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 Selected Essays of De Quincey. 
 
 With Introduction by Sir George 
 Douglas, Bart. 
 
 LONDON : WALTER SCOTT, LTD. 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
 
 C O N T E N T S. 
 
 pa(;k 
 INTRODUCTION ...... vii 
 
 ON iMUkDKR CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE 
 
 ARTS ....... I 
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS ; OR, FLIGHT OF THE 
 KALMUCK KHAN AND HIS PEOPLE FROM THE 
 RUSSIAN TERRITORIES TO THE FRONTIERS OF 
 CHINA ...... 57 
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH, OR THE GLORV OF 
 
 MOTION . . . . . .123 
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH . . . 1 58 
 
 CASUISTRV ...... 192
 
 Note — These Essays are reprinted in the form in 
 which they originally appeared. Dr. R. Garnett, in the 
 Introduction to his reprint of the first version of the 
 Cojjfessions, points out the fact that De Quincey's 
 subsequent additions to that work, whilst interesting 
 in themselves, are "as a whole detrimental to the finish 
 and unity which the original version possesses ;" and no 
 doubt the same may be said, though in a less degree, of 
 the additions to the present Essays. On the other hand, 
 as regards alterations, to students of De Quincey the 
 comparison of the original and the later version must 
 always be instructive.
 
 r n JUiNlVERS.'Ti OF CALJFORN 
 
 45"^)^ SAiMA BAHBAHA 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It has not hitherto been sufficiently recognised that 
 the poetic revival of the reign of George the Third 
 had its counterpart in a revival of English prose. 
 In one department, as in the other, there was a 
 bursting of bonds, a conquest of new domains ; nor 
 was the reaction against the " regularity, uniformity, 
 precision, balance " of the Addisonian and John- 
 sonian ideal less complete in its way than that 
 against the strait - laced poetics of Pope and of 
 Goldsmith. Only, as the English literary genius 
 has always found its most congenial expres- 
 sion in poetry, so now the splendour of the 
 poetic revival cast the prose revival into shadow. 
 None the less is that secondary revival well worthy 
 of consideration. Its forerunner — its Burns — was 
 Burke ; its Castor and Pollux, twin stars, were 
 De Ouincey and Carlyle. Choosing their models 
 in the one case from a past age, in the other from 
 a foreign country, both of these authors greatly en- 
 larged the capacity of the instrument of their choice. 
 In neither case, it must be admitted, was the process 
 accomplished without the jarring of some discords. 
 But such discords are probably inseparable from
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 such an enterprize. If our ears desire ideal har- 
 mony, it is not here, but from a Milton, a Gra}-, 
 or a Swinburne, that we must seek it — from the 
 men, that is, who close a literary age, not from 
 those who inaugurate one. And surely the earl}- 
 extravagances of the contemporary poets sufficed to 
 keep the prose-writers in countenance. Thus much 
 by way of preliminary. I have somewhere seen 
 Wordsworth spoken of, rather grandiloquently, as 
 the Reformer of English Poetry. If Wordsworth 
 was this, then De Ouincey has a title to be spoken 
 of as, at least, the joint-reformer of English Prose. 
 And, premising that this is the position claimed 
 for him, let us now proceed to glance at a few of 
 the characteristics of his work. 
 
 De Quincey's strength lies in his power of touching 
 the heart and striking the imagination. No literary 
 gifts are of a higher order than these ; and few prose- 
 writers, if any, have displayed them in a greater 
 perfection. Unfortunately, the circumstances under 
 which De Quincey wrote afforded but a minimum 
 of opportunity for the use of these great gifts. And 
 it must be borne in mind that in these circumstances, 
 once beyond his control, he afterwards passivel}' 
 acquiesced. The explanation of this anomaly is 
 that with the Opium-Eater the sense of literar} 
 form — oi form as distinct from style — was but ver}" 
 imperfectly developed. The artistic instinct which 
 should have shown him the field in literature best 
 adapted for the display of his peculiar gifts and 
 graces, he cither lacked or disregarded. And so
 
 JNTR on UCTION. ix 
 
 he remains, on the whole, a dancer in shackles, an 
 artist under difficulties. Where he was worsted, 
 Carlyle's stronger genius overcame. When Carlyle 
 had failed in poetry and fiction, he did not rest 
 content with the Miscellaneous Essay as a means 
 of self-expression. He invented what ma)- be 
 called Lyric History — an inspired and moralized 
 descant upon great events — and in this his greatest 
 successes were achieved. De Quincey's earlier 
 efforts were more happily directed. In his auto- 
 biographical writings we find his best qualities 
 again and again brought into play. But no man 
 can go on writing autobiography all his days ; 
 and certainly it cannot be brought against the 
 Opium - Eater that he turned his material in that 
 kind to insufficient account. What we do blame 
 him for is this — that, when autobiography failed him, 
 instead of seeking or of finding, as Carlyle did, his 
 true vehicle of self-expression, he contented himself 
 with that which lay nearest to hand, and wrote 
 magazine-articles unmurmuringly for the rest of his 
 life. It is true that the worst of these articles, or 
 all but the very worst — such as that on War — are 
 readable. But is not " readable " a somewhat modest 
 eulogy for the product of such powers? In some 
 of his papers the writer does himself full justice. 
 But in how small a fraction of the whole ! And 
 how often we feel that his genius is painfully 
 maimed and cramped by the narrow limits which 
 confine it ! How often we see him struggling to 
 burst his self-imposed bonds, or striving vainly to
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 endow his work with qualities essentially incom- 
 patible with its nature ! 
 
 And it is not only in this larger view of the matter 
 that De Ouincey's procedure strikes us as lament- 
 ably hap-hazard. No writer of his rank is through- 
 out less self-critical ; none is more deficient in a 
 proper self-consciousness. Probably no writer who 
 delights us so much has shocked us more. The 
 absence of flexibility and of terseness in his style 
 may perhaps be charitably accepted as the "defects 
 of his qualities." Nor would I here draw attention 
 to his tiresome facetiousness and low jests, which 
 pass themselves off as the horse-play of high spirits. 
 For much of this, no doubt, he had the influence 
 of his good friend Christopher to thank ; but why 
 not bethink him that what well became the " Cock 
 o' the North," wantonly disporting in the pride of 
 life and manhood, would sit but ill upon the narrow 
 shoulders and pale brow of a shy votary of the 
 midnight lamp .'' Truly his antics on these occasions 
 are those of the elephant in the fable reversed. Nor, 
 again, do I allude to his exasperating verbosity, his 
 digressions, his tendency to pile note upon note, and 
 parenthesis on parenthesis, to his eternal wire-draw- 
 ings and hair-splittings, or the frequent sheer inability 
 of his style to move in a straightforward direction, or 
 at a pace exceeding that of the slug. On the con- 
 trary, I will take him at his best, and show how his 
 defective instinct spoils that best. The following 
 apostrophe to opium is one of the most justly 
 celebrated passages in his works : —
 
 INTR on UCTION. xi 
 
 " O just, subtle, and all-conquering opium ! that, 
 to the hearts of rich and poor alike, for the wounds 
 that will never heal, and for the pangs of grief that 
 'tempt the spirit to rebel,' bringest an assuaging 
 balm ; — eloquent opium ! that with thy potent 
 rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, 
 pleadest effectually for relenting pity, and through 
 one night's heavenly sleep callest back to the guilty 
 man the visions of his infancy, and hands washed 
 pure from blood; — O just and righteous opium! 
 that to the chancery of dreams summonest, for the 
 triumphs of despairing innocence, false witnesses ; 
 and confoundest perjury ; and dost reverse the 
 sentences of unrighteous judges; — thou buildest 
 upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic 
 imagery of the brain, cities and temples, beyond 
 the art of Phidias and Praxiteles — beyond the 
 splendours of Babylon and Hekatompylos ; and, 
 ' from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,' callest into 
 sunny light the faces of long-buried beauties, and 
 the blessed household countenances, cleansed from 
 the ' dishonours of the grave.' Thou only givest 
 these gifts to man ; and thou hast the keys of 
 Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium ! " 
 
 What reader withholds his admiration here ? Who 
 but is moved by the impassioned eloquence of the 
 trope ? Unfortunately my quotation is incomplete. 
 For, will it be believed, that, in the text, the word 
 Hekatompylos is followed by an asterisk indicating 
 a foot-note. The eye travels downwards accordingly, 
 and there reads as follows : —
 
 xii IX TR OD UCTIOX. 
 
 ''i.e., the Jin ud red-gated (from eKarou, hekaton, a 
 hundred, and tti'A?/, pyle, a gate). This epithet of 
 hundred-gated was applied to the P^gyptian Thebes 
 in contradistinction to the eTrrd-jruXog {Jieptdpylos^ or 
 seven-gated) which designated the Grecian Thebes, 
 within one day's journey of Athens." 
 
 Was ever more extreme instance of the impertinent 
 annoyance of a note 1 Certainly De Ouincey has here 
 done as much to impair the imaginative beauty, the 
 melody, and the general effect of his prose as the 
 most flagrant pedantry of the most superfluous com- 
 mentator ever accomplished in injury to Shake- 
 speare's verse. He has done more ; for the knowing 
 reader will quickly learn to totally ignore the com- 
 mentator, but the author himself can scarcely be 
 ignored. And all this for the sake of a crumb of 
 instruction such as schoolboys in the lowest class 
 hold cheap. Alas 1 such lapses are the rule almost 
 rather than the exception. Can one hesitate, then, 
 to pronounce the writer's literary form, with all its 
 merits, too imperfectly considered } 
 
 What field, besides autobiograph}-, was the true 
 one for the exercise of De Quincey's genius is a 
 question more easily asked than answered. His 
 attempts in fiction are unimportant, and do not 
 seem to have been made in any very serious spirit. 
 Perhaps the degree of success attained hardly war- 
 rants a wish that he had devoted himself more 
 sincerely to labour in that department. The novel 
 of Klosterheini is mere Radcliffism, with suggestions 
 of the influence of Scott. It is more carefully written
 
 INTR OD UCTION. xiii 
 
 than TJie Household ]Vreck, but in the latter the 
 author is more himself. This tale opens badly, in 
 a manner altogether too suggestive of that particular 
 narrative style of which the classic exemplar is a 
 story of a Cock and of a Bull. But as the author 
 writes on, mere acquired force stands him in good 
 stead. The action, after long dragging, begins to 
 hurry, and grows wild with the wildness of an 
 opium-dream. And at last the scene of the mas- 
 querade in the prison pleases, not in spite of, but by 
 reason of its very unreality. With De Ouincey as a 
 writer, dream-life had taken much of the reality out 
 of real life ; and it may be laid down generally that 
 he is never serious when he writes of tragic events, — 
 in illustration of which we cite the gallant role in 
 these appalling scenes assigned to that least romantic 
 of domestic characters, the Cook. But serious or not 
 serious, the excitement of the writer's mind com- 
 municates itself to the mind of the reader, and the 
 result is a literary effect which is at once characteristic 
 and unique. And at this point attention may perhaps 
 be drawn to the fact, not hitherto noticed, I believe, 
 that De Ouincey marks the appearance of the 
 distinctly neurotic element in our literature. Since 
 his day, and especially in recent years, that element 
 has filled a more and m.ore important place — though 
 not up to the present time, in this country, as in 
 France, to the extent of forming the actual basis of 
 an entire school of writers. Still, there is little doubt 
 that it is upon this characteristic rather than upon 
 more solid qualities in his writing that much of
 
 xi V INTR on UCTION. 
 
 the esoteric popularity now enjoyed by De Ouincey 
 depends. Returning to his work in fiction, we incHne 
 to the opinion that his personality was too highly 
 individualized, his interest in life too vicarious and 
 too narrowly circumscribed, to admit of his ever 
 having become a great novelist. At the same time, 
 one cannot but express regret that through his lack 
 of devotion to the art, or of perseverance in it, a 
 fascinating work of fiction has certainly been lost to 
 the world. Mortimer Collins — in one of many books* 
 through which, like a thread of gold, a thin vein of 
 genius runs — refers to a novel entitled TJie Strangers 
 Grave as " attributed to De Ouincey." I have never 
 seen a copy of the book, but unfortunately, at this 
 day, one need scarcely hesitate to pronounce the 
 attribution a mistake. 
 
 There remains to be considered a single small 
 group of De Quincey's writings, which fall under 
 a head distinct from that of fiction, essay, or auto- 
 biography. These are his Phantasies, and it is in 
 these that he most nearly attains to a perfect and 
 original medium of expression. On these phantasies 
 and on the autobiographical writings, Mr Sharp, with 
 excellent judgment, has chiefly drawn in the volume 
 of Selections from De Ouincey, previously published 
 in this Series. It is in these that De Quincey's form 
 is at its best ; in these that he soars highest and 
 most equably sustains his flight. Yet the phantasies, 
 beautiful and eloquent as they are, have also their 
 defect. They are often too unbearably remote from 
 
 * " Who is the Heir?" published 1865.
 
 INTR on UCTION. xv 
 
 earth — too deficient, not merely in human interest, 
 but in bare human significance. For, in literature, 
 the converse of Terence's fine saying is a trite 
 aphorism ; and nothing which is not human can 
 ever really interest. And thus, in despite of the art 
 and beauty of their style, it is almost solely by virtue 
 of the touches of autobiography which they contain 
 that these phantasies take hold of the reader's atten- 
 tion or dwell in his memory. 
 
 Our conclusion, then, is that notwithstanding the 
 multitude of his works, De Ouincey remains to a 
 great extent a man of genius manque — one who 
 never quite attained, as Carlyle did in a long life 
 and Keats in a short one — to perfect self-expression. 
 We do not forget that he did much, and did well ; 
 it is his misfortune, perhaps, to have awakened a 
 belief that he might have done yet better. For us, 
 under the circumstances, the becoming part is grati- 
 tude for what we have received. And among the 
 best of those things are the essays in this book — all, 
 I believe, distinctive of Dc Ouincc}"s talent, and each 
 showing a somewhat diff"erent aspect of it. The first, 
 the most popular of all his essays, supplies an example 
 of his peculiar death's-head-and-cross- bones style of 
 humour. As a piece of sustained irony it is unrivalled. 
 The character of Toad-in-thc-hole, the superannuated 
 amateur of Murder — sketch as it is — takes dis- 
 tinguished rank among creations in the grotesque 
 and the horrible ; and when De Ouincey 's bad taste 
 crops out — as it does in his quotations from " The 
 Elegy " — it is only for a moment. To his final
 
 X vi INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 version of this essay, the author added a substantial 
 Postscript, in which the story of the Ratcliffe High- 
 way and M'Kean murders is rehearsed with all the 
 fevered excitement and power of his narrative style. 
 The Flight of the Tartars may be called his Prose 
 Epic. The temperament of the Opium-Eater inclined 
 naturally to excess, delighting in the superhuman 
 and the grandiose — in mere magnitude and number 
 for their own sakes. And the sense, here so vividly 
 conveyed, of innumerable multitudes hurrying in dis- 
 traction over boundless plains is admirably contrasted 
 with the calm of expectation in the splendid scene in 
 which the Emperor of China watches the advance of 
 the dust columns across the desert. This, indeed, is 
 one of the passages — and they are not few — in which 
 De Quincey's genius seems to break the limits of the 
 concrete, and, appealing to the spirit by the medium 
 of abstract sensations rather than of words, to touch 
 on the domain of the great musical composer. 
 The English Mail Coach is almost pure rhapsody — 
 in the style of the phantasies, but with more of a 
 solid basis in fact. Lastly, the paper on Casuistry 
 shows its author to advantage in a homelier, but 
 .scarcely less characteristic vein — for once familiar 
 but not facetious, full of information, yet not tire- 
 some. 
 
 GEORGE DOUGLAS. 
 
 January 1895.
 
 On Murder considered as one of the 
 Fine Arts.* 
 
 To the Editor of " Blackwood's Magazine P 
 
 Sir,— We have all heard of a Society for the Promotion 
 of Vice, of the Hell-Fire Club, &c. At Brighton I think it 
 was that a Society was formed for the Suppression of Virtue. 
 That Society was itself suppressed — but I am sorry to say 
 that another exists in London, of a character still more 
 atrocious. In tendency, it may be denominated a Society 
 for the Encouragement of Murder ; but, according to their 
 own delicate rj'priiJ.iGiMhg, it is styled — The Society of Con- 
 noisseurs in Murder. They profess to be curious in 
 homicide ; amateurs and dilettanti in the various modes of 
 bloodshed; and, in short, Murder-Fanciers. Every fresh 
 atrocity of that class, which the police annals of Europe 
 bring up, they meet and criticise as they would a picture, 
 statue, or other work of art. But I need not trouble myself 
 with any attempt to describe the spirit of their proceedings, 
 as you will collect that much better from one of the 
 Monthly Lectures read before the Society last year. This 
 has fallen into my hands accidentally, in spite of all the 
 vigilance exercised to keep their transactions from the 
 public eye. The publication of it will alarm them ; and 
 my purpose is that it should. For I would much rather put 
 them down quietl)', by an appeal to public opinion through 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, February 1827. 
 A
 
 2 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 you, than by such an exposure of names as would follow an 
 appeal to Bow-street ; which last appeal, however, if this 
 should fail, I must positively resort to. For it is scandal- 
 ous that such things should go on in a Christian land. Even 
 in a heathen land, the public toleration of murder was felt 
 by a Christian writer to be the most crying reproach of the 
 public morals. This writer was Lactantius ; and with his 
 words, as singularly applicable to the present occasion, I 
 shall conclude : — " Quid tam horribile," says he, " tam 
 tetrum, quam hominis trucidatio ? Ideo severissimis legibus 
 vita nostra munitur ; ideo bella execrabilia sunt. Invenit 
 tamen consuetudo quatenus homicidium sine bello ac sine 
 legibus faciat : et hoc sibi voluptas quod scelus vindicavit. 
 Quod si interesse homicidio sceleris conscientia est, — et 
 eidem facinori spectator obstrictus est cui et admissor; ergo 
 et in his gladiatorum csedibus non minus cruore profunditur 
 qui spectat, quam ille qui facit : nee potest esse immunis a 
 sanguine qui voluit effundi ; aut videri non interfecisse, qui 
 interfectori et favit et proemium postulavit." " Human lite," 
 says he, "is guarded by laws of the uttermost rigour, yet 
 custom has devised a mode of evading them in behalf of 
 murder ; and the demands of taste (voluptas) are now be- 
 come the same as those of abandoned guilt." Let the 
 Society of Gentlemen Amateurs consider this ; and let me 
 call their especial attention to the last sentence, which is so 
 weighty, that I shall attempt to convey it in English v — 
 " Now, if merely to be present at a murder fastens on a man 
 the character of an accomplice, — if barely to be a spectator 
 involves us in one common guilt with the perpetrator ; it 
 follows of necessity, that, in these murders of the amphi- 
 theatre, the hand which inflicts the fatal blow is not more 
 deeply imbrued in blood than his who sits and looks on ; 
 neither can he be clear of blood who has countenanced its
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 3 
 
 shedding ; nor that man seem other than a participator in 
 murder who gives his applause to the murderer, and calls 
 for prizes in his behalf." The " prcpmia postulavit'^ I have 
 not yet heard charged upon the Gentlemen Amateurs of 
 London, though undoubtedly their proceedings tend to that; 
 but the '■^ ititerfectori favit" is implied in the very title of 
 this association, and expressed in every line of the lecture 
 which I send you. — I am, &c., X. Y. Z. 
 
 [Note of the Editor. — We thank our correspondent for his 
 communication, and also for the quotation from Lactantius, 
 which is very pertinent to his view of the case ; our own, we 
 confess, is different. We cannot suppose the lecturer to be 
 in earnest, any more than Erasmus in his Praise of Folly, or 
 Dean Swift in his proposal for eating children. However, 
 either on his view or on ours, it is equally fit that the lecture 
 should be made public] 
 
 Lecture. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I have had the honour to be appointed by 
 your committee to the trying task of reading the Williams' 
 Lecture on Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts — a 
 task which might be easy enough three or four centuries 
 ago, when the art was little understood, and few great 
 models had been exhibited ; but in this age, when master- 
 pieces of excellence have been executed by professional 
 men, it must be evident, that in the style of criticism 
 applied to them, the public will look for something of a 
 corresponding improvement. Practice and theory must 
 advance pari passu. People begin to see that something 
 more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two 
 blockheads to kill and be killed — a knife — a purse —
 
 4 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and 
 shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to 
 attempts of this nature. INIr Williams has exalted the ideal 
 of murder to all of us ; and to me, therefore, in particular, 
 has deepened the arduousness of my task. Like ^schylus 
 or Milton in poetr}', like Michael Angelo in painting, he has 
 carried his art to a point of colossal sublimity ; and, as Mr 
 Wordsworth observes, has in a manner "created the taste 
 by which he is to be enjoyed." To sketch the history of 
 the art, and to examine its principles critically, now remains 
 as a duty for the connoisseur, and for judges of quite another 
 stamp from His Majesty's Judges of Assize. 
 
 Before I begin, let me say a word or two to certain prigs, 
 who affect to speak of our society as if it were in some 
 degree immoral in its tendency. Immoral ! — God bless my 
 soul, gentlemen, what is it that people mean? I am for 
 morality, and alwa5's shall be, and for virtue and all that ; 
 and I do affirm, and always shall, (let what will come of it), 
 that murder is an improper line of conduct — highly im- 
 proper; and I do not stick to assert, that any man who 
 deals in murder, must have very incorrect ways of thinking, 
 and truly inaccurate principles ; and so far from aiding and 
 abetting him by pointing out his victim's hiding-place, as a 
 great moralist * of Germany declared it to be every good 
 man's duty to do, I would subscribe one shilling and six- 
 pence to have him apprehended, which is more by eighteen- 
 
 * Kant — who carried his demands of unconditional veracity to so 
 extravagant a length as to affirm, that, if a man were to see an innocent 
 person escape from a murderer, it would be his duty, on being ques- 
 tioned by the murderer, to tell the trath, and to point out the retreat of 
 the innocent person, under any certainty of causing murder. Lest this 
 doctrine should be supposed to have escaped him in any heat of dispute, 
 on being taxed with it by a celebrated French writer, he solemnly re- 
 affirmed it, with his reasons.
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 5 
 
 pence than the most eminent moralists have subscribed for 
 that purpose. But what then? Everything in this world 
 has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold 
 of by its moral handle, (as it generally is in the pulpit, and 
 at the Old Bailey) ; and that, I confess, is its weak side ; or 
 it may also be treated ccstJietically, as the Germans call it, 
 that is, in relation to good taste. 
 
 To illustrate this, I will urge the authority of three 
 eminent persons, viz., S. T. Coleridge, Aristotle, and Mr 
 Howship the surgeon. To begin with S. T. C. — One 
 night, many years ago, I was drinking tea with him in 
 Berners' Street, (which, by the way, for a short street, has 
 been uncommonly fruitful in men of genius). Others were 
 there besides myself; and amidst some carnal considera- 
 tions of tea and toast, we were all imbibing a dissertation 
 on Plotinus from the Attic lips of S. T. C. Suddenly a cry 
 arose of " Fire— fire /" — upon which all of us, master and 
 disciples, Plato and 01 mp! rov uXuTuva, rushed out, eager 
 for the spectacle. The fire was in Oxford Street, at a 
 piano-forte maker's ; and, as it promised to be a conflagra- 
 tion of merit, I was sorry that my engagements forced me 
 away from Mr Coleridge's party before matters were come to 
 a crisis. Some days after, meeting with my Platonic host, 
 I reminded him of the case, and begged to know how that 
 very promising exhibition had terminated. " Oh, sir," said 
 he, " it turned out so ill, that we damned it unanimously." 
 Now, does any man suppose that Mr Coleridge, — who, 
 for all he is too fat to be a person of active virtue, is un- 
 doubtedly a worthy Christian, — that this good S.T.C., I 
 say, was an incendiary, or capable of wishing any ill to 
 the poor man and his piano-fortes (many of them, doubtless, 
 with the additional keys) ? On the contrary, I know him 
 to be that sort of man that I durst stake my life upon it
 
 6 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 he would have worked an engine in a case of necessity, 
 although rather of the fattest for such fiery trials of his 
 virtue. But how stood the case ? Virtue was in no request. 
 On the arrival of the fire-engines, morality had devolved 
 wholly on the insurance office. This being the case, he 
 had a right to gratify his taste. He had left his tea. 
 Was he to have nothing in return? 
 
 I contend that the most virtuous man, under the premises 
 stated, was entitled to make a luxury of the fire, and to hiss 
 it, as he would any other performance that raised expecta- 
 tions in the public mind, which afterwards it disappointed. 
 Again, to cite another great authority, what says the Sta- 
 gyrite? He (in the Fifth Book, I think it is, of his Meta- 
 physics) describes what he calls x.Xi'^rrjv tsXhov, i.e. a per- 
 fect thief; and, as to Mr Howship, in a work of his on 
 Indigestion, he makes no scruple to talk with admiration 
 of a certain ulcer which he had seen, and which he styles 
 "a beautiful ulcer." Now will any man pretend, that, ab- 
 stractedly considered, a thief could appear to Aristotle a 
 perfect character, or that Mr Howship could be enamoured 
 of an ulcer ? Aristotle, it is well known, was himself so 
 very moral a character, that, not content with writing his 
 Nichomachean Ethics, in one volume octavo, he also 
 wrote another system, called Magna Moralia, or Big 
 Ethics. Now, it is impossible that a man who composes 
 any ethics at all, big or little, should admire a thief per se^ 
 and, as to Mr Howship, it is well known that he makes 
 war upon all ulcers ; and, without suffering himself to be 
 seduced by their charms, endeavours to banish them from 
 the county of Middlesex. But the truth is, that, how- 
 ever objectionable per se^ yet, relatively to others of their 
 class, both a thief and an ulcer may have infinite degrees 
 of merit. They are both imperfections, it is true ; but to
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 7 
 
 be imperfect being their essence, the very greatness of 
 their imperfection becomes their perfection. Spartam 
 nadus es, hanc exorna. A thief like Autolycus or Mr 
 Barrington, and a grim phagedenic ulcer, superbly de- 
 fined, and running regularly through all its natural 
 stages, may no less justly be regarded as ideals after 
 their kind, than the most faultless moss-rose amongst 
 flowers, in its progress from bud to " bright consummate 
 flower;" or, amongst human flowers, the most magnificent 
 young female, apparelled in the pomp of womanhood. 
 And thus not only the ideal of an inkstand may be im- 
 agined, (as Mr Coleridge demonstrated in his celebrated 
 correspondence with Mr Blackwood), in which, by the 
 way, there is not so much, because an inkstand is a laud- 
 able sort of thing, and a valuable member of society ; 
 but even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect 
 state. 
 
 Really, gentlemen, I beg pardon for so much philosophy 
 at one time, and now, let me apply it. When a murder is 
 in the paulo-post-futurum tense, and a rumour of it comes 
 to our ears, by all means let us treat it morally. But 
 suppose it over and done, and that you can say of it, 
 TiTsXsffrai, or (in that adamantine molossus of Medea) 
 s'lpyaerai ; Suppose the poor murdered man to be out of 
 his pain, and the rascal that did it off like a shot, nobody 
 knows whither ; suppose, lastly, that we have done our 
 best, by putting out our legs to trip up the fellow in his 
 flight, but all to no purpose — "abiit, evasit," &c. — why, 
 then, I say, what's the use of any more virtue ? Enough 
 has been given to morality ; now comes the turn of Taste 
 and the Fine Arts. A sad thing it was, no doubt, very 
 sad ; but we can't mend it. Therefore let us make the 
 best of a bad matter; and, as it is impossible to hammer
 
 8 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 anything out of it for moral purposes, let us treat it 
 aesthetically, and see if it will turn to account in that 
 way. Such is the logic of a sensible man, and what 
 follows? We dry up our tears, and have the satisfaction 
 perhaps to discover, that a transaction, which, morally 
 considered, was shocking, and without a leg to stand upon, 
 when tried by principles of Taste, turns out to be a very 
 meritorious performance. Thus all the world is pleased ; 
 the old proverb is Justified, that it is an ill wind which 
 blows nobody good ; the amateur, from looking bihous 
 and sulky, by too close an attention to virtue, begins to 
 pick up his crumbs, and general hilarity prevails. Virtue 
 has had her day ; and henceforward, Veriu and Con- 
 noisseurship have leave to provide for themselves. Upon 
 this principle, gentlemen, I propose to guide your studies, 
 from Cain to Mr Thurtell. Through this great gallery of 
 murder, therefore, together let us wander hand in hand, 
 in delighted admiration, while I endeavour to point your 
 attention to the objects of profitable criticism. 
 
 The first murder is familiar to you all. As the inventor 
 of murder, and the father of the art, Cain must have been 
 a man of first-rate genius. All the Cains were men of 
 genius. Tubal Cain invented tubes, I think, or some 
 such thing. But, whatever were the originality and genius 
 of the artist, every art was then in its infancy; and the 
 works must be criticised with a recollection of that fact. 
 Even Tubal's work would probably be little approved at 
 this day in Sheffield ; and therefore of Cain (Cain senior, 
 I mean), it is no disparagement to say, that his perfor- 
 mance was but so so. Milton, however, is supposed to 
 have thought differently. By his way of relating the case,
 
 ON' MURDER AS A FINE ART. 9 
 
 it should seem to have been rather a pet murder with him, 
 for he retouches it with an apparent anxiety for its pictur- 
 esque effect : — 
 
 Whereat he inly raged ; and, as they talk'd, 
 Smote him into the midriff with a stone 
 That beat out life : he fell ; and, deadly pale, 
 Groan'd out his soul with gushing blood efftis'd. 
 
 Par. Lost, B. XL 
 
 Upon this, Richardson the painter, who had an eye for 
 effect, remarks as follows, in his Notes on Paradise Lost, 
 p. 497 : — "It has been thought," says he, " that Cain beat 
 (as the common saying is) the breath out of his brother's 
 body with a great stone ; Milton gives in to this, with the 
 addition, however, of a large wound." In this place it 
 was a judicious addition ; for the rudeness of the weapon, 
 unless raised and enriched by a warm, sanguinary colouring, 
 has too much of the naked air of the savage school ; as if 
 the deed were perpetrated by a Polypheme without science, 
 premeditation, or anything but a mutton bone. However, 
 I am chiefly pleased with the improvement, as it imphes 
 that Milton was an amateur. As to Shakespeare, there 
 never was a better ; as his description of the murdered 
 Duke of Gloucester, in Henry VI., of Duncan's, Banquo's, 
 &c., sufficiently proves. 
 
 The foundation of the art having been once laid, it is 
 pitiable to see how it slumbered without improvement 
 for ages. In fact, I shall now be obliged to leap over all 
 murders, sacred and profane, as utterly unworthy of no- 
 tice, until long after the Chrtstian era. Greece, even in 
 the age of Pericles, produced no murder of the slightest 
 merit; and Rome had too little originality of genius in 
 any of the arts to succeed, where her model failed her. 
 In fact, the Latin language sinks under the very idea of
 
 lo nE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 murder. "The man was murdered ; " — how will this sound 
 in Latin ? Interfectus est, interemptiis est — which simply ex- 
 presses a homicide j and hence the Christian Latinity of 
 the middle ages was obliged to introduce a new word, such 
 as the feebleness of classic conceptions never ascended 
 to. Murdratus est, said the sublimer dialect of Gothic 
 ages. Meantime, the Jewish school of murder kept alive 
 whatever was yet known in the art, and gradually transferred 
 it to the Western World. Indeed the Jewish school was 
 always respectable, even in the dark ages, as the case of 
 Hugh of Lincoln shows, which was honoured with the ap- 
 probation of Chaucer, on occasion of another performance 
 from the same school, which he puts into the mouth of 
 the Lady Abbess. 
 
 Recurring, however, for one moment to classical an- 
 tiquity, I cannot but think that Catiline, Clodius, and 
 some of that coterie, would have made first-rate artists ; 
 and it is on all accounts to be regretted, that the priggism 
 of Cicero robbed his country of the only chance she had 
 for distinction in this line. As the subject of a murder, 
 no person could have answered better than himself. Lord ! 
 how he would have howled with panic, if he had heard 
 Cethegus under his bed. It would have been truly divert- 
 ing to have listened to him ; and satisfied I am, gentlemen, 
 that he would have preferred the utile of creeping into a 
 closet, or even into a cloaca, to the honestum of facing the 
 bold artist. 
 
 To come now to the dark ages — (by which we, that speak 
 with precision, mean, par excellence, the tenth century, and 
 the times immediately before and after) — these ages ought 
 naturally to be favourable to the art of murder, as they were 
 to church-architecture, to stained-glass, &c. ; and, accord- 
 ingly, about the latter end of this period, there arose a great
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. ii 
 
 character in our art, I mean the Old Man of the Mountains. 
 He was a shining light, indeed, and I need not tell you, 
 that the very word "assassin " is deduced from him. So keen 
 an amateur was he, that on one occasion, when his own life 
 was attempted by a favourite assassin, he was so much 
 pleased with the talent shown, that notwithstanding the 
 failure of the artist, he created him a Duke upon the spot, 
 with remainder to the female line, and settled a pension 
 on him for three lives Assassination is a branch of the 
 art which demands a separate notice ; and I shall devote 
 an entire lecture to it. Meantime, I shall only observe 
 how odd it is, that this branch of the art has flourished by 
 fits. It never rains, but it pours. Our own age can boast 
 of some fine specimens ; and, about two centuries ago, there 
 was a most brilliant constellation of murders in this class. 
 I need hardly say, that I allude especially to those five 
 splendid works, — the assassinations of William I. of Orange, 
 of Henry IV. of France, of the Duke of Buckingham 
 (which you will find excellently described in the letters 
 published by Mr Ellis, of the British Museum), of Gustavus 
 Adolphus, and of Wallenstein. The King of Sweden's 
 assassination, by the by, is doubted by many writers, Harte 
 amongst others ; but they are wrong. He was murdered ; 
 and I consider his murder unique in its excellence ; for he 
 was murdered at noon-day, and on the field of battle, — a 
 feature of original conception, which occurs in no other 
 work of art that I remember. Indeed, all of these 
 assassinations may be studied with profit by the advanced 
 connoisseur. They are all of them exemplaria, of which 
 one may say, — 
 
 Nocturna versale manu, versate diurna ; 
 
 Especially nocturna.
 
 12 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 In these assassinations of princes and statesmen, there 
 is nothing to excite our wonder : important changes often 
 depend on their deaths ; and, from the eminence on which 
 they stand, they are peculiarly exposed to the aim of every 
 artist who happens to be possessed by the craving for sceni- 
 cal effect. But there is another class of assassinations, 
 which has prevailed from an early period of the seven- 
 teenth century, that really does surprise me ; I mean the 
 assassination of philosophers. For, gentlemen, it is a fact, 
 that every philosopher of eminence for the two last centuries 
 has either been murdered, or, at the least, been very near 
 it ; insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and 
 never had his hfe attempted, rest assured there is nothing 
 in him; and against Locke's philosophy in particular, I 
 think it an unanswerable objection (if we needed any) 
 that, although he carried his throat about with him in this 
 world for seventy-two years, no man ever condescended to 
 cut it. As these cases of philosophers are not much known, 
 and are generally good and well composed in their circum- 
 stances, I shall here read an excursus on that subject, 
 chiefly by way of showing my own learning. 
 
 The first great philosopher of the seventeenth century 
 (if we except Galileo) was Des Cartes ; and if every one 
 could say of a man that he was all dul murdered — murdered 
 within an inch, one must say it of him. The case was this, 
 as reported by Baillet in his Vie De M. Des Cartes, tom. 
 I, p. 102-3. In the year 162 1, when Des Cartes might be 
 about twenty-six years old, he was touring about as usual, 
 (for he was as restless as a hy^na), and, coming to the Elbe, 
 either at Gluckstadt or at Hamburgh, he took shipping for 
 East Friezland : what he could want in East Friezland no 
 man has ever discovered; and perhaps he took this into 
 consideration himself; for, on reaching Embden, he resolved
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 13 
 
 to sail instantly for West Friezland ; and being very im- 
 patient of delay, he hired a bark, with a lew mariners to navi- 
 gate it. No sooner had he got out to sea than he made a 
 pleasing discovery, viz. : that he had shut himself up in a 
 den of murderers. His crew, says M. Baillet, he soon 
 found out to be " des scelerats," — not amateurs, gentlemen, 
 as we are, but professional men — the height of whose ambi- 
 tion at that moment was to cut his throat. But the story 
 is too pleasing to be abridged — I shall give it, therefore, 
 accurately, from the French of his biographer : " M. Des 
 Cartes had no company but that of his servant, with whom 
 he was conversing in French. The sailors, who took him 
 for a foreign merchant, rather than a cavalier, concluded 
 that he must have money about him. Accordingly they 
 came to a resolution by no means advantageous to his 
 purse. There is this difference, however, between sea- 
 robbers and the robbers in forests, that the latter may, 
 without hazard, spare the lives of their victims ; whereas 
 the other cannot put a passenger on shore in such a case 
 without running the risk of being apprehended. The crew 
 of M. Des Cartes arranged their measures with a view to 
 evade any danger of that sort. They observed that he was 
 a stranger from a distance, without acquaintance in the 
 country, and that nobody would take any trouble to inquire 
 about him, in case he should never come to hand {quand 
 il viendroit a manquer)." Think, gentlemen, of these Friez- 
 land dogs discussing a philosopher as if he were a puncheon 
 of rum. " His temper, they remarked, was very mild and 
 patient ; and, judging from the gentleness of his deport- 
 ment, and the courtesy with which he treated themselves, 
 that he could be nothing more than some green young 
 man, they concluded that they should have all the easier 
 task in disposing of his life. They made no scruple to
 
 14 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 discuss the whole matter in his presence, as not supposing 
 that he understood any other language than that in which 
 he conversed with his servant; and the amount of their 
 deliberation was — to murder him, then to throw him into 
 the sea, and to divide his spoils." 
 
 Excuse my laughing, gentlemen, but the fact is, I always 
 do laugh when I think of this case — two things about it 
 seem so droll. One is, the horrid panic or " funk," (as the 
 men of Eton call it), in which Des Cartes must have found 
 himself upon hearing this regular drama sketched for his 
 own death — funeral — succession and administration to his 
 effects. But another thing, which seems to me still more 
 funny about this affair is, that if these Friezland hounds 
 had been "game," we should have no Cartesian philosophy ; 
 and how we could have done without that, considering the 
 worlds of books it has produced, I leave to any respectable 
 trunk-maker to declare. 
 
 However, to go on ; spite of his enormous funk, Des 
 Cartes showed fight, and by that means awed these Anti- 
 Cartesian rascals. "Finding," say M. Baillet, "that the 
 matter was no joke, M. Des Cartes leaped upon his feet 
 in a trice, assumed a stem countenance that these cravens 
 had never looked for, and addressing them in their own 
 language, threatened to run them through on the spot if 
 they dared to offer him any insult." Certainly, gentlemen, 
 this would have been an honour far above the merits of 
 such inconsiderable rascals — to be spitted like larks upon 
 a Cartesian sword ; and therefore I am glad M. Des Cartes 
 did not rob the gallows by executing his threat, especially 
 as he could not possibly have brought his vessel to port, 
 after he had murdered his crew ; so that he must have con- 
 tinued to cruise for ever in the Zuyder Zee, and would pro- 
 bably have been mistaken by sailors for the Flyi?ig Dutchman^
 
 ON MURDER AS A PINE ART. 15 
 
 homeward-bound. " The spirit which M. Des Cartes mani- 
 fested," says his biographer, "had the effect of magic on 
 these wretches. The suddenness of their consternation 
 struck their minds with a confusion which bUnded them 
 to their advantage, and they conveyed him to his destination 
 as peaceably as he could desire." 
 
 Possibly, gentlemen, you may fancy that, on the model 
 of Csesar's address to his poor ferryman, — " Casarem vehis 
 etforhcnas ejus" — M. Des Cartes needed only to have said, 
 — " Dogs, you cannot cut my throat, for you carry Des 
 Cartes and his philosophy," and might safely have defied 
 them to do their worst. A German emperor had the same 
 notion, when, being cautioned to keep out of the way of a 
 cannoi-^ading, he replied, " Tut ! man. Did you ever hear 
 of a cannon-ball that killed an emperor ? " As to an 
 emperor I cannot say, but a less thing has sufficed to smash 
 a philosopher ; and the next great philosopher of Europe 
 undoubtedly was murdered. This was Spinosa. 
 
 I know very well the common opinion about him is, that 
 he died in his bed. Perhaps he did, but he was murdered 
 for all that ; and this I shall prove by a book published at 
 Brussels, in the year 1731, entitled. La Vie de Spinosa; par 
 M. Jean Colerus, with many additions, from a MS. life, by 
 one of his friends. Spinosa died on the 21st February 1677, 
 being then little more than forty-four years old. This of 
 itself looks suspicious ; and M. Jean admits, that a certain 
 expression in the MS. life of him would warrant the con- 
 clusion, " que sa mort n'a pas ete tout-a-fait naturelle." 
 Living in a damp country, and a sailor's country, like 
 Holland, he may be thought to have indulged a good deal 
 in grog, especially in punch,* which was then newly dis- 
 
 * "June I, 1675. — Drinke part of 3 boules of punch (a liquor very 
 strainge to me)," says the Rev. Mr Henry Teonge, in his Diary lately
 
 i6 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 covered. Undoubtedly he might have done so; but the 
 fact is that he did not. M. Jean calls him " extremement 
 sobre en son boire et en son manger." And though some 
 wild stories were afloat about his using the juice of mandra- 
 gora (p. 140), and opium (p. 144), yet neither of these 
 articles appeared in his druggist's bill. Living, therefore, 
 with such sobriety, how was it possible that he should die a 
 natural death at forty-four ? Hear his biographer's account : 
 — " Sunday morning the 21st of February, before it was 
 church-time, Spinosa came down stairs and conversed with 
 the master and mistress of the house." At this time, there- 
 fore, perhaps ten o'clock on Sunday morning, you see that 
 Spinosa was alive, and pretty well. But it seems " he had 
 summoned from Amsterdam a certain physician, ';*'hom," 
 says the biographer, " I shall not otherwise point out to 
 notice than by these two letters, L. M. This L. M. had 
 directed the people of the house to purchase an ancient 
 cock, and to have him boiled forthwith, in order that 
 Spinosa might take some broth about noon, which in fact 
 he did, and ate some of the old cock with a good appetite, 
 after the landlord and his wife had returned from church." 
 
 " In the afternoon, L. M. staid alone with Spinosa, the 
 people of the house having returned to church ; on coming 
 out from which they learnt, with much surprise, that Spinosa 
 had died about three o'clock, in the presence of L. M., who 
 took his departure for Amsterdam the same evening, by 
 the night-boat, without paying the least attention to the 
 
 published. In a note on this passage, a reference is made to Fryer's 
 Travels to the East Indies, 1672, who speaks of " that enervating 
 liquor called Paunch, (which is Ilindostanee for five), from five ingredi- 
 ents." Made thus, it seems the medical men called it Diapente ; if 
 with four only, Diatessaron. No doubt, it was its Evangelical name 
 that recommended it to the Rev. Mr Teonge.
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 17 
 
 deceased. No doubt he was the readier to dispense with 
 these duties, as he had possessed himself of a ducatoon and 
 a small quantity of silver, together with a silver-hafted knife, 
 and had absconded with his pillage." Here you see, gentle- 
 men, the murder is plain, and the manner of it. It was 
 L. M. who murdered Spinosa for his money. Poor S. was 
 an invalid, meagre, and weak : as no blood was observed, 
 L. M., no doubt, threw him down and smothered him with 
 pillows, — the poor man being already half-suffocated by his 
 infernal dinner. — But who was L. M. ? It surely never 
 could be Lindley Murray ; for I saw him at York in 1825 ; 
 and besides, I do not think he would do such a thing ; at 
 least, not to a brother grammarian : for you know, gentlemen, 
 that Spinosa wrote a very respectable Hebrew grammar. 
 
 Hobbes, but why, or on what principle, I never could 
 understand, was not murdered. This was a capital over- 
 sight of the professional men in the seventeenth century ; 
 because in every light he was a fine subject for murder, 
 except, indeed, that he was lean and skinny ; for I can 
 prove that he had money, and (what is very funny) he had 
 no right to make the least resistance ; for, according to 
 himself, irresistible power creates the very highest species of 
 right, so that it is rebellion of the blackest die to refuse to 
 be murdered, when a competent force appears to murder 
 you. However, gentlemen, though he was not murdered, I 
 am happy to assure you that (by his own account) he was 
 three times very near being murdered. — The first time was 
 in the spring of 1640, when he pretends to have circulated 
 a little MS. on the king's behalf, against the Parliament ; he 
 never could produce this MS., by the by ; but he says that, 
 " Had not His Majesty dissolved the Parliament," (in May), 
 " it had brought him into danger of his life." Dissolving 
 the Parliament, however, was of no use ; for, in November 
 
 B
 
 1 8 DE Q VINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 of the same year, the Long Parliament assembled, and 
 Hobbes, a second time, fearing he should be murdered, 
 ran away to France. This looks like the madness of John 
 Dennis, who thought that Louis XIV. would never make 
 peace with Queen Anne, unless he were given up to his 
 vengeance ; and actually ran away from the sea-coast in that 
 behef. In France, Hobbes managed to take care of his 
 tliroat pretty well for ten years; but at the end of that 
 time, by way of paying court to Cromwell, he published 
 his Leviathan. The old coward now began to " funk " 
 horribly for the third time ; he fancied the swords of the 
 cavaliers were constantly at his throat, recollecting how 
 they had served the Parliament ambassadors at the Hague 
 and Madrid. " Tum," says he, in his dog-Latin life of 
 himself — 
 
 " Turn venit in mentem mihi Dorislaus et Ascham ; 
 Tanquam proscripto terror ubique aderat." 
 
 And accordingly he ran home to England. Now, certainly, 
 it is very true that a man deserved a cudgelling for writing 
 Leviathan ; and two or three cudgelUngs for writing a pen- 
 tameter ending so villainously as — " terror ubique aderat " ! 
 But no man ever thought him worthy of anything beyond 
 cudgelling. And, in fact, the whole story is a bounce of his 
 own. For, in a most abusive letter which he wrote " to a 
 learned person," (meaning Wallis the mathematician), he 
 gives quite another account of the matter, and says (p. 8), 
 he ran home " because he would not trust his safety with 
 the French clergy ; " insinuating that he was likely to be 
 m,urdered for his religion, which would have been a high 
 joke indeed — Tom's being brought to the stake for religion. 
 Bounce or not bounce, however, certain it is, that Hobbes, 
 to the end of his life, feared that somebody would murder
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 19 
 
 him. This is proved by the story I am going to tell you : 
 it is not from a manuscript, but (as Mr Coleridge says) it 
 is as good as manuscript ; for it comes from a book now 
 entirely forgotten, viz. — " The Creed of Mr Hobbes Ex- 
 amined ; in a Conference between him and a Student in 
 Divinity," (published about ten years before Hobbes' death). 
 The book is anonymous, but it was written by Tennison, 
 the same who, about thirty years after, succeeded Tillotson 
 as Archbishop of Canterbury. The introductory anecdote 
 is as follows : — " A certain divine, it seems, (no doubt Tenni- 
 son himself), took an annual tour of one month to different 
 parts of the island. In one of these excursions (1670) he 
 visited the Peak in Derbyshire, partly in consequence of 
 Hobbes' description of it. Being in that neighbourhood, 
 he could not but pay a visit to Buxton ; and at the very 
 moment of his arrival, he was fortunate enough to find a 
 party of gentlemen dismounting at the inn door, amongst 
 whom was a long thin fellow, who turned out to be no less 
 a person than Mr Hobbes, who probably had ridden over 
 from Chatsworth." Meeting so great a lion, — a tourist, in 
 search of the picturesque, could do no less than present 
 himself in the character of bore. And luckily for this 
 scheme, two of Mr Hobbes' companions were suddenly 
 summoned away by express ; so that, for the rest of his 
 stay at Buxton, he had Leviathan entirely to himself, and 
 had the honour of bowsing with him in the evening. 
 Hobbes, it seems, at first showed a good deal of stiffness, 
 for he was shy of divines ; but this wore off, and he be- 
 came very sociable and funny, and they agreed to go into 
 the bath together. How Tennison could venture to gambol 
 in the same water with Leviathan, I cannot explain ; but 
 so it was : they frolicked about like two dolphins, though 
 Hobbes must have been as old as the hills ; and " in those
 
 20 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 intervals wherein they abstained from swimming and plung- 
 ing themselves " [i.e. diving], " they discoursed of many 
 things relating to the Baths of the Ancients, and the 
 Origine of Springs. When they had in this manner 
 passed away an hour, they stepped out of the bath ; 
 and, having dried and cloathed themselves, they sate down 
 in expectation of such a supper as the place afforded ; 
 designing to refresh themselves like the Deipnosophistce, 
 and rather to reason than to drink profoundly. But in this 
 innocent intention they were interrupted by the disturbance 
 arising from a little quarrel, in which some of the ruder 
 people in the house were for a short time engaged. At 
 this Mr Hobbes seemed much concerned, though he was 
 at some distance from the persons." — And why was he 
 concerned, gentlemen ? No doubt you fancy, from some 
 benign and disinterested love of peace and harmony, 
 worthy of an old man and a philosopher. But listen — 
 "For a while he was not composed, but related it once 
 or twice as to himself, with a low and careful tone, how 
 Sextus Roscius was murthered after supper by the Balneae 
 Palatinre. Of such general extent is that remark of Cicero, 
 in relation to Epicurus the Atheist, of whom he observed 
 that he of all men dreaded most those things which he 
 contemned — Death and the Gods." — Merely because it 
 was supper-time, and in the neighbourhood of a bath, 
 Mr Hobbes must have the fate of Sextus Roscius. What 
 logic was there in this, unless to a man who was always 
 dreaming of murder? — Here was Leviathan, no longer 
 afraid of the daggers of English cavaliers or French clergy, 
 but " frightened from his propriety " by a row in an ale-house 
 between some honest clod-hoppers of Derbyshire, whom his 
 own gaunt scare-crow of a person that belonged to quite 
 another century, would have frightened out of their wits.
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 21 
 
 Malebranche, it will give you pleasure to hear, was mur- 
 dered. The man who murdered him is well known : 
 it was Bishop Berkeley. The story is familiar, though 
 hitherto not put in a proper light. Berkeley, when a young 
 man, went to Paris and called on Pere Malebranche. 
 He found him in his cell cooking. Cooks have ever been 
 a genus irritabile ; authors still more so : Malebranche was 
 both : a dispute arose ; the old Father, warm already, 
 became warmer; culinary and metaphysical irritations 
 united to derange his liver ; he took to his bed, and died. 
 Such is the common version of the story: "So the whole 
 ear of Denmark is abused." — The fact is, that the matter 
 was hushed up, out of consideration for Berkeley, who (as 
 Pope remarked) had " ever)' virtue under heaven : " else it 
 was well known that Berkeley, feeling himself nettled by 
 the waspishness of the old Frenchman, squared at him ; a 
 turn-up was the consequence : Malebranche was floored in 
 the first round ; the conceit was wholly taken out of him ; 
 and he would perhaps have given in ; but Berkeley's blood 
 was now up, and he insisted on the old Frenchman's re- 
 tracting his doctrine of Occasional Causes. The vanity of 
 the man was too great for this ; and he fell a sacrifice to 
 the .impetuosity of Irish youth, combined with his own 
 absurd obstinacy. 
 
 Leibnitz, being every way superior to Malebranche, 
 one might, a fortiori, have counted on his being murdered ; 
 which, however, was not the case. I believe he was 
 nettled at this neglect, and felt himself insulted by the 
 security in which he passed his days. In no other way 
 can I explain his conduct at the latter end of his life, 
 when he chose to grow very avaricious, and to hoard up 
 large sums of gold, which he kept in his own house. This 
 was at Vienna, where he died ; and letters are still in
 
 22 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 existence, describing the immeasurable anxiety which he 
 entertained for his throat. Still his ambition, for being 
 attempted at least, was so great, that he would not forego 
 the danger. A late English pedagogue, of Birmingham 
 manufacture, viz., Ur Parr, took a more selfish course, 
 under the same circumstances. He had amassed a con- 
 siderable quantity of gold and silver plate, which was for 
 some time deposited in his bedroom at his parsonage 
 house, Hatton. But growing every day more afraid of 
 being murdered, which he knew that he could not stand, 
 (and to which, indeed, he never had the slightest pre- 
 tension), he transferred the W'hole to the Hatton black- 
 smith ; conceiving, no doubt, that the murder of a black- 
 smith would fall more lightly on the salus reipubliccB, than 
 that of a pedagogue. But I have heard this greatly 
 disputed ; and it seems now generally agreed, that one 
 good horse-shoe is worth about 2\ Spital sermons. 
 
