BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXVI.  APRIL, 1846.  Vol. LIX.

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BLACKWOOD'S

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 [Pg 385]

No. CCCLXVI.  APRIL, 1846.  Vol. LIX.

THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY.

The revival of noble recollections, the record of great actions, and the history of memorable times, form one of the highest services which a writer can offer to his country. They mould the national Character, and upon the character depends the greatness of every nation. Why have the mighty kingdoms of the East perished without either general reverence or personal value, but from the absence of Character in their people; while Greece in all its ancient periods, and Rome throughout the days of its republic, are still the objects of classic interest, of general homage, and of generous emulation, among all the nobler spirits of the world? We pass over the records of Oriental empire as we pass over the ruins of their capitals; we find nothing but masses of wreck, unwieldy heaps of what once, perhaps, was symmetry and beauty; fragments of vast piles, which once exhibited the lavish grandeur of the monarch, or the colossal labour of the people; but all now mouldered and melted down. The mass essentially wants the interest of individuality. A nation sleeps below, and the last memorial of its being is a vast but shapeless mound of clay.

Greece, Rome, and England give us that individuality in its full interest. In their annals, we walk through a gallery of portraits; the forms "as they lived," every feature distinct, every attitude preserved, even the slight accidents of costume and circumstance placed before the eye with almost living accuracy. Plutarch's Lives is by far the most important work of ancient literature; from this exhibition of the force, dignity, and energy attainable by human character. No man of intelligence can read its pages without forming a higher conception of the capabilities of human nature; and thus, to a certain extent, kindling in himself a spirit of enterprise.

It is in this sense that we attach a value to every work which gives us the biography of a distinguished public character. Its most imperfect performance at least shows us what is to be done by the vigorous resolution of a vigorous mind; it marks the path by which that mind rose to eminence; and by showing us the difficulties through which its subject was compelled to struggle, and the success by which its gallant perseverance was crowned, at once teaches the young aspirant to struggle with the difficulties of his own career, and cheers him with the prospect of ultimate triumph.[Pg 386]

Of the general execution of these volumes, we do not desire to speak. They have been professedly undertaken as a matter of authorship. We cannot discover that the author has had any suggestion on the subject from the family of the late Marquess, nor that he has had access to any documents hitherto reserved from the public. He fairly enough states, that he derived his materials largely from the British Museum, and from other sources common to the reader. His politics, too, will not stand the test of grave enquiry. He adopts popular opinions without consideration, and often panegyrizes where censure would be more justly bestowed than praise. But we have no idea of disregarding the labour which such a work must have demanded; or of regretting that the author has given to the country the most exact and intelligent biography which he had the means of giving.

The Wellesley family, rendered so illustrious in our time, is of remote origin, deriving its name from the manor of Welles-leigh, in the county of Somerset, where the family had removed shortly after the Norman invasion. A record in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, traces the line up to A.D. 1239, to Michael de Wellesleigh. The family seem to have held high rank or court-favour in the reign of Henry I., for they obtained the "grand serjeanty" of all the country east of the river Perrot, as far as Bristol Bridge; and there is a tradition, that one of the family was standard-bearer to Henry I. in the Irish invasion. In England, the family subsequently perished; the estates passing, by a daughter, into other families.

The Irish branch survived in Sir William de Wellesley, who was summoned to Parliament as a baron, and had a grant by patent, from Edward III., of the castle of Kildare. In the fifteenth century, the family obtained the Castle of Dangan by an heiress. The de was subsequently dropped from the family name, and the name itself abridged into Wesley—an abbreviation which subsisted down to the immediate predecessor of the subject of this memoir; or, if we are to rely on the journals of the Irish Parliament, it remained later still. For in 1790 we find the late Lord Maryborough there registered as Wesley (Pole,) and even the Duke is registered, as member for the borough of Trim, as the Honourable Arthur Wesley.

Richard Colley Wesley, the grandfather of the Marquess, having succeeded to the family estate by the death of his cousin, was in 1746 created a peer. He was succeeded by his son Garret, who was advanced to the dignities of Viscount Wellesley of Dangan Castle, county Meath, and Earl of Mornington. He was a privy councillor in Ireland, and custos rotulorum of the county of Meath. He married Anne, eldest daughter of Arthur Hill Trevor, first Viscount Duncannon, by whom he had six sons and two daughters.

The Earl was a man of accomplished tastes; he had travelled, adopted dilettante habits, and expended more money in the decoration of his mansion and demesne than his fortune could well bear. But he would have been eminent if he had been compelled to make music his profession; his glee of "Here, in cool grot and mossy cell," has no rival in English composition for the exquisite feeling of the music, the fine adaptation of its harmony to the language, and the general beauty, elegance, and power of expression. He died on the 22d of May 1781.

Richard Colley Wellesley, afterwards the Marquess Wellesley, was born on the 20th of June 1760, in Ireland. At the age of eleven he was sent to Eton, under the care of the Rev. Jonathan Davis, afterwards head-master and provost of Eton. He soon distinguished himself by the facility and elegance of his Latin versification. He was sent to Oxford, and matriculated as a nobleman at Christ Church, in December 1778. In his second year at the college, he gained the Latin verse prize on the death of Captain Cook. His tutor was Dr William Jackson, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. In 1781, on the death of his father the Earl of Mornington, the young lord was called away to superintend the family affairs in Ireland, without taking his degree. On his coming of age, which was in[Pg 387] the ensuing year, his first act was to take upon himself the debts of his father, who had left the family estates much embarrassed. His mother, Lady Mornington, survived, and was a woman of remarkable intelligence and force of understanding. To her care chiefly was entrusted the education of her children; and from the ability of the mother, as has been often remarked in the instance of eminent men, was probably derived the talent which has distinguished her memorable family. At the period of their father's death, the brothers and sisters of the young Earl were, William Wellesley Pole, (afterwards Lord Maryborough,) aged eighteen; Anne, (afterwards married to Henry, son of Lord Southampton,) aged thirteen; Arthur, (the Duke of Wellington,) aged twelve; Gerald Valerian, (prebendary of Durham,) aged ten; Mary Elizabeth, (Lady Culling Smith,) aged nine; and Henry, (Lord Cowley,) eight years old.

The period at which the young Earl took his seat in the Irish House of Lords was one of remarkable anxiety. The success of the American revolt had filled the popular mind with dreams of revolution. The success of opposition in the Irish Parliament had fixed the national eyes upon the legislature; and the power actually on foot in the volunteer force of Ireland, tempted the populace to extravagant hopes of national independence and a separation from England, equally forbidden by sound policy and by the nature of things. Ireland, one thousand miles removed into the Atlantic, might sustain a separate existence; but Ireland, lying actually within sight of England, and almost touching her coasts, was evidently designed by nature for that connexion, which is as evidently essential to her prosperity. It is utterly impossible that a small country, lying so close to a great one, could have a separate government without a perpetual war; and, disturbed as Ireland has been by the contest of two antagonist religions, that evil would be as nothing compared with the tremendous calamity of English invasion. Fortunately, the peaceful contest with the English minister in the year 1780, had concluded by recognizing the resolution, "that the King's most excellent Majesty, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." It is unnecessary now to go further into this topic than to say, that this was a mere triumph of words so far as substantial advantages were regarded, while it was a triumph of evil so far as the existence of a national Parliament was a benefit. It gained no actual advantage whatever for Ireland; for all that Ireland wanted for progressive prosperity was internal quiet. On the other hand, it inflamed faction, even by its nominal success; it told the multitude that every thing might be gained by clamour, and in consequence clamour soon attempted every thing.

The orators of Opposition will never be without a topic. Public disturbance is the element in which they live. They must assault the government, or perish of inanition; and they must stimulate the mob by the novelty of their demands, and the violence of their declamation, or they must sink into oblivion. The Irish opposition now turned to another topic, and brought forward the Roman Catholics for the candidateship of the legislature.

It is not our purpose to go into the detail of a decision of which England now sees all the evil. But there can be no question whatever, that to bring into the legislature a man all whose sentiments are distinctly opposed to the Church and the State—who in the instance of the one acknowledges a foreign supremacy, and in the instance of the other anathematizes the religion—is one of the grossest acts that faction ever committed, or that feebleness in government ever complied with. Self-defence is the first instinct of nature; the defence of the constitution is the first duty of society; the defence of our religion is an essential act of obedience to Heaven. Yet the permission given to individuals, hostile to both, to make laws for either, was the second triumph at which Irish action aimed, and which English impolicy finally conceded.

As an evidence of the royal satisfaction at the arrangements adopted by the lords and commons of Ireland, the king founded an order of knight[Pg 388]hood, by the title of the Knights of the Illustrious Order of St Patrick, of which the king and his heirs were to be sovereigns in perpetuity, and the viceroys grand masters. The patent stated as the general ground of this institution, "that it had been the custom of wise and beneficent princes of all ages to distinguish the virtue and loyalty of their subjects by marks of honour, as a testimony to their dignity, and excellency in all qualifications which render them worthy of the favour of their sovereign, and the respect of their fellow-subjects; that so their eminent merits may stand acknowledged to the world, and create a virtuous emulation in others to deserve such honourable distinctions." All this may be true, and marks of honour are undoubtedly valuable; but they can be only so in instances where distinguished services have been rendered, and where the public opinion amply acknowledges such services. Yet, in the fifteen knights of this order appointed in the first instance, there was not the name of any one man known by public services except that of the Earl of Charlemont, an amiable but a feeble personage, who had commanded the volunteers of Ireland. The Earl of Mornington was one of those, and he had but just come into public life, at the age of three-and-twenty; before he had done any one public act which entitled him to distinction, and when all his political merits were limited to having taken his seat in the House of Lords.

In the course of the year we find the young lord occupying something of a neutral ground in the House, and objecting to the profusion of the Irish government in grants of money for public improvements; those grants which we see still about to be given, which are always clamoured for by the Irish, for which they never are grateful, of which nobody ever sees the result, and for which nobody ever seems to be the better. It is curious enough to see, that one of the topics of his speech was his disapproval of "great sums given for the ease and indolence of great cotton manufacturers, rather than the encouragement of manufacture." Such has been always the state of things in Ireland, concession without use, conciliation without gratitude, money thrown away, and nothing but clamour successful. But while he exhibited his eloquence in this skirmishing, it was evident that he by no means desired to shut himself out from the benefits of ministerial friendship. The question had come to a point between the government and the volunteers. The military use of the volunteers had obviously expired with the war. But they were too powerful an instrument to escape the eye of faction.

Ireland abounded with busy barristers without briefs, bustling men of other professions without any thing to do, and angry haranguers, down to the lowest conditions of life, eager for public overthrow. The volunteers were told by those men, that they ought not to lay aside their arms until they had secured the independence of their country. With the northern portion of Ireland, this independence meant Republicanism, with the southern, Popery. The heads of the faction then proceeded to hold an assembly in the metropolis, as a rival and counterpoise to the parliament. This was then regarded as a most insolent act; but the world grows accustomed to every thing; and we have seen the transactions of the League in London, and of Conciliation Hall in the Irish capital, regarded as matters of perfect impunity.

But more vigorous counsels then prevailed in Ireland. The volunteers were put down by the determination of government to check their factions and foolish assumption of power. They were thanked for their offer of services during the war; but were told that they must not be made instruments of disturbing the country. This manliness on the part of government was successful, as it has always been. If, on the other hand, government had shown any timidity, had for a moment attempted to coax them into compliance, or had the meanness to compromise between their sense of duty and the loss of popularity; they would have soon found the punishment of their folly, in the increased demands of faction, and seen the intrigues of partisanship inflamed into the violence of insurrection. The volunteers were[Pg 389] speedily abandoned by every friend to public order, and their ranks were so formidably reduced by the abandonment, that the whole institution quietly dissolved away, and was heard of no more.

In 1784, the young nobleman became a member of the English Parliament, as the representative of Beeralston, in Devonshire, a borough in the patronage of the Earl of Beverley—thus entering Parliament, as every man of eminence had commenced his career for the last hundred years; all being returned for boroughs under noble patronage. In 1786, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury.

The period of his introduction into the English Parliament was a fortunate one for a man of ability and ambition. The House never exhibited a more remarkable collection of public names. He nightly had the opportunity of hearing Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Grey; and others, who, if not equal, followed with vigorous emulation. He took an occasional part in the debates, and showed at least that he benefited by example. In 1788, he was elected for the royal borough of Windsor. The great question of the regency suddenly occurred. The royal malady rendered a Parliamentary declaration necessary for carrying on the government. The question was difficult. To place the royal power in any other hands than the King's, even for a temporary purpose, required an Act of Parliament. But the King formed an essential portion of the legislature. He, however, now being disabled by mental incapacity from performing his royal functions, where was the substitute to be found? Fox, always reckless, and transported with eagerness to be in possession of the power which would be conferred on him by the regency of the Prince of Wales, was infatuated enough to declare, that the Prince had as express a right to assume the reins of government, and exercise the powers of sovereignty, during the royal incapacity, as if the King had actually died. This doctrine, so contrary to common sense, and even to Whig principles, astonished the House, and still more astonished the country. Pitt fell upon him immediately, with his usual vigour. The leader of Opposition had thrown himself open to attack, and his assailant was irresistible. Pitt dared him to give a reason for his doctrine; he pronounced it hostile to the law of the land, contradictory to the national rights, and, in fact, scarcely less than treason to the constitution.

On the other hand, he laid down with equal perspicuity and force the legal remedy, and pronounced, that where an unprovided difficulty of this order arose, the right of meeting it reverted to the nation, acting by its representatives the two Houses of Parliament, and that, so far as personal right was in question, the Prince had no more right to assume the throne than any other individual in the country.

Such is the blindness of party, and passion for power, that Fox, the great advocate of popular supremacy, was found sustaining, all but in words, that theory of divine right which had cost James II. his throne, whose denial formed the keystone of Whig principles, and whose confirmation would have authorized a despotism.

The decision was finally come to, that the political capacity of the monarch was constitutionally distinguished from his personal; and that, as in the case of an infant king, it had been taken for granted that the royal will had been expressed by the Privy Council, under the Great Seal; so, in the present instance of royal incapacity, it should also be expressed by the Privy Council, under the Great Seal. The question of right now being determined, the Chancellor was directed to affix the Great Seal to a bill creating the Prince of Wales Regent, with limited powers.

Those limitations were certainly formidable; and the chief matter of surprise now is, that the Whigs should have suffered the Regent to accept the office under such conditions. They prevented him from creating any peerage, or granting any office in reversion, or giving any office, pension, or salary, except during the royal pleasure, or disposing of any part of the royal estate. They took from him also the whole household, and the care of the King's person, his majesty being[Pg 390] put in charge of the Queen, with power to remove any of the household. But the whole question has now passed away, and would be unimportant except for its bearing on the position of Ireland.

In 1789, the zeal of the Irish opposition, and the flexibility of some members of the Government combining, the Irish Parliament voted the regency to the Prince without any limitation whatever. This naturally directed the attention of ministers to the hazard of a collision between the two Parliaments. The King's fortunate recovery prevented all collision; but the danger was so apparent if the royal incapacity had continued, and opinion became so strongly inflamed in Ireland, that from this period must be dated the determination to unite both Parliaments in one legislature. For it was justly argued, that if the Irish Parliament might invest one individual with powers different from those intrusted to him by the English Parliament, it might in the same manner invest a different individual, the result of which might be a civil war, or a separation.

This rash resolution was, however, strongly opposed. Twenty-three of the peers, among whom was Lord Mornington, signed a protest against it, and the viceroy, the Marquess of Buckingham, refused to transmit the address to England. This increased the confusion: not only were the two legislatures at variance, but the Irish legislature passed a vote of censure on the viceroy.

The King's recovery extinguished the dissension at once, and the hand of government fell with severe but well-deserved penalty on its deserters in the season of difficulty. The rewards of the faithful were distributed with equal justice. Lord Mornington's active support of the viceroy was made known to the monarch, and he was evidently marked for royal favour. From this period he took a share in all the leading questions of the time. He supported Mr Wilberforce's motions for the abolition of the slave-trade.

The bold and sagacious conduct of Pitt, in protecting the royal rights in the Regency, had established his power on the King's recovery. The Whigs had lost all hope of possession, and they turned in their despair to the work of faction. Their cry was now Parliamentary Reform. No cry was ever more insincere, more idly raised, carried on in a more utter defiance of principle, or consummated more in the spirit of a juggler, who, while he is bewildering the vulgar eye with his tricks, is only thinking of the pocket. The Reform Bill has since passed, but the moral of the event is still well worth our recollection. The Whigs themselves had been the great boroughmongers; but boroughmongering had at length failed to bring them into power, and they had recourse to clamour and confederacy with the rabble. Still, in every instance when they came in sight of power, the cry was silenced, and they discovered that it was "not the proper time." At length, in 1830, they raised the clamour once more; the ministry, (rendered unpopular by the Popish question,) were thrown out; the Whigs were, for the first time, compelled to keep their promise, and the whole system of representation was changed. But the change was suicidal: the old champion of Reform, Lord Grey himself, was the first to suffer. The Reform ministry was crushed by a new power, and Lord Grey was crushed along with it. Whiggism was extinguished; the Whig of the present day has no more resemblance to the Whig of Fox's day, than the squatter has to the planter. The rudeness and rashness of Radicalism supplies its place, and the stately and steady march of the landed interest exists no more.

Lord Mornington's speech, in 1793, placed the question in its true point of view. He declared that the consequence of the proposed measure of Reform must be, to change the very genius and spirit of the British government; to break up the combination of those elementary principles of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which, judiciously associated, formed the constitution. He then referred, with great force, to the practical working of that constitution which this measure was intended to overthrow. "Never," said he, and his language[Pg 391] was at once eloquent and true, "have the natural ends of society been so effectually accomplished, as under the government which is thus to be subverted. Under the existing constitution, the life of every individual is sacred, by the equal spirit of the law; by the pure administration of justice; by the institution of juries; and by the equitable exercise of that prerogative which is the brightest ornament of the crown—the power of mitigating the rigour of criminal judgments, and of causing justice to be executed in mercy."

He forcibly pronounced the constitution to contain all "the principles of stability; for it could neither be abused by the subject, nor invaded by the crown." It provided, in an unexampled degree, for the protection of life, liberty, and property. In its legislative action it impartially allowed every public interest to have its representative in Parliament; in its national action it insured the prosperity of the empire; for that prosperity had never been so distinguished as since the constitution had assumed full power; and, by protecting every man in the exercise of his industry, it had given a spur to national and intellectual enterprise and activity, of which the world had never before seen an example. And was this all to be hazarded for the sake of gratifying a party, who always shrank from the measure when in power, and who always renewed it only as a means of recall from their political exile?

His biographer rashly denies the reality of those dangers, and says, that the Reform Act has not produced any of the calamities which his lordship then saw in such ominous prospect. But to this the natural answer is, that the Reform Bill is little more than a dozen years old; that though the power of property in so great a country as England, and the voice of common sense in a country of such general and solid knowledge, could not be extinguished at once; and though the national character forbade our following the example and the rapidity of a French revolution; still, that great evil has been done—that a democratic tendency has been introduced into the constitution—that Radicalism has assumed a place and a shape in public deliberations—that faction beards and browbeats the legitimate authorities of public counsel—that low agitators are suffered to carry on the full insolence of intrigue with a dangerous impunity—and that the pressure from without too often becomes paramount to the wisdom from within.

At the same time, we fully admit that there were abuses in the ancient system, offensive to the natural sense of justice; that the sale of seats was contrary to principle; and that the dependence of members on individual patrons was a violation of legislative liberty. But whose was the criminality? not that of the constitution, but of the faction; not that of the enfeebled law, but of the local supremacy of Whig influence. Property is the true, and in fact the only safe pledge of legislative power; and if Manchester and the other great manufacturing towns had possessed, five hundred years ago, the property which they have acquired within the last fifty there can be no doubt that representatives would have been allotted to them. There can be as little doubt, that in 1830, or in a quarter of a century before, they ought to have had representatives; but the true evil has been in the sweeping nature of the change. Still, we will hope the best; we have strong faith in the fortunes of England, and shall rejoice to see that our fears have been vain.

The young senator's exertions, on this occasion, confirmed the opinion already entertained of him in high quarters. He was shortly after sworn in as a member of the Privy Council in England, and was made one of the commissioners for the affairs of India. Pitt's memorable India Bill, in 1784, had appointed a board of six commissioners for Indian affairs, who were to be privy councillors, with one of the secretaries of state at their head. The board were to be appointed by the King, and removable at his pleasure. They were invested with the control of all the revenue, and civil and military officers of the Company. The directors were obliged to lay before them all papers relative to the management of their affairs. The commissioners[Pg 392] were to return the papers of the directors within fourteen days, if approved of, or if not, to assign their reasons. The despatches so agreed on, were then to be sent to India.

It seems not improbable that this appointment was intended as the preparative of the Earl for higher objects in the same department. At all events, it directed his attention to Indian topics, and gave him the due portion of that practical knowledge, without which genius only bewilders, and enterprise is thrown away.

We have to fight our way against this biographer, who takes a rambling and revolutionary view of all the chief transactions of the time. In this spirit, he denies or doubts the necessity of the French war. We deny that it was possible to avert it. It may be true, that if England had been faithless to her compacts, and had suffered her allies to be trampled on, she might, for awhile, have avoided actual collision. But, could this have been done with honour; and what is national honour but a national necessity? Holland, the old ally of England, was actually invaded; and the first English troops that set foot upon the Continent, were sent in compliance with our treaty, and for the simple protection of our ally. No one will contend, and no one has ever contended, that England had a right to make a government for France; or that the fury of her factions, however they might startle and disgust mankind, was a ground for teaching morality at the point of the sword. But there can be no more legitimate cause of war than the obligations of treaties, the protection of the weak against the powerful, and the preservation of the general balance of European power.

In the instance of Holland, too, there was the additional and most efficient reason, viz. that the possession of her ports and arsenals by France must largely increase the danger of England. But when it is further remembered, that France declared the determination to make war upon all monarchies, that she aimed at establishing an universal republic, that she pronounced all kings tyrants and all subjects slaves; and that, offering her assistance to every insurrectionary people, she ostentatiously proclaimed her plan of revolutionizing the world—who can doubt that national safety consisted in resisting the doctrines, in repelling the arms, and in crushing the conspiracies which would have made England a field of civil slaughter, and left of her glory and her power nothing but a name?

It is, however, a curious instance of personal zeal, to find the biographer applauding as the sentiments of his hero, the opinions which he deprecates as the policy of England; and admitting that the war was wise, righteous, and inevitable; that it raised the name of England to the highest rank: and that it preserved us from "the pest of a godless, levelling democracy."

It has been the habit of writers like the present, to conceive that the French Revolution was hailed with general joy by England. Even before the death of the king, the contrary is the fact: the rabble, the factions, and the more bustling and bitter portion of the sectaries, unquestionably exulted in the popular insurrection, and the general weakening of the monarchy. But all the genuinely religious portion of the people, all the honest and high-minded, all the travelled and well-informed, adopted a just conception of the whole event from the beginning. The religious pronounced it atheistic, the honest illegal, and the travelled as the mere furious outburst of a populace mad for plunder and incapable of freedom. But the death of the king excited a unanimous burst of horror; and there never was a public act received with more universal approbation than the dismissal of the French ambassador, M. Chauvelin, by a royal order to quit the country within eight days. The note was officially sent by Lord Grenville, but was stamped with the energy of Pitt. It was as follows:—

On the opening of Parliament, in January 1794, a debate of great importance commenced on the policy of the war. On this occasion, Lord Mornington and Sheridan took the lead in the debate, and both made speeches of great effect. Lord Mornington's speech was published under his own inspection immediately after, and it still remains among the most striking records of the republican opinions, and the mingled follies and blasphemies of a populace suddenly affecting the powers of a legislature. Every thing in France, at this period, was robbery; but even the robbery exhibited the national taste for "sentiment." Their confiscation of property was pronounced to be, "not for the sake of its possession," but for their abhorrence of the precious metals. Lord Mornington, in the course of his speech, read extracts of a letter from Fouché, afterwards so well known as the minister of imperial police, but then commissioner in the central and western departments. In this sublime display of hypocrisy, Fouché pronounces gold and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding, by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you seventeen chests filled with gold, silver, and plate of all sorts, the spoil of churches and castles. You will see with peculiar pleasure, two beautiful crosiers and a ducal coronet of silver, gilt." But the portion of his speech which attracted, and justly, the deepest attention, was that in which he gave the proofs of the dreadful spirit of infidelity, so long fostered in the bosom of the Gallican church. An address, dated 30th of October, from the Rector of Villos de Luchon, thus expatiates in blasphemy:—"For my part, I believe that no religion in any country in the world is founded on truth. I believe that all the various religions in the world are descended from the same parents, and are the daughters of pride and ignorance." This worthy ecclesiastic finished by declaring, that thenceforth "he would preach in no other cause than that of liberty and his country." The Convention decreed, that this and all similar addresses of renunciation should be lodged with the Committee of Public instruction, evidently as materials for training the rising generation. A motion then followed, that all those renunciations of religion should be "translated into the languages of all foreign countries."

Then followed a scene, which gave reality to all those hideous declarations. The Archbishop of Paris entered the hall of the Convention, accompanied by a formal procession of his vicars, and several of the rectors of the city parishes. He there addressed the Assembly in a speech, in which he renounced the priesthood in his own name, and that of all who accompanied him, declaring that he acted thus in consequence of his conviction, that no national worship should be tolerated except the worship of Liberty and Equality! The records of the Convention state, that the archbishop and his rectors were received with universal transport, and that the archbishop was solemnly presented with a red cap, the day concluding with the worthy sequel, the declaration of one Julien, who told the Assembly that he had been a Protestant minister of Toulouse for twenty years, and that he then renounced his functions for ever. "It is glorious," said this apostate, "to make this declaration, under the auspices of reason,[Pg 394] philosophy, and that sublime constitution which has already overturned the errors of superstition and monarchy in France, and which now prepares a similar fate for all foreign tyrannies. I declare that I will no longer enter into any other temple than the sanctuary of the laws. Thus I will acknowledge no other God than liberty, no other worship than that of my country, no other gospel than the republican constitution."

Then followed a succession of addresses and letters from the various commissioners in the departments, blaspheming in the same atrocious strain. The municipality of Paris, which was one of the chief governing powers, if not the actual ruler of France, followed this declamation by an order, that all the churches should be shut, let their denomination of worship be what it might, and that any attempt to reopen one should be punished by arrest. The decree was put into immediate effect. The church of Notre Dame and all the other churches of the capital were closed. The popular measures were now carried on in a kind of rivalry of destruction. The "Section of the Museum," a portion of the populace, announced that they had done execution on all Prayer-books, and burnt the Old and New Testaments. The Council-General of Paris decreed that a civic feast should be held in the cathedral of Notre Dame, and that a patriotic hymn should be chanted before the statue of liberty. The Goddess of Reason was personated by a Madame Momarro, a handsome woman of profligate character, who was introduced into the hall of the Convention, received with "the fraternal embrace" by the president and secretaries, and was then installed by the whole legislature in the cathedral, which was called the "Regenerated Temple of Reason." In this monstrous profanation, the apostate archbishop officiated as the high priest of Reason, with a red cap on his head, and a pike in his hand; with this weapon he struck down some of the old religious emblems of the church, and finished his performance by placing a bust of Marat on the altar. A colossal statue was then ordered to be placed "on the ruins of monarchy and religion."

This desperate profanation was emulated in the provinces. Fouché, in Lyons, ordered a civic festival in honour of one Chalier. An ass, with a mitre on its head, and dragging a Bible at its tail, formed a characteristic portion of the ceremony; the Bible was finally burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds.

"Thus Christianity," said the noble speaker, "was stigmatized, through the president of the Convention, amid the applauses of the whole audience, as a system of murder and massacre, incapable of being tolerated by the humanity of a republican government. The Old and New Testaments were publicly burnt, as prohibited books. Nor was it to Christianity that their hatred was confined; the Jews were involved in this comprehensive plan. Their ornaments of public worship were plundered, and their vows of irreligion were recorded with enthusiasm. The existence of a future state was openly denied, and modes of burial were devised, for the express purpose of representing to the popular mind, that death was nothing more than an everlasting sleep; and, to complete the whole project, doctrines were circulated under the eye of the government, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"

In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction. When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will[Pg 395] be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious—Law will be a dead letter—Religion a mockery—Right superseded by violence—and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.

We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort, quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason—that they believe all change to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act; for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from the report of the well-known Barrère, from the "Committee of Public Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of mercy in republican government." It pronounces the necessity of the law to act, for the "arrest of suspected persons." It declares every "remnant of the gentry of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the "business of bankers to render them objects of suspicion." It declares "their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid attachment to their own interests," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It declares "all the relatives of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion. It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath, and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "without being heard." Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "without trial and without mercy. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh! what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of pity?"

This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose, instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers, and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by the guillotine.

This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty, justice, and religion."

Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the monarchy, not on the people.

Lord Mornington's was acknowledged to be the ablest speech on the ministerial side; and though eclipsed by the richness and power of Sheridan—and what speaker in the records of[Pg 396] English eloquence ever excelled him in either?—it yet maintained a distinguished superiority in the force of its reasoning, and the fulness of its statements. Sheridan, in his peroration, had thrown out some bitter pleasantries on the ministerial favours, whose prospect he regarded as the only motive of those abandonments which had left the Whig party suddenly so feeble. "Is this a time," exclaimed the orator, "for selfish intrigues and the little traffic of lucre? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Nay, even for those who have no direct object, what is the language which their actions speak? 'The throne is in danger'—'we will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty.' 'The order of nobility is in danger'—'I will fight for nobility,' says the viscount. 'But my zeal would be much greater, if I were made an earl.' 'Rouse all the marquess within me!' exclaims the earl, 'and the peerage never turned out a more undaunted champion in the cause.' 'Stain my green riband blue,' cries out the gallant knight, 'and the fountain of honour will have a fast and faithful servant.' But, what are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? It there nothing which whispers to that right honourable gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the hackneyed means of ordinary corruption?"

Wyndham pronounced, that the speech of the noble lord had recapitulated the conduct of France in a manner so true, so masterly, and so alarming, "as to fix the attention of the House and the nation." Pitt spoke in terms still more expressive. "The speech of my noble friend," said he, "has been styled declamatory; on what principle I know not, unless that every effort of eloquence, in which the most forcible reasoning was adorned and supported by all the powers of language, was to be branded with the epithet declamatory." This debate was decisive; two hundred and seventy-seven voted for the vigorous prosecution of the war: for Fox's amendment, only fifty-seven. We have now to follow the career of the noble lord to another quarter of the globe, where his presence was more essential, and where his capabilities had a still wider field.

The resignation of Sir John Shore had left the government of India vacant; and the conspicuous exertions of Lord Mornington in the late debates had placed him in a high position before the ministerial eye. He was now fixed on for the Governor-generalship. His connexion with Indian affairs as a member of the Board of Control, had given him official knowledge; his education had given him the accomplishment suited to diplomatic distinction; and his abilities, his ardour, and his time of life, rendered him the fittest man for the arduous government of India. The period demanded all the qualities of government. France was notoriously intriguing to enlist the native princes in a general attack on the British power; a large French force was already organized in the territories of the Nizam, and Tippoo Saib had drawn together an army with seventy guns in the Mysore. The Indian princes, always jealous of the British authority, which had checked their old savage depredations on each other, and had presented in its own dominions a noble contrast to the ravaged and wretched condition of their kingdoms were all preparing to join the alliance of the French; and the first shock of a war, now almost inevitable, would probably involve all India. At this period Lord Mornington, who had been raised to an English barony, was appointed governor-general in October 1797; and such was his promptitude that he sailed on the 7th of the month following. In the April of 1798, he arrived on the coast of Coromandel, and landed at Madras, accompanied by his brother, the Hon. Henry Wellesley, as private secretary, (now Lord Cowley.) On the 17th of May he arrived at Calcutta, where he found his brother, since so memorable, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, and Sir Alured Clarke, the commander-in-chief.

Lord Mornington had been sent to India in anticipation of French attempts on the British dominions, and[Pg 397] there could be no doubt of the intentions of the French Directory. But the blow came sooner, and was more openly struck than an European public man could have surmised. It exhibited all that arrogant contempt of an enemy which once characterised Eastern supremacy; and would have been worthy of Gengis, proclaiming his sovereign will. It was a proclamation from the French governor of the Mauritius, on the 30th of June; announcing, without any attempt at disguise, that two ambassadors from Tippoo Sultaun had arrived there with letters for the governor, and despatches for the government of France; and that the object of the embassy was, to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, and to demand a subsidiary force, for the purpose of expelling the English from India. The proclamation further invited all Frenchmen, in the isles of France and Bourbon, to volunteer for the sultaun's service, and promised to secure them pay under the protection of the Republic.

The daring insolence of this proclamation, and the palpable rashness of making the designs of Tippoo public, before any direct preparation for attack, were so unlike the usual forms of diplomacy, that the governor-general, in the first instance, was inclined to doubt its authenticity. But it awoke his vigilance, and he wrote without delay to General Harris, then commanding at Madras, and governor for the time, to be on his guard. "If Tippoo," said his letter, "should choose to avow the objects of his embassy to be such as are described in this proclamation, the consequences may be very serious, and may ultimately involve us in the calamity of war. I wish you to be apprised of my apprehensions on the subject, and to prepare your mind for the possible event. You will, therefore, turn your attention to the means of collecting a force, if necessity should unfortunately require it. But it is not my desire that you should proceed to take any public steps towards the assembling of the army, before you receive some further information from me."

The governor-general has been charged with precipitancy in making war on Tippoo. But the charge is refuted by dates. The French proclamation was dated 10th Pluviose, sixth year of the Republic, (30th January 1798.) Its truth or falsehood was carefully enquired into, until the evidence was completed by despatches from the British governors of the Cape and Bombay, the admiral at the Cape, the testimony of prisoners, and finally by the actual landing of a corps of French volunteers from the Mauritius. It was not till six months after the date of the proclamation, that the governor-general wrote thus (20th of June) to General Harris:—"I now take the earliest opportunity of acquainting you with my final determination. I mean to call upon the allies without delay, and to assemble the army upon the coast with all possible expedition. You will receive my public instructions in the course of a few days. Until you have received them, it will not be proper to take any public steps for the assembling of the army. But whatever can be done without a disclosure of the ultimate object, I authorize you to do immediately; intending to apprise you, by this letter, that it is my positive resolution to assemble the army upon the coast."

The Mysore dynasty was one of the natural productions of Indian sovereignty. They had each been founded by a successful soldier, had made conquests of prodigious extent, had devastated the land with frightful rapidity; and then, after a generation or two of opulent possession, had seen their provinces divided by rebellious viceroys; until some slave, bolder than the rest, sprang up, broke down the tottering viceroyalties, and seized the supreme throne. Hyder Ali, the father of Tippoo, had been a common trooper in the service of the Rajah of Mysore—by his intrepidity he became the captain of one of those bands, half soldier and half robber, which form the irregulars of an Asiatic army. By his address as a courtier, he rose into favour with the rajah, who gave him the command of his army. By the treachery which always surrounds and subverts an Asiatic throne, he finally took the sovereign power to himself. Disputes of the new rajah with the Company's agents produced a war, and the[Pg 398] cavalry of this daring adventurer rode up to the gates of Madras. Peace was at length proclaimed, and Hyder acquired a vast reputation among the natives as the champion of India. In 1770, an invasion of the Mahrattas, a robber nation, but the most renowned of Indian plunderers, determined to crush the new power, and poured down upon Mysore. Hyder now applied for assistance to Madras; but the settlement had no assistance to give, and Hyder was forced to make a disadvantageous treaty. He now loudly protested against the failure of the English contingent, which he declared to have been the subject of a treaty, and resolved on revenge. The plunder of the merchants' stores at Madras was the more probable motive to his next desperate attack. The half military, half commercial government of the Company, at that period, paralyzed all measures of effective resistance; and while the garrison urged vigorous proceedings, and the inhabitants dreaded mercantile loss, the plains surrounding Madras were deluged by an invasion from the Mysore. Hyder ranged in line seventy thousand horse and twenty thousand regular infantry! with all the marauders of India in his train, and all the Indian sovereigns ready to rise. At Madras all was confusion. Some detachments of Europeans and Sepoys, scattered through the country, were surrounded, fought gallantly, and were cut to pieces. Warren Hastings, the most indefatigable of Indian governors, now came in person to the seat of war; but such was the feebleness of the British means, that he could bring with him but five hundred Europeans and five hundred Sepoys. But he brought the more effectual aid of an officer of decision and sagacity, the celebrated Sir Eyre Coote. This brave man, struggling with difficulties of every kind, was, in almost all instances, victorious, and the last hours of Hyder's daring career were embittered by defeat at Arriee. In a few months after, at the age of eighty-two, this great chieftain, but barbarous and bloody warrior, died; leaving his son Tippoo, who had commenced his warfare at eighteen, and had followed him in all his battles, the possessor of his throne.

Tippoo was the heir of his father's bravery, but not of his intelligence. Hyder had a mean opinion of his understanding, and evidently regarded him as little better than a royal tiger. "That boy," said he, "will overthrow all that it has cost me a life to raise, and will ruin himself."

The war continued, carried on by detachments on the part of the English, and by marauding expeditions on the part of Tippoo; time, life, and treasure were thus thrown away on both sides. But at length the news of peace between England and France reached India, and peace was concluded between the Company and the Mysore on the 11th of March 1784.

Some conception of the resources of India may be formed from the military means which the single state of Mysore was able to accumulate, under all the pressure of a long war. At the peace, the treasure of Tippoo was calculated at eighty millions sterling; he had six hundred thousand stand of arms, two thousand cannons, with a regular force of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, of little less than one hundred thousand men!

The history of the Mysore dynasty would form a brilliant poem; and, if India shall ever have a poet again, he could not choose a more varied, animating, and splendid theme. Tippoo, in peace, turned saint, and, following the example of his prophet, forced one hundred thousand Hindoos, at the sword's point, to swear by the Koran. We pass over the remaining features of his fierce history. Restless with ambition, and plethoric with power, in 1790 he invaded Travancore. The rajah called upon his English allies for protection. The war began by the appearance of Tippoo in the field at the head of another deluge of cavalry. But the genius of Hyder was in the tomb; and the English army, under Cornwallis, forced its way to the ramparts of Seringapatam. A peace stripped the Mysore of half its territory, of three millions and a half for the expenses of the war, and of the two sons of Tippoo as hostages. But the rajah constantly looked for revenge; and the successes of the French Republic urged him to a contest, in which every thing was to be lost to him but his daring name.[Pg 399]

The first step of the governor-general exhibited singular decision, and was attended with singular success. The Nizam had raised a regular corps of eleven thousand men, disciplined by French officers. It was ascertained that those officers held a correspondence with Tippoo, and there was every probability of their either forcing the Nizam into his alliance, or of their marching to join him. A British force was now ordered to move towards the capital of the Nizam, without any intimation of its object or its approach. On its arrival, a distinct demand was made for the dismissal of the French. The Nizam hesitated; but the officer commanding the British declared, that if there was any further delay, he would attack the battalions in their camp. The Nizam then gave his consent, and the battalions were informed that hesitation would expose them to the penalties of treason. A negotiation then began, in the presence of the British troops and the Nizam's horse. The French officers were promised protection, the possession of their personal property, their arrears, and a passage to France; the battalions were promised pay and future employment. The terms were accepted, and the British officer had the satisfaction to see the eleven thousand lay down their arms! This event struck all India with surprise. The measure had been conducted so noiselessly, that the result was wholly unexpected. It gave a prodigious prestige to the character of the governor-general throughout the "golden peninsula."

The war began. The seizure of Egypt by Bonaparte had inflamed Tippoo with the hope of conquest; and, on the 13th of February 1799, he crossed his own frontier at the head of 12,000 horse, and attacked the Bombay force, of six thousand men, under General Stuart. He was repulsed after some charges, and recrossed his frontier. This battle occurred five days before General Harris's invasion of Mysore. But another eminent soldier was here to acquire his first distinction. Tippoo, manœuvring to prevent the junction of Generals Harris and Stuart, fell upon the British at the lines of Malavelly. "Colonel Arthur Wellesley" there commanded the 33d regiment, and the Nizam's force. A strong body of horse charged the 33d. The soldiers were ordered to reserve their fire till within pistol-shot; they then fired, and charged with the bayonet. A general charge of the British dragoons took place, and the Mysore troops were routed, with the loss of two thousand men.

On the 30th of April the breaching battery opened against Seringapatam. Terms had been offered to Tippoo, by which he was to cede half his territories, to pay two millions sterling, to renounce the French alliance, and to give up four of his sons, and four of his generals, as hostages. Those terms were merciful, for he was now reduced to his last extremity, and it was palpable that there could be no hope of peace while he retained the power of making war. His conduct, at this period, seems to have been the work of infatuation. It was said that he had some superstitious belief, that as the English had before retired from the walls, the city was destined never to be taken. It had provisions for a long defence, and a garrison of twenty-two thousand regular troops. But, by shutting himself up in the fortress, he transgressed one of the first rules of national war—that the monarch should never be compelled to stand a siege. Tippoo, in the field, might have escaped, to wait a change of fortune; but within walls he must conquer, or be undone.

On the 4th of May, at one in the afternoon, the stormers, commanded by Baird, advanced. He, with some other officers of the 71st, had once been a prisoner, and been cruelly treated in the fortress. The column consisted of two thousand five hundred English, and one thousand eight hundred Sepoys. They crossed the Cavery, the river of Seringapatam; and in ten minutes the British flag was on the top of the rampart! The column now cleared the ramparts to the right and left, and after a gallant but confused resistance by the garrison, this famous fortress was taken. Tippoo, after having his horse killed under him, and receiving two wounds, attempted to make his escape on foot. A soldier, attracted by his jewels, rushed to seize him; Tippoo gave him a cimeter[Pg 400] wound in the knee, the soldier then fired, and Tippoo fell dead. The fortress was strongly provided. Its works mounted two hundred and eighty guns. In its arsenal were found four hundred and fifty-one brass guns, and four hundred and seventy-eight iron guns. Stores of every kind were found in abundance. The storm scarcely exceeded an hour. Thus fell the dynasty of the great Hyder Ali; and thus was extinguished a dream of conquest, which once embraced the Empire of Hindostan.

Thus, by promptitude of action and sagacity of council, this formidable war was extinguished in little more than eight weeks; a territory producing a million sterling a-year was added to the Company's dominions; and the whole fabric of a power which it had cost the genius of Hyder a life to raise, and which once threatened to overthrow the empire of the English in India, was broken down and dismantled for ever. But Mysore was given to the family of its former Hindoo Rajah, and simply reduced to the limits of its original territory; the conquests of Hyder having been alone lopped away.

In England, the thanks of Parliament were given to the governor-general and the army, and the former was made a marquess. The treasure taken in Seringapatam, with the various arms and stores, was subsequently valued at forty-five millions of star pagodas, (the pagoda being about eight shillings sterling;) General Harris, as commander-in-chief, receiving an eighth of the whole, or three hundred and twenty-four thousand nine hundred and seven pagodas. His right to this sum was afterwards disputed at law, but the claim was ultimately allowed. One hundred thousand pounds was offered by the army to the Marquess, but honourably declined by him as encroaching on the general prize-money. But the Court of Directors, in recompense, voted him five thousand pounds a-year for twenty years.

