white, black, or brown, (They stopped at Greenwich, at the Crown, Neglecting all its greenery.)

Dut Dog-land saw another sight, When serjeants cried, “Eyes left, eyes right,” And jackets blue, and breeches white, Were seen upon its tenantry.

Then tents along the shore were seen, Then opened shop the gay Canteen, And floated flags, inscribed,--“The Queen.” All bustle, show, and pennantry.

There strutted laughter-loving Pat, John Bull (in spirits rather flat,) And Donald, restless as a rat, Three nations in their rivalry.

There bugle rang, and rattled drum, And sparkled in the glass the rum, Each hero thinking of his plum, The prize of Spanish chivalry.

At last, Blue-Peter mast-high shone, The Isle of Dogs was left alone, The bats and rats then claimed their own By process sure and summary.

The bold battalions sail’d for Spain, Soon longing to get home again, Finding their stomachs tried in vain To live on Spanish _flummery_.

A cloud of smoke, which the wrath of Æolus poured upon our vessel, as a general contribution from all the forges along shore, here broke my reverie, by nearly suffocating the ship’s company. But the river in this quarter is as capricious as the fashions of a French milliner, or the loves of a figurante. We rounded a point of land, emerged into blue stream and bright sky, and left the whole Cyclopean region behind, ruddied with jets of flame, and shrouded with vapour, like a re-rehearsal of the great fire of London.

I had scarcely time to rejoice in the consciousness that I breathed once more, when my ear was caught by the sound of a song at the fore-part of the deck. The voice was of that peculiar kind, which once belonged to the stage coachman, (a race now belonging alone to history,)--strong without clearness; full without force; deep without profundity, and, as Sydney Smith says, “a great many other things _without_ a great many other things;” or, as Dr. Parr would tell mankind,--“the product of nights of driving and days of indulgence; of facing the wintry storm, and enjoying the genial cup, the labours of the Jehu, and the luxuries of the Sybarite,”--it was to Moore’s melody,--

----“My dream of life From morn till night, Was love, still, love.”

THE SONG OF THE MAIL-COACHMAN.

Oh, the days were bright When, young and light, I drove my team, My four-in-hand Along the Strand, Of bloods the cream. But time flies fast: Those days are past, The ribbons are a dream: Now, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

The Bristol Mail, Is but a snail, The York stands still, The Liverpool Is but a stool-- All gone down hill. Your fire you poke, Up springs your smoke, On sweeps the fiery stream: Now, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

Along the sky The sparkles fly, _You_ fly below,-- You leave behind Time, tide, and wind, Hail, rain, and snow. Through mountain cores The engine snores, The gas lamps palely gleam: Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

You see a hill, You see a mill, A bit of sky; You see a cow, You see a plough, All shooting by. The cabins prance, The hedgerows dance, Like gnats in Evening’s beam: Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

You hear a sound, You feel a bound, You all look blue. You’ve split a horse, A man’s a corse. All’s one to you. Upon the road You meet a load, In vain you wildly scream. Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

You come full front Upon a hunt, You hear a yell; You dash along, You crush the throng, Dogs, squires, pell-mell. You see a van; The signal man Is snugly in a dream. Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in life As steam, still, steam.

You see a flash, You feel a crash, From toe to chin. You touch a bank, You top a tank, You all plump in. You next engage The three-mile stage, And long for my old team, Your trial’s o’er, you trust no more, To steam, steam, steam!

The romantic disappears from the world every day. Canals and docks now vulgarize this tract of the shore, and the whole scene will yet undergo the fate of Billingsgate. But it has a story as romantic as that of Romeo and Juliet; excepting the masquerade, the moonlight, and the nightingales of Verona.

The Isle flies from me, and I must give but the outline.

The daughter of the old Baron de Bouvraye, one of the followers of William the Norman, and lord of the country for leagues along the northern shore of the Thames, was the court beauty of the time. With the Norman dignity of form, she had the Saxon beauty of countenance; for the Baron had wedded a Saxon heiress. The charms of the Lady Blanche de Bouvraye, were the theme of the whole race of troubadours; and the most popular poem of Guido de Spezzia was written on the incident of her dropping her wimple at a court ball. It was said that she had a thousand lovers; but it is certain, that suitors crowded from every part of Christendom to claim her hand--a number probably not diminished by the knowledge that she was to succeed to the immense possessions of the barony.

But, to the sorrow of some, the indignation of others, and the astonishment of all, the Lady Blanche laughed at the idea of love. William, not accustomed to have his orders disputed, commanded the beautiful heiress to fall in love with some one or other at a moment’s delay. But she laughed at the herald who bore the command, and bade him tell his master, that though armies might be commanded, and crowns conquered, Blanche de Bouvraye would be neither. William was indignant, and ordered the herald to prison for a month, and to be fed on bread and water, for the audacity of bringing back such an answer. But the lady was unchanged. The Baron remonstrated, and demanded whether she was prepared to see his line extinguished, and his lands go to strangers. She laughed and said, that as the former could not be while she lived, and the latter could take place only after she was dead, she saw no reason why she should concern herself on the subject. The abbess of the famous convent of the Celestines, near the ford of the river Rom, where the town of Romford has since grown up, was sent to argue with her. But her answer was the question, “Why had not the abbess herself married?” Her father confessor was next sent to her. But she sportively asked him, “Where were _his_ wife and children?”--a question which, though put in all innocence, so perplexed the good father, that, not desiring to be the penitent instead of the confessor, he returned with all possible speed to his convent.

Yet the Lady Blanche’s eye often exhibited the signs of weeping, and her cheek grew pale. All was a problem, until a handsome youth, the son of a knight on the Kentish shore, was seen one night touching a theorbo under her window, and singing one of the Tuscan love songs, which the troubadours had brought into England.

This was enough for the suspicions of the Baron. The young minstrel was seized, and sent to join the Crusaders then embarking for the Holy Land; and the lady was consigned to the Baron’s castle in Normandy. As Shakspeare said four hundred years after,

The course of true love never does run smooth.

It would take the pen and song of ten troubadours to tell the adventures of the lady and the youth. In the fashion of the age, they had each consulted an astrologer, and each had been told the same fortune, that they should constantly meet, but be constantly separated, and finally be happy.

In Normandy, the Baron’s castle and the lady had fallen together into the hands of the troops who had rebelled against William, when a band of the crusaders on the march, commanded by her lover, rescued her. The lady was next ordered to take up her abode in a convent in Lombardy, of which her father’s sister was the abbess. The vessel in which she embarked was driven up the Mediterranean by a storm, and wrecked on the shore where the army of the crusaders was encamped. Thus the lovers met again. By the Baron’s order, the lady returned once more to Europe; but when in sight of the Italian coast, the felucca was captured by an Algerine, and, to her astonishment, she found in the pirate’s vessel her lover, who had been wounded and taken prisoner in battle with the Saracens, and sold into slavery. Again they were separated; the lady was ransomed by her father; and the lovers seemed to have parted for ever.

But the stars were true. The lover broke his Moorish chains, and the first sight which the lady saw on her landing at Ancona, was the fugitive kneeling at her feet.

I hasten on. As the vessel in which they sailed up the Thames approached the baronial castle, they saw a black flag waving from the battlements, and heard the funeral bell toll from the abbey of the Celestines. The Baron had been laid in the vault of the abbey on that day. Their hopes were now certainty: but the lady mourned for her father; and the laws of the church forbade the marriage for a year and a day. Yet, this new separation was soothed by the constant visits of her lover, who crossed the river daily to bask in the smiles of his betrothed, who looked more beautiful than ever.

The eve of the wedding-day arrived; and fate seemed now to be disarmed of the power of dividing the faithful pair; when, as the lover was passing through a dark grove to return to the Kentish shore for the last time, he was struck by an arrow shot from a thicket, fainted, and saw no more.

The morning dawned, the vassals were in array, the bride was in her silk and velvet drapery, the bride’s maids had their flower-baskets in their hands, the joy-bells pealed, a hundred horsemen were drawn up before the castle gates,--all was pomp, joy, and impatience,--but no bridegroom came.

At length the mournful tidings were brought, that his boat had waited for him in vain on the evening before, and that his plume and mantle, dabbled with blood, had been found on the sands. All now was agony. The bank, the grove, the river, were searched by hundreds of eager eyes and hands, but all in vain. The bride cast aside her jewels, and vowed to live and die a maid. The castle was a house of mourning; the vassals returned to their homes: all was stooping of heads, wringing of hands, and gloomy lamentation.

But, as the castle bell tolled midnight, a loud barking was heard at the gate. It was opened; and the favourite wolf-hound of the bridegroom rushed in, making wild bounds, running to and fro, and dragging the guard by their mantles to go forth. They followed; and he sprung before them to the door of a hut in a swampy thicket a league from the castle.

On bursting open the door, they found a man in bed, desperately torn, and dying from his wounds. At the sight, the noble hound flew on him; but the dying man called for a confessor, and declared that he had discharged the arrow by which the murder was committed, that he had dug a grave for the dead, and that the dog had torn him in the act. The next demand was, where the body had been laid. The dying man was carried on the pikes of the guard to the spot; the grave was opened; the body was taken up; and, to the astonishment of all, it was found still with traces of life. The knight was carried to the castle, restored, wedded, and became the lord of all the broad acres lying between the Thames and the Epping hills.

He had been waylaid by one of his countless rivals, who had employed a serf to make him the mark for a cloth-yard shaft, and who, like the Irish felon of celebrated memory, “saved his life by dying in jail.” The dog was, by all the laws of chivalry, an universal favourite while living; and when dead, was buried under a marble monument in the Isle; also giving his name to the territory; which was more than was done for his master; and hence the title of the Isle of Dogs. Is it not all written in _Giraldus Cambrensis_?

----Enter Limehouse Reach.--The sea-breeze comes “wooingly,” as we wind by the long serpent beach; the Pool is left behind, and we see at last the surface of the river. Hitherto it has been only a magnified Fleet-ditch. The Thames, for the river of a grave people, is one of the most frolicsome streams in the world. From London Bridge to the ocean, it makes as many turns as a hard-run fox, and shoots round so many points of the shore, that vessels a few miles off seem to be like ropemakers working in parallel lines, or the dancers in a quadrille, or Mr. Green’s balloon running a race with his son’s (the old story of Dædalus and Icarus renewed in the 19th century); or those extravaganzas of the Arabian Nights, in which fairy ships are holding a regatta among meadows strewn with crysolites and emeralds, for primroses and the grass-green turf.

But what new city is this, rising on the right? What ranges of enormous penthouses, covering enormous ships on the stocks! what sentinels parading! what tiers of warehouses! what boats rushing to and fro! what life, tumult, activity, and clank of hammers again? This is Deptford.

“Deep forde,” says old Holinshed, “alsoe called the Goldene Strande, from the colour of its brighte sandes, the whiche verilie do shine like new golde under the crystalle waters of the Ravensbourne, which here floweth to old Father Thamis, even as a younge daughtere doth lovinglie fly to the embrace of her aged parente.”

But Deptford has other claims on posterity. Here it was that Peter the Great came, to learn the art of building the fleets that were to cover the Euxine and make the Crescent grow pale. At this moment I closed my eyes, and lived in the penultimate year of the 17th century. The scene had totally changed. The crowds, the ships, the tumult, all were gone; I saw an open shore, with a few wooden dwellings on the edge of the water, and a single ship in the act of building. A group of ship carpenters were standing in the foreground, gazing at the uncouth fierceness with which a tall wild figure among them was driving bolts into the keel. He wore a common workman’s coat and cap; but there was a boldness in his figure, and a force in his movement, which showed a superior order of man. His countenance was stern and repulsive, but stately; there was even a touch of insanity in the writhings of the mouth and the wildness of the eye; but it did not require the star on the cloak, which was flung on the ground beside him, nor the massive signet ring on his hand, to attest his rank. I saw there the most kingly of barbarians, and the most barbarian of kings. There I saw Peter, the lord of the desert, of the Tartar, and of the polar world.

While I was listening, in fancy, to the Song of the Steppe, which this magnificent operative was shouting, rather than singing, in the rude joy of his work, I was roused by a cry of “Deptford!--Any one for Deptford? Ease her; stop her!”

I sprang from the bench on which I had been reclining, and the world burst upon me again.

“Deptford--any one for Deptford?” cried the captain, standing on the paddle-box. None answered the call, but a whole fleet of wherries came skimming along the surge, and threw a crowd of fresh passengers, with trunks and carpet-bags numberless, on board. The traveller of taste always feels himself instinctively drawn to one object out of the thousand, and my observation was fixed on one foreign-featured female, who sat in her wherry wrapt up in an envelope of furs and possessing a pair of most lustrous eyes.

A sallow Italian, who stood near me, looking over the side of the vessel, exclaimed, “FANNI PELLMELLO,” and the agility with which she sprang up the steps was worthy of the name of that most celebrated daughter of “the muse who presides over dancing,” as the opera critics have told us several million times.

The sallow Italian was passed with a smile of recognition, which put him in good spirits at once. Nothing vivifies the tongue of a foreigner like the memory of the _Coulisses_, and he over-flowed upon me with the history of this terrestrial Terpsichore. It happened that he was in Rome at the time of that memorable levee at which Fanny, in all her captivations, paid her obeisance at the Vatican; an event which notoriously cost a whole coterie of princesses the bursting of their stay-laces, through sheer envy, and on whose gossip the _haut ton_ of the “Eternal City” have subsisted ever since.

The Italian, in his rapture, and with the vision of the danseuse still shining before him at the poop, began to _improvise_ the presentation. All the world is aware that Italian prose slides into rhyme of itself,--that all subjects turn to verse in the mind of the Italian, and that, when once on his Pegasus, he gallops up hill and down, snatches at every topic in his way, has no mercy on antiquity, and would introduce King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, dancing a quadrille with Prince Albert and Queen Victoria.

THE PRESENTATION.

The month was September, The day I remember, (’Twas the _congé_ of Clara Novello), I saw troops under arms, Dragoons and gendarmes, Saluting sweet Fanny Pellmello.

At St Peter’s last chime A chorus sublime (By-the-by, from Rossini’s Otello), Was sung by Soprani, In homage to Fanny, The light footed Fanny Pellmello.

As she rush’d on their gaze, The Swiss-guard in amaze, Thought they might as well stand a Martello; All their muskets they dropp’d, On their knees they all popp’d, To worship sweet Fanny Pellmello.

To describe the _danseuse_, Is too much for _my_ muse; But if ever I fight a “duello,” Or quarrel at mess, It will be to possess Such a jewel as Fanny Pellmello.

On her brow a tiara, Like the lady’s in Lara, Or a portrait of thine, Biandello; With a twist and a twirl, All diamond and pearl, In bounded sweet Fanny Pellmello.

All the men in the cowls, Were startled like owls, When the sunbeam first darts in their dell, O; As she flash’d on their eyes, All were dumb with surprise-- All moon-struck with Fanny Pellmello.

As she waltzed through the hall, None heard a foot fall, All the chamberlains stood in a spell, O; While, silent as snow, She revolved on her toe, A la Psyche--sweet Fanny Pellmello.

_Whom_ she knelt to within I can’t say, for my sin; Those are matters on which I don’t dwell, O; But I _know_ that a Queen Was nigh bursting with spleen At the diamonds of Fanny Pellmello.

Were I King, were I Kaiser, I’d have perish’d to please her, Or dared against all to rebel, O; I’d have barter’d a throne To be bone of thy bone, Too exquisite Fanny Pellmello.

If Paris had seen Her _pas seul_ on the green, When the goddesses came to his cell, O, Forgetting the skies, He’d have handed the prize To all-conquering Fanny Pellmello.

Achilles of Greece Though famed for caprice, Would have left Greek and Trojan _in bello_, Cut country and king, And gone off on the wing To his island with Fanny Pellmello.

Alexander the Great, Though not over sedate, And a lover of more than I’ll tell, O, Would have learn’d to despise All his Persians’ black eyes, And been faithful to Fanny Pellmello.

Marc Antony’s self Would have laid on the shelf His Egyptian so merry and mellow; Left his five hundred doxies, And found all their proxies In one, charming Fanny Pellmello.

The renown’d Julius Cæsar, With nose like a razor, And skull smooth and bright as a shell, O, Would his sword have laid down, Or pilfer’d a crown, At thy bidding, sweet Fanny Pellmello.

His nephew Augustus, Not famous for justice, (Unless when the gout made him bellow,) His nose would have curl’d At the pomps of the world, For a cottage with Fanny Pellmello.

The Emperor Tiberius, (A rascal nefarious,) Though all things on earth he would sell, O, Would have bid Rome adieu, To the Alps flown with you, And play’d shepherd to Fanny Pellmello.

That Bluebeard, young Nero, (Not much of a hero, For a knave earth has scarce seen his fellow,) Though his wife he might smother, Or hang up his mother, Would have worshipp’d sweet Fanny Pellmello.

Nay, Alaric the Goth, Though he well might be loath His travelling baggage to swell, O, Would have built you a carriage,-- Perhaps offer’d marriage,-- And march’d off with Fanny Pellmello.

Fat Leo the Pope, In tiara and cope, Who the magic of beauty knew well, O, Would have craved your permission For your portrait, by Titian, As Venus--sweet Fanny Pellmello.

The Sultan Mahmood Who the Spahis subdued, And mow’d them like corn-fields so yellow, Would have sold his Haram, And made his salām At thy footstool, sweet Fanny Pellmello.

Napoleon le Grand Would have sued for thy hand, Before from his high horse he fell, O; He’d have thought Josephine Was not fit to be seen, By thy beauties, sweet Fanny Pellmello.

----But the Thames, like the world, is full of changes. As the steamer ran close in under the right shore, I observed a small creek, as overgrown with sedge, as silent and as lonely as if it had been hid in a corner of Hudson’s Bay. It was once called Julius Cæsar’s bath, from the tradition, that when marching at the head of the Tenth Legion, on a visit to Cleopatra, then resident in Kent! he ordered his whole brigade to wash the dust from their visages preparatory to appearing before her majesty and her maids of honour. But this was the age of romance. An unwashed age followed, and the classical name gave way to the exigencies of things. The creek was called the “Condemned Hole,” and was made the place for impounding vessels caught in the act of smuggling, which were there secured, like other malefactors, in chains. It may not unnaturally be concluded, that the spot was unpopular to the tribe of gallant fellows, who had only followed the example of Greek, Saxon, Dane, and Norman; and who saw the beloved companions of many a daring day and joyous night (for if the sailor loves his ship, the smuggler adores her) laid up under sentence of firewood. By that curious propensity, which makes the fox so often fix his burrow beside the kennel, the surrounding shore was the favourite residence of the smuggler; and many a broad-shouldered hero, with a visage bronzed by the tropic sun, and a heart that would face a lion, a fire-ship, or any thing but his wife in a rage, was seen there taking his sulky rounds, and biting his thumb (the approved style of insult in those days) at the customhouse officers, who kept their uneasy watch on board. With some the ruling passion was so strong, that they insisted on being buried as near as possible to the spot, and a little churchyard was thence established, full of epitaphs of departed gallantry and desperate adventure--a sort of Buccaneer Valhalla, with occasional sculptures and effigies of the sleepers below.

Among those the name of Jack Bradwell lived longest. The others exemplified what Horace said of the injustice of fame, they “wanted a poet” to immortalize them; but Jack took that office on himself, and gave the world an _esquisse_ of his career, in the following rough specimen of the Deptford muse of 1632:--

EPITAPH.

Fulle thirtie yeares, I lived a smuggler bolde, Dealing in goode Schiedam and Englishe golde. My hande was open, and my hearte was lighte; My owners knew my worde was honour brighte. In the West Indies, too, for seven long yeares, I stoutlie foughte the Dons and the Mounseers. Commander of the tight-built sloop, the Sharke, Late as the owle, and early as the larke, I roamed the sea, nor cared for tide or winde, And left the Guarda Costas all behinde. Until betrayed by woman’s flattering tongue, In San Domingo my three mates were hung. I shot the Judge, forsook the Spanish Maine, And to olde Englande boldlie sailed againe. Was married thrice, and think it rather harde, That I should lie alone in this churchyarde.

But the march of mind is fatal to sentiment. A few years ago all vestiges of Jack were swept away. A neighbouring tanner had taken a liking to the spot, purchased it, planted his pits in it, and carried off Jack’s monument for a chimney-piece!

----But what hills are those edging the horizon, green, soft, and sunny. I hear a burst of sonorous bells--

Over this wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar.

No; Milton’s bells are monastic; the solemn clang of some huge cathedral, calling the brethren to vespers, and filling the air with the melancholy pomp of the antique cloister.--These are gay, glad, tumultuous, a clang of joy. It is the Queen’s accession. Flags are flying on every ship and steeple, and I hear a distant cannonade. The guns of Woolwich are firing in honour of the day.

And what palace is looming on my right? Greenwich Hospital. A façade worthy of Greece; ranges of Corinthian columns; vast courts expanding in front; groves and green hills in the rear; and on the esplanade, a whole battalion of one-legged or one-armed heroes, formed in line, and, as we arrive, giving three cheers to the “glory” of her Majesty.

I leave the chroniclers to tell, that this noble establishment was founded by William the Dutchman, of freedom-loving and French-hating memory; that the call for public munificence was answered, as such calls always are, by England; and that at this hour it pensions nearly forty thousand as brave veterans as any in the world.

What magnitude of benevolence was ever equal to this regal and national benefaction? In what form could public gratitude have ever been more nobly displayed? Or by what means, uniting the highest charity to the most just recompense, could comfort have been more proudly administered to the declining days of the British seaman. In the long course of a hundred and fifty years, what thousands, and tens of thousands, must have been rescued, by this illustrious benevolence, from the unhappiness of neglected old age! To what multitudes of brave old hearts must it have given comfort in their distant cottages, and what high recollections must the sight of its memorials and trophies revive in the men who fought under Rodney and Howe, St. Vincent and Nelson! Those are the true evidences of national greatness. Those walls are our witnesses to posterity, that their fathers had not lived in vain. The shield of the country thrown over the sailor and the soldier, against the chances of the world in his old age, is the emblem of a grander supremacy than ever was gained by even its irresistible spear.

----But the steamer has made a dash to the opposite bank, and we glide along the skirts of a small peninsula, marked by a slender stone pillar, where the border of Essex begins.

At this spot, a couple of hundred years ago, a mayor of London had been hanged; for what reason, Elkanah Settle, the city laureate, does not aver, further than that “wise people differed much on the subject,”--some imagining that it was for bigamy; others, that it was for having, at a great banquet given to the king by the corporation of spectacle-makers, mistaken the royal purse for his own; but the chief report being, “that he was hanged for the bad dinners which he gave to the common-councilmen.” The laureate proceeds to say, that at this spot, whenever the mayor of London went down with the Companies in their visitation of the boundaries, the barges all made a solemn stop. The mayor, (he was not yet a lord,) with all the aldermen, knelt on the deck, and the chief chaplain, taking off his cap, repeated this admonition:--

Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor, Of a sinner’s death beware. Liveth virtue, liveth sin Not without us, but within. Man doth never think of ill, While he feedeth at his will. None doth seek his neighbour’s coin, When he seeth the sirloin. No man toucheth purse or life, While he thus doth use his knife. Savoury pie and smoking haunch Make the hungry traitor staunch. Claret spiced, and Malvoisie, From ill Spirits set us free, Better far than axe or sword Is the City’s well filled board. Think of him once, hanging there, Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor, _Chorus._--Beware, Beware, Beware!

The various corporate bodies chanted the last line with unanimous devotion; the mayor and aldermen then rose from their knees, and the whole pageant moved on to Blackwall to DINE.

Who has not heard of Blackwall? more fashionable for three months in the year than Almacks itself for the same perishable period; fuller than Bond Street, and with as many charming taverns as Regent Street contains “Ruination shops,” (so called by Lady J. the most _riante_ wit of the day,) those shops where one can purchase every thing that nobody wants, and that few can pay for. Emporiums, as they name themselves, brilliant collections of all that is dazzling and delightful, from a filigree tooth-pick, up to a service of plate for a royal visitation.

Blackwall is a little city of taverns, built by white-bait, as the islands in the South Sea are built by the coral insect. The scenery is a marsh, backed by the waters of a stagnant canal, and lined with whitewashed warehouses. It is in fact a transfer of Wapping, half-a-dozen miles down the Thames. But Blackwall disdains the picturesque; it scorns exterior charms, and devotes itself to the solid merits of the table, and to dressing white-bait with a perfection unrivalled, and unrivalable in the circumference of the terrestrial globe.

Blackwall deserves to be made immortal, and I gave it a passport to posterity, in an Ode.

ODE TO BLACKWALL.

Let me sing thy praise, Blackwall! Paradise of court and city, Gathering in thy banquet-hall Lords and cockneys--dull, and witty. Spot, where ministers of state, Lay aside their humbug all; Water-souchy, and white-bait, Tempting mankind to Blackwall.

Come, ye Muses, tuneful Nine, Whom no Civil List can bribe, Tell me, who come here, to dine, All the great and little tribe, Who, as summer takes its rounds, O’er Whitechapel, or Whitehall, From five shillings to five pounds, Club for dinner at Blackwall.

There the ministerial _Outs_, There the ministerial _Ins_, One an emblem of the pouts, T’other emblem of the grins; All, beneath thy roof, are gay, Each forgetting rise or fall, Come to spend _one_ honest day,---- All good fellows, at Blackwall.

There I see an old Premier, Very like a “Lord at nurse,” Rather _near_, rather near, Dangling a diminish’d purse. Grieving for the days gone by, When he had a “house of call,” Every day his fish and pie, Gratis--_not_ like thine, Blackwall.

There I see an Irish brow, Bronzed with blarney, hot with wine, Mark’d by nature for the plough, Practising the “Superfine.” Mumbling o’er a courtly speech, Dreaming of a palace Ball, Things not _quite_ within his reach, Though _quite asy_ at Blackwall.

There the prince of Exquisites! O’er his claret looking sloppy, (All the ladies know, “he writes,” Bringing down the price of poppy, Spoiling much his scented paper, Making books for many a stall,) Sits, with languid smile, Lord Vapour, Yawning through thy feast, Blackwall.

By him yawning sits, Earl Patron, Well to artists (_too_ well) known. Generous as a workhouse matron, Tender-hearted as a stone: Laughing at the pair, Lord Scoffer Whispers faction to F--x M--le. _Asking_ an “official offer,” _Ainsi va le monde_ Blackwall.

But, whence comes that storm of gabble, Piercing casement, wall, and door, All the screaming tongues of Babel? ’Tis the “Diplomatic corps,” Hating us with all their souls, If the knaves have souls at all. I’d soon teach them other _roles_, Were I Monarch of Blackwall.

Then, I hear a roar uproarious! ----“There a Corporation dine,” Some are tipsy, some are “glorious,” Some are bellowing for wine; Some for all their sins are pouting, Some beneath the table fall; Some lie singing, some lie shouting,-- Now, farewell to thee, Blackwall.

----Stopped for five minutes at the handsome pier, waiting for the arrival of the railway passengers from London. The scene was animated; the pier crowded with porters, pie-men, wandering minstrels, and that ingenious race, who read “moral lessons” to country gentlemen with their breeches’ pockets open, and negligent of their handkerchiefs.

----Stepped on shore, and, tempted by the attractions of one of the taverns, ordered a bottle of claret, on the principle of the parliamentary machines for cleansing the smoke-conveying orifices of our drawing-rooms. The inconceivable quantity of fuliginous material, which I had swallowed in my transit down the river, would have stifled the voice of a _prima donna_. The claret gave me the sense of a recovered faculty, and as I inhaled, with that cool feeling of enjoyment which salutes the man of London with a consciousness that sea-breezes are in existence, I had leisure to glance along a vista of superb saloons, which would have better suited a Pasha of Bagdad, than the payers of the income tax in the dingiest and mightiest city of the known world.

Yet all was not devoted to the selfish principle. In a recess at the end of the vista was a small bust--a sort of votive offering to the “memory of Samuel Simpson, formerly a waiter in this tavern for the space of fifty years,” this bust having been “here placed by his grateful master, Thomas Hammersley.”

I am proud to have seen, and shall be prouder to rescue, the names of both those Blackwall worthies from oblivion. They have long slept without their fame; for the bust is dated A.D. 1714, the year which closed the existence of that illustrious queen, Anna, whose name, as Swift rather saucily observed, like her friendships,

Both backward and forward was always the _same_.

An honour shared in succeeding ages only by the amiable Lord Glenelg.

But inscribed on the pedestal was an epitaph, which I transferred to my memoranda.

EPITAPH.

Bacchus! thy wonders fill the wondering world! Thrones in the dust have by thy cups been hurl’d. Yet, still thou had’st for mankind _one_ surprise: There was _one_ honest drawer! and here he lies. Sam Simpson, of the Swan, who, forced to wink At drinking hard in others, did _not_ drink. A man who, living all his life by sots, Yet fairly drew, and fairly fill’d his pots. Steady and sure, his easy way held on, Nor let his chalk score _two_, when called for _one_. If man’s best study is his fellow man, Reader, revere this hero of the Can. ’Twere well for kings, if many a king had been Like him who sleeps beneath yon Churchyard-green.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” saith Solomon; and as the late Lord Mayor said, “I am quite of Solomon’s opinion.” Here is Crabbe, fifty years before he was born. Here is his pomp and his particularity; his force and his facility; his pungency and his picturesque. Is the theory of transmigration true? and has the Blackwall tavern-keeper only reappeared in the Rutlandshire parson? Let the antiquarians settle it among them. I leave it to occupy the life of some future Ritson, to poison some future Stephens with his own ink; and to give the whole race of the Malones the shadow of an excuse for their existence in this world.

But, I hear the snort of the locomotive; I see the cloud of steam rushing towards the pier. The bell rings, the chaos of trunks and passengers is rolled on board. I follow, and Blackwall fades in the distance, as the poets say, “like a dream of departed joys.”

----Came in sight of a promontory, Purfleet, flanked by an immense row of dark-roofed ominous-looking buildings,--these are the gunpowder depôts of the navy and army of the empire. I pretend to no exclusive poltroonery; but I must acknowledge that I highly approved of the speed which carried us past them. If they had blown up at the moment, in what region of the atmosphere should we have been, steamer and all, in five seconds after. Yet, how many things might have turned our whole cargo into gas and carbon at the instant? a flash of lightning; the wire of a Voltaic machine, apparently as harmless as a knitting needle in the hands of an old spinster; the spark of a peasant’s pipe; the scrape of a hob-nailed shoe! Within a hundred yards of us there lay, in “grim repose,” a hundred thousand barrels of gunpowder. We might have lighted them from the sparks of our funnel, and committed an involuntary suicide on the most comprehensive scale.