 As Leibnitz, though not murdered, may be said to have 
 died, partly of the fear that he should be murdered, and 
 partly of vexation that he was not, — Kant, on the other 
 hand — who had no ambition in that way — had a narrower 
 escape from a murderer than any man we read of, except 
 Des Cartes. So absurdly does Fortune throw about her 
 favours ! The case is told, I think, in an anonymous life 
 of this very great man. For health's sake, Kant imposed 
 upon himself, at one time, a walk of six miles every day 
 along a highroad. This fact becoming known to a man 
 who had his private reasons for committing murder, at the 
 third mile-stone from Konigsberg, he waited for his " in- 
 tended," who came up to time as duly as a mail-coach. 
 But for an accident, Kant was a dead man. However, 
 on considerations of " morality," it happened that the 
 murderer preferred a little child, whom he saw playing
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 23 
 
 in the road, to the old transcendentalist : this child he 
 murdered ; and thus it happened that Kant escaped. 
 Such is the German account of the matter ; but my 
 opinion is — that the murderer was an amateur, who felt 
 how little would be gained to the cause of good taste 
 by murdering an old, arid, and adust metaphysician ; 
 there was no room for display, as the man could not 
 possibly look more like a mummy when dead, than he 
 had done alive. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, I have traced the connection between 
 philosophy and our art, until insensibly I find that I have 
 wandered into our own era. This I shall not take any 
 pains to characterise apart from that which preceded it, 
 for, in fact, they have no distinct character. The 17th 
 and 1 8th centuries, together with so much of the 19th as 
 we have yet seen, jointly compose the Augustan age of 
 murder. The finest work of the 17 th century is, un- 
 questionably, the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, 
 which has my entire approbation. At the same time, it 
 must be observed, that the quantity of murder was not 
 great in this century, at least amongst our own artists ; 
 which, perhaps, is attributable to the want of enlightened 
 patronage. Shit Mcecenates, no7i deerunt, Flacce, Marones. 
 Consulting Grant's "Observations on the Bills of Mortality" 
 (4th edition, Oxford, 1665), I find, that out of 229,250, 
 who died in London during one period of twenty years 
 in the 17th century, not more than, eighty-six were 
 murdered ; that is, about four three-tenths per annum. A 
 small number this, gentlemen, to found an academy upon ; 
 and certainly, where the quantity is so small, we have a 
 right to expect that the quality should be first-rate. 
 Perhaps it was ; yet, still I am of opinion that the best
 
 24 DE Q UlNCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 artist in this century was not equal to the best in that 
 which followed. For instance, however praiseworthy the 
 case of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey may be (and nobody 
 can be more sensible of its merits than I am), still I 
 cannot consent to place it on a level with that of Mrs 
 Ruscombe of Bristol, either as to originality of design, 
 or boldness and breadth of style. This good lady's murder 
 took place early in the reign of George III. — a reign 
 which was notoriously favourable to the arts generally. 
 She lived in College Green, with a single maid-servant, 
 neither of them having any pretension to the notice of 
 history but what they derived from the great artist whose 
 workmanship I am recording. One fine morning, when 
 all Bristol was alive and in motion, some suspicion arising, 
 the neighbours forced an entrance into the house, and 
 found Mrs Ruscombe murdered in her bedroom, and the 
 servant murdered on the stairs : this was at noon ; and, 
 not more than two hours before, both mistress and servant 
 had been seen alive. To the best of my remembrance, 
 this was in 1764; upwards of sixty years, therefore, have 
 now elapsed, and yet the artist is still undiscovered. 
 The suspicions of posterity have settled upon two pre- 
 tenders — a baker and a chimney-sweeper. But posterity 
 is wrong; no unpractised artist could have conceived so 
 bold an idea as that of a noon-day murder in the heart 
 of a great city. It was no obscure baker, gentlemen, 
 or anonymous chimney-sweeper, be assured, that executed 
 this work. I know who it was. {Here there was a general 
 buzz, which at le?igth broke out i?ito open applause ; upon 
 which the lecturer blushed, and went on with much earnest- 
 ness.) For Heaven's sake, gentlemen, do not mistake me ; 
 it was not I that did it. I have not the vanity to think 
 myself equal to any such achievement; be assured that
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART 25 
 
 you greatly overrate my poor talents ; Mrs Ruscombe's 
 affair was far beyond my slender abilities. But I came 
 to know who the artist was, from a celebrated surgeon, 
 who assisted at his dissection. This gentleman had a 
 private museum in the way of his profession, one corner 
 of which was occupied by a cast from a man of remark- 
 ably fine proportions. 
 
 " That," said the surgeon, '* is a cast from the celebrated 
 Lancashire highwayman, who concealed his profession for 
 some time from his neighbours, by drawing woollen stockings 
 over his horse's legs, and in that way muffling the clatter 
 which he must else have made in riding up a flagged alley 
 that led to his stable. At the time of his execution for 
 highway robbery, I was studying under Cruickshank : and 
 the man's figure was so uncommonly fine, that no money or 
 exertion was spared to get into possession of him with the 
 least possible delay. By the connivance of the under-sheriff 
 he was cut down within the legal time, and instantly put 
 into a chaise and four ; so that, when he reached 
 
 Cruickshank's, he was positively not dead. Mr , a 
 
 young student at that time, had the honour of giving him 
 the coup de grace — and finishing the sentence of the law." 
 This remarkable anecdote, which seemed to imply that all 
 the gentlemen in the dissecting-room were amateurs of our 
 class, struck me a good deal ; and I was repeating it one 
 day to a Lancashire lad}'^, who thereupon informed me, that 
 she had herself lived in the neighbourhood of that highway- 
 man, and well remembered two circumstances, which com- 
 bined, in the opinion of all his neighbours, to fix upon him 
 the credit of Mrs Ruscombe's affair. One was, the fact of 
 his absence for a whole fortnight at the period of that 
 murder ; the other, that, within a very little time after, the 
 neighbourhood of this highwayman was deluged with
 
 26 BE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 dollars : now Mrs Ruscombe was known to have hoarded 
 about two thousand of that coin. Be the artist, however, 
 who he might, the affair remains a durable monument of 
 his genius ; for such was the impression of awe, and the 
 sense of power left behind, by the strength of conception 
 manifested in this murder, that no tenant (as I was told in 
 1810) had been found up to that time for Mrs Ruscombe's 
 house. 
 
 But, whilst I thus eulogize the Ruscombian case, let me 
 not be supposed to overlook the many other specimens of 
 extraordinary merit spread over the face of this century. 
 Such cases, indeed, as that of Miss Bland, or of Captain 
 Donnellan, and Sir Theophilus Boughton, shall never have 
 any countenance from me. Fie on these dealers in poison, 
 say I : can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting 
 throats, without introducing such abominable innovations 
 from Italy ? I consider all these poisoning cases, compared 
 with the legitimate style, as no better than wax-work by the 
 side of sculpture, or a lithographic print by the side of a fine 
 Volpato. But, dismissing these, there remain many excel- 
 lent works of art in a pure style, such as nobody need be 
 ashamed to own, as every candid connoisseur will admit. 
 Candid, observe, I say ; for great allowances must be made 
 in these cases ; no artist can ever be sure of carrying 
 through his own fine preconception. Awkward dis- 
 turbances will arise ; people will not submit to have their 
 throats cut quietly ; they will run, they will kick, they will 
 bite ; and, whilst the portrait painter often has to complain 
 of too much torpor in his subject, the artist, in our line, is 
 generally embarrassed by too much animation. At the 
 same time, however disagreeable to the artist, this tendency 
 in murder to excite and irritate the subject, is certainly one 
 of its advantages to the world in general, which we ought
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 27 
 
 not to overlook, since it favours the development of latent 
 talent. Jeremy Taylor notices with admiration, the extra- 
 ordinary leaps which people will take under the influence of 
 fear. There was a striking instance of this in the recent 
 case of the M'Keans ; the boy cleared a height, such as he 
 will never clear again to his dying day. Talents also of the 
 most brilliant description for thumping, and indeed for 
 all the gymnastic exercises, have sometimes been developed 
 by the panic which accompanies our artists ; talents 
 else buried and hid under a bushel to the possessors, 
 as mucli as to their friends. I remember an interesting 
 illustration of this fact, in a case which I learned in 
 Germany. 
 
 Riding one day in the neighbourhood of Munich, I over- 
 took a distinguished amateur of our society, whose name I 
 shall conceal. This gentleman informed me that, finding 
 himself wearied with the frigid pleasures (so he called them) 
 of mere amateurship, he had quitted England for the 
 continent — meaning to practise a little professionally. For 
 this purpose he resorted to Germany, conceiving the police 
 in that part of Europe to be more heavy and drowsy than 
 elsewhere. His debut as a practitioner took place at 
 Mannheim ; and, knowing me to be a brother amateur, he 
 freely communicated the whole of his maiden adventure. 
 " Opposite to my lodging," said he, " lived a baker : he was 
 somewhat of a miser, and lived quite alone. Whether it 
 were his great expanse of chalky face, or what else, I know 
 not — but the fact was, I 'fancied' him, and resolved to 
 commence business upon his throat, which by the way he 
 always carried bare — a fashion which is very irritating to 
 my desires. Precisely at eight o'clock in the evening, I 
 observed that he regularly shut up his windows. One night 
 I watched him when thus engaged — bolted in after him —
 
 28 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 locked the door — and, addressing him with great suavity, 
 acquainted him with the nature of my errand ; at the same 
 time advising him to make no resistance, which would be 
 mutually unpleasant. So saying, I drew out my tools ; and 
 was proceeding to operate. But at this spectacle, the 
 baker, who seemed to have been struck by catalepsy at my 
 first announcement, awoke into tremendous agitation. ' I 
 will not be murdered ! ' he shrieked aloud ; * what for will I 
 lose my precious throat ? ' — ' What for ? ' said I ; * if for no 
 other reason, for this — that you put alum into your bread. 
 But no matter, alum or no alum, (for I was resolved to 
 forestall any argument on that point), know that I am a 
 virtuoso in the art of murder — am desirous of improving 
 myself in its details — and am enamoured of your vast 
 surface of throat, to which I am determined to be a 
 customer.' 'Is it so?' said he, 'but I'll find you custom 
 in another line ; ' and so saying, he threw himself into a 
 boxing attitude. The very idea of his boxing struck me as 
 ludicrous. It is true, a London baker had distinguished 
 himself in the ring, and became known to fame under the 
 title of the Master of the Rolls ; but he was young and 
 unspoiled : whereas this man was a monstrous feather-bed 
 in person, fifty years old, and totally out of condition. 
 Spite of all this, however, and contending against me, who 
 am a master in the art, he made so desperate a defence, 
 that many times I feared he might turn the tables upon me ; 
 and that I, an amateur, might be murdered by a rascally 
 baker. What a situation ! Minds of sensibility will sym- 
 pathize with my anxiety. How severe it was, you may 
 understand by this, that for the first thirteen rounds the 
 baker had the advantage. Round the fourteenth, I received 
 a blow on the right eye, which closed it up ; in the end, I 
 believe this was my salvation : for the anger it roused in me
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 29 
 
 was so great that, in this and every one of the three fol- 
 lowing rounds, I floored the baker, 
 
 "Round eighteenth. — The baker came up piping, and 
 manifestly the worse for wear. His geometrical exploits in 
 the four last rounds had done him no good. However, he 
 showed some skill in stopping a message which I was 
 sending to his cadaverous mug ; in delivering which, my 
 foot slipped, and I went down. 
 
 "Round nineteenth. — Surveying the baker, I became 
 ashamed of having been so much bothered by a shapeless 
 mass of dough ; and I went in fiercely, and administered 
 some severe punishment. A rally took place — both went 
 down — Baker undermost — ten to three on Amateur. 
 
 "Round twentieth. — The baker jumped up with surprising 
 agility ; indeed, he managed his pins capitally, and fought 
 wonderfully, considering that he was drenched in perspir- 
 ation; but the shine was now taken out of him, and his 
 game was the mere effect of panic. It was now clear that 
 he could not last much longer. In the course of this round 
 we tried the weaving system, in which I had greatly the 
 advantage, and hit him repeatedly on the conk. My reason 
 for this was, that his conk was covered with carbuncles ; 
 and I thought I should vex him by taking such liberties 
 with his conk, which in fact I did. 
 
 "The three next rounds, the master of the rolls staggered 
 about like a cow on the ice. Seeing how matters stood, in 
 round twenty-fourth I whispered something into his ear, 
 which sent him down like a shot. It was nothing more than 
 my private opinion of the value of his throat at an annuity 
 office. This little confidential whisper affected him greatly; 
 the very perspiration was frozen on his face, and for the next 
 two rounds I had it all my own way. And when I called time 
 for the twenty-seventh round, he lay like a log on the floor."
 
 30 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 After which, said I to the amateur, " It may be persumed 
 that you accompHshed your purpose." — " You are right," 
 said he mildly, " I did ; and a great satisfaction, you know, 
 it was to my mind, for by this means I killed two birds with 
 one stone ;" meaning that he had both thumped the baker 
 and murdered him. Now, for the life of me, I could not 
 see i/iat; for, on the contrary, to my mind it appeared 
 that he had taken two stones to kill one bird, having been 
 obliged to take the conceit out of him first with his fists, 
 and then with his tools. But no matter for his logic. The 
 moral of his story was good, for it showed what an astonish- 
 ing stimulus to latent talent is contained in any reasonable 
 prospect of being murdered. A pursy, unwieldy, half 
 cataleptic baker of Mannheim had absolutely fought six- 
 and-twenty rounds with an accomplished English boxer 
 merely upon this inspiration ; so greatly was natural 
 genius exalted and sublimed by the genial presence of 
 his murderer. 
 
 Really, gentlemen, when one hears of such things as 
 these, it becomes a duty, perhaps, a little to soften that 
 extreme asperity with which most men speak of murder. 
 To hear people talk, you would suppose that all the dis- 
 advantages and inconveniences were on the side of being 
 murdered, and that there were none at all in not being 
 murdered. But considerate men think otherwise. " Cer- 
 tainly," says Jeremy Taylor, "it is a less temporal evil to fall 
 by the rudeness of a sword than the violence of a fever : 
 and the axe " (to which he might have added the ship- 
 carpenter's mallet and the crow-bar) "a much less affliction 
 than a strangury." Very true ; the Bishop talks like a wise 
 man and an amateur, as he is ; and another great philo- 
 sopher, Marcus Aurelius, was equally above the vulgar 
 prejudices on this subject. He declares it to be one of
 
 k 
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 31 
 
 "the noblest functions of reason to know whether it is 
 time to walk out of the world or not." (Book III. Collier's 
 Translation.) No sort of knowledge being rarer than this, 
 surely tliat man must be a most philanthropic character, 
 who undertakes to instruct people in this branch of know- 
 ledge gratis, and at no little hazard to himself. All this, 
 however, I throw out only in the way of speculation to 
 future moralists ; declaring in the meantime my own 
 private conviction, that very few men commit murder 
 upon philanthropic or patriotic principles, and repeating 
 what I have already said once at least — that, as to the 
 majority of murderers, they are very incorrect characters. 
 With respect to Williams's murders, the sublimest and 
 most entire in their excellence that ever were committed, 
 I shall not allow myself to speak incidentally. Nothing 
 less than an entire lecture, or even an entire course of 
 lectures, would suffice to expound their merits. But one 
 curious fact, connected with his case, I shall mention, 
 because it seems to imply that the blaze of his genius 
 absolutely dazzled the eye of criminal justice. You all 
 remember, I doubt not, that the instruments with which 
 he executed his first great work (the murder of the Marrs), 
 were a ship-carpenter's mallet and a knife. Now the 
 mallet belonged to an old Swede, one John Petersen, and 
 bore his initials. This instrument Williams left behind 
 him, in Marr's house, and it fell into the hands of the 
 Magistrates. Now, gentlemen, it is a fact that the publi- 
 cation of this circumstance of the initials led immediately 
 to the apprehension of Williams, and, if made earlier, 
 would have prevented his second great work, (the murder 
 of the Williamsons), which took place precisely twelve 
 days after. But the Magistrates kept back this fact from 
 the public tor the entire twelve days, and until that second
 
 32 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 work was accomplished. That finished, they published it, 
 apparently feeling that Williams had now done enough for 
 his fame, and that his glory was at length placed beyond 
 the reach of accident. 
 
 As to Mr Thurtell's case, I know not what to say. 
 Naturally, I have every disposition to think highly of 
 my predecessor in the chair of this society ) and I ac- 
 knowledge that his lectures were unexceptionable. But, 
 speaking ingenuously, I do really think that his principal 
 performance, as an artist, has been much overrated. I 
 admit that at first I was myself carried away by the general 
 enthusiasm. On the morning when the murder was made 
 known in London, there was the fullest meeting of ama- 
 teurs that I have ever known since the days of Williams \ 
 old bed-ridden connoisseurs, who had got into a peevish 
 way of sneering and complaining "that there was nothing 
 doing," now hobbled down to our club-room : such hilarity, 
 such benign expression of general satisfaction, I have 
 rarely witnessed. On every side you saw people shaking 
 hands, congratulating each other, and forming dinner- 
 parties for the evening; and nothing was to be heard 
 but triumphant challenges of — " Well ! will this do ? " 
 "Is this the right thing?" "Are you satisfied at last?" 
 But, in the midst of this, I remember we all grew silent 
 on hearing the old cynical amateur, L. S — , that laudator 
 temporis acti, slumping along with his wooden leg ; he 
 entered the room with his usual scowl, and, as he ad- 
 vanced, he continued to growl and stutter the whole way 
 — " Not an original idea in the whole piece — mere 
 plagiarism, — base plagiarism from hints that I threw out ! 
 Besides, his style is as hard as Albert Durer, and as 
 coarse as FuseH." Many thought that this was mere 
 jealousy, and general waspishness ; but I confess that, when
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 33 
 
 the first glow of enthusiasm had subsided, I have found 
 most judicious critics to agree that there was something 
 falsetto in the style of Thurtell. The fact is, he was a 
 member of our society, which naturally gave a friendly 
 bias to our judgments ; and his person was universally 
 familiar to the Cockneys, which gave him, with] the whole 
 London public, a temporary popularity, that his pre- 
 tensions are not capable of supporting ; for opiiiionum 
 comme7ita delet dies, naturcB judicia confirmat. — There was, 
 however, an unfinished design of Thurtell's for the murder 
 of a man with a pair of dumb-bells, which I admired 
 greatly ; it was a mere outline, that he never completed ; 
 but to my mind it seemed every way superior to his chief 
 work. I remember that there was great regret expressed 
 by some amateurs that this sketch should have been left 
 in an unfinished state : but there I cannot agree with 
 them ; for the fragments and first bold outlines of original 
 artists have often a felicity about them which is apt to 
 vanish in the management of the details. 
 
 The case of the M'Keans I consider far beyond the 
 vaunted performance of Thurtell, — indeed above all praise; 
 and bearing that relation, in fact, to the immortal works of 
 Williams, which the /Kneid bears to the Iliad. 
 
 But it is now time that I should say a few words about 
 the principles of murder, not with a view to regulate your 
 practice, but your judgment : as to old women, and the 
 mob of newspaper readers, they are pleased with anything, 
 provided it is bloody enough. But the mind of sensibility 
 requires something more. First, then, let us speak of the 
 kind of person who is adapted to the purpose of the 
 murderer; secondly, of the place where ; thirdly., of the time 
 when, and other little circumstances. 
 
 As to the person, I suppose it is evident that he ought to 
 
 c
 
 34 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 be a good man ; because, il he were not, he might himself, 
 by possibility, be contemplating murder at the very time ; 
 and such " diamond-cut-diamond " tussels, though pleasant 
 enough where nothing better is stirring, are really not what 
 a critic can allow himself to call murders. I could mention 
 some people (I name no names) who have been murdered 
 by other people in a dark lane; and so far all seemed 
 correct enough ; but, on looking farther into the matter, the 
 public have become aware that the murdered party was 
 himself, at the moment, planning to rob his murderer, at the 
 least, and possibly to murder him, if he had been strong 
 enough. Whenever that is the case, or may be thought to 
 be the case, farewell to all the genuine effects of the art. 
 For the final purpose of murder, considered as a fine art, is 
 precisely the same as that of Tragedy, in Aristotle's account 
 of it, viz., " to cleanse the heart by means of pity and terror." 
 Now, terror there may be, but how can there be any pity 
 for one tiger destroyed by another tiger ? 
 
 It is also evident that the person selected ought not to be 
 a public character. For instance, no judicious artist would 
 have attempted to murder Abraham Newland. For the 
 case was this : everybody read so much about Abraham 
 Newland, and so few people ever saw him, that there was a 
 fixed belief that he was an abstract idea. And I remember 
 that once, when I happened to mention that I had dined 
 at a coffee-house in company with Abraham Newland, 
 everybody looked scornfully at me, as though I had pre- 
 tended to have played at billiards with Prester John, or to 
 have had an affair of honour with the Pope. And, by the 
 way, the Pope would be a very improper person to murder : 
 for he has such a virtual ubiquity as the Father of Christen- 
 dom, and, like the cuckoo, is so often heard but never seen, 
 that I suspect most people regard him also as an abstract
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 35 
 
 idea. Where, indeed, a public character is in the habit of 
 giving dinners, " with every deHcacy of the season," the case 
 is very different : every person is satisfied that he is no 
 abstract idea ; and, therefore, there can be no impropriety 
 in murdering him ; only that his murder will fall into the 
 class of assassinations, which I have not yet treated. 
 
 Thirdly, The subject chosen ought to be in good health : 
 for it is absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who 
 is usually quite unable to bear it. On this principle, no 
 Cockney ought to be chosen who is above twenty-five, for 
 after that age he is sure to be dyspeptic. Or at least, if 
 a man will hunt in that warren, he ought to murder a 
 couple at one time ; if the Cockneys chosen should be 
 tailors, he will of course think it his duty, on the old 
 established equation, to murder eighteen — And, here, in 
 this attention to the comfort of sick people, you will 
 observe the usual effect of a fine art to soften and refine 
 the feelings. The world in general, gentlemen, are very 
 bloody-minded ; and all they want in a murder is a copious 
 effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough 
 for them. But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined 
 in his taste; and from our art, as from all the other liberal 
 arts when thoroughly cultivated, the result is — to improve 
 and to humanize the heart ; so true is it, that — 
 
 " Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, 
 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros." 
 
 A philosophic friend, well-known for his philanthropy 
 and general benignity, suggests that the subject chosen 
 ought also to have a family of young children wholly 
 dependent on his exertions, by way of deepening the 
 pathos. And, undoubtedly, this is a judicious caution. 
 Yet I would not insist too keenly on this condition.
 
 36 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 Severe good taste unquestionably demands it ; but still, 
 where the man was otherwise unobjectionable in point of 
 morals and health, I would not look with too curious a 
 jealousy to a restriction which might have the effect oi 
 narrowing the artist's sphere. 
 
 So much for the person. As to the time, the place, 
 and the tools, I have many things to say, which at present 
 I have no room for. The good sense of the practitioner 
 has usually directed him to night and privacy. Yet there 
 have not been wanting cases where this rule was departed 
 from with excellent effect. In respect to time, Mrs Rus- 
 combe's case is a beautiful exception, which I have already 
 noticed ; and in respect both to time and place, there is 
 a fine exception in the Annals of Edinburgh, (year 1805), 
 familiar to every child in Edinburgh, but which has un- 
 accountably been defrauded of its due portion of fame 
 amongst English amateurs. The case I mean is that of 
 a porter to one of the Banks, who was murdered whilst 
 carrying a bag of money, in broad daylight, on turning 
 out of the High Street, one of the most public streets in 
 Europe, and the murderer is to this hour undiscovered. 
 
 Sed fiigit interea, fugit ineparabile tempus, 
 Singula dum capti circunivectamur amore. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, let me again solemnly 
 disclaim all pretensions on my own part to the character 
 of a professional man. I never attempted any murder in 
 my life, except in the year 1801, upon the body of a tom- 
 cat; and that turned out differently from my intention. 
 My purpose, I own, was downright murder. " Semper ego 
 auditor tantum?" said I, " nunquamne reponam?" And 
 I went down stairs in search of Tom at one o'clock on a 
 dark night, with the "animus," and no doubt with the
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 37 
 
 fiendish looks, of a murderer. But when I found him, he 
 was in the act of plundering the pantry of bread and other 
 things. Now this gave a nev/ turn to the affair; for the 
 time being one of general scarcity, when even Christians 
 were reduced to the use of potato-bread, rice-bread, and 
 all sorts of things, it was downright treason in a tom-cat 
 to be wasting good wheaten-bread in the way he was doing. 
 It instantly became a patriotic duty to put him to death ; 
 and as I raised aloft and shook the glittering steel, I fancied 
 myself rising like Brutus, effulgent from a crowd of patriots, 
 and, as I stabbed him, I 
 
 *' called aloud on Tally's name, 
 And bade the father of his country hail ! " 
 
 Since then, what wandering thoughts I may have had of 
 attempting the life of an ancient ewe, of a superannuated 
 hen, and such " small deer," are locked up in the secrets 
 of my own breast ; but for the higher departments of the 
 art, I confess myself to be utterly unfit. My ambition does 
 not rise so high. No, gentlemen, in the words of Horace, 
 
 " fungar vice cotis, acutum 
 
 Reddere quos ferruin valet, exsors ipsa secandi." 
 
 II.* 
 
 Doctor North, — You are a liberal man : liberal in the 
 true classical sense, not in the slang sense of modern poli- 
 ticians and education-mongers. Being so, I am sure that 
 you will sympathise with my case. I am an ill-used man, 
 Dr North — particularly ill-used ; and, with your permission, 
 I will briefly explain how. A black scene of calumny will 
 * Blackwood' s Ala^ailne, November 1S39.
 
 38 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 be laid open ; but you, Doctor, will make all things square 
 again. One frown from you, directed to the proper quarter, 
 or a warning shake of the crutch, will set me right in public 
 opinion, which at present, I am sorry to say, is rather hostile 
 to me and mine — all owing to the wicked arts of slanderers. 
 But you shall hear. 
 
 A good many years ago you may remember that I came 
 forward in the character of a dilettante in murder. Perhaps 
 dilettante may be too strong a word. Connoisseur is better 
 suited to the scruples and infirmity of public taste. I 
 suppose there is no harm in that at least. A man is not 
 bound to put his eyes, ears, and understanding into his 
 breeches pocket when he meets with a murder. If he is 
 not in a downright comatose state, I suppose he must see 
 that one murder is better or worse than another in point of 
 good taste. Murders have their little differences and shades 
 of merit as well as statues, pictures, oratorios, cameos, in- 
 taglios, or what not. You may be angry with the man for 
 talking too much, or too publicly, (as to the too much, that 
 I deny — a man can never cultivate his taste too highly) ; 
 but you must allow him to think, at any rate ; and you, 
 Doctor — you think, I am sure, both deeply and correctly 
 on the subject. Well, would you believe it? all my neigh- 
 bours came to hear of that little esthetic essay which you 
 had published ; and, unfortunately, hearing at the very same 
 time of a Club that I was connected with, and a Dinner at 
 which I presided — both tending to the same little object 
 as the essay, viz., the diffusion of a just taste among Her 
 Majesty's subjects, they got up the most barbarous calum- 
 nies against me. In particular, they said that I, or that the 
 Club, which comes to the same thing, had offered bounties 
 on well-conducted homicides — with a scale of drawbacks, 
 in case of any one defect or flaw, according to a table issued
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 39 
 
 to private friends. Now, Doctor, I'll tell you the whole 
 truth about the Dinner and the Club, and you'll see how 
 malicious the world is. But first let me tell you, confi- 
 dentially, what my real principles are upon the matters in 
 question. 
 
 As to murder, I never committed one in my life. It's a 
 well-known thing amongst all my friends. I can get a paper 
 to certify as much, signed by lots of people. Indeed, if you 
 come to that, I doubt whether many people could produce 
 as strong a certificate. Mine would be as big as a table- 
 cloth. There is indeed one member oi the Club, who pre- 
 tends to say that he caught me once making too free with 
 his throat on a club night, after everybody else had retired. 
 But, observe, he shuffles in his story according to his state 
 of civilation. When not far gone, he contents himself with 
 saying that he caught me ogling his throat ; and that I was 
 melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded 
 in a way expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, the sense 
 0/ opportimities lost — but the Club all know that he's a dis- 
 appointed man himself, and that he speaks querulously at 
 times about the fatal neglect of a man's coming abroad with- 
 out his tools. Besides, all this is an affair between two 
 amateurs, and everybody makes allowances for little asperi- 
 ties and sorenesses in such a case. " But," say you, " if no 
 murderer, my correspondent may have encouraged, or even 
 have bespoke a murder." No, upon my honour — nothing 
 of the kind. And that was the very point I wished to argue 
 for your satisfaction. The truth is, I am a very particular 
 man in everything relating to murder ; and perhaps I carry 
 my delicacy too far. The Stagyrite most justly, and possibly 
 with a view to my case, placed virtue in the rh ihisw or middle 
 point between two extremes. A golden mean is certainly 
 what every man should aim at. But it is easier talking
 
 46 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 than doing : and, my infirmity being notoriously too much 
 milkiness of heart, I find it difficult to maintain that steady 
 equatorial line between the two poles of too much murder 
 on the one hand, and too little on the other. I am too soft 
 — Doctor, too soft ; and people get excused through me — 
 nay go through life without an attempt made upon them, 
 that ought not to be excused. I believe if I had the manage- 
 ment of things there would hardly be a murder from year's 
 end to year's end. In fact I'm for virtue, and goodness, 
 and all that sort of thing. And two instances I'll give you 
 to what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem 
 a trifle ; but not if you knew my nephew, who was certainly 
 born to be hanged, and would have been so long ago, but 
 for my restraining voice. He is horribly ambitious, and 
 thinks himself a man of cultivated taste in most branches 
 of murder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on the 
 subject, but such as he has stolen from me. This is so 
 well known, that the Club has twice blackballed him, though 
 every indulgence was shown to him as my relative. People 
 came to me and said — " Now really. President, we would 
 do much to serve a relative of yours. But still, what can 
 be said ? You know yourself that he'll disgrace us. If we 
 were to elect him, why, the next thing we should hear of 
 would be some vile butcherly murder, by way of justifying 
 our choice. And what sort of a concern would it be ? You 
 know, as well as we do, that it would be a disgraceful affair, 
 more worthy of the shambles than of an artist's atelier. He 
 would fall upon some great big man, some huge farmer re- 
 turning drunk from a fair. There would be plenty of blood, 
 and t/iai he would expect us to take in lieu of taste, finish, 
 scenical grouping. Then, again, how would he tool ? Why, 
 most probably with a cleaver and a couple of paving stones : 
 so that the whole cou/^ cPaii would remind you rather of some
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 41 
 
 hideous Ogre or Cyclops, than of the deUcate operator of the 
 nineteenth century." The picture was drawn with the hand 
 of truth; that I could not but allow, and, as to personal 
 feelings in the matter, I dismissed them from the first. 
 Tlie next morning I spoke to my nephew — I was delicately 
 situated, as you see, but I determined that no consideration 
 should induce me to flinch from my duty. "John," said I, 
 " you seem to me to have taken an erroneous view of life 
 and its duties. Pushed on by ambition, you are dreaming 
 rather of what it might be glorious to attempt than what it 
 would be possible for you to accomplish. Believe me, it is 
 not necessary to a man's respectability that he should com- 
 mit a murder. Many a man has passed through life most 
 respectably, without attempting any species of homicide — 
 good, bad, or indifferent. It is your first duty to ask your- 
 self, quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusenf? we cannot 
 all be brilliant men in this life. And it is for your interest 
 to be contented rather with a humble station well filled, 
 than to shock everybody with failures, the more conspicuous 
 by contrast with the ostentation of their promises." John 
 made no answer, he looked very sulky at the moment, and 
 I am in high hopes that I have saved a near relation from 
 making a fool of himself by attempting what is as much 
 beyond his capacity as an epic poem. Others, however, 
 tell me that he is meditating a revenge upon me and the 
 whole Club. But let this be as it may, liberavi a?iima>n 
 meam \ and, as you see, have run some risk with a wish to 
 diminish the amount of homicide. But the other case still 
 more forcibly illustrates my virtue. A man came to me as 
 a candidate for the place of my servant, just then vacant. 
 He had the reputation of having dabbled a little in our art ; 
 some said not without merit. What startled me, however, 
 was, that he supposed this art to be part of his regular duties
 
 42 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 in my service. Now that was a thing I would not allow ; so 
 I said at once, " Richard, (or James, as the case might be), 
 you misunderstand my character. If a man will and must 
 practise this difficult (and allow me to add, dangerous) 
 branch of art — if he has an overruling genius for it, why, he 
 might as well pursue his studies whilst living in my service 
 as in another's. And also, I may observe, that it can do no 
 harm, either to himself or to the subject on whom he operates, 
 that he should be guided by men of more taste than him- 
 self. Genius may do much, but long study of the art must 
 always entitle a man to offer advice. So far I will go — 
 general principles I will suggest. But, as to any particular 
 case, once for all I will have nothing to do with it. Never 
 tell me of any special work of art you are meditating — I set 
 my face against it /// foto. For if once a man indulges him- 
 self in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing ; 
 and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath- 
 breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. 
 Once begin upon this downward path, you never know 
 where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin 
 from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of 
 at the time. Principiis obsta — that's my rule." Such was 
 my speech, and I have always acted up to it ; so if that is 
 not being virtuous, I should be glad to know what is. But 
 now about the Dinner and the Club. The Club was not 
 particularly of my creation ; it arose pretty much as other 
 similar associations, for the propagation of truth and the 
 communication of new ideas, rather from the necessities of 
 things than upon any one man's suggestion. As to the 
 Dinner, if any man more than another could be held 
 responsible for that, it was a member known amongst us 
 by the name of Toad-iji-thchok. He was so called from 
 his gloomy misanthropical disposition, which led him into
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 43 
 
 constant disparagements of all modern murders as vicious 
 abortions, belonging to no authentic school of art. The 
 finest performances of our own age he snarled at cynically ; 
 and at length this querulous humour grew upon him so 
 much, and he became so notorious as a laudator temporis 
 acti, that few people cared to seek his society. This 
 made him still more fierce and truculent. He went about 
 muttering and growling ; wherever you met him he was 
 soliloquizing and saying, "despicable pretender — without 
 grouping — without two ideas upon handling — without " — 
 and there you lost him. At length existence seemed to be 
 painful to him ; he rarely spoke, he seemed conversing with 
 phantoms in the air, his housekeeper informed us that his 
 reading was nearly confined to "God's Revenge upon 
 Murder " by Reynolds, and a more ancient book of the same 
 title, noticed by Sir Walter Scott in his "Fortunes of Nigel." 
 Sometimes, perhaps, he might read in the Newgate Calendar 
 down to the year 1788, but he never looked into a book 
 more recent. In fact, he had a theory with regard to the 
 French Revolution, as having been the great cause of 
 degeneration in murder. "Very soon, sir," he used to 
 say, " men will have lost the art of killing poultry : the 
 very rudiments of the art will have perished ! " In the 
 year 181 1 he retired from general society. Toad-in-the- 
 hole was no more seen in any public resort. We missed 
 him from his wonted haunts — nor up the lawn, nor at the 
 wood was he. By the side of the main conduit his listless 
 length at noontide he would stretch, and pore upon the filth 
 that muddled by. " Even dogs are not what they were, sir 
 — not what they should be. I remember in my grandfather's 
 time that some dogs had an idea of murder. I have known 
 a mastiff lie in ambush for a rival, sir, and murder him with 
 pleasing circumstances ot good taste. Yes, sir, I knew a
 
 44 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 tom-cat that was an assassin. But now " and then, the 
 
 subject growing too painful, he dashed his hand to his fore- 
 head, and went off abruptly in a homeward direction towards 
 his favourite conduit, Avhere he was seen by an amateur in 
 such a state that he thought it dangerous to address him. 
 Soon after he shut himself entirely up ; it was understood 
 that he had resigned himself to melancholy \ and at length 
 the prevailing notion was — that Toad-in-the-hole had hanged 
 himself. 
 
 The world was wrong there^ as it has been on some other 
 questions. Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead 
 he was not ; and of that we soon had ocular proof. One 
 morning in 1812 an amateur surprised us with the news 
 that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps 
 the dews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. 
 Even that was something : how much more, to hear that he 
 had shaved his beard — had laid aside his sad-coloured 
 clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days. 
 What could be the meaning of all this ? Was Toad-in-the- 
 hole mad ? or how ? Soon after the secret was explained — 
 in more than a figurative sense " the murder was out." For 
 in came the London morning papers, by which it appeared 
 that but three days before a murder, the most superb of the 
 century by many degrees, had occurred in the heart of 
 London. I need hardly say, that this was the great exter- 
 minating chef-d'oeuvre of Williams at Mr Marr's, No. 29, 
 Ratcliffe Highway. That was the debut of the artist ; at 
 least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr 
 Williamson's, twelve nights afterwards — the second work 
 turned out from the same chisel — some people pronounced 
 even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always " reclaimed " 
 — he was even angry at comparisons. " This vulgar gout de 
 comparaison^ as La Bruyere calls it," he would often remark,
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 45 
 
 " will be our ruin \ each work has its own separate char- 
 acteristics — each in and for itself is incomparable. One, 
 perhaps, might suggest the Iliad — the other the Odyssey : 
 what do you get by such comparisons ? Neither ever was, 
 or will be surpassed ; and when you've talked for hours, you 
 must still come back to that." Vain, however, as all criti- 
 cism might be, he often said that volumes might be written 
 on each case for itself; and he even proposed to publish in 
 quarto on the subject. 
 
 Meantime, how had Toad-ia-the-hole happened to hear 
 of this great work of art so early in the morning? He had 
 received an account by express, dispatched by a corre- 
 spondent in London, who watched the progress of art on 
 Toady's behalf, with a general commission to send off a 
 special express, at whatever cost, in the event of any estim- 
 able works appearing — how much more upon occasion of a 
 ne plus ultra in art ! The express arrived in the night time ; 
 Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed ; he had been 
 muttering and grumbling for hours, but of course he was 
 called up. On reading the account, he threw his arms 
 round the express, called him his brother and his preserver; 
 settled a pension upon him for three lives, and expressed 
 his regret at not having it in his power to knight him. We, 
 on our part — we amateurs, I mean — having heard that he 
 was abroad, and therefore had not hanged himself, made 
 sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly he soon 
 arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the read- 
 ing-room, seized every man's hand as he passed him — 
 wrung it almost frantically, and kept ejaculating, "Why, 
 now, here's something like a murder ! — this is the real thing 
 — this is genuine — this is what you can approve, can recom- 
 mend to a friend : this — says every man, on reflection — this 
 is the thing that ought to be ! " Then, looking at particular
 
 46 DE QUJNCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 friends, he said— " Why, Jack, how are you ? Why, Tom, 
 how are you ? — bless me, you look ten years younger than 
 when I last saw you." " No, sir," I replied, " it is you who 
 look ten years younger." " Do I ? — well, I shouldn't wonder 
 if I did ; such works are enough to make us all young." 
 And in fact the general opinion is, that Toad-in-the-hole 
 would have died but for this regeneration of art, which 
 he called a second age of Leo the Tenth ; and it was 
 our duty, he said solemnly, to commemorate it. At 
 present, and en attendant — rather as an occasion for a 
 public participation in public sympathy, than as in itself 
 any commensurate testimony of our interest — he proposed 
 that the Club should meet and dine together. A splendid 
 pubhc Dinner, therefore, was given by the Club; to 
 which all amateurs were invited from a distance of one 
 hundred miles. 
 
 Of this Dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst 
 the archives of the Club. But they are not " extended," to 
 speak diplomatically ; and the reporter is missing — I believe, 
 murdered. Meantime, in years long after that day, and on 
 an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning up 
 of Thugs and Thuggism, another Dinner was given. Of this 
 I myself kept notes, for fear of another accident to the 
 short-hand reporter. And 1 here subjoin them. Toad-in- 
 thehole, I must mention, was present at this Dinner. In 
 fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old 
 as the valleys at the Dinner of 1812 ; naturally, he was as 
 old as the hills at the Thug Dinner of 1S38. He had taken 
 to wearing his beard again ; why, or with what view, it 
 passes my persinmion to tell you. But so it was. And his 
 appearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could 
 equal the angelic radiance of his smile as he enquired after 
 the unfortunate reporter (whom, as a piece of private
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 47 
 
 scandal, I should tell you that he was himself supposed to 
 have murdered, in a rapture of creative art) : the answer 
 was, with roars of laughter, from the under-sheriff of our 
 county — '■ non est inventus." Toad-in-the-hole laughed out- 
 rageously at this : in fact, we all thought he was choking ; 
 and, at the earnest request of the company, a musical 
 composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon the occasion, 
 which was sung five times after dinner, with universal 
 applause and inextinguishable laughter, the words being 
 these (and the chorus so contrived, as most beautifully to 
 mimic the peculiar laughter of Toad-in-the-hole) : — 
 
 " Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole — Ubi est ille reporter? 
 Et responsum est cum cachinno — Non est inventus." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 "Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, cum cachinnatione undulante — 
 Non est inventus." 
 
 Toad-in-the hole, I ought to mention, about nine years 
 before, when an express from Edinburgh brought him the 
 earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the 
 art, went mad upon the spot ; and, instead of a pension to 
 the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavoured 
 to burke him ; in consequence of which he was put into a 
 strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner 
 then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait- 
 waistcoaters and others ; in fact, not one absentee was 
 reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign 
 amateurs present. 
 
 Dinner being over, and the cloth drawn, there was a 
 general call made for the new glee of Non est inventus) but, 
 as this would have inierfered with the requisite gravity of 
 the company during the earlier toasts, I overruled the call. 
 After the national toasts had been given, the first official
 
 48 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 toast of the day was — The Old Man of the Mountains — 
 drunk in solemn silence. 
 
 Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He 
 likened himself to the Old Man of the Mountains, in a 
 few brief allusions, that made the company absolutely 
 yell with laughter ; and he concluded with giving the 
 health of 
 
 Mr Von Hammer, with many thanks to him for his 
 learned History of the Old Man and his subjects the 
 Assassins. 
 
 Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the 
 company were aware of the distinguished place assigned 
 by orientalists to the very learned Turkish scholar Von 
 Hammer the Austrian ; that he had made the profoundest 
 researches into our art as connected with those early and 
 eminent artists the Syrian assassins in the period of the 
 Crusaders ; that his work had been for several years de- 
 posited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library of the Club. 
 Even the author's name, gentlemen, pointed him out as the 
 historian of our art — Von Hammer 
 
 "Yes, yes," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit 
 still — " Yes, yes, Von Hammer — he's the man for a malleus 
 hareticorum : think rightly of our art, or he's tlie man to 
 tickle your catastrophes. You all know what consideration 
 Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship-carpenter's 
 mallet, which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you 
 another great hammer — Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, 
 or, in old French, the Martel — he hammered the Saracens 
 till they were all as dead as door-nails : — he did, believe 
 me." 
 
 " Charles Martel, with all the honours." 
 
 But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the 
 uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 49 
 
 now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was 
 again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee. 
 I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. 
 I might as well have talked to the winds. I foresaw a 
 tempestuous evening ; and I ordered myself to be 
 strengthened with three waiters on each side ; the vice- 
 president with as many. Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm 
 were beginning to show out ; and I own that I myself was 
 considerably excited as the orchestra opened with its storm 
 of music, and the impassioned glee began — '■'■ Et mterro- 
 gatum est a Toad-in-tlie-hole — Ubi est ilk Reporter ? " And 
 the frenzy of the passion became absolutely convulsing, as 
 the full chorus fell in — " Et iteratiim est ab omtiibus — Non 
 est ifiventiis.'" 
 
 By this time I saw how things were going : wine and 
 music were making most of the amateurs wild. Particularly 
 Toad-in-the-hole, though considerably above a hundred 
 years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard. It 
 was a fixed impression with the company that he had 
 murdered the reporter in the year 181 2; since which time 
 (viz., twenty-six years) " ille reporter " had been constantly 
 reported " non est inventus." Consequently, the glee about 
 himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, 
 carried him off his feet. Like the famous choral songs 
 amongst the citizens of Abdera, nobody could hear it 
 without a contagious desire for falling back into the 
 agitating music of " Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole," 
 &c. I enjoined vigilance upon my assessors, and the 
 business of the evening proceeded. 
 
 The next toast was — The Jewish Sicarii. 
 
 Upon which I made the following explanation to the 
 company : — " Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you all 
 to hear that the assassins, ancient as they were, had a race 
 
 D
 
 50 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 of predecessors in the very same country. All over Syria, 
 but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the 
 Emperor Nero, there was a band of murderers, who pro- 
 secuted their studies in a very novel manner. They did 
 not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places ; but 
 justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort 
 of darkness by means of the dense pressure and the im- 
 possibility of finding out who it was that gave the blow, 
 they mingled with mobs everywhere; particularly at the 
 great paschal feast in Jerusalem ; where they actually had 
 the audacity, as Josephus assures us, to press into the 
 temple, — and whom should they choose for operating upon 
 but Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus ? They mur- 
 dered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they had had him 
 alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it was 
 asked, who was the murderer, and where he was" 
 
 "Why, then, it was answered," interrupted Toad in-the- 
 hole, " non est inventus." And then, in spite of all I could 
 do or say, the orchestra opened, and the whole company 
 began — "Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole — Ubi est 
 ille Sicarius ? Et responsum est ab omnibus — Non est 
 inventus" 
 
 When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began 
 again : — " Gentlemen, you will find a very circumstantial 
 account of the Sicarii in at least three different parts of 
 Josephus; once in Book XX. sect. v. c. 8, of his "Anti- 
 quities ; " once in Book I. of his " Wars : " but in sect. lo of 
 the chapter first cited you will find a particular description 
 of their tooling. This is what he says — 'They tooled 
 with small scimitars not much different from the Persian 
 acitiaccE, but more curved, and for all the world most like 
 the Roman sickles or sicce.' It is perfectly magnificent, 
 gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps the
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 51 
 
 only case on record where a regular army of murderers was 
 assembled, a Justus exeni'fus, was in the case of these 
 Sicarii. They mustered in such strength in the wilderness, 
 that Festus himself was obliged to march against them with 
 the Roman legionary force." 
 
 Upon which Toad-in-the-hole, that cursed interrupter, 
 broke out a-singing — " Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the- 
 hole — Ubi est ille exercitus? Et responsiun est ab omnibus 
 — Non est inventus." 
 
 " No, no, Toad — you are wrong for once : that army was 
 found, and was all cut to pieces in the desert. Heavens, 
 gentlemen, what a sublime picture ! The Roman legions — 
 the wilderness — Jerusalem in the distance — an army of 
 murderers in the foreground !" 
 
 Mr R., a member, now gave the next toast. — "To the 
 further improvement of Tooling, and thanks to the Com- 
 mittee for their services." 
 
 Mr L., on behalf of the Committee who had reported 
 on that subject, returned thanks. He made an interesting 
 extract from the Report, by which it appeared how very 
 much stress had been laid formerly on the mode of Tooling 
 by the Fathers, both Greek and Latin. In confirmation of 
 this pleasing fact, he made a very striking statement in 
 reference to the earliest work of antediluvian art. Father 
 Mersenne, that learned Roman Catholic, in page one 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-one * of his operose 
 Commentary on Genesis, mentions, on the authority of 
 several Rabbis, that the quarrel of Cain with Abel was 
 about a young woman ; that, by various accounts, Cain had 
 tooled with his teeth [Abelem fuisse inorsibus dilaceratum a 
 Cain] ; by many others, with the jaw-bone of an ass ; which 
 
 * "Page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one" — literally, 
 good reader, and no joke at all.
 
 52 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 is the tooling adopted by most painters. But it is pleasing 
 to the mind of sensibility to know that, as science expanded, 
 sounder views were adopted. One author contends for a 
 pitchfork, St Chrysostom for a sword, Irenaeus for a scythe, 
 and Prudentius for a hedging-bill. This last writer delivers 
 his opinion thus : — 
 
 " Fiater, probatoe sanctitatis semulus, 
 Germana curvo coUa fiangit sarculo : ** 
 
 i.e. his brother, jealous of his attested sanctity, fractures 
 his brotherly throat with a curved hedging-bill. " All 
 which is respectfully submitted by your Committee, not 
 so much as decisive of the question (for it is not), but in 
 order to impress upon the youthful mind the importance 
 which has ever been attached to the quality of the tooling 
 by such men as Chrysostom and Irenteus." 
 
 "Dang Irenseus!" said Toad-in-the-hole, who now rose 
 impatiently to give the next toast : — " Our Irish friends — 
 and a speedy revolution in their mode of Tooling, as well 
 as every thing else connected with the art ! " 
 
 "Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of 
 the year we take up a paper, we read the opening of a 
 murder. We say, this is good — this is charming — this is 
 excellent ! But, behold you ! scarcely have we read a little 
 farther before the word Tipperary or Ballina-something be- 
 trays the Irish manufacture. Instantly we loathe it : we 
 call to the waiter; we say, 'Waiter, take away this paper; 
 send it out of the house ; it is absolutely offensive to all 
 just taste.' I appeal to every man whether, on finding a 
 murder (otherwise perhaps promising enough) to be Irish, 
 he does not feel himself as much insulted as when Madeira 
 being ordered he finds it to be Cape ; or when, taking up 
 what he believes to be a mushroom, it turns out what
 
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 53 
 
 children call a toad-stool. Tithes, politics, or something 
 wrong in principle, vitiate every Irish murder. Gentlemen, 
 this must be reformed, or Ireland will not be a land to live 
 in ; at least, if we do live there, we must import all our 
 murders, that's clear." Toad-in-the-hole sat down growl- 
 ing with suppressed wrath, and the universal " Hear, 
 hear ! " sufficiently showed that he spoke the general feeling. 
 
 The next toast was — " The sublime epoch of Burkism 
 and Harism ! " 
 
 This was drunk with enthusiasm ; and one of the mem- 
 bers, who spoke to the question, made a very curious 
 communication to the company : — " Gentlemen, we fancy 
 Burkism to be a pure invention of our own times . and in 
 fact no PanciroUus has ever enumerated this branch of art 
 when writing de rebus deperdiiis. Still I have ascertained 
 that the essential principle of the art was known to the 
 ancients, although, like the art of painting upon glass, of 
 making the myrrhine cups, &c., it was lost in the dark ages 
 for want of encouragement. In the famous collection of 
 Greek epigrams made by Planudes is one upon a very 
 charming little case of Burkism : it is a perfect little gem 
 of art. The epigram itself I cannot lay my hand upon at 
 this moment : but the following is an abstract of it by 
 Salmasius, as I find it in his notes on Vopiscus : * Est et ele- 
 gans epigramma Lucilii (well he might call it 'elegans !'), 
 ubi medicus et poUinctor de compacto sic egerunt, ut medicus 
 segros omnes curae suai commissos occideret ' — this was the 
 basis of the contract, you see, that on the one part the doctor 
 for himself and his assigns doth undertake and contract 
 duly and truly to murder all the patients committed to his 
 charge : but why? There lies the beauty of the case — 'Et 
 ut poUinctori amico suo traderet poUingendos.' The pol- 
 linctor, you are aware, was a person whose business it was
 
 54 ■ DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 to dress and prepare dead bodies for burial. The original 
 ground of the transaction appears to have been sentimental: 
 * he was my friend,' says the murderous doctor — ' he was 
 dear to me,' in speaking of the pollinctor. But the law, 
 gentlemen, is stern and harsh : the law will not hear of 
 these tender motives : to sustain a contract of this nature 
 in law, it is essential that a ' consideration ' should be 
 given. Now, what was the consideration? For thus far 
 all is on the side of the pollinctor : he will be well paid for 
 his services ; but meantime, the generous, the noble minded 
 doctor, gets nothing. What was the little consideration, 
 again, I ask, which the law would insist on the doctor's 
 taking? You shall hear: ' Et ut pollinctor vicissim ny.a- 
 lj.Zi\,ag quos furabatur de pollinctione mortuorum medico 
 mitteret donis ad alliganda vulnera eorum quos curabat.' 
 Now, the case is clear : the whole went on a principle of 
 reciprocity which would have kept up the trade for ever. 
 The doctor was also a surgeon : he could not murder all 
 his patients : some of the surgical patients must be retained 
 intact; re infeda. For these he wanted linen bandages. 
 But unhappily the Romans wore woollen, on which account 
 they bathed so often. Meantime, there was linen to be 
 had in Rome : but it was monstrously dear : and the 
 rika{LO}Vi<; or linen swathing bandages in which superstition 
 obliged them to bind up corpses, would answer capitally 
 for the surgeon. The doctor, therefore, contracts to furnish 
 his friend with a constant succession of corpses, provided, 
 and be it understood always, that his said friend in return 
 should supply him with one-half of the articles he would 
 receive from the friends of the parties murdered or to be 
 murdered. The doctor invariably recommended his invalu- 
 able friend the polUnctor (whom let us call the undertaker) ; 
 the undertaker, with equal regard to the sacred rights of
 
 ON MURDER AS A FINE ART. 55 
 
 friendship, uniformly recommended the doctor. Like 
 Pylades and Orestes, they were models of a perfect friend- 
 ship : in their lives they were lovely ; and on the gallows, 
 it is to be hoped, they were not divided. 
 
