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 Professor of History and Law in Columbia College, New York. 
 
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THE 
 
 MODERN 
 
 BRITISH ESSAYISTS. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALISON. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CAREY AND HART 
 1845. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALISON, F. R. S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF EUROPE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION." 
 
 Rqjrinlei from 
 
 WITH THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTIONS FOR THIS EDITION. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 CAREY & HART, 126 CHESNUT STREET. 
 1845. 
 

 STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON. 
 PRINTED BY T. K. & P. G. COLLIMS. PHILADELPHIA. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A WISH having been expressed by the publishers of this work to have a 
 collection of my Miscellaneous Essays, published at different times and in different 
 periodical works in Great Britain, made for reprints in America, and selected 
 and arranged by myself, I have willingly assented to so flattering a proposal. 
 I have endeavoured in making the selection to choose such as discuss subjects 
 possessing, as far as possible, a general and durable interest; and to admi<- 
 those only, relating to matters of social contest or national policy in Great 
 Britain, which are likely, from the importance of the questions involved in 
 them, to excite some interest as contemporary compositions among future 
 generations of men. And I should be ungrateful if, in making my first appear- 
 ance before the American public, and in a work hitherto published in a col- 
 lected form only in this country, I did not make my warmest acknowledgments 
 for the liberal spirit in which they have received my writings, and the indul- 
 gence they have manifested towards their imperfections; and express at the 
 same time the pride which I feel, as an English author, at the vast and 
 boundless field for British literary exertion which is afforded by the extension 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race on the other side of the Atlantic. If there is any 
 wish I entertain more cordially than another, it is that this strong though unseen 
 mental bond may unite the British family in every part of the world, and 
 cause them all to feel as brothers, even when the time arrives, as arrive it will, 
 that they have obtained the dominion of half the globe. 
 
 A. ALISON. 
 
 Possel House, Glasgow, 
 Sept. 1, 1844. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 CHATEAUBRIAND ........... 7 
 
 NAPOLEON ............ 27 
 
 BOSSUET ........... .42 
 
 POLAND ............ 52 
 
 MADAME DE STAEL ........... 64 
 
 NATIONAL MONUMENTS .......... 73 
 
 MARSHAL NEY 84 
 
 ROBERT BRUCE ........... 94 
 
 PARIS IN 1814 . 100 
 
 THE LOUVRE IN 1814 .......... 109 
 
 TYROL ...... ...... 117 
 
 FRANCE IN 1833 ........ 125 
 
 ITALY 154 
 
 SCOTT, CAMPBELL, AND BYRON ........ 160 
 
 THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION ......... 173 
 
 MICHELET'S FRANCE .......... 184 
 
 MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS . . . . . . .193 
 
 ARNOLD'S ROME ........... 203 
 
 MIRABEAU ............ 212 
 
 BULWER'S ATHENS . . . . . . . . . .223 
 
 THE REIGN OF TERROR .......... 241 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830 253 
 
 THE FALL OF TURKEY .......... 266 
 
 THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820 ....... 279 
 
 PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS 239 
 
 KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA 299 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830 . . . . . .309 
 
 DESERTION OF PORTUGAL . ........ 321 
 
 CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN ......... 325 
 
 WELLINGTON ........... 346 
 
 THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION ........ 348 
 
 THE FUTURE 357 
 
 GUIZOT ............. 367 
 
 HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO 380 
 
 A2 5 
 
"TfivE?.s!T7j 
 
 ^*lFOa|^ 
 
 ALISON'S ESSAYS, 
 
 CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 [BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, MARCH, 1832.] 
 
 IT is one of the worst effects of the vehe- 
 mence of faction, which has recently agitated 
 the nation, that it tends to withdraw the atten- 
 tion altogether from works of permanent lite- 
 rary merit, and by presenting nothing to the 
 mind but a constant succession of party dis- 
 cussions, both to disqualify it for enjoying the 
 sober pleasure of rational information, and 
 render the great works which are calculated 
 to delight and improve the species known only 
 to a limited class of readers. The conceit and 
 prejudice of a large portion of the public, in- 
 crease just in proportion to the diminution of 
 their real information. By incessantly studying 
 journals where the advantage of the spread 
 of knowledge is sedulously inculcated, they 
 imagine that they have attained that know- 
 ledge, because they have read these journals, 
 and by constantly abusing those whom they 
 stigmatize as offering the light of truth, they 
 come to forget that none oppose it so effectually 
 as those who substitute for its steady ray the 
 lurid flame of democratic flattery. 
 
 It is, therefore, with sincere and heartfelt joy, 
 that we turn from the turbid and impassioned 
 stream of political discussion, to the pure foun- 
 tains of literary genius ; from the vehemence 
 of party strife to the calmness of philosophic 
 investigation ; from works of ephemeral cele- 
 brity to the productions of immortal genius. 
 When we consider the vast number of these 
 which have issued from the European press 
 during the last fifteen years, and the small 
 extent to which they are as yet known to the 
 British public, we are struck with astonish- 
 ment ; and confirmed in the opinion, that those 
 who are loudest in praise of the spread of in- 
 formation, are not unfrequently those who 
 possess least of it for any useful purpose. 
 
 It has long been a settled opinion in France, 
 that the seams of English literature are wrought 
 out ; that while we imagine we are advancing, 
 we are in fact only moving round in a circle, 
 and that it is in vain to expect any thing new 
 on human affairs from a writer under the 
 English constitution. This they ascribe to the 
 want of the boulcversement of ideas, and the ex- 
 trication of original thought, which a revolu- 
 tion produces ; and they coolly calculate on the 
 catastrophe which is to overturn the English 
 government, as likely to open new veins of 
 thought among its inhabitants, and pour new 
 streams of eloquence into its writers. 
 
 Without acquiescing in the justice of this 
 observation in all its parts, and strenuously 
 asserting for the age of Scott and Byron a 
 decided superiority over any other in British 
 history since the days of Shakspeare and Mil- 
 ton, at least in poetry and romance, we must 
 admit that the observation, in many depart- 
 ments of literature, is but too well founded. 
 No one will accuse us of undue partiality for 
 the French Revolution, a convulsion whose 
 principles we have so long and so vigorously 
 opposed, and whose horrors we have en- 
 deavoured, sedulously, though inadequately, to 
 impress upon our readers. It is therefore 
 with a firm conviction of impartiality, and a 
 consciousness of yielding only to the tone of 
 truth, that we are obliged to confess, that 
 in historical and political compositions the 
 French of our age are greatly superior to the 
 writers of this country. We are not insensible 
 to the merits of our modern English historians. 
 We fully appreciate the learned research of 
 Turner, the acute and valuable narrative of 
 Lingard, the elegant language and antiquarian 
 industry of Tytler, the vigour and originality 
 of M'Crie, and the philosophic wisdom of 
 Mackintosh. But still we feel the justice of the 
 French observation, that there is something 
 " English" in all their ideas. Their thoughts 
 seem formed on the even tenor of political 
 events prior to 1789: and in reading their 
 works we can hardly persuade ourselves that 
 they have been ushered into the world since 
 the French Revolution advanced a thousand 
 years the materials of political investigation. 
 
 Chateaubriand is universally allowed by 
 the French, of all parties, to be their first writer. 
 His merits, however, are but little understood 
 in this country. He is known as once a minis- 
 ter of Louis XVIII., and ambassador of that 
 monarch in London, as the writer of many 
 celebrated political pamphlets, and the victim, 
 since the Revolution of 1830, of his noble and 
 ill-requited devotion to that unfortunate family. 
 Few are aware that he is, without one single 
 exception, the most eloquent writer of the pre- 
 sent age ; that independent of politics, he has 
 produced many works on morals, religion, and 
 history, destined for lasting endurance; that 
 his writings combine the strongest love of 
 rational freedom, with the warmest inspiration 
 of Christian devotion ; that he is, as it were, 
 the link between the feudal and the revolu- 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 ALISOJVS MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Uonary ages; retaining from the former its 
 generous and elevated feeling, and inhaling 
 from the latter its acute and fearless investi- 
 gation. The last pilgrim, with devout feelings, 
 to the holy sepulchre, he was the first supporter 
 of constitutional freedom in France ; discard- 
 ing thus from former times their bigoted fury, 
 and from modern, their infidel spirit; blending 
 all that was noble in the ardour of the Crusades, 
 with all that is generous in the enthusiasm of 
 freedom. 
 
 It is the glory of the Conservative Party 
 throughout the world, and by this party we 
 mean all who are desirous in every country to 
 uphold the religion, the institutions, and the 
 liberties of their fathers, that the two greatest 
 writers of the age have devoted their talents 
 to the support of their principles. Sir Walter 
 Scott and Chateaubriand are beyond all ques- 
 tion, and by the consent of both nations, 
 at the head of the literature, of France and 
 England since the Revolution; and they will 
 both leave names at which the latest posterity 
 will feel proud, when the multitudes who have 
 sought to rival them on the revolutionary side 
 are buried in the waves of forgotten time. It 
 is no small triumph to the cause of order in 
 these trying days, that these mighty spirits, 
 destined to instruct and bless mankind through 
 every succeeding age, should have proved so 
 true to the principles of virtue ; and the patriot 
 may well rejoice that generations yet unborn, 
 while they approach their immortal shrines, 
 or share in the enjoyments derived from the 
 legacies they have bequeathed to mankind, 
 will inhale only a holy spirit, and derive from 
 the pleasures of imagination nothing but ad- 
 ditional inducements to the performance of 
 duty. 
 
 Both these great men are now under an 
 eclipse, too likely, in one at least, to terminate 
 in earthly extinction. The first lies on the 
 bed, if not of material, at least, it is to be 
 feared, of intellectual death ; and the second, 
 arrested by the military despotism which he 
 so long strove to avert from his country, has 
 lately awaited in the solitude of a prison the fate 
 destined for him by revolutionary violence.* 
 But 
 
 " Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 
 That for an hermitage." 
 
 It is in such moments of gloom and depres- 
 sion, when the fortune of the world seems most 
 adverse, when the ties of mortality are about 
 to be dissolved, or the career of virtue is on 
 the point of being terminated, that the immortal 
 superiority of genius and virtue most strongly 
 appear. In vain was the Scottish bard ex- 
 tended on the bed of sickness, or the French 
 patriot confined to the gloom of a dungeon ; 
 their works remain to perpetuate their lasting 
 sway over the minds of men; and while their 
 mortal frames are sinking beneath the suffer- 
 ings of the world, their immortal souls rise into 
 the region of spirits, to witness a triumph 
 more glorious, an ascendency more enduring, 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott, at this period, was on his deathbed, 
 and Chateaubriand imprisoned by order of Louis Philippe. 
 
 than ever attended the arms of Caesar or Alex- 
 ander. * 
 
 Though pursuing the same pure and en- 
 nobling career ; though gifted with the same 
 ardent imagination, and steeped in the same 
 fountains of ancient lore, no two writers were 
 ever more different than Chateaubriand and 
 Sir Walter Scott. The great characteristic of 
 the French author, is the impassioned and 
 enthusiastic turn of his mind. Master of im- 
 mense information, thoroughly imbued at once 
 with the learning of classical and catholic 
 times ; gifted with a retentive memory, a poeti- 
 cal fancy, and a painter's eye, he brings to bear 
 upon every subject the force of erudition, the 
 images of poetry, the charm of varied scenery, 
 and the eloquence of impassioned feeling. 
 Hence his writings display a reach and variety 
 of imagery, a depth of light and shadow, a 
 vigour of thought, and an extent of illustration, 
 to which there is nothing comparable in any 
 other writer, ancient or modern, with whom 
 we are acquainted. All that he has seen, or 
 read, or heard, seem present to his mind, what- 
 ever he does, or wherever he is. He illustrates 
 the genius of Christianity by the beauties of 
 classical learning, inhales the spirit of ancient 
 prophecy on the shores of the Jordan, dreams 
 on the banks of the Eurotas of the solitude 
 and gloom of the American forests; visits the 
 Holy Sepulchre with a mind alternately de- 
 voted to the devotion of a pilgrim, the curiosity 
 of an antiquary, and the enthusiasm of a crusa- 
 der, and combines, in his romances, with the 
 tender feelings of chivalrous love, the heroism 
 of Roman virtue, and the sublimity of Chris- 
 tian martyrdom. His writings are less a 
 faithful portrait of any particular age or coun- 
 try, than an assemblage of all that is grand, 
 and generous, and elevated in human nature. 
 He drinks deep of inspiration at all the foun- 
 tains where it has ever been poured forth to 
 mankind, and delights us less by the accuracy 
 of any particular picture, than the traits of 
 genius which he has combined from every 
 quarter where its footsteps have trod. His 
 style seems formed on the lofty strains of 
 Isaiah, or the beautiful images of the B^ook of 
 Job, more than all the classical or modern 
 literature with which his mind is so amply 
 stored. He is admitted by all Frenchmen, of 
 whatever party, to be the most perfect living 
 master of their language, and to have gained 
 for it beauties unknown to the age of Bossuet 
 and Fenelon. Less polished in his periods, 
 less sonorous in his diction, less melodious in 
 his rhythm, than these illustrious writers, he 
 is incomparably more varied, rapid, and en- 
 ergetic; his ideas flow in quicker succession, 
 his words follow in more striking antithesis ; 
 the past, the present, and the future rise up at 
 once before us; and we see how strongly the 
 stream of genius, instead of gliding down the 
 smooth current of ordinary life, has been broken 
 and agitated by the cataract of revolution. 
 
 With far less classical learning, fewer 
 images derived from travelling, inferior in- 
 formation on many historical subjects, and a 
 mind of a less impassioned and energetic cast, 
 our own Sir Walter is far more deeply read in 
 that book which is ever the same the human 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 heart. This is his unequalled excellence 
 there he stands, since the days of Shakspeare, 
 without a rival. It is to this cause that his 
 astonishing success has been owing. We feel 
 in his characters that it is not romance, but 
 real life which is represented. Every word 
 that is said, especially in the Scotch novels, 
 is nature itself. Homer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, 
 and Scott, alone have penetrated to the deep 
 substratum of character, which, however dis- 
 guised by the varieties of climate and govern- 
 ment, is at bottom everywhere the same; and 
 thence they have found a responsive echo in 
 every human heart. Every man who reads 
 these admirable works, from the North Cape 
 to Cape Horn, feels that what the characters 
 they contain are made to say, is just what 
 would have occurred to themselves, or what 
 they have heard said by others as long as they 
 lived. Nor is it only in the delineation of 
 character, and the knowledge of human nature, 
 that the Scottish Novelist, like his great pre- 
 decessors, is but for them without a rival. 
 Powerful in the pathetic, admirable in dialogue, 
 unmatched in description, his writings capti- 
 vate the mind as much by the varied excel- 
 lencies which they exhibit, as the powerful 
 interest which they maintain. He has carried 
 romance out of the region of imagination and 
 sensibility into the walks of actual life. We 
 feel interested in his characters, not because 
 they are ideal beings with whom we have be- 
 come acquainted for the first time when we 
 began the book, but because they are the very 
 persons we have lived with from our infancy. 
 His descriptions of scenery are not luxuriant 
 and glowing pictures of imaginary beauty, like 
 those of Mrs. Radclifle, having no resemblance 
 to actual nature, but faithful and graphic por- 
 traits of real scenes, drawn with the eye of a 
 poet, but the fidelity of a consummate draughts- 
 man. He has combined historical accuracy 
 and romantic adventure with the interest of 
 tragic events ; we live with the heroes, and 
 princes, and paladins of former times, as with 
 our own contemporaries; and acquire from 
 the splendid colouring of his pencil such a 
 vivid conception of the manners and pomp of 
 the feudal ages, that we confound them, in our 
 recollections, with the scenes which we our- 
 selves have witnessed. The splendour of 
 their tournaments, the magnificence of their 
 dress, the glancing of their arms ; their haughty 
 manners, daring courage, and knightly cour- 
 tesy; the shock of their battlesteeds, the splin- 
 tering of their lances, the conflagration of their 
 castles, are brought before our eyes in such 
 vivid colours, that we are at once transported 
 to the age of Richard and Saladin, of Bruce 
 and Marmion, of Charles the Bold and Philip 
 Augustus. Disdaining to flatter the passions, 
 or pander to the ambition of the populace, he 
 has done more than any man alive to elevate 
 their character ; to fill their minds with the 
 noble sentiments which dignify alike the cot- 
 tage and the palace; to exhibit the triumph 
 of virtue in the humblest stations over all that 
 the world calls great; and without ever in- 
 dulging a sentiment which might turn them 
 from the scenes of their real usefulness, bring 
 home to every mind the " might that slumbers 
 
 n a peasants arm. 
 
 'M\^ 
 
 Above all, he has uni- 
 
 formly, in all his varied and extensive produc- 
 tions, shown himself true to the cause of virtue. 
 Amidst all the innumerable combinations of 
 character, event, and dialogue, which he has 
 formed, he has ever proved faithful to the polar 
 star of duty ; and alone, perhaps, of the great 
 romance-writers of the world, has not left a 
 line which on his death-bed he would wish 
 recalled. 
 
 Of such men France and England may well 
 be proud; shining, as they already do, through 
 the clouds and the passions of a fleeting ex- 
 istence, they are destined soon to illuminate 
 the world with a purer lustre, and ascend to 
 that elevated station in the higher heavens 
 where the fixed stars shed a splendid and im- 
 perishable light. The writers whom party has 
 elevated the genius which vice has seduced, 
 are destined to decline with the interests to 
 which they were devoted, or the passions by 
 which they were misled. The rise of new poli- 
 tical struggles will consign to oblivion the 
 vast talent which was engulfed in its conten- 
 tion ; the accession of a more virtuous age 
 bury in the dust the fancy which was enlisted 
 in the cause of corruption; while these illus- 
 trious men, whose writings have struck root 
 in the inmost recesses of the human heart, 
 and been watered by the streams of imperish- 
 able feeling, will for ever continue to elevate 
 and bless a grateful world. 
 
 To form a just conception of the importance 
 of Chateaubriand's Genius of Christianity, we 
 must recollect the period when it was pub- 
 lished, the character of the works it was in- 
 tended to combat, and the state of society in 
 which it was destined to appear. For half a 
 century before it appeared, the whole genius 
 of France had been incessantly directed to 
 undermine the principles of religion. The 
 days of Pascal and Fenelon, of Saurin and 
 Bourdaloue, of Bossuet and Massillon, had 
 passed away; the splendid talent of the seven- 
 teenth century was no longer arrayed in the 
 support of virtue the supremacy of the church 
 had ceased to be exerted to thunder in the ear 
 of princes the awful truths of judgment to 
 come. Borne away in the torrent of corrup- 
 tion, the church itself had yielded to the in- 
 creasing vices of the age ; its hierarchy had 
 become involved in the passions they were 
 destined to combat, and the cardinal's purple 
 covered the shoulders of an associate in the 
 midnight orgies of the Regent. Orleans. Such 
 was the audacity of vice, the recklessness of 
 fashion, and the supineness of religion, that 
 Madame Roland tells us, what astonished her 
 in her youthful days was, that the heaven it- 
 self did not open, to rain down upon the guilty 
 metropolis, as on the cities of the Jordan, a 
 tempest of consuming fire. 
 
 While such was the profligacy of power and 
 the audacity of crime, philosophic talent lent 
 its aid to overwhelm the remaining safeguards 
 of religious belief. The middle and the lower 
 orders could not, indeed, participate in the 
 luxurious vices of their wealthy superiors; 
 but they could well be persuaded that the faith 
 which permitted such enormities, the religion 
 which was stained by such crimes, was a sys- 
 
10 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 
 
 tern of hypocrisy and deceit. The passion for 
 innovation, which more than any other feature 
 Characterized that period in France, invaded 
 the precincts of religion as well as the bul- 
 warks of the state the throne and the altar; 
 the restraints of this world and the next, as 
 is ever the case, crumbled together. For half 
 a century, all the genius of France had been 
 incessantly directed to overturn the sanctity 
 of Christianity ; its corruptions were repre- 
 sented as its very essence ; its abuses part of 
 its necessary effects. Ridicule, ever more 
 powerful than reason with a frivolous age, 
 lent its aid to overturn the defenceless fabric ; 
 and for more than one generation, not one 
 writer of note had appeared to maintain the 
 hopeless cause. Voltaire and Diderot, D'Alem- 
 bert and Raynal, Laplace and Lagrange, had 
 lent the weight of their illustrious names, or 
 The powers of their versatile minds, to carry 
 on the war. The Encyclopedic was a vast 
 battery of infidelity incessantly directed against 
 Christianity; while the crowd of licentious 
 novelists, with which the age abounded 
 Louvet, Crebillon, Laclos, and a host of others 
 insinuated the poison, mixed up with the 
 strongest allurements to the passions, and the 
 most voluptuous seductions to the senses. 
 
 This inundation of infidelity was soon fol- 
 lowed by sterner days ; to the unrestrained in- 
 dulgence of passion succeeded the unfettered 
 march of crime. With the destruction of all 
 The bonds which held society together ; with 
 the removal of all the restraints on vice or guilt, 
 the fabric of civilization and religion speedily 
 was dissolved. To the licentious orgies of the 
 Regent Orleans succeeded the infernal furies 
 of the Revolution : from the same Palais Ro5 r al 
 from whence had sprung those fountains of 
 courtly corruption, soon issued forth the fiery 
 streams of democracy. Enveloped in this 
 burning torrent, the institutions, the faith, the 
 nobles, the throne, were destroyed ; the worst 
 instruments of the supreme justice, the pas- 
 sions and ambition of men, were suffered to 
 work their unresisted way : and in a few years 
 the religion of eighteen hundred years was 
 abolished, its priests slain or exiled, its Sab- 
 bath abolished, its rites proscribed, its faith 
 unknown. Infancy came into the world with- 
 out a blessing, age left it without a hope ; 
 marriage no longer received a benediction, 
 sickness was left without consolation ; the 
 village bell ceased to call the poor to their 
 weekly day of sanctity and repose ; the village 
 churchyard to witness the weeping train of 
 mourners attending their rude forefathers to 
 their last home. The grass grew in the 
 churches of every parish in France ; the 
 dead without a blessing were thrust into vast 
 charnel-houses ; marriage was contracted be- 
 fore a civil magistrate ; and infancy, untaught 
 to pronounce the name of God, longed only 
 for the period when the passions and indul- 
 gencies of life were to commence. 
 
 It was in these disastrous days that Chateau- 
 briand arose, and bent the force of his lofty 
 mind to restore the fallen but imperishable 
 faith of his fathers. In early youth, he was at 
 first carried away by the fashionable infidelity 
 of his times ; and in his " Essais Historiques," 
 
 which he published in 1792, in London, while 
 the principles of virtue and natural religion 
 are unceasingly maintained, he seems to have 
 doubted whether the Christian religion was 
 not crumbling with the institutions of society, 
 and speculated what faith was to be established 
 on its ruins. But misfortune, that great cor- 
 rector of the vices of the world, soon chanj 
 these faulty views. In the days of exile am 
 adversity, when, by the waters of Babylon, ht 
 sat down and wept, he reverted to the fait 
 and the belief of his fathers, and inhaled ii 
 the school of adversity those noble maxii 
 of devotion and duty which have ever sin< 
 regulated his conduct in life. Undauntec 
 though alone, he placed himself on the ruinj 
 of the Christian faith; renewed, with Herci 
 lean strength, a contest which the talents am 
 vices of half a century had to all appearance 
 rendered hopeless ; and, speaking to the hear 
 of men, now purified by suffering, and cleans* 
 by the agonizing ordeal of revolution, scatter 
 far and wide the seeds of a rational and 
 manly piety. Other writers have followed : 
 the same noble career: Salvandy and Guiz( 
 have traced the beneficial effects of religk 
 upon modern society, and drawn from the h 
 results of revolutionary experience just am 
 sublime conclusions as to the adaptation of 
 Christianity to the wants of humanity; but it 
 is the glory of Chateaubriand alone to have 
 come forth the foremost in the fight; to have 
 planted himself on the breach, when it was 
 strewed only with the dead and the dying, and, 
 strong in the consciousness of gigantic powers, 
 stood undismayed against a nati-tn in arms. 
 
 To be successful in the contest, it was indis- 
 pensable that the weapons of warfare should 
 be totally changed. When the ideas of men 
 were set adrift by revolutionary changes, when 
 the authority of ages was set at nought, and 
 from centuries of experience appeals were 
 made to weeks of innovation, it was in vain to 
 refer to the great or the wise of former ages. 
 Perceiving at once the immense change which 
 had taken place in the world whom he ad- 
 dressed, Chateaubriand saw, that he must alter 
 altogether the means by which they were to 
 be influenced. Disregarding, therefore, entirely 
 the weight of authority, laying aside almost 
 every thing which had been advanced in sup- 
 port of religion by its professed disciples, he 
 applied himself to accumulate the conclusions 
 in its favour which arose from its internal 
 beauty; from its beneficent effect upon society ; 
 from the changes it had wrought upon the 
 civilization, the happiness, and destinies of 
 mankind; from its analogy with the sublimest 
 tenets of natural religion; from its unceasing 
 progress, its indefinite extension, and undecay- 
 ing youth. He observed, that it drew its sup- 
 port from such hidden recesses of the human 
 heart, that it flourished most in periods of dis- 
 aster and calamity; derived strength from the 
 fountains of suffering, and, banished in all but 
 form from the palaces of princes, spread its 
 roots far and wide in the cottages of the poor. 
 From the intensity of suffering produced by 
 the Revolution, therefore, he conceived the 
 hope, that the feelings of religion would ulti- 
 1 mately resume their sway : when the waters 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 11 
 
 of bitterness were let loose, the consolations 
 of devotion would again be felt to be indispen- 
 sable; and the spirit of the gospel, banished 
 during the sunshine of corrupt prosperity, re- 
 turn to the repentant human heart with the 
 tears and the storms of adversity. 
 
 Proceeding on these just and sublime prin- 
 ciples, this great author availed himself of 
 every engine which fancy, experience, or poe- 
 try could suggest, to sway the hearts of his 
 readers. He knew well that he was address- 
 ing an impassioned and volatile generation, 
 upon whom reason would be thrown away, if 
 not enforced with eloquence, and argument 
 lost, if not clothed in the garb of fancy. To 
 effect his purpose, therefore, of re-opening in 
 the hearts of his readers the all but extin- 
 guished fountains of religious feeling, he sum- 
 moned to his aid the whole aid which learn- 
 ing, or travelling, or poetry, or fancy, could 
 supply; and scrupled not to employ his 
 powers as a writer of romance, an historian, 
 a descriptive traveller, and a poet, to forward 
 the great work of Christian renovation. Of 
 his object in doing this, he has himself given 
 the following account.* 
 
 "There can be no doubt that the Genius of 
 Christianity would have been a work entirely 
 out of place in the age of Louis XIV. ; and the 
 critic who observed that Massillon would never 
 have published such a book, spoke an un- 
 doubted truth. Most certainly the author would 
 never have thought of writing such a work if 
 there had not existed a host of poems, romances, 
 and books of all sorts, where Christianity was 
 exposed to every species of derision. But 
 since these poems, romances, and books exist, 
 and are in every one's hands, it becomes in- 
 dispensable to extricate religion from the sar- 
 casms of impiety ; when it has been written 
 on all sides that Christianity is 'barbarous, 
 ridiculous, the eternal enemy of the arts and of 
 genius ;' it is necessary to prove that it is neither 
 barbarous, nor ridiculous, nor the enemy of 
 arts or of genius ; and that that which is made 
 by the pen of ridicule to appear diminutive, 
 ignoble, in bad taste, without either charms or 
 tenderness, may be made to appear grand, 
 noble, simple, impressive, and divine, in the 
 hands of a man of religious feeling. 
 
 "If it is not permitted to defend religion on 
 what may be called its terrestrial side, if no 
 effort is to be made to prevent ridicule from 
 attaching to its sublime institutions, there will 
 always remain a weak and undefended quarter. 
 There all the strokes at it will be aimed ; there 
 you will be caught without defence; from 
 thence you will receive your death-wound. Is 
 not that what has already arrived 1 Was it 
 not by ridicule and pleasantry that Voltaire 
 succeeded in shaking the foundations of faith'? 
 Will you attempt to answer by theological 
 arguments, or the forms of the syllogism, licen- 
 tious novels or irreligious epigrams! Will 
 formal disquisitions ever prevent an infidel 
 generation from being carried away by clever 
 verses, or deterred from the altar by the fear 
 of ridicule 1 Does not every one know that in 
 
 * All the passages cited are translated by ourselves. 
 There is an English version, we believe, but we have 
 never seen it. 
 
 the French nation a happy bon-mot, impiety 
 clothed in a felicitous expression, zfelix culpa, 
 produce a greater effect than volumes of 
 reasoning or metaphysics 1 Persuade young 
 men that an honest man can be a Christian, 
 without being a fool ; convince him that he is 
 in error when he believes that none but capu- 
 chins and old women believe in religion, and 
 your cause is gained ; it will be time enough 
 to complete the victory to present yourself 
 armed with theological reasons, but what you 
 must begin with is an inducement to read 
 your book. What is most needed is a popular 
 work on religion; those who have hitherto 
 written on it have too often fallen into the 
 error of the traveller who tries to get his com- 
 panion at one ascent to the summit of a rugged 
 mountain when he can hardly crawl at its 
 foot you must show him at every step varied 
 and agreeable objects; allow him to stop to 
 gather the flowers which are scattered along 
 his path, and from one resting-place to another 
 he will at length gain the summit. 
 
 "The author has not intended this work 
 merely for scholars, priests, or doctors ; what 
 he wrote for was the men of the world, and 
 what he aimed at chiefly were the considera- 
 tions calculated to affect their minds. If you 
 do not keep steadily in view that principle, if 
 you forget for a moment the class of readers 
 for whom the Genius of Christianity was in- 
 tended, you will understand nothing of this 
 work. It was intended to be read by the most 
 incredulous man of letters, the most volatile 
 youth of pleasure, with the same facility as 
 the first turns over a work of impiety, or the 
 second devours a corrupting novel. Do you 
 intend then, exclaim the well-meaning ad- 
 vocates for Christianity, to render religion a 
 matter of fashion ! Would to God, I reply, 
 that that divine religion was really in fashion, 
 in the sense that what is fashionable indicates 
 the prevailing opinion of the world ! Individual 
 hypocrisy, indeed, might be increased by such 
 a change, but public morality would unques- 
 tionably be a gainer. The rich would no longer 
 make it a point of vanity to corrupt the poor, 
 the master to pervert the mind of his domestic, 
 the fathers of families to pour lessons of athe- 
 ism into their children ; the practice of piety 
 would lead to a belief in its truths, and with 
 the devotion we should see revive the manners 
 and the virtues of the best ages of the world. 
 
 "Voltaire, when he attacked Christianity, 
 knew mankind well enough not to seek to 
 avail himself of what is called the opinion of 
 the world, and with that view he employed his 
 talents to bring impiety into fashion. He suc- 
 ceeded by rendering religion ridiculous in the 
 eyes of a frivolous generation. It is this ridi- 
 cule which the author of the Genius of Chris- 
 tianity has, beyond every thing, sought to 
 efface ; that was the object of his work. He 
 may have failed in the execution, but the ob- 
 ject surely was highly important. To con- 
 sider Christianity in its relation with human 
 society; to trace the changes which it has 
 effected in thS reason and the passions of 
 man ; to show how it has modified the genius 
 of arts and of letters, moulded the spirit of 
 modern nations ; in a word, to unfold all the 
 
12 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 marvels which religion has wrought in the 
 regions of poetry, morality, politics, history, 
 and public charity, must always be esteemed 
 a noble undertaking. As to its execution, he 
 abandons himself, with submission, to the 
 criticisms of those who appreciate the spirit 
 of the design. 
 
 " Take, for example, a picture, professedly 
 of an impious tendency, and place beside it 
 another picture on the same subject from the 
 Genius of Christianity, and I will venture to 
 affirm that the latter picture, however feebly 
 executed, will weaken the impression of the 
 first, so powerful is the effect of simple truth 
 when compared to the most brilliant sophisms. 
 Voltaire has frequently turned the religious 
 orders into ridicule ; well, put beside one of 
 his burlesque representations the chapter on 
 the Missions, that where the order of the 
 Hospitallers is depicted as succouring the 
 travellers in the desert, or the monks relieving 
 the sick in the hospitals, attending those dying 
 of the plague in the lazarettos, or accompany- 
 ing the criminal to the scaffold, what irony 
 will not be disarmed what malicious smile 
 will not be converted into tears 1 Answer the 
 reproaches made to the worship of the Chris- 
 tians for their ignorance, by appealing to the 
 immense labours of the ecclesiastics who 
 saved from destruction the manuscripts of 
 antiquity. Reply to the accusations of bad 
 taste and barbarity, by referring to the works 
 of Bossuet and Ferielon. Oppose to the carica- 
 tures of saints and of angels, the sublime effects 
 of Christianity on the dramatic part of poetry, 
 on eloquence, and the fine arts, and say 
 whether the impression of ridicule will long 
 maintain its ground 1 Should the author have 
 no other success than that of having displayed 
 before the eyes of an infidel age a long series 
 of religious pictures without exciting disgust. 
 he would deem his labours not useless to the 
 cause of humanity." III. 263 266. 
 
 These observations appear to us as just as 
 they are profound, and they are the reflections 
 not merely of a sincere Christian, but a man 
 practically acquainted with the state of the 
 world. It is of the utmost importance, no 
 doubt, that there should exist works on the 
 Christian faith, in which the arguments of the 
 skeptic should be combated, and to which the 
 Christian disciple might refer with confidence 
 for a refutation of the objections which have 
 been urged against his religion. But great as 
 is the merit of such productions, their bene^ 
 ficial effects are limited in their operation conr 
 pared with those which are produced by such 
 writings as we are considering. The hardenec 
 sceptic will never turn to a work on divinitj 
 for a solution of his paradoxes ; and men ol 
 the world can never be persuaded to enter on 
 serious arguments even on the most moment 
 ous subject of human belief. It is the indiffcr 
 ence, not the skepticism of such men, which i 
 chiefly to be dreaded : the danger to be appre 
 hended is not that they will say there is n 
 God, but that they will live altogether withou 
 God in the world. It has happened but to 
 frequently that divines, in their zeal for th 
 progress of Christianity among such men 
 have augmented the very evil they intended t 
 
 emove. They have addressed themselves in 
 enerai to them as if they were combatants 
 rawn out in a theological dispute ; they have 
 rged a mass of arguments which they were 
 nable to refute, but which were too uninterest- 
 ig to be even examined, and while they flat- 
 ered themselves that they had effectually 
 ilenced their opponents' objections, those 
 fhom they addressed have silently passed by 
 n the other side. It is, therefore, of incalcu- 
 able importance that some writings should 
 xist which should lead men imperceptibly into 
 le ways of truth, which should insinuate 
 lemselves into the tastes, and blend them- 
 elves with the refinements of ordinary life, 
 ,nd perpetually recur to the cultivated mind 
 vith ail that it admires, or loves, or venerates, 
 n the world. 
 
 Nor let it be imagined that reflections such 
 .s these are not the appropriate theme of re- 
 igious instruction that they do not form the 
 it theme of Christian meditation. Whatever 
 eads our minds habitually to the Author of 
 he Universe; whatever mingles the voice 
 f nature with the revelation of the gospel ; 
 vhatever teaches us to see, in all the changes 
 f the world, the varied goodness of him, in 
 whom "we live, and move, and have our 
 >eing," brings us nearer to the spirit of the 
 Saviour of mankind. But it is nnt only as 
 encouraging a sincere devotion, that these re- 
 flections are favourable to Christianity; there 
 s something, moreover, peculiarly allied to its 
 spirit in such observations of external nature. 
 When our Saviour prepared himself for his 
 ;emptation, his agony, and death, he retired to 
 he wilderness of Judaea, to inhale, we may 
 venture to believe, a holier spirit amidst its 
 solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer 
 communion with his Father, amidst the sub- 
 imest of his works. It is with similar feelings, 
 and to worship the same Father, that the 
 Christian is permitted to enter the temple of 
 nature ; and by the spirit of his religion, there 
 s a language infused into the objects which 
 she presents, unknown to the worshipper of 
 former times. To all indeed the same objects 
 appear the same sun shines the same hea- 
 vens are open: but to the Christian alone it is 
 permitted to know the Author of these things ; 
 to see his spirit "move in the breeze and 
 blossom in the spring," and to read, in the 
 changes which occur in the material world, 
 the varied expression of eternal love. It is 
 from the influence of Christianity accordingly 
 that the key has been given to the signs of 
 nature. It was only when the Spirit of God 
 moved on the face of the deep, that order and 
 beauty was seen in the world. 
 
 It is accordingly peculiarly well worthy of 
 observation, that the beauly of nature, as felt in 
 modern times, seems to have been almost un- 
 known to the writers of antiquity. They de- 
 scribed occasionally the scenes in which they 
 dwelt; but, if we except Virgil, whose gentle 
 mind seems to have anticipated, in this in- 
 stance, the influence of the gospel, never with 
 any deep feeling of their beauty. Then, as 
 now, the citadel of Athens looked upon the 
 evening sun, and her temples flamed in his 
 setting beam; but what Athenian writer ever 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 13 
 
 described the matchless glories of the scene ? 
 Then, as now, the silvery clouds of the .^gean 
 sea rolled round her verdant isles, and sported 
 in the azure vault of heaven ; but what Gre- 
 cian poet has been inspired by the sight ? The 
 Italian lakes spread their waves beneath a 
 cloudless sky, and all that is lovely in nature 
 was gathered around them; yet even Eustace 
 tells us, that a few detached lines is all that is 
 left in regard to them by the Roman poets. 
 The Alps themselves, 
 
 "The palaces of nature, whose vast walls 
 Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
 And throned eternity in icy halls 
 Of cold stihliinity, where forms and falls 
 The avalanche the thunderbolts of snow." 
 
 Even these, the most glorious objects which 
 the eye of man can behold, were regarded by 
 the ancients with sentiments only of dismay 
 or horror; as a barrier from hostile nations, or 
 as the dwelling of barbarous tribes. The torch 
 of religion had not then lightened the face of 
 nature; they knew not the language which 
 she spoke, nor felt that holy spirit, which to 
 the Christian gives the sublimity of these 
 scenes. 
 
 Chateaubriand divides his great work into 
 four parts. The first treats of the doctrinal 
 parts of religion : the second and the third, 
 the relations of that religion with poetry, litera- 
 ture, and the arts. The fourth, the ceremonies 
 of public worship, and the services rendered 
 to mankind by the clergy, regular and secular. 
 On the mysteries of faith he commences with 
 these fine observations. 
 
 " There is nothing beautiful, sweet, or grand 
 in life, but in its mysteries. The sentiments 
 which agitate us most strongly are enveloped 
 in obscurity ; modesty, virtuous love, sincere 
 frindship, have all their secrets, with which the 
 world must not be made acquainted. Hearts 
 which love understand each other by a word ; 
 half of each is at all times open to the other. 
 Innocence itself is but a holy ignorance, and 
 the most ineffable of mysteries. Infancy is 
 only happy, because it as yet knows nothing ; 
 age miserable, because it has nothing more to 
 learn. Happily for it, when the mysteries of 
 life are ending, those of immortality commence. 
 
 "If it is thus with the sentiments, it is as- 
 suredly not less so with the virtues ; the most 
 angelic are those which, emanating directly 
 from the Deity, such as charity, love to with- 
 draw themselves from all regards, as if fear- 
 ful to betray their celestial origin. 
 
 "If we turn to the understanding, we shall 
 find that the pleasures of thought also have a 
 certain connection with the mysterious. To 
 what sciences do we unceasingly return 1 To 
 those which always leave something still to 
 be discovered, and fix our regards on a per- 
 spective which is never to terminate. If we 
 wander in the desert, a sort of instinct leads 
 us to shun the plains where the eye embraces 
 at once the whole circumference of nature, to 
 plunge into forests, those forests the cradle of 
 religion, whose shades and solitudes are filled 
 with the recollections of prodigies, where the 
 ravens and the doves nourished the prophets 
 and fathers of the church. If we visit a modern 
 monument, whose origin or destination is 
 
 known, it excites no attention ; but if we meet 
 on a desert isle, in the midst of the ocean, 
 with a mutilated statue pointing to the \\-cst, 
 with its pedestal covered with hieroglyphics, 
 and worn by the winds, what a subject of 
 meditation is presented to the traveller ! Every 
 thing is concealed, every thing is hidden in 
 the universe. Man himself is the greatest 
 mystery of the whole. Whence comes the 
 spark which we call existence, and in what 
 obscurity is it to be extinguished 1 ? The Eter- 
 nal has placed our birth, and our death, under 
 the form of two veiled phantoms, at the two 
 extremities of our career; the one produces 
 the inconceivable gift of life, which the other 
 is ever ready to devour. 
 
 "It is not surprising, then, considering the 
 passion of the human mind for the mysterious, 
 that the religions of every country should 
 have had their impenetrable secrets. God 
 forbid ! that I should compare their mysteries 
 to those of the true faith, or the unfathomable 
 depths of the Sovereign in the heavens, to the 
 changing obscurities of those gods which are 
 the work of human hands. All that I observe 
 is, that there is no religion without mysteries, 
 and that it is they with the sacrifice which every 
 where constitute the essence of the worship. 
 God is the great secret of nature, the Deity was 
 veiled in Egypt, and the Sphynx was seated at 
 the entrance of his temples." I. 13, 14. 
 
 On the three great sacraments of the Church, 
 Baptism, Confession, and the Communion, he 
 makes the following beautiful observations : 
 
 "Baptism, the first of the sacraments which 
 religion confers upon man, clothes him, in the 
 words of the Apostle, with Jesus Christ. That 
 sacrament reveals at once the corruption in 
 which we were born, the agonizing pains 
 which attended our birth, and the tribulations 
 which follow us into the world; it tells us that 
 our faults will descend upon our children, and 
 that we are all jointly responsible; a terrible 
 truth, which, if duly considered, would alone 
 suffice to render the reign of virtue universal 
 in the world. 
 
 " Behold the infant in the midst of the waters 
 of the Jordan ; the man of the wilderness pours 
 the purifying stream on his head; the river of 
 the Patriarchs, the camels on its banks, the 
 Temple of Jerusalem, the cedars of Lebanon, 
 seem to regard with interest the mighty spec- 
 tacle. Behold in mortal life that infant near 
 the sacred fountain ; a family filled with thank- 
 fulness surround it; renounce in its name the 
 sins of the world ; bestow on it with joy the 
 name of its grandfather, which seems thus to 
 become immortal, in its perpetual renova- 
 tion by the fruits of love from generation 
 to generation. Even now the father is im- 
 patient to take his infant in his arms, to re- 
 place it in its mother's bosom, who listens be- 
 hind the curtains to all the thrilling sounds of 
 the sacred ceremony. The whole family sur- 
 round the maternal bed ; tears of joy, mingled 
 with the transports of religion, fall from every 
 eye ; the new name of the infant, the old name 
 of its ancestor, is repeated by every mouth, 
 and every one mingling the recollections of 
 the past with the joys of the present, thinks 
 that he sees the venerable grandfather revive 
 B 
 
14 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 in the new-born which has taken his name. 
 Such is the domestic spectacle which through- 
 out all the Christian world the sacrament of 
 Baptism presents ; but religion, ever mingling 
 lessons of duty with scenes of joy, shows us 
 the son of kings clothed in purple, renouncing 
 the grandeur of the world, at the same fountain 
 where the child of the poor in rags abjures 
 the pomps by which he will in all probability 
 never be tempted. 
 
 " Confession follows baptism ; and the 
 Church, with that wisdom which it alone 
 possesses, fixed the era of its commencement 
 at that period when first the idea of crime can 
 enter the infant mind, that is at seven years of 
 age. All men, including the philosophers, 
 how different soever their opinions maybe on 
 other subjects, have regarded the sacrament 
 of penitence as one of the strongest barriers 
 against crime, and a chef-d'oeuvre of wisdom. 
 What innumerable restitutions and repara- 
 tions, says Rousseau, has confession caused to 
 be made in Catholic countries ! According to 
 Voltaire, ' Confession is an admirable inven- 
 tion, a bridle to crime, discovered in the most 
 remote antiquity, for confession was recognised 
 in the celebration of all the ancient mysteries. 
 We have adopted and sanctified that wise 
 custom, and its effects have always been found 
 to be admirable in inclining hearts, ulcerated 
 by hatred, to forgiveness.' 
 
 "But for that salutary institution, the guilty 
 would give way to despair. In what bosom 
 would he discharge the weight of his heart? 
 In that of a friend Who can trust the friend- 
 ships of the world 1 Shall he take the deserts 
 fora confident 1 Alas! the deserts are ever 
 filled to the ear of crime with those trumpets 
 which the parricide Nero heard round the 
 tomb of his mother. When men and nature 
 are unpitiable, it is indeed consolatory to find 
 a Deity inclined to pardon; but it belongs only 
 to the Christian religion to have made twin 
 sisters of Innocence and Repentance. 
 
 " In fine, the Communion presents instruc- 
 tive ceremony; it teaches morality, for we 
 must be pure to approach it ; it is the offering 
 of the fruits of the earth to the Creator, and it 
 recalls the sublime and touching history of 
 the Son of Man. Blended with the recollection 
 of Easter, and of the first covenant of God with 
 man, the origin of the communion is lost in 
 the obscurity of an infant world; it is related 
 to our first ideas of religion and society, and 
 recalls the pristine equality of the human 
 race ; in fine, it perpetuates the recollection of 
 our primeval fall, of our redemption, and re- 
 acceptance by God." I. 3046. 
 
 These and similar passages, not merely in 
 this work, which professes to be of a popular 
 cast, but in others of the highest class of 
 Catholic divinity, suggest an idea which, the 
 more we extend our reading, the more we shall 
 find to be just, viz., that in the greater and 
 purer writers on religion, of whatever church 
 or age, the leading doctrines are nearly the 
 same, and that the differences which divide 
 their followers, and distract the world, are 
 seldom, on any material or important points, 
 to be met with in writers of a superior caste. 
 Chateaubriand is a faithful, and in some re- 
 
 spects, perhaps, a bigoted, Catholic ; yet there 
 is hardly a word here, or in any other part of 
 his writings on religion, to which a Christian 
 in any country may not subscribe, and which 
 is not calculated in all ages and places to for- 
 ward the great work of the purification and 
 improvement of the human heart. Travellers 
 have often observed, that in a certain rank in 
 all countries manners are the same; naturalists 
 know, that at a certain elevation above the 
 sea in all latitudes, we meet with the same 
 vegetable productions; and philosophers have 
 often remarked, that in the highest class of in- 
 tellects, opinions on almost every subject in 
 all ages and places are the same. A similar 
 uniformity may be observed in the principles 
 of the greatest writers of the world on religion: 
 and while the inferior followers of their dif- 
 ferent tenets branch out into endless divisions, 
 and indulge in sectarian rancour, in the more 
 lofty regions of intellect the principles are 
 substantially the same, and the objects of all 
 identical. So small a proportion do all the 
 disputed points in theology bear to the great 
 objects of religion, love to God, charity to man, 
 and the subjugation of human passion. 
 
 On the subject of marriage, and the reasons 
 for its indissolubility, our author presents us 
 with the following beautiful observations : 
 
 " Habit and a long life together are more 
 necessary to happiness, and even to love, than 
 is generally imagined. No one is happy with 
 the object of his attachment until he has passed, 
 many days, and above all, many days of mis- 
 fortune, with her. The married pair must 
 know each other to the bottom of their souls ; 
 the mysterious veil which covered the two 
 spouses in the primitive church, must be 
 raised in its inmos't folds, how closely soever 
 it may be kept drawn to the rest of the world. 
 
 " What ! on account of a fit of caprice, or 
 a burst of passion, am I to be exposed to the 
 fear of losing my wife and my children, and to 
 renounce the hope of passing my declining 
 days with theml Let no one imagine that 
 fear will make me become a better husband. 
 No ; we do not attach ourselves to a posses- 
 sion of which we are not secure ; we do not 
 love a property which we are in danger of 
 losing. 
 
 " We must not give to Hymen the wings of 
 Love, nor make of a sacred reality a fleeting 
 phantom. One thing is alone sufficient to de- 
 stroy your happiness in such transient unions ; 
 you will constantly compare one to the other, 
 the wife you have lost to the one you have 
 gained ; and do not deceive yourself, the balance 
 will always incline to the past, for so God has 
 constructed the human heart. This distraction 
 of a sentiment which should be indivisible 
 will empoison all your joys. When you 
 caress your new infant, you will think of the 
 smiles of the one you have lost; when you 
 press your wife to your bosom, your heart will 
 tell you that she is not the first. Every thing 
 in man tends to unity; he is no longer happy 
 when he is divided, and, like God, who made 
 him in his image, his soul seeks incessantly to 
 concentrate into one point the past, the pre- 
 sent, and the future. 
 
 " The wife of a Christian is not a simple 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 15 
 
 mortal: she is a mysterious angelic being: 
 the flesh of the flesh, the blood of the blood of 
 her husband. Man, in uniting himself to her, 
 does nothing but regain part of the substance 
 which he has lost. His soul as well as his 
 body are incomplete without his wife : he has 
 strength, she has beauty ; he combats the 
 enemy and labours the fields, but he under- 
 stands nothing of domestic life; his companion 
 is awanting to prepare his repast and sweeten 
 his existence. He has his crosses, and the 
 partner of his couch is there to soften them : 
 his days may be sad and troubled, but in the 
 chaste arms of his wife he finds comfort and 
 repose. Without woman man would be rude, 
 gross, and solitary. Woman spreads around 
 him the flowers of existence, as the creepers 
 of the forests which decorate the trunks of 
 sturdy oaks with their perfumed garlands. 
 Finally, the Christian pair live and die united: 
 together they rear the fruits of their union; 
 in the dust they lie side by side ; and they are 
 reunited beyond the limits of the tomb." I. 
 78, 79. 
 
 The extreme unction of the Catholic Church 
 is described in these touching words : 
 
 "Come and behold the most moving spec- 
 tacle which the world can exhibit the death 
 of the faithful. The dying Christian is no 
 longer a man of this world; he belongs no 
 farther to his country; all his relations with 
 society have ceased. For him the calculations 
 of time are closed, and the great era of eternity 
 has commenced. A priest seated beside his 
 bed pours the consolations of religion into his 
 dying ear : the holy minister converses with 
 the expiring penitent on the immortality of the 
 soul; and that sublime scene which antiquity 
 presented but once in the death of the greatest 
 of her philosophers, is renewed every day at 
 the couch where the humblest of the Christians 
 expires. 
 
 "At length the supreme moment arrives: 
 one sacrament has opened the gates of the 
 world, another is about to close them ; religion 
 rocked the cradle of existence; its sweet 
 strains and its maternal hand will lull it to 
 sleep in the arms of death. It prepares the 
 baptism of a second existence ; but it is no 
 longer with water, but oil, the emblem of 
 celestial incorruption. The liberating sacra- 
 ment dissolves, one by one, the chords which 
 attach the faithful to this world : the soul, half 
 escaped from its earthly prison, is almost visi- 
 ble to the senses, in the smile which plays 
 around his lips. Already he hears the music 
 of the seraphims ; already he longs to fly to 
 those regions, where hope divine, daughter of 
 virtue and death, beckons him to approach. 
 At length the angel of peace, descending from 
 the heavens, touches with his golden sceptre 
 his wearied eyelids, and closes them in deli- 
 cious repose to the light. He dies: and so 
 sweet has been his departure, that no one has 
 heard his last sigh; and his friends, long after 
 he is no more, preserve silence round his 
 couch, still thinking that he slept ; so like the 
 sleep of infancy is the death of the just." I. 
 6971. 
 
 It is against pride, as every one knows, 
 that the chief efforts of the Catholic Church 
 
 have always been directed, because they con- 
 sider it as the source of all other crime. 
 Whether this is a just view may, perhaps, be 
 doubted, to the extent at least that they carry 
 it ; but there can be but one opinion as to the 
 eloquence of the apology which Chateaubriand 
 makes for this selection. 
 
 "In the virtues preferred by Christianity, 
 we perceive the same knowledge of human 
 nature. Before the coming of Christ, the soul 
 of man was a chaos ; but no sooner was the 
 word heard, than all the elements arranged 
 themselves in the moral world, as at the same 
 divine inspiration they had produced the mar- 
 vels of material creation. The virtues ascended 
 like pure fires into the heavens; some, like 
 brilliant suns, attracted the regards by their 
 resplendent light; others, more modest, sought 
 the shade, where nevertheless their lustre 
 could not be concealed. From that moment 
 an admirable balance was established between 
 the forces and the weaknesses of existence. 
 Religion directed its thunders against pride, 
 the vice which is nourished by the virtues ; it 
 discovers it in the inmost recesses of the heart, 
 and follows it out in all its metamorphoses ; 
 the sacraments in a holy legion march against 
 it, while humility, clothed in sackcloth and 
 ashes, its eyes downcast and bathed in tears, 
 becomes one of the chief virtues of the faith- 
 ful." I. 74. 
 
 On the tendency of all the fables concerning 
 creation to remount to one general and eternal 
 truth, our author presents the following reflec- 
 tions : 
 
 " After this exposition of the dreams of 
 philosophy, it may seem useless to speak of 
 the fancy of the poets. Who does not know 
 Deucalion and Pyrrha, the age of gold and of 
 iron 1 What innumerable traditions are scat- 
 tered through the earth ! In India, an elephant 
 sustains the globe ; the sun in Peru has brought 
 forth all the marvels of existence; in Canada, 
 the Great Spirit is the father of the world ; in 
 Greenland, man has emerged from an egg; in 
 fine, Scandinavia has beheld the birth of Askur 
 and Emla; Odin has poured in the breath of 
 life, Hoenerus reason, and Loedur blood and 
 beauty. 
 
 ' Askum et Emlam omni conatu destitutes 
 Animam nee possidebant, rationem nee habebant 
 Nee sanguinem, nee sermonem, nee t'aciem venustam, 
 Animam dedit Odinus, rationem dedit Hoenerus, 
 Loedur sanguinem addidit et faciem venustam.' 
 
 " In these various traditions, we find our- 
 selves placed between the stories of children 
 and the abstractions of philosophers ; if we 
 were obliged to choose, it were better to take 
 the first. 
 
 "But to discover the original of the picture 
 in the midst of so many copies, we must recur 
 to that which, by its unity and the perfection 
 of its parts, unfolds the genius of a master. 
 It is that which we find in Genesis, the original 
 of all those pictures which we see reproduced 
 in so many different traditions. What can be 
 at once more natural and more magnificent, 
 more easy to conceive, and more in unison 
 with human reason, than the Creator descend- 
 ing amidst the night of ages to create light by 
 a word 1 In an instant, the sun is seen sus- 
 pended in the heavens, in the midst of an im- 
 
IB 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 mense azure vault; with invisible bonds he 
 envelopes the planets, and whirls them round 
 his burning axle; the sea and the forests ap- 
 pear on the globe, and their earliest voices 
 arise to announce to the universe that great 
 marriage, of which God is the priest, the earth 
 the nuptial couch, and the human race the 
 posterity." I. 97, 98. 
 
 On the appearance of age on the globe, and 
 its first aspect when fresh from the hands of 
 the Creator, the author presents an hypothesis 
 more in unison with the imagination of a poet 
 than the observations of a philosopher, on the 
 gradual formation of all objects destined for a 
 long endurance. He supposes that every thing 
 was at once created as we now see it. 
 
 " It is probable that the Author of nature 
 planted at once aged forests and their youthful 
 progeny ; that animals arose at the same time, 
 some full of years, others buoyant with the 
 vigour and adorned with the grace of youth. 
 The oaks, while they pierced with their roots 
 the fruitful earth, without doubt bore at once 
 the old nests of rooks, and the young progeny 
 of doves. At once grew a chrysalis and a 
 butterfly; the insect bounded on the grass, 
 suspended its golden egg in the forests, or 
 trembled in the undulations of the air. The 
 bee, which had not yet lived a morning, already 
 counted the generations of flowers by its 
 ambrosia the sheep was not without its lamb, 
 the doe without its fawns. The thickets already 
 contained the nightingale, astonished at the 
 melody of their first airs, as they poured forth 
 the new-born effusion of their infant loves. 
 
 " Had the world not arisen at once young 
 and old, the grand, the serious, the impressive, 
 would have disappeared from nature ; for all 
 these sentiments depend for their very essence 
 on ancient things. The marvels of existence 
 would have been unknown. The ruined rock 
 would not have hung over the abyss beneath ; 
 the woods would not have exhibited that 
 splendid variety of trunks bending under the 
 weight of years, of trees hanging over the bed 
 of streams. The inspired thoughts, the vene- 
 rated sounds, the magic voices, the sacred hor- 
 ror of the forests, would have vanished with 
 the vaults which serve for their retreats ; and 
 the solitudes of earth and heaven would have 
 remained naked and disenchanted in losing the 
 columns of oaks which united them. On the 
 first day when the ocean dashed against the 
 shore, he bathed, be assured, sands bearing all 
 the marks of the action of his waves for ages ; 
 cliffs strewed with the eggs of innumerable sea- 
 fowl, and rugged capes which sustained against 
 the waters the crumbling shores of the earth. 
 
 " Without that primeval age, there would 
 have been neither pomp nor majesty in the 
 work of the Most High; and, contrary to all 
 our conceptions, nature in the innocence of 
 man would have been less beautiful than it is 
 now in the days of his corruption. An insipid 
 childhood of plants, of animals, of elements, 
 would have covered the earth, without the 
 poetical feelings, which now constitute its 
 principal charm. But God was not so feeble 
 a designer of the grove of Eden as the incredu- 
 lous would lead us to believe. Man, the sove- 
 reign of nature, was born at thirty years of age, 
 
 in order that his powers should correspond 
 with the full-grown magnificence of his new 
 empire, while his consort, doubtless, had 
 already passed her sixteenth spring, though 
 yet in the slumber of nonentity, that she might 
 be in harmony with the flowers, the birds, the 
 innocence, the love, the beauty of the youthful 
 part of the universe." I. 137, 138. 
 
 In the rhythm of prose these are the colours 
 of poetry, but still this was not to all appear- 
 ance the order of creation ; and here, as in 
 many other instances, it will be found that the 
 deductions of experience present conclusions 
 more sublime than the most fervid imagina- 
 tion has been able to conceive. Every thing 
 announces that the great works of nature are 
 carried on by slow and insensible gradations ; 
 continents, the abode of millions, are formed 
 by the confluence of innumerable rills; vege- 
 tation, commencing with the lichen and the 
 moss, rises at length into the riches and magni- 
 ficence of the forest. Patient analysis, philo- 
 sophical discovery, have now taught us that it 
 was by the same slow progress that the great 
 work of creation was accomplished. The fos- 
 sil remains of antediluvian ages have laid open 
 the primeval works of nature; the long period 
 which elapsed before the creation of man, the 
 vegetables which then covered the earth, the 
 animals which sported amidst its watery wastes, 
 the life which first succeeded to chaos, all 
 stand revealed. To the astonishment of man- 
 kind, the order of creation, unfolded in Genesis, 
 is proved by the contents of the earth beneath 
 every part of its surface to be precisely that 
 which has actually been followed; the days of 
 the Creator's workmanship turn out to be the 
 days of the Most High, not of his uncreated 
 subjects, and to t correspond to ages of our 
 ephemeral existence ; and the great sabbath 
 of the earth took place, not, as we imagined, 
 when the sixth sun had set after the first morn- 
 ing had beamed, but when the sixth period had 
 expired, devoted by Omnipotence to the mighty 
 undertaking. God then rested from his labours, 
 because the great changes of matter, and the 
 successive production and annihilation of dif- 
 ferent kinds of animated existence, ceased ; 
 creation assumed a settled form, and laws 
 came into operation destined for indefinite en- 
 durance. Chateaubriand said truly, that to 
 man, when he first opened his eyes on paradise, 
 nature appeared with all the majesty of age as 
 well as all the freshness of youth; but it was 
 not in a week, but during a series of ages, that 
 the magnificent spectacle had been assembled ; 
 and for the undying delight of his progeny, in 
 all future years, the powers of nature for count- 
 less time had been already exerted. 
 
 The fifth book of the Genie de Christianisme 
 treats of the proofs of the existence of God, 
 derived from the wonders of material nature 
 in other words, of the splendid subject of 
 natural theology. On such a subject, the ob- 
 servations of a mind so stored with knowledge, 
 and gifted with such powers of eloquence, may 
 be expected to be something of extraordinary 
 excellence. Though the part of his work, ac- 
 cordingly, which treats of this subject, is neces- 
 sarily circumscribed, from the multitude of 
 others with which it is overwhelmed, it is of 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 surpassing beauty, and superior in point of 
 description to any thing which has been pro 
 duced on the same subject by the genius of 
 Britain. 
 
 " There is a God ! The herbs of the valley 
 the cedars of the mountain, bless him the in- 
 sect sports in his beams the elephant salutes 
 him with the rising orb of the day the bird 
 sings him in the foliage the thunder pro- 
 claims him in the heavens the ocean declares 
 his immensity man alone has said, 'There is 
 no God !' 
 
 " Unite in thought, at the same instant, the 
 most beautiful objects in nature ; suppose that 
 you see at once all the hours of the day, and 
 all the seasons of the year; a morning of 
 spring and a morning of autumn ; a night be- 
 spangled with stars, and a night covered 
 with clouds ; meadows enamelled with flowers, 
 forests hoary with snow; fields gilded by the 
 tints of autumn ; then alone you will have a 
 just conception of the universe. While you 
 are gazing on that sun which is plunging 
 under the vault of the west, another observer 
 admires him emerging from the gilded gates of 
 the east. By what unconceivable magic does 
 that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and 
 burning in the shades of the evening, reappear 
 at the same instant fresh and humid with the 
 rosy dew of the morning 1 ? At every instant 
 of the day the glorious orb is at once rising 
 resplendent at noonday, and setting in the 
 west; or rather our senses deceive us, and 
 there is, properly speaking, no east, or south, 
 or west in the world. Every thing reduces 
 itself to one single point, from whence the 
 King of Day sends forth at once a triple light 
 in one single substance. The bright splendour 
 is perhaps that which nature can present that 
 is most beautiful ; for while it gives us an idea 
 of the perpetual magnificence and resistless 
 power of God, it exhibits, at the same time, a 
 shining image of the glorious Trinity." 
 
 The instincts of animals, and their adapta- 
 tion to the wants of their existence, have long 
 furnished one of the most interesting subjects 
 of study to the naturalist, and of meditation to 
 the devout observer of creation. Chateau- 
 briand has painted, with his usual descriptive 
 powers, one of the most familiar of these ex- 
 amples 
 
 " What ingenious springs move the feet of a 
 bird? It is not by a contraction of muscles 
 dependent on his will that he maintains him- 
 self firm upon a branch ; his foot is constructed 
 in such a way that when it is pressed in the 
 centre, the toes close of their own accord 
 upon the body which supports it. It results 
 from this mechanism, that the talons of the 
 bird grasp more or less firmly the object on 
 which it has alighted, in proportion to the 
 agitation, more or less violent, which it has 
 received. Thus, when we see at the approach 
 of night during winter the crows perched on 
 the scathed summit of an aged oak, we sup- 
 pose that, watchful and attentive, they main- 
 tain their place with pain during the rocking 
 of the winds; and yet, heedless of danger, and 
 mocking the tempest, the winds only bring 
 them profouncler slumber; the blasts of the 
 north attach them more firmly to the branch, 
 3 
 
 from whence weej^ry instant expect to see 
 them precipitates and like the old seaman, 
 whose hammock is Misnriided to the roof of 
 his vessel, the more lie is tossed by the winds, 
 the more profound is his repose." I. 147, 148. 
 "Amidst the different instincts which the 
 Sovereign of the universe has implanted in 
 nature, one of the most wonderful is that 
 which every year brings the fish of the pole 
 to our temperate region. They come, without 
 once mistaking their way, through the solitude 
 of the ocean, to reach, on a fixed day, the 
 stream where their hymen is to be celebrated. 
 The spring prepares on our shores their nuptial 
 pomp; it covers the willows with verdure, it 
 spreads beds of moss in the waves to serve 
 for curtains to its crystal couches. Hardly 
 are these preparations completed when the 
 enamelled legions appear; the animated navi- 
 gators enliven our coasts ; some spring aloft 
 from the surface of the waters, others balance 
 themselves on the waves, or diverge from a 
 common centre like innumerable flashes of 
 gold ; these dart obliquely their shining bodies 
 athwart the azure fluid, while they sleep in 
 the rays of the sun, which penetrates beneath, 
 the dancing surface of the waves. All, sport- 
 ing in the joys of existence, meander, return, 
 wheel about, dash across, form in squadron, 
 separate, and reunite; and the inhabitant of 
 the seas, inspired by a breath of existence, 
 pursues with bounding movements its mate, 
 by the line of fire which is reflected from her 
 in the stream." I. 152, 153. 
 
 Chateaubriand's mind is full not only of the 
 images but the sounds which attest the reign 
 of animated nature. Equally familiar with 
 those of the desert and of the cultivated plain, 
 he has had his susceptibility alike open in 
 both to the impressions which arise to a pious 
 observer from their contemplation. 
 
 " There is a law in nature relative to the 
 cries of animals, which has not been sufficient- 
 ly observed, and deserves to be so. The dif- 
 ferent sounds of the inhabitants of the desert 
 are calculated according to the grandeur or 
 the sweetness of the scene where they arise, 
 and the hour of the day when they are heard. 
 The roaring of the lion, loud, rough, and tre- 
 mendous, is in unison with the desert scenes 
 n which it is heard ; while the lowing of the 
 oxen diffuses a pleasing calm through our 
 valleys. The goat has something trembling 
 and savage in its cry, like the rocks and ravines 
 from which it loves to suspend itself. The 
 war-horse imitates the notes of the trumpet 
 that animates him to the charge, and, as if he 
 ielt that he was not made for degrading em- 
 ployments, he is silent under the spur of the 
 abourer, and neighs under the rein of the 
 warrior. The night, by turns charming or 
 sombre, is enlivened by the nightingale or 
 saddened by the owl the one sings for the 
 zephyrs, the groves, the moon, the soul of 
 lovers the other for the winds, the forests, the 
 darkness, and the dead. Finally, all the ani- 
 mals which live on others have a peculiar cry 
 by which they may be distinguished by the 
 creatures which are destined to be their prey." 
 I. 156. 
 
 The making of birds' nests is one of the 
 
18 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 most common objects of observation. Listen 
 to the reflections of genius and poetry on this 
 beautiful subject. 
 
 "The admirable wisdom of Providence is 
 nowhere more conspicuous than in the nests 
 of birds. It is impossible to contemplate, with- 
 out emotion, the Divine goodness which thus 
 gives industry to the weak, and foresight to 
 the thoughtless. 
 
 " No sooner have the trees put forth their 
 leaves, than a thousand little workmen com- 
 mence their labours. Some bring long pieces 
 of straw into the hole of an old wall ; others 
 affix their edifice to the windows of a church ; 
 these steal a hair from the mane of a horse ; 
 those bear away, with wings trembling beneath 
 its weight, the fragment of wool which a lamb 
 has left entangled in the briers. A thousand 
 palaces at once arise, and every palace is a 
 nest ; within every nest is soon to be seen a 
 charming metamorphosis; first, a beautiful 
 egg, then a little one covered with down. The 
 little nestling soon feels his wings begin to 
 grow ; his mother teaches him to raise himself 
 on his bed of repose. Soon he takes courage 
 enough to approach the edge of the nest, and 
 casts a first look on the works of nature. 
 Terrified and enchanted at the sight, he pre- 
 cipitates himself amidst his brothers and sisters 
 who have never as yet seen that spectacle ; 
 but recalled a second time from his couch, the 
 young king of the air, who still has the crown 
 of infancy on his head, ventures to contemplate 
 the boundless heavens, the waving summit 
 of the pine-trees, and the vast labyrinth of fo- 
 liage which lies beneath his feet. And, at the 
 moment that the forests are rejoicing at the 
 sight of their new inmate, an aged bird, who 
 feels himself abandoned by his wings, quietly 
 rests beside a stream ; there, resigned and 
 solitary, he tranquilly awaits death, on the 
 banks of the same river where he sung his 
 first loves, and whose trees still bear his nest 
 and his melodious offspring." I. 158. 
 
 The subject of the migration of the feathered 
 tribes furnishes this attentive observer of na- 
 ture with many beautiful images. We have 
 room only for the following extract: 
 
 "In the first ages of the world, it was by the 
 flowering of plants, the fall of the leaves, the 
 departure and the arrival of birds, that the 
 labourers and the shepherds regulated their 
 labours. Thence has sprung the art of divina- 
 tion among certain people ; they imagined that 
 the birds which were sure to precede certain 
 changes of the season or atmosphere, could 
 not but be inspired by the Deity. The ancient 
 naturalists, and the poets, to whom we are 
 indebted for the few remains of simplicity 
 which still linger amongst us, show us how 
 marvellous was that manner of counting by 
 the changes ,of nature, and what a charm it 
 spread over the whole of existence. God is a 
 profound secret. Man, created in his image, 
 is equally incomprehensible. It was therefore 
 an ineffable harmony to see the periods of his 
 existence regulated by measures of time as 
 harmonious as himself. 
 
 "Beneath the tents of Jacob or of Boaz, the 
 arrival of a bird put every thing in movement; 
 the Patriarch made the circuit of the camp at. 
 
 the head of his followers, armed with scythes. 
 If the report was spread, that the young of the 
 swallows had been seen wheeling about, the 
 whole people joyfully commenced their harvest. 
 These beautiful signs, while they directed the 
 labours of the present, had the advantage of 
 foretelling the vicissitudes of the approaching 
 season. If the geese and swans arrived in 
 abundance, it was known that the winter 
 would be snow. Did the redbreast begin to 
 build its nest in January, the shepherds hoped 
 in April for the roses of May. The marriage 
 of a virgin on the margin of a fountain, was 
 i represented by the first opening of the bud of 
 j the rose ; and the death of the aged, who usual- 
 i ly drop off in autumn, by the falling of leaves, 
 j or the maturity of the harvests. While the 
 philosopher, abridging or elongating the year, 
 extended the winter over the verdure of spring, 
 the peasant felt no alarm that the astronomer, 
 who came to him from heaven, would be 
 wrong in his calculations. He knew that the 
 nightingale would not take the season of hoar 
 j frost for that of flowers, or make the groves 
 i resound at the winter solstice with the songs 
 of summer. Thus, the cares, the joys, the 
 pleasures of the rural life were determined, 
 not by the uncertain calendar of the learned, 
 but the infallible signs of Him \vho traced his 
 path to the sun. That sovereign regulator 
 wished himself that the rites of his worship 
 should be determined by the epochs fixed by 
 his works ; and in those days of innocence, 
 according to the seasons and the labours they 
 required, it was the voice of the zephyr or of 
 the tempest, of the eagle or the dove, which 
 called the worshipper to the temple of his 
 Creator." I. 17L 
 
 Let no one exclaim, what have these descrip- 
 tions to do with the spirit of Christianity 7 
 Gray thought otherwise, when he wrote the 
 sublime lines on visiting the Grande Char- 
 treuse. Buchanan thought otherwise, when, 
 in his exquisite Ode to May, he supposed the 
 first zephyrs of spring to blow over the islands 
 of the just. The work of Chateaubriand, it is 
 to be recollected, is not merely an exposition 
 of the doctrines, spirit, or precepts of Chris- 
 tianity; 'it is intended expressly to allure, by 
 the charms which it exhibits, the man of the 
 world, an unbelieving and volatile generation, 
 to the feelings of devotion; it is meant to com- 
 bine . all that is delightful or lovely in the 
 works of nature, with all that is sublime or 
 elevating in the revelations of religion. In his 
 eloquent pages, therefore, we find united the 
 Natural Theology of Paley, the Contemplations 
 of Taylor, and the Analogy of Butler ; and 
 if the theologians will look in vain for the 
 weighty arguments by which the English 
 divines have established the foundation of their 
 faith, men of ordinary education will find even 
 more to entrance and subdue their minds. 
 
 Among the proofs of the immortality of the 
 soul, our author, with all others who have 
 thought upon the subject, classes the obvious 
 disproportion between the desires and capacity 
 of the soul, and the limits of its acquisitions 
 and enjoyments in this world. In the follow- 
 ing passage this argument is placed in its just 
 colours. 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 19 
 
 "If it is impossible to deny, that the hope of 
 man continues to the edge of the grave if it 
 be true, that the advantages of this world, so 
 far from satisfying our wishes, tend only to 
 augment the want which the soul experiences, 
 and dig deeper the abyss which it contains 
 within itself, we must conclude that there is 
 something beyond the limits of time. 'Vin- 
 cula hujus mundi, says St. Augustin, 'asperi- 
 tatem habent veram, jucunditatera falsam, 
 certum dolorem, incertam voluptatem, durum 
 laborem, timidam quietem, rern plenam mise 
 rise, spem beatitudinis inanem.' Far from 
 lamenting that the desire for felicity has been 
 planted in this world, and its ultimate gratifica- 
 tion only in another, let us discern in that 
 only an additional proof of the goodness of God. 
 Since sooner or later we must quit this world, 
 Providence has placed beyond its limits a 
 charm, which is felt as an attraction to dimin- 
 ish the terrors of the tomb; as a kind mother, 
 when wishing to make her infant cross a bar- 
 rier, places some agreeable object on the other 
 side." I. 210. 
 
 "Finally, there is another proof of the im 
 mortality of the soul, which has not been suf- 
 ficiently insisted on, and that is the universal 
 veneration of mankind for the tomb. There, 
 by an invincible charm, life is attached to 
 death, there the human race declares itself 
 superior to the rest of creation, and proclaims 
 aloud its lofty destinies. What animal regards 
 its coffin, or disquiets itself about the ashes of 
 its fathers 1 Which one has any regard for 
 the bones of its father, or even knows its 
 father, after the first necessities of infancy are 
 passed ? Whence comes then the all-power- 
 ful idea which we entertain of death 1 Do a 
 few grains of dust merit so much considera- 
 tion ? No ; without doubt we respect the 
 bones of our fathers, because an inward voice 
 tells us that all is not lost with them; and that 
 is the voice which has everywhere conse- 
 crated the funeral service throughout the 
 world ; all are equally persuaded that the sleep 
 is not eternal, even in the tomb, and that death 
 itself is but a glorious transfiguration." I. 217. 
 
 To the objection, that if the idea of God is 
 innate, it must appear in children without 
 any education, which is not generally the case, 
 Chateaubriand replies : 
 
 " God being a spirit, and it being impossible 
 that he should be understood but by a spirit, 
 an infant, in whom -the powers of thought are 
 not as yet developed, cannot form a proper 
 conception of the Supreme Being. We must 
 not expect from the heart its noblest function, 
 when the marvellous fabric is as yet in the 
 hands of its Creator. 
 
 " Besides, there seems reason to believe 
 that a child has, at least, a sort of instinct of 
 its Creator ; witness only its little reveries, its 
 disquietudes, its fears in the night, its disposi- 
 tion to raise its eyes to heaven. An infant 
 joins together its little hands and repeats after 
 its mother a prayer to the good God. Why does 
 that little angel lisp with so much love and 
 purity the name of the Supreme Being, if it 
 has no inward consciousness of its existence 
 in its heart? 
 
 "Behold that new-born infant, which the 
 
 | nurse still carries under her arms. W T hat has 
 it done to give so much joy to that old man, to 
 that man in the prime of life, to that woman 1 
 Two or three syllables half-formed, which no 
 one rightly understands, and instantly three 
 reasonable creatures are transported with de- 
 light, from the grandfather, to whom all that 
 life contains is known, to the young mother, 
 to whom the greater part of it is as yet un- 
 revealed. Who has put that power into the 
 word of man ? How does it happen that the 
 sound of a human voice subjugates so instan- 
 taneously the human heart 1 What subjugates 
 you is something allied to a mystery, which 
 depends on causes more elevated than the in- 
 terest, how strong soever, which you take in 
 that infant: something tells you that these in- 
 articulate words are the first openings of an 
 immortal soul." I. 224. 
 
 There is a subject on which human genius 
 can hardly dare to touch, the future felicity of 
 the just. Our author thus treats this delicate 
 subject : 
 
 "The purest of sentiments in this world is 
 admiration ; but every earthly admiration is 
 mingled with weakness, either in the object it 
 admires, or in that admiring. Imagine, then, 
 a perfect being, which perceives at once all 
 that is, and has, and will be ; suppose that soul 
 exempt from envy and all the weaknesses of 
 life, incprruptible, indefatigable, unalterable ; 
 conceive it contemplating without ceasing the 
 Most High, discovering incessantly new per- 
 fections ; feeling existence only from the re- 
 newed sentiment of that admiration ; conceive 
 God as the sovereign beauty, the universal 
 principle of love ; figure all the attachments 
 of earth blending in that abyss of feeling, 
 without ceasing to love the objects of affection 
 on this earth; imagine, finally, that the inmate 
 of heaven has the conviction that this felicity 
 is never to end, and you will have an idea, 
 feeble and imperfect indeed, of the felicity of 
 the just. They are plunged in this abyss of 
 delight, as in an ocean from which they can- 
 not emerge: they wish nothing; they have 
 every thing, though desiring nothing; an 
 eternal youth, a felicity without end; a glory 
 divine is expressed in their countenances ; a 
 sweet, noble, and majestic joy; it is a sublime 
 feeling of truth and virtue which transports 
 them ; at every instant they experience the 
 same rapture as a mother who regains a be- 
 loved child whom she believed lost; and that 
 exquisite joy, loo fleeting on earth, is there 
 prolonged through the ages of eternity. I. 241. 
 
 We intended to have gone through in this 
 paper the whole Genie de Christianisme, and 
 we have only concluded the first volume, so 
 prolific of beauty are its pages. We make no 
 apology for the length of the quotations, which 
 have so much extended the limits of this article ; 
 any observations would be inexcusable which 
 should abridge passages of such transcendent 
 beauty. 
 
 "The Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem," is 
 an account of the author's journey in 180G, 
 from Paris to Greece, Constantinople, Pales- 
 tine, Egypt and Carthage. This work is not 
 so much a book of travels as memoirs of the 
 feelings and impressions of the author during 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 a journey over tne shores of the Mediterranean ; 
 the cradle, as Dr. Johnson observed, of all that 
 dignifies and has blest human nature, of our 
 laws, our religion, and our civilization. It 
 may readily be anticipated that the observa- 
 tions of such a man, in such scenes, must con- 
 tain much that is interesting and delightful: 
 our readers may prepare themselves for a high 
 gratification ; it is seldom that they have such 
 an intellectual feast laid before them. We 
 have translated the passages, both because 
 there is no English version with which we are 
 acquainted of this work, and because the trans- 
 lations which usually appear of French authors 
 are executed in so slovenly a style. 
 
 On his first night amidst the ruins of Sparta, 
 our author gives the following interesting ac- 
 count: 
 
 " After supper Joseph brought me my saddle, 
 which usually served for my pillow. I wrap- 
 ped myself in my cloak, and slept on the banks 
 of the Eurotas under a laurel. The night was 
 so clear and serene, that the milky way formed 
 a resplendent arch, reflected in the waters of 
 the river, and by the light of which I could 
 read. I slept with my eyes turned towards the 
 heavens, and with the constellation of the 
 Swan of Leda directly above my head. Even 
 at this distance of time I recollect the pleasure 
 I experienced in sleeping thus in the woods 
 of America, and still more in awakening in 
 the middle of the night. I there heard the 
 sound of the wind rustling through those pro- 
 found solitudes, the cry of the stag and the 
 deer, the fall of a distant cataract, while the 
 fire at my feet, half-extinguished, reddened 
 from below the foliage of the forest. I even 
 experienced a pleasure from the voice of the 
 Iroquois, when he uttered his cry in the midst 
 of the untrodden woods, and by the light of 
 the stars, amidst the silence of nature, pro- 
 claimed his unfettered freedom. Emotions such 
 as these please at twenty years of age, because 
 life is then so full of vigour that it suffices as 
 it were for itself, and because there is some- 
 thing in early youth which incessantly urges 
 towards the mysterious and the unknown; 
 ipsi sibi somnia fingunt ; but in a more mature 
 age the mind reverts to more imperishable 
 emotions; it inclines, most of all, to the re- 
 collections and the examples of history. I would 
 still sleep willingly on the banks of the Eurotas 
 and the Jordan, if the shades of the three hun- 
 dred Spartans, or of the twelve sons of Jacob, 
 were to visit my dreams ; but I would no longer 
 set out to visit lands which have never been 
 explored by the plough. I now feel the desire 
 for those old deserts which shroud the walls 
 of Babylon or the legions of Pharsalia; fields 
 of which the furrows are engraven on human 
 thought, and where I may find man as I am, 
 the blood, the tears, and the labours of man." 
 I. 86, 87. 
 
 From Laconia our author directed his steps 
 by the isthmus of Corinth to Athens. Of his 
 first feelings in the ancient cradle of taste and 
 genius he gives the following beautiful de- 
 scription: 
 
 " Overwhelmed with fatigue, I slept for some 
 time without interruption, when I was at length 
 awakened by the sound of Turkish music, 
 
 proceeding from the summits of the Propylenm. 
 At the same moment a Mussulman priest from 
 one of the mosques called the faithful to pray 
 in the city of Minerva. I cannot describe 
 what I felt at the sound ; that Iman had no 
 need to remind one of the lapse of time ; his 
 voice alone in these scenes announced the 
 revolution of ages. 
 
 " This fluctuation in human affairs is the 
 more remarkable from the contrast which it 
 affords to the unchangeableness of nature. As 
 if to insult the instability of human affairs, the 
 animals and the birds experience no change 
 in their empires, nor alterations in their habits. 
 I saw, when sitting on the hill of the Muses, 
 the storks form themselves into a wedge, and 
 wing their flight towards the shores of Africa. 
 For two thousand years they have made the 
 ame voyage they have remained free and 
 happy in the city of Solon, as in that of the 
 chief of the black eunuchs. From the height 
 of their nests, which the revolutions below 
 have not been able to reach, they have seen 
 the races of men disappear ; while impious 
 generations have arisen on the tombs of their 
 religious parents, the young stork has never 
 ceased to nourish its aged parent. I involun- 
 tarily fell into these reflections, for the stork 
 is the friend of the traveller: 'it knows the 
 seasons of heaven.' These birds were fre- 
 quently my companions in the solitudes of 
 America : I have often seen them perched on 
 the wigwams of the savage ; and when I saw 
 them rise from another species of desert, from 
 the ruins of the Parthenon, I could not avoid 
 feeling a companion in the desolation of empires. 
 
 " The first thing which strikes a traveller 
 in the monuments of Athens, is their lovely 
 colour. In our climate, where the heavens 
 are charged with smoke and rain, the whitest 
 stone soon becomes tinged with black and 
 green. It is not thus with the atmosphere of 
 the city of Theseus. The clear sky and bril- 
 liant sun of Greece have shed over the marble 
 of Paros and Pentilicus a golden hue, com- 
 parable only to the finest and most fleeting 
 tints of autumn. 
 
 " Before I saw these splendid remains I had 
 fallen into the ordinary error concerning them. 
 I conceived they were perfect in their details, 
 but that they wanted grandeur. But the first 
 glance at the originals is sufficient to show 
 that the genius of the architects has supplied 
 in the magnitude of proportion what was 
 wanting in size; and Athens is accordingly 
 filled with stupendous edifices. The Athenians, 
 a people far from rich, few in number, have 
 succeeded in moving gigantic masses ; the 
 blocks of stone in the Pnyx and the Propyleum 
 are literally quarters of rock. The slabs which 
 stretch from pillar to pillar are of enormous 
 dimensions : the columns of the Temple of 
 Jupiter Olympius are above sixty feet in height, 
 and the walls of Athens, including those which 
 stretched to the Piraeus, extended over nine 
 leagues, and were so broad that two chariots 
 could drive on them abreast. The Romans 
 never ereeted more extensive fortifications. 
 
 " By what strange fatality has it happened 
 that the chefs d'ceuvre of antiquity, which the 
 moderns go so far to admire, have owed their 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 21 
 
 destruction chiefly to the moderns themselves ? 
 The Parthenon was entire in 1687; the Chris- 
 tians at first converted it into a church, and the 
 Turks into a mosque. The Venetians, in the 
 middle of the light of the seventeenth century, 
 bombarded the Acropolis with red-hot shot; a 
 shell fell on the Parthenon, pierced the roof, 
 communicated to a few barrels of powder, and 
 blew into the air great part of the edifice, 
 which did less honour to the gods of antiquity 
 than the genius of man. No sooner was the 
 town captured, than Morosini, in the design 
 of embellishing Venice with its spoils, took 
 down the statues from the frortt of the Temple ; 
 and another modern has completed, from love 
 for the arts, that which the Venetian had begun. 
 The invention of fire-arms has been fatal to 
 the monuments of antiquity. Had the bar- 
 barians been acquainted with the use of gun- 
 powder, not a Greek or Roman edifice would 
 have survived their invasion; they would 
 have blown up even the Pyramids in the 
 search for hidden treasures. One year of war 
 in our times will destroy more than a century 
 of combats among the ancients. Every thing 
 among the moderns seems opposed to the per- 
 fection of art ; their country, their manners, their 
 dress ; even their discoveries." 1. 136, 145. 
 
 These observations are perfectly well found- 
 ed. No one can have visited the Grecian monu- 
 ments on the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 without perceiving that they were thoroughly 
 masters of an element of grandeur, hitherto 
 but little understood among the moderns, that 
 arising from gigantic masses of stone. The 
 feeling of sublimity which they produce is in- 
 describable : it equals that of Gothic edifices 
 of a thousand times the size. Every traveller 
 must have felt this upon looking at the im- 
 mense masses which rise in solitary magnifi- 
 cence on the plains at Stonehenge. The great 
 block in the tomb of Agamemnon at Argos ; 
 those in the Cyclopean Walls of Volterra, and 
 in the ruins of Agrigentum in Sicily, strike 
 the beholder with a degree of astonishment, 
 bordering on awe. To have moved such 
 enormous masses seems the work of a race 
 of mortals superior in thought and power 
 to this degenerate age; it is impossible, in 
 visiting them, to avoid the feeling that you 
 are beholding the work of giants. It is to this 
 cause, we are persuaded, that the extraordina- 
 ry impression produced by the pyramids, and 
 all the works of the Cyclopean age in archi- 
 tecture, is to be ascribed ; and as it is an 
 element of sublimity within the reach of all 
 who have considerable funds at their com- 
 mand, it is earnestly to be hoped that it will 
 not be overlooked by our architects. Strange 
 that so powerful an ingredient in the sublime 
 should have been lost sight of in proportion to 
 the ability of the age to produce it, and that the 
 monuments raised in the infancy of the 
 mechanical art, should still be those in which 
 alone it is to be seen to perfection ! 
 
 We willingly translate the description of the 
 unrivalled scene viewed from the Acropolis 
 by the same poetical hand ; a description so 
 glowing, and yet so true, that it almost recalls, 
 after the lapse of years, the fading tints of the 
 original on the memory. 
 
 "To understand the view from the Acropolis, 
 you must figure to yourself all the plain at its 
 foot ; bare and clothed in a dusky heath, inter- 
 sected here and there by woods of olives, 
 squares of barley, and ridges of vines ; you 
 must conceive the heads of columns, and the 
 ends of ancient ruins, emerging from the midst 
 of that cultivation ; Albanian women washing 
 their clothes at the fountain or the scanty 
 streams ; peasants leading their asses, laden 
 with provisions, into the modern city : those 
 ruins so celebrated, those isles, those seas, 
 whose names are engraven on the memory, 
 illumined by a resplendent light. I have seen 
 from the rock of the Acropolis the sun rise 
 between the two summits of Mount Hymettus : 
 the ravens, which nestle round the citadel, but 
 never fly over its summit, floating in the air 
 beneath, their glossy wings reflecting the rosy 
 tints of the morning: columns of light smoke 
 ascending from the villages on the sides of the 
 neighbouring mountains marked the colonies 
 of bees on the far-famed Hymettus ; and the 
 ruins of the Parthenon were illuminated by 
 the finest tints of pink and violet. The sculp- 
 tures of Phidias, struck by a horizontal ray of 
 gold, seemed to start from their marbled bed 
 by the depth and mobility of their shadows : 
 in the distance, the sea and the Piraeus were 
 resplendent with light, while on the verge of 
 the western horizon, the citadel of Corinth, 
 glittering in the rays of the rising sun, shone 
 like a rock of purple and fire." I. 149. 
 
 These are the colours of poetry; but beside 
 this brilliant passage of French description, 
 we willingly place the equally correct and still 
 more thrilling lines of our own poet. 
 
 " Slow sinks more beauteous ere his race be run 
 
 Along Morea's hills the setting sun, 
 
 Not as in northern clime obscurely bright, 
 
 But one unclouded blaze of living light; 
 
 O'er the hushed deep the yellow beams he throws, 
 
 Gilds the ereen wave that trembles as it glows ; 
 
 On old jDgina's rock and Idra's isle, 
 
 The God of Gladness sheds his parting smile ; 
 
 O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine, 
 
 Though there his altars are no more divine ; 
 
 Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss 
 
 Thy gloriows gulf, unconquer'd Salamis ! 
 
 Their azure arches through the long expanse, 
 
 More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance, 
 
 And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, 
 
 Mark his gay course and own the hues of heaven, 
 
 Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, 
 
 Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep." 
 
 The columns of the temple of Jupiter Olym- 
 pius produced the same effects on the enthu- 
 siastic mind of Chateaubriand as they do on 
 every traveller : But he has added some re- 
 flections highly descriptive of the peculiar turn 
 of his mind. 
 
 " At length we came to the great isolated 
 columns placed in the quarter which is called 
 the city of Adrian. On a portion of the archi- 
 trave which unites two of the columns, is to 
 be seen a piece of masonry, once the abode of 
 a hermit. It is impossible to conceive how 
 that building, which is still entire, could have 
 been erected on the summit of one of these 
 prodigious columns, whose height is above 
 sixty feet. Thus this vast temple, at which 
 the Athenians toiled for seven centuries, which 
 all the kings of Asia laboured to finish, which 
 Adrian, the ruler of the world, had first the 
 glory to complete, has sunk under the hand of 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 time, and the cell of a hermit has remained 
 undecayed on its ruins. A miserable cabin is 
 borne aloft on two columns of marble, as if 
 fortune had wished to exhibit, on that magni- 
 ficent pedestal, a monument of its triumph and 
 its caprice. 
 
 "These columns, though twenty feet higher 
 than those of the Parthenon, are far from pos- 
 sessing their beauty. The degeneracy of taste 
 is apparent in their construction ; but isolated 
 and dispersed as they are, on a naked and 
 desert plain, their effect is imposing in the 
 highest degree. I stopped at their feet to hear 
 the wind whistle through the Corinthian foliage 
 on their summits: like the solitary palms 
 which rise here and there amidst the ruins of 
 Alexandria. When the Turks are threatened 
 by any calamity, they bring a lamb into this 
 place, and constrain it to bleat, with its face 
 turned to heaven. Being unable to find the 
 voice of innocence among men, the}'- have re- 
 course to the new-born lamb to mitigate the 
 anger of heaven." I. 152, 153. 
 
 He followed the footsteps of Chandler along 
 the Long Walls to the Piraeus, and found that 
 profound solitude in that once busy and ani- 
 mated scene, which is felt to be so impressive 
 by every traveller. 
 
 "If Chandler was astonished at the solitude 
 of the Pireeus, I can safely assert that I was 
 not less astonished than he. We had made 
 the circuit of that desert shore ; three harbours 
 had met our eyes, and in all that space we had 
 not seen a single vessel ! The only spectacle 
 to be seen was the ruins and the rocks on the 
 shore the only sounds that could be heard 
 were the cry of the seafowl, and the murmur 
 of the wave, which, breaking on the tomb of 
 Themistocles, drew forth a perpetual sigh from 
 the abode of eternal silence. Borne away by 
 the sea, the ashes of the conqueror of Xerxes 
 repose beneath the waves, side by side with 
 the bones of the Persians. In vain I sought 
 the Temple of Venus, the long gallery, and 
 the symbolical statue which represented the 
 Athenian people; the image of that implacable 
 democracy was for ever fallen, beside the 
 walls, where the exiled citizens came to im- 
 plore a return to their country. Instead of 
 those superb arsenals, of those Agora? resound- 
 ing with the voice of the sailors ; of those 
 edifices which rivalled the beauty of the city 
 of Rhodes, I saw nothing but a ruined convent 
 and a solitary magazine. A single Turkish 
 sentinel is perpetually seated on the coast ; 
 months and years revolve without a bark pre- 
 senting itself to his sight. Such is the deplora- 
 ble state into which these ports, once so 
 famous, have now fallen Who have over- 
 turned so many monuments of gods and men 1 ? 
 The hidden power which overthrows every 
 thing, and is itself subject to the Unknown 
 God whose altar St. Paul beheld at Phalera." 
 I. 157, 158. 
 
 The fruitful theme of the decay of Greece 
 has called forth many of the finest apostrophes 
 of our moralists and poets. On this subject 
 Chateaubriand offers the following striking 
 observations : 
 
 " One would imagine that Greece itself an- 
 nounced, by its mourning, the misfortunes of 
 
 its children. In general, the country is uncul- 
 tivated, the soil bare, rough, savage, of a brown 
 and withered aspect. There are no rivers, 
 properly so called, but little streams and tor- 
 rents, which become dry in summer. No 
 farm-houses are to be seen on the farms, no 
 labourers, no chariots, no oxen, or horses of 
 agriculture. Nothing can be figured so melan- 
 choly as to see the track of a modern wheel, 
 where you can still trace in the worn parts of 
 the rock the track of ancient wheels. Coast 
 along that shore, bordered by a sea hardly 
 more desolate place on the summit of a rock 
 a ruined tower, an abandoned convent figure 
 a minaret rising up in the midst of the solitude 
 as a badge of slavery a solitary flock feeding 
 on a cape, surmounted by ruined columns- 
 the turban of a Turk scaring the few goats 
 which browze on the hills, and you will obtain 
 a just idea of modern Greece. 
 
 " On the eve of leaving Greece, at the Cape 
 of Sunium, I did not abandon myself alone to 
 the romantic ideas which the beauty of the 
 scene was fitted to inspire. I retraced in my 
 mind the history of that country; I strove to 
 discover in the ancient prosperity of Athens 
 and Sparta the cause of their present misfor- 
 tunes, and in their present situation the germ 
 of future glory. The breaking of the sea, 
 which insensibly increased against the rocks 
 at the foot of the Cape, at length reminded me 
 that the wind had risen, and that it was time 
 to resume my voyage. We descended to the 
 vessel, and found the sailors already prepared 
 for our departure. W T e pushed out to sea, 
 and the breeze, which blew fresh from the land, 
 bore us rapidly towards Zea. As we receded 
 from the shore, the columns of Sunium rose 
 more beautiful above the waves : their pure 
 white appeared well defined in the dark azure 
 of the distant sky. We were already far from 
 the Cape ; but we still v heard the murmur of 
 the waves, which broke on the cliffs at its foot, 
 the whistle of the winds through its solitary 
 pillars, and the cry of the sea-birds which wheel 
 round the stormy promontory : they were the 
 last sounds whtch I heard on the shores of 
 Greece." 1. 196. 
 
 " The Greeks did not excel less in the choice 
 of the site of their edifices than in the forms 
 and proportions. The greater part of the pro- 
 montories of Peloponnesus, Attica, and Ionia, 
 and the Islands of the Archipelago, are marked 
 by temples, trophies, or tombs. These monu- 
 ments, surrounded as they generally are with 
 woods and rocks, beheld in all the changes of 
 light and shadow, sometimes in the midst of 
 clouds and lightning, sometimes by the light 
 of the moon, sometimes gilded by the rising 
 sun, sometimes flaming in his setting beams, 
 throw an indescribable charm over the shores 
 of Greece. The earth, thus decorated, re- 
 sembles the old Cybele, who, crowned and 
 seated on the shore, commanded her son 
 Neptune to spread the waves beneath her 
 feet. 
 
 " Christianity, to which we owe the sole 
 architecture in unison with our manners, has 
 also taught how to place our true monuments : 
 our chapels, our abbeys, our monasteries, are 
 dispersed on the summits of hills not that the 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 choice of the site was always the work of the | 
 architect, but that an art which is in unison I 
 with the feelings of the people, seldom errs far i 
 in what is really beautiful. Observe, on the i 
 other hand, how wretchedly almost all our 
 edifices copied from the antique are placed. | 
 Not one of the heights around Paris is orna- 
 mented with any of the splendid edifices with 
 which the city is filled. The modern Greek 
 edifices resemble the corrupted language which 
 they speak at Sparta and Athens ; it is in vain 
 to maintain that it is the language of Homer 
 and Plato; a mixture of uncouth words, and 
 of foreign constructions, betrays at every in- 
 stant the invasion of the barbarians. 
 
 "To the loveliest sunset in nature, suc- 
 ceeded a serene night. The firmament, re- 
 flected in the waves, seemed to sleep in the 
 midst of the sea. The evening star, my faith- 
 ful companion in my journey, was ready to 
 sink beneath the horizon; its place could only 
 be distinguished by the rays of light which it 
 occasionally shed upon the water, like a dying 
 taper in the distance. At intervals, the per- 
 fumed breeze from the islands which we pass- 
 ed entranced the senses, and agitated on the 
 surface of the ocean the glassy image of the 
 heavens." I. 182, 183. 
 
 The appearance of morning in the sea of 
 Marmora is described in not less glowing 
 colours. 
 
 "At four in the morning we weighed an- 
 chor, and as the wind was fair, we found our- 
 selves in less than an hour at the extremity of 
 the waters of the river. The scene was worthy 
 of being described. On the right, Aurora rose 
 above the headlands of Asia ; on the left, w^as 
 extended the sea of Marmora; the heavens in 
 the east were of a fiery red, which grew paler 
 in proportion as the morning advanced; the 
 morning star still shone in that empurpled 
 light ; and above it you could barely descry 
 the pale circle of the moon. "The picture 
 changed while I still contemplated it; soon a 
 blended glory of rays of rose and gojd, diverg- 
 ing from a common centre, mounted to the 
 zenith; these columns were effaced, revived, 
 and effaced anew, until: the .sun rose above the 
 horizon, and confounded all the lesser shades 
 in one universal blaze of light." I. 236. 
 
 His journey into the Holy Land awakened 
 a new and not less interesting train of ideas, 
 throughout the whole of which we recognise 
 the peculiar features of M. de Chateaubriand's 
 mind : a strong and poetical sense of the 
 beauties of nature, a memory fraught with 
 historical recollections; a>deep sense of reli- 
 gion, illustrated, however, rather as it affects 
 the imagination and the passions, than the 
 judgment. It is a mere chimera to suppose 
 that such aids are to be rejected by the friends 
 of Christianity, or that truth may with safety 
 discard the aid of fancy, either in subduing 
 the passions or affecting the heart. On the 
 contrary, every day's experience must con- 
 vince us, that for one who can understand an 
 argument, hundreds can enjoy a romance; 
 and that truth, to affect multitudes, must con- 
 descend to wear the garb of fancy. It is no 
 doubt of vast importance that works should j 
 exist in which the truths of religion are un- i 
 
 folded with lucid precision, and its principles 
 defined with the force of reason: but it is at 
 least of equal moment, that others should be 
 found in which the graces of eloquence and 
 the fervour of enthusiasm form an attraction to 
 those who are insensible to graver considera- 
 tions ; where the reader is tempted to follow a 
 path which he finds only strewed with flowers, 
 and he unconsciously inhales the breath of 
 eternal life. 
 
 Cosi all E<jro fanciul porsiamo aspersi 
 J)i soave lic:or gli oral del vaso, 
 Succlii ainari ingannato intanto ei beve, 
 E dal inganno sua vita riceve. 
 
 " On nearing the coast of Judea, the first 
 visitors we received were > three swallows. 
 They were perhaps on their way from France, 
 and pursuing their course to Syria. I was 
 strongly tempted to ask them what news they 
 brought from that paternal roof which I had so 
 long quitted. I recollect that in years of in- 
 fancy, I spent entire hours in watching with 
 an indescribable pleasure the course of swal- 
 lows in autumn, when assembling in crowds 
 previous to their annual migration : a secret 
 instinct told me that I too should be a travel- 
 ler. They assembled in the end of autumn 
 around a great fishpond; there, amidst a thou- 
 sand evolutions and flights in air, they seemed 
 to try their wings, and prepare Tor their long 
 pilgrimage. Whence is it that of all the re- 
 collections in existence, we prefer those which 
 are connected with our cradle 1 The illusions 
 of self-love, the pleasures of youth, do not 
 recur with the same charm to the memory ; 
 we find in them, on the contrary, frequent bit- 
 terness and pain; but the slightest circum- 
 stances revive in the heart the recollections 
 of infancy, and always with a fresh charm. 
 On the shores of the lakes in America, in an 
 unknown desert, which was sublime only from 
 the effect of solitude, a swallow has frequently 
 recalled to my recollection the first years of 
 my life ; as here on the coast' of Syria they 
 recalled them in sight of an ancient land re- 
 sounding with the traditions of history and the 
 voice of ages. 
 
 "The air was so fresh and so balmy that 
 all the passengers remained on deck during 
 the night. At six in the morning I was awa- 
 kened by a confused hum; I opened my eyes, 
 and saw all the pilgrims crowding towards 
 the prow of the vessel. I asked what it was 1 
 they all replied, ' Signer, il Carmelo.' I in- 
 stantly rose from the plank on which I was 
 stretched, and eagerly looked out for the sacred 
 mountain. Every one strove to show it to me, 
 but I could see nothing by reason of the daz- 
 zling of the sun, which now rose above the 
 horizon. The moment had something in it 
 that was august and impressive; all the pil- 
 grims, with their chaplets in their hands, 
 remained in silence, watching for the appear- 
 ance of the Holy Land; the captain prayed 
 aloud, and not a sound was to be heard but 
 that prayer and the rush of the vessel, as it 
 ploughed with a fair wind through the azure 
 sea. From time to time the cry arose, from 
 those in elevated parts of the vessel, that they 
 saw Mount Carmel, and at length I myself 
 perceived it like a round globe under the rays 
 
24 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of the sun. I then fell on my knees, after the 
 manner of the Latin pilgrims. My first im- 
 pression was not the kind of agitation which 
 I experienced on approaching the coast of 
 Greece, but the sight of the cradle of the Israel- 
 ites, and of the country of Christ, filled me 
 with awe and veneration. I was about to 
 descend on the land of miracles on the birth- 
 place of the sublimest poetry that has ever 
 appeared on earth on the spot where, speak- 
 ing only as it has affected human history, the 
 most wonderful event has occurred which 
 ever changed the destinies of the species. I 
 was about to visit the scenes which had been 
 seen before me by Godfrey of Bouillon, Ray- 
 mond of Toulouse, Tancred the Brave, Richard 
 Cceur de Lion, and Saint Louis, whose virtues 
 even the infidels respected. How could an 
 obscure pilgrim like myself dare to tread a 
 soil ennobled by such recollections !" I. 263 
 265. 
 
 Nothing is more striking in the whole work 
 than the description of the Dead Sea, and the 
 Valley of Jordan. He has contrived to bring 
 the features of that extraordinary scene more 
 completely before us than any of the numerous 
 English travellers who have preceded or fol- 
 lowed him on the same route. 
 
 "We quitted the convent at three in the 
 afternoon, ascended the torrent of Cedron, and 
 at length, crossing the ravine, rejoined our 
 route to the east. An opening in the mountain 
 gave us a passing view of Jerusalem. I 
 hardly recognised the city; it seemed a mass 
 of broken rocks ; the sudden appearance of 
 that city of desolation in the midst of the wil- 
 derness had something in it almost terrifying. 
 She was, in truth, the Queen of the Desert. 
 
 "As we advanced, the aspect of the moun- 
 tains continued constantly the same, that is, a 
 powdery white without shade, a tree, or even 
 moss. At half past four, we descended from 
 the lofty chain we had hitherto traversed, and 
 wound along another of inferior elevation. At 
 length we arrived at the last of the chain of 
 heights, which close in on the west the Valley 
 of Jordan and the Dead Sea. The sun was 
 nearly setting ; we dismounted from our 
 horses, and I lay down to contemplate at lei- 
 sure the lake, the valley, and the river. 
 
 " When you speak in general of a valley, 
 you conceive it either cultivated or unculti- 
 vated ; if the former, it is filled with villages, 
 corn-fields, vineyards, and flocks ; if the latter, 
 it presents grass or forests ; if it is watered by 
 a river, that river has windings, and the sinu- 
 osities or projecting points afford agreeable 
 and varied landscapes. But here there is no- 
 thing of the kind. Conceive two long chains 
 of mountains running parallel from north to 
 south, without projections, without recesses, 
 without vegetation. The ridge on the east, 
 called the Mountains of Arabia, is the most 
 elevated; viewed at the distance of eight or 
 ten leagues, it resembles a vast wall, extremely 
 similar to the Jura, as seen from the Lake of 
 Geneva, from its form and azure tint. You 
 can perceive neither summits nor the smallest 
 peaks ; only here and there slight inequalities, 
 as if the hand of the painter who traced the long 
 lines on the sky had occasionally trembled. 
 
 "The chain on the eastern side forms part 
 of the mountains of Judea less elevated and 
 more uneven than the ridge on the west : it 
 differs also in its character ; it exhibits great 
 masses of rock and sand, which occasionally 
 present all the varieties of ruined fortifications, 
 armed men, and floating banners. On the 
 side of Arabia, on the other hand, black rocks, 
 with perpendicular flanks, spread from afar 
 their shadows over the waters of the Dead 
 Sea. The smallest bird could not find in those 
 crevices of rock a morsel of food ; every thing 
 announces a country which has fallen under 
 the divine wrath ; every thing inspires the 
 horror at the incest from whence sprung Am- 
 mon and Moab. 
 
 " The valley which lies between these moun- 
 tains resembles the bottom of a sea, from 
 which the waves have long ago withdrawn : 
 banks ofgravel, a dried bottom rocks covered 
 with salt, deserts of moving sand here and 
 there stunted arbutus shrubs grow with diffi- 
 culty on that arid soil ; their leaves are co- 
 vered with the salt which had nourished their 
 roots, while their bark has the scent and taste 
 of smoke. Instead of villages, nothing but the 
 ruins of towers are to be seen. Through the 
 midst of the valley flows a discoloured stream, 
 which seems to drag its lazy course unwill- 
 ingly towards the lake. Its course is not to 
 be discerned by the water, but by the willows 
 and shnibs which skirt its banks the Arab 
 conceals himself in these thickets to waylay 
 and rob the pilgrim. 
 
 " Such are the places rendered famous by 
 the maledictions of Heaven : that river is the 
 Jordan : that lake is the Dead Sea. It appears 
 with a serene surface; but the guilty cities 
 which are emboso*med in its waves have poi- 
 soned its waters. Its solitary abysses can 
 sustain the life of no living thing; no vessel 
 ever ploughed its bosom ; its shores are with- 
 out trees, without birds, without verdure ; its 
 water, frightfully salt, is so heavy that the 
 highest wind can hardly raise it. 
 
 " In travelling in Judea, an extreme feeling 
 of ennui frequently seizes the mind, from the 
 sterile and monotonous aspect of the objects 
 which are presented to the eye: but when 
 journeying on through these pathless deserts, 
 the expanse seems to spread out to infinity 
 before you, the ennui disappears, and a secret 
 terror is experienced, which, far from lower- 
 ing the soul, elevates and inflames the 
 genius. These extraordinary scenes reveal 
 the land desolated by miracles ; that burning 
 sun, the impetuous eagle, the barren fig-tree ; 
 all the poetry, all the pictures of Scripture are 
 there. Every name recalls a mystery; every 
 grotto speaks of the life to come ; every peak 
 re-echoes the voice of a prophet. God him- 
 self has spoken on these shores: these dried- 
 up torrents, these cleft rocks, these tombs rent 
 asunder, attest his resistless hand: the desert 
 appears mute with terror; and you feel that it 
 has never ventured to break silence since it 
 heard the voice of the Eternal." I. 317. 
 
 "I employed two complete hours in wan- 
 dering on the shores of the Dead Sea, notwith- 
 standing the remonstrances of the Bedouins, 
 i who pressed me to quit that dangerous region. 
 
CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 25 
 
 I was desirous of seeing the Jordan, at the 
 place where it discharges itself into the lake ; 
 but the Arabs refused to lead me thither, be- 
 cause the river, at a league from its mouth, 
 makes a detour to the left, and approaches the 
 mountains of Arabia. It was necessary, there- 
 fore, to direct our steps towards the curve 
 which was nearest us. We struck our tents, 
 and travelled for an hour and a half with ex- 
 cessive difficulty, through a fine and silvery 
 sand. We were moving towards a little wood 
 of willows and tamarinds ; which, to my great 
 surprise, I perceived growing in the midst of 
 the desert. All of a sudden the Bethlemites 
 stopped, and pointed to something at the bottom 
 of a ravine, which had not yet attracted my at- 
 tention. Without being able to say what it 
 was, I perceived a sort of sand rolling on 
 through the fixed banks which surrounded it. 
 I approached it, and saw a yellow stream 
 which could hardly be distinguished from the 
 sand of its two banks. It was deeply furrowed 
 through the rocks, and with difficulty rolled 
 on, a stream surcharged with sand : it was the 
 Jordan. 
 
 "I had seen the great rivers of America, 
 with the pleasure which is inspired by the 
 magnificent works of nature. I had hailed 
 the Tiber -with ardour, and sought with the 
 same interest the Eurotas and the Cephisus ; 
 but on none of these occasions did I expe- 
 rience the intense emotion which I felt on ap- 
 proaching the Jordan. Not only did that river 
 recall the earliest antiquity, and a name ren- 
 dered immortal in the finest poetry, but its 
 banks were the theatre of the miracles of our 
 religion. Judea is the only country which 
 recalls at once the earliest recollections of 
 man, and our first impressions of heaven; 
 and thence arises a mixture of feeling in the 
 mind, which no other part of the world can 
 produce." I. 327, 328. 
 
 The peculiar turn of his mind renders our 
 author, in an especial manner, partial to the 
 description of sad and solitary scenes. The 
 following description of the Valley of Jehosha- 
 phat is in his best style. 
 
 "The Valley qf Jehoshaphat has in all ages 
 served as the burying-place to Jerusalem: you 
 meet there, side by s^ide, monuments of the. 
 most distant times and of the present century. 
 The Jews still come there to die, from all the 
 corners of the earth. A stranger sells to them, 
 for almost its weight in gold, the land which 
 contains the bones of their fathers. Solomon 
 planted that valley: the shadow of the Temple 
 by which it was overhung the torrent, called 
 after grief, which traversed it the Psalms 
 which David there composed the Lamenta- 
 tions of Jeremia.h, which its rocks re-echoed, 
 render it the fitting abode of the tomb. Jesus 
 Christ commenced his Passion in the same 
 place : that innocent David there shed, for the 
 expiation of our sins, those tears which the 
 guilty David let fall for his own transgressions. 
 Few names awaken in our minds recollections 
 so solemn as the Valley of Jehoshaphat. It is 
 so full of mysteries, that, according to the 
 Prophet Joel, all mankind will be assembled 
 there before the Eternal Judge. 
 
 "The aspect of this celebrated valley is 
 
 desolate ; the western side is bounded by a 
 ridge of lofty rocks which support the walls 
 of Jerusalem, above which the towers of the 
 city appear. The eastern is formed by the 
 Mount of Olives, and another eminence called 
 the Mount of Scandal, from the idolatry of 
 Solomon. These two mountains, which adjoin 
 each other, are almost bare, and of a red and 
 sombre hue; on their desert side you see here 
 and there some black and withered vineyards, 
 some wild olives, some ploughed land, covered 
 with hyssop!, and a few ruined chapels. At 
 the bottom of the valley, you perceive a tor- 
 rent, traversed by a single arch, which appears 
 of great antiquity. The stones of the Jewish 
 cemetery appear like a mass of ruins at the 
 foot of the mountain of Scandal, under the 
 village of Siloam. You can hardly distin- 
 guish the buildings of the village from the 
 ruins with which they are surrounded. Three 
 ancient monuments are particularly conspicu- 
 ous : those of Zachariah, Josaphat, and Ab- 
 salom. The sadness of Jerusalem, from which 
 no smoke ascends, and in which no sound is 
 to be heard ; the solitude of the surrounding 
 mountains, where not a living creature is to 
 be seen ; the disorder of those tombs, ruined, 
 ransacked, and half-exposed to view, would 
 almost induce one to believe that the last 
 trump had been heard, and that the dead were 
 about to rise in the Valley of Jehoshaphat." 
 II. 34, 35. 
 
 Chateaubriand, after visiting with the devo- 
 tion of a pilgrim the Holy Sepulchre, and all 
 the scenes of our Saviour's sufferings, spent a 
 day in examining the scenes of the Crusaders' 
 triumphs, and comparing the descriptions in 
 Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered with the places 
 where the events which they recorded actually 
 occurred. He found them in general so ex- 
 tremely exact, that it was difficult to avoid the 
 conviction that the poet had been on the spot. 
 He even fancied he discovered the scene of 
 the Flight of Erminia, and the inimitable com- 
 bat and death of Clorinda. 
 
 From the Holy Land, he sailed to Egypt; 
 and we have the following graphic picture of 
 the approach to that cradle of art and civili- 
 zation. 
 
 " On the 20th October, at five in the morn- 
 ing, I perceived on the green and ruffled sur- 
 face of the water a line of foam, and beyond it 
 a pale and still ocean. The captain clapped 
 me on the shoulder, and said in French, 'Nilo;' 
 and soon we entered and glided through those 
 celebrated waters. A few palm-trees and a 
 minaret announce the situation of Rosetta, but 
 the town itself is invisible. These shores re- 
 semble those of the coast of Florida; they are 
 totally different from those of Italy or Greece, 
 every thing recalls the tropical regions. 
 
 "At ten o'clock we at length discovered, 
 beneath the palm-trees, a line of sand which 
 extended westward to the promontory of 
 Aboukir, before which we were obliged to 
 pass before arriving opposite to Alexandria. 
 At five in the evening, the shore suddenly 
 changed its aspect. The palm-trees seemed 
 planted in lines along the shore, like the elms 
 along the roads in France. Nature appears to 
 take a pleasure in thus recalling the ideas of 
 C 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 civilization in a country where that civiliza- 
 tion first arose, and barbarity has now resumed 
 its sway. It was eleven o'clock when we cast 
 anchor before the city, and as it was some 
 time before we could get ashore, I had full 
 leisure to follow out the contemplation which 
 the scene awakened. 
 
 "I saw on my right several vessels, and the 
 castle, which stands on the site of the Tower 
 of Pharos. On my left, the horizon seemed 
 shut in by sand-hills, ruins, and obelisks ; im- 
 mediately in front, extended a long wall, with 
 a few houses appearing above it ; not a light 
 was to be seen on shore, and not a sound came 
 from the city. This, nevertheless, was Alex- 
 andria, the rival of Memphis and Thebes, 
 which once contained three millions of inhabit- 
 ants, which was the sanctuary of the Muses, 
 and the abode of science amidst a benighted 
 world. Here were heard the orgies of Antony 
 and Cleopatra, and here was Caesar received 
 with more than regal splendour by the Queen 
 of the East. But in vain I listened. A fatal 
 talisman had plunged the people into a hope- 
 less calm : that talisman is the despotism 
 which extinguishes every joy, which stifles 
 even the cry of suffering. And what sound 
 could arise in a city of which at least a third 
 is abandoned; another third of which is sur- 
 rounded only by the tombs of its former in- 
 habitants ; and of which the third, which still 
 survives between those dead extremities, is a 
 species of breathing trunk, destitute of the 
 force even to shake off its chains in the middle 
 between ruins and the tomb?" II. 163. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Chateaubriand did 
 not visit Upper Egypt. His ardent and learned 
 mind would have found ample room for elo- 
 quent declamation, amidst the gigantic ruins 
 of Luxor, and the Sphynx avenues of Thebes. 
 The inundation of the Nile, however, pre- 
 vented him from seeing even the Pyramids 
 nearer than Grand Cairo; and when on the 
 verge of that interesting region, he was com- 
 pelled unwillingly to retrace his steps to the 
 French shores. After a tempestuous voyage, 
 along the coast of Lybia, he cast anchor off 
 the ruins of Carthage; and thus describes 
 his feelings on surveying those venerable 
 remains : 
 
 " From the summit of Byrsa, the eye em- 
 braces the ruins of Carthage, which are more 
 considerable than are generally imagined; 
 they resemble those of Sparta, having nothing 
 well preserved, but embracing a considerable 
 space. I saw them in the middle of February: 
 the olives, the fig-trees, were already bursting 
 into leaf: large bushes of angelica and acan- 
 thus formed tufts of verdure, amidst the re- 
 mains of marble of every colour. In the dis- 
 tance, I cast my eyes over the Isthmus, the 
 double sea, the distant isles, a cerulean sea, a 
 smiling plain, and azure mountains. I saw 
 forests, and vessels, and aqueducts ; moorish 
 villages, and Mahometan hermitages ; glitter- 
 ing minarets, and the white buildings of Tunis. 
 Surrounded with the most touching recollec- 
 tions, I thought alternately of Dido, Sophonis- 
 ba, and the noble wife of Asdrubal ; I contem- 
 plated the vast plains where the legions of 
 Annibal, Scipio, and Caesar were buried : My 
 
 eyes sought for the site of Utica. Alas ! The 
 remains of the palace of Tiberius still remain 
 in the island of Capri, and you search in vain 
 at Utica for the house of Cato. Finally, the 
 terrible Vandals, the rapid Moors, passed be- 
 fore my recollection, which terminated at last 
 on Saint Louis, expiring on that inhospitable 
 shore. May the story of the death of that 
 prince terminate this itinerary; fortunate to 
 re-enter, as it were, into my country by the 
 ancient monument of his virtues, and to close 
 at the sepulchre of that King of holy memory 
 my long pilgrimage to the tombs of illustrious 
 men." II. 257, 258. 
 
 "As long as his strength permitted, the 
 dying monarch gave instructions to his son 
 Philip ; and when his voice failed him, he 
 wrote with a faltering hand these precepts, 
 which no Frenchman, worthy of the name, 
 will ever be able to read without emotion. 
 ' My son, the first thing which I enjoin you is 
 to love God with all your heart; for without 
 that no man can be saved. Beware of vio- 
 lating his laws; rather endure the worst tor- 
 ments, than sin against his commandments. 
 Should he send you adversity, receive it with 
 humility, and bless the hand which chastens 
 you ; and believe that you have well deserved 
 it, and that it will turn to your weal. Should 
 he try you with prosperity, thank him with 
 humility of heart, and be not elated by his 
 goodness. Do justice to every one, as well 
 the poor as the rich. Be liberal, free, and 
 courteous to your servants, and cause them to 
 love as well as fear you. Should any contro- 
 versy or tumult arise, sift it to the bottom, 
 whether the result be favourable or unfavour- 
 able to your interests. Take care, in an espe- 
 cial manner, that your subjects live in peace 
 and tranquillity under your reign. Respect 
 and preserve their privileges, such as they 
 have received them from their ancestors, and 
 preserve them with care and love. And now, 
 I give you every blessing which a father can 
 bestow on his child; praying the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit, that they may defend you from 
 all adversities ; and that we may again, after 
 this mortal life is ended, be united before God, 
 and adore his Majesty for ever !' " II. 264. 
 
 "The style of Chateaubriand," says Napo- 
 leon, "is not that of Racine, it is that of a 
 prophet;' he has received from nature the 
 sacred flame ; it breathes in all his \vorks."* 
 It is of no common man being a political oj>po- 
 nent that Napoleon would have said these 
 words. Chateaubriand had done nothing to 
 gain favour with the French Emperor ; on the 
 contrary, he irritated him by throwing up his 
 employment and. leaving his country upon the 
 assassination of the Duke d'Enghien. In truth, 
 nothing is more remarkable amidst the selfish- 
 ness of political apostasy in France, than the 
 uniform consistence and disinterestedness of 
 this great man's opinions. His principles, 
 indeed, were not all the same at fifty as at 
 twenty-five ; we should be glad to know whose 
 are, excepting those who are so obtuse as to 
 derive no light from the extension of know- 
 ledge and the acquisitions of experience? 
 
 * Memoirs of Napoleon, iv. 342. 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 27 
 
 Change is so far from being despicable, that 
 it is highly honourable in itself, ami when it 
 proceeds from the natural modification of the 
 mind, from the progress of years, or the lessons 
 of more extended experience. It becomes 
 contemptible only when it arises on the sug- 
 gestions of interest, or the desires of ambition. 
 Now, Chateaubriand's changes of opinion have 
 all been in opposition to his interest; and he I 
 has suffered at different periods of his life from | 
 his resistance to the mandates of authority, and j 
 his rejection of the calls of ambition. In early 
 life, he was exiled from France, and shared in 
 all the hardships of the emigrants, from his 
 attachment to Royalist principles. At the 
 earnest request of Napoleon, he accepted of- 
 fice under the Imperial Government, but he 
 relinquished it, and again became an exile 
 upon the murder of the Duke d'Enghien. The 
 influence of his writings was so powerful in 
 favour of the Bourbons, at the period of the 
 Restoration, that Louis XVIII. truly said, they 
 were worth more than an army. He followed 
 the dethroned Monarch to Ghent, and con- 
 tributed much, by his powerful genius, to con- 
 solidate the feeble elements of his power, after 
 the fall of Napoleon. Called to the helm of 
 affairs in 1824, he laboured to accommodate 
 the temper of the monarchy to the increasing 
 spirit of freedom in (he country, and fell into 
 disgrace with the Court, and was distrusted by 
 the Royal Family, because he strove to intro- 
 duce those popular modifications into the 'ad- 
 ministration of affairs, which might have pre- 
 vented the revolution of July ; and finally, he 
 has resisted all the efforts of the Citizen-King 
 to engage his great talents in defence of the 
 throne of the Barricades. True to his princi- 
 ples, he has exiled himself from France, to 
 preserve his independence; and consecrated 
 in a foreign land his illustrious name, to the 
 defence of the child of misfortune. 
 
 Chateaubriand is not only an eloquent and 
 beautiful writer, he is also a profound scholar, 
 and an enlightened thinker. His knowledge 
 of history and classical literature is equalled 
 only by his intimate acquaintance with the 
 early annals of the church, and the fathers of 
 the Catholic faith ; while in his speeches deli- 
 vered in the Chamber of Peers since the 
 restoration, will be found not only the most 
 
 eloquent but the most complete and satisfac- 
 tory dissertations on the political slate of 
 France during that period, which is anywhere 
 to be met with. It is a singular circumstance, 
 that an author of such great and varied ac- 
 quirements, who is universally allowed by all 
 parties in France to be their greatest living 
 writer, should be hardly known except by 
 name to the great body of readers in this 
 country. 
 
 His greatest work, that on which his fame 
 will rest with posterity, is the "Genius of 
 Christianity," from which such ample quota- 
 tions have already been given. The next is 
 the "Martyrs," a romance, in which he has 
 introduced an exemplification of the principles 
 of Christianity, in the early sufferings of the 
 primitive church, and enriched the narrative 
 by the splendid description of the scenery in 
 Egypt, Greece, and Palestine, which he had 
 visited during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and 
 all the stores of learning which a life spent in 
 classical and ecclesiastical lore could accumu- 
 late. The last of his-considerable publications 
 is the " Etudes Historiques," a work eminently 
 characteristic of that superiority in historical 
 composition, whiqh we have allowed to the 
 French modern writers over their contempo- 
 raries in this country; and which, we fear, 
 another generation, instructed when too late 
 by the blood and the tears of a Revolution, 
 will be alone able fully to appreciate. Its ob- 
 ject is to trace the influence of Christianity 
 from its first spread in the Roman empire to 
 the rise of civilization in the Western world; 
 a field in which he goes over the ground trod 
 by Gibbon, and demonstrates the unbounded 
 benefits derived from religion in all the institu- 
 tions of modern times. In this noble under- 
 taking, he has been aided, with a still more 
 philosophical mind, though inferior fire and 
 eloquence, by Guizot; a writer, who, equally 
 with his illustrous rival, is as yet unknown, 
 save by report, in this country; but from 
 whose joint labours is to be dated the spring 
 of a pure and philosophical system of religious 
 inquiry in France, and the commencement of 
 that revival of manly devotion, in which the 
 antidote, and the only antidote, to the fanati- 
 cism of infidelity is to be found. 
 
 NAPOLEON.* 
 
 THE age of Napoleon is one, of the delinea- 
 tion of which history and biography will never 
 be weary. Such is the variety of incidents 
 which it exhibits the splendid and heart-stir- 
 ring events which it records the immortal 
 characters which it portrays and the import- 
 ant consequences which have followed from 
 it, that the interest felt in its delineation, so 
 
 * Memoires do la Diichesse D' Ahrnntea, 2 vols. Colhurn. 
 London. The translations are executed by ourselves, as 
 we have not seen the English version. 
 
 far from diminishing, seems rather to increase 
 with the lapse of time, and will continue 
 through all succeeding ages, like the eras of 
 Themistocles, Caesar, and the Crusades, to 
 form the noblest and most favourite subjects 
 of historical description. 
 
 Numerous as have been the Memoirs which 
 have issued from the French press during the 
 last fifteen years, in relation to this eventful 
 era, the public passion for information on it is 
 still undiminished. Every new set of memoirs 
 which is ushered into the world with an histo- 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 rical name, or any pretensions to authenticity, 
 is eagerly read by all classes on the continent. 
 English translations generally appear in due 
 time, but they are, in general, so extremely ill 
 executed, as to give no conception whatever 
 of the spirit of the original ; and as there is 
 not one reader out of a hundred who can 
 read French with such facility as to make it a 
 matter of pleasure, the consequence is, that 
 these delightful works are still but imperfectly 
 known to the British public. Every person 
 intimately acquainted with their composition, 
 must have perceived in what an extremely 
 unfavourable aspect they appear in our ordi- 
 nary translations ; and in the utter ignorance 
 of the principles of revolution which pervades 
 the great bulk of the best informed classes in 
 this country, compared to what obtains on the 
 other side of the Channel, is to be found the 
 best evidence, that the great historical works 
 which have recently appeared on the events 
 of the last forty years in France, have had no 
 share whatever in the formation of public 
 opinion in this country. 
 
 The Duchess of Abrantes undertakes the 
 work of Memoirs of her own Times with sin- 
 gular and almost peculiar advantages. Her 
 mother, Madame Permon, a Corsican lady of 
 high rank, was extremely intimate with the 
 family of Napoleon. She rocked the future 
 emperor on her knee from the day of his birth, 
 and the intimacy of the families continued till 
 he was removed to the command of the army 
 of Italy, in April, 1796. The authoress herself, 
 though then a child, recounts with admirable 
 esprit, and all the air of -truth, a number of 
 early anecdotes of Napoleon ; and after his 
 return from Egypt she was married to Junot, 
 then Governor of Paris, and subsequently ad- 
 mitted as an habitual guest in the court circle 
 of the First Consul. In her Memoirs, we have 
 thus a picture of the private and domestic life 
 of Napoleon from his cradle to his grave ; we 
 trace him through all the gradations of the 
 Ecole Militaire, the artillery service, the cam- 
 paigns of Italy, the return from Egypt, the 
 Consulate, and the Empire, and live with those 
 who have filled the world with their renown, 
 as we would do with our most intimate ac- 
 quaintances and friends. 
 
 It has always struck us as a singular proof 
 of the practical sagacity and just discrimina- 
 tion of character in Sir Walter Scott, that 
 though his Life of Napoleon was published 
 before the Memoirs of Bourienne, the view 
 which he gives of Napoleon's character is 
 substantially the same as that drawn by his 
 confidential secretary, his school companion, 
 and the depositary of his inmost thoughts. 
 This is very remarkable. The French are 
 never weary of declaiming on the inaccuracies 
 of the Scottish biographer, and declare that he 
 wrote history in romance, and romance in 
 history; but they have never been able to 
 point out any serious or important error in 
 his narrative. The true reproach against Sir 
 Walter's work is of a different kind, and con- 
 sists in this, not that he has incorrectly stated 
 facts, but unjustly coloured opinions ; that he 
 has not done justice to any of the parties 
 whose conflicts desolated France during the 
 
 revolution, and has written rather in the spirit 
 of an English observer, than one participant 
 in the feelings of the actors in those mighty 
 events. There is but one way in which this 
 defect can be avoided by a native of this 
 country, and that is, by devoting himself for a 
 long course of years to the study of the me- 
 moirs and historians of the Revolution, and by 
 acquiring, by incessant converse with the 
 writings, somewhat of the sphit which ani- 
 mates the people of the continent. The object 
 to be attained by this, is not to imbibe their 
 prejudices, or become infatuated by their 
 errors, but to know and appreciate their ideas, 
 and do that justice to passions directed against 
 this country, which we willingly award to those 
 excited in its favour, 
 
 The character of Napoleon has been drawn 
 by his contemporaries with more graphic 
 power than any other conqueror in history; 
 and yet so varied and singular is the combina- 
 tion of qualities which it exhibits, and so much 
 at variance with what we usually observe in 
 human nature around us, that there is no man 
 can say he has a clear perception of what it 
 actually was : Brave, without being chival- 
 rous ; sometimes humane, seldom generous ; 
 insatiable in ambition ; inexhaustible in re- 
 sources ; without a thirst for blood, but totally 
 indifferent to it when his interests were con- 
 cerned ; without any fixed ideas on religion, 
 but a strong perception of its necessity as a 
 part of the mechanism of government ; a great 
 general with a small army, a mighty conqueror 
 with a large one ; gifted with extraordinary 
 powers of perception, and the clearest insight 
 into every subject connected with mankind ; 
 without extensive information derived from 
 study ; but the rarest aptitude for making him- 
 self master of every subject from actual ob- 
 servation ; ardently devoted to glory, and yet 
 incapable of the self-sacrifice which consti- 
 tutes its highest honours ; he exhibited a mix- 
 ture of great and selfish qualities, such as 
 perhaps never were before combined in any 
 single individual. His greatest defect was the 
 constant and systematic disregard of truth 
 which pervaded all Iris thoughts. He was 
 totally without the droiture, or honesty, which 
 forms the best and most dignified feature in 
 the Gothic or German character. The maxim, 
 Magna est veritas et pravalebit, never seems to 
 have crqssed his mind. His intellect was the 
 perfection of that of the Celt or Greek ; with- 
 out a shadow of the magnanimity and honesty 
 which has ever characterized the Roman and 
 Gothic races of mankind. Devoted as he was 
 to the captivating idol of posthumous fame ; 
 deeming, as he did, that to live in the recollec- 
 tion and admiration of future ages " constituted 
 the true immortality of the soul," he never 
 seems to have been aware that truth is essen- 
 tial to the purest and most lasting celebrity ; 
 and that the veil which artifice or flattery 
 draws over falsehood during the prevalence 
 of power, will be borne away with a merciless 
 hand on its termination. 
 
 In the Memoirs of Napoleon and of the 
 Archduke Charles, the opposite character of 
 their minds, and of the rtices to which they 
 belonged, is singularly portrayed. Those of 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 29 
 
 the latter are written with a probity, an integ- 
 rity, and an impartiality above all praise ; he 
 censures himself for his faults with a severity 
 unknown to Caesar or Frederick, and touches 
 with a light hand on those glorious successes 
 which justly gained for him the title of Saviour 
 of Germany. Cautious, judicious, and reason- 
 able, his arguments convince the understand- 
 ing, but neither kindle the imagination nor 
 inspire the fancy. In the Memoirs of Napo- 
 leon, on the other hand, dictated to Montholon 
 and Gourgaud, there are to be seen in every 
 page symptoms of the clearest and most for- 
 cible intellect ; a coup d'ceil over every subject 
 of matchless vigour and reach; an ardent and 
 vehement imagination ; passions which have 
 ripened under a southern sun, and conceptions 
 which have shared in the luxuriant growth of 
 tropical climates. Yet amidst all these varied 
 excellencies, we often regret the simple bon- 
 homie of the German narrative. We admire 
 the clearness of the division, the lucid view of 
 every subject, the graphic power of the pic- 
 tures, and the forcible perspicuity of the lan- 
 guage ; but we have a total want of confidence 
 in the veracity of the narrative. In every page 
 we discover something suppressed or coloured, 
 to magnify the importance of the writer in the 
 estimation of those who study his work; and 
 while we incessantly recur to it for striking 
 political views, or consummate military criti- 
 cism, we must consult wprks of far inferior 
 celebrity for the smallest details in which his 
 fame was personally concerned. We may 
 trust him in speculations on the future destiny 
 of nations, the march of revolutions, or the 
 cause of military success ; but we cannot rely 
 on the numbers stated to have been engaged, 
 or the killed and wounded in a single engage- 
 ment. 
 
 The character of Napoleon has mainly rest- 
 ed, since the publication of his work, on Bou- 
 rienne's Memoirs. The peculiar opportunities 
 which he had of becoming acquainted with the 
 inmost thoughts of the First Consul, and the 
 ability and graphic powers of his narrative, 
 have justly secured for it an immense reputa- 
 tion. It is probable that the private character 
 and hidden motives of Napoleon will mainly 
 rest with posterity on that celebrated work. 
 Every day brings out something to support its 
 veracity ; and the concurring testimony of the 
 most intelligent of the contemporary writers 
 tends to show, that his narrative is, upon the 
 whole, the most faithful that has yet been pub- 
 lished. Still it is obvious that there is a secret 
 rankling at the bottom of Bourienne's heart 
 against his old schoolfellow. He could hardly 
 be expected to forgive the extraordinary rise 
 and matchless celebrity of one who had so long 
 been his equal. He evinces the highest admi- 
 ration for the Emperor, and, upon the whole, 
 has probably done him justice ; yet, upon par- 
 ticular points, a secret spleen is apparent; and 
 though there seems no ground for discrediting 
 most of his facts, yet we must not in every in- 
 stance adopt implicitly the colouring in which 
 he has painted them. It is quite plain that 
 Bourienne was involved in some money trans- 
 actions, in which Napoleon conceived that he 
 made an improper use of the state secrets 
 
 which came to his knowledge, in his official 
 situation of private secretary; and that to this 
 c.;iii^' his exile into honourable and lucrative 
 banishment at Hamburgh is to be ascribed. 
 Whether this banishment was justly or un- 
 justly inflicted, is immaterial in considering 
 the credit due to the narrative. If he was hard- 
 ly dealt with, while our opinion of his indivi- 
 dual integrity must rise, the weight of the 
 feelings of exasperation with which he was 
 animated must receive a proportional augmen- 
 tation. 
 
 The Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes 
 are well qualified to correct the bias, and sup- 
 ply the deficiencies of those of his private se- 
 cretary. As a woman, she had no personal 
 rivalry with Napoleon, and could not feel her- 
 self mortified by his transcendant success. As 
 the wife of one of his favourite and most pros- 
 perous generals, she had no secret reasons of 
 animosity against the author of her husband's 
 elevation. Her intimate acquaintance also 
 with Napoleon, from his very infancy, and be- 
 fore flattery or power had aggravated the faults 
 of his character, renders her peculiarly well 
 qualified to portray its original tendency. Many 
 new lights, accordingly, have been thrown 
 upon the eventful period of his reign, as well 
 as his real character, by her Memoirs. His 
 disposition appears in a more amiable light 
 his motives are of a higher kind, than from 
 preceding accounts; and we rise from the pe- 
 rusal of her fascinating volumes with the im- 
 pression, which the more extensively we study 
 human nature we shall find to be the more 
 correct, that men are generally more amiable 
 at bottom than we should be inclined to ima- 
 gine from their public conduct; that their faults 
 are fully as much the result of the circum- 
 stances in which they are placed, as of any 
 inherent depravity of disposition ; and that 
 deal ing gently with those who are carried along 
 on the stream of revolution, we should reserve 
 the weight of our indignation for those who 
 put the perilous torrent in motion. 
 
 But leaving these general speculations, it is 
 time to lay before our readers a few extracts 
 from these volumes themselves, and to com- 
 municate some portion of the pleasure which 
 we have derived from their perusal. In doing 
 so we shall adopt our usual plan of translating 
 the passages ourselves ; for it is impossible 
 to convey the least idea of the original in the 
 circumlocutions of the ordinary London ver- 
 sions. 
 
 Of the early youth of Napoleon at the Ecole 
 Militaire of Paris, with the management of 
 which he was in the highest degree dissatisfied, 
 we have the following interesting account : 
 
 " When we got into the carriage, Napoleon, 
 who had contained himself before his sister, 
 broke out into the most violent invectives 
 against the administration of such places as the 
 Maison St.. Cyr, for young ladies, and the Ecole 
 Militaire for cadets. My uncle, who was ex- 
 tremely quick in his temper, at last got out of 
 all patience at the tone of cutting bitterness 
 which appeared in his language, and told him 
 so without reserve. Napoleon was then silent, 
 for enough of good breeding still remained to 
 make youth respect the voice of those advanced 
 c 2 
 
30 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 in years. But his heart was so full as to be 
 almost bursting. Shortly after he led back the 
 conversation to the subject, and at last his ex- 
 pressions became so offensive that my father 
 said to him rudely, ' Be silent; it ill becomes 
 you, who are educated at the expense of the 
 King, to speak in that manner.' 
 
 " My mother has often since told me, she 
 was afraid Napoleon would be suffocated at 
 these words. In an instant he became pale 
 and inarticulate. When he recovered his voice, 
 he exclaimed in a voice trembling with emo- 
 tion, ' I am not an eleve of the King, but of the 
 State: 
 
 " ' A fine distinction, truly,' replied my un- 
 cle. ' Whether you are an eleve of the King, 
 or of the State, is of no consequence; besides, 
 is not the King the State"? I desire that you 
 will not speak in such terms of your benefactor 
 in my presence.' 
 
 " ' I will do nothing to displease you, M. 
 Comnene,' replied the young man. ' Permit me 
 only to add, that if I was the master, and had the 
 power to alter these regulations, they should 
 be very different, and for the good of the whole,' 
 
 " I have recounted that scene only to remark 
 these words ' If I was the 'master.' He has 
 since become so, and all the world knows what 
 he has done for the administration of the Ecole 
 Militaire. I am convinced that he long enter- 
 tained a painful sense of the humiliation he 
 underwent at that establishment. At our ar- 
 rival in Paris, he had been a year there, and 
 that whole period was one of contradiction and 
 disgust. He was not loved by his companions. 
 Many persons who were acquainted with my 
 father, declared to him that Napoleon's charac- 
 ter was such as could not be rendered sociable. 
 He was discontented with every thing, and ex- 
 pressed his censure aloud in such decided 
 terms, as made him pass with these old wor- 
 thies for a young firebrand. The result of this 
 conduct was, that his removal into a regiment 
 was unanimously demanded by every one at 
 the school, and thus it advanced the period of 
 his promotion. He obtained a sub-lieutenancy, 
 which was stationed at Grenoble. Before his 
 departure, he came to live some time with us: 
 my sister was at a convent, but she came fre- 
 quently home during the period of her vacation. 
 I recollect that the day when he first put on his 
 uniform, he was as joyous as young men gene- 
 rally are on such an occasion : but his boots 
 gave a singularly ridiculous appearance to his 
 figure: they were of such enormous dimensions, 
 that his little thin legs quite disappeared with- 
 in them. Everybody knows that nothing has 
 so quick an eye for the ridiculous as childhood, 
 so the moment that my sister and I saw him 
 come into the room with these enormous boots, 
 we burst out into immoderate fits of laughter. 
 Then, as subsequently, he could not endure 
 pleasantry, when he was its object: my sister, 
 who was considerably older than I, answered, 
 that as he had girded on his sword, he should 
 consider himself as the Chevalier of Dames, 
 and be highly flattered by their joking with 
 him. 
 
 " ' It is easy to see,' said Napoleon with a 
 haughty air, 'that you are a little miss just Jet 
 loose from school.' 
 
 "My sister was then thirteen years old: it 
 may easily be imagined how such an expres- 
 sion hurt her. She was of a very gentle dis- 
 position, but neither she nor any other wo- 
 man, whatever her age or disposition may be, 
 can bear a direct insult to her vanity that of 
 Cecile was keenly offended at the expression 
 of little miss escaped from school. 
 
 "'And you,' said she, ' are nothing but a 
 Puss IN BOOTS.' 
 
 " Everyone burst out a laughing: the stroke 
 had told most effectually. I cannot describe 
 the wrath of Napoleon ; he answered nothing, 
 and it was as well he did not. My mother 
 thought the epithet so well applied, that she 
 laughed with all her heart. Napoleon, though 
 little accustomed at that time to the usage of 
 the world, had a mind too fine, too strong an 
 instinctive perception, not to see that it was 
 necessary to be silent when his adversary was 
 a woman, and personalities were dealt in: 
 whatever her age was, she was entitled to re- 
 spect. At least, such was then the code of po- 
 liteness in those who dined at table. Now that 
 utility and personal interest alone are the order 
 of the day, the consumption of time in such 
 pieces of politeness is complained of: and 
 every one grudges the sacrifices necessary to 
 carry into the world his little contingent of so- 
 ciability. 
 
 " Bonaparte, though grievously piqued at 
 the unfortunate epithet applied to him by my 
 sister, affected to disregard it, and began to 
 laugh like the rest; and to prove that he bore 
 her no ill will on that account, he bought a 
 little present, on which was engraved a Puss 
 in Boots, running before the carriage of the 
 Marquis of Canabus. This present cost him a 
 good deal, which assorted ill with the strait- 
 ened state of his finances. He added a beau- 
 tiful edition of 'Puss in Boots,' for my sister, 
 telling her that it was a Souvenir which he beg- 
 ged her to keep for his sake. 
 
 " ' The story-book,' said my mother, ' is too 
 much : if there had only been the engraving, 
 it was all well ; but the book for Cecile, shows 
 you were piqued against her.' 
 
 " He gave his word to the contrary. But I 
 still think with my mother, that he was piqued, 
 and bitterly so: the whole story was of no small 
 service to me at a future time, as will appear 
 in the sequel to these memoirs." I. 52, 53. 
 
 Several interesting anecdotes are preserved 
 of the Reign of Terror, singularly characteris- 
 tic of the horrors of that eventful period. The 
 following picture is evidently drawn from the 
 life : 
 
 " On the following day, my brother Albert 
 was obliged tp remain a considerable time at 
 home, to put in order the papers which my 
 father had directed to be burnt. He went out 
 at three o'clock to see us: he found on the road 
 groups of men in a state of horrible and bloody 
 drunkenness. Many were naked down to the 
 waist; their arms, their breasts bathed in blood. 
 At the end of their pikes, they bore fragments 
 of clothes and bloody remnants : their looks 
 were haggard; their eyes inflamed. As he ad- 
 vanced, these groups became more frequent 
 and hideous. My brother, mortally alarmed 
 as to our fate, and determined at all hazards 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 31 
 
 to rejoin us, pushed on his horse along the 
 Boulevard where he then was, and arrived in 
 front of the Palace Beaumarchais. There he 
 was arrested by an immense crowd, composed 
 of the same naked and bloody men, but with 
 an expression of countenance altogether infer- 
 nal. They set up hideous cries : they sung, 
 they danced ; the Saturnalia of Hell were be- 
 fore him. No sooner did they see the cabriolet 
 of Albert, than they raised still louder yells: 
 an aristocrat! an aristocrat! and in a moment 
 the cabriolet was surrounded by a raging mul- 
 titude, in the midst of which an object was 
 elevated and presented to his view. Troubled 
 as the sight of my brother was, he could dis- 
 tinguish long white hair, clotted with blood, 
 and a face beautiful even in death. The figure 
 is brought nearer, and its lips placed on his. 
 The unhappy wretch set up a frightful cry. 
 He knew the head: it was that of the Princess 
 Lamballe. 
 
 "The coachman whipped the horse with all 
 his strength ; and the generous animal, with 
 that aversion for blood which characterizes its 
 race, rushed from that spectacle of horror with 
 redoubled speed. The frightful trophy was 
 overturned, with the cannibals who bore it, by 
 the wheels of the carriage, and a thousand 
 imprecations followed my brother, who lay 
 stretched out insensible in the bottom of the 
 cabriolet. 
 
 "Serious consequences resulted to my bro- 
 ther from that scene of horror. He was car- 
 ried to a physician, where he was soon taken 
 seriously ill of a burning fever. In his delirium, 
 the frightful figure was ever present to his ima- 
 gination. He never ceased, for days together, 
 to see that livid head and those fair tresses 
 bathed in blood. For years after, he could not 
 recall the recollection of that horrible event 
 without falling into a swoon, nor think of those 
 days of wo without the most vivid'emotion. 
 
 "A singular circumstance concluded this 
 tale of horror. My brother, in 1802, when 
 Commissary General of Police at' Marseilles, 
 received secret instructions to watch, with 
 peculiar care, over a man named Raymonet, 
 but whose real name was different. He lived 
 in a small cottage on the banks of the sea; ap- 
 peared in comfortable circumstances, but had 
 no relation nor friend; he lived alone in his 
 solitary cabin, and received every morning his 
 provisions from an old woman, who brought 
 them to his gate. The secret instructions of 
 the police revealed the fact, that this person 
 had been one of the principal assassins at the 
 Abbaye and La Force, in September, 1792, and 
 was in an especial manner -noted as the most 
 cruel of the assassins of the Princess Lam- 
 balle. 
 
 " One morning my brother received intelli- 
 gence that this man was at the point of death; 
 and, gracious God! what a death! For three 
 days he had endured all the torments of hell. 
 The accident which had befallen him was per- 
 fectly natural in its origin, but it had made him 
 suffer the most excruciating pains. He was 
 alone in his habitation ; he was obliged to drag 
 himself to the nearest surgeon to obtain assist- 
 ance, but it was too late : an operation was im- 
 possible, and would not even have assuaged 
 
 the pains of the dying wretch. He refused 
 alike religious succour and words of co 
 tion. His deathbed was a chair of torture in- 
 comparably more agonizing than the martyr- 
 dom of a Christian. He died with blasphemies 
 in his mouth, like the Reprobate in Dante's 
 Inferno." I. 95. 
 
 The French, who have gone through the 
 Revolution, frequently complain that there are 
 no descriptions given in any historical works 
 which convey the least idea of the Reign of 
 Terror; so infinitely did the reality of that 
 dreadful period exceed all that description can 
 convey of the terrible. There might, however, 
 we are persuaded, be extracted from the con- 
 temporary Memoirs (for in no other quarter 
 can the materials be found) a picture of that 
 memorable era, which would exceed all that 
 Shakspeare or Dante had figured of human 
 atrocity, and take its place beside the plague 
 in Thucydides, and the Annals of Tacitus, as a 
 lasting beacon to the human race, of the un- 
 heard of horrors following in the train of de- 
 mocratic ascendancy. 
 
 One of the most curious parts of the Duch- 
 ess's work is that which relates to the arrest 
 of Napoleon after the fall of Robespierre, in 
 consequence of the suspicions that attached to 
 him, from his mission to Genoa with the bro- 
 ther of that tyrant. It appears, that whatever 
 he may have become afterwards, Napoleon was 
 at that period an ardent republican: not pro- 
 bably because the principles of democracy 
 were suited to his inclinations, but because he 
 found i in the favour of that faction, then the 
 .ruling power in France, the only means of gra- 
 tifying his ambition. Salicetti, one of the de- 
 puties from Corsica, occasioned his arrest after 
 the fall of Robespierre, and he was actually a 
 few days in custody. Subsequently, Salicetti 
 himself was denounced by the Convention, and 
 concealed, in the house of Madame Permon, 
 mother to the Duchess of Abrantes. The whole 
 details which follow this event are highly inte- 
 resting; and as they afford one of the few really 
 generous traits of Napoleon's character, we 
 willingly give them a place. 
 
 " The retreat of Salicetti in our house was 
 admirably contrived. His little cabinet was 
 so stuffed with cushions and tapestry, that the 
 smallest sound could not be heard. No one 
 could have imagined where he was concealed. 
 
 " On the following morning at eleven o'clock, 
 Napoleon arrived. He was dressed in his usual 
 costume ; a gray great-coat buttoned up to the 
 throat, a black neckcloth, round hat, which 
 came down over the eyes. To say the truth, 
 at that period no one was elegantly dressed, 
 and the personal appearance of Napoleon did 
 not appear so singular as it now does, upon 
 looking back to the period. He had in his 
 hand a bouquet of violets, which he presented 
 to my mother. That piece of gallantry was so 
 unusual in him, that we immediately began to 
 laugh. " It appears,' said he, ' I am not 
 at my new duties of Cavaliere Servonto.' 
 Then changing the subject, he added, 4 Well, 
 Madame Permon, Salicetti has, in his turn, 
 reaped the bitter fruits of arrest. They must 
 be the more difficult to swallow, that he and 
 his associates have planted the trees on which 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 they grow.' ' What !' said my^mother, with an 
 air of surprise, and making a 'sign to me at the 
 same time to shut the door, ' is Salicetti arrest- 
 ed]' 'Do you not know,' replied Napoleon, 
 ' that his arrest was yesterday decreed at the 
 Assembly] I thought you knew it so well 
 that he was concealed in your house.' ' In my 
 house !' replied my mother, with a well-feignec 
 air of surprise ; ' Napoleon, my dear child, you 
 are mad! In my house ! That implies that ] 
 have one, which unfortunately is not the case 
 My dear General, I beg you will not repeal 
 such nonsense. What have I done to entitle 
 you thus to sport with me as if I were deranged 
 for I can call it nothing else ]' 
 
 "At these words Napoleon rose up; he 
 crossed his arms, advanced immediately op- 
 posite to my mother, where, he stood for some 
 time without saying a word. My mother bore 
 without flinching, his piercing look, and did not 
 so much as drop her eyelid under that eagle's 
 eye. ' Madame Permon,' said he at length, 
 * Salicetti is concealed in your house: nay, do 
 not interrupt me. I do not know it for certain, 
 but I have no doubt of it, because yesterday at 
 five o'clock he was seen on the Boulevard, 
 coming in this direction, after he had received 
 intelligence of the decree of the Assembly. He 
 has no friend in this quarter who would risk life 
 and liberty to save him but yourself; there can 
 be no doubt, therefore, where he is concealed.' 
 
 "This long harangue gave my mother time 
 to regain her assurance. 'What title could 
 Salicetti have to demand an asylum from me ? 
 He knows that our sentiments are not the same. 
 I was on the point of setting out, and had it 
 not been for an accidental letter from my hus- 
 band, I would have been now far advanced on 
 my road to Gascony.' 
 
 "'What title had he to seek an asylum in 
 your house]' replied Napoleon, 'that is the 
 justest observation you have yet made, Madame 
 Permon. To take refuge with a lonely woman, 
 who might be compromised for a few hours of 
 concealment to a proscribed culprit, is an act 
 that no one else would be capable of. You are 
 indeed his debtor ; are you not, 'Mademoiselle 
 Loulou]' said he, turning to me, who had 
 hitherto remained silent in the window. 
 
 " I feigned to be engaged with flower-pots in 
 a window, where there were several bushes of 
 arbutus, and did not answer him. My mother, 
 who understood my motive, said to me, ' Ge- 
 neral Bonaparte speaks to you, my dear.' I 
 then turned to him ; the remains of my trouble 
 might show him what had passed in the mind 
 of a girl of fifteen, who was compelled, in spite 
 of herself, to do an unpolite thing. He took 
 my hand, pressed it between his two, and, 
 turning to my mother, exclaimed, 'I ask your 
 pardon; I have been in the wrong; your 
 daughter has given me a lesson.' 'You give 
 Laurette more merit than she really has,' re- 
 plied my mother. ' She has not given you a 
 lesson, because she does not know wherefore 
 she should do so; but I will do so immediately, 
 if you persist in believing a thing which has 
 no foundation, but might do me irreparable 
 mischief if it were spread abroad.' 
 
 "Bonaparte said, with a voice full of emo- 
 tion, ' Madame Permon, you are an uncom- 
 
 lodgings. 
 
 i monly generous woman, and that man is a 
 ! wicked man. You could not have closed your 
 I door upon him, and he knew it ; and yet you 
 expose yourself and that child for such a man. 
 Formerly I hated him ; now I despise him. He 
 has done me a great deal of harm ; yes, he has 
 done me a great deal of harm, and you know 
 it. He has had the malice to take advantage 
 of his momentary ascendency to strive to sink 
 me below the water. He has accused me of 
 crimes ; for what crime can be so great as to 
 be a traitor to your country] Salicetti con- 
 ducted himself in that affair of Loano, and my 
 arrest, like a miserable wretch. Junot was 
 going to have killed him, if I had not prevented 
 him. That young man, full of fire and friend- 
 ship for me, was anxious to have fought him 
 in single combat ; he declared that if he would 
 not flght, he would have thrown him over the 
 window. Now he is proscribed ; Salicetti, in 
 his turn, can now appreciate the full extent 
 of what it is to have one's destiny shattered, 
 ruined by an accusation.' 
 
 " ' Napoleon,' said my mother, stretching out 
 her hand to him, ' Salicetti is not here. I swear 
 he is riot. And must I tell you all ]' ' Tell it; 
 tell it,' said he, with extreme impatience. 
 ' Well, Salicetti was here yesterday at six 
 o'clock, but he went out at half-past eight. I 
 convinced him of the impossibility of his 
 remaining concealed in furnished lo 
 He admitted it, and went away.' 
 
 " While my mother spoke, the eyes of Na- 
 poleon continued fixed upon her with an eager- 
 ness of which it is impossible to convey an 
 idea. Immediately after, he moved aside, and 
 walked rapidly through the chamber. 'I was 
 right, then, after all,' he exclaimed. ' He had 
 then the cowardice to say to a generous woman, 
 Give your life for me. But did he who thus 
 contrived to interest you in his fate, tell you 
 that he had just assassinated one of his col- 
 leagues ] Did he wash his hands before he 
 touched yours to implore mercy]' 
 
 " 'Napoleon, Napoleon !' exclaimed my mo- 
 ther in Italian, and with great emotion, ' this is 
 too much. Be silent, or I must be gone. If 
 they have murdered this man after he left me, 
 at least it is no fault of mine.' Napoleon at 
 this time was not less moved. He sought 
 about everywhere like a hound after its prey. 
 He constantly listened to hear him, but could 
 make out nothing. My mother was in despair. 
 Salicetti heard every thing. A single plank 
 separated him from us ; and I, in my inexpe- 
 rience, trembled lest he should issue from his 
 retreat and betray us all. At length, after a 
 fruitless search of two hours, he rose and went 
 away. It was full time ; my mother was worn 
 out with mortal disquietude. 'A thousand 
 hanks,' said he, as he left the room; 'and 
 above all, Madame Permon, forgive me. But 
 f you had ever been injured as I have been 
 by'that man ! Adieu !' "I. 147, 148. 
 
 A few days after, Madame Permon set out 
 for Gascony, with Salicetti, disguised as a foot- 
 nan, seated behind the carriage. Hardly had 
 hey arrived at the first post, when a man ar- 
 rived on horseback, with a letter for Madame 
 3 ermon. They were all in despair, conceiv- 
 ng they were discovered, but upon opening it, 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 their apprehensions were dispelled ; it was 
 from Bonaparte, who had received certain in- 
 telligence from his servant that Salicetti, his 
 mortal enemy, was in the carriage with her, 
 and had been concealed in her house. He 
 had learned it from his servant, who became 
 acquainted with it from Madame Permon's 
 maid, who, though faithful to misfortune, could 
 not conceal the secret from love. It was in 
 the following terms : 
 
 "I never wished to pass for a hypocrite. I 
 would be so, if I did not declare that for more 
 than twenty days I have known for certain that 
 Salicetti was concealed in your house. Recol- 
 lect my words on the 1st Prairial ; I was then 
 almost sure of it, now I know it. beyond a doubt. 
 Salicetti, you see I could repay you the injury 
 you have done me ; in doing so, I should only 
 have requited the evil which you did to me, 
 whilst you gratuitously injured one who had 
 never offended you. Which is the nobler part 
 at this moment yours or mine 1 I have it in 
 my power to revenge myself, but I will not do 
 it. Perhaps you will say that your benefac- 
 tress serves as your, shield, and I own that that 
 consideration is powerful. But though you 
 were alone, unarmed, and proscribed, your 
 head would be safe from my hands. Go seek 
 in peace an asylum where you may become 
 animated with nobler sentiments towards your 
 country. My mouth is closed on your,name, 
 and will never open more on that subject. 
 Repent, and appreciate my motives. I deserve 
 it, for they are noble and generous. Madame 
 Permon My warmest wishes attend you and 
 your daughter. You are two helpless beings, 
 without defence. May Providence and the 
 prayers of a friend be ever with you ! Be 
 prudent, and do not stop in the great towns. 
 Adieu! receive my kindest regards. N. BO- 
 NAPARTE." I. 160. 
 
 We regard this letter and the previous 
 transaction to which it refers, if it shall be 
 deemed by those intimately acquainted with 
 the parties as perfectly authentic, as by far the 
 most important trait in the character of Na- 
 poleon during his early life which has yet ap- 
 peared. It demonstrates that at that period at 
 least his heart was accessible to generous sen- 
 timents, and that he was capable of perform- 
 ing a noble action. Admitting that he was, in 
 a great degree, swayed in this proceeding by his 
 regard for Madame Permon, who appears to 
 have been a woman of great attractions, 'and 
 for whom, as we shall presently see, he con- 
 ceived warmer feelings than those of mere 
 friendship, still it is not an ordinary character, 
 and still less not an ordinary Italian character, 
 which, from such motives, would forego the 
 fiendish luxury of revenge. This trait, there- 
 fore, demonstrates that Napoleon's character 
 originally was not destitute of generosity; and 
 the more charitable, and probably the more 
 just, inference is, that the selfishness and ego- 
 tism by which he was afterwards so strongly 
 characterized, arose from that uninterrupted 
 and extraordinary flow of prosperity which 
 befell him, and which experience everywhere 
 proves is more fatal to generosity or interest 
 in others than any thing else in the course of 
 man here below. 
 
 On the voy^J* along the charming banks 
 i of the Garoiim- from Bordeaux to Toulouse, 
 | our authoress gives the following just and in- 
 teresting account: 
 
 "That mind must be really disquieted or in 
 suffering, which does not derive the highest 
 pleasure from the voyage by water from Bor- 
 deaux to Toulouse. I have seen since the 
 shores of the Arno, those of the Po, the Tagus, 
 and the Brenta; I have seen the Arno iii its 
 thundering cascade, and in its placid waters ; 
 all traverse fertile plains, and exhibit ravish- 
 ing points of view: but none of them recall 
 the magical illusion of the voyage from Bor- 
 deaux to Toulouse. Marmande, Agen, Lan- 
 gon, La Reole, all those towns whose names 
 are associated with our most interesting recol- 
 lections, are there associated with natural 
 scenery prodigal of beauty, and illuminated 
 by a resplendent sun and a pure atmosphere. 
 I can conceive nothing more beautiful than 
 those enchanted banks from Reole to Agen. 
 Groups of trees, Gothic towers, old castles, 
 venerable steeples, which then, alas ! no longer 
 called the Catholics to prayer. Alas ! at that 
 time, even the bells were absent, they no 
 longer called the faithful to the house of God. 
 Every thing was sad and deserted around that 
 antique porch. The grass was growing between 
 the stones of the tombs in the nave; and the 
 shepherd was afar off, preaching the word of 
 God in distant land's, while his ilock, deprived 
 of the Bread of Life, beheld their infants 
 springing up around them, without any more 
 religious instruction than the savages of the 
 desert." I. 166. 
 
 The fact here mentioned of the total want of 
 religious instruction- in the people of the 
 country in France, is by far the most serious 
 consequence which has followed the tempests 
 of the Revolution. The thread of religious in- 
 struction from parent to child, has, for the 
 first time since the introduction of Christianity 
 in the western world, been broken over nearly 
 a whole nation. A whole generation has not 
 only been born, but educated and bred up to 
 manhood, without any other religious impres- 
 sions than what they received from the tradi- 
 tions of their parents. Lavalette has recorded, 
 that during the campaigns of Napoleon in 
 Italy, the soldiers never once entered a church, 
 and looked upon the ceremonies of the Catho- 
 lics in the same way as they would have done 
 on the superstition of Hindostan or Mexico. 
 So utterly ignorant were they of the elements 
 even of religious knowledge, that when they 
 crossed from Egypt into Syria, they knew not 
 that they were near the places celebrated in 
 Holy Writ; they drank without consciousness 
 at the fountains of Moses, wound without 
 emotion round the foot of Mount Sinai, and 
 quartered at Bethlehem and on Mount Carmel, 
 ignorant alike of the cradle of Christianity, or 
 of the glorious efforts of their ancestors in 
 those scenes to regain possession of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 What the ultimate consequences of this 
 universal and unparalleled break in religious 
 instruction must he, it is not difficult to fore- 
 tell. The restoration of the Christian worship 
 by Napoleon, the efforts of the Bourbons during 
 
34 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 fifteen years to restore its sway, have proved 
 in a great degree nugatory : Christianity, re- 
 appearing in the garb of political power, has 
 lost its original and destined hold of the peo- 
 ple ; it is regarded by all the ardent and impe- 
 tuous part of the nation, as a mere collection 
 of antiquated prejudices or nursery tales, 
 adopted by government for political purposes, 
 and fitted only to enslave and fetter the human 
 mind. The consequence has been, an univer- 
 sal emancipation of the nation, in towns at 
 least, from the fetters of religion, a dissolu- 
 tion of manners pervading the middling and 
 lower orders to a degree unparalleled in mo- 
 dern Europe, and an universal inclination in 
 the higher to adopt selfish maxims in life, and 
 act upon the principles of individual interest 
 and elevation. This is the great feature of 
 modern society in France, the distinguishing 
 characteristic which is alike deplored by their 
 writers, and observed by the strangers who 
 visit their country. They are fast descending 
 into the selfishness and egotism which, in 
 ancient times, were the invariable forerunners 
 of political decline. This character has be- 
 come incapable of sustaining genuine freedom ; 
 from the fountains of selfishness its noble 
 streams never yet flowed. The tempests of 
 democracy will for a time agitate France, 
 because the people will long strive to shake 
 off the restraints of government and feligion, 
 in order that no fetters may be imposed on 
 their passions ; when they have discovered, 
 as they will soon do, that this leads only to 
 universal suffering, they will sink down 
 quietly and for ever under the shadow of des- 
 potism. And this will be the consequence and 
 the punishment of their abandonment of that 
 which constitutes the sole basis of lasting or 
 general freedom the Christian religion and 
 private virtue. 
 