But we should not have perished unknown. As the maid, in Schiller’s famous Monologue, sings,--

Even in the solitudes Of the Transatlantic woods, Where the elk and bison stalk, Men of that dark day should talk. Old men by their fireside sitting, Maidens in the sunset knitting, Still should think of that dark day. Till the world itself grew gray.

If the magazine at Purfleet were to explode, the Thames would be routed out of its bed, and carried into Tunbridge Wells; Woolwich would be a cinder, Gravesend an ash-pit, Chatham a cemetery, Blackwall a nonentity, the Tunnel a tomb, and one half of the mighty metropolis itself but a recollection.

Yet human beings actually _live_ at Purfleet! actually eat, drink, and sleep, with this volcano beside their pillows; Essex picnics are eaten within sight of this earth-shaker. Nay, balls have been given; and creatures, calling themselves rational, have danced quadrilles, with the salient temerity of the incurably insane. What a short-sighted and saltatory thing is human nature!

Among the changes produced by the new importation of passengers, it was my fate to be placed beside the Authoress; who did me the honour of thinking me worthy of her notice, and who rapidly admitted me into the most unbounded confidence, respecting the merits of her own performances, and the demerits of all the world of authorship besides. I listened with the most profound submission; only filling up the pauses, when she stopped to take breath; by a gesture of acquiescence, or that most valuable of all words, “Yes.” She “had met me,” in a hundred places, where I was not conscious of having ever been; and “recognised my style” in a hundred volumes which I had never read. In short, she was charmed with me; and confessed, after half an hour of the most uninterrupted eloquence on her side; that “though evidently cautious of giving an opinion,” I should thenceforth be ranked by her, among the most brilliant conversationalists of the day.

Must I acknowledge, that I forgot as expeditiously as I learned, and, excepting _one_ recollection, all was a blank by dinner time.

But we _had_ met once before, in a scene, which, on afterwards casually turning over some papers, I found recorded on those scraps of foolscap, and in those snatches of rhyme, which argue, I am afraid, a desultory mind. So be it. I disdain to plead “not guilty” to the charge of perfection. I make no attempt to exonerate myself of the cardinal virtues. I write poetry, because it is “better behaved” than prose; and in this feeling I give the history to a sympathizing world.

THE POET’S AUCTION.

As I stroll’d down St. James’s, I heard a voice cry, “The auction’s beginning, come buy, sir, come buy.” On a door was a crape, on a wall a placard, Proclaiming to earth, it had lost its last bard. In I rambled, and, climbing a dark pair of stairs, Found _all_ the blue-stockings, all giggling in pairs; The crooked of tongue, and the crooked of spine, _All_ ugly as Hecate, and old as the Nine. Tol de rol.

There were A, B, C, D,’s--all your “ladies of letters,” Well known for a trick of abusing their betters; With their _beaus_! the old snuffling and spectacled throng, Who haunt their “_soirees_” for liqueurs and souchong; There was “dear Mrs. Blunder,” who scribbles Astronomy-- Miss Babble, who “owns” the “sweet” Tales on Gastronomy; Miss Claptrap, who writes the “Tractarian Apologies,” With a host of old virgins, all stiff in the ologies. Tol de rol.

There sat, grim as a ghoul, the sublime Mrs. Tomb, With rouged Mrs. Lamp, like a corpse in full bloom, And the hackney-coach tourist, old Mrs. Bazaar, Who lauds every ass with a ribbon and star; Describes every tumble-down Schloss, brick by brick, And quotes her flirtations with “dear Metternich;” With those frolicsome ladies who visit harāms, And swallow, like old Lady Mary, their qualms. Tol de rol.

There was, dress’d _à la Chickasaw_, Miss Chesapeak, Who makes novels as naked as “nymphs from the Greek;” Mrs. Myth, with a chin like a Jew’s upon Hermon; Mrs. Puff, who reviewed the archbishop’s last sermon; Miss Scamper, who runs up the Rhine twice a-year, To tell us how Germans smoke pipes and swill beer. All the _breakfasting_ set: for the bard “drew a line,” And ask’d the Magnificoes only, to dine. Tol de rol.

There stood old Viscount Bungalow, hiding the fire, As blind as a beetle, the great picture-buyer; With Earl Dilettante, stone-deaf in both ears, An opera-fixture these last fifty years; Little Dr. de Rougemont, the famous Mesmeric, Who cures all the girls by a touch of hysteric; And Dean Dismal, court-chaplain, whose pathos and prose Would beat Mesmer himself at producing a doze. Tol de rol.

And there, with their eyes starting out of their sockets, A tribe, whose light fingers I keep from my pockets, _Messieurs les Attaches_, all grin and moustache, With their souls in full scent for our heiresses’ cash. Four eminent lawyers, with first-rate intentions Of living the rest of their lives on their pensions, With six heads of colleges, hurried to town, To know if Sir Bob, or Lord John, would go down. Tol de rol.

“Here’s a volume of verse,” was the auctioneer’s cry. “What! nobody bids!--Tom, throw that book by. Though it cost the great author one half of his life, Unplagued (I beg pardon) with children or wife. Here’s an Epic in embryo, still out of joint, Here’s a bushel of Epigrams wanting the point, With a lot of _Impromptus_, all finished to fit A dull diner-out with _extempore_ wit. Tol de rol.

“Here’s a sonnet, inscribed ‘To the Shade of a Sigh.’ A ‘Lament’ on ‘The Death of a Favourite Fly;’ And, well worth a shilling, that sweetest of lays-- To the riband that tied up a ‘Duchess’s stays.’ Here’s a note from a Young-England Club, for a _loan_, Lord B----’s famous speech on ‘The Sex of Pope Joan,’ With the bard’s private budget of H--ll--d House stories, Of Tories turned Whigs, and of Whigs _turning_ Tories. Tol de rol.

“What! nobody bids! Must I shut up the sale? Well; take all the verses at so much per bale! I come to the autographs:--One from _the_ Duke, Assigning the cause for cashiering his cook; A missive from Byr-n,--a furious epistle,-- Which proves that a bard may pay “dear for his whistle;” With letters from geniuses, sunk in despair By the doctrine, that ‘Poets should live upon air.’ Tol de rol.

“A scrap from Bob Burns, to d--n the Excise, Where they sent him to perish--(a word to the wise;) A line from Sir W-lt-r, in anguish and debt, To thank his good king for _what never came yet_; A song from the minstrel of minstrels, T-m M--re, To laud his ‘dear country’ for keeping him poor; With a prayer from old Coleridge, in hope that his bones Might escape all the humbug of ‘National stones!’ Tol de rol.

“Here’s a note to T-m C-mpb-ll, (indorsed, ‘_From a Peer_,’) To mulct Income-tax from his hundred a-year; Pinn’d up with a note from his _Chef_ to his Grace, That he ‘must have five hundred, or throw up his place;’ Here’s an epitaph written by Haydon’s last pen-- Poh! Genius may die in a ditch or a den! The country wants none of it, female or male, So, as no one bids sixpence, I’ll shut up the sale.” Tol de rol.

PRUSSIAN MILITARY MEMOIRS.[6]

“_Vieux soldat, vieille bête_,” is a French proverb, implying an exceedingly low estimate of the mental acuteness of the veteran soldier. We do not know that English soldiers are quicker witted than French ones; better educated we know they are not, except, as we love to believe, in what pertains to push of bayonet. But in how much more flattering terms is couched the popular opinion in this country, concerning the capacity and wit of the man of musket and sabre. On this side the Channel, to be an “old soldier” implies something remarkably knowing--a man quite “up to snuff,” and a trifle above it. “He’s too old a soldier for that,” signifies that the “_he_” is a very sharp and wary dog, the last fellow to be taken in or made a fool of. “He came the old soldier over me,” is a common cant acknowledgment of having met more than one’s match--of having been overreached or outwitted. Other similar phrases are there, familiar to most ears, and unnecessary to cite. They concur to show a prevailing belief, that a long habit of scarlet--we mean no pun--and familiarity with pipeclay, or else the many vicissitudes and much experience of life they argue, polish the soldier’s faculties to a particularly sharp point, and remove from his character each vestige of the unsophisticated, as effectually as he himself, with sand and oil-rag, would rub all stain of rust from scabbard or barrel. There is exaggeration in this notion. It is not unusual to find in veteran soldiers, a dash of _naive_ simplicity, even of childish credulity, co-existent with much shrewdness and knowledge of the world. For this incongruity, let physiologists account; we shall not investigate its causes. The remark applies to soldiers of most countries; for, with certain shades of difference, derivable from climate, race, and national customs, the soldier is the same every where. The original material is various, but the moulds in which it is fashioned are to a great extent identical. Divide the whole population of Europe according to trades and professions, and in the military class shall the least diversity be found.

We strongly suspect that Baron von Rahden, whose “Wanderings” we noticed in a previous number of this Magazine, and from whose agreeable pages we propose again to glean, is a fine example of the compound character above described. On duty, none more matter-of-fact than he, none more prompt and keen in conduct and language; but, suspend the activity of camps, and dangers of the fight, remove him for a moment from his battalion’s ranks and the routine of service, and behold! he builds up all idyl about a peasant girl and cow; or, better still, and more fully confirming our opinion, treats you with all gravity and deep conviction to a spice of the supernatural. Of his ghostly gambols we will forthwith give a specimen.

It was in the month of October, 1812, that a party of young cadets, of whom the baron was one, left Breslin for Berlin, there to pass their examination as officers. The ordeal to which the aspirants hastened was severe and dreaded, and the journey was no very soothing preparation for the rigours of the examiners. German roads and diligences were far less respectable then than now, and the lumbering carriage in which the cadets, in company with Polish Jews, market-women, baskets, bags, and blankets, prosecuted their journey, was a bone-setter of most inhuman construction. Its wooden lining was clouted with nails, compelling the travellers to preserve a rigid perpendicular, lest a sudden jolt should diminish the number of their teeth, or increase that of the apertures of their heads. About midnight this modern barrel of Regulus reached a large town, and paused to deposit passengers. The halt was of some duration, and the cadets dispersed themselves about the streets. One of them, designated by the Baron under the initial Von L., did not re-appear till the post-horn had sounded its fourth signal, when he came up in haste and agitation and threw himself into the carriage, which immediately drove off. The next day this youth, who had been silent and gloomy since the halt of the previous night, was taken grievously ill, a misfortune attributed by his comrades to a plentiful breakfast of sour milk and sausages. On their return from Berlin, however, Von L., whose health was still delicate, and depression visible, showed, on passing the scene of their midnight halt, symptoms of uneasiness so strong as to excite suspicion that his illness had had some extraordinary cause. That this suspicion was well founded, he, at a later period, confessed to Baron von Rahden, who tells the story in his friend’s own words.

“Being very thirsty,” said Von L., “I lingered at the great fountain on the market-place, and there I was presently joined by a young peasant girl, carrying a great earthen pitcher. We soon became great friends. It was too dark for me clearly to distinguish the features of my little Rebecca, but I nevertheless readily complied with her tittered invitation to escort her home. Arm in arm we wandered through the narrow by-streets, till we reached a large garden, having a grated door, which stood half open. Here the damsel proposed that we should part, and nimbly evaded my attempt to detain her. She ran from me with suppressed laughter. I eagerly followed, soon overtook her, and, by flattery and soothing words, prevailed on her to sit down beside me upon a bank of soft turf in the shadow of overhanging trees. Here, for a short quarter of an hour, we toyed and prattled, when I was roused from my boyish love-dream by the distant sound of the post-horn. I sprang to my feet; at the same instant, with a peal of shrill wild laughter, my companion disappeared. My light and joyous humour suddenly checked, I looked about me. I was now better able to distinguish surrounding objects; and with what indescribable horror did I recognise in the supposed garden a churchyard, in the turf bank a grave, in the sheltering foliage a cypress. And now all that related to the maiden seemed so mysterious, her manner occurred to me as so strange and unearthly! How I found out the gate of the cemetery, I know not. I remember stumbling over the graves and rushing in the direction whence the postilion’s horn still sounded, pursued by echoes of scornful laughter. Shuddering and breathless, I at length rejoined my comrades, but the impression made upon me by that night’s adventure has never been effaced.”

So much for the Baron’s friend. Now for the Baron himself, who relates all this, be it observed, with a most commendable solemnity, implying conviction of the supernatural nature of his comrade’s adventure. “With reference to this unnatural occurrence,” he says, “I frequently met my friend during the war and the early years of the peace, but never without that incident recurring to me, and the more so, as from that day forward, melancholy settled upon Von L.’s manly and handsome countenance. He strove, with indifferent success, as it appeared to me, to combat his depression by dissipation and worldly pleasures; but the expression of his dark eye was ever one of severe mental suffering. He never married or partook of the peaceful joys of domestic existence. During the War of Liberation he distinguished himself by daring courage and reckless exposure of his life, was repeatedly wounded, and died suddenly at the age of thirty, in the full bloom and strength of manhood. He is still well remembered as a gallant officer and thorough soldier.

“Whilst on a visit to the town of N., a few years ago, my evening walk frequently led me, in company with a much esteemed friend, to the churchyard where Von L., after his short and melancholy career, had at last found repose. During one of these walks, my companion related to me the following story:--At the hour of twelve, upon three successive nights, the sentry, whose lonely post was adjacent to the cemetery, had challenged the rounds, as they approached through the deep shadow of an arched gateway. To his question, ‘Who makes the rounds?’ was each time replied, in deep sepulchral tones, ‘Captain von L.’ and at the same instant the visionary patrol vanished. So runs the guard-room tale.” Which the Baron is sufficiently reasonable to treat as such, although he assures his readers that, even after an interval of three-and-thirty years, he does not write down the details of his melancholy friend’s adventure with the mysterious _aquaria_ without something very like a shudder. In a collection of _Mahrchen_ this very German story might have been accepted as an endurable fragment of imaginative _diablerie_, but coming thus in the semi-historical autobiography of a hero of Leipzig and Waterloo, and Knight of the Iron Cross, it certainly subjects the writer to the application of the uncomplimentary French proverb already cited.

As a boy--and during his German and French campaigns, he was but a boy--Baron von Rahden showed an odd mixture of the manly and the childish. Cool and brave in the fight, bearing wounds and hardship with courage and fortitude, the loss of a trinket made him weep; an elder comrade’s rebuke rendered him down-cast and unhappy as a whipped school-boy. Scarcely had he joined his regiment, when he was admitted to the intimacy of a Lieutenant Patzynski, an experienced officer and crack duellist. It was a mode amongst the young officers, when sitting round the punchbowl, to enter into contracts of brotherhood. The process was exceedingly simple. The glasses clattered together, an embrace was given, and thenceforward the partakers in the ceremony addressed each other in the second person singular, in sign of intimacy and friendship. Emboldened by the patronage of the formidable Patzynski, and heated by a joyous repast, Von Rahden one day approached Lieutenant Merkatz, who was considerably his senior both in rank and years, and proffered him the fraternal embrace. “With the greatest pleasure, my dear boy,” replied Merkatz, who had observed with some disgust the forward bearing of the unfledged subaltern, “but on one condition. You shall address me as _Sie_, and I will call you _Er_.” The former being the most respectful style of address, the latter slighting and even contemptuous, only used to servants and inferiors. Cowed by this unkind, if not undeserved reproof, Von Rahden retreated in confusion. Subsequently he met many unpleasant slights and rebuffs from Merkatz; but they did him good, and his persecutor eventually became his warm friend. This, however, was not till the recruit had proved his manhood in many a hot fight and sharp encounter. “Forward,” said the stern Prussian soldier on the field of Lutzen, when, borne back bleeding from the foremost line of skirmishers, he met Von Rahden hurrying to replace him. “Forward, boy! Yonder will you find brothers!” In the smoke of the battle, not in the fumes of the orgie, were the esteem and friendship of Germany’s tried defenders to be conquered. After the battle of Kulm, Von Rahden bought a French watch, part of a soldier’s plunder; and his pride and delight in this trinket were, according to his own confession, something quite childish. His comrades, with whom he was a favourite, bore with his exultation. Merkatz alone showed a disposition to check it. He had assumed the character of a surly Mentor, resolved, apparently, to cure his young comrade of his follies, and drill him into a man. He now assured Von Rahden that if he did not leave off playing with, and displaying, his watch, he would knock it out of his hand the very first opportunity. This soon presented itself. Whilst bivouacking in the mountains of Bohemia, the two officers chanced one night to be seated near each other at the same fire, and Von Rahden, forgetting his companion’s menace, repeatedly pulled out his watch, until Merkatz, with a blow of a stick, shivered it to pieces. “Although, in general, when my comrades’ jokes displeased me, I was ready enough to answer them with my sabre, on this occasion I was so astonished and grieved, that I burst into tears, and retreated to my couch in the corner of the hut, where I sobbed myself to sleep.” This whimpering young gentleman, however, was the same, who, only a few days previously, in the hottest moment of the battle of Kulm, had led his men, encouraging them by voice and deed, up to the very musket-muzzles of the parapeted Frenchmen, and who, twice already, had been wounded amidst the foremost of the combatants. At the fight of May, too, although that was somewhat later, his bravery was such as to attract the notice of Prince Augustus of Prussia. The men of his battalion were weary and exhausted by a hard day’s combat, when, suddenly and unexpectedly, they were again ordered forward into a fierce fire of artillery. They murmured and hesitated, and for a moment refused to advance. “Upon this occasion, I was fortunate enough to contribute, by boyish and joyous humour, for which the men all liked me, and by my contempt of danger, in restoring courage and confidence. Shot and shell flew about us, and the younger soldiers were hard to keep in their ranks. I ran forward thirty or forty paces to the front, and several shells happening to fall close to me without bursting, I laughed at and cut jokes upon them. At last the men laughed too, and came willingly forward. Such little incidents occur in far less time than it takes to tell of them. So it was here; but we had effected what we wanted--the men were in better humour. I had no idea that Prince Augustus had observed my behaviour, which was certainly rather juvenile; and when I saw him standing near me, I was ashamed and drew back; but he called out to me, and said, in a loud voice, ‘Very good! very good! Lieutenant Rahden,’ and then spoke a few words to Count Reichenbach. From that day I found great favour with our illustrious general of brigade. The first proof of it was the Iron Cross.”

Von Rahden’s final reconciliation with Merkatz took place under the enemy’s fire. It was the day after Montmirail, and Blucher’s _corps d’armée_, after gallantly protecting Ziethen’s beaten troops from Gronchy’s cavalry, itself retreated towards Etoges. At about half a league from that place, whilst marching along a road that ran between vineyards, the French tirailleurs attacked them, and cavalry patrols came in to inform the Field-marshal that Etoges was occupied by the enemy. But the Baron shall tell the story himself.

“In darkness, surrounded by foes, ignorant of the ground we manœuvred upon, a handful of men against a powerful force, and our old Father Blucher, with the elite of his generals, in danger of being taken--all this made up an alarming picture. But the greater the need, the prompter the deed. In an instant it was decided to throw out skirmishers into the vineyards, whilst the battalions, formed close and compact round the Field-marshal, should cut their way along the road. Count Reichenbach gave his orders accordingly; and his adjutant, Lieutenant Merkatz, who sat chilled and weary upon his horse, turned mechanically to me, and desired me to extend my skirmishers on the left of the road. This was beyond a joke: I had been skirmishing the whole day, perpetually under fire, and hard at work since nine in the morning. Tired to death, I had been heartily glad to rejoin my battalion, and now I was ordered out again into the cold dark night, and on the most uncertain service. All my old grudge against Merkatz recurred to me, and, as it was not my turn for the duty, I answered him in loud and marked tones, ‘Order out somebody else, and don’t be too lazy to ride to the next company.’ When, however, Count Reichenbach turned round, and with some displeasure desired me to speak less loud in the neighbourhood of the General-in-chief, I became more complying, and only argued that my large cloak, which I carried rolled over my shoulder, would hinder me in the vineyards. ‘Give me the cloak here,’ replied Merkatz: ‘I am freezing upon my horse.’ What could I do? Time pressed: so venting my ill humour in a few grumbling words, I threw my cloak to the adjutant, and hurried with my skirmishers to the vineyard. I had taken but a few steps, however, when an arm was thrown round me. It was that of Merkatz. ‘Listen, Rahden,’ said he; ‘before we part, perhaps for ever, become my brother for life, and let us forget all past unkindness.’ I replied by a hearty embrace, for I had long esteemed Merkatz as one of the bravest of my comrades, and, elated at the atonement he now made me for having refused my friendship at the commencement of the previous campaign, I pressed forward cheerfully into the fight.”

The French cavalry had been several hours in possession of Etoges, had removed the railings from the wells, and sawn the timbers of a bridge which crossed a broad and muddy stream. As soon as the Prussians set foot on it, it broke down, and an awful confusion ensued. The panic was aggravated by the darkness, and by the fire of the enemy, who blazed at the Allies from behind trees and houses. In attempting to jump the stream, Von Rahden fell in, and all his efforts only sank him deeper in the mud. A number of soldiers, who had also missed the leap, struggled beside him, involuntarily wounding each other with their fixed bayonets. Von Rahden gave himself up for lost. “I uttered a short prayer, gave one thought to my distant home, and awaited the death blow. My senses had already half left me, when I heard a well-known voice exclaim, ‘Lieutenant, where are you?’ With a last effort I raised myself, and saw Schmidt, my sergeant of skirmishers, peering down into the ditch. He held out his musket. I seized it with the grasp of desperation, and the brave fellow dragged me up. Barefoot, and covered with mud, I followed in the stream of fugitives. So great was the hurry and disorder of the flight, that if the enemy had sent a single squadron after us, thousands of prisoners must have been taken. It seems incomprehensible that they did not pursue; but I think I may safely affirm, that a young Russian officer, whose name I do not know, saved the army by his presence of mind. In a loud voice, he shouted several times, ‘Barabanczek! Barabanczek!’ which means a drummer. A number of drummers and buglers gathered around him and beat and blew a charge. The French did not suspect the stratagem; and supposing that reinforcements were coming up under cover of the night, they would not risk, by a pursuit, the advantage they had already gained. My friend, Merkatz, was amongst the prisoners taken upon that disastrous evening; but he soon managed to escape, leaving behind him, however, his own horse, and my warm and much prized cloak.”

A terrible campaign was that of 1813-14; and the man who had made it, from Lutzen to Paris, might well style himself a veteran, though his whole military career were comprised in the short ten months of its duration. What incessant fighting! not occasional battles, with long intervals, varied by insignificant skirmishes, but a rapid succession of pitched and bloody fields. No rest or relaxation, or pleasant repose in comfortable quarters, but short rations and the bivouac’s hard couch as sole solace for the weary and suffering soldier. The hardships of the allied armies are briefly, but frequently and impressively adverted to by the Baron von Rahden. As if the ravages of lead and steel were insufficient, disease and exposure added their quota to the harvest of death. “Although in the height of summer,” says the Baron, speaking of the month of August, 1813, “we had had, for three days past, uninterrupted rains, and the fat black soil was so soaked, that our progress was painfully difficult. We could bivouac only in meadows, and on the uncut corn. In fallow or stubble fields we must have lain in mud. We were very ill fed; the commissariat stores were far in rear, detained in the mountain passes, and for several days our only nourishment consisted of wild fruits, potatoes and turnips, which the men dug up in the fields. Our clothes and equipment, to the very cartouch-boxes, were wet through, and not a ray of sun, a tree or house, or even a bivouac fire, was there for warmth or shelter.” With vermin also, bequeathed to them often by their Cossack allies, the Prussians were grievously tormented. “In our camp, by Chlumetz, in Bohemia, where we passed some days, we had rain and other bivouac calamities to put up with. The straw served out to us had already been slept upon; and the consequence was, an invasion of our clothes and persons by certain small creeping things of a very unpleasant description. Whether they were of Austrian or Russian extraction I am unable to state; nor did it much matter: we succeeded to them. Looking out of my hut one morning, I saw a man issue from one of the straw-built sheds occupied by the soldiers, and run, wringing his hands, to an adjacent wood. I followed him, to prevent mischief, and recognised an old friend and fellow cadet, Von P. He was in the greatest despair. The soldiers had turned him out of their temporary abode. The poor fellow swarmed with vermin. I succeeded in calming him, fetched him clean linen, and after a careful examination of his clothes in a neighbouring oat-field, he returned with me to my hut, which he thenceforward inhabited. Should the Russian commandant of the Polish fortress of Czenstochau chance to read these pages, and remember the above incident, let him give a friendly thought to his old brother in arms, who will soon again have to speak of the brave Von P., of the Second Silesian Regiment.” If, in the rugged Bohemian mountains, hardships were to be anticipated, in the plains of Champagne things might have been expected to go better. If possible, they went worse. “To speak plainly,” says the Baron, referring to the campaign in France, which commenced very early in the year, “filth and ordure were our couch; rain, ice, and snow, our covering; half-raw cow’s flesh, mouldy biscuits, and sour wine lees, our nourishment; for heart and mind, the sole relaxation was shot, and blow, and stab. Some one has said, ‘Make war with angels for twenty years and they will become devils.’ To that I add, ‘Six months of such a life as we then led, and men would turn into beasts.’” Little wonder if soldiers thus situated greedily seized each brief opportunity of enjoyment. The cellars of Ai and Epernay paid heavy tribute to the thirsty Northern warriors. We are told of one instance where a whole division of the allied army was unable to march, and an important military operation had to be suspended, in consequence of a Pantagruelian debauch at a chateau near Chalons, where champagne bottles, by tens of thousands, were emptied down Prussian and Muscovite gullets. The sacking of their cellars, however, was not the only evil endured at the hands of the invaders by the unlucky vine-growers. Wood was scarce, the nights were very cold, and the sticks upon which the vines were trained, were pulled up and used as fuel. Sometimes, in a single night, many hundreds of thousands of these _echalas_ were thus destroyed, every one of them being worth, owing to the hardness and rarity of the wood required for them, at least two _sous_. Their second visit to France hardly entered into the anticipations of the reckless destroyers, or they would perhaps have had more consideration for that year’s vintage.

From a host of anecdotes of Baron von Rahden’s brother-officers, we select the following as an interesting and characteristic incident of Prussian camp-life three-and-thirty years ago. It is told in what the Baron calls his poetical style:

“My captain, a Pole by birth, was brave as steel, but harsh and rough as the sound of his name. He was deficient in the finer feelings of the heart, in philanthropy, and in a due appreciation of the worth of his fellow-men. Although a good comrade to us young officers, he was a tyrant to his inferiors. His envy and jealousy of his superiors he barely concealed under an almost exaggerated courtesy. Such was Captain von X.

“It was the eve of the battle of Leipzig, and a violent gust of wind had overthrown the fragile bivouac-huts, at that time our only protection from the cold and wet of the October nights. The rain fell in torrents, and, in all haste, the soldiers set to work to reconstruct their temporary shelter. The more cunning and unscrupulous took advantage of the prevailing confusion to consult their own advantage, without respect to the rights of others. The objects which they coveted, and occasionally pillaged, would, under other circumstances, have been of little worth: they consisted of straw, branches, and stakes, invaluable in the construction of our frail tenements. As in duty bound, our military architects first built up the captain’s hut, within which he took refuge, after ordering me to remain outside and preserve order. As junior officer of the company, this fatigue-duty fairly fell to me, in like manner as the first turn for an honourable service belonged to the senior; but, nevertheless, I felt vexed at the captain’s order, and could not help wishing him some small piece of ill luck. My wish was very soon realized.

“Our major’s hut, more carefully and strongly constructed, had resisted the hurricane: it stood close beside that of the captain. The major was long since asleep and snoring; but his servant, a cunning, careful dog, was still a-foot, and watched his opportunity to get possession of a long bean-stick, to be used as an additional prop to the already solid edifice under which his master slumbered. The unlucky marauder had not remarked that this stake formed one of the supports of the captain’s dormitory. He seized and pulled it violently, and down came the hut, burying its inmate under the ruins. There was a shout of laughter from the spectators of the downfal, and then the Pole disengaged himself from the wreck, cursing awfully, and rushed upon the unfortunate fellow who had played him the trick. Pale and trembling, the delinquent awaited his fate; but his cry of terror brought him assistance from his master, who suddenly stepped forth in his night-dress, a large gray cavalry cloak thrown about him, and a white cloth bound round his head. The major was an excellent and kind-hearted man, loved like a father by his men, but subject to occasional fits of uncontrollable passion, which made him lose sight of all propriety and restraint. Without investigation, he at once took his servant’s side against the captain, in which he was certainly wrong, seeing that his worthy domestic had been caught in the very act of theft. He snatched the bean-stick from the man’s hand: the captain already grasped the other end; and, for some minutes, there they were, major and captain, pulling, and tugging, and reeling about the bivouac, not like men, but like a brace of unmannerly boys. Myself and the soldiers were witnesses of this singular encounter. Accustomed to regard our superiors with fear and respect, we now beheld them in the most childish and ludicrous position. Astonishment kept us motionless and silent. At last the captain made a violent effort to wrest the pole from his antagonist: the major held firm, and resisted with all his strength; when, suddenly, his opponent let go his hold, and our major, a little round man, measured his length in the mud. In an instant he was on his feet again. Throwing away the bean-stick, and stepping close up to his opponent, ‘To-morrow,’ said he, ‘we will settle this like men: here we have been fools; and you, captain, a malicious fool.’

“‘I accept your invitation with pleasure,’ replied the captain, ‘and trust our next meeting will be with bullets. But, for to-day, the pole is mine.’ And he seized it triumphantly.

“‘Certainly; yours to-day,’ retorted the major. ‘To-morrow we will fight it out upon my dirty cloak.’

“The morrow came, and the battle began, not, however, between major and captain, but between French and Prussians. Silent we stood in deep dark masses, listening to the music of the bullets. ‘Firm and steady!’ was the command of our little major--of the same man who, a few hours before, had played so childish a part. Skirmishers were called in, and a charge with the bayonet ordered. The foe abandoned his first position. Animated by success, we attacked the second. Our battalion hurried on from one success to another, and my gallant captain was ever the first to obey, in the minutest particular, the orders of our famous little major. The noble emulation between the two brave fellows was unmistakeable. In their third position the French defended themselves with unparalleled obstinacy, and our young soldiers, in spite of their moral superiority, were compelled to recede. ‘Forward, my fine fellows!’ cried the major; ‘Follow me, men!’ shouted the captain, and, seizing the sinking standard, whose bearer had just been shot, he raised it on high, and dashed in amongst the foe. With a tremendous ‘Hurra!’ the whole line followed, and Napoleon’s ‘Vieille Garde’ was forced to a speedy retreat.