 " Gentlemen, it makes me laugh horribly when I think 
 of those two friends drawing and redrawing on each other : 
 'Pollinctor in account with Doctor, debtor by sixteen 
 corpses ; creditor by forty-five bandages, two of which 
 damaged." Their names unfortunately are lost ; but I 
 conceive they must have been Quintus Burkius and Pub- 
 lius Harius. By the way, gentlemen, has anybody heard 
 lately of Hare ? I understand he is comfortably settled in 
 Ireland, considerably to the west, and does a little business 
 now and then ; but, as he observes with a sigh, only as a 
 retailer — nothing like the fine thriving wholesale concern so 
 carelessly blown up at Edinburgh. ' You see what comes 
 of neglecting business/ — is the chief moral, the h-iiJ.\)&iov, 
 as ^sop would say, which he draws from his past ex- 
 perience." 
 
 At length came the toast of the day — Thugdom in all its 
 branches. 
 
 The speeches attetnpted at this crisis of the Dinner were 
 past all counting. But the applause was so furious, the 
 music so stormy, and the crashing of glasses so incessant, 
 from the general resolution never again to drink an inferior 
 toast from the same glass, that my power is not equal to 
 the task of reporting. Besides which. Toad - in - the - hole 
 now became quite ungovernable. He kept firing pistols 
 in every direction ; sent his servant for a blunderbuss, and 
 talked of loading with ball-cartridge. We conceived that 
 his former madness had returned at the mention of Burke 
 and Hare ; or that, being again weary of life, he had resolved 
 to go off in a general massacre. This we could not think
 
 56 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 of allowing : it became indispensable, therefore, to kick him 
 out, whicli we did with universal consent, the whole com- 
 pany lending their toes uno pede, as I may say, though 
 pitying his grey hairs and his angelic smile. During the 
 operation, the orchestra poured in their old chorus. The 
 universal company sang, and (what surprised us most of 
 all) Toad-in-the-hole joined us furiously in singing — 
 
 " Et intenogatum est ab omnibus — Ubi est ille Toadin-the-hole ? 
 Et responsum est ab omnibus — Non est inventus."
 
 Revolt of the Tartars ; or, Flight ot 
 the Kalmuck Khan and his People 
 from the Russian Territories to the 
 Frontiers of China. 
 
 There is no great event in modern history, or perhaps it may 
 be said more broadly, none in all history, from its earliest 
 records, less generally known, or more striking to the im- 
 agination, than the flight eastwards of a principal Tartar 
 nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the latter half 
 of the last century. The terminus a quo of this flight, and 
 the terminus ad quern, are equally magnificent ; the mightiest 
 of Christian thrones being the one, the mightiest of Pagan 
 the other. And the grandeur of these two terminal objects 
 is harmoniously supported by the romantic circumstances of 
 the flight. In the abruptness of its commencement, and the 
 fierce velocity of its execution, we read an expression of the 
 wild barbaric character of the agents. In the unity of pur- 
 pose connecting this myriad of wills, and in the blind but 
 unerring aim at a mark so remote, there is something which 
 recalls to the mind those almighty instincts that propel the 
 migrations of the swallow, or the life-withering marches of 
 the locust. Then again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia 
 and her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear and the 
 skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of Miltonic 
 images — such, for instance, as that of the solitary hand 
 
 57
 
 58 DE Q UlNCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 pursuing through desert spaces and through ancient chaos 
 a rebellious host, and overtaking with volleying thunders 
 those who believed themselves already within the security 
 of darkness and of distance. 
 
 We shall have occasion farther on to compare this event 
 with other great national catastrophes as to the magnitude 
 of the suffering. But it may also challenge a comparison 
 with similar events under another relation, viz., as to its 
 dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in romance or 
 history, can sustain a close collation with this as to the 
 complexity of its separate interests. The great outline of 
 the enterprise, taken in connection with the operative 
 motives, hidden or avowed, and the religious sanctions 
 under which it was pursued, give to the case a triple 
 character: ist, That of a co7ispiracy, with as close a unity 
 in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest in the 
 moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as belongs 
 to Venice Freseri'ed, or to the Fiesco of Schiller. 2ndly, 
 That of a great milifary expedition offering the same 
 romantic features of vast distances to be traversed, vast 
 reverses to be sustained, untried routes, enemies ob- 
 scurely ascertained, and hardships too vaguely prefigured, 
 which mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses — the 
 anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the subsequent 
 retreat of the ten thousand to the Black Sea — the 
 Parthian expeditions of the Romans, especially those of 
 Crassus and Julian — or (as more disastrous than any of 
 them, and in point of space as well as in amount of 
 forces, more extensive) the Russian anabasis and kata- 
 basis of Napoleon. 3rdly, That of a religious Exodus, 
 authorised by an oracle venerated throughout many 
 nations of Asia, an Exodus, therefore, in so far resem- 
 bling the great Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, under
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 59 
 
 Moses and Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar dis- 
 tinction of carrying along with them their entire families, 
 women, children, slaves, their herds of cattle and of sheep, 
 their horses and their camels. 
 
 This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests 
 it with a more comprehensive interest. But the dramatic 
 interest, which we ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage 
 representation, depends partly upon the marked variety and 
 the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and partly 
 upon the succession of scenical situations. Even the steppes, 
 the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy deserts, are 
 not beyond the scale of our modern representative powers, 
 as often called into action in the theatres both of Paris and 
 London ; and the series of situations unfolded, beginning 
 with the general conflagration on the Wolga — passing thence 
 to the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it literally was in its 
 commencement) — to the Tartar siege of the Russian fortress 
 Koulagina — the bloody engagement with the Cossacks in the 
 mountain passes at Ouchim — the surprisal by the Bashkirs 
 and the advanced posts of the Russian army at Torgau — the 
 private conspiracy at this point against the Khan — the long 
 succession of running fights — the parting massacres at the 
 lake of Tengis under the eyes of the Chinese — and finally, the 
 tragical retribution to Zebek Dorchi at the hunting-lodge of 
 the Chinese emperor; — all these situations communicate a 
 scenical animation to the wild romance, if treated dramatic- 
 ally; whilst a higher and a philosophic interest belongs to 
 it as a case of authentic history, commemorating a great 
 revolution for good and for evil, in the fortunes of a whole 
 people — a people semi-barbarous, but simple-hearted, and 
 of ancient descent. 
 
 On the 2 1 St of January 1761, the young Prince Oubacha
 
 6o DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 assumed the sceptre of the Kalmucks upon the death of his 
 father. Some part of the power attached to this dignity 
 he had already wielded since his fourteenth year, in quality 
 of Vice-Khan, by the express appointment, and with the 
 a\owed support of the Russian Government. He was now 
 about eighteen years of age, amiable in his personal char- 
 acter, and not without titles to respect in his pubhc 
 character as a sovereign prince. In times more peace- 
 able, and amongst a people more entirely civilised, or 
 more humanised by religion, it is even probable that he 
 might have discharged his high duties with considerable 
 distinction. But his lot was thrown upon stormy times, 
 and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes, whose native 
 ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of supersti- 
 tion, and by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit of 
 their own merit absolutely unparalleled, whilst the circum- 
 stances of their hard and trying position under the jealous 
 surveillance of an irresistible lord paramount, in the person 
 of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the natural 
 unamiableness of the Kalmuck disposition, and irritated 
 its gloomier qualities into action under the restless impulses 
 of suspicion and permanent distrust. No prince could hope 
 for a cordial allegiance from his subjects, or a peaceful 
 reign under the circumstances of the case ; for the 
 dilemma in which a Kalmuck ruler stood at present 
 was of this nature ; wanting the sanction and support 
 of the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from without 
 to command confidence from his subjects, or resistance 
 to his competitors : on the other hand, with this kind of 
 support, and deriving his title in any degree from the favour 
 of the Imperial Court, he became almost in that extent an 
 object of hatred at home, and within the whole compass of 
 his own territory. He was at once an object of hatred for
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6i 
 
 the past, being a living monument of national independ- 
 ence, ignominiously surrendered, and an object of jealousy 
 for the future, as one who had already advertised himself to 
 be a fitting tool for the ultimate purposes (whatsoever those 
 might prove to be) of the Russian Court. Coming himself 
 to the Kalmuck sceptre under the heaviest weight of pre- 
 judice from the unfortunate circumstances of his position, 
 it might have been expected that Oubacha would have been 
 pre-eminently an object of detestation; for besides his known 
 dependence upon the Cabinet of St Petersburg, the direct 
 line of succession had been set aside, and the principle of 
 inheritance violently suspended, in favour of his own father, 
 so recently as nineteen years before the era of his own ac- 
 cession, consequently within the lively remembrance of the 
 existing generation. He therefore, almost equally with his 
 father, stood within the full current of the national prejud- 
 ices, and might have anticipated the most pointed hostility. 
 But it was not so : such are the caprices in human affairs, 
 that he was even, in a moderate sense, popular, — a benefit 
 which wore the more cheering aspect, and the promises of 
 permanence, inasmuch as he owed it exclusively to his 
 personal qualities of kindness and affability, as well as to 
 the beneficence of his government. On the other hand, to 
 balance this unlooked-for prosperity at the outset of his reign, 
 he met with a rival in popular favour — almost a competitor 
 — in the person of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable 
 pretensions to the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with 
 equal pretensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of 
 the same royal house as himself, through a different branch. 
 On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a foot- 
 ing equally good with that of Oulmcha, whilst his personal 
 qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philo- 
 sophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised the
 
 62 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer or a 
 conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a popular sup- 
 port precisely in those points where Oubacha was most 
 defective. He was much superior in external appearance 
 to his rival on the throne, and so far better qualified to 
 win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous people ; whilst 
 his dark intellectual qualities of Machiavelian dissimulation, 
 I)rofound hypocrisy, and perfidy which knew no touch of 
 remorse, were admirably calculated to sustain any ground 
 which he might win from the simple-hearted people with 
 whom he had to deal — and from the frank carelessness of 
 his unconscious competitor. 
 
 At the very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek-Dorchi 
 was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing could be 
 gained by open declaration of hostility to the reigning 
 prince : the choice had been a deliberate act on the part 
 of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna was not the person to 
 recall her own favours with levity or upon sliglit grounds. 
 Openly, therefore, to have declared his enmity towards his 
 relative on the throne, could have had no effect but that of 
 arming suspicions against his own ulterior purposes in a 
 quarter where it was most essential to his interest that, for 
 the present, all suspicion should be hoodwinked. Ac- 
 cordingly, after much meditation, the course he took for 
 opening his snares was this : — He raised a rumour that his 
 own life was in danger from the plots of several Saissang 
 (that is, Kalmuck nobles) who were leagued together, 
 under an oath, to assassinate him ; and immediately after, 
 assuming a well-counterfeited alarm, he fled to Tcherkask,. 
 followed by sixty-five tents. From this place he kept up a 
 correspondence with the Imperial Court ; and, by way of 
 soliciting his cause more effectually, he soon repaired in 
 person to St Petersburg. Once admitted to personal con-
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 63 
 
 ferences with the Cabinet, he found no difificulty in winning 
 over the Russian counsels to a concurrence with some of 
 his poHtical views, and thus covertly introducing the point 
 of that wedge which was finally to accomplish his purposes. 
 In particular, he persuaded the Russian Government to 
 make a very important alteration in the constitution of the 
 Kalmuck State Council, which in effect reorganised the 
 whole political condition of the state, and disturbed the 
 balance of power as previously adjusted. Of this Council 
 — in the Kalmuck language called Sarga — there were eight 
 members, called Sargatchi ; and hitherto it had been the 
 custom that these eight members should be entirely sub- 
 ordinate to the Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial 
 character of secretaries and assistants, but in no respect 
 ranking as co-ordinate authorities. That had produced 
 some inconveniences in former reigns ; and it was easy 
 for Zebek-Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian 
 Court to others more serious which might arise in future 
 circumstances of war or other contingencies. It was re- 
 solved, therefore, to place the Sargatchi henceforwards on a 
 footing of perfect independence, and therefore (as regarded 
 responsibility) on a footing of equality with the Khan. Their 
 independence, however, had respect only to their own sove- 
 reign ; for towards Russia they were placed in a new attitude 
 of direct duty and accountability, by the creation in their 
 favour of small pensions (300 roubles a-year), which, how- 
 ever, to a Kalmuck of that day were more considerable than 
 might be supposed, and had a further value as marks of 
 honorary distinction emanating from a great Empres.s. 
 Thus far the purposes of Zebek-Dorchi were served 
 effectually for the moment : but, apparently, it was only 
 for the moment ; since, in the further development of his 
 plots, this very dependency upon Russian influence would
 
 64 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 be the most serious obstacle in his way. There was, how- 
 ever, another point carried which outweighed all inferior 
 considerations, as it gave him a power of setting aside 
 discretionally whatsoever should arise to disturb his plots: 
 he was himself appointed President and Controller of the 
 Sargatchi. The Russian Court had been aware of his high 
 pretensions by birth, and hoped by this promotion to satisfy 
 the ambition which, in some degree, was acknowleged to be 
 a reasonable passion for any man occupying his situation. 
 
 Having thus completely blindfolded the Cabinet of 
 Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded in his new character to 
 fulfil his political mission with the Khan of the Kalmucks. 
 So artfully did he prepare the road for his favourable re- 
 ception at the court of this Prince, that he was at once and 
 universally welcomed as a public benefactor. The pensions 
 of the counsellors were so much additional wealth poured 
 into the Tartar exchequer ; as to the ties of dependency 
 thus created, experience had not yet enlightened these 
 simple tribes as to that result. And that he himself 
 should be the chief of these mercenary counsellors, was 
 so far from being charged upon Zebek as any offence or 
 any ground of suspicion, that his relative the Khan returned 
 him hearty thanks for his services, under the belief that he 
 could have accepted this appointment only with a view to 
 keep out other and more unwelcome pretenders, who would 
 not have had the same motives of consanguinity or friend- 
 ship for executing its duties in a spirit of kindness to the 
 Kalmucks. The first use which he made of his new func- 
 tions about the Khan's person was to attack the Court of 
 Russia, by a romantic villany not easy to be credited, for 
 those very acts of interference with the council which he 
 himself had prompted. This was a dangerous step : but 
 it was indispensable to his further advance upon the
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 65 
 
 gloomy path which he had traced out for himself. A 
 triple vengeance was what he meditated — i, upon the 
 Russian Cabinet for having undervalued his own preten- 
 sions to the throne — 2, upon his amiable rival for having 
 supplanted him — and 3, upon all those of the nobility who 
 had manifested their sense of his weakness by their neglect, 
 or their sense of his perfidious character by their suspicions. 
 Here was a colossal outline of wickedness ; and by one in 
 his situation feeble (as it might seem) for the accomplishment 
 of its humblest parts, how was the total edifice to be reared 
 in its comprehensive grandeur ? He, a worm as he was, 
 could he venture to assail the mighty behemoth of Muscovy, 
 the potentate who counted three hundred languages around 
 the footsteps of his throne, and from whose "lion ramp" 
 recoiled alike " baptised and infidel " — Christendom on 
 the one side, strong by her intellect and her organisation, 
 and the " Barbaric East " on the other, with her un- 
 numbered numbers ? The match was a monstrous 
 one; but in its very monstrosity there lay this germ of 
 encouragement, that it could not be suspected. The very 
 hopelessness of the scheme grounded his hope, and he 
 resolved to execute a vengeance which should involve, as 
 it were, in the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all whom 
 he judged to be his enemies. That vengeance lay in 
 detaching from the Russian empire the whole Kalmuck 
 nation, and breaking up that system of intercourse which 
 had thus far been beneficial to both. This last was a 
 consideration which moved him but Httle. True it was 
 that Russia to the Kalmucks had secured lands and 
 extensive pasturage; true it was that the Kalmucks re- 
 ciprocally to Russia had furnished a powerful cavalry. 
 But the latter loss would be part of his triumph, and the 
 former might be more than compensated in other climates 
 
 E
 
 66 DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 under other sovereigns. Here was a scheme which, in 
 its final accomplishment, would avenge him bitterly on 
 the Czarina, and in the course of its accomplishment 
 might furnish him with ample occasions for removing his 
 other enemies. It may be readily supposed indeed that 
 he, who could deliberately raise his eyes to the Russian 
 autocrat as an antagonist in single duel with himself, was 
 not likely to feel much anxiety about Kalmuck enemies 
 of whatever rank. He took his resolution, therefore, sternly 
 and irrevocably to effect this astonishing translation of an 
 ancient people across the pathless deserts of Central Asia, 
 intersected continually by rapid rivers, rarely furnished with 
 bridges, and of which the fords were known only to those 
 who might think it for their interest to conceal them, 
 through many nations inhospitable or hostile ; frost and 
 snow around them (from the necessity of commencing 
 their flight in winter), famine in their front, and the sabre, 
 or even the artillery of an offended and mighty empress, hang- 
 ing upon their rear for thousands of miles. But what was 
 to be their final mark, the port of shelter after so fearful 
 a course of wandering ? Two things were evident : it must 
 be some power at a great distance from Russia, so as to 
 make return even in that view hopeless ; and it must be 
 a power of sufficient rank to ensure them protection from 
 any hostile efforts on the part of the Czarina for reclaiming 
 them, or for chastising their revolt. Both conditions were 
 united obviously in the person of Kien Long, the reigning 
 Emperor of China, who was farther recommended to them 
 by his respect for the head of their religion. To China, 
 therefore, and as their first rendezvous to the shadow of 
 the great Chinese Wall, it was settled by Zebek that they 
 should direct their flight. 
 
 Next came the question of time ; wheii should the flight 
 commence : — and finally, the more delicate question as to
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 67 
 
 the choice of accomplices. To extend the knowledge of 
 the conspiracy too far, was to insure its betrayal to the 
 Russian Government. Yet at some stage of the prepara- 
 tions it was evident that a very extensive confidence must 
 be made, because in no other way could the mass of the 
 Kalmuck population be persuaded to furnish their families 
 with the requisite equipments for so long a migration. 
 This critical step, however, it was resolved to defer up to 
 the latest possible moment, and, at all events, to make no 
 general communication on the subject until the time of 
 departure should be definitively settled. In the meantime, 
 Zebek admitted only three persons to his confidence ; of 
 whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, was almost necessarily 
 one , but him, from his yielding and somewhat feeble 
 character, he viewed rather in the light of a tool than as 
 one of his active accomplices. Those whom (if any body) 
 he admitted to an unreserved participation in his counsels, 
 were two only, the great Lama among the Kalmucks, and 
 his own father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe 
 in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, recommended to 
 his favour not so much by any strength of talent cor- 
 responding to the occasion, as by his blind devotion to 
 himself, and his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation 
 of his daughter and his son-in-law to the throne of a 
 sovereign prince. A titular prince Zebek already was : but 
 this dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of a 
 sceptre, seemed but an empty sound to both of these 
 ambitious rebels. The other accomplice, whose name was 
 Loosang-Dchaltzan, and whose rank was that of Lama, or 
 Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more distinguished 
 pretensions; he had something of the same gloomy and 
 terrific pride which marked the character of Zebek himself, 
 manifesting also the same energy, accompanied by the same 
 unfaltering cruelty, and a natural facility of dissimulation
 
 68 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 even more profound. It was by this man that the other 
 question was settled as to the time for giving effect to their 
 designs. His own pontifical character had suggested to 
 him, that in order to strengthen their influence with the 
 vast mob of simple-minded men whom they were to lead 
 into a howling wilderness, after persuading them to lay 
 desolate their own ancient hearths, it was indispensable 
 that they should be able, in cases of extremity, to plead the 
 express sanction of God for their entire enterprise. This 
 could only be done by addressing themselves to the great 
 head of their religion, the Dalai-Lama of Tibet. Him they 
 easily persuaded to countenance their schemes : and an 
 oracle was delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect that no 
 ultimate prosperity would attend this great Exodus unless it 
 were pursued through the years of the tiger and the hare. 
 Now, the Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their years by 
 attaching to each a denomination taken from one of twelve 
 animals, the exact order of succession being absolutely 
 fixed, so that the cycle revolves of course through a period 
 of a dozen years. Consequently, if the approaching year of 
 the tiger were suffered to escape them, in that case the 
 expedition must be delayed for twelve years more, within 
 which period, even were no other unfavourable changes to 
 arise, it was pretty well foreseen that the Russian Govern- 
 ment would take the most effectual means for bridling their 
 vagrant propensities by a ring fence of forts or military 
 posts ; to say nothing of the still readier plan for securing 
 their fidelity (a plan already talked of in all quarters), by 
 exacting a large body of hostages selected from the families 
 of the most influential nobles. On these cogent considera- 
 tions, it was solemnly determined that this terrific experi- 
 ment should be made in the next year of the tiger, which 
 happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. With
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 69 
 
 respect to the month, there was, unhappily for the Kal- 
 mucks, even less latitude allowed to their choice than with 
 respect to the year. It was absolutely necessary, or it was 
 thought so, that the different divisions of the nation, which 
 pastured their flocks on both banks of the Wolga, should 
 have the means of effecting an instantaneous junction ; 
 because the danger of being intercepted by flying columns 
 of the Imperial armies was precisely the greatest at the 
 outset. Now, from the want of bridges, or sufficient river 
 craft for transporting so vast a body of men, the sole means 
 which could be depended upon (especially where so many 
 women, children, and camels were concerned), was ice : and 
 this, in a state of sufficient firmness, could not be absolutely 
 counted upon before the month of January. Hence it 
 happened that this astonishing Exodus of a whole nation, 
 before so much as a whisper of the design had begun to 
 circulate amongst those whom it most interested, before it 
 was even suspected that any man's wishes pointed in that 
 direction, had been definitively appointed for January of the 
 year 1771. And almost up to the Christmas of 1770, the 
 poor simple Kalmuck herdsmen and their famihes were 
 going nightly to their peaceful beds without even dreaming 
 that the fiat had already gone forth from their rulers which 
 consigned those quiet abodes, together with the peace and 
 comfort which reigned within them, to a withering desola- 
 tion, now close at hand. 
 
 Meantime war raged on a great scale between Russia 
 and the Sultan. And, until the time arrived for throwing 
 off their vassalage, it was necessary that Oubacha should 
 contribute his usual contingent of martial aid. Nay, it had 
 unfortunately become prudent that he should contribute 
 much more than his usual aid. Human experience gives 
 ample evidence that in some mysterious and unaccountable
 
 70 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 way no great design is ever agitated, no matter how few or 
 how faithful may be the participators, but that some pre- 
 sentiment — some dim misgiving — is kindled amongst those 
 whom it is chiefly important to blind. And, however it 
 might have happened, certain it is, that already, when as 
 yet no syllable of the conspiracy had been breathed to any 
 man whose very existence was not staked upon its conceal- 
 ment, nevertheless, some vague and uneasy jealousy had 
 arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the future schemes of 
 the Kalmuck Khan : and very probable it is — that, but for 
 the war then raging, and the consequent prudence of con- 
 ciliating a very important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining 
 from what would powerfully alienate him, even at that 
 moment such measures would have been adopted as must 
 for ever have intercepted the Kalmuck schemes. Slight as 
 were the jealousies of the Imperial Court, they had not 
 escaped the Machiavelian eyes of Zebek and the Lama. 
 And under their guidance, Oubacha, bending to the cir- 
 cumstances of the moment, and meeting the jealousy of the 
 Russian Court with a policy corresponding to their own, 
 strove by unusual zeal to efface the Czarina's unfavourable 
 impressions. He enlarged the scale of his contributions ; 
 and that so prodigiously, that he absolutely carried to head- 
 quarters a force of 35,000 cavalry fully equipped; some go 
 further, and rate the amount beyond 40,000 : but the 
 smaller estimate is, at all events, within the truth. 
 
 With this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as well as 
 light, the Khan went into the field under great expectations; 
 and these he more than realised. Having the good fortune 
 to be concerned with so ill-organized and disorderly a 
 description of force as that which at all times composed the 
 bulk of a Turkish army, he carried victory along with his 
 banners ; gained many partial successes ; and at last, in a
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 71 
 
 pitched battle, overthrew the Turkish force opposed to him 
 with a loss of 5000 men left upon the field. 
 
 These splendid achievements seemed likely to operate in 
 various ways against the impending revolt. Oubacha had 
 now a strong motive, in the martial glory acquired, for con- 
 tinuing his connection with the empire in whose service he 
 had won it, and by whom only it could be fully appreciated. 
 He was now a great marshal of a great empire, one of the 
 Paladins around the imperial throne ; in China he would 
 be nobody, or (worse than that) a mendicant- alien, prostrate 
 at the feet, and soliciting the precarious alms of a prince 
 with whom he had no connection. Besides, it might 
 reasonably be expected that the Czarina, grateful for the 
 really efficient aid given by the Tartar prince, would confer 
 upon him such eminent rewards as might be sufficient to 
 anchor his hopes upon Russia, and to wean him from every 
 possible seduction. These were the obvious suggestions of 
 prudence and good sense to every man who stood neutral in 
 the case. But they were disappointed. The Czarina knew 
 her obligations to the Khan, but she did not acknowledge 
 them. Wherefore? That is a mystery, perhaps never to 
 be explained. So it was, however. The Khan went un- 
 honoured ; no ukase ever proclaimed his merits ; and, 
 perhaps, had he even been abundantly recompensed by 
 Russia, there were others who would have defeated these 
 tendencies to reconciliation. Erempel, Zebek, and Loo- 
 sang the Lama, were pledged life-deep to prevent any 
 accommodation ; and their efforts were unfortunately 
 seconded by those of their deadliest enemies. In the 
 Russian Court there were at that time some great nobles 
 pre-occupied with feelings of hatred and blind malice 
 towards the Kalmucks, quite as strong as any which the 
 Kalmucks could harbour towards Russia, and not, perhaps,
 
 72 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 so well-founded. Just as much as the Kalmucks hated 
 the Russian yoke, their galling assumption of authority, 
 the marked air of disdain, as towards a nation of ugly, 
 stupid, and filthy barbarians, which too generally marked 
 the Russian bearing and language ; but above all, the in- 
 solent contempt, or outrages which even the Russian 
 governors or great military commandants tolerated in 
 their followers towards the barbarous religion and super- 
 stitious mummeries of the Kalmuck priesthood — precisely 
 in that extent did the ferocity of the Russian resentment, 
 and their wrath at seeing the trampled worm turn or 
 attempt a feeble retaliation, re-act upon the unfortunate 
 Kalmucks. At this crisis it is probable that envy and 
 wounded pride, upon witnessing the splendid victories 
 of Oubacha and Momotbacha over the Turks and 
 Bashkirs, contributed strength to the Russian irritation. 
 And it must have been through the intrigues of those 
 nobles about her person, who chiefly smarted under these 
 feelings, that the Czarina could ever have lent herself to 
 the unwise and ungrateful policy pursued at this critical 
 period towards the Kalmuck Khan. That Czarina was 
 no longer Elizabeth Petrowna, it was Catherine the Second 
 — a princess who did not often err so injuriously (in- 
 juriously for herself as much as for others) in the measures 
 of her government. She had soon ample reason for re- 
 penting of her false policy. Meantime, how much it 
 must have co-operated with the other motives previously 
 acting upon Oubacha in sustaining his determination to 
 revolt ; and how powerfully it must have assisted the 
 efforts of all the Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds 
 of their people to feel the necessity of this difficult enter- 
 prise, by arming their pride and their suspicions against 
 the Russian Government, through the keenness of their
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 73 
 
 sympathy with the wrongs of their insulted prince, may 
 be readily imagined. It is a fact, and it has been con- 
 fessed by candid Russians themselves, when treating of 
 this great dismemberment, that the conduct of the Russian 
 Cabinet throughout the period of suspense and during the 
 crisis of hesitation in the Kalmuck Council, was exactly such 
 as was most desirable for the purposes of the conspirators ; 
 it was such, in fact, as to set the seal to all their machina- 
 tions, by supplying distinct evidences and official vouchers 
 for what could otherwise have been at the most matters 
 of doubtful suspicion and indirect presumption. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the face of all these arguments, and 
 even allowing their weight so far as not at all to deny 
 the injustice or the impolicy of the Imperial Ministers, it 
 is contended by many persons who have reviewed the 
 affair with a command of all the documents bearing on 
 the case, more especially the letters or minutes of Council 
 subsequently discovered, in the hand-writing of Zebek- 
 Dorchi, and the important evidence of the Russian captive 
 Weseloff, who was carried off by the Kalmucks in their 
 flight, that beyond all doubt Oubacha was powerless for 
 any purpose of impeding or even of delaying the revolt. 
 He himself, indeed, was under religious obligations of 
 the most terrific solemnity never to flinch from the enter- 
 prise, or even to slacken in his zeal ; for Zebek-Dorchi, 
 distrusting the firmness of his resolution under any un- 
 usual pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very 
 earliest stage of the conspiracy, availed himself of the 
 Khan's well-known superstition to engage him, by means 
 of previous concert with the priests and their head the 
 Lama, in some dark and mysterious rites of consecration, 
 terminating in oaths under such terrific sanctions as no 
 Kalmuck would have courage to violate. As far, there-
 
 74 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 fore, as regarded the personal share of the Khan in what 
 was to come, Zebek was entirely at his ease : he knew him 
 to be so deeply pledged by religious terrors to the pro- 
 secution of the conspiracy, that no honours within the 
 Czarina's gift could have possibly shaken his adhesion : 
 and then, as to threats from the same quarter, he knew 
 him to be sealed against those fears by others of a gloomier 
 character, and better adapted to his peculiar temperament. 
 For Oubacha was a brave man as respected all bodily 
 enemies or the dangers of human warfare, but was as 
 sensitive and as timid as the most superstitious of old 
 women in facing the frowns of a priest, or under the 
 vague anticipations of ghostly retributions. But, had it 
 been otherwise, and had there been any reason to appre- 
 hend an unsteady demeanour on the part of this Prince 
 at the approach of the critical moment, such were the 
 changes already effected in the state of their domestic 
 politics amongst the Tartars by the undermining arts of 
 Zebek-Dorchi and his ally the Lama, that very little im- 
 portance would have attached to that doubt. All power 
 was now effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. 
 He was the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck 
 sceptre : all measures of importance were submitted to 
 his discretion : and nothing was finally resolved but under 
 his dictation. This result he had brought about in a 
 year or two by means sufficiently simple ; first of all by 
 availing himself of the prejudice in his favour, so largely 
 diffused amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his 
 own title to the throne, in quality of great-grandson in a 
 direct line from Ajouka the most illustrious of all the 
 Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better basis than that of 
 Oubacha, who derived from a collateral branch : secondly, 
 with respect to that sole advantage which Oubacha pos-
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 75 
 
 sessed above himself in the ratification of his title, by 
 improving this difference between their situations to the 
 disadvantage of his competitor, as one who had not 
 scrupled to accept that triumph from an alien power at 
 the price of his independence, which he himself (as he 
 would have it understood) disdained to court : thirdly, 
 by his own talents and address, coupled with the ferocious 
 energy of his moral character : fourthly — and perhaps in 
 an equal degree, — by the criminal facility and good-nature 
 of Oubacha : finally (which is remarkable enough, as 
 illustrating the character of the man), by that very new 
 modelling of the Sarga or Privy Council which he had 
 used as a principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation 
 against the Russian Government, whilst in reality he first 
 had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and he chiefly 
 appropriated the political advantages which it was fitted 
 to yield. For, as he was himself appointed the chief of 
 the Sargatchi, and as the pensions to the inferior Sargatchi 
 passed through his hands, whilst in effect they owed their 
 appointments to his nomination — it may be easily supposed 
 that whatever power existed in the state capable of con- 
 trolling the Khan, being held by the Sarga under its new 
 organisation, and this body being completely under his 
 influence, the final result was to throw all the functions 
 of the state, whether nominally in the Prince or in the 
 Council, substantially into the hands of this one man : 
 whilst, at the same time, from the strict league which he 
 maintained with the Lama, all the thunders of the spiritual 
 power were always ready to come in aid of the magistrate, 
 or to supply his incapacity in cases which he could not 
 reach. 
 
 But the time was now rapidly approaching for the mighty 
 experiment. The day was drawing near on which the
 
 ^6 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 signal was to be given for raising the standard of revolt, 
 and by a combined movement on both sides of the Wolga 
 for spreading the smoke of one vast conflagration, that 
 should wrap in a common blaze their own huts and the 
 stately cities of their enemies, over the breadth and length 
 of those great provinces in which their flocks were dis- 
 persed. The year of the tiger was now within one little 
 month of its commencement ; the fifth morning of that 
 year was fixed for the fatal day when the fortunes and 
 happiness of a whole nation were to be put upon the 
 hazard of a dicer's throw ; and as yet that nation was 
 in profound ignorance of the whole plan. The Khan, 
 such was the kindness of his nature, could not bring 
 himself to make the revelation so urgently required. 
 It was clear, however, that this could not be delayed; 
 and Zebek-Dorchi took the task willingly upon him- 
 self. But where or how should this notification be 
 made, so as to exclude Russian hearers? After some 
 deliberation, the following plan was adopted : — Couriers, 
 it was conLived, should arrive in furious haste, one 
 upon the heels of another, reporting a sudden inroad of 
 the Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the Kalmuck lands, at a 
 point distant about 120 miles. Thither all the Kalmuck 
 families, according to immemorial custom, were required 
 to send a separate representative; and there accordingly, 
 within three days, all appeared. The distance, the solitary 
 ground appointed for the rendezvous, the rapidity of 
 the march, all tended to make it almost certain that 
 no Russian could be present. Zebek-Dorchi then came 
 forward. He did not waste many words upon rhetoric. 
 He unfurled an immense sheet of parchment, visible from 
 the uttermost distance at which any of this vast crowd 
 could stand; the total number amounted to 80,000; all
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 77 
 
 saw, and many heard. They were told of the oppressions of 
 Russia; of her pride and haughty disdain evidenced to- 
 wards them by a thousand acts ; of her contempt for their 
 religion ; of her determination to reduce them to absolute 
 slavery ; of the preliminary measures she had already taken 
 by erecting forts upon many of the great rivers in their 
 neighbourhood ; of the ulterior intentions she thus an- 
 nounced to circumscribe their pastoral lands, until they 
 would all be obliged to renounce their flocks, and to collect 
 in towns like Sarepta, there to pursue mechanical and 
 servile trades of shoemaker, tailor, and weaver, such as the 
 freeborn Tartar had always disdained. " Then again," said 
 the subtle prince, "she increases her military levies upon 
 our population every year ; we pour out our blood as young 
 men in her defence, or more often in support of her insolent 
 aggressions ; and as old men, we reap nothing from our 
 sufferings, nor benefit by our survivorship where so many 
 are sacrificed." At this point of his harangue, Zebek pro- 
 duced several papers (forged, as it is generally believed, by 
 himself and the Lama), containing projects of the Russian 
 court for a general transfer of the eldest sons, taken en 
 masse from the greatest Kalmuck families, to the Imperial 
 court. "Now let this be once accomplished," he argued, 
 "and there is an end of all useful resistance from that day 
 forwards. Petitions we might make, or even remonstrances ; 
 as men of words we might play a bold part ; but for deeds, 
 for that sort of language by which our ancestors were used 
 to speak — holding us by such a chain, Russia would make 
 a jest of our wishes, knowing full well that we should not 
 dare to make any effectual movement," 
 
 Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions of his 
 vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this pre- 
 tended scheme against their first-born (an artifice which was
 
 78 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 indispensable to his purpose, because it met beforehand 
 every form of amendment to his proposal coming from the 
 more moderate nobles, who would not otherwise have failed 
 to insist upon trying the effect of bold addresses to the 
 Empress, before resorting to any desperate extremity), 
 Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme of revolt, and, if so, of 
 instant revolt ; since any preparations reported at St Peters- 
 burg would be a signal for the armies of Russia to cross into 
 such positions from all parts of Asia as would effectually 
 intercept their march. It is remarkable, however, that, with 
 all his audacity and his reliance upon the momentary ex- 
 citement of the Kalmucks, the subtle prince did not venture, 
 at this stage of his seduction, to make so startling a proposal 
 as that of a flight to China. All that he held out for the 
 present was a rapid march to the Temba or some other 
 great river, which they were to cross, and to take up a 
 strong position on the further bank, from which, as from 
 a post of conscious security, they could hold a bolder lan- 
 guage to the Czarina, and one which would have a better 
 chance of winning a favourable audience. 
 
 These things, in the irritated condition of the simple 
 Tartars, passed by acclamation; and all returned home- 
 wards to push forward with the most furious speed the pre- 
 parations for their awful undertaking. Rapid and energetic 
 these of necessity were ; and in that degree they became 
 noticeable and manifest to the Russians who happened to 
 be intermingled with the different hordes either on com- 
 mercial errands, or as agents officially from the Russian 
 Government, some in a financial, others in a diplomatic 
 character. 
 
 Amongst these last (indeed at the head of them) was a 
 Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi, a man 
 memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as one of the
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 79 
 
 many victims to the Tartar revolution. This Kichinskoi had 
 been sent by the Empress as her envoy to overlook the con- 
 duct of the Kalmucks ; he was styled the Grand Pristaw, 
 or Great Commissioner, and was universally known amongst 
 the Tartar tribes by this title. His mixed character of 
 ambassador and of political sia-veillatit, combined with the 
 dependent state of the Kalmucks, gave him a real weight 
 in the Tartar councils, and might have given him a far 
 greater, had not his outrageous self-conceit, and his arro- 
 gant confidence in his own authority as due chiefly to his 
 personal qualities for command, led him into such harsh 
 displays of power, and menaces so odious to the Tartar 
 pride, as very soon made him an object of their profoundest 
 malice. He had pubHcly insulted the Khan ; and upon 
 making a communication to him to the effect that some 
 reports began to circulate, and even to reach the Empress, 
 of a design in agitation to fly from the Imperial dominions, 
 he had ventured to say, " But this you dare not attempt ; I 
 laugh at such rumours ; yes. Khan, I laugh at them to the 
 Empress ; for you are a chained bear, and that you know." 
 The Khan turned away on his heel vv'ith marked disdain ; 
 and the Pristaw, foaming at the mouth, continued to utter, 
 amongst those of the Khan's attendants who staid behind, 
 to catch his real sentiments in a moment of unguarded 
 passion, all that the blindest frenzy of rage could suggest to 
 the most presumptuous of fools. It was now ascertained 
 that suspicions had arisen; but at the same time it was 
 ascertained that the Pristaw spoke no more than the truth 
 in representing himself to have discredited these suspicions. 
 The fact was, that the mere infatuation of vanity made him 
 believe that nothing could go on undetected by his all- 
 piercing sagacity, and that no rebellion could prosper when 
 rebuked by his commanding presence. The Tartars, there-
 
 8o DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 fore, pursued their preparations, confiding in the obstinate 
 bUndness of the Grand Pristaw as in their perfect safe- 
 guard ; and such it proved — to his own ruin as well as that 
 of myriads beside. 
 
 Christmas arrived ; and, a little before that time, couriei 
 upon courier came dropping in, one upon the very heels ot 
 another, to St Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that beyond 
 all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis of departure. 
 These despatches came from the Governor of Astrachan, 
 and copies were instantly forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, 
 it happened, that between this governor — a Russian named 
 Beketoff — and the Pristaw had been an ancient feud. The 
 very name of Beketoff inflamed his resentment ; and no 
 sooner did he see that hated name attached to the despatch 
 than he felt himself confirmed in his former views with 
 tenfold bigotry, and wrote instantly, in terms of the most 
 pointed ridicule, against the new alarmist, pledging his own 
 head upon the visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, how- 
 ever, was not to be put down by a few hard words, or 
 by ridicule : he persisted in his statements : the Russian 
 Ministry were confounded by the obstinacy of the disput- 
 ants ; and some were beginning even to treat the Governor 
 of Astrachan as a bore, and as the dupe of his own ner- 
 vous terrors, when the memorable day arrived, the fatal 5th 
 of January, which for ever terminated the dispute, and put 
 a seal upon the earthly hopes and fortunes of unnumbered 
 myriads. The Governor of Astrachan was the first to 
 hear the news. Stung by the mixed furies of jealousy, of 
 triumphant vengeance, and of anxious ambition, he sprang 
 into his sledge, and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued 
 his route to St Petersburg, — rushed into the Imperial pre- 
 sence, — announced the total realisation of his worst predic- 
 tions, — and upon the confirmation of this intelligence by
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 81 
 
 subsequent despatches from many different posts on the 
 Wolga, he received an imperial commission to seize the 
 person of his deluded enemy, and to keep him in strict 
 captivity. These orders were eagerly fulfilled, and the 
 unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards expired of grief and 
 mortification in the gloomy solitude of a dungeon — a victim 
 to his own immeasurable vanity, and the blinding self- 
 delusions of a presumption that refused all warning. 
 
 The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful a 
 prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the suddenness 
 with which the verification followed his reports. Precisely 
 on the 5th of January, the day so solemnly appointed under 
 religious sanctions by the Lama, the Kalmucks on the east 
 bank of the Wolga were seen at the earliest dawn of day 
 assembling by troops and squadrons, and in the tumultuous 
 movement of some great morning of battle. Tens of 
 thousands continued moving off the ground at every 
 half-hour's interval. Women and children, to the amount 
 of two hundred thousand and upwards, were placed upon 
 waggons, or upon camels, and drew off by masses of twenty 
 thousand at once — placed under suitable escorts, and con- 
 tinually swelled in numbers by other outlying bodies of the 
 horde who kept falling in at various distances upon the 
 first and second day's march. From sixty to eighty 
 thousand of those who were the best mounted staid 
 behind the rest of the tribes, with purposes of devastation 
 and plunder more violent than prudence justified, or the 
 amiable character of the Khan could be supposed to ap- 
 prove. But in this, as in other instances, he was com- 
 pletely overruled by the malignant counsels of Zebek- 
 Dorchi. The first tempest of the desolating fury of the 
 Tartars discharged itself upon their own habitations. But 
 this, as cutting off all infirm looking backward from the 
 
 p
 
 82 DE Q UINCE TS ESSA YS. 
 
 hardships of their march, had been thought so necessary 
 a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself 
 was the first to authorise the act by his own example. He 
 seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most 
 durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to 
 the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from 
 the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic 
 utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could be 
 applied to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. 
 This chapter in their memorable day's work being finished, 
 and the whole of their villages throughout a district of ten 
 thousand square miles in one simultaneous blaze, the Tar- 
 tars waited for further orders. 
 
 These, it was intended, should have taken a character of 
 valedictory vengeance, and thus have left behind to the 
 Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main motives of 
 their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorchi that all 
 the Russian towns, churches, and buildings of every descrip- 
 tion should be given up to pillage and destruction, and 
 such treatment applied to the defenceless inhabitants as 
 might naturally be expected from a fierce people already 
 infuriated by the spectacle of their own outrages, and by 
 the bloody retaliations which they must necessarily have 
 provoked. This part of the tragedy, however, was happily 
 intercepted by a providential disappointment at the very 
 crisis of departure. It has been mentioned already that 
 the motive for selecting the depth of winter as the season 
 of flight (which otherwise was obviously the very worst 
 possible) had been the impossibility of effecting a junction 
 sufiiciently rapid with the tribes on the west of the Wolga, 
 in the absence of bridges, unless by a natural bridge of ice. 
 For this one advantage the Kalmuck leaders had consented 
 to aggravate by a thousandfold the calamities inevitable to
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 83 
 
 a rapid flight over boundless tracts of country with women, 
 children, and herds of cattle — for this one single advantage ; 
 and yet, after all, it was lost. The reason never has been 
 explained satisfactorily, but the fact was such. Some have 
 said that the signals were not properly concerted for marking 
 the moment of absolute departure; that is, for signifying 
 whether the settled intention of the Eastern Kalmucks 
 might not have been suddenly interrupted by adverse in- 
 telligence. Others have supposed that the ice might not 
 be equally strong on both sides of the river, and might 
 even be generally insecure for the treading of heavy and 
 heavily-laden animals such as camels. But the prevailing 
 notion is, that some accidental movements on the 3rd 
 and 4th of January of Russian troops in the neighbourhood 
 of the Western Kalmucks, though really having no refer- 
 ence to them or their plans, had been construed into 
 certain signs that all was discovered ; and that the prudence 
 of the Western chieftains, who, from situation, had never 
 been exposed to those intrigues by which Zebek-Dorchi 
 had practised upon the pride of the Eastern tribes, now 
 stepped in to save their people from ruin. Be the cause 
 ■what it might, it is certain that the Western Kalmucks were 
 in some way prevented from forming the intended junction 
 with their brethren of the opposite bank ; and the result 
 •was, that at least one hundred thousand of these Tartars 
 •were left behind in Russia. This accident it was which 
 ^aved their Russian neighbours universally from the desola- 
 tion which else awaited them. One general massacre and 
 ■conflagration would assuredly have surprised them, to the 
 Titter extermination of their property, their houses, and 
 themselves, had it not been for this disappointment. But 
 the Eastern chieftains did not dare to put to hazard the 
 •safety ot their brethren under the first impulse of the
 
 84 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 Czarina's vengeance for so dreadful a tragedy ; for as they 
 were well aware of too many circumstances by which she 
 might discover the concurrence of the Western people in 
 the general scheme of revolt, they justly feared that she 
 would thence infer their concurrence also in the bloody 
 events which marked its outset. 
 
 Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what reasons 
 they also had for gratitude on account of an interposition 
 so unexpected, and which at the moment they so generally 
 deplored. Could they but have witnessed the thousandth 
 part of the sufferings which overtook their Eastern brethren 
 in the first month of their sad flight, they would have 
 blessed Heaven for their own narrow escape ; and yet 
 these sufferings of the first month were but a prelude 
 or foretaste comparatively slight of those which afterwards 
 succeeded. 
 
 For now began to unroll the most awful series of calam- 
 ities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere recorded 
 to have visited the sons and daughters of men. It is 
 possible that the sudden inroads of destroying nations, such 
 as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol Tartars, may 
 have inflicted misery as extensive ; but there the misery 
 and the desolation would be sudden — like the flight of 
 volleying lightning. Those who were spared at first would 
 generally be spared to the end ; those who perished would 
 perish instantly. It is possible that the French retreat 
 from Moscow may have made some nearer approach to 
 this calamity in duration, though still a feeble and miniature 
 approach ; for the French sufferings did not commence in 
 good earnest until about one month from the time of 
 leaving Moscow; and though it is true that afterwards 
 the vials of wrath were emptied upon the devoted army 
 for six or seven weeks in succession, yet what is that to
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 85 
 
 this Kalmuck tragedy, which lasted for more than as many 
 months? But the main feature of horror, by which the 
 Tartar march was distinguished from the French, lies in the 
 accompaniment of women* and children. There were 
 both, it is true, with the French army, but so few as to 
 bear no visible proportion to the total numbers, concerned. 
 The French, in short, were merely an army — a host of 
 professional destroyers, whose regular trade was blood- 
 shed, and whose regular element was danger and suffering. 
 But the Tartars were a nation carrying along with them 
 more than two hundred and fifty thousand women and 
 children, utterly unequal, for the most part, to any contest 
 with the calamities before them. The Children of Israel 
 were in the same circumstances as to the accompaniment 
 of their families ; but they were released from the pursuit 
 of their enemies in a very early stage of their flight; and 
 their subsequent residence in the Desert was not a march, 
 but a continued halt, and under a continued interposition 
 of Heaven for their comfortable support. Earthquakes, 
 again, however comprehensive in their ravages, are shocks 
 of a moment's duration. A much nearer approach made to 
 the wide range and the long duration of the Kalmuck 
 tragedy may have been in a pestilence such as that which 
 visited Athens in the Peloponnesian war, or London in the 
 reign of Charles II. There also the martyrs were counted 
 by myriads, and the period of the desolation was counted 
 by months. But, after all, the total amount of destruction 
 
 * Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women accom- 
 panied the Anabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat 
 of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were "many" 
 women in the Greek army — TroXXai jjaav iralpai iv tQ apareiiixaTi ; and 
 in a late stage of that trying expedition it is evident that women were 
 amongst the survivors.
 
 86 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 was on a smaller scale ; and there was this feature of allevia- 
 tion to the conscious pressure of the calamity — that the 
 misery was withdrawn from public notice into private 
 chambers and hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by Ves- 
 pasian and his son, taken in its entire circumstances, comes 
 nearest of all — for breadth and depth of suffering, for dura- 
 tion, for the exasperation of the suffering from without by 
 internal feuds, and^ finally, for that last most appalling 
 expression of the furnace-heat of the anguish in its power 
 to extinguish the natural affections even of maternal love. 
 But, after all, each case had circumstances of romantic 
 misery peculiar to itself — circumstances without precedent, 
 and (wherever human nature is ennobled by Christianity) it 
 may be confidently hoped — never to be repeated. 
 
 The first point to be reached, before any hope of repose 
 could be encouraged, was the river Jaik. This was not 
 above 300 miles from the main point of departure on the 
 Wolga ; and if the march thither was to be a forced one, 
 and a severe one, it was alleged on the other hand that 
 the suffering would be the more brief and transient; one 
 summary exertion, not to be repeated, and all was achieved. 
 Forced the march was, and severe beyond example : there 
 the forewarning proved correct ; but the promised rest 
 proved a mere phantom of the wilderness — a visionary rain- 
 bow, which fled before their hope-sick eyes, across these 
 interminable solitudes, for seven months of hardship and 
 calamity, without a pause. These sufferings, by their very 
 nature, and the circumstances under which they arose, were 
 (like the scenery of the Steppes) somewhat monotonous in 
 their colouring and external features : what variety, how- 
 ever, there was, will be most naturally exhibited by tracing 
 historically the successive stages of the general misery, 
 exactly as it unfolded itself under the double agency of
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 87 
 
 weakness still increasing from within, and hostile pressure 
 from without. Viewed in this manner, under the real order 
 of development, it is remarkable that these sufferings of the 
 Tartars, though under the moulding hands of accident, 
 arrange themselves almost with a scenical propriety. They 
 seem combined, as with the skill of an artist ; the intensity 
 of the misery advancing regularly with the advances of the 
 march, and the stages of the calamity corresponding to the 
 stages of the route ; so that, upon raising the curtain which 
 veils the great catastrophe, we behold one vast climax of 
 anguish, towering upwards by regular gradations, as if con- 
 structed artificially for picturesque effect : — a result which 
 might not have been surprising had it been reasonable to 
 anticipate the same rate of speed, and even an accelerated 
 rate, as prevailing through the later stages of the expedition. 
 But it seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to calculate 
 upon a continual decrement in the rate of motion accord- 
 ing to the increasing distance from the headquarters of the 
 pursuing enemy. This calculation, however, was defeated 
 by the extraordinary circumstance, that the Russian armies 
 did not begin to close in very fiercely upon the Kalmucks 
 until after they had accomplished a distance of full 2000 
 miles : 1000 miles further on the assaults became even more 
 tumultuous and murderous : and already the great shadows 
 of the Chinese Wall were dimly descried, when the frenzy 
 and acharnejiient of the pursuers, and the bloody desperation 
 of the miserable fugitives had reached its uttermost ex- 
 tremity. Let us briefly rehearse the main stages of the 
 misery, and trace the ascending steps of the tragedy, 
 according to the great divisions of the route marked out by 
 the central rivers of Asia. 
 
 The first stage, we have already said, was from the Wolga 
 to the Jaik ; the distance about 300 miles ; the time allowed
 
 88 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 seven days. For the first week, therefore, the rate ot 
 marching averaged about 43 Enghsh miles a-day. The 
 weather was cold, but bracing ; and, at a more moderate 
 pace, this part of the journey might have been accomplished 
 without much distress by a people as hardy as the- Kalmucks : 
 as it was, the cattle suffered greatly from overdriving : milk 
 began to fail even for the children : the sheep perished by 
 wholesale : and the children themselves were saved only by 
 the innumerable camels. 
 
