Part 36

In Parliament he espoused the popular cause. His memorable displays of oratory followed fast and plentifully. On April 19th, 1780, he attacked the right of England to legislate for Ireland. With that address his reputation was made. He became incessant in his efforts to remove oppressive legislation. By his eloquence he quickened into life a national spirit, to culminate in a convention at Dungannon on February 15th, 1782, where resolutions in favor of legislative independence were stormily adopted. Presently, after a speech of surpassing power from him, the Declaration of Rights Bill was passed unanimously by both houses, with an unwilling enactment from England. The idol now of Ireland, Grattan was voted by its Parliament a grant of L50,000 "as a testimony of national gratitude for great national services." The next eighteen years saw him resolute to secure for Ireland liberal laws, greater commercial freedom, better conditions for the peasantry, the wiping out of Parliamentary corruption, and especially the absolute emancipation of the Roman Catholics. After the Union he lived in retirement, devoting himself to the study of the classics and to the education of his children until 1805. Then at the request of Fox he entered the imperial Parliament, making his first speech in favor of Fox's motion for a committee on the Roman Catholic Petition, an address described as "one of the most brilliant speeches ever made within the walls of Parliament." In 1806 he was elected a member for Dublin, which city he represented until his decease. His last speech was made on May 5th, 1819, in favor of Roman Catholic emancipation. It is to be noted that he was by profession and conviction a Protestant. He died in 1820. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near the graves of Chatham and Fox.

In spite of great natural drawbacks, Grattan achieved the highest rank as an orator; and his passionate eloquence has rarely been equaled in fervor and originality.

ON THE CHARACTER OF CHATHAM

The Secretary stood alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No State chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous.

France sank beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded with the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England and the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by order and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which render life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulty, no domestic weakness reached him; but aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, and so authoritative astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined indeed that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country and the calamities of the enemy refuted her.

Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the Senate; peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully, it resembled sometimes the thunder and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not, like Murray, conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation, nor was he, like Townshend, forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by flashings of the mind, which like those of his eye were felt but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was something in this man that could create, subvert, or reform: an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world which should resound throughout the universe.

OF THE INJUSTICE OF DISQUALIFICATION OF CATHOLICS

From the Speech of May 31st, 1811

Whatever belongs to the authority of God, or to the laws of nature, is necessarily beyond the province and sphere of human institution and government. The Roman Catholic, when you disqualify him on the ground of his religion, may with great justice tell you that you are not his God, that he cannot mold or fashion his faith by your decrees. You may inflict penalties, and he may suffer them in silence; but if Parliament assume the prerogative of Heaven, and enact laws to impose upon the people a different religion, the people will not obey such laws. If you pass an act to impose a tax or regulate a duty, the people can go to the roll to learn what are the provisions of the law. But whenever you take upon yourselves to legislate for God, though there may be truth in your enactments, you have no authority to enforce them. In such a case, the people will not go to the roll of Parliament, but to the Bible, the testament of God's will, to ascertain his law and their duty. When once man goes out of his sphere, and says he will legislate for God, he in fact makes himself God. But this I do not charge upon the Parliament, because in none of the Penal Acts has the Parliament imposed a religious creed. It is not to be traced in the qualification oath, nor in the declaration required. The qualifying oath, as to the great number of offices and seats in Parliament, scrupulously evades religious distinctions; a Dissenter of any class may take it, a Deist, an atheist, may likewise take it. The Catholics are alone excepted; and for what reason? Certainly not because the internal character of the Catholic religion is inherently vicious; not because it necessarily incapacitates those who profess it to make laws for their fellow-citizens. If a Deist be fit to sit in Parliament, it can hardly be urged that a Christian is unfit. If an atheist be competent to legislate for his country, surely this privilege cannot be denied to the believer in the divinity of our Savior. But let me ask you if you have forgotten what was the faith of your ancestors, or if you are prepared to assert that the men who procured your liberties are unfit to make your laws? Or do you forget the tempests by which the Dissenting classes of the community were at a former period agitated, or in what manner you fixed the rule of peace over that wild scene of anarchy and commotion? If we attend to the present condition and habits of these classes, do we not find their controversies subsisting in full vigor? and can it be said that their jarring sentiments and clashing interests are productive of any disorder in the State; or that the Methodist himself, in all his noisy familiarity with his Maker, is a dangerous or disloyal subject? Upon what principle can it be argued that the application of a similar policy would not conciliate the Catholics, and promote the general interests of the empire? I can trace the continuance of their incapacities to nothing else than a political combination; a combination that condemned the Catholic religion, not as a heresy, but as a symptom of a civil alienation. By this doctrine, the religion is not so much an evil in itself as a perpetual token of political disaffection. In the spirit of this liberal interpretation, you once decreed to take away their arms, and on another occasion ordered all Papists to be removed from London. In the whole subsequent course of administration, the religion has continued to be esteemed the infallible symptom of a propensity to rebel. Known or suspected Papists were once the objects of the severest jealousy and the bitterest enactments. Some of these statutes have been repealed, and the jealousy has since somewhat abated; but the same suspicions, although in a less degree, pervade your councils. Your imaginations are still infected with apprehensions of the proneness of the Catholics to make cause with a foreign foe. A treaty has lately been made with the King of the Two Sicilies. May I ask: Is his religion the evidence of the warmth of his attachment to your alliance? Does it enter into your calculation as one of the motives that must incline him to our friendship, in preference to the friendship of the State professing his own faith? A similar treaty has been recently entered into with the Prince Regent of Portugal, professing the Roman Catholic religion; and one million granted last year and two millions this session, for the defense of Portugal. Nay, even in the treaty with the Prince Regent of Portugal, there is an article which stipulates that we shall not make peace with France unless Portugal shall be restored to the house of Braganza. And has the Prince of Brazil's religion been considered evidence of his connection with the enemy? You have not one ally who is not Catholic; and will you continue to disqualify Irish Catholics, who fight with you and your allies, because their religion is evidence of disaffection?