We now come to another important period in the career of this distinguished servant of the crown. The French expedition to Egypt had been expressly aimed at the British power in India. The Marquess Wellesley instantly conceived the bold project of attacking the French in the rear, by the march of an Indian army to Egypt, to co-operate with an army from home.

The question of occupying Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, was then discussed; and objected to by the marquess, on the several grounds of its unfitness for a naval station, for a commercial station, and for maintaining an influence on the coast. The admiral's opinion was strongly against it, and the design was abandoned. It has been since adopted; but the difference of circumstances must be remembered. We had then no regular overland communication, no steamers on the Red Sea, and thus no necessity for either a harbour or a depot of coals. Aden as a garrison may be of little comparative value, but as a rendezvous for the steam navy, it is of obvious importance, and not less as a means of guarding the overland communication for the general benefit of Europe. The advantages of this station may be the more appreciated, from the following letter of the governor-general to the chairman of the Court of Directors, (October 6, 1800,)—"In the present year I was nearly seven months without receiving one line of authentic intelligence from England. My distress and anxiety of mind were scarcely supportable. Speedy, authentic, and regular intelligence from Europe, is essential to the trade and government of this empire. If the sources of information be obstructed, no conscientious man can undertake this weighty charge."

In 1800, the army under Abercromby landed in Egypt, and defeated the French under Menou. General Baird, at the head of six thousand of the Indian army, reached Egypt. General Belliard surrendered in Cairo with thirteen thousand men. The Indian army then joined the British, and the siege of Alexandria was begun. Menou immediately capitulated, and thus the whole French expedition was undone—the fleet having been destroyed by Nelson, and the army having been captured by Hutchinson—the French army, amounting in the whole to twenty-four thousand men, and their captors only to nineteen thousand British; the Indian army making[Pg 401] up the general number to twenty-five thousand six hundred and eighteen.

In July 1801, the Addington cabinet was formed. Peace with France was signed at Amiens, March 27, 1802. Orders were now sent out to India to restore the French possessions. But the Marquess, by his personal sagacity, anticipated another war; and delayed the measure until he should receive further intelligence. The result was, that when Linois arrived with a French squadron to take possession of Pondicherry, Lord Clive answered, "that he had not received any orders from the governor-general." A despatch from Downing Street, of the 18th of March 1803, communicated to him the King's message to parliament declaring war!

It is beyond our limits to enter into the disputes with the directors, which preceded the return of the governor-general to Europe. He was charged with lavishness of living, with the affectation of being the director of the directors, with extravagance in the erection of the palace at Calcutta, and with equal extravagance in the establishment of the Indian college. But these charges have long since been forgotten; they speedily vanished; investigation did justice to the character of the Marquess; and the only foundation for those vague and wandering charges actually was, that he was a man of high conceptions, fond of the sumptuousness belonging to his rank, adopting a large expenditure for its effect on the native mind, and justly thinking that the noblest ornament of an empire is accomplished by literature.

He returned to England in January 1806, and found the great minister dying. On his arrival he wrote to Pitt, who replied by the following letter, dated from Putney:—

The great minister was unfortunately lost to his country and mankind within a week!

Lord Brougham, in his Memoirs of British Statesmen, records the testimony of the Marquess against the common report, that Pitt died of a broken heart in consequence of the calamities of Austria and the breaking up of the continental coalition. The Marquess declares, that Pitt, though emaciated, retained his "gaiety and constitutionally sanguine disposition" to the last, expressing also "confident hopes of recovery."

The biographer gives a passing touch of disapproval to Pitt's administration, though he imputes all his ministerial delinquencies "to sordid and second-rate men round him." But this is wholly contrary to the character of the man—never individual less acted on the suggestions of others than Pitt. The simple fact is, the biographer knows nothing on the subject, and would have much more wisely avoided giving us his opinions altogether.

We shall notice but one charge more against the Marquess on his return. It was made by a low fellow of the name of Paul, who had been a tailor, but had by some means or other obtained an office in India. No man could have held the highest power in India so long without making enemies among the contemptible; and this Paul, determined to figure as a public accuser, attacked the character of the Marquess with respect to his compelling the Nabob of Oude to pay his debts to the Company. Every one knows the degraded state of Indian morality, especially in pecuniary transactions; and the measures necessary in this instance were charged as the extreme of tyranny. But those charges were never substantiated; they came before the House of Com[Pg 402]mons in the shape of resolutions, and were negatived by a large majority, 182 to 31. Paul, in a struggle to become a popular character, and as a candidate for Westminster, involved himself in an unfortunate duel with Sir Francis Burdett, in which both were wounded; but Paul's wound, suddenly turning to mortification, he died.

After the vote on the resolutions, Sir John Anstruther, who had been chief-justice in Bengal, moved "that the Marquess's conduct in Oude was highly meritorious." The resolution was triumphantly carried.

We are now to regard the Marquess in the character of a British statesman. In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain. His purpose was, to make Spain the basis of an invasion of England. No act of the French Emperor exhibited more of the mingled subtlety and ferocity of his nature; and yet it should be remembered, for the benefit of mankind, that no act more distinctly exhibited the rashness with which avarice or power overlooks obstacles, and the folly with which the desire of entrapping others frequently outwits itself. Napoleon already, through the weakness of the king and the treachery of his minister, had all the resources of Spain at his disposal. But, not content with the reality, he resolved to arrogate the title; and he thus eventually lost the Peninsula. Under the pretext of settling the disputes of the royal family, the Emperor, in 1808, marched ninety thousand men into Spain, obtained possession of its principal fortresses, and established a garrison in the capital. The Spanish nation, always disdaining a foreign master, and yet accustomed to foreign influence, was roused by the massacre of Madrid on the 2d of May. Every province rose in arms, elected a governing body, and attacked the French. On the 6th of June 1808, Joseph Bonaparte was appointed King of Spain and the Indies.—On the same day, the Supreme Junta at Seville proclaimed war against France! Deputations from the provinces were sent to England, and they were answered by the dispatch of an army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, to the coast of Portugal. The British general then commenced that series of victories which finished only in the capitulation of Paris, and the downfall of Napoleon.

On the 21st of August Sir Arthur Wellesley beat the French army of Portugal at Vimeira, and would have inevitably forced the French marshal to capitulate on the field, but for the singular and unfortunate blunder by which two officers, superior in rank, had been inadvertently sent to join the expedition, by whom he was of course superseded; General Burrard arriving during the action, though he did not take the command until the day was over; and General Dalrymple arriving within a few days, to supersede General Burrard. The consequence was, that the whole operation was paralysed, and the French army, instead of being extinguished on the field, was allowed by a convention to retire from the country. Sir John Moore then, superseding them all, took the command. In the mean time, Austria had renewed the war, and been defeated in the decisive battle of Wagram. Napoleon now threw the whole force of France upon the Peninsula.

It was obvious that Spain was the field in which the great battle of Europe was now to be fought; but the inefficiency of public men in Spain, and the divisions of the provincial governments, rendered it necessary that some superintending mind should be sent to conduct the national affairs. Early in 1809, Mr Canning, then secretary for foreign affairs, received the royal commands to propose the appointment of ambassador-extraordinary to the Marquess Wellesley. On the 1st of April, Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed commander of the British forces in the Peninsula. The Marquess arrived in Cadiz on the 4th of July, four days after the battle of Talavera.

The first year of the Spanish campaign was, in one sense of the word, disastrous. Sir Arthur Wellesley, after fighting the desperate battle of Talavera, was forced to retire into Portugal, through the neglect of the Spanish government to supply his troops with the means of subsistence. They were actually starved out of the field. The Spanish armies had now been utterly broken; the great expedition of Walcheren had terminated in the capture of a fishing town, and the[Pg 403] loss of some thousand men by the marsh fever. At this period, Spain seemed utterly helpless; Austria had been forced into peace; Russia was on the closest terms of alliance with France; and in England the two cabinet ministers, Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning, had fought a duel with each other. The cabinet was now broken up, and reconstructed, the three secretaries of state being, the Marquess of Wellesley for foreign affairs, Lord Liverpool for the colonies, and the Hon. R. Ryder for the home department; Mr Perceval, first lord of the treasury and prime minister.

In the year 1810, on the invasion of Portugal by Marshal Massena at the head of eighty thousand men, while Wellington had but thirty thousand, the declaimers of Opposition had produced so depressing an effect on public opinion, that a cabinet despatch actually left it to the decision of the British general, then Lord Wellington, whether the army should remain or return to England! On that occasion, the British general returned the following gallant and decisive answer:—"From what I have seen of the objects of the French government, and the sacrifices they make to accomplish them, I have no doubt, that if the British army were for any reason withdrawn from the Peninsula, and the French government were relieved from the pressure of military operations on the Continent, they would incur all risks to land an army in his Majesty's dominions. Then, indeed, would commence an expensive contest, then would his Majesty's subjects discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and the prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the results of military operations. God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an actor, in the scene! And I only hope that the King's government will consider well what I have stated to your lordship; will ascertain, as it is in their power, the actual expenses of employing a certain number of men in this country, beyond that of employing them at home or elsewhere; and will keep up their force here on such a footing, as will, at all events, ensure their possession, without keeping the transports; if it does not enable their commander to take advantage of events, and assume the offensive." This letter decided the fate of the Peninsula. Massena was driven out of Portugal before the close of the year, and the question of French conquest was at an end!

In 1811, the Marquess Wellesley retired from the cabinet. He had expressed opinions on the abilities of Mr Perceval, which rendered it necessary that either one or other should resign. The nominal cause of difference was the Roman Catholic question; on which Perceval was as well-informed and principled, as the Marquess was ignorant and fanciful; his chief argument being, that the Protestant Church in Ireland was feeble—an argument which should have led him to look for the remedy in giving it additional strength. But the only view which reasoners like the Marquess have ever taken on the subject is, the force of numbers—"The Roman Catholics are three times as numerous as the Protestants." An argument which would have been equally valid against the original attempt to spread Christianity among the heathen nations, and would be equally valid still, for Paganism is still more populous than Christendom. In fact, the argument would be equally valid against any attempt whatever to enlighten mankind; for the ignorant are always the overwhelming majority. The true enquiry would have been, are the opinions of the Roman Catholics consistent with a Protestant throne? is their divided allegiance perilous or not to a Protestant government? are their religious prejudices consistent with the rights of the national religion? We have now the melancholy proof of the shallowness of all the declamation on the subject. We see that power has been used only for public disturbance; that pledges are scoffed at; and that, in the fifteenth year of this boasted conciliation, Ireland is more turbulent, faction more violent, prejudice more envenomed, and life more in hazard than ever.

The unfortunate death of Mr Perceval by the hand of a half-frantic ruffian, who was resolved to shoot one[Pg 404] of the ministry, and in whose way the prime minister unhappily came, threw open the cabinet once more. A long negotiation followed, in which Lords Wellesley and Moira having failed to form an administration, Lord Liverpool was finally appointed premier, and retained power until 1827; a period of fifteen years, when he was struck by apoplexy, and died in December of the following year.

The policy towards Ireland was now sinking into that feeble and flexible shape, which has always characterised the predominance of Whig councils. The Marquess Wellesley had made some showy speeches on emancipation; and in 1822, and as if with the object of showing him the utter vanity of attempting to reform the bitterness of Popish faction by any measures of concession, the Popish advocate was sent to govern Ireland. He found the country in a state of the most frightful disturbance; half a century of weak and unstatesmanlike compliances had produced their natural effect, in party arrogance; and demands and conspiracy at once threw the ministry into confusion, and set the law at defiance. But the Marquess was received with national cordiality by the people. The city was illuminated on his arrival; the different public bodies gave him banquets; and, known as his opinions were on the Popish question, the Protestants forgot his prejudices in the recollection that he was an Irishman. But there was a faction still to be dealt with, which, having no real connexion with the substantial interests of the country, and living wholly on public credulity, uttered its ominous voice in the midst of all those acclamations. A paper from that faction lost no time in "reminding the Irish Catholics of the tantalizing and bitter repetition of expectations raised only to be blasted, and prospects of success opened to close on them in utter darkness;" finishing by a significant warning, "not to rely too much on the liberal intentions of the Marquess Wellesley."

The result of his lordship's government may be easily told. His personal favours to the Papists were received in the usual style of instalments; while the Protestant corporation stood aloof, and drank with renewed potations "the glorious and immortal memory of William III." Such is the dignity of politics in Irish deliberations. At length the unlucky conciliator had his eyes opened by the nature of things, and was compelled to apply to parliament for the insurrection act. The Attorney-general Plunket, the ablest advocate of the Papists, was compelled, by a similar necessity, to write a long official letter, in which he stated—"That he feared in five or six counties, great numbers indeed of the lower classes had been involved in the conspiracy; some of them from a love of enterprise and ready disposition for mischief; some of them on a principle of counteraction to associations of an opposite description; but most of them, he should hope, from terror on the one hand, and the expectation of impunity on the other." There was the point, which no man comprehended better in theory than this clever law-officer, and none better in practice than the Popish peasant. "This expectation, however," he observes, "must now be effectually removed, and the terror of the law, I trust, be substituted in place of the terror of the conspirators." Adding, "your Excellency will observe with regret, that the association has been founded on a principle of religious exclusion!"

Such had been the fruit of concession. The opposite plan, so often suggested, and so essentially necessary, was then tried; and its fruits too followed. Almost the whole of Ireland became instantly tranquillized; men were no longer murdered in open day; cattle no longer maimed; houses no longer burned. The Marquess thus writes the English government:—"During the summer and autumn of 1822, the measures sanctioned by Parliament for the restoration of tranquillity, combined with other causes, have produced such a degree of quiet, that no necessity existed for my usual communications."

We pass rapidly over the contemptible squabbles of the party mobs which fill up the modern history of Irish politics, and which must have deeply disgusted a statesman who had seen public life on the stately scale of Indian government and English administration. But he was now far advanced in years, and he was betrayed into the absurdity of suffering[Pg 405] these squabbles to reach to himself. The decoration of the statue of William the Third, in one of the principal streets of the city, on his birthday, the 4th of November, had been an annual custom for upwards of a hundred years. But now the Papists resolved to regard the placing of a few knots of orange riband on this equestrian figure as a matter of personal offence, and prohibited the decoration. A patrol of horse surrounded the statue, and the decoration could not be accomplished. A letter from the secretary approved of the conduct of the civic authorities. Unluckily, within a few days after, the Marquess went in state to the theatre. The public disapprobation now vented itself in unmeasured terms. The uproar was incessant, and, in the height of the disturbance, a bottle was thrown by some drunken ruffian from the gallery into the viceregal box, but with so direct an aim, that it glanced close to the Marquess's head. A watchman's rattle, and several other missiles, were said to have followed the bottle. The unlucky result was, an indictment against several individuals for conspiracy by the Attorney-general; but the grand jury having ignored the bills, the case fell to the ground.

At this period, the Marquess, who had in early life married a Frenchwoman, fixed his regards on an American, the widow of Mr Patterson of America. In matters of this order public opinion can have no direct right to interfere. But the bride was a Roman Catholic. The marriage was solemnized by a Romish bishop, as well as by the Irish primate. The royal equipages were seen in regular attendance, subsequently, at her ladyship's place of worship; and, when the critical balance of public opinion at that period is considered, there was evidently more of the ardour of the lover than the wisdom of the statesman, in suffering that marriage to take place, at least before his retirement from the viceroyalty of Ireland.

On the formation of the Wellington cabinet, the illustrious brothers differing on the Romish question, the Marquess retired. In the debate on that occasion, the Duke of Wellington made one of those strong, declaratory speeches and renewed those pledges to the Protestant constitution in Church and State, which he made so solemnly before. The duke, after gracefully expressing his regret at being compelled to differ on the sentiments of his distinguished relative, said, "I wish, as much as my noble relation can do, to see this question brought to an amicable conclusion, although I do not see the means of bringing it to that conclusion by this resolution, (Lord Lansdowne's motion on the Catholic claims.) I agree with the noble and learned Earl (Eldon) who has recently addressed your lordships, that we ought to see clear and distinct securities given to the state, before we can give our vote in the affirmative of the question. My noble relative says, that our security will be found in the removal of the securities which now exist. I say, that the securities which we now enjoy, and which for a length of time we have enjoyed, are indispensable to the safety of Church and State! I should be glad to see the disabilities of the Roman Catholics removed; but before I can consent to their removal, I must see something in their stead which will effectually protect our institutions."

Yet, within one twelvemonth! the Popish Bill was carried by the Wellington ministry! Its immediate result was, to introduce into the legislature a party whose aid to the Whigs carried the Reform Bill. The Reform Bill, in its turn, introduced into influence a party who demand implicit obedience from every minister, and whose declared object, at this hour, is the abolition of the whole system of commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural laws, under which England has become the greatest commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural country in the world. All power now threatens to fall into the hands of the populace; and, if that result shall follow, England will be revolutionized. With all our knowledge of the strength of England, of the vigour of educated opinion, of the gallant principle existing among our nobles and gentlemen, and, above all, of the religious integrity of a large portion of the empire, we still cannot disguise our apprehension of general change. The ferocity, recklessness, and insatiability of the democratic spirit, have been hitherto[Pg 406] withheld from the sight of our fortunate country, by the vigour of our government and the wisdom of our laws. But they exist; they lie immediately under the surface of the soil; and, once suffered to be opened to the light, the old pestilence will rise, and poison the political atmosphere.

The agriculture of England is the true treasury of England. We may exist with diminished manufactures, and we must prepare for their diminution, from the universal determination of other countries to manufacture for themselves. But we cannot exist without food; and, from the moment when the discouragement of tillage shall leave England in necessity, we shall see the cheap corn of Russia and Poland taxed by the monarch, raised to a famine price, all the current gold of the country sent to purchase subsistence in Russia, and our only resource a paper currency, followed with an enormous increase of expense in every common necessary of life. Throw a fourth of the land of England out of cultivation, and what must become of the labourers? They now complain of low wages; then they will have none. What must be the condition of Ireland, wholly agricultural, and ruined by a flood of foreign corn, at half the price for which the Irish farmer can bring it to market? These consequences are so notorious, that nobody attempts to dispute them. They are coolly taken as inevitable things; and the whole dependence, even of the mob advocates, is upon chance: "Oh, something will turn up! Things won't be so bad as you think!"

But the true conspirators see deeper. They know, that a revolution in the food of the people is the immediate forerunner of a revolution in the state. From the moment when foreign corn is admitted free of restraint, the confidence of the farmer must be shaken. From the farmer, the shock will instantly reach the landlord; his rent must be diminished. To one-half of the great proprietaries of the kingdom, a diminution of rent, even by a third, would make their possessors personally bankrupt. Their mortgages and loans must be repaid; and nothing would remain. The landlord now pays the Church. If he is ruined, the whole Church income, independent of the small portions of glebe land, must perish with him.

Then will come the agitation for a still more daring purpose. It will be asked why must the system of English life be artificial?—Because we have twenty-eight millions sterling of interest to pay, and for this we must have taxes. But, why not sweep the national debt away, as France did in her day of royal overthrow? A single sitting of the Convention settled that question. Why not follow the example? Then will come the desperate expedient, and all will be ruin on the heads of the most helpless of the community; for the national debt is only a saving bank on a larger scale, and nine-tenths of its creditors are of the most struggling order of the empire.

Of course, we do not anticipate this frightful catastrophe under the existing government, nor, perhaps, under its immediate successors, nor under any government which knows its duty. But, let the "pressure from without" be once an acknowledged principle; let agitation be once suffered as a legitimate instrument of public appeal; let the clamour of the streets be once received with the slightest respect, and the game is begun; property is the chase, the hounds are in full cry, and the prey will be torn down.

We believe that the majority of the empire are honest and true, but we know that faction is active and unscrupulous; we believe that there is in the country a genuine regard for the constitution, but we know that there are men within the circumference of England, whose nature is as foul as that of the blackest revolutionist of France in 1793; whose craving for possession is treacherous and tigerish, whose means are intrinsic and unadulterated mischief, whose element is public disturbance, and whose feverish hope of possession is in general overthrow. Against those we can have no defence but in the vigour, the caution, and the sincerity of the national administration.

The Marquess Wellesley, on the formation of Lord Grey's cabinet in 1830, accepted the office of Lord Steward. He had begun his political life as a high Tory, and the friend and follower of Pitt.—In 1793, he had fought boldly against the Reform[Pg 407] question. This was at the period when he retained the generosity of youth, and the classic impressions of his university; but he had now been trained to courts, and he became a reformer, with a white rod in his aged hand! In 1833, he was re-appointed to the government of Ireland; he returned full of the same innocent conceptions which had once fashioned Ireland into a political Arcadia. But he was soon and similarly reduced to the level of realities. He found confusion worse confounded, and was compelled to exert all his power to suppress "agitation," and exert it in vain; a Coercion Bill alone pioneered his way, a quarrel in which the Irish Secretary was involved with the Agitator, produced the resignation of the secretary, Littleton, though the Marquess's son-in-law.—Lord Grey, like Saturn, rebelled against by his own progeny and overthrown by the impulse of Reform, resigned, (July 9, 1834.) The Whig government fell within the year, and the Marquess left Ireland. In England he condescended to accept the office of Lord Chamberlain; but, within a month, retired altogether from public life. It was full time: he was now seventy-five.

The East India Company, in 1837, voted him £20,000, and in 1841 honourably proposed to place his statue in the India House. His remaining years were unchequered. He died in Kingston House, Brompton, on the 26th of September 1842, in his eighty-third year.

The Marquess Wellesley, on the whole view of his qualifications, was an accomplished man; and, on a glance at his career, will be seen to have been singularly favoured by fortune. Coming forward at a period of great public interest, surrounded by the most eminent public men of the last hundred years, and early associated with Pitt, the greatest of them all; he enjoyed the highest advantages of example, intellectual exercise, and public excitement, until he was placed in the government of India. There, the career of every governor has exactly that portion of difficulties which gives an administrator a claim on public applause; with that assurance of success which stimulates the feeblest to exertion. All our Indian wars have finished by the overthrow of the enemy, the possession of territory, and the increase of British power—with the single exception of the Affghan war, an expedition wholly beyond the natural limits of our policy, and as rashly undertaken as it was rashly carried on. The Marquess returned to Europe loaded with honours, conspicuous in the public eye, and in the vigour of life. No man had a fairer prospect of assuming the very highest position in the national councils. He had the taste and sumptuousness which would have made him popular with the first rank of nobility, the literature which gratified the learned and intelligent, the practical experience of public life which qualified him for the conduct of cabinets and councils, and the gallantry and spirit which made him a favourite with general society. He had, above all, a tower of strength in the talents of his illustrious brother. Those two men might have naturally guided the councils of an empire. That a man so gifted, so public, and so ambitious of eminent distinction, should ever have been the subordinate of the Liverpools, the Cannings, or the Greys, would be wholly incomprehensible, but for one reason.

In the commencement of his career, he rashly involved himself in the Catholic question. It was a showy topic for a young orator; it was an easy exhibition of cheap patriotism; it gave an opportunity for boundless metaphor—and it meant nothing. But, no politician has ever sinned with Popery but under a penalty—the question hung about his neck through every hour of his political existence. It encumbered his English popularity, it alienated the royal favour, it flung him into the rear rank of politicians. It made his English ambition fruitless and secondary; and his Irish government unstable and unpopular. It disqualified him for the noblest use of a statesman's powers, the power of pronouncing an unfettered opinion; and it suffered a man to degenerate into the antiquated appendage to a court, who might have been the tutelar genius of an empire.

[Pg 408]

LETTER TO EUSEBIUS.

My Dear Eusebius,—I have received yours from the hands of the bearer, and such hands! Why write to consult me about railroads, of all things? I know nothing about them, but that they all seem to tend to some Pandemonium or another; and when I see of a dark night their monster-engines, with eyes of flame and tongues of fire, licking up the blackness under them, and snuffing up, as it were, the airs from Hades, I could almost fancy the stoker a Mercury, conducting his hermetically sealed convicts down those terrible passages that lead direct to the abominable ferry. I said, "I know nothing of them;" but now I verily believe you mean to twit me with my former experiment in railway knowledge, and have no intention to purchase shares in the La Mancha Company (and I doubt if there be any such) to countenance your Quixotic pleasantry. I did speculate once, it is true, in one—London and Falmouth Scheme—with very large promises. I was then living at W——, when one day, just before I was going to sit down to dinner, a chaise stops at my door, out steps a very "smart man," and is ushered into my library. When I went into the room, he was examining, quite in a connoisseur attitude, Eusebius, a picture; he was very fond of pictures, he said; had a small but choice collection of his own, and I won't say that he did not speak of the Correggiosity of Correggio. I was upon the point of interrupting him, with the intimation that I did not mean to purchase any, when, having thus ingratiated himself with me by this reference to my taste, he suddenly turns round upon me with the most business-like air, draws from under his cloak an imposingly official portfolio, takes out his scrip, presenting me with a demand for fifty pounds, the deposit of so many shares, looking positively certain that in a few seconds the money would be in his pocket. People say, Eusebius, that the five minutes before a dinner is the worst time in the world to touch the heart, or to get any thing out of a man's pocket for affection; but I do not know if it be not the best time for an attack, if there be a speculation on foot which promises much to his interest, for at that time he is naturally greedy. Had Belisarius, with his dying boy in his arms, himself appeared at my gate, as seen in the French print, crying, "Date obolum Belsario," I should have pronounced him at once an impostor, and given him nothing, and, indeed, not pronounced wrongly, for the whole story is a fiction. But at this peculiar moment of hunger and of avarice, I confess I was too ready, and gave a check for the amount. I had no sooner, however, satisfied myself with what Homer calls εδητνος ηδε ποτητος, and we moderns, meat and potatoes—than I began to suspect the soundness of the scheme, or the company, who had gone to the expense of a chaise for eight miles merely to collect this subscription of mine; and I was curious the next day to trace the doings of this smart gentleman, when I found he had dined at the inn at B—— on turtle, ducks, and green peas, and had recruited the weariness of his day's journey with exhilarating champagne. I knew my fate at once, and from that day to this have heard nothing of the London and Falmouth project. Now, Eusebius, as you publish my letters, if this should catch the eye of any of the directors of that company still possessing any atom of conscience, I beg to remind them that I am still minus fifty pounds; and as all claim seems to be quite out of the question, excepting on their "known and boundless generosity," I beg to wind up this little narrative of the transaction in the usual words of the beggar's petition, "The smallest donation will be thankfully received."

But the bearer, who was to consult me for your benefit—he hadn't a word to say to me on the subject, but that he would call and consult with me to-morrow. I found it in vain to question him, and I suspect it is a hoax. But what a rural monster you have sent me! "Cujum pecus?—an Melibei?" He cannot possibly herd with[Pg 409] Eusebius; he had no modest bearing about him. I had just opened your letter, and found you called him a friend of yours, who had many observations to make about poetry—so, as we were just going to tea, he was invited. It was most fortunate I did not offer him a bed, for I should then have been bored with him at this moment, when I am sitting down to write to you some little account of his manners and conversation, which you know very well, or you would not have sent him to me. I only now hope I shall not see him to-morrow; and should I learn that he shall have departed in one of those Plutonian engines to the keeping of Charon himself, I should only regret that I had not put an obol into his hand, lest he should be presented with a return-ticket. What did he say, and what did he not say? He called my daughter "Miss," and said he should like music very well but for the noise of it; and as to his ideas of poetry, that you speak of, he treated it with the utmost contempt, and as a "very round-about-way of getting to matter of fact." What else could I have expected of him?—with his tight-drawn skin over his distended cheeks, from which his nose scarcely protruded, as defying a pinch, with a forehead like Caliban's, as villanously low, with his close-cut hair sticking to it, and his little chin retiring, lest a magnanimous thought should for a moment rest upon it. Such was never the image that Cassandra had in her mind's eye when she cried, "O, Apollo—O, Apollo!" And this was your friend, forsooth, with his novel ideas upon poetry! Yet this vulgar piece of human mechanism is not without a little cunning shrewdness, characteristically marked in his little pig-eye; and I must tell you one piece of criticism of his, and an emendation, not unworthy the great Bentley himself. Yet I know not why I tell you, for you know it well already, I suspect; for he told me he had been talking with you about a letter which you had published, and told him was written by me, and which he had read while waiting in your library till you could see him. He said he thought a little common sense, observation, and plain matter of fact, would often either throw light upon or amend many obscure passages of poets; for that even those of most name either made egregious blunders, or they were made for them. I could not deny that truth, Eusebius, and yet he wasn't a man to grant any thing to, if you could help it; but I saw there was something rich to come, so I encouraged him; and this remark of his, Eusebius, reminded me of a misery occasioned in the mind of a very sensitive and reverend poet, who preached weekly to a very particular congregation, by the printer's devil mistaking an erasure for a hyphen, which gave to his sonnet a most improper expression. It made him miserable then, and will ever give him a twinge lest he should have suffered in reputation. He has so much reason to be happy now, that to remind him of it, should he happen to read this, is only to make his happiness the greater, by somewhat reducing its quality; as the very atmosphere must be tempered for man's use and health, by somewhat of a noxious ingredient. But I must return to your friend. His cheeks seem ready to burst with common sense, and polished with ruddy conceit. "Do you remember," said I, "any particular passage upon which your observations will bear?" "Why," said he, "there was one in that paper which first struck me as utter nonsense; but a little alteration easily sets it to rights. There was a quotation from Milton: I wasn't very well acquainted with his poems, but I have read since, with much trouble to understand it, that whole scene and passage; it is in a play of his called 'Comus;'—and, by the by, all that part of the prose in the letter relating to the seashore and its treasures, is all stuff; all the roads about the country are made and mended with those pebbles—they are worth nothing. What Milton is supposed to have said, when they wrote down for him, that the billows of the Severn "roll ashore"—"the beryl and the golden ore"—never could have been written by any one who knew the Severn. A beryl is a clear crystal, isn't it? and if the billows should roll one ashore in the muddy Severn, I should like to know who could find it! There are no billows but from[Pg 410] the Bristol Channel, and that's mud all the way, miles and miles up;—pretty shores for a beryl to be rolled on. Besides, now, what man of common sense would talk of rolling a bit of a thing, not half so big as a nutmeg, and that upon mud, in which it would sink like a bullet? He would have said 'washed ashore;' but I'll tell you what it was: I understand Milton was blind, and his daughters wrote what he dictated: they say, too, he had a good deal of knowledge of things, and, without doubt, knew very well the trade of the Bristol Channel, and from the Severn into the Avon; and certainly meant 'barrel and the golden ore,' and this word suggested the precious ornament which most women like to think of, and as she, his daughter, minced it in her own mouth, a beryl dropped from her pen. Now, only consider what was the great trade in those parts; the West India and the African trade were both at their height, and didn't one bring barrels of sugar, and the other gold dust—what can be clearer? There you see how proper the word rolling is, for you must have often seen them rolling their barrels from their ships upon planks, and so on their quays; and the golden ore speaks for itself, as plain as can be, gold dust; and there you have a reading that agrees with fact. I don't exactly know when Milton wrote; but I dare say it was at the very time of that notorious merchandize; and don't you think, sir, that the next edition of Milton ought to have this alteration? I do. I forgot to say that the gold dust came over in little barrels too; for no man in his senses would have thought of rolling or washing dust ashore, excepting in a keg or barrel, and so it was, I make no doubt."

I perfectly assented to every thing he said, Eusebius, by which happy concession on my part, having no food for an obstinate discussion, he soon withdrew. I sat awhile thinking, and now write to you. At least make a marginal note in your Milton of this criticism; and when posterity shall discover it, and forget that Comus was written when Milton was a young man, and had no daughters to write for him, then it will be adopted, and admired as a specimen of the critical acumen of the great and learned Eusebius.

It reminds me to tell you, that being the other day at the sea-side, and wanting a Horace, I borrowed one from a student of Cambridge. It was a Paris edition. I never should have dreamed of seeing an expurgated or emasculated edition from French quarters; but so it was. I looked for that beautiful little piece, the quarrel between Lydia and Horace. It was not there.

"Donec gratus eram tibi,
Nec quisquam potior brachia candide
Cervici juvenis dabat."

I suppose the offence lay in these lines, which appear no worse than that old song, (the lovers' quarrel too,)

"I've kiss'd and I've prattled with fifty fair maids."

An American lady must not be shocked with the word leg, and we are told they put flounces upon those pedestals of pianofortes; but that a lover throwing his arms around his mistress's neck should offend a Frenchman, is an outrageous prudery from a very unexpected quarter. We can imagine a scholar tutored to this affected purity, who should escape from it, and plunge into the opposite immoralities of our modern French novels, like him

"Qui frigidus Ætnam
Insiluit."

"Plunged cold into Ætnean fires."

There were many emendations, most of which I forget; but I could not help laughing at an absurdity in the following ode:—

"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."

The word puellis is altered to choreis, which nevertheless, as a mark of absurdity, ought to be supposed to contain the puellis; for to say,

"I lately lived for dances fit,"

surely implies that the sayer had some one to dance with; or is there any dancing sect of men in France so devoted to celibacy that they will only dance with each other? We are certainly improved in this country, where it should seem that once a not unsi[Pg 411]milar practice was compulsory upon the benchers, as will be seen from the following quotation from The Revels at Lincoln's Inn:—

"The exercise of dancing was thought necessary, and much conducing to the making of gentlemen, more fit for their books at other times; for by an order (ex Registro Hosp. sine. vol. 71, 438 C) made 6th February, 7 Jac., it appears that the under barristers were, by decimation, put out of Commons for example sake, because the whole bar offended by not dancing on Candlemas-day preceding, according to the ancient order of this Society, when the judges were present; with this, that if the like fault was committed afterwards, they should be fined or disbarred."—(D, Revels at Lincoln's Inn, p. 15.) Eusebius, you would go on a pilgrimage, with unboiled peas, to Pump Court or more favourable locality, for these little "brief authorities."

"To see how like are courts of law to fairs,
The dancing barristers to dancing bears;
Both suck their paws indulgent to their griefs,
These lacking provender, those lacking briefs."

Shame to him who does not agree with our own delightful Robert Burns, of glorious memory, who "dearly lo'ed the lasses O!" So only "Let the merry dance go round."

And now, as the dancers are off the stage, and it is the more proper time for gravity and decorum, I feel that irresistible desire to be as wicked as possible—a desire which I have heard you say tormented you in your childhood; for, whenever you were admonished to be remarkably good, you were invariably remarkably bad. So I yield to the temptation, and voluntarily, and with "malice prepense" throw myself into the wickedness of translating (somewhat modernizing I own) the "Tabooed" ode, in defiance of, and purposely to offend, the Parisian, or other editor or editors, who shall ever show themselves such incomparable ninnies as to omit that or any other ode of Horace. Accept the following.

"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus."
Carmen, 26, lib. iii.

For maiden's love I once was fit,
But now those fields of warfare quit,
With all my boast, content to sit
In easy-chair;
And here lay by (a lover's lances)
All poems, novels, and romances.
Ah! well a-day! such idle fancies
I well might spare.

There—on that shelf, behind the door,—
By all those works of Hannah More
And Bishop Porteus—Let a score
Of lectures guard them;
Take Bulwer, Moore, and Sand, and Sue,
The Mysteries, and the Wandering Jew;
May he who gives to all their due,
The Deil, reward them.

And Venus, if thou hast, as whilom,
For parted lovers an asylum,
To punish or to reconcile 'em,
Take Chloe to it;
And lift, if thou hast heart of flint,
Thy lash, and her fair skin imprint—
But ah! forbear—or, take the hint,
And let me do it.

Not a word, Eusebius, I know what you are going to say,—no shame at all. You have all your life acquitted Horace; and if he never intended[Pg 412] Chloe to have a whipping, you may be quite sure the little turn that I have ventured to give the affair, won't bear that construction; and there will be no occasion to ask the dimensions of the rod, as the ladies at the assize-town did of Judge Buller, requesting of him, with their compliments, to send them the measure of his thumb.

Why should I not attempt this rejected ode? Here goes for the honour of Lydia. "Kiss and be friends" be ever the motto to lovers' quarrels.

"Donec gratus eram tibi."

Horace.
When I was all in all to you,
Nor yet more favour'd youthful minion
His arms around your fair neck threw;
Not Persia's boasted monarch knew
More bless'd a state, more large dominion.

Lydia.
And whilst you loved but only me,
Nor then your Lydia stood the second,
And Chloe first, in love's degree;
I thought myself a queen to be,
Nor greater Roman Ilia reckon'd.

Horace.
Now Cretan Chloe rules me quite;
Skill'd in the lyre and every measure,
For whom I'd die this very night,
If but the Fates, in death's despite,
Would Chloe spare, my soul's best treasure.

Lydia.
Me Caläis, Ornytus' young heir!
(The flame is mutual we discover,)
For whom to die two deaths I'd dare,
If the stern Fates would only spare,
And he could live, my youthful lover.

Horace.
What—if our former love restore
Our bonds, too firm for aught to sever,—
I shake off Chloe; and the door
To Lydia open flies once more;
Returning Lydia, and for ever.

Lydia.
He, though a beauteous star—you light
As cork, and rough as stormy weather,
That vexes Adria's raging might,
With you to live were my delight,
And willing should we die together.

So this is the offending ode! Was the proposition to be constant not quite agreeable to the French editor? Or was he in Horace's probable condition, getting a little up in years? See you, it is a youthful rival, Juvenis, who troubles him. And Lydia takes care to throw in this ingredient, the "sweet age." He is not old Ornytus—a hint of comparison with Horace himself—but his son; indeed, he is hardly Juvenis, for she soon calls him her dear boy, as much as to say, "You are old enough to[Pg 413] be his father!" She carries out this idea, too, seeming to say, "You may love Chloe—I dare say you do; but, does Chloe love you? Whereas our passion is mutual."

Our poet, delightful and wise as he generally is, was not wise to match his wit against that of a woman, and an offended beauty. How miserably he comes off in every encounter! He would die, forsooth! once—she would die twice over! There is a hit in his very liver! And as to the survivorship of Chloe, that she suggests, considering their ages, might be very natural—but she doubts if her youth could survive should she die; though she even came to life again, a second time to die, it would be of no use. What could the foolish poet do after that? Nothing—but make up the quarrel in the best way he might. He drops his ears, is a little sulky still—most men are so in these affairs—seldom generous in love. To pretend to be so is only to encroach on woman's sweet and noble prerogative, and to assume her great virtue. No man could keep it up long; he would naturally fall into his virile sulks. So Horace does not at once open his arms that his Lydia may fall into them—but stands hesitatingly, rather foolish, his hands behind him, and puts forward the supposition If—that graceless peace-maker. Lydia, on the contrary—all love, all generosity, is in his arms at once; for he must at the moment bring them forward, whether he will for love or no, or Lydia would fall. It is now she looks into his very eyes, and only playfully, as quizzing his jealousy, reminds him of her Caläis, her star of beauty; thus sweetly reproving and as sweetly forgiving the temper of her Horace—for he is her Horace still—and who can wonder at that? She will bear with all—will live, will die with him. I look, Eusebius, upon this ode as a real consolation to your lovers of an ambiguous and querulous age. Seeing what we are daily becoming, it is a comfort to think that, should such untoward persons make themselves disagreeable to all else of human kind, there will be, nevertheless, to each, one confiding loving creature, to put them in conceit with themselves, and make them, notwithstanding their many perversities, believe that they are unoffending male angels, and die in the bewildering fancy that they are still loveable.

I have little more to say, but that, having been lately in a versifying mood, I have set to rhyme your story of the cook and the lottery ticket; and herein I have avoided that malicious propensity of our numerous tellers of stories, whose only pleasure, as it appears to me, lies in the plunging the heroes and heroines of their tales into inextricable troubles and difficulties, and in continuing them in a state of perplexity beyond the power of human sufferance; and who slur over their unexpected, and generally ill-contrived escape, as a matter of small importance; and with an envy of human happiness, like the fiend who sat scowling on the bliss of Eden, either leave them with sinister intentions, or absolutely drive them out of the Paradise which they have so lately prepared for them.

I have lately been reading a very interesting, well conceived in many respects, and pathetic novel, which, nevertheless, errs in this; and I even think the pathos is injured by the last page, which is too painful for tenderness, which appears the object of the able author. A monumental effigy is but the mockery of all life's doings, which are thus, with their sorrows and their joys, rendered nugatory; and all that we have been reading, and are interested about, is unnecessarily presented to us as dust and ashes. Such is the tale of Mount Sorrel.

Perhaps, too, I might say of this, and of other novels of the same kind, that there is in them an unhealthy egotism; a Byronism of personal feelings; an ingenious invention of labyrinth meandering into the mazes of the mind and of the affections, in which there is always bewilderment, and the escape is rather lucky than foreseen. Such was not the mode adopted heretofore by more vigorous writers, who preferred exhibiting the passions by action, and a few simple touches, which came at once to the heart, without the necessity of unravelling the mismazes of their course. If Achilles had made a long speech in Elysium about his feelings, and[Pg 414] attempted to describe them, when his question, if his son excelled in glory, was happily answered, we should have thought less of him for his egotism, and had much less perfect knowledge of the real man's heart and soul. Homer simply tells us, that he walked away, with great strides, greatly rejoicing. I can remember, at this moment, but one tale in which this style of descriptive searchings into the feelings is altogether justifiable—Godwin's "Caleb Williams;" for there the ever instant terror, varying by the natural activity and ingenuity of the mind, which, upon the one pressing point, feverishly hurries into new, and all possible channels of thought, requires this pervading absolutism. It is the Erynnis of a bygone creed, in a renovated form of persecuting fatalism, brought to sport with the daily incidents and characters of modern life.

I do not wish to be tempted by this course of thought into lengthened criticism; which I should not have touched upon, had I not thought it proper to tell you that I have added a conclusion to your tale. Ever wishing a continuation of the happiness of two human beings, beyond that location in the story, where most spiteful authors leave them, the Church door.

