828
L26li
1883
V. 5
A 52355 7

ARTES
1817
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PLURIBUS UNUM
TUEROR
SI QUÆRIS-PENINSULAM·AMŒNAM
CIRCUMSPIGE
BEQUEST OF
IRVING KANE POND
C.E. 1879, A.M. (HON.) 1911

v.5

1
FROM
SAVONES.
AB. POND.
1
裁​。
LANDOR'S
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
1
*
2
1
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
BY
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
t
Fifth Series.
MISCELLANEOUS DIALOGUES
(CONCLUDED).

QUI
LEGIT
REGIT
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHER S.
1883.
:
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON and Son,
SON, CAMBRIDGE.
!
:
I.K. Pond
Bequest
3-8-40
5 v.
off
م
/
{
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
MISCELLANEOUS DIALOGUES
(CONCLUDED).
XI. Duke de RICHELIEU, SIR FIREBRACE Cotes,
LADY GLENGRIN, AND MR. NORMANBY
XII. FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR
XIII. POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
•
pp. 1-90
90-138
138-151
XIV. M. VILLELE AND M. CORBIERE
151-159
XV. ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRE-
LAWNY..
159-199
XVI. DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS
199-249
XVII. KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLES, Mr. Peel,
MR. CROKER, AND INTERPRETER
250-255
XVIII. KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
255-269
XIX. PHOTO ZAVELLAS AND Kaido
269-273
XX. MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
274-288
XXI. SANDT AND KOTZEBUE
289-297
XXII. THE CARDINAL-LEGATE ALBANI AND PICT-
URE-DEALERS
298-329
XXIII. BLUCHER AND SANDT
330-340
vi
CONTENTS.
XXIV. ELDON AND ENCOMBE
•
•
pp. 341-349
XXV. QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, CAPTAINS
POLVEREL AND DES MITRAILLES, LIEU-
TENANT POIGNAUNEZ, MARINERS
349-361
XXVI. WALKER, HATTAJI, Gonda, and DEWAH 361-366
XXVII. TALLYRAND AND ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS 366-371
XXVIII. MARSHAL BUGEAUD AND ARAB CHIEF-
TAIN.
371-374
XXIX. EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI
375-457
XXX. LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT
XXXI. M. THIERS AND M. LAMARTINE
•
458-469
469-471
XXXII. NICHOLAS, FREDERIC-WILLIAM, NESSEL-
RODE
472-474
XXXIII. BERANGER AND LA ROCHE-JAQUELIN.
475-479
XXXIV. NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
479-493
XXXV. KING CARLO - ALBERTO AND PRINCESS
BELGIOIOSO
XXXVI. GARIBALDI AND MAZZINI
•
494-507
•
507-509
XXXVII. CARDINAL
ANTONELLI AND GENERAL
GEMEAU
510-518
XXXVIII. LOUIS BONAPARTE AND COUNT MOLE
•
518-521
XXXIX. POPE PIO NONO AND CARDINAL ANTO-
NELLI
XL. ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE AND FRAN-
INDEX
CESCO MADIAI
•
521-523
523-526
527
MISCELLANEOUS DIALOGUES.
(CONTINUED.)
XI. DUKE DE RICHELIEU, SIR FIREBRACE COTES,
LADY GLENGRIN, AND MR. NORMANBY.
WHEN the Duke de Richelieu had retired from office, ill
health, which is usually the cause of retirement, was the
consequence of it. Not that ministers ever care about loss
of place, privation of dignity and emolument is nothing to
them; and if they are excluded from the only area grand
enough for the development of their conceptions, those are
much to be pitied, although not in the least to be blamed
(God forbid!), who gave the key for that purpose to some
dark designer, at the instant when such conceptions had
arrived at their maturity.
He went to Genoa. The narrowness and obscurity of the
streets incommoded him, and eighty stairs, which must always
be mounted to reach the best apartments, were too many for
an invalid. He went to Nice: the bise was troublesome.
Here, however, he was amused a little at the sight of well-
dressed strangers, and was not insensible of pleasure in being
looked at, and in hearing his name perpetually mentioned in
the same low tone of voice as he passed.
• Do you doubt this weakness? Call it as you please and
doubt it as you may,
- it was this low tone of voice which the
manly hearts of a Marius and a Cromwell panted for. Van-
ity and agiotage are to a Parisian the oxygen and hydrogen of
life. Richelieu, as honest a man as he was an ill-requited
minister, had little of the latter; of the former as much as
was requisite.
VOL. V.
I
2
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
There were at Nice, at the same time, Sir Firebrace Cotes,
an Irish general, and the Countess of Glengrin, an Irish lady
inconsolable for her husband. I do not mean the one she
had just lost, but the one she feared never to have.
The general thought it his duty to pay his respects to the
minister, as none in place was there, and as he had a rich
uniform which he never could so well show before, and indeed
had never put on. Lady Glengrin, too, left her card.
That is contrary to etiquette.
One among the many reasons why she did it! Confident in
her beauty, for she really had been pretty in her youth, and
possessing in an eminent degree that facility of reply which,
if delivered with sharpness, is called repartee, and claims
relationship by a left-hand connection with wit, she never
lost an opportunity of passing into the company of distin-
guished personages. She was of all politics; so that, when
rank failed her, nobody was surprised to hear that she had
headed a deputation of fishwomen at Paris. Related to
one of those who preserve the peace by cocking the pistol,
and the gradations of social order by trampling on their
equals, she associated and assimilated with the worst in the
polar circle of both vulgars.
Her petulance and liveliness amused the duke, and mostly
when she talked about her country. He had not been accus-
tomed to Irish society, though he had known some of Irish
extraction, and a few born and educated in Ireland. He had
found them decorous and graceful, frank and full of humor,
not much addicted to study, but respectful to those who were,
until some peculiarity caught them, and they exploded in
loud laughter. He considered them particularly delicate in
affairs of love and friendship. One of them, suspected (as it
appears most wrongfully) of many amorous intrigues, swore
he never had and never would have one with a man's wife or
daughter. Richelieu admired his primitive chastity. Among
his friends, however, was an elderly gentleman who had
meditated long upon the declaration, and felt certain there
was some blunder in it. At supper he found it out; and
when they were alone, "Faith!
"Faith!" said he, "Marcus, your
mischief will lie then in a mighty narrow compass." Being
locked up in logic, and unable to put his head through the
grating, he agreed at last that the expression, to a man not
1
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 3
very acute, might require an explanation. "I meant," said
he, a friend's,
at dinner or over a bottle; for in my mind,
whatever others may think, that would be very base.”
"You must come among us, duke," said her ladyship.
"I must indeed," answered he.
"Sir Firebrace, you are witness to the promise."
"I am," said Sir Firebrace.
There is no person in the world upon whom idleness hangs
so heavily as upon a minister of state dismissed. Repre-
hended for sighing when he only yawned, and ashamed of
being thought to yawn when he really sighed, he accepted the
invitation, on condition that he should live privately. For,"
said he smiling, "your government would watch me; and I
should be sorry to be under martial law in Ireland, my skin
being none of the toughest, and suspicious as my character
must be, both as a catholic and a minister out of place. I
will be colonel — colonel — I wish I could think of some
colonel among my old friends who would consent to lend me
his name."
(6
Oh," said Lady Glengrin, "if you want a name and are
resolved to be a colonel, I have one for you, now you are so
good and tractable: you shall be Colonel Le Doux.”
"On receiving our commissions we kiss hands,” said he ;
and by the gracefulness of his action, if Madame de Genlis
had been present, she would have fancied herself in the Louvre
some years before the last century.
They embarked. Of all the coasts in the universe of the
same extent, those of France for nearly their totality in three
seas are the least beautiful, and those which the eye tires
the worst upon are in the vicinity of Marseilles. When you
are at sea, the hills above the town appear like little mounds
which some children have been just whitewashing. Here
the party was becalmed two days. The regular beating of
time by the waves against the sides of the vessel; the regular
creaking as she moved slowly on, heaving and nodding like
some bulky churl half-asleep; the flapping of the sail against
the mast; the monotonous and wearisome song (there was
only one) of the sailors, who being Englishmen could neither
dance nor fiddle, and had not even a monkey nor a cat
among them for the strangers to joke about and play with,
rendered the colonel and his companions sad and silent. Sir
4
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Firebrace was flat and smooth as a billiard-table. Lady
Glengrin having no object to attack or defend, at least no
person known to Le Doux, turned, as we read of scorpions,
upon herself; and her features and conversation languished
equally. To relieve her listlessness, she sometimes made a
spring at some friend of Sir Firebrace; but alas! she really
had lost her elasticity. Le Doux smiled when he should
have been serious, and was serious when he should have
smiled. One would think he hardly could have been
attentive, though he seemed so," said her ladyship to herself.
Sir Firebrace often begged leave to set her ladyship right
upon the character of very good fellows, if she knew them
thoroughly, and worthy women enough, at least he always
believed so. He never went beyond in word or thought;
excepting that, if he was mistaken, as any man might be, he
was certain from her goodness of heart that her ladyship
would pardon him.
There was not a book belonging to the party. She asked
the captain whether he had any interesting one: he brought
her the log-book. Tossing it aside, "Oh that we had a book!
though it were the Bible or the Peerage," said the countess;
and observed for the first time a young man whom the duke
had noticed before, and whom he had taken for a runaway
barber, his beard being always close-shaven, and his linen
and face quite clean. He smiled with somewhat of concern
and sarcasm. Well, my friend," said she, "let us hear the
joke."
(6
(6
Really, madam," he replied, "I have no joke worth
hearing."
"Favor us, at least," added she maliciously, "with the
fruits of your reflection."
Sir Firebrace now began to brighten. "They might not
please you, madam," replied the sailor.
"Oh yes they would: I insist upon having them."
"In that case, madam, there is no denial. I was thinking
it strange that, of all the books in the world, you should
pitch upon either of those. On the contrary, I wonder that
petitions are not laid before parliament to suppress them, and
signed by every person of the first distinction."
Why so?"
su
"Because the one shows us their vices, and the other does
worse."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
5
"What does the other?
"It shows us their ages."
"The fellow would be witty," said Sir Firebrace, “
ignorant people would."
"All?" said the man submissively.
as all
"I think I have seen
some too modest; but one cannot judge of character in a
couple of days."
"Sir Firebrace," said the captain, "you would better let
that chap alone: he is too much for you and me. I have no
power over him: seaman he is and a right good one; but
though he lends a hand at any time, he takes nothing, not a
can of grog. The lemon he puts into his water is to blame.
He is the quietest and silentest man in the world; but if an
oath escapes, you would fancy it was a leak, so quickly is he
upon the plank. He has been a scholar not long ago, I
mistrust, though he has dollars and better things in his box.
As for madam, clever as she is, I would not have her fish for
sting-rays."
From his calmness and self-possession, Le Doux now im-
agined there was something in the man announcing high
birth, and thought him for an Englishman well-bred, though
satirical. He approached him; and first expressed his sorrow
that a person of an appearance so prepossessing should put
forth so much strength where homage is best becoming.
changes in my own country, sir," added he, "make me think
it probable that they may have partially occurred in others."
"The
“Sir,” said the sailor, "your observation, I perceive, is but
a delicate and discreet inquiry. There is nothing romantic
in my history. I never was what you call noble: I never was
better than a school-master in a small market-town. My
education has taught me to reprove any open disrespect to
the Bible. If the lady had spoken where only her equals
were present, I should have gone away quietly; but sailors
may be corrupted."
"Without doubt there are good things in the Bible," said
Le Doux. "Bossuet has quoted it in the place about the
white cemetery. Then you read Latin?”
"No, sir!"
"How! Oh, I forgot: you have a translation of it have
you not? A little.
A little it does not quite correspond with the
original?" This he spoke, not so much in his own character
6
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
as in his country's. One would have supposed that he under-
stood Greek and Hebrew, yet he did not understand a sentence
even of Latin. One would have supposed that he had col-
lated the original with the English version, yet it was by an
old and obscure report that he knew of its existence.
"I was zealous for my Bible," said the sailor.
"I love my
country and am proud of my language: the Bible is the best
thing in both. Often have I thought of those who translated
it, what they were, what their fathers were, what were their
friends and teachers. Sir, I would have given my life, when
it was a life of hope and happiness, to make by such holy
means as this book the English language known through the
world. And yet my love of it has done me for a time some
harm."
Le Doux was desirous of hearing what it could be: indeed
there are few who are not so of hearing any harm,—some from
sympathy, some from malignity, some from curiosity, the rest
from a wish of excitement. Lady Glengrin beckoned him
away. Favor me another time," said he to the sailor; "I
am deeply penetrated."
Lady Glengrin nodded again, and asked him how he could
be so ill-natured, when he had a musician with him, as not
to call forth his talent. "Oracles are obscure,” replied he.
"Mac Arthur tells me," she rejoined, "that Michael showed
him a flute, made out of a broken cane which he picked up
in Genoa.' "We will have a dance then, please God!" cried
he. "Life
"Life is at stake, general! You and I must draw lots
for the lady, since I dare not leave it to her choice, and she
would not make mortal enemies." This he spoke, bowing in
turn to each, appealing to her solicitously, and awaiting with
deference her determination.
The
The proposal was sanctioned: the three stood up.
Russian was commanded to bring out his flute; the seal-skin
that contained his clothes and his treasure was unstrapped;
he ran upon deck with it in his hand: but this and the other
too were raised upon his head and tearing his black bear-
like hair; tears ran down his cheeks; and now for the first
time after many years was heard from his lips the Russian
language.
What is the matter?" said the Swiss, his comrade, with
perfect composure, to the Irish butler, Mac Arthur.
"The
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
7
"Did you ever
son of a — is a woman!
is a woman!" answered the butler.
hear such a soft language as she makes of her Russian?"
He had not finished when his lady, indignant at some word
in the sentence, walked toward him fiercely from behind, and
seizing him by the collar gave him a hearty kick in the bull's
eye of the pantaloon, with, "I will teach you decency, you
reptile!" He retired and sat down by a sailor, who asked
him in the universal silence that had succeeded,
Pat, how
do you like the new fashion of sharp-toed shoes?"
(6
Sir," answered he, "I would have you to know my name
is not Pat, nor any thing like it; but Agrippa Mac Arthur."
"No offence, I hope, Mr. Agrippa Mac Arthur. It would
have been uncharitable and unchristianlike, if I could have
seen such a sad mischance befall a fellow-creature, and hold
my tongue upon it. Suppose you try a pickled herring while
the hurt is fresh: a rare thing to bring out the fire that flies
from a witch's toe-nail!"
Agrippa was consoled by friendship. "No, thank you,"
replied he; "she shall never have the satisfaction of seeing
it." And then whispered in the sailor's ear, "What a marks-
man the vixen is!"
We must now endure the griefs and tribulations of the poor
Russian whose flute was broken.
"Cannot you repair it, Michael?" said Le Doux, humanely.
"St. Nicholas could not!" answered he, with a sigh from
the bottom of his heart. And he crossed himself as rapidly
as possible, that his contrition might be observed by the saint
at the first glance after the derogatory words, and before they
could well be written down against him.
"What is all this blubbering about?" said the captain to
Le Doux.
"My servant Michael has broken his flute," answered he,
"and the poor fellow is inconsolable. Indeed, we could have
danced if we had it; the loss is no trifling one to any of us,
and heavy to him who made the instrument."
"He made it!” cried the captain incredulously.
"Yes," said Le Doux, "I saw him cutting the cane, now I
remember."
"Why then, sir," replied the captain, "he could make such
another out of this sugar-stick: let him try his hand."
Joy played upon deck like the sun. Éven Lady Glengrin
8
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
grew calm, and said to Le Doux, "These cursed Irish must
be treated like dogs, colonel. I hope, nevertheless, you wili
excuse my anger."
"Madam," said he, dissembling that he had seen the voie
de fait, "if you were angry at the accident, I do assure you
your servant was not in fault. Renault slept upon it (as I
saw) last night, and perhaps cracked it. I would not tell
Michael, to make the man more uneasy, and turn friends into
enemies."
"But that fellow's impudence, my butler's!"
“He has been sitting among the sailors, and if indeed he
laughed a little, Michael did not see him probably; and I do
assure you, if he had, poor Michael is a good creature. They
will live again in harmony."
Her ladyship was persuaded that the castigation she had
given was unobserved. The flute was made; panniers of grapes
and peaches stood ready for any of the three who might be
thirsty from the dance; and there was a cask containing the
wines of Lunel in bottles, covered over with wet leaves and
sail-cloth. In the whole ship there was but one rueful face.
An old seaman, whose arms and breast had various marks
upon them punctured and inlaid with gunpowder, and whose
back too bore sundry transverse white stripes probably from
his mother having dreamt of a zebra, was very officious in
keeping the leaves and sail-cloth wet. At last he crept away,
and whispered to the messmate in whom he placed the most
confidence: "Things may happen beyond our reckoning. I
have known many such, and have heard of more; but none
like this. The 'Hecla' has passed us in the night! Captain
Parry has been aboard! As I am a Christian, there is ice
among the bottles!"
Le Doux had ordered a small provision
of it, enough for a day or two, and this was only the morning
of the second; and Renault had exerted his utmost skill in
preserving and preparing it below.
((
The Biblical sailor was much amused at seeing the colonel,
who left him an hour before so deeply penetrated," dance
delightfully. After a few compliments to his partner, who
was incommoded by the sea and went to lie down, he returned
with a countenance full of interest, just as when "life was at
stake."
"called a very
"I have always heard the Bible," said he,
?
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
9
dangerous book in the hands of the laity, and I am most anx-
ious to know what was the peculiar harm it did you.
""
"Thomas Paine," answered the sailor, "had written some-
thing against it. I had not read this, nor thought of reading
it, when I saw in a gazette which I took weekly the advertise-
ment of an Apology for it. An Apology for the Bible! and by
a bishop! The word in Greek, I am informed, does not con-
vey the same idea as with us: but I knew nothing of Greek,
and was shocked at what I thought an intimation that the
Book of Life required an excuse. I bought it, together with
the strictures which provoked it. The fierceness and ef-
frontery of the one, the smooth insincerity and flat yewberry
sweetness of the other, equally disgusted me. I had only a
single shelf for my books, in all about forty-five or fifty, and
never did I think it necessary to conceal one. A neighbor
asked me what I thought of these: I answered that I would
rather have Paine's pen than Watson's crosier. He entreated
me to lend him the volume. Unwilling to propagate the
seeds of scepticism, I said, 'I am sorry I cannot; I have
lent it.' This deliberate and cowardly falsehood brought its
punishment. I never had refused a book to an acquaintance,
or any thing else in my house; and until that moment I had
always thought myself as incapable of a falsehood as a denial.
In most of our towns and villages the system has now com-
menced of that which you Frenchmen call espionage: we had
no name for it, and have none yet. Before the war we were
somewhat different from other nations. This convulsion of
Europe joined, morally speaking, the island to the continent.
We then began to talk a language we had never learned or
heard: we had aristocrat and democrat; and, what is worse,
our aristocrats and democrats were just like yours."
Le Doux bowed and smiled.
"I am afraid I have said an uncivil thing," continued the
sailor, “and I beg pardon. Injuries in one respect hurt the
memory; that is, by contracting it to the narrow point they
spring from."
"My friend," said Le Doux, placing his hand with gentle-
ness under the elbow of the apologist, "I have as little
reason to be pleased with either of these parties as you have.
Contiuue."
“The story, that my shelf was filled with profane and sedi-
ΙΟ
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
tious and indecent books, became current in the parish. My
scholars were taken away from me; even those who came
upon the charity disappeared. Parents who had known me
from my childhood visited me now only to obtain a glance at
my library. They found no other work of ill repute than
Paine's, which from a sense of honor and openness I had
replaced. Nevertheless, all who were in business were
threatened with a loss of it unless they removed their children
from my tuition; others removed them, as they declared to
me, that they might not quarrel with their customers, 'for
they loved,' they said, 'peace and quiet.' Elias Halliday,
that friend who had asked me for the Age of Reason, went to
the Reverend Mr. Chisholm, now curate to his father; and
he, immediately on the intelligence, drew on his boots and
came to me.
"Mr. Christopher Normanby,' said he, 'I never thought
you taught lads blasphemy and sedition.’
"Sir,' answered Î, quietly, 'you, being our spiritual guide,
should have inquired into it; for the report, I have reason to
believe, is a fortnight old!'
"A damned pretty fellow!' said he, striking his spur with
a switch. 'Well, I must be back to the glebe.'
'Mr. Chisholm was never my friend, from the strangest
of motives, from possessing what he thought should have.
been mine. The rectory was presented to his father by Lord
Sandyhurst, who resides in another part of the county, and
to whom that gentleman was steward. He had been an
attorney; but for some wrong erasure, which he made per-
haps by candle-light, he was induced to abandon his profes-
sion. My father was educated at the expense of the late
lord, for having saved his son from drowning in the Trent;
and not only was indebted for his education to that worthy
peer, but for a legacy of five hundred pounds, bequeathed to
him in his last words almost. Never was there a tenderer
heart, a humbler soul, than my father's. At Oxford he had
made great progress in the mathematics, which brought him
many enemies, that study being in his time much discouraged
there. He was suspected to be a good classical scholar, but
his shyness would not let it appear: those who knew him
best were not certain of it, for they could judge only from
what they saw at lecture; and to those who knew him little
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. I I
there appeared to be a proof to the contrary. When he was
about to take his degree in order that he might be inducted
to the rectory of Sandyhurst, one of the examining masters
was resolved to pluck him."
“A very uncivil interruption!" said Le Doux. 'Are the
masters themselves so rude?"
"You do not understand the term, sir; you do not know
perhaps that any single master can prevent a person from
taking a degree. A student a year older than my father, and
in competition with whom he had carried off a college-prize,
discouraged him so at the examination that he lost his degree.
He returned into the country, and told his young patron (for
the father was lately dead) what had happened.
Pooh, Kit,' cried he, patting him on the shoulder, 'go
to Glasgow, man! Jim Towne, my farrier, was made a
doctor there in the twinkling of an eye: the rascal was
starving on horse-flesh. At present, by a good intelligence
with the resurrection-men, he holds up his head like a heron
half-a-wing from the marsh, and looks askance in your face
fiercer than a caught polecat, as he passes.'
60 C
My lord,' answered my father, their church is different
from ours.'
"Go to Cambridge, then. My word for it, with your
figures and two little straight lines betwixt, they will send
you back nicked and cropped and spruce enough for the
deanery of Durham. Remember, the rectory is a good eighty
a-year; by the bye, would you like the perpetual advowson?
At the end of the twelvemonth you have five hundred, you
know; and we can sign and seal thereupon,
ay, Kit?"
"It would be simoniacal,' answered my father.
"Simoniacal!' repeated the peer with grave mimicry.
'The word itself in any man's mouth is enough to make him
a hypocrite for life. A sand-boy, who does not know the
meaning of it, has only to say it, and it turns him into a pick-
pocket or swindler. Why, thou cursed fool, simony is every
thing in form and nothing in fact! Is there a Father in God
upon the bench that has not committed it, if you put the
thing in place of the letter?:
66
My father's health declined. 'I tell you what, young
man, unless you take a wife it is all over with you,' said the
doctor. My father could no more take a wife than he could
1
12
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
་
take a city. He was acquainted with no young woman: he
declared it. Egad, I thought as much!' cried the doctor:
looking at him, nevertheless, as he would have done at an
ibis or crocodile just unboxed. We will remedy that, too:
the drug is as easily found as buckthorn.'
"Doctor Broom had been surgeon to a ship in the fleet
under Rodney, and was the intimate friend of his captain;
who, after being in constant service for fifty years, was made
an admiral, and, as they call it, laid on the shelf. To kill time,
when he had nothing else to kill, he married a barmaid
at Torquay. They both drank hard, and were so affection-
ate a couple that one did not survive the other above a twelve-
month. They left an infant daughter, ill provided for the
doctor took it, and sent it to school. She was now sixteen :
he rode over for her, and told her she must come and help
him. His garden joined my father's; and he thought of
hedges as lawyers think of laws. 'I have no notion of a
hedge,' said he, 'without a gap in it.' His boots were thick,
he was strong and corpulent; he soon made one. 'Have a
care!' said he, 'grasp my coat-pocket! mind the onion-sauce!'
He arrived at my father's with his ward, holding a dish in her
two hands, and cried, 'Kit, my hearty dog, hast any appe-
tite for a young rabbit, clean as a penny, out of my own cub,
fed upon bran and sowthistle, and smothered in onions?'
"My father thanked with much courtesy his kind friend,
and really felt a good appetite.
"If this young lady and yourself will favor me.'
"Not she, nor I either: we have just eaten the fellow
to it.'
"Miss will at least sit down.'
No, thank you, sir: I must go.'
"Who told you that?' cried the doctor, glancing his eye
athwart the back of his chair. She looked out of the window,
and answered, 'She did not know.'
Sit down, then,' cried her guardian, in the same author-
itative tone as before. She was walking toward the only
vacant seat, one with a wooden bottom, when my father (an
absent man on many occasions) rose hastily, and placed his,
which had his pillow upon it, before her.
"Oh no, sir!'
"I beg and entreat you will, miss!'
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 13
"Oh no!'
"He took her gently by the arm, soft as a flower, and the
coolness of it refreshed him to the heart. He seated her: he
spoke to her, only that he might stand near her. Was he
then so feeble that he could not be heard across a chamber
of fourteen feet by twelve?
"When he wanted me to marry, he told me the tale; and
added, Christopher, there is no such preservative against
vice as the recollection of these events. I do believe that
beauty, in its early innocence, has something of what, for
want of a better and more definite name, we call ethereal;
something pure and rapid, something that stands impassably
between us and evil, and holds our little world from ruin and
corruption; something that unites us here in love and amity,
inasmuch as what is mortal can be united, and converts us at
last to itself in fulness and perfection.'
Le Doux heard the sailor with wonder, and looked at his
rigid throat, his reddened breast, his hands covered with wiry
and inverted hair.
"I am at home again," said he; "I am with my father, and
talk freely. If you are tired of me, leave me."
My friend," said Le Doux, "I hear you with interest:
pray proceed."
"Alice hardly ever would enter the bedchamber again, but
she was fond of walking in the garden, steep as it was and
short and narrow, and containing but one cherry-tree, some
gooseberry-bushes, and a Virginian sumach that darkened
the casement of the lower room. My father must go down
and talk to his little maid.
"Go,' said the doctor; 'I get fond of reading, and you
have a power of books here.'
"Alice had been long below; she must now go and see
what her guardian was doing: he might want her. She
tripped upstairs; my father stopped breathless in the middle.
'Are you coming too, Mr. Normanby? Come then. What
is the matter? Are you tired, you sly romp?'
for he had
thrown a gooseberry at her bonnet.
"No, little Alice; the only fault of this house is that the
staircase wants air.'
"What! with the door wide open and the windows too,
and only the twenty-fourth of May? Indeed, Mr. Normanby,
14
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
I cannot but think you are a very discontented man: you
always want something.'
"Who makes that noise there?' cried the doctor. Alice
ran down, and found in her turn an inconvenience in the
staircase to complain of. If my father had not caught her,
who knows what might have happened! It was providential.
''Alice,' said my father a few days afterward, ‘I have
often seen you eating my gooseberries and cherries, and,
what is worse, before they are half grown.'
"It is very true,' replied she, blushing, but I protest it
was not in malice, and that whenever I caught myself doing
it I stopped.'
"You must pay me.'
"How can I? I have only a sampler.'
"I will have that, then.'
"She ran like a greyhound through the gap and brought it.
It was neatly worked.
666
Really, Alice, these letters are formed divinely.'
"Some of them,' said she, are better than others.'
“I cannot see that,' said my father.
"Oh yes they are: but what do you men know about work?'
Come, my little Alice, show me now the best.'
666
"She looked over them, and sometimes drew one straighter,
and sometimes another, across her fore-finger.
66 6
They are not much amiss,' said she.
“But show me the difference.'
"I think the N is rather better than those on each side.'
Oh you deserve a coronet for such a present,' cried my
father, seeing her embarrassment; and, running before her
that she might not suspect he saw it, leaped up at a flower
on the sumach. She laughed that he had missed it, and
leaped at it too; nor was it at the first attempt that she
reached it, nor without help.
666
Alice,' said the doctor one afternoon, 'you sit working
all the day, and work worse than ever; where is your sampler,
child? What do you color at?'
"I thought I might give it, sir, to Mr. Normanby; I took
so much of his fruit whenever I went there.'
666
Alice,' said he, 'you are seventeen the first of October:
I cannot treat you with green gooseberries and pale cherries,
but the grapes against the kitchen chimney will soon be ripe,
1
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
15
and I have such a rarity for you as you never saw in your
life-time.'
"Oh dear, sir, do not think of it! And you have patients
in the fever who care more about grapes.'
"I have one indeed who has such a fever on him, he
would play the devil with the best fruit at table, and have it
all to himself.'
"Let him have it, my dear sir.'
"So I will.'
"Alice ran and kissed the doctor. 'Poor Kit!' cried he.
Alice, in the act of starting back, had fainted in his arms.
"Why! how now, girl! art in love with me! 'sblood? I'll
bring thee to thyself again.' He had no more scruple with
her than a child has with a doll, and his remedies were within
reach. Simpleton!' whined he in derision, when she began
to recover, 'he has just as much of a fever as you have.'
(C
(
Sir, it is time I should stop," said the sailor. "I am re
lating these things of my mother, just as if she had been an
heiress of a thousand a-year, had lived in a turret and run
along a corridor from her birth, had married a marquis, and
had been presented at court."
"She was a pretty girl, I am persuaded," said Le Doux;
"and we will suppose in her favor that she had those advan-
tages. Go on, Mr. Normanby; there is little to add, I fancy.
If,' said the doctor, 'he should have a small matter of
ailment, which by neglect is one that might grow violent,
would you sit by him?'
66 6
66 6
'Willingly.'
"All day long?'
"All night too.
nobody frightens me.'
I have a good deal of courage when
"And quite alone, you timid thing? Remember how
you shrieked when the kitten the other evening purred and
rubbed against your legs. Could you stay quite alone?'
Quite.'
"Whether he slept or woke?'
"I would pray God he might sleep, and would make no
noise.'
"The doctor at this burst into what he called a horse-laugh.
'Come, now,' said he, 'you are a good girl, and I will show
you the curiosity I mentioned."
16
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"He walked to my father's with her, and found him prun-
ing his cherry-tree; he stepped down joyously and ran toward
them. 'Have you done?' asked the doctor. On the affirma-
tive, Give me the pruning-knife, then it is a shame to see
that thief of a sumach getting in at the window.'
“Oh my dear sir!' cried Alice, 'show me the curiosity.
Mr. Normanby, I never saw that pruning-knife,
do let me
see it.'
"My father placed his back against the sumach, looked
tenderly and anxiously at Alice, shut the knife, gave it to her,
and whispered, 'Don't let him!
"I will disappoint you, my dear guardian, in your pruning,
for frightening me.'
"What frightened you, Alice?' said my father, looking
with great solicitude.
"He knows,' said Alice, shaking her head.
"And Normanby shall know too, deceitful whisperer !'
"Oh dear, dear sir, don't let him!'
"A truce with pruning,' said the doctor, 'I have other
things to do. And now for the curiosity.'
"I know what you mean,' said my father: 'several boys
were after it.'
"And will be, if I don't secure it,' said the doctor.
"It was late, I suppose,' said my father, 'for that sort of
butterfly; yet it was only a butterfly after all.'
“Oh, foul mouthed-fellow!' cried the doctor.
66 6
Really, I never troubled my head about such trifles,'
replied my father in vindication.
"Here is the curiosity! Come and take it, Alice. A
man who can hardly live a day without you, and dares not
say he loves you.'"
Le Doux. And you are the only fruit of this marriage?
Normanby. A rough-flavored and worthless one! I had
a sister, three years younger than myself, whose birth caused
the death of my mother.
Le Doux. Whom you do not remember then?
Normanby. I do, and well. I have before me her clear
colorless face, which I have heard was always so; her quiet
blue eyes, which she turned on me when I ran out of my bed
the morning before her death, hearing her sigh and ask about
me. The infant was born weakly, and my mother being
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
17
weaklier still, it was recommended to find another nurse for
it. "The child is mine," exclaimed she in desperation, “she
shall not have two mothers."
"And would you rather she should have none, my blessed
Alice?
((
""
I know not, my Normanby. God protect her!
God did; and, when the parent could not hear her, took he
Soon after the marriage, Lord Sandyhurst pressed my
father a second time to enter on the living, which he remarked
was holden in trust for him. "Or if you do not like it," said
his lordship, before any reply could be given, “you shall have
the charity-school instead; it is worth as much within a trifle,
and there are no quarrels or trouble about tithes: added to
which the house is kept in repair by the trustees." My father
thanked him, and accepted the school. Five hundred pounds
were paid by his lordship's house-steward, and Mr. Chisholm,
the land-steward, became rector improprietor of Sandyhurst;
the bishop having ordained him at the recommendation of his
patron, and every necessary preliminary having been legally
observed. He was soon appointed his lordship's chaplain,
and within the year was doctor of laws. People found that
they had been much mistaken in his character. He was a
pious, humane, and liberal man ; so averse from litigation that
no wonder he had not succeeded as a lawyer! He visited the
farmers separately; told them he would leave all questions to
their discretion and goodness; that they might give him a
tenth or a twentieth, as they pleased. Some indeed had pre-
tended, while he was agent, that they from time immemorial
had paid a modus or composition: he smiled at that, and said
he should be truly sorry to prove the contrary.
"Come," said he to the richest of the tenants, whom he had
always favored most, "what have you paid me?"
"Don't you remember, doctor, you never took more than
forty-two shillings, saying that forty-five was too much?"
"We must give and take," said the rector, "like good
Christians. You shall pay me forty-eight for fourteen years,
or during your residence and your son's; and here are two
ten-pound bank-notes."
A bargain!" exclaimed the farmer.
The rest sent him chickens and ducks; and, finding him
wary, said plainly they did not see why one neighbor was
VOL. V.
2
IS
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
more neighbor than another. He declared that he would
encourage the civil and industrious; and he would see who
was grateful before he carried his liberality much farther.
They brought him their waste paper, such they called the
old receipts; he altered (it was said) such figures as were
changed the easiest, and laid them by. In the new agree-
ments those who had large families paid less, those who had
none or smaller paid more. Lord Sandyhurst, at the recom-
mendation of his new steward, went over to the estate. The
steward was of opinion that it could be doubled: the tenants
were ejected. The good rector received them like a father,
and consoled them. They lent him their teams, they sold him
the manure: they would rather give it to him than leave it on
the ground. The steward and a surveyor recommended an
enclosure of the common and the warren. The doctor would
not oppose any plan conducive to the public good, and would
be contented for his share to accept the worst part of the
common and the poor barren warren, rather than have litiga-
tions about tithes. He gave notice, however, that for the
future he should take them in kind, until the commissioners
had made their award. Lord Sandyhurst threatened to liti-
gate; the rector would feel the deepest sorrow at any such
thing, and would refer the matter to arbitration: nay, his lord-
ship should appoint both arbiters. Blight and another, who
came by accident to visit him, were nominated. Chisholm
submitted: he had given his word. On the return of the ar-
biters they were very melancholic.
"Well, what have you done with him?" said his lordship:
they shook their heads. The commissioners, who were neigh-
bors, had left the tithes as they found them. Dr. Chisholm
had consented to exchange a part of his glebe for only half
the common, and that nuisance which in its present state
brought so many foxes about it, the warren.
"He must have seen your lordship's receipts and other
papers.
66
""
Surely: he was my steward, you know.”
"He should not have taken advantage of his knowledge,
if indeed he did; in other respects nobody could have acted
more liberally. His warmest wish was the harmony of the
parish."
"A lawyer turned parson," cried Lord Sandyhurst, "has
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
19
the devil by both horns, and can dance him about as he
pleases however, I will eat him up with my game."
66
:
My lord," said one of them, "I am sorry to inform you
he has a right of free warren, which is dependent on the war-
rener's house. He showed us the document.”
"I myself gave him with my own hands that long musty
scroll about the warren, to prove the extent and show him
his advantages. The rogue said my word was enough, and
would hardly throw his eyes over the parchment. I observed
that his horse was frightened at it, and went off at full speed."
My father heard these particulars, and thanked God that
his lordship had relieved him from such heart-burnings and
such imputations.
((
you
"A pretty thing to thank God for !" said Dr. Broom;
might have netted a third of what Chisholm does, and have
been deemed an honest man. You have now only your school
and your five hundred."
Dr.
The school he had; the five hundred he never had.
Broom, of his own accord, went to remind the peer that Mr.
Normanby of the school had a small matter left by his lord-
ship's worthy father.
"He did say something about five hundred, but he was
light-headed in a manner, as you must remember, Broom; and
besides I gave Normanby the school. If he had not been the
greatest booby in the universe, he might have been rector of
Sandyhurst, and kept his carriage."
"My lord, it is easier in our days for a man to keep his car-
riage than his word I find."
"I shall not ask you what you mean, my friend Broom; but
you shall presently see what I mean.”
He walked away and returned with a horsewhip. Broom,
outrageous at the indignity, forgot that he was by thirty years
the older man, and, running at him, knocked him down.
Le Doux. A peer of parliament! that is grave!
Normanby did not attend to the observation, but went on.
"Such, sir, is the custom of our country, that a man once
down is sacred."
Le Doux. You are the strangest people in the world! The
very opposite of the rest!
Normanby. His lordship rose, and, casting aside the whip,
became the pugilist; and, not without a long and doubtful
20
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"
contest, threw his adversary. "Do you know who keeps his
word now?" cried he. "Who is the best man now?"
"The greatest rascal, I must needs confess it," cried the
doctor; "but every dog has his day."
As the late peer had no other child, and was a widower,
he made no will: the bequest was verbal. My father could
never be induced to apply for the money, and indeed (what
he did not know) Lord Sandyhurst swore he never would pay
it, lest he should seem to have been bullied out of it. Broom,
thinking that he by his rashness had been the cause of this
resolution, lost his admirable flow of spirits; gave up his gun,
sat and mused with my parents, whom, he told them, he had
ruined, went late to bed, and some say indulged in mild ale.
His health, however, did not visibly decline. What then
was the astonishment and consternation of his friends, when
Phineas, who had taken his boots to his bedside, found him
dead from apoplexy! No work was done in the town that
day. He left the little he possessed to my mother and her
children, trusting that she would take care of his two ser-
vants, who had lived with him all their lives. It amounted
to a few hundred pounds, for the tenement was not his own,
and he always had been generous. My mother wept over
him as over a father, she had known no other; my father
as over a friend, — no other had he known. They found a
better place for their maid, and took his domestics into their
house.
-
My mother followed to the grave her parental guardian
before she had completed her twenty-second year. My father
lived till I was almost of age. The loss of his companion,
of whom he talked to me every day from my sixteenth year,
shortened his innocent and useful life. In my earlier boy-
hood I do not think he ever mentioned her. "Christopher,"
said he on his death-bed, "I have borne up more manfully
than you are aware of. You are now old enough to keep the
school; and see here the kindness of our patron.”
Lord Sandyhurst, at the entreaty of the parish, had been
prevailed on to appoint me to the place of master, vacant by
reason of my father's ill health.
"The day is sultry," said he, "open the casement. I have
kept my bed three weeks. Look out, and see whether the
sumach is in flower: it ought to be, or near it."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 21
"There is one."
"Go down and cut it, and bring it me.
Yes, I must have it, Christopher."
I ran down and brought it to him.
Stop a moment.
'How sweet it is!"
said he, laying it on his face, and smiling as if refreshed.
by it.
66
Father," said I, smiling too,
for he seemed much better,
“I did not know that there was any sweet scent in the
sumach;" and would have taken it to smell. One breath
shook its feathery flower. It was his last.
The colonel pressed the hand of the mariner; for there
are workings of the heart that cast down all distinctions.
Le Doux. Lord Sandyhurst, I am afraid, can have bat a
very bad heart.
Normanby. I am unwilling to suppose that his heart is a
very bad one; which would be a heavy accusation, since
every man who has received the rudiments of culture is in
great measure the framer of his own. I am more inclined to
believe that there is something in his brain defective or amiss,
an evil which no man can remedy or control.
Le Doux. Why do you think so? What you have related
is no proof or sign of it, but shows rather that sort of brain
which most people have, and which they call the soundest.
Normanby. My reason for thinking as I do is this. When
his maternal uncle died, who was doatingly fond of him, and
at whose house he had passed the greater part of his boyhood
and his youth, he received the congratulations of his acquain-
tance on his increase of fortune.
Le Doux. Surely: ought he then to exclude them?
Normanby. I should have said, if it had not seemed
malicious, that he received their congratulations with pleasure
and satisfaction.
Le Doux.
not?
He inherited as much as he expected, did he
Normanby. I imagine so; every one knew that Mr.
Eward spent his whole income: but the land was unen-
cumbered by debt, and worth about four thousand a-year.
Le Doux. Well then he might fairly rejoice at coming
into possession.
Normanby. Good God! into what possession did he come,
which was not his more amply and more delightfully before?
22
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
He gained nothing: he lost the hand that gave him it, the
heart that welcomed him to it, the voice that cheered him in
his use of it, the dispenser that kept it for his sake, the
friend in whose conviviality and converse he could and did
enjoy it. On what account do the wise and frugal, on what
account do even the idlest and most unthinking, wish for
property?
Le Doux. To spend it among their friends.
Normanby. Are then those who plunder them at the
gaming-table, those who sell them an unsound horse or such
as they themselves are afraid to ride, those who recommend
to them a cast mistress or a cashiered steward, those who
seeing them in sickness call them in their tenderest mood
poor devils," and whose most anxious inquiry is, "What!
alive still?” are those the friends that a rational soul should
prefer to the guardian of his infancy, the director of his
adolescence, the crowner of his energies at the goal of
manhood, whose eye stiffened on his harder features (and
did not find them so) ere it closed in death? Men have
been the richer; but no man, thinking as he ought, ever inher-
ited a fortune from parent or from friend. What mine pro-
duces them; what labor can acquire them; what regret can
recover them once lost? And shall the only thing worthless
that they leave behind compensate us?
Le Doux. My good friend, you did not find any great
difference in your fortune, or else perhaps
Normanby. Go on, sir! Then let me. I possessed so
few things that every one of them gave me a distinct sensa-
tion, and a painful one, reminding me of him who had left
them. In this alone had I to regret the humbleness of my
condition. The regret was, however, of such a nature that
by degrees I placed myself in its way voluntarily, and even
went after it above-stairs and below. When I had nothing
else remaining to look at, I looked at the knots in the deal
unpainted door, and conned over one of my early lessons on
the cause of their transparency in the sunshine.
Le Doux.
good for little.
If we retain these weaknesses too long, we are
Normanby. True; and, if we never have them, we are
good for nothing. Neither our weaknesses nor our strength
should come into play incessantly. Both were given us
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
23
wisely; which I should say, even if I could think of no other
purpose than the necessity of moderating them.
Le Doux. I do not think, my honest friend, a man like
you could reasonably be suspected of disloyalty or irreligion.
Normanby. And if you did think it, sir, my mind would
be the same. I have opened my heart to you because it is
long since I have seen a countenance I like so well, and
because it is a pleasure to be heard attentively.
Le Doux. Pity! that your father did not teach you the
languages he had acquired.
Normanby. He taught me gardening and geometry, which,
he used to tell me playfully, are the washing and clear-
starching of the mind; while other things for the most part
he considered as the rags or ruffles. When I had acquired
from him the elements of Latin, he said to me that I was
now able to teach as much as was enjoined by the statutes ;
and that if ever I had leisure I might extend my knowledge.
After a pause, he added that he had seen some who had
gained nothing from the classics but the right (as they
imagined) of repining, when they found those who had made
no greater progress in them raised to vicarages and recto-
ries, and even higher; and that he would rather leave to me
a moderate sustenance than a defective and fallacious title to
one more plentiful.
Le Doux. I am charmed at his just views of society,
which many men, less prudent than yourself, might turn
away from. I must make you better known to my fellow-
passengers.
Normanby. Sir, I beg you will not bring them hither.
Le Doux. Have they offended you past forgiveness?
Normanby. They have never offended me at all; but my
heart closes at them, as there are some flowers which, with-
out being delicate, close against insects.
Le Doux. I ought to be much flattered at your reception.
of me.
Normanby. Flattered! no, sir. That is a phrase of your
country, and fit for it: let me hear it again, and we converse
no longer.
Le Doux. A phrase has lost many a man a friend: I will
be more cautious in future. I have listened with due atten-
tion to your father's history, and now am anxious o hear the
24
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
rest of yours, which you abandoned as soon almost as you
began.
Normanby. The ashes were hot underfoot. I flew from
myself to my father: my wrongs rose up before me. I have
now again lost sight of them, partly by the memory of that
saintly man, and partly by your encouragement and compas-
sion. Yes, sir, I am like a child who runs behind its parent,
a child little used to be caressed and fondled, when at
last a stranger bids it come and sit beside him, and is ready
and well-pleased to listen to the idle rill of its discourse.
I was pained excessively at the fathers of my boys refus-
ing to visit or receive me; some because they had been so
much mistaken in me, and others because, as they said, it
really would hurt them. My grief was intolerable when the
boys themselves, who had revered and loved me, hissed me
on my way home from church, calling me atheist, jacobin,
and regicide. I had taught them to love their neighbor, and
had never seen in them any thing cruel or unkind. Several
of them, on my father's decease, said anxiously to me, “And
what shall we do if we lose you?" awaiting my answer in
tears. Mr. Chisholm, who had been present at their altered
conduct, came up to me just as I was entering my door, and
said he hoped what I had heard would be a warning to me.
As I returned no answer, but invited him to walk in, "Oh
your humble servant! many thanks; is it come to this? It
is well for you that there are no press-gangs up the country:
they would teach you loyalty at the mast."
Never had I thought to receive a hint out of church from
Mr. Chisholm, of which I should be likely to make any use
in my conduct. Another aided him unconsciously. Phineas
Pooley, my old servant, placed the roast veal upon the table,
and asked me whether I was satisfied with him and Martha,
as my parents and Dr. Broom had been.
66
((
Yes, my good Phineas, perfectly."
Then, sir," said he, "I shall be sorry (God forgive me!)
to leave you, though you are now become an enemy to God
and man.
"Leave me, Phineas?"
"Both of us. We have places for life in the county hospi-
tal: we are fitted for the work, and ready to go when you can
spare us."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 25
“Dear honest Phineas! who persuaded you
?
""
"No matter there are good who were thought bad, and
bad who were thought good."
‘What evil have you ever seen in me, Phineas ?”
"None, sir; unhappily."
"How!"
"We cannot see the heart."
"Ah then, Phineas, you are in the right to leave me. If
you have not yet been able to see my heart, I am to the full
as bad a man as any one would represent me."
"You have been kind to me, as I told them, in sickness
and in health, and never said a cross word to either of us.
'Nor did the Tempter to Eve,' was the reply for this; 'nor
again on the exceeding high mountain.' Át these words,
master, I felt how little I was of a scholar (though I heard
them a hundred times) and how entirely in the snares of sin
and death."
Le Doux. There have been people worse treated than you
have been, Mr. Normanby, but none more undeservedly.
The civility due to your fair countrywoman does not suspend
my interest in your recital, yet it obliges me to make inquiries,
and, if she is awake, to receive her commands. You will
allow me to join you again: you will acknowledge an old
acquaintance?
Normanby. At any time, and with pleasure.
The colonel found Lady Glengrin just waking. She hoped
he would by degrees be fitted for the society it would be his
destiny to find in Ireland; and some other such pleasantries.
passed, which were commented on and explained by Sir Fire-
brace. They spent together the whole evening. Two of the
party never rose before noon; Le Doux was of opinion that
the only thing tolerable at sea was the rising sun, and always
was prepared to greet it.
Does any one remember (ah! who does not remember?)
the first time he ever saw myrtles in blossom on the bleak
heath, where they spread the most widely and bloom the most
profusely? Does he remember the jolts and jerks, the sands
and sudden stops, among the poor cultivation just before he
reached them? How gladly folded he his arms upon his
breast, and drew the pure air from amid their starry stillness!
Not unlike his feeling was the feeling of Le Doux. He had
26
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS,
noticed for the first time a neglected plant, capable of becom
ing the ornament (if chance had placed it there) of domestic
life in an unthrifty station. He had lived, it is true, among
the Russians; but they present no variety: there is a Tartar
flat along the whole people. Potemkin and Orloff differed
from cooks and porters only in strength of limb, the pedes-
tal of their greatness.
Uniforms and diamond rings are useful, since without them
I should often have forgotten the personages I conversed
with, and have ordered them to bring me a glass of water
and a biscuit. Resolute to avoid peculiarity, and to conquer
that abstraction which is called absence, it hardly ever has
been my failing unless in the company of such people; and
I have usually felt a listlessness to amend, or even to apolo-
gize for, my fault.
Normanby saw the head of Le Doux mounting from the
cabin, and saluted him. The conversation was on various
subjects, light and uninteresting. Both felt it. "Come, Mr.
Normanby," said Le Doux, "I am still your persecutor; I
hope your last. Let us take our old places, and then to
Phineas again and the exceeding high mountain."
Normanby smiled and continued.
"Determined to sell my furniture and leave the country, I
gave notice of my intention, and sent for the auctioneer, a
civil man.
He said he owed me no ill-will, and would do as
much by me as by another. Looking over the volumes, of
which about eight were Greek authors, and fewer Latin, he
found hardly any thing else than our old English divines. As
you have acquired our language, and as these contain three-
fourths of what is excellent in it, you must have read them,
and must know thoroughly those I am about to mention.”
Le Doux bowed, and left no doubt whatever on the mind
of Normanby, who thus reported to him the discourse of
Edgeware the auctioneer.
These fetch nothing, Mr. Normanby, I do assure you.
Let us see: Lucas on Holiness, Lucas on Happiness. Lord
help us! we have newer things on them by years and years,
living as we do in an age of discovery. Leighton's Sermons.
The style seems mighty low and wretched.'
"It was once a good one,' I answered, and will be again
when we are fit for it. But crooked thoughts are to be sup-
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
27
ported by stiff sentences. Let no writer be solicitous of
Fame; she is more uncertain and more blind than Fortune:
let them do for the best and be prepared for the worst. There
are few readers and indeed few critics (we must call men by
the names they assume) who tolerate Leighton.'
666
Why, Mr. Normanby, you talk like your father,' said the
auctioneer.
"I believe, Mr. Edgeware,' said I, 'they are his very
words. He used to call the book his milk and honey, and
said that if Leighton had lived in the time of Christ he
doubted whether John would have been the disciple best be-
loved. He sighed, I remember, as he added, taking me aside
by the sleeve, although we were alone, "We are nothing now
but sounding-board and cushion.".
666
66 6
Taylor
Barrow'
Stop, Mr. Edgeware,' cried I, 'do not throw those aside
so carelessly. My father, who knew the ancients intimately,
said, "Kit, that couple are worth all their philosophers put
together, and would be though they all were Christians.
Plato and Xenophon, as men of thought and wisdom, might
walk without brushing their skirts between these two covers,'
striking his hand on a volume of Barrow.'
'May be,' interposed the auctioneer; 'but this Doctor
Hugh Blair, with his noble cassock and five-guinea wig, close,
trim, and hard as the feathers round an owlet's eye, outsells
him twenty to one. What did your father say of him?'
"That he was a comely man, a well-conditioned Christian,
and fair writer; but that he was so unfriendly to what he
called involutions and parentheses, and so fond of straight-
ness and uniformity, that he would straighten a fish-hook,
and prefer a file of pins in smooth stiff blue paper, to a dia-
mond crescent with its knobs and bends among a set of such
riotous curls as it cannot keep in order and subjection.'
"The expression is nobler,' replied the auctioneer, 'but
the matter is not unlike in the main what I heard from Squire
Prew, to whom I knocked down a copy last year. 'It comes
cheap," said he, "and I know who wants one, or I would
never have bought it. I have read the doctor once, and
what such a genius says once is quite enough. He is indeed
a neat handy sort of a person; but he washes his butter so,
and in such saltless water, that one cannot tell whether it
28
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
(C
is butter or bear-grease. First, he would persuade you that
verse has nothing to do with poetry; then that Ossian wrote
what M'Pherson fabricated. When you have swallowed this,
he thinks you drunk enough to believe it is excellent, carries
you across his shoulders to bed, and whispers, 'Well, God
bless you!' that is, if you lie quiet, and believe you have
found a treasure worth more than Homer and Milton." I
made bold to answer: Then, Mr. Prew, you doubt these
battles of the car-borne - "Hark ye, honest Edgeware; I
believe the stories of few battles, for where there are two
that fight there are ten that lie, — but I believe that in some
way or other they were fought. I will admit that these were
fought too, when my coachman drives four-in-hand along the
eaves of the houses in Sandyhurst: he would do no more
than they did, unless he stormed the belfry with 'em." As
I knew of Ossian only what I had heard Mrs. Edgeware read
in a rainy day,—the day before I knocked him down to the
Squire, I could make no answer; but I felt hurt at hearing
this ridicule at what she distinctly told me was the finest
thing in the world, adding that men in those days were
-
men indeed.'
"The conversation about my books might have gone on, if
some one had not tapped gently at the door. It was the ser-
vant-maid of Miss Penelope Haynes, the lady of whom my
father had rented his cottage. The girl desired to have a
word in private with the auctioneer. He returned to me and
said, 'I am going to speak against my interest; you may
have a guinea for your books.'
No, Edgeware,' said I, 'the three bibles and three prayer-
books I never sell; nor this Epictetus.'
"You cannot want three bibles and three prayer-books ;
beside, they are alike, even to the binding.'
"And yet,' answered I, 'sometimes I read in one with more
pleasure, and sometimes in another.' It was so; for often
did I think whose manuals two were, and whose gift the third.
'Well,' said the auctioneer, 'I fancied now one was too
66 6
much.'
''Do not let Miss Pen be disappointed,' said I; ‘take the
list; leave the price to her.'
"He went and acted faithfully. She looked over the cata-
logue, and said with peevishness, 'I do not find that bad book
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
29
which contains such stuff: I wanted to burn it.' Edgeware
ran to me with the answer.
Tell her,' said I, 'that I burned it myself; that Martha
covered the veal yesterday with the last pages.'
"She sent for Martha, and asked her.
No, Miss Haynes!' cried Martha.
"See the effect of such publications!' ejaculated Miss
Haynes. 'Until the present time, Mr. Normanby, I am cer-
tain, was incapable of a falsehood.'
Miss,' added Martha, 'I have no grudge against my
master, an upright man until now; and never shall it be said
that, whether he ordered it or not, I covered a loin of veal for
him with a poisonous book. I threw the remnant of it into
the kitchen fire; and even that did the meat no good: he
could hardly touch it at dinner.'
"Miss Haynes sent Martha back to me, in order to confer
about the library. I waited upon her. She said she was happy
to see me, which she could do without the slightest impropriety
in the presence of witnesses.
Then she added, she was sorry
that she might have been thought uncivil to my father at the
decease of his worthy lady, particularly as he had given her a
fine magnolia; but people might talk, and she should think
long before she changed her condition.
66 6
Madam,' said I, 'few persons have lived so irreproach-
ably as you have done; and I cannot imagine you have to
blame yourself in regard to my father. The magnolia was not
a present: you admired it, I have heard him say, and he car-
ried it to your house intending to request your acceptance of
it; when seeing a sumach on the gravel-walk, he asked Tobias
whether you would make an exchange: you did so.'
"It was only the stump,' replied she.
'I preserve it still, madam; and of all the things I leave
in the country I leave it with most regret.'
CC
Penelope blushed deeply and looked timorously. You
are then really leaving us?' said she.
66 6
'Yes, madam.'
"And what do you do with your furniture, Mr. Normanby?'
"" Sell it.'
"On any other day of her life Penelope would have bar-
gained about it; for she was shrewd, selfish, and the only
parishioner of the landholders that did not suffer in some way
30
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
by the enclosure. She had thirty acres of freehold: four more
were stipulated from the waste; and the rector whispered in
her ear, I should not wonder if, with the little knoll you set
your heart upon, they throw the green lane in. Do you know?
the hollies are worth twenty pounds!' The rector prognosti-
cated wonderfully: it turned out exactly so. She enlarged the
cottage and garden, and called it Eden-place, in preference
to Eden-villa, Eden-lodge, or Eden-house, and would have
painted the gray stone brick-color, if my father had not de-
signedly lent her a treatise which prevented it.
'We may
sometimes pick up an idea from a book,' said she.
"To return. As to those volumes, I will take care of
them for you, if you please, Mr. Normanby, on your giving
me your word of honor that there is no indecent print in them
nor blasphemy - nor sedition.' I did so, at each pause,
and thanked her warmly.
"If you should not be able to dispose of your furniture, I
have room in my barn for it.' I accepted this offer, too, in
favor of an arm-chair covered with white dimity, and a bed of
crimson-moreen, with two watch-pockets fancifully embroid-
ered, requesting her in my gratitude to accept any volume
she chose: she thanked me and declined it. I took my leave,
paid my two servants a year's wages, gave them what clothes
and linen I could spare, and left my house an hour before
sunrise the next morning. Neither I nor my father had had
any acquaintance out of Sandyhurst: I never had been twenty
miles from home. When I had walked about that distance,
and must be near Nottingham as I fancied, I found myself
in a park, in the midst of old pinasters, trees I had never seen
before, and observed a water of vast extent.
Even this was
to me a strange country. I began to feel a desire of wander-
ing; I went toward the water, and (was I awake or dreaming?)
I saw before me a monument erected to the memory of Cap-
tain Riou, a naval officer of high merit, as we know better
than you can; but not better than some of you do. The sun
grew hotter, for it was near mid-day, and I went to lie under
the pinasters. I was watching the squirrels on them, playing
their tricks and leaping from tree to tree, when a prodigious
herd of deer galloped past me. Another strange sight!
although I had remarked the same creature in books of natu-
ral history. My eyes were pursuing them, when a gentleman.
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
31
on a pony, seeing me cleanly and well dressed, saluted me
very courteously, and asked me if I was looking for the road
to the house. I rose, answered in the negative, and told him
I had been induced to rest there for the pleasure of observing
the squirrels. It must be a humane man who suffers them
to riot here, seeing the number of holes they have made in
these trees.'
"They began to make the holes long ago,' said he, and
the property is now theirs.'
"But the trees are every day growing worse and worse,
and here are many thousands: are they all bored so by these
little animals?'
"I believe every one.'
“Ah, spare yon emmet —’·
"I beg your pardon ; you were making a remark: have I
interrupted?'
66 6
Sir,' answered I, 'if I had not been here, perhaps I
never should have remembered two verses which my father
taught me, I am afraid on some childish act of cruelty, and
which I began to repeat, and checked myself. They are ill
applicable to the occasion.'
"What may they be?' said he.
Ah, spare yon emmet, rich in hoarded grain!
He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain."
They are from the Persian,' said he, ' and, if we dropped
the "hoarded grain," are among the best thoughts in that
poetry, which contains few, and those trivial and distorted.
Like the food of the country, they are in themselves the most
insipid things in the world, and, to make them palatable, the
most highly spiced.'
"Our own poets,' said I, 'are more original, I am in-
clined to think, and more natural.'
"He replied, 'We have two schools of poetry: one is kept
at the milliner's, the other at the workhouse. At the former
we find imitations of Turkish carpets in moth-eaten plush,
Persian robes and Scotch fillibegs, claymores, and scymitars,
the sheaths of good varnished kid-skin, and the blades of the
best waved paper, with every sort of dress that janizary and
spahee, lowlander and highlander, fairy and kelpie, witch and
32
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
houri, ought to put on in gala. There is also the most ele-
gant assortment of tombs, and the sweetest poisons one's
heart could desire; with wax-candles of peeled elder, and
flambeaux of red hair, and polygraphic transparencies (the
oil indeed rather rancid and fishy), to be had for next to
nothing.'
"I perceive, sir, you are not a patron or trustee of this
school.'
"Nor of the other,' answered he: 'I prefer Gray.'
"Sir,' replied I, 'the other must at least be acknowledged
to be nearer to truth and nature. Can poets too much avoid
the artificial? We prefer what is past. Gray in his time
was less considered than even our tavern toasters, crowned
with the parsley of the kitchen and sitting on the tripod of
the tap-room. In what manner has the greatest of critics
(to pass over the public) treated the greatest of writers?'
"It was my custom in my walks to carry an Epictetus in
one pocket, and a Pascal in the other: on a blank leaf of
Pascal had my father written these words, which, not being
able to pronounce them correctly, I gave to the gentleman
on the pony.
And I now present them to you in the same
volume."
Le Doux (reads).
"Paschal est un gentil personnage; il ecrit bien; il a fait de si jolies
prieres; il a esté nourry à Genes; il est conseiller d'estat."
Who wrote this?
Normanby. Joseph Scaliger.
Le Doux. A German critic, was he not?
Normanby. I rather think, a French.
Le Doux. He writes then as if he lived a hundred years
ago. I have seen exactly such French in an old treaty. Now
let me hear more about the gentleman: his remarks are
admirable. But you, I imagine, were in the midst of your
reply; pray indulge me with it.
Normanby. "I have heard my father say thus," continued
I, "when he lent me Potter's Eschylus to read. Christo-
pher, I doubt not that Thespis was preferred to him by the
graver critics, there was something so unaffected in a cart,
and so little of deception in wine-dregs; and yet, Christo-
pher, the Prometheus is the grandest poetical conception that
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
33
Homer could no more
ever entered into the heart of man.
have written this tragedy than Æschylus could have written
the Iliad. Mind me, I do not compare them. An elephant
could not beget a lion, nor a lion an elephant. Critics talk
most about the visible in sublimity, - the Jupiter, the Neptune.
Magnitude and power are sublime but in the second degree,
managed as they may be. Where the heart is not shaken,
the gods thunder and stride in vain. True sublimity is the
perfection of the pathetic, which has other sources than pity:
generosity, for instance, and self-devotion.
When the gener-
ous and self-devoted man suffers, there comes pity: the basis
of the sublime is then above the water, and the poet, with or
without the gods, can elevate it above the skies. Terror is
but the relic of a childish feeling: pity is not given to chil-
dren.' So said he; I know not whether rightly. For the
wisest differ on poetry, the knowledge of which, like other
most important truths, seems to be reserved for a purer
state of sensation and existence. Seldom have I doubted
my father's judgment; but as he was not a poet, and as none
but the very greatest have a voice on poetry, here I hesitate."
I had paused: the gentleman on the pony looked at me
attentively. "If you will take any refreshment," said he, "I
shall have great pleasure in accompanying you to the house."
I thanked him and told him that I was on my road to the
sea, hoping to serve my country, and impatient to reach my
destination.
"Have you
"I myself was of that profession," said he.
been fortunate in your promotion?"
"To say the truth, sir," answered I, "I never was in the
profession, and wish chiefly to try whether the service will
benefit my spirits."
"Have you any friend who has a command, or whose
credit may recommend you?
""
I mentioned my grandfather's name, as the only chance.
"He was a gallant and good creature, I have heard, and
must have many friends still living among our older admirals.
My recommendation is less weighty, but such as it is you may
command it."
I requested to know the name of a person to whose benev-
olence a stranger was so deeply indebted.
"Not at all," said he. “A few lines are written while you
VOL. V.
3
34
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
take a sandwich, and Lady Newark will be charmed that I
present to her the grandson of so distinguished an officer."
"It is Lord Newark, then, who has condescended to show
me this kindness—
He bowed. "It can hardly be called so, though you accept
it; as I trust you will do.”
I thanked him; but added that, as I did not intend to
remain at sea long, and as my studies had not been nautical,
I must decline an introduction which might procure for me
eventually what could not belong to me. Whether my words,
my resolute but respectful manner, a faltering in a voice that
seemed little apt to falter, or the bow, so unlike what I could
make again or ever had made, while I placed my right hand
upon a breast enlarged with gratitude, whether one of these
or all of them interested him, as I walked fast away he sat
quietly upon his pony. Soon however he came beside me.
I perceive, sir," said he, taking off his hat again, “I have
done very ill the honors of the place: we have not always
the same presence of mind, seamen or landsmen. You will
not favor me with your company, nor permit me to make a
trial whether I have a friend in the navy who may recollect
me," he paused. I was silent. "If however at any time
you should happen to think of our short conversation, allow
me to tell you that this place is called Thoresby Park, and
that the post town is Ollerton. I wish you a pleasant
journey, a prosperous voyage, and a speedy recovery of your
health."
Every thing I had seen this day, every thing I had felt,
was new and strange to me. Unkindness had pained me ;
kindness, in such swift succession after it, overthrew me.
Little did I then imagine how highly I should have gratified
the most amiable and friendly man living, by affording him.
an opportunity of assisting me! Little did I consider, or
know indeed, that I should be the means of enlivening the
sweet sense of obligation in some one among the many whom
his care had educated, his bounty had fed, and his interest
had promoted.
I was hardly on the public road when I perceived a magni-
ficent coach at the door of a public house, and a gentleman
in scarlet uniform, whom I supposed to be the general of the
district, particularly as he was giving some orders to another
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 35
in uniform, who held a horn.
On seeing me, he cried proudly
but invitingly, "Are you for the Opposition?"
"No, sir," answered I indignantly and sharply; "I do not
rejoice in the misfortunes of my country, nor triumph in its
misrule, nor exalt its enemies."
He lifted up his eyebrows scornfully, and addressing him-
self to a lady in the coach, "The merest fool I ever set eyes
upon!" "said he aloud. And looking at me again, "What,
in the devil's name, has the Opposition to do with politics?
Out with fifteen shillings, man, and you sleep at the Swan
with Two Necks to-morrow night. Come, jump up; we are
off." The passengers explained; I mounted; I arrived in
London. The next morning, on the road to my banker's,
I bowed to those who looked at me. One returned my
civility by the words, "I am surprised at your assurance:
I never knew you." In fact, sir, what is a civility in other
countries, in England is the reverse: we have a national
antipathy to courtesy and politeness.
Le Doux. I would not have ventured to make that remark.
Allow me to congratulate you on your candor: you have
given me better occasions to pay my compliment on your
originality. I attend you.
Normanby. On reaching Lombard Street, a place exces-
sively thronged, I stopped several times, begging the persons
to pass. One asked me whether I took him for a pick-pocket;
I could not imagine why. Unfortunately I did the same
thing, in a gentler tone of voice, to a young lady of great
beauty, who had just alighted from her carriage, and who in
some confusion took the arm of her brother. He filliped me
under the nose, threw a card at me, which from the spite-
fulness of his manner I thought might be some combustible,
and said, “Another time you will know a modest woman."
Finding my banker, I told him my business. He inquired
if I wished to go as school-master. I answered,
I answered, “No; the
active life of a sailor is necessary to my health and spirits.”
He went away and conversed in almost a whisper with a
gentleman who often looked at me in great good-humor,
insomuch that I was on the point of making my obeisance
to him, in despite of the lessons I had received. The banker
came to me, and said if I would return in three days I might
hear of something. I requested of him to inform me where
36
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
He
I could find a private lodging. After a few moments of re-
flection, he spoke to an elderly clerk, who replied in a low
voice, "You think then, sir, he may be trusted?"
nodded: the clerk took me two miles off, across the river,
stopped at a small house, and speaking to a decent woman
called to me, and said, “Would you like to dine with the
family?"
66
Beyond all things," I replied, "for I do not know a soul
within a hundred and fifty miles, and would rather go without
a meal than look for one.
The mistress said she had only one spare room; that if I
remained a week the price was one guinea; but that if
I disliked the apartment I should pay the proportion, and
not be obliged to keep it. She then asked me when I pro-
posed to come. I told her, if she permitted it I would begin
from that moment; for one hour's walk in London had tired
me more than four in the country. She consented. Shortly
came my clothes: I placed them on the little white tent-bed,
with my bibles, prayer-books, and my father's black pocket-
book, containing some maxims, some reminiscences, and a
sampler. Believe who will that there are no amulets against
evil, against the very worst of evil, mad resentments and
desires. Never did one of them touch me the day I had but
looked upon that sampler. My landlady said that her sitting-
room was always at my disposal; that the bed-room was too
dark to read conveniently; and that she perceived I had
some books. She went downstairs again, and shortly after-
ward the dinner was served. Two young women entered,
courtesied, and took their seats: they were pretty; silent, but
not shy. Immediately after dinner they retired. The lady
then said, "Those are my daughters, Mr. Normanby. I did
not introduce them: such is my way; excuse me.”
'Madam," said I, "I must blush at my rusticity. I never
was much in the society of ladies, and my spirits make me
unworthy of theirs. I hope I committed no peculiar act of
inattention."
At tea they both spoke to me, and with such gentleness
that I was happy. I retired to bed early, and observed over
the chest of drawers two little shelves suspended by a green
cord, and filled with books. Different were indeed the au-
thors, far different in manner and merit; but those who read
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
37
them seldom know that; and I hail the family where I find
them. Milton, The Spectator, Young, Parnell, Hervey's Medi-
tations, and Thomson's Seasons. Translated from the French
were Telemachus and the Travels of Cyrus.
I returned to my banker at the time appointed: he showed
me a letter from Edgeware, by which I learned that, after the
sale of my furniture, an addition was made to my fortune of
nearly eighty pounds. Incredible! I had in the whole some
hundreds; and yet I went to sea!
"Well," said my banker, "you go down to the 'Nore' and
sail with Admiral Gambier." I went down, and sailed. The
gentleman I had seen at the banker's was commander of the
fleet. We made on this cruise the greatest nautical discovery
that ever had been made by our countrymen.
Le Doux. I never heard it: you were before Brest, surely,
and blockading the harbor.
Normanby. We were.
Le Doux. Well, then, how make any discovery?
Normanby. We found that we could fight, when occasion
was offered us, just as well without the damnation of our eyes,
or any limb or faculty about us, as if we had been splitting
or blasting the whole day long, and even though we believed
that God was with us and helping us. Peace was concluded.
The admiral was pleased to say that he had been a witness
of my coolness and intrepidity on a service of some enter-
prise, and thanked me. Perhaps I should not have men-
tioned this, unless it were to illustrate an observation I made
at the time; namely, that a single good word is quite suffi-
cient to compensate for all the bad that ever were cast
against us.
We had two Frenchmen aboard our ship: one of them
taught me to pronounce the language so as at least to be
understood, and I had permission to go ashore with him at
Morlaix. He was a fisherman of St. Servan; his father had
been shot by the Republicans at the attack on Dinan, and he
himself was thrown among the dead and wounded from the
summit of those lofty walls. His brother had been the play-
fellow of Lazar Hoche, and, ignorant of his father's fate,
accompanied that general in his campaigns, and rose to the
rank of colonel. This he learned at Morlaix, and that the
regiment was at Paris, where Bonaparte was about to be
38
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
declared consul for life. The two brothers, though always
most brotherly, had taken opposite sides in politics. The
sailor was devoted to the cause of Louis, from having heard
in his boyhood a little fisher-girl, while she was mending a
net, sing a stanza in praise of Henri IV. The colonel
was a Republican, because a thumb and finger quite as
active, and belonging to a lacemaker quite as pretty as his
brother's brown siren, had sewed the tri-color in his hat
and bitten off the thread. They who argue and write
and fight about politics have seldom such good reasons
or such fixed principles.
I accompanied my messmate. The meeting of the brothers
was ecstatic, and the colonel swore to me that the next to
Lazar Hoche, the truest of Republican hearts, he loved his
Pierre. I left them and looked for lodgings, it being agreed
that we should dine together. The colonel then begged my
address, put it into his pocket, and called on me early the
next day. "You have done well," said he ;
(6 one likes one's
own countrymen.”
Singular, that my lodgings should, within a few houses,
be opposite the very man's whose book had caused my
exile! Curious to see so celebrated a character, on the
departure of my visitor I went across to the door. An old
woman met me at it, and on my inquiry said, "Go up, my
friend; the third story: he will be at breakfast when Í
return."
"Oh! I will call another time then."
"Go in, go in."
Saying this she closed the door.
I mounted the steps, and
saw in the antechamber a somewhat elderly man brushing
a gray coat.
"Friend," said I, “is your master at home?"
"Whom do you wish to see? Mr. Paine?”
"Yes."
"He will be with you shortly: pray sit down."
He put on his coat, and followed; and, lifting off some
leaves from a plate of mulberries, invited me to partake of
them. I took two or three, while he waved a clean folded
cravat over them, to drive away the flies. He was robust and
fresh-complexioned, but every hair was white : his appearance,
I thought, was military. The old woman returned, with half
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 39
a small roll of bread in her hand, passed us, entered the
next room, and in answer to a question which I did not hear
replied: "I know he is, your eyebrows are adjusted in a
manner quite different from ours, and he speaks villanous
French, like a Low-Breton; otherwise he is a pretty man
enough, and does not look so like a fool or an otter as the
rest.
Paine entered. His knees were unbuttoned; he had
neither coat nor waistcoat on; the white was worn off his
shirt; it had recovered the original hue belonging to it before
it saw the bleaching-ground, from the flowers of which, if they
have any fragrance, it was innocent of stealing any.
He was
uncombed, unshaven, and unwashed. He looked at me, and
returned my salutation not ungracefully.
"Mr. Paine,” said I, smiling, "you owe me some repara-
tion."
"If I do, and can make it, I will."
repeated my story, during which he dipped his bread into
a glass of brandy, and eat it: his hand and head trembled.
It was noon: martial music was heard in the street. He
pushed away the better part of his roll and brandy; his
countenance was inflamed; he looked steadfastly at his friend,
and said, "I think, Tate, if I may judge, you have heard
military music you like better."
“You judge rightly, Thomas!" answered General Tate.
“Wonderful it appears to me," said I, "that a nation of
late so enthusiastic for liberty should voluntarily bend to
despotism."
"The
"You have not lived among us," answered Paine.
whole nation may be made as enthusiastic about a salad as
about a constitution; about the color of a cockade as about a
consul or a king. This fellow has done advisedly in calling
himself consul: it will hold for a couple of years; he will
then change the name, and be tribune or emperor, tribune,
if prudent, as the more popular, and as the people see em-
perors in the vilest of their enemies: urchins whipped and
promising to be good, very good, for ever good, by Christ
and Peter! but spitting at the flogger on being let loose, and
holding out one fist at a distance, while the other draws up
the waistband. Bonaparte wants conduct, foresight, knowl-
edge, experience, and (the Council of Five-hundred knows it)
40
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
courage. He will do harm, but not long. He lives in ter
ror. What are you smiling at, Tate?"
CC
My mother had a proverb of her own," replied he, "that
a frightened cat throws down most pewter.
""
"You will shortly see," resumed Paine, "the real strength
and figure of Bonaparte. He is wilful, headstrong, proud,
morose, presumptuous. He will be guided no longer; he has
pulled the pad from his forehead, and will break his nose or
bruise his cranium against every table, chair, and brick in the
room, until at last he must be sent to the hospital."
"He has the finest army upon earth," said Tate, “and his
enemies are down."
"If it were possible," Paine replied, "to be hurt by such
enemies, he would point at them, nettle them, shout in their
ears while they were sleepy, put crumbs in their beds, shorten
their sheets, and empty foul water down their throats, till
they contrived to break his shins for him by some machina-
tion or other. The army, with such means of recruiting it,
with Glory for his crimp and Plutus for his paymaster, seems
indestructible. If the earth cannot do it, he will throw it into
crucible after crucible; he will melt it in water or evaporate
it in air. In other words, navies and climates can and will
shake and dissolve it."
Thomas," answered the general, "I never thought you a
visionary; but now, indeed, I must think you one. I do not
estimate very highly the man's abilities, and less highly still
his prudence; but he is no fool: he will not throw away what
he has."
"I will retract my words," said Paine, "at the first wise
thing he does. Smile, sir! it is rarely that the wisest man
can do any thing better, or any thing on some occasions more
difficult.
"Let gazetteers and hawkers be dazzled by the emblaz-
oned names they wave about their ears, and hold out to us
with fierce vociferations; but let calmer men ask themselves
whether they really think Bonaparte would have surmounted
the difficulties and dangers that environed Three-fingered
Jack; and whether Three-fingered Jack would have thrown
away fifty thousand soldiers so inconsiderately and fruitlessly
as Bonaparte? There is not on record one who has com-
mitted so many faults and crimes with so little temptation to
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 41
commit them. There is not a leveret three months old that
does not shape its course more sagaciously. Tyrants in
general shed blood upon plan or from passion; he seems to
have shed it only because he could not be quiet, and from
no stronger motive or better reason than he would have had
for going to the theatre or the chase. Depend upon it, this
giddy and insensate man, deserter of his armies and of his
principles, will finish no better than he has been going on.
-
"There are few who form their opinions of greatness from
the individual. His sword, his mantle, his strut, his swagger,
and even things which constitute no part of him, are his
greatness; such as his porters, his guards, his soldiers, and
the gilding on the ceilings of his rooms. Not those who
need the fewest, but those who have the most about them,
are the great; as though people, like bars of iron, could be
mended and magnified by adding one to another. Even in
quieter scenes than where such excrescences spring up, if
you see a gentleman go out fox-hunting in his scarlet jacket
and his velvet cap, on a spirited horse, with merry dogs, and a
couple of grooms behind him, you consider him as a personage
far more worshipful, than if, ignorant of his condition, you
found him catching a rabbit in a hedge-bank with a ferret.
Ovid says, 'The girl is the least part of herself': of himself as
certainly the man is. I should not wonder if Bonaparte, by
his intemperate use of power and thirst of dominion
Le Doux. I never heard before of this Mr. Paine: he
appears to be a stanch royalist, an enemy of usurpation;
but his language in regard to the emperors is deficient in that
decorum with which we are in the habit of treating friendly
powers. What were his prophetic words?
Normanby. "That the people would wish for their old
kings."
Le Doux.
Excellent!
Normanby. The words that follow injure them materially.
Le Doux. Impossible! so clear-sighted a politician! - But
let me hear the end.
Normanby. "Forgetting what beasts they were."
Le Doux. The English are much in the practice of using
this language, speaking of our kings; and the same bad taste
begins to be imitated on the Continent. What did Mr. Tate
reply?
42
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Normanby.
((
They may eat their white beans while tur
keys and truffles are before them; but they will never run
and take down the carrion they have thrown aside and left
stinking on the hedge."
Le Doux. Two fools! - ignorant of French loyalty, of the
veneration we bear toward our kings. The Revolution was
the work of half-a-dozen philosophers over their coffee; and
its enormities were committed by about as many lawyers and
literators, followed by thirty or forty miscreants from Mar-
seilles. The nation was not guilty of it.
Normanby. Strange, that the good did not put down the bad!
Le Doux. Panic, panic! We are subject to that and the
migraine. Mr. Paine and the other might have conversed
with you upon subjects they understood better than politics,
which require a peculiar tact.
Mr. Paine
Normanby. Indeed they left off where I did.
expressed his regret that he
persecuted for his writings.
clined it. "Tate," said he,
orange-flowers: bring it."
himself was not the only man
He offered me brandy. I de-
"you have some flavored with
Tate rose for it. I declared that I never had tasted brandy,
nor any other spirit, and could not.
"You are a young man," said he, “and may find perhaps
a better remedy for your misfortunes than I could offer you:
brandy is mine."
"I wish, Thomas," said the general, "I had been able to
persuade you that a glass of claret would have done better.
A bottle between us, which is enough, would have given us
time for conversation, and warmed us gently and genially as
we went on.
""
I
"Tate," answered he, "wine is for the indolent and the
happy. Say no more: I am not quite well: that cursed music
has hurt me. I might go so far as to complain; I should then
lose your esteem, and my own." He raised his head, which
for the first time did not tremble: a short silence ensued.
took my leave, requesting his permission to return. He told
me that he should be glad to see me, but that he must claim.
a privilege which literary men and invalids possess in com-
mon, and to which, therefore, he had a double right,
emption from the obligation of visiting; adding, "No man
who visits can do much, or any thing, well.”
an ex-
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
43
On the following day (for I was little disposed to look at
"Never
the strides of a usurper) I went again to Mr. Paine's.
- there are
mind my face," said he; "water makes it blister,
blisters enow already, and soap cracks the skin. I needed
not have written that book; they tell me the arguments are
found in others: I had no money to buy, nor time to read
them. Gibbon was pensioned, I was prosecuted, for one and
the same thing: but he was a member of Parliament, and
wore powder."
"And if neither you nor he had written any such things,
would you or the world have been the worse?"
(6
Certainly," said he, "the world would have been the worse,
because the less wise.'
Ah, Mr. Paine! he is not over-rich in knowledge who
cannot afford to let the greater part lie fallow, and to bring
forward his produce according to the season and the demand.
Wisdom is only a good as being an instrument of happiness.
There have been great masses of it in the world, collected
by experience and approved by experiment; we only survey
the fragments, most of which are preserved by religion. The
ancients had their sacred groves: pirates and philosophers
laughed at them as they passed; they were cut down: pesti-
lences followed. Experience had evinced their utility to
simpler and calmer men. Whenever people meet —”
-
A grave decent-looking man now entered, whom the general
saluted in silence, giving him his hand; and Mr. Paine said,
"Take a seat, Zacharias. This young man is as religious
as you are, and you will hear him with as much pleasure as
I do. There are two good things in the world, reason and
sincerity. I am convinced he has the one: we will try him
on the other. Go on, go on; let us lose no time.”
I continued: "Wherever people meet and bring with them
good intentions, they humanize more and more at the sight
of common wants and common sufferings; they warm in
sympathy, they strengthen in forbearance. You think no re-
ligion good: I think all are, from which cruelty, fraud, lucre,
and domination are excluded. We mortals want supports:
some require a crutch iron-cramped, some are contented if
it is well-cushioned, others are kept up fearlessly by the weak-
est walking-stick. If there is only the probability that a man
will be the happier or the honester by one belief than by
44
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
another, would you hesitate to leave him in possession of it?
Wisdom is not to be hazarded with the same levity or indif-
ference as wit. We may acquire the name of deep-thinkers
at too high a price; which price, like the interest of money,
is limited or illicit, rendering the transaction void, and sub-
jecting us to the forfeit of the little we have been toiling to
establish. Shall so acute a reasoner, so clear a writer, rub
off his hide and canker his flesh to the bone against a tree,
striving to push it down, because some people sit beneath it on
a Sunday, and return to their supper the more contented?"
That is unfair," said he; "the motive is misstated."
"The fact remains," replied I, "under the parable; and I
thank you for correcting me on the abuse of language. No
man ever argued so fairly as he might have done. We pour
in more or fewer words, and weaker or stronger, to gratify
our organs, according to our warmth and excitement."
Carry that home with you," said he, seizing my hand,
"and tell the twelve judges, and the score or two of bishops,
that they never have said any thing so just. Eloquence is
the varnish of falsehood; truth has none!"
"What!" said I, taking from my pocket and giving to him.
my Pascal and Epictetus. "Are not these eloquent?"
"Neither of them," answered he; "they are only the best-
written books in the world, being the plainest and fullest of
ratiocination. That is eloquence which moves the reason by
working on the passions. Burke is eloquent; I am not. If
I write better than he does, it is because I have seen things
more distinctly, and have had the courage to take them up,
soft or hard, pretty or ugly, and to turn them on their backs
in despite of tooth or claw. Plato would give as noble a
description of a rhinoceros as Aristoteles could do; ninety-
nine in a hundred would prefer it. The only difference
this: while the one has been confounding it with the camelo-
pardalis, the other has been measuring its joints, counting
its teeth, inspecting its belly, and anatomizing the whole.
animal."
Le Doux. He spoke of the celebrated Mr. Burke, who
wrote that great letter which excited such a strong sensation?
Did not he?
Normanby. The same.
Le Doux. A fine noble letter! full of facts and inferences !
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 45
brilliant imagination! I must read it. I very much approve
of your argument in favor of revelation. Mr. Paine can be
little short of a Quaker, or Socinian, or Free-thinker.
Normanby. I am afraid he remained one.
"O Mr. Paine !" said I, earnestly, "let me bring you a
few good books: let us open the New Testament together!
"What service will that do?"
"It is the plantain," cried I, "which the reptile man may
creep to and chew with advantage, while the venom is yet
fresh in him."
Le Doux. Mighty smart allusion! He ought to have been
affected: was he?
Normanby.
He replied thus:-
"Good books, as you call them, make you comfortable:
good brandy makes me so. I have the twelve apostles in
this bottle, and they never shall complain that I hold them
long imprisoned."
Le Doux.
Charlatan!
Normanby. I was discouraged.
"At least, Mr. Paine, leave others their habitudes while
they are harmless, and think it equally so to love God as to
love brandy."
"Ay, ay," said he, “jog on quietly, and let your neighbor be
robbed and plundered by any rogue who may have the impu-
dence to call him 'my son,' or 'my brother,' or 'my sheep.'
No, sir," answered I indignantly: "there draw the pen
and cry, Stand! For such let there be an Age of Reason and
Common Sense. A branch of a fruit-tree may be so covered
with insects, and these insects may have eaten into it so
deeply, and have so sucked and blighted it, that the best
gardener would cut it off totally."
The general left the room on business. Mr. Paine seemed
as if he grew tired of the conversation; the gentleman who
had entered, and who had taken no part in it, said he would
(if I pleased) accompany me.
When we were in the street,
he thanked me for the defence I had made.
"I wonder," said he, “what motive Mr. Paine can have for
his good actions, since he avoids society, and disbelieves
(I am afraid) the pleasure God takes in virtue. As for con-
science, if that alone were sufficient, and perhaps it might be,
he deadens both the bad and the good of it with liquor."
46
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"To speak plainly," answered I, "much as I have heard
about him I never heard of his good actions. That he is
strictly honest and just I have reason to believe."
(6
Sir," said he, "let me tell you what he did for me. My
name is Zachariah Wilkes.* I was arrested in Paris, and
condemned to die. I had no friend here, and it was a time
when no friend would have served me: Robespierre ruled.
'I am innocent!' I cried in desperation. 'I am innocent;
so help me God! I am condemned for the offence of an-
other.' I wrote a statement of my case with a pencil; think-
ing at first of addressing it to my judge, then of directing it
to the President of the Convention. The jailer, who had
been kind to me, gave me a gazette, and told me not to mind
seeing my name, so many were there before it.
"Oh!' said I, 'though you would not lend me your ink,
do transmit this paper to the president.'
"No, my friend!' answered he gayly. 'My head is as good
as yours, and looks as well between the shoulders, to my lik-
ing. Why not send it (if you send it anywhere) to the deputy
Paine here?' pointing to a column in the paper.
"O God! he must hate and detest the name of English-
man: pelted, insulted, persecuted, plundered-'
"I could give it to him,' said the jailer.
''Do then!' said I wildly. 'One man more shall know my
innocence.' He came within the half-hour. I told him my
name; that my employers were Watt and Boulton, of Birming-
ham; that I had papers of the greatest consequence ; that if I
failed to transmit them, not only my life was in question, but
my reputation. He replied, I know your employers by
report only; there are no two men less favorable to the prin-
ciples I profess, but no two upon earth are honester. You
have only one great man among you : it is Watt; for Priestley
is gone to America. The church-and-king-men would have
japanned him. He left to these philosophers of the rival.
school his house to try experiments on; and you may know
better than I do how much they found in it of carbon and
calx, of silex and argilla.'
"He examined me closer than my judge had done; he
* This anecdote was communicated to me at Florence, by Mr. Evans,
a painter of merit, who studied under Lawrence, and who knew person-
ally Wilkes and Watt. In religion and politics he differed widely from
Paine.
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
47
required my proofs. After a long time I satisfied him. He
then said, 'The leaders of the Convention would rather have
my life than yours. If by any means I can obtain your re-
lease on my own security, will you promise me to return
within twenty days?' I answered, Sir, the security I can
at present give you is trifling, - I should say a mere nothing.
"Then you do not give me your word?' said he.
“I give it, and will redeem it.'
"He went away, and told me I should see him again when
he could inform me whether he had succeeded. He returned
in the earlier part of the evening, looking fixedly upon me,
and said, ‘Zachariah Wilkes! if you do not return in twenty-
four days (four are added) you will be the most unhappy of
men; for, had you not been an honest one, you could not
be the agent of Watt and Boulton. I do not think I have
hazarded much in offering to take your place on your failure:
such is the condition.' I was speechless: he was unmoved.
Silence was first broken by the jailer. He seems to get
fond of the spot now he must leave it!' I had thrown my
arms upon the table toward my liberator, who sat opposite ;
and I rested my breast and head upon it too, for my temples
ached, and tears had not yet relieved them. He said, 'Zach-
ariah! follow me to the carriage.' The soldiers paid the
respect due to his scarf, presenting arms, and drawing up in
file as we went along. The jailer called for a glass of wine,
gave it me; poured out another, and drank to our next
meeting.
"On the fourteenth day I returned to Calais in an Ameri-
can brig. Approaching to Montreuil I saw the girls begin to
dance in the meadow; and party after party came tripping
down the declivity that leads from the town to the bridge.
Some were sitting on the parapet, and communicating a
printed paper to many auditors, who however mostly quitted
them when they heard of a private letter on the side opposite.
Passing the arch and entering the town-gate, I saw the ruined
monastery on the left hand covered with garlands; and men
and women were levelling the floor for the reception of sev-
eral great tables that were standing on the outside. The
youths were better dressed than I had ever seen them,
although their coats were old-fashioned. The moment my
carriage stopped I cried, 'What festival is this to-day?' The
48
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
answer was from fifty voices, 'The monster is dead! the Con-
stitution for ever!' People flocked round a young man, half
of whose hair was hidden under his shirt collar, the other half
flowed over the shoulder in long ringlets. It appears he was
the poet of the city; and he ran along the streets singing
this song, which, before I left the place, was presented to me
in print:-
"Come, let us dance upon the grass,
Ye maidens of Montreuil !
Sorrows and fears, oh bid them pass!
'Tis better Love should rule.
"If you abuse the power you have,
If you are cruel, know
We too may make the light look grave
And lay the lofty low.
"Frown not in heedlessness or haste,
If any step go wrong;
If too far circled be the waist,
Or hand be held too long.
"In knees yet tottering from a rod
Let failures be forgiven;
Slippery with sunshine is the sod
With tufted flowers uneven.
Away! in bonnet, coif, or cap,
To fear it is no use;
Whene'er you meet with such mishap
We'll make the best excuse.
"I cannot dance nor sing alone,
Haste, haste, my heart Lisette !
Manon! what are you at, Manon?
That frill not plaited yet?
"Nay, never mind what people think,
Too sorrowful Elise !
Let the black skirt be trimm'd with pink,
Lilac, or what you please.
"But put it on and trip away,
My life! the violin
Never was play'd so as to-day,
Nor was the mead so green.
"Come, let us dance then on the grass,
Ye maidens of Montreuil !
Sorrows and fears, oh bid them pass!
'Tis better Love should rule.”
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
49
"If in my circumstances I could have been amused at any
thing, it would have been at the boasts, the resolutions, and
the schemes I witnessed in the groups about me. One swore
that, if nobody else had killed Robespierre, he would have
done it; for he had formed a plan impossible to fail. An-
other said he had inscribed his name among the conspirators
against the tyrant, which greatly encouraged them, and that
he could exhibit a copy to whoever doubted it. A third
declared that nobody alive should hinder him from putting
on a clean shirt every fourth morning; that he would call
Sunday dimanche, and would bow to the curate the first instant
he met him. 'Happy days, good old times, are come again,'
cried an enthuasiast; one may exclaim bon dieu ! on this
side the guillotine; and one may address one's mistress
by the title of angel, or even mademoiselle.'
'What do you
think the girls care for that?' cried his companion, who still
wore the red cap. 'Pretty girls,' answered he, 'are aristo-
crats, and will be so while there is one upon earth. The
Goddess of Liberty herself would smile more graciously, if
you addressed her, "Madame the Goddess of Liberty." The
republican heard and pondered, and, contrary to my expecta-
tion, cried boisterously, ' By Marat! I believe it. · A bitch!
she should be watched.'
Robespierre had shot himself, was the intelligence
brought by the postilions; a few lines to a few families and
a few hand-bills announced the same. I hastened to the
capital, to the house of my benefactor.
You could not have heard it in England?'
'No,' replied I, 'I heard it at Montreuil; is it true?'
He did not answer me; but, turning to the general, said,
'Tate! there is yet English blood in England, though it is
run and contraband, and found among people who have no
right to it. I wish it may do you no harm, Zachariah! Come,
while we are well, let me give you joy.''
>>
Le Doux. Did Mr. Paine live to the Restoration? I am
certain his Majesty would have rewarded his services, and
have pardoned the indiscretion of his former speeches, -the
result of inebriety.
Normanby. He died before the king's restoration, and was
not altogether so good a royalist as one could have wished.
Le Doux. Pity! but he might have written some loyal
VOL. V.
4
50
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
books: nobody asks about opinions. Do you imagine that
Soult is a royalist, or Chateaubriand a Christian, or Talley-
rand a believer in Providence? They behave well, and
abandon their errors; or, if not abandon, abjure them. This
in conscience is all that government and society can exact.
You must have been charmed with Paris?
Normanby. Remaining there eleven days, I wrote to the
good lady at whose house I had lodged in London, and told
her I should be happy to send any models she might desire
for her daughters to copy. I had discovered that they gained
their livelihood by working in their own house for the first
milliners. She returned me a kind letter, containing the
substance of a conversation with my banker, to whom it
appears she was related. He was surprised he had not
heard from me, if living: it was a proof, however, that I
wanted no money.
Miss Penelope, who had been treated
like a princess from her infancy, offended the Chisholms by
telling them that the parishioners began to regret me, and
that I had afforded them ample means of judging whether
I was disaffected, by becoming a sailor. The curate, now
about to marry a woman of distinction, lost common decency
in her presence, and told her his father would no longer take
three shillings in composition for his capon ;
that capon
was the word, and capon he would have, though she herself
made him. (C
Oh, brute beast!" exclaimed Miss Penelope;
and then shrieked, and would have fainted if there had been
any one else to support her. Soon after she caught an
erysipelas, by sitting in a grotto she had constructed just
opposite the door of her new farm-house, and between the
cow-pen and cart-shed. There was a weeping willow on
each side, and there was water in it, preserved by means of
a dripping-pan nicely sanded, with a large sea-shell at every
corner. She was so delighted at this rural and romantic
scene, that, on the day of its completion, she sat an hour or
more in it, and did not dream that the coldness of the mortar
on the floor could penetrate the moss; but the moss had
been wetted to fasten it. When she returned home she
shivered; the apothecary said he did not like it: the Chis-
holms would yet be neighbors if a visit should be agreeable.
"No," said she, "and if I die to-morrow I will show them
how little I value them." She had no idea of dying, and
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 51
perhaps, if she had lived, would have made a different will
from what she did that evening. She bequeathed her library,
plate, and china, her house, furniture, and estate, to me; she
willed that the remainder of her property, being in money,
should be possessed by her nearest male relative, unless
there happened to be in the family a female whose Christian
name was Penelope. The younger Mr. Chisholm was vexed
and confounded. The elder was at first silent: at last he
said, "The laws of the land will look to that. - The Christian
name of Penelope! I hold that there is no such Christian
name, and that the name is called Christian by abuse. This
is not a misnomer, or it might be good and valid and got
over: misnomer means, when a man's real name is Nicholas,
for instance, and you call him Nicodemus, having proven, or
proving below, that you intend the man, or child, or adult, so
mentioned."
His reasoning, if right, was useless: no Penelope was a
claimant. The property, amounting to six or seven thousand
pounds, went to a day-laborer, who, by the blessing of God
and a mandate of a justice of the peace, had eight children.
He swore he would bury Miss Penelope as to queen was
ever buried, though it cost him ten pounds.
(6
Say guineas, Giles!" cried his wife; "the charge comes
but once.
1)
He drew back, as one who is about to take a leap; admired
her high daring, and, rising up from his chair at the decision
he was about to pronounce, “Guineas then let it be !"
I returned and took possession of my cottage and free
hold. The first door I opened was the barn-door. My
arm-chair stood opposite me: I sat down on it, looking on
the crimson bed until its colors were absorbed in my eyes,
and the form itself had vanished. I did not meditate; I had
no thoughts: sensation carried them away half-formed. I
did not resist it, nor attempt to alter or direct it. I felt as
if I were in the presence of those I loved, and as if any fresh
motion of the mind or body would deprive me of it.
Few years had elapsed, and yet what changes! The death
of Penelope and the marriage of Mr. Chisholm occurred in
one week.
There was no turnpike road near Sandyhurst; and the
people were much surprised, as they were conversing from
52
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
window to window one Saturday evening, at the arrival of
an elegant chaise and four post-horses at the public house,
which is a very cleanly and commodious one, there being no
fewer than six charities the trustees of which dine there yearly,
and the commissioners of two inclosures had met there daily
for eight months. From the carriage alighted a young lady
and her aunt, evidently a woman of fashion, and retaining
the remains of beauty. The innkeeper showed them his
apartments; they chose two rooms, the aunt remarking that
the delicate state of her niece's health made her resolve to
attend her, whatever might be the consequence to her own.
She desired that her under-butler and her niece's maid might
have a parlor to themselves. The innkeeper, curious to know
the history of his inmates, went backward and forward in the
servants' room; but they paid no attention to him, which
produced an observation in the passage that servants are
prouder than masters and mistresses. He himself, as he
had already done upstairs, brought in a pair of candles, and
lighted one. The lady's maid smiled somewhat scornfully,
and presumed that the wind had blowed out the other.
"Comfortable or not, Edward, we shall at least be beyond
the reach of that old housekeeper. It is well that you
(instead of the butler) did not drink the Madeira; but the
malicious old creature could not get him discharged. I wish
my young mistress was half as good as yours: good she is,
only that she minds her money. Hardly a gown a month;
and of what use are silk stockings to me, if I must not wear
them; and shoes, if they are too big?"
"I beg pardon for interrupting you, miss," said the inn-
keeper; "but really I cannot do my duty unless you or this
gentleman inform me of your lady's name."
66
"You may look for it," said the girl, and continued her
discourse. No, Mr. Edward, I don't let men put their arms
over my chair. Talk and welcome, but I don't see why you
should do in the country what is more than your place is
worth if you did it in London.”
He begged pardon, and hoped she would say nothing;
then turning to the landlord, "Her ladyship is particular:
I trust you will not hurt me."
"Not I," said the landlord; "but surely you will have the
civility to inform me who the ladies are."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
53
:
CC
" and
My mistress," answered he, "is Lady Fosset;
whispered in his ear, “She is only the wife of a knight, let the
girl say what she will, a proud minx!"
“And what would you have? Is not a knight enough for
you? Do you think I have no ears in my head?
Had you
such a table, I should like to know, at Lord- the Lord
knows who's the one you served last; he whose face is so
like a camel's?"
"I did not complain," said Edward submissively. "Sir
Nathaniel kept a better; but
""
Go on, go on; never be satisfied," said the maid.
at once he left your mistress a beggar,
(C
Say
but hold your tongue
upon the score of mine; and now I warn you."
((
Miss," replied Edward, "I entreat and beg you not to
speak so loud: I am as reasonable as any man, and never
said that the same can be done with eighteen hundred a-year
as with four thousand."
The landlord, when they were silent, hoped he did not
interrupt them, but requested the lady's maid to inform him
at her leisure (since the ladies were in their bedroom) when
they would like tea.
"Have you not asked them?" said she, apparently much
surprised.
"No, Miss," he answered; "I have been waiting here."
"God forbid you poking, prying creature! Well, I
said no harm of anybody. And now, Mr. Edward, if you
catch it, thank yourself: you have always a bad place, have
you?"
He left the parlor; the landlord followed. He turned
round and whispered in the landlord's ear, "Evil came into
the world with the first woman, and will go out with the last,
and, by my soul! I believe against her will. What malice in
this little black-and-tan terrier! always on the watch and
alert to catch and snap me."
"She is a pretty little creature to my mind," said the land-
lord.
"Pretty!" cried Edward.
"Her complexion by candlelight is the sweetest in the
world," said the innkeeper; "and such eyes and eyebrows
I never saw in my born-days. What teeth and lips! psuh!
and that slight shade of down on the upper one."
54
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
'Zounds!" cried Edward, "kissing her would be like
playing on Pan's pipe. Slight shade of down! Why, then a
box-coat is a satin slip, and a fox-cover is a grass-plot."
((
"Do you always ride on the dicky with her, Mr. Edward?"
Ah, woe is me!" replied Mr. Edward, and there was an
echo to it in the passage, "there is so little room on our
dicky!" The innkeeper sighed again," and such jolting.
roads, and such light short-legged creatures!" said Edward
discontentedly. "It requires all one's patience."
Egad, does it?" cried the innkeeper, drawing his breath,
" and more too!"
—
After some silence, he invited Mr. Edward to taste the
liquors in the tap-room. "If you please, Mr. Edward, - I
beg pardon not to know your other name.'
Horton, at command," answered he.
“Mr. Horton, if you please, as I was saying, we will drink
to the good health of Miss."
"The poor child!" said Edward. "She is not long for this
world."
66
“I did not mean her," said the landlord; though me-
thinks her lips and eyes promise to let alone graves and
tombstones for the present: I meant the sweet little creature
that was so sharp with me."
"Ho! Rosaly Rouse, so the ladies call her: she expects
that we should call her Miss Rosaly; the housekeeper and
butler may call her Rouse. She has good kin; that must be
said for her but an arm across her chair is a liberty. If you
caught her asleep in it one has a right then, you know
you would sooner dare to kiss a leopard or tiger. Every
thing would be topside-turvy; you could not rest for her.
You would have laughed if you had seen her coming down
the hill into the town here: she was frightened at the horses
slipping, and, in spite of the ladies behind, threw her arm
round my body; and I verily believe it made her hate me
worse than ever; for, to do her justice, I never saw her so
bad before, never so desperately proud and capricious. She
loves her mistress and my lady, and would go through fire for
them: drink a little wine in the cellar, and you might as well
drink black-strap at the Crown and Anchor."
"Really!" said the innkeeper in great surprise," then I
misunderstood every word about the Madeira."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
55
((
Sly creature!" drawled Mr. Edward. "Faithful she is,"
added he smartly, "and acute, and prudent: her only fault
is that she never forgives what she calls a liberty, and it puts
her out of humor with all the world."
The very woman!" cried the host unguardedly; and,
being disconcerted at his own exclamation, desired his com-
panion to help himself and spare not, and went upstairs. He
had forgotten to take up the tea, and was much relieved at
finding the waiter in the act of removing it, and the ladies at
cards, they having thrown a shawl over the table, when the
waiter informed them, on their inquiry, that there was no
green cloth.
He saw several pieces of gold, no silver. His
heart was disquieted; he knew not what to set about; even
his curiosity was enfeebled; yet he went up again to ask what
they would please to have for supper. Lady Fosset desired
him to wait a moment; she then said to her niece, “Come,
child, take those five guineas back; I do not approve of high
play, and you could not attend to your game."
"Excuse me, madam," replied the niece, rising from the
table, and putting the money in the aunt's reticule.
The landlord was up early the next morning, waited on
Dr. Chisholm, and told him and his son the curate all that
had passed; adding, as was true, the last thing her ladyship
asked was,
"At what time begins divine service?"
Samuel," said the doctor, "I shall preach."
"Father, if you will, you will," replied he; "but the fairer
thing would be to cut for it."
They did: the doctor won.
there is no dealing with you.
Samuel cried, "By God! sir,
I make no doubt all was fair.
What I have to say is, you have always good luck."
On returning from church, Lady Fosset thanked the doctor
for his very admirable sermon, and declared she never had
heard the service read so impressively as by the gentleman
who assisted him.
"My son, madam.”
They both bowed, and attended the ladies to the inn. Her
ladyship invited them to tea in the evening, expressing her
deep regret that she had no gentleman with her who might do
the honors of the table. at dinner, if they could have pardoned
her so short a notice.
"Father," said Samuel, just out of the door, “did you ever
56
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
hear so strange an excuse? None to do the honors of the
table (as she called it), when there are two of us! You might
have had the ducks put down.”
66
Well, father, on this
On the road to the rectory, "Eighteen hundred a-year!
was the exclamation of both at once.
occasion I hope you will not cut."
Samuel," said the rector, "I soon enter on the grand
climacteric; her ladyship is not five-and-forty."
"True," answered he, "I suspect she has a filly's tooth in
her muzzle, and would fain pulp a bean or two yet."
The rector shook his head. "I believe you must have her,
Samuel. I have nothing but the rectory: the money is gone
in house and improvements. You were born to less than a
hundred a-year, and that from the sweat of my brow: I shall
leave you a thousand. I will nominally make over the living
to you, on your giving me such security as can be drawn up
between us."
The son thanked him; was unremitting in his addresses
to Lady Fosset; and at last declared his passion, from the
utter impossibility of restraining it. She replied that she was
sensible of his merits, but that, if he imagined her fortune to
be so considerable as it was represented, he was mistaken;
that she had retired, in part for the health of her niece, in
part for economy, and was sorry to inform him that her thirds
(her husband having died intestate) were barely eighteen
hundred a-year.
He protested that fortune was the last of his considera-
tions; that he himself had somewhat less; that after his
worthy father's decease he could not expect many thousands.
more, beside the rectory.
The rector united them by license, the third week of her
ladyship's residence in Sandyhurst. She condescended to
give away, with her own hand, Rosalia Rouse to Mr. Free-
man of the Star and Garter, making her a present of a pearl
necklace, the finest and evenest pearls ever seen in Sandy-
hurst, which Mr. Edward Horton said he did not so much
wonder at her doing, now that she had resolved to forget poor
Sir Nathaniel. He added, "I remember how nobly her lady
ship looked in these pearls when she was in full dress, as
persons of quality in London are, stark-naked down to the
navel."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 57
Mercy upon us!" cried the host.
"Are they taken then
for pigeons and plovers? are folks helped only to the nether
parts of them? Why should they neglect themselves? Do
not they meet their lovers in this full dress, as you call it?
The men must cry out shame upon them, finding them in good
company so slovenly and sluttish. Our ladies here in the
country are educated on other principles. When Squire
Alvanley of Beachencroft saw Miss Arabella give Captain
Barrowdale, who was fain to marry her, a few maidenly
kisses, he said not a word about it; but when he observed,
another day, that the captain was desperate to lower the
tucker, he called her to him off the green bench, pretending
all the while to have seen nothing, and kept her a matter of
half an hour in lecture. Nobody knows on what he discoursed
in the outset; but Mrs. Snipe, the housekeeper, told me that,
hearing some grave words, she looked through the key-hole
of the study-door, and saw Miss in tears; and saw the old
gentleman, relenting a little, pat her cheek with the back of
his fore-finger; and heard him say, partly in comfort, partly
in counsel, 'Be liberal of the cherries, girl, but chary of the
peaches.' Whereat Miss wiped her eyes, and rose upon tip-
toe and kissed her father, and promised to do always as he
had bidden her."
"I have her ladyship's commands," said Edward, "to take
her your account.
In an instant, "Take it!" said Mr. Freeman.
"You have written received in full," cried Mr. Edward
Horton; "how is that?
,,
"It would be a burning shame to act otherwise," said the
publican, "after those pearls; and look ye what are these?"
"Oh! they are only garnets: nobody would give you five
pounds for them, without the gold.”
The niece whose health was surprisingly restored, and
whom it was thought indecorous to make the witness of con-
nubial felicity in its first transports, was taken away just be-
fore the marriage by her brother, a young ensign; and Mr.
Edward Horton two days after returned to London, strongly
recommended, for her ladyship would rather reduce her
establishment than increase it, accommodating her taste in
every thing to her dear Chisholm's.
Samuel!" said the old rector to the new, "while we think
58
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
of it, suppose you resign to me that instrument of the ad-
vowson.
""
"Father," said Samuel, "I would gladly do it if my con-
science would let me. I repent of having committed one
action very like a fraud, and nothing upon earth shall make
me commit another. If the bishop heard of it we should be
ruined."
The father had seldom lost his temper or composure; for
as other extremes meet in their effects, so do honesty and
roguery in this. He felt assured however, in the midst of his
resentment, that he had so drawn up the agreement as to
make it voidable, although he hardly had thought Lady Fos-
set was so noble-minded as to accept his son without referring
the title-deeds to her solicitor.
There was a young girl in the parish, the daughter of his
laundress, whom he condescended to teach the catechism.
He often told her in what manner to hold the book, and often
said, “Let me see where you are," and sometimes,
"Do not
be so frightened," when nobody but himself could see that she
was frightened in the least. He went to her, and said without
prelude or preface, "Sally, will you marry me?
""
Lord, sir," cried the mother tremulously, "what do you
mean?"
"Ask me no questions, or I leave the house," said he, more
firmly than impetuously. "Will you marry me, child, or will
you not?'
She looked at her mother.
earnest, you must not say no."
Sally, if the doctor is in
"Put on your Sunday clothes then; and, Rebecca, while
she is putting them on, come you with me."
The mother went out with him.
"Step into that carriage."
"With my shoes on, sir?”
((
Step in.
-Will the girl come or not? What a quantity of
clothes she must be putting on!"
The mother, holding up two pins to hint that she could
stick them in if requisite, as they went along, called her
thrice with an admixture of coaxing and reproof. She de-
scended the staircase with timidity, and would have walked
by the side of the carriage; but the rector caught her up
and (somewhat asthmatically) lifted her in. He followed;
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
59
and, putting his arm partly round her, although on the cush-
ion, that he might not be indecorous, he ordered his coach-
man to drive to Mr. Gamaliel Shark's at Elvington. Alighting
there, leaving the daughter and mother in the chaise, he told
Mr. Shark that he came for a license; and, after the neces-
sary questions, he received it.
"And now, sir," said the doctor, "are you ready to unite
us?"
Mr. Shark assented: they were united: they returned
home at the moment of dinner-time. The mother was left
at her own door very carefully, with an affectionate kiss from
the daughter, and not without a generous declaration from
the doctor that he would really have made her a present, if he
had found in his pocket any less piece than a half-crown.
The bridegroom placed Sally by his side quietly. The son
was civil, and said on their arrival, "I suppose, Sally, you
have said your catechism better to-day than usual?
She looked at her husband. "Yes," answered he placidly,
"and read a page more."
After supper he called for his bed-candle, and, wishing
Lady Fosset a good-night, conducted Sally upstairs. The
elder bride and younger bridegroom at top and bottom looked
steadfastly at each other. "Let him go!" said Mr. Samuel,
“let him have his way and will. I did think better of the
wench she had hardly a courtesy for me.
:
Rectory or laun-
dry, barn or stable, what matters it: it comes to the same
thing at last."
"Oh fie, for shame!" cried her ladyship, looking at him
and smiling through her fingers, "I cannot sit and hear this."
She tripped across the room, opened the door, turned round
again and cried, "Positively I have a great mind to lock you
out, you rude creature!" Mr. Samuel ruminated.
Early the next morning a bailiff entered the rectory, accom-
panied by two police-officers. The doctor and Sally were
fast asleep; for they had been (backward and forward) eight
miles the day before. Mr. Samuel was examining the heel of
a horse; he heard the visitors, and, without looking at them,
asked them roughly what they wanted. "Margaret Pollock,"
said one in a clear voice; another said, "Parson Chisholm."
"What have you to do with me, pray?" shouted he
furiously.
60
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"Nothing, sir, if you pay these trifles. You have married
Margaret Pollock.""
"Not I: no such woman has been married in my parish."
"Mr. Chisholm, you have taken as your lawful wife Mar-
garet (otherwise called Peg) Pollock.”
"Sirrah!" said the divine, going up to him with clenched
fist, "I would have you to know I led to the altar Lady
Fosset."
"You could not have done better," said the officer, "but
she wanted no leading that way. Howsoever we take posses-
sion of the rectory."
Mr. Chisholm ran to his father, whom he awakened. Sally
still slept, as being little used to the motion of the carriage;
and I hardly know a rougher road than the road to Elvington,
considering it is so flat.
"Father," said Mr. Samuel, "take the resignation,"
throwing it on the bed. While the bailiffs were in the house,
he mounted his horse, rode into Rutlandshire, and exchanged
his curacy with a sporting friend whom he had known at
college. The doctor was surprised to see a neat young cler-
gyman introduce himself the next Friday, and to hear a eulogy
on his son's liberality in giving a curacy of a hundred a-year
for one of seventy, when the hounds were at equal distances;
and in return was never so uncivil as to gainsay him until a
whole twelvemonth had elapsed, when he complimented him
on his horses and sermons, his bold leaps and impressive
delivery, and on fifty pounds going farther at Sandyhurst
than seventy at Grantham. "I believe, sir, you will find,”
added he, "that here are five ten-pound Bank of England.
notes: do me the favor just to cast your eyes over them, and
to give me a receipt."
Lady Fosset, by the account of the bailiff and his attend-
ants, had been a street-walker, a kept mistress, and an
actress. Her associates at Sandyhurst were of the same
strolling company. She escaped by putting on the riding-
coat of a groom; exercising first the functions of a butler,
taking care of the plate, and not forgetting in the perform-
ance of this service that her husband had presented her a
brilliant ring and some other ornaments, rich almost as any
of those which had devolved on the family of Sir Nathaniel.
Seeing her husband gallop off on Blaze, she was contented
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
61
66
to mount the horse whose fetlock or hoof had excited such
suspicion in her lord, and which he was examining when his
guests entered. They obtained nothing from the rector.
My son was my curate," said he; "of his wife I know
nothing. Take him; take her; but touch a tin-kettle on
your peril. This is the rectory-house, and the rectory is
mine." They grumbled; they begged a breakfast, as nobody
was up: the rector held his spread hand before his face, and
looked aside.
After the harvest, a company of players applied to the mag-
istrates for permission to open a theatre at Sandyhurst, one
night only it was granted. They acted a farce entitled The
Two Rectors, and were committed to Bridewell for an attack
on the Church.
:
Not long afterwards, it was discovered that the stratagem
introductory to the marriage had been devised by a young
gentleman who was fond of theatricals, and no less fond of
the young lady who played the niece. The inexperience and
giddiness of this prodigal Mr. Chisholm had turned to ac-
count at the university two years before, not without a few
sarcasms on his folly, and the inauspicious boast conveyed in
the words, "I shall make him remember his rubbers." Hear-
ing that the reverend gentleman was now resident in a village
near Grantham, and well surmising that, on market-days and
fairs he would be bustling about the town, he drove his cur-
ricle thither on the great horse-fair, accompanied by his mis-
tress, the niece; and, meeting Mr. Chisholm in the crowd,
he drew up his horses, inquired after the health of Lady Fos-
set, and expressed an earnest wish to pay her his respects.
"Look ye now, Mr. Randal," said the curate, if you aren't
off the ground in a twinkling, I'll make the place too hot to
hold you."
"I don't doubt your interest in a place too hot to hold me,
Mr. Chisholm; but I appeal to the gentlemen here present
whether my language was other than civil and friendly."
The fashionable young traveller was cheered heartily; he
was declared to be an over-match for the parson, and his
shrewdness in a minute had drawn the clerical mouth awry.
Observing the advantage he had gained, he appealed to every
lady who did him the unexpected and unmerited honor of
listening to him, and who by such politeness had rendered
62
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the present hour the brightest of his life, whether a syllable
had escaped his lips which could possibly shock the modesty
of the most delicate among them, or could justly wound the
feelings of the reverend gentleman, whose sensibility was
surely too acute for the occasion.
"Cute!" cried a farmer with thin yellow whiskers and
white eyebrows. "Cute! 'Sblood! but you have the parson
under the short rib there, master! You've doubled him up
with that wiper."
"Permit me, gentlemen," said Mr. Randal, "permit me to
relate the few facts I have collected on the road concerning
Mr. Chisholm's adventure."
"There's a cross-buttocker for ye!" cried again the same
orator as before. "Venture you may well call it. The par-
son has mettle; but what a main did he throw on your game!
My eyes!"
Mr. Chisholm would have returned homeward, but he had
promised to meet somebody at the ordinary, to receive a
guinea which he had won in a wager, and which he feared
he might lose by want of punctuality. At dinner he told the
company that, whatever they might think of it, he never in
his "born-days was the man to be abashed by anybody, and
that he defied any "soul alive" to prove he had been choused
of one penny by the old carrion.
66
""
""
But, parson, can you marry again? was the interroga-
tion of the feeder next him. "Who the devil has the stomach
to eat after such a choker?" squeaked a fat man opposite.
"Right!" said his son. "Nevertheless the spring physic
has sweated you, parson! "Damned ungenteel!" cried
Mr. Chisholm, "to talk about physic at dinner-time. I'll take
the sense of the company upon it: is it not so? It would
cost a young hound his best appetite. And so, gentlemen,
I'm off." At which word he emptied his bottle; and rising
(as the cloth was being removed) stiffly and sorely, whistled,
wiped his forehead, and drew up with two smart twitches the
buckskin from behind.
Toward the end of the year the doctor sold the perpetual
advowson of the rectory. He did not calculate on the grand
climacteric or its effects, and died about fourteen months
after his marriage, leaving only Porphyrogenitus the fruit of
He called his infant by that name, declaring that among
it.
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANDY.
63
all the names he knew he never knew one but had many
rogues under it, and that he was almost out of humor with
his own.
He bequeathed his whole property to his children
by his last wife, to be equally divided among males and
females; reserving a maintenance for his widow of one
hundred pounds yearly, on condition that she never married
again.
I found his successor an unaffected, quiet, good young
man; rather idle, and therefore he often visited me at my
cottage, and was surprised to see how straight I drew the
lines for my winter cabbage, and thought the string a most
ingenious contrivance. His sister was fond of walking in the
green lane, and said to me the second time I found her
there, "Oh, what a mercy it is, Mr. Normanby, that Miss
Penelope left the hollies: they are so covered with woodbine
and travellers'-joy! It seems never to have been a lane ;
here are no marks of wheel or horse-shoe: it is as hollow as
an apple-scoop; and a sheep could not lie crosswise on it
comfortably."
Le Doux. The story would end abruptly if it ended thus.
Normanby. Yet thus it must end. She has twelve thou-
sand pounds, like her brother.
Le Doux. Indeed, my dear sir, I did not ask about the
fortune. I have no designs upon her, and will abstain from
mentioning it in the country to which I am going.
Normanby. I could not walk but I met her: she has done
me as much mischief as an Age of Reason. A second time
I left my country; and it was for her.
Le Doux. And, if I am not greatly mistaken, it is for her
you are a second time going back.
Normanby. What can be done? Her brother will have me
in the parish.
Le Doux. I wish Lady Glengrin and Sir Firebrace were
ready for breakfast: I am starving now you have concluded.
The Swiss, having seen the sailor and his master twice
in conversation, and unwilling that any but himself should
be familiar with so great a personage, whispered to Mr.
Normanby the secret of his lord's dignity, and rejoiced at the
impression of his whisper. Afterward there always was
civility, always frankness, but never confidence, never con-
versation. Le Doux on his part was just as a man is who
64
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
has read a novel : he has done with it. Princes and kings
are often kind, both from constitution and from fulness of
power, in which they usually are without fear and jealousy ;
but I doubt whether there ever was a minister in the world
capable of sincerity and amity, or who, having conversed for
years together with any one, cared if he were drowned or
hanged when he no longer could amuse or serve him. The
possession and maintenance of power occupy such men totally.
If the horse they ride will go on with patting, they will not
feed him; if he cares little for patting and much for proven-
der, they curse him heartily and fill the rack. All cunning
men who wish for power may have it: but all cunning men
are men of narrow views; and here, when they take posses-
sion of power, they must leave some places vacant which are
incompatible with it. They are jockeys that sweat themselves
to ride light; and, after they have changed their greatcoat for
a calico jacket, they discover that their heart is too large, and
must be swathed and contracted. The habit of haranguing is
in itself pernicious: I have known even the conscientious
and pious, the humane and liberal, dried up by it, and have
watched the mind growing black and rancid in its own smoke.
CC
During the voyage the conversation was usually on Ireland.
No people talk so much about their country as the Irish; not
because they are more patriotic (I beg pardon for using a
word out of use in that acceptation, and should have said
more national) than others, but because they are less capable
of conversing on literature and science. Le Doux was sur-
prised at exalted eulogies and vehement invective, used by
the same persons on the same, as high spirits or low prevailed.
Surely," said he to himself, "this is the conflict of light and
darkness, of the good principle and the evil, of St. Michael
and Satan!" On the whole, however, Lady Glengrin and Sir
Firebrace agreed on the wretched state of Ireland; but Sir
Firebrace insisted that, although the fact was incontrovertible,
no fault whatever attached to his Majesty's ministers (mean-
ing the king's) or those employed under them, military or civil;
and that the clergy and gentlemen of Ireland, resident and
non-resident, had done every thing in their power to alleviate
the distresses and promote the prosperity of the people. Le
Doux was aware, from the roundness and fulness of the
period, that the sentence could not be Sir Firebrace's, and
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
65
attributed it rightly to a minister, — who added that he must
also do justice to the people of Ireland, in general as orderly
and loyal as any in the United Kingdom; that if a little
excess had been committed, it was rather the result of con-
viviality than of discontent; and he trusted that what he had
risen to state, was a triumphant answer to the malicious and
disaffected in England. He then told a story about a mail-
coach and a fur-cap, so convincing to the simplest under-
standing that the House of Commons voted unanimously
any inquiry into the state of Ireland quite unnecessary and
useless. Unfortunately, he added that it might be dangerous
at the present juncture; which, out of doors, raised some
alarm.
"For my soul," after a pause ejaculated Le Doux, “I can-
not comprehend it: no one is to blame, and the blame is
large enough for all." He meditated; and he found what at
first appeared the grossest mismanagement, to be in reality
the finest stroke of policy. "What admirable calculations of
loss and profit! None but a commercial people is capable
of this precision and exactness. It costs a great deal of
money to keep the Irish in subjection; but to whom does the
money go?—To the friends of ministers, to the supporters of
government, to the loyal and the rich. Again, if they did not
make a very large portion of the people discontented, how
would they find soldiers? Who will leave his family if he
can feed it and enjoy it, unless he has such a sense of honor
as a Frenchman, who flies to arms the moment a mayor orders
him to be carried off, and a handcuff unites him to a com-
rade? The English are wanted to labor and pay taxes; the
Irish must be kept as they are. Even Cromwell with all his
cunning did not see this: his son Henry was the only gov-
ernor who has made them quiet and contented these six
hundred years. The policy now revived is more complex:
we cannot attribute the glory of the invention to fellows who
never learned, from a dictionary and a smuggler, that Wal-
cheren is a pestilential island and Antwerp a fortified town.
O my country! my first wish is that thou mayest have no
enemies; my second is that, having them, they may be men
like these: but it would be unfair to deny them the merit of
walking firmly and undeviatingly in the footsteps of their
predecessors."
VOL. V.
5
66
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
It was on the seventh or eighth morning that Le Doux,
rising from the cabin, cried, "Mr. Normanby! Mr. Normanby!
what vast harbor are we entering?"
"This is the Strait of Gibraltar," answered he.
"Oh yes," said Le Doux, "so it is. We are far from the
Barbary coast, yet how wild it looks even at this distance!
See the difference between Christian industry and Moorish
apathy!"
"Great indeed, sir," replied Normanby; "but that rock is
Gibraltar, and this beautiful country to the left is Barbary.
In fact, the Moors are industrious, and always were intelli-
gent on agriculture, even before the Romans, into whose
language their books on that science were translated, and at
a time when no original one on the subject had appeared at
Rome. The Africans on the coast of Mauritania had a cus-
tom, claimed as an invention by the Tuscans, of interring corn
for its preservation. The writer * of Cæsar's war in Africa
mentions the practice, but mistakes the cause. Spaniards
never were cultivators, in modern times or ancient: they only
sow in the furrows ploughed for them by the Moors. The
southern parts of the Peninsula retain the traces of Moorish
enterprise; and the kingdom of the Moors in Spain, if they
had been Christians, would have exhibited the most perfect
model ever existing in the world of industry and civilization,
gallantry and glory. The men were valiant, and the women
were chaste; robberies and murders were unknown; music
was heard from road to road, from castle to castle; wars were
the sports of valor, jousts and tournaments its idle recreations.
At last, divided by faction, they were oppressed by numbers,
leaving such monuments behind them as the powerfullest of
our empires never will erect."
Michael heard this, and whispered to Renault, "I should
not be surprised to see our Englishman turn renegade, if the
ship draws nearer the coast."
It was then about one mile off. The harvest was gathered;
still the country seemed a garden. Several boats approached
the vessel with pomegranates of unusual size undetached from
*"Est in Africâ consuetudo incolarum, ut in agris et in omnibus
fere villis sub terrâ specus, condendi frumenti gratiâ, clam habeant,
atque id propter bella maximè hostiumque subitum adventum præ-
parant."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
67
their bright and glossy leaves; and the late fig; and grapes
of various forms, sizes, and colors; and live quails and par-
tridges and doves; and little kids, that leaped back among
-them from the deck again, and would not leave them. Sud-
denly the ship tacked, and a fresh breeze blew them into
Gibraltar, where they must take in water.
"This long point of land could surely be cultivated," said
Le Doux to the captain; "it is level and not very rocky."
"Sir," answered the captain, "the inhabitants of the city
are three-fourths Jews, and most of the rest Spaniards.
These people will never work if they can help it. Monop-
olies and privileges and exemptions furnish the greater part
of the governor's emoluments, which are about five hundred
guineas a week in time of war, and in peace little more than
fifty a day; and he would not like to see plantations: they
bring no tariff."
It is nearly a mile in length," said Le Doux; "and shady
walks might be formed upon it for the convenience and health
of the garrison."
"No tariff for the governor from shady walks," replied the
captain.
Le Doux and Sir Firebrace went ashore in uniform, in
order to leave their cards at the governor's.
"Precede them with flambeaux, for they are persons of
distinction," said the governor to his valet.
My lord, it is mid-day," answered the valet.
"Go down then,” said his lordship, —“it is time I should
think of sleeping.'
For the distance of many miles inland, and many along
the shore, there was hardly a sign of cultivation.
"How do
the people live?" asked Le Doux.
(6
By means of the Moors," answered the captain.
Different were the colonel's exclamations all the way from
Cape St. Vincent to Cape Finisterre. "Is it possible that
sea-coasts can be so beautiful? Oh how fine! oh how pretty!
superb! magnificent! brilliant!" There were rocks that
were charming, and villages that were minions, and vine-
yards that were tapestry, and meadows that were carpets.
The sages of antiquity have each left an aphorism on human life,
and there seemed hardly room for another; but this our sage, if he has
not given, causes one: Vita somni breve intervallum.
68
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"These countries have very worthy kings," said he; "they
only want good ministers." A thousand plans in an instant
were ready for the consummation of their happiness.
"Oh heaven! this must be France!" exclaimed he one
day in ecstasy.
-
66
No, sir," said the captain, "it is the coast of Asturias."
Le Doux thought the rocks prettier even than those of the
Petit Trianon. He expressed a second time his admiration
of the coast. "We have passed a better," said the captain,
"and you never noticed it. There are no harbors in Asturias
like Ferrol and Coruña.”
Off the Scilly Isles they found themselves in the midst of
fishing-boats. Normanby took leave; sailed in one of them
to Bristol; two days afterward reached Sandyhurst; and had
the courage to walk directly toward the green lane, just as if
he had never met an intruder.
The vessel that conveyed Lady Glengrin, Sir Firebrace,
and Le Doux at length cast anchor in the bay of Dublin,
not without another subject of wonder to Le Doux at seeing
a pestilential marsh under one of the finest cities in Europe.
"If this had been at Odessa, it would have been converted
into docks," said he to himself. He passed the Parliament-
house, and lifted up his hands in astonishment.
"An Eng-
lishman I met at Genoa," said he to the general and the
countess, “at an old minister's, fond as he was of extolling
the public architecture of his country, and preferring the
cathedrals and abbeys to any thing antiquity has left us,
never said a word about this noble fabric. It was perhaps
too modern for him. He was a sort of half-author, a creature
so devoted to antiquity that, when he snored, he seemed in
drawing his breath to say grec, and emitting it to say romain.
I had the personal proof of it; for whenever he was disposed
to sleep he slept, and would have done so had he been called
to the levee or to the ministry. I never saw him quite de-
corous but in church, where he always seemed immersed in
the deepest meditation; and if a person but whispered, even
during the music, he fixed his eyes upon him with a stern
rebuke."
The society introduced to Le Doux was the most select.
The beauty of the women held him breathless. "Am I in
Poland, or in Paradise?" was his soliloquy. He paid his
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
69
principal attentions to those who put on a clean pair of
gloves every day, because he considered it a test of civiliza-
tion. Even among these, within the first week, his suspicions.
were confirmed by his valet that the linen was not always
changed so often; but he thought it a scandalous tale, when
he heard that some of them came to breakfast in a part of
the apparel in which they had slept.
"Do not tell me such nonsense, Renault! Depend upon
it, the girl that gave you the information has been discharged:
you will see her off soon." "Well, sir," said Renault, sighing,
66 would you believe it? a few years ago there was not a bidet
in the kingdom of Ireland. The duchess of Rutland, con-
sort of a lord-lieutenant, brought over the first. The duke
(some say it was satirically) ordered one from London for the
lady of the lord-chancellor. It was of porcelain, as you may
suppose, being the present of a lord-lieutenant; and its
inauguration was in the centre of the table, filled with green-
pea soup, at a cabinet-dinner given to his grace the lord-
lieutenant." 'A cabinet-dinner! - and a vengeance!
with
its green-pea soup, rogue!" cried Le Doux, laughing immod-
erately. "Sir," said Renault, gravely, "nobody laughed:
everybody admired the contrivance for the ladle, and the
maker had made his fortune, if the duchess had mystified as
well and reasonably as the duke had done.”
(6
Opposite to Le Doux one day at dinner sat a nobleman
of high rank, a member of every administration for forty
years, placid and pliant, and attentive to nobody but him,
into whose history he had been admitted by the countess.
Colonel," said he, "in all countries there are discontented;
there are even in this." "Is it possible?" answered Le
Doux, lifting up his eyebrows with surprise and concern.
"But," rejoined the peer, "such is the kindness of Providence
the sounder part of the people is perfectly tranquil, and
assured of its being well governed." "His lordship means
those that govern," said a worthy major:
open to conviction; the fact stares them in the face. Every
country is rich and flourishing if you look at it through
claret."
none are more
Politics on this occasion were discussed in few words.
The illustrious visitor could collect, however, that most com-
plaints were ill-founded; that those who complained of any
70
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
specific grievance were unfair and partial in not considering
the whole; and that those who took a view of the whole, and
who proposed an inquiry into it, should state some specific
grievance.
In another house, after several glasses were drunk with
great cheerfulness, the whole company rose up to a mysteri-
ous toast, in silence and sadness. He sipped the wine in
doubt, and found that it was the same as he had been drink-
ing from the first, and excellent Bordeaux. He could not
conceive what had saddened at a single moment so many
vacant and rosy faces. The next morning he heard that two
of them had been shot by their antagonists in a quarrel
arising from this toast, the "Immortal memory" of some
one they had never seen or thought about. He imagined that
silence and sorrow would have come better after; that wine
should make men joyous, and duels serious. On reflection
he feared to be " compromised," and suspected that the
"immortal memory" so religiously observed, and with such
awe and taciturnity, might be the memory of Bonaparte. To
relieve his suspicions, he joked about it with two of the
youngest, whom he found at billiards the succeeding day.
They laughed aloud at his mistake. "It was King William,"
said one.
"It was William Pitt," said the other. "It was
no more Pitt than it was my pointer," rejoined the first. In
fact, the "immortal memory" in eighteen hours had as
much obscurity and as many thorns about it as the tomb of
Archimedes.
Le Doux was walking one day in the streets of Dublin,
when the appearance of perfumery in a window reminded
him that he wanted a tooth-brush. He went into the shop,
and asked for one. The master, a tall, florid, well-dressed,
genteel-looking man, took up several, and rubbing them
against the extremities of his fingers, recommended one
particularly. "Take this: it will keep your teeth clean
twenty years at once using. You are a Frenchman, sir, I
find by your way of speaking, and I see you have hardly
three hairs on a side. In your country they make good
pomatum: try mine; but-take the word of a friend -
wash your hands well afterward in soap and warm water, or
you will have hair upon the palm an inch thick before night.
And no razor can touch it."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
71
"What is the price, sir?" "Ah now! is it the price? I
never sell for lucre of gain: a half-crown contents me, - and,
just for the peg-polisher, a thirteen-penny. Recommend me to
your friends, if you have any, and I'll thank you."
"Favor
me with the number of your shop."
66
Magazine, if you
please. The poor beggar of a schoolmaster over the way
calls his seminary; and sure, then, I might call mine so; but
I would be modest: magazine does for me."