But if the Catholic religion be this evidence of repugnance, is Protestantism the proof of affection to the Crown and government of England? For an answer, let us look at America. In vain did you send your armies there; in vain did you appeal to the ties of common origin and common religion. America joined with France, and adopted a connection with a Catholic government. Turn to Prussia, and behold whether her religion has had any effect on her political character. Did the faith of Denmark prevent the attack on Copenhagen? It is admitted on all sides that the Catholics have demonstrated their allegiance in as strong a manner as the willing expenditure of blood and treasure can evince. And remember that the French go not near so far in their defense of Catholicism, as you in your hatred of it in your own subjects and your reverence for it in your allies. They have not scrupled to pull down the ancient fabrics of superstition in the countries subjected to their arms. Upon a review of these facts, I am justified in assuming that there is nothing inherent in Catholicism which either proves disaffection, or disqualifies for public trusts. The immediate inference is that they have as much right as any dissentient sect to the enjoyment of civil privileges and a participation of equal rights; that they are as fit morally and politically to hold offices in the State or seats in Parliament. Those who dispute the conclusion will find it their duty to controvert the reasoning on which it is founded. I do not believe the Church is in any danger; but if it is, I am sure that we are in a wrong way to secure it. If our laws will battle against Providence, there can be no doubt of the issue of the conflict between the ordinances of God and the decrees of man: transient must be the struggle, rapid the event. Let us suppose an extreme case, but applicable to the present point: Suppose the Thames were to inundate its banks, and suddenly swelling, enter this House during our deliberations (an event which I greatly deprecate, from my private friendship with many members who might happen to be present, and my sense of the great exertions which many of them have made for the public interest), and a motion of adjournment being made, should be opposed, and an address to Providence moved that it would be graciously pleased to turn back the overflow and direct the waters into another channel. This, it will be said, would be absurd; but consider whether you are acting upon a principle of greater intrinsic wisdom, when after provoking the resentments you arm and martialize the ambition of men, under the vain assurance that Providence will work a miracle in the constitution of human nature, and dispose it to pay injustice with affection, oppression with cordial support. This is in fact the true character of your expectations; nothing less than that the Author of the Universe should subvert his laws to ratify your statutes, and disturb the settled course of nature to confirm the weak, the base expedients of man. What says the Decalogue? Honor thy father. What says the penal law? Take away his estate! Again, says the Decalogue, Do not steal. The law, on the contrary, proclaims, You may rob a Catholic!