 The Cossacks, who dwelt upon the banks of the Jaik, 
 were the first among the subjects of Russia to come into 
 collision with the Kalmucks. Great was their surprise at 
 the suddenness of the irruption, and great also their con- 
 sternation : for, according to their settled custom, by far the 
 greater part of their number was absent during the winter 
 months at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some, who were 
 liable to surprise at the most exposed points, fled in crowds 
 to the fortress of Koulagina, which was immediately in- 
 vested, and summoned by Oubacha. He had, however, in 
 his train only a few light pieces of artillery; and the 
 Russian commandant at Koulagina, being aware of the 
 hurried circumstances in which the Khan was placed, and 
 that he stood upon the very edge, as it were, of a renewed 
 flight, felt encouraged by these considerations to a more 
 obstinate resistance than might else have been advisable, 
 with an enemy so little disposed to observe the usages of 
 civilised warfare. The period of his anxiety was not long : 
 on the fifth day of the siege, he descried from the walls a 
 succession of Tartar couriers, mounted upon fleet Bac- 
 trian camels, crossing the vast plains around the fortress at 
 a furious pace, and riding into the Kalmuck encampment at 
 various points. Great agitation appeared immediately to 
 follow : orders were soon after despatched in all directions :
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 89 
 
 and it became speedily known that upon a distant flank of 
 the Kahiiuck movement a bloody and exterminating battle 
 had been fought the day before, in which one entire tribe 
 of the Khan's dependents, numbering not less than 9000 
 fighting men, had perished to the last man. This was 
 the ouloss, or clan, called Feka-Zechorr , between whom 
 and the Cossacks there was a feud of ancient standing. 
 In selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on occasion 
 of the present hasty inroad, the Cossack chiefs were 
 naturally eager so to direct their efforts as to combine 
 with the service of the Empress some gratification to their 
 own party hatreds : more especially as the present was 
 likely to be their final opportunity for revenge if the 
 Kalmuck evasion should prosper. Having, therefore, con- 
 centrated as large a body of Cossack cavalry as circum- 
 stances allowed, they attacked the hostile ouloss with a 
 precipitation which denied to it all means for communi- 
 cating with Oubacha ; for the necessity of commanding 
 an ample range of pasturage, to meet the necessities of 
 their vast flocks and herds, had separated this ouloss from 
 the Khan's headquarters by an interval of 80 miles : and 
 thus it was, and not from oversight, that it came to be 
 thrown entirely upon its own resources. These had proved 
 insufficient : retreat, from the exhausted state of their horses 
 and camels, no less than from the prodigious encumbrances 
 of their live stock, was absolutely out of the question : 
 quarter was disdained on the one side, and would not have 
 been granted on the other : and thus it had happened that 
 the setting sun of that one day (the 13th from the first 
 opening of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the 
 final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon a bloody 
 field, who on that day's dawning had held and styled 
 themselves an independent nation.
 
 90 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS, 
 
 Universal consternation was diffused through the wide 
 borders of the Khan's encampment by this disastrous 
 intelligence ; not so much on account of the numbers slain, 
 or the total extinction of a powerful ally, as because the 
 position of the Cossack force was likely to put to hazard 
 the future advances of the Kalmucks, or at least to retard, 
 and hold them in check, until the heavier columns of the 
 Russian army should arrive upon their flanks. The siege 
 of Koulagina was instantly raised ; and that signal, so fatal 
 to the happiness of the women and their children, once 
 again resounded through the tents — the signal for flight, 
 and this time for a flight more rapid than ever. About 150 
 miles ahead of their present position, there arose a tract of 
 hilly country, forming a sort of margin to the vast sea-like 
 expanse of champaign savannahs, steppes, and occasionally 
 of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this 
 margin both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 
 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which 
 passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the 
 river Torgai (the further bank of which river offered the next 
 great station of security for a general halt). It was the 
 more essential to gain this pass before the Cossacks, inas- 
 much as not only would the delay in forcing the pass give 
 time to the Russian pursuing columns for combining their 
 attacks and for bringing up their artillery, but also because 
 (even if all enemies in pursuit were thrown out of the 
 question) it was held by those best acquainted with the 
 difficult and obscure geography of these pathless steppes — 
 that the loss of this one narrow strait amongst the hills would 
 have the effect of throwing them (as their only alternative 
 in a case where so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) 
 upon a circuit of at least 500 miles extra; besides that, 
 after all, this circuitous route would carry them to the Torgai
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 91 
 
 at a point ill fitted for the passage of their heavy baggage. 
 The defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain : 
 and yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of 
 light cavalry, there was little chance but it would be found 
 pre-occupied by the Cossacks. They, it is true, had 
 suffered greatly in the recent sanguinary action with their 
 enemies : but the excitement of victory, and the intense 
 sympathy with their unexampled triumph, had again swelled 
 their ranks — and would probably act with the force of a 
 vortex to draw in their simple countrymen from the 
 Caspian. The question, therefore, of pre-occupation was 
 reduced to a race. The Cossacks were marching upon 
 an oblique line not above 50 miles longer than that 
 which led to the same point from the Kalmuck head- 
 quarters before Koulagina : and therefore without the 
 most furious haste on the part of the Kalmucks, there 
 was not a chance for them, burdened and " trashed " * 
 as they were, to anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the 
 Cossacks in seizing this important pass. 
 
 Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on hearing 
 this exposition of the case. For they easily understood 
 that too capital an interest (the summa reruni) was now at 
 stake to allow of any regard to minor interests, or what 
 would be considered such in their present circumstances. 
 The dreadful week already passed, — their inauguration in 
 misery, — was yet fresh in their remembrance. The scars of 
 suffering were impressed not only upon their memories, but 
 upon their very persons and the persons of their children. 
 And they knew that where no speed had much chance of 
 
 * ''''Trashed:" — This is an expressive word used by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher in their Bonduca, &c. , to describe the case of a person re- 
 tarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, 
 whether thing or person, too valuable to be left behind.
 
 92 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no test would be 
 accepted, short of absolute exhaustion, that as much had 
 been accomplished as could be accomplished. Weseloff, 
 the Russian captive, has recorded the silent wretchedness 
 with which the women and elder boys assisted in drawing 
 the tent-ropes. On the 5th of January all had been anima- 
 tion, and the joyousness of indefinite expectation : now, on 
 the contrary, a brief but bitter experience had taught them 
 to take an amended calculation of what it was that lay 
 before them. 
 
 One whole day and far into the succeeding night had the 
 renewed flight continued : the sufferings had been greater 
 than before : for the cold had been more intense : and 
 many perished out of the living creatures through every 
 class, except only the camels — whose powers of endurance 
 seemed equally adapted to cold and to heat. The second 
 morning, however, brought an alleviation to the distress. 
 Snow had begun to fall : and though not deep at present, 
 it was easily foreseen that it soon would be so ; and that, 
 as a halt would in that case become unavoidable, no plan 
 could be better than that of staying where they were : 
 especially as the same cause would check the advance of 
 the Cossacks. Here then was the last interval of comfort 
 which gleamed upon the unhappy nation during their whole 
 migration. For ten days the snow continued to fall with 
 little intermission. At the end of that time keen bright 
 frosty weather succeeded : the drifting had ceased : in three 
 days the smooth expanse became firm enough to support the 
 treading of the camels : and the flight was recommenced. 
 But during the halt much domestic comfort had been 
 enjoyed ; and for the last time universal plenty. The 
 cows and oxen had perished in such vast numbers on 
 the previous marches, that an order was now issued to
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 93 
 
 turn what remained to account by slaughtering the whole, 
 and salting whatever part should be found to exceed the 
 immediate consumption. This measure lead to a scene of 
 general banqueting and even of festivity amongst all who 
 were not incapacitated for joyous emotions by distress of 
 mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the last few 
 days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. Seventy 
 thousand persons of all ages had already perished; ex- 
 clusively of the many thousand allies who had been cut 
 down by the Cossack sabre. And the losses in reversion 
 were likely to be many more. For rumours began now to 
 arrive from all quarters, by the mounted couriers whom the 
 Khan had despatched to the rear and to each flank as well 
 as in advance, that large masses of the Imperial troops were 
 converging from all parts of Central Asia to the fords of the 
 river Torgai as the most convenient point for intercepting 
 the flying tribes : and it was already well known that a 
 powerful division was close in their rear, and was retarded 
 only by the numerous artillery which had been judged 
 necessary to support their operations. New motives were 
 thus daily arising for quickening the motions of the 
 wretched Kalmucks, and for exhausting those who were 
 previously but too much exhausted. 
 
 It was not until the 2nd day of February that the Khan's 
 advanced guard came in sight of Ouchim, the defile among 
 the hills of Mougaldchares, in which they anticipated so 
 bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. A pretty large 
 body of these light cavalry had, in fact, pre-occupied the 
 pass by some hours ; but the Khan having two great 
 advantages, namely, a strong body of infantry, who had 
 been conveyed by sections of five on about 200 camels, 
 and some pieces of light artillery which he had not yet 
 been forced to abandon, soon began to make a serious
 
 94 DJ^ Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 impression upon this unsupported detachment ; and they 
 would probably at any rate have retired ; but at the very 
 moment when they were making some dispositions in that 
 view, Zebek-Dorchi appeared upon their rear with a body of 
 trained riflemen, who had distinguished themselves in the 
 war with Turkey. These men had contrived to crawl un- 
 observed over the cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing 
 themselves of the dry beds of the summer torrents, and 
 other inequalities of the ground, to conceal their move- 
 ment. Disorder and trepidation ensued instantly in the 
 Cossack files ; the Khan, who had been waiting with the 
 elite of his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon them ; 
 total overthrow followed to the Cossacks, and a slaughter 
 such as in some measure avenged the recent bloody 
 extermination of their allies, the ancient ouloss of Feka- 
 Zechorr. The slight horses of the Cossacks were unable 
 to support the weight of heavy Polish dragoons and a 
 body of trained cameleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted on 
 camels) ; hardy they were, but not strong, nor a match for 
 their antagonists in weight ; and their extraordinary efforts 
 through the last few days to gain their present position, 
 had greatly diminished their powers for effecting an escape. 
 Very few, in fact, did escape; and the bloody day at Ouchim 
 became as memorable amongst the Cossacks as that which, 
 about twenty days before, had signalised the complete- 
 annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr.* 
 
 The road was now open to the river Irgitch, and as yet 
 even far beyond it to the Torgau ; but how long this state 
 
 * There was another otdoss equally strong with that ol" Feka-Zechorr, 
 viz., that of Eiketunn, under the government of Assarcho and Maclii, 
 whom some obligations of treat)- or other hidden motives drew into- 
 the general conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains 
 found means to assure the Governor of Astrachan, on the first outbreak 
 of the insurrection, that their real wishes were for maintaining the old
 
 REVOLT OjF the TARTARS. 95 
 
 of things would continue, was every day more doubtful. 
 Certain intelligence was now received that a large Russian 
 army, well appointed in every arm, was advancing upon the 
 Torgau, under the command of General Traubenberg. This 
 officer was to be joined on his route by ten thousand Bash- 
 kirs, and pretty nearly the same amount of Kirghises — both 
 hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks — both exasperated to a 
 point of madness by the bloody trophies which Oubacha 
 and Momotbacha had, in late years, won from such of their 
 compatriots as served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke 
 these wild nations bore with submissive patience, but not 
 the hands by which it had been imposed ; and, accordingly, 
 catching with eagerness at the present occasion offered to 
 their vengeance, they sent an assurance to the Czarina of 
 their perfect obedience to her commands, and at the same 
 time a message significantly declaring in what spirit they 
 meant to execute them, viz., "that they would not trouble 
 her Majesty with prisoners." 
 
 Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a race for 
 the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, and con- 
 currently with nations as fierce and semi-humanised as 
 themselves, besides that they were stung into threefold 
 activity by the furies of mortified pride and military 
 abasement, under the eyes of the Turkish Sultan. The 
 forces, and more especially the artillery, of Russia, were 
 far too overwhelming to permit the thought of a regular 
 opposition in pitched batdes, even with a less dilapidated 
 
 connection with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore, to whom the pursuit 
 was intrusted, had instructions to act cautiously and according to cir- 
 cumstances on coming up with them. The result was, through the 
 prudent management of Assarcho, that the clan, without compromising 
 their pride or independence, made such moderate submissions as satis- 
 fied the Cossacks ; and eventually both chiefs and people received from 
 the Czarina the rewards and honours oi' exemplary fidelity.
 
 96 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 state of their resources than they could reasonably expect 
 at the period of their arrival on the Torgau. In their speed 
 lay their only hope — in strength of foot, as before, and not 
 in strength of arm. Onward, therefore, the Kalmucks 
 pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extending march 
 over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending 
 chain of corpses. The old and the young, the sick man 
 on his couch, the mother with her baby — all were left 
 behind. Sights such as these, with the many rueful 
 aggravations incident to the helpless condition of infancy — 
 of disease and of female weakness abandoned to the wolves 
 amidst a howling wilderness, continued to track their course 
 through a space of full two thousand miles ; for so much, 
 at the least, it was likely to prove, including the circuits to 
 which they were often compelled by rivers or hostile tribes, 
 from the point of starting on the Wolga, until they could 
 reach their destined halting ground on the east bank of 
 the Torgau. For the first seven weeks of this march their 
 sufferings had been embittered by the excessive severity of 
 the cold ; and every night — so long as wood was to be had 
 for fires, either from the lading of the camels, or from the 
 desperate sacrifice of their baggage-waggons, or (as occasion- 
 ally happened) from the forests which skirted the banks of 
 the many rivers which crossed their path — no spectacle was 
 more frequent than that of a circle, composed of men, 
 women, and children, gathered by hundreds round a 
 central fire, all dead and stiff at the return of morning 
 light. Myriads were left behind from pure exhaustion, 
 of whom none had a chance, under the combined evils 
 which beset them, of surviving through the next twenty- 
 four hours. Frost, however, and snow at length ceased 
 to persecute ; the vast extent of the march at length 
 brought them into more genial latitudes, and the unusual
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 97 
 
 duration of the march was gradually bringing them ii:to 
 more genial seasons of the year. Two thousand miles 
 had at last been traversed ; February, March, April, were 
 gone ; the balmy month of May had opened ; vernal 
 sights and sounds came from every side to comfort the 
 heart-weary travellers ; and at last, in the latter end of 
 May, they crossed the Torgau, and took up a position 
 where they hoped to find liberty to repose themselves for 
 many weeks in comfort as well as in security, and to draw 
 such supplies from the fertile neighbourhood as might restore 
 their shattered forces to a condition for executing, with less 
 of wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the journey. 
 
 Yes ; it was true that two thousand miles of wandering 
 had been completed, but in a period of nearly five months, 
 and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hundred and 
 fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and flocks past 
 all reckoning. These had all perished : ox, cow, horse, 
 mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not one survived — only the 
 camels. These arid and adust creatures, looking like the 
 mummies of some antediluvian animals, without the 
 affections or sensibilities of flesh and blood — these only 
 still erected their speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, 
 and had to all appearance come out from this long 
 tempest of trial unscathed and unharmed. The Khan, 
 knowing how much he was individually answerable for 
 the misery which had been sustained, must have wept 
 tears even more bitter than those of Xerxes when he 
 threw his eyes over the myriads whom he had assembled: 
 for the tears of Xerxes were unmingled with compunction. 
 Whatever amends were in his power he resolved to make 
 by sacrifices to the general good of all personal regards ; 
 and accordingly, even at this point of their advance, he 
 once more deliberately brought under review the whole 
 
 o
 
 98 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 question of the revolt. The question was formally debated 
 before the Council, whether, even at this point, they should 
 untread their steps, and, throwing themselves upon, the 
 Czarina's mercy, return to their old allegiance? In that 
 case, Oubacha professed himself willing to become the 
 scapegoat for the general transgression. This, he argued, 
 was no fantastic scheme, but even easy of accompUshment ; 
 for the unhmited and sacred power of the Khan, so well 
 known to the Empress, made it absolutely iniquitous to 
 attribute any separate responsibiUty to the people — upon 
 the Khan rested the guilt, upon the Khan would descend 
 the Imperial vengeance. This proposal was applauded for 
 its generosity, but was energetically opposed by Zebek- 
 Dorchi. Were they to lose the whole journey of two 
 thousand miles? Was their misery to perish without 
 fruit? True it was that they had yet reached only the 
 half-way house; but, in that respect, the motives were 
 evenly balanced for retreat or for advance. Either way 
 they would have pretty nearly the same distance to tra- 
 verse, but with this difference — that, forwards, their route 
 lay through lands comparatively fertile — backwards, through 
 a blasted wilderness, rich only in memorials of their sorrow, 
 and hideous to Kalmuck eyes by the trophies of their ca- 
 lamity. Besides, though the Empress might accept an 
 excuse for the past, would she the less forbear to suspect 
 for the future? The Czarina's pardon they might obtain, 
 but could they ever hope to recover her confideficel Doubt- 
 less there would now be a standing presumption against 
 them, an immortal ground of jealousy; and a jealous 
 government would be but another name for a harsh one. 
 Finally, whatever motives there ever had been for the 
 revolt surely remained unimpaired by anything that had 
 occurred. In reality the revolt was, after all, no revolt,
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 99 
 
 but (strictly speaking) a return to their old allegiance, 
 since, not above one hundred and fifty years ago (viz. in 
 the year 1616), their ancestors had revolted from the 
 Emperor of China. They had now tried both govern- 
 ments; and for them China was the land of promise, 
 and Russia the house of bondage. 
 
 Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, the 
 yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of the Khan's 
 proposal; the pardon of their prince, they persuaded them- 
 selves, would be readily conceded by the Empress : and 
 there is little doubt that they would at this time have 
 thrown themselves gladly upon the Imperial mercy; when 
 suddenly all was defeated by the arrival of two envoys 
 from Traubenberg. This general had reached the fortress 
 of Orsk, after a very painful march, on the 12th of April ; 
 thence he set forwards towards Oriembourg, which he 
 reached upon the ist of June, having been joined on his 
 route at various times through the month of May by the 
 Kirghises and a corps of ten thousand Bashkirs. From 
 Oriembourg he sent forward his oflicial offers to the Khan, 
 which were harsh and peremptory, holding out no specific 
 stipulations as to pardon or impunity, and exacting un- 
 conditional submission as the preliminary price of any 
 cessation from military operations. The personal char- 
 acter of Traubenberg, which was anything but energetic, 
 and the condition of his army, disorganized in a great 
 measure by the length and severity of the march, made 
 it probable that, with a little time for negotiation, a more 
 conciliatory tone would have been assumed. But, un- 
 happily for all parties, sinister events occurred in the 
 meantime, such as effectually put an end to every hope 
 of the kind. 
 
 The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had
 
 loo DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 reported to this officer that a distance of only ten days' 
 march lay between his own head-quarters and those of 
 the Khan. Upon this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by 
 their prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated the 
 Russian general to advance without delay. Once having 
 placed his cannon in position, so as to command the 
 Kalmuck camp, the fate of the rebel Khan and his 
 people would be in his own hands : and they would 
 themselves form his advanced guard. Traubenberg, how- 
 ever, w/iy has not been certainly explained, refused to 
 march, grounding his refusal upon the condition of his 
 army, and their absolute need of refreshment. Long and 
 fierce was the altercation ; but at length, seeing no chance 
 of prevailing, and dreading above all other events the 
 escape of their detested enemy, the ferocious Bashkirs 
 went off in a body by forced marches. In six days they 
 reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming their horses, 
 and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed for 
 many a league in search of food or provender for their 
 camels. The first day's action was one vast succession 
 of independent skirmishes, diffused over a field of thirty 
 to forty miles in extent; one party often breaking up 
 into three or four, and again (according to the accidents 
 of ground) three or four blending into one ; flight and 
 pursuit, rescue and total overthrow, going on simultane- 
 ously, under all varieties of form, in all quarters of the 
 plain. The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, by 
 the scattered state of the Kalmucks, to split up into 
 innumerable sections ; and thus, for some hours, it had 
 been impossible for the most practised eye to collect the 
 general tendency of the day's fortune. Both the Khan and 
 Zebek-Dorchi were at one moment made prisoners, and 
 more than once in imminent danger of being cut down;
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. loi 
 
 but at length Zebek succeeded in rallying a strong column 
 of infantry, which, with the support of the camel-corps on 
 each flank, compelled the Bashkirs to retreat. Clouds, 
 however, of these wild cavalry continued to arrive through 
 the next two days and nights, followed or accompanied by 
 the Kirghises. These being viewed as the advanced parties 
 of Traubenberg's army, the Kalmuck chieftains saw no hope 
 of safety but in flight ; and in this way it happened that a 
 retreat, which had so recently been brought to a pause, was 
 resumed at the very moment when the unhappy fugitives 
 were anticipating a deep repose without further molestation 
 the whole summer through. 
 
 It seemed as though every variety of wretchedness were 
 predestined to the Kalmucks ; and as if their sufterings were 
 incomplete unless they were rounded and matured by all 
 that the most dreadful agencies of summer's heat could 
 superadd to those of frost and winter. To this sequel of 
 their story we shall immediately revert, after first noticing a 
 little romantic episode which occurred at this point between 
 Oubacha and his unprincipled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 
 
 There was at the time of the Kalmuck flight from the 
 Wolga a Russian gentleman of some rank at the court of 
 the Khan, whom, for political reasons, it was thought 
 necessary to carry along with them as a captive. For 
 some weeks his confinement had been very strict, and in 
 one or two instances cruel. But, as the increasing distance 
 was continually diminishing the chances of escape, and 
 perhaps, also, as the misery of the guards gradually with- 
 drew their attention from all minor interests to their own 
 personal sufferings, the vigilance of the custody grew more 
 and more relaxed ; until at length, upon a petition to the 
 Khan, Mr Weseloff was formally restored to liberty ; and it 
 was understood that he might use his liberty in whatever
 
 I o 2 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 way he chose, even for returning to Russia, if that should 
 be his wish. Accordingly, he was making active prepara- 
 tions for his journey to St Petersburg, when it occurred to 
 Zebek-Dorchi that, not improbably, in some of the battles 
 which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might 
 happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which 
 case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands 
 for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own 
 severe affliction, the Russian was detained until the further 
 pleasure of the Khan. The Khan's name, indeed, was used 
 through the whole affair, but, as it seemed, with so little 
 concurrence on his part, that, when Weseloff in a private 
 audience humbly remonstrated upon the injustice done 
 him, and the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings by 
 setting him at liberty, and, as it were, tempting him into 
 dreams of home and restored happiness only for the purpose 
 of blighting them, the good-natured prince disclaimed all 
 participation in the affair, and went so far in proving his 
 sincerity as even to give him permission to effect his escape; 
 and, as a ready means of commencing it without raising 
 suspicion, the Khan mentioned to Mr Weseloff that he had 
 just then received a message from the Hetman of the 
 Bashkirs, soliciting a private interview on the banks of the 
 Torgau at a spot pointed out : that interview was arranged 
 for the coming night ; and Mr Weseloff might go in the 
 Khan's suite, which on either side was not to exceed three 
 persons. Weseloff was a prudent man, acquainted with the 
 world, and he read treachery in the very outline of this 
 scheme, as stated by the Khan — treachery against the 
 Khan's person. He mused a little, and then communicated 
 so much of his suspicions to the Khan as might put him on 
 his guard ; but, upon further consideration, he begged leave 
 to decline the honour of accompanying the Khan. The
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 103 
 
 fact was, that three Kahiiucks, who had strong motives for 
 returning to their countrymen on the west bank of the 
 Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to 
 join him in his escape. These men the Khan would pro- 
 bably find himself obliged to countenance in their project ; 
 so that it became a point of honour with Weseloff to 
 conceal their intentions, and therefore to accomplish the 
 evasion from the camp (of which the first steps only would 
 be hazardous), without risking the notice of the Khan. 
 
 The district in which they were now encamped abounded 
 through many hundred miles with wild horses of a docile 
 and beautiful breed. Each of the four fugitives had caught 
 from seven to ten of these spirited creatures in the course 
 of the last few days ; this raised no suspicion ; for the rest 
 of the Kalmucks had been making the same sort of pro- 
 vision aga,inst the coming toils of their remaining route to 
 China. These horses were secured by halters, and hidden 
 about dusk in the thickets which lined the margin of the 
 river. To these thickets, about ten at night, the four 
 fugitives repaired ; they took a circuitous path which drew 
 them as little as possible within danger of challenge from 
 any of the outposts or of the patrols which had been 
 established on the quarters where the Bashkirs lay ; and in 
 three quarters of an hour they reached the rendezvous. 
 The moon had now risen, the horses were unfastened, and 
 they were in the act of mounting, when suddenly the deep 
 silence of the woods was disturbed by a violent uproar, and 
 the clashing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he heard the 
 voice of the Khan shouting for assistance. He remembered 
 the communication m.ade by that prince in the morning ; 
 and requesting his companions to support him, he rode off 
 in the direction of the sound. A very short distance 
 brought him to an open glade within the wood, where he
 
 1 04 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 beheld four men contending with a party of at least nine or 
 ten. Two of the four were dismounted at the very instant 
 of Weseloff's arrival; one of these he recognised almost 
 certainly as the Khan, who was fighting hand to hand, but 
 at great disadvantage, with two of the adverse horsemen. 
 Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weselofif fired and 
 brought down one of the two. His companions discharged 
 their carbines at the same moment, and then all rushed 
 simultaneously into the little open area. The thundering 
 sound of about thirty horses all rushing at once into 
 a narrow space, gave the impression that a whole troop 
 of cavalry was coming down upon the assailants ; who 
 accordingly wheeled about and fled with one impulse. 
 Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, who, as he 
 expected, proved to be the Khan. The man whom Weseloff 
 had shot was lying dead ; and both were shocked, though 
 Weseloff at least was not surprised, on stooping down and 
 scrutinising his features, to recognise a well-known confid- 
 ential servant of Zebek-Dorchi. Nothing was said by 
 either party ; the Khan rode off escorted by Weseloff and 
 his companions, and for some time a dead silence prevailed. 
 The situation of Weseloff was delicate and critical ; to leave 
 the Khan at this point was probably to cancel their recent 
 services ; for he might be again crossed on his path, and 
 again attacked I'y the very party from whom he had just 
 been delivered. Yet, on the other hand, to return to the 
 camp was to endanger the chances of accomplishing the 
 escape. The Khan also was apparently revolving all this 
 in his mind, for at length he broke silence, and said — " I 
 comprehend your situation ; and under other circumstances 
 I might feel it my duty to detain your companions. But 
 it would ill become me to do so after the important service 
 you have just rendered me. Let us turn a little to the left
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 105 
 
 There, where you see the watch-fire, is an outpost. Attend 
 me so far. I am then safe. You may turn and pursue 
 your enterprise ; for the circumstances under which you 
 will appear, as my escort, are sufficient- to shield you from 
 all suspicion for the present. I regret having no better 
 means at my disposal for testifying my gratitude. But 
 tell me before we part. Was it accident only which led you 
 to my rescue ? Or had you acquired any knowledge of the 
 plot by which I was decoyed into this snare ? " Weseloff 
 answered very candidly that mere accident had brought him 
 to the spot at which he heard the uproar, but that having 
 heard it, and connecting it with the Khan's communication 
 of the morning, he had then designedly gone after the 
 sound in a way which he certainly should not have done 
 at so critical a moment, unless in the expectation of finding 
 the Khan assaulted by assassins. A few minutes after they 
 reached the outpost at which it became safe to leave the 
 Tartar chieftain; and immediately the four fugitives com- 
 menced a flight which is perhaps without a parallel in the 
 annals of travelling. Each of them led six or seven horses 
 besides the one he rode ; and by shifting from one to the 
 other (like the ancient Desultors of the Roman circus), so 
 as never to burden the same horse for more than half-an- 
 hour at a time, they continued to advance at the rate of 
 200 miles in the twenty-four hours for three days conse- 
 cutively. After that time, conceiving themselves beyond 
 pursuit, they proceeded less rapidly ; though still with a 
 velocity which staggered the belief of Weselofif's friends 
 in after years. He was, however, a man of high principle, 
 and always adhered firmly to the details of his printed 
 report. One of the circumstances there stated is, that 
 they continued to pursue the route by which the Kal- 
 mucks had fled, never for an instant finding any difiiculty
 
 io6 IJE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 in tracing it by the skeletons and other memorials of their 
 calamities. In particular, he mentions vast heaps of money 
 as part of the valuable property which it had been found 
 necessary to sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still 
 untouched in the deserts. From these Weseloff and his 
 companions took as much as they could conveniently 
 carry ; and this it was, with the price of their beautiful 
 horses, which they afterwards sold at one of the Russian 
 military settlements for about ;^i5 apiece, which event- 
 ually enabled them to pursue their journey in Russia. 
 This journey, as regarded Weseloff in particular, was 
 closed by a tragical catastrophe. He was at that time 
 young, and the only child of a doting mother. Her 
 affliction under the violent abduction of her son had 
 been excessive, and probably had undermined her consti- 
 tution. Still she had supported it. WeselofF, giving way 
 to the natural impulses of his filial affection, had imprud- 
 ently posted through Russia to his mother's house without 
 warning of his approach. He rushed precipitately into 
 her presence ; and she, who had stood the shocks of 
 sorrow, was found unequal to the shock of joy too sudden 
 and too acute. She died upon the spot. 
 
 We now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck flight. 
 These it would be useless to pursue circumstantially through 
 the whole two thousand miles of suffering which remained ; 
 for the character of that suffering was even more monotonous 
 than on the former half of the flight, but also more severe. 
 Its main elements were excessive heat, with the accom- 
 paniments of famine and thirst, but aggravated at every 
 step by the murderous attacks of their cruel enemies the 
 Bashkirs and the Kirghises. 
 
 These people, "more fell than anguish, hunger, or the 
 sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a swarm of
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 107 
 
 enraged hornets. And very often, whilst they were at- 
 tacking them in the rear, their advanced parties and 
 flanks were attacked with almost equal fury by the people 
 of the country which they were traversing ; and with good 
 reason, since the law of self-preservation had now obliged 
 the fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions, and to forage 
 wherever they passed. In this respect their condition 
 was a constant oscillation of wretchedness ; for some- 
 times, pressed by grinding famine, they took a circuit of 
 perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land 
 rich in the comforts of life; but in such a land they were 
 sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm was 
 raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages of 
 local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of all 
 the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. 
 Sometimes again, wearied out with this mode of suf- 
 fering, they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, 
 in order to strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. 
 But in such a land they were sure to meet absolute starva- 
 tion, Then again, whether with or without this plague 
 of starvation, whether with or without this plague of 
 hostility in front, whatever might be the " fierce varieties " 
 of their misery in this respect, no rest ever came to their 
 unhappy rear ; post equitem sedet atra cura ; it was a 
 torment like the undying worm of conscience. And, 
 upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether un- 
 precedented in the history of mankind. Private and 
 personal malignity is not unfrequently immortal ; but 
 rare indeed is it to find the same pertinacity of malice 
 in a nation. And what embittered the interest was, 
 that the malice was reciprocal. Thus far the parties 
 met upon equal terms ; but that equality only sharpened 
 the sense of their dire inequality as to other circumstances. 
 The Bashkirs were ready to fight "from morn to dewy eve."
 
 io8 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 The Kalmucks, on the contrary, were always obliged to 
 run ; was it from their enemies as creatures whom they 
 feared ? No ; but tozvards their friends — towards that 
 final haven of China — as what was hourly implored by 
 the prayers of their wives, and the tears of their children. 
 But though they fled unwillingly, too often they fled in 
 vain — being unwillingly recalled. There lay the torment. 
 Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them ; every day the 
 same unprofitable battle was renewed; as a matter of 
 course the Kalmucks recalled part of their advanced guard 
 to fight them ; every day the battle raged for hours, and 
 uniformly with the same result. For no sooner did the 
 Bashkirs find themselves too heavily pressed, and that the 
 Kalmuck march had been retarded by some hours, than 
 they retired into the boundless deserts, where all pursuit 
 was hopeless. But if the Kalmucks resolved to press 
 forward, regardless of their enemies, in that case their 
 attacks became so fierce and overwhelming, that the 
 general safety seemed likely to be brought into question ; 
 nor could any effectual remedy be applied to the case, 
 even for each separate day, except by a most embarr?ssing 
 halt, and by countermarches, that to men in their circum- 
 stances, were almost worse than death. It will not be 
 surprising, that the irritation of such a systematic per- 
 secution, superadded to a previous and hereditary hatred, 
 and accompanied by the stinging consciousness of utter 
 impotence as regarded all effectual vengeance, should 
 gradually have inflamed the Kalmuck animosity into the 
 wildest expression of downright madness and frenzy. In- 
 deed, long before the frontiers of China were approached, 
 the hostility of both sides had assumed the appearance 
 much more of a warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst 
 creatures acknowledging the restraints of reason or the
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 109 
 
 claims of a common nature. The spectacle became too 
 atrocious ; it was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a 
 host of fiends. 
 
 On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771, 
 Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his 
 amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the out- 
 side of the Great Wall. For many hundred square 
 leagues the country was desolate of inhabitants, but rich 
 in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with game of 
 every description. In a central spot of this solitary 
 region, the Emperor had built a gorgeous hunting-lodge, 
 to which he resorted annually for recreation and relief 
 from the cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit 
 of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 miles or 
 more from this lodge, followed at a little distance by a 
 sufficient military escort, and every night pitching his 
 tent in a different situation, until at length he had 
 arrived on the very margin of the vast central deserts 
 of Asia.* Here he was standing by accident at an 
 opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morning sunshine, 
 when suddenly to the westwards there arose a vast cloudy 
 vapour, which by degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed 
 to be slowly diffusing itself over the whole face of the 
 heavens. By and by this vast sheet of mist began to 
 thicken towards the horizon, and to roll forward in bil- 
 lowy volumes. The Emperor's suite assembled from all 
 quarters. The silver trumpets were sounded in the rear, 
 and from all the glades and forest avenues began to trot 
 
 * All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper upon the 
 subject of this Kalmuck migration, drawn up in the Chinese language 
 by the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by 
 the Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the whole motives of his 
 conduct and the chief incidents at great length.
 
 no DE Q UlNCE TS ESS A YS. 
 
 forward towards the pavilion the yagers, half cavalry, half 
 huntsmen, who composed the Imperial escort. Conjecture 
 was on the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon, 
 and the interest continually increased, in proportion as 
 simple curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety of 
 uncertain danger. At first it had been imagined that 
 some vast troops of deer, or other wild animals of the 
 chase, had been disturbed in their forest haunts by the 
 Emperor's movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling 
 for prey, and might be fetching a compass by way of re- 
 entering the forest grounds at some remoter points secure 
 from molestation. But this conjecture was dissipated by 
 the slow increase of the cloud, and the steadiness of its 
 motion. In the course of two hours the vast phenomenon 
 had advanced to a point which was judged to be within five 
 miles of the spectators, though all calculations of distance 
 were difficult, and often fallacious, when applied to the end- 
 less expanses of the Tartar deserts. Through the next hour, 
 during which the gentle morning breeze had a little freshened, 
 the dusty vapour had developed itself far and wide into the 
 appearance of huge aerial draperies, hanging in mighty 
 volumes from the sky to the earth; and at particular 
 points, where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the 
 pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents were per- 
 ceived, sometimes taking the form of regular arches, 
 portals, and windows, through which began dimly to 
 gleam the heads of camels "indorsed"* with human 
 beings — and at intervals the moving of men and horses 
 in tumultuous array — and then through other openings or 
 vistas at far distant points the flashing of polished arms. 
 But sometimes, as the wind slackened or died away, all 
 
 * Camels "indorsed ;" — "And elephants indorsed with towers." 
 
 Milton in Paradise Regained.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. iii 
 
 those openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall, 
 would slowly close, and for a time the whole pageant 
 was shut up from view ; although the growing din, the 
 clamours, shrieks, and groans, ascending from infuriated 
 myriads, reported, in a language not to be misunderstood, 
 what was going on behind the cloudy screen. 
 
 It was in fact the Kalmuck host, now in the last extremi- 
 ties of their exhaustion, and very fast approaching to that 
 final stage of privation and intense misery, beyond which 
 {q.'^ or none could have lived, but also, happily for them- 
 selves, fast approaching (in a literal sense) that final stage 
 of their long pilgrimage, at which they would meet hospitality 
 on a scale of royal magnificence, and full protection from 
 their enemies. These enemies, however, as yet were still 
 hanging on their rear as fiercely as ever, though this day 
 was destined to be the last of their hideous persecution. 
 The Khan had, in fact, sent forward couriers with all the 
 requisite statements and petitions, addressed to the Emperor 
 of China. These had been duly received, and preparations 
 made in consequence to welcome the Kalmucks with the 
 most paternal benevolence. But as these couriers had been 
 despatched from the Torgau at the moment of arrival thither, 
 and before the advance of Traubenberg had made it neces- 
 sary for the Khan to order a hasty renewal of the flight, the 
 Emperor had not looked for their arrival on his frontiers 
 until full three months after the present time. The Khan 
 had indeed expressly notified his intention to pass the 
 summer heats on the banks of the Torgau, and to re- 
 commence his retreat about the beginning of September. 
 The subsequent change of plan being unknown to Kien 
 Long, left him for some time in doubt as to the true 
 interpretation to be put upon this mighty apparition in 
 the desert ; but at length the savage clamours of hostile
 
 112 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESSA YS. 
 
 fury, and the clangour of weapons, unveiled to the 
 Emperor the true nature of those unexpected calamities 
 which had so prematurely precipitated the Kalmuck 
 measures. 
 
 Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor in- 
 stantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly care for 
 these erring children (as he esteemed them) now returning 
 to their ancient obedience, must be— to deHver them from 
 their pursuers. And this was less difficult than might have 
 been supposed. Not many miles in the rear was a body of 
 well pointed cavalry, with a strong detachment of artillerj', 
 who always attended the Emperor's motions. These were 
 hastily summoned. Meantime it occurred to the train of 
 courtiers that some danger might arise to the Emperor's 
 person from the proximity of a lawless enemy ; and 
 accordingly he was induced to retire a little to the rear. 
 It soon appeared, however, to those who watched the 
 vapoury shroud in the desert, that its motion was not 
 such as would argue the direction of the march to be 
 exactly upon the Pavilion, but rather in a diagonal line, 
 making an angle of full 45 degrees with that line in 
 which the Imperial cortege had been standing, and there- 
 fore with a distance continually increasing. Those who 
 knew the country judged that the Kalmucks were making 
 for a large fresh-water lake about seven or eight miles 
 distant ; they were right ; and to that point the Imperial 
 cavalry was ordered up ; and it was precisely in that spot, 
 and about three hours after, and at noonday on the 8th of 
 September, that the great Exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars 
 v/as brought to a final close, and with a scene of such 
 memorable and hellish fury, as formed an appropriate 
 winding up to an expedition in all its parts and details 
 so awfully disastrous. The Emperor was not personally
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 113 
 
 present, or at least he saw whatever he did see from too 
 great a distance to discriminate its individual features ; but 
 he records in his written memorial the report made to him 
 of this scene by some of his own officers. 
 
 The lake of Tengis, near the frightful desert of Kobi, lay 
 in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, ranging 
 generally from two to three thousand feet high. About 
 eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cavalry reached 
 the summit of a road which led through a cradle-like dip 
 in the mountains right down upon the margin of the lake. 
 From this pass, elevated about two thousand feet above the 
 level of the water, they continued to descend, by a very 
 winding and difficult road, for an hour and a half ; and 
 during the whole of this descent they were compelled to 
 be inactive spectators of the fiendish spectacle below. The 
 Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six hundred 
 thousand souls to two hundred thousand, and after enduring 
 for two months and a half the miseries we have previously 
 described — outrageous heat, famine, and the destroying 
 scimitar of the Kirghises and the Bashkirs, had for the 
 last ten days been traversing a hideous desert, where no 
 vestiges were seen of vegetation, and no drop of water 
 could be found. Camels and men were already so over- 
 laden, that it was a mere impossibility that they should 
 carry a tolerable sufficiency for the passage of this frightful 
 wilderness. On the eighth day the wretched daily allow- 
 ance, which had been continually diminishing, failed 
 entirely ; and thus for two days of insupportable fatigue, 
 the horrors of thirst had been carried to the fiercest 
 extremity. Upon this last morning, at the sight of the 
 hills and the forest scenery, which announced to those 
 who acted as guides the neighbourhood of the lake of 
 Tengis, all the people rushed along with maddening 
 
 H
 
 114 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 eagerness to the anticipated solace. The day grew hotter 
 and hotter, the people more and more exhausted, and 
 gradually, in the general rush forwards to the lake, all 
 discipline and command were lost — all attempts to pre- 
 serve a rear-guard were neglected — the wild Bashkirs 
 rode in amongst the encumbered people, and slaughtered 
 them by wholesale, and almost without resistance. 
 Screams and tumultuous shouts proclaimed the progress 
 of the massacre ; but none heeded — none halted ; all alike, 
 pauper or noble, continued to rush on with maniacal 
 haste to the waters — all with faces blackened by the 
 heat preying upon the liver, and with tongue drooping 
 from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir was affected by the 
 same misery, and manifested the same symptoms of his 
 misery as the wretched Kalmuck ; the murderer was 
 oftentimes in the same frantic misery as his murdered 
 victim — many indeed (an ordinary effect of thirst) in 
 both nations had become lunatic — and in this state, 
 whilst mere multitude and condensation of bodies . alone 
 opposed any check to the destroying scimitar and the 
 trampling hoof, the lake was reached ; and into that the 
 whole vast body of enemies together rushed, and together 
 continued to rush, forgetful of all things at that moment 
 but of one almighty instinct. This absorption of the 
 thoughts in one maddening appetite lasted for a single 
 minute; but in the next arose the final scene of parting 
 vengeance. Far and wide the waters of the solitary lake 
 were instantly dyed red with blood and gore : here rode 
 a party of savage Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as 
 the swathes fall before the mower's scythe ; there stood 
 unarmed Kalmucks in a death-grapple with their detested 
 foes, both up to the middle in water, and oftentimes both 
 sinking together below the surface, from weakness or from
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 
 
 "5 
 
 struggles, and perishing in each other's arms. Did the 
 Bashkirs at any point collect into a cluster for the sake 
 of giving impetus to the assault? Thither were the 
 camels driven in fiercely by those who rode them, gener- 
 ally women or boys ; and even these quiet creatures were 
 forced into a share in this carnival of murder, by trampling 
 down as many as they could strike prostrate with the lash of 
 their fore-legs. Every moment the water grew more polluted : 
 and yet every moment fresh myriads came up to the lake 
 and rushed in, not able to resist their frantic thirst, and 
 swallowing large draughts of water, visibly contaminated 
 with the blood of their slaughtered compatriots. Where- 
 soever the lake was shallow enough to allow of men 
 raising their heads above the water, there, for scores of 
 acres, were to be seen all forms of ghastly fear, of 
 agonizing struggle, of spasm, of convulsion, of mortal 
 conflict, death, and the fear of death — revenge, and the 
 lunacy of revenge — hatred, and the frenzy of hatred — 
 until the neutral spectators, of whom there were not a 
 few, now descending the eastern side of the lake, at 
 length averted their eyes in horror. This horror, which 
 seemed incapable of further addition, was, however, in- 
 creased by an unexpected incident : the Bashkirs, beginning 
 to perceive here and there the approach of the Chinese 
 cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever they were sufficiently 
 at leisure from the passions of the murderous scene — to 
 gather into bodies. This was noticed by the governor of 
 a small Chinese fort, built upon an eminence above the 
 lake ; and immediately he threw in a broadside, which 
 spread havock amongst the Bashkir tribe. As often as 
 the Bashkirs collected into "g/obes" and ^^ /iirms" as 
 their only means of meeting the long lines of descending 
 Chinese cavalry — so often did the Chinese governor of the
 
 ii6 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS^. 
 
 fort pour in his exterminating broadside; until at length the 
 lake, at its lower end, became one vast seething cauldron of 
 human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese cavalry had 
 reached the foot of the hills : the Bashkirs, attentive to their 
 movements, had formed ; skirmishes had been fought : and, 
 with a quick sense that the contest was henceforwards rapidly 
 becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs and Kirghises began to 
 retire. The pursuit was not as vigorous as the Kalmuck 
 hatred would have desired. But, at the same time, the 
 very gloomiest hatred could not but find, in their own 
 dreadful experience of the Asiatic deserts, and in the 
 certainty that these wretched Bashkirs had to repeat that 
 same experience a second time, for thousands of miles, 
 as the price exacted by a retributory Providence for their 
 vindictive cruelty — not the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, 
 or tlie least reflecting, but found in all this a retaliatory 
 chastisement more complete and absolute than any which 
 their swords and lances could have obtained, or human 
 vengeance have devised. 
 
 Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in the 
 Desert ; for any subsequent marches which awaited them, 
 were neither long nor painful. Every possible alleviation 
 and refreshment for their exhausted bodies had been already 
 provided by Kien Long with the most princely munificence; 
 and lands of great fertility were immediately assigned to 
 them in ample extent along the river Ily, not very far from 
 the point at which they had first emerged from the wilder- 
 ness of Kobi. But the beneficent attention of the Chinese 
 Emperor may be best stated in his own words, as translated 
 into French by one of the Jesuit missionaries : — " La nation 
 des Torgotes {savoir ks Kalmuqties) arriva a Ily, toute 
 delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi vivre, ni de quoi se vetir.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 117 
 
 Je I'avais prevu ; et j'avais ordonne de faire en tout genre 
 'les provisions necessaires pour pouvoir les secourir prompte- 
 ment : c'est ce qui a et^ execute. On a 'fait la division des 
 terres ; et on a assigne a chaque famille une portion suffis- 
 ante pour pouvoir servir a son entretien, soit en la cultivant, 
 soit en y nourissant des bestiaux. On a donne a chaque 
 particulier des etoffes pour I'habiller, des grains pour se 
 nourrir pendant I'espace d'une annee, des ustensiles pour 
 le menage, et d'autres choses necessaires : et outre cela 
 plusieurs onces d'argent, pour se pourvoir de ce qu'on 
 aurait pu oublier. On a designe des lieux particuliers, 
 fertiles en paturages ; et on leur a donne des boeufs, 
 moutons, &c., pour qu'ils pussent dans la suite travailler 
 par euxmemes a leur entretien et a leur bienetre." 
 
 These are the words of the Emperor himself, speaking 
 in his own person of his own parental cares ; but another 
 Chinese, treating the same subject, records the munificence 
 of this prince in terms which proclaim still more forcibly 
 the disinterested generosity which prompted, and the 
 delicate considerateness which conducted this extensive 
 bounty. He has been speaking of the Kalmucks, and 
 he goes on thus : — " Lorsqu' ils arrivbrent sur nos fron- 
 tieres (au nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille), quoique 
 la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les autres in- 
 commodites inseparables d'une tres-longue et tres-penible 
 route en eussent fait perir presque autant, ils etaient reduits 
 a la derniere misere ; ils manquaient de tout. 11 " [viz., 
 I'Empereur, Kien Long] "leur fit preparer des logemens 
 conformes a leur maniere de vivre ; il leur fit distribuer 
 des alimens et des habits ; il leur fit donner des bceufs, 
 des moutons, et des ustensiles, pour les mettre en etat 
 de former des troupeaux et de cultiver la terre, et tout 
 cela a ses propres frais, qui se sont montes a des sommes
 
 1 1 8 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 immenses, sans compter I'argent qu'il a donnd ^ chaque 
 chef-de-famille, pour pourvoir k la subsistance de sa 
 femme et de ses enfans." 
 
 Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the Kalmucks 
 were replaced in territorial possessions, and in comfort 
 equal perhaps, or even superior, to that which they had 
 enjoyed in Russia, and with superior political advantages. 
 But, if equal or superior, their condition was no longer the 
 same ; if not in degree, their social prosperity had altered 
 in quality ; for instead of being a purely pastoral and 
 vagrant people, they were now in circumstances which 
 obliged them to become essentially dependent upon 
 agriculture ; and thus far raised in social rank, that by 
 the natural course of their habits and the necessities of 
 life, they were effectually reclaimed from roving and from 
 the savage customs connected with so unsettled a life. 
 They gained also in political privileges, chiefly through 
 the immunity from military service, which their new rela- 
 tions enabled them to obtain. These were circumstances 
 of advantage and gain. But one great disadvantage there 
 was, amply to overbalance all other possible gain ; the 
 chances were lost or were removed to an incalculable 
 distance for their conversion to Christianity, without 
 which in these times there is no absolute advance 
 possible on the path of true civilisation. 
 
 One word remains to be said upon the personal inter- 
 ests concerned in this great drama. The catastrophe in 
 this respect was remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with 
 all his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, had, since the 
 mysterious affair on the banks of the Torgau, felt his mind 
 alienated from his cousin ; he revolted from the man that 
 would have murdered him ; and he had displayed his 
 caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 119 
 
 of Zebek-Dorchi, and a displeasure which all his dissimu- 
 lation could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, 
 by keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of 
 Oubacha; for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more 
 fatal than his open enmity. After the settlement on the 
 Ily this feud continued to advance, until it came under the 
 notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit which all the 
 Tartar chieftains made to his Majesty at his hunting-lodge 
 in 1772. The Emperor informed himself accurately of all 
 the particulars connected with the transaction — of all the 
 rights and claims put forward — and of the way in which 
 they would severally affect the interests of the Kalmuck 
 people. The consequence was, that he adopted the cause 
 of Oubacha, and repressed the pretensions of Zebek-Dorchi, 
 who, on his part, so deeply resented this discountenance to 
 his ambitious projects, that in conjunction with other chiefs 
 he had the presumption even to weave nets of treason against 
 the Emperor himself. Plots were laid — were detected — 
 were baffled — counterplots were constructed upon the same 
 basis, and with the benefit of the opportunities thus offered. 
 Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, 
 together with all his accomplices ; and under the skilful 
 management of the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's 
 establishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar 
 chieftains were made to recoil upon themselves ; and the 
 whole of them perished by assassination at a great imperial 
 banquet. For the Chinese morality is exactly of that kind 
 which approves in every thing the lex talionis : — 
 
 — " lex nee justior ulla est (as they think) 
 " Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 
 
 So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and originator of the 
 great Tartar Exodus. Oubacha, meantime, and his people.
 
 120 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 were gradually recovering from the effects of their misery, 
 and repairing their losses. Peace and prosperity, under the 
 gentle rule of a fatherly lord paramount, redawned upon the 
 tribes : their household lares, after so harsh a translation to 
 distant climates, found again a happy reinstatement in what 
 had in fact been their primitive abodes : they found them- 
 selves settled in quiet sylvan scenes, rich in all the luxuries 
 of life, and endowed with the perfect loveliness of Arcadian 
 beauty. But from the hills of this favoured land, and even 
 from the level grounds as they approached its western 
 border, they still look out upon that fearful wilderness 
 which once beheld a nation in agony — the utter extirpa- 
 tion of nearly half a million from amongst its numbers, and, 
 for the remainder, a storm of misery so fierce, that in the 
 end (as happened also at Athens during the Peloponnesian 
 war from a different form of misery) very many lost their 
 memory ; all records of their past life were wiped out as 
 with a sponge — utterly erased and cancelled : and many 
 others lost their reason ; some in a gentle form of pensive 
 melancholy, some in a more restless form of feverish 
 delirium and nervous agitation, and others in the fixed 
 forms of tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, or moping 
 idiocy. Two great commemorative monuments arose in 
 after years to mark the depth and permanence of the awe 
 — the sacred and reverential grief, with which all persons 
 looked back upon the dread calamities attached to the 
 year of the Tiger — all who had either personally shared in 
 those calamities, and had themselves drunk from that cup 
 of sorrow, or who had effectually been made witnesses to 
 their results, and associated with their relief; two great 
 monuments, we say ; first of all, one in the religious solemn- 
 ity, enjoined by the Dalai Lama, called in the Tartar 
 language a Roinanang, that is, a national commemoration,
 
 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 121 
 
 with music the most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 
 departed to the rest of Paradise from the afflictions of the 
 Desert : this took place about six years after the arrival in 
 China. Secondly, another more durable and more com- 
 mensurate to the scale of the calamity and to the grandeur 
 of this national Exodus, in the mighty columns of granite 
 and brass, erected by the Emperor Kien Long, near the 
 banks of the Ily : these columns stand upon the very 
 margin of the steppes ; and they bear a short but emphatic 
 inscription* to the following effect : — 
 By the Will of God, 
 Here, upon the Brink of these Deserts, 
 Which from this Point begin and stretcli away 
 
 Pathless, treeless, waterless, * 
 
 For thousands of miles— and along the margins of many mighty Nations, 
 Rested from their labours and from great afflictions 
 Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall, 
 And by the favour of Kien Long, God's Lieutenant upon Earth, 
 The Ancient Children of the Wilderness — the Torgote Tartars — 
 Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 
 Wandering Sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire in 
 the year 16 16, 
 But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 
 Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd. 
 Hallowed be the spot for ever, 
 and 
 Hallowed be the day — September S, 1771 ! 
 Amen. 
 