Le Doux was leaving the door, when he was met on the
threshold by a young clergyman, who, flapping his lustrous
boot with a thin whip, and drawing up his shirt-collar with
his left hand, red as a pigeon's claw and broad as an ostrich's,
pushed rudely by him into the shop. Le Doux bowed and
begged pardon. At the same moment, the hairdresser, for
such he was no less than perfumer, caught him by the arm,
and taking the clergyman's too, said, "Brother Joe, I must
introduce you to this gentleman, who dines with us."
66
"A thousand thanks! excuse me to-day." "To-day or
never! Now for your name." My name is Le Doux, sir:
but really " "Le Doux!" said the clergyman, eying him
suspiciously; "I'm damned if it is: that's a 'neger's.''
would not incommode you, my kind friend," said Le Doux
to the hairdresser: "have the goodness to liberate my arm.
Another time
""
"I
"Another time I may not have upon the spit a 'cock o' the
mountain,' ruddy and lusty as any eagle. You shall have
him 'piping-hot,' with his best feather through his nose. Lady
Clench gave him me, with a Bologna-sausage, and a note (I
would read it you) under. Hams and double-Gloster are
plenty. I could tell you too what houses these come from,
after dinner; and bright whiskey that widens your nostrils
when you smell it, and finds water enough in your mouth for
twenty glasses. Honest folks gave me that; who might not
like naming. Cocks o' the mountain' of another breed;
ay, Joe?—you live among 'em. Come, stay; we shall dine
gloriously. Joe has a voice, and a song for it. Look at the
windows of nine houses on each side, when he sings; and
you shall see the old women lug the wenches down, and
shall catch many a crimped cap and red wrinkle over the
blinds." "Hold your wild colt's tongue, Matthew! said the
clergyman, rebuking him privately; and then in a lower tone,
72
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
((
Sure, are not we two enough for a 'cock o' the mountain,
ay, and a sausage as big as a bolster ?"
At the commencement of this pastoral charge, Le Doux,
finding his arm released, made his escape. At which the
brothers, much as one of them had wished his absence, agreed
that he was a blackguard and a scamp, and unfit for their
society. "Providential!" Joe ejaculated; "you would have.
talked first about your sausages and cocks o' the mountain
and countesses, and then about the whiskey, letting it out by
degrees that I had a trifle in the concern. And now, Mat-
thew, about these women. Can't you meet with better and
honester? why then I'll lend you a guinea. My sacred word
for it, they all make a fool of you; and with more than their
husbands, mind that. If you must have such sluts, why then
have 'em, in God's name! But prythee be sober-minded and
decent; for I am sated and sick of hearing of 'em."
"Only one word, Joe!" said Matthew mildly, and inter-
lacing his arm. "Brother Joe, now, my life and love, who
presented you to that little tight pretty living there of Ennis-
galcraig? And what for?" "Stuff!" cried Joseph. "True
enough!” said Matthew. "Are you hungry, brother Joe?"
Hungry as a wolf-dog." "Give tongue upon the women
then another time, and not when you would eat what they
send us."
(C
Invitations to dinner were frequent; among the rest was
a long and elaborate one from Captain Phelim O'Mara: it
was accepted. Le Doux was placed at his left, and was in-
formed most politely by the captain that he liked foreigners
above all things, and that he himself was half a foreigner.
"Oh no, Captain O'Mara, you are a true Irishman, bred
and born," cried Lady Glengrin; we must not lose our title
to you!"
"I am so by father's side and mother's side, and by uncles
and aunts," replied the captain; "but I have travelled of late,
and the ground makes the foreigner, not the pray, if one
may make so bold as to ask, what do you see in that to
chuckle at, ladies and gentlemen? And what made you
touch my arm, sir, while I was speaking and had not said the
word?
Without the slightest idea of offence, I do assure you,
Captain O'Mara!" said Le Doux ;
said Le Doux; "on the contrary, it was
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
73
done in my extreme impatience to second you in so just an
observation. You were at Paris, I presume: how long did
you remain there?
"A week,” replied the captain. "I had taken my lodgings
for a whole week, or I should have gone away directly. Our
minister there would you believe it? - made a difficulty
of presenting me to the king. It was explained to me in
that way; although, to do him justice, he only said he should
embrace some future opportunity."
"Indeed!" replied Le Doux from his heart, and with
an expression of deep sorrow on his countenance.
"His
Majesty has borne many misfortunes: I hope no one will
tell him of this."
66
I will myself, by the Lord! if ever I go over again and
catch his eye," said the captain, striking the table. "I went
on to Italy, and at Florence my Lord Burghersh knew better
what stuff my coat was made of, and what color this is. The
Grand Duke treated me like his own son, and came behind my
chair at supper, and hoped I might find at table something to
my taste.
I replied to him in Irish, which I had a better
right to do than he to speak in French; for Irish is my own
language, and French is not his. As there was nothing to
be seen at Florence but statues and pictures and other such
childish things, I proceeded to Rome in company with a
gentleman who said we must have four horses, if we expected
clean linen at the inns. As for clean linen,' said I, 'let
those look to it who are to lie in it; for my part I sleep all
the way in the coach.' Howsoever, to show him that I did
not mind my money, I agreed to the four horses.”
"Well, captain," said Lady Glengrin, "what do you think
of the fair Italians?" "You smoke me then, my lady, do
you? Who told you about it?"
She protested she knew nothing of the matter: he con-
tinued. “The whole way from Florence to Siena I thought
every girl prettier than the last: for which reason I kept the
blinds up, not wishing to understand my fellow-traveller, who
declared he suffered so violently by the sun that he was giddy
and could see nothing. On some exclamation of mine, he
told me that nearer Rome, on this side of the city, I should
not find the females so handsome.
"I do not believe in any thing supernatural, excepting a
74
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ghost or two; but there are things that puzzle one. I fell
asleep from the violent heat, and from the incessant and in-
tolerable noise of a creature they call 'grillo,' against which
all the carriage-wheels in Christendom would not defend you;
and I did not awake until night. This monkey-faced black
devil, of an inch or two in length, with his 'grill, grill, grill,'
makes one hotter than twenty suns could do, bothering and
never aisy. We slept at Siena. In the morning, instead of
vineyards and corn-fields, a vast barren country cracked by
the heat lay wide open before me. It looked like some
starved monster, from whose powerless bones one still wishes
one's self away. No hedge was there, no tree, nor bird of
any kind to inhabit them if there had been. I saw no animal
but one long snake, lying in the middle of the road.
again, instead of well-dressed, smiling, beautiful girls, joking
with you innocently or wishing you heartily good-day, female
devils could not be nakeder nor bonier nor uglier than those
wenches who ran before us begging and screaming, and
scratching their heads and blade-bones, and writhing like the
damned. I remarked it to my companion, who calmly and
indifferently answered me, 'I told you so.' 'Were you ever
here before sir?' said I. 'Never,' he replied.
Then
"I trembled that is not from fear but faith! it
almost made me say my catechism in the coach; for he threw
himself back, as though he had given the order that things
should be so, and knew they were so. We entered Rome.
He ordered his luggage to remain at the gate, alighted, saluted
me. Nobody has met him or heard of him; the people at the
gate are afraid of saying a word about him if you ask them ;
never have I seen him from that hour to this, and God forbid
I ever should in future !"
"You must have been highly gratified, sir, in that city, by
the noble specimens of the fine arts," observed the colonel.
"Oh Lord bless you!" cried the captain, "they make finer lace
and cambric, and frippery of all sorts, in your own country."
"We have indeed some pretensions," answered Le Doux. Lady
Glengrin remarked to the captain that his noble guest only
meant statues and pictures. He winked at her, and whistled
in a low key, and then whispered, "Why, indeed they do dress
out their old dolls in the churches with a sight of finery, as
for that." But," added Le Doux, "their pictures in the
66
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
75
Capitol, in the Vatican, and also in many private collections,
are master-pieces.”
"I do think," replied the captain, "they are up to most of
us in painting a face or body. But the devil a notion have
they of putting the one in good humor or the other in good
clothes. They are all old-fashioned; and most of the men
are in dressing-gowns: I have seen some half-naked, and
some quite, and others that had never been at the barber's.
Then what ruins and rubbish about the demesne! Scythe and
whetstone never thought of! More gravel than grain, more
mountain than clover-field; and ne'er a potato-plot for love
or money. No rich water-meadow; no hay-stack nor turf-
stack; no tight little cabin, with its window kept nicely in
repair with strong substantial paper, and the smoke curling
neatly through the doorway over the back of a comfortable
pig, black or yellow, blinking at it pleasantly. But I will
tell you what there are instead. There are rotten trees, and
blighted and blasted ones. There are broken-up roads: you
would swear at first sight that they lead to no magistrate's or
grand-juryman's. There are ugly broad weeds just before
you; and farther on there are cranky old towers covered with
pantiles; and there are rivers that are suffered to go under-
mining them. In all those pictures I never saw a cow fit for
the butcher, or a horse that had been groomed, or a sheep
with wool about her too good to wipe my boots on. Plenty
of goats but who likes their company? Gentlemen's houses
seem quite deserted. Where do you find a hot-house? Where
do you find a garden-wall? By my soul! I think the best
painter in the whole set would fight shy of a gooseberry bush."
Lady Glengrin then asked the captain whether he had been
presented to the Pope.
"As soon as I had put on a clean shirt, and got my boots
blacked, I went," said he, "to Cardinal Gonsalvi, as the
shoeblack told me I should, and desired to be presented to
his master: he recommended me to a countryman of mine,
Father Taylor, who did it."
"The cardinal is a man of great politeness and extensive
information," said Le Doux.
"Politeness enough," replied the captain; "but informa-
tion is another thing. The devil a word of English or Irish
had he to throw at a dog; and when I tried him at Latin, by
76
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
A
my soul! not a syllable could he put down to it, although it
is in the breviary, which I borrowed on purpose to learn it,
from the waiter."
"Did you try the Pope at it, captain?" said Lady Glen-
grin.
(C
Madam," after a pause answered he, “I beg your pardon ;
but it is uncivilish to speak to a lady with the leg of a turkey
in limbo between the gullet and grinder. Now then at your
service. I told his Holiness I hoped I had the pleasure of
seeing him very well, drawing up my pantaloon, and putting
my hand at ease in the fob, like a man of fashion. The Pope
knows all languages under heaven, they tell me, but he did
not hear me at first; and, when my words were repeated to
him in Italian by my countryman, he replied, with a smile as
hearty as mine, that he was always well in the presence of
worthy men, and that he suffered as little as could be ex-
pected from his age and infirmities. He continued to smile
upon me for a moment when he had done, and then said
something quite as obliging to another, who had made no
inquiries after his health at all. My free noble Milesian
manner gave general satisfaction: people were surprised to
see how easily and spiritedly I did it; and an English lady
was encouraged to ask him for a lock of his hair, not wishing
to be outdone by an Irishman.'
""
"Did he give it her?" asked Lady Glengrin.
He could not well have made any woman jealous, yet he
thought he might; and said gravely that after his death
those who esteemed him might wish for such memorials, but
that he could not give them, in the grave or out. He seemed
to be much affected at the mention of dying, and went away.
The English lady was vexed and angry, and said aloud, A
stiff old prig! I would not give a farthing for it.' Nobody
applauded her: women and men looked in her face coldly
and fixedly. I began to feel for her; and, to show her that
I did, I told her if she drove that way it should go hard with
me but I gave her a lock of as good a man's. She stared at
me as if she doubted my word. Upon which, to lend her
confidence, I said, 'By my soul, miss! I say only what I
mean; and you shall cut it your own sweet self.' In spite of
every thing I could think of to pacify her, away she went,
with old Holiness sticking in her gizzard; and the last words
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
77
she uttered were, 'The horrid brute!' Now I do not think
the offence she received from him warranted so fierce an
expression."
Le Doux had offered many little attentions to the lady next
him, from whom he sometimes had an answer, but often none.
At last she was tired and impatient, and said to a girl on the
other side of her, giving her an elbow-kick, "Christ Jesus!
Bess; how this outlandish man does plague and worry me!
Lord Almighty! will he never let me eat?”
Le Doux either did not hear or dissembled it; but the cap
tain, who heard it plainly, was not aware of this, and said,
"Let her alone, colonel; old cats will grumble over their
meat, and mean nothing. If you intend civility, she is only
my sister; you need not mind her; ay, Teresa?"
"I am as much to be minded as another, Phelim. Who
soused you that sow's ear? There's no bacon where there's
nobody to salt it. Mind that, and munch genteeler."
Universal approbation succeeded, excepting from Lady
Glengrin, who neither uttered a word nor changed a feature.
Le Doux declared that the lady was in the right, and that
he himself was the only person to blame; no correction, he
added, could make him moderate his attentions to wit, spirit,
and beauty.
"Lord! he speaks as good English as the dean," exclaimed
the pacified Teresa to her younger friend; "and when one
does not eat, one can listen. Mind him; he is not so old as
he seems he may be forty."
"A fig for men of forty!" said the other in her ear; "and
I do not much like him neither; for his nails are white all
the way down, more like a beast's than a Christian's."
The last of these words were interrupted by a violent noise
in front of the house; then at the door; then within it.
Chairs rattled; imprecations and expostulations clashed,
thickened, redoubled.
"Now for fun!" cried the captain, wiping first his hands
with his whiskers, and then rubbing them together in rap-
tures. "But better after our wine. -- Moyle, run out and tell
them to wait. Lady Glengrin, a thousand to one, among the
rebels I find the fellow who stole your peacock, or some of
his kin." "I hope, captain, if you do," replied her ladyship,
you will lay the lash on him smartly."
CC
78
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"9
"Have you so many thieves about you, captain?” said Le
Doux. CC
These, and three hundred thousand more of them,'
cried he. "We will whip them howsoever, till we find them
out."
Steal!"
"What can so many steal?" asked Le Doux.
replied the captain, "the thieves for the most part steal noth-
ing; but nine in ten of the whole population are rebels,
bloody dogs, fiery-hot papists as any in hell, enemies to
church and king, tithe and orange; sly Scotch Presbyterians,
earthed here; fellows who cry out so at the sight of a steeple,
one would think you had poked it into the hollow tooth! I
have flogged them myself until I have a rheumatism in my
shoulder that will last me for life, and until there is a dearth.
of wire and honest hemp in all the midland parts of the
country."
"You seem indeed to have been in active service," said
Le Doux. I have flogged this coat upon my back, and
five hundred a-year into my pocket. I shall be major next
Christmas, and die commander of a district. These things
are not given for nothing."
"From your enthusiasm in your profession, you must have
entered it early in life." "I was in the midst of the rogues
at the outset." 'You remember then the attempt of the rev-
olutionary French, and of Lord Edward Fitz-Gerald."
66
Oh yes; I was then but a boy though. Often and often
has he lifted me above his head, although I was as tall at ten
as he was at thirty. He used to say, when people told him
to take care of himself, that he had not an enemy that he
knew or that knew him. Yet he found one here in Ireland
who could do his business. He was such a merry, innocent,
ingenuous little devil he could fidget a man's wife before his
face, and no blood-and-hounds upon it, nor spit nor spade nor
shillalah. And yet somehow he was the mischiefullest imp
of all father Satan's fireside. Had he lived a couple of years,
we should have had barefoot bishops and woollen epaulets;
no army, all militia, - from bog to parade, from parade to
bog, singing and whistling as who should care for any; and
it would have been a month's labor to lift a hat. We have
'United Irishmen ' in every county and township; and by my
soul! if he had carried his plans into execution, we should
have had none at all, at all, but 'United Irishmen.' Our
people will always be bad when they can be, sir?"
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 79
An Englishman corroborated the observation by the words,
"I believe it." At which the captain rose from his chair,
and asked him what he meant by speaking ill of Ireland in
his presence, which he swore no man should do while he had
Irish blood in his veins.
"Nevertheless, they are most incorrigible rogues," said
Lady Glengrin, remarking the silence and sorrowfulness of
Le Doux.
"The vulgar are subject to error," said he, "and in these
matters even the wise. Possibly your ladyship may find
among them some who aspired to your countenance by par-
ticipating your opinions on civil liberty."
Civil liberty!" cried she indignantly. "What! among
the bogs and mountains? Beside, these fellows have no
more right to my opinions than to my property. Colonel Le
Doux, I hardly could have expected in you the champion of
robbery and revolt. If it were against a minister or king it
might be well enough; but when one cannot keep a favorite
peacock on the lawn, matters are carried too far."
There was silence for a moment, the first moment there
had been hitherto, and this was violently broken by the ob-
streperous entrance of the cook, lifting up her ladle, which
dropped the grease over the same-colored kerchief on her
ample bosom.
"A dirty pagan! a dirty pagan!" cried she. "Because
your Honor would not let a scurvy lieutenant come to table
among the quality! What! forsooth!' said the polecat,
'if the daughter of Mother Jibbery is become a countess and
picks her teeth here, am not I good enough to lift my jacket-
flap upon the chair beside her?' 'No, you are not,' said I.
'Then,' said he, 'no sucking-pig for countess or captain this
blessed day;' and -oh the foul fox! with a devil in him
from muzzle to brush-how do you think he began to baste
the poor innocent?”
“Hold hard!" cried Mr. Roger Moyle.
decency, Turtulliana Trench?"
(6
"Have you no
Decency! the cockroach! I could skin him like an eel,
out of the Suire, alive-alive. No roast pig to-day, by my sal-
vation! as I am true to the Protestant ascendancy, unless
your Honor spits the bloody traitor."
"Let me alone for that," said the captain calmly: "I shall
80
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
see whether his ribs will crackle, and whether he has a hand-
ful of thyme and marjoram in his belly."
At this he said grace, and would have risen ; but Le Doux
took him by the hand, and, pressing it between his, submitted
to his sounder judgment whether so trifling a matter were
worthy of his exalted courage. The captain would have
argued in the affirmative.
was
"Pooh! pooh!" said Moyle humanely, "the man
drunk; and drunken men are up to any thing, pretty nearly;
aren't they, Miss?" She lifted up her shoulder, and said im-
patiently, "Let Phelim go his way. Sure we shall have a
witty song from Tommy Moore upon it, ringing on the piano
from Dublin to Belfast."
"Then let the whelp have both pig and fire for his own
share!" exclaimed the captain. "I would rather be in a jail
than in a song; and that witster's are never out of tune or
out of fashion. Beside, we had all done with eating; and as
for sucking-pigs, I know where the other seven are. But,
right or wrong, I have something to say in Master Ralph's
ear another time for his ill manners, and that won't lie like
cotton in it, take my word.”
66
The bottle was then pushed round; and it was announced
to the ladies by the captain that they might sit where they
were, as no smutty toasts would be given nor merry songs
called for; and as coffee was fitter for Turks and tea for
washerwomen; and, above all, as good claret was not to be
had every day in the best houses. Mine," added he, “never
gets into the head, ladies! It passes like a guinea: don't be
shy. 'Church and King,' if you please (what say you,
colonel?); and then 'The Ladies,' and afterward, 'The Gen-
tlemen,' from their fair lips; and now afore God, Roger
Moyle, I do desire you will not favor us with any of your
explanations."
"Lord help you, O'Mara!" said Moyle sneering, "they
are no bigger fools than you and I. I wave the cap along
the ground where the scent lies fainter round cover.
""
In despite of invitations and precautions, the party broke
up early in the evening.
Lady Glengrin had alike sustained her dignity and her
affability, and told the captain she did not wonder he was
such a favorite at the castle. Her attendant, Lord Purling-
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 81
:
streamdale, was loftier. He looked hard, and did not hear
Mr. Roger Moyle invite him across the table to drink a glass
of claret. Mr. Roger Moyle appeared not to notice it at the
time; but when they rose from table he took him gently by
the sleeve and reminded him of it plaintively, in almost a
whisper, saying he did not expect it at his hands, having
left no less than eighty pounds for five weeks together in his
father's bank, when his bailiff Sampson Haft sold the bul-
locks at Crookhaven. His lordship looked disdainfully.
"I am sorry you look so strange and modest and red, my
lord," said Mr. Roger Moyle, "as there is a sort of kin be-
tween us."
"How so, Mr. Moyle?" said his lordship.
((
Why, sure then," replied Mr. Roger Moyle, "and was not
my father's kitchen-wench, poor Phillis, who died at eighty
under my roof, own sister to Moll Harness, your grandmother,
whom your grandfather, if he had lived, would have made an
honest woman; for there was not one that scoured better nor
harder in those parts pewter or brass, though Phillis was
never slack. - No drawing up before me! no waistcoat-button
against mine! I know your height without tape. I have
some stray acres, my Lord Purlingstreamdale, and if you
beat for me you may know where they lie, and where the
house lies upon 'em; there's ne'er a tree hides it; it looks
you in the face of day, erect and blithe as a bridegroom.'
Then, offering his hand, "Come, let us part friends, or we
* shall not sleep soundly; to-morrow every man to his fancy."
He stooped a little and rubbed his palms, as men do before
a good fire on coming from the cold, and in higher spirits
than before ran to the carriage, the steps of which Lady
Glengrin was about to mount, and invited her ladyship and
Colonel Le Doux to Moylestown, where he told them he had
dogs and some dirt for them if the weather should hold.
They laughed heartily and drove off.
"Lord Purlingstreamdale, you do not enjoy Moyle's wit,"
said Lady Glengrin.
“I did not hear the man,” replied he.
"Colonel, I should like to take you over," said her lady-
ship. "Roger Moyle is a man of ancient family. I may say
it to you, although, when I mentioned it incidentally in the
presence of O'Donohough, O'Dono told me that he was only
VOL. V.
6
82
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
a Saxon, if I called that ancient; and, being informed by a
lady that the race was Norman, he scoffed and cried, 'Och !
they are all one; the same thing top and bottom,' pitying
the ignorance of his interrupter. Moyle possesses an estate
of twenty miles or more in extent. At the beginning of our
disturbances he was a great pacificator, although he com-
manded a body of cavalry; and the major of an English
regiment told him that by such misconduct he had become
suspected. 'I have one reason to be sorry for that; and
only one,' said Roger Moyle. 'What is it, sir?' said the
major haughtily. 'Because I shall be more so before night,'
replied he. How!' exclaimed the major. By contriving
a window on English ground that shall never pay tax.'
don't understand you, sir,' cried the major. Come out then,
and bring your best pistols, looking first to flint and priming;
and, by the grace of God, I make a loop-hole in that pantry
there for a wiser man to look through.'
(6
C
'I
They met; and he took the major by the hand" - here
Lord Purlingstreamdale blushed and breathed hard -
"and
begged and entreated him, as a Christian, to retract his words.
In vain. 'Any word, best or worst; only retract it,' said
Moyle. The major told him to stand off, and not beg and
pray there, after his insolent and braggart brogue. They
fired; and the major fell. And now, gentlemen,' said Moyle
to the seconds, 'as you have each your servant with you, do
me the favor to take this uniform to headquarters, and to tell
the general, with my best compliments, that it was Roger
Moyle's.' And he stripped off his uniform and rode home in
his shirt-sleeves, a distance of twenty-five miles, in the begin-
ning of January."
66
Captain O'Mara must be very intimate with him,” Le
Doux remarked. "He desired him at dinner to take a
message out of the room.”
"Do you wonder at any thing in O'Mara?" said the coun-
tess. "I never heard of a particular intimacy between them,
but the maxim of Roger Moyle is to go wherever he is
invited; for he says that nobody will invite him who does
not like him, and that he has neither bad heart nor bad
stomach. Obliging as he is, he would have been offended at
such a liberty if there had been a servant in the room to
deliver the message, or if O'Mara could have left the com
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
83
pany. For although his conversation is coarse and clownish,
there are certain points upon which, in common with the
Irish in general, he is delicate and sensitive in the extreme.
His moderation made him as much suspected by some of the
insurgents, after he had laid down his uniform, as to the
major. Toward the end of the same month he had been
shooting, and was returning homeward when three armed
men started up from among the gorse, and one of them
advancing cried, 'Ho! Moyle! bring us your gun.'
66 6
Gentlemen,' replied he, 'it is easier for you to come and
fetch it than for me to bring it. I have been out all day,
with a brace of hares dangling, as you see, across my shoulder,
and fifteen fat partridges in my pouch, if I counted right.'
"The man came closer, and cried, 'Off with your belt and
down with your fowling-piece, straight forthwith, or-
“Or what?' cried Moyle. And now you threaten, friend,
the play's fair.' So saying, he discharged the contents
through his body, and began to load again. The other two
at first were astonished, but after a mutual exhortation, on
seeing that the gun was not double-barrelled, they rushed
forward against him. He drew a pistol, and shot one; the
other begged his life until he could confess.
"Draw your charge then,' said Moyle; 'and now give me
the ramrod, and now off my grounds in the twinkling of an
eye, or you sleep in the kennel on raw horse-flesh no sweeter
than yourself, and such whiskey as curs give curs.'
"He broke the ramrod, threw the pieces over the man's
head, and, without looking after him, walked home.”
"He appeared to me," said Le Doux, "a very ordinary
man; begging his pardon, for my opinion was a most unjust
one, and I am happy to correct it. Whatever he says is
wrong, and whatever he does is right. Now of all things
in a man's character this is the most uncommon, the most
opposite to what we find or expect. I regret that I was not
near enough to him to lead him into conversation."
"His conversation," said Lady Glengrin, "has usually a
tendency to the indelicate, which produces the effect of wit
among the uneducated, and which, I am sorry to say, in this
country almost always accompanies it. In France and Eng-
land the dinner-table is the theatre of decorum: in Ireland
there are persons of rank and distinction who forget that
84
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the table-cloth is still before them, and that the defilement
they suffer to escape them may run down and reach their
daughters.
Moyle entertains that contempt for reading and study
which is general, not to say universal, among our gentry.
Yet, from the little I have seen of him, I do not think him
deficient in understanding or acuteness, although there is a
story about him which, if true, goes to prove the contrary.
On his return home one morning from some appointment with
the justices about a road, to be carried (they told him)
directly through his estate, his butler heard him repeat to
himself by jerks and twitches some sharp oath-like inter-
jections, as he walked up and down the dining-room; and
took the liberty of saying, 'Master, what are you angry at?'
Moyle's answer was, with a smile, 'Because, Nan, I was
angry. If a man can't keep his temper, what is he fit to
keep?' Andrew, who had lived with him from a boy, was
satisfied; and only said he did not think wrath was worth
carrying home, though a man rode.
"That Roger Moyle has not much reflection is proved by
an occurrence well known and often related. His mother's
uncle was the catholic bishop of the diocese: a learned and
pious man. On his death-bed he was frequently visited by
Moyle. One evening he said, 'Roger, you have an excellent
heart, sound sense, and great influence in the county. I am
sorry, on leaving the world, to think we shall never meet
again."
“Don't think about that, Uncle Nol,' said Roger. 'I will
remain with you, and lie upon a rug in this chamber, if you
wish it.' The bishop groaned, 'Poor Roger! blind still!
kind-hearted nephew! in another world then we never must
meet!' and burst into tears. 'Uncle Nol!
'Uncle Nol!' said Roger,
'tears are good for the tooth-ache, but may do harm in your
complaint. Let us be reasonable, and discourse it over.'
'Yeu
"The bishop pressed his hand, and thanked him for the
only act of kindness he never had seemed disposed to.
will then hear me, Roger, upon our holy faith?' He brought
forward all the arguments in its support, every one of which
was irrefragable, and pure from the mouth of apostles, doctors,
and confessors; and at the conclusion he cried, 'I have a
cloud more of witnesses.'
.
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY. 85
"The cloud we have had is quite enough, Uncle Nol!'
'Now, Roger, can you doubt them?' cried the good man
emphatically. 'I cannot,' said Roger. 'You hold then
these blessed truths?' 'I do.' And will stand firmly
thereby?' 'I will.' 'You abandon then your own pernicious
errors?'
(C
'Roger hesitated; and then said tenderly, 'Uncle Nol,
turn upon your back again and lie quiet. Sure I may keep
my own errors, and take yours too.'
"O nephew Roger! my last hopes are blighted!'
"Pooh! pooh! no such thing. I believe all that you
have said, Uncle Nol; but I may believe other folks as civilly.
Men of honor may differ in opinion, and no harm in it, while
they don't contradict. If you tell me what you saw and what
you know, why then indeed I take your word rather than
another's, as being my next of kin, and aware right well what
blood is in your veins.'"
(C
Incapable as I have shown myself," said Le Doux, "of
judging the other parts of his character, I will not hazard a
word upon his prudence; but it appears wonderful to me
that, in the vicinity of those whose relatives he has shot, he
rides home alone in the evening, through a country so un-
inhabited."
"The same thing was remarked to him by Captain O'Mara,”
said Lady Glengrin, "and he replied that he was mounted
on such a horse as no man need be ashamed of; that, if there
were few, he would show them his head; and, if the bidders
were too many, his tail. Neither expostulation nor experience
have altered his custom. Nat Withers, called familiarly from
this time forward the man of the broken ramrod,' told his
story with a few variations, and swore in the presence of sev-
eral that he would kill the first soldier he met, private or
officer, in service or out. The declaration was made before
O'Mara, who, in addition to his other offices, is justice of the
peace. He watched his opportunity of surrounding Nat's
house, which Nat had been just seen entering, and called
aloud, 'Nat Withers!' Nat came to the door, and falling on
his knees, 'Why sure, captain, your Honor cannot want me;
you have so many other brave men about you. For the love
of Christ! what are your Worship's commands?'
"Nat Withers! only just come a step out and be hanged,
86
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and hold your tongue upon it. Leave the rest to me: wit-
nesses are sworn; all is ready, just as you could wish it;
sentence and service shall be read over you at once. Up
upon your legs! be aisy!'
"Nat sprang up, and attempted to run off; but, turning the
corner of the house, was shot. 'There may be more of them
within,' said the captain; 'lose no time, boys!'
"They were entering the cabin, when the wife met them,
and levelled one with her fist, and stabbed another to the
heart with a knife. Surrounded and seized by the remainder,
she threw it from her, and fixing her eyes upon the captain,
'Och, bloody hound! Och, that it was not thee!' Ugly
witch!' cried O'Mara, 'who art thou?' 'I am Dinah Shee,
Nat Withers's wife these nine years, whose blood be upon thy
head!' 'Better there than upon this new pantaloon,' said
O'Mara, 'where a braver man's is.' 'A lie in your hound's
throat a stride across!' cried Dinah: 'there was no braver
man in all Ireland than Nat Withers, though he was not al-
ways brave at the right time.'
"The captain smiled; she struck at him with her fist; he
caught her arm, and said calmly: 'Dinah Shee! thou hast
spoken fair, and done well and bravely. If any one bears
false witness against thee on this little matter, I will appear
in thy behalf and swear him down to the devil! mind that,
boys!'
"At these words she fell upon the ground, and howled
tremendously. 'Leave the poor soul in her cabin,' said
O'Mara to his men; ‘she cannot do less for the dead; and
Nat there won't come again and bother her about it.'"
Le Doux was saddened at the smile on the countenance of
Lady Glengrin, who asked him where were his thoughts.
“I would have reserved them entire for Mr. Moyle,” replied
he, "if your ladyship had not been mistress of them, and
given them another direction. Really, I should like to see
his town."
"Town!” cried Lady Glengrin with surprise.
"When he did us the honor to invite us, did he not say
Moyle's-town?"
"It was always a lone house; although once there was an-
other nearer it, which he pulled down because the tenant had
poisoned a fox; saying that he who would poison a fox would,
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANby.
87
in proper time and place, at last poison a Christian, and after
that a child. To explain the subject of your observation :
our houses in the country we call towns and boroughs; we
have castles and forts of one story high, comfortably thatched,
but without wall or ditch, rail or pale, bolt or shutter, and
with green sash-windows, in honor of the shamrock, down to
the ground. Our lodges and cottages are at the gates of
Dublin, in Merion-square, or Stephen's-green, or wings per-
haps to the Custom-house."
During the remainder of their drive homeward, her lady-
ship commended the prudence of Le Doux, who fearing that
some cruelty might be committed in the captain's house on
the men arrested, and before the visitors had left it, requested
her ladyship to remember that the evenings were damp and
chilly; that perhaps more of the disaffected might be abroad;
and that, in order to obviate any alarm to herself on the latter
subject, and to him principally on the former, as her ladyship's
health had been delicate, it might be better to give her com-
mands about the horses. She began to apologize for intro-
ducing him to such a creature; adding that, as he had been
presented at court, he was a person to be visited, but that still
she did not like it. "However, he keeps the rabble in quiet-
ness," said she; "and we have had only one robbery in the
parish, the most peaceful in Ireland, all the year. Unluckily
it was my peacock. As for murders, there have been only
seven or eight in as many months, chiefly of middlemen and
tithemen, - beside a cow, which indeed died rather from hock-
ing, and from having her tongue cut out unskilfully."
A few days after, Le Doux rode into the country to the
distance of twelve or fourteen miles. He found the labors
of the husbandman unremitted, his food of the coarsest qual-
ity, and proportionally less plenteous than, from calculation
of profit, we give our swine and calves. He saw the Catholic
faith in all its purity, but without its festivals. On his return
he mentioned this; and here both parties and every individual
agreed namely, that the only good thing among them was
the absence of holidays.
"The absence of a thing, a good thing!" said he, ponder-
ing. "And this absence, among them! That is more like
an article of faith than an article of logic." He had been
accustomed to such inconsequences; but never could he per-
88
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
suade himself that incessant labor is a blessing, or that what
is individually bad is nationally good. "Can there be pros-
perity where there is no happiness?" said he within himself:
and it was the first time that a statesman ever had revolved
a question the most original and the most important. To be
awake is well; but to sleep is well also. To work is good;
but to cease from it is not less. Much is gained to a nation
by handicraft and digging: is nothing gained by joy and glad-
ness, and by rendering them the immovable Lares of the poor
man's hearth? The assertion was uncontradicted, that there
were in Ireland four millions of poor or oppressed. "Merci-
ful Heaven!" cried Le Doux, "four millions! the remainder
of the earth does not contain the half. Those educated in
slavery are willing slaves. The Mahometans have expedi-
tious, equal, and inexpensive laws, and for the most part
a delightful climate, the two greatest blessings; and they
believe in fatality, no small one! The Pagans hear of
nothing better than what they possess and enjoy. The Irish
not only hear of it, but are promised it, and have earned it.
Fatalism is the only foolish thing they do not believe in.
And their climate is such that, rather than bear its inclemency,
they eat and drink smoke. What hovels! what food! what
beds! what contests of their children and their swine for even
these! Shall then their innocent festivals, the best part of
the best religions, and here so requisite as a solace, so ac-
ceptable as a compensation, be forbidden them?"
O Catholicism! thou art verily a syphilis among the moral
evils, eating deep into the political, and fatal where unchecked ;
but thou hast thy truckle-couch for thy sores to lie easy on,
and something under it to catch thy drivelling. God help
thee if these are removed!
-
are
To dance on Sundays, to enjoy the delights of music, the
purest of delights, the greatest, the most humanizing,
things unlawful: the Catholic and Protestant are covenanters
here. They may celebrate the Lord's-day, but they must be
as gloomy as if it were the devil's. A gauger comes round,
and measures every man's smile; and we may expect the
Society for the Suppression of Vice to offer a reward for a
gelotometre, which Johnson would have defined, “A diatonic
instrument whereby the cachinnations of laughter may be
mensurated."
RICHELIEU, COTES, GLENGRIN, AND NORMANBY.
89
In Ireland, as in England, Sunday is a festival; but he
who presumes to enjoy the first course must chew the last in
the stocks or in the House of Industry, or acquire an appe-
tite for another such feast by the wholesome exercise of the
tread-mill. If Sundays were holidays as they should be, and
Christmas-day and New-year's day were added, the quantity
of time devoted to idleness would be sufficient. At present
they are days of dead languor, and make the tired laborer
wish again for work. To scold is not forbidden on them; to
sing is.
He may quarrel with his neighbor; he must not
play with him. Shall the religion then of no nation be free
not only from gross and incoherent but from restless and
insulting absurdities? Shall kindness be the basis of none,
- loudly as Christianity hath proclaimed it, constantly as its
divine and ever-blessed Founder hath practised and com-
manded it? Intolerant and self-sufficient bigots, the most
impudent and crazy of mankind, legislate for churches and
gloss for Christ. They do not trouble their heads in what
manner the commutative offices of life are executed, the
duties of every day, the interests of society in contact with
us; and never are quiet on those which they call the ever-
lasting, but which in fact are no interests at all, being mere
dependences on belief or unbelief in matters incapable of
demonstration, and inapplicable to practice. Much of fanati-
cism is seen in England, some in Ireland; but fanaticism
here is among the lighter curses.
66
It appears to me," said Le Doux, "that in this country
the features of evil are harsh, the form indefinite."
"We must acknowledge," said Lady Glengrin, "that none
of our statesmen has been capable of improving the condition
of the Irish."
"What!” cried Le Doux, "does the plague rage peren-
nially? Do the rains of heaven never fall among you? Have
you no roads, no rivers, no harbors? Have you no herbage,
no cattle, no corn?
"Of these things," replied she, "we have plenty."
"Bear me witness, Heaven!" exclaimed Le Doux, enthusi-
astically. "To make men happier requires little wisdom,
but much will. What was Odessa? What is it now? Madam,
I do not pretend to greater knowledge than many possess in
every kingdom: I wished to do good, and, being in authority,
90
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
7
I did it. The Russians were not advanced in civilization
much farther than the Irish; but the gentry were more hu-
mane, the clergy more tolerant, and in consequence the serfs
more docile."
The Irish friends of Le Doux began to think him some a
visionary, some an incendiary; and he, who saw only confu-
sion and contradiction from the first, discovered that the same
person was the most polite and the rudest, the most hospitable
and the most sordid, the most contentious and the best-
natured creature in the world.
"It is time to leave this carnival," said he. "The mask in
fashion is half-white and half-black: every man finds its
inconvenience, yet every man wears it. There is only one
exception, and, strangest of contradictions, it is a minister of
state. Let me fly from this scene of enchantment while the
bristles are not yet out upon me."
XII. FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND
LANDOR.
DESCENDING the staircase of Palazzo-Medici, which I inhabit,
I observed the venerable old gentleman, its proprietor, walk-
ing up and down gravely before his own apartment. He
seemed to avoid my salutation; whether the most modest of
men did not wish to speak while a stranger was with me, or
whether he was returning to his room for any thing. How-
ever, as he had seen me, I went up to him; inquired after his
health, which has been long declining, and then after the
Grand Duke's, who had been confined to his bed four days, as I
learned the day preceding. I now saw the reason why the
marchese turned away: tears were in his eyes, and running
down his cheeks copiously. He took my hand, lifted it be-
tween his on a level with his heart, and said, "He is in his
last agonies!'
While I stood silent, for I was affected deeply at seeing in
tears an old man, majestic in gait and stature, and cordially
my friend, I fancied I heard more footsteps in the street than
usual, and that people walked faster and stopped oftener.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 91
I heard no songs. It was probably the first hour, by daylight
at least, since the building of the city, unless in the time of
siege or plague or under the Duke of Athens, that you could
have heard none; for the Florentines by nature are joyous and
noisy as grasshoppers. I turned, and seeing the porter at the
gate, who had been asking some questions, I called to him.
He must have heard me, yet he went into his lodge and said
nothing. I followed him, and wishing to hear a more favora-
ble report, inquired how the Grand Duke was.
'Sir," said the porter, "I hope you do not think me want-
ing in respect: I can hardly tell you.
"Let us hope then he is better.”
"He is with God."
""
He turned his back on me: his gray hairs glimmered with
the tremulous motion of his head, until he rested his brow
against the wall. Not wishing to pursue my walk, nor deem-
ing it decorous, I proposed to my visitor that he should return
and sit down again. At this instant a young man overtook us
with a quick step.
"Better it had been me, ten thousand times," cried he.
(C
Luigi," said I, knowing his voice, "stop a moment: is it
quite certain?"
"I am happy you stopped me," replied he. "I was running
to my father: it would have half-killed him.”
66
Few more words passed between us, and we went our way.
When my visitor and myself were upstairs again and seated,
Really," said he, "I am now of your opinion: there is no
sincerity in this people. I don't mean the old gentleman,
whoever he is."
Landor. And what think you then of the porter?
English Visitor. I did not see him, nor hear what he
said; you went alone into the lodge. But the young man
carries it too far.
Landor. The Grand Duke has given him nothing; and which
of his ministers, think you, is not proud of saying to himself,
"I can withhold an office worth a crown a day from the
descendant of our first Grand Duke"?
English Visitor. What! and are these two gentlemen of
that family? Is it possible they can be thus affected at the
decease of one who occupied the throne of their ancestors?
I should as soon have expected it from you. And truly I
92
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
never saw you less disposed to talk on the meeting of an old
acquaintance, or less capable (you must excuse me) of saying
something worth hearing.
Landor. I never said any thing in my lifetime so worthy
of making an impression on the mind, as what you heard
from that young man. Treasure it up in your recollection:
lose nothing, as you hope for heaven, of that which may give
you a better opinion of your fellow-creatures, a just and
worthy one of God's great work. How good and glorious
when the right affections are unsuppressed by the perverse;
when love, pity, gratitude, are in vigor; when Death himself
warms our hearts and elevates our affections! Then are we
indeed redeemed from our fallen state !
English Visitor. You are coming round, I perceive. I shall
see you a king's friend ere long.
Landor. God grant it!
English Visitor. Well at least you have no hypocrisy.
But, upon my soul, I did not think you so very
let me say
at least unguarded. You would really (don't be angry) be
bribed then?
Landor. Really and truly.
English Visitor. Your smile is a fixed one and must I
believe you? I would have sworn that you never would have
changed your principles; not even to be prime minister.
Landor. Swear nothing.
English Visitor. No, after this, indeed! You have acted
very inconsistently; not only in the change of your principles,
but in the management of your talents. In the time of
Castlereagh, there was indeed but little hope from a fellow
who never read a book through, even at school, and who was
once proved by a friend in joke not to know the latitude of
England by ten or any other number of degrees. Canning,
however, is a scholar; and, what is more to the purpose, he
is obliged to pick up sad sticks.
Landor. They resemble the dragon-fly. I see his hard
eyes and heavy body (heavy it is for a fly), and see not what
it is that bears him up above my hedge: so filmy and appar-
cntly so inadequate is the finer part of him. Such are the
insects now in office. Canning is himself an understrapper;
a Gil Blas turned sour, and with a tendency to the vapid.
English Visitor. What would you have? Public men and
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
93
public women may alike be designated by one trisyllable.
Ministers come into office by giving as a pledge their virtue,
their judgment, and their sentiment. They resign themselves
bound hand and foot to the faction that hoodwinks the
crown, a faction existing in every kingly government; and
they distribute employments according to the lists presented to
them, being permitted to insert out of their own families and
partisans a limited assortment of names.
Here they may
stick in a bishop, here they may prick a judge, here they may
cushion an envoy; but leaving room on each side of him for
another to bench his secretary, and a third to boot his courier.
Florentine. The court of England has not been quite so
observant of merit in its appointment of diplomatists to the
smaller courts as, no doubt, it has to the higher. We Tus-
cans have been more amused by some of them than edified
or flattered. One Sieur Dorkins, a secretary of legation, no
sooner found himself in possession of his hundred pounds a
year, than he bought a pony, hired the best saddle and bridle
that were to be let out, presented a bunch of flowers (when
the season was somewhat advanced) to the lady of highest
rank he met at the Cascine, and manifested his resolution to
be cavaliere serviente wherever he found beauty and cookery.
He soon introduced himself to Madame Mozzi, a lady of
great personal attractions, good-humored, witty, well-informed,
and whose house enjoys the reputation of an admirable
kitchen. The next morning he addressed a billet to her,
declaring that she had pleased him, and desiring to know at
what hour she would be ready to receive his visit. She
answered him frankly, and proposed that the interview should
take place in the evening. Sieur Dorkins ran to the milli-
ner's, bought a frill; to the perfumer's, a bottle of Eau-de-
Cologne; to a friend's, and borrowed a cambric handkerchief.
Observing that his gloves bore the marks of the bridle, he put
them into his pocket before he knocked at the door. This
he did once and softly. It opened as by magic; and a ser-
vant in a rich livery with a lively salutation ushered him
upstairs. He passed through an ante-chamber filled with
fine pictures: every countenance in the portraits seemed to
smile on him, every landscape bloomed before him. He had
little taste or time for them; onward he followed the valet;
the folding-doors of the drawing-room flew open: the whole
94
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
family were there assembled. Sieur Dorkins being loudly
announced, all eyes were instantaneously fixed on him.
Madame Mozzi and her aja rose from their seats; and the
former, smiling graciously, turned again to the company, and
presented "the Illustrissimo who would have done such
honor to them all, had he not fixed his attentions on the
least worthy of the family." They bowed to the sieur.
"And now," said Madame Mozzi to the aja, “you will do me
the favor, my dear friend, to read aloud the elegant note of
the British secretary." The aja wiped her glasses, placed
them across the slender ridge they befitted, and, without any
change of voice or physiognomy, read it slowly through. The
husband took Sieur Dorkins by the hand, apologized for the
necessity he was under of leaving him so soon after his
introduction, and wished him all possible success in his
negotiation. The other relatives complimented him on the
peculiar frankness of the English character, of which they
protested they had never seen before so charming a specimen ;
the lady told him, with an air of sweet concern and tender
reproof, that she only lamented to find him somewhat colder
than his note had promised. In reply to the smiles that were
lurking and trembling in the unsteady dimples of her lips, he
bit his angrily, twitched up one side of his shirt-collar, bowed
as well as he had learned to bow, and withdrew. He found
the servants ranged upon the staircase. His conductor told
him it was customary in Tuscany to give a mancia on the
first good fortune, and hoped his Excellency would remem-
ber it.
But no
English Visitor. I believe the story to be true in all its parts
and circumstances; for I have heard it frequently, even in
England: and indeed, wherever a tale of consummate impu-
dence is related, the Sieur Dorkins comes forward as regu-
larly as the sentinel in a German clock at the hour.
man of the most ordinary attainments among us has reason
to despair of office, if that man possesses a lucrative and a
high one who came from Ireland half-naked, offered his
services to the publisher of a periodical work at two guineas
a week, and, writing in defence (as he tells us) of our laws
and religion, shocked a good old woman in her hospitality,
which at that time he found very useful, by seasoning her
leg of lamb and pigeon-pie with the coarsest and stalest of
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 95
irreligion. I dare not repeat the allusion to the "Lamb of
God," nor need I remind you what and on whom descended the
similitude of a dove. Referring to the ribald, the only friend
worthy of Lord Hertford (Cumberland) said he was the most
vulgar man in the least elegant and least decorous of nations ;
but that he could forgive him, if he were not also the most
malignant in the least spiteful. I can account for it only
from the facility with which his old associates despise him,
and the violent effort he makes at mutual disdain. I dare to
profess myself a Christian; in belief a very sincere, in con-
duct a most defective, one: but if any ratiocination led me
away a fugitive from my father's house, and deaf to the rec-
lamations of my dearest friends, still what could so harden
me as that I should turn into ridicule one who had warned
me of danger, and who had offered to accompany me in
adversity? I leave him without thanks; I abandon him
without regret; and am I never to be reminded of his inno-
cence and gentleness, but when hunger or fortune has led
me, "nothing loth," to the "warm precincts" of a pigeon-pie?
Afterward I hear of him insulted by the ignorant, persecuted
by the bigot, dragged before the judge, delivered to the
executioner. What then if this person, whom (say I know
no more of him) I know to be the purest, the gentlest, the
most beneficent of men, should be ready to die, nay, should
have died, for me! Do I want a godhead to shake my heart
at this? Humanity, at the report of it, feels it through all
her fibres, and drops on the earth in tears.
Landor. Preserve this character; foster and encourage
these thoughts, which must render you happier and better than
any other can do. Nothing of envy will follow them; much
of gayety may; particularly if they assist you in recollecting
of what materials our modern greatness is composed, and
that the only thing in which monarchs now imitate God is in
forming their first men out of the dust. Better stuff was
required for court-equipage in ages esteemed far more bar-
barous. We had then our knights of the pink, or the lily, or
the daisy; pleasant, alert, companionable, jovial; at present
we have knights of the eating-house, baronets of the whiskey-
bottle, lord-provosts of the letter-press, and lords of session
at the gazette and magazine. Certain hands, patient (you
would swear) of every thing but a glove, are armed with clubs
96
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
and cudgels that seem cognate with them; and certain eyes
are peeping forth from their lattices at every inlet of litera-
ture, that those who enter without the watchword may be
well smitten or well splashed. Formerly titles were inherited
by men who could not write; they now are conferred on men
who will not let others. Theirs may have been the darker
age; ours is the duller. In theirs a high spirit was provoked;
in ours proscribed. In theirs the bravest were pre-eminent;
in ours the basest.
English Visitor. One objection to your Imaginary Conver
sations is, that you represent some living characters as speak-
ing with greater powers of mind than they possess, vile as
they are in conduct.
If men
Landor. It cannot be expected, by those who know of
what materials the cabinets of Europe are composed, that any
person in them should reason so conclusively, and with such
illustrations, as some who are introduced. This, if it is a
blemish in a book, is one which the book would be worse.
without. The practice of Shakspeare and Sophocles is a
better apology for me than I could offer of my own.
were to be represented as they show themselves, encrusted
with all the dirtiness they contract in public life, in all the
debility of ignorance, in all the distortion of prejudice, in all
the reptile trickery of partisanship, who would care about the
greater part of what are called the greatest? Principles and
ideas are my objects: they must be reflected from high and
low; but they must also be exhibited where people can see
them best, and are most inclined to look at them.
English Visitor. You, by proper attention, or even by ab-
stinence from attack, might have gone out among the Com-
missioners to America.
Landor. I go out nowhere: here I live, here I die perhaps.
A sea-voyage of very few days, although I suffer no sickness,
makes me weary of life itself. What a situation is that in
which, next to the sight of port, a tempest is the thing most
desirable! I would not be embarked two months, to possess
the kingdom of Montezuma united with that of Aurengzebe.
English Visitor. You appear to have no ambition, at least
of this kind; you live upon a fifth of your income, willingly
or unwillingly, and live handsomely and hospitably: what do
you want then?
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
97
a
Landor. That which I told you before, to become a
king's friend. Peace, freedom, independence for nations,
these shall buy me: and, if nothing but the humiliation of
their betters can win the hearts of rulers, I would almost kiss
their hands to obtain them. Had avarice or ambition guided
me, remember I started with a larger hereditary estate than
those of Pitt, Fox, Canning, and twenty more such amounted
to; and not scraped together in this, or the last, or the pre-
ceding century, in ages of stockjobbing and peculation, of
cabinet-adventure and counterfeit nobility. My education,
and that which education works upon or produces, was not
below theirs yet certain I am that, if I had applied to be
made a tide-waiter on the Thames, the minister would have
refused me. In the county where my chief estate lies,
waste and unprofitable one, but the third I believe in extent
of any there, it was represented to me that the people were
the most lawless in Great Britain; and the two most enlight-
ened among the magistrates wished and exhorted me to be-
come one. It would have been a great hindrance to my
studies; yet a sense of public good, and a desire to promote.
it by any sacrifice, induced me to propose the thing to the
Duke of Beaufort, the lord-lieutenant. He could have heard
nothing more of me, good or evil, than that I was a studious
man, and that although I belonged to no society, club, or
party, and never sat in my life at a public dinner, I should
oppose his family in elections. The information, however
probable, was wrong. I had votes in four counties, and could
influence fifty or sixty, and perhaps many more; yet I never
did or will influence one in any case, nor ever give one while
Representation is either cheat or coaxer. The noble duke
declined my proposal.
These bells recall my attention from what is personal and
from what is worthless.
Florentine. How they clatter and jingle! The ringers are
pulling every bell-rope in the whole city as fast and as furi-
ously as they can.
Landor. The sound of one only, the largest in the place,
tolling slowly at equal intervals, makes a different impression
on the hearer. We are impatient of these, which are rung
in the same manner to announce a festival: instead of im-
patience at the others, we wait in suspense for every stroke,
VOL. V.
7
98
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and the pulse of the heart replies to it. No people but the
English can endure a long continuation of gravity and sad-
ness: none pay the same respect to the dead.
English Visitor. Here not only the poorer, but house-
holders and fathers of families, are thrown together into a
covered cart; and when enough of them are collected, they
are carried off by night and cast naked into the ditch in the
burial-ground. No sheet about them, no shroud externally,
12 coffin, no bier, no emblem of mortality; none of sorrow,
none of affection, none of hope. Corpses are gathered like
rotten gourds and cracked cucumbers, and thrown aside where
none could find if any looked for them. Among people in
easy circumstances, wife, children, relatives, friends, all leave
the house when one of the family is dying; the priest alone
remains with him: the last sacrament solves and sunders
every human tie.
The eyes, after wandering over the altered
scenes of domestic love, over the silent wastes of friendship,
are reconciled to whatever is most lugubrious in death, and
are closed at last by mercenaries and strangers.
Landor. My children were playing on the truly English
turf before the Campo Santo in Pisa, when he to whom is
committed the business of carrying off the dead, and whose
house is in one corner, walked up to them and bade them
come along with him, telling them he would show them two
more such pretty little ones. He opened the doors of a cart-
house, in which were two covered carts: the larger contained
(I hear) several dead bodies, stark-naked; in the smaller were
two infants, with not even a flower shed over them. They
had died in the foundling-hospital the night before. Such
was their posture, they appeared to hide their faces one from
the other in play. As my children had not been playing with
them, this appearance struck neither; but the elder said,
"Teresa, who shut up these mimmi? I will tell papa. Why
do not they come out and play till bed-time?"
The "mimmi" had been out, poor little souls! and had
played till bed-time!
English Visitor. And “papa,” though he could not alter the
thing, has been collecting a rod in every walk of his, in high-
road or by-road, for those whose negligences and inhumani-
ties are greater in greater matters; which rod some years
hence will scourge many backs, and be laid on by many hands,
amid the shouts of nations.
i
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
99
Landor
So be it! although he who tied the twigs be never
thought of; although he be cast before his time into the cart-
house.
English Visitor. The death of Ferdinand must be felt
as a general and great calamity, thus fixing as it does, or
strongly checking, the levity of the Florentines, a people far
indeed from cruel, the least so perhaps of any in Italy, where
none deserve the name; but the most selfish, the most un-
grateful, the most inconstant. Pardon me, sir, if you have
any relatives in the city. A ruler of the Romans, sick and
weary of their baseness, wished they had but one neck. I
have often wished the Florentines had as much as one heart
among them. To-day I think my wish is accomplished.
awe.
Florentine. Although there is hardly one of us who would
not with whatever ignominy flee from death, were flight possi-
ble, yet the appearance of it in others has little terror, little
The reason is, the sight is familiar and unaccompanied
by solemnity or decorum. The priests and family, even when
the wealthy and distinguished are carried to their last home,
walk rapidly along with the bearers of the body, and seem
only to be thinking how they shall soonest get it out of the
way, and do some other business.
Religion in fact does not demand much anxiety from us for
those who sleep; and Philosophy is indifferent whether the
pace with which the defunct are carried to the grave be quick
or slow.
Christianity is so kind, that one objection to it, the worst
indeed and the weakest, is the impracticability of performing
all the kindness it enjoins. It demands no anxiety; it dem-
onstrates on the other hand how every one may be removed.
Landor. Our English burial service is the most impressive
thing to be found in any religion, old or recent: it is framed
on the character of the people, and preserves it.
I have seen
every other part of clerical duty neglected or traversed; but
I never saw a clergyman who failed in this, when he con
signed his parishioner to the grave. As for philosophy, it
our philosophy tell us any thing which shocks or troubles or
perplexes our humanity, let us doubt it, and let us put off the
examination of it a long while.
English Visitor. Did you know the Grand Duke?
Landor. I am the only Englishman in Florence who did
100
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
not attend his court, and the only one he ever omitted to
salute.
Florentine. Upon my word, you might have expected it.
And yet I hear he received the exiles of Naples; and when
it was told him that his Neapolitan Majesty could not be
present at court the few days he was here, if such rebels were
admitted, he replied, "It would be hard if kings had not as
much liberty as their subjects."
Landor. Equitable, humane, incomparable prince! What-
ever you hear good and gracious of him you may well believe.
I saw him first at Pisa, where he resided in winter without
pomp and state, and walked about the streets and in the
country with his son or any other friend. The Pisans, ac-
customed to meet him every day, noticed him only as they
notice a brother or father: he drew no crowd about him. At
the extremity of the principal square is an ancient church,
dedicated to St. Catharine; and in this church there happened
to be a festival. As I lose no opportunity of hearing music
where people are silent, observing the red silk festoons float
over the church-door I went in. There were few present; within
the rails I saw only the officiating priests, the Grand Duke, and
Savi, the professor of botany, who had entered with him and
was seated by him, and who spoke to him from time to time.
The service being finished, the Grand Duke bowed with pecul-
iar courtesy, and only to one person: it was in the direction
where I stood. Two or three days afterward a worthy priest,
who had thrown aside his gown and had taken a uniform, in
the course of conversation with me said gravely, "But really,
my dear friend, we may extend too far our prejudices and
dislikes. If you could be prevailed upon to go but once to
court, you would find him the best soul in the world.
tells me you did not return the salute of the Grand Duke."
Savi
My heart sank within me, deeper than ever any courtier's
did, at the charge of inattention: for it has more room to
work in, and takes it all. Ferdinand still continued to notice
with his usual condescension and affability my wife and little
boy, whom he met every day in some place or other; but
always turned his eyes from me.
Nevertheless I persevered in repairing my fault, in my own
eyes at least. I elevated my hat above my head long before
I met him, and passed without a look toward him.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
ΙΟΙ
He soon forgave me, or forgot me: which answered the
same purpose.
Florentine. Princes are more offended at a slight inatten-
tion than at almost the worst thing you can do, or say, or
write against them.
Landor A dead thorn or the smallest pebble may hurt or
molest a Wellington for a moment, according to the part it
acts upon; and I, who amid the powerful of the earth am no
better, may have pained in my ignorance a tenderer bosom
than beats among the surviving masters of mankind.
Florentine. May Leopold, who applies his studies to the
history of his country in order to write it fully and faithfully,
illustrate by his life the last pages of it; and, after a longer
course, be succeeded by a son as virtuous and affectionate!
A long silence followed. I was little disposed to con-
verse, or my visitor to go away. We heard a voice of inquiry
at the ante-chamber door, and I started to give orders that
no person should be admitted, when there stood before me
a worthy man who had offered my family a window in his
house yesterday, to see from it the procession of Corpus
Domini. After expressing the hope that no accident or
indisposition had prevented it, "You have heard, no doubt,
the distressing news," added he. "Even those who were un-
friendly to Ferdinand and his government lament his loss,
and speak becomingly of his character."
English Visitor. We are pained at hearing ill of the liv-
ing, and at hearing good of the dead: of the recently dead at
least.
:
Florentine. You do not appear to unite with us in our
regrets; your mind is abstracted, your ideas and thoughts
absorbed you want stupendous men, prodigies of genius.
Landor. Not I indeed, my friend: I want honest ones
and Ferdinand was both honest and wise. If his wisdom did
not fly off perpetually in sparks and splinters, it was only the
better and the more useful for it.
The greater part of geniuses may be measured by pocket.
rules; others require a succession of triangles, must be
surveyed from stations upon mountain-heads, and the exact
computation of their altitude is to be determined but after
some ages.
Of these Alps and Ararats, in the various regions of the
102
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
world there may be five or six perhaps. The heavy stick
their poles in them, clamber up, and protest they see nothing
extraordinary; the lighter one, more disappointed still, cries,
"I thought they were above the clouds! However, I will cut
my name upon the summit, and break off something."
Florentine. I was about to mention that Ferdinand was
not indeed a subject for trigonometry. In abilities he was
on a level, or little more than on a level, with the greater
part of mankind; but I believe that no man living had so
accurate a judgment where judgment is of most importance.
His sense of justice and right was perfect. It was perfect
from an exquisite fibre and most delicate tact, and from an
early and uninterrupted practice of it. Sovereigns are
thought not to have the whole of their apanage, unless they
have some embossed pieces of wit placed beside them.
Ferdinand was not facetious; on the contrary he was rather
grave, and would not have fathered the best joke in the
world. And truly I know not how it happens, but we Flor-
entines, who are famous for feigning all other things, never
feign wit for any one.
English Visitor. Your Machiavelli, I think, cannot be
fairly accused of doing it; who, wishing to attribute a few
smartnesses, practical and theoretical, to Castruccio Cas-
tracani, rather than invent them himself went back to the
ancients for them, and poured them into his haversack dry as
date-fruit.
Florentine. Valets and chamberlains, and other attendants
on Ferdinand, have related to their friends and acquain-
tances many of his sayings, which would seem witty and
sharp if good nature did not cover them from point to hilt.
The other day, as you know (for I remember you laughed
heartily at it), his remark was excellent. The wit was, like
the ananas, sharp, sweet, refreshing, beautiful; and it was
safely tangible from its seasonable ripeness.
English Visitor. Sir, our friend Landor here is a fond
lover of wit, but like many fond lovers is without the object
of his affections. I am sure he will gladly hear the thing
over again, if you will favor me by giving us it.
Florentine. When the only son of Marchese Bartolomei
had taken a wife without the consent of his family, the father
as you may suppose was indignant. He ran to Palazzo Pitti,
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 103
demanded an audience of the Grand Duke and was admitted.
After he had particularized the whole affair, with comments
no doubt in abundance, "Well, my friend, how can I serve
you?" said his Highness: "what can I do in the business?"
Highness! it is against the law," answered Bartolomei.
(C
My dear marchese, now the thing is done and cannot be
undone or altered, would it not be better to be reconciled to
the young people?
>>
“Never, never, never, while I have breath in my body!
"Patience! my good Bartolomei! Consider a little; re-
flect a moment; pray, of what age is your son?”
"Old enough to be wiser."
“We all are; people say so at least: and yet —
"He is near upon eighteen."
""
"A mere boy: unfortunately for him, just one remove be-
yond boy's chastisement. I hope you would not punish
him, as matters stand."
"I came for justice, Highness !”
"The laws, you say, will give it: you shall have it ; do not
doubt it. Be calm
Be calm; be comforted; think again upon it."
"I have thought again and again and more than enough
about it. I am resolved to punish him."
"Let him have her then. Come, Bartolomei, I am going
to my piano-forte: would it amuse you?”
"Highness! I take my leave.”
The last of his public acts, admitting to view the gait and
whole gesture of his character, was displayed by him about a
month afterward; that is, about a month ago. A person now
in Florence had been expelled by their Holinesses of the
Sacred Alliance from France, Spain, and Piedmont, and
perhaps from other kingdoms. He came hither without a
passport, and was ordered by the president of the buon
governo to leave the city. Disconsolate, desolate, desperate,
he resolved to present a memorial to the Grand Duke.
"From
the various States I have passed through I can show nothing,"
said he, "but orders to leave the country." The mild prince
sent immediately for the president of the buon governo, who
thinking, on such occasions at least, that expedition was best,
would have banished the stranger. "If he is, or if you think
him to be, a bad subject," said Ferdinand, "it is your office
to watch him narrowly. Would you drive him out to save
4
104
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
trouble? Shall the whole earth be interdicted to him be-
cause he has been troublesome in one part of it, or suspected
in another? If he were worthy of imprisonment, there is
little doubt that he would have been imprisoned; or if of
death, that he would have been executed. They permit him
to live, and would leave him no place to live in. He must
be somewhere. To hunt and pursue the poor creature
through the world is worse than any sentence of condem-
nation. Let him rest where he is, and be like others amen-
able to the laws."
Landor. At my arrival on the continent, it retained among
its ruins two public men of worth, Kosciusko and Gianni:
the one I had seen in England, the other I visited in Genoa.
He was in his ninetieth year, an age to which no other
minister of king or prince or republic has attained. But the
evil passions never preyed on the heart of Gianni; he en-
joyed good health from good spirits, and those from their
only genuine source, a clear conscience. Accustomed, as I
had been, to see chattering mountebanks leap one after
another upon the same stage and play the same tricks they
had exploded, first amid the applauses and afterward amid
the execration of the people, I was refreshed and comforted
by the calmness and simplicity of this venerable old man.
Occasionally he displayed a propensity to satire; not broad-
faced buffoonery, not washy loquacity, but the apposite and
delicate wit which once sparkled in the better societies of
Athens and of Paris. He has left behind him a history of his
own times, which never will be published in ours.
If any
leading State of Europe had been governed by such a min-
ister, how harmless would have been the French Revolution
out of France, how transitory in Patient, provident, moder-
ate, imperturbable, he knew on all occasions what kind and
what intensity of resistance should be opposed to violence
and tumult.
Florentine. I will adduce two instances, in which my friend
here will correct me should I anywhere fall into an error.
Ricci, Bishop of Pistoja and Prato, had excited the indig-
nation of his diocesans by an attempt to introduce the
prayers in Italian, and to abolish some festivals and proces-
sions. The populace of Prato, headed by a confraternity,
broke forth into acts of rebellion; the bishop's palace was
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 105
assaulted, his life threatened: the church-bells summoned all
true believers to the banner; the broken bones of saints
were exposed, and invited others to be broken. Leopold,
on hearing it, shocked in his system of policy, forgot at the
moment the mildness of his character, and ordered the
military at hand to march against the insurgents. Gianni was
sent for: he entered the instant this command was issued.
"What disturbs your Highness?" said he mildly.
"You ought to have been informed, Gianni," answered
the Grand Duke, "that the populace of Prato has resisted
my authority and insulted Ricci. My troops march against
them."
"I have already despatched a stronger force than your
Highness has done, which by your permission must remain
in the city."
"On free-quarters until the madmen are quiet. But how
could you collect a stronger force so instantaneously?”
"Instead of two regiments I despatched two crosses;
instead of cannon and balls and powder, a nail-box, a ham-
mer, and a napkin. If reinforcements are wanted, we can
find a dice-box and a sponge at Corsini's, on good security.
At this hour, however, I am persuaded that the confraternity
is walking in procession and extolling to the skies, not your
humanity, but your devotion." It was so.
The maximum or assize had been abolished by Gianni:
lands and provisions rose in value; the people was discon-
tented, broke into his house, drank his wine, cut his beds in
pieces, and carried off the rest of his furniture. Leopold,
who had succeeded to the empire and was residing at Vienna,
decreed that the utmost severity should be exercised against
all who had borne any part in this sedition. It was difficult
to separate the more guilty from the less, as every man con-
victed of delinquency might hope to extenuate his offence by
accusing his enemy of one more flagrant. Gianni, who could
neither disobey nor defer the mandate of the emperor, en-
gaged Commendatore Pazzi to invite some hundreds of the
people to a banquet in the court-yard of his palace.
Now while the other families of those our Florentines, who in
ages past had served the bustling little city, were neglected
for their obscurity, shunned for their profligacy, or despised
for their avarice and baseness, that of Riccardi was still in es-
106
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
teem with the citizens for its splendid hospitality; that of Pazzi
for its patronage of the people. The invitation was unsus-
pected. They met, they feasted, they drank profusely; every
man brought forward his merits: what each had done, and
what each was ready to do, was openly declared and care-
fully recorded. On the following morning, before daybreak,
forty were on the road to the galleys; but most of them were
soon released. The people is never in such danger as from
its idol.
Scarcely any thing is more interesting than the history of
this central hive of honeyed and stinging little creatures, our
Florentines. Although they have now lost their original
figure and nature for the most part, and possess not even
their own lily to alight on, yet they hum, and show wonderful
instinct. They were not created for the gloom of Dante, but
they are alive and alert in the daylight of Petrarca and
Boccaccio. They live under a government not oppressive,
nor troublesome, nor exacting; and in this warm security
they inform us that there is in Italy a petty State governed
by a woman, who constantly sends after the Opera to the
innkeepers of her city, and demands a portion of what has
been spent among them within the day by strangers. If many
carriages have stopped at their doors in passing through the
place, the same visit is made, the same tax imposed. She
has forbidden the exportation of pictures, offering to purchase
them at the value: she has taken several to herself, and has
never paid for them. Is it not as proper for the Saints of
the Holy Alliance to exercise the duties of high police in such
instances as against the public, where great nations, and such
as were never subject to them, rise unanimously and demand
a reform of government?
English Visitor. England maintains a minister at the court
of this woman, whose revenues from the territory are little
more than his appointments, and whose political influence is
weaker than that of one who keeps a gin-shop in Wapping.
Landor. What reed or rush, in its rottenest plight, but
serves for the spawn of our aristocracy to stick on! Let us
leave the thievish sister of the Rey Netto and return to a
prince who had nothing in common with him but the baptis-
mal name. It was feared by the friends of an eloquent
pleader, whose conduct in the Parliament of Naples gave no
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
107
party satisfaction, that at the instigation of the Austrian or
French ambassador he would be excepted from the asylum
granted here to the Neapolitan constitutionalists. Where-
upon, although I seldom speak on politics, I could not refrain
from saying in the presence of a court-lady, "Constitutional-
ists are unpardonable: we Englishmen have abandoned them
in Sicily to the sword and dungeon, and we have deluded and
betrayed them in Naples and in Spain; their ruin comes in
all directions from us. Yet in regard to this gentleman, I can-
not believe he will be expelled from Tuscany for thinking
with every wise and honest man of his country I will add,
of Europe. True, he expressed his thoughts better than
others; but it is as unreasonable to dislike a man because
he is eloquent, as it would be to like one because he is a
stammerer."
Florentine. It was mentioned to the Grand Duke, not in
malice, but as the best thing or among the best said the day
before. "Dice bene," was his answer.
English Visitor. I never could discover the reason why
people in authority should exert more power (in other words
should give themselves more trouble) in molesting and plagu-
ing their fellow-creatures than in helping them. This is too
common in the world, indeed almost general; and I may say
with hardly an exception in those who have risen to high
station from obscurity.
Florentine. I would not voluntarily illustrate your thesis,
if the reflection did not fall upon another admirable feature
among his who now is lying under the canopy of death.
Our archbishop, three years ago, ordered his six best horses
to be harnessed for the richest of his state-carriages, went in
it to the palace, remarked to the Grand Duke that Lent was
approaching, that luxury was enormous, that immorality was
universal, and that nothing could arrest it but a rigid obser-
vance of the ancient fasts, which had of late times been
grievously neglected. In fact, it pained him to report it, the
Florentines were known in that holy season to eat flesh!
"The fault is in great measure mine," said Ferdinand,
"who have enabled them to do it. Immorality, which I hope
is not so universal as your lordship thinks, must be discoun-
tenanced and checked. Let you and me try — legumes.”
The archbishop, the fattest man in Florence or perhaps in
108
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Italy, and accused of excesses which go beyond the stomach
a little, reddened at the insinuation, and took his leave.
I could recount (for memory in hours like these is not inac-
tive) many other things characteristic of our lamented sovereign.
But humor and facetiousness are the appurtenances of a light
heart rather than of a kind one, and rebound for the greater
part from something hard about us. We look for them how-
ever when much better things are before us; as we turn our
attention from fields of ripe corn and rich pasturage, sus-
tainers of life and comfort, to any sparkling mineral.
Did not you, M. Landor, reside one summer at the Villa
Catani, just behind Poggio Imperiale?
Landor. I did. The distance is so short and the situa-
tion so elevated, I could see the family from my terrace, and
hear the music; to which I always listened in the evening.
For music has another effect when it comes from a family no
less in concord; and it is delightful to think that those who
govern us taste in common our purer delights. Such are the
sources of happiness to these good people! Do any such
rise from the fields of Austerlitz and Jena?
Florentine. Excuse me; you must have heard about the
mason.
English Visitor. What is that?
Florentine. The Grand Duke was much occupied in build-
ing, and was often out of doors among the laborers. He was
watching them one day (for masons of all workmen want
watching the most), when a bucketful of rubbish was thrown
down and covered him from head to foot. Something of
pain was added to his surprise, and, uttering one exclamation,
he walked toward the palace door on the side of the garden.
The laborer heard a voice; and, looking down, and seeing
a hat on the ground covered with mortar, he descended the
ladder from curiosity. Turning his body from it, the first
object he beheld was the Grand Duke, standing against the
wall under the scaffold, and wiping his shoulder. The
laborer threw himself on his knees; implored forgiveness;
prayed the Virgin to soften his heart; could never have
supposed that his Highness was below, "It is well it was
I," replied the good man in the midst of this, and still wiping
his shoulder and his sleeves; "say nothing about it." For
he knew that, if it had happened to a prime minister or a
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 109
prime menial, the poor creature of a mason would have been
dismissed. And perhaps he suspected it might happen; for,
some days afterward, he asked "how many were at work;
and (when it was told him) "whether the same number had
been there constantly."
Landor. Inquisitive man! how he idled and trifled! And
at a time too when the first princes and opera-dancers in
the world were at the Congress of Verona, fixing the fate of
nations!
Florentine. You probably know Nicolini; if not person-
ally, at least by character.
Landor. Although I avoid the society of literary men, de-
sirous of taking no part in their differences, and to receive
no displeasure or uneasiness at the recital of their injuries,
I have twice met him; as modest a man as he is a distin-
guished poet.
Florentine. You may also have heard the anecdote I am
about to relate, but this gentleman may not; and I think
I remember you declaring that the repetition of a tale in
favor of any one gives you as great pleasure as the first
hearing.
English Visitor. That is curious.
Landor. My reason is this:
action is not forgotten at once.
for I know not what it may be.
66
there is the proof that a good
Tell the story, if you please,
Florentine. Nicolini, our dramatic writer, no less enthusi-
astic in his politics than in his poetry, was librarian to the
Grand Duke. He requested his discharge. "Why so, Nico-
lini?" said Ferdinand. Highness, my sentiments are ad-
verse to the occupation," answered he. The Grand Duke was
surprised, but knowing that Nicolini was an irreproachable
man, and that nothing was remoter from his character than
ingratitude, he replied, "Well, Nicolini, if you insist on your
discharge, you must have it. I have nothing to say when
your conscience and feelings will not permit you to retain the
office." Within four or five days his younger brother was
promoted to the rank of captain; and, going to court on the
occasion, the Grand Duke asked him very particularly how the
elder did, without the slightest reference to what had passed,
and mentioned him as one whose talents do honor to his
family and his country. Soon afterward a new place was
IIO
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
created for the republican, more congenial to him,
lecturer to the Academy of Painting and Sculpture.
that of
In this manner did Ferdinand treat his subjects whose
sentiments were adverse to his form of government. Never
has any man approached so near to a command which no
one has executed, "Love those who curse you.”
Good nature, patience, forbearance, reconciliations of one
family to another, the reverse of what is assumed for a motto
by many rulers, were his daily practices.
If our laws are defective, the fault is nowise his. On his
return in the plenitude of power, he desired the people to
decide by which code they would be governed, his father's
or Napoleon's. The most celebrated jurists in Tuscany were
convoked: the ministers and judges, who had served the
three or four past governments, did what such men will
always do; they took, as more conducive to their power, the
looser. Ferdinand abstained from every remark upon their
judgment; but no man in his dominions was less pleased
with it.
English Visitor. The patriotic party-
Florentine. Congratulated the choice.
English Visitor. O Sismondi! what a bottle of ink have
these fellows been shaking up for thy admirable pen! How
think you, Landor? what a garner is the study of a man like
this!
Landor. Nothing is more useful than the study of such a
philosopher. He is legible to all, and intelligible, and im-
pressive: no doubtful dogma, no wayward fancy, no love of
wrangling or schooling. no mystery to veil his ignorance, or
to aggrandize by an uncertain light the factitious and dressed-
up spectre of his importance. He bore (let me say it) an
ephod on his breast, inscribed with one word GOD. What-
ever could be commanded from on high, or suggested from
hence below, to render those about him peaceful and con-
tented, he took, and carried into execution.
Florentine. We preferred him in general to his father.
But there is less agreement on the character of reformers than
on any other, and Leopold was a reformer. His enemies
accuse him of avarice, and support their opinion by insisting
on the inadequate education and slender maintenance of his
natural children.
1
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
III
English Visitor. Irony may say of Leopold what Flattery
said of Cosmo III., that he was pater pauperum.
Florentine. The charges both of parsimony and impru-
dence may, I think, be substantiated against him, in the vast
damage he did to the pastures and climate, by cutting down
the extensive forests in the Tuscan Apennines. Hence many
fountains and streams are dried up, which are much wanted
on the declivities, and almost as much on the plains; and the
soil is carried away by the thawing of the snows in spring,
and by the heavy rains and frequent thunder-storms in sum-
mer and autumn. Thousands of sheep and goats were past-
ured formerly where at present there are only rocks and
ravines: and an honest inoffensive pastoral population is
succeeded by plunderers and contrabandists. He too fre-
quently, but not always, neglected the education of his progeny.
Still, though liberal he may not have been in some private
transactions, he was singularly so to his people at large and,
if he was not prodigal to his own offspring, he was enabled to
be the more beneficent to the sick and poor. The hospitals
were abundantly supplied and carefully attended. Since his
decease, the lands belonging to them have been granted on
perpetual leases, their income much diminished, and their
superintendence much neglected. At Pisa the indigent and
afflicted are so reluctant to enter the hospital, that the
number of patients is reduced to half, and the accommodation
to less. At Florence the public is permitted to send subsidies
of food twice a week, and instances have occurred of patients
suffering fatally by the sudden effect of a nutritious meal.
English Visitor. The less contemptible princes love money
for the sake of power; the more contemptible love power for
the sake of money. Avarice is condemned in them from a
sentiment of avarice. Other faults injurious in a greater
degree to public morality are overlooked or forgiven.
Florentine. The principal one of Peter Leopold was his
employment of spies and informers. Curiosity and lust were
the motives, not cruelty nor suspicion. He and Lord Cowper
divided the beauty of Tuscany; and in such a manner that
neither should be jealous. In every family, high or low, one
of the domestics or one of the children communicated to the
agents of the Grand Duke a detail of its most minute affairs.
No harm probably was perceived in these communications,
112
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
which never led to punishment and seldom to inconvenience;
but in reality they did greater mischief to our national char-
acter than the best institutions could remedy or compensate.
Hence venality, bad faith, suspicion, cowardice; hence the
prostration of private and the extinction of public virtue. A
thief-taker walked into our societies, unchecked, unmolested,
unquestioned. Age lost its dignity, manhood its serenity,
youth its vivacity, in his presence. All bowed before the
grand Informer. This creature, by name Chetani, has
formed the manners of two generations, and perhaps the
national character for centuries to come. Peter Leopold was
in such security by his means, that on his departure from
Tuscany he left behind him not a soldier in his capital. I
wish I could dismiss him with merely a charge of unwise
curiosity, unworthy suspicion, or a vague indulgence in vulgar
sensuality I wish he had always maintained in himself the
justice he enforced in others.
:
English Visitor. Did he not? We never heard any com-
plaints against his impartiality.
Florentine. Hear one, then. The counts Del Benino, for
services to our city, inherited certain advantages, by no means
injurious to the community: Leopold cancelled them. Del
Benino petitioned him that he might appeal to a court of
justice; Leopold assented; the judges fancied they should.
flatter the prince by displaying in their decision a luminous
proof of his equity, and accordingly gave a sentence for
the plaintiff. Leopold disregarded it, and refused him any
satisfaction.
English Visitor. Not only no such injustice, but no vice
of any kind ever was suspected in Ferdinand: no virtue, I
hear, was deficient, if energy be excepted; which in princes
is one, and among the first, although in other men it is but
the agent of principle.
Florentine. Englishmen, I know, are apt to censure him
for his adherence to the French.
English Visitor. I am one of those.
Florentine. He found a large portion of his people led
away by theories and promises; all the men of talents, all
the men of enterprise. Could he oppose his cooks and the
canons of the cathedral to these and French armies? Unde-
sirous of reigning, he was ardent in his love of concord, and
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
113
was ready to make any sacrifice to ensure it. He commanded
his faithful friends to obey the stronger. Napoleon, who
knew him, esteemed and loved him; which he never did the
selfish or the insincere. On the fall of that usurper, the
Tuscan officers, who had served under him, applied to Ferdi-
nand for half-pay: the Austrians opposed it. "I will not
consent to it," said Ferdinand. Gentlemen, you fought for
the French government: you swore to defend it; and you did
defend it to the last. That government has ceased: you will
serve me with the same fidelity. Continue to enjoy the pay
you receive, the rank you have merited: but be contented, I
pray you, with your past victories."
(6
English Visitor. No prince, not even the most warlike,
ever had troops more devoted to him. I do not form my
opinion in those places only where I have dined among his
officers, as I have done most days for the last two years; but
experiencing on every occasion, in my travels through the
country, the civility of his soldiers, I have always been in-
duced to converse with them about him. I talked the other
evening in the fortress with a captain now in garrison at
Pistoia, who had accompanied Bonaparte in most of his cam-
paigns, and who returned with him among the few from
Moscow. Confirming the universal sentiment, he added,
placing his hand upon my shoulder, "There is something
of the Napoleonesque in that man's heart, though it lies so
quiet."
Florentine. It does indeed lie quiet! and it is the only one
in Tuscany that does!
There is however some consolation in knowing that his
sufferings had ceased before his death, and were assuaged
by every thing he heard or saw about him. Yesterday he
sent for his family, and talked privately and separately with
each to-day he desired they would come together. He
alone was calm; he alone could utter one word: he consoled
them in few. He told them that his Maker had called him ;
that he was ready, that he was going, that he knew the road.
"Leopold, take care of my wife, of your poor sister here,
and of my people." Then, after a pause, "On these occa-
sions the theatres are usually shut a long time: many live by
them; shorten the period."
Leopold fell upon the floor: the women were carried from
VOL. V.
8
1
114
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the apartment. They yielded to necessity, but sense had
left them; and he, who was so soon to be a corpse, was the
least like one. Reason and affection with him had no
contest for mastery; each kept its own, nor went one step
beyond it. For there was a higher power that controlled
them in their spheres: they were to enlighten the earth, but
they were to move apart from it.
Even in this moment, insupportable to those in health and
youth, insupportable to those accustomed to the sight of
sickness and sufferance and agonizing death, he opened his
eyes again, and said, "I have yet one duty: call my physi-
cians." They entered.
Gentlemen," said he, "three nights of watchfulness at my
bedside, where you, together with my beloved wife, have been
constantly, ought to be followed by some repose. But I
wished to tell you with my own lips how certain I am that
every thing you have done for me has been done wisely. I
thank you.'
Yet he knew it was by their mismanagement he was dying.
The efforts he had made, to perform whatever duty his
heart could dictate, at last exhausted him; and his mind,
before it left the body, wandered with him.
"I have been in Austria and in Bohemia," said he, after
what seemed insensibility and torpor, "and now I have seen
all my friends.”
Beloved Ferdinand! thou hast not seen them half, even in
vision; but thou shalt see them hereafter: they will press
around thee from all countries, in all ages.
Nothing can be spoken so gloriously of any prince in
modern days as this of Ferdinand; that, although he had to
apprehend the authority of a relative, who on other occasions
had sacrificed the members of his family on the altars of bad
faith and blind ambition, he nevertheless stepped forth, in
the calmness of courage and in the strength of virtue, to
comfort the menaced, and to alleviate the oppressed.
Landor. The greatest power on earth, or that ever existed
on earth, is the power of the British public; its foundation
morals, its fabric wisdom, its circumvallation wealth. Yet
this mighty power, which could overawe the universe, and
(what is better) could fix its destinies, was, in less embarrass-
ing circumstances, almost inert. Far am I from the incli-
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
115
nation of lighting up a fire to invite around it the idle, the
malevolent, the seditious: I would however subscribe my
name to ensure the maintenance of those persons who shall
have lost their country for having punished with death its
oppressor, or for having attempted it and failed. Let it first
be demonstrated that he hath annulled the constitutional
laws, or retracted his admissal or violated his promise of
them, or that he holds men not born his subjects, nor reduced
to that condition by legitimate war, in servitude and thraldom,
or hath assisted or countenanced another in such offences.
No scorn, no contumely, no cruelty, no single, no multiplied,
injustice, no destruction, is enough, excepting the destruction
of that upon which all society is constituted, under which all
security rests, and all hope lies at anchor,-faith. Public
wrongs may and ought to be punished by private vindication,
where the tongue of Law is paralyzed by the bane of Des-
potism; and the action, which in civil life is the worst, be
comes, where civism lies beneath power, the most illustrious
that magnanimity can achieve. The calmest and wisest men
that ever lived were unanimous in this sentence; such men
were Algernon Sidney and Milton: it is sanctioned by the
laws of Solon, and sustained by the authority of Cicero and
Aristoteles. The latter, mild and moderate as he was, goes
a great way farther than I have ventured.* Teachers, the
timid and secluded, point it out to youth among a thousand
pages; colleges ring with it over chants and homilies; Piety
closes her thumbed lesson and articulates less tremulously
this response. The street cries Cæsar, the study whispers
Brutus. Degenerate men have never been so degenerate,
the earth is not yet so effete, as not to rear up one imitator
of one great deed. Glory to him! peace, prosperity, long
life, and like descendants! t
Remember, brave soul! this blow fixes thy name above
thy contemporaries. Doubt not it will have its guard to
stand under it, and to fill the lamp that shows thy effigy.
* Δεῖ τοὺς ἀδικουμένους ὑπὲρ ἑαυτῶν πολεμεῖν, ἢ ὑπὲρ συγγενῶν, ἢ ὑπὲρ
εὐεργετῶν ἢ συμμάχοις ἀδικουμένοις βοηθεῖν.
From the time of Cæsar's death unto the present, the sentiment
against usurpers hath been so strong and general that scarcely a ques-
tion has been raised whether Cato and Brutus and Cicero were not
actuated by jealousy of his power and genius.
116
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Great actions call forth great eloquence, as great eloquence
calls forth great actions. There have been those who, after
the battle, could raise the dead above the living, the unfor-
tunate above the prosperous; there have been those who
could give even to the trophies of Marathon a fresh and
livelier interest; there have been those who, in the midst
of this interest, could turn the eyes of the city away from
them, to the despoiled and unsepulchred on the plains of
Cheroneia. With us let there be the will; and let the failure
(if failure there must be) lie with higher powers. In that
thought alone is all-sufficient consolation.
Ours is the time for associations to reward the extinction
of despots, since it is certain that none such as those I have
pointed out is now living to be offended or alarmed. If the
richer of our patriots would offer an asylum and a subsis-
tence in America to him who should punish them on their
rising, no doubt can be entertained that every gazette in
Europe, royal and imperial, will be ordered to announce the
resolution for what service can be rendered to monarchs,
equal to that of making them respectable?
So well known to me is their liberality, I should not be
surprised if, for this proposal, they consign to me through
their ambassadors more crosses and stars than would cover
the convexity of the most Christian King, and more ribbon
than would surround it; a fortune of itself, and not unmer-
ited (let me say it) at their hands.
English Visitor. Perhaps they may entertain some idle
doubts concerning your veneration for their institutions.
Florentine. On the continent men have ceased to dispute
about the different forms of government, and care only
about the difference in its administration. The Milanese
think theirs the worst; the Parmesans doubt; the Modenese
dare not do even that, for fear of their wives and confessors.
The name of the Emperor Francis is incessantly eulogized
by your English ministry, who know about as much of the
popular opinion in Europe as of the popular opinion in the
planet Saturn. I will tear out one page from his history,
and give it you. Count Gonfaloniere threw himself at the
empress's feet, in Milan, and requested her intercession, that,
having lost the use of his limbs, he might be conveyed to
his son's prison, to know whether he were alive or dead, and,
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDor.
117
if living, bless him once more, and bear the consolatory
tidings to his wife and children. The empress told him she
was unable to influence her husband in political affairs.
However, she did exert the powers of which she doubted ;
and she prevailed. The supplicant could not but consider
his admittance to the emperor as an act of clemency, and
began to hope that he might again see the face of a beloved
son, if indeed the prison were one of those into which day-
light ever entered.
"O Sire! spare the life of my child!" cried he, spreading
one hand on the floor, and raising the other to conceal his
tears, "if Heaven and your Majesty have preserved him so
long, in pity to my years and infirmities, my prayers and
sorrows. Few days of existence are now left me: let him
think (for he was ever the most affectionate of sons) that my
sufferings have not shortened them. It may be a crime in
him to love his country too ardently, too hopelessly, too
inconsiderately; but he has injured and would injure no one."
"Your son, Count Gonfaloniere," calmly replied his Apostolic
Majesty, "is in a better condition than I should have been
in, if I had fallen into his power." He ceased, and looked
aside.
The old man had strength to rise, and courage to walk
away. Those inhabitants of Milan who retained some respect
for the imperial dignity ceased to salute the Emperor of
Austria; slipped into any shop, or house, or gateway, when
they saw his carriage, and recollected another speech as
humane of another dignitary as exalted,
"Let him die, so as to feel he is dying."
At his arrival, two days before, a loyal Frenchman con-
gratulated a loyal Milanese on the applause his Majesty had
received at the theatre: the Milanese replied, "All very well!
all very well! but we are poor; and it costs us a great deal of
money to applaud so. I was present and heard it.
11 *
English Visitor. You, sir, I presume are a literary man:
you then can inform me whether the report is true, that
Ferdinand was no great favorer of letters.
Florentine. I am afraid there is some foundation for it.
We have many among us capable of reflecting lustre on our
city, if they were properly encouraged.
* Sta bene, sta bene; ma siamo poveri e ci costa gran dinaro.
118
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Landor. Encourage then one another: this is the properest
of encouragement, and the most effectual. The best princes
are often bad judges of literature: would you wish them to
give what is not due; to encourage what is not worthy?
English Visitor. Landor, do not wantonly make yourself
enemies in the literary world: you will hardly find two authors
in England who can endure to hear your name mentioned,
you are so illiberal. The Tories hate you for your abhor-
rence of the Holy Alliance; the Whigs for your contempt of
Napoleon.
Landor. This Holy Alliance will soon appear unholy to
every nation in Europe. I despised Napoleon in the pleni-
tude of his power no less than others despise him in the
solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when
he took the ermine than when he took the emetic. I confess
I do not love him the better, as some mercenaries in Eng-
land and Scotland do, for having been the enemy of my
country; nor should I love him the less for it had his enmity
been principled and manly.
Florentine. At least he patronized the arts, the sciences,
and literature in general.
Landor. He had this merit, and much more, above the
other potentates of the age; but not enough withal to raise
him above contempt, if falsehood and subterfuge, if envy and
malice, if dastard cruelty and deliberate murder deserve it.
Usually even the worst men are friendly to those who have
adopted their principles. In what manner did this cruel
wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower,
Toussaint L'Ouverture! He was thrown into a subterranean
cell, solitary, dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheu-
matism racked his limbs, and where famine terminated his
existence. Few can think those of their contemporaries great
who never have trampled on them. Greatness must have a
fierce or a mysterious air, a sounding title, a swaggering gait,
a swollen purse, a priest before, a lawyer at the side, and a
hangman after, him. You terrify me less by conjuring up
this phantom before me, than by opening to me my dangers
on the side of literature. In England, it seems, an author is
forced to pay out of his integrity for even a narrow and in-
commodious seat in it, and only a few receive free tickets.
In countries where there is less honor, generally there is
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 119
incomparably more in this quarter. A literary man in France,
for example, feels for the honor of his order, as a woman feels
everywhere for the honor of her sex.
English Visitor. You would deprive them of their veils and
perquisites; you would let them live by sucking and licking
one another, like young bears. They cannot be fond and
loving when they are hungry.
Florentine. Ours are courteous in the extreme, and lend one
another praise, ideas, and dresses. We have among the rest
some excellent improvisatori; a race peculiar to our Italy.
Landor. Long be it so! No improvisatore ever rose above
mediocrity; few have reached it. Poetry, like wine, requires.
a gentle and regular and long fermentation. What is it if it
can buoy up no wisdom, no reflection; if we can throw into
it none of our experience; if no repository is to be found in it
for the gems we have collected, at the price sometimes of our
fortunes, of our health, and of our peace? Your improvisatori
let drop their verses as a string of mules their morning oats,
for miles together. The Italian habit of conversazioni, as
those assemblies are called where people do any thing rather
than converse, produces the same effect on the minds of your
countrymen as brandy does on the bodies of your greyhounds.
it stupefies them, takes away their strength, and makes them
little all their lives. The first thing a young person who
wishes to be a poet has to do is to conquer his volubility;
to compress in three verses what he had easily thrown off in
twelve; and to be an hour about what cost him a minute.
he has a knack for verses, he must break it and forget it.
Both the poet and the painter should acquire facility and
frankness; but they must be exercised with discretion; they
must be sternly regulated, and in great part suppressed.
The young poet will remonstrate, and more often scoff: he
will appall you by placing before you the deep mouth of Pindar
and his mountain-torrents. Tell him, and tell older ones
too, that Pindar of all poets is the most accurate and the
most laborious.
If
Florentine. Pardon me, sir, for crossing your string of
mules, if any are behind: we remember Corilla.
Landor. But who remembers her poetry? I have read
the best of it, and have read better from our farmers and
shepherds, and nearly as good from our bellmen. I could
I 20
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
philosophize much upon this subject; but my mind is not
framed as most are. They philosophize best when they are
grave; I when I am gay; for nothing then exhausts or tires
me: when I am grave I go down fast. Drive a guinea-fowl
under my window, or but repeat to me several times the same
word in the same key, and in vain do I look for wand or
glass: I am in dejection and darkness. I shall defend, as
well as I can without much reasoning, the character of Ferdi-
nand, on his imputed neglect of literary men in general.
The school of natural history is close to his palace; and
his first conversation on matters of science was with Fontana,
the director. It was the custom of this professor, as some of
you have told me, when any stranger of distinction visited
the cabinet and admired his preparations, to step suddenly
into the room, his hands covered with blood or some chemical
injection, and to make a thousand apologies for the negligence
of his dress, protesting that he was obliged to do every thing
himself, even the most sordid and the most minute. The
poor assistant, an intelligent and scientific man, who had
done every thing delicate and difficult, heard this month after
month; sighed at his obscurity and poverty, and deeplier still
at the hopelessness of celebrity, of honest, hard-earned repu-
tation, of even thriftless justice; and threw himself into the
Arno. What must have been the pangs that swelled to such
insanity so unaspiring a breast! We take fire and burn out
presently: we call ourselves the feeling, and feel little. Oh,
what must he, unfortunate man, have suffered !
Ferdinand knew the story afterward. He then remembered
the odes and sonnets (or at least the baseness of them) ad-
dressed to him on all occasions, by those who rejoiced in the
same measures on his expulsion from the throne, and saluted
his successor as warmly.
Florentine. We are a nation of praisers; we mean nothing
by it.
English Visitor.
by it.
Do not complain then if you get nothing
Florentine. Sir, when you alighted at the inns on the road,
did not one poetaster or other bring up a sonnet in your praise,
as Fantoni used, ignorant and indifferent who and what you
were? Just so do all the rest, whether to princes or private
men, and expect to be rewarded in the same manner and
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 121
proportion. Mr. Landor is prejudiced against the Tuscans
in general, the Florentines in particular.
Landor. I hope and believe I am not. I have found at
the distance of twenty miles from Florence some of the best
people I have ever yet conversed with. The country folks
are frank, hospitable, courteous, laborious, disinterested, and
eager to assist one another. I have sat among them by the
hour, almost the only company in the nation I could ever
endure half so long; and, at the first time of seeing me, the
whole family has told me its most intimate concerns. The
mother has enlarged on the virtues and excused the faults of
her husband; and the daughter has asked me whether I was
married and whether I liked it, as she intended to take a
husband in the beginning of the carnival — Stefano — I must
know him and had bought the bed and hemmed the sheets
and folded and packed up the corredo; telling me that there
is nothing in the world so pleasant as the beginning of the
carnival such fun! "Matta!" cries the mother, and smiles
at me.
Florentine. O gentlemen, there are girls in Florence that
will say a great deal more than that to you in half the time :
and I promise you we have as worthy men among us (if you
do not want to eat with 'em or ask a favor of 'em) as any upon
earth. Selfishness and insincerity are thrown out against us:
the worse indeed, in public or in private, are sure to laugh at
his simplicity from whom they receive a benefit; but the better,
I hope, are disposed to excuse it.
English Visitor. You seem rather shy about the main
question, and let the old fact stand. Ferdinand was parsi-
monious was he not?
Florentine. Parsimony is the vice of our country. The
Italians were always, far exceeding all other nations, parsi-
monious and avaricious; the Tuscans beyond all other
Italians; the Florentines beyond all other Tuscans. So
scandalous an example of it as occurred a few months ago is,
I hope and believe, unparalleled. Prince Corsini married a
woman of immense fortune, by whom he has a family of eight
children. He took a mistress: the wife languished and died.
He gave orders that all her clothes should be sold by auction
in his palace, -old gowns, old petticoats, old shifts, old shoes,
old gloves; even articles at the value of one penny, such as
122
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
excited the derision of some, the blushes of others, the horror
of not a few. There had been no quarrel between the wife
and husband. She was beautiful, engaging, sweet-tempered,
compliant, domestic. She sank from the world which her
virtues had adorned, and had been seven days in her grave,
when prostitutes paraded the street before her palace, wearing
those dresses in which the most exemplary of mothers had
given the last lessons of morality to her daughters. The
prince is one of the richest men on the Continent; he is
supposed to spend about a tenth of his income; and the sale
produced fourteen pounds. This example is not necessary
for the defence of Ferdinand. He had experienced the
vicissitudes of fortune, he had twice been forced from his
throne, he had a family to provide for; yet the taxes were
equable and moderate; and property and its comforts, in no
portion of the globe, are so well distributed and so general as
in Tuscany. He did not throw away his money among idlers
and sycophants in court or college.
English Visitor. No, no!
No, no! Quiet and as much in the shade
as he could be, he was not to be tickled or intoxicated by a
sonnet or a sermon. When he observed them on the surface,
he swam down the stream, I hear, and let them founder.
Florentine. Generosity does not rest upon the purse; nor
is the sovereign most worthy of esteem for liberality who
gives most among those about him. Believe me, my friends,
novel and strange and uncomfortable as it may appear to you
the generosity of a prince is parsimony. Ferdinand had
more pleasure at being praised by villagers in their carts,
pressing down their figs and turning their peaches, than by
professors in the chair or canonics in the pulpit. He never
went out of his way to meet it: it met him everywhere.
English Visitor. That must be an admirable prince whom
none of your poets thinks it a good speculation either to
praise or libel.
Florentine. Such in his latter days was the felicity of
Ferdinand; and those who now extol him turn their eyes
another way, and watch the countenance of the son.
Landor. May he prove his good sense and rectitude, by
paying none for praises! As for tears, if they are due, let
them flow on. Were I in his place, I would not wipe them
away, nor give a pinch of snuff to increase them.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 123
English Visitor. While you are in this humor, and are
possessed by the right feeling in all its warmth and fulness,
I wish you would compose an elegy on the occasion; as our
critics are of opinion that you are sadly deficient in the true
pathetic.
Landor. It would ill become me to hold an argument
against men of such genius and judgment as our critics; and
it would fare badly with me if I could prove them to be mis-
taken. I might attempt an elegy, were it possible that
persons in the same station as Ferdinand's could be improved
or moved by it. But to affect an immoderate grief, as poets
do, on the death of princes, is the worst of hypocrisy: it being
certain that there can be little or no sympathy between them,
whatever respect may be borne by those who are swayed by
imagination toward the regal character. I do not assert that
my grief remains for days, or even hours, together violent or
unremitted, although it has done so once or twice; but
seldom have I thought of a lost friend or unfortunate com-
panion, be it at the distance of thirty or of forty years, that the
thought is not as intense and painful, and of as long a visita-
tion, as it was at first. Even those with whom I have not
lived, and whom indeed I have never seen, affect me by
sympathy as though I had known them intimately, and I
hold with them in my walks many imaginary conversations.
If any thing could engage me to visit Rome again, to endure
the sight of her scarred and awful ruins, telling their stories
on the ground in the midst of bell-ringers and pantomimes;
if I could let charnel-houses and opera-houses, consuls and
popes, tribunes and cardinals, senatorial orators and preaching
friars, clash in my mind, — it would be that I might afterward
spend an hour in solitude where the pyramid of Cestius
stands against the wall, and points to the humbler tombs
of Keats and Shelley. Nothing so attracts my heart as ruins
in deserts, or so repels it as ruins in the circle of fashion.
What is so shocking as the hard verity of Death swept by
the rustling masquerade of Life! And does not Mortality
of herself teach us how little we are, without placing us amid
the trivialities of patchwork pomp, where Virgil led the gods
to found an empire, where Cicero saved and Cæsar shook the
world?
Florentine. I wish, sir, you would favor us with a Latin
124
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
inscription for the tombs of the gentlemen whose names you
mentioned, since the pathetic is not requisite in that species
of composition.
Landor. Although I have written at various times a great
number of such inscriptions, as parts of literature, yet I think
nothing is so absurd if you only inscribe them on a tomb.
Why should extremely few persons, the least capable perhaps
of sympathy, be invited to sympathize, while thousands are
excluded from it by the iron grate of a dead language?
Those who read a Latin inscription are the most likely to
know already the character of the defunct, and no new
feelings are to be excited in them; but the language of the
country tells the ignorant who he was that lies under the
turf before them; and, if he was a stranger, it naturalizes him
among them: it gives him friends and relations; it brings to
him and detains about him some who may imitate, many who
will lament, him. We have no right to deprive any one of a
tender sentiment, by talking in an unknown tongue to him
when his heart would listen and answer to his own: we have
no right to turn a chapel into a library, locking it with a key
which the lawful proprietors cannot turn.
Florentine. It is rarely we find an epitaph in which the
thought, if novel, is not superficial. Where there is only one,
it should be striking or affecting.
Landor. But it is an error to imagine that every thought
must be either. Truth, in these documents and appeals,
should oftener be remarkable for simplicity than force. It
sinks deeplier into the mind by insinuating than by striking,
and is more acceptable for grace than for novelty.
English Visitor. Yet you yourself in these compositions,
as in the rest, are more valued for originality.
Landor. My valuers in general know not exactly what
it is they value me for, and often take for originality what
they have heard, and perhaps have said, with some slight
difference. I have written things which others have written
before, not indeed in the same words precisely, and therefore
not affecting the reader in the same manner; and these
things I should certainly have conceived, whether they had
or had not. It is quite impossible that any two men, of
intellect and imagination, should reason long on the same
subject and never encounter any similar thought, any
similar
F
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
125
image. In one the thought will be more complete, the image
more compact, more proportionate, more animated. The
contrary would be as incredible as that two birds, close to
each other in the same field, and striking their beaks and
claws into the same turf for nutriment, should not hit upon
the same grains and animalcules.
English Visitor. Your enemies, who often call you strange
and perverse, never call you superficial.
Landor. They know not and heed not what they say.
Never have I done any thing designedly to attract the public
notice, which is ordinarily attracted not by the slow operation
of silent power, but by a rapid and incessant display of
peculiarities and freaks in the most public paths of literature.
But my groundwork, in common with that which brings the
crowd about it, must of necessity be superficial. In the
matter laid on the superficies, and in the manner of laying
it, is all the difference. It is as intolerable to keep reading
over perpetual sharpnesses as it is to keep walking over them.
What is ample and capacious has room enough for elevation,
not what is circumscribed and contracted. What we admire
in a park is inadmissible in a cabbage-garden. Taylor the
Platonist had resolved on sacrificing a bull to Jupiter: foolish
enough; more foolish to select for the place of sacrifice a
little back-parlor-floor. The bull whisked his tail in the
worshipper's face, inculcating the immediate necessity of a
fresh ablution, and burst away through the window.
In composition no height is attainable without many
preliminary steps along much lower ground. That which
appears and really is plain, humble, and, if you please,
superficial in my writings, may induce other men to think
deeply. Whether they are read in the present age or in the
next, occupies no more my speculation than whether it be this
morning or this afternoon.
English Visitor. Are you certain that in their inferences
they are all quite sound?
Landor. İndeed I do not know perfectly that they are;
but they will give such exercise in discussing them as always
tends to make other men's healthier; for questions of religion,
on the points that now stick uppermost, are avoided by me,
because they produce the contrary effect in the fostering of
scorn and malice.
126
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
English Visitor. We are in the full enjoyment of single
blessedness when we espouse no party and no church. Among
few reasoners, living and deceased, you set us the example of
abstaining from controversies; the example of giving truth
for nothing, and of valuing it above all price.
Landor. What I write is not written on slate; and no fin-
ger, not of Time himself, who dips it in the clouds of years,
can efface it. To condemn what is evil and to commend
what is good is consistent. To soften an asperity, to speak
all the good we can after worse than we wish, is that, and
more. If I must understand the meaning of consistency as
many do, I wish I may be inconsistent with all my enemies.
English Visitor. I have never caught you running after Fame.
Landor. That she may throw up no dust into my eyes, let
her follow. Fame often rests at first upon something acci-
dental; and often too is swept away, or for a time removed:
but neither genius nor glory is conferred at once; nor do they
glimmer and fall, like drops in a grotto, at a shout. Their
foundations in the beginning may be scooped away by the
slow machinery of malicious labor; but after a season they
increase with every surge that comes against them, and
harden at every tempest to which they are exposed.
English Visitor. Dress, medicine, poetry, are subject to
fashion and variation. Public taste must first be vitiated,
and then consulted. To praise immoderately the writer
who before was immoderately depreciated is the easiest
way to knock out a gilt nail-head from the coffin; an exploit
not very glorious in itself, nor likely in the end to be very
satisfactory.
Landor. In my opinion it would be better to carry our
thieves-vinegar into the places of open corruption on each side
of us, than to turn it back to its original use of enabling us
with safety to despoil the dead.
It has been my fortune to love, in general, those men most
who have thought most differently from me on subjects wherein
others pardon no discordance. In my opinion, I have no
more right to be angry with a man whose reason has followed
up a process different from what mine has, and is satisfied
with the result, than with one who has gone to Venice while
I am at Florence, and who writes to me that he likes the
place, and that, although he said once he should settle else-
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR.
127
where, he shall reside in that city. My political opinions are
my only ones, beyond square demonstration, that I am certain
will never change. If my muscles have hardened in them and
are fit for no other, I have not on this account the right or in-
clination to consider a friend untrue or insincere, who declares
that he sees more of practical good in a quarter opposite to
that where we agreed to fix the speculative; and that he
abandons the dim astounding majesty of mountain scenery,
for the refreshing greenness and easy paths of the plain. I
have walked always where I must breathe hard, and where
such breathing was my luxury. I now sit somewhat stiller
and have fewer aspirations, but I inhale the same atmos-
phere yet.
Why should authors act like children? — snatching at the
coach and horses across the table, and breaking them and
trampling them under foot; rejoicing at the wry faces and
loud cries they occasion; and ready to hug and kiss, only at
the moment when they are called away! For myself I neither
ask nor deprecate; no compacts, no conventions, no con-
fraternities, for me. Let them consider me as a cloud if they
will; could they break and dissipate this cloud, which they
cannot, it would form again upon some other day. The
breath of the universe, directed at once against me, could
detach from me but some loose atoms, and such only as ought
to fall of themselves. Literature is not the mother who should
talk so frequently to her children about chastisement, - the
most favorite word with her ever since her reappearance
If chastisement is to be inflicted, let it fall upon
among us.
the felon who has no forbearance, no shame, no pity; who
attacks the timid and modest, the partner once of his freshest
and best assorted opinions, and, holding him by the throat,
exults and laughs, and chants to young templars and benchers,
in a loud clear voice, the ritual of apostasy as by law estab-
lished. No; even him let us rather pass quietly; and with
patience let us hear others recommend him for his decorum
to be a gentleman of the bedchamber, for his accuracy a lord
of the treasury, for his dexterity a parliamentary leader, or
for his equity a judge.
English Visitor. Oh, that cracked bell of the Bargello! it
will continue its tale and interrupt us.
If this is the gentleman from whom you promised me a
128
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
brief account of the campaign in Russia, will you request of
him that complaisance? It may throw light upon the char-
acter of Napoleon, of whom our English historians have writ-
ten no less unfaithfully than inelegantly.
Florentine. Sir, I may be thought unfavorable to a man
who forced me away from my studies, and incapacitated me
for the profession to which I was brought up. Beside, it was
only in the last campaign that I was present. Usually he,
who is about to describe the character of some remarkable
man, considers first how much invention and acuteness he
can display, and secondly how best he can bring into order
and congruity, or what the painters call keeping, his ob-
servations and reflections. For which reason, it rarely has
happened that we carry in our mind from these writers a
resemblance that is not illusory or overcharged. In great
men there are discordances, as there are inequalities in great
substances. It is only from a collection of facts, generally
too minute to be conveyed in the panniers from which public
curiosity is fed, that we are enabled to judge fairly and fully.
There is little perfect truth in the most sagacious of his-
torians, and little pure love of it in the best of men.
We are
as unwilling to exchange our thoughts for another's as our
children, whatever more they may possess of strength or
beauty; and the way to conciliate our suffrages is not by
dictating and teaching, but by laying before us evidences
and testimonies, by collecting what may corroborate them
from circumstances, and by raising us to the dignity of judges.
The ancients drew characters; we discourse on them: a
much easier matter. Every thing now is compendious and
economical: we make soups from bones, and histories from
metaphysics.
Bonaparte seems to me the most extraordinary of mortals;
because I am persuaded that so much power was never ac-
quired by another with so small an exertion of genius, and
so little of any thing that captivates the affections; or main-
tained so long unbroken in a succession of such enormous
faults, such scandalous disgraces, such disastrous failures
and defeats. I investigate him with the same dispassionate
attention as Lacépède would the spine of a serpent from
Surinam, or Cuvier the jaws of a mammoth from the
Ontario.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 129
Persons who are elevated to high rank, however modest
and virtuous, assume more or less of a fictitious character,
but congenial and agnate, if I may say it, with the former.
Bonaparte would be whatever he had last read or heard of,
Brutus or Borgia, Frederick or Charlemagne. All appeared
best that were most striking, no matter for what; and not
only a book whenever it fell in his way, or a story when he
had patience to listen to it, but even a new suit of clothes,
changed him suddenly. If his hair had been clipped in the
morning, he was at noon a Marius, at night a Sylla; no
sooner had he put on a court-dress, than he took a lesson of
dancing; for Louis XIV. danced: no sooner the uniform of
a marshal, than he tried to sing; for Villars sang.
Landor. Whoever is an imitator, by nature, choice, or
necessity, has nothing stable: the flexibility which affords
this aptitude is inconsistent with strength.
Florentine. Bonaparte's knowledge of chorography, to
which many attribute a certain part of his successes, was ex-
tremely limited. In a conversation with Gount Giovio at
Como,*
a few days after the Austrians had first abandoned
Milan, he inquired whether the Larius ran into the lagoons
of Mantua. The memory of this excellent man is fresh in
the gratitude of his fellow-citizens and friends: no one ever
doubted his veracity. So long ago as the year 1796, in which
his narrative was published, he stated that Bonaparte, in his
first campaign, had permitted or ordered his sick and wounded,
past service, not to be carried to the hospitals or entrusted
to the care of the religious and beneficent, but to be left on
the field, or killed, or thrown into the rivers. He informs us
that many, on somewhat recovering from their lamentable
state, went mad from thirst and hunger, and that among those
who were first cast into the water, the hands of many, as they
clung in agony to the barks, were broken.
Landor. Fortunate! not he who can restrain his indigna-
tion or his tears at this recital; but he who, turning his eyes
upon a Sidney, as he waves away the water from his own
parched lips to the wounded soldier near him, can say, "This
was my countryman, that my enemy."
Florentine. Much hath been repeated of the studious and
VOL. V.
* Published by Ostinelli, Como, 1796.
Q
130
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
retired habits of his youth. I had inquired into these matters
long before I perused the narrative I have quoted; the in-
quiry would otherwise have been superfluous, for no very
studious man was ever very cruel: no two things in nature
have less affinity than violence and reflection.
Landor. M. St. Leger, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment
in which he was ensign, told me that he never at that period
had heard of his progress in any branch of the mathematics;
that he was chiefly remarkable for the dirtiness of his hands
and linen, his vulgar pronunciation and phrases, his aversion
to the society of the officers, and his propensity toward the
least respectable of the privates. This too would have been
corrected by study. If Pompey had studied like Cæsar, he
might not indeed have possessed the clemency and amenity
of that accomplished man, nor have been in any respect
worthy to be called his rival; but he would certainly have
been less contracted and self-sufficient, less unsteady and
impatient, less arrogant, vindictive, and ferocious.
English Visitor. I remember no general, worthy of the
name, reviling the character of those military men who per-
formed their duty against him: for Cæsar in his Anti-Cato
did not attack the captain, but the senator and the patriot.
Bonaparte left unuttered no term of ungovernable rage and
vulgar contumely, when Sir Sydney Smith precluded him
from the subjugation of Europe by his defence of Acre.
Florentine. Spannochi, governor of Livorno, refused to
open the gates to him, then at peace with the Grand Duke.
Intending a surprise, he had made a forced march, and, ex-
pecting no resistance, he had brought no cannon with him.
He summoned the governor to surrender the town and citadel,
who refused without orders from Florence. They arrived the
next day; and the brave Spannochi was exiled to Siena, not
before the ally of the Grand Duke had cursed him, called him
by that appellation so familiar to the lower French, seized his
epaulette, spit upon him, and kicked his shin.
Landor. History for her own sake must soften some char-
acters and equivocate on some facts. She treads confidently
and firmly upon blood; she follows her clew unhesitatingly
through the labyrinths of mystery and of crime; she is em-
barrassed only by vulgarity and baseness. We feel a deep
interest whenever great masses of mankind are moved, and
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 131
seldom think or are altogether ignorant what trifling things
are the movers.
Florentine. Bonaparte was invidious of the dead almost to
the same degree as of the living. One time he asserted that
Marlborough owed his successes to Eugene, another that
Eugene owed his to Marlborough; and any officer would
have been ruined who had suggested that Marlborough was
not present at the battle of Belgrade. In a conversation at
Varese, just before his visit to Como, he appears to have
mistaken Gustavus Adolphus for Charles XII. On hearing
that the army of Gustavus had penetrated into Italy by the
lake of Como, of which a terrific account is given in the
letters of Boldoni, he denied the fact, and added, "That
madman never thought about Italy; he had other affairs,
other interests; he was sans tactique, sans calcul.”
Landor. And yet Napoleon in his youth was a historian.
He took his manuscript to Paoli: it was such as might have
been expected from an admirer of Ossian. Paoli, not long
before his death, mentioned the fact at Clifton, and said he
believed the young man had never pardoned the freedom of
his advice in recommending that the work should be delayed.
a little, until the impetuosity of his genius had subsided.
I should have imagined that the sentences were short, as
from the tripod; the general said that on the contrary they
were excessively verbose, strangely metaphorical, without any
regard to punctuation, or rather to that upon which punctua-
tion is founded; that, when you had come, as you believed,
to the end of your march, you were to start again; and often,
on setting out, you were suddenly stopped and counter-
manded. In the latter part of his life he wrote well.
Florentine. His discipline hath been extolled, and exam-
ples are cited of soldiers, in every campaign, shot for petty
thefts. To avoid an examination into the wealth of his dukes.
and princes, such as Cambacérès, Fouché, Talleyrand, and
several of his marshals and grand dignitaries, the General
Mouton, when he dined at the Escurial, which he did every
day with the King and Queen of Spain, took away the plate
after dinner, until none was left.
Landor. This fact, reported in the country where it
occurred, was confirmed to me at Florence by my friend
Galiano, who was present.
132
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
English Visitor. Whatever in different men may have been
the difference of punishment for the same offence, where
society was interested; however it may have been permitted
by special privilege that he who had renounced the deity
might renounce the laws, that he who had abjured the bishop
might supersede the citizen; all offences were equally unpar-
donable which were committed against Napoleon.
Landor. Another proof of a weak intellect: not that
forgiveness is any proof of a strong one. Offences that can
be pardoned should never be taken: Bonaparte took them
indiscriminately and voraciously, as his food. There is no
trouble or address in finding them, and in showing them there
is no wisdom or content.
Florentine. His ideas of a ruling star present a still more
signal indication of a vacillating and ill-composed mind.
He knew nothing of judicial astrology, which hath certain
laws assigned to it, and fancied he could unite it with atheism
as easily as the iron crown with the lilies; not considering
that ruling stars themselves must have a Ruler, and must
obey, far more certainly than they can indicate, his designs.
and will.
Afterward he laid by the star, and took up the crucifix to
play with; on which some sweeter recollections and more
delightful hopes might have reposed, if ever he could have
brought himself to the persuasion that either a man or a god
would suffer pain, or disseminate good, gratuitously. In the
same manner and degree as he was inconsistent in principle
he was irresolute in action. He lost his presence of mind
when he advanced to dissolve the representatives of the
people; he lost it at the battle of Marengo; and when the
allies were marching into Paris, he appeared to be deprived,
not of his judgment only and his senses, but of locomotion.
English Visitor. In one thing he was singular, and alto-
gether different from every other man: when he had accom-
plished his design, he was as foud of appearing dishonest ast
he was satisfied with having been so: he was the only pick-
pocket in the world that ever laid before the people the
instruments of his trade, and showed ostentatiously how he
had used them. Indeed he had few secrets to keep. He
invaded the territory of nations to whom any possible change
might reasonably appear a gainful speculation. Neither force
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 133
nor fraud, nor bribery itself, however largely and judiciously
administered, subverted the continental States: it was effected
by the credulity of their hopes and the incapacity of their
rulers. His attack was against the cabinet: those within
cried for quarter, gave a province or two for a ransom, kept
their places resolutely (who would abandon them in times so
critical?), complimented their master, rang their church-bells,
fired their jubilee-cannon, if one was left, for they had
surrendered only their country! Austria and Prussia fell;
they had kings and kings' servants within. Spain and Portu-
gal, unsuspicious, unprepared, undisciplined, unarmed, re-
sisted successfully; their kings and kings' servants stood with-
out.
Where there are interests, real or apparent, distinct
from those of the community, that, whatever it be wherein
they lie, should be shovelled down and carried off; for
there is the ground upon which the enemy will mount his first
masked battery. Everywhere kings and oligarchies soont
seconded Bonaparte; nations spurned and expelled him.
Florentine. If he had been contented to marry in a family
no higher, or not much higher, than his own, the graft might
have taken and the bark have healed over; but, dashing to
the earth the light of experience, he took a wife from a stock
uprooted and rejected from the land it had exhausted. The
canker it bore inherently caused the blight and decay of a
plant so recently sprung above-ground. The higher ranks,
and the lower equally, turned away with disgust and indigna-
tion at the union of a French soldier with an Austrian arch-
duchess. Of his fidelity or infidelity toward his allies I have
nothing to remark, other than that, from whatever motive, he
did greatly and incomparably more service to several who
had fought against him, and after discomfiture and subjuga-
tion had become his friends, than some governments, which
boast loudly of their good faith and generosity, did to the
most faithful and persevering of their confederates. I have
truly no leisure for discoursing, and could excite no interest
if I did, on princes first degraded into crimp-sergeants, then
caparisoned like cooks and hostlers for billets and relays, then
running the gauntlet and drummed from their dominions; on
princes in short who felt, and whose conduct has made others
feel, that even this was clemency. The description of tyrants.
is at least a stirring thing: it is like walking over red-hot
134
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ploughshares; and the vulgar are not the first in pressing on
to an exhibition so strange and antiquated.
When I was at Naples, the Marchese Rodio, formerly a
minister in the reign of Ferdinand, received the orders of
that king to place himself at the head of some insurgents in
Calabria. He surrendered by capitulation: in despite of
which he was ordered for trial under a military commission,
and was acquitted.* He wrote an account of his happy
escape to his wife and his friends. But, in the midst of this
security and joy, an order came from the emperor that the
same judges should bring him again to trial. Such an order
could not be misinterpreted: they condemned him; and he
was shot from behind as a felon, a traitor, and a rebel to his
legitimate prince. This was considered by the army as an
assassination; † and it would have been so considered even
if the emperor had committed it in his own dominions.
Never was an atrocious crime perpetrated from a baser
motive. He suspected (and it could only be suspicion) that
Rodio, when minister, dissuaded the acceptance in marriage
of a Bonaparte by the royal family. It has always been
wonderful to me what sympathy any well-educated English-
man can have with an ungenerous, ungentlemanly, unmanly
Corsican.
* The words of Courier are, "et, chose étonnante, acquitté." Vol. I.
Mémoires et Correspondance. He adds other assassinations with this
reflection: "Assurément, monsieur, ces choses-là ne sont ni du siècle
où nous vivons, ni de ce pays-ci. Tout cela s'est passé quelque part au
Japon ou bien à Tombouctoo." Even a Frenchman, and one accus-
tomed to the judicial murders of Robespierre, cries out aloud in the
midst of the army against these darker atrocities, as too inhuman for
the age.
Sa mort passe ici pour un assassinat et pour une basse vengeance.
On lui en voulait parce qu'étant contraire au mariage que l'on proposait
d'un fils ou d'une fille de Naples avec quelqu'un de la famille. L'em-
pereur a cette faiblesse de tous les parvenus; il s'expose à des refus.
Il fut refusé là et ailleurs." Such are the expressions of Paul-Louis
Courier, chef d'escadron, the deepest thinker in all the French armies,
and certainly as honest, as calm, as unprejudiced a writer as ever com-
memorated the actions of Bonaparte. He adds, “Quand le général
Vx. commandait à Livourne, il eut l'ordre (et l'exécuta) de faire arrêter
deux riches négocians de la ville, dont l'un périt comme Rodio. . . . Nous
avons vu ici (à Naples) un courier qui portait des lettres de la reine,
assassiné par ordre, ses dépêches enlevées, envoyées à Paris. L'homme
qui fit le coup, ou du moins l'ordonna, je le vois tous les jours." — Lettre
à M. de Sainte-Croix à Paris: Naples, Juillet, 1807.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 135
Landor. Eccellino and Borgia lived in ages when religior.
glared and glimmered fitfully on a benighted world, rendering
the darkness the more horrible, and when atheism sat pre-
dominant in the Vatican. No feature of crime was novel,
no attitude or stroke of violence was unexpected. But
Bonaparte lived when Europe was one large jury-box, and
when even France, recovering from the leprosy she had
bathed with blood, had placed a bench of judges before him.
He committed deliberately and slowly the most cruel, cold-
hearted murder of Toussaint L'Ouverture, while the eyes of
a Sismondi, of a Courier, and of a De Stäel, were fixed
upon him.
Florentine. Bonaparte had perhaps the fewest virtues and
the faintest semblance of them, of any man who has risen by
his own efforts to supreme power: and yet the services he
rendered to society, incommensurate as they were with the
prodigious means he possessed, were great, manifold, and
extensive. Never had been such good laws so well adminis-
tered over so large a portion of Europe; never was right
obtained with so moderate a cost; never was injury so
speedily redressed. Two of the bravest and most orderly
nations of the Continent received the benefit of excellent
kings at his hands. Bernadotte and Louis Bonaparte, the
most upright men of their order, gave no signs, either by vio-
lence or rapacity, by insolence or falsehood, that they had
been nurtured in the feverish bosom of the French Republic.
But by Napoleon's insatiate love of change, by his impatience.
to see any thing or to be any thing long together, his mild,
intelligent, and virtuous brother was forced to abdicate a
throne which he mounted amid the curses of the people and
descended amid their tears. That he might not be an op-
pressor he ceased to be a king; and his short unquiet reign
is mentioned with gratitude by the most republican and least
sensitive member of the great European family.
English Visitor. Instead of scoring maps and shifting
kings, Napoleon could have effected more than Henry IV.
designed. The road was paved for him with well-broken
materials and well rolled over. There was hardly a states-
man in Europe of capacity enough to direct a workhouse, or
write a fair copy of a washerwoman's bill. Energy was ex-
tinct upon the Continent: in England it was displayed by
136
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the crazy fanatics who wandered from field to market-place,
from market-place to field, roaring to the people that they
were damned; a truth which indeed they might have dis-
covered by themselves, if they had only put their hands into
their pockets. While, as Kléber says in your Dialogue,
"throughout the whole territory of France, throughout the
range of all her new dominions, not a single man of abilities
was neglected," in England son succeeded to father in the oli-
garchy, and expeditions were formed just weighty and durable
enough to give fortunes to those who had squandered them.
Of our generals, the most distinguished was one that rose
from bed after mid-day; of which when orders were requested,
the first answer was, "His lordship is at breakfast;" the
second, "His lordship is at lunch;" the third, "His lordship
is at dinner;" the fourth, "His lordship is dead-drunk."
The armament had been directed, first against an island where
fevers are as periodical as rains under the tropics, and ulti-
mately against a fortified city: neither the climate of the one
nor the strength of the other was known by the wisest of the
ministers, although there is hardly a gin-shop in St. Giles,
where some smuggler or smuggler's boy might not have been
found who could have given the information. The want of
it seemed so shameful, that one of the ministry,* in that hurry
and confusion of intellect which involve all his words and
actions, said in parliament, "that he knew it; but that he
wished to let his colleague have his own way, "— forgetting
that the difference cost the nation an army, and heedless that
it cost her a disgrace. His colleague was angry, some say
ashamed; and was determined to prove that, if he was unfit
to direct a council, he was not unable to direct a pistol: a far
higher qualification in his country. The choice of the com-
mander was more easily defended: no member of the cabinet
blushed at that.
I have dwelt the longer on these characters from the same
principle as the sight, after rocks, ruins, and precipices, re-
poses upon a flat surface, though fen or quagmire.
Florentine. And I, sir, have thrown together my materials
on Bonaparte as I caught them from him, not wishing to
represent a whole where no whole existed. He was courtier
*Canning. His character is given more fully in the letters of Gen.
Charles Napier.
FLORENTINE, ENGLISH VISITOR, AND LANDOR. 137
and postilion, sage and assassin, quicker than the pen could.
trace the words. Never was he observed in a moment of
highly bad or highly good humor, without expressing it by
some boisterous sally of ill-breeding. Even those who had
seen him daily, and knew him well, stood in astonishment
sometimes at the discrepancy between his language and his
office, at the disparity between the action of his hands and
his embroidered mantle. Be it remembered that, if I have
represented him as a thing not luminous in itself, I have for-
borne to represent him as one in which all light is absorbed,
or upon which none can fall. He did both greater evil and
greater good than all the other potentates of his time united:
the larger part of the evil he did they perpetuate; and nearly
the whole of the good they abolish. Priest-craft and oligar-
chy, the two worst of curses, are restored through Europe;
and royalets are only plucked forth from under his coop to
be encaged and hoodwinked by their old decoy-men.
Landor. You have taken up from one side and the other
of this strange phenomenon the brighter parts and the darker,
in just proportions:
Treis imbris torti radios, treis nubis aquosæ.
Florentine. In the retreat from Moscow he provided only
for his own security: the famished and wounded were with-
out protection. Those (to the amount of forty thousand)
who supplied the army with occasional food, by distant and
desperate excursions, were uninformed of its retreat: they per-
ished to a man, and caused to perish by their disappearance
a far greater number of their former comrades. The road was
excavated in the snow; the army seemed a phantasmagoria ;
no sound of horses' feet, no wheel of wagon or artillery, no
voice of man. Regiment followed regiment in long and
broken lines between two files of soldiers the whole way.
Some stood erect, some reclined a little, some had laid their
arms beside them, some clasped them: all were dead. Sev-
eral of these had slept in that position, but the greater part
had been placed so to leave the more room; and not a few
from every troop and detachment took their voluntary station
among them.
The barbarians, who at other seasons rush
into battle with loud cries, rarely did it. Skins covered not
their bodies only, but their faces; and, such was the intensity
138
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
as
of cold, they reluctantly gave vent, from amid the spoils they
had taken, to this first and most natural expression of their
vengeance. Their spears, although many of soft wood,
the beech, the birch, the pine, remained unbroken, while the
sword and sabre of the adversary cracked like ice. Feeble
from inanition, inert from weariness, and somnolent from the
frost that enthralled them, they sank into forgetfulness with
the Cossacks in pursuit and coming down on them, and even
while they could yet discern, for they looked more frequently
to that quarter, the more fortunate of their comrades march-
ing home. The gay and lively Frenchman, to whom war had
been sport and pastime, was now reduced to such apathy
that, in the midst of some kind speech which a friend was to
communicate to those he loved the most tenderly, he paused
from rigid drowsiness, and bade the messenger adieu. Some,
it is reported (and what is unnatural is in such extremity not
incredible), closed their eyes and threw down their muskets
while they still could use them, not from hope nor from fear,
but part from indignation at their general, whose retreats had
always been followed by the total ruin of his army; and part,
remembering with what brave nations they had once fought
gloriously, from the impossibility of defeating or resisting so
barbarous and obscure an enemy. Napoleon moved on, sur-
rounded by what guards were left to him, thinking more of
Paris than of Moscow, more of the conscripts he could enroll
than of the veterans he had left behind him. Yet this man
lives, and Ferdinand has departed.
XIII. POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
An
Gigi. Coughing and spitting, spitting and coughing, what
loving and attentive sons will you make the whole sacred
college! Again? Nay upon my life, Holy Father, this sore
throat of your Beatitude returns at an awkward season.
ugly thing at best, and ugliest of all at a jubilee; though
many more will be caught at it than will be freed. Were
I your Holiness, I would excommunicate that nasty Munich
girl.
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
139
Leo. Gigi, her bones were in the grave twenty years ago.
Gigi. And rotten thirty. I wonder whether the worms
would touch her: mayhap they might, having no palates or
noses.
Leo. By our Lady, Gigi ! few of those who did touch her had
any a short time after. I escaped as you see me though!
It being the will of our heavenly Shepherd that I should
succeed to the chief guidance of his numerous flocks on earth.
Have you seen the pilgrims?
Gigi. Yes, your Beatitude!
Leo. Are any fresh ones come in, this morning?
Gigi. No, by my faith, your Holiness! There is indeed
old Gasparo-Simone, who was whipped after the last jubilee,
as they report it; and his daughter Beatrice-Faustina, who is
no more of a fresh one than he is.
Leo. I never heard of this Gasparo-Simone.
Gigi. I wonder at that, your Holiness! — as celebrated a
pimp as any in the city. He was a veterinary surgeon in the
swine department, and used to perform to a marvel those
operations on the juvenile objects of his studies, which being,
applied to new-made Christians, whom he also attended on
the occasion, has rendered them the peculiar favorites of the
Holy Allies in all the cities upon the Continent, and enables
them, by the clearer undulation of their voices, to lift up our
souls to our Creator in the Sistine Chapel. But the said
Gasparo, having been detected in selling the selections of
rams and goats, dogs and cats, among the more delicate ones
deducted from the Circean herds, and suspected of mingling
the porcine and the Christian, was obliged to decline the prac-
tice of his profession. "I will now take my fee," he says,
"to serve his Holiness; although," he adds archly, "I am
only a licentiate." As for the Jew, he swears by Abraham he
never will recant again, until fifty more ducats are paid him.
Leo. Who is he?
Gigi. The same who was to have recanted to the Queen
of Etruria, by her royal command, and who had a hundred
ducats for it. His late Holiness could not give her Majesty
a bull-fight, and was resolute against all flatteries and entrea-
ties to order an auto-da-fè: a conversion was the least thing
he could do for her, particularly as her children were with
her; and she found both sponsor and banker. Gasparo-
140
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
We
Simone Levi now protests on his conscience that a jubilee
recantation is worth twice as much as a coronation one.
threatened him with imprisonment and cutting his tongue out.
“I shall never recant the better for that," said he,
(C nor make
the more converts ;" and then, winking his black almond eye,
"ask his Beatitude who brought Serafina Dati to him, when
he was made a cardinal."
Leo. Pimp and impostor! Does he pretend it was he?
Gigi, peace and respect! I desire to hear no more about
these idle lusts of the flesh.
Gigi. Idle enough, God knows, at our time of life, your
Holiness! They are ugly things to hear of; they cost us
many a sigh and many a stock-fish, when they are over.
Leo. There is a service good for the casting out of all
other devils but these.
Gigi. Faith! and there is a service good for the casting
out of these also, though none for the keeping out.
Leo. I know it not, at present.
Gigi. Nor I neither; but I did when I was younger; and
so did your Holiness.
Leo. No trifling, Gigi; no trifling, I desire. The German
Lutheran is more tractable, I trust, than that impure man
Levi?
Gigi. Much more: he declares that if the pretty Princess
of Lucca would but wash his feet for him, and hold upon her
lap the calves of each leg while she is wiping them, he would
turn Turk for it.
Leo. Unconscionable varlet! who would not?
I mean
Catholic. But are there really only thirty-eight pilgrims on
this occasion?
Gigi. Your Holiness must forget the four hundred you
yourself ordered from your States.
Leo. I do not count those.
Gigi. They have feet that require as much washing, and
bellies that want as much filling, as the rest. The fishing-
boat that was appointed by his Most Christian Majesty, to
convey the faithful of his kingdom to the patrimony of St.