ON THE DOWNFALL OF BONAPARTE

From the Speech of May 25th, 1815

The French government is war; it is a stratocracy, elective, aggressive, and predatory; her armies live to fight, and fight to live; their constitution is essentially war, and the object of that war the conquest of Europe. What such a person as Bonaparte at the head of such a constitution will do, you may judge by what he has done: and first he took possession of a greater part of Europe; he made his son King of Rome; he made his son-in-law Viceroy of Italy; he made his brother King of Holland; he made his brother-in-law King of Naples; he imprisoned the King of Spain; he banished the Regent of Portugal, and formed his plan to take possession of the Crown of England. England had checked his designs; her trident had stirred up his empire from its foundation. He complained of her tyranny at sea; but it was her power at sea which arrested his tyranny on land,--the navy of England saved Europe. Knowing this, he knew the conquest of England became necessary for the accomplishment of the conquest of Europe, and the destruction of her marine necessary for the conquest of England. Accordingly, besides raising an army of 60,000 men for the invasion of England, he applied himself to the destruction of her commerce, the foundation of her naval power. In pursuit of this object and on his plan of a Western empire, he conceived and in part executed the design of consigning to plunder and destruction the vast regions of Russia. He quits the genial clime of the temperate zone; he bursts through the narrow limits of an immense empire; he abandons comfort and security, and he hurries to the Pole to hazard them all, and with them the companions of his victories and the fame and fruits of his crimes and his talents, on speculation of leaving in Europe, throughout the whole of its extent, no one free or independent nation. To oppose this huge conception of mischief and despotism, the great potentate of the north from his gloomy recesses advances to defend himself against the voracity of ambition, amid the sterility of his empire. Ambition is omnivorous; it feasts on famine and sheds tons of blood, that it may starve in ice in order to commit a robbery on desolation. The power of the north, I say, joins another prince, whom Bonaparte had deprived of almost the whole of his authority,--the King of Prussia; and then another potentate, whom Bonaparte had deprived of the principal part of his dominions,--the Emperor of Austria. These three powers, physical causes, final justice, the influence of your victories in Spain and Portugal, and the spirit given to Europe by the achievements and renown of your great commander [the Duke of Wellington], together with the precipitation of his own ambition, combine to accomplish his destruction; Bonaparte is conquered. He who said, "I will be like the Most High," he who smote the nations with a continual stroke,--this short-lived son of the morning, Lucifer,--falls, and the earth is at rest; the phantom of royalty passes on to nothing, and the three kings to the gates of Paris: there they stand, the late victims of his ambition, and now the disposers of his destiny and the masters of his empire. Without provocation he had gone to their countries with fire and sword; with the greatest provocation they came to his country with life and liberty: they do an act unparalleled in the annals of history, such as nor envy, nor time, nor malice, nor prejudice, nor ingratitude can efface; they give to his subjects liberty, and to himself life and royalty. This is greater than conquest! The present race must confess their virtues, and ages to come must crown their monuments, and place them above heroes and kings in glory everlasting....

Do you wish to confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe,--a tyranny founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil government, tending to universalize throughout Europe the domination of the sword,--and to reduce to paper and parchment, Magna Charta and all our civil constitutions? An experiment such as no country ever made and no good country would ever permit: to relax the moral and religious influences; to set heaven and earth adrift from one another, and make God Almighty a tolerated alien in his own creation; an insurrectionary hope to every bad man in the community, and a frightful lesson to profit and power, vested in those who have pandered their allegiance from king to emperor, and now found their pretensions to domination on the merit of breaking their oaths and deposing their sovereign. Should you do anything so monstrous as to leave your allies in order to confirm such a system; should you forget your name, forget your ancestors, and the inheritance they have left you of morality and renown; should you astonish Europe by quitting your allies to render immortal such a composition, would not the nations exclaim: "You have very providently watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed to our service,--and do you falter now? In vain have you stopped in your own person the flying fortunes of Europe; in vain have you taken the eagle of Napoleon and snatched _invincibility_ from his standard, if now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you take the lead in the desertion and preach the penitence of Bonaparte and the poverty of England."