 * This inscription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, 
 and particularly in adapting to the Ciiristian era the Emperor's expres- 
 sions for the year of the original Exodus from China and the retrogressive 
 Exodus from Russia. With respect to the designation adopted for the 
 Russian Emperor, either it is built upon some confusion between him 
 and the Byzantine Caesars, as though the former, being of the same 
 religion with the latter (and occupying in part the same longitudes, 
 though in different latitudes) might be considered as his modern 
 successor ; or else it refers simply to the Greek form of Christianity 
 professed by the Russian Emperor and Church.
 
 The English Mail-Coach, or the Glory 
 of Motion. 
 
 Some twenty or more years before I matriculated at 
 Oxford, Mr Palmer, M.P. for Bath, had accomplished 
 two things, very hard to do on our little planet, the 
 Earth, however cheap they may happen to be held by 
 the eccentric people in comets : he had invented mail- 
 coaches, and he had married the daughter* of a duke. 
 He was, therefore, just twice as great a man as Galileo, 
 who certainly invented (or discovered) the satellites of 
 Jupiter, those very next things extant to mail-coaches in 
 the two capital points of speed and keeping time, but 
 who did not marry the daughter of a duke. 
 
 These mail-coaches, as organised by Mr Palmer, are 
 entitled to a circumstantial notice from myself — having 
 had so large a share in developing the anarchies of my 
 subsequent dreams, an agency which they accomplished, 
 first, through velocity, at that time unprecedented; they 
 first revealed the glory of motion : suggesting, at the same 
 time, an under-sense, not unpleasurable, of possible though 
 indefinite danger ; secondly, through grand effects for the 
 eye between lamp-light and the darkness upon solitary 
 roads ; thirdly, through animal beauty and power so often 
 displayed in the class of horses selected for this mail 
 service ; fourthly, through the conscious presence of a 
 
 * Lady Madeline Gordon.
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 
 
 123 
 
 central intellect, that, in the midst of vast distances,* of 
 storms, of darkness, of night, overruled all obstacles into 
 one steady co-operation in a national result. To my own 
 feeling, this Post-office service recalled isome mighty 
 orchestra, where a thousand instruments, all disregarding 
 each other, and so far in danger of discord, yet all obedient 
 as slaves to the supreme baton of some great leader, 
 terminate in a perfection of harmony like that of heart, 
 veins, and arteries, in a healthy animal organisation. But, 
 finally, that particular element in this whole combination 
 which most impressed myself, and through which it is that 
 to this hour Mr Palmer's mail-coach system tyrannises by 
 terror and terrific beauty over my dreams, lay in the 
 awful political mission which at that time it fulfilled. The 
 mail-coaches it was that distributed over the face of the 
 land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart- 
 shaking news of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of 
 Waterloo. These were the harvests that, in the grandeur 
 of their reaping, redeemed the tears and blood in which 
 they had been sown. Neither was the meanest peasant 
 so much below the grandeur and the sorrow of the times 
 as to confound these battles, which were gradually 
 moulding the destinies of Christendom, with the vulgar 
 conflicts of ordinary warfare, which are oftentimes but 
 gladiatorial trials of national prowess. The victories of 
 England in this stupendous contest rose of themselves as 
 natural Te Deums to heaven ; and it was felt by the 
 thoughtful that such victories, at such a crisis of general 
 
 * " Vast Distances." — One case was familiar to mail-coach 
 travellers, where two mails in opposite directions, north and south, 
 starting at the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met 
 almost constantly at a particular bridge which exactly bisected the 
 total distance.
 
 124 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 prostration, were not more beneficial to ourselves than 
 finally to France, and to the nations of western and 
 central Europe, through whose pusillanimity it was that 
 the French domination had prospered. 
 
 The mail-coach, as the national organ for publishing 
 these mighty events, became itself a spiritualised and 
 glorified object to an impassioned heart; and naturally, in 
 the Oxford of that day, all hearts were awakened. There 
 were, perhaps, of us gownsmen, two thousand residejit* 
 in Oxford, and dispersed through five-and-tvventy colleges. 
 In some of these the custom permitted the student to 
 keep what are called " short terms ; " that is, the four 
 terms of Michaelmas, Lent, Easter, and Act, were kept 
 severally by a residence, in the aggregate, of ninety-one 
 days, or thirteen weeks. Under this interrupted residence, 
 accordingly, it was possible that a student might have a 
 reason for going down to his home four times in the year. 
 This made eight journeys to and fro. And as these 
 homes lay dispersed through all the shires of the island, 
 and most of us disdained all coaches except his majesty's 
 mail, no city out of London could pretend to so extensive 
 a connection with Mr Palmer's establishment as Oxford. 
 Naturally, therefore, it became a point of some interest 
 with us, whose journeys revolved every six weeks on an 
 average, to look a little into the executive details of the 
 system. With some of these Mr Palmer had no concern ; 
 they rested upon bye-laws not unreasonable, enacted by 
 posting-houses for their own benefit, and -upon others 
 equally stern, enacted by the inside passengers for the 
 
 * " Resident.^' — The number on the books was far greater, many of 
 whom kept up an intermitting communication with Oxford. But I 
 speak of those only who were steadily pursuing their academic studies, 
 and of those who resided constantly ti.^ fellows.
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH 125 
 
 illustration of their own exclusiveness. These last were 
 of a nature to rouse our scorn, from which the transition 
 was not very /ojig to mutiny. Up to this time, it had 
 been the fixed assumption of the four inside people (as 
 an old tradition of all public carriages from the reign of 
 Charles II.), that they, the illustrious quaternion, con- 
 stituted a porcelain variety of the human race, whose 
 dignity would have been compromised by exchanging 
 one word of civility with the three miserable delf ware 
 outsides. Even to have kicked an outsider might have 
 been held to attaint the foot concerned in that operation ; 
 so that, perhaps, it would have required an act of parlia- 
 ment to restore its purity of blood. What words, then, 
 could express the horror, and the sense of treason, in that 
 case, which had happened, where all three outsides, the 
 trinity of Pariahs, made a vain attempt to sit down at the 
 same breakfast-table or dinner-table with the consecrated 
 four? I myself witnessed such an attempt; and on that 
 occasion a benevolent old gentleman endeavoured to 
 soothe his three holy associates, by suggesting that, if 
 the outsides were indicted for this criminal attempt at 
 the next assizes, the court would regard it as a case of 
 lunacy (or delirium tremens) rather than of treason. Eng- 
 land owes much of her grandeur to the depth of the aristo- 
 cratic element in her social composition. I am not the 
 man to laugh at it. But sometimes it expressed itself in 
 extravagant shapes. The course taken with the infatuated 
 outsiders, in the particular attempt which I have noticed, 
 was, that the waiter, beckoning them away from the privileged 
 salle-a-manger, sang out, " This way, my good men ; " and 
 then enticed them away off to the kitchen. But that plan 
 had not always answered. Sometimes, though very rarely, 
 cases occurred where the intruders, being stronger than
 
 126 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 usual, or more vicious than usual, resolutely refused to 
 move, and so far carried their point, as to have a separate 
 table arranged for themselves in a corner of the room. Yet, 
 if an Indian screen could be found ample enough to plant 
 them cut from the very eyes of the high table, or dais, it 
 then became possible to assume as a fiction of law — that 
 the three delf fellows, after all, were not present. They 
 could be ignored by the porcelain men, under the maxim, 
 that objects not appearing, and not existing, are governed 
 by the same logical construction. 
 
 Such now being, at that time, the usages of mail-coaches, 
 what was to be done by us of young Oxford ? We, the 
 most aristocratic of people, who were addicted to the prac- 
 tice of looking down superciliously even upon the insides 
 themselves as often very suspicious characters, were we 
 voluntarily to court indignities ? If our dress and bearing 
 sheltered us, generally, from the suspicion of being " raff" 
 (the name at that period for " snobs " *) we really zvere such 
 constructively, by the place we assumed. If we did not 
 submit to the deep shadow of eclipse, we entered at least 
 the skirts of its penumbra. And the analogy of theatres 
 was urged against us, where no man can complain of the 
 annoyances incident to the pit or gallery, having his instant 
 remedy in paying the higher price of the boxes. But the 
 soundness of this analogy we disputed. In the case of the 
 theatre, it cannot be pretended that the inferior situations 
 have any separate attractions, unless the pit suits the pur- 
 pose of the dramatic reporter. But the reporter or critic is 
 
 * "Snobs," and its antithesis, "nobs," arose among the internal 
 factions of shoemakers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the 
 terms may have existed much earlier ; but they were then first made 
 known, picturesquely and effectively, by a trial at some assizes which 
 happened to fix the public attention.
 
 THE ENGL ISH MAIL- CO A CH. 127 
 
 a rarity. For most people, the sole benefit is in the price. 
 Whereas, on the contrary, the outside of the mail had its 
 own incommunicable advantages. These we could not 
 forego. The higher price we should willingly have paid, 
 but that was connected with the condition of riding inside, 
 which was insufferable. The air, the freedom of prospect, 
 the proximity to the horses, the elevation of seat — these 
 were what we desired ; but, above all, the certain anticipa- 
 tion of purchasing occasional opportunities of driving. 
 
 Under coercion of this great practical difficulty, we in- 
 stituted a searching inquiry into the true quality and valua- 
 tion of the different departments about the mail. We 
 conducted this inquiry on metaphysical principles ; and it 
 was ascertained satisfactorily, that the roof of the coach, 
 which some had affected to call the attics, and some the 
 garrets, was really the drawing-room, and the box was the 
 chief ottoman or sofa in that drawing-room ; whilst it 
 appeared that the inside, which had been traditionally 
 regarded as the only room tenantable by gentlemen, was, 
 in fact, the coal-cellar in disguise. 
 
 Great wits jump. The very same idea had not long 
 before struck the celestial intellect of China. Amongst the 
 presents carried out by our first embassy to that country 
 was a state-coach. It had been specially selected as a 
 personal gift by George III.; but the exact mode of using it 
 was a mystery to Pekin. The ambassador, indeed (Lord 
 Macartney), had made some dim and imperfect explana- 
 tions upon the point ; but as his excellency communicated 
 these in a diplomatic whisper, at the very moment of his 
 departure, the celestial mind was very feebly illuminated ; 
 and it became necessary to call a cabinet council on the 
 grand state question — "Where was the emperor to sit?" 
 The hammer-cloth happened to be unusually gorgeous;
 
 128 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 and partly on that consideration, but partly also because 
 the box offered the most elevated seat, and undeniably went 
 foremost, it was resolved by acclamation that the box was 
 the imperial place, and,_/^r the scoundrel who drove, he might 
 sit luhere he could find a perch. The horses, therefore, being 
 harnessed, under a flourish of music and a salute of guns, 
 solemnly his imperial majesty ascended his new English 
 throne, having the first lord of the treasury on his right 
 hand, and the chief jester on his left. Pekin gloried in the 
 spectacle ; and in the whole flowery people, constructively 
 present by representation, there was but one discontented 
 person, which was the coachman. This mutinous indi- 
 vidual, looking as blackhearted as he really was, audaciously 
 shouted — " Where am / to sit ? " But the privy council, 
 incensed by his disloyalty, unanimously opened the door, 
 and kicked him into the inside. He had all the inside 
 places to himself; but such is the rapacity of ambition, that 
 he was still dissatisfied. " I say," he cried out in an extem- 
 pore petition, addressed to the emperor through a window, 
 " how am I to catch hold of the reins? " — "Any how," was 
 the answer ; " don't trouble me, man, in my glory ; through 
 the windows, through the key-holes — how you please." 
 Finally, this contumacious coachman lengthened the check- 
 strings into a sort of jury-reins, communicating with the 
 horses ; with these he drove as steadily as may be supposed. 
 The emperor returned after the briefest of circuits; he 
 descended in great pomp from his throne, with the severest 
 resolution never to remount it. A public thanksgiving was 
 ordered for his majesty's prosperous escape from the disease 
 of a broken neck ; and the state-coach was dedicated for 
 ever as a votive offering to the God Fo, Fo — whom the 
 learned more accurately call Fi, Fi. 
 
 A revolution of this same Chinese character did young
 
 THE ENGLISH MA IL- CO A CH 129 
 
 Oxford ot that era effect in the constitution of mail-coach 
 society. It was a perfect French revolution; and we had 
 good reason to say, Ca ira. In fact, it soon became too 
 popular. The " public," a well-known character, particu- 
 larly disagreeable, though slightly respectable, and notorious 
 for affecting the chief seats in synagogues, had at first loudly 
 opposed this revolution ; but when all opposition showed 
 itself to be ineffectual, our disagreeable friend went into it 
 with headlong zeal. At first it was a sort of race between 
 us ; and, as the public is usually above 30 (say generally 
 from 30 to 50 years old), naturally we of young Oxford, 
 that averaged about 20, had the advantage. Then the 
 public took to bribing, giving fees to horse-keepers, &c., 
 who hired out their persons as warming-pans on the box- 
 seat. That, you know, was shocking to our moral sensi- 
 bilities. Come to bribery, we observed, and there is an end 
 to all morality, Aristotle's, Cicero's, or anybody's. And, 
 besides, of what use was it ? For we bribed also. And 
 our bribes to those of the public being demonstrated out of 
 Euclid to be as five shilhngs to sixpence, here again young 
 Oxford had the advantage. But the contest was ruinous to 
 the principles of the stable-establishment about the mails. 
 The whole corporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and 
 often sur-rebribed ; so that a horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, 
 was held by the philosophical at that time to be the most 
 corrupt character in the nation. 
 
 There was an impression upon the public mind, natural 
 enough from the continually augmenting velocity of the 
 mail, but quite erroneous, that an outside seat on this class 
 of carriages was a post of danger. On the contrary, I main- 
 tained taat, if a man had become nervous from some gipsy pre- 
 diction in his childhood, allocating to a particular moon now 
 approaching some unknown danger, and he should inquire 
 
 I
 
 I30 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 earnestly, — " Whither can I go for shelter? Js a prison the 
 safest retreat? Or a lunatic hospital? Or the British 
 Museum ?" I should have replied — " Oh, no ; I'll tell you 
 what to do. Take lodgings for the next forty days on the 
 box of his majesty's mail. Nobody can touch you there. If 
 it is by bills at ninety days after date that you are made un- 
 happy — if noters and protesters are the sort of wretches whose 
 astrological shadows darken the house of life — then note you 
 what I vehemently protest, viz., that no matter though the 
 sheriff in every county should be running after you with his 
 posse, touch a hair of your head he cannot whilst you keep 
 house, and have your legal domicile, on the box of the mail. 
 It's felony to stop the mail ; even the sheriff cannot do that. 
 And an extra (no great matter if it grazes the sheriff) touch 
 of the whip to the leaders at any time guarantees your 
 safety." In fact, a bedroom in a quiet house seems a 
 safe enough retreat ; yet it is liable to its own notorious 
 nuisances, to robbers by night, to rats, to fire. But the 
 mail laughs at these terrors. To robbers, the answer is 
 packed up and ready for delivery in the barrel of the 
 guard's blunderbuss. Rats again ! there are none about 
 mail-coaches, any more than snakes in Von Troil's Ice- 
 land ; except, indeed, now and then a parliamentary rat, 
 who always hides his shame in the " coal-cellar." And, as 
 to fire, I never knew but one in a mail-coach, which was in 
 the Exeter mail, and caused by an obstinate sailor bound to 
 Devonport. Jack, making light of the law and the lawgiver 
 that had set their faces against his offence, insisted on taking 
 up a forbidden seat in the rear oi the roof, from which he 
 could exchange his own yarns with those of the guard. No 
 greater offence was then known to mail-coaches ; it was 
 treason, it was iasa majestas, it was by tendency arson ; and 
 the ashes of Jack's pipe falling amongst the straw of the
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 131 
 
 hinder boot, containing the mail-bags, raised a flame which 
 (aided by the wind of our motion) threatened a revolution 
 in the republic of letters. But even this left the sanctity 
 of the box unviolated. In dignified repose, the coachman 
 and myself sat on, resting with benign composure upon 
 our knowledge — that the fire would have to burn its way 
 through four inside passengers before it could reach our- 
 selves. With a quotation rather too trite, I remarked to the 
 coachman, — 
 
 "Jam pioximus ardet 
 
 Ucalegon." 
 
 But, recollecting that the Virgilian part of his education 
 might have been neglected, I interpreted so far as to say, 
 that perhaps at that moment the flames were catching hold 
 of our worthy brother and next-door neighbour Ucalegon. 
 The coachman said nothing, but by his faint sceptical smile 
 he seemed to be thinking that he knew better ; for that in 
 fact, Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the way-bill. 
 
 No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally 
 itself with the indeterminate and mysterious. The con- 
 nection of the mail with the state and the executive govern- 
 ment — a connection obvious, but yet not strictly defined — 
 gave to the whole mail establishment a grandeur and an 
 official authority which did us service on the roads, and 
 invested us with seasonable terrors. But perhaps these 
 terrors were not the less impressive, because their exact 
 legal limits were imperfectly ascertained. Look at those 
 turnpike gates ; with what deferential hurry, with what an 
 obedient start, they fly open at our approach ! Look at 
 that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurp- 
 ing the very crest of the road : ah ! traitors, they do not 
 hear us as yet, but as soon as the dreadful blast of our horn 
 reaches them with the proclamation of our approach, see
 
 132 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 with what frenzy of trepidation they fly to their horses' 
 heads, and deprecate our wrath by the precipitation of their 
 crane-neck quarterings. Treason they feel to be their crime; 
 each individual carter feels himself under the ban of confis- 
 cation and attainder: his blood is attainted through six 
 generations, and nothing is wanting but the headsman and 
 his axe, the block and the sawdust, to close up the vista of 
 his horrors. What ! shall it be within benefit of clergy, to 
 delay the king's message on the highroad? — to interrupt the 
 great respirations, ebb or flood, of the national intercourse 
 — to endanger the safety of tidings running day and night 
 between all nations and languages ? Or can it be fancied, 
 amongst the weakest of men, that the bodies of the criminals 
 will be given up to their widows for Christian burial ? Now, 
 the doubts which were raised as to our powers did more to 
 wrap them in terror, by wrapping them in uncertainty, than 
 could have been effected by the sharpest definitions of the 
 law from the Quarter Sessions. We, on our parts (we, the 
 collective mail, I mean), did our utmost to exalt the idea of 
 our privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. 
 Whether this insolence rested upon law that gave it a sanc- 
 tion, or upon conscious power, haughtily dispensing with 
 that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station ; and 
 the agent in each particular insolence of the moment, was 
 viewed reverentially, as one having authority. 
 
 Sometimes after breakfast his majesty's mail would be- 
 come frisky ; and in its difficult wheelings amongst the 
 intricacies of early markets, it would upset an apple-cart, 
 a cart loaded with eggs, &c. Huge was the affliction and 
 dismay, awful was the smash, though, after all, I believe the 
 damage might be levied upon the hundred. I, as far as was 
 possible, endeavoured in such a case to represent the con- 
 science and moral sensibilities of the mail; and, when
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 133 
 
 wildernesses ot eggs were lying poached under our horses' 
 hoofs, then would I stretch forth my hands in sorrow, saying 
 (in words too celebrated in those days from the false* echoes 
 of Marengo) — "Ah ! wherefore have we not time to weep 
 over you ? " which was quite impossible, for in fact we had 
 not even time to laugh over them. Tied to post-office time, 
 with an allowance in some cases of fifty minutes for eleven 
 miles, could the royal mail pretend to undertake the offices 
 of sympathy and condolence? Could it be expected to 
 provide tears for the accidents of the road? If even it 
 seemed to trample on humanity, it did so, I contended, in 
 discharge of its own more peremptory duties. 
 
 Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I upheld 
 its rights, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of im- 
 perial precedency, and astonished weak minds by the 
 feudal powers which I hinted to be lurking constructively 
 in the charters of this proud establishment. Once I re- 
 member being on the box of the Holyhead mail, between 
 Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Bir- 
 mingham, some Tallylio or Highflier, all flaunting with green 
 and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our 
 royal simplicity of form and colour is this plebeian wretch ! 
 The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate colour 
 was the mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned 
 in proportions as modest as a signet-ring bears to a seal oi' 
 office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, 
 whispering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the 
 state; whilst the beast from Birmingham had as much 
 
 * "False echoes" — yes, false ! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, 
 as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They 
 stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the 
 foundering Vengeui; as the vaunt ot General Cambronnc at Waterloo, 
 " La Garde nieurt, mats ne se rend pas," as the repartees of Tallyrand.
 
 134 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have 
 puzzled a decipherer from the tombs of Luxor. For some 
 time this Birmingham machine ran along by our side, — a 
 piece of familiarity that seemed to us sufficiently Jacobini- 
 cal. But all at once a movement of the horses announced 
 a desperate intention of leaving us behind. " Do you see 
 that?" I said to the coachman. "I see," was his short 
 answer. He was awake, yet he waited longer than seemed 
 prudent ; for the horses of our audacious opponent had a 
 disagreeable air of freshness and power. But his motive 
 was loyal ; his wish was that the Birmingham conceit should 
 be full-blown before he froze it. When that seemed ripe, he 
 unloosed, or, to speak by a stronger image, he sprang his 
 known resources, he slipped our royal horses like cheetas, 
 or hunting leopards after the affrighted game. How they 
 could retain such a reserve of fiery power after the v.ork 
 they had accomplished, seemed hard to explain. But on 
 our side, besides the physical superiority, was a tower of 
 strength, namely, the king's name, "which they, upon the 
 adverse faction wanted." Passing them without an effort, 
 as it seemed, we threw them into the rear with so lengthen- 
 ing an interval between us, as proved in itself the bitterest 
 mockery of their presumption ; whilst our guard blew back 
 a shattering blast of triumph, that was really too painfully full 
 of derision. 
 
 I mention this little incident for its connection with what 
 followed. A Welshman, sitting behind me, asked if I had 
 not felt my heart burn within me during the continuance 
 of the race? I said — No; because we were not racing 
 with a mail, so that no glory could be gained. In fact, 
 it was sufficiently mortifying that such a Birmingham thing 
 should dare to challenge us. The Welshman replied, that 
 he didn't see that; for that a cat might look at a king, 
 
 i
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 135 
 
 and a Brummagem coach might lawfully race the Holy- 
 head mail. ^^ Race us perhaps," I replied, "though even 
 that has an air of sedition, but not beat us. This would 
 have been treason ; and for its own sake I am glad that 
 the Tallyho was disappointed." So dissatisfied did the 
 Welshman seem with this opinion, that at last I was 
 obliged to tell him a very fine story from one of our 
 elder dramatists, viz. — that once, in some Oriental region, 
 when the prince of all the land, with his splendid court, 
 were flying their falcons, a hawk suddenly flew at a majestic 
 eagle j and in defiance of the eagle's prodigious advantages, 
 in sight also of all the astonished field-sportsmen, spectators, 
 and followers, killed him on the spot. The prince was 
 struck with amazement at the unequal contest, and with 
 burning admiration for its unparalleled result. He com- 
 manded that the hawk should be brought before him ; 
 caressed the bird with enthusiasm, and ordered that, for 
 the commemoration of his matchless courage, a crown 
 of gold should be solemnly placed on the hawk's head ; 
 but then that, immediately after this coronation, the bird 
 should be led off" to execution, as the most valiant indeed 
 of traitors, but not the less a traitor that had dared to 
 rise in rebellion against his liege lord the eagle. "Now," 
 ■ said I to the Welshman, " how painful it would have been 
 to you and me as men of refined feelings, that this poor 
 brute, the Tallyho, in the impossible case of a victory over 
 us, should have been crowned with jewellery, gold, with 
 Birmingham ware, or paste diamonds, and then led off 
 to instant execution." The Welshman doubted if that 
 could be warranted by law. And when I hinted at the 
 loth of Edward HI. chap. 15, for regulating the pre- 
 cedency of coaches, as being probably the statute relied 
 on lor the capital punishment of such offences, he replied
 
 r 36 DE Q UINCE \ ''S ESS A VS. 
 
 drily — That if the attempt to pass a mail was really treason- 
 able, it was a pity that the Tallyho appeared to have so 
 imperfect an acquaintance with law. 
 
 These were among the gaieties of my earliest and boyish 
 acquaintance with mails. But alike the gayest and the most 
 terrific of my experiences rose again after years of slumber, 
 armed with preternatural power to shake my dreaming 
 sensibilities ; sometimes, as in the slight case of Miss 
 Fanny on the Bath road, (which I will immediately men- 
 tion), through some casual or capricious association with 
 images originally gay, yet opening at some stage of evolu- 
 tion into sudden capacities of horror; sometimes through 
 the more natural and fixed alliances with the sense of 
 power so various lodged in the mail system. 
 
 The modern modes of travelling cannot compare with 
 the mail-coach system in grandeur and power. They 
 boast of more velocity, but not however as a conscious- 
 ness, but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge, resting upon 
 a/f'en evidence ; as, for instance, because somebody says 
 that we have gone fifty miles in the hour, or upon the 
 evidence of a result, as that actually we find ourselves 
 in York four hours after leaving London. Apart from 
 such an assertion, or such a result, 1 am little aware of 
 the pace. But, seated on the old mail-coach, we needed 
 no evidence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity. On 
 this system the word was — JVbn magna loquitnur, as upon 
 railways, but mapia vivhnus. The vital experience of the 
 glad animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the 
 question of our speed ; we heard our speed, we saw it, 
 we felt it as a thrilling ; and this speed was not the pro- 
 duct of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathy 
 to give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of an 
 animal, in his dilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH. 137 
 
 echoing hoofs. This speed was incarnated in the visible 
 contagion amongst brutes of some impulse, that, radiating 
 into their natures, had yet its centre and beginning in 
 man. The sensibiHty of the horse uttering itself in the 
 maniac hght of his eye, might be the last vibration in 
 such a movement ; the glory of Salamanca might be the 
 first — but the intervening link that connected them, that 
 spread the earthquake of the battle into the eyeball of 
 the horse, was the heart of man — kindling in the rapture 
 of the fiery strife, and then propagating its own tumults 
 by motions and gestures to the sympathies, more or less 
 dim, in his servant the horse. 
 
 But now, on the new system of travelling, iron tubes 
 and boilers have disconnected man's heart from the 
 ministers of his locomotion. Nile nor Trafalgar has 
 power any more to raise an extra bubble in a steam- 
 kettle. The galvanic cycle is broken up for ever ; man's 
 imperial nature no longer sends itself forward through the 
 electric sensibility of the horse ; the inter-agencies are 
 gone in the mode of communication between the horse 
 and his master, out of which grew so many aspects of 
 sublimity under accidents of mists that hid, or sudden 
 blazes that revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight 
 solitudes that awed. Tidings, fitted to convulse all 
 nations, must henceforwards travel by culinary process ; 
 and the trumpet that once announced from afar the V--^^^^-^^ 
 laurelled mail, heart-shaking, when heard screaming on 
 the wind, and advancing through the darkness to every 
 village or solitary house on its route, has now given way 
 for ever to the pot-wallopings of the boiler. 
 
 Thus have perished multiform openings for sublime 
 effects, for interesting personal communications, for revela- 
 tions of impressive faces that could not have offered them-
 
 138 DE Q UINCE Y 'S ESS A VS. 
 
 selves amongst the hurried and fluctuating groups of a 
 raihvay station. The gatherings of gazers about a mail- 
 coach had one centre, and acknowledged only one 
 interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station 
 have as little unity as nmning water, and own as many 
 centres as there are separate carriages in the train. 
 
 How else, for example, than as a constant watcher for 
 the dawn, and for the London mail that in summer months 
 entered about dawn into the lawny thickets of Marlborough 
 Forest, couldst thou, sweet Fanny of the Bath road, have 
 become known to myself? Yet Fanny, as the loveliest 
 young woman for face and person that perhaps in my 
 whole life I have beheld, merited the station which even 
 /ler I could not willingly have spared ; yet (thirty-five 
 years later) she holds in my dreams ; and though, by an 
 accident of fanciful caprice, she brought along with her 
 into those dreams a troop of dreadful creatures, fabulous 
 and not fabulous, that were more abominable to a human 
 heart than Fanny and the dawn were dehghtful. 
 
 Miss Fanny of the Bath road, strictly speaking, lived at 
 a mile's distance from that road, but came so continually 
 to meet the mail, that I on my frequent transits rarely 
 missed her, and naturally connected her name with the 
 great thoroughfare where I saw her ; I do not exactly 
 know, but I believe with some burthen of commissions to 
 be executed in Bath, her own residence being probably 
 the centre to which these commissions gathered. The 
 mail coachman, who wore the royal livery, being one 
 amongst the privileged few,* happened to be Fanny's 
 
 * " Privileged few." The general impression was that this splendid 
 costume belonged of right to the mail coachmen as their professional 
 dress. But that was an error. To the guard it dui belong as a matter 
 of course, and was essential as an official warrant, and a means of instant
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH. 139 
 
 grandfather. A good man he was, that loved his beauti- 
 ful grand-daughter ; and, loving her wisely, was vigilant 
 over her deportment in any case where young Oxford 
 might happen to be concerned. Was I then vain enough 
 to imagine that I myself individually could fall within 
 the line of his terrors ? Certainly not, as regarded any 
 physical pretensions that I could plead ; for Fanny (as 
 a chance passenger from her own neighbourhood once 
 told me) counted in her train a hundred and ninety-nine 
 professed admirers, if not open aspirants to her favour; 
 and probably not one of the whole brigade but excelled 
 myself in personal advantages. Ulysses even, with the 
 unfair advantage of his accursed bow, could hardly have 
 undertaken that amount of suitors. So the danger might 
 have seemed slight — only that woman is universally aristo- 
 cratic : it is amongst her nobilities of heart that she is so. 
 Now, the aristocratic distinctions in my favour might easily 
 with Miss Fanny have compensated my physical deficiencies. 
 Did I then make love to Fanny? Why, yes; 7nais oiii done; 
 as much love as one can make whilst the mail is changing 
 horses, a process which ten years later did not occupy 
 above eighty seconds ; but the?i, viz. about Waterloo, it 
 occupied five times eighty. Now, four hundred seconds 
 offer a field quite ample enough for whispering into a young 
 woman's ear a great deal of truth ; and (by way of paren- 
 thesis) some trifle of falsehood. Grandpapa did right, 
 therefore, to watch me. And yet, as happens too often to 
 the grandpapas of earth, in a contest with the admirers of 
 
 identification for his person, in the discharge of his important public 
 duties. But the coachman, and especially if his place in the scries 
 did not connect him immediately with London and the General 
 Post Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an honorary distinction 
 alter long or special service.
 
 1 40 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 grand-daughters, how vainly would he have watched me had 
 I meditated any evil whispers to Fanny ! She, it is my 
 belief, would have protected herself against any man's evil 
 suggestions. But he, as the result showed, could not have 
 intercepted the opportunities for such suggestions. Yet he 
 was still active ; he was still blooming. Blooming he was 
 as Fanny herself. 
 
 " Say, all our praises why should lords — " 
 No, that's not the line : 
 
 " Say, all our roses why should girls engross ? " 
 
 The coachman showed rosy blossoms on his face deeper 
 even than his grand-daughter's, — his being drawn from the 
 ale-cask, Fanny's from youth and innocence, and from the 
 fountains of the dawn. But, in spite of his blooming face, 
 some infirmities he had ; and one particularly, (I am very 
 sure, no more than one), in which he too much resembled a 
 crocodile. This lay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning 
 round. The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to 
 the absurd length of his back ; but in our grandpapa it arose 
 rather from the absurd breadth of his back, combined, 
 probably, with some growing stiffness in his legs. Now 
 upon this crocodile infirmity of his I planted an easy 
 opportunity for tendering my homage to Miss Fanny. In 
 defiance of all his honourable vigilance, no sooner had he 
 presented to us his mighty Jovian back (what a field for 
 displaying to mankind his royal scarlet !) whilst inspecting 
 professionally the buckles, the straps, and the silver turrets 
 of his harness, than I raised Miss Fanny's hand to my lips, 
 and, by the mixed tenderness and respectfulness of my 
 manner, caused her easily to understand how happy it 
 would have made me to rank upon her list as No. lo or 12, 
 in which case a few casualties amongst her lovers (and
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 141 
 
 observe — they hanged liberally in those days) might have 
 promoted me speedily to the top of the tree; as, on the 
 other hand, with how much loyalty of submission I 
 acquiesced in her allotment, supposing that she had seen 
 reason to plant me in the very rearward of her favour, as 
 No, 199 + I. It must not be supposed that I allowed any 
 trace of jest, or even of playfulness, to mingle with these 
 expressions ot my admiration ; that would have been 
 insulting to her, and would have been false as regarded my 
 own feelings. In fact, the utter shadowyness of our relations 
 to each other, even after our meetings through seven or 
 eight years had been very numerous, but of necessity had 
 been very brief, being entirely on mail-coach allowance — 
 timed, in reality, by the General Post-Office — and watched 
 by a crocodile belonging to the ante-penultimate generation, 
 left it easy for me to do a thing which few people ever ca7i 
 have done — viz., to make love for seven years, at the same 
 time to be as sincere as ever creature was, and yet never to 
 compromise myself by overtures that might have been 
 foolish as regarded my own interests, or misleading as 
 regarded hers. Most truly I loved this beautiful and 
 ingenuous girl ; and had it not been for the Bath and 
 Bristol mail, heaven only knows what might have come of 
 it. People talk of being over head and ears in love — now, 
 the mail was the cause that I sank only over ears in love, 
 which, you know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the 
 whole conduct of the affair. I have mentioned the case at 
 all for the sake of a dreadful result from it in after years ot 
 dreaming. But it seems, ex abundatiti, to yield this moral 
 — viz., that as, in England, the idiot and the half-wit are 
 held to be under the guardianship of Chancery, so the man 
 making love, who is often but a variety of the same 
 imbecile class, ought to be made a ward of the General
 
 142 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 Post-Office, whose severe course of timing and periodical 
 interruption might intercept many a foolish declaration, 
 such as lays a solid foundation for fifty years' repentance. 
 
 Ah, reader ! when I look back upon those days, it seems 
 to me that all things change or perish. Even thunder and 
 lightning, it pains me to say, are not the thunder and light- 
 ning which I seem to remember about the time of Water- 
 loo. Roses, I fear, are degenerating, and, without a Red 
 revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our 
 island — though this I say with reluctance — are not improv- 
 ing ; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr 
 Waterton tells me that the crocodile does tiot change — that 
 a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding 
 upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs.., That may be ; 
 but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast — 
 he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood 
 amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is 
 my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads. 
 Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over 
 Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that 
 prevailed on the Nile. The crocodile made the ridiculous 
 blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own 
 eating. Man, taking a different view of the subject, 
 naturally met that mistake by another ; he viewed the 
 crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, but always to 
 run away from. And this continued until Mr Waterton 
 chano'ed the relations between the animals. The mode of 
 escaping from the reptile he showed to be, not by running 
 away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred. The 
 two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of 
 the crocodile has now been cleared up — it is to be ridden ; 
 and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of 
 the crocodile by riding him a foxhunting before breakfast.
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 143 
 
 And it is pretty certain that any crocodile, who has been 
 regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the 
 weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as 
 well as ever he would have done in the iafancy of the 
 Pyramids. 
 
 Perhaps, therefore, the crocodile does not change, but all 
 things else do : even the shadow of the Pyramids grows 
 less. And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the 
 Bath road, makes me too pathetically sensible of that truth. 
 Out of the darkness, if I happen to call up the image of 
 Fanny from thirty-five years back, arises suddenly a rose in 
 June; or, if I think for an) instant of the rose in June, up 
 rises the heavenly face of Fanny. One after the other, like 
 the antiphonies in a choral service, rises Fanny and the rose 
 in June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then 
 come both together, as in a chorus ; roses and Fannies, 
 Fannies and roses, without end — thick as blossoms in 
 paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal 
 livery of scarlet and gold, or in a coat with sixteen capes ; 
 and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of 
 the Bath mail. And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled 
 up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, and with 
 the dreadful legend of too late. Then all at once we are 
 arrived in Marlborough Forest, amongst the lovely house- 
 holds* of the roe-deer : these retire into the dewy thickets ; 
 the thickets are rich with roses ; the roses call up (as ever) 
 the sweet countenance of Fanny, who, being the grand- 
 
 * ^^ Households.''^ — Roe-deer do not congregale in herds like the 
 fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents, and children ; 
 which feature of approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, added 
 to their comparatively miniature and graceful proportions, conciliate to 
 them an interest ot a peculiarly tender character, if less dignified by the 
 grandeurs Oi savage and forest lite.
 
 144 JDE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 daughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful host of wild 
 semi-legendary animals — griffins, dragons, basiUsks, sphinxes 
 — till at length the whole vision of fighting images crowds 
 into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of 
 human charities and human loveliness that have perished, 
 but quartered heraldically with unutterable horrors of mon- 
 strous and demoniac natures ; whilst over all rises, as a sur- 
 mounting crest, one fair female hand, with the fore-finger 
 pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, 
 and having power (which, without experience, I never could 
 have believed) to awaken the pathos that kills in the very 
 bosom of the horrors that madden the grief that gnaws at 
 the heart, together with the monstrous creations of darkness 
 that shock the belief, and make dizzy the reason of man. 
 This is the peculiarity that I wish the reader to notice, as 
 having first been made known to me for a possibility by 
 this early vision of Fanny on the Bath road. The peculiar- 
 ity consisted in the confluence of two different keys, though 
 apparently repelling each other, into the music and govern- 
 ing principles of the same dream ; horror, such as possesses 
 the maniac, and yet, by momentary transitions, grief, such 
 as may be supposed to possess the dying mother when 
 leaving her infant children to the mercies of the cruel. 
 Usually, and perhaps always, in an unshaken nervous system, 
 these two modes of misery exclude each other — here first 
 they met in horrid reconciliation. There was also a sepa- 
 rate peculiarity in the quality of the horror. This was 
 afterwards developed into far more revolting complexities of 
 misery and incomprehensible darkness ; and perhaps I am 
 wrong in ascribing any value as a causative agency to this 
 particular case on the Bath road — possibly it furnished 
 merely an occasion that accidentally introduced a mode of 
 horrors certain, at any rate, to have grown up, with or with-
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 145 
 
 out the Bath road, from more advanced stages of the 
 nervous derangement. Yet, as the cubs of tigers or 
 leopards, when domesticated, have been observed to suffer 
 a sudden development of their latent ferocity under too 
 eager an appeal to their playfulness — the gaieties of sport 
 in the7n being too closely connected with the fiery bright- 
 ness of their murderous instincts — so I have remarked that 
 the caprices, the gay arabesques, and the lovely floral luxu- 
 riations of dreams, betray a shocking tendency to pass into 
 finer maniacal splendours. That gaiety, for instance, (for 
 such at first it was), in the dreaming faculty, by which one 
 principal point of resemblance to a crocodile in the mail- 
 coachman was soon made to clothe him with the form of a 
 crocodile, and yet was blended with accessory circumstances 
 derived from his human functions, passed rapidly into a 
 further development, no longer gay or playful, but terrific, 
 the most terrific that besieges dreams, viz. — the horrid in- 
 oculation upon each other of incompatible natures. This 
 horror has always been secretly felt by man ; it was felt 
 even under pagan forms of religion, which offered a very 
 feeble, and also a very limited gamut for giving expression 
 to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We 
 read in it the fearful composition of the sphinx. The 
 dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. 
 The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, 
 unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the 
 intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But 
 these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively 
 horrid ; they inflict the horror suitable to their compound 
 nature ; but there is no insinuation that \.\\ey feel that horror. 
 Heraldry is so full of these fantastic creatures, that, in some 
 zoologies, we find a separate chapter or a supplement dedi- 
 cated to what is denominated heraldic zoology. And why
 
 146 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 not ? For these hideous creatures, however visionary,* 
 have a real traditionary ground in medieval belief — sincere 
 and partly reasonable, though adulterating with mendacity, 
 blundering, credulity, and intense superstition. But the 
 dream-horror which I speak of is far more frightful. The 
 dreamer finds housed within himself — occupying, as it were, 
 some separate chamber in his brain — holding, perhaps, from 
 that station a secret and detestable commerce with his own 
 heart — some horrid alien nature. What if it were his own 
 nature repeated, — still, if the duality were distinctly per- 
 ceptible, even that — even this mere numerical double of his 
 own consciousness — might be a curse too mighty to be 
 
 * " However visionary." — But are they always visionary ? The uni- 
 corn, the kraken, the sea-serpent, are all, perhaps, zoological facts. 
 The unicorn, for instance, so far from being a lie, is rather too true ; 
 for, simply as a inotiokeras, he is found in the Himalaya, in Africa, and 
 elsewhere, rather too often for the peace of what in Scotland would be 
 called the in/endi>io- traxellev. That which really is a lie in the account 
 of the unicorn — viz., his legendary rivalship with the lion — which lie 
 may God preserve, in preserving the mighty imperial shield that em- 
 balms it— cannot be more destructive to the zoological pretensions of the 
 unicorn, than are to the same pretensions in the lion our many popular 
 crazes about his goodness and magnanimity, or the old fancy (adopted 
 by Spenser, and noticed by so many among our elder poets) of his 
 graciousness to maiden innocence. The wretch is the basest and most 
 cowardly among the forest tribes ; nor has the sublime courage of the 
 English bull-dog ever been so memorably exhibited as in his hopeless 
 fight at Warwick with the cowardly and cruel lion called Wallace. 
 Another of the traditional creatures, still doubtful, is the mermaid, 
 upon which Southey once remarked to me, that, if it had been differ- 
 ently named (as, suppose, a mer-ape), nobody would have questioned 
 its existence any more than that of sea-cows, sea-lions, &c. The mer- 
 maid has been discredited by her human name and her legendary 
 human habits. If she would not coquette so much with melancholy 
 sailors, and brush her hair so assiduously upon solitary rocks, she 
 would be carried on our books for as honest a reality, as decent a female, 
 is many that are assessed to the poor-rates.
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH. 147 
 
 sustained. But how, if the alien nature contradicts his 
 ov.'n, fights with it, perplexes, and contounds it? How, 
 again, if not one alien nature, but two, but three, but four, 
 but five, are introduced within what once he thought the 
 inviolable sanctuary ot himseU ? These, however, are 
 horrors from the kingdoms of anarchy and darkness, which, 
 by their very intensity, challenge the sanctity of conceal- 
 ment, and gloomily retire from exposition. Yet it was 
 necessary to mention them, because the first introduction 
 to such appearances (whether causal, or merely casual), lay 
 in the heraldic monsters, which monsters were themselves 
 introduced (though playfully) by the transfigured coachman 
 of the Bath mail. 
 
 GOING DOWN WITH VICTORY. 
 
 But the grandest chapter of our experience, within the 
 whole mail-coach service, was on those occasions when we 
 went down from London with the news of victory. A period 
 of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar to Waterloo : the 
 second and third years of which period (1806^ and 1807) 
 were comparatively sterile; but the rest, from 1805 to 1815 
 inclusively, furnished a long succession of victories ; me 
 least of which, in a contest of that portentous nature, had an 
 inappreciable value of position — partly for its absolute inter- 
 ference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its 
 keeping alive in central Europe the sense of a deep-seated 
 vulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our 
 enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult 
 them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under 
 the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to 
 time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in a quarter to 
 which the hopes of Christendom turned in secret Jtlow
 
 148 BE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 much more loudly must this proclamation have spoken in 
 the audacity * of having bearded the elite of their troops, 
 and having beaten them in pitched battles ! Five years of 
 life it -was worth paying down for the privilege of an outside 
 place on a mail-coach, when carrying down the first tidings 
 of any such event. And it is to be noted that, from our 
 insular situation, and the multitude of our frigates dispos 
 able for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarely did 
 any unauthorised rumour steal away a prelibation from 
 the aroma of the regular despatches. The government 
 official news was generally the first news. 
 
 From eight p.m. to fifteen or twenty minutes later, 
 imagine the mails assembled on parade in Lombard 
 Street, where, at that time, was seated the General Post- 
 Office. In what exact strength we mustered I do not 
 remember ; but, from the length of each separate atielage, 
 we filled the street, though a long one, and though we 
 were drawn up in double file. On any night the spectacle 
 was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all the appoint- 
 ments about the carriages and the harness, and the 
 magnificence of the horses, were what might first have 
 fixed the attention. Every carriage, on every morning in 
 the year, was taken down to an inspector for examination 
 
 * " Audacity 1^' — Such the French accounted it ; and it has struck 
 me that SouU would not have been so popular in London, at the 
 period of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on 
 occasion of his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the in- 
 solence with which he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from 
 the field of Waterloo. As though it had been mere felony in our army 
 to look a French one in the face, he said more than once — " Here are 
 the English — we have them : they are caught e«y?a^ra«/ n't'///." Yet 
 no man should have known us better ; no man had drunk deeper from 
 the cup of humiliation than Soult had in the north of Portugal, during 
 his flight from an English army, and subsequently at Albuera, in the 
 bloodiest of recorded battles.
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH 149 
 
 — wheels, axles, linchpins, pole, glasses, &c., were all 
 critically probed and tested. Every part of every carriage 
 had been cleaned, every horse had been groomed, with as 
 much rigour as if they belonged to a private gentleman ; 
 and that part of the spectacle offered itself always. But 
 the night before us is a night of victory ; and behold ! to 
 the ordinary display, what a heart-shaking addition ! — 
 horses, men, carriages — all are dressed in laurels and 
 flowers, oak-leaves and ribbons. The guards, who are 
 his Majesty's servants, and the coachmen, who are within 
 the privilege of the Post-Office, wear the royal liveries of 
 course ; and as it is summer (for all the land victories were 
 won in summer), they wear, on this fine evening, these 
 liveries exposed to view, without any covering of upper 
 coats. Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement of 
 the laurels in their hats, dilated their hearts, by giving to 
 them openly an official connection with the great news, in 
 which already they have the general interest of patriotism. 
 That great national sentiment surmounts and quells all 
 sense of ordinary distinctions. Those passengers who 
 happen to be gentlemen are now hardly to be distinguished 
 as such except by dress. The usual reserve of their 
 manner in speaking to the attendants has on this night 
 melted away. One heart, one pride, one glory, connects 
 every man by the transcendant bond of his English blood. 
 The spectators, who are numerous beyond precedent, 
 express their sympathy with these fervent feelings by 
 continual hurrahs. Every moment are shouted aloud by 
 the Post-Ofhce servants the great ancestral names oi cities 
 known to history through a thousand years, — Lincoln, 
 Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, 
 Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow 
 — expressing the grandeur 01 the empire by the antiquity
 
 I50 DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 of its towns, and the grandeur of the mail estabHshment 
 by the diffusive radiation of its separate missions. Every 
 moment you hear the thunder of Hds locked down upon 
 the mail-bags. That sound to each individual mail is the 
 signal for drawing off, which process is the finest part of 
 the entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play ; — 
 horses ! can these be horses that (unless powerfully reined 
 in) would bound off with the action and gestures of 
 leopards ? What stir ! — what sea-like ferment ! — what a 
 thundering of wheels, what a trampling of horses ! — what 
 farewell cheers — what redoubling peals of brotherly con- 
 gratulation, connecting the name of the particular mail — 
 " Liverpool for ever ! " — with the name of the particular 
 victory — " Badajoz for ever ! " or " Salamanca for ever ! " 
 The half-slumbering consciousness that, all night long and 
 all the next day — perhaps for even a longer period — many 
 of these mails, like fire racing along a train of gunpowder, 
 will be kindling at every instant new successions of burning 
 joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the victory itself, 
 by multiplying to the imagination into infinity the stages 
 of its progressive diffusion. A fiery arrow seems to be let 
 loose, which from that moment is destined to travel, almost 
 without intermission, westwards for three hundred * miles — 
 
 * " T/iree hundred."— Oi necessity this scale of measurement, to 
 r.n American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound 
 ludicrous. Accordingly, I remember a case in which an American 
 writer indulges himself in the luxury of a little lying, by ascribing to an 
 Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely 
 upon American ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like 
 these terms: — "And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of 
 rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding 
 course, traversed the astonishing distance of 170 miles." And this the 
 candid American thinks it fair to contrast with the scale of the 
 Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer a pure falsehood
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH. 151 
 
 northwards for six hundred ; and the sympathy of our 
 Lombard Street friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold 
 by a sort of visionary sympathy with the approaching 
 sympathies, yet unborn, which we were going to evoke. 
 
 Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and 
 issuing into the broad uncrowded avenues of the northern 
 suburbs, we begin to enter upon our natural pace of ten 
 miles an hour. In the broad light of the summer evening, 
 the sun perhaps only just at the point of setting, we are 
 seen from every storey of every house. Heads of every 
 age crowd to the windows — young and old understand 
 the language of our victorious symbols — and rolling 
 volleys of sympathising cheers run along behind and 
 before our course. The beggar, rearing himself against 
 
 gravely, else one might say that no Englishman out of Bedlam ever 
 thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a continent ; nor, 
 consequently, could have thought of looking for the peculiar grandeur 
 of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the extent of soil which 
 it drains : yet, if he had been so absurd, the American might have 
 recollected that a river, not to be compared with the Thames even as 
 to volume of water — viz. the Tiber — has contrived to make itself heard 
 of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached, nor 
 likely to be reached very soon, by any river, however corpulent, of his 
 own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the 
 population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, 
 by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it 
 is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a 
 transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails to 
 be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations 
 to our English ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his 
 country in these terms : — "Those rascals, sir, in France and England, 
 cannot march half a mile in any direction without finding a house 
 where food can be had and lodging • whereas, such is the noble 
 desolation of our magnificent country, that in many a direction for a 
 thousand miles, I will engage a dog shall not find shelter from a snow- 
 storm, nor a wren find an apology for breakfast."
 
 152 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 the wall, forgets his lameness — real or assumed — thinks 
 not of his whining trade, but stands erect, with bold 
 exulting smiles, as we pass him. The victory has healed 
 him, and says — Be thou whole ! Women and children, 
 from garrets alike and cellars, look down or look up with 
 loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels — 
 sometimes kiss their hands, sometimes hang out, as signals 
 of affection, pocket-handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, any- 
 thing that lies ready to their hands. On the London side 
 of Barnet, to which we draw near within a tew minutes 
 after nine, observe that private carriage which is ap- 
 proaching us. The weather being so warm, the glasses 
 are all down ; and one may read, as on the stage of a 
 theatre, everything that goes on within the carriage. It 
 :ontains three ladies, one likely to be " mama," and 
 two of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her 
 daughters. What lovely animation, what beautiful unpre- 
 meditated pantomime, explaining to us every syllable that 
 passes, in these ingenuous girls ! By the sudden start 
 and raising of the hands, on first discovering our laurelled 
 equipage — by the sudden movement and appeal to the 
 elder lady from both of them — and by the heightened 
 colour on their animated countenances, we can almost 
 hear them saying — " See, see ! Look at their laurels. 
 Oh, mama ! there has been a great battle in Spain ; and 
 it has been a great victory." In a moment we are on 
 the point of passing them. We passengers — I on the box, 
 and the two on the roof behind me — raise our hats, the 
 coachman makes his professional salute with the whip ; 
 the guard even, though punctilious on the matter of his 
 dignity as an officer under the crown, touches his hat. 
 The ladies move to us, in return, with a winning gracious- 
 ness of gesture : all smile on each side in a way that
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH. 153 
 
 nobody could misunderstand, and that nothing short of a 
 grand national sympathy could so instantaneously prompt. 
 Will these ladies say that we are nothing to them ? Oh, no ; 
 they will not say that. They cannot deny — they do not 
 deny — that for this night they are our sisters : gentle or 
 simple, scholar or illiterate servant, for twelve hours to 
 come — we on the outside have the honour to be their 
 brothers. Those poor women again, who stop to gaze 
 upon us with delight at the entrance of Barnet, and seem 
 by their air of weariness to be returning from labour — do 
 you mean to say that they are washerwomen and char- 
 women? Ob, my poor friend, you are quite mistaken; 
 they are nothing of the kind. I assure you, they stand 
 in a higher rank : for this one night they feel themselves 
 by birthright to be daughters of England, and answer to no 
 humbler title. 
 
 Every joy, however, even rapturous joy — such is the sad 
 law of earth — may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to 
 some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we see approaching us 
 another private carriage, nearly repeating the circumstances 
 of the former case. Here also the glasses are all down — 
 here also is an elderly lady seated ; but the two amiable 
 daughters are missing ; for the single young person, sitting 
 by the lady's side, seems to be an attendant — so I judge 
 from her dress, and her air of respectful reserve. The lady 
 is in mourning ; and her countenance expresses sorrow. 
 At first she does not look up \ so that I believe she is not 
 aware of our approach, until she hears the measured beating 
 of our horses' hoofs. Then she raises her eyes to settle 
 them painfully on our triumphal equipage. Our decora- 
 tions explain the case to her at once ; but she beholds 
 them with apparent anxiety, or even with terror. Some 
 time before this, I, finding it difficult to hit a flying mark,
 
 154 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 when embarrassed by the coachman's person and reins m- 
 tervening, had given to the guard a Courier evening paper, 
 containing the gazette, for the next carriage that might pass. 
 Accordingly he tossed it in, so folded that the huge capitals 
 expressing some such legend as — glorious victory, 
 might catch the eye at once. To see the paper, however, 
 at all, interpreted as it was by our ensigns of triumph, 
 explained everything; and, if the guard were right in 
 thinking the lady to have received it with a gesture of 
 horror, it could not be doubtful that she had suffered 
 some deep personal affliction in connection with this 
 Spanish war. 
 