 One of the convulsions attended with the 
 least suffering in the whole course of the Re- 
 volution, was the 13th Vendemiare, 1795, 
 when Napoleon, at the head of the troops of 
 the Convention, 5000 strong, defeated 40,000 
 of the National Guard of Paris, on the very 
 ground at the Tuileries, which was rendered 
 famous, thirty-five years after, by the over- 
 throw of Charles X. and the dynasty of the 
 Bourbons. The following description, how- 
 ever, conveys a lively picture of what civil 
 war is, even in its least horrible forms. 
 
 " During some hours, we flattered ourselves 
 that matters would be arranged between the 
 National Guards and the Convention ; but 
 suddenly at half-past four the cannon began 
 to discharge. Hardly was the first report 
 heard, when the reply began on all sides. The 
 effect was immediate and terrible on my poor 
 father; he uttered a piercing cry, and calling 
 for succour, was soon seized with a violent 
 delirium. In vain we gave him the soothing 
 draughts which had been prescribed by M. 
 Duchesnois. All the terrific scenes of the Re- 
 volution passed before his eyes, and every 
 new discharge which was heard pierced him 
 to the heart. What a day ! what a night ! Our 
 windows were broken to pieces ; towards the 
 evening the section retired, and they fought 
 under our eyes ; but when they came to the 
 
 church of St. Roch, and the theatre of the Re- 
 public, it seemed as if the house would fall to 
 pieces. 
 
 "My father was in agony; he cried, he 
 wept. Never shall I forget the horrors of that 
 terrible time. Our terrors rose to the highest 
 pitch, when we heard that barricades were 
 erected in the Rue de la Loi. Every hour of 
 that dreadful night was to me like the hour of 
 the damned, of which Father Bridagne speaks, 
 Toujours jamais. I loved my father with the 
 sincerest affection, and I adored my mother. I 
 saw the one dying with the discharges of can- 
 non, which resounded in his ears, while the 
 other, stretched at the foot of that bed of death, 
 seemed ready to follow him. There are some 
 recollections which are eternal ; never will the 
 remembrance of that dreadful night, and of 
 those two days, be effaced from my memory ; 
 they are engraven on my mind with a burning 
 iron." I. p. 190. 
 
 Salicetti fell ill in their house, from anxiety 
 on account of the fate of Rome and his accom- 
 plices, who were brought to trial for a con- 
 spiracy to restore the Reign of Terror. The 
 picture she gives of his state of mind when on 
 the bed of sickness, is finely descriptive of the 
 whirl of agony which infidelity and democracy 
 produce. 
 
 "We had soon a new torment to undergo; 
 Salicetti fell ill. Nothing can equal the hor- 
 rors of his situation ; he was in a high fever, 
 and delirious ; but what he said, what he saw, 
 exceeds any thing that can be conceived. I 
 have read many romances which portrayed a 
 similar situation. Alas! how their description 
 falls short of the t truth ! Never have I read 
 any thing which approached it Salicetti had 
 no religion ; that added to the horrors of these 
 dreadful scenes. He did not utter complaints ; 
 blasphemies were eternally poured forth. The 
 death of Rome and his friends produced the 
 most terrible effect on his mind; their tragic 
 fate was incessantly present to his thoughts. 
 One, in particular, seemed never to quit his 
 bedside ; he spoke to him, he listened, he 
 answered ; the dialogues between them, for he 
 answered for his dead friend, were enough to 
 turn our brains. Sometimes he fancied him- 
 self in a chamber red with blood. But what 
 caused me more terror than all the rest, was 
 the low and modulated tone of his voice during 
 his delirium; it would appear that terror had 
 mastered all his other faculties, even the 
 acutest sufferings. No words can convey an 
 idea of the horror inspired by that pale and 
 extenuated man, uttering, on a bed of death, 
 blasphemies and anathemas in a voice modu- 
 lated and subdued by terror. I am at a loss to 
 convey the impression of what I felt, for, 
 though so vividly engraven on my memory, I 
 know not how to give it a name." I. p. 156. 
 
 It is well sometimes to follow the irreligious 
 and the Jacobins to their latter end. How 
 desperately do these men of blood then quail 
 under the prospect of the calamities they have 
 inflicted on others; how terribly does the evil 
 they have commitled return on their own 
 heads; how infinitely does the scene drawn 
 from the life, exceed all that the imagination 
 of Dante could conceive of the terrible ! 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 35 
 
 It is well known what a dreadful famine 
 prevailed in Paris for some time after the sup- 
 pression of the revolt of the 13th Vendemiare. 
 Our authoress supplies us with several anec- 
 dotes, highly characteristic of the period, and 
 which place Bonaparte's character in a very 
 favourable light. 
 
 " At that period famine prevailed in Paris, 
 with more severity than anywhere else in 
 France ; the people were literally suffering 
 under want of bread ; the other necessaries of 
 life were not less deficient. What an epoch ! 
 Great God ! the misery was frightful the 
 depreciation of the assignats went on aug- 
 menting with the public suffering the poor, 
 totally without work, died in their hovels, or 
 issuing forth in desperation, joined the rob- 
 bers, who infested all the roads in the 
 country. 
 
 " Bonaparte was then of great service to us. 
 We had white bread 'for our own consump- 
 tion; but our servants had only the black 
 bread of the Sections, which was unwholesome 
 and hardly eatable. Bonaparte sent us every 
 day some rolls for breakfast, which he came 
 to eat with us with the greatest satisfaction. 
 At that period, I can affirm with confidence, 
 since he associated me in his acts of benefi- 
 cence, that Napoleon saved the lives of above 
 a hundred families. He made domiciliary dis- 
 tributions of bread and wood, which his situa- 
 tion as military commander enabled him to do. 
 I was intrusted with the division of these 
 gifts among ten families, who were- dying of 
 famine. The greater part of them lodged in 
 the Rue St. Nicholas, close to our house. That 
 street was inhabited at that time by the poorest 
 class. No one who has not ascended one of 
 its crowded stairs, has an idea of what real 
 misery is. 
 
 "One day Bonaparte, coming to dine at 
 my mother's, was stopped in alighting from 
 his carriage by a woman, who bore the dead 
 body of an infant in her arms. It was the 
 youngest of six children. Misery and famine 
 had dried up her milk. Her little child had 
 just died it was not yet cold. Seeing every 
 day an officer with a splendid uniform alight 
 at our house, she came to beg bread from him, 
 'in order,' as she expressed it, 'that her otter 
 infants should not share the fate of the youngest 
 and if I get nothing, I will take the whole 
 five, and we will throw ourselves together into 
 the river.' 
 
 " This was no vain threat on the part of that 
 unhappy woman, for at that period suicides 
 succeeded each other every day. Nothing was 
 talked of but the tragic end of some family. 
 Bonaparte entered the room with the expres- 
 sion of melancholy, which did not leave him 
 during the whole of dinner. He had at the 
 moment given a few assignats to that unhappy 
 woman; but after we rose from table, he 
 begged my mother to make some inquiries 
 concerning her. She did so, and found that 
 her story was all true, and that she was of 
 good character. Napoleon paid her the wages 
 due to her deceased husband by the govern- 
 ment, and got for her a small pension. She 
 succeeded in bringing up her children, who 
 ever after retained the most lively sense of 
 
 gratitude towards ' the General,' as they called 
 their benefactor." I. 195. 
 
 The Duchess gives a striking picture of the 
 difference in the fashions and habits of living 
 which has resulted from the Revolution. Be- 
 ing on a subject where a woman's observations 
 are more likely to be accurate than those of a 
 man, we willingly give a place to her observa- 
 tions. 
 
 " Transported from Corsica to Paris at the 
 close of the reign- of Louis XV., my mother 
 had imbibed a second nature in the midst of 
 the luxuries and excellencies of that period. 
 We flatter ourselves that we have gained 
 much by our changes in that particular; but 
 we are quite wrong. Forty thousand livres a 
 year, fifty years ago, would have commanded 
 more luxury than two hundred thousand now. 
 The elegancies that at that period surrounded 
 a woman of fashion cannot be numbered ; a 
 profusion of luxuries were in common use, 
 of which even the name is now forgotten. The 
 furniture of her sleeping apartment the bath 
 in daily use the ample folds of silk and velvet 
 which covered the windows the perfumes 
 which filled the room ; the rich laces and dresses 
 which adorned the wardrobe, were widely dif- 
 ferent from the ephemeral and insufficient 
 articles by which they have been replaced. 
 My opinion is daily receiving confirmation; 
 for every thing belonging to the last age is 
 daily coming again into fashion, and I hope 
 soon to see totally expelled all those fashions 
 of Greece and Rome, which did admirably well 
 under the climate of Rome or Messina, but are 
 ill adapted for our vent du bize and cloudy 
 atmosphere. A piece of muslin suspended 
 on a gilt rod, is really of no other use but to 
 let a spectator see that he is behind the cur- 
 tain. It is the same with the imitation tapestry 
 the wallSj six inches thick, which neither 
 keep out the heat in summer, nor the cold in 
 winter. All the other parts of modern dress 
 and furniture are comprised in my anathema, 
 and will always continue to be so. 
 
 "It is said that everything is simplified, 
 and brought down to the reach of the most 
 moderate fortunes. That is true in one sense ; 
 that is to say, our confectioner has muslin 
 curtains and gilt rods at his windows, and his 
 wife has a silk cloak as well as ourselves, be- 
 cause it is become so thin that it is indeed 
 accessible to every one, but it keeps no one 
 warm. It is the same with all the other stuffs. 
 We must not deceive ourselves; we have 
 gamed nothing by all these changes. Do not 
 say, 'So much the better, this is equality.' 
 By no means ; equality is not to be found here, 
 any more than it is in England, or America, 
 or anywhere, since it cannot exist. The conse- 
 quence of attempting it is, that you will have 
 bad silks, bad satins, bad velvets, and that is 
 all. 
 
 "The throne of fashion has encountered 
 during the Revolution another throne, and it 
 has been shattered in consequence. The 
 French people, amidst their dreams of equali- 
 ty, have lost their own hands. The large and 
 soft arm-chairs, the full and ample draperies, 
 the cushions of eider down, all the other deli- 
 cacies which we alone understood of all the 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 European family, led only to the imprison- 
 ment of their possessors ; and if you had the 
 misfortune to inhabit a spacious hotel, within 
 a court, to void the odious noise and smells 
 of the street, you had your throat cut. That 
 mode of treating elegant manners put them 
 out of fashion ; they were speedily abandoned, 
 and the barbarity of their successors still so 
 lingers amongst us, that every day you see put 
 into the lumber-room an elegant Grecian chair 
 which has broken your arm, and canopies 
 which smell of the stable, because they are 
 stuffed with hay. 
 
 "I growl because I am growing old. If I 
 saw that the world was going the way it should, 
 I would say nothing, and would perhaps adopt 
 the custom of our politicians, which is, to em- 
 brace the last revolution with alacrity, \vhat- 
 ever it may be. See how comfortable this is, 
 say our young men, who espouse the cause 
 of the last easy chair which their upholsterer 
 has made for them, as of the last of the thirteen 
 or fifteen constitutions which have been manu- 
 factured for them during the last forty years. 
 I will follow their example ; I will applaud 
 every thing, even the new government of Louis 
 Philippe ; though, it must be confessed, that to 
 do so requires a strong disposition to see 
 every thing in the most favourable colours." 
 I. 197, 198. 
 
 The authoress apologizes frequently for 
 these and similar passages, containing details 
 on the manners, habits, and fashions during 
 the period in which she lived ; but no excuse 
 is required for their insertion. Details of ball- 
 dresses, saloons, operas, and theatres, may 
 appear extremely trifling to those who have 
 only to cross the street to witness them ; but 
 they become very different when they are read 
 after the lapse of centuries, and the accession 
 of a totally different set of manners. They, are 
 the materials from which alone a graphic and 
 interesting history of the period can be framed. 
 What would we give for details of this sort 
 on the era of Caesar and Pompey? with what 
 eagerness do we turn to the faithful pages of 
 Froissart and Monstrellet for similar informa- 
 tion concerning the chivalrous ages ; and with 
 what delight do we read the glowing pictures 
 in Ivanhoe and the Crusaders, in Quentin 
 Durward and Kenilworth, of the manners, 
 customs, and habits of fhose periods? To all 
 appearance, the world is changing so rapidly 
 under the pressure of the revolutionary tem- 
 pest, that, before the lapse of many genera* 
 tions, the habits of our times will be as much 
 the object of research to the antiquary, and of 
 interest to the historian, as those of Richard 
 Coaur de Lion or the Black Prince are to- our 
 age. 
 
 We have mentioned above, that Napoleon's 
 interest in Madame Permon appeared to have 
 been stronger than that of mere friendship. 
 The following passage contains the account 
 of a declaration and refusal, which never pro- 
 bably before were equalled since the beginning 
 of the world : 
 
 " Napoleon came one day to my mother, a 
 considerable time after the death of my father, 
 and proposed a marriage between his sister 
 Pauline and my brother Permon. 'Permon 
 
 has some fortune,' said he; 'my sister has 
 nothing: but I am in a situation to do much 
 for my connections, and I could procure an 
 advantageous place for her husband. That 
 alliance would render me happy. You know 
 how beautiful my sister is : My mother is 
 your friend : Come, say Yes, and all will be 
 settled.' 
 
 " My mother answered, that her son must 
 answer for himself; and that she would make 
 no attempt to influence his choice. 
 
 " Bonaparte admitted that my brother was 
 a young man so remarkable, that, though he 
 was only twenty-five years of age, he had 
 judgment and talents adequate to any situa- 
 tion. What Bonaparte proposed was extreme- 
 ly natural. He contemplated a marriage be- 
 tween a girl of sixteen and a young man of 
 twenty-five, who had L.500 a year, with a 
 handsome exterior; who drew as well as his, 
 master, Vernet; played on the harp much 
 better than his master, Kromphultz; spoke 
 English, Italian, and modern Greek, as well as 
 a native, and had such talents as had made 
 his official duties in- the army of the south a 
 matter of remark. Such was the person whom 
 Napoleon asked for his sister; a ravishing 
 beauty and good daughter, it is true ; but that 
 was all. 
 
 " To this proposal Napoleon added another ; 
 that of a union between myself and Joseph or 
 Jerome. 'Jerome is younger than Laurette,' 
 said my mother, laughing. 'In truth, my dear 
 Napoleon, you have become a high-priest to- 
 day; you must needs marry all the world, even 
 children.' Bonaparte laughed also, but with 
 an embarrassed air. He admitted that that 
 morning, in rising, a gale of marriage had 
 blown, ove'r him, 'and to prove it,' said he, 
 taking the hand of my mother, and kissing it, 
 'I am resolved to commence the union of our 
 families by asking you to marry myself as 
 soon as the forms of society will permit." 
 
 " My mother has frequently told me that ex- 
 traordinary scene, which I know as if I had 
 been present at it. She looked at Bonaparte 
 for some seconds with an astonishment bor- 
 dering on stupefaction ; then she began to 
 laugh so immoderately that we all heard it, 
 though we were in the next room. 
 
 " Napoleon was highly offended at the mode 
 in which a proposal, which appeared to him 
 perfectly natural, was received. My mother, 
 who perceived what he felt, hastened to ex- 
 plain herself, and to show that it was at the 
 thoughts of the ridiculous figure which she 
 herself would make in such an event, that she 
 was so much amused. ' My dear Napoleon,' 
 said she, when she had done laughing, 'let us 
 speak seriously. You imagine you know my 
 age, but you really do not: I will not tell you, 
 for I have a slight weakness in that respect: 
 I will only say, I am old enough, not only to 
 be your mother, but the mother of Joseph. 
 Let us put an end to this pleasantry; it 
 grieves me when coming from you.' 
 
 "Bonaparte told her that he was quite se- 
 rious; that the age of his wife was to him a 
 matter of no importance, provided she had not 
 the look, like her, of being above thirty years 
 old; that he had deliberately considered what 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 he had just said ; and he added these remark- 
 able words: ' I wish 10 marry. My friends 
 wish me to marry a lady of the Fauxbourg St. 
 Germain, who is charming and agreeable. My 
 old friends are averse to this connection, and 
 the one I now propose suits me better in many 
 respects. Reflect.' My mother interrupted the 
 conversation by saying, that her mind was 
 made up as to herself; and that as to her son, 
 she would give him an answer in a day or 
 two. She gave him her hand at parting, and 
 said, smiling, that, though she had not entirely 
 given up the idea of conquests, she could not 
 go just so far as to think of subduing a heart 
 of six-and-twenty ; and that she hoped their 
 friendship would not be disturbed by this little 
 incident. ' But at all events,'' said Napoleon, 
 * consider it well.' ' Well, I will consider it,' 
 said she, smiling in her sweetest manner, and 
 so they parted. 
 
 " After I was married to Junot, and he heard 
 it, he declared that it appeared less surprising 
 to him than it did to us. Bonaparte, at the 
 epoch of the 13th Vendemiare, was attached 
 to the war committee. His projects, his 
 plans, all had one object, and that was the 
 East. My mother's name of Comnene, with' 
 her Grecian descent, had a great interest in 
 his imagination. The name' of Calomeros, 
 united with Comnene, might have powerfully 
 served his ambition in that quarter. 'The 
 great secret of all these marriages,' said Junot, 
 'was in that idea.' I believe he was right." 
 I. pp. 202, 203. 
 
 All the proposed marriages came to nothing ; 
 the duchess's brother refused Pauline, and she 
 herself Joseph. They little thought, that the 
 one was refusing the throne of Charlemagne, 
 the other that of Charles V., and the third, the 
 most beautiful princess in Europe. 
 
 The following picture of three of the most 
 celebrated women in the Revolution, one of 
 whom evidently contributed "by her influence 
 to the fall of Robespierre, shows that the fair 
 authoress is not less a master of the subject 
 more peculiarly belonging to her sex. 
 
 " Madame D. arrived late in the ball-room. 
 The great saloon was completely filled. Ma- 
 dame D., who was well accustomed to such 
 situations, looked around her to see' if she 
 could discover a seat, when her eyes were' 
 arrested by the figure of a young and charm- 
 ing person, with a profusion of light tresses, 
 looking around her with her fine blue eyes, 
 with a timid air, and offering the most perfect 
 image of a young sylph. She was in the act 
 of being led to her seat by M. de Trenis, which 
 showed that she was a beautiful dancer ; for 
 he honoured no one with his hand, but those 
 who might receive the title of la belle danseuse. 
 The young lady, after having bowed blushing 
 to the Vestris of the room, sat down beside a 
 lady who had the appearance of being her 
 elder sister, and whose extremely elegant dress 
 was attracting the attention of all around her. 
 ' Who are these ladies ]' said Madame D. to 
 the Count de Haulefort, on whose arm she 
 was leaning. 'Do you not know the Vis- 
 countess Beauharnais and her daughter Hor 
 tense V 
 
 " ' My God !' said the Count, ' who is that 
 
 beautiful woman?' who at that moment en- 
 tered the room, and towards whom all eyes 
 were immediately turned. That lady was 
 of a stature above the ordinary ; but the per- 
 fect harmony in her proportions prevented 
 you from perceiving that she was above the 
 ordinary size. It was the Venus of the Capi- 
 tol, but more beautiful than the work of Phi- 
 dias. You saw the same perfection in the 
 arms, neck, and feet, and the whole figure 
 animated by an expression of benevolence, 
 which told at once, that all that beauty was 
 but the magic reflection of a mind animated 
 only by the most benevolent and generous 
 feelings. Her dress had no share in contri- 
 buting to her, beauty; for it was a simple 
 robe of Indian muslin arranged in drapery 
 like the antique, and held together on the 
 shoulders by two splendid cameos ; a girdle 
 of gold, which encircled her figure, was ele- 
 gantly clasped in the same way; a large gold- 
 en bracelet ornamented her arm ; her hair, 
 black and luxuriant, was dressed without 
 tresses, a la Titus ; over her white and beauti- 
 ful shoulders was thrown a superb shawl of 
 redcachemere, a dress at that period extremely 
 rare, and highly in request. It was thrown 
 round her in the most elegant and picturesque 
 manner, forming thus a picture of the most 
 ravishing beauty. It was Madame Tallien, so 
 well knovyn for her generous efforts at the 
 time of the fall of Robespierre." I. 222. 
 
 This description suggests one observation, 
 which must strike every one who is at all fami- 
 liar with the numerous French female memoirs 
 which have issued from the Parisian press 
 within these few years. This is the extraor- 
 dinary accuracy with which, at any distance 
 of time, they seem to have the power of re- 
 calling, not only the whole particulars of a 
 ball-room or opera, but even the dresses worn 
 by the ladies on these occasions. Thus the 
 ball here described took place in 1797. Yet 
 the duchess has no sort of difficulty in re- 
 counting the whole particulars both of the 
 people "and dresses in 1830, three-and-thirty 
 years after. We doubt extremely whether 
 any woman in England could give as accu- 
 rate an account within a month after the 
 event. Nor does there seem to be any ground 
 for the obvious remark that these descriptions 
 are all got up ex post facto, without any foun- 
 dation in real life ; for the variety and accu- 
 racy with which they are given evidently 
 demonstrates, that however much the colours 
 may have been subsequently added, the out- 
 lines of the sketch were taken from nature. 
 As little is there any ground for the suspicion, 
 that the attention of the French women is ex- 
 clusively occupied with these matters, to the 
 exclusion of more serious considerations; for 
 these pages are full of able and sometimes 
 profound remarks on politics, events, and 
 characters, such as would have done credit to 
 the clearest head in Britain. We can only 
 suppose that the vanity which, amidst many 
 excellencies, is the undoubted characteristic 
 both of the men and women in France, is the 
 cause of this extraordinary power in their 
 female writers, and that the same disposition 
 which induces their statesmen and heroes to 
 D 
 
38 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 record daily the victories of their diplomacy 
 and arms, leads their lively and intelligent 
 Jadies to commit to paper all that is particu- 
 larly remarkable in private life, or descriptive 
 of their triumphs in the field of love; 
 
 Some interesting details are preserved, as to 
 the reception of Napoleon in Paris by the 
 Directory after the Revolution of the 18th 
 Fructidor. The following quotations exhibit 
 the talent of the author, both for the lighter 
 and more serious subjects of narrative in the 
 best light: 
 
 " Junot entered at first into the famous bat- 
 talion of volunteers of the Cote d'or. After 
 the surrender of Longwy they were moved to 
 Toulon ; it was the most terrific period of the 
 Revolution. Junot was then a sergeant of 
 grenadiers, an honour which he received from 
 the voluntary election of his comrades on the 
 field of battle. Often, in recounting to me the 
 first years of his adventurous life, he has de- 
 clared that nothing ever gave him such a de- 
 lirium of joy, as when his comrades, all, he 
 said, as brave as himself, named him sergeant 
 on the field of battle, and he was elevated on 
 a seat formed of crossed bayonets, still reek- 
 ing with the blood of their enemies." 
 
 It was at that time that, being one day, 
 during the siege of Toulon, at his post at the 
 battery of St. Culottes, an officer of artillery, 
 who had recently come from Paris to direct 
 the operations of the siege, asked from the 
 officer who commanded the post for a young 
 non-commissioned officer who had at once in- 
 telligence and boldness. The officer immedi- 
 ately called for Junot; the officer surveyed 
 him with that eye which alreadybegan to take 
 the measure of human capacity. 
 
 "'You will change your dress,' said the 
 commander, 'and you will go there to bear 
 this order.' He showed him with his hand a 
 spot at a distance on the same side. The 
 young sergeant blushed up to the eyes ; his 
 eyes kindled with fire. ' I am not a SPT,' said 
 he, 'to execute their orders; seek another to 
 bear them.' 'Do you refuse to obey V said the 
 superior officer; 'do you know to what punish- 
 ment you expose yourself in so doing V 'I 
 am ready to obey,' said Junot, ' but 1 will go 
 in my uniform, or not at all.' The comman- 
 der smiled, and looked at him attentively. 
 'But if you do, they will kill you.' 'What 
 does that signify]' said Junot; 'you know 
 me little to imagine I would be pained at such 
 an occurrence, and, as for me, it is all one 
 come, I go as I am ; is it not so V And he set 
 off singing. 
 
 " Alter he was gone, the superior officer 
 asked, ' What is the name of that young man?' 
 'Junot,' replied the other. The commanding 
 officer then wrote his name in his pocket-book. 
 ' He will make his way,' he replied. This 
 judgment was already of decisive importance 
 to Junot, for the reader must readily have 
 divined that the officer of artillery was Na- 
 poleon. 
 
 "A few days after, being on his rounds at 
 the same battery, Bonaparte asked for some 
 one who could write well. Junot stepped out 
 of the ranks and presented himself. Bona- 
 parte recognised him as the sergeant who had 
 
 already fixed his attention. He expressed his 
 satisfaction at seeing him, and desired him to 
 place himself so as to write under his dicta- 
 tion. Hardly was the letter done, when a 
 bomb, projected from the English batteries, 
 fell at the distance of ten yards, and, exploding, 
 covered all present with gravel and dust. 
 ' Well,' said Junot, laughing, ' we shall at least 
 not require sand to dry the ink.' 
 
 " Bonaparte fixed his eyes on the young ser- 
 geant ; he was calm, and had not even quivered 
 at the explosion. That event decided his for- 
 tune. He remained attached to the com- 
 mander of artillery, and returned no more to 
 his corps. , At' a subsequent time, when the 
 town surrendered, and Bonaparte was ap- 
 pointed General, Junot asked no other recom- 
 pense for his brave conduct during the siege, 
 but to be named his aid-de-camp. He and 
 Muiron were the first who served him in that 
 capacity." I. 268. 
 
 A singular incident, which is stated as hav- 
 ing happened to Junot at the battle of Lonato, 
 in Italy, is recorded in the following curious 
 manner: 
 
 " The evening before the battle of Lonato, 
 Junot having been on horseback all the day, 
 and rode above 20 leagues in carrying the 
 orders of the General-in-Chief, lay down over- 
 whelmed with fatigue, without undressing, 
 and ready to start up at the smallest signal. 
 Hardly was he asleep, when he dreamed he 
 was on a field of battle, surrounded by the 
 dead and the dying. Before him was a horse- 
 man, clad in armour, with whom he was en- 
 gaged ; that cavalier, instead of a lance, was 
 armed with a v scythe, with which he struck 
 Junot several blows, particularly one on the 
 left temple. The combat was long, and at 
 length they seized each other by the middle. 
 In the struggle the vizor, the casque of the 
 horseman, fell off, and Junot perceived that he 
 was fighting with a skeleton ; soon the armour 
 fell off", and death stood before him armed with 
 his scythe. ' I have not been able to take you,' 
 said he, 'but I will seize one of your best 
 friends. Beware of me !' 
 " " Junot awoke, bathed with sweat. The 
 morning was beginning to dawn, and he could 
 not sleep from the impression he had received. 
 He felt convinced that one of his brother aid- 
 de-camps, Muiron or Marmont, would be slain 
 in the approaching fight. In effect it was so : 
 Junot received two wounds one on the left 
 temple, which he bore to his grave, and the 
 other on the breast ; but Muiron was shot 
 through the heart." I. 270. 
 
 The two last volumes of this interesting 
 work, published a few weeks ago, are hardly 
 equal in point of importance to those which 
 contained the earlier history of Napoleon, but 
 still they abound with interesting and curious 
 details. The following picture of the religion 
 which grew up ir- France on the ruins of 
 Christianity, is singularly instructive : 
 
 " It is well known, that during the revolu- 
 tionary troubles of France, not only all the 
 churches were closed, but the Catholic and 
 Protestant worship entirely forbidden ; and, 
 after the Constitution of 1795, it was at the 
 hazard of one's life that either the mass was 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 heard, or any religious duty performed. It is 
 evident that Robespierre, who unquestionably 
 had a design which is now generally under- j 
 stood, was desirous, on the day of the fete of 
 the Supreme Being, to bring back public 
 opinion to the worship of the Deity. Eight 
 months before, we had seen the Bishop of 
 Paris, accompanied by his clergy, appear vo- 
 luntarily at the bar of the Convention, to abjure 
 the Christian faith and the Catholic religion. 
 But it is not as generally known, that at that 
 period Robespierre was not omnipotent, and 
 could not carry his desires into effect. Nu- 
 merous factions then disputed with him the 
 supreme authority. It was not till the end of 
 1793, and the beginning of 1794, that his power 
 was so completely established that he could 
 venture to act up to his intentions. 
 
 "Robespierre was then desirous to establish 
 the worship of the Supreme Being, and the 
 belief of the immortality of the soul. He felt 
 that irreligion is the soul of anarchy, and it 
 was not anarchy but despotism which he. de- 
 sired ; and yet the very day after that magnifi- 
 cent fete in honour of the Supreme Being, a 
 man of the highest celebrity in science, and 
 as distinguished for virtue and probity as 
 philosophic genius, Lavoisier, was led out to 
 the scaffold. On the day following that, 
 Madame Elizabeth, that princess whom the 
 executioners could not guillotine, till they had 
 turned aside their eyes from the sight of her 
 angelic visage, stained the same axe with her 
 blood! And a month after, Robespierre, who 
 wished to restore order for his own purposes 
 who wished to still the bloody waves which for 
 years had inundated the state, felt that all his 
 efforts would be in vain if the masses who 
 supported his power were not restrained and 
 directed, because without order nothing but 
 ravages and destruction can prevail. To en- 
 sure the government of the masses, it was in- 
 dispensable that morality, religion, and belief 
 should be established and, to affect the mul- 
 titude, that religion should be clothed in ex- 
 ternal forms. 'My friend,' said Voltaire, to 
 the atheist Damilaville, 'after you have supped 
 on well-dressed partridges, drank your spark- 
 ling champagne, and slept on cushions of 
 down in the arms of your mistress, I have no 
 fear of you, though you do not believe in God. 
 But if you are perishing of hunger, and I meet 
 you in the corner of a wood, I would rather 
 dispense with your company.' But when 
 Robespierre wished to bring back to some- 
 thing like discipline the crew of the vessel 
 which was fast driving on the breakers, he 
 found the thing was not so easy as he ima- 
 gined- To destroy is easy to rebuild is the 
 difficulty. He was omnipotent to do evil; but 
 the day that he gave the first sign of a disposi- 
 tion to return to order, the hands which he 
 himself had stained with blood, marked his 
 forehead with the fatal sign of destruction." 
 VI. 34, 35. 
 
 After the fall of Robespierre, a feeble attempt 
 was made, under the Directory, to establish a 
 religious system founded on pure Deism. To 
 the faithful believer in Revelation, it is inte- 
 resting to trace the rise and fall of the first 
 attempt in the history of the world to es- 
 
 tablish such a faith as the basis of national 
 religion. 
 
 ' I 1 1 der the Directory, that brief and deplora- 
 ble government, a new sect established itself 
 in France. Its system was rather morality 
 than religion ; it affected the utmost tolerance, 
 recognised all religions, and had no other faith 
 than a belief in God. Its votaries were termed 
 the Theophilanthropists. It was during the 
 year 1797 that this sect arose. I was once 
 tempted to go to one of their meetings. Lare- 
 veilliere Lepaux, chief grand priest and pro- 
 tector of the sect, was to deliver a discourse. 
 The first thing that struck me in the place of 
 assembly, was a basket filled with the most 
 magnificent flowers of July, which was then 
 the season, and another loaded with the most 
 splendid fruits. Every one knows the grand 
 altar of the church of St. Nicholas in the 
 Fields, with its rich Corinthian freize. I sus- 
 pect the* Theophilanthropists had chosen that 
 church on that account for the theatre of their 
 exploits, in a spirit of religious coquetry. In 
 truth, their basket of flowers produced an ad- 
 mirable effect on that altar of the finest Grecian 
 form, and mingled in perfect harmony with the 
 figures of angels which adorned the walls. The 
 chief pronounced a discourse, in which he 
 spoke so well, that, in truth, if the Gospel had 
 not said the same things infinitely better, some 
 seventeen hundred and ninety-seven years be- 
 fore, it would have been decidedly preferable 
 either to the Paganism of antiquity, or the 
 mythology of Egypt or India. 
 
 "Napoleon had the strongest prejudice 
 against that sect. ' They are comedians,' said 
 he ; and when some one replied that nothing 
 could be more admirable than the conduct of 
 some of their chiefs, that Lareveilliere Lepaux 
 was one of the most virtuous men in Paris ; 
 in fine, that' their morality consisted in nothing 
 but virtue, good faith, and charity, he replied 
 
 ** 'To what purpose is all that? Every sys- 
 tem of morality is admirable. Apart from 
 certain dogmas, more or less absurd, which 
 were necessary to bring them down to the 
 level of the age in which they were produced, 
 what do you see in the morality of the Wid- 
 ham, the Koran, tie Old Testament, or Confu- 
 cius 1 Everywhere a pure system of morality, 
 that is to say, you see protection to the weak, 
 respect to- the laws, gratitude to God, recom- 
 mended" and enforced. But the evangelists 
 alone exhibit the union of all the principles of 
 morality, detached from every kind of ab- 
 surdity. There is something admirable, and 
 not your common-place sentiments put into 
 bad verse. Do you wish to see what is sub- 
 lime, you and your friends the Theophilan- 
 thropists? Repeat the Lord's Prayer. Your zea- 
 lots,' added he, addressing a young enthusiast 
 in that system, 'are desirous of the palm of 
 martyrdom, but I will hot give it them ; nothing 
 shall fall on them but strokes of ridicule, and 
 I little know the French, if they do not prove 
 mortal.' In truth, the result proved how well 
 he had appreciated the French character. It 
 perished after an ephemeral existence of five 
 years, and left not a trace behind, but a few 
 verses, preserved as a relic of that age of 
 mental aberration." VI. 40 43. 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 This passage is very remarkable. Here we 
 have the greatest intellect of the age, Napoleon 
 himself, recurring to the Gospel, and to the 
 Lord's Prayer, as the only pure system of re- 
 ligion, and the sublimest effort of human com- 
 position; and Robespierre endeavouring, in the 
 close of his bloody career, to cement anew the 
 fabric of society, which he had had so large a 
 share in destroying, by a recurrence to reli- 
 gious impressions ! So indispensable is devo- 
 tion to the human heart; so necessary is it to 
 the construction of the first elements of society, 
 and so well may you distinguish the spirit of 
 anarchy and revolution, by the irreligious ten- 
 dency which invariably attends it, and prepares 
 the overthrow of every national institution, by 
 sapping the foundation of every private virtue. 
 The arrest of the British residents over all 
 France, on the rupture of the peace of Amiens, 
 was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable 
 acts of Napoleon's government. The following 
 scene between Junot and the First Consul on 
 this subject, is singularly characteristic of the 
 impetuous fits of passion to which that great 
 man was subject, and which occasionally be- 
 trayed him into actions so unworthy of his 
 general character. 
 
 " One morning, at five o'clock, when day was 
 just beginning to break, an order arrived from 
 the First Consul to repair instantly to Malmai- 
 son. He had been labouring till four in the 
 morning, and had but just fallen asleep. He 
 set off instantly, and did not return till five in 
 the evening. When he entered he was in great 
 agitation; his meeting with him had been 
 stormy, and the conversation long. 
 
 " When Junot arrived at the First Consul's, 
 he found his figure in disorder; his features 
 were contracted; and every thing announced 
 one of those terrible agitations which made 
 every one who approached him tremble. 
 
 " ' Junot,' said he to his old aid-de-camp, ' are 
 you still the friend on whom I can rely 1 Yes 
 or no. No circumlocution.' 
 
 " ' Yes, my General.' 
 
 " ' Well then, before an hour is over, you 
 must take measures instantly, so that all the 
 English, without one single exception, shall be 
 instantly arrested. Room enough for them will 
 be found in the Temple, the Force, the Abbaye, 
 and the other prisons of Paris ; it is indispen- 
 sable that they should all be arrested. We 
 must teach their government, that entrenched 
 though they are in thgir isle, they can be reach- 
 ed by an enemy who is under no obligation 
 to treat their subjects with any delic'acy. The 
 wretches,' said he, striking his fist violently on 
 the table, 'they refuse Malta, and assign as a 
 reason' : Here his anger choked his voice, 
 and he was some time in recovering himself. 
 'They assign as a reason, that Lucien has in- 
 fluenced, by my desire, the determinations of 
 the Court of Spain, in regard to a reform of the 
 Clergy; and they refuse to execute the Treaty 
 of Amiens, on pretence that, since it was signed, 
 the situation of the contracting parties had 
 changed.' 
 
 " Junot was overwhelmed ; but the cause of 
 his consternation was not the rupture with 
 England. It had been foreseen, and known for 
 several days. But in the letters which were 
 
 now handed to him he perceived a motive to 
 authorize the terrible measure which Napoleon 
 had commanded. He would willingly have 
 given him his life, but now he was required to 
 do a thing to the last degree repugnant to the 
 liberal principles in which he had been trained. 
 
 " The First Consul waited for some time for 
 an answer; but seeing the attitude.of Junot, he 
 proceeded, after a pause of some minutes, as 
 if the answer had already been given. 
 
 '" That measure must be executed at seven 
 o'clock this evening. I am resolved that, this 
 evening, not the most obscure theatre at Paris, 
 not the most miserable restaurateur, should 
 contain an Englishman within its walls.' 
 
 " ' My General,' replied Junot, who had no\tf 
 recovered his composure, ' you know not only 
 my attachment to your person, but my devotion 
 in every thing which regards yourself. Believe 
 me, then, it is nothing but that devotion which 
 makes me hesitate in obeying you, before en- 
 treating you to take a few hours to reflect on 
 the measure which you have commanded me 
 to adopt.' , 
 
 "Napoleon contracted his eye-brows. 
 
 " ' Again !' said he. ' What ! is the scene of 
 the other day so soon to be renewed 1 Lannes 
 and you truly give yourselves extraordinary 
 license. Duroc alone, with his tranquil air, 
 does not think himself entitled to preach ser- 
 mons to me. You shall find, gentlemen, by 
 God, that I can square my hat as well as any 
 man; Lannes has already experienced it; and 
 I do not think he will enjoy much his eating 
 of oranges at Lisbon. As for you, Junot, do 
 not rely too much on my friendship. The day 
 on which I ddubt of yours, mine is destroyed.' 
 
 "'My General,' replied Junot, profoundly 
 afflicted at being so much misunderstood, " it 
 is not at the moment that I am giving you the 
 strongest proof of my devotion, that you should 
 thus address me. Ask my blood ; ask my life ; 
 they belong to you, and shall be freely render- 
 ed; but to order me to do a thing which will 
 cover us all with ' 
 
 '"Go on,' he interrupted, 'go on, by all 
 means. What will happen to me because I 
 retaliate on a perfidious government the inju- 
 ries which it has heaped upon me?' 
 
 '" It does not belong to me,' replied Junot, 
 ' to decide upon what line of conduct is suit- 
 able to you. Of this, however, I am well as- 
 sured, that if any thing unworthy of your glory 
 is attempted, it will be from your eyes being 
 fascinated by the men, who only disquiet you 
 by their advice, and incessantly urge you to 
 measures of severity. Believe me, my Gene- 
 ral, these men do you infinite mischief.' 
 
 " ' W T ho do you mean ?' said Napoleon. 
 
 " Junot mentioned the names of several, 
 and stated what he knew of them. 
 
 " ' Nevertheless, the.se men are devoted to 
 me,' replied he. ' One of them said the other 
 day, "If the First Consul were to desire me to 
 kill my father, I would kill him." ' 
 
 "'I know not, my General,' replied Junot, 
 ' what degree of attachment to you it is, to sup- 
 pose you capable of giving an order to a son 
 to put to death his own father. But it matters 
 not; when one is so unfortunate as to think in 
 that manner, they seldom make it public.' 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 41 
 
 " Two years afterwards, the First Consul, 
 who was then Emperor, spoke to me of that 
 scene, after my return from Portugal, and told 
 me that he was on the point of embracing Ju- 
 not at these words: so much was he .struck 
 with these noble expressions addressed to him, 
 his general, his chief, the man on whom alone 
 his destiny depended. 'For in fine,' said the 
 Emperor, smiling, 'I must own I am rather 
 unreasonable when I am angry, and that you 
 know, Madame Junot.' 
 
 " As for my husband, the conversation which 
 he had with the First Consul was of the warm- 
 est description. He went the length of remind- 
 ing him, that at the departure of the ambassa- 
 dor, Lord Whitworth, the most solemn assu- 
 rances had been given him of the safety of all 
 the English at Paris. 'There are,' said lie, 
 * amongst them, women, children, and old men ; 
 there are numbers, my General, who night and 
 morning pray to God to prolong your days. 
 They are for the most part persons engaged in 
 trade, for almost all the higher classes of that na- 
 tion have left Paris. The damage they would 
 sustain from being all imprisoned, is immense. 
 Oh, my General ! it is not for you whose noble 
 and generous mind so well comprehends what- 
 ever is grand in the creation, to confound a 
 generous nation with a perfidious cabinet.' " 
 VI. 406410. 
 
 With the utmost difficulty, Junot prevailed 
 on Napoleon to commute the original order, 
 which had been for immediate imprisonment, 
 into one for the confinement of the unfortu- 
 nate British subjects in particular towns, where 
 it is well known most of them lingered till de- 
 livered by the Allies in 1814. But Napoleon 
 never forgave this interference -with his wrath; 
 and shortly after, Junot was removed from the 
 government of Paris, and sent into honourable 
 exile to superintend the formation of a corps 
 of grenadiers at Arras. 
 
 The great change which has taken place in 
 the national character of France, since the Re- 
 storation, has been noticed by all writers on' 
 the subject. The Duchess of Abrantes' obser- 
 vations on the subject are highly curious. 
 
 "Down to the year 1800, the national cha- 
 racter had undergone no material alteration. 
 That character overcame all perils, disregard- 
 ed all dangers, and even laughed at death it- 
 self. It was this calm in the victims of 'the 
 Revolution which gave the executioners their 
 principal advantage. A friend of my acquaint- 
 ance, who accidentally found himself sur- 
 rounded by the crowd who were returning from 
 witnessing the execution of Madame duBarri, 
 heard two of the women in the street speaking 
 to each other on the subject, and one said to 
 the other, 'How that one cried out! If they 
 all cry out in that manner, I will not return 
 again to the executions.' What a volume of 
 reflections arise from these few words spoken, 
 with all the. unconcern of those barbarous 
 days ! 
 
 "The three years of the Revolution follow- 
 ing 1793, taught us to weep, but did not teach 
 us to cease to laugh. They laughed under the 
 axe yet stained with blood ; they laughed as 
 the victim slept at Venice under the burning 
 irons which were to waken his dreams. Alas ! 
 
 how deep must have been the wounds which 
 have changed this lightsome character! For 
 the joyous Frenchman laughs no more; and 
 if he still has some happy days, the sun of 
 gaiety has set for ever. This change has taken 
 place during the fifteen years which have fol- 
 lowed the Restoration; while the horrors of 
 the wars of religion, the tyrannical reigns of 
 Louis XI. and XIV., and even the bloody days 
 of the Convention, produced no such effect." 
 V. 142. 
 
 Like all the other writers on the modern 
 tate of France, of whatever school or party 
 in politics, Madame Junot is horrified \vith the 
 deterioration of manners, and increased vul- 
 garity, which has arisen from the democratic 
 invasions of later times. Listen to this ardent 
 supporter 'of the revolutionary order of things, 
 I on this subject : 
 
 "At, that time, (1801,) the habits of good 
 company were not yet extinct in Paris; of the 
 old company of France, and not of what is now 
 termed good company, and which prevailed 
 thirty years ago only among postilions and 
 stable-boys. At that period, men of good birth 
 did not smoke in the apartments of their wives, be- 
 cause they felt it to be a dirty and disgusting 
 practice ; they generally washed their hands ; 
 when- they went out to dine, or to pass the 
 evening in a house of their acquaintance, they 
 bowed to /he lady at its head in entering and retiring, 
 and did not appear so abstracted in their 
 thoughts as to behave as they would have 
 done in an hotel. They were then careful not 
 to turn, their back on those with whom they conversed, 
 so as to show only ah ear or the point of a 
 nose to those Vhom they addressed. They 
 spoke of something else, besides those eternal 
 politics on which no two can ever agree, and 
 which give occasion only to the interchange 
 of bitter expressions. There has sprung from 
 these endless disputes, .disunion in families, 
 the dissolution of the oldest friendships, and 
 the growth of hatred which will continue till 
 the grave. Experience proves that in these 
 contests no one is ever convinced, and that 
 each goes away more than ever persuaded of 
 the truth of his own opinions. 
 
 " The customs of the world now give me 
 nothing but pain. From the bosom of the re- 
 tirement where I have been secluded for these 
 fifteen years, I can judge, without preposses- 
 sion, of the extraordinary revolution in man- 
 ners which has lately taken place. Old im- 
 pressions are replaced, it is said, by new ones ; 
 that is all. Are, then, the new ones superior? 
 I cannot believe it. Morality itself is rapidly 
 undergoing dissolution; every character is con- 
 taminated, and no one knows from whence 
 the poison is inhaled. Young men now lounge 
 away their evenings in the box of a theatre, or 
 the Boulevards, or carry on elegant conversa- 
 tion with a fair seller of gloves and perfumery, 
 make compliments on her lily and vermilion 
 cheeks, and present her with a cheap ring, ac- 
 companied with a gross and indelicate compli- 
 1 ment. Society is so disunited, that it is daily 
 | becoming more vulgar, in the literal sense of 
 j the word. Whence any improvement is to 
 i arise, God only knows." V. 156, 157. 
 
 While we are concluding these observations, 
 1)2 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 another bloody revolt has occurred at Paris ; 
 the three glorious days of June have come to 
 crown the work, and develope the consequences 
 of the three glorious days of July.* After a 
 desperate struggle, maintained with much 
 greater resolution and vigour on the part of 
 the insurgents than the insurrection which 
 proved fatal to Charles X.; after Paris having 
 been the theatre, for three days, of bloodshed 
 and devastation ; after 75,000 men had been 
 engaged against the Revolutionists; after the 
 thunder of artillery had broken down the Re- 
 publican barricades, and showers of grape- 
 shot had thinned the ranks of the citizen-sol- 
 diers, the military force triumphed, and peace 
 was restored to the trembling city. What has 
 been the consequence 1 All the forms of law 
 have been suspended ; military commissions 
 established ; domiciliary visits become univer- 
 sal ; several thousand persons thrown into 
 prison ; and, before this, the fusillades of the 
 new heroes of the Barricades have announced 
 to a suffering country that the punishment of 
 their sins has commenced. The liberty of the 
 press is destroyed, the editors delivered over 
 
 to military commissions, the printing presses power, not freedom, but democracy, not ex- 
 of the opposition journals thrown into the emption from tyranny, but the power of tyran- 
 Seine, and all attempts at insurrection, or 
 words tending to excite it, and all offences of the 
 press tending to excite dissatisfaction or revolt, 
 
 sequent sufferings of their country, and the 
 total extinction of their liberties on the last 
 occasion, were owing to their vacillation in 
 the first revolt. They have now fought with 
 the utmost fury against the people, as they did 
 at Lyons, and French blood has amply stained 
 their bayonets ; but it has come too late to 
 wash out the stain of their former treason, or 
 revive the liberties which it lost for their 
 country. 
 
 Polignae is now completely justified for all 
 but the incapacity of commencing a change 
 of the constitution with 5000 men, four pieces 
 of cannon, and eight rounds of grape-shot to 
 support it. The ordinances of Charles X., now 
 adopted with increased severity by Louis Phi- 
 lippe, were destined to accomplish, without 
 bloodshed, that change which the fury of de- 
 mocracy rendered necessary, and without 
 which it has been found the Throne of the 
 Barricades cannot exist. It is evident that 
 the French do not know what freedom is. They 
 had it under the Bourbons, as our people had 
 it under the old constitution; but it would not 
 content them, because it was not liberty, but 
 
 handed over to military commissions, com- 
 posed exclusively of officers! This is the 
 freedom which the three glorious days have 
 procured for France ! 
 
 The soldiers were desperately chagrined and 
 mortified at the result of the three days of July ; 
 and well they might be so, as all the sub- 
 
 nizing over others, that they desired. They 
 gained their point, they accomplished their 
 wishes, and the consequence has been, two 
 years of suffering, followed by military des- 
 potism. We always predicted the three glori- 
 ous days would lead to this result; but the 
 termination of the drama has come more 
 rapidly than the history of the first Revolution 
 led us to anticipate. 
 
 BOSSUET. 
 
 To those who study only the writers of a 
 particular period, or have been deeply im- 
 mersed in the literature of a certain age, it is 
 almost incredible how great a change is to be 
 found in the human mind as it there appears, 
 as compared with distant times, and how much 
 even the greatest intellects are governed by 
 the circumstances in which they arise, and 
 the prevailing tone of the public mind with 
 which they are surrounded. How much so- 
 ever we may ascribe, and sometimes with 
 justice ascribe, to the force and ascendant of 
 individual genius, nothing is more certain 
 than that, in the general case, it is external 
 events and circumstances which give a certain 
 bent to human speculation, and that the most 
 original thought is rarely able to do much 
 more than anticipate by a few years, the simul- 
 taneous efforts of inferior intellects. Gene- 
 rally, it will be found that particular seasons 
 or periods in the great year of nations or of 
 the world, bring forth their own appropriate 
 
 * Written on the day when the accounts of the defeat 
 of the ereat Revolt at the Cloister of Silleri by Louis 
 Philippe and Marshal Soult were received. 
 
 fruits : it is rarely that in June can be matured 
 those of September. The changes which have 
 made the greatest and most lasting alteration 
 on the progress of science or the march of 
 human affairs printing, gunpowder, steam 
 navigation were brought to light, it is hardly 
 known how, and. by several different persons, 
 so nearly at the same time, that it is difficult 
 to say to whom th palm of original invention 
 is to be awarded. The discovery of fluxions, 
 awarded by common consent to the unap- 
 proachable intellect of Newton, was made 
 about the same time by his contemporaries, 
 Leibnitz and Gregory; the honours of original 
 thought in political economy are divided be- 
 tween Adam Smith and the French economists ; 
 the improvements on the steam-engine were 
 made in the same age by Watt and Arkwright; 
 and the science of strategy was developed 
 with equal clearness in the German treatise 
 of the Archduke Charles, as the contemporary 
 treatises of Jomini and Napoledn. The great- 
 est intellect perceives only the coming light ; 
 the rays of the rising sun strike first upon the 
 summits of the mountains, but his ascending 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 43 
 
 beams will soon illuminate the slopes on their 
 sides, and the valleys at their feet. 
 
 There is, however, a considerable variety 
 in the rapidity with which the novel and ori- 
 ginal ideas of different great men are com- 
 municated to their contemporaries ; and hence 
 the extraordinary difference between the early 
 celebrity which some works, destined for future 
 immortality, have obtained in comparison of 
 others. This has long been matter of familiar 
 observation to all persons at all acquainted 
 with literary history. The works of some great 
 men have at once stepped into that celebrity 
 which was their destined meed through every 
 subsequent age of the world, while the pro- 
 ductions of others have languished on through 
 a long period of obscurity, unnoticed by all 
 save a few elevated minds, till the period 
 arrived, when the world became capable of 
 understanding their truth, or feeling their 
 beauty. The tomb of Euripides, at Athens, 
 bore that all Greece mourned at his obsequies. 
 We learn from Pliny's Epistles, that even in 
 his own lifetime, immortality was anticipated 
 not only for Tacitus, but all who were noticed 
 in his annals. Shakspeare, though not yet 
 arrived' at the full maturity of his fame, was 
 yet well known to, and enthusiastically ad- 
 mired by his contemporaries. Lope de Vega 
 amassed a hundred thousand crowns in the 
 sixteenth century, by the sale of his eighteen 
 hundred plays. Gibbon's early volumes ob- 
 tained a celebrity in the outset nearly as great 
 as his elaborate and fascinating work has 
 since attained. In the next generation after 
 Adam Smith, his principles were generally 
 embraced, and largely acted upon by the legis- 
 lature. The first edition of Robertson's Scot- 
 laud sold off in a month ; and Sir Walter Scott, 
 by the sale of his novels and poems, was able, 
 in twenty years, besides entertaining all the 
 literary society of Europe, to purchase the 
 large estate, and rear the princely fabric, 
 library, and armory of Abbotsford., 
 
 Instances, on the other hand, exist in equal 
 number, and perhaps of a still more striking 
 character, in which the greatest and most pro- 
 found works which the human mind has ever- 
 produced have remained, often for a long time, 
 unnoticed, till the progress of social affairs 
 brought the views of others generally to a level 
 with that of their authors. Bacon bequeathed 
 his reputation in his last testament to the ge- 
 neration after the next; so clearly did he per- 
 ceive that more than one race of men must 
 expire before the opinions of others attained 
 the level of his own far-seeing sagacity. Burke 
 advanced principles in his French Revolution 
 of which we are now, only now," beginning, 
 after the lapse of half a century, to feel the full 
 truth and importance. Hume ,met with so 
 little encouragement in the earlier volumes of 
 his history, that but for the animating assu- 
 rances of a few enlightened friends, he has him- 
 self told us, he would have resigned his task 
 in despair. Milton sold the Paradise Lost for 
 five pounds, and that immortal work languished 
 on with a very limited sale till, fifty years after- 
 wards, it was brought into light by the criti- 
 cisms of Addison. Campbell for years could 
 not find a bookseller who would buy the Plea- 
 
 sures of Hope. Coleridge and Wordsworth 
 passed for little better than imaginative illu- 
 minati with the great bulk of their contempo- 
 raries. 
 
 The principle which seems to regulate this 
 remarkable difference is this : Where a work 
 of genius either describes manners, characters, 
 or scenes with which the great bulk of man- 
 kind are familiar, or concerning which they 
 are generally desirous of obtaining informa- 
 tion ; or if it advance principles which, based 
 on the doctrines popular with the multitude, 
 lead them to new and agreeable results, or 
 deduces from them conclusions slightly in 
 advance of the opinions of the age, but lying 
 in the same direction, it is almost sure of 
 meeting with immediate popularity. Where, 
 oh the other hand, it is founded on principles 
 which are adverse to the prevailing current of 
 public opinion where it sternly asserts the 
 great principles of religion and morality, in 
 opposition to the prejudices or passions of a 
 corrupted age when it advocates the neces- 
 sity of a rational and conservative govern- 
 ment, in the midst of the fervor of innovation 
 or the passion of revolution when it stigma- 
 tizes present vices, or reprobates present 
 follies, or portrays the consequences of present 
 iniquity when it appeals to feelings and vir- 
 tues which have passed from the breasts of the 
 present generation the chances are that it 
 will meet with present admiration only from a 
 few enlightened or virtuous men, and that a 
 different generation must arise, possibly a new 
 race of mankind become dominant, before it 
 attains that general popularity which is its 
 destined and certain reward. On this account 
 the chances are much against the survivance, 
 for any considerable period, of any work, 
 either on religion, politics, or morals, which 
 has early attained to a very great celebrity, 
 because the fact of its having done so is, in 
 general, evidence of its having fallen in, to an 
 extent inconsistent with truth, with the pre- 
 vailing opinions and prejudices of the age. In 
 such opinions there is almost always a consi- 
 derable foundation of truth, but as conxmonly 
 a large intermixture of error. Principles are, 
 by the irreflecting mass, in general pushed too 
 far; due weight is not given to the considera- 
 tions on the other side ; the concurring influ- 
 ence of other causes is either overlooked or 
 disregarded. This is more particularly the 
 case with periods of general excitement, whe- 
 ther on religious or political subjects, inso- 
 much that there is hardly an instance of works 
 which attained an early and extraordinary 
 celebrity at such eras having survived the 
 fervour which gave them birth, and the gene- 
 ral concurrence of opinion in which they were 
 cradled. Where are now the innumerable 
 polemical writings which issued both from the 
 Catholic and Protestant divines during the 
 fervour of the Reformation ? Where the forty 
 thousand tracts which convulsed the nation in 
 the course of the great Rebellion ? Where 
 the deluge of enthusiasm and infidelity which 
 overspread the world at the commencement 
 of the French Revolution"? On the other 
 hand, the works which have survived such 
 periods of general fervour are those whose 
 
44 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 authors boldly and firmly, resting on the in- 
 ternal conviction of truth, set themselves to 
 oppose the prevailing vices or follies of their 
 age, and whose works, in consequence little 
 esteemed by their contemporaries, have now 
 risen into the purer regions of the moral at- 
 mosphere, and now shine, far above the 
 changes of mortality, as fixed stars in the 
 highest heavens. Of this character is Bacon, 
 whose sublime intellect, bursting the fetters 
 of a narrow-minded age, outstripped by two 
 centuries the progress of the human mind 
 Jeremy Taylor, whose ardent soul, loathing 
 the vices of his corrupted contemporaries, 
 clothed the lessons of religion in the burning 
 words of genius and Burke, whose earlier 
 career, chained in the fetters of party, has now 
 been forgotten in the lustre of the original and 
 independent thoughts, adverse to the spirit of 
 the age, which burst forth in his works on the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 In comparing, on subjects of political thought 
 or social amelioration, the writings of the school 
 of Louis XIV. with that of the Revolution, the 
 progress of the human mind appears prodi- 
 gious and so it will speedily appear from the 
 quotations which we shall lay before our 
 readers. But, in the general comparison of 
 the two, there is one thing very remarkable, 
 and which is exactly the reverse of what might 
 d priori have been expected, and what the ig- 
 norant vulgar or party writers still suppose to 
 be the case this is the superior independence 
 of thought, and bold declamation against the 
 vices of the ruling power in the state, which 
 the divines and moralists of the Grande Mo- 
 narque exhibit, when compared with the cring- 
 ing servility and oriental flattery which the 
 writers of the Revolutionary school, whether 
 in France or England, have never ceased to 
 address to their democratic patrons and rulers 
 invested with supreme authority. We need 
 not remind our readers what is the language, 
 even of able writers and profound thinkers of 
 the modern democratic school, in regard to the 
 sources of all abuse in government, and the 
 quarter from whence alone any social im- 
 provement can be expected. It is kings and 
 aristocrats who are the origin of all oppres- 
 sion and unhappiness ; it is their abuses and 
 misgovernment which have ever been the real 
 causes of public suffering; it is their insatia- 
 ble avarice, rapacity, and selfishness which 
 have in every age brought misery and desola- 
 tion upon the humbler and more virtuous 
 members of society. Where, then, is ameliora- 
 tion to be looked for 1 ? and in what class of 
 society is an antidote to be found to the in- 
 herent vices and abuses of power 1 ? In the 
 middle and lower ranks ; it is their virtue, 
 intelligence, and patriotism which is the real 
 spring of all public prosperity it is their un- 
 ceasing labour and industry which is the 
 source of all public wealth their unshaken 
 constancy and courage which is at once the 
 only durable foundation of national safety, and 
 the prolific fountain of national glory. Princes 
 may err, ministers may commit injustice ; but 
 the people, when once enlightened by educa- 
 tion, and intrusted with power, are never 
 wrong the masses never mistake their real 
 
 interests : their interests are on the side of 
 good government of them it may truly be 
 said, Vox populi, vox Dei. Such is the language 
 which the democratic flatterers of these times 
 incessantly address to the popular rulers of the 
 state to the masses by whom popularity and 
 eminence is to be won to the Government by 
 whom patronage and power is distributed. 
 From such degrading specimens of general 
 servility and business, let us refresh our eyes, 
 and redeem the honour of human nature, by 
 turning to the thundering strains in which 
 Bossuet and Fenelon impressed upon their 
 courtly auditory and despotic ruler, the eternal 
 doctrines of judgment to come, and the stern 
 manner in which they traced to the vices or 
 follies of princes the greater part of the evils 
 which disturb the world. 
 
 It is thus that Fenelon, in the name of Men- 
 tor, addresses his royal pupil, the heir of the 
 French monarchy: 
 
 " A king is much less acquainted than pri- 
 vate individuals with those by whom he is 
 surrounded; every one around him has a 
 mask on his visage ; every species of artifice 
 is exhausted to deceive him alas ! Tele- 
 maque ! you will soon experience this too bit- 
 terly. The more extensive the kingdom is 
 which you have to govern, the more do you 
 stand in need of ministers to assist you in 
 your labours, and the more are you exposed 
 to the chances of misrepresentation. The ob- 
 scurity of private life throws a veil over our 
 faults, and magnifies the idea of the powers of 
 men ; but supreme authority puts the virtues 
 to the test^ and unveils even the most incon- 
 siderable failing; grandeur is like the glasses 
 which magnify all the objects seen through 
 them. The whole world is occupied by ob- 
 serving a single man, flattering his virtues, 
 applauding his vices in his presence, execrat- 
 ing them in his absence. Meanwhile, the 
 king is but a man beset by all the humours, pas- 
 sions, and iveaknesses of mortality ; surrounded by 
 artful flatterers, who have all their objects to 
 gain in leading him into vices. Hardly has 
 he redeemed one fault, when he falls into 
 another; such is the situation even of the 
 most enlightened and virtuous kings ; what 
 then must be the destiny of those who are de- 
 praved ] 
 
 " The longest and best reigns are frequently 
 too short to repair the mischfef done, and often 
 without intending it at their commencement. 
 Royalty is born the heir to all these miseries ; 
 human weakness often sinks under the load 
 by which it is oppressed. Men are to be pitied 
 for being placed under the government of one 
 as weak and fallible as themselves ; the gods 
 alone would be adequate to the due regulation 
 of human affairs. Nor are kings less to be 
 pitied, being but men ; that is to say, imperfect 
 and fallible beings, and charged with the go- 
 vernment of an innumerable multitude of cor- 
 rupted and deceitful men. 
 
 " The countries in which the authority of the 
 sovereign is most absolute, are precisely those 
 in which they enjoy least real power. They 
 take, they raise every thing ; they alone pos- 
 sess the state ; but meanwhile every class of 
 society languishes, the fields are deserted, cities 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 45 
 
 decline, commerce disappears. The king, who 
 cannot engross in his own person the whole 
 state, and who cannot increase in grandeur, 
 but with the prosperity of his people, annihi- 
 lates himself by degrees by the decay of riches 
 and power in his subjects. His dominions 
 become bereaved both of wealth and men ; the 
 last decline is irreparable. His absolute power 
 indeed gives him as many slaves as he has 
 subjects ; he is flattered, adored, and his 
 slightest wish is a law; every one around him 
 trembles; but wait till the slightest revolution 
 arrives, and that monstrous power, pushed to 
 an extravagant excess, cannot endure; it has 
 no foundation in the affections of the people ; 
 it has irritated all the members of the state, 
 and constrained them all to sigh after a change. 
 At the first stroke which it receives, the idol 
 is overturned, broken, and trampled under foot. 
 Contempt, hatred, fear, resentment, distrust, in 
 a word, all the passions conspire against so 
 odious an authority. The king who, in his 
 vain prosperity, never found a single man suf- 
 ficiently bold to tell him the truth, will not find 
 in his misfortune a single person either to ex- 
 tenuate his faults or defend him against his 
 enemies." Tclanaque, liv. xii. adfin. 
 
 Passages similar to this abound in all the 
 great ecclesiastical writers of the age of Louis 
 XIV. and Louis XV. They are to be found 
 profusely scattered through the works of Bos- 
 suet, Massilon, Fenelon, and Bourdaloue. We 
 have many similar passages marked, but the 
 pressure of other matters more immediately 
 connected with the object of this paper pre- 
 cludes their insertion. Now this independence 
 and boldness of thought and expression, in 
 courtly churchmen, and addressed to a courtly 
 auditory, is extremely remarkable. It was to 
 the Grande Monarque and his numerous train 
 of princes, dukes, peeresses, ladies, and. cour- 
 tiers, that these eternal, but unpalatable truths 
 were addressed ; it was the holders of all the 
 church patronage of France, that were thus 
 reminded of the inevitable result of misgo- 
 vernment on the part of the ruling power. We 
 speak much about the increasing kitelligence, 
 spirit, and independence of the age ; neverthe- 
 less we should like to see the same masculine 
 cast of thought, the same caustic severity of 
 expression applied to the vices and follies of 
 the present holders of power by the expectants 
 of their bounty, as was thus fearlessly rung 
 into the ears of the despotic rulers of France 
 by the titled hierarchy who had been raised to 
 greatness by their support. We should like 
 to see a candidate for popular suffrage on the 
 hustings condemn, in equally unmeasured 
 terms, the vices, follies, and passions of the 
 people ; or a leading orator on the liberal side, 
 portray in as vivid colours, from the Ministe- 
 rial benches in the House of Commons, the 
 inevitable consequences of democratic selfish- 
 ness and injustice; or a favourite preacher on 
 the Voluntary system, thunder, in no less for- 
 cible language, in the ears of his astonished 
 audience, the natural results of fervour and 
 intrigue among popular constituencies. Alas ! 
 we see none of these things; truth, which did 
 venture to make itself heard, when sanctified 
 by the Church, in the halls of princes, is ut- 
 
 terly banished from the precincts of the many- 
 headed despots ; and religion, which loudly 
 proclaimed the universal corruption and weak- 
 ness of humanity in the ears of monarehs, can- 
 not summon up sufficient courage to meet, in 
 iheir strongholds of power, the equally de- 
 praved and selfish masses of the people. 
 Aristotle has said that the courtier and the 
 demagogue are not only nearly allied to each 
 other, but are in fact the name 'men, varying not 
 in their object, but in the quarter to which, 
 according to the frame of government, they 
 address their flattery; but this remarkable fact 
 would seem to demonstrate that the latter is a 
 more thorough and servile courtier than the 
 former ; and that truth will more rarely be 
 found in the assemblies of the multitude than 
 in the halls of princes. 
 
 In truth, the boldness and indignation of 
 language conspicuous in the great ornaments 
 of the French Church would be altogether in- 
 explicable on merely worldly considerations ; 
 and accordingly it will never be found among 
 the irreligious and selfish flatterers of demo- 
 cracy. It is religion alone, which, inspiring 
 men with objects and a sense of duty above 
 this world, can lead to that contempt of pre- 
 sent danger, and that fearless assertion of 
 eternal truth, in the presence of power, which 
 has formed in every age the noblest attribute 
 of the Christian Church. In the temporal 
 courtiers of no age or country has there ever 
 been found an example of the same courage- 
 ous maintenance of principle and castigation 
 of crime in defiance of the frowns of authority ; 
 these worldly aspirants have ever been as 
 servile and submissive to kings as the syco- 
 phantish flatterers of a democratic multitude 
 have been lavish in the praise of their in- 
 tellectual wisdom. And the principle which 
 rendered Bossuet and Fenelon the courageous 
 assertor-s of eternal truth in the chapels and 
 court of the Grand Monarque, was the same 
 as that which inspired Latimer, the martyr of 
 the English Church, with such heroic firm- 
 ness in resisting the tyrannic injustice of 
 Henry VIII. In the midst of the passions and 
 cruelty of that blood-stained tyrant, the up- 
 right prelate preached a sermon in his pre- 
 sence at the Chapel-Royal, condemning, in the 
 strongest terms, the very crimes to which 
 every one knew the monarch was peculiarly 
 addicted. Enraged beyond measure at the re- 
 buke thus openly administered to his "plea- 
 sant vices," Henry sent for Latimer, and 
 threatened him with instant death if he did 
 not on the next occasion retract all his cen- 
 sures as openly as he had made them. The 
 reproof got wind, and on the next Sunday the 
 Royal Chapel was crowded with the courtiers, 
 eager to hear the terms in which the inflexi- 
 ble prelate was to recant his censures on the 
 voluptuous tyrant. But Latimer ascended the 
 pulpit, and after a long pause, fixing his eyes 
 steadily on Henry, exclaimed, in the quaint 
 language of the time, to which its inherent 
 dignity has communicated eloquence "Be- 
 think thee, Hugh Latimer! that thou art in 
 the presence of thy worldly sovereign, who 
 hath power to terminate thy earthly life, and 
 cast all thy worldly goods into the flames : But 
 
46 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 bethink thee also, Hugh Latimer! that thou 
 art in the presence of thy Heavenly Father, 
 whose right hand is mighty to destroy as to 
 save, and who can cast thy soul into hell fire ;" 
 and immediately began, in terms even severer 
 and more cutting than before, to castigate the 
 favourite vices and crimes of his indignant 
 sovereign. The issue of the tale was different 
 from what the cruel character of the tyrant 
 might have led us to expect. Henry, who, 
 with all his atrocity, was not on some occa- 
 sions destitute of generous sentiments, was 
 penetrated by the heroic constancy of the 
 venerable prelate, and instead of loading him 
 with chains, and sending him, as every one 
 expected, to the scaffold, openly expressed his 
 admiration of his courage, and took him more 
 into favour than ever. 
 
 The philosophical work of Bossuet, which 
 has attained to most general celebrity, is his 
 " Histoire Universelle ;" and Chateaubriand 
 has repeatedly, in his later writings, held it up 
 as an unequalled model of religious general- 
 ization. We cannot concur in these eulogiums ; 
 and in nothing perhaps does the vast progress 
 of the human mind, during the last hundred 
 and fifty years, appear more conspicuous than 
 in comparing this celebrated treatise with the 
 works on similar subjects of many men of in- 
 ferior intellects in later times. The design of 
 the work was grand and imposing; nothing 
 less than a sketch of the divine government 
 of the world in past ages, and an elucidation 
 of the hidden designs of Providence in all the 
 past revolutions of mankind. In this magnifi- 
 cent attempt he has exhibited a surprising 
 extent of erudition, and cast over the com- 
 plicated thread of human affairs the eagle 
 glance of genius and piety ; but he has not, in 
 our humble apprehension, caught the spirit, 
 or traced the real thread of divine administra- 
 tion. He was too deeply read in the Old Testa- 
 ment, too strongly imbued with the Fathers of 
 the Church, to apprehend the manner in which 
 Supreme Wisdom, without any special or mi- 
 raculous interposition, works out the moral 
 government of the world, and develops the 
 objects of eternal foresight by the agency of 
 human passions, virtues, and vices. His His- 
 toric Theology is all tinged with the character 
 of the Old Testament; it is the God of Battles 
 whom he ever sees giving the victory to His 
 chosen ; it is His Almighty Arm which he dis- 
 cerns operating directly in the rise and the fall 
 of nations. Voltaire said with truth that his 
 " Universal History" is little more, than the 
 History of the Jews. It was reserved for a 
 future age to discern, in the complicated thread 
 of human affairs, the operation not less certain, 
 but more impartial, of general laws ; to see in 
 human passions the moving springs of social 
 improvement, and the hidden instruments of 
 human punishment; to discern, in the rise 
 and fall of nations, the operation, not so much 
 of the active interposition, as of the general 
 tendency of Divine power ; and in the efforts 
 which the wicked make for their own aggran- 
 dizement, or the scope which they afford to 
 their own passions, the certain causes of ap- 
 proaching retribution. That Providence ex- 
 ercises an unceasing superintendence of 
 
 human affairs, and that the consequences of 
 public actions are subjected to permanent 
 laws, the tendency of which in national, as in 
 private life, is to make the virtues or vices of 
 men as instruments of their own reward or 
 punishment, is obvious upon the most cursory 
 survey of history, as well as private life; and 
 though it cannot be affirmed that the sequence 
 is invariable, yet it is sufficiently frequent to 
 warrant certain inferences as to the general 
 character of the laws. We cannot affirm that 
 every day in summer is to be warm, and every 
 day in winter cold; but nevertheless, the gen- 
 eral character of those periods is such as to 
 warrant the conclusion that the rotation of the 
 season was intended, and in general does pro- 
 duce that variation on temperature, and the 
 consequent checking and development of the 
 fruits of the earth. But, as far as we can dis- 
 cern, the intentions of the Supreme Being are 
 here, as elsewhere, manifested by general laws ; 
 the agents empl'oyed are the virtues, vices, and 
 passions of men ; and the general plan of 
 divine administration is to be gathered rather 
 from an attentive consideration of the experi- 
 enced consequences of human actions, than 
 any occasional interposition to check or sus- 
 pend the natural course of events. 
 
 As a specimen of the mode in which Bossuet 
 regards the course of events, we subjoin the 
 concluding passage of his Universal History : 
 "This long chain of causes and effects, on 
 which the fate of empires depends, springs at 
 once from the secrets of Divine Providence. 
 God holds on high the balance of all kingdoms 
 all hearts are in his hands ; sometimes he 
 lets loose the passions sometimes he re- 
 strains them ; by these means he moves the 
 whole human race. Does he wish to raise up 
 a conqueror he spreads terror before his 
 arms, and inspires his soldiers with invincible 
 courage. Does he wish to raise up legislators 
 he pours into their minds the spirit of fore- 
 sight and wisdom. He causes them to fore- 
 see the evils which menace the state, and lay 
 deep in wisdom the foundations of public tran- 
 quillity. He knows that human intellect is 
 ever contracted in some particulars. He then 
 draws the film from its eyes, extends its views, 
 and afterwards abandons it to itself blinds it, 
 precipitates it to destruction. Its precautions 
 become the snare which entraps ; its foresight 
 the subtlety which destroys it. It is in this 
 way that God exercises his redoubtable judg- 
 ments according to the immutable laws of 
 eternal justice. It is his invisible hand which 
 prepares effects in their most remote causes, 
 and strikes the fatal blows, the very rebound 
 of which involves nations in destruction. 
 When he wishes to pour out the vials of his 
 wrath, and overturn empires, all becomes 
 weak and vacillating in their conduct. Egypt, 
 once so wise, became intoxicated, and faltered 
 at every step, because the Most High had 
 poured the spirit of madness into its counsels. 
 It no longer knew what step to take ; it 
 faltered, it perished. But let us not deceive 
 ourselves ; God can restore when he pleases the 
 blinded vision ; and he who insulted the blind- 
 ness of others, himself falls into the most pro- 
 found darkness, without any other cause being 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 47 
 
 carried into operation to overthrow the longest j 
 course of prosperity. 
 
 " It is thus that God reigns over all people. 
 Let us no longer speak of hazard or fortune, 
 or speak of it only as a veil to our weakness 
 an excuse to our ignorance. That which ap- 
 pears chance to our uncertain vision is the 
 effect of intelligence and design on the part of 
 the Most High of the deliberations of that 
 Supreme Council which disposes of all human 
 affairs. 
 
 " It is for this reason that the rulers of man- 
 kind are ever subjected to a superior force 
 which they cannot control. Their actions pro- 
 duce greater or lesser effects than they in- 
 tended ; their counsels have never failed to be 
 attended by unforeseen consequences. Neither 
 could they control the effect which the conse- 
 quences of former revolutions produced upon j 
 their actions, nor foresee the course of events 
 destined to follow the measures in which they 
 themselves were actors. He alone who held 
 the thread of human affairs who knows what 
 was, and is, and is to come foresaw and pre- 
 destined the whole in his immutable council. 
 
 "Alexander, in his mighty conquests, in- 
 tended neither to labour for his generals, nor 
 to ruin his royal house by his conquests. 
 When the elder Brutus inspired the Roman 
 people with an unbounded passion for free- 
 dom, he little thought that he was implanting 
 in their minds the seeds of that unbridled li- 
 cense, destined one day to induce a tyranny 
 more grievous than that of the Tarquins. 
 When the Coesars nattered the soldiers with a 
 view to their immediate elevation, they had no 
 intention of rearing up a militia of tyrants for 
 their successors and the empire. In a word, 
 there is no human power which has not con- 
 tributed, in spite of itself, to other designs than 
 its own. God alone is able to reduce all things 
 to his own will. Hence it is that every thing 
 appears surprising when we regard only secon* 
 dary causes ; and, nevertheless, all things ad- 
 vance with a regulated pace. Innumerable 
 unforeseen results of human councils eon- 
 ducted the fortunes of Rome from Romulus 
 to Charlemagne." Discours sur I' Hist. Univ. 
 ad fin. 
 
 It is impossible to dispute the grandeur of 
 the glance which the Eagle of Meaux has cast 
 over human- affairs in the ancient world. But 
 without contesting many of his propositions, 
 and, in particular, fully conceding the truth of 
 the important observation, that almost all the 
 greater public actions of men have been at- 
 tended in the end by consequences different 
 from, often the reverse of, those which they 
 intended, we apprehend that the mode of Di- 
 vine superintendence and agency will be found 
 to be more correctly portrayed in the following 
 passage from Blair an author, the elegance 
 and simplicity of whose diction frequently dis- 
 guises the profoundness of his thoughts, and 
 the correctness of his observations of human 
 affairs : " The system upon which the Divine 
 Government at present proceeds plainly is, 
 that men's own weakness should be appointed 
 to correct them ; that sinners should be snared 
 in the work of their own hand, and sunk in 
 the pit which themselves have digged ; that the 
 
 backslider in heart should be filled with his 
 own ways. Of all the plans which couid be 
 devised for the government of the world, this 
 approves itself to reason as the wisest and 
 most worthy of God; so to frame the constitu- 
 tion of things, that the Divine laws should in 
 a manner execute themselves, and carry their 
 sanctions in their own bosom. When the 
 vices of men require punishment to be in- 
 flicted, the Almighty is at no loss for ministers 
 of justice. A thousand instruments of ven- 
 geance are at his command; innumerable 
 arrows- are always in his quiver. But such is 
 the profound wisdom of his plan, that no pe- 
 culiar interposals of power are requisite. He 
 has no occasion to step from his throne, and 
 to interrupt the order of nature. With the 
 majesty and solemnity which befits Omnipo- 
 tence, he pronounces, 'Ephraim has gone to 
 his idols : let him alone.' He leaves trans- 
 gressors to their own guilt, and punishment 
 follows of course. Their sins do the work of 
 justice. They lift the scourge ; and with every 
 stroke which they inflict on the criminal, they 
 mix this severe admonition, that as he is only 
 reaping the fruit of his own actions, he de- 
 serves all that he suffers." BLAIR, iv. 268, 
 Serm. 14. 
 
 The most eloquent and original of Bossuet's 
 writings is his funeral oration on Henrietta, 
 Queen of England, wife of the unfortunate 
 Charles I. It was natural that such an occa- 
 sion should call forth all his powers, pro- 
 nounced as it was on a princess of the blood- 
 royal of France, who had undergone unpa- 
 ralleled calamities with heroic resignation, the 
 fruit of the great religious revolution of the 
 age, against which the French prelate had 
 exerted all the force of his talents. It exhibits 
 accordingly a splendid specimen of genius 
 and capacity; and imbued as we are in this 
 Protestant land with the most favourable im- 
 pressions of the consequences of this convul- 
 sion, it is perhaps not altogether uninstructive 
 to observe in what light it was regarded by the 
 greatest intellects of the Catholic world, that 
 between the two we may form some estimate 
 of the light in which it will be viewed by an 
 impartial posterity. 
 
 " Christians !" says he, in the exordium of 
 his discourse ; " it is not surprising that the 
 memory of a great Queen, the daughter, the 
 wife, the mother of monarchs, should attract 
 you from all quarters to this melancholy cere- 
 mony ; it will bring forcibly before your eyes 
 one of those awful examples which demon*- 
 strate to the world the vanity of which it is 
 composed. You will see in her single life the 
 extremes of human things; felicity without 
 bounds, miseries without parallel; a long and 
 peaceable enjoyment of one of the most noble 
 crowns in the universe, all that birth and gran- 
 deur could confer that was glorious, all that 
 adversity and suffering could accumulate that 
 was disastrous ; the good cause, attended at 
 first with some success, then involved in the 
 most dreadful disasters. Revolutions unheard 
 of, rebellion long restrained at length reign- 
 ing triumphant; no curb there to license, no 
 laws in force. Majesty itself violated by bloody 
 hands, usurpation, and tyranny, under the name 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of liberty a fugitive Queen, who can find no j 
 retreat in her three kingdoms, and was forced ' 
 to seek in her native country a melancholy | 
 exile. Nine sea voyages undertaken against j 
 her will by a Queen, in spite of wintry tern- j 
 pests a throne unworthily overturned, and 
 miraculously re-established. Behold the les- 
 son which God has given to kings ! thus does 
 He manifest to the world the nothingness of 
 its pomps and its grandeur! If our words 
 fail, if language sinks beneath the grandeur 
 of such a subject, the simple narrative is more 
 touching than aught that words can convey. 
 The heart of a great Queen, formerly elevated 
 by so long a course of prosperity, then steeped 
 in all the bitterness of affliction, will speak in 
 sufficiently touching language ; and if it is not 
 given to a private individual to teach the 
 proper lesson? from so mournful a catastrophe, 
 the King of Israel has supplied the words-r- 
 * Hear ! Oh ye Great of the Earth ! Take les- 
 sons, ye Rulers of the World !' 
 
 " But the wise and devout Princess, whose 
 obsequies we celebrate, has not merely been a 
 spectacle exhibited to the world in order that 
 men might learn the counsels of Divine Pro- 
 vidence, and the fatal revolutions of monar- 
 chies. She took counsel herself from the ca- 
 lamities in which she was involved, while 
 God was instructing kings by her example. 
 It is by giving and withdrawing power that 
 God communicates his lessons to kings. The 
 Queen we mourn has equally listened to the 
 voice of these two opposite monitors. She 
 has made use, like a Christian, alike of pros- 
 perous and adverse fortune. In the first she 
 was beneficent, in the last invincible ; as long 
 as she was fortunate, she let her power be felt 
 only by her unbounded deeds of goodness ; 
 when wrapt in misery, she enriched herself 
 more than ever by the heroic virtues befitting 
 misfortune. For her own good, she has lost 
 that sovereign power which she formerly ex- 
 ercised only for the blessings of her subjects ; 
 and if her friends if the universal church 
 have profited by her prosperities, she herself 
 has profited more from her calamities than 
 from all her previous grandeur. That is the 
 great lesson to be drawn from the ever-memo- 
 rable life of Henrietta Maria of France, Queen 
 of Great Britain. 
 
 " I need not dwell on the illustrious birth of 
 that Princess; no rank on earth equals it in 
 lustre. Her virtues have been not less re- 
 markable than her descent. She was endowed 
 with a generosity truly royal; of a truth, it 
 might be said, that she deemed every thing 
 lost which was not given away. Nor were 
 her other virtues less admirable. The faithful 
 depositary of many important complaints and 
 secrets it was her favourite maxim that 
 princes should observe the same silence as 
 confessors, and exercise the same discretion. 
 In the utmost fury of the Civil Wars never 
 was her word doubted, or her clemency called 
 in question. Who has so nobly exercised that 
 winning art which humbles without lowering 
 itself, and confers so graciously liberty, while 
 it commands respect 1 ? At once mild yet firm 
 condescending, yet dignified she knew at the 
 game time how to convince and persuade, and 
 
 to support by reason, rather than enforce by 
 authority. With what prudence did she con- 
 duct herself in circumstances the most ar- 
 duous ; if a skilful hand could have saved the 
 state, hers was the one to have done it. Her 
 magnanimity can never be sufficiently extolled. 
 Fortune had no power over her; neither the 
 evils which she foresaw, nor those by which 
 she was surprised, could lower her courage. 
 What shall I say to her immovable fidelity to 
 the religion of her ancestors 1 She knew well 
 that that attachment constituted the glory of 
 her house, as well as of the whole of France, 
 sole nation in the world which, during the 
 twelve centuries of its existence, has never 
 seen on the throne but the faithful children of 
 the church. Uniformly she declared that no- 
 thing should detach her from the faith of St. 
 Louis. The King, her husband, has pro- 
 nounced upon her the noblest of all eulogiums, 
 that their hearts were in union in all but the 
 matter of religion; and confirming by his tes- 
 timony the piety of the Queen, that enlightened 
 Prince has made known to all the world at 
 once his tenderness, his conjugal attachment, 
 and the sacred, inviolable fidelity of his in- 
 comparable spouse." 
 
 All the world must admire the sustained 
 dignity of this noble eulogium ; but touching 
 as were the misfortunes, heroic the character, 
 of the unfortunate Henrietta, it more nearly 
 concerns us to attend to the opinion of Bossuet 
 on the great theological convulsion, in the 
 throes of which she was swallowed up. 
 
 ; ' When God permits the smoke to arise from 
 the pits o/ the abyss which darkens the face 
 of Heaven that is, when he suffers heresy to 
 arise when, to punish the scandals of the 
 church, or awaken the piety of the people and 
 their pastors, He permits the darkness of error 
 to deceive the most elevated minds, and to 
 spread abroad throughout the world a haughty 
 chagrin, a disquieted curiosity, a spirit of re- 
 volt, He determines, in his infinite wisdom, 
 the limits which are to be imposed to the pro- 
 gress of error, the stay which is to be put to 
 the sufferings of the church. I do not pretend 
 to announce to you, Christians, the destiny of 
 the heresies of our times, nor to be able to 
 assign the fatal boundary by which God has 
 restrained their course. But if my judgment 
 does not deceive me ; if, recurring to the his- 
 tory of past ages, I rightly apply their experi- 
 ence to the present, I am led to the opinion, 
 and the wisest of men concur in the sentiment, 
 that the days of blindness are past, and that the 
 time is approaching when the true light will return. 
 
 " When Henry VIII., a prince in other re- 
 sj>ects so accomplished, was seduced by the 
 passions which blinded Solomon and so many 
 other kings, and began to shake the authority 
 of the Church, the wise warned him, that if he 
 stirred that one point, he would throw the 
 whole fabric of government into peril, and in- 
 fuse, in opposition to his wishes, a frightful 
 license into future ages. The wise forewarned 
 him ; but when is passion controlled by wis- 
 dom ; when does not folly smile at its predic- 
 tions 1 That, however, which a prudent fore- 
 sight could not persuade to men, a ruder in- 
 I structor, experience, has compelled them to 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 49 
 
 believe. All that religion has that is most sa- 
 cred has been sacrificed ; England has changed 
 so far that it no longer can recognise itself; 
 and, more agitated in its bosom and on its own 
 soil than even the ocean which surrounds it, 
 it has been overwhelmed by a frightful inun- 
 dation of innumerable absurd sects. Who can 
 predict but what, repenting of its enormous 
 errors concerning Government, it may not ex- 
 tend its reflections still farther, and look back 
 with fond regret to the tranquil condition of re- 
 ligious thought which preceded the convul- 
 sions'?" 
 
 Amidst all this pomp of language, and this 
 sagacious intermixture of political foresight 
 with religious prepossession, there is one re- 
 flection which necessarily forces itself upon 
 the mind. Bossuet conceived, and conceived 
 justly, that the frightful atrocities into which 
 religious dissension. had precipitated the Eng- 
 lish people would produce a general reaction 
 against the theological fervour from which 
 they had originated; and that the days of ex- 
 travagant fervour were numbered, from the 
 very extent of the general suffering which its 
 aberrations had occasioned. In arriving at 
 this conclusion, he correctly reasoned from 
 the past to the present; and foretold a decline 
 in false opinion, from the woful consequences 
 which Providence had attached to its continu- 
 ance. Yet how widely did he err when he 
 imagined that the days of the Reformation 
 were numbered, or that England, relapsing 
 into the quiet despotism of former days, was 
 to fall back again into the arms of the Eternal 
 Church ! At that very moment the broad and 
 deep foundations of British freedom were in 
 the act of being laid, and that power was aris- 
 ing, destined in future ages to be the bulwark 
 of the Protestant faith, the vehicle of pure un- 
 defiled religion to the remotest corners of the 
 earth. The great theological convulsions of 
 the sixteenth century were working out their 
 appropriate fruits; a new world was peopling 
 by its energy, and rising into existence from 
 its spirit; and from the oppressed and dis- 
 tracted shores of England those hosts of emi- 
 grants were embarking for distant regions, 
 who were destined, at no remote period, to 
 spread the Church of England and the Pro- 
 testant faith through the countless millions of 
 the American race. The errors, indeed the 
 passions, the absurdities of that unhappy pe- 
 riod, as Bossuet rightly conjectured, have 
 passed away; the Fifth Monarchy men no 
 longer disturb the plains of England; the 
 chants of the Covenanters are no longer heard 
 on the mountains of Scotland ; transferred to 
 the faithful record of history or the classic 
 pages of romance, these relics of the olden, 
 time only furnish a heart-stirring subject for 
 the talents of the historian or the genius of the 
 novelist. But the human mind never falls 
 back, though it often halts in its course. Ves- 
 tigia tn'lla rc'n.rsum is the law of social affairs 
 not less than of the fabled descent to the 
 shades below; the descendants of the Puritans 
 and the Covenanters have abjured the absur- 
 dities of their fathers, but they have not re- 
 lapsed into the chains of Popery. Purified of 
 its corruptions by the indignant voice of in- 
 7 
 
 surgent reason, freed from its absurdities by 
 the experience of the calamities with which 
 they were attended, the fair form of Catholic 
 Christianity has arisen in the British Isles; 
 imbued with the spirit of the universal Church, 
 but destitute of the rancour of its deluded sec- 
 taries; borrowing from the religion of Rome 
 its charity, adopting from the Lutheran Church 
 its morality; sharing with reason its intellec- 
 tual triumphs, inheriting from faith its spiri- 
 tual constancy, not disdaining the support of 
 ages, and yet not excluding the light of time ; 
 glorying in the antiquity of its descent, and, 
 at the same time, admitting the necessity of 
 recent reformation ; it has approached as near 
 as the weakness of humanity, and the limited 
 extent of our present vision will permit, to 
 that model of ideal perfection which, veiled in 
 the silver robes of innocence, the faithful trust 
 is one day to pervade the earth. And if pre- 
 sent appearances justify any presentiments as 
 to future events, the destinies of this church 
 are worthy of the mighty collision of antiqui- 
 ty with revolution, of the independence of 
 thought with the reverence for authority, from 
 which it arose, and the vast part assigned to 
 it in human affairs. The glories of the Eng- 
 lish nation, the triumphs of the English navy, 
 have been the pioneers of its progress ; the in- 
 fidel triumphs of the French Revolution, the 
 victorious career of Napoleon, have minister- 
 ed to its, success; it is indissolubly wound up 
 with the progress of the Anglo-American race; 
 it is spreading over the wilds of Australia; 
 slowly but steadily it is invading the primeval 
 deserts of Africa. It shares the destiny of the 
 language of Milton, Shakspeare, and Scott; it 
 must grow with the growth of a colonial em- 
 pire which encircles the earth; the invention 
 of printing, the discovery of steam navigation, 
 are the vehicles of its mercies to mankind ! 
 
 "I have spoken," says Bossuet, "of the 
 license into which the human mind is thrown, 
 when once the foundations of religion are 
 shaken, and the ancient landmarks are re- 
 moved. 
 
 " But as the subject of the present discourse 
 affords so uni.que and memorable an example 
 for the instruction of all ages of the lengths to 
 which such furious passions will lead the peo- 
 ple, I must, in justice to my subject, recur to 
 the original sources of error, and conduct you, 
 step by step, from the first contempt and dis- 
 regard of the church to the final atrocities in 
 which it has plunged mankind. 
 
 " The fountain of the whole evil is to be 
 found in those in the last centur}', who at- 
 tempted reformation by means of schism ; 
 finding the church an invincible barrier against 
 all their innovations, they felt themselves under 
 the necessity of overturning it. Thus the 
 decrees of the Councils, the doctrines of the 
 fathers, the traditions of the Holy See, and of 
 the Catholic Church, have been no longer con- 
 sidered as sacred and inviolable. Every one 
 has made for himself a tribunal, where he 
 rendered himself the arbiter of his own belief; 
 and yet the innovators did impose some limits 
 to the changes of thought by restraining them 
 within the bounds of holy writ, as if the mo- 
 ment that the principle is once admitted that 
 
50 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 every believer may put what interpretations 
 upon its passages he pleases, and buoy him- 
 self up with the belief that the Holy Spirit has 
 dictated to him his own peculiar explanation, 
 there is no individual who may not at once 
 conceive himself authorized to worship his 
 own inventions, to consecrate his thoughts, 
 and call the wanderings of his imagination 
 divine inspiration. From the moment this 
 fatal doctrine was introduced, it was distinctly 
 foreseen by the wise that license of thought 
 being now emancipated from all control, sects 
 would multiply ad i-nfinitvm; obstinacy become 
 invincible; disputes interminable; and that, 
 while some would give to their reveries the 
 name of inspiration, others, disgusted with 
 such extravagant visions, and not being able 
 to reconcile the majesty of religion with a 
 faith torn by so many divisions, would seek a 
 fatal repose in the indifference of irreligion, or 
 the hardihood of atheism. 
 
 "Such, and more fatal still, have been the 
 natural effects of the new doctrine. But, in 
 like manner, as a stream which has burst its 
 banks does not everywhere produce the same 
 ravages, because its rapidity does not find 
 everywhere the same inclinations and open- 
 ings, thus, although that spirit of indocility 
 and independence was generally diffused 
 through all the heresies of latter times, it has 
 not produced universally the same effects ; it 
 has in many quarters been restrained by fear, 
 worldly interests, and the particular humour 
 of nations, or by the Supreme Power, which 
 can impose, where it seems good, effectual 
 limits even to the utmost extravagance of hu- 
 man passion. If it has appeared in undis- 
 guised malignity in England if its malignity 
 has declared itself without reserve if its kings 
 have perished under its fury, it is because its 
 kings have been the primary causes of the 
 catastrophe. They have yielded too much to 
 the popular delusion that the ancient religion 
 was susceptible of improvement. Their sub- 
 jects have in consequence ceased to revere its 
 maxims ; they could have no respect for it 
 when they saw them daily giving place to the 
 passions and caprices of princes. The earth, 
 too frequently moved, has become incapable 
 of consistence; the mountains, once so stable, 
 have fallen on all sides, and ghastly preci- 
 pices have started forth from their -bared 
 sides. I apply these remarks to all the fright- 
 ful aberrations which we daily see rising up 
 around us. Be not deluded with the idea lhat 
 they are only a quarrel of the Episcopacy, or 
 some disputes of the English Church, which 
 have so profoundly moved the Commons. 
 These disputes were nothing but the feeble 
 commencement, slight essays by which the 
 turbulent spirits made trial of their liberty. 
 Something much more violent was stirring 
 their hearts ; a secret disgust at all authority 
 an insatiable craving after innovation, after 
 they had once tasted its delicious sweets. 
 
 44 Thus the Calvinists, more bold than the 
 Lutherans, have paved the way for the Soci- 
 nians, whose numbers increase every day. 
 From the same source have sprung the infinite 
 sects of the Anabaptists, and from their opi- 
 nions, mingled with the tenets of Calvinism, 
 
 have sprung the Independents, to whose ex- 
 travagances it was thought no parallel could 
 be found till there emerged out of their bosom 
 a still more fanatic race, the Tremblers, who 
 believe that all their reveries are Divine in- 
 spiration ; and the Seekers, who, seventeen 
 hundred years after Christ, still look for the 
 Saviour, whom they have never yet been able 
 to find. It is thus, that when the earth was 
 once stirred, ruins fell on ruins ; when opinion 
 was once shaken, sect multiplied upon sect. 
 In vain the kings of England flattered them- 
 selves that they would be able to arrest the 
 human mind on this perilous declivity by pre- 
 serving the Episcopacy; for what could the 
 bishops do, when they had themselves under- 
 mined their own authority, and all the reve- 
 rence due to the power which they derived by 
 succession from the apostolic ages, by openly 
 condemning their predecessors, even as far 
 back as the origin of their spiritual authority, 
 in the person of St. Gregory and his disciple 
 St. Augustin, the firsi apostle of the English 
 nation ? What is Episcopacy, when it is 
 severed from the Church, which is its main 
 stay, to attach itself, contrary to its divine na- 
 ture, to royalty as its supreme head? Thus 
 two powers, of a character so essentially dif- 
 ferent, can never properly unite ; their func- 
 tions are so different that they mutually impede 
 each ; and the majesty of the kings of Eng- 
 land would have remained inviolable, if. con- 
 tent with its sacred rights, it had not endea- 
 voured to draw to itself the privileges and 
 prerogatives of the Church. Thus nothing 
 has arrested^ the violence of the spirit, so fruit- 
 ful is error; and God, to punish the irreligious 
 irritability of his people, has delivered them 
 over to the intemperance of their own vain 
 curiosity, so that the ardour of their insensate 
 disputes has become the most dangerous of 
 their maladies. 
 
 " Can we be surprised if they lost all respect 
 for majesty and the laws, if they became fac- 
 tious, rebellious, and obstinate, when such 
 principles were instilled into their minds 1 Re- 
 ligion is fatally enervated when it is changed; 
 the weight is taken away which can alone 
 restrain mankind. There is in the bottom of 
 every heart a rebellious spirit, which never 
 fails to escape if the necessary restraint is 
 taken away ; no curb is left when men are 
 once taught that they may dispose at pleasure 
 of religion. Thence has sprung that pretended 
 reign of Christ, heretofore unknown to Christ- 
 endom, which was destined to annihilate roy- 
 alty, and render all men equal, under the 
 name of Independents; a seditious dream, an 
 impious and sacrilegious chimera; but valu- 
 able as a proof of the eternal truth, that every 
 thing turns to sedition and treason, when once 
 the authority of religion is destroyed. But 
 why seek for proofs of a truth, while the Divine 
 Spirit has pronounced upon the subject an 
 unalterable sentence? God has himself de- 
 clared that he will withdraw from the people 
 who alter the religion which he has establish- 
 ed, and deliver them over to the scourge of 
 civil war. Hear the prophet Zacharias ! 
 'Their souls, saith the Lord, have swerved 
 from me, and I have said I will no longer be 
 
BOSSUET. 
 
 51 
 
 your shepherd ; let him who is to die prepare 
 for death ; let he who is to be cut off perish, 
 and the remainder shall prey on each other's 
 flesh.' "* BOSSUET'S Orais. Funcb. de la Reine 
 d* Jlngleterrc. 
 
 The character and the career of the triumph 
 of Cromwell are thus sketched out by the 
 same master-hand : 
 
 " Contempt of the unity of the Church was 
 doubtless the cause of the divisions of Eng- 
 land. If it is asked how it happened that so 
 many opposite and irreconcilable sects should 
 have united themselves to overthrow the royal 
 authority? the answer is plain a man arose 
 of an incredible depth of thought ; as profound 
 a hypocrite as he was a skilful politician ; 
 capable alike of undertaking and concealing 
 everything; active and indefatigable equally 
 in peace as war; so vigilant and active, that 
 he has never proved awanting to any oppor- 
 tunity which presented itself to his elevation ; 
 in fine, one of those stirring and audacious 
 spirits which seem born to overturn the world. 
 How hazardous the fate of such persons is, 
 sufficiently appears from the history of all 
 ages. But also what can they not accomplish 
 when it pleases God to make use of them for 
 his purposes 1 ' It was given to him to deceive 
 the people, and to prevail against kings.'j- 
 Perceiving that in that infinite assembly of 
 sects, who were destitute of all certain rules, 
 the pleasure of indulging in their own dogmas 
 was the secret charm which fascinated all 
 minds, he contrived to play upon that mon- 
 strous propensity so as to render that monstrous 
 assembly a most formidable body. When once 
 the secret is discovered of leading the multitude 
 by the attractions of liberty, it follows blindly, be- 
 cause it hears only that name. The people, oc- 
 cupied with the first object which had trans- 
 ported them, go blindfold on, without perceiving 
 that they are on the high road to servitude ; 
 and their subtle conductor, at once a soldier, a 
 preacher, a combatant, and a dogmatizer, so 
 enchanted the world, that he came to be re- 
 garded as a chief sent by God to work out the 
 triumph of the cause of independence. He 
 was so ; but it was for its punishment. The 
 design of the Almighty was to instruct kings, 
 by this great example, in the danger of leaving 
 his church: He wished to unfold to men to 
 what lengths, both in temporal and spiritual 
 matters, the rebellious spirit of schism can 
 lead; and when, in order to accomplish this 
 end, he has made choice of an instrument, 
 nothing can arrest his course. 'I am the 
 Lord,' said he, by the mouth of his prophet 
 Jeremiah ; ' I made the earth, and all that 
 therein is : I place it in the hands of whom I 
 will.'" Ibid. 
 
 It is curious to those who reflect on the pro- 
 
 * Zecb. xi. 9. 
 
 f Rev. xiii. 5. 
 
 gress of the human mind from one age to 
 another, to observe the large intermixture of 
 error with truth that pervades this remarkable 
 passage. It is clear that the powerful and 
 sagacious mind of the Bishop of Meaux had 
 penetrated the real nature of the revolutionary 
 spirit, whether in religion or politics ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, there is a great deal of truth in his 
 observations on the English Revolution. But 
 he narrows too much the view which he took 
 of it. He ascribes more than its due to the 
 secession from the Church of Rome. No one 
 can doubt, indeed, that religious fervour was 
 the great lever which then moved mankind; 
 and that Bossuet was correct in holding that 
 it was the fervour of the Reformation running 
 into fanaticism, which, spreading from spiritual 
 to temporal concerns, produced the horrors of 
 the Great Rebellion. But, on the other hand, 
 the event has proved that it was no part of the 
 design of Providence to compel the English, 
 by the experience of suffering, to fall again 
 into the arms of the Church of Rome. An 
 hundred and seventy years have elapsed since 
 Bossuet composed these splendid passages, 
 and the Church of England is not only still 
 undecayed, but it is nourishing now in reno- 
 vated youth, and has spread its colonial de- 
 scendants through every part of the earth. 
 The Church of Rome still holds its ground in 
 more than half of old Europe ; but Protestant- 
 ism has spread with the efforts of colonial en- 
 terprise, and the Bible and the hatchet have 
 gone hand in hand in exploring the wilds of 
 the New World. And the hand of Providence 
 is equally clear in both. Catholicism is suited 
 to the stately monarchies, antiquated civiliza- 
 tion, and slavish habits of Southern Europe; 
 but it is totally unfit to animate the exertions 
 and inspire the spirit of the dauntless emi- 
 grants who are to spread the seeds of civiliza- 
 tion through the wilderness of nature. And 
 one thing is very remarkable, and affords a 
 striking illustration of that subjection of human 
 affairs to an overruling Providence which Bos- 
 suet has so eloquently asserted in all parts of 
 his writings. Mr. Hume has observed that the 
 marriage of Queen Henrietta to Charles I., by 
 the partiality for the Catholic faith which it 
 infused into his descendants, is the principal 
 reason of their being at this moment exiles 
 from the British throne! It was deemed at 
 the time a masterpiece of the Court of Rome 
 to place a Catholic Queen on the throne of 
 England; and the conversion of that bright 
 jewel to the tiara of St. Peter was confidently 
 anticipated from its effects; and its ultimate 
 results have been not only to confirm the Pro- 
 testant faith in the British isles, but diffuse its 
 seed, by the distraction and suffering of the 
 Civil Wars, through the boundless colonial 
 empire of Great Britain. 
 
52 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 POLAND.* 
 
 THE recent events in Poland have awakened 
 the old and but half-extinguished interest of the 
 British people in the fate of that unhappy 
 country. The French may regard the Polish 
 legions as the vanguard only of revolutionary 
 movement: the Radicals may hail their strug- 
 gle as the first fruits of political regeneration: 
 the great majority of observers in this country 
 think of them only as a gallant people, bravely 
 combating for their independence, and forget 
 the shades of political difference in the great 
 cause of national freedom. The sympathy 
 with the Poles, accordingly, is universal. It 
 is as strong with the Tories as the Whigs, with 
 the supporters of antiquated abuse as the aspi- 
 rants after modern improvement. Political 
 considerations combine with generous feeling 
 in this general interest. And numbers who 
 regard with aversion any approach towards 
 revolutionary warfare, yet view it with com- 
 placency when it seems destined to interpose 
 Sarmatian valour between European indepen- 
 dence and Muscovite ambition. 
 
 The history of Poland, however, contains 
 more subjects of interest than this. It is fraught 
 with political instruction as well as romantic 
 adventure, and exhibits on a great scale the 
 consequences of that democratic equality 
 which, with uninformed politicians, is so much 
 the object of eulogium. The French revolu- 
 tionists, who sympathize so vehemently with 
 the Poles in their contest with Russian despot- 
 ism, little imagine that the misfortunes of that 
 country are the result of that very equality 
 which they have made such sacrifices to at- 
 tain; and that in the weakness of Poland may 
 be discerned the consequences of the political 
 system which they consider as the perfection 
 of society. 
 
 Poland, in ancient, possessed very much the 
 extent and dominion of Russia in Europe in 
 modern times. It stretched from the Baltic to 
 the Euxine ; from Smolensko to Bohemia ; and 
 embraced within its bosom the whole Scythia 
 of antiquity the storehouse of nations, from 
 whence the hordes issued who so long pressed 
 upon and at last overthrew the Roman empire. 
 Its inhabitants have" in every age been cele- 
 brated for their heroic valour : they twice, in 
 conjunction with the Tartars, caplured the 
 ancient capital of Russia, and the conflagration 
 of Moscow, and retreat of Napoleon, were but 
 the repetition of what had resulted five centu- 
 ries before from the appearance of the Polish 
 eagles on the banks of the Moskwa. Placed 
 on the frontiers of European civilization, they 
 long formed its barrier against barbarian inva- 
 sion : and the most desperate wars they ever 
 maintained were those which they had to 
 carry on with their own subjects, the Cossacks 
 of the Ukraine, whose roving habits and pre- 
 
 * Salvandy's Histoire de la Polofriie, 3 vols. Parts, 1830. 
 Reviewed in RHckwood's Magazine, Aug. 1831. Writ- 
 ten during the Polish war. 
 
 datory life disdained the restraints of regular 
 government. When we read the accounts of 
 the terrible struggles they maintained with the 
 great insurrection of these formidable hordes 
 under Bogdan, in the 17lh century, we are 
 transported to the days of Scythian warfare, 
 and recognise the features of that dreadful 
 invasion of the Sarmatian tribes, which the 
 genius of Marius averted from the Roman 
 republic. 
 
 Nor has the military spirit of the people de- 
 clined in modern times. The victories of 
 Sobieski, the deliverance of Vienna, seem 
 rather the fiction of romance than the records 
 of real achievement. No victory so glorious 
 as that of Kotzim had been gained by Chris- 
 tendom over the Saracens since the triumphs 
 of Richard on the field of Ascalon : And the 
 tide of Mahommedan conquest would have 
 rolled resistlessly over the plains of Germany, 
 even in the reign of Louis XIV., if it had not 
 been arrested by the Polish hero under the 
 walls of Vienna. Napoleon said it was the 
 peculiar quality of the Polanders to form sol- 
 diers more rapidly than any other people. 
 And their exploits in the Italian and Spanish 
 campaigns justified the high eulogium and 
 avowed partiality of that great commander. 
 No swords -cut deeper than theirs in the Rus- 
 sian ranks during the campaign of 1812, and 
 alone, amidst universal defection, they main- 
 tained their faith inviolate in the rout at Leip- 
 sic. But for, the hesitation of the French em- 
 peror in restoring their independence, the 
 whole strength of the kingdom would have 
 been roused on the invasion of Russia; and 
 had this been done, had the Polish monarchy 
 formed the support of French ambition, the 
 history of the world might have been changed; 
 
 "From Fate's dark hook one leaf been torn. 
 And FJodden had been Bannockburn." 
 
 How, then, has it happened that a country 
 of such immense extent, inhabited by so martial 
 a people, whose strength on great occasions 
 was equal to such achievements, should in 
 every age have been so unfortunate, that their 
 victories should have led to no result, and 
 their valour so often proved inadequate to 
 save their country from dismemberment 1 The 
 plaintive motto, Qiwniodo Lapsus ; Quid fcci, 
 may with still more justice be applied to the 
 fortunes of Poland than the fall of the Court- 
 enays. *' Always combating," says Salvandy, 
 " frequently victorious, they never gained an. 
 accession of territory, and were generally 
 alad to terminate a glorious contest by a 
 cession of the ancient provinces of the re- 
 public." 
 
 Superficial observers will answer, that it 
 was the elective form of government; their 
 unfortunate situation in the midst of military 
 powers, and the absence of any chain of moun- 
 tains to form the refuge of unfortunate patriot- 
 
POLAND. 
 
 53 
 
 ism. But a closer examination will demon- 
 strate that these causes were not sufficient to 
 explain the phenomenon ; and that the series 
 of disasters which have so long overwhelmed 
 the monarchy, have arisen from a more per- 
 manent and lasting cause than either their 
 physical situation or elective government. 
 
 The Polish crown has not always been 
 elective. For two hundred and twenty years 
 they were governed by the race of the Jagellons 
 with as much regularity as the Plantagenets 
 of England; and yet, during that dynasty, the 
 losses of the republic were fully as great as in 
 the subsequent periods. Prussia is as flat, 
 and incomparably more sterile than Poland, 
 and, with not a third of the territory, it is 
 equally exposed to the ambition of its neigh- 
 bours : Yet Prussia, so far from being the 
 subject of partition, has .steadily increased in 
 territory and population, and now numbers 
 fifteen millions of souls in her dominion. The 
 fields of Poland, as rich and fertile as those of 
 Flanders, seem the prey of every invader, 
 while the patriotism of the Flemings has 
 studded their plains with defensive fortresses 
 which have secured their independence, not- 
 withstanding the vicinity of the most ambitious 
 and powerful monarchy in Europe. 
 
 The real cause of the never-ending disasters 
 of Poland, is to be found in the democratic 
 equality, which, from the remotest ages, has 
 prevailed in the country. The elective form 
 of government was the consequence of this 
 principle in their constitution, which has de- 
 scended to them from Scythian freedom, and 
 has entailed upon the state disasters worse 
 than the whirlwind of Scythian invasion. 
 
 " It is a mistake," says Salvandy, " to sup- 
 pose that the representative form of govern- 
 ment was found in the woods of Germany. 
 What was found in the woods was Polish 
 equality, which has descended unimpaired in 
 all the parts of that vast monarchy to the present 
 times.* It was not to our Scythian ancestors, 
 but the early councils of the Christian church, 
 that we are indebted for the first example of 
 representative assemblies." In these words 
 of great and philosophic importance is to be 
 found the real origin of the disasters of Poland. 
 
 The principle of government, from the earli- 
 est times in Poland, was, that every free man 
 had an equal right to the administration of 
 public affairs, and that he was entitled to ex- 
 ercise this right, not by representation, but in 
 person. The result of this was, that the whole 
 freemen; of the country constituted the real 
 government; and the diets were attended by 
 an hundred thousand horsemen ; the great ma- 
 jority of whom were, of course, ignorant, and 
 in necessitous circumstances, while all were 
 penetrated with an equal sense of their im- 
 portance as members of the Polish state. The 
 convocation of these tumultuous assemblies 
 was almost invariably the signal for murder 
 and disorder. Thirty or forty thousand lackeys, 
 in the service of the nobles, but still possess- 
 ing the rights of freemen, followed their mas- 
 ters to the place of meeting, and were ever 
 ready to support their ambition by military 
 
 * Salvandy, vol. i. Tableau Historique. 
 
 violence, while the unfortunate natives, eat 
 up by such an enormous assemblage of armed 
 men, regarded the convocation of the citizens 
 in the same light as the inhabitants of the 
 Grecian city did the invasion of Xerxes, whose 
 hordes had consumed every thing eatable in 
 their territory at breakfast, when they re- 
 turned thanks to the gods that he had not 
 dined in their neighbourhood, or every living 
 creature would have perished. 
 
 So far did the Poles carry this equality 
 among all the free citizens, that by an original 
 and fundamental law, called the Llberum Veto, 
 any one member of the diet, by simply inter- 
 posing his negative, could stop the election of 
 the sovereign, or any other measure the most 
 essential to the public welfare. Of course, in 
 so immense a multitude, some were always to 
 be found fractious or venal enough to exercise 
 this dangerous power, either from individual 
 perversity, the influence of external corrup- 
 tion, or internal ambition; and hence the 
 numerous occasions on which diets, assembled 
 for the most important purposes, were broken 
 up without having come to any determination, 
 and the Republic left a prey to anarchy, at the 
 time when it stood most in need of the unani- 
 mous support of its members. It is a striking 
 proof how easily men are deluded by this 
 phantom of general equality, when it is re- 
 collected that this ruinous privilege has, not 
 only in every age, been clung to as the Magna 
 Charta of Poland, but that the native historians, 
 recounting distant events, speak of any in- 
 fringement upon it as the most fatal measure 
 that could possibly be figured, to the liberties 
 and welfare of the country. 
 
 All human institutions, however, must be 
 subject to some check, which renders it 
 practicable to get through business on urgent 
 occasions, in spite of individual opposition. 
 The Poles held it utterly at variance with 
 every principle of freedom to bind any free 
 man by a law to which he had not consented. 
 The principle, that the majority could bind the 
 minority, seenxed to them inconsistent with 
 the most elementary ideas of liberty. To get 
 quit of the difficulty, they commonly massacred 
 the. rerusant ; and this appeared, in their eyes, 
 a much less serious violation of freedom than 
 out-voting him; because, said they, instances 
 of violence are few, and do not go beyond the 
 individual sufferers ; but when once the rulers 
 establish that the majority can compel the 
 minority to yield, no man has any security 
 against the violation of his freedom. 
 
 Extremes meet. It is curious to observe 
 how exactly the violation of freedom by po- 
 pular folly coincides in its effect with its ex- 
 tinction by despotic power. The bow-string 
 in the Seraglio, and assassination at St. Peters- 
 burg, are the limitations on arbitrary power in 
 these despotic states. Popular murders were 
 the means of restraining the exorbitant liberty 
 of the Poles within the limits necessary for the 
 maintenance of the forms even of regular 
 government. Strange, as Salvandy has well 
 observed, that the nation the most jealous of 
 its liberty, should, at the same time, adhere to 
 a custom of all others the most destructive to 
 freedom ; and that, to avoid the government 
 B.1 
 
54 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of one, they should submit to the despotism 
 of all ! 
 
 It was this original and fatal passion for 
 equality, which has in every age proved fatal 
 to Polish independence which has paralyzed 
 all the valour of her people, and all the en- 
 thusiasm of her character and rendered the 
 most warlike nation in Europe the most un- 
 fortunate. The measures of its government 
 partook of the unstable and vacillating cha- 
 racter of all popular assemblages. Bursts of 
 patriotism were succeeded by periods of dejec- 
 tion ; and the endless changes in the objects 
 of popular inclination, rendered it impracti- 
 cable to pursue any steady object, or adhere, 
 through all the varieties of fortune, to one uni- 
 form system for the good of the state. Their 
 wars exactly resembled the contests in La 
 Vendee, where, a week after the most glorious 
 successes, the victorious army was dissolved, 
 and the leaders wandering with a few fol- 
 lowers in the woods. At the battle of Kotzim, 
 Sobieski commanded 40,000 men, the most 
 regular army which for centuries Poland had 
 sent into the field; at their head, he stormed 
 the Turkish entrenchments, though defended 
 by 80,000 veterans, and 300 pieces of cannon ; 
 he routed that mighty host, slew 50,000 men, 
 and carried the Polish ensigns in triumph to 
 the banks of the Danube. But while Europe 
 resounded with his praises, and expected the 
 deliverance of the Greek empire from his 
 exertions, his army dissolved the troops re- 
 turned to their homes and the invincible 
 conqueror was barely able, with a few thou- 
 sand men, to keep the field. 
 
 Placed on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, 
 the Polish character and history have partaken 
 largely of the effects of the institutions of both 
 these quarters of the globe. Their passion 
 for equality, their spirit of freedom, their na- 
 tional assemblages, unite them to European 
 independence ; their unstable fortune, per- 
 petual vacillation, and chequered annals, par- 
 take of the character of Asiatic adventure. 
 While the states by whom they are surrounded, 
 have shared in the steady progress of Euro- 
 pean civilization, the Polish monarchy has 
 been distinguished by the extraordinary vicis- 
 situdes of Eastern story. Elevated to the 
 clouds during periods of heroic adventure, it 
 has sunk to nothing upon the death of a single 
 chief; the republic which had recently carried 
 its arms in triumph to the neighbouring capi- 
 tals, was soon struggling for its existence with 
 a contemptible enemy; and the bulwark of 
 Christendom in one age, was in the next razed 
 from the book of nations. 
 
 Would we discover the cause of this vacil- 
 lation, of which the deplorable consequences 
 are now so strongly exemplified, we shall find 
 it in the passion for equality which appears in 
 every stage of their history, and of which M. 
 Salvandy, a liberal historian, has given a pow- 
 erful picture : 
 
 "The proscription of their greatest princes," 
 says he, " and, after their death, the calumnies 
 of posterity, faithfully echoing the follies of 
 contemporaries, have destroyed all those who 
 ; n different ages have endeavoured, in Poland, 
 to create a solid or protecting power. Nothing 
 
 is more extraordinary than to hear the modern 
 annalists of that unfortunate people, whatever 
 their country or doctrine may be, mechanically 
 repeat all the national outcry against what they 
 call their despotic tyrants. Facts speak in 
 vain against such prejudices. In the eyes of 
 the Poles, nothing was worthy of preservation 
 in their country but liberty and equality a high- 
 sounding expression, which the French Revo- 
 lution had not the glory of inventing, nor its 
 authors the wisdom to apply more judiciously. 
 " Contrary to what has occurred everywhere 
 else in the world, the Poles have never been 
 at rest but under the rule of feeble monarchs. 
 Great and vigorous kings were uniformly the 
 first to perish ; they have always sunk under 
 vain attempts to accustom an independent no- 
 bility to the restraints of authority, or soften to 
 their slaves the yoke of bondage. Thus thB 
 royal authority, which elsewhere expanded on 
 the ruins of the feudal system, has in Poland 
 only become weaker with the progress of time. 
 All the efforts of its monarchs to enlarge their 
 prerogative have been shattered against a 
 compact, independent, courageous body of 
 freemen, who, in resisting such attempts, have 
 never either been weakened by division nor 
 intimidated by menace. In their passion for 
 equality, in their jealous independence, they 
 were unwilling even to admit any distinction 
 between each other; they long and haughtily 
 rejected the titles of honour of foreign states, 
 and even till the last age, refused to recognise 
 those hereditary distinctions and oppressive 
 privileges, which are now so fast disappear- 
 ing from tha face of society. They even went 
 so far as to insist that one, in matters of de- 
 liberation, should be equal to all. The crown 
 was thus constantly at war with a democracy 
 of nobles. The dynasty of the Piasts strove 
 with much ability to create, in the midst of 
 that democracy, a few leading families; by 
 the side of those nobles, a body of burghers. 
 These things, difficult in all states, were there 
 impossible. An hereditary dynasty, always 
 stormy and often interrupted, was unfit for the 
 persevering efforts requisite for such a revolu- 
 tion. In other states the monarchs pursued 
 an uniform policy, and their subjects were va- 
 cillating; there the people were steady, and 
 the crown changeable." I. 71. 
 
 " In other states, time had everywhere in- 
 troduced the hereditary descent of honours and 
 power. Hereditary succession was established 
 from the throne to the smallest fief, from the 
 reciprocal necessity of subduing the van- 
 quished people, and securing to each his share 
 in the conquests. In Poland, on the other 
 hand, the waywoods, or warlike chieftains, the 
 magistrates and civil authorities, the governors 
 of castles and provinces, so far from founding 
 an aristocracy by establishing the descent of 
 their honours or offices in their families, were 
 seldom even nominated by the king. Their 
 authority, especially that of the Palatins, ex- 
 cited equal umbrage in the sovereign who 
 should have ruled, as the nobles who should 
 have obeyed them. There was thus authority 
 and order nowhere in the state. 
 
 "It is not surprising that such men should 
 unite to the pride which could bear nothing 
 
POLAND. 
 
 55 
 
 above, the tyranny which could spare nothing 
 below them. In the dread of being compelled 
 to share their power with their inferiors ele- ; 
 vated by riches or intelligence, they affixed a 
 stigma on every useful profession as a mark 
 of servitude. Their maxim was, that nobility j 
 of blood was not lost by indigence or domestic 
 service, but totally extinguished by commerce 
 or industry. This policy perpetually withheld 
 from the great body of serfs the use of arms, 
 both because they had learned to fear, but still 
 continued to despise them. In fine, jealous of 
 every species of superiority as a personal out- 
 rage, of every authority as an usurpation, of 
 every labour as a degradation, this society 
 was at variance with every principle of human 
 prosperity. 
 
 " Weakened in this manner in their external 
 contests, by their equality not less than their 
 tyranny, inferior to their neighbours in number 
 and discipline, the Poles were the only warlike 
 people in the world to whom victory never 
 gave either peace or conquest. Incessant con- 
 tests with the Gewnans, the Hungarians, the 
 pirates of the north, the Cossacks of the 
 Ukraine, the Osmanlis, occupy their whole 
 annals ; but never did the Polish eagles ad- 
 vance the frontiers of the republic. Poland 
 saw Moravia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, es- 
 cape from its rule, as Bohemia and Mecklen- 
 burg had formerly done, without ever being 
 awakened to the necessity of establishing a cen- 
 tral government sufficiently strong to coerce 
 and protect so many discordant materials. 
 She was destined to drink to the last dregs the 
 bitter consequences of a pitiless aristocracy 
 and a senseless equality. 
 
 " Vainly did Time, whose ceaseless course, 
 by breaking through that fierce and oppressive 
 equality, had succeeded where its monarchs 
 had failed, strive to introduce a better order 
 of things. Poland was destined, in all the 
 ages of its history, to differ from all the other 
 European states. With the progress of wealth, 
 a race of burghers at length sprung up an 
 aristocracy of wealth and possessions arose ; 
 but both, contrary to the genius of the people, 
 perished before they arrived at maturity. The 
 first was speedily overthrown ; in the convul- 
 sion consequent upon the establishment of 
 the last, the national independence was de- 
 stroyed." I. 74. 
 
 Of the practical consequences of this fatal 
 passion for equality in. the legislature and the 
 form of government, our author gives the fol- 
 lowing curious account: 
 
 "The extreme difficulty of providing food 
 for their comitia of an hundred thousand citi- 
 zens on horseback, obliged the members of 
 the diet to terminate their deliberations in a 
 few days, or rather to separate, after having 
 devoured all the food in the country, com 
 rnenced a civil war, and determined nothing. 
 The constant recurrence of such disasters at 
 length led to an attempt to introduce territorial 
 deputies, invested with full power to carry on 
 the ordinary and routine business of the state. 
 But so adverse was any delegation of authority 
 to the original nature of Polish independence, 
 that this beneficial institution never was es- 
 tablished in Poland but in the most incom- 
 
 plete manner. Its introduction corrected none 
 of the ancient abuses. The king was still 
 the president of tumultuous assemblies ; sur- 
 rounded by obstacles on every side ; controlled 
 by generals and ministers not of his own se- 
 lection ; obliged to defend the acts of a cabinet 
 which he could not control, against the cries 
 of a furious diet. And these diets, which 
 united, sabre in hand, under the eye of the 
 sovereign, and still treated of all the important 
 affairs of the state of war and peace, the 
 election of a sovereign, the formation of laws 
 which gave audience to ambassadors, and 
 administered justice in important cases 
 were still the Champs de Mars of the northern 
 tribes, and partook to the very last of all the 
 vices of the savage character. There was 
 the same confusion of powers, the same ele- 
 ments of disorder, the same license to them- 
 selves, the same tyranny over others. 
 
 ; 'This attempt 'at a representative govern- 
 ment was destructive to the last shadow of the 
 royal authority; the meetings of the deputies 
 became fixed and frequent; the power of the 
 sovereign was lost without any permanent 
 body arising to receive it in his room. The 
 system of deputations made slow progress ; 
 and in several provinces was never admitted. 
 General diets, where the whole nation as- 
 sembled, became more rare, and therefore 
 more perilous; and as they were convoked 
 only on great occasions, and to discuss 
 weighty interests, the fervour of passion was 
 superadded to the inexperience of business. 
 
 "Speedily the representative assemblies be- 
 came the object of jealousy on the part of this 
 democratic race ; and the citizens of the re- 
 public sought only to limit the powers which 
 they had conferred on their representatives. 
 Often the jealous multitude, terrified at the 
 powers with which they had invested the de- 
 puties, were seized with a sudden panic, and 
 hastened together from all quarters with their 
 arms in their hands to watch over their pro- 
 ceedings. Such assemblies were styled ' Diets 
 under the Buckler.' But generally they re- 
 stricted and qualified their powers at the mo- 
 ment of election. The electors confined their 
 parliaments to a circle of limited questions: 
 gave them obligatory directions; and held, after 
 every session, what they called post-comitial diets; 
 the object of which was to exact from every deputy 
 a rigid account of the execution of his mandate. 
 Thus every question of importance was, in effect, 
 decided in the provinces before it was debated in the 
 national assembly. And" as unanimity was still 
 considered essential to a decision, the passing 
 of any legislative act became impossible when 
 there was any variance between the instruc- 
 tions to the deputies. Thus the majority were 
 compelled to disregard the protestations of the 
 minority ; and, to guard against that tyranny, 
 the only remedy seemed to establish, in favour 
 of the outvoted minority, the right of civil 
 war. Confederations were established ; armed 
 leagues, formed of discontented nobles, who 
 elected a marshal or president, and opposed 
 decrees to decrees, force to force, diet to diet, 
 tribune to tribune; and had alternately the 
 kin-.,' tor its leader and its captive. What de- 
 plorable institutions, which opened to all the 
 
56 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 discontented a legal channel for spreading] 
 anarchy through their country ! The only as- 
 tonishing thing is, that the valour of the Polish 
 nobility so long succeeded in concealing these 
 mortal defects in their institutions. One 
 would have imagined that a nation, under 
 such customs, could not exist a year; and yet 
 it seemed never weary either of victories or 
 folly." I. 116. 
 
 No apology is necessary for the length of 
 these quotations ; for they are not only illus- 
 trative of the causes of the uniform disasters 
 of Poland, but eminently instructive as to the 
 tendency of democratic institutions all over 
 the world. 
 
 There is no danger that the inhabitants of 
 England or France will flock in person to the 
 opening of Parliament, and establish diets of 
 two or three hundred thousand freemen, with 
 sabres by their sides ; but there is a very great 
 danger, that they will adopt the democratic 
 jealousy of their representatives, and fix them 
 down by fixed instructions to a course of con- 
 duct which will both render nugatory all the 
 advantages of a deliberative assembly, and 
 sow the seeds of dissension, jealousy, and civil 
 war between the different members of the 
 state. This is the more to be apprehended, 
 because this evil was felt in the strongest 
 manner in France during the progress of the 
 Revolution, and has appeared in America most 
 remarkably even during the brief period of its 
 political existence. 
 
 The legislators of America are not in any 
 sense statesmen; they are merely delegates, 
 bound to obey the directions of their constitu- 
 ents, and sent there to forward the individual 
 interest of the province, district, or borough 
 which they represent. Their debates are lan- 
 guid and uninteresting; conducted with no 
 idea whatever of convincing, but merely of 
 showing the constituents of each member 
 what he had done for his daily hire of seven 
 dollars. The Constituents Assembly met, with 
 cahiers or instructions to the deputies from all 
 the electors ; and so much did this jealousy of 
 the legislature increase with the progress of 
 the movements in France, that the surest road 
 to popularity with the electors was soon found, 
 to be, the most abject professions of submis- 
 sion to their will. Every one knows how long 
 and vehemently annual parliaments have been 
 demanded by the English radicals, in order to 
 give them an opportunity of constantly exer- 
 cising this surveillance over their representa- 
 tives ; and how many members of the present 
 House of Commons are under a positive 
 pledge to their constituents on more than one 
 momentous question. It is interesting to ob- 
 serve how much mankind, under all varieties 
 of climate, situation, and circumstances, are 
 governed by the same principles; and to trace 
 the working of the same causes in Polish an- 
 archy, French revolutions, American selfish- 
 ness, and British democracy. 
 
 Whoever considers the matter dispassion- 
 ately, and attends to the lessons of history, 
 must arrive at the conclusion, that this demo- 
 cratic spirit cannot co-exist with regular go- 
 vernment or national independence in ancient 
 states ; and that Polish anarchy is the neces- 
 
 sary prelude in all such communities to Mos- 
 covite oppression. The reason is eternal, and 
 being founded in the nature of things, must be 
 the same in all ages. When the true demo- 
 cratic spirit is once generally diffused, men 
 invariably acquire such an inordinate jealousy 
 of their rulers, that they thwart all measures, 
 even of the most obvious and undeniable utili- 
 ty ; and by a perpetual change of governors, 
 gratify their own equalizing spirit, at the ex- 
 pense of the best interests of the state. This 
 disposition appears at present in France, and 
 England, in the rapid changes of administra- 
 tion which have taken place within the last 
 few years, to the total destruction of any uni- 
 formity qf government, or the prosecution of 
 any systematic plan for the public good: it 
 appears in America in the execrable system 
 of rotation of office, in other words, of the ex- 
 pulsion of every man from official situations, 
 the moment he becomes qualified to hold them, 
 which a recent able observer has so well ex- 
 posed ;* it appeared in Poland in the uniform 
 weakness of the executive, and periodical re- 
 turns of anarchy, which rendered them, in 
 despite of their native valour, unfortunate in 
 every contest, and at last led to the partition 
 of the republic. 
 
 Never was there a truer observation, than 
 that wherever the tendency of prevailing in- 
 stitutions is hurtful, there is an under-current 
 perpetually flowing, destined to correct them. 
 As this equalising and democratic spirit is 
 utterly destructive to the best interests of so- 
 ciety, and the happiness of the very people 
 who indulge in it, so by the wisdom of nature, 
 it leads rapidly and certainly to its own de- 
 struction. The moment that it became para- 
 mount in the Roman Republic, it led to the 
 civil convulsions which brought on the despo- 
 tism of the Caesars ; its career was rapidly cut 
 short in France by the sword of Napoleon ; it 
 exterminated Poland from the book of nations ; 
 it threatens to close the long line of British 
 greatness; it will convulse or subjugate Ame- 
 rica, the moment that growing republic is 
 brought in contact with warlike neighbours, 
 or finds the safety-valve of the back settle- 
 ments closed against the escape of turbulent 
 multitudes. 
 
 The father of John Sobieski, whose estates 
 lay in the Ukraine, has left a curious account 
 of the manners and habits of the Cossacks in 
 his time, which was about 200 years ago. 
 " The great majority," said he, " of these wan- 
 dering tribes, think of nothing but the affairs 
 of their little families, and encamp, as it were, 
 in the midst of the towns which belong to the 
 crown or the noblesse. They interrupt the 
 ennui of repose by frequent assemblies, and 
 their comitia are generally civil wars, often at- 
 tended by profuse bloodshed. It is there that 
 they choose their hetman, or chief, by accla- 
 mation, followed by throwing their bearskin 
 caps in the air. Such is the inconstancy in the 
 multitude, that they frequently destroy their 
 own work; but as long as the hetman remains 
 in power, he has the right of life and death. 
 The town of Tretchmiron, in Kiovia, is the 
 
 * Captain Hall. 
 
POLAND. 
 
 arsenal of their warlike implements and their 
 treasure. There is deposited the booty taken 
 by their pirates in Koraelia and Asia Minor; 
 and there are also preserved, with religious 
 care, the immunities granted to their nation 
 by the republic. There are displayed the 
 standards which the king sends them, when- 
 ever they take up arms for the service of the 
 republic. It is round this royal standard that 
 the nation assemble in their cornitia. The het- 
 man there does not presume to address the 
 multitude but with his head uncovered, with a 
 respectful air, ready to exculpate himself from 
 all the charges brought against him, and to 
 solicit humbly his share of the spoils taken 
 from the enemies. These fierce peasants are 
 passionately fond of war; few are acquainted 
 with the use of the musket ; the pistol and 
 sabre are their ordinary weapons. Thanks to 
 their light and courageous squadrons, Poland 
 can face the infantry of the most powerful na- 
 tions on earth. They are as serviceable in re- 
 treat as in success ; when discomfited, they 
 form, with their chariots ranged in several 
 lines in a circular form, an entrenched camp, 
 to which no other fortifications can be com- 
 pared. Behind that tabor, they defy the at- 
 tacks of the most formidable enemy." 
 
 Of the species of troops who composed the 
 Polish army, our author gives the following 
 curious account, a striking proof of the na- 
 tional weakness which follows the fatal pas- 
 sion for equality, which formed their grand 
 national characteristic : 
 
 " Five different kinds of soldiers composed 
 the Polish army. There was, in the first place, 
 the mercenaries, composed of Hungarians, 
 Wallachians, Cossacks, Tartars, and Germans, 
 who would have formed the strength and 
 nucleus of the army, had it not been that on 
 the least delay in their payments, they invari- 
 ably turned their arms against the govern- 
 ment: the national troops, to whose mainte- 
 nance a fourth of the national revenue was 
 devoted: the volunteers, under which name 
 were included the levies of the great nobles, 
 and the ordinary guards which they maintained 
 in time of peace: the Pospolite, that is, the, 
 array of the whole free citizens, who, after 
 three summonses from the king, were obliged 
 to come forth under the banners of their re- 
 spective palatines, but only to remain a few 
 months in the field, and could not be ordered 
 beyond the frontiers. This last unwieldy 
 body, however brave, was totally deficient in 
 discipline, and in general served only to mani- 
 fest the weakness of the republic. It was 
 seldom called forth but in civil wars. The 
 legions of valets, grooms, and drivers, who 
 encumbered the other force, may be termed a 
 fifth branch of the military force of Poland ; 
 but these fierce retainers, naturally warlike 
 and irascible, injured the army more by their 
 pillage and dissensions than they assisted it 
 by their numbers. 
 
 "All these different troops were deficient in 
 equipment ; obliged to provide themselves 
 with every thing, and to collect their subsist- 
 ence by their own authority, they were encum- 
 bered with an incredible quantity of baggage- 
 wagons, destined, for the most part, less to 
 8 
 
 convey provisions than carry off plunder. 
 They had no corps of engineers; the artillery, 
 composed of a few pieces of small calibre, had 
 no other officers than a handful of French 
 adventurers, upon whose adherence to the 
 republic implicit reliance could not be placed. 
 The infantry were few in number, composed 
 entirely of the mercenary and royal troops; 
 but this arm was regarded with contempt by 
 the haughty nobility. The foot soldiers were 
 employed in digging ditches, throwing bridges, 
 and cutting down forests, rather than actual 
 warfare. Sobieski was exceedingly desirous 
 of having in his camp a considerable force of 
 infantry ; but two invincible obstacles pre- 
 vented it, the prejudices of the country, and 
 the penury of the royal treasury. 
 
 " The whole body of the Pospolite, the vo- 
 lunteers, the valets cTarmee, and a large part of 
 the. mercenaries and national troops, served 
 on horseback. The heavy cavalry, in particu- 
 lar, constituted the strength of the armies ; 
 there were to be found united, riches, splen- 
 dour, and number. They were divided into 
 cuirassiers and hussars ; the former clothed 
 in steel, man and horse bearing casque and 
 cuirass, lance and sabre, bows and carabines; 
 the latter defended only by a twisted hauberk, 
 which descended from the head, over the 
 shoulders and breast, and armed with a sabre 
 and pistol. Both were distinguished by the 
 splendour of their dress and equipage, and the 
 number and costly array of their mounted ser- 
 vants, accoutred in the most bizarre manner, 
 with huge black plumes, and skins of bears 
 and other wild beasts. It was the boast of 
 this body, that they were composed of men, 
 all measured, as they expressed it, by the same 
 standard ; that is, equal in nobility, equally 
 enjoying the rights to obey only their God and 
 their swords, and equally destined, perhaps, to 
 step one day into the throne of the Piasts arid 
 the Jagellons. The hussars and cuirassiers 
 were called Towarzirz, that is, companions; 
 they called each other by that name, and they 
 were designated in the same way by the sove- 
 reign, whose chief boast would be Primus inter 
 pares, the first among equals." I. 129. 
 
 With so motley and discordant a force, it is 
 not surprising that Poland was unable to make 
 head against the steady ambition and regular 
 forces of the military monarchies with which 
 it was surrounded. Its history accordingly 
 exhibits the usual feature of all democratic 
 societies occasional bursts of patriotism, and 
 splendid efforts followed by dejection, anarchy, 
 and misrule. It is a stormy night illuminated 
 by occasional flashes of lightning, never by 
 the steady radiance of the morning sun. 
 
 One of the most glorious of these flashes is 
 the victory of Kotzim, the first great achieve- 
 ment of John Sobieski. 
 
 "Kotzim is a strong castle, situated four 
 leagues from Kamaniek, on a rocky projection 
 which runs into the Dneiper, impregnable 
 from the river, and surrounded on the other 
 side by deep and rocky ravines. A bridge 
 thrown over one of them, united it to the en- 
 trenched camp, where Hussein Pacha had 
 posted his army. That camp, defended by 
 ancient fieldworks, extended along the banks 
 
58 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of the Dneiper, and was guarded on the side 
 of Moldavia, the sole accessible quarter, by 
 precipices cut in the solio 1 rock, and impass- 
 able morasses. The art of the Ottomans had 
 added to the natural strength of the position ; 
 the plain over which, after the example of the 
 Romans, that military colony was intended to 
 rule, was intersected to a great distance by 
 canals and ditches, whose banks were strength- 
 ened by palisades. A powerful artillery de- 
 fended all the avenues to the camp, and there 
 reposed, under magnificent tents, the Turkish 
 generalissimo and eighty thousand veterans, 
 when they were suddenly startled by the sight 
 of the Polish banners, which moved in splendid 
 array round their entrenchments, and took up 
 a position almost under the fire of their artil- 
 lery. 
 
 " The spot was animating to the recollec- 
 tions of the Christian host. Fifty years be- 
 fore, James Sobieski had conquered a glorious 
 peace under the walls of that very castle : and 
 against its ramparts, after the disaster of the 
 Kobilta, the power of the young Sultan Osman 
 had dashed itself in vain. Now the sides 
 were changed ; the Turks held the entrenched 
 camp, and the army of the son of James So- 
 bieski filled the plain. 
 
 " The smaller force had nqw to make the 
 assault ; the larger army was entrenched be- 
 hind ramparts better fortified, better armed 
 with cannon, than those which Sultan Osman 
 and his three hundred thousand Mussulmen 
 sought in vain to wrest from the feeble army 
 of Wladislaus. The Turks were now grown 
 gray in victories, and the assailants were 
 young troops, for the most part ill armed, as- 
 sembled in haste, destitute of resources, maga- 
 zines, or provisions worn out with the fatigues 
 and the privations of a winter campaign. Deep 
 ditches, the rocky bed of torrents, precipitous 
 walls of rock, composed the field of battle on 
 which they were called on to combat an enemy 
 reposing tranquilly under the laurels of vic- 
 tory, beneath sumptuous tents, and behind 
 ramparts defended by an array of three hun- 
 dred pieces of cannon. The night passed on 
 the Polish side in mortal disquietude ; the 
 mind of the general, equally with the soldiers, 
 was overwhelmed with anxiety. The enter- 
 prise which he had undertaken seemed above 
 human strength; the army had no chance of 
 safety but in victory, and there was too much 
 reason to fear that treachery, or division in 
 his own troops, would snatch it from his grasp, 
 and deliver down his name with disgrace to 
 posterity. 
 
 "Sobieski alone was inaccessible to fear. 
 When the troops were drawn forth on the fol- 
 lowing morning, the Grand Hetman of Lithu- 
 ania declared the attack desperate, and his 
 resolution to retreat. 'Retreat,' cried the 
 Polish hero, ' is impossible. We should only 
 find a disgraceful death in the morasses with 
 which we are surrounded, a few leagues from 
 hence; better far to brave it at the foot of the 
 enemy's entrenchments. But what ground is 
 there 'for apprehension? Nothing disquiets 
 me b%t what I hear from you. Your menaces 
 are our only danger. I am confident you will 
 not execute them. If Poland is to be effaced 
 
 from the book of nations, you will not allow 
 our children to exclaim, that if a Paz had not 
 fled, they would not have wanted a country.' 
 Vanquished by the magnanimity of Sobieski, 
 and the cries of Sapieha and Radziwik, the 
 Lithuanian chief promised not to desert his 
 countrymen. 
 
 "Sobieski then ranged his faltering batta- 
 lions in order of battle, and the Turks made 
 preparations to receive behind their entrench- 
 ments the seemingly hopeless attack of the 
 Christians. Their forces were ranged in a 
 semicircle, and their forty field-pieces advanced 
 in front, battered in breach the palisades which 
 were placed across the approaches to the 
 Turkish palisades. Kouski, the commander 
 of the artillery, performed under the superior 
 fire of the enemy, prodigies of valour. The 
 breaches were declared practicable in the 
 evening; and when night came, the Christian 
 forces of the two principalities of Walachia 
 and Moldavia deserted the camp of the Infi- 
 dels, to range themselves under the standard 
 of the cross ; a cheering omen, for troops 
 never desert but to the side which they ima- 
 gine will prove successful. 
 
 " The weather was dreadful ; the snow fell 
 in great quantities ; the ranks were obstructed 
 by its drifts. In the midst of that severe tem- 
 pest, Sobieski kept his troops under arms the 
 whole night. In the morning they were buried 
 in the snow, exhausted by cold and suffering. 
 Then he gave the signal of attack. ' Com- 
 panions, said he, in passing through the lines, 
 his clothes, his hair, his mustaches covered 
 with icicles, 'I deliver to you an enemy already 
 half vanquished. You have suffered, the Turks 
 are exhausted. The troops of Asia can never 
 endure the hardships of the last twenty-four 
 hours. The cold has conquered them to our 
 hand. Whole troops of them are already sink- 
 ing under their sufferings, while we, inured to 
 the climate, are only animated by it to fresh 
 exertions. It is for us to save the republic 
 from shame and slavery. Soldiers of Poland, 
 recollect that you fight for your country, and 
 that Jesus Christ combats for you.' 
 
 " Sobieski had thrice heard mass since the 
 rising of the sun. The day was the fete of St. 
 Martin of Tours. The chiefs founded great 
 hopes on his intercession : the priests, who 
 had followed their masters to the field of battle, 
 traversed the ranks, recounting the actions of 
 that great apostle of the French, and all that 
 they might expect from his known zeal for the 
 faith. He was a Slavonian by birth. Could 
 there be any doubt, then, that the Christians 
 would triumph when his glory was on that day 
 in so peculiar a manner interested in perform- 
 ing miracles in their favour? 
 
 " An accidental circumstance gave the 
 highest appearance of truth to these ideas. 
 The Grand Marshal, who had just completed 
 his last reconnoissance of the enemy's lines, 
 returned with his countenance illuminated by 
 the presage of victory 'My companions,' he 
 exclaimed, ' in half an hour we shall be lodged 
 under these gilded tents.' In fact, he had dis- 
 covered that the point against which he in- 
 tended to direct his principal attack was not 
 defended but by a few troops benumbed by the 
 
POLAND. 
 
 cold. He immediately made several feigned 
 assaults to distract the attention of the enemy, 
 and directed against the palisades, by which 
 he intended to enter, the fire of a battery 
 already erected. The soldiers immediately 
 recollected that the preceding evening they 
 had made the utmost efforts to draw the 
 cannon beyond that point, but that a power 
 apparently more than human had chained 
 them to the spot, from whence now they easily 
 beat down the obstacles to the army's ad- 
 vance, and cleared the road to victory. Who 
 was so blind as not to see in that circum- 
 stance the miraculous intervention of Gregory 
 of Tours ! 
 
 " At that moment the army knelt down to re- 
 ceive the benediction of Father Pizeborowski, 
 confessor of the Grand Hetman ; and his 
 prayer being concluded, Sobieski, dismount- 
 ing from his horse, ordered his infantry to 
 move forward to the assault of the newly- 
 opened breach in the palisades, he himself, 
 sword in hand, directing the way. The armed 
 valets followed rapidly in their footsteps. That 
 courageous band were never afraid to tread 
 the path of danger in the hopes of plunder. 
 In a moment the ditches were filled up and 
 passed ; with one bound the troops arrived at 
 the foot of the rocks. The Grand Hetman, 
 after that first success, had hardly time to re- 
 mount on horseback, when, on the heights of 
 the entrenched camp, were seen the standard 
 of the cross and the eagle of Poland. Petri- 
 kowski and Denhoff, of the royal race of the 
 Piasts, had first mounted the ramparts, and 
 raised their ensigns. At this joyful sight, a 
 hurrah of triumph rose from the Polish ranks, 
 and rent the heavens ; the Turks were seized 
 with consternation; they had been confounded 
 at that sudden attack, made at a time when 
 they imagined the severity of the weather had 
 made the Christians renounce their perilous 
 enterprise. Such was the confusion, that but 
 for the extraordinary strength of the position, 
 they could not have stood a moment. At this 
 critical juncture, Hussein, deceived by a false 
 attack of Czarnicki, hastened with his cavalry 
 to the other side of the camp, and the spahis, 
 conceiving that he was flying, speedily took to 
 flight. 
 
 " But the Janizzaries were not yet van- 
 quished. Inured to arms, they rapidly formed 
 their ranks, and falling upon > the valets, who 
 had dispersed in search of plunder, easily put 
 them to the sword. Fortunately, Sobieski had 
 had time to employ his foot soldiers in level- 
 ling the ground, and rendering accessible the 
 approaches to the summits of the hills. The 
 Polish cavalry came rushing in with a noise 
 like thunder. The hussars, the cuirassiers, 
 with burning torches affixed to their lances, 
 scaled precipices which seemed hardly acces- 
 sible to foot soldiers. Inactive till that mo- 
 ment, Paz now roused his giant strength. 
 Ever the rival of Sobieski, he rushed forward 
 with his Lithuanian nobles in the midst of 
 every danger, to endeavour to arrive first in 
 the Ottoman camp. It was too late ; already 
 
 mander, Sobieski was employed in re-forming 
 the ranks of the assailants, disordered by 
 the assault and their success, and preparing 
 for a new battle in the midst of that city of 
 tents, which, though surprised, seemed not 
 subdued. 
 
 " But the astonishment and confusion of the 
 besieged, the cries of the women, shut up in 
 the Harems, the thundering charges of the 
 heavy squadrons clothed in impenetrable steel, 
 and composed of impetuous young men, gave 
 the Turks no time to recover from their con- 
 sternation. It was no longer a battle, but a 
 massacre. Demetrius and the Lithuanian met 
 at the same time in the invaded camp. A cry 
 of horror now rose from the Turkish ranks, 
 and they rushed in crowds to the bridge of 
 boats which crossed the Dniester, and formed 
 the sole communication between Kotzim, and 
 the fortified city of Kamaniek. In the struggle 
 to reach this sole outlet from destruction, mul- 
 titudes killed each other. But Sobieski's fore- 
 sight had deprived the vanquished even of this 
 last resource. His brother-in-laAv, Radziwil, 
 had during the tumult glided unperceived 
 through the bottom of the ravines, and at the 
 critical moment made himself master of the 
 bridge, and the heights which commanded it. 
 The only resource of the fugitives was now to 
 throw themselves into the waves. 20,000 men 
 perished at that fatal point, either on the shores 
 or in the half-congealed stream. Insatiable in 
 carnage, the hussars led by Maziniki pursued 
 them on horseback into the bed of the Dneiper, 
 and sabred thousands when struggling in the 
 stream. 40,000 dead bodies were found in the 
 precincts of the camp. The water of the river 
 for several leagues ran red with blood, and 
 corpses were thrown up with every wave on 
 its deserted shores. 
 
 "At the news of this extraordinary triumph, 
 the Captain Pacha, who was advancing with 
 a fresh army to invade Poland, set fire to his 
 camp, and hastened across the Danube. The 
 Moldavians and Walachians made their sub- 
 mission to the conqueror, and the Turks, re- 
 cently so arrogant, began to tremble for their 
 capital. Europe, electrified with these suc- 
 cesses, returned thanks for the greatest victory 
 gained for three centuries over the infidels. 
 Christendom quivered with joy, as if it had 
 just escaped from ignominy and bondage." 
 II. 130153. 
 
 But while Europe was awaiting the intel- 
 ligence of the completion of the overthrow of 
 the Osmanlis, desertion and flight had ruined 
 the Polish army. Whole Palatinates had 
 abandoned their colours. They were desirous 
 to carry off in safety the spoils of the East, and 
 to prepare for that new field of battle which 
 the election of the King of Poland, who died 
 at this juncture, presented. Sobieski remained 
 almost alone on the banks of the Dniester. At 
 the moment when Walachia and Moldavia 
 were throwing themselves under the protec- 
 tion of the Polish crown, when the Captain 
 Pacha was flying to the foot of Balkan, and 
 Sobieski was dreaming of changing the face 
 
 the flaming lances of the Grand Hetman | of the world, his army dissolved. The Turks, 
 gleamed on the summits of the entrenchments, I at this unexpected piece of fortune, recovered 
 and ever attentive to the duties of a com- 1 from their terror ; and the rule of the Mussul- 
 
60 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 men was perpetuated for two centuries in Eu- 
 rope." II. 165. 
 
 This victory and the subsequent dissolution 
 of the army, so characteristic both of the glo- 
 ries and the incon.stancy of Poland, great as it 
 was, was eclipsed by the splendours of the de- 
 liverance of Vienna. The account of the pre- 
 vious election of this great man to the throne 
 of Poland is singularly characteristic of Polish 
 manners. 
 
 " The plain of Volo to the west of Warsaw 
 had been the theatre, from the earliest times, 
 of the popular elections. Already the impa- 
 
 crown. Sobieski had previously occupied the 
 bridge over the river by a regiment of hussars, 
 upon which the Lithuanians seized every 
 house in the city which wealth could com- 
 mand. These hostile dispositions were too 
 significant of frightful disorders. War soon 
 ensued in the midst of the rejoicings between 
 Lithuania and Poland. Every time the oppo- 
 site factions met, their strife terminated in 
 bloodshed. The hostilities extended even to 
 the bloody game of the Klopiches, which was 
 played by a confederation of the boys in the 
 city, or of pages and valets, who amused them- 
 
 tient Pospolite covered that vast extent with selves by forming troops, electing a marshal, 
 its waves, like an army prepared to commence | choosing a field of battle, and fighting there to 
 
 last extremitv- On this occasion they 
 
 an assault on a fortified town. The innumera- 
 ble piles of arms; the immense tables round 
 which faction united their supporters ; a 
 thousand jousts with the javelin or the lance; 
 a thousand squadrons engaged in mimic war; 
 a thousand parties of palatines, governors of 
 castles, and other dignified authorities who 
 traversed the ranks distributing exhortations, 
 party songs, and largesses ; a thousand caval- 
 cades of gentlemen, who rode, according to 
 custom, with their battle-axes by their sides, 
 and discussed at the gallop, the dearest in- 
 terests of the republic ; innumerable quarrels, 
 originating in drunkenness, and terminating 
 in blood: Such were the scenes of tumult, 
 amusement, and war, a faithful mirror of 
 Poland, which, as far as the eye could reach, 
 filled the plain. 
 
 " The arena was closed in by a vast circle 
 of tents, which embraced, as in an immense 
 girdle, the plain of Volo, the shores of the Vis- 
 tula, and the spires of Warsaw. The horizon 
 seemed bounded by a range of snowy moun- 
 tains, of which the summits were portrayed in 
 the hazy distance by their dazzling whiteness. 
 Their camp formed another city, with its 
 markets, its gardens, its hotels, and its monu- 
 ments. There the great displayed their Orien- 
 tal magnificence ; the nobles, the palatines, 
 vied with each other in the splendour of their 
 horses and equipage ; and the stranger who 
 beheld for the first time that luxury, worthy of 
 the last and greatest of the Nomade people, 
 was never weary of admiring the immense 
 hotels, the porticoes, the colonnades, the gal- 
 leries of painted or gilded stuffs, the castles 
 of cotton and silk, with their draw-bridges, 
 towers, and ditches. Thanks to the recent 
 victory, a great part of these riches had been 
 taken . from the Turks. Judging from the 
 multitude of stalls, kitchens, baths, audience 
 chambers, the elegance of the Oriental archi- 
 tecture, the taste of the designs, the profusion 
 of gilded crosses, domes, and pagodas, you 
 would imagine that the seraglio of some 
 Eastern sultan had been transported by en- 
 chantment to the banks of the Vistula. Vic- 
 tory had accomplished this prodigy ; these, 
 were the tents of Mahomet IV., taken at the 
 battle of Kotzim, and though Sobieski was 
 absent, his triumphant arms surmounted the 
 crescent of Mahomet. 
 
 "The Lithuanians were encamped on the 
 opposite shores of the Vistula; and their Grand 
 Hetman, Michel Paz, had brought up his whole 
 force to dictate laws, as it were, to the Polish 
 
 the last extremity. On this 
 were divided into corps of Lithuanians and 
 Poles, who hoisted the colours of their respec- 
 tive states, got fire-arms to imitate more com- 
 pletely the habits of the equestrian order, and 
 disturbed the plain everywhere by their 
 marches, or terrified it by their assaults. 
 Their shock desolated the plain; the villages 
 were in flames ; the savage huts of which the 
 suburbs of Warsaw were then composed, were 
 incessantly invaded and sacked in that terri- 
 ble sport, invented apparently to inure the 
 youth to civil war, and extend even to the 
 slaves the enjoyments of anarchy. 
 
 " On the day of the elections the three orders 
 mounted on horseback. The princes, the 
 palatines, the bishops, the prelates, proceeded 
 towards the plain of Volo, surrounded 'by eighty 
 thousand mounted citizens, any one of whom 
 might, at the expiry of a few hours, find him- 
 self King^of Poland. They all bore in their 
 countenances, even under the livery or ban- 
 ners of a master, the pride arising from that 
 ruinous privilege. The European dress no- 
 where appeared on that solemn occasion. 
 The children of the desert strove to hide the 
 furs and skins in which they were clothed 
 under chains of gold and the glitter of jewels. 
 Their bonnets were composed of panther-skin, 
 plumes of eagles or herons surmounted them: 
 on their front were the most splendid precious 
 stones. Their robes of sable or ermine were 
 bound with velvet or silver : their girdle 
 studded with jewels ; over all their furs were 
 suspended chains of diamonds. One hand of 
 each nobleman was without a glove ; on it was 
 the splendid ring on which the arms of his 
 family were engraved ; the mark, as in ancient 
 Rome, of the equestrian order. A new proof 
 of this intimate connection between the race, 
 the customs, and the traditions of the northern 
 tribes, and the founders of the Eternal City. 
 
 " But nothing in this rivalry of magnificence 
 could equal the splendour of their arms. 
 Double poniards, double scymitars, set with 
 brilliants; bucklers of costly workmanship, 
 battle-axes enriched in silver, and glittering 
 with emeralds and sapphires; bows and arrows 
 richly gilt, which were borne at festivals, in 
 remembrance of the ancient customs of the 
 country, were to be seen on every side. The 
 horses shared in this melange of barbarism 
 and refinement; sometimes cased in iron, at 
 others decorated with the richest colours, they 
 bent under the weight of the sabres, the lances, 
 and javelins by which the senatorial order 
 
POLAND. 
 
 61 
 
 marked their rank. The bishops were distin- 
 guished by their gray or green hats, and yellow 
 or red pantaloons, magnificently embroidered 
 with divers colours. Often they laid aside 
 their pastoral habits, and signalized their ad- 
 dress as young cavaliers, by the beauty of their 
 arms, and the management of their horses. 
 In that crowd of the equestrian order, there 
 was no gentleman so humble as not to try to 
 rival this magnificence. Many carried, in furs 
 and arms, their whole fortunes on their backs. 
 Numbers had sold their votes to some of the 
 candidates, for the vanity of appearing with 
 some additional ornament before their fellow- 
 citizens. And the people, whose dazzled eyes 
 beheld all this magnificence, were almost with- 
 out clothing; their long beards, naked legs, 
 and filth, indicated, even more strongly than 
 their pale visages and dejected air, all the 
 miseries of servitude." II. 190 197. 
 
 The achievement which has immortalized 
 the name of John Sobieski is the deliverance 
 of Vienna in 1683 of this glorious achieve- 
 ment M. Salvandy gives the following interest- 
 ing account: 
 
 "After a siege of eight months, and open 
 trenches for sixty days, Vienna was reduced 
 to the last extremity. Famine, disease, and 
 the sword, had cut off two-thirds of its garri- 
 son ; and the inhabitants, depressed by inces- 
 sant toil for the last six months, and sickened 
 by long deferred hope, were given up to des- 
 pair. Many breaches were made in the walls ; 
 the massy bastions were crumbling in ruins, 
 and entrenchments thrown up in haste in the 
 streets, formed the last resource of the German 
 capital. Stahremborg, the governor, had an- 
 nounced the necessity of surrendering if not 
 relieved in three days ; and every night signals 
 of distress from the summits of the steeples, 
 announced the extremities to which they were 
 reduced. 
 
 " One evening, the sentinel who was on the 
 watch at the top of the steeple of St. Stephen's, 
 perceived a blazing flame on the summits of 
 the Calemberg; soon after an army was seen 
 preparing to descend the ridge. Every tele- 
 scope was instantly turned in that direction, 
 and from the brilliancy of their lances, and the 
 splendour of their banners it was easy to see 
 that it was the Hussars of Poland, so redoubt- 
 able to the Osmanlis, who were approaching. 
 The Turks were immediately to be seen divid- 
 ing their vast host into divisions, one destined 
 to oppose this new enemy, and one to continue 
 the assaults on the besieged. At the sight of 
 the terrible conflict which was approaching, 
 the women and children flocked to the 
 churches, while Stahremborg led forth all that 
 remained of the men to the breaches. 
 
 "The Duke of Lorraine had previously set 
 forth with a few horsemen to join the King of 
 Poland, and learn the art of war, as he ex- 
 pressed it, under so great a master. The two 
 illustrious commanders soon concerted a plan 
 of operations, and Sobieski encamped on the 
 Danube, with all his forces, united to the 
 troops of the empire. It was with tears of joy. 
 that the sovereigns, generals, and the soldiers 
 of the Imperialists received the illustrious 
 chief whom heaven had sent to their relief. 
 
 Before his arrival discord reigned in their 
 camp, but all now yielded obedience to the 
 Polish hero. 
 
 " The Duke of Lorraine had previously con- 
 structed at Tulin, six leagues below Vienna, 
 a triple bridge, which Kara Mustapha, the 
 Turkish commander, allowed to be formed 
 without opposition. The German Electors 
 nevertheless hesitated to cross the river; the 
 severity of the weather, long rains, and roads 
 now almost impassable, augmented their 
 alarms. But the King of Poland was a stranger 
 alike to hesitation as fear; the state of Vienna 
 would admit of no delay. The last despatch 
 of Stahremborg was simply in these words : 
 ' There is no time to lose.' ' There is no re- 
 verse to fear,' exclaimed Sobieski ; ' the gene- 
 ral who at the head of three hundred thousand 
 men could allow that bridge to be constructed 
 in his teeth, cannot fail to be defeated.' 
 
 "On the following day the liberators of 
 Christendom passed in review before their 
 allies. The Poles marched first; the specta- 
 tors were astonished at the magnificence of 
 their arms, the splendour of the dresses, and 
 the beauty of the horses. The infantry was 
 less brilliant; one regiment in particular, by 
 its battered appearance, hurt the pride of the 
 monarch ' Look well at those brave men/ 
 said he to the Imperialists ; ' it is an invincible 
 battalion, who have sworn never to renew 
 their clothing, till they are arrayed in the spoils 
 of the Turks.' These words were repeated to 
 the regiments; if they did not, says the annal- 
 ist, clothe them, they encircled every man 
 with a cuirass. 
 
 " The Christian army, when all assembled, 
 amounted to 70,000 men, of whom only 30,000 
 were infantry. Of these the Poles were 18,000. 
 The principal disquietude of the king was 
 on account of the absence of the Cossacks, 
 whom Mynzwicki had promised to bring up to 
 his assistance. He well knew what admirable 
 scouts they formed: the Tartars had always 
 found in them their most formidable enemies. 
 Long experience in the Turkish wars had 
 rendered them exceedingly skilful in this 
 species of warfare : no other force was equal 
 to them in seizing prisoners and gaining in- 
 telligence. They were promised ten crowns 
 for every man they brought in after this man- 
 ner: they led their captives to the tent of their 
 king, where they got their promised reward, 
 and went away saying, 'John, I have touched 
 my money, God will repay you.' Bereaved of 
 these faithful assistants, the king was com- 
 pelled to expose his hussars in exploring the 
 dangerous defiles in which the army was about 
 to engage. The Imperialists, who could not 
 comprehend his attachment to that undisci- 
 plined-militia, were astonished to hear him 
 incessantly exclaiming, Oh ! Mynzwicki, Oh ' 
 Mynzwicki.' " 
 
 A reeky chain, full of narrow and precipitous 
 ravines, of woods and rocks, called the Calem- 
 herg in modern times, the Mons ./Etins of the 
 Romans, separated the two armies: the cause 
 of Christendom from that of Mahomet. It was 
 necessary to scale that formidable barrier; for 
 the mountains advanced with a rocky front 
 into the middle of the Danube. Fortunately, 
 
62 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the negligence of the Turks had omitted to 
 fortify these posts, where a few battalions 
 might have arrested the Polish army. 
 
 " Nothing could equal the confidence of the 
 Turks but the disquietude of the' Imperialists. 
 Such was the terror impressed by the vast 
 host of the Mussulmen, that at the first cry of 
 Allah ! whole battalions took to flight. Many 
 thousand peasants were incessantly engaged 
 in levelling the roads over the mountains, or 
 cutting through the forest. The foot soldiers 
 dragged the artillery with their arms, and were 
 compelled to abandon the heavier pieces. 
 Chiefs and soldiers carried each his own pro- 
 visions : the leaves of the oak formed the sole 
 subsistence of the horses. Some scouts reach- 
 ed the summit of the ridge long before the 
 remainder of the army, and from thence be- 
 held the countless myriads of the Turkish 
 tents extending to the walls of Vienna. Ter- 
 rified at the sight, they returned in dismay, 
 and a contagious panic began to spread 
 through the army. The king had need, to re- 
 assure his troops, of all the security of his 
 countenance, the gaiety of his discourse, and 
 the remembrance of the multitudes of the 
 infidels whom he had dispersed in his life. 
 The Janizzaries of his guard, who surrounded 
 him on the march, were so many living monu- 
 ments of his victories, and every one was 
 astonished that he ventured to attack the Mus- 
 sulmen with such an escort. He offered to 
 send them to the rear, or even to give them a 
 safe conduct to the Turkish camp, but they all 
 answered with tears in their eyes, that they 
 would live and die with him. His heroism 
 subjugated alike Infidels and Christians, chiefs 
 and soldiers. 
 