I have been reading, too, over again two of Sir Walter Scott's novels, "Guy Mannering" and "Ivanhoe." How different they are, both in design and execution! The former, in all respects perfect—the latter, in design common-place, and but little enlarged from the old ballad tales of Robin Hood, and histories of the Crusaders; very slovenly in diction, and lengthened out by tiresome repetitions; the same things being told in protracted dialogues which had been previously narrated in the historic course. Then there are very ill-timed interruptions, and wearisome disquisitions, just where they should not be. Yet are there passages of perfect excellence, that prove the master-hand of the author. The novel of "Ivanhoe" seems to resemble some of those plays which, though doubtful, are called Shakspeare's, because it is evident that the master-hand has passed over them, and left touches both of thought and character which justify the position which they enjoy. Rebecca is all in all. The other characters somewhat fail to interest. Ivanhoe himself says but little, and is in fact not much developed. We are disgusted, and unnecessarily, at every turn with Athelstane—there was no occasion for making him this degraded glutton. It seems a clumsy contrivance to break off his marriage with Rowena; and surely the boast of his eating propensities, when he shows himself to his astonished mourners escaped from the death and tomb prepared for him, is unnatural, and throws a contempt and ridicule over the whole scene. Richard and Robin Hood (or Locksley) are not characters of Sir Walter's creation—Richard is, we may suppose, truly portrayed. My friend S——, Eusebius, who, while I was suffering under influenza, read these novels out to me, was offended at a little passage towards the end, where the author steps out of the action of his dramatic piece, to tell you that King Richard did not live to fulfil the benevolent promises he had a line or two before been making; and I entirely agree with S——, and felt the unseemly and untimely intelligence as he read it. This would scarcely be justifiable in a note, but in the body of the work it shocks as a plague-spot on the complexion of health. This practice, too common in novelists, especially the "historical," becoming their own marplots, deserves censure. To borrow from another art, it is like marring a composition, by an uncomfortable line or two running out of the picture, and destroying the completeness. I know not if that fine scene, perhaps the most masterly in Ivanhoe, has ever been painted, where, after the defeat of De Bois-Guilbert, and after that Richard had broken in upon the court, the Grand Master draws off in the repose of stern submission his haughty Knights Templars. The slow procession finely contrasts with the taunting violence of Richard; and what a background is offered to the painter—the variously moved multitude, the rescued Rebecca, and the dead (though scarcely defeated) Templar!

Sir Walter, although an antiqua[Pg 415]rian, was not perhaps aware that he was somewhat out in his chronology in connecting Robin Hood and his men with Richard the First. It is made very clear in an able essay in the Westminster Review, that Robin Hood's name and fame did not commence till after the defeat of Simon de Montfort in the battle of Evesham. In fact, Robin Hood was more of a political outlaw—one of the outlawed, after that defeat, than a mere sylvan robber. Sir Walter Scott has taken advantage of the general belief, gathered from many of our old ballads, in an intercourse between Robin Hood and England's king. But according to the oldest of the ballads, (or rather poems, for it is too long for a ballad, and composed of many parts,) The Lyttel Geste of Robin Hood, this king of England was Edward the First; so that the existence of the "bold outlaw" is antedated by the author of Ivanhoe upwards of seventy years. This, however, does not affect the story, excepting to those who entertain the fond fancy, that when they read an historical novel they read history.[1] Do you wonder, Eusebius, at my chronological learning? You well may; it must appear to you a very unexpected commodity. The truth is, my attention has been directed to this very matter by my antiquarian friend M'Gutch of Worcester, who not only pointed out to me the essay in the Westminster, but, finding my curiosity excited, sent me many of the ballads, Robin Hood's garlands, and The Lyttel Geste, together with an able introduction of his own to a new edition of the collection he is about to produce, with which you will be delighted, and learn all that is to be known; and it is more than you would expect to meet with about this "gentle robber."

S——, to whom I read the foregoing remarks on Ivanhoe, said, I ought to do penance for the criticism. I left the penance to his choice; and, like a true friend, he imposed a pleasure; I do not say, Eusebius, that if left to myself I should have been a Franciscan. He took up Marmion, and read it from beginning to end. It is indeed a noble poem. Will not the day come, when Sir Walter's poems will be more read than his novels, good though they be?

In his poetry Scott always reminds me of Homer. There is the same energy ever working to the one simple purpose—the same spontaneity and belief in its own tale; and diversity of character for relief's sake is common to both. In reading Homer we must discard all our school notions; we began to read with difficulty; the task was a task, though it was true we warmed in it—the thread was broken a thousand times; and we too often pictured to ourselves the old bard in his gravity of beard and age—not in that vigour, that freshness of manhood, which is conspicuous in both poems, at whatever age they were composed.

I have had the curiosity, Eusebius, to enquire of very many real scholars, who have professed to keep up their Greek after leaving the universities, if they have re-read Homer in Greek, and almost all have confessed that they had not. They read him in Pope and Cowper. Let them read him offhand, and fluently, continuously, as they do Marmion, or the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and I cannot but think they will be struck with the Homeric resemblance in the poems of Sir Walter Scott. Both great poets had, too, the same relish for natural scenery, the same close observation; did we not pass over such passages lightly, we should, I am persuaded, find in both the same nice discriminations in characters of outward scenes, that we do in those of men. In both there is the same kind of secret predominance of female character the same delicacy, tenderness, (a wondrous thing in the age of[Pg 416] Homer, or rather, perhaps, showing we know nothing about that age, not even so much as we do about those ages which we choose to call dark.) It must, however, be noted, that Sir Walter Scott has limited himself to more confined fields. There is not the same room for genius to work in—the production is, therefore, in degree less varied, and less complete; but is there not a likeness in kind? Is it too bold, is it merely fanciful, Eusebius, to say, too, that there is a something not dissimilar in the measures adopted by these ancient and modern poets. Homer possibly had no choice; but in the hexameter there is the greatest versative power. How different, for instance, are the first lines of the "Tale of Troy Divine," and the more familiar adventures of Ulysses. The ad libitum alternation of dactyl and spondee make the lively or the grave; and the whole metrical glow is all life and action, without hitch or hindrance.

Our heroic measure is at once too long and too short—for, take the cæsura as a division of the line, (and what is it if not that?) and the latter part of the line is too short for any effective power—a fault that does not exist in the Greek hexameter. Without the cæsura, or with a very slight attention to it, the line is too long, and made tiresome by the monotony which the necessary pause of the rhyme imposes. Besides, how do we know, after all, that the Greeks did not read their one hexameter like two lines, with a decided pause at the cæsura, with the additional grace of the short syllable at its end often passing the voice into the second part, or, as we may call it in the argument, the second line? Try, Eusebius; read off a dozen lines any where in Homer with this view, and tell me what you think of the possible short measure of Homer. It is true our measures are of the iambic character, which Horace says is the fittest for action—and therefore, in the Greek, the dramatic. The trimeter iambic is a foot longer than our heroic measure. But then it has the double ictus; and, as the word implies, is divisible into three parts, thus giving a quickness and shortness where wanted. Take away, however, the first cæsura, rest only on the second, (and then you have exactly one short measure, that of "Marmion,") and how superfluous the last division of the trimeter appears! as weak and ineffective as the latter part of our long measure, if we read it as wanting the additional foot of the hexameter. For example,

"ω τεχνα καδμου τω παλου"—

There is the measure of Scott—the Greek iambic, however, is lengthened by two feet—νεα τροφη; so that to the Greek the three ictuses (at least to English ears, accustomed to our short measure) are necessary. That this short measure wants not power in any respect, Marmion alone sufficiently shows. I, however, wished only to show that it had something of an Homeric character; and the facility with which you can read the hexameter of Homer as two lines, you will, perhaps, more than suspect, tends to confirm this opinion. I think, somewhere, Sir Walter Scott recommends the translating Homer into short measure—you forget, perhaps, my making the trial upon the two first books of the Odyssey which I sent to you, and you returned, condemned; although, to tell you the truth, I was not displeased with my attempt, and expected your flattering commendation, and would even now deceive myself into a belief that you were not prepared for the novelty. Admire the candour that proclaims the failure. It is enough that Eusebius admitted my other Homeric translations.

You will easily detect that this letter is written at intervals. I told you what a kind reader I have found in S——, during my indulgence in the luxurious indolence for which influenza apologizes, and a growing convalescence renders a pleasing hypocrisy. He has been repeating, from memory, some lines of his favourite Collins. I remembered them not. He could not put his hand on an edition of Collins, but referred to the "Elegant Extracts," and could not find his admired stanza. He remembered reading it in "The Speaker." The lines are in the Ode to "Evening." In the "Elegant Extracts" we have[Pg 417]—

"Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams."

These lines are substituted for the better lines—

"Then lead, dear votress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow'd pile,
Or upland fallows grey
Reflect the last cool gleam."

Why should this beautiful stanza be lost? Is the substitute to be compared with it? Ask the landscape painter! He will admire the one—he will enjoy the other. Who substituted the one for the other? Did Collins write both, and was dubious which should stand; or do you discover the hand of an audacious emendator? Who would lose the sheety lake in which nothing is reflected but evening's own sky, and the "upland fallows grey," and the last cool gleam!

Odious, odious politics! While I am writing, there is an interruption, a sad interruption, to thoughts of poetry and snatches of criticism. It is like a sudden nightmare upon pleasant and shifting dreams. Here are three visitors new from reading Sir Robert Peel's speech. Two very indignant—one a timid character—apologetic. What, cries one—a statesman so egotistical and absolute in his vanity, as, at such a time as the present, to throw the many interests of this great country into peril, and some into sure difficulty, lest, as he himself confesses, he should be thought to have borrowed on Lord John Russell? What business has a statesman to think of himself at all? It is frightful, said another. There are two astounding things—one, that a minister should suddenly turn round upon the principles and the party who brought him into power upon them, confessing he had been changing his opinion three years, and yet last July he should have spoken against the measure which, at the time of speaking, in his heart he favoured, and which he now forces upon a reluctant Parliament; the other astounding thing is, that a Parliament created to oppose this very measure, should show such entire subserviency as to promise a large majority to the minister. May we not expect one who so changes may suddenly some day join O'Connell and grant Repeal? We are to be governed by a minister, not by King, Lords, and Commons. The apologetic man urges expediency, public (assumed) opinion—any thing for peace sake, and to get rid of agitation. So, to avoid agitation, Eusebius, I scrambled up my papers and this letter to you, and left the room; and now, in one more quiet, resume my pen. With a mind not a little confused between politics, poetry, and classical reminiscences, I, however, rested a while to give scope to reflection; and meditation upon this "corn question," brought to mind the practical advice of the tyrant of Syracuse to Periander, to get rid of his aristocracy, which was shown by the action of cutting off the heads of the grain that grew highest in the field. A tyranny was the result, (not in the Greek sense of the word,) and it matters little whence the tyranny comes. With this idea prevalent, I looked for a copy of a Greek MS., taken from a palimpsest discovered in the Ambrosian library, and sat down to translate it for you—you may have the Greek when you like. In the meanwhile, be content with the following version of the apologue, and be not too critical.

The Story of Periander.

"When Periander had now reigned some years at Corinth, the Tyrant of Syracuse sent thither an ambassador, a man of great penetration, to enquire how the maxims of government, in which he had instructed him, had answered.

"The ambassador found Periander in the midst of his courtiers. After receiving him in such manner as it became him to receive a messenger from so excellent a friend, from whom he had obtained the best advice, and after hearing the object of his embassy:—'See,' said Periander, 'to what degree I have prospered. These gentlemen,' pointing to his courtiers, 'have been telling me that my people, and the universal opinion of mankind, enrol me one of the seven wise men of Greece.'[Pg 418]

"'Indeed!!!' quoth the ambassador; 'that will delight the king, my master, exceedingly; who will, without doubt, enquire if I have seen with my own eyes the happiness of a people who are so fortunate, and are possessed of so sound a judgment. As yet, I have seen none but those who immediately conducted me hither.'

"'We will take a short circuit,' said Periander, 'and these gentlemen shall accompany us, and we shall see if what they report be true,' looking a little suspiciously at his courtiers, as if to say, 'I verily think you are but flattering knaves.'

"As they passed through the great hall, the officers of state, and the officers of the household, shouted, 'There are but seven wise men, and Periander is the wisest.'

"Periander, the ambassador, and the courtiers, soon left the vestibule, and found themselves in the streets of Corinth. Not a citizen was to be seen. On, and on they went—and still no one was in sight. 'Your majesty's subjects are somewhat more scarce than they were wont to be,' said the ambassador of Syracuse. Periander bit his lips. On, and on they went—and still no one was to be seen—till, turning the corner of another street, they saw, for an instant only, the backs of a few people, who suddenly disappeared into their houses, and a fierce dog flew out upon them, barking furiously, and would have bitten Periander by the leg had he not been rescued by the ambassador.

"'Am I to tell my lord the King of Syracuse,' said the ambassador, 'that I have seen one class of your majesty's subjects, and heard their opinion?' Periander knit his brows, and looked daggers at his courtiers.

"They went on a little further, when a laden ass, whose owner had fled, stood directly in their way. The ass put out his ugly head and brayed in the very face of Periander.

"'Do I hear,' said the ambassador, 'the voice of another class of your majesty's subjects?'

"Periander now could not forbear smiling, as he struck the ass, who kicked at him as he beat him out of the path.

"Well! they went on still a little further, and had now reached the suburbs, where they met a boy driving a flock of geese and goslings into a pond. The boy, as all the rest had done, fled.

"But the big gander, as they approached, waddled up with extended wings to Periander, and hissed at him.

"'The voice of your people,' said the ambassador, 'is indeed unanimous.'

"'At least,' said Periander, 'I will show my wisdom here, by roasting that fellow and eating him for supper.' Whereupon one of his courtiers, who, in matters of this kind take slight hints for mandates, ran the poor gander through the body; and Periander, in reward he said for so brave an action, bade him throw the creature round his neck[2] as a trophy, and carry him home for supper.

"But by this time the old goose, too, fearing for her goslings, came furiously upon Periander, and flapping and beating him with her wings, put him into a sad straight. On this occasion one of his courtiers came to his rescue, and he escaped; and seeing what a ridiculous figure he made, leaned against a wall, and burst into an immoderate fit of laughter.

"'It is enough,' said the ambassador from the Tyrant of Syracuse; 'I am now enabled to inform the king, my master, of the character, manners, and perfect felicity of your majesty's people, from my own observation. That they are of three classes. The first are dogs, the second are asses, and the third are geese; only I perceive that the geese are the more numerous.'

"They returned to the palace, but did not enter by the great vestibule, as Periander made use of a key for a private entrance, which led him into the interior of the building, at the end of the great hall. Hereupon, the officers of state, and the officers of the[Pg 419] household who stood near the vestibule, waiting their return, seeing Periander, the ambassador, and the courtiers at the other end, hastened towards them, shouting as before—'There are but seven wise men, and Periander is the wisest.' Periander ordered them to be beaten with stripes; then, retiring into his private apartment with the ambassador, he conversed freely with him, and dismissed him with many and large presents.

"The ambassador returned to Syracuse, and was immediately ordered into the royal presence, where he narrated, amidst the laughter of the courtiers, and of the Tyrant himself, the whole affair as it had happened. When the laughter had a little subsided, the king said, 'Let it be written in a book, how one of the seven wise men had wellnigh been beaten by a goose, who certainly had been too much for him, had not another come to the rescue. Truly a goose is a foolish bird, too much for one, but not enough for two.'"

N.B.—Hence it will be seen that this saying is of more antiquity than is generally believed, and has no relation to modern gluttony, and was in fact a saying of the Tyrant of Syracuse, when he heard the story told by his ambassador. This story, which will be Greek to many, will, perhaps, be no Greek at all to you. In that case go yourself to the Ambrosian library; or, in criticising what I may send, you may be as unfortunate as the great scholar who unconsciously questioned the Greek of Pindar. But, both for the moral and Greek, I will but add—

"Verbum sat sapienti."

Dear Eusebius, ever yours,
——.

THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA.

Part VI.

A la lid, nacionales valientes!
Al combate á la gloria volad!
Guerra y muerte á tiranos y esclavos,
Guerra y despues habra paz!
Himno de Valladolíd.

It still wanted an hour of daybreak, on the 16th day of July 1835, when the stillness, that during the previous four or five hours had reigned undisturbed in the quiet streets of Artajona, was broken by the clang of the diana. But a few notes of the call had issued from the brazen throats of bugle and trumpet, when a notable change took place in the appearance of the town. Lights, of which previously only a solitary one had here and there proceeded from the window of a guard-room, or of some early-rising orderly-sergeant, now glimmered in every casement; the streets were still empty, save of the trumpeters, who stood at the corners, puffing manfully at their instruments; but on all sides was audible a hum like that of a gigantic bee-hive, mingled with a slight clashing of arms, and with the neighing of numerous horses, who, as well as their masters, had heard and recognized the well-known sounds. Two or three minutes elapsed, and then doors were thrown open, and the deserted streets began to assume a more lively appearance. Non-commissioned officers, their squad-rolls in their hands, took their station in front of the houses where their men were billeted; in the stables, dragoons lighted greasy iron lamps, and, suspending them against the wall, commenced cleaning and saddling their horses; the shutters of the various wine-houses were taken down, and drowsy, nightcapped taberneros busied themselves in distributing to innumerable applicants the tiny glassful of[Pg 420] anisado, which, during the whole twenty-four hours, is generally the sole spirituous indulgence permitted himself by the sober Spanish soldier. A few more minutes passed; the revéille had ceased to sound, and on the principal square of the town a strong military band played, with exquisite skill and unison, the beautiful and warlike air of the hymn of Valladolid.

"A la lid, nacionales valientes!
Al combate, á la gloria volad!"

"To the strife, brave nationals; to the strife, and to glory!" sang many a soldier, the martial words of the song recalled to his memory by the soul-stirring melody, as, buckling on sabre or shouldering musket, he hurried to the appointed parade. The houses and stables were now fast emptying, and the streets full. The monotonous "Uno, dos," of the infantry, as they told off, was drowned in the noise of the horses' feet and the jingle of accoutrements of the cavalry-men clattering out of their stables. By the light of a few dingy lanterns, and of the stronger illumination proceeding from the windows, whole battalions were seen assembled, resting on their arms, and presently they began to move out of the town. Outside of Artajona, the right wing of the army, under command of General Gurrea, formed up, and marched away in the direction of Mendigorria.

The sun had but just risen when this division, after driving in the Carlist cavalry pickets, which had been pushed up to within half a league of Artajona, halted and took position to the right of the high-road between that town and Mendigorria. The ground thus occupied is level, and opposite to nearly the centre of a line of low hills, which, after running for some distance parallel to the Arga, recedes at either extremity, thus forming the flattened arc of a circle, of which the river is the chord. Between the hills, which are inconsiderable and of gradual slope, and the river, runs the high-road from Puente de la Reyna to Larraga; and in rear of their more southerly portion, known as La Corona, opposite to the place where the road from Artajona passes through a dip or break in their continuity, are the town and bridge of Mendigorria. Upon these hills the Carlists, who had passed the night in the last-named town, now formed themselves, their main body upon the eastern slope, their reserves upon the western or reverse side. They were still bringing their masses into position, when the Christino right came upon the ground, and for awhile, although the distance between the hostile forces was not great, no shot was fired on either side. By and by, however, the dark figures of the Carlist guerillas were seen racing down the hills, the Christino skirmishers advanced to meet them, and soon a sharp irregular fire of musketry, and the cloud of smoke which spread over the middle ground between the armies, announced that the fight, or at least the prelude to it, had begun. This desultory sort of contest was of short duration. Several Carlist battalions moved forward, a gallant attack was made on the Christino position, and as gallantly repelled: commanded by a brave and skilful officer, and favoured by a judicious choice of ground, the Queen's troops, although opposed to vastly superior numbers, and without their cavalry, which had remained with the reserve, repulsed repeated assaults, and held their own without serious loss, until, towards ten o'clock, the heads of columns of the centre of the army, under the commander-in-chief himself, made their appearance from the direction of Artajona. Almost at the same time, the left wing, with Espartero at its head, arrived from Larraga, where it had slept. Some little manœuvring took place, and then the whole Christino army appeared formed up, Cordova on either side of the high-road, Espartero on his left, nearer to the Arga, Gurrea on his right. By a rather singular arrangement, the whole force of cavalry, under General Lopez, was left in reserve, considerably in rear of the left wing, and at a full mile and a half from the centre; with the exception of one squadron, which, as well as his habitual escort, had accompanied General Cordova. That squadron was commanded by Luis Herrera.

A stranger who, on the morning referred to, should, for the first time,[Pg 421] have walked through the ranks of the Carlist army, would have found much that was curious and interesting to note. The whole disposable military force of what the Christinos called the Faction, was there assembled, and a motley crew it appeared. Had stout hearts and strong arms been as rare in their ranks as uniformity of garb and equipment, the struggle would hardly have been prolonged for four years after the date we write of. But it would be difficult to find in any part of Europe, perhaps of the world, men of more hardy frame, and better calculated to make good soldiers, than those composing many of the Carlist battalions. Amongst them the Navarrese and Guipuzcoans were pre-eminent; sinewy, broad-chested, narrow-flanked fellows, of prodigious activity and capacity for enduring fatigue. The Guipuzcoans especially, in their short grey frocks and red trousers, their necks bare, the shirt-collar turned back over their shoulders, with their bronzed faces and wiry mustaches, leathern belts, containing cartridges, buckled tightly round their waists, and long bright-barrelled muskets in their hands, were the very beau-idéal of grenadiers. Beside these, the Biscayans and some of the Castilians, undersized and unsoldierly-looking, showed to much disadvantage. Other battalions were composed in great part of Christino prisoners, who, having had the choice given them between death and service under Don Carlos, had chosen the latter, but who now seemed to have little stomach for a fight against their former friends. The whole of the Carlist cavalry, even then not very numerous, was also there. The grim-visaged priest Merino, ever the stanchest partisan of absolutism, bestrode his famous black horse, and headed a body of lancers as fierce and wild-looking as himself; Pascual Real, the dashing major of Ferdinand's guard, who in former days, when he took his afternoon ride in the Madrid prado, drew all eyes upon him by the elegance of his horsemanship, marshalled the Alavese hussars; and, in a third place, some squadrons of Navarrese, who had left the fat pastures of the valley of Echauri to be present at the expected fight, were ranged under the orders of the young and gallant Manolin.

But whoever had the opportunity of observing the Carlist army on that day and a month previously, saw a mighty difference in the spirit pervading it. He who had been its soul, whose prestige gave confidence to the soldier, and whose acknowledged superiority of talent prevented rivalry amongst the chiefs, was now no more; his death had been followed by a reverse, the only really serious one the Carlists had yet encountered, and dissension was already springing up amongst the followers of the Pretender. Intrigue was at work, rival interests were brought into play; there was no longer amongst the officers that unity of purpose which alone could have given the cause a chance of success; nor amongst the men that unbounded confidence in their leader, which on so many occasions had rendered them invincible. The spring of '35 had been a season of triumph for the Carlists; the summer was to be one of disasters.

Subsequent events sufficiently proved that Cordova was not the man to command an army. Diplomacy was his forte; and he might also, as a general, claim some merit for combinations in the cabinet. It was during his command that the plan was formed for enclosing the Carlists within certain fortified limits, in hopes that they would exhaust the resources of the country, and with a view to preserve other provinces from the contagion of Carlism.[3] Great credit was given him for this scheme, which was[Pg 422] carried out after many severe fights, and at great expense of life; but neither of the advantages expected from it was ever realized. In the field, Cordova was not efficient; he lacked resource and promptitude; and the command of a division was the very utmost to which his military talents entitled him to aspire. As before mentioned, however, his confidence and pretensions were unbounded, his partisans numerous, and the event of this day's fight was such as greatly to increase the former, and raise the admiration of the latter.

It was eleven o'clock before the two armies were drawn up opposite to each other in order of battle, and even then neither party seemed inclined immediately to assume the offensive. Clouds of skirmishers were thrown out along the whole line, bodies of troops advanced to support them, the artillery began to thunder, but still a fight was for a short time avoided, and, like wary chess-players at the commencement of a game, the two generals contented themselves with manœuvres. Presently, however, from the Carlist centre a column of cavalry advanced, and forming front, charged a regiment of the royal guard, the foremost of Cordova's division. The guards were broken, and suffered considerably; those who escaped the sabres and lances of the horsemen being driven back, some to the centre and some upon the left wing. The cavalry seemed, for a moment, disposed to push their advantage; but the steady fire with which they were received by several squares of infantry, thinned their ranks, and, in their turn, they retreated in disorder. They had scarcely rejoined the main body when the advance was sounded along the whole Christino line, and the army moved forward to a general charge. At first the Carlists stood firm, and opened a tremendous fire upon the advancing line, but the gaps that it caused were speedily filled up; the Christinos poured in one deadly volley, gave a fierce cheer, and rushed on with the bayonet. The Carlists wavered, their whole army staggered to and fro; first companies, then battalions disbanded themselves, and pressed in confusion to the rear, and at last the entire line gave way; and the numerous host, seized with a panic, commenced a hasty and tumultuous retreat. The reserves on the opposite side of the hill were broken by the stream of fugitives that came pouring down upon them; the cavalry, who endeavoured to make a stand, were thrown into disorder, and pushed out of their ranks in the same manner. In vain did the Carlist officers exert themselves to restore order—imploring, threatening, even cutting at the soldiers with their swords. Here and there a battalion or two were prevailed upon to turn against the foe; but such isolated efforts could do little to restore the fortune of the day. The triumphant tide of the Christinos rolled ever forwards; the plunging fire of their artillery carried destruction into the ranks of the discomfited Carlists; the rattling volleys of small-arms, the clash of bayonets, the exulting shouts of the victors, the cries of anguish of the wounded, mingled in deafening discord. Amidst this confusion, a whole battalion of Carlists, the third of Castile, form[Pg 423]ed originally of Christino prisoners, finding themselves about to be charged by a battalion of the guard, reversed their muskets, and shouting "Viva Isabel!" ranged themselves under the banners to which they had formerly belonged, taking with them as prisoners such of their officers as did not choose to follow their example. Generals Villareal and Sagastibelza, two of the bravest and most respected of the Carlist leaders, were severely wounded whilst striving to restore order, and inspire their broken troops with fresh courage. Many other officers of rank fell dead upon the field while similarly engaged; the panic was universal, and the day irretrievably lost.

"The cavalry! the cavalry!" exclaimed a young man, who now pressed forward into the mêlée. He wore a long, loose civilian's coat, a small oilskin-covered forage cap, and had for his sole military insignia an embroidered sword-belt, sustaining the gilt scabbard of the sabre that flashed in his hand. His countenance was pale and rather sickly-looking, his complexion fairer than is usual amongst Spaniards; a large silk cravat was rolled round his neck, and reached nearly to his ears, concealing, it was said, the ravages of disease. His charger was of surpassing beauty; a plumed and glittering staff rode around him; behind came a numerous escort.

"The cavalry! the cavalry!" repeated Cordova, for he it was. "Where is Lopez and the cavalry?"

But, save his own escort and Herrera's squadron, no cavalry was forthcoming. Lopez remained unpardonably inactive, for want of orders, as he afterwards said; but, under the circumstances, this was hardly an extenuation. The position of the Carlists had been, in the first instance, from the nature of the ground, scarcely attackable by horse, at least with any prospect of advantage; but now the want of that arm was great and obvious. Cordova's conduct in leaving his squadrons so far in the rear, seems, at any rate, inexplicable. It was by unaccountable blunders of this sort, that he and others of the Christino generals drew upon themselves imputations of lukewarmness, and even of treachery.

An aide-de-camp galloped up to Herrera, whose squadron had been stationed with the reserve of the centre. His horse, an Isabella-coloured Andalusian, with silver mane and tail, of the kind called in Spain Perla, was soaked with sweat and grey with foam. The rider was a very young man, with large fiery black eyes, thin and martially-expressive features, and a small mustache shading his upper lip. He was a marquis, of one of the noblest families in Spain. He seemed half mad with excitement.

"Forward with your squadron!" shouted he, as soon as he came within earshot. The word was welcome to Herrera.

"Left wheel! forward! gallop!"

And, with the aide-de-camp at his side, he led his squadron along the road to Mendigorria, which intersects the hills whence the Carlists were now being driven. They had nearly reached the level ground on the other side, when they came in sight of several companies of infantry, who made a desperate stand. Their colonel, a Navarrese of almost gigantic stature—his sword, which had been broken in the middle, clutched firmly in his hand, his face streaming with blood from a slash across the forehead, his left arm hanging by his side, disabled by a severe wound—stood in front of his men, who had just repulsed the attack of some Christino infantry. On perceiving the cavalry, however, they showed symptoms of wavering.

"Steady!" roared the colonel, knitting his bleeding brow. "The first man who moves dies by my hand!"

In spite of the menace, two or three men ventured to steal away, and endeavoured to leave the road unobserved. The colonel sprang like a tiger upon one of them.

"Cobarde! muera!" cried the frantic Carlist, cleaving the offender to the eyes with the fragment of his sword. The terrible example had its effect; the men stood firm for a moment, and opened a well-aimed fire on the advancing cavalry.

"Jesus Cristo!" exclaimed the young aide-de-camp. Herrera looked at him. His features were convulsed[Pg 424] with pain. One more name which he uttered—it was that of a woman—reached Herrera's ears, and then he fell from his saddle to the earth; and the dragoons, unable to turn aside, trampled him under foot. There was no time for reflection. "Forward! forward!" was the cry, and the horsemen entered the smoke. On the right of the Carlists, in front, stood their dauntless colonel, waving his broken sabre, and shouting defiance. Firm as a rock he awaited the cavalry. Struck by his gallantry, Herrera wished to spare his life.

"Rinde te!" he cried; "yield!"

"Jode te!" was the coarse but energetic reply of the Carlist, as he dealt a blow which Herrera with difficulty parried. At the same moment a lance-thrust overthrew him. There were a few shouts of rage, a few cries for mercy; here and there a bayonet grated against a sabre, but there was scarcely a check in the speed; such of the infantry as stood to receive the charge were ridden over, and Herrera and his squadron swept onwards towards the bridge of Mendigorria.

Now it was that the Carlists felt the consequences of that enormous blunder in the choice of a position, which, either through ignorance or over confidence, their generals had committed. With the Arga flowing immediately in their rear, not only was there no chance of rallying them, but their retreat was greatly embarrassed. One portion of the broken troops made for the bridge, and thronged over it in the wildest confusion, choking up the avenue by their numbers; others rushed to the fords higher up the stream, and dashing into the water, some of them, ignorant of the shallow places, were drowned in the attempt to cross. Had the Christino cavalry been on the field when the rout began, the loss of the vanquished would have been prodigious; as it was, it was very severe. The Christino soldiery, burning to revenge former defeats, and having themselves suffered considerably at the commencement of the fight, were eager in the pursuit, and gave little quarter. In less than two hours from the beginning of the action, the country beyond the Arga was covered with fugitives, flying for their lives towards the mountains of Estella. Narrow were the escapes of many upon that day. Don Carlos had been praying during the action in the church at Mendigorria; and so sudden was the overthrow of his army, that he himself was at one time in danger of being taken. A Christino officer, according to a story current at the time, had come up with him, and actually stretched out his hand to grasp his collar, when a bullet struck him from his saddle.

Dashing over the bridge, Herrera and his squadron spurred in pursuit. Their horses were fresh, and they soon found themselves amongst the foremost, when suddenly a body of cavalry, which, although retiring, kept together and exerted itself to cover the retreat, faced about, and showed a disposition to wait their arrival. The Carlists were superior in numbers, but that Herrera neither saw nor cared for; and, rejoicing at the prospect of opposition to overcome, he waved his sword and cheered on his men. At exactly the same moment the hostile squadrons entered the opposite sides of a large field, and thundered along to the encounter, pounding the dry clods beneath their horses' hoofs, and raising a cloud of dust through which the lance-points sparkled in the sunlight, whilst above it the fierce excited features of the men were dimly visible. Nearer they came, and nearer; a shout, a crash, one or two shrill cries of anguish—a score of men and horses rolled upon the ground, the others passed through each other's ranks, and then again turning, commenced a furious hand-to-hand contest. The leader of the Carlists, a dark-browed, powerful man, singled out Herrera for a fierce attack. The fight, however, lasted but a few moments, and was yet undecided when the Christino infantry came up. A few of the surviving Carlists fled, but the majority, including their colonel, were surrounded and made prisoners. They were sent to the rear with an escort, and the chase was continued.

It was nightfall before the pursuit entirely ceased, and some hours later before Herrera and his dragoons, who, in the flush of victory, forgot fatigue, arrived at Puente de la Reyna,[Pg 425] where, and at Mendigorria, the Christino army took up their quarters. Sending the squadron to their stables, Herrera, without giving himself the trouble to demand a billet, repaired to an inn, where he was fortunate enough to obtain a bed—no easy matter in the crowded state of the town. The day had been so busy, that he had had little time to reflect further on the intelligence brought by Paco, of whom he had heard nothing since the morning. And now, so harassed and exhausted was he by the exertions and excitement of the day, that even anxious thoughts were insufficient to deprive him of the deep and refreshing slumber of which he stood in such great need.

The morning sun shone brightly through the half-closed shutters of his apartment, when Herrera was awakened by the entrance of Paco. In the street without he heard a great noise and bustle; and, fearful of having slept too long, he sprang from his bed and began hastily to dress. Without saying a word, Paco threw open the window and beckoned to him. He hastened to look out. In front of the inn was an open plaza, now crowded with men and horses. A large body of troops were drawn up under arms, officers were assembled in groups, discussing the victory of the preceding day; and in the centre of the square, surrounded by a strong guard, stood several hundred Carlist prisoners. On one side of these were collected the captured horses both of men and officers, for the most part just as they had been taken, saddled and bridled, and their coats caked with dry sweat. Paco drew Herrera's attention to a man in officer's uniform, who stood, with folded arms and surly dogged looks, in the front rank of the prisoners. His eyes were fixed upon the ground, and he only occasionally raised them to cast vindictive glances at a party of officers of the Christino guards, who stood at a short distance in his front, and who seemed to observe him with some curiosity.

"You see yonder colonel?" said Paco to Herrera. "Do you know him?"

"Not I," replied Herrera. "Yet, now I look again—yes. He is one of my prisoners of yesterday. He commanded a body of cavalry which charged us."

"Likely, likely," said Paco. "Do you know his name?"

"How should I?" answered Herrera.

"I will tell it you. It is Baltasar de Villabuena."

Herrera uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Impossible!" said he.

"Certain; I have seen him too often to mistake him."

Herrera made no reply. His hasty toilet finished, he bade Paco remain where he was, and descended to the street. He approached the group of guardsmen already mentioned.

"Your next move, gentlemen?" said he, after the usual salutation.

"To Pampeluna with the prisoners," was the reply. "A reconnoissance en force has gone out, but it may go far, I expect, before meeting with a Carlist. They are completely broken, and at this moment I doubt if there is one within a day's march."

"Yes," said another officer, "they are far enough off, if still running. Caremba! what legs the fellows have! We caught a few, though, yesterday afternoon, in spite of their powdering along. Old acquaintances, too, some of them," he added.

"Indeed!" said Herrera.

"Yes; fellows who have served and marched side by side with us. Look there, for instance; do you see that sullen, black-looking dog squinting at us with such a friendly expression?"

"Who is he?" enquired Herrera.

"Baltasar de Villabuena, an old captain of our's before the war. He resigned when Zumalacarregui took the field, and joined the Carlists, and it seems they've made him a colonel. A surly, ill-conditioned cur he always was, or we should not be standing here without a word of kindness or consolation to offer him."

To the surprise of the guardsmen, Herrera, before the officer had done speaking, walked up to the prisoner in question.

"Colonel Villabuena?" said he, slightly touching his cap.

"That is my name," replied the prisoner, sullenly.[Pg 426]

"We met yesterday, I believe," said Herrera, with cold politeness. "If I am not mistaken, you commanded the squadron which charged mine in the early part of the retreat."

Baltasar nodded assent.

"Is your horse amongst those yonder?" continued Herrera.

"It is," replied Baltasar, who, without comprehending the drift of these questions, began to entertain hopes that his rank and former comradeship with many officers of the Christino army were about to obtain him an indulgence rarely accorded, during that war, to prisoners of any grade—the captured Carlists being looked upon by their adversaries rather as rebels and malefactors than as prisoners of war, and treated accordingly. He imagined that his horse was about to be restored to him, and that he would be allowed to ride to Pampeluna.

"Yonder bay stallion," said he, "with a black sheepskin on the saddle, is mine."

Herrera approached the officer commanding the guard over the prisoner, spoke a few words to him, and returned to Baltasar.

"You will please to accompany me," said he.

Baltasar complied, and captive and captor advanced to the horses.

"This is mine," said Colonel Villabuena, laying his hand upon the neck of a powerful bay charger.

Without saying another word, Herrera raised the sheepskin covering the holsters, and withdrew from them a brace of pistols, which he carefully examined. They were handsomely mounted, long-barrelled, with a small smooth bore, and their buts were inlaid with a silver plate, upon which a coronet and the initials E. de V. were engraved.

"These pistols, I presume, are also yours?"

"They are so," was the answer.

"You will observe, sir," continued Herrera, showing the pistols to the officer on guard, who had followed him, "that I have taken these pistols from the holsters of this officer, Colonel Baltasar de Villabuena, who acknowledges them to be his. Look at them well; you may have to recognise them on a future day. I shall forthwith explain to the general-in-chief my motives for taking possession of them."

The officer received the pistols, examined them carefully, and returned them to Herrera. Baltasar looked on with a perplexed and uneasy air. Just then the brigadier, who was to command the column proceeding to Pampeluna, rode into the plaza. The drums beat, and the troops stood to their arms.

"Return to your place," said Herrera, sternly, to the prisoner. "We shall shortly meet again."

And whilst Baltasar, alike disappointed and astonished at the strange conduct of the Christino officer, resumed his place in the captive ranks, Herrera betook himself to the quarters of the commander-in-chief.

This time Torres made no difficulty about introducing his friend into the general's apartment. Cordova was lying at length upon a sofa in a large cool room, a cigar in his mouth, a quantity of despatches on a table beside him, two or three aides-de-camp and secretaries writing in an adjoining chamber. He received Herrera kindly, complimented him on his conduct in the preceding day's fight, and informed him that particular mention had been made of him in his despatch to Madrid. After an interview of some duration, Herrera left the house, with leave of absence for a fortnight, signed by Cordova himself, in his pocket. Proceeding to the barracks, he made over the squadron to his second in command; and then mounting his horse, attended by Paco, and followed by half a dozen dragoons, he took the road to the Ebro.

In a street of Logroño, not far from the entrance of the town, stands one of those substantial and antiquated dwellings, remnants of the middle ages, which are of no unfrequent occurrence in Spain, and whose massive construction seems to promise as many more centuries of existence as they have already seen. It is the property, and at times the abode, of the nobleman whose arms are displayed, elaborately carved on stone, above the wide portal—a nobleman belonging to that section of the Spanish aristocracy, who, putting aside old prejudices, willingly adhered to the more[Pg 427] liberal and enlightened order of things to which the death of Ferdinand was the prelude. In a lofty and spacious apartment of this mansion, and on the evening of the first day after that of Herrera's departure from Puente de la Reyna, we find Count Villabuena reclining in an easy-chair, and busied with thoughts, which, it might be read upon his countenance, were of other than a pleasant character. Since last we saw him, full of life and strength, and still active and adventurous as a young man, encountering fatigues and dangers in the service of his so-called sovereign, a great and sad change had taken place in the Count, and one scarcely less marked in his hopes and feelings. The wound received by him in the plains of Alava, although severe and highly dangerous, had not proved mortal; and when Herrera sought his body with the intention of doing the last mournful honours to the protector of his youth, and father of his beloved Rita, he perceived, to his extreme joy, that life had not entirely fled. On a litter, hastily and rudely constructed of boughs, the Count was conveyed to Vittoria, where he no sooner arrived, than by the anxious care of Herrera, half the surgeons in the town were summoned to his couch. For some days his life was in imminent peril; but at last natural strength of constitution, and previous habits of temperance, triumphed over the wound, and over the conclave of Sangrados who had undertaken his case. The Count recovered, gradually it is true, and without a prospect of ever regaining his former firm health; but still, to Herrera's great delight, and owing in a great measure to the care he lavished upon him, his life was at last pronounced entirely out of danger.

Upon arriving at Vittoria with his sorely wounded friend, duty had compelled Herrera to report his capture; but although the prisoner was considered a most important one, his state was so hopeless, that Luis had little difficulty in obtaining permission to become his sole jailer, pledging himself to reproduce him in case he should recover. When the Count got better, and became aware of his position, he insisted upon Herrera's informing the authorities of his convalescence, and of his readiness to proceed to any place of confinement they might appoint. Herrera's high character and noble qualities had made him many friends, some of them persons of influence, and he now successfully exerted himself to obtain a favour which was probably never before or afterwards conceded to a prisoner during the whole course of that war. Count Villabuena was allowed his parole, and was moreover told, that on pledging himself to retire to France, and to take no further share, direct or indirect, in the Carlist rebellion, he should obtain his release. One other condition was annexed to this. Two colonels of the Queen's army, who were detained prisoners by the Carlists, were to be given up in exchange for his liberty.

When these terms, so unexpectedly favourable, were communicated to the Count, he lost no time in addressing a letter to Don Carlos, informing him of his position, and requesting him to fulfil that portion of the conditions depending on him, by liberating the Christino officers. With shattered health, he could not hope, he said, again to render his Majesty services worth the naming; his prayers would ever be for his success, but they were all he should be able to offer, even did an unconditional release permit him to rejoin his sovereign. In the same letter he implored Don Carlos to watch over the safety of his daughter, and cause her to be conducted to France under secure escort. This letter dispatched, by the medium of a flag of truce, the Count sought and obtained permission to remove to the town of Logroño, where an old friend, the Marquis of Mendava, had offered him an asylum till his fate should be decided upon.

Long and anxiously did the Count await a reply to his letter, but weeks passed without his receiving it. Three days before the battle of Mendigorria, the Christino army passed through Logroño on its way northwards, and the Count had the pleasure of a brief visit from Herrera. A few hours after the troops had again marched away, a courier arrived from Vittoria, bringing the much wished-for answer. It was cold and laconic, written by one of the ministers of Don Carlos. Re[Pg 428]gret was expressed for the Count's misfortune, but that regret was apparently not sufficiently poignant to induce the liberation of two important prisoners, in order that a like favour might be extended to one who could no longer be of service to the Carlist cause.

Although enveloped in the verbiage and complimentary phrases which the Spanish language so abundantly supplies, the real meaning of the despatch was evident enough to Count Villabuena. Courted when he could be of use, he was now, like a worthless fruit from which pulp and juice had been expressed, thrown aside and neglected. It was a bitter pang to his generous heart to meet such ingratitude from the prince whom he had so much loved, and for whose sake he had made enormous sacrifices. To add to his grief, the only answer to his request concerning his daughter was a single line, informing him that she had left Segura several weeks previously, and that her place of abode was unknown.

Depressed and heartsick, the Count lay back in his chair, shading his eyes with his hand, and musing painfully on the events of the preceding two years. His estates confiscated, his health destroyed, separated from his only surviving child, and her fate unknown to him, himself a prisoner—such were the results of his blind devotion to a worthless prince and a falling principle. Great, indeed, was the change which physical and mental suffering had wrought in the Conde de Villabuena. His form was bowed and emaciated, his cheek had lost its healthful tinge; his hair, in which, but a short three months previously, only a few silver threads were perceptible, telling of the decline of life rather than of its decay, now fell in grey locks around his sunken temples. For himself individually, the Count grieved not; he had done what he deemed his duty, and his conscience was at rest; but he mourned the ingratitude of his king and party, and, above all, his heart bled at the thought of his daughter, abandoned friendless and helpless amongst strangers. The news of the preceding day's battle had reached him, but he took small interest in it; he foresaw that many more such fights would be fought, and countless lives be sacrificed, before peace would revisit his unhappy and distracted country.