Peter, arrived last evening. It contains five merry pilgrims
from Provence, three nuns of some distinction, — if one may
believe their stories, for they assert that they come from the
Palais-Royal, and a sturgeon ; which the nuns, unbecoming
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
141
their condition and consequence, were fighting for, until the
crew separated them with little deference, the captain crying
out jeeringly, "You have unction enough about you; and I
have a cord of St. Francis in the cabin, that, with two or
three strokes across the buttocks, will bring you, I warrant,
into as proper a state of recueillement as heart can wish."
Leo. Spouses of Christ! do you pull caps? My sheep!
do you eat sturgeon?
Gigi. The heretics in Rome think it a singular kind of
jubilee to taste nothing but macaroni, week after week.
Leo. Many of them would fain have milk in their tea,
reprobates!
Gigi. They are not terrified by the death of the goat your
Holiness commanded to be killed for giving it. If they had
seen it done they would have been for her little kid ran
after the soldier who slew her, sometimes licking his hand, at
other times twinkling its ears and rubbing them between its
legs, in order to clear itself of the blood that dropped on it
from the mother when it leaped up at her teat, and was
driven off. The Corsican guard has been called out to repel
another of these animals that was seen crossing the Ponte
Molle, and, if the male had not accompanied her, it is thought
would have succeeded. The Swiss, coming up opportunely,
acted with great vigor on the occasion: both male and fe-
male were surrounded and disabled, and are now before the
police.
Leo. I will make an example of them. Take instantly my
orders, that the male be reduced to that condition whereto
the Society of Jesus reduced the statues of the Prince of
Piombino; and I will seclude the female, just as I secluded
the Graces which my predecessor (now in purgatory for it)
placed in the Vatican. After which holy function, go and
prepare for the pediluvials.
Gigi. Anon, anon. Ages back the washings from the
feet of pilgrims must have poisoned all the fish in the Tiber,
from Castel Sant' Angelo to Fiumenica; so that the Holi-
nesses your predecessors could have fed the poor devils at no
cost. Now your Holiness may wash them indeed with a pasty
wash-ball made yesterday, and sell it again to-morrow as though
it were never handled, so little wear will there have been
upon it; but the fish must be pulled up out of the taxes.
1
142
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Leo. O unbelieving age! the number of pilgrims is smaller
by half than of the choristers and assistants. All their staves
put together would not make fiddlesticks enough for my
chapel.
Gigi. The greater part have chronic rheumatisms and
liver complaints, so cruel and desperate that your Holiness
must beware of touching the shinbone; for the rheum and
liver have their arches there whence the humors swell and
flow out. The twelve pounds of quicksilver which his Most
Catholic Majesty, King Ferdinand the purger, sent for the
silvering of such saints as were by father's side or mother's
side of Spanish extraction, and hidalgos, and had been
duly purged, have been employed in pills and unctions for
the brethren and sisterhood laboring under these bodily
infirmities.
•
Leo. Vile offering of his Majesty! Twelve pounds of
mercury are hardly worth twelve crowns, unless the price has
risen since I forget when. These brethren and sisters
must not kiss the Virgin; for she would infect the whole city
after them. Where are they?
Gigi. They are in that ward of the hospital which the
French made so neat and comfortable.
Leo. My commands were that the pilgrims should be seen
together in their dormitory, to edify the infidel; and I or-
dered to be placed there four hundred and fifty beds for them.
Gigi. Only one was occupied two were ready; but the
two pilgrims the most obedient to the ordinances of your Holi-
ness were found on one pillow, communicating.
Leo. I understand you, Gigi — and without a license?
What an age is this! the most licentious !
Gigi. Holiness, my master, I have heard it reported
that the present age is a great deal less licentious than any
former one since the establishment of the Popedom.
Leo. Ay, truly, less licentious indeed in buying licenses.
Gigi. Licentiousness is not the word, I see, but luxury.
Formerly, I have heard, a cardinal would have his dozen of
pages: in our days hardly an Eminence has a couple, and
one or other of them is sweaty as a running-footman, or stiff
and sedentary as a maestro di casa. This is, in comparison,
as a sprig of syringa to a posy an ell round, fit for a Madonna
in a new satin of Lyons.
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
143
Leo. I wish they would keep as many pages as formerly
to amuse them in their own palace-yards, with skittles and
bowls, or any other game, and not be caught on the staircase
of the Quirinal, like his Eminence the other day, sticking a
petard into the skirt of my grenadier on duty, to the laughter
of the rabble and the scandal of Holy Church. Such idle-
ness and levity!
After all, what most afflicts me is the scarcity of my pilgrims.
Gigi. I think your Beatitude would have had three or four
decently good-looking ones out of Tuscany, if the people
could have remained in ignorance of your uncourteous an-
swer to the Grand Duke.
Leo. God's liver! uncourteous! Gigi, what dost thou
mean? Is the successor of Jesus Christ expected to be
courteous?
Gigi. Pardon me, my master and Beatitude; but of all
the men that ever lived upon earth, for man he was, the most
courteous was he to whom your Beatitude is successor. He
knew who he was as well as we do; yet he was so good-
natured and fairspoken both to high and low, that- God
forgive me! but I think him as worthy as the best of the
saints; nay, in my mind he is the very next to his sweet
mother.
Leo. Do you mean Pius the Seventh ?
Gigi. I thought your Holiness had said, by implication,
that you were the successor of Jesus Christ.
Leo. Did I? I forgot it. I am so
I forgot it. I am so ; but times are altered.
Gigi. St. Peter himself could not improve upon him.
Leo. Much may be said on both sides; but, from the
elevation on which it has pleased the Holy Ghost to place
me, I cannot listen to such subjects. I would remind the
powers of Europe that I am their sovereign; and that what I
condescend to receive from them is my due, as from vassals.
Gigi. But the hundred candied citrons, which the young
Grand Duke sent to your Beatitude, had always been sent as
an act of mere courtesy. The custom, I have heard, origi-
nated with the Medici, who, according to the quaintness of
an emblematic age, I imagine, would represent their armorial
bearings of the golden balls by a present of citrons. It was
customary for the Holiness of our Lord to write a letter of
thanks for the politeness shown to him; your Sanctity did not.
144
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
write it, but ordered a secretary to say simply "that your
Sanctity had received the citrons, and appeared to be con-
tented with them."
Leo. Well, so I was.
Gigi. Next year, if I may prophesy, your Beatitude must
be contented without 'em.
Leo. I suspect as much. The last present I received
from Tuscany, by the connivance, I doubt not, of some in
power, prepares me for this affront.
Gigi. I should have thought the citrons would have been
the last.
Leo. No; while you were on my business at Orvieto, the
Archbishop of Pisa sent me three large salmons and three
codfish, — the latter only salted, the former both salted and
smoked, informing me that, according to the directions he
had received with 'em, they should not be opened, nor cut to
pieces, nor washed, as it would be injurious to the flavor and
would damage the flakes. One of each was served up at
my table on the third day of Lent, and my appetite was
sharper than usual. Maria-Fabrizio, on applying the knife,
fell at my feet and kissed them, and asked me humbly, with
his eyes closed, whether it was my pleasure that it should be
a miracle or not. I wondered what the man meant. He
brought before me the two fishes; a strong smell of turpen-
tine invaded my nostrils: the two dainties were of pine-wood,
a salmon-skin and cod-skin being drawn over them. For this
insult, offered to me in the first instance, I understand, by
one Ahab Rigworthy of Connecticut, I will forbid the Amer-
icans to visit Rome.
Gigi. My dear master, your Beatitude, if an American
should ever wish to visit Rome, it would only be to try his
wits against the Jews; or to speculate, in case St. Peter's
should come to the hammer, what may be the weight of lead
sheeting and brass nails upon the roof, how many iron cramps
in the walls, how much lime the pillars and statues would
burn into, and what vent he could open for them. I will
answer for it, there is more taste for the fine arts, and more
knowledge of them, among the galley-slaves in Civita Vecchia
than in the most wealthy citizens of the United Provinces.
Leo. That I know; and I am surprised how they could
carve a fish so like nature.
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI.
145
Gigi. An Indian carved it: the Indians both carve and
paint; they are the Giottos and Cimabues of the Anglo-
Americans. Your Holiness may exclude the new company
of the pine-fishery, and not hurt them. But could not you
have invited some of the Christian princes to be present at
this solemnity?
Leo. I pressed the youngest who are the most ductile,
and the oldest who are the most devout: neither age would
yield to me.
Gigi. No! not a Bourbon !
Leo.
The Bourbons are either curds or cream: we may
lick up a little of them, but they close upon or slip under
any impression we would make. Beside, they are never so
pious as when they have eaten a good dinner and are going
to sleep. The two Infantes of Spain proposed to attend me
on condition that I would lend them each three thousand
dollars: this, by advice of my secretaries of the interior and
of the finances, I agreed to do on their arrival at Rome.
They replied that at Madrid they could enforce credit, but
that in the provinces the people would rather leave their
houses than accommodate them with a supper or a night's
lodging; and that without the money they and their mules
would perish upon the road. The reflections were so ex-
tremely just, so notoriously true, that I had no suspicion of a
latent fraud, until "one of the faith
one of the faith" informed me clandes-
tinely, being in the king's confidence, that his Catholic
Majesty had united with his brothers the Infantes in laying
a trap for my money, and was, according to the legitimacy of
primogeniture, to have above half to his own share. On
renewing the negotiations, I proposed to accept a historical
piece by Velazquez and another by Vandyck, as my security
for the money. They, finding that the sum was below the
value of the pictures, and fearing the reward of their perfidy,
expressed the utmost sorrow that they could not attend me;
assuring me that apprehensions were entertained, from cer-
tain symptoms, that they both had caught the gout by a
constant attendance on their beloved king and brother, and
that their physicians had strongly recommended that they
should continue in their native air, without which not one of
the Faculty could answer for the consequences.
Gigi. If they were not Infantes of Spain, and brothers
VOL. V.
10
146
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
of Ferdinand the Seventh, one might call them the greatest
liars and scoundrels upon earth. Your Holiness would
then really have accommodated them, after the first proof-
impression of their moral features?
Leo. There is nothing I should not rejoice to do for a
Bourbon, unless it be to take his bill of exchange or his
word. In other respects hardly one in the family would
deceive you.
The two Infantes declare to me that they would have come
into Italy some time ago, while they had in their pockets
some of the money they received for promising the pardon
of sundry negroes, but that they could not find in their hearts
the resolution to leave behind them so fine a sight as that of
Francesco della Torre, who had just been sentenced, as an
acquaintance of Riego, to carry round his neck the portrait
of that traga-perro to the place of execution, and there to
behold it burned by the hangman.
Gigi. His wife, I read in the gazette, is sentenced to the
galleys for ten years, as being her husband's accomplice.*
I wish some lawyer could explain to me how this is. Accom-
plice in what? If she were not the accomplice of her hus-
band, she would sin against Holy Church. If she refused to
receive and entertain his acquaintance
Leo. She might receive and entertain them: such was her
duty; but she ought also to denounce them, together with
the husband, before the police or the confessor.
Gigi. Ay, ay! now I understand the meaning of reception
and entertainment. Without such explanations, from time to
time, we should forget our duties and become heretics.
Curse this pin upon my shirt! I needed not to have
crossed myself, fool as I was, in talking about these hell-
fagots. By Bacchus, it has drawn blood!
Would no prince or princess of Portugal step forward,
and lend a hand at the suds?
Leo. Prince Michael would perhaps have favored me with
his presence if it had not been required at Paris, whither he
is gone in order to protect his country from the horrors of a
constitution, after valiantly fighting against his father, in
defence of legitimacy, under the commands of the Holy
* These are facts.
f
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI,
147
Alliance. My regard for the house of Braganza is little less
than for the Capets; and I myself advised the king to delay
no longer the wishes of his people, and proposed two con-
stitutions. The first and preferable consisted of one estate;
namely, the king, but subject to the advice of his privy council
removable by him at pleasure, with the sole exception of
the archbishop of the realm, perpetual president thereof.
The second was of four estates, the king, the clergy, the
nobility, the populace. The king, as in other free countries,
should at his option lay down or reject any law; and every one
should originate with him, excepting the ecclesiastical, which
are written in heaven from the beginning, and are thence
delivered down to me, and from me to the faithful, as occa-
sion may require. The taxes were to be decreed by the king,
the clergy, and the nobility; and their impartiality was certain
and unavoidable, since they were not parties concerned. A
more extensive power was left to the populace; namely, that
of paying them. This plan however was considered as
affording a bad example; and I was called a liberal at the
court of Vienna. Hence I was afraid of pressing more
urgently a prince or princess of Portugal, lest I should be
suspected of an inclination to shake the continental system ;
which has been declared by all the sovereigns the same for
the whole body of them, whatever game they may be playing,
in one chamber or two chambers, for the amusement of their
idle and unthinking vassals. Constitution-houses and card-
built houses serve the same purpose, and are erected on the
same foundations.
A
Gigi. Kings sympathize with kings, not with nations.
field of battle, strewed with twenty thousand slain, is only a
ticket to their ball-rooms: show them a scaffold with one
(lately) crowned head upon it, and the bass-viol stands alone
in the orchestra.
Leo. This is as it should be, as it always was, and, by the
blessing of our Lady, always shall be. I declare to you,
Gigi, I am no liberal, doubt me as they may; and that I
proposed a constitution on the firm conviction that, without it,
the royal authority can never reach its utmost height in safety.
Gigi. Yet your Beatitude stands alone.
Leo. I am the ruler of kings, the vicegerent of God ;
read no other name in his commission.
I
148
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
!
Gigi.
Leo.
Gigi.
Master, my Holiness, let me look at it.
Gigi, Gigi! thine are eyes of the flesh.
They can read commissions.
Leo. Not such as ours are.
Gigi. There is nothing that your Beatitude cannot see
and do: yet I now recollect what I heard the other day;
which is, that you and the monarchs, your friends and allies,
striving to throw back the world upon the remains of Chaos
in the bosom of Vacuity, are like the little figures round
Greek vases, which strain at one thing and stand in one place
for ages, and have no more to do in the supporting or moving
of the vases than the worms have.
Leo. This language is not yours, is not an Italian's, is
not a continental's; it breathes the bluff air of England. If
I had the speaker here, I would cast him into a dungeon.
Gigi. Oh, for God's sake, your Holiness, do not think of
it! The first boat's crew that landed upon the coast would
lay Rome in ashes.
Leo. I would remove the money and snuff from the
custom-house, and the heretics could not keep possession
of the country; no, not if there were a hundred of 'em.
Gigi. Alas! sir, a hundred of them would hold all Italy
against the devil. On their landing, the carbonari would not
want fuel: there is nowhere a hill from Como to Taranto
that would not have a fire upon it. The old Bucentaur
would be alert as Argo. Every soul that is not cowled and
cassocked, and two-thirds of these, would make swords out
of soup-ladles encrusted with boiling-hot menestra, and bayo-
nets out of spits, though the roast were still in the centre of
'em, fizzing.
Leo. Gigi, it is high time to put down these bad humors,
when they prevail in ninety-nine out of a hundred; and yet
the princes would not give ear unto me, nor come to my
jubilee. A fat boar, weltering in his blood, squeezed an
Ave-Maria from my late son of Naples. My late son of
France thought of Christ and Paradise after a salmi of ten
woodcocks; and would then tell M. Blacas, the Gascon, to
feel his heart, how it was beating for the service of the faith.
My son of Modena is never so devout as when he thanks the
Lord in his mercy, after having taken up and imprisoned a
carbonaro, who had lost a brother, and who himself had bled,
POPE LEO XII. AND HIS VALET GIGI,
149
I
in fighting for the restoration of his Most Serene Highness.
Other princes boast that they have larger armies in proportion
to the extent of their territory than they: my son of Modena
boasts that he has imprisoned, or denounced to the emperor
for imprisonment, more suspected subjects than all the hereti-
cal kings on the whole Continent; although he of Prussia is
a half-Catholic in this heroism. He in his vigilance keeps
up such a well-directed fire against the philosophical and
learned, both within his dominions and without, that I sus-
pect in another year I shall have to illuminate St. Peter's for
him, as a convert to the truth.
Gigi. God forbid! He has not the heart to hold out
a single flask of oil toward it. When his wife learned Eng-
lish, he came every day into the room and caught the lessons
by stealth, paying only for one scholar, and that meanly.
He and his heir-apparent have the two poorest purses, in
their way, of any two gentlemen living. Were I your Holi-
ness, I would dally with his doubts until my successor should
have the cost of his baptism; or I would demand half-a-dozen
pieces of brass cannon from him, apprehensive that the pay-
ment of such a sum in coined money would break his heart
at the font. I myself would not undertake to teach him his
catechism, until I had made him count out upon this palm
three dollars of his Majesty's, trying them with my nail
whether they were all unclipped. Otherwise I might be disap-
pointed, as your Holiness is.
Leo. The money spent in the city by strangers, through-
out the whole time of the jubilee, will not pay for the three
conversions, although the Jew should grow reasonable; and
people are so little occupied or concerned in it, that the affair
of the Englishman and Irishman, on Ash Wednesday, has
excited a good deal of idle conversation, I hear.
know the particulars, Gigi? I am afraid they have been
misrepresented to me; for, although this is the seat of Sanctity,
it is not invariably the seat of Truth.
Do you
Gigi. If it is, her rump has left no mark on the cushion.
The story, as I heard it, is this. An Irishman, of somewhat
loose habits, had declared his intention to Father Matthew-
Roderic O'Rian of scourging himself in the church among
the penitents. Another acquaintance of Father Matthew-
Roderic said jocosely, "What will our friend Emmanuel-
150
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Roger O'Gorman do? If he lays whip to his body, it must
have been knotted by some fair hand; and no hair will touch
his skin but what he knows how to smoothen." (6
Sir," re-
plied Father O'Rian, “though Mr. O'Gorman loves wine and
women, and quarrels and swears occasionally, he is an ex-
cellent Christian at bottom, and has declared to me his inten-
tion to scourge himself."
On this, M. Tatterel, the Englishman, watched and fol-
lowed his friend O'Gorman through the crowd, and contrived
to place himself just behind him in the church. The candles
being extinguished, he heard distinctly the sobs of O'Gorman,
for none sobbed louder, and guttural interjections following
the most fanciful recommendations (some very pressing and
some very fondling) of his sinful soul to the Virgin and her
crucified Son. After which, M. Tatterel heard the scourge ;
but it sounded like the ripple of Lake Agnano on the softest
of its sands ;* and he applied a stout leather, which he had
taken down on purpose from behind his carriage, to the
shoulders of the Hibernian supplicant. At first, O'Gorman
thought it was the devil who did it, and cried, "Oh, Christ,
save me! Lord, have mercy upon me!" A laugh ill sup-
pressed, and another smart stroke across the shoulders, un-
deceived him; and, starting from his liturgical trance, he
exclaimed indignantly, "Damn your blood! what are you
at?" Seizing at the same moment the offender, he held him,
and blasted him every now and then with flashes of oaths,
while he repeated the remainder of the litany and lauds. I
was not very near, and could only catch a few of his fulmina-
tions, as the priests were chanting "Dominus vobiscum, et
cum spiritu tuo:" and "Oremus.” These words, your Holi-
ness may remember, are so long in chanting, that Signor
* Scioppius would have given the pious Irishman a capital piece of
information, if he had ever read the Infamia Famiani.
"Flagellum ego in monasterio Laurentiano manibus tractavi, et Caroli
V. sanguine (ut aiebant) adhuc oblitum vidi. Romæ tamen quotannis
quinctâ majoris hebdomadæ feriâ complures inveniuntur, flagriones et
plagipatidæ, sive plagigera hominum genera, ut Plautus loquitur, qui
tribus solis denariis conduci possunt, ut in supplicatione publicâ seu
processione, longe fortiores Carolo viros se præbeant in tergo flagris
concidendo," &c., p. 18.
Perhaps he would have been of opinion that in the year of jubilee one
is bound to scourge himself, although in other years this duty, like all the
rest, is vicarious.
M. VILLÈLE AND M. CORBIÈRE.
151
Emmanuel would not let slip so fair and tempting an oppor-
tunity of pouring out his choler and comminations. Nor did
he suffer the irreligious assailant to escape from his grasp,
either in the confusion of the service or at the close of it.
At the door he recognized the features of M. Tatterel, who
whether from apprehension or from decorum had been silent
and hid his face, and there Signor Emmanuel challenged him
to pistols the next morning. Some of the young Irish, who
were present, told of the abomination; and, by order of the
police, M. Tatterel, having first been fined three hundred
crowns, is sent away from the Roman States. M. Emmanuel-
Roger O'Gorman has been persuaded by Father Matthew-
Roderic to forego his vengeance, as likely to become a
stumbling-block and a scandal. Why, Father Matthew-
Roderic, be easy and contented now," said Signor Emmanuel-
Roger. In my own country I must take notice of him, as
you know, or there 's no living; but I do faithfully swear and
promise, as a Christian and man of honor, to let him alone
while I am in the Holy City, and the mean fellow keeps his
distance." The good father praised his resolution, and was
quite satisfied; saying in the voice of an angel, “If all
Christians did so!"
(6
XIV. M. VILLÈLE AND M. CORBIÈRE.
Villèle. We are safe: God defends the monarchy. The
giraffe is arrived.
Corbière. The Giraffe !
Villèle. The giraffe, the giraffe.
Corbière. I pay little attention to these barbarians: they
enter not within my department. In what canton of India
are his dominions?
Villèle.
Corbière.
Whose dominions? You are absent, my dear
Corbière. No, not at all. I suspected he would be trouble-
some to Pondicherry. I know very well he has agents at
Madagascar. A schooner off Cape Verde might-
think of it. We never can trust the English near us. We
let us
152
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ought not to have ceded to them so much at the late peace,
when we made them come to us in Paris and had them
under our thumb. Our trade languishes extremely in those
colonies.
Villèle.
Pardon me: I spoke of the giraffe, that the Pacha
of Egypt has sent over, in homage to his ally and friend, our
most august master.
Corbière. Oh! I did not recollect at first that the Egyp-
tians call by that name their old mummies and obelisks
Villèle. It is no mummy, no obelisk, but a return for the
fine frigate-
Corbière. Very true! very true! these nautical terms
always escape me. Why cannot we speak of them in French?
Why recur to Dutch, English, Egyptian, and what not?
Villèle. The giraffe is a beast
Corbière. I know it; who does not know that? So is the
unicorn; yet we call a ship the Unicorn, and on the same
principle the Giraffe. Have I explained my meaning?
The pacha, I understand, has given us another frigate, in
compensation for that which we equipped in his service. I
hope he has remembered that we two sent him our best sailors ;
sent him powder, artillery, gunners, and as many officers as
the Jesuits could persuade to abjure the Christian faith,
pro tempore, cum reservatione mentis, et ad certum finem,
nempe gloriam Dei et suæ ecclesiæ.”
Villèle. You speak excellent Latin.
Corbière: Ciceronian, Ciceronian: you may find the very
words in that great man's commentary, De Gloria in excelsis.
Well, well, we must not always be scholars: now to busi-
ness. The pacha, I trust, has notified his gratitude that we
ordered the frigate to sail exactly in readiness to sink
M. Cochrane.
Villele. We are unlucky in our sinking of Englishmen.
Several thousands of them were sunk by us in the late war,
as we read in the Moniteur; but they rose up again, being
amphibious, and fought like devils. The most imprudent
thing that Napoleon ever did was to drive them into the sea.
He did it fifty times at the least, and they always came out
again the stronger for it; and finally dragged him in after
them, and gave him such a ducking that he died.
Corbière. You used the word amphibious. In my literary
M. VILLÈLE AND M. CORBIÈRE.
153
recreations, which a close attention to politics renders neces-
sary, I have entered into several discussions upon that word.
Originally it is not French, and must be used cautiously, and
only in a particular acceptation. It signifies a very fierce.
animal; such as a crocodile, a dromedary, an ostrich, or a
certain serpent of the desert. It may comprehend, also, by
the figure we call meta- that is, meta, &c. a stout
man, or strong-minded one. I was formerly at table in com-
pany with the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, and
wished him to support my definition, which, as I was not then
in the ministry, no one else would. Although he declined to
lend me all the assistance I could have desired, he silenced
my opponents, or rather he conciliated all parties, by saying
that a man was justly called amphibious who could live
equally well and happily in office or out. Upon which I
turned to M. Gregoire, and said intelligibly enough, "Let
faction be silent; let quibbling cease! Democracy herself
has no longer the effrontery to deny that amphibious means
strong-minded." Overcome by authority, he bowed assent,
and declared that neither he nor any one could follow a surer
guide, in thought or action, than M. de la Rochefoucauld.
The whole party rose up, bending first to M. Gregoire, then
to the duke; who, returning the salute, took the old man by
the elbow and conducted him to the ladies. I never was less
witty with them in my life.
Villèle. Be contented; we have stripped of their authority,
we have deprived of consideration, the two persons that
twenty-five millions call the two best in France. As for the
word amphibious, we will drop it; it is an ugly word, and I
should not like it to be applied to me.
Corbière. But these English: I do not discover that they
come under the designation more than other people.
Villèle. Not indeed in your sense. I was observing that
by sea they usually give us some trouble. Having more
money than we, and oaks that are all heart, and copper and
iron upon the surface of the ground, they can construct more
ships; and, before the war is over, we always teach them how
to fight. Beside, they take twenty while we build one.
Corbière. We may laugh at that: it can only last for a time.
Now the giraffe you were talking of. There are some
difficulties, some considerations - I would know more about it
154
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Villèle. The giraffe is
Corbière. I know perfectly well what giraffes are in
general; but this one, being sent by our friend the pacha,
may differ, not perhaps essentially, but in a leg or two and
in color.
Villèle. The giraffe is a quadruped that, according to
Buffon and Tite-Live
Corbière. Oh, parbleu! now you explain the thing com-
pletely. It is the very creature put down in the list with
hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lynx, zebra, and that other. How
considerate and attentive is our friend, Mohammed-Ali !
Who could have expected that a brute of a pacha would have
followed our directions so precisely!
Villèle. He sees his interests as clearly as we see ours,
and knows them to be the same. M. Appony told you truly
that Athens would fall about this time; that England, as we
desired of her minister, would refuse to ratify the convention
with Russia and us; and that the people of Paris would be
frantic at the extinction of the Greeks, unless there came
over some odd beast to look at. The cause of kings tri-
umphs. Long live the pacha and the giraffe !
Corbière. Let us order a thanksgiving in the churches, on
this signal intervention of Divine Providence.
Villèle. Much obliged as we are to the saints of heaven
for such a declaration of their good-will in our behalf, we may
abstain at present from promulgating a royal ordinance;
particularly as the Archbishop of Paris, though a good French-
man, had a sort of objection to offer up any, for all the hail-
storms and all the inundations we have been favored with
lately to the same effect. He was of opinion that there are
people who would carp at it, observing that even the discharge
of the national guard had made a bustle, in some quarters of
Paris, for almost a week. In vain I promised him that I
would restore the censorship on printing. I did it: he still
was timid, and recommended that the thanksgiving should be
private. He told me that the utmost he could do was, on
his word of honor as archbishop and peer of France, to
assure God and his father and mother that we are quite sin-
cere, and would thank him more openly, more loudly, and
more munificently, if the king and clergy thought it expedient.
Corbière. That affair of the censorship was opportune.
M. VILLÈLE AND M. CORBIÈRE.
155
Every nation is restored to tranquillity and independence, yet
is open-mouthed for Lives of Napoleon.
Villèle. Too true I have seen one, compiled from old
gazettes, that made the author's fortune; yet the style is low
and ungrammatical wherever it is his own, and the materials
are coarse and undigested. You would not trust a valet with
an odd glove, who possesses so little discernment of the truth,
or feels so little desire of it. The author had the effrontery
to ask Madame Hortense for documents; and, because she
refused them, he blackens the whole house from top to bot-
tom, running first among the gazetteers, and boasting pub-
licly that she complied with his wishes.
Corbière. Cannot we employ him?
Villèle. Peace, peace! He serves us, and is paid by others.
The best arrangement possible.
Corbière. We may indirectly guide him to waylay our
enemies. All popular writers must have many assistants at
the press without it, who can be popular? Let him call out
as many as he wants of these; let them join him at the first
whistle, and push down the precipice any one we may point
out to him, walking alone and unconcernedly in the narrower
paths of literature, where few people come, and none help.
Villèle. The thought is a good one: we will follow it.
Unless we had erected the censorship, fifty hired writers
would not have sufficed. Those who hated and detested
Napoleon, while he was living and in authority, began to
think his death a calamity to the world. We were told of his
victories, of his institutions, of his rewards to valor, to agri-
culture, to manufactures, to letters, to all the fine arts, to
worth of every kind. We were asked what genius languished
under him, what industry was discouraged, what invention.
was reprimanded, what science was proscribed. We were
reminded of public festivals to honor the obscurer fathers of
general officers, and of public grief at their funerals. He
did great evil: how much greater must that be, people cry,
which covers and conceals it; and which lets our France,
bending in sadness over the abyss, see now but the titles of
her triumphs, and one bright name below them!
Corbière. Galimatias! galimatias!
Villèle. So it is. There is no danger of his rising up from
the dead before his time. Only one thief ever did that.
156
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Corbière. And it was not to filch or fight, but to eat a good
supper in Paradise.
Villèle. Which he must have wanted after the work of the
day.
Corbière. He died a Catholic; he confessed in articulo ;
he prayed.
Villèle. Well; we may think at some other time of the
worthy thief. Thank God, we have nothing left to apprehend
from liberalism or letters.
Corbière. I doubt whether the censorship would not have
saved us, even without the giraffe.
Villèle. There never was a question, in ancient days or
modern, in which every people of Europe was perfectly agreed,
until the Greek cause was agitated. Now, what every people
wishes, every king must forbid; or where would be distinc-
tion, where prerogative? M. Canning by our advice has
assumed the tone and air of a liberal, in order to make the
liberals of England keep the peace, and to torpify and
paralyze the efforts of the rebels. Two or three years ago
an idle visionary, an obscure and ignorant writer, in a work
entitled Imaginary Conversations, was hired by some low
bookseller to vilify all the great men of the present age, to
magnify all the philosophers and republicans of the past, and
to propose the means of erecting Greece into an independent
State. Unhappily we find ourselves reduced to adopt the
plan of this contemptible author, who writes with as much
freedom and as little care for consequences as if he could
claim the right of entering the cabinet, and held a place under
government of three thousand pounds a-year. We have, how-
ever, inserted one paragraph of our own, which totally neu-
tralizes the remainder.
Corbière. I am glad to hear it: what is that?
Villèle. Turkey shall admit only whom she chooses for
chief magistrate of Greece. This will reduce the nation to
the same condition as Wallachia and Moldavia.
Corbière. But will it not render the Greeks as ready to
admit the Russians?
Villèle. Do not look forward. Sufficient for the day is
the evil thereof. Looking forward makes philosophers;
looking backward makes dissidents: the good Catholic and
sound royalist do neither.
M. VILLÈLE AND M. CORBIÈRE.
157
Corbière. There never was any thing so wonderful, in pol-
icy, as that Russia should have abstained so long from
hostilities with Turkey, when every nation in Europe called
on her against the oppressor of Greece, the violator of trea-
ties, the persecutor of that religion of which her emperor is
head, the murderer of those patriarchs whom she venerates
as martyrs; and when the most ingenious of her enemies
could not deny. the justice of her cause. The British min-
ister would not have dared to ask from Parliament one shilling
to oppose it; and in France both royalist and republican
have entered into a conspiracy for Greece. The king and
his ministers alone are out of it: in all other countries of
Europe the minority consists of the same number and the
same persons.
Villèle. Never were three millions of francs so wisely
spent as the last of ours at Petersburg. How the child
Nicolas will stamp and stare! Chateaubriand says of us,
in his poetical mood, "Children of Charlemagne and St.
Louis, you have broken the spear of Pallas, and plucked
her owlet." Come along, my dear Corbière; we shall
sleep soundly after dinner on the cushion stuffed with her
feathers.
Corbière. Russia may give us some trouble yet; not in-
deed our colleagues, his ministers, but Nicolas. He must
find them out at last.
Villèle. Why did the booby wait to play his rubber till
the lights were out? I suspect he will wake in the morning
with a cramp in the calf, for having stood so long cross-
legged behind our chairs. M. Canning may ratify now, if he
will: our king will not take it amiss in him; nor his neither.
Corbière. We will compliment him in the name of
our royal master and in our own. We will speak magnifi-
cently of his firmness, his perseverance, his timing of things
well.
Villele. He understands jokes and jeers: he himself is a
joker and jeerer.
Corbière. Is he? How he will laugh then at the dupes
he has made!
Villèle. Ah, my dear Corbière! his dupes never shut
their eyes but upon full pockets: they are whigs and Scotch-
men; cheat them if you can; be not cheated by them if you
158
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
can help it. They are lawyers, literators, metaphysicians;
but whose metaphysics have always a nucleus of attractive
arithmetic in the centre. Scotland is the country where
every one draws advantage from every wind that springs up,
from every van that turns, and catches his grist from under
it. They are fierce with empty stomachs, and confident with
full ones. Their tune is always the same, the words alone
are different; and even these are thrown backward and
forward and shuttled with such dexterity they would persuade
you they are of the same substance, tendency, and import;
and that, if you cannot perceive it, the fault is entirely in
your apprehension. Edinburgh is the city where a youth
practises best the gymnastic exercises of patriotism. Time
never fails to render his eye-sight clearer, to knit his joints
with sounder logic, to force away in due season the shriv-
elling blossom from the swelling fruit, and to substitute the
real and weighty for the speculative and vain. Somebody of
this description, I know not whether Scotch or English, or
partaking of both, but whig unequivocally, was called a liar.
in the House of Commons by his worthy friend, M. Canning;
and you would really have thought him angry, so admirably
did he manage it.
Now he swears that M. Canning is the
most consistent of men, though (between ourselves) he has
deserted his party, supplanted his patrons, and abandoned
every principle he protested he would uphold.
Corbière. Do you call that inconsistency? I thought you
a better casuist. We have him where we wanted him: could
not we make the other his successor, if still living? He was
merely called in the chamber of representatives what we are
called everywhere else. Such men should divide the world.
Villèle. Keep the world before the fire awhile longer, and
its flesh and bones will separate more easily. Let it cool a
little in the dish before we touch it with our fingers: others
have harder ones and more enterprising, but will never lift
so much to the mouth. The pulpit is ours, the pen is ours,
the bayonet is ours; we have quashed every thing that was
not: we have only to make England do the same, now she
has a liberal for a minister. In that country, if you wrote
dwarf on the back of a giant he would go for a dwarf.
Corbière. Then the best thing you can do is to let people
there write for ever. Here indeed they have lost all decency.
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
159
Persons who do not pay fifty francs a-year in taxes, were
setting us right perpetually.
Villele. Always to set one right is very wrong: patience.
wears out under it. The indexes of a watch may be turned
by key after key, and finger after finger, until at last they are
so loose that every thing moves them but the works.
Corbière. My dear Villèle, you grow dull; you reflect;
you reason; you make observations. In fine, the Greeks are
past hope; the good cause is safe.
Villèle. Down comes the Parthenon; down comes the
temple of Theseus; down comes the study of Demosthenes.
Corbière. Away with paganism and republicanism! Vive
le roi !
Villèle. Vive le roi !
XV. ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND
TRELAWNY.
Tersitza. Brother, what have I done that the stranger
should liken me to the idols of antiquity? And he looks so
earnest and generous all the while! He must in his heart be
very spiteful and deceitful.
Odysseus. Child, strangers do not talk as we do. Be not
offended or surprised; he wished to please thee, as young
men have desired to please from time immemorial, by calling
thee like a goddess.
Tersitza. That is the thing so strange and rude in him.
Forgive me, O Englishman, these expressions: we Greeks
begin to talk Greek again, and speak our minds.
How have I offended you?
Trelawny. In no way, lady!
Tersitza. Oh, yes, I have; and now I can tell in what.
Odysseus. Speak it then; and I will obtain my friend's
pardon for it.
Tersitza. He ought to know well enough that it was not
my duty to look at him on the road; and that it became me
to turn away my face from him when he looked at me. I
did, and always will.
160
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Odysseus. Thou art more in the wrong then, my dear
Tersitza, than he was. Girls should accustom themselves to
be looked at, that the faces of men may not terrify them
like ghosts, nor draw them forward like magicians; and that
by degrees they may observe with calmness the diversity of
our natures, and discern at leisure where to place their trust.
Tersitza. He has nothing at all about him like a ghost or
a magician; though indeed ghosts whisper, and magicians
hyme.
Trelawny. For the love of God!
Tersitza. Ghosts never say that, nor magicians neither.
Odysseus. What was it?
Tersitza. He repeated a Kleptic song.
Trelawny. Tell any thing rather than that!
Tersitza. That is the very thing my brother asked of me.
Odysseus. Canst thou remember it?
Tersitza. Every line. What nonsense! what childish
babble! Half the expressions quite wrong.
Odysseus. Ho! ho! thou didst then listen to them?
Tersitza. I was obliged to listen, he spoke so low-and
and
Odysseus. Try to repeat them.
Tersitza. Oh, nothing is easier.
Say but you do not hate me as you flee;
One word bears up the heartless to his lot.
speak but to the winds! she answers not—
Not to the winds gives she one word for me !"
Odysseus.. I cannot say much for his composition, nor for
thy recital, my Tersitza.
Tersitza. Are you punished now, vain man?
Trelawny. I should be, if I could acknowledge the justice
of the last remark.
Odysseus. No mutiny! Now upon thy honor, Trelawny,
didst not thou notice how she began with something of deri-
" and
sion; and how blank this derision grew at "heartless;
how "the winds" seemed to have puffed it away; and into
what fragments fell the final verse, and how difficult to put
together in any good marching time?
Again to thyself. Candidly I declare it, Klepts sometimes
are better poets.
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
161
Trelawny. And poets usually better Klepts, although I
had a thousand times more to steal from than ever Parnassus
gave before.
Odysseus. Trelawny, if in generous hearts these senti-
ments did not excite to higher and firmer, I should discoun-
tenance and reprove them.
But
Tersitza. Pray, do, brother; for I am sure I cannot.
perhaps it would be better not to do it, if you think they will
make him firmer. As for higher, — oh, the proud creature!
he knows it, the old men seem to have no other son since
he has been among us; and, instead of a jingle and clatter
such as we used to hear, the earth every day shakes under
us with the grounding of arms when he passes. Stop him!
stop him! I will not hear him.
Odysseus. I must then reply for him, it seems.
On thy representation of the matter, which I can bring no
witness to disprove, a look from him would, with other young
persons, be somewhat more than pardonable.
Tersitza. Perhaps the custom is different in his country.
Trelawny. Different indeed it is, O ingenuous Tersitza!
And you reprove me, it seems, for a fault I committed, and
may happen to commit again; but never without checking
myself if it displeases you; never without remembering that
I am the guest, and you the sister, of the bravest among
men.
Odysseus. And dost thou take me too for a goddess or a
girl? If there are none others as brave, we are lost.
Trelawny. If there were many, not Greece alone, but the
whole world, were safe.
Tersitza. Brother, let me come up closer to you not on
this side on the other.
I could kiss the two eyes of that brave and just young man.
Odysseus. Hush! silly girl!
Tersitza. He did not hear me: I never in my whole life
took such pains to speak low.
Odysseus. Take some to say nothing.
Tersitza. Oh, oh! what is it? I cannot think, I have
only a few words more to say; but then they are so requisite,
I could not sleep until they passed my lips.
Odysseus. Has any thing been confided to thee by the
shepherdesses and wanderers on the road, about what they
VOL. V.
II
162
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
.
may have noticed or heard in remoter parts as they fled, or
in the vicinity as they tarried?
Tersitza. Nothing of that; but I am so desirous not to be
thought like an idol.
Trelawny. I said "
grace and loveliness.
a goddess," full of life and spirit and
Tersitza. Gods and goddesses, in all times and places,
have been excessively bad people for the most part, so far as
ever I could hear or read of them; and the goddess of
beauty, the same you mentioned, who ought to be better
than the rest, was one of the worst, I think, — although I am
told I have never yet learned the thousandth part of what
she did.
Odysseus. O thou little prattler! the beautiful may often
be unwise.
Tersitza. Yes, but not bad.
Odysseus. Why not that too?
Tersitza. Because they know their beauty.
White doves are always very white indeed; and those great
water-birds, to which the angels by God's order have given
the same pure appearance, feel a pleasure in possessing it,
look at it upon them, curve their necks over it, and lay their
heads now along it and now under it, as if it solaced and
supported and refreshed them.
Odysseus. Hast thou lived fourteen years, and knowest
not yet these birds?
Tersitza. I know them very well, though I never saw but
two; and you remember where.
Odysseus. Not I indeed, child!
Tersitza. Have you, who are so many years older, so bad
a memory? It is strange you should have forgotten those
tall, noble, beautiful creatures; particularly one of them:
think again.
Odysseus. Where was it ; and when?
Tersitza. Oh, that now, dear brother, that is quite impos-
sible, all pretence and dissembling! You might perhaps
not know exactly where: but when indeed, indeed now,
that is quite impossible.
Odysseus. Remind me a little; give me an idea of it, a
circumstance belonging to it.
Tersitza. It was in the beginning of spring, only five
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
163
months ago, while we were sitting, several of us together, on
a stone engraven round with goats'-heads, in the ruins of
Cheronea.
Now cannot you recollect?
Odysseus. Not perfectly.
Tersitza. You must be very tired with the ride, or heavy
with the sunshine, or thinking of other things, or uncommonly
dull and fit to think of nothing. Why! it was only four days
before our guest joined us. Ho! now you begin to come
to yourself again. Well may you smile at having so short a
memory.
I recollect it the better, because you were angry
with me for being sorry I could not go to church, there being
none to go to; and for saying it was a pity to waste so sweet
a morning in the open air, instead of thanking God for it, and
singing to him, and adoring him.
Odysseus. I never am angry with thee, my sweet little
sister; and I am sure I could not be for that expression.
Tersitza. No, you never are angry with me; but when I
am sorry, you sometimes say you shall be.
Well; did not the stranger go to church with us the next
Sunday, at Athens ? And did not I tell you I was quite as
happy as if I had been there the Sunday before?
Odysseus. Nonsense, nonsense! what has that to do with
two swans?
Tersitza. Now, then, you can think about them, can you?
I knew it was only deceit in you: I have found you out.
Odysseus. The swans appear to have made a deep impres-
sion on your imagination.
Tersitza. The nobler one came sailing up from the lake
as swiftly and steadily as if some wind had blown him, though
there was not a breath upon the water, and looked as if the
place were his own, far and wide, and we were there by his
gracious permission. It was only when he rowed among the
grass and flowers, covered with cups white and yellow, as
though a feast had been prepared for his reception, that I
perceived he had any thing underneath to move with. We
then heard some low and hoarse voices; and presently came
out his mate, slenderer and less beautiful, arranged her
plumage, went down a little way, returned again, sat motion-
less opposite us, and seemed courting us not to hurt or dis-
turb him. Agatha said they had their nest there, under the
164
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
bank; that their voices are not always low and hoarse; that
when they are about to die they sing delightfully. I was
glad the poor creatures had many years to live, for they
certainly had made no progress in their singing. But there
are birds perhaps as bad as we are; birds that will learn
nothing from those they do not like.
Odysseus. Come on, come on, my beloved little Tersitza!
thou too hast some things to learn, haply some painful ones
and we are near the school-room.
Tersitza. The cavern?
s;
Odysseus. Ay, there are caverns where the water itself
ceases to drop, and is liquid no longer. Thou also must
grow somewhat harder in this solitary and inaccessible one
of ours, my sister!
Tersitza. I am sure I cannot, every thing is so beautiful
about it; and my dear brother too will be always nigh me.
The waters that petrify must meet, as old men tell us, with
something hard in their way: I find nothing but pleasure.
Odysseus. Pleasure itself hardens some hearts.
Tersitza. How is that? I think I can guess; I think I
have discovered it. Greyhounds are very good, and look
gentler than lambs; no animal upon earth is more beautiful;
yet they always grow obdurate by the pleasure they take in
coursing the hare and antelope. If they would run after
nothing, and be contented to stand quiet and be caressed,
they would be much better. I am certain they must be
happier when they have no other creatures to pursue; and I
wish it pleased God to give them sense enough to know
it. Have you never seen how they pant; how their hearts
beat in their deep breasts; how indifferent and insensible
they appear to their best friends, who love them most and
who would call them away? They forget their own nature,
and even their own names, their cruelty so deafens them.
Odysseus. Now, Tersitza, stop! Now, Trelawny, look
before thee! Dost thou discern the cleft there?
Trelawny. Distinctly.
Odysseus. There is the mansion of thy entertainment!
Trelawny. There is no path to it.
Odysseus. For enemies none; for friends, one rough and
dangerous.
Tersitza. How shall I ever reach it?
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
165
Odysseus. Dismount.
Tersitza. Alas! would you leave me behind? Would you
send me back? The road grows evener just now; we have
passed the worst of it.
Trelawny. Sir, although I discover not yet by what way
above ground or below to enter the cavern, still, if you will
pardon the request of so high and unearned a favor, may
my first service be, under your direction, to conduct your
sister into it?
Odysseus. One alone can pass at a time.
Trelawny. Point out to me but the path; let me explore
and clear it.
Tersitza.
May I follow?
Odysseus. I must go first.
Tersitza. Are there no murderers? Do not go first, my
brother! you have many enemies. They would not hurt me,
nor a stranger so youthful and so- so disposed to say some-
thing kind and obliging to them.
O Heaven! who are all those other people that laughed
when you did?
Odysseus. To those who laugh heartily the echo alone.
returns a laugh as hearty.
Now, silence! be grave, be steady; follow me, but mind
yourselves.
Do not trust the bark upon the two larches; for, though
sufficiently rough in appearance to secure the footing, the
rain and sun and wind may have loosened it. Step rather
on the bars and hurdles nailed across. Well done! bravely
done!
Tersitza. I can go now by myself.
Odysseus. Better hold the sash yet. Is it quite tight
around thee, Trelawny?
Trelawny. It should be; for it holds two lives.
Odysseus. Trelawny, do not glance back! She marches.
firmly; she looks upon the trees, and chooses her steps.
Gently gently! gently!
Come to me! come to me! let me clasp thee! let me hug
thee, and lift thee up, and nestle thee in my beard and on my
head, my young daring eaglet!
These few paces have given thee more color than all the
ride.
166
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Tersitza. I was not frightened in the least. I will directly
walk back, just in the same manner I came, and then return
hither, if you think I was.
Odysseus. I did not say it.
→
Tersitza. You seemed to think it, though; you looked
doubtingly.
Odysseus. Welcome and thanks, Trelawny!
Tersitza. I said thanks, too; but he did not hear me.
How could he, when you caught me and threw me up into
the air?
Trelawny.
Thanks to the generous Odysseus, to the
gracious Tersitza! Health and respect, joy and long life,
to both!
Odysseus. Ho, Leonidas! what art thou about? Why
didst not thou wait on the other side until thy sister had
passed, and until some one could have led thee?
Leonidas. For fear some one should have led me, or what
is worse, and what they wanted to do, should have carried
me in their arms.*
Odysseus.
And at last thou mindest thy antelope more
than these dangerous rocks and precipices.
Leonidas. I love my antelope; I do not care about rocks
and precipices. Look, brother Odysseus! how she twinkles
her large beautiful eyes at the brightness of the snow, catch-
ing it through the tops of the trees, and knowing it is not the
sky as well as we do. She was never so near it before: she
can never have seen any till now.
I wish I might pick for her a few berries of that mountain-
ash;
it is only a little way from the larches we crossed, the
two over the chasm, would it bear me? I should stop its
waving if I leaped on it.
Odysseus. Leonidas, thou art so brave a boy, from this
hour forward thou art a soldier.
And now, being a soldier,
thou canst do nothing without orders or leave.
Leonidas. Not gather berries?
Odysseus. No, not even that.
Leonidas. But am I really a soldier?
Odysseus. Really and truly.
* Leonidas was some years younger than Tersitza. He lost his life
a short time afterward, by pursuing an antelope in company with his
sister, he fell over a precipice on Parnassus.
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
167
Leonidas. Ah! this is worth an antelope.
be hungry an hour together and hardly mind it.
Tersitza. For shame, Leonidas!
I could let her
Leonidas. That is, if she did not cry after me, letting me
know she expected something at my hands.
Odysseus. Give her to me, and I will hold her up while
she browses a little on the birch.
Leonidas. Where is there one?
Odysseus. There; that old stump, from which so many
slender boughs are waving over the cavern.
Leonidas. I had turned my back upon it. At first sight
it seems a part of the rock, it has such deep crevices and
chinks in it, and so much gray moss, hard as itself, about it.
With all its twistings and writhings, it cannot keep its ragged
coat right around it; but one patch gapes here, another there,
and much has fallen in tatters at its feet. Wonderful, then,
it should have the prettiest leaves and branches in the world,
with a motion as graceful as a peacock's.
Odysseus. We must never judge of powers and capacities
from appearances and situations. There are men who would
make thee wonder more, if thou couldst ever see and know
them. There are those who are not worth a twentieth part
of that old stump, those whose brains and whose hearts are
dryer than the bark of it, and yet on whose breath there may
be healing or there may be pestilence for Greece.
Acrive. Where is Argyropylos; where may the man be
sought? Can he have run away? It was hardly worth his
while.
Odysseus. Whither should he run, and how? He was
lamed for life by the last shot he received. Wouldst thou
any thing with him, my dear grandmother?
Acrive. I gave into his keeping the two dogs for our best
fire. A cruel, keen winter it will be, child Odysseus! What
a sight of berries, high and low, all the way up, red, yellow,
green, orange, black, purple, every sort and size!
Tersitza. Grandmamma, shall I run and look for Argyro-
pylos?
Acrive. Good girl! let me kiss thee first. Prythee of
what use are these frightful pines and beeches, and the elders
and hollies we left below, without the two dogs? The larches,
indeed, when their long sprays are dry and yellow, will look
like matting upon the floor, and keep the feet warm.
(
168
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
What art waiting for, wench? Why art loitering? What
art looking for?
Tersitza. A kiss, grandmamma.
Acrive. Life of me! I had clean forgotten it. Couldst
not thou have had that another time, when the dogs are
found? Such trifling! These are no times for idleness.
Well! there, then — and with it my best blessing; my morn-
ing blessing and fasting, God knows! Now, speed thee,
sweet soul!
Hark ye! See thou dost not come back to me without the
dogs and Argyropylos, or some tidings of the same, or I may
be fain to whip thee till the blood comes.
(Tersitza goes out.)
I would not hurt her, Christ love her! but things must be
in their places, and girls must learn to put 'em there. Son
guest, they have no heads now-a-days: we must set ours upon
'em to make 'em worth any thing. Alas! she is one of the
best, I do believe.
Trelawny. To me, the Lady Tersitza, child as she is, or
nearly so, appears the most amiable and the most prudent.
of her sex.
Acrive. Yea, yea, son guest! I will make her prudent
and amiable: leave her to me. I must say it, I have never
seen any young thing like her. But, prythee, forbear to tell
her such a tale; she might believe thee, and all would go
wrong again. One breath of a stranger makes a dimple,
where a whole day's breeze of a familiar makes none. Even
grandmothers ere now have been unminded by their own
grandchildren, or postponed to another.
Trelawny. Prodigious!
Acrive. True, as I live!
Trelawny. Then the world must have grown very bad.
Acrive. In these parts, and God knows how much further,
it has not been as it should be for a number of seasons.
Trelawny. Too surely! every one complains of it.
Acrive. Ay, son guest, thou art wise I see beyond thy few
years, and hast listened all thy lifetime, no doubt, to those
who could look back on many.
A Klept sang to me one day what I would sing again to
thee
Trelawny. How delightful it will be to hear it in the long
winter nights!
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
169
:
Acrive. Just now —
Trelawny. The Lady Tersitza would run back immediately
on hearing it, and would forget her dogs and Argyropylos.
Acrive. Just now, indeed, I could not sing it in perfection;
for, although my voice is as good as ever, my teeth do not
second it, being that some twenty of the principal ones have
failed me, at the time I want 'em most. But the substance
of the song is, that the Seasons used formerly to follow one
another in right order; that one day they took it into their
heads to dance together; that Jupiter and Juno (thou hast
heard of them probably) were angry at their doing it without
their permission, and forced them to dance together ever
since, whether they will or no. This has a meaning in it
which my child Odysseus can explain to thee. The chief
signification is, that we are colder now than formerly. What
a power of snow hath been lying these seventy last summers,
or more mayhap, on the top of our Parnassus! We have songs
written by old Klepts in my youth, or rather before, about
men and women by the dozen, that dwelt upon the highest
parts of it, singing and harping day and night, without a
fagot of furze here or there, or brazier or earthern pot
between the legs of the daintiest.
Trelawny. How could they stand it?
Acrive. They did, however.
Trelawny. Is the fact quite certain?
Acrive. Sure as gospel. All poets and songsters agree
upon it, even the young ones. Now if any one of this gentry
could pick a hole in the coat of another, he would make it
large enough to put his head and grin through.
Trelawny. But what has become of the singers and
harpers?
Acrive. Our people call them Muses. These harpers and
singers, pipers and trumpeters, have been called upon by
name, and have never answered. I believe the hard Seasons.
have carried them all off; and there was nobody who cared
to tend them, while any good could be done.
·Trelawny. I am of the same opinion.
Acrive. Let us hope to fare better in the cavern.
Trelawny. Our enemies cannot so easily assail us.
Acrive. Grandson Odysseus, then, hath chosen prudently.
Trelawny. No man ever excelled him in prudence or in
courage.
170
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Acrive. Ah, son guest, hadst thou seen my husband, the
father of Andritzo, but for the twinkling of an eye, thou
wouldst never have said this. Odysseus is a dutiful child,
and hath slain many circumcised dogs, and thrown many
more off their scent when they thirsted for our blood and
treasure. He doth not want valor nor circumspection; few
have more none in Greece, I uphold it; none upon earth, I
will be sworn for it! Here he comes. Tush! These are
the very things he cannot bear to hear; the only ones that
anger or offend him.
Odysseus. Well, Trelawny, whenever my fair grandmother
shall have ceased to whisper soft sayings in thy ear, and the
conversation shall have begun to grow a little less interesting,
look above and athwart and along! This spacious and airy
cavern, - dry in all seasons, warm in winter, cool in summer,
well supplied with water, well stored with provisions and
munition, free from insects and reptiles, inaccessible to
traitors, and easily and by few to be defended against aggres-
sors, hath been heretofore the refuge of half-extinguished
nations. Here art thou my guest and comrade; here art thou
my only confidant and friend. I will treat thee now and
evermore with the confidence a brave man deserves. Be not
offended! The gold of England hath corrupted no few
among the most courageous of my countrymen; the gold of
England enchases the dagger-hilt that aims at my life.
Trelawny. Incredible! Certainly this, however, is not
among the crimes of our late minister. The only life he ever
personally aimed at was the vilest in existence, and none
complains that he succeeded in his attempt. I forgot: he
aimed at another so like it, that it is a pity it did not form a
part of it.
Odysseus. The present time is the first thou hast ever
heard me complain of thy country, if this be complaint. I
meant it only as a reason for my sojourn here, and for con-
ducting thee so far away from amusements and from action.
Those who direct your councils are themselves no longer free.
I will not say they are slaves; but they are bound to such,
and must follow them, straight or crookedly. On this condi-
tion they are allowed what they call freedom and what they
call power,
-the liberty of seizing from others whatever suits
their purposes, and the power of stopping inquiry and of
punishing complaint.
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
171
}
Tersitza. O stranger! is there no prince in Europe who
holds it glorious to stand by the cross of his Redeemer?
Trelawny. In the darkest of former days never was there
one such wanting. Nobody now, in the whole confederacy
of despots, will trust his neighbor. They act toward one
another as if they were mutually known to be the most dis-
honest men in the world. All of them have seized what is
not theirs, and are resolved that none shall recover or retain
what is. Liberality is a scoff, a byword: utility is the phrase
in vogue; a linsey-woolsey phrase, picked out from the pack of
some Scotchman, some adept in that science which among
them is called economy, among us starvation.
Odysseus. Glory is utility to kings: it adorns the throne
and establishes it. But in the sight of politicians reference.
to the virtuous and valiant of ancient days is pedantic; ad-
miration of heroism is puerile; an enthusiastic expression is
an insurmountable hindrance to preferment.
Trelawny. Nevertheless, I walk straight across the stub-
ble-field, whatever may stick to me, burr or brier, keeping in
view the distant scenery that always has captivated and
delighted me.
Odysseus. Well sayest thou never was there wanting, in
the worst and most barbarous ages, some generous, warlike,
enthusiastic prince, to be excited by a love of fame and a
spirit of enterprise; now for the first time on record such a
character is nowhere in Europe.
Trelawny. One well-sustained note of a public singer is
able to stir and scatter those accumulations of exaction, which
would lie motionless and inert as in the mine at the cries of
all Greece, all Christendom, all Nature. The taskmasters,
for whom we labor, press forward and combine together for
no other object than the support of lawless authority.
Odysseus. All perhaps may not anathematize and persecute
us alike; but all alike would crush us. Nations of free
men and nations of slaves are equally friendly to us; the
rulers of slaves and the rulers of free men are equally our
adversaries.
Tersitza. Then which are the free; which the slaves?
Odysseus. Ask those who see better: my vision blends
them.
Trelawny. We can hope nothing from the desire of repu-
1
172
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
棗
​tation in our princes, which they cared little for keeping while
they had it: any speculation to recover it is the last idleness
and folly they are likely to fall into.
Odysseus. Alas! too true is it, my friend; and not only
in princes, though in them chiefly, the desire of reputation,
which ought to be the steadiest of desires, is the most erring.
Beneficence is nowhere, as she should be and would be, the
guide of Glory. In every part of Europe, the name slave
hath ceased to be associated with pity or with ignominy; and
yet the condition of one class of slaves is more pitiable than
it ever was, and of the other more ignominious. The appel-
lation is however too honorable for us: we are rebels! And
England is as much our enemy as if we were rebels to her.
First she brought about a peace between our murderers and
Persia, that they might come against us undivided and unim-
peded. She now is desirous of continuing one between them
and the Emperor of Russia, bound by duties and treaties to
protect the ministers of our religion. He hath suffered the
ignominy of seeing the most exalted of them, of seeing a
patriarch who approached his hundredth year, slaughtered on
the most solemn of our festivals, descending from the altar,
attired in the vestments of the church. Eternal shame! inex-
piable treason to the cause of holiness and of humanity!
Are we rebels? No! The conditions, hard as they were,
that held us to the Ottoman, were violated, cast asunder,
trampled on, by himself, for centuries. There is no rebellion
against lust and rapine: it is our duty, the first of duties, the
most sacred. After this great truth, need I remark that
many districts never owned the legitimacy or the existence
of Turkish authority; made no alliance or compact with the
invader; nor did any such live within them? Need I remark
that not only was the despot unable to protect us from an
enemy, without which ability there neither is allegiance nor
subjection, but that he was unable to defend us from his own
people, the Albanians? The bond was cancelled before;
and now his slave tore it and burned it.
A certain force by sea is requisite to constitute the block-
ade of a single port; and surely a certain force, moral or
physical, is requisite to constitute the possession of a whole
country. If any nation claim an island in the South Sea,
and never colonized it for many centuries, but only plundered
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
173
it at longer or shorter intervals, would such an exercise of
power be considered by jurists as a right over it?
Trelawny. Probably by those jurists who pointed cannon
against you for defending your families from apostasy and
violation; by those jurists who sold as slaves the first of you
that resisted; by those jurists who carried in their transports
barbarians from the deserts of Arabia, of Libya, of Nubia,
to exterminate the rest, to inhabit your country, to render it
as happy, free, and fertile, as their own; by those jurists who
intimidated a weak, wavering autocrat from aiding you, from
driving off the vultures that devoured you; by those jurists.
who pretended to the right of interference when your op-
pressor would have lost the means of oppression, and who
disclaimed the right when you appealed to them to exercise
it in the cause of religion, of justice, of mercy, and when
you would have rested from war under their flag.
Great God! by what calamity, by what crimes, have we,
who gained so much glory in war, lost so much more in
peace? Why are we, who could render all Europe free and
prosperous at no expense, by no exertion, without lifting the
arm, without raising the voice, why are we hated, scorned,
insulted universally? It is because we ought to do it, can
do it, and will not.
Odysseus. No, Trelawny! It is because you neither will
remove the grievances you promised to remove, and openly
and repeatedly as Sicily and Italy bear witness, nor will
permit others to abolish or diminish them, or even to provide
against their future accumulation. We required only your
neutrality; your national honor had other wants.
Be com-
forted! be calm! The English by degrees are growing
insensible to them.
Believe me, that country will become the most powerful
which does the most extensive good. Nations live and
remember, when princes have fallen asleep by the side of
their fathers, and dynasties have passed away. No princely
house was ever grateful long together: a people has a capa-
cious heart, a full one, a sound one, and one that may beat
for ages.
Oh! who would empoison and paralyze, who would
contract and harden, who would estrange and alienate it?
T'ersitza. Sad perverseness! Why are not other men like
you, my dear brother?
174
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Trelawny. We see nothing, O fair Tersitza, but traces of
evil in the world. The sunshine leaves no mark; the light-
ning leaves it.
Yet even the devastators of nations, not only among the
ancients, but in all modern times until ours, have felt some-
thing of anxiety for fame and reputation.
Catharine and Frederic sought the friendship and corre-
spondence of every man in Europe who stood eminent in
merit and remarkable for genius and attainments. They
established societies for the encouragement and futherance
of arts, sciences, and literature in general; and if they made
any distinction between the abettors of despotism and the
opponents, the distinction was in favor of the latter. For
what and to whom are the acknowledgments and rewards of
England? She sends the "Order of the Garter" to the King
of Portugal, on the subversion of the Constitution he had
sworn to establish and defend; Russia, the "Order of St.
Andrew" to the King of France, on the violation of the Char-
ter he had bestowed upon his people. Knighthood is now
conferred for that very action (I am loath to name it) for
which anciently it was taken away with every demonstration
of ignominy and disgrace. I know not what term designates
it among kings, who undoubtedly, like the gods of Homer,
have a language of their own; but, among us private men
in England, a very coarse monosyllable serves the purpose.
Reading such incredible stories, posterity will surely place
our age in a second series of the fabulous; but neither sage
nor schoolman will ever confound it with the heroic.
Odysseus. Let us look to that. The only country in
which any thing is reported of the heroic ages is ours.
There may be heroes out of bull-hides and brazen chariots
and there may also be heroes crushed by the inert.
;
Trelawny. It was easy to foresee that, when republics
were subverted, constitutions and the defenders of constitu-
tions would be insulted and assailed: but who could ever
have imagined that the body of Christian princes should
conspire against Christianity; that England should mediate
for Russia, and take on herself the whole negotiation, only
that Turkey might have both hands at liberty to rivet her
chains on Greece? Every indignity that could be offered
the patriots has been wantonly and prodigally cast against
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
175
3
them: even commercial relations have been foregone and
interdicted, even the course of money checked and inter-
rupted. When the supplies which you obtained by a loan in
England had reached Corfu, it was discovered that to deposit
them there was a violation of neutrality,
a law never pro-
mulgated in Europe, never in Asia, and now enforced by a
grave, sagacious governor, aspiring, no doubt, to display in
his diplomatic life the energy and lustre of his military.
Odysseus. Let such men flourish; it is their season. Bad
weather does not shake down the hip and haw, when every
better fruit, and every leaf that protected it, has fallen.
Trelawny. What those among us, who are affected by
a sense of national honor, most lament is that England,
whose generosity would cost her nothing, and whose courage
would be unexposed to fatality, stands aloof. What could
the united power (suppose it can ever be united) of Austria,
Turkey, Russia, do against England? What would they
attempt? Have they not already imposed as many and as
great restrictions on our trade as their own can suffer; and
would not a war with us dethrone whichever of their emperors
should proclaim it? The popular power is displayed the
most vigorously where only one blow is requisite; and the
guards of despots are oftentimes the tutelaries of justice.
As the generous and domestic of the beasts avoid and fly
from the anger of their master, while the ferocious are im-
pelled to violence by the activity of fear, so the civilized and
liberal of men elude the shock of royal discontent, while the
barbarous rush against it and strangle it at a grasp.
An alliance, offensive and defensive, with Greece would
render us invulnerable in the only part of the world where
we have lately shown our feebleness. We should unite to us
a maritime power, which within half a century would of itself
be equipollent on the sea with France; and we should attract
to our merchants those advantages of commerce in the Le-
vant which at present lean toward her. Chatham, if he had
lived in our days, would have cast on every side around him
the seeds of maritime and constitutional States. We may
extend our dominions in many ways; we can extend our
power in this only. None of our late ministers have had
clear views or steady aims. We have been hovering on the
shores of Greece until the season is going by for aiding her;
1
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
176
and another power will soon have acquired the glory and the
benefit of becoming her first protectress.
Odysseus. If a new world were to burst forth suddenly in
the midst of the heavens, and we were instructed by angelic
voices, or whatever kind of revelation the Creator might
appoint, that its inhabitants were brave, generous, happy, and
warm with all our sympathies, would not pious men fall
prostrate before him for such a manifestation of his power
and goodness? What then! shall these very people, these
religious, be the first to stifle the expression of our praise
and wonder at a marvel far more astonishing, at a manifes-
tation of power and goodness far more glorious and magnifi-
cent? The weak vanquish the strong; the oppressed stand
over the oppressor. We see happy, not them who never were
otherwise, not them who have made no effort, no movement
of their own to earn their happiness, like the creatures of
our imaginary new world, but those who were the most
wretched, and the most undeservedly; and who now, arising
as from the tomb, move the incumbrances of ages and of
nations from before them, and, although at present but half
erect, lower the stature of the greatest heroes.
Trelawny. Two islets, neither of them greater than a
gentleman's estate in England, defied the vengeance of the
Turkish government and the malignity of the English; de-
voting the fortunes and lives of the inhabitants, raising troops,
fitting out armaments, erecting fortresses, filling them with
munition, fighting under and upon them, setting fire to them,
and expiring with their enemy amid the ruins.
Odysseus. In more than one place was this done. Do you
carry provisions of patience enough for a long story?
Trelawny. I am ready to start with you.
Odysseus. Santa Veneranda is a fortified monastery, to
which Ali Pacha, some years before, had penetrated with an
army of fifteen thousand men, driving back the Suliots, in
number one thousand three hundred. At the sight of their
women, led thither by Mosko and Kaido, they again gave
the shout of battle and became in turn the assailants. Many
of the females fought by their sides: whoever saw a sabre
drop, or a musket, seized it. Others stayed upon the rocks,
rolling down stones on the young ardent Mussulmans, who
had fancied them an easier prey, and better worth conquer-
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY. 177
ing than their husbands and their brothers. Seven hundred
and forty heads were piled up into a trophy by the Suliots;
and Ali Pacha fled away in disguise and halted at Yannina.
This battle was fought on the 20th of July, in the year 1791.
Photo Zavellas and his sister Kaido, in the year 1802, were
received into Santa Veneranda, when he had set fire to his
house that no Turk should ever profane it, and when he had
asked as the only reward of his obedience that the archons
would watch over their country, and never let the name of
their ancestors be dishonored.
Samuel, who from the austerity of his life, from the confi-
dence and awe he had inspired by announcing the prodigies
he would undertake, and by performing them to the hour, hád
obtained the appellation of the Last Judgment, defended
Santa Veneranda with three hundred Suliots, rejecting the
offers and retorting the threats of the Mahometans. He gave
that reception to Photo and Kaido which their courage,
their perseverance, and their virtue merited. Few covet the
glory, eminent as it is, of being the first to acknowledge in
any one true greatness. He added this large sum of it to
what he had acquired by his prudence, his fortitude, his devo-
tion, and his integrity.
The Suliots now began to value him whom Samuel loved and
cherished, expressed their repentance at exacting the sacri-
fice he had made, a sacrifice to him so costly and to them.
so profitless, implored him to return among them, and
offered to rebuild his house, and to place in his hands the
supreme authority.
"If you hope," replied he, "that the enmity of Ali can be
turned aside from you by negotiation, I will undertake it: if,
on the contrary, you believe, as I do, that open war is better,
let me bear that part in it, whatever it may be, of which you
may deem me capable. Leave not, however, to me the invid-
ious duty of punishing those who were my friends and fellow-
soldiers, and now are traitors."
The adherents of the men he thus designated and denounced
at last prevailed in the council; and it was resolved that he
should go embassador to the court of Yannina. He soon dis-
covered, what he never had doubted, the perfidy of Ali, no
less evident on this occasion than on former ones, and was
not sorry to carry back the conditions of peace proposed by
VOL. V.
12
178
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
him to the Suliots. Having then returned home, and having
given his advice both to reject them and to resist the tyrant
that would impose them, in vain did his friends and followers
adjure him to remain in the city.
66
Formerly," said he, "when our archons commanded me
to assist him with seventy men against his enemies in Argyro-
Castro, and he fell upon and disarmed us and led us off captives,
I watched my opportunity of escaping, that Suli might not be
taken by surprise, although my son was yet left with him ; and
grievous, I confess it, were my fears for a life so dear to me :
have now given my promise to return.
There was silence: but among those who knew Zavellas
there could no longer be suspense or expectation. He had
spoken; and was soon in a dungeon of the fortress on the
lake.
Samuel was not inactive: he and Photo had watched with
no less curiosity than inquietude the construction of a redoubt
at Vilia. It was flanked by four towers, mounted with twelve
brass cannon, and manned with a hundred and eighteen chosen
Arnauts. Against this post Samuel demanded two hundred
men and a barrel of powder. A workman had brought him
information of its weaker parts; and leading forth in the si-
lence of night the troop intrusted to him, followed by several
of the women and many of the stouter boys, he gave them his
benediction, took up a pickaxe, ordered a few to follow and
work beside him, fixed the barrel of powder in the cavity they
had opened, laid the train, descended, and raised a loud shout
which his followers filled up courageously. The Turks rushed
forward to the tower, and disappeared with it. Ali, more indig-
nant at a loss than a disgrace, vowed vengeance; marched
through the plain of Yannina with fourteen thousand men,
and nothing lived behind him. The Suliots, emboldened by
success, and remembering that for ten whole years they had
resisted the best soldiers of the Ottoman empire and armies
equally numerous, took the field against the invader. While
they encountered death for their country, Pilio Gusi, a Suliot,
introduced the enemy into Suli. Photo Zavellas escaped.
He and Kaido and Samuel were blockaded in Santa Vener-
anda by nine thousand Turks, of whom they slew seven
hundred. Means of defence and of sustenance were failing:
a favorable capitulation, with the honors of war, was proposed
..
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
179
to them; none ventured to express the wish or the necessity of
accepting it. Samuel now spoke. "My children," said he,
"the terms offered to us include the unfortunate of Suli, who
wander on the mountains or hold out from insulated towers;
we have no time to hesitate, no choice to make; accept them."
This voice had always been heard as a father's, as a prophet's:
the terms were ratified. "And now," cried he aloud and sol-
emnly, “let us for the last time in this holy place render thanks
to God for our preservation and deliverance." The service
was performed; the soldiers went forth armed; the wounded
were supported by the women. Samuel, who told them he
should give up possession of the fortress when he saw them
safe on the road, waited until six hundred Turks had entered.
They rushed into the church, partly through fanaticism to
pollute it, and partly through avarice to plunder it. He stood
in the vault below; his hour was come; he threw a lighted
torch on the powder, and left but his name on earth.
Detachments had already set out to despoil and exterminate
the last Suliots. It was impossible to protect the women in
any other way than by defending their own lives against the
multitudes that encompassed them. Sixty mothers, those who
had become so the latest, too feeble to contend or to fly, and
unable to join their husbands or even to find them in the
conflict, far as they had penetrated into the main body of the
enemy, hurled their infants in desperation against their merci-
less pursuers, seized one another's hands and necks, raised the
hymn of death, and rushed down a precipice together. Unfor-
tunate !— for humanity must call them so even in their eternal
glory-not to have lived to see how their elder sons now avenge
their younger and them. Despo, widow of Bozzi, yet possessed
a tower in the territory of Suli, into which she had carried her
daughters, her little granddaughters, and their nearer relatives.
Defence and escape with honor were alike impossible: surren-
der was unthought of. She exhorted them to die with her: they
were passive and silent, placed themselves on some chests
of cartouches at her side, and shared with her the death of
Samuel.
Noti and Kitzo Bozzaris had withdrawn in good time from
Suli to Vurgarelli, had opened to themselves the pass of
Athanasia, forced the gorge of Theodosia, and, after fighting
two days incessantly, pressed forward to the bridge of Coracos,
180
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the termination (as they imagined) of their march.
It was
however commanded by a Turkish battery. No hope was
left to them, but of occupying the rock and monastery of
Veternizza. This they accomplished; and many were the
Turks who fell in striving to dislodge them from it. As
however there were no provisions, nor means of obtaining
any, another attack was made against the bridge. In the
attempt to force the barricade, nearly the whole troop was
slain. The women saw nothing now between them and the
Turks: husbands and brothers were called upon in vain;
no voice of pity, none of encouragement, none of acknowledg-
ment, was heard. Not all even of the children were surviv
ing; for some had been slain while held up that the fathers
might see them. Two hundred mothers ran with their infants
and little boys to where the river was deeper, just above ;
commanding their daughters to cling to them inseparably, if
they ever loved them, and if that which distinguishes the
Suliot women above all others is dear and sacred. Never
were they more obedient. The traveller who may see here-
after the whirlpools of the Achelous will shudder: they did
not.
Noti Bozzaris had fainted after his fifth wound, and was
dragged into the dungeon of Yannina; Kitzo and ten more
escaped; Photo Zavellas and Kaido, with Dimo Draco and
Zima Zervas, forced their way through the defiles, retreated
to Parga, and afterward were received with the compassion
and the honors due to them in the Ionian Isles.
But Parga
and they were doomed to be no longer the refuge of the free
or the unfortunate. The first time a whole Christian people
was ever sold openly by another Christian people to the
Mahometan was by England, on the thirteenth of March, 1817.
On the ninth of May, at sunset, the British flag was struck
from the walls of Parga.
2
Trelawny. The worst harm ever done to Greece, even
more atrocious than that inflicted on Parga, was by prevail-
ing on the King of Persia to suspend hostilities against the
Turks, and finally to accept conditions of peace in the hour
of victory. Had our ministry abstained from this interfer-
ence, your freedom had been secured in the second year of
the contest. The least we can do now is to save the remain-
der of your women and children from slavery; since, without
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
181
our active co-operation against you, these would not, for the
most part, have been fatherless and widows.
If you had
been our enemies for centuries, we could never have proved
ourselves more persevering, more systematical, or more de-
structive in our hostility. Among the innumerable acts of
partiality shown by our ministers to the enemies of Greece,
it was with grief and indignation that we saw the Zenobia
guide the Ottoman fleet into the harbor of Galasendi, and
the commander place a mortar against men fighting for the
most sacred rights of humanity, fighting to escape from a
slavery not endured in any other portion of Europe.
On every ingenuous and well-educated mind antiquity lays
a spell, of which they never afterward are dispossessed: yet,
where judgment has grown up in its due proportions, there
can exist no doubt that the Greeks in the last five years have
equalled the glories of their ancestors at any like period,
although the number that could come forward was formerly
much greater. With all the advantages of education and
example, Greece never saw at once so many disinterested
patriots and devoted chieftains. Has the whole world, in
two thousand years, beheld so many who effected so much
with means so slender? Foremost of them are Miaoulis and
Canaris, and Zavellas and Samuel, and he at whose side I
stand.
Odysseus. The politicians of England seem afraid that.
Russia may benefit by the separation of Greece from Turkey;
and Russia is afraid of the principles which operate the
separation. She wishes the exhaustion of both nations;
and, with or without the absolute conquest of the Ottoman
empire, she may threaten or endanger your dominions in
Hindostan.
Trelawny. She would not be able in half a century to
send an army into India, even if she possessed the dominions
of the Turk. Indeed, they would be far from affording her
any great facility. In less than half a century it is probable
we shall lose that empire;. but we shall lose it, like every
other we have lost and are about to lose, by alienating the
affections of the people. God grant that Russia may invade
and conquer Turkey! Not that the Russians, or any other
people on the Continent, are a better, a braver, an honester
race than the Turks, but because the policy of the govern-
182
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ment is adverse to the progress of civilization, and bears with
brutal heaviness on its cradle. God grant that Russia may
possess her! Not because it will increase her strength, but
because it will enable, and perhaps induce, her to liberate
from bondage more than one brave nation. She cannot hold
Turkey at the extremity of such a lever; and those who now
run to help her will slip from under her. It is only by a
war on the Continent, a war however in which England has
no business or right to take a part, that what ought to have
been done long ago can be at last effected. If our ministers
should enter into hostilities, the nation will certainly refuse
the succors, even though a majority in Parliament should
vote them. Here another great question starts before us, not
at present to be discussed. One thing is certain: if we can-
not stand under our debt, we cannot fight under it. Orders
to march may be given to him who has lost a leg; but what
drum or what cane shall make him go? If ever we have
another war within the next thirty years, it must be a war
of speculation, a subscription-war, in which the holders of
shares shall pay all the expenses and take all the profit. Do
you suppose we could not, without a war, have kept the army
of Louis out of Spain? An appeal to the French troops and
the French people would have shaken that drowsy enslaver
from his throne; a glance of approbation would have encour-
aged the Constitutionalists to fix the House of Braganza in
Madrid, and to inflict on a perjurer the punishment of his
crimes.
It is idle to ask what was the object, for that was varying
from the first day to the last: let us only think what have
been the consequences of a war that precipitated into death
and oblivion the better part of two generations, through
nearly the whole of Europe. It has reduced to poverty ten
millions of ourselves; it has consigned to slavery sixty mil-
lions, partly of our neighbors, partly of our allies; it has
enabled the French ministers to recall the Jesuits, the Span-
ish to restore the Inquisition, the English to appoint their
colleagues and successors; it has abolished republics and
republicanism; it has cast the dregs of democracy on and
over the loftiest thrones, constitutional and monarchal; it
has multiplied and widened the cracks and crevices of the
Church; it has sustained and sanctified the mosque; it has
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
183
proscribed the traffic of those who dealt in Africans; it has
legitimated the practices of such as carry off the Greeks ;
indulgent to the gambler, generous to the robber, honorific
to the poisoner and assassin, indifferent to the improver of
his country, inimical to the enlightener, and rancorous to the
defender.
Do I think it little, you may ask me, to have abolished the
slave-trade? Do I speak heedlessly of the blacks? No.
Much would it have been if this accursed trade were really
abolished; if we had united with America to treat as pirates
all concerned in it, French or Portuguese. We withdraw
from the redress of wrongs, we enforce no stipulation of
treaties, we act dastardly with every despot, and perfidiously
with every people. Nothing can suffer from aggression with-
out paining me when I know it: but other nations do not in-
terest me like the Greeks, to whom I owe every exalted, every
generous, every just sentiment. I never can be induced
to imagine that the extinction of all the tribes in Africa, and
all in Asia, with half of the dwellers in Europe, would be so
lamentable as the destruction of Missolonghi, or even as the
death of Bozzaris. Animal life in itself is little: animal life,
however, is nearly all that belongs to the greater part of man·
kind, unless some glorious recollection, some mighty aim
and intent, shall raise them above the level of trodden and
trite humanity. No such feeling can belong to the generality
of nations. England and Sweden, always contending against.
greater numbers, and almost always signally victorious, may
be justly proud of military glory; Italy of the arts: but
which of them in either has outrivalled Greece? Her old
heroic age was less heroic than the present: grant her another,
and your children may see a Phidias and a Sophocles.
Should I have wronged our ministers in doubting their
sincerity, and in underrating their exertions to suppress the
slave-trade, let me retract or soften the expression; let me
say, if truth will bear it, we are zealous in protecting from
slavery the remotest nations of Africa, who have always for
thousands of years been subject to that visitation, and who
never have expected, or even heard tidings of, our generous
interference. We take them away by righteous force from
under the proudest flag; we convey them to our own settle-
ments; we give them food, clothing, ground, instruction,
184
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
morals, religion. Humanity cries out, "Oh, tell them they are
men!" and we hear her. Is she silent for the Greeks? Have
their voices no echo in her breast? Do we treat them cruelly
because they have not the advantage of being barbarous? Do
we spurn them because they cling to us? Is it because they
trust only in us that we reject and repulse them, them only
of all mankind?
•
Odysseus. The ships of Ismael Bey repass the Mediter-
ranean and Archipelago, laden with the sons and daughters
of a half-extinguished race; half-extinguished under our eyes.
Their terrors are not at death; their tears are not for cap-
tivity; their loss, though their country is Greece, is not of
country. God alone can avenge it: God alone must hear it.
Something may surely be done to alleviate the sufferings of
the few survivors, wandering among naked rocks, or lifting
up their heads from the rushes in the pestilential marsh.
They require of you no land to cultivate, no sustenance, no
raiment they implore of you permission to live under the
safeguard of laws, and to partake with the most ignorant
and ferocious tribes, with murderers and cannibals, a spare
moment of your attention and concern.
Surely, surely this is not too much, if you consider that
the finest eloquence ever heard in your Parliament was ad-
mirable only in proportion as it resembled the eloquence of
our ancestors; and that gods were bowed down to and wor-
shipped by the wisest and most powerful nations for being
in form and dignity like them.
His Imperial Majesty was taught from his youth upward.
to contemplate the glories of antiquity, nearly all of which
are crowded in one people; has he never felt that there is
something more and better than ambition? Has he never
thought that he may now enjoy by uniting, as his people calls
upon him to do, the scattered members of the Greek nation
and the Greek Church? If not, yet no king or emperor on
earth has the right or the power to hinder your co-operation
with us; no people has the wish, excepting that which at
this instant is leading thousands into slavery, thousands of
women and children, from famished cities, from the cinders
of villages, from defiled altars; thousands who cry in the
agony of despair, “O God! is there none to save us?"
No monarch could ever by any exertion render so great
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
185
i
2
a service to humanity as the emperor can without an effort.
The effervescence and discontent of his subjects would sub-
side at one word. And what word? Not enslave, not depopu-
late, not conquer: but a voice that would be heard with trans-
port from every quarter of the world; a voice indeed of glad
tidings,
"Save! save!" It depends on his determination,
which nothing in the universe should set aside or shake or
alter or delay, whether he will be the most glorious, the most
potent, the most beloved, the most secure of princes, or
whether he will pass his anxious days among suspicions and
murmurs and seditions and treasons; whether he will suffer
those who have prayed with him and for him to bend under
lust and cruelty, to be driven from their country, to expire in
tortures, and to leave a progeny - not of Greeks in religion,
name, or habitation to fight in future wars against him, and
to burn the remainder of the churches to which their mothers
bore them as the last refuge.
Let one voice more inform him then- the voice of Eng-
land- that any prince in Europe would be abandoned by his
subjects, military and civil, who should venture to draw the
sword against him while his is protecting Greece.
If the appeal be ineffectual, let us believe that Providence
will bring about, by means of folly and perversity, what wis-
dom and rectitude were not permitted to accomplish.
Trelawny. The world is shaken off its axis, and the high-
est nations are gasping for existence, crushed by the super-
incumbence of the lowest. If the sufferings of others are
any alleviation to yours, turn toward them. Undoubtedly
Greece hath suffered much, Odysseus; but sufferings are
never extreme while there remains a consciousness of power
to resist. Spain has lost it. Every man in Spain who has
laid before his fellow-citizens the riper and richer fruits of
education, every man who has made a sacrifice to the public
good, is marked out for priestly and for royal vengeance.
Fewer families in the same period were reduced to misery
in France by the tyranny of Robespierre, than in Spain by
the aggression of Louis. Restoring his relative to despotic
power, he might at least have stipulated against his inordinate
and wanton love of bloodshed, and have placed some barrier,
some boundary, some imaginary line at least and visible
horizon, to the insensate fury of his bigotry and revenge. It
186
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
is known that upward of one hundred and seventy thousand
persons have been imprisoned, driven from their houses,
placed under the power of the police, or deprived of their
occupations and livelihood, since the departure of Ferdinand
from Cadiz. So much of wretchedness hath never been
occasioned by any one man within so short a time, to so
many of the brave, the industrious, and the virtuous. The
nineteenth century is now thrown back upon the sixteenth.
Odysseus. By the help of England!
Trelawny. Where there is the same oppression, there will
be the same resistance: where there is the same cruelty, there
will be exerted the same energy to extinguish it.
Deplorable! that Virtue must assume the attitude of
Despair; that bad actions must remove bad men; that
Justice must use in her defence the weapon she hath wrested
from the criminal.
Odysseus. Shall Spain abjure her first friends, her earliest
defenders? Never be it said of her; never may she lose our
sympathies.
Trelawny. But where art thou, Riego, abandoning, to
preserve the honor of thy country, the most beloved and
tender of women, in the first hour of union? Upon what
mountain-crag rests thy devoted head? Upon what parental
breast can hers repose, O blessed avenger of insulted Free-
dom? And thou, Quiroga, where is the region of thy wan-
derings? Must thou ponder and pore over the vestiges of
gratitude in lands across the Atlantic? Shall not Spaniards.
bear toward thee eternally the love and veneration that the
rudest once of Columbian tribes bear still toward their father,
Vasco?* In the islet of Pascuaro rest his bones; art thou
among those who weep over them? Envying his repose, art
thou doubtful of participating his glory? Such are the first
names for children to gather up, the last for men to drop into
oblivion.
Despots are now the revolutionists, and the learned and
liberal are become more than ever their aversion and scorn.
The present race of princes, throughout the continent of
Europe, are the most ignorant and gross barbarians that have
appeared contemporaneously since the revival of letters.
* Vasco de Quiroga, first bishop of Michuacan, was justly called so.
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
187
Odysseus. Nevertheless, the autocrat of Russia, if he con-
tinued to be master of the Ionian Islands, would from policy
found a college in them, at which the youth of Greece should
receive on easy terms the instruction necessary for the
learned professions. At present they study chiefly at Pisa,
and are under no obligation to any power that can protect
them. The French are solicitous to draw them to Paris; with
what intentions we may easily conceive. Nearly all of them
are favorable to France, and averse to England,
which might have been reversed.
a bias
Trelawny. We fancy that every thing is to be done by
money and force; and we use no other means. Much indeed
may be effected by them; but the same means must continuė
in exercise, or the effect ceases: while means less expensive
are equally efficacious and more durable.
On my way hither I visited the Ionian University, pro-
jected, founded, and principally endowed by the most public-
spirited and the most literary of our nobility. He was
unseconded by the ministry, and thwarted by the governor
of the islands. His lodgings were less habitable than would
be furnished to a journeyman tailor for eighteen pence a week
at the worst alehouse of any country town in England. I will
venture to assert that every county-jail furnishes a fraudulent
debtor with more convenient accommodation than the Eng-
lish ministry, in the prodigality of its grants, allowed to the
Chancellor of the Ionian University. And this was not the
treatment of a single year; although a single one occupies no
undefinable or scanty space in a life too far on its wane,
life of energy and of study. At the same time enormous
sums were voted for the barracks and government-house: so
preferable are guards to friends; so greatly more important
and necessary are soldiers than citizens, force than humanity,
subjection than improvement!
a
Do not hope for any aid or intervention from the ministers
of kings. They abandon you from the first moment they sit
comfortably in their places. Chateaubriand, who wrote The
Spirit of Christianity, and chatters about freedom, no sooner
was admitted to office than he demanded the punishment of
death on the publishers of sedition by which term all minis-
ters mean the exposure of their abuses or their incapacity.
When people suffer most they complain loudest ; and the same
188
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
hand that has made them suffer most will punish most severely
their complaints. The clearer the truth is, the more partisans
will it collect; and the more partisans it collects, the more
dangerous must it be to the proprietors of power. Chateau-
briand will never be seditious against any exercise of tyranny
but that which excludes him from the participation of it; and
although he may go far enough to get whipped, he will lift up
one ear and scurry off when the bloodhound takes the turn
of the beagle. He throws into his Spirit of Christianity the
spirits he secreted from the hall of the Jacobins: they were
too strong for the baptizers at Nantes and the regenerators
at Lyons.
Chateaubriand is called the most liberal of the French
privy councillors, and Canning of the English. Yet, when
Chateaubriand was in power, we found the African slave-
trade in full vigor under his protection, as we find the Euro-
pean under Canning's. Who would have believed that
England should permit the Egyptians to carry on the slave-
trade against Greece, and should remonstrate with Portugal
and France for carrying on theirs against Guinea? There is
no earnestness, no sincerity, no truth whatever in this remon-
strance. We know that our minister must tickle all the
humors of his master; and that none was ever readier to do
it, with every joint of every finger. If any proof were want-
ing of the man's duplicity, after his conduct toward Lord
Castlereagh, and indeed toward every one with whom he ever
acted, we might adduce his countenance of that A'Court who
betrayed the Neapolitans by furthering a secret correspon-
dence between the king and his son, and who was the main
instrument in undermining the Spanish constitution. Wher-
ever he is sent or maintained, it is for some such purpose as
at Madrid and Naples. Be assured that, if the English gov-
ernment should pretend to espouse your cause, it will be only
to relax your efforts, to unman your navy, and to deliver
you up to worse servitude than the past.
Odysseus. Your minister did revive our hopes by his
speeches.
Trelawny. He would be an imitator of Chateaubriand; but
he has not a tithe of the Frenchman's abilities as a writer or
a politician. The English nation was never so abased in the
eyes of Europe as when this adventurer, for the sake of sup
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
189
port from abroad, sat down quietly and silently at his post,
and saw the French army pass the Pyrenees. The French
were not recently vanquished, were not bound hand and foot
in their metropolis, when England in the reign of Louis the
Fourteenth made war against them to break a family alliance.
After a war undertaken not for power but principles, so we
are told it was, no sooner are the Spaniards become an inde-
pendent and free people, than the envoy of the King of
England aids the King of Spain to break his oath with them;
and they look down together from the royal palace, with equal
complacency, on the murder and banishment of how much
better men! With Bonaparte, when every government and
every chance was against us, we contended year after year,
that the power of the French might not prevail in Spain. Yet
the laws and institutions they introduced were calculated to
reform and civilize a generous and aspiring, but a degraded
and ferocious people. We destroy the usurpation of Napo-
leon; we restore a Bourbon; we promise a free constitution.
Every thing is in our power: what is it we do? We allow a
beaten enemy to supplant us; we allow a Bourbon to exert
an authority which a Bonaparte did not arrogate or attempt.
We give up Spain to France; we give up those who had
fought bravely at our sides to imprisonment and exile, to
tortures and death! We permit our commerce to be ex-
cluded, our merchants to be pillaged, our capitalists to be
defrauded, and our allies, or rather our ally, for we have only
one left in the universe, -to be invaded by the arms of Spain,
under the eyes and under the flag of France. Are the
Bourbons then a preferable race to the Bonapartes, that we
should be so tolerant, so long-suffering, so supine? Are
they more honorable, more just, more wise, more conciliatory?
They reign: we have strapped and cross-barred them in their
thrones, and must not ask questions about them; let us ask
then a few about the dynasty that is passed. Were the
Bonapartes the most slothful, were the Bonapartes the most
bigoted, were the Bonapartes the most unprincipled, the most
ungrateful of mankind? Were they persecutors, were they
perjurers, were they parricidal?
Odysseus. Do not wait for an answer from me.
I wish we
had them again at the head of nations, with less power and
more experience. Kings, taught to walk by priests and to
190
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ride by plunderers, will wantonly lay waste all the cultivation
that lies before them; and, since there are no others, we will
try to keep them out of Greece, where a robber the more or
the less is no grave matter. And, indeed, there is a likeli-
hood of above one the more and above one the worse where
this fur is hung out to cover them.
We have heard occasionally fine things read to us from
newspapers about the person thou hast been describing.
Trelawny. Part of our money goes to pay the people who
mislead us, and another part to pay those who enable them
to do it by newspapers, reviews, and magazines.
Odysseus. Has the sun hurt thy head, Trelawny?
Trelawny. Not at all: why do you ask me?
Odysseus. I feared it. Thou saidst, "by newspapers,
reviews, and magazines." What, in the name of God, have
military evolutions and stores in common with political
writers? Why dost thou laugh, my son?
Trelawny. We never should laugh at a mistake; and yet
it is almost the only thing we do laugh at. Faith the re-
views and magazines I was speaking of have nearly as little
to do with literature as with war. They are printed sheets,
pretending to give an account of new publications: the
writers of them are paid to traduce the character and vilify
the productions of those who think differently from their
employers. They are likewise the eulogists of the ministry
or the opposition, and are among us what the Albanians are
among you, · faithful and trusty while you pay them well, but
ready at any hour to go over to your enemy, and to be as
trusty and faithful to him, if he will pay them better.
Odysseus. Ho! these I find are the public criers who
extol your minister for his liberality and wisdom. What can
we Greeks expect from him? — Promises, delays, deception,
destitution!
Trelawny. Let those uphold the cabinet conspirator who
have places or promises or expectations; but let them obtain
no more credit for their rectitude than when they swear to
you they believe he expended fourteen thousand pounds at
Lisbon, for three months' board and lodging.
Odysseus. I do not understand how this can be.
Trelawny. Nor does any man. However, the House of
Commons, at that time composed in great part of stock-
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
191
jobbers, contractors, commissioners, together with some six-
fingered patriots who have since robbed the poor Greeks
through their rags, instituted no inquiry into the impudent
and incredible declaration that, although he had received
fourteen thousand pounds of the public money, he had spent
somewhat of his own beside. The wonder is nobody had
the spirit to propose that so disinterested a patriot should at
least be indemnified by the nation, for the few remaining
thousands he had generously disbursed in her service. He
accepted the office from Castlereagh, whom he had attempted
by clandestine means to prove unworthy of the king's confi-
dence; and Castlereagh was rejoiced to cover him with con-
tempt by acceding to his solicitation.
Odysseus. I care little what your public men are doing
one against another; but it concerns me nearly if they quail
at Russia.
Trelawny. If they apprehend any danger from her, they
should connive at the accumulation of her territory. She is
weakened by every people she enslaves, because the extremi-
ties are weightier than the centre. Europe, far from being
threatened by her with future irruption of barbarians, is
preserved from it. She will civilize her tribes she cannot
amalgamate nor unite them. Were she mistress of Turkey,
she would soon lose Poland; and the Turks, being a nobler
and more dignified race than the Muscovites, would, under
Muscovite discipline, expel them.
Tersitza. Oh, those horrid creatures!
noble? What makes them dignified?
What makes them
Odysseus. Tersitza, we see few, excepting soldiers and
robbers and (what are worse than the one, and no better
than the other) merchants. I have lived among those who,
although not the most virtuous of the Turks, are much
superior in gravity and decorousness of deportment to the
principal men in Russia or Austria, in Italy or France.
Wary and unconfiding, they behave toward all with the
winning courtesy of pliant grandeur. Never does a word
escape them within the possibility of offending. To those
who by their services have merited their favor, they are the
most grateful and the most generous of mankind. These are
their virtues. We already know too well their vices; of which
in our eyes the most grievous and intolerable is the desire of
192 -
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
holding us in subjection. So long as this is unquenched in
them, we are their enemies; but if justice or exhaustion
should subdue it, rather would I confide in them as allies
and friends than in any other nation under heaven.
Trelawny. Let us try whether we cannot bring about, by
force of arms, this desirable consummation.
I have little respect for the autocrat of Russia; little
regard or commiseration for his hordes of slaves; and I con-
fess that I regret none of his conquests, excepting Finland.
The others are happier than they were before, and will render
more service to freedom and humanity than they could have
done without a temporary subjugation. If Alexander does
not succor you, there are two reasons: first, the secret-service
money given by England, France, and Austria to his mis-
tresses and confidants; secondly, what naturally flows from
it, the allurements of pleasure that have lately been thrown
into his way by them, in order to counteract the impressions
of policy, to stifle the voice of conscience, to efface the last
vestige of honor, and to deaden any fibre in his breast that
may respond to the throbbings of his country.
Odysseus. If, as thou seemedst to say, the empire of the
Czars being already incompact and vast, a little more added
to the extremity of this enormous lever would render it so
cumbrous that no human arm could support it, policy would
not urge the autocrat to extend his dominions any farther.
Trelawny. It surely is a rational and just desire, and
countenanced by the soundest policy, to annex whatever is
within the Greek communion, with the sole exception of the
land of Greece; which is too far off, and would be too restless,
too vulnerable, and greatly more serviceable and much less
invidious as an ally. Nothing can exceed the levity and im-
pudence of French politicians, who reprehend and condemn
this imaginary project, while their court interferes in behalf
of the Catholic Greeks, and presumes even to threaten the
majority of the nation if these are compelled to perform the
duties of citizens. While they were compelled by Turkey
to perform the offices of slaves, no threat was heard, no
complaint. Russia, having a right by treaty to interfere in
behalf of her communion, exhibits more discretion and mod-
eration. She appears to have read in the astrological section
of her almanac, compiled in London and revised in Paris,
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
193
that conquest will ruin her, and she shrinks back in vacancy
with her sword unsheathed.
Odysseus. Luxury is more likely to enfeeble her; for
barbarous as she is, she is no less dissolute.
Trelawny. I believe it was never contradicted nor doubted
that every great empire has decayed through luxury this
theory I suspect to be unfounded. Luxury, if confined to
few, can do little mischief to the people at large, particularly
where the population lies scattered; if general, there can be
no better proof of the State's flourishing condition, no surer
exposition of its tutelary laws. It is only when great inter-
ests clash, only when great properties are torn away and
insulated from the mass, only when one portion of the citi-
zens has something to compensate it for the loss of country,
and the other can sustain no loss whatever, that nations are
enslaved and ruined.
We must regulate the index of luxury by the places we are
in, and calculate its effects by what it acts on. The Baby-
lonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Tartars, were
ruined by their conquests. Rome was not subdued on the
trichlinia of Apicius or Petronius. Her citizens fell away
and yielded to the enemy when no common bond of interest
held them together, when they possessed large estates in the
provinces, and their money was put out to interest in them.
By degrees the chief property of the Roman senators and
gentlemen lay out of Italy, which country therefore was
deserted by the Genius of Agriculture. Innumerable slaves
were employed about their villas and gardens, while their
tables were supplied from Syria, Pamphylia, Egypt, and
Numidia. They were never so respectable, never so for-
midable, as when they spent many months of the year on
their patrimonial estates, small ones, and thence near
enough one to another both for conviviality and for checks.
A man is not the weaker in mind or body for eating a
turbot in preference to a roach, or a peacock in preference
to a raven: in his social state he is the weaker, and deplor-
ably indeed, when his interests and affections lie beyond his
country, which soon pines away at his indifference.
Odysseus. Now, Trelawny, turn thy attention a little to
thyself.
Thou camest hither with an ardent and intense desire of
VOL. V.
13
194
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
•
doing good activity is requisite to thee. While the goats.
are being milked, and such other refreshments are preparing
for us as the place affords, let me again exhort thee to con-
sider well, I do not say the danger of remaining with me,
for that would only fix thee, but the probability of long
inaction. I know my enemies; I am aware of their machi-
nations: I shall defeat them in my own manner, at my own
season.
Trelawny. He by whose courage and conduct more Turks
have fallen than by any other chieftain's may defy them still.
Dismiss me, Odysseus, when I am found unworthy of fighting
at your side, or unable to execute the most arduous of your
commands.
Odysseus. Of ability and of zeal thou hast given me many
proofs. The memory of thy courage and of thy friendship
lies deep within my heart, but without witnesses, without
reward; for those who have fought with me may die with
me before another year; and England, in the prodigality
of her honors, hath none in reserve for the champions of
Greece.
Beside,
I am slow to mention it in thy presence, - Eng-
lish officers are accustomed to some conveniences.
Trelawny. I am no longer one of them. Lieutenants and
ensigns all expect to find here, on the morning of their arrival,
a new colonel's uniform hanging over the back of the sofa,
with a pair of shining boots on the carpet in the centre of it,
reflecting their equally smooth countenances.
Odysseus. We have nothing of this: we have only reeds
and rushes, for they grow in moist places where the enemy
cannot burn them; and when we lay down our bodies on the
field, we press a couch strewed over with such spoils as they per-
haps would not go into battle for, but the best in my opinion
that any one can win, sound sleep from sound consciences,
and, more refreshing than soundest sleep, dreams of victory
from hard fighting.
Do not fancy me ungrateful or invidious: it is true, I
expected more from the reputation of England for public
spirit and enlightened counsels.
Trelawny. We were dealers and chapmen when we were
at the best; we are now gamblers and sharpers; purse-bearers
to Ali-Pacha, purveyors to Ibrahim-Bey, slave importers and
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
195
1
1
panders to Turk, Algerine, and Egyptian. Even those who
press forward to offer you their gold filch from you while they
offer it; and you will find among these liberal men more
roguery and robbery than among the vilest slaves of the harem.
The spirit of speculation possesses them; of all spirits the
most unclean, and the last to be exorcised.
Odysseus. When I hear an Englishman speak thus of his
country, I am only the more inclined to believe in his ardent
love for her. He remembers what she has been, he feels
what she ought to be; he anticipates what she may be, and
he misrepresents what she is. Such is the effect of passion,
which has been the purest and tenderest on torn and ulcer-
ated hearts: indifference is free from it. Be thou, O Tre-
lawny, what the insensible can be without an effort, the
generous on some occasions not, — be just.
Tersitza. Do I disturb you grave men by coming back so
soon to you? Brother, I know you choose milk: drink this
while it is warm and froths. It hums and buzzes as if there
were flies upon it; but there are none in the cavern, so you
may take a large draught freely.
You being an Englishman will prefer wine: here is some,
very sweet.
Trelawny. If Tersitza has proved it.
Tersitza. I have indeed. I would not have given it to
you if I had not tasted it: we are never quite safe from our
enemies.
Odysseus. My dear Tersitza, it was not very polite in you
to offer me the milk before you had presented the wine to our
guest.
Tersitza (aside to Odysseus). Alas! I know it. I cannot
be polite to him, though I wish it above all things, and think
of nothing but my failure in it. What an effect has a stranger
in making one rude and unseemly! You never told me I
was so before.
Odysseus. I never remarked it but in this one instance.
Tersitza. Oh, how badly do you see, my brother! or how
kind you are!
Odysseus. Come along with me, child!
Trelawny, I return to thee when I find that the women
have taken their proper places of rest, and want nothing.
Tersitza.
Brother!
196
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Odysseus. What wouldst thou have?
Tersitza. I would ask something.
Odysseus. Be discreet, Tersitza!
always. Speak at once: I grant it.
Tersitza. Grant what?
Odysseus. What you would ask.
Discreet! thou art
Tersitza. Do you really now command that noble youth?
Odysseus. Is that all?
Tersitza. Tell me, tell me!
Odysseus. Yes, my love.
to obey my orders.
Do tell me!
He has declared his resolution
Tersitza. Oh! do command him then never more to ride
between me and the edge of a precipice, so terribly high, a
brook seems only a long vine-tendril from it, and a fountain
a glossy leaf; where the path is not level enough for any but
the flattest stones to lie upon it (rounder would roll off), nor
broad enough for the surest-footed beast to walk safely, though
quite alone.
Odysseus. Thoughtless young man ! why did he ride there?
Tersitza. I asked him myself the same question: he said
he rode there to admire the magnificence of the view.
Surely, to look down on the peaks of rocks and the summits
of pines is not so pleasant as to lie back and see them one
above another, from a tufted knoll of solid serpolet, where
the lavender round about it does not prick our legs because
the roe has lain down and slept on it and broken its brittle
stalks.
Tell him this remind him the very first time you ride or
walk together, and before you have gone far. He is seven
years older than I am, or six at the least, and is not half so
considerate and wise in many things.
Odysseus. I will speak to him now
Tersitza. Aside then; for he would be angry if he thought
I said any thing about him.
Odysseus. I will call him then aside.
Tersitza. Let me go quite away first.
Odysseus. Trelawny, my presence is requisite on the
eastern coast. The Pacha of Negropont has threatened that,
unless I lay down my arms, be will bring such a force against
me as shall crush me instantly.
Trelawny. Threats are useful only to the threatened: the
ODYSSEUS, TERSITZA, ACRIVE, AND TRELAWNY.
197
wise man has no will for them, and the strong man no occa-
sion.
Odysseus. Rightly spoken. Our enemy is only our senti-
nel when he challenges as the pacha does. I depart this
night.
To thy science I commit the fortification of the cavern, to
thy courage its defence. Whatever else is dear to me in the
world I intrust to thee with the same confidence. Not last
in the precious charge is thy own good name.
Andritzo, the father of Odysseus, was the chief of a village called
Maieno, in Roumely, on the channel of Talanda. His property con-
sisted of sheep and goats, and he led a wandering life on the plains in
winter, on the mountains in summer, principally those of Ptson and
Parnassus. When he was about twenty years of age, a party of Turks
having insulted the females of his family, a fray ensued: he drove them
from his house with slaughter, set it on fire, and took refuge in the
mountains. From that moment he became an outlaw, and joined a
body of Klepts, then on Parnassus. He was distinguished for sagacity,
courage, strength, and activity qualities which his son Odysseus inher-
ited without diminution. Tradition and Kleptic songs have preserved
many extraordinary tales of his prowess. Certain it is, he soon became
chieftain of all the Klepts in Roumely, and raised a regular tribute on
the whole territory that extends from the gates of Athens to those of
Yannina.
The power of the most ancient sovereign families had a similar
beginning.
His troops amounted to two thousand, scattered in small parties, and
occupying a chain of well-fortified posts. For fifteen or sixteen years
he repelled all attempts to subdue him; and after Ali Pacha had in vain
tried every stratagem for his destruction, he entered into treaty with
him, ceding to him the government of Livadia, together with a part of
Roumely. But his hatred of the Turks was too profound to be erased:
security, power, dominion, vanished before it; and, on the declaration
of war by Russia, he and his friend Lambro joined their forces with the
Russian, who conferred on Andritzo the rank of general, and that of
admiral on Lambro. The admiral had the means of escaping to Russia,
when the empress lost sight of power and glory in the lowest sensuali-
ties; and the general, after many difficulties and dangers, reached Santa
Maura, then in possession of the Venetians, who, after pledging him
their protection, gave him up to the Turk. The Russian court, with its
usual indifference to human suffering, its usual insensibility to honor,
national and personal, and its usual neglect of services no longer neces-
sary to the accomplishment of its projects, forbore to interfere; and this
brave man, who had resigned a principality in the hopes of delivering
his country, died a slave in the bagnio at Constantinople. His son,
however, has lived to see the most infamous of men, the Venetian Sen-
ate, reduced to the same condition. May they never emerge from it,
neither they nor their descendants !
Andritzo left a beautiful widow, then only fifteen years of age, with
198
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
an only son, Odysseus, born at Previsa. Ali Pacha did not visit the
offences of the father on his family. On the contrary, he took them
instantly under his protection; and, when Odysseus was twelve years
old, made him his pipe-bearer, an office of trust, confidence, and dis-
tinction. He rose rapidly in preferment, by his fidelity and courage, by
his skill and enterprise; and at eighteen Ali conferred on him the
government which his father had holden, and which he himself retained
till his death, excepting the short interval between the fall of Ali and
the Greek revolution. Odysseus never deserted in any extremity his
early friend and patron, nor relaxed in his efforts to extricate him from
the perils of his situation, but boldly broke through the blockade and
entered the fortress in person, with provisions and reinforcements. On
its capitulation, he retired to Ithaca. Here a deputation was sent to
him, hailing him as the descendant of their ancient king, and proposing
to him in their enthusiasm the means of recovering his inheritance.
Early intimation was given him, in this island, of the meditated insur-
rection of the Greeks. He landed in the Gulf of Corinth, and, hastening
to the mountains of Parnassus, raised the largest force that appeared in
one body on any part of Greece, amounting to five thousand men, most
of whom had fought under him for Ali Pacha. To quiet their con-
sciences for acting against Mahometans, they were encouraged in the
belief that he came to avenge the death of their old master; which,
among the Roumeliots and Albanians, is considered a sacred duty.
These, the first raised and the best disciplined troops in Greece, were
slain for the most part in the several hard and unequal battles of the
first two campaigns; and it had become expedient to prepare some
certain place of refuge for those who were remaining. Odysseus then
fortified the great cavern in Parnassus. To this place he removed his
wife Helena, his mother Acrive, his sister Tersitza, and her little
brother, committing to the courage and honor of Trelawny this sacred
charge. Those who dreaded the establishment of a firm and orderly
government poured gold into the hands of Gouras. This leader had
been pipe-bearer ten years to Odysseus, had been intrusted by him with
the government of Athens, had been saved by him from the death-
warrant of Ali; and now he hired ruffians and traitors to strangle him
in his sleep. Odysseus perished in the Acropolis. One Whitcombe,
an Englishman, aimed likewise at the life of Trelawny, and wounded
him with a pistol from behind. After two months of excruciating pain,
his wounds growing daily worse, he left the cavern, appointing a Hun-
garian, by name Camerone, to the chief command. Second to him was
a Turk so that, if he were removed by assassination, the crime would
be fruitless to the perpetrator. After seven months Camerone was
murdered; and the Turk, as was intended, admitted into the fortress
his own countrymen, rather than the perfidious Gouras, who had
already seized on the government of his benefactor.
Odysseus left one son, named Leonidas, born in Parnassus, a short
time before his father's death.
By those who knew and lived with this chieftain, he is represented as
a man incomparably good in all the relations of social and private life.
He was ardent, and yet patient: he was confident in himself, yet modest
toward every one; venturing on such enterprises as seemed impossible
to accomplish, and accomplishing them before the wonder at the under-
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
199
taking had subsided. Appearing in different parts of Greece at nearly
the same instant, and spreading the report by his emissaries that he was
threatening the positions he perhaps had left behind them, his intentions
and movements were unknown and unsuspected. Hence with five
thousand men he slew twenty thousand of the enemy, and allowed them
no leisure to fortify cities or throw up entrenchments.
Enthusiastic and devoted in friendship, he thought other men sincere
as himself, if they ever had sworn it, ignorant that these alone are
dangerous. He had indeed some reason to expect that ten years of
kindness and of confidence, ten years laden with benefits; that rank,
dignity, power, wealth, conferred by him on Gouras, - would have en-
sured his fidelity to the last. Ali Tebelen, the most vigilant, acute,
intuitive, intelligent, among the political men of our age (excepting the
Ali of Egypt), warned him in vain against this villain after he had
pleaded for his life and had obtained his suit. "The day will come,
Odysseus, when thou wilt wish thy plea had been rejected. Insensible
as he is to kindness and impatient of benefits, how will he bear to owe
his life to thee? Never trust him after this."
By the machinations of Gouras fell the greatest captain of his country,
at a time when Eubea was listening to his counsels, and about to rise
from her subjection. The blow by which he fell paralyzed the arm of
Freedom, and struck off the head from the body of Greece, leaving only
a few places in the Peloponnese inhabited by a people of untried cour-
age and doubtful faith.
XVI. DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-
LUIS.
Ferdinand. My brother and cousin, hem! hem! Before
we enter on the concerns of both hemispheres
John-Mary. Hey-day! Do not, your Majesty, frown and
stamp, crumpling and tearing and biting the paper: it may
be a document.
Ferdinand. Document! it is worse. Why could not the
fool of a fellow write at the bottom, or in the margin, what
two hemispheres he meant? I have played him a good trick,
however.
John-Mary. Your Majesty dances admirably.
Ferdinand. "Kyrie eleison! kyrie eleison! Gratiæ plena!
I have left a note behind me, whereby I dismiss the rogue.
I shall now have a clean new ministry.
John-Mary. A new one, indeed, is to be collected in any
posada, where there is a pack of cards, or a good appetite, or
200
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
;
a siesta nibbled in two by the fleas; but a clean one egad!
we must catch the members of it at the baptismal font, and
keep them in the swaddling clothes we find them in.
Ferdinand. Every day, when I change my shirt I change
my ministers they have not any time to be scoundrels.
John-Mary. Nor any interest to be honest men.
Ferdinand. Brother and cousin, no interest will make men
honest. Would you believe it? I gave a Japan jar of Hav-
ana snuff to one, and a commandery to another; the one
sneezed in my face, the other begged his dismissal. I am
sorry I gave the snuff and the jar: they were sold and the
money spent before night; but the commandery has a friar
in the inside, a lawyer on the outside, and a volunteer of the
faith for sentry.
John-Mary. It is then in a fair condition to reward a
long series of deserving friends.
Ferdinand.
I am now in spirits: I can go on without the
A few private matters must precede the public.
John-Mary. Of course; that is diplomatic.
paper.
Ferdinand. There is a question, my brother and cousin, to
which I never could obtain a direct and satisfactory answer.
Can you solve it?
John-Mary. Not easily, Don Ferdinand, unless I hear it.
I am no Frenchman.
Ferdinand. My confessor did indeed give me absolution;
but he declared that never a girl of low extraction, whose
ancestors had neither made war upon the Moors nor been
familiars of the Holy Inquisition, could properly be engaged
in procuring an episcopacy for any one; that the plea was
futile; and that having slept with an anointed king did not
authorize such a person to take in hand a higher charge than
a canonicate.
John-Mary. Slept with an anointed king! Who? A
strumpet?
Ferdinand. Not so bad as that.
John-Mary. An unmarried girl,
one without alliances?
No wonder she overstepped the bounds of decency.
Ferdinand. Melissa Petit had, conditionally, my royal per-
mission to negotiate for places.
John-Mary. Frencher and Frencher, every word!
Ferdinand. She transacted the business through Macañez,
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
201
at that time my valet and minister of state; who, to smoothen
his scruples, took a most perverse view of the subject, and
fancied, with heretical pravity, that if both king and minister
had possession of her she might, without censure from Holy
Mother Church or any great scandal, creep from canonicates
up to bishoprics. I myself caught them in this preliminary
function, and, not weighing his motive, laid my stick athwart
his shoulders, and bruised her wrist in such a manner that
it was useless, I found, for three days. Macañez had the
impudence to remind me that I received the greater part
of the money paid into his hands for every appointment,
civil and ecclesiastical: on which indiscretion I imprisoned
him forthwith; and will detain him for life in my royal fort
of Sant-Antonio at Coruña, praying Sant-Antonio to drive
out of his memory the sums he has paid me for my share;
and never to let him dream of Melissa Petit, without the
accompaniment of an ebony staff over the right shoulder, and
the divulsion of a good handful of hair.
John-Mary. The girl is a pluralist by profession, your
Majesty by mischance: Macañez has only one appointment;
which, however, it appears is for life. If your Majesty should
be graciously pleased to accept his resignation, I doubt not
Sant-Antonio would endow him with a peculiar gift of for-
getfulness, very desirable in this predicament. His dreams
require no spiritual intervention. Your Majesty is unsatisfied
still.
Ferdinand.
That is not the business.
John-Mary. What is then?
Ferdinand. I promised Sant-Antonio I would reward his
services with a swine in silver, weighing half a quintal. Now,
cannot I make Macañez pay the pig-money?
John-Mary. Certainly.
Ferdinand. But when I have taken all he possesses, how
can I?
John-Mary. Your Majesty must pray again to Sant-Anto-
nio for another miracle.
Ferdinand. A pretty ally! a pretty councillor! You raise
two difficulties where I could find but one. Will he perform
it, think you, before I have settled for the first?
John-Mary. Oh! that is indeed the question. Miracles
of this kind are not the miracles for our days, my brother.
202
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
There is ne'er a saint in paradise that will set his shoulder
to them. People, one would imagine, begin to have a notion
of honor, even in heaven.
Ferdinand. So much the worse: but let them look to it.
We may live to see the morning when neither saint nor
saintess shall have pantaloon or petticoat to chine. What
a mighty fine figure will they make, when the paltriest cherub
in pin-feathers shakes his collopped sides and gilt gamut,
putting his hand, if he has one, upon the place! To this
another time: we have several more subjects for our royal
consideration. My revenues are reduced, my valets, my
pages, my cooks.
John-Mary. I condole with your Majesty from the purest
sympathy, on the straits to which your catholic and royal
household has been reduced, by the intemperance of your
vassals. Well do I know what it is to want the necessaries
of life. My kitchen, which formerly had been somewhat
plenteously supplied at the expenditure of four thousand
dollars a day, was suddenly cast down to three thousand five
hundred; and, unless I had sold a box of diamonds, I must
have starved. Your Majesty is reported to have always found.
a solace in the company of your diamonds, such as a great
king of antiquity hath expressed of them (Solomon I think
it was), saying, "Delectant domi, non impediunt foris; per-
noctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur."
Ferdinand. What may that mean, my brother and cousin?
John-Mary. Oh for shame! to ask a secular what the
Bible means! Mary forbid we should ever be such heretics
as to enter into scrupulous inquiries! I learned the words
by heart, like the rest my good friars have taught me: the
meaning lies with them and upon their consciences. I always
slept with my diamonds; and they abstracted my mind from
carnal thoughts and irreligious vagaries. I declare upon my
holy faith, I would rather cohabit with them than the fairest
dame of honor in the palace, or even than my great-aunt.
Ferdinand. A great-aunt is no light matter: but one may
have one's preferences.
Brother and cousin, pray is it true that you hung one of
your finest brilliants in the right ear of St. Sebastian, accord-
ing to a vow?
John-Mary. True enough.
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
203
Ferilinand. And is it also a matter of fact that, when you
were about to return to Europe, you snatched it out again, at
the risk of tearing the said ear from gristle to tip?
John-Mary. That also is very true: it bled a little.
Ferdinand. Only a little?
John-Mary. In the night it swelled and looked angry;
and at matins the prior could not conceal from me the traces
of blood, which appeared the fresher the moment he would
have removed it with his handkerchief. However, no sooner
had I made an offering of nine thousand crusadoes, than it
suffered itself to be wiped quite dry, and I hope and believe
continues so to this hour.
Ferdinand. I should have been afraid.
John-Mary. And I was. But I never had dedicated it
to St. Sebastian in a regular form; and, the moment the
blood was dry and the crusadoes accepted, fearing he might
on second thoughts exhibit some signs of ill-will, I devoted
it regularly to all the saints in heaven, so that none could
fairly claim it for himself; and, if Sebastian had said another
word about it, they would have drowned his voice with their
clamors.
Ferdinand. What was it worth?
John-Mary. Hush! hush! you may raise his curiosity if
he should happen to be listening; and, on hearing the esti-
mate, he might slily pluck out an arrow from his side, and
play me a spiteful trick with it.
Ferdinand. Let us converse then rather on the affairs of
Europe, in which neither he nor any of the others appear to
take the least interest.
And now, my dear brother and brother-in-law, Don John-
Mary-Luis, we will read together what the French and Rus-
sian ministers have written for us to sign.
John-Mary. Would it not be better to call a reader?
Ferdinand. Oh, I can read: you would wonder how well!
John-Mary. I believe your Majesty: I have heard it as-
serted so positively and so warmly, that I ceased to doubt
it long ago.
But the paper is a whole leaf; and one may
fall upon a word here and there rather hard and slippery.
Of late years several such have been read to me: I remember
one in particular, which the minister or secretary who tran-
scribed it should not have taken just as he received it from
204
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the dancing-master; but I suppose he had not had a good
siesta.
Ferdinand. What word is that?
John-Mary. False position.
Ferdinand. By Santiago! the word false among the old
Castilians used to draw blood; but the word position here
is of great service: like a gout cordial, it brings down the
peccant matter from the head to the feet. Why does your
Faithful Majesty simper, and pull my button, and ogle and
wriggle so?
John-Mary. Brother and brother-in-law Ferdinand, tell
me now, who said that?
Ferdinand.
I said it, and say it still.
John-Mary. But ah you facetious and roguish man!
who said it first?
Ferdinand. I was the first that said it: I had it direct
from Perez Pinalta.
John-Mary. Viva Don Perez! I would have given him a
pair of diamond earrings for it, and a fine solitaire in a truss.
Ferdinand. No exportation of wit, in my lifetime, nor im-
portation neither: there is roguery enough in cigars.
John-Mary. None of my ministers ever utter such senti-
ments, or bring to me those who can.
Ferdinand. Nor mine neither: I doubt whether they ever
go to the barber's to pick up sharp things. My valet Runez,
a barber's boy some years since, on being reproached by one
of them about his former occupation, said, "My froth made
folks cleanlier; yours only sticks upon yourself and hardens
your dirt." I laughed heartily when his meaning was ex-
plained to me, which (such is my quickness in apprehending
wit) was done sooner than a text in the Scriptures could be.
Let us now proceed to business: for there is a full day's
work before us in this paper.
John-Mary. I am all ear.
Ferdinand. "His Catholic Majesty, Don Ferdinand the
Seventh, King of Spain and of the Indies, &c., and his
Faithful Majesty, Don John-Mary-Luis, King of the united
kingdoms of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve, of Guinea, Ethi-
opia, Arabia, Persia, and India," what are you counting?
John-Mary. I think they have missed one.
Ferdinand. Which?
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
205
John-Mary. I cannot recollect; but, faith! I do verily
think one is missing.
Ferdinand. Look sharp then; for our brothers the Holy
Allies may divide it among themselves, as they did Poland.
They cut up a kingdom with as little ceremony as an orange,
and suck it dry in as little time.
John-Mary. Ha! ha! ha! your Catholic Majesty has
taken another pinch, I see, from the box of Don Perez.
Why, what a stupendous knave the knave is! Have we
reached the end of the Declaration ?
Ferdinand. End? Look here!
John-Mary. Mercy on us! surely they have said the
principal things.
(C
Ferdinand. That is likely; but some remonstrances follow.
&c., &c., &c.. wishing to maintain the peace of Europe, an-
nounce their determination to suppress by force of arms, and
by such further means as the Holy Indivisible Trinity has in-
trusted them with, all secret societies whatever ; and their said
Majesties, his Catholic and his Faithful, adopting the prin-
ciples laid down by their Majesties of the Holy Alliance,
and recognized by every State in Europe as necessary to its
order and repose
your Faithful Majesty snores
resolved to appoint in the first instance such commissioners
as in their wisdom shall seem fit and effectual.”
John-Mary. What shall we do with 'em? Where shall we
send 'em? That requires long consideration.
As for ap-
pointing, the business is soon done.
(C
are
Ferdinand. If your Majesty will listen, you will find that
our brothers leave no trouble whatever for us; they tell us
what to do, and they do the best part of it themselves - “in
order to pacify, to the glory of God, the loyal and Catholic
kingdom of Ireland."
John-Mary. The Irish are not my people: they would
take it ill to be pacified by me.
Ferdinand. We must hold out a saving hand to them.
The King of Great Britain, whose subjects they are, is invited
to assist us.
John-Mary. Then indeed we may safely.
Ferdinand. "It having come to the knowledge of their
Catholic and Faithful Majesties, that a faction, supported
from without by malcontents and heretics, blind men, led
206
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
astray by their passions, have, contrary to the wishes and
interests of the majority
>>
John-Mary. Fine writing! very fine writing! His Most
Christian Majesty said the very same thing about your Maj-
esty's rebellious subjects; and I presume that for the future
it will always form a part of every State-paper, be the subject
what it may.
Ferdinand. "built residences and churches; and, not
contented therewith, have used the same for the purpose of
disseminating their wild and pernicious doctrines"-
John-Mary. Would you believe it? They are perverse
enough, I know not whether there or in England, to say
openly that a niece ought not to sleep with her uncle or
great-uncle, nor aunt or great-aunt with her nephew. If a
man cannot sleep with his own relations, with whom can he?
An uncle forsooth is not to ask in marriage his little niece:
nay, is rather to make the same proposal to an utter stranger!
I do not wonder at hearing that the northern nations went a
thousand miles in search of a country, when they would go
the same distance, even now, in search of a wife, rather than
take one from their own table and nursery.
Ferdinand. They are still fierce and barbarous, and wan-
der like wild-cats in their amours. Our holy religion has not
reclaimed them; and even the Catholics among them are
slow to double the threads of consanguinity, and to tie the
knot at the end.
John-Mary. Prejudices of ignorance! Proofs however
that what the wiser have confessed is true; namely, that
genius can no more ripen in the north than pomegranates
can, and that they never will be like us.
Ferdinand. No fear of that. Beside, who is there to teach
them? Fellows in boots and gilt buttons, hoodless and collar-
less and bandless, so ignorant that not one in a thousand
could sustain a decent thesis on the Immaculate Conception.
They call it philosophical to be incredulous on holy things,
and they are the most credulous in the world on profane
ones. In the war of the intruder against me, a man of
letters (such as theirs are) happened to be, from some silly
zeal or idle curiosity, at Santander. It was in the month of
August at mid-day, when the sun would have broiled a bonito
in five minutes, and when the cormorants were sitting fast
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
207
asleep on the rocks in the harbor, and letting their wings
drop lower than their legs, and careless what names the
sailors called them for not rising at their approach, that an
Englishman hired a launch and six rowers to conduct him to
Santillana.
John-Mary. The English, frog-hearted as one would fancy
them, are desperate for the women. I hope she would not
listen to the lewd heretic.
Ferdinand. Who listen?
John-Mary. The Señora.
Ferdinand. What Señora?
John-Mary. Donna- your Majesty did not mention her
baptismal name Santillana.
Ferdinand (aside). Oh you tiresome old fool of a Majesty!
Santillana is the name of a village on the coast town I
believe it was once which a lying Frenchman has fixed
upon as the birthplace of one Gil Blas, corrupting all the
documents he had found on some such person. This Eng-
lishman walked up and down the streets, quite alone; the
dogs on the shady side did not give themselves the trouble to
bark; the few that growled did it so indolently as not to
arouse the next. The leaves of melons, grapes, and figs
brought thither in the morning and cast from the windows,
crackled under foot. The sailors covered their faces with
their sombreros and fell asleep. The only things appearing
to move in God's universe were the swallows and the flies
and this Englishman. The very lizards panted for breath
and hardly clung against the wall. The ships upon the sea,
as was told me, lay still. It was like the day of judgment
between the trumpet and the summons.
John-Mary. People sweated so!
Ferdinand. Here the foolish heretic remained some hours,
and, the sailors say, returned just as well satisfied as if
he had conversed with any one who could have set him
right.
I will continue: "It has been resolved that the above
deliberation, together with its causes and consequences, be
notified to his Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland,
with a request that he will consider them attentively, and
further the resolutions formed thereon by their Majesties the
Catholic and the Faithful. Desirous of avoiding all possible
208
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
cause of offence to his said Majesty, and of strengthening
the ties of amity and interest which reciprocally bind and
unite them, and furthermore of manifesting to the world
their sincerity, in their adherence to the principles of the
Holy Alliance; and resolved in no instance to depart from
their upright and pacific views, their aforesaid Majesties.
propose to his aforesaid Majesty:
“That he should proscribe and exterminate the sect of
freemasons, of which his said Majesty is a member, save and
excepting his own sacred person; and that he should annul
every oath which he has taken upon that occasion, and others,
such being contrary to the principles of good government,
as inculcated by the Holy Alliance, the excellence of which
Holy Alliance his Britannic Majesty has formally and pub-
licly acknowledged, expressing his regret that the constitution
of his kingdom did not at that time allow him to become a
member of it."
John-Mary. I cannot think he said that.
Ferdinand. He did though; or his minister lied.
John-Mary. He must be a very modest man, to talk of
a constitution not "letting," with an army such as his, all
stanch and true to him, and a parliament he can dissolve
at his pleasure; in other words, as my ministers teach me,
with a parliament every soul of which he can fine to the
amount of at least four thousand pounds for a murmur,
such, it has been proved, is the regular price of seats in it,
and a wilful minister could make them come dearer to an
ill-advised opponent.
Ferdinand. He is indeed a modest man, and does not do
half the harm he might do.
John-Mary. Well, then, I would not make him bite his
own fingers till he cries.
Ferdinand. He is so good-natured and compliant, that I
could bend him at last into biting his toe-nails, and saying
grace for it.
John-Mary. Oh, then, I would not.
Ferdinand. My brother and brother-in-law and cousin,
you enter but faint-heartedly into the system of the Holy
Alliance. I have more yet for him.
John-Mary. He may turn upon us; let him lie.
Ferdinand. Nothing can alter his sweet temper. When
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
209
his troops had restored my throne to me, I ordered thanks
to be rendered to God publicly in all the churches.
John-Mary. Who would not? I did the same.
Ferdinand. Not without some discontent and scandal.
Your Majesty rendered thanks to the Almighty for delivering
you from the enemies; I for delivering me from the heretics:
and the Almighty did not hear a word from me about the
others. His Majesty the King of Great Britain was so pleased
at me, that he sent me his congratulations.
John-Mary. He sent the same to me, who thanked God,
it seems, for much less than you thanked him for.
Ferdinand. Listen. "That his Britannic Majesty will
remove the Protestants from his kingdom of Ireland, placing
them in London or Windsor or Brighton, or anywhere it may
please his Majesty, under the eye of the police, so that they
may not annoy their Catholic brethren; and also that he will
be graciously pleased to restore the benefices to the Catholic
bishops and clergy. Resolved, as their Catholic and Faithful
Majesties are, never to interfere in the internal affairs of
other countries, they are resolved nevertheless to send an
army of one hundred and twelve thousand men to assist in
arranging the ancient Church establishment in Ireland, such
as it was in the times of the apostles.
"The loyalty of the aforesaid Majesties, the Catholic and
the Faithful, is too well known in Europe to need any pledge,
comment, or illustration; else nothing could evince it more
perfectly than this frank and early declaration of their senti-
ments and resolutions."
John-Mary. I do not think he can complain that we are
not frank enough. The Holy Allies, like other holy men,
wait not for asking: it is only when they are dead that they
must be begged and prayed. Well, the paper seems to me
a very good paper of the kind; and after your Majesty has
signed it, I will do the same.
Ferdinand. Gently; we are not half through it yet.
John-Mary. God has endowed your Majesty with wonder-
ful powers; but I never heard of any man who could read
so long together. There are those, it is said, who can get
through a gazette at a sitting; but they have their chocolate
or lemonade beside them, and a nice curled wafer to suck
them through. Moreover, in gazettes they read of festivals
VOL. V.
14
210
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and processions; they do not stand upon one leg, like a
statue of Fame in a poultry-yard, but keep jogging on pleas-
antly from one thing to another.
Ferdinand. I once read a whole hour.
John-Mary.
On what momentous occasion ?
Ferdinand. I had the dysentery and the Lives of the Mar-
tyrs, and did not like to get up. That reading cured me: I
could mark the very place that made me whole.
I will show you what I can do.
"It can hardly be unknown to his Britannic Majesty, that
a certain portion of the ultramarine dominions of his Catholic
Majesty, to wit, from the forty-second degree of south latitude
to the forty-second north, is in a state of most unnatural in-
surrection, and that the kingdom of Brazil too is disturbed.
But their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faithful, have the
honor to announce to their ancient friend and ally the King
of the United Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
that a frigate is despatched by his Catholic Majesty, and a
capuchin by his Faithful, and that the well-disposed cannot
doubt of their success. After which their said Majesties, the
Catholic and Faithful, will assist and enable his Britannic
Majesty to annul his coronation oath and all others, and to
do justice to his loyal people. It being evident that all oaths
whatever, made by a king to his subjects, are degrading to
the royal dignity, and made therefore involuntarily and com-
pulsorily; yet, willing to second the clemency of his Britannic
Majesty, their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faithful, de-
clare that they will not oblige or urge his Britannic Majesty
to the punishment of any abettors in this nefarious and im-
pious mockery of royalty, and, through royalty, of faith and
religion; and that they will advise on the contrary, and sign ·
their names and affix their seals to a general act of amnesty,
excluding therefrom none other than the Archbishops of Can-
terbury and York and Bishop of London, and such beside as
notified their assent to the same unlawful and compulsory act.
No officer under the rank of captain shall be molested
for the same, unless it can be proved that he drank to the
health of the constitutional king, and swore or said that he
would die in his defence.
"Nor shall any magistrate or justice of the peace be pun-
ished with death or exile, or by any thing more than fine
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
211
and imprisonment, who can be clearly proved to have been
ignorant that 'constitutional' is different from ‘arbitrary.'
"Nor shall any doctor of medicine, or surgeon, or apothe-
cary, be subject to capital punishment for attending constitu-
tional patients, nor be liable to any other inconvenience than
suspension from his profession for six months, until he shall
have purged himself from so foul an imputation.
"All degrees, nevertheless, conferred by the universities
during the reign of anarchy, shall be null and void, as shall
also be all learning (falsely so called) acquired therein; and
whoever does not give a full and particular account of what
he has read, or heard in lectures, in the whole of that dis-
astrous time, and who does not swear upon the crucifix that
he abominates, abhors, and detests it, and that he will forget
the whole of it in one calendar month, is exempted from the
provisions contained in this act of grace and amnesty."