“The major gazed in admiration at his bitter opponent of the preceding day. Calling him to him, he clasped him in his arms. For a moment the two men were enveloped in the cloak upon which they were to have fought. Words cannot describe that scene. Suddenly a cannon-ball boomed through the air, and, lo! they lay upon the ground, shattered and lifeless, reconciliation their dying thought. The fight over, and our bivouac established in a stubble-field, we paid then the last military honours. Fifty men, all that remained of my company, followed their bodies, and a tear stood in every eye as we consigned the gallant fellows to one grave.”

With bitter and ill-suppressed rage did the military portion of the French nation, after a brief but busy campaign, see themselves compelled to submission, their emperor an exile, their hearths intruded upon by the foreigners who, at Jena and Wagram, Austerlitz and Marengo, had quailed and fled before their conquering eagles. Resistance, in a mass, was no longer to be thought of: the French army was crushed, crippled, almost annihilated, but its individual members still sought opportunities of venting their fury upon the hated victors. By sneer, and slighting word, and insulting look, they strove to irritate and lure them to the lists; and their provocations, even the more indirect ones, rarely failed of effect. On the duelling-ground, as in the field, steady German courage was found fully a match for the _brio_ and presumption of these French _spadassins_. After the capitulation of Paris, Von Rahden’s regiment was sent into country-quarters at Amiens, and they were but a few days in the town before the ill-smothered antipathy between Gaul and German broke out into a flame.

“When we were fairly installed in our quarters, and the first little squabbles and disagreements between towns-people and soldiers had been settled, chiefly by the good offices of the authorities, we officers gave ourselves up to the pleasures of the place, amongst which a large and elegant _café_ was not to be forgotten. In this coffee-house the tables were of marble, the walls covered with mirrors, the windows and doors of plate-glass, in gilt frames. All was gold and glitter, and the _dames de comptoir_ might, from their appearance, have been fashionable ladies, placed there to lead the conversation. All this was very new and attractive, and well calculated to dazzle us young men. Accordingly, from early morn till late at night, hundreds of officers, of all arms, sat in the _café_, drinking, playing, and sighing.

Happening one forenoon to be orderly-officer, I received several complaints from soldiers concerning the younger son of the family upon which they were quartered. He had returned home only the day before, had shown himself very unfriendly towards the men, and did his utmost to irritate their other hosts against them. Upon inquiry, I found the complaint to be just, and that a young and handsome man, of military appearance, was doing all in his power to excite ill-will towards us. After several warnings, which were unattended to, I was compelled to arrest and put him in the guard-room, menacing him with further punishment. This done, I joined my comrades at the _café_.

“That day our favourite place of resort presented an unusual aspect. A regiment of French hussars, on its march westwards, had halted for the night at Amiens, and upwards of twenty of the officers were now seated in the coffee-house. There was a good deal of talk going on, but not so much as usual; and the division between the different nations was strongly marked. To the right the hussars had assembled, crowded round three or four tables; on the other side of the saloon sat fifty or sixty Prussian infantry officers. The situation was not the most agreeable, and there was a mutual feeling of constraint. Presently there came to the coffee-house (by previous arrangement, as I am fully persuaded) one of those Italian pedlars, for the most part spies and thieves, of whom at that time great numbers were to be met with in France and other parts of the Continent. Stopping at the glazed door opening into the street, he offered his wares for sale. Soon one of the hussar officers called to him in excellent German, and asked him if he had any pocket-books to sell. He wanted one, he said, to note down the anniversaries of the battles of Jena, Austerlitz, &c. Although this inquiry was manifestly a premeditated insult, we Prussians remained silent, as if waiting to see what would come next. The pedlar supplied the demands of the Frenchman, and was about to leave the room, when one of our officers, Lieutenant von Sebottendorf, of the 23d infantry regiment, called to him in his turn, and observed, in a loud voice, that he also required a pocket-book, wherein to mark the battles of Rossbach, the Katzbach, and Leipzig. The names of Rossbach and Leipzig served for a signal. As by word of command, the hussars sprang from their chairs and drew their long sabres; we followed their example, and bared our weapons, which for the most part were small infantry swords. In an instant a mêlée began; the French pressing upon Sebottendorf; we defending him. At the same moment the hussar trumpets and our drums sounded and beat in the streets. As officer of the day, those sounds called me away. With great difficulty I got out of the café, and hurried to the main-guard, which was already menaced by the assembled hussars. I had just made my men load with ball-cartridge--we had no other--when luckily several companies came up and rescued me from my very critical position. Nothing is more painful than to be compelled to use decisive and severe measures in such a conjuncture, at the risk of one’s acts being disapproved and disavowed.

“Meanwhile, in the coffee-house, a somewhat indecorous fight went on, the mirrors and windows were smashed, and the scuffle ended by the officers forcing each other out into the street. All these affronts naturally would have to be washed out in blood. In a quarter of an hour our battalions were drawn up in the market-place: the general commanding at Amiens, and who just then happened to be absent, had given the strictest orders, that, in case of such disturbances, we were not to use our arms till the very last extremity. We were compelled, therefore, patiently to allow the French to march through our ranks, on foot and with drawn sabres, challenging us to the fight, as they passed, not with words, certainly, but by their threatening looks. Amongst them I saw, to my great astonishment, the young civilian whom I had that morning put in confinement, and who now passed several times before me, in hussar uniform, and invited me to follow him. In the confusion of the first alarm, he had escaped from the guard-room, put on regimentals, and now exhaled his vindictiveness in muttered invectives against me and the detested Prussians. Of course I could not leave my company; and, had I been able, it would have been very foolish to have done so.

“In a short half-hour the French and Prussian authorities were assembled. The hussars received orders to march away instantly, and we were to change our quarters the next day. Before we did so, however, rendezvous was taken and kept by several hussar officers, on the one hand, and by Lieutenant Sebottendorf, his second, Merkatz, and six others of our regiment, on the other, to fight the matter out. Sebottendorf and his opponent, who had commenced the dispute, also began the fight. They walked up to the barriers, fixed at ten paces; the Frenchman’s shot knocked the cap off the head of our comrade, who returned the fire with such cool and steady aim, that his opponent fell dead upon the spot. Another hussar instantly sprang forward to take his turn with Merkatz. I looked about for my young antagonist; but no one had seen him since the previous day, nor did the French officers know whom I meant; so it is possible that, favoured by the confusion of the previous day, he had donned a uniform to which he had no right. There was no more fighting, however. After long discussions and mutual explanations, matters were peaceably arranged. The officer who had caused the strife, alone bore the penalty. He was carried away by his comrades, and we repaired to our new cantonments. The brave Von Sebottendorf had vindicated with fitting energy and decision the fame and honour of the Prussian officer.”

The month of February, 1815, witnessed the return to Germany of Von Rahden’s battalion. A soldier’s home is wherever the quarters are best; and it was with many regrets that the Baron and his comrades left the pleasant cantonments and agreeable hospitality of gay and lively France, for the dull fortress of Magdeburg. The Baron shudders at the bare recollection of the unwelcome change, and of the subsequent reduction of his regiment to the peace establishment. Nor, according to his account, did any very hearty welcome from their civilian countrymen console the homeward-bound warriors for stoppage of field-allowance and diminished chance of promotion. They were received coldly, if not with aversion. Instead of good quarters and wholesome food, bad lodgings and worse rations fell to their share. Stale provisions, the leavings, in some instances, of the foes from whom they had delivered Germany, were deemed good enough for the conquerors of Kulm and Leipzig. Fatigue duties replaced opportunities of distinction, economy and ennui were the order of the day, and, amongst the disappointed subalterns, for whom the war had finished far too soon, but one note was heard, a sound of discontent and lamentation. It was the first opportunity these young soldiers had of learning that the man-at-arms, prized and cherished when his services are needed, is too often looked upon in peace time as a troublesome encumbrance and useless expense.

Suddenly, however, and most unexpectedly, came the signal for renewed activity. On the 29th of March, intelligence reached Magdeburg that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and, after a triumphant march of twenty days, had resumed his seat upon the imperial throne. Joyful news for the ambitious subaltern, eager for action and advancement; less pleasant tidings to the old officer, who believed his campaigns at an end, and hoped tranquilly to enjoy his well-earned promotion. Cockade and sabre instantly rose in public estimation; and those who, a day previously, had cast sour glances at the neglected soldier, now lauded his valour and encouraged his aspirations. Forgetting the toils and perils of recent campaigns, old Blucher’s legions joyfully prepared for another bout with the Frenchman. Once more the march was ordered Rhine-wards; and, on the 18th April, Von Rahden and his battalion crossed that river at Ehrenbreitstein.

An accident, the overturn of a carriage, by which he was severely hurt, separated the Baron, for some time, from his regiment. He rejoined it at Liege; to the great surprise of all for his death had been reported, and his name struck off the strength. The officers gave him a dinner,--the men welcomed his appearance on parade with a triple hurra. Happy in these proofs of his fellow-soldiers’ esteem he looked forward joyfully and confidently to the approaching struggle. It soon came. In the night of the 15th June the alarm sounded: Bülow’s corps hastily got under arms, and marched to the assistance of Prince Blucher. Front three in the morning till one in the afternoon they advanced without pause or slackening; then a short halt was ordered. The sound of Blucher’s cannon was plainly heard. He was hard pressed by the French: but a burning sun and a ten hours march had exhausted the strength of Bülow’s troops; rest and refreshment were indispensable. It was not till eleven at night that they reached Gembloux, and there met the old field-marshal’s disordered battalions in full retreat from the disastrous field of Ligny.

Of the battle of Waterloo, the Baron of course saw but the close. Nevertheless he had a little hard fighting and received a wound at the taking of Planchenoit, which was full of French troops, principally grenadiers of the guard. “The order was given. ‘The second regiment will take the village by storm.’ My brave colonel was the first man in the place; but he was also the first killed: a shot from a window knocked him over. Notwithstanding this loss, in an instant we were masters of the village. At its farther extremity was the churchyard, surrounded by a low wall, and occupied by two battalions of the old Imperial Guard. Hats off! He who has fought against them will know how to admire them. Like a swarm of bees, my regiment, whose ranks had got disordered during the short fight in the village, dashed forward with lowered bayonets against the cemetery. We were within fifteen paces of it. ‘Shoulder arms!’ cried the French commander. More than once had the guardsmen found the sign of contempt profit them, by confusing their antagonists, and startling them into a hasty and irregular discharge. This time it did not answer; in five minutes the churchyard was ours. Scarcely had we won, when we again lost it. Thrice did it change hands, and the ground was heaped with dead. The third encounter was terrible--with the bayonet, just below the lime trees that shaded the cemetery gate. We officers took the muskets of the fallen, and fought like common soldiers. Some of the French officers followed our example; others, standing in the foremost rank, did fearful execution with point of sword. Here fell my dearest friend, thrust through the heart; I sprang forward to revenge his death, when a bronzed hero of the Pyramids shot me down.” The wound was not very severe; and, although the ball could not be extracted, the Baron, after a month’s stay at Brussels, was able to rejoin his battalion, then quartered in Normandy. Thence, early in August, he marched to Paris, to take share in the grand ceremony of blessing the colours of the Prussian regiments.

“On a splendid summer’s day, (2d September, 1815,) 25,000 to 30,000 Prussians, comprising the whole of the guards, six infantry and six cavalry regiments of the line, were formed up in the Champ de Mars in one great square. In its centre was an altar, composed, military fashion, of drums, and covered with red velvet, upon which lay the Iron Cross. The Emperors Alexander and Francis, our noble king, and all the generals of the Allies, stood around and listened bareheaded to the impressive thanksgiving offered up by Chaplain Offelsmeyer. Here the colours of the various regiments, surmounted by the Iron Cross, and having the Alliance ribband--white, black, and orange--and the ribband of the medal cast out of captured artillery for ‘Prussia’s brave warriors’ fluttering from their staves, received, in the hands of our king and his imperial friends, a high and rare consecration.” As the blessing was spoken over the lowered colours, a numerous park of artillery fired a royal salute, and then, in review order, the troops defiled before the King of Prussia. “When the infantry of the line had passed, the officers were allowed to fall out and look on, whilst the guards and grenadiers marched by. It was a splendid sight, especially at the moment when the two emperors, at the head of their Prussian grenadier regiments, lowered swords, and paid military honours to our King.” The honours of the day were for Frederick William the Third; and the sovereigns of Russia and Austria, Baron von Rahden tells us, reined back their horses and kept a little in rear, that they might not seem to appropriate a share of them. “Only one soldierly figure, astride, proud and stately, upon a splendid charger, had taken post on the same line with the King of Prussia, some twenty paces to his right. Alone, and seemingly unsympathizing, he beheld, with thorough British phlegm, the military pageant. It was the Duke of Wellington, the bold hero of Eastern fight, the prudent general in the Peninsula, the fortunate victor of Waterloo. Accident and the crowd brought me close to his horse’s breast; and, with the assurance of a young man who feels himself an old and experienced soldier, I contemplated his really lofty, and proud, and noble appearance. I should find it very difficult to describe the Duke as he then was. Not that one line has been effaced of the impression stamped upon my memory whilst I stood for more than half an hour scarce three paces from his stirrup. But tame and feeble would be any portrait my pen could draw of the flashing eagle eye, the hawk’s nose, the slightly sarcastic expression of the pointed chin, and compressed, seemingly lipless, mouth. His hair was scanty and dark; neither moustache nor whisker filled and rounded his thin oval physiognomy. His high forehead, that noblest feature of the masculine countenance, I could not see, for a long narrow military hat, with a rather shabby plume, was pressed low down upon his brows. For two reasons, however, the impression the English leader that day made upon me, was not the most favourable: I was vexed at his placing himself thus intentionally apart from, and on the same line with my king; and then it seemed to me unnatural that his deportment should be so stiff, his bust so marble-like, and that at such a moment his features should not once become animated, or his eye gleam approval.”

This was not the last sight obtained by the Prussian lieutenant of the British field-marshal. In 1835 Baron von Rahden came to London. During the siege of Antwerp he had served as a volunteer under General Chassé, and had drawn a large military _tableau_ or plan of the defence of the citadel. This he had dedicated to the King of Holland, and now wished to confide to an English engraver. To facilitate his views, Chassé gave him an introduction to the Duke. We will translate his account of the interview it procured him. He went to Apsley House in Dutch uniform, his Iron Cross and medal, and the Prussian order of St. Anne, upon his breast, the latter having been bestowed upon him for his conduct at Waterloo, or La Belle Alliance, as the Prussians style it. He was introduced by an old domestic, who, as far as he could judge, might have been a mute, into a spacious apartment.

“I had waited almost an hour, and became impatient. I was on the point of seeking a servant, and causing myself to be announced a second time, when a small tapestried door, in the darker part of the saloon, opened, and a thin little man, with a stoop in his shoulders, dressed in a dark blue frock, ditto trousers, white stockings, and low shoes with buckles, approached without looking at me. I took him for servant, a steward, or some such person, and inquired rather quickly whether I could not have the honour to be announced to the Duke. The next instant I perceived my blunder; the little stooping man suddenly grew a head taller, and his eagle eye fixed itself upon me. I at once recognised my neighbour on the Champ de Mars. Rather enjoying my confusion, as I thought, the Duke again turned to the door, and, without a word, signed to me to follow him. When I entered the adjoining room he had already taken a chair, with his back to the light, and he motioned me to a seat opposite to him, just in the full glare from the plate-glass windows. We conversed in French; I badly, the Duke after a very middling fashion. With tolerable clearness I managed to explain what had brought me to London, and to crave the Duke’s gracious protection. In reply the Duke said that ‘He greatly esteemed General Chassé, who had fought bravely at Waterloo under his orders: that he was pleased with his defence of Antwerp,’ &c. At last he asked me ‘by whom my plan,’ which lay upon the table beside him, and which he neither praised nor found fault with, ‘was to be engraved.’

“‘_Chez M. James Wyld, géographe du roi_,’ was my somewhat over-hasty answer.

“‘_Géographe de sa Majesté Britannique_,’ said the Duke, by way of correction.

“A few more sentences were exchanged, doubtless of very crooked construction, as far as I was concerned,--for I was a good deal embarrassed; and then I received my dismissal.

“The _Géographe de sa Majesté Britannique_ told me, some weeks afterwards, that the Duke had been to him, had bought several military maps and plans, and, as if casually, had spoken of mine, which hung in the shop, had said that he knew me,” &c.

Notwithstanding the Duke’s kind notice and patronage, Captain von Rahden takes occasion to attack his grace for an expression used by him in the House of Lords in 1836, during a debate on a motion for the abolition of corporal punishment in the army. The Duke maintained that such punishment was necessary for the preservation of discipline; and on the Prussian army being cited as a proof of the contrary, he referred, in no very flattering terms, to the state of discipline of Blucher’s troops in 1815. There was some talk about the matter at the time, and an indignant answer to the Duke’s assertion, written by the German general, Von Grolman, was translated in the English journals. Baron von Rahden himself, as he tells us, took advantage of being in London on the anniversary of Waterloo, 1836, to perpetrate a little paragraph scribbling, in certain evening papers, with respect to the battle, and to the share borne in it by old MARSCHALL VORWAERTS and his men. That the campaigns of 1813-15 were most creditable to Prussian courage and patriotism, none will dispute; that the discipline of the Prussian army was then by no means first-rate, is equally positive. Nay, its mediocrity is easy to infer from passages in Baron von Rahden’s own book. Without affirming it to have been at the lowest ebb, it was certainly not such as could find approval with one who, for five years, had ranged the Peninsula at the head of the finest troops in Europe. As to who won the battle of Waterloo, the discussion of that question is long since at an end. The Baron claims a handsome share of the glory for his countrymen, and insists, that if they were rather late for the fight, they at least made themselves very useful in pursuit of the beaten foe. “If their discipline, had been so very bad,” he says, “they could hardly, on the second day after a defeat, have come up to the _rescue_ of their allied brethren.” The arrival of the Prussians was certainly opportune; but, had they not come up, there cannot be a doubt that Wellington, if he had done no more, would have held his own, and maintained the field all night: for he commanded men who, according to his great opponent’s own admission, “knew not when they were beaten.”

“Old General Blucher was a sworn foe of all unnecessary wordiness and commendation. ‘What do you extol?’ he once said, to put an end to the eulogiums lavished on him for a gloriously won victory. ‘It is my boldness, Gneisenau’s judgment, and the mercy of the Great God.’ Let us add, and the stubborn courage and perseverance of a faithful people and a brave army. Without these thoroughly national qualities of our troops, such great results would never have followed the closing act of the mighty struggle of 1813, 1814, and 1815. General Gneisenau’s unparalleled pursuit of the French after the battle of La Belle Alliance, could never have taken place, had not our troops displayed vigour and powers of endurance wonderful to reflect upon. The instant and rapid chase commanded by Gneisenau was only to cease when the last breath and strength of man and horse were exhausted. Thus was it that, by daybreak on the 19th June, he and his Prussians found themselves at Frasne, nearly six leagues from the field of battle, which they had left at half-past ten at night. Only a few squadrons had kept up with him; all the infantry remained behind; but the French army that had fought so gallantly at Waterloo and La Belle Alliance, was totally destroyed.”

The battle won, a courier was instantly despatched to the King of Prussia. The person chosen to convey the glorious intelligence was Colonel von Thile, now a general, commanding the Rhine district. From that officer’s narrative of his journey, the Baron gives some interesting extracts.

“In the course of fight,” Von Thile _loquitur_, “I had lost sight of my servant, and of my second horse, a capital gray. The brown charger I rode was wounded and tired, and it was at a slow pace that I started, to endeavour to reach Brussels that night. A Wurtemberg courier had also been sent off, the only one, besides myself, who carried the good news to Germany. Whilst my weary steed threatened each moment to sink under my weight, the Wurtemberger galloped by, and with him went my hopes of being the first to announce the victory to the king. Suddenly I perceived my gray trotting briskly towards me. I wasted little time in scolding my servant; I thought only of overtaking the Wurtemberger.

“At Brussels I learned from the postmaster that my fortunate rival had left ten minutes before me, in a light carriage with a pair of swift horses. I followed: close upon his heels every where, but unable to catch him up. At last, on the evening of the third day, I came in sight of him; his axle-tree was broken; his carriage lay useless on the road. I might have dashed past in triumph; but I refrained, and offered to take him with me, on condition that I should be the first to proclaim the victory. He joyfully accepted the proposal; and I was rewarded for my good nature, for he was of great service to me.”

Von Thile expected to find the king at Frankfort-on-the-Main; but he had not yet arrived, and the colonel continued his hurried journey, by Heidelberg and Fulda, to Naumberg.

“Five days and nights unceasing fatigue and exertion had exhausted my strength, but nevertheless I pushed forward, and on the following morning reached Naumberg on the Saal. In the suburb, on this side the river, I fell in with Prussian troops, returning, covered with dust and in very indifferent humour, from a review passed by the king. At last then I was at my journey’s end. They asked me what news I brought: all expected some fresh misfortune, for only an hour previously intelligence of the defeat at Ligny had arrived, and upon parade the king had been ungracious and out of temper. I took good care not to breathe a word of my precious secret, and hurried on. In the further suburb I met the king’s carriage. We stopped; I jumped out.

“‘Your majesty! a great, a glorious victory! Napoleon annihilated; a hundred and fifty guns captured!’ And I handed him a paper containing a few lines in Prince Blucher’s handwriting. The king devoured them with his eyes, and cast a grateful tearful glance to Heaven.

“‘TWO HUNDRED CANNON, according to this,’ was his first exclamation, in tones of heartfelt delight and satisfaction.

“I followed his majesty into the town. The newly instituted assembly of Saxon States was convoked, and the king made a speech announcing the victory. And truly I never heard such speaking before or since. I was ordered to go on to Berlin with my good news. This was in fact unnecessary, for a courier had already been despatched, but the king knew that my family, from which I had been two years separated, was at Berlin, and he wished to procure me the pleasure of seeing it. For that noble and excellent monarch was also the kindest and best of men.”

Soon after Waterloo, Baron von Rahden appears to have left the service; for he informs us, that between 1816 and 1830 he made long residences in Russia, Holland, and England. Perhaps he found garrison life an unendurable change from the stir and activity of campaigns, and travelled to seek excitement. Be that as it may, fifteen years’ repose did not extinguish his martial ardour. The echoes awakened by the tramp of a French army marching upon Antwerp, were, to the veteran of Leipzig, like trumpet-sound to trained charger, and he hurried to exchange another shot with his old enemies. Having once more brought hand and hilt acquainted, he grieved to sever them, and when the brief struggle in Belgium terminated, he looked about for a fresh field of action. Spain was the only place where bullets were just then flying, and thither the Baron betook himself, to defend the cause of legitimacy under Cabrera’s blood-stained banner. Concerning his travels, and his later campaigns, he promises his readers a second and a third volume; and the favourable reception the first has met with in Germany, will doubtless encourage him to redeem his pledge.

LAPPENBERG’S ANGLO-SAXONS.

THE HEPTARCHY.

We are willing to acknowledge, without blindly exaggerating, our obligations to the men of learning of Germany, in several branches of art and science. We owe them something in criticism, something in philosophy, and a great deal in philology. But in no department have they deserved better of the commonwealth of letters, than in the important province of antiquarian history, where their erudition, their research, their patience, their impartiality, are invaluable. Whatever subject they select is made their own, and is so thoroughly studied in all its circumstantial details and collateral bearings, that new and original views of the truth are sure to be unfolded, as the fixed gaze of an unwearied eye will at last elicit light and order out of apparent darkness and confusion.

The writer, whose chief work is now before us, cannot and would not, we know, prefer a claim to the foremost place among those who have thus distinguished themselves. That honour is conceded by all to the name of Niebuhr, a master mind who stands unrivalled in his own domain, and whose discoveries, promulgated with no advantage of style or manner, and in opposition to prejudices long and deeply cherished, have wrought a revolution in the study of ancient history to which there is scarcely a parallel. But among those who are next in rank, Dr. Lappenberg is entitled to a high position. His present work is one of the very best of a series of European histories of great merit and utility. He has given fresh interest to a theme that seemed worn out and exhausted. He has brought forward new facts, and evolved new conclusions that had eluded the observation and sagacity of able and industrious predecessors. He has treated the history of a country, not his own, with as much care and correctness, and with as true a feeling of national character and destinies as if he had been a native; while he has brought to his task a calmness of judgment, and freedom from prejudice, as well as a range of illustration from extraneous sources, which a native could scarcely be expected to command. It must now, we think, be granted, that the best history of Saxon England--the most complete, the most judicious, the most unbiassed, and the most profound, is the work of a foreigner. It must, at the same time, be said that Lappenberg’s history could not have exhibited this high degree of excellence, without the ample assistance afforded by the labours of our countrymen who had gone before him, and of which their successor has freely taken the use and frankly acknowledged the value.

The history and character of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, have employed the pen of the most illustrious among our native writers. One of our greatest poets, and one of our greatest masters of prose,--Milton and Burke--have felt the attraction and importance of the subject, at the same time that they have given evidence to its obscurity and difficulty. In later times men of less genius, but of more acquaintance with the times and topics involved in the inquiry, have added greatly to our knowledge of those important events and institutions in which the germs of our present government and national disposition are to be found. But Saxon England can only be thoroughly understood by means of aids and appliances, which have been seldom possessed in any eminent degree by the general run of our antiquarian writers. A thorough familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon language and literature is obviously the first requisite: yet this attainment was scarcely to be met with till within a few years back, and even now, we fear that it is confined to a narrow circle, and that the able men who have made progress in this arduous path, lament that they have so slender and so scattered a train of followers. If we can suppose inquirers studying Roman history, without being able to conjugate a Latin verb, or to gather more than a dim suspicion of a Latin author’s meaning, we shall have a case nearly analogous to the condition and achievements of our Saxon scholars in the last, and even in part of the present century. Another qualification for the successful cultivation of this field of study, is an intimate acquaintance with the analogous customs and traditions of kindred countries, an accomplishment which few Englishmen could till lately pretend to possess, but without which, a great deal of what occurs in our own early history must seem senseless and unintelligible. The key to many apparent mysteries in English antiquities, is often to be found in something which has been more clearly developed elsewhere, and which may even yet survive in a Danish song or saga, or a German proverb or superstition.

In these respects, our kinsmen across the water have undoubtedly the advantage of us; and to most of them the subject of English history cannot be alien in interest or barren of attraction. It is impossible for an enlightened native or neighbour of continental Saxony, to tread the southern shore of the North Sea, and think of the handful of his countrymen who, fourteen centuries ago, embarked for Britain from that very strand, without feeling the great results involved in that simple incident, and owning the sacred sympathies which unite him with men of English blood. He may well remember with wonder that the few exiles or emigrants who thus went forth on an obscure and uncertain enterprise carried in their bark the destinies of a mighty moral empire, which was one day to fill the world with the glory of the Saxon name, and to revive the valour and virtue of Greece and Rome, with a new admixture of Teutonic honour and Christian purity. He may well kindle with pride to admire the eminence to which that adventurous colony has attained from such small beginnings, and to consider how much the old Germanic virtues of truth and honesty, and home-bred kindliness, have conduced to that marvellous result; while perhaps the less pleasing thought may at times overshadow his mind, that his country, great as she is, has in some things been outstripped by her descendant, and that the best excellencies and institutions of ancient Germany may have been less faithfully preserved and less nobly matured in their native soil than in the favoured island to which some shoots of them were then transplanted.

If some such feelings prompted or encouraged the writer of these volumes to engage in his work, Dr. Lappenberg had other facilities to aid him in the task. He had been sent to Scotland in early life, and had studied at our metropolitan university where he is still kindly remembered by some who will be among the first to peruse those pages. His residence in this ancient city of the Angles, and his visits to the most interesting portions of the island, must have formed a familiarity and sympathy with our language, manners, and institutions which would afford additional inducements and qualifications to undertake a history of England. He has distinguished himself by other valuable compositions of a historical and antiquarian character, and particularly by some connected with the mediæval jurisprudence and history of his native city of Hamburgh. But his reputation will probably be most widely diffused, and most permanently preserved, by the admirable work which is the subject of our present remarks.

The labours of Mr. Thorpe, so well known as one of the very few accomplished Saxonists of whom we can boast, has now, after much discouragement, placed the Anglo-Saxon portion of Lappenberg’s history within the reach of English readers, and has given it a new value by his own additions and illustrations. The translation ought to be found in the library of every one among us who professes to study the history or to patronize the literature of his country.

The invasion or occupation of England by German tribes is involved in an obscurity, which does not disappear before a rigorous examination of its traditional details. On the contrary, the more we consider it the less certainly we can pronounce as to the truth. That on the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, a full and continuous stream of German population found its way into Britain, and that ere long the invading race gained the ascendant, and planted firmly in the soil their laws, their language, and their institutions, are facts established by a cloud of witnesses, and by that real evidence which lawyers consider superior to testimony. But how, or at what exact date this process commenced, under whose leadership or auspices it was carried on, and with what rapidity, or through what precise channels the tide flowed, are matters of more difficulty, on which, from the want of authentic materials, it is idle to dogmatise, however unpleasant it may be to remain in doubt. There is no want of ancient narratives of these supposed events; but though ancient as to us, they are neither so near the time to which they refer, nor so clear and consistent with probability, and with each other, as to command implicit deference.

Dr. Lappenberg, leaning perhaps too readily to the German theory of mythes, sees little in the history and achievements of Hengist and Horsa which can be considered authentic. Mr. Thorpe, on the other hand, is less sceptical, and while directing our notice to the fact that the northern tribes occasionally submitted to the command of double leaders, he has adduced in evidence the ancient poetical celebrity of Hengist as a Jutish hero. The episode from Beowulf, which he has inserted and ably translated in a note, is interesting and important in this view. But, after all, we confess that our mind remains in a state of suspense. We think the proof sufficient neither to justify a belief in the existence of the two chiefs, nor to authorise us in consigning them to non-entity; and we hold it an important duty in historical criticism to proportion our conclusions precisely to the premises from which they are deduced. Where there is good evidence, we should believe; where the evidence is incoherent or impossible, we should disbelieve. But there are conditions of a historical question where we can legitimately arrive at no opinion either way, and where we must be content to leave the fact in uncertainty, by a verdict of _not proven_.