From these gloomy reflections Count Villabuena was roused by the sudden opening of his door. The next instant his hand was clasped in that of Luis Herrera, who, hot with riding, dusty and travel-stained, gazed anxiously on the pale, careworn countenance of his old and venerable friend. On beholding Luis, a beam of pleasure lighted up the features of the Count.

"You at least are safe!" was his first exclamation. "Thank Heaven for that! I should indeed be forlorn if aught happened to you."

There was an accent of unusually deep melancholy in the Count's voice which struck Herrera, and caused him for an instant to imagine that he had already received intelligence of his cousin's treachery, and of Rita's captivity. Convinced, however, by a moment's reflection, that it was impossible, he dreaded some new misfortune.

"You are dejected, sir," he said. "What has again occurred to grieve you?—The reverse sustained by your friends"—

"No, no," interrupted the Count, with a bitter smile—"not so. My friends, as you call them, seem little desirous of my poor sympathy. Luis, read this."

As he spoke, he held out the letter received from the secretary of Don Carlos.

"It was wisely said," continued the Count, when Herrera had finished its perusal, "'put not your trust in princes.' Thus am I rewarded for devotion and sacrifices. Hearken to me, Luis. It matters little, perhaps, whether I wear out the short remnant of my days in captivity or in exile; but my daughter, my pure, my beautiful Rita, what will become of her—alas! what has become of her? My soul is racked with anxiety on her account, and I curse the folly and imprudence that led me to re-enter this devoted land. My child—my poor child—can I forgive myself for perilling your defenceless innocence in this accursed war!"

His nerves unstrung by illness, and overcome by his great affliction, the[Pg 429] usually stern and unbending Villabuena bowed his head upon his hands and sobbed aloud. Inexpressibly touched by this outburst of grief in one to whose nature such weakness was so foreign, Herrera did his utmost to console and tranquillize his friend. The paroxysm was short, and the Count regained his former composure. Although dreading the effect of the communication, Herrera felt it absolutely necessary to impart at once the news brought by Paco. He proceeded accordingly in the task, and as cautiously as possible, softening the more painful parts, suggesting hopes which he himself could not feel, and speaking cheeringly of the probability of an early rescue. The Count bore the communication as one who could better sustain certain affliction than killing suspense.

"Something I know," said he, when Herrera paused, "of the convent you mention, and still more of its abbess. Carmen de Forcadell was long celebrated, both at Madrid and in her native Andalusia, for her beauty and intrigues. Her husband was assassinated by one of her lovers, as some said, and within three years of his death, repenting, it was believed, of her dissolute life, she took the veil. Once, I know, Baltasar was her reputed lover; but whatever may now be his influence over her, I cannot think she would allow my daughter to be ill treated whilst within her walls. No, Herrera, the danger is, lest the villain may remove my Rita, and place her where no shield may stand between her and his purposes."

"Do not fear it," replied Herrera, in his turn reassured by the Count's moderation. "Your cousin was taken in the action of the 16th, and is now a prisoner at Pampeluna."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the Count, his face brightening with satisfaction. "It is good news, indeed."

"Better than you even think, perhaps. You have preserved the ball that was extracted from your wound?"

"I have," replied the Count, "at your request. What of it?"

"So long," said Herrera, "as no advantage could be gained from my communication, I would not shock you with a statement that even now will cause you serious pain. You remember, sir, that at the time of receiving your wound you were at a very short distance from me, and that your cousin was at a still less one from you, in your rear. As you advanced towards the intervening stream, my eyes, conducted by chance, or something better, fixed on your cousin, who at the moment drew a pistol from his holster. You were but a few paces from him, when I saw him deliberately—I could not be mistaken—deliberately vary his aim from myself to you. The pistol was fired—you fell from your horse, struck by his hand. You seem surprised. The deed was as inexplicable to me until from your own lips I heard who the officer was—that there had been serious disagreement between you—and that his temper was violent, and character bad. Coupled with what my own eyes saw, the bullet itself, far too small for a carbine ball, convinced me that it had proceeded from a pistol. Instinctively, rather than from any anticipation of its being hereafter useful, I requested you to preserve the ball, and to-day an extraordinary chance enables me to verify my suspicions. Let the bullet be now produced."

Astounded by what he heard, but still incredulous, the Count summoned his attendant.

"Bring me the bullet that I bade you keep," said the Count.

"And desire my orderly," added Herrera, "to bring me the brace of pistols he will find in my valise."

In a few moments both commands were obeyed. The bullet was of very small calibre, and, not having encountered any bone, had preserved its rotundity without even an indentation.

"Do you recognize these pistols?" said Herrera, showing the Count those which he had taken from Baltasar's holsters. "This coronet and initials proclaim them to have been once your own."

"They were so," replied the Count, taking one of them in his hand—"a present to my cousin soon after he joined us. I remember them well; he carried them on the day that I was wounded."

"Behold!" said Herrera, who placed the bullet in the muzzle of the pistol, into the barrel of which it slid,[Pg 430] fitting there exactly. Shocked and confounded by this proof of his kinsman's villany, the Count dropped the other pistol and remained sad and silent.

"You doubt no longer?" said Herrera.

"May it not have been accident?" said the Count, almost imploringly. "No Villabuena could commit so base and atrocious a crime."

"None but he," said Herrera. "I watched him as he took his aim, not twenty paces from you. With half a doubt, I would have bitten my tongue from my mouth before an accusation should have passed it against the man in whose favour indeed I have no cause to be prejudiced. Count Villabuena, the shot was fired with intent. For that I pledge my honour and salvation."

There was a pause.

"But my daughter," said the Count; "you forget her, Luis. She must be rescued. How does this fiend's imprisonment render that rescue easier?"

"Thus," replied Herrera. "Yesterday I had an interview with Cordova, and told him every thing; the abduction of Rita, and Baltasar's attempt on your life. Of the latter I engaged to furnish ample proofs. Cordova, as I expected, was indignant, and would have shot the offender had I consented to the act. Upon reflection, however, he himself saw reasonable objections to a measure so opposed to the existing treaty for exchange of prisoners, and feared retaliation from the enemy. After some discussion it was agreed that the proof of Baltasar's attempt upon your life should be submitted, and, if found satisfactory, that the prisoner should be placed at my disposal. In that event his liberty, nay, his life, must depend upon his consenting, unreservedly, to write to the convent, to desire the abbess to set Rita at liberty, and to provide for her safe conduct into France. Until then, Baltasar, by the general's order, remains in solitary confinement at Pampeluna."

"Good," said the Count approvingly.

"I had a threefold object in coming hither," continued Herrera. "To obtain proof of Baltasar's guilt, to comfort you with the hopes of Rita's safety, and to take you with me to Pampeluna. Baltasar of course believes you dead; he will the more readily abandon his designs when he finds that you still live."

"Rightly reasoned," said the Count. "Why should we now delay another instant? Your news, Herrera, has made me young and strong again."

"We will set out to-morrow," said Herrera. "A column of troops march at daybreak for Pampeluna, and we can avail ourselves of their escort."

His hopes revived and energies restored by the intelligence Luis had brought, the Count would have preferred starting without a moment's delay; but Herrera, although not less impatient, insisted on waiting till the next day. Although the principal force of the Carlists had been driven back into Western Navarre, the road to Pampeluna was not safe without a strong escort, and Herrera himself had incurred no small risk in traversing it as he had done, with only half a dozen dragoons. Count Villabuena yielded to his representations, and the following morning witnessed their departure.

Three days' marching brought the Count and Herrera to Pampeluna, whither Cordova and his victorious army had preceded them. Count Villabuena had reckoned too much upon his lately recovered strength; and, although the marches had not been long, he reached Pampeluna in a very exhausted state. It was evening when they arrived, and so crowded was the town with troops that they had some difficulty in obtaining quarters, which they at last found in the house of one of the principal tradesmen of the place. Leaving the Count to repose from his fatigues, Herrera went to visit Cordova, whom he informed of the positive certainty he had now obtained of Baltasar's culpability. The proofs of it might certainly, in a court of law, have been found insufficient, but Cordova took a military view of the case; his confidence in Herrera was great, his opinion of Baltasar, whom he had known in the service of Ferdinand, very bad; and finally, the valid arguments adduced by Luis left him no moral doubt of the prisoner's guilt. He gave the necessary orders for the admission of[Pg 431] Herrera and Count Villabuena into the prison. The next day, however, the Count was still so fatigued and unwell from the effects of his journey, that it was found necessary to call in a physician, who forbade his leaving the house. The Count's impatience, and the pressing nature of the matter in hand, would have led him to disregard the prohibition, and at once proceed to the prison, which was at the other extremity of the town, had not Herrera, to conciliate his friend's health with the necessity for prompt measures, proposed to have the prisoner brought to him. An order to that effect was readily granted by Cordova, and, under proper escort, Don Baltasar was conducted to the Count's quarters.

It would be erroneous to suppose, that, during the late war in Spain, adherents of Don Carlos were only to be found in the districts in which his standard was openly raised. In many or most of the towns best affected to the liberal cause, devoted partisans of the Pretender continued to reside, conforming to the established order of things, and therefore unmolested. In most instances their private opinions were suspected, in some actually known; but a few of them were so skilful in concealing their political bias and partialities, as to pass for steady and conscientious favourers of the Queen's government. Here was one and no unimportant cause of the prolongation of the war; the number of spies thus harboured in the very heart of the Christino camp and councils. By these men intelligence was conveyed to the Carlists, projected enterprises were revealed, desertion amongst the soldiery and disaffection amongst the people, stimulated and promoted. Many of these secretly-working agents were priests, but there was scarcely a class of the population, from the nobleman to the peasant, and including both sexes, in which they were not to be found. Innumerable were the plans traversed by their unseen and rarely detectable influence. On many a dark night, when the band of Zurbano, El Mochuelo, or some other adventurous leader, issued noiselessly from the gates of a town, opened expressly for their egress, to accomplish the surprise of distant post or detachment, a light in some lofty window, of no suspicious appearance to the observer uninformed of its meaning, served as a beacon to the Carlists, and told them that danger was abroad. The Christinos returned empty-handed and disappointed from their fruitless expedition, cursing the treachery which, although they could not prove it, they were well assured was the cause of their failure.

One of the most active, but, at the same time, of the least suspected, of these subtle agents, was a certain Basilio Lopez, cloth-merchant in the city of Pampeluna. He was a man past the middle age, well to do in the world, married and with a family, and certainly, to all appearance, the last person to make or meddle in political intrigues of any kind, especially in such as might, by any possibility, peril his neck. Whoever had seen him, in his soberly cut coat, with his smooth-shaven, sleek, demure countenance and moderately rotund belly, leaning on the half-door of his Almacen de Paños, and witnessed his bland smile as he stepped aside to give admission to a customer or gossip, would have deemed the utmost extent of his plottings to be, how he should get his cloths a real cheaper or sell them at a real more than their market value. There was no speculation, it seemed, in that dull placid countenance, save what related to ells of cloth and steady money-getting. Beyond his business, a well-seasoned puchero and an evening game at loto, might have been supposed to fill up the waking hours and complete the occupations of the worthy cloth-dealer. His large, low-roofed, and somewhat gloomy shop was, like himself, of respectable and business-like aspect, as were also the two pale-faced, elderly clerks who busied themselves amongst innumerable rolls of cloth, the produce of French and Segovian looms. Above the shop was his dwelling-house, a strange, old-fashioned, many-roomed building, with immensely thick walls, long, winding corridors, ending and beginning with short flights of steps, apartments panneled with dark worm-eaten wood, lofty ceilings, and queer quaintly-carved balconies. It was a section of a line of building forming half the side of a street, and which,[Pg 432] in days of yore, had been a convent of monks. Its former inmates, as the story went, had been any thing but ascetics in their practices, and at last so high ran the scandal of their evil doings, that they were fain to leave Pampeluna and establish themselves in another house of their order, south of the Ebro. Some time afterwards the convent had been subdivided into dwelling-houses, and one of these had for many years past been in the occupation of Basilio the cloth-merchant. Inside and out the houses retained much of their old conventual aspect, the only alterations that had been made consisting in the erection of partition walls, the opening of a few additional doors and windows, and the addition of balconies. One of the latter was well known to the younger portion of the officers in garrison at Pampeluna; for there, when the season permitted, the two pretty, black-eyed daughters of Master Basilio were wont to sit, plying their needles with a diligence which did not prevent their sometimes casting a furtive glance into the street, and acknowledging the salutation of some passing acquaintance or military admirer of their graces and perfections.

In this house was it that Herrera and the Count had obtained quarters, and thither, early upon the morrow of their arrival at Pampeluna, Baltasar was conducted. The passage through the streets of a Carlist prisoner, whose uniform denoted him to be of rank, had attracted a little crowd of children and of the idlers ever to be found in Spanish towns; and some of these loitered in front of the house after its door had closed behind Baltasar and his escort. The entrance of the prisoner did not pass unnoticed by Basilio Lopez, who was at his favourite post at the shop-door. His placid physiognomy testified no surprise at the appearance of such unusual visitors; and no one, uninterested in observing him, would have noticed that, as Baltasar passed him, the cloth-merchant managed to catch his eye, and made a very slight, almost an imperceptible sign. It was detected by Baltasar, and served to complete his perplexity, which had already been raised to a high pitch by the different circumstances that had occurred during his brief captivity. He had first been puzzled by Herrera's conduct at Puente de la Reyna; the importance attached by the Christino officer to the possession and identification of his pistols was unaccountable to him, never dreaming of its real motive. Then he could not understand why he was placed in a separate prison, and treated more as a criminal than as a prisoner of war, instead of sharing the captivity and usage of his brother officers. And now, to his further bewilderment, he was conducted to a dwelling-house, before entering which, a man, entirely unknown to him, made him one of the slight but significant signs by which the adherents of Don Carlos were wont to recognise each other. He had not yet recovered from this last surprise, when he was ushered into a room where three persons were assembled. One of these was an aide-de-camp of Cordova, Herrera was another, and in the third, to his unutterable astonishment and consternation, Baltasar recognized Count Villabuena.

There was a moment's silence, during which the cousins gazed at each other; the Count sternly and reproachfully, Baltasar with dilated eyeballs and all the symptoms of one who mistrusts the evidence of his senses. But Baltasar was too old an offender, too hardened in crime and obdurate in character, to be long accessible to emotion of any kind. His intense selfishness caused his own interests and safety to be ever uppermost in his thoughts, and the first momentary shock over, he regained his presence of mind, and was ready to act his part. Affecting extreme delight, he advanced with extended hand towards the Count.

"Dare I believe my eyes?" he exclaimed. "A joyful surprise, indeed, cousin."

"Silence, sir!" sternly interrupted the Count. "Dissimulation will not serve you. You are unmasked—your crimes known. Repent, and, if possible, atone them."

Baltasar recoiled with well-feigned astonishment.

"My crimes!" he indignantly repeated. "What is this, Count? Who accuses me—and of what?"[Pg 433]

Without replying, Count Villabuena looked at Herrera, who approached the door and pronounced a name, at which Baltasar, in spite of his self-command, started and grew pale. Paco entered the apartment.

"Here," said the Count, "is one witness of your villany."

"And here, another," said Herrera, lifting a handkerchief from the table and exhibiting Baltasar's pistols.

The Carlist colonel staggered back as if he had received a blow. All that he had found inexplicable in the events of the last few days was now explained; he saw that he was entrapped, and that his offences were brought home to him. With a look of deadly hate at Herrera and the Count, he folded his arms and stood doggedly silent.

In few words Herrera now informed Baltasar of the power vested in him by Cordova, and stated the condition on which he might yet escape the punishment of his crimes. These, however, Baltasar obstinately persisted in denying; nor were any threats sufficient to extort confession, or to prevail with him to write the desired letter to the abbess. Assuming the high tone of injured innocence, he scoffed at the evidence brought against him, and swore solemnly and deliberately that he was ignorant of Rita's captivity. Paco, he said, as a deserter, was undeserving of credit, and had forged an absurd tale in hopes of reward. As to the pistols, nothing was easier than to cast a bullet to fit them, and he vehemently accused Herrera of having fabricated the account of his firing at his cousin. A violent and passionate discussion ensued, highly agitating to the Conde in his then weak and feverish state. Finding, at length, that all Herrera's menaces had no effect on Baltasar's sullen obstinacy, Count Villabuena, his heart wrung by suspense and anxiety, condescended to entreaty, and strove to touch some chord of good feeling, if, indeed, any still existed, in the bosom of his unworthy kinsman.

"Hear me, Baltasar," he said; "I would fain think the best I can of you. Let us waive the attempt on my life; no more shall be said of it. Gladly will I persuade myself that we have been mistaken; that my wound was the result of a chance shot either from you or your followers. Irregularly armed, one of them may have had pistols of the same calibre as yours. But my daughter, my dear poor Rita! Restore her, Baltasar, and let all be forgotten. On that condition you have Herrera's word and mine that you shall be the very first prisoner exchanged. Oh, Baltasar, do not drive to despair an old man, broken-hearted already! Think of days gone by, never to return; of your childhood, when I have so often held you on my knee; of your youth, when, in spite of difference of age, we were for a while companions and friends. Think of all this, Baltasar, and return not evil for good. Give me back my Rita, and receive my forgiveness, my thanks, my heartfelt gratitude. Your arm shall be stronger in the fight, your head calmer on your pillow, for the righteous and charitable act."

In the excitement of this fervent address, the Count had risen from his chair, and stood with arms extended, and eyes fixed upon the gloomy countenance of Baltasar. His lips quivering with emotion, his trembling voice, pale features, and long grey hair; above all, the subject of his entreaties—a father pleading for the restoration of his only child—and his passionate manner of urging them, rendered the scene inexpressibly touching, and must have moved any but a heart of adamant. Such a one was that of Baltasar, who stood with bent brow and a sneer upon his lip, cold, contemptuous, and relentless.

"Brave talk!" he exclaimed, in his harshest and most brutal tones; "brave talk, indeed, of old friendship and the like! Was it friendship that made you forget me in Ferdinand's time, when your interest might have advanced me? When you wanted me, I heard of you, but not before; and better for me had we never met. You lured me to join a hopeless cause, by promises broken as soon as claimed. You have ruined my prospects, treated me with studied scorn, and now you talk, forsooth, of old kindness and friendship, and sue—to me in chains—for mercy! It has come to that! The haughty Count Villabuena craves mercy at the hands of a[Pg 434] prisoner! I answer you, I know nothing of your daughter; but I also tell you, Count, that if all yonder fellow's lies were truth, and I held the keys of her prison, I would sooner wear out my life in the foulest dungeon than give them up to you. But, pshaw! she thinks little enough about you. She has found her protector, I'll warrant you. There are smart fellows and comely amongst the king's followers, and she won't have wanted for consolation."

It seemed as if Baltasar's defenceless condition was hardly to protect him from the instant punishment of his vile insinuation. With a deep oath, Herrera half drew his sword, and made a step towards the calumniator of his mistress. But his indignation, great though it was, was checked in its expression, and entirely lost sight of, owing to a sudden outbreak of the most furious and uncontrolled anger on the part of the Count. His face, up to that moment so pale, became suffused with blood, till the veins seemed ready to burst; his temples throbbed visibly, his eyes flashed, his lips grew livid, and his teeth chattered with fury.

"Scoundrel!" he shouted, in a voice which had momentarily regained all its power—"scoundrel and liar! Assassin, with what do you reproach me? Why did I cast you off, and when? Never till your own vices compelled me. What promise did I make and not keep? Not one. Base traducer, disgrace to the name you bear! so sure as there is a God in heaven, your misdeeds shall meet their punishment here and hereafter!"

During this violent apostrophe, Baltasar, who, at Herrera's threatening movement, had glanced hurriedly around him as if seeking a weapon of defence, resumed his former attitude of indifference. Leaning against the wall, he stood with folded arms, and gazed with an air of insolent hardihood at the Count, who had advanced close up to him, and who, carried away by his anger, shook his clenched hand almost in his cousin's face. Suddenly, however, overcome and exhausted by the violence of his emotions, and by this agitating scene, the Count tottered, and would have fallen to the ground, had not Herrera and Torres hurried to his support. They placed him in his chair, into which he helplessly sank; his head fell back, the colour again left his cheeks, and his eyes closed.

"He has fainted," cried Herrera.

The Count was indeed insensible. Torres hastened to unfasten his cravat.

"Air!" exclaimed Torres; "give him air!"

Herrera ran to the window and threw it open. Water was thrown upon the Count's face, but without reviving him; and his swoon was so deathlike, that for a moment his anxious friends almost feared that life had actually departed.

"Let him lie down," said Torres, looking around for a sofa. There was none in the room.

"Let us place him on his bed," cried Herrera. And, aided by Torres and Paco, he carefully raised the Count and carried him into an adjoining room, used as a bedchamber. Baltasar remained in the same place which he had occupied during the whole time of the interview, namely, on the side of the room furthest from the windows, and with his back against the wall.

It has already been said that Baltasar de Villabuena had few friends. In all Pampeluna there was probably not one man, even amongst his former comrades of the guard, who would have moved a step out of his way to serve or save him; and certainly, in the whole city, there were scarcely half a dozen persons who, through attachment to the Carlist cause, would have incurred any amount of risk to rescue one of its defenders. Most fortunately for Baltasar, it was in the house of one of those rare but strenuous adherents of Don Carlos that he now found himself. Scarcely had the Count and his bearers passed through the doorway between the two rooms, when a slight noise close to him caused Baltasar to turn. A pannel of the chamber wall slid back, and the sleek rotund visage of the man who had exchanged signs with him as he entered the house, appeared at the aperture. His finger was on his lips, and his small grey eyes gleamed with an unusual expression of decision and vigilance. One lynx-like glance he cast into the apartment,[Pg 435] and then grasping the arm of Baltasar, he drew, almost dragged him through the opening. The pannel closed with as little noise as it had opened.

Ten seconds elapsed, not more, and Herrera, who, in his care for the Count, had momentarily forgotten the prisoner, hurried back into the apartment. Astonished to find it empty, but not dreaming of an escape, he ran to the antechamber. The corporal and two soldiers, who had escorted Baltasar, rose from the bench whereon they had seated themselves, and carried arms.

"And the prisoner?" cried Herrera.

They had not seen him. Herrera darted back into the sitting-room.

"Where is the prisoner?" exclaimed Torres, whom he met there.

"Escaped!" cried Herrera. "The window! the window!"

They rushed to the open window. It was at the side of the house, and looked out upon a narrow street, having a dead wall for some distance along one side, and little used as a thoroughfare. At that moment not a living creature was to be seen in it. The height of the window from the ground did not exceed a dozen feet, offering an easy leap to a bold and active man, and one which, certainly, no one in Baltasar's circumstances would for a moment have hesitated to take. Herrera threw himself over the balcony, and dropping to the ground, ran off down a neighbouring lane, round the corner of which he fancied, on first reaching the window, that he saw the skirt of a man's coat disappear. Leaving the Count, who was now regaining consciousness, in charge of Paco, Torres hurried out to give the alarm and cause an immediate pursuit.

But in vain, during the whole of that day, was the most diligent search made throughout the town for the fugitive Carlist. Every place where he was likely to conceal himself, the taverns and lower class of posadas, the parts of the town inhabited by doubtful and disreputable characters, the houses of several suspected Carlists, were in turn visited, but not a trace of Baltasar could be found, and the night came without any better success. Herrera was furious, and bitterly reproached himself for his imprudence in leaving the prisoner alone even for a moment. His chief hope, a very faint one, now was, that Baltasar would be detected when endeavouring to leave the town. Strict orders were given to the sentries at the gates, to observe all persons going out of Pampeluna, and to stop any of suspicious appearance, or who could not give a satisfactory account of themselves.

The hour of noon, upon the day subsequent to Baltasar's disappearance, was near at hand, and the peasants who daily visited Pampeluna with the produce of their farms and orchards, were already preparing to depart. The presence of Cordova's army, promising them a great accession of custom, and the temporary absence from the immediate vicinity of the Carlist troops, who frequently prevented their visiting Christino towns with their merchandise, had caused an unusual concourse of country-people to Pampeluna during the few days that the Christino army had already been quartered there. Each morning, scarcely were the gates opened when parties of peasants, and still more numerous ones of short-petticoated, brown-legged peasant women, entered the town, and pausing upon the market-place, proceeded to arrange the stores of fowls, fruit, vegetables, and similar rustic produce, which they had brought on mules and donkeys, or in large heavy baskets upon their heads. Long before the sun had attained a sufficient height to cast its beams into the broad cool-looking square upon which the market was held, a multitude of stalls had been erected, and were covered with luscious fruits and other choice products of the fertile soil of Navarre. Piles of figs bursting with ripeness; melons, green and yellow, rough and smooth; tomatas; scarlet and pulpy; grapes in glorious bunches of gold and purple; cackling poultry and passive rabbits; the whole intermingled with huge heaps of vegetables, and nose-gays of beautiful flowers, were displayed in wonderful profusion to the gaze of the admiring soldiers, who soon thronged to the scene of bustle. As the morning advanced, numerous[Pg 436] maid-servants, trim, arch-looking damsels, with small neatly-shod feet, basket on arm, and shading their complexion from the increasing heat of the sun under cotton parasols of ample dimensions, tripped along between the rows of sellers, pausing here and there to bargain for fruit or fowl, and affecting not to hear the remarks of the soldiers, who lounged in their neighbourhood, and expressed their admiration by exclamations less choice than complimentary. The day wore on; the stalls were lightened, the baskets emptying, but the market became each moment more crowded. Little parties of officers emerged from the coffee-houses where they had breakfasted, and strolled up and down, criticizing the buxom forms and pretty faces of the peasant girls; here and there a lady's mantilla appeared amongst the throng of female heads, which, for the most part, were covered only with coloured handkerchiefs, or left entirely bare, protected but by black and redundant tresses, the boast of the Navarrese maidens. Catalonian wine-sellers, their queer-shaped kegs upon their backs, bartered their liquor for the copper coin of the thirsty soldiers; pedlars displayed their wares, and sardineras vaunted their fish; ballad-singers hawked about copies of patriotic songs; mahogany-coloured gitanas executed outlandish, and not very decent, dances; whilst here and there, in a quiet nook, an itinerant gaming-table keeper had erected his board, and proved that he, of all others, best knew how to seduce the scanty and hard-earned maravedis from the pockets of the pleasure-seeking soldiery.

But, as already mentioned, the hour of noon now approached, and marketing was over for that day. The market-place, and its adjacent streets, so thronged a short time previously, became gradually deserted under the joint influence of the heat and the approaching dinner hour. The peasants, some of whom came from considerable distances, packed up their empty baskets, and, with lightened loads and heavy pockets, trudged down the streets leading to the town gates.

At one of these gates, leading out of the town in a northerly direction, several of the men on guard were assembled, amusing themselves at the expense of the departing peasantry, whose uncouth physiognomy and strange clownish appearance afforded abundant food for the quaint jokes and comical remarks of the soldiers. The market people were, for the most part, women, old men, and boys; the able-bodied men from the country around Pampeluna, having, with few exceptions, left their homes, either voluntarily or by compulsion, to take service in the Carlist ranks. Beneath the projecting portico of the guard-house, sat a sergeant, occupied, in obedience to orders given since the escape of Baltasar, in surveying the peasants as they passed with a keen and scrutinizing glance. For some time, however, this military Cerberus found no object of suspicion in any of the passers-by. Lithe active lads, greyhaired old men, and women whose broad shoulders and brawny limbs might well have belonged to disguised dragoons, but who, nevertheless, were unmistakeably of the softer sex, made up the different groups which successively rode or walked through the gate. Gradually the departures became less numerous, and the sergeant less vigilant; he yawned, stretched himself in his chair, rolled up a most delicate cigarrito between his large rough fingers, and lighting it, puffed away with an appearance of supreme beatitude.

"Small use watching," said he to a corporal. "The fellow's not likely to leave the town in broad daylight, with every body on the look-out for him."

"True," was the answer. "He'll have found a hiding-place in the house of some rascally Carlist. There are plenty in Pampeluna."

"Well," said the first speaker, "I'm tired of this, and shall punish my stomach no longer. Whilst I take my dinner, do you take my place. Stay, let yonder cabbage-carriers pass."

The peasants referred to by the sergeant, were a party of half a dozen women, and nearly as many lads and men, who just then showed themselves at the end of the street, coming towards the gate. Most of them[Pg 437] were mounted on rough mountain ponies and jackasses, although three or four of the women trudged afoot, with pyramids of baskets balanced upon their heads, the perspiration streaming down their faces from the combined effects of the sun and their load. The last of the party was a stout man, apparently some five-and-forty years of age, dressed in a jacket and breeches of coarse brown cloth, and seated sideways on a scraggy mule, in such a position that his back was to the guard-house as he passed it. On the opposite side of the animal hung a pannier, containing cabbages and other vegetables; the unsold residue of the rider's stock in trade. The peasant's legs, naked below the knee, were tanned by the sun to the same brown hue as his face and bare throat; his feet were sandalled, and just above one of his ankles, a soiled bandage, apparently concealing a wound, was wrapped. A broad-brimmed felt hat shaded his half-closed eyes and dull stolid countenance, and the only thing that in any way distinguished him from the generality of peasants was his hair, which was cut short behind, instead of hanging, according to the usual custom of the province, in long ragged locks over the coat collar.

Occupied with his cigar and gossip, the sergeant vouchsafed but a careless and cursory glance to this party, and they were passing on without hindrance, when, from a window of the guard-house, a voice called to them to halt.

"How now, sergeant!" exclaimed the young ensign on guard. "What is the meaning of this? Why do these people pass without examination?"

The negligent sergeant rose hastily from his chair, and, assuming an attitude of respect, faltered an excuse.

"Peasants, sir; market-people."

The officer, who had been on guard since the preceding evening, had been sitting in his room, waiting the arrival of his dinner, which was to be sent to him from his quarters, and was rather behind time. The delay had put him out of temper.

"How can you tell that? You are cunning to know people without looking at then. Let them wait."

And the next moment he issued from the guard-house, and approached the peasants.

"Your name?" said he, sharply, to the first of the party.

"José Samaniego," was the answer. "A poor aldeano from Artica, para servir á vuestra señoria. These are my wife and daughter."

The speaker was an old, greyhaired man, with wrinkled features, and a stoop in his shoulders; and, notwithstanding a cunning twinkle in his eye, there was no mistaking him for any thing else than he asserted himself to be.

The officer turned away from him, glanced at the rest of the party, and seemed about to let them pass, when his eye fell upon the sturdy, crop-headed peasant already referred to. He immediately approached him.

"Where do you come from?" said he, eyeing him with a look of suspicion.

The sole reply was a stare of stupid surprise. The officer repeated the question.

"From Berriozar," answered the man, naming a village at a greater distance from Pampeluna than the one to which old Samaniego claimed to belong. And then, as if he supposed the officer inclined to become a customer, he reached over to his pannier and took out a basket of figs.

"Fine figs, your worship," said he, mixing execrably bad Spanish with Basque words. "Muy barato. You shall have them very cheap."

When the man mentioned his place of abode, two or three of the women exchanged a quick glance of surprise; but this escaped the notice of the officer, who now looked hard in the peasant's face, which preserved its former expression of immovable and sleepy stupidity.

"Dismount," said the ensign.

The man pointed to his bandaged ankle; but on a repetition of the order he obeyed, with a grimace of pain, and then stood on one leg, supporting himself against the mule.

"I shall detain this fellow," said the officer, after a moment's pause. "Take him into the guard-room."

Just then a respectable-looking, elderly citizen, on his return apparently from a stroll outside the forti[Pg 438]fications, walked past on his way into the town. On perceiving the young officer, he stopped and shook hands with him.

"Welcome to Pampeluna, Don Rafael!" he exclaimed. "Your regiment I knew was here, but could not believe that you had come with it, since I had never before known you to neglect your old friends."

"No fault of mine, Señor Lopez," replied the officer. "Three days here, and not a moment's rest from guards and fatigue duty."

"Well, don't forget us; Ignacia and Dolores look for you. Ah, Blas! you here? How's your leg, poor Blas? Did you bring the birds I ordered?"

These questions were addressed to the lame peasant, who replied by a grin of recognition; and an assurance that the birds in question had been duly delivered to his worship's servant.

"Very good," said Lopez. "Good morning, Don Rafael."

The young officer stopped him.

"You know this man, then, Señor Lopez?" inquired the ensign.

"Know him? as I know you. Our poultry-man; and if you will sup with us to-night, when you come off guard, you shall eat a fowl of his fattening."

"With pleasure," replied the ensign. "You may go," he added, turning to the peasant. "Let these people pass, sergeant. May I be shot, Don Basilio, if I didn't mean to detain your worthy poulterer on suspicion of his being a better man than he looked. There has been an escape, and a sharp watch is held to keep the runaway in the town. It would have been cruel, indeed, to stop the man who brings me my supper. Ha, ha! a capital joke! Stopping my own supplies!"

"A capital joke, indeed," said Lopez, laughing heartily. "Well, good bye, Don Rafael. We shall expect you to-night."

And the cloth-merchant walked away, his usual pleasant smile upon his placid face, whilst the peasants passed through the gate; and the officer, completely restored to good-humour by the prospect of a dainty supper and pleasant flirtation with Don Basilio's pretty daughters, proceeded to the discussion of his dinner, which just then made its appearance.

Crossing the river, the party of peasants who had met with this brief delay, rode along for a mile or more without a word being spoken amongst them. Presently they came to a place where three roads branched off, and here the lame peasant, who had continued to ride in rear of the others, separated from them, with an abrupt "adios!" Old Samaniego looked round, and his shrivelled features puckered themselves into a comical smile.

"Is that your road to Berriozar, neighbour?" said he. "It is a new one, if it be."

The person addressed cast a glance over his shoulder, and muttered an inaudible reply, at the same time that he thrust his hand under the vegetables that half filled his panniers.

"If you live in Berriozar, I live in heaven," said Samaniego. "But fear nothing from us. Viva el Rey Carlos!"

He burst into a shrill laugh, echoed by his companions, and, quickening their pace, the party was presently out of sight. The lame peasant, who, as the reader will already have conjectured, was no other than Baltasar de Villabuena, rode on for some distance further, till he came to an extensive copse fringing the base of a mountain. Riding in amongst the trees, he threw away his pannier, previously taking from it a large horse pistol which had been concealed at the bottom. He then stripped the bandage from his leg, bestrode his mule, and vigorously belabouring the beast with a stick torn from a tree, galloped away in the direction of the Carlist territory.[Pg 439]

HOW THEY MANAGE MATTERS IN "THE MODEL REPUBLIC."

In the present doubtful state of our relations with the American Republic, many anxious eyes are of course being directed across the Atlantic, and much speculation excited as to the present policy and ultimate designs of that anomalous and ambitious people. Since increased facilities of communication have brought the two continents into closer union, and afforded their respective inhabitants more frequent opportunities of observing each other's political and social arrangements, it cannot, we think be said with truth, that those of the United States have risen in favour with the enlightened minds of Europe, least of all with those of England. For the obvious failings of that Republic are of a kind eminently adapted to shock minds cast in the European mould; while her virtues, however appropriate to the transatlantic soil in which they flourish, do not either so readily suggest themselves to the notice of the Old World, or, when fully realized, command a very extraordinary degree of respect. We do not very highly appreciate the liberty which appears to us license, nor the equality which brings with it neither good manners nor good morals, nor the vast material progress which occupies the energies of her people, to the exclusion of more elevating pursuits. There are moreover griefs connected with the United States which come peculiarly home to British interests and prejudices; the existence of slavery, for instance, in its most revolting form, in direct opposition to the spirit of their institutions, and to the very letter of that celebrated declaration which is the basis of all their governments; the repudiation or non-payment of debts contracted for the purposes of public works, of which they are every day reaping the advantages; and the unprincipled invasion of our Canadian frontier by their citizens during the late disturbances in that colony. Within the last few months, more particularly, they have committed many and grievous offences against their own dignity, the peace of the world, and the interests of Britain. We have heard their chief magistrate defy Christendom, and inform the world that the American continent is, for the future, to be held as in fee-simple by the United States; we have seen Texas forcibly torn from feeble Mexico, and the negotiations on the subject of Oregon brought to a close by a formal declaration, that the American title to the whole of it is "clear and unquestionable." They have displayed, in the conduct of their foreign relations during the past year, a vulgar indifference to the opinion of mankind, and an overweening estimate of their own power, which it is at once ludicrous and painful to behold. Nor is there reason to believe that these blots on the escutcheon of a nation, so young and so unembarrassed, are either deeply regretted or will be speedily effaced. We see no reaction of national virtue against national wrongdoing. For the cause of this great Republic is not, as in other countries, dependent upon the will of the one man, or the few men, who are charged with the functions of government, but on the will of the great mass of the people, deliberately and frequently expressed. The rule of the majority is in America no fiction, but a practical reality; and the folly or wisdom, the justice or injustice of her public acts, may, in ordinary times, be assumed as fair exponents of the average good sense and morals of the bulk of her citizens.

We are not of those who charge the democratic institutions of the United States as a crime upon their people, or who think that, in separating themselves from the British crown, they were guilty of a deliberate wickedness which has yet to be expiated. Whether that separation was fully justified by the circumstances of the time, is a question upon which we do not propose to enter: but having so separated, it does not appear that any course was left open to them but that which they have pursued. Through the negligence of the mother country, no pains had been taken to plant even the germs of British institutions in her American colonies, and the War of Independence found them already in possession of all, and more[Pg 440] than all, of the democratic elements of our constitution; while the feeling of personal attachment to the sovereign had died out through distance and neglect, and the influence of the aristocracy and the church was altogether unknown. Even in Virginia, where, in consequence of the existence of domestic slavery on a large scale, and the laws of primogeniture and entail, a certain aristocratical feeling had sprung up, a jealousy of the British crown and parliament showed itself from first to last, at least as strongly as elsewhere; and the ink of the Declaration of Independence was scarcely dry, before those laws of property were repealed, and every vestige of an Established Church swept away. Nothing then remained, in the absence of Conservative principles and traditions, but to construct their government upon the broadest basis of Democracy; accordingly, the triumph of that principle was complete from the first. The genius of progressive democracy may have removed some of the slender barriers with which it has found itself accidentally embarrassed; but it has not been able to add any thing to the force of those pithy abstractions which were endorsed by the most respectable chiefs of the Revolution, and which remain to sanctify its wildest aspirations.

All men, therefore, in America—that is, all white men—are "free and equal;" and every thing that has been done in her political world for the last half century has gone to illustrate and carry out this somewhat intractable hypothesis. Upon this principle, the vote of John Jacob Astor, with his twenty-five millions of dollars, is neutralized by that of the Irish pauper just cast upon its shores. The millionaire counts one, and so does the dingy unit of Erin, though the former counts for himself, and the latter for his demagogue and his priest. The exclusion of women and negroes from this privilege remains, it is true, a hiatus valde deflendus by the choicer spirits of the democracy. It is thought, however, that the system will shortly be completed by the addition of these new constellations. At this moment, in prospect of a convention to re-tinker the constitution, two agitations are going on in the state of New York—one to secure the "Political Rights of Women;" the other to extend those which negroes, under certain grievous restrictions, already enjoy. The theory of virtual representation has been held up to these two classes of citizens with as little success as to our own Radicals. Both negroes and women throw themselves upon the broad fact of their common humanity, and indignantly demand wherefore a black skin or a gentle sex should disqualify their possessors from the exercise of the dearest privilege of freemen.

Now, however absurd this system may appear to us in the abstract, and however strongly we should resist its application to our own political case, we believe, as we said before, that the Americans have no choice in the matter but to make it work as well as possible, and that it is for the interest of the world, as well as for their own, that it should so work. The preservation of peace, and our commercial relations with the United States, are far more important to us than the triumph of an idea. We are quite content, if they will permit us, to remain on the best of terms with our transatlantic descendants, and to see them happy and prosperous in their own way. We even think it fortunate for mankind that the principle of self-government is being worked out in that remote region, and under the most favourable circumstances, in order that the civilized world may take note thereof, and guide itself accordingly. It is, we know, a favourite theme with their demagogues, that the glory and virtue and happiness of Yankee-doodle-doo have inspired the powers of the rotten Old World with the deepest jealousy and hatred, and that every crown in Europe pales before the lustre of that unparalleled confederacy. Nothing can be wider of the truth, pleasing as the illusion may be to the self-love of the most vainglorious people under the sun. The prestige which America and her institutions once undoubtedly enjoyed in many parts of Europe is rapidly fading away, as each successive post brings fresh evidence of her vices and her follies. We can, indeed, recollect a time when the example of the model Republic was held up for admiration in the most respectable quarters, and[Pg 441] was the trump-card at every gathering of Radical reformers. But now the scene is changed—now, "none so poor to do her reverence." Even Chartist and Suffrage-men, Mr Miall and the Northern Star, have at last

—— "forgot to speak
That once familiar word."

They turn from her, and pass away as gingerly as the chorus in the Greek play from the purlieus of those ominous goddesses—

ἁς τρἑμομεν λἑγειν
και παραμειβὁμεθ
αδἑρχὡτως αφὡτας—

Mr O'Connell himself can find no room in his capacious affections for men who repudiate their debts, burn convents, "mob the finest pisantry," and keep a sixth of their population in chains in the name of liberty!

If "the great unwashed" on the other side of the Atlantic, will only consent to send men to their councils of moderately pure hearts and clean hands, they may rest assured that any conspiracy which the united powers of kings, nobles, and priests may devise against them, will take little by its motion. But they do just the reverse, as we shall presently show. The profligacy of their public men is proverbial throughout the states; and the coarse avidity with which they bid against each other for the petty spoils of office, is quite incomprehensible to an European spectator. To "make political capital," as their slang phrase goes, for themselves or party, the most obvious policy of the country is disregarded, the plainest requirements of morality and common sense set aside, and the worst impulses of the people watched, waited on, and stimulated into madness. To listen to the debates in Congress, one would think the sole object of its members in coming together, was to make themselves and their country contemptible. Owing to the rantings of this august body, and the generally unimportant character of the business brought before it, little is known of its proceedings in Europe except through the notices of some passing traveller. But its shame does not consist merely or chiefly in the occasional bowie-knife or revolver produced to clinch the argument of some ardent Western member, nor even in the unnoted interchange of compliments not usually current amongst gentlemen. Much more deplorable is the low tone of morality and taste which marks their proceedings from first to last, the ruffian-like denunciations, the puerile rants, the sanguinary sentiments poured forth day by day without check or censure. This is harsh language, but they shall be judged out of their own mouths. We have before us a file of the Congressional Globe, the official record of the debates in both Houses, extending from December 12 to January 15. During this period the Oregon question was called up nearly every day, and we propose to give some specimens, verbatim et literatim, of the spirit in which it has been discussed. We shall give notices of the speakers and their constituents as we go along, to show that the madness is not confined to one particular place or party, but is common to Whig and Democrat, to the representatives of the Atlantic as well as of the Western states. Most of our European readers will, we think, agree with us, that, considering the entire absence of provocation, and the infinitely trivial nature of the matter in dispute, these rhetorical flourishes are without parallel in the history of civilized senates.