 "At length, on Saturday, September llth, 
 the army encamped, at eleven o'clock in the 
 forenoon, on the sterile and inhospitable sum- 
 mit of the Calemberg, and occupied the con- 
 vent of Camaldoli and the old castle of Leo- 
 poldsburg. Far beneath extended the vast and 
 uneven plain of Austria: its smoking capital, 
 the gilded tents, and countless host of the 
 besiegers ; while at the foot of the ridge, where 
 the mountain sunk into the plain, the forests 
 and ravines were occupied by the advanced 
 guards, prepared to dispute the passage of the 
 army." 
 
 There it was that they lighted the fires which 
 spread joy and hope through every heart at 
 Vienna. 
 
 "Trusting in their vast multitudes, the 
 Turks pressed the assault of Vienna on the 
 one side, while on the other they faced the 
 liberating army. The Turkish vizier counted 
 in his ranks four Christian princes and as 
 many Tartar chiefs. All the nobles of Ger- 
 many and Poland were on the other side : 
 Sobieski was at once the Agamemnon and 
 Achilles of that splendid host. 
 
 "The young Eugene of Savoy made his first 
 essay in arms, by bringing to Sobieski the in- 
 telligence that the engagement was commenced 
 between the advanced guards at the foot of 
 the ridge. The Christians immediately de- 
 scended the mountains in five columns like 
 torrents, but marching in the finest order : the 
 leading divisions halted at every hundred 
 
 paces to give time to those behind, who were 
 retarded by the difficulties of the descent, to 
 join them. A rude parapet, hastily erected by 
 the Turks to bar the five debouches of the 
 roads into the plain, was forced after a short 
 combat. At every ravine, the Christians ex- 
 perienced fresh obstacles to surmount: the 
 spahis dismounted to contest the rocky ascents, 
 and speedily regaining their horses when they 
 were forced, fell back in haste to the next 
 positions which were to be defended. But the 
 Mussulmen, deficient in infantry, could not 
 withstand the steady advance and solid masses 
 of the Germans, and the Christians everywhere 
 gained ground. Animated by the continued 
 advance of their deliverers, the garrison of 
 Vienna performed miracles on the breach ; 
 and Kara Mustapha, who long hesitated which 
 battle he should join, resolved to meet the 
 avenging squadrons of the Polish king. 
 
 "By two o'clock the ravines were cleared, 
 and the allies drawn up in the plain. Sobieski 
 ordered the Duke of Lorraine to halt, to give 
 time for the Poles, who had been retarded by 
 a circuitous march, to join the army. At 
 eleven they appeared, and took their post on 
 the right. The Imperial eagles saluted the 
 squadrons of gilded cuirasses with cries of 
 'Long live King John Sobieski!' and the cry, 
 repeated along the Christian line, startled the 
 Mussulmen force. 
 
 " Sobieski charged in the centre, and di- 
 rected his attack against the scarlet tent of the 
 sultan, surrounded by his faithful squadrons 
 distinguished by his splendid plume, his bow, 
 and quiver of gold, which hung on his shoul- 
 der most of ail by the enthusiasm which his 
 presence everywhere excited. He advanced, 
 exclaiming, 'Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi sit 
 gloria !' The Tartars and the spahis fled when 
 they heard the name of the Polish hero re- 
 peated from one end to the other of the Otto- 
 man lines. ' By Allah,' exclaimed Sultan 
 Gieray, ' the king is with them !' At this 
 moment the moon was eclipsed, and the Ma- 
 hometans beheld with dread the crescent 
 waning in the heavens. 
 
 " At the same time, the hussars of Prince 
 Alexander, who formed the leading column, 
 broke into a charge amidst the national cry, 
 'God defend Poland!' The remaining squad- 
 rons, led by all that was noblest and bravest in 
 the country, resplendent in arms, buoyant in 
 courage, followed at the gallop. They cleared, 
 without drawing bridle, a ravine, at which in- 
 fantry might have paused, and charged furi- 
 ously up the opposite bank. With such 
 vehemence did they enter the enemy's ranks, 
 that they fairly cut the army in two, justify- 
 ing thus the celebrated saying of that haughty 
 nobility to one of their kings, that with their 
 aid no reverse was irreparable ; and that if the 
 heaven itself were to fall, they would support 
 it on the points of their lances. 
 
 "The shock was so violent that almost all 
 the lances were splintered. The Pachas of 
 Aleppo and of Silistria were slain on the spot ; 
 four other pachas fell under the sabres of 
 Jablonowski. At the same time Charles of 
 Lorraine had routed the force of the principa- 
 lities, and threatened the Ottoman camp. Kara 
 
POLAND. 
 
 Mustapha fell at once from the heights of 
 confidence to the depths of despair. ' Can 
 you not aid me ?' said he to the Kara of the 
 Crimea. ' I know the King of Poland,' said 
 he, ' and I tell you, that with such an enemy 
 we have no chance of safety but in flight.' 
 Mustapha in vain strove to rally his troops ; 
 all, seized with a sudden panic, fled, not daring 
 to lift their eyes to heaven. The cause of 
 Europe, of Christianity, of civilization, had 
 prevailed. The wave of the Mussulman power 
 had retired, and retired never to return. 
 
 "At six in the evening, Sobieski entered the 
 Turkish camp. He arrived first at the quar- 
 ters of the vizier. At the entrance of that vast 
 enclosure a slave met him, and presented him 
 with the charger and golden bridle of Musta- 
 pha. He took the bridle, and ordered one of 
 his followers to set out in haste for the Queen 
 of Poland, and say that he who owned that 
 bridle was vanquished ; then planted his 
 standard in the midst of that armed caravan- 
 sera of all the nations of the East, and ordered 
 Charles of Lorraine to drive the besiegers 
 from the trenches before Vienna. It was 
 already done ; the Janizzaries had left their 
 posts on the approach of night, and, after sixty 
 days of open trenches, the imperial city was 
 delivered. 
 
 " On the following morning the magnitude 
 of the victory appeared. One hundred and 
 twenty thousand tents were still standing, not- 
 withstanding the attempts at their destruction 
 by the Turks ; the innumerable multitude of 
 the Orientals had disappeared ; but their spoils, 
 their horses, their camels, their splendour, 
 loaded the ground. The king at ten approached 
 Vienna. He passed through the breach, where- 
 by but for him on that day the Turks would 
 have found an entrance. At his approach the 
 streets were cleared of their ruins; and the 
 people, issuing from their cellars and their 
 tottering houses, gazed with enthusiasm on 
 their deliverer. They followed him to the 
 church of the Augustins, where, as the clergy 
 had not arrived, the king himself chanted Te 
 Deum. This service was soon after performed 
 with still greater solemnity in the cathedral of 
 St. Stephen ; the king joined with his face to 
 the ground. It was there that the priest used 
 the inspired words- ' There was a man sent 
 from heaven, and his name was John.' " HI. 
 50, 101. 
 
 During this memorable campaign, Sobieski, 
 who through life was a tender and affectionate 
 husband, wrote daily to his wife. At the age 
 of fifty-four he had lost nothing of the tender- 
 ness and enthusiasm of his earlier years. In 
 one of them he says, " I read all your letters, 
 my dear and incomparable Maria, thrice over; 
 once when I receive them, once when I retire 
 to my tent and am alone with my love, once 
 when I sit down to answer them. I beseech 
 you, my beloved, do not rise so early; no 
 health can stand such exertions; if you do, 
 you will destroy my health, and what is worse, 
 injure your own, which is my sole consola- 
 tion in this world." When offered the throne 
 of Poland, it was at first proposed that he 
 should divorce his wife, and marry the widow 
 of the late king, to reconcile the contending 
 faction. " I am not yet a king," said he, " and 
 have contracted no obligations towards the 
 nation: Let them resume their gift; I disdain 
 the throne if it is to be purchased at such a 
 price." 
 
 It is superfluous, after these quotations, to 
 say any thing of the merits of M. Salvaridy's 
 work. It unites, in a rare degree, the qualities 
 of philosophical thought with brilliant and 
 vivid description ; and is one of the numerous 
 instances of the vast superiority of the Modern 
 French Historians to most of those of whom 
 Great Britain, in the present age, can boast. 
 If any thing could reconcile us to the march 
 of revolution, it is the vast development of 
 talent which has taken place in France since 
 her political convulsions commenced, and the 
 new field which their genius has opened up 
 in historical disquisitions. On comparing the 
 historians of the two countries since the resto- 
 ration, it seems as if they were teeming with 
 the luxuriance of a virgin soil; while we are 
 sinking under the sterility of exhausted cul- 
 tivation. Steadily resisting, as we trust we 
 shall ever do, the fatal march of French in- 
 novation, we shall yet never be found wanting 
 in yielding due praise to the splendour of 
 French talent; and in the turn which political 
 speculation has recently taken among the 
 most elevated minds in their active metropolis, 
 we are not without hopes that the first rays 
 of the dawn are to be discerned, which is 
 destined to compensate to mankind for the 
 darkness and blood of the revolution. 
 
64 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 MADAME DE STAEL.* 
 
 AMIDST the deluge of new and ephemeral 
 publications under which the press both in 
 France and England is groaning, and the 
 woful depravity of public taste, in all branches 
 of literature, which in the former country has 
 followed the Revolution of the Three Glorious 
 Days, it is not the least important part of the 
 duty of all those who have any share, however 
 inconsiderable, in the direction of the objects 
 to which public thought is to be applied, to 
 recur from time to time to the great and 
 standard works of a former age; and from 
 amidst the dazzling light of passing meteors 
 in the lower regions of the atmosphere, to 
 endeavour to direct the public gaze to those 
 fixed luminaries whose radiance in the higher 
 heavens shines, and ever will shine, in im- 
 perishable lustre. From our sense of the im- 
 portance and utility of this attempt, we are 
 not to be deterred by the common remark, 
 that these authors are in everybody's hands ; 
 that their works are read at school, and their 
 names become as household sounds. We 
 know that many things are read at school 
 which are forgotten at college ; and many 
 things learned at college which are unhappily 
 and permanently discarded in later years; and 
 that there are many authors whose names are 
 as household sounds, whose works for that 
 very reason are as a strange and unknown 
 tongue. Every one has heard of Racine and 
 Moliere, of Bossuet and Fenelon, of Voltaire 
 and Rousseau, of Chateaubriand and Madame 
 de Stael, of Pascal and Rabelais. We would 
 beg to ask even our best informed and most 
 learned readers, with how many of their works 
 they are really familiar; how many of their 
 felicitous expressions have sunk into their 
 recollections ; how many of their ideas are 
 engraven on their memory? Others may 
 possess more retentive memories, or more ex- 
 tensive reading than we do ; but we confess, 
 when we apply such a question, even to the 
 constant study of thirty years, we feel not a 
 little mortified at the time which has been 
 misapplied, and the brilliant ideas once ob- 
 tained from others which have now faded 
 from the recollection, and should rejoice much 
 to obtain from others that retrospect of past 
 greatness which we propose ourselves to lay 
 before our readers. 
 
 Every one now is so constantly in the habit of 
 reading the new publications, of devouring 
 the fresh productions of the press, that we for- 
 get the extraordinary superiority of standard 
 works ; and are obliged to go back to the 
 studies of our youth for that superlative en- 
 joyment which arises from the perusal of 
 authors, where every sentence is thought, and 
 often every word conception ; where new trains 
 of contemplation or emotion are awakened in 
 every page, and the volume is closed almost 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, June 1837. 
 
 every minute to meditate on the novelty or 
 justice of the reflections which arise from its 
 study. And it is not on the first perusal of 
 these authors that this exquisite pleasure is 
 obtained. In the heyday of youth and strength, 
 when imagination is ardent, and the world 
 unknown, it is the romance of the story, or the 
 general strain of the argument which carries 
 the reader on, and many of the finest and most 
 spiritual reflections are overlooked or un- 
 appreciated; but in later years, when life has 
 been experienced, and joy and sorrow felt, 
 when the memory is stored with recollections, 
 and the imagination with images, it is reflec- 
 tion and observation which constitute the chief 
 attraction in composition. And judging of the 
 changes wrought by Time in others from what 
 we have experienced ourselves, we anticipate 
 a high gratification, even in the best informed 
 readers, by a direction of their attention to 
 many passages in the great French writers of 
 the age of Louis XIV. and the Revolution, a 
 comparison of their excellences, a criticism 
 on their defects, and an exposition of the 
 mighty influence which the progress of poli- 
 tical events has had upon the ideas reflected, 
 even to the greatest authors, from the age in 
 which they lived, and the external events 
 passing around them. 
 
 The two great eras of French prose litera- 
 ture are those of Louis XIV. and the Revo- 
 lution. If the former can boast of Bossuet, 
 the latter can appeal to Chateaubriand: if the 
 former still shine in the purest lustre in 
 Fenelon, the latter may boast the more fervent 
 pages, and varied genius of De Stael ; if the 
 former is supreme in the tragic and comic 
 muse, and can array Racine, Corneille' and 
 Moliere, against the transient Lilliputians of 
 the romantic school, the latter can show in 
 the poetry and even the prose of Lamartine a 
 condensation of feeling, a depth of pathos and 
 energy of thought which can never be reached 
 but in an age which has undergone the animat- 
 ing episodes, the heart-stirring feelings conse- 
 quent on social convulsion. In the branches of 
 literature which depend on the relations of men 
 to each other, history politics historical phi- 
 losophy and historical romance, the superiority 
 of the modern school is so prodigious, that it 
 i;> impossible to find a parallel to it in former 
 days : and even the dignified language and 
 eagle glance of the Bishop of Meaux sinks 
 into insignificance, compared to the vast ability 
 which, in inferior minds, experience and actual 
 suffering have brought to bear on the in- 
 vestigation of public affairs. Modern writers 
 were for long at a loss to understand the cause 
 which had given such superior pathos, ener- 
 gy, and practical wisdom to the historians of 
 antiquity; but the French Revolution at once 
 explained the mystery. When modern times 
 were brought into collision with the passions 
 and the suffering consequent on democratic 
 
MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
 65 
 
 ascendency and social convulsion, they were 
 not long of feeling the truths which experience 
 had taught to ancient writers, and acquiring 
 the power of vivid description and condensed 
 yet fervent narrative by which the great his- 
 torians of antiquity are characterized. 
 
 At the head of the modern prose writers of 
 France, we place Madame de Stael, Chateau- 
 briand, and Guizot : The general style of the 
 two first and the most imaginative of these 
 writers De Stael and Chateaubriand is es- 
 sentially different from that of Bossuet, Fenelon 
 and Massillon. We have no longer either the 
 thoughts, the language, or the images of these 
 great and dignified writers ! With the pompous 
 grandeur of the Grande Monarque; with the 
 awful splendour of the palace, and the irresisti- 
 ble power of the throne ; with the superb mag- 
 nificence of Versailles, its marbles, halls, and 
 forests of statues, have passed away the train 
 of thought by which the vices and corruption 
 then chiefly prevalent in society were combated 
 by these worthy soldiers of the militia of 
 Christ. Strange to say, the ideas of that des- 
 potic age are more condemnatory of princes; 
 more eulogistic of the people, more con- 
 firmatory of the principles which, if pushe'd to 
 their legitimate consequences, lead to demo- 
 cracy, than those of the age when the sove- 
 reignty of the people was actually established. 
 In their eloquent declamations, the wisdom, 
 justice, and purity of the masses are the con- 
 stant subject of eulogy ; almost all social and 
 political evils are traced to the corruptions of 
 courts and the vices of kings. The applause 
 of the people, the condemnation of rulers, in 
 Telemachns, often resembles rather the frothy 
 declamations of the Tribune in favour of the 
 sovereign multitude, than the severe lessons 
 addressed by a courtly prelate to the heir of a 
 despotic throne. With a fearless courage 
 worthy of the highest commendation, and very 
 different from the base adulation of modern 
 times to the Baal of popular power, Bossuet, 
 Massillon, and Bourdaloue, incessantly rung 
 in the ears of their courtly auditory the equality 
 of mankind in the sight of heaven and the 
 awful words of judgment to come. These im- 
 aginary and Utopian effusions now excite a 
 smile, even in the most youthful student; and 
 a suffering age, taught by the experienced 
 evils of democratic ascendency, has now 
 learned to appreciate, as they deserve, the pro- 
 found and caustic sayings in which Aristotle, 
 Sallust, and Tacitus have delivered to future 
 ages the condensed wisdom on the instability 
 and tyranny of the popular rule, which ages 
 of calamity had brought home to the sages of 
 antiquity. 
 
 In Madame de Stael and Chateaubriand we 
 have incomparably more originality and va- 
 riety of thought; far more just and expe- 
 rienced views of human affairs ; far more 
 condensed wisdom, which the statesman and 
 the philosopher may treasure in their memo- 
 ries, than in the great writers of the age of 
 Louis XIV. We see at once in their produc- 
 tions that we are dealing with those who speak 
 from experience of human affairs ; to whom 
 years of suffering have brought centuries of 
 wisdom ; and whom the stern school of adver- 
 
 sity have learned to abjure both much of the 
 fanciful El Dorado speculations of preceding 
 philosophy, and the perilous effusions of suc- 
 ceeding republicanism. Though the one was 
 by birth and habit an aristocrat of the ancient 
 and now decaying school, and the other, a 
 liberal nursed at the feet of the great Gamaliel 
 of the Revolution, yet there is no material dif- 
 ference in their political conclusions; so com- 
 pletely does a close observation of the progress 
 of a revolution induce the same conclusions 
 in minds of the highest stamp, with whatever 
 early prepossessions the survey may have 
 been originally commenced. The Dix Annees 
 d'Exil, and the observations on the French 
 revolution, might have been written by Cha- 
 teaubriand, and Madame de Stael would have 
 little wherefrom to dissent in the Monarchic 
 selon la Charte, or later political writings of 
 her illustrious rival. 
 
 It is by their works of imagination, taste, 
 and criticism, however, that these immortal 
 writers are principally celebrated, and it is 
 with them that we propose to commence this 
 critical survey. Their names are universally 
 known : Corinne, Delphine, De 1'Allemagne, 
 the Dix Annees d'Exil, and De la Litterature, 
 are as familiar in sound, at least,, to our ears, 
 as the Genie de Christianisme, the Itineraire, 
 the Martyrs, Atala et Rene of the far-travelled 
 pilgrim of expiring feudalism, are to our 
 memories. Each has beauties of the very 
 highest cast in this department, and yet their 
 excellences are so various, that we know not 
 to which to award the palm. If driven to dis- 
 criminate between them, we should say that 
 De Stael has more sentiment, Chateaubriand 
 more imagination ; that the former has deeper 
 knowledge of human feelings, and the latter 
 more varied and animated pictures of human 
 manners ; that the charm of the former con- 
 sists chiefly in the just and profound views of 
 life, its changes and emotions with which her 
 works abound, and the fascination of the latter 
 in the brilliant phantasmagoria of actual 
 scenes, impressions, and events which his 
 writings exhibit. No one can exceed Madame 
 de Stael in the expression of the sentiment or 
 poetry of nature, or the development of the 
 varied and storied associations which histori- 
 cal scenes or monuments never fail to awaken 
 in the cultivated mind ; but in the delineation 
 of the actual features she exhibits, or the 
 painting of the various and gorgeous scenery 
 or objects she presents, she is greatly inferior 
 to the author of the Genius of Christianity. 
 She speaks emotion to the heart, not pictures 
 to the eye. Chateaubriand, on the other hand, 
 has dipped his pencil in the finest and most 
 radiant hues of nature: with a skill surpassing 
 even that of the Great Magician of the North, 
 he depicts all the most splendid scenes of both 
 hemispheres ; and seizing with the inspiration 
 of genius on the really characteristic features 
 of the boundless variety of objects he has 
 visited, brings them before us with a force and 
 fidelity which it is impossible to surpass. 
 After all, however, on rising from a perusal 
 of the great works of these two authors, it is 
 hard to say which has left the most indelible 
 impression on the mind; for if the one has 
 
66 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 accumulated a store of brilliant pictures which 
 have never yet been rivalled, the other has 
 drawn from the objects on which she has 
 touched all the most profound emotions which 
 they could awaken; and if the first leaves a 
 gorgeous scene painted on the mind, the latter 
 has engraved a durable impression on the 
 heart. 
 
 CORINJTE is not to be regarded as a novel. 
 Boarding-school girls, and youths just fledged 
 from college, may admire it as such, and dwell 
 with admiration on the sorrows of the heroine 
 and the faithlessness of Lord Nevil ; but con- 
 sidered in that view it has glaring faults, both 
 in respect of fancy, probability, and story, and 
 will bear no comparison either with the great 
 novels of Sir Walter Scott, or the secondary 
 productions of his numerous imitators. The 
 real view in which to regard it is as a picture 
 of Italy; its inhabitants, feelings, and recollec- 
 tions; its cloudless skies and glassy seas; its 
 forest-clad hills and sunny vales ; its umbra- 
 geous groves and mouldering forms ; its heart- 
 inspiring ruins and deathless scenes. As such 
 it is superior to any work on that subject which 
 has appeared in any European language. No- 
 where else shall we find so rich and glowing 
 an intermixture of sentiment with description ; 
 of deep feeling for the beauty of art, with a 
 correct perception of its leading principles; 
 of historical lore with poetical fancy; of ar- 
 dour in the cause of social amelioration, with 
 charity to the individuals who, under unfortu- 
 nate institutions, are chained to a life of indo- 
 lence and pleasure. Beneath the glowing sun 
 and azure skies of Italy she has imbibed the 
 real modern Italian spirit: she exhibits in the 
 mouth of her heroine all that devotion to art, 
 that rapturous regard to antiquity, that insou- 
 ciance in ordinary life, and constant besoin of 
 fresh excitement by which that remarkable 
 people are distinguished from any other at 
 present in Europe. She paints them as they 
 really are ; living on the recollection of the 
 past, feeding on the glories of their double set 
 of illustrious ancestors ; at times exulting in 
 the recollection of the legions which subdued 
 the world, at others recurring with pride to 
 the glorious though brief days of modern art ; 
 mingling the names of Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, 
 and Virgil with those of Michael Angelo, Ra- 
 phael, Buonarotti, and Correggio; repeating 
 with admiration the stanzas of Tasso as they 
 glide through the deserted palaces of Venice, 
 and storing their minds with the rich creations 
 of Ariosto's fancy as they gaze on the stately 
 monuments of Rome. 
 
 Not less vividly has she portrayed, in the 
 language, feelings, and character of her he- 
 roine, the singular intermixture with these 
 animating recollections of all the frivolity 
 which 'has rendered impossible, without a 
 fresh impregnation of northern vigour, the 
 regeneration of Italian society. We see in 
 her pages, as we witness in real life, talents 
 the most commanding, beauty the most fasci- 
 nating, graces the most captivating, devoted 
 to no other object but the excitement of a 
 transient passion; infidelity itself subjected to 
 certain restraints, and boasting of its fidelity 
 to one attachment; whole classes of society 
 
 incessantly occupied with no other object but 
 the gratification of vanity, the thraldom of at- 
 tachment, or the imperious demands of beauty, 
 and the strongest propensity of cultivated life, 
 the besoin d'aimer, influencing, for the best part of 
 their lives, the higher classes of both sexes. 
 In such representation there would probably 
 be nothing in the hands of an ordinary writer 
 but frivolous or possibly pernicious details ; 
 but by Madame de Stael it is touched on so 
 gently, so strongly intermingled with senti- 
 ment, and traced so naturally to its ultimate 
 and disastrous effects, that the picture be- 
 comes not merely characteristic of manners, 
 but purifying in its tendency. 
 
 The Dix AXNEES D'EXIL, though abounding 
 with fewer splendid and enchanting passages, 
 is written in a higher strain, and devoted to 
 more elevated objects than the Italian novel. 
 It exhibits the Imperial Government of Napo- 
 | Icon in the palmy days of his greatness ; when 
 all the Continent had bowed the neck to his 
 power, and from the rock of Gibraltar to the 
 Frozen Ocean, not a voice dared to be lifted 
 against his commands. It shows the internal 
 tyranny and vexations of this formidable 
 power; its despicable jealousies and con- 
 temptible vanity; its odious restrictions and 
 tyrannizing tendency. W r e see the censorship 
 chaining the human mind to the night of the 
 tenth in the opening of the nineteenth century; 
 the commands of the police fettering every 
 effort of independent thought and free discus- 
 sion ; forty millions of men slavishly following 
 the car of a victor, who, in exchange for all 
 the advantages of freedom, hoped but never 
 obtained from the Revolution, dazzled them 
 with the glitter only of gilded chains. In her 
 subsequent migrations through Tyrol, Poland, 
 Russia, and Sweden, to avoid his persecution 
 during the years which preceded the Russian 
 war, we have the noblest picture of the ele- 
 vated feelings which, during this period of 
 general oppression, were rising up in the na- 
 tions which yet preserved a shadow of inde- 
 pendence, as well as of the heroic stand made 
 by Alexander and his brave subjects against 
 the memorable invasion which ultimately 
 proved their oppressor's ruin. These are 
 animating themes ; and though not in general 
 inclined to dwell on description, or enrich her 
 work with picturesque narrative, the scenery 
 of the north had wakened profound emotions 
 in her heart which appear in many touches 
 and reflections of no ordinary sublimity. 
 
 Chateaubriand addresses himself much more 
 habitually and systematically to the eye. He 
 paints what he has seen, whether in nature, 
 societ3 r , manners, or art, with the graphic skill 
 of a consummate draughtsman; and produces 
 the emotion he is desirous of awakening, not 
 by direct words calculated to arouse it, but by 
 enabling the imagination to depict to itself the 
 objects which in nature, by their felicitous com- 
 bination, produced the impression. Madame 
 de Stael does not paint the features of the 
 scene, but in a few words she portrays the 
 emotion which she experienced on beholding 
 it, and contrives by these few words to awaken 
 it in her readers ; Chateaubriand enumerates 
 with a painter's power all the features of the 
 
MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
 67 
 
 scene, and by the vividness of description 
 succeeds not merely in painting it on the 
 retina of the mind, but m awakening there the 
 precise emotion which he himself felt on 
 beholding it. The one speaks to the heart 
 through the eye, the other to the eye through 
 the heart. As we travel with the illustrious 
 pilgrim of the Revolution, we see rising before 
 us in successive clearness the lonely temples, 
 and glittering valleys, and storied capes of 
 Greece ; the desert plains and rocky ridges 
 and sepulchral hollows of Judea; the solitary 
 palms and stately monuments of Egypt; the 
 isolated remains of Carthage, the deep solitudes 
 of America, the sounding cataracts, and still 
 lakes, and boundless forests of the New World. 
 Not less vivid is his description of human 
 scenes and actions, of which, during his event- 
 ful career, he has seen such an extraordinary 
 variety; the Janissary, the Tartar, the Turk; 
 the Bedouins of the desert places, the Numi- 
 dians of the torrid zone; the cruel revolution- 
 ists of France ; the independent savages of 
 America; the ardent mind of Napoleon, the 
 dauntless intrepidity of Pitt. Nothing can 
 exceed the variety and brilliancy of the pictures 
 which he leaves engraven on the imagination 
 of his reader; but he has neither touched the 
 heart nor convinced the judgment like the 
 profound hand of his female rival. 
 
 To illustrate these observations we have 
 selected two of the most brilliant descriptions 
 from Chateaubriand's Genie de Christianisme, 
 and placed beside these two of the most in- 
 spired of Madame de StaeTs passages on 
 Roman scenery. We shall subjoin two of the 
 most admirable descriptions by Sir Walter 
 Scott, that the reader may at once have pre- 
 sented to his view the masterpieces, in the 
 descriptive line, of the three greatest authors 
 of the age. All the passages are translated by 
 ourselves; we have neither translations at 
 hand, nor inclination to mar so much elo- 
 quence by the slovenly dress in which it usual- 
 ly appears in an English version. 
 
 " There is a God ! The herbs of the valley, 
 the cedars of the mountain, bless him the 
 insect sports in his beams the elephant 
 salutes him with the rising orb of day the 
 bird sings him in the foliage the thunder 
 proclaims him in the heavens the ocean de- 
 clares his immensity man alone has said, 
 < There is no God !' 
 
 " Unite in thought, at the same instant, the 
 most beautiful objects in nature ; suppose that 
 you see at once all the hours of the day, and 
 all the seasons of the year; a morning of 
 spring and a morning of autumn ; a night be- 
 spangled with stars, and a night covered with 
 clouds; meadows enamelled with flowers, 
 forests hoary with snow ; fields gilded by the 
 tints of autumn; then alone you will have a 
 just conception of the universe. While you 
 are gazing on that sun which is plunging under 
 the vault of the west, another observer admires 
 him emerging from the gilded gates of the east. 
 By what unconceivable magic does that aged 
 star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in 
 the shades of the evening, reappear at the same 
 instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of 
 the morning ? At every instant of the day the 
 
 glorious orb is at once rising resplendent at 
 noonday, and setting in the west ; or rather 
 our senses deceive us, and there is, properly 
 speaking, no east, or south, or west, in the 
 world. Every thing reduces itself to one .single 
 point, from whence the King of Day scuds 
 forth at once a triple light in one single sub- 
 stance. The bright splendour is perhaps that 
 which nature can present that is most beauti- 
 ful ; for while it gives us an idea of the per- 
 petual magnificence and resistless power of 
 God, it exhibits, at the same time, a shining 
 image of the glorious Trinity." 
 
 Human eloquence probably cannot, in de- 
 scription, go beyond this inimitable passage ; 
 but it is equalled in the pictures left us by the 
 same author of two scenes in the New World. 
 
 " One evening, when it was a profound calm, 
 we were sailing through those lovely seas 
 which bathe the coast of Virginia, all the 
 sails were furled I was occupied below when 
 I heard the bell which called the mariners 
 upon deck to prayers I hastened to join my 
 orisons to those of the rest of the crew. The 
 officers were on the forecastle, with the passen- 
 gers ; the priest, with his prayer-book in his 
 hand, stood a little in advance ; the sailors were 
 scattered here and there on the deck ; we were 
 all above, with our faces turned towards the 
 prow of the vessel, which looked to the west. 
 
 "The globe of the sun, ready to plunge into 
 the waves, appeared between the ropes of the 
 vessel in the midst of boundless space. You 
 would have imagined, from the balancing of 
 the poop, that the glorious luminary changed 
 at every instant its horizon. A few light clouds 
 were scattered without order in the east, where 
 the moon was slowly ascending; all the rest of 
 the sky was unclouded. Towards the north, 
 forming a glorious triangle with the star of day 
 and that of night, a glittering cloud arose from 
 the sea, resplendent with the colours of the 
 prism, like a crystal pile supporting the vault 
 of heaven. 
 
 " He is much to be pitied who could have 
 witnessed this scene, without feeling the beau- 
 ty of God. Tears involuntarily flowed from 
 my eyes, when my companions, taking off* 
 their hats, began to sing, in their hoarse strains, 
 the simple hymn of Our Lady of Succour. 
 How touching was that prayer of men, who, 
 on a fragile plank, in the midst of the ocean, 
 contemplated the sun setting in the midst of 
 the waves! How that simple invocation of the 
 mariners to the mother of woes, went to the 
 heart ! The consciousness of our littleness 
 in the sight of Infinity our chants prolonged 
 afar over the waves night approaching with 
 its sable wings a whole crew of a vessel 
 filled with admiration and a holy fear God 
 bending over the abyss, with one hand retain- 
 ing the sun at the gates of the west, with the 
 other raising the moon in the east, and yet 
 lending an attentive ear to the voice of prayer 
 ascending from a speck in the immensity all 
 combined to form an assemblage which can- 
 not be described, and of which the human 
 heart could hardly bear the weight. 
 
 "The scene at land was not less ravishing. 
 One evening I had lost my way in a forest, al 
 a short distance from the Falls of Niagara. 
 
68 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Soon the day expired around me, and I tasted, 
 in all its solitude, the lovely spectacle of a 
 night in the deserts of the New World. 
 
 " An hour after sunset the raoon showed it- 
 self above the branches, on the opposite side 
 of the horizon. An embalmed breeze, which 
 the Queen of Night seemed to bring with her 
 from the East, preceded her with its freshen- 
 ing gales. The solitary star ascended by de- 
 grees in the heavens ; sometimes she followed 
 peaceably her azure course, sometimes she 
 reposed on the groups of clouds, which re- 
 sembled the summits of lofty mountains covered 
 with snow. These clouds, opening and clos- 
 ing their sails, now spread themselves out in 
 transparent zones of white satin, now dis- 
 persed into light bubbles of foam, or formed 
 in the heavens bars of white so dazzling and 
 sweet, that you could almost believe you felt 
 their snowy surface. 
 
 "The scene on the earth was of equal beau- 
 ty ; the declining day, and the light of the moon, 
 descended into the intervals of the trees, and 
 spread a faint gleam even in the profoundest 
 part of the darkness. The river which flowed 
 at my feet, alternately lost itself in the woods, 
 and reappeared brilliant with the constella- 
 tions of night which reposed on its bosom. In 
 a savanna on the other side of the river, the 
 moonbeams slept without movement on the 
 verdant turf. A few birches, agitated by the 
 breeze, and dispersed here and there, formed 
 isles of floating shadow on that motionless sea 
 of light. All would have been in profound 
 repose, but for the fall of a few leaves, the 
 breath of a transient breeze, and the moaning 
 of the owl ; while, in the distance, at intervals 
 the deep roar of Niagara was heard, which, 
 prolonged from desert to desert in the calm of 
 the night, expired at length in the endless 
 solitude of the forest. 
 
 "The grandeur, the surpassing melancholy 
 of that scene, can be expressed by no human 
 tongue the finest nights of Europe can give 
 no conception of it. In vain, amidst our cul- 
 tivated fields, does the imagination seek to ex- 
 pand it meets on all sides the habitations of 
 men; but in those savage regions the soul 
 loves to shroud itself in the ocean of forests, 
 to hang over the gulf of cataracts, to meditate 
 on the shores of lakes and rivers, and feel 
 itself alone as it were with God. 
 
 'Prsesentiorem conspicirmis Deum, 
 Fera per jusa, clivosque prjrruptos, 
 Sonantes inter aquas nemoruiuque noctem.' " 
 
 We doubt if any passages ever were written 
 of more thrilling descriptive eloquence than 
 these ; hereafter we shall contrast them with 
 some of the finest of Lamartine, which have 
 equalled but not exceeded them. But now 
 mark the different style with which Madame 
 de Stael treats the heart-stirring monuments 
 of Roman greatness. 
 
 " At this moment St. Peter arose to their 
 view; the greatest edifice which man has ever 
 raised, for the Pyramids themselves are of less 
 considerable elevation. I would perhaps have 
 done better, said Corinne, to have taken you 
 to the most beautiful of our edifices last; but 
 that is not my system. I am convinced that, 
 to render one alive to the charm of the fine 
 
 arts, w$ should commence with those objects 
 which awaken a lively and profound admira- 
 ion. When once that sentiment has been 
 experienced, a new sphere of ideas is awaken- 
 ed, which renders us susceptible of the im- 
 pression produced by beauties of an inferior 
 order; they revive, though in a lesser degree, 
 the first impression which has been received. 
 All these gradations in producing emotion are 
 contrary to my opinion ; you do not arrive at 
 the sublime by successive steps; infinite de- 
 grees separate it from the beautiful. 
 
 " Oswald experienced an extraordinary emo- 
 tion on arriving in front of the fa9ade of St. 
 Peter's. It wns the first occasion on which a 
 work of human hands produced on him the 
 effects of one of the marvels of nature. It is 
 the only effort of human industry which has 
 the grandeur which characterizes the imme- 
 diate works of the Creator. Corinne rejoiced 
 in the astonishment of Oswald. 'I have 
 chosen,' said she, ' a day when the sun was 
 shining in all its eclat to show you this monu- 
 ment for the first time. I reserve for you a 
 more sacred religious enjoyment, to contem- 
 plate it by the light of the moon ; but at this 
 moment it was necessary to obtain your pre- 
 sence at the most brilliant of our fetes, the 
 genius of man decorated by the magnificence 
 of nature.' 
 
 " The Place of St. Peter is surrounded by 
 columns, which appear light at a distance, but 
 massy when seen near. The earth, which 
 rises gently to the gate of the church, adds to 
 the effect it produces. An obelisk of eighty 
 feet in height, which appears as nothing in 
 presence of the cupola of St. Peter's, is in the 
 middle of the place. The form of obelisks 
 has something in it which is singularly pleas- 
 ing to the imagination; their summit loses 
 itself in the clouds, and seems even to elevate 
 to the Heavens a great thought of man. That 
 monument, which was brought from Egypt to 
 adorn the baths of Caracalla, and which Sex- 
 tus V. subsequently transported to the foot of 
 the Temple of St. Peter ; that contemporary 
 of so many ages which have sought in vain to 
 decay its solid frame, inspires respect; man 
 feels himself so fleeting, that he always expe- 
 riences emotion in presence of that which has 
 passed unchanged through many ages. At a 
 little distance, on each side of the obelisk, are 
 two fountains, the waters of which perpetually 
 are projected up and fall down in cascades 
 through the air. That murmur of waters, 
 which is usually heard only in the field, pro- 
 duces in such a situation a new sensation ; 
 but one in harmony with that which arises 
 from the aspect of so majestic a temple. 
 
 " Painting or sculpture, imitating in general 
 the human figure, or some object in external 
 nature, awaken in our minds distinct and posi- 
 tive ideas ; but a beautiful monument of archi- 
 tecture has not any determinate expression, 
 and the spectator is seized, on contemplating 
 it, with that reverie, without any definite ob- 
 ject, which leads the thoughts so far off. The 
 sound of the waters adds to these vague and 
 profound impressions ; it is uniform, as the 
 edifice is regular. 
 
 'Eternal movement and eternal repose* 
 
MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
 69 
 
 are thus brought to combine with each other. 
 It is here, in an especial manner, that Time is 
 without power; it never dries up those spark- 
 ling streams ; it never shakes those immovable 
 pillars. The waters, which spring: up in fan- 
 like luxuriance from these fountains, are so 
 light and vapoury, that, in a fine day, the raj r s 
 of the sun produce little rainbows of the most 
 beautiful colour. 
 
 "Stop a moment here, said Corinne to Lord 
 Nelvil, as he stood under the portico of the 
 church ; pause before drawing aside the cur- 
 tain which covers the entrance of the Temple. 
 Does not your heart beat at the threshold of 
 that sanctuary 1 ? Do you not feel, on entering 
 it, the emotion consequent on a solemn event 1 ? 
 At these words Corinne herself drew aside the 
 curtain, and held it so as to let Lord Nelvil 
 enter. Her attitude was *o beautiful in lining so, 
 that for a Moment it withdrew the eyes of her lover 
 even from the. majestic interior of the Temple. But 
 as he advanced, its greatness burst upon his 
 mind, and the impression which he received 
 under its lofty arches was so profound, that the 
 sentiment of love was for a time effaced. He 
 walked slowly beside Corinne ; both were 
 silent. Every thing enjoined contemplation ; 
 the slightest sound resounded so far, that no 
 word appeared worthy of being repeated in 
 those eternal mansions. Prayer alone, the 
 voice of misfortune was heard at intervals in 
 their vast vaults. And, when under those 
 stupendous domes, you hear from afar the 
 voice of an old man, whose trembling steps 
 totter along those beautiful marbles, watered 
 with so many tears, you feel that man is ren- 
 dered more dignified by that very infirmity of 
 his nature which exposes his divine spirit to 
 so many kinds of suffering, and that Chris- 
 tianity, the worship of grief, contains the true 
 secret of man's sojourn upon earth. 
 
 " Corinne interrupted the reverie of Oswald, 
 and said to him, 'You have seen the Gothic 
 churches of England and Germany, and must 
 have observed that they are distinguished by a 
 much more sombre character than this cathe- 
 dral. There is something mystical in the Ca- 
 tholicism of these Northern people ; ours 
 speaks to the imagination by exterior objects. 
 Michael Angelo said, on beholding the cupola 
 of the Pantheon, 'I will place it in the air;' 
 and, in truth, St. Peter's is a temple raised on 
 the basement of a church. There is a certain 
 alliance of the ancient worship with Christi- 
 anity in the effect which the interior of that 
 church produces: I often go to walk here 
 alone, in order to restore to my mind the tran- 
 quillity it may have lost. The sight of such a 
 monument is like a continual and fixed music, 
 awaiting you to pour its balm into your mind, 
 whenever you approach it ; and certainly, 
 among the many titles of this nation to glory, 
 we must number the patience, courage, and 
 disinterestedness of the chiefs of the church, 
 who consecrated, during a hundred and fifty 
 years, such vast treasures and boundless 
 labour to the prosecution of a work, of which 
 none of them could hope to enjoy the fruits.'" 
 Corinne, vol. i. c. 3. 
 
 In this magnificent passage, the words un- 
 derlined are an obvious blemish. The idea 
 
 of Oswald turning aside at the entrance of St. 
 Peter's from the gaze of the matchless interior 
 of the temple, a spectacle unique in the world, 
 to feast his eye by admiration of his inamorata, 
 is more than we, in the frigid latitudes of the 
 north, can altogether understand. But Ma- 
 dame de Stae'l was a woman, and a French- 
 woman ; and apparently she could not resist 
 the opportunity of signalizing the triumph of 
 her sex, by portraying the superiority of female 
 beauty to the grandest and most imposing ob- 
 ject that the hands of man have ever reared. 
 Abstracting from this feminine weakness, the 
 passage is one of almost uniform beauty, and 
 well illustrates the peculiar descriptive style 
 of the author; not painting objects, but touch- 
 ing the cords which cause emotions to vibrate. 
 She has unconsciously characterized her own 
 style, as compared with that of Chateaubriand, 
 in describing the different characters of the 
 cathedrals of the North and South. " There is 
 something mystical in the Catholicism of the 
 Northern people ; ours speaks to the imagina- 
 tion by exterior objects." 
 
 As another specimen of Madame de Stael's 
 descriptive powers, take her picture of the 
 Appian Way, with its long lines of tombs on 
 either side, on the southern quarter of Rome. 
 
 "She conducted Lord Nelvil beyond the 
 gates of the city, on the ancient traces of the 
 Appian Way. These traces are marked in 
 the middle of the Campagna of Rome by 
 tombs, on the right and left of which the ruins 
 extend as far as the eye can reach for several 
 miles beyond the walls. Cicero says that, on 
 leaving the gate, the first tombs you meet are 
 those of Metellus, the Scipios, and Servillius. 
 The tomb of the Scipios has been discovered 
 in the very place which he describes, and 
 transported to the Vatican. Yet it was, in 
 some sort, a sacrilege to displace these illus- 
 trious ashes ; imagination is more nearly allied 
 than is generally imagined to morality; we 
 must beware of shocking it. Some of these 
 tombs are so large, that the houses of peasants 
 have been worked out in them, for the Romans 
 consecrated a large space to the last remains 
 of their friends and their relatives. They 
 were strangers to that arid principle of utility 
 which fertilizes a few corners of earth, the 
 more by devastating the vast domain of senti- 
 ment and thought. 
 
 "You see' at a little distance from the Ap- 
 pian Way a temple raised by the Republic to 
 Honour and Virtue ; another to the God which 
 compelled Hannibal to remeasnre his steps ; 
 the Temple of Egeria, where Numa went to 
 consult his tutelar deity, is at a little distance 
 on the left hand. Around these tombs the 
 traces of virtue alone are to be found. No 
 monument of the long ages of crime which 
 disgraced the empire are to be met with be- 
 side the places where these illustrious dead 
 repose ; they rest amongst the relics of the 
 republic. 
 
 "The aspect of the Campagna around Rome 
 has something in it singularly remarkable. 
 Doubtless it is a desert; there are neither 
 trees nor habitations ; but the earth is covered 
 with a profusion of natural flowers, which 
 the energy of vegetation renews incessantly. 
 
70 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 These creeping plants insinuate themselves : Even then that obelisk was covered with 
 
 among the tombs, decorate the ruins, and 
 seem to grow solely to do honour to the dead. 
 You would suppose that nature was too proud 
 
 hieroglyphics whose secrets have been kept 
 for so many ages, and which still withstand 
 the researches of our most learned scholars. 
 
 there to suffer the labours of man, since Cin- Possibly the Indians, the Egyptians, the anti- 
 cmnatus no longer holds the plough which j quity of antiquity, might be revealed to us in 
 
 furrows its bosom ; it produces flowers in 
 wild profusion, which are of no sort of use to 
 the existing generation. These vast unculti- 
 vated planes will doubtless have few attrac- 
 tions for the agriculturist, administrators, and 
 all those who speculate on the earth, with a 
 view to extract from it the riches it is capable 
 of affording; but the thoughtful minds, whom 
 death occupies as much as life, are singularly 
 attracted by the aspect of that Campagna, 
 where the present times have left no trace ; 
 that earth which cherishes only the dead, and 
 covers them in its love with useless flowers 
 plants which creep along the surface, and 
 never acquire sufficient strength to separate 
 themselves from the ashes, which they have the 
 appearance of caressing." Corinne, 1. v. c. 1. 
 
 How many travellers have traversed the 
 Appian Way, but how few have felt the deep 
 impressions which these words are fitted to 
 produce ! 
 
 " The churches of modern Rome," continues 
 the same author, " are decorated with the mag- 
 nificence of antiquity, but there is something 
 sombre and striking in the intermingling of 
 these beautiful marbles with the ornaments 
 stripped from the Pagan temples. The columns 
 of porphyry and granite were so numerous at 
 Rome that they ceased to have any value. At 
 Su John Lateran, that church, so famous from 
 the councils of which it was the theatre, there 
 were such a quantity of marble columns that 
 many of them were covered with plaster to be 
 converted into pilasters so completely had 
 the multitude of riches rendered men indiffer- 
 ent to them. Some of these columns came 
 from the tomb of Adrian, and bear yet upon 
 their capitals the mark of the geese which 
 saved the Roman people. These columns 
 support the ornaments of Gothic churches, 
 and some rich sculptures in the arabesque 
 order. The urn of Agrippa has received the 
 ashes of a pope, for the dead themselves have 
 yielded their place to other dead, and the tombs 
 have changed tenants nearly as often as the 
 mansions of the living. 
 
 " Near to St. John Lateran is the holy stair, 
 transported from Jerusalem. No one is per- 
 mitted to go up it but on his knees. In like 
 manner Caesar and Claudius ascended on their 
 knees the stair which led to the temple of Ju- 
 piter Capitolinus. Beside St. John Lateran is 
 the Baptistery, where Constantine was bap- 
 tized in the middle of the place before the 
 church is an obelisk, perhaps the most ancient 
 monument which exists in the world an obe- 
 lisk contemporary of the War of Troy an 
 obelisk which the barbarian Cambyses re- 
 spected so much as to stop for its beauty the 
 conflagration of a city an obelisk for which 
 a king put in pledge the life of his only son. 
 The Romans in a surprising manner got it 
 conveyed from the extremity of Egypt to Italy 
 they turned aside the course of the Nile to 
 
 these mysterious signs. The wonderful charm 
 of Rome consists, not merely in the beauty of 
 its monuments, but in the interest which they 
 all awaken, and that species of charm in creases 
 daily with every fresh study." Ibid. c. 3. 
 
 We add only a feeble prosaic translation of 
 the splendid improvisatore effusion of Corinne 
 on the Cape of Mesinum, surrounded by the 
 marvels of the shore of Baiae and the Phleg- 
 rian fields. 
 
 "Poetry, nature, history, here rival each 
 other in grandeur here you can embrace in 
 a single glance all the revolutions of time and 
 all its prodigies. 
 
 "I see the Lake of Avernus, the extin- 
 guished crater of a volcano, whose waters 
 formerly inspired so much terror Acheron, 
 Phlegeton, which a subterraneous flame caused 
 to boil, are the rivers of the infernals visited 
 by JEneas. 
 
 " Fire, that devouring element which created 
 the world, and is destined to consume it, was 
 formerly an object of the greater terror that 
 its laws were unknown. Nature, in the olden 
 times, revealed its secrets to poetry alone. 
 
 " The city of Cumae, the Cave of the Sibylle, 
 the Temple of Apollo, were placed on that 
 height. There grew the wood whence was 
 gathered the golden branch. The country of 
 ^Eneas is around you, and the fictions conse- 
 crated by genius have become recollections of 
 which we still seek the traces. 
 
 "A Triton plunged into these waves the 
 presumptive Trojan who dared to defy the di- 
 vinities of the deep by his songs these water- 
 worn and sonorous rocks have still the cha- 
 racter which Virgil gave them. Imagination 
 was faithful even in the midst of its omnipo- 
 tence. The genius of man is creative when 
 he feels Nature imitative when, he fancies he 
 is creating. 
 
 " In the midst of these terrible masses, gray 
 witnesses of the creation, we see a new moun- 
 tain which the volcano has produced. Here 
 the earth is stormy as the ocean, and does 
 not, like it, re-enter peaceably into its limits. 
 The heavy element, elevated by subterraneous 
 fire, fills up valleys, ' rains mountains,' and its 
 petrified waves attest the tempests which once 
 tore its entrails. 
 
 "If you strike on this hill the subterraneous 
 vault resounds you would say that the in- 
 habited earth is nothing but a crust ready to 
 open and swallow us up. The Campagna of 
 Naples is the image of human passion sul- 
 phurous, but fruitful, its dangers and its plea- 
 sures appear to grow out of those glowing 
 volcanoes which give to the air so many 
 charms, and cause the thunder to roll beneath 
 our feet. 
 
 "Pliny boasted that his country was the 
 most beautiful in existence he studied nature 
 to be able to appreciate its charms. Seeking 
 the inspiration of science as a warrior does 
 
 bring its waters so as to convey it to the sea. j conquest, he set forth from this promontory to 
 
MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
 71 
 
 observe Vesuvius athwart the flames, and 
 those flames consumed him. 
 
 " Cicero lost his life near the promontory 
 of Gaeta, which is seen in the distance. The 
 Triumvirs, regardless of posterity, bereaved 
 it of the thoughts which that great man had 
 conceived it was on us that his murder was 
 committed. 
 
 " Cicero sunk beneath the poniards of ty- 
 rants Scipio, more unfortunate, was banished 
 by his fellow-citizens while still in the enjoy- 
 ment of freedom. He terminated his days 
 near that shore, and the ruins of his tomb are 
 still called the ' Tower of our Country.' What 
 a touching allusion to the last thought of that 
 great spirit! 
 
 " Marius fled into those marshes not far from 
 the last home of Scipio. Thus in all ages the 
 people have persecuted the really great; but 
 they are avenged by their apotheosis, and the 
 Roman who conceived their power extended 
 even unto Heaven, placed Romulus, Numa, 
 and Caesar in the firmament new stars which 
 confound in our eyes the rays of glory and the 
 celestial radiance. 
 
 " Oh, memory! noble power! thy empire is 
 in these scenes! From age to age, strange 
 destiny ! man is incessantly bewailing what 
 he has lost ! These remote ages are the de- 
 positaries in their turn of a greatness which is 
 no more, and while the pride of thought, glory- 
 ing in its progress, darts into futurity, our sou] 
 seems still to regret an ancient* country to 
 which the past in some degree brings it 
 back." Lib. xii. c. 4. 
 
 Enough has now been given to give the un- 
 lettered reader a conception of the descriptive 
 character of these two great continental 
 writers to recall to the learned one some of 
 the most delightful moments of his life. To 
 complete the parallel, we shall now present 
 three of the finest passages of a similar cha- 
 racter from Sir Walter Scott, that our readers 
 may be able to appreciate at a single sitting 
 the varied excellences of the greatest masters 
 of poetic prose who have appeared in modern 
 times. 
 
 The first is the well-known opening scene 
 of Ivanhoe. 
 
 "The sun was setting upon one of the rich 
 grassy glades of that forest, which we have 
 mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. 
 Hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed, 
 wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed per- 
 haps the stately march of the Roman soldiery, 
 flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet 
 of the most delicious green sward; in some 
 places they were intermingled with beeches, 
 hollies, and copsewood of various descrip- 
 tions, so closely as totally to intercept the level 
 beams of the sinking sun ; in others they re- 
 ceded from each other, forming those long 
 sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of which the 
 eye delights to lose itself, while imagination 
 considers them as the paths to yet wilder 
 scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays 
 of the sun shot a broken and discoloured light, 
 that partially hung upon the shattered boughs 
 and mossy trunks of the trees, and there they 
 illuminated in brilliant patches the portions 
 of turf to which they made their way. A con- 
 
 siderable open space, in the midst of this glade, 
 seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the 
 rites of Druidical superstition ; for, on the sum- 
 mit of a hillock, so regular as to seem artificial, 
 there still remained part of a circle of rough 
 unhewn stones, of large dimensions. Seven 
 stood upright; the rest had been dislodged 
 from their places, probably by the zeal of 
 some convert to Christianity, and lay, some 
 prostrate near their former site, and others on 
 the side of the hill. One large stone only had 
 found its way to the bottom, and in stopping 
 the course of a small brook, which glided 
 smoothly round the foot of the eminence, gave, 
 by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to 
 the placid and elsewhere silent streamlet." 
 
 The next is the equally celebrated descrip- 
 tion of the churchyard in the introductory 
 chapter of Old Mortality. 
 
 " Farther up the narrow valley, and in a re- 
 cess which seems scooped out of the side of 
 the steep heathy bank, there is a deserted 
 burial-ground which the little cowards are 
 fearful of approaching in the twilight. To 
 me, however, the place has an inexpressible 
 charm. It has been long the favourite termi- 
 nation of my walks, and, if my kind patron 
 forgets not his promise, will (and probably at 
 no very distant day) be my final resting-place 
 after my mortal pilgrimage. 
 
 "It is a spot which possesses all the solem- 
 nity of feeling attached, to a burial-ground, 
 without exciting those of a more unpleasing 
 description. Having been very little used for 
 many years, the few hillocks which rise above 
 the level plain are covered with the same 
 short velvet turf. The monuments, of which 
 there are not above seven or eight, are half 
 sunk in the ground and overgrown with moss. 
 No newly-erected tomb disturbs the sober se- 
 renity of our reflections, by reminding us of 
 recent calamity, and no rank springing grass 
 forces upon our imagination the recollection, 
 that it owes its dark luxuriance to the foul and 
 festering remnants of mortality which ferment 
 beneath. The daisy which sprinkles the sod, 
 and the hair-bell which hangs over it, derive 
 their pure nourishment from the dew of Heaven, 
 and their growth impresses us with no degrad- 
 ing or disgusting recollections. Death has in- 
 deed been here, and its traces are before us; 
 but they are softened and deprived of their 
 horror by our distance from the period when 
 they have been first impressed. Those who 
 sleep beneath are only connected with us by 
 the reflection, that they have once been what 
 we now are, and that, as their relics are now 
 identified with their mother earth, ours shall, 
 at some future period, undergo the same trans- 
 formation." 
 
 The third is a passage equally well known, 
 but hardly less beautiful, from the Antiquary. 
 
 "The sun was now resting his huge disk 
 upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded 
 the accumulation of towering clouds through 
 which he had travelled the livelong day, and 
 which now assembled on all sides, like mis- 
 fortunes and disasters around a sinking em- 
 pire, and falling monarch. Still, however, his 
 dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence 
 to the massive congregation of vapours, form- 
 
72 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ing out of their unsubstantial gloom, the show 
 of pyramids and towers, some touched with 
 gold, some with purple, some with a hue of 
 deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched 
 beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay 
 almost portentously still, reflecting back the 
 dazzling and level beams of the descending 
 luminary, and the splendid colouring of the 
 clouds amidst which he was sitting. Nearer 
 to the beach, the tide rippled onward in waves 
 of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet ra- 
 pidly, gained upon the sand. 
 
 " With a mind employed in admiration of 
 the romantic scene, or perhaps on some more 
 agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in 
 silence by her father's side, whose recently 
 offended dignity did not stoop to open any 
 conversation. Following the windings of the 
 beach, they passed one projecting point or 
 headland of rock after another, and now found 
 themselves under a huge and continued extent 
 of the precipices by which that iron-bound 
 coast is in most places defended. Long pro- 
 jecting reefs of rock, extending under water, 
 and only evincing their existence by here and 
 there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers 
 which foamed over those that were partially 
 covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded 
 by pilots and ship-masters. The crags which 
 rose between the beach and the mainland, to 
 the height of two or three hundred feet, af- 
 forded in their crevices shelter for unnum- 
 bered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured 
 by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. 
 Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct 
 which sends them to seek the land before a 
 storm arises, were now winging towards their 
 nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which 
 announces disquietude and fear. The disk of 
 the sun became almost totally obscured ere he 
 had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an 
 early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the 
 serene twilight of a summer evening. The 
 wind began next to arise ; but its wild and 
 moaning sound was heard for some time, and 
 its effects became visible on the bosom of the 
 sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The 
 mass of waters, now dark and threatening, 
 began to lift itself in larger ridges, and sink in 
 deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high 
 in foam upon the breakers, or bursting upon 
 the beach with a sound resembling distant 
 thunder." 
 
 Few objects are less beautiful than a bare 
 sheet of water in heathy hills, but see what it 
 becomes under the inspiration of genius. 
 
 "It was a mild summer day; the beams of 
 the sun, as is not uncommon in Zetland, were I 
 moderated and shaded by a silvery haze, which j 
 filled the atmosphere, arid, destroying the strong I 
 contrast of light and shade, gave even to noon 
 the sober livery of the evening twilight. The j 
 
 little lake, not three-quarters of a mile in cir- 
 cuit, lay in profound quiet; its surface un- 
 dimpled, save when one of the numerous 
 water-fowl, which glided on its surface, dived 
 for an instant under it. The depth of the water 
 gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish 
 green, which occasioned its being called the 
 Green Loch ; and at present, it formed so per- 
 fect a mirror to the bleak hills by which it was 
 surrounded, and which lay reflected on its 
 bosom, that it was difficult to distinguish the 
 water from the land; nay, in the shadowy 
 uncertainty occasioned by the thin haze, a 
 stranger could scarce have been sensible that 
 a sheet of water lay before him. A scene of 
 more complete solitude, having all its pecu- 
 liarities heightened by the extreme serenity of 
 the weather, the quiet gray composed tone of 
 the atmosphere, and the perfect silence of the 
 elements, could hardly be imagined. The 
 very aquatic birds, who frequented the spot in 
 great numbers, forbore their usual flight and 
 screams, and floated in profound tranquillity 
 upon the silent water." 
 
 It is hard to say to which of these mighty 
 masters of description the palm should be 
 awarded. Scott is more simple in his lan- 
 guage, more graphic in his details, more 
 thoroughly imbued with the character of the 
 place he is desirous of portraying: Chateau- 
 briand is more resplendent in the images 
 which he selects, more fastidious in the fea- 
 tures he draws, more gorgeous from the mag- 
 nificence with which he is surrounded : Ma- 
 dame de Stael, inferior to both in the power 
 of delineating nature, is superior to either in 
 rousing the"'varied emotions dependent on his- 
 torical recollections or melancholy impres- 
 sions. It is remarkable that, though she is a 
 southern writer, and has thrown into Corinne 
 all her own rapture at the sun and the recol- 
 lections of Italy, yet it is with a northern eye 
 that she views the scenes it presents it is not 
 with the living, but the mighty dead, that she 
 holds communion the chords she loves to 
 strike are those melancholy ones which vi- 
 brate more strongly in a northern than a 
 southern heart. Chateaubriand is imbued 
 more largely with the genuine spirit of the 
 south : albeit a Frank by origin, he is filled 
 with the spirit of Oriental poetry. His soul 
 is steeped in the cloudless skies, and desultory 
 life, and boundless recollections of the East. 
 Scott has no decided locality. He has struck 
 his roots into the .human heart he has de- 
 scribed Nature with a master's hand, under 
 whatever aspects she is to be seen; but his 
 associations are of Gothic origin ; his spirit is 
 of chivalrous descent; the nature which he 
 has in general drawn is the sweet gleam of 
 sunshine in a northern climate. 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 NATIONAL MONUMENTS." 
 
 THE history of mankind, from its earliest 
 period to the present moment, is fraught with 
 proofs of one general truth, that it is in small 
 states, and in consequence of the emulation 
 and ardent spirit which they develop, that the 
 human mind arrives at its greatest perfection, 
 and that the freest scope is afforded both to the 
 grandeur of moral, and the brilliancy of intel- 
 lectual character. It is to the citizens of small 
 republics that we are indebted both for the 
 greatest discoveries which have improved the 
 condition or elevated the character of man- 
 kind, and for the noblest examples of private 
 and public virtue with which the page of his- 
 tory is adorned. It was in the republics of 
 ancient Greece, and in consequence of the 
 emulation which was excited among her 
 rival cities, that the beautiful arts of poetry, 
 sculpture, and architecture were first brought 
 to perfection; and while the genius of the hu- 
 man race was slumbering among the innume- 
 rable multitudes of the Persian and Indian 
 monarchies, the single city of Athens produced 
 a succession of great men, whose works have 
 improved and delighted the world in every 
 succeeding age. While the vast feudal mo- 
 narchies of Europe were buried in ignorance 
 and barbarism, the little states of Florence, 
 Bologna, Rome, and Venice were far advanced 
 iu the career of arts and in the acquisition of 
 knowledge; and at this moment, the traveller 
 neglects the boundless but unknown tracts of 
 Germany and France, to visit the tombs of 
 Raphael, and Michael Angelo, and Tasso, to 
 dwell in a country where every city and every 
 landscape reminds him of the greatness of 
 human genius, or the perfection of human 
 taste. It is from the same cause that the 
 earlier history of the Swiss confederacy exhi- 
 bits a firmness and grandeur of political cha- 
 racter which we search for in vain in the 
 annals of the great monarchies by which they 
 are surrounded, that the classical pilgrim 
 pauses awhile in his journey to the Eternal 
 City to do homage to the spirit of its early re- 
 publics, and sees not in the ruins which, at the 
 termination of his pilgrimage, surround him, 
 the remains of imperial Rome, the mistress 
 and the capital of the world; but of Rome, 
 when struggling with Corioli and Veii ; of 
 Rome, when governed by Regulus and Cincin- 
 natus and traces the scene of her infant wars 
 with the Latian tribes, with a pious interest, 
 which all the pomp and magnificence of her 
 subsequent history has not been able to excite. 
 Examples of this kind have often led histo- 
 rians to consider the situation of small re- 
 publics as that of all others most adapted to 
 the exaltation and improvement of mankind. 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, July 1819. and Edinburgh 
 Review, August 1823. Written when the National Mo- 
 numents in London and Edinburgh to the late war were 
 in contemplation, and in review of the Earl of Aberdeen's 
 Essay on Grecian architecture. 
 10 
 
 To minds of an ardent and enthusiastic cast, 
 Avho delight in the contemplation of human 
 genius, or in the progress of public improve- 
 ment, the brilliancy and splendour of such 
 little states form the most delightful of all ob- 
 jects ; and accordingly, the greatest of living 
 historians, in his history of the Italian republics, 
 has expressed a decided opinion that in no 
 other situation is such scope afforded to the 
 expansion of the human mind, or such facility 
 afforded to the progressive improvement of our 
 species. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not to be concealed, 
 that such little dynasties are accompanied by 
 many circumstances of continued and aggra- 
 vated distress. Their small dimensions, and 
 the jealousies which subsist betwixt them, not 
 only furnish the subject of continual disputes, 
 but aggravate to an incredible degree the 
 miseries and devastations of war. Between 
 such states, it is not conducted with the dig- 
 nity and in the spirit which characterizes the 
 efforts of great monarchies, but rather with the 
 asperity and rancour which belong ,to a civil 
 contest. While the frontiers only of a great 
 monarchy suffer from the calamities of war, 
 its devastations extend to the very heart of 
 smaller states. Insecurity and instability fre- 
 quently mark the internal condition of these 
 republics ; and the activity which the histo- 
 rian admires in their citizens, is too often em- 
 ployed in mutually destroying and pillaging 
 each other, or in disturbing the tranquillity of 
 the state. It is hence that the sunny slopes 
 of the Apennines are everywhere crowned by 
 castellated villages, indicating the universality 
 of the ravages of war among the Italian States 
 in former times ; and that the architecture of 
 Florence and Genoa still bears the character 
 of that massy strength which befitted the period 
 when every noble palace was an independent 
 fortress, and when war, tumult, and violence, 
 reigned for centuries within their walls ; 
 while the open villages and straggling cottages 
 of England bespeak the security with which 
 her peasants have reposed under the shadow 
 of her redoubted power. 
 
 The universality of this fact has led many 
 wise and good men to regard small states as 
 the prolific source of human suffering; and to 
 conclude that all the splendour, whether in arts 
 or in science, with which they are surrounded, 
 s dearly bought at the expense of the peace 
 and tranquillity of the great body of the peo- 
 ple. To such men it appears, that the periods 
 of history on which the historian dwells, or 
 which have been marked by extraordinary 
 genius, are not those in which the greatest 
 public happiness has been enjoyed; but that 
 it is to be found rather under the quiet and 
 inglorious government of a great and pacific 
 empire. 
 
 Without pretending to determine which of 
 these opinions is the best founded, it i^ mure 
 G 
 
74 
 
 J,Iffo 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 important for our present purpose to observe, 
 that the union of the three kingdoms in the 
 British Empire, promises to combine for this 
 country the advantages of both these forms of 
 government without the evils to which either 
 is exposed. While her insular situation, and 
 the union and energy of her people, secure for 
 Great Britain peace and tranquillity within 
 her own bounds, the rivalry of the different 
 nations of whom the empire is composed, pro- 
 mises, if properly directed, to animate her 
 people with the ardour and enterprise which 
 have hitherto been supposed to spring only 
 from the collision of smaller states. 
 
 Towards the accomplishment of this most 
 desirable object, however, it is indispensable 
 that each nation should preserve the remem- 
 brance of its own distinct origin, and look to 
 the glory of its own people, with an anxious and 
 peculiar care. It is quite right that the Scotch 
 should glory with their aged sovereign in the 
 name of Britain : and that, when considered 
 with reference to foreign states, Britain should 
 exhibit a united whole, intent only upon up- 
 holding and extending the glory of that empire 
 which her united forces have formed. But it 
 is equally important that her ancient metro- 
 polis should not degenerate into a provincial 
 town; and that an independent nation, once 
 the rival of England, should remember, with 
 pride, the peculiar glories by which her people 
 have been distinguished. Without this, the 
 whole good effects of the rivalry of the two 
 nations will be entirely lost ; and the genius 
 of her different people, in place of emulating 
 and improving each other, will be drawn into 
 one centre, where all that is original and cha- 
 racteristic will be lost in the overwhelming 
 influence of prejudice and fashion. 
 
 Such an event would be an incalculable 
 calamity to the metropolis, and to the genius 
 of this country. It is this catastrophe which 
 Fletcher of Salton so eloquently foretold, when 
 he opposed the union with England in the 
 Scottish Parliament. Edinburgh would then 
 become like Lyons, or Toulouse, or Venice, a 
 provincial town, supported only by the occa- 
 sional influx of the gentlemen in its neighbour- 
 hood, and the business of the courts of law 
 which have their seat within its walls. The 
 city and the nation which have produced or 
 been adorned by David Hume, Adam Smith, 
 Robert Burns, Dugald Stewart, Principal Ro- 
 bertson, and Walter Scott, would cease to exist ; 
 and the traveller would repair to her classical 
 scenes, as he now does to Venice or Ferrara, 
 to lament the decay of human genius which 
 follows the union of independent states. 
 
 Nor would such an event be Jess injurious 
 to the general progress of science and arts 
 throughout the empire. It is impossible to 
 doubt, that the circumstance of Scotland being 
 a separate kingdom, and maintaining a rival- 
 ship with England, has done incalculable good 
 to both countries that it has given rise to a 
 succession of great men, whose labours have 
 enlightened and improved mankind, who 
 would not otherwise have acted upon the 
 career of knowledge. Who can say what 
 would have been the present condition of 
 England in philosophy or science, if she had 
 
 not been stimulated by the splendid progress 
 which Scotland was making 1 and who can 
 calculate the encouragement which Scottish 
 geniu.s has derived from the generous applause 
 which England has always lavished upon her 
 works 1 As Scotchmen, we rejoice in the ex- 
 altation and eminence of our own country; 
 but we rejoice not less sincerely in the literary 
 celebrity of our sister kingdom ; not only from 
 the interest which, as citizens of the united 
 empire, we feel in the celebrity of any of its 
 members, but as affording the secret pledges 
 of the continued and progressive splendour of 
 our own country. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to contemplate 
 the effects of the union of the two kingdoms, 
 from which this country has derived such 
 incalculable benefits in its national wealth and 
 domestic industry, without perceiving that in 
 time, at least, a corresponding decay may take 
 place in its literary and philosophic acquire- 
 ments. There are few examples in the history 
 of mankind, of an independent kingdom being 
 incorporated with another of greater magni- 
 tude, without losing, in process of time, the 
 national eminence, whether in arts or in arms, 
 to which it had formerly arrived. A rare suc- 
 cession of great men in our universities, in- 
 deed, and an extraordinary combination of 
 talents in the works of imagination, has 
 hitherto prevented this effect from taking 
 place. But who can insure a continuance of 
 men of such extraordinary genius, to keep 
 alive the torch of science in our northern 
 regions 1 Is it not to be apprehended that the 
 attractions of wealth, of power, and of fashion, 
 which have so long drawn our nobles and 
 higher classes to the seat of government, may, 
 ere long, exercise a similar influence upon our 
 national genius, and that the melancholy ca- 
 tastrophe which Fletcher of Salton described, 
 with all its fatal consequences, may be, even 
 now, approaching to its accomplishment ? 
 
 Whatever can arrest this lamentable pro- 
 gress, and fix down, in a permanent manner, 
 the genius of Scotland to its own shores, con- 
 fers not only an incalculable benefit upon this 
 country, but upon the united empire of which 
 it forms a part. The erection of National Mo- 
 numents in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, 
 seems calculated, in a most remarkable man- 
 ner, to accomplish this most desirable object. 
 
 To those, indeed, who have not been in the 
 habit of attending to the influence of animating 
 recollections upon the development of every 
 thing that is great or generous in human cha- 
 racter, it may appear that the effects we anti- 
 cipate from such structures are visionary and 
 chimerical. But when a train is ready laid, a 
 spark will set it in flames. The Scotch have 
 always been a proud and an ardent people; 
 and the spirit which animated their forefathers, 
 in this respect, is not yet extinct. The Irish 
 have genius, which, if properly directed, is 
 equal to any thing. England is the centre of 
 the intellectual progress of the earth. Upon 
 people so disposed, it is difficult to estimate 
 the effects which splendid edifices filled with 
 monuments to the greatest men whom their 
 respective countries can boast, may ultimately 
 produce. It will give stability and consistence 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 75 
 
 to the national pride, a feeling which, when 
 properly directed, is the surest foundation of 
 national eminence. It will perpetuate the re- 
 membrance of the brave and independent 
 Scottish nation a feeling, of all others, the 
 best suited to animate the exertions of her 
 remotest descendants. It will teach her inha- 
 bitants to look to their own country for the 
 scene of their real glory ; and while Ireland 
 laments the absence of a nobility insensible to 
 her fame, and unworthy of the land of Burke 
 and Goldsmith, it will be the boast of this 
 country, to have erected on her own shores a 
 monument worthy of her people's glory, and 
 to have disdained to follow merely the triumphs 
 of that nation, whose ancestors they have ere 
 now vanquished in the field. 
 
 Who has not felt the sublime impression 
 which the interior of Westminster Abbey pro- 
 duces, w^here the poets, the philosophers, and 
 the statesmen of England, " sleep with her 
 kings, and dignify the scene?" Who has 
 viewed the church of St. Croce at Florence, and 
 seen the tombs of Galileo, and Machiavelli, 
 Michael Angelo, and Alfieri, under one sacred 
 roof, without feeling their hearts swell with 
 the remembrance of her ancient glory; and, 
 among the multitudes who will visit the sacred 
 pile that is to perpetuate the memory of Scot- 
 tish or Irish greatness, how many may there 
 be whom so sublime a spectacle may rouse to 
 a sense of their native powers, and animate 
 with the pride of their country's renown ; and 
 in whom the remembrance of the "illustrious 
 of ancient days" may awaken the noble feeling 
 of Correggio, when he contemplated the works 
 of the Roman masters ; " I too am a Painter." 
 
 Nor do we think that such monuments 
 could produce effects of less importance upon 
 the military character and martial spirit of the 
 Scottish people in future ages. The memory 
 of the glorious achievements of our age, in- 
 deed, will never die, and the page of history 
 will perpetuate, to the higher orders, the recol- 
 lection of the events \vhich have cast so unri- 
 valled a splendour over the British nation, in 
 the commencement of the nineteenth century. 
 But the study of history has been, hitherto at 
 least, confined to few, comparatively speaking, 
 of the population of a country ; and the know- 
 ledge which it imparts can never extend uni- 
 versally to the poorer class, from whom the 
 materials of an army are to be drawn. In the 
 ruder and earlier periods of society, indeed, 
 the traditions of warlike events are preserved 
 for a series of years, by the romantic ballads, 
 which are cherished by a simple and primitive 
 people. The nature of the occupations in 
 which they are principally engaged, is favour- 
 able to the preservation of such heroic recol- 
 lections. But in the state of society in which 
 we live, it is impossible that the record of past 
 events can be thus engraven on the hearts of a 
 nation. The uniformity of employments in 
 which the lower orders are engaged the se- 
 vere and unremitting toil to which they are 
 exposed the division of labour which fixes 
 them down to one limited and unchanging oc- 
 cupation, the prodigious numbers in which 
 they are drawn to certain centres of attrac- 
 tion far from the recollections of their early 
 
 years, all contribute to destroy those ancient 
 traditions, on the preservation of which so 
 inueh of the martial .spirit of a people depends. 
 The peasantry in the remoter parts of Scotland 
 can still recount some of the exploits, and 
 dwell with enthusiasm on the adventures of 
 Bruce or Wallace; but you will search in 
 vain among the English poor for any record 
 of the victories of Cressy or Azincour, of 
 Blenheim or Ramillies. And even among the 
 higher orders, the experience of every day is 
 sufficient to convince us that the remembrance 
 of ancient glory, though not forgotten, may 
 cease to possess any material influence on the 
 character of our people. The historian, in- 
 deed, may recount the glorious victories of 
 Vittoria, Trafalgar, and Waterloo ; and their 
 names may be familiar to every ear; but the 
 name may be remembered when the heart- 
 stirring spirit which they should awaken is no 
 longer felt. For a time, and during the life- 
 time of the persons who were distinguished in 
 these events, they form a leading subject of 
 the public attention ; but when a new genera- 
 tion succeeds, and different cares and fashions 
 and events occupy the attention of the nation, 
 the practical effects of these triumphs is lost, 
 how indelibly soever they may be recorded in 
 the pages of history. The victories of Poic- 
 tiers, and Blenheim, and Minden had long ago 
 demonstrated the superiority of the English 
 over the French troops ; but though this fact 
 appeared unquestionable to those who studied 
 the history of past events, everybody knows 
 with what serious apprehension a French in- 
 vasion was contemplated in this country, 
 within our own recollection. 
 
 It is of incalculable importance, therefore, 
 that some means should be taken to preserve 
 alive the martial spirit which the recent 
 triumphs have awakened; and to do this, in 
 so prominent a way as may attract the atten- 
 tion of the most thoughtless, and force them 
 on the observation of the most inconsiderate. 
 It is from men of this description from the 
 young, the gay, and the active, that our armies 
 are filled ; and it is on the spirit with which 
 they are animated that the national safety de- 
 pends. Unless they are impressed with the 
 recollection of past achievements, and a sense 
 of the glories of that country which they are 
 to defend, it will little avail us in the moment 
 of danger, that the victories on which every 
 one now dwells with exultation, are faithfully 
 recorded in history, and well known to the 
 sedentary and pacific part of our population. 
 
 It is upon the preservation of this spirit that 
 the safety of every nation must depend. It is 
 in vain that it may be encircled with fortresses, 
 or defended by mountains, or begirt by the 
 ocean ; its real security is to be found in the 
 spirit and the valour of its people. The army 
 which enters the field in the conviction that it 
 is to conquer, has already gained the day. The 
 people, who recollect with pride the achieve- 
 ments of their forefathers, will not prove un- 
 worthy of them in the field of battle. The 
 remembrance of their heroic actions preserved 
 the independence of the Swiss republics, amidst 
 the powerful empires by which they were sur- 
 rounded ; and the glory of her armies, joined 
 
76 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 to the terror of her name, upheld the Roman | 
 empire for centuries after the warlike spirit j 
 of the people was extinct. It is this which 
 constitutes the strength and multiplies the 
 triumphs of veteran soldiers; and it is this 
 which renders the qualities of military valour 
 and prowess hereditary in a nation. 
 
 Every people, accordingly, whose achieve- 
 ments are memorable in past history, have 
 felt the influence of these national recollec- j 
 tions, and received them as the most valuable ' 
 inheritance from their forefathers. The states- 
 men of Athens, when they wished to rouse that 
 fickle people to any great or heroic action, re- 
 minded them of the national glory of their 
 ancestors, and pointed to the Acropolis crown- 1 
 ed with the monuments of their valour; De- 
 mosthenes in the most heart-stirring apostro- I 
 phe of antiquity invoked the shades of those i 
 who died at Marathon and Plata&a, to sanctify j 
 the cause in which they were to be engaged. 
 The Swiss peasants, for five hundred years | 
 after the establishment of their independence, ! 
 assembled on the fields of Morgarten and Lau- 
 pen, and spread garlands over the graves of 
 the fallen warriors, and prayed for the souls \ 
 of those who had died for their country's free- 
 dom. The Romans attached a superstitious | 
 reverence to the rock of the capitol, and loaded 
 its temples with the spoils of the world, and 
 looked back with a mixture of veneration and 
 pride, to the struggles which it had witnessed, , 
 and the triumphs which it had won. 
 
 "Capitoli immobile saxum." 
 
 So long as Manlius remained in sight of the 
 capitol, his enemies found it impossible to ob- 
 tain a conviction of the charges against him. 
 When Scipio Africanus was accused by a fac- 
 tion in the forum, in place of answering the 
 charge, he turned to the capitol, and invited 
 the people to accompany him to the temple of 
 Jupiter, and return thanks for the defeat of the 
 Carthagenians. Such was the influence of 
 local associations on that severe people ; and 
 so natural is it for the human mind to imbody 
 its recollections in some external object ; and 
 so important an effect are these recollections 
 fitted to have, when they are perpetually 
 brought back to the public mind by the sight of 
 the objects to which they have been attached. 
 
 The erection of a national monument, on a 
 scale suited to the greatness of the events it is 
 intended to commemorate, seems better calcu- 
 lated than any other measure to perpetuate the 
 spirit which the events of our times have 
 awakened in this country. It will force itself 
 on the observation of the most thoughtless, 
 and recall the recollection of danger and glory, 
 during the slumber of peaceful life. Thousands 
 who never would otherwise have cast a thought 
 upon the glory of their country, will by it be 
 awakened to a sense of what befits the de- 
 scendants of those great men who have died 
 in the cause of national freedom. While it 
 will testify the gratitude of the nation to de- 
 parted worth, it will serve at the same time to 
 mark the distinction which similar victories 
 may win. Like the Roman capitol, it will 
 stand at once the monument of former great- 
 ness, and the pledge of future glory. 
 
 Nor is it to be imagined that the national 
 monument in London is sufficient for this pur- 
 pose, and that the commencement of a similar 
 undertaking in Edinburgh or Dublin is an un- 
 necessary or superfluous proceeding. It is 
 quite proper, that in the metropolis of the 
 United Empire, the trophies of its common 
 triumphs should be found, and that the na- 
 tional funds should there be devoted to the 
 formation of a monument, worthy of the 
 splendid achievements which her united forces 
 have performed. But the whole benefits of 
 the emulation between the two nations, from 
 which our armies have already derived such 
 signal advantage, would be lost, if Scotland 
 were to participate only in the triumphs of 
 her sister kingdom, without distinctly mark- 
 ing its own peculiar and national pride, in the 
 glory of her own people. The valour of the 
 Scottish regiments is known and celebrated 
 from one end of Europe to the other; and this 
 circumstance, joined to the celebrity of the 
 poems of Ossian, has given a distinction to 
 our soldiers, to which, for so small a body of 
 men, there is no parallel in the history of the 
 present age. Would it not be a subject of re- 
 proach to this country, if the only land in 
 which no record of their gallantry is to be 
 found, was the land which gave them birth ; 
 and that the traveller who has seen ihe tartan 
 hailed with enthusiasm on every theatre of 
 Europe, should find it forgotten only in the 
 metropolis of that kingdom which owes its 
 salvation to the bravery by which it has been 
 distinguished'? 
 
 The animating effects, moreover, which the 
 sight of a national trophy is fitted to have on 
 a martial people, would be entirely lost in this 
 country, if no other monument to Scottish or 
 Irish valour existed than the monument in 
 London. There is not a hundredth part of 
 our population who have ever an opportunity 
 of going to that city; or to whom the existence 
 even of such a record of their triumph could 
 be known. Even upon those who may see it, 
 the peculiar and salutary effect of a national 
 monument would be entirely lost. It would 
 be regarded as a trophy of English glory ; and 
 however much it might animate our descend- 
 ants to maintain the character of Britain on 
 the field of European warfare, it would leave 
 wholly untouched those feelings of generous 
 emulation by which the rival nations of Eng- 
 land and Scotland have hitherto been animated 
 towards each other, and to the existence of 
 which, so much of their common triumphs 
 have been owing. 
 
 It is in the preservation of this feeling of 
 rivalry that we anticipate the most important 
 effects of a national monument in this me- 
 tropolis. There is no danger that the ancient 
 animosity of the two nations will ever revive, 
 or that the emulation of our armies will lead 
 them to prove unfaithful to the common cause 
 in which they must hereafter be engaged. The 
 stern feelings of feudal hatred with which the 
 armies of England and Scotland formerly met 
 at Flodden or Bannockburn, have now yielded 
 to the emulation and friendship which form 
 the surest basis of their common prosperity. 
 But it is of the last importance that these feel- 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 77 
 
 ings of national rivalry should not be extin- 
 guished. In every part of the world the good 
 effects of this emulation have been expe- 
 rienced. It is recorded, that at the siege of 
 Namur, when the German troops were re- 
 pulsed from the breach, King William ordered 
 his English guards to advance ; and the veteran 
 warrior was so much affected with the devoted 
 gallantry with which they pressed on to the 
 assault, that, bursting into tears, he exclaimed, 
 "See how my brave English fight." At the 
 storm of Bhurtpoor, when one of the British 
 regiments was forced back by the dreadful 
 tire that played on the breach, one of the na- 
 tive regiments was ordered to advance, and 
 these brave men cheered as they passed the 
 British troops, who lay trembling in the 
 trenches. Everybody knows the distinguished 
 gallantry with which the Scottish and Irish re- 
 giments, in all the actions of the present war, 
 have sought to maintain their ancient repute 
 tion ; and it is not to be forgotten, that the first 
 occasion on which the steady columns of 
 France were broken by a charge of cavalry, 
 when the leading regiments of England, Scot- 
 land, and Ireland, bore down with rival valour 
 on their columns; and in the enthusiastic cry 
 of the Grays, "Scotland for ever," we may 
 perceive the value of those national recollec- 
 tions which it is the object of the present edi- 
 fice to reward and perpetuate. 
 
 If this spirit shall live in her armies ; if the 
 rival valour which was formerly excited in 
 their fatal wars against each other, shall thus 
 continue to animate them when fighting against 
 their common enemies, and if the remem- 
 brance of former division is preserved only to 
 cement the bond of present union, Britain and 
 Ireland may well, like the Douglas and Percy, 
 both together " be confident against the world 
 in arms." 
 
 Foreign foe or false bepuilinjr, 
 Shall our union ne'er divide, 
 Hand in hand, while peace is smiling, 
 And in battle side by side. 
 
 There is no fact more certain than that a 
 due appreciation of the grand or the beautiful 
 in architectural design is not inherent in any 
 individual or in any people ; and that towards 
 the formation of a correct public taste, the ex- 
 istence of fine models is absolutely essential. It 
 is this which gives men who have travelled in 
 Italy or Greece so evident a superiority in 
 considering the merits of the works of art in 
 this country over those who have not had 
 similar advantages; and it is this which renders 
 taste hereditary among a people who have the 
 models of ancient excellence continually be- 
 fore their eyes. The taste of Athens continued 
 to distinguish its people long after they had 
 ceased to be remarkable for any other and 
 more honourable quality; and Rome itself, in 
 the days of its imperial splendour, was com- 
 pelled to borrow, from a people whom she had 
 vanquished, the trophies by which her victories 
 were to be commemorated. To this day the 
 lovers of art flock from the most distant parts 
 of the world to the Acropolis, and dwell with 
 rapture on its unrivalled beauties, and seek to 
 inhale, amid the ruins that surround them, a 
 portion of the spirit by which they were con- 
 
 ceived. The remains of ancient Rome still 
 serve as the model of every thing that is great 
 in the designs of modern architects; and in 
 the Parthenon and the Coliseum we find the 
 originals on which the dome of St. Peter's and 
 the piazza St. Marco have been formed. It is 
 a matter of general observation, accordingly, 
 that the inhabitants of Italy possess a degree 
 of taste both in sculpture, architecture, and 
 painting, which few persons of the most culti- 
 vated understanding in transalpine countries 
 can acquire. So true it is, that the existence 
 of fine models lays the only foundation of a 
 correct public taste; and that the transference 
 of the model of ancient excellence to this 
 country is the only means of giving to our 
 people the taste by which similar excellence 
 is to be produced. 
 
 Now it has unfortunately happened that the 
 Doric architecture, to which so much of the 
 beauty of Greece and Italy is owing, has been 
 hitherto little understood, and still less put in 
 practice in this country. We meet with few 
 persons who have not visited the remains of 
 classical antiquity, who can conceive the 
 matchless beauties of the temples of Minerva 
 at Athens, or of Neptune at Poestum. And, 
 indeed, if our conceptions of the Doric betaken 
 from the few attempts at imitation of it which 
 are here to be met with, they would fall very 
 far short, indeed, of what the originals are 
 fitted to excite. 
 
 We are far from underrating the genius of 
 modern architects, and it would be ungrateful 
 to insinuate, that sufficient ability for the 
 formation of an original design is not to be 
 found. But in the choice of designs for a 
 building which is to stand for centuries, and 
 from which the taste of the metropolis in 
 future ages is in a greater measure to be 
 formed, it is absolutely essential to fix upon 
 some model of known and approved excellence. 
 The erection of a monument in bad taste, or 
 even of doubtful beauty, might destroy the 
 just conceptions on this subject, which are 
 beginning to prevail, and throw the national 
 taste a century back at the time when it is 
 making the most rapid advances towards per- 
 fection. It is in vain to expect that human 
 genius can ever make any thing more beauti- 
 ful than the Parthenon. It is folly, therefore, 
 to tempt fortune, when certainty is in our 
 hands. 
 
 There are many reasons besides, which 
 seem in a peculiar manner to recommend the 
 Doric temple for the proposed monuments. By 
 the habits of modern times, a different species 
 of architecture has been devoted to the differ- 
 ent purposes to which buildings may be ap- 
 plied ; and it is difficult to avoid believing, 
 that there is something in the separate styles 
 which is peculiarly adapted to the different 
 emotions they are intended to excite. The 
 light tracery, and lofty roof, and airy pillars 
 of the Gothic, seem to accord well with the 
 sublime feelings and spiritual fervour of re- 
 ligion. The massy wall, and gloomy character 
 of the castle, bespeak the abode of fendal 
 power and the pageantry of barbaric magni- 
 ficence. The beautiful porticoes, and columns. 
 and rich cornices of the Ionic or Corinthian, 
 
78 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 seem well adapted for the public edifices in a 
 great city ; for those which are destined for 
 amusement, or to serve for the purpose of 
 public ornament. The Palladian style is that 
 of all others best adapted for the magnificence 
 of private dwellings, and overwhelms the 
 spectator by a flood of beauty, against which 
 the rules of criticism are unable to withstand. 
 If any of these styles of architecture were to 
 be transferred from buildings destined for one 
 purpose to those destined for another, the im- 
 propriety of the change would appear very 
 conspicuous. The gorgeous splendour of the 
 Palladian front would be entirely misplaced, 
 in an edifice destined for the purpose of re- 
 ligion ; and the rich pinnacles and gloomy 
 aisles of the Gothic, would accord ill with the 
 scene of modern amusement or festivity. 
 
 Now a National Monument is an edifice of 
 a very singular kind, and such as to require a 
 style of architecture peculiar to itself. The 
 Grecian Doric, as it is exhibited in the Par- 
 thenon, appears singularly well adapted for 
 this purpose. Its form and character is asso- 
 ciated in every cultivated mind with the re- 
 collections of classical history ; and it recalls 
 the brilliant conceptions of national glory as 
 they were received during the ardent and 
 enthusiastic period of youth; while its stern 
 and massy form befits an edifice destined to 
 commemorate the severe virtues and manly 
 character of war. The effect of such a build- 
 ing, and the influence it would have on the 
 public taste, would be increased to an in- 
 definite degree, by the interest of the purpose 
 to which it is destined. An edifice which re- 
 called at once the interest of classical associa- 
 tion, and commemorated the splendour of our 
 own achievements, would impress itself in the 
 most indelible manner on the public mind, 
 and force the beauty of its design on the most 
 careless observer. And there can be no doubt 
 that this impression would be far greater, just 
 because it arose from a style of building 
 hitherto unknown in this country, and pro- 
 duced an effect as dissimilar from that of any 
 other architectural design, as the national 
 emotions which it is intended to awaken are 
 from those to which ordinary edifices are des- 
 tined. 
 
 We cannot help considering this as a matter 
 of great importance to this city, and to the 
 taste of the age in which we live. It is no 
 inconsiderable matter to have one building of 
 faultless design erected, and to have the youth 
 of our people accustomed from their infancy 
 to behold the work of Phidias. But the ulti- 
 mate effect which such a circumstance might 
 produce on the taste of the nation, and the 
 celebrity of this metropolis, is far more im- 
 portant. It is in vain to conceal, that the 
 wealth and the fashion of England is every 
 day attracting the higher part of our society 
 to another capital; and that Edinburgh can 
 never possess attractions of the same descrip- 
 tion with London, sufficient to enable her to 
 stand an instant in the struggle. But while 
 London must always eclipse this city in all 
 that depends on wealth, power, or fashionable 
 elegance, nature has given to it the means of 
 establishing a superiority of a higher and a 
 
 more permanent kind. The matchless beauty 
 of its situation, the superb cliffs by which it 
 is surrounded, the magnificent prospects of 
 the bay, which it commands, have given to 
 Edinburgh the means of becoming the most 
 beautiful town that exists in the world. And 
 the inexhaustible quarries of free-stone, which 
 lie in the immediate vicinity, have rendered 
 architectural embellishment an easier object 
 in this city than in any other in the empire. 
 It cannot be denied, however, that much still 
 remains to be done in this respect, and that 
 every stranger observes the striking contrast 
 between the beauty of its private houses, and 
 the deplorable scantiness of its public build- 
 ings. The establishment of a taste for edifices 
 of an ornamental description, and the gradual 
 purification of the popular taste, which may 
 fairly be expected from the influence of so 
 perfect a model as the Parthenon of Athens, 
 would ultimately, in all probability, render 
 this city the favourite residence of the fine 
 arts ; the spot to which strangers would re- 
 sort, both as the place where the rules of taste 
 are to be studied, and the models of art are to 
 be found. And thus, while London is the 
 Rome of the empire, to which the young, and 
 the ambitions, and the gay, resort for the pur- 
 suit of pleasure, of fortune, or of ambition, 
 Edinburgh might become another Athens, in 
 which the arts and the sciences flourished, 
 under the shade of her ancient fame, and 
 established a dominion over the minds of men 
 more permanent than even that which the 
 Roman arms were able to effect. 
 
 The Greeks always fixed on an eminence 
 for the situation of their temples, and what- 
 ever was the practice of a people of such ex- 
 quisite taste is well worthy of imitation. The 
 Acropolis of Athens, the Acrocorinthus of 
 Corinth, the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, 
 in -^Egina, are instances of the beauty of these 
 edifices when placed on such conspicuous 
 situations. At Athens, in particular, the tem- 
 ples of Jupiter Olympius and of Theseus are 
 situated in the plain; but although the former 
 is built in a style of magnificence to which 
 there is no parallel, and is double the size of 
 the Parthenon, its effect is infinitely less strik- 
 ing than that of the temple of Minerva, which 
 crowns the Acropolis, and meets the eye from 
 every, part of the adjacent country. The tem- 
 ple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in the island of 
 JEgina., is neither so large nor so beautiful as 
 the temple of Theseus ; but there is no one 
 who ever thought of comparing the effect 
 which the former produces, crowning a rich 
 and wooded hill, to that which is felt on view- 
 ing the latter standing in the plain of Attica. 
 The temple of Neptune, at Peestum, has a 
 sublime effect from the desolation that sur- 
 rounds it, and from the circumstance of there 
 being no eminence for many miles to interfere 
 with its stern and venerable form ; but there 
 is no one who must not have felt that the 
 grandeur of this edifice would be entirely lost 
 if it was placed in a modern city, and over- 
 topped by buildings destined for the most or- 
 dinary purposes. The temple of Vesta, at 
 Tivoli, perched on the crag which overhangs 
 the cataract, is admired by all the world; but 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 the temple to the same goddess, on the banks 
 of the Tiber, at Rome, is passed over without 
 notice, though the intrinsic beauty of the one 
 is nearly as great as that of the other. In the 
 landscapes too of Claude and Poussin, who 
 knew so well the situation in which every 
 building appears to most advantage, the rains 
 of temples are almost always placed on pro- 
 minent fronts, or on the summit of small 
 hills ; in such a situation, in short, as the Gal- 
 lon Hill of Edinburgh presents. The practice 
 of the ancient Greeks, in the choice of situa- 
 tions for their temples, joined to that of the 
 modern Italian painters in their ideal repre- 
 sentations of the same objects, leaving no 
 room to doubt that the course which they fol- 
 lowed was that which the peculiar nature of 
 the building required. 
 
 But all objects of local interest sink into 
 insignificance compared with the vast effect 
 which a restoration of so perfect a relic of 
 antiquity as the Parthenon of Athens would 
 have on the national taste, and ultimately on 
 the spread of refined and elevating feelings 
 among the inhabitants of the country. As 
 this is a subject of the very highest import- 
 ance, and which is not generally so well 
 understood as it should be, we crave the in- 
 dulgence of our readers to a few observations, 
 conceived in the warmest feeling of interest 
 in modern art, but a strong sense of the only 
 means by which it can be brought to the ex- 
 cellence of which it is susceptible. 
 
 It is observed by Madame de Stael, " that 
 architecture is the only art which approaches, 
 in its effects, to the works of nature," and 
 there are few, we believe, who have not, at 
 some period of their lives, felt the truth of the 
 observation. The Cathedral of York, the 
 Dome of St. Paul's, or the interior of St. 
 Peter's, are scarcely eclipsed in our recollec- 
 tion wilh the glories of human creation; and 
 the impression which they produce is less 
 akin to admiration of the talent of an artist, 
 than to the awe and veneration which the tra- 
 veller feels when he first enters the defiles of 
 the Alps. 
 
 It has often been a matter of regret to per- 
 sons of taste in this country, that an art so 
 magnificent in its monuments, and so power- 
 ful in its effect, has been so little the object 
 of popular cultivation; nor is it perhaps 
 easy to understand, how a people so much 
 alive to the grand and beautiful in the other 
 departments of taste, should so long have re- 
 mained insensible to the attractions of one of 
 its most interesting branches. Many causes 
 have, doubtless, conspired to produce this 
 effect; but among these, the principal, we are 
 persuaded, is to be found in the absence of 
 any monuments of approved excellence to form the 
 taste, and excite the admiration of the public. 
 And, in this respect, there is an important dis-- 
 tinction, which is often overlooked, between 
 architecture and the other departments of art 
 or literature. 
 
 In poetry, painting, or sculpture, the great 
 works of former times are in everybody's 
 hands ; and the public taste has long ago been 
 formed on the study of those remains of an- 
 cient genius, which still continue, notwith- 
 
 standing the destruction of the people who 
 gave them birth, to govern the imagination .f 
 succeeding ages. The poetry of Virgil, and 
 the eloquence of Cicero, form the first objects 
 to which the education of the young is di- 
 rected ; the designs of Raphael and Correggio 
 have been multiplied by the art of engraving, 
 to almost as great an extent as the classical 
 authors ; and casts, at least, of the Apollo and 
 the Venus, are familiar to every person who 
 has paid the smallest attention to the beauty 
 of the human form. It is on the hulntmd 
 study of these works that the public taste has 
 been formed; and the facility of engraving 
 and painting has extended our acquaintance 
 with their excellencies, almost as far as 
 knowledge or education hate extended in the 
 world. 
 
 But with architecture the case is widely 
 different. Public edifices cannot be published 
 and circulated with the same facility as an 
 edition of Virgil, or a print of Claude Lorraine. 
 To copy or restore such monuments, requires 
 an expenditure of capital, and an exertion of 
 skill, almost as great as their original con- 
 struction. Nations must be far advanced in 
 wealth and attainment before such costly un- 
 dertakings can be attempted. And if the su- 
 perstition of an earlier age has produced 
 structures of astonishing magnitude and ge- 
 nius, . they are of a kind which, however 
 venerable or imposing, are not calculated to 
 have the same effect in chastening the public 
 taste, with those that arose in that auspicious 
 period when all the finer powers of the mind 
 had attained their highest exaltation. It thus 
 unfortunately happens, that architecture can- 
 not share in the progress which the other fine 
 arts are continually making from the circula- 
 tion and study of the works of antiquity; and 
 successive nations are often obliged to begin 
 anew the career which their predecessors 
 have run, and fall inevitably into the errors 
 which they had learned to avoid. 
 
 The possibility of multiplying drawings or 
 engravings of the edifices of antiquity, or of 
 informing distant nations of their proportions 
 and dimensions, has but little tendency to 
 obviate this disadvantage. Experience has 
 shown that the best drawings convey a most 
 inadequate conception of architectural gran- 
 deur, or of the means by which it is produced. 
 To those, indeed, who have seen the originals, 
 such engravings are highly valuable, because 
 they awaken and renew the impression which 
 the edifices themselves have made ; but to 
 those who have not had this advantage, they 
 speak an unknown language. This is matter 
 of common observation; and there is no tra- 
 veller who has returned from Greece or Italy, 
 who will not confirm its truth. It is as im- 
 possible to convey a conception of the exterior 
 of the Parthenon, or the interior of St. Peter's, 
 by the finest drawings accompanied by the 
 most accurate statement of their dimensions, 
 as to give the inhabitants of a level country 
 a true sense of the sublimity of the Alps, by 
 exhibiting a drawing of the snowy peaks of 
 M.)nt Blanc, and informing him of its altitude 
 according to the latest trigonometrical obser 
 rations. 
 
80 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Even if drawings could convey a concep- 
 tion of the original structures, the taste for 
 this art is so extremely limited that it could 
 have but little effect in obviating the disadvan- 
 tage of their remote situation. There is not 
 one person in a hundred who ever looks at a 
 drawing, or, if he does, is capable of deriving 
 the smallest pleasure from the finest produc- 
 tions of that branch of art. To be reduced to 
 turn over a portfolio of engravings, is prover- 
 bially spoken of as the most wretched of all 
 occupations in a drawing-room ; and it is no 
 uncommon thing to see the productions of 
 Claude, or Poussin, or Williams, abounding 
 in all the riches of architectural ornament, 
 passed over without the slightest indication of 
 emotion, by persons of acknowledged taste in 
 other respects. And yet the same individuals, 
 who are utterly insensible to architectural ex- 
 cellence in this form, could not avoid acquiring 
 a certain taste for its beauties, if they were 
 the subject of habitual observation, in edifices 
 at home, or obtruded upon their attention in 
 the course of foreign travelling. 
 
 Besides this, the architect is exposed to in- 
 surmountable difficulties, if the cultivation of 
 those around him has not kept pace with his 
 own, and if they are incapable of feeling the 
 beauty of the edifices on which his taste has 
 been formed. It is to no purpose that his own 
 taste may have been improved by studying the 
 ruins of Athens or Rome, unless the taste of 
 his employers has undergone a similar ameliora- 
 tion, his genius will remain dormant, and his 
 architectural drawings be suffered to lie in 
 unnoticed obscurity in the recesses of his 
 portfolio. The architect, it should always be 
 remembered, cannot erect edifices, as the poet 
 writes verses, or the painter covers his can- 
 vas, without any external assistance. A great 
 expenditure of capital is absolutely essential 
 to the production of any considerable specimen 
 of his art : and, therefore, unless he can com- 
 municate his own enthusiasm to the wealthy, 
 and unless a growing desire for architectural 
 embellishments is sufficient to overcome the 
 inherent principle of parsimony, or the inte- 
 rested views of individuals, or the jealousy of 
 public bodies, he will never have an opportu- 
 nity of displaying his genius, or all his at- 
 tempts will be thwarted by persons incapable 
 of appreciating it. And unfortunately the 
 talents of no artist, how great soever, can 
 effect such a revolution; it can be brought 
 about only by the continued observation of beauti- 
 ful edifices, and the diffusion of a taste for the 
 art among all the well-educated classes of the 
 people. 
 
 The states of antiquity lay so immediately 
 in the vicinity of each other, that the progress 
 of architecture was uninterrupted; and thus 
 people of each nation formed their taste by the 
 study of the structures of those to whom they 
 lay adjacent. The Athenians, in particular, in 
 raising the beautiful edifices which, have so 
 long been the admiration of the world, pro- 
 ceeded entirely upon the model of the build- 
 ings by which they were surrounded, and the 
 temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in the island 
 of JGgina, which is said to have been built by 
 JEaciis before the Trojan War, remains to this 
 
 day to testify the species of edifices on which 
 their national taste was formed. The Ionic 
 order, as its name denotes, arose in the wealthy 
 regions of Asia Minor; and when the Athe- 
 nians turned their attention to the embellish- 
 ment of their city, they had, in their immediate 
 vicinity, edifices capable of pointing out the 
 excellencies of that beautiful style. The Ro- 
 mans formed their taste upon the architecture 
 of the people whom they had subdued, and 
 adopted all their orders from the Grecian 
 structures. Their early temples were exactly 
 similar to those of their masters in the art of 
 design; and when the national taste was 
 formed upon that model, they combined them, 
 as real genius will, into different forms, and 
 left the Coliseum and the baths of Dioclesian 
 as monuments of the grandeur and originality 
 of their conceptions. 
 
 In modern times, the restoration of taste first 
 began around the edifices of antiquity. "On 
 the revival of the art in Italy," says Lord Aber- 
 deen, ' during the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
 turies, the great architects who adorned that 
 country naturally looked for instruction to the 
 monuments with which they were surrounded: 
 the wrecks and fragments of Imperial Rome. 
 These were not only successfully imitated, but 
 sometimes even surpassed by the Italian art- 
 ists; for Bramante and Michael Angelo, Pal- 
 ladio and Bernini, designed and executed 
 works which, although of unequal merit, may 
 fairly challenge a comparison with the boasted 
 productions of the Augustan age." Italy and 
 France, accordingly, have reaped the full ad- 
 vantage of their local proximity to the monu- 
 ments of former genius ; and the character of 
 their buildings evinces a decided superiority 
 to the works of architects in other states. 
 
 In the south of Europe, therefore, the pro- 
 gress of architecture has been uninterrupted, 
 and each successije age has reaped the full 
 benefit which the works of those which pre- 
 ceded it was fitted to confer. But the remote- 
 ness of their situation has deprived the in- 
 habitants of the north of Europe of this advan- 
 tage ; and, while the revival of letters and the 
 arts has developed the taste of the people of 
 this country in other respects, to a very great 
 degree, their knowledge of architecture is yet 
 in its infancy. In this city the most remarka- 
 ble proofs of this deficiency were annually 
 exhibited till a very recent period. The same 
 age which was illustrated by the genius of 
 Sir Walter Scott, and Campbell, and Dugald 
 Stewart, witnessed the erection of Nelson's 
 monument and St. George's church. 
 
 The extraordinary improvement in the public 
 taste, which has taken place since the peace 
 of 1814, opened the Continent to so large a pro- 
 portion of our population, evinces, in the most 
 unequivocal manner, the influence of the actual 
 sight of fine models in training the mind to the 
 perception of architectural beauty. That archi- 
 tecture is greatly more an object both of study 
 and interest than it was ten years ago, is 
 matter of common observation ; and the most 
 convincing proof of the extension of a taste 
 for its excellencies is to be found in the rapid 
 increase and extensive circulation of en- 
 gravings of the most interesting ruins on the 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 81 
 
 Continent, which has taken place of late years. 
 These engravings, however incapable of con- 
 veying an adequate idea of the originals, to 
 those who have never left this country, yet 
 serve as an admirable auxiliary to the memo- 
 ry, in retaining the impression which they 
 had produced on those who have had that 
 advantage; and, accordingly, their sale is 
 almost entirely confined to persons of that de- 
 scription. 
 
 Nor is the improvement less gratifying in 
 the style of the edifices, and the genius of the 
 architects who have arisen during that period. 
 The churches of Marybone and St. Pancras, in 
 London, notwithstanding some striking defects, 
 are by far the finest buildings which have been 
 raised in the metropolis since the days of Sir 
 Christopher Wren. The new street in front 
 of Carlton House, including the Quadrant, 
 contains some most beautiful specimens of 
 architecture; although the absurd rage for 
 novelty has disfigured it by other structures 
 of extraordinary deformity. The buildings 
 which adjoin, and look into the Regent Park, 
 are the most chaste and elegant examples of 
 the application of the Grecian architecture to 
 private edifices which the metropolis can boast. 
 Nor is the improvement less conspicuous in 
 our own capital, where the vicinity of free- 
 stone quarries of uncommon beauty, and the 
 advantages of unrivalled situation, have ex- 
 cited a very strong desire for architectural 
 embellishment. It is hardly possible to believe 
 that Waterloo Place, the Royal Terrace, Leo- 
 pold Place, and the Melville Monument, have 
 been erected in the same age which witnessed 
 the building of Lord Nelson's monument on 
 the Calton Hill, or the recent edifices in the 
 Parliament Square. The remarkable start 
 which the genius as well as the taste of our 
 architects has taken since the public attention 
 was drawn to this art, affords a striking proof 
 of the influence of popular encouragement in 
 fostering the conceptions of native genius, and 
 illustrates the hopelessness of expecting that 
 our artists will ever attain to excellence, when 
 the taste of the people does not keep pace with 
 their exertions. 
 
 But the causes which have recently given 
 so remarkable a stimulus to architectural ex- 
 ertion are temporary in their nature. It is 
 impossible to expect that the Continent will 
 always be open to our youth, or that the public 
 attention can be permanently directed to the 
 arts of peace, with the interest which is so 
 remarkable at this time. Other wars may 
 arise which will shut us out from the south 
 of Europe ; the interest of politics may again 
 withdraw the national attention from the fine 
 arts ; or the war of extermination, of which 
 Greece is now the theatre, may utterly destroy 
 those monuments which have so long survived 
 to direct and improve the world. From the 
 present aspect of affairs on the Continent, 
 there seems every reason to apprehend that 
 one or both of these effects may very soon 
 take place. These circumstances render it 
 the more desirable, that some steps should be 
 taken iofa in this island the fleeting percep- 
 tion of architectural beauty which is now 
 prevalent; and, if possible, render our people 
 
 independent of foreign travelling, or of the 
 borrowed aid of foreign edifices. 
 
 Lord Aberdeen, like all other travellers of 
 taste, speaks in the highest terms of the im- 
 pression produced by the unrivalled edifices 
 of ancient Greece ; and contrasts the pure and 
 faultless taste by which they are distinguished, 
 with the ephemeral productions which in 
 modern times have arisen, in the vain attempt 
 to improve upon their proportions. If we seek 
 for the manifestation of pure taste in the 
 monuments which surround us, our search 
 will but too often prove fruitless. We must 
 turn our eyes towards those regions, 
 
 Where on the Egean shore a city stands, 
 Built nobly ! 
 
 Here, it has been little understood, for it has 
 been rarely felt; its country is Greece, its 
 throne the Acropolis of Athens. 
 
 "By a person writing on the subject of 
 architecture, the name of Athens can scarcely 
 be pronounced without emotion, and, in the 
 mind of one who has had the good fortune to 
 examine at leisure its glorious remains, im- 
 pressions are revived which time and distance 
 can never obliterate. It is difficult to resist the 
 desire of fondly dwelling on the descriptions 
 of monuments, to the beauty of which, although 
 they have been long well known, and accu- 
 rately described, we feel that no language can 
 do full justice. But, as it is not the purpose 
 of this inquiry to give those practical or de- 
 tailed instructions in the art, which may be so 
 much better attained from other sources, I will 
 only observe in this place, what it is of con- 
 sequence to keep in view, because no descrip- 
 tions or representations, however accurate, 
 can give adequate notions of the effect of the 
 originals, that, notwithstanding the lapse of 
 ages, the injuries of barbarism, and fanatical 
 violence, Athens still presents to the student 
 the most faultless models of ornamental archi- 
 tecture; and is still, therefore, the best school 
 for the acquisition of the highest attributes of 
 his art." pp. 35, 36. 
 
 Speaking of the numerous attempts at no- 
 velty, which have been made in modern times, 
 he observes : 
 
 "It may be observed in general, that few of 
 those numerous changes of taste which an in- 
 satiable desire of novelty, or the caprice of 
 fashion, may have sanctioned for a time, have 
 been ultimately successful ; for these ephe- 
 meral productions, however warmly sup- 
 ported, have been found successively to vanish 
 before the steady and permanent attractions of 
 Grecian beauty, and we shall probably feel dis- 
 posed to admit, that the ornamental details of 
 the standard models of antiquity, combined 
 and modified by discretion and judgment, ap- 
 pear to offer a sufficient variety for the exer- 
 cise of invention and genius in this province 
 of the art" p. 30. 
 
 And comparing these with the remains of 
 Grecian architecture, he observes : 
 
 " The precious remains of Grecian art were 
 long neglected, and the most beautiful were, in 
 truth, nearly inaccessible to the Christian 
 world. It is almost in our own time, that ob- 
 stacles, formerly insurmountable, have been 
 since vanquished ; and that the treasures of 
 
82 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 art, still unfortunately in the custody of igno- 
 rance and barbarism, have not only been 
 visited, but have been accurately measured 
 and delineated. Henceforth, therefore, these 
 exquisite remains should form the chief study 
 of the architect who aspires to permanent 
 reputation; other modes are transitory and 
 uncertain, but the essential qualities of Gre- 
 cian excellence, as they are founded on reason, 
 and are consistent with fitness and propriety, 
 will ever continue to deserve his first care." 
 pp. 215, 216. 
 
 The argument which is most commonly 
 nrged against the restoration of an ancient 
 structure, is, that it is degrading to copy the 
 architecture of another people. It is both hu- 
 miliating to our artists, it is said, and inju- 
 rious to the progress of art, to imitate what 
 has been already done. The Romans never 
 copied; but, borrowing merely the general 
 forms of the Grecian architecture, moulded 
 them into different combinations, which gave 
 a different character to their style of building. 
 Such also should be the course which we 
 should adopt. 
 
 This very plausible argument proceeds 
 upon an inattention to the successive sleps 
 by which excellence in the fine arts is attained, 
 and a mistaken conception of the height to 
 which we have already ascended in our taste 
 or knowledge of architecture. It is quite true 
 that the Romans did not copy the Grecian tem- 
 ples; and that the modern Italians have not 
 thought of attempting a restoration of the Coli- 
 seum or the Pantheon. But it is to be recol- 
 lected that the originals were within their reach, 
 and had already exercised their salutary influence 
 upon the public taste. The ancient Romans 
 had only to go to Paestum, Agrigentum, or 
 Syracuse, to behold the finest Grecian temples; 
 and their warlike youth, in the course of the 
 military expeditions to which all the citizens 
 were liable, had perpetually, in their eastern 
 dominions, the Grecian edifices placed before 
 their eyes. Michael Angelo, Poussin, and 
 Claude Lorraine, lived amidst the ruins of an- 
 cient Rome, and formed their taste from their 
 earliest youth, upon the Jiabi'uaf contemplation 
 of those monuments. For them to have co- 
 pied these buildings, with a view to the re- 
 storation of the public taste, would have been as 
 absurd as for us to copy York or Lincoln Ca- 
 thedrals, in order to revive an admiration for 
 the Gothic architecture. 
 
 But is there no difference between the situ- 
 ation of a people, who, like the ancient Romans 
 and modern Italians, had the great models of 
 antiquity continually before their eyes, and 
 that of a people, who, like the inhabitants of 
 this island, have no models in the Doric style, 
 either to form their taste, or guide their exer- 
 tions, and who have no means of reaching the 
 remains of that order which exist, but by a 
 journey of many thousand miles? Of the in- 
 fluence of the study of ancient excellence in 
 improving the taste, both of architects and peo- 
 ple, no one acquainted wi h the subject can 
 have the smallest doubt; and it is stated in 
 the strongest terms, by the author whose obser- 
 vations have just been mentioned. "Amidst 
 the ruins of Rome, the great Italian architects 
 
 formed their taste. They studied the relics of 
 ancient grandeur, with all the diligence of en- 
 thusiasm. They measured the proportions, and 
 drew the details, and modelled the members 
 But when their artists were employed by the 
 piety or magnificence of the age, they never re- 
 stored the examples by which they were sur- 
 rounded, and which were the objects of theii 
 habitual study. The architects did not linger in 
 contemplation of their predecessors ; former 
 generations had advanced and they proceeded." 
 
 Now such being the influence of the remains 
 of antiquity in guiding the inventions, and 
 chastening the taste of modern artists, is there 
 no advantage in putting our architects in this 
 particular on a level with those of Italy, and com- 
 pensating, in some degree, by the restoration 
 of the finest monuments of ancient genius, 
 the local disadvantages with which a residence 
 in this remote part of the world is necessarily at- 
 tended! By doing this, we are not precluding 
 the development of modern invention ; we are, 
 on the contrary, laying the surest foundation 
 jor it, by bringing our artists to the point from 
 which the Italian artists took their departure. 
 When this is done, the inventive genius of the 
 two nations will be able to commence their 
 career with equal advantages. Till it is attempt- 
 ed, we can hardly hope that we shall overtake 
 them in the race. Suppose, that instead of 
 possessing the Coliseum and the Pantheon 
 within their walls, and having made their pro- 
 portions the continual subject of their study, 
 the Roman artists had been obliged to travel 
 into the interior of Asia to visit their ruins, 
 and that"' this journey, from the expense with 
 which it was attended, had been within the 
 reach only of a few of the most opulent and 
 adventurous of their nobility ; can there be the 
 slightest doubt that the fine arts in that city 
 would have been greatly indebted to any Ro- 
 man pontiff who restored those beautiful mo- 
 numents in his own dominions? and yet this 
 benefit is seriously made a matter of doubt, 
 when the restoration of the Parthenon is pro- 
 posed, in a part of the world where the remains 
 of ancient genius are placed at the distance of 
 two thousand miles. 
 
 The greatest exertions of original genius, 
 both in literature and arts, by which modern 
 Europe has been distinguished, have been made 
 in an age when the wealth of ancient times 
 was thoroughly understood. The age of Tasso 
 andMachiavel followed the restoration of letters 
 in Italy. If we compare their writings with those 
 which preceded that great event, the difference 
 appears almost incalculable. It was on the stu- 
 dy of Grecian and Roman eloquence, that Mil- 
 ton trained himself to those sublime concep- 
 tions which have immortalized his name. 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo gave but slight 
 indications of original genius till their pow- 
 ers were awakened and their taste refined by 
 the study of the Grecian sculpture. Statuary, in 
 modern times, has nowhere been cultivated with 
 such success as at Rome, amidst the wrrks 
 of former ages; and Chantry hasdeclared that 
 the arrival of the Elgin marbles in the British 
 Museum is to be regarded as an era in the pro- 
 gress of art in this country. Architecture has 
 attained its greatest perfection in France and 
 
NATIONAL MONUMENTS. 
 
 Italy, where the study of the remains of anti- 
 quity which those countries contain, has had 
 so powerful an influence upon the public taste. 
 Those who doubt the influence of the restoration 
 of the Parthenon, in improving the efforts of 
 original genius in this country, reason in op- 
 position not only to the experience of past 
 times, in all the other departments of literature 
 and art, but to all that we know of the causes 
 to which the improvement of architecture itself 
 has been owing. 
 
 It is no answer to this to say that drawings 
 and prints of these edifices are open to all the 
 world; and that an architect may study the 
 proportions of the Parthenon as well in 
 Stuart's Athens, as on the Calton Hill of Edin- 
 burgh. An acquaintance with drawings is 
 limited to a small number, even in the most 
 polished classes of society, and to the middling 
 and lower orders is almost unknown ; where- 
 as, public edifices are seen by all the world, 
 and obtruda themselves on the attention of the 
 most inconsiderate. There are few persons 
 who return from Greece or Italy, without a 
 considerable taste for architectural beauty ; 
 but during the war, when travelling was im- 
 possible, the existence of Stuart's Athens and 
 Piranesi's Rome produced no such effect. 
 Our architects, during the war, had these ad- 
 mirable engravings constantly at their com- 
 mand: but how wretched were their concep- 
 tions before the peace had afforded them the 
 means of studying the originals ! The extra- 
 ordinary improvement which both the style of 
 our buildings, and the taste of our people have 
 received, since the edifices of France and Italy 
 were laid open to so large a proportion of the 
 country, demonstrates the superior efficacy of 
 actual observation, to the study of prints, in 
 improving the public taste for architectural 
 beauty. The engravings never become an object 
 of interest till the originals have been seen. 
 
 The recent attempts to introduce a new 
 order of architecture in this island, demon- 
 strate, that we have not as yet arrived at the 
 point where the study of ancient models can 
 be dispensed with. In the new street in front 
 of Carlton House, every thing, which, if form- 
 ed on the model of the antique, is beautiful ; 
 every thing in which novelty has been at- 
 tended is a deformity. It is evident, that more 
 i than one generation must pass away, before 
 architecture is so thoroughly understood as to 
 admit of the former landmarks being disre- 
 garded. 
 
 The belief that a Grecian temple cannot 
 look beautiful, but in the climate and under 
 the sun of Athens, is a total mistake. The 
 clear atmosphere which prevails during the 
 frosts of winter, or in the autumnal months, 
 in Scotland, is as favourable to the display of 
 architectural splendour, as the warm atmo- 
 sphere of Greece. The Melville monument in 
 St. Andrew's Square appears nowise inferior 
 to the original in the Roman capitol. The 
 gray and time-worn temples of Paestum are 
 perhaps more sublime that the Grecian struc- 
 tures which still retain the brightness and 
 lustre by which they were originally charac- 
 terized. Of all the edifices which the genius 
 of man ever conceived, the Doric temple is 
 
 most independent of the adventitious advantages 
 of light and shade, and rests most securely on 
 the intrinsic grandeur and solidity of its con- 
 struction. 
 
 To say, that every people have an archi- 
 tecture of their own, and that the Gothic is 
 irretrievably fixed down upon this island, is a 
 position unwarranted either by reason or 
 authority. A nation is not bound to adhere to 
 barbarous manners, because their ancestors 
 were barbarous ; nor is the character of their 
 literature to be fixed by the productions of its 
 earliest writers. It is by its works in the 
 period of its meridian splendour, that the opi- 
 nion of posterity is formed. The bow was 
 once the national weapon of England, and to 
 the skill with which it was used, our greatest 
 victories have been owing; but that is no 
 reason why it should be adhered to as the 
 means of national defence after fire-arms have 
 been introduced. If we must make something 
 peculiar in the National Monument, let it be 
 the peculiarity which distinguishes the period 
 when architecture and the other fine arts 
 have attained to their highest perfection, and 
 not the period of their infancy. But the feudal 
 and castellated forms arose during an age of 
 ignorance and civil dissension. To compel 
 us to continue that style as the national archi- 
 tecture, would be as absurd as to consider 
 Chaucer as the standard of English literature, 
 or Duns Scotus as the perfection of Scotch 
 eloquence. We do not consider the writers in 
 the time of the Jameses as the model of our 
 national literature. Why then should we con- 
 fer that distinction on the architecture which 
 arose out of the circumstances of the barba- 
 rous period! 
 
 For these reasons, we are compelled to dif- 
 fer from the noble author, whose very inte- 
 resting essay on Grecian architecture has 
 done so much to awaken the world to a sense 
 of its excellencies, in regard to the expediency 
 of restoring the Parthenon in the National 
 Monument of Scotland. From the taste which 
 his work exhibits, and from the obvious supe- 
 riority which he possesses over ourselves in 
 estimating the beauties of Grecian architec- 
 ture, we drew the strongest argument in favour 
 of such a measure. It was from a study of 
 the ruins of ancient Greece, that Lord Aber- 
 deen acquired the information and taste which 
 he possesses on this subject, and gained the 
 superiority which he enjoys over his untra- 
 velled countrymen. If they had the same 
 means of visiting and studying the originals 
 which he has possessed, we should agree 
 with him in thinking, that the genius of the 
 age should be directed to new combinations. 
 But when this is not the case, we must be con- 
 tent to proceed by slower degrees; and while 
 nineteen-twentieths of our people do not know 
 what the Parthenon is, and can perceive no- 
 thing remarkable in the finest models of archi- 
 tectural excellence, we must not think of 
 forming new orders. It is enough if we can 
 make them, acquainted with those which 
 already exist. The first step towards national 
 excellence in the fine arts, is to feel the beauty 
 of that which has already been done; the se- 
 cond, is to excel it. We must lake the first 
 
84 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 step, before we attempt the second. Having 
 laid the foundation of national taste in archi- 
 tecture, by restoring the finest- model of anti- 
 quity on the situation of all others the best 
 adapted for making its excellencies known, we 
 shall be prepared to form new edifices, and 
 possibly to surpass those which antiquity has 
 
 left. But till this is done, there is every rea- 
 son to apprehend, that the efforts of our artists 
 will be as ineffectual in obtaining true beauty, 
 as the genius of our writers was in obtaining 
 real excellence, until the restoration of the 
 classic authors gave talent its true direction, 
 and public taste an unexceptionable standard. 
 
 MARSHAL NET.* 
 
 THE memoirs connected with the French | 
 Revolution furnish an inexhaustible source 
 of interesting discussion. We shall look in 
 vain in any other period of history for the 
 same splendid succession of events ; for a 
 phantasmagoria in which characters so illus- 
 trious are passed before the view ; or for in- 
 dividuals whose passions or ambition have 
 exercised an equally important influence on 
 human affairs. When we enter upon the era 
 of Napoleon, biography assumes the dignity 
 of history ; the virtues and vices of individuals 
 become inseparably blended with public mea- 
 sures ; and in the memoirs of contemporary 
 writers, we turn for the secret springs of those 
 great events which have determined the fate 
 of nations. 
 
 From the extraordinary interest, however, 
 connected with this species of composition, 
 has arisen an evil of no ordinary kind. Not 
 France only, but Europe at large, being in- 
 satiable for works of this kind, an immense 
 number have sprung up of spurious origin, or 
 doubtful authority. Writing of memoirs has 
 become a separate profession. A crowd of 
 able young men devote themselves to this fas- 
 cinating species of composition, which pos- 
 sesses the interest of history without its dry- 
 ness, and culls from the book of Time only 
 the most brilliant of its flowers. Booksellers 
 engage in the wholesale manufacture, as a 
 mercantile speculation ; an attractive name, 
 an interesting theme, is selected ; the relations 
 of the individuals whose memoirs are pro- 
 fessed to be given to the world, are besought 
 to furnish a few original documents or au- 
 thentic anecdotes, to give an air of veracity to 
 the composition; and at length the memoirs 
 are ushered forth to the world as the work of 
 one who never wrote one syllable of them 
 himself. Of this description are the soi-disant 
 Memoirs of Fouche, Robespierre, Une Femme 
 de Qualite, Louis the Eighteenth, and many 
 others, which are now admitted to be the work 
 of the manufacturers for the Parisian book- 
 sellers, but are nevertheless interspersed with 
 many authentic and interesting anecdotes, 
 derived from genuine sources, and contain in 
 consequence much valuable matter for future 
 history. 
 
 In considering the credit due to any set of 
 memoirs, one main point, of course, is, whe- 
 ther they are published by a living author of 
 
 * Memoires du Marechal Ney, publics par sa Famille. 
 Paris, Fournier ; Londres, E. Bull, 1833. Blackwood's 
 Magazine, Oct. 1833. 
 
 character and station in society. If they are, 
 there is at least the safeguard against impos- 
 ture, which arises from the facility with which 
 they may be disavowed, and the certainty that 
 no man of character would permit a spurious 
 composition to be palmed upon the world as 
 his writing. The Memoirs, therefore, of Bour- 
 rienne, Madame Junot, Savary, and many 
 others, may be relied on as at least the ad- 
 mitted work of the persons whose names they 
 bear, and as ushered into the world under the 
 sanction and on the responsibility of living 
 persons of rank or station in society. 
 
 There are other memoirs, again, of such ex- 
 traordinary ability as at once to bear the stamp 
 of originality and veracity on their very face. 
 Of this description are Napoleon's memoirs, 
 dictated to Montholon and Gourgaud ; a work 
 which bears in every page decisive marks of 
 the clear conceptions, lucid ideas, and tranch- 
 ant sagacfty of the Conqueror of Austerlitz 
 and Rivoli. Judging from internal evidence, 
 we are disposed to rank these invaluable Me- 
 moirs much higher than the rambling and dis- 
 cursive, though interesting work of Las Casas. 
 They are not nearly so impassioned or ran- 
 corous ; facts are not so obviously distorted; 
 party spirit is not so painfully conspicuous. 
 With regret, we must add, that even these 
 genuine memoirs, dictated by Napoleon him- 
 self, as the groundwork for the history of his 
 achievements, contain the marks of the weak- 
 nesses as well as the greatness of his mind; 
 an incessant jealousy of every rival who ap- 
 proached even to his glory ; an insatiable 
 passion for magnifying his own exploits ; a 
 disregard of truth so remarkable in a person 
 gifted with such extraordinary natural sagaci- 
 ty, that it can be ascribed only to the poison- 
 ous moral atmosphere which a revolution pro- 
 duces. The Memoirs of Thibaudeau perhaps 
 exhibit the most valuable and correct, as well 
 as favourable picture of the emperor's mind. 
 In the discussions on the great public mea- 
 sures which were submitted to the Council of 
 State at Paris, and, above all, in the clear and 
 luminous speeches of Napoleon on every sub- 
 ject, whether of civil or military administra- 
 tion, that occurred during his consulship, is 
 to be found the clearest proof of the vast grasp 
 and great capacity of his mind; and in their 
 superiority to those of the other speakers, and, 
 above all, of Thibaudeau himself, the best 
 evidence of the fidelity of his reports. 
 
 Next in value to those of Napoleon and 
 Thibaudeau, we are inclined to place those of 
 
MARSHAL NEY. 
 
 85 
 
 Bourrienne and the Duchess of Abrantes. The 
 first of these writers, in addition to consider- 
 able natural talents, enjoyed the inestimable ad- 
 vantage of having been the school-fellow of 
 Napoleon, and his private secretary during 
 the most interesting period of his life ; that 
 which elapsed from the opening of his Italian 
 Campaign, in 1796, to his accession to the 
 throne in 1804. If Bourrienne could be entire- 
 ly relied on, his Memoirs, with such sources 
 of information, would be invaluable ; but un- 
 fortunately, it is evident that he labours under 
 a feeling of irritation at his former school- 
 fellow, which renders it necessary to take his 
 statements with some grains of allowance. 
 Few men can forgive the extraordinary and 
 unlooked-for elevation of their former equals ; 
 and, in addition to this common source of pre- 
 judice, it is evident that Bourrienne labours 
 under another and a less excusable feeling. 
 It is plain, even from his own admission, that 
 he had been engaged in some money transac- 
 tions of a doubtful character with M. Ouvrard, 
 which rendered his continuing in the highly 
 confidential situation of private secretary to 
 the emperor improper ; and his dismissal from 
 it has evidently tinged his whole narrative 
 with a certain feeling of acrimony, which, if 
 it has not made him actually distort facts, has 
 at least caused them to appear in his hands 
 through a medium coloured to a certain de- 
 gree. 
 
 The Duchess of Abrantes, like most of the 
 other annalists of Napoleon, labours under 
 prepossessions of a different kind. She was 
 intimate with Napoleon from his childhood ; 
 her mother had the future emperor on her 
 knee from the day of his birth ; and the in- 
 timacy between the two families continued so 
 great, that when Napoleon arrived at the age 
 of twenty-six, and felt, as he expresses it, the 
 " besoin de se fixer," he actually proposed for 
 the duchess's mother himself, who was a per- 
 son of great natural attractions, while he 
 wished at the same time to arrange a mar- 
 riage between Joseph and the duchess, and 
 Pauline and her brother. It may readily be 
 imagined that, though these proposals were 
 all declined, they left no unfavourable impres- 
 sion on the duchess's mind; and this, coupled 
 with her subsequent marriage to Junot, and 
 his rapid advancement by the emperor, has 
 filled her mind with an admiration of his cha- 
 racter almost approaching to idolatry. She 
 sees every thing, in consequence, in the con- 
 sular and imperial government, in the most 
 favourable colours. Napoleon is worshipped 
 with all a woman's fervour, and the days of 
 triumph for the Grand Army looked back to 
 as a dream of glory, which has rendered all 
 the remainder of life worthless and insipid. 
 
 The Memoirs of Marshal Ney appear under 
 different auspices from any others which have 
 yet appeared regarding this eventful era. They 
 do not profess to have been written by him- 
 self; and, indeed, the warlike habits, and 
 sudden and tragic death of the marshal, pre- 
 clude the possibility of their being ushered 
 forth to the world under that character. But, 
 on the other hand, they are unquestionably 
 published by his family, from the documents 
 
 and papers in their possession; and the anec- 
 dotes with which they are interspersed have 
 plainly been collected with great pains from 
 all the early friends of that illustrious warrior. 
 If they are not published, therefore, under 
 the sanction of personal, they are under that 
 of family responsibility, and may be regarded, 
 as we would say in England, as " the Ney Pa- 
 pers," connected together by an interesting 
 biography of the character to whom they 
 refer. 
 
 In such a production, historical impartiality 
 cannot be reasonably expected. To those of 
 his family who still mourn the tragic end of 
 the bravest of French heroes, his character 
 must still be the object of veneration. Fail- 
 ings which would have been acknowledged, 
 defects which would have been pointed out, if 
 he had descended to an honoured tomb, are 
 forgotten in his melancholy fate ; and his 
 family, with hearts ulcerated at the supposed 
 injustice and perhaps real illegality of his 
 condemnation, are rather disposed to magnify 
 his character into that of a martyr, than ac- 
 knowledge its alliance with any of the weak- 
 nesses or faults of mortality. In such feel- 
 ings, there is not only every thing that is 
 natural, but much that is commendable ; and 
 the impartial foreigner, in reviewing the his- 
 tory of his achievements, will not forget the 
 painful sense of duty under which the British 
 government acted at the close of his career, 
 or the mournful feelings with which the axe 
 of justice was permitted to descend on one of 
 the bravest of -the human race, under the feel- 
 ing whether right or not it is the province 
 of history to inquire of imperious state 
 necessity. 
 
 Marshal Ney was born at Sarrelouis,on the 
 10th January, 1769; consequently, he was 
 twenty years old when the Revolution first 
 broke out. His father was an old soldier, who 
 had served with distinction at the battle of 
 Rosbach ; but after his discharge, he conti- 
 nued the profession of a cooper, to which he 
 had been early educated. At school, his son, 
 the young Ney, evinced the turbulent vigour 
 of his disposition, and the future general was 
 incessantly occupied in drilling and directing 
 his comrades. Napoleon gave tokens of the 
 same disposition at an equally early period : 
 there is no turn of mind which so early 
 evinces itself as a taste for military achieve- 
 ments. He was at first destined for a notary's 
 office ; but in spite of the earnest entreaties of 
 his parents, he resolved to change his profes- 
 sion. At the age of fifteen, our author gives 
 the following interesting account of the cir- 
 cumstances which led to his embracing the 
 profession of arms. 
 
 " So early as when he was fifteen, Ney had 
 a presentiment of his future destiny. His 
 father, incapable alike of estimating his pow- 
 ers, or sharing his hopes, in vain endeavoured 
 to restrain him. The mines of Assenwider at 
 that period were in full activity ; he sent his 
 son there, to endeavour to give a new direc- 
 tion to his thoughts. It had quite an opposite 
 effect. His imagination soon resumed its 
 wonted courses. He dreamed only of fields 
 of battle, combats and glory. The counsels 
 H 
 
86 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of his father, the tears of his mother, were 
 alike ineffectual : they lacerated without mov- 
 ing his heart. Two years passed away in this 
 manner ; but his taste for arms became every 
 day more decided. The places where he 
 dwelt, contributed to strengthen the natural 
 bent of his genius. Almost all the towns on 
 the Rhine are fortified ; wherever he went, he 
 saw garrisons, uniforms, and artillery. Ney 
 could withstand it no longer; he. resigned his 
 humble functions, and set out for Metz, where 
 a regiment of hussars was stationed, with the 
 intention of enlisting. The grief which he 
 well knew that sudden determination would 
 cause to his mother, the chagrin which it 
 would occasion to his father, agitated his 
 mind ; he hesitated long what to do, but at 
 length filial piety prevailed over fear, and he 
 returned to Sarrelouis to embrace his parents, 
 and bid them adieu. 
 
 "The interview was painful, his reception 
 stormy ; reproaches, tears, prayers, menaces, 
 alternately tore his heart. At length he tore 
 himself from their arms, and flying in haste, 
 without either baggage, linen, or money, he 
 regained the route of Metz, from which he 
 had turned. He walked on foot; his feet 
 were soon blistered, his shoes were stained 
 with blood. Sad, harassed, and worn out 
 with fatigue, he nevertheless continued his 
 march without flinching; and in his very first 
 debut, gave proof of that invincible determi- 
 nation which no subsequent obstacles were 
 able to overcome. 
 
 "At an after period,- when fortune had 
 smiled on his path, he returned to Sarrelouis. 
 The artillery sounded; the troops were under 
 arms; all the citizens crowded to see their 
 compatriot of whom they were so proud. Re- 
 cognising then the road which thirteen years 
 before he had traversed on foot, the marshal 
 recounted with emotion his first fatigues to 
 the officers who surrounded him." I. 5, 6. 
 
 It has frequently been observed, that those 
 who rise from humble beginnings are ashamed 
 in subsequent life of their commencement, 
 and degrade themselves by a puerile endea- 
 vour to trace their origin to a family of dis- 
 tinction. Ney, equally with Napoleon, was 
 above that meanness. 
 
 "Never in subsequent life did the marshal 
 forget the point from which he had started. 
 After he had arrived at the highest point of his 
 fortune, he took a pleasure in recurring to his 
 humble origin. When some persons were 
 declaiming in his presence on their connection 
 with the noblesse, and what they had obtained 
 from their rich families: 'You were more 
 fortunate than I,' said he, interrupting them ; 
 * I received nothing from my family, and 
 deemed myself rich when, at Metz, I had two 
 pieces of bread on the board.' 
 
 " After he was named a marshal of the em- 
 pire, he held a splendid levee: every one 
 offered his congratulations, and hastened to 
 present his compliments. He interrupted the 
 adulatory strain by addressing himself to an 
 old officer who kept at a distance. ' Do you 
 recollect, captain, the time when you said to 
 me, on occasion of my presenting my report, 
 Well done, Ney ; I am well pleased with you ; 
 
 go on as you have begun, you will make your 
 fortune.' ' Perfectly, marshal,' replied his old 
 commander; 'I had the honour to command 
 a man infinitely my superior. Such good for- 
 tune is not easily forgotten.' 
 
 " The satisfaction which he experienced at 
 recurring to his origin, arose not merely from 
 the noble pride of having been the sole archi- 
 tect of his fortune, but also "from the warm 
 affection which he ever felt for his family. 
 He loved nothing so much as to recount the 
 tenderness which he had experienced from his 
 mother, and the good counsels which he had 
 received from his father. Thus, when he was 
 abandoning himself to all the dangers arising 
 from an impetuous courage, he carefully con- 
 cealed his perils from his parents and rela- 
 tions, to save them from useless anxiety. On 
 one occasion, he commanded the advanced 
 guard of General Colaud, and was engaged in 
 a serious action. Overwhelmed with fatigue, 
 he returned and recounted to his comrades the 
 events of the day. One of his friends blamed 
 him for his imprudence. 'It is very true,' 
 replied Ney, 'I have had singular good for- 
 tune to-day; four different times I found my- 
 self alone in the midst of the Austrians. 
 Nothing but the most extraordinary good for- 
 tune extricated me out of their hands.' 'You 
 have been more fortunate than your brother.' 
 'What,' replied Ney, impetuously, and fixing 
 his eyes anxiously on his friend, ' is my bro- 
 ther dead 1 Ah ! my poor mother !' At length 
 he learned the mournful news, that in a 
 serious affair in Italy, Pierre Ney, his elder 
 brother, "had been killed. He burst into tears, 
 and exclaimed, ' What would have become of 
 my mother and sister, if I too had fallen ! 
 Write to them, I pray you ; but conceal the 
 dangers to which I am exposed, that they may 
 not fear also for my life.' The father of the 
 marshal died a few years ago, at the age of 
 nearly a hundred years. He loved his son 
 with tenderness mingled with respect, and al- 
 though of a singularly robust habit of body, 
 his family feared the effect of the shock which 
 the sad events of 1815 might produce upon 
 him. He was never informed of them: the 
 mourning of his daughter, with whom he 
 lived, and of his grandchildren, only made 
 him aware that some dreadful calamity had 
 befallen the family. He ventured to ask no 
 questions, and ever since, sad and melancholy, 
 pronouncing but rarely the name of his son, 
 he lingered on till 1826, when he died without 
 having learned his tragic fate." I. 9, 10. 
 
 The great characteristic of Marshal Ney 
 was his impetuous courage, which gained for 
 him, even among the giants of the era of Na- 
 poleon, the surname of the Bravest of the 
 Brave. This remarkable characteristic is 
 thus described in these Memoirs : 
 
 'It is well known with what power and 
 energy he could rouse the masses of the sol- 
 diers, and precipitate them upon the enemy. 
 Vehement and impetuous when heading a 
 charge, he was gifted with the most imper- 
 turbable sang froid when it became necessary 
 to sustain its movements. Dazzled by the 
 lustre of that brilliant valour, many persons 
 have imagined that it was the only illustrious 
 
MARSHAL NEY. 
 
 87 
 
 quality which the marshal possessed ; but | 
 those who were nearer his person, and better j 
 acquainted with his character, will concede to 
 him greater qualities than the enthusiasm 
 which captivates and subjugates the soldier. 
 Calm in the midst of a storm of grape-shot 
 imperturbable amid a shower of balls and 
 shells, Ney seemed to be ignorant of danger ; 
 to have nothing to fear from death. This 
 rashness, which twenty years of perils have 
 not diminished, gave to his mind the liberty, 
 the promptitude of judgment and execution, 
 so necessary in the midst of the complicated 
 movements of war. This quality astonished 
 those who surrounded him, more even than 
 the courage in action which is more or less 
 felt by all who are habituated to the dangers 
 of war. One of his officers, whose courage 
 had repeatedly been put to the proof, asked 
 him one day if he had never felt -fear. Re- 
 gaining instantly that profound indifference 
 for danger, that forgetfulness of death, that 
 elasticity of mind, which distinguished him on 
 the field of battle, 'I have never had time,' 
 replied the marshal xvith simplicity. 
 
 "Nevertheless, this extraordinary coolness 
 in danger did not prevent his perceiving those 
 slight shades of weakness, from which it is so 
 rarely that a soldier is to be found entirely 
 exempted. On one occasion, an officer was 
 giving an account of a mission on which he 
 had been sent: while he spoke, a bullet passed 
 so near him that he involuntarily lowered his 
 head, but nevertheless continued his narrative 
 without exhibiting emotion ' You have done 
 extremely well,' said the marshal, 'but next 
 time do not bow quite so low.' 
 
 "The marshal loved courage, and took the 
 greatest pleasure in producing it in others. If 
 he had witnessed it in a great degree in any 
 one on the field of battle ; if he had discovered 
 vigour, capacity, or military genius, he never 
 rested till he had obtained their promotion ; 
 and the army resounded for long with the 
 efforts which he made for this purpose." I. 21. 
 
 But it was not mere valour or capacity on 
 the field of battle, which distinguished Ney ; 
 he was attentive also to the minutest wants of 
 his soldiers, and indefatigable in his endea- 
 vours to procure for them those accommoda- 
 tions, of which, from having risen from the 
 humblest rank himself, he so well knew how 
 to appreciate the value. Of his efforts in this 
 respect we have the following interesting ac- 
 count: 
 
 "Quick in repressing excesses, the marshal 
 omitted nothing to prevent them. A private 
 soldier in early life, he had himself felt the 
 sufferings endured by the private soldier, and 
 when elevated to a higher station he did his | 
 utmost to assuage them in others. He knew 
 that the soldier, naturally just and grateful to 
 those who watched over his interests, was 
 difficult to manage when his complaints were 
 neglected, and it was evident that his superiors 
 had no sympathy for his fatigues or his priva- 
 tions. Ney was sincerely attached to those | 
 great masses, which, though composed of men j 
 of such different characters, were equally 
 ready every day to meet dangers and death in 
 the discharge of duty. At that period our 
 
 troops, worn out with the fatigues of war, ac- 
 customed to make light of dangers, were much 
 ruder in their manners, and haughty in their 
 ideas, than those of these times, who lead a 
 pacific life in great cities and garrisons. The 
 marshal was incessant in his endeavours to 
 discover and correct the abuses which affected 
 them. He ever endeavoured to prevent their 
 wishes, and to convince the officers who com- 
 manded them, that by elevating the soldier in 
 his own eyes, and treating him with the respect 
 which he deserves, but without any diminution 
 of the necessary firmness, it was alone possible 
 ta obtain that forgetfulness of himself, that 
 abandonment of military discipline, which 
 constitutes so large a portion of military force. 
 
 "Avoiding, therefore, in the most careful 
 way, the imposition of unnecessary burdens 
 upon the soldiers, he was equally careful to 
 abstain from that vain ostentation of author- 
 ity, that useless prodigality of escort, which 
 generals of inferior calibre are so fond of dis- 
 playing. His constant object was to spare the 
 troops engaged in that fatiguing service, and 
 not to diminish, but from absolute necessity, 
 by such detachments, the numerical strength 
 of the regiments under his orders. That soli- 
 citude did not escape the soldiers ; and among 
 their many subjects of gratitude, they ranked 
 in the foremost place the continual care and 
 perseverance with which their general secured 
 for them the means of subsistence. The pro- 
 digies he effected in that particular will be 
 found fully detailed in the campaign of Portu- 
 gal, where he succeeded, in a country repeat- 
 edly devastated, in providing, by incredible 
 exertions, not only provisions for his own 
 corps, but the whole army, during the six 
 months that it remained in Portugal. Con- 
 stantly in motion on the Mondego, inces- 
 santly pushing columns in every direction, 
 he contrived to procure bread, clothes, provi- 
 sions, in fine, every thing which was required. 
 The recollection of these things remained 
 engraven on the minds of his soldiers, and 
 when his division with Massena caused him 
 to resign the command of his corps, the grief 
 of the soldiers, the murmurs, the first symp- 
 toms of an insurrection ready to break forth, 
 and which a single word from their chief 
 would have blown into a flame, were sufficient 
 to prove that his cares had not been thrown 
 away on ungrateful hearts, and that his multi- 
 plied attentions had won all their affections. 
 
 " But his careful attention to his soldiers did 
 not prevent him from maintaining the most 
 rigorous discipline, and punishing severely 
 any considerable excess on the part of the 
 troops under his command. An instance of 
 this occurred in the country of Darmstadt. 
 The Austrians had been defeated, and retired 
 near to Swigemberg, where they were broken 
 anew. The action was warmly contested, and 
 our soldiers, irritated by so much resistance, 
 broke open several houses and plundered them. 
 The circumstances in which it occurred might 
 excuse the transgression, but Ney resolved to 
 make a signal example of reparation. While 
 he proceeded with the utmost severity against 
 the .offenders, he published a proclamation, in 
 which he directed that the damage should be 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 estimated ; and in order that it should not be 
 fixed at an elusory sum, he charged the Land- 
 grave himself with the valuation. 
 
 " When Governor of Gallicia and Salamanca, 
 these provinces, notwithstanding their hatred 
 at the yoke of the stranger, cheerfully acknow- 
 ledged the justice of his administration. One 
 only object of spoil has been left by the mar- 
 shal to his family, a relic of St. James of Com- 
 postella, which the monks of the convent of 
 St. Jago presented to him, in gratitude for the 
 humanity with which he treated them. He did 
 not limit his care to the protection of property 
 from pillage ; he knew that there are yet 
 dearer interests to which honour is more 
 nearly allied, and he never ceased to cause 
 them to be respected. The English army will 
 bear testimony to his solicitude in that parti- 
 cular. Obliged, after the battle of Corunna, to 
 embark in haste, they were unable to place on 
 board the women by whom they were followed, 
 and in consequence, fifty were left on the shore, 
 where they were wandering about without pro- 
 tection, exposed to the insults of the soldiers. 
 No sooner was Ney informed of their situa- 
 tion, than he hastened to come to their suc- 
 cour; he assembled them, assured them of his 
 protection, and directed that they should be 
 placed in a female convent. But the Superior 
 refused to admit them ; she positively refused 
 to have any thing to do with heretics ; no en- 
 treaties could persuade her to extend to these 
 unfortunates the rites of hospitality. 
 
 " ' Be it so,' replied the marshal ; ' I under- 
 stand your scruples ; and, therefore, instead of 
 these Protestants, you shall furnish lodgings 
 to two companies of Catholic grenadiers.' Ne- 
 cessity, at length, bent the hard-hearted Abbess ; 
 and these unhappy women, for the most part 
 the wives or daughters of officers or non-com- 
 missioned officers, whose bravery we had ex- 
 perienced in the field, were received into the 
 convent, where they were protected from every 
 species of injury." I. 39 41. 
 
 We have no doubt of the truth of this last 
 anecdote, and we may add that Ney not only 
 respected the remains of Sir John Moore, 
 interred in the ramparts of Corunna, but 
 erected a monument to his memory. It is 
 soothing to see the Freemasonry of generous 
 feeling, which subsists between the really 
 brave and elevated, under all the varieties of 
 national rivalry or animosity, in every part of 
 the world. 
 
 It is a pleasing task to record traits of gene- 
 rosity in an enemy; but war is not composed 
 entirely of such actions; and, as a specimen 
 of the mode in which the Republican troops, 
 in the first years of their triumphs, oppressed 
 the people whom they professed to deliver, we 
 subjoin the following account of the mode in 
 which they levied their requisitions, taken 
 from the report of one of the Envoys of Go- 
 vernment to the Convention. 
 
 " Cologne, 8th October, 1794. 
 
 "The agents sent to make requisitions, my 
 dear colleagues, act in such a manner as to 
 revolt all the world. The moment they arrive 
 in a town, they lay a requisition on every 
 thing ; literally every thing. No one thereafter 
 can either buy or sell. Thus we see com- 
 
 merce paralyzed, and for how long 1 For an 
 indefinite time ; for there are many requisi- 
 tions which have been laid on a month ago, 
 and on which nothing has yet been demanded; 
 and during that whole period the inhabitants 
 were unable to purchase any articles even of the 
 first necessity. If such measures are not cal- 
 culated to produce a counter-revolutionary 
 reaction ; if they are not likely to rouse against 
 us the indignation of all mankind, I ask you 
 what are 1 
 
 " Safety and fraternity. GELLIT." I. 53. 
 
 Contrast this conduct on the part of the 
 Friends of the People, as detailed by one of 
 their own representatives to his democratic 
 rulers, with the conduct of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, paying high prices for every article 
 required by the English army in the south of 
 France, and we have the best proof of the dif- 
 ference between the actions of a Conservative 
 and Revolutionary Government. 
 
 The life of a soldier who spent twenty years 
 in camps, of course furnishes abundant ma- 
 terials for the description of military adventure. 
 We select, almost at random, the following de- 
 scription of the passage of the Rhine, opposite 
 Ehrenbreitzin, by the corps of Kleber, in 1795. 
 
 "The fort of Ehrenbreitzin commanded the 
 mouth of Moselle; the batteries of the right 
 bank swept all the shores of the Rhine. The 
 enemy were quite aware of our design ; the 
 moon shone bright; and his soldiers, with 
 anxious eyes and listening ears, waited the 
 moment when our boats might come within 
 reach of his cannon. The danger was great ; 
 but that of hesitation was still greater ; we 
 abandoned ourselves to our fate, and pushed 
 across towards Neuwied. Instantly the forts 
 and the batteries thundered with unexampled 
 violence ; a shower of grape-shot fell in our 
 boats. But there is something in great danger 
 which elevates the mind. Our pontonniers 
 made a sport of death, as of the batteries 
 which were successively unmasked, and join- 
 ing their efforts to the current which swept 
 them along, at length reached the dikes on 
 the opposite shore. Neuwied also opened its 
 fire. That delicious town, embellished by 
 all the arts of peace, now transformed into a 
 warlike stronghold, overwhelmed us by the 
 fire of its batteries. We replied with vigour, 
 but for long felt a repugnance to direct our 
 fire against that charming city. At length, 
 however, necessity compelled us to make the 
 attack, and in a few hours Neuwied was re- 
 duced to ashes. 
 
 " The difficulties of the enterprise neverthe- 
 less remained. It was necessary to overcome 
 a series of redoubts, covered by chevaux-de- 
 frize, palisades, and covered ways. We had 
 at once to carry Dusseldorf and beat the Count 
 d'Hirbauch, who awaited our approach at the 
 head of 20.000 men. Kleber alone did not des- 
 pair ; the batteries on the left shore were ready, 
 and the troops impatiently awaited the signal 
 to land. The dispositions were soon made. 
 Lefebvre attacked the left, Championnet the 
 centre, Grenier the right. Such leaders could 
 not but inspire confidence in the men. Soldiers 
 and officers leapt ashore. We braved the storm 
 of grape-shot; and on the 5th September, at 
 
MARSHAL NEY. 
 
 break of day, we were established on the Ger- 
 man bank of the river." I. 99101. 
 
 These Memoirs abound with passages of 
 this description; and if implicit faith is to be 
 given to them, it appears certain that Ney from 
 the very first was distinguished by a degree 
 of personal gallantry, as well as military con- 
 duct, which has been rarely paralleled, and 
 never exceeded. The description of his ele- 
 vation to the rank of General Brigade, and the 
 action which preceded it, is singularly de- 
 scriptive of the character of the French armies 
 at that period, 
 
 " Meanwhile Mortier made himself master of 
 Ebermanstadt, Collaud advanced upon For- 
 chiers. His orders were to drive back every 
 opponent whom he found in the plain, and 
 disperse every force which attempted to cover 
 the place. The task was difficult ; the avenues 
 leading to it, the heights around it, were equally 
 guarded; and Wartensleben, in the midst oif 
 his soldiers, was exhorting them not to per- 
 mit their impregnable position to be carried. 
 It presented, in truth, every obstacle that could 
 well be imagined; they were abrupt, covered 
 with woods, surrounded by deep ravines. To 
 these obstacles of nature were joined all the 
 resources of art; on this height were placed 
 masses of soldiers, that was crowned with ar- 
 tillery; infantry was stationed at the summit 
 of the defiles, cavalry at their mouths ; on 
 every side the resistance promised to be of the 
 most formidable description. Ney, however, 
 was not to be deterred by such obstacles ; he 
 advanced at the head of a handful of heroes, 
 and opened his fire. He had only two pieces 
 of artillery; the enemy speedily unmasked 
 fourteen. His troop was for a moment shaken 
 by the violence of the fire ; but it was ac- 
 customed to all the chances of war. It speedily 
 re-formed, continued the attack, and succeeded, 
 after an obstinate struggle, in throwing the ene- 
 my's ranks into disorder. Some reinforcements 
 soon afterwards arrived ; the melee grew 
 warmer; and at length the Austrians, over- 
 whelmed and broken, evacuated the position, 
 which they found themselves unable to defend. 
 
 " Kleber, charmed with that brilliant achieve- 
 ment, testified the warmest satisfaction with it 
 to the young officer. He addressed to him, 
 at the head of his troop, the most flattering ex- 
 pressions upon his activity, skill, and courage, 
 and concluded with these words, 'I. will no 
 longer hurt your modesty by continuing my 
 praises! My line is taken; you are a Gene- 
 ral of Brigade.' The chasseurs clapped their 
 hands, and the officers loudly testified their 
 satisfaction. Ney alone remained pensive ; he 
 even seemed to hesitate whether he should ac- 
 cept the rank, and did not utter a single word. 
 'Well,' continued Kleber, in the kindest man- 
 ner, 'you seem very confused; but the Aus- 
 trians are those who will speedily make you 
 forget your ennui ; as for me, I will forthwith 
 report your promotion to the Directory.' He 
 did so in effect, and it was confirmed by return 
 of post." I. 186. 
 
 It is still a question undecided, whether Na- 
 poleon intended seriously to invade England, 
 or whether his great preparations in the Chan- 
 nel were a feint merely to give employment 
 12 
 
 to his troops, and cover other designs. Bour- 
 rienne maintains that he. never in reality in- 
 tended to attempt the descent; and that, un- 
 known to every one, he was organizing his 
 expedition into the heart of Germany at the 
 time when all around him imagined that he 
 was studying only the banks of the Thames. 
 Napoleon himself affirms the contrary. He 
 asserts that he was quite serious in his inten- 
 tion of invading England; that he was fully 
 aware of the risks with which the attempt 
 would have been attended, but was willing to 
 have braved them for so great an object ; and 
 that the defeat of the combined squadron by 
 Sir Robert Calder, frustrated the best combined 
 plan he had ever laid during his whole career. 
 His plan, as detailed in the instructions given 
 to Villeneuve, printed in the appendix to his 
 Memoirs, was to have sent the combined fleet 
 to the West Indies, in order to draw after it 
 Lord Nelson's squadron ; and to have immedi- 
 ately brought it back, raised the blockade of 
 Ferrol and Corunna, and proceeded with the 
 combined fleet to join the squadrons of Rochelle 
 and Brest, where twenty sail of the line were 
 ready for sea, and brought the combined squad- 
 ron into the Channel to cover the embarkation 
 of the army. In this way, by a sudden con- 
 centration of all his naval force, he calculated 
 upon having seventy sail of the line in the 
 Channel ; a much greater force than, in the ab- 
 sence of Lord Nelson, the British could have 
 at once assembled to meet him. When we 
 recollect that Lord Nelson fell into the snare, 
 and actually pursued the combined fleets to 
 the West Indies ; that in pursuance of Na- 
 poleon's design, Villeneuve -reached Ferrol, 
 and that it was in consequence only of his un- 
 successful action with Sir Robert Calder, that 
 he was induced to fall back to Cadiz, and there- 
 by cause the whole plan to miscarry; it is 
 evident that the fate of Britain then hung upon 
 a thread, arid that if the English admiral had 
 been defeated, and the combined fleet had pro- 
 ceeded up the Channel, the invasion might have 
 been effected, and the fate of the civilized world 
 been changed. It is a singular proof of the 
 sagacity of Lord Collingwood, that at the very 
 time when this well-combined plan was in 
 progress on Napoleon's, side, he divined the 
 enemy's intentions, and in a memorial address- 
 ed to the Admiralty, and published in his Me- 
 moirs, pointed out the danger arising from the 
 precise plan which his great antagonist was 
 adopting; and it is a still more singular in- 
 stance of the injustice and precipitance of 
 public opinion, that the British government 
 were compelled to bring the admiral to a 
 court-martial, and dismiss him from the ser- 
 vice, because, with fifteen ships of the line, he 
 had maintained a glorious combat with twenty- 
 seven, captured two of their line, and defeated 
 the greatest and best combined project ever 
 formed by the Emperor Napoleon. 
 
 As every thing relating to this critical pe- 
 riod of the war is of the very highest interest 
 in Great Britain, we shall translate the pas- 
 sages of Ney's Memoirs, which throw light 
 upon the vast preparations then made on the 
 other side of the Channel. 
 
 "Meanwhile time passed on, and England, 
 B* 
 
90 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 a little recovered from its consternation, but 
 nevertheless the real place of attack, always 
 escaped its government. Four thousand gun- 
 boats covered the coast; the construction of 
 praams and rafts went on without intermission ; 
 every thing announced that the invasion was 
 to be effected by main force, and by means of 
 the flotilla which made so much noi.se. If the 
 strife was doubtful, it at least had its chance 
 of success ; but while England was daily be- 
 coming more confident of success in repelling 
 that aggression, the preparations for the real 
 attack were approaching to maturity. Napoleon 
 never seriously intended to traverse the Chan- 
 nel under cover of a fog, by the aid of a favour- 
 able wind, or by the force of such frail vessels 
 of war as gun-boats. His arrangements were 
 better made; and all that splendid display of 
 gun-boats was only intended to deceive the 
 enemy. He wished to disperse the force which 
 he could not combat when assembled together. 
 In pursuance of this plan, his fleets were to 
 have assembled from Toulon, Rochfort, Cadiz, 
 Brest, and Ferrol, draw after them to the West 
 Indies the British blockading squadrons, and 
 return rapidly on their steps, and present them- 
 selves in the Channel before the English were 
 well aware that they had crossed the Line. 
 Master in this way of a preponderating force, 
 riding irresistibly in the Channel, he would have 
 embarked on board his flotilla the troops with 
 which he would have made himself master of 
 London, and revolutionized England, before 
 that immense marine, which he could never 
 have faced when assembled together, could 
 have collected for its defence. These different 
 expeditions, long retained in their different har- 
 bours, had at length set sail ; the troops had 
 received orders to be ready to put themselves 
 instantly on board; the instructions to the 
 general had foreseen every thing, provided for 
 every emergency ; the vessels assigned to each 
 troop, the order in which they were to fall out 
 of the harbour, were all fixed. Arms, horses, 
 artillery, combatants, camp-followers, all had 
 received their place, all were arranged accord- 
 ing to their orders. 
 
 " Marshal Ney had nothing to do but follow 
 out literally his instructions ; they were so 
 luminous and precise as to provide for every 
 contingency. He distributed the powder, the 
 tools, the projectiles, which were to accompany 
 his corps on board the transports provided for 
 that purpose. He divided that portion of the 
 flotilla assigned to him into subdivisions; 
 every regiment, every battalion, every com- 
 pany, received the praams destined for their 
 use; every one, down to the very last man, 
 was ready to embark at the first signal. He 
 did more ; rapidity of movement requires com- 
 bined exertions, and he resolved to habituate 
 the troops to embarkation. The divisions were 
 successively brought down to the quay, and 
 embarked in the finest order ; but it was possi- 
 ble that when assembled hurriedly together, 
 they might be less calm and orderly. The 
 Marshal resolved to put it to the proof. 
 
 " Infantry, cavalry, artillery, were at once 
 put under arms, and ranged opposite to the 
 vessels on which they were to embark. The 
 whole were formed in platoons for embarka- 
 
 tion, at small distances from each other. A 
 cannon was discharged; the field-officers and 
 staff-officers immediately dismounted, and 
 placed themselves each at the head of the 
 troop he was destined to command. The drums 
 had ceased to beat; the soldiers had unfixed 
 their bayonets; a second discharge louder than 
 '.he first was heard ; the generals of divisions 
 pass the order to the colonels. 'Make ready 
 to embark.' Instantly a calm succeeds to the 
 tumult; everyone listens attentively, eagerly 
 watching for the next order, on which so much 
 depended. A third cannon is heard, and the 
 command ' Colonels, forward,' is heard with 
 indescribable anxiety along the line. In fine 
 a last discharge resounds, and is instantly fol- 
 lowed by the order, ' March !' Universal ac- 
 clamations instantly broke forth; the soldiers 
 hurried on board ; in ten minutes and a half 
 twenty-five thousand men were embarked. 
 The soldiers never entertained a doubt that 
 they were about to set sail. They arranged 
 themselves, and each took quarters for him- 
 self; when the cannon again sounded, the 
 drums beat to arms, they formed ready for 
 action on the decks. A last gun is discharged ; 
 every one believed it was the signal to weigh 
 anchor, and shouts of Vive V Empereur rent the 
 air, but it was the signal for debarkation, 
 which was effected silently and with deep re- 
 gret. It was completed, however, as rapidly 
 as the embarkation, and in thirteen minutes 
 from the time when the soldiers were on 
 board, they were arranged in battle array on 
 the shore. 
 
 "Meanwhile the English had completely 
 fallen into the snare. The fleet which cruised 
 before Rochfort had no sooner seen Admiral 
 Missiessy running down before the wind, than 
 it set sail in pursuit. Villeneuve, who started 
 from Toulon in the middle of a violent tem- 
 pest, was obliged to return to the harbour; but 
 such was Nelson's anxiety to meet him, that 
 he set sail first for Egypt, then for the West In- 
 dies. The Mediterranean was speedily cleared 
 of English vessels ; their fleets wandered 
 through the Atlantic, without knowing where 
 to find the enemy; the moment to strike a 
 decisive stroke had arrived. 
 
 "The unlocked for return of Missiessy frus- 
 trated all these calculations. He had sailed 
 like an arrow to Martinique, and returned still 
 more rapidly: but the English now retained 
 at home the squadrons which they had original- 
 ly intended to have sent for the defence of 
 Jamaica. Our situation in consequence was 
 less favourable than we had expected ; but, 
 nevertheless, there was nothing to excite un- 
 easiness. We had fifteen ships of the line at 
 Ferrol, six at Cadiz, five at Rochfort, twenty- 
 one at Brest. Villeneuve was destined to rally 
 them, join them to the twenty which he had 
 under his orders, and advancing at the head 
 of an overwhelming force, make himself mas- 
 ter of the Channel. He left Toulon on the 
 30th March, and on the 23d June he was at the 
 Azores, on his return to Europe, leaving Nelson 
 still in the West Indies. But at the very mo- 
 ment when every one flattered himself that 
 our vessels would speedily arrive to protect 
 the embarkation of the army, we learnt that, 
 
MARSHAL NEY. 
 
 9t 
 
 deterred by a cannonade of a few hours, and 
 the loss of two ships, (Sir R. Calder's battle,) 
 he had taken refuge in Ferrol. A mournful 
 feeling took possession of our minds ; every 
 one complained that a man should be so im- 
 measurably beneath his destiny. 
 
 "All hope, however, was not lost; the em- 
 peror still retained it. He continued his dis- 
 positions, and incessantly urged the advance 
 of the marine. Every one flattered himself 
 that Villeneuve, penetrated with the greatness 
 of his mission, would at length put to sea, join 
 Gautheame, disperse the fleet of Cornwallis, 
 and at length make his appearance in the 
 Channel. But an unhappy fatality drew him 
 on. He only left Ferrol to throw himself into 
 Cadiz. It was no longer possible to count on 
 the support of his squadron. The emperor in 
 vain attempted other expedients, and made 
 repeated attempts to embark. Nothing could 
 succeed for want of the covering squadron ; 
 and soon the Battle of Trafalgar arid the 
 Austrian war postponed the conquest of Eng- 
 land to another age." II. 259 262. 
 
 This passage, as- well as all the others in 
 Napoleon's Memoirs, which are of a similar 
 import, are calulated, in our opinion, to excite 
 the most singular feelings. They demonstrate, 
 beyond a doubt, of what incalculable import- 
 ance Sir Robert Calder's action was ; and that, 
 more than even the triumph of Trafalgar, it 
 fixed the destinies of Britain. The great victory 
 of Nelson did not occur till the 21st October, 
 and months before that the armies of Napo- 
 leon had been transported from the shores of 
 Boulogne to the heart of Germany, and were 
 irrevocably engaged in a contest with Austria 
 and Russia. It was Sir Robert Calder's action 
 which broke the course of Napoleon's designs, 
 and chained his armies to the shore, at the 
 very time when they were ready to have 
 passed over, with a second Caesar, to the shores 
 of Britain. It is melancholy to think of the 
 fate of the gallant officer, under the dictation 
 of that impartial judge, the popular voice, 
 whose skill and bravery achieved these great 
 results. 
 
 It is a curious speculation, now that the 
 event is over, what would have been the fate 
 of England, if Napoleon, with one hundred 
 and fifty thousand men, had, in consequence 
 of the success of these combinations, landed 
 on the shores of Sussex. We are now com- 
 pelled, with shame and sorrow, to doubt the 
 doctrine which, till the last three years, we 
 held on this subject. We fear, there is a great 
 probability that he would have achieved the 
 overthrow of the British empire. Not that 
 the mere force of Napoleon's army, great as it 
 was, could have in the end subjugated the de- 
 scendants of the conquerors of Cressy and 
 Azicour. The examples of Vimiera, Maida, 
 Alexandria, Corunna, and Waterloo, where 
 English troops, who had never seen a shot 
 fired in anger, at once defeated the veterans 
 of France, even when commanded by the 
 ablest officers, is sufficient to prove the reverse. 
 England was invincible, if she remained faith*- 
 ful to herself. But would she have remained 
 faithful to herself 1 That is the question. The 
 events of the last three years have awakened 
 
 us to the mournful fear, that she would not. It 
 is now proved, by sad experience, that we 
 possess within ourselves a numerous, power- 
 ful, and energetic, faction, insatiable in am- 
 bition, unextinguishable in resources, deaf to 
 every call of patriotism, dead to every feeling 
 of hereditary glory. To them national triumph 
 is an object of regret, because it was achieved 
 under the banners of their opponents ; national 
 humiliation an object of indifference, provided 
 they are elevated by it to the reins of power. 
 With burning hearts and longing eyes they 
 watched the career of the French Revolution, 
 ever eulogizing its principles, palliating its 
 excesses, vituperating its adversaries. Mr. 
 Fox pronounced in Parliament the Constitu- 
 j tion framed by the Constituent Assembly, to 
 be "the most astonishing fabric of wisdom 
 | and virtue which patriotism had reared in any 
 i age or country, on the ruins of ignorance and 
 ' superstition." And when this astonishing 
 fabric produced Danton and Robespierre, and 
 hatched the Reign of Terror, he showed no 
 disposition to retract the opinion. Two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand Irishmen, we are told 
 by Wolfe Tone, were united, drilled, regimented 
 and organized, to effect the separation of Ire- 
 land from Great Britain ; and if we may be- 
 lieve Mr. Moore, in his Life of Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald, Mr. Fox was no stranger to their 
 treasonable intentions at the very time when 
 he earnestly supported their demand for Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. During the last three years 
 we have seen this party systematically undo 
 every think which their predecessors had 
 effected during half a century of unexampled 
 glory; abandon, one by one, all the objects of 
 our continental policy, the Dutch barrier, the 
 protection of Portugal, the independence of 
 Holland, the integrity of Turkey; unite the 
 leopard and the tricolor in an inglorious 
 crusade against the independence of the sur- 
 rounding' states ; beat down Holland by open 
 force, and subvert Portugal by feigned neutrali- 
 ty and real hostility; force the despots of 
 Northern Europe into a dangerous defensive 
 combination, and unite the arms of constitu- 
 tional freedom with those of democratic am- 
 bition in the South; and, to gain a deceitful 
 popularity for a few years, sacrifice the Con- 
 stitution, which had for two hundred years 
 conferred unexampled prosperity on their 
 country. The men who have done these 
 things, could not have been relied on when 
 assailed by the insidious arts and deceitful 
 promises of Napoleon. 
 
 Napoleon has told us, in his Memoirs, how 
 he proposed to have subjugated England. He 
 would have overcome it, as he overcame Swit- 
 zerland, Venice, and all the states which did 
 not meet him with uncompromising hostility. 
 He would instantly, on landing, have pub- 
 lished a proclamation, in which he declared 
 that he came to deliver the English from the 
 oligarchy under which they had groaned for 
 three centuries ; and for this end he would 
 have promised annual parliaments, universal 
 suffrage, vote by ballot, the confiscation of the 
 Church property, the abolition of the Corn 
 Laws, and all the objects of Whig or Radical 
 ambition. By these offers he would have 
 
92 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 thrown the apple of eternal discord and divi- 
 sion into Great Britain. The republican trans- 
 ports which broke out with such vehemence 
 on the announcement of the Reform Bill in 
 1831, would have been instantly heard on the 
 landing of the tricolor-flag on the throne of 
 England: and the divisions now so irrecover- 
 ably established amongst us, would have at 
 once arisen in presence of a gigantic and en- 
 terprising enemy. There can be little doubt, 
 we fear, what a considerable portion of the 
 Movement party in England, and the whole of 
 it in Ireland, would have done. They would, 
 heart and hand, have joined the enemy of their 
 country. Conceiving that they were doing 
 what was best for its inhabitants they would 
 have established a republic in close alliance 
 with France, and directed the whole resources 
 of England to support the cause of democracy 
 all over the world. Meanwhile, Napoleon, 
 little solicitous about their political dogmas, 
 would have steadily fixed his iron grasp on 
 the great warlike establishments of the coun- 
 try ; Portsmouth, Plymouth, Woolwich, Chat- 
 ham, Sheerness, Deptford, and Carron, would 
 have fallen into his hands ; the army would 
 have been exiled or disbanded; and if his 
 new democratical allies proved at all trouble- 
 some in the House of Commons, he would 
 have dispersed them with as little ceremony, 
 by a file of grenadiers, as he did the Council 
 of Five Hundred in the Orangery of St. Cloud. 
 
 It is with pain and humiliation that we 
 make this confession. Five years ago we 
 should have held any man a foul libeller on 
 the English character who should have de- 
 clared such conduct as probable in any part 
 of the English opposition ; and we should 
 have relied with as much confidence on the 
 whole liberal party to resist the aggressions 
 of France, as we should on the warmest ad- 
 herents of government. It is their own conduct, 
 since they came into power, which has unde- 
 ceived us, and opened our eyes to the immen- 
 sity of the danger to which the country was 
 exposed, when her firm patriots at the helm 
 nailed her colors to the mast. But regarding, 
 as we do, with perfect sincerity, the Reform 
 Bill as the parent of a much greater change 
 in our national institutions than a conquest by 
 France would have been, and the passing of 
 that measure as a far more perilous, because 
 more irremediable leap in the dark, than if 
 we had thrown ourselves into the arms of 
 Napoleon, we cannot but consider the subse- 
 quent events as singularly illustrative of the 
 prior dangers, and regard the expulsion of the 
 Whigs from the ministry by the firmness of 
 George III., in 1807, as a delivery from greater 
 danger than the country had known since the 
 Saxon arms were overthrown by William on 
 the field of Hastings. 
 
 One of the most brilliant acts of Napoleon 
 was his astonishing march from Boulogne to 
 Swabia, in 1805, and the admirable skill with 
 which he accumulated his forces, converging 
 from so many different points round the un- 
 fortunate Mack, who lay bewildered at Ulm. 
 In this able undertaking, as well as in the 
 combat at Elchingen, which contributed in so 
 essential a manner to its success, and from 
 
 which his title of duke was taken, Ney bore 
 a conspicuous part. The previous situation 
 of the contending powers is thus described by 
 our author: 
 
 "The troops which the emperor had under 
 his command did not exceed 180,000 men. 
 This was little enough for the strife which 
 was about to commence, for the coalition did 
 not now merely oppose to us the troops which 
 they had in the first line. The allied sove- 
 reigns already addressed themselves to the 
 multitude, and loudly called on them to take 
 up arms in defence of liberty, they turned 
 against us the principles which they professed 
 their desire to destroy. They roused in Ger- 
 many national antipathies : flattered in Italy 
 the spirit of independence, scattered every 
 where the seeds of insurrection. The masses 
 of the people were slow to swallow the bait. 
 They appreciated our institutions, and did not 
 behold without distrust this sudden burst of 
 enthusiasm in sovereigns in favour of the po- 
 pular cause : but they readily took fire at the 
 recital of the sacrifices which we had imposed 
 on them, the promised advantages which we 
 had not permitted them to enjoy. The Coali- 
 tion prepared to attack us on all the vast line 
 which we occupied. Russians, Swedes, Eng- 
 lish, Hanoverians, hastened to take a part in 
 the strife. The approach of such a mass of 
 enemies might have occasioned dangerous 
 results ; a single reverse might have involved 
 us in a strife with warlike and impatient na- 
 tions; but the Austrians had imprudently 
 spread themselves through Bavaria, at a time 
 when the Russians had hardly as yet passed 
 Poland. The emperor did not despair of an- 
 ticipating the one and overwhelming the other, 
 and thus dissipating that formidable league of 
 sovereigns before they were in a situation to 
 deploy their forces on the field of battle. The 
 blow, according to these calculations, was to 
 be struck in Swabia. But from that country 
 to Boulogne, where our troops were stationed, 
 the distance was nearly the same as to Podo- 
 lia, where the Russians had arrived. He 
 sought to steal a march upon them to conceal 
 for some days the great manoeuvre which he 
 meditated. For this purpose, Marmont, whose 
 troops were on the coast, when he set out for 
 Germany, received orders to give out that he 
 was about to take merely other quarters ; and 
 Bernadotte, who was stationed in Hanover, to 
 encourage the opinion that he was about to 
 spend the winter in that country. Meanwhile 
 all had orders to hasten their march ; all ad- 
 vanced with the same celerity ; and when our 
 enemies still believed us on the shores of the 
 Channel, we were far advanced towards the 
 Rhine. The first and second corps had 
 reached Mayence; the third was grouped 
 around Manheim ; the fourth had halted in 
 the environs of Spire; the fifth was estab- 
 lished at Strasbourg, and the sixth, which had 
 started from Montreuilon the 28th August, had 
 reached Lauterbourg on the 24th September. 
 In that short interval, it had traversed three hun- 
 dred leagues, being at the rate of above ten 
 leagues a-day. History has nothing to show 
 comparable to such celerity." II. 268 270. 
 
 From a soldier of such ability and experi- 
 
MARSHAL NEY. 
 
 ence much may be expected of value on the 
 science of war. In the " Reflections" of the 
 marshal, at the end of the second volume, the 
 reader will find much interesting matter of that 
 description. We select one example : 
 
 " The defensive system accords ill with the 
 disposition of the French soldier, at least if it 
 is not to be maintained by successive diver- 
 sions and excursions ; in a word, if you are 
 not constantly occupied in that little warfare, 
 inactivity destroys the force of troops who 
 rest constantly on the defensive. They are 
 obliged to be constantly on the alert, night 
 and day; while, on the other hand, offensive 
 expeditions, wisely combined, raise the spirit 
 of the soldier, and prevent him from having 
 time to ponder on the real cause of his dan- 
 gerous situation. 
 
 "It is in the offensive that yoji find in the 
 French soldier inexhaustible" resources. His 
 active disposition, and valour in assaults, 
 double his power. A general should never 
 hesitate to march with the bayonet against the 
 enemy, if the ground is favourable for the use 
 of that weapon. It is in the attack, in fine, 
 that you accustom the French soldier to every 
 species of warfare, alike to brave the ene- 
 my's fire, which is generally little hurtful, 
 and to leave the field open to the develop- 
 ment of his intelligence and courage. 
 . " One of the greatest difficulties in war is 
 to accustom the soldier to the fatigues of 
 marching. The other powers of Europe will 
 attain with difficulty in this respect the degree 
 of perfection which the French soldier pos- 
 sesses. His sobriety and physical constitu- 
 tion are the real causes of the marked superi- 
 ority he has acquired over the Austrians in 
 that particular. 
 
 " Rapidity of march, or rather an able com- 
 bination of marches, almost invariably deter- 
 mine the fate of war. Colonels of infantry, 
 therefore, should be indefatigable in their en- 
 deavours to train their soldiers progressively to 
 ordinary and forced marches. To attain that 
 object, so essential in war, it is indispensable 
 
 to oblige the soldier to carry his knapsack on 
 his back from the outset of the campaign, in 
 order to accustom him to the fatigues which 
 in the course of it he must undergo. The 
 health of the soldier depends on this being 
 habitual ; the men are economized by it ; the 
 continual loss by partial and frequently 
 useless combats is avoided, as well as the 
 considerable expenses of hospitals to govern- 
 ment." II. 410, 411. 
 
 We have room for no more extracts : 
 those which have been already given will 
 convey a clear idea of the character of this 
 work. It possesses the merits, and exhibits 
 the defects, of all the memoirs by the leaders 
 of the ambitious or war party in France, re- 
 garding that period. Abounding in anecdote, 
 full of patriotic spirit and military adventure, 
 it at the same time presents all the prejudices 
 and errors of that party, a profound and 
 unreasonable hatred of this country an im- 
 passioned enthusiasm for the glory of France 
 a deliberate and apparently sincere belief, 
 that whatever opposes its elevation is to be 
 looked upon with instinctive and unconquer- 
 able aversion. In this respect, the opinions 
 of this party in France are utterly extravagant, 
 and not a little amusing. They make no 
 allowances for the differences of national 
 feeling yield nothing to national rivalry 
 never transport themselves into the breasts of 
 their antagonists in the strife, or of the people 
 they are oppressing, but take for granted, as a 
 matter concerning which there can be no dis- 
 pute, that whatever resists the glory of France 
 is an enemy of the human race. There are 
 many writers of intelligence and ability in 
 whom we cannot pardon this weakness ; but, 
 recollecting the tragic fate of Marshal Ney, 
 and pitying the ulcerated hearts of his rela- 
 tions, we find more excuse for it in his bio- 
 grapher, and look forward with interest to the 
 concluding volumes of this work, which will 
 contain still more interesting matter the 
 Peninsular campaigns, the Russian retreat, 
 the rout of Waterloo. 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ROBERT BRUCE.* 
 
 A Freedome is a noble thing; 
 Freedome makes man to have liking ; 
 Freedome all solace to men eives ; 
 He lives at ease that freely fives. 
 
 HARBOUR'S BRUCE. 
 
 THE discovery of the bones of ROBERT 
 BRUCE, among the ruins of Dunfermline ab- 
 bey, calls for some observations in a journal 
 intended to record the most remarkable events, 
 whether of a public or a domestic nature, 
 which occur during the period to which it 
 refers ; and it will never, perhaps, be our 
 good fortune to direct the attention of our 
 readers to an event more interesting to the 
 antiquary or the patriot of Scotland, than the 
 discovery and reinterment of the remains of 
 her greatest hero. 
 
 It is satisfactory, in the first place, to know 
 that no doubt can exist about the remains 
 which were discovered being really the bones 
 of Robert Bruce. Historians had recorded 
 that he was interred " debito cum honore in 
 medio Ecclesiae de Dunfermline ;" but the 
 ruin of the abbey at the time of the Reforma- 
 tion, and the subsequent neglect of the monu- 
 ments which it contained, had rendered it 
 difficult to ascertain where this central spot 
 really was. Attempts had been made to ex- 
 plore among the ruins for the tomb; but so 
 entirely was the form of cathedral churches 
 forgotten in this northern part of the island, 
 that the researches were made in a totally 
 different place from the centre of the edifice. 
 At length, in digging the foundations of the 
 new church, the workmen came to a tomb, 
 arched over with masonry, and bearing the 
 marks of more than usual care in its construc- 
 tion. Curiosity being attracted by this cir- 
 cumstance, it was suspected that it might 
 contain the remains of the illustrious hero ; 
 and persons of more skill having examined 
 the spot discovered that it stood prenscly in the 
 centre of the church, as its form was indicated 
 by the 'existing ruins. The tomb having been 
 opened in the presence of the Barons of 
 Exchequer, the discovery of the name of King 
 Robert on an iron plate among the rubbish, 
 and the cloth of gold in which the bones were 
 shrouded, left no room to doubt that the long 
 wished-for grave had at last been discovered ; 
 while the appearance of the skeleton, in 
 which the breast-bone was sawed asunder, 
 afforded a still more interesting proof of its 
 really being the remains of that illustrious 
 hero, whose heart was committed to his faith- 
 ful associate in arms, and thrown by him, on a 
 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, amidst the ranks 
 of the enemy, with the sublime expression, 
 " Onwards, as thou wast wont, thou fearless 
 heart." 
 
 Such an event demands a temporary pause 
 in the avocations and amusements of life. 
 We feel called on to go back, in imagination, 
 
 * Blackwood's Mapazine, Dec 1819. Written at 
 the time of the di-covery of the remains of Robert 
 Bruce in the church of Dunferniline. 
 
 to the distant and barbarous period when the 
 independence of our country was secured by 
 a valour and ability that has never since 
 been equalled; and in returning from his 
 recent grave to take a nearer view of the 
 difficulties which he had to encounter, and the 
 beneficial effects which his unshaken patriot- 
 ism has confirmed upon its people. Had we 
 lived in the period when his heroic achieve- 
 ments were fresh in the public recollection, 
 and when the arms of England yet trembled 
 at the-name of Bannockburn, we would have 
 dwelt with enthusiasm on his glorious ex- 
 ploits. A nation's gratitude should not relax, 
 when the lapse of five subsequent centuries 
 has not produced a rival to his patriotism and 
 valour ; and when this long period has served 
 only to develope the blessings which they 
 have conferred upon his country. 
 
 Towards a due understanding, however, of 
 the extraordinary merits of Robert Bruce, it 
 is necessary to take a cursory view of the 
 power with which he had to contend, and of 
 the resources of that kingdom, which, at that 
 critical juncture, providence committed to his 
 arms. 
 
 The power of England, against which it 
 was his lot incessantly to struggle, was, per- 
 haps, the most formidable which then existed 
 in Europe. The native valour of her people, 
 distinguished even under the weakest reign, 
 was then led on and animated by a numerous 
 and valiant feudal nobility. That bold and 
 romantic spirit of enterprise which led the 
 Norman arms to the throne of England, and 
 enabled Roger de Hauteville, with thirty fol- 
 lowers, to win the crown of the two Sicilies, 
 still animated the English nobles; and to this 
 hereditary spirit was added the remembrance 
 of the. matchless glories which their arms had 
 acquired in the wars of Palestine. The 
 barons, who were arrayed against Robert 
 Bruce, were the descendants of those iron 
 warriors who combated for Christendom under 
 the wall of Acre, and defeated the whole 
 Saracen strength in the battle of Ascalon ; the 
 banners that were unfurled for the conquest 
 of Scotland, were those which had waved 
 victorious over the arms of Saladin; and the 
 sovereign who led them, bore the crown 
 that had been worn by Richard in the Holy 
 Wars, and wielded in his sword the terror of 
 that mighty name, at which even the accumu- 
 lated hosts of Asia were appalled. 
 
 Nor were the resources of England less 
 formidable for maintaining and nourishing 
 the war. The prosperity which had grown 
 up with the equal laws of our Saxon ances- 
 tors, and which the tyranny of the early Nor- 
 man kings had never completely extinguished, 
 had revived and spread under the wise and 
 
ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 95 
 
 beneficent reigns of Henry II. and Edward I. 
 The legislative wisdom of the last monarch 
 had given to the English law greater improve- 
 ments than it had ever received in any subse- 
 quent reigns, while his heroic valour had 
 subdued the rebellious spirit of his barons, 
 and trained their united strength to submis- 
 sion to the throne. The acquisition of Wales 
 had removed the only weak point of his wide 
 dominion, and added a cruel and savage race 
 to the already formidable mass of his armies. 
 The navy of England already ruled the seas, 
 and was prepared to carry ravage and desola- 
 tion over the wide and defenceless Scottish 
 coast ; while a hundred thousand men, armed 
 in the magnificent array of feudal war, and 
 led on by the ambition of a feudal nobility, 
 poured into a country which seemed destined 
 only to be their prey. 
 
 But most of all, in the ranks of this army, 
 were found the intrepid YEOMAXRY of Eng- 
 land ; that peculiar and valuable body of men 
 which has in every age contributed as much 
 to the stability of the English character, as 
 the celebrity of the English arms, and which 
 then composed those terrible archers, whose 
 prowess rendered them so formidable to all 
 the armies of Europe. These men, whose 
 valour was warmed by the consciousness of 
 personal freedom, and whose strength was 
 nursed among the enclosed fields and green 
 pastures of English liberty, conferred, till the 
 discovery of fire-arms rendered personal ac- 
 quirements of no avail, a matchless advan- 
 tage on the English armies. The troops of 
 no other nation could produce a body of men 
 in the least comparable to them either in 
 strength, discipline, or individual valour; and 
 such was the dreadful efficacy with which 
 they used their weapons, that not only did 
 they mainly contribute to the subsequent tri- 
 umphs of Cressy and Azincour, but at Poitiers 
 and Hamildon Hill they alone gained the vic- 
 tory, with hardly any assistance from the 
 feudal tenantry. 
 
 These troops were well known to the 
 Scottish soldiers, and had established their 
 superiority over them in many bloody battles, 
 in which the utmost efforts of undisciplined 
 valour had been found unavailing against 
 their practised discipline and superior equip- 
 ment. The very names of the barons who 
 headed them were associated with, an un- 
 broken career of conquest and renown, and 
 can hardly be read yet without a feeling of 
 national exultation. 
 
 Names that to fear were never known, 
 Bold Norfolk's Earl lie Brotherton, 
 And Oxford's famed do Vere ; 
 Ross, Montapne, and Manly came, 
 And Courtney's pride, and Percy's fame, 
 Names known too well in Scotland's war 
 At Falkirk, Methven. and Dunbar, 
 Dla/.ed broader yet in after years, 
 At Cressy red, and fell Poitiers. 
 
 Against this terrible force, before which, in 
 the succeeding reign, the military power of 
 France was compelled to bow, Bruce had to 
 array the scanty troops of a barren land, and 
 the divided forces of a turbulent nobility. 
 Scotland was, in his time, fallen low indeed 
 from that state of peace and prosperity in 
 
 which she was found at the first invas ; on of 
 Edward I., and on which so much light has 
 been thrown by the industrious research of 
 our times.* The disputed succession had 
 sown the seeds of unextinguishable jealousies 
 among the nobles ; the gold of England had 
 corrupted many to betray their country's 
 cause; and the xatal ravages of English inva- 
 sion naa desolated the whole plains from 
 which resources for carrying on the war 
 could be dra\\(n. All the heroic valour, the 
 devoted patriotism, and the personal prowess 
 of Wallace, had been unable to stem the 
 torrent of English invasion ; and, when he 
 died, the whole nation seemed to sink under 
 the load against which his unexampled forti- 
 tude had long enabled it to struggle. These 
 unhappy jealousies among the nobles, to 
 which his downfall was owing, still continued, 
 and almost rendered hopeless any attempt to 
 combine their forces ; while the thinned popu- 
 lation and ruined husbandry of the country 
 seemed to prognosticate nothing but utter 
 extirpation from a continuance of the war. 
 Nor was the prospect less melancholy from a 
 consideration of the combats which had taken 
 place. The short spear and light shield of 
 the Scotch had been found utterly unavailing 
 against the iron panoply and powerful horses 
 of the English barons; while the hardy and 
 courageous mountaineers perished in vain 
 under the dreadful tempest of the English 
 archery. 
 
 What then must have been the courage of 
 that youthful prince, who after having been 
 driven for shelter to an island on the north of 
 Ireland, could venture, with only forty fol- 
 lowers, to raise the standard of independence 
 in the west of Scotland, against the accumu- 
 lated force of this mighty power? what the 
 resources of that understanding, which, though 
 intimately acquainted, from personal service, 
 with the tried superiority of the English arms, 
 could foresee, in his barren and exhausted 
 country, the means of combating them 1 what 
 the ability of that political conduct which 
 could re-unite the jaring interests, and smother 
 the deadly feuds, of the Scottish nobles ? and 
 what the capacity of that noble warrior, who, 
 in the words of the contemporary historian,f 
 could "unite the prowess of the first knight to 
 the conduct of the greatest general of his age," 
 and was able, in the space of six years, to raise 
 the Scottish arms from the lowest point of 
 depression to such a pitch of glory, that even 
 the redoubted archers and haughty chivalry 
 of England fled at the sight of the Scottish 
 banner ?t 
 
 Nor was it only in the field that the great 
 and patriotic conduct of Robert Bruce was dis- 
 played. In the endeavour to restore the almost 
 ruined fortunes of his country, and to heal the 
 wounds which a war of unparalleled severity 
 had brought noon its people, he exhibited the 
 same wise ana beneficent policy. Under his 
 auspicious rule, husbandry revived, arts were 
 encouraged, and the turbulent barons were 
 awed into subjection. Scotland recovered, 
 during his administration, in a great measure, 
 
 * rtnlmers's Ciledonb, vol. i fFroiesart. 
 
 $ Walsing. p. 10o. Mon. Malms, p. 102, 153. 
 
96 
 
 ALISON';! MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 from the devastation that had preceeded it 
 and the peasants, forgetting the stern warrio 
 in the beneficent monarch, long rememberec 
 his sway, under the name of the " good King 
 Robert's reign." 
 
 But the greatness of his character appeared 
 most of all from the events that occurred aftei 
 his death. When the capacity with which 
 he and his worthy associates, Randolph anc 
 Douglas, had counterbalanced the superiority 
 of the English arms, was withdrawn, the fabric 
 which they had supported fell to the ground 
 In the very first battle which was fought after 
 his death, at Hamildon Hill, a larger army 
 than that which conquered at Bannockburn 
 was overthrown by the archers of England 
 without a single knight couching his spear 
 Never, at any subsequent period, was Scotland 
 able to withstand the more powerful arms of 
 the English yeomanry. Thenceforward, her 
 military history is little more than a melancholy 
 catalogue of continued defeats, occasioned 
 rather by treachery on the part of her nobles, 
 or incapacity in her generals, than any defect 
 of valour in her soldiers ; and the independence 
 of the monarchy was maintained rather by the 
 terror which the name of Bruce and the re- 
 membrance of Bannockbuni had inspired, 
 than by the achievements of any of the suc- 
 cessors to his throne.* 
 
 The merits of Robert Bruce, as a warrior, 
 are very generally acknowledged; and the eyes 
 of Scottish patriotism turn with the greater 
 txultation to his triumphs, from the contrast 
 which their splendour affords to the barren 
 and humiliating annals of the subsequent 
 reigns. But the important CONSEQ.UEIVCES of 
 nis victories are not sufficiently appreciated. 
 "While all admit the purity of the motives by 
 which he was actuated, there are many who 
 lament the consequences of his success, and 
 perceive in it the source of those continued 
 hostilities between England and Scotland 
 which have brought such incalculable calami- 
 ties upon both countries, and from which the 
 latter has only within half a century begun to 
 recover. Better would it have been, it is said 
 for the prosperity of this country, if, like Wales, 
 she had passed at once under the dominion of 
 the English government, and received, five 
 centuries ago, the present of that liberty which 
 she so entirely lost during her struggles for 
 national independence, and which nothing but 
 her subsequent union with a free people has 
 enabled her to obtain. 
 
 There is something, we think, a priori, im- 
 probable in this supposition, that, from the 
 assertion of her independence under Robert 
 Bruce, Scotland has received any injury. The 
 instinct to maintain the national independence, 
 and resist aggression from foreign powers, is 
 so universally implanted among mankind, that 
 it may well be doubted whether an obedience 
 to its impulse is likely in any case to pro- 
 duce injurious effects. In fact, subjugation 
 by a foreign power is itself, in general, a greater 
 calamity than any benefits with which it is 
 accompanied can ever compensate; because, 
 in the very act of receiving them by force, there 
 
 * Henry's Britain, vol. vii. 
 
 is implied an entire dereliction of all that is 
 valuable in political blessings, a security that 
 they will remain permanent. There is no ex- 
 ample, perhaps, to be found in the history of 
 mankind, of political freedom being either 
 effectually conferred by a sovereign in gift, or 
 communicated by the force of foreign arms ; 
 but as liberty is the greatest blessing which 
 man can enjoy, so it seems to be the law of 
 nature that it should be the reward of intre- 
 pidity and energy alone ; and that it is by the 
 labour of his hands, and the sweat of his brow, 
 that he is to earn his freedom as well as his 
 subsistence. 
 
 Least of all are such advantages to be an- 
 ticipated from the conquest of a. free people. 
 That the dominion of free states over con- 
 quered countries is always more tyrannical 
 than that of any other form of government, 
 has been observed ever since the birth of 
 liberty in the Grecian states, by all who have 
 been so unfortunate as to be subjected to their 
 rule. If we except the Roman republic, whose 
 wise and beneficent policy is so entirely at 
 variance with every thing else which we ob- 
 serve in human affairs, that we are almost dis- 
 posed to impute it to a special interposition of 
 divine providence, there is no free state in 
 ancient or modern times, whose government 
 towards the countries whom it subdued has 
 not been of the most oppressive description. 
 We are accustomed to speak of the maternal 
 government of free governments, but towards 
 their subject provinces, it is generally the 
 cruel tyranny of the step-mother, who oppresses 
 her acquired children to favour her own off- 
 spring. 
 
 Nor is it difficult to perceive the reason 
 why a popular government is naturally in- 
 clined, in the general case, to severity towards 
 its dependencies. A single monarch looks to 
 the revenue alone of the countries whom he 
 las subdued, and as it necessarily rises with 
 the prosperity which they enjoy, his obvious 
 nterest is to pursne the measures best calcu- 
 ated to secure it. But in republics, or in those 
 "ree governments where the popular voice ex- 
 ercises a decided control, the leading men of 
 he state themselves look to the property of 
 he subject country as the means of their in- 
 dividual exaltation. Confiscations according- 
 y are multiplied, with a view to gratify the 
 >eople or nobles of the victorious country 
 with grants of the confiscated lands. Hatred 
 and animosity are thus engendered between 
 he ruling government and their subject 
 provinces ; and this, in its time, gives rise to 
 new confiscations, by which the breach be- 
 ween the higher and lower orders is rendered 
 rreparable. Whoever is acquainted with the 
 listory of the dominion which the Athenian 
 and Sy racusan populace held over their subject 
 ities ; with the government of Genoa, Venice, 
 nd Florence, in modern times ; or with the 
 anguinary rule which England exercised 
 ver Ireland during the three centuries which 
 bllowed her subjugation, will know that this 
 tatement is not overcharged. 
 
 On principle, therefore, and judging by the 
 
 xperience of past times, there is no room to 
 
 doubt, that Bruce, in opposing the conquest of 
 
ROBERT BRUCE, 
 
 97 
 
 Scotland by the English arms, doing what the 
 real interest of his country required ; and that 
 how incalculable soever may be the blessings 
 which she has since received by a union, on 
 equal terms, with her southern neighbour, the 
 result would have been very different had she 
 entered into that government on the footing of 
 involuntary subjugation. In fact, it is not diffi- 
 cult to perceive what would have been the 
 policy which England would have pursued to- 
 wards this country, had she prevailed in the 
 contest for the Scottish throne ; and it is by 
 following out the consequences of such an 
 event, and tracing its probable influence on 
 the condition of our population at this day, 
 that we can alone appreciate the immense obli- 
 gations we owe to our forefathers, who fought 
 and died on the field of Bannockburn. 
 
 Had the English then prevailed in the war 
 with Robert Bruce, and finally succeeded in 
 establishing their long wished-for dominion in 
 this country, it cannot be doubted, that their 
 first measure would have been to dispossess a 
 large portion of the nobles who had so obsti- 
 nately maintained the war against them, and 
 substitute their own barons in their room. The 
 pretended rebellion of Scotland against the 
 legitimate authority of Edward, would have 
 furnished a plausible pretext for such a pro- 
 ceeding, while policy would of course have 
 suggested it as the most efficacious means, both 
 of restraining the turbulent and hostile spirit 
 of the natives, and of gratifying the great barons 
 by whose force they had been subdued. In 
 fact, many such confiscations and grants of 
 the lands to English nobles actually took place, 
 during the time that Edward I. maintained his 
 authority within the Scottish territory. 
 
 The consequences of such a measure are 
 very obvious. The dispossessed proprietors 
 would have nourished the most violent and 
 inveterate animosity against their oppressors ; 
 and the tenantry on their estates, attached by 
 feudal and clanish affection to their ancient 
 masters, would have joined in any scheme for 
 their restoration. The seeds of continual dis- 
 cord and hatred would thus have been sown 
 between the lower orders and the existing 
 proprietors of the soil. On the other hand, 
 the great English barons, to whom the con- 
 fiscated lands were assigned, would naturally 
 prefer the society of their own country, and the 
 security of their native castles, to the unpro- 
 ductive soil and barbarous tribes on their 
 northern estates. They would in consequence 
 have relinquished these estates to factors or 
 agents, and, without ever thinking of residing 
 among a people by whom they were detested, 
 have sought only to increase, by rigorous ex- 
 actions, the revenue which they could derive 
 from their labour. 
 
 In progress of time, however, the natural 
 fervour of the Scottish people, their hereditary 
 animosities against England, the exertions of 
 the dispossessed proprietors, and the oppression 
 of the English authorities, would have occa- 
 sioned a revolt in Scotland. They would na- 
 turally have chosen for such an undertaking 
 the moment when the English forces were en- 
 gaged in the wars of France, and when the 
 entire desertion of the nothern frontier pro- 
 13 
 
 raised successful rapine to their arms. In such 
 circumstances, it is not to be doubted that they 
 would have been unable to withstand the seeds 
 of resistance to the English arms, which the 
 French emissaries would have sedulously 
 spread through the country. And if the au- 
 thority of England was again re-established, 
 new and more extensive confiscations would 
 of course have followed ; the English nobles 
 would have been gratified by grants of the most 
 considerable estates on the north of the Tweed, 
 and the bonds of military subjection would- 
 have been tightened on the unfortunate people 
 who were subdued. 
 
 The continuance of the wars between France 
 and England, by presenting favourable op- 
 portunities to the Scotch to revolt, combined 
 with the temptation which the remoteness of 
 their situation and the strength of their coun- 
 try afforded, would have induced continual 
 civil wars between the peasantry and their 
 foreign masters, until the resources of the coun- 
 try were entirely exhausted, and the people 
 sunk in hopeless submission under the power 
 that oppressed them. 
 
 But in the progress of these wars, an evil 
 of a far greater and more permanent descrip- 
 tion would naturally arise, than either the loss 
 of lives or the devastation of property which 
 they occasioned. In the course of the pro- 
 tracted contest, the LANDED PROPERTY OF THB 
 
 COUNTRY WOULD ENTIRELY HAVE CHANGED MAS- 
 TERS ; and in place of being possessed by na- 
 tives of the country permanently settled on 
 their estates, and attached by habit and com- 
 mon interest to the labourers of the ground, 
 it would have come into the hands of foreign 
 noblemen, forced upon the country by military 
 power, hated by the natives, residing always 
 on their English estates, and regarding the 
 people of Scotland as barbarians, whom it was 
 alike impolitic to approach, and necessary to 
 curb by despotic power. 
 
 But while such would be the feelings anej 
 policy of the English proprietors, the stewards 
 whom they appointed to manage their Scotch 
 estates, at a distance from home, and surround- 
 ed by a fierce and hostile population, would 
 have felt the necessity of some assistance, to 
 enable them to maintain their authority, or 
 turn to any account the estates that were com- 
 mitted to their care. Unable to procure mili- 
 tary assistance, to enforce the submission of 
 every district, or collect the rents of every pro- 
 perty, they would, of necessity, have looked to 
 some method of conciliating the people of the 
 country ; and such a method would naturally 
 suggest itself in the attachment which the peo- 
 ple bore to the families of original landlords, and 
 the consequent means which they possessed 
 of swaying their refractory dispositions. These 
 unhappy men, on the other hand, despairing 
 of the recovery of their whole estates, would 
 be glad of an opportunity of regaining any part 
 of them, and eagerly embrace any proposal by 
 which such a compromise might be effected. 
 The sense qf mutal dependence, in short, would 
 have led to an arrangement, by which the es- 
 tates of the English nobles ti-cre to be subset to 
 the Scottish prmiric'ora for a f:.n<l ynrly rent, and 
 they would take upoii themselves the task to 
 
98 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 which they alone were competent, of recovering 
 the rents from the actual cultivators of the soil. 
 
 As the numbers of the people increased, 
 however, and the value of the immense farms 
 which had been thus granted to the descendants 
 of their original proprietors was enhanced, the 
 task of collecting rents over so extensive a 
 district would have become too great for any 
 individual, and the increased wealth which he 
 had acquired from the growth of his tenantry, 
 would have led him to dislike the personal la- 
 bour with which it would be attended. These 
 great tenants, in consequence, would have sub- 
 set their vast possessions to an inferior set of 
 occupiers, who might each superintend the 
 collection of the rents within his own farm, 
 and have an opportunity of acquiring a per- 
 sonal acquaintance with the labourers by whom 
 it was to be cultivated. As the number of the 
 people increased, the same process would be 
 repeated by the different tenants on their re- 
 spective farms ; and thus there would have 
 sprung up universally in Scotland a class of 
 MIDDLE MEN between the proprietor and the ac- 
 tual cultivator of the soil. 
 
 While these changes went on, the condition 
 of the people, oppressed by a series of suc- 
 cessive masters, each of whom required to live 
 by their labour, and wholly debarred from ob- 
 taining any legal redress for their grievances, 
 would have gradually sunk. Struggling with 
 a barren soil, and a host of insatiable oppres- 
 sors, they could never have acquired any ideas 
 of comfort, or indulged in any hopes of rising 
 in the world. They would, in consequence, 
 have adopted that species of food which pro- 
 mised to afford the greatest nourishment for a 
 family from the smallest space of ground ; and 
 from the universality of this cause, the POTATO 
 would have become the staple food of the 
 country. 
 
 The landed proprietors, on the other hand, 
 who are the natural protectors, and ought al- 
 ways to be the best encouragers of the people 
 on their estates, would have shrunk from the 
 idea of leaving their English possessions, 
 where they were surrounded by an affectionate 
 and comfortable tenantry, where riches and 
 plenty sprung from the natural fertility of the 
 soil, and where power and security were de- 
 rived from their equal law, to settle in a north- 
 ern climate, amongst a people by whom they 
 were abhorred, and where law was unable to 
 restrain the licentiousness, or reform the bar- 
 barity of the inhabitants. They would in con- 
 sequence have universally become ABSENTEE 
 PROPRIETORS; and not only denied to the Scot- 
 tish people the incalculable advantages of a 
 resident body of landed gentlemen ; but, by 
 their influence in Parliament, and their animo- 
 sity towards their northern tenantry, prevented 
 any legislative measure being pursued for 
 their relief. 
 
 In such circumstances, it seems hardly con- 
 ceivable that arts or manufactures should have 
 made any progress in this country. But, if in 
 spite of the obstacles which the unfavourable 
 climate, and unhappy political circumstances 
 of the country presented, manufactures should 
 have begun to spring up amongst us, they 
 would speedily have been checked by the com- 
 
 mercial jealousy of their more powerful south- 
 ern rivals. Bills would have been brought 
 nto parliament, as was actually done in re- 
 gard to a neighbouring island, proceeding 
 on the preamble, " that it is expedient that 
 the Scottish manufactures should be discou- 
 raged ;" and the prohibition of sending their 
 goods into the richer market of England, 
 whither the whole wealth of the country were 
 already drawn, would have annihilated the in- 
 fant efforts of manufacturing industry. 
 
 Nor would the Reformation, which, as mat- 
 ters stand, has been of such essential service 
 to this country, have been, on the hypothesis 
 which we are pursuing, a lesser source of suf- 
 fering, or a greater bar to the improvement 
 of the people. From being embraced by their 
 English landlords, the Reformed Religion 
 would have been hateful to the peasants of 
 Scotland ; the Catholic priests would have 
 sought refuge among them, from the persecu- 
 tion to which they were exposed in their native 
 seats ; and both would have been strengthened 
 in their hatred to those persons to whom their 
 common misfortune was owing. Religious 
 hatred would thus have combined with all the 
 previous circumstances of irritation, to in- 
 crease the rancour between the proprietors 
 of the soil, and the labouring classes in this 
 country; and from the circumstance of the 
 latter adhering to the proscribed religion, they 
 would have been rendered yet more incapable 
 of procuring a redress for their grievances in 
 a legislative form. 
 
 Had the English, therefore, succeeded in 
 subduing Scotland in the time of Robert 
 Bruce, and in maintaining their authority 
 from that period, we think it not going too far 
 to assert, that the people of this country would 
 have been now in an unhappy and distracted 
 condition: that religious discussion and civil 
 rancour would have mutually exasperated the 
 higher and lower orders against each other ; 
 that the landed proprietors would have been 
 permanently settled in the victorious country; 
 that everywhere a class of middlemen would 
 have been established to grind and ruin the 
 labours of the poor; that manufactures would 
 have been scanty, and the country covered 
 with a numerous and indigent population, 
 idle in their habits, ignorant in their ideas, 
 ferocious in their manners, professing a reli- 
 gion which held them in bondage, and cling- 
 ing to prejudices from which their ruin must 
 ensue. 
 
 Is it said, that this is mere conjecture, and 
 that nothing in the history of English govern- 
 ment warrants us in concluding, that such 
 would have been the consequence of the esta- 
 blishment of their dominion in this country 1 
 Alas ! it is not conjecture. The history of IRK- 
 LAHD affords too melancholy a confirmation 
 of the truth of the positions which we have 
 advanced, and of the reality of the deduction 
 which we have pursued. In that deduction 
 we have not reasoned on hypothesis or con- 
 jecture. Every step which we have hinted at, 
 ha* there been taken ; every consequence which 
 we have suggested, has there ensued. Those 
 acquainted with the history of that unhappy 
 country, or who have studied its present con- 
 
ROBERT BRUCE. 
 
 99 
 
 dition, will recognise in the conjectural history 
 which we have sketched, of what tvould have 
 followed the annexation of this country to 
 England in the time of Edward II., the real 
 history of what HAS FOLLOWED its subjugation 
 in the time of Henry II., and perceive in the 
 causes which we have pointed out, as what 
 would have operated upon our people, the 
 real caitses of the misery and wretchedness in 
 which its population is involved. 
 
 Nor is the example of the peaceful submis- 
 sion of Wales to the dominion of England, 
 any authority against this view of the subject. 
 Wales is so inconsiderable in comparison to 
 England, it comes so completely in contact 
 with its richest provinces, and is so enveloped 
 by its power, that when once subdued, all 
 thought of resistance or revolt became hope- 
 less. That mountainous region, therefore, fell 
 as quietly and as completely into the arms of 
 England, as if it had been one of the Hept- 
 archy, which in process of time was incor- 
 porated with the English monarchy. Very 
 different is the situation of Scotland, where 
 the comparative size of the country, the fervid 
 spirit of the inhabitants, the remoteness of its 
 situation, and the strength of its mountains, 
 continually must have suggested the hope of 
 successful revolt, and as necessarily occa- 
 sioned the calamitous consequences which we 
 have detailed. The rebellion of Owen Glen- 
 dower is sufficient to convince us, that nothing 
 but the utter insignificance of Wales, compared 
 to England, prevented the continual revolt of 
 the Welsh people, and the consequent intro- 
 duction of all those horrors which have fol- 
 lowed the establishment of English dominion 
 among the inhabitants of Ireland. 
 
 Do we then rejoice in the prosperity of our 
 country 7 Do we exult at the celebrity which 
 it has acquired in arts and in arms'? Do we 
 duly estimate the blessings which it has long 
 enjoyed from equal law and personal freedom ? 
 Do we feel grateful for the intelligence, the 
 virtue, and the frugality of our peasantry, and 
 acknowledge, with thankfulness, the practical 
 beneficence and energetic spirit of our landed 
 proprietors ! Let us turn to the grave of Ro- 
 bert Bruce, and feel as we ought the inex- 
 pressible gratitude due to him as the remote 
 author of all these blessings. But for his bold 
 and unconquerable spirit, Scotland might have 
 shared with Ireland the severity of English 
 conquest; and, instead of exulting now in the 
 prosperity of our country, the energy of our 
 peasantry, and the patriotic spirit of our resi- 
 dent landed proprietors, we might have been 
 deploring with her an absent nobility, an 
 oppressive tenantry, a bigotted and ruined 
 people. 
 
 It was therefore, in truth, a memorable day 
 for this country when the remains of this 
 great prince were rediscovered amidst the 
 ruins in which they had so long been hid; 
 when the arms which slew Henry de Bohun 
 were reinterred in the land which they had 
 saved from slavery ; and the head which had 
 beheld the triumph of Bannockburn was con- 
 signed to the dust, after five centuries of grate- 
 ful remembrance and experienced obligation. 
 It is by thus appreciating the merits of depart- 
 ed worth, that similar virtues in future are to 
 be called forth ; and by duly feeling the conse- 
 quences of heroic resistance in time past, that 
 the spirit is to be excited by which the future 
 fortunes of the state are to be maintained. 
 
 In these observations we have no intention, 
 as truly we have no desire, to depreciate the 
 incalculable blessings which this country has 
 derived from her union with England. We 
 feel, as strongly as any can do, the immense 
 advantage which this measure brought to the 
 wealth, the industry, and the spirit of Scotland. 
 We are proud to acknowledge, that it is to the 
 efforts of English patriotism that we owe the 
 establishment of liberty in our civil code ; and 
 to the influence of English example, the diffu- 
 sion of a free spirit among our people. But it 
 is just because we are duly impressed with 
 these feelings that we recur, with such grate- 
 ful pride, to the patriotic resistance of Robert 
 Bruce ; it is because we feel that we should 
 be unworthy of sharing in English liberty, un- 
 less we had struggled for our own indepen- 
 dence, and incapable of participating in its 
 benefits, unless we had shown that we were 
 capable of acquiring it. Nor are we ashamed 
 to own, that it is the spirit which English free- 
 dom has awakened that first enabled us fully 
 to appreciate the importance of the efforts 
 which our ancestors made in resisting their 
 dominion ; and that but for the Union on equal 
 terms with that power, we would have been 
 ignorant of the debt which we owed to those 
 who saved us from its subjugation. In our 
 national fondness, therefore, for the memory 
 of Robert Bruce, the English should perceive 
 the growth of those principles from which 
 their own unequalled greatness has arisen; 
 nor should they envy the glory of the field of 
 Bannockburn, when we appeal to it as our 
 best title to be quartered in their arms. 
 
 Yet mourn not, land of Fame, 
 Though ne'er the leopards on thy shield 
 Retreated from BO fad a field 
 
 Since Norman William came. 
 Oft may thine annals justly boast. 
 Of battles there by Scotland lost, 
 
 Grudge not her victory ; 
 When for her freeborn rights she strove. 
 Rights dear to all who freedom love, 
 
 To none BO dear as tuee. 
 
100 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 PARIS IN 1814.* 
 
 WITH whatever sentiments a stranger may 
 enter Paris, his feelings must be the same 
 with regard to the monuments of ancient mag- 
 nificence, or of modern taste, which it contains. 
 All that the vanity or patriotism of a long 
 series of sovereigns could effect for the em- 
 bellishment of the capital in which they 
 resided ; all that the conquests of an ambitious 
 and unprincipled army could accumulate from 
 the spoils of the nations whom they had sub- 
 dued, are there presented to the eye of the 
 stranger with a profusion which obliterates 
 every former prejudice, and stifles the feelings 
 of national emulation in exultation at the 
 greatness of human genius. 
 
 The ordinary buildings of Paris, as every 
 traveller has observed, and as all the world 
 knows, are in general mean and uncomfort- 
 able. The height and gloomy aspect of the 
 houses ; the narrowness of the streets, and the 
 want of pavement for foot passengers, convey 
 an idea of antiquity, which ill accords with 
 what the imagination had anticipated of the 
 modern capital of the French empire. This 
 circumstance renders the admiration of the 
 spectator greater when he first comes in sight 
 of its public edifices ; when he is conducted to 
 the Place Louis Quinze or the Pont Neuf, 
 from whence he has a general view of the 
 principal buildings of this celebrated capital. 
 With the single exception of the view of Lon- 
 don from the terrace of the Adelphi, there is 
 no point in Britain where the effect of archi- 
 tectural design is so great as in the situations 
 which have now been mentioned. The view 
 from the former of these, combines many of 
 the most striking objects which Paris has to 
 present. To the east, the long front of the 
 Tuileries rises over the dark mass of foliage 
 which cover its gardens ; to the south, the 
 picturesque aspect of the town is broken by 
 the varied objects which the river presents, 
 and the fine perspective of the Bridge of Peace, 
 terminating in the noble front of the palace of 
 the Legislative Body; to the west, the long 
 avenues of the Elysian Fields are closed by 
 the pillars of a triumphal arch which Napo- 
 leon had commenced ; while, to the north, the 
 beautiful fagade of the Place itself, leaves the 
 spectator only room to discover at a greater 
 distance the foundation of the Temple of 
 Glory, which he had commenced, and in the 
 execution of which he was interrupted by 
 those ambitious enterprises to which his sub- 
 sequent downfall was owing.f To a painter's 
 
 * Written in May and June, 1814, during a residence 
 at Paris, when the allied armies occupied the city, and 
 the great museum of the Louvre was untouched; and 
 published in "Travels in France in 181415," which 
 issued from the press in Edinhurgh in 1815, to the 
 first volume of which the author contributed a few 
 chapters. 
 
 f Since completed, and forming the beautiful peristyle 
 of the Madeleine. 
 
 eye, the effect of the whole scene is increased 
 by the rich and varied fore-ground, which 
 everywhere presents itself, composed of the 
 shrubs with which the skirts of the square are 
 adorned, and the lofty poplars which rise 
 amidst the splendour of architectural beauty: 
 while recent events give a greater interest to 
 the spot from which this beauty is surveyed, 
 by the remembrance, that it was here that 
 Louis XVI. fell a martyr to the revolutionary 
 principles, and that it was here that the Em- 
 peror Alexander and the other princes of 
 Europe took their station when their armies 
 passed in triumph through the walls of Paris. 
 
 The view from the Pont Neuf, though not 
 striking upon the whole, embraces objects of 
 greater individual beauty. The gay and ani- 
 mated quays of the city covered with foot pas- 
 sengers, and, with all the varied exhibitions of 
 industrious occupation, which, from the warm- 
 ness of the climate, are carried on in the open 
 air ; the long and splendid front of the Louvre, 
 and the Tuileries ; the bold projections of 
 the Palais des Arts, of the Hotel de la Monnaie, 
 and other public buildings on the opposite side 
 of the river ; the beautiful perspective of the 
 bridges, adorned by the magnificent colonnade 
 which fronts the Palace of the Legislative 
 Body; and the lofty picturesque buildings of 
 the centre of Paris, surrounding the more ele- 
 vated towers of Notre Dame, form a scene, 
 which, though less perfect, is more striking, 
 and more characteristic than the scene from 
 the centre of the Place Louis Quinze. It con- 
 veys at once a general idea of the French 
 capital ; of that mixture of poverty and splen- 
 dour by which it is so remarkably distinguish- 
 ed; of that grandeur of national power, and 
 that degradation of individual importance 
 which marked the ancient dynasty of the 
 French nation. It marks too, in an historical 
 view, the changes of public feeling which the 
 people of this country have undergone, from 
 the distant period when the towers of Notre 
 Dame rose amidst the austerity of Gothic taste, 
 and were loaded with the riches of Catholic 
 superstition, to that boasted sera, when the 
 loyalty of the French people exhausted the 
 wealth and the genius of the country, to deco- 
 rate with classic taste the residence of their 
 sovereigns; and lastly, to those later days, 
 when the names of religion and of loyalty have 
 alike been forgotten ; when the national exulta- 
 tion. reposed only on the trophies of military 
 greatness, and the iron yoke of imperial power 
 was forgotten in the monuments which record 
 the deeds of imperial glory. 
 
 To the general observation on the inferiority 
 of the common buildings in Paris, there are 
 some remarkable exceptions. The Boulevards, 
 which are the remains of the ancient ramparts 
 which surrounded the city at a former period, 
 are, in general, beautiful, both from the circu- 
 
PARIS IN 1814. 
 
 101 
 
 lar form in which they are built, which pre- 
 vents the view from being ever too extensive 
 for the objects which it contains, and presents 
 them in the most picturesque aspect ; from the 
 breadth which they everywhere preserve, and 
 which affords room for the spectator to observe 
 the magnificence of the detached palaces with 
 which they abound ; and from the rows of trees 
 with which they are shaded, and which com- 
 bine singularly well with the irregular cha- 
 racter of the building which they generally 
 present. In the skirts of the town, and more 
 especially in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, the 
 beauty of the streets is greatly increased by 
 the detached hotels or villas, surrounded by 
 gardens, which are everywhere to be met with, 
 in which the lilac, the laburnum, the Bois de 
 Judee, and the acacia, grow in the most luxu- 
 riant manner, and on the green foliage of 
 which, the eye reposes with singular delight, 
 amidst the bright and dazzling whiteness of 
 the stone with which they are surrounded. 
 
 The Hotel des Invalides, the Chelsea Hospital 
 of France, is one of the objects on which the 
 Parisians principally pride themselves, and to 
 which a stranger is conducted immediately 
 after his arrival in that capital. The institu- 
 tion itself appears to be well conducted, and 
 to give general satisfaction to the wounded 
 men, who have there found an asylum from 
 the miseries of war. These men live in habits 
 of perfect harmony among each other ; a state 
 of things widely different from that of our 
 veterans in Greenwich Hospital, and which is 
 probably chiefly owing to the cheerfulness and 
 equanimity of temper which form the best 
 feature in the French character. There is 
 something in the style of the architecture of 
 this building, which accords well with the 
 object to which it is devoted. The front is 
 distinguished by a simple manly portico, and a 
 dome of the finest proportion rises above its 
 centre, which is visible from all parts of the 
 city. This dome was gilded by order of Bona- 
 parte : and however much a fastidious taste 
 may regret the addition, it certainly gave an 
 air of splendour to the whole, which was in 
 perfect unison with the feelings of exultation 
 which the sight of this monument of military 
 glory was then fitted to awaken among the 
 French people. The exterior of this edifice 
 was formerly surrounded by cannon captured 
 by the armies of France at different periods: 
 and ten thousand standards, the trophies of 
 victory during the wars of two centuries, 
 waved under its splendid dome, and enveloped 
 the sword of Frederic the Great, which hung 
 from the centre, until the 31st of March, 1814, 
 when they were all burnt by order of Maria 
 Louisa, to prevent their falling into the vic- 
 torious hands of the allied powers. 
 
 If the character of the architecture of the 
 Hotel des Invalides accords well with the 
 object to which that building is destined ; the 
 character of the Louvre is not less in unison 
 with the spirit of the fine arts, to which it is 
 consecrated. It is impossible for language to 
 convey any adequate idea of the impression 
 which this exquisite building awakens in the 
 mind of a stranger. The beautiful proportions, 
 and the fine symmetry of the great fapade, give 
 
 an air of simplicity to the distant view of this 
 edifice, which is not diminished, on nearer ap- 
 proach, by the unrivalled beauty of its orna- 
 ments and detail; but when you cross the 
 threshold of the portico, and pass under its 
 noble archway into the inner court, all consi- 
 derations are absorbed in the throb of admira- 
 tion, which is excited by the sudden display of 
 all that is lovely and harmonious in Grecian 
 architecture. You find yourself in the midst 
 of the noblest and yet chastest display of archi- 
 tectural beauty, where every ornament pos- 
 sesses the character by which the whole is 
 distinguished, and where the whole possesses 
 the grace and elegance which every ornament 
 presents : You find yourself on the spot, 
 where all the monuments of ancient art are 
 deposited where the greatest exertions of 
 mortal genius are preserved and where a 
 palace has at last been raised worthy of being 
 the depository of the collected genius of the 
 human race. It bears a higher character than 
 that of being the residence of imperial power ; 
 it seems destined to loftier purposes than to 
 be the abode of earthly greatness ; and the only 
 forms by which its halls would not be degraded, 
 are those models of ideal perfection which the 
 genius of ancient Greece created to exalt the 
 character of a heathen world. 
 
 Placed in a more elevated spot, and destined 
 to a still higher object, the Pantheon bears in 
 its front the traces of the noble purpose for 
 which it was intended. It was intended to 
 be the cemetery of all the great men who 
 had deserved well of their country; and it 
 bears the inscription, above its entrance, Aux 
 grands jlmes La Patrie reconnoissanle. The 
 character of its architecture is well adapted to 
 the impression it is intended to convey, and 
 suits the simplicity of the noble inscription 
 which its portico presents. Its situation has 
 been selected with singular taste, to aid the 
 effect which was thus intended. It is placed 
 at the top of an eminence, which shelves in a 
 declivity on every side ; and the immediate 
 approach is by an immense flight of steps, 
 which form the base of the building, and in- 
 crease the effect which its magnitude produces. 
 Over the entrance rises a portico of lofty pil- 
 lars, finely proportioned, supporting a magni- 
 ficent entablature of the Corinthian order; 
 and the whole terminates in a dome of vast 
 dimensions, forming the highest object in the 
 whole city. The impression which every one 
 must feel in crossing its threshold, is that o 
 religious awe ; the individual is lost in the great- 
 ness of the objects with which he is surrounded, 
 and he dreads to enter what seems the abode 
 of a greater power, and to have been framed 
 for the purposes of more elevated worship. 
 The Louvre might have been fitted for the gay 
 scenes of ancient sacrifice ; it suits the brilliant 
 conceptions of heathen mythology ; and seems 
 the fit abode of those ideal forms, in which the 
 imagination of ancient times imbodied their 
 conceptions of divine perfection ; but the Pan- 
 theon is adapted for a holier worship, and 
 accords with the character of a purer belief; 
 and the vastness and solitude of its untrodden 
 chambers awaken those feelings of human 
 weakness, and that sentiment of human im- 
 12 
 
102 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 mortality which befit the temple of a spiritual 
 faith. 
 
 The spectator is led, by the sight of this 
 great monument of sacred architecture in the 
 Grecian style, to compare it with the Gothic 
 churches of France, and, in particular, with 
 the Cathedral of Beauvais, the interior of 
 which is finished with greater delicacy, and in 
 finer proportions, than any other edifice of a 
 similar kind in that country. The impression 
 which the inimitable choir of Beauvais pro- 
 duces is widely different from that which we 
 felt on entering the lofty dome of the Pantheon 
 at Paris. The light pinnacles, the fretted roof, 
 the aspiring form of the Gothic edifice, seemed 
 to have been framed by the hands of aerial 
 beings ; and produced, even from a distance, 
 that impression of grace and airiness which it 
 was the peculiar object of this species of 
 Gothic architecture to excite. On passing the 
 high archway which covers the western door, 
 and entering the immense aisles of the Cathe- 
 dral, the sanctity of the place produces a deeper 
 impression, and the grandeur of the forms 
 awakens profounder feelings. The light of 
 day is excluded, the rays of the sun come mel- 
 lowed through the splendid colours with which 
 the windows are stained, and cast a religious 
 light over the marble pavement w r hich covers 
 the floor; while the eye reposes on the har- 
 monious forms of the lancet windows, or is 
 bewildered in the profusion of ornament with 
 which the roof is adorned, or is lost in the 
 deep perspective of its aisles. The impres- 
 sion which the whole produces, is that of reli- 
 gious emotion, singularly suited to the genius 
 of Christianity ; it is seen in that obscure light 
 which fits the solemnity of religious duty, and 
 awakens those feelings of intense delight, 
 which prepare the mind for the high strain of 
 religious praise. But it is not the deep feeling 
 of humility and weakness which is produced 
 by the dark chambers and massy pillars of the 
 Pantheon at Paris ; it is not in the mausoleum 
 of the dead that you seem to wander, nor on 
 the thoughts of the great that have gone before 
 you, that the mind revolves ; it is in the scene 
 of thanksgiving that your admiration is fixed; 
 it is with the emblems of hope that your devo- 
 tion is awakened, and with the enthusiasm of 
 gratitude that the mind is filled. Beneath the 
 gloomy roof of the Grecian temple, the spirit 
 is concentrated within itself; it seeks the re- 
 pose which solitude affords, and meditates on 
 the fate of the immortal soul ; but it loves to 
 follow the multitude into the Gothic cathedral, 
 to join in the song of grateful praise which 
 peals through its lengthened aisles, and to 
 share in the enthusiasm which belongs to the 
 exercise of common devotion. 
 
 The Cathedral of Notre Dame is the only 
 Gothic building of note in Paris, and it is by 
 no means equal to the expectations that are 
 naturally formed of it. The style of its archi- 
 tecture is not that of the finest Gothic ; it has 
 neither the exquisite lightness of ornament 
 which distinguish the summit of Gloucester 
 Cathedral, nor the fine lancet windows which 
 give so unrivalled a beauty to the interior of 
 Beauvais, nor the richness of roof which 
 covers the tombs of Westminster Abbey. Its 
 
 character is that of massy greatness ; its orna 
 ments are rich rather than elegant, and its in- 
 terior striking, more from its immense size 
 than the beauty of the proportion in which it is 
 formed. In spite of all these circumstances, 
 however, the Cathedral of Notre Dame pro- 
 duces a deep impression on the mind of the 
 beholder: its towers rise to a stupendous 
 height above all the buildings which surround 
 them ; while the stone of every other edifice 
 is of a light colour, they alone are black with 
 the smoke of centuries ; and exhibit a venera- 
 ble aspect of ancient greatness in the midst of 
 the brilliancy of modern decoration with which 
 the city is filled. Even the crowd of ornaments 
 with which they are loaded, and the heavy 
 proportion in which they are built, are forgot- 
 ten in the effect which their magnitude pro- 
 duces ; they suit the gloomy character of the 
 building they adorn, and accord with the ex- 
 pression of antiquated power by which its 
 aged forms are now distinguished. 
 
 To those who have been accustomed to the 
 form of worship which is established in Pro- 
 testant countries, there is nothing so striking in 
 the Catholic churches as the complete oblivion 
 of rank, or any of the distinctions of estab- 
 lished society which there universally prevails. 
 There are no divisions of seats, nor any.places 
 fixed for any particular classes of society. 
 All, of whatever rank or station, kneel alike 
 upon the marble pavement; and the whole 
 extent of the church is open for the devotion 
 of all classes of the people. You frequently 
 see the poorest citizens with their children 
 kneeling on the stone, close to those of the 
 highest rank, or the most extensive fortunes. 
 This custom may appear painful to those who 
 have been habituated to the forms of devotion 
 in the English churches ; but it produces an 
 impression on the mind of the spectator which 
 nothing in our service is capable of effecting. 
 To see the individual form lost in the im- 
 mensity of the objects with which he is sur- 
 rounded ; to see all ranks and ages blended in 
 the exercise of common devotion ; to see all 
 distinction forgotten in the sense of common 
 infirmity, suits the spirit of that religion which 
 was addressed to the poor as well as to the 
 rich, and fits the presence of that being before 
 whom all ranks are equal. 
 
 Nor is it without a good effect upon the feel- 
 ings of mankind, that this custom has formed 
 a part of the Catholic service. Amidst that 
 degradation of the great body of the people, 
 which marks the greater part of the Catholic 
 countries amidst the insolence of aristocratic 
 power, which the doctrines of the Catholic 
 faith are so well suited to support, it is fitting 
 there should be some occasions on which the 
 distinctions of the world should be forgotten ; 
 some moments in which the rich as well as 
 the poor should be humbled before a greater 
 power in which they should be reminded of 
 the common faith in which they have been 
 baptized, of the common duties to which they 
 are called, and the common hopes which they 
 have been permitted to form. 
 
 High Mass was performed in Notre Dame, 
 with all the pomp of the Catholic service, for 
 the souls of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette and 
 
PARIS IN 1814. 
 
 103 
 
 the Dauphin, on May 9, 1814, soon after the 
 king's arrival in Paris. The cathedral was 
 hung with black in every part; the brilliancy 
 of day wholly excluded, and it was lighted 
 only by double rows of wax tapers, which 
 burned round the coffins, placed in the centre 
 of the choir. It was crowded to excess in every 
 part ; all the marshals, peers, and dignitaries 
 of France were stationed with the royal 
 family near the centre of the cathedral, and 
 all the principal officers of the allied armies 
 attended at the celebration of the service. 
 The king was present, though, without being 
 perceived by the vast assembly by whom he 
 was surrounded; and the Duchess d'Angou- 
 leme exhibited, in this melancholy duty, that 
 mixture of firmness and sensibility by which 
 her character has always been distinguished. 
 
 It was said, that there were several persons 
 present at this solemn service who had voted 
 for the death of the king ; and many of those 
 assembled must doubtless have been con- 
 scious, that they had been instrumental in the 
 death of those for whose souls this solemn 
 service was now performing. The greater 
 part, however, exhibited the symptoms of ge- 
 nuine sorrow, and seemed to participate in 
 the solemnity with unfeigned devotion. The 
 Catholic worship was here displayed in its 
 utmost splendour ; all the highest prelates of 
 France were assembled to give dignity to the 
 spectacle ; and all that art could devise was 
 exhausted to render the scene impressive in 
 the eyes of the people. To those, however, 
 who had been habituated to the simplicity 
 of the English form, the variety of unmean- 
 ing ceremony, the endless gestures and un- 
 ceasing bows of the clergy who officiated, 
 destroyed the impression which the solemnity 
 of the service would otherwise have produced. 
 But though the service itself appeared ridi- 
 culous, the effect of the whole scene- was 
 sublime in the greatest degree. The black 
 tapestry hung in heavy folds round the sides 
 of the cathedral, and magnified the impres- 
 sion which its vastness produced. The tapers 
 which surrounded the coffins threw a red and 
 gloomy light over the innumerable multitude 
 which thronged the floor; their receding rays 
 faintly illuminated the further recesses, or 
 strained to pierce the obscure gloom in which 
 the summits of the pillars were lost; while 
 the sacred music pealed through the distant 
 aisles, and deepened the effect of the thousands 
 of voices which joined in the strains of re- 
 pentant prayer. 
 
 Among the exhibitions of art to which a 
 stranger is conducted immediately after his 
 arrival in the French metropolis, there is 
 none which is more characteristic of the dis- 
 position of the people than the Musee des Monu- 
 wens Francois, situated in the Rue des Petits 
 Augustins. This is a collection of all the 
 finest sepulchral monuments from different 
 parts of France, particularly from the Cathe- 
 dral of St. Denis, where the cemetery of the 
 royal family had, from time immemorial, 
 been placed. It is said by the French, that 
 the collection of these monuments into one 
 museum was the only means of preserving 
 them from the fury oif the people during the 
 
 Revolution; and certainly nothing but abso- 
 lute necessity could have justified the bar- 
 barous idea of bringing them from the graves 
 they were intended to adorn, to one spot, 
 where all associations connected with them 
 are destroyed. It is not the mere survey of 
 the monuments of the dead that is interesting, 
 not the examination of the specimens of art 
 by which they may be adorned; it is the 
 remembrance of the deeds which they are 
 intended to record, of the virtues they are 
 destined to perpetuate, of the pious gratitude 
 of which they are now the only testimony 
 above all, of the dust they actually cover. 
 They remind us of the great men who formerly 
 filled the theatre of the world, they carry us 
 back to an age which, by a very natural illu- 
 sion, we conceive to have been both wiser 
 and happier than our own, and present the 
 record of human greatness in that pleas- 
 ing distance when the great features of cha- 
 racter alone are remembered, when time has 
 drawn its veil over the weaknesses of mor- 
 tality, and its virtues are sanctified by the 
 hand of death. It is a feeling fitted to elevate 
 the soul ; to mingle the thoughts of death 
 with the recollection of the virtues by which 
 life had been dignified, and renovate in every 
 heart those high hopes of religion which 
 spring from the grave of former virtue. 
 
 All this delightful, this purifying illusion, is 
 destroyed by the way in which the monuments 
 are collected in the museum at Paris. They 
 are there brought together from all parts of 
 France ; severed from the ashes of the dead 
 they were intended to cover; and arranged in 
 systematic order to illustrate the history of the 
 art whose progress they unfold. The tombs 
 of all the kings of France, of all the generals 
 by whom its glory has been extended, of the 
 statesmen by whom its power, and the writers 
 by whom its fame has been established, are 
 crowded together in one collection, and heaped 
 upon each other, without any other connection 
 than that of the time in which they were origi- 
 nally raised. The museum accordingly ex- 
 hibits, in the most striking manner, the power 
 of arrangement and classification which the 
 French possess ; it is valuable, as containing 
 fine models of the greatest men which France 
 has produced, and exhibits a curious speci- 
 men of the progress of art, from its first 
 commencement, to the period of its greatest 
 perfection ; but it has wholly lost that deep 
 and peculiar interest which belongs to the 
 monuments of the dead in their original 
 situation. 
 
 Adjoining to the museum, is a garden 
 planted with trees, in which many of the 
 finest monuments are placed; but in which 
 the depravity of the French taste appears in 
 the most striking manner. It is surrounded 
 with high houses, and darkened by the shade 
 of lofty buildings: yet in this gloomy situa- 
 tion, they have placed the tomb of Fenelon, 
 and the united monument of Abelard and 
 Eloise: profaning thus, by the barbarous 
 affectation of artificial taste, and the still more 
 shocking imitation of ancient superstition, the 
 remains of those whose names are enshrined 
 in every heart which can feel the beauty of 
 
104 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 moral excellence, or share in the sympathy 
 with youthful sorrow. 
 
 How different are the feelings with which 
 an Englishman surveys the untouched monu 
 ments of English greatness ! and treads the 
 floor of that venerable building which shrouds 
 the remains of all who have dignified their 
 native land in which her patriots, her poets 
 and her philosophers " sleep with her kings 
 and dignify the scene," which the rage of 
 popular fury has never dared to profane, and 
 the hand of victorious power has never been 
 able to violate ; where the ashes of the im- 
 mortal dead still lie in undisturbed repose 
 tinder that splendid roof which covered the 
 tombs of its earliest kings, and witnessed, 
 from its first dawn, the infant glory of the 
 English people. Nor could the remembrance 
 of these national monuments ever excite in 
 the mind of a native of France, the same 
 feeling of heroic devotion which inspired the 
 sublime expression of Nelson, as he boarded 
 the Spanish Admiral's ship at St. Vincent's 
 " Westminster Abbey or victory !" 
 
 Though the streets in Paris have an aged 
 and uncomfortable appearance, the form of 
 the houses is such, as, at a distance, to present 
 a picturesque aspect. Their height, their 
 sharp and irregular tops, the vast variety of 
 forms which they assume when seen from 
 different quarters, all combine to render a dis- 
 tant view of them more striking than the long 
 rows of uniform houses of which London is 
 composed. The domes and steeples of Paris, 
 however, are greatly inferior, both in number 
 and magnificence, to those of the English 
 capital. 
 
 The gardens of the Tuileries and the 
 Luxembourg, of which the Parisians think so 
 highly, and whjch are constantly filled with all 
 ranks of citizens, are laid out with a singular- 
 ity of taste, of which, in this country, we can 
 scarcely form any conception. The straight 
 walks the dipt trees the marble fountains 
 are fast wearing out in all parts of England; 
 they are to be met with only round the man- 
 sions of ancient families, and, even there are 
 kept rather from the influence of ancient 
 prejudice, or from the affection to hereditary 
 forms, than from their coincidence with the 
 present taste of the English people. They 
 are seldom, accordingly, disagreeable, with us, 
 to the eye of the most cultivated taste ; their 
 singularity forms a pleasing variety to the 
 continued succession of lawns and shrub- 
 beries which are everywhere to be met with ; 
 and they are regarded rather as the venerable 
 marks of ancient splendour, than as the bar- 
 barous affectation of modern distinction. In 
 France, the native deformity of this taste 
 appears in its real light, without the colouring 
 of any such adventitious circumstances as 
 conceal it in this country. It does not exist 
 under the softening veil of ancient manners ; 
 its avenues do not conduct to the decaying 
 abode of hereditary greatness its gardens do 
 not mark the scenes of former festivity its 
 fountains are not covered with the moss which 
 has grown for centuries. It appears as the mo- 
 del of present taste ; it is considered as the indi- 
 cation of existing splendour ; and sought after, 
 
 as the form in which the beauty of nature is 
 now to be admired. All that association 
 blends in the mind with the style of ancient 
 gardening in England is instantly divested by 
 its appearance in France ; and the whole im- 
 portance is then felt of that happy change in 
 the national taste, whereby variety has been 
 made to succeed to uniformity, and the imita- 
 tion of nature to come in the place of the exhi- 
 bition of art. 
 
 The remarkable characteristic of the taste 
 of France is, that this love of artificial beauty 
 continues with undiminished force, at a period 
 when, in other nations, it has given place to a 
 more genuine love for the beauty of nature. 
 In them, the natural progress of refinement 
 has led from the admiration of the art of imita- 
 tion to the love of the subjects imitated. In 
 France, this early prejudice continues in its 
 pristine vigour at the present moment: they 
 never lose sight of the effort of the artist ; their 
 admiration is fixed not on the quality or object 
 in nature, but on the artificial representation 
 of it ; not on the thing signified, but the sign. 
 It is hence that they have such exalted ideas 
 of the perfection of their artist David, whose 
 paintings are nothing more than a representa- 
 tion of the human figure in its most extrava- 
 gant and phrenzied attitudes ; that they are 
 insensible to the simple display of real emo- 
 tion, but dwell with delight upon the vehement 
 representation of it which their stage exhibits ; 
 and that, leaving the charming heights of Belle- 
 ville, or the sequestered banks of the Seine 
 almost wholly deserted, they crowd to the stiff 
 alleys of the Elysian Fields, or the artificial 
 beauties of the gardens of Versailles. 
 
 In the midst of Paris this artificial style of 
 gardening is not altogether unpleasing ; it is 
 in unison, in some measure, with the regular 
 character of the buildings with which it is 
 surrounded ; and the profusion of statues and 
 marble vases continues the impression which 
 the character of their palaces is fitted to pro- 
 duce. But at Versailles, at St. Cloud, and 
 Fontainbleau, amidst the luxuriance of vegeta- 
 tion, and surrounded by the majesty of forest 
 scenery, it destroys altogether the effect which 
 arises from the irregularity of natural beauty. 
 Every one feels straight borders, and square 
 porticoes and broad alleys, to be in unison 
 with the immediate neighbourhood of an anti- 
 quated mansion ; but they become painful 
 when extended to those remoter parts of the 
 grounds, when the character of the scene is 
 determined by the rudeness of uncultivated 
 nature. 
 
 There are some occasions, nevertheless, on 
 which the gardens of the Tuileries present a 
 Deautiful spectacle, in spite of the artificial 
 aste in which they are formed. From the 
 warmth of the climate, the Parisians, of all 
 classes, live much in the open air, and frequent 
 he public gardens in great numbers during 
 he continuance of the fine weather. In the 
 evening especially, they are filled with citi- 
 zens, who repose themselves under the shade 
 of the lofty trees, after the heat and the fa- 
 igues of the day; and they there present a 
 spectacle of more than ordinary interest and 
 beauty. The disposition of the French suits 
 
PARIS IN 1814. 
 
 105 
 
 the character of the scene, and harmonizes 
 with the impression which the stillness of the 
 evening produces on the mind. There is 
 none of that rioting or confusion by which an 
 assembly of the middling classes in England 
 is too often disgraced ; no quarrel ling -or in- 
 toxication even among the poorest ranks, nor 
 any appearance of that degrading want which 
 destroys the pleasing idea of public happiness. 
 The people appear all to enjoy a certain share 
 of individual prosperity; their intercourse is 
 conducted with unbroken harmony, and they 
 seem to resign themselves to those delightful 
 feelings which steal over the mind during the 
 stillness and serenity of a summer evening. 
 It would seem as if all the angry passions of 
 the breast were soothed by the voice of repos- 
 ing nature as if the sounds of labour were 
 stilled, lest they should break the harmony of 
 the scene as if vice itself had concealed its 
 deformity from the overpowering influence of 
 natural beauty. 
 
 Still more beautiful, perhaps, is the appear- 
 ance of this scene during the stillness of the 
 night, when the moon throws her dubious rays 
 over the objects of nature. The gardens of 
 the Tuileries remain crowded with people, 
 who seem to enjoy the repose which univer- 
 sally prevails, and from whom no sound is to 
 be heard which can break the stillness or the 
 serenity of the scene. The regularity of the 
 forms is wholly lost in the masses of light and 
 shadow that are there displayed ; the foliage 
 throws a checkered shade over the ground 
 beneath, while the distant vistas of the Elysian 
 Fields are seen in that soft and mellow light 
 by which the radiance of the moon is so pecu- 
 liarly distinguished. After passing through 
 the scenes of gaiety and festivity which mark 
 these favourite scenes of the French people, 
 small encampments were frequently to be seen, 
 of the allied troops, in the remote parts of the 
 grounds. The appearance of these bivouacks, 
 composed of Cossack squadrons, Hungarian 
 hussars, and Prussian artillery, in the obscurity 
 of moonlight, and surrounded by the gloom of 
 forest scenery, was beyond measure striking. 
 The picturesque forms of the soldiers, sleeping 
 on their arms under the shade of the trees, or 
 half hid by the rude huts which they had 
 erected for their shelter; the varied attitudes 
 of the horses standing amidst the wagons- by 
 which the camp was followed, or sleeping be- 
 side the veterans whom they had borne through 
 all the fortunes of war ; the dark masses of the 
 artillery, dimly discerned in the shades of 
 night, or faintly reflecting the pale light of the 
 moon, presented a scene of the most beautiful 
 description, in which the rude features of war 
 were softened by the tranquillity of peaceful 
 life : and the interest of present repose was 
 enhanced by the remembrance of the wintry 
 storms and bloody fields through which these 
 brave men had passed, during the memorable 
 campaigns in which they had been engaged. 
 The effect of the whole was increased by the 
 perfect stillness which everywhere prevailed, 
 broken only at intervals by the slow step of 
 the sentinel, as he paced his rounds, or the 
 sweeter sounds of those beautiful airs, which, 
 in a far distant country, recalled to the Russian 
 14 
 
 soldier the joys and the happiness of his native 
 land. 
 
 St. Cloud was the favourite residence of 
 Bonaparte, and, from this circumstance, pos- 
 sesses an interest which does not belong to 
 the other imperial palaces. It stands high, 
 upon a lofty bank overhanging the Seine, 
 which takes a bold sweep in the plain below ; 
 and the steep declivity which descends to its 
 banks, is clothed with magnificent woods of 
 aged elms. The character of the scenery is 
 bold and rugged; the trees are of the wildest 
 forms, and the most stupendous height, and 
 the banks, for the most part, steep and irregu- 
 lar. It is here, accordingly, that the French 
 gardening appears in all its genuine deformity ; 
 and that its straight walks and endless foun- 
 tains display a degree of formality and art, 
 destructive to the peculiar beauty by which 
 the scene is distinguished. These gardens, 
 however, were the favourite and private walks 
 of the emperor ; it was there that he meditated 
 those schemes of ambition which were des- 
 tined to shake the established thrones of 
 Europe ; it was under the shade of its luxu- 
 riant foliage that he formed the plan of all the 
 mighty projects which he had in contempla- 
 tion ; it was in the splendid apartments of 
 its palace that the Councils of France assem- 
 bled, to revolve on the means of permanently 
 destroying the English power: It was here 
 too, by a most remarkable coincidence, that 
 his destruction was finally accomplished; 
 that the last convention was concluded, by 
 which his second dethronement was com- 
 pleted ; and that the victorious arms of Eng- 
 land dictated the terms of surrender to his 
 conquered capital. 
 
 St. Cloud, in 1814, was the head-quarters 
 of Prince Schwartzenberg ; and the Austrian 
 grenadiers mounted guard at the gates of the 
 Imperial Palace. The banks of the Seine, 
 below the palace, were covered by an immense 
 bivouac of Austrian troops, and the fires of 
 their encampment twinkled in the obscurity 
 of twilight, amidst the low brushwood with 
 which the sides of the river were clothed. The 
 appearance of this bivouac, dimly discerned 
 through the rugged stems of lofty trees, or 
 half-hid by the luxuriant branches which ob- 
 scured the view the picturesque and varied 
 aspect of the camp, covered with wagons, and 
 all the accompaniments of military service ; 
 the columns of smoke rising from the fires 
 with which it was* interspersed, and the in- 
 numerable horses crowded amidst the con- 
 fused multitude of men and carriages, or rest- 
 ing in more sequestered spots on the sides of 
 the river, with their forms finely reflected in 
 its unruffled waters presented a spectacle 
 which exhibited war in its most striking aspect, 
 and gave a character to the scene which would 
 have suited the romantic strain of Salvator's 
 mind. 
 
 St. Germain, though less picturesquely situ- 
 ated than St. Cloud, presents features, never- 
 theless, of more than ordinary magnificence. 
 The Palace, now converted into a school of 
 military education by Napoleon, is a mean 
 irregular building; though it possesses a cer- 
 tain interest, by having been long the residence 
 
106 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of the exiled house of Stuart. The situation, 
 however, is truly fitted for an imperial dwell- 
 ing; it stands on the edge of a high bank, 
 overhanging the Seine, at the end of a magnifi- 
 cent terrace, a mile and a half long, built on 
 the projecting heights which edge the river. 
 The walk along this terrace is the finest spec- 
 tacle which the vicinity of Paris has to present. 
 It is backed along its whole extent by the im- 
 mense forest of St. Germain, the foliage of 
 which overhangs the road, and in the recesses 
 of which you can occasionally discern those 
 beautiful peeps which form the peculiar charac- 
 teristic of forest scenery. The steep bank 
 which descends to the river is clothed with 
 orchards and vineyards in all the luxuriance 
 of a southern climate., and, in front, there is 
 spread beneath your feet the immense plain 
 in which the Seine wanders, whose waters are 
 descried at intervals through the woods and 
 gardens with which its banks are adorned ; 
 while, in the farthest distance, the towers of 
 St. Denis, and the heights of Paris, form an 
 irregular outline on the verge of the horizon. 
 It is a scene exhibiting the most beautiful 
 aspect of cultivated nature, and would have 
 been the fit residence for a monarch who loved 
 to survey his subjects' happiness : but it was 
 deserted by the miserable weakness of Louis 
 XIV., because the view terminated in the 
 cemetery of the kings of France, and his en- 
 joyment of it would have been destroyed by 
 the thoughts of mortal decay. 
 
 Versailles, which that monarch chose as the 
 ordinary abode of his splendid court, is less 
 favourably situate for a royal dwelling, though 
 the view from the great front of the palace is 
 beautifully clothed with luxuriant woods. The 
 palace itself is a magnificent building of im- 
 mense extent, loaded with the riches of archi- 
 tectural beauty, but destitute of that fine pro- 
 portion and lightness of ornament, which 
 spread so indescribable a charm over the 
 palace of the Louvre. The interior is in a 
 state of lamentable decay, having been pillaged 
 at the commencement of the revolutionary 
 fury, and formed into a barrack for the repub- 
 lican soldiers, the marks of whose violence 
 are still visible in the faded splendour of its 
 magnificent apartments. They still show, how- 
 ever, the favourite apartments of Maria An- 
 toinette, the walls of which are covered with 
 the finest mirrors, and some remains of the 
 furniture are still preserved, which even the 
 licentious fury of the French army seems to 
 have been afraid to violate. The gardens, on 
 which all the riches of France, and all the 
 efforts of art were so long lavished, present a 
 painful monument of the depravity of taste: 
 but the Petit Trianon, which is a little palace 
 built of marble, and surrounded by shrubberies 
 in the English style, exhibits the genuine 
 beauty of which the imitation of nature is sus- 
 ceptible. This palace contains a suite of 
 splendid apartments, fitted up with singular 
 taste, and adorned with a number of charming 
 pictures ; it was the favourite residence of 
 Maria Louise, and we were there shown the 
 drawing materials which she used, and some 
 unfinished sketches which she left, in which, 
 
 we were informed, she much delighted, and 
 which bore the marks of a cultivated taste. 
 
 The Empress Maria Louise was everywhere 
 represented as cold, proud, and haughty in her 
 manner, andunconciliating in her ordinary ad- 
 dress. Her time was much spent in private, 
 j in the erercise of religious duty, or in needle- 
 work and drawing; and her favourite seat at 
 St. Cloud was between two windows, from 
 one of which she had a view over the beauti- 
 ful woods which clothe the banks of the river, 
 and from the other a distant prospect of the 
 towers and domes of Paris. 
 
 Very different was the character which be- 
 longed to the former empress, the first wife of 
 Bonaparte, Josephine. She passed the close 
 of her life at the delightful retreat of Mal- 
 maison, a villa charmingly situated on the 
 banks of the Seine, seven miles from Paris, on 
 the road to St. Germain. This villa had been 
 her favourite residence while she continued 
 empress, and formed her only home after the 
 period of her divorce ; here she lived in 
 obscurity and retirement, without any of the 
 pomp of a court, or any of the splendour which 
 belonged to her former rank, occupied entirely 
 in the employment of gardening, or in allevi- 
 ating the distresses of those around her. The 
 shrubberies and gardens were laid out with 
 singular beauty, in the English taste, and con- 
 tained a vast variety of rare flowers, which 
 she had for a long period been collecting. 
 These grounds were to her the source of never- 
 failing enjoyment; she spent many hours in 
 them every day, working herself, or superin- 
 tending the occupations of others ; and in these 
 delightful occupations seemed to return again 
 to all the innocence and happiness of youth. 
 She was beloved, to the greatest degree, by 
 all the poor who inhabited the vicinity of her 
 retreat, both for the gentleness of her man- 
 ner, a,nd her unwearied attention to their suf- 
 ferings and their wants ; and during the whole 
 period of her retirement, she retained the 
 esteem and affection of all classes of French 
 citizens. The Emperor Alexander visited her 
 repeatedly during the stay of the allied armies 
 in Paris ; and her death occasioned an univer- 
 sal feeling of regret, rarely to be met with 
 amidst the corruption and selfishness of the 
 French metropolis. 
 
 There was something singularly striking in 
 the history and character of this remarkable 
 woman : Born in an humble station, without 
 any of the advantages which rank or education 
 could afford, she was early involved in all the 
 unspeakable miseries of the French revolution, 
 and was extricated from her precarious situa- 
 tion only by being united to that extraordinary 
 man whose crimes and whose ambition have 
 spread misery through every country of Eu- 
 rope; rising through all the gradations of 
 rank through which he passed, she everywhere 
 commanded the esteem and regard of all who 
 had access to admire her private virtues ; and 
 when at length she was raised to the rank of 
 Empress, she graced the imperial throne with 
 all the charities and virtues of an humbler sta- 
 tion. She bore, with unexampled,magnanimity, 
 the sacrifice of power and of influence which 
 
PARIS IN 1814. 
 
 she was compelled to make: she carried into 
 the obscurity of humble life all the dignity of 
 mind which befitted the character of an em- 
 press of France ; and exercised, in the delight- 
 ful occupations of country life, or in the alle- 
 viation of the severity of individual distress, 
 that firmness of mind and gentleness of dis- 
 position with which she had lightened the 
 weight of imperial dominion, and softened the 
 rigour of despotic power. 
 
 The Forest of Fontainbleau exhibits scenery 
 of a more picturesque and striking character 
 than is to be met with in any other part of the 
 north of France. It is situated forty miles from 
 Paris, on the great road to Rome, and the ap- 
 pearance of the country through which this 
 road runs, is, for the most part, flat and unin- 
 teresting. It runs through a continued plain, 
 in a straight line between tall rows of elm 
 trees, whose lower branches are uniformly cut 
 off for fire-wood to the peasantry ; and exhibits, 
 for the most part, no other feature than the 
 continued riches of agricultural produce. At 
 the distance of seven miles from the town of 
 Fontainbleau, you first discern the forest, 
 covering a vast ridge of rocks, stretching as far 
 as the eye can reach, from right to left, and 
 presenting a dark irregular outline on the sur- 
 face of the horizon. The cultivation continues, 
 with all its uniformity, to the very foot of the 
 ridge ; but the moment you pass the boundaries 
 of the forest, you find yourself surrounded at 
 once with all the wildness and luxuriance of 
 natural scenery. The surface of the ground 
 is broken and irregular, rising at times into 
 vast piles of shapeless rocks, and enclosing at 
 others small valleys, in which the wood grows 
 in luxuriant beauty, unblighted by the chilling 
 blasts of northern climates. In these valleys, 
 the oak, the ash, and the beech, exhibit the 
 peculiar magnificence of forest scenery, while, 
 on the neighbouring hills, the birch waves its 
 airy foliage round the dark masses of rock 
 which terminaie the view. Nothing can be 
 conceived more striking than the scenery 
 which this variety of rock and wood produces 
 in every part of this romantic forest. At times 
 you pass through an unbroken mass of aged 
 timber, surrounded by the native grandeur of 
 forest scenery, and undisturbed by any traces 
 of human habitation, except in those rude 
 paths which occasionally open a passing view 
 into the remoter parts of the forest. At others, 
 the path winds through great masses of rock, 
 piled in endless confusion upon each other, 
 in the crevices of which, the fern and the 
 heath grow in all the luxuriance of southern 
 vegetation; while their summits are covered 
 by aged oaks of the wildest forms, whose 
 crossing boughs throw an eternal shade over 
 the ravines below, and afford room only to 
 discern at the farthest distance the summits 
 of those beautiful hills, on which the light 
 foliage of the birch trembles in the ray of an 
 unclouded sun, or waves on the blue of a sum- 
 mer heaven. 
 
 To those who have had the good fortune to 
 see the beautiful scenery of the Trosachs in 
 Scotland, of Matlock in Derbyshire, or of the 
 wooded Fells in Cumberland, it may afford 
 some idea of the Forest of Fontainbleau, to 
 
 107 
 
 say that it combines 
 
 scription with the aged magnificence "of Wind- 
 sor Forest. Over its whole extent there are 
 scattered many detached oaks of vast dimen- 
 sions, which seem to be of an older race 
 in the growth of the forest, whose lowest 
 boughs stretch above the top of the wood 
 which surrounds them, and whose decayed 
 summits afford a striking contrast to the 
 young and luxuriant foliage with which their 
 stems are enveloped. In May, 1814, it was 
 occupied by the old imperial guard, which 
 still remained in that station after the abdica- 
 tion of Bonaparte; and parties, or detached 
 stragglers of them, were frequently to be met 
 with wandering in the most solitary parts of 
 the forest. Their warlike and weather-beaten 
 appearance ; their battered arms apd worn 
 accoutrements ; the dark feathers of their caps, 
 and the sallow ferocious aspect of their coun- 
 tenances, suited the savage character of the 
 scenery with which they were surrounded, 
 and threw over the gloom and solitude of the 
 forest that wild expression with which the 
 genius of Salvator dignified the features of 
 uncultivated nature. 
 
 The town and palace of Fontainbleau is sit- 
 uated in a small plain near the centre of the 
 forest, and surrounded on all sides by the 
 rocky ridges with which it is everywhere in- 
 tersected. The palace is a large irregular 
 building, composed of many squares, and 
 fitted up in the inside with the utmost splen- 
 dour of imperial magnificence. The apart- 
 ments in which Napoleon dwelt during his 
 stay in the palace, after the capture of Paris 
 by the allied troops ; and the desk at which 
 he always wrote, and where his abdication 
 was signed, are there shown. It is covered 
 with white leather, scratched over in every 
 direction, and marked with innumerable wip- 
 ings of the pen, among which his own name, 
 Napoleon, frequently written as in a hur- 
 ried and irregular hand, was to be seen ; 
 and one sentence which began, " Que Dieu, 
 Napoleon, Napoleon." The servants in the 
 palace agreed in stating, that the emperor's 
 gaiety and fortitude of mind never deserted 
 him during the ruin of his fortune; that he 
 was engaged in his writing-chamber during 
 the greater part of the day, and walked for 
 two hours on the terrace, in close conversa- 
 tion with Marshal Ney. Several officers of 
 the imperial guard repeated the speech which 
 he made to his troops on leaving them after 
 his abdication of the throne, which was precise- 
 ly what appeared in the English newspapers. 
 So great was the enthusiasm produced by this 
 speech among the soldiers present, that it 
 was received with shouts and cries of Vive 
 PEmpereur, a Paris, a. Paris! and when he 
 departed under the custody of the allied com- 
 missioners, the whole army wept; there was 
 not a dry eye in the multitude who were as- 
 sembled to witness his departure. Even the 
 imperial guard, who had been trained in scenes 
 of suffering from their first entry into the 
 service who had been inured for a long course 
 of years to the daily sight of human misery, 
 and had constantly made a sport of all the 
 afflictions which are fitted to move the human 
 
108 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 heart, shared in the general grief; they seemed 
 to forget the degradation in which their com- 
 mander was involved, the hardships to which 
 they had been exposed, and the destruction 
 which he had brought upon their brethren in 
 arms ; they remembered him when he stood 
 victorious on the field of Austerlitz, or passed 
 in triumph through the gates of Moscow, and 
 shed over the fall of their emperor those tears 
 of genuine sorrow which they denied to the 
 deepest scenes of private suffering, or the most 
 aggravated instances of individual distress. 
 
 The infantry of the old guard was frequently 
 to be seen drawn up in line in the streets of 
 Fontainbleau, and their appearance was such 
 as fully answered the idea we had formed of 
 that body of veteran soldiers, who had borne 
 the French eagles through every capital of 
 Europe. Their aspect was bold and martial ; 
 there was a keenness in their eyes which be- 
 spoke the characteristic intelligence of the 
 French soldiers, and a ferocity in the expres- 
 sion of their countenances which seemed to 
 have been unsubdued even by the unparalleled 
 disasters in which their country had been in- 
 volved. The people of the town itself com- 
 plained in the bitterest terms of their licen- 
 tious conduct, and repeatedly said that they 
 dreaded them more as friends than the Cos- 
 sacks themselves as enemies. They seemed 
 to harbour the most unbounded resentment 
 against the people of this country ; their coun- 
 tenances bore the expression of the strongest 
 enmity against the English. Whatever the 
 atrocity of their conduct ; however it might 
 have been to the people of their own, as well as 
 every other country, it was impossible not 
 to feel the strongest emotion at the sight of 
 the veteran soldiers whose exploits had so 
 long ri vetted the attention of all who felt an 
 interest in the civilized world. These were 
 the men who first raised the glory of the re- 
 publican armies on the plains of Italy; who 
 survived the burning climate of Egypt, and 
 chained victory to the imperial standards at 
 Jena, at Friedland and Austerlitz who fol- 
 lowed the career of victory to the walls of the 
 Kremlin, and marched undaunted through the 
 ranks of death amid the snows of Russia ; 
 who witnessed the ruin of France under the 
 walls of Leipsic, and struggled to save its 
 falling fortune on the heights of Laon ; and 
 who preserved, in the midst of national humi- 
 liation, and when surrounded by the mighty 
 foreign powers, that undaunted air and un- 
 shaken firmness, which, even in the moment 
 of defeat, commanded the respect of their an- 
 tagonists in arms. 
 
 There is no scenery round Paris so striking 
 as the Forest of Fontainbleau, but the heights 
 of Belleville exhibit nature in a more pleasing 
 aspect, and are distinguished by features of a 
 gentler character. Montmartre, and the ridge 
 of Belleville, form those celebrated heights 
 which command Paris on the northern side, 
 and which were so obstinately contested be- 
 tween the allies and the French, on the 30th 
 March, 1814, previous to the capture of Paris 
 by the allied sovereigns. Montmartre is covered 
 for the most part with houses, and presents 
 nothing to attract the eye of the observer, ex- 
 
 cept the extensive view which is to be met 
 with at its summit. The heights of Belleville 
 are varied with wood, with orchards, vine- 
 yards, and gardens, interspersed with cottages 
 and villas, and cultivated with the utmost 
 care. There are few enclosures, but the whole 
 extent of the ground is thickly studded with 
 walnuts, fruit-trees, and forest timber, which, 
 from a distance, give it the appearance of one 
 continued wood. On a nearer approach, how- 
 ever, you find it intersected in every direction 
 by small paths, which wind among the vine- 
 yards, or through the woods with which the 
 hills are covered, and present, at every turn, 
 those charming little scenes which form the 
 peculiar characteristic of woodland scenery. 
 The cottages, half hid by the profusion of 
 fruit-trees, or embosomed in the luxuriant 
 woods, with which they are everywhere sur- 
 rounded, increase the interest which the scene- 
 ry itself is fitted to produce; they combine the 
 delightful idea of the peasant's enjoyment with 
 the beauty of the spot on which his dwelling 
 is placed; and awaken, in the midst of the 
 boundless luxuriance of vegetable nature, 
 those deeper feelings of moral delight, which 
 spring from the contemplation of human happi- 
 ness. 
 
 The effect of the charming scenery on the 
 heights of Belleville, is much increased by 
 the distant objects which terminate some parts 
 of the view. To the east, the high and gloomy 
 towers of Vincennes rise over the beautiful 
 woods with which the sides of the hill are 
 adorned ; and give an air of solemnity to the 
 scene, arising from the remembrance of the 
 tragic events of which it was the theatre. To 
 the south, the domes and spires of Paris can 
 occasionally be discovered through the open- 
 ings of the wood with which the foreground 
 is enriched, and present the capital at that 
 pleasing distance, when the minuter parts of 
 the buildings are concealed, when its promi- 
 nent features alone are displayed, and the 
 whole is softened by the obscure light which 
 distance throws over the objects of nature. 
 To an English mind, the effect of the whole is 
 infinitely increased, by the animating asso- 
 ciations with which this scenery is connected ; 
 by the remembrance of the mighty struggle 
 between freedom and slavery, which was here 
 terminated ; of the heroic deeds which were 
 here performed, and the unequalled magnani- 
 mity which was here displayed. It was here 
 that the expiring efforts of military despotism 
 were overthrown that the armies of Russia 
 stood triumphant over the power of France, 
 and nobly avenged the ashes of their own ca- 
 pital, by sparing that of their prostrate enemy. 
 
 At this time the traces of the recent strug- 
 gle were visibly imprinted on the villages and 
 woods with which the hill is covered. The 
 marks of blood were still to be discerned on 
 the chaussee which leads through the village 
 of Pantin ; the elm trees which line the road 
 were cut asunder or bored through with can- 
 non shot, and their stems riddled in many 
 parts, with the incessant fire of the grape shot. 
 The houses in La Villette, Belleville, and Pantin, 
 were covered with the marks of musket shot ; 
 the windows of many were shattered, or wholly 
 
THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 
 
 109 
 
 destroyed, and the interior of the rooms broken 
 by the balls which seemed to have pierced 
 every part of the building. So thickly were 
 the houses in some places covered with these 
 marks, that it appeared almost incredible how 
 any one could have escaped from so destruc- 
 tive a fire. Even the beautiful gardens with 
 which the slope of the heights are adorned, 
 and the inmost recesses of the wood of Ro- 
 mainville, bore, throughout, the marks of the 
 desperate struggles which they had lately wit- 
 nessed, and exhibited the symptoms of frac- 
 ture or destruction in the midst of the luxu- 
 riance of natural beauty; yet, though they 
 had so recently been the scene of mortal com- 
 bat ; though the ashes of the dead lay yet in 
 heaps on different parts of the field of battle, 
 the prolific powers of nature were undecayed : 
 the vines clustered round the broken fragments 
 of the instruments of war, the corn spread a 
 sweeter green over the fields, which were yet 
 wet with human blood, and the trees waved 
 with renovated beauty over the uncoffined re- 
 mains of the departed brave; emblematic of 
 the decay of man, and of the immortality of 
 nature. 
 
 The French have often been accused of sel- 
 fishness, and the indifference which they often 
 manifest to the fate of their relations affords 
 too much reason to believe that the social af- 
 fections have little permanent influence on their 
 minds. They exhibit, however, in misfortunes 
 of a different kind in calamities which really 
 press upon their own enjoyments of life the 
 same gayety of heart, and the same undisturbed 
 equanimity of disposition. That gayety in 
 
 misfortune, which is so painful to every ob- 
 server, when it is to be found in the midst of 
 family distress, becomes delightful when it 
 exists under the deprivation of the selfish gra- 
 tification to which the individual had been ac- 
 customed. Both here, and in other parts of 
 France, where the houses of the peasants had 
 been wholly destroyed by the allied armies, 
 there was much to admire in the equanimity 
 of mind with which these poor people bore 
 the loss of all their property. For an extent 
 of thirty miles in one direction, towards the 
 north of Champagne, every house near the 
 great road had been burned or pillaged for the 
 firewood which it contained, both by the French 
 and allied armies, and the people were every- 
 where compelled to sleep in the open air. The 
 men were everywhere rebuilding their fallen 
 walls, with a cheerfulness which never would 
 have existed in England under similar circum- 
 stances ; and the little children laboured in the 
 gardens during the day, and slept under the 
 vines at night, without exhibiting any signs 
 of distress for their disconsolate situation. In 
 many places we saw groups of these little 
 children in the midst of the ruined houses, or 
 under the shattered trees, playing with the 
 musket shot, or trying to roll the cannon balls 
 by which the destruction of their dwellings 
 had been effected: exhibiting a picture of 
 youthful joy and native innocence, while sport- 
 ing with the instruments of human destruc- 
 tion, which the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 would have moulded into the expression of 
 pathetic feeling, or employed as the means of 
 moral improvement. 
 
 THE LOUVRE IN 1814.* 
 
 To those who have had the good fortune to 
 see the pictures and statues which are pre- 
 served in the Louvre, all description of these 
 works must appear superfluous ; and to those 
 who have not had this good fortune, such an 
 attempt could convey no adequate idea of the 
 objects which are described. There is nothing 
 more uninteresting than the catalogue of pic- 
 tures which are to be found in the works of many 
 modern travellers ; nor any thing in general 
 more ridiculous than the ravings of admira- 
 tion with which this catalogue is described, 
 and with which the reader in general is little 
 disposed to sympathize. Without attempting, 
 therefore, to enumerate the great works which 
 are there to be met with, it is better to aim at 
 nothing but the delineation of the general cha- 
 racter by which the different schools of paint- 
 ing are distinguished, and the great features 
 in which they all differ from the sculpture of 
 ancient times. 
 
 * Written during a residence at Paris in May and 
 June, 1814, ;ind published in "Travels in France," in 
 1811-15, to the first volume of which the authot con- 
 tributed a few chapters. 
 
 For an attempt of this kind, the Louvre pre- 
 sents singular advantages, from the unparal- 
 leled collection of paintings of every school 
 and description which are there to be met 
 with, and the facility with which you can 
 there trace the progress of the art from its 
 first beginning to the period of its greatest 
 perfection. And it is in this view that the 
 collection of these works into one museum, 
 however much to be deplored as the work of 
 unprincipled ambition, and however much it 
 may have diminished the impression which 
 particular objects, from the influence of asso- 
 ciation, produced in their native place, is yet 
 calculated to produce the greatest of all im- 
 provements in the progress of the art; by 
 divesting particular schools and particular 
 works of the unbounded influence which the 
 effect of early association, or the prejudices of 
 national feeling, have given them in their ori- 
 ginal situation, and placing them where their 
 real nature is to be judged of by a more ex- 
 tended circle, and subjected to the examination 
 of more impartial sentiments. 
 
 The first hall of the Louvre, in the picture 
 
110 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 gallery, is filled with paintings of the French 
 school. The principal artists whose works 
 are here exhibited, are Le Brun, Gaspar and 
 Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Vernet, and 
 the modern painters Gerard and David. The 
 general character of the school of French his- 
 torical painting, is the expression of passion 
 and violent emotion. The colouring is for the 
 most part brilliant; the canvas crowded with 
 figures, and the incident selected, that in which 
 the painter might have the best opportunity of 
 displaying his knowledge of the human frame, 
 or the varied expression of the human counte- 
 nance. In the pictures of the modern school 
 of French painting, this peculiarity is pushed 
 to an extravagant length, and, fortunately for 
 the art, displays the false principles on which 
 the system of their composition is founded. The 
 moment seized is uniformly that of the strongest 
 and most violent passion ; the principal actors 
 in the piece are represented in a state of phren- 
 zied exertion, and the whole anatomical know- 
 ledge of the artist is displayed in the endless 
 contortions into which the human frame is 
 thrown. In David's celebrated picture of the 
 three Horatii, this peculiarity appears in the 
 most striking light. The works of this artist 
 may excite admiration, but it is the limited 
 and artificial admiration of the schools ; of 
 those who have forgot the end of the art in the 
 acquisition of the technical knowledge with 
 which it is accompanied, or the display of the 
 technical powers which its execution in- 
 volves. 
 
 The paintings of Vernet, in this collection, 
 are perhaps the finest specimens of that beau- 
 tiful master, and they entitle him to a higher 
 place in the estimation of mankind than he 
 seems yet to have obtained from the generality 
 of observers. There is. a delicacy of colour- 
 ing, a unity of design, and a harmony of ex- 
 pression in his works, which accord well with 
 the simplicity of the subjects which his taste 
 has selected, and the general effect which it 
 was his object to produce. In the representa- 
 tion of the sun dispelling the mists of a cloudy 
 morning; of his setting rays gilding the waves 
 of a western sea; or of that undefined beauty 
 which moonlight throws over the objects of 
 nature, the works of this artist are perhaps 
 unrivalled. 
 
 The paintings of Claude are by no means 
 equal to what might have been expected, from 
 the celebrity which his name has acquired, or 
 the matchless beauty which the engravings 
 from him possess. They are but eleven in 
 number, and cannot be, in any degree, com- 
 pared with those which are to be found in Mr. 
 Angerstein's collection. To those, however, 
 who have been accustomed to study the de- 
 signs of this great master, through the me- 
 dium of the engraved copies, and above all, 
 in the unrivalled works of Woollet, the sight 
 of the original pictures must, perhaps at 
 all times, create a feeling of disappointment. 
 There is a unity of effect in the engravings 
 which can never be met with amidst the dis- 
 traction of colouring in the original pictures; 
 and the imagination clothes the beautiful 
 shades of the copy with finer tints than even 
 the pencil of Claude has been able to supply. 
 
 " I have shown you," said Corinne to Oswald, 
 " St. Peter's for the first time, when the bril- 
 liancy of its decorations might appear in full 
 splendour, in the rays of the sun : I reserve 
 for you a finer, and a more profound enjoy- 
 ment, to behold it by the light of the moon." 
 Perhaps there is a distinction of the same 
 kind between the gaudy brilliancy of varied 
 colours, and the chaster simplicity of uniform 
 shadows ; and it is probably for this reason, 
 that on the first view of a picture which you 
 have long admired in the simplicity of en- 
 graved effect, you involuntarily recede from 
 the view, and seek in the obscure light, and 
 uncertain tint, which distance produces, to 
 recover that uniform tone and general charac- 
 ter, which the splendour of colouring is so apt 
 to destroy. It is a feeling similar to that which 
 Lord Byron has so finely described, as arising 
 from the beauty of moonlight scenery: 
 
 " Mellow'd to that tender light 
 
 Which Heaven to gaudy day denies." 
 
 The Dutch and Flemish school, to which 
 you next advance, possesses merit, and is dis- 
 tinguished by a character of a very different 
 description. It was the well-known object of 
 this school, to present an exact and faithful 
 imitation of nature to exaggerate none of its 
 faults, and enhance none of its excellencies, 
 but exhibit it as it really appears to the eye of 
 an ordinary spectator. Its artists selected, in 
 general, some scene of humour or amusement, 
 in the discovery of which, the most ignorant 
 spectators might discover other sources of 
 pleasure from those which the merit of the art 
 itself afforded. They did not pretend to aim 
 at the exhibition of passion or powerful emo- 
 tion: their paintings, therefore, are free from 
 that painful display of theatrical effect, which 
 characterizes the French school ; their object 
 was not to represent those deep scenes of sor- 
 row or suffering, which accord with the pro- 
 found feelings which it was the object of the 
 Italian school to awaken ; they want, therefore, 
 the dignity and grandeur which the works of 
 the greater Italian painters possess. Their 
 merit consists in the faithful delineation of 
 those ordinary scenes and common occur- 
 rences which are familiar to the eye of the most 
 careless observer. The power of the painter, 
 therefore, could be displayed only in the mi- 
 nuteness of the finishing, or the brilliancy of 
 the effect: and he endeavoured, by the power- 
 ful contrast of light and shade, to give a 
 higher character to his works than the nature 
 of their subjects could otherwise admit. The 
 pictures of Teniers, Ostade, and Gerard Dow, 
 possess these merits, and are distinguished by 
 this character in the highest degree ; but their 
 qualities are so well known in this country, as 
 to render any observations on them super- 
 fluous. There is a very great collection here 
 preserved, of the works of Rembrandt, and 
 their design and effect bear, in general, a 
 higher character than belongs to most of the 
 works of this celebrated master. 
 
 In one respect, the collection in the Louvre 
 is altogether unrivalled ; in the number and 
 beauty of the Wouvermans which are there to 
 be met with ; nor is it possible, without hav- 
 ing seen it, to appreciate, with any degree of 
 
THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 
 
 Ill 
 
 justice, the variety of design, the accuracy of 
 drawing, or delicacy of finishing, which dis- 
 tinguish his works from those of any other 
 painter of a similar description. There are 
 forty of his pieces there assembled, all in the 
 finest state of preservation, and all displaying 
 the same unrivalled beauty of colouring and 
 execution. In their design, however,, they 
 widely differ ; and they exhibit, in the most 
 striking manner, the real object to which 
 painting should be applied, and the causes 
 of the errors in which its composition has 
 been involved. His works, for the most 
 part, are crowded with figures ; his subjects 
 are in general battle-pieces, or spectacles of 
 military pomp, or the animated scenes which 
 the chase presents; and he seems to have ex- 
 hausted all the efforts of his genius, in the 
 variety of incident and richness of execution, 
 which these subjects are fitted to afford. From 
 the confused and indeterminate expression 
 however, which the multitude of their objects 
 exhibit, the spectator turns with delight to 
 those simpler scenes in which his mind seems 
 to have reposed, after the fatigues which it 
 had undergone ; to the representation of a 
 single incident, or the delineation of a certain 
 occurrence to the rest of the traveller after 
 the fatigues of the day to the repose of the 
 horse in the intermission of labour to the re- 
 turn of the soldier, after the dangers of the 
 campaign ; scenes in which every thing com- 
 bines for the uniform character, and where 
 the genius of the artist has been able to give 
 to the rudest occupations of men, and even to 
 the objects of animal life, the expression of 
 genuine poetical feeling. 
 
 The pictures of Vandyke and Rubens belong 
 to a much higher school than that which rose 
 out of the w'ealth and the limited taste of the 
 Dutch people. There are sixty pictures of the 
 latter of these masters in the Louvre, and, 
 combined with the celebrated gallery in the 
 Luxembourg palace, they form the finest as- 
 semblage of them which is to be met with in 
 the world. The character of his works differs 
 essentially from that both of the French and 
 the Dutch schools: he was employed, not in 
 painting cabinet pictures for wealthy mer- 
 chants, but in designing great altar pieces for 
 splendid churches, or commemorating the 
 glory of sovereigns in imperial galleries. The 
 greatness of his genius rendered him fit to 
 attempt the representation of the most com- 
 plicated and difficult objects; but in the confi- 
 dence of this genius, he seems to have lost 
 sight of the genuine object of composition in 
 Bis art. He attempts what it is impossible for 
 painting to accomplish. He aims at telling a 
 whole story by the expression of a single pic- 
 ture; and seems to pour forth the profusion 
 of his fancy, by crowding his canvas with a 
 multiplicity of figures, which serve no other 
 purpose than that of showing the endless 
 power of creation which the author possessed. 
 In each figure, there is great vigour of concep- 
 tion, and admirable power of execution ; but 
 the whole possesses no general character, and 
 produces no permanent emotion. There is a 
 mixture of allegory and truth in many of his 
 greatest works, which is always painful ; a 
 
 grossness in his conception of the female form, 
 which destroys the symmetry of female beauty; 
 and a wildness of imagination in his general 
 design, which violates the feelings of ordinary 
 taste. You survey his pictures with astonish- 
 ment and the power of thought and the bril- 
 liancy of colouring which they display; but 
 they produce no lasting impression on the 
 mind ; they have struck no chord of feeling or 
 emotion, and you leave them with no other 
 feeling, than that of regret, that the confusion 
 of objects destroys the effect which each in 
 itself might be fitted to produce. And if one 
 has made a deeper impression ; if you dwell 
 on it with that delight which it should ever be 
 the object of painting \ produce, you find 
 that your pleasure proceeds from a single 
 figure, or the expression of a detached part of 
 the picture; and that in the contemplation of 
 it you have, without being conscious of it, 
 detached your mind from the observation of 
 all that might interfere with its characteristic 
 expression, and thus preserved that unity of 
 emotion which is essential to the existence of 
 the emotion of taste, but which the confusion 
 of incident is so apt to destroy. 
 
 It is in the Italian school, however, that the 
 collection in the Louvre is most unrivalled, 
 and it is from its character that the general 
 tendency of the modern school of historical 
 painting is principally to be determined. 
 
 The general object of the Italian school ap- 
 pears to be the expression of passion. The 
 peculiar subjects which its painters were 
 called on to represent, the sufferings and death 
 of our Saviour, the varied misfortunes to 
 which his disciples were exposed, or the mul- 
 tiplied persecutions which the early fathers of 
 the church had to sustain, inevitably pre- 
 scribed the object to which their genius was 
 to be directed, and the peculiar character 
 which their works were to assume. They 
 have all, accordingly, aimed at the expression 
 of passion, and endeavoured to excite the pity, 
 or awaken the sympathy of the spectator; 
 though the particular species of passion which 
 they have severally selected has varied with 
 the turn of mind which the artist possessed. 
 
 The works of Dominichino and of the Ca- 
 raccis, of which there are a very great num- 
 ber, incline, in general, to the representation 
 of what is dark or gloomy in character, or 
 what is terrific and appalling in suffering. 
 The subjects which the first of these masters 
 has in general selected, are the cells of monks, 
 the energy of martyrs, the death of saints, or 
 the sufferings of the crucifixion ; and the dark- 
 blue coldness of his colouring, combined with 
 the depth of his shadows, accord well with the 
 gloomy character which his compositions pos- 
 sess. The Caraccis, amidst the variety of ob- 
 jects which their genius has embraced, have 
 dwelt, in general, upon the expression of sor- 
 row of that deep and profound sorrow which 
 the subjects of sacred history were so fitted to 
 afford, and which was so well adapted to that 
 religious emotion which it was their object to 
 excite. 
 
 Guido Reni, Carlo Maratti, and Murillo, are 
 distinguished by a gentler character; by the 
 expression of tenderness and sweetness of dis- 
 
112 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 position : and the subjects which they have 
 chosen are, for the most part, those which 
 were fitted for the display of this predominant 
 expression ; the Holy Family, the flight into 
 Egypt, the youth of St. John, the penitence of 
 the Magdalene. While, in common with all 
 their brethren, they have aimed at the expres- 
 sion of emotion, it was an emotion of a softer 
 kind than that which arose from the energy 
 of passion, or the violence of suffering; it was 
 the emotion produced by more permanent 
 feelings, and less turbulent affections; and 
 from the character of this emotion, their exe- 
 cution has assumed a peculiar cast, and their 
 composition been governed by a peculiar 
 principle. Their colouring is seldom brilliant ; 
 there is a subdued tone pervading the greater 
 part of their pictures; and they have limited 
 themselves, in general, to the delineation of a 
 single figure, or a small group, in which a 
 single character of mind is prevalent. 
 
 There are only six paintings by Salvator 
 Rosa in this collection, but they bear that wild 
 and original character which is proverbially 
 known to belong to the works of this great 
 artist. One of his pieces is particularly 
 striking, a skirmish of horse, accompanied by 
 all the scenery in which he so peculiarly de- 
 lighted. In the foreground is the ruins of an 
 old temple, with its lofty pillars finely displayed 
 in shadow above the summits of the horizon; 
 in the middle distance the battle is dimly 
 discerned through the driving rain, which ob- 
 scures the view; while the back ground is 
 closed by a vast ridge of gloomy rocks, rising 
 into a dark and tempestuous sky. The cha- 
 racter of the whole is that of sullen magnifi- 
 cence ; and it affords a striking instance of the 
 power of great genius, to mould the most 
 varied objects in nature into the expression 
 of one uniform poetical feeling. 
 
 Very different is the expression which be- 
 longs to the softer pictures of Correggio of 
 that great master, whose name is associated 
 in every one's mind with all that is gentle or 
 delicate in the imitation of nature. Perhaps 
 it was from the force of this impression that 
 his works seldom completely come up to the 
 expectations which are formed of them. They 
 are but eight in number, and do not compre- 
 hend the finest of his compositions. Their 
 general character is that of tenderness and 
 delicacy : there is a softness in his shading of 
 the human form which is quite unrivalled, and 
 a harmony in the general lone of his colour- 
 ing, which is in perfect unison with the cha- 
 racteristic expression which it was his object 
 to produce. There is a want of unity, how- 
 ever, in the composition of his figures, which 
 does not accord with this harmony of execu- 
 tion ; you dwell rather on the fine expression 
 of individual form, than the combined tendency 
 of the whole group, and leave the picture with 
 the impression of the beauty of a single coun- 
 tenance, rather than the general character of 
 the whole design. He has represented nature 
 in its most engaging aspect, and given to in- 
 dividual figures all the charms of ideal beauty ; 
 but he wants that high strain of spiritual feel- 
 ing, which belongs only to the works of Ra- 
 phael. 
 
 There is but one picture by Carlo Dolci in 
 the Louvre ; but it alone is sufficient to mark 
 the exquisite genius which its author pos- 
 sessed. It is of small dimensions, and repre- 
 sents the Holy Family, with the Saviour asleep. 
 The finest character of design is here com- 
 bined with the utmost delicacy of execution ; 
 the softness of the shadows exceeds that of 
 Correggio himself; and the dark-blue colour- 
 ing which prevails over the whole, is in perfect 
 unison with the expression of that rest and 
 quiet which the subject requires. The sleep 
 of the Infant is perfection itself it is the deep 
 sleep of youth and of innocence, which no 
 care has disturbed, and no sorrow embittered 
 and in the unbroken repose of which the 
 features have relaxed into the expression of 
 perfect happiness. All the features of the 
 picture are in unison with this .expression, 
 except in the tender anxiety of the virgin's 
 eye ; and all is at rest in the surrounding ob- 
 jects, save where her hand gently removes the 
 veil to contemplate the unrivalled beauty of the 
 Saviour's countenance. 
 
 Without the softness of shading or the har- 
 mony of colour which Correggio possessed, 
 the works of Raphael possess a higher cha- 
 racter, and aim at the expression of a sublimer 
 feeling than those of any other artist whom 
 modern Europe has produced. Like all his 
 brethren, he has often been misled from the 
 real object of his art, and tried, in the energy 
 of passion, or the confused expression of 
 varied figures, to multiply the effect which his 
 composition might produce. Like all the rest, 
 he has failed in effecting what the constitution 
 of the human mind renders impossible, and in 
 this very failure, warned every succeeding age 
 of the vanity of the attempt which his tran- 
 scendent genius was unable to effect. It is this 
 fundamental error that destroys the effect, even 
 of his finest pieces; it is this, combined with 
 the unapproachable nature of the presence 
 which it reveals, that has rendered the transfi- 
 guration itself a chaos of genius rather than a 
 model of ideal beauty ; nor will it be deemed 
 a presumptuous excess, if such sentiments are 
 expressed in regard to this great author, since 
 it is from his own works alone that we have 
 derived the means of appreciating his imper- 
 fections. 
 
 It is in his smaller pieces that the genuine 
 character of Raphael's paintings is to be seen 
 in the figure of St. Michael subduing the 
 demon ; in the beautiful tenderness of the 
 Virgin and Child; in the unbroken harmony 
 of the Holy Family ; in the wildness and 
 piety of the infant St. John; scenes, in which 
 all the objects of the picture combine for the 
 preservation of one uniform character, and 
 where the native fineness of his mind appears 
 undisturbed by the display of temporary pas- 
 sion, or the painful distraction of varied suf- 
 fering. 
 
 There are no pictures of the English school 
 in the Louvre, for the arms of France never 
 prevailed in our island. From the splendid 
 character, however, which it early assumed 
 under the distinguished guidance of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, and from the high and philosophical 
 principles which he at first laid down for the 
 
THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 
 
 113 
 
 government of the art, there is every reason 
 to believe that it ultimately will rival the cele- 
 brity of foreign genius: And it is in this view 
 that the continuance of the gallery of the 
 Louvre, in its present situation, is principally 
 to be wished by the English nation that the 
 English artists may possess so near their own 
 country so great a school for composition and 
 design ; that the imperfections of foreign 
 schools may enlighten the views of English 
 genius; and that the conquests of the French 
 arms, by transferring the remains of ancient 
 taste to these northern shores, may throw over 
 its rising art that splendour which has hitherto 
 been confined to the regions of the sun. 
 
 The great object, therefore, of all the modern 
 schools of historical painting, seems to have 
 been the delineation of an affecting scene or in- 
 teresting occurrence.: they have endeavoured to 
 tell a story by the variety of incidents in a 
 single picture; and seized, for the most part, 
 the moment when passion was at its greatest 
 height, or suffering appeared in its most ex- 
 cruciating form. The general character, ac- 
 cordingly, of the school, is the expression of 
 passion or violent suffering; and in the pro- 
 secution of this object, they have endeavoured 
 to exhibit it under all its aspects, and display 
 all the effects which it could possibly produce 
 on the human form, by the different figures 
 which they have introduced. While this is 
 the general character of the whole, there are 
 of course numerous exceptions; and many 
 of its greatest painters seem, in the representa- 
 tion of single figures, or in the composition 
 of smaller groups, to have had in view the ex- 
 pression of less turbulent affections; to have 
 aimed at the display of settled emotion or per- 
 manent feeling, and to have excluded every 
 thing from their composition which was not 
 in unison with this predominant expression. 
 
 The Sculpture Gallery, which contains above 
 two hundred remains of ancient statuary, marks 
 in the most decided manner the different ob- 
 jects to which this noble art was applied in 
 ancient times. Unlike the paintings of modern 
 Europe, their figures are almost uniformly at 
 rest; they exclude passion or viole^Buffering 
 from their design ; and the moment which they 
 select is not that in which a particular or tran- 
 sient emotion may be displayecfbut in which 
 the settled character of mind may be expressed. 
 With the two exceptions of the Laocoon and 
 the fighting Gladiator, there are none of the 
 statues in the Louvre which are not the repre- 
 sentation of the human figure in a state of 
 repose ; and the expression which the finest 
 possess, is invariably that permanent expres- 
 sion which has resulted from the habitual 
 frame and character of mind. Their figures 
 seem to belong to a higher class of beings than 
 that in which we are placed ; they indicate a 
 state in which passion, anxiety, and emotion 
 are no more ; and where the unruffled repose 
 of mind has moulded the features into the per- 
 fect expression of the mental character. Even 
 the countenance of the Venus de Medicis, the 
 most beautiful which it has ever entered into 
 the mind of man to conceive, and of which no 
 copy gives the slightest idea, bears no trnce 
 of emotion, and none of the marks of human 
 15 
 
 feeling; it is the settled expression of celestial 
 beauty, and even the smile on her lip is not 
 the fleeting smile of temporary joy, but the 
 lasting expression of that heavenly feeling 
 which sees in all around it the grace and love- 
 liness which belongs to itself alone. It ap- 
 proaches nearer to that character which some- 
 times marks the countenance of female beauty 
 when death has stilled the passions of the 
 world ; but it is not the cold expression of past 
 character which survives the period of mortal 
 dissolution ; it is the living expression of pre- 
 sent existence, radiant with the beams of im- 
 mortal life, and breathing the air of eternal 
 happiness. 
 
 The paintings of Raphael convey the most 
 perfect idea of earthly beauty ; and they de- 
 note the expression of all that is finest and 
 most elevated in the character of the female 
 mind. But there is a "human meaning in 
 their eye," and they bear the marks of that 
 anxiety and tenderness which belong to the 
 relations of present existence. The Venus 
 displays the same beauty, freed from the cares 
 which existence has produced ; and her lifeless 
 eye-balls gaze upon the multitude which sur- 
 round her, as on a scene fraught only with the 
 expression of.universal joy. 
 
 In another view, the Apollo and the Venus 
 appear to have been intended by the genius 
 of antiquity, as expressive of the character of 
 mind which distinguishes the different sexes ; 
 and in the expression of this character, they 
 have exhausted all which it is possible for 
 human imagination to produce upon the sub- 
 ject. The commanding air, and advanced step 
 of the Apollo, exhibit man in his noblest aspect, 
 as triumphing over the evils of physical na- 
 ture, and restraining the energy of his dispo- 
 sition, in the consciousness of resistless power: 
 the averted eye, and retiring grace of the Ve- 
 nus, are expressive of the modesty, gentleness 
 and submission, which form the most beauti- 
 ful features of the female character. 
 
 Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed, 
 For valour He, and contemplation, formed, 
 Fcr beauty She, and sweet attractive grace, 
 He for God only, She for God in Him. 
 
 These words were said of our first parents 
 by our greatest poet, after the influence of a 
 pure religion had developed the real nature of 
 the female character, and determined the place 
 which woman was to hold in the scale of na- 
 ture; but the idea had been expressed in a 
 still finer manner two thousand years before, 
 by the sculptors of antiquity ; and amidst all 
 the degradation of ancient manners, the pro- 
 phetic genius of Grecian taste contemplated 
 that ideal perfection in the character of the 
 sexes, which was destined to form the boun- 
 dary of human progress in the remotest ages 
 of human improvement. 
 
 The Apollo strikes a stranger with all its 
 grandeur on the first aspect ; subsequent exa- 
 mination can add nothing to the force of the 
 impression which is then received. The Ve- 
 nus produces at first less effect, but gains upon 
 the mind at every renewal, till it rivets the 
 affections even more than the greatness of its 
 unequalled rival. 
 
 The Dying Gladiator is perhaps, after the 
 
 K2 
 
114 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 iwo which have been mentioned, the finest 
 statue which the Louvre contains. The mo- 
 ment chosen is finely adapted for the expres- 
 sion of ideal beauty, from a subject connected 
 with painful ideas. It is not the moment of 
 energy or struggling, when the frame is con- 
 vulsed with the exertion it is making, or the 
 countenance is deformed by the tumult of pas- 
 sion ; it is the moment of expiring nature, 
 when the figure is relaxed by the weakness of 
 decay, and the mind is softened by the approach 
 of death ; when the ferocity of combat is for- 
 gotten in the extinction of the interest which 
 it had excited, when every unsocial passion is 
 stilled by the weakness of exhausted nature, 
 and the mind, in the last moments of life, is 
 fraught with finer feelings than had belonged 
 to the character of previous existence. It is 
 a moment similar to that in which Tasso has 
 so beautifully described the change in Clorin- 
 da's mind, after she had been mortally wound- 
 ed by the hand of Tancred, but in which he 
 was enabled to give her the inspiration of a 
 greater faith, and the charily of a more gentle 
 religion : 
 
 Amico h'ai vinto : io te perdon. Perdona 
 Tu ancora, al corpo no che nulla pave 
 All' alma si : deh per lei prega ; e dona 
 Battesnio a me, ch'ogni mia colpa lave ; 
 In queste voci lansruide risuona 
 Un non so che di flebile e soave 
 Ch' al cor gli scende, ed ogni sdegno ammorza, 
 Egli occhi a lagrimar gl' invoglia e sforza. 
 
 The statues of antiquity were addressed to 
 the multitude of the people ; they were intended 
 to awaken the devotion of all classes of citi- 
 zens to be felt and judged by all mankind. 
 They are free, therefore, from all the peculiar- 
 ities of national taste; they are purified from 
 all the peculiarities of local circumstances ; 
 they have been rescued from that miserable 
 degradation to which art is uniformly exposed, 
 by taste being confined to a limited society. 
 They have assumed, in consequence, that ge- 
 neral character, which might suit the universal 
 feelings of our nature, and that permanent ex- 
 pression which might speak to the heart of 
 men through every succeeding age. The ad- 
 miration, accordingly, for those works of art 
 has been undiminished by the lapse of time; 
 they excite the same feelings at the present 
 time, as when they came fresh from the hand 
 of the Grecian artist, and are regarded by all 
 nations with the same veneration on the banks 
 of the Seine, as when they sanctified the 
 temples of Athens, or adorned the gardens of 
 Rome. 
 
 Even the rudest nations seem to have felt 
 the force of this impression. The Hungarians 
 and the Cossacks, during the stay of the allied 
 armies in Paris, ignorant of the name or the 
 celebrity of those works of art, seemed yet to 
 take a delight in the survey of the statues 
 of antiquity, and in passing through the long 
 line of marbled greatness which the Louvre 
 presents, stopt involuntarily at the sight of the 
 Venus, or clustered round the foot of the pe- 
 destal of the Apollo; indicating thus, in the 
 expression of unaffected feeling, the force of 
 
 stroy. The poor Russian soldier, whose know- 
 ledge of art was limited to the crucifix which 
 he had borne in his bosom from his native 
 land, still felt the power of ancient beauty, and 
 in the spirit of the Athenians, who erected an 
 altar to the Unknown God, did homage in si- 
 lence to that unknown spirit which had touched 
 a new chord in his untutored heart. 
 
 The character of art in every country ap- 
 pears to have been determined by the disposi- 
 tion of the people to whom it was addressed, 
 and the object of its composition to have va- 
 ried with the purpose it was called on to fulfil. 
 The Grecian statues were designed to excite 
 the devotion of a cultivated people; to imbody 
 their conceptions of divine perfection ; to real- 
 ize the expression of that character of mind 
 which they imputed to the deities whose tem- 
 ples they were to adorn : it was grace, or 
 strength, or majesty, or youthful power, which 
 they were to represent by the figures of Venus, 
 of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their 
 artists accordingly were led to aim at the ex- 
 pression of general character : to exclude pas- 
 sion, or emotion, or suffering, from their de- 
 sign, and represent their figures in that state 
 of repose where the permanent expression of 
 mind ought to be displayed. It is perhaps in 
 this circumstance that is to be found the cause 
 both of the peculiarity and the excellence of 
 the Grecian statuary. 
 
 The Italian painters were early required to 
 effect a different object. Their pictures were 
 destined to represent the sufferings of nature ; to 
 display the persecution or death of our Saviour, 
 the anguish of the Holy Family, the heroism 
 of martyrs, the resignation of devotion. In 
 the infancy of the arts, accordingly, they were 
 led to study the expression of passion, of 
 suffering, and emotion; to aim at rousing the 
 pity, or exciting the sympathy of the spectators ; 
 and to endeavour to characterize their paint- 
 ings by the representation of temporary pas- 
 sion, nq,t the expression of permanent charac- 
 ter. Th'ose beautiful pictures in which a dif- 
 ferent object seems to have been followed in 
 which itijf expression is that of permanent 
 emotioj^Rt transient passion, while they cap- 
 tivate ^r admiration, seem to be exceptions 
 from 'the gMral design, and to have been 
 suggested b^Blf peculiar nature of the subject 
 represented, or a '"particular firmness of mind 
 in the artist. In thesMJfcauses we may perhaps 
 discern the origin of^ie peculiar character 
 of the Italian school. 
 
 In the French school, the character and 
 manners of the people seem to have carried 
 this peculiarity to a still greater length. Their 
 character led them to seek in every thing for 
 stage effect ; to admire the most extravagant 
 and violent representations, and to value the 
 efforts of art, not in proportion to their imita- 
 tion of the qualities of nature, but in propor- 
 tion to their resemblance to those artificial 
 qualiti^ on which their admiration was 
 founde'd. The vehemence of their manner, on 
 the most ordinary occasions, rendered the 
 
 for the 
 
 mos,t extravagant gestures requisite 
 
 that genuine taste for the beauty of nature, display of real passion; and their drama ac- 
 which all the rudeness of savage manners, and c6rding!y exhibits a mixture of dignity of sen- 
 all the ferocity of war had not been abltftWde- .timent, with violence of gesture, beyond mea 
 
THE LOUVRE IN 1814. 
 
 115 
 
 sure surprising to a foreign spectator. The 
 same disposition of the people has influencec 
 the character of their historical painting ; and 
 it is to be remembered, that the French schoo 
 of painting succeeded the establishment of the 
 French drama. It is hence that they have ge- 
 nerally selected the moment of theatrical effeci 
 the moment of phrenzied passion, or unpa- 
 ralleled exertion, and that their composition is 
 distinguished by so many striking contrasts 
 and so laboured a display of momentary effect 
 
 The Flemish or Dutch school of painting 
 was neither addressed to the devotional nor 
 the theatrical feelings of mankind; it was 
 neither intended to awaken the sympathy of 
 religious pity, nor excite the admiration of 
 artificial dispositions it was addressed to 
 wealthy men of vulgar capacities, capable of 
 appreciating only the merit of minute detail 
 or the faithfulness of exact imitation. It is 
 hence that their painting possesses excellencies 
 and defects of so peculiar a description ; that 
 they have carried the minuteness of finishing 
 to so unparalleled a degree of perfection ; thai 
 the brilliancy of their lights has thrown a 
 splendour over the vulgarity of their subjects 
 and that they are in general so utterly destitute of 
 all the refinement and sentiment which sprung 
 from the devotional feelings of the Italian 
 people. 
 
 The subjects which the Dutch painter? 
 chose were subjects of low humour, calcu- 
 lated to amuse a rich and uncultivated people: 
 the subjects of the French school were heroic 
 adventure, suited to the theatrical taste of a 
 more elevated society: the subjects of the 
 Italian school were the incidents of sacred 
 history, suited to the devotional feelings of a 
 religious people. In all, the subjects to which 
 painting was applied, and the character of the 
 art itself, was determined by the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances or disposition of the people to 
 whom it was addressed : so that, in these in- 
 stances, there has really happened what 
 Addison stated should ever be the case, that 
 " the taste should not conform to the art, but 
 the art to the taste." 
 
 The object of statuary should ever be the 
 same to which it was always confined by the 
 ancients, viz. the representation of CHARACTER. 
 The very materials on which the sculptor has 
 to operate, render his art unfit for the expres- 
 sion either of emotion or passion; and the 
 figure, when finished, can bear none of the 
 marks by which they are to be distinguished. 
 It is a figure of cold, and pale, and lifeless 
 marble, without the varied colour which emo- 
 tion produces, or the living eye which passion 
 animates. The eye is the feature which is 
 expressive of present emotion ; it is it which 
 varies with all the changes which the mind 
 undergoes ; it is it which marks the difference 
 between joy and sorrow, between love and 
 hatred, between pleasure and pain, between 
 life and death. But the eye, with all the end- 
 less expressions which it bears, is lost to the 
 sculptor; its gaze must ever be cold and life- 
 less to him; its fire is quenched in the stillness 
 of the tomb. A statue, therefore, can never be 
 expressive of living emotion ; it can never ex- 
 press tho^e transient feelings which mark the 
 
 play of the living mind. It is an abstraction 
 of character which has no relation to present 
 existence; a shadow in which all the perma- 
 nent features of the mind are expressed, but 
 none of the passions of the mind are shown : 
 like the figures of snow, which the magic of 
 Okba formed to charm the solitude of Leila's 
 dwelling,rit bears the character of the human 
 form, but melts at the warmth of human feeling. 
 
 While such is the object to which statuary 
 would appear to be destined, painting embraces 
 a wider range, and is capable of more varied 
 expression : it is expressive of the living form; 
 it paints the eye and opens the view of the 
 present mind ; it imitates all the fleeting changes 
 which constitute the signs of present emotion. 
 It is not, therefore, an abstraction of character 
 which the painter is to represent; not an ideal 
 form, expressive only of the qualities of per- 
 manent character ; but an actual being, alive 
 to the impressions of present existence, and 
 bound by the ties of present affection. It is in 
 the delineation of these affections, therefore, 
 that the power of the painter principally con- 
 sists; in the representation, not of simple cha- 
 racter, but of character influenced or subdued 
 by emotion. It is the representation of the joy 
 of youth, or the repose of age ; of the sorrow 
 of innocence, or the penitence of guilt; of the 
 tenderness of parental affection, or the gra- 
 titude of filial love. In these, and a thousand 
 other instances, the expression of the emotion 
 constitutes the beauty of the picture; it is that 
 which gives the tone to the character which it 
 is to bear; it is that which strikes the chord 
 which vibrates in every human heart. The 
 object of the painter, therefore, is the ex- 
 pression of EMOTION, of that emotion which 
 is blended with the character of the mind 
 which feels, and gives to that character the 
 interest which belongs to the events of present 
 existence. 
 
 The object of the painter being the repre- 
 sentation of emotion in all the varied situations 
 which life produces, it follows, that every thing 
 in his picture should be in unison with the 
 predominant expression which he wishes it to 
 bear ; that the composition should be as sim- 
 ple as is consistent with the development of 
 this expression ; and the colouring, such as 
 accords with the character by which this emo- 
 tion is distinguished. It is here that the genius 
 of the artist is principally to be displayed, in 
 the selection of such figures as suit the general 
 impression which the whole is to produce; 
 and the choice of such a tone of colouring, as 
 harmonizes with the feeling of mind which it 
 is his object to produce. The distraction of va- 
 ried colours the confusion of different figures 
 the contrast of opposite expressions, complete- 
 ly destroy the effect of the composition ; they 
 fix the mind to the observation of what is par- 
 icular in the separate parts, and prevent that 
 uniform and general emotion which arises 
 from the perception of one uniform expression 
 in all the parts of which it is composed. It i.s 
 in this very perception, however, that the source 
 of the beauty is to be found; it is in the unde- 
 fined feeling to which it gives me, that the 
 delight of the emotion of taste c^ns-s's. Like 
 the harmony of sounds in musical composi- 
 
116 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 tion, it produces an effect, of which we are 
 unable to give any account; but which we 
 feel to be instantly destroyed by the jarring 
 sound of a different note, or the discordant 
 effect of a foreign expression. It is in the ne- 
 glect of this great principle that the defect of 
 many of the first pictures of modern times is 
 to be found in the confused multitude of un- 
 necessary figures in the contradictory ex- 
 pression of separate parts in the distracting 
 brilliancy of gorgeous colours : in the laboured 
 display, in short, of the power of the artist, and 
 the utter dereliction of the object of the art. 
 The great secret, on the other hand, of the 
 beauty of the most exquisite specimens of mo- 
 dern art, lies in the simplicity of expression 
 which they bear, in their production of one 
 uniform emotion, from all the parts of one 
 harmonious composition. For the production 
 of this unity of emotion the surest means will 
 be found to consist in the selection of as few 
 figures as is consistent with the development 
 of the characteristic expression of the com- 
 position ; and it is, perhaps, to this circum- 
 stance, that we are to impute the unequalled 
 charm which belongs to the pictures of single 
 figures, or small groups, in which a single ex- 
 pression is alone attempted. 
 
 Both painting and sculpture are wholly 
 unfit for the representation of PASSION, AS 
 EXPRESSED BY MOTION ; and that to attempt to 
 delineate it, necessarily injures the effect of 
 the composition. Neither, it is clear, can ex- 
 press actual motion : they should not attempt, 
 therefore, to represent those passions of the 
 mind which motion alone is adequate to ex- 
 press. The attempt to delineate violent 
 passion, accordingly, uniformly produces a 
 painful or a ridiculous effect: it does not 
 even convey any conception of the passion 
 itself, because its character is not known by 
 the expression of any single moment, but by 
 the rapid changes which result from the per- 
 turbed state into which the mind is thrown. 
 It is hence that passion seems so ridiculous 
 when seen at a distance, or without the cause 
 of its existence being known : and it is hence, 
 that if a human figure were petrified in any 
 of the stages of passion it would have so 
 painful or insane an appearance. As painting, 
 therefore, cannot exhibit the rapid changes 
 in which the real expression of passion con- 
 sists, it should not attempt its delineation at 
 all. Its real object is, the expression of emotion, 
 of that more settled state of the human mind 
 when the changes of passion are gone when 
 
 the countenance is moulded into the expres- 
 sion of permanent feeling, and the existence 
 of this feeling is marked by the permanent 
 expression which the features have assumed. 
 
 The greatest artists of ancient and modern 
 times, accordingly, have selected, even in the 
 representation of violent exertion, that mo- 
 ment of temporary repose, when a permanent 
 expression is given to the figure. Even the 
 Laocoon is not in a state of actual exertion : 
 it is represented in that moment when the last 
 effort has been made ; when straining against 
 an invincible power has given to the figure 
 the aspect at last of momentary repose ; and 
 when despair has placed its settled mark on, 
 the expression of the countenance. The fight- 
 ing Gladiator is not in a state of present acti- 
 vity, but in that moment when he is preparing 
 his mind for the future and final contest, and 
 when, in this deep concentration of his 
 powers, the pause which the genius of the 
 ' artist has given, expresses more distinctly to 
 the eye of the spectator the determined cha- 
 racter of the combatant, than all that the 
 struggle or agony of the combat itself could 
 afterwards display. 
 
 The Grecian statues in the Louvre may be 
 considered as the most perfect works of 
 human genius, and every one must feel those 
 higher conceptions of human form, and of 
 human nature, which the taste of ancient sta- 
 tuary had formed. It is not in the moment of 
 action that it has represented man, but in the 
 moment after action, when the tumult of 
 passion has ceased, and all that is great or 
 dignified in moral nature remains. It is not 
 Hercules in the moment of earthly combat, 
 when every muscle was swollen with the 
 strength he was exerting; but Hercules, in 
 the moment of transformation into a nobler 
 being, when the exertion of mortality has 
 passed, and his powers seem to repose in the 
 tranquillity of heaven ; not Apollo, when 
 straining his youthful strength in drawing the 
 bow ; but Apollo, when the weapon was dis- 
 charged, watching, with un exulting eye, its 
 resistless course, and serene in the enjoy- 
 ment of immortal power. And inspired by 
 these mighty examples, it is not St. Michael 
 when struggling with the demon, and marring 
 the beauty of angelic form by the violence of 
 earthly passion, that Raphael represents ; but 
 St. Michael, in the moment of unruffled tri- 
 umph, restraining the might of almighty 
 power, and radiant with the beams of eternal 
 mercy. 
 
TYROL. 
 
 117 
 
 TYROL.* 
 
 IT is a common observation, that the cha- 
 racter of a people is in a great measure influ- 
 enced by their local situation, and the nature 
 of the scenery in which they are placed ; and 
 it is impossible to visit the Tyrol without being 
 convinced of the truth of the remark. The 
 entrance of the mountain region is marked 
 by as great a diversity in the aspect and man- 
 ners of the population, as in the external 
 objects with which they are surrounded ; nor 
 is the transition, from the level plain of Lom- 
 bardy to the rugged precipices of the Alps, 
 greater than from the squalid crouching ap- 
 pearance of the Italian peasant to the mar- 
 tial air of the free-born mountaineer. 
 
 This transition is so remarkable, that it 
 attracts the attention of the most superficial 
 observer. In travelling over the states of the 
 north of Italy, he meets everywhere with the 
 symptoms of poverty, meanness, and abject 
 depression. The beautiful slopes which de- 
 scend from the Alps, clothed with all that is 
 beautiful and luxuriant in nature, are inha- 
 bited for the most part by an indigent and 
 squalid population, among whom you seek 
 in vain for any share of that bounty with 
 which Providence has blessed their country. 
 The rich plains of Lombardy are cultivated 
 by a peasantry whose condition is hardly 
 superior to that of the Irish cottager; arid 
 while the effeminate proprietors of the soil 
 waste their days in inglorious indolence at 
 Milan and Verona, their unfortunate tenantry 
 are exposed to the merciless rapacity of bai- 
 liffs and stewards, intent only upon augment- 
 ing the fortunes of their absent superiors. In 
 towns, the symptoms of general distress are, 
 if possible, still more apparent. While the 
 opera and the Corso are crowded with splen- 
 did equipages, the lower classes of the people 
 are involved in hopeless indigence : The 
 churches and public streets are crowded with 
 beggars, whose wretched appearance marks 
 but too truly the reality of the distress of 
 which they complain while their abject and 
 crouching manner indicates the entire politi- 
 cal degradation to which they have so long 
 been subjected. At Venice, in particular, the 
 total stagnation of employment, and the misery 
 of the people, strikes a stranger the more 
 forcibly from the contrast which they afford 
 to the unrivalled splendour of her edifices, 
 and the glorious recollections with which her 
 history is filled. As he admires the gorgeous 
 magnificence of the piazza St. Marco, or winds 
 through the noble palaces that still rise with 
 undecaying beauty from the waters of the 
 Adriatic, he no longer wonders at the astonish- 
 ment with which the stern crusaders of the 
 north gazed at her marble piles, and feels the 
 rapture of the Roman emperor, when he ap- 
 proached, " where Venice sat in state throned 
 on her hundred isles ;" but in the mean and 
 
 * Blackvvood's Magazine, Sept. 1819. Written from 
 notes made during a tour in Tyrol in the preceding year. 
 
 pusillanimous race by which they are now 
 inhabited, he looks in vain for the descendants 
 of those great men who leapt from their 
 gallies on the towers of Constantinople, and 
 stood forth as the bulwark of Christendom 
 against the Ottoman power; and still less, 
 when he surveys the miserable population 
 with which he is surrounded, can he go back 
 in imagination to those days of liberty and 
 valour, when 
 
 " Venice once was dear, 
 
 The pleasant place of all festivity, 
 
 The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." 
 
 From such scenes of national distress, and 
 from the melancholy spectacle of despotic 
 power ruling in the abode of ancient freedom, 
 it is with delight that the traveller enters the 
 fastnesses of the Alps, where liberty has im- 
 printed itself in indelible characters on the 
 character and manners of the people. In 
 every part of the Tyrol the bold and martial 
 air of the peasantry, their athletic form and 
 fearless eye, bespeak the freedom and inde- 
 pendence which they have enjoyed. In most 
 instances the people go armed; and during 
 the summer and autumn they wear a musket 
 hung over their shoulders, or some other of- 
 fensive weapon. Universally they possess 
 offensive weapons and are trained early to the 
 use of them, both by the expeditions in search 
 of game, of which they are passionately fond 
 and by the annual duty of serving in the 
 trained bands, to which every man capable of 
 bearing arms is, without exception, subjected. 
 It was in consequence of this circumstance, 
 iri a great measure, that they were able to 
 make so vigorous a resistance, with so little 
 preparation, to the French invasion ; and it is 
 to the same cause that is chiefly to be ascribed 
 that intrepid and martial air by which they are 
 distinguished from almost every other peasant- 
 ry in Europe. 
 
 Their dress is singularly calculated to add to 
 this impression. That of the men consists, 
 for the most part, of a broad-brimmed hat, 
 ornamented by a feather; a jacket tight to the 
 shape, with a broad girdle, richly ornamented, 
 fastened in front by a large buckle of costly 
 workmanship; black leather breeches and 
 gaiters, supported over the shoulders by two 
 broad bands, generally of scarlet or blue, 
 which are joined in front by a cross belt of 
 the same colour. They frequently wear pis- 
 tols in their girdle, and have either a rifle or 
 cloak slung over their shoulders. The colours 
 of the dresses vary in the different parts of 
 the country, as they do in the cantons of Swit- 
 zerland; but they are always of brilliant 
 colours, and ornamented, particularly round 
 the breast, with a degree of richness which 
 appears extraordinary in the labouring classes 
 of the community. Their girdles arid clasps, 
 with the other more costly parts of their cloth- 
 ing, are handed down from generation to 
 generation, and worn on Sundays and festi- 
 
118 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 vals, ivith scrupulous care, by the great-grand- 
 sons of those by whom they were originally 
 purchased. 
 
 The dress of the women is grotesque and 
 singular in the extreme. Generally speaking, 
 the waists are worn long, and the petticoats 
 exceedingly short; and the colours of their 
 clothes are as bright and various as those of 
 the men. To persons habituated however to 
 the easy and flowing attire of our own coun- 
 trywomen, the form and style of this dress 
 appears particularly unbecoming; nor can we 
 altogether divest ourselves of those ideas of 
 ridicule which we are accustomed to attach to 
 such antiquated forms, both on the stage and 
 in the pictures of the last generation. Among 
 the peasant girls, you often meet with much 
 beauty; but, for the most part, the women of 
 the Tyrol are not nearly so striking as the 
 men; an observation which seems applicable 
 to most mountainous countries, and to none 
 more than to the West Highlands of Scotland. 
 
 It is of more importance to observe that the 
 Tyrolese peasantry are everywhere courteous 
 and pleasing in their demeanor, both towards 
 strangers and their own countrymen* In this 
 respect, their manners have sometimes been 
 misrepresented. If a traveller addresses them 
 in a style of insolence or reproach, which is too 
 often used towards the lower orders in France 
 or Italy, he will in all probability meet with a 
 repulse, and if the insult is carried further, he 
 may, perhaps, have cause permanently to re- 
 pent the indiscretion of his language. For the 
 Tyrolese are a free people ; and though sub- 
 ject to a despotic government, their own state 
 preserves its liberty as entire as if it acknow- 
 ledged no superior to its own authority. The 
 peasantry too are of a keen and enthusiastic 
 temper; grateful to the last degree for kind- 
 ness or condescension, but feelingly alive on 
 the other hand to any thing like contempt or 
 derision in the manner of their superiors. 
 Dwelling too in a country where all are equal, 
 and where few noble families or great proprie- 
 tors are to be found, they are little accustomed 
 to brook insults of any kind, or to submit to 
 language from strangers which they would 
 not tolerate from their own countrymen. A 
 similar temper of mind may be observed 
 among the Scotch Highlanders; it has been 
 noticed in the mountains of Nepaul and Cabul, 
 and has long characterized the Arabian tribes ; 
 and indeed it belongs generally to all classes 
 of the people in those situations where the 
 debasing effects of the progress of wealth, and 
 the division of labour have not been felt, and 
 where, from whatever causes, the individuals 
 in the lower ranks of life are called into active 
 and strenuous exertion, and compelled to act 
 for themselves in the conduct of life. 
 
 If a stranger, however, behaves towards the 
 Tyrolese peasantry with the ordinary courtesy 
 with which an Englishman is accustomed to 
 address the people of his own country, there 
 is no part of the world in which he will meet 
 with a more cordial reception, or where he will 
 find a more affectionate or grateful return for 
 the smallest acts of kindness. Among these 
 untutored people, the gratitude for any good 
 deed on the part of their superiors, is not, as in 
 
 more civilized states, the result of any habitual 
 awe for their rank, or of any selfish considera- 
 tion of the advantage to be derived from culti- 
 vating their good will. It is the spontane- 
 ous effusion of benevolent feeling, of feeling 
 springing from the uncorrupted dictates of their 
 hearts, and enhanced by the feudal attachment 
 
 | with which they naturally are inclined to re- 
 gard those in a higher rank than themselves. 
 Though the Tyrolese are entirely free, and 
 though the emperor possesses but a nominal 
 sovereignty over them, yet the warm feelings 
 of feudal fidelity have nowhere maintained 
 
 | their place so inviolate as among their moun- 
 tains; and this feeling of feudal respect and 
 affection is extended by them to the higher 
 classes, whenever they behave towards them 
 with any thing like kindness or gentleness of 
 manners. It has arisen from the peculiar 
 situation of their country, in which there are 
 few of the higher orders, where the peasantry- 
 possess almost the entire land of which it 
 consists, and where, at the same time, the 
 bonds of feudal attachment have been preserved 
 with scrupulous care, for political reasons, by 
 their indulgent government, that the peasantry 
 have united the independence and pride of re- 
 publican states with the devoted and romantic 
 fidelity to their sovereign, which characterizes 
 the inhabitants of monarchical realms. Like 
 the -peasants of Switzerland, they regard them- 
 selves as composing the state, and would dis- 
 dain to crouch before any other power. Like 
 the Highlanders of Scotland, they are actuated 
 by the warmest and most enthusiastic loyalty 
 towards their sovereign, and like them they 
 have not scrupled on many occasions to ex- 
 pose their lives and fortunes in a doubtful and 
 often hopeless struggle in his cause. From 
 these causes has arisen, that singular mixture 
 of loyalty and independence, of stubbornness 
 and courtesy, of republican pride and chival- 
 rous fidelity, by which their character is dis- 
 tinguished from that of every other people in 
 Europe. 
 
 Honesty may be regarded as a leading fea- 
 ture in the character of the Tyrolese, as indeed 
 it is of all the German people. In no situation 
 and under no circumstances is a stranger in 
 danger* of being deceived by them. They will, 
 in many instances, sacrifice their own in- 
 terests rather than betray what they consider so 
 sacred a duty as that of preserving inviolate 
 their faith with foreigners. In this respect 
 their conduct affords a very striking contrast 
 to the conduct of the French and Italians, 
 whose rapacity and meanness have long been 
 observed and commented on by every traveller. 
 Yet, amidst all our indignation at that charac- 
 ter, it may well be doubted, whether it does not 
 arise naturally and inevitably from the system 
 of government to which they have had the 
 misfortune to be subjected. Honesty is a virtue 
 practised and esteemed among men who have 
 a character to support, and who feel their own 
 importance in the scale of society. Generally 
 it will be found to prevail in proportion to the 
 weight which is attached to individual charac- 
 ter ; that is, to the freedom which the people 
 enjoy. Cheating, on the other hand, is the 
 usual and obvious resource of slaves, of men 
 
TYROL. 
 
 119 
 
 who have never been taught to respect them- 
 selves, and whose personal qualities are en- 
 tirely overlooked by the higher orders of the 
 state. If England and Switzerland and the 
 Tyrol had been subjected by any train of un- 
 fortunate events to the same despotism which 
 has degraded the character of the lower orders 
 in France and Italy, they would probably have 
 had as little reason as their more servile neigh- 
 bours to have prided themselves on the honesty 
 and integrity of their national character. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the 
 character of the Tyrolese, is their uniform 
 PIETY, a feeling which is nowhere so univer- 
 sally diffused as among their sequestered val- 
 leys. The most cursory view of the country 
 is sufficient to demonstrate the strong hold 
 which religion has taken of the minds of the 
 peasantry. Chapels are built almost at every 
 half mile on the principal roads, in which the 
 passenger may perform his devotions, or which 
 may awaken the thoughtless mind to a recol- 
 lection of its religious duties. The rude efforts 
 of art have there been exerted to pourtray the 
 leading events incur Saviour's life; and in- 
 numerable figures, carved in wood, attest, in 
 every part of the country, both the barbarous 
 taste of the people, and the fervour of their 
 religious impressions. Even in the higher 
 parts of the mountains, where hardly any ves- 
 tiges of human cultivation are to be found, in 
 the depth of untrodden forests, or on the sum- 
 mit of seemingly inaccessible cliffs, the symbols 
 of devotion are to be found, and the cross rises 
 everywhere amidst the wilderness, as if to 
 mark the triumph of Christianity over the 
 greatest obstacles of nature. Nor is it only in 
 solitudes or deserts that the vestiges of their 
 devotion are to be found. In. the valleys and 
 in the cities it still preserves its ancient sway 
 over the people. On. the exterior of most 
 houses the legend of some favourite saint, or 
 the sufferings of some popular martyr, are to 
 be found ; and the poor inhabitant thinks him- 
 self secure from the greater evils of life under 
 the guardianship of their heavenly aid. In 
 every valley numerous spires are to be seen 
 rising amidst the beauty of the surrounding 
 scene, and reminding the traveller of the piety 
 of its simple inhabitants. On Sunday the whole 
 people flock to church in their neatest and 
 gayest attire ; and so great is the number who 
 thus frequent these places of worship, that it 
 is not unfrequent to see the peasants kneeling 
 on the turf in the churchyard where mass is 
 performed, from being unable to find a place 
 within its walls. Regularly in the evening 
 prayers are read in every family; and the 
 traveller who passes through the villages at 
 the hour of twilight, often sees through their 
 latticed windows the young and the.old kneel- 
 ing together round their humble fire, or is 
 warned of his approach to human habitation, by 
 hearing their evening hymns stealing through 
 the silence and solitude of the forest. 
 
 Nor is their devotion confined to acts of 
 external homage, or the observance of an un- 
 meaning ceremony. Debased as their religion 
 is by the absurdities and errors of the Catholic 
 form of worship, and mixed up as it is with in- 
 numerable legends and visionary tales, it yet 
 
 preserves enough of the pure spirit of its divine 
 origin to influence, in a great degree, the con- 
 duct of their private lives. The Tyrolese have 
 not yet learned that immorality in private life 
 may be pardoned by the observance of certain 
 ceremonies, or that the profession of faith 
 purchases a dispensation from the rules of 
 obedience. These, the natural and the usual 
 attendants of the Catholic faith in richer states, 
 have not reached their poor and sequestered 
 valleys. The purchase of absolution by money 
 is there almost unknown. In no part of the 
 world are the domestic or conjugal duties 
 more strictly or faithfully observed: and in. 
 none do the parish priests 'exercise a stricter 
 or more conscientious control over the conduct 
 of their flock. Their influence is not weakened, 
 as in a more advanced state of society, by a 
 discordance of religious tenets; nor is the con- 
 sideration due to this sacred function, lost in 
 the homage paid to rank, or opulence, or power. 
 Placed in the midst of a people who acknow- 
 ledge no superiors, and who live almost univer- 
 sally from the produce of their little domains, 
 and strangers alike to the arts of luxury, and 
 the seductions of fashion, the parish-priest is 
 equally removed from temptation himself, 
 and relieved from guarding against the great 
 sources of wickedness in others. He is at 
 once the priest, and the judge of his parish ; 
 the infallible criterion in matters of faith, and 
 the umpire, in the occasional disputes which 
 happen among them. Hence has arisen that re- 
 markable veneration for their spiritual guides, 
 by which the peasantry are distinguished ; and 
 it is to this cause that we are to ascribe the 
 singular fact that their priests were their prin- 
 cipal leaders in the war with France, and that 
 while their nobles almost universally kept 
 back, the people followed with alacrity the call 
 of their pastors, to take up arms in support of 
 the Austrian cause. 
 
 In one great virtue, the peasants in this 
 country (in common it must be owned with 
 most Catholic states) are particularly worthy 
 of imitation. The virtue of charity, which is 
 too much overlooked in many Protestant 
 kingdoms, but which the Catholic religion so 
 uniformly and sedulously enjoins, is there 
 practised, to the greatest degree, and by all 
 classes of the people. Perhaps there are few 
 countries in which, owing to the absence of 
 manufactures and great towns, poverty ap- 
 pears so rarely, or in which the great body of 
 the people live so universally in a state of 
 comfort. Yet,.whenever wretchedness does ap- 
 pear, it meets with immediate and effectual 
 relief. Nor is their charity confined to actual 
 mendicants, but extends to all whom accident 
 or misfortune has involved in casual distress. 
 Each valley supports its own poor; and the 
 little store of every cottage, like the meal of 
 the Irish cottager, is always open to any one 
 who really requires its assistance. This be- 
 nevolent disposition springs, no doubt, in a 
 great measure from the simple state in which 
 society exists among these remote districts ; 
 but it is to be ascribed not less to the efforts 
 of the clergy, who incessantly enjoin this great 
 Christian duty, and point it out as the chief 
 means of atoning for past transgressions. 
 
120 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Much as we may lament the errors of the 
 Catholic, and clearly as we may see its ten- 
 dency (at least in its more corrupt forms) to 
 nourish private immorality, and extinguish 
 civil liberty, it is yet impossible to deny, that, 
 in the great duty of Christian charity, which 
 it invariably enjoins, it has atoned for a multi- 
 tude of sins ; and to suspect that amidst the 
 austerity and severity of the presbyterian dis- 
 cipline, we have too much lost sight of the 
 charity of the gospel ; and that with us a pre- 
 tended indignation for the vices which involve 
 so many of the poor in distress, too often serves 
 as a pretext for refusing to minister that relief 
 to which, from whatever cause it has arisen, 
 our Saviour tells us that it is entitled. 
 