There is no historian, we think, who mentions Hengist or Horsa, until at an interval of two or three hundred years after their supposed era; and what sort of interval had thus elapsed? A period of pagan obscurity, passed by the invaders in incessant conflicts, for a home and habitation, or for existence itself,--a period of which not a relic even of poetical tradition has survived, and in which the means of recording events, or of calculating time, were wholly different from our modern apparatus, and are too little known to let us judge of their sufficiency. The celebrity of Hengist in the old Saxon epics, but in which he is never, we think, connected with the invasion of England, appears to be a double-edged weapon, and may even account for his name being taken as a convenient stock to bear a graft of later romance. If we add to all this the tendency of the age to fiction and exaggeration, the marks of a fabulous character, so forcibly pointed out by Lappenberg in the recurrence of certain fixed numbers or periods of years, chiefly on an octonary system, as distinguished by conspicuous events, the divine genealogies attributed to the heroes, and the resemblance in incident to similar traditions in other ages or scenes, we shall easily see the unsteady footing on which the question stands, and be obliged to own, that, if our belief must be renounced in Romulus and Remus, we can scarcely go to the stake for Hengist and Horsa. It is remarkable, that while the Roman brothers are said to bear one and the same name in different forms, the appellations of the Anglo-Saxon leaders are also so far identical, as each signifying the warlike animal which is said to have been emblazoned on the Saxon banner.

It should be satisfactory to our West-British brethren, that Lappenberg sees no reason to distrust the existence of the illustrious Arthur, but he admits too readily the questionable discovery of his grave.

“The contemporary who records the victory at Bath gained by his countrymen in the first year of his life, and who bears witness of its consequences after a lapse of forty-four years, Gildas, surnamed the Wise, considers it superfluous to mention the name of the far-famed victor; but his wide-spread work, and the yet more wide-spread extracts from it in Beda, have reached no region in which the fame of King Arthur had not outstript them, the noble champion who defended the liberty, usages, and language of the ancient country from destruction by savage enemies; who protected the cross against the Pagans, and gained security to the churches most distinguished for their antiquity and various knowledge, to which a considerable portion of Europe owes both its Christianity and some of its most celebrated monasteries. Called to such high-famed deeds, he needed not the historian to live through all ages more brilliantly than the heroes of the chronicles, among whom he is counted from the time of Jeffrey of Monmouth; but, not to mention the works which, about the year 720, Eremita Britannus is said to have composed on the Holy Graal, and on the deeds of King Arthur, the rapid spread of Jeffrey’s work over the greater part of Europe, proves that the belief in the hero of it was deeply rooted. In the twelfth century a Greek poem, recently restored to light, was composed in celebration of Arthur and the heroes of the round table. Still more manifestly, however, do the numerous local memorials, which throughout the whole of the then Christian part of Europe, from the Scottish hills to Mount Etna, bear allusion to the name of Arthur; while on the other hand, the more measured veneration of the Welsh poets for that prince, who esteem his general, Geraint, more highly than the king himself, and even relate that the latter, far from being always victorious, surrendered Hampshire and Somersetshire to the Saxons, may be adduced as no worthless testimony for the historic existence of King Arthur. Even those traditions concerning him, which at the first glance seem composed in determined defiance of all historic truth,--those which recount the expedition against the Romans on their demand of subjection from him,--appear not totally void of foundation, when we call to mind that a similar expedition actually took place in Gaul; and are, moreover, informed, on the most unquestionable authority, of another undertaking in the year 468, on the demand of Anthemius, by the British general Riothamus, who led twelve thousand Britons across the ocean against the Visigoths in Gaul, and of his battles on the Loire. This very valuable narrative gives us some insight into the connexions and resources of those parts of Britain which had not yet been afflicted with the Saxon pirates.

“Arthur fell in a conflict on the river Camel, in Cornwall, against his nephew, Medrawd; his death was, however, long kept secret, and his countrymen waited many years for his return, and his protection against the Saxons. The discovery of his long-concealed grave in the abbey of Glastonbury, is mentioned by credible contemporaries, and excited at the time no suspicion of any religious or political deception. Had the king of England, Henry the Second, who caused the exhumation of the coffin in the year 1189, wished merely, through an artifice, to convince the Welsh of the death of their national hero, he would hardly himself have acted so conspicuous a part on the occasion. Poem and tradition bear witness to the spirit and his ashes, and the gravestone to the life and name of Arthur. Faith in the existence of this Christian Celtic Hector cannot be shaken by short-sighted doubt, though much must yet be done for British story, to render the sense latent in the poems of inspired bards, which have in many cases reached us only in spiritless paraphrases, into the sober language of historic criticism.”

It appears not unlikely, that the period fixed by the traditions for the arrival of the Saxons does not truly indicate the first settlement of their countrymen on our shores. In East Anglia, (Norfolk and Suffolk) as well as in Northumbria, and perhaps indefinitely to the north-east, successive colonies of German immigrants had probably found a home on islands at the mouths of rivers, or on barren tracts of sea-beach, along a thinly peopled and ill cultivated country. The cautious and tentative occupation of the shore thus taken, may have ultimately suggested the invitation of the Saxons, or facilitated their invasion of Britain in the deserted and distracted state in which the Romanised inhabitants were left, when their masters and protectors withdrew.

The introduction of Christianity among the English Saxons, is the first great event in their annals, that stands brightly out in the light of history. To whom we are indebted for this mighty and merciful revolution, does not, we think, admit of controversy. Though no friends to the corruptions or ambition of Rome, we cannot withhold from the Roman see the honour that here belongs to it, and for the service thus rendered to England, to Europe, and to mankind, the name of Gregory the Great deserves a place in a nobler calendar than that in which the saints of his own church are enrolled. The liberal spirit in which the mission was in some respects organized, deserves high praise. “It is my wish,” writes Gregory, “that you sedulously select what you may think most acceptable to Almighty God, be it in the Roman, or in the Gallican, or in any other church, and introduce into the church of the Angles that which you shall have so collected; for things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.” The intervention of the Pope was the more meritorious and seasonable from the conduct of the British clergy, in leaving their Saxon conquerors without an attempt to convert them. Such a course may have been natural and excusable, but it was not prompted either by Christian love or by enlightened policy; and we cannot altogether refrain from reading in the subsequent massacre of the monks of Bangor by the Pagan sword of Ethelfrid, the retribution which Augustine had denounced as awaiting the Celtic Church, for not preaching to the Angles the way of life.

The Irish clergy, useful as they afterwards were, had not then advanced so far in their progress, as to reach the Anglican border. It was in the year 563 that St. Columba passed over from Ireland to the Northern Picts, in whose conversion he was occupied about thirty years. And it was in 597 that Ethelbert of Kent was baptized, and was followed soon after to the font by ten thousand of his subjects. Whether there was any connexion between these simultaneous movements, beyond the ripening of events for so desirable a result, has not, so far, as we know, been traced by any inquirer.

The rapidity with which Christianity was then accepted implies a remarkable condition of the public mind. The bigotry, and even the confiding belief of the old religion, must in a great measure have passed away, and a certain dissatisfaction have come to be felt with its creed and its consolations. This is peculiarly visible in the course which the conversion took in Northumbria, where, if we can trust the traditionary accounts, a spirit of philosophical inquiry had pervaded the nobility, and even the priesthood, implying a high degree of intellectual advancement, and an earnest sense of the religious necessities of our nature. Let us take the well-known incidents of this event as they are given in the poetry of Wordsworth, rather than in any prose narrative.

PAULINUS.

But to remote Northumbria’s royal hall, Where thoughtful Edwin, tutor’d in the school Of sorrow, still maintains a Heathen rule, Who comes with functions apostolical? Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall, Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek, His prominent feature like an eagle’s beak; A man whose aspect doth at once appal And strike with reverence. The monarch leans Tow’rd the pure truths this delegate propounds; Repeatedly his own deep mind he sounds With careful hesitation,--then convenes A synod of his counsellors:--give ear, And what a pensive sage doth utter, hear!

PERSUASION.

“Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty king! That, stealing in while by the fire you sit Housed with rejoicing friends, is seen to flit Safe from the storm, in comfort tarrying. Here did it enter--there, on hasty wing Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold; But whence it came we know not, nor behold Whither it goes. Even such that transient thing, The human soul, not utterly unknown While in the body lodged, her warm abode; But from what world she came, what wo or weal On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown; This mystery, if the stranger can reveal, His be a welcome cordially bestowed!”

The Christian doctrine once planted in the hearts of Englishmen was never eradicated, but a storm passing over Northumbria levelled, for a while, the ripening harvest with the soil. Penda of Mercia, a man of remarkable character and fortune, “the last unshaken and powerful adherent of Paganisim among the Anglo-Saxons,” swept like a tempest over the scene, and seemed to blast the growing hopes of the Christian husbandman, while the native princes, in whom, from a national respect for royal lineage, the government was nominally left, relapsed into the errors of the old faith. The deliverance, however, was at hand, from a quarter then beginning to send forth its beneficial influences. Oswald, a Bernician prince, educated among the Scots, or converted Picts, assembled a few followers under the banner of the cross, and restored to his country independence and Christianity.

“History informs us that Oswald’s cross decided the fate of Britain for ever. Oswald obtained the sovereignty of Bernicia, and also of Deira, being entitled to the latter country by his maternal descent, his mother ‘Acha,’ the sister of Eadwine, being descended from Aelle. He was acknowledged as Bretwalda the sixth who held that dignity, and is said to have reigned over the four tongues of Britain, of the Angles, the Britons, the Picts, and the Scots. Oswald combined great vigour with much mildness and religious enthusiasm. By him Christianity was introduced anew into his kingdom, but it was that of his teachers, the Scots, by whom Aidan was sent to him from the isle of St. Columba, (Hii or Icolmkill,) and to whom as an Episcopal seat, he granted the isle of Lindisfarne, now Holy Island, the hallowed abode of many heroes of the Christian faith. Severity towards himself and the powerful, humility and benevolence towards the poor and lowly, activity in the cause of religion, zeal for learning, were the admirable qualities that were praised in Aidan, and shed the purest lustre on the old Scottish Church to which he belonged; and few will feel disposed to doubt that the general impression which the lives of such men made on the minds of people disgusted with Paganism, together with the internal truth of the Christian doctrines, has ever, and in a greater degree, contributed to their first conversion, than even the most convincing and solid arguments. How else could the so-often, vainly attempted conversion of the Northumbrians have been effected by Aidan, who, sprung from a hostile race, sent from a hostile school, strove to propagate the doctrines of the defeated Scots and Picts, the former oppressors of the Britons, in a tongue for which Oswald himself was compelled to act as the interpreter?

“Of Aidan’s fitness for the pious work committed to him, a judgment may be formed from the following anecdote related by Beda. At the solicitation of Oswald, a priest had been sent by the Scots to preach the word to the Pagans of Northumbria, who, proving unqualified for the task, and unwelcome to the people, through the austerity of his character, returned to his country, where, in an assembly of his brethren, he declared his inability to effect any good among a people so ungovernable and barbarous. On hearing this declaration, Aidan, who was present at the meeting, said to him, ‘Brother, it seems to me that you have been harsher than was fitting towards such uninstructed hearers, and have not, in conformity with apostolic usage, first offered the milk of milder instruction, until, gradually nourished by the divine word, they might become capable both of receiving the more perfect, and of executing the higher precepts of God.’ A discussion, to which these words gave rise, terminated in the unanimous declaration, that Aidan was worthy of the Episcopal dignity, and that he ought to be sent back to the ignorant unbelievers.

“In such, and in every other manner possible, Oswald promoted the religion of the Cross, planted by him, not in his own kingdom only, but in the states encircling the British empire. In this he followed the impressions of his youth, and the conviction which had steeled his arm to victory. He might also have cherished the hope that in a British Christian church, the surest spiritual support would be found to consist in the union of all the tongues of Britain.”

For some time the Catholic and Columban clergy lived and laboured together in the common cause of true religion, with mutual charity and increasing usefulness. But the desire for external unity, so attractive in theory, so unattainable in practice, disturbed this pleasing repose; and, in the struggle that ensued, the victory was on the side of the Romish system, aided perhaps by superior learning and experience, and perhaps by the great advantage which dictatorial intolerance often possesses, in religious matters, over an enlarged liberality. On weak or ill-instructed minds, the bold assertion of an exclusive access to salvation, so dogmatically claimed by bigots of all churches, will generally prevail over opposing doctrines, which invest the choice of a sect with a less hazardous responsibility. The scene at the Synod of Whitby reveals a part of the truth, but perhaps a part only; and views of deeper policy may have been concealed under the somewhat slender pretext which led to this momentous change.

“An important measure, both for the benefit of the church and the closer union of the Anglo-Saxons, was reserved for King Oswiu. The Anglo-Saxons, according as they had been converted by Augustine and his followers, or by those of Columba, were attached to the Roman Catholic, or to the British Church. The majority of the ecclesiastics, at least of the more distinguished, belonged to the latter; hence arose a difference in religious views and worship, not only in the several kingdoms, but in the several provinces, which threatened to become extremely dangerous to the new faith. We see this religious discussion introduced through marriages even among the royal families, and that Oswiu himself celebrated the Easter festival, according to the Scottish practice, on a different day from that observed by his queen, Eanflœd, a daughter of the King of Kent. Ealhfrith also, the son, and co-regent with Oswiu, was, through the persuasion of his friend Cenwealh, favourable to the Roman church. Differences of this kind, though affecting externals only, greatly endangered the Christian faith among a people scarcely weaned from the worship of their forefathers, and acquainted with Christianity only in the closest connexion with the new external observances. Colman, a Scot, the third bishop of Lindisfarne, after the death of Finan, zealously strove to establish the principles of his sect. A synod was called at Streoneshealh, (Whitby) in which, under the presidency of Oswiu, the most distinguished ecclesiastics of each church defended their respective doctrines. Among the partisans of Rome were Agilbert, bishop of Wessex, and Wilfrith, (Wilferth) the future celebrated bishop of York. The disputation was maintained on both sides with learning and acuteness, and the Scottish clergy might have succeeded in settling for ever a strong barrier against the Catholic pretensions of the Roman church, if the king, wavering under the weight of so many conflicting arguments, had not remarked, that the Scots appealed to St. Columba, but the Catholics to the Apostle Peter; for Wilfrith had not forgotten to adduce, in support of the Roman tenets, that Peter was the rock on which the Lord had founded his Church, and that to him were committed the keys of Heaven. ‘Has Columba also received such power?’ demanded the king. Colman could not answer in the affirmative. ‘Do you both agree, that to Peter the Lord has given the keys of Heaven?’ Both affirmed it. ‘Then,’ said the king, ‘I will not oppose the Heavenly porter, but to my utmost ability will follow all his commands and precepts, lest, when I come to the gates of Heaven, there be no one to open to me, should he, who is shown to have the key in his custody, turn his back upon me.’ Those sitting in the council, as well as those standing around, noble and vulgar, alike anxious for their eternal salvation, approved of this determination, and were thus, in the usual spirit of large assemblies, and without further investigation of the arguments adduced, impelled to a decision by the excited feelings of the moment. The Scots either returned to their friends, or yielded to the opinion of the majority, and thus, by the learning of their school, became useful to the Anglo-Saxons; but, together with these apparently trivial externals, the great latent influence was sacrificed, which their church would probably have acquired in opposition to the then less firmly established one of Rome.”

The arrival of Theodore, an able and accomplished Asiatic, appointed to the primacy by the Pope, and the co-operation of Wilfrith, just mentioned, an Anglo-Saxon of transcendant talents and unconquerable zeal, confirmed throughout England the ascendency of Romish influence, which had thus been established in Northumbria, and which, from the first, had been recognised in Kent.

We may speculate, with Lappenberg, on the results to be expected if this controversy had terminated differently. A victory of opinion, gained in England by the followers of Columba, might have laid the foundation of a United Church, comprehending all the races that inhabited the island, and sufficiently powerful to contest with Italy the guidance of Christian principles over the rest of Europe, and to confine the Roman Bishoprick within narrower and safer bounds.

“The British Church, established probably on the oldest direct traditions from Judea, in closest connexion with conversions of the highest importance in the history of mankind, appeared, no less by its geographical position than by its exalted spiritual endowments, fitted to become the foundation of a northern patriarchate, which, by its counterpoise to Rome and the rest of the south, its guardianship over a Celtic and Germanic population, sanctified by the doctrine of Christ, might have been the instrument to impart to those within its pale, that which both meditative and ambitious men in the middle-age sometimes ventured to think on, but which, in comparatively modern times, Martin Luther first strove to extort for Romanized Europe.”

The picture is pleasing if we contemplate these possibilities merely on “the side that’s next the sun.” We fancy a church system extending over Northern Europe, pure in its doctrines and peaceable in its policy, free from foreign influence and intrigue, and in harmony with the frank and earnest character of the nations it embraces within its bosom. We imagine, too, that Rome herself, uninjured by the intoxication of a wealth and power too great for any clerical rulers to bear meekly and innocently, would have retained something more of apostolical truth and simplicity; and that the two rivals might have run a friendly race of Christian zeal and diligence. But there are also opposite contingencies which may reconcile us to the course, in which events have been directed by a wisdom greater than our own. We might have seen perhaps in our own region the establishment of a church at variance with that of Rome, in some essential articles of faith in which we now agree with her. We might have been born under a great Arian or Pelagian heresiarchy, enervating or polluting all our best elements of action; or, if _we_ had remained pure, the unaided energy of the Roman See might have sunk under the formidable errors with which she was at one time threatened, and the limits of orthodox Christendom might have been fearfully abridged. As it is, by the unity that for a time was attained even at a serious sacrifice, the preservation and extension of the apostolic faith may have been secured until the fulness of time arrived, when the Reformation set men free from a bondage that had ceased to be necessary, and had begun to be pernicious.

The ascendency of the Romish church brought with it another compensation, in the influx of southern art and classical learning. It cannot be doubted that our religious connexion with Christian Rome, was mainly instrumental in rendering us familiar with Roman and even with Grecian antiquity: and who shall say what might have been our mental condition if we had wanted all the ennobling and ameliorating influences which have thence been derived? A Saxon or a Celtic tendency predominating in our literature, and in our habits of thought and action, and excluding perhaps benigner elements of sentiment and reflection, might have made us a rude and rugged people, brave and impetuous, ardent and impassioned, but without either the refinement of taste, the soundness of judgment, or the depth of philosophy, which have been the fruits of that ingrafted instruction which has softened and subdued our native character. On the whole, then, let us be grateful for what we are: not repining at having learned our religion from Rome, and not regretting that we are now emancipated from our schoolmistress, and at liberty to judge and to act for ourselves.

With other arts and knowledge, as Lappenberg observes,

“Architecture also came in the suite of the Roman Church. The Scottish clergy, from the preference, perhaps, of the northern nations for that material, had built their churches of wood, thatching them with reeds, an example of which existed in the new Cathedral at Lindisfarne. It was at a later period only that reeds were exchanged for sheets of lead, with which the walls also were sometimes covered. Wilfrith sent for masons from Kent, and the abbot Benedict for workmen from Gaul. The stone basilica, erected by Paulinus, at York, which had fallen into a disgraceful state of dilapidation, was restored by Wilfrith, the roof covered with lead, the windows filled with glass, till then unknown among his countrymen. At Ripon, he caused a new basilica of polished stone to be erected, supported by pillars with a portico. The consecration--at which the Kings Ecgfrith and Ælfwine were present--was concluded by a feasting reminding us of Pagan times, which lasted during three days and nights. The four gospels, written with golden letters on purple vellum, adorned with paintings, in a case of pure gold set with precious stones, enables us to judge both of the wealth and munificence of the patrons of Wilfrith.

An edifice still more remarkable was erected by the bishop at Hexham, which, it is said, had not its like on this side of the Alps. Benedict’s structure, too, at Wearmouth was the work of masters from Gaul, after the Roman model. Thus, we perceive, in the instance of the most memorable buildings of which mention is found in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, how their architecture sprang from that of ancient Rome, however it may have been modified in England, to suit a difference of circumstances and climate.”

The details we possess of the exertions of Benedict, mentioned in the preceding extract, and generally distinguished by the name of Benedict Biscop, are especially interesting, and present a remarkable view of the actual importation and progress of those arts of civilization, to which the Saxons but a century before were utter strangers. He was the builder, and first abbot of St. Peter’s monastery at Weremouth:--“A man,” as Bede tells us in his Lives of the Abbots of that locality, “of a venerable life, (we use Dr. Giles’ translation,) blessed (benedictus) both in grace and in name; having the mind of an adult even from his childhood, surpassing his age by his manners, and with a soul addicted to no false pleasures. He was descended from a noble lineage of the Angles, and by corresponding dignity of mind, worthy to be exalted into the company of the angels. Lastly, he was the minister of King Oswy, and by his gift enjoyed an estate suitable to his rank; but at the age of twenty-five years he despised a transitory wealth, that he might obtain that which is eternal.” He visited Rome five times, and never returned with empty hands. After being settled at Weremouth in the year 674, Benedict visited Gaul, and brought with him masons and glass artificers, to build his church in the Roman style. He then made his fourth voyage to Rome, (we quote again from Bede,)

“And returned loaded with more abundant spiritual merchandise than before. In the first place, he brought back a large quantity of books of all kinds; secondly, a great number of relics of Christ’s Apostles and Martyrs, all likely to bring a blessing on many an English church; thirdly, he introduced the Roman mode of chanting, singing, and ministering in the church, by obtaining permission from Pope Agatho to take back with him John, the arch chanter of the church of St. Peter, and Abbot of the Monastery of St. Martin, to teach the English.”--Further, “he brought with him pictures of sacred representations to adorn the church of St. Peter, which he had built; namely, a likeness of the Virgin Mary, and of the twelve Apostles, with which he intended to adorn the central nave, on boarding placed from one wall to the other; also some figures from ecclesiastical history for the south wall, and others from the Revelation of St. John for the north wall; so that every one who entered the church, even if they could not read, whereever they turned their eyes, might have before them the amiable countenance of Christ and his Saints, though it were but in a picture, and with watchful minds might revolve on the benefits of our Lord’s incarnation, and having before their eyes the perils of the last judgment, might examine their hearts the more strictly on that account.”

Some years afterwards, he made his fifth voyage

“From Britain to Rome, and returned (as usual) with an immense number of proper ecclesiastical relics. There were many sacred books and pictures of the saints, as numerous as before. He also brought with him pictures out of our Lord’s history, which he hung round the Chapel of Our Lady in the larger monastery; and others to adorn St. Paul’s church and monastery, ably describing the connexion of the Old and New Testament; as, for instance, Isaac bearing the wood for his own sacrifice, and Christ carrying the cross on which he was about to suffer, were placed side by side. Again, the serpent raised up by Moses in the desert, was illustrated by the Son of Man exalted on the cross. Among other things, he brought two cloaks, all of silk, and of incomparable workmanship, for which he received an estate of three hides, on the south bank of the river Were, near its mouth, from King Alfred.”

A glimpse of the pictures thus imported into England, in the seventh century, and of the gazing multitudes who would crowd around them, would carry us back almost to the childhood of modern art, and to the infancy of English taste.

The establishment, however, of Roman influence in England was partial after all, and ecclesiastical authority was not independent of the State. The Anglo-Saxon clergy, as Lappenberg observes, were not so free as their brethren on the continent, and many are the complaints that their subjection to secular power seems to have called forth, particularly as to their liability to the _trinoda necessitas_ of fortress and bridge money, and contributions for military levies. The weaker hold maintained by the Papal power helped to promote the use of the vernacular tongue in their church service, and the diffusion of vernacular versions of Scripture, as well as other benefits of which we are still reaping the good fruits.

The permanent importance of the struggles then maintained for ecclesiastical ascendency, and the profession and pursuits of the only men by whom history could be written, have necessarily given an undue prominence to those actors on the scene who belonged to the church, and have left the laymen and even the royal personages of the period in comparative obscurity. As illustrating the workings of Roman influence on the minds of men, we may select two examples of distinguished churchmen of Northumbria, the one representing the secular, and the other the monastic portion of the clergy, and in whom the different elements entering into the spirit of the times were very variously exhibited.

“Wilfrith, though not of noble birth, was endowed with all those natural advantages, the influence of which over rugged, uncivilized people appears almost fabulous. In his thirteenth year, the period at which an Anglo-Saxon youth was considered of age, he resolved to leave his parents and renounce the world. Equipped suitably to his station, he was sent to the court of Oswiu, and, through the influence of the Queen Eanflœd, was received into the monastery of Lindisfarne by the chamberlain Cudda, who had exchanged earthly joys and sorrows for the retirement and observances of a cloister. There he was as remarkable for humility as for mental endowments. Besides other books, he had read the entire Psalter, according to the emendation of St. Jerome, as in use among the Scots. His anxious desire to behold and pray in the church of the apostle Peter must have been the more grateful to the queen and her Roman Catholic friends, from the novelty and singularity of such a wish among his countrymen. In furtherance of his object, she sent him to her brother Earconberht, King of Kent, where he made himself familiar with the doctrines of the Roman Church, including the Psalms according to the fifth edition. He was attached as travelling companion to Benedict, surnamed Biscop, a distinguished man, who, at a later period, exerted himself so beneficially in the cause of the Church, and in the civilization and instruction of the Northumbrians. Benedict died abbot of the monastery founded by him at Wearmouth, an establishment not less famed for arts and scientific treasures, than ennobled through its celebrated priest, the venerable Beda. On Wilfrith’s arrival at Lyons, Dalfinus, the Archbishop, was so struck by his judicious discourse, comely countenance, and mature understanding, that he retained him long with him, offered to adopt him for his son, to give him the hand of his brother’s daughter, and to procure for him the government of a part of Gaul.

“But Wilfrith hastened to Rome, acquired there a thorough knowledge of the four Gospels, also the Roman computation of Easter, which, as we have already seen, he afterwards so triumphantly employed, and at the same time made himself familiar with many rules of ecclesiastical discipline, and whatever else was proper for a minister of the Roman Church. On his return, he passed three years at Lyons, with his friend Dalfinus, and extended his knowledge by attending the most learned teachers. He now declared himself wholly devoted to the Church of Rome, and received from Dalfinus the tonsure of St. Peter, consisting of a circle of hair in imitation of the crown of thorns, while the Scots shaved the entire front, leaving the hair only on the hinder part of the head. Here he nearly shared the fate of his unfortunate friend, the archbishop, in the persecution raised against him by the Queen Baldhild, the widow of Clovis the Second, and the mayor of the palace, Ebruin; but the comely young stranger, through the extraordinary compassion of his persecutors, was saved from the death of a martyr. He now hastened back to his country, where he was honourably received by King Ealhfrith, consecrated abbot of the monastery of Ripon, and regarded as a prophet by high and low. After the disputation with Bishop Colman at Whitby, Oswiu and his son, with their witan, chose the abbot Wilfrith for Bishop of York, who passed over to Paris to be consecrated by Agilbreht. On his return to Northumbria, he was driven by a storm on the coast among the Pagan south Saxons, who proceeded vigorously to exercise the right of wreck on the strangers. The chief priest of the idolaters stood on an eminence for the purpose of depriving them of power by his maledictions and magic, when one of their number, with David’s courage and success, hurled a stone at him, from a sling, which struck him to the brain. At the fall of their priest, the fury of the people was excited against the little band, who succeeded however, after a conflict, four times renewed, in re-embarking with the return of the tide, and reached Sandwich in safety.”

Wilfrith in his absence had been deprived of the See of York, and on his return retired with real or affected submission to his cloister at Ripon; but the see was restored to him by the influence of Theodore. Various events hastened an outbreak of dissensions among the higher clergy, and of the jealousy of the secular towards the ecclesiastical power.

In order partly to curtail the dimensions of Wilfrith’s power, the See of York was divided into two dioceses; and the influence and remonstrances of the bishop were unavailing to avert the blow. He set out, therefore, on a journey to Rome, to appeal to the Papal authority; but he had enemies abroad as well as at home, and was only saved from their hostility by a storm, which drove his vessel to the coast of Friesland, and secured for him the honour of being the first of the numerous English missionaries who bore the tidings of the Gospel to the continental Pagans of the North.

Resuming his journey, after a year, he laid his complaints before the Roman See, and was here also the first in a less honourable path,--no previous appeal to the Papal protection having ever been attempted by Anglo-Saxon churchmen. The thunders of the Vatican sounded, as yet, but faintly in British ears; and Wilfrith, on his return, was consigned to a prison, instead of obtaining that restoration of his honours which Pope Agatho had ventured to decree.

Driven from Northumbria a homeless exile, Wilfrith fled to the shores of Sussex, the scene of his former peril and preservation, and, renewing his efforts against the remains of Pagan barbarism still lingering in that quarter, he taught the natives the lore of a better life, both in worldly and in spiritual things, and established a bishopric, to the charge of which he was himself elevated.

Again reconciled to Theodore, he was appointed to the See of Litchfield, the fourth that had fallen to him, and he afterwards had the glory of declining an offer of the archiepiscopate of Canterbury. After recovering the bishopric of York, he once more lost it by becoming involved in new disputes and contests for the superiority of the Romish discipline, and, in his seventieth year, carried another appeal to the Papal Chair, which, on this occasion, had the satisfaction of finding that both Wilfrith and his enemies pleaded to its jurisdiction. Wilfrith was exculpated by the Pope, but could only obtain from the Anglo-Saxon Prince of Northumbria the See of Hexham and the monastery of Ripon. “After a few years passed in almsgiving and the improvement of church discipline, Wilfrith died in his seventy-sixth year, a man whose fortunes and activity in the European relations of England were long without a parallel.” He completed what Augustine began, and united the English Church to that of Rome in matters of discipline. Even his influence, however, could not destroy the independence of his countrymen, who, as Lappenberg observes, “even after they were no longer Anti-Catholic, continued always Anti-Papistical.”

The two achievements which occur as episodes in this singular biography, the commencement of a Christian mission in Germany, and the conversion of the last remnants of Paganism in England, would have been enough to immortalise their author, independently of his influence on the outward discipline of the Church.

To the chequered and restless career of Wilfrith, thus divided between clerical ambition, and Christian usefulness, a striking contrast is presented in the peaceful life of one who is the honour of Saxon England, and the brightest, or the only bright name in European literature during the centuries that intervened between Theodoric and Charlemagne.