What is commonly called Oregon, is a strip of indifferent territory betwixt the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is separated from both the American and British possessions by an arid wilderness of great extent, or by many thousands of miles of tempestuous navigation, via Cape Horn. Since 1818, the claims of both parties to this region have been allowed to lie in abeyance under a convention of joint occupancy, if the advantages enjoyed in common by a handful of traders and trappers of both nations can be so called. The settlers from both countries are still numbered by hundreds, and the soil is very ill adapted to agricultural purposes; in short, it is the last thing in the world that a decent nation would get into a passion about. Still, as the previous administration had gained much glory by completing the robbery of Texas from Mexico, Mr Polk has thought fit to illustrate his by an attempt to squeeze and bully the sterner majesty of England. Accordingly, in his message, he boasts of having offered less[Pg 442] favourable terms than his predecessors; and these being of course rejected, retires with dignity upon the completeness of the American title, and intimates that the time is at hand when the rights of his country must be asserted, if necessary, by the sword. All this is new light to all the parties concerned; this tempest in a tea-pot is of Mr Polk's own particular brewing; the real Oregon being a little political capital, as aforesaid, for himself. So far he has been eminently successful, for the fierce democracy howls forth its applause upon the floor of Congress, in manner and form as followeth:—

Mr Cass, Democratic senator from Michigan, an insolvent western state, opened the ball on the 12th of December. He is said to aspire to the presidential chair, and is already a full general of militia. We give him his civil title, however, because we find him so set down in the Globe, which knows best what the military one is worth. There is nothing remarkable in his speech, except the fuss which he makes about national honour. He may find it lying in the ditch, much nearer home than Oregon—

This statement of the relative value of "national character" as compared with the precious metals, will be very edifying to the creditors of Michigan.

Mr Serier, Democratic senator from Arkansas, another insolvent western state, is a still richer representative of the majesty of the American senate. This state is the headquarters of the bowie-knife, revolver, and Judge Lynch regime, and Mr S.'s education in these particulars does not appear to have been neglected.

No doubt of it. Furthermore, Mr Serier cannot think of arbitration, because—

What a love of a senator! We put it to the House of Lords—have they any thing to show like unto this nobleman of the woods?—We will now, with the permission of our readers, introduce them for a few moments[Pg 443] to the House of Representatives. Mr Douglas, a Democratic representative from Illinois, another insolvent western state, wants to know why Great Britain should not be bullied as well as Mexico.

Our next extract will be from the speech of Mr Adams, a Whig representative from, we regret to say, Massachusetts, which is in every respect the pattern state of the Union. We are willing to believe that in this single case the orator does not represent the feelings of the majority of his constituents. Mr Adams has filled the Presidential chair, and other high offices; and, while secretary of state, permitted himself to say on a public occasion, that the madness of George the Third was a divine infliction for the course that monarch had pursued towards the United States. The ruling passions of his life are said to be, hatred to England and to his southern brethren; and he thinks that war would gratify both these malignant crotchets at once, as the former would, in that contingency, lose Canada, and the latter their slaves. He urges that notice to terminate the convention of joint occupation should be given, and then observes—

This profligate drivel is uttered by the Nestor of the commonwealth, an infirm old man, with one foot in the grave. In order, however, to make the course pursued by this gentleman and the next speaker intelligible to the English reader, we may explain that, by the annexation of Texas, the Southern States have a majority of votes in Congress; the Northern States are therefore indifferent about war for Oregon, and the abolitionists among them frantic for it, in order that their domestic balance of power may be restored. Mr Giddings, a Whig[Pg 444] representative from Ohio, and a red-hot abolitionist, indulges in the following most wicked and treasonable remarks:—

We hold up the ferocious cant of this mock philanthropist to the scorn of all good men, whether in Europe or America. So, because "the domestic institution" of his happy land is not to the taste of this Giddings, thousands of white men are to imbrue their hands in each other's blood, and England, the great champion of the negro race, at her own expense, is to be driven by force of arms out of Oregon. It is consoling, however, to find at last by their own confession, that there is a weak place—and a very weak one too—in "the area of freedom."

Besides the acquisition of Canada, which is put down on all hands as a "gone 'coon," other brilliant results are to ensue from the possession of Oregon. Mr Ingersoll, (Whig,) "a drab-coloured man" from Pennsylvania—"flattered himself that two years would not elapse before the Chinese and Japanese—sober, industrious, and excellent people—would be attracted there to settle. It was only a short voyage across the Pacific Ocean. Millions of those starving workmen who, in point of sobriety, industry, and capacity, were among the best in the world—workmen from every isle in the Pacific—men able to outwork the English, would flock there."

In the same fine strain of prophecy, Mr Darragh, another "drab" of the Democratic school, observes—

But it won't till you've paid your debts, O Darragh!

Mr Baker, (Whig,) another insolvent from Illinois, is very rich and rapacious—

This may be considered bad to beat; yet, in our opinion, a choice spirit from Missouri, Sims by name, does it—

Certainly, Sims—there is no false modesty, you will observe, in this good Sims. He thus defines his position.

A touching episode in the life of Sims!—

The feelings of the female Sims, and all the little Simses, on reading that last sentence! We shudder to think of it. Sims, however, has made up his mind that the exploit is no great matter after all.

The peroration of this harangue is, perhaps, the funniest part of it all,[Pg 446] but want of space compels us to omit it. We let Sims drop with great reluctance, and pass over several minor luminaries who are quite unworthy to follow in his wake. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to introduce to you Mr Kennedy, a Democratic representative from Indiana—a very insolvent Western state, and a celebrated "British or any other lion" tamer.

After this mysterious announcement, he enquires—

Once more into the lion—or lioness—for it does not appear exactly which this time!

Mr Kennedy's solicitude for the rising generation is very touching—

In order to show the truly awful and more than Chinese populousness of this ancient State of Indiana, which was admitted into the Union so long ago as 1816, we may observe that its superficial extent is thirty-six thousand square miles, or twenty-three millions and forty thousand acres. The population in 1840, black and white all told, amounted to the astounding number of six hundred and eighty-five thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, or about one-third of that of London! The adjoining states of Illinois and Missouri are still less densely peopled.

Mr Kennedy's opinions touching the British government—

We cannot help the confusion of genders. It's so writ down in the Globe, as are all our quotations—verbatim. Here comes a fine "death or glory" blast—

Hoorra!—Only one more quotation from Kennedy, and that because it permits us to take a last fond look at Sims, who re-appears, for a moment, like a meteor on the scene of his past glories!

Mr Hamlin, a Democratic representative from Maine, one of the pattern New England states, is not far behind his Western brethren—

Mr Stanton, a Democratic representative from the slave state of Tennessee—Polk's own—observes, that war about Oregon

Peace, this person observes, is rather nearer his heart than any thing else, but

After all this, our readers will be little surprised to find that a Mr Gordon, from the rich and partially civilized state of New York, whose commercial relations with us are of such magnitude and importance, makes an ass of himself with the best of them.

Mr Bunkerhoff, from Ohio, and his people—

Mr Chipman, from Michigan, thus whistles Yankee-doodle, with the usual thorough-base accompaniment of self-conceit:—

Your Yankee proper can no more "get along" without his spice of cant, than without his chew of tobacco and his nasal twang. What follows, however, took even us by surprise:—

What Mr Chipman would do—if—

Though Michigan has the benefit of this hero's councils, he is at the pains to inform us that Vermont, a New England state, claims his birth, parentage, and education—a fact which we gladly record on the enduring page of Maga for the benefit of the future compiler of the Chipman annals. He closes an oration, scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of Sims, with a melodious tribute to the land of his nativity.

Magnifique—superbe—pretty well! Would not the world like to know something of the resources of this unknown anthropophagous state which throws down the gauntlet so boldly? Well, in this very year of grace, the population of Vermont amounts to no less than 300,000 souls of all ages, sexes, and colours! She pays her governor the incredible sum of £150 a-year. Her exports in 1840 amounted to £60,000. Every thing about her is on the same homoeopathic scale, except her heroes!

We have by no means exhausted our file, but our patience is expended, and so we fear is that of our readers. We write this in the city of New York, in the first week of February, and the debate is still proceeding in a tone, if possible, still more outrageous and absurd. The most astounding feature of the whole is, that the "collective wisdom" of any country professing to be civilized, can come together day after day and listen to such trash, without censure—without even the poor penalty of a sneer.

The Americans complain that they have been grievously misrepresented by the British press. Mrs Trollope, Mr Dickens, and other authors, are no doubt very graphic and clever in their way; but in order to do this people full justice, they must be allowed to represent themselves. A man[Pg 449] must go amongst them fully to realize how hopeless and deplorable a state of things is that phase of society which halts betwixt barbarism and civilization, and is curiously deficient in the virtues of both. If he wishes to form a low idea of his species, let him spend a week or two at Washington; let him go amongst the little leaders of party in that preposterous capital, watch their little tricks, the rapacity with which they clutch the meanest spoils and wonder how political profligacy grows fat upon diet so meagre and uninviting. He will come away with a conviction, already indorsed by the more respectable portion of the American community, that their government is the most corrupt under the sun; but he will not, with them, lay the flattering notion to his soul, that the people of whom such men are the chosen representatives and guides, are likely to contribute much to the aggregate of human happiness, freedom, and civilization.

As to the denunciations of Great Britain, so thickly strewn through these carmina non prius audita of the Congressional muse, we are sure they will excite no feeling in our readers but that of pity and contempt, and that comment upon them is unnecessary. The jealousy of foreign nations towards the arts and arms of his country, is no new experience to the travelled Englishman. Still, as the Americans have no reason to be particularly sore on the subject of our arms, and as they appropriate our arts, at a very small expense, to themselves, they might afford, we should think, to let the British lion alone, and glorify themselves without for ever shaking their fists in the face of that magnanimous beast. In a political point of view, however, the deep-seated hostility of this people towards the British government, is a fact neither to be concealed nor made light of. From a somewhat extended personal observation, the writer of this is convinced that war at any time, and in any cause, would be popular with a large majority of the inhabitants of the United States. It is in vain to oppose to their opinion the interests of their commerce, and the genius of their institutions, so unsuited to schemes of warlike aggrandizement. The government of the United States is in the hands of the mob, which has as little to lose there as elsewhere, by convulsion of any kind.

We are willing to believe that the person who at present fills the Presidential chair at Washington, is fully alive to the responsibilities of his situation, and would gladly allay the storm which himself and his party have heretofore formed for their own most unworthy purposes. He knows full well that the dispute is in itself of the most trumpery nature; that the course of Great Britain has been throughout moderate and conciliatory to the last degree; that the military and financial position of the United States is such as to forbid a warlike crisis; and that, if hostilities were to ensue betwixt Great Britain and his country, no time could be more favourable to the former than the present. Yet, with all these inducements to peace, we fear he will find it impossible to bring matters to a satisfactory termination. But should an opportunity occur of taking us at disadvantage—should we find ourselves, for instance, involved in war with any powerful European nation—we may lay our account to have this envious and vindictive people on our backs. We are not, therefore, called upon to anticipate the trial, and to take the course of events into our own hands; but still less ought we to make any concessions, however trifling, which may retard, but will eventually exasperate, our difficulties. Much is in our power on the continent of North America, if we are but true to our own interests and to those of mankind. We should cherish to the utmost that affectionate and loyal spirit, which at present so eminently distinguishes our flourishing colony of Canada; we should look to it, that such a form of government be established in Mexico as shall at once heal her own dissensions, and guarantee her against the further encroachments of her neighbours; and we should invite other European nations to join with us in informing the populace of the United States, that they cannot be indulged in the gratification of those predatory interests, which the public opinion of the age happily denies to the most compact despotisms and the most powerful empires.[Pg 450]

ANTONIO PEREZ.

As often as we revisit the fair city of Brussels, an irresistible attraction leads us from the heights crowned with its modern palaces, down among the localities of the valley beneath, the seat and scene of so many of the old glories of the capital of the Netherlands. On these occasions our steps unconsciously deviate a little from the direct line of descent, turning off on the left hand towards the Hotel d'Aremberg. But it is not to saunter through the elegant interior of this princely mansion, and linger over exquisite pictures and rare Etruscan vases, that we then approach it. Our musing eye sees not the actual walls shining with intolerable whiteness in the fierce summer-sun, but the towers of an ancient edifice, long ago demolished by the pitiless Alva, which once, as the Hotel de Cuylembourg, covered the same site. Beneath its roof the Protestant Confederates, in 1566, drew up their memorable "Request" to Margaret of Parma; and at one of its windows these "Beggars," being dismissed with such contumelious scorn from the presence of the Regent, nobly converted the stigma into a war-cry; and, with the wallet of the "Gueux" slung across their shoulders, drank out of wooden porringers a benison on the cause of the emancipation of the United Provinces. So prompted to think of these stirring times, we are carried by the steep declivity of a few streets to that magnificent Town Hall, where, only eleven years before the occurrences in the Hotel Cuylembourg, Charles V. had resigned into the hands of his son Philip the sovereignty of an extensive and flourishing empire. All that could be achieved by the energy of a mind confident of its own force and clearness—by a strong will wielding enormous resources of power—by prudence listening to, and able to balance, cautious experience, and fearless impetuosity—and by consummate skill in the art of government, had been laboriously and successfully achieved by Charles. To Philip he transferred the most fertile, delightful, opulent, and industrious countries of Europe—Spain and the Netherlands, Milan and Naples. His African possessions included Tunis and Oran, the Cape Verd and Canary islands. The Moluccas, the Philippine and Sunda islands heaped his storehouses with the spices, and fruits, and prolific vegetable riches of the Indian Ocean; while from the New World, the mines of Mexico, Chili, and Potosi poured into his treasury their tributary floods of gold. His mighty fleet was still an invincible armada; and his army, inured to war, and accustomed to victory under heroic captains, upheld the wide renown of the Spanish infantry. But neither the abilities nor the auspicious fortunes of Charles were inherited with this vast dominion by Philip. It is almost a mystery the crumbling away during his reign of such wealth and such strength. To read the riddle, we must know Philip. The biography which we shall now hurriedly sketch, of one of his most eminent favourites and ministers, who was, also, one of the most remarkable men that ever lived, enables us to see further into the breast of the gloomy, jealous, and cruel king, than we could hope to do by the less penetrating light of general history.

It was in the course of the year 1594, that the mother of the great Lord Bacon wrote bitterly to his brother Anthony—"Tho' I pity your brother, yet so long as he pities not himself, but keepeth that bloody Perez, yea, as a coach-companion and bed-companion, a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose being about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and doth less bless your brother in credit, and otherwise in his health, surely I am utterly discouraged, and make conscience further to undo myself to maintain such wretches as he[Pg 451] is, that never loved your brother but for his own credit, living upon him."

This dark portrait, even from the pencil of maternal anxiety, is not overcharged with shade. A few words, which could not have been uttered by the Lady Bacon except as a prophetess, we may add in reference to the meeting of the famous Englishman and the notorious Spaniard. At that moment the public life of Francis Bacon was faintly dawning. The future Minister of State and Chancellor of England had just entered the House of Commons, and was whining for promotion at the gate of the royal favourite. The mean subservience of his nature was to be afterwards developed in its repulsive fulness. His scheming ambition saw itself far away from the ermine of justice, doomed to be spotted by his corruption. He had not then betrayed, and brought to the scaffold, and slandered his benefactor. The power and honours of which he was to be stripped, were yet to be won. His glory and his shame alike were latent. He was beginning hazardously a career of brilliant and dismal vicissitudes, to finish it with a halo of immortal glory blazing round his name.

But such a career along a strange parallelism of circumstances, although with a gloomier conclusion, Antonio Perez had already run. The unscrupulous confidant and reckless tool of a crafty and vindictive tyrant, he had wielded vast personal authority, and guided the movements of an immense empire.

To gratify, by one dreadful blow, a cruel king and a guilty passion, he murdered his friend. The depth of his misery soon rivalled and exceeded the eminence of his prosperity. Hurled from his offices and dignities, deprived of the very title of nobility, condemned by the civil, and excommunicated by the ecclesiastical tribunals, cast into prison, loaded with irons, put to the torture, hunted like a wild beast out of his own country and many a nook of refuge in other lands, Perez, who had been "the most powerful personage in the Spanish monarchy," was, when we first meet him in the company of Bacon, an exile in penury. And so he died, an impoverished outcast, leaving to posterity a name which befits, if it cannot adorn, a tale, and may well point a moral.

The "bloody" Perez was the natural son of Gonzalo Perez, who was for a long time Secretary of State to Charles V. and Philip II. Of his mother nothing is known. The conjectures of scandal are heightened and perplexed by the fact that he was ennobled when a child, and that, amidst all the denunciations of his overbearing behaviour and insufferable arrogance, he is never reproached with the baseness of his maternal lineage. Legitimated in infancy by an imperial diploma, Antonio was literally a courtier and politician from his cradle.

It is impossible to imagine that the character of Philip was not fathomed by Perez. The peril of his position, as the depositary of the innermost secrets of the king, could not have escaped his acute mind. The treachery of his daily services, to which, in the words we have quoted, allusion is made, must have perpetually reminded him how probably he was preparing for himself the ruin which before his own eyes had struck and destroyed more than one of his predecessors. At the same time, the bent of his disposition carried him readily enough into intrigue, deceit, and cool remorseless villany. He was not retarded by any scruple, or abashed by any principle. But he did not lack sagacity. The power which he loved and abused was acquired and retained easily, because the exercise of his talents had always been quite in harmony with the natural flexion of his mind. In the conduct of public affairs, Philip never had a minister who more dexterously conformed reasons and actions of policy to the will, or prejudices, or passions of the sovereign. All the extravagance, and even towards so terrible an enemy as Alva, all the insolence of Perez, could hardly have shaken his security. From what he knew, and what he had done, Philip, it is true, might at any moment be tempted to work his downfal, if not his death; but, in consequence of that very knowledge and his very deeds, the value of such an adviser and such a tool was almost sure to protract and avert his doom. The disgrace and misfortune, therefore, of Perez, however enveloped afterwards in the mantle of political delinquency, are to be traced to more strictly personal causes. It is a curious, interesting, and horrible story.

The memorable struggle of the Netherlands against the domination of Spain was at its height. The flames kindled by the ferocity of Alva had not been extinguished by his milder but far less able successor, the Grand Commander Requesens, who sank under the harassing pressure of the difficulties which encompassed him. Upon his death, the Spanish court, alive to the momentous issues of the contest, invoked the services of one of the most celebrated men of the age. Don John of Austria, who saved Europe and Christianity at the Gulf of Lepanto, and had repeatedly humbled the Crescent in its proudest fortresses, was chosen to crush the rebellious Flemings. The appointment was hardly made, when clouds of distrust began to roll over the spirit of Philip. The ambition of his brother was known and troublesome to him, as he had baffled but two years before a project which Don John took little pains to conceal, and even induced the Pope to recommend, of converting his conquest of Tunis into an independent sovereignty for himself. Believing these alarming aspirations to be prompted by the Secretary Juan de Soto, whom Ruy Gomez had placed near his brother, Philip removed Soto and substituted Escovedo, on whose fidelity he relied, and who received secret instructions to divert, as far as possible, the dreams of Don John from sceptres and thrones. But a faithless master taught faithlessness to his servants. Escovedo, neglecting the counsels of Philip, entered cordially into the views and schemes of Don John, until the sagacious vigilance of Antonio Perez startled the jealousy of the Spanish monarch by the disclosure, that Don John intended, and was actually preparing to win and wear the crown of England. Such a prospect, there can be no doubt, tore his sullen soul with bitter[Pg 453] recollections, and made him resolve, more sternly than ever, that the haughty island should groan beneath no yoke but his own. The mere subjugation of England by Spanish arms, and the occupation of its throne by a Spaniard, not himself, were insufficient to glut the hatred, and avenge the insulted majesty of Philip. For his own hands and his own purposes he reserved the task; and at a later period, the wreck of the Armada strewed the shores of Britain with memorials of his gigantic and innocuous malignity. Dissembling, however, his displeasure, he permitted Don John to expect, when the Netherlands had been pacified, his approval of the invasion of England.

"At the same time, to become acquainted with all his brother's designs, and watch the intrigues of Escovedo, he authorized Perez, who was the confidant of the one and the friend of the other, to correspond with them, to enter into their views, to appear to gain his favour for them, to speak even very freely of him, in order to throw them the more off their guard, and afterwards to betray their secrets to him. Perez sought, or, at the very least, accepted this odious part. He acted it, as he himself relates, with a shameless devotion to the king, and a studied perfidy towards Don Juan and Escovedo. He wrote letters to them, which were even submitted to the inspection of Philip, and in which he did not always speak respectfully of that prince; he afterwards communicated to Philip the bold despatches of Escovedo, and the effusions of Don Juan's restless and desponding ambition. In forwarding to the king a letter from Escovedo, he at once boasts, and clears himself of this disloyal artifice. 'Sire,' says he, 'it is thus one must listen and answer for the good of your service; people are held much better thus at sword's length; and one can better do with them whatever is conducive to the interest of your affairs. But let your majesty use good precaution in reading these papers; for, if my artifice is discovered, I shall no longer be good for any thing; and shall have to discontinue the game. Moreover, I know very well that, for my duty and conscience, I am doing, in all this, nothing but what I ought; and I need no other theology than my own to comprehend it.' The king answers—'Trust, in every thing, to my circumspection. My theology understands the thing just as yours does, and considers not only that you are doing your duty, but that you would have been remiss towards God and man, had you not done so, in order to enlighten my understanding, as completely as is necessary, against human deceits and upon the things of this world, at which I am truly alarmed."

The laurels of the conqueror of the Turks drooped and withered in Flanders.

To enforce his complaints, Don John sent Escovedo to Spain. Redress was not granted, and his messenger never returned to him. The deadly correspondence between Perez and himself—the outpourings of an ardent and daring temper, swelling with lofty designs, and pining beneath an apparently irremediable inaction, into the ears of a frigid and false winnower of unguarded words and earnest feelings—was continued unremittingly. M. Mignet, it seems to us, shows very satisfactorily, that Perez, in his abominable office of an unjust interpreter of the wishes and intentions of Don John, drugged Philip copiously with calumnious reports and unwarrantable insinuations. Be[Pg 454] that as it may, we are inclined to believe, among other matters of a very different complexion, that, without repugnance on the part of Philip, there was a tossing about for a time, in the lottery of events, a marriage between Don John and our beautiful and unfortunate Mary. There is a pleasure and a grace sometimes in idle speculation; but to the leisure of a happier fancy than ours we commit the picture of the consequences of an union between the heroic Don John and the lovely Queen of Scotland. "Money, more money, and Escovedo," became at length, in his perplexity and anguish, the importunate clamour of the governor of the Netherlands. Then it was, as Perez tells us, that Philip and his obsequious counsellors meditated on the course best fitted for what was evidently a serious conjecture. Then it was, we learn from the same authority, that the king determined on the death of Escovedo.

What a gap there is in the whole truth in this story, on which Perez subsequently built his defence, we shall now briefly explain. With one considerable exception, historians concur in their belief of the amours of Perez with the Princess of Eboli. Ranke, who is satisfied with the political explanation given by Perez of the murder of Escovedo, discredits the notion of Perez being a lover of the princess, because she was old, and blind of one eye, and because his own wife, Dona Juana Coëllo, evinced towards him, throughout his trial, the most devoted and constant affection.

"The last reason," says our author, with perfect truth, "goes for nothing." The love of woman buries her wrongs without a tear. "As to the objection," M. Mignet proceeds to remark, "derived from the age and appearance of the Princess of Eboli, it has not much foundation either. All contemporary writers agree in praising her beauty (hermosura.) Born in 1540, she married Ruy Gomez at the age of thirteen, and was only thirty-eight years old at the present period. She was not one-eyed, but she squinted. There was nothing in her person to prevent the intimacy which Ranke discredits, but which numerous testimonies place beyond any doubt. I quote only the most important, waiving the presents which Perez had received from the princess, and which he was condemned to give back by a decree of justice."

It is too late now, we join M. Mignet in believing, to doubt or even to decry the personal charms of the Princess of Eboli, which the misty delirium of the poet may have magnified, or the expedient boldness of the romancer too voluptuously emblazoned, but which more than one grave annalist has calmly commemorated.[4][Pg 455] We shall not, however, venture to decide the nice question which oscillates between an obliquity and a loss of vision. The Spanish word "tuerto" means, ordinarily, "blind of one eye." And there is an answer which M. Mignet probably considers apocryphal, as he does not allude to it, said to have been made by Perez to Henry IV. of France, who expressed surprise that he should be so much the slave of a woman that had but one eye. "Sire," replied the ingeniously gallant Perez, "she set the world on fire with that; if she had preserved both, she would have consumed it." It is of little consequence. Any slight physical blemish or imperfection was more than counterbalanced by the wit and accomplishments of this seductive woman, whose enchantments, like those of Ninon de l'Enclos, defied the impairing inroads of old age.

It is unnecessary here to repeat or analyse the powerful concatenation of proofs by which her criminal intimacy with Perez is established. We may frankly admit, nevertheless, that the first perusal of the evidence did not convince us. The probability was strong that much would be exaggerated, perverted, and invented, before a partial tribunal, in order to annihilate a disgraced courtier, a fallen and helpless enemy. But the reasons which appear conclusively to fix culpability, will be better understood when the facts of the case are stated. Every witness must be branded with perjury to entitle us to doubt that the familiarity of Perez with the princess had attracted observation. Escovedo was aware of it, saw it, and denounced it. He remonstrated with both parties on their guilt and on their danger. The appeals to conscience and to fear were of unequal force. The guilt of their conduct was not likely to excite, in a couple abandoned to the indulgence of a mutual and violent passion, any emotion except anger against the honesty and audacity which rebuked them. By a grave discourse on breaches of decorum and morality, Escovedo ran the risk of being considered—what the princess actually declared him to be—a rude fellow and a bore. But the danger of their profligacy was a more delicate and ominous text for censure. In the peril of any public exposure was involved an additional complication of guilt. Perez was not the only favoured votary of the versatile siren. His rival, or rather his partner, was—Philip of Spain! The revelation of promiscuous worship, threatened by Escovedo, sounded like a knell to Perez and the princess. Was it a mad defiance, or a profound prescience, of the consequences, which, when Escovedo, stung on one occasion beyond forbearance by the demonstration of iniquity which Othello in his agony demands of Iago, declared loudly his purpose of divulging every thing to the king?—was it, we say, the fury or the shrewdness of despair which then drew from the lady a reply of outrageous and coarse effrontery? The irrecoverable words being spoken, we think, with M. Mignet, that "the ruin of Escovedo, whose indiscretions were becoming formidable, was doubtless sworn, from this moment, by Perez and the princess."

We shall now, with some consciousness of superiority over the German, Feuerbach, whose common-place murders are flavourless for us, (who were fellow-citizens of Burke, and rode in an omnibus with Greenacre, just as Bacon had Perez for a coach-companion,) transcribe the minute continuous narrative of the assassination of Escovedo, taken down from the lips of Antonio Enriquez, the page and familiar of Antonio Perez:—

The quiet pertinacity which characterizes this deliberate murder adds a creditable chapter to the voluminous "Newgate Calendar" of the sixteenth century. The murderers—first, second, third, and fourth—having executed their commission, were rewarded with a dramatic appreciation of their merits. Miguel Bosque received a hundred gold crowns from the hand of the clerk in the household of Perez. Juan de Mesa was presented with a gold chain, four hundred gold crowns, and a silver cup, to which the Princess of Eboli added, in writing, a title of employment in the administration of her estates. Diego Martinez brought to the three others brevets, signed nineteen days after this deed of blood, by Philip II. and Perez, of alfarez, or ensign in the royal service, with an income of twenty gold crowns. They then smilingly dispersed, as the play directs, "you that way, I this way."

Such blood will not sink in the ground. Instantly, at a private audience granted to him by Philip, the son of Escovedo, impelled by a torrent of universal suspicion, charged his father's death home to Perez. On the same day, Philip communicated to Perez the accusation. No pictorial art, we are sure, could exhibit truly the faces of these two men, speaking and listening, at that conference. This, however, was the last gleam of his sovereign's confidence that ever shone on Perez. His secret and mortal enemy, Mathew Vasquez, one of the royal secretaries, having espoused the cause of the kinsmen of Escovedo, wrote to Philip, "People pretend that it was a great friend of the deceased who assassinated the latter, because he had found him interfering with his honour, and on account of a woman." The barbed missile flew to its mark, and rankled for ever.

Our limits preclude the most concise epitome of the next twelve years of the life of Perez, of which the protracted tribulations, indeed, cannot be related more succinctly and attractively than they are by M. Mignet. During this weary space of time, Perez, single-handed, maintained an energetic defensive warfare against the disfavour of a vindictive monarch,[Pg 458] the oppression of predominant rivals, the insidious machinations and wild fury of relentless private revenge, the most terrific mockeries of justice, the blackest mental despondency, and exquisite physical suffering. Philip II. displayed all his atrocious feline propensities—alternately hiding and baring his claws—tickling his victim to-day with delusions of mercy and protection, in order to smite him on the morrow with heavier and unmitigated cruelty. The truth is, he did not dare to kill, while he had no desire to save. Over and over again, in the course of the monstrous burlesques which were enacted in judicial robes as legal inquiries, did Philip privately, both orally and in writing, exonerate and absolve the murderer. Prosecutors and judges were bridled and overawed—kinsmen were abashed—popular indignation was quelled by reiterated assurances and reports, that the confidential secretary of state had been the passive and faithful executioner of royal commands. Even Uncle Martin, the privileged court-fool, when the flight ultimately of Perez gave general satisfaction, though not to the implacable Philip, exclaimed openly—"Sire, who is this Antonio Perez, whose escape and deliverance have filled every one with delight? He cannot, then, have been guilty; rejoice, therefore, like other people." But the lucky rival—the happy lover, could not expiate his rank offence by any amount of sacrifice in person or estate. According to our view of these lingering scenes of rancorous persecution, Philip gradually habituated himself to gloat over the sufferings of Perez with the morbid rapture of monomania. So long as the wretched man was within his reach, he contemplated placidly the anguish inflicted on him by the unjust or excessive malevolence of his enemies. He repeatedly checked the prosecutions of the Escovedo family, and sanctioned their revival with as little difficulty as if he had never interposed on any former occasion. He relaxed at intervals the rigorous imprisonment under which Perez was gasping for the breath of life, granting him for nearly a twelvemonth so much liberty as to inflate a naturally buoyant temperament with inordinate hope; but, in that very period, instigated and approved of investigations and actions at law, which resulted in reducing Perez, in so far as wealth and honours were concerned, to beggary and rags. He threw into a dungeon Pedro de Escovedo, who talked unreservedly of his desire to assassinate Perez; and refused the fervent entreaties of Perez himself to remove, for a temporary relief, the fetters with which, when his ailing body could scarcely support its own weight, his limbs had been loaded. He sent Perez compassionate and encouraging messages, writing to him, "I will not forsake you, and be assured that their animosity (of the Escovedos) will be impotent against you;" while he regularly transmitted to Vasquez and the Escovedos the information which nourished and hardened their hatred. And finally, having constantly enjoined Perez to take heed that no one should discover the murder to have been perpetrated by the king, Philip, on the ground that he obstinately refused to make a full confession, imperturbably consigned him "to that dreadful proof, the revolting account of which," says M. Mignet, "I will quote from the process itself:"—

The impunity of tyranny was over-strained. The tide of sympathy fluctuated, and ebbed with murmuring agitation from the channel in which it had flowed so long with a steady current. Jesters and preachers uttered homely truths—the nobles trembled—and the people shuddered. With a few intelligible exceptions, there was a burst of general satisfaction when, on the 20th April 1591, two months after his torture, Perez, by the aid of his intrepid and devoted wife—(and shall we be too credulous in adding, with the connivance of his guards?)—broke his bonds, fled from Castile, and set his foot on the soil of independent Aragon.

Let us now, for a moment, reconsider the motives which solve, as they guided, at once the indefensible guilt of Perez, and the malignant perfidy of Philip. The King of Spain unquestionably ordered the murder of Escovedo, and confided its perpetration to the docile secretary. But the death-warrant slumbered for a while in the keeping of the executioner. It was not until Escovedo acquired his perilous knowledge of the debaucheries of Perez and the Princess of Eboli, and had avowed his still more perilous resolution of publishing their frailty in a quarter where detection was ruin, that Perez plied with inflexible diligence artifice and violence, poison and dagger—to satisfy, coincidently, himself and his sovereign. By a similar infusion of emotions, roused by later occurrences, the feelings of Philip towards Perez underwent, after the murder, a radical change. He at first unhesitatingly joined, as we have seen, in rewarding the actual murderers. The tale of the preference lavished by beauty on his minion had not seared his heart-strings. With that revelation came the mood of inexpiable hate. A word from him, uttered with unequivocal emphasis, would have cleared and rescued Perez. Such words, indeed, he pronounced more than once; but never as he would have done, if their effect had been to screen merely the faithful minister of state. The object in their occasional recurrence was one of profound dissimulation. Philip's design was to lull the alarm of Perez, and to recover out of his hands every scrap of written evidence which existed, implicating himself in the death of Escovedo. And it was under an erroneous impression of his efforts having been at length completely triumphant, that he sent Perez to the torture, with a foregone determination of killing him with the sword of justice, as a slanderous traitor, who could not adduce a tittle of proof to support his falsehood.

But the wit of Perez was as penetrating as Philip's, and had avoided the snare. Retaining adroitly, in authentic documents, ample materials for his own defence, and the inculpation of the king, Perez fought undauntedly and successfully his battle, on the charge of Escovedo's murder, before the tribunals of Aragon, which were either ignorant of, or indifferent[Pg 460] to, the scandals and personal criminalities inseparably mixed up with the case at Madrid. The retributive justice which had overwhelmed Perez in his person and circumstances in Castile, now descended on the reputation of Philip in Aragon, who was likewise not only obliged to hear of the acquittal of his detested foe by the supreme court there, but necessitated, by the tremendous statements promulgated by Perez as his justification, founded on unimpeachable writings in his possession, to drop and relinquish all legal proceedings.

The bitterness of the cup of woe, however, it had still been in the power of the fierce despot otherwise to deepen. Infuriated by the flight of Perez, the king caused the wife, then pregnant, and the children of the fugitive, to be arrested and cast into the public prison, dragging them "on the day when it is usual to pardon the very worst of criminals, at the very hour of the procession of the penitents on Holy Thursday, with a reckless disregard of custom and decency, among the crosses and all the cortèges of this solemnity, in order that there might be no lack of witnesses for this glorious action." These words we have cited from a famous narrative subsequently published by Perez in England, from which we are also tempted to extract, in relation to the same occurrence, the following passage, full of that energetic eloquence which contributed, among other causes, to win over general commiseration to the writer:—

It was not till eight years later, in 1599, when Philip III. sat on the throne of Spain, that the wife and children of Perez regained their liberty, and not till nearly twenty-five later, in 1615, that his children, who had passed their youth in prison, and been legally attainted with their father's degradation without having participated in his offences, were restored to their rank and rights as Spanish nobles.

Baffled in his pursuit of vengeance by the sturdy independence of the civil courts of Aragon, Philip turned his eyes for assistance to a tribunal, of which the jurisdiction had apparently no boundary except its exorbitant pretensions. At the king's bidding, the Inquisition endeavoured to seize Perez within its inexorable grasp. It seized, but could not hold him. The free and jealous Aragonese, shouting "Liberty for ever!" flew to arms, and emancipated from the mysterious oppression of the Holy Office the man[Pg 461] already absolved of crime by the regular decrees of justice.

The Inquisition having renewed its attempt, the people, headed and supported by leaders of the highest lineage, condition, and authority in Aragon, increased in the fervour and boldness of their resistance. Their zealous championship of Perez—a most unworthy object of so much generous and brave solicitude—drove them into open insurrection against Philip. The biographer narrates, that when the storm raised by him, and on his account, drew near, Perez escaped across the Pyrenees into France; and the historian records, that when the sun of peace again re-emerged from the tempest, Philip had overthrown the ancient constitution of Aragon, crushed its nobility, destroyed its independence, and incorporated its territory with the Spanish monarchy.

Perez, although compelled to fly, bade farewell for ever to his native land with reluctance. There is something touching in the familiar image which he uses to describe his own condition: "He was like a dog of a faithful nature, who, though beaten and ill-treated by his master and household, is loth to quit the walls of his dwelling." He found at Béarn, in the court of the sister of Henry IV. of France, a resting-place from hardship, but not a safe asylum from persecution. During his brief residence there, three separate attempts to assassinate him were detected or defeated; nor were these the only plots directed against his person. M. Mignet quotes a pleasant variety of the species from the lively pen of Perez himself.

His restless spirit of intrigue, and perhaps a nascent desire, provoked by altered circumstances, of reciprocal vengeance against Philip, hurried Perez from the tranquil seclusion of Béarn to the busy camp of Henry IV. After a long conference, he was sent to England by that monarch, who calculated on his services being usefully available with Queen Elizabeth in the common enterprise against Spain. Then it was that he formed his intimate acquaintance with the celebrated Francis Bacon, in whose company we first introduced him to our readers, and with many other individuals of eminence and note.

The dagger of the assassin continued to track his wanderings. And it is, probably, not commonly known, that upon one of the city gates of London, near St Paul's, there might be seen, in 1594, the heads of two Irishmen, executed as accomplices in a plot for the murder of Antonio Perez.

In England, where he was supported by the generosity of Essex, he did not remain very long, having been recalled, in 1594, to France by Henry, who had recently declared war against Philip. At Paris, Perez was received with great distinction and the most flattering attentions, being lodged in a spacious mansion, and provided with a military body-guard. The precaution was not superfluous. Wearing seemingly a charmed life, the dusky spectre of premature and unnatural death haunted him wherever he went or sojourned. Baron Pinilla, a Spaniard, was captured in Paris on the eve of his attempt to murder Perez, put to the torture, and executed on the Place de Grève—thus adding another name to the long catalogue of people, to whom any connexion with, or implication in, the affairs of Perez, whether innocently or criminally, for good or evil, attracted, it might be imagined as by Lady Bacon, from an angry Heaven the flash of calamitous ruin.

His present prosperity came as a brilliant glimpse through hopeless darkness, and so departed. Revisiting England in 1596, he found himself denied access to Essex, shunned by the Bacons, and disregarded by every body. The consequent mortification accelerated his return to France, which he reached, as Henry was concluding peace with Philip, to encounter cold distrust and speedy neglect from the French King. All this was the result of his own incurable double-dealing. He had been Henry's spy in the court of Elizabeth, and was, or fancied himself to be Elizabeth's at Paris. But the omnipotent secretary of state and the needy adventurer played the game of duplicity and perfidy with the odds reversed. All parties, as their experience unmasked his hollow insincerity, shrunk from reliance on, or intercourse with an ambidextrous knave, to whom mischief and deceit were infinitely more congenial than wisdom and honesty. "The truth is," wrote Villeroy, one of the French ministers, to a correspondent in 1605, "that his adversities have not made him much wiser or more discreet than he was in his prosperity." We must confess ourselves unable to perceive any traces of even the qualified improvement admitted by Villeroy.

The rest of the biography of this extraordinary man is a miserable diary of indignant lamentations over his abject condition—of impudent laudations of the blameless integrity of his career—of grovelling and ineffectual efforts and supplications to appease and eradicate the hatred of Philip—and of vociferous cries for relief from penury and famine. "I am in extreme want, having exhausted the assistance of all my friends, and no longer knowing where to find my daily bread," is the terrible confession of the once favourite minister of the most powerful monarch in Europe. He never touched the ground, or even gazed on the distant hills of Spain again. In one of the obscure streets of Paris, in solitude and poverty, he dragged the grief and infirmities of his old age slowly towards the grave; and at length, in the seventy-second year of his age, on a natural and quiet deathbed, closed the troubles of his tempestuous existence.

Such is "this strange eventful history." Such was the incalculable progeny of misery, disgrace, disaster, and ruin, involving himself, his family, countless individuals, and an entire nation, which issued from the guilty love of Perez and the Princess of Eboli.

[Pg 463]

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LOVER OF SOCIETY.

No. II.

1802.

All the great people of London, and most of the little, have been kept in a fever of agitation during the last fortnight, by the preparatives for the grand club ball in honour of the peace. Texier had the direction of the fête, and he exhibited his taste to the astonishment of les sauvages Britanniques. Never were seen such decorations, such chaplets, such chandeliers, such bowers of roses. In short, the whole was a Bond Street Arcadia. All the world of the West End were there; the number could not have been less than a thousand—all in fancy dresses and looking remarkably brilliant. The Prince of Wales, the most showy of men every where, wore a Highland dress, such, however, as no Highlander ever wore since Deucalion's flood, unless Donald was master of diamonds enough to purchase a principality. The Prince, of course, had a separate room for his own supper party, and the genius of M. Texier had contrived a little entertainment for the royal party, by building an adjoining apartment in the style of a cavern, after the Gil Blas fashion, in which a party of banditti were to carry on their carousal. The banditti were, of course, amateurs—the Cravens, Tom Sheridan, and others of that set—who sang, danced, gambled, and did all sorts of strange things. The Prince was delighted; but even princes cannot have all pleasures to themselves. Some of the crowd by degrees squeezed or coaxed their way into the cavern, others followed, the pressure became irresistible; until at last the banditti, contrary to all the laws of melodrame, were expelled from their own cavern, and the invaders sat down to their supper. Lords Besborough, Ossulston, and Bedford were the directors of the night; and the foreign ministers declared that nothing in Europe, within their experience, equalled this Bond Street affair. Whether the directors had the horses taken from their carriages, and were carried home in an ovation, I cannot tell; but Texier, not at all disposed to think lightly of himself at any time, talks of the night with tears in his eyes, and declares it the triumph of his existence.

George Rose has had a narrow escape of being drowned. All the wits, of course, appeal to the proverb, and deny the possibility of his concluding his career by water. Still, his escape was extraordinary. He had taken a boat at Palace Yard to cross to Lambeth. As he was standing up in the boat, immediately on his getting in, the waterman awkwardly and hastily shoved off, and George, accustomed as he was to take care of himself, lost his balance, and plumped head foremost into the water. The tide was running strong, and between the weight of his clothes, and the suddenness of the shock, he was utterly helpless. The parliamentary laughers say, that the true wonder of the case is, that he has been ever able to keep his head above water for the last dozen years; others, that it has been so long his practice to swim with the stream, that no one can be surprised at his slipping eagerly along. The fact, however, is, that a few minutes more must have sent him to the bottom. Luckily a bargeman made a grasp at him as he was going down, and held him till he could be lifted into his boat. He was carried to the landing-place in a state of great exhaustion. George has been, of course, obnoxious to the Opposition from his services, and from his real activity and intelligence in office. He is good-natured, however, and has made no enemies. Sheridan and the rest, when they have nothing else to do in the House, fire their shots at him to keep their hands in practice, but none of them have been able to bring him down.