 Here now was the case of one who, having formerly 
 suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be distressing herself 
 with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same 
 night, and hardly three hours later, occurred the reverse 
 case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, 
 in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions 
 by the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an exulta- 
 tion so unmeasured in the news, and its details, as gave to 
 her the appearance which amongst Celtic Highlanders is 
 called fey. This was at some little town, I forget what, 
 where we happened to change horses near midnight. 
 Some fair or wake had kept the people up out of their 
 beds. We saw many lights moving about as we drew 
 near; and perhaps the most impressive scene on our 
 route was our reception at this place. The flashing of 
 torches and the beautiful radiance of blue lights (techni- 
 cally Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses; the 
 fine effect of such a showery and ghostly illumination 
 falling upon flowers and glittering laurels, whilst all around 
 the massy darkness seemed to invest us with walls of 
 impenetrable blackness, together with the prodigious
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL CO A CH. 155 
 
 enthusiasm of the people, composed a picture at once 
 scenical and affecting. As we staid for three or four 
 minutes, I ah"ghted. And immediately from a dismantled 
 stall in the street, where perhaps she had been presiding 
 at some part of the evening, advanced eagerly a middle- 
 aged woman. The sight of my newspaper it was that 
 had drawn her attention upon myself. The victory which 
 we were carrying down to the provinces on this occasion 
 was the imperfect one of Talavera. I told her the main 
 outline of the battle. But her agitation, though not the 
 agitation of fear, but of exultation rather, and enthusiasm, 
 had been so conspicuous when listening, and when first 
 applying for information, that I could not but ask her if 
 she had not some relation in the Peninsular army. Oh ! 
 yes : her only son was there. In what regiment ? He was 
 a trooper in the 23rd Dragoons. My heart sank within me 
 as she made that answer. This sublime regiment, which 
 an Englishman should never mention without raising his 
 hat to their memory, had made the most memorable and 
 effective charge recorded in military annals. They leaped 
 their horses — over a trench where they could, into it, and 
 with the result of death or mutilation when they could not. 
 What proportion cleared the trench is nowhere stated. 
 Those who did, closed up and went down upon the enemy 
 with such divinity of fervour — (I use the word divinity by 
 design : the inspiration of God must have prompted this 
 movement to those whom even then he was calling to his 
 presence) — that two results followed. As regarded the 
 enemy, this 23rd Dragoons, not, I believe, originally 350 
 strong, paralysed a French column, 6000 strong, then 
 ascending the hill, and fixed the gaze of the whole French 
 army. As regarded themselves, the 23rd were supposed 
 at first to have been all but annihilated ; but eventually,
 
 156 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 I believe, not so many as one in four survived. And this, 
 then, was the regiment — a regiment already for some hours 
 known to myself and all London as stretched, by a large 
 majority, upon one bloody aceldama — in which the young 
 trooper served whose mother was now talking with myself 
 in a spirit of such hopeful enthusiasm. Did I tell her the 
 truth ? Had I the heart to break up her dream ? No. I 
 said to myself. To-morrow, or tlie next day, she will hear 
 the worst. For this night, wherefore should she not sleep 
 in peace? After to-morrow, the chances are too many 
 that peace will forsake her pillow. This brief respite, let 
 her owe this to my gift and my forbearance. But, if I told 
 her not of the bloody price that had been paid, there was 
 no reason for suppressing the contributions from her son's 
 regiment to the service and glory of the day. For the very 
 few words that I had time for speaking, I governed myself 
 accordingly. I showed her not the funeral banners under 
 which the noble regiment was sleeping. I lifted not the 
 overshadowing laurels from the bloody trench in which 
 horse and rider lay mangled together. But I told her 
 how these dear children of England, privates and officers, 
 had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gaily as hunters 
 to the morning's chase. I told her how they rode their 
 horses into the mists of death, (saying to myself, but not 
 saying to her), and laid down their young lives for thee, 
 O mother England ! as willingly — poured out their noble 
 blood as cheerfully — as ever, after a long day's sport, when 
 infants, they had rested their wearied heads upon their 
 mothers' knees, or had sunk to sleep in her arms. It is 
 singular that she seemed to have no fears, even after this 
 knowledge that the 23rd Dragoons had been conspicuously 
 engaged, for her son's safety : but so much was she en- 
 raptured by the knowledge that his regiment, and therefore
 
 THE ENGLISH MAIL- CO A CH 157 
 
 he, had rendered eminent service in the trying conflict — a 
 service which had actually made them the foremost topic of 
 conversation in London — that in the mere simplicity of her 
 fervent nature, she threw her arms round my neck, and, 
 poor woman, kissed me.
 
 The Vision of Sudden Death. 
 
 [The reader is to understand this present paper, in its 
 two sections of The Vision, &c., and The Dream-Fugue, 
 as connected with the previous paper on The English 
 Mail-Coach. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue, 
 as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music 
 in dealing with a colossal form of impassioned horror. 
 The Vision of Sudden Death contains the mail-coach 
 incident, which did really occur, and did really suggest 
 the variations of the Dream, here taken up by the Fugue, 
 as well as other variations not now recorded. Confluent 
 with these impressions, from the terrific experience on 
 the Manchester and Glasgow mail, were other and more 
 general impressions, derived from long familiarity with 
 the English mail, as developed in the former paper; im- 
 pressions, for instance, of animal beauty and power, of rapid 
 motion, at that time unprecedented, of connection with the 
 government and public business of a great nation, but, above 
 all, of connection with the national victories at an unex- 
 ampled crisis, — the mail being the privileged organ for 
 publishing and dispersing all news of that kind. From 
 this function of the mail, arises naturally the introduction 
 of Waterloo into the fourth variation of the Fugue ; for the 
 mail itself having been carried into the dreams by the 
 incident in the Vision, naturally all the accessory circum- 
 stances of pomp and grandeur investing this national 
 carriage followed in the train of the principal image.] 
 158
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 159 
 
 What is to be thought of sudden death ? It is remarkable 
 that, in different conditions of society, it has been variously 
 regarded, as the consummation of an earthly career most 
 fervently to be desired, and, on the other hand, as that 
 consummation which is most of all to be deprecated. 
 Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner party, (ccend), and 
 the very evening before his assassination, being questioned 
 as to the mode of death which, in his opinion, might seem 
 the most eligible, replied — " That which should be most 
 sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our 
 English Church, when breathing forth supphcations, as if 
 in some representative character for the whole human race 
 prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van 
 of horrors. " From lightning and tempest ; from plague, 
 pestilence, and famine ; from battle and murder, and from 
 sudden death, — Good Lord, deliver us." Sudden death is 
 here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of 
 calamities ; it is the last of curses ; and yet, by the 
 noblest of Romans, it was treated as the first of blessings. 
 In that difference, most readers will see little more than 
 the difference between Christianity and Paganism. But 
 there I hesitate. The Christian church may be right in 
 its estimate of sudden death ; and it is a natural feeling, 
 though after all it may also be an infirm one, to wish for a 
 quiet dismissal from life — as that which see/ns most reconcil- 
 able with meditation, with penitential retrospects, and with 
 the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, however, 
 occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for this earnest 
 petition of the English Litany. It seems rather a petition 
 indulged to human infirmity, than exacted from human 
 piety. And, however thai may be, two remarks suggest 
 themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine, which 
 else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable
 
 i6o DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 superstition. The first is this : that many people are Hkely 
 to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death, (I mean the 
 objective horror to him who contemplates such a death, not 
 the subjective horror to him who suffers it), from the false dis- 
 position to lay a stress upon words or acts, simply because by 
 an accident they have become final words or acts. If a man 
 dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens 
 to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with 
 peculiar horror ; as though the intoxication were suddenly 
 exalted into a blasphemy. But that is unphilosophic. The 
 man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. If not, if 
 his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be no 
 reason at all for allowing special emphasis to this act, 
 simply because through misfortune it became his final 
 act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, 
 but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the 
 more habitual or the more a transgression, because some 
 sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual 
 transgression to be also a final one ? Could the man have 
 had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden 
 death, there would have been a new feature in his act of 
 intemperance — a feature of presumption and irreverence, 
 as in one that by possibility felt himself drawing near 
 to the presence of God. But this is no part of the case 
 supposed. And the only new element in the man's act is 
 not any element of extra immorality, but simply of extra 
 misfortune. 
 
 The other remark has reference to the meaning of the 
 word sudden. And it is a strong illustration of the duty 
 which for ever calls us to the stern valuation of words — 
 that very possibly Ctesar and the Christian church do not 
 differ in the way supposed ; that is, do not differ by any 
 difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. i6i 
 
 of the moral temper appropriate to death, but that they are 
 contemplating different cases. Both contemplate a violent 
 death; a B/a^a^aroj — death that is Blatog: but the difference 
 is — that the Roman by the word " sudden " means an un- 
 lingering death : whereas the Christian litany by " sudden " 
 means a death without warning., consequently without any 
 available summons to religious preparation. The poor 
 mutineer, who kneels down to gather into his heart the 
 bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades, dies 
 by a most sudden death in Caesar's sense : one shock, 
 one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is 
 over. But, in the sense of the Litany, his death is far from 
 sudden ; his offence originally, his imprisonment, his trial, 
 the interval between his sentence and its execution, having 
 all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate — having 
 all summoned him to meet it with solemn preparation. 
 
 Meantime, whatever may be thought of a sudden death 
 as a mere variety in the modes of dying, where death in 
 some shape is inevitable — a question which, equally in the 
 Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered 
 according to each man's variety of temperament — certainly, 
 upon one aspect of sudden death there can be no opening 
 for doubt, that of all agonies incident to man it is the 
 most frightful, that of all martyrdoms it is the most freezing 
 to human sensibiHties — namely, where it surprises a man 
 under circumstances which offer (or which seem to offer) 
 some hurried and inappreciable chance of evading it. 
 Any effort, by which such an evasion can be accom- 
 plished, must be as sudden as the danger which it 
 affronts. Even that, even the sickening necessity for 
 hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to 
 be vain, self-baffled, and where the dreadful knell of too 
 late is already sounding in the ears by anticipation — even 
 
 L
 
 1 6 2 DE Q UINCE \ ''S ESS A 3 '5. 
 
 that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one 
 particular case, namely, where the agonising appeal is 
 made not exclusively to the instinct of self-preservation, 
 but to the conscience, on behalf of another life besides 
 your own, accidentally cast upon your protection. To fail, 
 to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem 
 comparatively venial ; though, in fact, it is far from venial. 
 But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly 
 thrown into your hands the final interests of another — 
 of a fellow-creature shuddering between the gates of life 
 and death ; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, 
 w-ould mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with 
 the misery of a bloody calamity. The man is called upon, 
 too probably, to die ; but to die at the very moment 
 when, by any momentary collapse, he is self-denounced 
 as a murderer. He had but the twinkling of an eye for 
 his effort, and that effort might, at the best, have been 
 unavailing ; but from this shadow of a chance, small or 
 great, how if he has recoiled by a treasonable lachete} 
 The effort might have been without hope; but to have 
 risen to the level of that effort — would have rescued him, 
 though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to his 
 duties. 
 
 The situation here contemplated exposes a dreadful ulcer, 
 lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not 
 that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. 
 But potentially, and in shadowy outline, such a trial is 
 moving subterraneously in perhaps all men's natures — 
 muttering under ground in one world, to be realised perhaps 
 in some other. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such 
 a trial is darkly projected at intervals, perhaps, to every one 
 of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a 
 lion, and, from languishing prostration in hope and vital 
 
 i
 
 THE Vision OF SUDDEN DEATH 163 
 
 eiierg}', that constant sequel of lying down before him, 
 publishes the secret frailty of human nature — reveals its 
 deep-seated Pariah falsehood to itself — records its abysmal 
 treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes that dream ; 
 perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream 
 repeats foi every one of us, through every generation, the 
 original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this 
 dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own 
 individual will ; once again a snare is made ready for lead- 
 ing him into captivity to a luxury of ruin ; again, as in 
 aboriginal Paradise, the man falls from innocence ; once 
 again, by infinite iteration, the ancient Earth groans to 
 God, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her 
 child ; " Nature from her seat, sighing through all her 
 works," again " gives signs of woe that all is lost ; " and 
 again the counter sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens 
 of the endless rebellion against God. Many people think 
 that one man, the patriarch of our race, could not in his 
 single person execute this rebellion for all his race. Per- 
 haps they are wrong. But, even if not, perhaps in the 
 world of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the 
 original act. Our English rite of " Confirmation," by 
 which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us 
 the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering in- 
 fancy, — how sublime a rite is that ! The little postern 
 gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently 
 placed for a time within the glory of God's countenance, 
 suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through 
 which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make 
 our second entry as crusading soldiers militant for God, by 
 personal choice and by sacramental oath. Each man says 
 in efifect — " Lo ! I rebaptise myself; and that which once 
 was sworn on my behalf, now I swear for myself." Even so
 
 1 64 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the mid- 
 night sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, 
 but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each 
 several child of our mysterious race completes for himself 
 the aboriginal fall. 
 
 As I drew near to the Manchester post-office, I found 
 that it was considerably past midnight ; but to my great 
 relief, as it was important for me to be in Westmorland by 
 the morning, I saw by the huge saucer eyes of the mail, 
 blazing through the gloom of overhanging houses, that my 
 chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was ; but by some 
 luck, very unusual in my experience, the mail was not even 
 yet ready to start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where 
 my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater 
 Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical dis- 
 coverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his 
 discovery, by way of warning off the ground the whole 
 human race, and signalising to the Christian and the 
 heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has 
 planted his throne for ever upon that virgin soil ; hence- 
 forward claiming \hepis domiiiiXo the top of the atmosphere 
 above it, and also the right of driving shafts to the centre of 
 the earth below it ; so that all people found after this warn- 
 ing, either aloft in the atmosphere, or in the shafts, or 
 squatting on the soil, will be treated as trespassers — that 
 is, decapitated by their very faithful and obedient servant, 
 the owner of the said bunting. Possibly my cloak might 
 not have been respected, and the jus gentium might have 
 been cruelly violated in my person — for, in the dark, people 
 commit deeds of darkness, gas being a great ally of morality 
 — but it so happened that, on this night, there was no other 
 outside passenger ; and the crime, which else was but too 
 probable, missed fire for want ot a criminal. By the way.
 
 THE VISION OF S UDDEN DEA TH. 165 
 
 I may as well mention at this point, since a circumstantial 
 accuracy is essential to the effect of my narrative, that there 
 was no other person of any description whatever about the 
 mail — the guard, the coachman, and myself being allowed 
 for — except on^y one — a horrid creature of the class known 
 to the world as insiders, but whom young Oxford called 
 sometimes " Trojans," in opposition to our Grecian selves, 
 and sometimes *' vermin." A Turkish Effendi, who piques 
 himself on good-breeding, will never mention by name a 
 pig. Yet it is but too often that he has reason to mention 
 this animal ; since constantly, in the streets of Stamboul, he 
 has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature 
 running between his legs. But under any excess of hurry 
 he is always careful, out of respect to the company he is 
 dining with, to suppress the odious name, and to call the 
 wretch " that other creature," as though all animal life 
 beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, 
 as Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) 
 formed another and alien group on the outside of creation. 
 Now I, who am an English Effendi, that think myself to 
 understand good-breeding as well as any son of Othman, 
 beg my reader's pardon for having mentioned an insider by 
 his gross natural name. I shall do so no more : and, if I 
 should have occasion to glance at so painful a subject, I 
 shall always call him " that other creature." Let us hope, 
 however, that no such distressing occasion will arise. But, 
 by the way, an occasion arises at this moment ; for the 
 reader will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, 
 " Was this other creature present? " He was not; or more 
 correctly, perhaps, it was not. We dropped the creature — or 
 the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped itself — within the 
 first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, I wish 
 to make a philosophic remark ot a moral tendency. When
 
 1 66 DE QUnyCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 I die, or when the reader dies, and by repute suppose ol 
 fever, it will never be known whether we died in reality ol 
 the fever or of the doctor. But this other creature, in the 
 case of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner's in- 
 quest ; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist 
 upon it, that the verdict of a coroner's jury makes the best 
 of epitaphs. It is brief, so that the public all find time to 
 read it ; it is pithy, so that the surviving friends (if any can 
 survive such a loss) remember it without fatigue ; it is upon 
 oath, so that rascals and Dr Johnsons cannot pick holes in 
 it. " Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by 
 impinging on a moonlight night against the off hind wheel 
 of the Glasgow mail ! Deodand upon the said wheel — two- 
 pence." What a simple lapidary inscription ! Nobody much 
 in the wrong but an off-wheel ; and with few acquaintances ; 
 and if it were but rendered into choice Latin, though there 
 would be a little bother in finding a Ciceronian word for 
 " off-wheel," Morcellus himself, that great master of sepul- 
 chral eloquence, could not show a better. Why I call this 
 little remark moral, is from the compensation it points out. 
 Here, by the supposition, is that other creature on the one 
 side, the beast of the world ; and he (or it) gets an epitaph. 
 You and I, on the contrary, the pride of our friends, get 
 none. 
 
 But why linger on the subject of vermin? Having 
 mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, 
 having already travelled two hundred and fifty miles — 
 viz., from a point seventy miles beyond London, upon a 
 simple breakfast. In the taking of laudanum there was 
 nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon 
 me the special attention of my assessor on the box, the 
 coachman. And in that there was nothing extraordinary. 
 But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my atten-
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 167 
 
 tion to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point 
 of size, and that he had but one eye. In fact he had been 
 foretold by Virgil as — 
 
 " Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." 
 
 He answered in every point — a monster he was — dreadful, 
 shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why should that 
 delight me ? Had he been one of the Calendars in the 
 Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of 
 his criminal curiosity, what right had / to exult in his mis- 
 fortune? I did notQ.x\A\.\ I delighted in no man's punishment, 
 though it were even merited. Bat these personal distinctions 
 identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom I had 
 known in the south for some years as the most masterly of 
 mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could 
 best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop over 
 Al Sirat — that famous bridge of Mahomet across the 
 bottomless gulf, backing himself against the Prophet and 
 twenty such fellows. I used to call him Cyclops mastigo- 
 phoriis^ Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his 
 skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent 
 fly from a leader's head ; upon which I changed his Grecian 
 name to Cyclops diphrelates (Cyclops the charioteer). I, 
 and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic 
 art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant -to be pedantic. 
 And also take this remark from me, as a gage d'amitie — 
 that no word ever was or can be pedantic which, by sup- 
 porting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic ; or 
 which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a pupil, 
 though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in 
 his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty, (though, observe, 
 not his discernment,) that he could not see my merits. 
 Perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular,
 
 1 68 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A VS. 
 
 by remembering his want of an eye. That made him blind 
 to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was, (surely it 
 could not be envy ?) he always courted my conversation, in 
 which art I certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this 
 occasion, great joy was at our meeting. But what was 
 Cyclops doing here ? Had the medical men recommended 
 northern air, or how ? I collected, from such explanations 
 as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a 
 suit-at-law pending at Lancaster ; so that probably he had 
 got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of 
 connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness 
 for the calls of his law-suit. 
 
 Meantime, what are we stopping for ? Surely we've been 
 waiting long enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and oh 
 this procrastinating post-office ! Can't they take a lesson 
 upon that subject from we? Some people have called me 
 procrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was in 
 time for them. But can they lay their hands on their hearts, 
 and say that they were in time for me ? I, during my life, 
 have often had to wait for the post-office : the post-office 
 never waited a minute for me. What are they about ? 
 The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation 
 of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by 
 war and by the packet-service, when as yet nothing is done 
 by steam. For an extra hour, it seems, the post-office has 
 been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten corre- 
 spondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of 
 all baser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going 
 at this moment. But at last all is finished. Sound your 
 horn, guard. IManchester, good-bye ; we've lost an hour by 
 your criminal conduct at the post-office : which, however, 
 though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of 
 complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 169 
 
 secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to recover this 
 last hour amongst the next eight or nine. Off we are at 
 last, and at eleven miles an hour : and at first I detect no 
 changes in the energy or in the skill of Cyclops. 
 
 From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not 
 in law) is the capital of Westmorland, were at this time 
 seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, 
 dated from Manchester, terminated in Lancaster, which was 
 therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and the same 
 distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three terminated 
 in Preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns of 
 that name, proud Preston), at which place it was that the 
 separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the 
 north became confluent. Within these first three stages lay 
 the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's 
 adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops 
 was mortal : he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep 
 — a thing which I had never previously suspected. If a 
 man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill 
 in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to 
 execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. " Oh, 
 Cyclops!" I exclaimed more than once, "Cyclops, my 
 friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest." Through this 
 first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity — 
 which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan 
 Pantheon — only by short stretches. On waking up, he 
 made an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the 
 matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters. 
 The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster : in 
 consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he 
 had not lain down in a bed. During the day, he was waiting 
 for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which 
 he was interested ; or he was drinking with the other wit-
 
 170 DE Q VI NCR Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 nesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. 
 During the night, or that part of it when the least tempta- 
 tions existed to conviviality, he was driving. Throughout 
 the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the 
 second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself 
 finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. 
 All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this 
 final oppression. Seven atmospheres of sleep seemed rest- 
 ing upon him ; and, to consummate the case, our worthy 
 guard, after singing " Love amongst the Roses," for the 
 fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops 
 or myself, and without applause for his poor labours, had 
 moodily resigned himself to slumber — not so deep doubtless 
 as the coachman's, but deep enough for mischief; and 
 having, probably, no similar excuse. And thus at last, 
 about ten miles fjom Preston, I found myself left in charge 
 of his Majesty's London and Glasgow mail then running 
 about eleven miles an hour. 
 
 What made this negligence less criminal than else it must 
 have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night 
 during the assizes. At that time all the law business of 
 populous Liverpool, and of populous Manchester, with its 
 vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by 
 ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster, To 
 break up this old traditional usage required a conflict witli 
 powerful established interests, a large system of new arrange- 
 ments, and a new parliamentary statute. As things were at 
 present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled 
 northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that for 
 a fortnight at least it occupied the severe exertions of two 
 judges for its despatch. The consequence of this was — that 
 every horse available for such a service, along the whole line 
 of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of
 
 THE VISION OF S UDDEN DEA TH. 171 
 
 people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, 
 therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion 
 amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent. Except 
 exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a con- 
 tested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in 
 England. 
 
 On this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed 
 along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. 
 And to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the 
 noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of 
 peculiar solemnity and peace. I myself, though slightly 
 ahve to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the 
 influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound 
 reverie. The month was August, in which lay my own 
 birthday ; a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting 
 solemn and often sigh-born thoughts.* The county was my 
 own native county — upon which, in its southern section, 
 more than upon any equal area known to man past or 
 present, had descended the original curse of labour in its 
 heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as of 
 slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery 
 will. Upon no equal space of earth, was, or ever had been, 
 the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this 
 particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane 
 of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, 
 that swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the 
 county up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, 
 united with the permanent distinction of Lancashire as the 
 very metropolis and citadel of labour, to point the thoughts 
 pathetically upon that counter vision of rest, of saintly 
 
 * "Sigh-born": I owe the suggestion of this word to an obscure 
 remembrance of a beautiful phrase in Giraldus Cambrensis, viz., 
 suspiriosa cogitationes.
 
 172 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A VS. 
 
 repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their 
 secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart 
 are continually travelling. Obliquely we w-ere nearing the 
 sea upon our left, which also must, under the present 
 circumstances, be repeating the general state of hal- 
 cyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an 
 orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight, and 
 the first timid tremblings of the dawn, were now blending ; 
 and the blen dings were brought into a still more exquisite 
 state of unity, by a slight silvery mist, motionless and 
 dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil 
 of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own 
 horses, which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made 
 little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. In the 
 clouds, and on the earth, prevailed the same majestic 
 peace ; and in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster 
 has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are 
 the thoughts of our infancy, we still beHeve in no such 
 nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may 
 swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts 
 we still believe, and must for ever believe, in fields of air 
 traversing the total gulf between earth and the central 
 heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread 
 without fear every chamber in their father's house, and to 
 whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which 
 sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, 
 ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of 
 earth, upwards to the sandals of God. 
 
 Suddenly from thoughts like these, I was awakened to a 
 sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It 
 stole upon the air for a moment ; I listened in awe ; but 
 then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but 
 observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses.
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 173 
 
 Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the 
 valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running 
 thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. 
 On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shame- 
 fully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of 
 doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark un- 
 fathomed remembrances upon my energies, when the signal 
 is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed 
 gift I have, as regards thought, that in the first step towards 
 the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution : in 
 the radix, I see too certainly and too instantly its entire 
 expansion ; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I 
 read already the last. It was not that I feared for our- 
 selves. What could injure us"^ Our bulk and impetus 
 charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode 
 through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to 
 approach, that were matter of laughter as we looked back 
 upon them, for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The 
 mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could 
 betray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage 
 that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison 
 of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our 
 situation. We were on the wrong side of the road. But 
 then the other party, if other there was, might also be on 
 the wrong side ; and two wrongs might make a right. That 
 was not likely. The same motive which had drawn us to 
 the right-hand side of the road, viz., the soft beaten sand, as 
 contrasted with the paved centre, would prove attractive to 
 others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression 
 of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us, 
 would rely upon us for quartering.* All this, and if the 
 
 ■^ " Quartering " — this is the technical word ; and, I presume, 
 derived Irom the French cartayer, to evade a rut or any obstacle.
 
 174 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A \ 'S. 
 
 separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand 
 times more, I saw — not discursively or by effort — but as by 
 one flash of horrid intuition. 
 
 Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil 
 which J7iight be gathering ahead, ah, reader ! what a sullen 
 mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to steal upon 
 the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard ! A 
 whisper it was — a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off — 
 secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the 
 less inevitable. What could be done — who was it that 
 could do it — to check the storm-flight of these maniacal 
 horses ? What ! could I not seize the reins from the grasp 
 of the slumbering coachman ? You, reader, think that it 
 would have been in your power to do so. And I quarrel 
 not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in 
 which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper 
 and lower thigh, this was impossible. The guard sub- 
 sequently found it impossible, after this danger had passed. 
 Not the grasp only, but also the position of this Polyphemus, 
 made the attempt impossible. You still think otherwise. 
 See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel ridei 
 has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries 
 Unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his 
 mouth with water. Or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble 
 emperor : knock me those marble feet from those marble 
 stirrups of Charlemagne. 
 
 The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too 
 clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be ? 
 Was it industry in a taxed cart ? — was it youthful gaiety in 
 a gig ? Whoever it was, something must be attempted to 
 warn them. Upon the other party rests the active respon- 
 sibility, but upon us — and, woe is me ! that us was my 
 single self — rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, how
 
 THE VISION 01 SUDDEN DEATH. 175 
 
 should this be accomplished? Might I not seize the 
 guard's horn ? Already, on the first thought, I was making 
 my way over the roof to the guard's seat. But this, from 
 the foreign mails being piled upon the roof, was a difficult, 
 and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped by nearly 
 three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunatel)', 
 before I had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic 
 horses swept round an angle of the road, which opened 
 upon us the stage where the collision must be accomplished, 
 the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and the 
 impossibility of saving them by any communication with 
 the guard. 
 
 Before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, six hundred 
 yards, perhaps, in length ; and the umbrageous trees, which 
 rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high over- 
 head, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These 
 trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light ; but there 
 was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this 
 gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young 
 man, and, by his side, a young lady. Ah, young sir ! what 
 are you about ? If it is necessary that you should whisper 
 your communications to this young lady — though really I 
 see nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to 
 overhear your conversation — is it, therefore, necessary that 
 you should carry your lips forward to hers? The little 
 carriage is[creeping on at one mile an hour ; and the parties 
 within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending 
 down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all 
 human calculation, there is but a minute and a half What is 
 it that I shall do ? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of 
 the tale might seem laughable, that I should need a sug- 
 gestion from the Iliad to prompt the sole resource that 
 remained. But so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout
 
 176 DE QUINCE y\S ESSAYS. 
 
 of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like 
 the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No, certainly: but then 
 I needed not the shout that should alarn^ all Asia militant ; 
 a shout would sufifice, such as sh6uld carry terror into the 
 hearts of two thoughtless young people, and one gig horse. 
 I shouted — and the young man heard me not. A second 
 time I shouted — and now he heard me, for now he raised 
 his head. 
 
 Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done : 
 more on my part was not possible. Mine had been the 
 first step : the second was for the young man : the third 
 was for God. If, said I, the stranger is a brave man, and 
 if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side — or, loving 
 her not, if he feels the obligation pressing upon every man 
 worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman 
 confided to his protection — he will at least make some effort 
 to save her. If that fails, he will not perish the more, or 
 by a death more cruel, for having made it ; and he will die, 
 as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with 
 his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to save. 
 But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from 
 his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this 
 baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less : and why 
 not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven 
 less in the world ? No ; let him perish, without a pitying 
 thought of ours wasted upon him ; and, in that case, all our 
 grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who, 
 now, upon the leasl shadow of failure in him, must, by the 
 fiercest of translations — must, without time for a prayer — 
 must, within seventy seconds, stand before the judgment- 
 seat of God. 
 
 But craven he wa^ not : sudden had been the call upon 
 him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he
 
 THE VISION OF S UDDEN DEA TH. itj 
 
 heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down : 
 already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already 
 he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah ! what a 
 vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying 
 it and selling it for a shilling a-day : ah ! what a sublime 
 thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisis on the 
 great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a 
 hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, 
 from which, accordingly as he chooses his course, he de- 
 scries two courses, and a voice says to him audibly — " This 
 way lies hope ; take the other way and mourn for ever ! " 
 Yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy 
 of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation — is 
 able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to 
 seek all his counsel from him ! For seven seconds, it might 
 be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance 
 steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element 
 in the conflict before him. For five seconds more he sate 
 immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. 
 For five he sate with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in 
 sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide 
 him towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; 
 stood upright ; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, 
 raising his horse's forefeet from the ground, he slewed him 
 round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little 
 equipage in a position nearly at right-angles to ours. Thus 
 far his condition was not improved ; except as a first step 
 had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no 
 more were done, nothing was done ; for the little carriage 
 still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an 
 altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late : 
 fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted ; and 
 one almighty bound forward may avail to clear the ground.
 
 17S DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 Huvry then, hurry ! for the flying moments — they hurry ! 
 Oil hurry, hurry, my brave young man ! for the cruel hoofs 
 of our horses — they also hurry ! Fast are the flying moments, 
 faster are the hoofs of our horses. Fear not for him, if 
 human energy can suftice : faithful was he that drove, to his 
 terrific duty ; faithful was the horse to his command. One 
 blow, one impulse given with voice and hand by the stranger, 
 one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising 
 to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore-feet upon the 
 crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the 
 little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow : 
 that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it 
 mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if 
 upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human 
 freightage. The rear part of the carriage — was ///«/ certainly 
 beyond the line of absolute ruin ? What power could answer 
 the question ? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, 
 which of these had speed enough to sweep between the 
 question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? 
 Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, 
 than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts 
 of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. 
 His back was now turned to us ; not by sight could he any 
 longer communicate with the peril ; but by the dreadful 
 rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed 
 — that all was finished as regarded any further effort of his. 
 Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle ; and 
 perhaps, in his heart he was whispering — " Father, which 
 art above, do thou finish in heaven what I on earth have 
 attempted." We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in 
 our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must 
 have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our 
 transit ! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 179 
 
 our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, 
 which stood rather obliquely and not quite so far advanced 
 as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow, 
 from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically, I rose 
 in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have caused. 
 From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back 
 upon the scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote 
 all its records on my heart for ever. 
 
 The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon 
 the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party 
 was alone untouched by the passion of death. The little 
 cany carriage — partly perhaps from the dreadful torsion of 
 the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thunder- 
 ing blow we had given to it — as if it sympathised with human 
 horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The 
 young man sat like a rock. He stirred not at all. But his 
 was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. 
 As yet he dared not to look round ; for he knew that, if 
 anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be 
 done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety 
 
 were accomplished. But the lady 
 
 But the lady ! Oh heavens ! will that spectacle ever 
 
 depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, 
 sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched 
 at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, 
 despairing ! Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the 
 case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances 
 of the unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep 
 peace of this saintly summer night, — from the pathetic 
 blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight, — 
 from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, 
 murmuring love, — suddenly as from the woods and fields, — 
 suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revela-
 
 r8o DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 tion, — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, 
 leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the 
 crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and 
 the tiger roar of his voice. 
 
 The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an 
 eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of 
 the umbrageous aisle ; at right-angles we wheeled into our 
 former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene out 
 of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for 
 ever. 
 
 Dream-Fugue. 
 
 on the above theme of sudden death 
 
 " Whence the sound 
 Of instruments, that made melodious chime, 
 Was heard, of harp and organ ; and who mov'd 
 Their stops and chords, was seen ; his volant touch 
 Instinct through all proportions, low and high, 
 Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." 
 
 Far. Lost, B. xi. 
 
 Tmtiultiwsissiinamente. 
 
 Passion of Sudden Death ! that once in youth I read and 
 interpreted by the shadows of thy averted * signs ; — Rapture 
 of panic taking the shape, which amongst tombs in churches 
 I have seen, of woman bursting her sepulchral bonds — of 
 woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her 
 grave, with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped 
 adoring hands — waiting, watching, trembling, praying, for 
 the trumpet's call to rise from dust for ever ; — Ah, vision 
 
 * '■^ Averted %\gx\%." — I read the course and changes of the lady's 
 agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures ; but let it be re- 
 membered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching the 
 lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly.
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. i8i 
 
 too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of abysses ! 
 vision that didst start back — that didst reel away — like a 
 shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the 
 wings of the wind ! Epilepsy so brief of horror — wherefore 
 is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into 
 darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad 
 funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams ? 
 Fragment of music too stern, heard once and heard no 
 more, what aileth thee that thy deep rolling chords come 
 up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after 
 thirty years have lost no element of horror ? 
 
 Lo, it is summer, almighty summer ! The everlasting 
 gates of life and summer are thrown open wide ; and on 
 the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown 
 lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating : she 
 upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. 
 But both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within 
 the domain of our common country — within that ancient 
 watery park — within that pathless chase where England 
 takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, 
 and which stretches from the rising to the setting sun. Ah ! 
 what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was 
 suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which 
 the pinnace moved. And upon her deck what a bevy 
 of human flowers — young women how lovely, young men 
 how noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting 
 towards us amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from 
 forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural 
 carolling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly 
 the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and slowly she dis-
 
 1 82 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 appears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But 
 then, as at some signal from heaven, the music and the 
 carols, and the sweet echoing of girHsh laughter — all are 
 hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or 
 overtaking her ? Did ruin to our friends couch within our 
 own dreadful shadow ? Was our shadow the shadow of 
 death ? I looked over the bow for an answer ; and, behold ! 
 the pinnace was dismantled ; the revel and the revellers 
 were found no more ; the glory of the vintage was dust ; 
 and the forest was left without a witness to its beauty upon 
 the seas. " But where," and I turned to our own crew — 
 " where are the lovely women that danced beneath the 
 awning of flowers and clustering corymbi ? Whither have 
 fled the noble young men that danced with them ? " Answer 
 there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, 
 whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried aloud — 
 " Sail on the weather-beam ! Down she comes upon us ; 
 in seventy seconds she will founder ! " 
 
 I looked to the weather-side, and the summer had de- 
 parted. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gathering 
 wrath. Upon its surface sate mighty mists, which grouped 
 themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down 
 one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a cross- 
 bow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. " Are they 
 mad ? " some voice exclaimed from our deck. " Are they 
 blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as 
 she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or 
 sudden vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off 
 she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft 
 amongst the shrouds stood the lady ol the pinnace. The
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 183 
 
 deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering 
 surges ot foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to 
 catch her. But far away she was borne into desert spaces 
 of the sea : whilst still by sight I followed her, as she ran 
 before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and 
 by maddening billows ; still I saw her, as at the moment 
 when she ran past us, amongst the shrouds, with her white 
 draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood with 
 hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling — 
 rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying — there for 
 leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand 
 to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and 
 the raving of the storm ; until at last, upon a sound from 
 afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden for 
 ever in driving showers ; and afterwards, but when I know 
 not, and how I know not. 
 
 Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wail- 
 ing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me 
 as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. The 
 morning twilight even then was breaking ; and, by the 
 dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl adorned with 
 a garland of white roses about her head for some great 
 festival, running along the solitary strand with extremity of 
 haste. Her running was the running of panic ; and often 
 she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. 
 But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to 
 warn her of a peril in front, alas ! from me she fled as from 
 another peril ; and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands 
 that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran ; round a pro- 
 montory of rock she wheeled out of sight ; in an instant \
 
 1 84 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands 
 gathering above her head. Already her person was buried ; 
 only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses 
 around it were still visible to the pitying heavens ; and, 
 last of all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early 
 twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to dark- 
 ness — saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and 
 her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, rising, clutching 
 as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the 
 clouds — saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and 
 then her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm, — 
 these all had sunk ; at last over these also the cruel quick- 
 sand had closed ; and no memorial of the fair young girl 
 remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the 
 funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more 
 softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, 
 and over her blighted dawn. 
 
 I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever 
 given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, 
 and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But the tears 
 and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout as of 
 many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's 
 artillery advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar 
 by its echoes among the mountains. " Hush ! " I said, as 
 I bent my ear earthwards to listen — " hush ! — this either is 
 the very anarchy of strife, or else" — and then I listened 
 more profoundly, and said as I raised my head — " or else, 
 oh heavens ! it is victory that swallows up all strife." 
 
 4- 
 
 Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea 
 to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, 
 amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness
 
 THE VISION 01 SUDDEN DEATH. 185 
 
 of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from 
 us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our 
 carriage as a centre — we heard them, but we saw them not. 
 Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that 
 measured itself against centuries ; too full of pathos they 
 were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain but 
 God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, 
 by restless anthems, by reverberations rising from every 
 choir, of the Gloria in excelsis. These tidings we that sate 
 upon the laurelled car had it for our privilege to publish 
 amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible through 
 the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, 
 that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with 
 delay. Wherefore was it that we delayed ? We waited 
 for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of 
 nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the 
 secret word arrived ; which word was — Waterloo and Re- 
 covered Christendom ! The dreadful word shone by its 
 own light ; before us it went ; high above our leaders' heads 
 it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we 
 traversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, 
 threw open its gates to receive us. The rivers were silent 
 as we crossed. All the infinite forests, as we ran along 
 their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word. 
 And the darkness comprehended it. 
 
 Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. 
 Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. But when 
 the dreadful word, that rode before us, reached them with 
 its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; 
 and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle 
 of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every 
 altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand 
 and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening,
 
 i86 DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was 
 flying past. Forty leagues we might have run in the 
 cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had 
 reached us, when we saw before us the aerial galleries of 
 the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fret-work, 
 every station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested 
 by white-robed choristers, that sang deliverance ; that wept 
 no more tears, as once their fathers had wept ; but at in- 
 tervals that sang together to the generations, saying — 
 
 " Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue," 
 and receiving answers from afar, 
 
 "such as once in heaven and earth were sung." 
 
 And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace 
 was neither pause nor remission. 
 
 Thus, as we ran like torrents — thus, as we swept with 
 bridal rapture over the Campo Santo * of the cathedral 
 graves — suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis 
 rising upon the far-off horizon — a city of sepulchres, built 
 within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested 
 from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necro- 
 poHs ; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon 
 
 * " Campo Santo." — It is probable that most of my readers will be 
 acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa— composed 
 of earth brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest 
 prize which the noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There 
 is another Campo Santo at Naples, formed, however, (I presume,) on 
 the example given by Pisa. Possibly the idea may have been more 
 extensively copied. To readers who are unacquainted with England, 
 or who (being English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities 
 of England, it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the 
 cathedrals often form a flat pavement over which carriages and horses 
 might roll ; and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathe- 
 dral, across which I had seen passengers walk and burdens carried, 
 may have assisted my dream.
 
 THE VISION 01 SUDDEh DEATH. 187 
 
 the horizon — so mighty was the distance. In the second 
 minute it trembled through many changes, growing into 
 terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was 
 the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful 
 gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose 
 on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the 
 limits of the central aisle, strode forward with haughty 
 intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into an- 
 swering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas- 
 reliefs — bas-reliefs of battles — bas-reliefs of battle-fields ; 
 of battles from forgotten ages — 01 battles from yesterday 
 — of battle-fields that, long since, nature had healed and 
 reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers — 
 of battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with 
 carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run ; 
 where the towers curved, there did zve curve. With the 
 flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. 
 Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands ; like 
 hurricanes that ride into the secrets of forests; faster 
 than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying 
 equipage carried earthly passions — kindled warrior instincts 
 — amongst the dust that lay around us ; dust oftentimes 
 of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Cr^ci to 
 Trafalgar. And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, 
 now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we 
 recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable central 
 aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a 
 female infant that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. 
 The mists, which went before her, hid the fawns that 
 drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers 
 with which she played — but could not hide the lovely 
 smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathe- 
 dral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her
 
 I SS DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A VS. 
 
 from the topmost shafts of its pillars. Face to face she 
 was meeting us ; face to face she rode, as if danger there 
 were none. " Oh baby ! " I exclaimed, " shalt thou be the 
 ransom for Waterloo ? Must we, that carry tidings of great 
 joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee ? " In 
 horror I rose at the thought ; but then also, in horror at 
 the thought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief 
 — a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he 
 rose to his feet ; and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried 
 it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips — sounding once, 
 and yet once again ; proclamation that, in thy ears, oh 
 baby ! must have spoken from the battlements of death. 
 Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal 
 silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our 
 horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the graves no 
 more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into 
 life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and 
 our horses, with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to 
 their everlasting gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a 
 third time the trumpet sounded ; the seals were taken off all 
 pulses ; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels 
 again ; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as 
 from the muffling of storms and darkness; again the 
 thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the 
 graves. One cry burst from our lips as the clouds, draw- 
 ing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us — 
 " Whither has the infant fled ? — is the young child caught 
 up to God ? " Lo ! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three 
 mighty windows to the clouds ; and on a level with their 
 summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of 
 purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a 
 crimson glory. Whence came that} Was it from the 
 reddening dawn that now streamed through the windows ?
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 189 
 
 Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were 
 painted on the windows? Was it from the bloody bas- 
 reliefs of earth ? VVhencesoever it were — there, within 
 that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female head, 
 and then a female figure. It was the child — now grown 
 up to wonan's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, 
 there she stood — sinking, rising, trembling, fainting — raving, 
 despairing ; and behind the volume of incense that, night 
 and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the 
 fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dread- 
 ful being that should baptise her with the baptism of death. 
 But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his 
 face with wings ; that wept and pleaded for her ; that prayed 
 when she could not; that fought with heaven by tears for 
 her deliverance ; which also, as he raised his immortal 
 countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his 
 eye, that he had won at last. 
 
 Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite 
 cathedral, to its agony; then was completed the passion 
 of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which 
 as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals — gleaming 
 amongst clouds and surges of incense — threw up, as from 
 fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. 
 Choir and anti-choir were filling fast with unknown voices. 
 Thou also. Dying Trumpeter ! — with thy love that was 
 victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter 
 the tumult : trumpet and echo — farewell love, and farewell 
 anguish — rang through the dreadful sandus. We, that 
 spread flight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, 
 mustering behind us. In iear we looked round for the
 
 1 90 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit, were gathering 
 upon our own. Who were these that followed ? The faces, 
 which no man could count — whence were they ? " Oh, 
 darkness of the grave 1 " I exclaimed, " that from the 
 crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited with 
 secret light — that wert searched by the effulgence in the 
 angel's eye — were these indeed thy children ? Pomps of 
 life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the 
 voice of perfect joy, could it he ye that had wrapped me in 
 the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that I should fear 
 when the triumphs of earth were advancing ? Ah ! Pariah 
 heart within me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy 
 without sullen wiiispers of treachery in ambush ; that, from 
 six years old, didst never hear the promise of perfect love, 
 without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingers as of a man's 
 hand writing the secret legend — ^^ ashes to ashes, dust to 
 dusil" — wherefore shouldst thou not fear, though all men 
 should rejoice ? Lo ! as I looked back for seventy leagues 
 through the mighty cathedral, and saw the quick and the 
 dead that sang together to God, together that sang to the 
 generations of man — ah ! raving, as of torrents that opened 
 on every side : trepidation, as of female and infant steps 
 that fled — ah ! rushing, as of wings that chased ! But I 
 heard a voice from heaven, which said — " Let there be no 
 reflux of panic — let there be no more fear, and no more 
 sudden death ! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the 
 shore ! " That heard the children of the choir, that heard 
 the children of the grave. All the hosts of jubilation made 
 ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit, they 
 moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were 
 passing from the cathedral through its eastern gates, they 
 overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round 
 with thunders that overpowered our own. As brothers we
 
 THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH. 191 
 
 moved together ; to the skies we rose — to the dawn that 
 advanced — to the stars that fled : rendering thanks to God 
 in the highest — that, having hid his face through one 
 generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was 
 ascending — was ascending from Waterloo — in the visions of 
 Peace : — rendering thanks for thee, young girl ! whom 
 having overshadowed with his ineffable passion of Death 
 — suddenly did God relent ; suffered thy angel to turn aside 
 his arm ; and even in thee, sister unknown ! shown to me 
 for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion 
 to glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the 
 phantoms of sleep, has he shown thee to me, standing 
 before the golden dawn, and ready to enter its gates — with 
 the dreadful Word going before thee — with the armies ol 
 the grave behind thee ; shown thee to me, rising, sinking, 
 fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring : a 
 thousand times has he followed thee in the worlds ot sleep — 
 through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness of 
 quicksands , through fugues and the persecution of fugues ; 
 through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in 
 dreams — only that at the last, with one motion of his 
 victorious arm, he might record and emblazon the endless 
 resurrections of his love I
 
 Casuistry. 
 
 It is remarkable, in the sense of" being noticeable and 
 interesting, but not in the sense of being surprising, that 
 Casuistry has fallen into disrepute throughout all Protestant 
 lands. This disrepute is a result partly due to the upright 
 morality which usually follows in the train of the Protestant 
 faith. So far it is honourable, and an evidence of superior 
 illumination. But, in the excess to which it has been pushed, 
 we may trace also a blind and somewhat bigoted reaction 
 of the horror inspired by the abuses of the Popish Con- 
 fessional. Unfortunately for the interests of scientific ethics, 
 the first cultivators of casuistry had been those who kept in 
 view the professional service of auricular confession. Their 
 purpose was — to assist the reverend confessor in appraising 
 the quality of doubtful actions, in order that he might 
 properly adjust his scale of counsel, of warning, of reproof, 
 and of penance. Some, therefore, in pure simplicity and 
 conscientious- discharge of the duty they had assumed, but 
 others, from lubricity of morals or the irritations of curiosity, 
 pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of specu- 
 lation. They held aloft a torch for exploring guilty recesses 
 of human life, which it is far better for us all to leave in 
 their original darkness. Crimes that were often all but 
 imaginary, extravagances of erring passion that would never 
 have been known as possibilities to the young and the in- 
 nocent, were thus published in their most odious details. 
 At first, it is true, the decent draperies of a dead language 
 132
 
 CASUISTRY. 193 
 
 were suspended before these abominations : but sooner or 
 later some knave was found, on mercenary motives, to tear 
 away this partial veil ; and thus the vernacular literature of 
 most nations in Southern Europe, was gradually polluted 
 with revelations that had been originally made in the 
 avowed service of religion. Indeed, there was one aspect 
 of such books which proved even more extensively disgust- 
 ing. Speculations pointed to monstrous offences, bore 
 upon their very face and frontispiece the intimation that 
 they related to cases rare and anomalous. But sometimes 
 casuistry pressed into the most hallowed recesses of common 
 domestic life. The delicacy of youthful wives, for example, 
 was often not less grievously shocked than the manliness of 
 husbands, by refinements of monkish subtlety applied to 
 cases never meant for religious cognisance — but far better 
 left to the decision of good feeling, of nature, and of pure 
 household morality. Even this revolting use of casuistry, 
 however, did less to injure its name and pretensions than a 
 persuasion, pretty generally diffused, that the main purpose 
 and drift of this science was a sort of hair-splitting process, 
 by which doubts might be applied to the plainest duties of 
 life, or questions raised on the extent of their obligations, 
 for the single benefit of those who sought to evade them. 
 A casuist was viewed, in short, as a kind of lawyer or special 
 pleader in morals, such as those who, in London, are known 
 as Old Bailey practitioners, called in to manage desperate 
 cases — to suggest all available advantages — to raise doubts 
 or distinctions where simple morality saw no room for either 
 — and generally to teach the art, in nautical phrase, of 
 sailing as near the wind as possible, without fear of 
 absolutely foundering. 
 
 Meantime it is certain that casuistry, when soberly ap- 
 plied, is not only a beneficial as well as a very interesting 
 
 N
 
 194 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 study ; but that, by whatever title, it is absolutely indispens- 
 able to the practical treatment of morals. We may reject 
 the name ; the thing we cannot reject. And accordingly 
 the custom has been, in all English treatises on ethics, to 
 introduce a good deal of casuistry under the idea of special 
 illustration, but without any reference to casuistry as a formal 
 branch of research. Indeed, as society grows complex, the 
 uses of casuistry become more urgent. Even Cicero could 
 not pursue his theme through such barren generalisations as 
 entirely to evade all notice of special cases : and Paley has 
 given the chief interest to his very loose investigations of 
 morality, by scattering a selection of such cases over the 
 whole field of his discussion. 
 
 The necessity of casuistry might, in fact, be deduced 
 from the very origin and genesis of the word. First came 
 the general law or rule of action. This was like the major 
 proposition of a syllogism. But next came a special instance 
 or case, so stated as to indicate whether it did or did not 
 fall under the general rule. This, again, was exactly the 
 minor proposition in a syllogism. For example, in logic we 
 say, as the major proposition in a syllogism, Ma?i is ??iortal. 
 This is the rule. And then " subsuming " (such is the tech- 
 nical phrase — subsuming) Socrates under the rule by a minor 
 proposition — viz., Socrates is a man — we are able mediately 
 to connect him with the predicate of that rule, viz., ergo, 
 Socrates is mortal.* Precisely upon this model arose 
 casuistry. A general rule, or major proposition, was laid 
 
 * The ludicrous blunder of Reid (as first published by Lord Karnes in 
 his Sketches), and of countless others, through the last seventy or eighty 
 years, in their critiques on the logic of Aristotle, has been to imagine 
 that such illustrations of syllogism as these were meant for specimens 
 of what syllogism could perform. What an elaborate machinery, it 
 was said, for bringing out the merest self-evident truisms ! But just as 
 reasonably it might have been objected, when a mathematician illus-
 
 CASUISTRY. 195 
 
 down — suppose that he who killed any human being, 
 except under the palliations X, Y, Z, was a murderer. 
 Then, in a minor proposition, the special case of the 
 suicide was considered. It was affirmed, or it was de- 
 nied, that his case fell under some one of the palliations 
 assigned. And then, finally, accordingly to the negative 
 or affirmative shape of this minor proposition, it was 
 argued, in the conclusion, that the suicide was, or was 
 not, a murderer. Out of these cases, i.e., oblique deflexions 
 from the universal rule (which is also the grammarian's 
 sense of the word case^ arose casuistry. 
 
 After morality has done its very utmost in clearing up the 
 grounds upon which it rests its decisions — after it has multi- 
 plied its rules to any possible point of circumstantiality — 
 there will always continue to arise cases without end, in the 
 shifting combinations of human action, about which a ques- 
 tion will remain whether they do or do not fall under any 
 of these rules. And the best way for seeing this truth illus- 
 trated on a broad scale, the shortest way and the ?nost decisive, 
 is — to point our atte?ition to one striking fact, viz., that all 
 lazv, as it exists in every civilized land, is nothing but casuistry. 
 Simply because new cases are for ever arising to raise new 
 doubts whether they do or do not fall under the rule of law, 
 therefore it is that law is so inexhaustible. The law termin- 
 ates a dispute for the present by a decision of a court, 
 {which constitutes our " common laiv,^') or by an express 
 act of the legislature, (which constitutes our " statute law'^). 
 For a month or two matters flow on smoothly. But then 
 comes a new case, not contemplated or not verbally pro- 
 
 trated the process of addition by saying 3 + 4 = 7, Behold what pompous 
 nothings ! These Aristotelian illustrations were purposely drawn from 
 cases not open to dispute, and simply as exemplifications of the meaning : 
 they were intentionally self-evident.
 