THOMAS GRAY

(1716-1771)

BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP

The fame of Thomas Gray is unique among English poets, in that, although world-wide and luminous, it springs from a single poem, a flawless masterpiece,--the 'Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard.' This is the one production by which he is known to the great mass of readers and will continue to be known to coming generations; yet in his own time his other poems were important factors, in establishing the high repute accorded to him then and still maintained in the esteem of critics. Nevertheless, living to be nearly fifty-five and giving himself exclusively to letters, the whole of the work that he left behind him amounted only to some fourteen hundred lines.

His value to literature and to posterity, therefore, is to be measured not by the quantity of his literary contributions or by any special variety in their scope, but by a certain wholesome and independent influence which he exerted upon the language of poetry, and by a rare quality of intense yet seemingly calm and almost repressed genius, which no one among his commentators has been able to define clearly. The most comprehensive thing ever written about him--wise, just, witty, yet sympathetic and penetrating--is the essay by James Russell Lowell in his final volume of criticism.

"It is the rarest thing," says Lowell, "to find genius and dilettantism united in the same person (as for a time they were in Goethe): for genius implies always a certain fanaticism of temperament, which, if sometimes it seem fitful, is yet capable of intense energy on occasion; while the main characteristic of the dilettante is that sort of impartiality which springs from inertia of mind, admirable for observation, incapable of turning it to practical account. Yet we have, I think, an example of this rare combination of qualities in Gray; and it accounts both for the kind of excellence to which he attained, and for the way in which he disappointed expectation.... He is especially interesting as an artist in words and phrases, a literary type far less common among writers of English than it is in France or Italy, where perhaps the traditions of Latin culture were never wholly lost.... When so many have written so much, we shall the more readily pardon the man who has written too little or just enough."

He was born in London, December 26th, 1716, the son of a money scrivener who had dissipated most of his inherited property, but was skilled in music, and perhaps transmitted to the son that musical element which gives beauty and strength to his poetry. Gray's mother was a woman of character, who with his aunt set up an India warehouse and supported herself; also sending the young man to St. Peter's College, Cambridge, after his studies at Eton. Leaving college without a degree, he traveled on the Continent of Europe with Horace Walpole in 1739; then returned to Cambridge and passed the remainder of his life in the university, as a bachelor of civil law nominally,--not practicing, but devoting himself to study and to excursions through rural England. He had a profound and passionate love for nature, a kind of religious exaltation in the contemplation of it and in mountain worship, which was at variance with the prevailing eighteenth-century literary mood and prefigured the feeling of Wordsworth. His mother having retired to Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, he often made visits there; and the church-yard of his deathless 'Elegy' is generally believed to be that of the parish church at Stoke Poges. It was here that he was laid to rest in the same tomb with his mother and his aunt, after his death, July 24th, 1771.

The 'Elegy' was finished in 1749. He had begun writing it seven years before. This has sometimes been alluded to as an instance in point of Horace's advice, that a poem should be matured for seven years. The length of time given to the 'Elegy,' however, may be accounted for partly by Gray's dilatory habits of writing, and partly by the parallel of Tennyson's long delay in perfecting the utterance of his meditations on the death of his friend Hallam through 'In Memoriam.' Gray's dearest friend, Richard West, died in 1742; and it was apparently under the stress of that sorrow that he began the 'Elegy,' which was completed only in 1749. Two years later it was published. It won the popular heart immediately, and passed through four editions in the first twelvemonth.

Of Gray's other poems, those which have left the deepest impression are his 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,' 'The Progress of Poesy,' and 'The Bard.' The last two are somewhat Pindaric in style, but also suggest the influence of the Italian canzone. In the Eton College ode, his first published piece, occurs the phrase since grown proverbial, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." It is a curious fact that while most readers know Gray only as the author of the 'Elegy,' every one is familiar with certain lines coined by him, but unaware of their source. For instance, in 'The Progress of Poesy,' he speaks of

"The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame."

It is in the same place that he describes Milton as "blasted with excess of light," and in alluding to Dryden, evolves the image of

"Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

His, too, in 'The Bard,' is the now well-known line--

"Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm."