Part 20

4. But where’s the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know; Unbiassed, or by favor, or by spite; Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right; Though learned, well-bred; and, though well-bred, sincere; Modestly bold, and humanly severe; Who to a friend his faults can freely show, And gladly praise the merit of a foe?

5. Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined; A knowledge both of books and human kind; Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride, And love to praise with reason on his side; Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame; Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame; Averse alike to flatter or offend; Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend?

[646] DIFˊ-FI-DENCE, want of confidence.

[647] PER-SISTˊ-ING, persevering steadily.

[648] NIGˊ-GARD, meanly; parsimonious.

[649] COM-PLAˊ-CENCE, civility.

CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.

BURKE.

Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman, to be the great central figure in the array of great names which shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century. But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor and probity.

1. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose.

2. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight—that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give—that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

3. This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated[650] carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous[651] slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family, who composed the king’s body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace.

4. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; while the royal captives, who followed in the train, were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and thrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies,[652] and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shapes of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted[653] to six hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings....

5. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart I must have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration, to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers.

6. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded: and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

[650] MU-TIˊ-LAT-ED, mangled; maimed.

[651] PRO-MISˊ-CU-OUS, indiscriminate; confused.

[652] CONˊ-TU-ME-LIES, reproaches; offensive treatment.

[653] PRO-TRACT-EDˊ, lengthened.

CVIII.—ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

GRAY.

Thomas Gray was born in London, December 26, 1716, and died in 1771. The following poem has been always deservedly popular. The manuscript of it was sold in London in 1854 for £131.

1. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day; The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea; The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

3. Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that ewe-tree’s shade, Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow, twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children ran to lisp their sire’s return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund[654] did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor.

9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, Await, alike, the inevitable[655] hour;— The paths of glory lead—but to the grave.

10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If memory o’er their tomb no trophies[656] raise, Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

11. Can storied urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

12. Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid Some heart, once pregnant[657] with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy[658] the living lyre.[659]

13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll; Chill Penury[660] repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.

14. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

15. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest; Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

16. The applause of listening senates to command The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation’s eyes.

17. Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed[661] alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

18. The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame; Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the muse’s flame.

19. Far from the madding crowds ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray: Along the cool, sequestered[662] vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

20. Yet, even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial, still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

21. Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

22. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned,— Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,— Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies; Some pious drops the closing eye requires: Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries, Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

25. Haply, some hoary-headed swain may say, “Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

26. “There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

27. “Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

28. “One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he

29. “The next, with dirges due, in sad array, Slow through the churchyard path we saw him borne— Approach, and read (for thou canst read), the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

THE EPITAPH.

30. “Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown; Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth, And melancholy mark’d him for her own.

31. “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav’n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to mis’ry all he had—a tear; He gain’d from heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

32. “No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode; (There they, alike, in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.”

[654] JOCˊ-UND, merry, gay, lively.

[655] IN-EVˊ-I-TA-BLE, unavoidable.

[656] TROˊ-PHIES, memorials of victory.

[657] PREGˊ-NANT, teeming, fertile.

[658] ECˊ-STA-CY, excessive joy, rapture.

[659] LYRE, a musical instrument.

[660] PENˊ-URY, poverty, indigence.

[661] CIR-CUM-SCRIBEDˊ, inclosed, limited, confined.

[662] SE-QUESˊ-TERED, set apart, seized upon.

CIX.—THE VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OF SIN.

LACORDAIRE.

1. The most important of the divine penalties with which the Church is armed is confession, voluntary[663] confession. And in that penalty there is justice; for if you have had the courage to commit the fault, why not do so before the world? If you have not been afraid of doing evil before your own heart, why not do so before the whole human family?

2. And yet this justice is merciful; for it is not to the world, to a severe and corrupt world, that you are directed to avow your faults, but to a single man, in the most profound secret; to a man humble and meek, subject to temptation like his brethren, but purified by victory; and that avowal humbles without dishonoring you, touches rather than strikes you, reconciles you to yourself and to God: to yourself by the good which you feel living in your heart, to God by the pardon which he grants to you.

3. When Protestants abolished[664] confession, when they sent men to confess to God, what did they do? They only left the soul alone with sin, and drove away mercy by the fear of justice. And when, gentlemen, by a better instinct, you occupy yourselves about penitentiary[665] systems, are you not upon the traces of Jesus Christ and His Church? Do you not seek to transform public vengeance into expiation,[666] so that the guilty might leave your hands punished but saved, wounded by shame and grief but brought back by them to the sense and honor of virtue? It is your object, and one of your most cherished desires, one also most worthy of respect; why, then, do you despise the mystery of expiation in the Church? Why do you not perceive that the work accomplished by her is the very one which it is your ambition to realize? For you are as yet only making experiments, and what experiments they are!

4. You may build very ingenious prisons, you may stifle a man well between four walls, you may impose upon him many privations which you do not consider to be tortures because they do not shed blood; but, whatever you may do, you will always dishonor man, and you will find the road to his heart only to pour into it more deeply the poison of despair. Yes, penitence is more needed than penalties; expiation rather than repression; rehabilitation[667] rather than death. Yes, but you cannot effect this.

5. Think that this is accomplished; let men come to the feet of the priest, and you will do more than with your chains, your executioners and your dreams. Besides, what crimes do you extinguish with all this penal preparation? Murder, theft, violence. But there exists an evil which pierces men’s hearts, which gnaws the peace of families, which corrupts nations, and delivers them over, bound hand and foot, to the first conqueror who comes. Does not this evil escape from you? We, with our voluntary confession, reach all public as well as secret crimes; we reach them in the thought that prepares them, on the throne as well as in the shop of the artizan. See these princes, who are men like ourselves, more men than we, and on that account more to be pitied. They have their vices surrounded with guards and honors; truth does not reach them even when men are able to insult them, for insult teaches nothing.

6. Stand by a moment; behold a poor priest, a Capuchin, whose name is unknown; he ascends the superb stairs, he enters, he penetrates even where confidential friends are not admitted; he sits, and the prince, kneeling, says to him, “_Confiteor tibi Pater_.” And to whom does he say that? It is not to a man, but to the whole of humanity. It is the whole human kind which seizes and compresses him, which says to him, “Sire, you have sinned, you are not worthy to draw near to God.”

7. If some one had said to Augustus, whilst he was walking in his gardens with Horace or Mecænas, “There is a man below with a staff and wallet, who says he is sent from God to hear the confession of your faults;” would he not have looked upon him as a madman? And yet, gentlemen, that folly has prevailed! And observe, I pray you, that, on all occasions, in Christianity we find nothing but follies; and we justify these follies before you—you, the _élite_ of this age—and you listen to them and exclaim, “Nevertheless it is grand!”

[663] VOLˊ-UN-TA-RY, free; proceeding from choice or free will.

[664] A-BOLˊ-ISH-ED, annulled; abrogated; put an end to.

[665] PEN-I-TENˊ-TIA-RY, a house of correction.

[666] EX-PI-Aˊ-TION, the act of atoning for a crime or sin; atonement; satisfaction.

[667] RE-HA-BIL-I-TA-TION, restoration to former condition or position.