 There is something singularly delightful in 
 the sway which religion thus 'maintains in 
 these savage and sequestered regions. In 
 ancient times, we are informed these moun- 
 tains were inhabited by the Rhoetians, the 
 fiercest and most barbarous of the tribes, 
 who dwelt in the fastnesses of the mountains, 
 and of whose savage manners Livy has given 
 so striking an account in his description of 
 Hannibal's passage of the Alps. Many Roman 
 legions were impeded in their progress, or 
 thinned of their numbers, by these cruel bar- 
 barians ; and even after they were reduced to 
 subjection, by the expedition of Drusus, it was 
 still esteemed a service of the utmost danger to 
 leave the high road, or explore the remote re- 
 cesses of the country. Hence the singular fact, 
 almost incredible in modern times, that even 
 in the days of Pliny, several hundred years 
 after the first passage of these mountains by 
 the Roman troops, the source of both the Rhine 
 and the Iser were unknown ; and that the na- 
 turalist of Rome was content to state, a century 
 after the establishment of a Roman station at 
 Sion, that the Rhone took its rise " in the most 
 hidden parts of the earth, in the region of per- 
 petual night, amidst forests for ever inacces- 
 sible to human approach." Hence it is too, 
 that almost all the inscriptions on the votive 
 offerings which have been discovered in the 
 ruins of the temple of Jupiter Pennwus, at the 
 summit of the great St. Bernard, and many of 
 which come down to a late period in the history 
 of the empire, speak of the gratitude of the pas- 
 sengers for having escaped the extraordinary 
 perils of the journey. The Roman authors al- 
 ways speak of the Alps with expressions of dis- 
 may and horror, as the scenes of only winter and 
 desolation, and as the abodes of barbarous tribes. 
 " Nives coelo prope immistoe, tecta informia im- 
 posita rupibus pecora jumenta que torrida fri- 
 gore homines intonsi etinculti,animaliainani- 
 maque omnia rigentia gelu cetera visu quam 
 dictu foediora terrorem renovarunt."* No at- 
 tempt accordingly appears to have been made 
 by any of the Romans in later times to explore 
 the remoter recesses of the mountains now so 
 familiar to every traveller ; but while the empe- 
 rors constructed magnificent highways across 
 their summits to connect Italy with the northern 
 provinces of the empire, they suffered the val- 
 leys on either side to remain in their pristine 
 state of barbarism, and hastened into remoter 
 
 *Liv. lib. 21. 
 
 districts to spread the cultivation of which the 
 Alps, with their savage inhabitants, seemed to 
 them incapable. 
 
 What is it then which has wrought so won- 
 derful a change in the manners, the habits, 
 and the condition of the inhabitants of those 
 desolate regions 1 What is it which has spread 
 cultivation through wastes, deemed in ancient 
 times inaccessible to human improvement, and 
 humanized the manners of a people remarkable 
 only, under the Roman sway, for the ferocity 
 and barbarism of their institutions 1 From 
 what cause has it happened that those savage 
 mountaineers, who resisted all the acts of civi- 
 lization by which the Romans established their 
 sway over mankind, and continued, even to the 
 overthrow of the empire, impervious to all the 
 efforts of ancient improvement, should, in later 
 times, have so entirely changed their charac- 
 ter, arid have appeared, even from the first 
 dawn of modern civilization, mild and humane 
 in their character and manners'? From what 
 but from the influence of RELIGION of that re- 
 ligion which calmed the savage feelings of the 
 human mind, and spread its beneficial in- 
 fluence among the remotest habitations of men; 
 and which prompted its disciples to leave the 
 luxuries and comforts of southern climates, to 
 diffuse knowledge and humanity through in- 
 hospitable realms, and spread, even ( amidst the 
 regions of winter and desolation, the light and 
 the blessings of a spiritual faith. 
 
 Universally it has been observed through- 
 out the whole extent of the Alps, that the 
 earliest vestiges of civilization, and the first 
 traces of order and industry which appeared 
 after the overthrow of the Roman empire, were 
 to be found in the immediate neighbourhood 
 of the religious establishments ; and it is to 
 the unceasing efforts of the clergy during the 
 centuries of barbarism which followed that 
 event, that the -judicious historian of Switzer- 
 land ascribes the early civilization and hu- 
 mane disposition of the Helvetic tribes.* Placed 
 as we are at a distance from the time when 
 this great change was effected, and accustomed 
 to manners in which its influence has long 
 ago been established, we can hardly conceive 
 the difficulties with which the earlier profess- 
 ors of our faith had to struggle in subduing 
 the cruel propensities, and calming the re- 
 vengeful passions, that subsisted among the 
 barbarous tribes who had conquered Europe; 
 nor would we, perhaps r be inclined to credit 
 the accounts of the heroic sacrifices which 
 were then made by numbers of great and good 
 men who devoted themselves to the conver- 
 sion of the Alpine tribes, did not their institu- 
 tions remain to this day as a monument of 
 their virtue ; and did we not still see a number 
 of benevolent men who seclude themselves 
 from the world, and dwell in the regions of 
 perpetual snow, in the hope of rescuing a few 
 individuals from a miserable death. When 
 the traveller on the summit of the St. Bernard 
 reads the warm and touching expressions of 
 gratitude with which the Roman travellers re- 
 corded in the temple of Jupiter their gratitude 
 for having escaped the dangers of the pass, 
 
 * Planta, vol. i. p. 17, &c. 
 
TYROL. 
 
 121 
 
 even in the days of Adrian and the Antonines, 
 and reflects on the perfect safety with which 
 he can now traverse the remotest recesses of 
 the Alps, he will think with thankfulness of 
 the religion by which this wonderful change 
 has been effected, and with veneration of the 
 saint whose name has for a thousand years 
 been affixed to the pass where his influence 
 first reclaimed the people from their barbarous 
 life ; and in crossing the defile of Mount Bren- 
 ner, where the abbey of Wilten first offered 
 an asylum to the pilgrim, he will feel, with a 
 late eloquent and amiable writer, how fortunate 
 it is "that religion has penetrated these fast- 
 nesses, impervious to hum'an power, and spread 
 her influence over solitudes where human law; 
 are of no avail ; that where precaution is impos- 
 sible and resistance useless, she spreads her in- 
 visible aegis over the traveller, and conducts 
 him secure under her protection through all the 
 dangers of his way. When, in such situations, 
 he reflects upon his security, and recollects 
 that these mountains, so savage and so well 
 adapted to the purposes of murderers and 
 banditti, have not, in the memory of man, 
 been stained with human blood, he ought to 
 do justice to the cause, and gratefully acknow- 
 ledge the beneficial influence of religion. Im- 
 pressed with these reflections, he will behold, 
 with indulgence, perhaps even with interest, 
 the crosses which frequently mark the brow of 
 a precipice, and the little chapels hollowed out 
 of the rock where the road is narrowed ; he 
 will consider them as so many pledges of se- 
 curity; and rest assured, that, as long as the 
 pious mountaineer continues to adore the 
 'Good Shepherd,' and to beg the prayer of the 
 'afflicted mother,' he will never cease to be- 
 friend the traveller, nor to discharge the duties 
 of hospitality."* 
 
 It must be admitted, at the same time, 
 that the Tyrolese are in the greatest degree 
 superstitious, and that their devotion, warm 
 and enthusiastic as it is, is frequently mis- 
 placed in the object of its worship. There is 
 probably no country in which the belief in 
 supernatural powers, in the gift of prophecy 
 to particular individuals, and the agency of 
 spiritual beings in human affairs, is more uni- 
 versally established. It forms, indeed, part of 
 their religious creed, and blends in the most 
 singular manner with the legendary tales and 
 romantic adventures which they have attached 
 to the history of their saints. But we would 
 err most egregiously, if we imagined that this 
 superstition with which the whole people are 
 tinged, savours at all of a weak or timid dis- 
 position, or that it is any indication of a de- 
 graded national character. It partakes of the 
 savage character of the scenery in which they 
 dwell, and is ennobled by the generous senti- 
 ments which prevail among the lowest classes 
 of the people. The same men who imagine 
 that they see the crucifix bend its head in the 
 dusk of the evening, and who hear the rattle 
 of arms amid the solitude of the mountains, 
 are fearless of death when it approaches them 
 through the agency of human power. It is a 
 strong feeling of religion, and a disposition to 
 
 see, in all the events by which they are sur- 
 rounded, the marks of divine protection, which 
 is the foundation of their superstition; and the 
 more strongly that they feel reliance on spi- 
 ritual interposition, the less inclined are they 
 to sink under the reverses of a temporary 
 life. 
 
 There is a wide distinction between supersti- 
 tion and the belief in sorcery or witchcraft. 
 The latter is the growth of weakness and 
 credulity, and prevails most among men of a 
 timid disposition, or among ignorant and bar- 
 barous nations. The former, though it is 
 founded on ignorance, and yields to the ex- 
 perience and knowledge of mankind, yet 
 springs from the noblest principles of our 
 nature, and is allied to every thing by which 
 the history of our species has been dignified 
 in former times. It will not be pretended, that 
 the Grecian states were deficient either in 
 splejidour of talents or heroism of conduct, 
 yet superstition, in its grossest form, attached 
 itself to all their thoughts, and influenced alike 
 the measures of their statesmen and the dreams 
 of their philosophers. The Roman writers 
 placed in that very feeling which we would 
 call superstition, the most honourable charac- 
 teristic of their people, and ascribed to it the 
 memorable series of triumphs by which the 
 history of the, republic was distinguished. 
 " Nullaihquam republia aut major aut sanctior 
 fuit," says Livy ; and it is to their deep sense 
 of religion that Cicero imputes the unparalleled 
 success with which the arms of the republic 
 were attended.* Yet the religious feeling which 
 was so intimately blended with the Roman 
 character, and which guided the actions and 
 formed the minds of the great men who adorned 
 her history, Was for the most part little else than 
 that firm reliance on the special interposition 
 of Providence, which is the origin of supersti- 
 tion. The Saracens, during the wars which 
 followed the introduction of the Mohammedan 
 faith, were superstitious to the highest degree, 
 yet with how many brilliant and glorious qua- 
 lities was their character distinguished, when 
 they triumphantly carried the Crescent of 
 Mohammed from the snows of the Himmaleh to 
 the shores of the Atlantic. The crusaders even 
 of the highest rank, believed firmly in the mi- 
 racles and prophecies which were said to 
 have accompanied the march of the Christian 
 army; nor is it perhaps possible to find in 
 history an example of such extraordinary con- 
 sequences as followed the supposed discovery 
 of the Holy Lance in the siege of Antioch; yet 
 who will deny to these great men the praise 
 of heroic enterprise and noble manners ? 
 Human nature has nowhere appeared in such 
 glorious colours as in the Jerusalem Delivered 
 of Tasso, where the firmness and constancy 
 of the Roman patriot is blended with the 
 ourtesy of chivalrous manners, and the ex- 
 alted piety of Christian faith ; yet supersti- 
 ion formed a part of the character of all his 
 leroes ; the courage of Tancred failed when 
 ic heard the voice of Clorinda in the charmed 
 tree ; and the bravest of his comrades trembled 
 when they entered the enchanted forest, where 
 
 * Eustacn, i. 98. 
 16 
 
 * Liv. lib. i. ; Cic. de Off. lib. i. c. 11. 
 L 
 
122 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 "Esce all hor de la selva un suon repente, 
 Che par rimbombo di terren che treme, 
 E'l mormorar degli Austri in lui si sente, 
 E'l pianto d'onda, che fra scogli genie." 
 
 Examples of this kind may teach us, that 
 although superstition in the age and among the 
 society in which we live is the mark of a feeble 
 inind, yet that in less enlightened ages or parts 
 of the world, it is the mark only of an ardent 
 and enthusiastic disposition, such as is the 
 foundation of every thing that is great or 
 generous in character, or elevated and spiritual 
 in feeling. A people, in fact, strongly impressed 
 with religious feeling, and to whom experi- 
 ence has not taught the means by which Pro- 
 vidence acts in human affairs, must be supersti- 
 tious for it is the universal propensity of un- 
 instructed man, to imagine that a special in- 
 terposition of the Deity is necessary to accom- 
 plish the manifestation of his will, or the ac- 
 complishment of his purposes in human affairs. 
 Nor is there any thing impossible or absurd 
 in such a supposition. It might have been, 
 that future events were to be revealed on par- 
 ticular occasions to mankind, as they were 
 during the days of ancient prophecy, and that 
 the course of human events was to be main- 
 tained by special interpositions of divine power. 
 Experience alone teaches us, that this is not 
 the case ; it alone shows, that the intentions 
 of Providence are carried into effect through 
 the intervention of human agents, and that 
 the laws of the moral world work out their 
 own accomplishment by the voluntary acts 
 of free agents. When we see how difficult it 
 is to make persons even of cultivated under- 
 standing comprehend this subject even in the 
 present age, and with all the experience which 
 former times have furnished, we may cease 
 to wonder at the superstition which prevails 
 among the peasants of the Tyrol; we may 
 believe, that situated as they are, it is the na- 
 tural effusion of a pious spirit untaught by the 
 experience of other ages ; and we may discern, 
 in the extravagancies of their legendary creed, 
 not less than in the sublime piety of Newton, 
 the operation of those common laws by which 
 man is bound to his Creator. 
 
 The scenery of Tyrol, and of the adjacent 
 provinces of Styria and Carinthia, is singular- 
 ly adapted to nourish romantic and supersti- 
 tious ideas among the peasantry. In every 
 part of the world the grandeur of mountain 
 scenery has been found to be the prolific parent 
 of superstition. It was the mists, and the blue 
 lakes, and the sounding cataracts of Caledonia, 
 which gave birth to the sublime but gloomy 
 dreams of Ossian. The same cause has 
 operated to a still greater degree among the 
 Alps of Tyrol. The sublimity of the objects 
 with which man is there surrounded the 
 resistless power of the elements which he 
 finds continually in action the utter insig- 
 nificance of his own species, when compared 
 with the gigantic objects in which he is placed, 
 conspire to produce that distrust of himself, 
 and that disposition to cling to higher powers, 
 which is the foundation of superstitious feel- 
 ing. In cities and in plains, the labour of 
 man effaces in a certain degree these impres- 
 sions ; the works which he has there accumu- 
 
 lated, come to withdraw the attention from the 
 distant magnificence of nature; while the 
 weakness of the individual is forgotten in the 
 aggregate force of numbers, or in the distrac- 
 tions of civilized life. But amidst the solitude 
 of the Alps no such change can take place. 
 The greatest works of man appear there as 
 nothing amidst the stupendous objects of na- 
 ture ; the distractions of artificial society are 
 unknown amongst its simple inhabitants ; and 
 the individual is left in solitude to receive the im- 
 pressions which the sublime scenery in which 
 he is placed is fitted to produce. Upon minds 
 so circumstanced the changes of external na- 
 ture come to be considered as the immediate 
 work of some invisible power; the shadows 
 that fall in the lakes at sunrise, are interpreted 
 as the indication of the approach of hostile 
 bands the howl of the winds through the 
 forests is thought to be the lamentations of the 
 dead, who are expiating their sins and the 
 mists that flit over the summits of the moun- 
 tains, seem to be the distant skirts of vast 
 armies borne in the whirlwind, and treading 
 in the storm. 
 
 The Gothic ruins with which the Tyrol is 
 filled, contribute in a remarkable manner to 
 keep alive these superstitious feelings. In 
 many of the valleys old castles of vast dimen- 
 sions are perched on the summit of lofty crags, 
 or raise their mouldering towers high on the 
 mountains above the aged forests with which 
 they are surrounded. These castles, once the 
 abode of feudal power, have long since been 
 abandoned, or have gradually gone to decay, 
 without being actually dismantled by the pro- 
 prietors. With all of them the people connect 
 some romantic or terrible exploit; and the 
 bloody deeds of feudal anarchy are remem- 
 bered with terror by the peasants who dwell 
 in the villages at their feet. Lights are often 
 observed at night in towers which have been 
 uninhabited for centuries ; and bloody figures 
 have been distinctly seen to flit through their 
 deserted halls. The armour which still hangs 
 on the walls in many of the greater castles, 
 has been observed to move, and the plumes 
 to wave, when the Tyrolese army were victo- 
 rious in war. Groans are still heard in the 
 neighbourhood of the dungeons where the vic- 
 tims of feudal tyranny were formerly slain; 
 and the cruel baron, who persecuted his peo- 
 ple in his savage passion for the chase, is 
 often heard to shriek in the forests of the 
 Unterberg, and to howl as he flies from the 
 dogs, whom he had trained to the scent of 
 human blood. 
 
 Superstitions, too, of a gentler and more holy 
 kind, have arisen from the devout feelings of 
 the people, and the associations connected with 
 particular spots where persons of extraordi- 
 nary sanctity have dwelt. In many of the 
 farthest recesses of the mountains, on the verge 
 of perpetual desolation, hermits in former times 
 fixed their abode ; and the imagination of the 
 peasants still fancies that their spirits hover 
 around the spot where their earthly trials were 
 endured. Shepherds who have passed in the 
 gloom of the evening by the cell where the 
 bones of a saint are laid, relate that they dis- 
 tinctly heard his voice as he repeated his 
 
TYROL. 
 
 123 
 
 evening prayers, and saw his form as he knelt | 
 before the crucifix which the piety of succeed- 
 ing ages had erected in his hermitage. The j 
 image of many a patron saint has been seen 
 to shed tears, when a reverse has happened to 
 the Tyrolese arms ; and the garlands which 
 are hung round the crosses of the Virgin wither j 
 when the hand which raised them has fallen 
 in battle. Peasants who have teen driven by 
 a storm to take shelter in the little chapels 
 which are scattered over the country, have 
 seen the crucifix bow its head; and solemn 
 music is heard at the hour of vespers, in the 
 higher chapels of the mountains. The distant 
 pealing of the organ, and the chant of innu- 
 merable voices is there distinctly perceptible ; 
 and the peasant, when returning at night from 
 the chase, often trembles when he beholds fu- 
 nereal processions, clothed in white, marching 
 in silence through the gloom of the forests, or 
 slowly moving on the clouds that float over 
 the summit of the mountains. 
 
 A country so circumstanced, abounding with 
 every thing that is grand and beautiful in na- 
 tural scenery, filled with Gothic castles, over 
 which ruin has long ago thrown her softening 
 hand, peopled by the phantoms of an extrava- 
 gant yet sublime superstition, and still inha- 
 bited by a valiant and enthusiastic people, 
 seems of all others to be the fit theatre of poeti- 
 cal fancy. It is truly extraordinary therefore, 
 that no poet has appeared to glean the legends 
 and ballads that are scattered through this in- 
 teresting country, to perpetuate the aerial beings 
 with which superstition has filled its wilds, 
 and to dignify its mouldering castles with the 
 recital of the many heroic and romantic ad- 
 ventures which have occurred within their 
 walls. When we recollect the unparalleled 
 interest which the genius of the present day 
 has given to the traditions and the character 
 of the Scottish people, it is impossible not to 
 regret, that no kindred mind has immortalized 
 the still more wild and touching incidents that 
 have occurred amidst the heroic inhabitants 
 and sublime scenery of the Tyrol Alps. Let 
 us hope, that the military despotism of Austria 
 will not long continue to smother the genius, 
 by restraining the freedom of those higher 
 classes of her people where poetical talents are 
 to be found ; and that, before the present tra- 
 ditions are forgotten, or the enthusiasm which 
 the war has excited is subsided, there may yet 
 arise the SCOTT of the south of Europe. 
 
 The great circumstance which distinguishes 
 the Tyrolese from their neighbours, the Swiss, 
 to whom in many respects they bear a close 
 resemblance, is in the animation and cheerful- 
 ness of their character. The Swiss are by "na- 
 ture a grave and heavy people ; nor is this pe- 
 culiar character the result of their republican 
 institutions, for we are told by Planta, that their 
 stupidity had become proverbial in France be- 
 fore the time of their republic. The Tyrolese, 
 on the other hand, are a cheerful and lively 
 people, full of fire and animation, enthusiasti- 
 cally devoted to their favourite pursuits, and 
 extremely warm in their resentments. Public 
 games are frequent in every valley ; and the 
 keen penetrating look of the peasants shows 
 with what alacrity they enter into any subject 
 
 in which they are interested. This striking 
 difference in the national character of the two 
 people appears in their different modes of con- 
 ducting war. Firm in the maintenance of their 
 purpose, and undaunted in the discharge of 
 military duty, the Swiss are valuable chiefly 
 for their stubborn qualities for that obstinate 
 courage on which a commander can rely with 
 perfect certainty for the maintenance of any 
 position which may be assigned for their de- 
 fence. It was their stubborn resistance, ac 
 cordingly, which first laid the foundation of the 
 independence of their republic, and which 
 taught the Imperialists and the Burgundians 
 at Laupen and Morat, that the pride of feudal 
 power, and the ardour of chivalrous enter- 
 prise, may seek in vain to crush " the might 
 that slumbers in a peasant's arm." In later 
 times the same disposition has been evinced 
 in the conduct of the Swiss Guards, in the 
 Place Carousel, all of whom were massacred 
 at their post, without the thought of capitula- 
 tion or retreat being once stirred amongst them. 
 The Tyrolese, on the other hand, are more 
 distinguished by their fiery and impetuous 
 mode of fighting. In place of waiting, like the 
 Swiss infantry, the charges of their enemies, 
 they rush on unbidden to the attack, and often 
 accomplish, by the hardihood of the enterprise, 
 what more cautious troops could never suc- 
 ceed in effecting. In this respect they resemble 
 more nearly the Highland clans, who, in the 
 rebellion in 1745, dashed with the broadsword 
 on the English regiments ; or the peasants of 
 La Vendee,who,without cannon or ammunition, 
 assaulted the veteran bands of the republic, 
 and by the fury of their onset, frequently de- 
 stroyed armies with whom they would have 
 been utterly unable to cope in a more regular 
 system of warfare. 
 
 One reflection there is, which may be drawn 
 from the determined valour of the Tyrolese, 
 and their success against the disciplined armies 
 of France, which it is of the utmost importance 
 to impress steadily on our minds. It is this ; 
 that the changes in the art of war in modern 
 times has produced no alteration on the ability 
 of freedom to resist the aggressions of despotic 
 powers ; but that still, as in' ancient times, the 
 discipline and the numbers of arbitrary govern- 
 ments are alike unavailing against the stub- 
 born valour of a free people. In every age, 
 and in every part of the world, examples are 
 to be found of the defeat of great and power- 
 ful armies by the cool and steady resistance 
 which characterizes the inhabitants of fr.ee 
 states. This is matter of proverbial remark ; 
 but it is of the more importance to observe, 
 that this general steadiness and valour, which 
 seek for no support but in the courage of the 
 individual, can be attained only by the diffusion 
 of civil liberty, and that the value of such qua- 
 lities is as strongly felt in modern wars as it 
 was in any former period of the world. It is 
 related by Homer, that at the siege of Troy, 
 the Trojan troops, in whom the vicinity of 
 Asia had introduced the customs of oriental 
 warfare, and the feelings of oriental despotism, 
 supported each other's courage by shouts and 
 cries during the heat of the battles ; while the 
 Grecians, in whom, as Mitford has observed, 
 
124 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the monarchical form of government was even 
 then tempered by a strong mixture of republi- 
 can freedom,* stood firm, in perfect silence, 
 waiting the command of their chiefs. The 
 passage is remarkable, as it shows how early, 
 in the history of mankind, the great lines of 
 distinction between the courage of freemen and 
 slaves was drawn; nor can we perhaps a'ny- 
 where find, in the subsequent annals of the 
 world, a closer resemblance to what occurred 
 in the struggle between English freedom and 
 French despotism on the field of Waterloo. 
 " The Grecian phalanx," says the poet, " march- 
 ed in close order, the leaders directing each 
 his own band. The rest were mute ; inso- 
 much, that you would say, in so great a multi- 
 tude there was no voice. Such was the silence 
 with which they respectfully watched for the 
 word of command from their officers. But the 
 cries of the Trojan army resembled the bleat- 
 ing of sheep when they are driven into the 
 fold, and hear the cries of their lambs. Nor 
 did the voice of one people rise from their 
 lines, but a confused mixture of many tongues."f 
 The same distinction has been observed in all 
 periods of the world, between the native un- 
 bending courage of freemen, and the artificial 
 or transitory ardour of the troops of despotic 
 states. It was thus that the three hundred 
 Spartans stood the shock of a mighty army in 
 the defile of Thermopylae ; and it was from the 
 influence of the same feeling, that, with not less 
 devoted valour, the fifteen hundred Swiss died 
 in the cemetery of St. James, in the battle of 
 Basle. The same individual determination 
 which enabled the citizens of Milan to over- 
 throw the whole feudal power of Frederic 
 Barbarossa on the plain of Legnano, animated 
 the shepherds of the Alps, when they trampled 
 under foot the pride of the imperial nobility 
 on the field of Sempach, and annihilated the 
 chivalry of Charles the Bold on the shores of 
 Morat. It was among the free inhabitants of 
 the Flemish provinces, that Count Till}'- found 
 the materials of those brave Walloon guards, 
 who, as contemporary writers inform us, might 
 be knocked down or trampled under foot, -but 
 could not be constrained to fly by the arms of 
 Gustavus at the battle of Leipsic # and the 
 celebrity of the Spanish infantry declined from 
 the time that the liberties of Arragon and Cas- 
 tile were extinguished by Charles V. " There 
 
 * Mitford, i. 158. 
 
 f "ilj r<5r' i-frarrffvrcpai Aavawf Kivwro (t> 
 NwXc^ewj tr6\c)ii>vf). xiXcve fi olaiv ex 
 'Hy/i(5/wjr (il 6' aXXot d*r/i/ taav oiifii 
 T6aaov Xadv TreaOat l\ovr iv ?fi0<riv aixJjji/ 
 XtyJji dsidi6Tf$ Pttiiavroptf dfj.<i>l ifri trasLv 
 Tev'Xea TTOIKI\' &\a^ne, ra elucvot l^i'xowvro. 
 Tpwef J', aigr' d'i'ej TrnXvirapovos dvfipds iv ai>\rj 
 lilupiai is-fiKdaiv d/icXytf/iCvat vaXa \evK6v, 
 'Ar/xf ftenaKvlcu, dxovovaai bira dpv&v 
 "ili Tpwwv aXaAifrtff dva srpardy cvpvv dpwpet. 
 Oil vhp navTMv rjev O/JGJ $p6os, oi>6' ta yijovj. 
 'AXXa yXoSffff' iueuiKTo' noXvKXrjTOi 6' taav avtipff. 
 Iliad iv. 427. 
 
 } Memoirs of a Cavalier, by Defoe. 
 
 is ample room," as a late eminent writer* has 
 well observed, " for national exultation at the 
 names of Cressy, Poitiers, and Azincour. So 
 great was the disparity of numbers upon those 
 famous days, that we cannot, with the French 
 historian, attribute the discomfiture of their 
 hosts merely to mistaken tactics and too im- 
 petuous valour. They yielded rather to the 
 intrepid steadiness in danger, which had al- 
 ready become the characteristic of our English 
 soldiers, and which, during four centuries, has 
 ensured their superiority wherever ignorance 
 or infatuation has not led them into the field. 
 But these victories, and the qualities that se- 
 cured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the 
 freedom of our constitution and the superior 
 condition of the people. Not the nobility of 
 England, not the feudal tenants, won the battles 
 of Cressy and Poitiers, for these were fully 
 matched in the ranks of France, but the yeo- 
 men who drew the bow with strong and steady 
 arms, accustomed to its use in their native 
 fields, and rendered fearless by personal com- 
 petence and civil freedom.f 
 
 Now, after all that we have heard of the art 
 of war being formed into a regular system, of 
 the soldier being reduced to a mere machine, 
 and of the progress of armies being made the 
 subject of arithmetical calculation ; it is truly 
 consoling to find the discomfiture of the great- 
 est and most disciplined army which the world 
 has ever seen, brought about by the same 
 cause which, in former times, have so often 
 given victory to the cause of freedom ; to find 
 the victories of Naefels and Morgarten renew- 
 ed in the triumph of the Tyrolese patriots, and 
 the ancient superiority of the English yeomanry 
 asserted, as in the days of Cressy and Azin- 
 cour, on the field of Waterloo. Nor is it per- 
 haps the least remarkable fact of that memo- 
 rable day, that while the French army, like the 
 Trojans of old, animated their courage by in- 
 cessant cries; the English battalions, like the 
 Greek phalanxes, waited in silence the charge 
 of their enemies : proving thus, in the severest 
 of all trials, that the art of war has made no 
 change on the qualities essential in the soldier ; 
 and that the determined courage of freemen is 
 still able, as in the days of Marathon and 
 Plateea, to overcome the utmost efforts of mili- 
 tary power. It is interesting to find the same 
 qualities distinguishing the armies of a free 
 people in such distant periods of the world ; 
 and it is the fit subject, not merely of national 
 pride, but of universal thankfulness, to disco- 
 ver, that there are qualities in the composition 
 of a great army which it is beyond the power 
 of despotism to command ; and that the utmost 
 efforts of the military art, aided by the strongest 
 incitements to military distinction, cannot 
 produce that steady and unbending valour 
 which springs from the enjoyment of CIVIL 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 * Hallam's Middle Ages, i. 74. 
 f Froissart, i. c. 162. 
 

 FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 125 
 
 FRANCE IN 1833.* 
 
 OBSERVATIONS made on the spot by one who 
 has long regarded the political changes of 
 France with interest, may possibly be of ser- 
 vice, in conveying to the public on the other 
 side of the Channel some idea of the present 
 state and future prospects of a nation, avow- 
 edly followed as the leader by the liberal party 
 all over the world, in the great work of politi- 
 cal regeneration. Such a sketch, drawn with 
 no feeling of political or national animosity, 
 but with every wish for the present and future 
 happiness of "the great people among whom it 
 is composed, may possibly cool many visionary 
 hopes, and extinguish some ardent anticipa- 
 tions; but it will at least demonstrate what is 
 the result, in the circumstances where it has 
 been most triumphant, of democratic ascend- 
 ency ; and prepare the inhabitants of Great 
 Britain for the fate, and the government which 
 awaits them, if they continue to follow the 
 footsteps of the French liberals in the career 
 which has been recently brought, on this side 
 of the channel, to so triumphant a conclusion. 
 
 Most of the educated inhabitants of Great 
 Britain visited France, during the restoration; 
 many of them at different times. Every one 
 thought he had acquired some idea of the 
 political state and prospects of the country, 
 and was enabled to form some anticipations 
 as to its future destiny. We are now enabled 
 to say, that most of these views were partial 
 or erroneous. They were so, not so much 
 from defect in the observation of France, as 
 ignorance of the political principles and pas- 
 sions which were at work amongst its inha- 
 bitants ; from want of experience of the result 
 of democratic convulsions ; from judging of a 
 country over which the wave of revolution 
 had passed, with the ideas drawn from one 
 which had expelled its fury. We observed 
 France accurately enough; but we did so with 
 English eyes ; we supposed its inhabitants to 
 be actuated by the feelings and interests, and 
 motives, which were then at work among our- 
 selves ; and could form no conception of the 
 new set of principles and desires which are 
 stirred up during the agitation of a revolution. 
 In this respect our powers of observation are 
 now materially improved. We have had some 
 experience during the last three years of de- 
 mocratic convulsion; we know the passion 
 and desires which are developed by arraying 
 the lower orders against the higher. We have 
 acquired an acquaintance with the signs and 
 marks of revolutionary terror. Standing thus 
 on the confines of the two systems; at the ex- 
 .tremity of English liberty, and the entrance of 
 French democracy, we are now peculiarly 
 qualified to form an accurate opinion of the 
 tendency of these opposite principles of go- 
 
 * Blackvvood'a Magazine, October and December, 
 1833. Written during a residence at Paris, and in the 
 north of France, in the autumn of that year. 
 
 vernment ; we know the landmarks of the 
 civilization which is receding from the view, 
 and have gained some acquaintance with the 
 perils of that which is approaching; and com- 
 bining recent with former experience in our 
 own and the neighbouring country, can form 
 a tolerably accurate idea of the fate which 
 awaits them and ourselves. 
 
 The leading circumstance in the present 
 condition of France, which first strikes an 
 English observer, and is the most important 
 feature it exhibits in a political point of view, 
 is the enormous and apparently irresistible 
 power of the central government at Paris over 
 all the rest of France. This must appear 
 rather a singular result after forty years of 
 ardent aspirations after freedom, but neverthe- 
 less nothing is more certain, and it constitutes 
 the great and distinguishing result of the Re- 
 volution. 
 
 Such has been the centralization of power 
 by the various democratic assemblies, who, at 
 different times, have ruled the destinies of this 
 great country, that there is hardly a vestige of 
 power or influence now left to the provinces. 
 All the situations of emolument of every de- 
 scription, from the highest to the lowest, in 
 every department and line of life, are in the 
 gift of government. No man, in a situation 
 approaching to that of a gentleman, can rise 
 either in the civil or military career in any 
 part of France, unless he is promoted by the 
 central offices at Paris. These are general 
 expressions, which convey no definite idea. A 
 few examples will render the state of the 
 country in this particular more intelligible. 
 
 The Chamber of Peers, who now hold their 
 situations only for life, are appointed by the 
 Crown. 
 
 The whole army, now four hundred thou- 
 sand strong, is at the disposal of government. 
 All the officers in that great body of course 
 receive their appointment from the War-office 
 at Paris. 
 
 The navy, no inconsiderable force, is also 
 appointed by the same power. 
 
 The whole artificers and officers connected 
 with the engineers and artillery, a most nu- 
 merous body in a country so beset with fortifi- 
 cations and fortresses as France, derive their 
 appointments from the central government. 
 
 The custom-house officers, an immense 
 body, whose huts and stations are set down at 
 short distances all round France, are all no- 
 minated by the central office at Paris. 
 
 The whole .mayors of communes, with their 
 " adjoints," amounting over all France to 
 eighty-eight thousand persons, are appointed 
 by the central government, or the prefects of 
 departments whom they have nominated. 
 
 The post-office, in every department through- 
 out the kingdom, is exclusively filled by the 
 servants of government. 
 
126 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 The police, an immense force, having not 
 less than eighty thousand employes in constant 
 occupation, and which extends its iron net 
 over the whole country, are all appointed by 
 the minister at the head of that department. 
 
 The clergy over the whole country receive 
 their salaries from government, and are ap- 
 pointed by the crown. 
 
 The whole teachers of youth of every de- 
 scription, in all public or established semina- 
 ries, whether parochial or departmental, are 
 appointed by the minister of public instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 The management of the roads, bridges, and 
 chaussees, throughout all the kingdom, is in- 
 trusted to persons appointed by the crown. No 
 man can break a stone, or mend a bridge, or 
 repair a pavement, from Calais to Bayonne, 
 unless he is in the service of government; and 
 all the labourers on the roads have an uniform 
 hat, with the words "Caritonnier," or " Pon- 
 tonnier," upon it, indicating that they are in 
 the service of the state. 
 
 The post-horses over all France are under 
 the control of the crown. Not only the post- 
 masters, but every postillion from Brest to 
 Marseilles, and Strasburg to Bourdeaux, are 
 nominated by the government. No additional 
 hand can be added in the remotest relay of 
 horses without the authority of the Parisian 
 bureaux. On all the great roads in the north 
 of France there are too few postillions, and 
 travellers are daily detained hours on the 
 road, not because horses are awanting, but 
 because it has not pleased the ministers of the 
 interior to appoint a sufficient number of pos- 
 tillions for the different stations. In the south, 
 the case is the reverse ; the postillions are too 
 numerous, and can hardly live, from the divi- 
 sion of their business among so many hands; 
 but the mandate has gone forth from the 
 Tuileries, and obedience must be the order of 
 the day. 
 
 The whole diligences, stage-coaches, mails, 
 and conveyances of every description which 
 convey travellers by relays of horses in every 
 part of France, must employ the post-horses 
 and postillions appointed at the different sta- 
 tions by the crown. No private individual or 
 company can run a coach with relays with 
 their own horses. They may establish as 
 many coaches as they choose, but they must 
 all be drawn by the royal horses and postillions, 
 if they do not convey the travellers en voiturier 
 with the same horses all the way. This great 
 monopoly was established by an arret of the 
 Directory, 9th December, 1798, which is in 
 these terms ; " Nul autre que les maitres de 
 poste, munis d'une commission speciale, ne 
 pourra etablir de relais particuliers, relayer ou 
 conduire a litre de louage des voyageurs d'un 
 relais a un autre, a peine d'etre contraint de 
 payer par forme d'indemnil le prix de la 
 course, au profit des maitres de poste et des 
 postilions qui auront ete frustres." 
 
 The whole firemen throughout France are 
 organized in battalions, and wear a uniform 
 like soldiers, and are appointed by govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The whole judges, superior and inferior, 
 over the whole kingdom, as well as the prefets, 
 
 sous-prefets, procureurs du roi, and in gene- 
 ral all the legal offices of every description, are 
 appointed by government. The only excep- 
 tion are the judges du paix, a sort of arbiters 
 and mediators in each canton, to settle the 
 trifling disputes of the peasants, whom they 
 are permitted to name for themselves. 
 
 The whole officers employed in the collec- 
 tion of the revenue, over the whole country, 
 are appointed by the government. They are 
 an extremely numerous body, and add im- 
 mensely to the influence of the central author- 
 ity, from whom all their appointments emanate. 
 
 It would be tedious to carry this enumera- 
 tion farther. Suffice it to say, that the govern- 
 ment of France has now drawn to itself the 
 whole patronage in every department of busi- 
 ness and line of life over the whole country. 
 The army, the navy, the law, the church, the 
 professors and teachers of every description ; 
 the revenue, the post-office, the roads, bridges 
 and canals, the post-horses, the postillions, the 
 firemen, the police, the gen-d'armes, the pre- 
 fects, the mayors, the magistrates, constitute so 
 many different branches in which the whole 
 patronage is vested in the central government 
 at Paris, and in which no step can be taken, 
 or thing attempted, without the authority of 
 the minister for that department, or the deputy 
 in the capital. In consequence of this prodi- 
 gious concentration of power and patronage in 
 the public offices of Paris, and the total stripping 
 of every sort of influence from the depart- 
 ment, the habit has become universal in every 
 part of France, of looking to Paris, not only 
 for the initiation in every measure and thought, 
 but for the means of getting on in every line 
 of life. Has a man a son to put into the army 
 or navy, the law, the church, the police, or re- 
 venue? He finds that he has no chance of 
 success unless he is taken by the hand by the 
 government. Is he anxious to make him a 
 professor, a teacher, or a schoolmaster? He 
 is obliged to look to the same quarter for the 
 means of advancement. Is his ambition li- 
 mited to the humbler situation of a postmaster, 
 a bridge contractor, a courier, or a postillion? 
 He must pay his court to the prefect of the de- 
 partment, in order to obtain a recommendation 
 to the minister of the interior, or the director 
 of bridges and roads. Is he even reduced to 
 earn his bread by breaking stones upon the 
 highways, or paving the streets of the towns ? 
 He must receive the wages of government, 
 and must wear their livery for his twenty sous 
 a day. Thus in every department and line of 
 life, government patronage is indispensable, 
 and the only way in which success is to be 
 obtained is by paying court to some person in 
 authority. 
 
 In a commercial and manufacturing country 
 such as England, many and various means 
 exist of rising to wealth and distinction, inde- 
 pendent of government; and in some the oppo- 
 sition line is the surer passport to eminence 
 of the two. Under the old constitution of 
 England, when political power was vested in 
 the holders of great property, and the great 
 body of the people watched their proceedings 
 with distrust and jealousy, eminence was to 
 be attained in any public profession, as the 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 127 
 
 bar or the senate, chiefly by acquiring the suf- 
 frages of the greater number of the citizens; 
 and hence the popular independent line was 
 the one which in general led soonest to fame 
 and eminence. Commerce and manufactures 
 opened up a thousand channels of lucrative 
 industry, independent altogether of government 
 support; and many of the most important 
 branches of patronage, great part of the church, 
 and the majority of all establishments for 
 education, were in the hands of corporations 
 or private individuals, often in opposition to, 
 or unconnected with, ministerial .influence. 
 But the reverse of all this obtains in France. 
 There little commerce or manufactures are, 
 comparatively speaking, to be found. With 
 the exception of Paris, Lyons, Bourdeaux, 
 Rouen, and Marseilles, no considerable com- 
 mercial cities exist, and the innumerable chan- 
 nels for private adventure which the colonial 
 possessions and immense trade of Britain open 
 up are unknown. All the private establish- 
 ments or corporations vested with patronage 
 in any line, as the church, education, charity, 
 or the like, were destroyed during the Revolu- 
 tion of 1793, and nothing left but the great and 
 overwhelming power of government, standing 
 the more prominently forward, from the extinc- 
 tion of every rival authority which might 
 compete with its influence. 
 
 From the same cause has arisen a degree 
 of slavish submission, in all the provinces of 
 France, to the will or caprice of the metropo- 
 lis, which is almost incredible, and says but 
 little for the independence of thought and cha- 
 racter which has grown up in that country 
 since the schoolmaster has been abroad. From 
 the habit of looking to Paris for directions in 
 every thing, from the making of a king to the 
 repairing of a bridge, from overturning a dy- 
 nasty to breaking a stone, they have absolutely 
 lost the power of judging for themselves, or 
 taking the initiative in any thing either of the 
 greatest or the smallest moment. This ap- 
 pears, in the most striking manner, in all the 
 political changes which have taken place in 
 the country for the last forty years. Ever since 
 the bones of old France were broken by the 
 Constituent Assembly : since the parliaments, 
 the provinces, the church, the incorporations, 
 were swept away by their gigantic acts of de- 
 mocratic despotism, the departments have 
 sunk into absolute insignificance, and every 
 thing has been determined by the will of the 
 capital, and the acts of the central government 
 at its head. When the Girondists, the illus- 
 trious representatives of the country districts, 
 were proscribed, the most violent feelings of 
 indignation spread through the south and west 
 of France. Sixty-five, out of the eighty-four 
 departments, rose in insurrection against the 
 despotism of the capital; but the unwonted 
 exertion surpassed their strength, and they 
 soon yielded, without a struggle worth the no- 
 tice of history, to its usurped authority. When 
 Robespierre executed Danton and his adher- 
 ents ; when he himself sunk under the stroke 
 of the Tlvermidorians; when Napoleon over- 
 threw the national guard of Paris, in October, 
 1795 ; when the Directory were expelled by the 
 bayonets of Augereau, on the 18th Fructidor, 
 
 1797; when Napoleon seized the reins of 
 power in November, 1799; when he declared 
 himself emperor, and overturned all the prin- 
 ciples of the Revolution in 1804; when he was 
 vanquished by the allies in 1814; when he re- 
 sumed the helm in 1815; when he was finally 
 dethroned after the battle of Waterloo; when 
 the revolt of the barricades established a re- 
 volutionary government in the capital ; when 
 the suppression of the insurrection at the 
 cloister of St. Merri defeated a similar attempt 
 two years afterwards, the obedient departments 
 were equally ready with their addresses of 
 congratulation, and on every one of these va- 
 rious, contradictory, and inconsistent changes, 
 France submitted at once to the dictatorial 
 power of Paris ; and thirty millions of men 
 willingly took the law from the caprices or 
 passions of a few hundred thousands. The 
 subjection of Rome to the Praetorian guards, 
 or of Turkey to the Janizaries, was never more 
 complete. 
 
 It was not thus in old France. The greatest 
 and most glorious efforts of her people, in fa- 
 vour of freedom, were made when the capital 
 was in the hands of foreign or domestic ene- 
 mies. The English more than once wrested 
 Paris from their grasp ; but the forces of the 
 south rallied behind the Loire, and at length 
 expelled the cruel invaders from their shores. 
 The forces of the League were long in posses- 
 sion of the capital ; but Henry IV., at the head 
 of the militia of the provinces, at length con- 
 quered its citizens, and Paris received a master 
 from the roots of the Pyrenees. The Revolu- 
 tion of 1789 commenced with the provinces: 
 it was their parliaments, which, under Louis 
 XV. and XVI., spread the spirit of resistance 
 to arbitrary power through the country ; and 
 it was from their exertions, that the unanimous 
 spirit, which compelled the court to convoke 
 the states-general, arose. Now all is changed; 
 not a murmur, not a complaint against the 
 acts of the capital, is to be heard from Calais 
 to Bayonne ; but the obedient departments are 
 equally ready at the arrival of the mail, or the 
 receipt of the telegraph, to hail with shouts a 
 republic or an empire ; a dictator or a consul ; 
 a Robespierre or a Napoleon ; a monarch, the 
 heir of fourteen centuries ; or a hero, the child 
 of an hundred victories. 
 
 All the great and useful undertakings, which 
 in England, and all free countries, emanate 
 from the capital or skill of individuals, or as- 
 sociated bodies, in France spring from the go- 
 vernment, and the government alone. Their 
 universities, schools, and colleges ; academies 
 of primary and secondary instruction ; mili- 
 tary and polytechnic schools ; hospitals, cha- 
 ritable institutions, libraries, museums, and 
 public establishments of all sorts; their har- 
 bours, bridges, roads, canals every thing, in 
 short, originates with, and is directed by, the 
 government. Hence, individuals in France 
 seldom attempt any thing for the public good: 
 private advantage, or amusement, the rise of 
 fortune, or the increase of power, constitute 
 the general motives of action. Like the pas- 
 sengers in a ship, or the soldiers in an army, 
 the French surrender themselves, without a 
 struggle, to the guidance of those in possession 
 
128 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of the helm ; or if they rise in rebellion against 
 them, it is not so much from any view to the 
 public good, as from a desire to secure to them- 
 selves the advantages which the possession 
 of political power confers. 
 
 This extraordinary concentration of every 
 thing in the central government at Paris, 
 always existed to a certain extent in France ; 
 but it has been increased, to a most extraordi- 
 nary degree, under the democratic rule of the 
 last forty years. It was the Constituent As- 
 sembly, borne forward on the gales of revo- 
 lutionary fervour, which made the greatest 
 additions to the power of government not 
 merely by the concentration of patronage and 
 direction of every kind in ministers, but by 
 the destruction of the aristocracy, the church, 
 the incorporations ; every thing, in short, 
 which could withstand or counterbalance the 
 influence of government. The people, charmed 
 with the installation of their representatives in 
 supreme power, readily acquiesced in, or rather 
 strenuously supported, all the additions made 
 by the democratic legislature to the powers 
 of the executive; fondly imagining that, by so 
 doing, they were laying the surest foundation 
 for the continuance of their own power. They 
 little foresaw, what the event soon demon- 
 strated, that they were incapable, in the long 
 run, of preserving this power; that it would 
 speedily fall into the hands of ambitious or 
 designing men, who nattered their passions, 
 in order to secure the possession of arbitrary 
 authority for themselves; and that, in the end, 
 the absolute despotism, which they had created 
 for the purpose of perpetuating the rule of the 
 multitude, would terminate in imposing on 
 them the most abject servitude. When Napo- 
 leon came to the throne, he found it unneces- 
 sary to make any great changes in the practical 
 working of government; he found a despotism 
 ready made to his hand, and had only to seize 
 the reins, so tightly bitted on the nation by his 
 revolutionary predecessors. 
 
 The Revolution of July made no difference 
 in this respect; or rather it tended to concen- 
 trate still farther in the metropolis the authority 
 and power of government. The able and in- 
 defatigable leaders, who during the fifteen years 
 of the Restoration had laboured incessantly to 
 subvert the authority of the royalists, had no 
 sooner succeeded, than they quietly took pos- 
 session of all the powers which they enjoyed, 
 and, supported with more talent, and a greater 
 display of armed force, exercised them with 
 far greater severity. No concessions to real 
 freedom were made no division of the powers 
 of the executive took place. All appointments 
 in every line still flow from Paris : not a pos- 
 tillion can ride a post-horse, nor peasant break 
 a stone on the highways, from the Channel to 
 the Pyrenees, unless authorized by the cen- 
 tral authority. The legislature convoked by 
 Louis Philippe has done much to abridge the 
 authority of others, but nothing to diminish 
 that which is most to be dreaded. They have 
 destroyed the hereditary legislature, the last 
 remnant of European civilization which the 
 convulsions of their predecessors had left, but 
 done nothing to weaken the authority of the 
 executive. Louis Philippe enjoys, during the 
 
 precarious tenure of his crown, at the will of 
 the Preetorian Guards of Paris, more absolute 
 authority than ever was held by the most des- 
 potic of the Bourbon race. 
 
 France being held in absolute subjection by 
 Paris, all that is necessary to preserve this 
 authority is to secure the mastery of the 
 capital. Marshal Soult has taught the citizen 
 king how this is to be done. He keeps an 
 immense military force, from 35,000 to 40,000 
 men, constantly in the capital ; and an equal 
 force is stationed within twelve miles round, 
 ready to march at a signal from the telegraph on 
 Montmartre, in a few hours, to crush any at- 
 tempt at insurrection. In addition to this, there 
 are 50,000 National Guards in Paris, and 
 25,000 more in the Banlieue, or rural district 
 round its walls, admirably equipped, well 
 drilled, and, to appearance at least, quite equal 
 to the regular soldiers. Of this great force, 
 above 5000, half regulars and half National 
 Guards, are every night on duty as sentinels, 
 or patrols, in the capital. There is not a 
 street where several sentinels, on foot or 
 horseback, are not stationed, and within call 
 of each a picquet or patrol, ready to render 
 aid, if required, at a minute's notice. Paris, in 
 a period of profound peace, without an enemy 
 approaching the Rhine, resembles rather a city 
 in hourly expectation of an assault from a 
 beleaguering enemy, than the capital of a 
 peaceful monarchy. 
 
 In addition to this prodigious display of 
 military force, the civil employes, the police, 
 constitute a body nearly as formidable, and, 
 to individuals at least, much more dangerous. 
 Not only are the streets constantly traversed 
 by this force in their appropriate dress, but 
 more than half their number are always prowl- 
 ing about, disguised as workmen or trades- 
 men, to pick up information, mark individuals, 
 and arrest discontented characters. They enter 
 coffee-houses, mingle in groups, overhear con- 
 versations, join in discussions, and if they 
 discover any thing seditious or dangerous, they 
 either arrest the delinquent at once, and hand 
 him over to the nearest guard, or denounce 
 him to their superiors, and he is arrested at 
 night by an armed force in his bed. Once 
 incarcerated, his career, for a long time at 
 least, is terminated : he is allowed to lie there 
 till his projects evaporate, or his associates 
 are dispersed, without either being discharged 
 or brought to trial. There is not a night at this 
 time, (August, 1833,) that from fifteen to twenty 
 persons are not arrested in this way by the 
 police ; and nothing is heard of their subse- 
 quent trial. 
 
 From the long continuance of these arrests 
 by the police, the prisons of Paris, spacious as 
 they are, and ample as they were found during 
 the Reign of Terror, have become unable to 
 contain their numerous inmates. Fresh and 
 extraordinary places of confinement have be- 
 come necessary. A new jail, of great dimen- 
 sions, guarded by an ample military force, has 
 been constructed by the citizen king, near the 
 cemetery of Pere la Chaise, where the over- 
 flowings of the other prisons in Paris are safely 
 lodged. The more dangerous characters are 
 conveyed to fortresses in the interior, or the 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 129 
 
 Chateau of Mount St. Michael in Normandy. 
 This great state-prison, capable of holding 
 many hundred prisoners, is situated in the 
 sea, on the coast of the Channel, and amply 
 tenanted now by the most unruly part, of the 
 population of Paris, under a powerful military 
 and naval garrison. 
 
 Above fifteen hundred persons were arrested 
 after the great revolt at the Cloister of St. 
 Merri, in June, 1832, and, though a few have 
 been brought to trial or discharged, the great 
 majority still remain in prison, in the charge 
 of the police, under warrants apparently of 
 interminable duration. The nightly arrests 
 and numerous domiciliary visits are con- 
 stantly adding to this immense number, and 
 gradually thinning that ardent body who ef- 
 fected the Revolution of July, and have proved 
 so formidable to every government of France, 
 since the beginning of the revolutionary trou- 
 bles in 1789. The fragment of this body, who 
 fought at the Cloister of St. Merri, evinced such 
 heroic courage and invincible determination, 
 that the government have resolved on a helium ad 
 internecionem with such formidable antagonists, 
 and, by the continued application of arrests 
 and domiciliary visits, have now considerably 
 weakened their numbers, as well as damped 
 their hopes. Still it is against this democratic 
 rump that all the vigilance of the police is 
 exerted. The royalists are neglected or de- 
 spised ; but the republicans, whom it is not so 
 easy to daunt, are sought out with undecaying 
 vigilance, and treated with uncommon severity. 
 
 Public meetings, or any of the other constitu- 
 tional modes of giving vent to general opinion 
 in Great Britain, are unknown in France. If 
 twenty or thirty thousand men were collected 
 together in that way, they would infallibly be 
 assailed by the military force, and their dis- 
 persion, or the overthrow of the government, 
 would be the consequence. 
 
 The only relic of freedom, which has sur- 
 vived the Revolution of July, is the liberty of 
 the press. It is impossible to read the journals 
 which are in every coffee-house every morn- 
 ing, without seeing that all the efforts of des- 
 potism have failed in coercing this mighty in- 
 strument. The measures of public men are 
 canvassed with unsparing severity: and not 
 only liberal, but revolutionary measures ad- 
 vocated with great earnestness, and no small 
 share of ability. It is not, however, without 
 the utmost efforts on the part of government 
 to suppress it, that this licentiousness exists. 
 Prosecutions against the press have been in- 
 stituted with a degree of rigour and frequency, 
 since the Revolution of July, unknown under 
 the lenient and feeble government of the Re- 
 storation. The Tribune, which is the leading 
 republican journal, has reached its eigh y-wcond 
 prosecution, since the Three Glorious Days. 
 More prosecutions have been instituted since 
 the accession of the Citizen King, than during 
 the whole fifteen that the elder branch of the 
 Bourbons was on the throne. The govern- 
 ment, however, have not ventured on the de- 
 cisive step of suppressing the seditious jour- 
 nals, or establishing a censorship of the press. 
 The recollection of the Three Days, which 
 commenced with the attempts to shut up the 
 17 
 
 printing-offices of some newspapers, prevents 
 this last act of despotism. The National 
 Guard, in all probability, would resist such an 
 attempt, and if not supported by them, it would 
 endanger the crown of Louis Philippe. Go- 
 vernment has apparently discovered that the 
 retention of the power of abuse consoles the 
 Parisians for the loss of all their other liber- 
 ties. They read the newspapers and see the 
 ministry violently assailed, and imagine they 
 are in full possession of freedom, though they 
 cannot travel ten leagues from Paris without 
 a passport, nor go to bed in the evening with 
 any security that they will not be arrested 
 during the night by the police, and consigned 
 to prison, without any possibility of redress, 
 for an indefinite period. 
 
 The present government appears to be 
 generally disliked, and borne from despair of 
 getting any other, more than any real attach- 
 ment. You may travel over the whole coun- 
 try without discovering one trace of affection 
 to the reigning family. Their names are 
 hardly ever mentioned ; by common consent 
 they appear to be consigned to oblivion by aU 
 classes. A large and ardent part of the peo- 
 ple are attached to the memory of Napoleon, 
 and seize every opportunity of testifying their 
 admiration of that illustrious man. Another 
 large and formidable body have openly es- 
 poused the principles of democracy, and are 
 indefatigable in their endeavours to establish 
 their favourite dream of a republic. The 
 Royalists, few in number in Paris and the 
 great commercial towns, abound in the south 
 and west, and openly proclaim their determi- 
 nation, if Paris will take the lead, to restore 
 the lawful race of sovereigns. But Louis 
 Philippe has few disinterested partisans, but 
 the numerous civil and military employes who 
 wear his livery or eat his bread. Not a ves- 
 tige of attachment to the Orleans dynasty is to 
 be seen in France. Louis Philippe is a man 
 of great ability, vast energy, and indomitable 
 resolution : but though these are the qualities 
 most dear to the French, he has no hold of 
 their affections. His presence in Paris is 
 known only by the appearance of a mounted 
 patrol on each side of the arch in the Place 
 Carousel, who are stationed there only when 
 the king is at the Tuileries. He enters the 
 capital, and leaves it, without any one inquir- 
 ing or knowing any thing about him. If he 
 is seen in the street, not a head is uncovered, 
 not a cry of Vive Ic Roi is heard. Nowhere is 
 a print or bust of any of the royal family to be 
 seen. Not a scrap of printing narrating any 
 of their proceedings, beyond the government 
 journals, is to be met with. You may travel 
 across the kingdom, or, what is of more con- 
 sequence, traverse Paris in every direction, 
 without being made aware, by any thing you 
 see or hear, that a king exists i'n France. The 
 royalists detest him, because he has establish- 
 ed a revolutionary throne the republicans, 
 because he "has belied all his professions in 
 favour of freedom, and reared a military des- 
 potism on the foundation of the Barricades. 
 
 The French, in consequence of these cir- 
 cumstances, are in a very peculiar state. They 
 are discontented with every thing, and what i# 
 
130 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 worse, they know not to what quarter to look 
 for relief. They are tired of the Citizen King, 
 whom they accuse of saving money, and pre- 
 paring for America; of having given them the 
 weight of a despotism without its security, and 
 the exhaustion of military preparation without 
 either its glory or its advantages. They (ex- 
 cluding the royalists) abhor the Bourbons, 
 whom they regard as priest-ridden, and super- 
 stitious, weak and feeble, men unfit to govern 
 the first nation in the world. They dread a 
 republic as likely to strip them of their sons 
 and their fortunes ; to induce an interminable 
 war with the European powers; deprive them 
 of their incomes, and possibly endanger the 
 national independence. They are discontented 
 with the present, fearful of the future, and find 
 their only consolation in reverting to the days 
 of Napoleon and the Grand Army, as a bril- 
 liant drama now lost for ever. They are in 
 the situation of the victim of passion, or the 
 slave of pleasure, worn out with enjoyment, 
 blase with satiety, who has no longer any en- 
 joyment in life, but incessantly revolts with 
 the prurient restlessness of premature age to 
 the orgies and the excesses of his youth. 
 
 What then, it may be asked, upholds the 
 reigning dynasty, if it is hated equally by both 
 the great parties who divide France, and can 
 number none but its own official dependents 
 among its supporters ? The answer is to be 
 found in the immense extent of the pecuniary 
 losses which the Revolution of July occasioned 
 to all men of any property in the country, and 
 the recollection of the Reign of Terror, which 
 is still vividly present to the minds of the ex- 
 isting generation. 
 
 On the English side of the channel, few are 
 aware of the enormous pecuniary losses with 
 which the triumph of democracy, in July, 
 1830, was attended. In Paris, all parties are 
 agreed that the depreciation of property of 
 every description in consequence of that event 
 was about a third: in other words, every man 
 found himself a third poorer after the over- 
 throw of Charles X. than he was before it. 
 Over the remainder of France the losses sus- 
 tained were nearly as great, in some places 
 still heavier. For the two years which suc- 
 ceeded the Barricades, trade and commerce 
 of every description was at a stand; the import 
 of goods declined a fourth, and one half of the 
 shopkeepers in Paris and all the great towns 
 became bankrupt. The distress among the 
 labouring classes, and especially those who 
 depended on the sale of articles of manufac- 
 tured industry or luxury, was unprecedented. 
 It is the recollection of this long period of na-' 
 tional agony which upholds the throne of Louis 
 Philippe. The National Guard of Paris, who 
 are in truth the ruling power in France, know 
 by bitter experience to what a revolution, even 
 of the most bloodless kind, leads decay of 
 business, decline of credit, stoppage of sales, 
 pressure of creditors. They, recollect the in- 
 numerable bankruptcies of 1830 and 1831, and 
 are resolved that their names shall not enter 
 the list. They know that the next convulsion 
 would establish a republic in unbridled sove- 
 reignty: they know the principles of these 
 apostles of democracy; they recollect their 
 
 actions ; the Reign of Terror, the massacres 
 in the prisons float before their eyes. They 
 have a vivid impression also of the external 
 consequences of such an event: they know 
 that their hot-headed youth would instantly 
 press forward to regain the frontier of the 
 Rhine ; they foresee an European war, a ces- 
 sation of the influx of foreign wealth into 
 Paris, and possibly a third visit by the Cos- 
 sacks to the Champs Elysees. These are the 
 considerations which maintain the allegiance 
 of the National Guard, and uphold the throne 
 of Louis Philippe, when there is hardly a 
 spark of real attachment to him in the whole 
 kingdom. He is supported, not because his 
 character is loved, his achievements admired, 
 or his principles venerated, but because he is 
 the last barrier between France and revolu- 
 tionary suffering, and because the people have 
 drunk too deep of that draught to tolerate a re- 
 petition of its bitterness. 
 
 Although, therefore, there is a large and en- 
 ergetic and most formidable party in France, 
 who are ardently devoted to revolutionary 
 principles, and long for a republic, as the 
 commencement of every imaginable felicity; 
 yet the body in whom power is at present 
 really vested, is essentially conservative. The 
 National Guard of Paris, composed of the 
 most reputable of the citizens of that great me- 
 tropolis, equipped at their own expense, and 
 receiving no pay from government, consists 
 of the very persons who have suffered most 
 severely by the late convulsions. They form 
 the ruling power in France; for to them more 
 than the garrison of the capital, the govern- 
 ment look for that support which is so neces- 
 sary amidst the furious factions by whom 
 they are assailed; and to their opinions the 
 people attach a degree of weight which does 
 not belong to any other body in France. The 
 Chamber of Peers are disregarded, the legis- 
 lative body despised ; but the National Guard 
 is the object of universal respect, because every 
 one feels that they possess the power of 
 making or unmaking kings. The crown does 
 not hesitate to act in opposition to a vote of 
 both Chambers ; but the disapprobation of a 
 majority of the National Guard is sure to com- 
 mand attention. In vain the Chamber of De- 
 puties refused a vote of supplies for the erec- 
 tion of detached forts round Paris; the ground 
 was nevertheless purchased, and the sappers 
 and miners, arnvd to the teeth, were busily 
 employed from four in the morning till twelve 
 at nignt, in their construction ; but when seve- 
 ral battalions of the National Guard, in de- 
 filing b^for the king, on the anniversary of 
 the Three Days, exclaimed, "A bas les forts 
 detaches," the works were suspended, and are 
 now going on only at Vincennes, and two 
 other points. Th it which was refused to the 
 collected wisdom of the Representatives of 
 France is conceded at once to the cries of 
 armed men : the ultimate decision is made by 
 the bayonet; and the boasted improvements 
 of modern civilization, terminate in the same 
 appeal to physical strength which character- 
 ize the days of Clovis. 
 
 This contempt into which the legislature 
 has fallen, is one of the great features of 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 131 
 
 France, since the Revolution of July ; but it is 
 one which is least known or understood on 
 the English side of the channel. The causes 
 which produced it had been long in operation, 
 but it was that event which brought them fully 
 and prominently into view. The supreme 
 power has now passed into other hand:;. It 
 was neither the Peers nor the Commons, but 
 the Populace in the streets, the heroes of the 
 Barricades, who seated Louis Philippe on the 
 throne. The same force, it is acknowledged, 
 possesses the power to dethrone htm; and 
 hence the National Guard of the capital, as 
 the organized concentration of this power, is 
 looked to with respect. The departments, it 
 is known, will hail with shouts whatever king, 
 or whatever form of government the armed 
 force in the capital choose to impose; the de- 
 puties, it is felt, will hasten to make their sub- 
 mission to the leaders who have got possession 
 of the treasury, the bank, the telegraph, and 
 the war office. Hence, the strife of faction 
 is no longer carried on by debates in the 
 Chambers, or efforts in the legislature. The 
 National Guard of Paris is the body to which 
 all attention is directed ; and if the departments 
 are considered, it is not in order to influence 
 their representatives, but to procure addresses 
 or petitions from members of their National 
 Guards, to forward the views of the great par- 
 ties at work in the metropolis. Such petitions 
 or addresses are daily to be seen in the public 
 papers, and are referred to with undisguised 
 satisfaction by the parties whose views they 
 support. No regard is paid but to the men who 
 have bayonets in their hands. Every thing 
 directly, or indirectly, is referred to physical 
 strength, and the dreams of modern equality 
 are fast degenerating into the lasting empire 
 of the sword. 
 
 The complete insignificance of the Cham- 
 bers, however, is to be referred to other and 
 more general causes than the successful re- 
 volt of the Barricades. That event only tore 
 aside the veil which concealed the weakness 
 of the legislature ; and openly proclaimed 
 what political wisdom had long feared, that 
 the elements of an authoritative and pa- 
 ramount legislature do not exist in France. 
 When the National Assembly destroyed the 
 nobility, the landed proprietors, the clergy, and 
 the incorporations of the country, they rendered 
 a respectable legislature impossible. It is in 
 vain to attempt to give authority or weight to 
 ordinary individuals not gifted with peculiar 
 talents, by merely electing them as members 
 of parliament. If they do not, from their 
 birth, descent, fortune, or estates, already pos- 
 sess it, their mere translation in the legislature 
 will never have this effect. The House of 
 Commons under the old English constitution 
 was so powerful, because it contained the re- 
 presentatives of all the great and lasting inte- 
 rests of the country, of its nobles, its landed 
 proprietors, its merchants, manufacturers, 
 burghers, tradesmen, and peasants. It com- 
 manded universal respect, because every man 
 felt that his own interests were wound up with 
 and defended by a portion of that body. But 
 this is not and cannot be the case in France 
 the classes are destroyed from whom the re- 
 
 presentatives of such varied interests must be 
 chosen : the interests in the nation do not ex^st 
 whose intermixture is essential to a weighty 
 legislature. Elected by persons possessed of 
 one uniform qualification the payment of di- 
 rect taxes to the amount of two hundred francs, 
 or eight pounds sterling a-year the deputies 
 are the representatives only of one class in 
 society, the small proprietors. The other in- 
 terests in the state either do not exist or are 
 not represented. The persons who are chosen 
 are seldom remarkable either for their fortune, 
 family, talent, or character. They are, to use 
 a homely expression, " neighbour like;" indi- 
 viduals of a bustling character, or ambitious 
 views, who have taken to politics as the best 
 and most lucrative profession they could 
 choose, as opening the door most easily to the 
 innumerable civil and military offices which 
 are the object of universal ambition in France. 
 Hence they are not looked up to with respect 
 even by their own department, who can never 
 get over the homeliness of their origin or 
 moderation of their fortune, and by the rest of 
 France are unknown or despised. 
 
 The chief complaint against the legislature 
 in France is, that it is swayed by corruption 
 and interested motives. That complaint has 
 greatly increased since the lowering of the free- 
 hold qualification from three hundred to two 
 hundred francs of direct taxes, in consequence 
 of the Revolution of July. This change has 
 opened the door to a lower and more corruptible 
 class of men ; numbers of whom got into the 
 legislature by making the most vehement pro- 
 fessions of liberal opinions to their constituents, 
 which they instantly forgot when the seductions 
 of office and emolument were displayed before 
 their eyes. The majority of the Chamber, it 
 is alleged, are gained by corruption ; and the 
 more that the qualification is lowered the worse 
 has this evil become. This is founded on the 
 principles of human nature, and is of univer- 
 sal application. The more that you descend 
 in society, the more will you find men accessi- 
 ble to base and selfish considerations, because 
 bribes are of greater value to those who pos- 
 sess little or nothing than those who possess 
 a great deal. Many of the higher ranks are 
 corrupt, but the power of resisting seduction 
 exists to a greater degree among them than 
 their inferiors. You often run the risk of in- 
 sult if you offer a man or woman of elevated 
 station a bribe, but seldom if it is insinuated 
 into the hand of their valet or lady's maid; 
 and when the ermine of the bench is unspotted, 
 so much can frequently not be said of the clerks 
 or servants of those elevated functionaries. 
 Where the .legislature is elected by persons 
 of that inferior description, the influence of 
 corruption will always be found to increase. It 
 is for the people of England to judge whether 
 the Reformed Parliament is or is not destined 
 to afford another illustration of the rule. 
 
 To Whatever cause it may be owing, the fact 
 is certain, and cannot be denied by any person 
 practically acquainted with France, that the 
 Chamber of Deputies has fallen into the most 
 complete contempt. Their debates have al- 
 most disappeared; they are hardly reported 
 by the public press ; seldom is any opposition 
 
132 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ,to be seen amongst them. When Louis Phi- 
 lippe's crown was in jeopardy in June, 1832, it 
 w*as to the National Guard, and not to either 
 branch of the legislature, that all parties look- 
 ed with anxiety. A unanimous vote of the old 
 English Parliament would probably have had 
 great weight with an English body of insur- 
 gents, as it certainly disarmed the formidable 
 mutineers at the Nore ; but a unanimous vote 
 o^both Chambers at Paris would have had little 
 or no effect. A hearty cheer from three bat- 
 talions of National Guards would have been 
 worth a hundred votes of the Chambers ; and 
 an insurrection, which all the moral force of 
 Parliament could not subdue, fell before the 
 vigour of two regiments of National Guards 
 from the Banlieue. 
 
 It is owing apparently to this prodigious as- 
 cendency of the National Guard of Paris, that 
 the freedom of discussion in the public jour- 
 nals has survived all the other liberties of 
 France. These journals are, in truth, the 
 pleaders before the supreme tribunals which 
 govern the country, and they are nattered by 
 the fearlessness of the language which is em- 
 ployed before them. They are as tenacious 
 of the liberty of the press at Paris, in conse- 
 quence, as the Praetorian Guards or Janizaries 
 were of their peculiar and ruinous privileges. 
 The cries of the National Guard, the ruling 
 power in France, are prejudiced by the inces- 
 sant efforts of the journals on the different 
 sides, who have been labouring for months or 
 years to sway their opinions. Thus the ulti- 
 mate appeal in that country is to the editors 
 of newspapers, and the holders of bayonets, 
 perhaps the classes of all others who are most 
 unfit to be intrusted with the guidance of pub- 
 lic affairs ; and certainly those the least quali- 
 fied, in the end, to maintain their independence 
 against the seductions or offers of a powerful 
 executive. 
 
 The central government at Paris is omnipo- 
 tent in France ; but it does by no means follow 
 from that, that this central government is itself 
 placed on a stable foundation. The authority 
 of the seraglio is paramount over Turkey : 
 but within its precincts the most dreadful 
 contests are of perpetual recurrence. The 
 National Assembly, by concentrating all the 
 powers of government in the capital, necessa- 
 rily delivered over its inhabitants to an inter- 
 minable future of discord and strife. When 
 once it is discovered that the mainspring of 
 all authority and influence is to be found in 
 the government offices of Paris, the efforts of 
 the different parties who divide the state are 
 incessant to make themselves masters of the 
 talisman. This is to be done,- not by any 
 efforts in the departments, any speeches in the 
 legislature, or any measures for the public 
 good, but by incessant working at the armed 
 force of the capital. By labouring in the pub- 
 lic journals, in pamphlets, books, reviews, and 
 magazines, for a certain number of years, the 
 faction in opposition at length succeed in 
 making an impression on the holders of bay- 
 onets in Paris, or on the ardent and penniless 
 youth who frequent its coffee-houses; and 
 when once this is done, by a well organized 
 entente, the whole is concluded. The people 
 
 are roused; the National Guard hesitate, or 
 join the insurgents ; the troops of the line re- 
 fuse to act against their fellow-citizens; the 
 reigning dynasty is dethroned; a new flag is 
 hoisted at the Tuileries ; and the submissive 
 departments hasten to declare their allegiance 
 to the reigning power now in possession of the 
 treasury and the telegraph, and disposing of 
 some hundred thousand civil and military 
 offices throughout France. 
 
 No sooner is this great consummation 
 effected, than the fruits of the victory begin to 
 be enjoyed by the successful party. Offices, 
 honours, posts, and pensions, are showered 
 down on the leaders, the officers, and pioneers 
 in the great work of national regeneration. 
 The editors of the journals whose side has 
 proved victorious, instantly become ministers : 
 all their relations and connections, far beyond 
 any known or computable degree of consan- 
 guinity, are seated in lucrative or important 
 offices. Regiments of cavalry, prefetships, 
 sous-prefetships, procureurships, mayorships, 
 adjointships, offices in the customs, excise, 
 police, roads, bridges, church, universities, 
 schools, or colleges, descend upon them thick 
 as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa. Mean- 
 while the vanished party are universally and 
 rigidly excluded from office, their whole rela- 
 tions and connections in every part of France 
 find themselves suddenly reduced to a state of 
 destitution, and their only resource is to begin 
 to work upon the opinions of the armed force 
 or restless population of the capital, in the 
 hope that, after the lapse of a certain number 
 of years, another revolution may be effected, 
 and the golden showers descend upon them- 
 selves. 
 
 In the Revolution of July, prepared as it 
 had been by the efforts of the liberal press for 
 fifteen years in France, and organized as it 
 was by the wealth of Lafitte, and a few of the 
 great bankers in Paris, this system was suc- 
 cessful. And accordingly, Thiers, Guizot, the 
 Duke de Broglio, and the whole coterie of the 
 doctrinaires, have risen at once, from being 
 editors of newspapers, or lecturers to students, 
 to the station of ministers of state, and dis- 
 pensers of several hundred thousand offices. 
 They are .now, in consequence, the objects of 
 universal obloquy and hatred with the remain- 
 der of the liberal party, who accuse them of 
 having sacrificed all their former opinions, 
 and embraced all the arbitrary tenets of the 
 royalist faction, whom they were instrumental 
 in subverting. Their conduct since they came 
 into office, and especially since the accession 
 of Casimir Perier's administration on the 13th 
 March, 1831, has been firm and moderate, 
 strongly inclined to conservative principles, 
 and, in consequence, odious to the last degree 
 to the anarchical faction by whose aid they 
 rose to greatness. 
 
 The great effort of this excluded faction was 
 made on the 5th and 6th of June, 1832, on 
 occasion of the funeral of Lamarque. In 
 England it was not generally known how for- 
 midable that insurrection was, and how 
 nearly it had subverted the newly erected 
 throne of the Barricades. Above eighty thou- 
 sand persons, including a considerable por- 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 tion of the National Guard from theFauxbourg 
 St. Antoine, and other manufacturing districts 
 of Paris, walked in regular military array, 
 keeping the step in that procession : no one 
 could see them without being astonished how 
 the government survived the crisis. In truth, 
 their existence hung by a thread; for several 
 hours a feather would have cast the balance 
 established a republican government, and 
 plunged Europe in an interminable war. Till 
 six o'clock in the evening the insurgents were 
 continually advancing; and, at that hour, they 
 had made themselves masters of about one- 
 half of Paris, including the whole district to 
 the eastward of a line drawn from the Port 
 St. Martin through the Hotel de Ville to the 
 Pantheon. At the first alarm the government 
 surrounded the Fauxbourg St. Antoine with 
 troops, and would have perished, but for the 
 fortunate cutting off of that great revolution- 
 ary quarter from the scene of active prepa- 
 rations. Though deprived of the expected 
 co-operation in that district, however, the in- 
 surgents bravely maintained the combat ; they 
 entrenched themselves in the neighbourhood 
 of the cloister of St. Merri, and among the 
 narrow streets of that densely peopled quarter, 
 maintained a doubtful struggle. The minis- 
 ters, in alarm, sent for the king, with intelli- 
 gence that his crown was at stake : above 
 sixty thousand men, with an immense train of 
 artillery, were brought to the spot ; but still 
 the issue seemed suspended. The National 
 Guard of the city, for the most part, hung 
 back; the cries of others were openly in 
 favour of the insurgents; if a single battalion, 
 either of the line or the National Guard, at 
 that crisis had openly joined the rebels, all 
 was lost. In this extremity a singular circum- 
 stance changed the fortune of the day, and 
 fixed his tottering crown on the head of Louis 
 Philippe. The little farmers round Paris, who 
 live by sending their milk and vegetables to 
 the capital, found their business suspended by 
 the contest which was raging in the centre 
 of the city, where the markets for their pro- 
 duce are held; their stalls and paniers were 
 seized by the rebels, and run up into barri- 
 cades. Enraged at this invasion of their pro- 
 perty and stoppage of their business, these 
 little dealers joined their respective banners, 
 and hastened with the National Guard of the 
 Banlieue to the scene of action : they were 
 plentifully supplied with wine and spirits on 
 the outside of the barrier; and before the ex- 
 citation had subsided, were hurried over the 
 barricades, and determined 1 the conflict. In its 
 last extremity the crown of Louis Philippe 
 was saved, neither by his boasted guards, nor 
 the civic force of the metropolis, but the anger 
 of a body of hucksters, gardeners, and milk- 
 dealers, roused by the suspension of their 
 humble occupations. 
 
 It is this peculiarity in the situation of the 
 French government which renders it neces- 
 sary to watch the state of parties in Paris 
 with such intense anxiety, and renders the 
 strife in its streets the signal for peace or war 
 all over the civilized world. The government 
 of France, despotic as it is over the remainder 
 of the country, is entirely at the mercy of the 
 
 133 
 
 metropolis. Ha^ff^to root in the provinces, 
 being based on n o lasa t*mte rests in the state, 
 it depends entirely onTffe^axmed force of the 
 capital a well organized emeute, the defection 
 of a single regiment of guards, a few seditious 
 cries from the National Guard, the sight of a 
 favourite banner, a fortunate allusion to heart- 
 stirring recollections, may at any moment con- 
 sign it to destruction. If the insurgents of the 
 city of Paris can make themselves masters of 
 the Hotel de Ville, France is more than half 
 conquered; if their forces are advanced to the 
 Marche des Innocens, the throne is in greater 
 danger than if the Rhine had been crossed by 
 two hundred thousand men : but if their flag 
 is hoisted on the Tuileries, the day is won, and 
 France, with its eighty-four departments and 
 thirty-two millions of inhabitants, is at the 
 disposal of the victorious faction. If the rebels 
 who sold their lives so dearly in the cloister 
 of St. Merri could have openly gained over to 
 their side one regiment, and many only waited 
 an example to join their colours, they would 
 speedily have been in possession of the trea- 
 sury, and the telegraph, and France was at 
 their feet. No man knew this peculiarity in 
 the political situation of the great nation better 
 than Napoleon. He was little disquieted by 
 the failure of the Russian campaign, till intelli- 
 gence of the conspiracy of Mallet reached his 
 ears; and that firmness which the loss of four 
 hundred thousand men could not shake, was 
 overturned by the news that the rebels in 
 Paris had imprisoned the minister of police, 
 and were within a hair's breadth of making 
 themselves masters of the telegraph. 
 
 It is not surprising that Paris should have 
 acquired this unbridled sovereignty over the 
 rest of the country, if the condition in which 
 the provinces have been left by the Revolution 
 is considered. Yon travel through one of the 
 departments not a gentleman's house or a 
 chateau is to be seen. As far as the eye can 
 reach, the country is covered with sheets of 
 grain, or slopes covered with vines or vege- 
 tables, raised by the peasants who inhabit the 
 villages, situated at the distance of a few miles 
 from each other. Does this immense expanse 
 belong to noblemen, gentlemen, or opulent 
 proprietors capable of taking the lead in any 
 common measures for the defence of the public 
 liberties ] On the contrary, it is partitioned 
 out among an immense body of little proprie- 
 tors, the great majority of whom are in a state 
 of extreme poverty, and who are chained to 
 the plough by the most imperious of all 
 laws that of absolute necessity. Morning, 
 noon, and night, they are to be seen labouring 
 in the fields, or returning weary and spent to 
 their humble homes. Is it possible from such 
 a class to expect any combined effort in favour 
 of the emancipation of the provinces from the 
 despotism of the capital 1 The thing is utter- 
 ly impossible : as well might you look for an 
 organized struggle for freedom among the 
 serfs of Russia or the ryots of Hindostan. 
 
 A certain intermixture of peasant proprie- 
 tors is essential to the well-being of society ; 
 and the want of such a class to a larger extent 
 in England, is one of the circumstances most 
 to be lamented in its social condition. But 
 M 
 
134 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 there is a medium in all things. As much as 
 the total want of little landowners is a serious 
 evil, so much is the total want of any other 
 class to be deprecated. In the time of the 
 Duke de Gaeta, (1816,) that able statesman 
 calculated that there were four millions of 
 landed proprietors in France, and 14,000,000 
 of souls constituting their families, independent 
 of the wages of labour.* At present the num- 
 ber is computed at twenty-five millions, and 
 there are above ten millions of separate pro- 
 perties enrolled and rated for taxation in the 
 government book. Generally speaking, they 
 occupy the whole land in the country. Here 
 and there an old chateau, still held by a rem- 
 nant of the old noblesse, is to be seen; or 
 a modern villa, inhabited in summer by an 
 opulent banker from one of the great manu- 
 facturing towns. But their number is too in- 
 considerable, they are too far separated from 
 each other, to have any weight in the political 
 scale. France is, in fact, a country of peasants, 
 interspersed with a few great manufacturing 
 towns, and ruled by a luxurious and corrupted 
 capital. 
 
 Even the great manufacturing towns are 
 incapable of forming any counterpoise to tire 
 power of the capital. They are situated too 
 far from each other, they depend too complete- 
 ly on orders from Paris, to be capable of 
 opposing any resistance to its authority. If 
 Rouen, Marseilles, Lyons, or Bourdeaux were 
 to attempt the struggle, the central govern- 
 ment would quickly crush each singly, before 
 it could be aided by the other confederates. 
 They tried to resist, under the most favourable 
 circumstances, in 1793, when the Convention 
 were assailed by all the powers of Europe, 
 when two-thirds of France joined their league, 
 and the west was torn by the Vendean war, 
 and totally failed. Any repetition of the at- 
 tempt is out of the question. 
 
 The representative system, the boast of 
 modern civilization, has been found by ex- 
 perience to be incapable of affording any 
 remedy for this universal prostration of the 
 provinces. That system is admirably adapted 
 for a country which contains a gradation of 
 classes in society from the prince to the pea- 
 sant; but it must always fail where the in- 
 termediate classes are destroyed, and there 
 exist only the government and the peasantry. 
 Where this is the case, the latter body will 
 always be found incapable of resisting the in- 
 fluence of the central authority. Who, in 
 every age, from the signing of Magna Charta, 
 have taken the lead in the support of English 
 freedom? The barons, and great landed pro- 
 prietors, who possessed at once the resolution, 
 influence, and power of combination, which 
 are indispensable to such an attempt. Even 
 the Reform Bill, the last and greatest triumph 
 of democratic ambition, was forced through 
 the legislature, by the aid of a large and opu- 
 lent portion of the aristocracy. If the Revo- 
 lution of 1642 or 1688 had destroyed this in- 
 termediate body in the state, the representa- 
 tive system would speedily have fallen into 
 contempt. The humble, needy representatives 
 
 * Due de Gaeta, ii. 334. 
 
 of humble and needy constituents would in 
 the end have found themselves overshadowed 
 by the splendour of the court, the power t>f 
 the metropolis, or the force of the army. In 
 periods of agitation, when the public mind is 
 in a ferment, and the chief powers of the state 
 pulled in one direction, they would have been 
 irresistible; but in times of tranquillity, when 
 the voice of passion was silent, and that of 
 interest constantly heard, they would have 
 certainly given way. What is required in the 
 representatives of the people, is a permanent 
 resistance at all times to the various dangers 
 which threaten the public freedom; in periods 
 of democratic agitation, a firm resistance to 
 precipitate innovation; in times of pacific en- 
 joyment, a steady disregard of government 
 seduction. Human nature is weak, and we 
 must not expect from any body of men, how- 
 ever constituted, a steady adherence to duty 
 under such circumstances of varied trial and 
 difficulty ; but experience has proved, that it 
 may be expected, with some probability, among 
 an aristocratic body, because their interests 
 are permanent, and equally endangered by 
 each set of perils ; but that it is utterly chimeri- 
 cal to look for it among the representatives of 
 a body of peasants or little proprietors, im- 
 mingled with any considerable intermixture 
 of the higher classes of society. But the 
 Revolution has extinguished these classes in 
 France, and therefore it has not left the ele- 
 ments out of which to frame a constitutional 
 monarchy. 
 
 These circumstances explain a fact singular- 
 ly illustrative of the present state of parties in 
 France, and the power to whom the ultimate 
 appeal is made, viz. the eminent and illus- 
 trious persons by whom the daily press is 
 conducted. Every one knows by what class 
 in society the daily press is conducted in Eng- 
 land; it is in the hands of persons of great 
 ability, but in general of inferior grade in 
 society. If the leading political characters do 
 occasionally contribute an article, it is done 
 under the veil of secrecy, and is seldom ad- 
 mitted by the author, with whatever fame it 
 may have been attended. But in France the 
 case is quite the reverse. There the leading 
 political characters, the highest of the nobles, 
 the first men in the state, not only contribute 
 regularly to the daily or periodical press, but 
 avow and glory in their doing so. Not only 
 the leading literary characters, as Chateau- 
 briand, Guizot, Thiers, and others, regularly 
 write for the daily press ; but many of the 
 Peers of France conduct, or contribute to, the 
 public newspapers. The Gazette de France 
 and Quotidienne are supported by contribu- 
 tions from the royalist nobility; the Journal 
 des Debats is conducted by a Peer of France. 
 So far from being considered as a discredit, or 
 a thing to be concealed, these eminent men 
 pride themselves on the influence they thus 
 have on public opinion. The reason is ob- 
 vious ; they are the speakers before the real 
 National Assembly of France, the National 
 Guard and armed force of Paris. Considera- 
 tion and dignity will ever attend the persons 
 whose exertions directly lead to the possession 
 of political power. When, in the progress of 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 135 
 
 democratic changes, the Reformed Parliament 
 of England has sunk as low in public estima- 
 tion as the Chamber of Deputies in France, 
 the dukes and earls of England, if such a 
 class exist, will become the editors of news- 
 papers, and pride themselves on the occupa- 
 tion. 
 
 The taxation of France is extremely heavy, 
 and has been increased to a most extraordi- 
 nary degree since the Revolution of July. In 
 a table below,* will be found a return of the 
 budgets of the last ten years, lately published 
 in Paris by authority of government. From 
 this it appears that the expenditure of the last 
 year of Charles X., was 950,000,000 francs, 
 or about 39,000,000 sterling, while that of 
 the first year of Louis Philippe, was above 
 1,500,000,000 francs, or 60,000,000. Thus, 
 while the Three Glorious Days diminished 
 every man's property by a third, it added to the 
 national burdens by a half. Such are the 
 blessings of democratic ascendency. 
 
 The taxation of France has become an evil 
 of the very greatest magnitude, and with every 
 addition made to democratic power, it has be- 
 come worse. The property-tax is thirteen per 
 cent, on the annual value ; but by the arbitrary 
 and unfair way in which valuations are taken, 
 it frequently amounts to twenty, sometimes to 
 thirty per cent, on what is really received by 
 the proprietor. Professional persons, whose 
 income is fluctuating, pay an income-tax on a 
 graduated scale ; and the indirect taxes bring 
 in about 500,000,000 francs, or 20,000,000 
 sterling. The direct taxes amount to about 
 350,000,000 francs, or 14,000,000 sterling; a 
 much heavier burden than the income-tax was 
 on England, for the national income of Eng- 
 land is much greater than that of France. As 
 the result of their democratic efforts, the French 
 have fixed on themselves national burdens, 
 nearly three times as heavy as those which 
 were so much complained of in the time of 
 Louis XVI. ;f and greatly more oppressive 
 than those which the revolutionary war has 
 imposed on the English people. 
 
 Nor is this all. In addition to this enormous 
 increase of taxation, the Revolution of July has 
 occasioned the sale of a very large portion of 
 the royal domains. In every part of France 
 the crown lands and forests have been alienated 
 to a very great extent ; and the words which so 
 often meet a traveller's eyes, "Biens patrimo- 
 niaux de la Couronne a vendre," indicate too 
 clearly how universally the ruthless hand of 
 the spoiler has been laid on the remaining 
 public estates of the realm. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, however, the charac- 
 ter of the French government has been essen- 
 tially changed by the Revolution of the Barri- 
 cades. It possesses now a degree of power, 
 
 * Budgets of France for the last ten years. 
 
 1821 
 
 951 993,000 i 
 
 Yam's, ( 
 
 >r 38, 100. 000 
 
 1825 
 
 916.098.000 
 
 do. 
 
 37,100,000 
 
 1826 
 
 942,518.000 
 
 do. 
 
 37.800000 
 
 1827 
 
 9*f),.V27,00..) 
 
 do. 
 
 38,730.000 
 
 1828 
 
 939.313,000 
 
 do. 
 
 37.330.000 
 
 1829 
 
 97f).703 000 
 
 do. 
 
 38,810.000 
 
 1830 
 
 981,510.000 
 
 do. 
 
 :>.9.-o.noo 
 
 1831 
 
 1,5 11. 500,000 
 
 do. 
 
 60,000.000 
 
 1832 
 
 1,100,50(5.000 
 
 do. 
 
 44,000.000 
 
 1833 
 
 1.120,394,000 
 
 do. 
 
 44,51)0.000 
 
 t They were then about 19,000,000 a year. 
 
 vigour, and/despotic authority, to which there 
 has been nothing comparable since the days 
 of Napoleon. The facility with which it over- 
 turned the great democratic revolt at the cloister 
 of St. Merri, in June, 1832, and at Lyons in No- 
 vember, 1831, both of which were greatly more 
 formidable than that of the Three Days, is a 
 sufficient proof of this assertion. The deeds 
 of despotism, the rigorous acts of government, 
 which are now in daily operation under the 
 citizen king, could never have been attempted 
 during the restoration. Charles X. declared 
 Paris in a state of siege, and issued an edict 
 against the liberty of the press ; and in a few 
 days, in consequence, he was precipitated from 
 his throne: Marshal Soult declared Paris in a 
 state of siege, and still more rigidly fettered 
 the press ; and the act of vigour confirmed in- 
 stead of weakening his sovereign's authority. 
 It is the daily complaint of the republican 
 press, that the acts of government are now 
 infinitely more rigorous than they have ever 
 been since the fall of Napoleon, and that the 
 nation under the restoration would never have 
 tolerated the vexatious restraints which are 
 now imposed upon its freedom. To give one 
 or two examples from the newspapers lying 
 before us. 
 
 "Yesterday evening, twenty-eight persons, 
 accused of seditious practices, were arrested 
 and sent to prison by the agents of the police. 
 Never did tyranny advance with such rapid 
 strides as it js doing at the present time." 
 Tribune, Aug. 20. 
 
 " Yesterday night, eighteen more persons, 
 accused of republican practices, were sent to 
 prison. How long will the citizens of Paris 
 permit a despotism to exist among them, to 
 which there has been nothing comparable since 
 the days of Napoleon?" Tribune, Aug. 21. 
 
 " More barracks are in course of being 
 
 rected in the neighbourhood of Graulle. If 
 
 matters go on much longer at this rate, Paris 
 
 will contain more soldiers than citizens." 
 
 Tribune, Aug. 23. 
 
 If Charles X. or Louis XVIII. had adventured 
 upon the extraordinary steps of sending state 
 prisoners by the hundred to the castle of mount 
 St. Michael in Normandy, or erecting an ad- 
 ditional prison of vast dimensions near Pere 
 la Chaise, to receive the overflowings of the 
 other jails in Paris, maintaining forty or fifty 
 thousand men constantly in garrison in the 
 capital, or placing a girdle of fortified bastiles 
 round its walls, the vehemence of the public 
 clamour would either have rendered necessary 
 the abandonment of the measures, or straight- 
 way precipitated them from the throne. All 
 parties now admit that France possessed as 
 much real freedom as was consistent with 
 public order under the Bourbons ; there is not 
 one which pretends that any of 'that liberty is 
 still enjoyed. They are completely at variance, 
 indeed, as to the necessity of its removal; the 
 republicans maintaining that an unnecessary 
 and odious despotism has been established; 
 the juste milieu, that a powerful government 
 is the only remaining barrier between France 
 and democratic anarchy, and, as such, is ab- 
 solutely indispensable for the preservation of 
 order; but all are agreed that the constitu- 
 
136 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 tional freedom of the Restoration no longer fi 
 exists. 
 
 An attentive observation of the present state 
 of France is all that is requisite to show the 
 causes of these apparently anomalous facts ; 
 of the tempered rule, limited authority, and 
 constitutional sway of the Bourbons, in spite 
 of the absolute frame of government which 
 they received from Napoleon and the Revolu- 
 tion ; and the despotic rigour and irresistible 
 force of the present dynasty, notwithstanding 
 the democratic transports which seated it 
 upon the throne. Such a survey will, at the 
 same time, throw a great and important light 
 upon the final effect of the first Revolution on 
 the cause of freedom, and go far to vindicate 
 the government of that superintending wis- 
 dom, which, even in this world, compels vice 
 to work out its own deserved and memorable 
 punishment. 
 
 The practical and efficient control upon the 
 executive authority, in every state, is to be 
 found in the jealousy of the middling and 
 lower orders of the rule of the higher, who are 
 in possession of the reins of power. This is 
 the force which really coerces the governmenr 
 in every state; it is to be found in the tumults 
 of Constantinople, or the anarchy of Persia, as 
 well as in the constitutional opposition of the 
 British parliament. The representative system 
 only gives a regular and constitutional channel 
 to the restraining power, without which society 
 might degenerate into the anarchy of Poland, 
 or be disgraced by the strife of the Seraglio. 
 
 As long as this jealousy remains entire among 
 the people, and the fabric of government is 
 sufficiently strong to resist its attacks on any 
 of its necessary functions as long as it is a 
 drag on its movements, not the ruling power, 
 the operations of the executive are subjected 
 to a degree of restraint which constitutes a 
 limited monarchy, and diffuses general free- 
 dom. This is the natural and healthful state of 
 society ; where the people, disqualified by their 
 multitude and their habits from the task of 
 government, fall into their proper sphere of 
 observing and controlling its movements ; and 
 the aristocracy, disqualified by their limited 
 number from the power of effectually control- 
 ling the executive, if possessed by the people, 
 occupy their appropriate station in forming 
 part of the government, and supporting the 
 throne. The popular body is as unfit to go- 
 vern the state, as the aristocracy is to defend 
 its liberties against a democratic executive. 
 History has many instances to exhibit, of li- 
 berty existing for ages with a senate holding 
 the reins, and a populace checking its en- 
 croachments ; it has not one to show of the 
 same blessing being found under a democracy 
 in possession of the execuiive, with the de- 
 fence of public freedom intrusted to a displaced 
 aristocracy. From the Revolution of 1688 to 
 that of 1832, the annals of England presented 
 the perfect specimen of public freedom flou- 
 rishing under the first form of government; it 
 remains to be seen whether it will subsist for 
 any length of time under the second. 
 
 Experience, accordingly, has demonstrated 
 what theory had long asserted, that the over- 
 throw of the liberty of all free states has arisen 
 
 rom the usurpation of the executive authority 
 by the democracy ; and that, as long as the 
 reins of power are in the hands of the nobles, 
 the jealousy of the commons was an adequate 
 security to the cause of freedom. Rome long 
 maintained its liberties, notwithstanding the 
 contests of the patricians and plebeians, while 
 the authority of the senate was unimpaired; 
 but when the aristocracy, under Cato, Brutus, 
 and Pompey, were overturned by the demo- 
 cracy headed by Caesar, the tyranny of the 
 emperors rapidly succeeded. The most com- 
 plete despotism of modern times is to be found 
 in the government of Robespierre and Napo- 
 leon, both of whom rose to power on the de- 
 mocratic transports of a successful revolution. 
 Against the encroachments of their natural 
 and hereditary rulers, the sovereign and the 
 nobles, the people, in a constitutional mo- 
 narchy, are in general sufficiently on their 
 guard : and against their efforts, the increasing 
 power which they acquire from the augmenta- 
 tion of their wealth and intelligence in the 
 later stages of society, is a perfectly sufficient 
 security. But of the despotism of the rulers 
 of their own party, the usurpation of the 
 leaders whom they have themselves seated in 
 the chariot, they are never sufficiently jea- 
 lous, because they conceive that their own 
 power is deriving fresh accessions of strength 
 from every addition made to the chiefs who 
 have so long combated by their side; and this 
 delusion continues universally till it is too late 
 to shake their authority, and on the ruins of a 
 constitutional monarchy, an absolute despotism 
 has been constructed. 
 
 " Le leurre du despotisme qui commence est 
 toujours," says Guizot, "d'offrir aux hommes 
 les trompeurs avantages d'une honteuse ega- 
 lite."* 
 
 Had the first Revolution of France, like the 
 great rebellion of England, merely passed over 
 the state without uprooting all its institutions, 
 and destroying every branch of its aristocracy, 
 there can be little doubt that a constitutional 
 monarchy might have been established in 
 France, and possibly a hundred and forty 
 years of liberty and happiness formed, as in 
 Britain, the maturity of its national strength. 
 But the total destruction of all these classes in 
 the bloody convulsion, and the division of their 
 estates among an innumerable host of little 
 proprietors, rendered the formation of such a 
 monarchy impossible, because one of the ele- 
 ments was awanting which is indispensable to 
 its existence, and no counterpoise remained to 
 the power of the democracy at one time, or of 
 the executive at another. You might as well 
 make gunpowder without sulphur, as rear up 
 constitutional freedom without an hereditary 
 aristocracy to coerce the people and restrain 
 the throne. "A monarchy," ^ays Bacon, 
 "without an aristocracy, is ever an absolute 
 despotism, for a nobility attempers somewhat 
 the reverence for the line royal." "The Revo- 
 lution," says Napoleon, " left France absolutely 
 without an aristocracy; and this rendered the 
 formation of a mixed constitution impossible. 
 The government had no lever to rest upon to 
 
 * Guizot, Essais sur 1'histoire de France, 13. 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 137 
 
 direct the people ; it was compelled to navi- 
 gate in a single element. The French Revolu- 
 tion has attempted a problem as insoluble as 
 the direction of balloons!"* 
 
 When Napoleon seized the helm, therefore, 
 he had no alternative but to see revolutionary 
 anarchy continue in the state, or coerce the 
 people by a military despotism. He chose the 
 latter; and under his firm and resolute go- 
 vernment, France enjoyed a degree of prospe- 
 rity and happiness unknown since the fall of 
 the monarchy. Those who reproach him with 
 departing from the principles of the Revolution, 
 and rearing up a military throne by means of 
 a scaffolding of democratic construction, would 
 do well to show how he could otherwise have 
 discharged the first of duties in governments, 
 the giving protection and security to the peo- 
 ple ; how a mixed and tempered constitution 
 could be established, when the violence of the 
 people had totally destroyed their natural and 
 hereditary rulers ; and how the passions of a 
 populace, long excited by the uncontrolled riot 
 in power, were to be coerced- by a senate com- 
 posed of salaried dignitaries, destitute either 
 of property or importance, and a body of 
 ignoble deputies, hardly elevated, either in 
 station or acquirements, above the citizens to 
 whom they owed their election. 
 
 The overthrow of Napoleon's power by the 
 arms of Europe, for a time established a con- 
 stitutional throne in France, and gave its in- 
 habitants fifteen years of undeserved freedom 
 and happiness. But this freedom rested on an 
 unstable equilibrium; it had not struck its 
 roots into the substratum of society; it was 
 liable to be overturned by the first shock of 
 adverse fortune. As it was, however, it con- 
 tributed, in a most essential manner, to deceive 
 the world,-^-to veil the irreparable conse- 
 quences of the first convulsion, and make 
 mankind believe that it was possible, on the 
 basis of irreligion, robbery, and murder, to 
 rear up the fair fabric of regulated freedom. 
 We have to thank the Revolution of the Bar- 
 ricades for drawing aside the veil, for dis- 
 playing the consequences of national delink 
 quency on future ages ; and beneath the fair 
 colours of the whited sepulchre, exhibiting the 
 foul appearances of premature corruption and 
 decay. 
 
 What gave temporary freedom to France 
 under the Restoration was the prodigious ex- 
 haustion of the democratic spirit by the cala- 
 mities which attended the close of Napoleon's 
 reign ; the habits of submission to which his 
 iron government had accustomed the people ; 
 the terror produced by the double conquest of 
 Paris by the Allies, the insecure and obnoxious 
 tenure by which the Bourbons held their 
 authority, and the pacific character and per- 
 sonal weakness of that race of sovereigns 
 themselves. 
 
 1. The exhaustion of France by the calami- 
 ties which hurled Napoleon from the throne, 
 undoubtedly had a most powerful effect in 
 coercing for a time the fierce and turbulent 
 passions of the people. It is in the young that 
 the spirit of liberty and the impatience of 
 
 * Napoleon's Memoirs. 
 18 
 
 restraint is ever most fervent, and from their 
 energy that the firmest principles of freedom 
 and the greatest excesses of democracy have 
 equally arisen. But the younger generations 
 of France were, to a degree unprecedented in 
 modern times, mowed down by the revolu- 
 tionary wars. After seventeen years of more 
 than ordinary consumption of human life, 
 came the dreadful campaigns of 1812, 1813, 
 and 1814 ; in the first of which, between Spain 
 j and Russia, not less than 700,000 men perish- 
 j ed by the sword or sickness, while, in the two 
 I latter, the extraordinary levy of 1,200,000 
 i men was almost entirely destroyed. By these 
 I prodigious efforts, France was literally ex- 
 I hausted ; these copious bleedings reduced the 
 i body politic to a state of almost lethargic 
 | torpor; and, accordingly, neither the invasion 
 j and disasters of 1814, nor the return of Napo- 
 j leon in 1815, could rouse the mass of the 
 nation to any thing like a state of general 
 excitement. During the first years of the 
 Bourbons' reign, accordingly, they had to rule 
 over a people whose fierce passions had been 
 tamed by unprecedented misfortunes, and hot 
 blood drained off by a merciless sword ; and 
 it was not till the course of time, and the 
 ceaseless powers of population had in some 
 degree repaired the void, that that general im- 
 patience and restlessness began to be mani- 
 fested which arises from the difficulty of 
 finding employment, and is the common pre- 
 cursor of political changes. 
 
 2. The government of Napoleon, despotic 
 and unfettered in its original construction, 
 after the 18th Brumaire, had become, in pro- 
 cess of time, the most arbitrar} r and powerful 
 of any in Europe. Between the destruction 
 of all ancient, provincial, and corporate au- 
 thorities, by the successive revolutionary as- 
 semblies, and the complete centralization of 
 all the powers and influence of the state in the 
 government at Paris, which took place during 
 his government, there was not a vestige of 
 popular power left in France. The people 
 had been accustomed, for fourteen years, to 
 submit to the prefets, sous-prefets, mayors, 
 adjoints, and other authorities appointed by 
 the central government at Paris, and they had 
 in a great degree lost the recollection of the 
 intoxicating powers which they exercised 
 during the Revolution. The habit of submis- 
 sion to an absolute government, which enforced 
 its mandates by 800,000 soldiers, and had three 
 hundred thousand civil offices in its gift, had 
 in a great degree prepared the country for 
 slavery. To the direction of this immense and 
 strongly constructed machine the Bourbons 
 succeeded; and it w r ent on for a number of 
 years working of itself, without the people ge- 
 nerally being conscious of the helm having 
 passed from the firm and able grasp of Napo- 
 leon to the inexperienced and feeble hands of 
 his legitimate successors. Louis XVIIL, in- 
 | deed, gave a charter to his subjects : "Vive la 
 ! Charte" became the cry of the supporters of 
 j his throne : deputies were chosen, who met at 
 I Paris ; a Chamber of Peers was established, 
 I and the forms of a constitutional monarchy 
 prevailed. But it is not by conferring the 
 | forms of a limited monarchy that its spirit can 
 M 2 
 
138 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 be acquired, or the necessary checks either on 
 the throne or the populace established. France, 
 under the Bourbons, went through the forms 
 of a representative government, but she had 
 hardly a vestige of its spirit. Her people were 
 composed of a few hundred thousand ardent 
 citizens in the towns, who longed for demo- 
 cratic power and a republican government, 
 and thirty millions of peasants and workmen, 
 who were ready to submit to any government 
 established by the ruling population of the 
 capital. To coerce the former, or invigorate 
 the latter, no means remained ; and therefore 
 it is that a constitutional monarchy no longer 
 exists in France. 
 
 3. The consternation produced by the over- 
 throw of Napoleon's throne, and the double 
 occupation of Paris by the allied troops, went 
 far to uphold a government which had risen 
 up under their protection. While all the army 
 and ardent patriots of the capital insisted that 
 it had been surrendered by treachery in both 
 cases, and could never have been conquered 
 by force of arms, the astounding events pro- 
 duced a great and awful impression through- 
 out France, which is far from being as yet 
 eradicated. There are some calamities which 
 remain long in the recollection of mankind. 
 Volatile, susceptible of new impressions, and 
 inconsiderate as great part of the French un- 
 doubtedly are, the successive capture of their 
 capital in two campaigns sunk deep and 
 heavily in their minds. It wounded them in 
 the most sensitive part, the feeling of national 
 glory; and excited a painful doubt, heretofore 
 unknown, of the ability of the great nation to 
 resist a combined attack from the northern 
 powers. This feeling still subsists ; it may 
 have little influence with the young and war- 
 like youth of the capital, but it is strongly im- 
 pressed upon the more thoughtful and better 
 informed classes of society, and is in an espe- 
 cial manner prevalent among the National 
 Guard of the metropolis, to whom, even more 
 than the regular army, the nation looks for 
 the regulation of its movements. It was to the 
 prevalence of this feeling that the existence 
 of the Bourbon government, during the fifteen 
 years of the Restoration, was mainly owing 
 and so prevalent was it even on the eve of 
 their overthrow, that the revolt of the Barri 
 cades originated with, and was long supportec 
 solely by the very lowest classes ; and it was 
 not till the defection of the army, and the im- 
 becility of the government, had rendered i 
 more than doubtful whether a revolution was 
 not at hand, that they were joined by any 
 considerable accession of strength from the 
 educated or middling classes of society. The 
 same feeling of secret dread at the northern 
 powers still exists, notwithstanding the acces 
 sion of England to the league of revolutionarj 
 governments; and, whatever the republican 
 party may say to the contrary, nothing is mor 
 certain than that the cabinet of Louis Philipp 
 has been supported in all its principal mea 
 sures, and especially in the proclamation of a 
 state of siege by Marshal Soult, and the pacifi 
 system with the continental powers, by a grea 
 majority of all the persons of any wealth o 
 consideration in Paris, now in possession 
 
 hrough the National Guard, of a preponderat- 
 ng influence in the capital, and, consequently, 
 >ver all France. 
 
 The circumstances which have been men- 
 ioned, contributed strongly to establish a des- 
 otic government under the Bourbons, the 
 nly kind of regular authority which the con- 
 ulsions of the Revolution have rendered 
 practicable in France ; but to counteract 
 hese, and temper the rigour of the execu- 
 ive, there were other circumstances of an 
 equally important character, which gradually 
 vent on increasing in power, until they finally 
 >verbalanced the others, and overturned the 
 government of the Restoration. 
 
 1. The first of these circumstances was the 
 extreme national dissatisfaction which attend- 
 ed the way in which the Bourbons reascended 
 he throne. For a monarch of France to enter 
 ts capital, in the rear of a victorious invader, 
 s the most unlikely way that can be imagined 
 o gain the affections of its inhabitants ; but to 
 do this twice over, and regain the throne on 
 he second occasion,, in consequence of such 
 a thunderbolt as the battle of Waterloo, was a 
 misfortune which rendered the popularity of 
 the dynasty out of the question. The people 
 naturally connected together the two events ; 
 they associated the republican sway with the 
 tricolour flag and the conquest of Europe, and 
 the Bourbon dynasty with the disasters which 
 had preceded their restoration : forgetting, what 
 was the truth, that it was under the tricolour 
 that all these disasters had been incurred ; and 
 that the white flag was the olive branch 
 which saved them from calamities, which they 
 themselves had felt to be intolerable. 
 
 This general feeling of irritation at the un- 
 paralleled calamities in which Napoleon's 
 reign terminated, was naturally and skilfully 
 turned to account by the republican party. 
 They constantly associated together the Bour- 
 bon reign with the Russian bayonets; and 
 held out the sovereigns of the Restoration, ra- 
 ther as the viceroys of Wellington, or the 
 satraps of Alexander, than the monarchy 
 either by choice or inheritance of the Franks. 
 This prejudice, which had too much support 
 from the unfortunate coincidence of Napoleon's 
 disasters with the commencement of their 
 reign, soon spread deeply and universally 
 among the liberal part of the people ; and the 
 continuance of the Bourbon dynasty on the 
 throne came to be considered as the badge of 
 national servitude, which, on the first dawn 
 of returning liberation, should be removed. 
 
 2. The abolition of the national colours by 
 the Bourbon princes, and the studious endea- 
 vour made to obliterate the monuments and 
 recollection of Napoleon, was a puerile weak- 
 ness, from which the worst possible effects en- 
 sued to their government. To suppose that it 
 was possible to obliterate the remembrance 
 of his mighty achievements, and substitute 
 Henry IV. and Saint Louis for the glories of 
 the empire, was worse than childish, and, as 
 might have been expected, totally ineffectual. 
 In vain his portrait was prescribed, his letters 
 effaced from the edifices, his name hardly 
 mentioned, except with vituperation by the 
 ministerial organs ; the admiration for his 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 139 
 
 greatness only increased from the efforts made 
 to suppress it; and of his, as the images of 
 Brutus and Cassius at the funeral of Junia, it 
 might truly be said, "Viginti clarissimanun 
 familiarum imagines antelatse sunt, sed prce- 
 fulgebant Cassius atque Brutus, -et eo ipso 
 quod effigies eorum non videbantur" 
 
 The universal burst of public enthusiasm 
 when the tricolour flag was rehoisted on the 
 Tuileries, and the statue of the hero replaced 
 on the pillar in the Place Vendome, in July 
 last, and the innumerable pictures and statues 
 which have been exposed in every town and i 
 village of France since the prohibition was 
 removed, demonstrate how powerful and gene- 
 ral this feeling was, and expose the enormity 
 of the error which the Bourbons committed 
 in endeavouring to bury it in oblivion. The 
 tricolour flag was associated in the minds of 
 the whole young and active part of the French 
 population with the days of their glory ; the 
 white standard with the commencement of 
 their humiliation. To compel them to adopt j 
 the one and abandon the other, was an error 
 in policy of the most enormous kind. It was 
 to perpetuate the feeling of national disgrace ; 
 to impose upon the nation what they con- 
 sidered as the livery of servitude; to debar 
 them from openly giving vent to feelings 
 which swelled their hearts even to bursting* 
 The Revolution of July was less against the 
 edicts of Polignac than the Avhite standard on 
 the dome of the Tuileries ; and the Citizen 
 King owes his throne mainly to the tricolour 
 flag which waves above his head in that au- 
 gust abode. 
 
 3. The religious feelings of the exiled fam- 
 ily, natural and estimable in persons exposed 
 to the calamities which they had undergone, 
 was undoubtedly an inherent weakness in the 
 government of the Restoration, to which their 
 fall was in a great degree owing. From what- 
 ever cause it may have arisen, the fact is cer- 
 tain, that hatred at every species of religious 
 observance is the most profound and invete- 
 rate feeling which has survived the Revolution. 
 Not that the French are wholly an irreligious 
 people ; for in a numerous portion of the 
 community, especially in the rural districts, 
 the reverence for devotion is undiminished, 
 nay, is now visibly on the increase ; but that 
 the active and energetic class in towns, upon 
 whom the centralization of power produced 
 by the Revolution has exclusively conferred 
 political importance and the means of influ- 
 encing the public mind, are almost entirely of 
 that description. To these men, the sight of 
 priests in their sacerdotal habits crossing the 
 Place Carousal, and entering the royal apart- 
 ments, was absolute gall and wormwood. The 
 royalists had not discernment enough to see, 
 that they might encourage the substantial parts 
 of religion, without perpetually bringing be- 
 fore the public eye the obnoxious parts of its 
 external ceremonial : they fell at once under 
 the government of pious and estimable, but 
 weak and ignorant ecclesiastics, who were 
 totally incapable of steering the vessel of the 
 state through the shoals and quicksands with 
 which it was on all sides beset. Thence arose 
 an inherent weakness in the government of 
 
 the Restoration, which went far to counter- 
 balance the vast political authority which the 
 centralization of every species of influence in 
 the public offices in Paris had occasioned. 
 They received a machine of vast power, and 
 apparently irresistible strength, but the preju- 
 dice of the people at their political and reli- 
 gious principles was so strong that they could 
 not find the firm hands requisite to direct it. 
 
 4. The pacific and indolent character of the 
 Bourbon princes, and the timorous policy 
 which they were constrained to adopt, from the 
 disastrous circumstances which had preceded 
 their accession to the throne, prevented them 
 from reviving by personal qualities or brilliant 
 achievements, any of that popularity which 
 so many circumstances had contributed to 
 weaken. A thirst for military glory ever has 
 been the leading characteristic of the French 
 people. A pacific and popular king of France 
 is a contradiction in terms. The princes who 
 dwell most strongly in their recollection, 
 Henry IV., Louis XIV., and Napoleon, were 
 all distinguished either for their military 
 achievements, or the great conquests which 
 were effected in their reign. If a king of 
 France were to possess the virtue of Aristides, 
 the integrity of Cato, the humanity of Marcus 
 Aurelius, and the wisdom of Solomon, and re- 
 main constantly at peace, he would speedily 
 become unpopular.* The only regal activity 
 which, in their estimation, can in some degree 
 compensate the want of military distinction, 
 is a decided turn for the embellishment of 
 Paris. Napoleon's vast popularity, after his 
 external victories, was mainly owing to his 
 internal decorations; the Pillar of Austerlitz 
 and the Bourse, almost rivalled, in public 
 effect, the overthrow of Austria and the sub- 
 jugation of Prussia. But in neither of these 
 lines of activity was the family of the Restora- 
 tion calculated to acquire a distinction. They 
 remained, partly from inclination, partly from 
 necessity, almost constantly at peace ; they 
 languidly and slowly completed the great works 
 undertaken by Napoleon, but commenced little 
 new themselves ; they neither pushed their 
 armies across the Rhine, nor their new con- 
 structions into th^ obscurer parts of Paris. 
 The Parisians could neither recount to stran- 
 gers the victories they had won, nor point with 
 exultation to the edifices they had constructed. 
 They remained, in consequence, for the whole 
 fifteen years that they sat upon the throne, 
 tolerated and obeyed, but neither admired nor 
 loved; and the load of obloquy which attached 
 to them from the disasters which preceded 
 their accession, was lightened by no redeem- 
 ing achievements which followed their eleva- 
 tion. 
 
 From the combination of these singular and 
 opposing circumstances, there resulted a mixed 
 and tempered government in France, for the 
 brief period of the Restoration, without any 
 of the circumstances existing, by which that 
 blessing can be permanently secured, without 
 either a powerful aristocracy, or an efficient 
 and varied representation of the people. The 
 machine of government was that of an abso- 
 
 * Mr. Burke was perfectly right when he said, that the 
 restored monarch must be constantly in the saddle. 
 
140 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 lute despotism, from the complete centraliza- 
 tion of every species of influence in the public 
 offices at Paris, and the total absence of any 
 authority in the provinces to counterbalance 
 their influence ; but the royal family had 
 neither the energy nor the qualities, nor the 
 fortune, requisite to wield its irresistible pow- 
 ers. Nothing can be more extraordinary, ac- 
 cordingly, than the state of France under 
 Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The government 
 were almost constantly declining in popularity; 
 the republican majority in the Chamber of 
 Deputies was, with some variations, almost 
 constantly increasing; at last it rose to such a 
 height as to choke up the wheels of adminis- 
 tration, and render a coup d'etat, or a resignation 
 of the throne, an unavoidable alternative. But 
 although the Family of the Bourbons was thus 
 declining in influence, the power of government 
 was undergoing no serious alteration ; no 
 efficient checks upon the executive, arising 
 from the combination of the lasting interests 
 of the state to coerce its encroachment, were 
 growing up ; the weakness of the throne arose 
 from dislike to the reigning family, not aver- 
 sion to the power with which they were in- 
 vested. They were at last overturned, like the 
 sultans in the Seraglio, or the Roman em- 
 perors on the Palatine Mount, by a vast and 
 well-concerted urban tumult, seconded to a 
 wish by the imbecility and weakness of the 
 ruling administration; and the vast machine 
 of a despotic government passed unimpaired 
 into the hands of their more energetic assail- 
 ants. 
 
 The Revolution of the Barricades at once 
 put an end to the temporizing system of the 
 Restoration, and drew aside the veil which, re- 
 tained by Bourbon weakness, had so long con- 
 cealed the stern features of despotic power. 
 The fatal succession, bequeathed to France, 
 by the sins and the atrocities of the first Revo- 
 lution, was then apparent; the bonds, the 
 inevitable and perpetual bonds of servitude, 
 were exposed to public gaze. In all the par- 
 ticulars which constituted the weakness of the 
 Restoration, and paralyzed the machine of des- 
 potic government, from hatred at the hands 
 which wielded it, the Citizen King had the 
 advantage. The white flag had been a per- 
 petual eye-sore to the ardent youth of France, 
 and the white flag was torn down : the tricolour 
 had been the object of their secret worship, 
 and the tricolour was displayed from every 
 tower in France: the recollection of defeat had 
 clouded the first days of the Restoration, and 
 the first days of the Revolution of July were 
 those of astounding triumph : the observance 
 of Sunday and religious forms had exasperated 
 an infidel metropolis, under a priest-ridden 
 dynasty; and their successors allowed them 
 to revel in every species of amusement and 
 license on the seventh day: the long con- 
 tinuance of peace had thrown into sullen dis- 
 content the ardent youth of the metropolis ; 
 and the establishment of a revolutionary throne 
 promised, sooner or later, to bring about a 
 desperate conflict with the legitimate monarchs 
 of Europe. The prospect of the convulsions 
 into which England was speedily thrown by 
 the contagion of this great example, contri- 
 
 buted not a little to fan this exulting flame ; 
 and in the passing of the Reform Bill, the 
 French democrats beheld a lasting triumph to 
 the Gallican party in this country, and an 
 achievement which consoled them for the 
 disasters of Trafalgar and Waterloo. 
 
 These combined circumstances completely 
 restored the vigour and efficiency of the cen- 
 tral authority at Paris over all France. In 
 possession of a frame of government the 
 strongest and most despotic of any in Europe, 
 supported by the ardent and influential part 
 of the population in the capital, fanned by the 
 gales of public passion and prejudice, they 
 speedily became irresistible. Every thing con- 
 tributed to increase the power of government. 
 The public hatred at hereditary succession, 
 which forced on the abolition of the House of 
 Peers and the appointment of their successors 
 by the crown, demolished the last barrier (and 
 it was but a feeble one) which the preceding 
 convulsions had left between the throne and 
 universal dominion. The public impatience 
 for war, which made them bear without mur- 
 muring an increase of the national expendi- 
 ture, on the accession of Louis Philippe, from 
 980,000,000 francs to 1,511,000,000 in one year, 
 enabled the government to raise the army from 
 180,000 to 420,000 men, and fan the military 
 spirit through all France, by the establishment 
 of National Guards. The Chamber of Depu- 
 ties, thrown into the shade by the tricolour 
 flag, and the reviews in the Place Carousel, 
 was soon forgotten ; its members, destitute, for 
 the most part, of property, consideration, or 
 weight in their respective departments, speedily 
 fell into contempt; the opposition was gained 
 over or withdrew in despair from a hopeless 
 cause; and a party which, under the white 
 flag, and the priest-ridden government, had 
 risen to a majority in the legislature, was soon 
 reduced to a miserable remnant of six or eight 
 members. The debates in the Chamber have 
 almost disappeared ; they are hardly ever re- 
 ported; all eyes are turned from the legisla- 
 ture to the war-office; from the declamations 
 of disappointed patriots, to the acclamations 
 of brilliant battalions ; from a thought on the 
 extinction of public freedom, to the exhilarating 
 prospect of foreign conquest. 
 
 It is this combination of a despotic executive 
 in possession of all the influence in the state, 
 with the infusion of popularity into the sys- 
 tem of government, which has enabled Louis 
 Philippe, aided by his own great ability, not- 
 withstanding his extreme personal unpopularity, 
 to carry through obnoxious and tyrannical 
 measures never contemplated by Napoleon in 
 the zenith of his power. One of the most re- 
 markable of these, is the encircling Paris with 
 fortified posts, or, as the republicans call it, the 
 project " d'embastiller Paris." To those who 
 recollect the transports "of enthusiasm with 
 which the storming of the Bastile was re- 
 ceived over all France in 1789, it must appear 
 the most extraordinary of all things, that 
 a revolutionary government should venture 
 upon the step of constructing TEN BASTILES, 
 many larger, all stronger, than the old one, 
 around Paris, in such situation, as absolutely 
 to command the metropolis, by enabling the 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 141 
 
 government, at pleasure, to intercept its sup- 
 plies of provisions ; yet this has been done, 
 and is now doing. Vincennes, situated a 
 league beyond the Barricade de Trone, is 
 undergoing a thorough repair; and its cannon, 
 placed within a regular fortification, will com- 
 pletely command the great road leading into 
 the Fauxbourg St. Antoine. Other, and simi- 
 lar fortresses, are in the course of construction, 
 in a circle round Paris, at the distance of about 
 two miles from each other, and a mile, or a 
 mile and a half beyond the external barrier. 
 When completed, they will at once give the 
 government the command of the rebellious 
 capital; not a pound of provisions can enter a 
 circle inhabited by nearly a million of souls, 
 but under the guns of these formidable for- 
 tresses. The plans were completed, the ground 
 was all purchased, the works were going for- 
 ward, when they were interrupted by the cries 
 of part of the National Guard, in defiling be- 
 fore the king on the 29th July last. The 
 Chamber of Deputies had in vain refused, in 
 accordance with the wishes of the capital, a 
 grant of money for the purpose; the crown 
 was going on of its own authority, and from 
 its own funds. And though the undertaking 
 has been suspended for a time from the cause 
 above mentioned, excepting at Vincennes, 
 which is rapidly advancing, government openly 
 announce their intention of resuming it next 
 spring, when a majority of the Chamber will 
 be won over to give it their support.* 
 
 The most singular circumstance connected 
 with the present political state of France, is 
 the co-existence of a despotic military govern- 
 ment, with a wild and intemperate republican 
 press in the capital. This may appear in- 
 credible, but nevertheless it is certain that it 
 exists ; and it constitutes an element by no 
 means to be overlooked, in considering its 
 future prospects, because it may, in a moment, 
 hurl the present dynasty from the throne, and 
 elevate a new family, or different executive, to 
 the possession of its despotic powers. To give 
 only a single example of the length to which 
 this extravagance is carried, we select by mere 
 chance, an article which recently appeared in 
 the Tribune. 
 
 "Those who place themselves in the current 
 of political change shouldconsiderwell whither 
 it will lead them, before they embark on its 
 waves. The authors of the revolt on the 9th 
 Thermidor,f were far from intending to extin- 
 guish public freedom ; but, nevertheless, the 
 reaction against liberty has been incessant 
 since the fall of Robespierre, with the excep- 
 tion perhaps of the Three Days of July. 
 
 "It is in vain to say that it was Napoleon, 
 or the Restoration, or Louis Philippe, who ex- 
 tinguished the freedom of France: it was the 
 overthrow of Robespierre which was the fatal 
 stroke. We have never since known what 
 liberty was, we have lived only under a suc- 
 cession of tyrants. 
 
 "Impressed with these ideas, a band of pa- 
 triots have commenced the republication of the 
 
 * It has since been completed by the aid of the war 
 party, heuded by M. Thiers. 
 f The day when Robespierre was overthrown. 
 
 speeches of Robespierre, St. Just, and Marat, 
 which will be rendered accessible to the very 
 humblest of the people, by the moderate price 
 of a sous a number, at which it is to be sold. 
 We earnestly recommend the works of these 
 immortal patriots to our readers. They will 
 find every thing that philosophy could discover, 
 or learning reveal, or humanity desire, or elo- 
 quence enforce, in their incomparable produc- 
 tions." Tribune, Aug. 20. 
 
 Again, in the next number we read as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 "The soi-disant patriots of the day are in a 
 total mistake when they pretend that it is an 
 erroneous system of taxation which is the root 
 of the public discontents. This is no doubt 
 an evil, but it is nothing compared to that 
 which flows from a defective system of social 
 organization. 
 
 " The tyranny of the rich over the poor is 
 the real plague which infests society ; the eter- 
 nal source of oppression, in comparison of 
 which all others are but as dust in the balance. 
 What have we gained by the Revolution ? The 
 substitution of the Chausee d'Antin for the 
 Fauxbourg St. Germain. An aristocracy of 
 bankers for one of nobles. What have the 
 people gained by this change? Are they bet- 
 ter fed, or clothed, or lodged, than before? 
 What is it to them that their oppressors are 
 no longer counts or dukes ? Tyranny can 
 come from the bureau as well as the palace: 
 there will be no real regeneration to France 
 till a more equal distribution of PROPERTY 
 strikes at the root of all the calamities of 
 mankind. 
 
 "The principles of pure and unmixed de- 
 mocracy are those of absolute wisdom, of 
 unwearied philanthropy, of universal happi- 
 ness. When the rule of the people is com- 
 pletely established, the reign of justice, free- 
 dom, equality, and happiness will commence; 
 all the evils of humanity will disappear before 
 the awakened energies of mankind." Tribuw, 
 Aug. 21. 
 
 When principles such as these, clothed in 
 insinuating language, and enforced with no 
 small share of ability, are daily poured forth 
 from the Parisian press, and read by admiring 
 multitudes among its ardent and impassioned 
 population, we are led to examine how society 
 can exist with such doctrines familiarly spread 
 among the lower orders. But the phenomenon 
 becomes still more extraordinary, when it is 
 perceived that these anarchical doctrines are 
 in close juxtaposition to the most complete 
 and rigorous despotism to which the people 
 under successive governments submit without 
 any practical attempt at resistance ; that the 
 citizens who indulge in these absurd specu- 
 lations are content to wait for hours at the 
 police office, before they can go ten leagues 
 from the capital, and go quietly to jail with 
 the first gens d'armes who meet them on the 
 road without their passports. 
 
 The truth is, that the French, during all the 
 phases of the Revolution, as Napoleon re- 
 marked, not only never tasted one hour of real 
 freedom, but never formed a conception of 
 what it was. The efforts of Ihe factions who 
 for forty years have torn its bosom, have all 
 
142 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 been directed to one object, the acquisition of 
 political power by themselves, without bestowing 
 a thought on the far more important matter 
 of how that power is to be restrained towards 
 others. The consequence is, that the exertions 
 of the party in opposition are all directed to 
 one object, the displacing of their adversaries 
 from their places in administration, or over- 
 turning the family on the throne, without the 
 slightest intention of remodelling the frame of 
 government, so as to impose any effectual 
 check on the executive. If the republican 
 opposition were to succeed to the helm, they 
 would probably push through such a change 
 in the composition of the electoral colleges, as 
 might secure for their party the predominance 
 in the legislature, but they would make as few 
 concessions to public freedom as was done by 
 their predecessors Robespierre and St. Just. 
 The police would still fetter the actions of 
 every man in France; the impot foncicre would 
 still carry off from thirteen to twenty per cent. 
 of every income from property ; the govern- 
 ment officers at Paris would still dispose of 
 every office in the kingdom, from the minister 
 at the head of the army, to the scavenger at 
 the tail of the cleaning department. 
 
 The party in opposition, who long for the 
 enjoyment of power and offices, has been im- 
 mensely weakened by the result of the Three 
 Days. The royalists, indeed, are everywhere 
 excluded from the slightest participation in the 
 government; but so are they from any in- 
 fluence in the legislature; and a miserable 
 minority of twenty or thirty members finds it 
 quite in vain to attempt any struggle in par- 
 liament. The great body of the popular party 
 have got into office in consequence of their 
 triumph : it may safely be affirmed that not 
 less than 300,000 liberals are now the employes 
 in civil government alone. Thus the patriots 
 of France are now very generally and com- 
 fortably ensconced in official situations ; and 
 it is utterly impossible, in consequence, to 
 rouse them to any hostility to the ruling power. 
 In this way the republican party are, to a great 
 extent, won over to the government, and they 
 can afford to allow the disappointed remnant 
 of their faction to vent their discontent in de- 
 mocratic publications. This complete division 
 of the liberal party, and secure anchoring of 
 four-fifths of its members by the strong tenure 
 of official emolument, which has followed the 
 Revolution of July, is the true secret of the 
 present strength of government; for the dis- 
 contented royalists in the provinces, though 
 numerous and brave, will never be able to 
 throw off the central authority of the capital. 
 
 It is not to be imagined, however, from all 
 this, that the government of Louis Philippe is 
 established on a solid foundation. No govern- 
 ment can be so, which is founded not on the 
 great and lasting interests of the state, but its 
 fleeting passions which depends not on the 
 property of the country, but the mob of the 
 metropolis. The throne of the Barricades 
 rests entirely on the armed force of the capital. 
 "A breath may unmake it, as a breath has 
 made." A well-concerted urban revolt, the 
 defection of a single regiment, supported by a 
 majority of the National Guards, may any day 
 
 seat a consul, a general, or Henry V. on the 
 throne. It has lost popularity immensely with 
 the movement party, out of office, comprehend- 
 ing all the ardent and desperate characters, by 
 persisting in an anti-republican policy, and 
 remaining steadily at peace. Its incessant 
 and rigorous prosecution of the press, though 
 inadequate hitherto to extirpate that last re- 
 main of popular sovereignty, has exposed it to 
 the powerful assaults of that mighty engine. 
 The sovereign on the throne, and the whole 
 royal family, are neglected or disliked, not- 
 withstanding the great abilities of its head and 
 estimable qualities of many of its members. 
 A vigorous and successful foreign war would 
 at once restore its popularity, and utterly 
 silence all the clamour about the loss of free- 
 dom ; but without the aid of that powerful 
 stimulant, it is impossible to say how soon the 
 present dynasty may be overturned, and a 
 fresh race or government be thrown up by an- 
 other eruption of the revolutionary volcano. 
 
 But come what race or form of sovereignty 
 there may, the government of Paris will equally 
 remain a perfect and uncontrolled despotism 
 over France. This is the great and final re- 
 sult of the first Revolution, which should ever 
 be kept steadily in view by the adjoining states. 
 Let Henry V. or the Duke of Orleans, Marshal 
 Soult, or Odillon Barrot, succeed to supreme 
 power, the result will be the same. The bones 
 of Old France have been broken by the vast 
 rolling-stone which has passed over the state ; 
 New France has not the elements within it to 
 frame a constituuonal throne. The people 
 must remain slaves to the central government, 
 because they have destroyed the superior classes 
 who might shield them from its oppression. 
 Asiatic has succeeded to European civilization, 
 and political power is no longer to be found 
 independent of regal appointment. All supe- 
 riority depends upon the possession of office ; 
 the distinctions of hereditary rank, the descent 
 of considerable property, have alike disap- 
 peared ; over a nation of ryots, who earn a 
 scanty subsistence by the sweat of their brow, 
 is placed a horde of Egyptian taskmasters, 
 who wring from them the fruits of their toil, 
 and a band of Prcetorian guards who dispose 
 at pleasure of their government. 
 
 In one particular, little understood on the 
 English side of the Channel, the similarity of 
 the result of French regeneration to the in- 
 stitutions of Oriental despotism, is most strik- 
 ing. The weight of direct taxation is at once 
 the mark and the result of despotic govern- 
 ment. It is remarked by Gibbon, that the great 
 test of the practical power of government is 
 to be found in the extent to which it can carry 
 the direct payments by the people to the treasury; 
 and that whenever the majority of imposts are 
 indirect, it is a proof that it is compelled to 
 consult the inclinations and feelings of its sub- 
 jects. He adduces as an illustration of this 
 profound yet obvious remark, (all profound 
 remarks, when once made, appear obvious,) 
 the excessive weight of direct taxation in the 
 latter period of the Roman empire. In Gaul, 
 in the time of Constantine, the capitation-tax 
 had risen to the enormous sum of nine pounds 
 sterling for every freeman; an impost so ex- 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 143 
 
 cessive, that among the poorer citizens it could 
 be made up only by several being allowed to 
 club together to form one head. Sismondi, in 
 like manner, observes, that the exorbitant 
 weight of direct taxes was the great cause of 
 the progressive depopulation of the Roman 
 empire. At this moment the burden of the 
 fixed payment exacted from a Turkish pashal ic 
 which is never allowed to diminish, and con- 
 sequently with the decline of the inhabitants 
 becomes intolerable, is the great cause of the 
 rapid depopulation of the Ottoman empire. 
 In Hindostan and China, the proportion of the 
 fruits of the soil which goes directly to the 
 government varies from 30 to 50 per cent. 
 
 Akin to this, the last and well-known result 
 of despotic oppression, is the enormous weight 
 of the direct taxes in France. The tax on 
 proprietors is fixed at present at 13 per cent. ; 
 but this, oppressive as it would appear in this 
 country, where the weight of democratic des- 
 potism is only beginning to be felt, is nothing 
 to the real burden which falls on the unhappy 
 proprietors. By the valuation or cadastre made 
 by the government surveyor, the real weight 
 of the burden is liable to indefinite increase, 
 and in general brings it up to 20, sometimes 
 30 per cent.* The valuation is taken, not 
 from the actual receipt of the owner, but what 
 it is estimated his property is worth ; and as 
 the smiles of government are directed towards 
 these official gentlemen nearly in proportion 
 to the amount to which they can raise the 
 valuation of their district, the injustice com- 
 mitted in this way is most extreme. We know 
 many properties on the Garonne and Rhone, 
 where, from the exorbitance of the valuation, 
 the tax comes to 35 and 40 per cent, on the 
 produce. Its weight may be judged of by the 
 fact, that this direct impost produces yearly 
 350,000,000 francs, or about 14,000,000/. ster- 
 ling, which almost entirely comes from the 
 land-owners.f Now the income-tax of Great 
 Britain during the war produced just that sum; 
 and most certainly the income from all source* 
 of the British empire at that period was double 
 the amount of that now enjoyed by the landed 
 proprietors of France.t The result of this is, 
 that the French land-owners pay, on the whole, 
 20 per cent, on the annual worth of their in- 
 comes. In forty years from the commencement 
 of their revolutionary troubles, the French 
 have got nearly to the standard fixed on the 
 ryots of Hindostan, in the lightest taxed dis- 
 tricts of India ; and more than tripled the taille, 
 which was held forth as an insupportable 
 burden at their commencement! Let them go 
 on as they are doing, and in half a century 
 they will again find the enormous capitation- 
 
 * From the infinite subdivision of land in France, and 
 the continual change of hands through which it passes, 
 it in fact belonirs in property to no one individual, but to 
 the Public Treasury, from the excessive weight of direct 
 taxation and the duties on alienations of any kind. 
 Donnadieu, 2f>fi. 
 
 f-Piipin estimates the income of proprietors in France 
 at !/'% 000,00.) fr-uics, or fi.ViiK) 0(W., so that if 350.000,000 
 francs, or 1 1,000, OOO/. sterling, is taken from them in 
 the form of direct taxes, the burden is as 14 to;6 on their 
 whole income, or 21 per cent. See DUPIN, Force Com- 
 merciate de France, ii. 20(i. 
 
 JThe income of official persona is taken at a different 
 rate, varying from fij to S per cent.; but it forms a trifling 
 part of the direct taxation. 
 
 tax of Constnntine fixed about their necks. 
 Thus the result of human folly and iniquity is 
 the same in all ages and countries ; and the 
 identical consequences which flowed fifteen 
 hundred years ago, remotely but surely, from 
 the madness of Gracchus and the democrats 
 of Rome, in destroying the Roman aristocracy, 
 is evidently approaching, though with infinite- 
 ly swifter steps from the corresponding mad- 
 ness of the French republicans in extirpating 
 the higher classes of their monarchy. 
 
 We have often asked the proprietors in dif- 
 ferent parts of France, why they did not en- 
 deavour to diminish or equalize this enormous 
 burden, which, in the wine provinces especial- 
 ly, is felt as so oppressive] They universally 
 answered, that the thing was impossible; that 
 they had memorialized Napoleon and Louis 
 XVIII., the Chamber of Deputies and Peers, 
 Villele and the Due de Richelieu, but all to no 
 purpose. The weight of the impot fonciere, 
 the injustice of the cadastre, remains unchanged 
 and unchangeable. Four or five millions of 
 little proprietors, scattered over the vast ex- 
 panse of France, a majority of whom have not 
 51. yearly from their land, can effect nothing 
 against the despotic central government of 
 Paris. They themselves say, that the direct 
 burdens on the land are becoming so excessive, 
 that the sovereign is, as in Oriental dynasties, 
 the real proprietor, and they are but tenants who 
 labour for his benefit more than their own. 
 Herein may be discerned the hand of Provi- 
 dence> causing the sins of men to work out 
 their own punishment. If the French people 
 had not committed the frightful injustice of 
 confiscating the property of their nobles and 
 clergy, they would now have possessed within 
 themselves a vast body of influential proprie- 
 tors, capable, as in England, under the old 
 Constitution, either in the Upper or Lower 
 House, of preventing or arresting the oppres- 
 sion of the central government, and the enor- 
 mous burden of 20 per cent, directly laid on 
 land would never have been permitted. But 
 proceeding, as they have done, by destroying 
 all the intermediate classes in the stufe, and 
 leaving only government employes and peasant 
 proprietors, they have cut away the shield 
 which would have protected the poor from the 
 vexation of the central authority, and left them- 
 selves and their children for ever exposed to 
 its oppression. They imagined that by laying 
 hold of the land of others, they would step into 
 the comforts and opulence of separate proper- 
 ty; but the wages of iniquity seldom prosper 
 in the end, either in nations or individuals. 
 They have fallen in consequence under an 
 oppressive taxation, which has more than 
 counterbalanced all the advantages of the spoil 
 they have acquired ; the sovereign has grown 
 up into the real land-owner, and the cultivators, 
 instead of becoming the peasants of Sw't/er- 
 land, have degenerated into the ryots of Hin- 
 dostan. 
 
 The effects of the Revolution of July on the 
 RELIGION of France, is precisely the same as 
 on its political situation. It has drawn :is:de 
 the thin veil which concealed the effects of 
 the irreligious spirit of the first convulsion, 
 and displayed in its native deformity the con- 
 
144 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 sequence of unmooring the human mind from 
 the secure haven of faith and virtue. 
 
 That the first Revolution was essentially 
 irreligious in its spirit, that it destroyed not 
 only the teachers and the property, but the 
 very name of Christianity, is universally 
 known. But in this, as in every other respect, 
 the Restoration drew a veil over its ultimate 
 and final consequences. The exiled family 
 returned to the palaces of their fathers, with a 
 profound sense of religion, rendered only the 
 more indelible from the disasters which had 
 preceded their restoration. By the combined 
 effect of their authority and influence, a gloss 
 was thrown over the infidel consequences of 
 the first Revolution; the priests were reinstated 
 in the smiles of court favour; the Tuileries 
 again resounded with the strains of devotion; 
 religious observances were tolerably attended 
 to; the churches were filled, if not with the 
 faithful, at least with the ambitious, and pro- 
 motion, dependent in some degree on attention 
 to the ceremonial of the Catholic faith, drew 
 multitudes to the standard of St. Louis. Marshal 
 Soult was to be seen every Sunday parading 
 to church, preceded by an enormous breviary ; 
 he cared not whether the road to power lay 
 by the chapel of the Virgin, or the altar of the 
 Goddess of reason. Sunday, especially in the 
 last ten years, was well observed in the great 
 towns. Travellers perceived no material dif- 
 ference between the appearance of London 
 and Paris during divine service. Literature, 
 encouraged by this transient glance of sun- 
 shine, resumed its place by the side of de- 
 votion ; the mighty genius of Chateaubriand 
 lent its aid to the Holy Alliance, and poured 
 over the principles of natural and revealed 
 religion a flood of resplendent light; Michaux 
 traced the history of the Crusaders, and the 
 efforts for the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre, 
 with an antiquary's knowledge and a poet's 
 fire; Barante revived in the Annals of Bur- 
 gundian princes, the old and venerable feel- 
 ings of feudal devotion; while Guizot, as yet 
 untouched by the seductions of power, traced 
 with admirable ability, to admiring multitudes 
 in the French metropolis, the historical bless- 
 ings of religious institutions. Almost all ob- 
 servers, misled by these appearances, flattered 
 themselves, that the period of the reaction of 
 the human mind against the principles of ir- 
 religion had arrived; that the reign of infideli- 
 ty was drawing to its close; and that the 
 French Revolution, nursed amidst the mazes 
 of sophistry and skepticism, was destined to 
 find refuge at last in the eternal truths of 
 religion. 
 
 But this sudden extinction of evil and resur- 
 rection of good is not the order of nature. 
 Infidelity, nursed for half a century, is not ex- 
 tinguished in a few years. The robbery of 
 one-third of the national property from the 
 service of the church is not the way to secure 
 the fruits of virtue : a hiatus of ten years in 
 the religious education of the people, snapped 
 asunder a chain which had descended un- 
 broken from the apostolic ages. These deplo- 
 rable events were secretly but securely work- 
 ing out their natural consequences, through all 
 the period of the Restoration. The general 
 
 and profound hatred in towns at the very sight 
 even of an ecclesiastic, was a certain indica- 
 tion of the great extent to which the deadly 
 weeds of infidelity had spread. The Revolu- 
 tion of July at once tore aside the veil, and 
 exposed to view the extraordinary spectacle 
 of a nation in which the classes who concen- 
 trate almost the whole political influence of 
 the state, are almost wholly of an irreligious 
 character. This is to be ascribed chiefly to 
 the long chasm in religious instruction which 
 took place from 1791 to 1800, and the entire 
 assumption of political power under Napo- 
 leon, by a class who were entire strangers to 
 any kind of devotion. Such a chasm cannot 
 readily be supplied ; ages must elapse before 
 its effects are obliterated. " Natura tamen," 
 says Tacitus, " infirmitatis humanae tardiora 
 sunt remedia quam mala, et ut corpora lente 
 augescunt cito extinguuntur, sic ingenia studia- 
 que oppresseris facilius quam revocaveris." 
 
 But to whatever cause it is owing, nothing 
 can be more certain, than that infidelity again 
 reigns the lord of the ascendant in Paris. It 
 is impossible to be a week in the metropolis 
 without being sensible of this. It is computed 
 that from sixty to eighty thousand individuals, 
 chiefly old women, or persons of the poorest 
 classes, believe in the Christian religion. The 
 remainder, amounting to about eight hundred 
 thousand, make no pretension to such a faith. 
 They do not deny it, or say or think anything 
 about it ; they pass it by as a doubtful relic of 
 the olden time, now entirely gone by.* It is 
 impossible by any external appearances to 
 distinguish Sunday from Saturday, excepting 
 that every species of amusement and dissipation 
 goes on with more spirit on that day that any 
 other. We are no advocates for the over-rigid 
 or Judaical observance of the day of rest. 
 Perhaps some Protestant nations have gone 
 too far in converting the Christian Sunday 
 into the Jewish Sabbath, and preventing on it 
 those innocent recreations which might divert 
 the giddy multitude from hidden debauchery. 
 But without standing up for any rigid or puri- 
 tanical ideas, it may safely be affirmed that the 
 total neglect, of Sunday by nine-tenths of the 
 people, indicates a fixed disregard of religion 
 in any state professing a belief in Christianity. 
 In Paris the shops are all open, the carts all 
 going, the workmen all employed on the early 
 part of Sunday ; and although a part of them 
 are closed after two o'clock in the afternoon, it 
 is not with the slightest intention of joining in 
 any, even the smallest religious duty, that this 
 is done. It is "pour s'amuser," to forget the 
 fatigues of the week in the excitement with 
 which it terminates, that the change takes 
 place. At two o'clock, all who can disengage 
 themselves from their daily toil, rush away in 
 crowds to drink of the intoxicating cup of 
 pleasure. Then the omnibusses roll with 
 ceaseless din in every direction out of the 
 crowded capital, carrying the delighted citi- 
 zens to St. Cloud, St. Germains, or Versailles, 
 the Ginguettes of Belleville, or the gardens of 
 Vincennes; then the Boulevards teem with 
 volatile and happy crowds, delighted by the 
 
 * In this, as in many other respects, a most gratifying 
 change has, since 1833, begun in France. 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 145 
 
 enjoyment of seeing and being seen ; then the 
 gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, 
 the Jardin des Plantes, and the Champs Ely- 
 sees, are enlivened with the young, the gay, and 
 the handsome, of both sexes, both rich and 
 poor; then the splendid drive to the triumphal 
 arch of Neuille, is filled with the comparative- 
 ly few equipages which the two Revolutions 
 have left to the impoverished hotels of the 
 capital. While these scenes of gayety and 
 amusement are going on, the priests in each 
 of the principal churches are devoutly per- 
 forming mass before a few hundred' old wo- 
 men, tottering ecclesiastics, or young children, 
 and ten or fifteen Protestant churches are as- 
 sembling as many thousands to the duties of 
 the reformed faith. Such is a Parisian Sun- 
 day; and such the respect for a divine ordi- 
 nance, which remains in what they ambi- 
 tiously call the metropolis of European civili- 
 zation. 
 
 As evening draws on, the total disregard of 
 religious observance is, if possible, still more 
 conspicuous. Never is the opera filled with 
 such enthusiastic crowds as on Sunday even- 
 ing; never are the theatres of the Port St. 
 Martin, the Boulevards, the Opera Comique, 
 the Vaudeville and the Variet.es, so full as on 
 that occasion ; never are the balls beyond the 
 barriers so crowded ; never is Tivoli so en- 
 livening, or the open air concerts in the 
 Champs Elysees thronged by so many thou- 
 sands. On Sunday evening in Paris there 
 seems to be but one wish, one feeling, one 
 desire, and that is, to amuse themselves ; and 
 by incessantly labouring at that one object, 
 they certainly succeed in it to an extent that 
 could hardly be credited in colder and more 
 austere latitudes. 
 
 The condition of the clergy over France is, 
 generally speaking, depressed and indigent in 
 the extreme. The Constituent Assembly, who 
 decreed the annexation of the whole property 
 of the church to the state, and declared " that 
 they intrusted the due maintenance of reli- 
 gion and the succour of the poor to the honour 
 of the great nation," redeemed their pledge, by 
 giving most of the incumbents of the rural 
 parishes from 48/. to 60Z. a year. Bishops 
 have 6000 francs, or 240/., yearly. The arch- 
 bishop of Paris alone has 600/. In some of 
 the town parishes, the incumbents, from sub- 
 sequent endowments or adventitious sources, 
 have from 200Z. to 300Z. per annum ; but, ge- 
 nerally speaking, their income, in the richest 
 parishes, varies from 80/. a year to 120?.; in 
 the poorest, it is only from 40/. to 501. It may 
 safely be affirmed, that the clergy of France, 
 taken as a body, are poorer than the school- 
 masters of England and Scotland. 
 
 The effect of this is seen in the most striking 
 manner in the appearance of the rural land- 
 scape of France. You generally, in the vil- 
 lages, see a parish church, the bequest to the 
 nation of the pious care of their forefathers ; 
 but great numbers of these are in a ruinous 
 or tottering condition. There is an evident 
 want of any funds to keep them up. The 
 most trifling repairs of a church, as every 
 thing else in France, must be executed by the 
 government; and the ministers of Louis 
 19 
 
 Philippe seem to think that this is one of the 
 articles upon which economy can best be 
 practised. But a parsonage-house, or any 
 sort of separate residence for the cure, is 
 never to be seen. He is, in general, boarded 
 in the houses of some farmer or small pro- 
 prietor; and in habits, society, education, 
 manners, and rank of life, is in no respect 
 above the peasantry by whom he is sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 It is not to be imagined from this, however, 
 that the country clergy are either ignorant or 
 inattentive to their sacred duties; on the con- 
 trary, they are most assiduous in discharging 
 them, and are, in general, justly endeared to 
 their flocks, not only by an irreproachable life, 
 but the most constant and winning attentions. 
 
 It would be unjust to expect in them the 
 high education, gentlemanlike manners, or 
 enlightened views of the English clergy; or 
 the more discursive but useful information 
 which is to be met with in the manses of the 
 Presbyterian ministers in Scotland. We must 
 not expect to see either Hebers, or Copple- 
 stones, or Bucklands, or Blairs, or Robertsons, 
 or Chalmerses, in the modern church of France. 
 The race of Bossuet and Fenelon, of Massil- 
 lon and Bourdaloue, of Flechier and Saurin, 
 of Pascal and Malebranche, is extinct. The 
 church is cast down into an inferior class in 
 society. No one would make his son an ec- 
 clesiastic, who could obtain for him a situation 
 in a grocer's sho.p. But, in the present state 
 of the country, it is perhaps as well that this 
 is the case. The reformation of the corrupted 
 higher orders in the towns, is out of the ques- 
 tion ; and if a priesthood, drawn from their 
 ranks, were to be established, it would speedily 
 draw to itself such a load of infidel obloquy, 
 as would lead to its destruction. But the poor 
 and humble parish priests are overlooked and 
 despised by the arrogant liberals in possession 
 of office and power; and, like their predeces- 
 sors in the apostolic ages, they are, unob- 
 served, laying the foundation of a spirit 
 destined, in a future age, to overturn the insti- 
 tutions of their haughty oppressors, and effect 
 that real regeneration of society, which can 
 be found only in the reformation of the morals 
 and principles of its members.* 
 
 The abject poverty of the rural clergy in 
 most parts of the rural districts of France, 
 is a most painful object of contemplation to an 
 English traveller. There is scarce any pro- 
 vision for them in sickness or old age ; and 
 when th^ey are compelled, by either of these 
 causes, to divide their scanty income with a 
 more robust assistant, their condition becomes 
 truly pitiable. In most cathedral churches is 
 to be seen a box, with the inscription " Tronc 
 pour les malheureux pr6tres ;" a few sous are 
 thankfully received by the religious teachers 
 of the great nation. One of these boxes is to 
 be seen on the pillars of Notre Dame ; another 
 under the gorgeous aisle of Rouen ; a third in 
 the graceful choir of Amiens ; a fourth dis- 
 graces the generation who pass under the 
 splendid portals of Rheims, and a fifth, that 
 
 * The change here predicted has since taken place to 
 a great extent in France. 
 
146 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 which points with deserved pride to the match- j 
 less Tower of Chartres. 
 
 A superficial observer who should judge of 
 the religious state of France from the appear- 
 ance of its great towns, however, would be far 
 wide of the truth. It is a total mistake to sup- 
 pose that devotion is extinct, or in the process 
 of extinction among its country inhabitants. It 
 is in the great towns that infidelity reigns tri- 
 umphant; it is among the young, the active, 
 and the profligate citizens of despotic Paris, 
 that religion is the subject of ridicule. It is true 
 this class are now in the exclusive possession 
 of political power; it is true several hundred 
 thousand of them are dispersed over the mighty 
 net which envelopes France in the meshes of 
 the capital ; it is true that they direct literature, 
 and influence thought, and stamp its character 
 upon the nation, in the estimation of foreign 
 states: still they are not in possession of the 
 mighty lever which directs the feelings of the 
 rural inhabitants. As long as forty-eight thou- 
 sand parish priests, overlooked from their po- 
 verty, despised from their obscurity, contempt- 
 ible to this world from their limited information, 
 are incessantly and assiduously employed in 
 diffusing religious belief through the peasantry, 
 the extirpation of Christianity in France is im- 
 possible. Its foundations are spreading the 
 deeper its influences becoming more para- 
 mount in the uncorrupted provinces, from the 
 total neglect into which it has fallen with the 
 influential classes in the capital. It is impos- 
 sible to enter any parish church in any part 
 of the provinces, without being sensible that a 
 large and increasingportion of the peasantry are 
 strongly and profoundly impressed with reli- 
 gious feelings. In this state of things, the eye 
 of philanthropy, without pretending to the gift 
 of prophecy, can perhaps discern the elements 
 brewing which are destined, in some future age, 
 to produce another Revolution, an insur- 
 rection of the provinces against the capital, 
 a real regeneration of society, by the infusion 
 of rural simplicity and virtue into urban cor- 
 ruption and degeneracy, a termination of the 
 convulsion, which commenced by casting down 
 religion, in the triumph of the faith which ga- 
 thers strength from misfortune. But whether 
 this is to be the final result, or whether, as is 
 perhaps more probable, the utter prostration 
 of the internal liberties of the nation, through 
 the consequences of the Revolution, is to lead 
 to the loss of its external independence, and 
 the regeneration of southern weakness by a 
 race of northern conquerors ; one thing is cer 
 tain, and may be confidently prophesied, that 
 France will never know what real freedom is, 
 till her institutions are founded on the basis of 
 religion, and that with the triumph of the faith 
 which her Liberals abhor, and have cast down, 
 is indissolubly wound up the accomplishment 
 of the objects which they profess to have at 
 heart. 
 
 The MoHAts of France are in the state which 
 might be expected in a country which has bro- 
 ken asunder all the bonds of society, and de- 
 spises all the precepts of religion. Pleasure 
 and excitement are the general subjects of 
 idolatry money, as the key to them, the uni- 
 versal object. This desire for wealth is per- 
 
 haps more strongly felt in Paris, and forms 
 the great passion of life more completely, than 
 in any other capital in Europe, because there 
 are more objects of desire presented to the en- 
 tranced senses which cannot be gained in any 
 other way ; and of the prevalence of this desire 
 the great extent of its gaming-houses affords 
 ample proof. But money is not the object of 
 desire to the Parisian, as to the Dutchman or 
 Englishman, from any abstract passion for ac- 
 cumulation, or any wish to transmit, by a life 
 of economy, an ample patrimony to his chil- 
 dren. It is for the sake of present and immedi- 
 ate gratification; that he may go more fre- 
 quently to the opera, or indulge more liberally 
 in the pleasures of the Ginguette ; that his wife 
 and daughters may be more gaily dressed on 
 Sundays, and their Tivoli parties be more bril- 
 liant, that money is so passionately coveted. 
 The efforts made by all classes, to gain a live- 
 lihood, .and the prodigious obstacles which 
 competition throws in their way, are perhaps 
 greater in Paris than in any other metropolis 
 of Europe. " Qua^renda est pecunia primum, 
 virtus post nummos," is the general maxim of 
 life. But still there is little accumulation of 
 capital, comparatively speaking, within its 
 walls. As fast as money is made, it is spent; 
 either in the multifarious objects of desire which 
 are everywhere presented to the sight, or in 
 the purchase of rentes, or government annui- 
 ties, which die with the holders. The propor- 
 tion of annuitants in France is incomparably 
 greater than in England; and the destitution 
 of families from the loss of their head, exists 
 to a painful and unheard of extent. 
 
 Pleasure and excitement are the universal 
 objects ; the maxims of Epicurus the general 
 observance. To enjoy the passing hour to 
 snatch from existence all the roses which it 
 will afford, and disquiet themselves as little as 
 possible about its thorns, is the grand principle 
 of life. The state of Paris in this respect has 
 been well described by a late enlightened and 
 eloquent author 
 
 " Paris is no longer a city which belongs to 
 any one nation or people: it is in many re- 
 spects the metropolis of the world ; the ren- 
 dezvous of all the rich, all the voluptuous on 
 the face of the earth. For them its artists, as- 
 sembled from every quarter of Europe, imagine 
 or invent every day fresh objects of excitement 
 or desire; for them they build theatres, and 
 multiply indefinitely all the ephemeral novel- 
 ties calculated to rouse the senses and stimu- 
 late expense. There every thing may be pur- 
 chased, and that too under the most alluring 
 form. Gold is the only divinity which is wor- 
 shipped in that kingdom of pleasure, and it is 
 indifferent from what hand it flows. It is in 
 that centre of enjoyment that all the business 
 of France is done that all its wealth is 
 expended, and the fruit of its toil from one 
 end of the kingdom to the other brought to the 
 great central mart of pleasure. The proprie- 
 tor wrings the last farthing out of his soil the 
 merchant, the notary, the advocate, flock there 
 from all quarters to sell their capital, their re- 
 venue, their virtue, or their talents, for plea- 
 sure of every description, which a thousand 
 artists pourtray in the most seducing colours 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 147 
 
 to a nation famishing for enjoyment. And it 
 is from that corrupted centre that we are told 
 the regeneration of the state, the progress of 
 independence and liberty, is to flow."* 
 
 As pleasure and excitement are thus the 
 universal objects, it may readily be conceived 
 what facilities are afforded in the French me- 
 tropolis for their gratification. The gaming- 
 houses, accordingly, are innumerable; and 
 above a third of the children born within the 
 barriers are bastards.-j- But those who look 
 for excitation of that description, will not find 
 in Paris any thing approaching to the open 
 and undisguised profligacy of London. There 
 is nothing in its public places approaching to 
 the saloons of Drury Lane, or the upper circles 
 of Covent Garden ; the Strand and Regent 
 Street at night are infested in a way unknown 
 even in the Boulevards Italiens, or the Rue de 
 Richelieu. The two Revolutions have organized 
 licentiousness. Having become the great object 
 of life, and, as it were, the staple commodity 
 of the capital, it has fallen under the direction 
 of the police. Bicnseance and decorum are 
 there the order of the day. The sirens of 
 pleasure are confined to a few minor theatres, 
 and particular quarters of the town ; they 
 abound in every street, almost in every house; 
 but they can openly ply their vocation in ap- 
 pointed districts only. Even the Palais Royal, 
 the cradle of both Revolutions, has been purged 
 of the female anarchists who were their first 
 supporters. This is certainly a very great 
 improvement, well worthy of imitation on the 
 British side of the Channel. Youth and 
 timidity are not openly assailed as they are in 
 English great towns, and, though those who 
 seek for dissipation will meet with it in 
 abundance, it is not, willing or unwilling, 
 thrust down their throats. It is possible, in 
 the Quartier de TUniversite and remoter parts 
 of Paris, for young men to pursue their stu- 
 dies, infinitely more clear of temptation than 
 either at the London University or King's 
 College. 
 
 But while these advantages must be con- 
 ceded to the organization and arrangements of 
 the French police on the one hand, it is not 
 the less certain, on the other, that all these fair 
 appearances are merely skin-deep, and that 
 under this thin disguise is half concealed a 
 mass of licentiousness probably unprecedented 
 in any modern state. Certainly, never since 
 the days of the Roman emperors, was pleasure 
 so unceasingly pursued by both sexes, as it is 
 now at Paris ; or such efforts made to heighten 
 natural desire by forced excitement, or talent 
 and art so openly called in to lend their aid to 
 the cause of licentiousness. Profligate books 
 and prints exist everywhere; but in other 
 capitals, they must be sought after to be 
 found, and where they are, their character and 
 appearance show that they are meant for the 
 brutal classes, or the higher orders in their 
 moments of brutality, only. But in Paris the 
 case is the reverse. The treasures of know- 
 ledir^, the elegance of art, the fascination of 
 genius, are daily and hourly employed in the 
 cause of corruption; and of them may truly 
 
 * General Donnadieu, 270271. 
 
 f Dupin'a Force Commerciale, p. 40. 
 
 be said, what Mr. Burke falsely affirmed of the 
 old French manners, that " vice has lost half 
 its deformity by having lost all its grossness." 
 The delicacy and beauty of these productions, 
 as well as their amazing number, prove that 
 they find a ready sale with the higher as well 
 as the lower orders. They have discovered 
 the truth of the old maxim, "Ars est celare 
 artem." Voluptuousness is more surely at- 
 tained by being half disguised ; and corruption 
 spreads the more securely, from having cast 
 aside every thing calculated to disgust its un- 
 hardened votaries. The arts of lithography 
 and printing go hand in hand in this refined 
 and elegant system of demoralization ; the 
 effusions of genius, the beauty of design, the 
 richness of colouring, are employed together 
 to throw an entrancing light over the scenes 
 of profligacy, and the ordinary seductions of a 
 great capital, heightened by all that taste or 
 art can suggest to stimulate the passions 
 emblematic of the mixed good and evil which 
 has resulted from these great inventions, and 
 the prodigious force they have given to the 
 solvents of vice in one age, as well as the 
 hardening principles of virtue in another. 
 
 It is observed by Montesquieu, that honour, 
 as the national principle, is more durable in 
 its nature than either virtue or religion ; and 
 the present state of Paris contrasted with the 
 military character of the French affords a 
 strong confirmation of the observation. The 
 incessant pursuit of pleasure by both sexes, 
 has in every age been the grand solvent which 
 has melted away the principle of military vir- 
 tue ; and the reason is obvious, because those 
 whose chief object is selfish gratification can- 
 not endure the fatigues and the privations 
 attendant on military exploits. There cannot 
 be a doubt that this destroying principle is in 
 full operation in the French capital ; but 
 though it has completely eaten through the 
 safeguards of religion and virtue, it has hither- 
 to left undecayed the passion for military dis- 
 tinction. The extraordinary strength which 
 this principle has acquired in modern Europe 
 in general, and France in particular, from the 
 feudal institutions, and the great development 
 which it received from the wars of the Revolu- 
 tion and the triumphs of Napoleon, have, to all 
 appearance, withstood the enervating influence 
 of a corrupting ingredient which proved fatal 
 to the courage of Greece and Rome ; but it is 
 not the less certain that it will ultimately sink 
 before its influence. It is by not elevating our 
 minds' to the slow progress of all such great 
 changes, that we are at all misled on any oc- 
 casion as to their progress, or the effect on 
 public fortune of the principles of decay, which 
 spring from the progress of private corruption. 
 The alteration, like the decline of the day in 
 autumn, is imperceptible from day to day; but 
 it becomes quite apparent if we contrast one 
 period or age of the world with another. Com- 
 pare the age of Regulus or Scipio, with that of 
 Constantine or Honorius; or that of the Lom- 
 bard League with the present pusillanimity of 
 the Italian people ; and the prostration of na- 
 tional strength by the growth of private selfish- 
 ness is obvious to the most careless observer. 
 The French Revolution is not destined to form 
 
148 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 an exception to the general law; its fortune 
 will be ultimately destroyed by the effects o 
 the poisoned source from which they sprung 
 the conquests of its authors will be lost b 
 their inability to conquer themselves. Boti 
 revolutions have begun in the Palais Royai 
 the very focus of corruption from every par 
 of France ; and through every stage of thei 
 progress, both have given unequivocal proof 
 of their impure origin. Let the friends of reli 
 gion and virtue be of good cheer ; no institu 
 tions founded on such a basis were ever ye 
 durable; the French Revolution began in th 
 haunts of profligacy, and they have spread in 
 it the seeds of mortality which will bring it to 
 the grave. 
 