John-Mary. That is reasonable; I would give them time.
The King of Great Britain will see, on casting his enlightened
eyes over the world, that it is only in Protestant countries
that kings have hitherto been unable to modify or lay aside
their oaths at their good pleasure; and that constitutions
extorted by the people, it matters not whether long since or
lately, and charters and such-like indiscreetly given, have
not been revoked or reconsidered in all material points.
Ferdinand. Judiciously remarked, my cousin a historical
fact of the first magnitude!
John-Mary. I heard it from the minister of France.
Ferdinand. A principal figure in the revolutionary whirli-
gig; he always sat upon the ostrich and whipped the one
before him.
John-Mary. Now, brother, whom did you hear that from?
Ferdinand. I forget. It was said of Talleyrand; it will
do for another, if you remove the ostrich, and put cock or
pony in the place.
John-Mary. But the King of France always had friends
about him the gentleman from Gascony. Blacas I think
the name is among the rest.
Ferdinand. He turned his pantaloon, bought sleeves quite
new, hired running footmen, and was created duke.
John-Mary. I never heard the word "created" in that
sense. Admirable! it means, to make things out of nothing.
212
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
By what I can see of the paper, if that is the place where
your thumb is, I am afraid we are still far from land, and
have many tacks to make before we reach port.
Ferdinand. Have courage, my brother and cousin, we are
half-seas over.
John-Mary. Glory be to God!
Ferdinand. Kyrie eleison !
"If any unfounded jealousy, suggested by crafty and ma-
licious men, for the furtherance of their dark designs, should
weigh upon the breast of his Britannic Majesty, as to the
foreign force about to be employed in the establishment of
his plenary and legitimate authority, in order to remove it
altogether, it is agreed that an equal number of troops, be-
longing to his Britannic Majesty, shall be permitted to occupy
for the same space of time (in the possessions of his Catholic
Majesty) the whole of Terra del Fuego, together with the
whole Antarctic Continent, not however interfering in its
ecclesiastical affairs; and, beside these, the whole northern
range of Sierra Nevada; in the possessions of his Faithful.
Majesty, the entire kingdoms of Ethiopia, Arabia, and Persia,
in which his Faithful Majesty shall retain no more troops
than he may in his wisdom think necessary for religion, on
the day of Corpus Domini, the Purification of the Blessed
Virgin, and John the Baptist. And all the captain-majors,
corregidores, judges of the tribunals (excepting the ecclesi-
astical), and justices of the peace, of his Faithful Majesty,
in those countries, are commanded to give their aid, in order
to carry this ordinance into effect."
John-Mary. Bless my heart and soul! is there another
paper still? Is that which fell out part of this?
Ferdinand. No, it is a private one; that is, one written
by my own order. It being also for the court of St. James,
I placed the two together. I think we write better than the
Russians and French. The English beat us in style, I hear;
but the substance comes to nothing.
John-Mary. Here, however, the French and Russians
are very polite and conciliatory. I did not imagine that
his Imperial Majesty had our holy Catholic religion so much
at heart.
Ferdinand. I assure you he holds it
though he may not seem to do it.
next to the Turkish,
Theirs of the Holy
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
213
་
Alliance is the most civil and inviting; but this pleases me
best, being plain and argumentative. I will read it after.
John-Mary. For the love of God, my brother and cousin,
read it now, if it were only to break the neck of the cruel long
one before us; which like a serpent in the brakes of Brazil
shows its head where you think its tail must be, and only coils
up to stretch itself and spring out again.
Ferdinand. Any thing to please your Majesty; and I am
happy in an opportunity of demonstrating that we can main-
tain our dignity. By holy Martha! I will no more pay my
debts than I will keep my oath.
"The undersigned-has the honor-amity-good under-
standing good faith-" Ha! here we have it; we are
fairly out of the phrases at last, and in the midst of the
business "not without surprise and concern that the minis-
ter of his Britannic Majesty for foreign affairs, after declaring,
as he was bound to do, that he would not insist on the pay-
ment of the loan contracted in the sittings of the Cortes, or
of the interest thereon, should still insist (if indeed he be in
earnest) on the indemnity for British ships detained and con-
fiscated on the coasts of South America.
"Now the undersigned is commanded by his royal master,
to remark that there does indeed appear to be a shadow of
justice in the claims of those Englishmen who advanced him
money; for although the interest was onerous in proportion
to the difficulties of his Majesty, the exhaustion of his
treasury, the rebellion in America, and perhaps also in pro-
portion to the false ideas that ignorant and malevolent men
entertained of his Catholic Majesty's good faith, so often and
so fully proved, yet his Catholic Majesty had sworn to ob-
serve, defend, and maintain, in all its parts and provisions,
the new constitution;* and his Britannic Majesty was offi-
*In the Proclamation signed by him at Cadiz, September 30, 1823,
he says: "I promise a general, complete, and absolute amnesty of all
that is past, without exception. I promise that the debts, contracted
for the nation by the existing government, shall be ratified. I promise
that all generals and other officers of the army, who have defended
the constitutional system, shall preserve their rank, appointments, and
honors."
That he violated all these promises, is too notorious for any remark.
A rogue may have some urgent reasons for being a rogue; but an
honest man can have none for aiding and abetting him in his roguery,
nor for countenancing him after it. What then must we think of those
princes who reinstated and upheld him?
214
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
cially informed of such oath, and kept a minister at Madrid.
Therefore his Britannic Majesty was bound by the precedent
of all times and countries (if precedent could be quoted
against royal will and pleasure) to insist on the fulfilment of
the compact and engagement entered into with British sub-
jects by his Catholic Majesty. Nevertheless his Britannic
Majesty did reject most royally the authority of precedent,
acknowledging, as became his magnanimity, no authority but
God's; and asserted no claim whatever in behalf of his
moneyed subjects.
"The undersigned, then, cannot but recommend to his
Majesty's minister for foreign affairs, to reconsider the
matter and correct his inconsistency. For surely no greater
can be imagined than to forego what have always been con-
sidered as just claims, but which their Majesties the Holy
Allies are resolved to consider and admit as such no longer ;
and at the same time to demand an indemnity for ships de-
tained or captured, in places where the navigation of British
and all other foreign vessels has been declared and acknowl-
edged illicit, and this by the British government, for many
ages.
"The undersigned-high consideration"-high, no doubt,
for a blunderer whose best argument he has been reducing
to dust between his fingers.
John-Mary. Any two men living would agree on the
propriety of this remonstrance; the only doubt would be,
whether a debt contracted by your Majesty, the regularity
and justice of which was not protested against, nor one par-
ticle excepted until long after the whole amount was spent,
is debt or not; and, consequently, whether it ought or not
to be discharged, which I consider as a part of the same
question.
Ferdinand. Such reasonings suit much better the trades-
men of Lisbon and Cadiz than monarchs who have quelled
rebellions. Do you owe the English any money, my brother?
If you do, don't pay them.
John-Mary. They would force me.
Ferdinand. Not they truly. What can they do, poor devils,
without the ministers?
John-Mary. To borrow from a people and not to pay
would be as just a cause of war as to seize upon their prop-
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
215
erty by sea or land, in my ports or upon my roads; and
greatly more villanous. I ask for assistance in my necessi-
ties, and it is given me in reliance on my good faith
Ferdinand. Brother John-Mary, you reason like a broker.
Send the ministers of England a service of plate, and they
will furnish you with better logic, and newer, and more kingly.
They will beside tell their people, "Rash men! you lent the
money at your own risk: we did not advise you."
John-Mary. They might as well say, "You sent out ships:
we did not advise you; what have we to do with pirates?
Your Majesty pledged your royal word-"
Ferdinand. They have it then in pledge; let them do
what they will with it: I shall not molest them about the
matter.
John-Mary. You promised to pay principal and interest;
and the obligation lies the stronger, as the most loyal of your
own subjects would not supply a cake of chocolate for your
breakfast.
Ferdinand. If kings are obliged to pay, they are not free.
We are answerable to God only; and when he tells me, I will
do it as becomes a Catholic. Your argument on the ships is
idle. The ships pay the King of England the duties of export
and import; but he is in truth so little of a king, that he can-
not put his hand even into the pouch of a tinker, much less
into desks and purses, and take out what he wishes. Why
should he care then who helps himself to the money not des-
tined by Parliament for his taxes? If I had detained a
herring-smack, he would bluster and bully and threaten me
with reprisals; but when twenty or thirty of his merchants go
to ruin by trusting me, he thinks as I, and as all other wise.
men do, and says, "The greater fools they!"
John-Mary. He had acknowledged your government as
it then stood: he is bound in consequence to protect the
property of his subjects intrusted to its good faith.
Ferdinand. Bound! By Santiago! according to your doc-
trine, we kings are no better than private men. By Christ
and the Blessed Virgin! I won't pay. Now then I can't: I
should break my vow if I did; and what is a promise to a
vow? Is the King of England such a heretic as to push his
horn against it? Religion is religion all over the world: vows
are sacred at Tunis and at Mecca.
216
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
John-Mary. Very true; but it is only for royalty and re-
ligion that men are authorized to violate them. I should be
in some fear of losing my dominions in America, if my son
did not swear to them that he would make them independent.
Ferdinand. I do not well understand how that insures
them.
John-Mary. They would else rebel. As matters now
stand, my beloved son, aided by England, will oblige the
people there to pay me several millions of dollars, and will
bring over from Germany some thousands of soldiers, under
the pretext of agriculture, who shall cut every throat through
which hath passed the impure seditious cry of "indepen-
dence." He seemed at first afraid of this perjury: but I pro-
cured him absolution from Rome for it, and sent him at the
same time a consecrated rose and a father's blessing.
Ferdinand. For how long a time are those good?
John-Mary. The virtue of the consecrated rose is durable
in proportion to the money paid for it, and the father's blessing
to that obtained by it.
Ferdinand. If the Brazilians should relapse, your Majesty
might employ the English fleet against them; which, taking
advantage of the wind and the snuff, could blind them all
without a cannon-shot.
John-Mary. The English are dexterous engineers at
blinding people; but the Brazilians have strong eyes, - better
in my opinion than the English.
Ferdinand. If sheer lying is the manœuvre, they have the
bravest and most experienced fugleman in Europe, as my
ministers tell me.
John-Mary. God forbid that any man should lie for me,
who has not the grace to go to confession after it, to make
an oblation, and to take the Eucharist!
Ferdinand. The Holy Alliance and the English ministers
(for they enter fully into its spirit) are ready to punish those
moneyed men who have encouraged and supported constitu-
tions, and will leave them to harangue upon their empty
coffers. Your Majesty will also see that this absurd claim
of indemnity for maritime losses will be dropped and aban-
doned. I am uncertain only upon the question of the slave-
trade; and not very upon that, knowing that the principal
friends and supporters of the British minister for foreign
&
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
217
affairs are persons connected with slavery and fed upon sugar.
On this subject is the following paragraph :
"Their Catholic and Faithful Majesties, having been un-
warily led into the impracticable scheme of abolishing the
trade in negroes, do by their royal will and deed retract the
stipulation; it having been proved that his Most Christian
Majesty made the same promise with the samé solemnity, and
that nevertheless the faithful subjects of his Most Christian
Majesty never at any former period have exercised the trade
so extensively as at present. But in order to obviate all real
evil that may arise from the continuation of the trade in ne-
groes, their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faithful, declare
and protest, that, whenever a slave is dying, the crucifix shall
be put to his lips and upon his breast; that every force, moral
and physical, shall be employed to make him cry 'Credo !'
and in such a manner that, if unluckily God should not hear
it, the cherubs and seraphs in waiting, or some two of them
at the least, shall be able to declare it on their words of
honor; and finally that extreme unction shall be adminis-
tered to him in olive oil, when olive oil does not exceed seven
reals the pound, and, when it does, in such other as Holy
Church may decree to be salutary and effectual.
"Their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faithful, are far
from wishing to wound the feelings of his Britannic Majesty,
by any recapitulation of disasters which may have befallen
the arms of his Britannic Majesty; yet the glory of God and
of the true religion is all in all with them, and they cannot
but entreat his Britannic Majesty to consider in his royal
wisdom, whether the late discomfiture and destruction of his
troops on the coast of Africa, by the Ashantees, is not a
sufficient proof that the God of armies and Lord of hosts
has animated them to vengeance, for the millions of souls
that are lost to his heavenly kingdom, by not being conveyed
where the mysteries of the holy Catholic religion may be
imparted to them. On which contemplation their Majesties,
the Catholic and the Faithful, propose that his Britannic
Majesty will treat as pirates those who impede or obstruct
this salutary traffic; and that, in conjunction with the naval
forces of his Most Christian Majesty, a small auxiliary fleet
may be always stationed on the African coast to that purpose
and effect; which united fleets however shall be removed
218
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
when the whole population of Africa is brought over to the
words of everlasting life, and duly obedient, in its ecclesias-
tical polity and discipline, to the see of Rome. In that
predicament, it shall no longer be permitted to export the
negroes, who shall be treated with the same lenity as those
under the same denomination (from their stubbornness) in
the European kingdoms of his Catholic Majesty."
John Mary. Such clemency, I am afraid, would irritate
the higher clergy and the Apostolical junta: I mean to say,
if your Majesty should really treat the negroes of Spain as
kindly as the negroes of Cuba and Puerto Rico are treated
by their masters.
Ferdinand. Mere masters are one thing, kings are another.
I will consider what befits my crown and dignity; and, if I
have promised too much, I will issue an ordinance of revocation.
"The aforesaid duties being executed on the coast of
Senegal and Guinea, and insurrection being suppressed on
the continent of America, the maritime powers of Europe
are alike all interested in bringing under regular government
the rebellious slaves of San Domingo; and the more so,
inasmuch as the insurrection there has assumed more settled
features, and the slaves commit the cruel mockery of regu-
larity and peace, preserving in civil and domestic life the
most exact order, and in political and military the most
exemplary decorum and the most perfect discipline. Their
affectation of honesty, of industry, and of happiness, under
a republican form of government, shows the malice of their
hearts, and leaves it doubtful whether they can be brought to
reason by any other means than well-concerted force. Never-
theless, if they will resign their visionary laws, together with
their fathers and mothers, their wives and children, their
houses and plantations, the high contracting parties on the
other hand will restore to them the mild dominion of their
ancient laws, and their former most affectionate and loving
masters. The colonels of regiments shall enjoy the privilege
of the whip, and the judges shall be assayers of molasses, wear-
ing a red cuff on the left wrist, but without sleeve above it ;
and, moreover, about their loins an apron of white cotton a
full yard in length. None but the principals of the insurrec-
tion shall be hanged, and none but the president shall be
quartered."
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
219
1
John-Mary. I am rejoiced to find that the Holy Allies are
become so mild and gracious. There were some prejudices
against them in the beginning, particularly as every one of
them took from the next principality as much as he could
take, disregarding all similarity in sentiment and all confed-
eracy in action.
Ferdinand. I never approved of that conduct: I gained
nothing. The present paper is greatly more moderate; it
breathes a pure spirit of conciliation and love toward God
and one's neighbor. Only think that the Russian minis-
ter should co-operate with the minister of the Most Chris-
tian King, in making us say what we are made to say
here:-
"It is the resolution of their Majesties, the Catholic and
the Faithful, to assist his Britannic Majesty in bringing into
the union of spirit and the bond of peace the dissenters
of Scotland, and to divide the Catholic Church (thus happily
reinstated throughout the British dominions) into two parts
as elsewhere, the high clergy and the low; convinced as they
are (no less than is his Britannic Majesty and his ministers)
that both Church and State ought to be formed upon the
same model, and that two chambers are as necessary to the
one as to the other; without which subordination sufficient
lustre and dignity cannot be given to the Church triumphant,
or sufficient obsequiousness and humility to the main body
of suffragans and preachers. Be it however provided and
ordered, subject to the approbation and determination of His
Holiness the Pope, that no more than forty-five bishops and
eight hundred canonics be appointed for the service of the
Church in Scotland, and leaving it entirely to the wisdom of
his Britannic Majesty to assign them their revenues from the
bleaching-grounds and manufactories of that kingdom, con-
verting them into suitable Episcopal domains, monasteries,
and convents, to the glory of God and his saints."
John-Mary. This is not so explicit as I could wish. In
the manufactories, I am told, there are magical lights, called
gas-lights. The fathers and nuns would not wish for these
abominations; and the places should be lustrated with sul-
phur and salt-water. When the tubes for conveying these dev-
ilish lights have been cast into the furnace and melted down,
I think the mischief arising from them will certainly have
220
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ceased. They may be sold for the benefit of the ejected;
the religious being sure to find as many pipes and conduits
for their purposes as they want, from the warm zeal of the
faithful.
Ferdinand. "That there may in future be no cause of war
or dissension between his Britannic Majesty on the one side
and their Majesties the Catholic and the Faithful on the
other, it is desirable and earnestly recommended, that his
Britannic Majesty be pleased to take some title different from
Britannic; seeing that, in almanacs and similar publications,
it gives a handle to the disaffected to place, as they call
it, alphabetically, the name, style, title, and dignity of his
Britannic Majesty before the name, style, title, and dignity
of their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faithful, to the great
scandal of the vassals of their said Majesties, the Catholic
and the Faithful. In consideration of which (constitution
and heresy being uprooted), if there is any star or cross
peculiarly agreeable to his Britannic Majesty, it shall forth-
with be conveyed to him, with whatever ceremony the said
king and his king-at-arms may appoint, just as freely and
lovingly as his Britannic Majesty sent the order of the Garter
to his Faithful Majesty, on his Faithful Majesty most heroi-
cally breaking the oath he had taken to his subjects; and
just as freely and lovingly as his Majesty the Emperor
Alexander, Autocrat of all the Russias, did also send the
order of St. George, to invest therewith his Most Christian
Majesty the King of France and Navarre, on his Most
Christian Majesty retracting and annulling the principal
articles of the charter he had unadvisedly given to his sub-
jects. Which high-minded and glorious actions, and the
honors paid to them, clearly prove that no faith is to be kept
any more with subjects than with heretics; it being laid down
as incontrovertible that kings are answerable to God alone
for their actions; and that their actions proceed from their
thoughts; and that their thoughts are instilled into them, as
occasion may require, by means of the holy unction at their
coronation. If stars and crosses are out of fashion, or be-
come too ordinary with his Britannic Majesty, their Majesties,
the Catholic and Faithful, will institute each a more mag-
nificent order; and, as the Garter is preoccupied, the deco-
ration shall be stay or petticoat, at the suggestion of his
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
221
Britannic Majesty; and his Britannic Majesty shall be the
first invested therewith."
John-Mary. I am ready. But I do not see plainly how
we can pay such a body of troops as your Majesty was in-
clined to send over.
Ferdinand. I did not read a word about the payment:
that is provided for; the other means are at hand.
John-Mary. The business is complex.
Ferdinand. It would be no State-paper else. Good State-
papers can no more be smooth and even, and seen in all
points at once, than good fortifications can. I will read, for
your satisfaction, one of the supplementary articles :
"His Britannic Majesty is required to furnish nothing
more toward the expedition, here amicably proposed, than
transports, uniforms, shoes, forage, and pay; which his
Britannic Majesty cannot but consider as moderate, when so
desirable an object is to be accomplished. That it is eminently
so, it is unnecessary to point out to his Majesty; his minis-
ter, the Lord of Liverpool, having prepared the minds of
his Majesty's loyal and loving subjects for the same, in his
declaration before Parliament that 'the troops of his Most
Christian Majesty, on their entrance into Spain, were univer-
sally hailed as deliverers by all conditions of people, and
with transports of enthusiastic joy.'* Desirous of blessing
the loyal and loving subjects of his Britannic Majesty with
the same transports, without any object of ambition or ag-
grandizement, and with a pure ardor for the holy religion and
for legitimacy, their Majesties, the Catholic and the Faith-
ful, have ordered their ministers-plenipotentiary to arrange
the business with the ministers of his Britannic Majesty ;
and have appointed each his general (of the Capuchins) to
superintend the debarkation of the heretics from the king-
dom of Ireland, in two commodious ships, supplied to his
* Either Lord Liverpool deceived the parliament by a falsehood, now
universally notorious, or the person he employed in Spain deceived him.
The greater part of the nobility were contented with the established
order of things; all the commercial, all the agricultural, and, with
hardly an exception, all the literary. Assassins, smugglers, monks, and
canons of cathedrals opposed it. In twenty days, more excesses, more
robberies, arsons, and murders were committed in Arragon alone, than
had been committed in the whole of Spain during all the years of consti-
tutional government.
222
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Catholic Majesty by his Majesty the Emperor of all the
Russias; the bottoms of which ships have been provisionally
calked where the timber is rotten, and the whole peculiarly
adapted to the service for which they are appointed."
John-Mary. That is humane; one could not do less. But
I fancied that the minister of his Britannic Majesty was per-
mitted by the Holy Alliance to speak unfavorably of the
crusade against the constitutionalists.
Ferdinand. It has been agreed on, at the courts of the
Holy Alliance, that no offence shall be taken if one minister
talks in the House of Commons and at taverns like a liberal
(it being well understood that he is no more of one than I am),
provided that the other shall cry down whatever is constitu-
tional. By these means the popular party is thrown off its
guard, and hopes grow up luxuriantly on both sides. Your
Majesty is to consider these two men (such are the words of
the Russian minister to me) as the hot-water and cold-water
ducts of that grand vapor-bath which is to cure all the mala-
dies of kings and nations.
John-Mary. I am truly happy that your Majesty has given
me this explanation: I should otherwise have thought them
two most impudent impostors. Fortunate, I ought rather to
say Providential, is it that the constitutions are thrown down
on the continent of Europe, and that only the form remains
in England. Yet even the form after a time draws to it and
attaches its partisans: as men who have been accustomed to
a scolding wife are just as sorrowful in their widowhood as
others; and when they marry a second time, if they happen to
light upon a quiet one, think themselves almost widowers
still. Stories have been related to me of American tribes,
which, although they were ready to believe any thing as they
said, yet wept over their ugly idols, and could hardly be
brought to look at St. Agnes and St. Clara. Who knows
whether the king of England himself may not have some such
weakness! For, O my brother and cousin, we kings at last
are but men, little wiser than others. I would pray to
heaven for his conversion to the Catholic faith, without which
no good doctrine of any kind can take root and flourish in
him. The force of habit and the force of holiness are well
illustrated in the history I shall now relate.
—
Hurtado Palmaseda dos Rios Amargos, Archbishop of
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
223
Evora, always wore a hair-shirt, to the great edification and
delight of his diocesans. He had performed so many acts
of piety, that at last his niece, Donna Sofonisba Debora de
Castelmor, and a young gentlewoman who kept her company,
Donna Tanaquil Elisa de Leite, attempted to persuade him
that it no longer was necessary to his salvation. Sometimes,
to pacify them, he offered one excuse, sometimes another
such as,
"It is cool;" "It is warm ;
" "His soul required it ;
"It held fewer fleas than cambric, and did not stick to the
skin." In fact, such is the loving-kindness of God and of
the blessed Virgin, it really and truly had grown pleasant to
him.
""
Ferdinand. I should like to hear the end of such a saint.
Has your Majesty any small relic of him or his shirt?
John-Mary. A something of both: but to proceed.
He died in the odor of sanctity. Many thought his smell
was like a white lily's; many said it had more of the tuberose;
and there was one who remarked that, in his mind, rather
than tuberose or lily, it resembled in fragrance a certain
flower in the Island of Japan. As he was a tailor, and had
never been a mile out of the city since the hour he was be-
gotten, it was asked of him how he knew any thing about the
smell of Japanese flowers. He answered that he had read of
it: which, as he was a sedentary man, was weighty, if not
convincing. Another said that there was no difference what-
ever between it and the rose of Sharon, a plant of which he
had seen formerly in a garden near Valencia, a town belong-
ing to your Majesty ; but his brother corrected him, saying,
"Lope, it is indeed very like that rose which I remember you
once described to me; yet, if you had ever been at Lebanon,
as I have, you would have altered your mind, and have de-
clared that such fragrance as this could come only from the
wings of angels, who had settled on the cedars of Lebanon."
Nevertheless there were many of the townsmen who, in pun-
ishment of their worldly-mindedness and curiosity, could smell
nothing more than what they were accustomed to smell in
their own habiliments when they threw them off on the Sun-
day morning. Not lily nor rose nor cedar came distinctly forth;
nor could they certify to their consciences aught concerning
the said Japanese flower. Toward night, when the room was
most crowded, doubts were entertained by some persons in
224
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
i
tolerable repute, whether there was any miraculous scent at all.
Nay, it is recorded that some of the clergy leaned over the
body and smelled it with all their might, and went away say-
ing nothing.
It pleased God that the instrument of conversion to thou-
sands should be the very worst man among them; namely,
Tiberio-Maria Somaro.
He had been a soldier in Manilla, and had been seen to
leer and wink and lift up his shoulder like an unbeliever,
with some other most irreverent and indecent marks of con-
tempt. An aged priest, the last who in his devotion leaned
over the body, beheld him with compassion, and taking him
gently by the shirt-sleeve (for the weather was hot and he
came without his coat) led him in his lightness and incredu-
lity to the bed. He lowered his head indifferently, as if it
hung loosely on his neck; and, throwing it up wildly, like a
horse that one would halter, cried aloud, I dare hardly repeat
the words, "The smells of sandal-wood.”
It was the will of our blessed Lady that the odor should be
such as she vouchsafes to grow exclusively in the east, her
native country. Out of the mouth of a vile profane wretch
was she pleased to bring conviction.
Ferdinand. If there is no harm in saying it, by her leave,
methinks she chose in her wisdom odd words as well as an
odd instrument.
John-Mary. The miracle is the greater; nor did it end
here.
Ferdinand. For the love of our Lord, my dear brother
and cousin, let me hear the rest of it.
John-Mary. Faith! after what your Majesty has been
reading, a miracle comes like a fine fresh oyster after a pep-
pery ragout.
Although the Lord and his saints had given the good arch-
bishop strength and courage to endure the hair-shirt while he
was in health, and even to solace his friends with the assur-
ance that, as a sinner, it was preferable, in the ease it gave
his spirit, to one of linen; yet the skin grows irritable in
sickness, which came upon him unexpectedly, confined him
to his bed instantly, and carried him off after two days.
Ferdinand. He might have changed it without sin.
John-Mary. Ah, poor man! he did not.
He was seen,
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
225
indeed, when death was inevitable and imminent, which at the
beginning he had no suspicion of, to attempt to change it;
He could
but he would accept no assistance from any one.
not accomplish his attempt: no attendant touched him; yet
the shirt was changed!
Ferdinand.
mater eleison !
Mater amabilis ! kyrie eleison ! kyrie amabilis !
John-Mary. My brother and cousin, if I could sing like
your Majesty, I would join you.
Ferdinand. I am in a fine frame of mind! My flesh
creeps; my skin tightens on the crown of my head like a
drum in the north wind on the prado. Manifest to me, I
pray you, my brother and cousin, the further mercies of the
heavenly choir. We must, however, be upon our guard
against false miracles: Holy Church (vehement against im-
posture) teaches us that.
John-Mary. Here was no possibility of imposture.
Ferdinand. Certainly there could be none; but was the
cause tried at Rome?
John-Mary. Regularly; and when the passions of men
had cooled, as usual.
Ferdinand. How many years had elapsed?
John-Mary. The ordinary number, about sixty. The
church is never precipitate. I have read the whole process,
with the signature of eight witnesses, some of whom declare
that they never saw the others until they met in the bed-cham-
ber of the archbishop. I have seldom read such irrefragable
proofs. He tried to strip himself; he could not; the chaste man
would accept, as I told your majesty, no assistance to take off
his shirt, not even from Donna Sofonisba, his niece, nor from
Donna Tanaquil whom he had educated from eleven years
of age. The room was full of attendants, clerical, medical,
familiar.
Ferdinand. In the presence of so many persons, he need
not have been so scrupulously shy and modest as to deny the
young ladies the service of stripping him: as well might our
queens object to the presence of archbishop, chancellor, cap-
tain of the guard, and six or seven other hidalgos, while they
are being delivered of infante or infanta.
John-Mary. Such was the mercy of God and of his mother
the blessed Virgin, that, although they knew and decreed that
VOL. V.
15
226
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
he must die soon, and saw that his struggles to change his shirt
had exhausted him, and aware that, if indeed he ever had felt
the hair scratch and plague him, it could no longer do it, never-
theless, in mercy to the holy man and for the increase of their
glory, they allowed him still his hair-shirt. But the hair was
like the goat's of Angola, softer than silk or satin, and lighter.
Ferdinand. "Gloria Deo in excelsis! Ad aquas Babylonis!"
John-Mary. On first reading these facts and the testimo-
nials, I ordered the double miracle to be embroidered in letters
of gold, to be inserted in a finely carved frame from Paris, with
a rich hanging of damask behind it and a stout plate-glass
before, lest it should be frayed or soiled by the beards of the
faithful who might kiss it, and a noble wax-candle on each
side, burning day and night.
Ferdinand. On the compliance of his Britannic Majesty
with our wishes, as suggested and manifested to us by their
Majesties of the Holy Alliance, I myself will be at the expense
of a copy, in like letters, frame, and hangings, to be suspended
as his Majesty may deem fit in his chapel, bedroom, or council-
chamber.
John-Mary. And I, for my part, on condition that he
becomes a good Catholic, and brings over the lost people of
England to the true faith, do promise and stipulate upon my
royal word, to give a fair fifth of the miraculous shirt immedi-
ately, and a fair tenth of the cilice, or of such portion thereof
as by the mercy of God shall at any future time be discovered
upon earth.
Ferdinand. Is it expected that part of it may be found
again?
John-Mary. The doctors of my universities have not yet
decided whether it be the subject of transubstantiation or
assumption.
Ferdinand. A most delicate and momentous point, nor
hastily to be decided. Has the holy father been consulted
upon it?
John-Mary. My bishops would reserve the initiative to
themselves, subject however to his infallible decree.
Ferdinand. They have not wit enough: I am resolved to
recall the Jesuits. One of their greatest enemies told me a
thing of them which fixes my determination: it sums up that
a Jesuit is worth two other men, even of the best. When it
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
227
was objected against them that they professed the strict pro-
priety of lying whenever it suited their purposes, he replied.
that among other people two negatives make an affirmative,
but that among the Jesuits one does.
Now what higher praise can be given them? And this
from the mouth of an adversary! I do not approve of
lying, and never lie at all, unless in matters of State and
conscience.
John-Mary. If your Majesty will inform me in your good-
ness, at what time the disciples of St. Ignatius take posses-
sion of Spain again, I shall receive the intelligence most
gratefully. Ever afterward shall I eat only eggs in the shell,
drink only water from the spring, and neither take snuff nor
wear gloves. What they are as theologians, Mother Church
alone can decide; they certainly are deep physicians both in
minerals and simples, and save a great deal of bed-making.
They are such casters of nativity and such prognosticators of
futurity, they can calculate without book to what extent a man
shall be griped and cuckolled, and at what hour and into what
house the holy sacrament shall be carried before 'em.
Ferdinand. I wonder how the devil they do it.
John-Mary. I wonder how kings will let it be done; so
many people are frightened, particularly the women.
Ferdinand. They will never be quiet, unless we give them
their own way.
John-Mary. Will they then?
Ferdinand. They say they will. They speak humbly and
reverentially, and always begin with "Your Majesty," and
"Your Catholic Majesty."
John-Mary. I wish they may end there. Keep them in
their posture of humility, and they can do little harm: let
them once rise up from it, and they will be avenged for hav-
ing ever been in it. So say those who know them. When
you expose their tricks and make them refund their robberies,
they cry, "The Church
"The Church is in tribulation:" when they have
tied your hands behind you, and scourged you, and eaten
your dinner, and emptied your snuff-box, and made your wife
and children disavow you, and your people threaten your
throat, then forsooth, "The Church is triumphant." For
these rogues are not Matthew nor Mark, nor Barnabas nor
Jude, nor James nor Thomas nor Apollos, nor Simon nor
228
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
Saul nor Peter, but "Church, Mother Church, Holy Church,"
and are identified and indivisible as potted lobsters.*
Ferdinand. Take care! take care! Is there nothing be-
hind those pictures?
John-Mary. Walls; and walls there shall always be, and
many too, between me and Jesuits.
Ferdinand. My cousin Charles of France says I must have
'em. He tells me they make the most comfortable creatures
for confessors. If you say you have done this or that, they say
they have done it too, — by God's providence, in order to com-
fort you; and if the sin requires a scourging they will invent
such a pleasant way of doing it, you would give a crusado to
be scourged again. Beside, my cousin tells me that he hopes.
his daughter of Angoulême will bless his kingdom with an heir
to the throne, by the intercession of these holy fathers: and
who knows but they may do the like by me? My cousin says,
"Had they come earlier, France would have been happy."
The other confraternities did their best, and failed. There may
indeed be a reason for that, in the horrible atheism of a con-
stitutional bishop, who, when the royal ordinance was issued
for illuminating nine saints in Notre Dame, in order to
obtain so great a blessing, said peevishly and profanely,
"These things are not to be done with candles' ends."
John-Mary. Oh! there he was wrong; there he betrayed
his want of faith and discernment. But I have heard it
argued that the exactions and immorality of the clergy are
among the principal causes of disturbances and revolutions.
Ferdinand. Never believe it. Atheists would decoy you
into such persuasion, that they themselves might preach and
say masses and possess tithes.
John-Mary. Who knows whether they have not succeeded
in some places, looking just like the worthiest rectors and
jolliest monks in Christendom.
*The power of the clergy, under another Bourbon now reigning, may
in part be estimated by the following extract from the sentence of a royal
court on the Bishop of Nancy:
"The royal court of Nancy decrees that the passages of the Manda-
mus constitute the crime specified in the 201st and 204th articles of the
Penal Code; that the Mandamus alone is sufficient to prove the culpability
of the bishop: but, taking into consideration the high functions of the
Bishop of Nancy, the court declares that for the present there is no ground
to proceed."
:
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
229
Ferdinand. Here and there one may have crept into the
fold, and carried his books with him: but true priests must
be better people than any other, else they could not have
received the grace of God to preach his word to the rest;
and true monks are better still, for they have performed more
miracles, and have performed them too at the very time when
the profane and ignorant would fain have proved them to be
the most unworthy; thus returning good for evil, blessings
for revilings.
Frey Lope de Hornaches was circumvented by his enemies,
while he suffered himself, like a lamb, to be conducted to a
garden-house by Donna Imaculata Floz de Cabeça: places
which your Majesty must know perfectly, as they lie upon
the frontier of Alentejo. The enemies, who, your Majesty
may suppose from their promptitude, were anciently of some
guerilla, caught him inopportunely (as they vainly thought)
and led him off (so they scornfully boasted) more lightly
accoutred than even partisan-war and vintage-season make
requisite, through the long street of Cabeça, into the posada
called the "Star of Bethlehem." Here however they had the
humanity to give him the remainder of his dress, on his sur-
rendering the veil of Donna Imaculata, which in his hurry he
had mistaken for a part of it; though a monk's shirt is seldom
so black as that.
John-Mary. Perhaps Frey Lope's was one of a dun
camel's hair.
Ferdinand. Nothing more likely. I wonder he did not
say it; but he wanted no superfluity of arguments or facts:
he had better things at hand. It was Saturday evening.
"I will confound them in their malice and iniquity," said
he to the hostess, who was assisting him in several small
arrangements when the intruders had left the posada. Ac-
cordingly, the next morning he mounted the pulpit, and
delivered a discourse on the principles of immorality and
infidelity, deriving them from Satan, and tracing them, with-
out once missing their progress, into the lodges of the free-
masons, and the conventicles of the Quakers.
John-Mary. Quakers! Quakers! who are they, brother?
Ferdinand. Wicked men, that the devil makes quake eter-
nally, but cannot force to take their hats off: they eat and
sleep and say their prayers in 'em.
230
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
John-Mary. God then, without a question, turns his back
upon them: for nobody can bear that rudeness.
But Frey
Lope, how fared he?
Ferdinand. "I do not deny," said he, "that the devil led me
yesterday into what you carnal men may properly call temp-
tation. Why did he? To the confusion and conversion of sin-
ners; for the saints, the confessors, and martyrs make him work
for them, even on festivals, like a turnspit.
Now suppose
the mortal sin had been committed, to which every man (not
under especial grace) is liable, they would intercede and give
their suffrages for the sinner, on his confession. By which
dispensation, for one bad thing there are two good ones,
confession here, and in heaven the offering of those suffrages.
We, who take upon ourselves the offences of the people, are
no better than the people while we are sinning; but while we
repeat the words of life in the Mass, and God is created at our
voice in the midst of them, we no longer are children of the
world, but children of righteousness. He who commits sins is
one; he who remits them is another. Look at this timepiece!"
Here he produced one, given to him by an abbess of
Merida for sundry works performed on pressing occasions.
in her convent; he possessing the science of discussing and
removing some of the most malignant complaints more speed-
ily than the oldest physician, and being always on the spot
in spring and fall.
"This timepiece," he proceeded, "may be inexact by an
hour, by two hours, by three hours, in the twenty-four: yet
I call it regular." He paused.
"Christians!" added he, "I am rejoiced to observe your
humble spirit and pious attention.
My words I doubt not
are strange to your ears; so are many things at first which
afterward are evident and conspicuous. Now this timepiece,
although its movements in the sum of their day's duration
may be amiss, yet if any of you should be guided by it from
hour to hour, whether for labor or rest, he would find that
one of them is as long as another: the proportions it marks
are then equal and just. So, although a friar or priest shall
be inaccurate in his conduct, which either from human in-
firmity or for some inscrutable purpose may happen, yet that
part of it whereat it is your business to look is right enough.
If the devil take him aside to tempt him, you have no con-
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
231
1
cern at this juncture with him or the devil; wait patiently
till he comes back again, and then mind what he has authority
to say."
John-Mary. My brother, you have surely repeated the
whole sermon. What memory! what genius!
Ferdinand. I had three thousand days' indulgence for
learning it; and it cost me but a fortnight.
Frey Lope quite confounded the heretical and evil-minded.
He hath since proved his innocence, to the satisfaction of
the most scrupulous and hard-hearted, by fifty-nine signatures
attesting, on the experience of the subscribers, that the veil
of Donna Imaculata has acquired the miraculous virtue of
curing weak eyes.
John-Mary. Hearing at first of the veil, I trembled to
think how Frey Lope would come off. "Gloria patri!"
"
Ferdinand. To abash his accusers and turn round upon
his persecutors, he has published the whole sermon, whereto
is prefixed the title-page of "Truth unveiled, or the Cross
erected in Cabeça. It has been presented to me upon
a white satin cushion fringed with silver, preceded by the
superior of his order; who informed me that no remarks
were made after the delivery, but such as,
"That watch is no common-place!'
"That watch strikes home!
>>
"The lady abbess knew what she was about, when she
gave Frey Lope that watch!”
"The saintly woman had her finger upon the index; she
foresaw that Frey Lope would make a flaming sword of it.”
"The black veil and bright eyes for ever!"
"Long life to Frey Lope, with his Truth unveiled, and his
Cross erected in Cabeça!”
"Death to the negroes, traitors to our king and Frey Lope!
I was offended at finding my royal name united with a
subject's, until the superior informed me that the words "Frey
Lope" did not actually mean Frey Lope, but religion, which
has always in good times been identified with the monastic
orders.
John-Mary. That is true, and very profound: in matters
of religion we always say one thing and mean another. This
I heard with my own ears at Quebuz, in a most unctuous
sermon preached by the Deacon Joam Salter, who exemplified
232
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
it by saying that a day signified a year, and sometimes an
age, among prophets and debtors, casting an angry glance at
the Visconde Anadia, who confessed to me that he had owed
him for some time forty pesos deros.
Ferdinand. My brother, many contraband things may be
conveyed into my dominions through your Majesty's frontier;
among them are books. Irreligious ones of the first order,
such as Cyclopedias, Natural Histories, Bibles, and Treatises
against the Jesuits, are strictly watched in the territories of
Portugal; but latterly there have been others edited of very
evil tendency, ridiculing or reviling the functions and charac-
ters of princes.
John-Mary. The Jesuits did that.
Ferdinand. They deny it.
John-Mary. We have proofs.
Ferdinand. They disdain proofs, and manfully reject them.
John-Mary. The words are plain.
Ferdinand. So they may appear: they are typical.
John-Mary. What is typical?
Ferdinand. Typical is wait a moment — typical is
typical is — they
told me but yesterday — No! typical is having two or more
senses.
John-Mary. Brother! brother! they will not let us have
any.
Ferdinand. Oh, yes, they will; only allow them their own
way. They cannot act conveniently with others; the horse
and ox, they inform me, are not made for the same traces.
John-Mary. I smell poison and gunpowder under their
frocks.
Ferdinand. I smell very different things. Happy those
that take protection there! They know what books are, and
write enough for the whole world. We have taken more than
fifty French, English, American, Dutch, Swiss, and other
publications, in which I am mentioned as a tyrant, a bigot, a
fool, an ingrate, a swindler, a liar, a perjurer. So far was
fortunate; but what will you say about my fortune, when I tell
your Majesty that I was obliged to hang the valuable servant
who discovered and denounced them?
John-Mary. Could that have been lately? I thought your
Majesty had long ago hanged every one such.
Ferdinand. I believe he was the last of the kind; but I
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
233
66
could not do less. When he had found these offensive words
against me in every book he opened, and was still prying
more and more, my confessor said it was enough, and asked
him why he was not contented with what he had found
already, as the other publications had nothing to do with
politics or religion. "Father," answered he, "here are some
sixty, in various languages, written in various tempers, by
men of various religions and various political opinions; yet all
say the same thing of our gracious Lord Don Ferdinand. If
now I could find a single volume that speaks about him dif-
ferently, I have only to lay it up, and the fortune of my chil-
dren is made, twenty years hence, as possessors of the rarest
book in the world; for it is hardly to be imagined that any
one else would think of preserving a copy."
He declares he spoke this in the innocence of his heart;
but innocent people, my confessor says, are very thoughtless,
and thoughtless people very mischievous; and mischievous.
people have begun to think at last that religion and govern-
ment are their own concerns.
The safest method for us would be to prohibit the importa-
tion of every volume, the contents of which are not secured
and sanctified by the adorable cross in the title-page.
John-Mary. Your Majesty would act then like some phi-
losopher I have heard mentioned
Ferdinand. Like some philosopher! Saints and martyrs!
Confessors and angels, and Virgin Mother! defend me
from it!
John-Mary.
He was not indeed so much of a philosopher
as your Majesty is afraid he was.
Ferdinand. What did he, then?
John-Mary. He extinguished his lamp lest the fleas
should find him and bite him in bed.
Ferdinand. Did he? Then he might have been called a
philosopher, when philosopher signified wise man. Until the
other day, I only knew that the mischievous sect, who now
have taken the name, were the blindest and most ignorant
creatures upon earth: I never was informed that they are
likewise the most superstitious.
John-Mary. And are they really?
Ferdinand. Judge for yourself now. One of them, an
Englishman at Turin, had so little grace, and so little tender-
234
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ness for his own offspring, that he would not carry it to be
baptized, either the first day or the second of its birth; saying,
as an excuse, that there was no occasion for it at present, the
boy being strong and healthy. However, the proprietor of
the lodging, who began to fear that, as the river was over-
flowing the country, and masses of ice were breaking with
violence against the walls of the promenade, his house might
be carried away by divine vengeance through the obstinate
impiety of his guest, went civilly upstairs and protested that,
unless the infant were carried to church within the hour, he
would collect his friends and eject it with its mother from the
premises. Her husband being from home to view the course
of the river in all its terrors, from I forget what palace of our
brother of Sardinia situated on a lofty hill in the vicinity, and
the worthy nurse corroborating the conscientious host's impor-
tunity, she complied. The infant was baptized: nevertheless
it died four days afterward of symptoms that resembled a
cough and a fever. The heretical parents, in the hardness of
their hearts, wept without resignation; and (would you believe
it?) were firmly of opinion that the cold water, thrown the
more profusely over the creature to wash it from heresy and
original sin (whereof heretics have just nine times more than
Catholics), caused its death! No great wonder, it may be,
that the father did so, engulfed as he was in the abyss of phi-
losophy; but the mother, I hear, was as harmless and quiet
as any poor ignorant unbeliever can be, and she also held
the same opinion, though the ceremony was performed on
Christmas-day! So much for the reasoning faculties of those
whom the Lord abandons to their own devices!
Giovacchino Pallone, the landlord, gave a supper to his
friends, and received their congratulations on his good luck
in rescuing a soul that never can relapse, and that will keep
up his own against the worst that can happen: and his brother
Timoteo, the muleteer of Biella, who stood sponsor, has
thereby washed his hands of a little murder he committed on
a Frenchman, some years back. What a generation! Twelve
months ago, if any one looked hard at him, he drew his knife
and ran into a church: he now never enters one, unless to ask
St. Antonio some favor for his mules. My minister at the
Court of Turin informs me that they are grown much fatter;
which other men, who have neither faith nor charity, attribute
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
235
i
to the easy life they lead with him, now he loiters and spends
his money on the roads.
Low ignorant people will indulge their passions and preju-
dices, although the skirts of their souls must scorch for it.
John-Mary. I should like to purchase a share of Timo-
teo's ticket for good works, before he draws too hard upon it.
Ferdinand. I intend to establish a new tax, which every
man will pay willingly.
John-Mary. I never heard of any such.
Ferdinand. The pope alone has a right over marriages,
these being sacraments; therefore I would not dare to think
of taxing them: but every man shall pay an impost for sleep-
ing with his wife on the night of his nuptials. The pope
would not thwart me in this; particularly as I force every
man and woman in my dominions to purchase of him a Bula
de Confecion, without which they cannot receive absolution on
their death-bed, nor leave behind them a valid will, nor pre-
serve their property from confiscation.
O my brother and cousin! my sides will crack with
laughing.
John-Mary. Let me hope not. Unused as they are to
such exercise, it may indeed do them harm. Take this horn
against it.*
Ferdinand. I have horns of my own, better than yours.
I have the little-toe nail of St. Jerome, the length of my fore-
finger.
John-Mary. What makes your Majesty so merry?
Ferdinand. The moment before we met, I signed the
capitulation of Torrijo.
John-Mary. I am glad to hear it. He is reputed to be
one of the bravest and most honorable men in Spain. Dear
brother and cousin, what makes you toss up so many pinches
of snuff into your nose?
* The Romans and Neapolitans, and many Spaniards and Portuguese,
of every rank and condition, carry a piece of coral, amber, steel, or other
substance, at their watch-chain or their breast, in the form of a horn, to
protect them against evil eyes and other such mischief. Whoever meets
a monk the first person in the morning, turns the point towards him;
even a heretic is not more inauspicious. Some, ashamed of carrying this
amulet, turn their forefinger slily, somewhat bent, under the coat-flap
or elsewhere. Fortunate, if all their superstitions were thus infantine
and innocent !
236
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Ferdinand. To help to make me angry and grave again.
I will gibbet that Torrijo.
John-Mary. The same who capitulated?
Ferdinand. The very same.
John-Mary. What has he done since?
Ferdinand. I know nothing more about him. The best
of the joke is, the Duc d'Angoulême promised to him and
to the other constitutionalists rank, pay, and security. He
ought to have known from my station and character that his
promise was illusory, and that neither another man's prom-
ises nor my own are, or ever shall be, binding upon me.
Indeed, to tell you a secret, he knew it as well as you do ;
but he wanted to purchase the name of pacificator as cheaply
as that of hero.
*
John-Mary. He could not hope that, nor want it. Every
French prince is a hero by acclamation the hour of his birth,
and pacificator of the universe the first squeal he utters.
There is no instance wherein they have not been victorious :
the worst that ever happened to them is that Fortune has
sometimes snatched victory out of their hands, when their
enemies have bitten the dust upon the snow or sea, and been
utterly annihilated. Sometimes a seventy-four in the disguise
of a corvette has pounced upon a frigate or two, which all
the courage of Frenchmen could not save from the perfidious
islanders, who fed their prisoners eleven weeks on sawdust
and salt-water.
Ferdinand. Yet some people, and some who desire to
please me, call me a true Bourbon! Never in my life did I
know any thing like myself, excepting a Polichinello at
Andujar; and him I ordered to be brought before the coun-
cil of Castile for counterfeiting me. By some negligence or
connivance he escaped, and was condemned to be hanged in
effigy as contumacious.
John-Mary. Might I recommend it to the serious con-
* The perfidy of Bonaparte on no occasion was so infamous as that
of his Most Christian successor in Spain. The Duc d'Angoulême was
surety for the performance of the treaties and capitulations he entered
into with the constitutionalists; all which are violated. He invaded
the country, to take the power out of the people's hands, and the
vilest of the populace now possess it entirely. Legitimate government
and Catholic religion are maintained by a mob of plunderers and assas-
sins, with a fugitive, perjurer, and parricide at the head of them.
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
237
sideration of your Majesty, whether so popular a speaker
might not with advantage be included in the amnesty?
Ferdinand. You mean entrapped and hanged. Amnesty
does not signify that, but only confiscation and imprisonment;
with cudgelling and whipping at intervals, such as holidays
for example, and the quartering of volunteer dragoons for the
remainder of life.
John-Mary. I should have suggested a place at the
council-board, where, seated under your president, he would
greatly strengthen the majority.
Ferdinand. I have another cause for good humor. I have
found out an enemy of old Yerequi.
John-Mary. Who is Yerequi ?
Ferdinand. Do not you know that he was my preceptor?
John-Mary. Well, he and everybody else has an enemy:
it is no difficult matter to discover one, provided he is not in
the number of our bosom-friends. I would not punish this
enemy of Señor Yerequi, unless he has offended against the
State or the Church. He may indeed have injured a bene-
factor. Friendships are not sacred things, according to any
council that was ever held, or any decretal of the most rigid
pope that ever filled the chair of St. Peter.
Ferdinand. What! can't you understand? Who talked
of punishing a spy and confidant? A pious man, too, and
one who can groan at the right place in his breviary like a
white bear, and sing Te Deum like a Tyrolean bullfinch,
wanting nothing but a pinch of snuff to begin and end with.
And nothing more shall he ever get from me. Yerequi is the
scape-goat to punish. He hardly goes beyond the credo; and
I could see in his face, when I was little more than a child,
that he thought I deserved a whipping. I can whip now; and
I dare,
which is more than he can say.
John-Mary. Brother Ferdinand, I once heard a remark
of an old lady, a relative of ours at Bemposta, when brother
Luis of France lost his head for breaking his word, together
with that other little thing which the constitutionalists in
their jargon call betraying his country, that a few drops of
blood taken from the nether quarters of princes, early in the
day, might save them afterward more than they can well spare
higher up.
Ferdinand. Oh! oh! down with that hand from the neck,
238
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
for the love of Christ! What do you smile at? Put it up
again; put it on the very spot: I don't mind a caper for it.
I only fancied I was afraid; that is, I only fancied it might
make you so, or at least rather uncomfortable; for myself I
was not in the least.
John-Mary. A little alarmed; a little bit shocked and
shivering; a very, very little: I do think, now, brother Fer-
dinand; and I beg your pardon for my inadvertency.
Ferdinand. No, by Santiago! no, by San José! no, by
San Spiridion! I never felt a moment's fear in my whole
life. I have thought it; and others have thought it too; but
they lied, the fools and thieves lied; there was nothing in it,
as I hope for Paradise.
I will now tell you, my brother and cousin, what I intend
to do with Bishop Queypo. Take out your handkerchief: you
will laugh until you cry again. It is my plan and order to
have him condemned to six years' imprisonment in a mon-
astery, after a year or two of jail. Is not that pleasant?
John-Mary. It may be just.
Ferdinand. But is not it laughable?
John-Mary. How so? Laughable things, my cousin and
brother, require a good deal of circumspection and inquiry.
One would not laugh out all at once, as a mule brays, but
rather say a prayer or credo between the thing laughed at and
the laugh.
Ferdinand. Do you know the old viper's age?
John-Mary. Bishop Queypo's?
Ferdinand. Bishop Queypo's, yes; but he is not the bishop
he was, by a quintal.
John-Mary. I do not know him: I never heard of him
before.
Ferdinand. Oh! then no wonder you missed the joke.
Eight years' imprisonment for a man eighty years old! Laugh
now! laugh now! Here is another good thing. People
think him very learned and pious, very patient and consci-
entious Saez recommends that the younger monks be ap-
pointed to instruct him in his Christian duties.
:
John-Mary. Brother, brother! his Master Christ will call
him away in the midst of the lesson, and let us hope he may
be found perfect.
Ferdinand. What! before the six next years of his im-
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
239
prisonment are over? I shall pray against that every night
and morning, and spend in the churches ten thousand
crowns to cross it. However, if he dies before the term of
the sentence is completed, he shall not be buried in his
cathedral, nor with mitre and crosier on his tombstone. But
I cannot think Mary and the other saints are so spiteful to
me: I fancy I see them with their ears at the door, listening
to the constitutional rebel as he says his lesson, and now and
then putting him out. I know they will do any thing for me:
I have always put my trust in them.
John-Mary. Bishops are under the protection of angels.
Ferdinand. I know that. I have contrived that they shall
not approach Señor Queypo.
John-Mary. Impossible! my dear cousin and brother!
Ferdinand. Possible enough, and sure enough, though
perhaps they little suspect it.
-
John-Mary. Nay, nay, my brother! that laughter — I
beg pardon - I mean no offence — but surely that laughter is
rather too irreverent. Pious men may do many things that
others may not; but we must not tempt nor be tempted.
Ferdinand. 'Fore God, he is little temptation for 'em.
John-Mary. Your Majesty's genius is great beyond com-
parison, and the mercies God hath shown you are manifold.
Ferdinand. Else the rogues would have had me on the
gallows. This little bit of lead kept me down on my legs :
had they searched me and found it and taken it away, I
might have mounted the ladder.
John-Mary. Is one kiss permitted me on that sacred
image?
Ferdinand. Kiss it; but under the left jaw: this is the
part to be guarded.
Now about the angels.
John-Mary. And the angels, too, will protect whom they
please.
Ferdinand. Brother and cousin, one word in your ear!
Of all the monasteries in my dominions, that to which I have
destined old Queypo is the fullest of lice and fleas; the dogs
and cats know it, and will not enter on fish-days or flesh-days;
the martins and swallows scream as they fly past, and never
did one of them build her nest under the roof. This I
believe is the reason, but I have heard of another,
that they
240
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
come from Barbary, and, being Moorish, instinctively shun
the purity of our faith.
John-Mary. I have observed them under the tiles of my
convents in great plenty.
Ferdinand. Your monks are less holy: they wash and
comb themselves.
John-Mary. Malice says it. Sometimes in excessively
hot weather they do, and to hear confessions in private
houses, where an odor too religious might affect the sick,
particularly the women.
Ferdinand.
Mere men of the world! men nostræ genera-
tionis! The women should be accustomed to the odor while
they are well.
John-Mary. Generally they are; but there are some faint.
stomachs that want civet even in sanctity.
Ferdinand. Jades! I wish I had them under lock and key
with old Queypo. If the angels, as I was telling you, came
within whistle of those walls, they would have nothing else
to do for the remainder of the week than to pick one another's
wings.
John-Mary. Brother, I doubt whether the angels are sub-
ject to such vermin.
Ferdinand. In heaven certainly not; but here even Michael,
though in the act of cutting down a heretic, must put aside
his sword and scratch himself. The older angels are too
cunning; they know the place. As for the younger, I am
secure of them: I have ordered that no change of linen be
brought to the wicked wretch; his clothes have been rotting
on his body for several months, and at last they are so full
of holes that no decent young angel would turn his eyes
toward them.*
An excellent plan has been laid before me for the deporta-
tion of all the constitutionalists.
John-Mary. Deportation! whither?
Ferdinand. The plan contains nothing about that. Sealed
orders may be opened when they are at sea.
*These cruelties were all committed against Queypo for having
taken the oath of allegiance, which Ferdinand himself took, to the Con-
stitution. On his removal from the jail to the monastery, some women
had the compassion and courage to throw a little of their own apparel
over his nakedness, and to cover his aged head from the mid-day sun
in July.
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
241
Fohn-Mary. Your Majesty must provide biscuits and water,
in a quantity proportionate to the voyage.
Ferdinand. Not I, not I; the plan has nothing in it of
biscuits and water. Beside, is there not water enough in the
sea for any number? And let them borrow biscuits from the
sailors, on their own credit.
John-Mary. But the sailors must have enough.
Ferdinand. So they shall.
John-Mary. To give or lend?
Ferdinand. I have nothing to do with the traffic of sailors.
John-Mary. Unless it pleases God to work a miracle in
favor of the constitutionalists, they must perish.
Ferdinand. In their favor! Do you know what they have
done?
John-Mary. Unwise things, no doubt: but your Majesty
seems to me less happy now, less tranquil, and less safe, than
when you joined them.
Ferdinand. The mule that breaks loose is less quiet than
when he was in the shafts; but he is free.
John Mary. My brother, if that word animates even you
so greatly, what wonder if it animated the less intelligent!
Ferdinand. Again, again I ask you, Do you know what
they have committed?
John-Mary. Recently?
Ferdinand. Within this week.
John-Mary. Not fully nor exactly.
Ferdinand. Sacrilege, sacrilege. Robbers have broken
into a church at Logroño, and stolen the body of God.
John-Mary. "Ave Maria! Clamavi de profunditatibus!"
I hope they are taken, and the body of our Lord recovered.
Ferdinand. Recovered, it is true, but after dogs had
eaten it.
John-Mary. Alas! alas! alas! that is not recovered.
Ferdinand. Brother and cousin, do not be heretical!
God forbid!
John-Mary.
Ferdinand. The true faith is, that the body of our Lord
having only passed the diaphragm of dog or other animal
is the Lord's body still let it enter the viscera, the long gut
I mean, and not even his blessed Mother could make it his
again.
John-Mary. I am so full of horror, I want to hear the rest.
VOL. V.
16
}
242
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
"Out of the mouth
Ferdinand. The thieves were pursued by monks, women,
soldiers, and dogs. Nothing could exceed, as was thought,
the right spirit of the dogs: they appeared to be angrier than
the monks themselves; it was believed that the Lord would
glorify himself by these vile animals.
of babes and sucklings," and so forth, I forget the remain-
der; no matter. Suddenly, when they had fastened on the
heaviest and slowest of the sacrilegious, he who held the holy
vessel threw it on the ground, and out fell the body of God!
The very dog that was thought the most zealous left the
rogue for it, and would have swallowed it. You know, my
cousin and brother, that swallowing the wafer is no easy
matter when we first begin: it often sticks to the roof of the
mouth; and I have seen a nun who has done penance all her
life, because she coughed it out.
John-Mary. Did no lightning nor other judgment fall
upon the dog?
Ferdinand. On the contrary, it was feared that he might
fairly claim eternal life; which would have been a dreadful
dispensation, for he is the noisiest dog in Logroño. But the
women and monks knew their business. They drove a stake
an ell long under his tail, and held him with his head down-
ward, until a surgeon could arrive, who carefully removed his
lower entrails. The Host was not found there: on which
the bells were rung, tapestry displayed, and cannon fired. It
was however in the stomach, whence the creature ejected it
from his mouth with severe convulsions. Several devils flew
out at the same moment. Some people say they could dis-
tinguish eight or nine; others could count but four, being
terrified and taken suddenly, although they heard the voices
of many.
John-Mary. What could they have been about?
Ferdinand. Tempting, tempting, tempting: their old trade.
John-Mary. But out they flew then? "Gloria Deo in
excelsis!" if the wind was fair for Morocco, and they took
that course. If they tarried in Portugal, it could only be
among the Jews or English. But in what condition was the
blessed body?
Ferdinand. It was discovered enveloped in bile. The
priests say that the bile is the dog's bile: the monks, with
greater piety, contend that it proceeds from the body of our
1
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
243
Lord, indignant at such treatment, and that what appeared
the most awful visitation was a miracle vouchsafed to the
city of Logroño. The people in their consternation see no
miracle in an affront producing bile, and pray before it, that
in due time it may depart. Their contrition has begun to pro-
duce this effect, and every morning it is somewhat lessened.
Have the bishops and archbishops been
John-Mary.
consulted?
Ferdinand. Naturally.
John-Mary. What can be done?
Ferdinand. They have ordered two public processions:
one, to appease the anger of the Divine Majesty for the
affront of stealing His Divine Majesty's body; the other, to
make him forget what the dog did, from beginning to end;*
which, as I told you, seems to be accomplishing. I have
issued an edict, that every dog of the same family with that
most execrable one, be hanged or shot; and that whoever
shall be convicted of having in his possession one begotten
by, or allied to, paternally or maternally, the said most exe-
crable shall be considered as a heretic, infidel, and traitor.
John-Mary. Let us hope, by the blessing of God's Mother
and her sweet Infant, that affairs will begin, ere long, to go
on better in your Majesty's kingdoms.
- I
Ferdinand. We may indeed hope it, by the blessing of
St. Iago added to the Infant's and the Virgin-mother's,
mean the mother of the thousand pains; none of the rest for
me! In token of it, they delivered into my hands two
societies of Freemasons. One was detected with a line upon
the table; which line the heretical thieves declared was a
fishing-line; although there was no other sign of it than the
hook and horse-hair. The other was heard to take the most
tremendous and diabolical of oaths, — I dare not repeat it.
Yes, I will
"Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Ave Maria!"
Now then hear it.
* "On the 4th of July, 1825, the convent of St. Antony was robbed
of the sacred vessel and consecrated wafers. The bishop ordered a
public procession, in order to appease the anger of the Divine Majesty."
Lisbon Gazette. Anger against whom?
It must be a very weak mind that fancies Christianity can be injured
by these recitals of superstition, in which the ideas of Divine Majesty
are quite as absurd as the wildest in the religion of Bramah.
244
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
John-Mary. "Et cum spiritu tuo! Et cum spiritu tuo!
Et cum spiritu tuo!"
I am prepared, my brother: it can do me no harm.
Ferdinand. They swore they would love and help their
brethren in all dangers and adversities. So! they would love
them on the scaffold, and help them, if they could, at the
stake. The people tore them to pieces, as cleverly as Anda-
lusian colts could have done it. Here, my brother and cousin,
behold the vast superiority of our religion over theirs!
monks who caught them in flagrante
John-Mary. A bad rebellious town!
it lie?
The
Whereabout does
Ferdinand. I don't know exactly, but somewhere south-
ward, no matter for that. These charitable monks, who had
been ejected from the same place, sang the service for the
defunct upon them; and (would you believe it?) their wives
and daughters ran out of their houses and called the holy
afore God, I think it sinful to say what the women
called them. But the Virgin shall be informed of it, word
for word; and the sluts shall blush at such language. You
see, even the women, though they never heard the oath nor
entered the chamber, were infected, - old and young! What
a serpent is this Freemasonry!
men
We shall come at last to the knot of traitors at the bottom
of our disturbances and insurrections. I told Father Cirilo
so, and he gave me the best advice a true vassal and good
Catholic could give. He said to me, "Sire, will you pardon
the frankness of my speech?"
I replied, "Say any thing, Father Cirilo, if you can remove
by it my perplexities."
he.
66
May I liken your Majesty to an inferior creature?" added
It did not very well please me to be likened to any thing on
earth; yet I answered (for I began to be curious and anxious),
"Liken me, liken me; make haste."
"Then," said Father Cirilo gravely, "your Majesty, by such
paternal clemency as you would extend, in coming to what your
Majesty is graciously pleased to call the knot of traitors at the
bottom of our disturbances and insurrections, reminds me of a
negro
"Hold! hold!" I exclaimed, for I fancied he meant a con-
•
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
245
He
stitutionalist. He corrected my mistake, and declared he only
meant, as his explanation would demonstrate, a poor fellow-
Christian from Puerto Rico. He continued, "The good slave
and cook, Dias, had just returned from the happy country still
under your Majesty's paternal care in the Americas, and was
ordered by his master's more experienced servant in the same
capacity, Juan Martinez Almagro of Seville, to prepare the
onions for dinner. Dias had seen him begin to peel one, and
immediately turned to the same occupation. Now he had
lived with an old aunt of his master, whose stomach could
not bear onions, and he had never dressed or seen any.
thought he could commit no mistake in the peeling of them, as
he had observed the master-cook tearing off and throwing
aside two or three coats of one. He therefore went on; and
coming at last to nothing, cried, 'Don Juan! I do not find the
onion.' In like manner does your Majesty. You must begin
with the first peel, throw that into the boiler; then take the
second and throw that in; and then in succession the remain-
der. All are implicated in the conspiracy against your Maj-
esty's beneficent government, excepting those who look after
the conspirators; one among a thousand."
I could hardly have imagined, my brother and cousin, the
wickedness of my people if Father Cirilo had not demonstrated
it. Lately came the fact to our knowledge that, although a
great part of the constitutionalists have no religion, a certain
sect is springing up of zealots and fanatics. Instead of sac-
rificing a god, five of which can be bought for a farthing (so
indulgent is he in letting us both buy and eat him), these un-
conscionable wretches have nothing less in view than the
abolition of our bull-fights, by the sacrifice of our cattle.
In
the papers of a constitutionalist we found many axioms and
problems; to some of which were written the words, "It
seems reasonable to others, "Not improbable; to more
still, "Query." But we found in larger letters, and without
any of these notes, signed by a miscreant of the name
Constat," these words:
•
""
""
"Before a long serenity can be hoped for Europe, the black
cattle must be sacrificed to the Tempests."
Tempests means devils, who often come in them, and to
whom the new sect offers sacrifice.
John-Mary. Very bad! very bad! But devils may be exor.
246
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
cised, and, I believe, from living men rather than from dead
ones. If we hang and burn any, the devils will fly into others
and escape us. Exorcism makes them so heartily sick, that
they have no appetite for any such tenement as they have
been ousted from, and have need of their native air again.
Ferdinand. Do you know, brother Don John-Mary, how
happy I am above the other princes of the age?
John-Mary. Your Majesty is indeed so, apparently.
Ferdinand. You must know why.
John-Mary. Among the many causes of exultation
Ferdinand. Well, well! go on,
stop?
why the devil do you
John-Mary. It would be difficult to hit upon the precise
one. Perhaps by your Majesty being the Most Catholic.
Ferdinand. That only led to it. Surely you know well
enough I am the object of a particular prophecy in the Holy
Bible. I have a whole prophecy to myself.
First I must inform you, what I understand is believed by
every sect of Christians, — if indeed any are to be called
Christians who refuse to obey the vicar of Christ
John-Mary. No, no, no! There may be Pelagians, Arians,
Protestants, Freemasons; but Holy Mother Church, as Canon
Bento Pinto da Cunha preached to us in my chapel, is no
Amphisbæna.
Ferdinand. Who is Amphisbæna?
John-Mary. I could not rightly understand him, whether
it was really a single beast with two heads, tugging two ways,
one of them where the tail should be
Ferdinand. Nonsense! nonsense!
John-Mary. He seemed to explain it in this manner; but
I fancy he must have meant two creatures of the canine race,
pelted in the street for immorality.
Ferdinand. Ay, ay; there is sense in that. But what has
it to do with the prophecy?
John-Mary. Your Majesty was about to mention a tenet
of the Church that every man adhered to.
Ferdinand. Right! right! Whatever the prophets and
doctors and evangelists and disciples said to people, the peo-
ple took as if it was said to them.
John-Mary. Certainly.
Ferdinand. The more fools they for their pains. Nothing.
;
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
247
was meant as it was spoken and if it was said to one it was
intended for another. The prophets had a sort of squint in
their tongues. If they promised any thing good to any one,
the simpleton was sure to be disappointed in it; and if they
threatened a rogue or a city, the threat fell on other folks a
thousand miles off. Now you are prepared in some sort for
my prophecy. Many at the time believed our Lord was talk-
ing to some people who grudged him a little essence of vanil-
la, and who pretended they would have given the three "reals "
(the price of it in those days) to the poor, rather than perfume
his stockings and pantaloon with it, much as they might want
it in that hot country. They did not observe him looking over
his shoulder toward me, who was not then born; nor under-
stand him, saying, "The poor ye have always with you."
John-Mary.
Habetis pauperes semper vobiscum.
"Gloria Deo in excelsis !"
Ferdinand. Now I have, in Spain alone, not counting the
Americas and Indies, above eight hundred thousand mouths,
that must either be filled by alms or stopped by halters.
John Mary. Sad alternative !
All orders
Ferdinand. Sad enough for them: but show me another
king, in our times, whom God and his blessed Mother and
those about them have thought worthy of a special prophecy.
The most favored of my ancestors never had in their domin-
ions more than half the number of those who held such
tickets of admission to the kingdom of heaven.
of monks, all ranks of religionists cry, "Beati pauperes!"
What a number of people have I made eternally happy, with-
out any care or trouble about 'em! And the very best in my
dominions -I mean of laymen. Priests and monks do not
require a similar state of probation. They are ready for
martyrdom when their Lord calls them, but would fare rea-
sonably well seven days in the week, in order to work the
better in his vineyard. The rest I have made light for the
long journey, and almost as ready to undertake it as their
spiritual guides. Have I not reason then to be superlatively
joyful?
John-Mary. Certainly, my brother, God hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Ferdinand. Hold! Have you a dispensation, my brother
248
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and cousin, for using the words of the Bible? I would not
venture to go beyond St. Isidore or St. Augustine.
John-Mary. They may always be used toward crowned
heads. It is generally thought by theologians that the best
of them were made expressly for us.
Ferdinand. Not unlikely. You are deep, my brother, in
the dogmatists.
John-Mary. Discreetly; sufficiently; not much amiss;
but I began to doubt whether the said oil of gladness-
Ferdinand. The devil you did! to doubt about it!
John-Mary. Whether it is an oil that is likely to keep,
though it has been in great demand of late among the
champions of legitimacy. I am afraid some hot weather may
affect it.
Ferdinand. And now, Don John-Mary, my brother and
cousin, I must come to the point with you, in the most ami-
cable way possible, on your invasion of my territories.
John-Mary. May it please your Majesty to inform me
what portion of your Majesty's territory has been rashly
entered by my troops, without my knowledge?
Ferdinand. I know not whether your forces, my brother
and cousin, have invaded it; but you style yourself King
of India. How can this be, when I myself am King of both
the Indies? Your Majesty is legitimately (inasmuch as what
is founded on usurpation can be legitimate) King of Portu-
gal, Algarve, Brazil, Guinea, Ethiopia, Arabia, and Persia.
John-Mary. Certainly, my brother, and of India; not of
both Indies.
Ferdinand. No, by the Mother of God! nor of one.
John-Mary. Pardon me there, Don Ferdinand, this gold
piece will prove it. (Aside.) He pockets it! No matter!
Ferdinand. Will you resign it, my dear brother?
John-Mary. Willingly, willingly! five hundred.
Ferdinand. What do you mean, my brother and cousin?
John-Mary. The crusado.
Ferdinand. What crusado?
John-Mary. That upon which I exhibited to your Majesty
my arms and rights.
Ferdinand. Blood of the martyrs! belly and backbone of
the confessors! you never showed me one such in the whole
course of your life.
DON FERDINAND AND DON JOHN-MARY-LUIS.
249
John-Mary. I intended it then, and will at any time.
Ferdinand. No shuffling, my brother and cousin! Will you
resign my kingdom?
John-Mary. I will never resign the kingdoms that the
Holy Trinity hath placed under my sceptre. My good
people of India shall not be deprived of a father by an
unworthy cession.
Ferdinand. Then God and my right! I will fight for it to
the last drop of my blood.
John-Mary. By proxy as usual, I hope, my brother Fer-
dinand your Majesty has already spilled in this manner
the best belonging to you, enough to float more than your
fleets, and never soiled frill nor ruffle, — though you once (to
do you justice) had your stocking down at heel from it.
Under the administration of Canning - who, threatening to establish
at one time absolutism, at another time republicanism, was abjured by
both parties, it was permitted Louis XVIII. to undo all that our armies,
from the time of Peterborough to the time of Wellesley, had been fight-
ing for in the Peninsula, and ultimately had attained. French influence
was restored. After a long series of cruelties, judicial and extra-judicial,
and after the death of Ferdinand, Spain turned on her side again, but
never could rise up. However, there was one honest man still left in
public life; and, singular enough, he was placed at the head of the
nation. Louis Philippe saw this, and thought it a personal affront. To
supplant Espartero he sent across the Pyrenees small sums, but suffi-
cient to make the nearest of the military stumble and fall; and they
were prepared to receive that person of his family who united most of
harlotry and bigotry. She disbursed more largely, from what had been
deposited by her in France, both during her husband's reign and after
his decease. Spain was instantly prostrate before her. Such is the
result of a long and sanguinary war against the Intruder: here lie her
constitutions, every chapter of every one, even their title-pages, indexes,
and covers; here lie the laurels of Wellesley, withered, weightless, and
bestrewing the path of Narvaez. What misery will not kings inflict on,
nations for the aggrandizement of a family! But what misery, what
degradation, what infamy ever equalled those inflicted upon Spain, in
thrusting back against her, first a pensioner, then an outcast; and con-
straining her, with traitors and assassins at her throat, to lick up again
those two vomits? Let it never more be questioned that Louis Philippe
is a genuine branch of the Bourbons, whatever may be the resemblance
he bears in person and demeanor to the catchpole at the Stinca in
Florence.
250
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XVII. KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLES, MR. PEEL,
MR. CROKER, AND INTERPRETER.
King. I receive with satisfaction the royal sons of my
brother, the King of England, whose noble nature and high
exploits have filled the whole space between him and me,
and are become familiar to my people as fish and bread-
fruit.
Peel. Sire, we dispose indeed of his family and of his
subjects universally; but we are not the sons of our most
gracious king.
Croker. Blood and 'ounds! Why tell the fool that we are
not his sons?
King. You are then the high priest?
Peel. Not exactly that, neither, Sire; but I make him do
and say what I order. I dictate the forms of prayer and
appoint the chief priests.
King (to Croker). And pray, mighty lord, by what appella-
tion am Ì to address your celestiality?
Croker. I am principal of the admiralty.
King (to Interpreter). What is admiralty?
Interpreter. The ships and captains and admirals.
Peel. His Majesty seems faint.
Croker. He stares at me like a stuck pig.
King (to Interpreter.) I cannot, with my ideas of propriety,
fall down before him, but any thing short of that.
permit me to take his hand?
Would he
Interpreter. I cannot answer for him. Time was, he would
have been ready to take mine with a dollar in it.
King. The other high lord governs the king's family and
people; but this governs the king and the air and the waters
and the world. Dog! dost grin?
Interpreter. I will tell your Majesty another time how
mistaken you are.
King. No other times for me: tell me now. I must know,
as other kings do, the men I deal with.
Interpreter. Ah, Sire! your former mistake was nothing to
this. As other kings do! One must cross the widest of the
seas to find them: they lie among coral, and clothe in feath-
ers, or are in buff.
KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLES, PEEL, ETC. 251
King. High and mighty, land-and-sea-and-sky lords, in
order to render the honors due to your rank and dignity, I,
a stranger to you
Peel. Sire, we are come only to announce to your Majesty
the pleasure his Majesty the King of England will experience
on receiving your Majesty at his court.
King (to Interpreter). Is it the custom of the land to inter-
rupt a person who is speaking?
Interpreter. It is the custom all over Europe, excepting
Turkey, where manners are more decorous.
King (to Interpreter). How do they do in their Parliament?
Interpreter. The same thing perpetually, unless the orator
has something to give them. In that case there is no other
interruption than applause.
King. Tell your king, O king's-family-and-people-feeder,
that I forerun his wishes, and will be present at his court
to-morrow.
Peel. Dear Croker, do inform him, for upon my soul I have
not the face, that he must pull off that odd dress of his, and
order a court one.
Croker. What have I to do with plucking and trussing the
creature? Tell him yourself; it lies within your office.
Peel. Sire! I am sorry to announce
King. He says he is sorry: I understand all that. Try to
comfort him. Bring out a skinful of delicate whale-oil; or,
in the urgency, persuade him to smell this little slip of salt
ling, which I always carry about me.
Interpreter. Put it up, put it up: do not let them see it.
The word "sorry" means in general quite the contrary; when
it does not, it means nothing at all. Among the last letters
I received is one beginning, "I am sorry to inform you that
your father is dead; but am extremely happy to add that he
has left to you the whole of his little property, your elder
brother having been unexpectedly taken off after twelve days'
severe suffering from his unfortunate duel."
King. You have taught me a great deal of English in a
little time.
Well, king's-feeder and high-priest-maker, what dolorous
event impedes your enunciation ?
(To the Interpreter.) Surely nobody has told him that his
father is dead; for he really looks quite concerned.
/
252
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
+
Peel. Sire, I am sorry to announce to your Majesty that
your Majesty cannot be received in any but a court-dress.
King. Oh! I know it, I know it well: I have brought with
me fifty court-dresses.
Peel. Permit me to explain, Sire: I mean to say, the court-
dress of the Court of St. James.
King. I have not one. Apparently St. James requires.
as much buckling as a coach-horse; and one would fancy his
votaries have broken knees. I saw several well-looking men
bound in that joint; and doubtless by the ablest surgeon.
They were going to thank the Saint for the commencement
of their recovery, and they mounted the palace-stairs as briskly
as if nothing had happened.
Peel. I will send a tailor to your Majesty, with your Maj-
esty's royal permission.
King (to Interpreter). What is that?
Interpreter. One who makes court-dresses.
King (to Interpreter). In truth no king was ever received
with more hospitality, kindness, and distinction than I am.
All the first dignitaries of the State attend me. The court-
tailor holds, I suppose, the third rank in the kingdom.
Interpreter. There are some between, not many. He,
however, is next to the king himself, or rather his copartner,
in conferring distinctions. Without him the greatest and high-
est man in England would be nothing. Silk gowns swell little
men into great ones, and silk ribbons elevate the lightest up
to the most conspicuous station.
King (to Interpreter). Perhaps the silk is a charm too against
anger and thunder.
Croker. What a bore! I am out of all patience.
Peel. I regret that your Majesty should experience any thing
like delay or disappointment; but the etiquette of our court
requires a strict compliance with custom, in matters of dress.
King. Pray, how many dresses has your king?
Croker. Don't answer the rascal. These barbarians are
always inquisitive.
Peel. Sire, I cannot exactly tell your Majesty how many
his Majesty possesses, not having the honor to preside over
his wardrobe; but of course on gala-days he always wears a
new one.
King. Gala-days I suppose are the days when he wrestles
KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLES, PEEL, ETC. 253
and tears his clothes. For in this cold climate I can well
imagine the richer may wrestle dressed. But your king must
have many suits. I am sensible of his affability and liberal-
ity, and shall be quite contented with such distinction as it
may please his Majesty to confer on me; but among men of
equal rank, unequal as is the power, treaties may be formed,
compacts settled
Croker. A slice of Sandwich, I trust, may come to us
thereby ; ay, Bob?
King (to Interpreter). The great whale, the admiral-feeder,
the navy-flint, is prouder and fiercer than the wizard-feeder
and prayer-pointer, disposer of the king's family and subjects
while dry-shod and upon the dirt. The latter is the civiler,
but, if features tell me any thing, cold, smooth, slippery, and
hard to hold as a porpoise.
Interpreter. The other looks as if he would pick a quarrel ;
he would quite as readily pick a but your Majesty does not
wear one.
King. Pick-a! pick-a! pick-a! What dost mean, word
eater-and-voider ?
Interpreter. Your Majesty's fine language does not supply
me with the word; and if I made an adequate sign of it I
might be hanged.
King. My language is the richest in the world, and the
very best.
Í have two or three words for one thing.
Interpreter. Sire, we have twenty. Roguery for instance.
We box the compass and come quite round to honesty and
honor; but some writers (not many indeed) make a distinction,
and put an s to the latter.
King. We kings are very nice upon higher points, but not
upon these. There are in my islands some men who under-
stand all sorts of words, native or imported: I take them as
they come. If people are good, let them be easy in speech
and free in action; let every one roast his fish as he likes,
and catch it as he can.
Croker. Your Majesty was saying something of treaties
and compacts. If I can serve your Majesty in the interpre-
tation of your royal wishes, you may command me.
King. I have an interpreter here I can trust better.
Croker (to Interpreter). He never said that, sirrah. He has
good manners.
254
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Interpreter. Then, Mr. Croker, do not omit such an op-
portunity of acquiring them. Do not wait for Lieutenant
White to propose to you again an excursion through the
window, for telling him to "moderate his impertinent, vulgar
Irish," when the gentleman had spoken most respectfully, un-
der a sense of injury, and when in his father's house yours
would not have had the assurance to be seated.
Croker. Sir, I remember no such occurrence.
Interpreter. Wonderful, indeed! Such occurrences are the
only ones that usually make a deep impression on such people.
The lieutenant held up a fist, not made to crack a Croker, or
any thing of the kind, but able to split a cocoa-nut on a pin-
cushion. Not remember it, indeed!
Croker. Peel, have you no prison, no treadmill, for such
fellows? We are here upon the king's service.
Peel. In England, though.
King. I request of that minister's celestiality that he will
not light his match where there is no gun. What faces these
Europeans have! they can fire them when they please. The
Great Spirit has in his wisdom appointed all things for the
countries in which they exist. What a blessing in these cold
climates, where water is turned into dust and rock, and the
feathers that fall from heaven's birds and winged genii are
colder than sea-shells, that the higher and nobler part at
least of the inhabitants can conjure up into their eyes, and
between their cheeks, such a quantity of flame and heat.
Peel. Was that for us
Interpreter. No, sir.
Peel. If your Sandwichian Majesty is graciously disposed
to enter into any treaty with his Britannic Majesty, my royal
master, I am empowered by his aforesaid, to wit, his Britan-
nic Majesty, to receive, consider, and lay it before his said
Majesty, for his Majesty's further consideration, by and with
the advice of his Privy Council.
King. The very thing for his Privy Council. His Majesty
sticks a new and brighter and loftier plume in my hair at
every word of your discourse with me. On the court-day, in
presence of all his nobility, male and female, I would dec-
orate his Majesty with a noble dress, suitable to his dignity,
with my own hands; declaring upon my royal word that I
have worn the same dress twenty times on the greatest cere-
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
255
monies of religion and State, and that I slept in the lower part
of it the night of my nuptials. Now I request from his Maj-
esty, I being a less powerful king, a dress which his Majesty
shall have worn only twice or thrice on public festivities, and
once only in dalliance with some favorite; and that his royal
hands shall invest me with nothing more of it than that part
which the most active man in the world could not leap into
by himself, and which no other nations than the most civilized
and ingenious have discovered the means of putting on this
being the principal, if not the only distinction between the
polished and the rude. After the surmounting of such a diffi-
culty in science, I do not wonder that you can count the stars,
and measure their sizes and distances, which I think I could
do myself, if I had leisure and they would wait for me.
Croker. Does the beast quiz us? He looks in earnest.
Peel. He really is serious, and expects an answer.
Sire, I will communicate to his Majesty the heads of your
Majesty's communication; and I entertain no doubt that his
Majesty will most graciously pay that attention which is due
to so ancient and faithful an ally, and which is conservative
of the harmony that happily exists between the two nations.
XVIII. KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
King. Who is the slave that, in the posture so becoming
a mortal, draweth his brow and his knees together on the
pavement of this my heaven, pointing with the centre of his
circumference to that cloudier one, of which my brother the
Sun is rajah?
Prime Chamberlain. Lord of light! behold the created of
thy golden foot, him whom we in our language of men do call
Rao-Gong-Fao.
King. The Sun our brother permits the tender blade of
rice to lift its head under him, after many moons. We like-
wise, but greater in our clemency, allow the creature of our
beneficence to unfold himself by just degrees in the space
of one hour. Meanwhile let him answer the words of wis-
256
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
..
dom, as they flow from the imperturbable fountain of eternal
truth.
Rao-Gong-Fao!
Rao.
Tiger-crushing-elephant! Crocodile-of-chrysolite !
River-of-milk-and-honey!
King. In our condescension of Majesty, we command thee
to leave untold, at present, the remainder of the seven
thousand names, wherewith the languages of the universal
earth, having exhausted themselves, would enrich us.
Rao-Gong-Fao!
Rao. The dust obeys the wind.
King. Answer thou the questions of our all-searching
Intelligence.
Hath our slave, the rajah of those two little islets drawn
by white bears, accepted our conditions? Or must we, in our
indignation, submerge him and his islets and his white bears,
throwing one of our jewels at them?
Rao. Have mercy! Forbear yet a little while, O Right-
hand-of-omnipotence! Let neither a jewel from thy armlet
plunge him into the abyss, nor an irresistible ray from thy
incensed eye transfix him. Verily he hath heard reason and
truth. He hath accepted thy gifts, O Disposer-of-empire!
When I informed him that, in consideration of the cold where-
with his people are afflicted, my king consented to use his
interest with his brother, not only not to withhold his light,
but to increase it, and would graciously order a whole grove
of high trees to be levelled with the earth, in order that they
might not intercept his warmth from the two bear-borne islets
of the western sea, he appeared much gratified. And whereas
the noblest of his people wear a garter on the outside of that
dress which covers the knee, while others can only wear it on
the inside, the rajah gave orders that one should be drawn
closely round me, higher than any man present ever wore it;
and that it should surround not my knee nor my buttock, but
my whole body and arms together, with many folds: not
unlike the ceremony which the Persian and Arabian poets, if
our learned men understand them, relate as anciently per-
formed amid the funeral honors of Egyptian kings; being
the last and greatest the survivors could offer to their defunct
masters. They call it in their language a strait-waistcoat;
and none are permitted to wear it in the streets.
Far is thy
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
257
servant, O Mountain-of-myrrh, from ascribing to himself the
desert. It was a token of what the rajah thought due unto
thee, O Oil-of-camphor! And when I informed him that, in
return for this benefit of warmth, your Celestitude wished
only the restitution of the few cities your soldiers and coun-
sellors had intrusted to his people, and the remission of some
lacs of rupees, which it was thought reasonable to promise
them because they cried for the same, he was overjoyed.
King. What lacs? What rupees? I never heard about
them.
Rao. Tortoise-of-adamant! Earth-sustainer! When the
natives of the two islets, together with some vagabonds they
had collected from certain plains near the Ganges, lost them-
selves in our country, they were constrained by hunger to
take several necessaries of life from the slaves of your
Divine Majesty. The said slaves were angry, and called
some soldiers to their aid; and disturbance ensued, in which
a soldier of the Celestial Empire was slain, and three wounded.
The servants of your Divine Majesty then sent other soldiers
against them, with orders to bring them into your serene
presence, or at least as far as the first court. They, hearing
of this order, were coming forward in great haste and per-
turbation. But certain wise generals then bethought them-
selves that these unbelievers, in their ignorance of polished
customs, might peradventure be inconvenient and indecorous;
and chose rather to provide for their necessities with a few
pieces of silver to each man, and a few cities to lodge them
The cannon was left on the walls with plenty of powder
and shot, that they might defend themselves against the
jackals and hyenas, when no longer under the protection of
your Celestial army. It is wonderful how this plain simple
story was changed in the country of the ungodly. The rajah
of the two isles was undeceived by me; finally he was per-
suaded that your Divine Majesty had acted with no other
feeling than that of hospitality; and he displayed as serene
a countenance as if it had been irradiated by a beam of light
from your Divine Majesty's.
in.
King. Show me a copy of the orders he gave, for the
remission of the money his servants would obtain from mine
Rao. Unapproachable Excelsitude! He told me he did
not interfere in the quarrels of his servants.
VOL. V.
17
258
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
į
King. He said it before: I pardoned him. Proceed.
Rao. He was happy to hear from me, that your Divine
Majesty had considered the cessions of every kind, both in
towns and silver, as gifts of hospitality; and he called three
gods to witness; who however refused to come
King. Then it is a trick. Why did not he bring them by
main force?
Rao. O Lamp-blazing-with-sandal-wood! their priests
came for them, with their shirts over their coats, and bearing
on their heads the last offerings; being the whitest flour,
sprinkled into the hair of cattle, and kept from blowing away
by the purest liquefied butter and the choicest fat of animals.
They had likewise round their legs certain tight silken bands,
mysteriously dipped in wine; and in their shoes were buckles,
of a metal not unlike silver, — mystical types of constancy and
firmness. Nor is there an instance, once in a year, of these
holy men breaking their words and promises, from the time
they put on these buckles to the time they take the same off
again. If they swear to any thing in them, unless it be that
they never will consent to be placed above the other priests,
they hardly ever violate the oath. On this one occasion they
violate it; chiefly to make the other priests merry with them,
and to teach them to do likewise, on the like occasion.
King. Well, but what advantage, what security dost thou
bring me? What were the priests to answer for the rajah ?
Rao. Pagod-of-holiness! he declared, and they declared
for him, as seeing into his heart, that he hoped to be the
imitator of your Divine Majesty, whenever an equal number
of guests from your Celestial dominions should honor him
with such a friendly visit in his island.
King.
Son of a dog! did he say this?
Rao. Lightning-of-destruction! thus spake the rajah, son
of a dog.
King. Flang-Sarabang-Quang.
Flang. Sublimity!
King. Count out the money.
Bear understand and talk Peguese.
Rao-Gong-Fao!
Rao.
King.
The children of the White
Heart-of-emerald-in-diamond-case!
Lift up thy last two fingers from the earth?
Rao. The Lord-of-life hath spoken.
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
259
King. I have heard that in the two bear-borne islets
there are no bamboos. What houses then can there be?
Have the people any?
Rao. Numerous, numerous, numerous, O Whirlwind-of-
might! They have cities larger than ours.
King. Lead out that slave; scourge him and slit his
tongue for lying, Flang-Sarabang-Quang.
Flang. Sun-of-truth! may the voice of gray hairs be heard?
King. Let us hear it.
Flang. Omnipresent! let men lie.
King. How! to me? Art thou too, O Flang-Sarabang-
Quang, come from that islet, where the first slave became
the first for lying to his rajah, and betraying his colleague?
This we have heard of old; but the rajah wanted him to lie
to other rajahs, and found in his whole dominions no other
slave so capable. Let Rao-Gong-Fao lie, since such is the
voice of gray hairs; but let him not lie unto me, until com-
manded. Lovest thou not truth, O Flang-Sarabang-Quang?
Flang. Steel-piercing-questioner-of-prostrate-souls! I am
aged. When I was a youth I loved that thing and some
others, and found they did me little good. Truth, both in
seasons of quiet and of disturbance, raiseth men's anger.
One speaks truth to another, and both grow hot; even the
silent, whose lungs have not labored. The rajah or king
heareth of it, and he groweth hotter still. They two boil
on two sides, he in the centre; but all boil and foam and
bubble, and fume away the good that is in them. Now,
though I have heard lies these sixty-five years, I have always
found them productive of complacency. Some of them were
malignant; yet the malignancy was for the absent; and,
supposing he heard of it afterward, only one could be an-
noyed where fifty were gratified. If there is a man in the
Celestial Empire who will lay his hand upon his breast, and
declare in the presence of our gods that he hath derived
more pleasure from truth than from lies, then let Rao-Gong-
Fao be thrown on his belly, and let his back be channelled
for a bamboo-bed.
King. Thou speakest unprofitably, O Flang-Sarabang-
Quang !
Lies are good only for good government, and are sacred
things. We coin, but punish coiners.
260
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
I desire to hear from my slave, Rao-Gong-Fao, the truth
only, and the truth plainly, and the truth fully. Swear to me,
O Rao-Gong-Fao, that no other word shall escape thy lips in
my_presence.
Rao. By the great pearl, glory of pearls, greatest of the
five on which five worlds repose at the extremity of the golden
foot, making all other pearls hide their varying and trembling
lustre in the opaque jelly of fishes, and making even the
brightest of diamonds take refuge in the rocks before it! I,
Rao-Gong-Fao, will speak the truth only, and the truth plainly,
and the truth fully.
King. Of what materials do these poor creatures of the
islets build their houses? Answer me, as fountain at once
and recipient of wisdom, and mingle not my glorious titles in
thy relation of them.
Rao. The worm carrieth not his slime into the blossom of
beauty and bliss.
The inhabitants of the greater islet, O King, construct their
habitations of dust and chaff.
King. Like swallows' nests?
Rao. Not in form, O King, exteriorly or interiorly. In-
deed they seem to display some intelligence and aptitude at
imitation in their dwellings.
King. I would hear more.
about the smaller islet?
Hast thou collected any thing
Rao. Thy slave hath learned, O King, that the houses in
certain parts of it are not dissimilar; but generally they are
low, and built of another kind of dust, totally without chaff,
which those in easy circumstances live upon.
King. Voyagers have related that even the royal palace is
unvarnished on the outside, and not very bright within; and
that the holes in the wall are filled up with pieces of mirror;
to hint that you must not examine them, but look to the flaws
in yourself.
Rao. I believe it; and, although the people are violent,
they are capable of reflection, and of receiving such a lesson
in the palace of the rajah. He himself hath much prudence,
and more courtesy. When he received me at his residence,
he was cautious to fasten a star against his breast; unwilling
to show any thing that could be mistaken for a sun, out of
respect and homage to the glorious prince who sent me, re-
splendent arbiter of the Celestial Empire.
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
261
King. He did well.
Rao. The streets of London, his chief city, were mostly
narrow and crooked and painted black, but without varnish.
This color, worn likewise by the priests, is in honor of a cer-
tain deity they call the devil, in whose service the English are
very much employed. The greater part of the day they are
doing whatever they can devise as most agreeable to him;
toward the evening they call their servants together, and make
them cry and sing and kneel and jump up again, and invoke
another deity, in various tones of voice, to drive their old
favorite away! They are very fond of these single combats,
and often imitate them in the streets.
King. It would be humane to instruct them better by
means of missionaries.
Rao. Their priests fancy they can instruct ours.
King. Unilluminated by the reflection of light from the
golden foot, a priest who fancies he can teach another priest
is the more ignorant and stupid of the two.
It is difficult to believe that all the streets in a city, or even
all the temples, are dedicated to a couple of deities.
Rao. The temples bear the names of different ones, but
nevertheless are dedicated to the service of two only; the oth-
ers seem to be merely called as witnesses to the contest, or
rather as spectators of the games instituted in honor of the
great competitors. I entered one, resembling a room in a
tavern, where it was announced that the devil's old master had
come up at last and gained a great victory over him. Would
your Celestitude believe it? The whole company wept. The
report gained ground, and manifested itself throughout the
city. The new houses were not painted black, several of the
new temples were not; beside, I found some of the priests in
a street to which the king has given his own name, and where
he keeps wives for them, and educates young priestesses;
and neither these nor the priests wore black outwardly,
although one of the females retained a tinge of it about her,
made with some unguent, just for appearance, if she should
be examined in private. I found the priests better men than
those who wept in the other place; for they laughed, and
seemed heartily glad. One of them, who lent me a young
priestess for a wife, on my paying her mother a few pieces of
gold, assured me that the new streets were built wider since
262
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
the last earthquake; that the houses, which I imagined were
covered with blue paper, were roofed in fact with a material
not unlike stone in substance, although of incredible lightness.
Still I am of opinion that, in despite of precautions, if two or
three of these houses fell on any very young or very old per-
son, it might harm and even lame him. My guide took up a
portion of one, called a brick, and pulverized it between his
fingers, and blew it into the air. Even this did not satisfy
me; it only proved that if the street, in falling, crippled no-
body, it might blind fifty; and this might happen to strong
men in common with weak ones.
King. Have they any animals among them, any swine,
dogs, oxen, horses, elephants?
Rao. Surely such a number of horses doth not exist in
the remainder of the world as in the city of London. I have
seen six carrying one old woman, who had more years than
pounds weight. Agriculture is in such high esteem in this
nation, that a wagoner is next in honor to a rajah. Not only
is he privileged to wear a long robe in public, and to carry a
sceptre of seven cubits, but he alone, like the rajah, hath a
right to harness eight horses to his vehicle.
Sheep, oxen, and swine I have seen in country-places, but
I winked and dissembled that I saw them. Whether the
island contains many is among the mysteries of State. I
often heard it affirmed; but my best friends were unwilling
to clear up my doubts upon it. A dealer in tea, very rich, one
of the lords of Hindostan, desired me to ask him the question
no more even he was fearful of punishment. Perhaps I
might never have known, O Celestitude, that there are ele-
phants in this land, if I had not been accidentally in a street
where a fire broke out. Several of the creatures were brought
forth from sacred inclosures, all under wooden covers; and
marvellous was it to behold them casting up whole fountains
of waters, not only against the walls, but even upon the roof.
The English have the art of making their trunks grow for this
purpose, to a length surpassing belief. With what patience.
did the creatures suffer themselves to be mounted and
drenched and directed! And how unmoved they appeared in
the midst of an innumerable multitude, shouting and shoving,
and under incessant flakes of fire falling round them!
I was
afraid to ask any questions about them, seeing that English-
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
263
men are unwilling to let strangers know the number they
possess of them; for they are in the greatest dread of their
enemy called the French, having lately beaten him.
King. How is this? What absurdity art thou talking,
afraid of him because they have beaten him?
Rao. O King! Conqueror-of-nations! Golden-footed!
Golden-eyed! Shaker-of-thrones! the West differeth from the
East, but not so much as the men differ in them. The
English are never afraid of enemies they have not beaten ;
the moment they have beaten them, they go bareheaded, and
fast and pray, and implore permission to live quietly another
year: which favor they rarely obtain before they have given
back all they won, and sworn before three or four gods of
good faith that they will be peaceable in future. After which
ceremony they entreat their enemies to feel if they have any
coin in their pockets; and, if they have, to take it out, and
then to tie their hands behind them for a season.
King. Nobody would tell me this until now.
Flang-Sarabang-Quang!
Flang. Sublimity!
King. Count not out the money. He who cried, "Count
out the money," was an evil spirit: it was not thy rajah.
Rao-Gong-Fao!
Rao. Celestiality!
King. Rise to within fourteen inches and one-third of thy
natural and utmost height.
Rao. The atom ascends from the chariot-wheel of Omnip-
otence, and twinkles in his light, and begins to take its form
under the eye of its Creator.
King. Is there any probability of the English engaging in
war again speedily?
Rao. Not against the French; whom they beat so severely
for imposing a rajah on some kingdom near, that, to make
them amends and to keep them good-humored, they are per-
mitting and encouraging them to impose another, who had
attempted to poison his father on failing to dethrone him.
The people made him swear that he would not impale them,
nor roast them alive, nor hang any but those who had fought
for him and saved his head from the axe. But having hung
all these he began hanging the rest.
King. Why did they make him swear then? They deserved it.
264
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Rao. So said the French, O Rajah! Scale-of-equity! and
the English owned for once that the French spake truly; and
having seen their error in driving them away, together with
the milder rajah, who had forbidden his cooks to roast men
alive, they now assist them heartily in replacing the parricide,
whose first royal ordinance was,
(6 Let my cooks preach salva-
tion and roast men alive." Upon which, great numbers of
cooks, who dwell together and possess a great part of the
kingdom, came forth from their cells, and patted on the face
the people they met, and said "God be with you!" and cut
their throats in the most tender way, and left them. This
they did when they found only few; but when there were
enough to pay the value of the fagots, they roasted them alive
with great jubilee, according to the royal ordinance. Many
poor wretches cried out to the English for protection, and
begged at least a knife or a cudgel to frighten the cooks away;
but the French declared that if the English lent any assist-
ance, in violation of royalty and religion, they would run before
them again over the snowy mountains and break their fat
hearts. The English fought before to drive out the French
from this country, thinking that the possession of it would
make them too powerful, and feeling the injury such posses-
sion did their commerce. If ever they fight again, it will be
to keep them in; for it is a maxim of State among them, that
it is a folly to fight twice for the same thing. The French
exclude their ships and supplant their merchandise; so that
I see no chance of a war between them: but I descry it in
another quarter.
King.
Speak on, O Rao-Gong-Fao! Thou hast much
wisdom. Speak, and spare not.
Rao. O Hooded-serpent among rajahs, striking in silence!
Insinuator of death and dissolution to whosoever crosses
thy path the English have ever been so dearly beloved
by their sisters, that at last they will hang them in their
garters.
King. Their sisters! hang them in their garters! for
loving them!
Rao. The same policy, O Wonderful, reigns here among
them, as guides them against their enemy the French.
They fear those they have beaten; and hate mortally
those who caress and help them. Those who are called
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
265
their sisters, from their vicinity and affection, are not all
women. They are the inhabitants, both male and female, of
that other islet called Sister: though Britain is never called
sister nor brother, nor any such name, having in truth but little .
right to it.
King. Will the white bears, that drag the islets from one
place to another, stand still while the people fight and
quarrel?
Rao. Dispenser-of-wisdom! Palm-tree-of-the-genii! No
white bear drags either.
King Away with him! away with him! What benefit
can I expect from the mouth of Infidelity? What blessing,
unless I close it?
Flang-Sarabang-Quang!
Flang. Sublimity!
King. Hearest thou this?
Flang. Thy servant heareth.
King. And thine eyes rest within thy head? And thy
mouth becometh not as the mouth of a well with wonder?
Flang. Sublimity! My eyes rest within my head, and
my mouth becometh not as the mouth of a well with wonder ;
forasmuch as the white bears may have died by the visitation
of a god. He may have been wroth with the wicked people
for molesting us, and may have smitten the white bears. `If
Rao-Gong-Fao had said that the islets were never borne about
by them, I should be the first to recommend that he be stoned
to death, to avert the anger of God both from us and him.
For we have it plain and unequivocal in the books composed
by the prophet entitled "The Manifestations ;" which like-
wise teach us how many wings and eyes each bear hath, and
what strength and comeliness.
King. I myself have perused that sacred book, with inef.
fable delight. It hath foretold me every event of my reign,
and in particular the effect of emetics and cathartics, and
will foretell every thing that must happen on earth, until the
great tortoise, which supports it, casts his shell. This also it
hath foretold.
Rao-Gong-Fao! rise into second life. Open thy lips again
and speak. What hast thou learned of the new cause of
trouble between the islets?
Rao. They do not worship the same gods.
266
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
King. Could not they let the gods, who are stronger than
they are, fight it out among themselves?
66
Rao. The gods, I understand, and particularly the inferior
ones, have lost a good deal of blood already, and would fain
lie still awhile. But there is an old man in a jungle, several
days' voyage from both islands, whom they call, after his
residence, the "jungler" or juggler." If any man prays
to any god, without first asking his leave and paying for it,
he curses him member by member, and orders his priest to
curse him, and forbids all persons to give him a mouthful of
grain or root or cold water, or even to lend him a spark of
fire from his pipe. The inhabitants of Sister do not listen
to any priest without a certificate from the juggler, that he is
able to make a god and eat him in a moment: for the inhab-
itants of Sister bear a great respect to those who eat and
drink heartily, and an equal contempt for every other kind
of ability. It is not requisite that the juggler should see the
novitiate who is to become a priest, or should know any thing
about him it is only needful that he should receive his vows
of obedience, and his protestation that he believes the jug-
gler to derive his authority from God himself, through an
unbroken succession of jugglers, and to possess God's own
spirit.
King. How can he believe this?
Rao. All things by degrees, O Starry-firmament! First,
he is taught that grain is meat; and secondly that meat is
God; and thirdly that to eat a fish is piety; and fourthly
that to eat a monkey or goat is impiety; and fifthly that to
eat God himself is the best service his creatures can render
him. After these preliminaries, it is not very far nor very
difficult to believe that a juggler's spirit is a divine one.
King. Blindness! blindness! Catch me twenty or thirty
of my cleverest priests, bind them hand and foot, and send
them out missionaries of truth to the benighted.
Is the difference between the two islets old or recent?
Rao. A little while ago the inhabitants of both wor-
shipped the juggler equally. Something, in which a woman
and a sum of money were concerned, made a former king of
Britain quarrel with the old man or pretend to quarrel; and
he seized upon all the lands and temples, and upon all the
cattle and precious metals appertaining to them; and he
KING OF AVA AND RAO-GONG-FAO.
267
swore he would be juggler in his own kingdom. The old
juggler's priests went over to his side, having much venera-
tion for their lands and temples, and opened many books
demonstrating that they should do it, the same being foretold.
Nevertheless, the consciences of many pricked them, when
they saw their ancient gods grinning from the walls at them.
By degrees they plucked up courage, and grew as angry as
the gods were, and brought buckets of lime into the temples,
and whitened the paintings. The principal change in the
religion is the transfer of property; the principal difference
in the priests themselves is, the old juggler's priests declare
and swear that they do eat God, and will eat him to their
dying day. The new jugglers keep not so constantly to one
story: sometimes they say that they do eat God "verily and
indeed;" sometimes not quite verily nor quite indeed, but
quasi verily and quasi indeed, a word borrowed from the
primitive language of the old juggler. And, if you press
them hard, and ask, "Do you or do you not?" they tell you
their Church is liberal, and you may go and be damned.
King. What means that?
Rao. The most favorite term in all the religions of the
West. They agree in nothing but in damning one another.
I have known even the common people of London ejaculate
the sacred word in the streets, without a church near them,
and even when they seemed very far from any religious feeling.
King. I would not make a movement until I had ascer-
tained the point in dispute between the islanders, and the
chances of reconciliation.
Rao. The old man of the jungle, O Meter-out-of-wisdom
and Inspirer-of-concord! will never let that be; and the
rajah of Britain says he has learned his part, and is as good
a juggler as the old man. At which Sister is exasperated,
and calls him impious and accursed. She reminds him that
his ancestors believed in the divinity of the old juggler; and
that the people of Britain never killed so many of their
enemies as when they were under his guidance, and when he
consecrated their standards, and blessed and poisoned their
arms. She demands that a certain number of her inhabitants
may wear their hats, boots, and great-coats in winter and
summer; and sit down and whistle and hiss and hoot and
cry,
"Hear him, hear him!" and "Question, question!" in the
'
268
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
same large hall where the sugar-boilers and money-changers
of England meet to discuss their interests, and to divide
among themselves the people's money. He declares he does
not mind the people's money, nor regard the interruption and
unfitness; but he fears they will propose to transmit a portion
of his subsidies to the old juggler, and obey him in voting as
he lists. He consents that, if they will swear to have in
future no dealings whatever with the old juggler, he the rajah
will be graciously pleased to let them wear hats, boots, and
great-coats in winter and summer, in the said hall; and sit
down and whistle and hiss and hoot and cry,
"Hear him,
hear him!" and "Question, question!" and that furthermore
he will authorize them, in common with the English of the
said hall, to call each other one name more than their own.
On their part they protest that, even if they swear an oath,
it shall be an oath no longer when the old juggler says it
shall not be one; that they have sworn to him; that, sup-
posing they had not, their fathers and mothers had for them;
and that they cannot but believe what their parents said they
should, the very day of their birth, though it were that a
horse-shoe is a sheep's head, or a sow's bristle the crest of a
turkey-cock. This is thought the strongest of their argu-
ments, as resting on the common faith of both nations.
King. The question is, I perceive, whether the priesthood
of the old juggler or that of the rajah shall possess power
and wealth.
I am minded to despatch thee again, O Rao-Gong-Fao,
with a letter of advice to my tributary the king of the islets.
Flang-Sarabang-Quang!
Flang.
Serenity!
King. Incline thy back, and gather up the emeralds: they
are these.
My child, rajah of the two islets of the West, Britain and
Sister! my peace and protection be with thee!
Wishing to compose the differences that have existed for
several moons between thee and Sister, my eyes never rested
until this dew of wisdom fell from my brain.
My child let the children of Sister wear hats, boots,
great-coats, winter and summer, in the great chamber; let
them sit down and whistle and hiss and hoot and cry,
"Hear him, hear him!" and "Question, question!" and do
PHOTO ZAVELLAS AND KAIDO.
269
therein whatever else their nature needs; and let them have
one name more than their own, as have the money-changers
and sugar-boilers. Be not angered, my child, if the children
of Sister do appeal to the juggler as formerly, and believe in
him, and worship him. One previous step is alone necessary
to their admission into the great chamber. Take thou, Ó
rajah my child, all the lands and other riches belonging to
the temples. No appeals will ever afterward be carried into
the jungle: for the old juggler would drive away any who
brought him one, and would call it a mockery; and the
priests of the two factions, now ready to tear each other's
eyes and tongues out, will slink away when they meet, and
not look one another in the face.
Rao-Gong-Fao!
Rao.
Mine-of-wealth, terrestrial and celestial!
King. Tell my son that the money thus raised is most
sacred and most fortunate; and that I devote it, with my
prayers and vigils, to his sole service, in place of those
sordid cowries and accursed rupees, which unholy and violent
men have touched, and which they would have persuaded
me (who have no such mischievous intent) to pour into his
treasury.
XIX. PHOTO ZAVELLAS AND KAIDO.
Kaido. Photo, we meet in sorrow.
Zavellas. In sorrow, my beloved sister, have we often
parted; for often have we lamented the death of those who
followed us, and who believed on the word we gave them
that the God of battles would protect the just; but never
until now did either hear from the other the language of
despondency. Tell me, Kaido, what is there that hangs
about thy heart so heavily, and will not fall from it between
us two?
Kaido. When I remember how much you have suffered,
O my brother, first from a perfidious enemy, and latterly
from an ungrateful country-
Zavellas. Cease, my sister! One of these things alone
should be remembered.
270
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Kaido. Let me return then home. I see, what indeed I
saw as clearly ere I came, your righteous indignation. Had
only the archons entreated me to undertake the mission, I
should have doubted more and hesitated longer.
Zavellas. Who then sent thee on a way so beset with
dangers ?
Kaido. Mosko, the tender wife, the timid mother; she
whose generous fears would never let her leave your side in
battle, nor now unclasp the son so late recovered.
She tells
you again, through me, to return to Ali Bey; to pass the
prison of the many who have fought around you; and to ask
admittance at the door wherein your youngest child was kept
three whole years away from you.
Zavellas. For what?
The house of our
Kaido. Well may you inquire it.
fathers is sunk in ashes. On my road hither I stepped over
the remnants of the beams, and among the rude stone ima-
ges, their supporters, blackened but incorruptible. No man
hath ventured to appropriate or remove them: there they lie,
as they lay the sad morning when your hand set fire to the
roof.
O Suli! O my country! never should my tears have fallen
upon this calamity: a worse now threatens thee,
the power-
ful, the magnanimous abandon and betray thee.
Zavellas. A worse indeed!
Kaido. Nay, a worse yet.
Zavellas. There cannot be.
Kaido. There is.
Zavellas. Threatening us?
Kaido. Befalling us.
Gold hath entered our walls.
Zavellas. Then it entered through other apertures than
the mansion of Zavellas.
Kaido. Some comfort in our adversity!
Zavellas. A great and lasting one.
Kaido. Though it has brought with it fatal counsels.
Zavellas. Fatal they are indeed to those who forfeit the
esteem, and grievous to those who lose the fellowship, of the
Botzari. Noti and Kitzo, who follow the steps of Markos,
how grand are they! Usually it happens in men as in plants,
my Kaido, where one blossom is remarkable for its fulness.
and its beauty, those beside it are hollow or small. Two
PHOTO ZAVELLAS AND KAIDO.
271
J
great brothers were too much even for fable, when fable went
down lower than the gods. Here are two; of whom either
may contend with the heroes of antiquity, such as our country
alone have given birth to. Belief that the high capacious
soul of these brethren will watch and sustain me from a dis-
tance is dearer to me than to link my hand in theirs.
who is he that should dare to hope it?
them next to liberty, next to Greece?
But
Who shall stand with
Kaido. If only the thought of such as these dwelt with
us, we might bear intense evil patiently.
Zavellas. Sad indeed is it to consider how much of mis-
chief can a few bad men accomplish; how little of good can
many better.
Now tell me, Kaido, what hast thou heard disquieting?
Kaido. Heard I not, O Photo, the speech of the archons?
Did they not conjure you, in the name of our country, to
leave it; to accept the conditions of Ali Tebelen; to rely on
his faith, - the faith of a traitor, a murderer, an empoisoner?
Zavellas. Thou hast remarked something since; for that
only raised thy scorn, and thou wast silent.
Kaido. Saw I not, amid the conflict of my woe and of my
exultation, saw I not (and shall I forget it?) Photo Zavellas
throw his arms around the necks of those elders, entreating
them never more to think of him but in their orisons, never
more to trust the enemy after this peace-offering?
Zavellas. If I, undistinguished as I am and destitute of
experience, could lay a charge so weighty on such authorita-
tive men, how much greater right have they to demand from
me the execution of their designs?
Kaido. Brother, what I undertook to do, I have done;
nor dare I attempt to dissuade you. I came not, O Photo,
to remind you that you are banished by them who received
at your hand their deliverance and existence; that your chil-
dren through them have no father's roof to shelter, no father's
eye to watch over them. This, however, I will announce to
you for the blood of our parents cries out on me to say
it — and do not reprove me, Photo, though it should shake
your purpose: if I am guilty of duplicity, your danger makes
me so.
Zavellas. Thou falterest; falter still. Thou tremblest
and I do not bid thee not to tremble. Peace! silence! tell
272
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
me nothing. What canst thou teach me of Ali Tebelen
which the least suspicious might not suspect? Sister, it is
not this embrace that ought to assure thee I neither am stern
toward thee nor insensible of thy love: my determination it-
self, which thou wouldst remove, should prove it; for on that
rests the glory of our father's house. Couldst thou endure to
find the voices in the street drop lower at thy approach; mirth
become gloom ; and hearty laughter hollow brittleness, cracked
in the middle at one freezing glance? And what sounds,
thinkest thou, will avenge this silence? I will tell thee
they are these: "The courage of Photo was a traitor's; his
humility a slave's."
The very thought, in my horror, makes me hug to me
virtues which perhaps belong not to me. Oh! thou hast done
wrong already; thou hast made me prize myself! Leave me
my true worth; leave me my own; let me be and be known
to be what I am!
Kaido. Forgive me! forgive me! Do not trust Ali Tebelen.
Zavellas. He hath sworn such perfect esteem for me, and
hath declared his resolution to celebrate the treaty with such
solemnity, that either the dagger or poison, I foresee, will
ratify it. Nevertheless, there are those in Suli who are per-
suaded that the embassy, with which they would intrust me,
may prolong, if not establish, their freedom. I indeed think
differently: but where is now my vote? What right hath an
exiled man to offer his opinion on the public weal?
Kaido. Pardon me, O my countrymen and my countrywo-
men, if I am less faithful in the charge ye have confided to me!
I departed with no such intent. My brother stands before me,
safe, healthy, free; can I suffer him to go and never more to
see him, knowing that I never shall, and that a word of mine
may preserve him to us all?
Zavellas. Speak not that word, O Kaido, if reproach must
follow it; if, when it hath fallen from thy lips, it must stand
for ever between thee and honor. Life we shall have again:
a God hath promised it; beatitude we may or we may not ;
fidelity to our fathers, our children, our country is the grain
that holds the germ of it. Let us never be numbered with
those who barter it, or who believe that Heaven hath imparted
to man a sounder sustenance.
Kaido. Ali Tebelen (you know it not; I know it to a cer-
•
PHOTO ZAVELLAS AND KAIDO.
273
tainty) hath sworn your death. Now go, if any reason upon
earth impels you; if any duty calls where none can be availa-
ble, where none can be performed: go, if you shall benefit
your country by giving up to chains and tortures the bravest
of her defenders.
Zavellas. This only course lies before me.
Kaido. Abandon your ruinous and untenable fortress *
while the way is open and the toils unspread. Provisions
must soon fail you, and egress be intercepted. Fight among
the hospitable and unconquerable of Parga. Their numbers
are diminished year after year; but the courage of every man
among them who hath fallen seems to have been portioned
out by some guardian angel on the thirsting hearts of the
Venice casts a look of compassion on them; and the
Seven Isles continually send them succor. Never can that
day be dreaded, under no sign in the heavens is it marked by
destiny, when so valiant and virtuous a race shall be aban-
doned. Humbled as are the fortunes of her Protectress, the
memory of her past exploits, of her power and of her dignity,
keeps her upright. Will she aid in crushing the desolate?
Will she sell the bruised slave at her own doors?
rest.
Zavellas. No nation, O Kaido, is capable of this turpitude :
none would wish it; none, wishing it, could accomplish it.
Rather than be delivered over to the infidel, the Pargans
would dig up again the bones of their forefathers, carry them
in their bosoms, and plunge with them from the summit of the
rocks into the sea.
I too have a country: if I cannot save her, I may at least
obey her. The injury I have received (but indeed it should
never be called so) only raises my heart the higher. Thanks
to them who have given me a power, a victory I could not
have gained without them. Promise them my duty.
Kaido. From these arms, then, God receive thee into his !
Zavellas. Courage! courage! weak, lingering Kaido!—
pray to Him for the soul of Zavellas, for the safety of better
men.
VOL. V.
* Santa Veneranda, a fortified monastery.
18
274
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XX. MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
Mother. My dearest son Miguel, before I give you my
benediction on your return, or receive a kiss from you,
although in my hurry and in the kindness of my heart I
wiped away the snuff for the purpose, and you stand expect-
ing it, I must be assured that you are deserving to bear the
name of a glorious archangel, and that what you propose to
swear to-morrow you will unswear the day after.
Miguel. Dearest mother, most unworthy should I hold
myself to bear the name of our brave and gallant archangel,
if I hesitated to assert the dignity of the throne by break-
ing that oath, or any other to which the people is a party.
Mother. Now come to my arms, my dutiful child!
Miguel (sneezing). What a jar of snuff my mother is!
Mother. Ha ha ha! so many blessings upon thee!
These sneezes foretell much good; three, in honor of the
Holy Trinity, the very names you swear upon.
A word in your ear! Do you know we have been forced
to marry your sister?
Miguel. What uncle have you found for her?
Mother. Alas! none whatever; nor even a relative in
blood. The young reprobate had not the confidence to wait
a few years for a nephew.
Why do you shake your head, holding the whole red of
both lips between your teeth?
Miguel. I too must marry !
Mother. Ay, ay! but lawfully and religiously and royally,
and according to the custom of our house. My dear son, I
shall put my dear granddaughter into bed with you on the
day she is twelve years old. Before that time I will look out
sharply, and afterward you must.
Miguel. I heard a sermon at Paris, in which the missionary
told the young ladies, to their faces, that a man ought to have
as many eyes as a spider, and as much facility in spinning a
web, if he hoped to catch them or hamper them in their frolics.
"Do you receive them elderly," said he, "they are peevish,
and make you more so; do you take them in the middle of
life, they think themselves just a match for you, and the
contest is never decided until one of the antagonists is made
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
275
suppler by the last unction, before which period there is trick.
for trick, taunt for taunt, accusation for accusation; if you
expect any advantage from a tenderer age, you discover that
they are childishly fond of exhibiting before your male friends
how greatly and in how short a time they have advanced under
your instructions."
Mother. Nothing short of inspiration could have taught
the blessed missionary these truths. Seculars do not know
half the wickedness of the world, nor believe it, nor dream of
it, until their pastors lead them by the hand and show it them.
Well, another time about this. The girl might, however, have
waited for some royal prince to espouse her: then many would
have taken her part, and more would have sympathized with
the husband. Well, well! these are light matters; very vex-
atious though, when one has nothing else to think of.
How were you received at the English court?
Miguel. Passably. The court was as civil and polite as
could be expected from a Protestant and northern one.
Mother. And the people, how did they behave?
Miguel. The commonalty is the rudest in the world, -
even the richer.
Mother. I wonder the nation should continue to be so
unlike ours; many of it have been at Lisbon: beside, they
take snuff and are baptized.
Miguel. They treated me no better than if I had been
brought up without either. One asked me who whipped off
my father.
Mother. Whipped off! he went off without a whipping!
The fellow meant despatched, sent out of the
Miguel.
world.
Mother. What business was that of the fellow's? Was
not the King my own husband? Might not I do as I liked
with my own? What have their princes been fighting for?
Was it not for the rights of the throne? You had no more
hand in it than the rest of us. Ferdinand of Spain attempted
the same against my brother Carlos; and was not he compli-
mented in a private letter by the King of England for escaping
from the Cortes? And was he ever blamed by that king or any
other for what he did in his own house? Would Señor Can
nin have been permitted to occupy the post he did occupy,
unless he had consented to the overthrow of the liberal party
276
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
in Spain? And did he not order Señor A'Court to denounce
to us the most liberal of them, Alpuente, and to drive him out
of his bed at midnight, trembling under the coldness of the
rain and under the weight of his eighty-one years? And has
not Señor A'Court been made a peer for it, and other such
services? All kings love our Cousin Ferdinand, excepting
those who have lent him money; and none think the worse
of him for the misfortune of missing his blow against his
father. They cannot laugh at us on that score. If you have
no other cause to complain of rudeness, you may ride over
this triumphantly.
Miguel. Another man said he was sorry I had no daughter,
because it forced me to marry my niece in her stead, which
was going too far for an Infante.
Mother. Ignorant creature! The Pope would have had
many doubts and doubloons before he consented to it. He
boggles at an aunt, and grudges a great-aunt. A golden pix
and chalice must precede them; and many jars of tamarinds
must loosen his catarrh before he says benedicite.
Did our Cousin of France take our cause into considera-
tion?
Miguel. He advised me by all means to swear to the
Constitution.
Mother. He advise it! an old battered bestial rake! He
advise it! What! the Most Christian King! Oh the weak
powder-puff of throne and altar!
Miguel. I asked his Majesty whether in his wisdom he
thought I might safely overturn it. He replied that, what-
ever any king chose to do, it was the duty and determination
of the Holy Alliance to provide that he should do it safely.
"As for safety, then," said he, "be entirely at your ease.
I asked him whether he saw any impropriety in it. He an-
swered that he was not sufficiently versed in the finer and
higher parts of divinity to solve the question; and that I
had universities and confessors in Portugal as clear-sighted
as any in France. He doubted not they would enlighten
me, and pray for me, and bring their flocks about me to
defend me, and was confident I had as little to fear in spir-
ituals as in temporals.
"In case of a slight commotion," said his Majesty with his
usual benignity, "my troops are near at hand, and they have
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
277.
had some practice in composing such slight and transient
differences. It is time," added he, "that the Bourbons and
their connections should be united in amity and policy, and
that heresy should repose no longer on one single lily."
Mother. Did you know what he meant?
Miguel. The duchess of Angoulême told me.
Mother. Chaves is in the mountains: you must ride over
and embrace him; or let him kiss your hand at least. Pedro
has been playing the fool in Brazil, and wishes to play it here.
When he was a child I could with a whip or a whistle make
him hear reason; though, to confess the truth, so little of a
prince is he by nature, he had not much more understanding
at three years of age than he has at present. You, my dear
Miguel, have been constantly the same: a rare quality! Such
men are fit to rule the world; and, as far as I can see behind
and before me, always have ruled it and always will.
Now we will leave reflections for business. Tell me, what
said that generous open-hearted man, Prince Metternich?
Stay; I hope you did not sit down with him at cards. He
plays well; he wins many gold pieces in the year.
Tell me,
tell me; for if you have lost any thing to him, any great
matter, I will not send him the seven parrots in honor of the
seven churches, nor the twelve monkeys (great and small) in
honor of the holy apostles.
Miguel. Dear mother, he does not want parrots nor mon-
keys, and cares as little for the apostles as an Algerine or a
Dutchman. I played with him; and, although he plays re-
markably well, I won fifty louis of him.
Mother. Really! Well, having made the vow, I must
send the monkeys and parrots; they are dedicated and
devoted, and I declared to the apostles my intention.
Be.
side, I have a bird-of-paradise for his wife, stuffed with nut-
megs, musk, and camphor, and with two rubies for the eyes.
Listen! one is a garnet.
Do you happen to have the fifty louis about you, son Miguel?
Miguel. Dear mother, I reserve them as an offering to
the archangel. He would be very angry to be treated worse
than a dozen poor apostles, some of them not gentlemen by
birth.
Mother. The archangel is high-minded: he cares little for
money.
278
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Mother.
Miguel. A fine candelabrum would gratify him.
There is no room for another in his church
Miguel. A new hilt to his sword
Mother. Beware, child! People like best the sword they
are longest used to handle: his hath a gloriously rich hilt to
it, and there are many sapphires in it, rough and prominent,
that make the grasp steady. He would not cut so well with
another for some time.
Miguel. Mother, I must keep them; seriously I must,
for another momentous service.
Mother. Another momentous service! Is there any such
beside the faith?
Miguel. When I was in England I was forced to ride out
every day.
Mother. Have not you paid for your horse-hire?
Miguel.
Horses were lent me.
Mother. How then?
Miguel. I have cracked my pantaloon, riding with the
Duque do Duero and Conde Dudeli.
Mother. A very Christian-like title is the Duque do Duero :
is it one of ours, or Castilian?
Miguel. Do not you know the title?
Mother. I thought it had been extinct.
Miguel. Sweet mother, the Duque do Duero is an Eng-
lishman, the great captain that killed Don Napoleon da
Buenaparte.
Mother. With his own hand?
Miguel. He unhorsed him, and his charger trampled the
giant to death. I inquired, and heard it from those who saw it.
Mother. If he had killed the misbeliever with his own
hand, I should have thought more highly of him; but that is
no great matter which a horse can do best.
And who is the other, the Conde Dudeli, who did such
signal mischief to your fork?
Miguel. I lived in his house, he being the first minister of
State.
Mother. Did he treat you handsomely, my child?
Miguel. Handsomely, for a heretic. He gave me plenty
of fish and eggs both Fridays and Saturdays. People say he
has in his service one of the best cooks in England: yet you
will laugh when you hear how he cooked things.
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
279
The eggs in England are not unlike ours. They have
escaped the effects of what is miscalled the Reformation.
Fish, I just now told you, they have in that country; but
they are somewhat deficient in the nobler species, no bonita,
no dolphin; and porpoises and, seals must be excessively
dear, and the fishermen very inexpert in catching them, not
a single slice having ever been offered to me at the best
covered and most delicate table. They seem really to prefer
the coarser kinds. The Mayor of London sent, as a present
to Conde Dudeli, a prodigious fish he called sturgeon; a sort
of dog-fish, but of the mastiff breed, and uncontrollable by
cookery. If veal could be twisted into the consistency of a
cable, it would bear a distant resemblance to veal. My teeth
are unexceptionable; but they carried off perforce a coil of
it between every two. Fishes of this kind are said to be
plentiful in Russia, and come pickled into England. Perhaps
much of the deal timber, which bears a heavy duty in the
port of London, is smuggled under the name of sturgeon.
Mother. Never hint it to them: let the knaves be cheated
in the customs. Poor Miguel! so they reduced thee to eat
chips and shavings, and splinters and blocks! What! noth-
ing more delicate?
Miguel. I once was served with what I flattered myself
were surely snails; but I found they were only oysters.
Another time, when I fancied I had a fine cuttle-fish before
me, they put me off with a sole.
Mother. Heretics! heretics! poor blind creatures! little
better than Moors, Jews, and Freemasons!
Miguel. I have tasted in England eight or nine different
kinds of soup; and vainly have I sounded the most promis-
ing of them for a single morsel of fat bacon or fresh pork.
Mother. Have they no chestnuts and acorns then? Or are
all the pigs kept to clean the streets?
Miguel. I do not know; but neither fat bacon nor lean
ever enters their soup: nor does pork, nor sausage, nor heart,
nor liver, nor cavear, nor vetch, nor gourd, nor oil, nor cheese.
Mother. Ha! ha! I see how it is. They must trade with
some nations where cheese and oil and cavear and gourd
and vetch are always in great demand; and these they ex-
port for lucre. And perhaps their animals have no heart or
liver within them. But sausage and pork and bacon,— son
i
280
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Miguel, don't you smell something there? The English are
Jews in disguise: I often thought as much. They won't have
Virgin; they won't have Child; they won't have bacon.
Miguel. I did not say quite that. They eat swine-flesh
bacon has been brought to me at table: I have seen them
eat it, though strangely.
Mother. With what forms and ceremonies?
Miguel. Little of those; for in the mere act of eating
they really are adepts, and very explicit.
Mother. How then? how then? I crack to hear.
Miguel. Boiled, actually boiled! hot, smoking hot! and
served up whole !
Mother. Smoking a little, but put into ice, no doubt, to
render it eatable; with the radishes, figs, shalots, chives, bean-
pods, green almond-shells, liquorice, and stewed prunes.
Miguel. I never saw those with it, all the while I was in
England; but I once observed it eaten with half-grown peas:
and another time a minister of State was so preoccupied by
stress of business, that he forgot there was chicken on his
plate, and (as I live!) ate both together.
Mother. And they gave you neither stewed prunes nor
figs with it! My son, they slighted you out of hatred to me,
who always had an eye upon them which they never could
bear. Ham before a queen's son in this naked fashion!
And, forsooth, they talk about alliance!
Miguel. They often slighted me in the midst of mag-
nificence, and apparently of hospitality. On my birthday,
on the festival of our blessed saint and archangel Don
Miguel, out of pretence of doing me honor a nobleman of
high distinction invited his sons from a public school to dine
with him in London. They did not indeed dine with him :
and you will presently guess the reason. Their dinner was
served up to them in another room; and you must be aston-
ished when I declare to you that the principal dish contained
a goose.
Mother. A what?
Miguel. A goose; and roasted. I do protest to you it
smelled like a gang of reapers.
Mother. I was never in Galicia; I never saw any reapers.
Miguel. I have passed through them, crossing the roads
in this our Portugal.
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
281
Mother. Ay, ay; we must have reapers from somewhere:
it escaped me. How did the children chew and swallow such
carrion? Plenty of raisins, I hope.
Miguel. Not a raisin !
Mother. Why! even a tender and delicate young fox-cub
would require a sprinkling of raisins to subdue its domineer-
ing lusciousness. Geese are more unctuous than he. Foxes,
I suspect, are no dainties when they have left mother's milk
for field-mice and moles and poultry; but there is never a
time when geese have this advantage. Birds, I think I have
heard, are unaccustomed to suckle.
Miguel. On recollection, the children ate apple-sauce with
their goose.
Mother. Ha, now! that really does come a step nearer
Christianity.
Miguel. Once they placed the hinder quarter of a pro-
digious sheep directly opposite, with the least becoming part
of its tail toward me.
Mother. Sheep! tail toward an Infante of Portugal! son
of an Infanta of Spain! What, in the name of holy Mary !
could a sheep or a tail do there?
Miguel. You will hardly believe me, when I tell you that
the English, although they do not eat horse-flesh, yet eat
mutton.
Mother. Of course the very lowest only.
Miguel. Not only the lowest, but marquises and bishops
Mother. In time of scarcity.
Miguel. Latterly, all times have been times of scarcity in
that over-taxed and over-peopled country. These are the
very words of one among the wisest in it; who told me, how-
ever, that even the rich in better times would eat mutton.
Mother. Privately, I presume.
Miguel. By degrees they have been brought to eat it
openly, and even at great dinners.
Mother. Lord help 'em!
Miguel. I saw a whole quarter, weighing ten pounds at
the least, at once upon the table; and the whole in one dish.
Mother. They must have vast caldrons and furnaces.
Miguel. It was roasted.
Mother. How could it be? Have they any volcanoes in
London? Or do they cook such dishes at the cannon-foundry?
282
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Miguel. They have no volcanoes in the capital, nor nearer
than the county of Iceland.
Mother. You mean Ireland, son Miguel; I know they
have a volcano there: priests report it.
Miguel. The rich families keep prodigious stores of carbon
underground, and sell it to the poorer in hard seasons.
Although, in our acceptation of the word, they are not canni-
bals, nor, strictly speaking, eat raw flesh, yet they only half-
roast it; and the government of France came to an under-
standing with that of England, to give me half-roasted meat,
and to serve it up so hot that it burned my mouth. Even
the plates and dishes were hot. I think on recollection they
once put the same slight upon me at Vienna. That indeed
one could endure; one has only to wait a few minutes, and in
cold weather the food would grow lukewarm and tractable.
They do not cut it in pieces, nor separate it in any manner,
before they begin to eat; but set about it voraciously, and as
fast as a morsel is detached it is consumed. They have ser-
vants enough; they might surely have them taught to divide
their meat for them. Already they do indeed cut slices from
it at the side-board and hand them round. From the mutton
I was mentioning I actually saw the blood follow the knife.
Mother. How! was it killed in the dining-room?
Miguel. No; in carving I saw it, and expected to hear a
bleating. Another day there was a peacock served up at the
second course, which even had the feathers on its head un-
singed, and of as fine a purple as when it strutted on the
grass. Involuntarily did I cover my waistcoat and cravat
with my napkin and hold it up to my eyes; I feared so the
sudden expansion of the tail.
Mother. What! had it the tail on too?