“But no one imparts to the age of the ‘Wisest King’ greater brilliancy than the man just named, whom the epithet of ‘The Venerable’ adorns, whose knowledge was profound and almost universal. Born in the neighbourhood of Wearmouth, he enjoyed in that abbey the instructions of Benedict, its first abbot, of whom we have already had occasion to make honourable mention, as well as those of his successor, Ceolfrith, equally distinguished for his zeal in the promotion of learning. In the neighbouring cloister of Jarrow, Beda passed his life in exercises of piety and in varied study; and gave life and form to almost all the knowledge which the age could offer him. If, on a consideration of his works, it must appear manifest that that age possessed more means of knowledge, both in manuscripts and learned ecclesiastics, than we are wont to ascribe to it; and even if we must recognise in Beda the high culture of the Roman church, rather than Anglo-Saxon nationality, yet the acknowledgment which his merits found in Rome during his life, and shortly after his death, whereever learning could penetrate, proves that in him we justly venerate a wonder of the time. His numerous theological writings, his illustrations of the books of the Old and New Testaments, have throughout many ages, until the total revolution in that branch of learning, found readers and transcribers in every cloister of Europe. His knowledge of Greek, of medicine, of astronomy, of prosody, he made subservient to the instruction of his contemporaries; his work “De sex hujus seculi ætatibus,” though less used than it deserves to be, is the basis of most of the universal chronicles of the middle age. But his greatest merit, which will preserve his name through all future generations, consists in his historic works, as far as they concern his own native land. If a second man like himself had arisen in his days, who with the same clear, circumspect glance, the same honest and pious purpose, had recorded the secular transactions of his forefathers, as Beda has transmitted to us those chiefly of the church, then would the history of England have been to posterity almost like revelation for Germanic antiquity.”

It seems like a miracle to witness within a century of their country’s conversion, two native names so remarkable as these. Under the influence thus exerted, which in the one man was purely good, and in the other had more good in it than evil, an active spirit of religion was necessarily introduced, and the national character underwent a mighty change. The condition of public feeling at this period is strongly illustrated in the concluding chapter of Bede’s History.

“Such being the peaceable and calm disposition of the times, many of the Northumbrians, as well of the nobility as private persons, laying aside their weapons, rather incline to dedicate both themselves and their children to the tonsure and monastic vows, than to study martial discipline. What will be the end hereof, the next age will show. This is, for the present, the state of all Britain; in the year, since the coming of the English into Britain about 285, but in the 731st year of the incarnation of our Lord, in whose reign may the earth ever rejoice; may Britain exult in the profession of his faith; and may many islands be glad, and sing praises in honour of his holiness!”

_What will be the end hereof the next age will show!_ These are ominous words, of which we are soon to find the fulfilment in many grievous revolutions and disasters. And yet amid all these it is impossible to depreciate the value and operation of the peaceful interval that preceded them, or to deny that, though other things might fall or fade away for a time, the great work of the diffusion of Christian civilisation was destined ever to make more rapid progress, even by the help of those very events which seemed to threaten its extinction.

SCOTTISH MELODIES BY DELTA.

ERIC’S DIRGE.

Shon’st thou but to pass away, Chieftain, in thy bright noon-day? (All who knew thee, love thee!) Who to Eric would not yield? Red hand in the battle field, Kinsman’s idol, Beauty’s shield, Flowers we strew above thee!

Eagle-like, in Glory’s sky, Soar’d thy dauntless spirit high; (All who knew thee, love thee!) Scion of a matchless race, Strong in form, and fair of face, First in field, and first in chase, Flowers we strew above thee!

Three to one Argyle came on, Yet thy glance defiance shone; (All who knew thee, love thee!) Fear thine Islesmen never knew; We were firm, tho’ we were few; And in front thy banner flew:-- Flowers we strew above thee!

What mere men could do was done; Two at least we slew for one; (All who knew thee, love, thee!) But, ah fatal was our gain! For, amid the foremost slain, Lay’st thou, whom we mourn in vain: Flowers we strew above thee!

Mourn!--nor own one tearless eye, Barra, Harris, Uist, and Skye! (All who knew thee, love thee!) Eric! low thou liest the while, Shadowed by Iona’s pile; May no step thy stone defile:-- Flowers we strew above thee!

THE STORMY SEA!

Ere the twilight bat was flitting, In the sunset, at her knitting, Sang a lonely maiden, sitting Underneath her threshold tree; And, as daylight died before us, And the vesper star shone o’er us, Fitful rose her tender chorus-- “Jamie’s on the stormy sea!”

Warmly shone that sunset glowing; Sweetly breathed the young flowers blowing; Earth, with beauty overflowing, Seem’d the home of love to be, As those angel tones ascending, With the scene and season blending, Ever had the same low ending-- “Jamie’s on the stormy sea!”

Curfew bells remotely ringing, Mingled with that sweet voice singing; And the last red rays seem’d clinging Lingeringly to tower and tree: Nearer as I came, and nearer, Finer rose the notes, and clearer; Oh! ’twas heaven itself to hear her-- “Jamie’s on the stormy sea!”

“Blow, ye west winds! blandly hover O’er the bark that bears my lover; Gently blow, and bear him over To his own dear home and me; For, when night winds bend the willow, Sleep forsakes my lonely pillow, Thinking of the foaming billow-- “Jamie’s on the stormy sea!”

How could I but list, but linger, To the song, and near the singer, Sweetly wooing heaven to bring her Jamie from the stormy sea: And, while yet her lips did name me, Forth I sprang--my heart o’ercame me-- “Grieve no more, sweet, I am Jamie, Home returned, to love and thee!”

GENERAL MACK--A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

_To the Tune of “No one else could have done it.”_

At the taking of Ulm, some forty years back, “No one could have done it” but General Mack: Like “The League,” the besiegers were certainly strong, But to Mack, without doubt, did the triumph belong: “In vain,” people cried, “must have been the attack, But for one single man--gallant General Mack!”

Yet “the Hero of Ulm,” doesn’t stand quite alone,-- For we have a General Mack of our own; And when any strong Fortress in which he commands, Any morning is found in The Enemy’s hands, We cry till our voices are ready to crack, “Pray, who could have done it but General Mack?”

In the time of _old_ Mack, although only a lad, What delight in the name must the stripling have had! How the opening buds of political truth Must have swell’d in the heart of the generous youth, As he nobly resolved to pursue the same track, And become, in due season, a General Mack!

“If perchance,” he would say, “the time ever should be, When some fortress as strong is entrusted to _me_-- If its chosen defenders I ever should lead, Here at once is a system that’s sure to succeed! How soon may the boldest and bravest attack Be brought to an end, by a General Mack!”

In days when they tell us that prophets are rare, This was, for a young one, you’ll own, pretty fair; For in due course of time, (not to dwell upon dates,) Full many a fortress had open’d its gates; And I could not admit, though I were on the rack, Any one could have done it but General Mack.

On each new exploit, the same wonderment ran-- “You’ll allow that this Mack _is_ a wonderful man. All the optics of friends and of foes he defies-- He is always preparing some pleasant surprise-- What a squint you must have, if you see on what tack, He next is to go--honest General Mack!”

Oh, gallant commander! I hear people say, These triumphs of yours have at length had their day. I will not determine how far that may be, But I’m sure they have not been _forgotten_ by me; And a Carol for CHRISTMAS you never shall lack, As long as your name shall be GENERAL MACK!

REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY THE CAREER OF THE LATE PREMIER.

We have heard a great deal said of late against what are termed “personalities”--a term which, I suppose, implies remarks or reflections on the personal conduct of an individual. If a statesman is hard pressed on some unpleasant point, he escapes by saying, that it is only a “personality,” and that to “bandy personalities” is a thing from which he is precluded by his dignity. If a discussion in Parliament turn much upon these personalities, they are treated by those who may find them distasteful, as a totally irrelevant matter, interrupting the true business of the House; and if they are noticed, it is done as if it was a pure πάρεργον, a gratuitous piece of condescension on the part of the person replying to the attack. It seems to be laid down as a sort of axiom by many, that political questions should be discussed solely on their own merits, abstaining from all remarks on personal character, more especially in Parliament, where all such reflections are condemned as pure waste of the time of the House.

That political questions should be discussed on their own merits, and that those merits are in no way affected by the character of any individual whatever, is perfectly true; but if it be meant to be inferred that the personal character of public men is therefore a matter of no importance, a subject which is to be veiled in a sacred silence, and never to be examined or discussed, such a sentiment is eminently flimsy and false, one which could only find general acceptance in a poor-minded age, to which material interests were of greater value than the far higher ones of national character. For that the national character is greatly affected by the personal character of its leading public men, is a truth that will scarcely be called in question. The venality and corruption which more especially disgraced the ministry of Walpole, and infected, in a greater or less degree, that of his successors, may reasonably be expected to have exercised a widely debasing influence on the nation at large, an expectation amply confirmed (to say nothing of native testimonies) by the estimates which foreign writers of that time draw of the national character of England. The intriguing and profligate character of many of the public men under Charles II. had, no doubt, a similarly evil influence on the popular mind; and generally, all insincerity in high places must be looked on as a bane to the country. Most widely should we err, if, in estimating the career of these statesmen, we looked only to the outward character of their measures, in a commercial, economical, or political point of view. However beneficial many of their measures may have been in these respects, if their own character was not sincere and honest, if these measures were brought about not by fair and open means, but by artful and underhand intrigues, by false professions, by duplicity, and insincerity, by venality, whether of the open bribe, or the insidious government influence, we pass a verdict of censure on their career, we reject them from the rank of the true patriots, the sacred band, who have earned renown as the pure benefactors of their country,--“Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.”

If we looked only at the commercial or practical consequences of his measures, the career of Walpole might be esteemed glorious--for I believe it is generally considered that his measures were sagacious and successful. But the venal character of his administration is a blot that no one may remove, and this stain on his personal character neutralises (as far as he is concerned) all the effect of his measures. Posterity, accordingly, has done him justice, and has assigned him his fitting rank--he takes his place among the skilful statesmen, not among the great patriots. Who will be able to alter this decision? Who shall have influence to induce the world to raise him to the higher rank,--to make us couple the name of Walpole with those of Aristides, Phocion, and Demosthenes?

Since, then, this personal character exercises so wide an influence for good or for bad upon the character, and therefore on the destinies, of a nation, are we to be told, that it is not a subject of discussion, that it is shrined in an inviolable asylum, removed from the free exercise of thought; that we must confine our views to the character of measures, and not dare to direct them to the character of men? Who is it, in writing the history of Charles I. who has not pointed out the lamentable defect in the character of that unfortunate prince, that his friends could not rely on his professions? And if there be a statesman of the present day, whose friends cannot rely upon his professions, are we totally to abstain from making any reflection, either mentally or verbally, on so lamentable a defect? By whom are we taught this new and precious doctrine? Certain members of the late Government take upon them to be our chief instructors in it; more especially, perhaps, Mr. Sidney Herbert. Sharp expressions had been raining pretty thick from his foes, amid which he and his colleagues (proh nefas!) had been termed “Janissaries!”

Talibus exarsit dictis violentia Sidnei; Dat gemitum;

and he delivers an able lecture to his opponents on their strong and ungentlemanly language. After this, let us take care what we are about: let us say nothing ungentlemanly respecting the conduct of Walpole: whatever we may think of the personal character of Cromwell, let us, in our language at least, observe the established courtesies and urbanities of discussion.

“Not so,” perhaps says Mr. Herbert. “I make a distinction: I do not mean to debar you from free discussion on the characters of the dead; but what I desire is, that you abstain from meddling with the conduct of the living.” Where is it, then, that he has found this doctrine? Were those who blamed, and strongly too, the conduct of Shaftesbury, and Bolingbroke, and Walpole, when alive, culpable? Was it only permitted to do so after their death? Is Aristophanes thought peculiarly guilty for having blamed Cleon while alive and in power? Is Socrates stigmatised for having wounded the feelings of any demagogue of the day, or of the thirty tyrants? Is Cicero reproached for his ungentlemanly tone towards Catiline, his disregard of the feelings of Verres, his total want of courtesy and urbanity even to so eminent and distinguished a man as Antony? Or in our own days, is Lord Lyndhurst blamed for having again happily applied the language of Cicero to denounce the conduct, or rather misconduct, of O’Connell? No; if their censure was deserved, they are honoured for having decidedly expressed it. And when, indeed, is it of greater importance that a true estimate should be formed of the character of public men, than while they are yet alive,--while that character is still exercising its widely-acting influence, and while mistakes in respect to it may lead to the most pernicious consequences? It is during their lifetime that we should discuss the characters of such men as O’Connell and Peel. A true estimate of their character after death is, doubtless, better than nothing; but a true estimate of it during life is better still. The proverb tells us, that “late is better than never;” but it does not deny that early is better than late.

“Well, then,” perhaps Mr. Herbert may reply, “you may, if you please, judge their character while they are yet alive, but this must be in proper time and place; I must request you to abstain from doing so in Parliament. Strong language in Parliament on personal character is a thing which I can never approve; here I must insist on the use of mild language, on a gentlemanly and courteous tone of discussion.”

And what, we would ask, is the object of Parliament, if not to discuss impartially, but firmly and decidedly, all important subjects that deeply concern the public weal? And what subject more important than the conduct of the men who hold the helm? Since how long is it that Parliament has been considered as having no right to form or to express any opinion on this subject? Since how long has the new doctrine been held or been acted on, that they are only to regard measures, and not the conduct of men? This is calling on them to abdicate one of the highest and most important of their functions; for the public character of statesmen is at least as important a consideration as that of the measures they propose; frequently of much greater importance. And in what place can such opinions be more fitly expressed, or with greater weight and propriety, than within the walls of Parliament; of that assembly, whose duty it is to deliberate on all matters concerning the national welfare?

“Well, then,” perhaps says our Parliamentary master of the ceremonies, “let us grant even this point; still I must insist on their expressing such opinions in courteous and gentlemanly language.”

We should be much obliged to our preceptor, if he would inform us of the precise mode in which this is to be done. We suppose he will grant that if such opinions are to be expressed at all, the thing chiefly desirable is, that the expression of the opinions be _true_; that the language employed convey an accurate and well-defined idea of the real sentiments entertained by the speaker.

Now, if the deliberate opinion which the speaker wishes to convey to the assembly be, that a public man is insincere, underhand, and artful, one whose convictions have no genuine strength, one whose professions cannot be trusted, we would fain be informed how these ideas can be accurately, truthfully, and unmistakeably conveyed, in gentlemanly, courteous, and pleasing language. Our tutor must give us a list of expressions by which this can be effected, before he blame us for not making use of them. But even suppose that his ingenious intellect should enable him to accomplish this, we would still desire to be informed what would be the use of it, and why, if we wish to express our opinion of a person’s insincerity, the discourteous word of “insincere,” which is now in use, should not be as good as the most gentlemanly and elegant detour that could be invented even by Mr. Herbert’s ingenuity.

Or take the very word of “_Janissary_,” which forms the bone of contention. The Janissaries were a body who acted under orders of their chief, without perhaps troubling themselves much about the abstract merits of the case. If bidden by their General to do a thing, they did it; if bidden to abstain, they abstained. Such conduct is not altogether unknown among the politicians of England. If, then, the word Janissary convey an accurate idea, well applicable to certain individuals, why should its use be so atrocious? Really, we are at a loss to comprehend the storm of indignation excited in the late Government by the simple word Janissary. We have heard of a fish-woman who patiently endured all the opprobrious epithets heaped on her by one of her fellows, till this latter happened to apply to her the term of “individual.” What the term of “individual” was to the fish-woman, the term of “Janissary” seems to have been to certain members of the late Peel cabinet. We will, however, grant that its application was somewhat unjust, though quite in a different way from what those parties suppose. Leaving it to them to defend themselves, we must take up the part of the Janissaries, whose feelings seem to have been totally disregarded in the whole matter. Let us remember that they no longer exist; victims of a melancholy end, they are incapable of speaking for themselves; be it then allowed to us to see that fair play is done them. Is it just, we ask, that their name should be so scornfully rejected as the _ne plus ultra_ of reproaches by English statesmen? What great guilt are they charged with, that it should be thus opprobrious? Not, surely, that they were paid: I have some doubts even whether such was the case; but, granted that they were, so are our soldiers, so are our officials. Whatever were their errors, they were bold and brave, true and consistent to their Mussulman principles. They were not basely subservient to government influence; their fault lay rather the other way. It was not that they truckled to the Prime Vizier, but that they did not sufficiently respect their Sultan. Their misconduct has been expiated by their death. Peace be with their ashes! Let us not add insult to injury. It is not for Peel and his followers to spurn at and dishonour their name. Considering the recent conduct of so many of our public men, may we not reasonably think that it is a greater insult to the Janissaries to apply their name to some of our statesmen, than it is to those statesmen that the name of Janissary should be applied to them. Would not the shade of an old Janissary be fully as indignant if he heard himself termed a paid English official, as the English official in his full-blown virtue could be at being called a paid Janissary?

The contrast of all these indignant professions of our statesmen with their actual practice, has not the best effect. The present is not the time best fitted for these displays; the brilliancy of public virtue has not of late been so lustrous as to justify this tone of triumph over the poor Ottomans. If these epithets are so distasteful to our public men, there is a far better mode of repelling them than these angry protestations. Let them act with that openness, sincerity, and candour which England looks for in her statesmen, and they need not fear far harder terms than this much dreaded name of Janissary.

But enough of this digression, which is purely incidental. We have merely wished to state a principle, let others accommodate it to the rules of Parliamentary warfare. Enough has been said for our object, to vindicate the utility of a review of the public character of leading statesmen, and the right of expressing a judgment upon it in firm and decided language.

That the practice of defaming the character of a public man without cause, simply because he is a political opponent--a practice too much employed in the party political warfare of the day--is one deserving the severest reprobation: this is a truth that no one ought to deny. But the evil of this practice consists, not in the decided tone of the language, nor in the severity of the opinion expressed, but in the absence of all just cause to warrant the strength of the censure.

But to argue, that because many people are blamed unjustly, no one is to be blamed justly--that the abuse of censure precludes the use of it,--is a mode of reasoning which cannot for a moment be admitted. We all know, that if we are forbidden from using everything that may be abused, nothing of any worth or importance would be left; and it is an old remark, that the very best and most useful things, are precisely those that are liable to the easiest and greatest abuses.

If I thought that the views which I entertain on the conduct of the late Premier were in the least degree the result of political prejudices, I should carefully abstain from giving them publicity. But I am not conscious of being swayed by any such motives. With regard to the greater part of the actual measures brought forward by Sir R. Peel, as far as I know them, I feel no reason to disapprove of them. With regard to many of his measures, which are wanting in any specific or decided character, it is natural that no very decided opinion should be felt. They are good, for all I know to the contrary, as far as they go. With respect to the more prominent measure of Catholic Emancipation, it is one that has my hearty approval. With respect to the bulk of his financial measures, I believe them, from general report, to be sagacious and skilful. But, it will be said, you have a strong opinion in favour of Protection, and here your political prejudices warp your judgment. Such, I can safely say, is by no means the case. I by no means entertain any fixed and definite opinion, either for or against the actual measure of the repeal of the Corn Laws. I have not obtained sufficient knowledge of the facts of the case, to enable me to come to such a decisive opinion; and so little am I suited at present for a staunch Protectionist, that I feel in perfect readiness, if greater knowledge, or the practical result of the working of the measure should convince me of its utility, to recognise its value and importance; nay, I will even say, that in the state of excitement into which the public mind had been worked on the subject, I rejoice at the experiment being made, for if it work well, so much the better, and if it work ill, our laws are not as those of the Medes and Persians. Its evils can be stopped in time, and if so, will be far less than those arising from permanent disaffection among the people. Certainly, many of the principles urged in its support, I consider fallacious, and some of those fallacies I have endeavoured to expose; but I know perfectly well, that people may form a correct practical judgment, though unable to explain, philosophically, the true principles on which that judgment is really based. No earnest free-trader, who advocates his cause from a sense of its truth, could wish such fallacies to remain without exposure. If their view is true, it cannot but gain instead of lose, by being removed from the treacherous support of unsound principles.

But I feel quite sure that I entertain no prejudice against any man, merely on account of his being a free-trader. I dislike all whose suspicious conversion prevents full confidence in the sincerity of their motives. I feel no sympathy with those who, with the ignoble violence of petty minds, preach up a war against the aristocracy, impugn all motives but their own, and seem to anticipate with triumph the downfal of those above them, and their own seizure on rank and power in their turn.[7] But then, it is not here the free trade that I dislike, but, in the one case, the insincerity; in the other, the bigotry and narrow-mindedness. But with a reasonable and liberal-minded free-trader, such as many of the Whig party doubtless are, who is willing to do justice to other motives than his own, and is actuated by a sincere and earnest belief in the truth of his principles, I feel perfectly sure that no animosity vitiates my feelings towards him, and that I could be as good friends with him as with any person whatever. I believe, indeed, that there are few people in England less under the influence of party or political prejudice than myself, nor less unfitted, so far as their absence is concerned, for forming an impartial estimate of a public man’s character. I feel, therefore, no apprehension, in the present case, of being influenced, even unconsciously, by unworthy motives, but simply by the desire of expressing my opinion on conduct which appears to me to call for grave and decided censure. My judgment is not based on any isolated or doubtful expression, nor on minute and recondite circumstances: it is the simple reading of those plain and unmistakeable characters which more conspicuously mark Sir Robert Peel’s career, which are known and admitted by all, and which lie within the comprehension of all.

For my own part, I knew next to nothing of his former political conduct, till the discussion caused by recent circumstances; a vague knowledge of some change in his opinion on the Catholic Question, was nearly the whole information I possessed of the career of a man respecting whom, feeling no great admiration of his character, I never took any lively interest. Nor can I say, that at present I have any thing but the most elementary knowledge of the circumstances of his political life. I know no more than those leading events which form the salient points in his career, which, however, it seems to me, are quite sufficient for a just conclusion,--a conclusion which, perhaps, is the less likely to err, as founded on simpler premises, and freer from all subtle minutiæ.

I take then the facts which, as far as I can learn, are admitted by all,--himself among the rest. If there be any error in my statement of them, it certainly does not arise from design.

After having been for some time in the government with Canning, he refused to hold office under him, and went into opposition, from a strong and decided feeling (as was professed by himself) against the Catholic claims which that statesman advocated.

Amid the ranks of this opposition, were some partisans, more zealous than scrupulous, who carried on their party warfare in an unduly violent way, which produced an effect much deeper than political attacks usually do, on the generous and sensitive mind of Canning. This misconduct, though confined to few, and little thought of at the time by their associates, has, by its result, cast somewhat of a shade over the whole of this opposition.

Owing at length to the efforts of his party, Sir R. Peel is brought in, as the Protestant champion, to resist the Catholic claims, which the great bulk of that party look upon as fraught with danger both to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the State.

This party, which places him in power, never for a moment doubts that his opinion coincides with their own, nor does he ever express a sentiment which could lead them to suppose that they were mistaken in their conviction. His actions and his speeches are perfectly in harmony with that opinion, and all tend to confirm them in unlimited confidence.

When, however, he is seated in office, and while they are still enjoying their opinion in perfect security, lie astonishes them by proposing and passing the very measure which they imagined it was his principal object to resist.

On the sudden and unexpected triumph of the principles of reform, which raised the Whigs to power, Peel is again reduced to the ranks of Opposition, and we here find him strenuously attacking all their principles, which he denounces as dangerous to the institutions of Church and State. He thus rallies round himself a party termed Conservative, whose object is to resist these encroachments, which they look on as irreligious, destructive, and anarchical.

This party gradually gains ground, while the Whigs decline in proportion. At length, when the Whigs begin to devote their attention to the development of free-trade principles, the storm, under Peel’s auspices, is roused to the highest pitch, and the Whigs fall prostrate under their triumphant adversaries.

Peel then comes into power, (for the second time,) supported by a large majority. He stands forth in the character of “Defender of the Faith,” and of the institutions of Church and State, and, generally, as the firm antagonist of all Whiggish principles.

But more especially does he stand forth as the great Champion of Protection--to resist the menacing encroachments of Free Trade--to check all advances in the direction of that dimly seen and dreaded catastrophe--the Repeal of the Corn Laws. Here, again, his party entertain the strongest conviction that his opinions on this subject coincide with their own; and on the strength of this conviction they take their measures in full security on the most important matters.

Sir R. Peel, as before, never for a moment leads them to infer, by any word or action, that this conviction is erroneous; on the contrary, for a considerable period of time, he gives repeated assurances, in the strongest language, of his support of the principle of Protection.

Nevertheless his measures, as it is soon observed, are all imbued with the precise policy which he had formerly so denounced in his opponents--a discovery which excites considerable dissatisfaction among his followers, though they reconcile themselves to it, as they best may, on the plea of the necessity of the times. Not for a moment, however, are they induced to doubt of his firm determination to uphold the Corn Laws.

No sooner, however, has the repeal of these laws (by the declaration of the opposite party and the strength of public opinion) become feasible, than, without giving any previous intimation of his real opinion, while his party are still in complete security, and relying on his support, he proposes and carries the very measure which they believed him to be heartily endeavouring to oppose, and for the sake of resisting which they had placed him in power, and supported him.

Before quitting power, he makes a speech explanatory of his views and principles, in which he expresses his adoption of all those principles of policy which, when the Whigs were in power, he had so resolutely denounced, and his perfect readiness to assist in developing their doctrines much further than they themselves had done.

Such is a simple outline of the facts,--facts of no dubious or recondite nature, but notorious, and not, I apprehend, capable of denial.

It is from these facts that my opinion is formed, that Sir R. Peel’s career is deserving of the gravest censure: it is from these that I draw the conclusion, by some so much deprecated, and venture to pronounce, without feeling much risk of error, that Sir R. Peel, in his public conduct, is insincere, a man unworthy of all trust and confidence. A most unwarrantable attack, exclaim his partisans; an imputation that can only be the result of the venomous malignancy of a political opponent! Who else would dare to brand such a man with the odious crime of insincerity, to assert that he is not worthy of being trusted--to impute to a statesman of such pure and exalted virtue the detestable guilt of political hypocrisy!

How far the simple ideas of right and wrong may be altered by a tenure of office, or by long acquaintance with political affairs, we are fortunately ignorant; but unless they undergo some improvement, or at least some modification, we are at a loss to account for all the indignation manifested at these charges by the principal members of the late ministry, and by other leading political luminaries, and are tempted to inquire whence arise such great angers in these celestial minds? To our unsophisticated intellect it seems, that to say that Sir R. Peel is insincere, is only saying, in a concise and general way, what is conveyed in the simple statement of the above facts, with somewhat more of detail. What better exposition of the word _insincerity_ could we give to a person desirous of receiving it than the plain recital of Sir R. Peel’s conduct, as given above? That conduct is little else than the very definition of the word. Is not a man said to be insincere when, either by words or deeds, or by their omission, he wilfully leads people to believe that he holds opinions which he really does not, and to act in important matters upon that supposition;--when, knowing that they believe him to support their cause, and that they are placing their trust in him accordingly, he does not undeceive them, as one word of his might do, but suffers them complacently to remain in their error?

Is not a man said to be unworthy of trust, or faithless, who, while he knows that a trust of the greatest importance is reposed in him, and who has tacitly acknowledged the acceptance of that trust, is seeking all the time the ruin of that cause, the defence of which has been intrusted in full confidence to him?

Is not a man said to be a hypocrite who acts outwardly a part which is at variance with his inward convictions? Is not a man a hypocrite, who outwardly so behaves himself, that he is looked upon as the Protestant champion, while inwardly he is casting about how to carry the Catholic claims? Is not he a hypocrite whose demeanour is such that he is clapped on the political stage as the hero of Protection, whilst inwardly he is thinking of the time when he shall be cheered as the Repealer of the Corn Laws?

Now, that Sir R. Peel was ignorant that his party reposed trust in him, and believed his views to coincide with their own, is, I imagine, what nobody, not even himself, could for a moment pretend. It may be looked on as a fact that cannot be disputed, that he knew that a large body of men believed him to hold a certain class of opinions, while he himself knew that he was holding the contrary,[8] and that nevertheless he suffered them to repose trust in him, without ever undeceiving them of their error, which a word of his would have sufficed to do, and allowed them to act in security on matters of importance upon that erroneous belief.

He is placed, then, in this dilemma;--that if he acknowledges the fact he acknowledges the insincerity; if he denies the fact, nobody will believe the denial; and so far from escaping from the odium of insincerity, he will only prove it the more, by adding one piece of it to another. Any way, then, he cannot escape this charge of insincerity, which is complained of as so peculiarly distasteful. To what purpose, then, are all these high-sounding speeches, this tone of injured innocence, this indignation at the slightest hint of the names of deceit or hypocrisy? It falls powerless on his accusers; it is not they who laboriously strain to prove the charges, it is the facts which speak for themselves. But what is the use, alas! of all this declamation against the unhappy facts, which are in no degree moved or affected by it? Here, again, if the reputation of sincerity be so much valued, would it not have been a far better method of securing it, instead of making all these laboured professions of esteem, to have simply observed its rules in practice? How is it that so mature and able a statesman overlooked so simple and obvious a course? Let politics explain the mystery.

The fact that he himself professes to see nothing in the least degree blamable in his conduct, nothing that can in any way be qualified as insincere, and that some of his partisans are indignant at such terms being applied to it, is a useful example, to show how political prejudices can blind the mind to the simplest moral truths.

The only line of defence that he could reasonably take, would be to grant the insincerity, but to maintain that it was rendered necessary and justifiable by circumstances. Thus, (taking the second case, of the repeal of the Corn Laws,) his partisans might argue, that the measure was one most highly beneficial to the country; that it was of vital importance as well for its commercial interests, as also to allay the strong and growing discontent which had taken hold of the nation; that the concealment and dissimulation of which such complaint is made, were necessary to obtain these benefits. Had Sir R. Peel avowed at an early stage his real views, the prejudices of the Protectionists would immediately have displaced him from power. It was necessary not to awaken these prejudices, and this end was obtained by concealing his true sentiments; by suffering them to repose their trust in one who was really their enemy, which, it is admitted, was certainly a piece of hypocrisy. “But then,” would they say, “mark the advantages of this hypocrisy. Peel is thus enabled quietly to watch his opportunity. The Whigs, finding the current of opinion strongly setting for free trade, declare their adherence to it. Now, then, they are fairly compromised, and Peel has the game all to himself. If he goes out, and the Whigs come in, they will not be able to carry it, for when Peel is out of office, not a dozen of his party will vote in favour of Free Trade. They will not be able then to make any head, and if they come in they will be immediately displaced again. Peel all the time, with that hypocrisy which you so much blame, has kept his own plans snugly locked up in his impenetrable breast, and is still looked upon by the unconscious Protectionists as their hero and champion, so much so, that they refuse to believe any rumours which may be floating about to the contrary. Thanks then to this hypocrisy, he smoothly comes in again as before, but the case, now that he is once more in office, is widely altered. If the Whigs had proposed the measure, perhaps not a dozen of his party would have supported it. But now that he is in office, the ‘_government influence_’ is in his hands;” (that “_government influence_,” a phrase after Mr. Sidney Herbert’s own heart which means, I believe, being interpreted, that mixture of motives which combines, with the purest public duty, certain visions of peerages, salaries, offices of various kinds, and all the undefinable tribe of loaves and fishes.) “Will Peel find only a dozen free-traders among his ranks now? Rest assured that a wonderful liberality will be diffused among them; for the government influence has the property of making many a man a free-trader, who otherwise would have lived and died a staunch Protectionist. A round hundred will be converted in addition to the former dozen, by the magic of this government influence. This, in addition to the Whigs, who would any way vote for free-trade, will be sufficient to carry the measure with a good majority.