 Next to sexual profligacy, gaming is par 
 excellence the grand vice of Paris ; and it, lik 
 every other principle of evil, has made rapid 
 and fearful progress since the Three Days. No 
 attempts whatever are made to restrain it ; on 
 the contrary, it is taken under the safeguarc 
 of the police, and a tax levied on its profits, as 
 on those of prostitution, which constitutes a 
 considerable part of the municipal revenue 
 The prodigious number of suicides which 
 occur in Paris, amounting on an average to 
 above one a night, frequently to a great deal 
 more, chiefly spring from the despair produced 
 by the inordinate passion for this vice. Unlike 
 what generally occurs in England, it exists 
 equally among the poorest as the richest 
 classes ; their hells are open for the sous of 
 the labourer or the francs of the artisan, as 
 well as the Napoleon of the officer or the 
 rouleaux of the banker. They are to be met 
 with in every street ; they spread their devas- 
 tating influence through every workshop and 
 manufactory in Paris. This perilous vice, like 
 that of sexual profligacy, is the natural result 
 of a successful revolution ; of the demolition 
 of all restraint on the passions, which has 
 arisen from silencing the voice of religion, 
 and the bounty offered to instant excitement, 
 by the uncertainty in regard to the future, 
 which the destruction of all the institutions of 
 society inevitably produces.* 
 
 In one particular, however, the French capi- 
 tal offers a pleasing contrast to every con- 
 siderable town in the British isles. Drunken- 
 ness, though considerably more prevalent than 
 formerly, does not exist in France to an extent 
 at all comparable to what it does in England ; 
 and hence the manners of the lower orders, 
 notwithstanding all the anarchy of the Revo- 
 lution, are not half so coarse and brutal as in 
 our great manufacturing towns. In truth, the 
 extraordinary progress of this frightful vice in 
 Great Britain, since the reduction of the duty 
 on spirits and the abolition of the beer tax,} 
 is one of the most woful circumstances in our 
 social condition, and which, if not rapidly 
 checked by a proper set of fiscal regulations, 
 promises soon to plunge our labouring classes 
 
 * A great change in this respect has since been made 
 by the authority and interposition of government, after 
 the evil here described had become intolerable. 
 
 t Nothing ever gave us more pleasure than to observe 
 from a late Parliamentary return, that, since the slight 
 addition to the duty on spirits in 1830, the manufacture 
 of the fiery poison has declined in Scotland, 1,300,000 
 gallons yearly. 
 
 into a state of depravity unparalleled in any 
 Christian state. Drunkenness, if seen in public 
 at Paris, is at once punished by the police; 
 and the prodigious nmnber of civil and mili- 
 tary employes who are to be met with in every 
 street at night, renders it impossible for the 
 inebriated to indulge in those disgraceful 
 brawls which then disgrace every English 
 city. The abstinence from this vice depends 
 chiefly on constitutional causes, the warmth 
 of the climate, which renders the excitement 
 of intoxication not so desirable as in northern 
 latitudes; but much is to be ascribed also to 
 the happy custom of levying a heavy duty 
 (a franc a bottle) on wine imported into the 
 metropolis, a burden which banishes intoxi- 
 cation in a great degree to the outside of the 
 barriers, and confines it to the days when a 
 walk to those remote stations can be under- 
 taken by the working classes. Would that a 
 similar burden existed on all spirits imported 
 into the towns in Great Britain ! 
 
 The state of LITERATURE, especially those 
 lighter branches of it which exhibit the faith- 
 ful picture of the public feeling and ideas, is 
 equally instructive since the Three Days. It is 
 difficult to convey to an English reader, un- 
 acquainted with the modern French novels, 
 any adequate idea of the extraordinary mix- 
 ture which they exhibit; and they present 
 perhaps the most convincing proof which the 
 history of fiction affords, of the indispensable 
 necessity of fixed principles in religion and 
 virtue to restrain the otherwise inordinate flight 
 of the human imagination. 
 
 It was long the fashion with the apologists 
 of the Revolution to assert that public morals 
 fiad improved during its progress ; that the 
 icense and profligacy of the days of Louis 
 XV. and the Regent Orleans would no longer 
 tolerated; and that with the commence- 
 ment of higher duties and the growth of severer 
 principles, the licentiousness which had so 
 ong disgraced the French literature had for 
 ever disappeared. The present state of French 
 novels may show, whether a successful Revo- 
 ution, and the annihilation of all the fetters 
 of religion, is the way to regenerate such a 
 corrupted mass. Having lost nothing of former 
 )rofligacy, having abated nothing of former 
 nfidelity, they have been tinged by the fierce 
 passions and woful catastrophes which arose 
 luring the first Revolution. Romance has now 
 )ecome blended with sensuality; German ex- 
 ravagance with French licentiousness; the 
 demons of the air with the corruptions of the 
 world. The modern French novels are not 
 ne whit less profligate than those of Louis 
 XV., but they are infinitely more extravagant, 
 wild, and revolting. To persons whose minds 
 lave as yet been only partially shaken by 
 he terrible catastrophes of a revolution, it is 
 ardly conceivable how such extravagant fic- 
 ions should ever have entered the human 
 magination. They are poured forth, however, 
 with unbounded profusion by their modern 
 ovelists, and passionately read by a genera- 
 ion whose avidity for strong emotions and 
 r ivid excitement, whether from terror, as- 
 onishment, despair, or licentiousness, seems 
 o know no bounds. 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 149 
 
 The limits of an Essay, such as this, embrac- 
 ing such a variety of objects, though few more 
 important, forbid us from attempting what we 
 intended, and possibly may hereafter resume 
 an analysis of some of these extravagant 
 and detestable, though often able and power- 
 ful publications. Suffice it to say, that the 
 basis of almost the whole of them is adultery, 
 or other guilty and extravagant sensual pas- 
 sion ; and they generally terminate in suicide, 
 or some such hor,rid catastrophe. On details 
 of this description they dwell with minute and 
 often coarse avidity; but it is by no means 
 with such passions that they are solely filled; 
 they have also borrowed largely from German 
 fiction and extravagance, from Catholic legends 
 and superstition, from feudal manners and 
 oppression, from chivalrous . adventure and 
 exploits. They form what may be styled the 
 Romantic Licentious School of Fiction. Murders 
 and robberies, rapes and conflagrations, the 
 guillotine and the scaffold, demons and guar- 
 dian angels, confessors and confidants, Satan 
 and St. Michael, ghosts, wizards, incest, sen- 
 suality, parricides, suicides, and every kind 
 of extravagance, are thrown together in wild 
 confusion; but the general result is ruinous 
 to every species of regular or virtuous con- 
 duct, and may be considered as affording a 
 specimen of the frame of mind in which the 
 victims who are shortly after stretched out on 
 the Morgue, rush from the gambling-houses 
 in the Palais Royal, to drown the chaos of 
 contending passions in the waters of the Seine.* 
 
 The dramatic pieces which have sprung up 
 since the Revolution of 1830, afford the same 
 extraordinary picture of the confusion of ideas, 
 feelings, and emotions, in which the French 
 youth are involved since they pushed out to a 
 stormy sea without either compass or rudder. 
 They almost all turn upon adultery, incest, or 
 some such elegant and chastened depravity; 
 but of the chaos of extravagance, fiction, 
 allegory, vice, and horror which they present, 
 it is impossible to convey any idea. Some of 
 them, particularly " La Reine d'Espagne," have 
 been hissed from the stage, as too bad even 
 for a Parisian audience. From others, as "La 
 Tentation," the most obnoxious scenes, in one 
 of which a rape was represented almost be- 
 fore the eyes of the spectators, have been 
 dropped out. But still they are in general so 
 extravagant, indelicate, and licentious, that it 
 is impossible to speak of them in terms of 
 sufficient reprobation ; and the most respecta- 
 ble writers of France, of the Liberal school, 
 regard them with a degree of horror even sur- 
 passing that which they excite in the mind of 
 an English spectator. "If its literature," says 
 Salvandy, " is to be regarded as the expression 
 of national character, not a hope remains for 
 France. It is stained with every species of 
 corruption ; its fundamental principle is to 
 attack every sentiment and interest of which 
 
 * So monstrous have the extravagances become, that 
 they have excited the attention even of the steadiest 
 apologists of the French Revolution ; and the Edinburgh 
 Review, in a recent number, has borne the candid 
 testimony of an unwilling witness to the demoralizing 
 effects of their favourite political principles. See the 
 Late French Novelists, in No. 116 of the Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 the social order is composed. You would sup- 
 pose that it was resolutely bent on restoring 
 to France all the vices which it had imbibed 
 at the close of the last century. A sort of 
 dogmatic cynicism has invaded all its depart- 
 ments. If, on the strength of a name of 
 celebrity, or the daily eulogies of the press, 
 you venture to a theatre, you see represented 
 scenes where the dignity of the one sex is as 
 much outraged as the modesty of the other. 
 Everywhere the same sort of spectacles await 
 you. There is a class which they keep as yet 
 behind the curtain, contenting themselves with 
 announcing atrocities which the public are 
 not yet prepared to bear. Romance has already 
 given the example of this depraved species of 
 composition. The muse now makes use of 
 obscenities, as formerly it did of passion. What 
 is to follow when tragedy and romance have 
 exhausted their brief career, God only knows. 
 When they have ceased to illuminate these 
 hideous orgies, the lights of literature will be 
 extinguished."* 
 
 To give some idea of these extraordinary 
 productions which now are represented with 
 such prodigious success at the Parisian thea- 
 tres, we shall give an abstract of two of the 
 most unexceptionable, and, at the same time, 
 the most popular pieces which have appeared 
 at the opera since the Revolution of July, "La 
 Tentation," and "Robert Le Diable." We 
 have selected the most delicate which fell 
 under our observation ; the pieces represented 
 at the minor theatres could not be borne even 
 in the decent guise of an English description. 
 
 The first of these, which, in splendour of 
 decoration, exceeds any thing yet represented 
 even in that most splendid of European theatres, 
 turns upon the well-known legend of the Temp- 
 tation of St. Anthony ; but it is so altered and 
 varied to admit their varied and extravagant 
 corruptions, that it is hardly possible to re- 
 cognise in it the simple tale which has been so 
 often immortalized by the pencil of Teniers. 
 
 The piece opens with the saint reposing on 
 his pallet at the gate of a solitary chapel, de- 
 dicated to the Virgin Mary, and crowds of pil- 
 grims of both sexes arrive at the shrine to offer 
 up their vows ; after which, thev join in festive 
 amusements, and the danseuses, arrayed as pea- 
 sant girls, dance round the anchorite with such 
 graceful motions, that he is tempted to indulge 
 in a little waltz with the fairest of these daugh- 
 ters of Eve. Shortly after, when they have 
 retired, a young woman of extraordinary beauty 
 comes along to the shrine; dazzled by her 
 charms, and encouraged by the opportunity 
 which the solitude of the situation afforded, he 
 forms the design of seduction, and is endeavour- 
 ing to carry his intentions into effect, w r hen 
 she flies to the chapel of the Virgin, and shriek- 
 ing, implores her powerful aid to ward off im- 
 pending destruction. Instantly the powers of 
 heaven and hell appear. Astaroth and his 
 legions of devils, in a thousand frightful forms, 
 rise from the earth, and strive to obtain the 
 mastery of the fallen saint and endangered vir- 
 gin ; while, high in the clouds above, the an- 
 gels of heaven appear to throw their shield 
 
 * Salvandy, Seize Mois des Revolutionaires, 408. 
 
150 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 over supplicant innocence. At length a truce 
 is formed between the contending powers ; the 
 condition of which is, that the saint is to be 
 surrendered to the powers of darkness, to be 
 by them subjected to all the temptations which 
 can endanger human virtue, and if he falls 
 under any one, he is to be abandoned soul and 
 body to their dominion ; but if he proves vic- 
 torious, he is to be borne aloft to the regions of 
 light. The decorations of this scene are of the 
 most exquisite description ; the angels in the 
 clouds are placed in the attitudes pourtrayed 
 in Raphael's and Correggio's celestial choirs 
 in the St. Cecilia at Bologna and the St. Je- 
 rome at Parma ; and a mellow light thrown 
 over the heavenly group, in so ravishing a 
 manner, as to produce an indelible impression 
 on the mind of the spectator. 
 
 The next act opens with the convocation of 
 the powers of darkness in the infernal regions, 
 to consider the measures they should adopt, 
 and review the force they could command in 
 the great undertaking in, which they are en- 
 gaged. This leads to a grand review of the 
 powers of hell, in which the whole strength 
 of the opera and the whole fancy of the artist 
 are put forth. The legions of devils, arrayed 
 in every possible garb of extravagance, de- 
 scend an immense stair, ascending to the top 
 of the theatre, on the left hand, and march 
 before Astaroth in such numbers, that it is no 
 exaggeration to say that three or four hundred 
 persons, splendidly dressed, are on the stage 
 at the same time. Yet even here French con- 
 ceit is curiously manifested, and these legions 
 of infernal spirits, in naked or savage attire, 
 are preceded by regular pioneers, with their 
 shaggy beards, and axes on their shoulders, 
 precisely as in the reviews on the Place Ca- 
 rousel ! When the review is concluded, the 
 infernal conclave, distrustful of their success 
 by open force, resolve to carry on the war by 
 more insinuating means, and it is determined 
 to tempt the saint by means of a young woman 
 of their own creation, gifted with every beauty 
 and charm which can entrance the senses, all 
 which are to be employed to seduce his virtue. 
 A cauldron appears, the devils in succession 
 throw in some attractive or malignant ingre- 
 dient, and shortly the siren steps forth, and 
 comes forward to give token of her attractive 
 powers, by dancing and waltzing before the 
 spectators. At the first representation, she 
 arose from the cauldron and danced in a flesh- 
 coloured silk dress, tight to the shape, meant 
 to represent absolute nudity ; but she is now 
 arrayed in a slight muslin robe, which throws 
 a thin veil of decency over her beautiful 
 form. 
 
 In the third act, the saint is subjected to the 
 double trial of famine and the siren. The 
 scene is transported to the gate of a palace in 
 a desolate country, created by the devils for 
 the purposes of their temptation ; near the gate 
 of which a crucifix appears, rising out of the 
 drifting snow. St. Anthony approaches, and 
 falls down in supplication at the foot of the 
 cross; his strength is exhausted; his limbs 
 fail ; his wallet does not contain a single crust 
 of bread. Astaroth appears, followed by the siren 
 whom he has created, at the gate of the castle ; 
 
 tutored by him, she descends, approaches the 
 saint, and employs all her art to subjugate his 
 resolution. She offers to bring him food in 
 abundance from the palace, to spread a couch 
 of down for his wearied limbs, to clothe in 
 rich garments his shivering frame, to abandon 
 herself to him, if he will surrender the cruci- 
 fix which hangs round his neck, and abjure 
 his faith ; but the resolution of Saint Anthony 
 is immovable. While he lies shivering and 
 starving at the foot of the cross, a sumptuous 
 feast is prepared before his eyes by the cooks 
 in the palace ; the savoury flavour comes over 
 his fainting senses; he sees it carried up to 
 the banquet-hall, where Astaroth and his de- 
 vils are feasting and rioting in luxurious plenty, 
 and crawls to the gate to implore a crust of 
 bread to assuage the intolerable pangs of hun- 
 ger; but it is sternly refused, unless he will con- 
 sent to part with the cross, in which case he is 
 offered the most luxurious fare. He still re- 
 mains firm to his faith, and while drenched 
 by showers of snow, and starving of hunger, 
 hears the wild and frantic revelry which pro- 
 ceeds round the well-covered boards, from the 
 brilliantly lighted rooms of the palace. Struck 
 with such heroic resolution, the siren is melted. 
 She is awakened by the efforts of the Virgin 
 to a sense of virtue; she secretly supplies him 
 with provisions from the infernal abode ; and 
 the daughter of perdition is won over to the 
 league of heaven by an act of charity. In- 
 stantly the black spot on her breast, the mark 
 of reprobation, disappears, and her bosom 
 regains its snowy whiteness. Astaroth and 
 the infernal legion issue forth, frantic with 
 rage at the failure of their design ; they cast 
 out their unworthy creation ; the palace, with 
 all its treasures, is consigned to the flames, into 
 which they plunge, leaving the saint and his 
 lovely convert alone in the wilderness of snow. 
 
 Baffled in this design, Astaroth and his league 
 next assail the anchorite in a different way. 
 The scene changes in the next act to the in- 
 terior of a magnificent harem, where the saint 
 and the converted maiden are surrounded by 
 all the pomp of eastern luxury. The sultanas 
 and ladies of the seraglio are seated round the 
 walls, and the whole strength of the opera is 
 again called forth in the entrancing dances 
 which are there employed to captivate the 
 senses. Astaroth causes Miranda, the maiden 
 of his creation, to dance before the Sultan ; 
 captivated by her beauty, he throws her the 
 handkerchief; while at the same time Astaroth 
 endeavours to persuade the saint to murder the 
 Sultan, on the specious pretence of setting free 
 the numerous slaves of his passion ; Miranda 
 seizes the dagger, exclaiming that she alone 
 should perpetrate the deed of blood ; the Sul- 
 tan is alarmed; the guards surround the her- 
 mit and the maid, who throw themselves from 
 the windows of the seraglio into the sea, while 
 the demons are swallowed up in a gulf of 
 fire. 
 
 In the opening of the last act, the anchorite 
 is seen reposing on the grass with the maiden 
 beside him; the demons surround him during 
 his sleep, but cannot pass the holy circle which 
 guards the innocent. When he awakens, he 
 finds himself enveloped on either side by le- 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 151 
 
 gions of devils in every frightful form, and a I of armour to enter the lists against the prince 
 circle of sirens who dance round him with the 
 most voluptuous movements. Meanwhile As- 
 taroth has seized Miranda, and "1'a rendue 
 
 victime de sa brutalite et 1'a frappe ;* the an- 
 chorite is on the point of yielding to the se- 
 ductions of the sirens who surround him, 
 when Miranda, extricated from the arms of 
 Aslaroth, rushes forward and throws the beads 
 and cross she had removed from him over his 
 neck. His reason is restored, he regains the 
 dominion over his passion. Astarolh plunges 
 his dagger in the breast of Miranda in despair 
 at the total failure of his prospects. St. Mi- 
 chael and the angels descend from heaven; a 
 desperate conflict ensues between the powers 
 of light and darkness, in the close of which 
 Astaroth and his demons are overthrown, and 
 the saint and Miranda are borne aloft through 
 the clouds into the bosom of the heavenly 
 host. 
 
 " Robert le Diable" is founded on a different 
 series of adventures, but the same contest of 
 the powers of this world with those of hell. 
 The first act opens on the shore of the har- 
 bour of Palermo, where Norman knights, un- 
 der the shade of acacia trees, celebrate their 
 mistresses, their wines, their games. Robert 
 and his friend Bertram are s-eated together, 
 when a minstrel arrives, leading a beauteous 
 maid, his affianced bride. Robert asks him 
 for news; he recounts the story of Robert le 
 Diable, who was the son of Bertha, a noble 
 maid of Normandy, who had yielded to the 
 seduction of a demon, in the form of a hand- 
 some stranger. Unknowingly he is reciting 
 the tale to Robert himself, who, in a transport 
 of rage at the narrative, is on the point of 
 plunging his dagger into his bosom; when he 
 is restrained by his friend Bertram, who pre- 
 vails on him to respite the minstrel for an hour. 
 Meanwhile he promises the handsome 
 to his chevaliers ; but when she is introduced 
 to be surrendered to their desires, he discovers 
 in the maid, Alice, his beauteous foster-sister, 
 the bearer of the testament of his mother, who 
 on her deathbed had besought her to convey 
 her last instructions to her beloved son. Ro- 
 bert, in return, recounts to Alice his love for 
 the fair Princess Isabella of Sicily, whom he 
 was on the point of carrying off from her pa- 
 rents, when he was assailed by the knights of 
 Sicily, and only rescued by his friend Bertram. 
 At this juncture, Bertram approaches; Alice 
 involuntarily shudders at his sight, from the 
 resemblance which he bears to the paintings 
 of Satan combating St. Michael, but having re- 
 covered from her alarm, undertakes to convey 
 a letter from Robert to the Princess Isabella. 
 
 The next act opens with the princess in the 
 interior of the palace of Palermo, bewailing 
 the loss of the faithful Robert, and her unhap- 
 py fate, in being compelled to wed the Prince 
 of Grenada, contrary to her inclinations. 
 Young maidens, the bearers of petitions, are 
 introduced, among whom is Alice, who insinu- 
 ates into her hand the letter of Robert. She 
 consents to see him. He is introduced, and 
 clothed by her attendants with a splendid suit 
 
 * This, though still in the programme of the piece, 
 was found to be revolting, and is now omitted. 
 
 in a tournament, where her hand was to be 
 the prize of the victor. A herald appears and 
 defies Robert, in the name of the prince, who 
 eagerly accepts the challenge. Bertram, who 
 is Satan in disguise, and had clothed another 
 demon with the form of the Prince of Grenada, 
 smiles at the success of his projects, to win 
 over the soul of Robert to perdition. The 
 tournament takes place ; Isabella, by her 
 father's orders, puts on his armour on the 
 Prince of Grenada, but when the trumpets 
 sound, she looks in vain for his beloved anta- 
 gonist. Robert, restrained by the powers of 
 hell, cannot appear. He is for ever disgraced ; 
 Bertram beholds his schemes rapidly ap- 
 proaching their maturity. 
 
 In the third act, Bertram, pale and agitated, 
 emerges from a cavern, the council-hall of 
 the infernal powers : He is tormented with 
 anxious thoughts, for he has learned the arret 
 of Fate that his power over Robert termi- 
 nates if he is not devoted to the powers of 
 hell before twelve o'clock that night. There 
 is not a moment to lo-se. He casts his eyes 
 on Alice, who had come to that solitude to 
 meet her betrothed minstrel; the demon is 
 seized with passion, and strives to seduce her, 
 but is repulsed with horror. She hears, how- 
 ever, the choir of hell in the cavern invoking 
 the name of Robert, and perceives that Ber- 
 tram is Satan in disguise. By the threat of in- 
 stant death, he compels her to promise secrecy. 
 At this juncture Robert enters, overwhelmed 
 with horror at his involuntary failure to ap- 
 pear at the tournament: Alice in vain ap- 
 proaches to warn him of his danger ; bound 
 by her vow of secrecy, she is compelled to 
 retire, leaving Robert alone to his satanic con- 
 fidant. Bertram then informs him that his 
 rival, the Prince of Grenada, had availed him- 
 self of the aid of the infernal powers ; and 
 that he never could overcome him till he had 
 taken from the tomb of Saint Rosalie, in a 
 neighbou ring ruin, a green branch, the charmed 
 wand which would render the lover of Isabella 
 all-powerful. Misled by the perfidious advice, 
 Robert enters the cavern which he is told leads 
 to the tomb, and immediately a scene of match- 
 less beauty succeeds.. 
 
 The theatre represents a ruined monastery, 
 through the lofty desolate arches of which the 
 moon throws an uncertain light. Many old 
 tombs are scattered about on the broken pave- 
 ment, on the top of which the marble figures 
 of ancient worthies are seen. In the midst of 
 them is the sepulchre of Saint Rosalie, with a 
 branch of cypress in the hand of her marble 
 effigy. Bertram arrives : he conjures up the 
 shades of all the nuns who had been interred 
 in the abbey, condemned "en punition d'une 
 vie trop profane," to rise to aid in seducing 
 Robert into the accomplishment of his pro- 
 mise. Instantly the spirits rise out of their 
 narrow beds; the marble figures, which re- 
 clined on the monumental slabs, step forth 
 from every part of the pavement; a hundred 
 nuns appear dressed in their robes of white, 
 and slowly moving forward through the gloom, 
 surround the bewildered knight. Gradually 
 they seem to be reanimated by the breath and 
 
152 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the passions of life ; they join in dances, at first 
 slow and mystical, which insensibly warm into 
 grace and voluptuousness. They exert all 
 their attractions to induce Robert to advance 
 and seize the fated branch. Seduced by so 
 many charms, he approaches the sepulchre, 
 but starts back on seeing in the marble image 
 of the saint a resemblance to his mother; the 
 nuns, in encircling bands, renew their efforts 
 to entrance his senses ; he yields at length, 
 and seizes the branch. Instantly the spell is 
 broken ; the spectres sink into their graves ; 
 the figures, late so beauteous, and animated, 
 freeze again into lifeless marble, and the 
 knight remains alone with the branch, while 
 the sacred walls resound with the wild yells of 
 the demons at the completion of their victory. 
 
 In the fourth act, Isabella, surrounded by 
 her maidens, is represented at her toilet dis- 
 tributing her marriage gifts to six young 
 women who are to be married at the same 
 time that she espouses the Prince of Grenada. 
 Robert appears with the green branch; its 
 magical powers overwhelm all her attendants 
 with lethargic slumbers ; the knight approaches 
 and makes himself known to the princess ; in 
 the midst of her transports, she learns by what 
 means he had obtained the green bough, and 
 conjures him to cast away the infernal wand; 
 overcome by love and remorse, he breaks the 
 branch; the attendants instantly awaken; as- 
 tonished at the appearance of their lady in the 
 arms of a stranger knight, they calf in the 
 men-at-arms; Robert is seized, and Isabella 
 swoons away. 
 
 In the last act, Robert and Bertram appear 
 in the vestibule of the cathedral at Palermo ; 
 the knight recounts that he had fought the 
 Prince of Grenada, and been vanquished by 
 him. Bertram assures him that this fatality 
 is owing to his fatal imprudence in breaking 
 the branch, and that his only hope of success 
 is to be found in subscribing an instant com- 
 pact with the powers of darkness. At the 
 moment when he is about to comply, strains 
 of religious music are heard from the choir, 
 which thrill through the heart of the wavering 
 knight, and recall him to purer sentiments. 
 In despair at his failure, Bertram reveals his 
 name and character : he is Robert's father, the 
 demon who had seduced his mother ; and he 
 informs him, that, unless he signs the irrevo- 
 cable deed before twelve o'clock, he loses him 
 for ever; if he does, he forthwith becomes the 
 husband of Isabella. Robert exclaims, " L'ar- 
 rt est prononce, 1'Enfer est le plus fort," and 
 is just going to sign, when Alice, his foster- 
 sister, rushes in, places in his hand the testa- 
 ment of his mother, in which she conjures 
 him to shun the demon who had ruined her; 
 he is again shaken. A desperate struggle en- 
 sues between Alice and Bertram, heaven and 
 hell, in which Robert is about to yield, when 
 twelve strikes; Bertram, with a frightful yell, 
 descends into a gulf of fire; the veil of the 
 sanctuary is withdraw), Isabella appears in 
 the choir, where she receives the now disen- 
 thralled Robert, while an aerial choir celebrates 
 the triumph of the Most High. 
 
 There is one circumstance very remarkable 
 in these theatrical pieces, which have had so 
 
 prodigious a run at the Opera, that each of 
 them has been represented above a hundred 
 times. Though they originate in the most li- 
 centious capital, and are exhibited to the most 
 corrupted audience in Europe, yet they both 
 terminate in the triumph of virtue over vice, 
 of resolution over temptation, of the graces 
 of heaven over the powers of hell. This, in 
 such circumstances, is very remarkable. The 
 excitements to the senses in both are in- 
 numerable ; the situations and incidents such 
 as never co"uld have been figured but in a li- 
 centious capital ; but still the final result is 
 the triumph of virtue, and the impression 
 made upon the spectator on the whole de- 
 cidedly favourable to its cause. Hypocrisy, 
 says Rochefoucault, is the homage which vice 
 pays to virtue : it would appear that the senti- 
 ments of devotion, and the admiration of in- 
 tegrity, are so strongly implanted in the hu- 
 man mind, that many ages of corruption must 
 elapse before they can be wholly extirpated. 
 The French have still so much of both linger- 
 ing in their imaginations and their associations 
 at least, if not in their conduct, that the open 
 disregard of them cannot be as yet tolerated in 
 the higher theatres. Centuries of degradation, 
 however, similar to that in which, from the re- 
 sult of the Revolution, they are now placed, 
 will work out this melancholy change, even 
 in the country of Fenelon and Bossuet. The 
 modern Italian drama frequently represents 
 the hero of the piece suffering under the 
 agonies of fear; and poltroonery is tolerated 
 on the stage by the descendants of the Romans 
 and Samnites. 
 
 Another circumstance which is well worthy 
 of observation in the romantic licentious lite- 
 rature and drama of France, is the frequent use 
 which is made of the imagery, the language, 
 and the characters of the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion. Even the Romish Calendar, and the 
 legends of the saints, are diligently ransacked 
 to furnish stories and situations calculated to 
 satisfy the avidity of the Parisian public for 
 strong emotions. It would appear that the 
 Parisians are now placed at that distance from 
 religious belief, when they can derive pleasure 
 from the lingering recollections which it 
 awakens, without being shocked by the pro- 
 fanity to which it is exposed. They look upon 
 religious impressions and the Catholic tradi- 
 tions, as the English regard the fairy tales 
 which amused their childhood, and derive a 
 transient stimulus from their being brought 
 back to their recollection, as we do from see- 
 ing Bluebeard or Cinderella on the stage. Re- 
 ligion is as frequently the engine for moving 
 the imagination now as classical allusions 
 were in the last age. The French are in that 
 stage of corruption, when they class religious 
 imagery, and the early traditions of Scripture, 
 with the Gothic superstition of the middle ages, 
 with drawbridges, knights, giants, and chi- 
 valry, and are delighted Math their represen- 
 tation, as we are with the feudal pictures and 
 ancient imagery of Sir Walter Scott. The 
 frequent introduction of religious characters 
 and traditions in the modern works of imagi- 
 nation in France, affords decisive evidence 
 that they have passed from the region of be- 
 
FRANCE IN 1833. 
 
 153 
 
 lief into that of imagination ; from subduing 
 the passions, or influencing the conduct, to 
 thrilling the imagination, and captivating the 
 fancy. A people who entertained a sincere 
 and practical regard for religion of any sort, 
 never could bear to see its incidents and cha- 
 racters blended with hobgoblins and demons, 
 with the spectres of the feudal, or the mytholo- 
 gy of the classic ages. 
 
 This extraordinary change in the lighter 
 branches of French literature is almost entirely 
 the result of the late Revolution. The romantic 
 school of fiction, indeed, had been steadily 
 growing up under the Restoration ; and ac- 
 cordingly, the dramatized tales of Sir Walter 
 Scott had banished in all but the Theatre 
 Francais, the works of Racine and Corneille 
 from the stage. But it was not till the triumph 
 of the Barricades had cast down the barriers 
 of authority and influence, and let in a flood 
 of licentiousness upon all the regions of 
 thought, that the present intermixture of ex- 
 travagance and sensuality took place. Still 
 this grievous and demoralizing effect is not to 
 be ascribed solely or chiefly to that event, im- 
 portant as it has been in scattering far and 
 wide the seeds of evil. It is not by a mere 
 praetorian tumult in the capital that a nation 
 is demoralized ; Rome had twenty such urban 
 and military revolutions as that which over- 
 threw Charles X. without experiencing any 
 material addition to the deep-rooted sources of 
 imperial corruption. It was the first Revolu- 
 tion, with its frightful atrocities and crying 
 sins, which produced this fatal effect; the se- 
 cond merely drew aside the feeble barrier 
 which the government of the Restoration had 
 opposed to its devastation. In the present 
 monstrous and unprecedented state of French 
 literature is to be seen the faithful mirror of 
 the state of the public mind produced by that 
 convulsion ; of that chaos of thoughts and pas- 
 sions and recollections, which has resulted 
 from a successful insurrection not only against 
 the government, but the institutions and the 
 belief of former times ; of the extravagance and 
 frenzy of the human mind, when turned adrift, 
 without either principle or authority to direct 
 it, into the stormy sea of passion and pleasure. 
 
 The graver and more weighty works which 
 were appearing in such numbers under the 
 Restoration, have all ceased with the victory 
 of the populace. The resplendent genius of 
 Chateaubriand no longer throws its lustre over 
 the declining virtue of the age : the learning 
 and philosophy of Guizot is turned aside from 
 the calm speculations of history to the turbu- 
 lent sea of politics. Thierry has ceased to 
 diffuse over the early ages of feudal times, the 
 discriminating light of sagacious inquiry: the 
 pen of Parente conveys no Iqnger, in clear 
 and vivid colours, the manners of the four- 
 teenth to the nineteenth century: Thiers, trans- 
 formed into an ambitious politician, strives in 
 vain, in his measures as a minister, to coun- 
 teract the influence of his eloquent writings, as 
 an historian : the fervent spirit of Ber'anger is 
 stilled ; the poetic <jlow of Lamartine is quench- 
 ed ; the pictured page of Sal vandy is employed 
 only in pourtraying the deplorable state of so- 
 cial and moral disorganization consequent on 
 20 
 
 1 the triumph of the Barricades. Instead of 
 these illustrious men has sprung up a host of 
 minor writers, who pander to the depraved 
 taste of a corrupted age ; the race of Dumas's, 
 and Latouches, and Janins, men who apply great 
 talent to discreditable but profitable purposes ; 
 who reflect, like the cameleon, the colours of 
 the objects by which they are surrounded, and 
 earn, like the opera-dancer, a transient liveli- 
 hood, sometimes considerable wealth, by ex- 
 citing the passions or ministering to the plea- 
 sures of a depraved and licentious metropolis. 
 
 Thus, on all sides, and in every department 
 of government, religion, morals, and literature, 
 is the debasing and pernicious influence of the 
 Revolution manifesting itself; the thin veil 
 which concealed the progress of corruption 
 during the Restoration, is torn aside; govern- 
 ment is settling down into despotism, religion 
 into infidelity, morals into licentiousness, lite- 
 rature into depraved extravagance. What is to 
 be the final issue of these melancholy changes, 
 it is impossible confidently to predict; but 
 of this we maybe well assured, that it is not 
 till the fountains of wickedness are closed by 
 the seal of religion, and the stream of thought 
 is purified by suffering, that the disastrous 
 consequences of two successful convulsions 
 can be arrested, or freedom established on a 
 secure basis, or public felicity based on a du- 
 rable foundation. 
 
 The result of all this is, not only that no 
 real freedom exists in France, but that the ele- 
 ments of constitutional liberty do not exist. 
 Every thing depends on the will of the capital : 
 and its determination is so much swayed at 
 present, at least by the public press, and armed 
 force in the capital, that no reliance on the 
 stability of any system of government can be 
 placed. The first Revolution concentrated all 
 the powers of government in the metropolis ; 
 the second vested them in the armed force of 
 its garrison and citizens. Henceforth the strife 
 of faction is likely to be a mere struggle for 
 the possession of the public offices, and the 
 immense patronage with which they are ac- 
 companied : but no measures for the extension 
 of public freedom will, to all appearance, be 
 attempted. If the republican party were to 
 dethrone Louis Philippe, they would raise the 
 most violent outcry about the triumph of free- 
 dom, and in the midst of it quietly take pos- 
 session of the police-office, the telegraph, the 
 treasury, and begin to exercise the vast powers 
 of government for their own behoof in the 
 most despotic manner. No other system of 
 administration is practicable in France. After 
 the state to which it has been reduced by its 
 two Revolutions, a constitutional monarchy, 
 such as existed in Great Britain prior to the 
 revolution of 1832 that is, a monarchy, in 
 which the powers of sovereignty were really 
 shared by the crown, the nobles, and the peo- 
 ple could not stand in France for a week. 
 The populace of Paris and their despotic lead- 
 ers, or the crown, with its civil and military 
 employers, would swallow up supreme power 
 in a moment. 
 
 Every government, in the long run, must be 
 founded on one of three bases : either the re- 
 presentation and attachment of all the great 
 
154 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 interests of the state ; or the force of a power- 
 ful and devoted soldiery; or the influence of 
 power derived from the possession of all the 
 patronage and appointments in the kingdom. 
 Constitutional monarchies, the glory of Eu- 
 ropean civilization, are founded on the first; 
 Asiatic despotisms on the last. By the de- 
 struction of all the intermediate classes be- 
 tween the throne and the peasant, the French 
 have rendered the construction of a representa- 
 tive system and a limited throne impossible : 
 they have now to choose only between the fet- 
 ters of a military, or the corruption of an ori- 
 
 | ental, despotism ; between the government of 
 the Praetorian guards, and the servility of the 
 Byzantine empire. They are perpetually de- 
 claiming about the new era which their Revo- 
 lution has opened in human affairs, and the 
 j interminable career of modern civilization : 
 ! let them fix their eyes on the court of the Great 
 Mogul and the ryots of Hindostan, and beware 
 lest their changes afford a new confirmation 
 of the old adage, That there is nothing new 
 under the sun ; and the dreams of republican 
 enthusiasm terminate at last in the strife of 
 eunuchs and the jealousy of courtesans. 
 
 ITALY: 
 
 THE scenery of Switzerland is of a dark and 
 gloomy description. In the higher Alps, which 
 lie between the canton of Berne and the plains 
 of Lombardy, the' great elevation of the moun- 
 tains, the vicinity of perpetual snow, the tem- 
 pests which frequently occur, and the devasta- 
 tions of the avalanches, have imprinted a stern 
 and often dismal aspect on the scenery. As 
 the traveller ascends any of those paths, which 
 lead from the canton of Berne over the ridge 
 of the central Alps to the Italian bailiwicks, 
 he gradually approaches the region of eternal 
 desolation. The beech and the oak succes- 
 sively give place to the larch and the fir, and 
 these in their turn disappear, or exhibit only 
 the stunted forms and blasted summits which 
 are produced by the rigour and severity of the 
 climate. Towards the summit of the pass, 
 even these marks of vegetation disappear, and 
 huge blocks of granite, interspersed with snow, 
 or surrounding black and gloomy lakes, form 
 the only features of the scenery. 
 
 To the eye which has been habituated for a 
 few days only to these stern and awful objects, 
 there is no scene so delightful as that which is 
 exhibited by the valleys and the lakes which 
 lie on the southern side of the Alps. The 
 riches of nature, and the delights of a southern 
 climate, are there poured forth with a profusion 
 which is hardly to be met with in any other 
 part of Europe. The valleys are narrow and 
 precipitous, bounded on either side by the most 
 stupendous cliffs, and winding in such a man- 
 ner as to exhibit, in the most striking point of 
 view, the unrivalled glories of the scene. But 
 though the vallies are narrower, and the rocks 
 are higher on the southern than the northern 
 side of the Alps, yet the character of the scene 
 is widely different in these two situations. The 
 larch and the fir form the prevailing wood in 
 the higher valleys to the north of the St. Go- 
 thard; but the birch, the chestnut, and the oak, 
 clothe the sunny cliffs which look to the Italian 
 sun. Every crevice, and every projecting 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1818. and Supplement 
 to EncyclopsdiaBritannica,article Italy. Written when 
 travelling in that country in 1816 and 1818. 
 
 ! point on which vegetation can grow, is cover- 
 ed with brushwood ; and, instead of the gray 
 
 i masses of granite which appear on the north- 
 ern side, the cliffs of the southern valleys seem 
 to have caught the warm glow and varied tints 
 of the Italian sky. Nor is the change less ap- 
 parent in the agricultural productions of the 
 soil. At the foot of the stupendous cliffs, 
 which bound the narrow valleys by which the 
 mountains are intersected, the vine, the olive, 
 and the maize, ripen under the rays of a ver- 
 tical sun, while the sweet chestnut and the 
 walnut clothe the sloping banks by which the 
 wider parts of the valleys are surrounded. 
 While sinking under the heat of a summer 
 sun, which acquires amazing powers in these 
 narrow clefts, the traveller looks back with 
 delight to the snowy peaks from which he had 
 so lately descended, whose glaziers are soften- 
 ed by the distance at which they are seen, and 
 seem to partake in the warm glow by which 
 the atmosphere is illuminated. 
 
 There is another feature by which these 
 valleys are distinguished, which does not oc- 
 cur in the Swiss territories. Switzerland is a 
 country of peasants : the traces of feudal 
 power have been long obliterated in its free and 
 happy vallies. But on the Italian side of the 
 Alps, the remnants of baronial power are 
 still to be seen. Magnificent castles of vast 
 dimensions, and placed on the most prominent 
 situations, remind the traveller that he is ap- 
 proaching the region of feudal influence ; while 
 the crouching look and abject manner of the 
 peasantry, tells but too plainly the sway which 
 these feudal proprietors have exercised over 
 their vassals. But whatever may be the in- 
 fluence of aristocratic power upon the habits 
 or condition of the people, the remains of 
 former magnificence which it has left, add 
 amazingly to the beauty and sublimity of the 
 scenery. In the Misocco these antiquated re- 
 mains are peculiarly numerous and imposing. 
 The huge towers and massy walls of these 
 Gothic castles,, placed on what seem inacces- 
 sible cliffs, and frowning over the villages 
 which have grown up beneath their feet, give 
 
ITALY. 
 
 155 
 
 an air of antiquity and solemnity to the scene, 
 which nothing else is capable of producing; 
 for the works of nature, long as they have 
 stood, are still covered with the verdure of 
 perpetual youth. It is in the v/orks of man 
 alone that the symptoms of age or of decay 
 appear. 
 
 The Italian lakes partake, in some measure, 
 in the general features which have been men- 
 tioned as belonging to the valleys on the south- 
 ern side of the Alps ; but they are charac- 
 terized also by some circumstances which are 
 peculiar to themselves. Their banks are al- 
 most everywhere formed of steep mountains, 
 which sink at once into the lake without any 
 meadows or level ground on the water side. 
 These mountains are generally of great height, 
 and of the most rugged forms ; but they are 
 clothed to the summit with luxuriant woods, 
 except in those places where the steepness of 
 the precipices precludes the growth of vegeta- 
 tion. The continued appearance of front and 
 precipice which they exhibit, would lead to the 
 belief that the banks of the lake are uninha- 
 bited, were, it not for the multitude of villages 
 with which they are everywhere interspersed. 
 These villages are so numerous and extensive, 
 that it may be doubted whether the population 
 anywhere in Europe is denser than on the 
 shores of the Italian lakes. No spectacle in 
 nature can be more beautiful than the aspect 
 of these clusters of human habitations, all 
 built of stone, and white-washed in the neatest 
 manner, with a simple spire rising in the cen- 
 tre of each, to mark the number and devotion 
 of the inhabitants, surrounded by luxuriant 
 forests, and rising one above another to the 
 highest parts of the mountains. Frequently 
 the village is concealed by the intervention 
 of some rising ground, or the height of the 
 adjoining woods ; but the church is always 
 visible, and conveys the liveliest idea of the 
 peace and happiness of the inhabitants. These 
 rural temples are uniformly white, and their 
 spires are of the simplest form ; but it is dif- 
 ficult to convey, to those who have not seen 
 them, an idea of the exquisite addition which 
 they form to the beauty of the scenery. 
 
 On a nearer approach, the situation" of these 
 villages, so profusely scattered over the moun- 
 tains which surround the Italian lakes, is often 
 interesting in the extreme. Placed on the 
 summit of projecting rocks, or sheltered in the 
 defile of secluded valleys, they exhibit every 
 variety of aspect that can be imagined ; but 
 wherever situated, they add to the interest, or 
 enhance the picturesque effect of the scene. 
 The woods by which they are surrounded, and 
 which, from a distance, have the appearance 
 of a continued forest, are in reality formed, 
 for the most part, of the walnuts and sweet 
 chestnuts, which grow on the gardens that 
 belong to the peasantry, and conceal beneath 
 their shade,vineyards, corn-fields, and orchards. 
 Each cottager has his little domain, which is 
 cultivated by his own family ; a single chest- 
 nut, and a few mulberry trees, with a small 
 vineyard, constitutes often the whole of their 
 humble property. On this little spot, however, 
 they find wherewithal both to satisfy their 
 wants and to occupy their industry; the chil- 
 
 dren take care of the mulberries and the silk- 
 worms, which are here produced in great 
 abundance; the husband dresses the vineyard, 
 or works in the garden, as the season may 
 require. On an incredibly small piece of 
 ground, a numerous family live, in, what ap- 
 pears to them, ease and affluence; and if they 
 can maintain themselves during the year, and 
 pay their rent at its termination, their desires 
 never go beyond the space of their own em- 
 ployment. 
 
 In this simple and unambitious style of life, 
 it may easily be conceived what the general 
 character of the peasantry must be. Gene- 
 rally speaking, they are a simple, kind-hearted, 
 honest people, grateful to the last degree for 
 the smallest share of kindness, and always 
 willing to share with a stranger the produce 
 of their little domains. The crimes of murder 
 and robbery are almost unknown, at least 
 among the peasantry themselves, although, on 
 the great roads in their vicinity, banditti are 
 sometimes to be found. But if a stranger 
 lives in the country, and reposes confidence in 
 the people, he will find himself as secure, and 
 more respected, than in most other parts of 
 the world. 
 
 There is one delightful circumstance which 
 occurs in spring in the vicinity of these lakes, 
 to which a northern traveller is but little ac- 
 customed. During the months of April and 
 May, the woods are filled with nightingales, 
 and thousands of these little choristers pour 
 forth their strains every night, with a richness 
 and melody of which it is impossible to form 
 a conception. In England we are accustomed 
 frequently to hear the nightingale, and his song 
 has been celebrated in poetry from the earliest 
 periods of our history. But it is generally a 
 single song to which we listen, or at most a 
 few only, which unite to enliven the stillness 
 of the night. But on the banks of the lake of 
 Como, thousands of nightingales are to be 
 found in every wood ; they rest in every tree, 
 they pour forth their melody on the roof of 
 every cottage. Wherever you walk during the 
 delightful nights of April or May, you hear the 
 unceasing strains of these unseen warblers, 
 swelling on the evening gales, or dying away, 
 as you recede from the woods or thickets 
 where they dwell. The soft cadence and me- 
 lodious swelling of this heavenly choir, re- 
 sembles more the enchanting sounds of the 
 Eolian harp than any thing produced by mor- 
 tal organs. To those who have seen the lake 
 of Como, with such accompaniments, during 
 the serenity of a summer evening, and with 
 the surrounding headlands and mountains re- 
 flected on its placid waters, there are few scenes 
 in nature, and few moments in life, which can 
 be the source of such delightful recollection. 
 
 The forms of the mountains which surround 
 the Italian lakes are somewhat similar to those 
 that are to be met with in the Highlands of 
 Scotland, or at the Lake of Killarney ; but the 
 great superiority which they possess over any 
 thing in this country, consists in the gay and 
 smiling aspect which nature there exhibits. The 
 base only of the Highland hills is clothed with 
 wood; huge and shapeless swells of heath 
 form the upper parts of the mountains ; and 
 
156 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the summits partake of the gloomy character 
 which the tint of brown or purple throws over 
 the scene. But the mountains which surround 
 the Italian lakes are varied to the summit with 
 life and animation. The woods ascend to the 
 highest peaks, and clothe the most savage 
 cliffs in a robe of verdure; white and sunny 
 villages rise one above another, in endless 
 succession, to the upper parts of the moun- 
 tains ; and innumerable churches, on every 
 projecting point, mark the sway of religion, 
 even in the most remote and inaccessible si- 
 tuations. The English lakes are often cold 
 and cheerless, from the reflection of a dark or 
 lowering sky; but the Italian lakes are per- 
 fectly blue, and partake of the brilliant colours 
 with which the firmament is filled. In the 
 morning, in particular, when the level sun 
 glitters on the innumerable white villages 
 which surround the Lago Maggiore, the reflec- 
 tion of the cottages, and steeples, and woods, 
 in the blue and glassy surface of the lake, 
 seems to realize the descriptions of the poets in 
 their happiest and most inspired veins. 
 
 The Lago Maggiore is the most celebrated of 
 these lakes, because it lies most in the way of 
 ordinary travellers ; but, in variety of forms, 
 and in the grandeur of the surrounding objects, 
 it is decidedly inferior to the Lago Lugano, 
 which is, perhaps, upon the whole, the most 
 beautiful lake in Europe. The mountains 
 which surround this lake are not only very 
 lofty, from 4000 to 5000 feet high, but broken 
 into a thousand fantastic forms, and split with 
 chasms of the most terrific description. On 
 one of the loftiest of these pinnacles, immedi- 
 ately above the centre of the lake, is placed the 
 castle of St. Salvador; and the precipice, from 
 its turrets to the surface of the water, is cer- 
 tainly not less than 2000 feet. Nevertheless, 
 this stupendous cliff is clothed, in every cre- 
 vice where the birch can fix its root, with 
 luxuriant woods ; and so completely does this 
 soft covering change the character of the scene, 
 that even this dreadful precipice is rather a 
 beautiful than a terrific object. The great 
 characteristic and principal beauty of the Lago 
 Lugano, arises from its infinite variety, occa- 
 sioned by the numbers of mountains which 
 project into its centre, and by presenting an 
 infinite variety of headlands, promontories, and 
 bays, give it rather the appearance of a great 
 number of small lakes connected together, than 
 of one extensive sheet of water. Nor can 
 imagination itself conceive, any thing equal to 
 the endless variety of scenery, which is pre- 
 sented by following the deeply indented shores 
 of this lake, or the varied effect of the number- 
 less villages and churches, which present 
 themselves at every turn, to relieve and ani- 
 mate the scene. 
 
 Foreigners, from every part of Europe, are 
 accustomed to speak of the Boromcan Islands 
 with a degree of enthusiasm which raises the 
 expectation to too high a pitch, and of course 
 is apt to produce disappointment. They are 
 laid out in the Italian style of gardening, w^th 
 stiff alleys, marble fountains, statues, terraces, 
 and other works of art. But this style, how- 
 ever curious or meritorious in itself, arid as a 
 specimen of the skill or dexterity of the gar- 
 
 dener, is universally allowed to be ill adapted 
 to the scenery of real nature, and is more par- 
 ticularly out of place in the Italian lakes, 
 where the vast and broken ridge of the Alps 
 forms the magnificent distance, and gives the 
 prevailing character to the scene. 
 
 The Isola Madre is the most pleasing of these 
 celebrated islands, being covered with wood in 
 the interior, and adorned round the shores 
 with a profusion of the most beautiful flower- 
 ing shrubs. It is difficult to imagine a more 
 splendid prospect than the view from this 
 island, looking towards the ridge of the Simplon. 
 Numerous white villages, placed at intervals 
 along the shore, enliven the green luxuriant 
 woods which descend to the lake ; and in the 
 farther distance, the broken and serrated ridge 
 of the mountains, clustering round the snowy 
 peaks of Monte Rosa, combines the grandeur 
 of Alpine with the softness of Italian scenery. 
 The buildings, which are so beautifully dis- 
 posed along the shore, partake of the elegance 
 of the scene ; they are distinguished, for the 
 most part, by the taste which seems to be the 
 native growth of the soil of Italy ; and the lake 
 itself resembles a vast mirror, in which the 
 splendid scenery which surrounds it is reflected, 
 with more even than its original beauty. 
 
 The lake of Como, as is well known, was 
 the favourite residence of Pliny; and a villa 
 on its shore bears the name of the Villa Pli- 
 niana ; but whether it is built on the scite of 
 the Roman philosopher's dwelling, has not 
 been ascertained. The immediate vicinity, 
 however, of the intermitting spring, which he 
 has so well described, makes it probable that 
 the ancient villa was at no great distance from 
 the modern one which bears its name. Eustace 
 has dwelt, with his usual eloquence, on the 
 interest which this circumstance gives to this 
 beautiful lake. 
 
 Towards its upper end, the lake of Como 
 assumes a different aspect from that by which 
 it is distinguished at its lower extremity. The 
 hills in the vicinity of Como, and as far to the 
 north as Menagio, are soft in their forms, and 
 being clothed to their summits with vineyards 
 and woods, they present rather a beautiful 
 than a sublime spectacle. But towards the 
 upper end the scene assumes a more savage 
 character. The chestnut woods and orange 
 groves no longer appear; the oak and the fir 
 cover the bold and precipitous banks which 
 hang over the lake ; and the snowy peaks of 
 the Bernhardin and Mount Splugen rise in 
 gloomy magnificence at the extremity of the 
 scene. On approaching Chiavenna, the broad 
 expanse of water dwindles into a narrow 
 stream ; the banks on either side approach so 
 near, as to give the scenery the appearance of 
 a mountain valley ; and the Alps, which close 
 it in, are clothed Vith forests of fir, or present 
 vast and savage precipices of rock. From 
 this point there is an easy passage over the 
 Bernhardin to the Rheinthal, and the interest- 
 ing country of the Grisons ; and the Val de 
 Misox, through which the road lea"ds, is one of 
 the most beautiful on the southern side of the 
 Alps, and particularly remarkable for the 
 magnificent castles with which its projecting 
 points are adorned. 
 
ITALY. 
 
 157 
 
 The tour which is usually followed in the 
 Italian lakes, is to visit first the Lago Maggion', 
 and then drive to Como, and ascend to the 
 Villa Pliniana, or to Menagio, and return to 
 Como or Lecco. By following this course, 
 however, the La go Lugano is wholly omitted, 
 which is perhaps the most picturesque of all 
 the three. The better plan is to ascend from 
 Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore, to the upper 
 end of that lake ; and after exploring its varied 
 beauties, land at Luvino, and cross from thence 
 to Ponte Tresa, and there embark for Lugano, 
 from whence you reach Porlezza by water, 
 through the most magnificent part of the Lago 
 Lugano ; from thence cross to Menagio, on the 
 lake of Como, whence, as from a central 
 point, the traveller may ascend to Chiavenna, 
 or descend to Lecco or Como, as his time or 
 inclination may prescribe. 
 
 It is one most interesting characteristic of 
 the people who dwell on these beautiful lakes, 
 that they seem to be impressed with a genuine 
 and unaffected piety. The vast number of 
 churches placed in every village, and crown- 
 ing every eminence, is a proof of how much 
 has been done for the service of religion. But 
 it is a more interesting spectacle, to behold 
 the devotion with which the ordinances of 
 religion are observed in all these places of 
 worship. Numerous as the churches are, they 
 seem to be hardly able to contain the numbers 
 who frequent them; and it is no unusual 
 spectacle to behold crowds of both sexes 
 kneeling on the turf in the church-yard on 
 Sunday forenoon, who could not find room in 
 the church itself. There is something singu- 
 larly pleasing in such manifestation of simple 
 devotion. Whatever may be the diversity in 
 points of faith, which separate Christians from 
 each other, the appearance of sincere piety, 
 more especially in the poorer classes, is an 
 object of interest, and fitted to produce respect. 
 We are too apt to imagine, in England, that 
 real devotion is little felt in Catholic states ; 
 but whoever has travelled in the Alps, or 
 dwelt on the Italian Lakes, must be convinced 
 that this belief is without foundation. The 
 poor people who attend these churches, are in 
 general neatly, and even elegantly, dressed; 
 and the Scripture pieces which are placed 
 above the altar, rude as they may be, are dis- 
 tinguished by a beauty of expression, and a 
 grace of design, which proves in "the most 
 striking way how universally a taste for the 
 fine arts is diffused throughout the peasantry 
 of Italy. While gliding along the placid sur- 
 face of i these lakes, the traveller beholds with 
 delight the crowds of well-dressed people who 
 descend from the churches that are placed 
 along their shores ; and it is sometimes a most 
 interesting incident, amidst the assemblage of 
 forests and precipices which the scenery pre- 
 sents, to see the white dresses of the peasantry 
 winding down the almost perpendicular face 
 of the mountains, or emerging from the luxu- 
 riant forests with which their sides are clothed. 
 
 The climate in these lakes is delightful. The 
 vicinity of the mountain indeed attracts fre- 
 quent rains, which has rendered Como pro- 
 verbial in Lombardy for the wetness of its 
 climate ; but when the shower is over, the sky 
 
 reassumes its delicious blue, and the sun 
 shines with renovated splendour on the green 
 woods and orange groves which adorn the 
 mountain sides. Perhaps the remarkable and 
 beautiful greenness of the foliage, which cha- 
 racterizes the scenery of all these lakes, is 
 owing to the frequent showers which the 
 i height of the surrounding mountains occa- 
 | sions ; and if so, we owe to them one of the 
 ! most singular and characteristic beauties by 
 J which they are distinguished. 
 
 ITALY comprises four great divisions: in 
 each of which the face of nature, the mode of 
 cultivation, and the condition of the people, is 
 very different from what it is in the others. 
 
 The first of these embraces the vast plain 
 which lies between the Alps and the Apen- 
 nines, and extends from Coni on the west to 
 the Adriatic on the east. It is bounded on the 
 south by the Apennines, which, branching off 
 from the Maritime Alps, run in a south-easterly 
 direction to the neighbourhood of Lorretto; 
 and on the north by the chain of the Alps, 
 which presents a continued face of precipices 
 from sea to sea. This rich and beautiful plain 
 is, with the exception of a few inconsiderable 
 hills, a perfect level; insomuch that for two 
 hundred miles there is not a single ascent to 
 be met with. Towards its western end, in the 
 plain of Piedmont, the soil is light and sandy; 
 but it becomes richer as you proceed to the 
 eastward, and from Lodi to Ferrara is com- 
 posed of the finest black mould. It is watered 
 by numberless streams, which descend from 
 the adjacent mountains, and roll their tributary 
 waters to the Po, and this supply of water, 
 joined to the unrivalled fertility of the soil, 
 renders this district the richest, in point of 
 agricultural produce, that exists in Europe. 
 An admirable system of cultivation has long 
 been established in this fertile plain ; and three 
 successive crops annually reward the labours 
 of the husbandman. 
 
 The second extends over all the declivities 
 of the. Apennines, from the frontiers of France 
 to the southern extremity of Calabria. This 
 immense region comprises above half of the 
 whole superficial extent of Italy, and main- 
 tains a very great proportion of its inhabitants". 
 It everywhere consists of swelling hills, rapid 
 descents, and narrow valleys, and yields spon- 
 taneously the choicest fruits. The olive, the 
 vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the sweet 
 chestnut, and all the fruits of northern climates, 
 flourish in the utmost luxuriance on the sunny 
 slopes of Tuscany and the Roman Spates ; while 
 in Naples and Calabria, in addition to these, 
 are to be found the orange tree, the citron, the 
 palm, and the fruits of tropical regions. The 
 higher parts of these mountains are covered 
 by magnificent forests of sweet chestnuts, 
 which yield subsistence to a numerous popu- 
 lation, at the height of many thousand feel 
 above the sea; while, at the summit, pastures 
 are to be found, similar to those of the Che- 
 viot Hills in Scotland. 
 
 The third region comprises the plains which 
 lie between the Apennines and the Mediterra- 
 nean, and extends from the neighbourhood of 
 Pisa to the mountains of Terracino. This dis- 
 trict, once covered by a numerous population, 
 O 
 
158 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 and cultivated in the most careful manner, is 
 now almost a desert. It is the region of insa- 
 lubrious air; and no means have yet been 
 devised by which it is possible to enable the 
 human race to flourish under its pestilential 
 influence. After leaving the highest state of 
 civilization in Florence or Rome, the traveller 
 is astonished to find himself in the midst of 
 vast plains, over which numerous flocks of 
 cattle wander at large under the care of shep- 
 herds mounted on horseback, and armed after 
 the fashion of the steppes of Tartary. This 
 division includes under it all the plains which 
 lie between the Apennines and the Mediterra- 
 nean, in the Neapolitan territory, among which 
 the Maremma of Pestuni is most conspicuous ; 
 and nothing but the vast population of Naples 
 prevents its celebrated Campagna from relaps- 
 ing into the same desolate state. 
 
 The fourtn great division comprehends the 
 plains which lie to the eastward of the Apen- 
 nines, in the kingdom of Naples, and is bound- 
 ed by the Adriatic sea on the one side, and the 
 irregular line of the mountains on the other. It 
 is in some places from fifty to one hundred miles 
 broad, and in others the mountains approach 
 the sea-shore. The country is flat, or rises into 
 extensive downs, and is cultivated in large 
 farms, where it is under agricultural manage- 
 ment; but a great proportion is devoted entirely 
 to pasturage. Immense forests of olive are 
 to be met with in this remote district, and the 
 hills are covered with vines, and oranges, and 
 other fruits, with corn growing under them. 
 
 The only range of mountains which pro- 
 perly and exclusively belongs to Italy is the 
 Apennines ; and they extend over more than 
 half of the country. Their height is very va- 
 rious ; in the vicinity of Genoa they rise to 
 about 4500 feet; above Pontrimoli, on the 
 borders of Tuscany and Lombardy, they reach 
 5500 to 6000 feet, and the great ridge which 
 stretches from Bologna by Valombrosa, to the 
 south-east, rises in some places to between 
 6000 and 7000. They are not, in general, very- 
 rocky ; at least it is only in their higher emi- 
 nences that this character appears. Their 
 lower parts, everywhere almost, are covered 
 with fruit trees, under the shade of which, in 
 the southern exposures, crops of grain are 
 brought to maturity. Higher up, the sweet 
 chestnut covers the ascent, and supports an 
 immense population at an elevation above the 
 sea where no food for man could be procured 
 in our climate. The pine, the beech, and the 
 fir, occupy those higher regions in which are 
 Valombrosa, Lavernia, and Camaldoli ; and at 
 the summits of all, the open dry pastures fur- 
 nish subsistence to numerous flocks. This 
 great capability of the Apennines to yield food 
 for the use of man, is the cause of the extraor- 
 dinary populousness of its slopes. In the 
 remotest recesses the traveller discovers vil- 
 lages and towns ; and on the face of mountains 
 where the eye at a distance can discern nothing 
 but wood, he finds, on a nearer approach, every 
 spot of ground carefully cultivated. The vil- 
 lages and towns are commonly situated on the 
 summits of eminences, and frequently sur- 
 rounded by walls and tqwers ; a practice which 
 began in the turbulent periods of the Italian re- 
 
 publics, and has been since continued from 
 the dread of malaria in the bottom of the val- 
 leys. It adds greatly to the picturesque effect 
 of the mountain scenery, and gives it a cha- 
 racter altogether peculiar. In the Tuscan 
 states, the lower ranges of the Apennines have 
 been the object of the utmost care, and of an 
 almost inconceivable expenditure of capital. 
 They are regularly cut in terraces, and when- 
 ever an opportunity occurs, water is brought 
 from the adjoining canals to every field, so 
 that the whole valley is as it were covered 
 with a network of small streams, which convey 
 their freshness all around. The olives and 
 figs which flourish in this delightful region are 
 foreign to the Tuscan soil ; there is not a tree 
 there which is the spontaneous production of 
 nature; they are all planted and pruned by the 
 hand of man. 
 
 Nothing can be imagined more sterile in 
 itself, or more adverse to any agricultural im- 
 provement, than the aspect of nature in the 
 Apennines. Their sides present a series of 
 broken rocks, barren slopes, or arid cliffs. 
 The roots of the bushes, laid bare by the au- 
 tumnal rains, are, by degrees, dried up by the 
 heat of the sun. They perish, and leave nothing 
 behind them but a few odoriferous shrubs dis- 
 persed on the rocks to cover the wreck. The 
 narrow ravines between them present, in 
 summer, only the dry beds of torrents, in 
 which fallen trees, rocks, and gravel, are 
 accumulated by the violence of the winter 
 rains. This debris is brought down by the 
 torrents into the wider valleys, and whole tracts 
 of country are desolated by a sterile mass of 
 stone and gravel. Thus the mountains and 
 the valleys at their feet seem equally incapa- 
 ble of culture; but the industry of the Italians 
 has overcome these obstacles, and converted 
 mountains, to appearance the most sterile that 
 imagination could conceive, into a succession 
 of gardens, in which every thing that is most 
 delightful, as well as useful, is assembled. 
 
 This astonishing metamorphosis has been 
 effected by the introduction of the terrace sys- 
 tem of culture, an improvement which seems 
 to have been unknown to the ancient Romans, 
 and to have spread in Europe with the return 
 of the Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries. (Chateauvieux, 300.) Nothing could 
 oppose the destructive force of the torrents, but 
 altering the surface of the hills, and thereby 
 breaking the course of the waters. This was 
 an immense work, for it required the whole 
 soil to be displaced, and built up by means of 
 artificial walls into successive terraces; and 
 this in many places could be effected only by 
 breaking solid rocks, and bringing a new soil 
 from distant places. 
 
 The artificial land, so dearly purchased, is 
 designed for the cultivation of fruits and vege- 
 tables. The terraces are always covered with 
 fruit-trees placed in a reflected sun. Amidst 
 the reverberations of so many walls, the fruit 
 is most abundant and superior in its kind. 
 ! No room is lost in these limited situations, 
 : the vine extends its branches along the walls; 
 I a hedge formed of the same vine branches 
 surrounds each terrace, and covers it with 
 verdure. In the corners formed by the meeting 
 
ITALY. 
 
 159 
 
 of the supporting walls, fig-trees are planted 
 to vegetate under their protection. The owner 
 takes advantage of every vacant space left be- 
 tween the olive-trees to raise melons and vege- 
 tables ; so that he obtains on a very limited ex- 
 tent, olive, grapes, pomegranates, and melons. 
 So great is the produce of this culture that, 
 under good management, half the crop of seven 
 acres is sufficient for a family of five persons : 
 being little more than the produce of three- 
 fourths of an acre to each soul. This little 
 space is often divided into more than twenty 
 terraces. 
 
 A great part of the mountainous part of 
 Italy has adopted this admirable culture : and 
 this accounts for the great population which 
 everywhere inhabit the Italian mountains, and 
 explains the singular fact, that, in scenes 
 where nothing but continued foliage meets the 
 eye, the traveller finds, on a nearer approach, 
 villages and hamlets, and all the signs of a 
 numerous peasantry. 
 
 Continued vigilance is requisite to maintain 
 these works. If the attention of the husband- 
 man is intermitted for any considerable time, 
 the violence of the rains destroys what it had 
 cost so much labour to create. Storms and 
 torrents wash down the soil, and the terraces 
 are broken through or overwhelmed by the 
 rubbish, which is brought down from the 
 higher parts of the mountain. Every thing 
 returns rapidly to its former state ; the vigour 
 of southern vegetation covers the ruins of 
 human industry: and there soon remains only 
 shapeless vestiges covered by briers. 
 
 The system of irrigation in the valley of the 
 Arno is a most extraordinary monument of 
 human industry. Placed between two ridges 
 of mountains, one of them very elevated, it was 
 periodically devastated by numerous torrents, 
 which were precipitated from the mountains, 
 charged with stone and rubbish. To control 
 these destructive inundations, means were 
 contrived to confine the course of the torrents 
 within strong walls, which serve, at the same 
 time for the formation of a great number of 
 canals. At regular distances, openings are 
 formed below the mean level of the stream, 
 that the water may run out laterally, overflow 
 the land, and remain on it long enough to 
 deposit the mud with which it is charged. A 
 great many canals, by successive outlets of the 
 water, divide the principal current and check 
 its rapidity. These canals are infinitely sub- 
 divided, and to such a degree, that there is not 
 a single square of land, which is not sur- 
 rounded by them. They are all lined with 
 walls, built with square bricks; the scarcity 
 of water rendering the most vigilant economy 
 of it necessary. A number of small bridges 
 connect the multitude of little islands, into 
 which these canals subdivide the country. 
 These works are still kept in good repair; but 
 the whole wealth of Tuscany could not now 
 furnish the sums requisite for their construc- 
 tion. That was done by Florence in the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in the days 
 of her republican freedom. 
 
 The third agricultural division of Italy, is 
 the Maremma, or the plains on the sea-shore 
 in Tuscany, and the Roman States, where the 
 
 prevalence of the malaria renders it impossible 
 to live permanently. This region is every- 
 where divided into great estates, and let in 
 large farms. The Maremma of Rome, forty 
 leagues in length and from ten to fifteen in 
 breadth, and which feeds annually 67,000 
 horned cattle, is cultivated by only eighty farm- 
 ers. These farmers live in Rome or Sienna, 
 for the unhealthiness of the atmosphere pre- 
 cludes the possibility of their dwelling on the 
 lands they cultivate. Each farm has on it 
 only a single house, which rises in the midst 
 of desolation. No garden, or orchards, or 
 meadows, announce the vicinity of a human 
 habitation. It stands alone in the midst of a 
 vast solitude, with the cattle pasturing up to 
 the walls of the dwelling. 
 
 The whole wealth of these great farms con- 
 sists in their cattle. The farm servants are 
 comparatively few, and they are constantly 
 on horseback. Armed with a gun and a lance, 
 the shepherds, as in the wilds of Tartary, are 
 constantly in the open air tending the herds 
 committed to their care. They receive no 
 fixed wages, but are paid in cattle, which graze 
 with the herds of their masters. The mildness of 
 the climate permits the grass to grow during all 
 the winter, and so the flocks are maintained there 
 in that season. In summer, as the excessive heat 
 renders the pastures parched and scanty, the 
 flocks are sent to the highest ridges of the Apen- 
 nines in quest of cool air and fresh herbage. 
 The oxen, however, and cows of the Hungarian 
 breed, are able both to bear the heat of sum- 
 mer, and to find food during its continuance in 
 the Maremma. They remain, therefore, during 
 all the year; and the shepherds who tend them 
 continue exposed to the pestilential air during 
 the autumnal months. The woods are stocked 
 with swine, and the marshes with buffaloes. 
 So great is the quantity of the live-stock on. 
 these immense farms, that on one visited by 
 Mr. Chateauvieux were cattle to the value of 
 16,000/. sterling, and the farmer had two other 
 farms on which the stocking was of equal 
 value. 
 
 In the Terra di Lavoro, or Campagna of Na- 
 ples, the extreme richness of the soil has given 
 rise to a mode of culture different from any 
 which has yet been described. The aspect of 
 this great plain is, perhaps, the most striking 
 in point of agricultural riches that exists in the 
 world. The great heat of the sun renders it 
 necessary that the grain should be shaded by 
 trees ; arid accordingly the whole country is 
 intersected by rows of elms or willows, which 
 divide it into small portions of half or three 
 quarters of an acre each. A vine is planted 
 at the foot of every tree ; and such is the 
 luxuriance of vegetation, that it not only rises 
 in a few years to the very summit, but extends 
 its branches in a lateral direction, so as to 
 admit of festoons being trained from one tree 
 to another. These trees are not pollarded as 
 in Tuscany and Lombardy, but allowed to 
 grow to their full height, so that it is not 
 unusual to see a vine clustering around the 
 top of a poplar sixty or eighty feet high. 
 Under their shade the soil produces annually 
 a double crop, one of which is of wheat or 
 maize. Melons are cultivated in great quanti- 
 
160 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ties, and with hardly any manure. Thickets i charming perfumes over the adjoining country; 
 of fig-trees, of peaches, and aloes, grow spon- ' while the rocky eminences are covered with 
 taneously on the borders of the fields. Groves vines, which produce fruits of the most deli- 
 of orange clothe the slopes, and spread their | cious flavour. 
 
 SCOTT, CAMPBELL, AND BYRON.* 
 
 WE have listened with admiration to the 
 eloquent strains in which the first in rank-j- 
 and the first in genius^ have proposed the 
 memory of the immortal bard whose genius 
 we are this day assembled to celebrate; but I 
 know not whether the toast which I have now 
 to propose has not equal claims to our enthu- 
 siasm. Your kindness and that of the com- 
 mittee has intrusted to me the memory of three 
 illustrious men the far-famed successors of 
 Burns, who have drank deep at the fountains 
 of his genius, and proved themselves the worthy 
 inheritors of his inspiration. And Scotland, 
 I rejoice to say, can claim them all as her 
 own. For if the Tweed has been immortalized 
 by the grave of Scott, the Clyde can boast the 
 birthplace of Campbell, and the mountains 
 of the Dee first inspired the muse of Byron. 
 I rejoice at that burst of patriotic feeling ; I 
 hail it as the presage, that as Ayrshire has 
 raised a fitting monument to Burns, and Edin- 
 burgh has erected a fitting structure to the 
 author of Waverley, so Glasgow will, ere long, 
 raise a worthy monument to the bard whose 
 name will never die while hope pours its balm 
 through the human heart ; and Aberdeen will, 
 worthily, commemorate the far-famed tra- 
 veller who first inhaled the inspiration of na- 
 ture amidst the clouds of Loch-na-Gar, and 
 afterwards poured the light of his genius over 
 those lands of the sun, where his descending 
 orb sets 
 
 " Not as in northern climes obscurely bright, 
 But one unclouded blaze of living light." 
 
 Scotland, my lord, may well be proud of hav- 
 ing given birth to, or awakened the genius of 
 such men; but she can no longer call these 
 exclusively her own their names have be- 
 come household words in every land. Man- 
 kind claims them as the common inheritance 
 of the human race. Look around us, and we 
 shall see on every side decisive proof how 
 far and wide admiration for their genius has 
 sunk into the hearts of men. What is it that 
 attracts strangers from every part of the world, 
 into this distant land, and has more than com- 
 pensated for a remote situation and a churlish 
 soil, and given to our own northern isle a 
 splendour unknown to the regions of the sun? 
 What is it which has brought together this 
 mighty assemblage, and united the ardent 
 
 * Speech delivered at the Burns Festival, on 6th Au- 
 gust, 1844, on proposing the memory of Scott, Campbell, 
 and Byron. 
 
 t Earl of Eglinton, who presided. 
 
 t Professor Wilson. 
 
 and the generous from every part of the world, 
 from the Ural mountains to the banks of the 
 Mississippi, on the shores of an island in the 
 Atlantic 1 My lord, it is neither the magni- 
 ficence of our cities, nor the beauty of our 
 valleys, the animation of our harbours, nor 
 the stillness of our mountains: it is neither 
 our sounding cataracts nor our spreading 
 lakes : neither the wilds of nature we have 
 subdued so strenuously, nor the blue hills we 
 have loved so well. These beauties, great as 
 they are, have been equalled in other lands ; 
 these marvels, wondrous though they be, have 
 parallels in other climes. It is the genius of 
 her sons which have given Scotland her proud 
 pre-eminence ; this it is, more even than the 
 shades of Bruce, of Wallace, and of Mary, 
 which has rendered her scenes classic ground 
 to the whole civilized world, and now brings 
 pilgrims from the most distant parts of the 
 earth, as on this day, to worship at the shrine 
 of genius. 
 
 Yet Albyn ! yet the praise be thine, 
 
 Thy scenes with story to combine ; 
 
 Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays, 
 
 List to the tale of other days. 
 
 Midst Cartlane crags thou showest the cave, 
 
 The refuge of thy champion brave ; 
 
 Giving each rock a storied tale, 
 
 Pouring a lay through every dale ; 
 
 Knitting, as with a moral band, 
 
 Thy story to thy native land ; 
 
 Combining thus the interest high, 
 
 Which genius lends to beauty's eye! 
 
 But the poet who conceived these beautiful 
 lines, has done more than all our ancestors' 
 valour to immortalize the land of his birth ; 
 for he has united the interest of truth with the 
 charms of fiction, and peopled the realm not 
 only with the shadows of time, but the crea- 
 tions of genius. In those brilliant creations, 
 as in the glassy wave, we behold mirrored the 
 lights, the shadows, the forms of reality; and 
 yet 
 
 So pure, so fair, the mirror gave, 
 
 As if there lay beneath the wave, 
 
 Secure from trouble, toil, and care, 
 
 A world than earthly world more fair. 
 
 Years have rolled on, but they have taken no- 
 thing, they have added much, to the fame of 
 those illustrious men. 
 
 Time but the impression deeper makes, 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 
 The voice of ages has spoken : it has given 
 Campbell and Byron the highest place, with 
 Burns, in lyric poetry, and destined Scott 
 To rival all but Shakgpeare's name below. 
 Their names now shine in unapproachable 
 splendour, far removed, like the fixed stars, 
 
SCOTT, CAMPBELL, AND 
 
 from the clouds and the rivalry of a lower 
 world. To the end of time, they will maintain 
 their exalted station. Never will the culti- 
 vated traveller traverse the sea of the Archipe- 
 lago, that "The isles of Greece, the isles of 
 Greece," will not recur to his recollection ; 
 never will he approach the shores of Loch 
 Katrine, that the image of Ellen Douglas will 
 not be present to his memory ; never will he 
 gaze on the cliffs of Britain, that he will not 
 thrill at the exploits of the "mariners of Eng- 
 land, who guard our native seas." Whence 
 has arisen this great, this universally acknow- 
 ledged celebrity 1 My lord, it is hard to say 
 whether we have most to admire the brilliancy 
 of their fancy, or the creations of their genius, 
 the beauty of their verses, or the magic of 
 their language, the elevation of their thoughts, 
 or the pathos of their conceptions. Yet can 
 each boast a separate grace ; and their age 
 has witnessed in every walk the genius of 
 poetry elevated to its highest strain. In Scott 
 it is variety of conception, truth and fidelity 
 of delineation in character, graphic details of 
 the olden time, which is chiefly to be admired. 
 Who can read without transport his glowing 
 descriptions of the age of chivalry ? Its massy 
 castles and gloomy vaults, its haughty nobles 
 and beauteous dames, its gorgeous pageantry 
 and prancing steeds, stand forth under his 
 magic pencil with all the colours and bril- 
 liancy of reality. We are present at the shock 
 of armies, we hear the shouts of mortal com- 
 batants, we see the flames of burning castles, 
 we weep in the dungeon of captive innocence. 
 Yet who has so well and truly delineated the 
 less obtrusive but not less impressive scenes 
 of humble life? Who has so faithfully por- 
 trayed the virtues of the cottage ; who has done 
 so much to elevate human nature, by exhibiting 
 its dignity even in the abyss of misfortune; 
 who has felt so truly and told so well "the 
 might that slumbers in a peasant's arm 1" In 
 Byron it is the fierce contest of the passions, 
 the yearning of a soul longing for the stern 
 realities of life, amidst the seduction of its 
 frivolity; the brilliant conceptions of a mind 
 fraught with the imagery and recollections of 
 the east, which chiefly captivates every mind. 
 His pencil is literally "dipt in the orient hues 
 " He transports us to enchanted 
 
 161 
 
 of heaven. 
 
 ground, wherdlthe^cenes which speak most 
 powerfully to "Mj^-l! of man are brought 
 successively before our eyes. The east, with 
 its deathless scenes and cloudless skies; its 
 wooded steeps and mouldering fanes, its glassy 
 seas and lovely vales, rises up like magic be- 
 fore us. The haughty and yet impassioned 
 Turk; the crouching but still gifted Greek; 
 the wandering Arab, the cruel Tartar, the fa- 
 natic Moslem, stand before us like livingbeings, 
 they are clothed with flesh and blood. But 
 there is one whose recent death we all deplore, 
 but who has lighted " the torch of Hope at na- 
 ture's funeral pile," v/ho has evinced a yet 
 higher inspiration. In Campbell, it is the mo- 
 ral purposes to which he has directed his 
 mighty powers, which is the real secret of his 
 success; the lofty objects to which he has de- 
 voted his life, which have proved his passport 
 to immortality. To whatever quarter he has 
 turned his mind, we behold the working of the 
 same elevated spirit. Whether he paints the 
 disastrous day, when, 
 
 Oh bloodiest picture in the book of Time, 
 Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime ; 
 
 or portrays with generous ardour the ima- 
 ginary paradise on Susquehanna's shore, 
 where 
 
 The world was pad, the garden was a wild, 
 And man, the hermit, sighed till woman smiled ; 
 
 or transports us to that awful time when Chris- 
 tian faith remains unshaken amidst the disso- 
 lution of nature, 
 
 And ships are drifting with their dead, 
 To shores where all is dumb, 
 
 we discern the same mind, seeing every ob- 
 ject through its own sublime and lofty vision. 
 Thence has arisen his deathless name. It is 
 because he has unceasingly contended for the 
 best interests of humanity; because he has 
 ever asserted the dignity of a human soul ; be- 
 cause he has never forgotten that amidst all 
 the distinctions of time 
 
 " The rank is hut the guinea stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a' that ;" 
 
 because he has regarded himself as the high- 
 priest of nature, and the world which we in- 
 habit as the abode not merely of human cares 
 and human joys, but as the temple of the liv- 
 ing God, in which praise is due, and where 
 service is to be performed. 
 
 21 
 
 o2 
 
162 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF DESIGN/ 
 
 WE stand in this community in a very 
 peculiar situation, and which loudly calls for 
 immediate attention of all interested in their 
 country's greatness. We have reached the very 
 highest point of commercial greatness. Such 
 has been the growth of our mechanical power, 
 such the marvels of our commercial enter- 
 prise ! But, when we turn to the station we oc- 
 cupy in the arts of design, in these very arts 
 in which, as a manufacturing community, we 
 are so deeply interested, we see a very different 
 spectacle. We see foreigners daily flocking 
 from all parts of the world to the shores of the 
 Clyde or the Mersey, to study our railways, 
 and our canals; to copy our machinery, to 
 take models of our steam-vessels but we see 
 none coming to imitate our designs. On the 
 contrary, we, who take the lead of all the world 
 in mechanical invention, in the powers of art, 
 are obliged to follow them in the designs to 
 which these powers are to be applied. Gentle- 
 men, this should not be. We have now arrived 
 at that period of manufacturing progress, when 
 we must take the lead in design, or we shall 
 cease to have orders for performance we 
 must be the first in conception, or we will be 
 the last in execution. To others, the Fine Arts 
 may be a matter of gratification or ornament; 
 to a manufacturing community it is one of 
 life or death. We may, however, be encou- 
 raged to hope that we may yet and ere long 
 attain to eminence in the Fine Arts, from ob- 
 serving how uniformly in past times com- 
 mercial greatness has co-existed with purity 
 of taste and the development of genius ; in so 
 much that it is hard to say whether art has 
 owed most to the wealth of commerce, or com- 
 merce to the perfection of art. Was it not 
 the wealth of inland commerce which, even in 
 the deserts of Asia, reared up that great com- 
 monwealth, which once, under the guidance 
 of Zenobia, bade defiance to the armies of 
 imperial Rome, and the ruins of which, at 
 Tadmor and Palmyra, still attract the admira- 
 tion of the traveller? Was it not the wealth 
 of maritime commerce which, on the shores 
 of the JEgean sea, raised that great republic 
 which achieved a dominion over the minds of 
 men more durable than that which had been 
 reared by the legions of Caesar, or the phalanx 
 of Alexander? Was it not the manufactures 
 of Tuscany which gave birth at Florence to 
 that immortal school of painting, the works 
 of which still attract the civilized world to the 
 shores of the Arno? The velvets of Genoa, the 
 jewelry of Venice, long maintained their as- 
 cendency after the political importance of 
 these republics had declined ; and the school 
 of design established sixty years ago at Lyons 
 has enabled its silk manufactures to preserve 
 the lead in Europe despite the carnage of the 
 Convention, and the wars of Napoleon. In 
 
 * Speech delivered on Nov. 2S, 1843. in proposing the 
 establishment of a School of Design in Glasgow. 
 
 Flanders and Holland the wealth and enter- 
 prise of commerce, notwithstanding the dis- 
 advantages of a level soil, a cloudy atmosphere, 
 and a humid climate, have produced the im- 
 mortal works of Rubens, Vandyke, and Rem- 
 brandt. Why should a similar result not take 
 place here ? "Arrived at the summit of manu- 
 facturing greatness, why should we be second 
 to any in the arts of design ? Have they pos- 
 sessed advantages which we do not enjoy ? 
 Had they finer cataracts than the Falls of the 
 Clyde, or glens more romantic than Cartland 
 Crags had they nobler oaks than those of 
 Cadzow, or ruins more imposing than those 
 of Bothwell had they galleries finer than the 
 halls of Hamilton, or lakes more lovely than 
 Loch Lomond, or mountains more sublime 
 than those of Arran? Gentlemen, within two 
 hours' journey from Glasgow are to be found 
 combined 
 
 " Whate'er Lorrain hath touched with softening hue, 
 Or savage Rosa dashed, or learned Poussin drew." 
 
 The wealth is here, the enterprise is here, 
 the materials are here ; nothing is wanting 
 but the hand of genius to cast these precious 
 elements into the mould of beauty the lofty 
 spirit, the high aspirations which, aiming at 
 greatness, never fail to attain it. Are we to 
 be told that we cannot do these things; that 
 like the Russians we can imitate but cannot 
 conceive ? It is not in the nation of Smith 
 and of Watt, it is not in the land of Burns 
 and Scott, it is not in the country of Shak- 
 speare and Milton, it is not in the empire of 
 Reynolds and Wren, that we can give any 
 weight to that argument. Nor is it easy 
 to believe that the same genius which has 
 drawn in such enchanting colours the lights 
 and shadows of Scottish life, might not, if 
 otherwise directed, have depicted, with equal 
 felicity, the lights and shadows of Scottish 
 scenery. We have spoken of our interests, 
 we have spoken of our capabilities, we have 
 spoken of what other nations have done ; but 
 there are greater things done than these. No 
 one indeed can doubt that it is in the moral arid 
 religious feelings of the people, that the broad 
 and deep foundations of national prosperity 
 can alone be laid, and that every attempt to 
 attain durable greatness on any other basis 
 will prove nugatory. But we are not only 
 moral and intellectual, we are active agents. 
 We long after gratification we thirst for en- 
 joyment ; and the experienced observer of 
 man will not despise the subsidiary, but still 
 important aid to be derived in the great work 
 of moral elevation, from a due direction of the 
 active propensities. And he is not the least 
 friend to his species, who, in an age peculiar- 
 ly vehement in desire, discovers gratifications 
 which do not corrupt enjoyments which do 
 not degrade. But if this is true of enjoyments 
 simply innocent, what shall we say of those 
 i which refine, which not only do not lead to 
 
LAMARTINE. 
 
 163 
 
 vice, but exalt to virtue? which open to the i longer be delayed. Our wealth is so great, it 
 peasant, equally with the prince, that pure has come on ns so suddenly, it will corrupt if 
 gratification which arises to all alike from the 
 contemplation of the grand and the beautiful 
 
 in Art and in Nature 1 We have now reached 
 that point where such an election can no 
 
 it does not refine; if not directed to the arts 
 which raised Athens to immortality, it will 
 
 sink us to those which hurled Babylon to per- 
 dition. 
 
 LAMARTINE.* 
 
 IT is remarkable, that although England is 
 the country in the world which has sent forth 
 the greatest number of ardent and intrepid 
 travellers to explore the distant parts of the 
 earth, yet it can by no means furnish an array 
 of writers of travels which will bear a compa- 
 rison with those whom France can boast. In 
 skilful navigation, daring adventure, and heroic 
 perseverance, indeed, the country of Cook and 
 Davis, of Bruce and Park, of Mackenzie and 
 Buckingham, of Burckhardt and Byron, of Par- 
 ry and Franklin, may well claim the pre-emi- 
 nence of all others in the world. An English- 
 man first circumnavigated the globe ; an 
 Englishman alone has seen the fountains of 
 the Nile ; and, five years after the ardent spi- 
 rit of Columbus had led his fearful crews 
 across the Atlantic, Sebastian Cabot dis- 
 covered the shores of Newfoundland, and 
 planted the British standard in the regions 
 destined to be peopled with the overflowing 
 multitudes of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 But if we come to the literary works which 
 have followed these ardent and energetic ef- 
 forts, and which are destined to perpetuate 
 their memory to future times the interesting 
 discoveries which have so much extended our 
 knowledge and enlarged our resources the 
 contemplation is by no means, to an inhabitant 
 of these islands, equally satisfactory. The 
 British traveller is essentially a man of en- 
 ergy and action, but rarely of contemplation 
 or eloquence. He is seldom possessed of the 
 scientific acquirements requisite to turn to the 
 best account the vast stores of new and original 
 information which are placed within his reach. 
 He often observes and collects facts ; but it is 
 as a practical man, or for professional pur- 
 poses, rather than as a philosopher. The ge r 
 nius of the Anglo-Saxon race bold, sagacious, 
 and enterprising, rather than contemplative 
 and scientific nowhere appears more strongly 
 than in the accounts of the numerous and in- 
 trepid travellers whom they are continually 
 sending forth into every part of the earth. We 
 admire their vigou r, we a re moved by their hard- 
 ships, we are enriched by their discoveries ; 
 but if we turn to our libraries for works to con- 
 vey to future ages an adequate and interesting 
 account of these fascinating adventures, we 
 shall, in general, experience nothing but dis- 
 appointment. Few of them are written with 
 the practised hand, the graphic eye, necessary 
 to convey vivid pictures to future times; 
 
 * Blackwood'B Magazine, Nov. 1844. 
 
 and though numerous and valuable books of 
 I travels, as works of reference, load the shelves 
 of our libraries, there are surprisingly few 
 which are fitted, from the. interest and vivacity 
 of the style in which they are written, to pos- 
 sess permanent attractions for mankind. 
 
 One great cause of this remarkable peculi- 
 arity is without doubt to be found in the widely 
 different education of the students in our uni- 
 versities, arid our practical men. In the for- 
 mer, classical attainments are in literature the 
 chief, if not exclusive, objects of ambition ; 
 and in consequence, the young aspirants for 
 fame, who issue from these learned retreats, 
 have their minds filled with the charms and 
 associations of antiquity, to the almost entire 
 j exclusion of objects of present interest and im- 
 portance. The vigorous practical men, again, 
 who are propelled by the enterprise and exer- 
 tions of our commercial towns, are sagacious 
 and valuable observers; but they have seldom 
 the cultivated minds, pictorial eye, or powers 
 of description, requisite to convey vivid or in- 
 teresting impressions to others. Thus our 
 scholars give us little more than treatises on 
 inscriptions, and disquisitions on the sites of 
 ancient towns; while the accounts of our ac- 
 tive men are chiefly occupied with commercial 
 inquiries, or subjects connected with trade and 
 navigation. The cultivated and enlightened tra- 
 veller, whose mind is alike open to the charm 
 of ancient story and the interest of modern 
 achievement who is classical without being 
 pedantic, graphic and yet faithful, enthusiastic 
 and yet accurate, discursive and at the same 
 time imaginative, is almost unknown amongst 
 us. It will continue to be so as long as edu- 
 cation in our universities is exclusively devot- 
 ed to Greek and Latin verses, or the higher ma- 
 thematics; and in academies, to book-keeping 
 and the rule of three ; while so broad and sul- 
 len a line as heretofore is drawn between the 
 studies of our scholars and the pursuits of our 
 practical citizens. To travel to good purpose, 
 requires a mind stored with much and varied 
 information, in science, statistics, geography, 
 literature, history, and poetry. To describe 
 what the traveller has seen, requires, in addi- 
 tion to this, the eye of a painter, the soul of a 
 poet, and the hand of a practised composer. Pro- 
 bably it will be deemed no easy matter to find 
 such a combination in any country or in any 
 age ; and most certainly the system of education, 
 neither at our learned universities nor our com- 
 mercial academies, is fitted to produce it. 
 It is from inattention to the vast store of 
 
164 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 previous information requisite to make an ac- 
 complished traveller, and still more a writer 
 of interesting travels, that failures in this 
 branch of literature are so glaring and so fre- 
 quent. In other departments of knowledge, 
 a certain degree of information is felt to be 
 requisite before a man can presume to write 
 a book. He cannot produce a treatise on ma- 
 thematics without knowing at least Euclid, 
 nor a work on history without having read 
 Hume, nor on political economy without 
 having acquired a smattering of Adam Smith. 
 But in regard to travels, no previous informa- 
 tion is thought to be requisite. If the person 
 who sets out on a tour has only money in his 
 pocket, and health to get to his journey's end, he 
 is deemed sufficiently qualified to come out 
 with his two or three post octavos. If he is 
 an Honourable, or known at Almack's, so much 
 the better ; that will ensure the sale of the first 
 edition. If he can do nothing else, he can at 
 least tell the dishes which he got to dinner at 
 the inns, and the hotels where comfortable 
 beds are to be found. This valuable informa- 
 tion, interspersed with a few descriptions of 
 scenes, copied from guide-books, and anecdotes 
 picked up at tablea-d'hofe or on board steam- 
 boats, constitute the stock in trade of many an 
 adventurer who embarks in the speculation 
 of paying by publication the expenses of his 
 travels. We have no individuals in view in 
 these remarks; we speak of things in general, 
 as they are, or rather have been ; for we be- 
 lieve these ephemeral travels, like other ephe- 
 merals, have had their day, and are fast dying 
 out. The market has become so glutted with 
 them that they are, in a great many instances, 
 unsaleable. 
 
 The classical travellers of England, from 
 Addison to Eustace and Clarke, constitute an 
 important and valuable body of writers in this 
 branch of literature, infinitely superior to the 
 fashionable tours which rise up and disappear 
 like bubbles on the surface of society. It is 
 impossible to read these elegant productions 
 without feeling the mind overspread with the 
 charm which arises from the exquisite remains 
 and heart-stirring associations with which they 
 are filled. But their interest is almost exclu- 
 sively classical ; they are invaluable to the ac- 
 complished scholar, but they speak in an un- 
 known tongue to the great mass of men. They 
 see nature only through the medium of anti- 
 quity ; beautiful in their allusion to Greek or 
 Roman remains, eloquent in the descriptions 
 of scenes alluded to in the classical writers, 
 they have dwelt little on the simple scenes of 
 the unhistoric world. 'To the great moral and 
 social questions which now agitate society, and 
 so strongly move the hearts of the great body 
 of men, they are entire strangers. Their works 
 are the elegant companions of the scholar or 
 the antiquary, not the heart-stirring friends of 
 the cottage on the fireside. 
 
 Inferior to Britain in the energy and achieve- 
 ments of the travellers whom she has sent 
 forth, and beyond measure beneath her in the 
 amount of the addition she has made to geo- 
 graphical science, France is yet greatly supe- 
 rior, at least of late years, in the literary and 
 scientific attainments of the wanderers whose 
 
 works have been given to the world. Four 
 among these stand pre-eminent, whose works, 
 in very different styles, are at the head of Eu- 
 ropeon literature in this interesting department 
 Humboldt, Chateaubriand, Michaud, and La- 
 martine. Their styles are so various, and the 
 impressions produced by reading them so dis- 
 tinct, that it is difficult to believe that they have 
 arisen in the same nation and age of the world. 
 
 Humboldt is, in many respects, and perhaps 
 upon the \vbole, at the head of the list; and to 
 his profound and varied works we hope to be 
 able to devote a future paper. He unites, in 
 a degree that perhaps has never before been 
 witnessed, the most various qualities, and 
 which, from the opposite characters of mind 
 which they require, are rarely found in unison. 
 A profound philosopher, an accurate observer 
 of nature, an unwearied statist, he is at the 
 same time an eloquent writer, an incompara- 
 ble describer, and an ardent friend of social 
 improvement. Science owes to his indefati- 
 gable industry many of her most valuable ac- 
 quisitions : geography, to his intrepid perse- 
 verance, many of its most important discove- 
 ries ; the arts, to his poetic eye and fervid elo- 
 quence, many of their brightest pictures. He 
 unites the austere grandeur of the exact 
 sciences to the bewitching charm of the fine 
 arts. It is this very combination which pre- 
 vents his works from being generally popular. 
 The riches of his knowledge, the magnitude 
 of his contributions to scientific discovery, 
 the fervour of his descriptions of nature, al- 
 ternately awaken our admiration and excite 
 our surprise; but they oppress the mind. To 
 be rightly apprehended, they require a reader 
 in some degree familiar with all these subjects ; 
 and how many of these are to be met with ? 
 The man who takes an interest in his scienti- 
 fic observations will seldom be transported by 
 his pictures of scenery; the social observer, 
 who extracts the rich collection of facts which 
 he has accumulated regarding the people whom 
 he visited, will be indifferent to his geographi- 
 cal discoveries. There are few Humboldts 
 either in the reading or thinking world. 
 
 Chateaubriand is a traveller of a wholly 
 different character. He lived entirely in anti- 
 quity; but it is not the antiquity of Greece 
 and Rome which has alone fixed his regards, 
 as it has done those of Clarke and Eustace it is 
 the recollections of chivalry, the devout spirit 
 of the pilgrim, which chiefly warmed his ar- 
 dent imagination. He is universally allowed 
 by Frenchmen of all parties to be their first 
 writer; and it maybe conceived what brilliant 
 works an author of such powers, and emi- 
 nently gifted both with the soul of a poet and 
 the eye of a painter, must have produced in 
 describing the historic scenes to which his 
 pilgrimages extended. He went to Greece and 
 the Holy Land with a mind devout rather than 
 enlightened, credulous rather than inquisitive. 
 Thirsting for strong emotions, he would be 
 satisfied; teeming with the recollections and 
 visions of the past, he traversed the places 
 hallowed by his early affections with the fond- 
 ness of a lover who returns to the home of 
 his bliss, of a mature man who revisits the 
 scenes of his infancy. He cared not to inquire 
 
LAMARTINE. 
 
 105 
 
 what was true or what was legendary in these 
 time-hallowed traditions ; he gladly accepted 
 them as they stood, and studiously averted all 
 inquiry into the foundation on which they 
 rested. He wandered over the Peloponnesus 
 or Judea with the fond ardour of an English 
 scholar who seeks in the Palatine Mount the 
 traces of Virgil's enchanting description of 
 the hut of Evander, and rejects as sacrilege 
 every attempt to shake his faith. 
 
 " When Science from Creation's face 
 
 Enchantment's visions draws. 
 What lovely visions yield their place 
 To cold material law - : " 
 
 Even in the woods of America, the same rul- 
 ing passion was evinced. In those pathless 
 solitudes, where no human foot had ever trod 
 but that of the wandering savage, and the 
 majesty of nature appeared in undisturbed 
 repose, his thoughts were still of the Old 
 World. It was on the historic lands that his 
 heart was set. A man himself, he dwelt on 
 the scenes which had been signalized by the 
 deeds, the sufferings, the glories of man. 
 
 Michaud's mind is akin to that of Chateau- 
 briand, and yet different in many important 
 particulars. The learned and indefatigable 
 historian of the Crusades, he has traversed 
 the shores of the Mediterranean the scene, 
 as Dr. Johnson observed, of all that can ever 
 interest man his religion, his knowledge, his 
 arts with the ardent desire to imprint on his 
 mind the scenes and images which met the 
 eyes of the holy warriors. He seeks to trans- 
 port us to the days of Godfrey of Bouillon and 
 Raymond of Toulouse; he thirsts with the 
 Christian host at Dorislaus, he shares in its 
 anxieties at the siejre of Antioch, he partici- 
 pates in its exultation at the storming of Jeru- 
 salem. The scenes visited by the vast multi- 
 tude of warriors who, during two hundred 
 years, were precipitated from Europe on Asia, 
 have almost all been visited by him, and de- 
 scribed with the accuracy of an antiquary and 
 the enthusiasm of a poet. With the old chro- 
 nicles in his hand, he treads with veneration 
 the scenes of former generous sacrifice and 
 heroic achievements, and the vast and massy 
 structures erected on either side during those 
 terrible wars when, for centuries, Europe 
 strove hand to hand with Asia most of which 
 have undergone very little alteration, enable 
 him to describe them almost exactly as they 
 appeared to the holy warriors. The interest 
 of his pilgrimage in the east, accordingly, is 
 peculiar, but very great ; it is not so much a 
 book of travels as a moving chronicle ; but, 
 like Sir W. Scott's Minstrelsy *f ihePordcrt t iiis 
 a chronicle clothed in a very different garb from 
 the homely dress of the olden time. It trans- 
 ports us back, not only in time but in idea, six 
 hundred years; but it does so with the grace 
 of modern times it clothes the profound feel- 
 ings, the generous sacrifices, the forgetfulness 
 of self of the twelfth century, with the poetic 
 mind, the cultivated taste, the refined imagery 
 of the nineteenth. 
 
 La ma nine has traversed the same scenes 
 with Chateaubriand and Midland, and yet he 
 has done so in a different spirit; and the 
 character of his work is essentially different 
 
 from either. He has not the devout credulity 
 of the first, nor the antiquarian zeal and know- 
 ledge of the last; but he is superior to either 
 in the description of nature, and the painting 
 vivid and interesting scenes on the mind of 
 the reader. His work is a moving panorama, 
 in which the historic scenes and azure skies, 
 and placid seas, and glowing sunsets, of the 
 east, are portrayed in all their native bril- 
 liancy, and in richer even than their native 
 colours. His mind is stored with the associa- 
 tions and the ideas of antiquity, and he has 
 thrown over his descriptions of the scenes of 
 Greece, or Holy Writ, all the charms of such 
 recollections; but he has done so in a more 
 general and catholic spirit than either of his 
 predecessors. He embarked for the Holy 
 Land shortly before the revolution of 1830; 
 and his thoughts, amidst all the associations 
 of antiquity, constantly reverted to the land 
 of his fathers its distractions, its woes, its 
 ceaseless turmoil, its gloomy social prospects. 
 Thus with all his vivid imagination and unri- 
 valled powers of description, the turn of his 
 mind is essentially contemplative. He looks 
 on the past as an emblem of the present; he 
 sees, in the fall of Tyre, and Athens, and Jeru- 
 salem, the fate which one day awaits his own 
 country ; and mourns less the decay of human 
 things, than the popular passions and national 
 sins which have brought that instability in 
 close proximity to his own times. This sen- 
 sitive and foreboding disposition was much 
 increased by the death of his daughter a 
 charming child of fourteen, the companion of 
 his wanderings, the depositary of his thoughts, 
 the darling of his affections who was snatched 
 away in the spring of life, when in health and 
 joy, by one of the malignant fevers incidental 
 to the pestilential plains of the east 
 
 Though Lamartine's travels are continuous, 
 he does not, like most other wanderers, fur- 
 I nish us with a journal of every day's proceed- 
 ings. He was too well aware that many, 
 { perhaps most, days on a journey are monoto- 
 nous or uninteresting; and that great part 
 of the details of a traveller's progress are 
 wholly unworthy of being recorded, because 
 they are neither amusing, elevating, nor in- 
 structive. He paints, now and then, with all 
 the force of his magical pencil, the more bril- 
 liant or characteristic scenes which he visited, 
 and intersperses them with reflections, moral 
 and social ; such as would naturally be aroused 
 in a sensitive mind by the sight of the ruins 
 of ancient, and the contemplation of the decay 
 of modern, times. 
 
 He embarked at Marseilles, with Madame 
 Lamartine and his little daughter Julia, on the 
 10th of July, 1830. The following is the pic- 
 ture of the yearnings of his mind on leaving 
 his native land; and they convey a faithful 
 image of his intellectual temperament: 
 
 'I feel it deeply: I am one only of those 
 
 i men, without a distinctive character, of a 
 
 transitory and fading epoch, whose sighs have 
 
 1 found an echo only because the echo was 
 
 more poetical than the poet. I belong to 
 
 another age by my desires : I feel in myself 
 
 another man: the immense and boundless 
 
 horizon of philosophy, at once profound, re- 
 
166 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ligious, and poetical, has opened to my view; 
 but the punishment of a wasted youth over- 
 took me ; it soon faded from my sight. Adieu, 
 then, to the dreams of genius, to the aspira- 
 tions of intellectual enjoyment! It is too late: 
 I have not physical strength to accomplish 
 any thing great. I will sketch some scenes 
 I will murmur some strains; and that is all. 
 Yet if God would grant my prayers, here is 
 the object for which I would petition a poem, 
 such as my heart desires, and his greatness 
 deserves ! a faithful, breathing image of his 
 creation : of the boundless world, visible and 
 invisible ! That would indeed be a worthy 
 inheritance to leave to an era of darkness, of 
 doubt, and of sadness ! -an inheritance which 
 would nourish the present age, and cause the 
 next to spring with renovated youth." (Voy- 
 ages en Orient, I. 49, 50.)* 
 
 One of his first nocturnal reveries at sea, 
 portrays the tender and profoundly religious 
 impressions of his mind: 
 
 "I walked for an hour on the deck of the 
 vessel alone, and immersed alternately in sad 
 or consoling reflections. I repeated in my 
 heart all the prayers which I learned in in- 
 fancy from my mother; the verses, the frag- 
 ments of the Psalms, which I had so often 
 heard her repeat to herself, when walking in 
 the evening in the garden of Milly. I experi- 
 enced a melancholy pleasure in thus scatter- 
 ing them, in my turn, to the waves, to the 
 winds, to that Ear which is ever open to every 
 real movement of the heart, though not yet 
 uttered by the lips. The prayer which we 
 have heard repeated by one we have loved, and 
 who is no more, is doubly sacred. Who among 
 us would not prefer a few words of prayer taught 
 us by our mother, to the most eloquent sup- 
 plication composed by ourselves? Thence it 
 is that whatever religious creed we may adopt 
 at the age of reason, the Christian prayer will 
 be ever the prayer of the human race. I prayed 
 in the prayer of the church for the evening at 
 sea ; also for that clear being, who never thought 
 of danger to accompany her husband, and that 
 lovely child, who played at the moment on the 
 poop with the goat which was to give it milk 
 on board, and with the little kids which licked 
 her snow-white hands, and sported with her 
 long and fiiir ringlets." (I. 57.) 
 
 A night-scene on the coast of Provence gives 
 a specimen of his descriptive powers. 
 
 "It was night that is, what they call night 
 in those climates; but how many days have I 
 seen less brilliant on the banks of the Thames, 
 the Seine, the Saone, or the Lake of Geneva! 
 A full moon shone in the firmament, and cast 
 into the shade our vessel, which lay motion- 
 less on the water at a little distance from the 
 quay. The moon, in her progress through 
 the heavens, had left a path marked as if with 
 red sand, with which she had besprinkled the 
 half of the sky: the remainder was clear deep 
 blue, which melted into white as she advanced. 
 On the horizon, at the distance of two miles, 
 between two little isles, of which the one had 
 
 * WP hnve translated all the passages ourselves : the 
 versions bilhorto published in this country five, as mopt 
 English translations of French works do, a most imper- 
 fect idea of the original. 
 
 headlands pointed and coloured like the Coli- 
 seum at Rome, while the other was violet 
 like the flower of the lilac, the image of a vast 
 city appeared on the sea. It was an illusion, 
 doubtless ; but it had all the appearance of 
 reality. You saw clearly the domes glancing 
 dazzling lines of palaces quays flooded by 
 a soft and serene light ; on the right and the 
 left the waves were seen to sparkle and en- 
 close it on either side : it was Venice or Malta 
 reposing in the midst of the waters. The 
 illusion was produced by the reflection of the 
 moon, when her rays fell perpendicularly on 
 the waters ; nearer the eye, the radiance spread 
 and expanded in a stream of gold and silver 
 between two shores of azure. On the left, the 
 gulf extended to the summit of a long and ob- 
 scure range of serrated mountains ; on the 
 right opened a narrow and deep valley, where 
 a fountain gushed forth beneath the shade of 
 aged trees ; behind, rose a hill, clothed to the 
 top with olives, which in the night appeared 
 dark, from its summit to its base a line of 
 Gothic towers and white houses broke the ob- 
 scurity of the wood, and drew the thoughts to 
 the abodes, the joys, and the sufferings of man. 
 Further off, in the extremity of the gulf, three 
 enormous rocks rose, like pillars without base, 
 from the surface of the waters their forms 
 were fantastic, their surface polished like flints 
 by the action of the waves ; but those flints 
 were mountains the remains, doubtless, of 
 that primeval ocean which once overspread 
 the earth, and of which our seas are but a 
 feeble image." (I. 66.) 
 
 A rocky bay on the same romantic coast, 
 now rendered accessible to travellers by the 
 magnificent road of the Corniche, projected, 
 and in part executed by Napoleon, furnishes 
 another subject for this exquisite pencil : 
 
 " A mile to the eastward on the coast, the 
 mountains, which there dip into the sea, are 
 broken as if by the strokes of enormous clubs 
 huge fragments have fallen, and are strewed 
 in wild confusion at the foot of the cliffs, or 
 amidst the blue and green waves of the sea, 
 which incessantly laves them. The waves 
 break on these huge masses without inter- 
 mission, with a hollow and alternating roar, 
 or rise Tip in sheets of foam, which besprinkle 
 their hoary fronts. These masses of moun- 
 tains for they are too large to be called rocks 
 are piled and heaped together in such num- 
 bers, that they form an innumerable number 
 of narrow havens, of profound caverns, of 
 sounding grottoes, of gloomy fissures of 
 which the children of some of the neighbouring 
 fishermen alone know the windings and the 
 issues* One of these caverns, into which you 
 enter by a natural arch, the summit of which 
 is formed by an enormous block of granite, 
 lets in the sea, through which it flows into a 
 dark and narrow valley, which the waters fill 
 entirely, with a surface as limpid and smooth 
 as the firmament which they reflect. The sea 
 preserves in this sequestered nook thatbeautiful 
 tint of bright green, of which marine painters 
 so strongly feel the value, but which they can 
 never transfer exactly to their canvas; for 
 the eye sees much which the hand strives in 
 vain to imitate. 
 
LAMARTINE. 
 
 167 
 
 " On the two sides of that marine valley rise 
 two prodigious walls of perpendicular rock, 
 of an uniform and sombre hue, similar to that 
 of iron ore, after it has issued and cooled from 
 the furnace. Not a plant, not a moss can find 
 a slope or a crevice wherein to insert its roots 
 or cover the rocks with those waving garlands 
 which so often in Savoy clothe the cliffs, where 
 they flower to God alone. Black, naked, per- 
 pendicular, repelling the eye by their awful 
 aspect they seem to have been placed there 
 for no other purpose but to protect from the 
 sea-breezes the hills of olives and vines, which 
 bloom under their shelter; an image of those 
 ruling men in a stormy epoch, who seem placed 
 by Providence to bear the fury of all the tem- 
 pests of passion and of time, to screen the 
 weaker but happier race of mortals. At the 
 bottom of the bay the sea expands a little, as- 
 sumes a bluer tint as it comes to reflect more 
 of the cloudless heavens, and at length its tiny 
 waves die away on a bed of violets, as closely 
 netted together as the sand upon the shore. If 
 you disembark from the boat, you find in the 
 cleft of a neighbouring ravine a fountain of 
 living water, which gushes beneath a narrow 
 path formed by the goats, which leads up from 
 this sequestered solitude, amidst overshadow- 
 ing fig-trees and oleanders, to the cultivated 
 abodes of man. Few scenes struck me so 
 much in my long wanderings. Its charm con- 
 sists in that exquisite union of force and grace 
 which forms the perfection of natural beauty 
 as of the highest class of intellectual beings; 
 it is that mysterious hymen of the land and 
 the sea, surprised, as it were, in their most 
 secret and hidden union. It is the image of 
 perfect caJm and inaccessible solitude, close 
 to the theatre of tumultuous tempests, where 
 their near roar is heard with such terror, where 
 their foaming but lessened waves yet break 
 upon the shore. It is one of those numer- 
 ous chefs-d'avvre of creation which God has 
 scattered over the earth, as if to sport with 
 contrasts, but which he conceals so frequently 
 on the summit of naked rocks, in the depth of 
 inaccessible ravines, on the unapproachable 
 shores of the ocean, like jewels which he 
 unveils rarely, and that only to simple be- 
 ings, to children, to shepherds or fishermen, 
 or the devout worshippers of nature." (I. 73 
 74.) 
 
 This style of description of scenery is 
 peculiar to this age, and in it Lamartine may 
 safe'y be pronounced without a rival in the 
 whole range of literature. It was with Scott 
 and Chateaubriand that the p-nphic style of 
 description arose in England and France; but 
 he has pushed the art further ihan either of 
 his great predecessors. Milton and Thomson 
 had long ago, indeed, in poetry, painted nature 
 in the most enchanting, as well as the truest 
 colours; but in prose little was to be found 
 except a general and vague description of a 
 class of objects, as hikes, mountains, and 
 rivers, without any specification of features 
 and details, so as to convey a definite and dis- 
 ti ; ct impression to the mind of the reader. 
 Even the classical mir.d and refined taste of 
 Addison could not attain this graphic style ; his 
 descriptions of scenery, like that of all pro&e 
 
 writers down to the close of the eighteenth 
 century, are lost in vague generalities. Like 
 almost all descriptions of battles in modern 
 times, before Napier, they are so like each 
 other that you cannot distinguish one from the 
 other. Scott and Chateaubriand, when they 
 did apply their great powers to the delineation 
 f nature, were incomparably faithful, as well 
 as powerfully imaginative; but such descrip- 
 tions were, for the most part, but a secondary 
 object with them. The human heart was their 
 great study; the vicissitudes of life, the inex- 
 haustible theme of their genius. With La- 
 martine, again, the description of nature is the 
 primary object. It is to convey a vivid im- 
 pression of the scenes he has visited that he 
 has written ; to kindle in his reader's mind the 
 train of emotion and association which their 
 contemplation awakened in his own, that he 
 has exerted all his powers. He is much more 
 laboured and minute, in consequence, than 
 either of his predecessors ; he records the 
 tints, the forms, the lights, the transient effects 
 with all a painter's enthusiasm and all a poet's 
 power ; and succeeds, in any mind at all fa- 
 miliar with the objects of nature, in conjuring 
 up images as vivid, sometimes perhaps more 
 beautiful, than the originals which he por- 
 trayed. 
 
 From the greatness of his powers, however, 
 in this respect, and the facility with which he 
 commits to paper the whole features of the 
 splendid phantasmagoria with which his me- 
 mory is stored, arises the principal defect of 
 his work; and the circumstance which has 
 hitherto prevented it, in this country at least, 
 from acquiring general popularity commen- 
 surate to its transcendent merits. He is too 
 rich in glowing images ; his descriptions are 
 redundant in number and beauty. The mind 
 even of the most imaginative reader is fatigued 
 by the constant drain upon its admiration 
 the fancy is exhausted in the perpetual effort to 
 conceive the scenes which he portrays to the 
 eye. Images of beauty enough are to be found 
 in his four volumes of Travels in the Eust, to 
 emblazon, with the brightest colours of the 
 rainbow, forty volumes of ordinary adventure. 
 We long for some repose amidst the constant 
 repetition of dazzling objects; monotony, in- 
 sipidity, ordinary life, even dulness itself, 
 would often be a relief amidst the ceaseless 
 flow of rousing images. Sir Walter Scott 
 says, in one of his novels "Be assured that 
 whenever I am particularly dull, it is not with- 
 out an object;'' and Lamartine would some- 
 times be the better of following the advice. 
 We generally close one of his volumes with 
 the feeling so well known to travellers in the 
 Italian cities, "I hope to God there is nothing 
 more to be seen here." And having given the 
 necessary respite of unexciting disquisition to 
 rest our readers' minds, we shall again bring 
 forward one of his glowing pictures: 
 
 "Between the sea and the last heights of 
 Lebanon, wlrch sink rap'dly almost to the 
 wateVs edge, extends a plain eight leagues in 
 length tjy one or two broad ; sandy, bare, 
 covered only with thorny arbutus, browsed by 
 the camels of caravans. From it darts out into 
 the sea an advanced peninsula, linked to the 
 
168 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 continent only by a narrow chaussee of shining 
 sand, borne hither by the winds of Egypt. 
 Tyre, now called Sour by the Arabs, is situated 
 at the extremity of this peninsula, and seems, 
 at a distance, to rise out of the waves. The 
 modern town, at first sight, has a gay and 
 smiling appearance; but a nearer approach 
 dispels the illusion, and exhibits only a few 
 hundred crumbling and half-deserted houses, 
 where the Arabs, in the evening, assemble to 
 shelter their flocks which have browsed in the 
 narrow plain. Such is all that now remains 
 of the mighty Tyre. It has neither a harbour to 
 the sea, nor a road to the land ; the prophecies 
 have long been accomplished in regard to it. 
 
 " We moved on in silence, buried in the 
 contemplation of the dust of an empire which 
 we trod. We followed a path in the middle 
 of the plain of Tyre, between the town and the 
 hills of gray and naked rock which Lebanon 
 has thrown down towards the sea. We arrived 
 abreast of the city, and touched a mound of 
 sand which appears the sole remaining ram- 
 part to prevent it from being overwhelmed by 
 the waves of the ocean or the desert. I thought 
 of the prophecies, and called to mind some of 
 the eloquent denunciations of Ezekiel. As I 
 was making these reflections, some objects, 
 black, gigantic, and motionless, appeared upon 
 the summit of one of the overhanging cliffs of 
 Lebanon which there advanced far into the 
 plain. They resembled five black statues, 
 placed on a rock as their huge pedestal. At 
 first we thought it was five Bedouins, who 
 were there stationed to fire upon us from their 
 inaccessible heights ; but when we were at the 
 distance of fifty yards, we beheld one of them 
 open its enormous wings, and flap them 
 against its sides with a sound like the unfurl- 
 ing of a sail. We then perceived that they 
 were five eagles of the largest species I have 
 ever seen, either in the Alps or our museums. 
 They made no attempt to move when we ap- 
 proached ; they seemed to regard themselves 
 as kings of the desert, looked on Tyre as an 
 appanage which belonged to them, and whither 
 they were about to return. Nothing more 
 supernatural ever met my eyes ; I could almost 
 suppose that behind them I saw the terrible 
 figure of Ezekiel, the poet of vengeance, point- 
 ing to the devoted city which the divine wrath 
 had overwhelmed with destruction. The dis- 
 charge of a fe\v muskets made them rise from 
 their rock : but they showed no disposition to 
 move from their ominous perch, and, soon 
 returning, floated over our heads, regardless 
 of the shots fired at them, as if the eagles of 
 God were beyond the reach of human injury." 
 (II. 89.) 
 
 Jerusalem was a subject to awaken all our 
 author's enthusiasm, and call forth all his 
 descriptive powers. The first approach to it 
 has exercised the talents of many writers in 
 prose and verse ; but none has drawn it in 
 such graphic and brilliant colours as our 
 author : 
 
 " We ascended a mountain ridge strewed 
 over with enormous gray rocks piled one on 
 another as if by human liands. Here and 
 there a few stunted vines, yellow with the co- 
 lour of autumn, crept along the soil in a few 
 
 places cleared out in the wilderness. Fig- 
 trees, with their tops withered or shivered by 
 the blasts, often edged the vines, and cast their 
 black fruit on the gray rock. On our right, 
 the desert of St. John, where formerly the 
 voice was heard crying in the wilderness,' 
 sank like an abyss in the midst of five or six 
 black mountains, through the openings of 
 which, the sea of Egypt, overspread with a 
 dark cloud, could still be discerned. On the 
 left, and near the eye, was an old tower, placed 
 on the top of a projecting eminence; other 
 ruins, apparently of an ancient aqueduct, de- 
 scended from that tower, overgrown with ver- 
 dure, now in the sere leaf; that tower is 
 Modin, the stronghold and tomb of the last 
 heroes of sacred story, the Maccabees. We 
 left behind us the ruins, resplendent with the 
 first rays of the morning rays, not blended as 
 in Europe in a confused and vague illumi- 
 nation, but darting like arrows of fire tinted 
 with various colours, issuing from a dazzling 
 centre, and diverging over the whole heavens 
 as they expand. Some were of blue, slightly 
 silvered, others of pure white, some of tender 
 rose-hue, melting into gray; many of burning 
 fire, like the coruscations of a flaming confla- 
 gration. All were distinct, yet all united in 
 one harmonious whole, forming a resplendent 
 arch in the heavens, encircling, and issuing 
 from a centre of fire. In proportion as the 
 day advanced, the brilliant light of these sepa- 
 rate rays was gradually dimmed or rather, 
 they were blended together, and composed the 
 colourless light of day. Then the moon, which 
 still shone overhead, ' paled her ineffectual 
 fire,' and melted away in the general illumina- 
 tion of the heavens. 
 
 "After having ascended a second ridge, 
 more lofty and naked than the former, the 
 horizon suddenly opens to the right, and pre- 
 sents a view of all the country which extends 
 between the last summits of Judea and the 
 mountains of Arabia. It was already flooded 
 with the increasing light of the morning; but 
 beyond the piles of gray rock which lay in the 
 foreground, nothing was distinctly visible but 
 a dazzling space, like a vast sea, interspersed 
 with a few islands of shade, which stood forth 
 in the brilliant surface. On the shores of that 
 imaginary ocean, a little to the left, and about 
 a league distant, the sun shone with uncom- 
 mon brilliancy On a massy tower, a lofty min- 
 aret, and some edifices, which crowned the 
 summit of a low hill of which you could not 
 see the bottom. Soon the points of other mi- 
 narets, a few loopholed walls, and the dark 
 summits of several domes, which successively 
 came into view, and fringed the descending 
 slope of the hill, announced a city. It was 
 JETIUSALKM, and every one of the party, with- 
 out addressing a word to the guides or to each 
 other, enjoyed in silence the entrancing spec- 
 tacle. We rested our horses to contemplate 
 that mysterious and dazzling apparition ; but 
 when we moved on, it was soon snatched from 
 our view; for as we descended the hill, and 
 plunged into the deep and profound valley 
 which lay at its feet, we lost sight of the holy 
 city, and were surrounded only by the solitude 
 and desolation of the desert." (II. 163165.) 
 
LAMARTINE. 
 
 169 
 
 The environs of Jerusalem are describee 
 with equal force by the same master-hand : 
 "The general aspect of the environs of Je 
 rusalem may be described in a few words 
 Mountains without shade, and valleys withoui 
 water the earth without verdure, rocks with- 
 out grandeur. Here and there a few blocks 
 of gray stone start up out of the dry and fis- 
 sured earth, between which, beneath the shade 
 of an old fig-tree, a gazelle or a hyaena are oc- 
 casionally seen to emerge from the fissures 
 of the rock. A few plants or vines creep over 
 the surface of that gray and parched soil ; in 
 the distance, is occasionally seen a grove of 
 olive-trees, casting a shade over the arid side 
 of the mountain the mouldering walls and 
 towers of the city appearing from afar on the 
 summit of Mount Sion. Such is the, general 
 character of the country. .The sky is ever 
 pure, bright, and cloudless ; never does even 
 the slightest film of mist obscure the purple 
 tint of evening and morning. On the side of 
 Arabia, a wide gulf opens amidst the black 
 ridges, and presents a vista of the shining sur- 
 face of the Dead Sea, and the violet summits 
 of the mountains of Moab. Rarely is a breath 
 of air heard to murmur, in the fissures of the 
 rocks, or among the branches of the aged 
 olives; not a bird sings, nor an insect chirps 
 in the waterless furrows. Silence reigns uni- 
 versally, in the city, in the roads, in the fields. 
 Such was Jerusalem during all the time that 
 we spent within its walls. Not a sound ever 
 met our ears, but the neighing of the horses, 
 who grew impatient under the burning rays of 
 the sun, or who furrowed the earth with their 
 feet, as they stood picketed round our camp, 
 mingled occasionally with the crying of the 
 hour from the minarets, or the mournful ca- 
 dences of the Turks as they accompanied the 
 dead to their cemeteries. Jerusalem, to which 
 the world hastens to visit a sepulchre, is itself 
 a vast tomb of a people; but it is a tomb with- 
 out cypresses, without inscriptions, without 
 monuments, of which ihey have broken the 
 gravestones, and the ashes of which appear to 
 cover the earth which surrounds it with mourn- 
 ing, silence and sterility. We cast our eyes 
 back frequently from the top of every hill 
 which we passed on this mournful and deso- 
 late region, and at length we saw for the last 
 time, the crown of olives which surmounts the 
 Mount of the same name, and which long rises 
 above the horizon after you have lost sight of 
 the town itself. At length it also sank beneath 
 the rocky screen, and disappeared like the 
 chaplets of flowers which we throw on a se- 
 pulchre." (II. 275276.) 
 
 From Jerusalem he made an expedition to 
 Balbec in the desert, which produced the same 
 impression upon him that it does upon all 
 other travellers: 
 
 " We rose with the sun, the first rays of 
 which struck on the temples of Balbec, and 
 gave to those mysterious ruins that edat which 
 his brilliant light throws ever over ruins 
 which it illuminates. Soon we arrived, on the 
 northern side, at the foot of the gigantic walls 
 which surround those beautiful remains. A 
 clear stream, flowing over a bed of granite, 
 murmured around the enormous blocks of 
 22 
 
 stone, fallen from the top of the wall which 
 obstructed its course. Beautiful sculptures 
 wore half concealed in the limpid stream. 
 We passed the rivulet by an arch formed by 
 these fallen remains, and mounting a narrow 
 breach, were soon lost in admiration of the 
 scene which surrounded us. At every step a 
 fresh exclamation of surprise broke from our 
 lips. Every one of the stones of which that 
 wall was composed was from eight to ten feet 
 in length, by five or six in breadth, and as 
 much in height. They rest, without cement, 
 one upon the other, and almost all bear the 
 mark of Indian or Egyptian sculpture. At a 
 single glance, you see that these enormous 
 stones are not placed in their original site 
 that they are the precious remains of temples 
 of still more remote antiquity, which were 
 made use of to encircle this colony of Grecian 
 and Roman citizens. 
 
 " When we reached the summit of the 
 breach, our eyes knew not to what object first 
 to turn. On all sides were gates of marble of 
 prodigious height and magnitude ; windows or 
 niches, fringed with the richest friezes ; fallen 
 pieces of cornices, of entablatures, or capitals, 
 thick as the dust beneath our feet ; magnificent 
 vaulted roofs above our heads ; everywhere a 
 chaos of confused beauty, the remains of 
 which .lay scattered about, or piled on each 
 other in endless variety. So prodigious was 
 the accumulation of architectural remains, 
 that it defies all attempts at classification, or 
 conjecture of the kind of buildings to which 
 the greater part of them had belonged. After 
 passing through this scene of ruined magnifi- 
 cence, we reached an inner wall, which we 
 also ascended; and from its summit the view 
 of the interior was yet more splendid. Of 
 much greater extent, far more richly decorated 
 than the outer circle, it presented an immense 
 platform in the form of a long rectangle, the 
 level surface of which was frequently broken 
 by the remains of still more elevated pave- 
 ments, on which temples to the sun, the object 
 of adoration at Balbec, had been erected. All 
 around that platform were a series of lesser 
 temples or chapels, as we should call them 
 decorated with niches, admirably engraved, 
 and loaded with sculptured ornaments to a de- 
 gree that appeared excessive to those who had 
 seen the severe simplicity of the Parthenon or 
 the Coliseum. But how prodigious the accu- 
 mulation of architectural riches in the middle 
 of an eastern desert ! Combine in imagination 
 the Temple of Jupiter Stator and the Coliseum 
 at Rome, of Jupiter Olympius and the Acropo- 
 lis at Athens, and you will yet fall short of that 
 marvellous assemblage of admirable edifices 
 and sculptures. Many of the temples rest on 
 columns seventy feet in height, and seven feet 
 in diameter, yet composed only of two or three 
 blocks of stone, so perfectly joined together 
 that to this day you can barely discern the 
 lines of their junction. Silence is the only 
 language which befits man when words are 
 inadequate to convey his impressions. We 
 remained mute with admiration, gazing on the 
 eternal ruins. 
 
 'The shades of night overtook us while we 
 yet rested in amazement at the scene by which 
 
170 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 we were surrounded. One by one they enve- 
 loped the columns in their obscurity, and added 
 a mystery the more to that magical and mys- 
 terious work of time and man. We appeared, 
 as compared with the gigantic mass and long 
 duration of these monuments, as the swallows 
 which nestle a season in the crevices of the 
 capitals, without knowing by whom, or for 
 whom, they have been constructed. The 
 thoughts, the wishes, which moved these 
 masses, are to us unknown. The dust of marble 
 which we tread beneath our feet knows more 
 of it than we do, but it cannot tell us what it 
 has seen; and in a few ages the generations 
 which shall come in their turn to visit our 
 monuments, will ask, in like manner, wherefore 
 we have built and engraved. The works of 
 man survive his thought. Movement is the 
 law of the human mind ; the definite is the 
 dream of his pride and his ignorance. God is 
 a limit which appears ever to recede as hu- 
 manity approaches him; we are ever advanc- 
 ing, and never arrive. This great Divine Fi- 
 gure which man from his infancy is ever striv- 
 ing to reach, and to imprison in his structures 
 raised by hands, for ever enlarges and ex- 
 pands; it outsteps the narrow limits of tem- 
 ples, and leaves the altars to crumble into 
 dust ; and calls man to seek for it where alone 
 it resides in thought, in intelligence, in vir- 
 tue, in nature, in infinity." (II. 39,46, 47.) 
 
 This passage conveys an idea of the peculiar 
 style, and perhaps unique charm, of Lamar- 
 tine's work. It is the mixture of vivid paint- 
 ing with moral reflection of nature with sen- 
 timent of sensibility to beauty, with gratitude 
 to its Author, which constitutes its great attrac- 
 tion. Considering in what spirit the French 
 Revolution was cradled, and from what infide- 
 lity it arose, it is consoling to see such senti- 
 ments conceived and published among them. 
 True they are not the sentiments of the major- 
 ity, at least in towns; but what then] The 
 majority is ever guided by the thoughts of the 
 great, not in its own but a preceding age. It 
 is the opinions of the great among our grand- 
 fathers that govern the majority at this time ; 
 our great men will guide our grandsons. If 
 we would foresee what a future age is to 
 think, we must observe what a few great men 
 are now thinking. Voltaire and Rousseau 
 have ruled France for two generations; the 
 day of Chateaubriand and Guizot and Lamar- 
 tine will come in due time. 
 
 But the extraordinary magnitude of these 
 ruins in the middle of an Asiatic wilderness, 
 suggests another consideration. We are per- 
 petually speaking of the march of intellect, the 
 vast spread of intelligence, the advancing civi- 
 lization of the world ; and in some respect our 
 boasts are well founded. Certainly, in one 
 particular, society has made a mighty step in 
 advance. The abolition of domestic slavery 
 has emancipated the millions who formerly 
 toiled in bondage; the art of printing has mul- 
 tiplied an hundred fold the reading. and think- 
 ing world. Our opportunities, therefore, have 
 been prodigiously enlarged; our means of ele- 
 vation are tenfold what they were in ancient 
 times. But has our elevation itself kept pace 
 with these enlarged means 1 Has the in- 
 
 | creased direction of the popular mind to lofty 
 ; and spiritual objects, the more complete subju- 
 ! gation of sense, the enlarged perception of the 
 1 useful and the beautiful, been in proportion 
 i to the extended facilities given to the great 
 i body of the people 1 Alas ! the fact is just the 
 i reverse. Balbec was a mere station in the 
 desert, without territory, harbour, or subjects 
 maintained solely by the commerce of the 
 East with Europe which flowed through its 
 walls. Yet Balbec raised, in less than a cen- 
 tury, a more glorious pile of structures de- 
 voted to religious and lofty objects, than Lon- 
 don, Paris, and St. Petersburg united can now 
 boast. The Decapolis was a small and remote 
 mountain district of Palestine, not larger in 
 proportion to the Roman, than Morayshire is 
 in proportion to the British empire ; yet it 
 contained, as its name indicates, and as their 
 remains still attest, ten cities, the least consi- 
 derable of which, Gebora, contains, as Buck- 
 ingham tells us in his Travels beyond the Jordan, 
 the ruins of more sumptuous edifices than any 
 city in the British islands, London itself not ex- 
 cepted, can now boast. It was the same all over 
 the east, and in all the southern provinces of the 
 Roman empire. Whence has arisen this asto- 
 nishing disproportion between the great things 
 done by the citizens in ancient and in modern 
 times, when in the latter the means of enlarged 
 cultivation have been so immeasurably extend- 
 ed ? It is in vain to say, it is because we have 
 more social and domestic happiness, and our 
 wealth is devoted to these objects, not external 
 embellishment. Social and domestic happiness 
 are in the direct,notin the inverse ratio of gene- 
 ral refinement and the spread of intellectual 
 intelligence. The domestic duties are better 
 nourished in the temple than in the gin-shop ; 
 the admirers of sculpture will make better 
 fathers and husbands than the lovers of whisky. 
 Is it that we want funds for such undertakings 1 
 Why, London is richer than ever Rome was ; 
 the commerce of the world, not of the eastern 
 caravans, flows through its bosom. The sums 
 annually squandered in Manchester and Glas- 
 gow on intoxicating liquors, would soon make 
 them rival the eternal structures of Tadmbr 
 and Palmyra. Is it that the great bulk of our 
 people are unavoidably chained by their cha- 
 racter and climate to gross and degrading en- 
 joyment's 1 Is it that the spreading of know- 
 ledge, intelligence, and free institutions, only 
 confirms the sway of sensual gratification ; and 
 that a pure and spiritual religion tends only 
 to strengthen the fetters of passion and self- 
 ishness 1 Is it that the inherent depravity of 
 the human heart appears the more clearly as 
 man is emancipated from the fetters of autho- 
 rity : must we go back to early ages for noble 
 and elevated motives of action; is the spread 
 of freedom but another word for the extension 
 of brutality ? God forbid that so melancholy 
 a doctrine should have any foundation in hu- 
 man nature ! We mention the facts, and leave 
 it to future ages to discover their solution : 
 contenting ourselves with pointing out to our 
 self- applauding countrymen how ranch they 
 have to do before they attain the level of their 
 advantages, or justify the boundless blessings 
 which Providence has bestowed upon them 
 
LAMARTINE. 
 
 171 
 
 The plain of Troy, seen by moonlight, fur- 1 of the seraglio, which prolongs those of the city, 
 nishes the subject of one of our author's most I and form at the extremity of the hill which sup- 
 striking passages. | ports the proud Starnboul, the angle which 
 "It is midnight: the sea is calm as a mir- 1 .separates the sea of Mivrmora from the canal 
 ror; the vessel floats motionless on the re- ! of the Bosphorus, and the harbour of the Gold- 
 splendent surface. On our left, Tenedos rises ' en Horn. It is there that God and man, na- 
 above the waves, and shuts out the view of the J tnre and art, have combined to form the most 
 open sea ; on our right, and close to us. stretched marvellous spectacle which the human eye 
 
 can behold. I uttered an involuntary cry when 
 the magnificent panorama opened upon my 
 sight; I forgot for ever the bay of Naples and 
 all its enchantments ; to compare any thing to 
 that marvellous and graceful combination would 
 
 out like a dark bar. the low shore and indented 
 coasts of TROT. The full moon, which rises 
 behind the snow-streaked summit of Mount 
 Ida, sheds a serene and doubtful light over the 
 summits of the mountains, the hills, the plain; 
 its extending rays fall upon the sea, and reach 
 the shadow of our brig, forming a bright path 
 which the shades do riot venture to approach. 
 We can discern the tumuli, which tradition still 
 marks as the tombs of Hector and Patroclus. 
 The full moon, slightly tinged with red, which 
 discloses the undulations of the hills, resembles 
 the bloody buckler of Achilles; no light is to 
 be seen on the coast, but a distant twinkling, 
 lighted by the shepherds on Mount Ida not a 
 sound is to be heard but the flapping of the 
 sail on the mast, and the slight creaking of the 
 mast itself; all seems dead, like the past, in 
 that deserted land. Seated on the forecastle, 
 I see that shore, those mountains, those ruins, 
 those tombs, rise like the ghost of the departed 
 world, reappear from the bosom of the sea with 
 shadowy form, by the rays of the star of night, 
 which sleep on the hills, and disappear as the 
 moon recedes behind the summits of the moun- 
 tains. It is a beautiful additional page in the 
 poems of Homer, the end of all history and of 
 all poetry! Unknown tombs, ruins without 
 a certain name; the earth naked and dark, but 
 imperfectly lighted by the immortal luminaries ; 
 new spectators passing by the old coast, and 
 repeating for the thousandth time the common 
 epitaph of mortality ! Here lies an empire, 
 here a town, here a people, here a hero ! God 
 alone is great, and the thought which seeks 
 and adores him alone is imperishable upon 
 earth. I feel no desire to make a nearer ap- 
 proach in daylight to the doubtful remains of 
 the ruins of Troy. I prefer that nocturnal ap- 
 parition which allows the thought to repeople 
 those deserts, and sheds over them only the dis- 
 tant light of the moon and of the poetry of Homer. 
 And what concerns me Troy, its heroes, and its 
 gods ! That leaf of the heroic world is turned 
 for ever !" (II. 248250.) 
 
 What a magnificent testimonial to the genius 
 of Homer, written in a foreign tongue, two 
 thousand seven hundred years after his death ! 
 
 The Dardanelles and the Bosphorus have, 
 from the dawn of letters, exercised the descrip- 
 tive talents of the greatest historians of modern 
 Europe. The truthful chronicle of Villehar- 
 douin, and the eloquent pictures of Gibbon and 
 Sismondi of the siege of Constantinople, will 
 immediately occur to every scholar. The fol- 
 lowing passage, however, will show that no 
 subject can be worn out when it is handled by 
 the pen of genius: 
 
 "It was five in the morning, I was standing 
 on deck; we made sail towards the mouth of 
 the Bosphorus, skirting the walls of Constan- 
 tinople. Afier half an hour's navigation 
 through ships at anchor, we touched the walls 
 
 be an injury to the fairest work of creation. 
 
 "The walls which support the circular ter- 
 races of the immense gardens of the seraglio 
 were on our left, with their base perpetually 
 washed by the waters of the Bosphorus, blue 
 and limpid as the Rhone at Geneva; the ter- 
 raees which rise one above another to the pa- 
 lace of the sultana, the gilded cupolas of which 
 rose above the gigantic summits of the plane- 
 tree and the cypress, were themselves clothed 
 with enormous trees, the trunks of which over- 
 hang the walls, while their branches, over- 
 spreading the gardens, spread a deep shadow 
 even far into the sea, beneath the protection 
 of which the panting rowers repose from their 
 toil. These stately groups of trees are from 
 time to time interrupted by palaces, pavilions, 
 kiosks, gilded and sculptured domes, or bat- 
 teries of cannon. These maritime palaces form 
 part of the seraglio. You see occasionally 
 through the muslin curtains the gilded roofs 
 and sumptuous cornices of those abodes of 
 beauty. At every step, elegant Moorish foun- 
 tains fall from the higher parts of the g.irdens, 
 and murmur in marble basins, from whence, 
 before reaching the sea, they are conducted in 
 little cascades to refresh the passengers. As 
 the vessel coasted the walls, the prospect ex- 
 panded the coast of Asia appeared, and the 
 mouth of the Bosphorus, properly so ca'led, 
 began to open between hills, on one side of 
 dark green, on the other of smiling verdure, 
 which seemed variegated by all the colours of 
 the rainbow. The smiling shores of A-ia, dis- 
 tant about a mile, stretched out to our right, 
 surmounted by lofty hills, sharp at the top. and 
 clothed to the summit with dark forests, with 
 their sides varied by hedge-rows, villas, or- 
 chards, and gardens. Deep precipitous ravines 
 occasionally descended on this side into the sea, 
 overshadowed by hu:e overgrown oaks, the 
 branches of which dipped into the water. Fur- 
 ther on still, on the Asiatic side, an advanced 
 headland projected into the waves, covered 
 with white houses it ^was Scutari, with its 
 vast white barracks, its resplendertt mosques, 
 its animated quays, forming a vast city. Fur- 
 ther still, the Bosphorus, like a deeply imbed- 
 ded river, opened between opposing moun- 
 tains the advancing promontories and re- 
 ceding bays of which, clothed to the water's 
 edge with forests, exhibited a confused assem- 
 blage of masts of vessels, shady groves, noble 
 palaces, hanging gardens, and tranquil ha- 
 vens. 
 
 "The harbour of Constantinople is not, pro- 
 perly speaking, a port. It is rather a great 
 river like the Thames, shut in on either side 
 
172 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 by hills covered with houses, and covered by 
 innumerable lines of ships lying at anchor 
 along the quays. Vessels of every description 
 are to be seen there, from the Arabian bark, 
 the prow of which is raised, and darts along 
 like the ancient galleys, to the ship of the line, 
 with three decks, and its sides studded with 
 brazen mouths. Multitudes of Turkish barks 
 circulate through that forest of masts, serving 
 the purpose of carriages in that maritime city, 
 and disturb, in their swift progress through the 
 waves, clouds of albatros, which, like beau- 
 tiful white pigeons, rise from the sea on their 
 approach, to descend and repose again on the 
 unruffled surface. It is impossible to count the 
 vessels which lie on the water from the Se- 
 raglio point to the suburb of Eyoub and the 
 delicious valley of the Sweet Waters. The 
 Thames at London exhibits nothing compara- 
 ble to it." (II. 262265.) 
 
 "Beautiful as the European side of the 
 Bosphorus is, the Asiatic is infinitely more 
 striking. It owes nothing to man, but every 
 thing to nature. There is neither a Buyukdere 
 nor a Therapia; nor palaces of ambassadors, 
 nor an Armenian nor Frank city; there is no- 
 thing but mountains with glens which separate 
 them ; little valleys enamelled with green, 
 which lie at the foot of the overhanging rocks ; 
 torrents which enliven the scene with their 
 foam ; forests which darken it by their shade, 
 or dip their boughs in the waves ; a variety of 
 forms, of tints, and of foliage, which the pen- 
 cil of the painter is alike unable to represent 
 or the pen of the poet to describe. A few 
 cottages perched on the summit of projecting 
 rocks, or sheltered in the bosom of a deeply 
 indented bay, alone tell you of the presence 
 of man. The evergreen oaks hang in such 
 masses over the waves that the boatmen glide 
 under their branches, and often sleep cradled 
 in their arms. Such is the character of the 
 coast on the Asiatic side as far as the castle 
 of Mahomet II., which seems to shut it in as 
 closely as any Swiss lake. Beyond that, the 
 character changes ; the hills are less rugged, 
 and descend in gentler slopes to the water's 
 edge; charming little plains, checkered with 
 fruit-trees and shaded by planes, frequently 
 open ; and the delicious Sweet Waters of Asia 
 exhibit a scene of enchantment equal to any 
 described in the Arabian Nights. Women, 
 children, and black slaves in every variety of 
 costume and colour; veiled ladies from Con- 
 stantinople ; cattle and buffaloes ruminating in 
 the pastures ; Arab horses clothed in the most 
 sumptuous trappings of velvet and gold; 
 caiques filled with Armenian and Circassian 
 young women, seated under the shade or play- 
 ing with their children, some of the most 
 ravishing beauty, form a scene of variety and 
 interest probably unique in the world." (III. 
 331,332.) 
 
 These are the details of the piece: here is 
 the general impression : 
 
 "One evening, by the light of a splendid 
 moon, which was reflected from the sea of 
 Marmora, and the violet summits of Mount 
 Olympus, I sat alone under the cypresses of 
 the 'Ladders of the Dead;' those cypresses 
 which overshadow innumerable tombs of 
 
 Mussulmen, and descend from the heights of 
 Pera to the shores of the sea. No one ever 
 passes at that hour: you would suppose your- 
 self an hundred miles from the capital, if a 
 confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not 
 occasionally heard, which speedily died away 
 among the branches of the cypress. These 
 sounds weakened by distance; the songs of 
 the sailors in the vessels ; the stroke of the 
 oars in the water; the drums of the military 
 bands in the barracks ; the songs of the women 
 who lulled their children to sleep ; the cries of 
 the Muetzlim who, from the summits of the 
 minarets, called the faithful to evening prayers; 
 the evening gun which boomed across the 
 Bosphorus, the signal of repose to the fleet- 
 all these sounds combined to form one con- 
 fused murmur, which strangely contrasted 
 with the perfect silence around me, and pro- 
 duced the deepest impression. The seraglio, 
 with its vast peninsula, dark with plane-trees 
 and cypresses, stood forth like a promontory 
 of forests between the two seas which slept 
 beneath my eyes. The moon shone on the nu- 
 merous kiosks; and the old walls of the palace 
 of Amurath stood forth like huge rocks from 
 the obscure gloom of the plane-trees. Before 
 me was the scene, in my mind was the recol- 
 lection, of all the glorious and sinister events 
 which had there taken place. The impression 
 was the strongest, the most overwhelming, 
 which a sensitive mind could receive. All 
 was there mingled man and God, society and 
 nature, mental agitation, the melancholy repose 
 of thought. I know not whether I participated 
 in the great movement of associated beings 
 who enjoy or suffer in that mighty assemblage, 
 or in that nocturnal slumber of the elements, 
 which murmured thus, and raised the mind 
 above the cares of cities and empires into the 
 bosom of nature and of God." (III. 283,284.) 
 
 "II fa nt du terns," says Voltaire, "pourque 
 les grandes reputations murissent." As a de- 
 scriber of nature, we place Lamartine at the 
 head of all writers, ancient or modern above 
 Scott or Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael or 
 Humboldt. He aims at a different object from 
 any of these great writers. He does not, like 
 them, describe the emotion produced on the 
 mind by the contemplation of nature; he 
 paints the objects in the scene itself, their 
 colours and traits, their forms and substance, 
 their lights and shadows. A painter following 
 exactly what he portrays, would make a glo- 
 rious gallery of landscapes. He is, moreover, 
 a charming poet, an eloquent debater, and has 
 written many able and important works on 
 politics, yet we never recollect, during the last 
 twenty years, to have heard his name men- 
 tioned in English society except once, when 
 an old and caustic, but most able judge, now 
 no more, said, "I have been reading Lamar- 
 tine's Travels in the East it seems a perfect 
 rhapsody." 
 
 We must not suppose, however, from this, 
 that the English nation is incapable of appre- 
 ciating the highest degree of eminence in the 
 fine arts, or that we are never destined to rise 
 to excellence in any but the mechanical. It is 
 the multitude of subordinate writers of mode- 
 rate merit who obstruct all the avenues to 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 
 
 173 
 
 great distinction, which really occasions the 
 phenomenon. Strange as it may appear, it is 
 a fact abundantly proved by literary history, 
 and which may be verified by every day's ex- 
 perience, that men are in general insensible to 
 the highest class of intellectual merit when it 
 first appears, and that it is by slow degrees j 
 and the opinion oft repeated, of the really su- 
 perior in successive generations, that it is at | 
 length raised to its deserved and lasting pedes- 
 tal. There are instances to the contrary, such j 
 as Scott and Byron : but they are the excep- j 
 tion, not the rule. We seldom do justice but j 
 
 to the dead. Contemporary jealousy, literary 
 envy, general timidity, the dread of ridicule, the 
 confusion of rival works, form so many obsta- 
 cles to the speedy acquisition of a great living 
 reputation. To the illustrious of past ages, 
 however, we pay a universal and willing 
 homage. Contemporary genius appears with 
 a twinkling and uncertain glow, like the shift- 
 ing and confused lights of a great city seen at 
 night from a distance : while the spirits of the 
 dead shine with an imperishable lustre, far re- 
 moved in the upper firmament from the dis- 
 tractions of the rivalry of a lower world. 
 
 THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION.' 
 
 WHOEVER has contemplated of late years the 
 state of British literature, and compared it with 
 the works of other countries who have preceded 
 England in the career of arts or of arms, must 
 have become sensible that some very power- 
 ful cause has, for a long period, been at work 
 in producing the ephemeral character by which 
 it is at present distinguished. It is a matter 
 of common complaint, that every thing is now 
 sacrificed to the desires or the gratification of 
 the moment ; that philosophy, descending from 
 its high station as the instructor of men, has 
 degenerated into the mere handmaid of art; 
 that literature is devoted rather to afford amuse- 
 ment for a passing hour, than furnish improve- 
 ment to a long life ; and that poetry itself has 
 become rather the reflection of the fleeting 
 fervour of the public mind, than the well from 
 which noble and elevated sentiments are to be 
 derived. We have only to take up the columns 
 of a newspaper, to see how varied and endless 
 are the efforts made to amuse the public, and 
 how few the attempts to instruct or improve 
 them; and if we examine the books which lie 
 upon every drawing-room table, or the cata- 
 logues which show the purchases that have 
 been made by any of the numerous book-clubs 
 or circulating libraries which have sprung up 
 in the country, we shall feel no surprise 'at the 
 ephemeral nature of the literature which 
 abounds, from the evidence there afforded of 
 the transitory character of the public wishes 
 which require to be gratified. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, from this 
 circumstance, which is so well known as to 
 have attracted universal observation, that the 
 taste for standard or more solid literature has 
 either materially declined, or is in any danger 
 of becoming extinct. Decisive evidence to the 
 contrary is to be found in the fact, that a 
 greater number of reprints of standard works, 
 both on theology, history, and philosophy, have 
 issued from the press within the last ten years, 
 than in any former corresponding period of 
 British history. And what is still more re- 
 markable, and not a little gratifying, it is evi- 
 
 * Bhickwood's Magazine, January, 1842. Written 
 when Lord Mahon's Copyright Bill, since passed into a 
 law, was before Parliament. 
 
 dent, from the very different character and 
 price of the editions of the older works which 
 have been published of late years, that the de- 
 sire to possess these standard works, and this 
 thirst for solid information, is not confined to 
 any one class of society; but that it embraces 
 all ranks, and promises, before a long period 
 has elapsed, to extend through the middle and 
 even the working classes in the state a mass 
 of useful and valuable information to which 
 they have hitherto, in great part at least, been 
 strangers. Not to mention the great extent to 
 which extracts from these more valuable works 
 have appeared in Chambers' Journal, the Penny 
 Magazines, and other similar publications of 
 the day, it is sufficient to mention two facts, 
 which show at once what a thirst for valuable 
 information exists among the middle classes 
 of society. Regularly every two years, there 
 issues from the press a new edition of Gibbon's 
 Rome; and Burke 's Works are now published, 
 one year, in sixteen handsome volumes octavo, 
 for the peer and the legislator, and next year 
 in two volumes royal octavo, in double co- 
 lumns, for the tradesman and the shopkeeper. 
 As little is the false and vitiated taste of our 
 general literature the result of any want of 
 ability which is now directed to its prosecution. 
 We have only to examine the periodical litera- 
 ture, or criticism of the day, to be convinced 
 that the talent which is now devoted to litera- 
 ture is incomparably greater than it ever was 
 in any former period of our history ; and that 
 ample genius exists in Great Britain, to render 
 this age as distinguished in philosophy and the 
 higher branches of knowledge, as the last was 
 in military prowess and martial renown. If 
 any one doubts this, let him compare the milk- 
 and-water pages of the Monthly Review forty 
 years ago, with the brilliant criticisms of 
 Lockhart and Macaulay in the Quarterly or Ed- 
 inburgh Review at this time ; or the periodical 
 literature at the close of the war, with that 
 which is now to be seen in the standard ma- 
 gazines of the present day. To a person 
 habituated to the dazzling conceptions of the 
 periodical writers in these times, the corre- 
 sponding literature in the eighteenth century 
 appears insupportably pedantic and tedious, 
 p 2 
 
174 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Nobody now reads the Rambler or the Idler ; 
 and the colossal reputation of Johnson rests 
 almost entirely upon his profound and caustic 
 sayings recorded in Boswell. Even the Spec- 
 tator itself, though universally praised, is by 
 no means now generally read; and nothing 
 but the exquisite beauty of some of Addison's 
 papers, prevents the Delias and Lucindas, who 
 figure in its pages, from- sinking them into 
 irrecoverable obscurity. 
 
 Here then is the marvel of the present time. 
 We have a population, in which, from the 
 rapid extent of knowledge among all classes, a 
 more extended class of readers desiring in- 
 formation is daily arising; in which the great 
 and standard works of literature in theology, 
 philosophy, and history, are constantly issuing 
 in every varied form from the press ; in which 
 unparalleled talent of every description is con- 
 stantly devoted to the prosecution of literature ; 
 but in which the new works given forth from 
 the press are, with very few exceptions, fri- 
 "volous or ephemeral, and the greater part of 
 the serious talents of the nation is turned into 
 the perishable channels of the daily, weekly, 
 monthly, or the quarterly press. That such a 
 state of things is anomalous and extraordinary, 
 few probably will doubt ; but that it is alarm- 
 ing and prejudicial in a national point of view, 
 and may, if it continues unabated, produce both 
 a degradation of the national character, and, in 
 the end, danger or ruin to the national fortunes, 
 though not so generally admitted, is not the 
 less true, nor the less capable of demonstra- 
 tion. 
 
 In the first place, this state of things, when 
 the whole talent of the nation is directed to 
 periodical literature, or works of evanescent 
 interest, has a tendency to degrade the national 
 character, because it taints the fountains from 
 which the national thought is derived. We 
 possess, indeed, in the standard literature of 
 Great Britain, a mass of thoughts and ideas 
 which may well make the nation immortal, 
 and which, to the end of time, will constitute 
 the fountains from which grand and generous 
 thoughts will be drawn by all future races of 
 men. But the existence of these standard works 
 is not enough; still less is it enough in an age 
 of rapid progress and evident transition, such 
 as the present, when new interests are every- 
 where arising, new social and political com- 
 binations emerging, new national dangers to 
 be guarded against, new national virtues to be j 
 required. For a nation in such a state of I 
 society to remain satisfied with its old standard j 
 literature, and not to aspire to produce any 
 thing which is at once durable and new, is the 
 same solecism as it would be for a man to re- 
 main content with a wardrobe of fifty years' 
 standing, and resolutely to resist the introduc- 
 tion of any of the fashions or improvements 
 of later times. A nation which aspires to 
 retain its eminence either in arts or in arms, 
 must keep abreast of its neighbours ; if it does 
 not advance, it will speedily fall behind, be 
 thrown into the shade, and decline. It is not 
 sufficient for England to refer to the works of 
 Milton, Shakspeare, Johnson, or Scott ; she 
 must prolong the race of these great men, or 
 her intellectual career will speedily come to a 
 
 close. Short and fleeting indeed is the period 
 of transcendant greatness allotted to any na- 
 tion in any branch of thought. The moment 
 it stops, it begins to recede ; and to every em- 
 pire which has made intellectual triumphs, is 
 prescribed the same law which was felt by- 
 Napoleon in Europe and the British in India, 
 that conquest is essential to existence. 
 
 But if the danger to our national literature 
 is great, if the intellect and genius of Britain 
 do not keep pace with the high destinies to 
 which she is called, and the unbounded men- 
 tal activity with which she is surrounded, 
 much more serious is the peril thence inevit- 
 ably accruing to the national character and 
 the public fortunes. Whence is it that the 
 noble and generous feelings are derived, which 
 in time past have animated the breasts of our 
 patriots, our heroes, and our legislators! 
 Where, but in the immortal pages of our 
 poets, our orators, and historians? What 
 noble sentiments has the air of "Rule Britan- 
 nia" awakened; how many future Nelsons 
 may the "Mariners of England," or Southey's 
 inimitable " Lives of our Naval Heroes" pro- 
 duce? Sentiments such as these immortal 
 works imbody, "thoughts that breathe, and 
 words that burn," are the true national inhe- 
 ritance; they constitute the most powerful 
 elements of national strength, for they form the 
 character, without which all others are una- 
 vailing; they belong alike to the rich and to 
 the poor, to the prince and to the peasant ; 
 they form the unseen bond which links to- 
 gether the high and the low, the rich and the 
 poor; and which, penetrating and pervading 
 every class of society, tend both to perpetuate 
 the virtues which have brought us to our pre- 
 sent greatness, and arrest the decline, which 
 the influx of wealth, and the prevalence of 
 commercial ideas, might otherwise have a 
 tendency to produce. What would be the 
 effect upon the fortunes of the nation, if this 
 pure and elevated species of literature were to 
 cease amongst us ; if every thing were to be 
 brought down to the cheapest market, and 
 adapted to the most ordinary capacity ; if cut- 
 ting articles for reviews, or dashing stories 
 for magazines, were henceforth to form our 
 staple literature; and the race of the Miltops, 
 the Shakspeares, the Grays, and the Camp- 
 bells, was to perish under the cravings of an 
 utilitarian age? We may safely say that the 
 national character would decline, the national 
 spirit become enfeebled ; that generous senti- 
 ments would be dried up under the influence 
 of transient excitement, and permanent resolve 
 be extinguished by the necessity of present 
 gain ; and that the days of Clive and Wellesley 
 in India, and of Nelson and Wellington in 
 Europe, would be numbered among the things 
 that have been. 
 
 But if such dangers await us from the 
 gradual extinction of the higher and nobler 
 branches of our literature, still more serious 
 are the evils which are likely to arise from the 
 termination of the more elevated class of works 
 in history, philosophy, and theology, which are 
 calculated and are fitted to guide and direct the 
 national thought. The dangers of such a ca- 
 lamity, though not so apparent at first sight, 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 
 
 175 
 
 are, in reality, still more serious. For whence 
 is the thought derived which governs the world; 
 the spirit which guides its movements; the 
 rashness which mars its fortunes; the wisdom 
 which guards against its dangers 1 Whence 
 but from the great fountains of original thought, 
 which are never unlocked in any age but to the 
 few master-spirits thrown at distant intervals 
 by God among mankind. The press, usually 
 and justly deemed so powerful; the public 
 voice, whose thunders shake the land; the le- 
 gislature, which imbodies and perpetuates, by 
 legal force, its cravings, are themselves but the 
 reverberation of the thought of the great of the 
 preceding age. The tempests sweep round 
 and agitate the globe; but it is to the wisdom 
 of Juno alone that jEolus opens the cavern of 
 the winds. 
 
 This truth is unpalatable to the masses; it 
 is distasteful to legislators; it is irksome to 
 statesmen, who conceive they enjoy, and appear 
 to have, the direction of affairs; but it is illus- 
 trated by every page of history, and a clear 
 perception of its truth constitutes one of the 
 most essential requisites of wise government. 
 In vain does the ruling power, whether mo- 
 narchical, aristocratic, or republican, seek to 
 escape from the government of thought: it is 
 itself under the direction of the great intellects 
 of the preceding age. When it thinks it is 
 original, when it is most fearlessly asserting 
 its boasted inherent power of self-government, 
 it is itself obeying the impulse communicated 
 to the human mind by the departed great. All 
 the marked movements of mankind, all the 
 evident turns or wrenches communicated to 
 the current of general opinion, have arisen 
 from the efforts of individual genius. The 
 age must have been prepared for them, or 
 their effect would have been small; but the 
 age without them would never have disco- 
 vered the light: the reflected sunbeams must 
 have been descending on the mountains, but 
 his earliest rays strike first on the summit. 
 
 Who turned mankind from the abuses of the 
 Roman Catholic church, and preserved the 
 primeval simplicity of Christianity from the 
 pernicious indulgences of the Church of Rom.e, 
 and opened a new era of religious right to both 
 hemispheres ? Martin Luther. Who fearlessly 
 led his trembling mariners across the seem- 
 ingly interminable deserts of the Atlantic wave, 
 and discovered at length the new world, which 
 had haunted even his infant dreams 1 Chris- 
 topher Columbus. Who turned mankind aside 
 from the returning circle of syllogistic argu- 
 ment to the true method of philosophic inves- 
 tigation 1 Lord Bacon. Who introduced a 
 new code into the contests of nations, and sub- 
 jected even the savage passions of war to a 
 human code? Grotius". The influence of Mon- 
 ti-scjuieu has been felt for above a century in 
 every country of Europe, in social philosophy. 
 Who discovered the mechanism of the uni- 
 verse, and traced the same law in the fall of 
 an apple as the giant orbit of the comets'? Sir 
 Isaac Newton. Who carried the torch of 
 severe and sagacious inquiry into recesses of 
 the human mind, and weaned men from the 
 endless maze of metaphysical scepticism? 
 Dr. Reid. W T ho produced the fervent spirit 
 
 which, veiled in philanthropy, redolent of be- 
 nevolence, was so soon to be extinguished in 
 the blood of the French Revolution ? Rous- 
 seau and Voltaire. Who discovered the mira- 
 cle nt' stearn, and impelled civilization, as by 
 the force of central heat, to the desert places 
 of the earth ? James Watt. What unheeded 
 power shook even the solid fabric of the 
 British constitution, and all but destroyed, by 
 seeking unduly to extend, the liberties of Eng- 
 land ? Lord Brougham, and the Edinburgh 
 Reviewers. Whose policy has ruled the com- 
 mercial system of England for twenty years, 
 and by the false application of just abstract prin- 
 ciples overthrew the Whig ministry? Adam 
 Smith. Whose spirit arrested the devastation 
 of the French Revolution, and checked the 
 madness of the English reformers? Edmund 
 Burke. Who is the real parent of the blind 
 and heartless delusion of the New Poor-Law 
 Bill? Malthus. Who have elevated men from 
 the baseness of utilitarian worship to the gran- 
 deur of mental elevation? Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth. All these master-spirits, for 
 good or for evil, communicated their own im- 
 press to the generation which succeeded them ; 
 the seed sown took often many years to come 
 to maturity, and many different hands, often a 
 new generation, were required to reap it; but 
 when the harvest appeared, it at once was 
 manifest whose hand had sown the seed. 
 "Show me what one or two great men, de- 
 tached from public life, but with minds full, 
 which must be disburdened, are thinking in 
 their closets in this age, and I will tell you 
 what will be the theme of the orator, the study 
 of the philosopher, the staple of the press, the 
 guide of the statesman, in the next." 
 
 Observe, too and this is a most essential 
 point in the present argument that all these 
 great efforts of thought which have thus given 
 a mighty heave to human affairs, and, in the 
 end, have fairly turned aside into a new 
 channel even the broad and varied stream of 
 general thought, have been in direct contradic- 
 tion- to the spirit of the age by which they 
 were surrounded, and which swayed alike the 
 communities, the press, and the government, 
 under the influence of which they were placed. 
 Action and reaction appear to be the great 
 law, not less of the moral than the material 
 world ; the counteracting principles, which, 
 like the centripetal and centrifugal force in 
 physics, maintain, amid its perpetual oscilla- 
 tion, the general equilibrium of the universe. 
 But whence is to come the reaction, if the 
 human mind, influenced by the press, is itself 
 retained in a self-revolving circle? if reviews, 
 magazines, and journals, all yielding to, or 
 falling in with, the taste of the majority, direct 
 and form public opinion: if individual thought 
 is nothing but the perpetual re-echo of what it 
 hears around it? It is in the solitary thought 
 of individual greatness that this is found. Ii 
 is there that the fountains are unlocked which 
 j let in a new stream on human affairs which 
 I communicate a fresh and a purer element to 
 the flood charged with the selfishness and vices 
 of the world; it is there that the counteracting 
 I force is found, which, springing from small 
 I beginnings, at length converts a world in error. 
 
176 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Archimedes was physically wrong, but he was 
 morally right, when he said, "Give me a ful- 
 crum, and I will move the whole earth." Give 
 me the fulcrum of a great mind, and I will turn 
 aside the world. 
 
 It is always in resisting, never by yielding 
 to public opinion, that these great master- 
 spirits exert their power. The conqueror, in- 
 deed, who is to act by the present arms of 
 men; the statesman who is to sway by present 
 measures the agitated masses of society, have 
 need of general support. Napoleon said truly 
 that he was so long successful, because he 
 always marched with the opinions of five mil- 
 lions of men. But the great intellects which 
 are destined to give a permanent change to 
 thought which are destined to act generally, 
 not upon the present but the next generation 
 are almost invariably in direct opposition to 
 general opinion. In truth, it is the resistance 
 of a powerful mind to the flood of error by 
 which it is surrounded, which, like the com- 
 pression that elicits the power of steam, creates 
 the moving power which alters the moral des- 
 tiny of mankind. 
 