Miguel. Not within sight: I thought it might be concealed.
in the body; God knows what they did with it, unless they
turned it into sauce. The following Thursday there was a
young pig, whole, and almost alive. The dirty creatures did
not disembowel it, and out came the entrails, with all it had
eaten; and it looked in my face as if it squealed to me for
protection. There were hares too with their ears on; whole
hares! I do believe, though I would not assert it, they had
even their teeth in their heads. Certainly they had been well-
fed by the cook; their interiors were quite full, and I could
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
283
smell the herbs they had eaten. They were polished on the
outside like military boots, and had neither honey nor treacle,
neither anise nor cinnamon, neither chocolate nor canary,
neither pomegranate nor citron, neither elecampane nor an-
gelica, neither chestnuts nor pistachios, nor even fennel and
pine-seeds about 'em.
Mother. Do the English take their sustenance by means
of the mouth?
Miguel. Entirely, as I imagine; I never saw the con-
trary.
Mother. Unfortunate, benighted souls! So little notion
have they of Christianity, they cannot even cook!
Miguel. You know they have not any oil, the produce of
their county.
Mother. No?
Miguel. No olives.
Mother. Are you sure?
Miguel. Near London and Windsor I am ready to swear
there is not one.
Mother. Not even in the king's park? God then has
cursed the land.
Miguel. Perhaps toward Scotland there may be, and upon
the hills that have the benefit of the sea-breezes.
Mother. No, child! no, no, no! I see how it is; I see it
clearly. The Lord in his judgment and mercy has cursed
the land of the Philistines.
Miguel. And, what is more, he takes away the flavor from
all the oil that is imported, excepting the fish-oil, which he
leaves them for encouragement to turn Catholics, it always
reminding them of the olive. As for theirs, I declare you
could as easily taste fresh butter. They tell us it comes from
Provence, a city in France; no wonder, then, in the hands of
Jacobins, it comes over mixed with water. They have indeed
fish-oil in plenty.
Mother. But fish-oil, son Miguel, is good neither for body
nor soul. Is not Count Dudeli rich enough to allow his wine
and oil a seasonable time to mature in?
Miguel. The English use more wine than oil.
Mother. More wine than oil? Do they light the lamps in
the churches with wine?
Miguel. I am informed they light none in those places.
284
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Mother. They are bad enough; but don't believe that, son
Miguel! God would take daylight from them for ever if they
dared to put out his lamps.
But, son Miguel, you seem no thinner than usual; you must
have found something you could eat contentedly, and perhaps
these dishes were invented for no other purpose than to excite
your wonder: a sort of wit, ay?
Miguel. Lord Dudeli is a very witty man, and has many
clever things of his own, ready both for friends and strangers;
and moreover is much enriched by succeeding to Don Jorge
da Cannin, in whose office he found catalogues and strings
of 'em, hanging on every peg for every occasion. He showed
me the labels to several of these, in his Right Honorable
predecessor's own hand; which labels I mistook for doctor's
prescriptions, although the writing was clear and steady. I
took down the words; here they are in my new pocket-book.
"For gout; for gravel; for hernia; for asthma; for gun-shot
wounds; for sabre-cuts; for ophthalmia."
66
I observed that a broad-nibbed pen had been drawn over
the words, “for gout," and apparently with violence; that in
very fine characters there was written under hernia, em-
ployed in the House of Commons with great success ;
" under
sabre-cuts and ophthalmia, a division in the house upon it—
Egypt Walcheren thought too like Will Wyndham's
'killed off.'"
Mother. Gibberish! gibberish! most wit is.
Miguel. His friends assured me that his wit upon these
subjects was irresistible, and will immortalize him. But im-
mortality, my confessor told me, is become so creaky and
crazy, that he would not be tempted to buy an annuity upon
it at three years' purchase. He demonstrated that true
immortality in this world can be given only by the Pope, and
only when two centuries have elapsed after the burial, and
when all but His Holiness have forgotten the deeds and ex-
istence of the defunct about to be beatified. One gentleman
who was present, a good Catholic too, begged to differ from
him. He said he certainly had seen the foliage of plants
between the leaves of books, and that they must have been
there a hundred years; on which principle the great men in
England contrive to get their names inserted in large well-
shutting volumes, called biographical; and the most malignant
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
285
detractor cannot lug them out again. Beside, in the Treasury
and Exchequer there are others peculiarly belonging to those
offices, open for the insurance of this said immortality, and
whoever is minister receives a ticket gratis; that is, the peo-
ple pay for it.
Lord Dudeli gave me one of these jests daily, five-and-
twenty minutes after dinner; and once, with the assistance of
his cook, a sharp and satirical one at the dinner itself, under
a dish-cover.
Mother. Ha! cooks are great helps to great men in wit
and pleasantry. What was it he said when he came in?
Miguel. He did not enter. It was Friday, and there were
several kinds of fish at table; and knowing that I could eat
little else, and observing that I had been helped to a slice of
turbot, and had requested a trifle of assafoetida and a few
lumps of sugar and a pinch of saffron and a radish and a
dandelion, a servant brought me a lobster, well enough cut
into pieces, but swimming, or bemired rather, in a semi-liquid
paste of flour and butter; and though he saw I had turbot
before me, and had heard me call for oil and vinegar and
grated goat-cheese which a civiler valet had already brought,
he bowed with the gravest face in the world, and offered me
the two fish together, to say nothing of the butter. I took it
ill, but sate silent. To appease my just resentment, the rest
of the company did actually eat both at once; and some of
them so heartily, it was evident they wished me to believe it
is the custom of the country.
Mother. Fit punishment! though imposed by themselves.
Strange uncivilized people! It may be, however, that this is
their way of fasting; for they have some notions of religion,
though erroneous and foolish.
Miguel. Mother, nothing can escape your sagacity and
penetration: you are perfectly right. And now I remember
another fast of theirs, kept in perverseness on Monday. Count
Dudeli had partridges at table; and I observed that he took
a piece of bread poultice, brought hot to him from a hospital,
and ate it with the breast of the bird. The others thought to
get offices under him by doing the same; and, although sev-
eral did it, there was not one that was forced to leave the
company; such strong stomachs have the English, however
unfortified by saffron and assafoetida. I could say more upon
286
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
this subject that would stagger the faith of a Capuchin; but
the Capuchin would be glad to hear it.
Mother. So should I then.
Miguel. The English have a university at a city they call
Oxford; city they call it, not knowing that cities must have
walls and custom-house officers at the gates. There is one
college in that university, where a most singular and most
abominable kind of penance is inflicted; and not only the
members of that, but several in others, are condemned to eat,
on certain days of the year, or perhaps on one day only (let
us hope it !), what they call the New-college pudding. Mother,
I dare not tell you of what material it is composed. They
would alter the form at least, if they had any decency. I
should be inaccurate if I called it inhuman; but how brandy
or cinnamon or pimento, or drug of any kind, can enable men
to swallow one morsel, is beyond my comprehension.
Mother. The English have strange notions in regard to
what appeases the wrath of God. As for the court, I have
always hated it. What baseness and avarice! not to make
amends for the devastation of your raiment, occasioned by the
backwardness of the people in the science of saddlery. Was
there no pad, velvet or rabbit-skin?
Miguel. None, upon my life!
Mother. Was it then from a brass nail that had lost its
head, or from a corner of the board that had broken out
behind?
Miguel. Neither; they have no nails whatsoever, nor
boards of a hand's breadth, in their saddles.
Mother. Not even the nobles?
Miguel. Not even they.
Mother. The late war, then, has brought them down where
they should be. So pressed for timber and stores, we have
nothing to fear from 'em. Since we are resolved on a rupture,
I see no better way than through your pantaloon. We will
remonstrate here is a fine opening; and much may come
from it if properly handled. Should we engage in war, we
must all contribute. The fifty pieces - Metternich would
not lose fifty pieces for nothing.
Miguel.
Mother.
He did though.
Perhaps you saw him privately some time after-
ward.
MIGUEL AND HIS MOTHER.
287
Miguel. He told me that his head ached violently from
the vast exertion he had made in his unsuccessful and hope-
less attempt at cards with me; and that until the present
time he had thought himself a calculator.
Mother. How did he proceed to cure his headache? Did
he go to bed and cry credo three-times-three?
Miguel. He forgot to inform me.
Mother. It might not have done. I have a formulary,
but none shall ever hear it; for God could never punish a
drunkard or demagogue who might happen to pick it up and
to carry it in his mouth. Perhaps on my death-bed mind,
I don't promise: I only said perhaps. I am liberal if you are.
Now tell me about the clever Prince Metternich, so clever
that nobody knows what he would be at; and at last he
deceives the wisest of us.
Miguel. When we were alone, he kissed my hand affec-
tionately and humbly, and said that henceforward he could
consider me in no other light than as King of Portugal and
Algarve, and not so much in pursuance of the powers in-
trusted to me by my august brother
Mother. August blockhead! My choler rises into my
throat! The Constitutional mule! Miguel! Miguel! deserve
the title of the Most Faithful; deserve to sit among the other
kings of Europe, and dethrone the lamp-lighter. Did not
Prince Metternich give you this counsel?
Miguel. In truth he did no such thing.
Mother. Pretty prince! fine counsellor! What is the man
fit for? What did he say then?
Miguel. He said he did not consider me the true and
worthy possessor of the Lusitanian sceptre so much from any
regard to the appointment of Don Pedro, his Imperial Majesty
of the Brazils, while there were restrictions upon me which
his Imperial Wisdom showed no disposition to remove
Mother. What would you have? How could he speak more
plainly or more sensibly, in diplomatic language? Proceed,
proceed.
Miguel. As from the prodigious genius I had displayed in
matters requiring" Pah! pah!" cried he, "no voice can
express it. Such kings want no advisers; they are only im-
pediments to the royal spirit. What a stroke will it be of
your Majesty's, to raise or countenance a slight disturbance
288
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
in Lisbon, whereby the English troops will be detained from
assisting the insurgents and schismatics in Greece, and from
oppressing the poor Catholics in Armenia, and in the East
and West Indies, and in Ireland and Sumatra."
Mother. He deserves the name he has acquired in Europe.
Miguel. Why so hard upon him, mother, all on a sudden?
Mother. Hard upon him! I say again he deserves it, for
the clearness and rectitude of his views. In regard to the
fifty pieces, they, being the fruit of the gaming-table, might
be placed by me in holier hands than those they came from,
and may help to bring down on us the benediction of Heaven.
Being king, you cannot want them.
Miguel. Mother, you always prevail: do with 'em as you
please.
Mother. I will spend them in prayers to turn the hearts of
the English. They have many things in common with us: I
myself have seen them smoke cigars; they can play at cards,
and even cheat; they can whistle, and almost dance. Having
been baptized, they might be brought over to our doctrines,
if God would have any thing to say to them after so long and
obstinate a rebellion. Well, my son, you promise to take the
oath to-morrow, and to cancel it the day following?
Miguel. Solemnly.
+
Mother. Jesu bless you then! and San Miguel remind him!
Here is a little list of names it may be as well to run over;
some trifling fines from the proud and wealthy; a few imprison-
ments for those who are only heirs, - longer or shorter in pro-
portion to the ages of their fathers; very rare executions, —
thirty or forty, it may be, for those who bring the axe on their
necks by having such stiff ones. Six or seven of the more
obstinate regiments may be consigned in succession to dun-
geons, into which the water can enter as freely as the jailer ;
or into the holds of ships, in which it would puzzle a Domin-
ican to determine whether the timber or the biscuits are
fullest of worms.
Let us hear Mass directly in the chapel. I am hungry; and
dinner is ready at noon to a moment.
SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
289
XXI. SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
Sandt. Generally men of letters in our days, contrary to
the practice of antiquity, are little fond of admitting the young
and unlearned into their studies or their society.
Kotzebue. They should rather those than others. The
young must cease to be young, and the unlearned may cease
to be unlearned. According to the letters you bring with you,
sir, there is only youth against you. In the seclusion of a
college life, you appear to have studied with much assiduity
and advantage, and to have pursued no other courses than
the paths of wisdom.
Sandt. Do you approve of the pursuit ?
Kotzebue. Who does not?
Sandt. None, if you will consent that they direct the chase,
bag the game, inebriate some of the sportsmen, and leave the
rest behind in the slough. May I ask you another question?
Kotzebue. Certainly.
Sandt. Where lie the paths of wisdom?—I did not expect,
my dear sir, to throw you back upon your chair. I hope it
was no rudeness to seek information from you?
Kotzebue. The paths of wisdom, young man, are those
which lead us to truth and happiness.
Sandt. If they lead us away from fortune, from employ-
ments, from civil and political utility; if they cast us where
the powerful persecute, where the rich trample us down, and
where the poorer, at seeing it, despise us, rejecting our coun-
sel and spurning our consolation, what valuable truth do they
enable us to discover, or what rational happiness to expect?
To say that wisdom leads to truth, is only to say that wisdom
leads to wisdom; for such is truth. Nonsense is better than
falsehood; and we come to that.
Kotzebue. How?
Sandt. No falsehood is more palpable than that wisdom
leads to happiness; I mean in this world: in another we may
well indeed believe that the words are constructed of very
different materials. But here we are, standing on a barren
molehill that crumbles and sinks under our tread; here we
are, and show me from hence, Von Kotzebue, a discoverer
who has not suffered for his discovery, whether it be of a
VOL. V.
19
1
290
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
world or of a truth, whether a Columbus or a Galileo. Let
us come down lower. Show me a man who has detected the
injustice of a law, the absurdity of a tenet, the malversation.
of a minister, or the impiety of a priest, and who has not been
stoned or hanged or burned or imprisoned or exiled or re-
duced to poverty. The chain of Prometheus is hanging yet
upon his rock, and weaker limbs writhe daily in its rusty links.
Who then, unless for others, would be a darer of wisdom?
And yet, how full of it is even the inanimate world! We
may gather it out of stones and straws. Much lies within
the reach of all: little has been collected by the wisest of the
wise. O slaves to passion! O minions to power! ye carry
your own scourges about you; ye endure their tortures daily;
yet ye crouch for more! Ye believe that God beholds you;
ye know that he will punish you even worse than ye punish
yourselves; and still ye lick the dust where the Old Serpent
went before you !
Kotzebue. I am afraid, sir, you have formed to yourself a
romantic and strange idea both of happiness and of wisdom.
Sandt. I too am afraid it may be so. My idea of happi-
ness is the power of communicating peace, good-will, gentle
affections, ease, comfort, independence, freedom, to all men
capable of them.
Kotzebue. The idea is, truly, no humble one.
Sandt. A higher may descend more securely on a stronger
The power of communicating those blessings to the
capable is enough for my aspirations. A stronger mind
may exercise its faculties in the divine work of creating the
capacity.
Kotzebue. Childish! childish! Men have cravings enow
already; give them fresh capacities, and they will have fresh
appetites. Let us be contented in the sphere wherein it is
the will of Providence to place us; and let us render our-
selves useful in it to the uttermost of our power, without idle
aspirations after impracticable good.
to
Sandt. O sir, you lead me where I tremble to step,
the haunts of your intellect, to the recesses of your spirit.
Alas! alas! how small and how vacant is the central cham-
ber of the lofty pyramid !
Kotzebue. Is this to me?
Sandt. To you, and many mightier. Reverting to your
SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
291
own words, could not you yourself have remained in the
sphere you were placed in?
Kotzebue. What sphere? I have written dramas and
novels and travels. I have been called to the Imperial Court
of Russia.
Sandt. You sought celebrity: I blame not that. The
thick air of multitudes may be good for some constitutions of
mind, as the thinner of solitudes is for others. Some horses
will not run without the clapping of hands; others fly out of
the course rather than hear it. But let us come to the point.
Imperial courts! what do they know of letters? What let-
ters do they countenance, do they tolerate?
Kotzebue.
Plays.
Sandt. Playthings.
Kotzebue. Travels.
Sandt. On their business. O ye paviers of the dreary
road along which their cannon rolls for conquest! my blood
throbs at every stroke of your rammers. When will ye lay
them by ?
•
Kotzebue. We are not such drudges.
Sandt. Germans! Germans! must ye never have a rood
on earth ye can call your own, in the vast inheritance of your
fathers?
Kotzebue. Those who strive and labor gain it; and many
have rich possessions.
Sandt. None; not the highest.
Kotzebue. Perhaps you may think them insecure; but they
are not lost yet, although the rapacity of France does indeed
threaten to swallow them up. But her fraudulence is more
to be apprehended than her force. The promise of liberty is
more formidable than the threat of servitude. The wise
know that she never will bring us freedom; the brave know
that she never can bring us thraldom. She herself is alike
impatient of both; in the dazzle of arms she mistakes the one
for the other, and is never more agitated than in the midst of
peace.
Sandt. The fools who went to war against her did the
only thing that could unite her; and every sword they drew
was a conductor of that lightning which fell upon their heads.
But we must now look at our homes. Where there is no strict
union, there is no perfect love; and where no perfect love,
292
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
there is no true helper. Are you satisfied, sir, at the celeb-
rity and the distinctions you have obtained?
Kotzebue. My celebrity and distinctions, if I must speak
of them, quite satisfy me. Neither in youth nor in advanc-
ing age, neither in difficult nor in easy circumstances, have
I ventured to proclaim myself the tutor or the guardian of
mankind.
Sandt. I understand the reproof, and receive it humbly
and gratefully. You did well in writing the dramas and the
novels and the travels; but, pardon my question, who called
you to the courts of princes in strange countries?
Kotzebue. They themselves.
Sandt. They have no more right to take you away from
your country, than to eradicate a forest, or to subvert a church
in it. You belong to the land that bore you, and were
not at liberty, if right and liberty are one, and, unless
they are, they are good for nothing,
- you were not at
liberty, I repeat it, to enter into the service of an alien.
Kotzebue. No magistrate, higher or lower, forbade me.
Fine notions of freedom are these!
Sandt. A man is always a minor in regard to his father-
land; and the servants of his fatherland are wrong and crim-
inal if they whisper in his ear that he may go away, that he
may work in another country, that he may ask to be fed in
it, and that he may wait there until orders and tasks are
given for his hands to execute. Being a German, you volun-
larily placed yourself in a position where you might eventu-
ally be coerced to act against Germans.
Kotzebue.
I would not.
Sir, I know my duty.
We all do
Sandt. Perhaps you think so.
Kotzebue.
Sandt. We all do; yet duties are transgressed, and daily.
Where the will is weak in accepting, it is weaker in resisting.
Already have you left the ranks of your fellow-citizens;
already have you taken the enlisting-money and marched
away.
Kotzebue. Phrases! metaphors and let me tell you, M.
Sandt, not very polite ones. You have hitherto seen little of
the world, and you speak rather the language of books than
of men.
Sandt. What are books written by some creatures of less
f
SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
293
intellect than ours? I fancied them to convey the language
and reasonings of men. I was wrong and you are right,
Von Kotzebue! They are, in general, the productions of such
as have neither the constancy of courage nor the continuity
of sense to act up to what they know to be right, or to
maintain it, even in words, to the end of their lives. You
are aware that I am speaking now of political ethics. This
is the worst I can think of the matter; and bad enough is
this.
Kotzebue.
You misunderstand me. Our conduct must fall
in with our circumstances. We may be patriotic, yet not
Puritanical in our patriotism; not harsh, nor intolerant, nor
contracted. The philosophical mind should consider the
whole world as its habitation, and not look so minutely into
it as to see the lines that divide nations and governments;
much less should it act the part of a busy shrew, and take
pleasure in giving loose to the tongue at finding things a little
out of place.
Sandt. We will leave the shrew where we find her she
certainly is better with the comedian than with the philoso-
pher. But this indistinctness in the moral and political line
begets indifference. He who does not keep his own country
more closely in view than any other soon mixes land with
sea, and sea with air, and loses sight of every thing, at
last, for which he was placed in contact with his fellowmen.
Let us unite, if possible, with the nearest; let usages and
familiarities bind us: this being once accomplished, let us
confederate for security and peace with all the people round,
particularly with people of the same language, laws, and
religion. We pour out wine to those about us, wishing the
same fellowship and conviviality to others; but to enlarge
the circle would disturb and deaden its harmony. We irri-
gate the ground in our gardens; the public road may require
the water equally, yet we give it rather to our borders; and
first to those that lie against the house! God himself did not
fill the world at once with happy creatures; he enlivened one
small portion of it with them, and began with single affections,
as well as pure and unmixed. We must have an object and
an aim, or our strength, if any strength belongs to us, will be
useless.
Kotzebue.
There is much good sense in these remarks ;
294
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
but I am not at all times at leisure and in readiness to
receive instruction. I am old enough to have laid down my
own plans of life; and I trust I am by no means deficient in
the relations I bear to society.
Sandt. Lovest thou thy children? Oh! my heart bleeds!
But the birds can fly; and the nest requires no warmth from
the parent, no cover against the rain and the wind.
Kotzebue. This is wildness; this is agony. Your face is
laden with large drops; some of them tears, some not. Be
more rational and calm, my dear young man, and less enthu-
siastic.
Sandt. They who will not let us be rational make us
enthusiastic by force. Do you love your children? — I ask
you again. If you do, you must love them more than an-
other man's. Only they who are indifferent to all profess a
parity.
Kotzebue. Sir, indeed your conversation very much sur-
prises me.
Sandt. I see it does; you stare, and would look proud.
Emperors and kings, and all but maniacs would lose that
faculty with me. I could speedily bring them to a just
sense of their nothingness, unless their ears were calked
and pitched, although I am no Savonarola. He too died
sadly!
Kotzebue. Amid so much confidence of power, and such
an assumption of authority, your voice is gentle, almost
plaintive.
Sandt. It should be plaintive. Oh, could it but be
persuasive!
Kotzebue. Why take this deep interest in me? I do not
merit nor require it. Surely any one would think we had
been acquainted with each other for many years.
Sandt. What! should I have asked you such a question
as the last, after long knowing you?
Kotzebue (aside). This resembles insanity.
Sandt. The insane have quick ears, sir, and sometimes
quick apprehensions.
Kotzebue. I really beg your pardon.
Sandt. I ought not then to have heard you, and beg yours.
My madness could release many from a worse; from a mad-
ness which hurts them grievously; a madness which has been
SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
295
and will be hereditary: mine, again and again I repeat it,
would burst asunder the strong swathes that fasten them to
pillar and post. Sir! sir! if I entertained not the remains
of respect for you in your domestic state, I should never have
held with you this conversation. Germany is Germany: she
ought to have nothing political in common with what is not
Germany. Her freedom and security now demand that she
celebrate the communion of the faithful. Our country is the
only one in all the explored regions on earth that never has
been conquered. Arabia and Russia boast it falsely; France
falsely; Rome falsely. A fragment off the empire of Darius
fell and crushed her; Valentinian was the footstool of Sapor,
and Rome was buried in Byzantium. Boys must not learn
this, and men will not. Britain, the wealthiest and most
powerful of nations, and, after our own, the most literate and
humane, received from us colonies and laws. Alas! those
laws, which she retains as her fairest heritage, we value not:
we surrender them to gangs of robbers, who fortify themselves
within walled cities, and enter into leagues against us.
When
they quarrel they push us upon one another's sword, and
command us to thank God for the victories that enslave us.
These are the glories we celebrate; these are the festivals we
hold on the burial-mounds of our ancestors. Blessed are
those who lie under them! blessed are also those who re-
member what they were, and call upon their names in the
holiness of love!
Kotzebue. Moderate the transport that inflames and con-
sumes you. There is no dishonor in a nation being con-
quered by a stronger.
Sandt. There may be great dishonor in letting it be the
stronger; great, for instance, in our disunion.
Kotzebue. We have only been conquered by the French in
our turn.
Sandt. No, sir, no; we have not been, in turn or out.
Our puny princes were disarmed by promises and lies; they
accepted paper crowns from the very thief who was sweeping
into his hat their forks and spoons. A cunning traitor snared
incautious ones, plucked them, devoured them, and slept upon
their feathers.
Kotzebue. I would rather turn back with you to the ancient
glories of our country than fix my attention on the sorrowful.
296
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
scenes more near to us. We may be justly proud of our
literary men, who unite the suffrages of every capital to the
exclusion of almost all their own.
Sandt. Many Germans well deserve this honor; others are
manger-fed and hirelings.
Kotzebue. The English and the Greeks are the only nations
that rival us in poetry, or in any works of imagination.
Sandt. While on this high ground we pretend to a rival-
ship with England and Greece, can we reflect without a sink-
ing of the heart on our inferiority in political and civil
dignity? Why are we lower than they? Our mothers are
like their mothers; our children are like their children; our
limbs are as strong, our capacities are as enlarged; our desire
of improvement in the arts and sciences is neither less vivid
and generous, nor less temperate and well-directed. The
Greeks were under disadvantages which never bore in any
degree on us; yet they rose through them vigorously and
erectly. They were Asiatic in what ought to be the finer part of
the affections; their women were veiled and secluded, never
visited the captive, never released the slave, never sat by the
sick in the hospital, never heard the child's lesson repeated
in the school. Ours are more tender, compassionate, and
charitable than poets have feigned of the past, or prophets
have announced of the future; and, nursed at their breasts
and educated at their feet, blush we not at our degeneracy?
The most indifferent stranger feels a pleasure at finding, in
the worst written history of Spain, her various kingdoms ulti-
mately mingled ; although the character of the governors, and
perhaps of the governed, is congenial to few. What delight
then must overflow on Europe from seeing the mother of her
noblest nation rear again her venerable head, and bless all
her children for the first time united!
Kotzebue. I am bound to oppose such a project.
Sandt. Say not so: in God's name, say not so!
Kotzebue. In such confederacy I see nothing but conspir-
acy and rebellion; and I am bound, I tell you again, sir, to
defeat it, if possible.
Sandt. Bound! I must then release you.
Kotzebue.
How should you, young gentleman, release me?
Sandt. May no pain follow the cutting of the knot. But
think again; think better; spare me!
SANDT AND KOTZEBUE.
297
Kotzebue. I will not betray you.
Sandt. That would serve nobody: yet, if in your opinion
betraying me could benefit you or your family, deem it no
harm; so much greater has been done by you in abandoning
the cause of Germany. Here is your paper; here is your ink.
Kotzebue. Do you imagine me an informer?
Sandt. From maxims and conduct such as yours spring
up the brood, the necessity, and the occupation of them.
There would be none, if good men thought it a part of good-
ness to be as active and vigilant as the bad. I must go, sir!
Return to yourself in time! How it pains me to think of
losing you! Be my friend!
Kotzebue. I would be.
Sandt. Be a German !
Kotzebue. I am.
Sandt (having gone out). Perjurer and profaner! Yet his
heart is kindly. I must grieve for him! Away with tender-
ness! I disrobe him of the privilege to pity me or to praise
me, as he would have done had I lived of old. Better men
shall do more. God calls them; me too he calls; I will enter
the door again. May the greater sacrifice bring the people
together, and hold them evermore in peace and concord. The
lesser victim follows willingly. (Enters again.)
Turn! die! (Strikes.)
Alas! alas! no man ever fell alone.
Some
How many innocent
always perish with one guilty, and writhe longer!
Unhappy children! I shall weep for you elsewhere.
days are left me. In a very few the whole of this little world
will lie between us. I have sanctified in you the memory
of your father. Genius but reveals dishonor; commiseration
covers it.

298
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XXII. THE CARDINAL-LEGATE ALBANI AND
PICTURE-DEALERS.
MARCHESE SCAMPA, CONTE BIANCHERIA, SIGNOR
CORAZZA, CARDINAL-LEGATE ALBANI.
Legate. Most illustrious Signor Marchese! I grieve deeply
to have incommoded you. Most illustrious Signor Conte
Cesare! I am sorry to have caused you any disturbance.
Most esteemed, prized, and ornamented Signor Corazza!
I feel somewhat of uneasiness at requiring your attendance.
Scampa. Your Eminence may dispose of me purely at her
pleasure.
Biancheria. I am your Eminence's most obsequious, most
devoted, and most humble servant.
Corazza. I kiss the sacred hem of her purple, humbly
inclining myself.
Legate. On my faith, Signors! a pretty piece of pastry you
have been making! A fine embroilment on my body!
Scampa. Eminence! all men have had their embroilments.
Biancheria. Pieces of pastry all men have made, Emi-
nence !
Legate. Signor, I fear these will stick upon your fingers.
sometime yet; although I pray God you may, with his help,
wash yourselves clean.
Scampa. We are in his hands.
Biancheria. And your Eminence's.
Scampa. I meant hers all the while.
Corazza. Surely; securely: I am in hers, the whole
of me.
Legate. 'Tis well. Now in the name of Dominedio, most
gentle sirs, how could you play these tricks? What doings
are these? I accuse you of nothing: I am convinced you are
innocent, most innocent, more than most innocent. And yet,
diamene, they will have it otherwise.
Scampa. God and your Eminence with us, our uprightness
is not to be disputed.
Biancheria. We know what we know; we are what we
are; we can tell them that. Let them mind it. What says
Signor Marchese? Do I speak well?

ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
299
Scampa. True, most true, Signor Conte! always under
the correction of his Eminence.
Legate. Forasmuch as I have understanding in me, there
are not two honester gentlemen in Bologna. Very old houses!
vastly rich heretofore: rich still. Honey does not run from
the pot without leaving some against the sides; ay, Signor
Marchese?
(Aside.) It sticks hard; but I have a spoon that will
scrape it.
You appear to be incommoded by a cough, Signor Mar-
chese! Will my snuff-box relieve it?
Scampa. Infinite thanks, Eminence! immortal condescen-
sion! It would cure Cairo: it would have stopped the seven
plagues of Egypt.
Legate. Signor Conte, we are coming to the business.
Pardon my habits of dispatch! Only be explicit; be clear:
I must do my duty; I may be lenient. Much is left to my
judgment and discretion; and you noble personages are the
very last in the world who would wish to lead it astray, or
make it harsh.
An English gentleman, with more earnestness than
All at once.
As usual with the nation.
Legate. -has applied to me personally.
Scampa. Personally! to a Porporato!
Biancheria. Personally! to a Cardinal-Legate!
Corazza. Ohibo! Personally! to an Eminence of Holy
Church! with a maggiorduomo, four cooks, six chaplains, and
(Sant Antonio) the six finest mules in all the Patrimony!
Cospetto! the heretic!
Legate. So it is: by letter to me, I mean.
All. Letter! more and more presumptuous!
Scampa. No preliminary !
Biancheria. Secretary, even secretary, had been too high.
Maestro di casa, maestro di scuderia, cameriere, page, porter,
or any other dignitary of the household, might have received
it in the first instance, under the form of supplication. But
letter! letter! letter! my head turns round with it.
Scampa. Carbonaro!
Corazza. Giovane Italia! disguised as an Englishman.
Scampa. Eminence, we are gallant men, men of honor,
men of garb, and her most obsequious. Some regards are
300
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
due to persons of distinction. Why should he trouble your
Eminence with his concerns? Petty matters! trifles! trivi-
alities ! Law indeed to an Englishman is like his native
air: he flies to it as he flies to his ship; he loses his appetite
if he misses it; and he never thinks he has enough of it until
it has fairly stripped him, and begins to lie heavy on his
stomach. It is his tea, his plum-pudding, his punch, his
night-cap.
Legate. Happy! if he can throw it off so easily when he
wakens. Law in England ought to be in capital condition,
if exercise can accomplish it.
Biancheria. There are common laws and common lawyers
in Bologna, blessed be his Holiness! And nothing new about
them, nothing wild and extravagant, nothing visionary. They
are ancient and awful as our Garisenda, and, like Garisenda,
lean toward the inhabitants.
Scampa. Talk of patriotism! this I call patriotism. We
can buy injustice of any tribunal in Italy, and at a reasonable
price: it would be hard indeed if we cannot buy justice for a
little more, in proportion to the rarity, and if we are forced to
go beyond our native country for this greatest benefit of a
paternal government. I should be sorry to prefer any on
earth to my own Bologna, blest as it is with the rule and
guidance of the Prince of the Apostles, but more immediately
under his delegate, the Holiness of our Lord, Leo the Twelfth,
now sitting and reigning, and worthily and plenarily repre-
sented by your Eminence. But, Eminence, pardon me if I
sob aloud and beat my breast at saying it, there are countries,
yes, there are countries in our Italy, where insolent English-
men are thrown utterly into the shade, their audacity rising
beyond endurance. One of them, believe me, had the temer-
ity to take the wall of Don Neri Corsini, a Roman prince, a
prime minister. Nobly and worthily did his Highness treat
this sacrilege.
Legate. I am uninterested in the event: excuse my inter-
ruption.
Scampa. Condescend to listen. The proud Englishman
had bought a villa and a couple of farms under Fiesole ; root-
ing up olives, cutting down vines, the madman! A French-
man was his neighbor. He had a right to the waste water of
the proud Englishman's fountain. The proud Englishman, in
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
301
his spite and malignity, not only shaved every morning, and
ordered all his men servants, to the number of five, to shave
also just as frequently, but he washed his hands and face
several times in the day, and especially at that season when
water is most wanted. In like manner did all his children,
four of them; and all four bathed: all four, Eminence! all
four! every day! the malignant father setting them the
example.
Legate. Heretics and Turks are much addicted to bathing.
It might be superstition, or it might be an idea of cleanliness.
The English are malicious one against another, almost uni-
versally; but toward foreigners there appears to be more
contemptuousness than malice.
Scampa. Your Eminence has the eye upon the key-hole,
and sees the whole chamber. Pride and malice the right
side and the left side of the Devil — constitute the Englishman.
O the persecutor! This, the very worst of them all, excepting
the wretch who would, in the presence of your Eminence, de-
flower the fair fame of innocent men like me, this one com-
mitted the injury through wanton extravagance, shaving, wash-
ing, bathing, beside watering two hundred orange, lemon, citron
trees, and then laurels and myrtles, and rhododendrons and
magnolias, and fantastical outlandish flowers innumerable.
No wonder there was little waste water. The Frenchman
cited him before the tribunals. At first they favored the
Englishman, as was intended. The Frenchman, as French-
men always do, shifted his ground a little, and won the second
In the third the Englishman had his turn, to prove
the fairness of processes in Tuscany. Then a couple of the
judges were persuaded to see their error, and voted on the
contrary side. Presently more had their eyes opened for
them. In vain did the proud Englishman hold in contempt.
the variations of the opponent and the judges: in vain, over
and over, did he offer tenfold the value of the water, suppos-
ing the water was the thing wanted, which the Frenchman
had declared he never cared about, having plenty on each
side of his house. No, this would never serve the purpose of
those who patted him on the back. His suit assumed a some-
what different form, term after term; otherwise it could not
easily have been so protracted. Nothing was now left for the
proud Englishman but appeal to the last resort; but, just
cause.
302
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
t
before the defection of the two favorable judges was decided
on and arranged, the Court of Appeal in the last resort
was purposely suppressed. Such was the fate of the proud
Englishman and his waste water.
Legate. I hope, Signor Marchese, that the matter ends
here; for you must remember that I have other business
in hand.
Scampa. Patience, Eminence, patience! It does not end
here, nor could it reasonably. This arrogant, infuriated man,
this devastator of vines and olives, this substituter of grass
and moss for cabbages and onions was sentenced to construct
with efficient masonry a competent reservoir in front and
within ten paces of his hall-door. Such a sentence, if such
a sentence had been possible against a noble Tuscan, would
have broken the heart of Conte Gherardesca, the late propri-
etor, although he resided there but seldom, and enjoyed but
few perhaps of the cabbages and onions so unworthily sup-
planted. Just punishment for this overbearing pertinacious.
Englishman! reminding him for ever of what is due to a
Roman prince and prime minister; such a diplomatist that
he had the honor of serving both his native sovereign, the
Grand Duke Ferdinand, and the Emperor Napoleon at the
same time, enjoying the countenance of each, unsuspected by
the other. And a shining countenance it was. Faith of Bac-
chus! it was an omelet well fried on each side, and enough
of it to fatten a Carthusian.
Legate. To what does this tend, Signor Marchese?
Scampa. It tends, Eminence, to prove satisfactorily the
small regard entertained for Englishmen in other quarters of
our Italy; it tends to prove, above all things, their contempt
of dignities; and how easily, by the grace of your Eminence,
they may be disappointed in their extravagant recourse to
litigation. The litigant was condemned to a series of lawsuits
for nine years, with more variations than ever were composed
by Rossini. It was decided from the beginning that some
should be won and some lost, and that at last all the costs should
be cast upon this proud Englishman. The whole property
of his adversary amounts not to the sum expended in the
maintenance of what he presumed to call his rights: a favor-
ite word, Eminence, with those islanders. He was a true
Englishman, unbending to authority, repulsive to rank, and
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
303
bearing an abominable dash of charcoal on his shoulders,
black, black as Satanasso. He would not have gained his
lawsuit even if he had consented to pay down the fair market-
price, which his proud stomach would never do. But we are
ready, Eminence, we are ready; for no men alive observe
more strictly the usages of their fathers. We hate revolution-
ary notions; we hate false doctrines: honor and religion and
love of our neighbor, is our motto.
Legate. I wish so great a hardship had befallen no better
man than the person you describe: but, remember, I am
not sitting here to examine the merits of his case. We have
our own laws.
Scampa. I call that a happy country whose law is as
movable as Easter, and as manageable and pleasant as the
Carnival. If it is not so in the States of the Church,
where upon earth ought it to be? I pay to His Holiness
fifteen Roman crowns yearly, for dispensation to eat flesh in
Lent.*
Legate. You seem strong and healthy, Most Illustrious!
Scampa. Under the blessing of Heaven, by paying the
fifteen crowns, I continue so. If all would do the same, their
sins would fall off them as the scales fall from a leper. Ling
may help to lift a man out of Purgatory; but Roman crowns,
legitimate and unclipped, can alone pave the way to Paradise.
I am no niggard, no Englishman: right well do I know, and
more especially do I acknowledge, that His Holiness is not
only an apostle, but a prince, and that his dignity is to be
duly supported by all true Christians. I glory in being one;
and God forbid I should ever be so straitened in circumstan-
ces for want of protection, as to cry out for an abatement.
In Tuscany the judges will hear reason, when the wand of
the apparitor is tipped with gold and the litigant speaks in
French. It is better he should speak it first to Don Neri,
who understands it perfectly.
Legate. I do entreat you, Signor Marchese, to come at
once to the point.
Scampa. I would gladly, triumphantly, ecstatically shed
the last drop of my blood for His Holiness; but, ohibo !
what is all a man's blood worth when it is robbed of its vital
* A family, however healthy, may obtain it at that price; and some
very pious ones do.
304
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
heat, of its menestra, its fry, and its roast? I am a good
subject, a good Catholic, true, faithful, vigilant; I am a
gallant man, a brave man ; but I have my fears. There are
carbonari everywhere there is carbon under the chair of
His Holiness. A hard blow, an angry breath, a humiliating
indignity, a cruel unpaternal — what am I saying? what am
I thinking of? - may mercy upon us! may-O holy Vir-
gin avert it! may, alas! set his footstool in such a blaze, ay,
footstool and canopy, purple and triple crown, as all the
tears of your Eminence, and of the devoted servant at your
feet, would be insufficient to extinguish.
Legate. What would you have, gentlemen?
Biancheria. Eminence, we do not ask more for our-
selves who are Italians, than was graciously conceded to a
foreigner.
Legate. The French have it always in their power to do a
great deal of mischief; and such is their natural disposition.
The tiger in his cage is just as restless as in his wilderness,
and his keeper must now and then humor him.
Biancheria. We ask to be protected from no Frenchman
upon earth, which would be beyond any reasonable hope, but
only from our accursed Englishman; who, by his pertinacity
and obduracy, has proved himself to be made of the same
paste as the other, and drawn out of the same oven.
Like
the other, he would rather put in jeopardy three thousand
crowns than distribute a few hundreds in charity among the
faithful domestics of your Eminence, and their virtuous wives
and amiable children. What hearts, ahime! what hearts
these English carry with them about Italy! In fact, Eminence,
an Englishman closes his fist on these occasions as firmly as
if he were boxing. The main difference is that on these if he is
beaten he has the folly to complain, whereas on the other he
would be silent if you had beaten him half into a mummy.
Knock out an eye, and he gives you his hand; mistake a
picture in selling it to him, and he delivers you over to the
executioner.
Scampa. If not quite that, he makes you give back the
money; and thus, blemishing your honor, he leaves an incur-
able wound in the very centre of the heart.
Legate. Gently, good Signor Marchese! such hard thumps.
on the exterior may produce an effect no less fatal. I should
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
305
apprehend ossification and aneurism. We must bear with
human infirmity. All nations have their customs, all indi-
viduals their privileges and foibles. As the English fight
best upon the ocean, it is probable and presumable that they
see best with their heads under water; which opinion some
of the pictures, bought by them on dry land at enormous
prices for their national gallery, seem to confirm. Certainly
they little know our usages: but they know incomparably
more about theoretical law than about its practical adminis-
tration. Perhaps, as you suggest, they are somewhat too in-
different to the deferential delicacy of its domestic courtesies.
Knowing the weaknesses to which, as children of Adam, we
all are liable, I would not animadvert on them severely, nor
prejudge them. True it is, the Frenchman is more sociable
at all times, and more amiable at most; and if there are
seasons when he must inevitably swear and fight, we may
charitably believe that he follows the law of his nature in
so doing; that God made him so; and we must take him
as we find him. And we shall the more readily do this, if we
remark his perfect ease and indifference what he swears to
and what he fights for.
Biancheria. For my part, I have no complaint to make
against him: no Frenchman ever carried off any of my
pictures.
Legate. Signor Conte, keep your own secret. Do not
imply, as your speech would do, that you never had any
worth carrying off.
Corazza. Our Italy would rise up in arms against the de-
spoiler and deflowerer. Your Eminence would issue a re-
script, an ordinance: we are safe. Ah, Signor Conte, not
without an inspiration did you remind his Eminence of our
Garisenda, and her maternal leaning toward us. Signor
Conte and Signor Marchese would melt St. Peter and per-
suade St. Thomas, when they were stubbornest. I am ready
to weep.
Legate. At what, Signor Corazza?
Corazza. Ca! at what? It lies beyond expression.
Legate. Well, in this article of weeping we perhaps may
help you.
Corazza (aside). Per Bacco! it grows serious !
Legate. The foreigner threatens
VOL. V.
20
306
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
All. The assassin !
Legate. to send the Process before the Ruota Criminale
at Rome, first submitting it to the Pontifical Chancery.
Scampa. Chancery! We are fresh eggs; we are live oys-
ters; we are swallowed up; the Day of Judgment cannot
piece us again! If any thing reasonable had been offered,
then indeed who knows? Eminence, only hear the English-
man's proposals! That the pictures should be sent back;
true, at the purchaser's charge: but what compensation for
losing the sight of our pictures? Pictures that have been
hanging in our palaces from time immemorial; pictures that
have made men, women, and children stand breathless under
them; pictures that at last were given to the Englishman at
his own price; for he would not listen to reason. I told him
I had a presentiment of heart-breaking; I clasped my hands;
I lifted up my eyes imploringly to the ceiling, until my sighs
carried down a cobweb from a height of twelve braccie, and
almost blinded me. I made no complaint; I bring no action.
for damages. There is one Scampa in the world; only one :
here he stands.
Biancheria. Think, figure it, Eminence! He offered us
our pictures again, with only one-half of the money! Could
a Jew do worse? The Pontifical Chancery and the Ruota
Criminale would never tribulate gallant men in this guise.
We must go to Rome with sacks in our great coats; and the
judges there can smell silver from gold through a Russia-
leather portmanteau, mix it as you will. Here in Bologna the
judges are our neighbors, and act like neighbors. No pride,
no fastidiousness; they have patience and hear reason.
Only one word from your Eminence, and all stands well.
Legate. Reason too is heard at Rome.
Scampa. It goes by the diligence to the banker's, and -
Santa Maria! makes but a short stay there.
Biancheria. Yes, Eminence ! At Rome too they hear
reason and have patience; but they require more reason
from us, and more patience. Sacks, Eminence! sacks and
sacks, Eminence! exterminated mountains! Mexico, Peru,
Cordilleras!
Corazza. Is money chaff, Signor Marchese? Signor
Conte, is money swept off with the beard and suds at
the barber's? To me it does not seem so.
I am a poor
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
307
man, but honest. I work, I work hard; ca! if any one
knew it.
Legate. At what do you work, most respectable Signor
Corazza, my most worshipful master?
Corazza. At my business, day after day, all day long.
Oh the life! to gain a crown-piece after years and years, and
many and many! To stand and stand, and sigh and sigh,
with my hands before me; now straight down, now across :
sad variety! Now looking at one Virgin, now at another;
now at this Bambino, now at that; never minding me; tiring
my heart and tearing it and gnawing it, summer and winter,
spring and autumn; while others are in villa! - hosiers and
hatters, who cannot distinguish a picture from a counterpane,
a Porporato from a Pievano. Ĉa! and these people get
more money than they can spend: what livers and brains!
what capons! what trout! Their wine comes from twenty
miles off; cospetto! One keeps his civetta, another his bil-
liard-table, another his what not? Here am I! no wine,
no billiard, no pallone, no laughing, no noise! The very
carts in the streets grumble to be in it at such a season.
I possess of the country is a grillo in a cage of straw.
blessed Saint who lost her eyes—if she can be said to have
lost them when she carried them in a dish - suffered less
than mine did when I lost my Guido.
All
The
Legate. Have you nothing of the kind remaining?
Corazza. Providence never abandons the faithful. A
Ludovico, pure, sincere, intact; purest, sincerest, intactest,
-but alas! no menestra in pentola; no more menestra than
if there were no rice-ground in Lombardy. This I call endur-
ing fatigue, Signor Marchese! This I call sweating, Signor
Conte! This I call tribulation, Eminence! Your Eminence
can feel all this for us poor people in the trade. Look now!
look now! only look! Here comes an Englishman to the
Pelican ; a milord; a real milord of London. The fame of
the finest pieces in the world reaches him on the steps: not
mine; I do not say mine; but the pieces of Signor Marchese
and Signor Conte, rimbombing through the universe. He
hardly asks for dinner: Signor Perotti, Signor Flavio, -your
Eminence must know him, padrone of the Pelican, says,
"Leave that to me." Now Signor Flavio speaks English as
well as milord Beron or milord Scacchesperro. "Do you
308
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
want cash, sir? I will take any bill upon London, two
months, three months.” Oh the ingratitude of the canaglia !
The pictures are given; thrown away (do I speak well, Sig-
nor Marchese?), packed up, sealed at the custom-house, sent
off; Signor Flavio goes along with them, loses his business,
his rest, his peace of mind, crosses the Apennines, as Annibel
did, and reaches Florence, eviscerated, exossated, with nine
great packages! nine! the treasures of Bologna !
Biancheria. We lie near the woods, or we never could
have given the empty cases for the money we gave the pict-
ures at.
Scampa. I doubt, after all, whether they will cover the
carpenter's bill.
Corazza. Be tranquil, Signor Marchese! I have calculated
that they certainly will, if he waits, as usual, a reasonable
while for the payment.
Scampa. It was a great inconvenience to me; I made a
great sacrifice: I thought of building a palace with the
planks. Will your Eminence just look over the ground-plan?
Legate. Prodigiously magnificent elevation ! Blessed
Saints !
Scampa. One might imagine that a little of the timber
would be left. Quite the contrary. I have ruined the way
through my estate by the carriage of supplementary loads;
and I should not have regretted it if I could have given satis-
faction. I am ready to do the like again for any one who
thinks more liberally.
Biancheria. It must be by particular favor and with
strong recommendations, that an Englishman ever enters my
house again. My stock of timber was small: however, if it
had pleased His Beatitude the Holiness of our Lord to equip
a galley or two against the Turks or Greeks, I had where-
withal at his service. Now, now indeed, not a stick is left
me! not a thorn, not a dead leaf on the floor: the packages
took all.
Corazza. Men of humble condition must be cautious in
their resentments. My temper is forgiving; my heart is
large; I am ready to press my enemy to it again when he
sees his error.
Legate. He fancies he has already seen it, my most orna-
mented friend and worthy patron! His correspondent at
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
309
Florence assures me, on the authority of the whole Academy,
that he has been defrauded.
Biancheria. If this gentleman is a gentleman of the law,
he may lie legally; but if he acts merely as a friend, and in
private, he acts insidiously. What gentleman in Italy ever
took upon himself the business of another, where he fancied
the other had been imprudent and might lose by that impru-
dence, whether life or property? The English alone are
discontented with their own dangers, and run into those of
other people. They pursue thieves; they mount upon con-
flagrations. Instead of joining the stronger, they join the
weaker, subverting the order of things. Even dogs and wolves
know better.
Scampa. I am ruined by them; this is all I pretend to
know of their doings. Since I sold them my pictures, I am
infested and persecuted and worried to death by duns. They
belabor and martellate my ears worse than the terza-rima of
Dante, the next taking up the rhyme of the last. I am not
a dealer in pictures: I only sell when any one takes a fancy
to this or that; and merely to show that we in Bologna are as
condescending and polite to strangers as the people of Rome
or Florence.
Legate. Very proper; but this double baptism of pictures,
this dipping of old ones in the font again, and substituting a
name the original sponsor never dreamed of giving, this,
methinks, Signor Marchese, under correction, is somewhat
questionable and exceptionable.
Scampa. Under the correction of your Eminence, bending
myself most submissively, I have as much right to call my
pictures by what appellation I please as my house-dog. He
whose son has been Christened by the name of Tommaso
may deem it more pleasurable to his ear, or more conducive
to his welfare, or more appertaining to the dignity of his
beloved heir, to designate him by that of Pietro or Giovanni.
Again, I have as much right to ask a thousand crowns as a
hundred. Asking does not cut purses nor force open bankers'
desks. Beside, have I ever transgressed by laying claim to
infallibility? Only one upon earth is infallible; and he not
in pictures it is only in things that nobody in this world can
comprehend.
Legate. Piously and judiciously spoken.
310
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
¿
Scampa. Eminence! I am liable to errors; I am frail; I am
a man; we are all of us dust; we are all of us ashes, here
to-day, there to-morrow: but I stick to my religion; I wear
my honor next my heart. I should like to catch this English-
man by twilight: I should like to hear how he would answer
an honest man to his face. No subterfuges with me. Acci-
dents have happened; malaria; judgments. Many have.
fallen sick by holding their noses too close to the ground, like
dogs in the grotto at Naples yonder.
Legate. Be calm, Signor Marchese!
Scampa. My blood rises against oppression and injustice.
These proud Englishmen shall never govern us.
We are
under the Church; God be praised! We are under his
blessed Saints and your Eminence. Englishmen ! what are
Englishmen? In their ships they may do something. Give
me one, visage to visage in the shaven field, and capperi !
he should soon see who was before him: ay, capperi! should
he. Uh! uh! I almost crack my teeth with my courage.
Legate. Spare them! spare them! good Signor Marchese!
they are worth their weight in gold at your age. Let us
respect our veterans, so sadly thinned by the enemy.
Scampa. I have the blood of youth in my veins.
Legate. You must feel it very comfortable.
Scampa. It boils within me.
Legate. Let it; let it; better within than without. Surely
it is applicable to pleasanter purposes than broils.
Scampa. Stains upon honor-
Legate. May be covered with blood more easily than
washed out with it. You are calmer, Signor Conte! Let me
remark to you, then, that the Englishman in question has
sent to me an attestation on a certain picture, purporting to
bear the seal of our Academy: this seal is declared by one of
our own Academicians, now in Florence, to be a forgery.
All. A traitor! a traitor! a traitor to his country!
Biancheria. The Englishman himself forged it.
Corazza. The English are capable. I never saw people
write with such ease and fluency.
Scampa. Very great forgers; very notorious. Many are
hanged for it every year in London; some of the most re-
spectable persons in the whole nation, who spend several
thousand dollars a year, -- milords, bankers, bishops.
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
311
Biancheria. Bishops! more shame upon them! Ours in
Italy are long-dips, four-and-twenty to the pound; in England
they are as substantial as sausages. What the devil should
they forge but their credentials?
Scampa. I said, and I repeat it, many English are hanged
for it every year; not one Italian. Lord Kenyon, the great-
est judge in the kingdom, declared it lawful against an enemy;
now Catholics are enemies in the eye of the Anglican Church,
and the English laws acknowledge and act upon it; there-
fore, on their own principles, we may fairly and justifiably be
guilty of it, at our good pleasure. Not that we ever are.
Biancheria. A secretary, by inadvertency, may affix a seal
to a wrong paper. We cannot look to these bagatelles; we
cannot light the taper for all our letters: we have extensive
correspondences: a good deal of money comes yearly by this
way into the Legations.
Scampa. An easy quiet liberality; some slight preference
to the native. A little more regard to his testimony who is
a Christian, than to a Quaker's, a Turk's, a Lutheran's, an
Anabaptist's, a Freemason's, may benefit the individual, con-
solidate the government, and calm those uneasinesses and
ranklings which have kept our wretched country
Biancheria (whispering to him). Ohibo! take heed! dia-
mene!
Scampa. wretched, until the arrival of your Eminence,
by perpetual insurrections. Only two years ago (horrible to
think of!) Cardinal Rivarola was shot in his carriage. God
knows why. Mystery hangs over every thing here below.
Idle men are seen about, ready to be hired their work re-
quires but short instruments and short warning.
:
Legate. Pooh! pooh! Signor Marchese! never fear them;
we will watch over you. Government can pay them best;
they are idle or at work as we judge proper. Englishmen
have long purses, but never hire any help in their anger.
Corazza. Economical indeed! mean-spirited creatures!
Biancheria. But they carry sticks, and confound distinc-
tions with them.
Scampa. Bloody rogues are left yet in the Legations; and
not all of them on the mountains. Have a care, Eminence!
they pretend to love their country. Such folks are always
dangerous: their whistle is heard farther than any. We have
312
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
seen - O Christ! O holy Virgin! — surgeon's work does not
stand well. I weep at thinking
I weep at thinking- my eyes overflow
the feet that represent His Holiness.
Legate. Signor Marchese, you overpower me.
— I kiss
And, Sig-
nor Conte, you also at my other! nay, nay, in the name of
Cazzo! you go too far. I do entreat you to rise up from
my feet; your lips make them too hot; they do indeed.
Gentlemen, the pleasure of your company has almost caused
me to forget that you do me the honor of consulting with me
on business of importance. Forgery is really an ugly thing
in my view of the subject. Swindling sounds indifferently.
The Academicians of Florence have formally and unanimously
decided that your pictures are not only no originals, but are
wretched copies. Fifteen names, the names of all present,
are subscribed to the declaration, signed by the president,
the senator Alessandri ! "Siamo di concorde avviso che il
primo sia una copia mediocre, &c. : che il secondo appertenga
ad un debole imitatore della scuola Bolognese; e gli ultimi
due sieno fatti da un cattivo seguace," &c.
Biancheria. Eminence! let the Academicians of Florence
look at the pictures that the most liberal and intelligent of
our Italian princes (I mean secular; no offence to our Lord
and Master His Beatitude) has bought in their own city, and
under their own eyes. How happens it that he has friends.
about him who recommend to him the purchase, at many
thousand crowns, of pieces not worth five figs? Domenichi-
nos! Salvators, Leonardos, Murillos! Is the Guido in the
Tribuna any Guido at all? Would your Eminence give three
crowns for it, out of the frame?
did Do-
Scampa. Their Domenichino in the same Tribuna,
menichino ever see it? However, it is better than a real work.
of his in the Palazzo Pitti, which the Grand Duke's purveyors
bought for him at the price of fifteen hundred louis. Emi-
nence! would you give fifty crowns for it? Our Lord would
never have talked a half-minute with such a Magdalen as
that: he would have thrown her pot of pomatum in her face.
Corazza. Under favor, how happens it that they recom-
mend to the Grand Duke restorers and cleaners who never
learned any thing of the art, and never attempted it on their
own dirt and rags?
Scampa. How happens it that the finest pictures in the
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
313
world have been ruined within these two years? The friend
of His Imperial Highness, who recommended these rascals
and their rubbish, has unquestionably his profits.
Corazza.
And why should not we have ours? We who
rub nothing out at all, and put little on
Legate. Except in price, most adorned sir.
Biancheria. I would not wish my observations to transpire.
If the scourers at Florence go on as they have been going on
lately, the collections at the gallery and at Pitti will be fit
only for the Committee of Taste in London; and the Grand
Duke must have recourse to us for what is unsold in our
corridors.
Legate. Sorry am I to understand that so zealous a pro-
tector, and so liberal an encourager, of the arts has fallen
among thieves.
Scampa. However, he has purchased some fine pictures.
Old pencils are red-hot iron to young fingers: all are burned
at first.
Biancheria. Unhappily, the two purest and most perfect
works of Raphael are transferred from Tuscany to Bavaria :
his Bindo Altoviti and his Tempi Madonna.
Legate. Raphael has been surpassed in portraits by Titian
and Giorgione. But Tuscany may weep for ever over her
loss in the Bindo Altoviti, which I have often seen in the pal-
ace where it was painted. Towns, fortresses, provinces, are
won, recovered, restored, repurchased: kings will keep Raph-
aels; kings alone, or higher dignitaries, should possess them.
Scampa. He who would sell his Raphael would sell his
child.
Biancheria. Cospetto! thirty.
Scampa. Or his father.
Biancheria. Cappari! All, all, to the last.
Legate. Leonardos, Correggios, rare, very rare; but only
one genius ever existed who could unite what is most
divine on earth with what is most adorable in heaven. He
gives sanctity to her youth, and tenderness to the old man
that gazes on her. He purifies love in the virgin's heart; he
absorbs it in the mother's.
Corazza. Many allow him the preference over our school.
Legate. Ca! ca! ca! your school! an immondezzaio to
a Sistine Chapel.
314
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Scampa. Eminence, in Rome, protected by popes and
cardinals, he reached perfection.
Legate. Protected! He walked among saints and proph-
ets, their herald upon earth. What a man! what a man! his
shadow in our path will not let lies pass current, nor flattery
sink into the breast. No, Marchese! At Rome he thought
he could embellish what is most beautiful in sentiment; at
Florence, until the scourers brought their pestilence into the
city, his genius soared in all its light angelic strength. At
Florence he was the interpreter of Heaven; at Rome he was
only the conqueror of Michel Angelo: he had left Paradise,
he had entered Eden.
Scampa. In your Rome the great Florentine taught him
dignity.
Legate. Strange mistake! Was ever painter so dignified
as Frate Bartolommeo, whom he studied before he went to
Rome? In amplitude, in gravity, in majesty, Fra Bartolom-
meo is much the superior of Michel Angelo: both want grace;
both are defective in composition. These two qualities were
in the soul of Raphael; had he looked for them externally,
he might have found them on the gates of the Battisterio.
I admire and venerate the power of Michel Angelo; but the
boy of Urbino reached the head of this giant at the first
throw. He did not strip your skins over your heads to show
where your muscles lie; nor throw Hercules into the manger
at Bethlehem; nor fall upon Alcmena for Mary.
I know not how it happens, but love of the arts leads me
astray. When persons of intelligence on such subjects are
about me, I am apt to prolong the discourse. But the pleas-
antest day must end; the finest sunset is at last a sunset.
Gentlemen, on the word of a friend, and such I am to all
intrusted to my governance, and especially to men of merit,
to persons of distinction, true Bolognese, real professors,
Gentlemen, you will find it better to contrive, if possible,
that this awkward question do not come before the ordinary
tribunals.
Scampa. Eminence, what in God's name can they do
against us if we are protected?
Biancheria. The milord erred in his judgment; we did
not err in ours. If men are to suffer for errors, which, alas !
seems the lot of humanity, let those suffer who do err; by no
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
315
means those who do not. No man was ever brave at this
embroidery of picture-fancying until he had often pricked his
finger. Now I would advise milord to put his between his
lips, and not to hold it up in public with a paltry jet bead of
blood on it, as if he endured the sufferings of a martyr. We
ought to complain; not he. Is it right or reasonable, or
according to justice or law, that good quiet Christians, pur-
suing the steps of their forefathers — do I say well, Signor
Marchese?
Scampa. Capitally! admirably! sound argument! touching
truth! But I am not to judge, — I am a party, it seems!
Biancheria. That good quiet Christians, etc., loyal subjects,
etc., gallant men, men of honor, men of garb, etc., should
be persecuted and ransacked and trodden upon and torn and
worried and dilacerated and devoured by these arrogant insa-
tiable English!
Scampa. Bravo! bravo! bravo!
Corazza. Ancora! ancora! bisse, bisse, bisse!
Biancheria. These arrogant insatiable English, what would
they have? I gave them my flesh and blood; would they
seize my bones? Let them, let them! since for even one's
bones there is no rest on earth; none whatever; not a pin's
point; saving upon the breast of your Eminence.
Legate. Ohibo! where is the need of weeping and wailing,
Signor Conte?
Biancheria. Magdalen wept and wailed, Peter wept and
wailed; but they had gone astray, they had slipped and
sidled: I have followed my line of duty; I have acted con-
sistently; I have gone on as I began. Why should these in-
furiated monsters run from under the North Pole against me?
Why be permitted to stroke up, in a manner, my spinal hair
from tail to nape in this fashion? Merciful Jesu! eradi-
cating, eradicating! flaying, laying! The acquirer of the
pictures, he complain too! he complain! after spoiling his
own speculation! Had he kept his tongue from ringing, his
seven hundred louis, the poor compensation for our master-
pieces, would have procured him a seat in the Committee of
Taste in London; and every piece would have turned out a
miraculous loaf, a Christ in the Garden. What power! what
patronage! And they eat, Eminence! they eat! or they are
much belied. If another man's macaroni is a foot long,
316
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
theirs is a yard. Fry, fry, fry, all day: the kitchen hums
and buzzes like a spring meadow; it frets and fumes and
wheezes with its labor; one cook cannot hear another; you
might travel as far as from Bologna to Ancona between the
boiled and the roast. And what do we get? At the utter-
most the scale of an anchovy, with scarcely oil enough to
float it
Corazza. And perhaps, late in the season, the extremity
of a radish, so cursedly tough, you may twist it twenty times
round the finger.
Scampa. We are amenable to your Eminence; but what
has the Academy of Florence to do with us? Presently, no
doubt, we shall be cited before the Committee of Taste on
the Thames. Let us discuss a little the qualifications of our
future judges, now we have plainly shown what our present are.
Has not this glorious Committee paid several thousand louis
for a false Correggio, which was offered at Rome heretofore
for fifteen crowns, and carried to Milan ere it found so much?
Has not this glorious Committee, which snatched so eagerly
at a false, rejected a real, one at a low price? Have the
blockheads not allowed the finest Andrea to slip out of Lon-
don and to hang on a banker's wall at Paris? Could they
not have bought it at a third less than what the banker paid
for it? And will he sell it again for a third more?
Legate. In almost all the works of this otherwise admira-
ble painter there is a vulgarity which repels me.
Biancheria. But what truth, Eminence, what truth!
Legate. The most endearing quality, I perceive, with Sig-
nor Conte Biancheria.
Biancheria. It stands indeed high with me.
Scampa. There is no answering any of the Count's ques-
tions on the Committee of Taste.
Biancheria. The facts are known all over the world. Not
a cottage or cavern, not a skiff or felucca, not a gondola or
canoe, from Venice to Van Diemen's Land, that does not
echo them.
Legate. Indeed!
Biancheria. Upon my faith as a Christian!
Scampa. There is a certain duke at Rome, a duke made
after buckles were left off, who can always sell what he pro-
poses. He recommends an original: over comes milord,
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
317
sees it finished, accepts in his condescension an inlaid table,
and fills the newspapers with the fine contours, the aerial
perspective, the topazes, rubies, and emeralds of this precious
oil-cloth.
Biancheria. We poor Bolognese cannot give such dinners
as a Roman duke and banker can. We are hungry; yet we
invite the stranger to partake with us.
Legate. Of your hunger, Most Illustrious?
Biancheria. With what we have we serve him.
Corazza. An honest man would do his business regularly:
a good citizen makes no disturbances, and is ashamed of
troubling the courts of justice or intruding on his superiors.
Peace, concord, faith, veneration, are inherent in the highest
and in the lowest of the Bolognese.
Scampa. And yet the Academy of Florence makes war
against the Academy of Bologna! Would it not be wiser if
those who preside over the arts imitated the conduct of those
who preside over the nations? Would it not be better if they
agreed that the same system should govern all? Cannot our
Bologna and Florence come closer, like England and Turkey,
France and Russia, Spain and Persia, Portugal and Congo?
Are we never to follow our betters? We indeed do: why
will not they? Times are very much altered for the worse,
Eminence, since we were children.
Legate. Ah Marchese! You were a child long after I
was one.
Scampa. A year; or may be thirteen months. I have
seen forty some time.
Legate. I approach eighty.
Scampa. In dreams and visions; not otherwise. I am as
near to Purgatory as your Eminence is to Paradise.
Legate (aside). I believe it; on the wrong side, too.
Scampa. Did your Eminence speak to me?
Legate. I was regretting to myself the strength of the
declaration that lies before me.
Biancheria. A mere formulary; signed by fourteen or
fifteen rival Academicians. Our pictures had no such ped-
antry about them. We too have signatures: the pen trembles
with their emotion.
Legate.
True enough; few of the names are legible, and
those unknown.
318
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Scampa. There, now! convincing! convincing! The bet
ter part of them could not see the paper under them through
their tears.
Biancheria. Well might they weep. Such pictures then
must leave Bologna? Our beloved country must lose them
for ever! Our dear children must not enjoy what their fathers
and forefathers gloried in!
Corazza. What could we do? The English are powerful
at sea they have a fleet in the Adriatic no farther off than
Corfu.
Legate. The question is the authenticity of the pictures.
Scampa. And, after an attestation on the spot, the Acad-
emy of Florence has the impudence to sign and seal against
it!
Corazza. May not pictures have suffered on the road?
May not malicious men, artists and dealers, jealous of the
Bolognese school, jealous of an honest man's good fortune-
Scampa. Carpers of titles, revilers of dignities-
Corazza. Ay, ay
have given them a few false touches?
Biancheria. May not the air of Florence, moister and
heavier than ours, have suffused with a duller tint and dis-
turbed the transparency of the glazing?
Scampa. People sign without reflection, Eminence! My
uncle Matteo, the Canonico, your Eminence's old worshipper,
used to say well and truly, the day of judgment is the last day
we can expect on earth, and that he saw no signs of it.
Legate. We have no proof of malice in the decision.
Biancheria. Even good men have some. St. Cyprian said
that the face of St. Jerome, in Correggio's picture, would
have done better for the lion, and the lion's for him.
Legate. Whether St. Cyprian said it may, perhaps, be
questioned.
Corazza. O the Magdalen! what a tint! what a touch!
The hair, how it swells! how it falls! how it undulates!
how it reposes! Music to the eye, to the heart, to the intel-
lect, to the soul! the music of Paesiello! Then her- ca!
ca! ca! what tongue can reach it! Eminence, look! behold
her! She has kissed the Bambino with the endearing curl of
her lip, where it loses itself in the paler roses of the cheek:
and she holds the kiss, one would think, between the lip and
the child, afraid to drop it by moving. Tender, tender, ten-
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
319
der! And such an ankle there! oh! oh! the heart cannot
contain it.
Legate. Nevertheless, the holy child is a young satyr, and
the Saint a wild beast come rather to swallow than fondle
him. Somebody seems to have driven him up into the cor-
ner, else his claws might alarm us. As to the lion, he has been
in the menagerie from his birth, where some other beast more
leonine begot him.
Scampa. If this picture has its faults, well may ours have
them, too. In regard to authenticity, we did not see the
artist paint them. We may have been deceived; and because
we have been deceived must we be called deceivers? Fine
Florentine logic forsooth! turning every thing the wrong side
upward.
Corazza. I have studied the art from my youth, and have
made the pot boil with it, although there is not a cinder at
present, hot or cold, under it. I do know a little of the
matter, if a modest man may say it: a little I do know.
These Florentines my patience escapes me —
Legate. We must attempt to catch it again for you in this
room, most prized and ornamented Signor Corazza!
Corazza. I but humbly follow Signor Marchese. Enter
the Tribuna where the best pictures are supposed to hang.
The Magdalen's head is more like a boiled calf's.
She was
flesh and blood, the Magdalen was, I warrant her. She had
fingers fit for any thing; and here are long sticks, no better
than those which some blockhead has stuck upon the Med-
icean Venus for Englishmen to admire upon tradition in this
age, and Kamskatkadales in the next. We do not read that
the fingers of the Magdalen were broken or dislocated at the
cross or elsewhere, as these are. How would you manage
her heavy stupid head? Guido would have put it in its right
position; Guido would have given it expression and grace,
tenderness and emotion; it has verily no more of these than
an ox's heart at the shambles. Another step, and we stand
before the Holy Family of Michel Angelo.
Legate. Signor Corazza, my patron, do not pull down this
picture this is genuine; it was painted for the Medici,
and was never out of their sight. There is some (however
slight) reason to believe that the other is a Guido; but
Guido was a youth before he was a man, and a boy before
320
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
he was a youth; and often painted a picture by lamp-light,
or by none, to get out of a scrape.
Scampa. Historical facts! recondite biography! Guido
has got drunk upon a Magdalen, gone to a brothel with a
St. Catharine, and gamed upon Christ's coat. In Michel
Angelo's Holy Family, why does the Virgin (who looks neith-
er like virgin nor mother) toss the poor Baby so carelessly
across her shoulder? And why do those idle vagabonds sit
naked on the wall behind her? - have they no reverence, no
decency? God's blood! Master Michel Angelo! I suspect
thy nose was flattened by divine judgment for this flagrant
impudicity. In the same Tribuna is another Holy Family,-
one among the few bad works of Giulio Romano. Beyond
it are two Correggios by Vanni of Sienna; and then another
Holy Family, also by Vanni, but undoubted for Correggio's.
Corazza. Ah Signor Marchese! there is somewhat of his
sweetness in the coloring of the landscape.
Scampa. But that wench with her twisted face, her twisted
hands, and her child sprawling before her, like what has
dropped from one's head under the comb! Yet our judges,
our censurers, our incriminators, firmly believe in the tran-
scendent excellence of those works. They know nothing of
any school but their own, and little of that. What a Peru-
gino is there locked up in their Academy, while these inferior
pictures occupy the most conspicuous situation, the satellites
of the Medicean Venus! They have heard, and they repeat
to you, that Perugino is hard and dry. Certainly those who
worked for him were so, and so was he himself in the begin-
ning; but what at first was harshness became at last a pure
severity. He learned from the great scholar he taught;
and the wiser his followers were, the more they venerated the
abilities of their master. He had no pupil so great as Raphael ;
nor had Raphael any so great as he.
Legate. Titian ennobled men; Correggio raised children
into angels; Raphael performed the more arduous work of
restoring to woman her pristine purity. Perugino was worthy
of leading him by the hand. I am not surprised that Rubens
is the prime favorite of tulip-fanciers; but give me the clear
warm mornings of Correggio, which his large-eyed angels,
just in puberty, so enjoy. Give me the glowing afternoons
of Titian, his majestic men, his gorgeous women, and (with a
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
321
prayer to protect my virtue) his Bacchantes. Yet, Signors,
we may descant on grace and majesty as we will; believe me,
there is neither majesty so calm, concentrated, sublime, and
self-possessed (true attributes of the divine), nor is there grace
at one time so human, at another time so superhuman, as
in Raphael. He leads us into heaven; but neither in satin
robes nor with ruddy faces. He excludes the glare of light
from the sanctuary; but there is an ever-burning lamp, an
ever-ascending hymn; and the purified eye sees, as dis-
tinctly as is lawful, the divinity of the place. I delight in
Titian, I love Correggio, I wonder at the vastness of Michel
Angelo; I admire, love, wonder, and then fall down before
Raphael.
Scampa. Eminence, we have Titian, we have Raphael,
in our Academy; we want only Correggio. At my decease
perhaps and yet he, who was quite at home with angels,
played but a sorry part among saints: he seems to have
considered them as very indifferent company for him.
How
they stare and straddle and sprawi about his cupola! But
what coloring on his canvas! Would your Eminence favor
me with another ray of light on him and Raphael?
Legate. Signor Marchese, I am afraid I can say nothing
on the subject that has not been said twenty times before;
and if I do, I may be wrong.
All. Impossible!
Legate. Even the coloring of Correggio, so transparent, so
pure, so well considered and arranged, is perhaps too rich
and luscious for the divine ideas of Raphael: it might have
overshot the scope which his temperate suavity attained.
The drapery of Correggio is less simple than becomes the
modest maid of Bethlehem chosen by the All-seeing Eye
for her simplicity.
Biancheria. And yet, under favor, in the Madonna della
Seggiola, there is almost a fantastic charm in the vivid colors
of the tartan dress.
Let us admire the composi-
Legate. So much the worse.
tion, but neither the style of the drapery nor the expression.
of the countenance. The Virgin has ceased to be a virgin;
and the child has about it neither the sweetness of an ami-
able infant, nor the mysterious indication of a half-human
god. Raphael in Rome had forgotten the tenderness of his
VOL. V.
21
322
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
3
diviner love; and the Tempter had seduced him to change
purity for power. Nevertheless he remains, far beyond all
comparison, the greatest genius that ever glorified the arts.
He was not, like Michel Angelo, a great architect, a scientific
sculptor, an admirable poet: he attempted not universality;
but he reached perfection. What other mortal has?
All. Oracles! oracles!
Biancheria. I myself possess a little bit of Perugino,
honey, sugar, cinnamon.
Corazza (aside). And a good deal of each; two dollars
would not cover it. How he kisses the tips of his two fingers
and thumb, all three in a cluster! I wish he would pay me
my twelve livres for this honey and sugar and cinnamon, in
which, however, he will never catch the wary old wasp.
The thing is fairly worth a couple of zecchins, and he
knows it.
Legate. Signor Corazza, were you saying your prayers
behind me?
Corazza. Fervently. Alas! I have no Perugino: I had a
St. Peter, tears like pearls; an ear, you might have put your
finger in it up to the elbow; hair, I was afraid of blowing a
fly from it. Strangers, when they entered the room, cried,
Signor Corazza! do you keep poultry in your saloon?"
Legate. What of that?
66
Corazza. Incidental. The cock in the distance, red, gold,
emerald; six, seven, eight crowns' worth of lapis lazuli; wings
displayed, neck outstretched, eyes that might have lighted
up our theatre; comb-I would never let a cook enter the
room, lest he should have cut it off. Everybody fancied he
heard him crow; for fancy it must have been. And what
became of this picture? Two Englishmen tore it from the
wall: I thought they would have carried the house, the street
itself, away with it. They stopped my mouth: no stirring, no
breathing. England, monopolizing England, possesses now
St. Peter! The milords threw down their paltry hundred
zecchins, leaving me lifeless at the loss of my treasure, and
sacking our Bologna in this inhuman way. Oh, had your
Eminence seen that cock; had your Eminence seen that hair,
fine, fine, fine as an infant's; the crown of the head smooth
as the cover of a soup-tureen; nothing to hide the veins on
the temples: he would have been bald within the year, unless
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
323
by miracle. I had also an Andromeda : Signor Conte knew
her. Dignitaries of the Church have stood before her until
their knees bent under them.
Legate. Did Englishmen dispossess you likewise of your
Andromeda?
Corazza. Half the nation fell upon her at once: all were
after her; what was to be done? I was widowed of her too;
they had her. One would think, after this they might have
been quiet; not they: we must bleed and martyrize; no end
or remission of our sufferings. The English are very unlike
what they were formerly: surely the breed of milords is
extinct.
Legate. Quite the contrary, I believe.
Corazza. Then they are turned into chapmen. No sooner
do they come to an inn, than they inquire how much the host
asks for so many; and, if they do not like the price, they
drive off. Formerly if you skinned a milord you only tickled
him. Who, in the name of the Holy Virgin, could have
begotten the present race? They have shockingly ill-treated
our worthy fellow-citizen, the most esteemed Signor Flavio
Perotti of the Pelican. He offered them his house; he placed
every thing before them; all unreservedly at their disposal.
He serves his country with consummate zeal and fidelity;
much money flows into it through his hands; many pictures
that might peradventure do great dishonor to the names of
Domenichino and Guido, and the whole family of the Caracci,
and sweet Albano - my tears will flow at the name, it so
much resembles our illustrious protector's—yes, yes, many
and many slip quietly from the Pelican out of the country, by
Signor Flavio's intervention. Hence there is scarcely an
auction, I hear, in England, without a dozen of Domenichinos ;
while in Italy dukes and princes lie on their death-beds and
gasp for one. The milords in Florence conspired against
poor Signor Flavio, as an accomplice in what they were.
pleased to denominate a cheat and forgery. Figure it, your
Eminence, figure it! an accomplice! Signor Flavio told me,
that, unless he had quitted Florence on the instant, the
police would have consigned him to the Bargello. This
comes of accepting bills from foreigners! — this comes from
facilitating business!
Biancheria. Eminence, we live in an ungrateful world, a
324
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
world full of snares, frauds, and perils. Many saints have
said it, and all honest men have experienced it. I gave mỹ
pictures to this Englishman, merely not to disgust or displease
him. He had them not at my price, but at his own. I
abandoned them; I stood in desolation. Recovering my
senses, I saw bare walls, Chiusi, Populonia.
Legate. Signor Conte, Most Illustrious, had the purchaser
ever any dealings with you before?
Biancheria. He never was before in Bologna. We see
many Englishmen from time to time, but none come twice;
the reason is, they take the other road. Beside, they are men
of business, and carry off at once every thing they like.
Corazza. I never heard of one entering the same shop a
second time. The French are called inconstant; but in
inconstancy the English outfly them by leagues and latitudes.
Him whom they call an honest man one day, they call a
rogue the next: they are as mild as turnips in the morning,
and as hot as capsicums in the afternoon.
Scampa. Whenever an Englishman of distinction was
inclined to favor me, he always found my palace at his
disposal. I began at last to give a preference to the French-
man. Instead of such outrageous words as accomplice,
&c., when a Frenchman has rung a few changes on the
second and sixth letters of the alphabet, his temperament
grows cooler: you may compromise with him; but the Got-
dam of the Englishman sounds like the bursting of the doors
of Janus; and his fist is always ready to give it emphasis. I
regret that I have encountered more than once such rudeness,
after making him the master of my house and servants.
Corazza (aside to the secretary). What servants? They are
all the Pelican's. Old Baltazzare-Cincinnato never leaves off
his cobbling under the palace-stairs for the best heretic in
London. He has orders to the contrary, or the Pelican
would stand still in the negotiation. He has other perqui-
sites.
Legate. Most prized and ornate Signor Corazza, my patron,
I commend your modesty in taking a place behind my chair,
while Signor Marchese and Signor Conte do me the honor
of indulging me with their presence on the opposite side of
the chamber; yet, if you are desirous of whispering any
remarks of yours to my secretary, who appears to be an old
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
325
acquaintance, pray, in courtesy, go as far from my chair as
possible; for whispers are apt to divert the attention more
than a louder tone.
Corazza. Signor Secretary, accept this small cameo.
Secretary. Don't mention it; don't think of it; impossible!
Not to be observed. (Pockets it.)
I would render you service for service, my dear Signor
Corazza! You are a man of parts, a man of business, my most
worshipful patron! I have only my good fortune to boast of,
partly in the satisfaction I give his Eminence, and partly in
the precious acquisition of your friendship. His Eminence
has taken under his protection a young person, a relative of
mine, sage, good, gentle; they call her handsome. She
embroiders; she can get up fine linen —
His Eminence wishes her well. There can be no scandal
in it; there never was a suspicion; seventeen comes too far
under eighty. He would not puff off the girl; but he has
told me in confidence that five hundred crowns lie somewhere.
And her friends are men of substance; they may come down
with what is handsome.
Corazza. Signor Secretary, the sooner we are in the
midst of these things the better.
Secretary. I may misunderstand you, since your impatience
seems to have little of the rapturous in it. Why then the bet-
ter the sooner in the midst of them?
Corazza. Because the sooner out.
Secretary. Ohibo! no better reason than this?
Corazza. My most ornate and erudite Signor Secretary,
I love women in canvas better than in linen: they change
less speedily, do an honest man less harm, and are more
readily off-hand.
Secretary. Eh, eh? well, well! I would not build up a
man's fortune against his will.
Legate. Signor Corazza!
Corazza. Her slave!
Legate. I have been turning over the papers very atten-
tively, and begin to think the affair looks serious. If any
thing can be suggested to relieve you, lawfully and consci-
entiously reflect upon it; meet half-way. There is nothing
that may not be arranged by wisdom and concession.
Scampa. Wisdom does much.
326
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Legate. Concession helps her materially, my dear Signor
Marchese!
Biancheria. The gifted persons, who enjoy the supreme
felicity of frequent audiences with your Eminence, admire the
prodigious ease with which she performs the greatest actions.
Scampa. What a stupendous wisdom falls from the foun-
tain of her most eloquent lips! As the shallowness of some
is rendered less apparent by an umbrageous impenetrability
about them, so the profundity of others is little suspected in
the placid and winning currency of their demeanor.
Corazza. Ah, Eminence! She has fairly won her red
stockings.
Legate. God put them on me only to try me. He has
since visited me with many afflictions. In his inscrutable
wisdom, he permitted the French to plunder me of my
pictures. I have yet some; a few worthy friends have been
ambitious to sew up the rents and rips of my fortune: one
has offered me one fine piece, another, another. They only
showed the heart in the right place. I am sorry I rejected so
many: I might have restored them by my last will and testa-
ment, with a slight remembrance, treating some according to
what I conceive to be their necessities, and others in propor-
tion to their rank and dignity. But why these reflections?
Gentlemen, I am involved in a multiplicity of affairs, an
account of which must instantly be laid before His Holiness.
In obedience to his edict I must inquire into the women who
wear silver* combs and show their shift sleeves; I must
ascertain the number of equally grave offenders whose houses
are open in the dusk, and the names of those who enter and
go out.
Corazza. Your Eminence turns round and looks at me.
Upon the faith of a Catholic, I went out, but that is to
say -
Legate. It is indeed, my patron! It is to say quite
enough. Respectable persons, substantial housekeepers are
allowed an honest liberty; but Vice must be tributary to
*There was issued an edict against them by Leo the Twelfth.
Creditable women among the poor usually wore them, and they were
heirlooms for many generations. It is reported that His Holiness had
received his last serious injury from a person who usurped this matronly
decoration.
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
327
Virtue. The Serpent may bite the woman's heel, as was
ordained; but, if he rises in his ambition, we must detach a
golden scale or two from his pericranium. In plain language,
gentlemen, the fisc is cracking into chinks with dryness and
vacuity: we must contrive to oil it among us.
Corazza. I am no defaulter; I am no frequenter
Secretary (aside). Why tremble, why hesitate, why excuse
yourself, most worthy Signor Corazza? Nobody can suspect
you, my patron! you stand erect, above suspicion: your
Venuses are upon canvas.
Corazza (aside). Signor Secretary, no jeering! You shall
never cram girls down my throat. There are some that
might be too large for it; do you understand me? Mind,
look ye! I do not say all are; I do not say one is; no of-
fence to any relative or friend of yours; I had not a thought of
the kind in regard to the lady in question! God knows it!
Secretary. You convince me, my dear patron!
Legate. In this life we must all make some small sacrifices;
and the sooner we make them the more certain is our reward.
myself am an instance of it. The enemy had despoiled me
of my gallery; but the Virgin opened my eyes the wider the
more I wept before her, the more promises I made her, and
enabled me to foresee the fall of paper-money. I effected
large purchases in it, very large indeed, engaging to repay it
in the same kind after six months, with great interest. My
blessed Patroness enabled me to perform it, at less expense
than a plate of unpeppered cucumbers in August. Nor did
her favor and inspiration end here. I went, I remember not
on what business, to Massa di Carrara. After passing through
all the bed-chambers, at the desire of the Duchess, in order
to make my choice, I fixed upon one in which there was a
Holy Family by Titian.
A noble picture, Signor Marchese! I do assure you, Sig-
nor Conte, the picture is worth ten thousand crowns. Signor
Corazza, if you had seen that picture you would have cut
off the head of the Bambino for pure affection. Impossible
to resist the idea. I prayed and prayed before it, and took
out first my scissors, then my penknife; then I thought it
would be a pity to lose the rest, for there are parts about the
Virgin, too, most delicately touched. Ah, what a carnation!
what a carnation! the warmest local colors, the most subtile
328
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
demi-tints, a glow that creeps on insensibly to lose itself in
the shades, making the heart pant and the innermost soul
sigh after it.
All. I seize it! I seize it! I seize it!
Legate. It was no easy matter to put up penknife and
scissors; but it was easier than to sleep in such a presence.
About midnight I rose and prayed to my Protectress, vowing
that, if she would incline the heart of the Duchess to my
wishes, I would place a crown of gold over her head, and
another of silver over the Bambino's. Whenever, on the
following day, any person entered the chamber, he or she
found me on my knees before the picture. In the morning
I looked pale; I sighed at breakfast; I abstained at dinner;
I retired at supper. The Duchess told her chaplain to inform
me that her surgeon might be depended on, being a man
equally of ability and discretion. I assured him I seldom
had had occasion to put any surgeon's ability to the proof,
and never his discretion and taciturnity. I rose in her
good opinion for both these merits, if we may call them so.
I then expressed to him, in confidence, my long sufferings
and exceeding love for the Virgin. Whether he or she in-
formed the Duchess of them, I never have discovered; but
Her Highness said so many kind words to me on the subject,
that I could no longer refuse to eat whatever she recommended.
Yet I was obliged to retire immediately after dinner, partly
from weakness of stomach, and partly from the rigid devotion
which occasioned it.
((
"What can be the matter with the poor cardinal?" said
Her Highness. Highness, the naked truth must out,"
replied the chaplain. "He does whatever you command or
wish he smiles, however languidly; he drinks, one would
almost think, with relish; he eats, I will not say like one with
an appetite, but at least as much, to remove all anxiety from
your Highness."
"Well, but this naked truth I have the courage to en-
counter it," said the Duchess. "There are baths at Pisa and
Lucca, both near; and there are minerals and instruments
quite at hand." The worthy chaplain shook his head, and
answered, "His Eminence does nothing, day or night, but
kneel before the Holy Family in his bed-chamber." "Then
get the cushion well stuffed," said her Highness," or let him
ALBANI AND PICTURE-DEALERS.
329
have another put upon it; bring him the green velvet one
from the chapel, and take especial care that no loose gold-
wire, in the lace about it, catches his stockings."
When I was going away I began to despair, and I prayed
again to my blessed Benefactress.
Signor Marchese, Signor Conte, she never abandons those
who put their trust in her.
Both. Never, never!
them nothing to desire. She gives all at once.
So bountiful is she that she leaves
Legate. On the morning of my departure, the Duchess
sent up some fine Dresden porcelain to my room, and several
richly bound books, requesting my acceptance, she was gra-
ciously pleased to say, of the few trifling things she had
ordered to be placed there. I humbly told her I could not
deprive her of any luxury, to every kind of which I was
indifferent and dead. Again she politely asked me if there
was nothing I would accept as a remembrance of my visit to
Massa. After a pause, and after those protestations of im-
possibility which good manners render necessary, and indeed
after four retrograde steps, it occurred to me, as an urgent
duty, to declare positively that I would only take the picture;
which, if left where it was, might deprive others, equally
devout, of as much sleep as I had lost by it. The Duchess
stood with her mouth open, and very pretty teeth she had
in those days. I abashed my head, kissed her hand, and
thanked her with many tears and tendernesses for a gift
which, to me at least, was a precious one, said I, and a
pledge of her piety, although no proof of my desert.
Scampa. The Duchess is wealthy, and -
Legate. I do assure you, Marchese, she was then a fine
woman, little above fifty. Gentlemen, I will visit your gal-
leries, knowing their contents, and will hear your reasonings,
anticipating their validity. (Rises and goes.)
All.
We are lost!
330
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Blucher.
for me.
XXIII. BLUCHER AND SANDT.
Pardon an intrusion ere sunrise. Do not move
Sandt. Sir, I was not seated, nor inclined to be. Sitting
is the posture in which a prisoner has a deeper sense of soli-
tude and helplessness. In walking there is the semblance of
being free; and in standing there is a preparation for walk-
ing. But perhaps these are only the vague ideas of my
situation. Many things are true which we do not believe
to be true; but more are false which we do not suspect of
falsehood.
Blucher. So early a visit, or indeed any, may be unwel-
come on such a day.
But we are
Sandt. To one unprepared it might be.
scarcely so early as you think we are. The walls indeed do
not yet bear upon them the pleasant pink hue of sunrise; a
rich decoration which, I am sorry to think it, some other
cells are perhaps deprived of; but within a few minutes you
will discover the only thing in the apartment not yet visible.
Presently you shall see the spider's web, in the angle there,
whiten and wave about. Look! I told you so. Does the
sun's ray shake it by striking it? Or does the poor laborious
weaver of the tissue, by quitting it abruptly?
Blucher. I never thought about the matter.
Sandt. You have not had much leisure then? You never
have been idle against your will?
Blucher. No, indeed; not until lately. But why have they
walled up your chimney? Could not they have contracted it,
if they feared your escape?
Sandt. Ah! how we puzzle one another with our questions!
Do not inquire why they have done it: thank them rather, if
you are my friend, thank them with me for sparing to take
down the mantle-piece.
Blucher. A narrow slip of lime-washed stone.
Sandt. Wide enough for a cider-glass with a flower in it.
I should be unwilling to have a bird so near me just at pres-
ent; but a flower, I love to have a flower. It leads me back,
with its soft, cool touch, into the fields and into the garden;
it was nurtured by the heavens ; it has looked at them in its
BLUCHER AND SANDT.
331
joyousness; and it leaves all for me!
and it leaves all for me! Thou hast been out
upon the dew, my little one! thou hast seen every thing as I
saw it last; thou comest to show me the colors of the dawn,
the carelessness of boyhood, the quiet veins and balmy
breath of innocence, the brief seclusion and the sound sleep
of Sandt.
Are you going?
Blucher.
No.
Sandt. You turned away from me.
I grew tedious.
Blucher. I have not yet given you time, nor you me.
What are you looking at on the naked wall?
Sandt. I was looking at the reflection of the window bars
against it.
Blucher. And yet you appeared to look at them with
pleasure and satisfaction.
Sandt. Did I? Perhaps I did. Their milder apparitions
have been my daily visitors. Unobtrusive, calm, consolatory,
they teach me by their transiency and evanescence that im-
prisonment is merely a shadow, as they are; that life is
equally so; that the one cannot long detain us; that we can-
not long detain the other; and that our enlargement and
departure are appointed from above. See how indistinct and
how wide-open they are become already. I fell into talking
about myself; and, what is worse, I now begin to moralize.
An invitation to sit down with one condemned might be
offensive.
Blucher. Assure me that I do not offend, and let me
assure you I will not be offended. Suspect me, doubt me,
interrogate me, and, if you find reason for it, reproach me.
Sandt. I have no right nor will.
Blucher. Then let us sit together at the foot of the pallet.
I would not assume the post of honor, to which I have no
right, by taking the three-legged stool. And now we are side
by side, may I look at you?
Sandt. As you will.
Blucher. I have seen many brave men; I cannot see too
many.
Sandt. The brave are confined in the fortresses,
less healthy than this. Somebody has misled you.
in places
Blucher. Confined in the fortresses, in places less
healthy than prisons! the landwehr! the restorers — have
332
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
you slept well? I hope you have; I do think you have; you
look composed.
Sandt. Many thanks! I have indeed.
Blucher.
Soundly as usual?
Sandt. My sleep was like spring; if inconstant and fit-
ful, yet kindly and refreshing; such as becomes the fore-
runner of a season more settled and more permanent. It
has invigorated me for the journey I am to take: I wait in
readiness.
Blucher. Blessings upon you! blessings and glory!
Sandt. Leave me blessings; glory lies within them: where
they are not, she is not.
Blucher. If I tell you that I am one of the same society
with yourself, one of the same heart in its kind, though smaller
and harder, you may doubt me: you may imagine me some
privy councillor in his gentleness come to untwine and wheedle
your secrets out of you; or some literator, in his zeal for
truth, in his affection for science, in his spirit of confraternity,
come to catch your words and oil his salad with them.
Sandt. If you are that (but surely you cannot be) and
poor also, I will answer you enough to produce you, in
this moment of public curiosity, a small pittance for your
family.
Blucher. You see I am old, and wear an old coat.
Sandt. Go on. I have given my promise, and would yet
give it, had I not. We have no time to spare. Let me
direct you by the straightest road to your business. I had
no accomplice, no instigator, no adviser in letting fall the
acid drop which removed one stain from Germany. Here
is enough for your three volumes, three hundred pages each.
Yes, I see the holes; and you may put the hand into that
rent.
Blucher. It is a coat which many a ball has hissed at, and
many a courtier whom I cared as little for.
Sandt. May I serve one man more ere I depart! and
may he have been, or live to be, an honest one!
Blucher. Is Blucher?
Sandt. The Kosciusko of Germany, the Washington of
Europe.
Blucher. In wishes only.
Sandt. What news about him? Be explicit and expeditious.
BLUCHER AND SANDT.
333
Blucher. He passes yet one hour with thee, O saint with-
out arrogance! O patriot without imposture!
Sandt. Where am I?
Blucher. Not yet in heaven, although thy looks express it.
Sandt. But, what is next to heaven, on earth as I yearned
to see it, where the desire of good and the thrusting aside of
evil find their full reward.
Blucher. Reward! What! death?
Sandt. After the embrace of Blucher, are myriads of
wrong thoughts worth a single just, or myriads of cruel worth
a single kind, one? If men were what we could wish them to
be, we need not die for them: if they loved us, we might be too
contented, and less disposed to set them right. I dare not
attempt to penetrate or to question what is inscrutable in the
designs of Providence; but without evil, and much of it, and
spread widely, the highest part of God's creation would sink
lower, by contracting its capacity of reflection, and abating its
intensity of exertion.
O general, may it be unsafe for any one to pour bad coun-
sel into the ear of princes! Let them slumber, heavy and
satiated, in their sunny orchards, without the instillation of
that fatal poison! May I not perish, may you not live, in
vain!
66
The soldier is the highest or the lowest of mankind. He
must be a rescuer or a robber: he can be which he prefers.
Illustrious choice! magnificent prerogative! He can say,
My brethren and children, like my carts and oxen, shall be
let out for hire, or driven off unpaid ;" and he can say, "They
shall be free; they shall be Germans." Tell those who will
hear and obey you, that what was ever Germany must be
Germany again. Tongues are boundaries, rivers and moun-
tains none. Fatherland may never give up the inheritance
of his children to a stranger: if force compels him, let them
be righted by the nearest of kin, whether of the same genera-
tion or not.
Blucher. The politician may expect some trouble in
teaching this doctrine.
Sandt. He may expect it first in learning, then in teaching:
any lesson in which he encounters the hard word, honesty.
All evil, on the contrary, finds everywhere pliant scholars
and strong-wristed head-masters.
334
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Blucher. France will not loose her hold on Belgium, Al-
sace, Lorraine, Franche Comté, and other spoliations made
by her glorious monarch, who never gave up any thing but
his word and his reason.
Sandt. If the panther withdraw not her paw, out with thy
sword and sever it, growl and grin as she may. He who
insists on less is the sower of perennial wars, half driveller,
half traitor.
Blucher. I see the necessity; but those who have strong
shoulders have weak eyes. Our princes think it easier to
raise scaffolds than palisades. The time, however, is not
distant when even they themselves will find virtue in patri-
otism, and safety nowhere else.
Sandt. Single States are poor props; but who can wrest
out Germany?
Blucher. German princes.
Sandt. O thou, direct their choice and exalt their energy!
thou who hast resisted so gallantly the great enslaver, the
sworn adversary of freedom, truth, and honor, the false god
of foul worshippers; thou who hast broken the confederacy
of crowns, tied together by him across our provinces ; and hast
turned adrift the trammelled hawks, with their hoods yet
flapping their eyes and their strings entangling their talons.
Impotent as they are of themselves, and transitory as I fore-
see them, they may beat down in their terror those who labor
with us
to prepare the high-road for deliverance. The
slightest and least perceptible of blows will terminate my
worst anxieties; you will have many, but withal much glory:
I shall be numbered with assassins. What then? But, I
foresee it, a few, enthusiastic as myself, may be cast into
prison for naming me favorably. This is sad to think of.
Blucher. Never fear it. Victory_makes even bad things
good, and even bad men glorious. Do not expect the world's
approbation for cutting down a ripe thistle, of which the seed
would be blown into many a field round about, and again bear
other seed like it. If the extinction of a spark prevents a
conflagration, may not I trample it down?
down? If there is any-
where in my country that which threatens worse things than
conflagration, the expansion of noxious principles, of slavish
propensities; that which threatens to deprive every man in a
hundred cities of half his strength, stature, and comeliness, -
BLUCHER AND SANDT.
335
1
never will I seize by the collar the brave fellow who plants
his foot on it.
Sandt. Yet the laws must be obeyed.
Blucher. Many actions which we consider the most glo-
rious in antiquity would have been punished as capital crimes
under the mildest laws. For instance, the death of Cæsar
by the gallows; the death of Cato by a stake through the
body in a cross-road. The same pedagogue applauds both
actions equally. We begin with falsehood, continue with
falsehood, and never leave falsehood off. Such is the only
constancy of man.
Sandt. Our men, however, are less flexible than others.
God never permits a nation to be subjugated while a great
genius is existing in it.
Blucher. Was not Greece subjugated by the Macedonian
while Demosthenes and Phocion were living?
Sandt. No; not subjugated by him, but united: and uni-
ted against the common and ancient enemy, the Persian.
France indeed has been subjugated by a soldier of fortune,
who is nothing more; but in France there are no Alpine
heights there are plenty of little angular gravel stones, glim-
mering and glittering, and sharp enough to wound the foot
that trusts itself upon them. The best man there, writer or
statesman, is but an epigrammatist.
Blucher. The generals of France have performed great
actions; but they had great means. First of them all was the
Spirit of Liberty, which played round their helmets, like those
brilliant lights the ancients took for Castor or Pollux; signs
of victory wherever they appeared. The enthusiasm of Italy
threw before them her ancient hoards of wealth. Superstition
had plotted, and Science had toiled, in their service. Princes
conspired against freedom, and men trod down princes.
Nations rose against cabinets; the tiger gnashed the fox,
the ermine, and the sloth. All the crimes were let loose upon
one; and first the most ferocious, then the most fraudulent,
mounted over myriads of carcasses, amid the acclamations of
the people. It is impossible for an honest man to be recon-
ciled to dishonesty by time and repetition: on the contrary,
his repugnance is exasperated. Now in what country upon
earth have falsehood and wrong been so irremediable and so
extensive as in France? A nation does not retain for twenty
336
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
centuries the same character, good or bad, without deserving
it. The Persians, now notorious liars, were once described,
even by hostile historians, as unwavering lovers of truth; the
French never were, by foe or friend. Europe does not
detest France because in all ages she has suffered by her
slaughters, spoliations, and conflagrations; she detests her
because she is certain of nothing from her but insecurity.
The gamester now speculating in the Palais Royal of the
Tuileries has loaded his dice and marked his cards to no
purpose. He has not the sense to know that, by continuing
in "double or quits," he must lose all at last. No great gen-
eral ever lost two whole armies; he has lost four, each of vet-
erans, brave men highly disciplined; against troops which,
by every calculation, he should have subdued. The first was
captured in Egypt, the second was wasted in Hayti, the third
surrendered in Spain, the fourth in Portugal.* He has
squandered more men and money than ever general squan-
dered yet, and has never done any thing with means appar-
ently inadequate, as was done by Hannibal, by Marius, by
Sertorius, by Julius Cæsar, by Gustavus Adolphus, by Charles.
the Twelfth, by Hyder-Ali (the greatest man among the
Asiatics, not excepting Mithridates), by Clive, and lastly by
our own Frederick. These never abused good Fortune, and
never yielded to bad, but gave her frown for frown, and set
her at defiance. She turned and smiled on them.
It is easier for Bonaparte to retain what he has won than
it is to throw it away; so closely surrounded is it by vigilant
and crafty guardians, all having a deep interest in its conser-
vation. But, ever changeable, ever restless, ever intractable,
captious, and quarrelsome, he grumbles at Fortune for her
tiresome fidelity, calls her smile an importunity and intrusion,
and often has been resolute to kick her out of doors. The
next time he plays this prank, I trust she will have the spirit
to leave him altogether.
A slight puncture will let out all the wind in the bladders
that support him. Let him come but once into perplexity,
and he will never find his way out again. He trusts his star;
and that is not the pole-star, but a false and wandering one,
*The fifth was frozen in Russia; the sixth cut to pieces at Leipzig;
the seventh found no refuge in its retreat from Waterloo. In every
extremity he always has abandoned them.
BLUCHER AND SANDT.
337
generated by an over-heated fancy, and never rising much
above the marsh. Nevertheless, he was made for those he
governs they must always have the trumpet before or the
scourge behind them.
Sandt. It is better not to be remembered than to be re-
membered for evil actions. But as the flesh that is branded
is the last that rots, so it appears that what is most wicked
lies longest in the memory.
Blucher. Men at present are in a state of fever and delir
ium; a flea leaps over the bed-clothes and they fancy it a
dragon: I trust they will soon be on their legs again, and shake
the flea out of the window.
Sandt. Joy opens the heart to generosity: sorrow shuts it
against the world. I thank my God that he has exempted
me from it in this captivity; and that, without a thought of my
own enlargement, I pant for the emancipation of mankind.
What am I? What is my life or death? Whether a grain of
dust is blown away in the morning or in the evening, what
matter? Censure and praise, I own it, are less indifferent to
me than they should be. O sir, I am young, and without my
knowing it, I may be vain. While the hair is full and glossy,
how pleasant is it to be patted on the head! But, God knows,
I feared rather than courted the opinion of thoughtful men
upon my deed. I ought not to have cared about it, favorable
or unfavorable; but my fear, you see, did not deter me from
the execution of my duty. I believed I could render my
country a service: may it, may it, be one! All deeds requiring
violence are of questionable good. I did question my heart;
I opened it before me; I repressed it; I wrung it.
Blucher. Its present rest shows its purity at the bottom.
Incomparably more doubtful is that action, extolled in every
school and college, which deprived the world of the greatest
soldier it ever saw, excepting perhaps Hannibal, and equal
to that glorious prodigy of Africa, in conciliating the affections
of the ally, of the stranger, and of the conquered. The
clement man was betrayed and slaughtered by the partisans
of the merciless, of the wretch who had threatened to reduce
all Italy to a cinder. Cæsar was defamed by the orator who
praises this monster; defamed by him after he had delivered
at his footstool the most eloquent of his orations, by which
he obtained from the Dictator the pardon of Marcellus.
VOL. V.
22
338
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Freedom is allowed to pass without a watchword; and
many pass in his name. We think we are broad awake
while we fancy we see freedom on the senatorial side. The
venal, unjust, oppressive men, whom Cæsar would have
driven from their benches, cried out for Brutus and Cassius,
his murderers. And so august is the title under which they
fought, that no one takes it in hand to dispute it.
The gen-
erous, the honest, the humane, and even the wise give them
glory for slaying him. If our boyhood, in its first lessons,
repeats their exploit with admiration, shall we condemn in
our maturer age an action in which no malignity can be
suspected? Bright is the name of Timoleon; but there is
a spot of blood on it. They who would be great in the
eyes of nations are compelled to shed more than their
own; and it is not always in our choice to determine whose
it shall be.
Sandt. It has been in mine.
Blucher. If there is any country under heaven in which
thy name shall bring down punishment on him who praises
it, that country is not worth defending. Thy last breath shall
be caught by Germany, and shall sink deep into her bosom.
Exult, my boy!
Sandt. Composure now becomes me rather than exulta-
tion. I may have caused many tears: scarcely then ought I
to be gifted with composure, -you speak to nie of our country,
and bestow it. I have removed a petty mass of obstruction
from the path of her triumphs. In my heart lies the sum of
my recompense; and this hand, O general, which I have a
right to kiss, largely overpays me with its manly pressure.
Say that you have given it. My wish is that many young
men may deserve your esteem, by placing other things above
life; of which the breath was lent us for a season to put those
other things into action.
Blucher. I will tell them how calm I found thee, how
argumentative, how gentle, how unsuspicious, how ready to
die courageously.
Sandt. Say not that.
Blucher. Why?
Sandt. Do not ask me.
Blucher. Indeed I must; pray tell me.
Sandt. Nay, do not insist on it.
}
BLUCHER AND SANDT.
339
Blucher. Hast thou any doubt then, any scruple, care,
solicitude, which friendship in these few moments can allay?
Sandt. None, whatever. But the worst men have died
bravely; and, if they had not, why should I assume the merit,
or accept it? Say, I neither feared death nor displayed
insensibility at its approach; say, I would have lived if
the laws allowed it, and if the example I gave could be
as effective. Indeed, indeed, I would have spared my life
almost as gladly as I would have spared that other; but both
were called for.
Blucher. Many have lived longer than thou; none better.
Sandt. Then why look grieved? You did not look so
before you showed me reason why we neither of us ought.
O sir, should not gray eyelashes be exempt from tears?
Blucher. One of them is enough. The brave extort what
the unfortunate should win from me. These are tears in
which the sword is tempered.
Sandt. Health to Germany! There spoke her great de-
liverer. I too have performed one action from which some
good may follow; but that one grieved me bitterly: all yours
will cheer and strengthen the breast they spring from.
Comfort my friends; assure them it grieves me no longer, in
the hope that another blow like it will not soon be necessary.
For, sir, the slow and timid Sandt such he was among his
friends, and such he might have been among his enemies
Blucher. Never, by Heaven!
Sandt. - had always more hopes than fears.
Blucher. Right! right! I thought so. Adieu, my brave
Sandt! I would steal, if I were able, that smile from thee
at parting.
Sandt. Every face in Germany must owe to you every
smile it wears henceforward. Would you have mine? Take it
then. It is time to give it up: be it yours, with God's peace,
for evermore!
I wish you acquitted me of all blame in what I did. Cer-
tainly it was done without malice and without anger.
Blucher. My dear Sandt, it is not German to kill our fel-
low-men for a diversity of opinion, or for a mere delinquency
in politics. Manifest and intentional evil must have sprung
up before the sword be drawn which, in our military school,
has always been thought a better weapon than the dagger.
340
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Unfriendly as you are, which every German has reason to be,
toward France, I am afraid your mind has retained too long
the heat thrown out on every side by the French Revolution.
Although I hold in contempt the man whose youth was un-
warmed by it, I should entertain but a mean opinion of his
understanding who perceived not at last the wickedness of
its agents, by the conflagrations they excited in all quarters.
I have lived long enough, and have read extensively
enough, to learn that no good whatsoever hath come at any
time, to any part of the world, from France. While Italy
gave the model of municipalities, that broad concrete on
which a safe, solid, substantial government must be founded;
while Germany invented printing, what was the invention,
the only one, of France? Her emblematic balloon, the sym-
bol of herself, — flimsy, varnished, inflated, restless, wavering,
swaggering, and carried away by every current and every
gust in the most opposite directions. It is not for conquer-
ing their country, and for imposing the laws and the very
name of one among our tribes upon it, that the French hate
us: it is for the eternal reproach of our calmness, our consis-
tency, and our probity. In calling us perfidious, like skilful
enemies they take up the ground we should be expected to
take up against them. Oaths are the produce of the soil; and
broken ones lie across it in all directions, like twigs and
rushes in the homestead of a basket-maker. The most
honest and moderate of their politicians would immerge his
country for twenty years in the most calamitous war, to retain
his office or to displace another man. It is not by striking the
head of the serpent that we can extinguish the animal or
shake out its venom; we must also crush down its voluminous
risings, cut off its tail, and break it in the middle.
Sandt. O life, I
never see that event!
press, accomplishes it.
am
now sorry to lose thee! I shall
This hand, the last hand I must ever
ELDON AND ENCOMBE.
341
*
XXIV. ELDON AND ENCOMBE.
Eldon. Encombe, why do you look so grave and sit so
silent?
Encombe. To confess the truth, I played last evening, and
lost.
Eldon. You played? Do you call it playing, to plunder
your guest and overreach your friends? Do you call it
playing, to be unhappy if you cannot be a robber, happy if
you can be one? The fingers of a gamester reach farther
than a robber's or a murderer's, and do more mischief.
Against the robber or murderer the country is up in arms at
once to the gamester every bosom is open, that he may
contaminate or stab it.
Encombe. Certainly, I have neither stabbed nor contami-
nated; I have neither plundered nor overreached.
Eldon. If you did not fancy you had some advantages
over your adversary, you would never have tried your fortune
with him. I am not sorry you lost it will teach you better.
Encombe. My dear father, if you could but advance me
the money !
Eldon. Your next quarter, the beginning of April, is
nigh at hand. However, a part, a moiety, forty days after
date who knows?
Encombe. My loss, I am sorry to say, is heavy.
Eldon. Then wait.
Encombe. Losers would willingly: winners have always a
spur against the flank.
Eldon. Tell me the amount of the debt.
Encombe. Two thousand pounds.
Eldon.
Two-what! thousand-pounds! Pounds did
you say? pounds sterling? Incredible!
Encombe. Too true!
Eldon. O my son Encombe ! O Encombe, my son, my
son!
Encombe. I now perceive you pity my condition, and I
grieve to have given so tender-hearted a parent so much
uneasiness. Those blessed words remind me of the royal
psalmist's.
Eldon. I am very near in my misfortunes at least ; although
342
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
God forbid that I should liken myself in wisdom or piety to
that good old king, — that king after God's own heart, of
whom I can discover no resemblance among men, excepting
our own most gracious sovereign, George the Fourth.
Encombe. Filial love suggests to me some advantages of
yours over that early light of the Gentiles. You never were
guilty of idolatry nor adultery; nor ever kept (aside) any thing
but his money.
Eldon. The Lord exempted me from so horrible a sin as
idolatry, by placing me in the happiest and most enlightened.
(as indeed it was lately) of all the countries upon earth.
Adultery and concubinage did you mention? Another vorago,
two voragoes, Scylla and Charybdis, of national wealth.
Encombe. Not national, my dear father, but private-
unless he must pay for ·
Eldon. Hold! hold! No indecent reflections! Son
Encombe, do begin to talk more discreetly and more nobly,
and call every thing private national.
Encombe. Better so, than to make every thing national
private.
Eldon. The laws will not allow that.
A certain latitude,
a liberal construction, a privilege here, a perquisite there,
these are things which only the malignant would carp at:
the wiser of both parties take the same view of them, and
shake their heads, leaving such trifles as they found them.
Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim.
But, son Encombe, I have often had occasion to remark, that
persons who have thrown themselves under tribulation by
their extravagances roll themselves up in a new morality
with all the nap upon it, and are profuse in the loan of sym-
pathies. They are furnished with every sort of morality but
that particular one which pinched them; and, when they have
done an infinity of private mischief, they are inflamed with a
marvellous passion for the public good. Is not this somewhat
like a man who has the plague about him offering to cure a pa-
tient of the hiccough? Another set of them is still more censu-
rable; and, I am sorry to say, a remark of yours reminded me
of the offence whereof they are habitually guilty. Draw dis-
tinctions, draw distinctions, Encombe! One of the errors to
which you alluded in the mention of King David, if indeed it
ELDON AND ENCOMBE.
343
was one, as perhaps it may appear at first sight, was the error
of the times and of the country. We can pretend to no posi-
tive proof that he cohabited with more than one of his hand-
maidens; and possibly it was not without some injunction
from above, for purposes beyond our reach and unbecoming
our discussion. We must close our eyes on those who are
under God's guidance; I mean his more especial guidance,
for under it we are all, weak and ignorant creatures as we
are.
Encombe. I wish I had been rather more especially so;
then I should not have come upon you in this disagreeable
business.
Eldon. Don't mind that, Encombe! You come not upon
me; I step aside from it. The business may be disagreeable
to you, and those who played with you. I grieve at the
propensity, but I will avert the ruin.
Encombe. My dear father, do not grieve at it; only pay
the money.
Eldon. Only pay the money! only pay two thousand
pounds! All the moments of my frail life, nearly worn to
nothing in the public service, would scarcely suffice me for
counting out the sum.
Encombe. Never fear; only give the order; the banker's
clerks are clever fellows, and have life enough before them
without encroachment upon yours. I know you will pay it,
my noble-minded father, you look so relenting and generous.
Eldon. I would not abuse the time of those worthy clerks.
The hours we deduct from youth can never be added to age.
Time and virtue are the only losses that are irrecoverable.
Encombe. And sometimes two thousand pounds.
Eldon. Ha! you make me laugh. Pity, that with so much
ready wit you should not also keep about you a little ready
money. Well, now we have recovered our spirits, we will dis-
miss all further thought about these little pecuniary matters.
I promise you, Encombe, you shall hear no more from me
about them, justly as I might reprove a moment's indiscretion
which, were you not insolvent, would be serious.
Encombe. One line, then.
Eldon. The clever clerks you mention have all got into
Parliament. A brace or leash of them have been tossed up
to the ticking of my woolsack.
344
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Encombe. There are others as clever as they, and left
behind. Let me bring the ink.
Eldon. Youths of business in these days will bring their
weight in gold, provided they have words as well as figures
at their disposal. I would die with the reputation of having
been a just and frugal man. You who have studied the classics
know the value they entertained for the homo frugi, and how
many virtues that term included. In conscience, in rectitude,
I cannot do for you what a sense of paternal propriety forced
me to refuse your sister. Relying on the benefices in my
gift as chancellor, and venturing to fall in love with a
clergyman who had nothing, what does she but marry? No
other way was left of showing her the imprudence she had
committed, than withholding all supplies. Nothing had she
from me for the whole year. The bonds of compassion will
yearn, Encombe. Fifteen months, scarcely fifteen months,
had elapsed, when Lady Eldon made for the baby two flan-
nel dresses, much longer than itself; and, with very few
reproaches, very few indeed, I sent her myself a check for
twenty pounds, payable at sight. Bis dat qui cito dat; so
you may say forty. It was worth as much to her who was
starving.
His Majesty, in consideration of my infirmities and in
commiseration of my afflictions, has been graciously pleased
to send me a most noble breast of mutton. The donation
would have been more royal had there been capers and
crumbs of bread with it. I have enemies, my son! I have
enemies who intercepted the fulness of the royal bounty.
However, with God's blessing, here is enough for ourselves
and the servants on Christmas day; and the superfluity of
fat, discreetly husbanded, may light the house until New
Year's indeed, the evening of that joyous day may be
enlivened by it.
If there is any thing in phrenology, my dear Encombe, you
must surely have a mountainous boss of destructiveness on
your cranium.
Encombe. I, my Lord! Why?
Eldon. Otherwise you would never have crumpled so that
admirable piece of parchment. It came but this morning, a
ticket to a hare. None such is fabricated in our days: it
would have served for letters patent to a dukedom, and
ELDON AND ENCOMBE.
345
would have borne wax enough for the great seal. Now!
now! now! do discontinue such childishness. Cannot you
leave entire even the list that was about the hinder legs? I
laid it aside for the fruit-trees against the south wall.
Remember, the loss is yours, if you have fewer and smaller
apricots. All I can say is list is exorbitant: neither they
who make the liveries, nor they who sell the cloth, throw
any in; they have the meanness to think of selling it.
Nothing but selling! selling! We are become much too
mercantile.
Encombe. I must interrupt once more the wisdom of your
experience and reflections. The matter is really urgent.
Eldon. Who is the creditor?
Encombe. The Marquis of Selborough.
Eldon. Tell him I have made up my mind never to pay a
gambling debt.
Encombe. Would you wish him to shoot me?
Eldon. Shoot you!
Encombe. Yes, by all that is sacred!
Eldon. I am shocked at your impiety. He dares not
shoot you; and no action will lie. Give him my opinion.
Encombe. He would give me his in return, and we should
be just where we stood before.
Eldon. This horrid duelling! I have been thinking of
our fine walnut-tree. I did indeed hope to derive some
advantage from it in my declining years, little as I appre-
hended they would be obscured and chilled by the eclipse
of dignity and the storms of fortune. It was valued at forty
pounds: providential if it produce me thirty at present.
Encombe. It will produce you walnuts.
Eldon. My double teeth are gone, and scarcely any two
meet of the single. They are like friends to persons out of
place they stand apart and look shy, and only wish they
could serve us.
Encombe. Well, my dear father, let us rather think about
the payment of the money than about this melancholy
matter.
Eldon. Encombe! Encombe! take care of your teeth.
In youth we know not the real value of any thing; age
instructs us. If you lose a finger, the rest remain; if you
lose a tooth, believe me, you hold the remainder on no valid
345
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
·
security. A dissolute life, care, loss of money, late hours,
hot liquors, rich gravies, many dishes, French and Rhenish
wines, excursions on the sea in yachts, the sea-coast in
crowded places, and, above all, the breath of horses on the
race-course are prejudicial to the duration of teeth. Divine
Providence gives us two sets, and makes us suffer acutely at
each gift, in order that we may remember it and prize it.
Should you happen to hear of any one desirous to purchase a
fine walnut-tree, particularly adapted to duelling pistol-stocks,
you may tell him of ours near the house, where dear Lady Eldon
loves to sit and amuse herself in the summer evenings, and
where we enjoy together the sweet reflection of a well-spent
life. It might not be amiss to mention that our favorite tree
was valued by admeasurement at forty pounds or upward.
Mark me, say Or upward. The virtuous man is observant of
truth, even to his serious loss and detriment. There is much.
envy, much malignity, in the world we live in. It is by no
means clear to me (indeed I am inclined to think the con-
trary) that there was ever a more general or a more intense
hostility toward men in office than at present; especially if, by
the appointment of the Almighty, they have the honor and
happiness to be in the confidence of his Majesty. Seeing
this, it would not at all surprise me if some wicked wretch or
other, desirous of bringing me and the laws of England into
contempt, should insinuate that I would aid and abet, and
lend my hand to, the practice of duelling. Could he but see
my heart; could he but hear this conversation !
God is my
judge; I wish only, as a conscientious man, upright in all my
dealings, to sell my walnut-tree. I know not whether, if the
offer should come through a third party, it might be useful to
remark that Lord Chancellor Eldon was in the habit of
meditating under this walnut-tree some of his most important
decrees, twenty years together. Shakspeare's mulberry was
cut up into snuff-boxes, and a guinea has been given for three
inches square.
I have drawn as many tears as ever he did,
and all in the line of duty, and by law. Perhaps I may be
remembered a shorter time among men. Certain great ones,
to whom the services of my whole life were devoted, seem to
have forgotten me already. But fidelity to our word, to our
wives, to our God, and to our king insures my happiness
here and hereafter.
ELDON AND ENCOMBE.
347
Encombe. Nevertheless, my dear father, your tone and man-
ner are excessively despondent.
Eldon. Not at all, not at all.
Another would be vexed
at seeing a mere child take his chair in the Court of Chan-
cery; another would tremble at the probable consequences of
such inexperience-well, well! they may want me yet, and
may not have me.
Encombe. Could you be insensible to the call of king and
country? You shed tears at the very thought: I have touched
the tender point, the nerve of patriotism.
Eldon. Lend me your pocket-handkerchief; for mine is
a clean one. Thank you; I am truly grateful for your sym-
pathy and attention are you mad, Encombe? Why, yours
is clean too! Take it back: I must go upstairs for my last.
Who is that man at the hall-door?
Encombe. Apparently a beggar.
I
Eldon. Go away, go away; beggary is contrary to law.
pity you, my good friend, from the bottom of my heart.
Beggar. What a cold place his pity comes from! No
wonder it has caught the cramp, and limps.
Eldon. George the Third, of happy memory, stood forward
a bright example to all future kings. But I am not about to
cite him in that high station. By God's appointment he also
shone a burning light for the guidance of parents. Being
the natural guardian of his blessed Majesty now reigning, he
received on his behalf the proceeds of the duchies of Corn-
wall and Lancaster, together with certain proceeds from the
principality of Wales. In twenty-one years, with compound
interest of five per cent, his Royal Highness, then Prince of
Wales, at present our most gracious sovereign, might have
imbursed, at the hands of his august parent, from the said
proceeds, some nine hundred thousand pounds. But, know-
ing that a virtuous and a religious education is more pleas-
ing to the eyes of our Maker, and more beneficial to the
subject, he expended the whole sum
sum on his royal son's
education.
Encombe. Nine hundred thousand pounds?
Eldon. A fraction more or less.
Encombe. Impossible !
Eldon. His Majesty himself declared it.
Remember, the
tutors of princes are lords temporal and spiritual.
348
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Encombe. Oh, then, in that case, his Majesty's word may
be relied on.
Eldon. I likewise have bestowed on you, son Encombe,
an education such as was suitable to your future rank in
society. It is beyond my power to throw you back on Parlia-
ment. The Houses would not accept my recommendation
for your relief.
Encombe. Indeed, I am not so mad as to expect it.
Eldon. It is worse madness to expect it from me. The
one has a precedent, the other none. But my bowels yearn
for you, although you have brought a whole Vesuvius of ashes
on my gray hairs.
Encombe. Even our most gracious Regent has played at
cards and lost.
Eldon. Cards were invented for the diversion of a king,
and therefore of right do belong to kings. Well we know,
Encombe, that our most gracious ruler is the least addicted
to light and frivolous pleasures; and fairly may we infer that,
if he played and lost at cards, it could only be to countenance
the subject, — perhaps to encourage the conversion of rags
into paper. The color-man, the glue-man, entered, no doubt,
into his calculation. The money he graciously lost was
probably won by some faithful old servant, whose family
was in poverty and affliction. Delicate as he is in all things,
he could not act more delicately in any than in this. That
he is the most abstinent of mankind not only his household,
but all around, have incontestable proofs before their eyes.
By the sagacity and sound discretion of his royal father of
happy memory, he was precluded from these proceeds of
which we already have largely spoken; and consequently he
is reported to have incurred sundry debts. In order to defray
them, he took a consort.
Encombe. Being, in the eye of God, married already.
Eldon. No, son Encombe, no; emphatically no.
Encombe. My dear father, you always lay the strongest
emphasis on that word, especially when, as now
Eldon. Encombe, I cannot but rejoice and smile at your
ready wit. Your Uncle Stowell has it also. It lies deeply
seated in the family; my mine has never yet been worked: it
might not answer. But let me correct your error of judgment,
and inform you that what is not in the eye of the law cannot
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, ETC.
349
be in the eye of God.
For God is law in order, economy,
and perfection. Blessed be his holy name! I shall hardly
be accused of flattery in reverting from God to God's vice-
gerent; more especially when my aim is solely your admoni-
tion. Imitate him, Encombe! imitate him!
Encombe. I was apprehensive I had imitated him too
closely.
Eldon. Take a wife of some substance.
Encombe. He certainly has done that; but I am unam
bitious of so large a dominion.
Eldon. His Royal Highness was singularly abstemious
and patriotic in his union. The instant that, by possibility,
the hopes of his people were accomplished, he was as chaste
toward his consort as his predecessor, Edward the Confessor.
Encombe. In consequence of which abstemiousness
Eldon. Hold! hold! We mortals are short-sighted. God
delivered the lady from her perils. Reluctantly should I have
pronounced a sentence of blood. But God, in some cases,
hath ordained that the axe separate the impure from the pure.
Encombe. Both parties were equally safe, if such be his
ordinance.
Eldon. Furthermore, you have the authority of your
sovereign for denying the validity of lawless obligations. His
Majesty, by right, took possession of the Duke of York's
effects. His creditors claimed them, pretending not only
that they were unpaid for, but also that they existed on the
premises at the Duke's decease. Yet his Majesty demurred.
The creditors may bring their action: it will lie.
Encombe. For ever.
XXV. QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, CAPTAINS
POLVEREL AND DES MITRAILLES, LIEUT.
POIGNAUNEZ, MARINERS.
Polverel. Mr. Pritchard, I have desired your presence, as
a gentleman of great influence and authority.
Pritchard. Sir, I know not exactly in what manner I can
be of service to crews of vessels which invade this island.
350
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Polverel. The island is in a state of insurrection. We
come opportunely to aid the legitimate power in quelling
it. Among the natives there are many discontented, as you
know.
Pritchard. The very men who apparently ought to be the
most contented; for they not only enjoy the fruits of French
principles, but also of French manufactures ; and they possess
many luxuries which the others never heard of.
Polverel. Is it possible?
Pritchard. They have displayed, most ostentatiously and
boastingly, knives, cutlasses, tobacco, brandy, rum, plates,
dishes, mirrors, and other articles of furniture and luxury
which a generous magnanimous ally, ever devoted to their
welfare, ever watchful over their prosperity, has munificently
bestowed.
Polverel. Mr. Pritchard, every word you utter raises my
wonder higher. We are both of us philanthropists: let us
then, dispassionately and amicably, talk together on the
present condition of these misguided people, so mysteriously
deluded.
Pritchard. Our conversation, I suspect, would alter but
little what is predetermined.
Polverel. Mon Dieu ! What can that be?
Pritchard. Evidently the subjugation of the natives.
Polverel. Mr. Pritchard, your language is quite unintel-
ligible to me. France never subjugates. She receives with
open arms all nations who run into her bosom for protection ;
she endows them with all the blessings of peace, of civiliza-
tion, of industry, of the sciences, of the fine arts.
Pritchard. Certainly no arts are finer than the arts they
receive from that bosom of hers, at once so expansive and so
stringent.
Polverel. Ah, Mr. Pritchard! Mr. Pritchard! you know
my humor, my temperament, my taste, by intuition. I enjoy
a joke: no man better.
Pritchard. Especially such jokes, M. le Capitaine, as your
utter vivaciously from the mouth of your cannon, and which
play with lambent light about your cutlasses and bayonets.
Polverel. We have done with war, totally and for ever
done with it. France, having conquered the confederated
world, desires only peace. She has subdued and civilized
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, ETC.
351
Africa. The desert teems with her harvests. Temples and
theatres rise above and beyond the remotest tent of Moor
and Arab. The conquerors of Spain implore the pardon of
France. The camel bends his arched neck and falls on his
flat knees, supplicating the children of mothers from our
beautiful country to mount the protuberance which provident
Nature framed expressly for the purpose, and to alight from
it in the astonished streets of Timbuctoo. We swear he shall
alight in safety. Yes, we swear it, Mr. Pritchard!
Pritchard. You have sworn many things, M. le Capitaine,
some of which were very soon counter-sworn, and others are
unaccomplished; but in this, impracticable as it appears to
me, I heartily wish you success.
Polverel. Consider it as done, completely, irreversibly.
Pritchard. Population is increasing rapidly both in France
and England: industry should increase proportionally. By
conciliating and humanizing the various tribes in Africa, you
enlarge the field of commerce, in which the most industrious
and the most honest will ultimately be the most successful.
It might be offensive to you if, in addition to this, I mention
to you the blessings of religion.
Polverel. Not at all, not at all! I have given proofs.
already that I can endure very dark reflections, and can
make very large allowances. Our soldiers will relieve the
poor devils of Mahometans from the grievous sin of polyg-
amy. If any one of them is rich enough to keep a couple
of wives or concubines, he is also rich enough to keep a con-
fessor, who will relax a little the bonds of Satan for him, and
carry a link or two of the chain on his own shoulders. Seri-
ously, for at bottom I am a true believer and a good Catholic,
we must establish the Mass both there and here. France has
recovered her fine old attitude, and can endure no longer the
curse of irreligion. Asia now lies at her feet, but intermedi-
ately the Pacific Ocean. It shall roll its vast waves before
her with due submission, and every one of them shall reflect
her tricolor.
Pritchard. Sir, you promised that we should converse
together amicably; and that neither of us, in the course of our
discussion, should give or take offence.
Polverel. A Frenchman's word was never violated: a grain
of dust never could lie upon his honor.
352
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Pritchard (aside). Certainly not without the cramp, if dust
could catch it.
Polverel. I perceive your mute acknowledgment. Speak
then freely.
Pritchard. How happens it, M. le Capitaine, that having
subdued such restless and powerful tribes, and thereby pos-
sessing such extensive territories, so fertile, so secure, so
near home, you covet what can bring you no glory and no
advantage?
Polverel. The honor of France demands it.
Pritchard. You promised you would retire from Barbary
when you had avenged the insults you complained of; and
Europe believed you.
Polverel. The more fool Europe.
Pritchard. And the more what France?
Polverel. No remarks on France, sir! She is never to
be questioned. Reasons of State, let me tell you, are above
all other reasons, as the sword is the apex of the law. We
often see after a few steps what we never saw until those
steps were taken. Thus my country sees the necessity of
retaining her conquests in Barbary. England is reconciled
to what she could not prevent nor resist.
Pritchard. She destroyed those batteries which you
occupied.
Polverel. Exactly so. She is always so complaisant as to
pave the way for us, either with her iron or her gold. She
has in some measure done it here; but neglecting to support
legitimate power, the task devolves on us of protecting the
queen from the violence and artifice of her enemies. We
offer the Entente Cordiale to Queen Pomare as we offered it
to Queen Victoria. The one is unsuspicious; the other would
be if evil counsellors were removed from about her. I have
difficulties to surmount, if, indeed, where Frenchmen are,
difficulties can be.
Pritchard. Certainly there are fewer impediments and
restrictions in their way than in the way of any other men
upon earth.
Polverel. Bravo, M. Pritchard! I love an enlightened
and unprejudiced man, rarely found, if ever, among your
countrymen.
Pritchard. We have indeed our prejudices; and, although
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, ETC.
353
we are perhaps more free in general from suspicion than
might be expected in a nation so calm and contemplative, yet,
if armed men landed in England, and demanded terms and
conditions, insisting on protecting those who refused their
protection, we should suspect a hostile disposition.
Polverel. On this remark of yours, M. Pritchard, I declare
to you, as a man who has studied my profession in all its
parts, and who is far from ignorant of England and of her
present means of defence, we could at any time land twenty
thousand men upon her shores, and as many on the coast of
Ireland.
Pritchard. Nelson saw this before steamers were invented
and the most intelligent and far-sighted of our engineers,
General Birch, has recently warned the nation of its danger.
Wooden heads still reverberate the sound of our wooden
walls: we want these; but we also want such as render France
secure on every coast. Beside which, we require a strong
central fortress, not indeed so extensive as that of Paris, but
capable of protecting a large body of troops in readiness for
any quarter of the island. Birmingham, which may be con-
sidered as our grand arsenal and foundry, is unfit; but War-
wick, united to it by canals and railway, is so situated that
all access to the town may be inundated by three or four
brooks; and the river and an artificial piece of water, broad
and deep, render it a place admirably suited for an entrenched
-camp.
Polverel. You talk, M. Pritchard, of places which may
hereafter be defended, but which at present are without
defence. Our generosity alone has spared you.
Pritchard. Doubtless, the King of the French, so prompt
to gratify the humor of his Parisians for hostilities with us
which this wanton aggression fully proves, would have invaded
Ireland, were it not for the certainty of insurrection in various
parts of his own kingdom. All the liberals and robbers and
rabble are Republicans: half the poorer tradesmen and igno-
rant peasants are Royalists in favor of the ejected dynasty.
Polverel. Insurrection, indeed! Do you Englishmen talk
of insurrection, - you whose whole army is wanted, and would
be insufficient, to keep it down in Ireland?
Pritchard. It must be acknowledged that all the atrocities
of France are fewer and lighter and more intermittent than
VOL. V.
23
354
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ours in Ireland. In that country, not one in eight is of the
religion whose priesthood all are equally bound to maintain.
And to maintain in what manner? Far more sumptuously
than the favorites of the Pope are maintained in Italy. I
could mention ten bishoprics in the Papal and Neapolitan
States, of which the united emoluments fall short of a single
Protestant one in Ireland. The least reformed church is our
Reformed Church. But I see not how one injustice can
authorize another in another country. We refuse to the Irish
what we granted to the Scotch. And we are in danger of
losing Ireland in our first war, whatever may be our enemy.
The people are justly exasperated against us; and they will
throw up many advantages rather than continue in the en-
durance of an indignity.
Polverel. I am charmed at hearing a man speak so rea-
sonably, especially an Englishman; for I respect and esteem
you in such a degree that I would rather have the pleasure
of fighting you than any other people upon earth.
Pritchard. I am apprehensive the pleasure you anticipate.
is not remote. For certainly, ill able as we are at present to
cope with any enemy, the people of England will never bear
your interference with a nation they always have protected,
and have taught the advantages of peace, commerce, morality,
and religion.
Polverel. Religion! Never shall the poor Tahitians lose
that blessing by any interference or any negligence of ours.
I have brought over with me a few gentlemen of the Company
of Jesus.
Pritchard. In these latter ages the company kept by the
blessed Jesus, much against his will, as when he was among
the scourgers and between the thieves, is a very different sort
of company from what he was accustomed to meet by the
Sea of Galilee and at the Mount of Olives.
Polverel. Between ourselves, they are sad dogs. If ever
we land, which is possible, I fear my sailors and they will
speedily come to blows about certain articles of the first
necessity and the Jesuits are the least likely to be the
sufferers.
Pritchard. It is not because I am a missionary, and pro-
fess a doctrine widely different from theirs, that I adjure you
to abstain from giving any countenance to the turbulent and
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, ETC.