 196 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 vided for in the previous rule. It is varied by some feature 
 of difference. This feature, it is suspected, makes no essen- 
 tial difference : substantially it may be the old case. Ay — 
 but that is the very point to be decided. And so arises a 
 fresh suit at law, and a fresh decision. For example, after 
 many a decision and many a statute, (all arising out of cases 
 supervening upon cases,) suppose that great subdivision 
 of jurisprudence called the Bankrupt Laws to have been 
 gradually matured. It has been settled, suppose that he 
 who exercises a trade, and no other whatsoever, shall be 
 entitled to the benefit of the bankrupt laws. So far is fixed : 
 and people vainly imagine that at length a station of rest is 
 reached, and that in this direction, at least, the onward 
 march of law is barred. Not at all. Suddenly a school- 
 master becomes insolvent, and attempts to avail himself of 
 privileges as a technical bankrupt. But then arises a resist- 
 ance on the part of those who are interested in resisting : 
 and the question is raised — Whether the calling of a school- 
 master can be legally considered a trade ? This also is 
 settled : it is solemnly determined that a schoolmaster is 
 a tradesman. But next arises a case, in whicli, from peculiar 
 variation of the circumstances, it is doubtful whether the 
 teacher can technically be considered a schoolmaster. Sup- 
 pose that case settled : a schoolmaster, sub-distinguished as 
 an X Y schoolmaster, is adjudged to come within the mean- 
 ing of the law. But scarcely is this sub-variety disposed of, 
 than up rises some decomplex case, which is a sub-variety 
 of this sub-variety : and so on for ever. 
 
 Hence, therefore, we may see the shortsightedness of 
 Paley in quoting with approbation, and as if it imphed a 
 reproach, that the Mussulman religious code contains " not 
 less than seventy-five thousand traditional precepts." True : 
 but if this statement shows an excess Oi circumstantiality
 
 CASUISTRY. 197 
 
 in the moral systems of Mussulmans, that result expresses 
 a fact which Paley overlooks — viz., that their moral code 
 is in reality their legal code. It is by aggregation of cases, 
 by the everlasting depuUulation of fresh sprouts and shoots 
 from old boughs, that this enormous accumulation takes 
 place : and, therefore, the apparent anomaly is exactly 
 paralleled in our unmanageable superstructure of law, and 
 in the French supplements to their code, which have 
 already far overbuilt the code itself. If names were disre- 
 garded, we and the Mahometans are in the very same 
 circumstances. 
 
 Casuistry, therefore, is the science of cases, or of those 
 special varieties which are for ever changing the face of 
 actions as contemplated in general rules. The tendency 
 of such variations is, in all states of complex civilisation, 
 to absolute infinity.* It is our present purpose to state a 
 few of such cases, in order to fix attention upon the interest 
 and the importance which surround them. No modern 
 book of ethics can be worth notice, unless in so far as it 
 selects and argues the more prominent of such cases, as 
 they offer themselves in the economy of daily life. For 
 we repeat — that the name, the word casuistry, may be 
 evaded, but the thing cannot : nor is it evaded in our daily 
 conversations. 
 
 * "To absolute infinity." — We have noticed our own vast pile of 
 law, and that of the French. But neither of us has yet reached the 
 alarming amount of the Roman law, under which the very powers of 
 social movement threatened to break down. Courts could not decide, 
 advocates could not counsel, so innumerable was becoming the task of 
 investigation. This led to the great digest of Justinian. But, had 
 Roman society advanced in wealth, extent, and social development, 
 instead of retrograding, the same result would have returned in a worse 
 shape. The same result now menaces England, and will soon menace 
 her much more.
 
 1 98 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 I. The Case of the Jaffa Massacre. — No case in the 
 whole compass of casuistry has been so much argued to 
 and fro — none has been argued with so little profit; for, 
 in fact, the main elements of the moral decision have been 
 left out of view. Let us state the circumstances : — On 
 the nth of February 1799, Napoleon, then and for seven 
 months before in military possession of Egypt, began his 
 march towards Syria. His object was to break the force 
 of any Turkish invasion, by taking it in fractions. It had 
 become notorious to every person in Egypt, that the Porte 
 rejected the French pretence of having come for the 
 purpose of quelling Mameluke rebellion — the absurdity 
 of which, apart from its ludicrous Quixotism, was evident 
 in the most practical way, viz., by the fact, that the whole 
 revenues of Egypt were more than swallowed up by the 
 pay and maintenance of the French army. What could the 
 Mamelukes have done worse? Hence it had become 
 certain that the Turks would send an expedition to Egypt ; 
 and Napoleon, viewing the garrisons in Syria as the ad- 
 vanced guard of such an expedition, saw the best chance 
 for general victory in meeting those troops beforehand, and 
 destroying them in detail. About nineteen days brought 
 him within view of the Syrian fields. On the last day of 
 February he slept at the Arimathea of the Gospel. In a 
 day or two after his army was before Jaffa, (the Joppa of 
 the Crusaders,) a weak place, but of some military interest,* 
 from the accident of being the very first fortified town to 
 
 * " Of some military interest." — It is singular that some peculiar 
 interest has always settled upon Jafla, no matter who was the military 
 leader of the time, or what the object of the struggle. From Julius 
 Caesar, Joppa enjoyed some special privileges and immunities ; about a 
 century after, in the latter years of Nero, a most tragical catastrophe 
 happened at Joppa to the Syrian pirates, by which the very same
 
 CASUISTRY. 199 
 
 those entering Palestine from the side 01 Egypt. On the 
 4th of March this place was invested ; on the 6th, barely 
 forty-eight hours after, it was taken by storm. This fact is 
 in itself important ; because it puts an end to the pretence 
 so often brought forward, that the French army had been 
 irritated by a long resistance. Yet, supposing the fact to 
 have been so, how often in the history of war must every 
 reader have met with cases where honourable terms were 
 granted to an enemy merely on account of his obstinate 
 resistance? But then here, it is said, the resistance was 
 wilfully pushed to the arbitration of a storm. Even that 
 might be otherwise stated ; but, suppose it true, a storm in 
 military law confers some rights upon the assailants which 
 else they would not have had — rights, however, which cease 
 with the day of storming. Nobody denies that the French 
 army might have massacred all whom they met in arms at 
 the time and during the agony of storming. But the 
 question is. Whether a resistance of forty-eight hours could 
 create the right, or in the least degree palliate the atrocity, 
 of putting prisoners to death in cold blood? Four days 
 after the storming, when all things had settled back into 
 the quiet routine of ordinary life, men going about their 
 affairs as usual, confidence restored, and, above all things, 
 after the faith of a Christian army had been pledged to 
 these prisoners that not a hair of their heads should be 
 touched, the imagination is appalled by this wholesale 
 
 number perished as in the Napoleon massacre, viz., something above 
 4000. In the two hundred years of the Crusades, Joppa revived again 
 into military verdure. The fact is, that the shore of Syria is pre- 
 eminently deficient in natural harbours, or facilities for harbours — 
 those which exist have been formed by art and severe contest with the 
 opposition of nature. Hence their extreme paucity, and hence their 
 disproportionate importance in every possible war.
 
 200 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 butchery — even the apologists of Napoleon are ^hocked 
 by the amount of murder, though justifying its principle. 
 They admit that there were two divisions of the prisoners 
 — one of fifteen hundred, the other of two thousand five 
 hundred. Their combined amount is equal to a little 
 army ; in fact, just about that army with which we fought 
 and won the battle of Maida in Calabria. They composed 
 a force equal to about six English regiments of infantry on 
 the common establishment. Every man of these 4000 
 soldiers, chiefly brave Albanians — every man of this little 
 army was basely, brutally, in the very spirit of abject 
 poltroonery, murdered — murdered as foully as the infants 
 of Bethlehem ; resistance being quite hopeless, not only 
 because they had surrendered their arms, but also because, 
 in reliance on Christian honour, they had quietly sub- 
 mitted to have their hands confined with ropes behind 
 their backs. If this blood did not lie heavy on Napoleon's 
 heart in his dying hours, it must have been because a 
 conscience originally callous had been seared by the very 
 number of his atrocities. 
 
 Now, having stated the case, let us review the casuistical 
 apologies put forward. What was to be done with these 
 prisoners ? There lay the difficulty. Could they be re- 
 tained according to the common usage with regard to 
 prisoners? No; for there was a scarcity of provisions, 
 barely sufficient for the French army itself. Could they 
 be transported to Egypt by sea ? No ; for two English 
 line-of-battle ships, the Theseus and the Tiger, were cruis- 
 ing in the offing, and watching the interjacent seas of 
 Egypt and Syria. Could they be transported to Egypt by 
 land ? No ; for it was not possible to spare a sufficient 
 escort ; besides, this plan would have included the separate 
 difficulty as to food. Finally, then, as the sole resource
 
 CASUISTRY. 20T 
 
 left, could they be turned adrift ? No ; for this was but 
 another mode of saying, "Let us fight the matter over 
 again ; reinstate yourselves as our enemies ; let us leave 
 Jaffa re infecta, and let all begin again de ?iovo" — since, 
 assuredly, say the French apologists, in a fortnight from 
 that date, the prisoners would have been found swelling 
 the ranks of those Turkish forces whom Napoleon had 
 reason to expect in front. 
 
 Before we take one step in replying to these arguments, 
 let us cite two parallel cases from history : they are interest- 
 ing for themselves, and they show how other armies, not 
 Christian, have treated the self-same difficulty in practice. 
 The first shall be a leaf taken from the great book of 
 Pagan experience ; the second from Mahometan : and 
 both were cases in which the parties called on to cut the 
 knot had been irritated to madness by the parties lying 
 at their disposal. 
 
 I. The Pagati Decision. — In that Jewish war of more than 
 three years' duration, which terminated in the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, two cities on the lake of Gennesaret were 
 besieged by Vespasian. One of these was Tiberias : the 
 other Tarichse. Both had been defended with desperation; 
 and from their peculiar situation upon water, and amongst 
 profound precipices, the Roman battering apparatus had 
 not been found applicable to their walls. Consequently 
 the resistance and the loss to the Romans had been 
 unexampled. At the latter siege Vespasian was present 
 in person. Six thousand five hundred had perished of 
 the enemy. A number of prisoners remained, amounting 
 to about 40,000. What was to be done with them ? A 
 great council was held, at which the commander-in-chief 
 presided, assisted (as Napoleon) by his whole staff. Many 
 of the officers were strongly for having the whole put to
 
 202 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 death : they used the very arguments of the French 
 — " that, being people now destitute of habitations, they 
 would infallibly urge any cities which received them into 
 a war : " fighting, in fact, henceforward upon a double 
 impulse — viz. the original one of insurrection, and a new 
 one of revenge. Vespasian was sensible of all this ; and 
 he himself remarked, that, if they had any indulgence of 
 flight conceded, they would assuredly use it against the 
 authors of that indulgence. But still, as an answer to all 
 objections, he insisted on the solitary fact, that he had 
 pledged the Roman faith for the security of their lives ; 
 " and to offer violence, after he had given them his right 
 hand, was what he could not bear to think of." Such are 
 the simple words of Josephus. In the end, overpowered 
 by his council, Vespasian made a sort of compromise. 
 Twelve hundred, as persons who could not have faced the 
 hardships of captivity and travel, he gave up to the sword. 
 Six thousand select young men were transported as 
 labourers into Greece, with a view to Nero's scheme, then 
 in agitation, for cutting through the isthmus of Corinth ; 
 the main body, amounting to thirty thousand, were sold for 
 slaves ; and all the rest, who happened to be subjects of 
 Agrippa, as a mark of courtesy to that prince, were placed 
 at his disposal. Now, in this case, it will be alleged that 
 perhaps the main feature of Napoleon's case was not 
 realized, viz. the want of provisions. Every Roman soldier 
 carried on his shoulders a load of seventeen days' provision, 
 expressly in preparation for such dilemmas ; and Palestine 
 was then rank with population, gathered into towns. This 
 objection will be noticed immediately : but, meantime, let 
 it be remembered that the prisoners personally appeared 
 before their conquerors in far worse circumstances than 
 the garrison of Jaffa, except as to the one circumstance (in
 
 CASUISTRY. 203 
 
 which both parties stood on equal ground) of having had 
 their hves guaranteed. For the prisoners of Gennesaret 
 were chiefly aliens and fugitives from justice, who had no 
 national or local interest in the cities which they had 
 tempted or forced into insurrection ; they were clothed 
 with no military character whatever ; in short, they were 
 pure vagrant incendiaries. And the populous condition 
 of Palestine availed little towards the execution of Vespa- 
 sian's sentence : nobody in that land would have bought 
 such prisoners : nor, if they would, were there any means 
 available, in the agitated state of the Jewish people, for 
 maintaining their purchase. It would, therefore, be neces- 
 sary to escort them to Csesarea, as the nearest Roman port 
 for shipping them : thence perhaps to Alexandria, in order 
 to benefit by the com vessels : and from Alexandria the 
 voyage to remoter places would be pursued at great cost 
 and labour — all so many objections exactly corresponding 
 to those of Napoleon, and yet all overruled by the single 
 consideration of a Roman (viz. a Pagan) right hand pledged 
 to the fulfilment of a promise. As to the twelve hundred 
 old and helpless people massacred in cold blood, as 
 regarded themselves it was a merciful doom, and one 
 which many of the Jerusalem captives afterwards eagerly 
 courted. But still it was a shocking case. It was felt to 
 be so by many Romans themselves: Vespasian was over- 
 ruled in that instance : and the horror which settled upon 
 the mind of Titus, his elder son, from that very case 
 amongst others, made Mm tender of human life, and 
 anxiously merciful, through the great tragedies which were 
 now beginning to unroll themselves. 
 
 2. The Mahometan Decision. — The Emperor Charles V., 
 at different periods, twice invaded the piratical states in the 
 north of Africa. The last of these invasions directed
 
 204 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 against Algiers, failed miserably, covering the Emperor 
 with shame, and strewing both land and sea with the 
 wrecks of his great armament. But six years before, he 
 had conducted a most splendid and successful expedition 
 against Tunis, then occupied by Heyradin Barbarossa, a 
 valiant corsair and a prosperous usurper. Barbarossa had 
 an irregular force of fifty thousand men ; the Emperor had 
 a veteran army, but not acclimatised, and not much above 
 one-half as numerous. Things tended, therefore, strongly 
 to an equilibrium. Such were the circumstances — such 
 was the position on each side : Barbarossa, with his usual 
 adventurous courage, was drawing out of Tunis in order to 
 fight the invader ; precisely at that moment occurred the 
 question of what should be done with the Christian slaves. 
 A stronger case cannot be imagined ; they were ten 
 thousand fighting men ; and the more horrible it seemed to 
 murder so many defenceless people, the more dreadfully did 
 the danger strike upon the imagination. It was their 
 number which appalled the conscience of those who specu- 
 lated on their murder ; but precisely that, it was, when 
 pressed upon the recollection, which appalled the prudence 
 of their Moorish masters. Barbarossa himself, familiar 
 with bloody actions, never hesitated about the proper 
 course : " massacre without mercy " was his proposal. But 
 his oflScers thought otherwise : they were brave men ; 
 " and," says Robertson, " they all approved warmly of his 
 intention to fight. But, inured as they were to scenes of 
 bloodshed, the barbarity of his proposal filled them with 
 horror ; and Barbarossa, from the dread of irritating them, 
 consented to spare the lives of the slaves." Now, in this 
 case, the penalty attached to mercy, in case it should turn 
 out unhappily for those who so nobly determined to stand 
 the risk, cannot be more tragically expressed, than by saying
 
 CASUISTRY. 205 
 
 that it did turn out unhappily. We need not doubt that 
 the merciful officers were otherwise rewarded ; but for this 
 world and the successes of this world the ruin was total. 
 Barbarossa was defeated in the battle which ensued : flying 
 pell-mell to Tunis with the wrecks of his army, he found 
 these very ten thousand Christians in possession of the fort 
 and town : they turned his own artillery upon himself : and 
 his overthrow was sealed by that one act of mercy — so 
 unwelcome from the very first to his own Napoleonish 
 temper. 
 
 Thus we see how this very case of Jaffa had been settled 
 by Pagan and Mahometan casuists, where courage and 
 generosity happened to be habitually prevalent. Now, 
 turning back to the pseudo-Christian army, let us very 
 briefly review the arguments for them. First, there were no 
 provisions. But how happened that? or how is it proved? 
 Feeding the prisoners from the 6th to the loth inclusively 
 of March, proves that there was no instant want. And how 
 was it, then, that Napoleon had run his calculations so 
 narrowly ? The prisoners were just 33 per cent, on the 
 total French army, as originally detached from Cairo. 
 Some had already perished of that army; and in a few 
 weeks more, one-half of that army had perished, or 6000 
 men, whose rations were hourly becoming disposable for 
 the prisoners. Secondly, a most important point, resources 
 must have been found in Jaffa. But thirdly, if not, if Jaffa 
 were so ill provisioned, how had it ever dreamed of standing 
 a siege? And knowing its condition, as Napoleon must 
 have done from deserters and otherwise, how came he to 
 adopt so needless a measure as that of storming the place ? 
 Three days must have compelled it to surrender upon any 
 terms, if it could be really true that, after losing vast 
 numbers of its population in the assault, (for it was the
 
 2o6 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 bloodshed of the assault ^Yhich originally suggested the 
 interference of the aides-de-camp,) Jaffa was not able to 
 allow half rations even to part of its garrison for a few 
 weeks. What was it meant that the whole should have 
 done, had Napoleon simply blockaded it? Through all 
 these contradictions we see the truth looming as from 
 behind a mist : it was not because provisions failed that 
 Napoleon butchered 4000 young men in cold blood ; it 
 was because he wished to signalise his entrance into 
 Palestine by a sanguinary act, such as might strike terror 
 far and wide, resound through Syria as well as Egypt, and 
 paralyse the nerves of his enemies. Fourthly, it is urged 
 that, if he had turned the prisoners loose, they would have 
 faced hira again in his next battle. How so? Prisoners 
 without arms? But then, perhaps, they could have re- 
 treated upon Acre, where it is known that Djezzar the 
 Turkish pacha had a great magazine of arms. That might 
 have been dangerous, if any such retreat had been open. 
 But surely the French army, itself under orders for Acre, 
 could at least have intercepted the Acre route from the 
 prisoners. No other remained but that through the defiles 
 of Naplous. In this direction, however, there was no 
 want of men. Beyond the mountains cavalry only were in 
 use : and the prisoners had no horses, nor habits of acting 
 as cavalry. In the defiles it was riflemen who were wanted, 
 and the prisoners had no rifles ; besides that, the line of 
 the French operations never came near to that route. 
 Then, again, if provisions were so scarce, how were the 
 unarmed prisoners to obtain them on the simple allegation 
 that they had fought unsuccessfully against the French? 
 
 But, finally, one conclusive argument there is against this 
 damnable atrocity of Napoleon's, which in all future Lives 
 of Napoleon one may expect to see noticed, viz., that if the
 
 CASUISTRY. 207 
 
 circumstances of Palestine were such as to forbid the 
 ordinary usages of war, if (which we are far from beUeving) 
 want of provisions made it indispensable to murder prisoners 
 in cold blood — in that case a Syrian war became impossible 
 to a man of honour ; and the guilt commences from a higher 
 point than Jaffa. Already at Cairo, and in the elder 
 stages of the expedition, planned in face of such afflicting 
 necessities, we read the counsels of a murderer; of one 
 rightly carrying such a style of warfare towards the ancient 
 country of the assassins ; of one not an apostate merely 
 from Christian humanity, but from the lowest standard of 
 soldierly honour. He and his friends abuse Sir Hudson 
 Lowe as a jailer. But far better to be a jailer, and faithful 
 to one's trust, than to be the cut-throat of unarmed 
 men. 
 
 One consideration remains, which we reserve to the end ; 
 because it has been universally overlooked, and because it 
 is conclusive against Napoleon, even on his own hypothesis 
 of an absolute necessity. In Vespasian's case it does not 
 appear that he had gained any thing for himself or for his 
 army by his promise of safety to the enemy : he had simply 
 gratified his own feelings by holding out prospects of final 
 escape. But Napoleon had absolutely seduced the 4000 
 men from a situation of power, from vantage-ground, by his 
 treacherous promise. And when the French apologists 
 plead — " If we had dismissed the prisoners, we should soon 
 have had to fight the battle over again" — they totally 
 forget the state of the facts : they had not fought the battle 
 at all : they had evaded the battle as to these prisoners : 
 as many enemies as could have faced them de novo, so 
 many had they bought off from fighting. Forty centuries 
 of armed men, ', brave and despairing, and firing from 
 windows, must have made prodigious havoc : and this
 
 2o8 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 havoc the French evaded by a trick, by a perfidy, perhaps 
 unexampled in the annals of military man. 
 
 II. Piracy. — It is interesting to trace the revolutions of 
 moral feeling. In the early stages of history we find piracy 
 in high esteem, Thucydides tells us that Xparsia or robbery, 
 when conducted af sea, (i.e. robbery on non-Grecian people,) 
 was held in the greatest honour by his countrymen in elder 
 ages. And this, in fact, is the true station, this point of 
 feeling for primitive man, from which we ought to view the 
 robberies and larcenies of savages. Captain Cook, though 
 a good and often a wise man, erred in this point. He took 
 a plain Old Bailey view of the case ; and very sincerely 
 believed (as all sea-captains ever have done) that a savage 
 must be a bad man who would purloin any thing that was 
 not his. Yet it is evident that the poor child of uncultured 
 nature, who saw strangers descending as it were from the 
 moon upon his aboriginal forests and lawns, must have 
 viewed them under the same angle as the Greeks of old. 
 They were no part of any system to which he belonged ; 
 and why should he not plunder them? By force if he 
 could : but, where that was out of the question, why should 
 he not take the same credit for an undetected theft that 
 the Spartan gloried in taking ? To be detected was both _ 
 shame and loss ; but he was certainly entitled to any glory ■ 
 which might seem to settle upon success, not at all less 
 than the more pretending citizen of Sparta. Besides all 
 which, amongst us civilised men the rule obtains universally 
 — that the state and duties of peace are to be presumed 
 until war is proclaimed. Whereas, amongst rude nations, 
 war is understood to be the rule — war, open or covert, until 
 suspended by express contract. Bel/tim inter omnes is the 
 natural state of things for all except those who view them- 
 selves as brothers by natural afiinity, by local neighbour-
 
 CASUISTRY. io^ 
 
 hood, by common descent, or who make themselves brothers 
 by artificial contracts. Captain Cook, who overlooked all 
 this, should have begun by arranging a solemn treaty with 
 the savages amongst whom he meant to reside for any 
 length of time. This would have prevented many an angry 
 broil then, and since then : it would also have prevented 
 his own tragical fate. Meantime the savage is calumniated 
 and misrepresented for want of being understood. 
 
 There is, however, amongst civilised nations a mode of 
 piracy still tolerated, or which was tolerated in the last war, 
 but is now ripe for extinction. It is that war of private 
 men upon private men, which goes on under the name of 
 privateering. Great changes have taken place in our modes 
 of thinking within the last twenty - five years ; and the 
 greatest change of all lies in the thoughtful spirit which we 
 now bring to the investigation of all public questions. We 
 have no doubt at all that, when next a war arises at sea, 
 the whole system of privateering will be condemned by the 
 public voice. And the next step after that will be, to 
 explode all war whatsoever, public or private, upon com- 
 merce. War will be conducted by belligerents and upon 
 belligerents exclusively. To imagine the extinction of war 
 itself, in the present stage of human advance, is, we fear, 
 idle. Higher modes of civilisation — an earth more uni- 
 versally colonised — the homo sapiens of Linneeus more 
 humanised, and other improvements must pave the way 
 for that : but amongst the earliest of those improvements, 
 will be the abolition of war carried into quarters where the 
 spirit of war never ought to penetrate. Privateering will 
 be abolished. War, on a national scale, is often ennobling, 
 and one great instrument of pioneering for civilisation : 
 but war of private citizen upon his fellow in another land, 
 is always demoralising. 
 
 o
 
 2 1 o DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 Ill, Usury. — This ancient subject of casuistry we place 
 next to piracy, for a significant reason : the two practices 
 have both changed their pubHc reputation as civilisation 
 has advanced, but inversely — they have interchanged 
 characters. Piracy, beginning in honour, has ended in 
 infamy : and at this moment it happens to be the sole 
 offence against society in which all the accomplices, 
 without pity or intercession, let them be ever so numerous, 
 are punished capitally. Elsewhere, we decimate, or even 
 centesimate : here, we are all children of Rhadamanthrs. 
 Usury, on the other hand, beginning in utter infamy, has 
 travelled upwards into considerable esteem : and Mr " lo 
 per shent" stands a very fair chance of being pricked for 
 sheriff next year ; and in one generation more, of passing 
 for a great patriot. Charles Lamb complained that by 
 gradual changes, not on his part, but in the spirit of refine- 
 ment, he found himself growing insensibly into "an in- 
 decent character." The same changes which carry some 
 downwards, carry others up ; and Shylock himself will soon 
 be viewed as an eminent martyr or confessor for the truth 
 as it is in the Alley. Seriously, however, there is nothing 
 more remarkable in the history of casuistical ethics than 
 the utter revolution in human estimates of usury. In this 
 one point the Hebrew legislator agreed with the Roman — 
 Deuteronomy with the Twelve Tables. Cicero mentions 
 that the elder Cato, being questioned on various actions, 
 and how he ranked them in his esteem, was at length asked. 
 Quid foener art} — how did he rank usury? His indignant 
 answer was, by a retorted question — Quid hoviiiiem occidere ? 
 — what do I think of murder ? In this particular case, as 
 in some others, we must allow that our worthy ancestors 
 and forerunners upon this terraqueous planet were enormous 
 blockheads. And their " exquisite reason " for this opinion
 
 CASUISTRY. 211 
 
 on usury, was quite worthy of Sir Andrew Aguecheek : — 
 "money," they argued, "could not breed money: one 
 guinea was neither father nor mother to another guinea : 
 and where could be the justice of making a man pay for the 
 use of a thing which that thing could never produce?" 
 But, venerable blockheads, that argument applies to the 
 case of him who locks up his borrowed guinea. Suppose him 
 not to lock it up, but to buy a hen, and the hen to lay a 
 dozen eggs ; one of those eggs will be so much per cent.; 
 and the thing borrowed has then produced its own fcenus. 
 A still greater inconsistency was this : Our ancestors would 
 have rejoined — that many people did not borrow in order 
 to produce, i.e. to use the money as capital, but in order 
 to spend, i.e. to use it as income. In that case, at least, 
 the borrowers must derive the foenus from some other fund 
 than the thing borrowed : for, by the supposition, the thing 
 borrowed has been spent. True ; but on the same principle 
 these ancestors ought to have forbidden every man to sell 
 any article whatsoever to him who paid for it out of other 
 funds than those produced by the article sold. Mere 
 logical consistency required this : it happens, indeed, to be 
 impossible : but that only argues their entire non-compre- 
 hension of their own doctrines. 
 
 The whole history of usury teems with instruction : ist, 
 comes the monstrous absurdity in which the prescription of 
 usury anchored ; 2nd, the absolute compulsion and pressure 
 of realities in forcing men into a timid abandonment of 
 their own doctrines ; 3rd, the unconquerable power of 
 sympathy, which humbled all minds to one level, and forced 
 the strongest no less than the feeblest intellects into the 
 same infatuation of stupidity. The casuistry of ancient 
 moralists on this question, especially of the scholastic moral- 
 ists, such as Suarrez, &c. — the oscillations by which they
 
 212 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 ultimately relaxed and tied up the law, just as their erring 
 conscience, or the necessities of social life prevailed, would 
 compose one of the interesting chapters in this science. 
 But the Jewish relaxation is the most amusing : it coincides 
 altogether with the theory of savages as to property, which 
 we have already noticed under the head of Piracy. All 
 men on earth, except Jews, were held to be fair subjects for 
 usury; not as though usury were a just or humane thing: 
 no — it was a belligerent act : but then all foreigners in 
 the Jewish eye were enemies, for the same reason that 
 the elder Romans had a common term for an enemy and 
 a stranger. And it is probable that many Jews at this 
 day, in exercising usury, conceive themselves to be 
 seriously making war, in a privateering fashion, upon 
 Christendom, and practising reprisals on the Gentiles for 
 ruined Jerusalem, 
 
 IV. Bishop Gibsoih Chronicon Preciosum. — Many people 
 are aware that this book is a record of prices, as far as they 
 were recoverable, pursued through six centuries of English 
 History. But they are not aware that this whole enquiry is 
 simply the machinery for determining a casuistical question. 
 The question was this : — An English College, but we cannot 
 say in which of our universities, had been founded in the 
 reign of Henry VI., and between 1440 and 1460 — probably 
 it might be King's College, Cambridge. Now, the statutes 
 of this college make it imperative upon every candidate for 
 a fellowship to swear that he does not possess an estate in 
 land of inheritance, nor a perpetual pension amounting to 
 five pounds per aujiutn. It is certain, however, that the 
 founder did not mean superstitiously so much gold or silver 
 as made 7ioini7iaUy the sum of five pounds, but so much as 
 virtually represented the five pounds of Henry VI. 's time — 
 so much as would buy the same quantity of ordinary
 
 CASUISTRY. 213 
 
 comfort. Upon this, therefore, arose two questions for the 
 casuist: (i.) What sum did substantially represent, in 1706, 
 (the year of publishing the Chron. Preciosum,) that nominal 
 ;^5 of 1440 ? (2.) Supposing this ascertained, might a man 
 with a safe conscience retain his fellowship by swearing that 
 he had not j[,'^ a-year, when perhaps he had ;^2o, provided 
 that p{^2o were proved to be less in efficacy than the ^^ of 
 the elder period? Verbally this was perjury: was it such 
 in reality and to the conscience ? 
 
 The Chronicle is not, as by its title the reader might 
 suppose, a large folio : on the contrary, it is a small octavo 
 of less than 200 pages. But it is exceedingly interesting, 
 very ably reasoned, and as circumstantial in its illustrations 
 as the good bishop's opportunities allowed him to make it. 
 In one thing he was more liberal than Sir William Petty, 
 Dr Davenant, &c., or any elder economists of the preceding 
 century : he would have statistics treated as a classical or 
 scholarlike study ; and he shows a most laudable curiosity 
 in all the questions arising out of his main one. His answer 
 to that is as follows ; ist, that j£,^ in Henry VI.'s time con- 
 tained forty ounces of silver, whereas in Queen Anne's it 
 contained only nineteen ounces and one-third : so that, in 
 reality, the ;^5 of 1440 was, even as to weight of silver, 
 rather more than ;^io of 1706. 2nd, as to the efficacy of 
 ;^io in Henry VI.'s reign : upon reviewing the main items 
 of common household (and therefore of common academic) 
 expenditure, and pursuing this review through bad years 
 and good years, the bishop decides that it is about equal 
 to ;^2 5 or ;^3o of Quecn Anne's reign. Sir George 
 Shuckburgh has since treated this casuistical problem 
 more elaborately : but Bishop Gibson it was, who, in his 
 ChronicoTi Preciosum, first broke the ice. 
 
 Alter this, he adds an ingenious question upon the
 
 214 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 apparently parallel case of a freeholder swearing himself 
 worth 40s. per annum as a qualification for an electoral 
 vote : ought not he to hold himself perjured in voting upon 
 an estate often so much below the original 40s. contem- 
 plated by Parliament, for the very same reason that a 
 collegian is not perjured in holding a fellowship, whilst, in 
 fact, he may have four or five times the nominal sum 
 privileged by the founder? The bishop says no; and he 
 distinguishes the case thus : the college ;£^ must always 
 mean a virtual jQ^ — a jQe^ in efficacy, and not merely in 
 name. But the freeholder's 40s. is not so restricted ; and 
 for the following reason — that this sum is constantly coming 
 under the review of Parliament. It is clear, therefore, from 
 the fact of not having altered it, that Parliament is satisfied 
 with a merely nominal 40s., and sees no reason to alter it. 
 True, it was a rule enacted by the Parliament of 1 430 ; at 
 which time 40s. was even in weight of silver equal to 80s. 
 of 1706 ; and in virtue or power of purchasing equal to ;!^i2 
 at the least. The qualification of a freeholder is, therefore, 
 much lower in Queen Anne's days than in those of Henry 
 VI. But what of that ? Parliament, it must be presumed, 
 sees good reasons why it should be lower. And at all 
 events, till the law operates amiss, there can be no reason 
 to alter it. 
 
 A case of the same kind with those argued by Bishop 
 Gibson arose often in trials for larceny — we mean as to that 
 enactment which fixed the minimum for a capital offence. 
 This case is noticed by the Bishop, and juries of late years 
 often took the casuistry into their own hands. They were 
 generally thought to act with no more than a proper 
 humanity to the prisoner; but still people thought such 
 juries incorrect. Whereas, if Bishop Gibson is right, who 
 allows a man to swear positively that he has not ;^5 a year,
 
 CASUISTRY. 215 
 
 when nominally he has much more, such juries were even 
 technically right. However, this point is now altered by 
 Sir Robert Peel's reforms. But there are other cases, and 
 especially those which arise not between different times but 
 between diff'erent places, which will often require the same 
 kind of casuistry as that which is so ably applied by the 
 good and learned Bishop. 
 
 V. Suicide. — It seems passing strange that the main 
 argument upon which Pagan moralists relied in their 
 unconditional condemnation of suicide, viz. the supposed 
 analogy of our situation in life to that of a sentinel mount- 
 ing guard, who cannot, without a capital offence, quit his 
 station until called off" by his commanding officer, is 
 dismissed with contempt by a Christian moralist, viz. Paley. 
 But a stranger thing still is — that the only man who ever 
 wrote a book in palliation of suicide, should have been not 
 only a Christian — not only an official minister and dignitary 
 of a metropolitan Christian Church — but also a scrupulously 
 pious man. We allude, as the reader will suppose, to Dr 
 Donne, dean of St Paul's. His opinion is worthy of con- 
 sideration. Not that we would willingly diminish, by one 
 hair's weight, the reasons against suicide ; but it is never 
 well to rely upon ignorance or inconsideration for the 
 defence of any principle whatever. Donne's notion was, 
 (a notion, however, adopted in his earlier years,) that as we 
 do not instantly pronounce a man a murderer upon hearing 
 that he has killed a fellow-creature, but, according to the 
 circumstances of the case, pronounce his act either murder, 
 or manslaughter, or justifiable homicide; so by parity of 
 reason, suicide is open to distinctions of the same or 
 corresponding kinds ; that there may be such a thing as 
 self-homicide not less than self-murder — culpable self-homi- 
 cide — justifiable self-homicide. Donne called his Essay by
 
 2 1 6 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A 3 "5. 
 
 the Greek name Biathanatos* meaning viole7it death. But 
 a thing equally strange, and a blasphemy almost unaccount- 
 able, is the fancy of a Prussian or Saxon baron, who wrote 
 a book to prove that Christ committed suicide, for which 
 he had no other argument than that, in fact, he had sur- 
 rendered himself unresistingly into the hands of his enemies, 
 and had in a manner caused his own death. This, however, 
 describes the case of every martyr that ever was or can be. 
 It is the very merit and grandeur of the martyr, that he 
 proclaims the truth with his eyes open to the consequences 
 of proclaiming it. Those consequences are connected with 
 the truth, but not by any natural link : the connection is by 
 means of false views, which it is the very business of the 
 martyr to destroy. And, if a man founds my death upon 
 an act which my conscience enjoins, even though I am 
 aware and fully warned that he will found my death upon 
 it, I am not, therefore, guilty of suicide. For, by the 
 supposition, I was obliged to the act in question by the 
 highest of all obligations, viz. moral obligation, which far 
 
 • This word, however, which occurs nowhere that we remember, 
 except in Lampridius, one of the Augustan historians, is here applied 
 to Heliogabalus ; and means, not the act of suicide, but a suicidal 
 person. And possibly Donne, who was a good scholar, may so mean 
 it to be understood in his title-page. Heliogabalus, says Lampridius, 
 had been told by the Syrian priests that he should be Biathanatos, 
 i.e. should commit suicide. He provided, therefore, ropes of purple 
 and gold intertwisted, that he might linng himself imperatorially. He 
 provided golden swords, that he might run himself through as became 
 CjEsar. He had poisons enclosed in jewels, that he might drink his 
 farewell heeltaps, if drink he must, in a princely style. Other modes of 
 august death he had prepared. Unfortunately all were unavailing, for 
 he was murdered, and dragged through the common sewers by ropes, 
 without either purple or gold in their base composition. The poor 
 fellow has been sadly abused in history ; but, after all, he was a mere 
 boy, and as mad as a March hare.
 
 CASUISTRY. 217 
 
 transcends all physical obligation ; so that, whatever excuse 
 attaches to a physical necessity, attaches, a fortiori, to the 
 moral necessity. The case is, therefore, precisely the same 
 as if he had said — " I will put you to death if the frost 
 benumbs your feet." The answer is — " I cannot help this 
 effect of frost." Far less can I help revealing a celestial 
 truth. I have no power, no liberty, to forbear. And, in 
 kiUing me, he punishes me for a mere necessity of my 
 situation and my knowledge. 
 
 It is urged that brutes never commit suicide — except, 
 indeed, the salamander, who has been suspected of loose 
 principles in this point ; and we ourselves knew a man 
 who constantly affirmed that a horse of his had committed 
 suicide, by violently throwing himself from the summit of 
 a precipice. "But why" — as we still asked him — "why 
 should the horse have committed felony on himself? Were 
 oats rising in the market ? — or was he in love ? — or vexed 
 by politics ? — or could a horse, and a young one rising four, 
 be supposed to suffer from tcediitm vitce}" Meantime, as 
 respects the general question of brute suicides, two points 
 must be regarded, — ist. That brutes are cut off from the 
 vast world of moral and imaginative sufferings entailed 
 upon man; 2ndly, That this very immunity presupposes 
 another immunity — 
 
 " A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain," 
 
 in the far coarser and less irritable animal organisation 
 which must be the basis of an insulated physical sensibihty. 
 Brutes can neither suffer from intellectual passions, nor, 
 probably, from very complex derangements of the animal 
 system ; so that in them the motives to suicide, the temp- 
 tations to suicide, are prodigiously diminished. Nor are 
 they ever alive to "the sublime attractions of the grave."
 
 2 1 8 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 It is, however, a humiliating reflection, that, if any brutes 
 can feel such aspirations, it must be those which are under 
 the care of man. Doubtless the happiness of brutes is 
 sometimes extended by man ; but also, too palpably, their 
 misery. 
 
 Why suicide is not noticed in the New Testament is a 
 problem yet open to the profound investigator. 
 
 VI. Duelling. — No one case, in the vast volume of 
 casuistry, is so difficult to treat with justice and reason- 
 able adaptation to the spirit of modern times, as this of 
 duelling. For, as to those who reason all upon one side, 
 and never hearken in good faith to objections or difficulties, 
 such people convince nobody but those who were already 
 convinced before they began. At present, (1839,) society 
 has for some years been taking a lurch to one side against 
 duelling : but inevitably a reaction will succeed ; for, after 
 all, be it as much opposed as it may to Christianity, 
 duelling performs such important functions in society as 
 now constituted — we mean by the sense of instant per- 
 sonal accountability which it diffuses universally amongst 
 gentlemen, and all who have much sensibility to the point 
 of honour — that, for one life which it takes away as an 
 occasional sacrifice, it saves myriads from outrage and 
 affronts — millions from the anxiety attached to inferior 
 bodily strength. However, it is no part of our present 
 purpose to plead the cause of duelling, though pleaded it 
 must be, more fairly than it ever has been, before any 
 progress will be made in suppressing it. 
 
 But the point which we wish to notice at present, is 
 the universal blunder about the Romans and Greeks. 
 They, it is alleged, fought no duels : and occasion is 
 thence taken to make very disadvantageous reflections 
 upon us, the men of this Christian era, who, in defiance
 
 CASUISTRY. 219 
 
 of our greater light, do fight duels. Lord Bacon himself 
 is duped by this enormous blunder, and founds upon it a 
 long speech in the Star-Chamber. 
 
 Now, in the first place, who does not see that, if the 
 Pagans really were enabled by their religion to master 
 their movements of personal anger and hatred, the in- 
 evitable inference will be to the disadvantage of Chris- 
 tianity. It would be a clear case. Christianity and 
 Paganism have been separately tried as means of self- 
 control : Christianity has flagrantly failed : Paganism 
 succeeded universally; not having been found unequal 
 to the task in any one known instance. 
 
 But this is not so. A profounder error never existed. 
 No religious influence whatever restrained the Greek or 
 the Roman from fighting a duel. It was purely a civic 
 influence, and it was sustained by this remarkable usage 
 — in itself a standing opprobrium to both Greek and 
 Roman — viz. the unlimited license of tongue allowed to 
 anger in the ancient assemblies and senates. This liberty 
 of foul language operated in two ways : ist, Being uni- 
 versal, it took away all ground for feeling the words of 
 an antagonist as any personal insult; so he had rarely a 
 motive for a duel. 2ndly, The anger was thus less acute ; 
 yet, if it were acute, then this Billingsgate resource fur- 
 nished an instantaneous vehicle for expectorating the wrath. 
 Look, for example, at Cicero's orations against Mark 
 Antony, or Catiline, or against Piso. This last person 
 was a senator of the very highest rank, family, con- 
 nections ; yet, in the course of a few pages, does Cicero, 
 a man of letters, polished to the extreme standard of 
 Rome, address him by the elegant appellations of " filth," 
 " mud," " carrion," (^projectum cadaver). How could Piso 
 have complained? It would have been said — "Oh, there's
 
 2 20 DE QUINCE rS ESSAYS. 
 
 an end of republican simplicity, if plain speaking is to be 
 put down." And then it would have been added invidi- 
 ously — " Better men than ever stood in your shoes have 
 borne worse language. Will you complain of what was 
 tolerated by Africanus, by Paulus ^milius, by Marius, 
 by Sylla?" Who could reply to that? And why should 
 Piso have even wished to call out his toul-mouthed an- 
 tagonist? On the contrary, a far more genial revenge 
 awaited him than any sword could have furnished. Pass 
 but an hour, and you will hear Piso speaking — it will 
 then be his turn — every dog has his day; and, though 
 not quite so eloquent as his brilliant enemy, he is yet 
 eloquent enough for the purposes of revenge — he is elo- 
 quent enough to call Cicero "filth," "mud," "carrion." 
 
 No : the reason of our modern duelling lies deeper 
 than is supposed ; it lies in the principle of honour — a 
 direct product of chivalry — as that was in part a product 
 of Christianity. The sense of honour did not exist in 
 Pagan times. Natural equity, and the equity of civil 
 laws — those were the two moral forces under which men 
 acted. Honour applies to cases where both those forces 
 are silent. And precisely because they had no such 
 sense, and because their revenge emptied itself by the 
 basest of all channels, viz. foul speaking and license of 
 tongue, was it that the Greeks and Romans had no duel- 
 ling. It was no glory to them that they had not, but the 
 foulest blot on their moral grandeur. 
 
 How it was that Christianity was able, mediately, to 
 generate the principle of honour, is a separate problem. 
 But this is the true solution of that common casuistical 
 question about dueUing.
 
 CASUISTRY. 221 
 
 IL* 
 
 •' Celebrare domestica facta." — HoR. 
 
 In a former notice of Casuistry, we touched on such cases 
 only as were of public bearings, or such as (if private) were 
 of rare occurrence and of a tragical standard. But ordinary 
 life, in its most domestic paths, teems with cases of difficult 
 decision ; or, if not always difficult in the decision of the 
 abstract question at issue, difficult in the accommodation of 
 that decision to immediate practice. A few of these more 
 homely cases, intermixed with more public ones, we shall 
 here select and review ; for, according to a remark in our 
 first paper, as social economy grows more elaborate, the 
 demand grows more intense for such circumstantial morality. 
 As man advances, casuistry advances. Principles are the 
 same : but the abstraction of principles from accidents and 
 circumstances, becomes a work of more effort. Aristotle, in 
 his Nico7nachean Ethics, has not one case ; Cicero, three 
 hundred years after, has a few; Paley, eighteen hundred 
 years after Cicero, has many. 
 
 There is also something in place as well as in time — in 
 the people as well as the century — which determines the 
 amount of interest in casuistry. We once heard an eminent 
 person delivering it as an opinion, derived from a good deal 
 of personal experience — that, of all European nations, the 
 British was that which suffered most from remorse; and 
 that, if internal struggles during temptation, or sufferings of 
 mind after yielding to temptation, were of a nature to be 
 measured upon a scale, or could express themselves sensibly 
 to human knowledge, the annual report from Great Britain, 
 its annual balance-sheet, by comparison with those from 
 continental Europe, would show a large excess. At the 
 time of hearing this remarkable opinion, we, the hearers, 
 * Blackwood'' s Magazine, Feb. 1S40.
 
 2 22 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 were young ; and we had little other ground for assent or 
 dissent, than such general impressions of national differ- 
 ences as we might happen to have gathered from the several 
 literatures of Christian nations. These were of a nature to 
 confirm the stranger's verdict ; and it will not be denied that 
 much of national character comes forward in literature : but 
 these were not sufficient. Since then, we have had occasion 
 to think closely on that question. We have had occasion 
 to review the public records of Christendom ; and beyond 
 all doubt the public conscience, the international conscience, 
 of a people, is the reverberation of its private conscience. 
 History is but the converging into a focus of what is moving 
 in the domestic life below ; a set of great circles expressing 
 and summing up, on the dial-plate, the motions of many 
 little circles in the machinery within. Now History, what 
 may be called the Comparative History of modern Europe, 
 countersigns the traveller's opinion. 
 
 " So, then," says a foreigner, or an Englishman with 
 foreign sympathies, "the upshot and amount of this doc- 
 trine is, that England is more moral than other nations." 
 *' Well," we answer, " and what of that ? " Observe, how- 
 ever, that the doctrine went no farther than as to con- 
 scientiousness ; the principle out of which comes sorrow for 
 all violation of duty ; out of which comes a high standard 
 of duty. Meantime both the "sorrow" and the "high 
 standard " are very compatible with a lax performance. But 
 suppose we had gone as far as the objector supposes, and 
 had ascribed a moral superiority every way to England, 
 what is there in that to shock probability ? Whether the 
 general probability from analogy, or the special probability 
 from the circumstances of this particular case? We all 
 know that there is no general improbability in supposing 
 one nation, or one race, to outrun another. The modern
 
 CASUISTRY. 223 
 
 Italians have excelled all nations in musical sensibility, and 
 in genius for painting. They have produced far better 
 music than all the rest of the world put together. And 
 four of their great painters have not been approached 
 hitherto by the painters of any nation. That facial struc- 
 ture, again, which is called the Caucasian, and which, 
 through the ancient Greeks, has travelled westward to the 
 nations of Christendom, and from them (chiefly ourselves) 
 has become the Transatlantic face, is, past all disputing, the 
 finest type of the human countenance divine on this planet. 
 And most other nations, Asiatic or African, have hitherto 
 put up with this insult; except, indeed, the Kalmuck Tartars, 
 who are highly indignant at our European vanity in this 
 matter ; and some of them, says Bergmann, the German 
 traveller, absolutely howl with rage, whilst others only laugh 
 hysterically, at any man's having the insanity to prefer the 
 Grecian features to the Kalmuck. Again, amongst the old 
 Pagan nations, the Romans seem to have had " the call " 
 for going a-head ; and they fulfilled their destiny in spite of 
 all that the rest of the world could do to prevent them. So 
 that, far from it being an improbable or unreasonable 
 assumption, superiority (of one kind or other) has been 
 the indefeasible inheritance of this and that nation, at 
 all periods of history. 
 
 Still less is the notion tenable of any special improba- 
 bility applying to this particular pretension. For centuries 
 has England enjoyed — ist, civil liberty; 2nd, the Protestant 
 faith. Now in those two advantages are laid the grounds, 
 the very necessities, d priori, of a superior morality. But 
 watch the inconsistency of men : ask one of these men who 
 dispute this English pretension mo7-diais ; — ask him, or bid 
 an Austrian serf ask him, what are the benefits of Protes- 
 tantism, and what the benefits of liberty, that he should risk
 
 224 DE Q UINCE TS ESS A YS. 
 
 any thing to obtain either. Hear how eloquently he insists 
 upon their beneficial results, severally and jointly ; and 
 notice that he places foremost among those results, a pure 
 morality. Is he wrong ? No : the man speaks bare truth. 
 But what brute oblivion he manifests of his own doctrine, 
 in taxing with arrogance any people for claiming one of 
 those results in esse, which he himself could see so clearly 
 in posse ! Talk no more of freedom, or of a pure religion, 
 as fountains of a moral pre-eminence, if those who have 
 possessed them in combination for the longest space of 
 time, may not, without arrogance, claim the vanward place 
 amongst the nations of Europe. 
 
 So far as to the presumptions, general or special ; so far 
 as to the probabilities, analogous or direct, in countenance 
 of this British claim. Finally, when we come to the proofs, 
 from fact and historical experience, we might appeal to a 
 singular case in the records of our Exchequer ; viz. that 
 for much more than a century back, our Gazette and other 
 public Advertisers, have acknowledged a series of anony- 
 mous remittances from those who, at some time or other, 
 had appropriated public money. We understand that no 
 corresponding fact can be cited from foreign records. Now, 
 this is a direct instance of that compunction which our 
 travelled friend insisted on. But we choose rather to throw 
 ourselves upon the general history of Great Britain, upon 
 the spirit of her policy, domestic or foreign, and upon the 
 universal principles of her public morality. Take the case 
 of public debts, and the fulfilment of contracts to those who 
 could not have compelled the fulfilment ; we first set this 
 precedent. All nations have now learned that honesty in 
 such cases is eventually the best policy ; but this they 
 learned from our experience, and not till nearly all of them 
 had tried the other policy. We it was, who, under the most
 
 CASUISTRY. 225 
 
 trying circumstances of war, maintained the sanctity from 
 taxation of all foreign' investments in our funds. Our con- 
 duct with regard to slaves, whether in the case of slavery or 
 of the slave-trade — how prudent it may always have been, 
 we need not enquire ; — as to its moral principles, they went 
 so far a-head of European standards, that we were neither 
 comprehended nor believed. The perfection of romance 
 was ascribed to us by all who did not reproach us with the 
 perfection of Jesuitical knavery ; by many our motto was 
 supposed to be no longer the old one of divide et ijnpera, 
 but a7inihila et appropria. Finally, looking back to our 
 dreadful conflicts with the three conquering despots of 
 modem history, Philip II. of Spain, Louis XIV., and 
 Napoleon, we may incontestably boast of having been 
 single in maintaining the general equities of Europe by 
 war upon a colossal scale, and by our councils in the 
 general congresses of Christendom. 
 
 Such a review would amply justify the traveller's remark- 
 able dictum upon the principle of remorse, and therefore of 
 conscientiousness, as existing in greater strength amongst 
 the people of Great Britain. In the same proportion, we 
 may assume in such a people a keener sensibility to moral 
 distinctions ; more attention to shades of difference in the 
 modes of action ; more anxiety as to the grounds of action. 
 In the same proportion, we may assume a growing and 
 more direct regard to Casuistry : which is precisely the 
 part of Ethics that will be continually expanding, and 
 continually throwing up fresh doubts. Not as though a 
 moral principle could ever be doubtful. But that the 
 growing complexity of the circumstances will make it 
 more and more difficult in judgment to detach the 
 principle from the case ; or in practice, to determine the 
 application of the principle to the facts. It will happen 
 
 p
 
 2 26 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 therefore, as Mr Coleridge used to say happened in all 
 cases of importance, that extremes meet : for Casuistical 
 Ethics will be most consulted by two classes the most 
 opposite to each other — by those who seek excuses for 
 evading their duties, and by those who seek a special 
 fulness of light for fulfilHng them. 
 
 Case I, — Health. 
 