“Do not then let us blame so loudly this hypocrisy, before we have examined how far it has been advantageous. In the present case, it has hastened on a most beneficial measure, and we may well overlook in regard to that a little falsehood and deceit. If the Protectionists have been taken in, it is no very great matter; they are not people to be pitied; they should have looked sharper about what they were doing. Peel had shown them before what they might expect in the Catholic business; and it is their own fault if such old birds let themselves be caught, twice running, with chaff.”

This, altering somewhat the expressions to suit the dignity of his language, is the line of defence that Sir R. Peel ought to adopt. Admitting the insincerity, which it is useless to attempt to deny, he should rest his case on the necessities of the State, on the important benefits of his measure. In this view it will be a case of a conflict of duties,--of the duty of truthfulness and sincerity, which in ordinary cases is binding--and the duty to his country; and he may say, that considering his duty to his country as greater than his duty of sincerity to the Protectionists, he considered himself justified in deceiving them, with a view of benefiting the nation. In this case, however, we must remark, that he ought to acknowledge the deceit, and feel compunction for it; for the breach of a duty, even when sacrificed to a superior one, should not (as the moralists and as reason tell us) take place in a virtuous mind without pain.[9] This pain, however, Sir R. Peel is particularly unwilling to acknowledge; he strenuously insists on feeling no humiliation or compunction of any kind for any part of his conduct, by which assertion he gives us no favourable impression of the nature of his mind; while by taking up so foolish and exaggerated a posture, he materially injures the strength of his defence.

That the duty of truth, though paramount in ordinary circumstances, is not so in all, and requires in certain cases to be sacrificed to superior duties, is what all must on reflection admit.[10] The wife who saved her husband by a falsehood, is immortalized as the “splendide mendax” of Horace, and many other cases might be quoted in point. There is no reason why a statesman also might not, in some circumstances, be “splendide mendax,” but it is a dangerous aim, and he must take especial care, that the natural meanness of the “mendacia” do not more than counteract the splendour of his measures.

In estimating such conduct, two points come into consideration, the splendour of the benefit obtained, and the character of those upon whom the deceit is practised. Thus, in the above case of Hypermnestra, the benefit obtained was the preservation of her husband’s life, a benefit of the greatest importance to him, and one which her duty to her husband made it imperative upon her to seek. Moreover, the conduct of those whom she deceived was such, that the duty of sincerity towards them was scarcely binding; for they themselves were endeavouring to compass an act of the greatest guilt, one which involved not only deceit, but murder. In every way her conduct was perfectly right, and justly is she celebrated as “splendide mendax.”

Let us then examine, on both these points, the conduct of the late Premier; let us weigh Peel against Hypermnestra. Let us scrutinise the character of his “mendacia,” and see whether it should be ranked in the category of “splendida” or “ingloria.”

First, then, as to the benefits which his recent conduct has conferred upon his country.

Admitting (what, however, we cannot hold as any way proved at present) that the measure itself of free-trade in corn, is one of the highest benefit to the country,--granting that the promises held out by its most sanguine advocates, shall be copiously fulfilled,--it still remains to inquire, how far the country’s possession of those benefits will be attributable to the conduct of Sir R. Peel, who, up to the eleventh hour, was their strenuous and consistent opponent.

It is a generally admitted truth, that under the constitution we now possess, as soon as public opinion is decidedly formed in favour of any principle, that principle must triumph over all opposing influences. If, then, public opinion were strongly pronounced in favour of free-trade in corn, if the majority of the electors, who, under our constitution, represent by the members they send to Parliament the deliberate opinion of the nation, were strongly and decidedly in favour of the measure, why should they be unable to give effect to those opinions?--what need would they have of all the circuitous and underhand process employed by the late Premier? No damage could have been done in this case to their cause by Sir R. Peel’s avowal of his real opinions, instead of the close secrecy in which, for purposes best known to himself, he thought fit to veil them for so long a period. Granted, that by so doing he would have been displaced from office; the country would not have felt at all embarrassed by such an event--it would have had no difficulty on that account in finding men who could execute its deliberate opinion. However desirable it may be to Sir Robert, that he should have been the minister to pass the measure, that his name might be associated with it, and that it should cast a halo on his career, all that is a matter of pure indifference to the nation, and cannot be looked on in the light of a benefit. If the opinions of the actual Parliament were the only obstacle, a dissolution was nigh at hand, or might have been resorted to at any moment, when the country could have had no possible difficulty in expressing its real opinions, and carrying them into effect, either through him or others. However much, then, it might be advantageous to himself, we cannot see what benefit, in such a case, free-trade can have derived from the sinister support of all this disingenuous conduct.

But, if the merit attributed to him be, that by means of his skilful artifices, and by the government influence at his disposal, he succeeded in carrying the measure before it was the deliberate opinion of the House, or of the majority of the electors of the country, then it is plain that his conduct has been unconstitutional, and deserving far more blame than praise. In this case the majority would have been obtained by improper influences, not by the deliberate convictions of sincere and earnest men, and would have been forced, by a species of trick, by the minority of the electors on the majority. We all know to some extent what “government influence” means--though the idea of it is so mysterious and vague, that it is impossible to give a very precise definition. Without asserting that it is an influence of any very dishonourable kind, (as times go,) we may safely assert that it is not of the most honourable. Motives resulting from sincerity and truth, are certainly more estimable than those which result from government influence. We should have thought that a minister, however useful he might find it in practice, would carefully abstain from making much direct reference to it in public. That a statesman should boast of the success with which, by his eloquence and earnestness, he had advocated a principle--of the impression which his arguments had made on the minds of his hearers,--of how he had consistently supported it from the time while it was yet weak and doubtful, till its triumphant success had crowned his arduous exertions, this we could readily understand,--this would be a just subject of self-gratulation. But if he has no proofs of having persuaded the minds of men by reason; if, on the contrary, his arguments have all tended to plunge them deeper into error and delusion, we cannot understand how he should think it a matter of boast, that he had persuaded their minds by “government influence.” Such a boast appears to us not to be of the most honourable kind to himself, and certainly not very complimentary to those who had supported him. If we ourselves had voted for a minister, and had heard him afterwards declare, that he believed us to have done so from “government influence,” we should certainly look upon it as a species of insult. Sir R. Peel, however, in giving his own account of his share of merit in promoting the measure, makes no scruple of attributing it all to his well-timed use of “government influence.” After particularly insisting, that Lord John Russell cannot claim much merit in the affair, he explains to us what amount properly falls to himself. “The real state of the case,” says he, “was, that parties were nearly equally balanced, and THAT THE GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE WAS THROWN INTO THE SCALE.” With his wonted egotism, he does not seem to think it possible, that the gentlemen of his party may have given their vote without reference to him, solely as the result of their genuine convictions. Such is the reward which his unhappy followers receive from the master whom they so faithfully supported. We do not say that they may not have deserved it, but we think they had a right to look for it from other hands.

By his own account, then, the matter stands thus: the merit of the affair is to be shared between Cobden and Peel. In this division of labour, Cobden has all the clean work, and Peel all the dirty. Cobden converts all those whose minds are amenable to persuasion, and Peel all those whose minds are amenable to “government influence.”

Sir Robert Peel, however, seems most perfectly satisfied with his exploit, and never for a moment to doubt that it entitles him to the greatest applause. St. Augustine could not speak with more exultation of converting millions of Pagans to Christianity by the fervour of his eloquence, than Sir R. Peel does of his illustrious feat of converting some hundred ignoble minds to free-trade by his paltry government influence. This is the glorious, the devoted deed, upon which he rests his claims to immortality; this it is which is to enshrine his name amid the gratitude of an admiring posterity. On account of this he trusts that “his name will be gratefully remembered in those places which are the abode of the man whose lot it is to labour, and to gain his bread with the sweat of his brow, when he recruits his strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.” What this abundance of food will actually turn out to be, and when it is to begin, (for I apprehend that as yet, although the law is in operation, no labourers have been incommoded with plethora,) we will not here endeavour to determine. But even if it should turn out to be an abundance altogether unlooked for and unprecedented, we would not have Sir Robert Peel imagine that much of the labourer’s gratitude will go to him. The labourer is generally a shrewd man, with a good share of honest common sense; and he neither likes his bread nor his minister to be leavened with the taint of injustice. He is perfectly capable of discriminating between those who consistently advocate a cause, and those who, having profitably opposed it in the hour of its weakness, when they might have aided it, embrace it at the eleventh hour, in the time of its triumph, when it is capable of aiding them. It is not on time-serving patriots, such as these, that posterity confers her gratitude. Posterity gives her gratitude to the upright and sincere, not to the crafty, servile, and deceitful. Posterity admires those who convert their fellows to truth by persuasion, she scorns those who can only convert them to dishonour by government influence.

If, then, the majority of electors were in favour of free-trade, Peel’s artifices were null and superfluous; if they were not yet in favour of it, they were unconstitutional. He either did no good whatever to the cause, or he passed it sooner than constitutional principles warranted. In the latter case he might claim some merit for anticipating, by a brief period, the time when it would have been duly carried by a majority of the electors. A short additional interval of the enjoyment of free-trade is then, it appears, the utmost extent of his services. Against this are to be placed all the evils arising from his peculiar mode of passing the measure,--the shock given to confidence in public men by such sudden inconsistency,--the general lowering of political character by his craftiness and duplicity,--the disgust excited at the avowed and conspicuous part which government influence has played on the occasion. The country feels justly offended with the minister, who, in a free nation, where the conscientious voice of the majority should alone decide, attempts to anticipate that decision by the voice of those who are biassed by lower and unrecognised motives, and who scruples not to boast of the success of such a method, and lay claim to merit on its account. It feels justly offended also at the discovery, that no less than a hundred of its representatives, who are looked on as the elite of the land, are capable of voting on a measure of first-rate importance, on other grounds than their own heartfelt convictions; that they are ready to vote against it if proposed by A, and for it if proposed by B. Even the cause of free-trade receives its share of damage by becoming associated with the odium of such mischievous proceedings. This, indeed, is felt and acknowledged by many of the free-traders themselves. I may quote, as an illustration, some expressions in a published letter of Mr. Vernon Smith, that has fallen under my eye. He states as a motive for declining office, that “he should be very sorry in his person, however humble, to sanction the belief that official emolument is a motive of action among public men. Sufficient shock” he says, “has already been given to public virtue;” and he subsequently adds, speaking of the Corn Bill, “We have to await many mischiefs from its mode of settlement.”

For our part, had we been free-traders, most earnestly should we have implored that our cause might not be encumbered with the sinister aid of Sir Robert Peel.

Weighing, then, well all the circumstances of the case; considering the relative value of moral and economical advantages; nay, even looking principally merely to the latter, it appears to me, as the result of Sir R. Peel’s recent proceedings, that no residuum of benefit to the country is left, but a very considerable amount of injury. Such a result is not one of sufficient lustre and brightness to enable us to grant him the title in question of “splendide mendax.”

Let us, however, inquire into the other point, as to the character of those who were the dupes of his insincerity, and how far the duty of sincerity between him and them was binding.

The duty of sincerity between a leading statesman and that body of men who were termed his party, does not result from any verbal promise given by one to the other, but is a tacit compact, arising from the nature of things, mutually understood, though not defined; and, precisely on account of its tacit nature, and of so much being left to good faith, is perhaps the more incumbent on an honourable mind. Not, indeed, that the party who have placed a public man in power, have therefore the smallest right to claim an influence over his opinions;--not that because they think they have done a service to him, they are to claim his support of their views as a recompense for that service. He is perfectly free to hold what opinions he pleases, but he is under an obligation honestly to profess those opinions. He is free to change them when he likes, but he is bound to give an intimation of those changes. This is not a case of services bandied to and fro between one party and another, but it is a mutual duty which all public men owe to each other for the furtherance of the welfare of the State. Unless public men of all parties and positions are sincere in the avowal of their opinions, public business sustains severe injury. For in this, as in other things, isolated individuals can accomplish little; men must combine their efforts, and organise themselves, that they may act effectually; and in order to do this, they must know the general tenor of each other’s opinions, and count on their support or their hostility accordingly. If they once took to deceiving one another on these points; if a body of Whigs came over to the Tory benches, (or _vice versâ_,) and acted and spoke like Tories, merely with the view of deceiving them, leading them into erroneous calculations, and then profiting by the error they had caused, such conduct would justly be stigmatised as baneful and dishonourable. For public men act and concert measures in matters of the greatest importance upon the belief which they thus entertain of the general views of others, and unless they can act in security on this belief, there is an end of all public confidence. But this general sincerity of profession and behaviour, though binding on all, even the humblest member of the House, is more especially so on the leading and more distinguished statesmen, inasmuch as its breach in their case is productive of greater evils. A knowledge of their real views is of the greatest importance to all parties, whose measures vitally depend on the opinion they entertain of the general views of these statesmen. Upon this belief they securely act in matters of the greatest importance; upon this they support or oppose a ministry; and if they are deceived in this belief, they are thus induced to act in a way which they would, if they knew the truth, think contrary to the public welfare. If a man should knowingly induce in another, though without any actual falsehood, an erroneous belief, and suffer him to act in consequence in a way prejudicial to his private fortune, (of which we have seen many instances in the late railroad transactions,) such conduct is justly denounced as highly censurable. But much more censurable is the conduct of him who induces an erroneous belief in another, so as to lead him to act in a way prejudicial (under his views) to the public welfare. By how much the public welfare is dearer to the high-minded man than his own individual fortune, by so much is the misconduct of the hypocrite in Parliament greater than that of the hypocrite upon ’Change. When, therefore, a Prime Minister knowingly suffers an erroneous belief to exist in the minds of men, owing to which they give him their support, which support, if they knew his real views, they would think injurious to the public welfare, he is committing a breach of a solemn trust; he is suffering, or rather he is inducing, men to act contrary to the dictates of their conscience, to do that which he knows they will afterwards repent of, as contrary to what they deem the interests of their country; and his conduct is in every way deserving of the strongest and severest censure.

That Sir Robert Peel knew that men looked upon him as a Protectionist, while he knew that he was not one; that he knew that, in consequence of this belief, they supported him; that he knew that if they were aware of his real views, they would instantly withdraw their support, and that as soon as they discovered them they would grievously repent of that which they had given him, as having been contrary to the real interests of their country;--that he knew all this, and that, nevertheless, he concealed his real views from these men, and allowed them to retain their erroneous belief, and to act consequently in a way diametrically opposite to their conscientious convictions, though a single sentence of his would have sufficed to dispel their error, and enable them to further their country’s interests conformably with their own views--this, I say, is matter of fact, which he would in vain attempt to deny.

This case, then, exactly corresponds with the preceding; he has broken a solemn though tacit trust; he has given a severe blow to public confidence; he has culpably suffered honourable men to deceive themselves in matters deeply concerning the public welfare; and his conduct, therefore, exposes him to a severer censure than I have any wish to seek for language to express.

And when honest men, who have been for a long time conscientiously supporting him, find that he has been tacitly deceiving them, and concealing from them his real views,--that he has been sporting with their convictions, and using them for nothing more than tools for his own secret purposes,--shall we wonder that they feel just indignation at such conduct, and that they express their feelings in stronger terms than suit the delicate ears of Mr. Sidney Herbert?

Sir R. Peel has indeed attempted, in a broken kind of way, to excuse his conduct, by saying,--“I never told you so and so; if you supported me without knowing my real opinions, it was your own fault. I did not _say_ any thing that you can charge me with as a falsehood.” Without mentioning that, in this case, great suspicion is cast on many even of his verbal professions, which come down to no distant period, surely a sexagenarian Premier can scarcely need to be told, that there is a deceit in actions not less than in professions. Does he think it an excuse that he did not deceive others, but only allowed them to deceive themselves? A pleasant kind of sincerity! Why, this is no more than the excuse of a school-boy, who thinks it a sufficient salve to his conscience that he has skilfully managed to deceive without uttering any thing directly false with his lips. And this is the excuse put forth by an English Minister! Miserable excuse, that fitly crowns the deceit--paltriness of mind, almost inconceivable!

Still worse is it, when he attempts to justify his conduct by taunting his friends with a previous inconsistency of their own, which they had been reluctantly induced to commit through him, in order to support him in power.[11] We cannot understand why he should thus delight in exposing the not very pleasing recesses of his ignoble nature. Certainly, “Quem Jupiter vult perdere, prius dementat.” Otherwise he must see that such palliations as these are far more injurious to his character than the severest attacks of his foes.

The only case in which this duty of sincerity towards public men could at all cease to be binding, and admit of a valid excuse, would be, when those upon whom the deceit was practised were not men conscientiously seeking the public good, but were acting from unworthy views, for private or for class interests. In this case, we will admit that the duty of sincerity would not be of any very strict obligation. This is doubtless the view that is taken by many people of the conduct of the Protectionists; by all that numerous class represented by Messrs. Bright, Villiers, &c.--men who, however sincere themselves, are not probably endowed by nature with very comprehensive or liberal minds. From these gentlemen we hear nothing but attacks on the character of the whole body of the landlords; they look on them as a selfish oligarchy, sacrificing the public good to their own class interests. Such views having been industriously propagated by the League, are entertained with more or less of bitterness by a considerable body of the people. It is on this account that Sir R. Peel’s conduct has met with so much applause among them; this it was which animated the cheers that consoled him on his resignation of power; his treachery to the Protectionists, so far from appearing censurable in the eyes of these admirers, has rather enhanced the merit of his success. But such views, however they may suit the minds of those whose passions are aroused in the party warfare of the day, can meet with no acceptance from the impartial judge. It is impossible to admit for a moment that a very large portion of the whole population of the country, including not only landlords but people of all classes, merchants, tradesmen, and operatives, were so lamentably destitute of all regard for their country, and that public spirit was entirely monopolised by the party advocating free-trade. Neither can we admit that the large body of Protectionist members in the House, forming upwards of a third of the whole, were all playing so unworthy a part. For, adding them to the converts of “Government influence,” we should thus have more than half the House of Commons acting upon questionable motives--a prospect certainly not cheering, nor honourable to the country.

Sir R. Peel, indeed, with his usual magnanimity, does not scruple to adopt, in a great measure, the above view; and, seeing how little he spares the feelings of his own devoted supporters, we cannot expect him to show much tenderness to those who have become his foes. Accordingly, we find him making frequent hints at these unworthy motives; indeed, but for some such belief, we cannot understand how he could have justified to himself his deceitful conduct. In his last words, on laying down his power, he does not conceal his sentiments:--“I shall leave a name,” says he, “execrated by every monopolist, who, from less honourable motives, clings to Protection for his own individual benefit,”--a sentiment warmly, applauded by Messrs. Bright, Villiers, & Co.

The generosity of nature displayed in this parting blow is indeed worthy of admiration! We should scarcely think that it was pronounced by a man, who, up to the age of fifty-six, had done every thing in his power to uphold this very monopoly and oppose the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and who had strongly denounced all imputations of the above kind, in the language of its early and consistent supporters. How noble must be the man, who, having for all his life courted and flattered the aristocracy, and thus obtained power as their champion, now gives them a parting kick, and delivers them over to popular odium as monopolists, after having obtained for himself popularity and influence at their expense!

Really, let us remark, when Sir Robert scruples not to express such views, he has no reason to be indignant if the stones of his opponents break some of the panes of his own glass house, even though they damage a few of the artificial flowers, which he has been striving to rear there with so much care.

But, as we observed before, the impartial judge cannot accept this opinion of Sir Robert’s. He will proportion his praise and blame pretty nearly equally between both parties. He will hope that in both, the main body of men are acting on sincere and worthy motives; in both he must acknowledge it to be probable that there are a few whose motives are of a less estimable kind. But he will not put all the virtue on one side, nor all the selfishness on the other. We have yet to learn that Sir Robert is in any way qualified to pass his censure on the body of English gentlemen. The less he says upon these points the better. In the impartial estimate of the three parties, it is he and his that will come by far the worst off.

We cannot then admit that the character of the parties deceived, in any way justified the insincerity; no sufficient excuse is found upon this head, and the breach of the duty remains exposed to grave and severe censure. England does not recognise such conduct in her Ministers. She has long been accustomed to pride herself on a general openness and sincerity of dealing; and that honesty which she looks for in the humbler walks of life, she claims in a yet more imperative degree from her leading and conspicuous statesmen. She reprobates among these all deceitful and underhand conduct, all espionage and mystery; she loves not the secret opener of letters, even though the plea of utility be at hand to excuse his conduct; nor is the government influence, Sir Robert’s darling, at all palatable to her taste. Such proceedings she thinks more fitted to the court of the despot, to the sinuous policy of the Oriental Divan; in a free country she demands that public men should be honest and straightforward, and should not, from whatever motives, suppress and mask the genuine convictions of their mind. She looks not on language as a method of concealing the thoughts, but as a method of declaring them. The recent conduct of Peel has been in every way alien to her principles. It was a skilful _coup d’état_, well suited to a Turkish Vizier, but totally inappropriate to an English Minister.

Having, then, examined the insincerity on both the points proposed, we find that in neither does it wear an aspect of splendour or of brilliancy, but much of the reverse. We refuse it then the title of a splendid insincerity, but we qualify it as poor, culpable, and inglorious.

Sir R. Peel, however, gives us quite a different account of the matter: he puts in his claim to a generosity of the purest and most exalted kind. “What possible motives could I have had,” he asks, “except the most devoted and patriotic? See what an enormous sacrifice I have made! To afford my country the blessings of Free Trade, I have given up my power and the confidence of a large party, every thing, in a word, which is chiefly valuable to a public man. I have come forward and boldly avowed the truth, in spite of all the taunts of inconsistency and apostasy to which I inevitably exposed myself. But these I esteem as nothing in comparison with the good of my country. For my part, I declare that the proudest moment of my life was when I avowed my opinions to my colleagues, and proposed measures for opening the ports.”

It is curious to observe how completely blind Sir Robert Peel seems to be, to the point on which his conduct is really blamable. He insists much on his perfect integrity in proposing the measure, seeing that he thought it highly beneficial to his country. Surely so self-evident a truism can scarcely need so much parade: surely it is an acknowledged fact that a statesman is not to blame for proposing measures which he deems to be highly beneficial. Sir Robert was doubtless most perfectly right in proposing his measure; nobody, I apprehend, at all blames him on that head. He was doing his simple duty, considering what his views were upon the subject. But that for which he is justly blamable, is for not having done so before. He was culpable for suppressing so long his real opinions, for professing to deem free trade injurious, while really he thought it beneficial. He is culpable for the general mask which he has so long thrown over all his real character and opinions, leading astray the minds of men, and ruining public confidence. This is the point to which blame attaches, and on this he is perfectly silent. We should be glad to know whether it was from motives of a very high and exalted virtue, that he so long suffered his colleagues, and the public generally, to deceive themselves? Was it from any very stoical sense of duty that he so long passed himself off for a protectionist, when really a free trader? Was it from any very intense and devoted patriotism that for so long he bitterly denounced Whig principles, when, as it now turns out, he thoroughly approves of them in his heart? Was it any great stretch of self-sacrifice, any very generous magnanimity, to obtain power, and so long to retain it, upon false pretences? This is the point which it would be desirable for him to clear up. Instead of this, we have much declamation, quite beside the purpose, on his virtue in coming forward and avowing his real opinion. What! is it then any such excessive stretch of virtue, that a man should actually tell the truth? Is it any thing so marvellous in a statesman, that he should advocate a measure which he thinks vitally necessary for his country? Sir R. Peel seems to think that when it entails, as in his own case, the sacrifice of power, such conduct is eminently praise-worthy and meritorious. Why, it is his bare duty and nothing more; it is what he ought to have done years ago, holding the views he does; or, rather, he should never have entered on that power at all. Surely power and place are not so dear to statesmen that they should think it very arduous and patriotic to sacrifice them for their duty to their country. Not to do so would be highly blamable, to do so is simply right, but in no way a subject for praise or self-glorification. And yet Sir R. Peel naively tells us, that the proudest moment of his life was when he declared his real sentiments to his colleagues, and avowed his advocacy of free trade. A strange subject of pride, to fulfil (much too late) a duty of common honesty! Wondrous triumph of virtue, to put a tardy close to a culpable and pernicious dissimulation, which had already been productive of great harm! And this is the glorious feat, which, as Sir R. Peel informs us, afforded him the proudest moment of his life! Curious, unenviable career, of which such is the proudest moment?

It seems then to be “the enormous sacrifice” which he has made, upon which he rests his claim to devoted virtue. “I have sacrificed,” says he, every thing that “is dear to a public man.” Certainly, we do not deny that he has made many sacrifices. He has sacrificed his former supporters, handing them over to discomfiture and to the public odium as monopolists. By his course of dissimulation and deceit he has also sacrificed his character, and with it all claims to public confidence. But these sacrifices are not of any very sublime and devoted nature. It is not by a sacrifice of character that a claim to exalted virtue can best be established. The method is ingenious, but somewhat Irish,[12] and likely to meet with no solid success. There remains, then, the sacrifice of power, to which we will grant its share of merit, (provided it is not made a matter of boast.) We learn, however, from some of his new admirers, that it has not been laid down for nought. It appears to have been exchanged for a good equivalent of popularity and influence, upon which it is hinted that a firmer power is to arise ere long, much grander and more durable than the last. Mr. Wakley, for instance, informs us that “at this moment Sir R. Peel is the most popular man in the kingdom; that he is beloved, nay adored, by the masses, who believe that no man has ever before made such sacrifices on their behalf.” And that most probably “he (Sir R. Peel) will shortly return to power upon the shoulders of the people, and will remain there just as long as he pleases.”

If this be so, what shall we say of the sacrifice? Had Sir Robert advocated this measure while it was weak, and while such advocacy entailed a real sacrifice, then might he justly put in his claim to heroism and devotion. But he gained his power by opposing it while weak, he did not adopt it till it was strong, and capable of supporting that power. He rejected it when its adoption would have weakened him, he embraced it when his adherence procured for him an extensive (though ill-deserved) popularity and influence. By associating his name with it, he has obtained renown, frequently the dearest reward of ambition. In no way are the circumstances of his conduct such as to support his claims to intense and exalted patriotism. It is not for men of time-serving convictions like these, to aspire to the rank of Aristides or Washington.

If, indeed, we go back to the characters of antiquity, we find others much better suited to our man, than these exalted natures; but there is one especially whose resemblance is such that we cannot help suspecting that there must be more than chance in it. He is described by Aristophanes, and with such lively and accurate traits, that no one can fail to recognise the type of our present hero. It has not, indeed, been reserved for the nineteenth century to discover that a measure promising cheap food is well suited to procure popularity and power, and that the favour of the people can most readily be obtained by courting that highly important organ, its stomach. (Nor can we altogether blame this judgment of the “popular bellua.”) The late contest between our political leaders is most amusingly similar to that described in the “Knights,” between the two candidates for the good graces of the Athenian Demos.

R. ὁρᾷς· ἐγώ σοι πρότερος ἐκφέρω δίφρον.

P. ἀλλ’ οὐ τράπεζαν· ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ προτεραίτερος.

R. ἰδοὺ φέρω σοι σάχχαρον Κύβης ἐγὼ, ἤρτυνε δ’ αὐτὸν δοῦλος Ἀφρικανικός.

P. ἐγὼ δὲ μᾶζαν Ἰνδικὴν μεμαγμένην.

R. λαβέ νῦν πλακοῦντος πίονος παρ’ ἐμοῦ τόμον.

But it is when we come to the crowning trick that we more especially recognise our patriot, that famous “coup” of the hare, which has shed immortal lustre on the ἀλλαντοπώλης. How exactly was Cleon like the Whigs, boasting

Κ. ἀλλ’ οὐ λαγῷ’ ἕξεις ὁπόθεν δῷς· ἀλλ’ ἐγώ·

ΑΛΛΑΝ. οἴμοι. πόθεν λαγῷά μοι γενήσεται; ὦ θυμὲ νυνὶ, βωμολόχον ἔξευρέ τι.

And how beautiful is the heaven-sent flash of genius which irradiates the mind of the Athenian Peel, when, distracting his adversary’s attention, by directing it to “envoys _with bags of money_,” he snatches away the choice tit-bit, and proffers it with his own hands to the chuckling Demos;--

ΑΛΛΑΝ. ὦ Δημίδιον, ὁρᾷς τὰ λαγῷ’ ἅ σοι φέρω;

It is a stroke that may have been often imitated, but never surpassed, and must excite envy even in the breast of his present successful follower. And is not our modern trickster’s recognition of the services of Cobden, and his own claim of merit for his skilful “government influence,” almost prophetically expressed in the slightly varied line--

P. τὸ μὲν νόημα Κοβδένος, τὸ δὲ κλέμμ’ ἐμόν.

and the contest for their respective claims to favour between himself and Lord John?

R. ἐγὼ δ’ ἐκινδύνευσ’. P. ἐγὼ δ’ ὤπτησά γε.

with the pithy judgement of the Demos,

ἄπιθ’· οὐ γὰρ ἀλλὰ τοῦ παραθέντος ἡ χάρις.[13]

Yes, when we read this it is impossible to hesitate; an Attic colony must have settled in England, and the sausage-seller’s progeny must still be thriving among us. The blood of the ἀλλαντοπώλης must yet be circulating in the veins of the κοτωνοπώλης of the day.

Yet when we read of our sausage-seller’s subsequent career, we feel that we have done him injustice; most widely different is his policy as Agoracritus, from any thing in the career of Peel.

In fact, our κοτωνοπώλης is the ἀλλαντοπώλης inverted. The Athenian starts as a demagogue, and ends as a patriot. Peel starts in the character of a patriot, and ends in that of a demagogue. The Athenian starts with the trick of the hare, and ends in an honest and noble policy. Peel starts with the appearance of an honest policy, and ends with the trick of the hare.