355
the traitorous. It is already well known at whose instigation
they became so: and not only the English, but also the Amer-
icans, will promulgate the disgraceful fact. If war (which
God forbid !) is to rage again between the two nations which
alone could impose eternal peace on the world, let it never
spring from wanton insolence; but rather from some great
motive which must display to future generations how much
less potent, in the wisest of rulers, is reason than resentment
and ambition. We have been fighting seven hundred years
nearly eight hundred and have lately breathed longer be-
tween the rounds than we ever breathed before: we have time
and room to consider how little has either party gained, and how
much both have suffered.
Polverel. M. Pritchard, I really beg your pardon: I
yawned quite involuntarily, I do assure you.
Pritchard. What afflicts me most is the certainty that
my countrymen will be confirmed in their old prejudices and
antipathies, by this aggression in the season of profound
peace, and that they will call it treachery.
Polverel. The ignorant call that treachery which the wiser
call policy and decision.
We can
Pritchard. And by what name do the virtuous call it?
Polverel. I carry no dictionary in my pocket.
discourse more intelligibly on the condition of Ireland.
Parbleu ! I believe there neither is nor ever was any thing
similar in any other country under the sun. We must invade
Ireland; I see we must. My ship is in readiness to sail into
the bay of Dublin: my brave crew has already planted the
tricolor on the castle-walls. I see the Atlantic, the Pacific,
California, China, India. We have been too merciful, M.
Pritchard! we have been too merciful to you; but we must
correct that error.
Pritchard. It is a foible, sir, in you, of which few beside
yourselves have complained. If others had shown as little
of it, I should not at this moment have had the honor of con-
versing with you on the protectorate of Tahiti.
Polverel. We fear and respect no power that omits its op-
portunity of crushing an enemy. You have omitted this, and
more. America and France, justly proud of free institutions,
have each its National Guards. Where are yours? You
ought to have in England at least two hundred thousand of
356
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
24
them, beside forty thousand artillery-men and engineers; and
in Ireland half the number. If there is in England any class
of men which apprehends the danger of such an institution,
you must instantly annihilate that class, or submit to anni-
hilation. Have you any reply for this?
Pritchard. I wish I had. More temperate men than your-
self entertain the same opinion. You happen to be governed
at the present time by the wisest king that ever reigned over
you, or perhaps over any people; his wisdom would render
him pacific, if his power and popularity consented.
But our
negligence is a temptation to him. There are many who
would not tear a straw bonnet off the head of a girl wide
awake, yet would draw a diamond ring from the finger if they
caught her unprotected and fast asleep. We must fortify all .
our ports and roadsteads in both islands. To conciliate popu-
larity, every minister is ready to abolish a tax. We should
never have abolished one: on the contrary we should have
quoted the authority of Nelson on the dangers we have es-
caped, and on the necessity of guarding against them for the
future. My own opinion is that a less sum than twenty mil-
lions of pounds sterling would be inadequate. But in twenty
weeks of the last war we expended as much we may now
disburse more leisurely.
Polverel. We shall at all times be a match for you.
Pritchard. As a minister of religion, and an advocate for
whatever tends to promote the interests of humanity, of which
things peace is the first, I cannot but regret this commence-
ment of hostilities, so unworthy in its object, even if the
object be ultimately attained.
Polverel. Sir, after such strong language, so derogatory
to the dignity of France, I must inform you that I merely
sent for you in order to let you know that I am not ignorant
of your designs.
Pritchard. You have greatly the advantage over me, M. le
Capitaine; I remain in profound ignorance of yours, if you
intend no aggression.
Polverel. I come by order of his Majesty, the King of the
French, to protect the queen and people of Tahiti from
rebels, incendiaries, and fanatics.
Pritchard. Namely, those who have risen in all quarters.
of the island to escape from the protection you offer.
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD, ETC.
357
་་ན་
Polverel. At your instigation.
Pritchard. It required no instigation from me, or from any
other man, native or stranger. For many years, indeed ever
since we discovered the country they inhabit, they have lived
peaceably and happily, subject to no foreign laws or control.
Under the guidance of disinterested men, men contented with
laborious poverty, they have abandoned their ancient super-
stitions, immoral and sanguinary, and have listened to the
promises of the Gospel.
Polverel. It is now their duty to listen to ours, more posi-
tive and immediate. We have nothing to do with Gospel
or with missionaries. We come to liberate a people crushed
by your avarice.
Pritchard. Of what have we ever deprived them? What
taxes, what concessions, what obedience, have we ever ex-
acted? They never fought against us, never fled from us,
never complained of us.
Polverel. How dared they?
Pritchard. Yet they dare attack men so much braver.
Polverel. M. Pritchard! I perceive you are a person of
impartiality and discernment. You bestow on us unreserv-
edly the character we claim and merit. The rabble is not to
be consulted in affairs of State; and the rabble alone is in
insurrection against us.
Pritchard. I did imagine, sir, that the word rabble had no
longer a place in the French language.
Polverel. It never had for the French. But these wretches
must be taught obedience to the laws.
Pritchard. What laws?
[Des Mitrailles enters.]
Polverel. Permit me to present to you M. le Capitaine Des
Mitrailles, and to take my leave.
Des Mitrailles. On my entrance you were asking what
laws the people of Tahiti are to obey: the answer is easy and
simple, ours, and no other.
Pritchard. The answer is easier than the execution.
[Des Mitrailles, clenching his fist.]
Pritchard. I am a man of peace, M. le Capitaine, and a
servant of God. But if any impertinent, arrogant, outrageous
aggressor should strike me, I might peradventure wipe the
dust off the wall with his whiskers: so take care. King
358
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Louis Philippe, I imagine, issued no orders to bestow on so
humble an individual as myself an earnest of his Protectorate
by a blow in the face, which is a ceremonial he reserves for
the defenceless, in order to establish the glory of his navy.
You begin it with a priest; and, no doubt, you will end it with
a woman.
Des Mitrailles. If that abominable hag, Pomare, were
present at this instant, I would strike her to the earth, were
it only to irritate the English.
Pritchard. You would succeed in both exploits. Our
queen must be enamoured of your king's gallantry, when
she hears that his officers have executed his commission so
delicately.
Des Mitrailles. The Queen Pomare has concealed herself.
Pritchard. How! From the Protectorate she solicited so
earnestly?
Des Mitrailles. Find her; bring her in; or expect the con-
fiscation of your property, and a prison.
Pritchard. Find her! bring her in! I am no bloodhound.
Des Mitrailles. Unless she comes forward and acknowl-
edges our Protectorate, I dethrone her in the name of Louis
Philippe, King of the French.
Pritchard. Europe may not see with tranquillity the exe-
cution of such violence.
Des Mitrailles. We have a long account to settle with
Europe, and our quarrel must commence with her paymaster-
general.
Pritchard. I hope he does not reside in Tahiti.
Des Mitrailles. You understand me better.
Pritchard. Until now there has been little discord in the
island, no insurrection and murder. He who first brings war
into any country will be remembered and execrated by all
others to the end of time. Can Englishmen believe that
a king who hath seen so much suffering, and hath endured so
much himself, will ever enjoy a phantom of power rising up
over blood and carnage? This happy people want protection
against no enemy. Our mariners discovered their island, and
have continued to live among them not as masters, or what
you call protectors, but simply as instructors. We do not
even exercise the right which is usually conceded to discov-
erers: we are unwilling to receive, and more unwilling to
QUEEN POMARE, PRITCHARD,
359
ETC.
exact, submission. Improbable, then, is it that we should let
another, under any pretext, usurp it.
Des Mitrailles. We are aware of that sentiment; other-
wise my frigate would not have sailed at present to the South
Sea. I shall act according to my orders.
Pritchard. Consider, sir, the responsibility. What is now
occurring in this obscure little island may agitate the minds
of the most powerful in the present age, and of the most
intellectual in the future. What were once the events of
the day are become the events of all days. Historians and
orators of the first order have founded their fame on what,
at the beginning, raised only a little dust round the market
place.
Des Mitrailles. You have the presumption and imperti-
nence, sir, to reason and argue and dogmatize with me, and
even to call me to account. I am responsible only to the
king my master, and to the minister who gave me his in-
structions.
Pritchard. If that minister is a demagogue whose daily
bread is baked on the ashes of ruined habitations; if that
minister is a firebrand of which every spark is supplied by the
conflagration of the household gods
Des Mitrailles. Do not talk to me of households and gods.
Pritchard. Depend upon it there are men in England who
can catch the ball with whatever force you bat it; and you
will not win the game.
You threatened to strike a woman to the ground, a defence-
less woman, whom you avowedly came to protect.
Des Mitrailles. We did come to protect her, and she
insults our generosity by her flight. A Frenchman never
threatens what he finds himself unable to execute. Were the
wretch here, you should see the proof.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. My captain, we have brought in
the fugitive, the incendiary, the traitress.
Des Mitrailles. Chain her, and carry her aboard.
Pritchard. I protest against either outrage.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. You protest! Who are you?
Pritchard.
British Consul.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. What are British consuls in the
presence of French officers? My captain, with submission,
knock out at least a tooth as a trophy. I have set my heart
360
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
on a couple of her front teeth; they are worth a louis in the
Palais Royal. M. du Petit Thouars, our admiral, has extorted
his six thousand dollars; are a couple of teeth above a lieu-
tenant's share of the booty?
Des Mitrailles. Knock out one yourself; it is not among
the duties of a French capitaine de vaisseau.
You may
strike her safely; she is so heavy with child she cannot run
after you.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. Madame, the Queen, I carry the
orders of Monsieur le Capitaine, serving in the Pacific by
appointment of his Majesty Louis Philippe, King of the
French, to knock out a tooth.
[Strikes her in the face; sailors hold Pritchard.]
Pomare. O inhumanity! Although I am a woman, a Chris-
tian, and a queen, and although you are Frenchmen, I never
could have expected this.
Des Mitrailles. Bravo! bravo! but rather lower, Poignau-
nez, hit rather lower. How the tiger defends her breast!
Again! Bravo! you have pretty
Well, the eyes will do.
nearly knocked out one.
Pomare. Spare my life! Do not murder me! O brave
captain, can such be your orders?
Des Mitrailles. May it please your Majesty! I bear no
such injunctions from the King my master, or from Monsieur
his Minister of State for the marine and colonies.
Pritchard. Have you received or given orders that I should
be seized and detained?
Des Mitrailles. Sir, I call upon you to attest in writing the
perfect good-faith and composure with which we have acted.
Pritchard. Every man in England receives a slap in the
face when a woman receives one in any quarter of the globe.
Des Mitrailles. Queen Pomare did not receive a slap on
the face.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. By no means.
Des Mitrailles. She had only a tooth knocked out.
Lieutenant Poignaunez. My captain, pardon! you concede
too much. The tooth is in its place, and in accordance with
all the rest it has merely undergone the declension of a few
degrees toward the horizon.
Des Mitrailles. Madame, I am exceedingly concerned,
and intimately penetrated, that, by some strange unaccount-
WALKER, HATTAJI, GONDA, AND DEWAH.
361
able interpretation, so untoward an accident has befallen your
Majesty.
Lieutenant Poignaunez (to the crew). Cry, you fools, cry!
Sailor. I thought, M. le Lieutenant, we were to carry her
off in chains. Here they are.
""
Lieutenant Poignaunez. Presently, presently. But now
deploy your throats, and cry,, rascals, cry "Vive la Reine!
Crew. Vive la Reine! A bas les fuyards!
A bas les fuyards! A bas es
Anglais ! À bas les tyrans ! Vive le Roi!
XXVI. WALKER, HATTAJI, GONDA, AND DEWAH.*
Walker. Hattaji, you may rest assured that the opera
tion is not dangerous to the boys, and that it will preserve
them in future from the most loathsome and devastating of
maladies.
Hattaji. I do not fear that it will impair the strength of
the children, or remove an evil by a worse; but will it not,
like the other, leave marks, and spoil the features?
Gonda.
Dewah.
Spoil what features, father?
Gonda, be still!
Are we not boys?
Walker. How is this? What do they mean, Hattaji? Why
do you look so discomposed?
Hattaji. Ah, children, you now discover your sex. Dis-
simulation with you will soon grow easier; with me, never.
Praise be to God! I am a robber, not a merchant: falsehood
is my abhorrence.
Thou knowest the custom of our Jerijah tribe. Every female
our wives bring forth is, in less time and with less trouble,
removed from the sunshine that falls upon the threshold of
life. A drop of poppy-juice restores it to the stillness it has
* Among the Jerijahs, a tribe in Guzerat, it was customary for
mothers to kill every female infant, and the race was perpetuated by
women from Sada. Hattaji had saved two daughters, Gonda and
Dewah, dressed like boys, and brought to Colonel Walker's camp to be
vaccinated. Walker abolished this infanticide; yet we hear of no
equestrian statue or monument of any kind erected to him in England
or India
362
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
just quitted; or the parent lays on the lip an unrelenting fin-
ger, saying, “O pretty rose-bud, thou must breathe no fra-
grance! I must never irrigate, I must never wear thee!"
Walker. We know this horrid custom. Thou hast then
broken through it? Eternal glory to thee, Hattaji! The
peace of God, that dwells in every man's breast while he will
let it dwell there, be with thee now and evermore!
Hattaji. Children, you must keep this secret better than
your own.
He wishes me the peace of God. I should be
grieved were he condemned to many penances for it. The
Portuguese call it heresy to hope any thing from God for
men of another creed. Will not thy priests, like theirs, force
thee to swallow some ass-loads of salt for it? When I was
last in Goa, I saw several of them in girls' frocks, and with
little wet rods in their hands, put a quantity of it into the
mouth of a Malay, as we do into the mouths of carp and eels,
to purify them before we eat them; and with the same effect.
Incredible what a quantity of heresies of all colors it brought
up!
He would have performed his ablutions after this
function, and never did they appear more necessary, — but
the priests buffeted him well, and dragged him away, lest,
as they said, he should relapse into idolatry. You English-
men do not entertain half so much abhorrence of idolatry as
the French and Portuguese do, for I have seen many of you
wash your hands and faces without fear and without shame ;
and it is reported that your women are still less scrupulous.
You can pardon me the preservation of my girls. So care-
ful are you yourselves in the concealment of your daughters,
that I have heard of several sent over to India to keep them
away from the sofa of Rajahs, and the finger of mothers ;
even the Portuguese take due precautions. None perhaps
of their little ones born across the ocean are considered worth
the expenditure of so long a voyage, like yours; but those
who are born in Goa are seldom left to the mercy of a parent.
The young creatures are suckled and nursed, and soon after-
ward are sent into places where they are amused by bells and
beads and embroidery, and where none beside their priests
and santons can get access to them. These holy men not
only save their lives, but treat them with every imaginable
kindness, teaching them many mysteries. Indeed, they per-
form such a number of good offices in their behalf, that on
WALKER, HATTAJI, GONDA, AND DEWAH.
363
this account alone they, after mature deliberation, hold it
quite unnecessary to hang by the hair or ribs from trees and
columns, or to look up at the sun till they are blind.
Walker. Were I a santon, I should be much of the same
opinion.
Gonda. Oh no, no, no!
So good a man would gladly
teach us any thing, but surely would rather think with our
blessed dervishes, and would be overjoyed to hang by the
hair or the ribs to please God.
Walker. Sweet child, we are accustomed to so many
sights of cruelty on the side of the powerful, that our intel-
lects stagger under us, until we fancy we see in the mightiest
of beings the most cruel.
Does not every kind action, every fond word, of your father
please you greatly?
Gonda. Every one; but I am little: all things please me.
Walker. Well, Hattaji, thou art not little; tell me,
then, does not every caress of these children awaken thy
tenderness?
Hattaji. It makes me bless myself that I gave them ex
istence, and it makes me bless God that he destined me to
preserve it.
Walker. It opens to thee in the deserts of life the two
most exuberant and refreshing sources of earthly happiness,
love and piety. And if either of these little ones should cut
a foot with a stone, or prick a finger with a thorn, would it
delight thee?
Hattaji. A drop of their blood is worth all mine; the
stone would lame me, the thorn would pierce my eye-balls.
Walker. Wise Hattaji! for tender love is true wisdom;
the truest wisdom being perfect happiness. Thinkest thou
God less wise, less beneficent, than thyself, or better pleased
with the sufferings of his creatures?
Gonda. No; God is wiser even than my father, and quite
as kind; for God has done many things which my father
could never do, nor understand, he tells us; and God has
made us all three happy, and my father has made happy only
me and Dewah. He seems to love no one else in the world;
and now we are with him he seldom goes forth to demand
his tribute of the Rajahs, and is grown so idle he permits
them to take it from every poor laborer; so that in time a
364
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Rajah will begin to think himself as brave and honest a man
as a robber. Cannot you alter this? Why do you smile?
Walker. We Englishmen exercise both dignities, and
therefore are quite impartial; but we must not interfere with
Hattaji and his subsidiary Rajahs. Have you lately been
at Goa, Hattaji?
Hattaji. Not very.
Walker. Nevertheless, you appear to have paid great atten-
tion to their religious rites.
Hattaji. They are better off than you are in those mat-
ters. I would advise you to establish a fishery as near as
possible to the coasts of their territory, and seize upon their
salt-works for curing the fish.
Walker. Why so?
Hattaji. They have several kinds which are effectual
remedies for sins. I do not know whether they have any
that are preventive; nor does that seem a consideration in
their religion. Indeed, why should it, when the most fla-
grant crime can be extinguished by putting a fish against it,
with a trifle of gold or silver at head and tail?
Walker. A very ingenious contrivance!
Hattaji. I would not offend-but surely their priests
outdo yours.
Walker. In the application of fish? Or what?
Hattaji. When I say it of yours, I say it also of ours, in
one thing. We have people among us who can subdue our
worst serpents by singing; theirs manage a great one, of
which perhaps you may have heard some account, and make
him appear and disappear, and devour one man and spare
another, although of the same size and flavor, which the
wisest of our serpent-singers cannot do with the most tracta-
ble and the best-conditioned snake.
Gonda. O my dear father, what are you saying? You
would make these infidels as great as those of the true faith.
Be sure it is all a deception; and we have jugglers as good
as theirs.
We alone have real miracles, framed on purpose
for us; not false ones like those of the Mahometans and
Portuguese.
Walker. What are theirs, my dear?
Gonda. I do not know; I only know they are false ones.
Hattaji. Who told thee so? ay, child!
..
WALKER, HATTAJI, GONDA, AND DEWAH. 365
Gonda. Whenever a holy man of our blessed faith has
come to visit you, he seized the opportunity, as he told me,
if you were away for a moment, to enlighten and instruct me;
taking my hand and kissing me, and telling me to believe
him in every thing as I would Vishnu; and assuring me
that nothing is very hateful but unbelief, and that I may do
what I like if I believe.
Walker. And what was your answer?
Gonda. I leaped and danced for joy, and cried, “May I
indeed? Then I will believe every thing; for then I may
follow my.dear father all over Guzerat; and if ever he should
be wounded again, I may take out my finest shawl (for he
gave me two) and tear it and tie it round the place."
Hattaji. Chieftain, I did well to save this girl! And
thou, timid, tender Dewah! wilt thou too follow me all over
Guzerat?
Dewah. Father, I am afraid of elephants and horses and
armed men: I should run away.
Hattaji. What then wilt thou do for me?
Dewah. I can do nothing.
Hattaji (to himself). I saved her: yes, I am glad I saved
her; I only wish I had not questioned her, she pains me
now for the first time. He has heard her: oh, this is worst!
I might forget it: can he?
Child, why art thou afraid?
Dewah. I am two years younger than Gonda.
Hattaji. But the women of Sada would slay thee certainly,
wert thou left behind, and perhaps with stripes and tortures,
for having so long escaped.
Dewah. I do not fear women; they dress rice, and weave
robes, and gather flowers.
Hattaji. Dewah, I fear for thee more than thou fearest
for thyself.
Dewah. Dear, dear father, I am ready to go with you all
over Guzerat, and to be afraid of any thing as much as you
are, if you will only let me. I tremble to think I could do
nothing if a wicked man should try to wound you; or even if
only a tiger came unawares upon you, I could but shriek and
pray and it is not always that Vishnu hears in time. And
now, O father, do remember that, although Gonda has two
shawls, I have one; and she likes both hers better than mine.
366
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
If ever you are hurt anywhere — ah, gracious God forbid it!
- have mine first: I will try to help her How can I? how
can I?
I cannot see you even now: I shall cry all the way
through Guzerat! For shame, Gonda! I am but nine years
old, and you are eleven. Do girls at your age ever cry? Is
there one tear left upon my cheek?
Hattaji. By my soul, there is one on mine, worth an
empire to me.
Dewah. O Vishnu, hear me in thy happy world! and
never let Gonda tear her shawl for my father!
Hattaji. And should it please Vishnu to take thy father
away?
Dewah. I would cling to him and kiss him from one end
of heaven to the other.
Hattaji. Vishnu would not let thee come back again.
Dewah. Hush! hush! would you ask him? Do not let
him hear what you are saying.
Hattaji. Chieftain, this is indeed the peace of God.
May he spare you to me, pure and placid souls, rendering
pure and placid every thing around you!
And have thousands like you been cast away? One inno-
cent smile of yours hath more virtue in it than all manhood,
is more powerful than all wealth, and more beautiful than all
glory. I possess new life; I will take a new name, the
daughter-gifted Hattaji.
*
XXVII. TALLEYRAND AND ARCHBISHOP OF
PARIS.
Archbishop. M. de Talleyrand, it is painful to me to see
you in this deplorable state of health, although it places me
in the company of the most distinguished and celebrated man
in France, and offers me the opportunity of rendering him a
service and a duty.
Talleyrand. Infinite thanks, Monseigneur, for so friendly
a visit, quite without ceremony, quite without even an invita-
*The Orientals are fond of taking an additional name from some for.
tunate occurrence.
TALLEYRAND AND ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS. 367
tion or request. It overpowers me. I cannot express my
sense of your goodness.
Archbishop. Alas! What are the dignities and honors of
the world?
Talleyrand. Ask the spy-dukes, Savery and Fouché. Be-
cause they were dukes I would not be one. But is not the
Prince of Piombino a prince? Is not the King of Naples a
king? Is not Francis of Austria an emperor? Games are
to be played with counters of the same form and valuation.
Archbishop. All these things are by God's appointment.
Talleyrand. No doubt of it; none whatever.
Archbishop. We mortals are too dim-sighted to discern the
fitness or utility of them.
Talleyrand. I do think, I do humbly think, I can espy it.
They render the poorest devils on earth almost contented,
finding that they are at least beyond the finger of scorn for
assuming false appearances.
Archbishop. M. le Prince, we are now most especially in
the presence of the Almighty. Your Highness has had leisure
to contemplate the nothingness of the world, and to see that
we all are but dust, one particle each.
Talleyrand. I am unused to pay compliments (aside), — or,
indeed, to pay any thing else if I could help it,
- yet, Mon-
seigneur, I do declare to you that, dry and old as the dust is,
there is something to my mind very spiritual in one particle
each. I never met with it before. The rest is found in most
books of divinity, I believe. But I suspect the one particle
each is extra-parochial.
Archbishop. I am much flattered, M. de Talleyrand, by your
criticism. I know the extent of your information and its
exactness. Believe me, I did not come hither quite unpre-
pared for so ingenious and acute a penitent. I filed down
my preparatory exhortation to this point. If you are pleased
with it, I take infinite glory to myself, and have half accom-
plished my mission. We must all regret that, having embraced
the Church, you left her (unwillingly, no doubt) without your
powerful support.
Talleyrand. I saw her tottering over my head, which she
had clawed and bitten rather sharply now and then, and I
was afraid of her falling down on me and crushing me. After
picking up a few of her spangles, I set fire to the gauze about
368
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
her, and scorched a little of the flannel; but it only made
her the more alert, and she begins to walk the streets again
with as brave an air as ever.
Archbishop. Fie! fie! M. de Talleyrand. This resembles.
levity.
Talleyrand. I am so gratified at the sight of it, I cannot
but be light-hearted for a moment. Ah, Monseigneur ! what
should we all be without the Church?
Archbishop. Infidels, heretics, Mahometans, anabaptists.
Talleyrand. Worse, worse: without respectability, without
hotels. Now I think of it, I have this morning a few little
money-matters to arrange. How are the stocks?
Archbishop. Indeed, I am utterly ignorant of all such af-
fairs. Reduced as my dignity is, I have barely sufficient to
supply my table with twelve covers, exclusive of dessert. But
if your Highness has transactions at the Bourse this morning,
may it not be as well that I should execute first the object of
my visit?
Talleyrand. Certainly, oh, certainly.
Archbishop. You are going, by the appointment of our
Heavenly Father, to exchange
Talleyrand. First let me hear what fluctuations there have
been since yesterday, and whether Lafitte —
Archbishop. My dear Prince! pardon! pardon! you seem
wandering.
Talleyrand. Quite the contrary. I never turn my eyes from
their object. I caught a word about the exchange.
Archbishop. Alas! alas!
The devil! Down then? ay?
Talleyrand. The devil!
Archbishop. I cannot but be amused at so curious a mis-
take. No, upon the honor of a Peer of France and the faith
of an Archbishop of Paris, I never have heard by any ac-
cident that the funds had fallen.
Talleyrand. My Lord Archbishop, your words were enough.
to shake any man's nerves, lying in this horizontal position.
Archbishop. I firmly hope, M. de Talleyrand, I have some.
for you more comfortable. I was saying, and confidently, that,
within a time which the wisest of mortals cannot fix defi-
nitely, you will throw aside these mundane honors for much
higher.
Talleyrand. I have no cupidity; it is all past. I would stay
TALLEYRAND AND ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS.
369
as I am; a quarter per cent more might be welcome; it would
make me easier: I do not want it, and shall not ever, but I
hate to be foiled in my speculations. It would vex me if any-
body could say the Prince Talleyrand lost his wits before
he left the world, and he, who threw the most sagacious di-
plomatists off their scent, omitted by his stupidity to acquire
a thousand francs the day before his death.
Archbishop. Durum! sed levius fit patientiâ."
Talleyrand. What would Monseigneur in his wisdom and
piety suggest?
Archbishop. With submission, with hesitation, and with all
the deference due to your manifold wishes and your exalted
rank, I would suggest, my Prince, that you have taken several,
not false (the expression were impolite and inadmissible), but
contradictory, oaths.
Talleyrand. All good Frenchmen have taken as many of
the same quality for the glory of France. Where should we
have been if we had not? Verily our hands would have lain
on one side of the fosse, and our honor on the other. I thought
it best never to separate the active from the passive, and I have
kept them both together down to the present hour.
Archbishop. As a religious man, although not as a gentle-
man and a peer, I am bound to place an oath above a word
of honor.
Talleyrand. I am no chamberlain or master of ceremonies,
and would excite no heart-burnings between them on the score
of precedency. A word, whether thumped out of the breast.
as parole d'honneur, or demanded at the drum-head as an oath,
is but a small portion of a man's breath, which, whether he
will or not, he must breathe out continually; a breath is but
a small portion of his life; a word of honor is but the gaseous
and volatile part of honor, which would blow up a true French-
man if he tried to retain it within him. He may give a dozen
or a score, one after another, black and white alternately, like
the checkers of a backgammon-board, and devised like them
on purpose for moves. I never thought, Monseigneur, that
you were infected with the Anglomania, of which an imagin-
ing of such vain things is among the primary symptoms. It
was only the very old practitioner who held that a trivial
stroke through the epidermis of honor is as fatal as through
the same cuticle of the heart.
VOL. V.
24
370
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Archbishop. Religion alone can reconcile these discord-
ances. The holy chrism and the equally holy crucifix are
the only remedies. One loosens and removes all rust from
the wards of the lock; the other taps gently, but audibly and
effectually, at the door of eternal life.
Talleyrand. I had once a flask of the oil in my keeping,
but it was thought the premises were too hot for it.
Archbishop. Excuse my interpolation. Are you ready to
confess, my Prince?
Talleyrand. Perfectly. On second thoughts, but let this
serve for the beginning, I have forgotten how, in great
measure.
Archbishop. Try to recollect any little foible.
Talleyrand. I must go very far back to find any worth the
trouble.
Archbishop. Possibly, at one time or other, in so long a
life, you may to a certain extent have been ambitious of titles
and dignities.
Talleyrand. Let me recall and refresh my memory.
Your Lordship has spoken with much insight into my
heart, and has observed the few black specks left by a fire
which now is extinct. A book, whatever be its contents, is
unfit for the drawing-room unless it is bound and gilt: in
like manner a gentleman is unfit for State or society unless
he is decorated and titled.
Archbishop. It is well, my Prince, that these wise and
quiet considerations have mortified in you the domineering
influences of Lucifer and Mammon.
Talleyrand. It is honest and religious to confess the worst.
Archbishop. God be praised for placing you, my Prince, in
this frame of mind! Confess freely; and unload altogether
from your conscience the last remnant that oppresses it.
Talleyrand. It is said, my Lord Archbishop, that we are too
much inclined to look narrowly into one another's faults, and
to neglect the examination of our own. Certainly, I can never
be accused of this inhumanity. Wherever I have found them
I have always turned them to some account. Neither in the
body nor in the mind is it advantageous to possess too mi-
croscopic a vision. Pitfalls may be found in those pores
which are of a satin texture to the gentle touch of a discreet
observer; and those lips, which to the enthusiastic poet are
MARSHAL BUGEAUD AND ARAB CHIEFTAIN.
371
For
roses, rise before the minute philosopher into the ruggedest
coral rocks, not uninhabited by their peculiar monsters.
which reason, my good Lord Archbishop, I never pry too in-
quisitively into the physical or the moral of those about me;
and I abstain on all occasions from exercising any severity on
others or myself. Nevertheless, if I thought my confession
would be satisfactory to your Lordship, nothing on my part
should be wanting but memory, which appears to me to be as
needful to it as fat bacon to a fricandeau of veal.
But in regard to the last remnant of concupiscence, since
it is so recent and so near at hand, confess it I will, if time
and courage are left me. As things have turned round again,
I am afraid I may occasionally have had a hankering —
Archbishop. After what?
Talleyrand. After the archbishopric of Paris.
Archbishop. Alas! it will soon be vacant; I am halt-
starved.
Talleyrand. I am not half-starved, but I am half-asleep;
the medicine is beginning to operate, or my hour is come.
[Turns aside.]
Archbishop (retiring). He must go to the devil his own way,
with a piece of fresh malice in his mouth as a ticket of ad-
mittance. However, I have his conversion at full length, at
home, in readiness for the papers. He shall perform the
harmonious trio with Voltaire and Alfieri for the benefit of
the faithful.
XXVIII. MARSHAL BUGEAUD AND ARAB
CHIEFTAIN.
Bugeaud. Such is the chastisement the God of battles in
his justice and indignation has inflicted on you.
Of seven
hundred refractory and rebellious, who took refuge in the
caverns, thirty, and thirty only, are alive; and of these thirty
there are four only who are capable of labor, or indeed of
motion. Thy advanced age ought to have rendered thee
wiser, even if my proclamation, dictated from above in the
pure spirit of humanity and fraternity, had not been issued.
372
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Is thy tongue scorched, that thou listenest and starest and
scowlest, without answering me? What mercy after this
obstinacy can thy tribe expect?
Arab. None; even if it lived. Nothing is now wanting to
complete the glory of France. Mothers and children, in her
own land, hath she butchered on the scaffold; mothers and
children in her own land hath she bound together and cast
into the deep; mothers and children in her own land hath
she stabbed in the streets, in the prisons, in the temples, -
ferocity such as no tales record, no lover of the marvellous
and of the horrible could listen to or endure! In every
country she has repeated the same atrocities, unexampled by
the most sanguinary of the Infidels. To consume the help-
less with fire, for the crime of flying from pollution and perse-
cution, was wanting to her glory: she has won it.
We are
not indeed her children; we are not even her allies: this, and
this alone, may, to her modesty, leave it incomplete.
Bugeaud. Traitor! I never ordered the conflagration.
Arab. Certainly, thou didst not forbid it; and when I
consider the falsehood of thy people, I disbelieve thy asser-
tion, even though thou hast not sworn it.
Bugeaud. Miscreant! disbelieve, doubt a moment, the
word of a Frenchman!
Arab. Was it not the word of a Frenchman that no con-
quest should be made of this country? Was it not the word
of a Frenchman that, when chastisement had been inflicted
on the Dey of Algiers, even the Algerines should be unmo-
lested? was it not the word of two kings, repeated by their
ministers to every nation round? But we never were Algerines,
and never fought for them. Was it not the word of a French-
man which promised liberty and independence to every nation
upon earth? Of all who believed in it, is there one with
which it has not been broken? Perfidy and insolence brought
down on your nation the vengeance of all others. Simulta-
neously a just indignation burst forth from every quarter of
the earth against it, for there existed no people within its
reach or influence who had not suffered by its deceptions.
Bugeaud. At least, you Arabs have not been deceived by
us. I have promised you the vengeance of heaven; and it
has befallen you.
Arab. The storm hath swept our country, and still sweeps
MARSHAL BUGEAUD AND ARAB CHIEFTAIN.
373
it. But wait. The course of pestilence is from south to
north. The chastisement that overtook you thirty years ago
turns back again to consummate its imperfect and needful
work. Impossible that the rulers of Europe, whoever or
whatever they are, should be so torpid to honor, so deaf to
humanity, as to suffer in the midst of them a people so full
of lies and treachery, so sportive in cruelty, so insensible to
shame. If they are, God's armory contains heavier and
sharper and surer instruments. A brave and just man, in-
flexible, unconquerable, Abdul Kader, will never abandon
our cause. Every child of Islam, near and far, roused by the
conflagration in the cavern, will rush forward to exterminate
the heartless murderers.
Bugeaud. A Frenchman hears no threat without resenting
it; his honor forbids him.
Arab. That honor which never has forbidden him to break
an engagement or an oath; that honor which binds him to
remain and to devastate the country he swore before all
nations he would leave in peace; that honor which impels
him to burn our harvests, to seize our cattle, to murder our
youths, to violate our women. Europe has long experienced
this honor: we Arabs have learned it perfectly in much less
time.
Bugeaud. Guards! seize this mad chatterer.
Go, thief! assassin! traitor! blind gray-beard! lame beggar!
Arab. Cease there! Thou canst never make me beg, for
bread, for water, or for life. My gray beard is from God:
my blindness and lameness are from thee.
Bugeaud. Begone, reptile! Expect full justice; no mercy.
The president of my military tribunal will read to thee what
is written.
Arab. Go, enter; and sing and whistle in the cavern,
where the bones of brave men are never to bleach, are never
to decay. Go where the mother and infant are inseparable
for ever,
one mass of charcoal; the breasts that gave life,
the lips that received it; all, all; save only where two arms,
in color and hardness like corroded iron, cling round a brittle
stem, shrunken, warped, and where two heads are calcined.
Go, strike now; strike bravely: let thy sword in its playful-
ness ring against them. What are they but white stones,
under an arch of black, the work of thy creation.
374
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Bugeaud. Singed porcupine! thy quills are blunted, and
stick only into thyself.
Arab. Is it not in the memory of our elders, and will it
not remain in the memory of all generations, that, when four
thousand of those who spoke our language and obeyed our
Prophet were promised peace and freedom on laying down
their arms, in the land of Syria, all, to a man, were slain
under the eyes of your leader? Is it not notorious that this
perfidious and sanguinary wretch is the very man whom,
above all others, the best of you glory in imitating, and whom
you rejected only when fortune had forsaken him? It is then,
only, that atrocious crimes are visible or looked for in your
country. Even this last massacre, no doubt, will find de-
fenders and admirers there; but neither in Africa nor in Asia
nor in Europe, one. Many of you will palliate it, many of
you will deny it ; for it is the custom of your country to cover
blood with lies, and lies with blood.
Bugeaud. And, here and there, a sprinkling of ashes over
both, it seems.
Arab. Ending in merriment, as befits ye. But is it
ended?
Bugeaud. Yes, yes, at least for thee, vile prowler, traitor,
fugitive, incendiary! And thou too, singed porcupine, canst
laugh!
Arab. At thy threats and stamps and screams. Verily
our Prophet did well and with farsightedness, in forbidding
the human form and features to be graven or depicted, if such
be human. Henceforward will monkeys and hyenas abhor
the resemblance and disclaim the relationship.*
* Sismondi relates a similar massacre by the French in the caverns
of Masaro, near Vicenza, in which six thousand perished. Vol. 14.
P. 47.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
375
XXIX. EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.*
A SUSPICION was entertained by the Emperor of China that
England was devising schemes, commercial and political, to
the detriment of the Celestial Empire. His Majesty, we
know, was ill informed on the subject. Never were ministers
so innocent of devices to take any advantages in trade or
policy; and whatever may bubble up of turbid and deleteri-
ous is brewed entirely for home consumption.
It requires no remark, it being universally known, that the
Emperor deems it beneath his dignity to appoint ambassadors
to reside in foreign courts. On the present occasion he
employed a humbler observer, known in our northern latitudes
by the more ordinary appellation of Spy, although the titular
is never gazetted. Personages of this subordinate dignity
are often the real ambassadors; and in zeal, information, and
integrity are rarely inferior to the ostensible representatives
of majesty.
Whatever might have been the Emperor's uneasiness,
whether at the near expiration of the East India Company's
charter, as liable to produce new and less favorable relations
between his empire and England, or from any other cause,
the real motive of Tsing-Ti's mission hath been totally mis-
understood by the most intelligent of our journalists. Politi-
cally much mistaken and traduced, personally Tsing-Ti is
become as well known almost in England as in his native
country. At Canton it is reported that he was educated by
the late emperor as the companion of his son; nor are there
wanting those who would trace his origin to the very highest
source, celestiality itself. Certain it is that he long enjoyed
the confidence and friendship of his imperial master. Whis-
pers are afloat in the British factory, that his mission was
hastened by the dissemination of certain religious tracts,
imported from England into the maritime towns of China.
Several of these were laid before his Majesty the Emperor,
in all which it was declared by the pious writers that Chris-
tianity is utterly extinct. His Majesty did not greatly care
at first whether the assertion were true or false, otherwise
* This was written several years before our invasion of China.
376
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
than as a matter of history; but protested that he would not
allow a fact, even of such trivial importance (such was his
expression), to be incorrectly stated in the annals of his reign.
By degrees, however, the more he reflected on the matter, the
more he was convinced that it was by no means trivial. He
entertained some hopes, although faint indeed, that the case
in reality was not quite so desperate as the later religionists
had represented it. From the manuscript reports he had
perused, relating to the Jesuits on their expulsion, and from
many old Chinese authors, he was induced to believe that the
Christians were more quarrelsome and irreconcilable than
any other men; and he wished to introduce a few of the
first-rate zealots among the Tartars, to sow divisions and
animosities, and to divert them hereafter from uniting their
tribes against him. No time, he thought, was to be lost;
and Tsing-Ti received his Majesty's command to go aboard
the Ganges East Indiaman, and communicate with the cap-
tain. He had studied the English language from his earliest.
youth, and soon spoke it fluently and correctly. His good-
nature made him a favorite with the officers and crew, and
they were greatly pleased and edified by his devotion. It
was remarked of him by one of the sailors, that "he must
have a cross of the Englishman in him, he takes so kindly to
his grog and his Bible."
He seems to have been much attached to the Christian
religion before his voyage. No doubt, he had access to the
imperial library early in life; and then probably he laid the
foundation of his faith. Few can be unaware that the spoils
of the Jesuits still enrich it, and that the gospel in the Chi-
nese tongue is among the treasures it contains.
On his arrival in England, Tsing-Ti bought a good number
of books; but they were little to his taste, so that when he
left us he took with him only Hoyle on the Game of Whist, and
a Treatise on Husbandry, beside a manuscript which he pur-
chased as a specimen of calligraphy. He discoursed with
admiration on the merits of the two printed authors, declaring
that throughout the whole dissertation neither of them had
ruffled his temper, or spoken contumeliously of his predeces-
He regretted that he could not in his conscience pay a
similar compliment to any other, seeing that Spiritual Guides
went booted and spurred, that Pastoral Poets were bitten by
sors.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
377
mad sheep, and that Sonneteers sprang up from their mis-
tresses, or down from the moon, to grunt and butt at one
another. Such were the literal expressions of Tsing-Ti, who
protested he would not chew such bitter betel nor such hot
areeka.
TSING-TI'S NARRATIVE.
FIRST AUDIENCE.
Entering the chamber of audience through the azure dragon
and the two leopards, the green and the yellow (such being the
apartments, as all men know, which are open from time im-
memorial to the passage of him who bringeth glad tidings),
the eyes of his Majesty met me with all their light; and, on
my last prostration, he thus bespake me with condescension
and hilarity: -
"Tsing-Ti! Tsing-Ti! health, prosperity, long life, and long
nails to thee! and a tail at thy girdle which might lay siege
to the great wall."
Overcome by such ineffable goodness, I lessened in all my
limbs; nevertheless, my skin seemed too small for them, it
tightened so. His Celestiality then waved his hand, that
whatever was living in his presence, excepting me only, might
disappear. He ordered me to rise and stand before him, de-
sirous to pour fresh gladness into me. He then said what,
although it may surpass credibility and subject me also to
the accusation of pride or the suspicion of deafness, I think
it not only my glory, but my duty, to record.
"O companion of my youth!" said his Majesty, "O dragon-
claw of my throne!" said Chan-ting,
" said Chan-ting, * "O thou who hast
hazarded thy existence and hast wetted thy slippers in a sea-
boat for me! verily they shall be yellow † all thy days, shining
forth like the sun, after this self-devotion. So, then, thou hast
returned to my court from the shores of England! How
couldst thou keep thy footing on deck, where the ocean bends
under it like a cat's back in a rage, as our philosophers say it
does between us and the White Island?”
Whereunto I did expand both palms horizontally, and abase
* Chan-ting, Supreme Court: the Emperor is often so called.
†The color of the highest distinction in China.
378
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
my half-closed eyes, answering with such gravity as became
the occasion and the presence: "Fables! O my Emperor and
protector, mere fables! I looked out constantly from the
vessel, and found it rise no higher the second day than the
first, nor the third day than the second, nor more subse-
quently. The sea, if not always quite level, had only little
curvatures upon it, which the Englishmen, in their language,
call waves and billows and porpoises. There are many of the
sailors who believe these porpoises to be living creatures; for
mariners are superstitious. Indeed, they have greatly the re-
semblance of animals; but so likewise have the others. For
sometimes they lie seemingly asleep; then are they froward
and skittish, and resolute to make the vessel play with them ;
then querulous and petulant, if not attended to; then sluggish
and immovable and malicious; then rising up and flapping
the sides, growing more and more gloomy; then glaring and
fierce; then rolling and dashing, and calling to comrades at
a distance; then hissing and whistling and mutinously roar-
ing, white, black, purple, green; then lifting and shaking us,
and casting us abroad, to fall upon any thing but our legs."
Emperor. I never met before with such a tremendous de-
scription of the sea.
Tsing-Ti. I could give a more tremendous one, if imperial
ears might entertain it.
Emperor. Our ears are open.
Tsing-Ti. Without any apparent exertion of its potency,
without the ministry of billow or porpoise, it made me, a man-
darin of the Celestial Empire, surrender, from the interior
provinces of my person, the stores and munitions there de-
posited by the bounty of my Emperor.
Emperor. Whereas the time hath elapsed for demanding
their restitution, it shall be compensated unto thee tenfold.
And now, Tsing-Ti, to business. In this audience I have
shown less anxiety than thou mightest have expected about
the success of thy mission. The reason is, I have subdued
my enemies, and do not care a rush any longer whether they
are converted to Christianity or not. Such is my clemency.
However, if thou hast brought back any popes or preachers
for the purpose, feed them well at my expense; and let them,
if popes, swear and swagger and blaspheme without scourge
or other hinderance; if ordinary preachers, let them take one
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
379
another by the throat, get drunk, and perform all the other
ceremonies of their religion, as freely as at home, according
to their oaths and consciences.
Tsing-Ti.
I have brought none with me, O Celestiality!
Emperor. So much the better, as things have turned out.
But not knowing of my victories and the submission of the
rebels, how happens it that none attend thee? Were none
in the market?
Tsing-Ti. Plenty, of all creeds and conditions, bating the
genuine old Christians. On my first landing, indeed, they
were scarcer, being all busied in running from house to house,
canvassing (as it is called) for votes.
Emperor. Explain thy meaning; for verily, Tsing-ti, thou
hast brought with thee some fogginess from the West.
Tsing-Ti. In England, the hereditarily wise constitute and
appoint a somewhat more numerous assembly, without which
they cannot lawfully seize any portion of what belongs to the
citizens, nor prohibit them from raising plants to embitter
their beverage, nor even from heating their barley to brew it
with. Harder still, they cannot make wars to make their
children's fortunes; nor execute many other little things, with-
out which they might just as well never have been heredita-
rily wise. But having in their own hands the formation and
management of those whose consent is necessary, they lead
happy lives. These however, once in seven years, are liable
to disturbance. For in England there are some wealthy and
some reflecting men, and peradventure some refractory, who
oppose these appointments. On which occasion it seems bet-
ter to call out the clergy than the military; for the clergy are
all appointed by the hereditarily wise, and the people are
obliged both to listen to them and to pay them, whether they
like it or not; nor can they be removed from their places for
any act of criminality. They direct the votes by which are
elected those who, under the hereditarily wise, manage the
affairs of England.
Emperor. I am bewildered.
I should have liked very
well a couple of popes for curiosities.
Tsing-Ti. They have none.
Emperor. What dost thou mean, Tsing-Ti? Hereditarily
wise, and no popes!
Tsing-Ti. None; beside, in the country where they are
380
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
bred, there are seldom two found together. When this hap-
pens, they are apt to fight in their couples, like a pair of
cockerels across a staff on a market-man's shoulder.
Emperor. But some other of the many preachers are less
pugnacious.
Tsing-Ti. I have heard of none, except one scanty sect.
These never work in the fields or manufactories, but buy
up corn when it is cheap, sell it again when it is dear, and are
more thankful to God for a famine than others are for plen-
teousness. Painting and sculpture they condemn; they never
dance, they never sing; music is as hateful to them as dis-
cord. They always look cool in hot weather, and warm in
cold. Few of them are ugly, fewer handsome, none graceful.
I do not remember to have seen a person of dark complex-
ion or hair quite black, or very curly, in this confraternity;
none of them are singularly pale, none red; none of diminu-
tive stature, none remarkably tall. They have no priests
among them, and constantly refuse to make oblations to the
priests royal.
Emperor. Naturally; not believing them.
Tsing-Ti. Naturally, yes; but oppositely to the customs.
of the country.
Emperor. The service of the Christians, you have told me
heretofore, is the service of free will.
Tsing-Ti. In England, the best Christianity, like the best
apple, bears no longer. The fruit of the new plants is either
sour or insipid. No genuine ones of the old stock are left
anywhere. I heard this from many opposite pulpits; and it
was the only thing they agreed in. Yet if one preacher had
asserted it in the presence of another, they would forthwith
have bandied foul names. An Englishman has more of
abusive ones for his neighbor than a Portuguese has of bap-
tismal for his god-child. The first personal proof I received
of this copious nomenclature was upon the identical day I
ascertained the suppression of the exercise of Christianity in
public.
Emperor. These tracts, they are not so lying in the main
point? Give me thy exemplification.
Tsing-Ti. Among the authors held in high repute for piety,
and whose hymns are still sung in many of the temples, is
one King David, a Jew. Whether those who continue to sing
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
381
them sung in earnest or in joke, I cannot say. Probably in
ridicule; for on the first Sunday after my arrival I followed
his example, where he says,
"I will sing unto the Lord a new song.”
Resolved to do the same to the best of my poor ability, I too
composed a new one, and began to sing it in the streets. Sud-
denly I was seized and thrown into prison.
Emperor. Thrown into prison! my mandarin!
Tsing-Ti. On the morrow, I was brought before the mag-
istrate, who told me I had broken the peace and the Sabbath.
I protested to him the contrary: that nobody had fought or
quarrelled in my presence or hearing, and that the only smil-
ing faces I had seen the whole day were around me while I
was singing. "Smiling faces!" said he, "upon a. Sunday!
during service! in the teeth of an Act of Parliament!" I
soon had reason to think the Act of Parliament had rather
long and active ones, when twenty or thirty more such
offenders as myself came under their pressure, for dancing
on the night preceding, and several minutes (it was asserted)
after the hour of its close had struck in some parts of the city.
Dancing is forbidden, not only to the poor, but also to the
middle ranks; and this was an aggravation of the offence.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti, thou art a good jurist in the institu-
tions of my empire, and I did not depute thee to enrich it
with the enactments of another; but this cannot be among
the statutes of a nation which pretends to as much civility
and freedom as most in Asia. That such an order was given
from court, on some unlucky day when the King was much
afflicted with lumbago, is credible enough.
Tsing-Ti. Nothing more probable; and the magistrate.
told us, to our cost, it was an Act of Parliament.
Emperor. I cannot but smile at thy simplicity. It was of
course an Act of Parliament if the King willed it. Doubtless
when his loins came into order again, his people might dance.
There are occasions when it would be unseasonable and un-
dutiful to exercise such agility near the palace of an elderly
prince, grown somewhat unwieldy: otherwise might not music
and dancing keep a people like the English out of political
discontent and civil commotions? Might not these amuse-
ments relieve the weight of their taxes and dispel the melan-
382
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
choly of their tempers? No idler can get drunk while he is
dancing or while he is singing; and against debauchery there
is no surer preservative than opening as many sluices as
possible to joy and happiness. Where innocent pleasures
are easily obtained, the guiltier shun the competition. But
how long is it since the race of Christians, I mean the pure
breed, has quite disappeared from the land?
Tsing-Ti. Nobody could inform me: it cannot be long.
I saw several thousand men who were dressed exactly like
them, having cases for their heads, cases for their bodies,
cases for their thighs. These the Christians, during many
ages, wore from pure humility; it being the very dress in
which monkeys are carried about to play their tricks before
the populace, and which was invented by a king of France;
whence he and his successors are styled, unto this day, the
Most Christian. Never was there any thing upon earth so
ugly and inconvenient. They devised it for mortification,
which they carried by this invention to such an extremity, as
should prevent the possibility of a sculptor or painter giving
them the appearance of humanity. Several of the wickeder
went still farther in self-abasement, not only covering their
heads with dust, which they contrived to procure as white as
possible, to give them the appearance of extreme old age and
imbecility, but mingled with it (abominable to record) the fat
of swine!
Emperor. I have some miniatures which attest the fact.
Adulteresses, and some other women of ill-repute, were marked
with a black ribbon round the neck; and their hair was
drawn up tight, exposing the roots, and fastened to a footstool,
which they were obliged to carry on their heads. No rank
exempted an offender. I possess several favorites of the
Most Christian King, the late Loo-Hi, laboring under the
infliction of this disgrace.
*
Tsing-Ti. Self-imposed tortures survive Christianity. I
have seen a portrait of the reigning King of England, in
which he appears so pious and devout, so resolved to please
God at any price, that he is represented with his legs confined
in narrow japanned cabinets, which the English, when applied
to these purposes, call boots. They are stiff and black, with-
*George the Fourth.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
383
*
out gold or other ornament, or even an inscription to inform
us on what occasion he made the vow of endurance.
Emperor. Humble soul! may God pardon him his sins!
I pity the people too. When will the feeble blind whelps
see the light and stand upon their legs? No wonder there
are eternal changes in those countries. Such filthy litter
wants often a fresh tossing on the fork. The axe grapples
the neck of some among their rulers; others take a neighborly
pinch out of the same box as the rats; others have subjects
who play the nightmare with them, as lately in Muscovy. I
find such accidents occurring the most frequently where the
religion is most flourishing. My father, who was curious in
learning the customs and worships of the West, related to me
that the people of one sect refuse to bury those of another,
leaving them exposed to the dogs.
The
Tsing-Ti. This, O my Emperor, was never the custom in
England all the time I resided there. But indeed it cannot
be said that in England there are any customs at all.
very words of their language, I am informed, change their
signification and spelling twice or thrice in a man's lifetime.
On my first arrival in London, I was somewhat unwell in
consequence of the voyage; yet I could not resist the impulse
of curiosity, and the desire of walking about in the spacious
and lofty streets. After the second day, however, I was con-
strained by illness to keep within my chamber for five ; at the
end of those five, so great a change had taken place in the
habiliments of the citizens, that I fancied another people had
invaded and vanquished them; and, such were my fears, I
kept my bed for seven. At last I ventured to ask whether all
was well. My inquiry raised some surprise; and, fancying
that I had spoken less plainly than I might have done, I took
courage to ask distinctly whether all in the city was safe and
quiet. After many interrogatories for the motive and cause
of mine, the first circuitous, the last direct, I was highly grat-
ified at finding that I had succumbed to a false alarm, and
that novelty in dress is a religious duty celebrated on the
seventh day.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti, thou never shalt command for me
against the Tartars, should they in future dare to show their
broad faces and distant eyes over the desert.
Tsing-Ti. God's will and the Emperor's be done! In
384
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
this wide empire there is no lack of valor; I will offend none
by aspiring to an undue precedency. Modesty becomes the
wise, and more the unwise. Greatness may follow, and am-
bition urge forward, the bold, but the tardy man cometh
sooner to contentment. May we never see the outermost
corner of the Tartar's eye! none hath more evil in it.
Emperor. It must shoot 'far if it overtake and harm thee,
Tsing-Ti! But prythee go on about the fact of burial, and
tell me whether there is any nation so western, as to refuse
it in time of peace.
Tsing-Ti. The nations of Europe are so infinitely more
barbarous than any thing we in China can conceive, that,
however incredible it may appear, the story is not unfounded.
The first avowed enemies of Christianity were the associates
of a sorcerer, who shaved his head that he might fit a crown
upon it. He told people that he could forgive more sins than
they could commit. Both parties tried, and it turned out that
he was the winner. He pocketed the stakes, and tempted
them to try again; and the game has been going on ever
since. Ill-tempered men were scandalized at this exhibition,
and many disturbances and battles have been the conse-
quence. The sorcerer, now become a priest-king, refuses
burial to those who deny his power of remitting sins, and his
right to open the gates of Paradise on paying toll and tariff.
Many of these begin to think they have gone too far, and
have slunk back to the old sorcerer, who reproves them
sharply, and treats them like conger eels, putting salt into
their mouths for purification. If they spit it out again, they
frequently are medicated with minerals more corrosive.
Emperor. Why, I wonder, do not the neighboring princes.
catch and cage him?
Tsing-Ti. He frightens them. He has the appointment
of their nurses, who tell them marvellous tales about his
potency, and how he can turn one thing into another. The
English were among the first to expose and abolish his
impostures; but many are coming back to him, now they are
tired of Christianity; and already they begin to stick up again
the images of idlers and fanatics, whom the magistrates of
old whipped and hung for sedition.
Emperor. Better such fellows should be venerated, were
it only that they are dead and out of the way, than intolerant
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
385
and bloodthirsty varlets, who carry hatred in their bosoms as
carefully as an amulet, and who will not let the grave open
and close upon it.
Tsing-Ti. They are all of the same quality: they are all
either bark or blossom of that tree of which the Jesuits are
the nutmegs.
Emperor. I thought my ancestors, of blessed memory, had
given an intelligible lesson to the potentates of Europe, how
to grate those said nutmegs into powder. I thought our
wisdom had entered into their councils, and such malefactors
were everywhere suppressed.
Tsing-Ti. They were so, for a time. But there are many
things which were formerly known only as poisons, and
which are now employed as salutary drugs. Jesuitism is one
of these.
Emperor. After all our inquiries, how very imperfect is
our knowledge of Europe! The books of Europeans serve
only to perplex us. Those which have been interpreted to
me, on their polity, represent the English as a free people;
that is, a people in which several hundred mandarins have a
certain weight in the government. Yet it appears that there
are provinces in the empire where the inhabitants pay stipends.
to priests, who abominate and curse them, and with whom
they have nothing in common but their corn and cattle.
Furthermore, it is represented that those who are making
the noisiest appeals to liberality would leave exposed to the
fowls of the air the dead bodies of other sects.
Tsing-Ti. This inhumanity cannot be practised in Eng-
land, — it belongs to the old sorcerers: it, however, is gaining
ground in every part of Europe. Where it predominates,
all dissentients are denied the rites of burial; and some entire
professions lie under the same interdict. Actors of comedy,
who render men ashamed of their follies and vices, are con-
ceived to intrench on the attributes of the priesthood: they
must lie unburied. Actors of tragedy, who have awakened
all the sympathies of the human heart, must hope for none
when they have left the scene.
Emperor. Yet haply the sage himself, when living, hath
less deeply impressed the lessons of wisdom than his repre-
sentative in the theatre; and even the hero hath excited less
enthusiasm. The English, I suspect, are too humane, too
VOL. V.
25
386
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
generous, too contemplative, to countenance or endure so
hideous an imposture.
Tsing-Ti. Gratification is not sterile in their country: grati-
tude, lovely gratitude, is her daughter. The great actor is
received on equal terms among the other great. I have
inquired of almost every sect, to the number of forty or fifty,
and every one abhors the imputation of posthumous rancor,
excepting the old sorcerers. The arguments of another, with
a priest of that persuasion, are fresh in my memory.
Emperor. What an ice-house must thy memory be,
Tsing-Ti! to keep such things fresh in it!
Tsing-Ti. They might have been uttered in the serenity of
the Celestial Empire, and in the most holy place.
Emperor. Indeed! I would hear 'em then.
Tsing-Ti. "Good God!" said the appellant to the sor-
cerer's man, "if any one hath injured us in life, ought we not
at least to cast our enmity aside when life is over? Even
supposing we disregard the commandment of our Heavenly
Father, to forgive as we hope to be forgiven; even supposing we
disbelieve him when he tells us that on this condition, and on
this only, we can expect it, would not humanity lead us
through a path so pleasant, to a seat so soft, to so wholesome
and invigorating a repose? The pagan, the heathen, the
idolater, the sacrificer of his fellow-men, beholding a corpse
on the shore, stopped, bent over it, tarried, cast upon it three
handfuls of sand, and bade the spirit that had dwelt in it, and
was hovering (as they thought) uneasily about it, go its way in
peace. Would you do less than this, for one who had lived
in the same city, and bowed to the same God as yourself?"
Emperor. The sorcerer's man must have learned more
than sorcery, if his ingenuity supplied him with an answer in
the affirmative.
Tsing-Ti.
'Yes," replied he, "if the holiness of our Lord
commanded it."
Emperor. Moderate the prancing of thy speech, O Tsing-Ti,
that I may mount it easily, look down from it complacently,
and descend from it again without sore or irksomeness.
What Holiness? What Lord? Thou wert talking of the
Are these ruffians called lords and holinesses?
How can
Do people at once obey and ridicule them?
this be?
sorcerer.
!
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
387
Tsing-Ti. I know not, O Celestiality! but so it is.
Emperor. The other spoke rationally and kindly. Had
he a tail? a top-knot?
Tsing-Ti. None whatever.
Emperor. He must have travelled into far regions under
milder skies; not peradventure to our beautiful coast, but
midway. He may, by God's providence, have enjoyed the
conversation of those hermits, now under the protection of
England, the Ho-Te-Nto-Ts. This surely is something in
advance of such as believe that one chapman can procure
eternal life, on commission, for another who corresponds
with him; that mummery can dispense with obligations, and
that money can absolve from sin. Call for tea; my head is
dizzy, and my stomach is out of order.
SECOND AUDIENCE.
((
On the morrow I was received at the folding doors by Pru-
Tsi, and ushered by him into the presence of his Majesty the
Emperor, who was graciously pleased to inform me that he
had rendered thanks to Almighty God for enlightening his
mind, and for placing his empire far beyond the influence of
the persecutor and fanatic. But," continued his Majesty,
"this story of the sorcerer's man quite confounds me. Little
as the progress is which the Europeans seem to have made in
the path of humanity, yet the English, we know, are less
cruel than their neighbors, and more given to reflection and
meditation. How then is it possible they should allow any
portion of their fellow-citizens to be hoodwinked, gagged, and
carried away into darkness, by such conspirators and assas-
sins? Why didst thou not question the man thyself?"
Tsing-Ti. I did, O Emperor! and his reply was: "We can
bury such only as were in the household of the faith. It
would be a mockery to bid those spirits go in peace which we
know are condemned to everlasting fire."
Emperor. Amazing! have they that? Who invented it?
Everlasting fire! It surely might be applied to better pur-
poses. And have those rogues authority to throw people into
it? In what part of the kingdom is it? If natural, it ought
to have been marked more plainly in the maps. The English,
no doubt, are ashamed of letting it be known abroad that
388
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
they have any such places in their country. If artificial, it
is no wonder they keep such a secret to themselves. Tsing-
Ti, I commend thy prudence in asking no questions about it;
for I see we are equally at a loss on this curiosity.
Tsing-Ti. The sorcerer has a secret for diluting it. Oys-
ters and the white of eggs, applied on lucky days, enter into
the composition; but certain charms in a strange language
must also be employed, and must be repeated a certain num-
ber of times. There are stones likewise, and wood cut into
particular forms, good against this eternal fire, as they be-
lieve. The sorcerer has the power, they pretend, of giving
the faculty of hearing and seeing to these stones and pieces.
of wood; and when he has given them the faculties, they be-
come so sensible and grateful, they do whatever he orders.
Some roll their eyes, some sweat, some bleed; and the people
beat their breasts before them, calling themselves miserable
sinners.
Emperor.
Sinners is not the name I should have given
them, although no doubt they are in the right.
Tsing-Ti. Sometimes, if they will not bleed freely, nor
sweat, nor roll their eyes, the devouter break their heads with
clubs, and look out for others who will.
Emperor. Take heed, Tsing-Ti! Take heed! I do be-
lieve thou art talking all the while of idols. Thou must be
respectful; remember I am head of all the religions in the em-
pire. We have something in our own country not very unlike
them, only the people do not worship them; they merely fall
down before them as representatives of a higher power. So
they say.
Tsing-Ti.
I do not imagine they go much farther in
Europe, excepting the introduction of this club-law into their
adoration.
Our
Emperor. And difference enough, in all conscience.
people is less ferocious and less childish. If any man break
an idol here for not sweating, he himself would justly be con-
demned to sweat, showing him how inconvenient a thing it is
when the sweater is not disposed. As for rolling the eyes,
surely they know best whom they should ogle; as for bleed-
ing, that must be regulated by the season of the year.
every man choose his idol as freely as he chooses his wife;
let him be constant if he can; if he can not, let him at least
Let
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
389
be civil. Whoever dares to scratch the face of any one in
my empire shall be condemned to varnish it afresh, and more-
over to keep it in repair all his lifetime.
Tsing-Ti. In Europe such an offence would be punished
with the extremities of torture.
Emperor. Perhaps their idols cost more, and are newer.
Is there no chance, in all their changes, that we may be called
upon to supply them with a few ?
Tsing-Ti. They have plenty for the present, and they dig
up fresh occasionally.
Emperor. In regard to the worship of idols, they have not
a great deal to learn from us; and what is deficient will come
by degrees as they grow humaner. But how little care can
any ruler have for the happiness and improvement of his
people, who permits such ferocity in the priesthood. If its
members are employed by the Government to preside at buri-
als, as according to thy discourse I suppose, a virtuous prince
would order a twelvemonth's imprisonment, and spare diet,
to whichever of them should refuse to perform the last office
of humanity toward a fellow-creature. What separation of
citizen from citizen, and, necessarily, what diminution of na-
tional strength, must be the consequence of such a system !
A single act of it ought to be punished more severely than any
single act of sedition, not only as being a greater distractor
of civic union, but in its cruel sequestration of the best af-
fections, a fouler violator of domestic peace. I always had
fancied, from the books in my library, that the Christian re-
ligion was founded on brotherly love and pure equality. I
may calculate ill; but, in my hasty estimate, damnation and
dog-burial stand many removes from these.
"Wait a little," the Emperor continued: "I wish to read
in my library the two names that my father said are con-
sidered the two greatest in the West, and may vie nearly with
the highest of our own country."
Whereupon did his Majesty walk forth into his library; and
my eyes followed his glorious figure as he passed through the
doorway, traversing the "gallery of the peacocks," so called.
because fifteen of those beautiful birds unite their tails in the
centre of the ceiling, painted so naturally as to deceive the
beholder, each carrying in his beak a different flower, the most
beautiful in China, and bending his neck in such a manner
390
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
as to present it to the passer below. Traversing this gal-
lery, his Majesty with his own hand drew aside the curtain of
the library door. His Majesty then entered; and, after
some delay, he appeared with two long scrolls, and shook
them gently over the fishpond, in this dormitory of the sages.
Suddenly there were so many splashes and plunges that I
was aware of the gratification the fishes had received from
the grubs in them, and the disappointment in the atoms of
dust. His Majesty, with his own right hand, drew the two
scrolls trailing on the marble pavement, and pointing to them
with his left, said:
"Here they are,- Nhu-Tong; Pa-Kong.* Suppose they
had died where the sorcerer's men held firm footing, would
the priests have refused them burial?"
I bowed my head at the question; for a single tinge of red,
whether arising from such ultra-bestial cruelty in those who
have the impudence to accuse the cannibals of theirs, or
whether from abhorrent shame at the corroding disease of
intractable superstition hereditary in the European nations
for fifteen centuries, a tinge of red came over the countenance
of the Emperor. When I raised up again my forehead after
such time as I thought would have removed all traces of it,
still fixing my eyes on the ground, I answered:
"O Emperor! the most zealous would have done worse.
They would have prepared these great men for burial, and
then have left them unburied."
Emperor. So ! so! they would have embalmed them, in
their reverence for meditation and genius, although their re-
ligion prohibits the ceremony of interring them.
Tsing-Ti. Alas, sire, my meaning is far different. They
would have dislocated their limbs with pulleys, broken them
with hammers, and then have burned the flesh off the bones.
This is called an act of faith.
Emperor. Faith, didst thou say? Tsing-Ti, thou speakest
bad Chinese; thy native tongue is strangely Occidentalized.
Tsing-Ti. So they call it.
Emperor. God hath not given unto all men the use of
speech. Thou meanest to designate the ancient inhabitants
of the country, not those who have lived there within the last
three centuries.
*Newton, Bacon. The Chinese have no B.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
391
Tsing-Ti. The Spaniards and Italians (such are the names
of the nations who are most under the influence of the spells)
were never so barbarous and cruel as during the first of the
last three centuries. The milder of them would have refused
two cubits of earth to the two philosophers; and not only
would have rejected them from the cemetery of the com-
mon citizens, but from the side of the common hangman,
the most ignorant priest thinking himself much wiser, and the
most enlightened prince not daring to act openly as one who
could think otherwise. The Italians had formerly two illus-
trious men among them the earlier was a poet, the later a
philosopher; one was exiled, the other was imprisoned, and
both were within a span of being burned alive.
Emperor. We have in Asia some odd religions and some
barbarous princes, but neither are like the Europeans. In the
name of God! do the fools think of their Christianity as our
neighbors in Tartary (with better reason) think of their milk,
that it will keep the longer for turning sour; or that it must
be wholesome because it is heady? Swill it out, swill it out,
say I, and char the tub!
THIRD AUDIENCE.
The third morning had dawned, and the skies had assumed
the color of a beautiful maiden's nails, when the Emperor my
master sent unto me Pru-Tsi, to command me to be of good
health and to have a heart in my bosom. Flattered and grati-
fied beyond all measure by the graciousness of such commands,
I ordered tea to be brought to Pru-Tsi, who no sooner heard
the servant on the other side of the door, than he told me
that he saw in my tea-cup the ocean of my bounty, the abysses
of my wisdom, the serene and interminable sky of my favor
and affection. To which I replied, that in the countenance
of Pru-Tsi I beheld the sun which irradiated them all. He
was dissatisfied at the shortness and incompleteness of my
compliment, as wanting two divisions; and from that instant
may be dated his ill offices toward me. Here I must confess
my deficiency in politeness, which, not having been neglected
in my education, I can attribute to nothing but my long ab-
sence from our civilized and courteous people.
Observing by the profusion of Pru-Tsi's gentilities, and by
392
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
the fluttering of his tamarind-tree vest under which his breast
wheezed and labored, that my rusticity had wounded him, I
took from off the table the finest rose in the central vase, and
entreated that, by touching it, he would render those of next
year more fragrant and more double. "The parent," said I,
"will be penetrated by the glory shed upon her daughter.” I
remarked that he smelled it only on one side, and only once;
and that he bowed but when he received it and when he
smelled it, and the last time less profoundly; yet he could
not but have noticed that, in rising, I laid above half of each
hand on the table, with the fingers spread, and that I rested
for seven or eight seconds in an inclined position, looking up
at his face, as one irresolute and deferential. I record it not
in anger, but I hope there are few Chinese who could have
seen this unmoved. God forbid that we should degenerate
from our fathers, or that even a signification of our desire to
please should fail in obtaining pardon, even for a voluntary
and a grave offence. No acknowledgment of a fault is so
explicit, none can so little wound the delicacy of the offended,
none so gracefully show our reliance on his generosity and
affability. Let the Westernman call satisfaction that which
humiliates and afflicts another; but, oh, Chinese! let us
demand much more, - the contentment of both parties. `I
have often mused on these reflections; I must now return to
Pru-Tsi, who caused them. He informed me that the Empe-
ror was ready to receive me under his "guidance." This
word has much meaning. Pru-Tsi drew it with all dexterity
and gracefulness, but he showed too plainly its edge and
point. I then added, "My heart is a cabinet on which all
the figures and all the letters are embossed in high relief by
your hands, most munificent lord!"
"Deign, O Tsing-Ti, to place us within it," said Wi-Hong,
who stood behind," and it shall be our glory to become the
camphor, preservative against the moths and insects which
would consume its precious stores.”
“The cedar wants not the camphor," said Flthat-Wang,
bowing at the back of Wi-Hong, three paces off. Whereat
the pupils of Pru-Tsi's eyes verged toward the bridge of his
nose; for he remembered not in what book the words were
written. This made him the readier to depart. He walked
at my left-hand, Wi-Hong and Flthat-Wang following us at
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
393
equal distances. On my entering the chamber of audience,
Pru-Tsi was dismissed; which (I was sorry to observe) made
his mouth as low as a lamprey's, and elicited a sound not
unlike the drawing off a somewhat wet boot. Scarcely had
he passed into the "corridor of the dancers," so called
because there are painted on each side the figures of young
maidens, some dancing, but the greater part inviting the
passer-by, either with open arms or only with the fingers, and
others behind, among the lofty flowers, with various seductive
signs scarcely had Pru-Tsi reached this corridor, when the
Emperor's children entered from the opposite one, the “cor-
ridor of the parrots," so called because it represents these
birds performing various actions; one flying with a boy into
the air, having caught him by a bunch of prodigiously large.
cherries, which he will not let go; one teaching an ancient
mandarin his letters, and much resembling him in physi-
ognomy; two playing at chess for little girls in cages on the
table; and a flight of smaller ones clawing a sceptre and
pecking at a globe; while several apes creep on their bellies
close behind, and several more from furnaces in the distance,
each with his firebrand ready to singe their plumage. The
parrots do not see the mischievous beasts that are so near,
nor do those see, coming from under scarlet drapery, a vast
serpent's jaw, wide enough to swallow them all. The serpent's
jaw is in a corner, near a sofa, in the shape of a woolsack, off
which a comely man (apparently) has tumbled, extending both
feet in the air over it, and holding the serpent's tail between
his teeth, and trying (apparently) to urge him onward.
I am
thus particular in my description of this corridor, because there
is no part of the whole palace which has been described
in general so inaccurately, and because there are few who
can pretend to have examined it so closely or so long as I
have; added to which, in all due humility be it spoken, few
in China have a better eye for forms and colors.
The celestial sons and daughters, I have said already, had
passed through the "corridor of the parrots," and entered
the "hall of audience." What I am now about to say will
subject me to much obloquy, and render my name suspected
in veracity; but the graciousness of my patron is commen-
surate with the greatness of my Emperor. He made a sign
to the children that they should walk into the smaller library
394
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and when he had signified the same by words, and they, after
all of them had long fixed their eyes on his Majesty, were
quite certain, the eldest son, Fo-Kien, advanced toward his
elder sister, Rao-Fa, kissed her little fair hand and then her
forehead, and conducted her: after his seventh step, Min-Psi,
the second son, acted in like manner; but when he rose on
tiptoe (being, as the world knows, two years younger than his
sister, Lao-Lo, then almost nine), she bit the tip of his ear,
not with her teeth, indeed, but with her lips. The Emperor,
who surveyed his beautiful progeny with intense delight, was
indulgent to this fault; and, beckoning to me, said, "I am to
blame, Tsing-Ti! In the fifth year of her age, I did the very
same to Lao-Lo; but," recovering himself, "it was not in the
'hall of audience.' Come along, come along, I may do the
same again in the little library, and before thee; for Lao-Lo
is the light of my eyes, and makes it sweeter to be a father
than an emperor. I have sent for my children,” continued
his Majesty, "that they may be amused by thy narrative; for
nothing is so delightful to the youthful mind as voyages. But
prythee do not relate to them any act of intolerance or inhu-
manity. The young should not be habituated to hear or see
what is offensive to our nature, and derogatory to the benefi-
cence of our God. Surely all the absurdities of those mis-
chievous priests are not inseparably mixed up with blood and
bile. Follow me; for the children must be very dull when
there are only books about them."
Suddenly the Emperor stopped, and made a sign to me to
look toward the pond. Lao-Lo was standing with her arm
upon the golden balustrade and looking at Min-Psi; who,
from time to time, gave her a pearl or two, which he was
detaching, with all the force and agility of his teeth, from
the border of her silver sash. No sooner had he succeeded,
than she threw it to the fish. Those which swallowed one
she called "sweet creatures," and those which detected the
fraud, "cunning old mandarins." When the baits were ex-
hausted, and Min-Psi shook his head at the melancholy
question, "are there no more?" the Emperor drew back
softly, and said to me, "We must give her time to smoothen
her sash, and take care not to see it." Perhaps the same
kindness moved Fo-Kien and Rao-Fa to begin a game at
chess, not opposite each other, but both with the back toward
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
395
the pond. Fo-Kien once or twice .moved an eye in that
direction, and smiled; but Rao-Fa told him he might smile
when he had won, and never glanced from the chess-board.
At the sound of the Emperor's feet they both arose and
turned toward him. Min-Psi did not come quite opposite.
I saw one ear, the left, and it was crimson, although it was
He
not the ear that Lao-Lo had pinched with her rubies.
held down his head a little ; and Lao-Lo struck his hand with
her sash, saying, "I wonder what in the world can ever make
Min-Psi look as if he had been in mischief." His ear grew
more transparent. Lao-Lo asked her father's permission to
give him three kisses; only three. The request was granted;
but Min-Psi ran behind me, and laughed at her vain attempts.
As they were rather rough and boisterous with my robe, the
Emperor said, “Lao-Lo, do not you remember that you are
in the presence of a mandarin?" "Oh papa! there are several
not far off; are there not, Min-Psi?" said the child, "but is
any one so good as Tsing-Ti is? It is impossible not to
admire his beautiful dress, now we are in a part of the palace
where we may admire any thing we like." The Emperor
seated himself, and, waving his hand, the children bowed
gracefully. He waved his hand a second time, and Fo-Kien
made two steps toward Rao-Fa, who made likewise two steps
toward him. He then made another step, slightly bending;
the princess had no other steps to make, but inclined her head
somewhat lower, so that her hand came forward a little. The
imperial prince supported her arm above the wrist, and she
was seated. Min-Psi too, performed with equal grace and
gravity the same duties toward Lao-Lo, who looked as diffi-
dent as if she had never seen him until then. He, being the
younger, bowed twice before her, which salute she returned
by opening her hand each time. On this occasion her brow
came a little forward, and, as was required by the ceremonial,
much to Min-Psi's contentment, her lips were quite closed.
He then bowed twice to Rao-Fa, on whom it was not incum-
bent to open her hand, but merely to make a like movement
with her fan. Her beautiful lips parted for a moment to
compensate him for the difference, and her eyes looked ten-
derly upon the courtly child.
There are many, in the Celestial Empire itself, to whom
these statutes of the Imperial Court are unknown, although
396
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
they have regulated the movements of each successive dy-
nasty three thousand years. Hence that polish which is
proof against contact; hence that lofty urbanity in every
member of it which separates them widely from all other
potentates; hence that gentleness and obliging demeanor
which render domestic offence impossible, and throw addi-
tional charms over every affection and every endearment.
No unkind, no unpleasant word ever was uttered in these
chambers; where the wisdom of royalty, receiving fresh trib-
utes in almost every century from inborn sages, has given
form and substance to fairer imagery than poets and vision-
aries have dreamed. No duties are so punctilious as to be
troublesome to a well-regulated mind, which always finds
complacency and satisfaction in executing perfectly the most.
complex and difficult; while rudeness can never do enough
for its gratification, and grows continually more uneasy and
untoward. I say these things, because what I am writing
may, peradventure, be carried by ships into lands where such
reflections have seldom fallen, and where scratches and buf-
fets are thought more natural than courtesies and caresses.
The
I related to the imperial children much of what I had seen
in the several countries of my voyage.
But do tell them a
few tricks of the sorcerer," said his Majesty, “and what are
called the mysteries." Accordingly I began. Their laughter
was interrupted by questions, and their questions by laughter;
for both were permitted in the small library. One absurdity
struck Fo-Kien particularly it related to numerals.
princesses sat with their eyelids raised, perhaps in doubt of
my correctness, either as to judgment or to fact: Min-Psi
counted his fingers, first on one hand and then on the other,
and looked hard at me; I fancied he was uneasy. Fo-Kien
asked me whether the English too believed in this, being
thought such good accountants. My reply was, that, "Al-
though they had rejected, in great measure, the practice of
Christianity, yet they retained the dogmas; and this among
the rest."
"I wonder then," said he, "that the merchants of Canton
do not often sell their tobacco for opium, and a pound for a
quintal, since they appear to be ignorant both of substances
and numbers. I do not wonder they are so cheated by those
who manage their affairs at home as we hear they are.
>>
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
397
Methinks," said his Majesty, "they must nevertheless
have some calculators among them, else how could they
become such good astronomers?"
66
I have heard," said Lao-Lo, "that these astronomers pick
up stars every day like cockle-shells. Tell us about it, good
Tsing-Ti; can it be true? what can they do with so many?
must not they leave them where they find them? are they not
all in the sky?"
(C
Excepting some few," said Min-Psi, “that fall into the
canals."
His Majesty the Emperor was graciously pleased to inquire
of me whether the English retained the same confidence as
formerly in judicial astronomy. I acknowledged my ignorance.
of the fact, whether they were stationary in that science, or
had latterly made any improvements in it.
"Certain it is," said I, "that, under the guidance of the
stars, they are steadfast in their observance of lucky days."
"It is only grown-up men that ever see unlucky ones,"
said Min-Psi, "unless it rains."
A soft vibration of a gong was audible in the corridor. The
children rose from their seats, performing the same ceremonies
as before, each saying, in turn, after a pause,
"May Tsing-Ti be blessed with health and happiness!'
Then they kissed the hand of their Imperial father, and
requested he would grant them an appetite for their pillau ;
which his Majesty most graciously conceded.
“Go on, Tsing-Ti," said his Majesty, "about the observa-
tions of the astronomers in the White Island."
Tsing-Ti. There is scarcely an hour in the twenty-four of
any day throughout the twelvemonth, on which I have not
requested, from the wisest men I know among them, the solu-
tion of my doubts on theological topics. The answer was
invariably,-
This is not the time for it."
Turning over many newspapers a strange improper name!
for the editors call one another rogue, turncoat, &c., which is
no news at all, and report speeches made in Parliament, the
purport of which is always known beforehand, it being the
custom for every man to carry his mind into the House, and
his money out
398
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti! Tsing-Ti! put the hyphen to thy
parenthesis: thou art giving me a rather long elucidation of
what is no news at all.
Tsing-Ti. I received the same declaration from the politi-
cal leaders as from the theological. When a reform of any
abuse was proposed, no denial of its existence, none of its
multiplicity, none of its magnitude, none of its intensity, was
resorted to the objection was,
"This is not the time for considering it."
Were the people quiet, it was a strong subsidiary! were they
turbulent, it was a stronger; were they between both, it was the
very worst season of all to agitate the question.
Were the people in a state of famine, and were a reduction
advised in the national expenditure, whether of sums voted
for race-horses or brilliants, for pensions or services of plate,
the adviser was counter-advised not to render the people dis-
satisfied by reminding them of their hunger, and was assured,
"This is not the time."
In fact, the English are religiously, not to say supersti-
tiously, scrupulous in that one matter, and perhaps the rather
for having rejected all other kinds of religion: and the higher
orders seem to be more so than the lower. The bishops and
chancellors sit watching for the auspicious hour, and have
watched for it above half a century: and although they de-
clare they are tired of sitting and watching, and it would do
their hearts good if they could see it, yet in their honesty and
forbearance they never have pretended or hinted that the
discovery was made by them. Such patience and modesty
are unexampled.
Emperor. Dost thou verily think, Tsing-Ti, that these
chancellors and bishops are in earnest?
Tsing-Ti. They appear so. I never heard of any one
among them caught stealing on the river, or riding off with
another's horse or ass, or setting fire to houses for plunder, or
infesting the high road.
Emperor. Čalm and moral as they are, I perceive that
much more lying and shuffling is required and practised in
their government than in mine. England is all mercantile,
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
399
i
}
from the pinnacle of the Temple to the sewer of the Ex-
change. Our dealers may be as thievish as theirs: our
mandarins, praised be God, are better. Although they feel
at seasons a superficial itch for lucre, they are not blotched
and buboed with its pestilence: they do not lead their chil-
dren to be fed out of the platters of the poor, nor make the
citizens, who have idols of their own, worship theirs, and pay
for it.
His Majesty then rose from his seat, wiped his mouth, and
went away.
FOURTH AUDIENCE.
The third audience may appear to have been shorter than
the first, but in fact was longer by much. The imperial chil-
dren asked me such a variety of questions which I think it
unnecessary to repeat, and made such a variety of remarks
on my answers, that the hour allotted for their pastime in the
small library wore insensibly away. They puzzled me as
children often do, and made me wish they would have turned
their inquiries toward the sea, or toward men and manners,
or toward any thing intelligible and instructive. His Majesty,
too, puzzled me almost as much as they did.
However, on this my fourth audience, he rewarded me am-
ply for every toil and perplexity. The first words he uttered
were, that he admired my judgment and ingenuity in passing
through so many lanes and turning so many corners without
a rip or a soil on my garment. He was graciously pleased
to add, that he would never have allowed any other than my-
self to display before his children such fantastic mysteries;
that, however, I had gone far enough into them to disgust an
ingenuous mind with their darkness and doublings, and to
render a lover of truth well contented with the simple insti-
tutions of his forefathers.
(C
My children," said his Majesty, "will disdain to persecute
even the persecutor, but will blow away both his fury and his
fraudulence. The philosopher whom my house respects and
venerates, Kong-Fu-Tsi, is never misunderstood by the at-
tentive student of his doctrines; there is no contradic-
tion in them, no exaction of impossibilities, nothing above
our nature, nothing below it. The most vehement of his
400
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
exhortations is to industry and concord; the severest of his
denunciations is against the self-tormentor, vice. He entreats
us to give justice and kindness a fair trial as conductresses to
happiness, and only to abandon them when they play us false.
He assures us that every hour of our existence is favorable to
the sowing or the gathering of some fruit; and that sleep and
repose are salutary repasts, to be enjoyed at stated times, and
not to be long indulged nor frequently repeated. He is too
honorable to hold out bribes, too gentle to hold out threats;
he says only, 'Satisfy your conscience, and you will satisfy your
God.' But antecedently to the satisfaction of this conscience
he takes care to look into it minutely, to see that it hangs
commodiously and lightly on the breast, that all its parts be
sound and all its contents in order, that it be not contracted,
nor covered with cobwebs, nor crawled over with centipedes
and tarantulas."
Emperor. I am so well satisfied with thy prudence and
delicacy, O Tsing-Ti, in the explanation of things ludicrous
and ferocious, that I do not only grant unto thy father, Nun-
Pek, who is dead, a title of nobility, making him mandarin of
the first class, but likewise the same to thy grandfather who
died long before, so much hast thou merited from me; and
so much have they merited who begat thee. Thy grand-
father's name I well remember was
Tsing-Ti. Peh-Nun ; may it please your Majesty!
Emperor. Who else could have been the grandfather of
Tsing-Ti? From this moment he has yellow slippers on his
feet, and he makes but one prostration in my presence. And
now inform me in what manner do the kings of the White
Island mark the deserts of their subjects.
I bowed my head several times before the throne, to collect
from my memory as much of this matter as was deposited
within it. At last I said:
"O Emperor! Light-of-the-East! since nobody in England.
is fond of talking of another's deserts, here my store of in-
telligence is scanty; and the king of the country seems to
have found himself in the same penury. For it is not the
custom of his mandarins to approach him with such narra-
tions; and none are proposed to his Majesty as worthy of
advancement to high offices, or even of bearing such titles
as exalt them a span above the common class of citizens,
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
401
unless they have slain many or ruined many; such are sol-
diers and lawyers."
Emperor. No quieter ornament of his country, none whom
future ages will venerate, must raise up his head in his own?
Is this thy meaning? He may irrigate the garden of genius ;
he may delight in the fruits that will grow from it; he may
anticipate with transport the day when his enemy's children,
united with his own, shall repose under the tree he has planted:
glory never breaks in upon his labor; applause never disturbs
his meditations! Is that the state of England? Tell me;
how could these lawyers find admittance to the king? Have
they nothing to do in their tribunals? Will nobody employ
them?
Tsing-Ti. Not only do they find admittance, but they come
near enough his person to throw some sacred dust in his eyes
out of certain ancient parchments. When they have done this,
they tie his hands behind him, loosing him only when he has
given them titles for themselves and children, who are also
created great lawyers under the royal signet.
Emperor. Art thou mad, Tsing-Ti?
Tsing-Ti. I thought I was; but the madness, I was glad to
find, was merely reflected.
Emperor. The Kings of England do this? they reward the
children for being begotten by clever fellows; and never for
making them? Now indeed may we believe that the soles of
their feet are opposed to the soles of ours. Didst thou tell
me they delegate to their servants the granting of distinctions
to worthless men?
Tsing-Ti. Too true, in eleven instances out of the dozen.
Emperor. Well then may the English be called regicides;
for he who lowers the kingly character spills the most precious
blood of his king. Go home: I must ponder on these sub-
jects. Methinks I have caught thy old sea-sickness, my head
turns round so, and every thing seems so disproportioned and
confused.
FIFTH AUDIENCE.
On my return the following day, his Majesty took my sleeve
between the tips of his imperial thumb and finger, and said
blandly: "Thou, being in thy heart a Christian, shalt now
enter more deeply with me on that religion. Albeit I see
VOL. V.
26
402
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
1
nothing but a quagmire in it, bearing unwholesome weeds on
the surface, and unfathomable mud within. Another swarm
of insects hath recently been hatched on it, some of which
my mandarins inform me have been blown over into Canton.
They style themselves Good-news-mongers. By the accounts
I have received of them, they resemble a jar of tamarinds
with little pulp and no sugar. I apprehend they will do small
credit to their Master in heaven."
Tsing-Ti. Whose blessed name, O Emperor, be praised
for ever! He came before the arrogant, firm in meekness.
He said: "Abstain from violence, abstain from fraud: be con-
tinent, be pure, be patient: love one another."
Emperor. How happy would men be universally, if they
observed these precepts! Life would bring few wishes, death
few fears. We should come and go, jocund as children en-
ter and leave a garden, entering it to play in, and leaving it
to sleep. Alas! they do not toil to earn repose at the day's
end; but the whole occupation of their existence is to make
the last hour solicitous and restless.
We are friends, Tsing-Ti; for we both have listened to the
words of wisdom, and in youth, and together. Recollections
such as these unite the high and the humble, and make
benevolence grow up even where the soil is sterile. Sterile
it is not with thee, but yielding a hundredfold. Come then
freely to me every day, as thou wert wont formerly, and let us
exchange, what alone can make both of us the richer, our
thoughts and knowledge. Thou hast travelled afar, and art
master of many things which none have laid before me. I
will turn them over, partly for curiosity and partly for acquisi-
tion, like those who enter the house of the jeweller.
I am wearied with the inconsistencies and shocked at the
irreligion of the islanders. At some future time I may per-
haps have leisure and patience to examine them more mi-
nutely. At present I am more desirous to take a view of
their literature. My father of blessed memory planted poetry
in their island: does it flourish?
Tsing-Ti. From the specimens I purchased, it appears to
me, O Emperor! that the English may become poets, and
reach nearer to the perfection of the Chinese than any peo-
ple of the West; for I observe that a greater number of their
verses end in monosyllables.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
403
I
Emperor. Indeed! are they arrived at that? Bring me
to-morrow a few of the least heavy from among thy volumes,
and such as by their nature may, with skilful comments, be
the most intelligible to me. At the same time thou wilt be
able to render me some account of those who read their
verses at the king's bedside.
Tsing-Ti.
called in.
His Majesty is a sound sleeper: none are
Emperor. At his table then.
Tsing-Ti. None recite verses there. The fictions of poetry
are not exactly those which find the readiest admittance into
the palaces of the West. The ornaments of style and compo-
sition are thought in England to denote a vacant mind. If
flowers exhale their fragrance from a silver vase, the English
doubt at once whether it is silver. Their princes are no cul-
tivators of poetry and eloquence; which is the more remark-
able, as they are fanciers of old porcelain, and can distinguish
and estimate it almost as correctly as our best dealers. They
are likewise so judicious in paintings, that they invariably buy
from Dutch artists such pieces as bear the nearest affinity
to ours.
Emperor. Then, by degrees, Tsing-Ti, their nails will
lengthen and their feet contract. We shall be all one peo-
ple, as the oldest sages have foretold.
Tsing-Ti. Alas, sire! the youngest will never live to see
that day. No sovereign in England ever conversed an hour
together with poet or philosopher; many for days and nights
with gamesters and other pickpockets, — especially the king
now reigning.
Emperor. I have heard some such reports. I have also
heard that there are fewer of like character in the island than
on the continent.
Tsing-Ti. The English, although they have lost their re-
ligion, are still in many of their dealings the most honest and
abstinent people in the world. I have walked by the side of
a canal in the vicinity of the capital, and I have seen rats,
cats, dogs, very delicate sucking kittens, and the tenderest
plumpest puppies, and even fine long snakes, green and yel-
low, of several pounds each, enough to give an appetite to an
opium-eater at daybreak. I have seen them, sire, killed upon
the banks, without a man or a woman or a child to guard them:
404
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and I have waited in vain, for hours together, in the hope of
making a contract for a quota of the stock, the proprietor
never appearing. In some instances it has happened that
they have remained there until they rotted. Such is the fer-
tility of soil, and the scantiness of population in proportion.
to it.
Even frogs are neglected as articles of luxury. I have
noticed some lying dead by the side of ditches, having been
stoned by peasants, who would have been banished to the
extremity of the earth for attempting to kill a graniverous
bird, or for stealing a sour apple.
Emperor. Do the English offer up sour apples in sacrifice?
Do they worship birds?
Tsing-Ti. In public, no: what they may do privately, in
the present state of religion among them, it is difficult for
a traveller to ascertain. Certainly they think differently on
these subjects from what we read in the history of more
ancient nations which worshipped brute animals. These
selected for preservation the creatures that benefited the
husbandman by devouring the reptiles and insects, or by
rendering him some other good service. The English nobles
preserve foxes, that kill his lambs; hares, pheasants, part-
ridges, that consume his corn; and, instead of remunerating
him for exterminating the pests of agriculture, confiscate his
property, condemn him to die of famine, or, when the sen-
tence is mildest, remove him for ever from that land which he
has enriched with the sweat of his brow.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti, it was in a moment of irritation, it
was when the rebels had sorely vexed me, that I was mali-
cious enough to think of sending such Christians as these
among the Tartars.
Tsing-Ti. On the imperial footstool I lay the few pieces.
of poetry I have collected in England. Wishing to procure
some specimens of elegant handwriting, I went to my tailor
and entreated his recommendation. It was not particularly
for his honesty that I selected him, but because I had found
him the most acute reasoner I had met with. My first ac-
quaintance was contracted with him by desiring him to mend
a rent in my dress. It appeared to me that his charge was
exorbitant, and I asked him whether he did not think the
same.
66
Certainly I do," replied he.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
405
"But, my friend, the price of a new vest would not exceed
this demand."
(C
Certainly not," replied he with equal calmness.
66 то
cut the thing short, as we tailors are fond of doing," said
he, before I could go on, "it is an easier matter to make
than to mend: try at a speech, try at a tea-cup, try at a
wife."
(C
"Excuse me," answered I, we may have trials enough in
this world without that;" and gave him the sum demanded.
He told me to take his arm (a strange unwieldy custom of
the English), and conducted me into an alley, where I found
a middle-aged man, in a gray coat, employed in transcribing
what he told us were sermons.
Emperor. Hold, Tsing-Ti! What species of poetry may
that be?
Tsing-Ti. None whatever, O Emperor ! but religious ex-
hortations, religious explanations, or religious damnations; for
they all come under these three heads.
Emperor. And pretty bulky heads too.
Tsing-Ti. The gray-coated man was sedulous in transcrib-
ing them from printed books into a book covered with black.
He told me that no other color was serviceable in church.
(church means pagoda), and that it would be shameful for a
preacher, expositor, exhorter, or damner, to preach another
man's words without making it appear that they were his own.
He was to receive a dollar for each sermon, from a priest who
had three livings.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti! Do the rogues pretend to have found
out the Elixir? Three livings! one man hold three livings!
Have I any horse that can eat in any three of my stables at
a time? Have I any that can carry me along three roads at
once? It is difficult for the best and wisest man to perform
his duty of exhortation and admonition to the near and to
the few how then shall he perform it to the distant and the
many?
Tsing-Ti. Those about the king have sons and brothers,
of whom it is easier to make priests than to make poets, and
who would rather receive twenty thousand golden pieces an-
nually, than the two-hundredth part only.
Emperor. If this immense wealth belongs to certain fami-
lies, as appears to be the case, yet the king might command
406
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
them to expend a portion of it on canals and roads, or, if
there are any poor in the country, on the poor.
Tsing-Ti. A tenth of the produce of the land, and of all
the money spent on it in manure and culture (for these are
considered as nothing by the priesthood), is paid annually to
the successors of the Christians. Out of which tenth, an-
ciently, a fourth was set apart by the Christians for the main-
tenance of the poor. No law whatever has alienated this
portion from its destination. Therefore on all benefices,
which have not regularly paid it, there exists a just debt
of the arrears.
This statement was submitted to the consideration of the
king's ministers, and furthermore that Parliament should be
called upon to enforce it. The ministers, who courted the
people where the courtship was uncostly, were very disdainful
against the author of the proposal, and declared that he was
no better than a robber.
Emperor. Could that be their real objection to him?
Tsing-Ti. They declared him a robber who would plun-
der their relatives of their possessions, and their children of
their inheritance.
Emperor. Perhaps he was, as they said; for robbers are
clear-sighted, as we find in cats, rats, weasels, and the like:
and it is not probable that there should be in the country
any notorious one quite unknown to them.
Tsing-Ti. It was found, on examination, that he had only
robbed himself; to which they, recovering their courtesy, said
he was very welcome.
Emperor. I do not wonder that they are loath to alienate
the rich possessions of the crown, which it appears they
share, under the pretext of religion.
Tsing-Ti. This is not the pretext: the pretext is, that they
cannot in their consciences bear to hear of organic changes.
Such is the expression: I am unable to divine what it means.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti, is it then so long since thou leftest
thy country? Hast thou quite forgotten thy music? Dost not
thou remember that the organ creaks and grunts, when the
foot presses the pedal and the wind has no direction? But
organic changes, as the affected fools call them, require skil-
ful hands; if they have not them, let them get up and give
the seat to those who have.
!
|
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
407
Children
Tsing-Ti. Sire, the instrument is a noble one.
and madmen have played upon it, and its treasure of rich
tones lies within it still. Not a pipe is impaired; not a key
is loosened: but there are impudent idlers, who insist on put-
ting their hats and gloves on it; and the audience, ere long,
will throw them over the rails of the gallery.
Emperor. That were violent; let them promote them, by
an elevation of the foot, quietly down stairs, and break no
bones.
Thy estimate of the sacerdotal domains, and royalties an-
nexed to them, must be erroneous.
Tsing-Ti. May it please your Majesty, on this subject my
information, I venture to affirm, is both ample and correct.
There are yet remaining in the White and the Green Island
a dozen of priests, each of whom receives a larger sum than
all the poets and philosophers of both united have received
in two thousand years.
Emperor. Prodigious! computing that one thousand years
have produced one philosopher and one poet.
Tsing-Ti. A priest of the first order, on which it is not
incumbent either to preach or sing, either to pray or curse,
receives an emolument of which the amount is greater than
the consolidated pay of a thousand soldiers, composing the
king's body-guard.
Emperor. Did they tell thee this?
Tsing-Ti. They did.
Emperor. And dost thou believe it?
Tsing-Ti. I do.
Emperor. Then, Tsing-Ti, thou hast belief enough for both
of us. It is not usually a kind of dust that travellers are apt
to gather. There is, on the contrary, much attrition of it, in
general, unless the wheels are guarded and greased.
But what is the business then of these priests?
Tsing-Ti. Chiefly to lay their hands, through a sack, on a
row of children's heads, to keep them firm and steady in the
new faith.
Emperor. I doubt whether, when the hand is taken off,
the heads do not rise up again, like the keys of the organ we
talked about, and retain as little of the music. He must very
soon have the same to do over again.
Tsing-Ti. No, no, no; that would spoil all.
408
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Emperor. This is incomprehensible, the salary incredible.
I am afraid, Tsing-Ti, thou hast set thy face against the
priests, for no better reason than because thou couldst not
find thy favorite Christianity among them. In what manner,
out of what funds, and by whom are they remunerated? For
to suppose the stout farmer will let them carry off his tenth
sheaf would be silly, let the farmer be as learned as he may
in theology, and as zealous to promote the study of it. Come,
tell me this, and allow them their deserts.
Tsing-Ti. O my Emperor! I do indeed, with all humility,
still adhere to that humane and pure religion; and I may,
peradventure, be disappointed and displeased at finding its
place made desolate, its image thrown down, and what was
erected for its support rendered the instrument of its de-
struction.
The priests of the establishment which has been substi-
tuted for it, are not rewarded in proportion to their learning,
their virtues, their zeal, or the proficiency of those whom they
instruct.
Emperor. Bad! bad! bad! how then?
Tsing-Ti. In proportion to the fertility of the land around
them.
Emperor. There spoke the honest man, the true sage, the
genuine Tsing-Ti. I approve of this dispensation: labor
should be thus remunerated. Such an example, set by an
order of men who are not always the most industrious in
mind or body, must produce an admirable effect on the
people.
Tsing-Ti. They labor not, but punish the labor of others
by severe and unrelenting exaction. In proportion as the
farmer works, he pays the priest. In proportion to the one's
industry rise the means of the other's idleness. Whether the
English believe fertility to spring from the sacerdotal pres-
ence, I have never ascertained. Some, I apprehend, are
doubters. But this scepticism is become more dangerous
than any merely on theological points. The performer has
warmer partisans than the composer of the music, of which
truly the theme is lost among fugues and variations. I would
not however strip the better sort of the priests of their de-
serts, or call them all idlers. Many are far from it, and the
earth owes them a portion of her fruits. I myself have seen
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
409
them diligent in clearing the fields of birds and vermin: I
have seen several on horseback
Emperor. Priests! priests on horseback!
Tsing-Ti.
In that posture, O my Emperor, have I seen
them; and, farthermore, in pursuit of wild animals.
Emperor. Conscientious men! these at least would earn
their stipends.
Tsing-Ti. Even the fox hath not escaped their scrutiny.
Some, I am told, are not afraid of handling a gun, and have
been known to kill birds upon wing, at the distance of many
paces.
Emperor. Cormorants are vast and heavy birds, but are
they so tame in the north? And kites and hawks, do they fly
like ours? Well, if the priests actually perform these things,
they are more useful than I fancied. These must be of a
different sect from those who despoil the farmer.
Tsing-Ti. The very same.
Emperor. Ah, Tsing-Ti! ah my friend! thou art shrewd,
thou art observative; but either thou hast confounded two
objects, or thine eyes are not long enough to comprehend at
once the extremities of these strange creatures, which vary so
widely in their parts. [Thus spake the Emperor; and it was
my duty to be in the wrong.]
I tell thee plainly, O Tsing-Ti! that I was puzzled how to
sow dissensions among the Tartar tribes, unless I could in-
troduce Christianity among them. But thy discourse hath
convinced me that, weakened as it is in virulence, enough of
it remains in Europe to serve my purposes, if they should
rise up again in arms. It will be worth my while to order a
cargo by the next East India fleet. I will breathe upon these
troublesome marauders such a blast from that quarter, as
shall cover and hide for ever the names of Khu-Li-Chang
and Chin-Ki-Se-Han.* What an advantage to our Celestial
Empire, not only to abolish all combination and concord
from the tents of our enemy, but likewise to decimate his
cavalry, his curds, and whey; to throw the soldier out of the
stirrup, and toss the priest into it! Thou shalt indulge in
thy own fancies, and none shall ever molest thee, for thou art
kind and quiet. Christianity makes such men even better
than they were before. Like wine, it brings out every humor.
* Kouli Khan and Gengiz Khan.
410
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
The ferocious it renders more ferocious, the exacting more
exacting, the hypocritical more hypocritical, the austere more
austere ; and it lays more gracefully on the gentle breast the
folded hands of devotion. Such are the observations of our
forefathers on the Jesuits and their disciples, whose religion.
(they pretended) was founded on Christianity. I know not
whether, in theirs, there were more than four things which
diverged from it: they lied, they sought riches, they perse-
cuted, and they murdered. These are the principal diver-
gences from the ordinances of Christ; several others were
proved against them, but rather as private men than as a
public body, and prevalent in other religions to nearly the
I never could discover how long the Christian
continued in any part of Europe. In Asia the habits and
institutions of men are of much longer duration : there, in one
extremely small part indeed, we know from good authority,
it existed (we cannot say flourished) about six centuries.
Every other had lasted longer, and that which succeeded
it has continued double the time, and with much less
deviation.
same extent.
Tsing-Ti. Yet a purer law was never laid down, gentler
maxims never inculcated, better example never given.
Emperor. How then could the religion pass away so
soon?
Tsing-Ti. For those very reasons. Religions may differ,
but priests are similar in all countries. They will have
blood, they will have mysteries, they will have money; they
will threaten, they will persecute, they will command.
Emperor. Not here.
Tsing-Ti. For which reason the empire has lasted long;
fathers, and princes who resemble them, are respected; and
the nation, though surrounded by barbarians, by predatory
and warlike tribes, has enjoyed more peace and pros-
perity than any other. Industry and quiet, charity and
hospitality, cleanly and frugal habits, are always in exact
proportion to the poverty and paucity of the priesthood.
This is the only important truth I have learned with certainty
in my travels.
Emperor. Strange indeed! that neither English nor Ameri-
cans have betrayed the secret, that Christianity was extir-
pated from among them.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
411
Tsing-Ti. The establishment or abolition of a religion is
a less matter in the view of an American, than the sowing of
a corn-field, or the killing of a snake. The English have
better reasons for their silence. The Christian priests had
rich possessions: people still dress and read and preach like.
them, and call themselves by the name, and drag any man
into a court of justice who says they are not Christians.
They hold the lands of the ancient priests on this tenure
which priests, before they were ejected, made a joke of the
vocation, as they called their trade; but ejection is a bitter
antidote to jocularity.
Emperor. I do not wonder that those who occupy the
places of the priests, and dress and speak like them, should
be angry at being called by any other name than that under
which they hold their property: my wonder is why the con-
ditions should have been imposed, since the nation has no
taste for any particle of the old religion.
Tsing-Ti. There are some occasions on which it is thought
decorous to relax a little in the pertinacity of adherence to
the name. For instance, they do not expect you to call them
by it, and are almost angry if you do, when they are dancing
or drinking or dicing, or riding in pursuit of foxes, or occu-
pied in the humaner recreation of unappropriated girls, of
which there are as many in the streets of London as we hear
there are of dogs unappropriated in Stamboul.
Emperor. Well governed and abundant country must be
Turkey, wherein even the poor can see dogs about the streets,
and yet abstain from filching a cutlet or an ear.
Tsing-Ti. The dogs must be very old and thin, or the
Turks must fear that poison has been given them by the
Franks; for human forbearance hath its limits, and hunger
hears neither Ulemah nor Kadi.
Emperor. As thou didst not travel far beyond the limits
of London, which, according to the map laid at the feet of my
father, by Mak-Ar-Tni, the mandarin, occupies only a small
portion of the British Isles: but first, is that true?
Tsing-Ti. Perfectly.
Emperor. I ask the question, because a Frenchman would
persuade my minister, in the name of His Most Christian
Majesty, that although London is nearly the whole of Britain,
and encroaches far upon Ireland, yet it might be contained
412
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
in the courtyard of His Most Christian Majesty, Lu-Is the
Eighteenth.
Tsing-Ti. No, nor in his belly, capacious as he was, and
worthy of reigning. But the French have always undervalued
the English, since the English conquered and rendered them
tributary; and the Englishman has always looked up to the
Frenchman, since he threw the Frenchman down and tied his
wrists behind him.
Emperor. I was about to ask thee whether thou art quite
certain, O Tsing-Ti, that some latent spark of Christianity
may not possibly be found under the ashes, in the remoter
parts of the country.
Tsing-Ti. I have heard it, and do believe it.
Emperor. Imaginest thou that thou canst computate, by
approximation, the number of Christians now existing in the
world?
Tsing-Ti. I believe the number of Christians in the world
is about the same as the number of Parsees. These two
religions are the purest in existence. That of the Parsees
was always good, always rigorously observed; and those who
followed it were always temperate, hospitable, and veracious.
It does not appear that the followers of the Christian were
remarkable for these qualities, first or last; yet certainly they
were much better than those who have succeeded to their
houses and dresses, and who (in England at least) seize for
their own use what the Christian priests gave partly to the
infirm, partly to the poor, partly to the traveller, and partly
to the stranger. Before I had heard of the revolution in
religion, my heart bounded at the pleasure I expected to
communicate, in taking a frugal repast with a minister of
Christ. I desired the captain, who was much my friend, to
conduct me, not mentioning to him the purport of my visit,
and happy to hear that he must return when he had knocked
at the door for me, I being unwilling to trouble the religious
man with a second guest, who was neither poor nor a stran-
ger in the land. A female of pleasurable aspect opened
the door, and complimented me on my facility in the lan-
guage, and examined my dress not less attentively with her
hands than her eyes. Her master heard her, and cried,
"What the devil does that fellow want?" looking at me all
the while.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
413
"I am come,” said I, "to break bread with thee, O minis-
ter of Christ!
"Thee!" cried he, with anger and disdain; for in England
and France every man must be addressed as four or five; in
other parts of Europe, as a young lady. He took me vio-
lently by the collar and threw me out of the house; and a
few minutes afterward a more civil person came up to me,
desiring me to follow him, and to answer for myself before a
justice of the peace. My heart again bounded: what de-
lightful words, —justice! peace! I told him I had no complaint
to make. "Come along," said he; and I rejoiced at his
earnestness. I was brought before a member of Parliament,
whose father (I heard) was as famous for flogging boys, as the
member is for torturing men. He heard me without deign-
ing to answer; and said to my conductor,
"Take the fellow to the treadmill."
I do not regret my inability to give an account of this
place, since it appears to be a place of punishment. At the
door I met my captain, who was introducing another inmate
for theft. He asked me what I was doing there. I replied
that I believed I was about to have the honor of dining there
with a member of the Church, and a member of the Parlia-
ment; the dignity of the latter having been imparted to me
on the road. After some explanation from me in the pres-
ence of the miller, he prevailed on that worthy tradesman to
allow me a chair in his parlor ; and, in about an hour, returned
with an elderly man, also a member of Parliament, who
heard me in my defence, and laughed heartily. In fine, I
was constrained to order my dinner in another place, having
first thanked the captain, and expressed a wish that we might
meet again.
"Not here, I hope, Mr. Tsing-Ti!" said my friend:
"I like dancing upon my own deck better than upon yon
fellow's." He shook my hand, and went away: I never
saw him after.
Emperor. I wonder the King of England does not intro-
duce a few specimens of better precepts and better religions.
If he has never heard of ours, and those of Thibet, there are
some very excellent in his own dominions of India.
Tsing-Ti. The people about his late Majesty frightened
him; telling him that, if he pulled down an altar at the
414
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
extremity of his kingdom, his throne would fall at the same
moment, and that he would fracture a thigh at the least.
This was whispered to me; so was what shall follow. Being
corpulent, as becomes his station, he greatly dreaded a broken
thigh, and paid several carpenters, whom he maintained in an
old chapel, to knock nails every year into the altars throughout
the country, and to lay their rules stoutly, and occasionally
their hammers, on the backs of those people who would over-
curiously try whether the said altars are upright, and what
timber they are made of. The carpenters are at once the
greatest chatterers and the greatest rogues in the whole
community, and enjoy the privilege of exemption from the
payment of their debts.
Emperor. From what province are they?
Tsing-Ti. From all: every city sends to the old chapel,
for the king's service, those whom the citizens are afraid to
trust for mutton and beef, or to leave too near their wives and
daughters, making each one promise he will furnish them
with nails and chips, and little reflecting that for every nail
they must give an iron-mine, and for every chip a forest. At
last the King's Majesty chose a proper fellow to superintend
his business. A clamorous old ringleader, who worked
upstairs, was desired to walk down. He begged, with tears
in his eyes, permission to stay half an hour longer, and spent
it in picking up pins on the floor. Unbending his back from
this laborious function, he groaned heavily, went home, and
prevailed on his wife, after a long entreaty, to promise him
two sheep-tails to sit upon, as he had been used to a cushion
of wool. His wife bought only one sheep-tail, apprising him
that, cutting it cleverly through the middle, it would serve the
purpose of two. He threw up his eyes to heaven, and
thanked God for inspiring her to save the family from ruin,
when his thoughts were distracted by his tribulations.
penters, who formerly were criers in the courts, were clam-
orous in their assembly. An old soldier walked among them
with the look of an eagle: he made no reply, but (it is
reported) he opened a drawer, and showed them a Peruvian
glue, admirable for sticking lips together; the very sight of it
draws them close. He has promised to all those who work
under him a continuance of their wages, but threatens the
refractory with dismissal.
Car-
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
415
Emperor. I fancied the English were intractable and
courageous.
Tsing-Ti. To others. Dogs know that dogs have sharp
teeth, and that calves have flat ones. The man who has the
purse in his own fist has the sword in his servant's.
Emperor. Proverbs, O Tsing-Ti, prove one man wise, but
rarely make another so. Experience, adversity, and affliction
impress divine lessons deeply.
Tsing-Ti. Then the English are the most earned people
upon earth. Those they have conquered leave the table of
the conquerors without bread and salt upon it; those they
have protected strip off them the last shirt; and, while they
sit and scratch their shoulders, they agree to praise in letters
of gold, and on monuments of marble, the wisdom of such as
misguided, and the integrity of such as ruined them.
f
SIXTH AUDIENCE.
Emperor. I am curious of any fresh and certain informa-
tion, about a country which appears to be separated from
others more widely in character than in locality. May we
not surmise that a fragment of a star hath dropped, with two
or three of its inhabitants, on this part of our globe?
Tsing-Ti. Highly probable. Even yet there appears a
strange disinclination in the English to associate with those
of other regions. Their neighbors meet a foreigner with a
smile and a salutation; the English withdraw from him, star-
ing and frowning as if the fright of the fall were recent, and
the intent of the stranger worse than uncertain. The rest of
the Europeans give indications of good will or good manners
by an embrace, or an interchange of the hand, or by insertion
of their noses into that portion of the hair which grows
between the ear and the chin, and which, being to them what
the interior of the tail is to dogs, they nourish for that pur-
pose. You must bruise an Englishman's face into the figure
and dimensions of a football, ere he can discern to his satis-
faction that he ought to recognize you as a friend. To this
obliquity and perversity I must attribute it that every ordi-
nance of Jesus Christ hath been cast aside by him, having
first ascertained the fact that every one hath been thus re-
jected on the authority of a public preacher. He sat in a
416
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
A
sort of tub or barrel, over which was suspended by a chain
(not without some support from the hinder part of the barrel)
the cover of a wine-press, at the height of about two feet
above his head. He smiled at his auditors; called them his
brothers, though there were before him more of the female
sex than of the male; and assured them that, according to the
"Book of Glad Tidings," the greater part of them must inevita-
bly go to the devil, and gnash their teeth eternally. Upon
which, he and his audience began to sing and ogle; and I
saw among them several sets of teeth which I thought too
pretty for their destination; and several mouths, on the
contrary, which never could pay the penalty denounced.
young person sat beside me beating time, but beating it where
it was impossible she should hear it, and seeming to provoke
an accompaniment. A sallow man under the preacher, a
man with watery eyes, not unlike a duck's in form and color,
and with nostrils opening and shutting, and with a mouth
semicircular in front, and drawn upward at the corners,
caught me by the elbow as I left the temple, and told me the
laborer was worthy of his hire. I did not comprehend his
meaning, and perhaps might have stared at him for an expla-
nation, when an agriculturist came up between us, to whom I
bowed and said, "He means you." The agriculturist made
me no answer, but said to the other, "He looks like a Dutch
sailor in his holiday suit." And turning to me, "Master, I
say, tip him five shillings: he comes but once a quarter, and
damns the parish, he and his parson, at a reasonable rate."
Then winking, "If you sleep at the Green Dragon, he will see
that your bed is warmed to your wish, and sing you a stave
at the opening of the service." In fact, such was the good
man's gratitude he brought me his daughter at dusk: which
is often done in London, although not so often, we may
suppose, as in the time of the Christians. I wish the young
woman had profited by the father's example, and had rather
asked for money than run off with it.
The love of the generous man expands and displays.
itself in the sunshine of his liberality; the love of the
wise man reposes in the shade of his discretion. Neither
of these was left to my choice; and, O Emperor! friend of
my youth! I lost at once my money, my watch, and my silk
trousers.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
417
Emperor. I can hail and rain and overflood with money;
watches I have many as stars are in the firmament; and with
silk I can array the earth, and cover the billows of the ocean.
Money take thou from my coffers with both hands. Take
forty-four robes from my closet, called the closet of amber-
gris, all worn by the members of my imperial house, some by
the bravest and most ancient of our ancestors, and many
flowered with verses and proverbs. Take likewise what
watches thou needest and approvest from the wall of any
edifice in my gardens, in most of which there are hundreds
to relieve the tiresomeness we suffer from the rude obstrep-
erance of the birds in spring.
Tsing-Ti. O Emperor! friend of my youth! one watch
suffices, and be it any one plain and good. In the vestments
I would make a selection; not taking what the bravest or
most ancient of our Emperors have sanctified, nor much re-
garding the literature impressed on them, which I am afraid
the moths may have divided into somewhat too minute para-
graphs, and dramatized with unnecessary interjections.
Emperor. Thou shalt then have forty-four newer: twenty-
two of them flowered with gold, sixteen hung with pearls, and
six interwoven with my father's verses.
Tsing-Ti. These six will never wear out: the others too
will preserve through many ages the odor of my gratitude,
and the richer fragrance of my prince's love.
Emperor. It is much to be regretted that the better re-
ligion of the English was little durable.
Tsing-Ti. Religions, like teas, suffer by passing the salt
water.
Emperor. Kong-Fu-Tsi wrote not this.
Tsing-Ti.
He wrote it not.
Emperor. Write it thou on the blank leaf at the termina-
tion of his sayings, in that copy which my ancestor, Chow-Hi,
of blessed memory, bought at the expense of a rice-ground in
Wong-Wa, and of the tea-cup called Chang-Chang, transpa-
rent and thin as a white rose-leaf, though a soldier's span in
diameter, and little short of a lawyer's; and so smooth, that
(it is written in our chronicles) flies have broken their legs
in attempting to climb it.
Tsing-Ti. They must have been young ones, or very
decrepit.
VOL. V.
27
418
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Emperor. The chronicles of my ancestors do not commem-
orate that particular, nor offer a conjecture at their ages.
Tsing-Ti. History has much improved of late, and chiefly
by the sedulity of the English. In England we should have
known all about it to a day, and some duels would have been
fought, and many calumnies and curses dealt reciprocally in
the outset. For although their denominations in hostility are
much longer and much more ponderous than ours, they cast
them with great dexterity and velocity. The English histo-
rians are double-handed.
Emperor. So are ours.
Tsing-Ti. But theirs keep one hand for history, the other
for controversy; the one being blackened with ink, the other
with gunpowder. Their favorite words anciently were saint
and hero; the present in fashion are rogue and rebel. One
of their kings ordered the bones of his father's enemies to be
disinterred, long after their burial. This monarch seems to
unite more suffrages from the modern historians than any
other; and their works relating to his reign are enriched
with more sermons, and pleadings, and opinions of counsel,
and depositions of witnesses.
Emperor. Such histories, with their depositions, must be
as unsavory as the oldest street in Canton; and, with their
sermons and pleadings and opinions, must be equally long
and crooked.
Tsing Ti. The English, like the ants, follow one another
in a regular line, through wet and dry, their leaders choosing
in preference those places which have a pungent odor.
Emperor. Nay, nay, Tsing-Ti! thou dislikest them for
disappointing thee in thy favorite religion.
Tsing-Ti. Certainly I do not like them the better for it:
but I love my country and my emperor the more when I re-
turn and see the toleration of every sect and creed. What
a strange institution is prevalent in Europe! Christianity is
known and confessed to be so excellent and divine a thing,
that no man is permitted at once to be a Christian and to call
himself so. He may take which division he likes; he may
practise the ordinances of Christ without assuming the name,
or he may assume the name on condition that he abstain from
the ordinances. However, it is whispered that several whole
families are privileged, and neither deny that they are Chris-
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
419
tians, nor abstain with any rigor from the duties enjoined. I
was but a year in the country: I say only what I have heard.
Often that which is beautiful at a distance loses its effect as
we approach it. The cloud whereon the departing sun pours
his treasures, which he invests with purple and gold, and ap-
pears to leave as a representative not unworthy of himself,
fills us with gladness, pure and chastened from the horizon;
but is the mountain it hath rested on less dreary and less
sterile the day after? I was a Christian when I quitted my
native land: I return to my native land, and am a Christian.
My tears fell abundantly, genially, sweetly, on first reading
the sermon of the blessed teacher to his disciples. How I
wished to press my brow upon the herbs below him, in the
midst of that faithful and fraternal multitude! How I wished
to humble it, even unto the insects, and so quiet my heart for-
ever by its just abasement!
When I had resided a short time in England, I began to
suspect that some few sentences were interpolated by Act of
Parliament; such as,
"If any man will sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have
thy cloak also."
And again, speaking of prisons,
"Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the ut-
termost farthing.
I saw several poor soldiers in the streets, who had been
in Egypt about the time, I suspect, when Christianity was
breathing her last. They were holy men, but somewhat more
addicted to the ancient part of the Bible than to the newer,
calling often upon God to confound and damn this person
and that. However they had observed with punctuality the
hardest of the more recent commandments, which is, -
"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is
profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that
thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend
thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee."
The precept is plain; the reasons, I imagine, are parlia-
mentary. However, there were many who thought them
quite sufficient, and who not only cut off the hand but the
arm likewise. Wonderful in how short a time so complete a
change was effected!
420
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
I myself did not aim precipitately at this perfection; but,
in order to be well received in the country, I greatly wished
the favor of a blow on the right cheek. Unfortunately I got
several on the left before I succeeded. At last I was so
happy as to make the acquisition of a most hearty cuff under
the socket of the right eye, giving me all those vague colors
which we Chinese reduce into regular features, or into strange
postures of the body, by means of glasses. As soon as I
knew positively whether my head was remaining on my neck
or not, I turned my left cheek for the testimony of my faith.
The assailant cursed me and kicked me; the by-standers, in-
stead of calling me Christian, called me Turk and Malay;
and, instead of humble and modest, the most impudent dog
and devil they had ever set eyes upon. I fell on my knees
and praised God, since at last I had been admitted into so
pure and pious a country, that even this action was deemed
arrogant and immodest. Seeing a Jew on my return (as I
soon found he was) who had several things to sell, I asked
of him whether he had any medicine good for the contusion
of my cheek-bone.
"Come along with me," said he.
We entered an alley; he unlocked a door in the narrowest
part of it, and conducted me to the summit of the house.
His wife and children ran out to meet him; and a little girl
had caught him by the hand before any of the party saw that
a stranger was behind, for the stairs were narrow and dark.
The exuberance of pleasure was repressed. The little girl
did not loose her father's hand, nor did the mother draw her
back, although she held her by the arm. The little girl looked
steadfastly at me, and then loosed her father's hand and
turned her back toward me, and placed her finger, I con-
jecture, to her eye. But the mother was excusing her dress,
and her ignorance how to receive such a personage, when the
child, impatient that her signs were ineffectual, cried, "O
mother! cannot you see how he is bruised?"
The words had scarcely escaped her lips, before the father
brought a white liquid in a teacup, and said calmly, "Rachel,
put down your hands from above your head, and neither
grieve nor wonder, but help." I imagine I had been detained
on the outside of the door until several things were removed
from the crowded and small apartment, in which the air had
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
421
by no means all the benefit it might have had from its eleva-
tion. When I entered it and came fully into the light, every
face, excepting the husband's, expressed the most tender pity.
Rachel had scarcely touched me with the cooling remedy ere
she said she was sure she hurt me. The little girl said to me,
"Let me do it," and, "It does not hurt at all. See! I have
put some on the same place on my own cheek ;" and then
whispered in the mother's ear: "Cannot you encourage him
better? Does he
Does he cry?"
Then escaped me those words, O my Emperor and friend!
those which never before fell from me, and which I do believe
are original, “Yes, a wise man may marry."
The husband did not confine his inquiries to the cause of
what he called the quarrel; and on my saying that I never
could have expected so little of commiseration, so little of as-
sistance, from Christians, "Why not," cried he abruptly. "Are
Turks more cruel?" "I cannot speak of the Turks," said I,
"but I could wish that so pure and so pious a sect as the
Christians were humaner."
I then began to ask questions in my turn; certainly not,
whether he was among the professing or the acting; but how
long ago it was forbidden that the same person should be
both? He began to feel my head unceremoniously, in places.
where there were no bruises, and thought it would be better
for me to lose a little blood, as an ugly blow might be un-
lucky to the brain. The wife made signs to him, but could
not stop him; and her anxiety that he should desist only
urged him to explain and defend himself. The little girl
slipped away.
"We children of Abraham," said he, "have our law and
keep it; while every year some new fungus, whiter or blacker,
more innocent or more poisonous, springs from the scatter-
ings of the old dunghill, forked up and littered and trimmed
within the walls of Rome. Persecution has not shaken us
nor our fathers: we hold fast by their robes, and are burned
or stoned together."
The wife lifted up her hands, and said nothing: but a boy,
about five years old, seeing her hands lifted up, knelt under
them and asked her blessing: she gave it, shedding tears.
over him.
The husband, too, himself was moved; for no-
thing rouses the soul like another's patient suffering.
He
422
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
likewise was moved; but less with tenderness than indig
nation.
66
'They have burned, yes," cried he, "they have burned
even such as thou art, O my Abel!"
Here he entered into historical facts, so horrible and atro-
cious, that the princes of Europe thought it expedient to unite,
and to exert their utmost authority, in order that two of the
perpetrators might be kept on their thrones against the
reclamation of their subjects; these two having repeatedly
committed perjury, and repeatedly attempted parricide.
Emperor. And the other kings aided and assisted them?
Tsing-Ti. All, all: never were they unanimous before.
These kings, it is reported, are of different sects; yet they
most formally agreed, and most solemnly protested, that par-
ricide and perjury are legitimate in princes. In England
there are some who doubt it, but they are deemed shallow
and insufficient; and though indeed they think more rigidly
than the rest, they are called free-thinkers.
Emperor. High compliment!
Tsing-Ti. Far otherwise in the opinion of the people; the
word liberal is the only word more odious.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti! Tsing-Ti! art thou quite sure that
this contusion may not have jolted and confounded and es-
tranged thy memory? for, although men change their religion,
or lose their principles, a reminiscence of right and wrong
must remain. That any should voluntarily lay impediments
on the operation of their minds is really incredible; that
they should hate you for smoothening the way before them,
and for leaving it open, can only be attributed to the worst
depravity, or to insanity the most irremediable.
Tsing-Ti. Things less enormous may be more easily for-
gotten. The blow on my cheek-bone rather improved than
impaired my memory: at least supplying it with another fact
for its store-house.
Emperor. I would more willingly hear again of the Jew
than of the princes: he seems much honester and much wiser.
The distance in rank between us is the same; therefore the
same would be my sympathy with them as with him, if they
deserved it. I can, however, show no countenance to such exe-
crable wretches as those who not only held alliance with
perjurers and parricides, but who abstained from bringing
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
423
them to punishment. Indifferent and heedless am I what
religion they profess or hold. Some is requisite; since imbe-
cile men (and such are those princes) can only learn morality
under the rod of fear.
Tsing-Ti. The English treat theirs as the Malays we see
in China treat their serpents; first drawing their teeth, then
teaching them to dance to one certain tune. But these ser-
pents, whenever they get loose, make off toward other serpents
and join them, forgetting the wrist and tabor, and preferring
any holes and brambles to the level well-brushed ground upon
which they received their education.
When I pressed the Jew to join me and become a Christian,
he declared he had no aversion to the precepts of Christ, who
had given a strong testimony for his nation.
"I am sorry that by the laws of the land," said he, “so hu-
mane and devoted a creature was condemned to death. But
the laws of our land, in this instance, were not more rigorous
than the laws of others. The public men endured him longer
than the public men of any other country in the world would
endure one who excited so pertinaciously the populace against
them. Scribes, publicans, pharisees, are for ever in his mouth,
mixed with much bitterness. What government could go on reg-
ularly and securely in the midst of mobs and invectives? Yet
he received for many years far less molestation than he gave.
These scribes, these publicans, these pharisees, were the rich-
est, the most powerful, and the most enlightened men in the
country. Call the judges, and the bishops, and the secreta-
ries of state in England by such names; point them out for
hatred, for abhorrence, for indignation, in the same manner,
and your personal liberty, instead of remaining three or four
years, would not be left you, my friend, so many mornings."
This is true, and I attempted to evade it; for, though many
men like truth, there is always something they like better.
Victory is so sweet a thing, we not only shed words but blood
for it; just as the wild men did in the first ages on record.
"Where?" cried I, with an air of triumph (for an escape
is often one), "where does Jesus Christ bear testimony in
your favor? He often bears it against you."
He replied calmly: "In these plain words: Think not I
am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfil; for verily I say unto you, till heaven
424
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled.'
""
He confounded me. I thanked him and his wife for their
courtesy, and, not knowing what to do with my fingers, wrap-
ped up in a piece of coarse paper a ring, taken from my little
one, and requested the good Rachel to give the contents to
her daughter, when she happened to have a cough. I es-
caped the formulary of acceptance or refusal which she might
have employed had she discovered them.
Every day showed me the vestiges of a religion in ruins.
The teacher and his disciples and apostles taught not only
the justice but the necessity of enjoying all things in com-
mon; and those who disobeyed were declared guilty of the
crime against the Holy Ghost.
Emperor. In the name of wonder, what crime can that
be?
Tsing-Ti. One indeed not very clear in its nature, but
manifest enough in its effects. Those who sinned against it
were instantly stricken dead, particularly in that said article
concerning the community of goods. No other crime what-
ever was punished so summarily, or with such severity, as the
holding back a particle of property. And yet, perhaps, the
warier might reasonably have had some scruples and per-
plexities about it, seeing that one Judas Iscariot, a special
knave, who betrayed the Teacher to crucifixion, had been the
treasurer.*
Women were forbidden to attend the churches in fine clothes.
The women of England, at the present day, turn up their
noses at any one who does not put on her best upon the Sun-
day; and the principal part of the service seems to be a most
rigid examination how far this necessary compliment is paid
to the anti-Christian priest.
The Teacher orders men to pray little, and in private.†
One who had persecuted him, and afterward came over to his
party, one Saul or Paul, - could not in his conscience let
him have his own way in every thing, and told people to pray
publicly. The day of my arrival in London, I wished to
accommodate myself to the habits of the nation; and having
read in my Bible, "If any be merry, let him sing psalms,'
* John, xii. 6.
† Matthew, vi. 6.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
425
and thinking that a peculiarity of pronunciation is disguised
more easily in singing than in talking, I began to sing psalms
through the streets. The populace pelted me the women
cried, "Scandalous !" the boys, "Let us have some fun!" and
proof was made upon me with many eggs, even after I had de-
clared I could perform no miracles with them, and had plainly
proved I could neither catch one in my mouth, nor restore to
life the chicken that had long ago died within it. An anti-
Christian priest of great austerity, with legs like a flamingo's,
asked me whether I was not ashamed of my profaneness, in
singing psalms along the public walks? Another, who was
called his chaplain, and rode with him in his coach, cried, "My
lord, drive on! Coachman, drive on! Send the son of a
to Bedlam!" Extensive as are the commercial relations of the
English, I was astonished that a chaplain, which means the
priest that prays for another (none of consideration perform-
ing for himself so menial an office), should (never having
visited China) have known so much of my mother, and should
designate by so coarse an appellation the concubine of a
prince. After a time, I acquired the intelligence that no
woman in England is exempt from it who forms an alliance,
unsanctioned by marriage, with any except the king. The
lady in that case is styled the king's favorite, or, more prop-
erly, his mistress; having the appointment of his ambassadors
and his bishops, the stocking of his fish-ponds, and the forma-
tion of his ministry. In fact, she alone has the care of his
dignity and of his comforts and of his conscience, and may
tickle his ribs and make him laugh without being hanged
for it.
Emperor. Prodigious privilege! in a country where two
hundred other offences are subject to that punishment.
Tsing-Ti. The heads of the law bend before her, the
gravest of them and the most religious, even those who
would punish with death the adultery of a queen.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti! Tsing-Ti! that blow upon the cheek-
bone, those rotten eggs, that flamingo perch, that odd dig-
nity emblazoned on thy mother, surely they have wasped
thee! The lowest in the land may be guilty of such base-
ness, the highest may be guilty of such cruelty; but even
crimes have their classes and their lines betwixt: the worst
man in the worst nation of the earth never could be guilty at
426
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
once of crimes so different. What freezeth may burn, what
burneth may freeze, but not at one moment. Thou hast
indeed had some reason for displeasure; but how much
greater wouldst thou feel, O Tsing-Ti, if thou camest from
it on the thorns along the precipice of falsehood. No, my
friend, thy words were always true; and what is there or
should there be incredible of a nation where justice is more
costly than violence, and religion more rapacious than theft?
I would hear farther upon this, and what thou hast to say in
defence of Saul or Paul, who gave an ordinance in contra-
diction to his master's. He must have put strong weapons
into the hands of the anti-Christians.
Tsing-Ti. I cannot understand the anti-Christians at all,
and the Christians not much better. These last extolled him
highly, but perhaps at the time when they thought of be-
coming anti-Christians as giving a sanction to disobedience
and persecution. He had many strange by-ways of doing
things. For instance now: Satan is god of blasphemy; he
stands opposite to the Creator.
Emperor. Why does the Creator let the rogue stand
opposite ?
Tsing-Ti. I know not: he does, however, stand eternally in
that position, and breathes fire and defiance at him, dividing
the universe with him, taking the richer and more beautiful
to his own share. Finding the wife of the unhappy man in
whose house I lodged ill-humored and sullen, though much
addicted to her Bible, I repeated to her from it,
""
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection."
She stared at me; and when, to make her easy, I would
have given her the kiss of peace as commanded us, she cried :
"You canting hound! I will give you a cuff in the muzzle!
It came almost too quick for a promise. Nor did it end here.
The husband, who was present, said, “Master Orange-face,
your pocket shall sweat for this," and took me to Bow Street;
so called from the numbers of fashionable men resorting there,
and bowing to the magistrate. A pickpocket was before him,
who, while he raised one hand to heaven in protestation of
his innocence, robbed me with the other of all the money I
carried for my acquittal.
Emperor. How then didst thou escape? Thy situation
was deplorable.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
427
Tsing-Ti. I was in prison three days.
Emperor. My mandarin! by what law?