A remarkable man died in June, the well-known Colonel Barré. He began political life about the commencement of the American war, and[Pg 464] distinguished himself by taking an active part in the discussion of every public measure of the time. Barré's soldiership impressed its character on his parliamentary conduct. He was prompt, bold, and enterprising, and always obtained the attention of the House. Though without pretensions to eloquence, he was always a ready speaker; and from the rapidity with which he mastered details, and from the boldness with which he expressed his opinions, he always produced a powerful effect on the House. Though contemporary with Burke, and the countryman of that illustrious orator, he exhibited no tendency to either the elevation or the ornament of that distinguished senator; yet his speeches were vigorous, and his diligence gave them additional effect. No man was more dreaded by the minister; and the treasury bench often trembled under the force and directness of his assaults. At length, however, he gave way to years, and retired from public life. His party handsomely acknowledged his services by a retiring pension, which Mr Pitt, when minister, exchanged for the clerkship of the pells, thus disburdening the nation by substituting a sinecure. For many years before his death, Barré was unfortunately deprived of sight; but, under that heaviest of all afflictions, he retained his practical philosophy, enjoyed the society of his friends, and was cheerful to the last. He was at length seized with paralysis, and died.

The crimes of the French population are generally of a melodramatic order. The temperament of the nation is eminently theatrical; and the multitude of minor theatres scattered through France, naturally sustain this original tendency. A villain in the south of France, lately constructed a sort of machinery for murder, which was evidently on the plan of the trap-doors and banditti displays of the Porte St Martin. Hiring an empty stable, he dug a pit in it of considerable depth. The pit was covered with a framework of wood, forming a floor, which, on the pulling of a string, gave way, and plunged the victim into a depth of twenty feet. But the contriver was not satisfied with his attempt to break the bones of the unfortunate person whom he thus entrapped. He managed to have a small chamber filled with some combustible in the side of the pit, which was to be set on fire, and, on the return of the platform to its place, suffocate his detenu with smoke. Whether he had performed any previous atrocities in this way, or whether the present instance was the commencement of his profession of homicide, is not told. By some means or other, having inveigled a stout countrywoman, coming with her eggs and apples to market, into his den, she no sooner trod upon the frame, than the string was pulled, it turned, and we may conceive with what astonishment and terror she must have felt herself plunged into a grave with the light of day shut out above. Fortunately for her, the match which was to light the combustibles failed, and she thus escaped suffocation. Her cries, however, were so loud, that they attracted some of the passers-by, and the villain attempted to take to flight. He was, however, seized, and given into the hands of justice.

An action was lately brought by an old lady against a dealer in curiosities, for cheating her in the matter of antiques. Her taste was not limited to the oddities of the present day, and, in the dealer, she found a person perfectly inclined to gratify her with wonders. He had sold her a model of the Alexandrian library, a specimen of the original type invented by Memnon the Egyptian, and a manuscript of the first play acted by Thespis. These had not exhausted the stock of the dealer: he possessed the skin of a giraffe killed in the Roman amphitheatre; the head of King Arthur's spear; and the breech of the first cannon fired at the siege of Constantinople. The jury, however, thought that the virtuoso having ordered those curiosities, ought to pay for them, and brought in a verdict for the dealer.

The French consul has been no sooner installed, than he has begun to give the world provocatives to war. His legion of honour is a military noblesse, expressly intended to make all public distinction originate in the[Pg 465] army; for the few men of science decorated with its star are not to be compared with the list of soldiers, and even they are chiefly connected with the department of war as medical men, practical chemists, or engineers.

His next act was to fix the military establishment of France at 360,000 men; his third act, in violation of his own treaties, and of all the feelings of Europe, was to make a rapid invasion of Switzerland, thus breaking down the independence of the country, and seizing, in fact, the central fortress of the Continent. His fourth act has been the seizure of Piedmont, and its absolute annexation to France. By a decree of the Republic, Piedmont is divided into six departments, which are to send seventeen deputies to the French legislature. Turin is declared to be a provincial city of the Republican territory; and thus the French armies will have a perpetual camp in a country which lays Italy open to the invader, and will have gained a territory nearly as large as Scotland, but fertile, populous, and in one of the finest climates of the south. Those events have excited the strongest indignation throughout Europe. We have already discovered that the peace was but a truce; that the cessation of hostilities was but a breathing-time to the enemy; that the reduction of our armies was precipitate and premature; and that, unless the fears of the French government shall render it accessible to a sense of justice, the question must finally come to the sword.

Schiller's play of the "Robbers" is said to have propagated the breed of highwaymen in Germany. To ramble through the country, stop travellers on the highway, make huts in the forest, sing Bedlamite songs, and rail at priests and kings, was the fashion in Germany during the reign of that popular play. It was said, a banditti of students from one of the colleges had actually taken the road, and made Carl Moor their model. All this did very well in summer, but the winter probably cooled their enthusiasm; for a German forest, with its snow half a dozen feet deep, and the probability of famine, would be a formidable trial to the most glowing mysticism.

But an actual leader of banditti has been just arrested, whose exploits in plunder have formed the romance of Germany for a considerable period. The confusion produced by the French war, and the general disturbance of the countries on both sides of the Rhine, have at once awakened the spirit of license, and given it impunity. A dashing fellow named Schinderhannes, not more than three-and-twenty years of age, but loving the luxuries of life too well to do without them, and disliking the labour required for their possession, commenced a general system of plunder down the Rhine. He easily organized a band, composed, I believe, of deserters from the French and Austrian troops, who preferred wholesale robbery to being shot in either service at the rate of threepence a-day; and for a while nothing could be more prosperous than their proceedings. Their leader, with all his daring, was politic, professing himself the friend of the poor, standing on the best terms with the peasantry, scattering his money in all directions with the lavishness of a prince, and professing to make war only on the nobility, the rich clergy, and the Jew merchants especially—the German Jews being always supposed by the people to be the grand depositories of the national wealth. But this favouritism among the peasantry was of the highest service to his enterprizes. It gave him information, it rescued him from difficulties, and it recruited his troop, which was said to amount to several hundreds, and to be in the highest state of discipline. After laying the country under contribution from Mayence to Coblentz, he crossed the river into Franconia, and commenced a period of enterprize there. But no man's luck lasts for ever. It was his habit to acquire information for himself by travelling about in various disguises. One day, in entering one of the little Franconian towns in the habit of a pedlar, and driving a cart with wares before him, he was recognized by one of the passers-by, whose sagacity was probably sharpened by having been plundered by him. An investigation followed,[Pg 466] in which the disguised pedlar declared himself an Austrian subject, and an Austrian soldier. In consequence, he was ordered to the Austrian depôt at Frankfort, where he met another recognition still more formidable. A comrade with whom he had probably quarrelled; for this part of the story is not yet clear, denounced him to the police; and, to the astonishment of the honest Frankforters, it was announced that the robber king, the bandit hero, was in their hands. As his exploits had been chiefly performed on the left bank of the Rhine, and his revenues had been raised out of French property in the manner of a forced loan, the Republic, conceiving him to be an interloper on their monopoly, immediately demanded him from the German authorities. In the old war-loving times, the Frankforters would probably have blown the trumpet and insisted on their privilege of acting as his jailers, but experience had given them wisdom, they swallowed their wrath, and the robber king was given up to the robber Republic. If Schinderhannes had been in the service of France, he would have been doing for the last ten years, on its account, exactly what he had been doing on his own. But unluckily for himself, he robbed in the name of Schinderhannes, and not in the name of liberty and equality; and now, instead of having his name shouted by all France, inserted in triumphant bulletins, and ranked with the Bonapartes and Cæsars, he will be called a thief, stripped of his last rixdollar, and hanged.

An extraordinary instance of mortality has just occurred, which has favoured the conversation of the clubs, and thrown the west end into condolence and confusion for the last twenty-four hours. Colonel O'Kelly's famous parrot is dead. The stories told of this surprising bird have long stretched public credulity to its utmost extent. But if even the half of what is told be true, it exhibited the most singular sagacity. Not having seen it myself, I can only give the general report. But, beyond all question, it has been the wonder of London for years, and however willing John Bull may be to be deluded, there is no instance of his being deluded long. This bird's chief faculty was singing, seldom a parrot faculty, but its ear was so perfect, that it acquired tunes with great rapidity, and retained them with such remarkable exactness, that if, by accident, it made a mistake in the melody, it corrected itself, and tried over the tune until its recollection was completely recovered. It also spoke well, and would hold a kind of dialogue almost approaching to rationality. So great was its reputation that the colonel was offered £500 a-year by persons who intended to make an exhibition of it; but he was afraid that his favourite would be put to too hard work, and he refused the offer, which was frequently renewed. The creature must have been old, for it had been bought thirty years before by the colonel's uncle, and even then it must have had a high reputation, for it was bought at the price of 100 guineas. Three remarkable bequests had been made by that uncle to the colonel,—the estate of Canons, the parrot, and the horse Eclipse, the most powerful racer ever known in England; so superior to every other horse of his day, that his superiority at length became useless, as no bets would be laid against him. In the spirit of vague curiosity, this parrot was opened by two surgeons, as if to discover the secret of his cleverness; but nothing was seen, except that the muscles of the throat were peculiarly strong; nothing to account for its death was discovered.

Andreossi, the French ambassador, has arrived. He is a rude and rough specimen even of the Republican, but a man of intelligence, an engineer, and distinguished for his publications. Still the bone of contention is Malta, and the difficulty seems greater than ever. The French consul insists on its abandonment by England, as an article of the treaty of Amiens; but the answer of England is perfectly intelligible,—You have not adhered to that treaty in any instance whatever, but have gone on annexing Italian provinces to France. You have just now made a[Pg 467] vassal of Switzerland, and to all our remonstrances on the subject you have answered with utter scorn. While you violate your stipulations, how can you expect that we shall perform ours? But another obstruction to the surrender of Malta has been produced by the conduct of France herself. She has seized the entire property of the Order in France, in Piedmont, and wherever she can seize it. Spain, probably by her suggestion, has followed her example, and the Order now is reduced to pauperism; in fact, it no longer exists. Thus it is impossible to restore the island to the Order of St John of Jerusalem; and to give it up at once to France, would be to throw away an important security for the due performance of the treaty. Government are so determined on this view of the case, that orders have been sent to Malta for all officers on leave to join their regiments immediately.

Malta is one of the remarkable instances in which we may trace a kind of penalty on the rapaciousness of the Republic. While it remained in the possession of the Order, it had observed a kind of neutrality, which was especially serviceable to France, as the island was a refuge for its ships, and a depôt for its commerce, in common with that of England. But Bonaparte, in his Egyptian expedition, finding the opportunity favourable, from the weakness of the knights, and the defenceless state of the works, landed his troops, and took possession of it without ceremony. No act could be more atrocious as a breach of faith, for the knights were in alliance with France, and were wholly unprepared for hostilities. The place was now in full possession of the treacherous ally. Contributions were raised; the churches were plundered of their plate and ornaments; the knights were expelled, and a French garrison took possession of the island. What was the result? Malta was instantly blockaded by the British, the garrison was reduced by famine, and Malta became an English possession; which it never would have been, if the knights had remained there; for England, in her respect for the faith of treaties, would not have disturbed their independence. Thus, the Republic, by iniquitously grasping at Malta, in fact threw it into the hands of England. It is scarcely less remarkable, that the plunder of Malta was also totally lost, it being placed on board the admiral's ship, which was blown up at the battle of the Nile.

One of the first acts of the French consul has been to conciliate the Italian priesthood by an act which they regard as equivalent to a conversion to Christianity. The image of our Lady of Loretto, in the French invasion of Italy, had been carried off from Rome; of course, the sorrows of the true believers were unbounded. The image was certainly not intended to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, for it was as black as a negro; and, from the time of its capture, it had unfortunately lost all its old power of working miracles. But it has at length been restored to its former abode, and myriads of the pious followed the procession. Discharges of cannon and ringing of bells welcomed its approach. It was carried by eight bishops, in a species of triumphal palanquin, splendidly decorated, and placed on its altar in the Santa Casa with all imaginable pomps and ceremonies. The whole town was illuminated in the evening, and the country was in a state of exultation at what it regards as an evidence of the immediate favor of heaven.

A singular and melancholy trial has just taken place, in which a colonel in the army, with several of the soldiery and others, have been found guilty of a conspiracy to overthrow the government, and kill the king on the day of his opening Parliament. The 16th of November 1802, had been the day appointed for this desperate deed; but information having been obtained of the design through a confederate, the whole party of conspirators were seized on that day by the police at a house in Lambeth, where they arrested Despard and his fellow traitors. On the floor of the room three printed papers were found, containing their proclamation.

They were headed, "Constitution, the independence of Great Britain and Ireland, an equalization of civil and reli[Pg 468]gious rights, an ample provision for the wives of the heroes who shall fall in the conquest, a liberal reward for distinguished merits; these are the objects for which we contend, and to obtain these objects we swear to be united in the awful presence of Almighty God." Then follows the oath: "I, A.B., do voluntarily declare that I will endeavour to the utmost of my power to obtain the objects of this union, viz. to recover those rights which the Supreme Being, in his infinite bounty, has given to all men; that neither hopes, fears, rewards, nor punishments, shall ever induce me to give any information, directly or indirectly, concerning the business, or of any member of this or any similar society, so help me God."

One of the witnesses, a private in the Guards, gave evidence that the object of the conspiracy was to overturn the present system of government; to unite in companies, and to get arms. They subscribed, and the object of the subscription was, to pay delegates to go into the country, and to defray the expense of printing their papers. All persons belonging to the subscription were to be divided into ten companies, each consisting of ten, with an eleventh who was called captain. The next order was, that the oldest captain of five companies took the command of those fifty men, and was to be called colonel of the subdivision. Every means was to be adopted to get as many recruits as possible. There was to be no regular organization in London, for fear of attracting the eye of government. But the system was to be urged vigorously in the great manufacturing towns; the insurrection was to commence by an attack on the House of Parliament; and the king was to be put to death either on his way to the House, or in the House. The mail-coaches were then to be stopt, as a signal to their adherents in the country that the insurrection had triumphed in the metropolis. An assault was then to be made on the Tower, and the arms seized. At subsequent meetings, the question of the royal seizure was more than once discussed; and Despard had declared it to be essential to the success of the plot, that no effect could be produced unless the whole royal family were secured. The first plan for the seizure of the king was to shoot his carriage horses, then force him out of the carriage, and carry him off. A second plan was then proposed, viz. that of loading the Egyptian gun in St James's Park with chain shot, and firing it at the royal carriage as it passed along.

Lord Nelson and General Sir Alured Clarke were brought as evidence to character. Lord Nelson said, that he and Colonel Despard had served together on the Spanish Main in 1799, and that he was then a loyal man and a brave officer. Lord Ellenborough strongly charged the jury. He declared that there was no question of law, and that the whole case resolved itself into a question of fact. The jury, after retiring for half an hour, brought in a verdict of guilty.

In a few days after, Despard, with six of his accomplices, were executed in front of the new jail in the Borough. The men were chiefly soldiers whom this wretched criminal had bribed or bewildered into the commission of treason. Despard made a speech on the scaffold, declaring himself innocent, and that he was put to death simply for being a friend to truth, liberty, and justice. How he could have made this declaration after the evidence that had been given, is wholly unintelligible except on the ground of insanity, though of that there was no symptom, except in the design itself. What prompted the design except narrow circumstances, bad habits, and the temptations of a revengeful spirit, was never discovered.

A trial, which exhibited extraordinary talent in the defence, by a counsel hitherto unknown, has attracted an interest still more general, though of a less melancholy order. Peltier, an emigrant, and supposed to be an agent of the French emigrant body, had commenced a periodical work, entitled L'Ambigu; the chief object of which was to attack the policy, person, and conduct of the First Consul of France. His assaults were so pointed, that they were complained of by the French government as libels; and the answer returned was, that the[Pg 469] only means which the ministry possessed of punishing such offences, was by the verdict of a jury. The Attorney-general, in opening the case, described the paper. On its frontispiece, was a sphinx with a crown upon its head, the features closely resembling those of Bonaparte. A portion of the paper was devoted to a parody of the harangue of Lepidus against Sylla. It asks the French people, "Why they have fought against Austria, Prussia, Italy, England, Germany, and Russia, if it be not to preserve our liberty and our property, and that we might obey none but the laws alone. And now, this tiger, who dares to call himself the Founder, or the Regenerator of France, enjoys the fruit of your labours as spoil taken from the enemy. This man, sole master in the midst of those who surround him, has ordained lists of proscription, and put in execution banishment without sentence, by which there are punishments for the French who have not yet seen the light. Proscribed families, giving birth out of France to children, oppressed before they are born. In another part, the paper urged to immediate action. It says, "Citizens, you must march, you must oppose what is passing, if you desire that he should not seize upon all that you have. There must be no delays, no useless wishes; reckon only upon yourselves, unless you indeed have the stupidity to suppose that he will abdicate through shame of tyranny that which he holds by force of crime." In another part, he assails the First Consul on the nature of his precautions to secure his power. He charges him with the formation of a troop of Mamelukes, composed of Greeks, Maltese, Arabians, and Copts, "a collection of foreign banditti, whose name and dress, recalling the mad and disastrous Egyptian expedition, should cover him with shame; but who, not speaking our language, nor having any point of contact with our army, will always be the satellites of the tyrant, his mutes, his cut-throats, and his hangmen. The laws, the justice, the finances, the administration; in fine, the liberty and life of the citizens, are all in the power of one man. You see at every moment arbitrary arrests, judges punished for having acquitted citizens, individuals put to death after having been already acquitted by law, sentences and sentences of death extorted from judges by threats. Remains there for men, who would deserve that name, any thing else to do, but to avenge their wrongs, or perish with glory?"

Another portion of this paper contained an ode, in which all things were represented as in a state of convulsion, all shaken by a tremendous storm; but nature, either blind or cruel, sparing the head of the tyrant alone:—still carrying on the parody of the Roman speech, it pronounces that a poniard is the last resource of Rome to rescue herself from a dictator. It asks, is it from a Corsican that a Frenchman must receive his chains? was it to crown a traitor that France had punished her kings? In another, a libel, which traced the rise of Bonaparte, and charged him with the intention of assuming imperial power, concluded in these words:—"Carried on the shield, let him be elected emperor; finally, (and Romulus recalls the thing to mind,) I wish that on the morrow he may have his 'apotheosis.'" This the Attorney-general certainly, with every appearance of reason, pronounced to be a palpable suggestion to put the First Consul to death; as history tells us that Romulus was assassinated.

The defence by Mackintosh was a bold and eloquent performance. He commenced by a spirited animadversion on the Attorney's speech, and then extended his subject into a general defence of the liberty of the press, which he pronounced to be the true object of attack on the part of the First Consul. He followed the history of its suppression through all the states under French influence, and then came to the attempt at its suppression here. He then invoked the jury to regard themselves as the protectors of the freedom of speech on earth, and to rescue his client from the severity of an oppression which threatened the universal slavery of mankind.

This speech has been strongly criticised as one in which the advocate defended himself and his party, while he neglected his client. But the ob[Pg 470]vious truth is, that unless the suggestion of assassination is defensible, there could be no defence, and unless the laws of nations justify the most violent charges on the character of foreign sovereigns, there could be no justification for the language of the whole paper. Mackintosh evidently took the best course for his cause. He made out of bad materials a showy speech; he turned the public eye from the guilt of the libel to the popular value of the press; where others would have given a dull pleading, he gave a stately romance; where the jury, in feebler hands, would have been suffered to see the facts in their savage nudity, he exhibited them clothed in classic draperies, and dazzled the eye with the lofty features and heroic attitudes of ancient love of country. All the skill of man could not have saved Peltier from a verdict of guilty; but the genius of the orator invested his sentence with something of the glory of martyrdom. The breaking out of the war relieved Peltier from the consequences of the verdict. But there can be no question that, if he had been thrown into prison, he would have been an object of the general sympathy; that the liberty of the press would have been regarded as in some degree involved in his sufferings; that he would have found public liberality willing to alleviate his personal and pecuniary difficulties; and that his punishment would have been shortened, and his fine paid by the zeal of the national sympathy. Such are the triumphs of eloquence. Such is the value of having a man of genius for an advocate. Such is the importance to the man of genius himself, of resolving to exert his highest powers for his client. Mackintosh has been called an indolent man; and he has been hitherto but little known. But he has at last discovered his own faculties, and he has only to keep them in action to achieve the highest successes of the bar; to fill the place of Erskine; and if no man can make Erskine forgotten, at least make him unregretted. This speech also has taught another lesson, and that lesson is, that the bar can be the theatre of the highest rank of eloquence, and that all which is regarded as the limit of forensic excellence, is a gratuitous degradation of its own dignity. The sharp retort, the sly innuendo, the dexterous hint, the hard, keen subtlety, the rough common sense, all valuable in their degree, and all profitable to their possessor, are only of an inferior grade. Let the true orator come forth, and the spruce pleader is instantly flung into the background. Let the appeal of a powerful mind be made to the jury, and all the small address, and practical skill, and sly ingenuity, are dropped behind. The passion of the true orator communicates its passion; his natural richness of conception fills the spirit of his hearers; his power of producing new thoughts and giving new shapes to acknowledged truths; his whole magnificence of mind erecting and developing new views of human action as it moves along, lead the feelings of men in a willing fascination until the charm is complete. But after such a man, let the mere advocate stand up, and how feebly does his voice fall on the ear, how dry are his facts, how tedious his tricks, how lacklustre, empty, and vain are his contrivances to produce conviction!

Mackintosh wants one grand quality for the jury,—he speaks like one who thinks more of his argument than of his audience; he forgets the faces before him, and is evidently poring over the images within. Though with a visage of the colour, and seemingly of the texture of granite, he blushes at a misplaced word, and is evidently sensitive to the error of a comma. No man ever spoke with effect who cannot hesitate without being overwhelmed, blunder without a blush, or be bewildered by his own impetuosity, without turning back to retrace. En avant is the precept for the orator, as much as it is the principle of the soldier. Mackintosh has to learn these things; but he has a full mind, a classic tongue, and a subtle imagination, and these constitute the one thing needful for the orator, comprehend all, and complete all.

The late Lord Orford, the relative of the well-known Horace Walpole, is one of the curious evidences that every man who takes it into his head to be conspicuous, right or wrong, may make for himself a name. Lord Orford, while his relative was writ[Pg 471]ing all kinds of brilliant things, collecting antiquities, worshipping the genius of cracked china, and bowing down before fardingales and topknots of the time of Francis I., in the Temple of Strawberry Hill, was forming a niche for his fame in his dog-kennel, and immortalizing himself by the help of his hounds. Next to Actæon, he was the greatest dog-fancier that the world has ever seen, and would have rivalled Endymion, if Diana was to be won by the fleetest of quadrupeds. He was boundless in his profusion in respect of his favourite animals, until at last, finding that his ideas of perfection could not be realized by any living greyhounds, he speculated on the race unborn, and crossed his dogs until, after seven summers, he brought them to unrivalled excellence. He had at various times fifty brace of greyhounds, quartering them over every part of his county Norfolk, of which he was lord-lieutenant, probably for the sake of trying the effect of air and locality.

One of his lordship's conceptions was, that of training animals to purposes that nature never designed them for; and, if lions had been accessible in this country, he would probably have put a snaffle into the mouth of the forest king, and have trained him for hunting, unless his lordship had been devoured in the experiment. But his most notorious attempt of this order, was a four-in-hand of stags. Having obtained four red deer of strong make, he harnessed them, and by dint of the infinite diligence which he exerted on all such occasions; was at length enabled to drive his four antlered coursers along the high-road. But on one unfortunate day, as he was driving to Newmarket, a pack of hounds, in full cry after fox or hare, crossing the road, got scent of the track. Finding more attractive metal, they left the chase, and followed the stags in full cry. The animals now became irrestrainable, dashed along at full speed, and carried the phaeton and his lordship in it, to his great alarm, along the road, at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Luckily they did not take their way across the country, or their driver's neck must have been broken. The scene was now particularly animating; the hounds were still heard in full cry; no power could stop the frightened stags; his lordship exerted all his charioteering skill in vain. Luckily, he had been in the habit of driving to Newmarket. The stags rushed into the town, to the astonishment of every body, and darted into the inn yard. Here the gates were shut, and scarcely too soon, for in a minute or two after the whole dogs of the hunt came rushing into the town, and roaring for their prey. This escape seems to have cured his lordship of stag-driving; but his passion for coursing grew only more active, and the bitterest day of the year, he was seen mounted on his piebald pony, and, in his love of the sport, apparently insensible to the severities of the weather; while the hardiest of his followers shrank, he was always seen, without great-coat or gloves, with his little three-cocked hat facing the storm, and evidently insensible to every thing but the performances of his hounds.

His lordship was perhaps the first man who was ever made mad by country sports, though many a man has been made a beggar by them; and none but fools will waste their time on them. His lordship at length became unquestionably mad, and was put under restraint. At length, while still in confinement, and in a second access of his disorder, having ascertained, by some means or other, that one of his favourite greyhounds was to run a match for a large sum, he determined to be present at the performance. Contriving to send his attendant from the room, he jumped out of the window, saddled his piebald pony with his own hands, all the grooms having gone to the field, and there being no one to obstruct him, and suddenly made his appearance on the course, to universal astonishment. In spite of all entreaties, he was determined to follow the dogs, and galloped after them. In the height of the pursuit, he was flung from his pony, fell on his head; and instantly expired.

The fluctuations of the public mind on the subject of the peace, have lately influenced the stock market to a considerable degree. The insolence[Pg 472] of the First Consul to our ambassador, Lord Whitworth, naturally produces an expectation of war. Early this morning, a man, calling himself a messenger from the Foreign Office, delivered a letter at the Mansion-house, and which he said had been sent from Lord Hawkesbury, and which was to be given to his lordship without delay. The letter was in these words:—"Lord Hawkesbury presents his compliments to the Lord Mayor, and has the honour to acquaint his lordship, that the negotiation between this country and the French republic is brought to an amicable conclusion. Signed, Downing Street, eight o'clock, May 5, 1803."

The Lord Mayor, with a precipitancy that argued but little for the prudence of the chief magistrate, had this letter posted up in front of the Mansion-house. The effect on the Stock Exchange was immediate; and consols rose eight per cent, from 63 to 71. The delusion, however, was brief; and the intelligence of the rise had no sooner reached Downing Street in its turn, than a messenger was dispatched to undeceive the city, and the city-marshal was employed to read the contradiction in the streets. The confusion in the Stock Exchange was now excessive; but the committee adopted the only remedy in their power. They ordered the Stock Exchange to be shut, and came to a resolution, that all bargains made in the morning should be null and void. Immediately after, another attempt of the same kind was made; and the Lord Mayor was requested by the people of the Stock Exchange to inquire into its reality from the government. The inquiry was answered by Mr Addington, of course denying it altogether, and finishing with this rebuke to civic credulity:—"I feel it my duty distinctly to caution your lordship against receiving impressions of the description alluded to, through any unauthorized channel of information." The funds immediately fell to 63 once more.

And yet it remains a delicate question, whether any committee can have the power of declaring the bargains null and void. Of course, where the inventors of the fraud have been parties, they have no right to gain by their own fraud; but where individuals, wholly unacquainted with the fraud, have gained, there seems no reason why a bonâ fide transaction should not stand.

The question of war is decided. On the 17th of May, an Order in Council, dated yesterday, has appeared in the Gazette, directing general reprisals against the ships, goods, and subjects of the French Republic. The peace, which rather deserves the name of a suspension of arms, or still more, the name of a prodigious act of credulity on the part of well-meaning John Bull, and an act of desperate knavery on the part of the First Consul and his accomplices, has lasted exactly one year and sixteen days,—England having occupied the time in disbanding her troops and dismantling her fleets; and France being not less busy in seizing on Italian provinces, strengthening her defences, and making universal preparations for war. Yet the spirit of England, though averse to hostilities in general, is probably more prepared at this moment for a resolute and persevering struggle than ever. The nation is now convinced of two things: first, that it is unassailable by France—a conviction which it has acquired during ten years of war; and next, that peace with France, under its present government, is impossible. The trickery of the Republican government, its intolerable insolence, the exorbitancy of its demands, and the more than military arrogance of its language, have penetrated every bosom in England. The nation has never engaged so heartily in a war before. All its old wars were government against government; but the First Consul has insulted the English people, and by the personal bitterness and malignant acrimony of his insults, has united every heart and hand in England against him. England has never waged such a war before; either party must perish. If England should fail, which heaven avert, the world will be a dungeon. If France should be defeated, the victory will be for Europe and all mankind.

Lord Nelson has sailed in the Victory from Portsmouth to take the[Pg 473] command in the Mediterranean. A French frigate has been taken; and a despatch declaring war has been received from France, ordering the capture of all English vessels, offering commissions to privateers, and by an act of treachery unprecedented among nations, annexed to this order is a command that all the English, from eighteen to sixty, residing in France, should be arrested; the pretext being to answer as prisoners for the French subjects who may have been made prisoners by the ships of his Britannic Majesty, previously to any declaration of war.

This measure has excited the deepest indignation throughout London; and an indignation which will be shared by the empire. The English in France have been travelling and residing under French passports, and under the declared protection of the government. No crime has been charged upon them; they remained, because they regarded themselves as secure, relying on the honour of France. Their being kept as pledges for the French prisoners captured on the seas, is a mere trifling with common sense. The French subjects travelling or residing in England have not been arrested. The mere technicality of a declaration of war was wholly useless, when the ambassador of France had been ordered to leave England. The English ambassador had left Paris on the 12th; the French ambassador had left London on the 16th. The English order for reprisals appeared in the Gazette of the 17th. The English declaration of war was laid before Parliament on the 18th; and the first capture, a French lugger of fourteen guns.

THE "OLD PLAYER."

Imitated From Anastasius Grün.

By A. Lodge.

Aloft the rustling curtain flew,
That gave the mimic scene to view;
How gaudy was the suit he wore!
His cheeks with red how plaster'd o'er!

Poor veteran! that in life's late day,
With tottering step, and locks of gray,
Essay'st each trick of antic glee,
Oh! my heart bleeds at sight of thee.

A laugh thy triumph! and so near
The closing act, and humble bier;
This thy ambition? this thy pride?
Far better thou had'st earlier died!

Though memory long has own'd decay,
And dim the intellectual ray,
Thou toil'st, from many an idle page,
To cram the feeble brain of age.

And stiff the old man's arms have grown.
And scarce his folded hands alone
Half raised in whisper'd prayer they see,
To bless the grandchild at his knee.

But here—'tis action lends a zest
To the dull, pointless, hacknied jest;
He saws the air 'mid welcome loud
[Pg 474]Of laughter from the barren crowd.

A tear creeps down his cheek—with pain
His limbs the wasted form sustain;
Ay—weep! no thought thy tears are worth,
So the Pit shakes with boist'rous mirth.

And now the bustling scene is o'er,
The weary actor struts no more;
And hark, "The old man needed rest,"
They cry; "the arm-chair suits him best."

His lips have moved with mutter'd sound—
A pause—and still the taunt goes round;
"Oh! quite worn out—'tis doting age,
Why lags the driveller on the stage?"

Again the halting speech he tries,
But words the faltering tongue denies,
Scarce heard the low unmeaning tone,
Then silent—as tho' life were flown.

The curtain falls, and rings the bell,
They know not 'tis the Player's knell;
Nor deem their noise and echoing cry
The dirge that speeds a soul on high!

Dead in his chair the old man lay,
His colour had not pass'd away;—
Clay-cold, the ruddy cheeks declare
What hideous mockery lingers there!

Yes! there the counterfeited hue
Unfolds with moral truth to view,
How false—as every mimic part—
His life—his labours—and his art!

The canvass-wood devoid of shade,
Above, no plaintive rustling made;
That moon, that ne'er its orb has fill'd,
No pitying, dewy tears distill'd.

The troop stood round—and all the past
In one brief comment speaks at last;
"Well, he has won the hero's name,
He died upon his field of fame."

A girl with timid grace draws near,
And like the Muse to sorrow dear,
Amid the silvery tresses lays
The torn stage-wreath of paper bays!

I saw two men the bier sustain;—
Two bearers all the funeral train!
They left him in his narrow bed,
No smile was seen—no tear was shed!
[Pg 475]

THE CRUSADES.[5]

The Crusades are, beyond all question, the most extraordinary and memorable movement that ever took place in the history of mankind. Neither ancient nor modern times can furnish any thing even approaching to a parallel. They were neither stimulated by the lust of conquest nor the love of gain; they were not the results of northern poverty pressing on southern plenty, nor do they furnish an example of civilized discipline overcoming barbaric valour. The warriors who assumed the Cross were not stimulated, like the followers of Cortes and Pizarro, by the thirst for gold, nor roused, like those of Timour and Genghis Khan, by the passion for conquest. They did not burn, like the legionary soldiers of Rome, with the love of country, nor sigh with Alexander, because another world did not remain to conquer. They did not issue, like the followers of Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the "Koran" in the other, to convert by subduing mankind, and win the houris of Paradise by imbruing their hands in the blood of the unbelievers. The ordinary motives which rouse the ambition, or awaken the passions of men, were to them unknown. One only passion warmed every bosom, one only desire was felt in every heart. To rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Infidels—to restore the heritage of Christ to his followers—to plant the Cross again on Mount Calvary—was the sole object of their desires. For this they lived, for this they died. For this, millions of warriors abandoned their native seats, and left their bones to whiten the fields of Asia. For this, Europe, during two centuries, was precipitated on Asia. To stimulate this astonishing movement, all the powers of religion, of love, of poetry, of romance, and of eloquence, during a succession of ages, were devoted. Peter the Hermit shook the heart of Europe by his preaching, as the trumpet rouses the war-horse. Poetry and romance aided the generous illusion. No maiden would look at a lover who had not served in Palestine; few could resist those who had. And so strongly was the European heart then stirred,—so profound the emotions excited by those events, that their influence is felt even at this distant period. The highest praise yet awarded to valour is, that it recalls the lion-hearted Richard; the most envied meed bestowed on beauty, that it rivals the fascination of Armida. No monument is yet approached by the generous and brave with such emotion as those now mouldering in our churches, which represent the warrior lying with his arms crossed on his breast, in token that, during life, he had served in the Holy Wars.

The Crusades form the true heroic age of Europe—the Jerusalem Delivered is its epic poem. Then alone its warriors fought and died together. Banded together under a second "King of men," the forces of Christendom combated around the Holy City against the strength of Asia drawn to its defence. The cause was nobler, the end greater, the motives more exalted, than those which animated the warriors of the Iliad. Another Helen had not fired another Troy; the hope of sharing the spoils of Phrygia had not drawn together the predatory bands of another Greece. The characters on both sides had risen in proportion to the magnitude and sanctity of the strife in which they were engaged. Holier motives, more generous passions were felt, than had yet, from the beginning of time, strung the soldier's arm. Saladin was a mightier prince than Hector; Godfrey a nobler character than Agamemnon; Richard immeasurably more heroic than Achilles. The strife did not continue for ten years, but for twenty lustres; and yet, so uniform were the passions felt through its continuance, so identical the objects contended for, that the whole has the unity of interest of a Greek drama.

All nations bore their part in this mighty tragedy. The Franks were there, under Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, in such strength[Pg 476] as to have stamped their name in the East upon Europeans in general; the English nobly supported the ancient fame of their country under the lion-hearted King; the Germans followed the Dukes of Austria and Bavaria; the Flemings those of Hainault and Brabant; the Italians and Spaniards reappeared on the fields of Roman fame; even the distant Swedes and Norwegians, the descendants of the Goths and Normans, sent forth their contingents to combat in the common cause of Christianity. Nor were the forces of Asia assembled in less marvellous proportions. The bands of Persia were there, terrible as when they destroyed the legions of Crassus and Antony, or withstood the invasions of Heraclius and Julian; the descendants of the followers of Sesostris appeared on the field of ancient and forgotten glory; the swarthy visages of the Ethiopians were seen; the distant Tartars hurried to the theatre of carnage and plunder; the Arabs, flushed with the conquest of the Eastern world, combated, with unconquerable resolution, for the faith of Mahomet. The arms of Europe were tested against those of Asia, as much as the courage of the descendants of Japhet was with the daring of the children of Ishmael. The long lance, ponderous panoply, and weighty war-horse of the West, was matched against the twisted hauberk, sharp sabre, and incomparable steeds of the East; the sword crossed with the cimeter, the dagger with the poniard; the armour of Milan was scarce proof against the Damascus blade; the archers of England tried their strength with the bowmen of Arabia. Nor were rousing passions, animating recollections, and charmed desires awanting to sustain the courage on both sides. The Christians asserted the ancient superiority of Europe over Asia; the Saracens were proud of the recent conquest of the East, Africa, and Southern Europe, by their arms; the former pointed to a world subdued and long held in subjection—the latter to a world newly reft from the infidel, and won by their sabres to the sway of the Crescent. The one deemed themselves secure of salvation while combating for the Cross, and sought an entrance to heaven through the breach of Jerusalem; the other, strong in the belief of fatalism, advanced fearless to the conflict, and strove for the houris of Paradise amidst the lances of the Christians.

When nations so powerful, leaders so renowned, forces so vast, courage so unshaken in the contending parties, were brought into collision, under the influence of passions so strong, enthusiasm so exalted, devotion so profound, it was impossible that innumerable deeds of heroism should not have been performed on both sides. If a poet equal to Homer had arisen in Europe to sing the conflict, the warriors of the Crusades would have been engraven on our minds like the heroes of the Iliad; and all future ages would have resounded with their exploits, as they have with those of Achilles and Agamemnon, of Ajax and Ulysses, of Hector and Diomede. But though Tasso has with incomparable beauty enshrined in immortal verse the feelings of chivalry, and the enthusiasm of the Crusades, he has not left a poem which has taken, or ever can take, the general hold of the minds of men, which the Iliad has done. The reason is, it is not founded in nature—it is the ideal—but it is not the ideal based on the real. Considered as a work of imagination, the Gerusalemme Liberata is one of the most exquisite conceptions of human fancy, and will for ever command the admiration of romantic and elevated minds. But it wants that yet higher excellence, which arises from a thorough knowledge of human nature—a graphic delineation of actual character, a faithful picture of the real passions and sufferings of mortality. It is the most perfect example of poetic fancy; but the highest species of the epic poem is to be found not in poetic fancy, but poetic history. The heroes and heroines of the Jerusalem Delivered are noble and attractive. It is impossible to study them without admiration; but they resemble real life as much as the Enchanted Forest and spacious battle-fields, which Tasso has described in the environs of Jerusalem, do the arid ridges, waterless ravines, and stone-covered hills in the real scene, which have been painted by the matchless pens of Chateaubriand and Lamartine.

The love of Tancred, the tenderness of Erminia, the heroism of Rinaldo,[Pg 477] are indelibly engraven in the recollection of every sensitive reader of Tasso; but no man ever saw such characters, or any thing resembling them, in real life. They are aërial beings, like Miranda in the "Tempest," or Rosalind in the forest; but they recall no traits of actual existence. The enchantment of Armida, the death of Clorinda, belong to a different class. They rise to the highest flights of the epic muse; for female fascination is the same in all ages; and Tasso drew from the life in the first, while his exquisite taste and elevated soul raised him to the highest moral sublimity and pathos which human nature can reach in the second. Considered, however, as the poetic history of the Crusades, as the Iliad of modern times, the Jerusalem Delivered will not bear any comparison with its immortal predecessor. It conveys little idea of the real events; it embodies no traits of nature; it has enshrined no traditions of the past. The distant era of the Crusades, separated by three centuries from the time when he wrote, had come down to Tasso, blended with the refinements of civilization, the courtesy of chivalry, the graces of antiquity, the conceits of the troubadours. In one respect only he has faithfully portrayed the feelings of the time when his poem was laid. In the uniform elevation of mind in Godfrey of Bouillon; his constant forgetfulness of self; his sublime devotion to the objects of his mission, is to be found a true picture of the spirit of the Crusades, as it appeared in their most dignified champions. And it is fortunate for mankind that the noble portrait has been arrayed in such colours as must render it as immortal as the human race.

If poetry has failed in portraying the real spirit of the Crusades, has history been more successful? Never was a nobler theme presented to human ambition. We may see what may be made of it, by the inimitable fragment of its annals which Gibbon has left in his narrative of the storming of Constantinople by the Franks and Venetians. Only think what a subject is presented to the soul of genius, guiding the hand, and sustaining the effort of industry! The rise of the Mahometan power in the East, and the subjugation of Palestine by the arms of the Saracens; the profound indignation excited in Europe by the narratives of the sufferings of the Christians who had made pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre; the sudden and almost miraculous impulse communicated to multitudes by the preaching of Peter the Hermit; the universal frenzy which seized all classes, and the general desertion of fields and cities, in the anxiety to share in the holy enterprise of rescuing it from the infidels; the unparalleled sufferings and total destruction of the huge multitude of men, women, and children who formed the vanguard of Europe, and perished in the first Crusade, make up, as it were the first act of the eventful story. Next comes the firm array of warriors which was led by Godfrey of Bouillon in the second Crusade. Their march through Hungary and Turkey to Constantinople; the description of the Queen of the East, with its formidable ramparts, noble harbours, and crafty government; the battles of Nice and Dorislaus, and marvellous defeats of the Persians by the arms of the Christians; the long duration, and almost fabulous termination of the siege of Antioch, by the miracle of the holy lance; the advance to Jerusalem; the defeat of the Egyptians before its walls, and final storming of the holy city by the resistless prowess of the crusaders, terminate the second act of the mighty drama.

The third commences with the establishment, in a durable manner, of the Latins in Palestine, and the extension of its limits,—by the subjection of Ptolemais, Edessa, and a number of strongholds towards the east. The constitution of the monarchy by the "Assizes of Jerusalem," the most regular and perfect model of feudal sovereignty that ever was formed; with the singular orders of the knights-templars, hospitallers, and of St John of Jerusalem, which in a manner organized the strength of Europe for its defence, blend the detail of manners, institutions, and military establishments, with the otherwise too frequent narratives of battles and sieges. Next come the vast and almost convulsive efforts of the Orientals to expel the Christians from[Pg 478] their shores; the long wars and slow degrees by which the monarchy of Palestine was abridged, and at last its strength broken by the victorious sword of Saladin, and the wood of the true cross lost, in the battle of Tiberias. But this terrible event, which at once restored Jerusalem to the power of the Saracens, again roused the declining spirit of European enterprise. A hero rose up for the defence of the Holy Land. Richard Cœur de Lion and Philip Augustus appeared at the head of the chivalry of England and France. The siege of Ptolemais exceeded in heroic deeds that of Troy; the battle of Ascalon broke the strength and humbled the pride of Saladin; and, but for the jealousy and defection of France, Richard would have again rescued the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels, and perhaps permanently established a Christian monarchy on the shores of Palestine.