 Was it by yielding to public opinion that 
 Bacon emancipated mankind from the fetters 
 of the Aristotelian philosophy? Was it by 
 yielding to the Ptolemaic cycles that Coperni- 
 cus unfolded the true mechanism of the hea- 
 vens ? Was it by yielding to the dogmas of 
 the church that Galileo established the earth's 
 motions ? Was it by yielding to the Romish 
 corruptions that Luther established the Re- 
 formation 1 Was it by concession that Lati- 
 mer and Ridley " lighted a flame which, by 
 the grace of God, shall never be extinguished ?" 
 Was it by conceding to the long-established 
 system of commercial restriction, that Smith 
 unfolded the truths of the wealth of nations 1 
 or by chiming in with the deluge of infideli- 
 ty and democracy, with which he was sur- 
 rounded, that Burke arrested the devastation 
 of the French Revolution 1 What were the 
 eloquence of Pitt, the arms of Nelson and 
 Wellington, but the ministers of those princi- 
 ples which, in opposition to general opinion, 
 he struck out at once, and with a giant's arm? 
 "Genius creates by a single conception; in a 
 single principle, opening, as it were, on a 
 sudden to genius, a great and new system of 
 things is discovered. The statuary conceives 
 a statue at once, which is afterwards slowly 
 executed by the hands of many."* 
 
 If such be the vast and unbounded influence 
 of original thought on human affairs, national 
 character, public policy, and national fortunes, 
 what must be the effect of that state of things 
 which goes to check such original concep- 
 tion 1 to vulgarize and debase genius, and 
 turn aside the streams of first conception into 
 the old and polluted channels'? If the reac- 
 tion of originality against common-place of 
 freedom against servility of truth against 
 falsehood of experience against speculation 
 is the great steadying power in human af- 
 fairs, and the only safe regulator of the oscil- 
 lations of public thought, what are we to say 
 to that direction of literary effort, and that 
 
 *D' Israeli's Essay oa Lit. Char. 
 
 tendency in the public mind, which evidently 
 tend to express, and may, ere long, altogether 
 extinguish these great and creative concep- 
 tions ? Yet, that such is the evident tendency 
 of society and public opinion around us, is ob- 
 vious, and universally observed. " The time 
 has come," says Sir Edward Bulwer,* one of 
 the brightest ornaments of the liberal school, 
 "when nobody will fit out a ship for the intel- 
 lectual Columbus to discover new worlds, but 
 when everybody will subscribe for his setting 
 up a steamboat between Dover and Calais. 
 The immense superficies of the public, as it 
 has now become, operates two ways in de- 
 tracting from the' profundity of writers it 
 renders it no longer necessary for an author 
 to make himself profound before he writes ; 
 and it encourages those writers who are pro- 
 found, by every inducement, not of lucre mere- 
 ly, but of fame, to exchange deep writing for 
 agreeable writing. The voice which animates 
 the man ambitious of wide fame, does not, ac- 
 cording to the beautiful line in Rogers, whis- 
 per to him, 'Aspire, but descend.' He must 
 ' stoop to conquer.' Thus, if we look abroad 
 in France, where the reading public is much 
 less numerous than in England, a more subtle 
 and refined tone is prevalent in literature; 
 while in America, where it is infinitely larger, 
 the literature is incomparably more superfi- 
 cial. Some high-souled literary men, indeed, 
 desirous rather of truth than of fame, are ac- 
 tuated unconsciously by the spirit of the times ; 
 but actuated they necessarily are, just as the 
 wisest orator who uttered only philosophy to 
 a thin audience of Sages, and mechanically 
 abandons his refinements and his reasonings, 
 and expands into a louder tone and more fami- 
 liar manner as the assembly increases, and 
 the temper of the popular mind is insensibly 
 communicated to the mind that addresses it." 
 " There is in great crowds," says Cousin, " an 
 ascendant which is almost magical, which 
 subdues at once the strongest minds ; and the 
 same man who had been a serious and in- 
 structive professor to a hundred thoughtful 
 students, soon becomes light and superficial 
 where he is called to address a more extended 
 and superficial audience." 
 
 There can be no doubt of the justice of 
 the principles advanced by these profound 
 writers : in truth, they are not new ; they 
 have been known and acted upon in every 
 age of mankind. "You are wrong to pride 
 yourself," said the Grecian sage to an Athe- 
 nian orator, who first delivered a speech 
 amidst the thundering acclamations of his 
 audience; "if you had spoken truly, these 
 men would have given no signs of approba- 
 tion." It is in the extension of the power of 
 judging of literary compositions of confer- 
 ring wealth and bestowing fame on their au- 
 thors to the vast and excitable, but superficial 
 mass of mankind, that the true cause of the 
 ephemeral and yet entrancing and exciting 
 character of the literature of the present^- age 
 is to be found. Some superficial observers 
 imagine that the taste for novels and romances 
 will wear itself out, and an appreciation of a 
 
 * England and English, p. 446. 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 
 
 177 
 
 higher class of literature spread generally 
 among the middle classes. They might as 
 well suppose that all men are to become Ho- 
 mers, and all women Sapphos. 
 
 It is in this fact, the immense number of 
 mankind in every age who are influenced by 
 their passions or their feelings, compared with 
 the small portion who are under the influence 
 of their reason, lhat the true cause and extra- 
 ordinary multitude of a certain class of novels 
 in the present day is to be found. Without de- 
 preciating the talent of many of these writers 
 without undervaluing the touching scenes 
 of pathos, and admirable pictures of humour 
 which they present it may safely be affirmed, 
 that they exhibit a melancholy proof of the 
 tendency of our lighter literature ; and that if 
 such works were to become as general in 
 every succeeding age as they have been in 
 the present, a ruinous degradation both to our 
 literary and national character would ensue. 
 The cause which has led to their rapid rise 
 and unprecedented success, is obvious. It is, 
 that the middle classes have become the most 
 numerous body of readers ; and therefore, the 
 humour, the incidents, the pathos, which are 
 familiar to them, or excite either amusement 
 or sympathy in their breasts, constitute the 
 surest passports to popularity. ^It was the 
 same cause which produced the boors of 
 Ostade, or the village wakes of Teniers in 
 republican Holland, and the stately declama- 
 tions of Racine and Corneille in monarchical 
 France. 
 
 It is nevertheless perfectly true, as has been 
 well remarked hy Lord Brougham, that there 
 never was such a mistake as to imagine that 
 mob oratory consists only in low buffoonery, 
 quick repartee, or happy personal hits. On 
 some occasions, and certainly on the hustings, 
 it generally does. But there are other occa- 
 sions on which the middle and even the work- 
 ing classes are accessible to the most noble 
 and elevated sentiments; and exhibit an apti- 
 tude both for the quick apprehension of an 
 argument, and the due appreciation of a gene- 
 rous sentiment, which could not be surpassed 
 in any assembly in the kingdom. The higher 
 class of operatives, moreover, especially in 
 the manufacturing districts, are so constantly 
 in contact with each other, and are so much 
 habituated to the periodical press, that they 
 have acquired an extraordinary quickness of 
 perception in matters which fall within their 
 observation; while the numerous vicissitudes 
 to which they are exposed by commercial dis- 
 tress, have, in many places, given a serious 
 and reflecting turn to their minds, which will 
 rarely be met with amidst the frivolities of the 
 higher, or the selfish pursuits of the middle 
 ranks. In assemblies of the working classes, 
 brought together by the call for some social, 
 and not political object, as the promotion of 
 emigration, the extension of education, or the 
 arresting the evils of pauperism, no one can 
 have addressed them without observing that 
 he cannot state his argument too closely, en- 
 force it with facts too forcibly, or attend to 
 the graces of composition with too sedulous 
 care. 
 
 But ail this notwithstanding, it is in vain to 
 23 
 
 expect that the patronage or support of the 
 middle or working classes is ever to afford a 
 sufficient inducement to secure works either 
 of profound or elevated thought, or of the 
 highest excellence in any branch either of 
 poetry, philosophy, history, or economics. 
 The reason is, that it is only by appealing to 
 principles or ideas already in some degree fami- 
 liar to the great body of the people, that you can 
 ever succeed in making any impression upon 
 them. Truth, if altogether new, is, in the first 
 instance at least, thrown away upon them ; 
 it is of exceeding slow descent, even through 
 the most elevated intellects of the middle 
 classes; upon the working it produces at first 
 no effect whatever. The reason is, that the 
 great majority of them have not intellects suf- 
 ficiently strong to make at once the transition 
 from long cherished error to truth, unless the 
 evils of their former opinions have been long 
 and forcibly brought before their senses. If 
 that be the case, indeed, the humblest classes 
 are the very first to see the light. Witness 
 the Reformation in Germany, or the Revolu- 
 tion in France. They are so, because they 
 are less interested than their superiors in the 
 maintenance of error. But if the new disco- 
 veries of thought relate not to present but re- 
 mote evils, and do not appeal to what is 
 universally known to the senses, but only to 
 what may with difficulty be gathered from 
 study or reflection, nothing is more certain 
 than that the progress even of truth is exceed- 
 ingly slow that the human min'd is to the 
 last degree reluctant to admit any great change 
 of opinion ; and that, in general, at least one 
 generation must descend to their graves before 
 truths, ultimately deemed the most obvious, 
 are gradually forced upon the reluctant con- 
 sent of mankind. Mr. Burke's speeches never 
 were popular in the House of Commons, and 
 his rising up acted like a -dinner-bell in thin- 
 ning the benches. Now his words are dwelt 
 on by the wise, quoted by the eloquent, dif- 
 fused among the many. Oratory, to be popu- 
 lar, must be in advance of the audience, and 
 but a little in advance; profound thought may 
 rule mankind in future, but unless stimulated 
 by causes obvious to all, will do little for pre- 
 sent reputation. Hence it was that Bacon 
 bequeathed his reputation to the generation 
 after the next. 
 
 As little is there any reason to hope that the 
 obvious and gratifying return to serious and 
 standard publications, evinced by the numer- 
 ous reprints of our classical writers that issue 
 from the press, can be taken as any sufficient 
 indication that there exists in the public mind 
 an adequate antidote to these evils. The fact 
 of these reprints of standard works issuing 
 from the press, certainly proves sufficiently 
 that there is a class, and a numerous one too, 
 of persons who, however much they may like 
 superficial literature as an amusement for the 
 hour, yet look to our standard works for the 
 volumes which are to fill their libraries. But 
 that by no means affords a sufficient guarantee 
 that the public will give any encouragement 
 to the composition or publication of standard 
 works at the present time, and with the present 
 temper of the national mind. There is a most 
 
178 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 material difference between the reprint of a 
 standard book, which has already acquired a 
 fixed reputation, and the composition of a new 
 work of a serious and contemplative cast, es- 
 pecially by an unknown author, and more 
 particularly if it is in opposition to the general 
 current of public opinion. It may safely be 
 predicted of such a work, that if it really con- 
 tains new and important truths, it will be dis- 
 tasteful to the majority of readers in all classes ; 
 and that whatever fame may in future be be- 
 stowed on its author, or however widely it may 
 hereafter be read by the public, or command 
 the assent of mankind, he will be in his grave 
 before either effect takes place. Adam Smith, 
 if we mistake not, had died before the Wealth 
 of Nations had got past even a second edition, 
 certainly before its principles had made any 
 material progress in the general mind. Seve- 
 ral years had elapsed before a hundred copies 
 of Mr. Hume's History were sold ; and he him- 
 self has told us, that nothing but the earnest 
 entreaties of his friends induced him, in the 
 face of such a cold and chilling reception, to 
 continue his historical labours. Although, 
 therefore, there exists a steady demand for 
 standard classical works, it is by no means 
 equally apparent that any thing like an ade- 
 quate encouragement in the general case for 
 the composition of new standard works, is to 
 be found in the present state of society. Few 
 men have the self-denial, like Bacon, to be- 
 queath their reputation to the generation after 
 the next, and to labour for nothing during the 
 whole of their own lifetime; and the chance 
 of finding persons who will do so, is much 
 diminished, when society has reached that 
 period in which, by simply lowering his mode 
 of composition, and descending from being the 
 instructor to be the amuser of men, the author 
 can obtain both profit and celebrity from a 
 numerous and flattering class of readers. 
 
 Nor is there the slightest ground for the 
 hope, that the strong diversion of philosophi- 
 cal and literary talent into the periodical litera- 
 ture of the day, has only turned it into a new 
 channel, and not diminished its amount or im- 
 paired its usefulness. If we contemplate, 
 indeed, the periodical literature, of the day, 
 every one must be struck with astonishment 
 at the prodigious amount and versatility of 
 lalent which it displays. But how much of 
 that has realized itself in works of a perma- 
 nent or durable character, calculated to instruct 
 or delight future ages? Turn to the early 
 criticisms of the Edinburgh Review, flowing, as 
 they did, from the able and varied pens of 
 Brougham, Jeffrey, and Sydney Smith, and see 
 how many of them will stand the test which 
 thirty years' subsequent experience has afford- 
 ed ? Few persons now read the early cri- 
 tiques in the Quarterly Review, supported as 
 they were by the talent of Gifford, Lockhart, 
 Croker, and Dudley, which affords decisive 
 evidence of the way in which each succeeding 
 wave of periodical criticism buries in oblivion 
 the last. Various attempts have been made to 
 select from the immense mass of these periodi- 
 cals, such of the pieces as appeared likely to 
 attract permanent interest; but none of them 
 have any remarkable success, if we except the 
 
 best criticisms of Jeffrey and the splendid essays 
 of Macaulay, which have formed a valuable 
 addition to our standard literature. 
 
 The reason why periodical essays, how able 
 soever, seldom succeed in acquiring a lasting 
 reputation, is this. It is too deeply impreg- 
 nated with the passions, the interests, and the 
 errors of the moment. This arises from the 
 same cause which Bulwer and Cousin have 
 remarked as necessarily changing the character 
 of oratory in proportion to the size of the audi- 
 ence to which it is addressed. Temporary 
 literature necessarily shares in the temporary 
 nature of the passions of which it is the mirror. 
 Every one who is accustomed to that species 
 of composition knows, that if he does not strike 
 at the prevailing feeling of the moment, in the 
 great majority of his readers he will produce 
 no sort of impression, and he will very soon, 
 find his contributions returned upon his hand 
 by the editor. " The great talent of Mirabeau," 
 says Dumont, " consisted in this, that he in- 
 tuitively saw to what point in the minds of his 
 audience to apply his strength, and he sent it 
 home there with the strength of a giant." That 
 is precisely the talent required in periodical 
 literature ; and accordingly, every one engaged 
 in it, is aware that he writes an article for a 
 magazine or review in a very different style 
 from what he does in any composition intended 
 for durable existence. If we turn to the politi- 
 cal articles in any periodical ten or fifteen 
 years old, what a multitude of facts do we find 
 distorted, of theories disproved by the result, 
 of anticipations which have proved fallacious, 
 of hopes which have terminated only in disap- 
 pointment 1 This is no reproach to the writers. 
 It is the necessary result of literary and philo- 
 sophical talent keenly and energetically applied 
 to the interests of the hour. It is in the cool 
 shade of retirement, and by men detached from 
 the contests of the world, that truth in social 
 and moral affairs is really to be discovered; 
 but how are we to look for that quality amidst 
 the necessary cravings of an excited age, seek- 
 ing after something new in fiction, or the 
 passions of a divided community finding vent 
 on politics in the periodical press ? 
 
 The great profits which now accrue to 
 authors who are lucky enough to hit upon a 
 popular view with the public, is another cir- 
 cumstance which tends most powerfully to 
 stamp this fleeting and impassioned character, 
 both upon our creations of imagination and 
 periodical effusions of political argument 
 The days are gone past when Johnson wrote 
 in a garret in Fleet Street the sonorous periods 
 which a subsequent century have admired, 
 under the name of Chatham. The vast in- 
 crease of readers, particularly in the middle 
 and lower ranks, has opened sources of literary 
 profit, and avenues to literary distinction, un- 
 known in any former age. A successful article 
 in a magazine or review brings a man into 
 notice in the literary world, just as effectually 
 as a triumphant debvt makes the fortune of an 
 actress or singer. But how is this success to 
 be kept up ! or how is this profit to be con- 
 tinued ? Not certainly by turning aside from 
 periodical literature to the cool shades of medi- 
 tation or retirement, but by engaging still more 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 
 
 179 
 
 deeply in the stirring bustle of the limes ; by 
 catering to the craving for continued excite- 
 ment, or plunging into the stream of turbulent 
 politics. If, instead of doing so, he sits " on a 
 hill retired," and labours for the benefit of 
 mankind, and the instruction of posterity in a 
 future age, he will soon find the cold shoulder 
 of the public turned towards him. He may 
 acquire immortal fame by his labours, but he 
 will soon find that, unless he has a profession 
 or independent fortune, he is gradually verging 
 towards a neglected home the garret. Where- 
 as, if he engages in the pursuit of fiction, or 
 plunges into the stream of politics, he will ere- 
 long be gratified by finding, if he has talents 
 adequate to the undertaking, that fame and 
 fortune pour in upon him, that his society is 
 courted, and his name celebrated, and not un- 
 frequently political patronage rewards passing 
 talent or service with durable honours or 
 rewards. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, is more certain than that 
 nothing great, either in philosophy, literature, 
 or art, was ever purchased by gold ; that genius 
 unfolds her treasures to disinterested votaries 
 only; and that but one reason can be assigned 
 why such clusters of great men occasionally 
 appear in the world, that "God Almighty," in 
 Hallam's words, "has chosen at those times to 
 create them." But admitting that neither gold 
 nor honours can purchase genius, or unlock 
 truth, the question is, to what extent they may 
 draw aside talent, even of the highest class, from 
 the cold and shivering pinnacles of meditation 
 and thought, into the rich and flowery vales of 
 politics, amusement, or imagination. The 
 point is not what they can do, but what they 
 can cause to be left undone. Doubtless there 
 are occasionally to be found men of the very 
 highest character of intellect and principle, 
 who, born to direct mankind, feel their destiny, 
 and, in defiance of all the seductions of fame or 
 interest, pursue it with invincible perseverance 
 to the end. But such men are rare; they sel- 
 dom appear more than once in a generation. 
 Above all, they are least likely to arise, and 
 most likely to be diverted from their proper 
 destiny in an age of commercial opulence and 
 greatness, or of strong political or social ex- 
 citement. The universal thirst for gold, the 
 general experience of its necessity to confer 
 not merely comfort but respectability the faci- 
 lity with which genius may acquire it, if it will 
 condescend to fall in with the temper of the 
 times the utter barrenness of its efforts, if it 
 indulges merely in the abstract pursuit of truth, 
 how clearly soever destined for immortality in 
 a future age the distinction to be immediately 
 acquired by lending its aid to the strife of parties, 
 or condescending to amuse an insatiable pub- 
 lic the long-continuedneglect which is certain 
 to ensue, if works likely to procure durable 
 celebrity are attempted are so many tempta- 
 tions which assail the literary adventurer on 
 his path, and which, if not resisted by the he- 
 roic sense of duty of a Thalaba, will infallibly 
 divert him from his appointed mission of pierc- 
 ing the Idol of Error to the heart. 
 
 These causes of danger to our standard lite- 
 rature become more pressing, when it is recol- 
 lected that, by the fixed practice and apparently 
 
 constitutional usage of this mixed aristocratic 
 and commercial realm, no distinctions of rank 
 are ever conferred upon literary ability, how 
 distinguished soever. Sir Walter Scott, indeed, 
 and Sir Edward Bulwer have been made baro- 
 nets; but, in the first instance, it was on the 
 personal friend of George IV. that this honour 
 was conferred, not the great novelist; in the 
 second, to the literary parliamentary support- 
 er, not the author of England and the English, 
 that the reward was given. Both indeed were 
 entirely worthy of the honour; but the honour 
 would never have been bestowed on the Scotch 
 novelist, if he had been unknown in the aris- 
 tocratic circles of London, and never dined 
 at Carlton House ; or on the English, if he had 
 been a stranger to the Whig coteries of the 
 metropolis. The proof of this is decisive. 
 Look at what we have done for our greatest 
 men, who had not these adventitious aids to 
 court favour. We made Burns an excise of- 
 ficer and Adam Smith a commissioner of cus- 
 toms. 
 
 The influence of this circumstance is very 
 great; and the want of any such national ho- 
 nours is an additional cause of the fleeting and 
 ephemeral character of our general literature. 
 The soldier and the sailor are certain, if they 
 distinguish themselves, of obtaining such re- 
 wards. Look at the long list of knights com- 
 manders of the Bath, in both services, who were 
 promoted by the last brevet. Nothing can be 
 more just than conferring such distinctions on 
 these gallant men ; they compensate to them the 
 inequality of their fortunes, and stimulate them 
 to heroic and daring exploits. The successful 
 lawyer often comes in the end to take prece- 
 dence of every peer in the realm, and becomes 
 the founder of a family which transmits his 
 wealth and his honours' to remote generations. 
 The honoured names of Hardwicke, Loughbo- 
 rough, Mansfield, and Eldon, have been trans- 
 mitted with princely fortunes to an ennobled 
 posterity. But to literary abilities none of these 
 higher and elevating objects of ambition are 
 open. The great author can neither found a 
 family nor acquire a title; and if he does not 
 choose to degrade himself by falling in with 
 the passions or frivolities of the age, it is more 
 than probable that, like the Israelites of old, 
 his life will be spent in wandering in the de- 
 sert, and he will see only, in his last hour, and 
 that from afar, the promised land. And yet 
 what is the influence of the soldier, the lawyer, 
 or the statesman, compared to that which a 
 great and profound writer exercises ? and what 
 do the monarchs, the cabinets, and the generals 
 of one age do, but carry into effect the princi- 
 ples enforced by the master-spirits of the pre- 
 ceding? 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that there are a vari- 
 ety of causes, some of a positive, some of a 
 negative kind, which are operating together to 
 depress the character of our literature; to chill 
 the aspirations of genius, or the soarings of 
 intellect ; to enlist fancy on the side of fashion, 
 and genius in the pursuit of fiction ; to bind 
 down lasting intellect to passing interests, and 
 compel it to surrender to party what was meant 
 for mankind. This is not a cl->~s interest; it 
 is an universal concern. It involves nothing 
 
180 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 less than the dearest interests and future fate 
 of the nation ; for what sort of people will we 
 soon become, if temporary passions, interests, 
 or frivolities, alone engross the talent of the 
 empire; and the great lights of genius and in- 
 tellect, which might enable us to keep abreast 
 of our fortunes, become extinct among us ? 
 What are we to say are likely to be the prin- 
 ciples of our statesmen, our legislators, or our 
 rulers, if the elevating and ennobling principles 
 of former times are gradually forgotten, and 
 no successors to the race of giants arise to di- 
 rect, purify, and elevate the public mind, amidst 
 the rapidly increasing dangers which assail it, 
 in the later and more opulent stages of society 1 
 What are we to expect but that we are to fall 
 into the listless cravings of the Athenians, who 
 were constantly employed in seeing and hear- 
 ing something new ; or to the deplorable destiny 
 of the Byzantine empire, which, amidst inces- 
 sant literary exertion and amusement, did not 
 produce a single work of genius for a thousand 
 years? And if such mingled talent and frivo- 
 lity should permanently lay hold of the British 
 mind, what can we expect but that our latter 
 end shall be like theirs, and that centuries of 
 progressive degradation and ultimate national 
 extinction will terminate the melancholy era 
 of social regeneration on which we have just 
 entered. 
 
 It is perhaps of still more importance to ob- 
 serve, what, though equally true, is not so gene- 
 rally admitted, that these causes of degradation, 
 so far from being likely to be alleviated or ar- 
 rested by the progressive extension of the taste 
 for reading among the middle and lower classes 
 of society, are, unhappily, too likely to be daily 
 increased by that very circumstance. As it is 
 the extension of the power of reading to the mid- 
 dle and working classes, that has. in a great part, 
 produced the present ephemeral character of our 
 literature, and the incessant demand for works 
 of excitement; so nothing appears more cer- 
 tain, than that this tendency is likely to aug- 
 ment with the extension of that class of readers. 
 The middle and lower orders, indeed, who are 
 so closely brought into contact with the real 
 difficulties and stern realities of life, will al- 
 ways, in every popular community, cause a 
 large part of the talent and intellect of the nation 
 to be directed, not merely to works of amuse- 
 ment, but works of utility, and having an im- 
 mediate bearing on the improvement of art, the 
 extension of commerce, or the amelioration of 
 the material interests of society. But these 
 labours, however useful and important, belong 
 to a secondary class of thought, and encourage 
 only a second class of literary labourers. 
 They are the instruments of genius, not genius 
 itself; they are the generals and colonels in the 
 great army of thought, but not the comrnander- 
 in-chief. "In the infancy of a nation," says 
 Bacon, "arms do prevail; in its manhood, 
 arms and learning for a short season ; in its de- 
 cline, commerce and the mechanical arts." 
 The application of energy, talent, and industry, 
 to material purposes, however useful or neces- 
 sary those purposes may be, savours of the 
 physical necessities, not the spiritual dignity of 
 man ; and the general turning of public effort 
 in that direction is a symptom of the decline 
 
 of nations. Let us not therefore lay the flat- 
 tering unction to our souls, that the craving 
 for the excitement of fiction, or the realities 
 of mechanical improvement, which have ex- 
 tended so immensely among us, with the spread 
 of knowledge among the middle and working 
 classes, are to prove any antidote to the decline 
 of the highest class of literature amongst us. 
 On the contrary, they are among the most 
 Dowerful causes which produce it. 
 
 Real genius and intellect of the highest cha- 
 racter, it can never be too often repeated, works 
 only for the future ; it rarely produces any im- 
 pression, or brings in any reward whatever, at 
 he present. Works of fiction or imagination, 
 ndeed, such as Sir Walter Scott's orBulwer's 
 novels, or Lord Byron's poetical romances, 
 may produce an immediate impression, and 
 yet be destined for durable existence ; but such 
 a combination is extremely rare, and is in 
 general confined entirely to works that please. 
 Those that instruct or improve, destined to a 
 yet longer existence, have a much slower 
 growth, and often do not come to maturity till 
 after the death of the author. 
 
 " The solitary man of genius," says D'Israeli, 
 ; 'is arranging the materials of instruction and 
 curiosity from every country and every age; 
 lie is striking out, in the concussion of new 
 light, a new order of ideas for his own times ; 
 he possesses secrets which men hide from 
 their contemporaries, truths they dared not 
 utter, facts they dared not discover. View him 
 in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit 
 busied over a copious page, and his eye spark- 
 ling with gladness. He has concluded what 
 his countrymen will hereafter cherish as the 
 legacy of genius. You see him now changed; 
 and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into 
 his very gestures ! Could you listen to the 
 vaticinator ! But the next age only will quote 
 his predictions. If he be the truly great au- 
 thor, he will be best comprehended by posterity; 
 for the result of ten years of solitary medita- 
 tion has often required a whole century to be 
 understood and to be adopted." 
 
 We are no enemies to the conferring the 
 honours of the crown upon the most distin- 
 guished of our literary men. To many, such 
 elevation would form a most appropriate re- 
 ward ; to all, a legitimate object of ambition. 
 But we are exceedingly jealous of the influence 
 of all such court favours upon the assertors 
 of political, social, or historical truth. We 
 look to other countries, and we behold the 
 withering effect of such distinctions upon the 
 masculine independence of thought. We re- 
 collect the titled and well-paid literature of 
 Prance, under the Emperor Napoleon, and we 
 ask, what has come of all that high-sounding 
 panegyric? We read the annals of the digni- 
 fied historians of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, 
 and we sicken for the breath of a freeman. 
 We remember 1 it was only under* a Trajan that 
 a Tacitus could pour forth the indignation of 
 expiring virtue at surrounding baseness, and 
 we shudder to think how few Trajaus are to 
 be found in the decline of nations. 
 
 The only legitimate and safe reward of the 
 highest class of literary merit, next to the con- 
 sciousness of discharging its mission, is to be 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION. 
 
 181 
 
 found in the prolongation of the period during 
 which its profits are to accrue to the family of 
 the author. We at once concede that even 
 this motive, higher and more honourable than 
 that of present or selfish gain, will never be 
 sufficient to induce the loftiest class of genius 
 or intellect to produce any great work. It is 
 an overpowering sense of public duty an 
 ardent inspiration after deserved immortality 
 the yearnings of a full mind, which must be 
 delivered that are the real causes of such 
 elevated efforts. They are given only to a 
 few, because to a few only has God assigned 
 the power of directing mankind. But, admit- 
 ting that the divine inspiration is the fountain 
 of truth the "pure well of genius undefined" 
 the point to be considered is, how is the 
 stream which it pours forth to be kept in its 
 proper channel! how is it to be prevented 
 from becoming rapidly merged in the agitated 
 waves of human passion, or sunk in the bot- 
 tomless morasses of interest or selfishness ? 
 By giving something like perpetuity to the 
 rights of authorship, this can be best effected ; 
 because it is by so doing that we will most 
 effectually ally it to the purest and most ele- 
 vated motives which, in sublunary matters, 
 can influence mankind. 
 
 Look at the merchant, the lawyer, the manu- 
 facturer, at all who amass fortunes, and leave 
 the colossal estates which gradually elevate 
 their possessors to the ranks of the aristocracy, 
 and fill up in that class the chasms which for- 
 tune, extravagance, or the extinction of fami- 
 lies, so often produce. What are the motives 
 which animate the founders of such families 
 to a life of exertion, and produce the astonish- 
 ing effects in the accumulation of wealth which 
 we daily see around us 1 It is not the desire 
 of individual enjoyment; for, whatever his son 
 may have, the father seldom knows any thing 
 of wealth but of the labour by which it is 
 created. It is not even for the distinction 
 which he is to acquire during his own lifetime, 
 that the successful professional maa or mer- 
 chant labours ; for, if that were his object, it 
 would be far more effectually and more plea- 
 santly gained, by simply spending his wealth 
 as fast as he made it. What, then, is the 
 motive which animates him to a life of labour, 
 and stimulates him through half a century to 
 such incessant exertions'! It is the hope of 
 transmitting his fortune to his children of 
 securing the independence of those most dear 
 to him; it is the desire of founding a family 
 of leaving his descendants in a very different 
 rank of life from that in which he himself 
 moved, or his fathers before him. They know 
 little of the human mind who are not aware 
 that this desire, when it once takes hold of the 
 mind, supplies the want of all other enjoy- 
 ments, and that it is the secret, unobserved 
 cause of the greatest individual and national 
 efforts that have ever been achieved among 
 mankind. 
 
 To the due action of this important principle, 
 however, a certain degree of permanence in the 
 enjoyment of the fortune acquired is indispen- 
 sable. Men will never make such long-con- 
 tinued or sustained efforts for a temporary or 
 passing interest. Does any man suppose that 
 
 a merchant or lawyer would toil for fifty years, 
 if he knew that he could only expect an eight- 
 and-twenty years' lease of his fortune ! " Give 
 a man," says Arthur Young, "a seven years' 
 lease of a garden, and he will soon convert it 
 into a wilderness: give him a freehold in an 
 arid desert, and he will not be long of convert- 
 ing it into a garden." Is it probable that the 
 industry of Great Britain would continue, if 
 the old Jewish system of making all estates 
 revert to the nation at the end of every fifty 
 years were to be introduced, or Bronterre 
 O'Brien's more summary mode of dividing 
 every fortune at the death of the owner were 
 put in practice 1 Truly, we should soon be- 
 come an ephemeral and fleeting generation in 
 wealth, as well as literature, if such maxims 
 were acted upon; and " to-day let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die," would at once 
 become the order of the day. 
 
 If the combined force of all these circum- 
 stances be taken into consideration, it must be 
 evident to every impartial mind, not only that 
 it is not surprising that new standard literature 
 has of late years so much declined amongst 
 us, but that the only wonderful thing is, that it 
 has not sunk much more than it has. The 
 causes which produce great and sustained 
 efforts in every other department of human ac- 
 tivity, are not only withheld from the highest 
 class of literary or philosophical exertion, but 
 the persons engaged in them are perpetually 
 exposed to the disturbing and detracting in- 
 fluence of the prospect of fame and fortune 
 being attained by condescending to cater for 
 the passions or wants of the moment. To the 
 continued energy and activity of the merchant 
 or manufacturer, we offer the possession of 
 unbounded wealth, and the prospect of trans- 
 mitting an elevated, perhaps an ennobled race 
 to future times. To the soldier or the sailor 
 we hold out a vast succession of titled rewards, 
 and, to the highest among such race of heroes, 
 hereditary peerages the deserved reward of 
 their valour. To the indefatigable industry 
 and persevering energy of the lawyer, we offer 
 a seat on the Woolsack, precedence of every 
 temporal peer in the realm, the highest tempo- 
 ral dignities and hereditary honours which the 
 state can afford. What, then, do we offer to 
 the philosopher, the poet, or the historian, to 
 the leaders of thought and the rulers of nations, 
 to counteract the attractions of immediate or 
 temporary ambition, and lead them abreast of 
 their brethren at the bar, in the field, or the 
 senate, to great and glorious efforts, to durable 
 and beneficent achievement? Why, we pre- 
 sent them with petty traders anxiously watch- 
 ing the expiration of eight-and-twenty years 
 of copyright, or hoping for the death of the 
 author, if he has survived it ; and ready, with 
 uplifted hands, to pounce upon the glorious 
 inheritance of his children, and realize for 
 their own business-like skill and mercantile 
 capital the vast profits which had been be- 
 queathed by genius to the age which follow- 
 ed it. 
 
 It is a total mistake, to imagine that the 
 profits of works of imagination, unless they 
 are of the very highest class, ever equal those 
 which in the end accrue to the publishers of 
 
182 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 standard works of history or philosophy. The 
 booksellers, since Gibbon's death, are said to 
 have made 200,000/. of his Decline and Fall of 
 the Raman Empire and hardly a year passes, 
 that a new edition of his immortal work, or 
 of Hume's History of England, does not issue 
 from the press. The sums realized by the 
 bookselling trade from the different editions of 
 the Wealth of Nations, would have constituted a 
 large inheritance to the heirs of Adam Smith. 
 What a princely fortune would Milton or 
 Shakspeare have left to their descendants, if 
 any there be, if they could have bequeathed to 
 them the exclusive right of publishing their 
 own works, even for half a century after their 
 own death. Look at the classics. What count- 
 less sums have been realized by the booksellers 
 and publishers from the successive reprints, in 
 every country of Europe, of the works of Livy, 
 Cicero, and Tacitus, since the revival of letters 
 three hundred years ago 1 Why, the profits 
 made by the publication of any one of these 
 works would have made a princely fortune, 
 and founded a ducal family. So true is it that 
 literary or philosophical talent of the highest 
 description, so far from being unproductive of 
 wealth to its possessors, is in the end produc- 
 tive of a far greater and more lasting source 
 of income than the efforts either of the lawyer, 
 the merchant, or the statesman. It has this 
 invaluable quality: it is permanent; it creates 
 an estate which produces fruits after the author 
 is no more. The only reason why great for- 
 tunes are not made in the one way as well as 
 in the other, is because the labour employed 
 on that, the highest species of human adven- 
 ture, is almost always unproductive in the out- 
 set, and lucrative only in the end ; and that the 
 injustice of human laws confiscates the pro- 
 perty at the very monient when the crop is beginning 
 to come to maturity. They know little of human 
 nature who imagine that such prospect of 
 remote advantage would have little influence 
 on literary exertion. Look at life insurances. 
 How large a proportion of the most active and 
 useful members of society, especially among 
 the middle and higher classes, are connected 
 with these admirable institutions. How many 
 virtuous and industrious men deny themselves, 
 during a long life, many luxuries, and even 
 comforts, in order that, after their death, they 
 may bequeath an independence to their chil- 
 dren. Eighty thousand persons are now con- 
 nected with these institutions in Great Britain, 
 and that number is hourly on the increase. 
 Here, then, is decisive evidence of the ex- 
 tent to which the desire of transmitting in- 
 dependence to our children acts upon man- 
 kind, even where it is to be won only by a life 
 of continued toil and self-denial. Can there 
 be the slightest doubt that the same motive, 
 combining with the desire to benefit mankind, 
 or acquire durable fame, would soon come to 
 operate powerfully upon the highest class of 
 intellectual effort, and that an adequate coun- 
 teraction would thus be provided to the nume- 
 rous attractions which now impel it into tem- 
 porary exertion] And observe, the motives 
 which lead to present self-denial in order to 
 transmit an independence to posterity, by the 
 effecting life assurances, are nearly allied to 
 
 those which prompt great minds to magnani- 
 mous and durable efforts for the good of their 
 species ; for both rest upon the foundation of 
 all that is noble or elevated in human affairs 
 a denial of self, a regard to futurity, and a love 
 for others. 
 
 The tenacity with which any extension even 
 of the term of copyright enjoyed by authors, 
 or their assignees, is resisted by a certain por- 
 tion of the London booksellers, and those who 
 deal in the same line, affords the most decisive 
 proof of the magnitude of the profits which 
 are to be obtained by the republication, the 
 moment the copyright has expired, of works 
 that have acquired a standard reputation, and 
 of the vast amount of literary property, the 
 inheritance of the great of the past age, which 
 is annually confiscated for the benefit of the 
 booksellers in the present. These men look 
 to the matter as a mere piece of mercantile 
 speculation; their resistance is wholly founded 
 upon the dread of a diminution of their profits, 
 wrung from the souls of former authors; they 
 would never have put forward, with so much 
 anxiety as they have done, Mr. Warburton and 
 Mr. Wakley to fight their battles, if they had 
 not had very extensive profits to defend in the 
 contest. The vehemence of their opposition 
 affords a measure of the magnitude of the in- 
 justice which is done to authors by the present 
 state of the law, and of the amount of en- 
 couragement to great and glorious effort, which 
 is annually withheld by the legislature. The 
 struggle, in which they have hitherto proved 
 successful, is not a contest between authors 
 and a particular section of the booksellers; it 
 is, in reality, a contest between the nation and 
 a limited section of the bookselling trade. It 
 is, in the most emphatic sense, a class against 
 a national interest. For on the one side are a 
 few London booksellers who make colossal 
 fortunes, by realizing, shortly after their de- 
 cease, the profits of departed greatness; and 
 on the other, the whole body of the people of 
 England, whose opinions and character are 
 necessarily formed by the highest class of its 
 writers, and whose national destiny and future 
 fate is mainly dependent upon the spirited and 
 exalted direction of their genius. 
 
 The only argument founded upon public 
 considerations which is ever adduced against 
 these views, is founded upon the assertion, 
 that, under the monopoly produced by the copy- 
 right to the author, while it lasts, the price of 
 works is seriously enhanced to the public, and 
 they are confined to editions of a more costly 
 description, and that thus the benefit of the 
 spread of knowledge among the middle and 
 humbler classes is diminished. If this argu- 
 ment were well founded, it may be admitted, 
 that it would afford, to a certain degree, a coun- 
 terbalancing consideration to those which have 
 been mentioned, although no temporary or 
 passing advantages could ever adequately 
 compensate the evils consequent upon drying 
 up the fountains of real intellectual greatness 
 amongst us. But it is evident that these ap- 
 prehensions are altogether chimerical, and that 
 the clamour devised about the middle classes 
 being deprived of the benefit of getting cheap 
 editions of wqrks that have become standard, 
 
THE COPYRIGHT QUESTIO1 
 
 183 
 
 is now altogether unfounded. It may be con- [ blished. at different prices, adapted to the rates 
 ceded that in the former age, when the rich at which purchasers inajN|^||0jB|0fil^TOiy; 
 and the affluent alone were the purchasers of just as the manager of a theatre understands 
 books, and education had not opened the trea- that it is expedient not only to have the dress- 
 sures of knowledge to a larger circle, the price circle for the nobility and gentry, but the pit 
 of books during the copyright were, in general, j for the people of business, and the galleries for 
 high, and that the prices were too often suited 
 
 Nay, it 
 
 only to the higher class of readers. 
 may also be admitted, that some publishers 
 have often, by the reprint of works of a stand- 
 ard nature, at a cheaper rate, the moment the 
 copyright expired, of late years materially ex- 
 tended the circle of their readers, and thereby 
 conferred an important benefit on society. But 
 nothing can be plainer than that this circum- 
 stance has taken place solely from the recent 
 introduction of the middle classes into the 
 reading and book-purchasing public; and be- 
 cause experience had not yet taught authors 
 or publishers the immense profits to be some- 
 times realized by adapting, during the con- 
 tinuance of the copyright., the varied classes of 
 editions of popular works, to the different 
 classes of readers who have now risen into 
 activity. But their attention is now fully 
 awakened to this subject. Every one now 
 sees that the greatest profit is to 'be realized 
 during the copyright, for works of durable in- 
 terest, by publishing editions adapted for all, 
 even the very humblest classes. The proof of this 
 is decisive. Does not Mr. Campbell publish 
 annually a new edition of the Pleasures of Hope, 
 in every possible form, from the two guinea 
 edition for the duchess or countess, down to 
 the shilling copy for the mechanic and the 
 artisan] Have not Sir Walter Scott's Novels 
 been brought down, during the subsistence of 
 the copyright, to an issue of the Waverley 
 Novels, at four shillings each novel, and lat- 
 terly to an issue at twopence a week, avowedly 
 for the working-classes'! Moore's, Southey's, 
 and Wordsworth's Poems, have all been pub- 
 lished by the authors or their assignees, in a 
 duodecimo form, originally at five, but which 
 can now be had at four, or three shillings and 
 sixpence a volume. James's Naval History has 
 already issued from the press in monthly num- 
 bers, at five shillings; and the eighth edition 
 of Hallam's Middle Ages is before the public in 
 two volumes, at a price so moderate, that it 
 never can be made lower to those who do not 
 wish to put out their eyes by reading closely 
 printed double columns by candle-light. In 
 short, authors and booksellers now perfectly 
 understand that, as a reading and book-buying 
 public has sprung up in all classes, it has 
 become not only necessary, but in the highest 
 degree profitable, to issue different editions 
 even simultaneously from the press, if the 
 reputation of a work has become fully esta- 
 
 the humbler classes. No doubt can be enter- 
 tained that as the craving for intellectual en- 
 joyment, to those who feel it the more insatia- 
 ble of any, spreads more generally through the 
 middle classes, this effect will more extensively 
 take place. No one imagines that, because the 
 seats in the dress-circle are seven shillings, he 
 will close the pit, which is three and sixpence, 
 or the gallery, which is one shilling. In this 
 age of growing wealth and intelligence in the 
 middle and humbler classes, there is no danger 
 of their being forgotten, if they do not forget 
 themselves. There is more to be got out of 
 the pit and the galleries than the dress-circle. 
 Thus we have argued this great question of 
 copyright upon its true ground the national 
 character, the national interests, the elevation 
 and improvement of all classes. W T e disdain 
 to argue it upon the footing of the interests of 
 authors; we despise appeals to the humanity, 
 even to the justice of the legislature. We 
 have' not even mentioned the names of Mr. Ser- 
 geant Talfourd or Lord Mahon, who" have so 
 strenuously and eloquently advocated the in- 
 terest of authors in the point at issue. We 
 have done so because we look to higher objects 
 in connection with the question than any per- 
 sonal or class advantage. We tell our legis- 
 lators, that those who wield the powers of 
 thought are fully aware of the strength of the 
 lever which they hold in their hand; they 
 know that it governs the rulers of men ; that 
 it brought on the Revolution of France, and 
 stopped the Revolution of England. The only 
 class of writers to whom the extension of the 
 present copyright would be of any value, are 
 actuated by higher motives to their exertions 
 than any worldly considerations of honour or 
 profit ; those who aspire to direct or bless man- 
 kind, are neither to be seduced by courts, nor 
 to be won by gold. It is the national cha- 
 racter which is really affected by the present 
 downward tendency of our literature ; it is 
 the national interests which are really at stake; 
 it is the final fate of the empire which is at 
 issue in the character of our literature. True, 
 an extension of the copyright will not affect 
 the interests of a thousandth part of the writers, 
 or a hundredth part of the readers in the pre- 
 sent or any future age ; but what then it is 
 they who are to form the general opinion of 
 mankind in the next; it is upon that thou- 
 sandth and that hundredth that the fate of the 
 world depends. 
 
184 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 MICHELET'S FRANCE.* 
 
 IT is a common and very just observation, 
 that modern historical works are not so inte- 
 resting as those which have been bequeathed 
 to us by antiquity. Even at this distance of 
 time, after two thousand years have elapsed 
 since they were written, the great histories of 
 Greece and Rome still form the most attractive 
 subject of study to all ages. The young find 
 in their heart-stirring legends and romantic 
 incidents, keen and intense delight; the mid- 
 dle-aged discover in their reflections and max- 
 ims the best guide in the ever-changing, but 
 yet ever the same, course of human events : 
 the aged recur to them with still greater plea- 
 sure, as imbodying at once the visions of their 
 youth and the experience of their maturer years. 
 It is not going too far to assert, that in their 
 own style they are altogether inimitable, and 
 that, like the Greek statues, future ages, ever 
 imitating, will never be able to rival them. 
 
 This remarkable and generally admitted 
 perfection is not to be ascribed, however, to any 
 superior genius in the ancient to the modern 
 writers. History was a different art in Greece 
 and Rome from what it now is. Antiquity 
 had no romances their histories, based in 
 early times on their ballads and traditions, 
 supplied their place. Narrative with them 
 was simple in event, and single in interest 
 it related in general the progress of a single 
 city or commonwealth ; upon that the whole 
 light of the artist required to be thrown : the 
 remainder naturally was placed in shade, or 
 slightly illuminated only where it came in con- 
 tact with the favoured object. With the ex- 
 ception of Herodotus, who, though the oldest 
 historian in existence, was led by the vigour 
 of his mind, his discursive habits, and exten- 
 sive travelling, to give, as it were, a picture 
 of the whole world then known these ancient 
 histories are all the annals of individual towns 
 or little republics. Xenophon, Thucydides, 
 Sallust, Livy, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius 
 Halicarnassensis, are all more or less of this 
 character. The mighty genius of Tacitus 
 alone seems to have embraced the design of 
 giving a picture of the vast empire of Rome ; 
 and even in his hands history was still dis- 
 tinguished by its old character the Forum 
 was still the object of reverential interest the 
 Palatine Mount embraced the theatre of almost 
 all the revolutions which he has so admirably 
 portrayed ; and his immortal work is less a 
 picture of the Roman world under the Caesars, 
 than a delineation of the revolutions of the 
 palace which shook their empire, and the con- 
 vulsive throes by which they were attended 
 throughout its various provinces. 
 
 In modern times, a far more difficult task j 
 awaits the historian, and wholly different quali- j 
 ties are required in him who undertakes to 
 perform it. The superior age of the world 
 
 *Histoirede France. ParM Mirhelet. 6 vole. Paris, 
 1832-3. Foreign and Colonial Review, April, 1844. 
 
 I the eighteen hundred years which have elapsed 
 | since the Augustan age of Roman literature 
 | the discovery of new nations, quarters of the 
 globe, and hemispheres, since Livy concluded, 
 in one hundred and forty books, the majestic 
 annals of Roman victories the close connec- 
 tion of nations among each other, which have 
 interlaced their story like the limbs of ancient 
 wrestlers the new sciences which have grown 
 up and come to bear upon human events, with 
 the growth of mankind and the expansion of 
 knowledge and the prodigious perplexity of 
 transactions, military, political, and moral, 
 which require to be unravelled and brought in 
 a clear form before the mind of the reader, 
 have rendered the task of the historian now as 
 laborious, complicated, and confused, as in 
 former times it was simple, clear, and undi- 
 vided. Unity of effect that preciotfs and im- 
 portant object in all the Fine Arts has been 
 rendered always difficult, sometimes impossi- 
 ble. The story is so complicated, the trans- 
 actions so various, the interests so diverse, that 
 nothing but the most consummate skill, and in- 
 cessant attention on the part of the historian 
 to the leading objects of his narrative, can 
 prevent the mind of the reader from being lost 
 in a boundless sea of detached occurrences. 
 It is not the " tale of Troy divine," nor the 
 narrative of Roman heroism; nor the conquest 
 of Jerusalem, which requires to be recorded; 
 but the transactions of many different nations, 
 as various and detached from each other as 
 the adventures of the knights errant in Ariosto. 
 For these reasons history cannot be written 
 now on the plan of the ancients, and if at- 
 tempted, it would fail of success. The family 
 of nations has become too large to admit of 
 interest being centred only on one member of 
 it. It is in vain now to draw the picture of the 
 groups of time, by throwing the whole light on 
 one figure, and all the rest in shade. Equally 
 impossible is it to give a mere narrative of 
 interesting events, and cast all the rest over- 
 board. All the world would revolt at such an 
 attempt, if made. The transactions of the one 
 selected would be unintelligible, if those of the 
 adjoining states were not given. One set of 
 readers would say, " Where are your statis- 
 tics 1" Another, " There is no military discus- 
 sion the author is evidently no soldier." A 
 third would condemn the book as wanting 
 diplomatic transactions ; a fourth, as destitute 
 of philosophic reflection. The statesman would 
 throw it aside as not containing the informa- 
 tion he desired; the scholar, as affording no 
 cine to contemporary and original authority; 
 the man of the world, as a narrative not to be 
 relied on, and to which it was hazardous to 
 trust without farther investigation. Women 
 would reject it as less interesting than novels; 
 men, as not more authentic than a romance. 
 
 Notwithstanding, , however, this great and 
 increasing difficulty of writing history in 
 
MICHELET'S FRANCE. 
 
 185 
 
 modern times, from the vast addition to the 
 subjects which it embraces and must embrace, 
 the fundamental principles of the art are still 
 the same as they were in the days of Thucydi- 
 des or Sallust. The figures in the picture are 
 greatly multiplied ; many cross lights disturb 
 the unity of its effect; infinitely more learning 
 is required in the drapery and still life; but 
 the object of the painter has undergone no 
 change. Unity of effect, singleness of emotion, 
 should still be his great aim : the multiplication 
 of objects from which it is to be produced, has 
 increased the difficulty, but not altered the 
 principles of the art. And that this difficulty 
 is not insuperable, but may be overcome by 
 the light of genius directing the hand of in- 
 dustry, is decisively proved by the example of 
 Gibbon's Rome, which, embracing the events 
 of fifteen centuries, and successive descriptions 
 of all the nations which, during that long period, 
 took a prominent part in the transactions of 
 the world, yet conveys a clear and distinct im- 
 pression in every part to the mind of the reader; 
 and presents a series of pictures so vivid, and 
 drawn with such force, that the work, -more 
 permanently than any romance, fascinates 
 every successive generation. 
 
 It is commonly said that accuracy and im- 
 partiality are the chief requisites in an histo- 
 rian. That they are indispensable to his utility 
 or success, is indeed certain ; for if the im- 
 pression once be lost, that the author is to be 
 relied on, the value of his production, as a 
 record of past events, is at an end. No bril- 
 liancy of description, no magic of eloquence, 
 no power of narrative, can supply the want of 
 the one thing needful trustworthiness. But 
 fully admitting that truth and justice are the 
 bases of history, there never was a greater mis- 
 take than to imagine that of themselves they 
 will constitute an historian. They may make 
 a valuable annalist a good compiler of ma- 
 terials ; but .very different qualities are re- 
 quired in the artist who is to construct the 
 edifice. In him we expect the power of com- 
 bination, the inspiration of genius, the bril- 
 liancy of conception, the generalization of effect. 
 The workman who cuts the stones out of the 
 quarry, or fashions and dresses them into en- 
 tablatures and columns, is a very different man 
 from him who combines them into the temple, 
 the palace, or the cathedral. The one is a 
 tradesman, the other an artist the first a 
 quarrier, the last a Michael Angelo. 
 
 Mr. Fox arranged the arts of composition 
 thus : 1. Poetry ; 2. History ; 3. Oratory. That 
 very order indicated that the great orator had 
 a just conception of the nature of history, and 
 possessed many of the qualities requisite to 
 excel in it, as he did in the flights of eloquence. 
 It is, in truth, in its higher departments, one 
 of the fine arts ; and it is the extraordinary 
 difficulty of finding a person who combines the 
 imagination and fervour requisite for emi- 
 nence in their aerial visions, with the industry 
 and research which, are indispensable for the 
 correct narrative of earthly events, which 
 renders great historians so very rare, even in 
 the most brilliant periods of human existence. 
 Antiquity only produced six; modern times 
 can hardly boast of eight. It is much easier 
 
 to find a great epic than a great history ; there 
 were many poets in antiquity, but only one 
 Tacitus. Homer himself is rather an annalist 
 than a poet: it is his inimitable traits of na- 
 ture which constitute his principal charm : the 
 Iliad is a history in verse. Modern Italy can 
 boast of a cluster of immortal poets and paint- 
 ers ; but the country of Raphael and Tasso has 
 not produced one really great history. The 
 laboured annals of Guicciardini or Davila can- 
 not bear the name; a work, the perusal of 
 which was deemed worse than the fate of a 
 galley-slave, cannot be admitted to take its 
 place with the master-pieces of Italian art.* 
 Three historians only in Great Britain have 
 by common consent taken their station in the 
 highest rank of historic excellence. Sismondi 
 alone, in France, has been assigned a place 
 by the side of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson. 
 This extraordinary rarity of the highest excel- 
 lence demonstrates the extraordinary difficulty 
 of the art, and justifies Mr. Fox's assertion, 
 that it ranks next to poetry in the fine arts; 
 but it becomes the more extraordinary, when 
 the immense number of works written on his- 
 torical subjects is taken into consideration, 
 and the prodigious piles of books of history 
 which are to be met with in every public 
 library. 
 
 The greatest cause of this general failure 
 of historical works to excite general attention, 
 or acquire lasting fame, is the want of power 
 of generalization and classification in the 
 writers. Immersed in a boundless sea of de- 
 tails, of the relative importance of which they 
 were unable to form any just estimate, the au- 
 thors of the vast majority of these works have 
 faithfully chronicled the events which fell un- 
 der their notice, but in so dry and uninterest- 
 ing a manner that they produced no sort of 
 impression on mankind. Except as books of 
 antiquity or reference, they have long since 
 been consigned to the vault of all the Ca- 
 pulets. They were crushed under their own 
 weight they were drowned in the flood of 
 their own facts. While they were straining 
 every nerve not to deceive their readers, the 
 whole class of those readers quietly slipped 
 over to the other side. They, their merits and 
 their faults, were alike forgotten. It may safely 
 be affirmed, that ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 historical works are consigned to oblivion 
 from this cause. 
 
 The quality, on the other hand, which dis- 
 tinguishes all the histories which have acquired 
 a great and lasting reputation among men, has 
 been the very reverse of this. It consists in 
 the power of thro wing into the shade the sub- 
 ordinate and comparatively immaterial facts, 
 and bringing into a prominent light those only 
 on which subsequent ages love to dwell, from 
 the heroism of the actions recounted, the tragic 
 interest of the catastrophes portrayed, or the 
 important consequences with which they have 
 been attended on the future generations of 
 men. It was thus that Herodotus painted with 
 
 * It is reported in Italy, that a palley-slave was offer- 
 ed a commutation of his sentence, if he would read 
 through Guicciardini's War of Florence with Pisa. After 
 labouring at it for some time, he petitioned to be sent 
 back to the oar Si non I vero & bent trdvato. 
 
186 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 so much force the memorable events of the 
 Persian invasion of Greece ; and Thucydides, 
 the contest of aristocracy and democracy in 
 the Greek commonwealths; and Livy, the im- 
 mortal strife of Hannibal and Scipio in Roman 
 story. No historian ever equalled Gibbon in 
 this power of classification, and giving breadth 
 of effect ; for none ever had so vast and com- 
 plicated a series of events to recount, and none 
 ever portrayed them with so graphic and lu- 
 minous a pen. Observe his great pictures : 
 the condition of the Roman empire in the time 
 of Augustus the capture of Constantinople by 
 the Latin crusaders the rise of Mohammed 
 the habits and manners of the pastoral nations 
 the disasters of Julian and the final decay 
 and ruin of the Eternal City. They stand out 
 from the canvas with all the freshness and 
 animation of real life ; and seizing powerfully 
 on the imagination of the reader, they make an 
 indelible impression, and compensate or cause 
 to be forgotten all the insignificant details of 
 revolutions in the palace of Constantinople, or 
 in the decline of the Roman empire, which 
 necessarily required to be introduced. 
 
 Struck with the fate of so prodigious a host 
 of historical writers, who had sunk into obli- 
 vion from this cause, Voltaire, with his usual 
 vigour and originality, struck out a new style 
 in this department of literature. Discarding 
 at once the whole meager details, the long de- 
 scriptions of dress and ceremony, which filled 
 the pages of the old chronicles or monkish 
 annalists, he strove to bring history back to 
 what he conceived, and with reason, was its 
 true object a striking delineation of the prin- 
 cipal events which had occurred, with a picture 
 of thechanges of manners, ideas, and principles 
 with which they were accompanied. This was 
 a great improvement on the jejune narratives 
 of former times ; and proportionally great was 
 the success with which, in the first instance at 
 least, it was attended. While the dry details of 
 Guicciardini, the ponderous tomes of Villaret 
 or Mezeray, and the trustworthy quartos of De 
 Thou, slumbered in respectable obscurity on the 
 dusty shelves of the library, the " Siecle de Louis 
 XIV.," the Life of Peter the Great and Charles 
 XII., were on every table, and almost in every 
 boudoir ; and their popular author was elevated 
 to the pinnacle of worldly fame, while his more 
 laborious and industrious predecessors were 
 nigh forgotten by a frivolous age. A host of 
 imitators, as usual with every original writer, 
 followed in this brilliant and lucrative path ; of 
 whom, Raynal in France, Schiller in Germany, 
 and Watson in England, were the most suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 But it was ere long discovered that this bril- 
 liant and sketchy style of history was neither 
 satisfactory to the scholar nor permanently 
 popular with the public. It was amusing ra- 
 ther than interesting, brilliant than profound. 
 Its ingenious authors sprung too suddenly to 
 conclusions they laid down positions which 
 the experience of the next age proved to be er- 
 roneous. It wanted that essential requisite in 
 history, a knowledge of the human heart and a 
 practical acquaintance with men. Above all, 
 it had none of the earnestness of thought, the 
 impassioned expression, which springs from 
 
 deep and sincere conviction, and which is ever 
 found to be the only lasting passport to the hu- 
 man heart. After the first burst of popularity 
 was over, it began to be discovered that these 
 brilliant sketches were not real history, and 
 could never supply its place. They left an im- 
 mense deal untold, of equal or greater import- 
 ance than what was told. They gave an 
 amusing, but deceptive, and therefore not per- 
 manently interesting, account of the periods they 
 embraced. Men design something more in 
 reading the narrative of great and important 
 events in past times, than an able sketch of 
 their leading features and brilliant characters, 
 accompanied by perpetual sneers at priests, 
 eulogies on kings, or sarcasms on mankind. 
 This was more particularly the case when the 
 political contests of the 18th century increased 
 in vehemence, and men, warmed with the pas- 
 sions of real life, turned back to the indifferent 
 coolness, the philosophic disdain, the ton deri- 
 swrc, with which the most momentous or tragic 
 events had been treated in these gifted but su- 
 perficial writers. Madame de Stael has said, 
 that when derision has become the prevailing 
 characteristic of the public mind, it is all over 
 with the generous affections or elevated senti- 
 ments. She was right, but not for ever only 
 till men are made to feel in their own persons 
 the sufferings they laugh at in others. It is 
 astonishing how soon that turns derision into 
 sympathy. The " aristocrats derisoires" emerged 
 from the prisons of Paris, on the fall of Robes- 
 pierre, deeply affected with sympathy for hu- 
 man wo. 
 
 The profound emotions, the dreadful suffer- 
 ings, the heart-stirring interest of that eventful 
 era, speedily communicated themselves to the 
 style of historical writers; it at once sent the 
 whole tribe of philosophic and derisory histo- 
 rians overboard. The sketchy style, the philo- 
 sophic contempt, the calm indifference, the 
 skeptical sneers of Voltaire and his followers, 
 were felt as insupportable by those who had 
 known what real suffering was. There early 
 appeared in the narratives of the French Revo- 
 lution, accordingly, in the works of Toulon- 
 geon, Bertrand de Molleville, the Deux Amis 
 de la Liberte, and Lacretelle, a force of paint- 
 ing, a pathos of narrative, a vehemence of lan- 
 guage, which for centuries had been unknown 
 in modern Europe. This style speedily became 
 general, and communicated itself to history in 
 all its branches. The passions on all sides were 
 too strongly roused to permit of the calm nar- 
 ratives of former philosophic writers being 
 tolerated; men had suffered too much to allow 
 them to speak or think with indifference of the 
 sufferings of others. In painting with force 
 and energy, it was soon found that recourse 
 must be had to the original authorities, and, if 
 possible, the eye-witnesses of the events ; all 
 subsequent or imaginary narrative appeared 
 insipid and lifeless in comparison ; it was like 
 studying the mannerist trees of Perelle or 
 Vivares after the vigorous sketches from na- 
 ture of Salvator or Claude. Thence has 
 arisen the great school of modern French his- 
 tory, of which Sismondi was the founder ; and 
 which has since been enriched by the works 
 of Guizot, Thierry, Barante, Thiers, Mignet, 
 
 : 
 
MICHELET'S FRANCE. 
 
 187 
 
 Michaud, and Michelet : a cluster of writers, 
 which, if none of them singly equal the master- 
 pieces of English history, present, taken as a 
 whole, a greater mass of talent in that depart- 
 ment than any other country can boast. 
 
 The poetical mind and pictorial eye of Gib- 
 bon had made him anticipate, in the very midst 
 of the philosophic school of Voltaire, Hume, 
 and Robertson, this great change which mis- 
 fortune and suffering impressed generally upon 
 the next generation. Thence his extraordinary 
 excellence and acknowledged superiority as a 
 delineator of events to any writer who has pre- 
 ceded or followed him. He united the philo- 
 sophy and general views of one age to the 
 brilliant pictures and impassioned story of 
 another. He warmed with the narratives of 
 the crusaders or the Saracens he wandered 
 with the Scythians he wept with the Greeks 
 he delineated with a painter's hand, and a 
 poet's fire, the manners of the nations, the fea- 
 tures of the countries, the most striking events 
 of the periods which were passed under review ; 
 but at the same time he preserved inviolate 
 the unity and general effect of his picture, 
 his lights and shadows maintained their just 
 proportions, and were respectively cast on the 
 proper objects. Philosophy threw a radiance 
 over the mighty maze ; and the mind of the 
 reader, after concluding his prodigious series 
 of details, dwelt with complacency on its most 
 striking periods, skilfully brought out by the 
 consummate skill of the artist, as the recollection 
 of a spectator does on any of the magic scenes 
 in Switzerland, in which, amidst an infinity of 
 beautiful objects, the eye is fascinated by the 
 calm tranquillity of the lake, or the rosy hues of 
 the evening glow on the glacier. We speak of 
 Gibbon as a delineator of events ; none can 
 feel more strongly or deplore more deeply the 
 fatal blindness the curse of his age which 
 rendered him so perverted on the subject of 
 religion, and left so wide a chasm in his im- 
 mortal work, which the profounder thought 
 and wider experience of Guizot has done so 
 much to fill. 
 
 Considered as calm and philosophic narra- 
 tives, the histories of Hume and Robertson 
 will remain as standard models for every fu- 
 ture age. The just and profound reflections 
 of the former, the inimitable clearness arid im- 
 partiality with which he has summoned up 
 the arguments on both sides, on the most mo- 
 mentous questions which have agitated Eng- 
 land, as well as the general simplicity, uniform 
 clearness and occasional pathos of his story, 
 must for ever command the admiration of 
 mankind. In vain we are told that he is often 
 inaccurate, sometimes partial ; in vain are 
 successive attacks published on detached parts 
 of his narrative, by party zeal or antiquarian 
 research; his reputation is undiminished ; 
 successive editions issuing from the press 
 attest the continued sale of his work ; and it 
 continues its majestic course through the sea 
 of time, like a mighty three-decker, which 
 never even condescends to notice the javelins 
 darted at its sides from the hostile canoes 
 which from time to time seek to impede its 
 progress. 
 
 Robertson's merits are of a different, and 
 
 upon the whole, of an inferior kind. Gifted 
 with a philosophic spirit, a just and equal 
 mind, an eloquent and impressive expression, 
 he had not the profound sagacity, the penetrat- 
 ing intellect, which have rendered the obser- 
 vation of Bacon, Hume, and Johnson as endur- 
 ing as the English language. He had not 
 enjoyed the practical acquaintance with man, 
 which Hume acquired by mingling in diplo- 
 macy ; and without a practical acquaintance 
 with man, no writer, whatever his abilities 
 may be, can rightly appreciate the motives, or 
 probable result of human actions. It was this 
 practical collision with public affairs which 
 has rendered the histories of Thucydides, Sal- 
 lust, and Tacitus so profoundly descriptive of 
 the human heart. Living alternately in the 
 seclusion of a Scotch manse, or at the head of 
 a Scotch university, surrounded by books, re- 
 spect, and ease, the reverend Principal took an 
 agreeable and attractive, but often incorrect 
 view of human affairs. In surveying the ge- 
 neral stream of human events, and drawing 
 just conclusions regarding the changes of 
 centuries, he was truly admirable ; and in 
 those respects his first volume of " Charles V." 
 may, if we except Guizot's "Civilisation Eu- 
 ropeen," be pronounced without a parallel in 
 the whole annals of literature. The brilliant 
 picture, too, which he has left of the discovery 
 of America, and the manner of the savage 
 tribes which then inhabited that continent, 
 proves that he was not less capable of wield- 
 ing the fascination of description and romance. 
 But in narrating political events, and diving 
 into the mysteries of human motives, his want 
 of practical acquaintance with man is at once 
 apparent. He described the human heart from 
 hearsay, not experience; he was an historian 
 by reading, not observation. We look in vain 
 in his pages for a gallery of historical portraits, 
 to be placed beside the noble one which is to 
 be found in Clarendon. As little can we find 
 in them any profound remarks, like those of 
 Bacon, Hume, or Tacitus, the justice of which 
 is perpetually brought home by experience to 
 every successive generation of men. His re- 
 putation, accordingly, is sensibly declining ; and 
 though it will never become extinct, it is easy 
 to foresee that it is not destined to maintain, 
 in future times, the colossal proportions which 
 it at first acquired. 
 
 Both Hume and Robertson, however, left 
 untouched one fertile field of historic interest 
 which Herodotus and Gibbon had cultivated 
 with such success. This is the geographical 
 feld, the description of countries, as well as men 
 and manners. It is surprising what variety 
 and interest this gives to historical narrative ; 
 how strongly it fixes places and regions in the 
 memory of the reader ; and how much it aug- 
 ments the interest of the story, by filling up 
 and clothing in the mind's eye the scenes in 
 in which it occurred. Doubtless this must not 
 be carried too far ; unquestionably the narra- 
 tive of human transactions is the main object 
 of history; and the one thing needful, as in fic- 
 tion, is to paint the human heart ; but still there, 
 as elsewhere in the Fine Arts, variety and con- 
 trast contribute powerfully to effect; and amidst 
 the incessant maze of villany and suffering 
 
388 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 which constitutes human transactions, it is j 
 sometimes refreshing to contemplate for a while i 
 the calm serenity and indestructible features . 
 of Nature. 
 
 The modern French historians, forcibly j 
 struck with the insipidity and tameness of the j 
 philosophical histories, and fraught with the 
 heart-rending recollections and fervent pas- i 
 sions of the Revolution, have sought to give 
 life and animation, as well as fidelity and ac- 1 
 curacy, to their works, by a sedulous recur- j 
 rence to contemporary annals and authority, \ 
 and an introduction of not only the facts and ! 
 statements, but the ideas and words to be found , 
 in the ancient chronicles. Hence the habitual { 
 recurrence to original authority, hot only by j 
 reference at the foot of the page, but by quota- 
 tion in the words of the old authors, of the 
 actual expressions made use of on the more 
 important occasions. There can be no doubt 
 that this is in some respects an improvement, 
 both with a view to the fidelity and accuracy 
 of history ; for it at once affords a guarantee 
 for the actual examination of original authority 
 by the writer, provides a ready and immediate j 
 check on inaccuracy or misrepresentation, 
 and renders his work a "Catalogue Raisonne," 
 where those who desire to study the subject 
 thoroughly, may discover at once where their 
 materials are to be found. The works of both 
 the Thierrys,* of Barante, Sismondi, and Miche- 
 let, are, throughout, constructed on this prin- 
 ciple ; and thence, in a great measure, the 
 fidelity, spirit, and value of their productions. 
 
 But fully admitting, as we do, the importance 
 of this great improvement in the art of histori- 
 cal composition, it has its limits ; and writers 
 who adopt it will do well to reflect on what 
 those limits are. Though founded on fact, 
 though based on reality, though dependent for 
 its existence on truth, History is still one of 
 the Fine Arts. We must ever recollect that 
 Mr. Fox assigned it a place next to Poetry, and 
 before Oratory. All these improvements in 
 the collection and preparation of materials add 
 to the solidity and value of the structure, but 
 they make no alteration in the principles of its 
 composition. However the stones may be cut 
 out of the quarry, however fashioned or carved j 
 by the skill of the workman, their united effect 
 will be entirely lost if they are not put together 
 by the conception of a Michael Angelo, a Pal- 
 ladio, or a Wren. Genius is still the soul of 
 history; its highest inspirations must be de- 
 rived from the Muses. The most valuable 
 historical works, if not sustained by this divine 
 quality, will speedily sink into useful quarries 
 or serviceable books of reference. In vain 
 does a Utilitarian age seek to discard the in- 
 fluence of imagination, and subject thought to 
 the deductions of fact and reason, and the 
 motives of temporal comfort. The value of 
 fancy and ardour of mind, is more strongly 
 felt in the narration of real, than even the con- 
 ception of fictitious events: for this reason, 
 that it is more easy to discard uninteresting 
 facts from a romance than render them inte- 
 
 * In the "Histoire de la Conquete de 1'Angleterre par 
 ,es Normands, par Aneuste Thierry," and the " Histoire 
 Jes Gaulois," and "Histoire des Rois Merovingiens, par 
 Amfedee Thierry" (brother of Auguste). 
 
 resting in a history. They may be rejected 
 altogether in the former; in the latter they 
 must be retained. It is easier to throw aside 
 a burden than contrive how to bear it. Induc- 
 tion may enable the author to sustain the 
 weight, but it will never make his reader do so. 
 Imagination alone can lighten the burden. It 
 is the wings of Genius which must support 
 Truth itself through the sea of Time. " Ces 
 ouvrages ne sont pas que de 1'imagination." 
 " De 1'Imagination !" replied Napoleon, " He 
 bien, c'est 1'Imagination qui domine le monde." 
 
 This eternal and indestructible superiority 
 of genius to all the efforts of industry and in- 
 telligence, when unenlightened by its divine 
 light, is not only noways inconsistent with the 
 most minute acquaintance with facts and sedu- 
 lous attention to historic accuracy, but it can 
 attain its highest flights only by being founded 
 on that basis. Mere imagination and fancy 
 will never supply the want of a faithful deline- 
 ation of nature. The most inexperienced 
 observer has no difficulty in distinguishing the 
 one from the other. No great and universal 
 reputation was ever gained, either in fiction, 
 history, or the arts of imitation, but by a close 
 and correct representation of reality. Romance 
 rises to its highest flights when it transports 
 into the pages of the novelist the incidents, 
 thoughts, and characters of real life. History 
 assumes its most attractive garb when it clothes 
 reality with the true but brilliant colours of 
 romance. Look at the other arts. How did 
 Homer and Shakspeare compose their immor- 
 tal works ? Not by conceiving ideal events 
 and characters, the creation only of their own 
 prolific imaginations, but by closely observing 
 and describing nature, and by giving to their 
 characters (albeit cast in the mould of fancy) 
 those traits of reality, which, being founded on 
 the general and universal feelings of the hu- 
 man breast, have spoken with undiminished 
 force to every succeeding age. How did 
 Raphael and Claude elevate Painting to its 
 highest and most divine conceptions, as well 
 as its most exquisite and chastened finishing? 
 By assiduously copying nature, by drawing 
 every limb, every feature, every branch, every 
 sunset, from real scenes, and peopling the 
 world of their brilliant imaginations, not with 
 new creations, but those objects and those 
 images with which in reality all men were 
 familiar. True, they moulded them into new 
 combinations ; true, they gave them an ex- 
 pression, or threw over them a light more 
 perfect than any human eye had yet witnessed: 
 but that is precisely the task of genius ; and 
 it is in performing it that its highest excellence 
 is attained. It is by moulding reality into the 
 expression of imagination, that the greatest tri- 
 umphs of art are attained; and he who sepa- 
 rates the one from the other will never rise to 
 durable greatness in either. 
 
 We are the more inclined to insist on this 
 eternal truth, as we perceive in the present style 
 of historical composition, both in this country 
 and on the continent, unequivocal indications 
 of a tendency to lose sight of the great end and 
 aim of history, in the anxiety of attaining accu- 
 racy in its materials. Again and again we as- 
 sert, that such accuracy is the indispensable 
 
MICHELET'S FRANCE. 
 
 189 
 
 basis of history; it must form its elements and 
 characterize all its parts. But it will not of 
 itself form an historian ; it is to history, what 
 the sketches from nature in the Liber I'cntu'is 
 are to the inimitable Claudes of the Doria Pa- 
 lace at Rome, or the National Gallery in Lon- 
 don. Writers in this age have been so forcibly 
 struck with the necessity of accuracy in their 
 facts, and original drawing in their pictures, 
 that they have gone into the opposite extreme ; 
 and the danger now is, not so much that they 
 will substitute imagination for reality, or 
 neglect original drawing in their pictures, as 
 that, in their anxiety to preserve the fidelity of 
 the sketches from which their pictures are 
 taken, they will neglect the principles of their 
 composition, and the great ends, moral, poli- 
 tical, and religious, of their art. 
 
 This tendency is more particularly conspi- 
 cuous in the continental authors; but it is also 
 very visible in several justly esteemed histo- 
 rical writers of our own country. If you take 
 up any of the volumes of Thierry, Barante, 
 Michaux, Sismondi, or Michelet, you Mail find 
 the greater part of their pages filled with quo- 
 tations from the old chronicles and contempo- 
 rary annalists. In their anxiety to preserve 
 accuracy of statement and fidelity in narrative, 
 they have deemed it indispensable to give, on 
 almost all occasions, the very words of their 
 original authorities. This is a very great mis- 
 take, and indeed so great a one, that if perse- 
 vered in, it will speedily terminate that school of 
 historical composition. Itis impossible to make 
 an harmonious whole, by a selection of passages 
 out of a vast mass of original writers of vari- 
 ous styles and degrees of merit, and running 
 perhaps over a course of centuries. It would 
 be just as likely that you could make a perfect 
 picture, by dovetailing together bits of mosaic, 
 dug up from the ruins of ancient Rome ; or an 
 impressive temple, by piling on the top of each 
 other, the columns, entablatures, and archi- 
 traves of successive structures, raised during 
 a course of many centuries. Every composi- 
 tion in the fine arts, to produce a powerful im- 
 pression, and attain a lasting success, must 
 have that unity of expression, which, equally as 
 in poetry and the drama, is indispensable to 
 the production of emotion or delight in the 
 mind of the person to whom it is addressed ; 
 and unity of expression is to be attained equal- 
 ly in ten thousand pages and by recording ten 
 thousand facts, as in an epic of Milton, a pic- 
 ture of Claude's, or a drama of Sophocles. 
 
 Sharon Turner, Lingard, Tytler, and Hal- 
 lam, are most able writers, indefatigable in 
 the collection of facts, acute in the analysis of 
 authorities, luminous in the deductions they 
 have drawn from them. Immense is the addi- 
 tion which their labours have made to the real 
 and correct annals of the British empire. But 
 though many of their episodes are most capti; 
 rating, and parts of their works must entrance 
 every reader, there is no concealing the fact, 
 that their pages are often deficient in interest, 
 and are far from possessing the attraction 
 which might have been expected from subjects 
 of such varied and heart-stirring incident, 
 treated by writers of such power of composi- 
 tion and learned acquirements. The reason is, 
 
 that they have not regarded history as one of 
 the fine arts; they have not studied unity of 
 effect, or harmony of composition ; they have 
 forgot the place assigned it by Fox, next to 
 poetry in the arts of composition. In the 
 search of accuracy, they have sometimes in- 
 jured effect; in the desire to give original words, 
 they have often lost originality of thought. 
 Their pages are invaluable to the annalist 
 and as books of reference or of value to scho- 
 lars they will always maintain a high place in 
 our literature; but they will not render hope- 
 less, like Livy, Tacitus, or Gibbon, future his- 
 tories on the subjects they have treated. From 
 the facts they have brought to light, a future 
 historian will be able to give a correct detail 
 of British story, which, if clothed in the garb 
 of imagination, may attain durable celebrity, 
 and may possibly come in the end to rival the 
 simpler but less truthful narrative of Hume, 
 in popularity and interest. 
 
 Colonel Napier's descriptions of battles and 
 the heart-stirring events of military warfare 
 are superior to any thing in the same style, not 
 only in modern but almost in ancient history. 
 His account of the battles of Albuera and Sala- 
 manca, of the sieges of Badajos and St. Sebas- 
 tian, of the actions in the Pyrenees, and the 
 struggle of Toulouse, possess a heart-stirring 
 interest, a force and energy of drawing, which 
 could have been attained only by the eye of 
 genius animated by the reminiscences of reali- 
 ty. But the great defect of his brilliant work 
 is the want of calmness in the judgment of 
 political events, arid undue crowding in the de- 
 tails of his work. He is far too minute in the 
 account of inconsiderable transactions. He 
 throws the light too equally upon all the figures 
 in his canvas; the same fault which charac- 
 terizes the home scenes of Wilkie, and will 
 render them, with equal, perhaps superior, ge- 
 nius, inferior in lasting effect to the paintings 
 of Teniers or Gerard Dow. So prodigious is 
 the accumulation of detached facts which he 
 describes, that the most enthusiastic admirer 
 of military narrative is speedily satiated, and 
 ordinary readers find their minds so confused 
 by the events passed under review, that, with 
 the exception of a few brilliant actions and 
 sieges, they often close the work without any 
 distinct idea of the events which it has so ad- 
 mirably recorded. 
 
 This defect is equally conspicuous in the 
 pages of M. Michelet. That he is a man not 
 merely of extensive and varied reading, but 
 fine genius and original thought, is at once ap- 
 parent. He states in his preface, and the pe- 
 rusal of his work amply justifies the asser- 
 tion, " that the most rigid criticism must con- 
 cede to him the merit of having drawn his 
 narrative entirely from original sources." But 
 it were to be wished, that amidst this anxious 
 care for the collection of materials, find the 
 impress of a faithful and original character 
 upon his work, he had been equally attentive 
 to the great art of history, viz. the massing 
 objects properly together, keeping them in the 
 due subordination and perspective which their 
 relative importance demands, and conveying 
 a distinct impression to the reader's mind 
 of the great aeras and changes which the va- 
 
190 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ried story of his subject presents. Want of 
 attention to this has well nigh rendered all the 
 rest of no avail. To the learned reader, who is 
 previously familiar with the principal events he 
 describes, his narrative may convey something 
 like a definite idea of the thread of events : 
 but how many are they compared to the great 
 mass of readers ? Perhaps one in a hundred 
 in France one in five hundred in all other 
 countries. The great bulk of readers may 
 shut his last volume after the most careful 
 perusal, without retaining any distinct recol- 
 lection of the course of French History, or 
 any remembrance at all of any thing but a 
 few highly wrought up and interesting pas- 
 sages. This is the great defect of the work, 
 arising from want of attention to the due pro- 
 portion of objects, and not throwing subordi- 
 nate objects sufficiently into the shade. The 
 same grievous mistake is conspicuous in 
 Mackintosh, Lin gard, andTurner's Histories of 
 England. It is the great danger of the new or 
 graphic school of history; and unless care be 
 taken to guard against it, the whole produc- 
 tions of that school will be consigned by future 
 ages to oblivion. 
 
 We cannot admit that the magnitude or in- 
 tricacy of a subject affords any excuse what- 
 ever for this defect. Livy did not fall into it 
 in recording seven centuries of Roman vic- 
 tories ; Gibbon did not fall into it in spanning 
 the dark gulf which separates ancient from 
 modern times. Claude produced one uniform 
 impression, out of an infinity of details, in 
 some of his pieces, solitary and rural in 
 others crowded with harbours, shipping, and 
 figures. Gaspar Poussin finished with scru- 
 pulous accuracy every leaf in his forest 
 scenes; but he managed the light and the 
 shade with such exquisite skill, that the charm 
 of general effect is produced on the spectator's 
 mind. Virgil produces one uniform impres- 
 sion from the homely details of his Georgics 
 equally as the complicated events of the 
 ./Eneid. Amidst an infinity of details and 
 episodes, Tasso has with consummate skill 
 preserved unity of emotion in his Jerusalem 
 Delivered : Milton has not lost it even in re- 
 cording the events of heaven and earth. Look 
 at Nature : every leaf, every pebble, every 
 cliff, every blade of grass, in the most exten- 
 sive scene, is finished with that perfection that 
 characterizes all her works: yet what majesty 
 and generality of effect in the mighty whole ! 
 That is the model of historical composition : 
 every object should be worked out; nothing 
 omitted ; nothing carelessly touched : but a 
 bright light should be thrown only on the bril- 
 liant events, the momentous changes ; whole 
 generations and centuries of monotonous 
 events cast into the shade, that is, slightly and 
 rapidly passed over; and the most sedulous 
 care taken to classify events into periods, in 
 such a way as to form so many cells as it 
 were in the memory of the reader, wherein to 
 deposit the store of information afforded in 
 regard to each. 
 
 There is, in truth, only one really great style 
 in history, as there is in poetry, painting, or 
 music. Superficial observers speak of a new 
 school of history, or a new mode of treating 
 
 human affairs, as they would of a new plant 
 or a new opera : they might as well speak of 
 a new style in sculpture or painting, in mathe- 
 matics or astronomy, in epic or dramatic 
 poetry. We should like to see any one who 
 would improve on the style of Phidias and 
 Raphael, of Homer and Virgil, of Tasso and 
 Milton, of Sophocles or Racine. In inferior 
 styles, indeed, there is a very great variety in 
 this, as there is in all the other Fine Arts ; but 
 in the highest walks there is but one. The 
 principles of the whole are the same ; and 
 those principles are to produce generality of 
 effect out of specialty of objects ; to unite fidelity 
 of drawing with brilliancy of imagination. 
 Observe with what exquisite skill Tasso works 
 this uniform impression out of the varied 
 events of his "Jerusalem Delivered;" therein 
 ies his vast superiority to the endless adven- 
 tures of the more brilliant and imaginative 
 Ariosto. The principles which regulated the 
 compositions of the " Prometheus Vinctus" of 
 ^Eschylus and the "Hamlet" of Shakspeare 
 are the same: the Odes of Pindar are the 
 counterparts of those of Gray: the sculpture 
 of Phidias and the painting of Raphael are 
 nothing but the same mind working with dif- 
 ferent materials. The composition of Gibbon 
 is directed by exactly the same principles as 
 he sunsets of Claude: the battle-pieces of 
 Napier and the banditti of Salvator are fac- 
 similes of each other: the episodes of Livy 
 and the " Good Shepherds" of Murillo produce 
 the same emotions in the breast. Superficial 
 readers will deride these observations, and ask 
 what has painting external objects to do with 
 the narration of human events 1 We would 
 recommend them to spend twenty years in the 
 study of either, and they will be at no loss to 
 discover in what their analogy consists. 
 
 On this account we cannot admit that history 
 is necessarily drier or less interesting than 
 poetry or romance. True, it must give a faith- 
 ful record of events: true, unless it does so it 
 loses its peculiar and highest usefulness ; but 
 are we to be told that reality is less attractive 
 than fiction ? Are feigned distresses less poig- 
 nant than real ones imaginary virtues less 
 ennobling than actual t The advantage of fic- 
 tion consists in the narrower compass which it em- 
 brace?, and consequently the superior interest 
 which it can communicate by working up the 
 characters, events, and scenes. That, doubt- 
 less, is a great advantage ; but is it beyond the 
 reach of history ? May not the leading cha- 
 racters and events there be delineated with the 
 same force, brilliancy, and fidelity to nature? 
 Has it not the additional source of interest 
 arising from the events being real ? an inte- 
 rest which all who tell stories to children will 
 see exemplified in their constant question, "Is 
 it *rK? M None can see more strongly than 
 we do, that the highest aim and first duty of 
 history is not to amuse, but to instruct the 
 world : and that mere amusement or interest 
 are of very secondary importance. But is 
 amusement irreconcilable with instruction 
 interest with elevation ? Is not truth best con- 
 veyed when it is clothed in an attractive garbl 
 Is not the greatest danger which it runs that of 
 being superseded by attractive fiction ? How 
 
 
MICHELET'S FRANCE. 
 
 191 
 
 many readers are familiar with English history 
 through Shakspeare and Scott, rather than 
 Hume and Lingard? That illustrates the risk 
 of leaving truth to its unadorned resources. 
 Was it not in parables that Supreme Wis- 
 dom communicated itself to mankind? The 
 wise man will never disdain the aid even of 
 imagination and fancy, in communicating in- 
 struction. Recollect the words of Napoleon 
 " C'est 1'Imagination qui domine le monde." 
 
 We have been insensibly led into these ob- 
 servations by observing in what manner Sis- 
 mondi, Thierry, Barante, Michelet, and indeed 
 all the writers of the antiquarian and graphic 
 school, have treated the history of France. 
 They are all men of powerful talent, brilliant 
 imagination, unbounded research, and philo- 
 sophic minds: their histories are so superior 
 to any which preceded them, that, in reading 
 them, we appear to be entering upon a new 
 and hitherto unknown world. But it is in the 
 very richness of their materials the extent of 
 their learning the vast stores of original ideas 
 and authority they have brought to bear on the 
 annals of the monarchy of Clovis that we 
 discern the principal defect of their compo- 
 sitions. They have been well nigh over- 
 whelmed by the treasures which themselves 
 have dug up. So vast is the mass of original 
 documents which they have consulted of de- 
 tails and facts which they have brought to 
 light that they have too often lost sight of the 
 first rule in the art of history unity of com- 
 position. They have forgotten the necessity 
 of a distinct separation of events in such a 
 manner as to impress the general course of 
 time upon the mind of their readers. They 
 are accurate, graphic, minute in details ; but 
 the " tout ensemble" is too often forgotten, and 
 the Temple of History made up rather of a 
 chaos 'of old marbles dug up from the earth, 
 and piled on each other without either order or 
 symmetry, than of the majestic proportions 
 and colossal masses of the Pantheon or St. 
 Peter's. 
 
 The annals of no country are more distinctly 
 separated into periods than those of France : 
 in none has the course of events more clearly 
 pointed out certain resting places, at which 
 the historian may pause to show the progress 
 of civilization and the growth of the nation. 
 The first origin of the Gauls, and their social 
 organization, before the conquest of the Ro- 
 mans their institutions under those mighty 
 conquerors, and the vast impress which their 
 wisdom and experience, not less than their 
 oppression and despotism, communicated to 
 their character and habits the causes which 
 led to the decay of the empire of the Ceesars, 
 and let in the barbarians as deliverers rather 
 than enemies into its vast provinces the es- 
 tablishment of the monarchy of Clovis by these 
 rude conquerors, and its gradual extension 
 from the Rhine to the Pyrenees the decay of 
 the Merovingian dynasty, and the prostration 
 of government under the " /tots Faine.i-ns" the 
 rise of the "Maires de Palais," and their final 
 establishment on the throne by the genius of 
 Charlemagne the rapid fall of his successors, 
 and the origin of the Bourbon dynasty, con- 
 temporary with the Plantagenets of England 
 
 the crusades, with their vast effects, moral, 
 social, and political, on the people and insti- 
 tutions of the country, and the balance of 
 power among the different classes of society 
 the expulsion of the English by the ability of 
 Philip Augustus, and the restoration of one 
 monarchy over the whole of France the 
 frightful atrocities of the religious war against 
 the Albigeois the dreadful wars with England, 
 which lasted one hundred and twenty years, 
 from Edward III. to Henry V., with their im- 
 mediate effect, analogous to that of the Wars 
 of the Roses on this side of the Channel, in 
 destroying the feudal powers of the nobility 
 the consequent augmentation of the power of 
 the crown by the standing army of Charles 
 VII. the indefatigable- activity and state 
 policy of Louis XL the brilliant but ephe- 
 meral conquests of Italy by the rise and pro- 
 gress of Charles IX. the rivalry of Francis I. 
 and Charles V. the religious wars, with their 
 desolating present effects, and lasting ultimate 
 consequences the deep and Machiavelian 
 policy of Cardinal Richelieu, and its entire suc- 
 cess in concentrating the whole influence and 
 power of government in Paris the brilliant aera 
 'of Louis XIV., with its Augustan halo, early 
 conquests, and ultimate disasters the corrup- 
 tions of the Regent Orleans and Louis XV. 
 the virtues, difficulties, and martyrdom of Louis 
 XVI. the commencement of the cera of Revo- 
 lutions, ending in the fanaticism of Robes- 
 pierre and the carnage of the Empire form 
 a series of events and periods, spanning over 
 the long course of eighteen centuries, and 
 bringing down the annals of mankind from the 
 Druids of Gaul and woods of Germany, to the 
 intellect of La Place and the glories of Na- 
 poleon. 
 
 To exhibit such a picture to the mind's eye 
 in its just colours, due proportions, and real 
 light to trace so long a history fraught with 
 such changes, glories, and disasters to unfold, 
 through so vast a progress, the unceasing de- 
 velopment of the human mind, and simulta- 
 neously with it the constant punishment of hu- 
 man iniquity, is indeed a task worthy of the 
 greatest intellect which the Almighty has ever 
 vouchsafed to guide and enlighten mankind. 
 It will never be adequately performed but by 
 one mind: there is a unity which must pervade 
 every great work of history, as of all the other 
 Fine Arts ; a succession of different hands 
 breaks the thread of thought and mars the 
 uniformity of effect as much in recording the 
 annals of centuries, as in painting the passions 
 of the heart, or the beauties of a single scene 
 in nature. That it is not hopeless to look for 
 such a mind is evident to all who recollect 
 how Gibbon has painted the still wider ex- 
 panse, and traced the longer story, of "The 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire :" but 
 how often in a century does a Gibbon appear 
 in the world ! 
 
 In the outset of this noble task, Michelet 
 has displayed very great ability ; and the 
 defects, as it appears to us, of his work, as 
 it proceeds, strikingly illustrate the dangers 
 to which the modern and graphic style of his- 
 tory is exposed. He is admirable, equally 
 with Sismondi, Thierry, and Guizot, in the de- 
 
192 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 scription of the condition of Gaul under the I objects at a distance in their just proportions ; 
 Romans, and the causes which paralysed the and, not being distracted with details, he threw 
 strength, and at length overthrew the power, 
 of the empire of the Caesars. With a discri- 
 and a master's hand, he 
 
 initiating eye, and a master's hand, he has 
 drawn the different character of the Celtic and 
 German races of mankind, and the indelible 
 impress which they have severally communi- 
 cated to their descendants. The early settle- 
 ment of the German tribes in Gaul, and the 
 amalgamation of the victorious savage with 
 the vanquished civilized race, is drawn in the 
 spirit of a philosopher, and with a graphic 
 power. If he had continued the work as it 
 was thus begun, it would have left nothing to 
 be desired. 
 
 But when he comes down to later times, and 
 above all when he becomes involved in the 
 endless maze and minute details of the Chroni- 
 cles and early French Memoirs, the work as- 
 sumes a different character. Though you still, 
 in occasional expressions, see the reflections 
 of the philosopher in frequent pictures, the 
 eye of the painter yet the narrative in gene- 
 ral is flooded by an ocean of details. Fatigued 
 with the endless maze of intrigues, wars, 
 tumults, tortures, crusades, and crimes, which 
 succeed one another in rapid succession, the 
 reader in despair shuts the volume, with hardly 
 any recollection of the thread of events. He 
 recollects only that almost all the kings appear 
 to have been wicked, almost all the nobles 
 ambitious, almost all the priests cruel, almost 
 all the people ferocious. There is nothing 
 which tends so strongly to make us satisfied 
 with our own lot, and inclined to return thanks 
 to Heaven for having cast it in our age, as 
 the study of the crimes, disasters, and sufferings 
 sufferings of those which have preceded it. 
 
 But still "the mighty maze is not without 
 a plan." In the midst of these hideous crimes 
 and atrocities, of this general anguish and 
 suffering, fixed laws were operating, a silent 
 progress was going forward, and Providence 
 was patiently and in silence working out its 
 ultimate designs by the free agency of an in- 
 finity of separate individuals. A great system 
 of moral retribution was unceasingly at work; 
 and out of the mingled virtues and vices, joys 
 and sorrows, crimes and punishment, of pre- 
 vious centuries, were slowly forming the ele- 
 ments of the great and glorious French mo- 
 narchy. It is in the development of this 
 magnificent progress, and in the power of 
 exhibiting it in lucid colours to the eye of the 
 spectator, that Michelet is chiefly deficient in 
 his later volumes. This seems at first sight 
 inexplicable, as in the earlier ones, relating to 
 Gaul under the Romans, the settlement of the 
 Franks, and the early kings of the Merovingian 
 race, his powers of generalization and philoso- 
 phic observation are eminently conspicuous. 
 They form, accordingly, by much the most inte- 
 resting and instructive part of his history. But 
 a closer examination will at once unfold the 
 cause of this difference, and point to the chief 
 changes of the graphic and antiquarian school 
 of history. He generalized in the earlier vo- 
 lumes, because his materials were scanty; he 
 has not done so in the later ones, because they 
 were redundant. In the first instance, he saw 
 
 broad lights and shadows over their great fea- 
 tures ; in the last, the objects were so near the 
 eye, and the lights so perplexed and frequent, 
 that he has in some degree lost sight of all ge- 
 neral effect in his composition, or at least failed 
 in conveying any lucid impression to the 
 reader's mind. 
 
 In common with all later writers who have 
 observed much or thought deeply on human 
 affairs, M. Michelet is a firm believer in the 
 inherent and indelible influence of race, both 
 on the character and destiny of nations. His 
 observations on this subject, especially on the 
 peculiarities of the Celtic race, and their vital 
 difference from the German, form one of the 
 most interesting and valuable parts of his 
 work. He traces the same character through 
 the Scotch Highlanders, the mountaineers of 
 Cumberland and Wales, the native Irish, the 
 inhabitants of Brittany, and the mountaineers 
 of Gascony and Beam. On the other hand, 
 the same national characteristics may be ob- 
 served in the German race, under whatever 
 climate and circumstances ; in Saxony as in 
 England; in the Swiss mountains as in the 
 Dutch marshes ; in the crowded marts of Flan- 
 ders as in the solitude of the American forest. 
 Of the inherent character of the Celtic race, 
 he gives the following animated description: 
 
 "The mixed races of Celts who are called 
 French, can be rightly understood only by a 
 study of the pure Celts, the Bretons and Welsh, 
 the Scotch Highlanders and Irish peasants. 
 While France, undergoing the yoke of repeat- 
 ed invasion, is marching through successive 
 ages from slavery to freedom, from disgrace 
 to glory, the old Celtic races, perched on their 
 native mountains, or sequestered in their far 
 distant isles, have remained faithful to the 
 poetic independence of their barbarous life, 
 till surprised by the rude hand of foreign con- 
 quest. It was in this state that England sur- 
 prised, overwhelmed them ; vainly, however, 
 has the Anglo-Saxon pressed upon them 
 they repel his efforts as the rocks of Brittany 
 or Cornwall the surges of the Atlantic. The 
 sad and patient Judea, which numbered its 
 ages by its servitude, has not been more stern- 
 ly driven from Asia. But such is the tenacity 
 of the Celtic race, such the principle of life in 
 nations, that they have endured every outrage, 
 and still preserve inviolate the manners and 
 customs of their forefathers. Race of granite ! 
 Immovable, like the huge Druidical blocks 
 which they still regard with superstitious vene- 
 ration. 
 
 " One might have expected that a race which 
 remained for ever the same, while all was 
 changing around it, would succeed in the end 
 in conquering by the mere inert force of re- 
 sistance, and would impress its character on 
 the world. The very reverse has happened, 
 the more the race has been isolated, the more 
 it has fallen into insignificance. To remain 
 original, to resist all foreign intermixture, to 
 repel all the ideas or improvements of the 
 stranger, is to remain weak and isolated in the 
 world. There is the secret of the Celtic race 
 there is the key to their whole history. It has 
 
MICHELET'S FRANCE. 
 
 193 
 
 never had but one idea, it has communicated 
 that to other nations, but it has received none 
 from them. From age to age it has remained 
 strong but limited, indescribable but humili- 
 ated, the enemy of the human race, and its 
 eternal stain. Woful obstinacy of individual- 
 ity, which proudly rests on itself alone, and 
 repels all community with the rest of the world. 
 
 " The genius of the Celts, and above all of 
 the Gauls, is vigorous and fruitful, strongly 
 inclined to material enjoyments, to pleasure 
 and sensuality. The pleasures of sex have 
 ever exercised a powerful influence over them. 
 They are still the most prolific of the human 
 race. In France, the Vert Galant is the true 
 national king. We know how marvellously 
 the native Irish have multiplied and overflow- 
 ed all the adjoining states. It was a common 
 occurrence in Brittany, during the middle 
 ages, for a seigneur to have a dozen wives. 
 They constantly praised themselves, and sent forth 
 their sons fearless to battle. Universally, 
 among the Celtic nations, bastards succeeded, 
 even among kings, as chief of the clan. Woman, 
 the object of desire, the mere sport of volup- 
 tuousness, never attained the dignified rank 
 assigned to her among nations of the German 
 descent. 
 
 "No people recorded in history have resist- 
 ed so stubbornly as the Celts. The Saxons 
 were conquered by the Normans in a single 
 battle ; but Cambria contended two hundred 
 years with the stranger. Their hopes sustain 
 them after their independence is lost: an un- 
 conquerable will is the character of their race. 
 While awaiting the day of its resurrection, it 
 alternately sings and weeps: its chants are 
 mingled with tears, as those of the Jews, when 
 by the waters of Babylon they sat down and 
 wept. The few fragments of Ossian which 
 can really be relied on as ancient, have a 
 melancholy character. Even our Bretons, 
 though they have less reason to lament than 
 the rest of the race, are sad and mournful in 
 their ideas ; their sympathy is with the Night, 
 with Sorrow, with Death. 'I never sleep,' 
 says a Breton proverb, 'but I die a bitter 
 death.' To him who walks over a tomb they 
 say, ' Withdraw from my domain.' They 
 have little reason to be gay; all has conspired 
 against them : Brittany and Scotland have at- 
 tached themselves to the weaker side, to causes 
 which were lost. The power of choosing its 
 monarchs has been taken from the Celtic race 
 since the mysterious stone, formerly brought 
 from Ireland into Scotland, has been transport- 
 ed to Westminster. 
 
 "Ireland ! Poor first-born of the Celtic race ! 
 So far from France, yet its sister, whom it 
 cannot succour across the waves ! The Isle of 
 Saints the Emerald Isle so fruitful in men, 
 so bright in genius! the country of Berkeley 
 and Toland, of Moore and O'Connell ! the land 
 of bright thought and the rapid sword, which 
 preserves, amidst the old age of this world, its 
 poetic inspiration. Let the English smile 
 when, in passing some hovel in their towns, 
 they hear the Irish widow chant the coronach 
 for her husband. Weep! mournful country; 
 and let France too weep, for degradation which 
 she cannot prevent calamities winch she 
 25 
 
 ! cannot avert ! In vain have four hundred 
 j thousand Irishmen perished in the service of 
 ' France. The Scotch Highlanders will ere 
 long disappear from the face of the earth ; the 
 mountains are daily depopulating; the great 
 estates have ruined the land of the Gaul as 
 they did ancient Italy. The Highlander will 
 ere long exist only in the romances of Walter 
 Scott. The tartan and the claymore excite 
 surprise in the streets of Edinburgh : they 
 disappear they emigrate ; their national airs 
 will ere long be lost, as the music of the Eolian 
 harp when the winds are hushed. 
 
 "Behind the Celtic world, the old red gra- 
 nite of the European formation has arisen a 
 new world, with different passions, desires, 
 and destinies. Last of the savage races 
 which overflowed Europe, the Germans were 
 the first to introduce the spirit of independence; 
 the thirst for individual freedom. That bold and 
 youthful spirit that youth of man, who feels 
 himself strong and free in a world which he 
 appropriates to himself in anticipation in 
 forests of which he knows not the bounds on 
 a sea which wafts him to unknown shores 
 that spring of the unbroken horse which bears 
 him to the Steppes and the Pampas all 
 worked in Alaric, when he swore that an un- 
 known force impelled him to the gates of 
 Rome; they impelled the Danish pirate when 
 he rode on the stormy billow; they animated 
 the Saxon outlaws when under Robin Hood 
 they contended for the laws of Edward the 
 Confessor against the Norman barons. That 
 spirit of personal freedom, of unbounded in- 
 dividual pride, shines in all their writings it 
 is the invariable characteristic of the German 
 theology and philosophy. From the day, when, 
 according to the beautiful German fable, the 
 ' Wargus scattered the dust on all his rela- 
 tions, and threw the grass over his shoulder, 
 and resting on his staff, overleapt the frail pa- 
 ternal enclosure, and let his plume float to the 
 wind from that moment he aspired to the em- 
 pi re of the world. He deliberated with Attila 
 whether he should overthrow the empire of the 
 east or west; he aspired with England to over- 
 spread the western and southern hemispheres. 
 "It is from this mingled spirit of poetry and 
 adventure, that the whole idealism of the Ger- 
 mans has taken its rise. In their robust race 
 is combined the heroic spirit and the wander- 
 ing instinct they unite alone the 'Iliad' and 
 ' Odyssey' of modern times gold and women 
 were the objects of their early expeditions; 
 but these objects had nothing sensual or de- 
 grading in them. Woman was the companion, 
 the support of man ; his counsel in difficulty, 
 his guardian angel in war. Her graces, her 
 charms, consisted in her courage, her con- 
 stancy. Educated by a man by a warrior 
 the virgin was early accustomed to the use of 
 arms 'Gothorum gens perfida, sed pudica; 
 Saxones crudelitate efFeri sed castitate mirandi.' 
 Woman in primitive Germany was bent to the 
 earth beneath the weight of agricultural labour; 
 but she became great in the dangers of war 
 the companion and partner of man. she shared 
 his fate, and lightened his sorrows. 'Sic vi- 
 vendum, sic pereundum,' says Tacitus. She 
 withdrew not from the field of battle she faced 
 
194 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 its horrors she turned not aside from its blood. 
 She was the Goddess of War the charming and 
 terrible spirit which at once animated its spirit, 
 and rewarded its dangers which inspired the 
 fury of the charge, and soothed the last moments 
 of the dying warrior. She was to be seen on the 
 field of blood, as Edith the swan-necked sought 
 the body of Harold after the defeat, of Hastings, 
 or the young Englishwoman, who, to find her 
 lost husband, turned over the dead on the field 
 of Waterloo." (Vol. I. pp. 150, 175.) 
 
 " si sic omnia !" The mind is rendered 
 dizzy; it turns round as on the edge of a pre- 
 cipice by the reflections arising out of this ani- 
 mated picture. In truth may it be said, that 
 these observations demolish at one blow the 
 whole revolutionary theories of later times 
 they have turned the streams of French philo- 
 sophy by their source. It was the cardinal 
 point, the leading principle of the whole poli- 
 tical speculation of the last half of the eight- 
 eenth century, that institutions were every thing, 
 character nothing; that man was moulded 
 entirely by the government or religion to which 
 he was subjected ; and that there was no essen- 
 tial difference in the disposition of the different 
 races which had overspread the earth. The 
 first half of the nineteenth century was spent 
 in the practical application of this principle. 
 The French Jacobins conceived themselves 
 adequate to forge constitutions for the whole 
 world, and sent forth their armies of starving 
 republicans to force them at the point of the 
 bayonet on all mankind. Less vehement in 
 their constitutional propagandism, the English 
 have been more persevering, and incomparably 
 more pernicious. Their example allured, as 
 much as the horrors of the Revolution repelled, 
 mankind. The ardent, the generous, the philan- 
 thropic, everywhere sighed for the establish- 
 ment of a government which should give them 
 at once the energy of the British character, the 
 glories of the British empire. And what has 
 been the result! The desolation of Spain, the 
 ruin of Portugal, the depopulation and blasting 
 of South America. Vain have been all at- 
 tempts to transplant to nations of Celtic or 
 Moorish descent, the institutions which grew 
 and nourished among those of Anglo-Saxon 
 blood. The ruin of the West India islands 
 proves their inapplicability to those of negro 
 extraction; the everlasting distraction of Ire- 
 land, to those of unmixed Celtic blood. A cen- 
 tury of bloodshed, devastation, and wretched- 
 ness will be spent ere mankind generally learn 
 that there is an essential and indelible distinc- 
 tion between the character of the different races 
 of men ; and, in Montesquieu's words, " that no 
 nation ever attained to durable greatness but 
 by institutions in harmony with its spirit." 
 
 Nor is there any foundation for the common 
 observation, that this presents a melancholy 
 view of human affairs ; and that it is repugnant 
 to our ideas of the beneficence of an overruling 
 Providence to suppose that all nations are not 
 adapted for the same elevating institutions. Are 
 all nations blessed with the same climate, or 
 soil, or productions? Will the v vine and the 
 olive flourish on every slope the maize or the 
 wheat on every plain? No. Every country 
 has its own productions, riches, and advan- 
 
 tages ; and the true wisdom of each is found 
 to consist in cultivating the fruits, or develop- 
 ing the riches, which Nature has bestowed. 
 It is the same in the moral world. All nations 
 were not framed in the same mould, because all 
 were not destined for the same ends. To some 
 was given, for the mysterious but beneficent 
 designs of Providence, excellence in arms, and 
 the ensanguined glory of ruthless conquest; to 
 others supremacy in commerce, and the mis- 
 sion of planting their colonies in distant lands ; 
 to a few, excellence in literature and the arts, 
 and the more durable dominion over the 
 thoughts and minds of men. What sort of a 
 world would it be if all nations were sanguinary 
 and barbarous like the Tartars or meek and 
 patient like the Hindoos 1 If they all had the 
 thirst for conquest of the Grand Army or the 
 rage for transplanting the institutions of the 
 English? We boast, and in some respects 
 with reason, of our greatness, our power, our 
 civilization. Is there any man amongst us who 
 would wish to see that civilization universal, 
 with its accompaniments of nearly a seventh* 
 of the whole population of the empire paupers ; 
 of Chartists, Socialists, Repealers, Anti-Corn- 
 Law Leaguers, and landed selfishness ? 
 
 As a specimen of Michelet's powers of de- 
 scription, we extract his account of the battle 
 of Azincour: 
 
 " The two armies presented a strange con- 
 trast. On the side of the French were three 
 enormous squadrons, three forests of lances, 
 who formed in the narrow plain, and drew up as 
 they successively emerged from the defiles in. 
 their rear. In front were the Constables, the 
 Princes, the Dukes of Orleans, Bar and Alen- 
 on, the Counts of Nevers, D'Eu, Richemont, 
 and Vendome, amidst a crowd of barons, daz- 
 zling in gold and steel, with their banners float- 
 ing in the air, their horses covered with scales 
 of armour. The French had archers also, but 
 composed of the commons only; the haughty 
 seigneurs would not give them a place in their 
 proud array. Every place was fixed ; no one 
 would surrender his own ; the plebeians would 
 have been a stain on that noble assembly 
 They had cannons also, but made no use oi 
 them : probably no one would surrender his 
 place to them. 
 
 " The English army was less brilliant in ap- 
 pearance. The archers, 10,000 in number, had 
 no- armour, often no shoes; they were rudely 
 equipped with boiled skins, tied with osier 
 wands, and strengthened by a bar of iron on 
 their feet. Their hatchets and axes suspended 
 from their girdles, gave them the appearance 
 of carpenters. They all drew the bow with the 
 left arm those of France with the right. Many 
 of these sturdy workmen had stripped to the 
 shirt, to be the more at ease; first, in drawing 
 the bow, and at last in wielding the hatchet, 
 when they issued from their hedge of stakes 
 to hew away at those immovable masses of 
 horses." 
 
 "It is an extraordinary but well authenticated 
 fact, that the French army was so closely 
 wedged together, and in great part so stuck in 
 
 * Viz. 1,446,000 in England and Wales; 76.000 in 
 Scotland ; and 2,000,000 in Ireland. In all, 3,522,000, out 
 of 27,000,000. Census c/1841. 
 
MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 
 
 195 
 
 the mud, that they could neither charge nor re- 
 treat; but just stood still to be cut to pieces. 
 At the decisive moment, when the old Thomas 
 of Erpingham arranged the English army, he 
 threw his staff in the air, exclaiming, ' Now 
 strike !' The shout of ten thousand voices was 
 raised at once ; but to their great surprise, the 
 French army stood still. Men and horses 
 seemed alike enchained or dead in their ar- 
 mour. In truth, these weighty war-horses, op- 
 pressed with the load of their armour and 
 riders, were unable to move. The French were 
 thirty-two deep the English only four.* That 
 enormous depth rendered the great bulk of the 
 French army wholly useless. The front ranks 
 alone combated, and they were all killed. The 
 remainder, unable either to advance or retreat, 
 served only as a vast target to the unerring Eng- 
 lish arrows, which never ceased to rain down 
 on the deep array. On the other hand, every 
 Englishman wielded either his lance, his bow, 
 or his hatchet, with effect. So thick was the 
 storm of arrows which issued from the English 
 stakes, that the French horsemen bent their 
 heads to their saddle-bows, to avoid being 
 pierced through their visors. Twelve hundred 
 horse, impatient of the discharge, broke from 
 the flanks, and charged. Hardly a tenth part 
 reached the stakes, where they were pierced 
 through, and soon fell beneath the English axes. 
 Then those terrible archers issued from their 
 
 palisade, and hewed to pieces the confused 
 mass of wounded horses, dismounted men, and 
 furious steeds, which, galled by the incessant 
 discharge of arrows, was now turmoiling in the 
 bloody mud in which the chivalry of France 
 was engulfed." (Vol. IV. pp. 307, 311.) 
 
 We take leave of M. Michelet, at least for the 
 present, as his work is only half finished, with 
 admiration for his genius, respect for his eru- 
 dition, and gratitude for the service he has ren- 
 dered to history; but we cannot place him in 
 the first rank of historians. He wants the art 
 of massing objects and the spirit of general 
 observation. His philosophy consists rather 
 in drawing visions of the sequence of events, 
 or speculations on an inevitable progress in 
 human affairs, than an enlightened and manly 
 recognition of a supreme superintendence. He 
 unites two singularly opposite sets of princi- 
 ples a romantic admiration for the olden time, 
 though with a full and just appreciation of its 
 evils, with a devout belief in the advent of a 
 perfect state of society, the true efflorescence of 
 the nation, in the equality produced by the Re- 
 volution. Yet is his work a great addition to 
 European literature; and the writers of Eng- 
 land would do well to look to their laurels, if 
 they wish, against the able phalanx now arising 
 on the other side of the Channel, to maintain 
 the ancient place of their country in historic 
 literature. 
 
 MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS.! 
 
 "I AM surprised," said Condorcet to La- 
 fayette, upon seeing him enter the room in the 
 uniform of a private of the National Guards of 
 Paris, of which he had so recently been the 
 commander, "I am surprised at seeing you, 
 General, in that dress." "Not at all," replied 
 Lafayette, " / was tired of obeying, and wished to 
 command, and therefore I laid down my general's 
 commission, and took a musket on my shoul- 
 der." "Gnarus," says Tacitus, "bellis civili- 
 bus, plus militibus quam ducibus licere." It 
 is curious to observe how, in the most remote 
 ages, popular license produces effects so pre- 
 cisely similar. 
 
 Of the numerous delusions which have over- 
 spread the world in such profusion during the 
 last nine months, there is none so extraordinary 
 and so dangerous as the opinion incessantly 
 inculcated by the revolutionary press, that the 
 noblest virtue in regular soldiers is to prove 
 themselves traitors to their oaths, and that a 
 national guard is the only safe and constitutional 
 force to whom arms can be intrusted. The 
 troops of the line, whose revolt decided the 
 
 *This formation was the same on both sides, when 
 Napoleon's Imperial Guard attacked the British Guards 
 at Waterloo. See the indelible difference of race. 
 
 t Black wood's Magazine, April, 1R31 : written nine 
 months after-the Revolution in Paris of 1830. It forma 
 No. IV. on the French Revolution in that miscellany. 
 
 three days in July in favour of the revolution- 
 ary party, have been the subject of the most 
 extravagant eulogium fr6m the liberal press 
 throughout Europe; and even in this country, 
 the government journals have not hesitated to 
 condemn, in no measured terms, the Royal 
 Guard, merely because they adhered, amidst a 
 nation's treason, to their honour and their 
 oaths. 
 
 Hitherto it has been held the first duty of 
 soldiers to adhere with implicit devotion to 
 that fidelity which is the foundation of military 
 duties. Treason to his colours has been con- 
 sidered as foul a blot on the soldier's scutcheon 
 as cowardice in the field. Even in the most 
 republican states, this principle of military 
 subordination has been felt to be the vital 
 principle of national strength. It was during 
 the rigorous days of Roman discipline, that 
 their legions conquered the world; and the 
 decline of the empire began at the time that 
 the Praetorian Guards veered with the mutable 
 populace, and sold the empire for a gratuity to 
 themselves. Albeit placed in power by the 
 insurrection of the people, no men knew better 
 than the French republican leaders that their 
 salvation depended on crushing the military 
 insubordination to which they had owed their 
 elevation. When the Parisian levies be^an to 
 evince a mutinous spirit in ihe camp at St. 
 
196 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Menehould, in Champagne, which they had 
 imbibed during the license of the capital, Du- 
 mourier drew them up in the centre of his in- 
 trenchments, and showing them a powerful 
 line of cavalry in front, with their sabres 
 drawn, ready to charge, and a stern array of 
 artillery and cannoneers in rear, with their 
 matches in their hands, soon convinced the 
 most licentious that the boasted independence 
 of the soldier must yield to the dangers of 
 actual warfare.* "The armed force," said 
 Carnot, "is essentially obedient; it acts but 
 should never deliberate," and in all his com- 
 mands, that great man incessantly inculcated 
 upon his soldiers the absolute necessity of im- 
 plicit submission to the power which employed 
 them.-j- When the recreant Constable de Bour- 
 bon, at the head of a victorious squadron of 
 Spanish cavalry, approached the spot where 
 the rear-guard, under the Chevalier Bayard, 
 was covering the retreat of the French army 
 in the Valley of Aosta, he found him seated, 
 mortally wounded, under a tree, with his eyes 
 fixed on the cross which formed the hilt of his 
 sword. Bourbon began to express pity for his 
 fate. "Pity not me," said the high-minded 
 Chevalier; "pity those who fight against their 
 king, their country, and their oath." 
 
 These generous feelings, common alike to 
 republican antiquity and modern chivalry, 
 have disappeared during the fumes of the 
 French Revolution. The soldier who is now 
 honoured, is not he who keeps, but he who 
 violates his oath ; the rewards of valour shower- 
 ed, not upon those who defend, but those who 
 overturn the government; the incense of po- 
 pular applause offered, not at the altar of 
 fidelity, but at that of treason. Honours, re- 
 wards, promotion, and adulation, have been 
 lavished on the troops of the line, who over- 
 threw the government of Charles X. in July 
 last, while the Royal Guard, who adhered io 
 the fortune of the falling monarch with ex- 
 emplary fidelity, have been reduced to beg their 
 bread from the bounty of strangers in a foreign 
 land. A subscription has recently been opened 
 in London for the most destitute of those de- 
 fenders of royalty; but the government jour- 
 nals have stigmatized, as " highly dangerous," 
 any indication of sympathy with their fidelity 
 or their misfortunes, t 
 
 If these ancient ideas of honour, however, 
 are to be exploded, they have at least gone out 
 of fashion in good company. The National 
 Guard, who took up arms to overthrow the 
 throne, have not been long in destroying the 
 altar. During the revolt of February, 1831, 
 the Cross, the emblem of salvation, 'was taken 
 down from all the steeples in Paris by the 
 citizen soldiers, and the image of our Saviour 
 effaced, by their orders, from every church 
 within its bounds ! The two principles stand 
 and fall together. The Chevalier, without fear 
 and without reproach, died in obedience to his 
 oath, with his eyes fixed on the Cross; the 
 National Guard lived in triumph, while their 
 comrades bore down the venerated emblem 
 from the towers of Notre Dame. 
 
 * Mem. de Dumourier, iii. 172. 
 t Carnot's Memoirs, 73. 
 
 t Courier. 
 
 " I can discover no other reason for the 
 uniform progress of the republic," says Cicero, 
 " but the constant sense of religion which has 
 actuated its members. In numbers the Spa- 
 niards excel us in military ardour, the Gauls 
 in hardihood and obstinacy, the Germans ; 
 but in veneration to the gods, and fidelity to 
 their oaths, the Roman people exceed any 
 nation that ever existed." We shall see 
 whether the present times are destined to form 
 an exception from these principles ; whether 
 treason and infidelity are to rear the fabric in 
 modern, which fidelity and religion construct- 
 ed in ancient times. 
 
 The extreme peril of such principles renders 
 the inquiry interesting. What have been the 
 effects of military treachery in times past 7 
 Has it aided the cause of virtue, strengthened 
 the principles of freedom, contributed to the 
 prosperity of mankind! Or has it unhinged 
 the fabric of society, blasted the cause of 
 liberty, blighted the happiness of the people 1 
 
 The first great instance of military treachery 
 in recent times, occurred in the revolt of the 
 French Guards, in June, 1789. That un- 
 paralleled event immediately brought on the 
 Revolution. The fatal example rapidly spread 
 to the other troops brought up to overawe the 
 capital, and the king, deprived of the support 
 of his own troops, was soon compelled to sub- 
 mit to the insurgents. It was these soldiers, 
 not the mob of Paris, who stormed the Bastile ; 
 all the efforts of the populace were unavailing 
 till those regular troops occupied the adjoining 
 houses, and supported tumultuary enthusiasm 
 by military skill. 
 
 Extravagant were the eulogiums, boundless 
 the gratitude, great the rewards, which were 
 showered down on the Gardes Francoises for 
 this shameful act of treachery. Never were 
 men the subjects of such extraordinary adu- 
 lation. Wine and women, gambling and in- 
 toxication, flattery and bribes, were furnished 
 in abundance. And what was the conse- 
 quence ? The ancient honour of the Guards 
 of France, of those guards who saved the 
 Body Guards at Fontenoy, and inherited a line 
 of centuries of splendour, perished without 
 redemption on that fatal occasion. Tarnished 
 in reputation, disunited in opinion, humbled in 
 character, the regiment fell to pieces from a 
 sense of its own shame; the early leader of 
 the Revolution, its exploits never were heard 
 of through all the career of glory which fol- 
 lowed ; and the first act of revolt against their 
 sovereign was the last act of their long and 
 renowned existence. 
 
 Nor were the consequences of this unexam- 
 pled-defection less dangerous to France than to 
 the soldiers who were guilty of it. The insu- 
 bordination, license, and extravagance of revolt 
 were fatal to military discipline, and brought 
 France to the brink of ruin. The disaffected 
 soldiers, as has been observed in all ages, 
 were intrepid only against their own sove- 
 reign. When they were brought to meet the 
 armies of Prussia and Austria, they all took 
 to flight; and on one occasion, by the admis- 
 sion of Dumourier himself, ten thousand regu- 
 lar soldiers fled from one thousand five hun- 
 dred Prussian hussars, A little more energy 
 
MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 
 
 197 
 
 
 and ability in the allied commanders would 
 have then destroyed the revolutionary govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm of the 
 people, the weakness of insubordination con- 
 tinued to paralyze all the efforts of the re- 
 publican armies. France was again invaded, 
 and brought to the brink of ruin in 1793, and 
 the tide was then, for the first time, turned, 
 when the iron rule of the mob began, and the 
 terrific grasp of Carnot and Robespierre ex- 
 tinguished all those principles of military 
 license which had so much been the subject 
 of eulogium at the commencement of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Did this abandonment of military duty serve 
 the cause of freedom, or increase the prosperi- 
 ty of France ? Did it establish liberty on a 
 secure basis, or call down the blessings of 
 posterity 1 It led immediately to all the an- 
 guish and suffering of the Revolution the 
 murder of the king the anarchy of the king- 
 dom the reign of terror the despotism of 
 Napoleon. They forgot their loyalty amidst 
 the glitter of prostitution and the fumes of in- 
 toxication ; their successors were brought back 
 to it by the iron rule of the Committee of Pub- 
 lic Safety : they revolted against the beneficent 
 sway of a reforming monarch : they brought 
 on their country a tyranny, which the pencil 
 of Tacitus would hardly be able to portray. 
 
 The revolt of the Spanish troops at the Isle 
 of Leon, in 1819, was the next great, example 
 of military defection. What have been its 
 consequences'? Has Spain improved in free- 
 dom risen in character augmented in wealth, 
 since that glorious insurrection? It raised up, 
 for a few years, the phantom of a constitu- 
 tional throne, ephemeral as the dynasties of 
 the east, pestilent as the breath of contagion. 
 Spain was rapidly subjugated when it rested 
 on such defenders treason blasted their ef- 
 forts, and the nation, which had gloriously re- 
 sisted for six years the formidable legions of 
 Napoleon, sunk under the first attack of an 
 inexperienced army of invaders led by a Bour- 
 bon prince. Since that time, to what a deplor- 
 able condition has Spain been reduced! De- 
 pressed by domestic tyranny, destitute of 
 foreign influence the ridicule and scorn of 
 Europe this once great power has almost 
 been blotted from the book of nations. 
 
 Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont, all had 
 military revolutions about the same time. 
 Have they improved the character, bettered 
 the condition, extended the freedom, of these 
 countries 1 They have, on the contrary, esta- 
 blished constitutions, the failure and absurdity 
 of which have brought the cause of freedom 
 itself into disrepute. The valiant revolters 
 against the Neapolitan throne fled at the first 
 sight of the Austrian battalions ; and the free 
 institutions of Piedmont and Portugal, without 
 foreign aggression, have all fallen from their 
 own inherent weakness. All these premature 
 attempts to introduce freedom by military re- 
 volt, have, failed ; and sterner despotism suc- 
 ceeded, from the moral reaction consequent on 
 their disappearance. 
 
 Great part of the armies in South America 
 revolted from the Spanish throne, and success 
 
 has crowned their endeavours. What has 
 been the consequence? Anarchy, confusion, 
 and military confiscation the rule of bayonets 
 instead of that of mitres suffering, dilapida- 
 tion, and ruin, which have caused even the 
 leaden yoke of the Castilian monarch to be 
 regretted. 
 
 At length the glorious days of July, 1830, 
 arrived, and the declaration of the whole regu- 
 lar troops of the line in Paris against the 
 government, at once decided the contest in 
 favour of the populace. Never was more ex- 
 travagant praise bestowed on any body of men, 
 than on the soldiers who had been guilty of 
 this act of treason. It is worth while, there- 
 fore, to examine what have been its effects, 
 and whether the cause of freedom has really 
 been benefittedin France by the aid of treach- 
 ery. 
 
 The French nation has got quit of the priest- 
 ridden, imbecile race of monarchs ; men whose 
 principles were arbitrary, habits indolent, in- 
 tellects weak ; who possessed the inclination, 
 but wanted the capacity to restrain the liberty 
 of their people. 
 
 They have terminated a pacific era, during 
 which the country made unexampled progress 
 in wealth, industry, and prosperity; during 
 which many of the wounds of the Revolution 
 were closed, and new channels of opulence 
 opened ; during which the principles of real 
 freedom struck deeply their roots, and the in- 
 dustrious habits were extensively spread, which 
 can alone afford security for their continuance. 
 
 They have begun, instead, the career of 
 anarchy and popular tyranny. Industry has 
 been paralyzed, credit suspended, prosperi- 
 ty blighted. Commercial undertakings have 
 ceased, distrust succeeded to confidence de- 
 spair to hope the victims of the Revolution 
 have disappeared, and the poor who gained it 
 are destitute of bread. 
 
 They have begun again the career of Re- 
 publican ambition and foreign aggression ; 
 they aim openly at revolutionizing other coun- 
 tries, and they are unable to maintain the go- 
 vernment they have established in their own. 
 The Conscription is again rending asunder 
 the affections 'of private life ; the fountains of 
 domestic happiness are closed ; and war, with 
 its excitements and its dangers, is again threat- 
 ening to rouse the energies of its population. 
 In the shock of contending factions, liberty is 
 fast expiring. The imbecility of Polignac has 
 been succeeded by the energy of Soult the 
 arbitrary principles of feeble priests is about 
 to yield to the unbending despotism of ener- 
 getic republicans. 
 
 By the confession of the journals who sup- 
 port the Revolution, its advantages are all to 
 come; bitter and unpalatable have been its 
 fruits to this hour. The three per cents, have 
 fallen from 80 to 50 ; twelve thousand work- 
 men, without bread, in Paris alone, are main- 
 tained on the public works ; great part of the 
 banks and mercantile houses are bankrupt; 
 Lafitte himself is barely solvent; the opulent 
 classes are rapidly leaving the capital ; no one 
 expends his fortune ; universal distrust and 
 apprehension have dried up the sources of 
 industry. 
 
 n 2 
 
198 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 The government, blown about with every 
 wind of doctrine, is wholly unable to prevent 
 the downward progress of the Revolution. 
 As usual in public convulsions, the audacious, 
 the reckless, the desperate, are pressing for- 
 ward to the front ranks, and the moderate 
 and rational sinking into obscurity. The 
 Doctrinaires were subverted by the tumults in 
 October; their successors by the crisis in De- 
 cember ; the last ministers, by the explosion 
 in February. Without authority, power, or 
 influence, the throne is rapidly falling into 
 contempt; the private virtues and firm cha- 
 racter of the king, are alone adequate to stem 
 the swelling flood of democracy. 
 
 Impelled by revolutionary ambition into 
 foreign war, the government of France, whe- 
 ther republican or monarchical, must inevita- 
 bly become despotic. If the allies succeed, 
 the Bourbons will be restored at the point of 
 the bayonet. If the republicans are victo- 
 rious, military despotism will speedily be esta- 
 blished. The victorious legions will not sur- 
 render the authority they have won. A second 
 successful commander will, under the name 
 of Consul, Dictator, or Emperor, re-establish the 
 empire of the sword. After drenching Europe 
 with blood, democratic ambition will in the end 
 find itself mastered by the power it has pro- 
 duced ; victorious or vanquished, it will prove 
 fatal to its parent freedom. 
 
 Such have been the fruits of military treach- 
 ery in France. 
 
 Does Belgium afford a more flattering pros- 
 pect to the advocates of military defection 'I 
 Has treason, pestilential and blasting else- 
 where, there brought forth the sweet and lasting 
 fruits of peace, tranquillity, and industry? Is 
 the independence of Flanders as secure, its 
 commerce as flourishing, its people as con- 
 tented, its agriculture as prosperous, its poor as 
 well fed, as under the hateful reign of the 
 Orange dynasty 1 By the admission of the ad- 
 vocates of revolution, according to the state- 
 ment of M. Potter himself, they have gained 
 only anarchy and wretchedness, "discord with- 
 in, contempt without the intrigues of kings 
 the divisions of faction the apathy of despair." 
 
 Eifects so uniform, consequences so unva- 
 rying, must spring from some common cause. 
 Victorious or vanquished, military treachery 
 has proved fatal to every state where it has pre- 
 vailed : it has everywhere blighted industry, 
 shaken credit, destroyed freedom. Liberty has 
 never suffered so much as from the rude and 
 sacrilegious hands of such defenders. 
 
 "It must constantly be understood, and it is 
 not sufficiently recollected," said Guizot in the 
 Chamber of Deputies on the 3d of February, 
 1831, " that freedom is never in such danger as 
 after a successful revolution. Habits cannot 
 be conceived so much at variance with the pro- 
 tection of the people as the excitation, ambi- 
 tion, and misrule, which arise from their first 
 triumph." These were the words of the repub- 
 lican minister established in office by the revolt 
 in July ; after he had been driven from the helm 
 by the increasing vigour of the democratic fac- 
 tion to which he owed his elevation. 
 
 If the matter be considered coolly, it must at 
 once appear that freedom never can be purchased 
 
 by the revolt of soldiers ; and that the military 
 treachery which is so much the object of eulo- 
 gium, is more dangerous to the liberty which 
 has excited it, than to any other human interest. 
 
 Freedom consists in the coercion of each 
 class by the jealousies and exertions of the 
 others. The crown is watched by the people, 
 the aristocracy by the crown, the populace by 
 the aristocracy. It is the jealousy and efforts 
 of these different interests to keep each other 
 within due bounds, which form the balance of 
 power indispensable to civil liberty. Without 
 such an equilibrium, one or other of the con- 
 stituent bodies must be crushed, and the ascen- 
 dency of the other rendered subversive of gene- 
 ral freedom. 
 
 But when an established government is over- 
 turned by a revolt of its own soldiers, the event 
 occurs which is of all others the most fatal to 
 public liberty, viz., the destruction of subsisting 
 power by an armed and limited class in the 
 state. The bayonet becomes thenceforward 
 the irresistible argument of the dominant body, 
 and liberty, exterminated by its own defenders, 
 sinks in the struggle which was created in her 
 name. 
 
 It is quite in vain to expect that men of reck- 
 less and licentious habits, like the majority of 
 soldiers in every country, will quietly resign 
 the supreme authority after having won it at 
 the peril of their lives. Individuals sometimes 
 may make such a sacrifice large bodies never 
 have, and never will. The Praetorian Guards 
 of Rome, and the Janizaries of Constantinople, 
 have often revolted against the reigning power, 
 and bestowed the throne on their own favourite ; 
 but it has never been found that general free- 
 dom was improved by the result, or that indi- 
 viduals were better defended against oppres- 
 sion after it than before. 
 
 Freedom cannot be established in a day by 
 the successful issue of a single revolt. Its 
 growth is as slow as that of industry in the in- 
 dividual : its preservation dependent on the es- 
 tablishment of regular habits, and the main- 
 tenance of a courageous spirit in the people. 
 Nothing can be so destructive to these habits 
 as a successful revolt of the soldiery. The 
 ambition Avhich it awakens, the sudden eleva- 
 tion which it confers, the power which it lodges 
 in armed and inexperienced hands, are, of all 
 things, the most fatal to the sober, patient and 
 unobtrusive habits, which are the parent of 
 real freedom. The industry, frugality, and mo- 
 deration of pacific life, appear intolerable to 
 men who are dazzled by the glittering prospect 
 of revolutionary triumph. 
 
 A successful insurrection in the army lodges 
 upreme authority at once in an armed force. 
 No power capable of counteracting it remains. 
 The majesty of the throne, the sense of duty, 
 the sanctity of an oath, the awe of the legis- 
 lature, have all been set at naught. The ener- 
 gy of the citizens has never been developed, 
 because the revolt of the soldiers terminated 
 the contest before their support was required. 
 The struggle has depended entirely between 
 the throne and the army; the interest of the 
 state can never be promoted by the victory of 
 either of these contending parties. 
 
 This is the circumstance which must always 
 
MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 
 
 199 
 
 render treason in the army destructive to last- 
 ing freedom. It terminates the struggle at once, 
 before any impulse has been communicated to 
 the unarmed citizens, or they have acquired the 
 vigour and military prowess which is alone ca- 
 pable of controlling them. The people merely 
 change masters ; instead of the king and his 
 ministers, they get the general and his officers. 
 The rule of the sovereign is looked back to 
 with bitter regret, when men have tasted of the 
 seventy of military license, and experienced 
 the rigour of military execution. Whereas, 
 during the vicissitudes of a civil war, the ener- 
 gy of all classes is brought into action, and the 
 chance of obtaining ultimate freedom improved 
 by the very difficulty with which it has been 
 won. The British constitution, the gradual re- 
 sult of repeated contests between the crown 
 and the people, has subsisted unimpaired for 
 centuries the French, effected at once by the 
 treachery of the army, has been as short-lived 
 as the popularity of its authors. There is no 
 royal road to freedom any more -than to geo- 
 metry ; it is by patient exertion and progressive 
 additions to their influence, that freedom is ac- 
 quired by nations not less than eminence by 
 individuals. 
 
 What then, it may be asked, are soldiers to 
 do when a sovereign like Charles X. promul- 
 gates ordinances subversive of public freedom] 
 Are they to make themselves the willing instru- 
 ment in enslaving their fellow citizens 1 We 
 answer, Certainly; if they have any regard for 
 the ultimate maintenance of their liberty. If 
 illegal measures have been adopted, let them 
 be repealed by the civil authorities or by the 
 efforts of the people; but never let the soldiers 
 take the initiative in attempting their over- 
 throw. The interests of liberty require this as 
 indispensably as those of order. Nothing short 
 of an unanimous declaration of the national 
 will by the higher classes, should lead to a de- 
 fection from loyalty on the part of its sworn 
 defenders. 
 
 In former times, no doubt, many examples 
 have occurred of the incipient efforts of free- 
 dom being entirely extinguished by military 
 execution; but no such catastrophe need be 
 apprehended in countries where the press is 
 established; the republicans themselves have 
 everywhere proclaimed this truth. The opi- 
 nions and interests of the many must prevail 
 where their voice is heard. The only thing to 
 be feared for them is from their own passions. 
 The only danger to liberty in such circum- 
 stances is from its own defenders ; the violence 
 to be apprehended is not that of the throne, 
 but of the populace. 
 
 No stronger proof of this can be imagined 
 than has been furnished by the recent revolu- 
 tion in France and Belgium. The revolt of the 
 soldier at once established the rule of the mob 
 in these countries, and put an end, for a long 
 time at least, to every hope of freedom. What 
 security is there afforded for property, life, or 
 character? Confessedly none; every thing is 
 determined by the bayonet of the National 
 Guard and army ; neither the throne nor the 
 people can withstand them. Freedom was as 
 little confirmed by their revolt, as at Constan- 
 tinople by an insurrection of the Janizaries. 
 
 j Liberty in France was endangered for the mo- 
 ment by the ordinances of the Bourbons : it 
 has been destroyed by the insurrection planned 
 I to overthrow them. Freedom, supported as it 
 then was, by an energetic and democratic press, 
 and a republican population, ran no risk of per- 
 manent injury from the intrigues of the court. 
 A priest-ridden monarch, guided by imbecile 
 ministers, could never have subjugated an 
 ardent, high-spirited, aad democratic people. 
 
 But the danger is very different from the en- 
 ergy of the republicans, and the ambition of the 
 soldiers. Marshal Soult and his bayonets are 
 not so easily dealt with as Prince Polignac 
 arid his Jesuits. The feeble monarchy of 
 Louis XVI. was overturned with ease ; the 
 terrible Committee of Public Safety, the des- 
 potic Directory, the energetic sway of Napo- 
 leon, ruled the Revolution, and crushed free- 
 dom, even in its wildest fits. Three days' 
 insurrection destroyed the feeble government 
 of Charles. A revolt ten times more formi- 
 dable was crushed with ease by the military- 
 power of the Convention. 
 
 Had the soldiers not. revolted in July, what 
 would have been the consequence 1 The in- 
 surrection in Paris, crushed by a garrison of 
 twelve thousand men, would have speedily 
 sunk. A new Chamber, convoked on the 
 basis of the royal ordinance, would have 
 thrown the ministers into a minority in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, and by them the obnox- 
 ious measure would have been repealed. If 
 there is any truth in the growing influence of 
 public opinion, so uniformly maintained by 
 liberal writers, this must have been the result. 
 No representatives chosen by any electors in 
 France, could have withstood the odium which 
 supporting the measures of the court would 
 have produced. Thus liberty would have been 
 secured without exciting the tempest which 
 threatens its own overthrow. Public credit, 
 private confidence, general prosperity, would 
 have been maintained; the peace of the world 
 preserved ; the habits conducive to a state of 
 national freedom engendered. 
 
 What have been the consequences of the 
 boasted treachery of the troops of the line in 
 July 1 The excitation of revolutionary hopes ; 
 the rousing of democratic ambition ; a ferment 
 in society; the abandonment of useful indus- 
 try; the government of the mob; the arming 
 of France; the suspension of pacific enterprise. 
 A general war must in the end ensue from its 
 effects. Europe will be drenched with blood, 
 and whatever be the result, it will be equally 
 fatal to the cause of freedom. If the aristo- 
 cracy prevail, it will be the government of the 
 sword; if the populace, of the guillotine. 
 
 A civil war in France would have been far 
 more serviceable to the cause of real liberty 
 than the sudden destruction of the government 
 by the revolt of the army. In many periods 
 of history, freedom has emerged from the col- 
 lision of different classes in society, in none 
 from military insubordination. 
 
 If Charles I. had possessed a regular army, 
 and it had betrayed its trust on the first break- 
 ing out of the great Rebellion, would the result 
 have been as favourable to the cause of liberty, 
 I as the long contest which ensued ? Nothing 
 
200 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 can be clearer than that it would not. No 
 greater consequences would have followed 
 such a revolt, than any of the insurrections of 
 the barons against the princes of York and 
 Lancaster. A revolution so easily achieved, 
 would as easily have been abandoned : liberty 
 would never have been gained, because the 
 trials had not been endured by which it is to 
 be won. The only security for its continu- 
 ance is to be found in the energy and courage 
 of the citizens : it is not by witnessing the de- 
 struction of government by a mutinous sold iery 
 that these habits are to be acquired. 
 
 Soldiers, therefore, who adhere to their ho- 
 nour and their oaths, are in reality the best 
 friends of the cause of freedom. They pre- 
 vent the struggle for its maintenance from 
 being converted into a mortal combat, in which 
 the victory of either party must prove fetal to 
 the very object for which they are contending. 
 They prevent the love of independence from 
 being transformed into the spirit of insubordi- 
 nation, and the efforts of freedom blasted by 
 the violence of popular, or the irresistible 
 weight of military ambition. They turn the 
 spirit of liberty into a pacific channel; and 
 averting it from that direction where it falls 
 under the rule of violence, retain it in that 
 where wisdom and foresight duly regulate its 
 movements. 
 
 The institution of a National Guard, of which 
 so much is now said, is not less the subject 
 of delusion, than the boasted treachery of regu- 
 lar soldiers. 
 
 Citizen soldiers are most valuable additions 
 to the force of a regular army, and when actu- 
 ated by a common and patriotic feeling, they are 
 capable of rendering most effective service to 
 the state. The landwehr of Prussia, and the vo- 
 lunteers of Russia, sufficiently demonstrated that 
 truth during the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. 
 
 They are a valuable force also for preserv- 
 ing domestic tranquillity up to a certain point, 
 when little real peril is to be encountered, and 
 a display of moral opinion is of more weight 
 than the exertion of military prowess. But 
 they are a force that cannot be relied on dur- 
 ing the shades of opinion which take place 
 in a revolution, and still less in the perilous 
 strife which follows the actual collision of one 
 class of the state with another. This has been 
 completely demonstrated during both theFrench 
 Revolutions. 
 
 The National Guard of Paris was first em- 
 bodied on the 20th July, 1789, a week after the 
 capture of the Bastile. During the first fer- 
 vour of the revolutionary ardour, and before 
 the strife of faction had brought the opposite 
 parties into actual contest, they frequently ren- 
 dered effective service to the cause of order. 
 On more than one occasion, headed by Lafa- 
 yette, they dispersed seditious assemblages, 
 and once, in June, 1792, were brought to fire 
 upon the Jacobins in the Champ de Mars. Bm 
 whenever matters approached a crisis, when 
 the want and suffering consequent on a revo- 
 lution had brought forward angry bodies of 
 workmen from the Fauxbourg; when the 
 question was not one of turning out to parade, 
 but of fighting an exasperated multitude, they 
 uniformly failed. 
 
 The citizen soldiers, headed by Lafayette, 
 were under arms in great force on the 5th Oc- 
 tober, 1789, when a furious rabble marched 
 to Versailles, broke into and plundered the 
 palace, attempted to murder the queen, and 
 brought the Royal Family in captivity to Paris, 
 preceded by the heads of their faithful Body 
 Guards. They refused for five hours to listen 
 to the entreaties of their commander to march 
 to protect the palace of the king against that 
 atrocious insult ; and when they did go, were 
 too irresolute to prevent the violence which 
 followed. 
 
 They stood by on 20th June, 1792, when a 
 vociferous rabble broke into the hall of the 
 Assembly, threatening the obnoxious deputies 
 with instant death; when they rushed into the 
 Palace of the Tuileries, pushed their pikes at 
 the breast of Louis, placed the Cap of Liberty 
 on his head, and brought the Royal Family and 
 the monarchy into imminent danger. 
 
 They assembled at the sound of the generate, 
 when the Fauxbourgs rose in revolt on the 
 10th August, and their dense battalions, plen- 
 tifully supported by cavalry and artillery, ac- 
 cumulated in great force round the Tuileries. 
 But division, irresolution, and timidity, para- 
 lyzed their ranks. First the Gendarmerie de- 
 serted to the assailants ; then the cannoneers 
 unloaded their guns ; several battalions next 
 joined the insurgents, and the few that re- 
 mained faithful were so completely paralyzed 
 by the general defection of their comrades, 
 that they were unable to render any effective 
 support to the Swiss Guard. From amidst a 
 forest of citizen bayonets, the monarch was 
 dragged a captive to the Temple, and the go- 
 vernment of France yielded up to a sanguinary 
 rabble. Seven thousand National Guards, on 
 that day, yielded up their sovereign to a despi- 
 cable rabble ; as many hundred faithful regular 
 soldiers in addition to the heroic Swiss Guard 
 would have established his throne and pre- 
 vented the Reign of Terror. 
 
 When Lafayette, indignant at the atrocities 
 of the Jacobins, repaired to Paris from the 
 army, and assigned a rendezvous at his house, 
 in the evening of June 27, 1792, to the Na- 
 tional Guard, of which he had so lately been 
 the popular commander, in order to march 
 against the Jacobin club, only thirty men 
 obeyed the summons. The immense majority 
 evinced a fatal apathy, and surrendered up 
 their country, without a struggle, to the empire 
 of the Jacobins. 
 
 When Louis, Marie Antoinette, and the 
 Princess Elisabeth, were successively led out 
 to the scaffold ; when the brave and virtuous 
 Madame Roland became the victim of the free- 
 dom she had worshipped; when Vergniaud 
 and the illustrious leaders of the Gironde 
 were brought to the block ; when Danton and 
 Camille Desmoulins were destroyed by the 
 mob whom they excited, the National Guard 
 lined the streets and attended the cars to the 
 guillotine. 
 
 When the executions rose to a hundred 
 daily ; when the shopkeepers closed their win- 
 clows, to avoid witnessing the dismal spectacles 
 of the long procession which was approaching 
 the scaffold ; when a ditch was dug to convey the 
 
MILITARY TREASON AND CIVIC SOLDIERS. 
 
 201 
 
 blood of the victims to the Seine ; when France 
 groaned under tyranny, unequalled siiLce the 
 beginning of the world, forty thousand National 
 Guards, with arms in their hands, looked on in 
 silent observation of the mournful spectacle. 
 
 When indignant nature revolted at the cruelty; 
 when, by a generous union, the members of all 
 sides of the Assembly united, the power of the 
 tyrants was shaken ; when Robespierre was de- 
 clared hors la Im, and the generak was beat to 
 summon the citizen soldiers to make a last 
 effort in behalf, not only of their country,, but of 
 their own existence, only three thousand obeyed 
 the summons ! Thirty-seven thousand declined 
 to come forward in the contest for their lives, 
 their families, and every thing that was dear to 
 them. With this contemptible force was Robes- 
 pierre besieged in the Hotel de Ville ; and but 
 for the fortunate and unforeseen defection of 
 the cannoneers of the Fauxbourgs in the Place 
 de Greve, the tyrants would have been success- 
 ful, the Assembly destroyed, and the reign of 
 the guillotine perpetuated on the earth. 
 
 When tTie reaction in favour of the victors, 
 on the 9th Thermidor, had roused, the Parisian 
 population against the sanguinary rule of the 
 Convention; when, encouraged by the contempt- 
 ible force at the disposal of government, forty 
 thousand of the National Guard assaulted five 
 thousand regular soldiers, in position at the 
 Tuileries, on Oct. 31, 1795, Napoleon showed 
 what reliance could be placed on the citizen 
 soldiers. With a few discharges of artillery he 
 checked the advance of the leading battalions, 
 spread terror through their dense columns, 
 and a revolt, which was expected to overthrow 
 the tyranny of the delegates of the people, ter- 
 minated by the establishment of military des- 
 potism. 
 
 When Augereau, on 4th Sept., 1797, at the 
 command of the Directory, seized sixty of the 
 popular leaders of the legislature; when the 
 law of the sword began, and all the liberties of 
 the Revolution were about to be sacrificed aj 
 the altar of military violence, the National 
 Guard declined to move, and saw their fellow- 
 citizens, the warmest supporters of their liber- 
 ties, carried into captivity and exile, without 
 attempting a movement in their behalf. 
 
 When Napoleon overthrew the government 
 in 1800 ; when, like another Cromwell, he 
 seized the fruits of another Revolution ; when 
 he marched his grenadiers into the council of 
 Five Hundred, and made the stern rule of the 
 sword succeed to the visions of enthusiastic 
 freedom, the National Guard remained quiet 
 spectators of the destruction of their country's 
 liberties, and testified the same submission to 
 the reign of military, which they had. done to 
 that of democratic violence. 
 
 The National Guard was re-organized in 
 August, 1830, and their conduct since that time 
 has been the subject of unmeasured eulogium 
 from all the liberal journals of Europe. The 
 throne was established by their bayonets; the 
 Citizen King has thrown himself upon their 
 support ; they were established in great force 
 in every quarter of Paris, and the public tran- 
 quillity intrusted to their hands. History has 
 a right to inquire what they have done to justify 
 the high praises of their supporters, and how 
 
 far the cause of order and rational liberty has 
 gained by their exertions. 
 
 They had the history of the former Revolu- 
 tion clearly before their eyes ; they knew well, 
 by dear-bought experience, that when popular 
 violence is once roused, it overthrows ali the 
 bulwarks both of order and freedom ; they 
 were supported by all the weight of govern- 
 ment: they had every thing at stake, in keep- 
 ing down the ferment of the people. With so 
 many motives to vigorous action, what have 
 they done 1 
 
 They permitted an unruly mob of thirty 
 thousand persons to assemble round the Palace 
 of Louis Philippe, on October 25, 1830, and so 
 completely shatter his infant authority, thai he 
 was obliged to dismiss the able and philosophic 
 Guizot, the greatest historian of France, and 
 the whole cabinet of the Doctrinaires, from his 
 councils, to make way for republican leaders 
 of sterner mould, and better adapted to the in- 
 creasing violence of the popular mind. 
 
 At the trial of Polignac, the whole National 
 Guard of Paris and the departments in the 
 neighbourhood, seventy thousand strong, was 
 assembled in the capital ; and what was the 
 proof which the government gave of confidence 
 in their loyalty and efficiency in the cause of 
 order 1 Albeit encamped, as Lafayette said, at 
 the Luxembourg, amidst twenty thousand Na- 
 tional Guards, four thousand troops of the line, 
 three thousand cavalry, and forty pieces of ar- 
 tillery, the government did not venture to with- 
 draw the state prisoners to Vincennes in day- 
 light ; and, but for the stratagem of Montalivet, 
 in getting them secretly conveyed away in the 
 middle of the night, in his own caleche, from 
 the midst of that vast encampment of citizen 
 soldiers, they would have been murdered in 
 the street, within sight of that very supreme 
 tribunal which had pronounced that sentence, 
 and saved their lives. ' , 
 
 At that critical moment, the cannoneers of 
 the National Guard, placed with their pieces at 
 the Louvre, declared, that, if matters came to 
 extremities, they would have turned their can- 
 non against the government. Great part of 
 the infantry, it was found, could not be relied 
 on. The agitation occasioned by these events 
 produced another change in the ministry, but 
 no additional security to the throne. 
 
 In February last, the National Guard joined 
 the populace in pillaging the palace of the 
 Archbishop of Paris; and joining in the in- 
 fernal cry against every species of religion, 
 scaled every steeple in Paris, with sacrilegious 
 hands tore down the cross from their summits, 
 and disgraced their uniforms by effacing the 
 image of our Saviour in all the churches in 
 the metropolis. The apathy and irresolution 
 of the National Guard in repressing the disor- 
 der of the populace on this occasion, was such 
 as to call for a reproof even from the most ar- 
 dent supporters of republican institutions. The 
 consequence has been a third change of minis- 
 ters in little more than six months. 
 
 The Paris journals are daily full of the dis- 
 tress of the labouring classes, the stagnation 
 of commercial enterprise, the want of confi- 
 dence, and the disgraceful tumults which in- 
 cessantly agitate the public mind, and have 
 
202 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 prevented the resumption of any industrial 
 occupation. All this takes place in the midst, 
 and under the eye of fifty thousand National 
 Guards, in the city alone. 
 
 History will record that the National Guard 
 of France was instituted in 1789, for the con- 
 solidation of free institutions, and the preserva- 
 tion of public tranquillity. 
 
 That since its establishment, the government 
 and prevailing institutions have been the sub- 
 ject of incessant change; that they have had 
 in turn a constitutional monarchy, a fierce de- 
 mocracy, a sceptre of blood, a military consti- 
 tution, a despotic consulate, an imperial throne, 
 a regulated monarchy, and a citizen king. 
 
 That during their guardianship, a greater 
 number of lives have perished in civil war 
 a greater number of murders taken place on 
 the scaffold a greater extent of confiscation 
 of fortune been inflicted a greater quantity 
 of wealth destroyed a greater degree of vio- 
 lence exerted by the people a greater sum of 
 anguish endured than in an equal extent of 
 time and population, in any age or country, 
 since the beginning of the world! 
 
 That it has almost invariably failed at the de- 
 cisive moment; that, instituted for the defence 
 of property, it has connived at unheard-of spo- 
 liation ; appointed for the preservation of order, 
 its existence has been chiefly signalized by- 
 misrule ; charged with the defence of life, it 
 has permitted blood to flow in ceaseless tor- 
 rents. 
 
 Nothing therefore can be more unfounded 
 in fact, than the applause so generally bestowed 
 on this popular institution, considered as the 
 sole or principal support of government. <It 
 has been of value only as an auxiliary to the 
 regular force ; it is utterly unserviceable in 
 the crisis of civil warfare ; and is then only 
 of real utility when some common patriotic 
 feeling has sunk all minor shades of opinion 
 in one general emotion. 
 
 It is impossible it ever should be otherwise 
 citizen soldiers are extremely serviceable 
 when they are subjected to the bonds of dis- 
 cipline, and obedient to the orders of the 
 supreme power. But when they take upon 
 themselves to discuss the measures or form 
 of government, and instead of obeying orders 
 to canvass principles, there is an end not only 
 of all efficiency in their force, but of all utility 
 in their institution. Fifty thousand legislators, 
 with bayonets in their hands, form a hopeless 
 National Assembly. 
 
 This is the circumstance which, in every 
 decisive crisis between the opposing parties, 
 paralyzed the National Guard of Paris, and to 
 the end of time will paralyze all volunteer 
 troops in similar extremities : They shared in 
 the opinions of their fellow-citizens ; they were 
 members of clubs, as well as the unarmed 
 multitude; they were as ready to fight with 
 each other, as with the supporters of anarchy. 
 The battalions drawn from the Fauxbourg St. 
 Germains or the quarters of the Palais Royal, 
 and the Chaussee d'Antin, were disposed to 
 support the monarchy ; but those from the 
 Fauxbourg St. Antoine and St. Marceau, were 
 as determined to aid the cause of democracy; 
 and in this divided state, the battalions of a 
 
 democratic cast, from their superior numbers, 
 acquired a fatal ascendency. 
 
 The case would be the same in London if a 
 similar crisis should arrive. The battalions 
 from the Regent Park, Regent Street, Picca- 
 Idilly, the West End, and all the opulent 
 ' quarters, might be relied on to support the 
 cause of order; but what could be expected 
 from those raised in Wapping, Deptford, St. 
 Giles, Spitalfields, or all the innumerable lanes 
 and alleys of the city, and its eastern suburbs 1 
 If the National Guard of London were an. 
 hundred thousand strong, at least twenty thou- 
 sand of them would, from their habits, incli- 
 nations, and connections, side, on the first real 
 crisis, with the democratic party. 
 
 It is a fatal delusion to suppose that at all 
 events, and in all circumstances, the National 
 Guard would be inclined to support the cause 
 of order, and prevent the depredation from 
 which they would be first to suffer : They un- 
 questionably would be inclined to do so up to 
 a certain point of danger, and as long as they 
 believed that the ruling power in the state was 
 likely to prove victorious. But no sooner does 
 the danger become more urgent, no sooner 
 does the government run the risk of defeat, 
 than the National Guard is paralyzed, from the 
 very circumstance of its being in great part 
 composed of men of property. The great ca- 
 pitalist is the most timid animal in existence ; 
 next comes the great shopkeeper, lastly the 
 little tradesman. Their resolution is inversely 
 as their wealth. In all ages, desperate daring 
 valour has been found in the greatest degree 
 amongst the lowest class of society. The 
 multiplied enjoyments of life render men un- 
 willing to incur the risk of losing them. 
 
 No sooner, therefore, does the democratic 
 party appear likely to become victorious, than 
 the shopkeepers of the National Guard begin 
 to think only of extricating their private affairs 
 from the general ruin. Sauve qui peut is then, 
 if not the general cry, at least the general feel- 
 ing. The merchant sees before him a dismal 
 vista of sacked warehouses and burnt stores; 
 the manufacturer, of insurgent workmen and 
 suspended orders; the tradesman, of pillaged 
 shops and ruined custom. Despairing of the 
 commonwealth, they recur, as all men do in 
 evident peril, to the unerring instinct of self- 
 preservation ; and from the magnitude of their 
 stake, fall under the influence of this appre- 
 hension long before it has reached the lower 
 and more reckless classes of society. 
 
 Admirable, therefore, as an auxiliary to the 
 regular force in case of peril from foreign in- 
 vasion, a National Guard is not to be relied on 
 during the perils and divisions of civil con- 
 flict. It always has, and always will fail in 
 extremity, when a war of opinion agitates the 
 state. 
 
 The only sure support of order in such 
 unhappy circumstances is to be found in a 
 numerous and honourable body of regular sol- 
 diers. Let not the sworn defender of order be 
 tainted by the revolutionary maxim, that the 
 duties of the citizen are superior to those of 
 the soldier, and that nature formed them as 
 men, before society made them warriors. The 
 first duty of a soldier, the first principle of 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 military honour, is fidelity to the executive 
 power. In crushing an insurrection of the 
 populace in a mixed government, he is not 
 enslaving his fellow-citizens ; he is only turn- 
 ing the efforts of freedom into their proper 
 channel, and preventing the contest of opinion 
 from degenerating into that of force. Liberty 
 has as much to hope from his success as tran- 
 
 quillity : nothing is so fatal to its establishment 
 as the violence exerted for its extension. In 
 this as in other instances, it is not lawful to 
 do evil that good may come of it; and phi- 
 losophy will at length discover, what reason 
 and religion have long ago taught, that the 
 only secure foundation for ultimate expedi- 
 ence, is the present discharge of duty. 
 
 ARNOLD'S HOME.* 
 
 THE history of Rome will remain, to the lat- 
 est age of the world, the most attractive, the 
 most useful, and the most elevating subject of 
 human contemplation. It must ever form the 
 basis of a liberal and enlightened education ; 
 it must ever present the most important object 
 to the contemplation of the statesman ; it must 
 ever exhibit the most heart-stirring record to 
 the heart of the soldier. Modern civilization, 
 the arts, and the arms, the freedom and the in- 
 stitutions of Europe around us, are the bequest 
 of the Roman legions. The roads which we 
 travel are, in many places, those which these 
 indomitable pioneers of civilization first cleared 
 through the wilderness of nature ; the language 
 which we speak is more than half derived from 
 Roman words ; the laws by which we are pro- 
 tected have found their purest fountains in the 
 treasures of Roman jurisprudence; the ideas 
 in which we glory are to be found traced out 
 in the fire of young conception in the Roman 
 writers. In vain does the superficial acquire- 
 ment, or shallow variety, of modern liberalism 
 seek to throw off the weight of obligation to the 
 grandeur or virtue of antiquity; in vain are 
 we told that useful knowledge is alone worthy 
 of cultivation, that ancient fables have gone 
 past, and that the study of physical science 
 should supersede that of the ancient authors. 
 Experience, the great detector of error, is per- 
 petually recalling to our minds the inestimable 
 importance of Roman history. The more that 
 our institutions become liberalized, the more 
 rapid the strides which popular ideas make 
 amongst us, the more closely do we cling to the 
 annals of a state which underwent exactly the 
 same changes, and suffered the consequences of 
 the same convulsions ; and the more that we ex- 
 perience the insecurity, the selfishness, and the 
 rapacity of democratic ambition, the more high- 
 ly do we come to appreciate the condensed wis- 
 dom with which the great historians of anti- 
 quity, by a word or an epithet, stamped its 
 character, or revealed its tendency. 
 
 There is something solemn, and evidently 
 providential, in the unbroken advance and ul- 
 timate boundless dominion of Rome. The his- 
 tory of other nations corresponds nearly to the 
 vicissitudes of prosperity and disaster, of good 
 
 * History of Rome. By Thomas Arnold, D. D., Head 
 Master of 'Ruj;hy School ; late Fellow of Oriel College, 
 Oxford ; and member of the Archaeological Society of 
 Rome. London : B. Fellowes. 1838. Blackwood's Ma- 
 gazine, August, 1838 
 
 and evil fortune, which we observe in the na- 
 tions of the world at this time. The brilliant 
 meteor of Athenian greatness disappeared from 
 the world almost as soon as the bloody phantas- 
 magoria of the French Revolution. In half-a- 
 century after they arose, naught remained of 
 either but the works of genius they had pro- 
 duced, and the deeds of glory they had done. 
 The wonders of Napoleon's reign faded as ra- 
 pidly as the triumphs of the Macedonian con- 
 queror; and the distant lustre of Babylon and 
 Nineveh is faintly recalled by the ephemeral 
 dynasties which have arisen, under the pres- 
 sure of Arabian or Mogul conquest, in the re- 
 gions of the east in modern times. But, in the 
 Roman annals, a different and mightier system 
 developes itself. From the infancy of the re- 
 public, from the days even of the kings, and the 
 fabulous reigns of Romulus and Numa, an un- 
 broken progress is exhibited which never ex- 
 perienced a permanent reverse till the eagles 
 of the republic had crossed the Euphrates, and 
 all the civilized world, from the wall of Anto- 
 nius to the foot of Mount Atlas, was subjected 
 to their arms. Their reverses, equally with 
 their triumphs their defeats, alike with their 
 victories their infant struggles with the cities 
 of Latium, not less than their later contests 
 with Carthage and Mithridates contributed to 
 develope their strength, and may be regarded 
 as the direct causes of their dominion. It was 
 in the long wars with the Etruscan and Sam- 
 nite communities that the discipline and tactics 
 were slowly and painfully acquired, which en- 
 abled them to face the banded strength of the 
 Carthagenian confederacy, and in the des- 
 perate struggle with Hannibal, that the resolu- 
 tion and skill were drawn forth which so soon, 
 on its termination, gave them the empire of the 
 world. The durability of the fabric was in 
 proportion to the tardiness of its growth, and 
 the solidity of its materials. The twelve vul- 
 tures which Romulus beheld on the Palatine 
 Hill were emblematic of the twelve centuries 
 which beheld the existence of the empire of the 
 west; and it required a thousand years more 
 of corruption and decline to extinguish in the 
 east this brilliant empire, which, regenerated 
 by the genius of Constantine, found, in the 
 riches and matchless situation of Byzantium, 
 a counterpoise to all the effeminacy of oriental 
 manners, and all the ferocity of the Scythian 
 tribes. 
 It is remarkable that time has not yet pro- 
 
204 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 duced a history of this wonderful people com- 
 mensurate either to their dignity, their import- 
 ance, or their intimate connection with modern 
 institutions. The pictured pages and matchless 
 descriptions of Livy, indeed, will, to the end 
 of the world, fascinate the imagination and 
 subdue the hearts of men ; but it is a fragment 
 only of his great work which has descended to 
 our times ; and even when complete, it came 
 down only to the time of Augustus, and broke 
 off exactly at the period when nations, arrived 
 at the stage of existence to which we have 
 grown, are most interested in its continuance. 
 The condensed wisdom, energetic expressions, 
 and practical experience of Sallust and Taci- 
 tus, apply only to detached periods of the later 
 annals ; and, though not a page of their im- 
 mortal works can be read without suggesting 
 reflections on the extraordinary political saga- 
 city which they had acquired from experience, 
 or received from nature, yet we shall look in 
 vain, in the fragments of this work which have 
 survived the wreck of time, for a connected 
 detail even of the later periods of Roman story. 
 The moderns appear to have been deterred, by 
 the exquisite beauty of these fragments of an- 
 cient history, from adventuring at all on the 
 same field. Ferguson's is considered by the 
 English, and admitted by the Germans, to be 
 the best connected history of the Republic 
 which exists ; but not only does it embrace 
 merely, with adequate fulness, the period from 
 the rise of the Gracchi to the ascent of the 
 throne by Augustus, but it does not contain the 
 views, nor is it dictated by the practical ac- 
 quaintance with human affairs which is neces- 
 sary for a real history of Roman policy. The 
 Scotch professor has, with much ability, illus- 
 trated the contests of Sylla and Marius, of Cas- 
 sar and Pompey ; but he lived in a pacific age, 
 amidst the unbroken seclusion of an academi- 
 cal life, and, consequently, could not possibly 
 attain those clear and decisive views of the 
 tendency and springs of action, in civil con- 
 tests, which are brought home to the minds of 
 the most illiterate by the storms and crimes of 
 a revolution. 
 