 Strange it is, that moral treatises, when professing to lay 
 open the great edifice of human duties, and to expose its 
 very foundations, should not have begun with, nay, should 
 not have noticed at all, those duties which a man owes to 
 himself, and, foremost amongst them, the duty of cultivat- 
 ing his own health. For it is evident, that, from mere 
 neglect of that one personal duty, with the very best in- 
 tentions possible, all other duties whatever may become 
 impossible ; for good intentions exist in all stages of 
 efficiency, from the fugitive impulse to the realising self- 
 determination. In this life, the elementary blessing is 
 health. What !. do we presume to place it before peace 
 of mind ? Far from it : but we speak of the genesis ; of 
 the succession in which all blessings descend : not as to 
 time, but the order of dependency. All morality implies 
 free agency : it presumes beyond all other conditions an 
 agent who is in perfect possession of his own volitions. 
 Now, it is certain that a man without health, is not 
 uniformly master of his own purposes. Often he cannot 
 be said either to be m the path of duty or out of it ; 
 so incoherent are the actions of a man forced back con- 
 tinually from the objects of his intellect and choice upon 
 some alien objects dictated by internal wretchedness. It 
 is true, that by possibility some derangements of the human
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 227 
 
 system are not incompatible with happiness ; and a cele- 
 brated German author of the last century, Von Hardenberg 
 — better known by his assumed name of Novalis — main- 
 tained, that certain modes of ill health or valetudinarianism 
 were pre-requisites towards certain modes of intellectual 
 development. But the ill health to which he pointed 
 could not have gone beyond a luxurious indisposition ; 
 nor the corresponding intellectual purposes have been 
 other than narrow, fleeting, and anomalous. Inflamma- 
 tory action in its earlier stages, is sometimes connected 
 with voluptuous sensations : so is the preternatural stimu- 
 lation of the liver. But these states, as pleasurable states, 
 are transitory. All fixed derangements of the health are 
 doubly hostile to the moral energies ; first, through the 
 intellect, which they debilitate unconsciously in many 
 ways ; and next, both consciously and semi-consciously 
 through the will. The judgment is perhaps too clouded 
 to fix upon a right purpose : the will too enfeebled to 
 pursue it. 
 
 Two general remarks may be applied to all interferences 
 of the physical with the moral sanity; ist, That it is not so 
 much by absolute deductions of time that ill health operates 
 upon the serviceableness of a man, as by its lingering effects 
 upon his temper and his animal spirits. Many a man has 
 not lost one hour in his life from illness, whose faculties 
 of usefulness have been most seriously impaired through 
 gloom or untuned feelings ; 2ndly, That it is not the direct 
 and known risks to our health which act with the most 
 fatal effects, but the semi-conscious condition, the atmo- 
 sphere of circumstances, with which artificial life surrounds 
 us. The great cities of Europe, perhaps London beyond 
 all others, under the modern modes of life and business, 
 create a vortex 01 preternatural tumult, a rush and frenzy
 
 2 28 r>E QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 of excitement, which is fatal to far more than are heard of 
 as express victims to that system. 
 
 The late Lord Londonderry's nervous seizure was no 
 solitary or rare case. So much we happen to know. We 
 are well assured by medical men of great London practice, 
 that the case is one of growing frequency. In Lord London- 
 derry it attracted notice for reasons of obvious personal 
 interest, as well as its tragical catastrophe. But the com- 
 plaint, though one of modern growth, is well known, and 
 comes forward under a most determinate type as to symp- 
 toms, among the mercantile class. The original predisposi- 
 tion to it, hes permanently in the condition of London life, 
 especially as it exists for public men. But the immediate 
 existing cause, which fires the train always ready for ex- 
 plosion, is invariably some combination of perplexities, such 
 as are continually gathering into dark clouds over the heads 
 of great merchants ; sometimes only teasing and molesting, 
 sometimes menacing and alarming. These perplexities are 
 generally moving in counteracting paths : some progressive, 
 some retrograde. There lies a man's safety. But at times 
 it will happen that all comes at once ; and then comes a 
 shock such as no brain already predisposed by a London 
 life, is strong enough (but more truly let us say — coarse 
 enough) to support. 
 
 Lord Londonderry's case was precisely of that order : he 
 had been worried by a long session of Parliament, which 
 adds the crowning irritation in the interruption of sleep. 
 The nervous system, ploughed up by intense wear and 
 tear, is denied the last resource of natural relief. In this 
 crisis, already perilous, a new tempest was called in — of 
 all the most terrific — the tempest of anxiety : and from 
 what source ? Anxiety from fear, is bad : from hope de- 
 layed, is bad : but worst of all is anxiety from responsibility,
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 229 
 
 in cases where disease or weakness makes a man feel that 
 he is unequal to the burden. The diplomatic interests of 
 the country had been repeatedly confided to Lord London- 
 derry: he had justified that confidence: he had received 
 affecting testimonies of the honour which belonged to such 
 a situation. But a short time before his fatal seizure, in 
 passing through Birmingham at a moment when all the 
 gentlemen of the place were assembled, he had witnessed 
 the whole assembly — no mob, but the collective good sense 
 of the place — by one impulse standing bareheaded in his 
 presence, — a tribute of disinterested homage which affected 
 him powerfully, and which was well understood as offered 
 to his foreign diplomacy. Under these circumstances could 
 he bear to transfer or delegate the business of future negotia- 
 tion ? Could he suffer to lapse into other hands, as a dere- 
 lict, the consummation of that task which thus far he had so 
 prosperously conducted? Was it in human nature to do 
 so ? He felt the same hectic of human passion which Lord 
 Nelson felt in the very gates of death, when some act of 
 command was thoughtlessly suggested as belonging to his 
 successor — " Not whilst I live, Hardy ; not whilst I live." 
 Yet, in Lord Londonderry's case, it was necessary, if he 
 would not transfer the trust, that he should rally his entvgies 
 instantly: for a new Congress was even then assembling. 
 There was no delay open to him by the nature of the case : 
 the call was — now, now, just as you are, my lord, with those 
 shattered nerves and that agitated brain, take charge of 
 interests the most complex in Christendom : to say the truth, 
 of interests which are those of Christendom. 
 
 This struggle, between a nervous system too grievously 
 shaken, and the instant demand for energy seven times 
 intensified, was too much for any generous nature. A 
 ceremonial embassy might have been fulfilled by shattered
 
 230 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 nerves ; but not this embassy. Anxiety supervening upon 
 nervous derangement was bad ; anxiety through responsi- 
 bility was worse ; but through a responsibiUty created by 
 grateful confidence, it was an appeal through the very pangs 
 of martyrdom. No brain could stand such a siege. Lord 
 Londonderry's gave way ; and he fell with the tears of the 
 generous even where they might happen to differ from him 
 in politics. 
 
 Meantime, this case, belonging to a class generated by a 
 London life, was in some quarters well understood even 
 then ; now, it is well known that, had different remedies 
 been applied, or had the sufferer been able to stand up 
 under his torture until the cycle of the symptoms had begun 
 to come round, he might have been saved. The treatment 
 is now well understood ; but even then it was understood by 
 some physicians ; amongst others by that Dr Willis who had 
 attended George the Third. In several similar cases over- 
 powering doses had been given of opium, or of brandy ; and 
 usually a day or two had carried off the oppression of the 
 brain by a tremendous reaction. 
 
 In Birmingham and other towns, where the body of 
 people called Quakers are accumulated, different forms of 
 nervous derangement are developed ; the secret principle of 
 which turns not, as in these London cases, upon feelings too 
 much called out by preternatural stimulation, but upon feel- 
 ings too much repelled and driven in. Morbid suppression 
 of deep sensibilities must lead to states of disease equally 
 terrific and perhaps even less tractable ; not so sudden and 
 critical perhaps, but more settled and gloomy. We speak 
 not of any physical sensibilities, but of those which are 
 purely moral — sensibilities to poetic emotions, to ambition, 
 to social gaiety. Accordingly it is amongst the young men 
 and women of this body that the most afflicting cases under
 
 CASUISTRY. 231 
 
 this type occur. Even for children, however, the systematic 
 repression of all ebullient feeling, under the Quaker discip- 
 line, must be sometimes perilous ; and would be more so, 
 were it not for that marvellous flexibility with which nature 
 adapts herself to all changes — whether imposed by climate 
 or by situation — by inflictions of Providence or by human 
 spirit of system. 
 
 These cases we point to as formidable mementos, inonii- 
 menta sacra, of those sudden catastrophes which either 
 ignorance of what concerns the health, or neglect in midst 
 of knowledge, may produce. Any mode of life in London, 
 or not in London, which trains the nerves to a state of per- 
 manent irritation, prepares a nidus for disease ; and un- 
 happily not for chronic disease only, but for disease of that 
 kind which finishes the struggle almost before it is begun. 
 In such a' state of habitual training for morbid action, 
 it may happen — and often has happened — that one and 
 the same week sees the victim apparently well and in his 
 grave. 
 
 These, indeed, are extreme cases : thougli still such as 
 threaten many more than they actually strike ; for, though 
 uncommon, they grow out of very common habits. But 
 even the ordinary cases of unhealthy action in the system, 
 are sufficient to account for perhaps three-fourths of all the 
 disquiet and bad temper which disfigure daily life. Not one 
 man in every ten is perfectly clear of some disorder, more 
 or less, in the digestive system — not one man in fifty enjoys 
 the absolutely normal state of that organ; and upon that 
 depends the daily cheerfulness, in the first place, and through 
 that (as well as by more direct actions) the sanity ot the 
 judgment. To speak strictly, not one man in a hundred is 
 perfectly sane even as to his mind. For, though the greater 
 disturbances of the mind do not take place in more than
 
 232 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 one man of each thousand,* the sHghter shades that settle 
 on the judgment, which daily bring up thoughts such as a 
 man would gladly banish, which force him into moods of 
 feeling irritating at the moment, and wearing to the animal 
 spirits, — these derangements are universal. 
 
 From the greater alike and the lesser, no man can free 
 himself but in the proportion of his available knowledge 
 apphed to his own animal system, and of the surrounding 
 circumstances, as constantly acting on that system. Would 
 we, then, desire that every man should interrupt his proper 
 studies or pursuits for the sake of studying medicine? Not 
 at all : nor is that requisite. The laws of health are as simple 
 as the elements of arithmetic or geometry. It is required 
 only that a man should open his eyes to perceive the three 
 great forces which support health. 
 
 They are these : i. The blood requires exercise : 2. The 
 great central organ of the stomach requires adaptation of 
 diet : 3. The nervous system requires regularity of sleep. In 
 those three functions of sleep, diet, exercise, is contained 
 the whole economy of health. All three of course act and 
 re-act upon each other : and all three are woefully deranged 
 by a London life — above all, by a parliamentary life. As 
 to the first point, it is probable that any torpor or even 
 kfitor in the blood, such as scarcely expresses itself sensibly 
 through the pulse, renders that fluid less able to resist the 
 first actions of disease. As to the second, a more complex 
 subject, luckily we benefit not by our own brief experience 
 exclusively : every man benefits practically by the tradi- 
 
 * " One mail of each thousand:" in several nations that has been 
 found to be the average proportion of the insane. But this calculation 
 has never been made to include all the slighter cases. It is not impos- 
 sible that at some periods the whole human race may have been partially 
 insane.
 
 CASUISTR Y. 233 
 
 tional experience of ages, which constitutes the culinary 
 experience in every land and every household. The in- 
 heritance of knowledge, which every generation receives, 
 as to the salubrity of this or that article of diet, operates 
 continually in preventing dishes from being brought to 
 table. Each man's separate experience does something 
 to arm him against the temptation when it is offered ; 
 and again, the traditional experience far oftener intercepts 
 the temptation. As to the third head, sleep, this of all 
 is the most immediately fitted by nature to the relief of 
 the brain and its exquisite machinery of nerves : — it is the 
 function of health most attended to in our navy; and of 
 all it is the one most painfully ravaged by a London life. 
 
 Thus it would appear, that the three great laws of health, 
 viz. motion, rest, and temperance, (or, by a more adequate 
 expression, adaptation to the organ,) are, in a certain gross 
 way, taught to every man by his personal experience. The 
 difficulty is — as in so many other cases — not for the un- 
 derstanding, but for the will — not to know, but to execute. 
 
 Now here steps in Casuistry with two tremendous sug- 
 gestions, sufficient to alarm any thoughtful man, and rouse 
 him more effectually to the performance of his duty. 
 
 First, that under the same law (whatever that law may 
 be) which makes suicide a crime, must the neglect of 
 health be a crime. For thus stand the two accounts : — 
 By suicide you have cut off a portioti unknown from your 
 life : years it may be, but possibly only days. By neglect 
 of health you have cut off a portion unknow7i from your 
 life : days it may be, but also by possibihty years. So 
 the practical result may be the same in either case; or, 
 possibly, the least is suicide. "Yes," you reply, "the 
 practical results — but not the purpose — not the intention 
 — ergo, not the crime." Certainly not: in the one case
 
 234 DE Q UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 the result arises from absolute predetermination, with the 
 whole energies of the will ; in the other it arises in spite of 
 3'Our will, (meaning your choice) — it arises out of human 
 infirmity. But still the difference is as between choosing 
 a crime for its own sake, and falling into it from strong 
 temptation. 
 
 Secondly, that in every case of duty unfulfilled, or duty 
 imperfectly fulfilled, in consequence of illness, languor, 
 decaying spirits, (Sec, there is a high probability (under 
 the age of sixty-five almost a certainty) that a part of the 
 obstacle is due to self-neglect. No man that hves but 
 loses some of his time from ill health, or at least from 
 the incipient forms of ill health — bad spirits, or indisposi- 
 tion to exertion. Now, taking men even as they are, 
 statistical societies have ascertained that, from the ages 
 of twenty to sixty-five, ill health, such as to interrupt daily 
 labour, averages from seven days to about fourteen per 
 annum. In the best circumstances of climate, occupation, 
 &c., one fifty-second part of the time perishes to the species 
 — in the least favourable, two such parts. Consequently, 
 in the forty-five years from twenty to sixty-five, not very far 
 from a year perishes on an average to every man — to some 
 as much more. A considerable part even of this loss is 
 due to neglect or mismanagement of health. But this 
 estimate records only the loss of time in a pecuniary 
 sense ; which loss, being powerfully restrained by self- 
 interest, will be the least possible under the circumstances. 
 The loss of energy, as applied to duties not connected 
 with any self-interest, will be far more. In so far as that 
 loss emanates from defect of spirits, or other modes of 
 vital torpor, such as neglect of health has either caused 
 or promoted, and care might have prevented, in so far 
 the omission is charged to our own responsibility. Many
 
 CASUISTRY. 235 
 
 men fancy that the slight injuries done by each single 
 act of intemperance, are like the glomeration of moon- 
 beams upon moonbeams — myriads will not amount to a 
 positive value. Perhaps they are wrong : possibly every 
 act — nay, every separate pulse or throb of intemperate 
 sensation — is numbered in our own after actions; re- 
 produces itself in some future perplexity ; comes back 
 in some reversionary shape that injures the freedom of 
 action for all men, and makes good men afflicted. At 
 all events, it is an undeniable fact, that many a case of 
 difficulty, which in apology for ourselves we very truly 
 plead to be insurmountable by our existing energies, has 
 borrowed its sting from previous acts or omissions of our 
 own : it might noi have been insurmountable, had we 
 better cherished our physical resources. Far instance, 
 of such a man it is said — he did not assist in repelling 
 an injury from his friend or his native land. "True," 
 says his apologist, " but you would not require him to 
 do so when he labours under paralysis ? " " No, certainly ; 
 but, perhaps, he might not have laboured under paralysis 
 had he uniformly taken care of his health." * 
 
 * With respect to the management of health, although it is un- 
 doubtedly true that, like the " primal charities," in the language of 
 Wordsworth, in proportion to its importance it shines alike for all, 
 and is diffused universally — yet not the less, in every age, some very 
 obstinate prejudices have prevailed to darken the truth. Thus Dryden 
 authorizes the conceit, that medicine can never be useful or requisite, 
 because — 
 
 " God never made his work for man to mend." 
 To mend ! No, Glorious John, neither physician nor patient has any 
 such presumptuous fancy ; we take medicine to mend the injuries 
 produced by our own folly. What the medicine mends is not God's 
 work, but our own. The medicine is a plus certainly ; but it is a phcs 
 applied to a niimis of our own introducing. Even in these days of 
 practical knowledge, errors prevail on the subject of health which are
 
 236 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 Let not the reader suspect us of the Popish doctrine, 
 that men are to enter hereafter into a separate reckoning 
 for each separate act, or to stand at all upon their own 
 merits. That reckoning, we Protestants believe, no man 
 could stand; and that some other resource must be had 
 than any personal merits of the individual. But still we 
 should recollect that this doctrine, though providing a 
 refuge for past offences, provides none for such offences 
 as are committed deliberately, with a prospective view to 
 the benefits of such a refuge. Offend we may, and we 
 must: but then our offences must come out of mere 
 infirmity — not because we calculate upon a large allow- 
 ance being made to us, and say to ourselves, " Let us 
 take out our alloivance" 
 
 Casuistry, therefore, justly, and without infringing any 
 truth of Christianity, urges the care of health as the basis 
 of all moral action, because, in fact, oi diSS. perfectly voluntary 
 action. Every impulse of bad health jars or untunes some 
 
 neither trivial nor of narrow operation. Universally, the true theory 
 of digestion, as partially unfolded in Dr Wilson Philip's experiments 
 on rabbits, is so far mistaken, and even inverted — that Lord Byron, 
 when seeking a diet of easy digestion, instead of resorting to animal 
 food broiled and underdone, which all medical men know to be the 
 most digestible food, took to a vegetable diet, which requires a stomach 
 of extra power. The same error is seen in the common notion about 
 the breakfast of ladies in Elizabeth's days, as if fit only for ploughmen ; 
 whereas it is our breakfast of slops which require the powerful organs 
 of digestion. The same error, again, is current in the notion that a 
 weak watery diet is fit for a weak person. Such a person peculiarly 
 requires solid food. It is also a common mistake to suppose that, 
 because no absolute illness is caused by daily errors of diet, these 
 errors are practically cancelled. Cowper the poet delivers the very 
 just opinion — That all disorders oiz. function (as, suppose, the secretion 
 of bile,) sooner or later, if not corrected, cease to be functional dis- 
 orders, and become organic.
 
 CASUISTRY. 237 
 
 string in the fine harp of human volition; and because a 
 man cannot be a moral being but in the proportion of his 
 free action, therefore it is clear that no man can be in a 
 high sense moral, except in so far as through health he 
 commands his bodily powers, and is not commanded by 
 them. 
 
 Case II. — Laws of Hospitality in collision with 
 Civic Duties. 
 
 Suppose the case, that, taking shelter from a shower of 
 rain in a stranger's house, you discover proofs of a con- 
 nection with smugglers. Take this for one pole of such 
 case, the trivial extreme; then for the other pole, the 
 greater extreme, suppose the case, that, being hospitably 
 entertained, and happening to pass the night in a stranger's 
 house, you are so unfortunate as to detect unquestionable 
 proofs of some dreadful crime, say murder, perpetrated in 
 past times by one of the family. The principle at issue is 
 the same in both cases : viz. the command resting upon 
 the conscience to forget private consideration and 
 personal feelings in the presence of any solemn duty ; 
 yet merely the difference of degree, and not any at 
 all in the kind of duty, would lead pretty generally to a 
 separate practical decision for the several cases. In the 
 last of the two, whatever might be the pain to a person's 
 feelings, he would feel himself to have no discretion or 
 choice left. Reveal he must : not only, if otherwise re- 
 vealed, he must come forward as a witness, but, if not 
 revealed, he must denounce — he must lodge an information, 
 and that instantly, else even in law, without question of 
 morality, he makes himself a party to the crime — an accom- 
 plice after the act. That single consideration would with 
 most men at once cut short all deliberation. And yet even
 
 238 DE O UINCE Y'S ESS A YS. 
 
 in such a situation there is a possible variety of the case 
 that might alter its complexion. If the crime had been 
 committed many years before, and under circumstances 
 which precluded all fear that the same temptation or the 
 same provocation should arise again, most reflecting people 
 would think it the better course to leave the criminal to his 
 conscience. Often in such denunciations it is certain that 
 human impertinence, and the spirit which sustains the habit 
 of gossip, and mere incontinence of secrets, and vulgar 
 craving for being the author of a sensation, have far more 
 often led to the publication of the offence, than any concern 
 for the interests of morality. 
 
 On the other hand, with respect to the slighter extreme — 
 viz. in a case where the offence is entirely created by the 
 law, with no natural turpitude about it, and besides (which 
 is a strong argument in the case) enjoying no special 
 facilities of escaping justice — no man in the circumstances 
 supposed would have a reason for hesitating. The laws of 
 hospitality are of everlasting obligation : they are equally 
 binding on the host and on the guest. Coming under a 
 man's roof for one moment, in the clear character of guest, 
 creates an absolute sanctity in the consequent relations 
 which connect the parties. That is the popular feeling. 
 The king in the old ballads is always represented as feeling 
 that it would be damnable to make a legal offence out of 
 his own venison which he had eaten as a guest. There is a 
 cleaving pollution, like that of the Syrian leprosy, in the act 
 of abusing your privileges as a guest, or in any way profiting 
 by your opportunities as a guest, to the injury of your con- 
 fiding host. Henry VII., though a prince, was no gentle- 
 man ; and in the famous case of his dining with Lord 
 Oxford, and saying at his departure, with reference to an 
 infraction of his recent statute, " My Lord, I thank you for
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 239 
 
 my good cheer, but my Attorney must speak with you ; " 
 Lord Oxford might have justly retorted, "If he does, then 
 posterity will speak pretty plainly with your Majesty ; " for it 
 was in the character of Lord Oxford's guest that he had 
 learned the infraction of his law. Meantime the general 
 rule, and the rationale of the rule, in such cases, appears to 
 be this : whenever there is, or can be imagined a sanctity 
 in the obligations on one side, and only a benefit of ex- 
 pediency in the obligations upon the other, the latter must 
 give way. For the detection of smuggling, (the particular 
 offence supposed in the case stated,) society has an express 
 and separate machinery maintained. If their activity droops, 
 that is the business of government. In such a case, govern- 
 ment is entitled to no aid from private citizens : on the 
 express understanding that no aid must be expected, has so 
 expensive an establishment been submitted to. Each indi- 
 vidual refuses to participate in exposure of such offences, 
 for the same reason that he refuses to keep the street clean 
 even before his own door — he has already paid for having 
 such work discharged by proxy. 
 
 Case III. — Giving Characters to Servants who have 
 misconducted themselves. 
 
 No case so constantly arises to perplex the conscience in 
 private life as this — which in principle is almost beyond 
 solution. Sometimes, indeed, the coarse realities of law 
 step in to cut that Gordian knot which no man can untie : 
 for it is an actionable offence to give a character wilfully 
 false. That little fact at once exorcises all aerial phantoms 
 of the conscience. True : but this coarse machinery applies 
 only to those cases in which the servant has been guilty in a 
 way amenable to law. In any case short of that, no plaintifi:'
 
 240 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 would choose to face the risks of an action ; nor could he 
 sustain it : the defendant would always have a sufficient 
 resource in the vagueness and large latitude allowed to 
 opinion when estimating the qualities of a servant. Almost 
 universally, therefore, the case comes back to the forum of 
 conscience. Now in that forum how stands the pleading ? 
 Too certainly, we will suppose, that the servant has not 
 satisfied your reasonable expectations. This truth you would 
 have no difficulty in declaring : here, as much as anywhere 
 else, you would feel it unworthy of your own integrity to 
 equivocate — you open your writing-desk, and sit down to 
 tell the mere truth in as few words as possible. But then 
 steps in the consideration, that to do this without disguise 
 or mitigation, is oftentimes to sign a warrant for the ruin of 
 a fellow-creature — and that fellow-creature possibly penitent, 
 in any case thrown upon your mercy. Who can stand this? 
 In lower walks of life, it is true that mistresses often take 
 servants without any certificates of character ; but in higher 
 grades this is notoriously uncommon, and in great cities 
 dangerous. Besides, the candidate may happen to be a 
 delicate girl, incapable of the hard labour incident to such a 
 lower establishment. Here, then, is a case where conscience 
 says into your left ear — Fiat justitia mat avium — *' Do your 
 duty without looking to consequences." Meantime into 
 the right ear conscience says, " But mark, in that case pos- 
 sibly you consign this poor girl to prostitution." Lord 
 Nelson, as is well known, was once placed in a dilemma 
 equally trying : * on one side, an iron tongue sang out from 
 
 * ' ' Once placed in a dilemma : " viz. — On the first expedition against 
 Copenhagen (in l8oi). He was unfortunately second in command ; 
 his principal, a brave man in person, wanted moral courage — he could 
 not face responsibility in a trying shape. And had ho not been blessed 
 with a disobedient second in command, he must have returned home 
 re infectd.
 
 CASUISTRY. 241 
 
 the commander-in-chief — retreat; on the other, his own 
 oracular heart sang to him — advance. How he decided is 
 well known ; and the words in which he proclaimed his 
 decision ought to be emblazoned for ever as the noblest of 
 all recorded repartees. Waving his hand towards the 
 Admiral's ship, he said to his own officers, who reported 
 the signal of recall — " You may see it ; I cannot : you know 
 I am blind on that side." Oh, venerable blindness ! im- 
 mortal blindness ! None so deaf as those who will not 
 hear : none so gloriously blind as those who will not see 
 any danger or difficulty — who have a dark eye on that side, 
 whilst they reserve another blazing like a meteor for honour 
 and their country's interest. Most of us, we presume, in 
 the case stated about the servant, hear but the whispering 
 voice of conscience as regards the truth, and her thundering 
 voice as regards the poor girl's interest. In doing this, 
 however, we (and doubtless others) usually attempt to com- 
 promise the opposite suggestions of conscience by some 
 such Jesuitical device as this. We dwell pointedly upon 
 those good quaHties which the servant really possesses, and 
 evade speaking of any others. But how, if minute, search- 
 ing, and circumstantial enquiries are made by way of letter ? 
 In that case, we affect to have noticed only such as we can 
 answer with success, passing the dangerous ones as so many 
 rocks, sub silentio. All this is not quite right, you think, 
 reader. Why, no : so think we : but what alternative is 
 allowed ? " Say, ye severest, what would ye have done ? " 
 In very truth, this is a dilemma for which Casuistry is not a 
 match ; unless, indeed. Casuistry as armed and equipped in 
 the school of Ignatius Loyola. But that is with us reputed 
 a piratical Casuistry. The whole estate of a servant lies in 
 his capacity of serving ; and often, if you tell the truth, by 
 one word you ruin this estate for ever. Meantime, a case 
 
 Q
 
 242 DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 very much of the samequahty, and of even greater difficulty, 
 is — 
 
 Case IV. — Criminal Prosecution of Fraudulent Servants. 
 
 Any reader, who is not deeply read in the economy of 
 Enghsh hfe, will have a most inadequate notion of the vast 
 extent to which this case occurs. We are well assured, (for 
 our information comes from quarters judicially conversant 
 with the question,) that in no other channel of human life 
 does there flow one-hundredth part of the forbearance and 
 the lenity which are called into action by the relation 
 between injured masters and their servants. We are 
 informed that, were every third charge pursued effectually, 
 half the courts in Europe would not suffice for the cases of 
 criminality which emerge in London alone under this head. 
 All England would, in the course of five revolving years, 
 have passed under the torture of subpcena, as witnesses for 
 the prosecution or the defence. This multiplication of 
 cases arises from the coincidence of hourly opportunity 
 with hourly temptation, both carried to the extreme 
 verge of possibility, and generally falling in with youth 
 in the offenders. These aggravations of the danger 
 are three several palliations of the crime, and they have 
 weight allowed to them by the indulgent feelings of masters 
 in a corresponding degree ; not one case out of six score 
 that are discovered (while, perhaps, another six score go 
 undiscovered) being ever prosecuted with rigour and effect. 
 In this universal laxity of temper lies an injury too serious 
 to public morals ; and the crime reproduces itself abundantly 
 under an indulgence so Christian in its motive, but unfor- 
 tunately operating with the full effect of genial culture.
 
 CASUISTRY. 243 
 
 Masters, who have made themselves notorious by indis- 
 criminate forgiveness, might be represented symbolically 
 as gardeners watering and tendering luxuriant crops of 
 crime in hot-beds or forcing-houses. In London, many 
 are the tradesmen who, being reflective as well as benevo- 
 lent, perceive that something is amiss in the whole system. 
 In part the law has been to blame, stimulating false mercy 
 by punishment disproportioned to the offence. But many 
 a judicious master has seen cause to suspect his own lenity 
 as more mischievously operative even than the law's hard- 
 ness, and as an effeminate surrender to luxurious sensi- 
 bihties. Those have not been the severest masters whose 
 names are attached to fatal prosecutions : on the contrary, 
 three out of four having been persons who looked forward 
 to general consequences — having, therefore, been more 
 than usually thoughtful, were, for that reason, likely to 
 be more than usually humane. They did not suffer the 
 less acutely, because their feelings ran counter to the course 
 of what they believed to be their duty. Prosecutors often 
 sleep with less tranquillity during the progress of a judicial 
 proceeding than the objects of the prosecution. An English 
 judge of the last century, celebrated for his uprightness, 
 used to balance against that pity so much vaunted for the 
 criminal, the duty of "a pity to the country." But private 
 prosecutors of their own servants, often feel both modes of 
 pity at the same moment. 
 
 For this difficulty a book of Casuistry might suggest 
 a variety of resources, not so much adapted to a case of 
 that nature already existing, as to the prevention of future 
 cases. Every mode of trust or delegated duty would 
 suggest its own separate improvements ; but all improve- 
 ments must fall under two genuine heads — first, the diminu- 
 tion of temptation, either by abridging the amount of trust
 
 244 DE Q UINCE Y 'S ESS A VS. 
 
 reposed ; or, where that is difficult, by shortening its dura- 
 tion, and multiplying the counter-checks : secondly, by the 
 moderation of the punishment in the event of detection, as 
 the sole means of reconciling the public conscience to the 
 law, and diminishing the chances of impunity. There is a 
 memorable proof of the rash extent to which the London 
 tradesmen, at one time, carried their confidence in servants. 
 So many clerks, or apprentices, were allowed to hold large 
 balances of money in their hands through the intervals of 
 their periodical settlings, that during the Parliamentary war 
 multitudes were tempted, by that single cause, into ab- 
 sconding. They had always a refuge in the camps. And the 
 loss sustained in this way was so heavy, when all payments 
 were made in gold, that to this one evil suddenly assuming 
 a shape of excess, is ascribed, by some writers, the first 
 establishment of goldsmiths as bankers.* 
 
 Two other weighty considerations attach to this head — i. 
 The known fact that large breaches of trust, and embezzle- 
 ments, are greatly on the increase, and have been since the 
 memorable case of Mr Fauntleroy. America is, and will 
 be for ages, a city of refuge for this form of guilt. 2. That 
 the great training of the conscience in all which regards 
 pecuniary justice and fidelity to engagements, lies through 
 the discipline and tyrocinium of the humbler ministerial 
 offices — those of clerks, book-keepers, apprentices. The 
 law acts through these offices, for the unconfirmed con- 
 science, as leading-strings to an infant in its earliest efforts 
 at walking. It forces to go right, until the choice may be 
 
 * "First establishment of goldsmiths as bankers.''* Goldsmiths 
 certainly acted in that capacity from an earlier period. But from 
 this era, until the formation of the Bank of England in 1696, they 
 entered more fully upon the functions of bankers, issuing notes which 
 passed current in London. 
 
 I
 
 CASUISTR Y. 245 
 
 supposed trained and fully developed. That is the great 
 function of the law : a function which it will perform with 
 more or less success, as it is more or less fitted to win the 
 cordial support of masters. 
 
 Case V. — Veracity. 
 
 Here is a special " title," (to speak with the civil lawyers,) 
 under that general claim put in for England with respect to 
 a moral pre-eminence amongst the nations. Many are they 
 who, in regions widely apart, have noticed with honour the 
 English superiority in the article of veneration for truth. 
 Not many years ago, two Englishmen, on their road over- 
 land to India, fell in with a royal cortege, and soon after with 
 the prime minister and the crown prince of Persia. The 
 prince honoured them with an interview ; both parties being 
 on horseback, and the conversation therefore reduced to the 
 points of nearest interest. Amongst these was the English 
 character. Upon this the prince's remark was — that what 
 had most impressed him with respect for England and her 
 institutions was, the remarkable spirit of truth-speaking 
 which distinguished her sons ; as supposing her institutions 
 to grow out of her sons, and her sons out of her institutions. 
 And indeed well he might have this feeling by comparison 
 with his own countrymen : Persians have no principles 
 apparently on this point — all is impulse and accident of 
 feeling. Thus the journal of the two Persian princes in 
 London, as lately reported in the newspapers, is one tissue 
 of falsehoods : not, most undoubtedly, from any purpose of 
 deceiving, but from the overmastering habit (cherished by 
 their whole training and experience) of repeating every- 
 thing in a spirit of amplification, with a view to the wonder 
 only of the hearer. The Persians are notoriously the
 
 246 DE QUINCEY'S ESSAYS. 
 
 Frenchmen of the East : the same gaiety, the same levity, 
 the same want of depth both as to feeling and principle. 
 The Turks are much nearer to the English : the same 
 gravity of temperament, the same meditativeness, the same 
 sternness of principle. Of all European nations, the French 
 is that which least regards truth. The whole spirit of their 
 private memoirs and their anecdotes illustrates this. To 
 point an anecdote or a repartee, there is no extravagance of 
 falsehood that the French will not endure. What nation 
 but the French would have tolerated that monstrous fiction 
 about La Fontaine, by way of illustrating his supposed 
 absence of mind — viz. that, on meeting his own son in a 
 friend's house, he expressed his admiration of the young 
 man, and begged to know his name. The fact probably 
 may have been that La Fontaine was not liable to any 
 absence at all : apparently this " distraction " was assumed 
 as a means of making a poor sort of sport for his friends. 
 Like many another man in such circumstances, he saw and 
 entered into the fun which his own imaginary forgetfulness 
 produced. But were it otherwise, who can believe so 
 outrageous a self-forgetfulness as that which would darken 
 his eyes to the very pictures of his own hearth? Were 
 such a thing possible, were it even real, it would still be 
 liable to the just objection of the critics — that, being 
 marvellous in appearance, even as a fact it ought not to 
 be brought forward for any purpose of wit, but only as a 
 truth of physiology, or as a fact in the records of a surgeon. 
 The ^^ incredulus odi" is too strong in such cases, and it 
 adheres to three out of every four French anecdotes. The 
 French taste is, indeed, any thing but good in all that 
 department of wit and humour. And the ground lies in 
 their national want of veracity. To return to England — 
 and having cited an Oriental witness to the English
 
 CASUISTRY, 247 
 
 character on this point, let us now cite a most observing 
 one in the West. Kant, in Konigsberg, was surrounded by 
 EngHshmen and by foreigners of all nations — foreign and 
 English students, foreign and English merchants; and he 
 pronounced the main characteristic feature of the English 
 as a nation to lie in their severe reverence for truth. This 
 from him was no slight praise ; for such was the stress he 
 laid upon veracity, that upon this one quality he planted 
 the whole edifice of moral excellence. General integrity 
 could not exist, he held, without veracity as its basis ; nor 
 that basis exist without superinducing general integrity. 
 
 This opinion, perhaps, many beside Kant will see cause 
 to approve. For ourselves we can truly say — never did we 
 know a human being, boy or girl, who began life as an 
 habitual undervaluer of truth, that did not afterwards 
 exhibit a character conformable to that beginning — such 
 a character as, however superficially correct under the 
 steadying hand of self-interest, was not in a lower key 
 of moral feeling as well as of principle. 
 
 But out of this honourable regard to veracity in Immanuel 
 Kant, branched out a principle in Casuistry which most 
 people will pronounce monstrous. It has occasioned much 
 disputing backwards and forwards. But as a practical 
 principle of conduct, (for which Kant meant it,) inevitably 
 it must be rejected — if for no other reason, because it is at 
 open war with the laws and jurisprudence of all Christian 
 Europe. Kant's doctrine was this; and the illustrative 
 case in which it is involved, let it be remembered, is his 
 own : — So sacred a thing, said he, is truth — that if a 
 murderer, pursuing another with an avowed purpose of 
 killing him, were to ask of a third person by what road the 
 fleeing party had fled, that person is bound to give him true 
 information. And you are at liberty to suppose this third
 
 248 BE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. 
 
 person a wife, a daughter, or under any conceivable obliga- 
 tions of love and duty to the fugitive. Now, this is 
 monstrous : and Kant himself, with all his parental fondness 
 for the doctrine, would certainly have been recalled to 
 sounder thoughts by these two considerations — 
 
 ist, That, by all the codes of law received throughout 
 Europe, he who acted upon Kant's principle would be held 
 z.particeps crvninis — an accomplice before the fact. 
 
 27id, That in reality, a just principle is lurking under Kant's 
 error; but a principle translated from its proper ground. 
 Not truth, individual or personal — not truth of mere facts, 
 but truth doctrinal — the truth which teaches, the truth 
 which changes men and nations — this is the truth con- 
 cerned in Kant's meaning, had he explained his own 
 meaning to himself more distinctly. With respect to that 
 truth, wheresoever it lies, Kant's doctrine applies — that all 
 men have a right to it ; that perhaps you have no right to 
 suppose of any race or nation that it is not prepared to 
 receive it ; and, at any rate, that no circumstances of 
 expedience can justify you in keeping it back. 
 
 Case VI. — TJie Case of Charles 1. 
 
 Many cases arise from the life and political difficulties of 
 Charles I. But there is one so peculiarly pertinent to an 
 essay which entertains the general question of Casuistry — 
 its legitimacy, its value — that with this, although not 
 properly a domestic case, or only such in a mixed sense, we 
 shall conclude. 
 
 No person has been so much attacked for his scruples of 
 conscience as this prince ; and, what seems odd enough, no 
 person has been so much attacked for resorting to books of 
 Casuistry, and for encouraging literary men to write books
 
 CASUISTRY. 249 
 
 of Casuistry. Under his suggestion and sanction, Saunder- 
 son wrote his book on the obligation of an oath, (for which 
 there was surely reason enough in days when the democratic 
 tribunals were forcing men to swear to an et ccztera ;) and, 
 by an impulse originally derived from him, Jeremy Taylor 
 wrote afterwards his Dudor Dubitantiutn, Bishop Barlow 
 wrote his Cases of Conscience, &c. &c. 
 
 For this dedication of his studies, Charles has been 
 plentifully blamed in after times. He was seeking evasions 
 for plain duties, say his enemies. He was arming himself 
 for intrigue in the school of Machiavel. But now turn to 
 his history, and ask in what way any man could have 
 extricated himself from that labyrinth which invested his 
 path but by Casuistry. Cases the most difficult are offered 
 for his decision: peace for a distracted nation in 1647, on 
 terms which seemed fatal to the monarchy ; peace for the 
 same nation under the prospect of war rising up again 
 during the Isle of Wight treaty in 164S, but also under 
 the certainty of destroying the Church of England. On 
 the one side, by refusing, he seemed to disown his duties 
 as the father of his people. On the other side, by yielding, 
 he seemed to forget his coronation oath, and the ultimate 
 interests of his people — to merge the future and the 
 reversionary in the present and the fugitive. It was not 
 within the possibilities that he could so act as not to offend 
 one-half of the nation. His dire calamity it was, that he 
 must be hated, act how he would, and must be condemned 
 by posterity. Did his enemies allow for the misery of 
 this internal conflict? Milton, who never appears to 
 more disadvantage than when he comes forward against 
 his sovereign, is indignant that Charles should have a 
 conscience, or plead a conscience, in a public matter. 
 Henderson, the celebrated Scotch theologian, came post
 
 250 DE QUINCE Y'S ESSAYS. • 
 
 from Edinburgh to London (whence he went to Newcastle) 
 expressly to combat the king's scruples. And he also (in 
 his private letters) seems equally enraged as Milton, that 
 Charles should pretend to any private conscience in a state 
 question. 
 
 Now let us ask — What was it that originally drove Charles 
 to books of Casuistry ? It was the deep shock which he 
 received, both in his affections and his conscience, from the 
 death of Lord Strafford. Every body had then told him, 
 even those who felt how much the law must be outraged to 
 obtain a conviction of Lord Strafford, how many principles 
 of justice must be shaken, and how sadly the royal word 
 must suffer in its sanctity, — yet all had told him that it was 
 expedient to sacrifice that nobleman. One man ought not to 
 stand between the king and his alienated people. It was 
 good for the common welfare that Lord Strafford should 
 die. Charles was unconvinced. He was sure of the 
 injustice; and perhaps he doubted even of the expedience. 
 But his very virtues were armed against his peace. In all 
 parts of his life self-distrust and diffidence had marked his 
 character. What was he, a single person, to resist so many 
 wise counsellors, and what in a representative sense was the 
 nation ranged on the other side? He yielded: and it is 
 not too much to say that he never had a happy day after- 
 wards. The stirring period of his life succeeded — the 
 period of war, camps, treaties. Much time was not allowed 
 him for meditation. But there is abundant proof that such 
 time as he had, always pointed his thoughts backwards to 
 the afflicting case of Lord Strafford. This he often spoke 
 of as the great blot — the ineffaceable transgression of his 
 life. For this he mourned in penitential words yet on 
 record. To this he traced back the calamity of his latter 
 life. Lord Strafford's memorable words — " Put not your
 
 CASUISTRY. 251 
 
 trust in princes, nor in the sons of princes," — rang for ever 
 in his ear. Lord Strafford's blood lay like a curse upon his 
 throne. 
 
 Now, by what a pointed answer, drawn from this one 
 case, might Charles have replied to the enemies we have 
 noticed — to those, like so many historians since his day, 
 who taxed him with studying Casuistry for the purposes 
 of intrigue — to those, like Milton and Henderson, who 
 taxed him with exercising his private conscience on public 
 questions. 
 
 "I had studied no books of Casuistry," he might have 
 replied, " when I made the sole capital blunder in a case of 
 conscience, which the review of my life can show." 
 
 " I did not insist on my private conscience ; woe is me 
 that I did not : I yielded to what was called the public 
 conscience in that one case which has proved the affliction 
 of my life, and which, perhaps, it was that wrecked the 
 national peace." 
 
 A more plenary answer there cannot be to those who 
 suppose that Casuistry is evaded by evading books of 
 Casuistry. That dread forum of conscience will for ever 
 exist as a tribunal of difficulty. The discussion must 
 proceed on some principles or other, good or bad; and 
 the only way for obtaining light is by clearing up the 
 grounds of action, and applying the principles of moral 
 judgment to such facts or circumstances as most frequently 
 arise to perplex the understanding, or the affections, or the 
 conscience. 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
 
 DRAMATIC ESSAYS. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM ARCHER AND ROBERT W. LOWE. 
 
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 with Introduction, by Mathilde Blind. 
 
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 17 LONGFELLOW'S "HYPERION," "KAVANAGH," AND 
 
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 18. GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS. BY G. F. FERRIS. 
 Edited, with Introduction, by Mrs. William Sharp. 
 
 19 THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. EDITED 
 
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 20 THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS. TRANSLATED FROM 
 
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 21 SELECTIONS FROM SENECA WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
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 22 SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA. BY WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 Revised by the Author, with fresh Preface. 
 
 23 DEMOCRATIC VISTAS, AND OTHER PAPERS. BY 
 
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 28 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
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 29 PAPERS OF STEELE AND ADDISON. EDITED BY 
 
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 30 BURNS'S LETTERS. SELECTED AND ARRANGED, 
 
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 31 VOLSUNGA SAGA. William Morris. WITH INTRO- 
 
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 London : Walter Scott, Limited, Paternoster Square.
 
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 32 SARTOR RESARTUS. BY THOMAS CARLYLE. WITH 
 
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 33 SELECT WRITINGS OF EMERSON. WITH INTRO- 
 
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 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LORD HERBERT. EDITED, 
 
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 35 ENGLISH PROSE, FROM MAUNDEVILLE TO 
 
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 36 THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY, AND OTHER PLAYS. BY 
 
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 37 IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. EDITED AND 
 
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 40 LANDOR'S PENTAMERON, AND OTHER IMAGINARY 
 
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 41 POE'S TALES AND ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH INTRO- 
 
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 42 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Edited, with Preface, by Ernest Rhys. 
 
 43 POLITICAL ORATIONS, FROM WENTWORTH TO 
 
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 44 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 45 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY OLIVER 
 
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 46 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 47 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON. 
 
 Selected, with Introduction, by Charles Sayle. 
 
 48 STORIES FROM CARLETON. SELECTED, WITH INTRO- 
 
 duction, by W. Yeats. 
 
 London: Walter Scott, Limited, Paternoster Squnre.
 
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 49 JANE EYRE. BY CHARLOTTE BRONTfi. EDITED BY 
 
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 50 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. EDITED BY LOTIIROP 
 
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 52 SPENCE'S ANECDOTES. A SELECTION. EDITED, 
 
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 53 MORE'S UTOPIA, AND LIFE OF EDWARD V. EDITED, 
 
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 54 SADFS GULISTAN, OR FLOWER GARDEN. TRANS- 
 
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 55 ENGLISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. EDITED BY 
 
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 56 NORTHERN STUDIES. BY EDMUND GOSSE. WITH 
 
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 58 ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. WITH GEORGE HENRY 
 
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 59 LANDOR'S PERICLES AND ASPASIA. EDITED, WITH 
 
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 61 ESSAYS OF ELIA. BY CHARLES LAMB. EDITED, 
 
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 62 BALZAC'S SHORTER STORIES. TRANSLATED BY 
 
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 63 COMEDIES OF DE MUSSET. EDITED, WITH AN 
 
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 64 CORAL REEFS. BY CHARLES DARWIN. EDITED, 
 
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 65 SHERIDAN'S PLAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRO- 
 
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 67 MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK, AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
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 68 TALES FROM WONDERLAND. BY RUDOLPH 
 
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 69 ESSAYS AND PAPERS BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. EDITED 
 
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 70 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. BY 
 
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 71 "THE ATHENIAN ORACLE." A SELECTION. EDITED 
 
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 72 ESSAYS OF SAINTE-BEUVE. TRANSLATED AND 
 
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 73 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO, FROM THE TRANS- 
 
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 74 HEINE'S ITALIAN TRAVEL SKETCHES, ETC. TRANS- 
 
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 75 SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS. TRANSLATED, 
 
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 76 SELECTIONS FROM SYDNEY SMITH. EDITED, WITH 
 
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 77 THE NEW SPIRIT. BY HAVELOCK ELLIS. 
 
 78 THE BOOK OF MARVELLOUS ADVENTURES. FROM 
 
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 No. 1, forms the complete " Morte d'Arthur."] 
 
 79 ESSAYS AND APHORISMS. BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS. 
 
 With an Introduction by E. A. Helps. 
 
 80 ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE. SELECTED, WITH A 
 
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 81 THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON. BY W. M. 
 
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 82 SCHILLER'S WILLIAM TELL. TRANSLATED, WITH 
 
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 83 CARLYLE'S ESSAYS ON GERMAN LITERATURE. 
 
 With an Introduction by Ernest Rhys. 
 
 84 PLAYS AND DRAMATIC ESSAYS OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 Edited, with an Introduction, by Rudolf Dircks. 
 
 85 THE PROSE OF WORDSWORTH. SELECTED AND 
 
 Edited, with an Introduction, by Professor William Knight. 
 
 86 ESSAYS, DIALOGUES, AND THOUGHTS OF COUNT 
 
 Giacomo LeopardL Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by 
 Major-General Patrick Maxwell. 
 
 87 THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL. A RUSSIAN COMEDY. 
 
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 and Notes, by Arthur A. Sykes. 
 
 88 ESSAYS AND APOTHEGMS OF FRANCIS, LORD BACON. 
 
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 89 PROSE OF MILTON. SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH 
 
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 90 THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. TRANSLATED BY 
 
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 91 PASSAGES FROM FROISSART. WITH AN INTRO 
 
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 92 THE PROSE AND TABLE TALK OF COLERIDGE 
 
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 93 HEINE IN ART AND LETTERS. TRANSLATED BY 
 
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 94 SELECTED ESSAYS OF DE QUINCEY. WITH AN 
 
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 95 VASARI'S LIVES OF ITALIAN PAINTERS. SELECTED 
 
 and Prefaced by Havelock Ellis. 
 
 96 LAOCOON, AND OTHER PROSE WRITINGS OF 
 
 LESSIXO. A new Translation by W. B. Ronnfeldt. 
 
 97 PELLEAS AND MELISANDA, AND THE SIGHTLESS 
 
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 Laurence Alma Tadema. 
 
 98 THE COMPLETE ANGLER OF WALTON AND COTTON. 
 
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 London : Walter Scott, Liuited, Paternoster Square.
 
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 99 LESSING'S NATHAN THE WISE. TRANSLATED BY 
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 ICX3 THE POETRY OF THE CELTIC RACES, AND OTHER 
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 loi CRITICISMS, REFLECTIONS, AND MAXIMS OF GOETHE. 
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 102 ESSAYS OF SCHOPENHAUER. TRANSLATED BY 
 
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 103 RENAN'S LIFE OF JESUS. TRANSLATED, WITH AN 
 
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 104 THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. EDITED, 
 
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 105 THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS IN LITER.\TURE. 
 
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 107 WHAT IS ART ? BY LEO TOLSTOY. TRANSLATED 
 
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 108 RENAN'S ANTICHRIST. TRANSLATED, WITH AN 
 
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 AUSTIN'S DAYS OF THE YEAR. With Portrait. 
 CLOUGH'S KOTHIE, and other Poems. With View. 
 BROWNING'S Pippa Passes, etc. "J 
 
 BROWNING'S Blot in the 'Scutcheon, etc. VWith Portrait. 
 BROWNING'S Dramatic Lyrics. J 
 
 MACK AY'S LOVER'S MISSAL. With Portrait. 
 KIRKE WHITE'S POEMS. With Portrait. 
 LYRA NICOTIANA. W ith Portrait. 
 AURORA LEIGH. With Portrait of E. B. Browning. 
 NAVAL SONGS. With Portrait of Lord Nelson. 
 TENNYSON : In Memoriam, Maud, etc. With Portrait. 
 TENNYSON : English Idyls, The Princess, etc. With View of 
 Farringford House.
 
 Great Writers. 
 
 A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 Edited by E. Robertson and F. T. Marzials. 
 
 Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1/6. 
 
 Longfellow . ]>y Professor Eric S. Robertson 
 
 - - - ■ . . By Hall Caine 
 
 Cy Frank T. Marziala 
 
 tti . . . By J. Knight 
 
 . By Colonel F. Grant 
 
 By G. T. Bettany 
 
 By A. Birrell 
 
 By n. Garnett, LL.D. 
 
 By R. B. Haldane, M.P. 
 
 . By W. M. Rossetti 
 
 By William Sharp 
 
 By David Ilinnay 
 
 By Austin Dobson 
 
 . By Professor Yonge 
 
 By Professor Blackie 
 
 By Frank T. MarziaU 
 
 By R. Garnett, LL. D. 
 
 . By James Sirae 
 
 By Edmund Gosao 
 
 . By Canon Venables 
 
 By T. E. Kebbel 
 
 By William Sharp 
 
 . By W. L. Courtney 
 
 By Henry W. Nevir ^on 
 
 By David Hanna 
 
 . By T. W. RoUestoii 
 
 By R. Garnett, LL.D. 
 
 By Frederick Wedmore 
 
 . By Oscar Browning 
 
 By Goldwin Smith 
 
 By William Sharp 
 
 By Hon. Roden Noel 
 
 By Moticure D. Conway 
 
 By Professor Wallace 
 
 By Lloyd Sanders 
 
 H. Merivale and F. T. Marzials 
 
 . By H. E. Watta 
 
 By Francis Espinasse 
 
 By Cosmo Monkhouse 
 
 By W. J. Linton 
 
 By Francis Espinasse 
 
 By H. S. Salt 
 
 I 
 
 Coleridge 
 
 Dickens 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rosse 
 
 Samuel Johnson 
 
 Darwin 
 
 Charlotte Bronte 
 
 Carlyle 
 
 Adam Smith 
 
 Keats 
 
 Shelley 
 
 Smollett . 
 
 Goldsmith 
 
 Scott 
 
 Burns 
 
 Victor Huge 
 
 Emerson . 
 
 Goetha 
 
 Congreve . 
 
 Bunyan 
 
 Ci-abbe 
 
 Heine 
 
 Mill . 
 
 Schiller . 
 
 Marryat . 
 
 Lessing 
 
 Milton 
 
 Balzac 
 
 George Eliot 
 
 Jane Austen 
 
 Browning . 
 
 Byron 
 
 Hawthorne 
 
 Schopenhauer 
 
 Sheridan . 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 Cervantes 
 
 Voltaire 
 
 Leigh Hunt 
 
 Whittier . 
 
 Renan 
 
 Thoreau . 
 
 By 
 
 A Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by 
 
 J. P. Anderson, British Museum, London. 
 
 Library Edition of " Great Writers," Demy 8vo, 2/6. 
 
 London : Walter Scott, Limited.
 
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