The fourth Crusade, under Dandolo, when the arms of the Faithful were turned aside from the holy enterprise by the spoils of Constantinople, and the blind Doge leapt from his galleys on the towers of the imperial city, forms the splendid subject of the fourth act. The marvellous spectacle was there exhibited of a band of adventurers, not mustering above twenty thousand combatants, carrying by storm the mighty Queen of the East, subverting the Byzantine empire, and establishing themselves in a durable manner, in feudal sovereignty, over the whole of Greece and European Turkey. The wonderful powers of Gibbon, the luminous pages of Sismondi, have thrown a flood of light on this extraordinary event, and almost brought its principal events before our eyes. The passage of the Dardanelles by the Christian armament; the fears of the warriors at embarking in the mighty enterprise of attacking the imperial city; the imposing aspect of its palaces, domes, and battlements; the sturdy resistance of the Latin squares to the desultory charges of the Byzantine troops; in fine, the storm of the city itself, and overthrow of the empire of the Cæsars, stand forth in the most brilliant light in the immortal pages of these two writers. But great and romantic as this event was, it was an episode in the history of the Crusades, it was a diversion of its forces, a deviation from its spirit. It is an ordinary, though highly interesting and eventful siege; very different from the consecration of the forces of Europe to the rescuing of the Holy Sepulchre.

Very different was the result of the last Crusade, under Saint Louis, which shortly after terminated in the capture of Ptolemais, and the final expulsion of the Christians from the shores of Palestine. Melancholy, however, as are the features of that eventful story, it excites a deeper emotion than the triumphant storm of Constantinople by the champions of the Cross. St Louis was unfortunate, but he was so in a noble cause; he preserved the purity of his character, the dignity of his mission, equally amidst the arrows of the Egyptians on the banks of the Nile, as in the death-bestrodden shores of the Lybian Desert. There is nothing more sublime in history than the death of this truly saint-like prince, amidst his weeping followers. England reappeared with lustre in the last glare of the flames of the crusades, before they sunk for ever; the blood of the Plantagenets proved worthy of itself. Prince Edward again erected the banner of victory before the walls of Acre, and his heroic consort, who sucked the poison of the assassin from his wounds, has passed, like Belisarius or Cœur de Lion, into the immortal shrine of romance. Awful was the catastrophe in which the tragedy terminated; and the storm of Acre, and slaughter of thirty thousand of the Faithful, while it finally expelled the Christians from the Holy Land, awakened the European powers, when too late, to a sense of the ruinous effect of those divisions which had permitted the vanguard of Christendom, the bulwark of the faith, to languish and perish, after an heroic resistance, on the shores of Asia.

Nor was it long before the disastrous consequences of these divisions appeared, and it was made manifest, even to the most inconsiderate, what dangers had been averted from the shores of Europe, by the contest which had so long fixed the struggle[Pg 479] on those of Asia. The dreadful arms of the Mahometans, no longer restrained by the lances of the Crusaders, appeared in menacing, and apparently irresistible strength, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Empire after empire sank beneath their strokes. Constantinople, and with it the empire of the East, yielded to the arms of Mahomet II.; Rhodes, with its spacious ramparts and well-defended bastions, to those of Solyman the Magnificent; Malta, the key to the Mediterranean, was only saved by the almost superhuman valour of its devoted knights; Hungary was overrun; Vienna besieged; and the death of Solyman alone prevented him from realizing his threat, of stabling his steed at the high altar of St Peter's. The glorious victory of Lepanto, the raising of the siege of Vienna by John Sobieski, only preserved, at distant intervals, Christendom from subjugation, and possibly the faith of the gospel from extinction on the earth. A consideration of these dangers may illustrate of what incalculable service the Crusades were to the cause of true religion and civilization, by fixing the contest for two centuries in Asia, when it was most to be dreaded in Europe; and permitting the strength of Christendom to grow, during that long period, till, when it was seriously assailed in its own home, it was able to defend itself. It may show us what we owe to the valour of those devoted champions of the Cross, who struggled with the might of Islamism when "it was strongest, and ruled it when it was wildest;" and teach us to look with thankfulness on the dispensations of that over-ruling Providence, which causes even the most vehement and apparently extravagant passions of the human mind to minister to the final good of humanity.

For a long period after their termination, the Crusades were regarded by the world, and treated by historians, as the mere ebullition of frenzied fanaticism—as a useless and deplorable effusion of human blood. It may be conceived with what satisfaction these views were received by Voltaire, and the whole sceptical writers of France, and how completely, in consequence, they deluded more than one generation. Robertson was the first who pointed out some of the important consequences which the Crusades had on the structure of society, and progress of improvement in modern Europe. Guizot and Sismondi have followed in the same track; and the truths they have unfolded are so evident, that they have received the unanimous concurrence of all thinking persons. Certain it is, that so vast a migration of men, so prodigious a heave of the human race, could not have taken place without producing the most important effects. Few as were the warriors who returned from the Holy Wars, in comparison of those who set out, they brought back with them many of the most important acquisitions of time and value, and arts of the East. The terrace cultivation of Tuscany, the invaluable irrigation of Lombardy, date from the Crusades: it was from the warriors or pilgrims that returned from the Holy Land, that the incomparable silk and velvet manufactures, and delicate jewellery of Venice and Genoa, took their rise. Nor were the consequences less material on those who remained behind, and did not share in the immediate fruits of Oriental enterprise. Immense was the impulse communicated to Europe by the prodigious migration. It dispelled prejudice, by bringing distant improvement before the eyes; awakened activity, by exhibiting to the senses the effects of foreign enterprise; it drew forth and expended long accumulated capital; the fitting out so vast a host of warriors stimulated labour, as the wars of the French Revolution did those of the European states six centuries afterwards. The feudal aristocracy never recovered the shock given to their power by the destruction of many families, and the overwhelming debts fastened on others, by these costly and protracted contests. Great part of the prosperity, freedom, and happiness which have since prevailed in the principal European monarchies, is to be ascribed to the Crusades. So great an intermingling of the different faiths and races of mankind, never takes place without producing lasting and beneficial consequences.

These views have been amply illus[Pg 480]trated by the philosophic historians of modern times. But there is another effect of far more importance than them all put together, which has not yet attracted the attention it deserves, because the opposite set of evils are only beginning now to rise into general and formidable activity. This is the fixing the mind, and still more the heart of Europe, for so long a period, on generous and disinterested objects. Whoever has attentively considered the constitution of human nature as he feels it in himself, or has observed it in others,—whether as shown in the private society with which he has mingled, or the public concerns of nations he has observed,—will at once admit that SELFISHNESS is its greatest bane. It is at once the source of individual degradation and of public ruin. He knew the human heart well who prescribed as the first of social duties, "to love our neighbour as ourself." Of what incalculable importance was it, then, to have the mind of Europe, during so many generations, withdrawn from selfish considerations, emancipated from the sway of individual desire, and devoted to objects of generous or spiritual ambition! The passion of the Crusades may have been wild, extravagant, irrational, but it was noble, disinterested, and heroic. It was founded on the sacrifice of self to duty; not on the sacrifice, so common in later times, of duty to self. In the individuals engaged in the Holy Wars, doubtless, there was the usual proportion of human selfishness and passion. Certainly they had not all the self-control of St Anthony, or the self-denial of St Jerome. But this is the case with all great movements. The principle which moved the general mind was grand and generous. It first severed war from the passion of lust or revenge, and the thirst for plunder on which it had hitherto been founded, and based it on the generous and disinterested object of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre. Courage was sanctified, because it was exerted in a noble cause: even bloodshed became excusable, for it was done to stop the shedding of blood. The noble and heroic feelings which have taken such hold of the mind of modern Europe, and distinguish it from any other age or quarter of the globe, have mainly arisen from the profound emotions awakened by the mingling of the passions of chivalry with the aspirations of devotion during the Crusades. The sacrifice of several millions of men, however dreadful an evil, was a transient and slight calamity, when set against the incalculable effect of communicating such feelings to their descendants, and stamping them for ever upon the race of Japhet, destined to people and subdue the world.

Look at the mottoes on the seals of our older nobility, which date from the era of the Crusades, or the ages succeeding it, when their heroic spirit was not yet extinct, and you will see the clearest demonstration of what was the spirit of these memorable contests. They are all founded on the sacrifice of self to duty, of interest to devotion, of life to love. There is little to be seen there about industry amassing wealth, or prudence averting calamity; but much about honour despising danger, and life sacrificed to duty. In an utilitarian or commercial age, such principles may appear extravagant or romantic; but it is from such extravagant romance that all the greatness of modern Europe has taken its rise. We cannot emancipate ourselves from their influence: a fountain of generous thoughts in every elevated bosom is perpetually gushing forth, from the ideas which have come down to us from the Holy Wars. They live in our romances, in our tragedies, in our poetry, in our language, in our hearts. Of what use are such feelings, say the partisans of utility? "Of what use," answers Madame De Staël, "is the Apollo Belvidere, or the poetry of Milton; the paintings of Raphael, or the strains of Handel? Of what use is the rose or the eglantine; the colours of autumn, or the setting of the sun?" And yet what object ever moved the heart as they have done, and ever will do? Of what use is all that is sublime or beautiful in nature, if not to the soul itself? The interest taken in such objects attests the dignity of that being which is immortal and invisible, and which is ever more strongly moved by whatever speaks to its immortal and invisible nature, than by all the cares of present existence.[Pg 481]

When such is the magnificence and interest of the subject of the Crusades, it is surprising that no historian has yet appeared in Great Britain who has done justice to the theme. Yet unquestionably none has even approached it. Mill's history is the only one in our language which treats of the subject otherwise than as a branch of general history; and though his work is trustworthy and authentic, it is destitute of the chief qualities requisite for the successful prosecution of so great an undertaking. It is—a rare fault in history—a great deal too short. It is not in two thin octavo volumes that the annals of the conflict of Europe and Asia for two centuries is to be given. It is little more than an abridgement, for the use of young persons, of what the real history should be. It may be true, but it is dull; and dulness is an unpardonable fault in any historian, especially one who had such a subject whereon to exert his powers. The inimitable episode of Gibbon on the storming of Constantinople by the Crusaders, is written in a very different style: the truths of history, and the colours of poetry, are there blended in the happiest proportions together. There is a fragment affording, so far as description goes, a perfect model of what the history of the Crusades should be; what in the hands of genius it will one day become. But it is a model only so far as description goes. Gibbon had greater powers as an historian than any modern writer who ever approached the subject; but he had not the elevated soul requisite for the highest branches of his art, and which was most of all called for in the annalist of the Crusades. He was destitute of enlightened principle; he was without true philosophy; he had the eye of painting, and the powers, but not the soul of poetry in his mind. He had not moral courage sufficient to withstand the irreligious fanaticism of his age. He was benevolent; but his aspirations never reached the highest interests of humanity,—humane, but "his humanity ever slumbered where women were ravished, or Christians persecuted."[6]

Passion and reason in equal proportions, it has been well observed, form energy. With equal truth, and for a similar reason, it may be said, that intellect and imagination in equal proportions form history. It is the want of the last quality which is in general fatal to the persons who adventure on that great but difficult branch of composition. It in every age sends ninety-nine hundreds of historical works down the gulf of time. Industry and accuracy are so evidently and indisputably requisite in the outset of historical composition, that men forget that genius and taste are required for its completion. They see that the edifice must be reared of blocks cut out of the quarry; and they fix their attention on the quarriers who loosen them from the rock, without considering that the soul of Phidias or Michael Angelo is required to arrange them in the due proportion in the immortal structure. What makes great and durable works of history so rare is, that they alone, perhaps, of any other production, require for their formation a combination of the most opposite qualities of the human mind, qualities which only are found united in a very few individuals in any age. Industry and genius, passion and perseverance, enthusiasm and caution, vehemence and prudence, ardour and self-control, the fire of poetry, the coldness of prose, the eye of painting, the patience of calculation, dramatic power, philosophic thought, are all called for in the annalist of human events. Mr Fox had a clear perception of what history should be, when he placed it next to poetry in the fine arts, and before oratory. Eloquence is but a fragment of what is enfolded in its mighty arms. Military genius ministers only to its more brilliant scenes. Mere ardour, or poetic imagination, will prove wholly insufficient; they will be deterred at the very threshold of the undertaking by the toil with which it is attended, and turn aside into the more inviting paths of poetry and romance. The labour of writing the "Life of Napoleon" killed Sir Walter Scott. Industry and intellectual power, if unaided by more[Pg 482] attractive qualities, will equally fail of success; they will produce a respectable work, valuable as a book of reference, which will slumber in forgotten obscurity in our libraries. The combination of the two is requisite to lasting fame, to general and durable success. What is necessary in an historian, as in the élite of an army, is not the desultory fire of light troops, nor the ordinary steadiness of common soldiers, but the regulated ardour, the burning but yet restrained enthusiasm, which, trained by discipline, taught by experience, keeps itself under control till the proper moment for action arrives, and then sweeps, at the voice of its leader, with "the ocean's mighty swing" on the foe.

Michaud is, in many respects, an historian peculiarly qualified for the great undertaking which he has accomplished, of giving a full and accurate, yet graphic history of the Crusades. He belongs to the elevated class in thought; he is far removed, indeed, from the utilitarian school of modern days. Deeply imbued with the romantic and chivalrous ideas of the olden time, a devout Catholic as well as a sincere Christian, he brought to the annals of the Holy Wars a profound admiration for their heroism, a deep respect for their disinterestedness, a graphic eye for their delineation, a sincere sympathy with their devotion. With the fervour of a warrior, he has narrated the long and eventful story of their victories and defeats; with the devotion of a pilgrim, visited the scenes of their glories and their sufferings. Not content with giving to the world six large octavos for the narrative of their glory, he has published six other volumes, containing his travels to all the scenes on the shores of the Mediterranean which have been rendered memorable by their exploits. It is hard to say which is most interesting. They mutually reflect and throw light on each other: for in the History we see at every step the graphic eye of the traveller; in the Travels we meet in every page with the knowledge and associations of the historian.

Michaud, as might be expected from his turn of mind and favourite studies, belongs to the romantic or picturesque school of French historians; that school of which, with himself, Barante, Michelet, and the two Thierrys are the great ornaments. He is far from being destitute of philosophical penetration, and many of his articles in that astonishing repertory of learning and ability, the Biographie Universelle, demonstrate that he is fully abreast of all the ideas and information of his age. But in his history of the Crusades, he thought, and thought rightly, that the great object was to give a faithful picture of the events and ideas of the time, without any attempt to paraphrase them into the language or thoughts of subsequent ages. The world had had enough of the flippant persiflage with which Voltaire had treated the most heroic efforts and tragic disasters of the human race. Philosophic historians had got into discredit from the rash conclusions and unfounded pretensions of the greater part of their number; though the philosophy of history can never cease to be one of the noblest subjects of human thought. To guard against the error into which they had fallen, the romantic historians recurred with anxious industry to the original and contemporary annals of their events, and discarded every thing from their narrative which was not found to be supported by such unquestionable authority. In thought, they endeavoured to reflect, as in a mirror, the ideas of the age of which they treated, rather than see it through their own: in narrative or description, they rather availed themselves of the materials, how scanty soever, collected by eyewitnesses, in preference to eking out the picture by imaginary additions, and the richer colouring of subsequent ages. This is the great characteristic of the graphic or picturesque school of French history; and there can be no question that in regard to the first requisite of history, trustworthiness, and the subordinate but also highly important object, of rendering the narrative interesting, it is a very great improvement, alike upon the tedious narrative of former learning, or the provoking pretensions of more recent philosophy. Justice can never be done to the actions or thoughts of former times, unless the former are narrated from the accounts of eye[Pg 483]witnesses, and with the fervour which they alone can feel—the latter in the very words, as much as possible, employed by the speakers on the occasions. Nor will imagination ever produce any thing so interesting as the features which actually presented themselves at the moment to the observer. Every painter knows the superior value of sketches, however slight, made on the spot, to the most laboured subsequent reminiscences.

But while this is perfectly true on the one hand, it is equally clear on the other, that this recurrence to ancient and contemporary authority must be for the facts, events, and outline of the story only; and that the filling up must be done by the hand of the artist who is engaged in producing the complete work. If this is not done, history ceases to be one of the fine arts. It degenerates into a mere collection of chronicles, records, and ballads, without any connecting link to unite, or any regulating mind to arrange them. History then loses the place assigned it by Mr Fox, next to poetry and before oratory; it becomes nothing more than a magazine of antiquarian lore. Such a magazine may be interesting to antiquaries; it may be valuable to the learned in ecclesiastical disputes, or the curious in genealogy or family records; but these interests are of a very partial and transient description. It will never generally fascinate the human race. Nothing ever has, or ever can do so, but such annals as, independent of local or family interest, or antiquarian curiosity, are permanently attractive by the grandeur and interest of the events they recount, and the elegance or pathos of the language in which they are delivered. Such are the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, the annals of Sallust and Tacitus, the narratives of Homer, Livy, and Gibbon. If instead of aiming at producing one uniform work of this description, flowing from the same pen, couched in the same style, reflecting the same mind, the historian presents his readers with a collection of quotations from chronicles, state papers, or jejune annalists, he has entirely lost sight of the principles of his art. He has not made a picture, but merely put together a collection of original sketches; he has not built a temple, but only piled together the unfinished blocks of which it was to be composed.

This is the great fault into which Barante, Sismondi, and Michelet have fallen. In their anxiety to be faithful, they have sometimes become tedious; in their desire to recount nothing that was not true, they have narrated much that was neither material nor interesting. Barante, in particular, has utterly ruined his otherwise highly interesting history of the Dukes of Burgundy by this error. We have bulls of the Popes, marriage-contracts, feudal charters, treaties of alliance, and other similar instruments, quoted ad longum in the text of the history, till no one but an enthusiastic antiquary or half-cracked genealogist can go on with the work. The same mistake is painfully conspicuous in Sismondi's Histoire des Français. Fifteen out of his valuable thirty volumes are taken up with quotations from public records or instruments. It is impossible to conceive a greater mistake, in a composition which is intended not merely for learned men or antiquaries, but for the great body of ordinary readers. The authors of these works are so immersed in their own ideas and researches, they are so enamoured of their favourite antiquities, that they forget that the world in general is far from sharing their enthusiasm, and that many things, which to them are of the highest possible interest and importance, seem to the great bulk of readers immaterial or tedious. The two Thierrys have, in a great measure, avoided this fatal error; for, though their narratives are as much based on original and contemporary authorities as any histories can be, the quotations are usually given in an abbreviated form in the notes, and the text is, in general, an unbroken narrative, in their own perspicuous and graphic language. Thence, in a great measure, the popularity and interest of their works. Michaud indulges more in lengthened quotations in his text from the old chronicles, or their mere paraphrases into his own language; their frequency is the great defect of his valuable his[Pg 484]tory. But the variety and interest of the subjects render this mosaic species of composition more excusable, and less repugnant to good taste, in the account of the Crusades, than it would be, perhaps, in the annals of any other human transactions.

As a specimen of our author's powers and style of description, we subjoin a translation of the animated narrative he gives from the old historians of the famous battle of Dorislaus, which first subjected the coasts of Asia Minor to the arms of the Crusaders.

This extract gives an idea at once of the formidable nature of the contest which awaited the Christians in their attempts to recover the Holy Land, of the peculiar character of the attack and defence on both sides, and of the talent for graphic and lucid description which M. Michaud possesses. It is curious how identical the attack of the West and defence of the East are the same in all ages. The description of the manner in which the Crusading warriors were here drawn into a pursuit of, and then enveloped by the Asiatic light horse, is precisely the same as that in which the legions of Crassus were destroyed; and might pass for a narrative of the way in which Napoleon's European cavalry were cut to pieces by the Arab horse at the combat at Salahout, near the Red Sea; or Lord Lake's horse worsted in the first part of the battle of Laswaree in India, before the infantry came up, and, by storming the batteries, restored the combat. On the other hand, the final overthrow of the Saracens at Dorislaus was evidently owing to their imprudence in standing firm, and awaiting in that position the attack of the Christians. They did so, trusting to the strength of the rocky ridge on which they were posted; but that advantage, great as it was, by no means rendered them a match in close fight for the weighty arms and the determined resolution of the Europeans, any more than the discharges of their powerful batteries availed the Mahrattas in the latter part of the battles of Assaye and Laswaree, or, more recently, the Sikhs in the desperate conflict at Ferozepore in the Punjaub. The discovery of fire-arms, and all the subsequent improvements in tactics and strategy, though they[Pg 487] have altered the weapons with which war is carried on, yet have not materially changed the mode in which success is won, or disaster averted, between ancient and modern times.

Our author's account of the storming of Jerusalem, the final object and crowning glory of the Crusades, is animated and interesting in the highest degree.

The number of the slain greatly exceeded that of the conquerors. In the mosque of Omar alone ten thousand were put to the sword.

Inexplicable as such contradictory conduct appears to those who "sit at home at ease," and are involved in none of the terrible calamities which draw forth the latent marvels of the human heart, history in every age affords too many examples of its occurrence to permit us to doubt the truth of the narrative. It is well known that during the worst period of the French Revolution, in the massacres in the prisons on Sept. 2, 1792, some of the mob who had literally wearied their arms in hewing down the prisoners let loose from the jails, took a momentary fit of compunction, were seized with pity for some of the victims, and after saving them from their murderers, accompanied them home, and witnessed with tears of joy the meeting between them and their relations. We are not warranted,[Pg 490] after such facts have been recorded on authentic evidence in all ages, in asserting that this transient humanity is assumed or hypocritical. The conclusion rather is, that the human mind is so strangely compounded of good and bad principles, and contains so many veins of thought apparently irreconcilable with each other, that scarce any thing can be set down as absolutely impossible, but every alleged fact is to be judged of mainly by the testimony by which it is supported, and its coincidence with what has elsewhere been observed of that strange compound of contradictions, the human heart.

In the events which have been mentioned, the Crusaders were victorious; and the Crescent, in the outset of the contest, waned before the Cross. But it was only for a time that it did so. The situation of Palestine in Asia, constituting it the advanced post as it were of Christendom across the sea, in the regions of Islamism, perpetually exposed it to the attack of the Eastern powers. They were at home, and fought on their own ground, and with their own weapons, in the long contest which followed the first conquest of Palestine; whereas the forces of the Christians required to be transported, at a frightful expense of life, over a hazardous journey of fifteen hundred miles in length, or conveyed by sea at a very heavy cost from Marseilles, Genoa, or Venice. Irresistible in the first onset, the armament of the Christians gradually dwindled away as the first fervour of the Holy Wars subsided, and the interminable nature of the conflict in which they were engaged with the Oriental powers became apparent. It was the same thing as Spain maintaining a transatlantic contest with her South American, or England with her North American colonies. Indeed, the surprising thing, when we consider the exposed situation of the kingdom of Palestine, the smallness of its resources, and the scanty and precarious support it received, after the first burst of the Crusades was over, from the Western powers, is not that it was at last destroyed, but that it existed so long as it did. The prolongation of its life was mainly owing to the extraordinary qualities of one man.

It is hard to say whether the heroism of Richard Cœur de Lion has been most celebrated in Europe or Asia. Like Solomon, Alexander the Great, Haroun El Raschid, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, his fame has taken root as deeply in the East as in the West, among his enemies as his friends; among the followers of Mahomet as the disciples of the Cross. If he is the hero of European romance,—if he is the theme of the Troubadour's song, he is not less celebrated among the descendants of the Saracens; his exploits are not less eagerly chanted in the tents of the children of Ishmael. To this day, when an Arab's steed starts at a bush in the desert, his master asks him if he expects to see Richard issue from the covert. He possessed that surprising personal strength and daring valour which are so highly prized by warriors in all rude periods, and united with those qualities that singleness of heart and bonhommie of disposition, which, not less powerfully in the great, win upon the hearts of men. His chief qualities—those which have given him his deathless fame—undoubtedly were his heroic courage, extraordinary personal strength, and magnanimity of mind. But if his campaigns with Saladin are attentively considered, it will appear that he was also a great general; and that his marvellous successes were as much owing to his conduct as a commander as his prowess as a knight. This is more particularly conspicuous, in the manner in which he conducted his then sorely diminished army on Acre to within sight of Jerusalem, surrounded as it was the whole way by prodigious clouds of Asiatic horse, headed by the redoubtable Saladin. Beyond all doubt he would, but for the defection of Philip Augustus and France, have wrested Palestine from the Infidels, and again planted the Cross on Mount Calvary, despite the whole forces of the East, led by their ablest and most powerful sultans. His grief at not being able to accomplish this glorious object, is well described by Michaud—

As a specimen of the magnitude of the battles fought in this Crusade, we take that of Assur, near Ptolemais—

These extracts convey a fair idea of M. Michaud's power of description and merits as an historian. He cannot be said to be one of the highest class. He does not belong to the school who aim at elevating history to its loftiest pitch. The antiquarian school never have, and never will do so. The minute observation and prodigious attentions to detail which their habits produce, are inconsistent with extensive vision. The same eye scarcely ever unites the powers of the microscope and the telescope. He has neither the philosophic mind of Guizot, nor the pictorial eye of Gibbon; he neither takes a luminous glance like Robertson, nor sums up the argument of a generation in a page, like Hume. We shall look in vain in his pages for a few words diving into the human heart such as we find in Tacitus, or splendid pictures riveting every future age as in Livy. He is rather an able and animated abridger of the chronicles, than an historian. But in that subordinate, though very important department, his merits are of a very high order. He is faithful, accurate, and learned; he has given a succinct and yet interesting detail, founded entirely on original authority, of the wars of two centuries. Above all, his principles are elevated, his feelings warm, his mind lofty and generous. He is worthy of his subject, for he is entirely free of the grovelling utilitarian spirit, the disgrace and the bane of the age in which he writes. His talents for description are very considerable, as will be apparent from the account we hope to give in a future Number of his highly interesting travels to the principal scenes of the Crusades. It is only to be regretted, that in his anxiety to preserve the fidelity of his narrative, he has so frequently restrained it, and given us rather descriptions of scenes taken from the old chronicles, than such as his own observations and taste could have supplied. But still his work supplies a great desideratum in European literature; and if not the best that could be conceived, is by much the best that has yet appeared on the subject. And it is written in the spirit of the age so finely expressed in the title given by one of the most interesting of the ancient chroniclers to his work—

"Gesta Dei per Francos."[7] [Pg 493]

THE BURDEN OF SION.

By Delta.

Captive and sorrow-pale, the mournful lot
Say, hast thou, Sion, of thy sons forgot?
Hast thou forgot the innocent flocks, that lay
Prone on thy sunny banks, or frisk'd in play
Amid thy lilied meadows? Wilt thou turn
A deaf ear to thy supplicants, who mourn
Downcast in earth's far corners? Unto thee
Wildly they turn in their lone misery;
For wheresoe'er they rush in their despair,
The pitiless Destroyer still is there!

Eden of earth! despisest thou the sighs
From the slave's heart that rise
To thee, amid his fetters—who can dare
Still to hope on in his forlorn despair—
Whose morn and evening tears for thee fall down
Like dews on Hermon's thirsty crown—
And who would blessed be in all his ills,
Wander'd his feet once more even on thy desert hills!

But not is Hope's fair star extinguish'd quite
In rayless night;
And, Sion, as thy fortunes I bewail,
Harsh sounds my voice, as of the birds that sail
The stormy dark. Let but that star be mine,
And through the tempest tremulously shine;
So, when the brooding clouds have overpast,
Rejoicing, with the dawn, may come at last,
Even as an instrument, whose lively sound
Makes the warm blood in every bosom bound,
And whose triumphant notes are given
Freely in songs of thanksgiving to Heaven!

Bethel!—and as thy name's name leaves my tongue,
The very life-drops from my heart are wrung!
Thy sanctuary—where, veil'd in mystic light,
For ever burning, and for ever bright,
Jehovah's awful majesty reposed,
And shone for aye heaven's azure gates unclosed—
Thy sanctuary!—where from the Eternal flow'd
The radiance of his glory, in whose power
Noonday itself like very darkness show'd,
And stars were none at midnight's darkest hour—
Thy sanctuary! oh there! oh there! that I
[Pg 494]Might breathe my troubled soul out, sigh on sigh,
There, where thine effluence, Mighty God, was pour'd
On thine Elect, who, kneeling round, adored!

Stand off! the place is holy. Know ye not,
Of potter's clay the children, that this spot
Is sacred to the Everlasting One—
The Ruler over heaven, and over earth?
Stand off, degraded slaves, devoid of worth!
Nor dare profane again, as ye have done,
This spot—'tis holy ground—profane it not!

Oh, might I cleave, with raptured wing, the waste
Of the wide air, then, where in splendour lie
Thy ruins, would my sorrowing spirit haste,
Forth to outpour its flood of misery!—
There, where thy grandeur owns a dire eclipse,
Down to the dust as sank each trembling knee,
Unto thy dear soil should I lay my face,
Thy very stones in rapture to embrace,
And to thy smouldering ashes glue my lips!

And how, O Sion! how should I but weep,
As on our fathers' tombs I fondly gazed,
Or, wistfully, as turn'd mine eye
To thee, in all thy desolate majesty,
Hebron, where rests the mighty one in sleep,
And high his pillar of renown was raised!
There—in thine atmosphere—'twere blessedness
To breathe a purer ether. Oh! to me
Thy dust than perfumes dearer far should be,
And down thy rocks the torrent streams should roam
With honey in their foam!

Oh, sweet it were—unutterably sweet—
Even though with garments rent, and bleeding feet,
To wander over the deserted places
Where once thy princely palaces arose,
And 'mid the weeds and wild-flowers mark the traces,
Where the ground, yawning in its earthquake throes,
The ark of covenant and the cherubim
Received, lest stranger hands, that reek'd the while
With blood of thine own children, should defile
Its heaven-resplendent glory, and bedim:
And my dishevell'd locks, in my despair,
All madly should I tear;
And as I cursed the day that dawn'd in heaven—
The day that saw thee to destruction given,
Even from my very frenzy should I wring
A rough, rude comfort in my sorrowing.

What other comfort can I know? Behold,
Wild dogs and wolves with hungry snarl contend
Over thy prostrate mighty ones; and rend
Their quivering limbs, ere life hath lost its hold.
I sicken at the dawn of morn—the noon
Brings horror with its brightness; for the day
Shows but the desolate plain,
Where, feasting on the slain,
[Pg 495](Thy princes,) flap and scream the birds of prey!

Chalice from Marah's bitterest spring distill'd!
Goblet of woe, to overflowing fill'd!
Who, quaffing thee, can live? Give me but breath—
A single breath—that I once more may see
The dreary vision. I will think of thee,
Colla, once more—of Cliba will I think—
Then fearlessly and freely drink
The cup—the fatal cup—whose dregs are death.

Awake thee, Queen of Cities, from thy slumber—
Awake thee, Sion! Let the quenchless love
Of worshippers, a number beyond number,
A fountain of rejoicing prove.
Thy sorrows they bewail, thy wounds they see,
And feel them as their own, and mourn for thee!
Oh, what were life to them, did Hope not hold
Her mirror, to unfold
That glorious future to their raptured sight,
When a new morn shall chase away this night!
Even from the dungeon gloom,
Their yearning hearts, as from a tomb,
Are crying out—are crying out to thee;
And, as they bow the knee
Before the Eternal, every one awaits
The answer of his prayer, with face toward thy gates.

Earth's most celestial region! Babylon
The mighty, the magnificent, to thee,
With all the trappings of her bravery on,
Seems but a river to the engulfing sea.
What are its oracles but lies? 'Tis given
Thy prophets only to converse with Heaven—
The hidden to reveal, the dark to scan,
And be the interpreters of God to man.
The idols dumb that erring men invoke,
Themselves are vanities, their power is smoke:
But, while the heathen's pomp is insecure,
Is transient, thine, O Sion! shall endure;
For in thy temples, God, the only Lord,
Hath been, and still delights to be, adored.

Blessed are they, who, by their love,
Themselves thy veritable children prove!
Yea! blessed they who cleave
To thee, with faithful hearts, and scorn to leave!
Come shall the day—and come it may full soon—
When thou, more splendid than the moon,
Shalt rise; and, triumphing o'er night,
Turn ebon darkness into silver light:
The glory of thy brightness shall be shed
Around each faithful head:
Rising from thy long trance, earth shall behold
Thee loftier yet, and lovelier than of old;
And portion'd with the saints in bliss shall be
All who, through weal and woe, were ever true to thee!
[Pg 496]

RHYMED HEXAMETERS AND PENTAMETERS.

HIS OWN EPITAPH.

By Ennius.

Adspicite, O cives! senis Ennii imagini' formam;
Hic vostrum panxit maxuma facta patrum.
Nemo me lacrumis decoret, nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? volito vivu' per ora virûm.

See, O citizens! here old Ennius's image presented,
Who to your forefathers' deeds gave their own glory again.
Honour me not with your tears; by none let my death be lamented:
Why? still in every mouth living I flit among men.

ON GELLIA.

From Martial.

Amissum non flet, cum sola est, Gellia patrem;
Si quis adest, jussæ prosiliunt lacrymæ.
Non dolet hic, quisquis laudari, Gellia, quærit;
Ille dolet verè qui sine teste dolet.

Gellia, when she's alone, doesn't weep the death of her father;
But, if a visitor comes, tears at her bidding appear.
Gellia, they do not mourn who are melted by vanity rather;
They are true mourners who weep when not a witness is near.

TO CECILIANUS.

From Martial.

Nullus in urbe fuit totâ qui tangere vellet
Uxorem gratis, Cæciliane, tuam,
Dum licuit: sed nunc positis custodibus ingens
Agmen amatorum est. Ingeniosus homo es.

Nobody, Cecilianus, e'er thought of your wife (she's so ugly!)
When she could gratis be seen, when she was easily won.
Now that, with locks and with guards you pretend to secure her so snugly,
Crowds of gallants flock around: faith, it is cleverly done.

ON A BEE INCLOSED IN AMBER.

From Martial.

Et latet et lucet Phaëthontide condita guttâ,
Ut videatur apis nectare clausa suo.
Dignum tantorum pretium tulit illa laborum:
Credibile est ipsam sic voluisse mori.

Lucid the bee lurks here, bright amber her beauty inclosing!
As in the nectar she made seems the fair insect to lie.
Worthy reward she has gain'd, after such busy labours reposing:
Well we might deem that herself thus would be willing to die.
[Pg 497]

THE SURVEYOR'S TALE.

Good resolutions are, like glass, manufactured for the purpose of being broken. Immediately after my marriage, I registered in the books of my conscience a very considerable vow against any future interference with the railway system. The Biggleswades had turned out so well, that I thought it unsafe to pursue my fortune any further. The incipient gambler, I am told, always gains, through the assistance of a nameless personage who shuffles the cards a great deal oftener than many materialists suppose. Nevertheless, there is always a day of retribution.

I wish I had adhered to my original orthodox determination. During the whole period of the honeymoon, I remained blameless as to shares. Uncle Scripio relinquished the suggestion of "dodges" in despair. He was, as usual, brimful of projects, making money by the thousand, and bearing or bulling, as the case might be, with genuine American enthusiasm. I believe he thought me a fool for remaining so easily contented, and very soon manifested no further symptom of his consciousness of my existence than by transmitting me regularly a copy of the Railway Gazette, with some mysterious pencil-markings at the list of prices, which I presume he intended for my guidance in the case of an alteration of sentiment. For some time I never looked at them. When a man is newly married, he has a great many other things to think of. Mary had a decided genius for furniture, and used to pester me perpetually with damask curtains, carved-wood chairs, gilt lamps, and a whole wilderness of household paraphernalia, about which, in common courtesy, I was compelled to affect an interest. Now, to a man like myself, who never had any fancy for upholstery, this sort of thing is very tiresome. My wife might have furnished the drawingroom after the pattern of the Cham of Tartary's for any thing I cared, provided she had left me in due ignorance of the proceeding; but I was not allowed to escape so comfortably. I looked over carpet patterns and fancy papers innumerable, mused upon all manner of bell-pulls, and gave judgment between conflicting rugs, until the task became such a nuisance, that I was fain to take refuge in the sacred sanctuary of my club. Young women should be particularly careful against boring an accommodating spouse. Of all places in the world, a club is the surest focus of speculation. You meet gentlemen there who hold stock in every line in the kingdom—directors, committeemen, and even crack engineers. I defy you to continue an altogether uninterested auditor of the fascinating intelligence of Mammon. In less than a week my vow was broken, and a new liaison commenced with the treacherous Delilah of scrip. As nine-tenths of my readers have been playing the same identical game towards the close of last year, it would be idle to recount to them the various vicissitudes of the market. It is a sore subject with most of us—a regular undeniable case of "infandum regina." The only comfort is, that our fingers were simultaneously burned.

Amongst other transactions, I had been induced by my old fiend Cutts, now in practice as an independent engineer, to apply for a large allocation of shares in the Slopperton Valley, a very spirited undertaking, for which the Saxon was engaged to invent the gradients. This occurred about the commencement of the great Potato Revolution—an event which I apprehend will be long remembered by the squirearchy and shareholders of these kingdoms. The money-market was beginning to exhibit certain symptoms of tightness; premiums were melting perceptibly away, and new schemes were in diminished favour. Under these circumstances, the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Valley Company were beneficent enough to gratify my wishes to the full, and accorded to me the large privilege of three hundred original shares. Two months earlier this would have been equivalent to a fortune—as it was, I must own that my gratitude was[Pg 498] hardly commensurate to the high generosity of the donors. I am not sure that I did not accompany the receipt of my letter of allocation with certain expletives by no means creditable to the character of the projectors—at all events, I began to look with a milder eye upon the atrocities of Pennsylvanian repudiation. However, as the crash was by no means certain, my sanguine temperament overcame me, and in a fit of temporary derangement I paid the deposit.

In the ensuing week the panic became general. Capel-court was deserted by its herd—Liverpool in a fearful state of commercial coma—Glasgow trembling throughout its Gorbals—and Edinburgh paralytically shaking. The grand leading doctrine of political economy once more was recognised as a truth: the supply exorbitantly exceeded the demand, and there were no buyers. The daily share-list became a far more pathetic document in my eyes than the Sorrows of Werter. The circular of my brokers, Messrs Tine and Transfer, contained a tragedy more woful than any of the conceptions of Shakspeare—the agonies of blighted love are a joke compared with those of baffled avarice; and of all kinds of consumption, that of the purse is the most severe. One circumstance, however, struck me as somewhat curious. Neither in share-list nor circular could I find any mention made of the Slopperton Valley. It seemed to have risen like an exhalation, and to have departed in similar silence. This boded ill for the existence of the £750 I had so idiotically invested, the recuperation whereof, in whole or in part, became the subject of my nightly meditations; and, as correspondence in such matters is usually unsatisfactory, I determined to start personally in search of my suspended deposit.

I did not know a single individual of the Slopperton Provisional Committee, but I was well enough acquainted with Cutts, whose present residence was in a midland county of England, where the work of railway construction was going actively forward. As I drove into the town where the Saxon had established his headquarters, I saw with feelings of peculiar disgust immense gangs of cut-throat looking fellows—"the navies of the nations," as Alfred Tennyson calls them—busy at their embankments, absorbing capital at an alarming ratio, and utterly indifferent to the state of the unfortunate shareholders then writhing under the pressure of calls. Philanthropy is a very easy thing when our own circumstances are prosperous, but a turn of the wheel of fortune gives a different complexion to our views. If I had been called upon two months earlier to pronounce an oration upon the vast benefits of general employment and high wages, I should have launched out con amore. Now, the spectacle which I beheld suggested no other idea than that of an enormous cheese fast hastening to decomposition and decay beneath the nibbling of myriads of mites.

I found Cutts in his apartment of the hotel in the unmolested enjoyment of a cigar. He seemed fatter, and a little more red in the gills than when I saw him last, otherwise there was no perceptible difference.

"Hallo, old fellow!" cried the Saxon, pitching away a pile of estimates; "what the mischief has brought you up here? Waiter—a bottle of sherry! You wouldn't prefer something hot at this hour of the morning, would you?"

"Certainly not."

"Ay—you're a married man now. How's old Morgan? Lord! what fun we had at Shrewsbury when I helped you to your wife!"

"So far as I recollect, Mr Cutts, you nearly finished that business. But I want to have a serious talk with you about other matters. What has become of that confounded Slopperton Valley, for which you were engineer?"

"Slopperton Valley! Haven't you heard about it? The whole concern was wound up about three weeks ago. Take a glass of wine."

"Wound up? Why, this is most extraordinary. I never received any circular!"

"I thought as much," said Cutts very coolly. "That's precisely what I said to old Hasherton, the chairman, the day after the secretary bolted. I told him he should send round notice to the fellows at a distance, warning them not to cash up; but it[Pg 499] seems that the list of subscribers had gone amissing, and so the thing was left to rectify itself."

"Bolted! You don't mean Mr Glanders, of the respectable firm of Glanders and Co?"

"Of course I do. I wonder you have not heard of it. That comes of living in a confounded country where there are neither breeches nor newspapers—help yourself—and no direct railway communication. Glanders bolted as a matter of course, and I can tell you that I thought myself very lucky in getting hold of as much of the deposits as cleared my preliminary expenses."

"Cutts—are you serious?"

"Perfectly. But what's the use of making a row about it? You look as grim as if there was verjuice in the sherry. You ought to thank your stars that the thing was put a stop to so soon."

"Why—didn't you recommend me to apply for shares?"

"Of course I did, and I wonder you don't feel grateful for the advice. Every body thought they would have come out at a high premium. I would not have taken six pounds for them in the month of September; but this infernal potato business has brought on the panic, and nobody will table a shilling for any kind of new stock. It was a lucky thing for us that we got a kind of hint to draw in our horns in time."

"And pray, since the concern is wound up, as you say, how much of our deposit-money will be returned?"

"You don't mean to say," said Cutts, with singularly elaborate articulation—"You don't mean to say that you were such an inconceivable ass as to pay up your letter of allotment? Well—I never heard of such a piece of deliberate infatuation! Why, man, a blacksmith with half an eye must have seen that the game was utterly up a week before the calls were due. I don't think there is a single man out of Scotland who would have made such a fool of himself; indeed, so far as I know, nobody cashed up except a dozen old women who knew nothing about the matter, and ten landed proprietors, who expected compensation, and deserved to be done accordingly. You need not look as though you meditated razors. The Biggleswade concern will pay for this more than thirty tines over."

"I'll tell you what, Cutts," said I in a paroxysm, "this is a most nefarious transaction, and I'm hanged if I don't take the law with every one connected with it. I'll make an example of that fellow Hasherton, and the whole body of the committee."

"Just as you like," replied the imperturbable Cutts. "You're a lawyer, and the best judge of those sort of things. I may, however, as well inform you that Hasherton went into the Gazette last week, and that you won't find another member of the committee at this moment within the four seas of Great Britain."

"And pray, may I ask how you came to be connected with so discreditable a project? Do you know that it is enough to blast your own reputation for ever?"

"I know nothing of the kind," said the Saxon, commencing another cigar. "I look to the matter of employment, and have nothing to do with the character of my clients, beyond ascertaining their means of liquidating my account. The committee required the assistance of a first-rate engineer, and I flatter myself they could hardly have made a more unexceptionable selection. But what's the use of looking sulky about it? You can't help yourself; and, after all, what's the amount of your loss? A parcel of pound-notes that would have lain rotting in the bank had you not put them into circulation! Cheer up, Fred, you've made at least one individual very happy. Glanders is going it in New York. I shouldn't be surprised if half your deposit money is already invested in mint-juleps."