The Athenian directs his efforts to a high and noble aim, to purify and regenerate the Δῆμος, to purge him from the love of gain, from fickle caprice, and overweening vanity, and lead him to higher and nobler influences; to attune his mind to old national feelings, and revive in him a love of his country’s institutions, before fast falling into contempt. Under the auspices of the bard of the shining brow, we are conducted to a glorious vision, where amid the sound of the opening Propylæa, the regenerate Δῆμος is sitting on his throne, clad in his long-lost ornaments, τεττιγοφόρας ἀρχαίῳ σχήματι λαμπρός. οἷός περ Ἀριστείδῃ πρότερον καὶ Μιλτιάδῃ ξυνεσίτει·

But what is the vision to which Peel’s principles have conducted us? How will the Δῆμος that delights his economical mind bear comparison with that of the Athenian? The Athenian’s is sitting upon a throne, Peel’s is standing bowing behind a counter. The Athenian’s is animated by the love of the beautiful, Peel’s by the love of the gainful. The Athenian’s is alive to poetry and art, Peel’s is engrossed by industry and commerce. The Athenian’s strives to give real value to mind, Peel’s to give exchangeable value to matter. The Athenian’s delights in philosophical, Peel’s in commercial speculations. The Athenian’s is a nation of heroes, Peel’s is a nation of shopkeepers. There is the workman toiling twelve hours a-day, while Parliament discusses the probability of a discussion on his condition. There is the pauper, revelling in the workhouse on his diet of “abundant and untaxed food.” There, too, is the liberal cotton lord, proud of his intelligence, his piety, and his purse. “I thank my stars that I am not as other men are, monopolists, aristocrats, or even as this Protectionist. I eat slave-grown sugar. I pay half per cent income-tax on all that I possess. I work my men twelve hours a-day, and leave them no time for vice and idleness. I buy in the cheapest, and I sell in the dearest market.”

There is the liberality that prefers free trade to free man, and the principles of economy to those of humanity. There is the piety that justifies its avarice by texts, and patronises slavery on the ground of Christian duty. There is the philanthropy that loves itself and its tea better than the happiness of its fellows; that dooms thousands of its race to the lowest depths of wo, in order to save a penny on the pound of sugar. Go, ye liberal and enlightened Christians, learn Christianity from Voltaire. He did not bow before the idol of trade, at which you are now prostrating yourselves; he raised his voice in the cause of humanity against those vile principles of commercial cupidity which you have chosen for your creed. He, pointing to the degraded negro, could indignantly exclaim--

“Voyez, à quel prix vous mangez du sucre en Europe!”

He did not think that market cheap, where such a price was paid for it. Yes! while you are dealing out damnation in your bigoted sects, he was more, far more a Christian than you are.[14]

We by no means wish to lay to Sir Robert’s charge all the evils of the above picture; nevertheless, we think that the economical principles so dear to his heart, have had no little share in contributing to them. Certainly we look in vain for any efforts on his part to elevate the national character. His last support of the sugar bill is admirably characteristic; he is decidedly opposed to its principle, (he sympathises indeed most warmly with the negroes,) but, nevertheless, he is compelled as usual to support it--at a great sacrifice of course to his feelings--owing to the peculiar position of political affairs. Certainly, his career cuts a lamentable figure by the side of that of Agoracritus.

Nevertheless, though we cannot think his career meritorious, it is without doubt remarkable. This phenomenon of a man, who through life had been regarded as a leader in the aristocratic or Tory school, casting his skin nearly at the mature age of sixty, and soaring forth in the sunshine of popular favour in the gaudy and pleasing colours of the Radical, is certainly one of a curious and interesting kind. A variety of questions are suggested by it to the inquiring spirit. For how long has this suppression of his real opinions existed? For how long has he been pleased, according to his phrase, to allow people to deceive themselves? Is he still allowing them this amusing privilege? Do we even now see him in his real colours, or is some further metamorphosis in store? Have his changes been the sudden conversions of a facile and unstable inconsistency, or are they the long prepared denouement of a secret and mysterious plot? Has a tyro in politics been unlearning his prejudices and mistakes at the expense of his country, or has a Radical in disguise been prowling in the Tory fold, luring on the aristocracy to their own discomfiture?

Between the two alternatives of inconsistency and insincerity, it might be thought that his apologists would all take the first, and his accusers the second; that while the latter attacked him for premeditate treachery, the former might defend him on the ground of a natural facility of disposition, which rendered him prone to sudden conversions beneath the pressure of the times.

Such, however, by no means seems to be the case: on the contrary, the darker and more mysterious view of his conduct is the one taken by his most ardent admirers; (for, strange to say, such beings still exist.) Happening to be in conversation with one of these, (a zealous Radical,) I chanced to indulge in some animadversions on Sir Robert’s weakness, as shown in his numerous and repeated conversions, expressing an opinion that a statesman so exceedingly fallible must be totally unfitted to guide the destinies of a great nation. But such, I found, was by no means the view of my radical friend; who, somewhat to my surprise, maintained that he was a most able and skilful man, by far the best fitted of all our existing statesmen for the post of Prime Minister. Of any thing like weakness he would not hear. Does Peel’s general character, said he, savour of weakness? does he look like an innocent child, who does not know what he is about? Depend upon it there is a method in his inconsistency; depend upon it he has perfectly well known, all along, the game he has been playing.

What! then, said I, do you mean to say, that all his former professions were insincere? that when he opposed Canning on the Catholic question, he all along looked forward to his carrying it? that when he opposed the Whigs, he intended when in, power to adopt their principles? that when he made such strenuous professions in favour of Protection, he all along had an eye to the repeal of the Corn Laws?

Certainly, replied my friend, I may say not only that I think it, but that I know it. Do you suppose that so skilful a man would make his moves without having an eye to the game he was playing?

And is not such insincerity, said I, most detestable?

Insincerity! replied my Liberal, with a shrug of the shoulders,--it is a fine word, a very pretty word for declamation; but, young man, when you are as old as I am, you will know what it passes for in the political world. Depend upon it, only those cry out about it who are hurt by it; those who benefit by it give it quite a different name. The man who is an apostate and a renegade to the party whom he betrays, is a virtuous and patriotic convert to that which receives him.

Surely, cried I, if Peel has really been playing the game you attribute to him, no one could hesitate to pronounce him insincere.

Not at all so, said his admirer, his sincerity can easily be defended. I look upon him myself as a most sincere patriot, notwithstanding the view that I take of his policy. His principle has been a most consistent and patriotic one;--always to carry the popular measure, as soon as the public mind was ripe for it.

But was not, then, his conduct to Canning most reprehensible, when he professed such repugnance to the Catholic claims?

Not by any means; he really opposed them at the time, because the public mind was not yet ripe for them; and he sincerely proposed them afterwards, because it had ripened in the interim. The measure which would have been hazardous in the former case, had become safe and beneficial in the second. The same may be said of his apparent changes with respect to the principles of the Whigs and the Free Traders. He abstained from these doctrines as long as their popularity was doubtful, and embraced them as soon as the maturity of public opinion had rendered them wise and beneficial.

Why then, I inquired, did he profess to oppose them on principle?--why did he not declare that he was only waiting for the public mind to ripen? I cannot say that I got a very satisfactory answer on this head, but it was something to the effect that the public good, statesman-like discretion, peculiarities of political affairs, might justify some suppression on this point.

In fact, continued my friend, his whole opposition to the Whigs and the Reform Bill, was nothing but a piece of acting, into which he was led by the force of circumstances. Nobody thought that the public mind was so nearly ripe for it as it proved to be, and Peel therefore was not prepared to take advantage of it. It was an unforeseen event which took him by surprise, and he thus, against his will, was forced out of the movement. But his opposition was entirely fictitious,--he was never a Tory at heart: he might use their prejudices as tools to serve his purposes, but he was always too wary to adopt them in reality. His heart was always with the popular doctrines, more so than was the case with the Whigs themselves, as his recent behaviour evinces. He is ready now to take up and carry out their principles at a point where they themselves hesitate to do so. This is what he has all along been aiming at,--the post he aspires to is that of the man of the people, the leader of the movement. He is far better fitted for this than the Whigs; he has no sickly visions of finality. He will not scruple to carry out the dominant wishes of the people, whithersoever they may lead. Then he has this peculiar advantage, that while most other ministers are fettered by their pledges and professions, these are no impediments to Peel. This is why I look upon him as our fittest minister, because he will most fully carry out the people’s will. As soon as that will is decidedly expressed, his only care will be to execute it.

We ventured to raise some doubts as to the fitness of such a character for the post of Minister. Surely, said we, _he_ can scarcely be fit for a ruler, who is thus servile to the dominant opinion of the day. Surely a Minister should be somewhat in advance of the mass, and rather capable of directing their opinion than compelled to follow it.

If we look to mere outward brilliancy, replied he, that may be true, but if we look to solid utility, the case is different. In a despotic country, such a minister as you require might be needful; in Austria, for instance, a Metternich may be of use to direct and anticipate public opinion. But in a free country like ours, where public opinion is so active, we shall never want demagogues to form it; of these there will always be a plentiful stock; the difficulty is to find a minister who will interpret and execute the popular will, after it has been fashioned by these more original spirits. And this, if I mistake not, is eminently found in Peel, as time, I suspect, will demonstrate. Think not that his career is over; think not, as his short-sighted adversaries may imagine, that he is extinguished as a public man. That darling wish of his heart, to be borne triumphantly into power by the masses, as leader of the popular movement, lies at length almost within his grasp. His recent desertion of the aristocracy was admirably timed; though he may have lost their support, he has gained in exchange the favour of the people. He has craftily quitted the falling house, to take ampler lodgings in the new and rising fabric. However powerless he may seem to the ignorant, he has still admirable cards in his hand. His adversaries may be formidable in number, but they are weak in intrinsic strength. No one knows better than he how to play them off one against the other, and to profit by their dissensions. Meanwhile he is patiently biding his time, which, be assured, is not far distant. Politics have lately displayed much greater wonders than the triumphant return to power of Sir Robert Peel.

And if once he return, think not that he will easily be dispossessed of it. He will well know how to play the part of the popular favourite. There stands not in the House a more thorough Radical than the inner man of Sir Robert Peel. It is from him that we shall obtain Extended Suffrage, finally to become Universal. It is from him that we shall obtain the diminution, and at last the abolition of Church Establishments. It is from him, or from such as he, that we may hope finally to obtain a Republic. You may smile, and think such a prospect absurd. Would you have thought it more absurd, if I had told you three years ago that from him we should have obtained Repeal of the Corn Laws? Depend upon it, we shall yet see the day when Sir Robert shall be the triumphant popular minister.

Heaven forbid! thought I; yet I was forced to confess that it did not seem unlikely. I could, however, by no means join in the admiration which my friend expressed for such a character. While granting that some respect might be felt for the skilful δημαγωγός, who leads and sways the popular mind, I could feel nothing but contempt for the servile δημοπηδός, who merely watches and follows it. I rallied him somewhat upon the magnanimous liberality, which could ally itself with so poor and ungenerous a character, so debased, if his account were true, by meanness, duplicity, and hypocrisy. My Radical waxed somewhat warm, and at length he parted, in all the dignity of his liberality, thinking me a young fool; while I returned, laughing at his generous patriotism, and thinking him a servile-minded old humbug.[15]

The more, however, I pondered on the subject, the more did I see the justice of his views on Peel’s character, and at length I almost entirely coincided with him,--in every thing but his admiration.

What then shall we say of these principles, looking at them under their moral aspect? Taking his admirer’s view, I know not how they could escape the severest censure. But though these admirers of his make no scruple in adopting this view, and even in warmly defending it, we cannot but hesitate to follow their example. An insincerity so deliberate, so calculated, is more than we can readily admit. No doubt, his actual conduct has been such as my friend above described, as facts sufficiently show. No doubt, he has professed one set of principles when seeking power, and another when in possession of it. No doubt, he has used the aristocratical element as his stepping-stone to greatness, and has afterwards kicked it over for the popular one as its support. But we think that these principles have acted in a great measure spontaneously, without any very fixed and deliberate plan in his own mind. We take his conduct to have been not so much the result of calculation, as of the peculiar organisation of his nature. We believe him to have been in a great measure unconscious of the inherent servility and flexibility of his convictions. When he opposed a measure, he probably imagined that he did so chiefly on its own merits, and was not aware that his conversion would inevitably take place, as soon as public opinion was ripe for that measure.

Let us, however, listen to himself, and see what light we can derive from his own lips as to the nature of his principles. By his own account, in the case of the Corn Laws, the suppression of his real opinions lasted for somewhere about three years. “About three years ago,” says he, “a great change took place in my opinions on the subject;” but it seems that for the public good, he thought it best to allow people to deceive themselves, and therefore carefully suppressed all intimation of this change. So far, then, his own account tallies with that of his admirer, and we have his own word that his insincerity, for a considerable period of time, was deliberate and calculated. But the actual duration of this hypocrisy it must evidently be impossible to determine with accuracy; for if a person can, by his own avowal, practise it knowingly and deliberately for three years, it is probable that in a vague and unconscious way, not thoroughly known even to himself, he has been indulging in it for a much longer period.

Again, with respect to his Whig principles, it is impossible to determine accurately how long they have been suppressed, and he has not favoured us on this point with much specific information; but it would appear that they latently existed at the time that he so strenuously opposed that government, and that the germ of Whiggery was developing itself in his bosom, while outwardly he was shining as a high Tory.

With respect to the Catholic Question he is more communicative, and he takes care to inform us, in a speech revised by his own hand, and published for the benefit of posterity in Hansard, that here, too, his duplicity had been of long standing, and very much of a deliberate and premeditated nature. When proposing, as Minister, the measure of Catholic Emancipation, which outwardly he had so long opposed, he reports himself to have said, “So far as my own course in this question is concerned, it is the same with that which suggested itself to my mind in the year 1825, when I was his Majesty’s Principal Minister for the Home Department, and found myself in a minority in this House on this [the Catholic] Question.”[16] Now, the course which he was then pursuing was that of openly advocating and supporting the Catholic claims. And the same course, he tells us, (that, therefore, we must conclude, of his advocating these claims,) suggested itself to his mind in 1825. His duplicity then was of long standing; for he did not, as is well known, suffer the public to be in the least aware of any such suggestion, from the time when it presented itself to his mind in 1825, till 1829, when he first avowed that favourable leaning to those claims, which had so long lain dormant in the interior of his breast. His conduct certainly was well calculated to prevent any suspicion of the existence of such a tendency in his mind; for in 1827, two years after the suggestion had offered itself, he declared himself compelled, by a painful but rigorous sense of duty, to quit Canning’s ministry, and join the opposition against that statesman, on account of his own deep repugnance to those claims, and his conviction of their ruinous tendency. Nay, more, he suffered himself to be borne into power for the ostensible purpose of resisting those claims, and made the round of the country amid the acclamations of his supporters, as Protestant champion, without giving the slightest hint of the suggestion which the minority in 1825 had awakened in his mind, and which was so shortly to develop itself in full force, as soon as he was seated in power.

If, then, we are to believe his own account, his hypocrisy in this matter must have been of considerable duration, of much skill, and consummate perfidy. Though a feat of his earlier prime, it must have been quite worthy to compare with the recent great exploit of his maturity.

The speech from which we have extracted the above passage, is the same which gave rise to the discussion in Parliament, in which Sir Robert’s conduct in this business was attacked. He then endeavoured to rebut the charges founded on it, by denying the authenticity of the expressions attributed to him, some of which rested only on the isolated reports of particular newspapers.[17] But the sentence above quoted stands at full length in his own corrected report in Hansard, revised, as its title tells us, by Mr. Secretary Peel, the authenticity of which has never been questioned. And certainly its natural sense would lead us to conclude, that he was ready, in the interior of his mind, in 1825, to embrace the cause of Catholic Emancipation. If, as he would fain demonstrate, it has a contrary meaning, it can be only, we presume, when taken in some _non-natural sense_;--the fixing of which we leave to those more conversant than ourselves with that very ingenious mode of interpretation.

And if it be true that he did feel so disposed, that he was “almost persuaded,” at that early period, of the wisdom of granting the Catholic claims, then his subsequent behaviour in putting himself at the head of the party who unflinchingly and undoubtingly opposed those claims, as injurious to the country, his professing to coincide fully in their views, and his obtaining power on the strength of those professions, cannot but be looked on as a political manœuvre of the most disingenuous and culpable kind.

What could have been the motive of his making so strange a confession, is a somewhat curious subject of inquiry. We think we recognise in it an attempt to establish a kind of vague compromise between insincerity and inconsistency. If his conduct were attributed to mere inconsistency, he must plead guilty to a long previous mistake, and must forfeit all pretensions to political prudence and foresight. If, however, it were thought that he had for a long time had a secret leaning in favour of the Catholic claims, and had only been waiting for the ripeness of public opinion to declare his real sentiments, then he would escape the charge of weakness and imprudence, and would only incur the blame of a beneficial insincerity. He would thus gain the good graces of all those whose strong attachment to the measure would make them overlook, in behalf of its importance, what they would consider a pardonable deceit.

This view, indeed, he could not explicitly state in so many words, as it would have laid him too open to the accusations of his opponents; but it can be hinted at, as in the above passage. For what intelligible meaning can be attached to that sentence, if it do not convey the idea that his inconsistency, after all, was not so flagrant as had been represented; that his mind for some time previously had been leaning that way, and that, to use his peculiar phrase, his course was “the same with that which suggested itself to his mind in the year 1825.” We believe this expression to be the most accurate that he could have used. The design of supporting the Catholic claims had not then fully ripened in his mind, he had not formed any accurate and deliberate plan of conduct; but the possibility of doing so at some future day secretly “suggested itself to his mind.” A scarcely audible voice whispered in his mind, “Perhaps, Peel, some time or other, in certain contingencies, State necessities, public duty, &c., may require that you should lend a favourable ear to the Catholic claims.” What these peculiar contingencies were would also be suggested by the same little voice, but in so low a tone and in such vague terms that he himself would not be able to render a definite account of them.

Whatever, however, be the real construction of the above passage, or of any other similar ones that may be met with among his speeches, we ourselves should not be disposed to attach too prominent an importance to them. Such confessions might be admirably fitted as a taunt to him, as an “argumentum ad hominem,” as a case of “habemus confitentem reum:” but it is not on his own verbal expressions that the judgment on his conduct is to be formed. Strange indeed would it be if a skilful orator should so blunder in his speech as openly to avow an act of duplicity and deceit; it is only matter of marvel how such expressions as that above quoted could ever have been used. But, in a case like this, if he wished fully to express all that he knew of his own intentions, if he desired to unburden his mind by the fullest possible confession, he would not be able accurately to do so, and his own estimate of his own character would be little worth. It is an unfailing consequence with those who practise hypocrisy in the view of deceiving others, that they also at the same time deceive themselves. One deliberate and systematic piece of deceit produces an incalculable amount of this subtler and unconscious hypocrisy. It is a kind of general veil or mantle in which the person walks, which conceals his soul even from his own view, and deceives him as to the motives of his own actions. Under its soothing influence no sense of insecurity is felt; and the man whose conduct is all the time biassed by some egotistical motive, walks in the proud conviction to himself that he is a model of patriotism and virtue. Such an hypocrisy, to take a prominent instance, is well exemplified in the case of Cromwell; but illustrations must be familiar to every one in the humbler walks of life, and if he have a difficulty in discerning it in others, he will have none if he knows how to examine himself. It is a tendency which exists in all, and requires strong efforts for its subjugation. All strong passions or desires carry it along with them, unless their deceptive influence be firmly counteracted by the stronger desire for truth and right.

In Sir Robert’s case we believe it to have arisen from the action of a strong egotistical desire of power and fame, unchecked by any heartfelt and earnest convictions with regard to the truth of his public principles. His whole career is a continuous proof of this defect of all genuine and lively seizure of the truth; for never does he advocate an opinion while it is weak, and never does he oppose it when it is strong. Owing to this, his principles, though he himself may have no distinct consciousness of it, have insensibly bent themselves to the stronger motives of ambition. He remains all the time in ignorance of the secret bias, and is by no means aware of how far from true patriotism he is.

Accustomed to rely on the opinions of others, from the absence of all earnest conviction in himself, he must be forced to trust to their voice even in matters relating to his own conduct; and, when he hears the cheers of the populace that salute him at the door of the House of Commons, he lays the flattering unction to his soul that he is a martyr and a patriot. How should it be otherwise? When he hears himself applauded as an eminently virtuous and injured man, what means is there of undeceiving him, if his own conscience be silent or confirm the delusion? I find it well remarked to my purpose by Mencius, the Chinese sage, speaking of some statesmen of his day, whom he declares to have had only a false appearance of virtue,--“Having had for a long time this false appearance, and not having made any return to sincerity and integrity, how could they know,” he asks, “that they did not possess it?”[18]

And when we speak of the weakness or servility of conviction, we would by no means be understood to mean a mere liability to change. The man of sincere and earnest mind frequently changes his opinions oftenest. The difference lies in the motives of the change. In the case of the earnest man these arise from his own mind, in the case of the servile-minded man from external circumstances. Such, for instance, are political advantages, or the number, or clamour, or strength of the advocates of an opinion. Circumstances generally enable us to discriminate pretty accurately. If a man always rejects an opinion when shared by few, and always adopts it when popular and dominant; if he has nothing to say to it when it is of no service to him, but embraces it when it is strong, and can give him renown and popularity, we shall not probably err in deeming that man to be of a servile mind, wanting in sincere and earnest convictions. The truthful-minded man at once avows his change, the servile-minded one cunningly conceals it till it suits his purpose. If, besides this, a man be cold, pompous, and an egotist, if his character be marked by duplicity, if his language be plausible, but unsatisfactory if he be found to pay more deference to his foes through fear than to his friends from affection, all these are corroborating tests of the servile character in question. Though it may be difficult to assign its precise tokens in words, there is less difficulty in discriminating it in practice.

It is this total want of all earnest and heartfelt conviction of the truth, which forms the key to the interpretation of the whole of Sir R. Peel’s career. Deciphered by this, all the tortuous inconsistencies of his course arrange themselves in systematic order, all the varied hieroglyphics of his mysterious conduct yield a clear and intelligible meaning. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the truth of his principles, labours unceasingly to impart them to others, to urge upon them the importance of his views, to point out the beneficial results which must flow from his course of policy. Such an earnest conviction animated Pitt in his resistance to the French Revolution, Canning in his advocacy of the Catholic claims, Wilberforce in his endeavours for Negro Emancipation; and lately, (if we may be pardoned somewhat of a bathos,) Cobden in his war against the Corn Laws. Without meaning to assimilate the merits, of these various efforts, they all serve as examples of the way in which men act when animated by a genuine and sincere conviction. But there is no principle, great or small, which has owed its advance in public opinion to one sentence of Peel’s. Say rather, there is none which while yet in its infancy, and in need of support, has not been opposed by him to the best of his power. While it is weak, he raises his tongue against it; while it is doubtful, he halts between two opinions, and watches the struggle in cautious silence; as soon as it has become dominant and can dispense with his support, he proffers his aid with copious professions of zeal, and seeks to fix on his inglorious brow the laurels that rightly belong to another.

Had he lived in the Roman world at an earlier age, when Christianity was yet striving against the secular powers, while it was weak and despised, who would have opposed it more loudly than the Robert Peel of the day? who would have more warmly urged its impracticability, its unfitness for the concerns of life? who would more eloquently have exhorted the Roman world to hold to the wisdom of their forefathers? As, however, the tide gradually and steadily rolled on, and day by day one conversion followed another, these eloquent protestations would begin somewhat to flag, and at length that plausible tongue would lie in silence. But when at last it began to make its way among the higher powers of the land, amid the eminent and wealthy; when finally it even penetrated into the Court of the Emperor, and rumours began to be whispered that he himself looked on it with no unfavourable eye, a few days before Constantine’s conversion Pellius would announce his formal adhesion to its principles, with an intimation that he had for some years been leaning that way, and that “a similar course had suggested itself to his mind,” even at the time when he took some part in the Dioclesian persecution.[19] A skilful management of “government influence,” pouring grace and unction on many benighted minds, would secure him a good claim to merit, and he would doubtless be rewarded for his seasonable change by a high post amid the officers of the regenerate Emperor.

This time-serving conduct, skilfully managed, will frequently succeed admirably with the world; for these children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. The sincere advocates of principles through good and through bad report, are looked upon as unpractical and fanciful theorists; while those who carefully watch their opportunity, and conform themselves with good grace to the dominant tide of opinion, are hailed as able and practical men, and even obtain from the mass the praise of more than common honesty, inasmuch as they are not ashamed to avow a change in their opinions. It is of such as these that the wise Confucius pointedly says, “The most honest men of their time are the pest of virtue.”

“What!” asks the surprised disciple Wen-tchang, “whom do you call the most honest men of their time?”

“Those,” replies the Sage, “who direct their principal efforts to speak and act like all the world, are the adulators of their age: these are the most honest men of their generation.”

“And why,” says the disciple, “do you call them the pest of virtue?”

“If you wish to find a defect in them, you will not know where to lay hold of them; if you wish to attack them in any place, you will not be able to compass it. They participate in the poverty of the manners of their age. That which dwells in their heart resembles integrity and sincerity, and their actions resemble the practice of temperance and virtue. As all the people of their country boast of them incessantly, they believe themselves to be models of perfection. This is why I regard them as the pest of virtue.”

“I detest,” continues Confucius, “that which has only the appearance of reality: I detest the tares, in the fear that they will ruin the crop. I DETEST THE SKILFUL STATESMAN, IN THE FEAR THAT HE WILL CONFOUND EQUITY.”[20]

Might not the simple lessons of Confucius be read with advantage even in our enlightened age, which certainly is not without its “adulators?” Might not they do some good to Sir R. Peel, and awaken that “skilful statesman” to a juster estimate of his real virtue?

The idea contained in the above passage is most accurately and profoundly true, and shows, like most of his remarks, that Confucius had a penetrating knowledge of human nature. There are, in fact, two great classes into which mankind may be divided; those whose model of conduct is the general conduct of the society in which they live, and those whose model is an ideal in their own minds, unattainable indeed, and never to be realised in practice, but the mere aiming at which elevates their character. The first of these are the men described above by Confucius, “whose principal effort is to think and to act just like all the world,” whom he ironically terms “the most honest men of their district.” And even in our day this class furnishes us with a vast number of “most highly respectable men.” Destitute of all splendid visions, they are never led astray into any extravagance that might shock the decorous laws of society, and they are looked upon accordingly as models of temperance and virtue. These are the “children of this world” most wise in their generation: the “men of the world,” from whom arise the sharp practical man, the skilful statesman, the time-serving diplomatist,[21] and all the host of Vicars of Bray, whether in religion or politics.

The others are those who derive their principles not from the fashionable dicta of the world, nor the ruling doctrines of the age, but from the idea of truth within their own minds; who, “though the sun were on their right hand and the moon were on their left,” would not be diverted from the genuine convictions of their conscience. They look not to the flickering glare of public opinion, but to the immutable light of truth; these are “the children of light,” the souls of pure and high-minded virtue. From these have sprung all that humanity has of great and noble, all those who have sacrificed on the altar of truth; in religion the Martyrs, in philosophy the Sages, in politics the sincere and devoted Patriots. They do not despise opinions because the world despises them, nor do they honour them because the world does them honour; they are “justi ac tenaces propositi viri,” who do not ebb and flow with the tide of public opinion.

In which of these two classes Sir Robert Peel is to be placed, is what his own conduct will decide, better than our judgment. Nevertheless, we will hazard the opinion, that Sir Robert Peel is no child of light. We suspect that there are _very_ few principles, for which he would suffer himself to be burnt,--even in effigy. With no high ideal by which to guide his conduct, with no generous or exalted views, he has ventured on a career beyond his powers. Fitted by Nature to make an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer, he has not known how to content himself with his proper post. A narrow egotist, he has attempted to guide the destinies of a great nation. His career, as might have been expected, has been a notable failure. If it be not exposed to very heavy blame, we decidedly must withhold all praise from it; if it have little of the execrable, it certainly has nothing of the admirable. Unstable as water, how could he excel? and excellence has been wanting accordingly. His career has been one continuous mistake; the greatest mistake of all being that he ever began it. His only discoveries have been, that he had previously been in error. His only victories have been over his friends, whom thrice he has dragged through the mire of dishonour.[22] He has portioned out triumph to his foes, defeat and bitterness to his supporters. He quits power amid the disgust and indignation of his old friends, and the contemptuous patronage of his new. Such has been the career of the _safe_ man, the practical and able statesman! The generous Canning, a man of real and noble ideas, was looked upon as dangerous, and the wary and cautious Peel was raised to power in his stead. Could they have foreseen--those who were toiling for their safe man, and so alarmed at the dangerous ideas of Canning--that it was to the safe man they were to be indebted for Catholic, Emancipation, and Repeal of the Corn Laws? Reflect upon this, ye lovers of _safe_ men, and be wise: choose those who are really safe, and see first that they are men at all, and next only that they be safe ones; men--of high and bold ideas, not crafty and narrow-minded egotists.

The above described modification of character is, no doubt, extensively prevalent, and by its frequency in their ranks casts somewhat of a shade over the whole body of politicians and statesmen; so much so, that it was an axiom of one of the most distinguished of their number, that they were all to be considered dishonest, till their conduct proved the contrary. But, though far too many examples of it are afforded by political history, we may safely say that seldom has a better opportunity of studying such a character existed, than at the present day, when it is exemplified in a far more open and unblushing way than usual, by the two most noted actors on the political stage, the one of England, the other of Ireland. It is impossible not to recognise the intrinsic similarity in the characters of Peel and O’Connell, though outwardly very differently modified by the circumstances and the tempers of the nations with which they have had to deal. But in both, one great characteristic is the same, that their professions have been at variance with their convictions; that the ends to which they have secretly been working, have been totally different from those which they put forward to the public as their aim. Both have made use of principles and feelings as tools to their ambition, in which they themselves did not in the least degree sympathise; nay, which, in Peel’s case, were the secret object of his hostility and aversion. Peel made use of the principles of Toryism, the banner of Church and State; O’Connell of the principle of Nationality, so dear to the Irish, the cry of Repeal, and the Parliament in College Green. That O’Connell cares little enough about Repeal, is now sufficiently evident; and that Peel cared absolutely nothing about Toryism, is but a faint expression of the truth, inasmuch as his object has evidently been to overthrow it, as soon as it had raised him to power. O’Connell, while professedly upholding the cause of the National and fiery Anti-Saxon party, has secretly made friends with the much less romantic and more practical interests of the Catholic priesthood and the Whigs; Peel, while professedly maintaining the declining cause of the Church and State, the old institutions, the national feelings, &c., of the country, has secretly made friends with the much less ideal and more substantial interests of the commercial classes, and the Manchester cotton lords. Both have ended in a complete rupture with the party of which they were the former champion. Peel is at open war with the Tories, O’Connell with the Nationals. The love of their former friends, is in both cases turned into bitter disgust and contempt; and as we have already heard violent denunciations of Peel from his old supporters, we shall probably ere long hear equally violent against O’Connell. Both, in fact, share the merited fate of long-continued falsity of principle; they stand forth in their old age with their nakedness uncovered, the contempt of all those who can penetrate the hollowness of their career. For both the same excuse is set up, that they deceived for the good of their country. For both the excuse is alike untenable, for nothing can justify such deliberate tampering with the truth; and in both, their final exposure may serve as a warning to show how delusive is such a notion.