Tsing-Ti. I cannot say by what law: I can only say it was
for preaching the clearest text of Paul, and for practising the
best ceremony of the Church. A short time afterward I sat
at table one day with a young lady of exquisite beauty, and
of equal modesty. Her mother had invited me to dinner for
my love of the Bible. The gentleman who sat next to me
on the right hand (his lady was on the left), observing me
very diffident in my conversation with her, wished to give me
a little more courage by entering with me into the concerns.
of his family.
"Angelica," said he, after a while, "has an independent.
and ample fortune; and yet I will dare to say before her that
I married her for love. She will not flatter me by making
the same confession." Angelica blushed and looked happy ;
and said her mother had wished her to marry again, and she
had thought it her duty to comply. I found she was in her
twentieth year, and had one daughter by her first husband,
dead about eighteen months. This information was given
me the following day by the mother, in whose face I looked
earnestly as she spoke. "What," cried I, "unhappy woman!
did you acquiesce in it? did you sanction it? did you wish
it ? " (C
Why not?" said she. "And does your Angelica read
the Bible? And dares she take a second husband in spite of
Timothy and Paul, ‘having damnation because she hath cast
off her first faith '?"* Knowing that the English are superior
to other nations in a species of wit denominated quizzing, and
that they consider it a particular act of politeness toward a
stranger, I suspected they were beginning to initiate me in
some of its ceremonies, and I resolved to make further in
quiries of the mother; and the more, as both exclamation and
text were intercepted by an elderly gentleman in an arm-
chair, who shook the loose skin of his cheeks at me, and told
me some questions were to be asked and some not. There-
fore when she and I were alone, I did not repeat the pas-
sage, but showed it in the book. She replied gravely and
circuitously, --
"Mister Tsing-Ti - pardon me - perhaps I ought to ad
*Paul. 1 Tim. v. 12.
428
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
dress you as Sir Tsing-Ti
for I can never think a person
of your appearance, moving in an elevated sphere
Emperor. What! like a parrot in a gold wire-cage from
the ceiling? Well, go on.
Tsing-Ti. "would be long without a recommendation to
his Majesty, that he might be graciously pleased to confer on
you the dignity of knighthood or baronetcy."
Emperor. My eyes are as long and narrow as most men's,
thanks be to God! yet I cannot slip them into the crevices
of thy discourse. Proceed.
Tsing-Ti. "For his Majesty," continued she, "is growing
old, poor man! and takes nothing in hand so often as the
sword: and when he is tired of making knights he makes a
baronet or two, in order to laugh and get a good digestion by
discussing the merits and genealogies of the new created."
Emperor. New created! Hast thou eaten opium? Tsing-
Ti, continue.
Tsing-Ti. She apologized, and protested she did not mean
to insinuate that any one could make merry with mine, the
worst Chinese families being older than the best English.
Emperor. I must smell thy breath, Tsing-Ti. I fear thou
hast acquired bad habits: no, no, upon my faith! I am sat-
isfied. Conclude the story.
Tsing-Ti. At last I brought the lady to the point; and
finding her sincere in her belief, and extremely angry to
prove it, I went through the whole passage word for word.
It puzzled her; she could only say, "The apostles very often
differ apparently, apparently, Sir Tsing; for nobody in his
senses will presume to say they do really. Indeed the words
sometimes are widely at variance: but so are the passages in
the finest music; and without them the composer would lose
all pretence to harmony."
I looked at the elderly gentleman, who had entered the
room in the midst of our conversation: he took a pinch of
snuff and offered me one. I frequently have observed in
others, although I never could experience it in myself, that
snuff, as compounded in Europe, hath wonderful properties.
Sometimes it matures a reply, as straw does apples; again
it turns an argument to a witticism, or a a witticism to
an argument: and I have known even a rap on the box-lid
bring over and convince a whole party. The elderly gentle-
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
429
man, when he had offered me his snuff-box, and I had taken
a pinch in a manner to give him a good opinion of me, drew
his chair still closer, and, surveying both my face and my
body, seemed to signify that he thought me not unfit for the
reception of reason. Placing his hand with extreme gentle-
ness on my wrist, he said in an under-tone: "Our religion is
to us what your gum-elastic is to you. It is rounder or longer,
thinner or thicker, darker or lighter, as you leave it or pull it :
we rub out whatever we will with it, and, although some dirt
is left upon it, we employ it again and again. There is
much demand for it in the market. No wonder! Severe as
the apostle was to the young widow, in prohibiting her to dry
her tears on the pillow where another head had rested, he was
liberal in letting men eat what they like, although he had
agreed with the other companions of the Teacher that nobody
should eat strangled animals or their blood. The diviner part
of his character (for what is most different from ours may even
in him be called the diviner) was toleration and forgiveness."
Emperor. Did the Christians at any time observe this law?
Tsing-Ti. Never; not even the apostles. Saint Paul prayed
God to execute vengeance for him and Saint Peter used the
sword, which God commanded should be sheathed for ever,
and used it with much intemperance and little provocation.
We believe that the Holy Spirit was always present in their
councils; and nothing is more difficult for us than to recon-
cile the precept of Paul with the decision of the rest, and the
action of Peter with the command of his master.
Emperor. In other words, with the inspiration of what you
Christians call the Holy Ghost. Indeed I do think you must
strain hard to bring them close.
Tsing-Ti. It perplexes us.
Emperor. The more fools you. There are many things of
which it is shameful to be ignorant; and more of which it is
shameful to be perplexed. Did thy eating these meats ever
hurt thy stomach?
Tsing-Ti. Never.
Emperor. Did thy eating them ever hurt thy neighbor's?
Tsing-Ti. Fountain of wisdom! how could it?
Emperor. Did thy eating them ever make thee wish to
partake of human flesh?
Tsing-Ti. Horrible! Surely not.
430
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Emperor. Draw then thy own conclusion. Produced it
on any man one of these effects, him should my finger bid
abstain.
Tsing-Ti. The old Christians slipped aside, and feasted
heartily on a noosed hare or black pudding.
Emperor. What! even the old ones?
Tsing-Ti. Alas! even they, for the most part.
Emperor. Tell me no more about these disagreements, but
rather how the oral doctrines of the Teacher himself were
taken.
Tsing-Ti. There is one of them which I apprehend was
never believed in, since a community of goods was abolished.
"It is easier for a camel (or cable) to pass through the eye
of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of God." If this be true, and what is God's word must be,
the softest bed that ever rich man died on, supposing him to
be a true believer, was more excruciating to him than if he
were corded up within a sack of vipers.
Emperor. Thou sayest well; but who believes or ever be-
lieved it?
Tsing-Ti. All Christians.
Emperor. Do not wonder then that Christianity has ex-
isted so short a time; so much shorter than any religion
upon record.
Tsing-Ti. Oh, Emperor! my light and leader! there are
acute and wary men in Europe who can penetrate through all
our objections and explain all our difficulties. I heard it
reported of an old lady, one of the last Christians left in
England, that she ate some hemlock in mistake for celery,
her eyes being too dull and her vinegar too sharp for the dis-
covery. She told her children and grandchildren not to fear
for her, since, among the signs of those who believe, it is
written that they shall take up serpents; and that if they
drink any deadly thing it shali not hurt them." A quarter of an
hour after this exhortation she died in excruciating agonies.
The priest who attended her in her malady caught her last
breath, and requested his bishop to remove his inquietude.
The bishop answered,
“
"The matter is easy. She did not drink the deadly thing;
she ate it."
"My Lord, suppose it had been a liquid, God forbid I
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
431
should doubt or question, but is it certain, so very certain,
I would say?
""
"Her faith might have staggered during its operation, and
then could not save her. The slightest doubt, the slightest
fear, forfeits the reward."
66
But, my Lord, we may take up serpents.”
"You are no such fool. Saint Matthew says you may take
them up; but where does he say they won't bite you? Brother
Grimstone, the greatest of follies is for old people to play
young tricks; and the greatest of sins is to tempt God.
Exhort your parishioners, as they value their salvation, never
to tempt him in this way.
""
I myself went to the learned expositor, and consulted him.
Emperor. So then thou wouldst cling to Christianity after
the loss of thy watch and silk trousers.
Tsing-Ti. I would; knowing that my Emperor loves a
man with a religion as well as a man without, and hath no
partiality for a mandarin because he eateth of the same dish,
but would quite as willingly see him dip his fingers into
another.
Emperor. Rightly said: kings and emperors should think so.
Tsing-Ti. The d stiller, who gains his livelihood by his
distillery, may be displeased if a basketful of yellow lilies be
brought to him for a basketful of white, and may throw
the lilies and the basket at the bearer, in much anger; but
the possessor of a spacious garden, in which are clusters of
lilies both white and yellow, finds a pleasure in the smell
of the one and in the color of the other, and loves to see a
portion of that variety which the Creator's hand implanted.
Emperor. Thou speakest well. Emperors should have
wide eyes and broad nostrils, and should never turn the di-
versity of things to their displeasure; all being God's, and
they his guests, invited to partake and to enjoy the entertain-
ment, and not to derange and discompose it. Thou remem-
berest my father's verses:
"The narrow mind is the discontented one.
There is pleasure in wisdom, there is wisdom in pleasure.
If thou findest no honey in thy cake,
Put thy cake into honey with thine own right hand,
Nor think it defiled thereby."
About what didst thou consult the expositor?
432
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
!
Tsing-Ti. Being a mandarin, and possessing no mean in-
heritance, the camel or cable, of which I spake, bore heavily
upon me. The expositor is one of the richest men in the
kingdom, and moves lightly under it.
Emperor. He must have laughed at thee.
Tsing-Ti. Not a muscle in his cheek was altered. He re-
ceived me, and heard my question graciously; and he rang
the bell with his own hand, and ordered his servant to show
me the door, bowed to me, and even gave me a piece of silver
called a shilling. Whether my pride was raised too high by
so refined a piece of courtesy, as his insinuation that a man
of exalted rank or philosophical character should be deemed
incapable of finding the door himself, or whether it was to
contend with him in liberality, when I kissed the shilling and
deposited it in my bosom, I presented to him a broad piece of
gold, elaborately worked with many figures, in a case of ivory,
carved by an artificer of skill. He begged my pardon, and
actually pushed away the present. I kissed his hand and
wept upon it: the true Christian's! the humble man's! De-
clining my gold and ivory, he entreated me to be seated, and
asked me how he could serve me, with more than Asiatic po-
liteness. In vain I besought him again and again to accept
the tribute of his slave, and to shower on me the dew of wisdom.
He was inexorable as to the offering, but appeared to be very
well pleased with my expressions. I had soon discovered
that those which Christ used and received were now thought
unfit for the lowest of his ministers, even for such as sweep
the temples and ring the bells, and were not only obsolete
but offensive. The expositor said he could perceive I was
a person of distinction, and must have moved in the highest
circles.
Emperor. Again! what canst thou mean? Do the princi-
pal men educate their children with parrots and monkeys and
squirrels and marmosets? Hast thou translated those words
correctly?
Tsing-Ti. Quite correctly.
Emperor. The strangest expression I ever heard in my
life-time! So then really those short coats, and buttoned
vests, and cases of all kinds were invented to give them in
some measure the advantages of animals. I would rather
see gold-fish in glass globes. Surely it is only when they are
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
433
very young; only to teach them kindness toward these creat-
ures, held by them in captivity. Well, the idea is not so
irrational as it appeared at first.
Tsing-Ti. Whatever may formerly have been the custom
of the country, the expression, I believe, is metaphorical at
present. The bishop himself was said universally to move
in the higher circles; yet I could see neither globe nor cage
in his house, nor any hook in the ceiling. His lordship said
he would attempt to solve my question according to his poor
abilities, if the best scholars were unanimous on the signifi-
cation of the text. I answered that it seemed plain enough.
By no means,” replied he; "some translate the Hebrew
word by camel, some by cable."
CC
"Either will do," said I.
"God forbid," cried his lordship, "that we should be indif-
ferent or lukewarm on the conditions of our eternal bliss!
Whenever the passage is clear, we will discourse again upon it.
Every thing is not yet manifested: let us wait in patience."
:
As he sighed, and appeared to be much out of spirits, I
thought it indecorous to press him farther, and took my
leave. On the morrow I saw him going to court; but there
were so many servants about him, and the dresses stood out
so with golden lace and embroidery, he could not well see
me otherwise I would have requested to be present at the
sacrifice he was about to offer; his dress being purple, to
hide the blood, and his shirt-sleeves being tucked up in readi-
ness. The cable or camel, whichever it was, made me uneasy;
and I continued in agitation for several days. At last I saw
another anti-Christian, who loudly professed Christianity from
a table in a field, and who familiarly asked questions, and
winked and laughed and told stories, and advised his audi-
ence to laugh on that day, because after two or three more
they would, with few exceptions, be burned to eternity. He
then cried: "Answer me; answer me: or ask me, and I will
be the answerer."
Although I thought his reason for laughing in some degree
inconclusive, I was persuaded he had better in store on other
points.
(6
Sir," said I, and there was instantaneously a universal
silence, "Sir, permit an ignorant man to ask one question."
"Babe!" answered he blandly,
(C come and suck."
VOL. V.
28
434
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
((
I then related to him my visit, my inquiry, and the reply.
Tough chewing! hard digestion! camel or cable,” cried
he to the crowd. (C
So, in God's very teeth, he dares call a
camel a cable! Look! my brethren, is here the cable or the
camel?" opening the book. They all groaned. “I could
have taught the wilful man better," said he, "but the Lord
has taken the words of wisdom from above his tongue, and
has put them under, and they are as uneasy to him as an ear
of barley would be. There they are, and he makes a wry
face over 'em, and can never get 'em out."
An elderly lady, fresh, fat, with flowers in her bonnet, and
some few pimples in her face, seemed much affected, and
cried, "What shall I do to be saved?'
-
""
Sister," said the preacher, “let our brother Dick (I would
say Richard) support your head upon his bosom, now that
he has alighted from behind the carriage. Hide not, O sister,
your head therein, as one unworthy; but turn your face hith-
erward, as one yearning for the truth. There is no cure so
easy for any malady as for the disease of wealth. You may
scratch it off with a nail, and it returns no more, although it
leave a little soreness in the place. Now to the text. Camel
is the word; and none but camel for me! Suppose there
were a drove of 'em: do you believe that our Lord, if he
pleases, cannot make a drove of 'em, a drove, I say,
hunched and mounted and laden, pass not in line, but in
squadron, through the finest needle you ever bought in White-
chapel? And, if he pleases, will he not do it? And if he
pleases, will not the rich man enter the kingdom of Heaven?
Sister Kattern, be of good faith! the words are, rich man :
not, rich woman. And even rich men may lay aside what
is onerous and dangerous in riches, intrusting them to
the servants of the Lord who watch and pray.”—“O rogue
and vagabond!" I was ready to exclaim, "though indeed
thou art not red-legged, thy claw and thy craw are the same
as the flamingo's."
""
Among my acquaintance was a barrister, who belonged to
neither of the sects, and evaded my inquiries by saying they
did not belong to his profession. Wishing to pay him a com-
pliment, I studied the law with assiduity, and felt great satis-
faction when I had seventy-four questions for him, on difficult
points in the English jurisprudence. I had often called on
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
435
him, and he was out, which I ceased to regret on finding the
catalogue of my interrogatories swell out so copiously. At
last I caught him on the staircase, and gave him my pocket-
book. "A flaw in the second word!" cried he: "English juris-
prudence!" He took out the remaining inch of pencil and
wrote statutes. "Of these we have plenty," said he, "of
that nothing. Honest Tsing, your studies have lain else-
where since your arrival; otherwise this neat pocket-book of
yours, instead of the seventy-four questions, which fill only
four pages, would have others drawn out over charades and
sonnets and dresses for the season; and this delicate green
binding would look as it were covered with ants, by holding
its share of your little black letters; and even this fine steel
clasp would be displaced to make room." "Can you speak
thus lightly," said I, " on such imperfections in your profes-
sion?" "Dear Tsing," said he, smiling, "you have sometimes
enriched me with a proverb: I have but one of my own, and
will give it you freely. On the imperfection of law is built the
perfection of lawyers.' I could not eat, drink, nor sleep, with-
out 'em they are my fish, flesh, and fowl; they are my bread,
wine, and fuel; they are my theatre, friends, and concubines.
Leap into my carriage with me: I am going to Maidstone; I
will open to you some new commentaries on our religion."
"Will you indeed? cried I.
:
"Indeed will I," said he; "and what is more, I will introduce
you at a ball.”
I had never seen an English dance; the amusement is for-
bidden by law to the poorer and middling classes, and I arrived
in London when the richer and gayer were departing. It was
now midsummer. Great was my surprise, as we approached
the town of Maidstone, at seeing a procession, accompanied
by spearmen and announced by trumpets. After it there
came in a carriage, drawn by four horses, an old man with a
pinkish face, not unlike veal fly-blown and putrescent. He
wore over each shoulder the tail either of an Angola goat or
Cashmere sheep, of which the upper extremity was fastened
on his head. Whether a part had been consumed by time, or
rubbed away by the carriage, I know not; but it was neatly
mended by a piece of black silk, about the size of that which
is applied to a part less visible, when it suffers by riding.
The rest of the person was covered with a scarlet robe. I
436
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
asked my companion who it could be?
answered.
"The judge," he
"Judge of what? How can he be a judge of any thing,
who wears a thick scarlet vesture in the middle of July, and
perhaps all his other cases under it? Nay, he has fur upon
it, two palms thick !
""
"Friend Tsing!" replied he, "neither our laws nor the
dresses of those who decide on them are changed according
to the times and seasons. What was, is; and it must be,
because it was."
I attended the court of justice three consecutive days, and
could not but admire the patience and ingenuity of the rulers,
to rid the country from all remains of Christianity. Not an
edict or sentence but ran counter to it. Some were punished
for disobeying the Bible; others for obeying.
Emperor. Great impartiality!
Tsing-Ti. The very men who were to pronounce on the
guilt or innocence of others began to fit themselves for it by
breaking the law of Christ.
He says,
"Swear not at all."
They all swore; twelve of them: every witness swore. Sev-
eral offenders were brought forward in their chains for strik-
ing and stealing.
Emperor. Properly enough; and punished, no doubt.
Tsing-Ti. Certainly; but with somewhat less severity than
others for capturing wild animals, birds, and fishes.
Emperor. They were idle fellows.
Tsing-Ti. Some had caught so many that they could not
be called idle: it was their trade. I suspect they were treated
with the greater severity for following the law of Christ.
Emperor. Law? what! these rogues?
Tsing-Ti. Christ ordered men never to reap, never to sow,
because the fowls did neither.
Emperor. Tsing-Ti, I love thee from my soul; but beware!
let no man utter this in China.
Tsing-Ti. He ordered men to take no thought of what they
put on, and indeed not to clothe at all; assuring them that
God would clothe them, as he clothed the grass of the field;
and would much rather clothe them than the grass.* Inter-
pretation of what is commanded is less censurable in its
* Matthew, vi. 30.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
437
strictness than in its laxity. Those who obeyed God's word
undoubtingly; those who obeyed it to the letter; those who
obeyed it both because it was his, and because he had conde-
scended to give his reasons for their obedience, — in the birds,
namely, and the grass, were strangely persecuted. I saw a
man tortured for taking as little care as the grass did about his
raiment; and I am assured, if he had gone into a corn-field,
and had satisfied his necessities as the birds satisfy theirs, his
religion would have led him into greater difficulties. On the
whole there were about fifty criminals. Most were condemned,
like this believer, to the torture, by means of wire twisted
about hempen ropes, and employed as scourges: ten were
hanged. The bells rang merrily; and the ladies danced all
night. I thought they had looked prettier in the morning.
There was another court open, wherein few causes were de-
cided. My friend assured me that several, being civil, would
last for years.
"How!" exclaimed I, "and thirty men tortured, and ten
hanged, at one sitting?"
Emperor. I hope the King of England hangs gratis.
Tsing-Ti. To my shame be it spoken, I did not ask. The
English are far from explicit in their elucidation. I inquired
how it happened that, having wholly rejected Christianity,
and being ashamed of following the plainest and easiest
ordinances of Christ, they are almost unanimous in calling
themselves Christians? Most of those present were angry at
the question: some asked me what I meant; others swore
they would make me explain, forgetting that I came for ex-
planation. The gentler and more moderate said I quite mis-
took the spirit of Christianity; that it altered its form and
features as was required by the time or the people; that it
was no less easy in its operation than salutary in its effect.
"I am quite convinced it is," cried I; " and it being so easy
to abstain from war, from strife, and from evil-speaking, it is
grievous that these unequivocal commands of the Teacher
are disobeyed by the most conscientious of his followers."
The man is a Methodist; the man is mad; the man is more
knave than fool; the man is a Jesuit; the man is a Radical,
- were the opinions formed upon me.
Emperor. Of these expressions there are some requiring
elucidation: we will have it another time.
For the present
438
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
let me assure thee, O friend of my youth! that among the
reasons of my affection for thee, is this: Whereas many
who change their religion are proud of displaying the fresh
plumage, and zealous to bring others after them, and noisy
and quarrelsome against those who stay behind, thou didst
long conceal thy discovery of antiquated impostures, long
worship in secrecy thy purer God, long permit thy parents
(best of all in thee!) to imagine thy faith unalterably like
theirs, and lookedst not upon their idols with abhorrence or
with disdain.
Tsing-Ti. My emperor! my friend! my father! I would
not make uneasy the last years of any one who loved me ;
no, not even to be thought by future ages the most acute, the
most eloquent, the most philosophical of mankind.
SEVENTH AUDIENCE.
The last was a most graciously long audience.
Every day the Emperor my master was pleased to demand
my attendance. But the discourses he now condescended to
hold with me were usually on subjects not at all connected with
my travels. Suddenly one morning he stopped me in the "walk
of cassowaries ;" and holding my arm, said condescendingly:
"I forgot, O Tsing-Ti, to question thee about thy ten
days' visit to Frenchland. It cannot much interest me, see-
ing that he who was called the cleverest among them was
caught in a fray by the most ignorant and stupid of the Tartar
tribes, and that he never had acquired the knowledge how a
man may eventually die by frost or famine. As for religion,
it produced such evil fruits in Frenchland, it was wisely done
to root it up, provided they had levelled the ground about it,
and made it fit for something better."
Perceiving that his Majesty had paused, and waited for an
answer, my first words were these:
Tsing-Ti. Imperfect as is my acquaintance with the lan-
guage of that country, and short my residence in it, I fear to
offer any opinion on what I heard or saw. Although I carried
with me the advantage of introductory letters, both from my
friend the poet, whose manuscript I purchased, and from my
friend the lawyer, and did derive all the benefit I expected
from them, my observations are unsatisfactory to myself;
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
439
what must they be then to the clearer and more searching
sight of your Majesty!
Emperor. More tolerable; we never let things puzzle us
at all, nor interest us much. So go on, Tsing-Ti, from thy
embarkment.
Tsing-Ti. Of my two servants one was an Englishman,
the other a native of Malta, a small island in a great lake,
conquered by the English from the French. He entered at
that time the maritime service of England, and served aboard
the ship which landed me there. He understood three lan-
guages, the French, the English, and the Italian; he could
also write legibly. He was a pagan, but not strict nor su-
perstitious. This I discovered soon after he entered my
house; for while he was on shipboard I knew not of what
religion he was, or whether he was of any. The hour I en-
tered my apartments I had occasion to call for something,
and I found him with an idol in his hand, and saying a prayer.
He tossed the idol down, and cried out in the midst of the
prayer," Eccomi, eccellenza!" Understanding not a syllable,
I thought he was angry, and had reason for it; so I said:
"Van (such being his name among the sailors, although
at home Gio-Van-Ni-Pa-Ti-Sta '*), Van, I am much to be
blamed for interrupting you in your devotions."
"Cospetto! Cappari!" cried he.
I drew out my purse, thinking his animation was anger,
and that no concession of mine could appease him, or induce
him to remain a day longer in my service. I was soon un-
deceived.
“Eccellenza!" said he, "I can neither pray nor swear in
any but the older languages: do excuse me !"
"Proceed," said I, "not in swearing, but in praying."
"As your excellency commands," replied he: "at the same
time I can receive and execute your lordship's wishes." He
recommenced his prayers, and in the midst of a sentence (as
it appeared by his abruptness), "but your excellency has for-
gotten the orders." "No, Van," said I,
No, Van," said I, "when your oration
is completed." He went on with a few syllables more, look-
ing at me all the while. "Command me, Eccellenza Singa!
we are losing our time. The devil is in me if I cannot say
*Giovanni Battista.
440
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
my prayers and hear my master too." He then went on with
a little more, and stopped suddenly. I turned and left the
room, but heard, as I was passing through the door, the
words, "Ah, poor heretic! he knows nothing of religion!"
Van was, however, the most ingenious and the most ac-
complished man aboard, private or officer. Beside his
knowledge of three languages, he played on two instruments
of music, and he could pray fluently in a language which not
even the captain understood, nor Van either, nor perhaps his
idols. My friend, the lawyer, had taken a great fancy to him,
and declared to me he was the quickest fellow he had ever
met with. His clerk, likewise, who happened to be fond of
music, offered to teach him short-hand, if Van in return
would bestow on him a few lessons. Van was indefatiga-
ble, and told me that, when he had lost the honor of serving
me, he would become a professor of short-hand, and make " a
deafening, stupefying, overwhelming fortune." "Those Eng-
lish," said he, "who have no talents, get on very well, but
those who have any, know not what to do with them. They
sit in a corner and mope, while the others eat the sausage."
Your Majesty is too gracious in listening to such recitals,
but really all I can relate is owing to my servant. He wrote
down in short-hand whatever passed in Frenchland, and on
board the vessel which conveyed us thither. And perhaps
in this passage there occurred as much to interest a hearer,
as during our residence the whole ten days on the continent.
The two factions in England retain their ancient appella-
tions, having interchanged principles. A Whig and a Tory,
as they are called, were on board,—probably there were many;
but these two held an argument, of which I have the honor of
laying a copy at the feet of your Majesty.
Emperor. No, no, you have laid enough and a superfluity
before my feet already, and I doubt whether I shall ever get
through it for things that are laid before royal feet seldom
mount much higher. Take it up again and read away, Tsing-
Ti. What I may catch of it is all clear gain, and I can afford
to lose the rest without repining.
Tsing-Ti (reads). "Whig. Shall a king of England be as
intolerant as a monk of Sassoferrato? Shall he withhold from
Englishmen and Irishmen what he has bestowed on Bremen-
ers and Hanoverians? We fear danger, it seems, to our laws,
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
441
from the event of a Catholic majority in our Parliament.
The Catholics will never constitute a tenth of it, reckoning
both houses. Nothing but coercion keeps them together.
Brave and honest and wise men are Catholics, because they
are persecuted for it, and because it would be cowardice
and baseness (and therefore folly) to recede before aggres-
sion. Where there are sounder creeds and more liberal in-
stitutions, Catholicism may long be a party cry, but cannot
long be a religion. It will retain as little of its old significa-
tion as Whig or Tory. Gentlemen will disdain an authority
which rests upon equivocation and prevarication, which is
convicted of frauds and fallacies, and which insists that false-
hood is requisite to ensure the concord and tranquillity of
nations. The fever is kept up by shutting the door. Open it,
and the sufferer will walk out with you, enjoy the same pros-
pects, and engage in the same interests and pursuits. While
the Catholics are in a state of pupilage, the priests will con-
tinue to lead them, no longer. Perform the act of justice
they demand, and what difference in any great political ques-
tion can divide the Catholic from the Protestant ? Can the
Pope persuade the Irish to hazard their houses when we
have made them comfortable? Hold nothing back from any
man that is his, and least of all urge as a reason for it that you
hold it back now because you have been holding it back many
years. Be strictly just and impartial, and the priest may
poison his affections and paralyze his intellect, but will never
shake off his allegiance to legitimate authority. Construct
the Catholic church in Ireland as you find it constructed in
France and Germany; and then, if the Pope fraudulently
enters it, and stands at the door and threatens, seize him
wherever he may run, and punish him severely for his im-
pudence. No power in these days would interfere in his
behalf; for however some may resist the oppressing, none
can stand up against the avenging arm of Britain. We have
given proofs of it, age after age, and I trust we need not
whisper in the gallery of the Vatican what we proclaimed so
lately from the summit of Montmartre.
"Tory. The Whigs have inherently so little of liberality,
that another party has carried off the title. Englishmen have
been deprived of the elective franchise, - and by whom? by
Whigs. Voters may give directions, may give orders, to
442
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
representatives; but representatives can neither give orders.
nor directions to voters. How much less then are we to sup-
pose that they shall, in law or reason, sign a mandate for the
extinction of as many as they please, in order to become, not
the representatives and executors, but the arbiters and rulers
of the rest! Representation cannot be changed or modified
in this manner while a constitution is standing. When a
constitution is thrown down, and another is about to be.
erected, the people may then draw narrower boundaries for
the exercise of its power in the hope (rational or irrational)
of being more peaceable and secure.
(6
Whig. But we drew wider.
Tory. You excluded some, and made a distinction in
franchises. It is a solemn and a sacred thing to draw a new
line for the pomæria of a State. When septennial Parliaments
were decreed by you Whigs in place of triennial, I wonder
that not a jurist, not a demagogue, told the populace that
Parliament had inherently no authority for it. I wonder that
all the counties and all the boroughs in the kingdom did not
recall their betrayers, and insist on the preservation of their
franchises. This invasion, this utter overthrow of the Eng-
lish constitution, was the work of our enemies, the Whigs.
Whenever they have among them an honest sentiment, they
borrow it; and when they have done what they want with
it, they throw it aside. Faction in other countries has come
forward in a fiercer and more formidable attitude; none ever
growled so long and felt so little anger; none ever grovelled
so low and expected so little benefit; none ever wagged its
tail so winningly and earned so little confidence.
Whig. It is idle to speculate on the irremediable, or to
censure the measures of the extinct; besides, we were talking
not of curtailment but of concession.
(C
Tory. The coronation oath opposes it.
Whig Parliament, that can place clauses and inabilities
before kings, can certainly remove them. Some have indeed
been mad enough to deny the right of the English people to
check or regulate the royal prerogative; but nobody was ever
mad enough to deny the right of removing an impediment to
the exercise of the royal beneficence. If I exact an oath
from you for my security, I may absolve you from it when I
feel secure without it.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
443
"Tory. Kings may have their scruples.
Whig. Some people wish they had more.
But when the
scruples are about our safety, if we feel perfectly safe, and
they persist in telling us we can have no such feeling unless
we are insane, they grossly wrong and insult us.
66
Tory. Harsh words! very harsh words!
Whig. Words are made harsh by what they fall on.
The ground gives the fruit its flavor.
66
Tory. Excuse me, but you are a very young man, sir!
and although I am well aware that your merits quite cor-
respond with your reputation, yet, pray excuse me! I cannot
think the opinions you have delivered are altogether your
own; certainly, the language and the manner are not: for,
really and truly, my dear sir, the last sentences, in my humble
opinion, were somewhat short and captious, and not quite so
applicable to the subject as a close consistent reasoner might
desire.
"Whig. I resign them to your discretion, being unable
to ascertain the author; and conscientiously believing they
were mine. If wiser men have delivered them, they must
appear worth your consideration; if unwiser, what am I
to think of argument thus urged by reasoners of less ability
than my own, and yet such as you, so acute in ratiocination
and so superior to sophistry, cannot grapple with and dare
not meet?
(C
Tory. Any fair, plain question, any intelligible proposi-
tion! But young birds take long flights, and there is no
coming up with them. If there were nothing to fight for but
creeds, everybody would hold his private one quietly; but
the Catholic priest is soured at the sight of old steeples above
new sounding-boards, and stamps for his own again.
"Whig. I would not have ventured on the remark.
Should it be just, people may perhaps, and before twenty
years are over our heads, hang the cat on this side of the
door and the dog on the other, and end their difference with
one string.
(6
Tory. God forbid! But better twenty years hence than
now. May I never live to see the day when we concede an
iota to the people of Ireland! We have given them too much
already.
“Whig.
Certainly; if you never intended to give more.
4++
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
You showed your fears then, your injustice now, your obsti-
nacy and perverseness ever. It is wiser to give freely than
by force, and better to call forth their gratitude than their
strength.
(C
Tory. We must treat them like brawn: we must keep
them long over the fire, turn them out slowly, and bind them
tight, or we can never slice them regularly and neatly.
CC
Whig. We may pay dear for the ordinary. No nation
is likely to rely on the probity of France, after her ingratitude
and falsehood to every ally on the continent, to Spain, to
Italy, to Poland. Nevertheless there is none that would not
receive from her all the assistance it could, consistently with
its own independence. At present, for a time at least, she
makes no trial of strength by the tenacity of bondage, but
would rather win, apparently, the affections of her subjects
than control the consciences.
66
Tory. She will soon see her error, if she goes much
farther, and, let us hope, correct it: otherwise we must have
another war against her in support of our Constitution. For
such principles spread like oil upon water, and are inflam-
mable as oil upon fire. France may discover to her cost that
we retain both our principles and our courage.
"Whig. Our principles, I trust, are out of danger; and,
in case of invasion, our courage too would be sufficient. But
as our wars have usually been conducted, if every man in
England had as much courage and as much strength as
Samson, it would avail us little, unless we had in addition
the scrip of his countryman Rothschild. Men like these
support wars, and men like Grenville beget them.
Tory. Not a word against that immortal man, if you
please, sir! This coat is his gift, and his principles keep it
upon my shoulders. Your economists, the most radical of
them, will inform you that not money, but the rapid circula-
tion of money, is wealth. Now what man ever made it cir-
culate so rapidly? All the steam engines that ever were
brought into action would hardly move such quantities of the
precious metals with such velocity. England is England
yet.
cr
Whig. In maps and histories. After her struggles and
triumphs, she is like her soldiers in the field of Waterloo,
slumberous from exhaustion. The battles of Marlborough
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
445
were followed by far different effects. The nation was only
the more alert for its exertions; generous sentiments pre-
vailed over sordid, public over selfish: the Tory showed that
he was a gentleman, and the Whig that he was ready to
become one.
((
Tory. Where are all these promises of his?
"Whig. Partially, if but partially, fulfilled. Come, we
have been dragging our net long enough over weeds and
shallows let us each pull in our end of the cord, and see
what we have caught.
"Tory. Admirable proposal!
The debates of parties
always end in this manner, either by word or deed.
"Whig. My meaning is different.
"Tory.
My version is best.
"Whig. Perhaps it may be: you have many adherents.
All things in this world have two sides and various aspects.
Sensible men, after fair discussion, come into one another's
terms at last. Position gives color to men as to chameleons.
Those on the treasury-bench are of a fine spring-green; those
on the opposite are rather blue.”
Thus terminated the discussion; and Van, striking his
thigh, cried out in his own language: Corbezzoli ! Sant-
Antonio! I thought we had rogues in Malta.”
EIGHTH AUDIENCE.
His Majesty could understand so much of the foregoing
debate (interrupting it often to ask me for explanations) as
made his royal countenance gleam with smiles. When they
fairly had subsided, he said compassionately :
"I pity a people that has always a thief at each pocket,
and is doomed at once to hear their blusterings and to suffer
their spoliations. The only respite is, when the left-hand
thief is taking the right-hand thief's place. Let me hear no
more about them; but rather say something of your descent
on Frenchland.”
Tsing-Ti. It was happy, most happy. No sooner had I
landed than I had the good fortune to save the life of a
fellow-creature. In the city of Calais there are many women
who, for various offences, are condemned to carry on their
heads pyramidal towers of nearly the same height as them-
i
446
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
selves. The French have invented, with wonderful ingenuity,
a process by which linen is tempered to the hardness of steel.
Of such linen are these pyramidal towers constructed. Rush-
ing toward me, under the weight of one, the unfortunate
creature tripped. I sprang forward in time to save her;
otherwise a swing-gate of the material which swing-gate
is called a lappet — turning under the chin as she stumbled,
must inevitably have cut the head off. My first impulse was
to rush into a church and render thanks to the Almighty
for the interposition of his providence. But the woman, in
an ecstasy of joy, kissed me again and again, twirled me
round, and danced a religious dance; in which, to the best
of my ability, I joined. The people of this city are devout.
Innumerable parties were instantly formed about us, and the
rejoicings at so signal a delivery were loud and universal.
Indeed, now I speak of loudness, I never was five minutes,
from sunrise until sunset, in any place so solitary, that some
loud voice, human or animal, did not reach me; yet several
times I was afar from cities, and, as I thought, from habita-
tions. When the people sing, they sing to the utmost pitch
of their voices; the children cry and scream and despair as
loudly; the dogs themselves think growling lost time, and
unworthy of their courage, and bark vociferously. I won-
dered to find the women in Calais of darker complexion than
ours in Canton; not only the condemned, and others exposed
to hard labor, but nearly all. The population in general of
this province is much uglier than any I visited in my travels.
The men forcing their wives and daughters to live exposed
to the sun, and to work hard, may account for the brownness
and the wrinkles of the skin, but I am unable to form any
conjecture on what causes the hideousness of their features.
My servant cried out at three who ogled him: "O my sweet
Marzia-Paolina! are these spettacoli of the same pasta that
thou art?" and, crossing himself, spat upon the ground. He
then ran into every term of admiration for the beauties of
Italy. "There," said he, "they are what Domine-Dio made
them, natural, liberal, sweet-tempered, and sincere.
Italy they let you see what they are; in England they wish
to make you fancy what they ought to be. Capricious-
ness will not permit them to be tender; and tenderness
will not permit ours to be capricious: ours are mutable
In
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
447
}
without immodesty, and love you again for letting them go
free."
"I would have driven him away with stripes," said the
Emperor, "if he had given me such a description of women
so far off. We must think no more about them, for we
have not here the castellated saint of Calais to preserve our
equipoise. I am anxious to find thee safe at the capital of
the country."
“Glad was I, O my Emperor! to reach it. Every bone in
my body was in pain, as if dislocated. No public road in
England or China is kept in such a wretched condition as
the road from Calais to Paris. The poorest states in Europe
would be ashamed of such a communication of village with
village. I had been undressed at Calais by the king's offi-
cer's; I was undressed again at the barrier of Paris."
"I did not expect such an honor would be paid to my
subject," said his Majesty the Emperor, " as his undressing
by the king's own officers."
CC
"It was not intended," said I, as any peculiar mark of
favor; for the same undressing was performed by the same
agents on the persons of several men and women."
"How!" exclaimed his Majesty.
"Under pretext," replied I, "of examining the dresses,
lest any thing contraband should be concealed within them,
but in reality to extort money from the men and blushes
from the females. A blush in Frenchland is a rarity, and
must be imported. I never saw one on any native face; but
then I visited only the capital and some smaller cities, and
remained there only ten days. Travellers are apt to form too
hasty conclusions: I would avoid it. Yet surely if blushes
were either inherent or transferable, some must have made
their appearance at the theatre. The brothel and the slaugh-
ter-house seem to unite their forces to support the Parisian
stage; civilization and humanity stand aghast before it;
honor is travestied and derided. Without any knowledge of
the language, I might have been mistaken in the dialogue,
but fortunately Van Ni procured the pieces in print, and
translated them into English. He himself was greatly
shocked at the scenes of selfishness and dishonesty which
signalized the principal personages in the drama. These,
however, were applauded by both sexes. He sought relief
448
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
in his devotions, and went to perform them in the principal
church. No sooner had he begun his prayers, than two
young men, who had been walking up and down the church,
the one with a small monkey on his shoulder, the other with
a poodle-dog half-sheared, stepped before him, and remarked
in more than a whisper that, being an Italian, he must cer-
tainly have assassinated somebody, otherwise on the right
side of forty he never could have fallen into such imbecility
and decrepitude. Van Ni hearing the word assassin applied
to him, cried: 'Stay there, Excellencies, and, by Cosimo and
Damiano! when I have said another five ave-marias, I will
give you soap to lather your faces with.' He hurried through
them, and, spinning on his legs, cried: 'Now, Excellencies,
you porkers, this being holy church, come out, and meet a
gallant man, who will make tripe of you.'
"He came up close to them, so close that the monkey
sprang upon his head. Whether he feared a bite, or was
startled at the suddenness of the action, he struck the animal
off; and the poodle, not having formed any friendship with it,
seized it, shook it by the throat, and tossed it into the side aper-
ture of the confessional. Van Ni was struck with horror, and
exclaimed: 'See now what you have done! O Santa Orsola!
Santa Apollonia! I am disembowelled with desperation! That
scurvy animal will die in the confessional! Ó Giesu-Maria !
and the asinaccio of a father, whoever he is, has taken away
the key: Giesu-Maria!' The two young men, who had been
storming and lamenting, now burst forth into immoderate
laughter. Finding that, in despite of his displeasure, the
young men continued in their irrisory mood, Van Ni admon-
ished them a second time, and with greater seriousness.
"Excellencies,' said he, 'how is this? Is it convenient
to turn into mockery a gallant man, and before the saints?
Holy Virgin! if you make any more of those verses at Gio-
Van-Ni-Pa-Ti-Sta, I will show you what you shall see, and
you will favor me by letting me hear what you feel. What!
again! Mind me! I have killed rats as good meat as your
Excellencies, and where your Excellencies (pest on such
porkery!) dared not come, on board a British ship, you
cullions! Remember now the words of Gio-Van-Ni-Pa-Ti-Sta,
and bear him respect another time. Cospetto! Signori! you
go laughing on. If you will only step out of this church,
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
449
where I would not commit a sproposito, by the martyrs! you
shall laugh in laugh minore, and shake and quaver to my
instrument. Eh! Eh! Eh! but hear another word. I have
tossed over the fire better omelets than your Excellencies.
And now you know who I am.'
"The young persons screamed aloud with merriment, and
left the church.
"Van returned to me with tears in his eyes, related the
whole occurrence, and begged leave to run into another
church, and make confession. 'Yonder two towers,' said he,
'are solid as Malta and Gozzo; but Domine-Dio guard me
from ever walking under them or within reach of their
shadows! That cursed monkey will have died in the con-
fessional! No arm can reach down to him! Santa Vergine!
A pretty story to be told up there in Paradiso! Was the
fault mine? Did I throw him in? I ask ye all, all: have ye
the faces to say it? O Misericordia ! — I wish I were fairly
out of the country, after this; particularly if, before I go, I
could meet those two gentlemen who caused so much heart-
breaking and scandal. San Cristofano!'
He continued quite uneasy for several days: at last he
found a master who was going into Italy; but he declared
his resolution to continue with me until my departure,
although he should lose his place. My regard for him
would not allow this. I rewarded his services more largely
than he expected, and his tears fell together with his kisses
on my hand. I reminded him of his resolution to make that
stupendous fortune by his short-hand. 'Non pensi! non
pensi! lasciami fare!' said he, confident and contented.
"I was resolved to visit the temple so calamitous to him.
It was full of people; but before the altar I could discern
two figures kneeling in rich dresses. The one was a man
with a face like a horse's, the other was a woman with a face
like a wolf's. I thought they had come thither to offer up
prayers and supplications that their ancient visages might be
restored to them, with any other feature of lost humanity
which their dresses might conceal. No such thing. They
were the heirs to the crown; and the female was prostrate
before her favorite idol, to entreat she might have a child.
The idol, I was told, only promised her a man, and did not
perform even that. On the very next day was the horrible
VOL. V.
29
450
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
rebellion which drove the reigning dynasty out of Frenchland.
No repast was brought me at the usual hour, nor indeed had
I any appetite for it. But toward the same hour on the day
following I grew hungry, and was about to ring the bell for
the waiter, when Van entered the room and threw his arms
about my neck.
"Heavens be praised!' cried he.
"I was greatly moved at his affection, and assured him I
rejoiced in his safety as heartily as he rejoiced in mine.
"Ke! Ke!' said he, 'that is all well; but what do you
think, Eccellenza Singa? the monkey is alive and safe!
The confessional pure and holy! Bestiaccia! how it moved
my entrails.'
"Van had been present in the midst of the carnage, and
heard a laugh close to him. Active as he was in the combat,
he turned his eye to that quarter, and saw the two young
men fighting most valiantly. He bowed to them, and they
cheered him. The fire of their opponents now began to
slacken, and they came up to him and shook him by the
hand.
"Excellencies!' said he, 'I bear you no ill-will, for a
Christian has no malice in his heart; but you and that mon-
key have put my soul in peril, and it is right you should know
it. The money that ugly beast used to cost you in feeding
him ought to go to the priest.'
"I could not find a more legitimate heir,' said the owner,
'but he may make his own will yet.'
"He lives then! he lives!' cried Van Ni. The saints
be praised! I shall not want your money for masses, should
the worst befall me.'
"Van Ni, knowing my state of inanition, ran to the nearest
cook's shop for a dish of meat, telling me that his master
had escaped from Paris, and had left a note, the purport of
which was that he would write to him again when he had
found a place of safety in Switzerland or Tyrol. On this
day I did not perceive any difference in the cookery, and,
although I did perceive it the day following, I said nothing.
However, at last I remarked it; whereupon Van Ni said:
'Eccellenza! I quite forgot to tell you that he who was
pamphleteer and gazetteer, and critic and cook, is now
become, or about to become, prime minister.'
"
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
45I
1
When I had recited so much of my narrative to his Majesty
the Emperor, he laid his imperial hand benignly on my
shoulder, saying,
"O Tsing-Ti! the occidental world orientalizes rapidly.
Any thing farther about this dexterous lucky slave?"
"Little more," answered I. "On his elevation a Parisian
poet wrote some complimentary verses; but the ancient
idiom of the French language, which he chose, is beyond
my comprehension: permit me therefore to lay before the
footstool of your Majesty the scroll containing them.
Dic sodes, animose, dic Thiersi !
Tantus quum fueris domi forisque,
Illâ denique natione cretus
Quæ jacentia, quæ minuta, verbis
(Nôsti) magnificis solet vocare;
Dic, quum sis patre major in culinâ
(Nec pater tamen infimus coquorum)
Cur, tanto ingenio unicè maligni,
Te Galli vocitent tui Coquinum?
Quare te minuant ita, O`Thiersì?
His Majesty the Emperor cast his eye on them as they were
lying on the carpet, and said gravely:
"The characters are European, but several of the words I
discover to bear a close affinity to the Kobolsk Tartar."
His Majesty is an etymologist.
"I have been thinking," said his Majesty the Emperor,
"how that ancient French resembles the loftier language
under the rising sun. I regret that thou hadst not leisure to
acquire some knowledge both of the ancient and the modern."
"I regret it also, my Emperor," said I; "not because the
nations of Europe agree to converse in the modern as being
central, but because it contains our Fables, told in a manner
far more delightful than with us. No language in Europe is
said to be so scanty or so inharmonious; but there being so
little room in it, you cannot get out of your way. Precision
is its merit. As in England the belief of Christianity is
allowed to one sect and the profession to another, so in
Frenchland the written language is one thing, another the
spoken. There is however a faint similitude, which may be
discovered even by a learner. I took but seven lessons, yet
could perceive it when it was carefully pointed out. My
teacher was an impostor, who wished to keep me long under
452
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
his hands. Not contented with asserting that the authors of
Frenchland are superior to the best of England, of Italy, of
Germany, of Spain, and that the language is softer and more
flexible than the Russian and the Swedish, he attempted to
persuade me that et, est, ez, ex, oie, ais, oit, aix, and many
more, had all the same sound. This was evidently to save
his trouble, and to make me ridiculed
""
"That cannot be a language," said the Emperor, "of which
the sounds are reducible to no rules; unless as we apply the
term when we say the language of birds and beasts. Letters
and syllables were not made to be thrown away or spit out.
Every sign, every symbol, denotes one thing, and only one.
The same finger of a direction-post cannot show twenty
roads. Having now the advantage of thy servant again, I
hope thou enjoyedst by his means the opportunity of con-
versing with the learned, and greatly more to thy comfort
than if thou hadst been under the guidance of a teacher so
mischievous and malicious."
"Yes," answered I, "the moment my fears abated I was
conducted to visit a few of them, carrying with me my letters
of introduction. I had none for scientific men, of whom
there are several in Paris of the first eminence. Works of
genius, apart from science, there are few, and, by what I
heard, of quite another order. There are, however, two poets
of some distinction: one raises the enthusiasm of the viva-
cious and the liberal by the energy of his songs; the other is
more in esteem with the devout, which compensates for the
want of vigor and originality. I thought I could not concili-
ate the lover of liberty more readily than by comparing its
triumph at the previous day with its suppression under the
iron hand of Napoleon. He abolished your republic, he
devised a catechism for your children, by which unquestion-
ing and blind obedience was inculcated; he forged the glo-
rious arms of your patriots and defenders into chains long
and strong enough to hold everlastingly in thraldom all their
future progeny.' 'Sit down, sir,' said the poet, ‘and hold
your tongue. Don't repeat in this house the eastern dream
of an opium-eater. We are warm with the unsetting glory
of France.'
"Perceiving that I had given offence, and suspecting that
I had mistaken the house, I returned home; and when his
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
453
2
$
speech was interpreted to me, I looked in my dictionary for
the word glory. I found it often meant the glitter that paint-
ers put over the heads of idols; and this was truly its most
intelligible and its most common acceptation. Knowing to a
certainty that the devouter poet was attached to the king of
the last week, I condoled with him on the disaster of a mon-
arch so pious and unfortunate. He bowed. The only comfort
I could offer him was that talents had never lost their value
in Frenchland, through all the vicissitudes of thirty years;
and that scarcely Prussia or Russia was more admirable for
the advancement of literary men. He bowed, and answered
in an under tone of voice: 'I really do not pretend to know
any thing of those people: I only know that our houses are
degraded at every step that his Majesty has been constrained
to take. All ranks and orders are confounded, and the high
sense of honor which was peculiar to Frenchland, and which
formerly made the meanest Frenchman's heart leap impa-
tiently out of his bosom, lies prostrate and half-extinct.'
"I thought I had been listening to a Montmorency (French
for old noble), but on inquiry I found I had not been guilty of
that mistake.
"Out of respect to the ancient nobility, such at least I
presume is the motive, many young persons in that country,
whether of the commissariat or the coach-office, are grave
and taciturn when privileges or privations are mentioned.
They draw themselves up into the stiffness and concentra-
tion of mummies, and from their swathings and cases stare
us into stone. These, however, are civil and distant; and
perhaps their distance is the best part of their civility. An-
other set is less tolerable: it assumes the name of Young
France. Whatever can be conceived of insolence and au-
dacity is put into daily practice by these troublesome and
restless barbarians. I could not refrain from making the
remark to a gentleman of philosophical cast, who came to
visit me, adding, that surely all the abuses of the extinct
nobility, with all the absurdity and injustice of its heredit-
ariness, were less intolerable.
"The older creation of the nobility,' said he, 'like the
older of animals lately discovered by the geologists, is more
ill-constructed and ill-favored than the recenter; so that it
pleased God to put an end it, and to try such other forms
454
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
as might be convenient to carry his designs into execution.
But either is, as you say, better than this ditch-spawn.'
(C
Finding him a calm and reasonable man, I ventured to
congratulate him on the near prospect of peace and tranquil-
lity in his country, and on the enthusiasm his new king ex-
cited. He bowed to me, and answered:
"We have at last a chance of it. These forty years past
we have had our Goddesses of Liberty, Goddesses of Reason,
Goddesses of Theophilanthropy, Goddesses of War, scream-
ing and pulling caps in the Place de la Concorde. We have
had white feathers, red feathers, eagle's feathers, cock's
feathers, and at last no feathers at all. We have gone
kingless, breechless, lawless, and constitutionless: we cannot
be well less at present. We have gone booted into every
drawing-room on the Continent, and our spurs have torn off
every flounce and train. Finally, we put them on ourselves,
and swaggered about for a while with much theatrical effect.
One unlucky day the first actor, who never could walk
straight nor see three inches before him, caught his own
long-tailed robe with his spur, and, being an impetuous man,
gave such a plunge that it fell off his shoulders, and left the
whole of him as bare as the back of my hand. The inferior
actors were scandalized at the disgrace brought on the
profession, but no one had the dexterity or presence of mind
to pick up the long-tailed robe. At last it was claimed by a
fat man, who drew it across his belly, and made the ends
meet as well as he could; but much was wanting. When he
died, the priests seized upon it, and cut it up in pieces to
put under their wine cups. But you were speaking of our
happy acquisition. Depend upon it, the present king is no
such a novice in the trade as some about him would persuade
him. He is fitter to govern us than any man we have seen
for two centuries. He will never have a minister who is not
taken from the ranks; never a man of genius, never an
honest man; but secondary and plausible. The reason is.
that, whenever they displease him, their removal will only
render him more popular. Added to which, it is always
gratifying to the populace, and by no means offensive to the
middle classes, to see low people raised. In one word,
Louis-Philippe is the only person of ancient family in France
who may not justly be reproached with degeneracy. I do
}
1
į
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
455
assure you he is as honest a man as his father, and farther-
more has learned the secret of keeping a wiser head on his
shoulders. He has the shrewdness of Richelieu, the supple-
ness of Mazarin; all their rapacity, all their pertinacity; the
arrogance of both, the vanity of neither. Whatever there is
about him tells for something; and we must pay its value to
the uttermost. His royal foot rests so assuredly on well-
beaten and levelled France, that the telescope with which he
looks leisurely on the world around him is not shaken a
hair's breadth. I will answer for him, there is no potentate
in Europe whom he has not already convinced of his loyalty
and good intentions; and when you return to China you will
find that he has offered your Emperor to assist him in putting
down the refractory spirit of the Tartars, being well in har-
mony with his brother the Emperor of Russia, who is equally
ready to exert his kind offices to the same effect.' "
Emperor. It is unhandsome to sue for such generosity
until the time of need, or to take every word to the letter.
Tsing-Ti. I was not aware of the existence of such a sect
as Young France, until I was shoved off the pavement by a strip-
ling, who was troubled with a hairy mole on the nether lip.
Not being his father, the misfortune could nohow be attributed
to me. I had acquired enough of the language to enable
me to ask him to what dignitary I had the honor of sur-
rendering my station. "I represent the Young France,"
cried he.
I bowed profoundly, and was constrained to answer in
English, for my French failed me at so long a breath. “I
shall be most happy in the opportunity of congratulating the
Young France on her having learned by heart the first lesson
of politeness.'
He raised his arm to strike me; but a German, of about
the same age, who happened to be passing at the time, said
to him calmly: "Remember, sir, we have fired at the same
academy, and my ball usually went nearer the bull's eye."
Young France recovered at once his memory and his temper.
I returned home in perturbation; for, O my Emperor! I have
not yet outlived all my passions. God has been pleased to
grant me a lively consciousness of my existence, by implant-
ing in me deeply the fear of losing it.
My servant was not alone when I entered. In his walk
456
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
homeward, hearing his native tongue in the streets, he
accosted the speakers: "Excellencies!" cried he.
"We are
"The
no excellencies; we are exiles," answered one of them.
better! the better!" said honest, warm-hearted Van Ni. “I
dare invite you then to my house. Come along: pardon me
if I walk before you."
Hearing voices in my apartment, I halted at the door, and
caught what I was afterward told were these words, which
Van Ni wrote down: "We have no right to complain of our
fortune, young or old. Was not Tasso chained to his bed-
post? Was not he half-starved in the house of Cardinal
Scipione? Was not he driven out of it? Was not he
defrauded of his own cottage? Would his best friend lend
him the few crowns which, he said, might save him from
starvation and distraction? Princes, you see, did much
against him; but not all. The manly breast can bear any
blow unless from the hand it cherished." He who was
listening now struck his forehead, and groaned aloud. "Tis
there!" cried he, "and that blow reaches me in this cham-
ber." "I," said the exhorter and comforter, "I can only
pity you then. No balm grows in those deserts; no dew falls
there! Alas my friend! if only persecuted genius were pour-
ing forth his lamentation, I could soar above him and bring
him airs from heaven. I would point up to Dante in the
skies. Was not Dante an exile? was not Dante in danger of
being burned alive? was not that sentence passed against
him? A republic did it; his own republic. Italy is beautiful
yet, and once was glorious; but the nurse of genius is older
than she. Brought up and fostered in the soft clime of
Syracuse, she breathed her last in the palm-groves of the
Ptolemies."
::
I took advantage of this pause, and instantly told my
servant to be seated again and to call his friends.
"Eccel-
lenza!" said he, "how is it possible, how is it possible I
can be so wanting to my duty? These gentlemen are my
countrymen, and in tribulation."
Meanwhile they were standing, and making many apologies.
"Persons of your worth and misfortunes pain me more than
sufficiently," said I, “without the trouble you are taking in
these explanations.”
I invited them to my house, Eccellenza!" said Van Ni.
EMPEROR OF CHINA AND TSING-TI.
457
"Now, Signori, do not servants in Italy always use the
expression, my house? We should think it more presumptu-
ous to say our house; because it would seem to indicate that
we placed ourselves on an equality with our masters." They
acknowledged that the expression was universal in their
country, and had only to regret that by its misrepresentation
it had caused me such an inconvenience.
I could not but compare their manners with the French,
very greatly to their advantage, and fancied that even the
English might learn something from them. Certainly the
islanders are thick-rinded and rather sour.
No persuasion of mine could induce the exiles to remain.
They fancied I was an Englishman from the East Indies,
and hoped I would exert my influence for the delivery of
their country.
"If my master were an Englishman, he would feel it his
duty," said Van Ni; "for Englishmen threw you, bound hand
and foot, among the dogs."
His Majesty the Emperor asked me whether the Italians
were not from that country which pretended to the monopoly
of religion. I was not quite sure, and told him so.
"I have a suspicion," said his Majesty,
" said his Majesty, "that the old
sorcerer lay somewhere thereabout."
-
I believe he was near the mark; but my memory failed me.
He then asked about the causes of the insurrection and
revolution in Frenchland. My reply was, that
king had
been persuaded by his courtiers to take away some things
which he had given; and his people said that he had given
them what was theirs before; that it was an indignity to offer
it at first; that it was a defiance to seize it again; and that
he had no right to stand above the laws.
"It is the glory of princes," said his Majesty the Emperor,
"to stand the foremost under them."
:
458
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XXX. LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT.
Louis Philippe. Congratulate me, M. Guizot, on the com-
plete success of our enterprise in Spain. The Infanta is ours.
Grave as you ordinarily are, M. Guizot, it appears to me
that you are graver than usual. A formal bow from you is
surely but little on so grand an acquisition. Perhaps I
ought to have congratulated you, instead of asking for your
congratulations, since it was mainly by your dexterity that
the business, in despite of impediments, was accomplished.
Guizot. Sire, it is much, very much indeed, to have
merited your Majesty's approbation.
Louis Philippe. Well, then, if such are your sentiments,
and you always have acted so that I must believe they are,
why this reticence; why this solemnity of countenance and
gravity of manner? Diplomatists have always something in
reserve, even from their best friends; what is that, may I
venture to inquire, which you have now, ever since your
entrance, been holding back from yours?
Guizot. Sire, there is nothing I can hold back at present.
Louis Philippe. You have rendered an inestimable service
to my family; and the money you have disbursed among the
needy ministers and military gamesters in Spain secured the
marriage of my son, and secures their adherence to my
ulterior interests.
Guizot. The most high-minded of nations, as Spain was
two centuries ago, is become the most mercenary. I paid
the gentlemen for their performance with no greater reluc-
tance than I would have paid dustmen or nightmen. But,
denying to the English minister what I did deny, in regard
to the marriage of the Duke and the Infanta, I prevaricated
most grossly.
Louis Philippe. No, no, my dear M. Guizot, not most
grossly; quite the contrary. Say rather, if the awkward word
prevaricate will obtrude itself, — say rather, most adroitly, most
diplomatically.
Guizot. For such an action in private life, were it possible
I could have committed it, I should be utterly and for ever
excluded from society.
Louis Philippe. Excluded from society? What society?—
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT.
459
the society of myself, of my queen, of my sons, of my digni-
taries in Church and State?
Guizot. I did not mention the dignitaries, nor allude to
them, nor think of them; but the society of the manly, the
disinterested, the lover of straightforwardness and truth.
Louis Philippe. Be tranquil, be considerate; reflect a
little. Ministers under arbitrary monarchs may seldom
stand quite upright, but they are subject to no influences
which make them shuffle, as those under constitutional kings
must do occasionally. England contains a greater number
of honest men than all the continents put together: count
me now, if you can, three honest prime ministers in her
records of three hundred years. Honesty in France puts on
a demisaison quite early, but soon finds it too cold for wear.
Neckar was a strictly virtuous man, clear-sighted and indus-
trious; Roland was the purest and completest type of virtue,
not in France only, but in the universe: his wife, who assisted
him in his arduous labors, is justly a partaker of his glory.
You yourself have not cleaner hands, nor sounder judgment,
nor purer style than hers. And what was the fate of all
three? — to be depreciated and derided. Now let us go back
to the old monarchy. Richelieu and Mazarin could do
their business without the necessity of corrupting. He who
can hang, imprison, and torture, is above the baseness of
a canvass, purse in hand. Richelieu and Mazarin, when
France contained less than half her present population,
expended each on his own account above twenty millions
of francs, and left to his heirs about as much. Despotic
kings find men already corrupted; constitutional must endure
the trouble and the obloquy of making them so. Never, my
good M. Guizot, was the proverb "straining at gnats and
swallowing of camels" so well exemplified. Unless you had
reverted to my own family affairs, I should abstain from
reminding you about Piscatory and Rougeaux at Athens.
By whose advice was it that the adventurer Rougeaux was
furnished with dollars to enlist electors, and to purchase
pistols, ready against their adversaries? By whose advice
did Otho forswear the Constitution he had solemnly sworn
to? At whose instigation was Kalergis banished, Church
divested of his command, and Lyons received at court
contemptuously?
460
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Guizot. By your Majesty's.
Louis Philippe. Sir, kings do not advise, do not instigate ;
they command.
Guizot. Your Majesty is (if I offend not likewise in this
expression) the most able and successful of administrators.
Louis Philippe. And something of the logician. Really I
see no better reason for your uneasiness about the share you
have taken in the matrimonial arrangements at Madrid, than
about those equally delicate at Monte-Video. The English
were no less dexterously circumvented by you there than
here.
Guizot. I never forfeited my word in that quarter.
Louis Philippe. If we elude, delude, deceive, over-reach (I am
ready to take any one of these synonymes from your book),
what matters, when done, whether it be oral or written?
Breach of promise is an expression at all times in general
use; often inconsiderately. In fact, on these occasions we
kings do not break our promises; we only cut adroitly the
corks we are to swim upon, and tie them loosely; neglecting
which process, we should never keep our heads above water
and strike out. You are going to England: go by all means.
There you will see the most honorable men at the helm of
government, who never thought their worn words worth keep-
ing any more than their worn clothes. I refer to no one
party; all are alike in this. Men who would scorn to cheat
to the amount of a livre at the whist-table, cheat to the amount
of millions at the Speaker's.
Guizot.
Is there never an account to be rendered?
Louis Philippe. Many believe there is; all act as if there
is none.
Guizot. Surely a sense of glory must actuate some among
a people so thoughtful, so far-sighted, so desirous of self-
esteem, of cordial acceptance at home and abroad, of repu-
tation in life and after.
Louis Philippe. Holy Scripture hath said we are worms;
there can be no offence in classing them. Historians, like
those in the rich and unctuous soil of churchyards, feed upon
the dead; courtiers and ministers of state, in England as
elsewhere, are tape-worms that feed within live bodies, and
are too slender and slippery (to say no worse of them) for
your fingers to take hold of; one species draws its susten-
!
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT.
461
:
ance from corruption in the grave, another from corruption
on this side of it. Philosopher, as I was educated to be, I
begin to lean toward the priesthood, and to think their cook-
ery of us the more palatable. We, like tunnies, are kept best
under salt and oil; we are pickled at top and bottom, at birth
and death, and are consigned to the wholesale dealer residing
at Rome. We must all bend a little for the benefit of our
families and our country. Was not I myself exposed to the
censure of the inconsiderate on the Duke of Bourbon's death?
I did not hang him; I did not hire another to do it. The
mistress he found in the streets of Brighton came into the
possession of much wealth and rich jewelry at his decease.
What portion of them she presented to me and to the queen
you know pretty well, and the gratitude we showed toward
her, inviting her to a family dinner party, and seating her at
table by the side of royalty. If we can do these things for
France and the children of France, what may not those do
who have only the skirts of our dignity to support? And
what, M. Guizot, was your fault, your oversight?
Guizot. Neither, sire, neither; but crime, great crime,
worse than simple falsehood: there was a falsehood covered
over by a fraud, and again a fraud by a falsehood, and borne
with a stealthy step into the Church.
Louis Philippe. The Church gave its blessing; so let that
pass. Take my word for it, M. Guizot, if you went to Lon-
don this afternoon, you would be visited to-morrow morning
by the identical honest men, ministers of state and subordi-
nates, whose censure you apprehend. I know them perfectly.
They would be courteous and conciliating to you, and
ashamed and afraid of showing to the people that they ever
had been duped and over-reached. Beside, they know, as
well as you and I, that they dare not go to war with me what-
ever I do; for I have six or seven well-disciplined soldiers
for their one undisciplined: I can have two experienced gun-
ners afloat in a fortnight against their one in a month,
scattered as their navy is, where it can act to no pur-
pose; for the Constitution of Portugal is worın-eaten already,
and two inert bodies, with cumbrous and costly crowns,
weigh heavily and intolerably on the people. England is
titularly a kingdom: some have gone so far in their folly or
their adulation as to call it a monarchy. The main element is
462
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
properly the opposite of this. I should rather have said was
than is; for the Reform-bill was only a lasso by which the
broken caught the unbroken. Instead of close boroughs,
England has now close families, which elect, not indeed to
the parliament, but to the cabinet. She has neither a de-
mocracy nor an aristocracy; she is subject to an oligarchy.
This oligarchy, which knows little else, knows perfectly well
the pacific and economical spirit of the people; so that, after
providing amply for their families by filling all military and
colonial offices with them, they disband all that is efficient.
They let the corn rot in the ground, content if it serve as a
prop to honeysuckles. Knowing the wretched state into
which both their army and navy had fallen, and the disin-
clination and incompetency of the oligarchy to correct any
abuses, or to supply any deficiencies in either, it was a
favorite scheme with M. Thiers to strike somewhere, any-
where, an irritating blow against them. He chose the South
Sea. The English spirit would rise against the injustice and
indignity; but the manufacturers and tradespeople in general
would exclaim against a war for a matter so trifling and
remote.
Guizot. England never was so rich and prosperous as at
present.
Louis Philippe. True; nor was Tyre the hour before she
was in ruins. England at no time was so little inclined and
so little prepared for war. With difficulty can she keep Ire-
land in subjection.
Guizot. She has no such wish. Jesuits and other incen-
diaries keep up ancient animosities, religion against religion,
race against race. Hereditary bondmen! such is the key note;
ay indeed, and not only the key-note, but the burden of the
song. These hereditary bondmen enjoy exemption from
impositions which weigh heavily on the other subjects of the
empire. What they suffer in reality is from the rapacity and
exactions of landlords and middlemen. No people is taxed
so lightly; no people leans so heavily on its neighbor. Assist-
ance is given unreluctantly, and received ungratefully.
Louis Philippe. They who fare best are often the most
insurrectionary and rebellious. High feed and none produce
the same effect. Ireland sends a pressing invitation to
invaders, not particular about precedency.
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT.
463
:
Guizot.
It would be imprudent to trust so fickle a people,
and ungenerous
Louis Philippe. Generosity is to be found in no index to any
work on polity: it is only to be looked for in the last pages
of a novel.
Guizot.
campaign.
The English showed it largely in their last
Louis Philippe. The English have virtue; we have honor.
Guizot. Sire, I am unable to perceive the difference;
excepting that honor is only a part, or rather a particle, of
virtue.
Louis Philippe. There are questions which it is better to
investigate but superficially. We know sufficiently that the
beautiful colors on moths and butterflies are feathers: we
need not pluck them; if we do, we are in danger of annihilat-
ing the insect's vitality. These feathers are not only its
ornament, but its strength; his honor is to a Frenchman
what his hair was to Samson.
Guizot. But Samson did not live to be quite bald. Tahiti,
and other islands in the Pacific, had been civilized by the
English, who constantly protected them.
Louis Philippe.
But never having killed or drilled the
population, never having imposed tax or tribute, protection
is illegitimate.
Guizot. Sire, the invasion and seizure of that land is both
unjust and useless.
Louis Philippe. Not useless, if it had led to war against.
an enemy which was never so ill prepared.
Guizot. But your Majesty has more than once declared to
me your determination to remain at peace with all neighbor-
ing States, and especially with England: you have protested
it, both in person and by letter, to Queen Victoria.
Louis Philippe. The French army is restless for action,
the French people for changes. It is against changes, against
innovations and reforms, that I am resolute. War is mis-
chievous, war is dangerous, and possibly disastrous; but
carries with it no disaster which may overturn my dynasty,
as might eventually be apprehended from reform. You and
many others have often praised my foresight. I am circum-
spect; I am moderate: but the wants of the soldiery and of
the people must be listened to, must be supplied. Í march
464
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
not against the elements; I strike not at the iron gauntlet of
Winter; but I point toward sunny seas and coral grottos
and umbrageous arbors, where every Frenchman may domes-
ticate with his Calypso. It may be long, it may be a century,
before we conquer the kingdom of Morocco: Spain is not
yet ours completely.
Guizot. Sire, it appears to me that, within half that period,
France may again be called upon to defend the remainder of
her territory. Russia is mistress of Sweden, of Norway, of
Germany, of Denmark. She moves at will the armies of all
these nations. All united could not conquer united France.
And France will be united under a mild government and
moderate taxes, feeling the benefits of commerce, and assured
that speculation is not always a mirage. The taxes, I think,
might be diminished a fifth. At least a third of the civil
functionaries might go into retirement, and two-thirds of the
army.
Louis Philippe. I believe so.
But the Parisians must be
dazzled by glory to divert their attention from city-fed chi-
meras; and the soldiery must be attracted by those treasures
which lie before them on the surface, and within their grasp.
Tradesmen are not always such good politicians as you are,
M. Guizot. The English minister of the colonies will, how-
ever, keep you in countenance where you fear the accusation
of duplicity. He has promised to the Cape and to Australia
a constitution founded on the representative system. Instead
of the constitution he sent over to the Cape a cargo of con-
victs, and he demands in Australia fourfold as much for
land as its value is in America. If America, seventy-five
years ago, threw off allegiance to a government which
oppressed her slightly and with little insult, what may be
expected from the indignation of these colonists bound by
no ties of consanguinity or of duty? Differences, and more
than differences, will spring up and accumulate between
the governors and the governed; meanwhile the barbarous
natives will make forays, carrying off the arms entrusted to
them, and the cattle of all parties. There are several
regiments of Caffres and Fingoes, enough to excite and to
discipline all the tribes for a thousand miles round. Aus-
tralia is remoter. She may, however, be more easily kept
under subjection, and continue to support proconsulships and
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND M. GUIZOT.
465
quæstorships, governors and bishops, under the patronage
of the oligarchy.
Guizot. They conquered Algiers for us: they will not
conquer, but they will devastate the country, and alienate the
affections of their colonists. They may not be ours, per-
haps; they certainly will not be England's. The nation ere
long will refuse to supply so vast an expenditure as they
demand. It is better that England should suffer by her own
folly than by ours. The English I should not fear singly
but there is really cause for apprehension that she may be
aided by another great naval power, which by necessity must
increase. We have taken possession of the Marquesas.
America, mistress of Oregon and California, heiress of India
and China, will permit no such obstruction. She has found
but little inconvenience in the English possessing Canada ;
she would never let the French recover it. Interest, on
many accounts, prompts her to an alliance with England.
After her war for Independence, a pamphlet was written by
Governor Pownall recommending a confederacy of America,
England, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Happily for us
and for Russia it was much too wise to be adopted, even if
the writer had been a member of Parliament and of the
aristocracy. I would lay any wager that no English minister,
Whig or Tory, possesses a copy. This
This I know: the repre-
sentations of Raffles, incomparably the best and most prac-
tical of their later politicians, were found unopened on the
accession of the present administration. England is rich;
she can afford such negligence.
Louis Philippe. She grasps much, but always lets drop
again what is best worth holding. She took possession of
Cattaro; and Lord Castlereagh the most illiterate and
ignorant minister, excepting Farrinelli, that ever ruled an
European nation delivered it up, in 1814, to the Austrians.
To England it would have been worth greatly more than the
Seven Isles and Gibraltar; for behind and on every side of it
are inexhaustible forests of ancient oaks, and other timber-
trees, in a sufficiency to keep up her navy at a moderate
expenditure for many centuries. Why repeat it? I have
already said they are inexhaustible. She has lost not only
the most commodious and the most defensible harbor in
Europe, but incalculable advantages of trade with Bosnia,
VOL. V.
30
466
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Servia, and all the populations on the Save, Drave, and
Danube. Her neglect or ignorance of this advantage has
made the sluggish Austria both active and commercial, and
has raised the hovels of Trieste over the palaces of Venice
and Vienna. If ever France has another war with her
(and with what neighboring State can France continue much
longer at peace?) our first and most important conquest is
Cattaro. It insures to us Turkey; it replenishes the arsenal
of Toulon; it keeps in agitation Corfu, Zante, Cephalonia,
Greece. I would rather have Cattaro than the boundary of
the Rhine.
Guizot. We want commerce more than territory.
Louis Philippe. Therefore we want Cattaro more than
Luxembourg. The Parisians, in one quarter or other, must
be dazzled by glory to divert them from chimeras.
Guizot.
That glory which rests on blood is insecure.
Louis Philippe. Our people have never shown a predilec
tion for security, and never are so uneasy as when they are
sitting still.
Guizot. Rather would I see them with Belial than with
Moloch; but surely there is a path between the two temples.
Louis Philippe. How different are you from M. Thiers!
Guizot. Often hath your Majesty been graciously pleased
to commend me, but never to praise me so highly as now.
Louis Philippe. Thiers is in the condition of a man who
struts about in a new suit of clothes, yet forgets to change
his shirt or wash his hands. Yet so fond are the English of
any continental cleverness, that, after all his falsehoods and
malignity and aims at war against them, were he to land at
Dover, a dozen coronets would be ready on the beach to
catch him up. You scorn him with much civility. Indeed,
he is a knave to say the least, and so are all men in some
degree as soon as they enter the cabinet. No one walks
quite upright when he mounts an eminence. He meets with
obstacles he must bend to ere he removes them.
M. Thiers has made a fine fortune; not entirely by his
newspaper or his history: a little, perhaps, by his portfolio.
Some acquire more by sweeping up the straw and litter than
others by threshing out the grain. Opposition in politics did
not alienate one of you from the other, for it was only occa-
sionally that you were opposite : but similarity of pursuits,
LOUIS PHILIPPE AND、 M. GUIZOT.
467
{
which bring other hunters into fellowship, keep asunder the
hunters in the fields of literature.
Guizot. Sire, nobody ever heard me speak disrespectfully
of M. Thiers as a literary man.
Louis Philippe. You shall hear me then, who must be dis-
passionate in that quarter. I find in him no accuracy of re-
search, no depth of reflection, no energy of expression, no
grace of style: I do find much direct falsehood, and more in-
direct misrepresentation. He might and certainly did consult
the best authorities on our battles, especially the naval. In-
stead of citing or following them, he lies up to the "Moni-
teur," or, as Voltaire would have said, the "Lives of the
Saints. "
Never repeat this observation of mine to M. de
Chateaubriand, or to M. de Montalembert, although the former
would smile, remembering his offer to a bookseller of a work
against, when the bookseller told him his customers were be-
ginning to look Romeward, and entreated him to write for;
he did so, and the "Genius of Christianity" slipped five
thousand francs into his pocket.
At present we will not renew our discourse on peace and
war: there is another object close before us, centrali-
zation. This was equally the aim of Louis XIV. and of
Napoleon. I begin to find a reminiscence of its importance
in my own person. Of what service are the best teeth, if the
lower and upper do not act together and closely? Mine, as
you see, are decentralized, disorganized, demoralized, insubor-
dinate, and insurgent. They, like my people, want a little of
gold wire to unite, and a little of the same metal to stop them.
Thirty years of peace ought to have rendered the nation rich
and prosperous.
Guizot. And so indeed it might have done, sire, had the
army been diminished.
Louis Philippe. This would have been imprudent. I have
always had enemies on the watch against me, both within
and without.
Guizot. Any aggression would have raised the country,
and the invader would have fled as before the armies of
Pichegru and Dumourier, in which your Majesty bore so con-
spicuous a part.
Louis Philippe. The Rhine would have been French again;
but many of my adherents had probably been detached from
me.
468
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Guizot. More, and honester, and firmer, had been con-
ciliated.
Louis Philippe. I can ill afford to be a conqueror of ex-
hausted countries. Money is requisite at home. I rule by
the judicious distribution of innumerable offices. Every
family in France has a near relative in one or other of
them; so that every family has an interest in the continu-
ance of my government.
Guizot. These are quiet: the more restless are the more
dangerous. The man in want will seize by the throat the
man who has plenty. One wolf tears in pieces many sheep;
and the idler who wants a dinner will rush upon the idler who
sleeps after it. Already there are indications of discontent.
Piles of offices attract the notice of the starving. Our country-
men are always ready to warm their hands at a conflagration,
though many are thrust too forward and perish. Example
and experience are without weight to them. Division of
property, useful to military despotism, which feeds upon
full-grown youth bound and carted off to battle as calves to
market, hath in the third generation so broken up agriculture
that farmers are paupers. Clerks look down on them; they
scowl at clerks: I dread the unequal conflict of the pen and
mattock.
Louis Philippe. I am able to keep down the insurgent and
refractory.
Guizot. Sire, you may keep the people down for a while:
but upon a blown bladder there is no firm footing.
Louis Philippe. Surely you are somewhat nervous this
morning, M. Guizot.
Guizot. Perhaps in the apprehension of being more so
before long. What exhausts the wealth may exhaust the
patience of the people.
Louis Philippe. This is an observation in the form of
advice; and such advice, M. Guizot, I did not at the moment
ask of you. I would by no means occupy more of your
valuable time at present.
Guizot (alone). Royally spoken!
Royally spoken! legitimate Bourbon!
Will France always respect such royalty, such legitimacy?
Craft is insufficient: he must either be more cruel or more
economical. With half his wisdom he might rule more
wisely. He never looks aside from the Tuileries, or beyond
M. THIERS AND M. LAMARTINE.
469
his family. There is another and a wider circle: it has blood
and flames for its boundary, and that boundary is undis-
cernibly and incalculably far off. Philippe carries in his
hand the fruit of contention: another, yet bitterer, is about to
drop from the stem; he will find it of mortal taste. To-day
he is at the Tuileries: to-morrow may decide whether he will
be here the day after.
XXXI. M. THIERS AND M. LAMARTINE.
Thiers. You look somewhat shy at me, M. Lamartine,
now you are in power and I am out.
Lamartine. M. Thiers, we neither of us ever were out of
power since we came to years of discretion, if indeed the
poet and the public man may be said at any time of their
lives to have come to them; for in poetry, imagination leads
us astray; in politics, ambition.
Thiers. I never was ambitious.
Lamartine. I always was. The love of fame-in other
words, of approbation - drew me forward not unwillingly.
Reflection comes down to us in the deep recesses where
imagination rests, and higher and more substantial forms rise
around us and come nearer. The mind, after wandering in
distant and in unknown regions, returns home at last and
reposes on the bosom of our country. Her agitations render
her only the more inviting and the dearer to us. We love her
in her tranquillity, we adore her in her pangs. I do not
rejoice, nor do I repent, that the voice of the people has
called me to the station I now hold.
Thiers. It is an elevated and a glorious, but it is also an
uncertain and a dangerous, one; take my word for it.
Lamartine. Pardon my frankness: I would rather take your
word than your example.
Thiers. My example in what?
Lamartine. May I without offence to you speak my mind
at large?
Thiers. Speak it unreservedly, as becomes a republican.
in all his freshness.
470
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Lamartine. First, then, I should be sorry to grow rich
among the spoliations of my country. Secondly, I scorn to
countenance the passion of the vulgar, and more especially
in their madness for war.
Thiers. We must put method into this madness. Be sure,
M. Lamartine, that no earthly power can withhold for a
twelvemonth an agitated army of three hundred thousand
men, smarting under past disgraces! We must, whether we
will or no, send forty thousand from Algiers to Trieste, and
seventy thousand from our southern departments to the
Gulfs of Genoa and Spezzia. I am a moderate man: I
would leave the duchy of Austria to its ancient duke; Bohemia
to whomsoever the nation may elect as king. Hungary was
already free and independent from the moment that Metter-
nich in the frenzy of his dotage consented to accept the
intervention of Russia. She rises both against the hungry
and wolfish pack of Russia, and the somnolent and swinish
herd that rubs her into intolerable soreness from overgorged
Vienna. Whatsoever was once Poland must be Poland
again. She must extend from the Baltic to the Black Sea;
from Dantzic to Odessa, and inclusive. Any thing short of
this will only cause fresh struggles. Men never can be quiet
in the cramp: they will cry out and kick until the paroxysm
is over.
Lamartine. I am afraid you are too precipitate.
Thiers. There are many good men who are afraid of hear-
ing, or even of thinking, the truth. They may lie in a ditch.
with their hats over their faces; nevertheless the light will
come in upon them somewhere.
Lamartine. Probably the King of Sardinia will demand.
our aid against Austria, and insist on the evacuation of
Modena and Parma: we may then, with policy and justice,
interfere. Why do you smile?
Thiers. I was thinking at the moment that some laurels
grow best on loose soil, M. Lamartine; but neither that laurel
which crowns the warrior, nor that oak which crowns the
savior of a citizen. It is our duty not to wait for danger, but
to meet it; not to parley with insolent and stupid despots,
but to bind them hand and foot with their own indigenous
plants.
Lamartine.
And yet, M. Thiers, you are a Royalist!
M. THIERS AND M. LAMARTINE.
471
Thiers. Is any man a Royalist when he knows he can be
greater? I had other means of serving my country, or (let me
speak it frankly) myself. Kings have worn down their high-
heeled shoes by their incessant strut and swagger. People
would only have laughed at them if they had merely told
common lies and practised only ordinary deceptions. But
when the sleight-of-hand emptied every man's pocket, the
whole crowd became vociferous; up flew the benches, and
the conjurer took to his heels. At first we were tickled, at
last we were triturated.
Lamartine. Not quite into dust, nor into mud; but only
into a state, I trust, in which, with some new combinations,
we may attain greater solidity and consistency. Democracy
is always the work of Kings. Ashes, which in themselves
are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast on.
66
Thiers. You remind me of what happened in England at
the commencement of our first Revolution. The beautiful
Duchess de Pienne was solicited too amorously by the Prince
of Wales. Sir," replied she, "it is princes like you who
make democrats." He never forgave her: indeed he never
pardoned any offence, especially when it came from the
intelligent and the virtuous.
Lamartine. Having lived all his life among cheats and
swindlers, he would probably have received with courtesy and
amity Louis Philippe ; and having broken his word until there
was not enough of it to be broken again, and having deceived
his friends until there was no friend to deceive, perhaps he
would have naturalized the good Protestant Guizot, and have
given him a seat in the cabinet. At the present day there is
a Guizot administration in England. The same reckless
expenditure, the same deafness to the popular reclamations,
the same stupid, self-sufficient, subservient, and secure majority
in Parliament. It is well for England that in the most vul-
nerable and unquiet part of her dominions there is a chief
magistrate of consummate wisdom, temperate and firm, ener-
getic and humane. Such a functionary is sadly wanted to
preside over the counsels of Great Britain.
Thiers. He is best where he is. The English are so
accustomed to a shuffling trot that they would grow impatient
at a steady amble. They think the roadster must be wanting
in spirit and action, unless they see plenty of froth on the bit.
472
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XXXII. NICHOLAS, FREDERICK-WILLIAM,
NESSELRODE.
Nicholas. Welcome to Warsaw, my dear brother. (Pre
sents NESSELRODE.) Count Nesselrode is already known to
your Majesty. He admires your military prowess, your
political and theological knowledge; and appreciates the
latter qualities so highly, that he declares you are the great-
est professor in Germany.
Nesselrode (aside). These emperors see no point in any
thing but the sword!
Nicholas (aside.) He bows and murmurs his assent.
Frederick-William. I feel infinitely bound by the favorable
opinion of your Imperial Majesty, and can never be indif-
ferent to the approbation of so wise a gentleman as Count
Nesselrode.
Nesselrode (aside). If either of them should discover that I
intended a witticism, I am a lost man. Siberia freezes mercury.
Nicholas. Approach us, Count! you never were intended
for a corner. Let small princes stand behind our chairs: let
every man take his due position. Grooms may keep their
distance; but the supports of a throne must be at hand. My
brother, you have acted well and wisely in following my ad-
vice and indications; so long as the German princes played
at Constitutions with their people, no durable quiet was to be
expected for us. We permitted you to call out an army,
ostensibly to resist the menaces of Austria, and you very duti-
fully disbanded it at our signal. We thank you.
Frederick- William. The thanks of your Imperial Majesty
are greatly more than a sufficient compensation for what the
turbulent call a loss of dignity and independence.
Nicholas. Independence! I am surprised that a crowned
head should echo that hateful word. Independence! we are`
all dependent; but emperors and kings are dependent on
God alone. We are the high and pointed rods that carry
down the lightning into the earth, rendering it innoxious.
Frederick-William. I am confident I may rely on your
Majesty, in case of any insurrection or disturbance.
Nicholas. The confidence is not misplaced. At present
there is no such danger. We invited the President of France.
NICHOLAS, FREDERICK-WILLIAM, NESSELRode.
473
.
to suppress the insurgents at Rome, the Socialists and Re-
publicans in France. This has rendered him hateful in his
own country and in Italy, where the priesthood, ever selfish
and ungrateful, calls aloud for the Austrian to supplant him.
This insures to you the Rhenish provinces for several years.
Frederick-William. Surely your Majesty would establish
my family in the perpetual possession of them?
Nicholas. Alas! my brother! what on earth is perpetual?
Nesselrode, you who see farther and more clearly than any
other man on earth, tell us what is your opinion.
Nesselrode. Sire, in this matter there are clouds above us
which obstruct the clearest sight. Providence, no less in its
beneficence than in its wisdom, hides from us the far future.
Conjecture can help us but a little way onward, and we often
slip back when we believe we are near the summit.
Frederick-William (to himself.) I like this man; he talks
piously and wisely. (To NESSELRODE.) Be pleased, Sir
Count, to give us your frank opinion upon a subject very
interesting to me personally. Do you foresee the time when
what was apportioned to my family by the Holy Alliance,
will be taken away from us?
Nesselrode. Sire, I do not foresee the time.
Frederick- William (to himself.) He will speak diplomati-
cally and ambiguously. (To NESSELRODE.) Do you believe I
shall ever be deserted by my august allies?
Nesselrode. Sire, there is only one policy in Europe which
never wavers. Weak men have succeeded to strong, and yet
it has stood the same. Russia and the polar star are alike
immovable.
Nicholas. We owe this to our institutions.
I am we.
We are one:
Nesselrode. True, sire; perfectly true. Your senate is
merely a woolpack to shield the battlement: it is neither
worse nor better than a reformed House of Parliament in
England. With your Majesty's permission, I shall now
attempt to answer the question proposed to me by his
Majesty the King of Prussia. The members of the Holy
Alliance, compact and active in 1815, are now dissolved by
death. New dynasties have arisen in France and Belgium.
At one time there was danger that Belgium would be reunited
to France. Perhaps it may be found that she is too weak
474
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
}
to stand alone; perhaps in the convulsions which are about
to agitate France, the most quiescent may lean toward its
parent stock, and separate from the Power to which it was
united by violence. Alsace, Lorraine, Franche Comté, and
whatever was seized from the ancient dukes of Burgundy,
may coalesce into a united kingdom. Your Majesty's suc-
cessors, or (if it should soon occur) your Majesty, would be
well indemnified for your losses on the Rhine by security in
future against French aggression. Germany might then
disband her costly armies; until then, never. The French
themselves, after their civil war, would have slaked their
thirst for blood, and would retire from a table where they
have often lost their last franc. The next war will be a
general war; it will be more destructive than any that has
ever preceded it, and will be almost equally disastrous to all
the parties engaged in it.
Nicholas. One excepted, Nesselrode.
Nesselrode.
Many feathers must inevitably drop, even
from the eagle's wings; and possibly its extremities may
be amputated.
Nicholas. No croaking, no croaking, my good Nesselrode !
Nesselrode. Let us rather pat others on the back, and hold
their clothes, and bring them water, and encourage the fight-
ers, than fight. We may always keep a few hundred thousand
in activity, or at least in readiness.
Frederick-William.
Such forces are tremendous.
Nicholas. To the disobedient. In sixty days I could throw
a million of soldiers on the shores of the Baltic.
Frederick-William. Might not England interpose?
Nicholas. Not in sixty days. My naval force is greater
than hers; for my ships are manned, hers are not. She is
only the third naval power at the present day. America can
man more ships with good English sailors in ten days, than
England can in forty. France has in the channel a greater
force than England has, and every man aboard is well disci-
plined. All I want at present is to keep England from inter-
meddling in my affairs. This I have done, and this I will
do. When she stirs, she wakes up others first; I shall come
in at the proper time to put down the disturbance and to con-
ciliate all parties. They will be so tired they will be glad to go
to sleep. I take but little time for repose, and I grant them
the precedency.
BERANGER AND LA ROCHE-JAQUELIN.
475
XXXIII. BERANGER AND LA ROCHE-JAQUELIN.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Passing by Tours, I could not resist the
desire of presenting my respects to the greatest of our poets.
Beranger. Were I indeed so, I should be worthy to cele-
brate the heroism of the noble Roche-Jaquelins, husband
and wife, your nearest relatives, who contended and suffered
so heroically in La Vendée. Poetry is envious of history, and
feels her inadequacy to a like attempt. Painful as is the re-
trospect, there is glory to relieve it: can we say the same of
the prospect now before us?
La Roche-Jaquelin. Let us hope we may, and that the
narrow present is alone disgraceful. Loyalty may exist in all
hearts, in all circumstances.
Beranger. I was taught in early youth that it is an error
to pronounce the word loyalty as if it began with the letter r.
Do not smile, M. le Marquis. I have always been a con-
servative.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Indeed!
Beranger. Yes, indeed and fundamentally. I have always
been a conservative of law, from which conservatism takes
the name of loyalty: have all our kings, all our rulers?
La Roche-Jaquelin. King Henry has been misguided in
his attempt to cast aside many wholesome instructions, and
to allow no other than suited his own good pleasure.
Beranger. We know, by sad experience, that the good
pleasure of kings is often stimulated by the evil pleasure of
their ministers; hence it is requisite that there should be
some legitimate and temperate restraint.
La Roche-Jaquelin. We French require a vigilant eye and
strong hand over us. Mirabeau himself, the ablest man
among us since the administration of Richelieu, was unable
to regulate the tempest he had excited.
Do you, M. de Beranger, who are a consistent and staunch
republican, think the present order of things at all better
than the last or the preceding?
Beranger. Order of things! What order of things, M. de
Marquis, can you expect in France? We change perpetually,
from the grub to the butterfly, from the butterfly to the grub.
This is our order of things, and this order is invariable.
476
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Perspicacity like yours discerned long
beforehand the inevitable result of our late commotions, and
prudence lead you into retirement. The wisest and the hap-
piest lead studious and almost solitary lives.
Beranger. This is the reflection of the ambitious, when
Ambition has jilted them. There are extremely few so wise
as to know where are the haunts of Happiness. Never have
I been acquainted with any man who would not prefer the
tumult of high office to the tranquillity of domestic peace. I
know an Englishman to whom a Lord Chancellor said :—~
"You have made the best choice.'
And the reply was:
"You would rather be the highest subject than the hap-
piest.
La Roche-Jaquelin. You are safe.
Beranger. So are you, M. le Marquis.
"The Powers that
be" are clear-sighted Powers. They see me and overlook
my principles; you they treat with high consideration, how-
ever they may hate you. They behold in you a lofty stem, a
strong deep-rooted trunk, solitary and august in the ancient
forests of Brittany. They would be appalled, as Lucan de-
scribes the soldiers of Cæsar in the sacred grove near Mas-
silia, at cutting down the most eminent, if not the last, relic
of true nobility, of inflexible honor on the soil of France.
Unhesitatingly and safely could they send into exile, or into
the hulks, a gang of vociferating lawyers and vulgar generals:
but a stroke on a La Roche-Jaquelin would sound and rever-
berate among your Druidical stones with awful and appalling
omen to them.
La Roche-Jaquelin. I neither fear nor respect such people.
Beranger. Pardon me, M. le Marquis; but it appears to
me that you have no reason to be very well affected either to
the occupant or the claimant.
The King of Frohsdorff,
Teres atque retundus
in body, is endowed with a mind of similar conformation.
La Roche-Jaquelin. You compliment him highly.
Beranger. Unwarily then have I slipped into flattery. My
meaning is, that, puffed up by vanity, he is only fit to be what
he is,
the football of fortune.
BERANGER AND LA ROCHE-JAQUELIN.
477
La Roche-Jaquelin.
must be severe, be at least impartial. The possessor of
supreme and arbitrary power, in Paris, deserves surely as
much acerbity as the prince who, having dismissed his few
faithful servants, sits stripped of power, shuddering and
crouching at Frohsdorff.
Do not be severe on him. If you
Beranger. There is not a drop of bitterness in me for
either. No boatman in our beautiful Loire, no laundress on
its sands below the bridge, is less important to me than those
two. Petulance and arrogance are the King's characteristics;
ambition the President's. One has done, the other would
have done, what you approve, and what my intellect and
heart alike denounce.
La Roche-Jaquelin.
Indeed! what can that be?
Beranger. The restoration of darkness; the striking out
of three hundred years from the chronology of mind; the
resuscitation of Popery, as she sat at Avignon when she
was expelled from Rome. Sovereigns will bitterly repent
of such a step backward: she will fall heavily on them ere
long.
I heard it reported in this city that when the French gen-
eral landed at Cività Vecchia, with a lie in his mouth thrust
into it by the President, an English gentleman sent back the
work on artillery, which the President had given to him.
This gentleman was in the habitude of meeting the Prince
at Lady Blessington's, under whose roof a greater number of
remarkable and illustrious men assembled from all nations,
than under any other since roofs took the place of caverns.
When he returned to London from his captivity at Ham, he
was greeted by Lady Blessington's friend "as having escaped
the two heaviest of misfortunes, a prison and a throne.”
"Whichever of the two may befall me," said the Prince,
“I hope I shall see you.”
"If a prison," said the other, "the thing is possible; if
a throne, not."
La Roche-Jaquelin. Let him beware of visiting Paris.
Beranger. Fifty years ago he spent some time there;
some ten later he resided in this city; and he went into Italy
after the Restoration.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Ah, M. de Beranger! I imagine he
would much prefer Italy or Touraine to Cayenne or Algeria.
478
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Beranger. I do not believe he is likely, so late in life, to
try the experiment.
La Roche- Jaquelin. Pardon me: I have been trespassing
too far on your time.
Beranger. Quite the contrary: you have made it valuable.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Surely as I entered I saw you sud-
denly lay down your hat. If you were about to walk, not to
visit, I should beg permission to accompany you.
Beranger. Gladly will I attend you, M. le Marquis. You
will travel down the Loire on your road homeward: by way
of variety shall our promenade be toward the Cher?
La Roche-Jaquelin. By all means: it runs close to the
town.
Beranger. Here we are. The beautiful plain has lately
been enclosed. A few years ago it was as Nature formed it.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Ay: just as when Charles Martell
discomfited and drove out the Saracens.
Beranger. May we never have to curse the memory of
Charles Martell !
La Roche-Jaquelin. God forbid !
Beranger. Yet how flourishing was Spain under the
Saracens during great part of a millennium! What pleasure
and politeness, what chivalry and poetry, what arts and
sciences, in her cities! What architecture within her walls,
and round about; what bridges; what fountains; what irri-
gation! Look at her now under her Bourbons. Look off
from her: look toward Italy. Who, tell me, who, M. le
Marquis, hath held down men unimproved, unprogressive,
motionless? — no, not motionless nor was the wheel of
Ixion.
La Roche-Jaquelin. Bravo! M. de Beranger!
But, seriously now, do you attribute all our civilization,
all our enlightenment, all our arts and sciences, to these
Saracens ?
Beranger. M. le Marquis, if there is a gentleman in
France, it is because the Saracens were here or in the
neighborhood; or because his ancestors encountered them
under the walls of Ascalon and Acre. However, I do not
attribute all our civilization, all our enlightenment, all our arts
and sciences, to them. No; far from it. In their vesture,
which is among the earlier signs of civilization, they never
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
479
wore, nor made their slaves wear, conical caps emblazoned
with fiery serpents, surmounted as a crest with spiral flames ;
they never wore, nor made their slaves wear, robes ornamented
with open-mouthed dogs and grinning devils. Fanciful as
they were in architectural decorations, they did not clear the
market-place to erect scaffolds in it, surrounded by stakes
and fagots for the concremation of human victims, the
virgin, the matron, the bride, the nursing mother. Inventive.
as they were in mechanics, they did not invent the thumb-
screw, the pulley, and many other such elegant articles of
furniture. Studious as they were of medicine, adepts as they
were in chemistry, it was left for more sagacious heads and
for more pious hands, to invent and to apply the Aqua-
Toffana. The only people now that appear to open their
eyes are the people of canvas and marble.
XXXIV. NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
Nicholas. This Manchester Examiner is most audacious.
Nesselrode. Willingly would I have spared your Majesty
the just indignation it excites; but your imperial commands
were peremptory and explicit, that every word spoken against
your august person and legitimate authority should be laid
before you.
Nicholas. Of all the speeches I ever read, this from
Doctor Vaughan, before the citizens of Manchester, after
what had been spoken by the insurgent and traitor Messaros,
is the most intolerable. Do you really think it will excite
Lord Palmerston to interfere with us about the detention of
Kossuth?
Nesselrode. Unlikely; very unlikely. Lord Palmerston
loves strong measures. He has recently been defending two
unprovoked and unnecessary massacres; one in Ceylon, the
other on the opposite side of the Indian sea, on boatmen by
a sudden metamorphosis turned into pirates for their head-
money. Since the Reform in Parliament, the ministers are
irresponsible. An impeachment might have been an impedi-
ment to the race-course.
480
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Nicholas. I wish they would recall from their embassies
such men as Sir Edward Lyons and Sir Stratford Canning,
and would place them in the House of Commons where they
could do me no harm.
Nesselrode. It is quite unexampled at the present day
that men of such sagacity and such firmness should be
employed by either party, Whig or Tory. We need care
little for speeches.
Nicholas. Perhaps so. But sometimes a red-hot word,
falling upon soft tinder and smouldering there awhile, is
blown beyond, and sets towns and palaces on fire. Unac-
customed as I am to be moved or concerned by the dull
thumps of honorable gentlemen in the English Parliament,
and very accustomed to be amused by the sophisms and
trickeries, evolutions and revolutions, pliant antics and pli-
anter oaths, of the French tribune, I perused with astonish-
ment the vigorous oration of this Doctor Vaughan. I did not
imagine that any Englishman, now living, could exert such a
force of eloquence. Who indeed could ever have believed
that English clergymen are so (what is called) liberal!
Nesselrode. Many of them are extremely free in the dis-
semination of their political tenets, until the upper branches
of preferment are within sight, until they sniff honey in
the rotten tree; then they show how cleverly and alertly
those heavy haunches can climb, and how sharp are those
teeth, and how loud are those growls, and how ready are
those paws to clap the loose muzzle on anybody under.
Nicholas. We must keep this doctor out of Parliament.
Nesselrode. Sire, no clergyman has a seat in the House of
Commons. If this doctor had, he would be hooted down:
his opponents would imitate the crowing of cocks, the
whistle of steam-engines, and shout question, question!
No, no, no; the English are decorous.
Nicholas. No, no, no
Nesselrode. At dinner; and even after; excepting that
they speak to ladies, I am told, in the same language, and in
the same tone, as they speak to jockeys. The lords, for the
most part, even the young and the newly made, are better.
Nicholas. Never have I seen more perfect gentlemen than
among the English nobility.
Nesselrode. The Commons, your Majesty will recollect, are
reformed.
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
481
Nicholas. Among these people, here and there a hint is
thrown out that I am vulnerable at the extremities of my
dominions. Why do not you say something?
Nesselrode. New acquisitions are not soon consolidated;
nor heterogeneous substances, from their inequalities and as-
perities, firmly cemented.
Nicholas. No truisms, if you please.
Nesselrode. In a diversity of language and religion there
is more repulsion than attraction.
Nicholas. Nesselrode! Nesselrode! if you talk philosophy,
moral or physical, I shall think you less practical.
Nesselrode. Usually, sire, those who talk it let run to waste
what little they have. Your Majesty has corrected many of
my errors both by precept and example.
Nicholas.
Tell me now, in few words, whether you think
my empire assailable.
Nesselrode. Sire, your empire, I believe, is larger than the
planet which shines at night above us; I wish I could per-
suade myself that it is equally out of harm's way. The
extremities both of plants and animals are always the weaker
parts: so is it with dominions; especially those which are
the most extensive. May I speak plainly my mind, and
attempt a full answer to your Majesty's inquiry?
Nicholas. You may: I desire it.
Nesselrode. And employ such language as a writer, more
properly than a courtier or a minister, might use?
Nicholas. Yes, yes; say on.
Nesselrode. Russia, it sometimes has appeared to me,
much resembles a great lobster or crab, strong both in the
body and claws; but between the body and claws there is a
part easy to be severed and broken. All that can be taken
is more than can be held.
Nicholas. Nothing is more urgent than to strengthen the
centre. I have disposed of my brother, his Prussian Majesty,
who appeared to be impressed by the apprehension that a
portion of his dominions was in jeopardy.
Nesselrode. Possibly the scales of Europe are yet to be
adjusted.
Nicholas. When the winds blow high they must waver.
Against the danger of contingencies, and in readiness to
place my finger on the edge of one or other, it is my inten-
VOL. V.
31
482
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
tion to spend in future a part of my time at Warsaw, that city
being so nearly central in my dominions. Good Nesselrode!
there should have been a poet near you to celebrate the
arching of your eyebrows: they suddenly dropped down
again under the horizontal line of your Emperor's. Nobody
ever started in my presence; but I really do think you were
upon the verge of it when I inadvertently said dominions
instead of dependencies. Well, well: dependencies are domin-
ions; and of all dominions they require the least trouble.
Nesselrode. Your Majesty has found no difficulty with any,
excepting the Circassians.
Nicholas. The Circassians are the Normans of Asia;
equally brave, more generous, more chivalrous. I am no ad-
mirer of military trinkets; but I have been surprised at the
beauty of their chain-armor, the temper of their swords, the
richness of hilt, and the gracefulness of baldric.
Nesselrode. It is a pity they are not Christians and sub-
jects of your Majesty.
Nicholas. If they would become my subjects, I would let
them (as I have let other Mahometans) become Christians at
their leisure. We must brigade them before baptism.
Nesselrode. It is singular that this necessity never struck
those religious men who are holding peace conferences in
various parts of Europe.
Nicholas. One of them, I remember, tried to persuade the
people of England that if the bankers in London would
negotiate no loan with me I could carry on no war.
Nesselrode. Wonderful! how ignorant are moneyed men
of money matters! Your Majesty was graciously pleased to
listen to my advice when hostilities seemed inevitable. I
was desirous of raising the largest loan possible, that none
should be forthcoming to the urgency of others. At that
very moment your Majesty had in your coffers more than
sufficient for the additional expenditure of three campaigns.
Well may your Majesty smile at this computation, and at the
blindness that suggested it; for never will your Majesty
send an army into any part of Europe which shall not main-
tain itself there by its own prowess. Your cavalry will seize
all the provisions that are not stored up within the fortres-
ses; and in every army those are to be found who for a
few thousand roubles are ready to blow up their munition-
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
483
wagons. We know by name almost every discontented man
in Europe.
Nicholas. To obtain this information, my yearly expenses
do not exceed the revenues of half-a-dozen English bishops.
Every table d'hôte on the Continent, you tell me, has one
daily guest sent by me. Ladies in the higher circles have
taken my presents and compliments, part in diamonds and
part in smiles. An emperor's smiles are as valuable to them
as theirs are to a cornet of dragoons. Spare nothing in the
boudoir and you will spare much in the field.
Nesselrode. Such appears to have been the invariable
policy of the Empress Catharine, now with God.
Nicholas. My father of glorious memory was less observ-
ant of it. He had prejudices and dislikes: he expected to
find everybody a gentleman, even kings and ministers. If
they were so, how could he have hoped to sway them; and
how to turn them from the straight road into his?
Nesselrode. Your Majesty is far above the influence of
antipathies; but I have often heard your Majesty express
your hatred, and sometimes your contempt, of Bonaparte.
Nicholas. I hated him for his insolence, and I despised
him alike for his cowardice and falsehood. Shame is the
surest criterion of humanity. Where one is wanting, the
other is. The beasts never indicate shame in a state of
nature in society some of them acquire it; Bonaparte not.
He neither blushed at repudiating a modest woman, nor at
supplanting her by an immodest one. Holding a pistol to
the father's ear, he ordered him to dismount from his car-
riage; to deliver up his ring, his watch, his chain, his seal,
his knee-buckle; stripping off galloon from trouser, and pres-
ently trouser too. Caught, pinioned, sentenced, he fell on
both knees in the mud, and implored this poor creature's
intercession to save him from the hangman. He neither
blushed at the robbery of a crown, nor at the fabrication
of twenty. He was equally ungrateful in public life and in
private. He banished Barras, who promoted and protected
him he calumniated the French admiral, whose fleet for his
own safety he detained on the shores of Egypt, and the Eng-
lish admiral who defeated him in Syria with a tenth of his
force. Baffled as he often was, and at last fatally, and ad-
mirably as in many circumstances he knew how to be a gen-
:
484
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
eral, never in any did he know how to be a gentleman. He
was fond of displaying the picklock keys whereby he found.
entrance into our cabinets, and of twitching the ears of his
accomplices.
Nesselrode. Certainly he was less as an emperor than as a
soldier.
Nicholas. Great generals may commit grievous and dis-
astrous mistakes, but never utterly ruinous. Charles V.,
Gustavus Adolphus, Peter the Great, Frederic of Prussia,
Prince Eugene, Marlborough, William, Wellington, kept their
winnings, and never hazarded the last crown-piece. Bona-
parte, when he had swept the tables, cried double or quits.
Nesselrode. The wheel of Fortune is apt to make men
giddier, the higher it rises and the quicklier it turns:
sometimes it drops them on a barren rock, and sometimes
on a treadmill. The nephew is more prudent than the
uncle.
Nicholas. You were extremely wise, my dear Nesselrode,
in suggesting our idea to the French President, and in per-
suading him to acknowledge, in the face of the world, that he
had been justly imprisoned by Louis Philippe for attempting
to subvert the existing powers. Frenchmen are taught by
this declaration what they may expect for a similar crime
against his own pretensions. We will show our impartiality
by an equal countenance and favor toward all parties. In
different directions all are working out the designs of God,
and producing unity of empire "on earth as it is in heaven."
Until this consummation there can never be universal or
indeed any lasting peace.
Nesselrode. This lying far remote, I await your Majesty's
commands for what is now before us. Your Majesty was
graciously pleased to express your satisfaction at the man-
ner in which I executed them in regard to the President of
the French Republic.
Nicholas. Republic, indeed! I have ordered it to be a
crime in France to utter the odious name. President, for-
sooth! we have directed him hitherto ; let him now keep his way.
Our object was to stifle the spirit of freedom: we tossed the
handkerchief to him, and he found the chloroform. Every
thing is going on in Europe exactly as I desire: we must
throw nothing in the way to shake the machine off the rail.
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
485
It is running at full speed, where no whistle can stop it.
Every prince is exasperating his subjects, and exhausting his
treasury in order to keep them under due control. What na-
tion on the continent, mine excepted, can maintain for two
years longer its present war establishment? And without
this engine of coercion what prince can be the master of his
people. England is tranquil at home; can she continue so,
when a foreigner would place a tiara over her crown, telling
her who shall teach and what shall be taught? - Principally,
that where masses are not said for departed souls, better it
would be that there were no souls at all, since they certainly
must be damned. The school which doubts it is denounced.
as godless.
Nesselrode. England, Sire, is indeed tranquil at home; but
that home is a narrow one, and extends not across the Irish
channel. Every colony is dissatisfied and disturbed. No
faith has been kept with any of them by the secretary now in
office. At the Cape of Good Hope innumerable nations,
warlike and well-armed, have risen up simultaneously against
her; and to say nothing of the massacres in Ceylon, your
Majesty well knows what atrocities her Commissioner has
long exercised in the Seven Isles. England looks on and
applauds, taking a hearty draught of Lethe at every sound of
the scourge.
Nicholas. Nesselrode! You seem indignant. I see only
the cheerful sparks of a fire at which our dinner is to be
dressed: we shall soon sit down to it. Greece must not call
me away until I rise from the dessert; I will then take my
coffee at Constantinople. The crescent ere long will become
the full harvest-moon: our reapers have already the sickles
in their hands.
Nesselrode. England may grumble.
Nicholas. So she will. She is as ready now to grumble as
she formerly was to fight. She grumbles too early; she fights
too late. Extraordinary men are the English. They raise
the hustings higher than the throne; and, to make amends,
being resolved to build a new palace, they push it under an
old bridge. The Cardinal, in his way to the Abbey, may
in part disrobe at it. Noble vestry-room! where many habil-
iments are changed. Capacious dovecote! where carrier-
pigeons and fantails and croppers intermingle with the more
486
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
.t
ordinary, bill and coo, ruffle and smoothen their feathers, and
bend their versi-color necks to the same corn.
It is amusing to look at a playground of striped tops,
humming, whirring, wavering, now dipping to this side, now
to that, whipped from the centre to the circumference of the
court-yard, and losing all distinctness of color by the rapidity
of their motion. We are consistent, Nesselrode. We can
sit quiet and look on. I am fortunate, another may say ju-
dicious, in my choice of instruments. The English care more
about the organ-loft than the organ, in the construction of
which they employ stout bellows, but look little to the keys
and stops. M. Pitt could speak fluently for hours together,
and that was enough: he was permitted to spend a million a
week in expeditions. Canning issued State papers of such
elaborate lace-work that ladies might make shrouds of them
for their dead canaries. Of Castlereagh you know as much
as I do. We blew softly the snuff into his eyes, and gave
him the boxes to carry home: he has the glory of being the
third founder of the French monarchy. Pitt sharpened the
sword of Bonaparte and placed the iron crown upon his head.
He was the cooper who drew together and compacted the
barrel, by setting on fire the chips and shavings and putting
them in the centre.
Nesselrode. Small is the expenditure of keeping a stop-
watch under the pillow and an alarum at the bedside. For
less than ten thousand crowns yearly, your Majesty knows
the movements of every dangerous demagogue on the Con-
tinent. To gratify your Majesty, no less than his Majesty of
Naples, the Chevalier Graham, then a minister of England,
gave information against the two brothers Bandiera, by which
they were seized and shot.
Nicholas. I hope we shall see the chevalier once more in
office.
Nesselrode. The English are romantic. Some of them
were displeased, not so much at his delivering up the young
men to inevitable death, as at opening the letter. They have
an expression of their own: they called it ungentlemanly and
continental. Practical as they are in their own private con-
cerns, they much undervalue expediency in their political. I
am persuaded that, in general, the betrayal of the Bandieras
is more odious to them than the tortures in the Ionian
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
487
Islands, which it behoves us politically, when occasion offers,
to commiserate.
Nicholas. We will keep our commiseration covered up
until it is requisite to make the fire burn afresh. At present
we must turn our eyes toward France, balancing as well as
we can the parties now at variance. Democrats, and even
Socialists, may for a time be permitted to move; Orleanists,
Legitimists, Bonapartists, set against one another. I believe I
am destined by Providence to render the Greek Church tri-
umphant. The Pope is hard at work for me; for infallibility
and perfidy can never coexist. He must renew his fealty to
the emperor of the East; the Roman is extinct.
Nesselrode. Vigilant quiescency is uncostly wisdom. Na-
poleon, the most imprudent of imprudent rulers, assumed to
himself not only the title, but the faculties and virtues of
Charlemagne. The present leader of the nation is no less
arrogant.
Nicholas. We must sound the brass once more, and bring
again out of our remoter woodlands a stronger swarm. Fumi-
gation has not torpified the Frankish; on the contrary, it has
rendered it more restless, noisy, and resolved to sting.
Nesselrode. Napoleon's nephew will assert his hereditary
right, not only to the kingdom of Holland, but to the empire
of France. On this event, which I think is imminent, what
may be your Majesty's pleasure?
Nicholas. One Emperor is sufficient for one planet. There
is only one Supreme in heaven, there ought to be only one
on earth, in conformity with this manifestation of the divine.
will. Therefore I wonder at your asking me what steps I
intend to take in the prevention of an adventurer who should
attempt such an elevation. I forbid it. Are these words suf-
ficient?
Nesselrode. Perfectly, Sire. Obstreperous the factions may
be, but must submit. Germany will resume her arms;
Hungary, Poland, Italy, will resent the prostration of their
excited hopes, and the perfidy that called them forward only
to dash them down again. The history of human nature, of
French nature itself, shows no parallel.
Nicholas. Much is accomplished; and what is next to be
done?
Nesselrode. Most of it by others, somewhat by ourselves.
488
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
When the furnace is heated and the metal is poured forth, we
may give it its form and pressure.
Nicholas. Certainly all nations are exasperated against
the French; equally sure is it that Austria has lost in great
measure the affection of her subjects. There are some
things which stick into the memory with all the tenacity and
venom of an adder's fang. I wished the Hungarians to be
made sensible of two important truths: my power, and their
Prince's perfidy.
Nesselrode. Never was wish more perfectly accomplished.
Yet, pardon me, Sire, your Majesty wishes to enforce the
legitimacy of the young Austrian usurper. But will Austrians
or Hungarians, or any other people, deem that ruler legitimate
who deprives his cousin of the throne, and who begins and
ends with perfidy and perjury?
Nicholas. They must believe what I condescend to teach ;
they must believe it as coming from God.
Nesselrode. Reasonable and just; but they may start and
stumble at what is so close before their eyes in the form of a
palpable untruth.
Nicholas. Stumble or start, and we drive a spur into their
sides. Whatever we deem necessary must be said and done:
upon us alone lies the responsibility, and we feel no weight in
it. Holy Church sanctions our acts in peace and war.
Nesselrode. Certainly, the head of the Romish Church
and all its members, who ought to possess less power than
the Greek, gave recently praise to God for several hundred
massacres and several thousand spoliations of property and
violations of women, in Transylvania; yet
Nicholas. Cease; be silent! I would have forbidden them
perhaps to commit, certainly to praise God for, such enor-
mities. I doubt whether they are altogether pleasing in his
sight.
Nesselrode. Such things on such occasions have perpetually
been done.
Nicholas.
You reconcile me. Transylvania was rising, or
likely to rise. A field, to be fertile, should not only be har-
rowed, but pulverized. I was moderate and prudent in
abstaining from the occupation of a country so disaffected as
was Transylvania.
Nesselrode. The longest strides do not always make the
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
489
greatest progress in the whole day's march.
Your Majesty
was persuaded, more by your own singular intuition than by
my advice, to be contented with gaining a little at a time.
A small purse well-tied may hold more than a larger ill-
secured. The faults of our neighbors do for us what our
own wisdom might fail in. Where others are hated and
despised, as in Transylvania, love grows around us without
our sowing it, and we shall be called at the due time to gather
in the harvest.
Nicholas. Yes, yes; whether we take the field or sit here
in the cabinet, God fights for us visibly. You look grave,
Nesselrode is it not so? Speak, and plainly.
Nesselrode. Sire, in my humble opinion, God never fights
at all.
Nicholas. Surely he fought for Israel, when he was in-
voked by prayer.
Nesselrode. Sire, I am no theologian; and I fancy I must
be a bad geographer, since I never knew of a nation which
was not Israel when it had a mind to shed blood and to pray.
To fight is an exertion, is violence; the Deity in his omnipo-
tence needs none. He has devils and men always in readi-
ness for fighting; and they are the instruments of their own
punishment for their past misdeeds.
Nicholas. The chariots of God are numbered by thousands
in the volumes of the Psalmist.
Nesselrode. No psalmist, or engineer, or commissary, or
arithmetician, could enumerate the beasts that are harnessed
to them, or the fiends that urge them on.
Nicholas. Nesselrode, you grow more and more serious.
Nesselrode. Age, Sire, even without wisdom, makes men
serious, whether they are inclined or not. I could hardly
have been so long conversant in the affairs of mankind (all
which in all quarters your Majesty superintends and directs)
without much cause for seriousness.
Nicholas. I feel the consciousness of supreme power, but
I also feel the necessity of subordinate help.
Nesselrode. Your Majesty is the first monarch, since the
earlier Cæsars of imperial Rome, who could control, directly
or indirectly, every country in our hemisphere, and thereby
in both.
Nicholas. There are some who do not see this.
490
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Nesselrode. There were some, and they indeed the most
acute and politic of mankind, who could not see the power of
the Macedonian king until he showed his full height upon
the towers of Cheronæa. There are some at this moment in
England who disregard the admonitions of the most wary and
experienced general of modern times, and listen in preference
to babblers holding forth on economy and peace from slippery
sacks of cotton and wool.
Nicholas. Hush, hush! these are our men; what should
we do without them? A single one of them in the parliament
or townhall is worth to me a regiment of cuirassiers. These
are the true bullets with conical heads which carry far and
sure. Hush! hush!
Nesselrode. They do not hear us: they do not hear Wel-
lington: they would not hear Nelson were he living.
Nicholas. No other man that ever lived, having the same
power in his hands, would have endured with the same
equanimity as Wellington the indignities he suffered in
Portugal superseded in the hour of victory by two generals,
one upon another, like marsh frogs; people of no experience,
no ability. He might have become king of Portugal by com-
promise, and have added Gallicia and Biscay.
Nesselrode. The English, out of Parliament, are delicate
and fastidious. He would have thought it dishonorable to
profit by the indignation of his army in the field, and of his
countrymen at home. Certainty that Bonaparte would at-
tempt to violate any engagement with him, might never enter
into the computation; for Bonaparte could less easily drive
him again out of Portugal, than he could drive the usurper
out of Spain. We ourselves should have assisted him ac-
tively; so would the Americans; for every naval power
would be prompt at diminishing the preponderance of the
English. Practicability was here with Wellington; but, en-
dowed with a keener and longer foresight than any of his
contemporaries, he held in prospective the glory that awaited.
him, and felt conscious that to be the greatest man in Eng-
land is somewhat more than to be the greatest in Portugal.
He is universally called the Duke, to the extinction or
absorption of that dignity over all the surface of the earth;
in Portugal he could only be called King of Portugal.
Nicholas. Faith that is little: it was not overmuch even
•
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
491
before the last accession. I admire his judgment and mod-
eration. The English are abstinent: they rein in their horses
where the French make them fret and curvet. It displeases
me to think it possible that a subject should ever become a
sovereign. We were angry with the Duke of Sudermania for
raising a Frenchman to that dignity in Sweden, although we
were willing that Gustavus, for offences and affronts to our
family, should be chastised, and even expelled. Here was a
bad precedent. Fortunately the boldest soldiers dismount
from their chargers at some distance from the throne. What
withholds them?
Nesselrode. Spells are made of words. The word service
among the military has great latent negative power.
modern nations, even the free, employ it.
All
Nicholas. An excellent word, indeed! It shows the supe-
riority of modern languages over ancient; Christian ideas over
pagan; living similitudes of God over bronze and marble.
What an escape had England from her folly, perversity, and
injustice! Her admirals had the same wrongs to avenge:
her fleets would have anchored in Ferrol and Corunna; thou-
sands of volunteers from every part of both islands would
have assembled round the same standard; and both Indies
would have bowed before the conqueror. Who knows but
that Spain herself might have turned to the same quarter,
from the idiocy of Ferdinand, the immorality of Joseph, and
the perfidy of Napoleon?
Nesselrode. England seems to invite and incite, not only
her colonies, but her commanders to insurrection. Nelson
was treated even more ignominiously than Wellington. A
man equal in abilities and in energy to either met with every
affront from the East India Company. After two such vic-
tories in succession as the Duke himself declared before the
Lords that he had never known or read of, he was removed
from the command of his army, and a general by whose rash-
ness it was decimated was raised to the peerage. If Welling-
ton could with safety have seized the supreme power in Portu-
gal, Napier could with greater have accomplished it in India.
The distance from home was farther; the army more confi-
dent; the allies more numerous, more unanimous. One
avenger of their wrongs would have found a million avengers
of his. Afghanistan, Cabul, and Scinde would have united
492
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
!
their acclamations on the Ganges; songs of triumph, suc
ceeded by songs of peace, would have been chanted at
Delhi and have re-echoed at Samarcand.
Nicholas. I am desirous that Persia and India should
pour their treasures into my dominions. The English are so
credulous as to believe that I intend, or could accomplish, the
conquest of Hindostan. I want only the commerce; and I
hope to share it with the Americans: not I, indeed, but my
successors. The possession of California has opened the
Pacific and the Indian seas to the Americans, who must
within the lifetime of some now born predominate in both.
Supposing that emigrants to the amount of only a quarter
of a million settle in the United States every year, with-
in a century from the present day their population must
exceed three hundred millions. It will not extend from pole
to pole, only because there will be room enough without it.
Nesselrode. Religious wars, the most sanguinary of any,
are stifled in the fields of agriculture; creeds are thrown
overboard by commerce.
Nicholas. Theological questions come at last to be de-
cided by the broadsword; and the best artillery brings for-
ward the best arguments. Montecuculi and Wallenstein were
irrefragable doctors. Saint Peter was commanded to put up
his sword; but the ear was cut off first.
Nesselrode. The blessed saint's escape from capital pun-
ishment, after this violence, is among the greatest of miracles.
Perhaps there may be a perplexity in the text.
Had he com-
mitted so great a crime against a person so highly protected
as one in the high-priest's household, he never would have
lived long enough to be crucified at Rome, but would have
carried his cross up to Calvary three days after the offence.
The laws of no country would tolerate it.
Nicholas. How did he ever get to Rome at all? He must
have been conveyed by an angel, or have slipped on a sudden
into a railroad train, purposely and for the nonce provided.
There is a controversy at the present hour about his del-
egated authority, and it appears to be next to certain that
he never was in the capital of the West. It is my interest
to find it decided in the negative. Successor to the em-
perors of the East, who sanctioned and appointed the earliest
popes, as the bishops of Rome are denominated, I may again
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
493
at my own good time claim the privilege and prerogative.
The cardinals and their subordinates are extending their
claws in all directions: we must throw these crabs upon
their backs again.
Nesselrode. Some among the Italians, and chiefly among
the Romans, are venturing to express an opinion that there
would be less of false religion, and more of true, if no priest
of any description were left upon earth.
Nicholas. Horrible! unless are exempted those of the
venerable Greek Church. All others worship graven images :
we stick to pictures.
Nesselrode. One scholar mentioned, not without an air of
derision, that a picture had descended from heaven recently
on the coast of Italy.
Nicholas. Framed, varnished, under glass, on panel, on
canvas? What like?
Nesselrode. The Virgin-Mary, whatever made of.
Nicholas. She must be ours then. She missed her road:
she never would have taken her place among stocks and
stones and blind worshippers. Easterly winds must have
blown her toward a pestilential city, where at every street-
corner is very significantly inscribed its true name at full
length, Immondezzaio. But I hope I am guilty of no pro-
faneness or infidelity, when I express a doubt if every picture
of the Blessed Virgin is sentient: most are; perhaps not
every one. If they want her in England, as they seem to do,
let them have her, - unless it is the one that rolls the eyes.
In that case I must claim her: she is too precious by half for
papist or tractarian. I must order immediately these mat-
ters. No reasonable doubt can be entertained that I am the
visible head of Christ's Church. Theologians may be con-
sulted in regard to Saint Peter, and may discover a manu-
script at Novgorod, stating his martyrdom there, and proving
his will and signature.
Nesselrode. Theologians may find perhaps in the Revela-
tion some Beast foreshadowing your Majesty.
Nicholas. How, sir,- how?
Nesselrode. Emperors and kings, we are taught, are desig-
nated as great beasts in the Holy Scriptures (aside) — and
elsewhere.
494
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
F
XXXV. KING CARLO-ALBERTO AND PRINCESS
BELGIOIOSO.*
King. Permit me, Princess, to offer you my compliment on
your entering a new career of conquest. When ladies of
such rank and accomplishments condescend to lead the
brave volunteers of Lombardy, good fortune must follow.
Princess. Excuse me, sir, it is far from condescension in
me; on the contrary, I feel it to be an act of self-elevation:
I hope a pardonable one. I was never proud until now; for
never was I so well aware of my duties, and so resolved to
perform them.
King. Flattery, wealth, station, beauty, were in a conspi-
racy against you; surely it was a difficult matter to resist
their united forces.
Princess. Each of these contingencies has many disad-
vantages, which its parallel advantages make us too often
overlook. The best of men and women have to fill up certain
gaps or discontinuities in their character; here is a field
for it.
King. I enter it willingly.
Princess. Italy, sir, had always her eyes on you: she once
abased them in deep sorrow; her confidence now returns.
Only one man upon earth enjoys power equal to yours;
behold how he employs it, the calm, the prudent, the
beneficent, the energetic Pio Nono. At your suggestion all
the potentates of Italy would engage in their service a pro-
portionate force of Swiss. Your Majesty and the King of
Naples could each afford to subsidize twelve thousand for a
single year; a second will not be necessary for the expulsion
of the Austrians. It is better to accomplish the great work
without the intervention of France, which would create much
jealousy in Germany and in England.
King. I would rather not see the French again in Pied-
mont. Already the apprehension of such an event has in-
duced Lord Palmerston to make me a strong remonstrance.
Princess. Sir, Lord Palmerston has lately been very much
in the habit of making strong remonstrances; and strong
*Printed first for the benefit of the sufferers at Messina.
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
495
$
ridicule has always rebounded to the racket. It was only
this week that he made one of his strong remonstrances to
the Government of Spain; which strong remonstrance was
thrown back in his teeth (if he has any left) with derision
and defiance. Narvaez stood aloof with folded arms, and
left him to be buffeted and beaten down by poor old Sotto-
mayor. His conduct in regard to Portugal has alienated
from England all — Liberals.
King. Are there many of them in that country?
they persons of consideration and respectability?
And are
Princess. Many of the clergy, both lower and higher;
nearly all the principal merchants; and not only the best
informed, but also the larger part, of the nobility; just as
they are in ours.
King. I wonder what could have induced his Lordship to
abandon his policy and principles ?
Princess. Sir, he abandoned no policy, no principles;
his Lordship is a Whig: these Whigs have neither; protesta-
tions serve instead.
King. It must be conceded that, in the multiplicity of
parties and interests, and in the conciliation and manage-
ment of the two Houses, an English Minister is placed in
circumstances of great difficulty, and where strict integrity is
quite impossible.
Princess. What is to be thought of that man's wisdom or
prudence who walks deliberately, and with his eyes open,
into those circumstances?
King Simpler governments have produced honester min-
isters than the complex. England has never seen her
Colbert, her Turgot, her Necker, her Roland. In the course
of the last eighty years, her only minister on whom there was
the slightest suspicion of sound principles was the Marquis
of Rockingham, patron of the celebrated Burke. The King
never spoke with cordiality to him, excepting on the day of
his dismissal. If Lord Palmerston miscarries, it will not be
for incompliancy to the wishes of the court; he has obtained
a firm footing there by trampling on Portugal.
But as
Austria is no fief of Saxony, he might permit me to regulate
my own concerns, and not attempt to trip me up in crossing
the frontier.
Princess. Your Majesty is defending your own country in
496
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
defending Italy, and you do not cross the frontier until you
cross the Alps. It may be necessary; for certain I am that
the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia are await-
ing with earnest anxiety to meet the advance of the Russian
armies.
King. They would ruin Hungary and the Baltic provinces.
Princess. The more welcome for that. By such devasta-
tion the power of resistance would be annihilated in the
refractory. Posen has already been treated like Oporto.
King. You appear to doubt the Prussian king's sincerity.
Princess. If his Majesty is an honest man, it is a great
deal more than his father and his grandfather were; and
indeed to find any such character in the archives of Hohen-
zollern would require an antiquary the most zealous and
the most acute. Certainly in the last reign the heir to the
throne was considered to be more anti-democratic than the
possessor; and since his accession what he has conceded to
the people came from him as an emanation of power and
wisdom on indigence and imbecility. There are professors.
in Germany who declare that the kings and upper classes
must be taught a purer language, not without an infusion of
neology; though most of these teachers are involved in their
own smoke and can see no further than the library.
King Princess, you must acknowledge that kings, at the
present day, are placed in an embarrassing situation: I
among the rest.
Princess. Then extricate yourself, sir, speedily. Unless
it is speedily, it will never be. You may recover all you
have lost of popularity and renown, by valor and determi-
nation. Your countryman, Alfieri, was correct in his assertion
that the Italians, both in mental and corporeal power, are
superior to all the nations round about. They want only
good examples and liberal institutions.
King. I am afraid, Princess, you want a Napoleon and a
republic.
Princess. If I desired the existence of the one, I must
desire the extinction of the other. Napoleon would permit
no other freedom than his own personal. Never did any
sovereign, not Louis Philippe himself, so belie his protesta-
tions; never did any one enact so many laws restrictive of
freedom in so many of its attributes. The most arbitrary of
L
1
1
I
:
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
497
despots never issued so great a quantity of edicts against the
press. Not only was it a crime to call in question any of his
actions, but it also was one to omit the praise of them.
Madame de Staël was exiled for it, and an impression of her
work on Germany seized by the police, condemning her
thereby to a loss of twenty thousand francs. Military men,
especially those who believe that all honor lies in the field of
battle, may admire him; but they who abhor selfishness,
malice, and (what we women think a crime) vulgarity abhor
Napoleon. He did, however, good service to Italy, be the
motive what it may, in extirpating the Bourbons, sticking in
again only one weak twig which never could take root.
King. You see then with satisfaction the difficulties
which beset the King of Naples?
Princess. Certainly; and so does your Majesty. It is
necessary to expel that family from the nations it has humili-
ated, from the thrones it has disgraced. The Sicilians, the
best of our Italian races, have decreed it.
King. Kings must not place it in the power of the people
to decide on their destiny.
Princess. Kings do not place it in their power, but God
does. Kings themselves begin the work of delving under
their palaces, and preparing the combustibles for explosion.
They never know where they are, until they find themselves
blown into some foreign land. The head grows cooler when
the crown is off; yet they would run again after it, as a little
girl after her bonnet which a breeze is rolling in the dust.
King. I am half persuaded that the little girl's loss is the
gravest, and that she is the wiser of the two runners.
Princess. Your Majesty has inspired me with confidence.
to proceed in speaking out plainly. You are now in my
country, and you can save it. Unless you do, you will lead
an unhappy life; if you do, a happy one. Security of domin-
ion is desirable, not extent. There are those who whisper
what I never can believe, that your Majesty is ambitious of
being the King of Lombardy. Supposing it practicable, do
you imagine that the people of Turin will be contented to
see the seat of government transferred to Milan, or that the
rich and noble and ancient families of Milan will submit to
become the footstools of the Turinese? Never, sir, never!
King. Would you have the whole world Republican?
VOL. V.
32
498
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Princess. In due time; at the present, few nations are
prepared for it: the best prepared is the Italian. Every one
of our cities shows the deep traces of its carroccio, and many
still retain their municipality and their podestà. I see no
reason why they should not all be restored to their pristine
state and vigor, all equally subject to one strict confederation.
The causes of their dissidence and decline exist no longer.
The Emperor is a powerless creature, tied by the leg to a
worm-eaten throne. The Pope, reposing on the bosom of
God, inspires the purest devotion, the sublimest virtue. He
reigns in the hearts of the most irreligious, and exerts over
the most obstinate the authority of paternal love. I have
seen proud scoffers lower their heads at the mention of his
name: I have heard cold philosophers say, with the hand upon
the breast, “This man is truly God's vicegerent. Pio Nono
is with Italy. One shake of the hand-bell on his table would
arouse fifty millions of our co-religionists.*
""
King. Our family hath always looked up with reverence
to the Popes; and without the countenance of Pio Nono
toward my people I should perhaps have been slower in
approval of their demonstrations.
Princess. The English ministry sent over a worthy man to
warn the Pope of his danger in giving so much encourage-
ment to the Liberals. Pio smiled with his usual benignity.
He felt that it was not in man to order the sun to stop, or the
stars to slacken their courses. The plenipotentiary, in the
plenitude of his potentiality, could do nothing at Rome; and
he struggled with like ill-success in the straits of Scylla and
Charybdis.