"It is very easy for you to talk, Mr Cutts," said I, with considerable acrimony. "Your account, at all events, appears to have been paid. Doubtless you looked sharply after that. I cannot help putting my own construction upon the conduct of a gentleman who makes a direct profit out of the misfortunes of his friends."

"You affect me deeply," said Cutts, applying himself diligently to the decanter; "but you don't drink. Do[Pg 500] you know you put me a good deal in mind of Macready? Did you ever hear him in Lear,

'How sharper than a serpent's thanks it is
To have a toothless child?'

You're remarkably unjust, Fred, as you will acknowledge in your cooler moments. I am hurt by your ingratitude—I am," and the sympathizing engineer buried his face in the folds of a Bandana handkerchief.

I knew, by old experience, that it was of no use to get into a rage with Cutts. After all, I had no tenable ground of complaint against him; for the payment of the deposit money was my own deliberate act, and it was no fault of his that the shares were not issued at a premium. I therefore contrived to swallow, as I best could, my indignation, though it was no easy matter. Seven hundred and fifty pounds is a serious sum, and would have gone a long way towards the furnishing of a respectable domicile.

I believe that Cutts, though he never allowed himself to exhibit a symptom of ordinary regret, was internally annoyed at the confounded scrape in which I was landed by following his advice. At all events he soon ceased comporting himself after the manner of the comforters of Job, and finally undertook to look after my interest in case any fragment of the deposits could be rescued from the hands of the Philistines. I have since had a letter from him with the information that he has recovered a hundred pounds—a friendly exertion which shall be duly acknowledged so soon as I receive a remittance, which, however, has not yet come to hand.

By the time we had finished the sherry, I was restored, if not to good-humour, at least to a state of passive resignation. The Saxon gave strict orders that he was to be denied to every body, and made some incoherent proposals about "making a forenoon of it," which, however, I peremptorily declined.

"It's a very hard thing," said Cutts, "but I see it's an invariable rule that matrimony and good-fellowship can never go together. You're not half the brick you used to be, Fred; but I suppose it can't be helped. There's a degree of slow-coachiness about you which I take to be peculiarly distressing, and if you don't take care it will become a confirmed habit."

"Seven hundred and fifty pounds—what! all my pretty chickens and their"——

Don't swear! It's a highly immoral practice. At all events you'll dine with me to-day at six. You shall have as much claret as you can conscientiously desire, and, for company, I have got the queerest fellow here you ever set eyes on. You used to pull the long bow with considerable effect, but this chap beats you hollow."

"Who is he?"

"How should I know? He calls himself Leopold Young Mandeville—is a surveyor by trade, and has been working abroad at some outlandish line or another for the last two years. He is a very fair hand at the compasses, and so I have got him here by way of assistant. You may think him rather dull at first, but wait till he has finished a pint, and I'm shot if he don't astonish you. Now, if you will have nothing more, we may as well go out, and take a ride by way of appetizer."

At six o'clock I received the high honour of an introduction to Mr Young Mandeville. As I really consider this gentleman one of the most remarkable personages of the era in which we live, I may perhaps be excused if I assume the privilege of an acquaintance, and introduce him also to the reader. The years of Mr Mandeville could hardly have exceeded thirty. His stature was considerably above the average of mankind, and would have been greater save for the geometrical curvature of his lower extremities, which gave him all the appearance of a walking parenthesis. His hair was black and streaky; his complexion atrabilious; his voice slightly raucous, like that of a tragedian contending with a cold. The eye was a very fine one—that is, the right eye—for the other optic was evidently internally damaged, and shone with an opalescent lustre. There was a kind of native dignity about the man which impressed me favourably, notwith[Pg 501]standing the reserved manner in which he exchanged the preliminary courtesies.

Cutts did the honours of the table with his usual alacrity. The dinner was a capital one, and the vine not only abundant but unexceptionable. At first, however, the conversation flowed but languidly. My spirits had not yet recovered from the appalling intelligence of the morning; nor could I help reflecting, with a certain uneasiness, upon the reception I was sure to meet with from certain brethren in the Outer House, to whom, in a moment of rash confidence, I had entrusted the tale of my dilemma. I abhor roasting in my own person, and yet I knew I should have enough of it. Mandeville eat on steadily, like one labouring under the conviction that he thereby performed a good and meritorious action, and scorning to mix up extraneous matter with the main object of his exertions. The Saxon awaited his time, and steadily circulated the champagne.

We all got more loquacious after the cloth was removed. A good dinner reconciles one amazingly to the unhappy chances of our lot; and, before the first bottle was emptied, I had tacitly forgiven every one of the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Railway Company, with the exception of the villainous Glanders, who, for any thing I knew, might, at that moment, be transatlantically regaling himself at my particular expense. His guilt was of course inexpiable. Mandeville, having eat like an ogre, began to drink like a dromedary. Both the dark and the opalescent eye sparkled with unusual fire, and with a sigh of philosophic fervour he unbuttoned the extremities of his waistcoat.

"Help yourselves, my boys," said the jovial Cutts; "there's lots of time before us between this and the broiled bones. By Jove, I'm excessively thirsty! I say, Mandeville, were you ever in Scotland? I hear great things of the claret there."

"I never had that honour," replied Mr Young Mandeville, "which I particularly regret, for I have a high—may I say the highest?—respect for that intelligent country, and indeed claim a remote connexion with it. I admire the importance which Scotsmen invariably attach to pure blood and ancient descent. It is a proof, Mr Cutts, that with them the principles of chivalry are not extinct, and that the honours which should be paid to birth alone, are not indiscriminately lavished upon the mere acquisition of wealth."

"Which means, I suppose, that a lot of rubbishy ancestors is better than a fortune in the Funds. Well—every man according to his own idea. I am particularly glad to say, that I understand no nonsense of the kind. There's Fred, however, will keep you in countenance. He say—but I'll be hanged if I believe it—that he is descended from some old king or another, who lived before the invention of breeches."

"Cutts—don't be a fool!"

"Oh, by Jove, it's quite true!" said the irreverent Saxon; "you used to tell me about it every night when you were half-seas over at Shrewsbury. It was capital fun to hear you, about the mixing of the ninth tumbler."

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr Mandeville, with an appearance of intense interest—"do you indeed reckon kindred with the royal family of Scotland? I have a particular reason personal to myself in the inquiry."

"Why, if you really want to know about it," said I, looking, I suppose, especially foolish, for Cutts was evidently trotting me out, and I more than half suspected his companion—"I do claim—but it's a ridiculous thing to talk of—a lineal descent from a daughter of William the Lion."

"You delight me!" said Mr Mandeville. "The connexion is highly respectable—I have myself some of that blood in my veins, though perhaps of a little older date than yours; for one of my ancestors, Ulric of Mandeville, married a daughter of Fergus the First. I am very glad indeed to make the acquaintance of a relative after the lapse of so many centuries."

I returned a polite bow to the salutation of my new-found cousin, and wished him at the bottom of the Euxine.

"Will you pardon me, Mr Cutts, if I ask my kinsman a question or two[Pg 502] upon family affairs? The older cadets of the royal blood have seldom an opportunity of meeting."

"Fire away," said the Saxon, "but be done with it as soon as you can."

"Reduced as we are," continued Mr Mandeville, addressing himself to me, "in numbers as well as circumstances, it appears highly advisable that we should maintain some intercourse with each other for the preservation of our common rights. These, as we well know, had their origin before the institution of Parliaments, and therefore are by no means fettered or impugned by any of the popular enactments of a later age. Now, as you are a lawyer, I should like to have your opinion on a point of some consequence. Did you ever happen to meet our cousin, Count Ferguson of the Roman Empire?"

"Never heard of him in my life," said I.

"Any relation of the fellow who couldn't get into the lodging-house?" asked Cutts.

"I do not think so, Mr Cutts," replied Mandeville, mildly. "I had the pleasure of making the Count's acquaintance at Vienna. He is, apprehend, the only heir-male extant to the Scottish crown, being descended from Prince Fergus and a daughter of Queen Boadicea. Now, you and I, though younger cadets, and somewhat nearer in succession, merely represent females, and have therefore little interest beyond a remote contingency. But I understand it is the fact that the ancient destination to the Scottish crown is restricted to heirs-male solely; and therefore I wish to know, whether, as the Stuarts have failed, the Count is not entitled to claim in right of his undoubted descent?"

I was petrified at the audacity of the man. Either he was the most consummately impudent scoundrel I ever had the fortune to meet, or a complete monomaniac! I looked him steadily in the face. The fine black eye was bent upon me with an expression of deep interest, and something uncommonly like a tear was quivering in the lash. Palpable monomania!

"It seems a very doubtful question," said I. "Before answering it, I should like to see the Count's papers, and take a look at our older records."

"That means, you want to be fee'd," said Cutts. "I'll tell you what, my lads, I'll stand this sort of nonsense no longer. Confound your Fergusons and Boadiceas! One would think, to hear you talk, that you were not a couple of as ordinary individuals as ever stepped upon shoe-leather, but princes of the blood-royal in disguise. Help yourselves, I say, and give us something else."

"I fear, Mr Cutts," said Mandeville, in a deep and chokey voice, "that you have had too little experience of the vicissitudes of the world to appreciate our situation. You spoke of a prince. Know, sir, that you see before you one who has known that dignity, but who never shall know it more! O Amalia, Amalia!—dear wife of my bosom—where art thou now! Pardon me, kinsman—your hand—I do not often betray this weakness, but my heart is full, and I needs must give way to its emotion." So saying, the unfortunate Mandeville bowed down his head and wept; at least, so I concluded, from a succession of severe eructations.

I did not know what to make of him. Of all the hallucinations I ever had witnessed, this was the most strange and unaccountable. Cutts, with great coolness, manufactured a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, which he placed at the elbow of the ex-potentate, and exhorted him to make a clean breast of it.

"What's the use of snivelling about the past?" said he. "It's a confounded loss of time. Come, Mandeville, toss off your liquor like a Trojan, and tell us all about it, if you have any thing like a rational story to tell. We'll give you credit for the finer feelings, and all that sort of nonsense—only look sharp."

Upon this hint the Surveyor spoke, applying himself at intervals to the reeking potable beside him. I shall give his story in his own words, without any commentary.

"I feel, gentlemen, that I owe to you, and more especially to my new-found kinsman, some explanation of circumstances, the mere recollection[Pg 503] of which can agitate me so cruelly. You seemed surprised when I told you of the rank which I once occupied, and no doubt you think it is a strange contrast to the situation in which you now behold me. Alas, gentlemen! the history of Europe, during the last half century, can furnish you with many parallel cases. Louis Philippe has, ere now, like myself, earned his bread by mathematical exertion—Young Gustavson—Henry of Bourbon, are exiles! the sceptre has fallen from the hands of the chivalrous house of Murat! Minor principalities are changed or absorbed, unnoticed amidst the war and clash of the great world around them! Thrones are eclipsed like stars, and vanish from the political horizon!

"Do not misunderstand me, gentlemen—I claim no such hereditary honours. I am the last representative of an ancient and glorious race, who cut their way to distinction with their swords on the field of battle. Roger de Mandeville, bearer of the ducal standard at the red fight of Hastings, was the first of my name who set foot upon English ground. Since then, there is not an era in the history of our country which does not bear witness to some achievement of the stalwart Mandevilles. The Crusades—Cressy—Poitiers—and—pardon me, kinsman—Flodden, were the theatres of our renown.

"I dare not trust myself to speak of the broad lands and castles which we once possessed. These have long since passed away from us. A Birmingham artisan, whose churl ancestor would have deemed it an honour to run beside the stirrup of my forefathers, now dwells in the hall of the Mandeville. The spear is broken, and the banner mouldered. Nothing remains, save in the chancel of the roofless church a recumbent marble effigy, with folded hands, of that stout Sir Godfrey of Mandeville who stormed the breach of Ascalon!

"I was heir to nothing but the name. Of my early struggles I need not tell you. A proud and indomitable heart yet beat within this bosom; and though some of the ancient nobility of England, who knew and lamented my position, were not backward in their offers, I could not bring myself in any one instance to accept of eleemosynary assistance. Even the colours which were spontaneously offered to me by the great Captain of the age, were rejected, though not ungratefully. Had there been war, Britain should have found me foremost in her ranks as a volunteer, but I could not wear the livery of a soldier so long as the blade seemed undissolubly soldered to the sheath. I spurned at the empty frivolity of the mess-room, and despised every other bivouac save that upon the field of battle.

"In brief, gentlemen, I preferred the field of science, which was still open to me, and became an engineer. Mr Cutts, whose great acquirements and brilliant genius have raised him to such eminence in the profession"—here Cutts made a grateful salaam—"can bear testimony to the humble share of talent I have laid at the national disposal; and if you, my kinsman, are connected with any of the incipient enterprises in the north, I should be proud of an opportunity of showing you that the genius of a Mandeville can be applied as well to the arts of peace as to the stormy exercises of war. But even Mr Cutts does not know how strangely my labours have been interrupted. What an episode was mine! A year of exaltation to high and princely rank—a year of love and battle—and then a return to this cold and heavy occupation! Had that interval lasted longer, gentlemen, believe me, that ere now I should have carried the victorious banners of Wallachia to the gates of Constantinople, plucked the abject and besotted Sultan from his throne, and again established in more than its pristine renown the independent Empire of the East!"

"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Well said Mandeville!" shouted Cutts. "I like to see the fellow who never sticks at trifles."

"No reality, sirs, could have prevented me: but I fear my preface is too long. About two years ago I was requested by the projectors of the great railway between Paris and Constantinople to superintend the survey of that portion which stretches eastward from Vienna. I accepted the appointment with pleasure, for I[Pg 504] longed to see foreign countries, and the field abroad appeared to me a much nobler one than that at home. I had personal letters of introduction to the Emperor, who treated me with marked distinction; for some collateral branches of my family had done the Austrian good service in the wars of Wallenstein, and the heroic charge of the Pappenheimers under Herbert Mandeville at Lutzen was still freshly and gratefully remembered. It was in Vienna that I made the acquaintance of our mutual kinsman, Count Ferguson, whose claims to hereditary dignity, I trust, you will reflect on at your leisure.

"Do either of you, gentlemen, understand German?—No!—I regret the circumstance, because you can hardly follow me out distinctly when I come to speak of localities. But I shall endeavour to be as clear as possible. One evening I was in attendance upon his majesty—who frequently honoured me with these commands, for he took a vast interest in all matters of science—at the great theatre. All the wealth, beauty, and talent of Austria were there. I assure you, gentlemen, I never gazed upon a more brilliant spectacle. The mixture of the white and blue uniforms of the Austrian officers, with the national costumes of the nobility of Hungary, Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and the Tyrol, gave the scene the appearance of a studied and gorgeous carnival. The glittering of diamonds along the whole tier of the boxes was literally painful to the eyes. Several of the Esterhazy family seemed absolutely sheathed in jewel armour, and I was literally compelled to request the Duchessa Lucchesini, who was seated next me, to lower her beautiful arm, as the splendour of the brilliants on her bracelet—I, of course, said the lustre of the arm itself—was so great as to obstruct my view of the stage. She smilingly complied. The last long-drawn note of the overture was over, the curtain had risen, and the prima donna Schenkelmann was just trilling forth that exquisite aria with which the opera of the Gasthaus begins, when the door of the box immediately adjoining the imperial one opened, and a party entered in the gay Wallachian costume. The first who took her place, in a sort of decorated chair in front, and who was familiarly greeted by his Majesty, was a young lady, as it seemed to me even then, of most surpassing beauty. Her dark raven hair was held back from a brow as white as alabaster by a circlet of gorgeous emeralds, whose pale mild light added to the pensive melancholy of her features. I have no heart to describe her further, although that image stands before me now, as clearly as when I first riveted these longing eyes upon her charms!—O Amalia!

"Her immediate companion was a tall stalwart nobleman, beneath whose cloak glittered a close-fitting tunic of ring-mail. His looks were haughty and unprepossessing; he cast a fierce glance at the box which contained the Esterhazys; bowed coldly in return to the recognition of the Emperor; and seated himself beside his beautiful companion. I thought—but it might be fancy—that she involuntarily shrank from his contact. The remainder of the box was occupied by Wallachian ladies and grandees.

"My curiosity was so whetted, that I hardly could wait until the Schenkelmann had concluded, before assailing my neighbour the Duchessa with questions.

"'Is it possible?' said she. 'Have you been so long in Vienna, chevalier, and yet never seen the great attraction of the day—the Wallachian fawn, as that foolish Count Kronthaler calls her? I declare I begin to believe that you men of science are absolutely born blind!'

"'Not so, beautiful Lucchesini! But remember that ever since my arrival I have been constantly gazing on a star.'

"'You flatterer! But, seriously, I thought every one knew the Margravine of Kalbs-Kuchen. She is the greatest heiress in Europe—has a magnificent independent principality, noble palaces, and such diamonds! That personage beside her is her relation, the Duke of Kalbs-Braten, the representative of a younger branch of the house. He is at deadly feud with the Esterhazys, and the Emperor is very apprehensive that it may disturb the tranquillity of Hungary. I am sure I am glad that my own poor little Duchy is at a distance. I wish he[Pg 505] would not bow to me—I am sure he is a horrid man. Only think, my dear chevalier! He has already married two wives, and nobody knows what has become of them. Poor Clara von Gandersfeldt was the last—a sweet girl, but that could not save her. They say he wants to marry his cousin—I hope she won't have him.'

"'Does he indeed presume!' said I, 'that dark-browed ruffian, to aspire to such an angel?'

"'I declare you make me quite jealous,' said the Lucchesini; 'but speak lower or he will overhear you. I assure you Duke Albrecht is a very dangerous enemy.'

"'O that I might beard him!' cried I, 'in the midst of his assembled Hulans! I tell you, Duchessa, that ere now a Mandeville'——

"'Potz tausend donner-wetter!' said the Emperor, good-humouredly turning round; 'what is that the Chevalier Mandeville is saying? Why, chevalier, you look as fierce as a roused lion. We must take care of you old English fire-eaters. By the way,' added he very kindly, 'our Chancellor will send you to-morrow the decoration of the first class of the Golden Bugle. No thanks. You deserve it. I only wish the order could have been conferred upon such a field as that of Lutzen. And now come forward, and let me present you to the Margravine of Kalbs-Kuchen, whose territories you must one of these days traverse. Margravine—this is the Chevalier Mandeville, of whom I have already told you.'

"She turned her head—our eyes met—a deep flush suffused her countenance, but it was instantly succeeded by a deadly paleness.

"'Eh, wass henker!' cried the Emperor, 'what's the meaning of this?—the Margravine is going to faint!'

"'Oh no—no—your Majesty—'tis nothing—a likeness—a dream—a dizziness, I mean, has come over me! It is gone now. You shall be welcome, chevalier,' continued she, with a sweet smile, 'when you visit our poor dominions. Indeed, I have a hereditary claim upon you, which I am sure you will not disregard.'

"'Hagel und blitzen!' cried his Majesty—'What is this? I understood the chevalier was never in Germany before.'

"'That may be, sire,' repeated the Margravine with another blush. 'But my great-grandmother was nevertheless a Mandeville, the daughter of that Field-marshal Herbert who fought so well at Lutzen. His picture, painted when he was a young cuirassier, still hangs in my palace, and, indeed, it was the extreme likeness of the chevalier to that portrait, which took me for a moment by surprise. Let me then welcome you, cousin; henceforward we are not strangers!'

"I bowed profoundly as I took the proffered hand of the Margravine. I held it for an instant in my own—yes!—by Cupid there was a gentle pressure. I looked up and beheld the dark countenance of the Duke of Kalbs-Braten scowling at me from behind his cousin. I retorted the look with interest. From that moment we were mortal foes.

"'Unser Ritter ist im klee gefallen—the chevalier has fallen among clover,' said the Emperor with a smile—'he has great luck—he finds cousins every where.'

"'And in this instance,' I replied, 'I might venture to challenge the envy even of your Majesty.'

"'Well said, chevalier! and now let us attend to the second act of the opera.'

"'You are in a critical position, Chevalier de Mandeville,' said the Lucchesini, to whose side I now returned. 'You have made a powerful friend, but also a dangerous enemy. Beware of that Duke Albrecht—he is watching you closely.'

"'It is not the nature of a Mandeville to fear any thing except for the safety of those he loves. You, sweet Duchessa, I trust have nothing to apprehend?'

"'Ah, perfide! Do not think to impose upon me longer. I know your heart has become a traitor already. Well—we shall not be less friends for that. I congratulate you on your new honours, only take care that too much good fortune does not turn that magnificent head.'

"I supped that evening with the Lucchesini. On my return home, I thought I observed a dark figure[Pg 506] following my steps; but this might have been fancy, at all events I regained my hotel without any interruption. Next morning I found upon my table a little casket containing a magnificent emerald ring, along with a small slip of paper on which was written 'Amalia to her cousin—Silence and Fidelity.' I placed the ring upon my finger, but I pressed the writing to my lips.

"On the ensuing week there was a great masquerade at the palace. I was out surveying the whole morning, and was occupied so late that I had barely half an hour to spare on my return for the necessary preparations.

"'There is a young lady waiting for you up-stairs, Herr Baron,' said the waiter with a broad grin; 'she says she has a message to deliver, and will give it to nobody else.'

"'Blockhead!' said I, 'what made you show her in there? To a certainty she'll be meddling with the theodolites!'

"I rushed up-stairs, and found in my apartment one of the prettiest little creatures I ever saw, a perfect fairy of about sixteen, in a gipsy bonnet, who looked up and smiled as I entered.

"'Are you the Chevalier Mandeville?' asked she.

"Yes, my little dear, and pray who are you?'

"'I am Fritchen, sir,' she said with a courtesy.

"'You don't say so! Pray sit down, Fritchen.'

"'Thank you, sir.'

"'And pray now, Fritchen, what is it you want with me?'

"'My mistress desired me to say to you, sir—but it's a great secret—that she is to be at the masquerade to-night in a blue domino, and she begs you will place this White Rose in your hat, and she wishes to have a few words with you.'

"'And who may your mistress be, my pretty one?'

"'Silence and Fidelity!'

"'Ha! is it possible? the Margravine!'

"'Hush! don't speak so loud—you don't know who may be listening. Black Stanislaus has been watching me all day, and I hardly could contrive to get out.'

"'Black Stanislaus had better beware of me!'

"'Oh, but you don't know him! He's Duke Albrecht's chief forester, and the Duke is in such a rage ever since he found my lady embroidering your name upon a handkerchief.'

"'Did she, indeed?—my name?—O Amalia!'

"'Yes—and she says you're so like that big picture at Schloss-Swiggenstein that she fell in love with long ago—and she is sure you would come to love her if you only knew her—and she wishes, for your sake, that she was a plain lady and not a Princess—and she hates that Duke Albrecht so! But I wasn't to tell you a word of this, so pray don't repeat it again.'

"'Silence and fidelity, my pretty Fritchen. Tell your royal Mistress that I rest her humble slave and kinsman; that I will wear her rose, and defend it too, if needful, against the attacks of the universe! Tell her, too, that every moment seems an age until we meet again. I will not overload your memory, little Fritchen. Pray, wear this trifle for my sake, and'——

"'O fie, sir! If the waiter heard you!' and the little gipsy made her escape.

"I had selected for my costume that night, a dress in the old English fashion, taken from a portrait of the Admirable Crichton. In my hat I reverently placed the rose which Amalia had sent me, stepped into my fiacre, and drove to the palace.

"The masquerade was already at its height. I jostled my way through a prodigious crowd of scaramouches, pilgrims, shepherdesses, nymphs, and crusaders, until I reached the grand saloon, where I looked round me diligently for the blue domino. Alas! I counted no less than thirteen ladies in that particular costume.

"'You seen dull to-night, Sir Englishman,' said a soft voice at my elbow. 'Does the indifference of your country or the disdainfulness of dark eyes oppress you?'

"I turned and beheld a blue domino. My heart thrilled strangely.

"'Neither, sweet Mask; but say, is not Silence a token of Fidelity?'

"'You speak in riddles,' said the[Pg 507] domino. 'But come—they are beginning the waltz. Here is a little hand as yet unoccupied. Will you take it?'

"'For ever?'

"'Nay—I shall burden you with no such terrible conditions. Allons! Yonder Saracen and Nun have set us the example.'

"In a moment we were launched into the whirl of the dance. My whole frame quivered as I encircled the delicate waist with my arm. One hand was held in mine, the other rested lovingly upon my shoulder. I felt the sweet breath of the damask lips upon my face—the cup of my happiness was full.

"'O that I may never wake and find this a dream! Dear lady, might I dare to hope that the services of a life, never more devotedly offered, might, in some degree, atone for the immeasurable distance between us? That the poor cavalier, whom you have honoured with your notice, may venture to indulge in a yet dearer anticipation?'

"I felt the hand of the Mask tremble in mine—

"'The White Rose is a pretty flower,' she whispered—'can it not bloom elsewhere than in the north?'

"'Amalia!'

"'Leopold!—but hush—we are observed.'

"I looked up and saw a tall Bulgarian gazing at us. The mask of course prevented me from distinguishing his features, but by the red sparkle of his eye I instantly recognised Duke Albrecht.

"'Forgive me, dearest Amalia, for one moment. I will rejoin you in the second apartment'——

"'For the sake of the Virgin, Leopold—do not tempt him! you know not the power, the malignity of the man.'

"'Were he ten times a duke, I'd beard him! Pardon me, lady. He has defied me already by his looks, and a Mandeville never yet shrunk from any encounter. Prince Metternich will protect you until my return.'

"The good-natured statesman, who was sauntering past unmasked, instantly offered his arm to the agitated Margravine. They retired. I strode up to the Bulgarian, who remained as motionless as a statue.

"'Give you good-evening, cavalier. What is your purpose to-night?'

"'To chastise insolence and punish presumption! What is yours?'

"'To rescue innocence and beauty from the persecution of overweening power!'

"'Indeed! any thing else?'

"'Yes, to avenge the fate of those who trusted, and yet died before their time. How was it with Clara of Gandersfeldt? Fell she not by thy hand?'

"'Englishman—thou liest!'

"'Bulgarian—thou art a villain!'

"The duke gnashed his teeth. For a moment his hand clutched at the hilt of his poniard, but he suddenly withdrew it.

"'I had thought to have dealt otherwise with thee,' he said, 'but thou hast dared to come between the lion and his bride. Englishman—hast thou courage to make good thy injurious words with aught else but the tongue?'

"'I am the last of the race of Mandeville!'

"'Enough. I might well have left the chastising of thee to a meaner hand, and yet—for that thou art a bold fellow—I will meet thee. Dost thou know the eastern gate?'

"'Well.'

"'A mile beyond it there is a clump of trees and a fair meadow land. The moon will be up in three hours: light enough for men who are determined on their work. Dost thou understand me—three hours hence on horseback, with the sword, alone?'

"'Can I trust thee, Bulgarian?—no treachery?'

"'I am a Wallachian and a duke!'

"'Enough said. I shall be there;' and we parted.

"I flew back to Amalia. She was terribly agitated. In vain did I attempt to calm her with assurances that all was well. She insisted upon knowing the whole particulars of my interview with her dreaded cousin of Kalbs-Braten, and at last I told her without reserve.

"'You must not go, Leopold,' she cried, 'indeed you must not. You do not know this Albrecht. Hard of heart and determined of purpose, there are no means which he will not use in order to compass his revenge.[Pg 508] Believe not that he will meet you alone: were it so, I should have little dread. But Black Stanislaus will be there, and strong Slavata, and Martinitz with all his Hulans! They will murder you, my Leopold! shed your young blood like water; or, if they dare not do that for fear of the Austrian vengeance, they will hurry you across the frontier to some dreary fortress, where you will pine in chains, and grow prematurely grey, far—far from your poor Amalia! Oh, were I to lose you, Leopold, now, I should die of sorrow! Be persuaded by me. My guards are few, but they are faithful. Avoid this meeting. Let us set out this night—nay, this very hour. Once within my dominions, we may set at defiance Duke Albrecht and all the black banditti of Kalbs-Braten. I have many friends and feudatories. The Hetman, Chopinski, is devoted to me. Count Rudolf of Haggenhausen is my sworn friend. No man ever yet saw the back of Conrad of the Thirty Mountains. We shall rear up the old ancestral banner of my house; give the Red Falcon to the winds of heaven; besiege, if need be, my perfidious kinsman in his stronghold—and, in the face of heaven, my Leopold, will I acknowledge the heir of Mandeville as the partner of my life and of my power!'

"'Dearest, best Amalia! your words thrill through me like a trumpet—but alas, it may not be! I dare not follow your counsel. Shall it be said that I have broken my word—shrunk like a craven from a meeting with this Albrecht;—a meeting, too, which I myself provoked? Think it not, lady. Poor Mandeville has nothing save his honour; but upon that, at least, no taint of suspicion shall rest. Farewell, beautiful Amalia! Believe me, we shall meet again; if not, think of me sometimes as one who loved you well, and who died with your name upon his lips.'

"'O Leopold!'

"I tore myself away. Two hours afterwards I had passed the eastern gate of Vienna, and was riding towards the place of rendezvous. The moon was up, but a fresh breeze ever and anon swept the curtains of the clouds across her disk, and obscured the distant prospect. The cool air played gratefully on my cheek after the excitement and fever of the evening; I listened with even a sensation of pleasure to the distant rippling of the river. For the future I had little care, my whole attention was concentrated upon the past. I felt no anxiety as to the result of the encounter; nor was this in any degree surprising, since, from my earliest youth, I had accustomed myself to the use of the sword, and was reputed a thorough master of the weapon. Neither could I believe that Duke Albrecht was capable, after having given his solemn pledge to the contrary, of any thing like deliberate treachery.

"I was about halfway to the clump of trees, which he of Kalbs-Braten had indicated, when a heavy bank of clouds arose, and left me in total darkness. Up to this time I had seen no one since I passed the sentry; but now I thought I could discern the tramping of horses upon the turf. Almost mechanically I loosened my cloak, and brought round the hilt of my weapon so as to be prepared. When the moon reappeared, I saw on either side of me a horseman, in long black cloaks and slouched hats, which effectually concealed the features of the wearers. They did not speak nor offer any violence, but continued to ride alongside, accommodating their pace to mine. The horses they bestrode were large and powerful animals. There was something in the moody silence and even rigid bearing of these persons, which inspired me with a feeling rather of awe than suspicion. It might be that they were retainers of the duke; but then, if any ambuscade or foul play was intended, why give such palpable warning of it? I resolved to accost them.

"'Ye ride late, sirs.'

"'We do,' said the one to the right. 'We are bent on a far errand.'

"'Indeed! may I ask its nature?'

"'To hear the bat flutter and the owlet scream. Wilt also listen to the music?'

"'I understand you not, sirs. What mean you?'

"'We are the guardians of the Red Earth. The guilty tremble at our approach; but the innocent need not fear!'

"'Two of the night patrole!'[Pg 509] thought I. 'Very mysterious gentlemen, indeed; but I have heard that the Austrian police have orders to be reserved in their communications. I must get rid of them, however. Good-evening, sirs.'

"I was about to spur my horse, when a cloak was suddenly thrown over my head as if by some invisible hand; I was dragged forcibly from my saddle, my arms pinioned, and my sword wrested from me. All this was the work of a moment, and rendered my resistance useless.

"'Villains!' cried I, 'unhand me—what mean you?'

"'Peace, cavalier!' said a deep low voice at my ear; 'speak not—struggle not, or it may be worse for you; you are in the hands of the Secret Tribunal!'"

During the course of his narrative, Mr Mandeville, as I have already hinted, by no means discontinued his attentions to the brandy and water, but went on making tumbler after tumbler, with a fervour that was truly edifying. Assuming that the main facts of his history were true, though in the eye of geography and politics they appeared a little doubtful, it was still highly interesting to remark the varied chronology of his style. A century disappeared with each tumbler. He concentrated in himself, as it appeared to me, the excellencies of the best writers of romance, and withal had hitherto maintained the semblance of strict originality. He had now, however, worked his way considerably up the tide of time. We had emerged from the period of fire-arms, and Mandeville was at this stage mediæval.

Some suspicion of this had dawned even upon the mind of Cutts, who, though not very familiar with romance, had once stumbled upon a translation of Spindler's novels, and was, therefore, tolerably up to the proceedings of the Vehme Gericht.

"Confound it, Mandeville!" interrupted he, "we shall be kept here the whole night, if you don't get on faster. Both Fred and I know all about the ruined tower, the subterranean chamber—which, by the way, must have looked deucedly like a tunnel—the cord and steel, and all the rest of it. Skip the trial, man. It's a very old song now, and bring us as fast as you can to the castle and the marriage. I hope the Margravine took Fritchen with her. That little monkey was worth the whole bundle of them put together!"

The Margrave made another tumbler. His eye had become rather glassy, and his articulation slightly impaired. He was gradually drawing towards the chivalrous period of the Crusades.

"Two days had passed away since that terrible ride began, and yet there was neither halt nor intermission. Blindfold, pinioned, and bound into the saddle, I sate almost mechanically and without volition, amidst the ranks of the furious Hulans, whose wild huzzas and imprecations rung incessantly in my ears. No rest, no stay. On we sped like a hurricane across the valley and the plain!

"At last I heard a deep sullen roar, as if some great river was discharging its collected waters over the edge of an enormous precipice. We drew nearer and nearer. I felt the spray upon my face. These, then, were the giant rapids of the Danube.

"The order to halt was given.

"'We are over the frontier now!' cried the loud harsh voice of Duke Albrecht; 'Stanislaus and Slavata! unbind that English dog from his steed, and pitch him over the cliff. Let the waters of the Danube bear him past the castle of his lady. It were pity to deny my delicate cousin the luxury of a coronach over the swollen corpse of her minion!'

"'Coward!' I exclaimed; 'coward as well as traitor! If thou hast the slightest spark of manhood in thee, cause these thy fellows to unbind my hands, give me back my father's sword, stand face to face against me on the greensward, and, benumbed and frozen as I am, thou shalt yet feel the arm of the Mandeville!'

"Loud laughed he of Kalbs-Braten. 'Does the hunter, when the wolf is in the pit, leap down to try conclusions with him. Fool! what care I for honour or thy boasted laws of chivalry? We of Wallachia are men of another mood. We smite our foeman where we find him, asleep or awake—at the wine-cup or in the battle—with the sword by his side,[Pg 510] or arrayed in the silken garb of peace! Drag him from his steed, fellows! Let us see how lightly this adventurous English diver will leap the cataracts of the Danube!'

"Resistance was in vain. I had already given myself up for lost. Even at that moment the image of my Amalia rose before me in all its beauty—her name was on my lips, I called upon her as my guardian angel.

"Suddenly I heard the loud clear note of a trumpet—it was answered by another, and then rang out the clanging of a thousand atabals.

"'Ha! by Saint John of Nepomuck,' cried the Duke, 'the Croats are upon us—There flies the banner of Chopinski! there rides Conrad of the Thirty Mountains on the black steed that I have marked for my second charger! Hulans! to your ranks. Martinitz, bring up the rear-guard, and place them on the right flank. Slavata, thou art a fellow of some sense'——

"'Ay, you can remember that now,' grumbled Slavata.

"'Take thirty men and lead them up that hollow—you will secure a passage somewhere over the morass—and then fall upon Chopinski in the rear. Let two men stay to guard the prisoner. Now, forward, gentlemen; and if you know not where to charge, follow the white plume of Kalbs-Braten!'

"I heard the cavalry advance. Maddened by the loss of my freedom at such a moment, I burst my bonds by an almost supernatural exertion, and tore the bandage from my eyes. To snatch a battle-axe from the hand of the nearest Hulan, and to dash him to the ground, was the work of a moment—a second blow, and the other fell. I leaped upon his horse, shouted the ancient war-cry of my house—'Saint George for Mandeville!' and dashed onwards towards the serried array of the Croats, which occupied a little eminence beyond.

"'For whom art thou, cavalier?' cried Chopinski, as I galloped up.

"'For Amalia and Kalbs-Kuchen!' I replied.

"'Welcome—a thousand times welcome, brave stranger, in the hour of battle! But ha!—what is this?—that white rose—that lordly mien—can it be? Yes! it is the affianced bridegroom of the Margravine!'

"With a wild cry of delight the Croats gathered around me. 'Long live our gracious Margravine!' they shouted 'long live the noble Mandeville!'

"'By my faith, Sir Knight,' said the Count Rudolf of Haggenhausen, an old warrior whose seamed countenance was the record of many a fight—'By my faith, I deemed not we could carry back such glorious tidings to our lady—nor, by Saint Wladimir, so goodly a pledge!'

"'May I never put lance in rest again,' cried Conrad of the Thirty Mountains, 'but the Margravine hath a good eye—there be thewes and sinews there. But we must take order with yon infidel scum. How say you, Sirs—shall this cavalier have the ordering of the battle? I, for one, will gladly fight beneath his banner'——

"'And so say I,' said Chopinski, 'but he must not go thus. Yonder, on my sumpter-mule, is a suit of Milan armour, which a king might wear upon the day he went forth to do battle for his crown. Bring it forth, knaves, and let the Mandeville be clad as becomes the affianced of our mistress.'

"'Brave Chopinski,' I said, 'and you, kind sirs and nobles—pardon me if I cannot thank you now in a manner befitting to the greatness of your deserts. But there is a good time, I trust, in store. Suffer me now to arm myself, and then we shall try the boasted prowess of yonder giant of Kalbs-Braten!'

"In a few moments I was sheathed in steel, and, mounted on a splendid charger, took my station at the head of the troops. Again their applause was redoubled.

"'Lord Conrad,' said I to the warrior of the Thirty Mountains, 'swart Slavata has gone up yonder with a plump of lances, intending to cross the morass, and assail us on the rear. Be it thine to hold him in check."

"'By my father's head!' cried Conrad, 'I ask no better service! That villain, Slavata, oweth me a life, for he slew my sister's son at disadvantage, and this day will I have it or die. Fear not for the rear, noble Mandeville—I will protect it while[Pg 511] spear remains or armour holds together!'

"'I doubt it not, valiant Conrad! Brave Chopinski—noble Haggenhausen—let us now charge together! 'Tis not beneath my banner you fight. The Blue Boar of Mandeville never yet fluttered in the Wallachian breeze, but we may give it to the winds ere-long! Sacred to Amalia, and not to me, be the victory! Advance the Red Falcon of Kalbs-Kuchen—let it strike terror into the hearts of the enemy—and forward as it pounces upon its prey!'

"With visors down and lances in rest we rushed upon the advancing Hulans, who received our charge with great intrepidity. Martinitz was my immediate opponent. The shock of our meeting was so great that both the horses recoiled upon their hams, and, but for the dexterity of the riders, must have rolled over upon the ground. The lances were shivered up to the very gauntlets. We glared on each other for an instant with eyes which seemed to flash fire through the bars of our visors—each made a demi-volte"——

"I say, Cutts," said I, "it occurs to me that I have heard something uncommonly like this before. Our friend is losing his originality, and poaching unceremoniously upon Ivanhoe. You had better stop him at once."

"I presume then, Mandeville, you did for that fellow Martinitz?" said Cutts.

"The gigantic Hulan was hurled from his saddle like a stone from a sling. I saw him roll thrice over, grasping his hands full of sand at every turn."

"That must have been very satisfactory. And what became of the duke?"

"Often did I strive to force my way through the press to the spot where Kalbs-Braten fought. I will not belie him—he bore himself that day like a man. And yet he had better protection than either helm or shield; for around him fought his foster-father, Tiefenbach of the Yews, with his seven bold sons, all striving to shelter their prince's body with their own. No sooner had I struck down one of them than the old man cried—'Another for Kalbs-Braten!' and a second giant stepped across the prostrate body of his brother!

"Meanwhile, Conrad of the Thirty Mountains had reached the spot where Slavata with his cavalry was attempting the passage of the morass. Some of the Hulans were entangled there from the soft nature of the ground, the horses having sunk in the mire almost up to their saddle-girths. Others, among whom was their leader, had successfully struggled through.

"Conrad and Slavata met. They were both powerful men, and well-matched. As if by common consent, the soldiers on either side held back to witness the encounter of their chiefs.

"Slavata spoke first. 'I know thee well,' he said; 'thou art the marauding baron of the Thirty Mountains, whose head is worth its weight of gold at the castle-gate of Kalbs-Braten. I swore when we last met that we should not part again so lightly, and now I will keep my oath!'

"'And I know thee, too,' said Conrad; 'thou art the marauding villain Slavata, whose body I intend to hang upon my topmost turret, to blacken in the sun and feed the ravens and the kites!'

"'Threatened men live long,' replied Slavata with a hollow laugh; 'thy sister's son, the Geissenheimer, said as much before, but for all that I passed this good sword three times through his bosom!'

"'Villain!' cried Conrad, striking at him, 'this to thy heart!'

"'And this to thine, proud boaster!' cried Slavata, parrying and returning the blow.

"They closed. Conrad seized hold of Slavata by the sword-belt. The other"——

"He's off to Old Mortality now," said I to Cutts. "For heaven's sake stop him, or we shall have a second edition of the Bothwell and Burley business."

"Come, Mandeville, clear away the battle—there's a good fellow. There can be no doubt that you skewered that rascally duke in a very satisfactory manner. I shall ring for the broiled bones, and I beg you will finish your story before they make their appearance. Will you mix an[Pg 512]other tumbler now, or wait till afterwards? Very well—please yourself—there's the hot water for you."

"They led me into the state apartment," said Mandeville, with a kind of sob. "Amalia stood upon the dais, surrounded by the fairest and the noblest of the land. The amethyst light, which streamed through the stained windows, gorgeous with armorial bearings, fell around her like a glory. In one hand she held a ducal cap of maintenance—with the other, she pointed to the picture of my great ancestor—the very image, as she told me, of myself. I rushed forward with a cry of joy, and threw myself prostrate at her feet!

"'Nay, not so, my Leopold!' she said. 'Dear one, thou art come at last! Take the reward of all thy toils, all thy dangers, all thy love! Come, adored Mandeville—accept the prize of silence and fidelity!' And she added, 'and never upon brows more worthy could a wreath of chivalry be placed.'

"She placed the coronet upon my head, and then gently raising me, exclaimed—

"'Wallachians! behold your Prince!'"

Mr Mandeville did not get beyond that sentence. I could stand him no longer, and burst into an outrageous roar of laughter, in which Cutts most heartily joined, till the tears ran plenteously down his cheeks. The Margrave of Wallachia looked quite bewildered. He attempted to rise from his chair, but the effort was too much for him, and he dropped suddenly on the floor.

"Well," said I, after we had fairly exhausted ourselves, "there's the spoiling in that fellow of as good a novelist as ever coopered out three volumes. He would be an invaluable acquaintance for either Marryat or James. 'Tis a thousand pities his talents should be lost to the public."

"There's no nonsense about him," replied Cutts; "he buckles to his work like a man. Doesn't it strike you, Freddy, that his style is a great deal more satisfactory than that of some other people I could name, who talk about their pedigree and ancestors, and have not even the excuse of a good cock-and-bull story to tell. Give me the man that carves out nobility for himself, like Mandeville, and believes it too, which is the very next best thing to reality. Now, let's have up the broiled bones, and send the Margrave of Wallachia to his bed."

Edinburgh, Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Pauls Work.