On the whole, however, we must greatly give the preference to the Irish agitator; his services to his country have been much greater, his exertions much more effective, and his career much more consistent; for, however insincere he may be on certain points, he has never been guilty of professing principles diametrically opposite to his convictions; he cannot be accused of any such hypocrisy as that of professing Toryism while in heart a Radical. He has consistently supported, and very mainly procured, by his own exertions, many measures important to his country; not to name others, that of Catholic Emancipation. But there is not a single measure which owes its success to the exertions of Peel; though he may have been the nominal instrument of carrying them, their triumph has been in reality the work of others, and they would have been passed with equal or greater readiness had he never existed. The Corn Bill, on which he rests his principal claim, has doubtless lost much more by his long-continued opposition, than it has gained by his tardy conversion. He has done nothing but adopt those principles which had already become dominant through the exertions of others, and has lived entirely on the fruit of other people’s intellects. Every one must admit, that in all this O’Connell is, beyond comparison, superior to Peel. In other respects, too, the bold and open _bonhommie_ of the Irish agitator, is far preferable to the cold and repulsive egotism of the English statesman.

That the career of the man who, with weak principles, as above described, attempts to play a conspicuous part in politics, will be pregnant with humiliation, is what we might at once predict. In the present instance of Peel this has been most strikingly exemplified. Unable to nourish himself with the food of truth, he has scantily sustained himself by eating his professions. Perpetually has he opposed, to the best of his power, men whose principles he has afterwards been compelled to adopt. After gaining power by such opposition, he has been forced to confess that he gained it by injuring his country. Even should we take the most favourable view of his conduct to Canning, that the nature of the case will allow, how much has it still of a humiliating character! He is reluctantly induced, at a great sacrifice to his feelings, to join the unfortunate opposition against that statesman, solely, as he _believes_, from a stern sense of public duty. Yet he is obliged afterwards to confess that Canning was much wiser than himself in the matter, and to carry the very measure on account of which his friend had been so mercilessly assailed. He discovers that the violence done to his feelings, not only was productive of no good to his country, but actually of detriment. He discovers that his former objections were not (as had been professed) to the principle of the measure, but only because the public mind was not yet ripe for it, and that as soon as the public mind ripened, his own would ripen too. What regret must thus be excited in the mind awakened to the consciousness of its long mistake!

If he had been satisfied that his opposition to Canning had proceeded from a firm and well-grounded conviction, from an unswerving sense of public duty, his conduct, however repugnant to his feelings, would, on the whole, be a just subject of pride, and the sacrifice of his friendship to his duty would entitle him to gratitude and respect. But, alas! it turns out that this firm conviction was wanting, that it was based on a foundation of sand; that what principles he had were vague and weak, and were liable to be biassed all the time, much more than he knew, by extraneous and contingent circumstances. This is the reason why they afterwards gave way, when their yielding was demanded by his political position. The law of duty that was deemed so stern and inflexible, proved, when the test was applied, to be pliant and elastic; the convictions which were believed to be based on the firmest Protestant principle, turned out to be chiefly dependent on public ripeness. And when he reflected that he had gained his power by so mistaken a course, by so unfounded an opposition to Canning, surely this would call for feelings of repentance on account of his previous errors, this would at least demand some expression of that contrition and humiliation, which seem so distasteful to his nature. But this is what he seems peculiarly disinclined to do, and till some such avowal of repentance has been made, we cannot think that he will have expiated his error.

His position with respect to the Whigs is of a similarly humiliating kind. What must he now think of that bitter opposition which he formerly promoted and encouraged against them, now that he discover that he is fully prepared to carry out their extremest principles? Must it not be a subject of penitence to him to discover, that here again his policy was, under his present views, injurious to his country; that his power has been based on an opposition to people wiser, as he now confesses, than himself? Yet here, too, he most strangely resists any avowal of contrition or humiliation.

This phenomenon is not of an amiable nature, nor one which would dispose us to a favourable view of his career. We can scarcely, I think, wonder, all things considered, that his previous conduct, and more especially that towards Canning, should have been brought under discussion in Parliament, as liable to the suspicion of premeditate duplicity and insincerity--of having, in fact, been similar to that of his three last years with respect to the Corn Laws. Ill, indeed, would it have spoken for the political morality of that Honourable House, if his conduct had been passed over without notice, as the usual and proper course which might be looked for from a British Statesman. Upon this question we will leave others to decide, for this is a point on which every one must entertain his own opinion. Since such has avowedly been his conduct for the three last years, there is nothing to prevent us from extending it over the whole of his public life. We do not, however, purpose to enter minutely into any such researches. We can only wonder at the very needless amount of agitation into which his supporters were thrown, when the subject, not long since, was broached in Parliament. A belief was there expressed, that his conduct on the Catholic Question had been equally insincere with his recent behaviour on the Corn Laws; that he had then, as now, suffered his colleagues and the public to deceive themselves, and had not openly avowed his real opinions. Sir R. Peel is roused to the greatest indignation at such an assertion. Yet surely this anger in him is somewhat out of place. His present insincerity, or deceit by sufferance, he does not attempt to deny;--it would, indeed, be useless for him to do so. Why, then, is he so indignant at the idea that his former conduct should have been similar to his present? Was insincerity a greater crime twenty years ago than it is now? Is deceit in the green tree worse than it is in the dry? If his public duty in 1845 authorised him to allow Lord Stanley, Lord Ashburton, and his party generally, “to deceive themselves,” why might it not have authorised him in 1825 to allow Mr. Canning and Lord Liverpool to deceive themselves also? If it be lawful for him now to mask and suppress his real opinions, why should it not have been so then? Yet by his energetic protestations he would seem to think that it must have been highly censurable. Such charges could only proceed, if we believe him, from the base and vindictive malice of political opponents. Yet what are these charges? The charges of having done then precisely what he has avowedly been doing now, and what it can scarcely be questioned he has done in the case of the Whigs also; the charge of having suppressed his real opinions, and led his colleagues and the public astray; of having opposed a measure professedly on principle, when in reality he was only waiting for sufficient symptoms of “public ripeness,” or for some other favourable conjuncture, as might best suit his views.

His indignation, then, seems to me to be the severest censure that could be passed on his conduct; and since he takes such pains to condemn himself, we will not trouble ourselves to defend him. We will leave him to his own tender mercies; from no quarter can his castigation proceed better than from his own hand.

We will merely hint a few remarks on the line of defence he has adopted. He seems to think that it all turns on some verbal expressions of his own, and that if he establish his position on these, no possible ground is left for suspecting him of insincerity. He insists several times, “I repeat that the whole of this question turns on the point, Did I, or did I not (at a certain time) use such and such expressions to Lord Liverpool?” We cannot agree with him in thinking that the question turns mainly upon this, or even that it is much affected by it. The question, in our apprehension, turns upon this:--Seeing that you have been, through an unknown portion of your career, accustomed to suppress and mask your opinions, and allow people, as you phrase it, to deceive themselves, have we any reason to think that your conduct was more ingenuous in your youth than it was in your mature prime, and is in your declining age? Seeing what your practice has recently been, we think that people must be allowed on these matters to judge for themselves, and to form their own opinion on your insincerity, as to its nature, its duration, and its amount. Indeed, if the question were to be decided by his own words, it would fare ill with his case; for, as we saw above, in a passage of his revised and corrected speech, his own expressions on this matter make against him more than those of his bitterest opponent could do. Were we to believe his own assertion, that the same course which he pursued in 1829, with respect to the Catholic Question, had suggested itself to his mind so early as in 1825, we should be forced to regard his conduct to Canning as disgraced by most culpable hypocrisy. He must have opposed that statesman upon hollow and deceitful grounds, and must have obtained power upon false pretences. We do not assert that such was actually the case, but if we are to believe his statements it must have been so. We can only hope that his account of the business was incorrect, and that the foresight he would seek to attribute to himself had no real existence. If, then, any body is maligning him, it would seem to be himself; and when he is thus merciless to his own character, he can scarcely wonder at some severity from the hands of his foes. We have no wish for our part to say any thing of him so injurious, as that which he has left on record against himself; and we will leave him therefore, as before, to smart beneath the lash of his own self-inflicted chastisement.

There is another charge, quite distinct from the preceding, brought against him with respect to his conduct towards Canning; viz., that he sanctioned the violent attacks made against that statesman by some of his supporters.[23]

His own language, indeed, is free from this violence, but we can scarcely avoid thinking that blame attaches to him for indifference in the matter, for suffering his followers to employ an ungenerous mode of warfare against his rival, when it may reasonably be supposed that a decided expression of disapproval on his part would have gone far to put a stop to this. His conduct in the case of the Whigs was very similar, and their very generous behaviour at the present time to him, affords a most striking contrast to his previous treatment of them. As to the actual guilt to be imputed to these direct assailants of Canning, we hear very different estimates. That their attacks had a very powerful effect upon him personally, and were bitterly felt by him, there can be no doubt; and there seems no good ground for questioning the opinion of his relatives, that they had a share in hastening his death. It is urged, however, in their behalf, that they were doing no more than what is frequently done in politics; that they were young men, accustomed to see violent personal attacks considered an ordinary weapon of political warfare, and they would probably therefore think that theirs were perfectly _en régle_; that their assaults were not more bitter than what have often been made on other statesmen; that public men must expect this kind of annoyance, and that it was impossible to anticipate that they would produce so unwonted an effect in this instance. Granting them the full benefit of these apologies, there will still remain a considerable share of blame. If a practice is culpable, however general, those who adopt it must bear in some measure the guilt of any evil consequences that ensue. School-boys are in the habit of flinging stones without any very great regard to the damage they may occasion, and the practice among them not being looked on as blamable, we cannot, from proofs that a boy has flung these stones, argue in him any very peculiarly evil nature. Nevertheless, nobody can deny, that if one of these boys, though not much more careless or vicious than his fellows, should chance to aim so full at a more than usually delicate head, that his stone should be the cause of death, this should be a subject of repentance to him, a lesson that he should remember with humiliation for the rest of his life, and one which should be frequently quoted as a useful example of the culpability of the practice. A guilt of a nature analogous to this is what we should attribute to these assailants; the guilt of great wantonness and meanness, though not of _malice prepense_.

And if a person whose years, or whose position, such as a tutor to these boys, ought to have rendered him wiser, should have been standing by at the time, while these stones were raining against a friend or rival of his, with the view of diverting and pleasing him, and should have regarded the matter with indifference, thinking to himself it is no more than what all boys do, it is not likely that any harm will come from it this time more than any other;--he also should look on his connivance, under the circumstances, as matter of humiliation and repentance. A culpability similar to this very possibly attaches to Sir R. Peel, and if so, it should not be looked upon as in any way light and trivial, however much it may be sought to be sheltered by custom or example.

His blame indeed in this matter would be rather negative than positive, rather of omission than of commission, and would not therefore afford ground for any positive charge. Very probably, by the ordinary rules of political warfare, his conduct in this affair would be justifiable. It would be deemed sufficient by them that he should be clear from all such violence himself; it would not be thought incumbent on him to take any especial pains to stop it in others. Had he, however, been of a generous nature, we should have expected more than this; and we think in that case he would have taken more energetic measures to repress this wanton and culpable practice, especially against one who had been his friend. There is certainly nothing in his conduct on this occasion to applaud; no generous traits, as there might have been, to raise him in our estimation. But this is more, perhaps, than we could reasonably expect; men do not look for grapes from thistles, nor for generosity from Peels. We cannot well make it an actual charge against a man, that he was not generous; absence of generosity is not guilt, but poverty of character. That Sir R. Peel’s conduct on this occasion may have evinced poverty of character, is no more than what his general career would dispose us to believe. A higher mind would not have been contented with doing no more than what was ordinarily done; he would have seen more clearly the culpability of the practice, though established by usage, and would have blamed it in stronger language than many of his party would think it merited. We think, therefore, that it is a passage in his career which he should look on with deep humiliation, although we should not be disposed to consider it the ground of any very serious charge.

It is not, however, in any way a matter of wonder that some should entertain a severer judgment; for Sir R. Peel’s subsequent conduct has been such, that it justifies much liberty of opinion on these matters. It is in these cases that a perfect sincerity and ingenuousness of conduct is of the greatest use in purging a character which may undeservedly have been placed in untoward and suspicious circumstances. If his own wily and deceitful behaviour has very much weakened the defence which such a character would have afforded him, he has none but himself to blame. We can feel no pity for him under such imputations, for these suspicions are no more than the natural and proper punishment which general insincerity calls down upon itself. As one of the rewards of truthful and ingenuous conduct is that it fortifies the whole character, and repels unmerited suspicion, so the fitting and appropriate punishment of hypocrisy is that it throws a tarnish over the whole career, and prevents the assumption of the high tone of blameless and unassailable purity.

Nor can we leave unnoticed the weakness of his retort on his assailants, when he complains so loudly of these old accusations being disturbed after so long a slumber. He would argue from this that they arise entirely from party malice. “I ask,” says he, “whether, if I had not brought forward the present measure, I should have heard a word of all these accusations?” Very likely not; we quite agree with him that in that case they would probably have lain dormant without much revival of notice. But so acute a mind must, one would think, perceive that their re-appearance at the present moment might reasonably be expected, independent of all party or unworthy motives. His whole recent conduct has been extraordinary and unprecedented, and people are naturally anxious to trace up the hidden springs in which so remarkable a policy takes its rise. But more than that--it is his recent conduct which more especially establishes his insincerity; and does he forget that it is on the suspicion of insincerity, that the culpability of much of his previous course depends? His career cannot well be judged _a priori_, but it can be so much better, _a posteriori_. When he refers to the character given him by Canning, as a testimony of his integrity, does he think that Canning would have so expressed himself, if he had known at that time what was to be his future conduct on the Catholic question? Does he not see that it is his subsequent behaviour which entirely nullifies all the praises that Canning may have bestowed upon him, even if it were not futile in every way to refer to such compliments? And does he not see that his recent conduct in the case of the Corn Laws aggravates the suspicion of insincerity? It is this which has reasonably awakened a scrutiny into the previous events of his career; it is this which has excited that discussion which has fixed for ever an unmusical dissonance between the names of Canning and of Peel.

For out own part, putting aside his culpability in the matter, we would look upon his relation with these maligners of Canning, to be not so much blamable as ominous. However much we may be disposed to acquit him of any connivance in the matter, yet the mere fact that his power owed obligation at its outset to so violent an opposition against a man like Canning--an opposition which so deeply imbittered the career of that generous and high-minded statesman, this mere fact, I say, is an unfortunate and untoward fact, one which would stand as no happy augury at the commencement of the brightest course of pure and irreproachable patriotism. But when it stands at the commencement of a career like his, of that long tissue of inconsistent profession, of masked and disingenuous policy, it is a gloomy and an inauspicious fact, one which fully justifies the expression of his antagonist, in calling his an ill-omened and a sinister career.

Whatever view be taken, there is no ground for complaint, if his conduct be strictly and rigidly scrutinised; for really, all things considered, he is not a subject who can lay claim to any excessive and scrupulous delicacy. For our part, when we hear his conduct to Canning censured, though it may be too severely, we are rather disposed to reserve our pity for Canning, than to give any portion of our tenderness to the fragile and sensitive Peel. For is it not precisely one of the complaints to which he is justly liable, that he was not duly alive to the evil of such attacks when made against the character of another, and that he profited by the support of those who made them, without any very energetic remonstrance? Did he not stand by while the iron was eating into the soul of his former friend, without any very great and poignant grief, without any severe disturbance of his equanimity? He appears to have maintained a magnanimous composure, and philosophically to have reaped the advantages, unmindful, in his short-sighted views, of what might happen to himself. “_Eheu! quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam!_” Now, when his own conduct is assailed, though on just and reasonable grounds, while that of Canning was attacked on the most frivolous and unreasonable, whither has suddenly vanished that stoical fortitude with which he so firmly bore up against the attacks on his friend? Now it is his turn to wince and to complain, to protest against all rancour in politics, to deprecate all asperity of tone, to claim a mild and courteous mode of discussion. Maxims most good and true in themselves, but why were they not remembered earlier? Where were they among his former party? where were they when those unjust attacks were made, which now form a just subject of attack in their turn? It was not from him nor his partisans that the voice was raised which stigmatised those proceedings. No: his present complaints are idle: to be of avail we ought to have heard of them earlier. His position at present is no more than the result of that natural and equitable action, by which injustice, though late, punishes itself. It is a law of nature from which no man may escape; neither a beggar nor a Premier. One wrong begets another, of like brood and kind with itself. Τὸ γὰρ δυσσεβὲς ἔργον μετὰ μὲν πλείονα τίκτει, σφετέρᾳ δ’ εἰκότα γέννᾳ.[24] The cup which in his youth he tranquilly suffered a nobler soul to drain to the dregs, how should he refuse in his declining years to put his lips to the margin? Let him try its taste with the best face he can, without superfluous whinings or complainings. He need not be unnecessarily apprehensive of its effect; it will not act on him as it did on a nobler nature. The chill and callous organisation of the egotist will receive no more than a beneficial stimulus from the potion which is death to the generous soul. The darts which would find their way direct to the frank and open heart, will fall blunt and powerless long before they reach those hidden and inaccessible recesses of his own, cased as it is in a triple mail of coldness, secrecy, and self-delusion. Should a stray one, piercing that elephantine hide, awaken an unwonted smart, our pity would be steeled by the reflection,--“_Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat_,” and we should watch the flow of blood, with no apprehension of a serious effect, but with feelings of pleasure, arising from the sense of a somewhat satisfied justice.

What, then, is the moral of the whole matter? A short and simple one.

LET NO ONE ASPIRE TO A LEADING PART IN POLITICS, UNLESS HE POSSESS GENUINE AND EARNEST CONVICTIONS: LET NO ONE WHO HAS NOT SUCH FIRM PRINCIPLES IN HIS HEART, GIVE UTTERANCE TO ENERGETIC PROFESSIONS WITH HIS LIPS: LET NO ONE WHO HAS NOT A GREAT SOUL SET UP FOR BEING A GREAT MAN.

* * * * *

If Sir R. Peel’s career as a public man were over, the reflections suggested by it, however interesting in a speculative point of view, would not be of much immediate practical importance. But such is by no means the case: this mysterious character is still among us, playing his part upon the stage, and possessed of very extensive influence and popularity. It is this, indeed, which renders his example more peculiarly baneful and demoralising, for, owing to the favour he has gained by his recent measures, the hollowness and insincerity of his previous career are by many wholly overlooked. The admiration lavished on such a policy as this, must exercise a most pernicious influence, injurious to the character of public men, and of the nation at large. Every thing that can counteract this mistaken tendency, would be a real benefit; and it is chiefly with this view that we have been induced to contribute our mite in an otherwise ungenial task. But when we find skilful insincerity receiving the praises due only to disinterested virtue, we feel called upon to lift our feeble voice against so fatal a delusion. The prospect, by no means improbable, of his return to power, renders such efforts still more important. For such an event is far more likely than many would be inclined to deem. However deserted he may be by his old friends, a new and rising party is gathering around him, and the old champion of the High Tories is become the flower of the Ultra Radicals. The strongest hopes are entertained by these of his speedy return to the post of Minister. We are told, as quoted above, that he is to be triumphantly borne into power on the shoulders of the people, and in that enviable position to remain as long as he pleases; a sort of perpetual Grand Vizier. He has made friends, it would appear, with the Mammon of the Cotton Lords, that when the Landlords failed they might receive him into everlasting habitations. That he has sufficient popularity and influence for this purpose is not to be questioned, and the jealousies of the two great rival parties are likely to be favourable to his views. If it be true that he has all along been working to this consummation, that his secret and steady aim has been to come out as the Popular Minister of the movement, however severely his previous conduct must be censured, we cannot deny it a certain amount of skill. We hope, however, that it will meet with the ill success that it deserves. It is impossible to think that a character like this, however able, is fitted to govern the nation. That the popular will, whatever it may be, will be readily executed by him, is perfectly clear; but something more than this is necessary to constitute a good Minister. They must indeed be a peculiar kind of Liberals who would gladly ally themselves with such a leader as this.

“License they mean, when they cry liberty, For who loves that must first be wise and good.”

Now their chosen master, Sir Robert, has unfortunately placed himself in such a position, that he cannot be both wise and good. His course must either have been very much mistaken, or very insincere, so that if he be wise he cannot be good, and if he be good he cannot be wise. It is impossible, therefore, that he can be both, though perfectly possible that he may be neither. We cannot, then, congratulate the Ultra party upon the acquisition that they have made; and if as friends they find reason to be satisfied with their new champion, they will be the first of his friends who have done so.

Surely, however, we are not yet so badly off, but that we may find men both wiser and better for our Ministers. Let us hope that the new government, in spite of its very inauspicious commencement, may at least, by its honesty and sincerity, form a brilliant contrast to its predecessor. They have a great task before them, one which will test their worth and their abilities to the utmost, and afford the amplest scope to their energies; viz. the improvement of the social condition of the labouring classes. Let them know at once, and let them openly proclaim it, that this will require far higher and more extensive principles than those of political economy; that it will not be accomplished by the “competition” or by the “state of nature” proposed by an Episcopal economist, nor by the mere process of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Nay, let them be well assured that it will require an infringement of this sacred principle, however blasphemous it may sound in the ears of our Liberal cottonocracy. It will require an interference with the market of labour, and with the lordly privileges of capital. They must be prepared to encounter the censure of many a dogmatic economist, the odium of many a wealthy capitalist, and even the ingratitude of many of the people upon whom their benefits shall be conferred. The problem is one for which their predecessor, Sir Robert, was evidently totally unfitted, for it will require minds above the spirit of the time, Statesmen who must anticipate, not follow, the reigning popular doctrines. Their present conduct will show whether they are really Liberals, or merely false and empty assumers of the name; whether they are in possession of the high and true principles which conduce to the virtue and happiness of States, or whether, like the mass, they are principally engrossed in commercial and industrial doctrines. It cannot be disguised that they have made a very poor beginning, disgraceful to their name and to their former achievements; let us hope that shame may serve to stimulate them for the future to something more glorious and honourable.

Sir Robert Peel’s conduct will serve them in many matters as a useful example, as a solemn warning, as a practical illustration of the homely adage, that “honesty is the best policy.” We have seen enough of the evils entailed by a masked and disingenuous policy, which delights in allowing people to deceive themselves. Let us now contrast with it the advantages of a sincere, open, and consistent course. Let us profit by the late Premier’s career as an example, in which case it will not have been without its use; and let us, by so doing, avoid the disgrace of falling again under his power.

_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Dix Ans à la Cour du Roi Louis Philippe, et Souvenirs du Temps de l’Empire et de la Restauration._ Par B. APPERT, de la Société Royale des Prisons de France. Berlin and Paris, 1846.

[2] According to old usage, each defunct King of France awaited, at the entrance of the vault at St. Denis, the body of his successor, and was not consigned to his final resting-place till its arrival.

[3] Biog. Univ. xiii. 482-491, (Eugene.)

[4] Histoire de mon Tempe par Frederick IV., p. 174.

[5] Viz. Vimiera, the Douro, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes, Toulouse, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo.

[6] _Wanderungen eines alten Soldaten._ Von Wilhelm, Baron von Rahden. Berlin, 1846.

[7] Even in the House there are some free-traders by no means irreproachable on this head, gentlemen whose speeches are profuse in invectives against the whole body of the landlords, and who, when freed from Parliamentary restraint, denounce them as robbers, and openly express “their desire of levelling the aristocracy to the dust.” However sincere these patriots may be, this ungenerous tone does not betoken that large and comprehensive mind which we look for in a Member of Parliament; and it is the fortunate possessors of minds like these, who, in our days, pleasantly style themselves Liberals! _Lucus a non lucendo._ Where will this abuse of language stop? An American slave-breeder will be the next claimant of the name, when these Parliamentary Thersitæ set themselves up as Liberals!

[8] And this for a considerable period of time. In the last case of the Corn Laws, by his own account, it would seem to have been about _three years_.

[9] See this point well put in Whewell’s Treatise on Morals--a book which we strongly recommend to Sir Robert’s perusal, as containing many interesting views on these topics, and likely to be of peculiar service to _him_.

[10] _Vide_ again Whewell’s Treatise.

[11] In the matter of the Factory Bill.

[12] Simply in its peculiar naïveté. We do not mean to assimilate the Irish character with that of Peel.

[13]

“_Cleon._--There, I’m the first, you see, to bring ye a chair. _Sausage-seller._--But a table--here I’ve brought it, first and foremost. _Cleon._--See here this little half meal-cake from Pylos, Made from the flour of victory and success. _Sausage-seller._--But here’s a cake! See here! which the heavenly goddess Patted and flatted herself, with her ivory hand, For your own eating. * * * * * _Cleon._--This slice of rich sweet-cake, take it from me. _Sausage-seller._--This whole great rich sweet-cake, take it from me. _Cleon_ [_to the S. S._]--Ah, but hare-pie--where will you get hare-pie? _Sausage-seller_ [_aside._]--Hare-pie! What shall I do? Come, now’s the time, O mind, invent me now some sneaking trick. _Cleon._ [_to the S. S. showing the dish which he is going to present._]--Look there, you poor rapscallion! _Sausage-seller._ Pshaw, no matter. I’ve people of my own there in attendance. They’re coming here.--I see them. _Cleon._--Who? What are they? _Sausage-seller._--Envoys with bags of money. _Cleon._--Where? Where are they? Where? Where? _Sausage-seller._--What’s that to you? Can’t ye be civil? Why don’t you let the foreigners alone?-- [_While Cleon’s attention is absorbed in looking for the supposed envoys, the Sausage-seller dexterously snatches the hare-pie out of his hands, and presents it to the Demus._] There’s a hare-pie, my dear own little Demus, A nice hare-pie, I’ve brought ye!--See, look there! _Cleon_ [_returning._]--By Jove, he’s stolen it, and served it up! _Sausage-seller._--Just as you did the prisoners at Pylos. _Demus._--Where did ye get it? How did ye steal it? Tell me. _Sausage-seller._--The scheme and the suggestion were Divine; The theft and the execution simply mine. _Cleon._--I took the trouble. _Sausage-seller._ But I served it up. _Demus._--Well, he that brings the thing must get the thanks. _Cleon_ [_aside._]--Alas, I’m circumvented and undone, Out-faced and over-impudentified.”

_The Knights_ of Aristophanes, translated by Frere, l. 1164-9, and 1189-1206.

[14] We would not apply this strong language to all the advocates of the measure, but only to those who uphold it on principle as an enlightened and liberal one. If it is honestly put forward on low commercial grounds, not on high moral ones; if it is frankly confessed that it is an ignoble and selfish measure, in which our love of sugar and of revenue prevails over the love of our fellows; if we own that we have not virtue enough to resist these palpable and material temptations for the sake of the impalpable and invisible ones of right and humanity;--let it pass, (sorry though it be;)--our pious and enlightened nation is already disfigured with too many of these commercial blots, to make this further additional one matter of much especial censure. We can only lament that having made some beginning in the true and good line, we are so easily induced to give it up; that whereas before we could point to one brilliant exception as a source of light and hope, this is now to be extinguished, and we are to relapse into total darkness. But it is the advocacy of this measure on principle, as an eminently liberal and Christian one, as a triumph of truth, liberty, and reason, which is so peculiarly disgusting, and argues the corruption of the people. It is the sneer at every thing like true generous principle, the laugh at the high moral, the complacency in the low commercial, the assertion of the paramount importance of mere considerations of lucre over all the laws of humanity, that forms the bad feature in the case of these holy Liberals. When we find people, in a tone of profound piety, putting forth the purely commercial principle of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, as an inviolable law of the Great Parent of the Universe, the infringement of which, even to avert the deepest suffering from our fellows, is an impious rebellion against His will; when we are implored not to do evil, that good may come, (the evil being a want of sweetness in our tea, and the good, the preserving from slavery and degradation a large number of our race;) when we are exhorted to deal freely in slave produce, for the sake of promoting “peace and good-will among all mankind;” then, I say, that this servile liberality, this Evangelical cupidity, this Christianity of the ’Change, is beyond all expression detestable, and more worthy of the shafts of Voltaire’s satire than the Christianity of the Inquisition. The present measure will probably cause a greater amount of suffering in the course of a few years, than the Inquisition did during the whole period of its existence.

[15] The above conversation, though with no pretensions to exact accuracy in the expressions, is strictly founded on fact.

[16] Hansard’s Debates, vol. xx. New Series, p. 731. The speech is said, in a note on p. 727, to have been “inserted with the permission and approbation of Mr. Secretary Peel.”

[17] The expression which was chiefly insisted on in that discussion, and which he strenuously laboured to disprove, was that in which he was reported to have said, that in 1825 he gave it as his opinion to Lord Liverpool that “something ought to be done for the Catholics.” He strongly denied having ever used those words, and as indeed they are not found in many of the reports of his speech, there would not appear to be sufficient evidence that he did so. But it was labour lost to disprove the point, for this sentence after all was by no means so clear or explicit as that which stands in his own revised report. He might have stated that something ought to be done for the Catholics, without its being thereby evident, that by that something he meant the measure of Catholic Emancipation. Some other course might have “suggested itself to his mind,” as a solution of the difficulty. But when he tells us in so many words, that the course which then suggested itself to his mind was the very same which he afterwards pursued in proposing the measure of Catholic Emancipation, no room for question is left; this is a precise and explicit statement to which we do not see how two meanings can well be given. When such a statement stands in his own corrected report, it was worse than idle so strenuously to disclaim the weaker one.

[18] Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 6, Art. 30. Pauthier’s Translation.

[19] This chronology might seem difficult to conciliate with the life of an individual, but it must be remembered that the Robert Peel never dies. There are always in the world not only one, but many representatives of the character.

[20] Meng-tseu, Book II. chap. 7, Art. 37. Pauthier’s Translation.

[21] Talleyrand is a good example.

[22] Catholic Bill, Factory Bill, Corn Bill.

[23] That this opposition to Canning was characterised by a peculiar virulence on the part of some of its members, appears to be indisputable, inasmuch as it seems to be the received opinion of those best acquainted with Canning, that it had a considerable share in causing his death. Thus, not to mention other testimonies, his widow, when Huskisson subsequently joined some of these politicians in office, writes to him to reproach him with having joined her husband’s murderers. Peel himself at the time did not escape from severe blame on account of it, and one of his relatives, Mr Dawson, is mentioned as one of the most notable of the culprits.

[24] Translated by Shelley:

“Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind: The foul cubs like the parents are.”

[Transcriber’s Note:

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]