King. It is piteous to observe with how little wisdom and
probity the affairs of England are conducted. She hath
utterly lost all her influence in Europe. She cannot hold her
nearest dependencies: her remoter drop off one after another,
and grow stronger from that moment. The preservation of
her territories in the two Indies, — extensive, fertile, wealthy
as they are, brings only debt upon her.
Princess. Pardon me, sir, it does much more than that:
it not only exhausts her treasures, but between the West
* He soon began to calculate the probable duration of a Pope's life
who resists the Sacred College. God had inspired him with all but wis-
dom, truth, and courage.
{
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
499
Indies and Africa, it consumes several thousands of soldiers
and sailors yearly.
King. Yet England enjoys a free constitution and wise
laws.
Princess. So it is said by the framers, whose families are
clothed and fed by them: I can only judge by facts. Myth-
ologists tell us that stones were turned into men; perhaps
the same metamorphosis may, after a while, be enacted in
England.
King. It was even less probable at Vienna.
Princess. The blow of the hammer which struck out the
kindling spark was given here in Italy.
King. Events may come too suddenly.
Princess. Knowing this, we should be as well prepared as
we can be. I myself am
I myself am a witness to the suddenness of
events. One day I was walking on a wild waste in the
maremma of Tuscany; the next, by enterprise and industry,
were excavated the magnificent structures of ancient days.
Thus suddenly hath all Italy come forth from sterility to
within sight of her glorious institutions.
King. Ah, Princess! you make me smile. Those tombs
which you mention did indeed open again; but it was only to
show the semblances of kings.
Princess. Sir, in one moment they had been visible and
had disappeared; in one moment the crown was on their
heads and off again; it was lifted up, and only dust was
under: but the works of art, of genius, shone down on them
bright as ever. It is lamentable that kings should be less power-
ful than artificers; they might be greatly more so, and without
the exertion of labor or the expenditure of apprenticeship.
King. Lamentable it may be; but is it not equally that
people who call themselves Liberals should carp at the first
shadow of Liberalism in princes? A celebrated man of the
Whig party in England, and (by virtue of the office he once
held) a member of the peerage, tried to be at once an Eng-
lishman and a Frenchman, a Tory and a Republican.
Princess. The French minister made him understand his
duties; no minister or man will ever make him perform them.
A shallow scholar, an inelegant writer, an awkward orator,
he throws himself into the middle of every road where there
is the most passing, fond of heat and sunshine as a viper or
F
500
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
a flea.
In the gazettes he announced his own death, not
indeed to excite commiseration, which if he cared about it
would be hopeless, but curiosity. It is said that foxes, found
in places where they had no means of escape, have simulated
death: he has had the advantage of being thrown out after
detection, and lives to yelp and purloin. Among the Whigs.
themselves there is nowhere to be found so whipped a deser-
ter, so branded an impostor. There is no party which he has
not flattered and cajoled, espoused and abandoned. Pos-
sessing a variety of talents, without the ability to make a
single one available, the learned Lord Stowell said of him on
his elevation to office: "He knows a little of every thing
excepting law." His Lordship might have added, if he had
thought such qualities of any importance in his profession,
veracity and decorum. He declared it as his opinion that it
is the duty of a barrister to defend a client at any expense of
truth, even if the crime were shifted off the shoulders of the
guilty on the innocent. His opinion was taken by a man
as unscrupulous as himself, to screen a murderer. Two
virtuous women were inculpated; one was only ruined, the
other was driven mad. The same turbulent and malicious
man insulted the Italian people in the House of Lords, and
condemned the interference of your Majesty.
King. I am little surprised at it, and feel less the indig-
nity of this brawler than the insolence of the minister who
replied. He said, and it was true although he said it, that
he would have prevented my step if he could. Italy, now
resolved on free institutions, must look in another direction
than toward England.
Princess. She calls upon you, sir, in this crisis of her
sufferings. In the old heroic ages one man alone slew many
wild beasts: it were strange, if, in an age far more heroic,
many men should be insufficient to quell a single tame one,
with his back broken by a mass of rubbish falling down on
him in the den.
King. We must not only think of Austria, but also of the
other German potentates. The King of Prussia, fond of
managing and intermeddling, and having his own way and
walking by the light of his own wisdom, has been forced into
liberalism. If his people are prudent, they will not allow
him to march, as he proposes, at the head of his army into
!
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
501
Poland. He might play the same game as the late King of
Naples played, when his parliament gave him permission to
leave his metropolis for Vienna. He has clever men about
him, men of pliant principles and lanky purses, unreluctant
to leave sour-krout for French cookery, and to exchange a
horn snuffbox for a diamond one with an emperor on the lid.
We want experienced diplomatists capable of coping with
their sagacity and wariness.
Princess. The less intelligent sometimes baffle them by
firmness and integrity. I have seen slender girls support an
incredible weight on their heads, because they stood quite
upright and walked steadily. The ministers of kings would
persuade the world of their wisdom by vacillation and
obliquity: one false step, and they are fallen.
King. I see many things to disquiet, and some to endanger
me.
Princess. The hearts of great men neither collapse in the
hour of personal danger, nor ossify in that of public distress.
It is not to be dissembled that falsehood in the cause of
freedom may be apprehended on the side of Prussia; and it
is far from impossible that the Prussian king and the Austrian
emperor are waiting with impatience to embrace the Czar.
The massacre of the nobles in Gallicia was organized and
rewarded at Vienna; the persecution of all classes in Posen
is countenanced and commanded at Berlin. Czartoryski, the
humane, the charitable, the moderate, the just, the patriotic,
writes thus to the prime minister of that country: "I quit
Berlin with a heavy heart. Whatever be the cause, it is a
fact, that up to this day not one of the promises made to the
inhabitants of the grand-duchy of Posen, by the Prussian
Government, has been fulfilled." To what part of its people
has that Government been true? Stripped and scourged by
Bonaparte, tear after tear fell through the king's white eye-
lashes, and promise after promise from his quivering lips.
His nation picked him up, dragged him out of the mire,
cloaked him anew, and set him on his horse again. Generals
are now sent by him into Posen, with conflicting authorities,
to sow dissension, and to exasperate the German invader
against his generous host. The Prussian is not contented to
occupy the house and the land he hath seized on; he is not
contented with an equal share in the administration of laws
502
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
and taxes; he would split into shreds the country he already.
has broken into splinters, and would abolish its nationality.
King. Uncertainty in respect to Prussia, you must ac-
knowledge, is enough to make me cautious and deliberate.
Princess. An English poet says "that the woman who
deliberates is lost;" it may sometimes be said with equal truth
of the general and of the prince. Behold, sir, this beautiful
city of Vicenza! Even so small a place, being so lovely, is
worth risking life for; what then our grand and glorious Italy!
Look down only on the portals of the palaces before us. In
Paris and London we creep through a crevice in the wall :
here a cavalier finds no difficulty in placing his hand under a
lady's elbow, at due distance, and in leading her without
bruise or contusion through the crowded hall to the wide and
light staircase, where Heroes and Gods and Graces stand
forth to welcome them as they ascend. The inanimate world
here outvalues the animated elsewhere. It is worth all that
remains of life to have lived one year in Italy. No wonder
I am enthusiastic: I have lived here many.
King. Many! you? the Princess Belgioioso here beside
me? The Graces you speak of seem to contradict you.
Princess. I would rather trust the Heroes, as being nearer
at hand.
King. It is a relief to change the subject a little from
politics and battles. No subject can support a long-contin-
ued conversation, excepting love.
Princess. Love also is the fresher for a short excursion.
Seldom do I read a dialogue, even by the cleverest author,
without a sense of weariness. Sentences cut up into question
and answer on grave subjects, into repartee on lighter, are
intolerable. Such is the worst method of instructing a child,
or of attracting a man or woman. And there is something
very absurd in the supposition that any abstruse question, or
matter of deep thought, can be shuffled backward and for-
ward in this off-hand manner. Even where the discourse is
upon a subject the most easy and tractable, we are fond of
departing from the straight level walk to some narrower alley
that diverges out of it; and we always feel the cooler and
pleasanter in passing out of one room into another. But the
Austrians in Vienna will not allow me to linger here among
the orange-trees and myrtles and oleanders of Vicenza,
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
503
!
within view of the white uniform. We will revert, sir (with
permission), to the serious and substantial.
King. Of the serious I find quite enough; the substantial,
I trust, is somewhere in reserve. My old ministers have per-
plexed me almost as much as my old allies.
Princess. It is certain that every man in power thinks him-
self wiser than every man out of power; and the getting into
it seems a sort of warranty for the surmise. Yet it may so
happen that these who look over the chairs, and have no seat
themselves, shall see somewhat more of the game and of its
chances than the gamesters can. Others may be cooler and
more disinterested, who do not climb the ladder with the hod
upon their heads, but stand at the bottom of the building,
and look up and round.
King. If only a few ladies like you would go into Austria
and Hungary, you could dissuade and detain the leaders of
those nations from the desire of invading ours.
Princess. What does any gain by it?
All must contribute
money and men to hold the conquest in subjection. Kings
themselves are none the happier or the more powerful for it.
A few noble families are enriched, and rendered thereby in a
higher condition to dictate to their master.
King. There is something in that.
Princess. The greatest victory, the greatest conquest,
never brought more pleasure to the winner than a game of
chess or whist. Yet what crimes, what miseries, what mortal
anguish, not only in the field of battle, but in the far-off
home; what curses, what misgivings of a watchful, a just,
and a protecting Providence! The Austrians are little
better than meal-maggots; but surely the brave Hungari-
ans will espouse our cause instead of denouncing it. They
themselves have been contending for the same, and have won
it; not against us, but against the very same enemy. Hun-
gary, Switzerland, Tyrol, are the natural allies of Italy; she
wants no other.
King. I am happy to find you delivering this opinion.
You have lived much among the French, and perhaps may
entertain toward the nation the sentiments of esteem due
only to the best societies. You seem to take it little to heart
or to consideration, that, if you stand too near the focus of
democracy, the flounces and feathers of nobility may be
caught and shrivelled.
504
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Princess. In France the titles of nobility are abolished.
Important or unimportant, I do not believe the lower orders
in Italy will discard the use of them. They address one
another as we address your Majesty, by the title of Signore.
It comprehends alike the lowest and the highest. If a
marquis has twenty sons, they are all marquises. Many,
indeed most of them, are sadly poor: it is a comfort, no
doubt, to receive the whole of the patrimonial title where
there is only a fraction of the estate. Already one Italian is
on a parity with another. They are the least invidious of
mankind, and unite the most of courtesy and cordiality.
The scientific and learned, the patriotic and eloquent, are
treated in our societies with much higher distinction than
persons of birth and title. The French, who have learned
so much from us, have learned this also; later indeed, but
not less perfectly. It will penetrate to Germany and Eng-
land. In Germany the nobility is ignorant and ancient; in
England it is well-informed and new. There are few families
in the peerage whose name, even as knight's or gentleman's,
existed on the accession of the Tudors. False shame, trying
to support and strengthen the sufferer with a stiff and defiant
carriage, snaps asunder the titled new nobility from the
untitled old. In our country no clever advocate is caught up
by a patron, and seated first in the lower House, presently in
the higher. Ancient services to the State, ancient benefits
to the people, are the only true and recognized titles of our
nobility; those are neither to be taken away nor to be con-
ferred by a less active hand, a less energetic intellect.
should be what I am whether I were called so or not; the
same when my camariera has taken off my gown as when she
put it on the insertion or the removal of a pin makes all
the difference.
I
King. This is talking more philosophically than, by what
I comprehend of it, men talk generally.
Princess. Few men are ashamed of mounting upon stilts
in order to raise their heads above the multitude. They are
most supported when they are most unsteady, and are most
listened to when they speak in a feigned voice through masks.
King. But where there are ladies there should be courts,
distinctions, and festivals.
Princess. We ladies of Milan can do extremely well with-
CARLO-ALBERTO AND BELGIOIOSO.
505
out them. Happy in our circles, in our conversations, in our
music, ready to receive instruction and grateful to our in-
structors, many of us seldom leave the city but for the
vintage-season, or leave it for no further an excursion than
to the lake of Como or Varese.
King. Tranquil is the scene and beautiful round Varese ;
redundant in the profusion of gifts and exalted in the graces
of majesty is the Lario; but, eminent over your Lago
Maggiore, we behold the awful benignity of Saint Carlo
Borrommeo. At his prayers and before his omnipresence,
famine and pestilence fled from Milano; and Gustavus
Adolphus, conqueror of Germany, recalled his advancing and
irresistible army from the marshes of Gravedona.
Princess. Sir, his descendant is worthy of his name and
his protection. Unless the bravery of my friend and the
intercession of our patron saint be efficient, we may perhaps
ere long be seen pitching our tents in Piedmont.
King. It is a comfort to believe that you prefer us to our
neighbors, and that France is not about to win you from us.
I do confess to you, princess, that the remembrance of what
happened in the first revolution disquieted me a little at the
early rumors of the last.
Princess. The first French revolution was a very vile pref-
ace to a very noble volume. Opening the introduction of the
second we may augur better, but with fear at the side of
hope for its continuation.
King. It is remarkable that the sober-minded Germans
should have committed much greater excesses and much
more glaring injustice; and it is not only in these countries
of ours, but equally in their own, and along the whole extent
of the Baltic. It is seldom or never that hounds worry one
another while the prey is before them and the huntsmen are
sounding the horn. Really and truly I wish you would
compose a manifesto, which I may address to the Austrians
and Hungarians.
Princess. Perhaps in some places there might be an
objectionable word.
King. You must be less inflammatory than Lord Palmerston.
Princess. I could neither be more hasty nor more inefficient
Touch-wood makes but an indifferent torch.
King. Give us a specimen of appeal.
506
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Princess. It would be like this: "Austrians and Hunga-
rians! why do you wish to impose on others a yoke which
you yourselves have shaken off? If they whom you persist
in your endeavors of reducing to servitude had attempted
the same against you, then indeed resentment might warrant
you, and retributive justice would be certainly on your side.
It may gratify the vanity of a family to exercise dominion
over distant States; and the directors of court-pageants may
be loath to drop the fruits of patronage. These fruits are
paid for with your blood. Of what advantage is it to any
citizen of Buda or Vienna to equip an arch-duke and trumpet
him forth to Milan? Extent of territory never made a nation
the happier, unless on its own natal soil, giving it room for
enterprise and industry. On the contrary it always hath
helped its ruler to become more arbitrary. Supposing you
were governed by the wisest instead of the weakest in the
universe, could he render you more prosperous by sending
you from your peaceful homes to scare away order from
others? Hungarians! is not Hungary wide enough for you?
Austrians! hath Heaven appointed you to control much
greater, much more numerous, much more warlike nations
than you ever were, Hungary for instance, and Lombardy?
Be contented to enjoy a closer union with Moravia and (if
she will listen to it) with Bohemia. Leave to Hungary what
she will take, whether you will or no, Styria, Illyria, and
Croatia. You are not a maritime power, and you never can
be, for you are without a sea-board; but Hungarian gener-
osity will open to you the Adriatic as freely as the Danube.
Be moderate while moderation can profit you, and you will
soon cease to smart under the wounds of war, and to struggle
under the burden of debt."
King. This appeal is very impressive, because it termin-
ates at the proper place. Taxation is more intolerable than
cruelty and injustice. The purse is a nation's panoply; and
when you strike through it you wound a vital part. Refusal
to reduce taxation by the abolition of inutilities may shake
the broad and solid edifice of the English constitution, which
the Socialist and Chartist have assailed in vain. The debts
of Italy are light.
Princess. The lands and palaces of the King of Naples
would pay off the heaviest the remainder is barely sufficient
:
GARIBALDI AND MAZZINI.
507
to serve as a key-stone to consolidate our interests. There
are far-sighted men in England who would not gladly see the
great debt of that country very much diminished.
King. Part of ours will disappear now we are no longer
to give out rations to the hordes of Austria. I hope they
may be convinced that they can be happier and safer in their
own houses than in the houses of other men.
Princess. If they believe, as it seems they do, that they are
incapable of governing themselves, and that an idiot is their
proper head, let them continue to enjoy the poppy crown,
but leave the iron one behind at Monza. Nothing more will
be required of them than co-operation with the other States
of Germany against Russia. A force no greater than the
peace-establishment will secure the independence and in-
tegrity of Poland. Nay, if Germany sends only one hundred
and fifty thousand men, Hungary forty thousand, Italy forty
thousand, France fifty thousand, Russia will break down under
them, and Moscow be again her capital. Great States are
great curses, both to others and to themselves. One such,
however, is necessary to the equipoise of the political world.
Poland is the natural barrier of civilization against barbarism,
of freedom against despotism. No potentate able to coerce
the progress of nations must anywhere exist. All that ever
was Poland must again be Poland, and much more. Power,
predominant power, is necessary to her for the advantage of
Europe. She must be looked up to as an impregnable out-
work protecting the nascent liberties of the world.
King. Russia is rich and warlike and hard to manage.
Princess. Her Cossacks and Tartars, of various denomina-
tions, might nearly all be detached from her by other means
than arms. Her empire will split and splinter into the in-
finitesimals of which its vast shapeless body is composed.
The south breathes against it, and it dissolves.
XXXVI. GARIBALDI AND MAZZINI.
Mazzini. It was in vain that I represented to you, Gari-
baldi, the imprudence of letting the French army debark un-
opposed at Civita Vecchia.
508
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Garibaldi. I now acknowledge the imprudence of it; but
I believed at the time that the French soldiers were animated
by a love of freedom, the French officers by a sentiment of
honor and veracity: and I doubted not that they came for
our support. Do you laugh at me, Mazzini ? Can there be
a laugh or a smile in any Italian at the present hour, when
after our citizens had driven from our walls and rolled on
the plain the most courageous and confident of the hostile
army, we experience in turn grave disasters every day from
the superiority of their weapons and the advantages of their
experience? Every day their rifles strike down from our
cannon on the walls our best artillery-men. True, there are
ardent youths who supply their places instantly; but how long
can this last?
Mazzini. Believe me, brave and generous Garibaldi, I
did not laugh at any thing but what all Europe laughs at:
French honor, French veracity. Is this the first time they
have deceived us? Is this the first time our youth have paid
the price of their blood for their credulity? Never more can
they deceive, never more can they conciliate us. Italy hence-
forth is divided from France by a stronger and loftier barrier
than the Alps.
Garibaldi. Ingratitude is more flagitious in them even
than perfidy. Look into our hospitals: three-fourths of the
wounded are French soldiers. They were abandoned by
their officers and comrades on their ignominious field of bat-
tle, partly from indifference toward those who had served and
could serve no longer; partly on the calculation of our hu-
manity and the knowledge of our deficiency in provisions.
Mazzini. Even the wildest of the beasts are calculators.
The serpent, the tiger, make no spring without a calculation ;
but neither makes it wantonly: the one must be offended or
frightened, the other must be in search of food.
Garibaldi. The ambition of one man is the fountain-head
of our calamity. Fallen we may be; but never so fallen as
the French themselves: we resisted; they succumbed. Can
any one doubt the ulterior views of this impostor?
Mazzini. He will not rest here: he will claim the kingdom
of Rome and the empire of France. He has proved his
legitimacy by his contempt of law; in this alone he bears a
resemblance to Napoleon. Napoleon, upon several occa-
GARIBALDI AND MAZZINI.
509
sions, showed the obtuser part of his triangular hat; but
never until he had shown the pointed. The hatter at Stras-
burg would have taken back at small discount the imitation
of it, which he forwarded to his customer for the expedition
toward Paris. Already his emissaries have persuaded the
poor ignorant population of the provinces that he is the
Emperor Napoleon just escaped from an English prison.
Garibaldi. Presently, I repeat it, he will assume the title.
The Dutch are more likely than the French to hold it
in derision. They know that his mother did not cohabit
with her husband; and they might have expected one much
honester from the Admiralty than they received from it.
Mazzini. Garibaldi! we have other occupations than
reference to paternities, to similitudes, and verisimilitudes.
The French are at the gates of our city! Fire no longer from
the walls let them enter. Let Rome be a Saragoza: within
the ramparts we have defensible positions, none upon them ;
all weapons are equal, or nearly so, hand to hand. Roman
women have displayed the same courage and devotion as
Saragozan; Roman artisans are as resolute as Numantian.
Garibaldi. Neither in Numantia nor in Saragoza was
there any woman, who, coming from afar, incited by admira-
tion of freedom and valor, abandoned a luxurious home, the
society of the learned, the homage of the chivalrous, to spend
her days and nights in administering comfort to the wounded;
in tasting the bitter medicine that the feverish lip might not
reject it; in swathing with delicate hand the broken and
festered limb; in smoothing the pallet that agony had made
uneven and hard. Man's courage is of earth, however high;
woman's angelic, and of heaven.
A Suetonius and a Tacitus may tell the world hereafter what
are our pontifical princesses; a Belgioioso stands before us,
and shows by her magnanimity and beneficence what is a
Milanese.
Learned men! inquisitorial professors! cold sceptics!
violators of the tomb! stumblers on the bones and ashes ye
would kick aside! - Ye who doubt the realities of our ancient
glory, of our ancient self-devotion, come hither, bathe your
weak eyes and strengthen your wavering belief.
510
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
XXXVII. CARDINAL ANTONELLI AND GENERAL
GEMEAU.
FIRST CONVERSATION.
Cardinal Antonelli. General, on the eve of your de-
parture -
General Gemeau (aside). Sacre! what does the man mean?
Cardinal Antonelli. in the name of the Holiness of our
Lord, of the Sacred College, of the bishops, of the clergy at
large-
General Gemeau. Eminence! come, if you please, to the
point. What the devil is implied in this superfine tissue of
verbiage and fanfaronade?
Cardinal Antonelli. it is incumbent on me (and never
was any duty more gratifying to my heart) to declare to your
Excellency the satisfaction of his Holiness at the assistance
you have rendered his Holiness in upholding, under the
banner of the Church, and under the Pontifical blessing, the
rights and authority of the Holy See.
General Gemeau. Parbleu! well may you thank us but
if you take it into your head that we are going, your thanks,
supposing them final, my brave Eminence, are somewhat
premature.
Cardinal Antonelli. And I am commanded by his Beati-
tude to place at your disposal one thousand medals and one
thousand crosses, decorated with appropriate ribbands, that
your Excellency may distribute them among those officers
and soldiers most distinguished for their devotion to our true
religion.
General Gemeau. If your Eminence talks of sending off
your deliverers in this manner, they will throw your ribbands
and crosses to the Jews and to the smelting-pot.
Cardinal Antonelli. I speak from authority, and with the
voice of a prophet, in declaring to your Excellency that such
a sacrilege would be most detrimental to the perpetrators.
But out of evil cometh good: such invariably is the order of
Divine Providence. The laws of Nature in this instance will
bend before it, and a miracle will be the result, to the edifi-
cation of the believer, and the conversion or the confusion of
the unbeliever.
CARDINAL ANTONELLI AND GENERAL GEMEAU. 511
General Gemeau. Eminence! you gentlemen are always
quite enough of prophets to foresee a miracle. Favor me
with a vision of that which is now impending, that I may
either keep the soldiers in the barracks, or order them to take
up a position according to the exigency.
Cardinal Antonelli. If such a profanation were offered to
those crosses and medals which have received a benediction
from the Holiness of our Lord, the fire over which they
should be placed in the crucible would totally change their
properties, and the metal would be only base metal.
General Gemeau. Name of God! I thought as much.
But every metal is base metal which turns a citizen into a
satellite, the defender of his freedom into the subverter of
another's. Eminence! we were not born to be Mamelukes,
we were not educated to be Janizaries. Shall those orders of
men which are abolished in Turkey and Egypt be maintained
in France, for the benefit of Rome?
Cardinal Antonelli. General! with due submission, this
language is novel and unintelligible to me.
General Gemeau. Plainly, then you and your master are
ungrateful. We have endured your clerical insolence and
your Roman climate long enough.
Cardinal Antonelli. His Holiness is quite of your opinion;
and therefore would graciously bestow on you, in the hour of
your departure, his benediction and valediction.
General Gemeau. His Holiness, it seems to me, reckons
without his host.
Cardinal Antonelli. We are most sensible of the great
benefits the French government and the French army have
conferred upon us.
General Gemeau. Truly, so it seems!
Truly, so it seems! We do not want
more of this sensibility; we will grant you gratuitously more
of these benefits. Have we not sacrificed to you our oaths
as citizens, our honor as soldiers? Did we not swear that
we entered the Roman States to defend the liberty of the
Roman people? And did we not, without delay, bombard
the city?
Cardinal Antonelli. To the danger of the palaces and of
the churches.
General Gemeau. Which of the princes, which of the
cardinals, ever once entered the hospitals where our wounded,
512
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
to the number of above a thousand, lay dying? The Roman
ladies, old and young, attended them, dressed their wounds, sat
at the side of their couches day and night, administered their
medicines, assuaged their thirst, and frequently, from heat
and inanition, fainted on the floor. Often have the tears of
our brave soldiers fallen on their inanimate nurses. Nature
was exhausted, beneficence flowed on.
Cardinal Antonelli. In Austria they would have been
severely whipped for it, and imprisoned among the prosti-
tutes: our Government is clement. We are deeply indebted
to your President for his succor and support. But we cannot
dissemble
General Gemeau (aside). Odd enough that!
Cardinal Antonelli.
we cannot dissemble from our-
selves that we greatly owe his interference to a pressure from
without.
Cardinal Antonelli.
General Gemeau. Eminence! be pleased to explain.
The President was anxious to concili-
ate the Powers that be. He was the head of his nation, and
naturally leaned to the heads of other nations, irrespective
alike of Roman and of Frenchman. If, instead of sending
eighteen thousand men to chastise a rebellious city which
his wisdom has ensnared, he had sent only half the number
to encourage and protect it, all Europe, long before the
present hour, had been cursed with constitutions. Heaven
had showered down no more miracles, no saintly eyes com-
passionately rolling from the painted canvas, but had aban-
doned the sinful world to its own devices. America will
soon be left alone to the popular will: Europe is well-nigh
freed from it.
General Gemeau. A spoke is shattered in the wheel of the
Revolution; we must substitute another and stronger: we
must swear again, and keep our oaths better.
Cardinal Antonelli. In the opinion of many (God forbid
that I should entertain it) the climate of the French heart is
too hot and intemperate for any thing to keep sweet and
sound in it. According to them, your honor is quite satisfied
by bloodshed: to be proved a liar is no disgrace; to be
called one is inexpiable.
General Gemeau. Pardon me, Eminence, pardon me; the
offender's blood expiates it. The pain of being caught in a
CARDINAL ANTONELLI AND GENERAL GEMEAU. 513
lie, take my word for it, is bad enough; it shows such clum-
siness and stupidity: but to be called a liar in consequence
of it — bah! and without a moral power of shot or sabre to
rebut the charge — bah! a Mediterranean of blood is insuf-
ficient to stanch the wound.
Cardinal Antonelli. Christianity teaches us
General Gemeau. Don't tell me what Christianity teaches
us. Christianity holds the book in her hand, but can neither
thrust it nor conjure it into men's heads. Christianity says
that her first officers shall not call themselves lords: yet even
those who pretend to purity and reformation take the title.
Christianity commands them to forbear from lucre: yet I read
in the English journals that several English bishops, judges
in their own cause, adjudicators of their own claims, are
convicted of seizing what they had voluntarily renounced in
behalf of their poorer brethren. Robbers of the industri-
ous and necessitous, prevaricators and swindlers, as they are
proved to be in Parliament, there is nobody at hand to knock
the marrow-bone out of their jaws, and to drive them back to
kennel. The High-priest of Jerusalem scoffed at Christ, but
he would have scorned to filch a farthing from under the
rags of Lazarus.
Cardinal Antonelli. We shall be indebted to these abuses
for a large accession to our Holy Church. What man would
pay a dollar to hear a hurdy-gurdy who may hear the finest
chorus for a soldo? Again, let me repeat, sir, the expression
of the Supreme Pontiff's benevolence for the services you
and your army have rendered to our Holy faith. At present,
his Majesty the King of Naples, and his Majesty the Em-
peror of Austria, are sufficiently able and disposed to aid us
against the rebels and infidels of Italy.
General Gemeau. It was only that they might have no
such duty to perform we entered the Papal States.
It vexes
me to be reminded not only of the reverses we endured
under your walls, but also of the equal ignominy of having
marched against them. Dishonored for ever are the names
of several generals whose fathers were signalized under the
Republic and under the Emperor. Our soldiers have fallen
unprofitably; but never, sir, be persuaded that they have.
been garnering the harvest for the benefit of Austrians and
Neapolitans.
VOL. V.
33
514
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Cardinal Antonelli. Your Excellency will recollect that
the Austrian and Neapolitan sovereigns have territories and
allies in Italy: the French have none. These potentates
have an unquestionable right to secure their own thrones in
this country; the French have no throne and no allies to de-
fend in it, no people which calls, or which in future will ever
call, to them for aid.
General Gemeau (aside.) Pardie! priest as he is, he speak
the truth. A pretty game hath our President been playing!
The chair is an unlucky one; yet there are those behind who
are ready enough to cut for it.
SECOND CONVERSATION.
Cardinal Antonelli. I am charmed to find your Excellency
in so much better health than I expected.
General Gemeau. Many thanks to your Eminence. I have
taken no medicine since my arrival in Rome, and I brought
cook with me from Paris.
my
Cardinal Antonelli. We also have excellent cooks in
Rome.
General Gemeau.
Sometimes they deal too largely with
the chemist and druggist. Even the wine at the altar, and
administered by prelates, has been found sometimes to dis-
agree with the stomach. Stories, therefore, have been buzzed
into the ears of the studious and inquisitive, and have been
related by grave historians, of secret doors discovered, which
opened from the church into the laboratory, and of strong
prescriptions under the hand and seal-
Cardinal Antonelli. False, Sir, false altogether !
pope-
General Gemeau. Did I name any?
No
Cardinal Antonelli. Permit me to express my confidence
that your Excellency means nothing more than what your
words in their simplest and most obvious form convey.
General Gemeau. Nothing more, nothing more whatever.
Cardinal Antonelli. With equal simplicity and with equal
truth, I will now interpret what the Holiness of our Lord in
his benignity hath deigned to impart. Apprehensive that
CARDINAL ANTONELLI AND GENERAL GEMEAU. 515
some malady, and hoping that nothing worse than a slight
indisposition had detained your Excellency, at this unhealthy
season of the year, within the walls of Rome
General Gemeau. Eminence! you may at your own good
time return and inform the Holiness of our Lord that his
Beatitude ought to lie no longer under any such apprehen-
sion. Assure him that, whatever he had reason to believe,
you found me perfectly hale and hearty; that my apartments
are well ventilated, my cellar well filled with French wines,
which agree with me much better than the Italian might do ;
and that, out of reverence to Holy Church, I present to my
chaplain his cup of coffee in the evening, and of chocolate
in the morning, before I drink a drop. Indeed, it is thought
dangerous to remain in Rome during the heats of July and
August: but there is nothing which I would not endure in the
service of his Holiness.
Cardinal Antonelli. Neighboring potentates are quite
willing to relieve your Excellency from so incommodious
and dangerous a service.
General Gemeau. It would be impolite and unfriendly to
impose on a neighbor any incommodity or danger which we
ourselves decline.
Cardinal Antonelli. His Holiness is very anxious to calm
animosities and obviate collisions.
General Gemeau. The sword best calms animosities, best
obviates collisions.
Cardinal Antonelli. Your Excellency means assuredly the
sword of the Spirit.
General Gemeau. Eminence! the spirit of theologians and
religionists is shown clearly, though unconsciously, by their
customary phraseology. You borrow our swords, practically
and efficiently, when your own daggers are too short; but,
metaphorically and virtually, every word you utter is drawn
from our military vocabulary. "Shield," "buckler," "stand-
ard," "conflict," "blood," "spurning," "rebuffing," "repuls-
ing," "overthrowing," "trampling down under foot," "rising
victorious," all these expressions and more such, echo
from church to church, and mingle somewhat inharmoniously,
methinks, with prayers and exhortations. Good Christians
have a greater variety of them, and utter them with greater
intensity, than the wildest Cherokee or Australian.
516
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Cardinal Antonelli. We are calm and considerate while
we employ them.
General Gemeau. Considerate too, and calm, is the Thug
of India while he murders or excites to murder; he also is
religious and devout.
Cardinal Antonelli. Sir, I did not expect this language
from a general who, if I mistake not, hath served in Africa.
General Gemeau. Perhaps your Eminence may have mis-
taken; but, whether or no, every French officer is bound in
honor to maintain the character of every other.
We are
consistent: what one is all are; what one says all say; what
one does all do.
Cardinal Antonelli. I am too well aware of the fact for
any dispute or disceptation on any part of it. But, General,
to avoid the possibility of irritating or displeasing you, with
my natural frankness and well-known sincerity I will lay
open to you the whole heart of his Holiness. It is wounded
profoundly at the dissensions of his sons.
General Gemeau. If the question be not indiscreet, how
many has he, poor man?
Cardinal Antonelli. More than ever, now your glorious
President hath taken to his bosom the Society of Jesus.
General Gemeau. I thought they never quarrelled. Wolves
never do while they hunt in packs; and foxes at all times
know how little is to be got by fighting.
Cardinal Antonelli. Your Excellency has misunderstood
me. Austria and Naples look with an evil eye upon your
arms in Italy.
General Gemeau.
look another way.
Then let them stand farther off and
Cardinal Antonelli. Impossible to persuade them.
General Gemeau. We Frenchmen have often used such.
arguments as convinced them perfectly. Austria sacrificed
at another Tauris another Iphigenia; Saint Januarius found
us so true believers that he sweated blood for us, and Cristo
Bianco and Cristo Nero * paraded the streets to our Mar-
seillese hymn.
Cardinal Antonelli. Happily those days are over.
General Gemeau. I am not so sure of that. I would
* Two idols carried in opposition about the streets of Naples, the
devout often beating the head of one against the head of the other.
CARDINAL ANTONELLI AND GENERAL GEMEAU. 517
1
advise the Saint to sweat while he has any blood in his veins.
We Frenchmen know how to treat him; but among the Ital-
ians there are many who would use him to roast their chest-
nuts, or would stir their polenta over him.
Cardinal Antonelli. Alas! too true. But the pious spirit
which animates the French soldier will render him ever
obedient to the commands of the Holy Father.
General Gemeau. The French soldier is possessed by an-
other spirit beside the pious one, the spirit of obedience
to his commander. The Holiness of our Lord may com-
mand in the Vatican, but, Eminence, I command here. The
Castle of St. Angelo is nigh enough to the Vatican for me
to hear any cry of distress from his Beatitude; the Austrians
and Neapolitans are more distant.
Cardinal Antonelli. They may approach.
General Gemeau. Let them, if they dare.
At their ad-
vance I seize upon certain hostages of the highest rank and
office.
Cardinal Antonelli. It would be sacrilege.
General Gemeau. The Pope will be close at hand to ab-
solve me from it. He holds the keys of Heaven and Hell;
;
I hold those of Castel-Sant-Angelo.
Cardinal Antonelli. The Holiness of our Lord might
forbid any resistance.
General Gemeau. In such an event, I would deliver him
from fresh ignominy: such as what his Holiness bore, cast-
ing off his slipper for jack-boots, his triple crown for jockey-
cap, and arrayed in the dress livery of the French ambassador,
fain to take up a position at a pretty good distance from the
Cross of Christ, mindless of his promises and of his flock,
and shouting aloud to King Bomba for help.
Cardinal Antonelli. He flew to the faithful.
General Gemeau. And, seeing his urgency, they delivered
up to him all the faith they had about them.
Cardinal Antonelli. Excellency! Really, I distrust my
senses; never will I believe that in a French general I have
found a scoffer.
General Gemeau. Eminence! I yield; I give up the
point; you have beaten me fairly at dissembling. I kept
my countenance and my temper as long as I could. I ought
only to have laughed at the threat of being superseded by
}
518
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
!
the only king existing who has been (in the field at least)
convicted of cowardice, and moreover at the instigation of
the only Pope in modern times who has been caught blow-
ing bubbles to the populace, and exerting his agility at a
masquerade.
XXXVIII. LOUIS BONAPARTE AND COUNT MOLÉ.
Louis Bonaparte. M. de Molé, I have often been desir-
ous of profiting by your wisdom and experience; let me hope
that the hour is arrived.
Count Molé. Experience, M. le Président, is baffled,
trampled, trodden down and run over, by the rapid succes-
sion and blind conflict of events; its utility is lost, is an-
nihilated. Wisdom has had no share in the creation of
them, and can hope to exercise but little control in their
management.
Louis Bonaparte. We must now appeal to French courage
and French honor.
Count Molé. We must sound the bell to silence the
courage on the other hand, we must call a huissier with the
loudest voice to read an appeal to the honor. Are there
twenty men of high station in France who are unforsworn?
Are there among her representatives half the number who
have not violated three oaths in the last three months?
Louis Bonaparte. But honor is left at the bottom of the
heart.
Count Molé. If not there, yet under it, on the same side.
The scabbard holds it; and quite sufficiently capacious for
the whole of it would be a much narrower receptacle. Call
a man a liar, and out it flies upon you. He proves the
contrary by a clear I was about to say demonstration —
the word is detonation. For one who enters a picture-gallery,
fifty enter a pistol-gallery: for one who has learned the
rudiments of grammar, fifty have learned the rudiments of
gunnery. I should never have made these remarks, M. le
Président, if you had not invited me to converse with you
upon the state of the nation, upon what led to it, and upon
1
LOUIS BONAPARTE AND COUNT MOLÉ.
519
what may, under Providence, lead it again to security and
peace. These are never to be attained while no man holds
sacred his own word, or believes in any other's.
Louis Bonaparte. I am entirely of your opinion, M. de
Molé; so was my uncle the Emperor. For which reason he
restored to the Pope his primitive authority, and lighted anew
the candles on our altars. This was the first step he took
after his recall of the emigrants. I have brought around me
not only six or seven of the old nobility, but even such names
as Fénélon and Turgot.
Count Molé. Easily done. Poverty, sir, is no phantom:
she is the most importunate of the Furies, and has the
appetite of a Harpy. She looks for her larder through
the windows of the Treasury; and, if she sees only empty
dishes there, she screams and flies away to another quar-
ter. Be pleased, sir, to consider that I cast a reflection on
nobody.
Louis Bonaparte. I am aware of it, M. de Molé. If in
any slight degree I differ from you in opinion, it is in my gen-
eral estimate of French honor: it appears to me large and
catholic.
Count Molé. Very large indeed, and truly catholic: I only
wish we could limit and define it, bringing it back within its
ancient boundary. M. le Président knows that a fortifica-
tion is the stronger for a wide extent of rotten ground about
it. Cardinal de Richelieu, the wisest of politicians, knew
it likewise. Therefore he drew into Paris, by offices and
preferments, the ancient nobility of the realm. The poorer
he enriched by giving them places: the richer he impover-
ished by leading them through their vanity to a vast expendi-
ture. He took especial care that the ladies, from the hour
they left the convent, should be taught the secrets of gaming.
And what chevalier, worthy of his spurs, could decline the
acknowledgment of their smiles at the tourney of green cloth?
Luxury, by which I mean good cookery and good wine, sel-
dom hurts the bodily frame. Late hours and the mortifica-
tion of loss cast down corporeal and mental power alike.
At the close of these days, and at the commencement of our
own, external commerce had begun to ramify widely; and
commerce will always introduce cosmopolite opinions. Tur-
got fostered it, and could not exclude the sequel. He died
520
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
too early for the prosperity of France. No minister who
united such integrity with such intellect is recorded in the
annals of any nation. Perhaps he was fortunate in living
while the government was simply monarchical, thus, having
the fewer men to converse with and deceive. In fact, he
never deceived any one. Had he lived under a constitu-
tional system, he must have given up half his principles or
all his power.
Louis Bonaparte. These, M. de Molé are serious consid-
erations. We ought to take good care how men may keep
their principles. You will assist me in this arduous under-
taking, I am confident.
Count Molė. To the best of my poor abilities.
Louis Bonaparte. By this promise the uttermost scope of my
ambition is attained. I am resolved to extinguish the flame
that would consume all that is venerable in Rome, giving my
solemn word to citizen and soldier that I come frankly and
loyally to their assistance. The high clergy, with few excep-
tions in this country, and fewer in Italy, are unanimous in
recommending it.
Count Molé. In recommending, sir, a breach of promise,
a falsehood?
Louis Bonaparte. M. de Molé! the head of a State can
commit no falsehood. The preamble to all decrees runs:
"After hearing the Council of Ministers," the President, or
whatever may be the title of the Executive, “decrees," &c.
Beside which, it is acknowledged by every true Catholic that
on emergencies a word, or oath, or contract may be broken
and cast aside. In courts the ties of consanguinity are relaxed;
uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, intermarry, not simply
with the consent, but also with the benediction of the Church.
Shall not we, her sons, ever called the most Christian, be
grateful to the Holy Father for granting such indulgences,
and lay every snare to entrap the vermin that would under-
mine them ? M. de Montalembert, a most religious man, to-
gether with every member of the Society of Jesus, approves
of my decision. The Holy Father himself, when he bestowed
on his people from the balcony of the Quirinal his constitu-
tion and benediction, lowered his head, and in the same
breath, with his hand upon his heart, called the Virgin to
witness that he would revoke all his promises. He who can
POPE PIO NONO AND CARDINAL ANTONELLI.
521
take from his girdle and turn round the keys of heaven, can
surely turn round as easily a light and empty word. He has
done it. We surely can never err in following the course of
Infallibility. Incest is no incest, if he says it is none; an
oath, if he wills it, is no oath.
Count Molé. There may indeed be some danger of Roman
republicanism flying across the Alps. The flame of a burn-
ing candle leans toward the smoke of a candle half-extin-
guished, and relumes it. This consideration has greater
weight with me than casuistry. In France, within a few
months, nothing will be left of republic but the name: yet
the name, if we hear it too frequently or too near, may evoke
the spirit. M. de Montalembert would not let the Romans
burn their fetiches, and would rather burn the Romans: I
would rather let them alone if we could but keep them
quiet.
Louis Bonaparte. Precisely; that is all I wish. I would
moderate the intemperate zeal of conflicting parties; in which
service to humanity, M. de Molé, I entreat your counsel and
co-operation.
XXXIX. POPE PIO NONO AND CARDINAL
ANTONELLI.
Pio Nono. Cardinal Antonelli! Cardinal Antonelli! I
begin to fear we shall be convicted of lying by the un-
believer.
Cardinal Antonelli. Holiness, we have lied; but it was
for the glory of God and of his Blessed Mother, and for the
exaltation of the Church. Need I recapitulate to your Beati-
tude the number of learned casuists who have inculcated the
duty of so doing? Need I bring before you the princes of
the present day who have broken their promises and oaths
to their subjects? If we were bound to them, we should be
the subjects, and not they.
Pio Nono. Nevertheless, I have had certain qualms of
conscience from time to time; insomuch as to have humili-
ated myself before my confessor.
Cardinal Antonelli. And what said he?
!
522
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
Pio Nono. I am ashamed to repeat what he said: he
almost said it approached to sin. But, as in duty bound,
he absolved me; on condition of eating a tench for supper,
an isinglass jelly, and two apricot tarts, preceded by a
basin of almond soup, and followed by a demi-flask of
Orvieto. I begged hard against the tench, and pleaded for
a mullet.
Cardinal Antonelli. Indignity! Was the beast so stupid
as to be unaware that your Holiness, who can absolve fifty
nations at the erection of a finger, could absolve yourself?
Pio Nono. But it is easier and more commodious to pro-
cure another to scratch our back and shoulder when they
itch.
Cardinal Antonelli. True, most true. But the business
which has brought me this evening into the presence of your
Beatitude is somewhat worse than itching. The French
Emperor is peremptory that your Beatitude should crown
him.
Pio Nono. I promised it.
Cardinal Antonelli. Indefinitely; with evasions. And has
not the French Emperor done somewhat more than evade his
promises? Has he not broken them over and over again?
Pio Nono. I must not play tight and loose with him: I
must not turn suddenly from hot to cold.
Cardinal Antonelli. The armorer, who makes a strong
sword-blade, turns it first in fire, then plunges it in water.
Pio Nono. He might do me harm.
Cardinal Antonelli. The Austrians are always at hand to
prevent it.
Pio Nono. I am advised that twenty thousand more French,
with a hundred thousand stand of arms for the malcontents,
could sweep Italy clear of the Austrians in six weeks, from
Livorno to Mantua. Louis Napoleon is wiser and warier
than his uncle. Europe has never seen a prince more capa-
ble of ruling, more resolved to be obeyed.
Cardinal Antonelli. He has given great offence to Austria
by the Declaration he made preparatory to his marriage.
Pio Nono. Doubtless; but what can Austria do against
Her fleet in the Adriatic could not preserve Dalmatia
Hungary would lie open. Piedmont and Switzerland
would rise simultaneously, and revenge the wrongs and in-
him?
to her.
1
1
ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE AND MADIAI.
523
sults they daily are receiving. The Austrian empire would
dissolve ere autumn.
Cardinal Antonelli. Russia would step forward again.
Pio Nono. So much the worse for Austria. The Russians
would bring famine with the sword. A Russian army of
eighty thousand men, I am credibly informed by a sound
strategist, would perish from inanition. Two hundred
thousand Hungarians, one hundred thousand Italians, and
(say only) three hundred thousand French, in addition to
an Austrian army of perhaps a hundred thousand (after the
desertion of Hungarians, Italians, and Bohemians), would
find but scanty provisions for three months. All the rich
country of Lombardy and Austria would be overrun by the
enemy; and Prussia would take Bohemia and Moravia under
her protection.
Cardinal Antonelli.
coronation, Louis Napoleon will be moderate.
So long as your Holiness defers the
Pio Nono. I am aware of it. Between ourselves, there is
nothing I so much admire in him as his choice of a consort.
His uncle was ruined by the Austrian alliance. History,
close at hand, in vain admonished him. The unfortunate
Maria Antoinette, the most amiable of her family and the
best, was hated by the French, not only for her extravagance,
but for her country.
Cardinal Antonelli. Louis Napoleon's misalliance tends
little to conciliate them.
Pio Nono. Gently, my good Cardinal! The house of
Guzman is as ancient and noble as the house of Hapsburg.
I have half a mind to start directly, and to pronounce my
benediction on the crown in Notre-Dame.
XL. ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE AND FRAN-
CESCO MADIAI.
Archbishop. It grieves my heart, O unfortunate man! to
find you reduced to this condition.
Francesco Madiai. Pity it is, my Lord, that so generous a
heart should be grieved by any thing.
524
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
!
...
Archbishop. Spoken like a Christian! There are then
some remains of faith and charity left within you?
Francesco Madiai. Of faith, my Lord, there are only the
roots, such as have often penetrated ere now the prison-floor.
Charity too is among those plants which, although they thrive.
best under the genial warmth of heaven, do not wither and
weaken and die down deprived of air and sunshine. I might
never have thought seriously of praying for my enemies, had
it not been the will of a merciful and all-wise God to cast me
into the midst of them.
Archbishop. From these, whom you rashly call enemies, you
possess the power of delivering yourself. Confess your crime.
Francesco Madiai. I know the accusation; not the crime.
Archbishop. Disobedience to the doctrines of the Church.
Francesco Madiai. I am so ignorant, my Lord, as never to
have known a tenth or twentieth part of its doctrines. But
by God's grace I know and understand the few and simple
ones which His blessed Son taught us.
Archbishop. Ignorant as you acknowledge yourself to be,
do you presume that you are able to interpret them?
Francesco Madiai. No, my Lord.
self, and intelligibly to all mankind.
He has done that Him-
Archbishop. By whose authority did you read and expound
the Bible?
Francesco Madiai. By His.
Archbishop. By His? To thee?
Francesco Madiai. What He commanded the Apostles to
do, and what they did, surely is no impiety.
Archbishop. It may be.
Francesco Madiai. Our Lord commanded his Apostles to
go forth and preach the gospel to all nations.
Archbishop. Are you an Apostle, vain, foolish man?
Francesco Madiai. Alas! my Lord, how far, how very far,
from the least of them! But surely I may follow where they
lead; and I am more likely to follow them in the right road,
if I listen to no directions from others far behind.
Archbishop. Go on, go on, self-willed creature! doomed to
perdition.
Francesco Madiai. I have ventured to repeat the ordi-
nances of Christ and the Apostles; no more. I have nothing
to add, nothing to interpret.
ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE AND MADIAI.
525
Archbishop. I shall look into the matter; I doubt whether
He ever gave them such an ordinance—I mean in such a
sense for I remember a passage which may lead astray the
unwary. Any thing more?
Francesco Madiai. My Lord, there is also another.
Archbishop. What is that?
Francesco Madiai. "Seek truth, and ensue it."
Archbishop. There is only one who can tell us, of a surety,
what truth is; namely, our Holy Father.
Francesco Madiai. Yes, my Lord, of this I am convinced.
Archbishop. Avow it then openly, and you are free at once.
Francesco Madiai. Openly, most openly, do I, and have I,
and ever will I avow it. Permit me, my Lord Archbishop, to
repeat the blessed words which have fallen from your Lord-
ship: "There is only one who can tell us of a certainty what
truth is," 66
our Holy Father," - our Father which is in
Heaven.
Archbishop. Scoffer! heretic! infidel!
No, I am not
angry; not in the least: but I am hurt, wounded, wounded
deeply. It becomes not me to hold a longer conference
with one so obstinate and obdurate. A lower order in the
priesthood has this duty to perform.
Francesco Madiai. My Lord, you have conferred, I must
acknowledge, an unmerited distinction upon one so humble
and so abject as I am. Well am I aware that men of a lower
order are the most proper men to instruct me. They have
taken that trouble with me and thousands more.
Archbishop. Indeed! indeed! so many? His Imperial
Highness, well-informed, as we thought, of what passes in
every house, from the cellar to the bed-chamber, had no
intelligence or notion of this. Denounce the culpable, and
merit his pardon, his protection, his favor. Do not beat
your breast, but clear it. Give me at once the names of these
teachers, these listeners; I will intercede in their behalf.
Francesco Madiai. The name of the first and highest was
written on the cross in Calvary; poor fishermen were others
on the sea of Galilee. I could not enumerate the listeners;
but the foremost rest, some venerated, some forgotten, in the
catacombs of Rome.
Archbishop. Francesco Madiai! there are yet remaining
in you certain faint traces of the Church in her state of trib-
526
IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.
ulation, of the blessed saints and martyrs in the catacombs.
But, coming near home, Madiai, you have a wife, aged and
infirm ; would not you help her?
Francesco Madiai. God will; I am forbidden.
Archbishop. It is more profitable to strive than to sigh.
I pity your distress; let me carry to her an order for her
liberation.
Francesco Madiai. Your Lordship can.
Archbishop. Not without your signature.
Francesco Madiai. The cock may crow ten times, ten
mornings, ten years, before I deny my Christ. O wife of my
early love, persevere, persevere !
Archbishop. This to me?
Francesco Madiai. No, my Lord! but to a martyr; from
one unworthy of that glory; in the presence of Him who was
merciful and found no mercy, my crucified Redeemer.
Archbishop. After such perverseness, I declare to you,
with all the frankness of my character, there is no prospect
of your liberation.
Francesco Madiai. Adieu, adieu, O Rosa! Light and
enlivener of my earlier days, solace and support of my
declining! We must now love God alone, from God alone
hope succor. We are chastened but to heal our infirmities;
we are separated but to meet inseparably. To the constant
and resigned there is always an Angel that opens the prison-
door: we wrong him when we call him Death.
INDEX.
The names and titles of the interlocutors in the several Conversations are printed in Italics.
Aboukir, lines on the battle of, iv. 432.
Absence, effects of, ii. 97.
Accent, wrongly applied by modern Eng-
lish writers, iii. 233; alteration of, by
Greek writers, 234.
Achilles and Helena, i. 7.
Achilles, character of, ii. 155.
Acrive, Odysseus, Tersitza, and Tre-
lawny, v. 159.
Actors, French, difficulties they have to
surmount, iii. 100.
Addison, Joseph, and Sir Richard
Steele, iv. 158.
Addison, Joseph, his style, iii. 226, 230;
his harsh treatment of Steele, iv. 161;
doubts as to his true character, ib.
note.
Eschines and Phocion, i. 156.
Æschylus, his contest with Sophocles,
i. 61, note.
Esop and Rhodopè, i. 12.
Age, reflections on, i. 235.
Agrarian laws of the Gracchi, i. 382.
Ainsworth's Dictionary negligent and
injudicious, iv. 98.
Air, the, how impersonated in mythol-
ogy, i. 72.
Alain, Maitre, his "Somnium Vivida-
rium," ii. 37.
Albani, the Cardinal Legate, and Pic-
ture-Dealers, v. 298.
Albigenses, the, ii.
37.
Alcibiades and Xenophon, i. 119.
Alexander, his pretensions to a divine
origin rebuked by the Priest of Ham-
mon, i. 166, et seq.; his conduct toward
Aristoteles, 181, 196; compared with
|
|
Epaminondas, 183; his death and
tomb, 191 and note; and Aristoteles,
comparison between, iv. 286.
Alexander, the Emperor, and Capo d'
Istria, iv. 434.
Alexis and Peter the Great, ii. 169.
Alexis, son of Peter the Great, his edu-
cation, ii. 170; disapproved his fath-
er's attack on Poland and Sweden,
171; his sudden death, 174.
Alfieri and Salomon, the Florentine Jew,
ii. 273; and Metastasio, iv. 237.
Alpuente, Romero, and Lopez Baños,
iv. 502.
Alpuente, denounced by the English
minister, v. 276.
Alum, use of, in rendering substances
incombustible, i. 361.
Ambition, always disappointed, i. 375;
definition of, iii. 5.
America, north-west coast of, claim of
Russia to, iv. 440.
American Government, advantages of,
ii. 110.
American War, reflections on, ii. 381.
Amphibious, definition of the term, by
M. Corbière, v. 153.
Amusements formerly encouraged on
Sundays, iii. 2, and note.
Anachronisms, when allowable, iv. 388.
Anacreon and Polycrates, i. 42.
Anecdote of Anacreon and Hylactor,
i. 51; of Chloros, 65; of Anædesta-
tos, the Athenian Orator, 146; of
Zenophanes and his horse, 269; the
Gasteres, a fraternity of priests, 297;
the miracle of Aulus of Pelusium, 304;
528
INDEX.
|
Euthemedes and Thelymnia, 344;
Fœdirupa and Gentius, 392; Aquilius
Cimber, 409; the Japanese at Rome,
ii. 42; the defective administration of
justice in Tuscany, 54, 82, and note;
St. Isidore, 55; Benedetto Sant-Anna,
65; the sanctification of Labre, 66;
the Marchese Riccardi's reliquary, 69; |
an Italian peasant, 87; Ebenezer Bul-
lock and his son Jonas, 126; the
sailor and the Lord Chancellor, 131;
an Irish lord, 158; the Duke of Marl-
borough's mince-pie, 178; Lord Tyl-
ney, 181, note; Fra Filippo Lippi's
captivity in Barbary, 223; Daniel Fo-
gram, the poacher, 256; the patriotic
Irishman, 271; William Penn and his
father, 272; Peterborough and Lud-
low, 340; Porson at a rout, iii. 31;
Sir Humphrey Hardcastle, 85; Mr.
George Nelly, 90; Father Onesimo
Sozzifante and Mr. Harbottle, 145;
Giacomo Postrani and his picture, 147;
Anco-Mazzio's image of the Virgin,
148; Angiolina Cecci, 150; the
sailor and his amber, 280; Monna
Tita Monalda, 311; Sir Magnus Lacy,
322; Tenerin de Gisors, 349; the
Prince of Policastro, 354; Admiral
Nichols, iv. 3; Lord Thurlow, 63;
Molière, 165; Sir Walter Raleigh,
201; Caspar Scioppius, 296, note;
Michel Angelo and the poet, 383; the
barbarity of an English general, 429;
death of an English officer, 430; the
consecrated lamp, 449; Don Brito-
marte Delciego, 466; Florentine Rus-
sel, 474; Goffrido Piccoluomini and
Leopoldina, 482; Thomas Paine, v.
46; Captain O'Mara's travels, 73;
Mr. Moyle's duel, 82; Sieur Dorkins,
93; Grand Duke Ferdinand, 103;
the Emperor Francis, 117; Prince
Corsini, 121; General Mouton, 131;
the Pope and the wooden fish, 144;
the Irishman's scourging, 150; the
defenders of Greece, 176; Archbishop
of Evora, 222; Fra Lope de Horna-
ches and Donna Immaculata's veil,
229; Diaz and the onions, 245; Mr.
Croker and Lieutenant White, 254;
the Englishman and his fountain, 300;
the Englishman and the picture-deal-
ers, 306; the Cardinal Legate Albani
and Titian's Holy Family, 327.
Anglican Church, oppressive in collec-
tion of tithes, ii. 297; Chinese opin-
|
ion of approximation of its doctrines
to those of Rome, iv. 144.
Anjou, Duke of, Queen Elizabeth, Ce-
cil, and De La Motte Fénelon, iv. 362.
Antonelli, Cardinal, and General Ge-
meau, v. 510; and Pope Pio Nonò,
521.
Aphanasia and Beniowski, iv. 297.
Apologue of Truth, written by Critobu-
lus, i. 411.
Arab Chieftain and Marshal Bugeaud,
v. 371.
Archbishop of Paris and Talleyrand,
v. 366; of Florence and Francesco
Madiai, 523.
Architecture, Italian, iv. 417; Greek,
422; Chinese, ib.; Roman, 424; Eng-
lish, 425; Moorish, ib.; Elizabethan,
ib.
Argonauts, doubts respecting the, i. 182.
Ariosto, his Orlando, iii. 120; his mer-
its, iv. 395; slowly acknowledged,
398.
Aristocracy, hereditary, a definition of,
i. 161; mercantile, insecure, 327; con-
sidered as a system of government,
ii. 263; in England debased by Pitt,
iii. 275; in Rome, 380, et seq.; its
nature, iv. 456.
Aristocrats and Democrats defined, iii.
273.
Aristophanes, his merits considered,
iii. 157.
Aristoteles and Callisthenes, i. 177.
Aristoteles, remarks on his style, i. 76,
93; ii. 151, 152; ill-treated by Alex-
ander, i. 181, 196; his "Polity"
compared with Plato's scheme of gov-
ernment, 194 and note; his definition
of happiness, iii. 7 and note; compari-
son between him and Alexander, 286;
his influence in Greece, iv. 400.
Armor, defensive, its use in war con-
sidered, iv. 493.
Artabanus and Xerxes, i. 52.
Arts, the, influence of Freedom on,
iii. 438.
Ascham, Roger, and Lady Jane Grey,
iv. 287.
Ashbourne, the village of, iii. 408, 412,
note.
Athens, condition of, in the time of
Pericles, i. 60, et seq.; of Aristoteles,
188; description of a procession at,
66; her ancient excellence, iv. 426;
her resuscitation retarded, 427.
Athenian People, their levity, i. 34.
!
1
INDEX.
529
1
Austria, Emperor, claim of precedence | Blake, Admiral, his great merits, ii
for, ii. 2, note.
Ava, King of, and Rao-Gong-Fao, Bloombury, Rev. Mr., Lord Coleraine,
v. 255.
Bacon, Francis, and Richard Hooker,
iii. 162.
Bacon, Francis, censured, ii. 47; origi-
nality a characteristic of his "Essays,”
161; comparison between, and Shaks-
peare, iii. 25; commended by Barrow,
361; further remarks on, 368, et seq.;
character of his works, iv. 195.
Bagnesi, St. Maria, her miraculous oil,
111. 151, 152, note.
Bankruptcy Laws, proposal for their
modification, ii. 166.
Baños, Lopez, and Romero Alpuente,
iv. 502.
Baptism, its efficacy, ii. 5, and note.
Barbarism, origin of the term as used by
the Greeks, i. 121.
Barbary, captivity of Fra Filippo Lippi
in, ii. 223.
Baronets, pride of, ii. 333.
Barristers, their practices censured, ii. 48.
Barrow, Isaac, and Newton, Isaac,
iii. 359.
Barrow, Isaac, character of his elo-
quence, iii. 227.
Beatrice and Dante, iv. 355.
Belgioioso, Princess, and King Carlo Al-
berto, v. 494.
Belief, its action on various minds, i. 202;
an aid to reason, 266.
Bells, baptism of, iv. 518; their effects
on the hearer, v. 97.
Benedetto Sant-Anna Torbellini, anec-
dotes of, ii. 65.
Beniowski and Aphanasia, iv. 297.
Bentham, General, his improvement in
gun-boats, iv. 494.
Beranger, P. J. de, and La Roche Fac-
queline, v. 475.
Bibiena, Cardinal, poisoned by Pope
Leo X., iii. 280, and note.
Bible, the, translated by Valdo, ii. 37;
mischievous use made of, 124.
Biography, uses of, i. 394.
Bishops, election of, ii. 29; translation
of, ib.; their office in the House of
Lords, 33; censurable for not oppos-
ing the practice of war, 380.
Blair, Robert, his "Grave" censured,
iii. 74.
Blake, Admiral, and Humphrey Blake,
ii. 421.
VOL. V.
|
|
34I.
and Rev. Mr. Swan, iv. 526.
Blucher, Marshal, and Sandt, v. 330.
Boccaccio and Petrarca, iii. 308; Chau-
cer and Petrarca, 317.
Boccaccio, his story of Monna Tita Mo-
nalda, iii. 310; of the Prince of Poli-
castro, 354.
Boileau, criticism on his poetry, iii. 100,
et seq.; estimate of his merits, 134.
Boleyn, Anne, and Henry VIII, iv.
289.
Boleyn, Anne, her character, iv. 290,
note; large sums distributed by her in
charity, 293, note.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, and the Presi-
dent of the Senate, iv. 450.
Books, small number of early English,
iii. 167; prohibition of importation
into Spain proposed, v. 233.
Borgia, Cæsar, his character, iii. 428.
Bossuet and the Duchess of Fontanges,
iv. 301.
Bothwell, Earl of, and Mary, Queen of
Scotland, iv. 368.
Boulter, Archbishop, and Philip Savage,
ii. 202.
Boulter, Archbishop, his munificent char-
ity, ii. 202, note.
Bows, their use in war considered,
iv. 490, et seq.
Boxley, Abbot of, and Richard I., ii. 1.
Bozzaris, Nito, and Kitzo, their noble
efforts in the cause of liberty, v. 179,
34
et seq.
Brooke, Lord, and Sir Philip Sidney,
iii. I.
Brooke, Lord, notice of his character,
iii. 1, note.
Bruis, Pierre, a reformer of the Church
of Rome, ii. 36.
Brutus, Marcus, his character, i. 379.
Bugeaud, Marshal, and Arab Chief-
tain, v. 371.
Burnet, Bishop, and Humphrey Hard-
castle, iii. 85.
Burns, Robert, Porson's opinion of his
poetry, iii. 53.
Byron, Lord, his poems criticised, iii. 43,
et seq.
Cæsar and Lucullus, i. 359.
Cæsar, his generous behavior to Quinctus
Cicero, i. 377; his character, 378.
"Caliban" of Shakspeare and "
Cy-
530
INDEX.
clops" of Euripides compared, iii.
126, 133.
California, importance of, iv. 440;
claimed by Russia, ib.
Callisthenes and Aristoteles, i. 177.
Calvin, John, and Philip Melancthon,
iv. 179.
Calvin, John, Montaigne's opinion of,
iii. 304.
Calvus, Licinius, and Asinius Pollio,
i. 442.
Cambridge, University of, treatment of
the Fellows of, by Cromwell, ii. 417.
Camden, William, his opinion of Chau-
cer and Shakspeare, iii. 77; Latin
verses preserved by him, quoted, 78.
Canning, George, and William Pitt,
ii. 187.
Canning, George, desired by Pitt to be
his successor in power, ii. 187; his
character, 188.
Capital Letters, use of, iii. 221.
Capital Offences, Romilly's proposition
to diminish the number of, ii. 164.
Capital Punishments, ii. 44, 345.
Capo d'Istria and the Emperor Alex-
ander, iv. 434-
ces:
|
Cardinals have no right to elect a Pope,
ii. 28; why instituted, 29.
Carlo Alberto, King, and Princess Bel-
gioioso, v. 494.
Carthage, destruction of, i. 321; cause of
her fall, 326, 381; trade of, 328.
Casaubon, Isaac, and King James I.,
ii. 19.
Casaubon, Isaac, his treatise "De Lib-
ertate Ecclesiastica," ii. 19, note.
Catherine, the Empress, and Princess
Dashkof, iv. 316.
Catholic, import of the term, ii. 22.
Catholics, reasons why they should not
be admitted to power, ii. 24, et seq.
Catholicism, See Church of Rome.
Cato, revered but not loved, i. 369.
Cecil William, and Queen Elizabeth,
iv. 283; Queen Elizabeth, Duke of
Anjou, and De La Motte Fénelon,
362.
Celibacy, reason why it was imposed on
the Romish priesthood, ii. 86, 211.
Cellularius, Michael, his censure of
Leo IX., ii. 4, note.
Censorship in France, v. 155.
Cervantes, attacked the worship of the
Virgin, ii. 58.
Charity, sometimes injudicious, iv. 117.
Charles I., policy of his execution dis-
cussed, ii. 12; objections to his canon-
ization, iv. 122.
Chateaubriand, his conduct as a minis-
ter, iv. 510, v. 188; his "Spirit of
Christianity," ib.
Chatham, Lord, and Lord Chesterfield,
|
ii. 142.
Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Petrarca, iii.
317.
Chaucer, character of his poetry, iii. 77;
his tale of Sir Magnus Lucy, 322; his
high merit, iv. 81.
Chesterfield, Lord, and Lord Chatham,
ii. 142.
Chesterfield, Lord, success of his gov-
ernment in Ireland, ii. 143.
Chiabrera, character of his works, iii.
98.
Children of Criminals, plan for their
care and employment, ii. 53-
Children, pleasure received from, i. 414;
in new and old countries, ii. 321.
China, Emperor of, and Tsing-Ti, v.
375.
China, Emperor of, his reasons for send-
ing an envoy to England, v. 375.
Chinese Literature, translated by Hya-
cinthus, a learned Russian, iv. 488.
Chivalry, its ennobling tendency, iii. 11.
Chorus, propriety of its introduction in
comedy questioned, iii. 157.
Christianity, conduct of its professors,
i. 267, ii. 411; illustrated by the story
of Xenophanes and his horse, i. 269;
its doctrines objected to by Lucian,
274; borrowed from the priests of
Isis, 281; questionable professions of,
ii. 6; character of modern, 128; its
benefits to literature, iii. 38; its con-
nection with persecution, iv. 147; as-
serted to be extinct by missionary
tracts circulated in China, v. 375; Chi-
nese opinions of, 384, 401.
Christmas, should be celebrated in April,
iii. 149.
Churches. true meaning of the term,
ii. 300, iii. 271; dignities in, forbidden
by the Gospel, ii. 300.
Church Establishments, strictures on,
ii. 265, 291.
Church-going, reflections on, iv. 132.
Church of Rome, idol worship in, ii. 5,
note; marriages between uncle and
niece, aunt and nephew sanctioned by,
30, 65; notice of early reformers of,
33, 36; its extravagant claims, 34;
fratricide protected by, 38; mischiefs
INDEX.
531
occasioned by, 40, note; its composi-
tion, 41; its characteristics, 61, 63;
conduct of its partisans, 87; a support
to the throne, 91; abuses in, first
exposed by the lower clergy, 116;
jealous of the Greek Church, 211;
why its priests must be opposed to the
civil magistrates, 266; evils produced
by its doctrines, 267, 291, 293; tenets
of, discussed by Middleton and Mag-
liabechi, iii. 138; approximation of its
doctrines to those of the Anglican
Church, iv. 144; power of the clergy,
v. 228, note.
Church Property, proper mode of deal-
ing with it, ii. 386.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, and Quinctus,
i. 377:
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, an inaccuracy in
his style noticed, i. 366; his opinion
of the immortality of the soul, 388;
his preference for a private life, 397,
note; his change of opinions, 401;
remarks on his character, 408, note.
Circumcision, its efficacy, ii. 5.
Citron wood, probably mahogany, i. 328,
note.
Clarendon, Lord, character of his "His-
tory," iv. 147.
Clemens, Jacques, his defence of his at-
tempt to murder the Prince of Orange,
ii. 26.
Coelho, Dona Juana, and Philip II.
iv. 351.
Coleraine, Lord, Rev. Mr. Bloombury,
and Rev. Mr. Swan, iv. 526.
Coleraine, Lord, his death-bed, iv. 526,
et seq.
Coleridge, S. T., Porson's remarks on,
iii. 28.
Colocotroni (the elder) and Maurocor-
dato, iv. 486.
Colonna, Vittoria, and Michel Angelo
Buonarotti, iv. 383.
Comedy, Milton's advice to Marvel on
the construction of a, iii. 152, et seq;
among the ancients, 157, et seq.
Commons, House of, placed in oppo-
sition to the Barons by Henry IV.
ii. 8; first appointment of a Speaker
of the, 11, note.
Composition, obscurity the greatest fault
in, i. 229; quotation to be avoided in,
290.
"Comus," Milton's, criticised, iv. 84.
Confession, effects of, ii. 60; the prac-
tice censured, 337; of Mademoiselle
|
Fontanges, iv. 301; of Talleyrand,
v. 370.
Constantia and Tancredi, iv. 339.
Constantia taken prisoner by Tancredi,
iv. 339; her parentage, ib., note.
Constitution, character of the English,
ii. 130, and note; a, proposed by the
Pope to Portugal, v. 147.
Constitutionalists (of Spain), plan pro-
posed by Ferdinand for destroying
them, v. 240.
Content and happiness contrasted, iii. 8,
Controversial Writings, reason and ori-
gin of, i. 217.
Corbière and Villèle, v. 151.
Corinna, why preferred to Pindar, iii. 23.
Corinth, destruction of, i. 328.
Cork, recommended as a substitute for
iron armor, iv. 493.
Cornaro, Luigi, and Tiziano Vecelli,
iv. 278.
Cornelia and Tasso, iv. 374.
Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi), her
letter to her son Caius, i. 384; her
house and garden at Misenus de-
scribed, 394; her mode of life, 395.
Corsini, Prince, his parsimony, v. 121.
Correggio, character of his works, v. 318,
et seq.
Cortes of Spain, iv. 456.
Cotes, Sir Firebrace, Duke of Richelieu,
Lady Glengrin, and Mr. Normanby,
V. I.
Cotton, Walton, and Oldways, iii. 408.
Cotton visits Oldways at Ashbourne,
iii. 408; verses by, 409, 410.
Councils of the Church, the Ecumeni-
cal, ii. 22; the Lateran, 28; of Nicæa,
29; at Rome in 610, ib.; of Chalce-
don, 30; at Constantinople, ib.
Country, advantages of a residence in
the, i. 198.
Country Gentlemen, English, change in
their condition, iv. 467.
Courage of Women, iv. 329.
Courts, iniquities of, iv. 135, 137; why
purifiers of nations, 163.
Cowley, Abraham, treatment of, by Sir
Humphrey Hardcastle, iii. 86; com-
parison between them as poets, 89.
Cowper, William, his poetry commended,
iii. 73; compared with Dryden, ib.
and with Young, 74.
Crabbe, George, his poems criticised,
iii. 42.
Criminals, plan for the care and employ-
ment of their children, ii. 53.
532
INDEX.
Critics, criticism on, iii. 19; their mer-
its as compared with poets, 47; mod-
ern, 70.
Criticism, rules of, iii. 15, 19, 23; low
state of, in Italy, iv. 195.
Critobulus, his Apologue of Truth, i. 411.
Croker, John Wilson, King of the
Sandwich Islands, Sir Robert Peel,
and an Interpreter, v. 250.
Croker, John Wilson, his quarrel with
Lieutenant White, v. 254.
Cromwell, Oliver, and Walter Noble,
ii. 12; and Sir Oliver Cromwell, 414.
Cromwell, Oliver, not cruel, ii. 18, note;
protected the Waldenses, 343; his char-
acter, 344, 414; iv. 136; his treatment
of the Fellows of Cambridge Univer-
sity, ii. 417.
Curiosity, a feminine quality, i. 12; mis-
application of the word, iv. 177.
Cybele, statue of, by Phidias, i. 60.
Cyclops" of Euripides and "Cali-
ban "of Shakspeare compared, iii. 126,
133.
420.
Cypress, a remarkable one, iv.
"Cyropædia" of Xenophon, criticised,
i. 187.
Cyrus, the Younger, and Xenophon,
i. 119.
Dagobert, King, cruelty of, to the Bul-
garians, ii. 181, note.
Dairo, or Japanese Pope, ii. 35, note.
Dancing, its propriety considered, ii. 274.
Danes, ii. 9, note.
Dante and Beatrice, iv. 355; and Gemma
Donati, 409.
Dante, often admits lines of little worth,
iii. 22, 25; his verses on parting with
Beatrice, iv. 361; her influence on his
after-life, 411.
Dashkof, Princess, and the Empress
Catharine, iv. 316.
Dead, respect for the, among the Eng-
lish, v. 98; treatment of, in Italy, ib.
Death, the fear of, to be cast aside,
i. 203; the punishment of, considered,
ii. 44, 345.
Death-bed repentance futile, iv. 158.
De Lille, the Abbé, and Walter Landor,
iii. 92.
Democracy, opposed to quiet, ii. 332;
advantages of, 335; iii. 435.
Democrats and aristocrats described,
iii. 273.
Democritus, his style, i. 142; first pro-
posed the theory of colors, ib., note.
|
Demosthenes and Eubulides, i. 135.
Demosthenes, his style of oratory, i.
144, 149, 161, et seq; compared with
Milton, iii. 56.
Despot, proper punishment of a, ii.
127.
Despotism, when most secure, iv. 457;
protected by the institution of a peer-
age, 514.
Destiny, the supreme power, i. 121.
Devil, belief in the considered, iii. 270.
Dewah, Mr. Walker, Hattaji, and
Gonda, v. 361.
Dialogue, the, as a mode of communi-
cating knowledge, i. 401.
Diaz, Juan, his assassination, ü. 38.
Diogenes and Plato, i. 68.
Diogenes, sketch of his life, i. 117, note;
the wisest man of his time, 292.
Dispensations, price of, v. 303.
Dithyrambic Verse, adapted to all mod-
ern languages except the French,
iii. 99.
Dittany, its fabled effects, iii. 166.
Divorce, Milton's treatise on, iv. 148.
Dogs, their merits, iv. 175, et seq.; vari-
ety of character in, 190.
Dominican, a, Milton, and Galileo,
iv. 189
Donati, Gemma, and Dante, iv. 409.
Donne, Dr., his passion for Margaret
Hayes, iii. 416; lines on her, 417, 418;
his marriage, 420; his style criticised,
ib.
Drake, Sir Francis, took possession of
California, iv 440.
Drawing, arguments in defence of, ii. 279.
Dress, absurdity of, in the time of La
Fontaine, iv. 178.
Druids, their religion, i. 141; did not
construct the altars called by their
name, ib.
Dutch Nation, conduct of Louis XIV.
toward the, in his wars, ii. 176, 177,
181, note.
Eboli, Princess, accusations against, by
Philip II., iv. 353.
Economy of Lord Eldon, v. 343.
Edgeworth, Maria, remarks on her writ-
ings, iv. 473.
Education of Kings, i. 350; ii. 16;
Lord Chatham's opinions on, 142, 162;
mode of, practised by Peter the Great,
170.
Edward I. and William Wallace,
ii. 245.
INDEX.
533
Egypt, the French in, iv. 430; shepherd
kings of, See Pelasgians.
Eldon, Lord, and Encombe, v. 341.
Elections in England, ii. 332.
Elizabeth, Princess, and Princess Mary,
iv. 343.
Elizabeth, Queen, and William Cecil,
iv. 283; Cecil, Duke of Anjou, and
De La Motte Fénelon, 362.
Elizabeth, the first slave-trader, ii. 414;
her age at her mother's death, iv. 296,
note; her opinion of Parliaments, 343;
her vanity illustrated by a conversation
with Anjou, 362, et seq.
Ellenborough, Lord, his Indian policy
considered, ii. 369.
Eloquence, of Demosthenes, i. 135, et
seq., 149; of Pythagoras, 142; of
Democritus, ib.; of Aristoteles, 143;
of Pericles, ib., decay of, at Athens,
ib.; over-estimated, ii. 163.
Emperor, true meaning of the term,
iv. 145.
Encombe, and Lord Eldon, V. 341.
England, elections in, ii. 332; v. 379;
system of government, ii. 362; policy
of France toward, 396; her continen-
tal wars ill conducted, iv. 437; her
resources misapplied, 438; conduct of
her public men, v. 93; respect for the
dead shown in, 98; policy of an alli-
ance between her and Greece, 175;
her foreign policy condemned, 189;
propositions to the court of, by Don
Ferdinand, King of Spain, and Don
John-Mary-Luis, King of Portugal,
discussed by them, 213; account of a
visit to, by a Chinese, 376.
English Constitution, anomalies in the,
ill. 297.
English General Officer, barbarous con-
duct of an, at Albano near Genoa,
iv. 417, 429.
under Henry
Erglish Gentlemen, their high character,
ii. 260; iii. 275.
English Government,
VIII., iv. 290, note.
English Laborers, their condition infe-
rior to that of negro slaves, ii. 406.
English ladies abroad, ii. 62; compared
with the Florentines, 63.
English Language, changes in, iii. 167,
et seq., 217, et seq.; accentuation of,
232.
English Nation, humanity of, ü. 246;
character of the, iv. 444; v. 301; why
successful in war, iv. 489; account of,
given by Rao-Gong-Fao, ambassador
of the King of Ava, v. 255, et seq.
English Officer, disastrous adventure of
an, iv. 430.
English Poetry, v. 296.
English Politicians, Franklin's opinion
of, ii. 108.
English Visitor, Landor, and Floren-
tine Visitor, v 9º.
Epic Poetry, essentials of, iv. 8.
Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa, i.
197; and Metrodorus, 243; and Me-
nander, 252.
Epicurus, Cicero's opinion of, i. 197,
note; his garden, 198; his opinions
concerning death, 202; his love-po-
tions, 213; doctrines of, 293, 398.
Epictetus and Seneca, i. 434.
Epictetus, wisdom of, i. 293.
Epigrams lower the dignity of poets,
iii. 26.
Equality, mankind averse to, ii. 333.
España, Jose, a Spanish liberal, his fate
and that of his wife, iv. 507, note.
Essenes, austere practices of the, ii. 313.
Essex, Earl of, and Edmund Spenser,
iv. 198.
Este, Leonora di, and Father Paniga-
rola, iv. 413.
Eternal Punishment, the doctrine of,
considered, i. 277, iv. 180.
Etrurians, the Chinese of Europe, iv. 422.
Etymology, ignorance of, among the an-
cients, ii. 150; of various words traced,
154.
Eubulides and Demosthenes, i. 135.
Eugenius IV., Pope, and Fra Filippo
Lippi, ii. 222.
Euripides, his works criticised, iii. 126,
158.
Evil Eye, superstition regarding it,
V. 235, note.
Excommunication, among the Quakers,
ii. 307.
Fables related by Æsop to Rhodopé,
i. 17.
Factories, alteration necessary in the
hours for work in, ii. 406.
Falsehood prevails in politics, iv. 192.
Fénelon, De La Motte, Queen Eliza-
beth, Cecil, and the Duke of Anjou,
iv. 362.
Fénelon, his description of courts, iv.
137; ill-treated by Bossuet, 307, note.
Ferdinand, Don, and Don John-Mary
Luis, v. 199.
•
534
INDEX.
Ferdinand, Don, the Inquisition restored | Freedom, influence of, on the arts,
by, iv. 509; his horrible perfidy,
v. 236, and note.
Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, his
character, v. 99.
Filangieri, his merits, iii. 285.
Filicaja, more enthusiastic than Pindar,
iii. 99; his Ode to Sobieski, 100; crit-
icism on his poetry, 192.
Fire-arms, their use in war considered,
iv. 491, 492.
Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, character of,
v. 78.
Fleur-de lys, different origins ascribed to
the symbol, iii. 135, note.
Florence, state of society in, ii. 62; pro-
ductive of great men, iii. 283; fortifi-
cations of, built by Michel Angelo,
422; character of her citizens changed,
423; how affected by the usurpations
of the Medicis, ib.; means of restor-
ing her liberties, 429.
Florentine Ladies, compared with the
English, ii. 63.
Florentines, their character, v. 106.
Florentine Visitor, Landor, and English
Visitor, v. 90.
Fontanges, Duchess of, and Bossuet,
iv. 301.
Fontanges, Duchess of, her confession,
iv. 301; her character, ib. note; her
death, 306, note.
Forks, silver, when first used, iii. 164.
Fortifications of Paris, ii. 401; v. 353;
of Florence, iii. 422.
Fox, Charles James, his eloquence,
ii. 188.
Fox-hunting, why useful, ii. 261.
Fra Bartolomeo, character of his works,
v. 314.
France, her policy toward England,
ii. 396; population of, in the time of
Charles VIII., iii. 443, note; her
position in regard to Greece, iv. 441,
443; account of a visit to, by a Chi-
nese, v. 445; her aggressive designs,
353.
Francis, the Emperor, Andrew Hofer,
and Count Metternich, ii. 136.
Francis, the Emperor, anecdote of,
V. 117.
Franklin, Benjamin, and George Wash-
ington, ii. 106; and Bishop Shipley,
377.
Frederick William, King, the Empe-
ror Nicholas, and Count Nesselrode,
v. 472.
|
iii. 438; of nations, iv. 456; in Eng-
land, 460.
Free-masonry in Spain, v. 244.
Free-trade, comments on, iii. 6.
Free-will, a part of necessity, i. 84.
French Drama, estimate of its merits,
iv. 70.
French Language, not adapted to dithy-
rambic verse, iii. 99; eulogy on, by
the Baron de Couture, ib., not adapted
to rhyme, 100; objection to, 117;
v. 452.
French Nation, the, resisted the usurpa-
tions of the Papacy long before the
English, ii. 36; character of, iv. 454;
v. 335, 373.
French Officers and General Kleber,
iv. 430.
French Revolution, encouraged by the
lawyers, ii. 497.
Friend, use of the term by Quakers,
ii. 336.
Friendship, cannot be replaced, i. 206;
metaphorical description of, iii. 1;
often only a state of transition to en-
mity, iv. 110.
Galileo, Milton, and a Dominican,
iv. 189.
Galileo, his confinement, iv. 189; tor-
tured, 194; accusation against, 195;
Galliambic of Catullus, i. 182, note.
Gaming, men of genius not addicted to,
ii. 109; evils of, v. 341.
Gardens of Epicurus described, i. 198;
of the Moors, ii. 235; Italian and
English, compared, iv. 427.
Garibaldi, Guiseppe, and Joseph Maz-
zini, v. 507.
Gasteres, a fraternity of priests, history
of the, i. 297.
Gauls, instructed by Pythagoras, i. 140,
141.
Gaunt, Elizabeth, and Lady Lisle,
iv. 312.
Gaunt, John of, and Joanna of Kent,
iv. 308.
Gaunt, John of, attack on his house,
iv. 308; suspected of aspiring to the
crown, ib. note.
Gemeau, General, and Cardinal Anto-
nelli, v. 510.
Gentlemen, English, their high charac-
ter, ii. 260; iii. 275:
Germany, Emperor of, i. 2; remarks on
the title, 7, note.
INDEX.
535
Germany, never conquered, v. 295; state | Greek Writers, catalogue of modern,
of poetry in, 296; regeneration of, ib.
Gianni, ex-minister of Florence, his
character, v. 104.
Giannone, his persecution and death,
iv. 486.
Gibbon, Edward, observations on his
style, iii. 97.
Gibraltar, description of the harbor of,
v. 66.
Gigi and Pope Leo XII., v. 138.
Gleichem, the Count, and Countess, their
Children, and Zaida, iv. 403.
Gleichem, Count, his double marriage,
iv. 403, note.
Glengrin, Lady, Duke of Richelieu, Sir
Firebrace Cotes, and Mr. Normanby,
v. i.
Glengrin, Lady, her character, v. 2; in-
cidents on her voyage to Ireland in
company with the Duke of Richelieu,
3, et seq.
Glory, of the ancient Greeks, i. 353; a
motive to great intellects, 407.
Godiva and Leofric, iv. 322.
Godiva, legend of, iv. 327, note; lines
on, ib.
Gonda, Mr. Walker, Hattaji, and De-
wah, v. 361.
Gracchus, Caius, his Agrarian law,
i. 383; his letter to his mother,
385.
Grammar of English writers criticised,
iii. 167, et seq.; 215, et seq.
Gratitude, a political virtue, ii. 95;
dis-
tinguished from Reconnaissance, 393;
contrasted with justice, iii. 271.
Great man, definition of a, i. 68.
Grey, Lady Jane, and Roger Ascham,
iv. 287.
Grey, Lady Jane, verses by, iv. 287; her
usurpation of the crown 346; charac-
ter of her husband, ib.
Greece, her language, iii. 212; her
beration, 213; designs of the Em-
peror Alexander on, iv. 436; terms
proposed for her accommodation with
Turkey, 496; treatment of, by Euro-
pean nations, 497; v. 170, et seq. ;
views of French politicians respecting
her emancipation, 156, et seq.; striking
incidents in her struggle for indepen-
dence, 176, et seq.
Greek Church, jealous of the Church of
Rome, ii. 211.
Greek Language, neglect of, iii. 39;
changes in, 173, 234.
|
noticed, iv. 487.
Greeks, true glory of the ancient, i. 353;
misery endured by, in their contest
with the Turks, ii. 359; precocity of
their women, iii. 23; their military
skill, iv. 489.
Grief, its nature and effects, i. 415;
its purifying influence, iv. 401.
Guiccardini, Francesco, and Niccolo
Machiavelli, iv. 255.
Guizot, Francois, and Louis Philippe,
v. 458.
Gun-boats, their proper construction,
iv. 495.
Hammon, Priest of, and Alexander,
i. 166.
Handwriting, affectation in bad, i. 163.
Hannibal and Marcellus, i. 317.
Hannibal, his military qualities, i. 329;
his conduct at Capua, 350.
Happiness, the most natural and uni-
versal of our desires, i. 227; of ani-
mals and men, iii. 3; Aristoteles'
definition of, 7, note; imperfect, 8;
contrasted with content, ib.; wherein
it should consist, ib.; the proper end
and aim of morality and religion, 268;
conjoined with wisdom, v. 289.
Hardcastle, Mr. Humphrey, and Bishop
Burnet, iii S5.
Hardcastle, Sir Humphrey, his story re-
lated by Bishop Burnet, iii. 85; his
songs, 88; his character, 89.
Hare, Archdeacon, and Walter Landor,
iv. 205.
Hattaji, Col. Walker, Gonda, and
Dewah, v. 361.
Hayes, Margaret, beloved by Dr. Donne,
iii. 416; his lines on her, 417, 418.
Helena and Achilles, i. 7.
Henry IV. and Sir Arnold Savage,
ii. 8.
Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, iv. 289.
Henry VIII., manners of, iv. 290, note;
his conduct toward Anne Boleyn, 296,
note; his treatment of his children,
349.
Herculaneum, literary treasures to be
recovered from, iii. 38.
Hereditary honors pernicious, iv. 125,
et seq.
Hereditary Kings, disadvantages of
their position, i. 44, 48.
Hereditary Power, evils of, iii. 423.
Heresy, an absurd accusation, i. 277.
536
INDEX.
Herodotus, character of his history, | Infanticide among the Jerijahs abolished
i. 187.
Hindostan, designs of Russia on, iv.
440.
Hobbes, Thomas, Rochefoucault in-
debted to, iv. 168.
Hocus pocus, origin of the term, iii.
257.
Hofer, Andrew, Count Metternich,
and the Emperor Francis, ii. 136.
Holy Alliance, benefits of the, iv. 434;
opinions of its members as to the an-
cient republics, 435; their foreign
policy, ib., et seq.; conduct toward
Greece, 501; Spain, 502, et seq.; 522,
et seq. designs of, v. 118; conspired
against Christianity, 174; declaration
proposed by, for the adoption of the
Kings of Spain and Portugal, 199,
et seq.
Home, John, and David Hume, iii.
264.
Homer, often admits lines of little
worth, iii. 22; the harmony of his
verse, 96; his "Iliad" criticised,
iv. 8.
Honor, definition of, ii. 351; iii. 294.
Hooker, Richard, and Francis Bacon,
iii. 162.
Horatius and Virgilius, i. 438.
Horses, varieties of characters in, ii.
296.
Hume, David, and John Home, iii.
264.
Humor, amount of, in English literature,
ii. 161; remarks on, iii. 277.
Hyacinthes, a learned Russian, iv. 488.
Idleness, sacred, i. 241.
Idol worship in Rome and Hindostan
compared, ii. 5; in the Church of
Rome, iii. 144; will continue on
earth, iv. 185.
"Iliad," defects in the, iv. 9.
Imagination, displayed by English poets,
iv. 81.
Immortality of the soul, Cicero's opin-
ion concerning the, i. 388; criticism
on Plato's argument for, i. 90.
Improvisatori never rise above medioc-
rity, v. 119.
Incest, defined by the "Decretals,"
ii. 31.
Indulgences for sins, their effects, ii. 31.
Infallibility, papal, illustrations of, ii.
30; inconsistencies in the pretensions
of the Church of Rome to, iii. 138.
by Colonel Walker, v. 361.
Inglis, Sir Robert, and the Duke of
Wellington, ii. 369.
Ingratitude, remarks on, ii. 95.
Inoculation of his troops by Washing-
ton, ii. 108.
Inquisition, its progress and success,
ii. 41; its restoration in Spain, iv. 509.
Insanity, prevalence of, in royal fami-
lies, i. 65.
Inscriptions, two, quoted by Porson,
iii. 71; examples of, iv. 480.
Interpreter, King of the Sandwich
Islands, Sir R. Peel, and J. W.
Croker, v. 250.
Ionian University, neglected by the Eng
lish government, v. 187.
Ireland, causes of its wretched condi-
tion, ii. 115; under-letting of land in,
should be punished, ib.; other re-
forms in, suggested, ib., et seq.;
successful government of, by Lord
Chesterfield, 143; illustrated in a
"Conversation" between Archbishop
Boulter and Philip Savage, 202, et
seq.; means adopted to procure the
Union with Great Britain, 384;
Church property in, 386; importance
of the harbors in, 388; treatment of
the rebels in, v. 78; mode of life in,
81, et seq.; condition of the country,
87, et seq.; injustice of England to,
355.
Irishmen, characteristics of their conver-
sion, iv. 199; v. 64.
Isis, Christianity borrowed from the
priests of, i. 281.
Italian character, ii. 76; illustrated by
the language, 77, et seq.; palaces
and architecture, remarks on, iv. 418;
towns, 421; and churches, ib.
Italians, addicted to robbery and revenge,
ii. 44, 46; parsimonious, v. 121.
Italy, its climate, ii. 242; disregard for
the dead in, v. 98; administration of
justice in, 301, et seq.; improvements
in, suggested, 430, et seq.
Jack and Martin, iv. 275.
James I. and Isaac Casaubon, ii. 19.
James I., his character, ii. 19, 23,
notes.
Janissaries, their character, iv. 439.
Jeanne d'Arc, treatment of, by her coun
trymen, iii. 295; Voltaire's poem on;
censured, ib.
INDEX.
537
Jerijahs, infanticide among, abolished
by Colonel Walker, v. 361, note.
Jesuits, illustrations of their doctrines
and practice, ii. 25, et seq.; their evil
influence, 40, note; their recall deter-
mined on by Ferdinand of Spain, v.
226.
Jews, their government, i. 390; their
character, ib.; their persecutions, v.
421.
Joanna of Kent and John of Gaunt,
iv. 308.
Joanna of Kent, mother of Richard I.,
rescues John of Gaunt from the at-
tack on his house, iv. 309.
John-Mary-Luis, Don, and Don Ferdi-
nand, v. 199.
Johnson, Samuel, and John Horne
Tooke, iii. 167.
Johnson, Samuel, faulty as a poet and
critic, iii. 125; his criticism on Milton,
iv. 5, 50; attacks on the "Conversa-
tion" between him and Tooke, no-
ticed, 79.
Julius II., Pope, his character, iii. 428.
Juries, excellence of English, ii. 50.
Justice, definition of, i. 216; on earth,
described, ii. 15; contrasted with
gratitude, iii. 271.
Kaido and Photo Zavellas, v. 269.
Kings, never grateful, i. 125; more per-
nicious than tyrants, 135; their posi-
tion, 160; their education, 350; ii.
16; cannot be assassins, 25.
Kingship, its effects, ii. 16.
Kingsweston, view from, iv. 1.
Kleber, General, and French Officers,
iv. 430.
Koran, translation of, proposed by
Soliman, ii. 182; the policy ques-
tioned by the Muftis, 183.
Kosciusko and Poniatowski, ii. 93.
Kotzebue and Sandt, v. 289.
Kotzebue, murder of, by Sandt, v. 297;
justified by Marshal Blucher, 337.
Labor, excessive, unnatural, ii. 285 and
note.
La Chaise, Father, and Louis XIV.,
ii. 175.
La Crusca, Academy of, iv. 470.
Lacy, General, and Cura Merino, iv.
454.
La Fontaine, Jean de and Rochefou-
cault, iv. 161.
La Fontaine, Jean de, his habits, iv.
**
163; his absence of mind, 167, 175;
his criticism of Rochefoucault's "Max-
ims," 168.
Lamartine, A. de, and L. A. Thiers,
v. 469.
Landor, Walter, and the Abbé Delille,
iii. 92; and R. Southey, iv. 1; and
Archdeacon Hare, 205; and Marchese
Pallavicini, 417; English Visitor,
and Florentine Visitor, v. 90.
Landor, Walter, incidents in his life re-
ferred to, iii. 104; 412, note; iv. 327,
note; his dislike to company in his
walks, ; attacks on his "Conversa-
tions" between Johnson and Tooke,
79; his "Conversation "' with Cava-
liere Puntomichino and Mr. D. E.
Talcranagh, 470, et seq.; his wish to
be a "King's Friend," v. 92, 97;
objection to his "Conversations," 96;
the office of magistrate refused to him,
97; remarks on his works, 124; char-
acter assigned to him and his "Con-
versations" by Mr. Villele, 156.
Latin language, changes in, iii. 172;
pronunciation of, 257.
"Laodamia" criticised, iii. 36.
La Roche-Jacquelin, and P. J. de Bér-
anger, V. 475.
Laws, turned from their right intention,
ii. 17; how they should be framed,
45; of England, censured, 48, et seq.;
314, 329, 330, note; iv. 461; malad-
ministration of, in Italy, ii. 52, 82,
and note.
Lawsuits, how managed in Italy, v.
300, et seq.
Learning, advantages it bestows on its
possessor, iii. 153.
Legislator, his duties, ii. 53.
Le Moine, Henri, a reformer of the
Church of Rome, ii. 37.
Lemon trees, their extraordinary fer-
tility, iv. 427.
Leo XII., Pope, and his valet Gigi,
v. 138.
Leo IX., censured by Michael Cellu-
larius, ii. 4, note.
Leofric and Godiva, iv. 322.
Leontion, Epicurus, and
i. 197.
Ternissa,
Leopold, Peter, and the President du
Paty, ii. 43.
Leopold, Peter, his character, v. 111.
Libel, law of, iv. 461.
Liberty, demagogues unfavorable to,
iii. 263.
538
INDEX.
•
Lies, King of Ava's opinion of, v. 259.
Linden tree, remarkable one, iv. 419.
Lingam, worship of the, ii. 369.
Linus, Hymn of, i. 297.
Lippi, Fra Filippo, and Pope Eugenius
IV., ii. 222.
Lippi, Fra Filippo, narrative of his
captivity in Barbary, ii. 222, et seq.
Lisle, Lady, and Elizabeth Gaunt, iv.
312.
Livy, his style, i. 291; his genius, iv. 4.
Locke, John, his plan of education,
ii. 143; his style, 144, 145.
Lorenzo de' Medici, character of, iii.
423, 434.
Louis XIV. and Father La Chaise,
ii. 175:
Louis XIV., doubts as to his birth,
ii. 15, and note; misconduct toward
the Dutch nation, 176, 177, 181, note.
Louis XVIII. and Talleyrand, ii. 392.
Louis Napoleon, and Count Mole, v.
518.
Louis Philippe and Francois Guizot,
v. 458.
Love, opinion of Anacreon regarding,
i. 46; the first and the last, 219; the
forgiving character of, iii. 15; its
nature, iv. 287; illustrated in the
"Conversation" between Beniowski
and Aphanasia, 297; its divine nature,
334, 401.
Love of our country, ii. 259.
Lovers, silent, their treatment by women,
iii. 14.
Loyalty should be reciprocal between
king and people, iii. 104.
Ludlow, Edmund, doubted the policy of
condemning Charles I. to death, ii. 12;
his character, ib., note.
Lucian and Timotheus, i. 265.
Lucian, remarks on his "Dialogues of
the Dead," i. 265, 282.
Lucullus and Cæsar, i. 359.
Lucullus, description of his Apennine
villa, i. 362; of his dining apartment,
367; probably poisoned, 371.
Lucy, Sir Magnus, his story related by
Chaucer, iii. 322.
Luxury, of soldiers, i. 333, 349; its
effect on nations misunderstood, v.
193.
Lycidas," Milton's, criticised, iv. 77.
Machiavelli, Nicolo, and Michel Angelo
Buonarotti, iii. 422; and Francesco
Guiccardini, iv. 255.
|
|
Machiavelli, Nicolo, criticism on his
writings, iii. 375.
Madiai, Francesco, and the Archbishop
of Florence, v. 523.
Magliabechi, and Conyers Middleton,
iii. 136.
Magna Charta, of little value, iv. 124.
Mahomet and Sergius, ii. 211.
Mahomet, the discords of Christians in-
duced the enterprise of, ii. 34; his
proposals to Sergius for the junction
of the Greek Church and his own dis-
ciples discussed, 211, et seq.
Mahometans, their observance of the
precepts of their prophet, ii. 236.
Maid of Orleans and Agnes Sorel, iv.
328.
Maitland, Sir Thomas, iv. 496.
Malesherbes, C. G. de, and J. J. Rous-
seau, iii. 288.
Marcellus and Hannibal, i. 317.
Marcellus, his death described, i. 317.
Marius and Metellus, i. 355.
Marius, his character, i. 379.
"Marmion," remarks on the poem, iii.
52.
Marriages within the seventh degree pro-
hibited by Innocent III., ii. 29; effect
of that prohibition, ib.; between uncle
and niece, aunt and nephew, sanc-
tioned by the Church of Rome, 30,
65; v. 274; of studious men, iii. 407;
ideas of, commonly entertained by
women, iv. 151; second, unlawful,
v. 427.
Martin and Jack, iv. 275.
Marvel, Andrew, and John Milton,
iii. 152; iv. 260; and Bishop Parker,
109.
Marvel, Andrew, his "Rehearsal Trans-
posed," written in answer to Bishop
Parker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," iv.
109.
Mary, Princess, and Princess Eliza-
beth, iv. 343.
Mary (Queen of Scotland) and the
Earl of Bothwell, iv. 368.
Mass, the typical sense of, ii. 84.
Massilia, the residence of Pythagoras,
i. 141.
Maurocordato and Colocotroni (the
elder), iv. 486.
Mazzini, Joseph, and Joseph Garibaldi,
v. 507.
Melancthon, Philip, and John Calvin,
iv. 179.
Melctal, Henry of, and Wolfgang, ii. 98.
1
INDEX.
539
Melctal, Henry of, treatment of, by the
Austrians, ii. 98 and note.
Menander and Epicurus, i. 252.
Menander, errors of his comedies, iii.
154; imitation of his manner, ib.; his
style, 157.
Men of letters, opposite practice of an-
cient and modern, v. 289.
Merino Cura and General Lacy, iv.
454.
Messala and Tibullus, i. 417.
Metaphors, extensive application of, in
writings, iv. 113; use of, a curse to re-
ligion, 181.
Metastasio, Pietro, and Vittorio Alfieri,
iv. 237.
Metellus and Marius, i. 355.
Metrodorus and Epicurus, i. 243.
Metternich, Count, Andrew Hofer, and
the Emperor Francis, ii. 136.
Michel and Nicolas, ii. 358.
Michel Angelo Buonarotti and Nicolo
Machiavelli, iii. 422; and Vittoria
Colonna, iv. 383.
Michel Angelo Buonarotti, builds the
fortifications of Florence, iii. 422;
treatment of, by Lorenzo de' Medici,
424; and by his son Pietro, ib.; char-
acter of his works, v. 314, 320; in-
ferior to Raphael, 314.
Middleton, Conyers, and Maglia-
bechi, iii. 136.
Miguel and his Mother, v. 274.
Miguel, his account of his reception in
England, v. 274, et seq.
Military skill of the Greeks and the Eng-
lish, iv., 489.
Milton, John, and Andrew Marvel,
iii. 152; iv. 260; Galileo and a Do-
minican, 189.
Milton, John, advocated the cause of the
Waldenses, ii. 343; often admits lines
of little worth, iii. 22; his sonnets, 55,
et seq.; compared with Demosthenes,
56, 57; his poems, translated by the
Abbé Delille, 92; criticisms on, by
Voltaire, 93; comments on his "Par-
adise Lost," 380; his merits discussed
by Southey and Landor, iv. 4, et seq.;
criticisms on his "Paradise Lost," 8
remarks on the poetical successors of,
53; difficulty of imitating his style, 54;
his "Paradise Regained," 57, et seq.;
his "Samson Agonistes," 67; his sys-
tematic defects, 69; his false estimate
of Shakspeare, 70; his "Lycidas"
criticised, 77; the "Penseroso," 80;
the "Allegro," ib.; sonnets, 91;
minor poems, 93, et seq.; treatment
of, by Bishop Parker, 109, note;
steadfastness of his opinions, III;
correctness of his orthography, 115;
his conduct in politics and religion
defended, 120; his treatise on
"Di-
vorce," 148; "Defence of the Eng-
lish People," 156; "Comus," 484.
Mina, the Spanish general, his military
abilities, iv. 504.
Ministers, requisites of, for their success,
ii. 190; of kings and princes, Nelson's
opinion of, iv. 463; of state, their
characteristics, v. 93.
Miracle, Christianity supported by, i.
306, 314; occurred in other ages and
religions, 314; story of a pretended
one at Rome, ii. 66; of the Arch-
bishop Evora's hair-shirt, v. 222.
"Miserere" of Allegrini, copies of, for-
bidden, ii. 89.
Misery and vice, connection between,
ii. 402.
are,
Mitrailles, Des, Captain, Queen Pom-
Mr. Pritchard, Captain Polverel,
and others, v. 349.
Modesty, different in men and women,
i. 22.
Molé, Count, and Louis Napoleon,
v. 518.
Monalda, Monna Tita, story of, related
by Boccaccio, iii. 310.
Monachism, abolition of, in Tuscany,
ii. 55; anecdote illustrative of, 65,
et seq.; its origin, 85.
Monarchy, excellence of that form of
government, i. 123; principles of,
ii. 334.
Monasteries, uses of, iii. 269.
Montaigne, Michel, and Joseph Scalı-
ger, 111. 303.
Montaigne, Michel, his opinion of Cal-
vin, iii. 304; description of his house-
keeping, 306.
Montesquieu, remarks on his writings,
iii. 293.
Morality contrasted with religion, iii. 267;
proper aim of, 268.
Moors, their gardens, ii. 235; their de-
fence of piracy, 242.
Moyle, Mr. Roger, anecdotes of, v. 82,
et seq; his character as an Irish gen-
tleman, ib.
Mufti and Soliman, ii. 182.
Municipalities, small republics, iv. 125.
Muretus, defended the massacre of St.
540
INDEX.
Bartholomew's Day, ii. 39 and note; | O'Mara, Captain, his account of his con-
his Latinity, 148.
Music, its effect on the mind, iii. 282.
Napoleon, his character, iv. 430; v. 118;
his treatment of Toussaint L'Ouver-
ture, v. 118; his motives and actions
discussed, 131, 336, and note.
National Debt, its slow reduction pro-
duces a revolutionary tendency, ii. 90;
remarks on, 121, et seq.
Necessity, strict meaning of the term,
i. 84.
Nelly, George, notice of, iii. 90.
Nelson, Lord, hated by Napoleon, iv.
432; his opinion of ministers of kings
and princes, 463; his conduct at Na-
ples, ib.
Nero, his Golden House, iv. 424; rea-
son for burning Rome, 425.
Nesselrode, Count, the Emperor Nicho-
las, and King Frederick-William,
v. 472; and the Emperor Nicholas,
479.
Netto, El Rey, and Don Victor Saez,
iv. 516.
Newton, Isaac, and Isaac Barrow,
iii. 359.
Newton, Isaac, quotation from, ii. 145;
his modesty, iii. 359.
Nicholas and Michel, ii. 358.
Nicholas, Emperor, King Frederick-
William, and Count Nesselrode, v.
472; and Count Nesselrode, 479.
Nicholas, St., legend of, ii. 56.
Nichols, Admiral, his character, iv. 1;
anecdotes illustrative of his courage
and decision, 2, 3.
Noble, Walter, and Oliver Cromwell,
ii. 12.
Noble, Walter, represented the city of
Litchfield in Parliament, ii. 12, note;
an ancestor of the author, ib.
Normanby, Mr., Duke of Richelieu,
Sir Firebrace Cotes, and Lady Glen-
grin, v. I.
Normanby, Mr., his history, v.
I, et
seq.
Normans in Sicily, their character,
iv. 341, 342.
Odysseus, Tersitza, Acrive, and Tre-
lawny, v. 159.
Odysseus, the Kleptic chieftain, his cav-
ern of refuge described, v. 164; sketch
of his history, 197, note.
Oldways, Walton, and Cotton, iii. 408.
tinental travels, v. 73, et seq.
Oracles and auguries, their use, i. 122,
et seq.
Orleans, The Maid of, and Agnes
Sorel, iv. 328.
Orthography, variations in, iii. 167, et
seq., 215, et seq.; the author's at-
tempts to reform English, attacked,
iv. 79; correctness of Milton's, 115.
Ovid, his contest of Ulysses and Ajax
commended, iii. 128; his faults, iv.
397.
Paine, Thomas, interview between him
and Mr. Normanby, v. 39; saves the
life of Mr. Zachariah Wilkes during
"the reign of terror," 46, and note.
Painting, the art of, considered, ii.
327.
Pallavicini, Marchese, and Walter Lan-
dor, iv. 417.
Panatius, Scipio Emilianus, and
Polybius, i. 321.
Panigarola, Father, and Leonora di
Este, iv. 413.
"Paradise Lost" criticised, iv. 8.
"Paradise Regained" criticised, iv. 57,
et seq.
Pardon, the privilege of, in a prince, a
usurpation, ii. 52.
Parga, surrender of, v. 180.
Parish Priest, honorable conduct of a,
iv. 485.
Parker, Bishop, and Andrew Marvel,
iv. 109.
Parker, Bishop, his "Ecclesiastical Pol-
ity"
answered by Marvel's "Re-
hearsal Transposed," iv. 109, note.
Parliament, Queen Elizabeth's opinion
of the, iv. 343.
Paty, the President du, and Peter Leo-
pold, ii. 43.
Peacock, Bishop Reginald, i. 33 and
note.
Peel, Sir R., King of the Sandwich
Islands, J. W. Čroker, and an Inter-
preter, v. 250.
Peers, the Irish, their venality at the
time of Union, ii. 384; Chamber of,
in Spain, iv. 456; in England, 465;
the park-paling of despotism, 514.
Peerage, its use and purpose, iv. 125,
et seq.
Pelasgians, emigration of, under Danaus,
probably the same with that of the
"Shepherds" of Egypt, i. 105.
INDEX.
541
1
Penance, a royal, ii. 178.
Penn, William, and Lord Peterborough,
ii. 250.
Penn, William, anecdote of him and
his father, ii. 277.
Pennsylvania, administration of laws in,
ii. 250, note, 357.
"Penseroso," Milton's, criticised, iv.
80.
Perceval, Spencer, and Samuel Rom-
illy, ii. 163.
Pericles and Sophocles, i. 60.
Pericles, his character, i. 60.
Perjury, its extent in France at the
time of the Crusades, ii. 4.
Persecution for religion, when first
heard of, iv. 147.
Perugino, character of his works, v.
320.
Pescara, his character, and love for Vit-
toria Colonna, iv. 400.
Peter, Emperor of Russia, murdered by
Catharine, iv. 316, 322, note.
Peter the Great and Alexis, ii. 169.
Peter the Great, his method of educa-
tion, ii. 170; his idea of civilization,
172.
Peterborough, Lord, and William Penn,
ii. 250.
Petrarca and Boccaccio, iii. 308; Chau-
cer and Boccaccio, 317.
Petrarca, his story of Tenerin de Gisors,
iii. 349.
Phidias, his statue of Cybele, i. 60,
note.
Philip II. and Dona Juana Coelho,
iv. 351.
Philip of Macedon, effect of the news of
his death at Athens, i. 150, 153; his
zeal for religion, 166; his character
drawn by Demosthenes, ii. 137.
Philosophers, why absurd, i. 70; their
business the search after truth, 276;
their excellence in metaphor, ii. 145;
the worth of their sayings, iii. 166.
Philosophy of the ancients, remarks on,
ii. 152.
Phocion and Eschines, i. 156.
Phocion, his eloquence, i. 179; his
character, 183.
Physicians, ordinance issued against, in
Spain, iv. 525.
Physiognomy, comments on the science
of, iv. 480, et seq.
Picture-dealers and the Cardinal-Legate
Albani, v. 298.
Picture-dealing in Italy, v. 298, et seq.
Pilgrims, ceremony of washing the feet
of, at Rome, v. 140; difficulties of
the Pope in respect to, ib.
Pindar, his statue at Athens, i. 208;
why defeated by Corinna, iii. 23; esti-
mate of his poetry, 99.
Pio Nono and Cardinal Antonelli, v.
521.
Piracy, defended by the Moors, ii. 242.
Piræus, at Athens, its dimensions, i. 60
and note; iv. 422.
Pisistratus and Solon, i. 32.
Pitt, William, and George Canning,
ii. 187.
Pitt, William, his oratory, ii. 114, note;
over-estimated, 163; desirous that
Canning should succeed him, 187;
his maxims of government, 190, et
seq.; his designs mischievous, 395;
his character as a statesman, iii.
275.
Plato and Diogenes, i. 68.
Plato, his mode of dress ridiculed by
Diogenes, i. 77; absent at the death
of Socrates, ib.; his misrepresenta-
tions of the opinions of Socrates, 80;
his writings criticised, 82, et seq.
estimate of him by Demosthenes, 138;
remarks on his writings and style, 147,
et seq.; his character censured, 161;
his system as regards women, 184;
his plan of government considered,
191; his want of genius, i. 283, et seq.;
his style, 402; his political opinions,
ii. 312.
Plautus, resembles Shakspeare, iii. 160.
Plutarch, his style, iii. 231.
•
Pocile, at Athens, i. 60, and note.
Poetry, delight, its object, i. 223; its
truthfulness, ii. 156; remarks on its
construction, 191, et seq.; comparison
between ancient and modern, iii. 22;
whatever is good in, common to all
good poets, 35; requisite of good, 76;
merits of descriptive, 92; the business
of the higher, 100; character of mod-
ern English, 131; French, 135, note;
Greek, English, and German, v. 296.
Poets, not all dishonest, i. 45; the writ-
ing of epigrams lowers their dignity,
iii. 26; difference between their lan-
guage and their sentiments, 41; their
merits and those of critics compared,
46; characteristics of modern, 131,
et seq.; remarks on those who have
succeeded Milton, iv. 53; great, must
be religious, 119; their deeds and
542
INDEX.
their deservings, 283, et seq., Italian, | Pride, its effects, ii. 281, et seq.
395; veneration due to, 399.
Poisoning, in Italy, iii. 280, note.
Poland, policy of augmenting her do-
minions, ii. 95.
Policastro, the Prince of, story related by
Boccaccio, iii 354.
Politeness, a virtue, i. 215; English, ii.
355; of Quakers, ib.; French, 356;
of the Chinese, v. 391, 396.
Pollio, Asinius, and Licinius Calvus,
i. 442.
Polverel, Captain, Queen Pomare, Mr.
Pritchard, Captain Des Mitrailles,
and others, v. 349.
Polybius, Scipio Æmilianus, and Pan-
ætius, i. 321.
Polycrates and Anacreon, i. 42.
Polycrates, story of his ring, i. 42;
friendly advice to him given by Ana-
creon, ib., et seq.
Polytheism, discussed by Xenophon and
Cyrus, i. 122.
Pomare, Queen, Mr. Pritchard, Cap-
tains Polverel and Des Mitrailles, and
others, v. 349.
Pomare, Queen, treatment of, by the
French, v. 360.
Pompeius, Cneius, his conduct censured
by Cæsar, i. 372.
Poniatowski and Kosciusko, ii. 93.
Popes of Rome, origin of their supreme
power, i. 273; their conduct toward
crowned heads, ii. 19, 20; mode of
election of the, when first established,
29; means used by, to procure author-
ity and power, 34; character of many
of the, 64; adoration of, iii. 144;
plan for restoring them in Venice,
432.
Porson, Richard, and Robert Southey,
iii. 16.
Portugal, state of, iv. 459; proposed
constitution for, v. 147.
Prayer, inefficacy of, treatise on, by Mid-
dleton, iii. 138; the subject discussed
by Middleton and Magliabechi, ib., et
seq; may sometimes be misapplied,
144; the fact illustrated by anecdotes,
ib., et seq.
Precedence, claimed for the Emperors
of Morocco and Austria, ii. 2, note.
Predestination, considered, iii. 270; the
doctrine discussed between Melancthon
and Calvin, iv. 179, et seq.
President of the Senate and Bonaparte,
iv. 450.
Pritchard, Mr., Queen Pomare, Cap-
tains Polverel and Des Mitrailles,
and others, v. 349.
Prodicus, his style, ii. 158.
Prostitutes, ii. 44; in Tuscany, ib. and
note.
Punishment, the doctrine of eternal,
i. 277; iv. 180.
Punishments, inequality of, i. 82, et
seq.
Puns, examples of, in the writings of
Plato, ii. 158.
Puntomichino, Cavalière, and Mr.
Denis Eusebius Talcranagh, iv. 470.
Puntomichino, Cavalière, sketch of his
life, iv. 471.
Purgatory, ii. 60, 64, 84, 86.
Puritanism, its character, ii. 122.
Pythagoras, instructed the Gauls, i. 141;
his style, 142.
Quails, extravagant fiction regarding,
ii. 181, note.
Quakers, their doctrines discussed by
Penn and Lord Peterborough, ii. 273,
et seq.; literature and science neg-
lected by, 287; their personal appear-
ance, v. 380.
Queypo, cruelties committed against
him by Ferdinand of Spain, v. 240,
and note.
Quietism, opposed by Bossuet, iv. 305
and note.
Quiroga, his interview with El Rey Net-
to, iv. 516.
Racine, Jean, his writings criticised,
iii. 123.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, his name imperish-
able, ii. 47; anecdote of, iv. 201.
Rao-Gong-Fao and the King of Ava,
v. 255.
Raphael Sanzio, character of his works,
V. 313, 321; superior to Michel An-
gelo, 314.
Reading, pleasures of, i. 178.
Reason, assisted by belief, i. 266.
Rebellion, the Great, in England, causes
of, iv. 154.
Reformation, what it effected, iv. 120.
Religion, of the ancients, i. 363; bene-
fits of diversities in, ii. 89; the Roman
Catholic, a support to the throne, 91;
men of genius not indifferent to, 315;
impolicy of interfering with that of
others, 371, et seq.; considered in re-
INDEX.
543
lation to social duties, iii. 264, et seq. ;
proper aim of, 268.
Republics, reason why they are not uni-
versal, i. 154; their position with re-
gard to kings, 160; Plato's scheme
for, 186, et seq.; small, superior to
small principalities, ii. 284; small
collective, the happiest, iii. 433; iv.
125; municipalities, similar to, 125;
defended, 141; ancient, how esteemed
by the Holy Alliance, 435; plan for
the establishment of, in Italy, v. 43º,
et seq.
Republicanism, nature of, ii. 132.
Rewards and punishments, considered,
ii. 152.
Rhadamistus and Zenobia, iv. 335.
Rhadamistus, death of, iv. 339.
Rhigas, his career and fate, iv. 487.
Rhodope and Æsop, i. 12.
Rhyme, what it consists in, iii. 109;
sometimes admitted by the ancients,
129.
Richard I. and the Abbot of Boxley,
ii. I.
Richelieu, the Duke of, Sir Firebrace
Cotes, Lady Glengrin, and Mr. Nor-
manby, V. I.
Richelieu, Duke of, his retirement from
office, v. I; residence at Nice, 2;
visits Ireland, 3; his adventures there,
68, et seq:
Ridicule, legitimate employment of,
i. 265.
Riego, treatment of him and of his com-
panions when taken prisoners, iv. 519,
and note; his wife sentenced to the
galleys, v. 146.
Rienzi, destroyed by his vanity, iii.
320.
Riots, their use, iv. 477.
|
Robespierre, joy in France on the news
of his death, v. 49.
Rochefoucault, Duc de la, and Jean de
La Fontaine, iv. 161.
Rochefoucault, Duc de la, incorrect, ii.
310; indebted to Hobbes, iv. 168; his
Maxims" criticised by La Fon-
taine, 171.
Romans, character of the ancient, iv.
423, et seq.
Rome, cause of her fall, i. 381, 387;
Church of. See Church of Rome.
Romilly, Sir Samuel, and Spencer
Perceval, ii. 163; and William Wil-
berforce, 402.
Romilly, Sir Samuel, his proposition for
the reform of the criminal law, ii. 164;
his character, 413, note.
Rousseau, J. F., and C. G. Malesherbes,
iii. 288.
Rousseau, J. J., remarks on his writings,
iii. 292, et seq.
Royal families, prevalence of insanity in,
i. 65.
Rubens, Peter Paul, character of his
works, v. 320.
Russia, designs of, on Turkey, iv. 434;
on Greece, 436; claim of, to Califor-
nia and N. W. coast of America, 440;
designs of, on Hindostan, ib.; her
policy unchangeable, 443; unable to
invade India, v. 181.
Sacrament of the Eucharist, ii. 22.
Saez, Don Victor, and El Rey Netto,
iv. 516.
St. Bartholomew's Day, medals to com-
memorate the massacre, ii. 38; ex-
tracts from the oration of Muretus in
celebration of, 39, note.
Saints, intercession of, iii. 142.
Saladin, his character, ii. 1, 3.
Salomon, the Florentine Jew, and Al-
fieri, iii. 273.
Salvation, meaning of the term, i. 276;
discussed between Melancthon and
Calvin, iv. 179, et seq.
Samos, subjugation of, by Polycrates,
i. 44.
Samuel, the defender of Santa Vener-
anda and leader of the Suliotes, v.
177.
Sandwich Islands, King of the, Sir R.
Peel, J. W. Croker, and Interpreter,
v. 250.
Sandt and Kotzebue, v. 289; and Mar-
shal Blucher, 330.
Savage, Sir Arnold, and Henry IV.,
ii. 8.
Savage, Sir Arnold, the first Speaker of
the House of Commons on record,
ii. 11, note.
II,
Savage, Philip, and Archbishop Boulter,
ii. 202.
Savage, Philip, his character, ii. 202,
note.
Scaliger Joseph, and Michael Mon-
taigne, iii. 303.
Scaliger Joseph, his vanity exposed in
his "Conversation" with Montaigne,
iii. 304.
School-masters, why censurable, ii.
378.
544
INDEX.
Scioppius, Caspar, his opinion of here- | Smith, Sir Sydney, hated by Napoleon,
tics, iv. 296, note; his presents to
James I., ib.
Scipio, Emilianus P., Polybius, and
Panatius, i. 321.
Scotch, character of the, iv. 102 and
note.
Scott, Sir Walter, his poetry criticised,
iii. 52.
Sculpture, ancient, fate of its master-
pieces, iii. 438; suggestion as to the
use of wax in restoring, 439.
Senate of Rome, suppression of, in-
tended by the Marian faction, i. 380.
Senator, rank of a Roman, i. 2, note.
Seneca and Epictetus, i. 434.
Sergius and Mahomet, ii. 211.
Sertorius, his conduct as a military
leader, i. 378; error committed by
him in Spain, 381.
Shakspeare, William, often admits lines
of little worth, iii. 22; estimate of
his powers, 25; comparison between
him and Bacon, ib.; his sonnets, 55;
iv. 92; criticisms on, by Voltaire, iii.
93; his dramatic writings criticised,
132; lines by the author, descriptive
of his powers, 134; his historical
dramas, 160; greatness of his genius,
iv. 59; his clowns, 70.
Shelley, P. B., his generous estimate of
Keats, iv. 56; difficulties surmounted
in his "Cenci," 60.
Shepherd Kings.
See Pelasgians.
Sheridan, R. B., and William Wind-
ham, ii. 384.
Sheridan, R. B., his speech on the
mutiny at the Nore, ii. 384.
Shipley, Bishop, and Benjamin Frank-
lin, ii. 377.
Sidney, Sir Philip, and Lord Brooke,
iii. I.
Singing, arguments in defence of, ii.
280.
Slavery, opinions of the early Christians
on, 1. 302.
Slave trade, its expediency discussed, ii.
402; its abolition a secondary consid-
eration to the freedom of Greece,
v. 183.
Sleep, what time should be devoted to,
ii. 286; poetical invocation to, by Sir
Philip Sidney, iii. 11.
Smiles, of men and women, difference
between, i. 13.
Smith, Robert, an imitator of Lucretius,
iv. 54; his poetry commended, ib.
|
iv. 432.
Society, philosophical sense of the term,
i. 226.
Socrates, a truly great man, i. 73; his
character as portrayed by Plato, ii.
158.
Soldiers, in a Free State, how to be
raised, i. 88; luxury of, 333, 349;
highest or lowest of mankind, v. 333.
Soliman and Mufti, ii. 182.
Solomon, one of his maxims denied,
iv. 114.
Solon and Pisistratus, i. 32.
Sonnets, Shakspeare's, iii. 55; iv. 92;
remarks on, iii. 56, et seq.; Milton's,
criticised, iv. 91.
Sophocles and Pericles, i. 60.
Sophocles, his contest with schylus,
i. 61, note; his character, ib.; verses
by, on the completion of the Piræus
and Poecile, ib.
Sorel, Agnes, and the Maid of Orleans,
iv. 328.
Sorrow, uses of, i. 415.
Southey, Robert, and Richard Porson,
iii. 16; and Walter Landor, iv. 1.
Spain, state of, iv. 458; treatment of,
by the Holy Alliance, 502; scheme
for the reformation of, 512; character
of the people of, 514; evils produced
in, by the restoration of Ferdinand,
v. 185, 221, note; reflections on the
misgovernment of, 249, note.
Spenser, Edmund, and Lord Essex,
iv. 198.
Spenser, Edmund, character of his
poetry, iii. 75; his residence in Ire-
land described, iv. 202; sacked and
burned by the rebels, ib.; his merits
discussed by Queen Elizabeth and
Cecil, 283; quotations from his poetry,
284.
Spring, verses on, iii. 13.
State Religions, advantages of their abo-
lition, ii. 122.
Steele, Sir Richard, and Joseph Addi-
son, iv. 158.
Steele, Sir Richard, harshly treated by
Addison, iv. 158.
Style of Aristoteles, i. 75, 93; of the
oratory of Demosthenes, 161-165; of
Theophrastus, 231; of Livy, 291, of
Polybius, 347; of Thucydides, 365;
of Plato, 402; of Locke, ii. 145
of Plato, ib., et seq.; of Muretus, 148
of Tibullus, 149; of Aristoteles, 154;
INDEX.
545
of Prodicus, 159; in composition, | Theophrastus, his opposition to the doc-
requisites of modern, iii. 28; of Eng- trines of Epicurus, i. 217, et seq.; his
lish writers, remarks on, 169, et seq.,
style, 231.
216, et seq.; of Addison, Swift, and
Plutarch, 230; of Rousseau, 292; of
Montesquieu, 293; of Dr. Donne,
420.
Suliotes, their heroic defence of their
country, v. 177, et seq.
Sun, advantages of its worship in a hot
climate, i. 124.
Sunday, amusements on, formerly en-
couraged, iii. 2, and note; modern
observance of, v. 381.
Swan, Rev. Mr., Lord Coleraine, and
Rev. Mr. Bloomsbury, iv. 526.
Swedes, character of the, iv. 445.
Thiers, L. A., and A. de Lamartine,
v. 469.
Thracians, their morality, i. 14.
Thucydides, his style, i. 365.
Tiberius and Vipsania, i. 430.
Tiberius, his meeting with Vipsania, his
divorced wife, i. 430; tendency of his
family to insanity, ib., note.
Tibullus and Messala, i. 417.
Tibullus, his style, ii. 148.
Timotheus and Lucian, i. 265.
Titles, changes in, ii. 2, note; their
value, iv. 286.
Titian, character of his works, v. 320.
Swift, Jonathan, his character, iii. 229; | Tiziano Vecelli, and Luigi Cornaro,
his style, 230.
Tacitus, his merits as an historian,
iv. 5.
Tahiti, conduct of the French there,
v. 349, et seq.
Talcranagh, Mr. Denis Eusebius, and
Cavalière Puntomichino, iv. 470.
Talcranagh, Denis Eusebius, sketch of
his character, iv. 472.
Talleyrand and Archbishop of Paris,
v. 366; and Louis XVIII., ii. 392.
Tancredi and Constantia, iv. 339.
Tancredi captures Constantia, daughter
of William II. of Sicily, iv. 339.
Tasso, Torquato, and Cornelia, iv. 374.
Tasso, Torquato, compared with Virgil,
iii. 107; ill-treated by his countrymen,
iv. 196; his Gerusalemme," criti-
cised, 197; causes of his miseries,
380, note.
Tax, a new one proposed by Ferdinand
of Spain, v. 235.
Taxes, comparative rates of ancient and
modern, ii. 120.
Tenerin de Gisors, story of, related by
Petrarca, iii. 349.
Terebinthus, a remarkable one, iv.
420.
Terni, the cataract of, described, iii.
319.
Ternissa, Epicurus, and Leontion,
i. 197.
Tersitza, Odysseus, Acrive, and Tre-
lawny, v. 159.
Texts, variance between, iv. 527.
Theatre, reasons why women should
visit it rarely, i. 224; strictures on the,
ii. 326.
VOL. V.
|
35
iv. 278.
Tooke, John Horne, and Samuel John-
son, iii. 167; attacks on the "Conver-
sation" between them, iv. 79.
Tory and Whig, argument between,
v. 440, et seq.
Toussaint L'Ouverture, treatment of, by
Napoleon, v. 118.
Translation of Bishops, ii. 29.
Transubstantiation, doctrine of, when
first established, ii. 30.
Travel, foreign, effects of, on female
character, ii. 62.
Trees, old, their beauty and value,
iv. 419.
Trelawny, Odysseus, Tersitza, and
Acrive, v. 159.
Trelawny (the friend of Odysseus, the
Kleptic chieftain), his lines on Ter-
sitza, v. 160; undertakes the defence
of the stronghold of Odysseus, 197;
wounded, 198.
Trial by jury, proposed abolition of,
iii. 298.
Trojan War, doubts respecting the, iv.
478.
Truth, should be sought after by philoso-
phers, i. 276; Apologue of, by Crito-
bulus, 411; not the object of philoso-
phers, iii. 290; prevails in argument,
iv. 192.
Tsing-ti and Emperor of China, v.
375.
Tsing-ti, sent by the Emperor of China
to obtain information about Eng-
land, v. 375; his remarks on France,
445.
Turks, character of the, v. 191.
Tuscany, imperfection of the laws in,
546
INDEX.
ii. 45; delay of justice in, 54; aboli- | Wallace, William, and Edward I.,
tion of monachism, 55, 81, and note;
ii. 245.
improvements in, introduced by Peter
Leopold, 75; character of the people,
77; illustrated by their language, 78,
et seq.
Wallace, William, his treatment when
taken captive, ii. 247.
Tyrants, their power the source of their
alarms and sorrows, i. 36; perish from
folly, 49.
Tyranny, greater under a mild than
under an austere ruler, ii. 112.
Tythes among the Jews, i. 389; exacted
by Pisistratus and Hiero, 390; tythes,
ii. 125; their original purpose, 330.
Union, Irish. See Ireland.
Usurpers, should not be suffered to live,
i. 153.
Valdenses. See Waldenses.
Valdo, his translation of the Bible,
ii. 37.
Vanity, unprofitable, ii. 255.
Venice, proposal for establishing the
Pope in, iii. 432.
Vice and misery, connection between,
ii. 402.
Vigilantius, his condemnation of abuses
in the Church of Rome, ii. 33, 36.
Villèle and Corbière, V. 151.
Vipsania and Tiberius, i. 430.
Vipsania, the divorced wife of Tiberius,
1. 430.
Virgilius and Horatius, i. 438.
Virgil, not free from trivial ideas, iii. 25;
compared with Tasso, 107; his char-
acter of Dido true to nature, 127;
compared with other poets, 128; faults
of, iv. 397;
Virgin, worship of the, attacked by Cer-
vantes, ii. 58; story of an offering to
the, iv. 448.
Voltaire, his criticisms on Milton and
Shakspeare, iii. 93; his tragedies, 94;
burlesque translation of the commence-
ment of his " Henriade," ib.; his
merit as a critic, 96; as a writer of
tales and as an historian, 97; charac-
ter of his wit, 291; his Pucelle d'Or-
leans censured, 295.
Waldenses, their persecutions and noble
resistance, ii. 338, et seq.
Walker, Colonel, Hattaji, Gonda, and
Dewah, v. 361.
Walker, Colonel, abolishes infanticide
among the Jerijahs, v. 361, note.
Walton, Isaac, Cotton, and Oldways,
iii. 408.
Walton, Isaac, visits Oldways at Ash-
bourne, iii. 408; his lines on Cotton,
409.
War, why requisite, ii. 10; occurs at
regular periods, 121; would seldom
occur if the wiser and better governed,
254; evils of, 377; its glory should
not be inculcated in childhood, ib.;
foreign, justifiable in certain cases
only, iii. 6; result of, iv. 511; conse-
quence of the last general, v. 182.
Warton, Thomas, faulty as a poet and
critic, iii. 124.
Warwick, the town of, well-adapted
for a central fortress, v. 353.
Washington, George, and Benjamin
Franklin, ii. 106.
Wax, suggestion for the use of, in re-
storing ancient sculpture, iii. 439.
Wellington, Duke of, and Sir Robert
Inglis, ii. 369.
Whig, argument between a, and a Tory,
v. 440, et seq.
Wicklif, John, his "Trialogue," ii. 33,
and note.
Wilberforce, William, and Samuel
Romilly, ii. 402.
Wilkes, Zachariah, his life saved by
Thomas Paine, during the "reign of
terror," v. 46 and note.
William the Conqueror, reasons for his
invasion of England, ii. 9.
Wills, the right and expediency of mak-
ing, considered, i. 157.
Windham, William, and R. B. Sheri-
dan, ii. 384.
Wisdom, does not lead to happiness,
v. 289.
Wit, true character of, iii. 277.
Wolfgang and Henry of Melctal, ii. 98.
Women, Plato's system respecting them,
i. 184; their treatment of silent lovers,
iii. 14; their courage, iv. 329.
Wordsworth, William, opinion enter-
tained of him by Southey and Porson,
ii. 16, et seq.; principal objection to
his style, iii. 29; reason why we should
not imitate the ancients, 30; criticism
on his "Laodamia," 36; criticism on
his poems, 41, et seq.; anecdote of,
SI.
3
INDEX.
547
Xenocrates, estimate of his character, | Zabira, his catalogue of modern Greek
i. 178.
Xenophon and Cyrus the Younger,
i. 119; and Alcibiades, 127.
Xenophon, faults in his "Cyropædia,"
i. 187, 366; his style criticised, 366.
Xerxes and Artabanus, i. 52.
|
writers, iv. 487.
Zaida, the Count and Countess Gleichem,
and their Children, iv. 403.
Zavellas, Photo, and Kaido, v. 269.
Zavellas, and his sister Kaido, beroir
conduct of, v. 177, 495, et seq.
Zenobia and Rhadomistus, iv.
Young, Edward, character of his poetry, Zenobia, the death of, iv. 339.
335.
iii. 74.
J
:
?
1
។
}
+
2:
A
&
E


if as
Preservation 198
828
L2611
Landor.
1883
vo5
Imaginary
gt.
conversations.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 01144 3457