 Niebuhr is universally allowed to have 
 opened a new era in the early history of the 
 Republic. Before his time historians were 
 content with adopting, without examination, 
 the legends which, in the Roman annals, passed 
 for the narrative of real events, and, despairing 
 of adding any thing to their beauty, simply 
 presented their readers with a translation of 
 Livy and Dionysius. Dissatisfied with such a 
 mode of recording the progress of so celebrated 
 a people, Ferguson rejected the early legends 
 altogether, and passing, in the most cursory 
 and unsatisfactory manner over the first five 
 hundred years of Roman story, professed him- 
 self unable to discover firm historic ground till 
 he came down to the second Punic war. But 
 neither of these methods of treating the subject 
 suited the searching eye and inquisitive mind 
 of the German historian. Possessed of extraor- 
 dinary learning, and a matchless faculty of 
 drawing, with intuitive sagacity, important 
 historical and political conclusions from de- 
 tached and, to ordinary observers, unmeaning 
 details of subordinate historians, he has con- 
 
 trived to rear up from comparatively authentic 
 data, a veracious picture of the early Roman 
 annals. Instead of rejecting in despair the 
 whole history prior to the invasion of the Gauls 
 as a mass of fables, erected by the vanity of pa- 
 trician families, and adopted by the credulity 
 of an uninformed people, he has succeeded in 
 supporting a large portion of those annals by 
 unquestionable evidence ; and stripping it only, 
 in some parts, of those colours which the elo- 
 j quence of Livy has rendered immortal, for the 
 improvement and delight of mankind. It is a 
 common reproach against this great antiquary, 
 that he has overthrown the whole early history 
 of Rome, but no reproach was ever more un- 
 founded. In truth, as Dr. Arnold has justly 
 observed, it must be evident to every one ac- 
 quainted with the subject, that he has built up 
 much more than he has destroyed, and fixed on 
 firm historic grounds a vast deal which the in- 
 quisitive eye of modern skepticism was in- 
 clined to lay aside as entirely fictitious. No 
 stronger proof of this can be desired than is tp 
 be found in the fact, that while Ferguson began 
 his history as authentic only with the exploits 
 of Hannibal, Niebuhr has deemed it certain 
 that historical truth is to be found not only 
 under the kings, but so early as Ancus Martius. 
 
 It is inconceivable, indeed, how it ever could 
 have been seriously believed that the annals 
 of the kings were entirely fictitious, when the 
 Cloaca Maxima still exists, a durable monu- 
 ment both of the grandeur of conception and 
 power of execution which at that early period 
 had distinguished the Roman people. Two 
 thousand five hundred years have elapsed 
 since this stupendous work was executed, to 
 drain the waters of the Forum and adjacent 
 hollows to the Tiber; and there it stands at 
 this day, without a stone displaced, still per- 
 forming its destined service ! Do any of the 
 edifices of Paris or London promise an equal 
 duration ] From the moment that we beheld 
 that magnificent structure, formed of the actual 
 stone of the eternal city, all doubts as to the 
 authenticity of Roman annals, so far, at least, 
 as they portray a powerful flourishing kingdom 
 anterior to the Republic, vanished from our 
 minds. If nothing else remained to attest the 
 greatness of the kings at this period but the 
 Cloaca Maxima and the treaty with Carthage 
 in the first year of the Republic, it would be 
 sufficient to demonstrate that the basis of the 
 early history of the kings was to be found in 
 real" events. And this Niebuhr, after the most 
 minute and critical examination, has declared 
 to be his conviction. 
 
 Doubtless, the same historic evidence does 
 not exist for the romantic and captivating part 
 of early Roman history. We cannot assert 
 that we have good evidence that Romulus 
 fought, or that Numa prayed; that Ancus con- 
 quered, or that Tarquin oppressed; that the 
 brethren of the Horatii saved their country, or 
 Curtius leaped headlong into the gulf in the 
 Forum. The exquisite story of Lucretia; the 
 heart-stirring legend of Corioli ; the invasion 
 of Porsenna, the virtue of Cincinnatus, the 
 siege of Veine, the deliverance of Camillus, are 
 probably all founded in some degree on real 
 events, but they have come down to our 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 205 
 
 glowing with the genius of the ancient histori- 
 ans, and gilded by the colours which matchless 
 eloquence has communicated to the additions 
 with which the fondness of national or family 
 vanity had clothed the artless narrative of 
 early times. Simplicity is the invariable cha- 
 racteristic of the infancy of the world. Homer 
 and Job are often in the highest degree both 
 pathetic and sublime; but they are so just 
 because they are utterly unconscious of any 
 such merits, and aimed only at the recital of 
 real events. The glowing pages and beautiful 
 episodes of Livy are as evidently subsequent 
 additions as the pomp and majesty of Ossian 
 are to the meager ballads of Caledonia. 
 
 But it is of no moment either to the great 
 objects of historical inquiry or the future 
 improvement and elevation of the species, 
 whether the Roman legends can or cannot be 
 supported by historical evidence. It is suffi- 
 cient that they exist, to render them to the end 
 of the world the most delightful subject of study 
 for youth, not the least useful matter for con- 
 templation in maturer years. They may not 
 be strictly historical, but rely upon it they are 
 founded in the main upon a correct picture of 
 the manners and ideas of the time. Amadis 
 of Gaul is not a true story, but it conveys, 
 nevertheless, a faithful though exaggerated 
 picture of the ideas and manners of the chi- 
 valrous ages. There is, probably, the same 
 truth in the Roman legends that there is in 
 Achilles and Agamemnon in Front de Boeuf, 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, and I van hoe. We will 
 not find in Roman story a real Lucretia or Vir- 
 ginia, any more than in British history a 
 genuine Rebecca or Jeanie Deans ; but the 
 characters are not the less founded in the 
 actual manners and spirit of the times. It is 
 of little moment to us whether Romulus watch- 
 ed the twelve emblematic vultures on the Pa- 
 latine Hill, or Numa consulted Egeria in the 
 shades of the Campagna, or Veioe was stormed 
 through the mine sprung in the Temple of 
 Juno, or the Roman ambassador thrust his 
 hand into the fire before Porsenna, or Lucretia, 
 though guiltless in intent, plunged the dagger 
 in her bosom rather than survive the honour 
 of her house. It is sufficient that a people 
 have existed, to whom the patriotic devotion, 
 the individual heroism, the high resolves, the 
 undaunted resolution portrayed in these im- 
 mortal episodes, were so familiar, that they 
 had blended with real events, were believed to 
 be true, because they were felt to be credible, 
 and formed part of their traditional annals. 
 No other people ever possessed early legends 
 of the same noble, heart-stirring kind as the 
 Romans, because none other were stamped 
 with the character destined to win, and worthy 
 to hold, the empire of the world. To the latest 
 times the history of infant Rome, with all its 
 attendant legends, must, therefore, form the 
 most elevating and useful subject for the in- 
 struction of youth, as affording a faithful 
 picture, if not of the actual events of that in- 
 teresting period, at least of the ideas and feel- 
 ings then prevalent amongst a nation called to 
 such exalted destinies ; and without being em- 
 bued with a similar spirit, we may safely assert 
 
 no other people will ever either emulate their 
 fame, or approach to their achievements. 
 
 Notwithstanding the high place which we 
 have assigned to Niebuhr in the elucidation 
 and confirmation of early Roman history, 
 nothing can be more apparent than that his 
 work never will take its place as a popular 
 history of the Republic, and never rival in 
 general estimation the fascinating pages of 
 Livy. No one can read it for half an hour 
 without being satisfied of that fact. Invalu- 
 able to the scholar, the antiquary, the philolo- 
 gist, it has no charms for the great mass of 
 readers, and conveys no sort of idea to the un- 
 learned student of the consecutive chain of 
 events even among the very people whose his- 
 tory it professes to portray. In this respect it 
 labours under the same fault which is, in a less 
 degree, conspicuous in the philosophic pages 
 of Sir James Mackintosh's English history; 
 that it pre-supposes an intimate acquaintance 
 with the subject in the reader, and is to all, 
 not nearly as well versed in it as himself, 
 either in great part unintelligible, or intolerably 
 dull. Heeren, whose labours have thrown 
 such a flood of light on the Persian, Egyptian, 
 and Carthaginian states, has justly remarked 
 that Niebuhr, with all his acuteness, is to be 
 regarded rather as an essayist on history, than 
 an actual historian. He has elucidated with 
 extraordinary learning and skill several of the 
 most obscure subjects in Roman annals ; and 
 on many, especially the vital subjects of the 
 Agrarian law, struck out new lights, which, if 
 known at all to the later writers of the empire, 
 had been entirely lost during the change of 
 manners and ideas consequent on the Gothic 
 conquests. But his work is in many places 
 so obscure, and so much overloaded with 
 names, and subjects, and disquisitions, in great 
 part unknown to readers, even of fair classi- 
 cal attainments and extensive general know- 
 ledge, that it never can take its place among 
 the standard histories of the world. He is 
 totally destitute of two qualities indispensable 
 to a great historian, and particularly conspi- 
 cuous in the far-famed annalists of antiquity 
 powers of description, and the discriminat- 
 ing eye, which, touching on every subject, 
 brings those prominently forward only which, 
 from their intrinsic importance, should attract 
 the attention of the reader. He works out 
 every thing with equal care and minuteness, 
 and, in consequence, the impression produced 
 on the mind of an ordinary reader, is so con- 
 fused, as to amount almost to nothing. Like 
 Pere4e or Waterloo, in the imitation of nature, 
 (and landscape painting, and historical de- 
 scription in this particular are governed by the 
 same principles,) he works out the details of 
 each individual object with admirable skill; 
 but there'is no Ineadth of general effect on his 
 canvas, and he wants the general shade and 
 subdued tones, which in Claude, amidst an in- 
 finity of details, not less faithfully portrayed, 
 rivet the eye of the spectator on a few brilliant 
 spots, and produce on the mind even of the 
 most unskilled the charm of a single emotion. 
 
 Niebuhr's history, however, with all its me- 
 rits and defects, comes only down to the com- 
 8 
 
206 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 mencement of the most important era in the 
 annals of the republic. It is in the empire that 
 the great want of continued annals is felt. Li- 
 terally speaking, there is nothing, either in 
 ancient or modern literature, which deserves 
 the name of a history of the whole period of 
 the emperors. Tillemont has, with unwearied 
 industry and admirable accuracy, collected 
 all that the inimitable fragments of Tacitus, 
 and detached lights of Seutonius, Florus, and 
 the panegyrists have left on this vast subject; 
 and Gibbon has, with incomparable talent, 
 thrown, in his first chapters, over the general 
 conditions of the empire, the light of his ge- 
 nius and the colouring of his eloquence. But 
 Tiliemont, though a laborious and valuable 
 compiler, is no historian ; if any one doubts 
 this, let him take up one of his elaborate 
 quartos and try to read it. Gibbon, in his im- 
 mortal work, the greatest monument of his- 
 torical industry and ability that exists in the 
 world, has given a most luminous view of the 
 events which led to the decline and fall of the 
 empire, and erected, with consummate talent, 
 a bridge across the gulf which separates an- 
 cient from modern story. But he begins only 
 to narrate events with any minuteness at the 
 period when the empire had already attained 
 to its highest elevation ; he dismisses in a few 
 pages the conquests of Trajan, the wisdom of 
 Nerva, the beneficence of Marcus Aurelius, 
 and enters into detail for the first time,' when 
 the blind partiality of Marcus Antoninus, and 
 the guilt of his empress, had prepared in the 
 accession and vices of Commodus, the com- 
 mencement of that long series of depraved 
 emperors who brought about the ruin of the 
 empire. What do we know of the conquests 
 of Trajan, the wars of Severus, the victories 
 of Aurelian ? Would that the pencil of the 
 author of the Decline and Fall had thrown 
 over them the brilliant light which it has shed 
 over the disasters or Julian, the storming of 
 Constantinople, the conquests of Mahomet, or 
 the obstinate wars of the Byzantine emperors 
 with the Parthian princes. But his history 
 embraces so vast a range of objects, that it 
 could not satisfy our curiosity on the annals 
 even of the people who formed the centre of 
 the far-extended group, and it is rather a pic- 
 ture of the progress of the nations who over- 
 threw Rome, than of Rome itself. 
 
 There is ample room, therefore, for a great 
 historical work, as voluminous and as elo- 
 quent as Gibbon, on the Rise and Progress of 
 Roman greatness; and it embraces topics of 
 far more importance, in the present age of the 
 world, than the succession of disasters and 
 fierce barbarian inroads which long shook, 
 and at last overturned the enduring fabric of 
 the empire. Except as a matter of curiosity, 
 we have little connection with the progress of 
 the Gothic and Scythian nations. Christianity 
 has turned the rivers of barbarism by their 
 source; civilization has overspread the wilds 
 of Scythia; gunpowder and fortified towns 
 have given knowledge a durable superiority 
 over ignorance ; Russia stands as an impene- 
 trable barrier between Europe and the Tartar 
 horse. But the evils which the Roman insti- 
 tutions contained in their own bosom, as well 
 
 as the deeds of glory and extent of dominion 
 to which they led, interest us in the most vital 
 particulars. Our institutions more closely re- 
 semble theirs than those of any other people 
 recorded in history, and the causes which have 
 led to the vast extent of our dominion and du- 
 rability of our power, are the same which gave 
 them for centuries the empire of the world. 
 The same causes of weakness, also, are now 
 assailing us which once destroyed them; we, 
 too, have wealth imported from all parts of the 
 world to corrupt our manners, and an over- 
 grown metropolis to spread the seeds of vice 
 and effeminacy, as from a common centre, 
 over the length and breadth of the land; we, 
 too, have patricians striving to retain power 
 handed down to them by their ancestors, and 
 plebeians burning with the desire of distinc- 
 tion, and the passion for political elevation 
 which springs from the spread of opulence 
 among the middle classes ; we, too, have Grac- 
 chi ready to hoist the standard of disunion 
 by raising the question of the Agrarian law, 
 ana" Syllas and Mariuses to rear their hostile 
 banners at the head of the aristocratic and de- 
 mocratic factions ; in the womb of time, is 
 provided for us as for them, the final over- 
 throw of our liberties, under the successful 
 leader of the popular party, and long ages of 
 decline under the despotic rule imposed upon 
 us by the blind ambition and eastern equality 
 of the people. A fair and philosophic history 
 of Rome, therefore, is a subject of incalculable 
 importance to the citizens of this, and of every 
 other constitutional monarchy ; in their errors 
 we may discern the mirror of our own in 
 their misfortunes the prototypes of those we 
 are likely to undergo in their fate, that which, 
 in all human probability, awaits ourselves. 
 
 Such a history never, in modern times, could 
 have been written but at this period. All sub- 
 sequent ages, from the days of Cicero, have 
 been practically ignorant of the very elements 
 of political knowledge requisite for a right 
 understanding or fair discussion of the sub- 
 ject. In vain were the lessons of political wis- 
 flom to be found profusely scattered through 
 the Roman historians in vain did Sallust and 
 Tacitus point, by a word or an epithet, to the 
 important conclusions deducible from their 
 civil convulsions ; the practical experience, 
 the daily intercourse with republican institu- 
 tions were awanting, which were necessary to 
 give the due weight to their reflections. The 
 lessons of political wisdom were so constantly 
 brought home to the citizens of antiquity by the 
 storms and dissensions of the Forum, that they 
 deemed it unnecessary to do more than allude 
 to them, as a subject on which all were agreed, 
 and with which every one was familiar. Like 
 first principles in our House of Commons, they 
 were universally taken for granted, and, there- 
 fore, never made the theme of serious illustra- 
 tion. It is now only that we begin to perceive 
 the weighty sense and condensed wisdom of 
 many expressions which dropped seemingly 
 unconsciously from their historical writers, 
 that dear-bought experience has taught us that 
 pride, insolency, and corrupt principles are the 
 main sources of popular ambition in our times, 
 as in the days of Catiline ; and that the saying 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 207 
 
 of Johnson ceases to pass for a witty paradox : 
 "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." 
 Dr. Arnold has now fairly set himself to 
 work with this noble task, and he is, in many 
 respects, peculiarly fitted for the undertaking. 
 Long known to the classical world as an ac- 
 complished scholar, and the learned editor of 
 the best edition of Thucydides extant, he is 
 still more familiar to many of our readers as 
 the energetic head-master of Rugby school ; 
 and is to this hour looked up to with mingled 
 sentiments of awe and affection by many of 
 the most celebrated characters of the age. 
 The first volume of the great work in which 
 he is engaged alone is published, which brings 
 down the history of the Republic to the burn- 
 ing of Rome by the Goths, but it affords a fair 
 specimen of the spirit and ability with which 
 the remainder is likely to be carried on. In 
 many respects he has shown himself ad- 
 mirably calculated for the great but difficult 
 task which he has undertaken. His classical 
 attainments, both in Greek and Roman litera- 
 ture, are of the very highest order; his indus- 
 try is indefatigable, and he possesses much of 
 that instinctive glance or natural sagacity 
 which enabled Niebuhr, amidst the fictions 
 and chaos of ancient annals, to fix at once on 
 the outlines of truth and the course of real 
 events. His powers of description are of no 
 ordinary kind, as our readers will at once per- 
 ceive from the extracts we are about to lay be- 
 fore them; and many of his reflections prove 
 that he is endowed with that faculty of draw- 
 ing general conclusions from particular events, 
 which, when not pushed too far, is the surest 
 sign of the real genius for philosophical his- 
 tory. 
 
 Dr. Arnold, it is well known, is a whig per- 
 haps, we may add, an ultra-liberal. So far 
 from objecting to his book on this account, we 
 hail it with the more satisfaction that it does 
 come from an author of such principles, and 
 therefore that it can safely be referred to as a 
 work in which the truth of ancient events is 
 not likely to be disguised or perverted to an- 
 swer the views at least of the conservative party 
 in Great Britain. We are satisfied from many 
 instances, in the volume before us, that he is 
 of an inquisitive, searching turn of mind, and 
 that he would deem himself dishonoured if 
 he concealed or altered any well-ascertainec 
 facts in Roman history. More than this we do 
 not desire. We not only do not dislike, we 
 positively enjoy, his occasional introduction of 
 liberal views in what we may call Roman poli- 
 tics. We see in them the best guarantee tha 
 the decisive instances against democratic prin 
 ciples, with which all ancient history, and, mos 
 of all, Roman history, abounds, will not be per 
 verted in his hands, and may be relied on a 
 authentic facts against his principles. Pro 
 vided a writer is candid, ingenuous, and liberal 
 we hold it perfectly immaterial to the ultimate 
 triumph of truth what is the shade of his poli 
 tical opinions. The cause is not worth defend 
 ing which cannot be supported by the testimon) 
 of an honest opponent. Every experience 
 lawyer knows the value of a conscientious 
 but unwilling witness. Enough is to be found 
 in their apologist, Thiers, to doom the French 
 
 Devolution to the eternal execration of mankind, 
 "here is no writer on America who has brought 
 orward such a host of facts decisive against 
 epublican institutions as Miss Martineau, 
 -horn the liberals extol as the only author who 
 as given a veracious account of the transat- 
 antic democracies ; and we desire no other 
 vitness but Dr. Arnold to the facts which de- 
 nonstrate that it was the extravagant preten- 
 ion and ambition of the commons, which, in 
 the end, proved fatal to the liberties of Rome. 
 
 The Campagna of Rome, the fields of Latium, 
 he Alban Mount, the Palatine Hill, were fami- 
 iar to the childhood of us all ; and not the least 
 elightful hours of the youth of many of us 
 lave been spent in exploring the realities of 
 hat enchanting region. We transcribe with 
 pleasure Dr. Arnold's animated and correct 
 lescription of it, drawn from actual observa- 
 ion with the hand of a master. 
 
 " The territory of the original Rome during 
 ts first period, the true Ager Romanus, could be 
 gone round in a single day. It did not extend 
 )eyond the Tiber at all, nor probably beyond 
 he Anio; and on the east and south, where it 
 lad most room to spread, its limit was between, 
 ive and six miles from the city. This Ager 
 Romanus was the exclusive property of the 
 Joman people, that is of the houses ; it did not 
 nclude the lands conquered from the Latins, 
 and given back to them again when the Latins 
 became the plebs or commons of Rome. Ac- 
 cording to the augurs, the Ager Romanus was 
 a peculiar district in a religious sense; aus- 
 pices could be taken within its bounds which 
 could be taken nowhere without them. 
 
 4 And now, what was Rome, and what was 
 the country around it, which have both acquired 
 an interest such as can cease only when earth 
 itself shall perish ? The hills of Rome are such 
 as we rarely see in England, low in height, but 
 with steep and rocky sides. In early times the 
 natural wood still remained in patches amidst 
 the buildings, as at this day it grows here and 
 there on the green sides of the Monte Testaceo. 
 Across the Tiber the ground rises to a greater 
 height than that of the Roman hills, but its 
 summit is a level, unbroken line; while the 
 heights, which opposite to Rome itself rise im- 
 mediately from the river, under the names of 
 Janiculus and Vaticanus, then swept away to 
 some distance from it, and return in their high- 
 est and boldest form at the Mons Marius, just 
 above the Milvian bridge and the Flaminian 
 road. Thus to the west the view is immedi- 
 ately bounded; but to the north and north-east 
 the eye ranges over the low ground of the Cam- 
 pagna to the nearest line of the Apennines, 
 which closes up, as with a gigantic wall, all 
 the Sabine, Latin, and Volcian lowlands, while 
 over it are still distinctly to be seen the high 
 summits of the central Apennines, covered 
 with snow, even at this day, for more than six 
 months in the year. South and south-west lies 
 the wide plain of the Campagna; its level line 
 succeeded by the equally level line of the sea, 
 which can only be distinguished from it by the 
 brighter light reflected from its waters. East- 
 ward, after ten miles of plain, the view is bound- 
 ed by the Alban hills, a cluster of high bold 
 points rising out of the Campagna, like Arran 
 
208 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 from the sea, on the highest of which, at nearly 
 the same height with the summit of Helvellyn, 
 stood the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the scene * 
 of the common worship of all the people of the 
 Latin name. Immediately under this highest j 
 point lies the crater-like basin of the Alban | 
 lake ; and on its nearer rim might be seen the 
 trees of the grove of Florentia, where the Latins 
 held the great civil assemblies of their nation. 
 Further to the north, on the edge of the Alban 
 hills, looking towards Rome, was the town and 
 citadel of Tusculum ; and beyond this, a lower 
 summit, crowned with the Avails and towers of 
 Labicum, seems to connect the Alban hills with 
 the line of the Apennines just at the spot where 
 the citadel of Praeneste, high up on the moun- 
 tain side, marks the opening into the country 
 of the Hernicians, and into the valleys of the 
 streams that feed the Liris. 
 
 " Returning nearer to Rome, the lowland coun- 
 try of the Campagna is broken by long green 
 swelling ridges, the ground rising and falling, 
 as in the heath country of Surrey and Berk- 
 shire. The streams are dull and sluggish, but 
 the hill sides above them constantly break away 
 into little rocky cliffs, where on every ledge the 
 wild fig now strikes out its branches, and tufts 
 of broom are clustering, but which in old times 
 formed the natural strength of the citadels of 
 the numerous cities of Latium. Except in 
 these narrow dells, the present aspect of the 
 country is all bare and desolate, with no trees 
 nor any human habitation. But anciently, in 
 the time of the early kings of Rome, it was full 
 of independent cities, and, in its population and 
 the careful cultivation of its little garden-like 
 farms, must have resembled the most flourish- 
 ing parts of Lombardy or the Netherlands." 
 
 We have already adverted to the difficulty o'f 
 determining where fiction ends and real history 
 begins in the early Roman annals, and the scan- 
 ty foundation there is in authentic records, for 
 any of the early legends of their history. Fully 
 alive, however, to the exquisite beauty of these 
 remains, and the influence they had on the Ro- 
 man history, as well as their importance as 
 evincing the lofty character of their infant peo- 
 ple, Dr. Arnold has adopted the plan of not re- 
 jecting them altogether, but giving them in a 
 simple narrative, something like the Bible, and 
 commencng with his ordinary style when he 
 arrives at events which really rest on historic 
 ground. This is certainly much better than 
 entirely rejecting them; but, at the same time, 
 it introduces a quaint style of writing, in re- 
 counting these early events, to which we can 
 hardly reconcile ourselves, after the rich colour- 
 ing and graphic hand of Livy. As an example 
 of the way in which he treats this interesting 
 but difficult part of his subject, we give his ac- 
 count of the story of Lucretia, the exquisite 
 episode with which Livy terminates his first 
 book and narrative of the kings of Rome. 
 
 "Now when they came back to Rome, Kins: 
 Tarquinius was at war with the people of Ar- 
 dea; and as the city was strong, his army lay 
 a long while before it, till it should be forced to 
 yield through famine. So the Romans had lei- 
 sure for feasting and for diverting themselves : 
 and once Titus and Anins were supping with ! 
 their brother Sextus, and their cousin Tarqui- 
 
 nius of Collatia was supping with them. And 
 they disputed about their wives, whose wife of 
 them all was the worthiest lady. Then said 
 Tarquinius of Collatia, ' Let us go and see with 
 our own eyes what our wives are doing, so 
 shall we know which is the worthiest/ Upon 
 this they all mounted their horses and rode first 
 to Rome ; and there they found the wives of Ti- 
 tus, and of Aruns, and of Sextus, feasting and 
 making merry. Then they rode on to Collatia, 
 and it was late in the night; but they found 
 Lucretia, the wife of Tarquinius of Collatia, 
 neither feasting, nor yet sleeping, but she was 
 sitting with all her handmaids around her, and 
 all were working at the loom. So when they 
 saw this, they all said, 'Lucretia is the worthi- 
 est lady.' And she entertained her husband 
 and his kinsmen, and after that they rode back 
 to the camp before Ardea. 
 
 "But a spirit of wicked passion seized upon 
 Sextus, and a few days afterwards he went alone 
 to Collatia, and Lucretia received him hospita- 
 bly, for he was her husband's kinsman. At 
 midnight he arose and went to her chamber, 
 and he said that if she yielded not to him he 
 would slay her and one of her slaves with her, 
 and would say to her husband that he had slain 
 her in her adultery. So when Sextus had ac- 
 complished his wicked purpose he went back 
 again to the camp. 
 
 "Then Lucretia sent in haste to Rome, to 
 pray that her father Spurius Lucretius would 
 come to her ; and she sent to Ardea to summon 
 her husband. Her father brought along with 
 him Publius Valerius, and her husband brought 
 with him Lucius Junius, whom men. called 
 Brutus. When they arrived, they asked ear- 
 nestly, 'Is all well?' Then she told them of 
 the wicked deed of Sextus, and she said, ' If ye 
 be men, avenge it.' And they all swore to her, 
 that they would avenge it. Then she said again, 
 'I am not guilty; yet must I too share in 
 the punishment of this deed, lest any should 
 think that they may be false to their husbands 
 and live.' And she drew a knife from her 
 bosom, and stabbed herself to the heart. 
 
 " At that sight her husband and her father 
 cried aloud ; but Lucius drew the knife from 
 the wound, and held it up, and said, ' By this 
 blood I swear that I will visit this deed upon 
 King Tarquinius, and all his accursed race ; 
 neither shall any man hereafter be king in 
 Rome, lest he do the like wickedness.' And he 
 gave the knife to her husband, and to her fa- 
 ther, and to Publius Valerius. They marvel- 
 led to hear such words from him whom men 
 called dull ; but they swore also, and they took 
 up the body of Lucretia, and carried it down 
 into the forum; and they said, 'Behold the 
 deeds of the wicked family of Tarquinius.' 
 All the people of Collatia were moved, and 
 the men took up arms, and they set a guard at 
 the gates, that none might go out to carry the 
 tidings to Tarquinius, and they followed Lu- 
 cius to Rome. There, too, all the people came 
 together, and the crier summoned them to as- 
 semble before the tribune of the Celeres, for 
 Lucius held that office. And Lucius spoke to 
 them of all the tyranny of Tarquinius and his 
 sons, and of the wicked deed of Sextus. And 
 the people in their curias took back from Tar- 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 quinius the sovereign power, which they had 
 given him, and they banished him and all his 
 family. Then the younger men followed Lu- 
 cius to Ardea, to win over the army there to 
 join them ; and the city was left in the charge 
 of Spurius Lucretius. But the wicked Tullia 
 fled in haste from her house, and all, both men 
 and women, cursed her as she passed, and 
 prayed that the furies of her father's blood 
 might visit her with vengeance. 
 
 "Meanwhile King Tarquinius set out with 
 speed to Rome to put down the tumult. But 
 Lucius turned aside from the road that he 
 might not meet him, and came to the camp ; 
 and the soldiers joyfully received him, and 
 they drove out the sons of Tarquinius. King 
 Tarquinius came to Rome, but the gates were 
 shut, and they declared to him from the walls 
 the sentence of banishment which had been 
 passed against him and his family. So he 
 yielded to his fortune, and went to live at Crere 
 with his sons Titus and Aruns. His other 
 son, Sextus, went to Gabii, and the people 
 there, remembering how he had betrayed them 
 to his father, slew him. Then the army left 
 the camp before Ardea and went back to Rome. 
 And all men said, ' Let us follow the good laws 
 of the good King Servius ; and let us meet in 
 our centuries, according as he directed, and 
 let us choose two men year by year to govern 
 us, instead of a king.' Then the people met 
 in their centuries in the field of Mars, and 
 they chose two men to rule over them, Lucius 
 Junius, whom men called Brutus, and Lucius 
 Tarquinius of Collatia." 
 
 Every classical reader must perceive the 
 object which our author had in view. He has 
 in great part translated Livy, and he wishes to 
 preserve the legend which he has rendered im- 
 mortal; but he is desirous, at the same time, 
 of doing it, as he himself tells us, in such a 
 manner that it shall be impossible for any 
 reader, even the most illiterate, to imagine that 
 he is recording a real event. It may be pre- 
 judice, and the force of early association, but 
 we can hardly reconcile ourselves to this Mo- 
 saic mode of writing the history of the most 
 remote events. Every author's style, to be 
 agreeable, should be- natural. The reader ex- 
 periences a disagreeable feeling in coming 
 upon such quaint and perhaps affected pas- 
 sages, after being habituated to the flowing and 
 vigorous style of the author. It would be bet- 
 ter, we conceive, to write the whole in one 
 uniform manner, and mark the difference be- 
 tween the legendary and authentic parts by a 
 difference in the type, or some other equally 
 obvious distinction. But this is a trivial mat- 
 ter, affecting only the commencement of the 
 work; and ample subject of meditation is sug- 
 gested by many facts and passages in its later 
 pages. 
 
 We have previously noticed the decisive 
 evidence which the Cloaca Maxima and the 
 treaty with Carthage in the time of Tarquin 
 afford of the early greatness of the Roman 
 monarchy. But we were not aware, till read- 
 ing Arnold even Niebuhr has not so distinctly 
 brought out the fact that at the time of the 
 expulsion of the Tarquins and the commence 
 ment of the Republic, Rome was already a 
 27 
 
 >owerful monarchy, whose sway extended 
 rom the northern extremity of the Campagna 
 o the rocks of Terracina; and that it was 
 hen more powerful than it ever was for the 
 first hundred and fifty years of the Com- 
 non wealth ! The Roman kingdom is corn- 
 ered by Arnold, under the last of the kings, 
 o Judea under Solomon ; and the fact of a 
 reaty, recorded in Polybius, being in that year 
 concluded with Carthage, proves that the state 
 lad already acquired consideration with dis- 
 ant states. 
 
 " Setting aside," says our author, "the tyran- 
 ny ascribed to Tarquinius, and remembering 
 hat it was his policy to deprive the commons 
 of their lately acquired citizenship, and to 
 reat them like subjects rather than members 
 of the state, the picture given of the wealth 
 and greatness of Judea under Solomon may 
 convey some idea of the state of Rome under 
 ts latter kings. Powerful amongst surround- 
 ng nations, exposed to no hostile invasions, 
 with a flourishing agriculture and an active 
 commerce, the country was great and pros- 
 perous ; and the king was enabled to execute 
 public works of the highest magnificence, and 
 o invest himself with a splendour unknown in 
 the earlier times of the monarchy." 
 
 But mark the effect upon the external power 
 and internal liberties of the nation, conse- 
 quent on the violent change in the' govern- 
 ment and establishment of the Commonwealth, 
 as portrayed in the authentic pages of this 
 liberal historian. 
 
 "In the first year of the commonwealth, the 
 Romans still possessed the dominion enjoyed 
 by their kings ; all the cities of the coast of 
 Latium, as we have already seen, were subject 
 to them as far as Terracina. IViihin twelve 
 years, we cannot ccrtdinly sny how much sooner, these 
 were all become intkpendenf. This is easily in- 
 telligible, if we only take into account the loss 
 to Rome of an able and absolute king, the na- 
 tural weakness of an unsettled government, 
 and the distractions produced by the king's at- 
 tempts to recover his throne. The Latins may 
 have held, as we are told of the Sabines in 
 this very time, that their dependent alliance 
 with Rome had been concluded with King 
 Tarquinius, and that as he was king no longer, 
 and as his sons had been driven out with him, 
 all covenants between Latium and Rome were 
 become null and void. But it is possible also, 
 if the chronology of the common story of 
 these times can be at all depended on, that the 
 Latin cities owed their independence to the 
 Etruscan conquest of Rome. For that war, 
 which has been given in its poetical version 
 as the war with Porsenna r was really a great 
 outbreak of the Etruscan power upon the na- 
 tions southward of Etruria, in the very front 
 of whom lay the Romans. In the very next 
 year after the expulsion of the king, according 
 to the common story, and certainly at some 
 time within the period with which we are now 
 concerned, the Etruscans fell upon Rome. The 
 result of the war is, indeed, as strangely dis- 
 guised in the poetical story as Charlemagne's 
 invasion of Spain is in the romances. Rome 
 was completely conquered; all the territory 
 which the kings had won ou the right bank of 
 
 a 
 
210 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the Tiber was now lost. Rome itself was sur- 
 rendered to the Etruscan conqueror; his sove- 
 reignty was fully acknowledged, the Romans 
 gave up their arms, and recovered their city 
 and territory on condition of renouncing the 
 nse of iron except for implements of agricul- 
 ture. But this bondage did not last long; the 
 Etruscan power was broken by a great defeat 
 sustained before Aricia; for after the fall of 
 Rome the conquerors attacked Latium, and 
 while besieging Aricia, the united force of the 
 Latin cities, aided by the Greeks of Cumse, 
 succeeded in destroying their army, and in 
 confining their power to their own side of the 
 Tiber. Still, however, the Romans did not re- 
 cover their territory on the right bank of that 
 river, and the number of their tribes, as has 
 been already noticed, was consequently less- 
 ened by one-third, being reduced from thirty to 
 twenty. 
 
 "Thus within a short time after the banish- 
 ment of the last king, the Romans lost all their 
 territory on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, 
 and all their dominion over Latium. A third 
 people were their immediate neighbours on 
 the north-east, the Sabines. The cities of the 
 Sabines reached, says Varro, from Reate, to 
 the distance of half a day's journey from 
 Rome; that is, according to the varying esti- 
 mate of a day's journey, either seventy-five 
 or an hundred stadia, about ten or twelve 
 miles. 
 
 " It is certain, also, that the first enlarge- 
 ment of the Roman territory, after its great 
 diminution in the Etruscan war, look place 
 towards the north-east, between the Tiber and 
 the Anio ; and here were the lands of the only 
 new tribes that were added to the Roman na- 
 tion, for the space of more than one hundred 
 and twenty years after the establishment of 
 the commonwealth/' 
 
 Such were the disastrous effects of the re- 
 volution which expelled Tarquinius Superbus, 
 even though originating, if we may believe the 
 story of Lucretia, in a heinous crime on his 
 part, on the external power and territorial 
 possessions of Rome. Let us next inquire 
 whether the social condition of the people was 
 improved by the change, and the plebeians 
 reaped those fruits from the violent change of 
 the government which they were doubtless led 
 to expect. 
 
 "The most important part," says Arnold, 
 " in the history of the first years of the com- 
 monwealth is the tracing, if possible, the gra- 
 dual depression of the .commons to that ex- 
 treme point of misery which led to the institu- 
 tion of the tribunalship. We have seen that 
 immediately after the expulsion of the king, 
 the commons shared in the advantages of the 
 revolution ; but within a few years we find 
 them so oppressed and powerless, that their 
 almost hopes aspired, not to the assertion of 
 
 rlitical equality wilh the burghers, bul mere- 
 lo the obtaining protection from personal 
 injuries. 
 
 "The specific character of their degradation 
 is stated to have been this ; that there pre- ! 
 vailed among them severe distress, amounting ' 
 in many cases to actual ruin ; that to relieve ' 
 themselves from their poverty, they were in ! 
 
 | the habit of borrowing money of the burghers ; 
 thai the distress continuing, they became ge- 
 nerally insolvent; and that as the law of 
 debtor and creditor was exceedingly severe, 
 they became liable in their persons to the 
 cruelty of the burghers, were trealed by Ihein as 
 slaves, confined as such in Iheir workhouses, 
 kept to taskwork, and often beaten at the dis- 
 cretion of their lask-maslers." 
 
 Various were Ihe miseries to which the 
 commons were reduced in consequence of 
 the revolulion, and inexorable Ihe rigour with 
 which the nobles pressed the advantage they 
 had gained by the abolition of the kingly form 
 of government. The civil convulsions and 
 general distress, Dr. Arnold tells us, terminated 
 in the eslablishment of an exclusive oppressive 
 aristocracy, interrupted occasionally by the le- 
 galized despotism of a single individual. 
 
 "Thus Ihe monarchy was exchanged for an 
 exclusive aristocracy, in which Ihe burghers or 
 patricians possessed the whole dominion of the 
 state. For mixed as was the influence in the 
 assembly of the centuries, and although the 
 burghers Ihrough Iheir clienls exercised no 
 small control over it, still they did not think it 
 safe to intrust it with much power. In the 
 election of consuls, the cenluries could only 
 choose out of a number of patrician or burgher 
 candidates ; and even after this eleclion it re- 
 mained for Ihe burghers in their greal council 
 in the curiae to ratify it or to annul it, by con- 
 ferring upon, or refusing to the persons so 
 elected the ' Imperium ;' in other words, that 
 sovereign power which belonged to the con- 
 suls as the successors of the kings, and which, 
 except so far as it was limited within the walls 
 of the city, and a circle of one mile without 
 them, by the right of appeal, was absolute over 
 life and death. As for any legislative power, 
 in this period of Ihe commonweallh, the con- 
 suls were their own law. No doubt the burgh- 
 ers had their customs, which in all great 
 points the consuls would duly observe, be- 
 cause, otherwise on the expiration of their 
 office they would be liable to arraignment be- 
 fore the curiae, and to such punishment as 
 that sovereign assembly might please to inflict; 
 but the commons had no such security, and 
 the uncertainty of the consul's judgments was 
 the particular grievance which afterwards led 
 to the formation of the code of Ihe iwelve 
 lables. 
 
 " We are lold, however, lhat wilhin len years 
 of the first instilulion of the consuls the burgh- 
 ers found it necessary to create a single magistrate 
 with powers s'ill more absolute, who was to exer- 
 cise the full sovereignty of a king, and even 
 without that single check to which the kings of Rome 
 had been subjected. The Master of the people, 
 that is, of the burghers, or, as he was other- 
 wise called, the Dictator, was appointed, it is 
 true, for six' months only ; and therefore liable, 
 like the consuls, to be arraigned after the ex- 
 piration of his office, for any acts of tyranny 
 which he might have committed during its 
 continuance. But whilst he retained his of- 
 fice he was as absolute without the walls of the 
 city as the consuls were within them ; neither 
 commoners nor burghers had any right of ap- 
 peal from his sentence, although the latter had 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 211 
 
 enjoyed this protection in the times of the mo- 
 narchy." 
 
 At length the misery of the people, flowing 
 from the revolution, became so excessive that 
 they could endure it no longer, and they took 
 the resolution to separate altogether from their 
 oppressors, and retire to the sacred hill to found 
 a new commonwealth. 
 
 " Fifteen years after the expulsion of Tar- 
 quinius, the commons, driven to despair by 
 their distress, and exposed without protection 
 to the capricious cruelty of the burghers, re- 
 solved to endure their degraded state no longer. 
 The particulars of this second revolution are 
 as uncertain as those of the overthrow of the 
 monarchy ; but thus much is certain, and is 
 remarkable, that the commons sought safety, 
 not victory ; they desired to escape from Rome, 
 not to govern it. It may be true that the com- 
 mons who were left in Rome gathered together 
 on the Aventine, the quarter appropriated to 
 their order, and occupied the hill as a fortress ; 
 but it is universally agreed that the most effi- 
 cient part of their body, who were at that time 
 in the field as soldiers, deserted their generals, 
 and marched off to a hill beyond the Anio ; that 
 is, to a spot beyond the limits of the Ager Ro- 
 manus, the proper territory of the burghers, 
 but within the district which had been assigned 
 to one of the newly created tribes of the com- 
 mons, the Crustuminian. Here they establish- 
 ed themselves, and here they proposed to found 
 a new city of their own, to which they would 
 have gathered their families, and the rest of 
 their order who were left behind in Rome, and 
 have given up their old city to its original pos- 
 sessors, the burghers and their clients. But 
 the burghers were as unwilling to lose the 
 services of the commons, as the Egyptians in 
 the like case to let the Israelites go, and they 
 endeavoured by every means to persuade them 
 to return. To show how little the commons 
 thought of gaining political power, we have 
 only to notice their demands. They required 
 a general cancelling of the obligations of in- 
 solvent debtors, and the release of all those 
 whose persons, in default of payment, had 
 been assigned over to the power of their credi- 
 tors ; and further, they insisted on having two of 
 their own body acknowledged by the burghers 
 as their protectors ; and to make this protec- 
 tion effectual, the persons of those who afforded 
 it were to be as inviolable as those of the her- 
 alds, the sacred messengers of the gods ; who- 
 soever harmed them was to be held accursed, 
 and might be slain by any one with impunity. 
 To these terms the burghers agreed ; a solemn 
 treaty was concluded between them and the 
 commons, as between two distinct nations ; arid 
 the burghers swore for themselves, and for 
 their posterity, that they would hold inviolable 
 the persons of two officers, to be chosen by 
 the centuries on the field of Mars, whose busi- 
 ness it should be to extend full protection to 
 any commoner against a sentence of the con- 
 sul; that is to say, who might rescue any 
 debtor from the power of his creditor, if they 
 conceived it to be capriciously or cruelly exert- 
 ed. The two officers thus chosen retained the 
 name which the chief officers of the commons 
 had borne before, they were called Tribuni, 
 
 or tribe masters; but instead of being merely 
 the officers of one particular tribe, and exer- 
 cising an authority only over Ihe members of 
 their own order, they were named tribunes of 
 the commons at large, and their power, as 
 protectors in stopping any exercise of oppres- 
 sion towards their own body, extended over 
 the burghers, and was by them solemnly ac- 
 knowledged. The number of the tribunes was 
 probably suggested by that of the consuls; 
 there were to be two chief officers of the com- 
 mons, as there were of the burghers." 
 
 Thus, all that the Roman populace gained 
 by the revolution which overturned the kingly 
 power, was such a diminution of territory and 
 external importance as it required them more 
 than one hundred and fifty years to recover, 
 and such an oppressive form of aristocratic 
 government as compelled them to take refuge 
 under a dictator, and led to such a degree of 
 misery as, eighteen years after the convulsion, 
 made them ready to quit their country and 
 homes, and become exiles from their native 
 land ! 
 
 At the close of the third century of Rome, 
 and fifty years after the expulsion of the Tar- 
 quins, Arnold gives the following picture of 
 the external condition of the Republic: 
 
 "At the close of the third century of Rome, 
 the warfare which the Romans had to main- 
 tain against the Opican nations was generally 
 defensive ; that the ^Equians and Volscians 
 had advanced from the line of the Apennines 
 and established themselves on the Alban hills, 
 in the heart of Latium ; that of the thirty Latin 
 states which had formed the league with Rome in 
 the year 261, thirteen were now either destroy- 
 ed, or were in the possession of the Opicans ; 
 that on the Alban hills themselves, Tusculum 
 alone remained independent; and that there 
 was no other friendly city to obstruct the ir- 
 ruptions of the enemy into the territory of 
 Rome. Accordingly, that territory was plun- 
 dered year after year, and whatever defeats 
 the plunderers may at times have sustained, 
 yet they were never deterred from renewing a 
 contest which they found in the main profitable 
 and glorious. So greatly had the power and do- 
 minion of Rome fallen since t)ie overthrow of the 
 monarchy." 
 
 It was by slow degrees, and in a long series 
 of contests, continued without intermission for 
 two hundred years, that the commons recover- 
 ed the liberties they had lost from the conse- 
 quences of this triumph in this first convul- 
 sion ; so true it is, in all ages, that the people 
 are not only never permanent gainers, but in 
 the end the greatest losers by the revolution in 
 which they had been most completely victorious. 
 
 The next great social convulsion of Rome 
 was that consequent on the overthrow of the 
 Decemvirs. The success of that revolution 
 operated in the end grievously to the prejudice 
 of the commons, and retarded, by half a cen- 
 tury, the advance of real freedom. Every one 
 knows that the Decemvirs were elected to re- 
 model the laws of the commonwealth; that 
 they shamefully abused their trust, and con- 
 stituted themselves tyrants without control; 
 and that they were at last overthrown by the 
 general and uncontrollable in. ^nation excited 
 
212 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 by the atrocious violence of Appius to the 
 daughter of Virginius. A juster cause for re- 
 sistance, a fairer ground for the overthrow of 
 existing authority, could not be imagined ; it 
 was accordingly successful, and the immediate 
 effect of the popular triumph was a very great 
 accession of political power to the commons. 
 Arnold tells us 
 
 " The revolution did not stop here. Other 
 and deeper changes were effected ; but they 
 lasted so short a" lime, that their memory has 
 almost vanished out of the records of history. 
 The assembly of the tribes had been put on a 
 level with that of the centuries, and the same 
 principle was followed out in the equal divi- 
 sion of all the magistracies of the state be- 
 tween the patricians and the commons. Two 
 supreme magistrates, invested with the high- 
 est judicial power, and discharging also those 
 important duties which were afterwards per- 
 formed by the censors, were to be chosen every 
 year, one from the patricians, and the other from 
 the commons. Ten tribunes of the soldiers, 
 or decemviri, chosen, five from the patricians 
 and five from the commons, were to command 
 the armies in war, and to watch over the rights 
 of the patricians ; while ten tribunes of the 
 commons, also chosen in equal proportions 
 from both orders, were to watch over the liber- 
 ties of the commons. And as patricians were 
 thus admitted to the old tribuneship, so the as- 
 semblies of the tribes were henceforth, like 
 those of the centuries, to be held under the 
 sanctions of augury, and nothing could be. de- 
 termined in them if the auspices were unfa- 
 vourable. Thus the two orders were to be 
 made fully equal to one another ; but at the 
 same time they were to be kept perpetually dis- 
 tinct ; for at this very moment the whole twelve 
 tables of the laws of the decemvirs received 
 the solemn sanction of the people, although, 
 as we have seen, there was a law in one of 
 the last tables which declared the marriage of 
 a patrician with a plebeian to be unlawful. 
 
 "There being thus an end of all exclusive 
 magistracies, whether patrician or plebeian ; 
 and all magistrates being now recognised as 
 acting in the name of the whole people, the 
 persons of all were to be regarded as equally 
 sacred. Thus the consul Horatius proposed 
 and carried a law which declared that, who- 
 ever harmed any tribune of the commons, any 
 aedile, any judge, or any decemvir, should be 
 outlawed and accursed ; that any man might 
 slay him, and that all his property should be 
 confiscated to the temple of Ceres. Another 
 law was passed by M. Duilius, one of the tri- 
 bunes, carrying the penalties of the Valerian 
 law to a greater height against any magistrate 
 who should either neglect to have new magis- 
 trates appointed at the end of the year, or who 
 should create them without giving the right of 
 appeal from their sentence. Whosoever vio- 
 lated either of these provisions was to be 
 burned alive as a public enemy. 
 
 " Finally, in order to prevent the decrees of 
 the senate from being tampered with by the 
 patricians, Horatius and Valerius began the 
 practice of having them carried to the temple 
 of Ceres on the Aventine, and there laid up 
 under the care of the sediles of the commons. 
 
 " This complete revolution was conducted 
 chiefly, as far as appears, by the two consuls, 
 and by M. Duilius. Of the latter we should 
 wish to have some further knowledge ; it is an 
 unsatisfactory history, in which we can only 
 judge of the man from his public measures, 
 j instead of being enabled to form some estimate 
 of the merit of his measures from our acquaint- 
 ance with the character of the man. But there 
 is no doubt that the new constitution attempted 
 to obtain objects for which the time was not 
 yet come, which were regarded rather as the 
 triumph of a party, than as called for by the 
 wants and feelings of the nation ; and therefore 
 the Roman constitution of 306 was as short- 
 lived as Simon de Montfort's provisions of Ox- 
 ford, or as some of the strongest measures of 
 the Long Parliament. An advantage pursued 
 too far in politics, as well as in war, is apt to 
 end in a repulse." 
 
 After a continued struggle of seven years, 
 however, this democratic constitution yielded 
 to the reaction in favour of the old institutions 
 of the state, and the experienced evils of the 
 new, and another constitution was the result 
 of the struggle which restored matters to the 
 same situation in which they had been before 
 the overthrow of the Decemvirs ; with the ad- 
 dition of a most important officer the Censor, 
 endowed with almost despotic power to the 
 patrician faction. This decided reaction is 
 thus described, and the inferences deducible 
 from it. fairly stated by Dr. Arnold. 
 
 " In the following year we meet for the first 
 time with the name of a new patrician magis- 
 tracy, the Censorship; and Niebuhr saw clear- 
 ly that the creation of this office was connected 
 with the appointment of tribunes of the sol- 
 diers; and that both belong to what maybe 
 called the constitution of the year 312. 
 
 "This constitution recognised two points; 
 a sort of continuation of the principle of the 
 decemvirate, inasmuch as the supreme govern- 
 ment was again, to speak in modern language, 
 put in commission, and the kingly powers, 
 formerly united in the consuls or praetors, 
 were now to be divided between the censors 
 and tribunes of the soldiers ; and secondly, the 
 eligibility of the commons to share in some of 
 the powers thus divided. But the partition, 
 even in theory, was fyr from equal: the two 
 censors, who were to hold their office for five 
 years, were not only chosen from the patricians, 
 but, as Niebuhr thinks, by them, that is, by 
 the assembly of the curiae ; the two quaestors, 
 who judged in cases of blood, were also chosen 
 from the patricians, although by the centuries. 
 Thus the civil power of the old praetors was in 
 its most important points still exercised ex- 
 clusively by the patricians; and even their 
 military power, which was professedly to be 
 open to both orders, was not transmitted to the 
 tribunes of the soldiers, without some diminu- 
 tion of. its majesty. The new tribuneship was 
 not an exact image of the kingly sovereignty; 
 it was not a curule office, and therefore no tri- 
 bune ever enjoyed the honour of a triumph, in 
 which the conquering general, ascending to 
 the Capitol to sacrifice to the guardian gods 
 of Rome, was wont to be arrayed in all the 
 insignia of royalty. 
 
 
ARNOLD'S ROME. 
 
 213 
 
 " But even the small share of power thus 
 granted in theory to the commons, was in 
 practice withheld from them. Whether from 
 the influence of the patricians in the centuries, 
 or by religious pretences urged by the augurs, 
 or by the enormous and arbitrary power of 
 refusing votes which the officer presiding at 
 the comitia was wont to exercise, the college 
 of the tribunes was for many years filled by 
 the patricians alone. And, while the censor- 
 ship was to be a fixed institution, the tribunes 
 of the soldiers were to be replaced whenever 
 it might appear needful by two consuls; and 
 to the consulship no plebeian was so much as 
 legally eligible. Thus the victory of the aris- 
 tocracy may seem to have been complete, and 
 we may wonder how the commons, after 
 having carried so triumphantly the law of 
 Canuleius, should have allowed the political 
 rights asserted for them by his colleagues, to 
 have been so partially conceded in theory, and 
 in practice to be so totally withheld. 
 
 "The explanation is simple, and it is one 
 of the most valuable lessons of history. The 
 commons obtained those reforms which they 
 desired, and they desired such only as their 
 stale was ripe for. They had withdrawn in 
 times past to the Sacred Hill, but it was to 
 escape from intolerable personal oppression; 
 they had recently occupied the Aventine in 
 arms, but it was to get rid of a tyranny which 
 endangered the honour of their wives and 
 daughters, and to recover the protection of 
 their tribunes ; they had more lately still re- 
 tired to the Janiculum, but it was to remove 
 an insulting distinction which embittered the 
 relations of private life, and imposed on their 
 grandchildren, in many instances, the incon- 
 veniences, if not the reproach of illegitimacy. 
 These were all objects of universal and per- 
 sonal interest; and these the commons were 
 resolved not to relinquish. But the possible 
 admission of a few distinguished members of 
 their body to the highest offices of state con- 
 cerned the mass of the commons but little. 
 They had their own tribunes for their personal 
 protection ; but curule magistracies, and the 
 government of the commonwealth, seemed to 
 belong to the patricians, or at least might be 
 left in their hands without any great sacrifice. 
 So it is that all things come best in their 
 season ; that political power is then most 
 happily exercised by a people, when it has not 
 been given to them prematurely, that is, before, 
 in the natural progress of things, they feel the 
 want of it. Security for person and property 
 enables a nation to grow without interruption; 
 in contending for this a people's sense of law 
 and right is wholesomely exercised ; mean- 
 time national prosperity increases, and brings 
 with it an increase of intelligence, till other 
 and more necessary wants being satisfied, men 
 awaken to the highest earthly desire of the 
 ripened mind, the desire of taking an active 
 share in the great work of government. The 
 Roman commons abandoned the highest ma- 
 gistracies to the patricians for a period of many 
 years ; but they continued to increase in pros* 
 perity and in influence ; and what the fathers 
 had wisely yielded, their sons in the fulness 
 of time acquired. So the English House of 
 
 Commons, in the reign of Edward III., declined 
 to interfere in questions of peace and war, as 
 being too high for them to compass ; but they 
 would not allow the crown to take their money 
 without their own consent; and so the nation 
 grew, and the influence of the House of Com- 
 mons grew along with it, till that house has 
 become the great and predominant power in 
 the British constitution. 
 
 "If this view be correct, Trebonius judged 
 far more wisely than M. Duilius ; and the 
 abandonment of half the plebeian tribuneship 
 to the patricians, in order to obtain for the 
 plebeians an equal share in the higher magis- 
 tracies, would have been as really injurious to 
 the commons as it was unwelcome to the pride 
 of the aristocracy. It was resigning a weapon 
 with which they were familiar, for one which 
 they knew not how to wield. The tribuneship 
 was the foster-nurse of Roman liberty, and 
 without its care that liberty never would 
 have grown to maturity. What evils it after- 
 wards wrought, when the public freedom was 
 fully ripened, arose from that great defect of 
 the Roman constitution, its conferring such 
 extravagant powers on all its officers. It pro- 
 posed to check one tyranny by another; in- 
 stead of so limiting the prerogatives of every 
 magistrate and order in the state, whether 
 aristocratical or popular, as to exclude tyranny 
 from all." 
 
 Our limits will not admit of any other ex- 
 tracts, how interesting soever they may be. 
 Those already made will sufficiently indicate 
 the character of the work. It is clear that Dr. 
 Arnold, in addition to his M r ell-known classical 
 and critical acquirements, possesses a discri- 
 minating judgment, a reflecting philosophic 
 turn of mind, and the power of graphic inte- 
 resting description. These are valuable quali- 
 ties to any historian : they are indispensable 
 to the annalist of Rome, and promise to render 
 his work, if continued in the same spirit, the 
 best history of that wonderful state in the 
 English, perhaps in any modern, language. 
 We congratulate him upon the auspicious 
 commencement of his labours ; we cordially 
 wish him success, and shall follow him, with 
 no ordinary interest, through the remainder 
 of his vast subject, interesting to the student 
 of ancient events, and the observer of contem- 
 porary transactions. 
 
 There are two points which we would 
 earnestly recommend to the consideration of 
 this learned author, as essential to the success 
 of his work as a popular or durable history. 
 
 The first is, to avoid, as much as possible, 
 in the text, all discussions concerning questiones 
 vexataa, or disputed points, and give the con- 
 clusions at which he arrives in distinct propo- 
 sitions, without any of the critical or antiquarian 
 reasoning on which they are founded. These 
 last, indeed, are of inestimable importance to 
 the learned or the thoughtful. But how few 
 are they, compared to the mass of readers ! 
 and how incapable of giving to any historical 
 work any extensive celebrity ! They should 
 be given, but in notes, so as not, to ordinary 
 readers, to interrupt the interest of the narra- 
 tive, or break the continuity of thought 
 
 The second is, to exert himself to the utmost, 
 
214 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 and, on every occasion which presents itself, 
 to paint, with graphic fire, the events, or peo- 
 ple, or scenes which occur in the course of his 
 narrative, and to give all the interest in his 
 power to the description of battles, sieges, 
 incidents, episodes, or speeches, which present 
 themselves. More even than accuracy of de- 
 tail, or any other more solid qualities, these 
 fascinating graces determine, with future ages, 
 the celebrity and permanent interest of an his- 
 torical work. What is the charm which at- 
 tracts all ages, and will do so to the end of the 
 world, to the retreat of the Ten Thousand, the 
 youth of Cyrus, the early annals of Rome, the 
 Catiline conspiracy, the reign of Tiberius, the 
 exploits of Alexander, the Latin conquest of 
 Constantinople, the misfortunes of Mary, the 
 death of Charles I.? The eloquent fictions 
 and graphic powers of Xenophon and Livy, 
 of Sallust and Tacitus, of Quintus Curtius and 
 Gibbon, of Robertson and Hume. In vain 
 does criticism assail, and superior learning 
 disprove, and subsequent discoveries overturn 
 their enchanting narratives; in vain does the 
 intellect of the learned few become skeptical 
 as to the facts they relate, and which have 
 sunk in the hearts of the many. The imagi- 
 nation is kindled, the heart is overcome, and 
 the works remain, not only immortal in cele- 
 brity, but undecaying in influence through 
 every succeeding age. Why should not his- 
 tory, in modern as in ancient times, unite the 
 interest of the romance to the accuracy of the 
 annalist 1 ? Why should not real events en- 
 chain the mind with the graces and the colours 
 of poetry 1 ? That Dr. Arnold is learned, all 
 who have studied his admirable edition of 
 Thucydides know; that he can paint with 
 force and interest, none who read the volume 
 before us can doubt. Why, then, should not 
 the latter qualities throw their brilliant hues 
 over the accurate drawing of the former 1 
 
 We have already said that we find no fault 
 with Dr. Arnold on account of his politics ; 
 nay, that we value his work the more, because, 
 giving, as it promises to do, in the main, a 
 faithful account of the facts of Roman history, 
 it cannot fail to furnish, from a source the least 
 suspicious, a host of facts decisive in favour 
 of Conservative principles. By Conservative 
 principles we do not mean attachment to 
 despotic power, or aversion to genuine free- 
 dom : on the contrary, we mean the utmost 
 abhorrence of the former, and the strongest 
 
 attachment to the latter. We mean an attach- 
 ment to that form of government, and that 
 balance of power, which alone can render 
 these blessings permanent, which render pro- 
 perty the ruling, and numbers only the con- 
 trolling power, which give to weight of pos- 
 session and intellect the direction of affairs, 
 and intrust to the ardent feelings of the multi- 
 tude the duty only of preventing their excesses, 
 or exposing their corruption. Without the 
 former, the rule of the people degenerates, in 
 a few years, in every instance recorded in 
 history, into licentious excess, and absolute 
 tyranny; without the latter, the ambition or 
 selfishness of the aristocracy perverts to their 
 
 , own private purposes the domain of the state. 
 
 j Paradoxical as it may appear, it is strictly and 
 literally true, that the general inclination of 
 abstract students, remote from a practical 
 intercourse with mankind, to republican prin- 
 ciples, is a decisive proof of the experienced 
 necessity for Conservative policy that has 
 always been felt in the actual administration 
 of affairs. Recluse or speculative men become 
 attached to liberal ideas, because they see them 
 constantly put forth, in glowing and generous 
 language, by the popular orators and writers 
 in every age : they associate oppression with 
 the government of a single ruler, or a compa- 
 ratively small number of persons of great 
 possessions, because they see, in general, that 
 government is established, on one or other of 
 these bases; and, consequently, most of the 
 oppressive acts recorded in history have ema- 
 nated from such authority. They forget that 
 the opportunity of abusing power has been so 
 generally afforded to these classes by the ex- 
 perienced impossibility of intrusting it to any 
 other; that if the theory of popular govern- 
 ment had been practicable, Democracy, instead 
 of exhibiting only a few blood-stained specks 
 in history, would have occupied the largest 
 space in its annals; that if the people had been 
 really capable of directing affairs, they would, 
 in every age, have been the supreme authority, 
 and the holders of property the decl aimers 
 against their abuses ; and that no proof can be 
 so decisive against the practicability of any 
 form of government, as the fact, that it has 
 been found, during six thousand years, of such 
 rare occurrence, as to make even learned 
 persons, till taught by experience, blind to its 
 tendency. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 MIRABEAU.* 
 
 215 
 
 " IT is a melancholy fact," says Madame de 
 Stael, " that while the human race is conti- 
 nually advancing by the acquisitions of intel- 
 lect, it is doomed to move perpetually in the 
 same circle of error, from the influence of the 
 passions." If this observation was just, even 
 when this great author wrote, how much more 
 is it now applicable, when a new generation 
 has arisen, blind to the lessons of experience, 
 and we in this free and prosperous land, have 
 yielded to the same passions, and been seduced 
 by the same delusions, which, three-and-forty 
 years ago, actuated the French people, and 
 have been deemed inexcusable by all subse- 
 quent historians, even in its enslaved popula- 
 tion ! 
 
 It would appear inconceivable, that the same 
 errors should thus be repeated by successive 
 nations, without the least regard to the les- 
 sons of history; that all the dictates of expe- 
 rience, all the conclusions of wisdom, all the 
 penalties of weakness, should be forgotten, 
 before the generation which has suffered under 
 their neglect is cold in their graves ; that the 
 same vices should be repeated, the same crimi- 
 nal ambition indulged, to the end of the world; 
 if we did not recollect that it is the very essence 
 of passion, whether in nations or individuals, 
 to be insensible to the sufferings of others, and 
 to pursue its own headstrong inclinations, re- 
 gardless alike of the admonitions of reason, 
 and the experience of the world. It would 
 seem that the vehemence of desire in nations 
 is as little liable to be influenced by considera- 
 tions of prudence, or the slightest regard to the 
 consequences, as the career of intemperance in 
 individuals ; and that, in like manner, as every 
 successive age beholds multitudes who, in 'the 
 pursuit of desire, rush headlong down the gulf 
 of perdition, so every successive generation 
 is doomed to witness the sacrifice of national 
 prosperity, or the extinction of national exist- 
 ence, in the insane pursuit of democratic am- 
 bition. Providence has appointed certain 
 trials for nations as well as individuals.; and 
 for those who, disregarding the admonitions 
 of virtue, and slighting the dictates of duty, 
 yield to the tempter, certain destruction is ap- 
 pointed in the inevitable consequences of their 
 criminal desires, not less in the government 
 of empires, than the paths of private life. 
 
 Forty years ago, the passion for innovation 
 seized a great and powerful nation in Europe, 
 illustrious in the paths of honour, grown gray 
 in years of renown : the voice of religion was 
 discarded, the lessons of experience rejected : 
 visionary projects were entertained, chimeri- 
 cal anticipations indulged: the ancient insti- 
 tutions of the country were not amended, but 
 
 * Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, ft sur les Premieres As- 
 semblies Legislatives. Par Etienne Dnmont, de Geneve, 
 ftvo. London: E. Bull. 1832. We have translated the 
 quotations ourselves, not having seen the English ver- 
 sion. Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1832. Written 
 when the Reform Bill was before the'llouse of Peers. 
 
 " 
 
 destroyed: a new constitution introduced 
 amidst the unanimous applause of the peo- 
 ple : the monarch placed himself at the head 
 of the movement, the nobles joined the com- 
 mons, the clergy united in the work of reform : 
 all classes, by common consent, conspired in 
 the demolition and reconstruction of the con- 
 stitution. A new era was thought to have 
 dawned on human affairs ; the age of gold to 
 be about to return from the regeneration of 
 mankind. 
 
 The consequence, as all the world knows, 
 was ruin, devastation, and misery, unparalleled 
 in modern times : the king, the queen, the royal 
 family were beheaded, the nobles exiled or 
 guillotined, the clergy confiscated and banish- 
 ed, the fundholders starved and ruined, the 
 merchants exterminated, the landholders beg- 
 gared, the people decimated. The wrath of 
 Heaven needed no destroying angel to be the 
 minister of its vengeance : the guilty passions 
 of men worked out their own and well-de- 
 served punishment. The fierce passion of de- 
 mocracy was extinguished in blood: the Reign 
 of Terror froze every heart with horror: the 
 tyranny of the Directory destroyed the very 
 name of freedom : the ambition of Napoleon 
 visited every cottage with mourning, and 
 doomed to tears every mother in France; and 
 the sycophancy of all classes, the natural re- 
 sult of former license, so paved the way for 
 military despotism, that the haughty emperor 
 could only exclaim with Tiberius " O ho- 
 mines ad servitutem parati !" 
 
 Forty years after, the same unruly and reck- 
 less spirit seized the very nation who had wit- 
 nessed these horrors, and bravely struggled for 
 twenty years to avert them from her own 
 shores. The passion of democracy became 
 general in all the manufacturing and trading 
 classes : a large portion of the nobility were 
 deluded by the infatuated idea, that by yield- 
 ing to the 'torrent, they could regulate its di- 
 rection : the ministers of the crown put them- 
 sehrea at the head of the movement, and 
 wielded the royal prerogative- to give force 
 and consistence to the ambition of the mul- 
 titude: political fanaticism again reared its 
 hydra head: the ministers of religion became 
 the objects of odium ; every thing sacred, every 
 thing venerable, the subject of opprobrium, 
 and, by yielding to this tempest of passion 
 and terror, enlightened men seriously antici- 
 pated, not a repetition of the horrors of the 
 French Revolution, but the staying of the fury 
 of democracy, the stilling of the waves of fac- 
 tion, the calming the ambition of the people. 
 
 That a delusion so extraordinary, a blind- 
 ness so infatuated, should have existed so soon 
 after the great and bloody drama had been 
 acted on the theatre of Europe, will appear alto- 
 gether incredible to future ages. It is certain, 
 however, that it exists, not only among the 
 unthinking millions, who, being incapable of 
 
216 
 
 ALT 
 
 SON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 judging of the consequences of political 
 changes, are of no weight in a philosophical 
 view of the subject, but among thinking thou- 
 sands who are capable of forming a correct 
 judgment, and whose opinions on other sub- 
 jects are highly worthy of consideration. This 
 is the circumstance which furnishes the real 
 phenomenon, and into the causes of which fu- 
 ture ages will anxiously inquire. It is no more 
 surprising that a new generation of shop- 
 keepers, manufacturers, and artisans, should 
 be devoured by the passion for political 
 power, without any regard to its recent con- 
 sequences in the neighbouring kingdom, than 
 that youth, in every successive generation, 
 should yield to the seductions of pleasure, or 
 the allurements of vice, without ever thinking 
 of the miseries it has brought upon their fa- 
 thers, and the old time before them. But how 
 men of sense, talent, and information ; men 
 who really have a stake in the country, and 
 would themselves be the first victims of revo- 
 lution, should be carried away by the same in- 
 fatuation, cannot be so easily explained ; and, 
 if it cannot be accounted for from some acci- 
 dental circumstances, offers the most gloomy 
 prospects for the cause of truth, and the future 
 destinies of mankind. 
 
 " The direction of literature and philosophy 
 in France, during the last half of the 18th 
 century," says Madame de Stael, " was ex- 
 tremely bad ; but, if I may be allowed the ex- 
 pression, the direction of ignorance has been 
 still worse; for no one book can do much 
 mischief to those who read all. If the idlers 
 in the world, on the other hand, occupy them- 
 selves by reading a few moments, the work 
 which they read makes as great an impression 
 on them as the arrival of a stranger in the 
 desert ; and if that work abounds in sophisms, 
 they have no opposite arguments to oppose to 
 it. The discovery of printing is truly fatal to 
 those who read only by halves or chance ; for know- 
 ledge, like the Lance of Argail, inflicts wounds 
 which nothing but itself can heal."* In this 
 observation is to be found the true solution of 
 the extraordinary political delusions which 
 now overspread the world; and it is much 
 easier to discern the causes of the calamity, 
 than perceive what remedy can be devised for it. 
 If you could give to all who can read the 
 newspapers, either intellect to understand, or 
 taste to relish, or money to buy, or time to read, 
 works of historical information, or philoso- 
 phical wisdom, there might be a reasonable 
 hope that error in the end would be banished 
 from thought, and that political knowledge, 
 like the Thames water in the course of a long 
 voyage, would work itself pure. But as it is 
 obvious to every one practically acquainted 
 with the condition of mankind, that ninety- 
 nine out of the hundred who peruse the daily 
 press, are either totally incapable of forming a 
 sound opinion from their own reflections on 
 any subject of thought, or so influenced by 
 prejudice as to be inaccessible to the force of 
 reason, or so much swayed by passion as to 
 be deaf to argument, or so destitute of infor- 
 mation as to be insensible to its force, it is 
 
 * De I'Allemagne, iii. 247. 
 
 hardly possible to discern any mode in which, 
 with a daily press extensively read, and poli- 
 tical excitement kept up, as it always will be 
 by its authors, either truth is to become gene- 
 rally known, or error sufficiently combated. 
 Every one, how slender soever his intellect, 
 how slight his information, how limited his 
 time for study, can understand and feel gra- 
 tified by abuse of his superiors. The com- 
 mon slang declamation against the aristocrats, 
 the clergy, and the throne, in France, and 
 against the boroughmongers, the bishops, and 
 the peers, in England, is on the level of the 
 meanest capacity ; and is calculated to seduce 
 all those who are " either," in Bacon's words, 
 " weak in judgment, or infirm in resolution ; 
 that is, the greater proportion of mankind." 
 
 It is this circumstance of the universal dif- 
 fusion of passion, and the extremely limited 
 extent of such intellect or information as 
 qualifies to judge on political subjects, which 
 renders the future prospects of any nation, 
 which has got itself involved in the whirlwind 
 of innovation, so extremely melancholy. Every, 
 change which is proposed holds out some im- 
 mediale or apparent benefit, which forms the 
 attraction and inducement to the multitude. 
 Every one can see and understand this imme- 
 diate or imaginary benefit ; and therefore the 
 change is clamorously demanded by the people. 
 To discern the ultimate effects again, to see how 
 these changes are to operate on the frame of so- 
 ciety, and the misery they are calculated to bring 
 on the very persons who demand them, requires 
 a head of more than ordinary strength,and know- 
 ledge of more than ordinary extent. Nature has 
 not given the one, education can never give 
 the other, to above one in a hundred. Hence 
 the poison circulates universally, while the 
 antidote is confined to a few; and therefore, 
 in such periods, the most extravagant mea- 
 sures are forced upon government, and a total 
 disregard of experience characterizes the na- 
 tional councils. 
 
 It is to this cause that the extremely short 
 duration of any institutions, which have been 
 framed under the pressure of democratic in- 
 fluence, is to be ascribed, and the rapidity with 
 which they are terminated by the tranquil des- 
 potism of the sword. Rome, in two generations, 
 ran through the horrors of democratic convul- 
 sions, until they were stopped by the sword of 
 the Dictator. France, since the reform trans- 
 ports of 1789 began, has had thirteen different 
 constitutions ; none of which subsisted two 
 years, except such as were supported by the 
 power of Napoleon and the bayonets of the 
 allies. England, in five years after the people 
 ran mad in 1642, was quietly sheltered under 
 the despotism of Cromwell; and the convulsions 
 of the republics of South America have been 
 so numerous since their struggles began, that 
 civilized nations have ceased to count them. 
 
 Historians recording events at a distance 
 from the period of their occurrence, and ig- 
 norant of the experienced evils which led to 
 their adoption, have often indulged in eloquent 
 declamation against the corruption and debase- 
 ment of those nations, such as Florence, Milan, 
 Sienna, and Denmark, which have by common 
 consent, and a solemn act, surrendered their 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 237 
 
 liberties to a sovereign prince. There is no- 
 thing, however, either extraordinary or de- 
 basing about it; they surrendered their privi- 
 leges, because they had never known what 
 real freedom was ; they invoked the tranquillity 
 of despotism, to avoid the experienced ills of 
 anarchy ; they chose the lesser, to avoid the 
 greater evil. Democracy, admirable as a 
 spring, and when duly tempered by the other 
 elements of society, is utterly destructive 
 where it becomes predominant, or is deprived 
 of its regulating weight. The evils it pro- 
 duces are so excessive, the suffering it occa- 
 sions so dreadful, that society cannot exist 
 under them, and the people take refuge in 
 despair, in the surrender of all they have 
 been contending for, to obtain that peace 
 which they have sought for in vain amidst 
 its stormy convulsions. The horrors of de- 
 mocratic tyranny greatly exceed those either 
 of regal or aristocratic oppression. History 
 contains numerous examples of nations, who 
 have lingered on for centuries, under the 
 bowstring of the sultan, or the fetters of the 
 feudal nobility ; but none in which democratic 
 violence, when once fairly let loose, has not 
 speedily brought about its own extirpation. 
 
 But although there is little hope that the 
 multitude, when once infected by the deadly 
 contagion of democracy, can right themselves, 
 or be righted by others, by the utmost efforts 
 of reason, argument, or eloquence, nature has 
 in reserve one remedy of sovereign and uni- 
 versal efficacy, which is as universally under- 
 stood, and as quick in its operation, as the 
 poison which rendered its application neces- 
 sary. This Remedy is SUFFERING. Every 
 man cannot, indeed, understand political rea- 
 soning; but every man can feel the want of 
 a meal. The multitude may be insensible to 
 the efforts of reason and eloquence; but they 
 cannot remain deaf to the dangers of murder 
 and conflagration. These, the natural and 
 unvarying attendants on democratic ascend- 
 ency, will as certainly in the end tame the 
 fierce spirits of the people, as winter will suc- 
 ceed summer; but whether they will do so in 
 time to preserve the national freedom, or up- 
 hold the national fortunes, is a very different, 
 and far more doubtful question. It is seldom 
 that the illumination of suffering comes in 
 time to save the people from the despotism of 
 the sword. 
 
 It is in this particular that the superior 
 strength and efficiency of free constitutions, 
 such as Britain, in resisting the fatal encroach- 
 ments of democracy, to any possessed by a 
 despotic government, is to be found. The 
 habits of union, intelligence, and political ex- 
 ertion, which they have developed, have given 
 to the higher and more influential classes such 
 a power of combining to resist the danger, that 
 obstacles are thrown in the way of change, 
 which retard the fatal rapidity of its course. 
 Discussion goes on in the legislature ; talent is 
 enlisted on the side of truth ; honour and 
 patriotism are found in the post of danger ; 
 virtue receives its noblest attribute in the 
 universal calumnies of wickedness. These 
 generous efforts, indeed, are totally unavailing 
 to alter the opinion of the many-headed mon- 
 28 
 
 ster which has started into political activity; 
 but they combine the brave, the enlightened, 
 and the good, into a united phalanx, which, 
 if it cannot singly resist the torrent, may, at 
 least, arrest its fury, till the powers of nature 
 come to its aid. These powers do come at last 
 with desperate and resistless effect, in the uni- 
 versal suffering, the far-spread agony, the hope- 
 less depression of the poor; but the danger 
 is imminent, that before the change takes place 
 the work of destruction may be completed, and 
 the national liberties, deprived of the ark of the 
 constitution, be doomed to perish under the 
 futile attempts to reconstruct it. 
 
 There never was a mistake so deplorable, 
 as to imagine that it is possible, to give to any 
 nation at once a new constitution ; or to pre- 
 serve the slightest guarantee for freedom, 
 under institutions created at once by the 
 utmost efforts of human wisdom. It is as im- 
 possible at once to give a durable constitution 
 to a nation as it is to give a healthful frame 
 to .an individual, without going through the 
 
 I previous changes of childhood and youth. 
 
 j " Governments," says Sir James Mackintosh, 
 " are not framed after a model, but all their 
 parts grow out of occasional acts, prompted 
 by some urgent expedience, or some private 
 interest, which in the course of time coalesce 
 and harden into usage ; and this bundle x>f 
 usages is the object of respect, and the guide 
 of conduct, long before it is imbodied, defined, 
 or enforced in written laws. Government 
 may be, in some degree, reduced to system, 
 but it cannot flow from it. It is not like a 
 machine, or a building, which may be con- 
 structed entirely, and according to a previous 
 plan, by the art and labour of man. It is 
 better illustrated by comparison with vege- 
 tables, or even animals, which may be, in a 
 very high degree, improved by skill and care 
 which may be grievously injured by neglect, 
 or destroyed by violence, but which cannot be 
 produced by human contrivance. A govern- 
 ment can, indeed, be no more than a mere 
 draught or scheme of rule, when it is not com- 
 posed of habits of obedience on the part of 
 the people, and of an habitual exercise of cer- 
 tain portions of authority by the individuals or 
 bodies who constitute the sovereign power. 
 These habits, like all others, can only be 
 formed by repeated acts ; they cannot be sud- 
 denly infused by the lawgiver, nor can they 
 immediately follow the most perfect convic- 
 tion of their propriety. Many causes having 
 more power over the human mind than writ- 
 ten law, it is extremely difficult, from the mere 
 perusal of a written scheme of government, to 
 
 ! foretell what it will prove in action. There 
 
 ( may be governments so bad that it is justifi- 
 able to destroy them, and to trust to the proba- 
 bility that a better government will grow in 
 their stead. But as the rise of a worse is also 
 possible, so terrible a peril is never to be incurred 
 except in the case of tyranny which it is impossible to 
 reform. It may be necessary to burn a forest 
 containing much useful timber, but giving 
 shelter to beasts of prey, who are formidable 
 to an infant colony in its neighbourhood, and 
 of too vast an extent to be gradually and safely 
 thinned by their inadequate labour. It is fit, 
 T 
 
218 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 however, that they should be apprized, before | superior to what we are what is meant is, 
 they take an irreparable step, how little it is ; that the customs which they adopted were the 
 possible to foresee, whether the earth, stripped result of experienced utility and known neces- 
 
 of its vegetation, shall become an unprofitable 
 desert or a pestilential marsh."* 
 
 The great cause, therefore, of the devastat- 
 ing march of revolutions, and the total sub- 
 version which they in general effect in the 
 
 sity; and that the collection of usages, called 
 the constitution, is more perfect than any hu- 
 man wisdom could at once have framed, be- 
 cause it has arisen out of social wants, and 
 been adapted to the exigencies of actual prac- 
 
 liberties of the people, is the fundamental [ lice, during a long course of ages. To demo- 
 changes in laws and institutions which they ! lish and reconstruct such a constitution, to 
 
 effect. As long as these remain untouched, 
 or not altered in any considerable degree, any 
 passing despotism, how grievous soever, is 
 only of temporary effect; and when the tyran- 
 ny is overpast, the public freedom again runs 
 into its wonted and consuetudinary channels. 
 Thus the successive tyrannies of Richard the 
 Third, Henry the Eighth, and James the Se- 
 cond, produced no fatal effects on English 
 freedom, because they subsisted only during 
 the lifetime of an arbitrary or capricious sove- 
 reign ; and, upon his death, the ancient privi- 
 leges of the people revived, and the liberties 
 of the nation again were as extensive as ever. 
 The great rebellion hardly partook at all, at 
 least in its early stages, of a democratic move- 
 ment. Its leaders were the House of Com- 
 mons, who possessed four-fifths of the landed 
 property of the kingdom, and were proprietors 
 of three times as much territory as the Upper 
 House; hence no considerable changes in laws, 
 
 institutions, or customs, took 
 courts of law," says Lingard, 
 
 place. " The 
 ' still adminis- 
 
 tered law on the old precedents, and, with the 
 exception of a change of the dynasty on the 
 throne, the people perceived little change in 
 the administration of government.''! Power 
 was not, during the course of the Revolution, 
 transferred into other and inferior hands, from 
 whence it never can be wrenched but at the 
 sword's point; it remained in the House of 
 Commons, the legal representatives of the 
 kingdom, till it was taken from them by the 
 hand of Cromwell. The true democratic spi- 
 rit appeared at the close of the struggles in the 
 Fifth Monarchy men, but their numbers were 
 too inconsiderable to acquire any preponder- 
 ance before the usurpation of the daring Pro- 
 tector. Accordingly, on the Restoration, the 
 first thing that government did, was to issue 
 writs for all persons to return members to 
 Parliament who were qualified prior to 1640; 
 and after an abeyance of twenty years, the 
 blood of the constitution was again poured 
 into its ancient veins. The Revolution of 
 1688, as it is called, was not strictly speaking 
 
 remove power from the hands in which it was 
 formerly vested, and throw it into channels 
 where it never was accustomed to flow, is 
 an evil incomparably greater, an experiment 
 infinitely more hazardous, than the* total sub- 
 version of the liberties of the people by an 
 ambitious monarch or a military usurper, be- 
 cause it not only destroys the balance of power 
 at the moment, but renders it impossible for 
 the nation to right itself at the close of the ty- 
 ranny, and raises up a host of separate revo- 
 lutionary interests, vested at the moment with 
 supreme authority, and dependent for their ex- 
 istence upon the continuance of the revolu- 
 tionary regime. It is to government what a 
 total change of landed property is to the body 
 politic ; a wound which, as Ireland sufficiently 
 proves, a nation can never recover. 
 
 As the Reform Bill proposes to throw a 
 large part of the political power in the state 
 into new and inexperienced hands, the change 
 thereby contemplated is incomparably greater 
 and more perilous than the most complete 
 prostration of the liberties, either of the people 
 or the aristocracy, by a passing tyranny. It is 
 the creation of new and formidable revolu- 
 tionary interests which will never expire; the 
 vesting of-power in hands jealous of its pos- 
 session, in proportion to the novelty of its 
 acquisition, and their own unfitness to wield 
 it, which is the insuperable evil. Such a ca- 
 lamity is inflicted as effectually by the tranquil 
 and pacific formation of a new constitution, 
 as by the most terrible civil wars, or the se- 
 verest military oppression. The liberties of 
 England survived the wars of the Roses, the 
 fury of the Covenant, and the tyranny of 
 Henry VIII.; but those of France were at 
 once destroyed by the insane innovations of 
 the Constituent Assembly. And this destruc- 
 tion took place without any bloodshed or op- 
 position, under the auspices of a reforming 
 king, a conceding nobility, and an intoxicated 
 people, by the mere unresisted votes of the 
 States-General. 
 
 The example of France is so extremely and 
 
 a revolution; it was merely a change of dy- 1 exactly applicable to our changes the pacific 
 nasty, accompanied by a unanimous effort I and applauded march of its innovations was 
 of the public will, and unattended by the least ; so precisely similar to that which has so long 
 change in the aristocratic influence, or the ba- I been pressed upon the legislature in this coun- 
 lance of powers in the state. | try, that it is not surprising that it should be 
 
 The wisdom of our ancestors is a foolish j an extremely sore subject with the Reformers- 
 phrase, which does not convey the meaning | and that they should endeavour, by every me, 
 which it is intended to express. When it is j thod of ingenuity, misrepresentation, and con- 
 said that institutions formed by the wisdom of cealment, to withdraw the public attention 
 former ages should not be changed, it is not from so damning a precedent. It is fortunate, 
 meant that our ancestors were gifted with any therefore, for the cause of truth, that at this 
 extraordinary sagacity, or were in any respect juncture a work has appeared, flowing from 
 
 the least suspicious quarter, which at once 
 puts this matter on the right footing, and de- 
 monstrates that it was not undue delay, but 
 
 * Mackintosh's History of England, 
 t Lingard, xi. 11, 12. 
 
 73. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 219 
 
 over rapidity of concession, which brought 
 about the unexampled horrors of its Revolu- 
 
 tion. 
 
 M. Dumont, whose 
 
 ; Souvenirs sur Mira- 
 
 beau" is prefixed to this article, was the early 
 and faithful friend of that extraordinary man. 
 He wrote a great proportion of his speeches, 
 and composed almost entirely the Courier de 
 Provence, a journal published in the name of 
 Mirabeau, and to which a great part of his 
 political celebrity was owing. The celebrated 
 declaration on the Rights of Man, published 
 by the Constituent Assembly, was almost en- 
 tirely composed by him. He was the intimate 
 friend of Brissot, Garat, Roland, Vergniaud, 
 Talleyrand, and all the leaders of the popular 
 party, and his opinion was deemed of so much 
 importance, that he was frequently consulted 
 by the ministers as to the choice of persons to 
 fill the highest situations. In this country he 
 was the intimate and valued friend of Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, Mr. Whitbread, Lord Lans- 
 downe, Lord Holland, and all the party at 
 Holland House. Latterly, he was chiefly oc- 
 cupied in arranging, composing, and putting 
 into order the multifarious effusions of Mr. 
 Bentham's genius ; and from his pen almost 
 all the productions of that great and original 
 man have flowed. Half the fame of Mirabeau, 
 and more than half that of Bentham, rest on 
 his labours. He was no common person who 
 was selected to be the coadjutor of two such j 
 men, and rendered the vehicle of communicat- 
 ing their varied and original thoughts to the 
 world. 
 
 Before quoting the highly interesting ob- 
 servations of this able and impartial observer 
 on the French Constituent Assembly, and 
 comparing them with the progress of Reform 
 in this country, we shall recall to our readers' 
 recollection the dates of the leading measures 
 of that celebrated body, as, without having 
 them in view, the importance of M. Dumont's 
 observations cannot be duly appreciated. Such 
 a survey will at the same time bring to the 
 test the accurac)'- of Mr. Macaulay's and Sir 
 John Hobhouse's assertion, that it was not the 
 concession, but the resistance, of the privi- 
 leged orders, which precipitated the fatal ca- 
 taract of their Revolution. The abstract is 
 abridged from Mignet, the ablest historian on 
 the republican side of which France can 
 boast, and Lacretelle, the well known, annal- 
 ist of its events. 
 
 In August, 1788, Louis, in obedience to the 
 wishes of the nation, agreed to assemble the 
 States-General, which had not met in France 
 since 1614. 
 
 In September, 1789, the king, by the advice 
 of Neckar, by a royal ordinance, doubled the 
 number 
 
 Etat; in other words, he doubled the House 
 of Commons of France,* while those of the 
 clergy and nobles were left at their former 
 amount. 
 
 The elections in April, 1789, were conduct- 
 ed with the utmost favour to the popular par- 
 ty. No scrutiny of those entitled to vote took 
 place; after the few first days, every person 
 
 ar, by 
 of th 
 
 e representatives of the Tiers 
 
 * Mignet, i. 23. 
 
 decently dressed was allowed to vote, without 
 asking any questions.* 
 
 When the States-General met in May 6, 
 1789, the king and his minister, Neckar, were 
 received with cold and dignified courtesy by 
 the nobles and clergy, but rapturous applause 
 by the Tiers Etat, who saw in them the au- 
 thors of the prodigious addition which the 
 number and consequence of their order had 
 received.f 
 
 May 9. No sooner had the States-General 
 proceeded to business, than the Tiers Etat de- 
 manded that the nobles and clergy should sit 
 and vole with them in one chamber ; a proceeding 
 unexampled in French history, and which it 
 was foreseen would give them the complete 
 ascendency, by reason of their numerical su- 
 periority to those of both the other orders 
 united.t 
 
 May TO to June 9. The nobles and clergy 
 resisted for a short while this prodigious inno- 
 vation, and insisted that, after the manner of 
 all the States-General which had assembled in 
 France from the foundation of the monarchy, 
 the orders should sit and vote by separate 
 chambers ; and that this was more especially 
 indispensable since the recent duplication of 
 the Tiers Etat had given that body a numeri- 
 cal superiority over the two other orders taken 
 together.^ 
 
 June 17. The Tiers Etat declared themselves 
 the National Assembly of France, a designa- 
 tion, says Dumont, which indicated their in- 
 tention to usurp the whole sovereignty of "the 
 state." 
 
 June 21. The king, terrified at the thoughts 
 of a collision with the Commons, and thinking 
 to put himself at the head of the movement, 
 first persuaded, and at length, through the 
 medium of Marshal Luxembourg, commanded 
 the nobles to yield to this demand of the Tiers 
 Etat.|| 
 
 The nobles and clergy gradually yielded. 
 On the 19th June, 1789, one hundred and forty- 
 seven of the clergy joined the Tiers Etat, and 
 on the 25th, the Duke of Orleans, with forty- 
 seven of the nobles, also deserted their order, 
 and adhered to the opposite party. The re- 
 mainder finding their numbers so seriously 
 weakened, and urged on by their Reforming 
 Sovereign, also joined the Tiers Etat, and sat 
 with them in one assembly on 27th June.J 
 "On that day (says Dumont) the Revolution 
 was completed." 
 
 On the 23d June, 1789, the king held a 
 solemn meeting of the whole estates in one 
 assembly, and while he declared the former 
 proceedings of the Tiers Etat unconstitutional, 
 granted such immense concessions to the peo- 
 ple, as never, says Mirabeau, were before 
 granted by a king to his subjects. All the 
 objects of the Revolution, says Mignet, were 
 gained by that royal ordinance.** 
 
 July 13. The king ordered the troops, who 
 had been assembled in the vicinity of the ca- 
 pital, to be withdrawn, and sanctioned the es- 
 tablishment of National Guards.ff 
 
 * Dumont. f Mignet, i. 30. . $ Mignet, i. 37. 
 
 $ Mignet, i. 37. || Lacretelle, Pr. Hist. p. 3. 
 IT Lacretelle, Pr. Hist. i. 42. ** Ibid. i. 43. 
 
 ft Ibid. i. 3. 
 
220 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 July 14. The Bastile taken, and all Paris in 
 au insurrection* 
 
 July 16. The king appointed Lafayette com- 
 mander of the National Guard, and Bailly, the 
 president of the Assembly, mayor of Paris. 
 
 July 17. The king visited Paris in the midst 
 of a mob of 200,000 revolutionary democrats. 
 
 Aug. 4. The whole feudal rights, including 
 tithes, abandoned in one night by the nobility, 
 on the motion of the Duke de Noailles. 
 
 Aug. 13. Decree of the Assembly declaring 
 all ecclesiastical estates national property. 
 
 Aug. 20. The Declaration of the Rights of 
 Man issued. 
 
 Aug. 23. Freedom of religious opinions pro- 
 claimed. 
 
 Aug. 24. The unlimited freedom of the press 
 established. 
 
 Aug. 25. Dreadful disturbances in Paris on 
 account of famine. 
 
 Sept. 13. A new decree on account of the 
 extreme suffering at Paris. 
 
 OcU5. Versailles invaded by a clamorous 
 mob. .The king and queen nearly murdered, 
 and brought captives by a furious mob to Pa- 
 ris. 
 
 Nov. 2. Decree passed, on the motion of the 
 Bishop of Autun, for the confiscation and dis- 
 posal of all ecclesiastical property. 
 
 Feb. 24, 1790. Titles of honour abolished. 
 
 Feb. 26. New division of the kingdom into 
 departments ; and all appointments, civil and 
 military, vested in the people. 
 
 March 17. Sale of 400 millions of the na- 
 tional domains authorized, and assignats, bear- 
 mg a forced circulation, issued, to supply the 
 immense deficiency of the revenue.* 
 
 It is unnecessary to go farther. Here it ap- 
 pears, that within two months of the meeting of 
 the States-General, the union of the orders in 
 one chamber, in other words, the annihilation 
 of the House of Peers, was effected, the feudal 
 rights abolished, and the entire sovereignty 
 vested in the National Assembly. In three 
 months, the church property was confiscated, 
 the Rights of Man published, titles annihilated, 
 and the unlimited freedom of the press pro- 
 claimed. In five months, the king and royal 
 family were brought prisoners to Paris. In 
 .fix months,t\ie distress naturally consequent on 
 these convulsions had attracted the constant 
 attention of the Assembly, and spread the ut- 
 most misery among the people ; and in ten 
 months, the total failure of the revenue had 
 rendered the sale of church property, and the 
 issuing of assignats bearing a forced circula- 
 tion, necessary, which it is well known soon 
 swallowed up property of every description 
 throughout France. We do not know what 
 the reformers consider as tardy concessions 
 of the nobility and throne ; but when it is re- 
 collected that all these.proceedings were agreed 
 to by the king, and passed by the legislature at 
 the dates here specified, it is conceived that a 
 more rapid revolutionary progress could hard- 
 ly be wished for by the most ardent reformer. 
 
 The authority of Madame de Stael was ap- 
 pealed to in the House of Commons, as illus- 
 trative of the vain attempts of a portion of the 
 
 aristocracy to stem the torrent. Let -us hear 
 the opinion of the same great writer, as to 
 who it was that put it in motion. " No revolu- 
 tion," she observes, " can succeed in a great 
 country, unless it is commenced by the aristocratical 
 class. The people afterwards get possession 
 of it, but they cannot strike the first blow. 
 When I recollect that it was the parliaments, the 
 nobles, and the clergy of France, who first strove 
 to limit the royal authority, I am far from in- 
 sinuating that their design in so doing was 
 culpable. A sincere enthusiasm then ani- 
 mated all ranks of Frenchmen public spirit 
 had spread universally ; and among the higher 
 classes, the most enlightened and generous 
 were those who ardently desired that public 
 opinion should have its due sway in the direc- 
 tion of affairs. But can the privileged ranks, who 
 commenced (he Revolution, accuse those who only 
 carried it on ? Some will say, we wished only 
 that the changes should proceed a certain 
 length; others, that they should go a step far- 
 ther; but who can regulate the impulse of a great 
 people ivhen once put in motion'/"* These are 
 the words of sober wisdom, and coming, as 
 they do, from the gifted daughter of M. Neckar, 
 who had so large a share, by the duplication 
 of the Tiers Etat, in the raising of the tempest, 
 and who was so devoted a worshipper of her 
 father's memory, none were ever uttered worthy 
 of more profound meditation. 
 
 This is the true principle on the subject. 
 The aid of the Crown,- or of a portion of the 
 aristocracy, is indispensable to put the torrent 
 of democracy in motion. After it is fairly set 
 agoing, all their efforts are unavailing to re- 
 strain its course. This is what we have 1 all 
 along maintained. Unless the French nobility 
 had headed the mob in demanding the States- 
 General, matters could never have been brought 
 to a crisis. After they had roused the public 
 feeling, they found, by dear-bought experience, 
 that they were altogether unable to restrain its 
 fury. In this country, the revolutionary party 
 could have done nothing, had they not been 
 supported in their projects of reform by the 
 ministers of the Crown and the Whig nobility. 
 Having been so, we shall see whether they will 
 be better able than their compeers on the other 
 side of the Channel to master the tempest they 
 have raised. 
 
 It has been already stated, that a large por- 
 tion of tne nobility supported the pretensions 
 of the Tiers Etat. Dumont gives the following 
 picture of the reforming nobles, and of the ex- 
 travagant expectations of the different classes 
 who supported their favourite innovations: 
 
 " The house of the Duke de Rochefoucauld, 
 distinguished by its simplicity, the purity of its 
 manners, and the independence of its princi- 
 ples, assembled all those members of the no- 
 bility who supported the people, the double re- 
 presentation of the Tiers Etat, the vote per ca- 
 pita, the abandonment of all privileges, and the 
 like. Condorcet, Dupont, Lafayette, the Duke 
 de Liancourt, were the chief persons of that 
 society. Their ruling passion was to create for 
 France a new constitution. Such of the nobility 
 and princes as wished to preserve the ancient 
 
 * See Lacretelle, Pr. Hist. p. 19, Introduction. 
 
 Revolution Fran^aise, i. 125. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 221 
 
 constitution of the States-General, formed the aris- 
 tocratic party, against which the public in- 
 dignation was so general; but although much 
 noise was made about them, their numbers 
 were inconsiderable. The bulk of the nation 
 saw only in the States-General the means of di- 
 minishing the taxes the fundholders, so often 
 exposed to the consequences of a violation of 
 public faith, considered them as an invincible 
 rampart against national bankruptcy. The defi- 
 cit had made them tremble. They were on the 
 point of ruin'; and they embraced with warmth 
 the hope of giving to the revenues of the state 
 a secure foundation. These ideas were utterly 
 inconsistent with each other. The nobility had 
 in their bosom a democratic as well as an aristo- 
 cratic party. The clcrgfwcre divided in the same 
 manner, and so were the commons. No words 
 can convey an idea of the confusion of ideas, 
 the extravagant expectations, the hopes and 
 passions of all parties. You would imagine 
 the world was on the day after the creation." 
 Pp. 37, 38. 
 
 We have seen that the clergy, by their join- 
 ing the Tiers Etat, first gave them, a decided 
 superiority over the other orders, and vested 
 in their hands omnipotent power, by compel- 
 ling the nobles to sit and vote with them in an 
 assembly where they were numerically infe- 
 rior to the popular party. The return they 
 met with in a few months was, a decree confis- 
 cating all their properly to the service of the 
 state. With bitter and unavailing anguish did 
 they then look back to their insane conduct in 
 so strongly fanning a flame of which they were 
 soon to be the victims. Dumont gives the fol- 
 lowing striking account of the feelings of one 
 of their reforming bishops, when the tempest 
 they had raised reached their own doors. 
 
 "The Bishop of Chartres was one of the bi- 
 shops who were attached to the popular party ; 
 that is to say, he was a supporter of the union 
 of the orders, of the vote by head, and tlte new 
 constitution. He was by no means a man of 
 a political turn, nor of any depth of understand- 
 ing; Vtut he had so much candour and good 
 faith that he distrusted no one; he never ima- 
 gined that the Tiers Etat could have any other 
 design but to reform the existing abuses, and 
 do the good which appeared so easy a matter 
 to all the world. A stranger to every species 
 of intrigue, sincere in his intentions, he fol- 
 lowed no other guide than his conscience, and 
 what he sincerely believed to be for the public 
 good. His religion was like his politics ; he 
 was benevolent, tolerant, and sincerely re- 
 joiced to see the Protestants exempted from 
 every species of constraint. He was well 
 aware that the clergy would be called on to 
 make great sacrifices; but never anticipated 
 that he was destined to be the victim of the Re- 
 volution. I saw him at the time when the 
 whole goods of the church were declared na- 
 tional property, with tears in his eyes, dismiss- 
 ing his old domestics, reducing his hospitable 
 mansion, selling his most precious effects to 
 discharge his debts. He found some relief by 
 pouring his sorrow into my bosom. His re- 
 grets were not for himself, but he incessantly 
 accused himself for having suffered himself to 
 be deceived, and embraced the party of the 
 
 Tiers Etat, which violated, when triumphant, 
 all the engagements which it had made when 
 in a state of weakness. How grievous it must 
 have been to a man of good principles to have 
 contributed to the success of so unjust a party ! 
 Yet never man had less reason, morally speak- 
 ing, to reproach himself." Pp. 66, 67. 
 
 This spoliation of the clergy has already 
 commenced in this country, even before the 
 great democratic measure oif Reform is carried- 
 As usual also, the supporters of the popular 
 party are likely to be its first victims. We all 
 recollect the decided part which Lord Milton 
 took in supporting the Reform Bill, and the 
 long and obstinate conflict he maintained with 
 Mr. Cartwright, and the Conservative party in 
 Northamptonshire, at the last election. Well, 
 he gained his point, and he is now beginning 
 to taste its fruits. Let us hear the proclama- 
 tion which he has lately placarded over all his 
 extensive estates in the county of Wicklow 
 " Grosvenor Place, March 10. 
 
 "I was in hopes that the inhabitants of our 
 part of the country had too deep sense of the 
 importance of respecting the rights of property, 
 and of obeying the laws, to permit them to con- 
 template what I can call by no other name 
 than a scheme of spoliation and robbery. It seems 
 that the occupier proposes to withhold payment 
 of tithe, &c. ; but let me ask, what is it that en- 
 titles the occupier himself to the land which he 
 occupies 1 Is it not the law which sanctions 
 the lease by which he holds it 1 The law gives 
 him a right to the cattle which he rears on his 
 land, to the plough with which he cultivates it, 
 and to the car in which he carries his produce 
 to the market; the law also gives him his right 
 to nine-tenths of the produce of his land, but 
 the same law assigns the other tenth to another 
 person. In this distribution of the produce of 
 the land, there is no injustice, because the te- 
 nant was perfectly aware of it when he entered 
 upon his land; but in any forcible change of 
 this distribution there would be great injustice, 
 because it would be a transfer of properly from one 
 person to another without an equivalent in other 
 words, it would be a robbery. The occupier must 
 also remember that the rent he pays to the 
 landlord is calculated upon the principle of his 
 receiving only nine-tenths of the produce if 
 he were entitled to the other tenth, the rent 
 which we should call upon him to pay would 
 be proportionably higher. All our land is va- 
 lued to the tenants upon this principle; but if 
 tithes, &c., are swept away without an equiva- 
 lent, we shall adopt a different principle, and 
 the landlord, not the tenant, will be the gainer. 
 
 Mn/r<>\." 
 
 There can be no doubt that the principles 
 here laid down by Lord Milton are well found- 
 ed ; but did it never occur to his lordship that 
 they are somewhat inconsistent with those of 
 the Reform Bill? If the principle be correct, 
 "that the transfer of property from one person 
 to another without an equivalent is robbery,'* 
 what are we say of the disfranchising the 
 electors of 148 seats in Parliament, and the 
 destruction of property worth 2,500,000/., vest- 
 ed before the Reform tempest began, in the 
 Scotch freeholders ? Lords Eldon and Tenter- 
 den, it is to be recollected, have declared that 
 ** 
 
222 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 these rights "are a property as well as a trust."* 
 They stand, therefore, on the same foundation 
 as Lord Fitzwilliam's right to his Irish tithes. 
 No more injustice is done by confiscating the 
 one than the other. But this is just an in- 
 stance how clear-sighted men are to the "rob- 
 bery" of revolutionary measures when they 
 approach their own door, and how extremely 
 blind when it touches upon the freeholds of 
 others. Lord Milton was a keen supporter of 
 schedule A, and disregarded the exclamations 
 against "robbery and spoliation," which were 
 so loudly made by the able and intrepid Con- 
 servative band in the House of Commons. 
 Did his lordship ever imagine that the system 
 of spoliation was to stop short at the freehold 
 corporations, or the boroughs of Tory Peers 1 
 He will learn to his cost that the radicals can 
 find as good plunder in the estates of the Whig 
 as the Conservative nobility. But when the 
 day of reckoning comes, he cannot plead the 
 excuse of the honest and benevolent Bishop of 
 Chartres. He was well forewarned of the con- 
 sequences ; the example of France was before 
 his eyes, and it was clearly pointed out to his 
 attention ; but he obstinately rushed forward in 
 the insane career of innovation, which, almost 
 under his own eyes, had swallowed up all the 
 reforming nobility and clergy of that unhappy 
 kingdom. 
 
 The vast importance of words in revolution- 
 ary convulsions, of which Napoleon was so 
 well aware when he said that "it was by epi- 
 thets that you govern mankind," appears in the 
 account given by this able and impartial writer 
 on the designation which the Tiers Etat chose 
 for themselves before their union with the 
 other orders. 
 
 " The people of Versailles openly insulted 
 in the streets and at the gates of the Assembly 
 those whom they called Aristocrats. The power 
 of that word became magical, as is always the 
 case with party epithets. What astonishes me 
 is, that there was no contrary denomination 
 fixed on by the opposite party. They were 
 called the Nation. The effects of these two 
 words, when constantly opposed to each other, 
 may readily be conceived. 
 
 "Though the Commons had already become 
 sensible of their power, there were many opi- 
 nions on the way in which it should be exerted, 
 and the name to be given to the Assembly. 
 They had not as yet all the audacity which 
 they have since evinced; but the men who 
 looked into futurity clearly saw that this de- 
 termination would have been of the most im- 
 -portant consequences. To declare themselves 
 the National Assembly was to count for nothing 
 the king, the noblesse, and the clergy; it was 
 equivalent to a declaration of civil war, if the 
 government had had sufficient vigour to make 
 any resistance. To declare themselves the 
 Assembly of the Commons, was to express 
 what undoubtedly was the fact, but What would 
 not have answered the purpose of compelling 
 the clergy and nobles to join them. Many de- 
 nominations were proposed which were neither 
 the one nor the other of these ; for every one as 
 yet was desirous to conceal his ultimate pre- 
 
 *In debate on Reform Bill, Oct. 8, 1831. 
 
 tensions ; and even Sieyes, who rejected every 
 thing which tended to preserve the distinction 
 of orders, did not venture to table the expres- 
 sion, National Assembly. It was hazarded for 
 the first time by a deputy named Le Grand ; 
 there was an immediate call for the vote, and 
 it was carried by a majority of 500 to 80 
 voices." Pp. 73, 74. 
 
 This is the never-failing device of the demo- 
 cratic party in all ages. Trusting to the ma- 
 jority of mere numbers on their side, they 
 invariably represent themselves as the whole 
 nation, and the friends of the constitution as a 
 mere fragment, utterly unworthy of consider- 
 ation or regard. " Who are the Tiers Etat?" 
 said the Abbe Sieyes. "They are the French 
 nation, -minus 150,000 privileged individuals." 
 " Who are the Reformers 7" says the Times. . 
 " They are 24,000,000 of men, minus. 200 bo- 
 roughmongers." By such false sweeping as- 
 sertions as these, are men's eyes blinded not 
 only to what is honourable, but to what is safe 
 and practicable. By this single device of call- 
 ing the usurping Commons the National As- 
 sembly, the friends of order were deterred from 
 entering into a struggle with what was called, 
 and therefore esteemed, the national will; and 
 many opportunities of stemming the torrent, 
 which, as Dumont shows, afterwards arose, 
 irrecoverably neglected. 
 
 Of the fatal weakness which attended the 
 famous sitting of the 23d June, 1789, when 
 Louis made such prodigious concessions to 
 his subjects, without taking at the same time 
 any steps to make the royal authority respected, 
 the opinion of Dumont is as follows: 
 
 " Neckar had intended by these concessions 
 to put democracy into the royal hands ; but they had 
 the effect of putting the aris'ocracy under the des- 
 potism of the people. We must not consider that 
 royal sitting in itself alone. Viewed in this 
 light, it contained the most extensive concessions 
 that, ever monarch made to his people. They would, 
 at any other time, have excited the most lively 
 gratitude. Is a prince powerful 7 Every thing 
 that he gives is a gift, every thing that he does 
 not resume is a favour. Is he weak? every 
 thing that he concedes is considered as a debt; 
 every thing that he refuses, as an act of in- 
 justice. 
 
 "The Commons had now set their heart 
 upon, being the National Assembly. Every 
 thing which did not amount to that was nothing 
 in their estimation. But to hold a Bed of Jus- 
 tice, annul the decrees of the Commons, make 
 a great noise without having even foreseen any 
 resistance, or taken a single precaution for the 
 morrow, without having taken any steps to 
 prepare a party in the Assembly, was an act 
 of mndness, and from it may be dated the ruin 
 of the monarchy. Nothing can be more dan- 
 gerous than to drive a weak prince to acts of 
 vigour which he is unable to sustain ; for when 
 he has exhausted the terrors of words he has 
 no other resource; the authority of the throne 
 has been lowered, and the people have dis- 
 covered the secret of their monarch's weak- 
 ness." P. 87. 
 
 The Reformers in this country say, that these 
 immense concessions of Louis failed in their 
 effect of calming the popular effervescence, 
 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 223 
 
 because they came too late. It is difficult to 
 say what they call soon enough, when it is 
 recollected that these concessions were made 
 before the deputies had even verified (heir poirers ; be- 
 fore a single decree of the Assembly had passed, 
 at the very opening of their sittings; and when 
 all their proceedings up to that hour had been 
 an illegal attempt to centre in themselves all 
 the powers of government. But, in truth, what 
 rendered that solitary act of vigour so disas- 
 trous was, that it was totally unsupported ; that 
 no measures were simultaneously taken to 
 make the royal authority respected; that the 
 throne was worsted from its own want of fore- 
 sight in the very first contest with the Com- 
 mons, and above all, that the army betrayed their 
 sovereign and rendered resistance impossible, 
 by joining the rebels to his government. 
 
 The National Assembly, like every other 
 body which commits itself to the gale of popu- 
 lar applause, experienced the utmost disquie- 
 tude at the thoughts of punishing any of the 
 excesses of their popular supporters. How 
 exactly is the following description applicable 
 to all times and nations ! 
 
 u The disorders which were prolonged in the 
 provinces,, the massacres which stained the 
 streets of Paris, induced many estimable per- 
 sons to propose an address of the Assembly, 
 condemnatory of such proceedings to the peo- 
 ple. The Assembly, however, was so appre- 
 hensive of offending the multitude, that they 
 regarded as a snare every motion tending to re- 
 press (fie disorders, or censure the popular excesses. 
 Secret distrust and disquietude was at the 
 bottom of every heart. They had triumphed 
 by means of the people, and they could not 
 venture to show themselves severe towards 
 them; on the contrary, though they frequently 
 declared, in the preambles of their decrees, 
 that they were profoundly afflicted at the burn- 
 ing of the chateaux and the insults to the no- 
 bility, they rejoiced in heart at the propagation of 
 a terror which they regarded as indispensable to their 
 design?. They had reduced themselves to the 
 necessity of fearing the noblesse, or being 
 feared by them. They condemned publicly, 
 they protected secretly; they conferred com- 
 pliments on the constituted authorities, and 
 gave encouragement to license. Respect for 
 the executive power was nothing but words of 
 style ; and in truth, when the ministers of the 
 crown revealed the secret of, their weakness, 
 the Assembly, which remembered well its own 
 terrors, was not displeased that fear had 
 changed sides. If you are sufficiently power- 
 ful to cause yourselves to be respected by the 
 people, you will be sufficiently so to inspire us 
 with dread ; that was the ruling feeling of the 
 Cote Gauche." P. 134. 
 
 This is precisely a picture of what always 
 must be the feeling in regard to tumult and 
 disorders of all who have committed their 
 political existence to the waves of popular 
 support. However much, taken individually, 
 they may disapprove of acts of violence, yet 
 when they feel that intimidation of their oppo- 
 nents is their sheet-anchor, they cannot have 
 an insurmountable aversion to the deeds by 
 which it is to be effected. They would prefer, 
 indeed, that terror should answer their pur- 
 
 poses without the necessity of blows being 
 actually inflicted; but if mere threats are in- 
 sufficient, they never fail to derive a secret 
 satisfaction from the recurrence of examples 
 calculated to show what risks the enemy runs. 
 The burning of castles, the sacking of towns, 
 may indeed alienate the wise and the good; 
 but alas ! the wise and the good form but a 
 small proportion of mankind; and for one 
 whose eyes are opened by the commencement 
 of such deeds of horror, ten will be so much 
 overawed, as to lose all power of acting in 
 obedience to the newly awakened and better 
 feelings of his mind. 
 
 "Intimidation," as Lord Brougham has well 
 observed, "is the never-failing resource of the 
 partisans of revolution in all ages. Mere popu- 
 larity is at first the instrument by which this unsteady 
 legislature is governed ; but when it becomes ap- 
 parent that whoever can obtain the direction or 
 command of it must possess the whole author- 
 ity of the state, parties become less scrupulous 
 about the means they employ for that purpose, and 
 soon find out that violence and terror are infinitely 
 more effectual and expeditious than persuasion and 
 eloquence. Encouraged by this state of affairs, 
 the most daring, unprincipled, and profligate, 
 proceed to seize upon the defenceless legisla- 
 ture, and, driving all their antagonists before 
 them by violence or intimidation, enter without 
 opposition upon the supreme functions of go- 
 vernment. The arms, however, by which they 
 had been victorious, are speedily turned against 
 themselves, and those who are envious of their 
 success, or ambitious of their distinction, easily 
 find means to excite discontents among the 
 multitude, and to employ them in pulling down 
 the very individuals whom they had so recently 
 elevated. This disposal of the legislature then 
 becomes a prize to be fought for in the clubs 
 and societies of a corrupted metropolis, and the 
 institution of a national representation has no 
 other effect than that of laying the government 
 open to lawless force and flagitious audacity. 
 It was in this manner that, from the want of a, 
 natural and efficient aristocracy to exercise the 
 functions of hereditary legislators, the National 
 Assembly of France was betrayed into extra- 
 vagance, and fell a prey to faction; that the 
 Institution itself became a source of public 
 misery and disorder, and converted a civilized 
 monarchy first into a sanguinary democracy, 
 and then into a military despotism."* How 
 exactly is the progress, here so well described, 
 applicable to these times! "Take this bill or 
 anarchy," says Mr. Macauley. "Lord Grey," 
 says the Times, "has brought the country into 
 such a state, that he must either carry the 
 Reform Bill or incur the responsibility of a 
 revolution."! How exactly is the career of 
 democratic insanity and revolutionary ambi- 
 tion the same in all ages and countries ! 
 
 Dumont, as already mentioned, was a lead- 
 ing member of the committee which prepared 
 the famous declaration on the Rights of Man. 
 He gives the following interesting account of 
 the revolt of a candid and sagacious mind at 
 the absurdities which a regard to the popular 
 opinion constrained them to adopt: 
 
 Kdinhurah Review, vi. 148. 
 
 * Kdinhurah Review, vi. 
 t Tiraei, March 27, 1832. 
 
224 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 "Duroverai, Claviere, and myself, were 
 named by Mirabeau to draw up that celebrated 
 declaration. During the course of that mourn- 
 ful compilation, reflections entered my mind 
 which had never before/found a place there. 
 I soon perceived the ridiculous nature of the 
 undertaking. A declaration of rights, I im- 
 mediately saw, may be made after the procla- 
 mation of a constitution, but not before it; for 
 it is laws which give birth to rights they do 
 not follow them. Such general maxims are 
 highly dangerous; you should never bind a 
 legislature by general propositions, which it 
 afterwards becomes necessary to restrain or 
 modify. ' Men,' says the declaration, ' are born 
 free and equal;' that is riot true; they are so 
 far from being born free, that they are born in 
 a state of unavoidable weakness and depend- 
 ence: Equal where are they? where can they 
 be? It is in vain to talk of equality, when 
 such extreme difference exists, and ever must 
 exist, between the talents, fortune, virtues, in- 
 dustry, and condition of men. In a word, I 
 was so strongly impressed with the absurdity 
 of the declaration 'of the Rights of Man, that for 
 once I carried along with me the opinions of 
 our little committee; and Mirabeau himself, 
 when presenting the report to the Assembly, 
 ventured to suggest difficulties, and to propose 
 that the declaration of rights should be delayed 
 till the constitution was completed. 'I tell 
 you,' said he, in his forcible style, ' that any 
 declaration of rights you may make before the 
 constitution is framed, will never be but a one 
 year's almanac? Mirabeau, always satisfied 
 with a happy expression, never gave himself 
 the trouble to get to the bottom of any subject, 
 and never would go through the toil to put 
 himself in possession of facts sufficient to de- 
 fend what he advanced. On this occasion he 
 suffered under this: this sudden change be- 
 came the subject of bitter reproach. < Who is 
 this,' said the Jacobins, ' who seeks to employ 
 his ascendant over the Assembly, to make us 
 say yes and no alternately? Shall we be for 
 ever the puppets of his contradictions ?' There 
 was so much reason in what he had newly 
 advanced, that he would have triumphed if he 
 had been able to bring it out; but he aban- 
 doned the attempt at the very time when seve- 
 ral deputies were beginning to unite themselves 
 to him. The deplorable nonsense went tri- 
 umphantly on, and generated that unhappy 
 declaration of the Rights of Man which subse- 
 quently produced such incredible mischief. I 
 am in possession at this moment of a complete 
 refutation of it, article by article, by the hand 
 of a great master, and it proves to demonstra- 
 tion the contradictions, the absurdities, the 
 dangers of that seditious composition, which 
 of itself was sufficient to overturn the consti- 
 tution of which it formed a part; like a pow- 
 der magazine placed below an edifice, which 
 the first spark will blow into the air." Pp. 
 141, 142. 
 
 These are the words of sober and expe- 
 rienced wisdom ; and coming, as they do, from 
 one of the authors of this celebrated declara- 
 tion, are of the very highest importance. They 
 prove, that at the very time when Mirabeau and 
 the popular party in the Assembly were draw- 
 
 ing up their perilous and highly inflammatory 
 declaration, they were aware of its absurdity, 
 and wished to suppress the work of their own 
 hands. They could not do so, however, and 
 were constrained, by the dread of losing their 
 popularity, to throw into the bosom of an ex- 
 cited people a firebrand, which they themselves 
 foresaw would speedily lead to a conflagration. 
 Such is the desperate, the hopeless state of 
 slavery, in which, during periods of excite- 
 ment, the representatives of the mob are held 
 by their constituents. The whole purposes 
 of a representative form of government are at 
 once destroyed; the wisdom, experience, study, 
 and reflection of the superior class of states- 
 men are trodden under foot; and the enlight- 
 ened have no chance of keeping possession of 
 the reins of power, or even influencing the 
 legislature, but by bending to the passions of 
 the ignorant. 
 
 This consideration affords a decisive argu- 
 ment in favour of the close, aye, the nomination 
 boroughs. Their existence, and their exist- 
 ence in considerable numbers, is indispensable 
 towards the voice of truth being heard in the 
 national councils in periods of excitement, and 
 the resistance to those measures of innovation, 
 which threaten to destroy the liberties, and 
 terminate the prosperity, of the people. From 
 the popular representatives during such pe- 
 riods it is in vain to expect the language of 
 truth; for it would be as unpalatable to the 
 sovereign multitude as to a sovereign despot 
 Members of the legislature, therefore, are in- 
 dispensably necessary in considerable num- 
 bers, who, by having nopopular constituents, can 
 venture to speak out the truth in periods of 
 agitation, innovation, and alarm. The Re- 
 formers ask, what is the use of a representa- 
 tive of a green mound, or a ruined tower, in a 
 popular parliament? We answer, that he is 
 more indispensable in such a parliament than 
 in any other. Nay, that without such a class 
 the liberties of the nation cannot exist for any 
 long period. Representatives constantly act- 
 ing under the influence or dread of popular 
 constituents, never will venture, either in their 
 speeches to give vent to the language of truth, 
 nor in their conduct to support the cause of 
 real freedom, if it interferes with the real or 
 supposed interests of their constituents. They 
 will always be as much under the influence of 
 their tyrannical task-masters, as Mirabeau and 
 Dumont were in drawing up, against their 
 better judgment, the Rights of Man. It is as 
 absurd to expect rational or independent mea- 
 sures from such a class, in opposition to the 
 wishes or injunctions of those who returned 
 them to parliament, as it is to look for freedom 
 of conduct from the senate of Tiberius or the 
 council of Napoleon. We do not expect the 
 truth to be spoken by the representative of a 
 mound, in a question with its owner, or his 
 class in society, nor by the representatives of 
 the people, in a question which interests or 
 excites the public ambition. But we expect 
 that truth will be spoken by the representa- 
 tives of the people, as against the interests of 
 the owner of the mound; and by the repre- 
 sentatives of the mound, as against the pas- 
 sions of the people; and that thus, between the 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 225 
 
 two, the language of reason will be raised on 
 every subject, and that fatal bias the public 
 mind prevented, which arises from one set of 
 doctrines and principles being alone presented 
 to their consideration. In the superior fear- 
 lessness and vigour of the language of the 
 Conservative party in the House of Lords, to 
 what is exhibited in the House of Commons, 
 on the Reform question, is to be found decisive 
 evidence of the truth of these principles, and 
 their application to this country and this age. 
 
 Of the fatal 4th August, " the St. Barthelerny 
 of properties," as it was well styled by Rivarol, 
 and its ruinous consequences upon the public 
 welfare, we have the following striking and 
 graphic account: 
 
 " Never was such an undertaking accom- 
 plished in so short a time. That which would 
 have required a year of care, meditation, and 
 debate, was proposed, deliberated on, and voted 
 by acclamation. I know not hov many laws 
 were decreed in that one sitting; the abolition 
 of feudal rights, of the tithes, of provincial pri- 
 vileges; three articles, which of themselves 
 embraced a complete system of jurisprudence 
 and politics, with ten or twelve others,, were 
 decided in less time than would be required in 
 England for the first reading of a bill of ordi- 
 nary importance. They began with a report 
 on the disorders of the provinces, chateaux 
 burnt, troops of banditti who attacked the 
 nobles and ravaged the fields. The Duke 
 d'Aguillon, the Duke de Noailles, and several 
 others of the democratic part of the nobility, 
 after the most disastrous pictures of these 
 calamities, exclaimed that nothing but a great 
 act of generosity could calm the people, and 
 that it was high time to abandon their odious 
 privileges, and let the people taste the full 
 benefits of the Revolution. An indescribable 
 effervescence seized upon the Assembly. 
 Every one proposed sacrifice: every one laid 
 some offering on the altar of their country, 
 proposing either to denude themselves or de- 
 nude others; no time was allowed for reflec- 
 tion, objection, or argument; a sentimental 
 contagion seized every heart. That renuncia- 
 tion of privileges, that abandonment of so 
 many rights burdensome to the people, these 
 multiplied sacrifices, had an air of magnanim- 
 ity which withdrew the attention from the fatal 
 precipitance with which they were made. I 
 saw on that night many good and worthy 
 deputies who literally wept for joy at seeing 
 the work of regeneration advance so rapidly, 
 and at feeling themselves every instant carried 
 on the wings of enthusiasm so far beyond their 
 most ardent hopes. The renunciation of the 
 privileges of provinces was made by their re- 
 spective representatives ; those of Brittany had 
 engaged to defend them, and therefore they 
 were more embarrassed than the rest; but 
 carried away by the general enthusiasm, they 
 advanced in a body, and declared in a body, 
 that they would use their utmost efforts with 
 their constituents to obtain the renunciation 
 of their privileges. That great and superb 
 operation was necessary to confer political 
 unity upon a monarchy which hid been suc- 
 cessively formed by the union of many inde- 
 pendent states, every one of which had certain 
 29 
 
 rights of its own anterior to their being blended 
 together. 
 
 "On the following day, every one began to 
 reflect on what had been done, and sinister 
 presentiments arose on all sides. Mirabeau 
 and Sieyes, in particular, who had not been 
 present at that famous sitting, condemned in 
 loud terms its enthusiastic follies. This is a 
 true picture of France, said they; we spend a 
 month in disputing about words, and we make 
 sacrifices in a night which overturn every 
 thing that is venerable in the monarchy. In 
 the subsequent meetings, they tried to retract 
 or modify some of these enormous conces- 
 sions, but it was too late; it was impossible to 
 withdraw what the people already looked upon 
 as their rights. The Abbe Sieyes, in particu- 
 lar, made a discourse full of reason and justice 
 against the extinction of tithes, which he looked 
 upon with the utmost aversion. He demon- 
 strated, that to extinguish the tithes, was to 
 spoliate the clergy of its property, solely to 
 enrich the proprietors of the lands ; for every 
 one having bought or inherited his estate 
 minus the value of the tithe, found himself 
 suddenly enriched by a tenth, which was given 
 to him as a pure and uncalled for gratuity. It 
 was this speech, which never can be refuted, which 
 terminated with the well-known expression: 
 * They would be free, and they know not how 
 to be just.* The prejudice was so strong, 
 that Sieyes himself was not listened to; he 
 was regarded merely as an ecclesiastic, who 
 could not get the better of his personal interest, 
 and paid that tribute of error to his robe. A 
 little more would have made him be hooted and 
 hissed. I saw him the next day, full of bitter 
 indignation against the injustice and brutality 
 of the Assembly, which in truth he never after- 
 wards forgave. He gave vent to his indigna- 
 tion, in a conversation with Mirabeau, who 
 replied, ' My deir Abbe, you have unchained the 
 bull ; do you e.rpect he is not to gore wit h his horns ?' 
 
 " These decrees of Aug. 4 were so far from 
 putting a period to the robbery and violence 
 which desolated the country, that they only 
 tended to make the people acquainted with 
 their own strength, and impress them with the 
 conviction that all their outrages against the 
 nobility would not only not be punished, but 
 actually rewarded. Again I say, every thing 
 which is done from fear fails in accomplish- 
 ing its object ; those whom you erpect to disarm by 
 concessions, only redouble in confidence and auda- 
 city." Pp. 14G 149. 
 
 Such is the conclusion of this enlightened 
 French Reformer, as to the consequences of 
 the innovations and concessions, in promoting 
 which he took so large a share, and which 
 it was then confidently expected, would not 
 only pacify the people but regenerate the mon- 
 archy, and commence a new era in the history 
 of the world. These opinions coming from 
 the author of the Rights of Man, the preceptor 
 of Mirabeau, the fellow-labourer of Bentham, 
 should, if any thing can, open the eyes of our 
 young enthusiasts, who am so vehement in 
 urging the necessity of concession, avowedly 
 from the effects of intimidation, who expect to 
 "1ft loose the bull and escape his horns." 
 
 It is on this question of the effects to be ex- 
 
226 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 pected from concession to public clamour, that 
 the whole question of Reform hinges. The 
 supporters of the bill in both Houses have 
 abandoned every other argument. "Pass this 
 bill, or anarchy will ensue," is their sole princi- 
 ple of action. But what says Dumont, taught by 
 the errors of the Constituent Assembly 1 "Pass 
 this bill, and anarchy will ensue." " Whatever 
 is done," says he, " from fear, fails in its object ; 
 those whom you expect to disarm by conces- 
 sion, redouble in confidence and audacity." 
 This is the true principle; the principle con- 
 firmed by universal experience, and yet the 
 Reformers shut their eyes to its application. 
 The events which have occurred in this age 
 are so decisive on this subject, that nothing 
 more convincing could be imagined, if a voice 
 from the dead were to proclaim its truth. 
 
 Concession, as Dumont tells us, and as every 
 one acquainted with history knows, was tried 
 by the French government and Assembly, in 
 the hope of calming the people, and arresting 
 the Revolution. The monarch, at the opening 
 of the States-General, made " greater conces- 
 sions than ever king made to his people ;" the 
 nobles abandoned, on their own motion, in one 
 night, all their rights; and what was the con- 
 sequence 1 The revolutionary fervour was 
 urged into a fury ; the torrent became a cata- 
 ract, and horrors unparalleled in the history of 
 the world ensued. 
 
 Resistance to popular ambition, a firm op- 
 position to the cry for reform, was at the same 
 period, under a lion-hearted king and an in- 
 trepid minister, adopted in th midst of the 
 greatest dangers by the British government. 
 What was the consequence ? Universal tran- 
 quillity forty years of unexampled prosperity 
 the triumph of Trafalgar the conquest of 
 Waterloo. 
 
 Conciliation and concession, in obedience, 
 and with the professed design of healing the 
 disturbances of that unhappy land, were next 
 tried in Ireland. Universal tranquillity, con- 
 tentment, and happiness, were promised from 
 the great healing measure of emancipation. 
 What has been the consequence? Disturb- 
 ances, massacres, discord, practised sedition, 
 threatened rebellion, which have made the old 
 times of Protestant rule be regretted. 
 
 Conciliation and concession were again put 
 in practice by the Whig Administration of 
 England. What was the result ? Perils great- 
 er than assailed the monarchy from all the 
 might of Napoleon; dissension, conflagration, 
 and popular violence, unexampled since the 
 great rebellion; a falling income and an in- 
 creasing expenditure; the flames of a servile 
 war in Jamaica ; and general distress unequal- 
 led since the accession of the House of Bruns- 
 wick. 
 
 The character of Mirabeau, both as a writer 
 and orator, and an individual, is sketched with 
 no ordinary power by this author, probably 
 better qualified than any man in existence to 
 portray it with accuracy : 
 
 "Mirabeau had within his breast a sense of 
 the force of his mind, which sustained his 
 courage in situations which would have crush- 
 ed a person of ordinary character: his imagi- 
 nation loved the vast; his mind seized the 
 
 gigantic ; his taste was natural, and had been 
 cultivated by the study of the classical authors. 
 He knew little; but no one could make a bet- 
 ter use of what he had acquired. During the 
 whirlwind of his stormy life he had little lei- 
 sure for study; but in his prison of Vincennes 
 he had read extensively, and improved his style 
 by translations, as well as extensive collections 
 from the writings of great orators. He had 
 little confidence in the extent of his erudition ; 
 but his eloquent and impassioned soul animat- 
 ed every feature of his countenance when he 
 was moved, and nothing was easier than to 
 inflame his imagination. From his youth up- 
 wards he had accustomed himself to the dis- 
 cussion of the great questions of erudition and 
 government, but he was not calculated to go to 
 the bottom of them. The labour of investiga- 
 tion was not adapted to his powers ; he had too 
 much warmth and vehemence of disposition 
 for laborious application ; his mind proceeded 
 by leaps and bounds, but sometimes they were 
 prodigious. His style abounded in vigorous 
 expressions, of which he had made a particu- 
 lar study. 
 
 "If we consider him as an author, we must 
 recollect that all his writings, without one 
 single exception, were pieces of Mosaic, in 
 which his fellow-labourers had at least as large 
 a share as himself, but he had the faculty of 
 giving additional eclat to their labours, by 
 throwing in here and there original expres- 
 sions, or apostrophes, full of fire and elo- 
 quence. It is a peculiar talent, to be able in 
 this manner to disinter obscure ability, intrust 
 to each the department for which he is fitted, 
 and induce them all to labour at the work of 
 which he alone is to reap the glory. 
 
 " As a political orator, he was in some re- 
 spects gifted with the very highest talents a 
 quick eye, a sure tact, the art of discovering at 
 once the true disposition of the assembly he 
 was addressing, and applying all the force of 
 his mind to overcome the point of resistance, 
 without weakening it by the discussion of 
 minor topics. No one knew better how to 
 strike with a single word, or hit his mark with 
 perfect precision ; and frequently he thus 
 carried with him the general opinion, either 
 by a happy insinuation, or a stroke which in- 
 timidated his adversaries. In the tribune he 
 was immovable. The waves of faction rolled 
 around without shaking him, and he was 
 master of his passions in the midst of the ut- 
 most vehemence of opposition. But what he 
 wanted as a political orator, was the art of dis- 
 cussion on the topics on which he enlarged. 
 He could not embrace a long series of proofs 
 and reasonings, and was unable to refute in a 
 logical or convincing manner. He was, in 
 consequence, often obliged to abandon the 
 most important motions, when hard pressed 
 by his adversaries, from pure inability to re- 
 fute their arguments. He embraced too much, 
 and reflected too little. He plunged into a dis- 
 course made for him on a subject on which he 
 had never reflected, and on which he had been 
 at no pains to master the facts ; and he was, 
 in consequence' greatly inferior in that particu- 
 lar to the athletse who exhibit their powers in 
 the British parliament." P. 277. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 227 
 
 What led to the French Revolution 1 This 
 question will be asked and discussed, with all 
 the anxiety it deserves, to the end of the world. 
 Let us hear Dumonton the subject. 
 
 "No event ever interested Europe so much 
 as the meeting of the States-General. There 
 was no enlightened man who did not found the 
 greatest hopes upon that public struggle of 
 prejudices with the lights of the age, and who 
 did not believe that a new moral and political 
 world was about to issue from the chaos. The 
 besoin of hope was so strong, that all faults 
 were pardoned, all misfortunes were represent- 
 ed only as accident ; in spite of all the calami- 
 ties which it induced, the balance leaned always 
 towards the Constituent Assembly. It was the 
 struggle of humanity with despotism. 
 
 " The States-General, six weeks after their 
 convocation, was no longer the States-General, 
 but the National Assembly. Its first calamity 
 was to have owed its new title to a revolution ; 
 that is to say, to a vital change in its power, 
 its essence, its name, and its means of authority. 
 According to the constitution, the commons 
 should have acted in conjunction with the 
 nobles, the clergy, and the king. But the com- 
 mons, in the very outset, subjugated the nobles, 
 the clergy, and the king. It was in that, that the 
 Revolution consisted. 
 
 "Reasoning without end has taken place on 
 the causes of the Revolution ; there is but one, 
 in my opinion, to which the whole is to be as- 
 cribed; and that is, the character of the king. 
 Put a king of character and firmness in the place 
 of Louis XVI., and no revolution would have en- 
 sued. His whole reign was a preparation for 
 it. There was not a single epoch, during the 
 whole Constituent Assembly, in which the 
 king, if he could only have changed his cha- 
 racter, might not have re-established his au- 
 thority, and created a mixed constitution far 
 more solid and stable than its ancient mon- 
 archy. His indecision, his weakness, his half 
 counsels, his want of foresight, ruined every 
 thing. The inferior causes which have con- 
 curred were nothing but the necessary conse- 
 quences of that one moving cause. When the 
 king is known to be weak, the courtiers be- 
 come intriguers, the factious insolent, the 
 people audacious; good men are intimidated, 
 the most faithful services go unrewarded, able 
 men are disgusted, and ruinous councils adopt- 
 ed. A king possessed of dignity and firmness 
 would have drawn to his side those who were 
 against him; the Lafayettes, the Lameths, the 
 Mirabeaus, the Sieyes, would never have 
 dreamed of playing the part which they did; 
 and, when directed to other objects, they would 
 no longer have appeared the same men." 
 Pp. 343, 344. 
 
 These observations are of the very highest 
 importance. The elements of discord, rebel- 
 lion, and anarchy, rise into portentous energy 
 when weakness is at the head of affairs. A 
 reforming, in other words a democratic, ad- 
 ministration, raise them into a perfect tempest. 
 The progress of time, and the immense defects 
 of the ancient monarchical system, rendered 
 change necessary in France; but it was the 
 weakness of the king, Ihe concessions of the 
 nobility and clergy, which converted it into a 
 
 revolution. All the miseries of that country 
 sprung from the very principle which is in- 
 cessantly urged as the ruling consideration in 
 favour of the Reform Bill. 
 
 No body of men ever inflicted such disasters 
 on France, as the Constituent Assembly, by 
 their headlong innovations and sweeping de- 
 molitions. Not the sword of Marlborough nor 
 the victories of Wellington not the rout of 
 Agincourt nor the carnage of Waterloo not 
 the arms of Alexander nor the ambition of Na- 
 poleon, have proved so fatal to its prosperity. 
 From the wounds they inflicted, the social sys- 
 tem may revive from those of their own in- 
 novators, recovery is impossible. They not 
 only destroyed freedom in its cradle they not 
 only induced the most cruel and revolting 
 tyranny ; but they totally destroyed the mate- 
 rials from which it was to be reconstructed in 
 future, they bequeathed slavery to their chil- 
 dren, and they prevented it from ever being 
 shaken off by their descendants. It matters not 
 under what name arbitrary power is adminis- 
 tered: it can be dealt out as rudely by a reform- 
 ing assembly, a dictatorial mob, a committee 
 of Public Safety, a tyrannical Directory, a mili- 
 tary despot, or a citizen King, as by an abso- 
 lute monarch or a haughty nobility. By destroy- 
 ing the whole ancient institutions of France 
 by annihilating the nobles and middling ranks, 
 who stood between the people and the throne 
 by subverting all the laws and customs of 
 antiquity by extirpating religion, and induc- 
 ing general profligacy, they have inflicted 
 wounds upon their country which can never 
 be healed. Called upon to revive the social 
 system, they destroyed it: instead of pouring 
 into the decayed limbs the warm blood of youth, 
 they severed the head from the body, and all 
 subsequent efforts have been unavailing to re- 
 store animation. It is now as impossible to 
 give genuine freedom, that is complete protec- 
 tion to all classes, to France, as it is to restore 
 the vital spark to a lifeless body by the convul- 
 sions of electricity. The balance of interests, 
 the protecting classes, are destroyed : nothing 
 remains but the populace and the government: 
 Asiatic has succeeded to European civiliza- 
 tion : and, instead of the long life of modern 
 freedom, the brief tempests of anarchy, and '.he 
 long night of despotism, are its fate. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly, however, had 
 the excuse of general delusion: they were en- 
 tering on an untrodden field : the consequence 
 of their actions were unknown: enthusiasm 
 as irresistible as that of the theatre urged on 
 their steps. Great reforms required to be made 
 in the political system; they mistook the ex- 
 cesses of democratic ambition for the dictates 
 of ameliorating wisdom : the corruption of a 
 guilty court, and the vices of a degraded no- 
 bility, called loudly for amendment. But what 
 shall we say to those who adventured on the 
 samfc.perilous course, with their fatal example 
 before their eyes, in a country requiring no 
 accession to popular power, tyrannized over by 
 no haughty nobility, consumed by no internal 
 vices, weakened by no foreign disasters? 
 What shall we saj to those who voluntarily 
 .shut their eyes to all the pen'!-; of i!ie head- 
 
 llong reformers of the ncighbcu.. . a ..ingdom; 
 
228 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 who roused passions as impetuous, proposed and virtue uncorrupted was to be found, and 
 changes as sweeping, were actuated by ambi- glory unparalleled had been won'? Who ad- 
 tion as perilous, as that which, under their own i ventured on a course which threatened to tear 
 eyes, had torn civilization to pieces in its bleed- j in pieces the country of Milton and Bacon, of 
 ing dominion ? What shall we say to those j Scott and Newton, of Nelson and Wellington ? 
 
 rho did this in the state where freedom had 
 existed longer, and was at their accession more 
 
 History will judge their conduct: no tumultu- 
 ous mobs will drown its voice: from its deci- 
 
 unfettered than in any other country that ever sion there will be no appeal, and its will be the 
 existed; where prosperity unexampled existed, I voice of ages. 
 
 BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 is * 
 
 IT is a remarkable fact, that so numerous 
 and pregnant are the proofs afforded by history 
 in all ages, of the universal and irremediable 
 evils of democratic ascendency, that there is 
 hardly an historical writer of any note, in any 
 country or period of the world, who has not 
 concurred in condemning it as the most dan- 
 gerous form of government, and the most fatal 
 enemy of that freedom which it professes to 
 support. In the classical writers, indeed, are 
 to be found numerous and impassioned, as 
 well as perfectly just eulogies on the ennobling 
 effects of civil liberty; but it is liberty, as con- 
 tradistinguished from slavery, which is the ob- 
 ject of their encomium : and none felt so strong- 
 ly, or have expressed so forcibly, the pernicious 
 tendency of unbridled democracy to undermine 
 and destroy the civil freedom and general pro- 
 tection of all classes, which is unquestionably 
 the first of human Jblessings. Thucydides, 
 whose profound mind was forcibly attracted 
 by the varied operations of the aristocratic and 
 democratic factions, which in his age distract- 
 ed Greece, and whose conflict forms the sub- 
 ject of his immortal work, has told us, that " in- 
 variably in civil contests it was found at 
 Athens that the worst and most abandoned 
 public characters obtained the ascendency." 
 Aristotle has condensed in six words the ever- 
 lasting characteristic of democratic govern- 
 ment rUTT^V TCHV T'JPirtdtoV TSASWTiW it JiiU5Kj>*.Tiil. 
 
 Sallust has pointed to the " Egestas cupida no- 
 varum rerum," as the most prolific source of 
 the. evils which first undermined, and at last 
 overthrew the solid foundations of Roman 
 liberty; and left in his Catiline conspiracy a 
 picture of the demagogue, so just and true in 
 all its touches, that in every age it has the air 
 of having been drawn from the exisiing popu- 
 lar idol; and the phrase "Alieni appetens, sui 
 profusus," has passed into a proverbial charac- 
 teristic of that mixture of rapacity and insol- 
 vency which ever forms the basis of the cha- 
 racters who attain to democratic ascendency. 
 Livy, amidst the majestic and heart-stirring 
 narrative of Roman victories, never loses an 
 opportunity of throwing in a reflection ci> the 
 mingled instability and tyranny of popular as- 
 semblies; and all the experience of the woful 
 tyranny which the triumph of democracy under 
 Cffisar brought upon the Roman common- 
 
 * Athens, its Rise nnd Fall. By E. I,. Rnlwer, Eoq. 
 8ndpr* and Oiley : London, 1837. BInckwood's Maga- 
 *iue, July, 18.17. 
 
 wealth, and the leaden chains of the centralized 
 government of his successors, has not blinded 
 the far-seeing sagacity of Tacitus to the origin 
 of all these evils in the wide-spread force of 
 popular wickedness and folly, and the fatal 
 overthrow of the long established sway of the 
 Senate by the military talents and consummate 
 address of the first emperor of the world. 
 
 In modern times the same striking charac- 
 teristic of all the greatest observers of human 
 events is equally conspicuous. Five hundred 
 years ago Machiavel deduced from a careful 
 retrospect of Roman history, not less than the 
 experience of the Republican States with which 
 he was surrounded, the clearest views of the 
 enormous perils of unbridled democracy: and 
 he has left in his Discourses on Livy and 
 " Principe," maxims of government essentially 
 adverse to democratic establishments, which, 
 in depth of thought and justice of observation, 
 have never been surpassed. Bacon clearly 
 perceived, even amidst all the servility of the 
 nation, and tyranny of the government of Eng- 
 land under the Tudor princes, the opposite 
 dangers of republican rule, and his celebrated 
 apophthegm, that political changes, to be safe, 
 " should resemble those of nature, which albeit 
 the greatest in the end, are imperceptible in 
 their progress," has passed into a consuetudi- 
 nary maxim, to which, to the end of the world, 
 the wise will never cease to refer, and against 
 which the rash and reckless will never cease 
 to chafe. The profound mind of Hume, it is 
 well known, beheld the long and varied story 
 of England's existence with perhaps too great 
 a bias in favour of monarchical institutions; 
 and Gibbon, even amidst the long series of 
 calamities which accumulated round the sink- 
 ing fortunes of the empire, has sufficiently 
 evinced his strong sense of the impracticable 
 nature, and tyrannic tendency of democratic 
 institutions.* Sir James Mackintosh, in his 
 maturer years, strongly supported the same 
 sound and rational principles ; and all the fer- 
 vour and energy of the youthful author of (he 
 V-m-Hricp Gallica could not blind his better in- 
 formed juderment later in life, to the frightful 
 dangers of democratic ascendency, and the ul- 
 timate conclusion "that the only government 
 which offers a rational prospect of establishing 
 or preserving freedom, is that where the power 
 
 *In tiis iPttern and nnd miscellaneous works, bto 
 opinions on thia subject are clearly expressed. 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 229 
 
 of directing affairs is vested in the aristocratic 
 interests, under the perpetual safeguard of po- 
 pular watchfulness."* Burke, almost forgot- 
 ten as a champion of Whig doctrines in the 
 earlier part of his career, stands forth in im- 
 perishable lustre as the giant supporter of 
 conservative principles in the zenith of his in- 
 tellect. Pitt has told us that "democracy is 
 not the government of the few by the many, 
 but the many by the few, with this addition, 
 that the few who are thus raised to power are 
 the most dangerous and worthless of the com- 
 munity;" and Fox, who spent his life in sup- 
 porting liberal principles, with his dying breath 
 bequeathed to his successors a perpetual strug- 
 gle with the gigantic power which had risen 
 out of its spirit, and unbodied its desires. 
 
 Nor is France behind England in the same 
 profound and far-seeing views of human af- 
 fairs. Napoleon, elevated on the wave, and 
 supported by the passions of the Revolution, 
 conceived himself, as he himself told, to be the 
 commissioned hand of Heaven to chastise its 
 crimes and extinguish its atrocity. Madam de 
 Stael, albeit passionately devoted to the me- 
 mory of her father, the parent of the Revolution, 
 and the author of the French Reform Bill, has 
 yet devoted the maturity of her intellect to il- 
 lustrate the superior advantages which the 
 mixed form of government established in Eng- 
 land afforded ; and in her Treatise on the 
 French Revolution, supported with equal wis- 
 dom and eloquence the conservative princi- 
 ples, in which all minds of a certain elevation 
 in every age have concurred : while Chateau- 
 briand, the illustrious relic of feudal grandeur, 
 and the graphic painter of modern suffering, 
 has arrived, from the experience of his varied 
 and interesting existence, at the same lofty and 
 ennobling conclusions ; and M. deToqueville, 
 the worthy conclusion to such a line of great- 
 ness, has portrayed, amidst the most impartial 
 survey of American equality, seeds in the un- 
 disguised " tyranny of the majority," of the 
 eventual and speedy destruction of civil li- 
 berty. 
 
 These enemies of democracy in every age. 
 have been led to these conclusions, just bee wse 
 they were the steadiest friends of freedom. They 
 deprecated and resisted the unbridled sway of 
 the people, because they saw clearly that it 
 was utterly destructive to their real and dura- 
 ble interests; that it permitted that sacred fire 
 which, duly restrained and repressed, is the 
 fountain of all greatness, whether in nations 
 or individuals, to waste itself in pernicious 
 flames, or expand into ruinous conflagration. 
 They supported the establishment of Conser- 
 vative checks on popular extravagance, be- 
 cause they perceived from experience, and had 
 learned from history, that the gift of unbridled 
 power is fatal to its possessors, and that least 
 of all is it tolerable where the responsibility, 
 the sole check upon its excesses, is destroyed 
 by the number among whom it is divided. 
 They advocated a mixed form of government, 
 because they saw clearly, that under such, and 
 such only, had the blessings of freedom in any 
 age been enjoyed for any length of time by the 
 
 * Mackintosh's Memoirs, I. 174. 
 
 people. They were fully aware that demo- 
 cratic energy has, in every age, been the 
 mainspring of human improvement ; but they 
 were riot less aware, that this spring is one of 
 such strength and power, that if not duly 
 loaded, it immediately tears the machine to 
 pieces. They admired and cherished the 
 warmth of the fire, but they were not so 
 blinded by its advantages, as to permit it to 
 escape its iron bars, and wrap the house in 
 flames ; they enjoyed the vigour of the horses 
 which whirled the chariot along; but they 
 were not so insane as to cast the charioteer 
 from his seat, and allow their strength and 
 energy to overturn and destroy the vehicle: 
 they acknowledged with gratitude the genial 
 warmth of the central heat, which clothed the 
 sides of the volcano with luxuriant fruits; but 
 they looked to either hand, and beheld in the 
 black furrow of desolation the track of the 
 burning lava which had issued from its sum- 
 mit when it escaped its barriers, and filled the 
 heavens with an eruption. 
 
 Nothing daunted by this long and majestic 
 array of authority against him, Mr. Bulwer 
 has taken the field in two octavo volumes, in 
 order to illustrate the beneficial effect of re- 
 publican institutions upon social greatness 
 and national prosperity. He has selected for 
 his subject the Athenian democracy the eye 
 of Greece the cradle of history, tragedy, and 
 the fine arts ; the spot in the world where, in 
 the narrowest limits, achievements the most 
 mighty have been won, and genius the most 
 immortal has been developed. He con- 
 ceived, doubtless, that in Attica at least the 
 extraordinary results of democratic agency 
 could not be disputed; the Roman victories 
 might be traced to the wisdom of the senate; 
 the Swiss patriotism to the simplicity of its 
 mountains; the prosperity of Holland to the 
 protection of canals, or the prudence of its 
 burgomasters; the endurance of America to 
 the boundless- vent afforded by its back settle- 
 ments ; but in Athens none of these peculiari- 
 ties existed, and there the brilliant results of 
 popular ruJe and long established self-govern- 
 ment were set forth in imperishable colours. 
 We rejoice he has made the attempt; we anti- 
 cipate nothing but good to the conservative 
 cause from his efforts. It is a common saying 
 among lawyers, that falsehood may be exposed 
 in a witness by cross-examination; but that 
 truth only comes out the more clearly from all 
 the efforts which are made for its confusion. 
 It is a fortunate day for the cause of historic 
 truth when the leaders of the democratic pany 
 leave the declamation of the hustings and the 
 base flattery of popular adulation, and betake 
 themselves to the arena of real argument. 
 We feel the same joy at beholding Mr. Bulwer 
 arm himself in the panoply of the field, and 
 court the assaults of historical investigation, 
 with which the knights of old saw themselves 
 extricated from the mob of plebeian insurrec- 
 tion, and led forth to the combat of highborn 
 chivalry. 
 
 Mr. Bulwer is, in every point of view, a dis- 
 tinguished writer. His work on England and 
 the English is a brilliant performance, abound- 
 ing with sparkling, containing some profound, 
 
230 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 observations, and particularly interesting to 
 the multitude of persons to whom foreign tra- 
 velling has rendered the comparison of Eng- 
 lish and French character and institutions an 
 object of interest. ' His novels in profound 
 knowledge of the human heart, brilliancy of 
 description, pathos of incident, and eloquence 
 of language, are second to none in the English 
 language. The great defects of his \vritings, 
 in a political point of view, are the total ab- 
 sence of any reference to a superintending 
 power and the moral government of the world ; 
 and the continual and laboured attempt to ex- 
 culpate the errors, and screen the vices, and 
 draw a veil over the. perils of democratic go- 
 vernment. The want of the first, in an inves- 
 tigation into human affairs, is like the absence 
 of the character of Hamlet in the play bearing 
 his name: the presence of the second a con- 
 tinued drawback on the pleasures which an 
 impartial mind derives from his otherwise 
 able and interesting observations. More espe- 
 cially is a constant sense of the corruption 
 and weakness of human nature an indispen- 
 sable element in every inquiry or observation 
 which has for its object the weighing the capa- 
 bility of mankind to bear the excitements, and 
 wield the powers, and exercise the responsi- 
 bility of self-government. We are not going 
 to enter into any theological argument on 
 original sin, how intimately soever it may be 
 blended with the foundation of all investiga- 
 tions into the right principles of government; 
 we assert only a fact, demonstrated by the ex- 
 perience of every age, and acquiesced in by 
 the wise of every country, that there is an 
 universal tendency to corruption and license 
 in human nature that religion is the only 
 effectual bridle on its excesses, and that the 
 moment that a community is established, with- 
 out the effective agency of that powerful curb 
 on human passion, the progress of national 
 affairs becomes nothing but the career of the 
 prodigal, brilliant and alluring in the outset, 
 dismal and degrading in the end. It is on this 
 account that the friends of freedom have in 
 every age been the most resolute and perse- 
 vering enemies of democracy; because that 
 fervent and searching element, essential to the 
 highest national greatness, and the best ingre- 
 dient in its prosperity, if duly coerced and 
 tempered, becomes its most devouring and 
 fatal enemy the instant that it breaks through 
 its barriers, and obtains the unrestrained di- 
 rection of the public destinies. 
 
 The views of the republican and the demo- 
 crat are the very reverse of all this. Accord- 
 ing to them, wickedness arid corruption are the, 
 inheritance of the oligarchy alone ; aristocra- 
 cies are always selfish, grasping, rapacious ; 
 democracies invariably energetic, generous, 
 confiding. Nobles, they argue, never act but 
 from designing or selfish views ; their constant 
 agent is human corruption ; their incessant 
 appeal to the basest and most degrading prin- 
 ciples of our nature. Republicans alone are 
 really philanthropic in their views ; they alone 
 attend to the interests of the masses; they alone 
 lay the foundations of the social system on the 
 broad basis of general well-being. Monarchi- 
 cal governments are founded on the caprice of 
 
 a single tyrant; aristocratic on the wants of a 
 rapacious oligarchy; democratic alone on the 
 consulted desires and grateful experience of 
 the whole community. If these propositions 
 were all true, they would be decisive in favour 
 of popular, and highly popular institutions ; 
 but unfortunately, though it is perfectly correct 
 that monarchies and aristocracies are mainly 
 directed, if uncontrolled by the people, to sup- 
 port the interests of a single or an oligarchical 
 government, it is no less true, that the rapacity 
 of a democracy is just as great; that the re- 
 sponsibility of its leaders, from the number of 
 those invested with power, is infinitely less, 
 and that the calamities which, in its unmiti- 
 gated form it in consequence lets loose on the 
 community, are such as in every age have led 
 to its speedy subversion. 
 
 The Conservative principle of government, 
 on the other hand, is, that mankind are radi- 
 cally and universally corrupt; that when in- 
 vested with power, in whatever form of govern- 
 ment, and from whatever class of society, they 
 are immediately inclined to apply it to their 
 own selfish ends ; that the diffusion of education 
 and knowledge has no tendency whatever to 
 eradicate this universal propensity, but only 
 gives it a different, less violent, but not less 
 interested direction ; that the diffusion of su- 
 preme power among a multitude of hands di- 
 minishes to nothing the responsibility of each 
 individual, while it augments in a proportionate 
 degree the rapacity and selfishness which is 
 brought to bear on public affairs; that when 
 the multitude are the spectators of government, 
 they are inclined to check or restrain its abuses, 
 because others profit, and they suffer by them; 
 but when they become government itself, they 
 instantly support them, because they profit, and 
 others suffer from their continuance; that 
 democratic institutions thus, when once fully 
 and really established, rapidly deprave the 
 public mind, and engender an universal spirit 
 of selfishness in the majority of the people, 
 which speedily subverts the foundations of 
 national prosperity; and that it is only when 
 property is the directing, and numbers the con- 
 trolling power, that the inherent vices and self- 
 ishness of the depositaries of authority can be 
 effectually coerced by the opinion of the great 
 majority who are likely to suffer by its ex- 
 cesses, or a lasting foundation be laid in the 
 adherence of national opinion to the principles 
 of virtue for any lengthened enjoyment of the 
 blessings of prosperity, or any durable dis- 
 charge of the commands of duty. 
 
 These are the opposite and conflicting prin- 
 ciples of government which are now at issue 
 in the world: and it is to support the former 
 that Mr. Bulwer has brought the power of a 
 cultivated mind and the vigour of an enlarged 
 intellect. Athens was a favourable ground to 
 take, in order to enforce the incalculable pow- 
 ers of the democratic spring in society. No- 
 where else is to be found a state so small in 
 its origin, and yet so great in its progress : so 
 contracted in its territory, and yet so gigantic 
 in its achievements: so limited in numbers, 
 and yet so immortal in genius. Its dominions 
 on the continent of Greece did not exceed an 
 English county; its free inhabitants never 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 231 
 
 amounted to thirty thousand citizens yet these 
 inconsiderable numbers have filled the world 
 with their renown ; poetry, philosophy, archi- 
 tecture, sculpture, tragedy, comedy, geometry, 
 physics, history, politics, almost date their 
 origin from Athenian genius ; and the monu- 
 ments of art with which they have overspread 
 the world still form the standard of taste in 
 every civilized nation on earth. It is not sur- 
 prising that so brilliant and captivating a 
 spectacle should in every age have dazzled and 
 transported mankind ; and that seeing demo- 
 cratic institutions co-existing with so extra- 
 ordinary a development of the intellectual 
 faculties, it should have come to be generally 
 imagined that they really were cause and effect, 
 and that the only secure foundation which could 
 be laid for the attainment of the highest hon- 
 ours of our being was in the extension of the 
 powers of government to the great body of the 
 people. 
 
 Athens, however, has its dark as well as its 
 brilliant side ; and if the perfection of its sci- 
 ence, the delicacy of its taste, and the refine- 
 ment of its arts, furnish a plausible, and, in a 
 certain degree, a just ground for representing 
 democratic institutions as the greatest stimu- 
 lant to the human mind, the brevity of its ex- 
 istence, the injustice of its decisions, the insta- 
 bility of its councils, and the cruelty of its de- 
 crees, afford too fair a reason for doubting the 
 wisdom of imitating, on a larger scale, any of 
 its institutions. Its rise was rapid and glori- 
 ous ; but the era of its prosperity was brief; 
 and it sunk, after a short space of existence, 
 into an obscure, and, politically speaking, in- 
 significant old age. The sway of the multitude, 
 who formed the council of last resort in the 
 commonwealth, was capricious and tyrannical ; 
 and such as thoroughly disgusted all the states 
 in the confederacy of which it was the head. 
 There was the secret of its weakness. Instead 
 of protecting and cherishing the tributary and 
 allied states, the Athenian democracy insulted 
 and oppressed them, and in consequence, on 
 the first serious reverse, they all revolted; and 
 the fleets which had constituted their strength 
 were at once ranged on the side of the enemies 
 of the state. The flames of Aigospotamos con- 
 sumed the Athenian navy ; but that disaster, 
 great as it undoubtedly was, was not greater 
 than the rout of Trasymene, the slaughter of 
 Cannre, the irruption of the Gauls to Rome. 
 But Athens had not the steady persevering rule 
 of the Roman patricians; nor the. wise and 
 beneficent policy of the Senate to the states and 
 alliance, and thence they wanted both the 
 energy requisite to rise superior to all their 
 misfortunes, and the grateful feelings which, 
 in moments of disaster, ranged the allied states 
 in steady and durable array around them. 
 During the invasion by Hannibal, which, as 
 involving a civil contest between the Patricians 
 and Plebeians in all the Italian cities, very 
 nearly resembled the Peloponnesian war, not 
 one state of any moment revolted from t he- 
 Roman alliance till after the disaster of Cannae ; ' 
 and even then it was only Capua, the rival of j 
 Rome, which took any vigorous part with the 
 Carthagenians, and a very little effort was 
 sufficient to retain the other allied cities in the 
 
 I Roman confederacy, or reclaim such as, from 
 j the presence of the Punic arms, had passed 
 j over to their enemies. Whereas, in Greece, 
 on the very first reverse, the whole states and 
 colonies in alliance constantly passed over to 
 the Lacedemonian league ; and the growth of 
 the power of Athens was repeatedly checked 
 by the periodical reduction of its strength to 
 the resources of its own territory. Had the 
 Athenian multitude possessed the enduring 
 fortitude and beneficent rule of the Roman 
 ! aristocracy, they might, like them, have risen 
 superior to every reverse, and gradually spread, 
 by the willing incorporation of lesser states 
 with their dominions, into a vast empire, ex- 
 tending over the whole shore's of the Mediter- 
 ranean, and giving law, like the mighty empire 
 which succeeded them, for a thousand years 
 to the whole civilized world. 
 
 Mr. Bulwer appears to be aware of the brief 
 tenure of existence which Athens enjoyed ; but 
 he erroneously ascribes to general causes or 
 inevitable necessity what in its case was the 
 result merely of the fever of democratic ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 " In that restless and unpausing energy, 
 which is the characteristic of an intellectual 
 republic, there seems, as it were, a kind of 
 destiny : a power impossible to resist urges the 
 state from action to action, from progress to 
 progress, with a rapidity dangerous while it 
 dazzles ; resembling in this the career of indi- 
 viduals impelled onward, first to attain, and 
 thence to preserve power, and who cannot 
 struggle against the fate which necessitates 
 them to soar, until, by the moral gravitation 
 of human things, the point which has no beyond 
 is attained; and the next effort to rise is but the 
 prelude of their fall. In such states Time, in- 
 deed, moves with gigantic strides ; years con- 
 centrate what would be the epochs of centuries 
 in the march of less popular institutions. The 
 planet of their fortunes rolls with an equal 
 speed through the cycle of internal civilization 
 as of foreign glory. The condition of their 
 brilliant life is the absence of repose. The 
 accelerated circulation of the blood beautifies 
 but consumes, and action itself, exhausting the 
 stores of youth by its very vigour, becomes a 
 mortal but divine disease." 
 
 Now, in this eloquent passage there is an 
 obvious error; and it is on this point that the 
 Conservative or Constitutional principle of 
 Government mainly differs from the Movement 
 or Democratic. Aware of the violence of the 
 fever which in Republican states exhausts the 
 strength and wears out the energy of the people, 
 the Conservative would not extinguish but 
 regulate it; he would stop its diseased and 
 feverish, to prolong and strengthen its healthy 
 and vital action. He would not allow the 
 youth to waste his strength and life in a brief 
 period of guilty excess, or unrestrained indul- 
 gence, but so chasten and moderate the fever 
 of the blood as to secure for him a useful man- 
 hood and a respected old age. The democrat, 
 on the other hand, would plunge him at once 
 into all the excesses of youth and intemperance, 
 throw him into the arms of harlots arid the 
 orgies of drunkenness, and, amidst wine and 
 women, the harp and the dance, lead him to 
 
232 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 poverty, sickness, and premature dissolution. 
 And ancient history affords a memorable con- 
 trast in this particular; for while Athens, worn 
 out and exhausted by the fever of democratic 
 activity, rose like a brilliant meteor only to 
 fall after a life as short as that of a single 
 individual, Rome, in whom this superabundant 
 energy was for centuries coerced and restrained 
 by the solidity of Patrician institutions and the 
 steadiness of Patrician rule, continued steadily 
 to rise and advance through a succession of 
 ages, and at length succeeded in subjecting 
 the whole civilized earth to its dominion. 
 
 It has long been a matter of reproach to 
 Athens, that she behaved with the blackest in- 
 gratitude to her greatest citizens; and that 
 Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, So- 
 crates, Thucydides, and a host of other illus- 
 trious men, received exile, confiscation, ordeath 
 as the reward for the inestimable benefits they 
 had conferred upon their fellow-citizens. Mr. 
 Bulwer is much puzzled how to explain away 
 these awkward facts; but as the banishment 
 of these illustrious citizens, and the death of 
 this illustrious sage, from the effects of popu- 
 lar jealousy, cannot be denied, he boldly en- 
 deavours to justify these atrocious acts of the 
 Athenian democracy. In regard to Miltiades 
 he observes : 
 
 " The case was simply this, Miltiades was 
 accused whether justly or unjustly no matter 
 it was clearly as impossible not to receive 
 the accusation, and to try the cause, as it 
 would be for an English court of justice to 
 refuse to admit a criminal action against Lord 
 Grey or the Duke of Wellington. Was Mil- 
 tiades guilty or not? This we cannot tell. 
 We know that he was tried according to the 
 law, and that the Athenians thought him guilty, 
 for they condemned him. So far this is not 
 ingratitude it is the course of law. A man 
 is tried and found guilty if past services 
 and renown were to save the great from pun- 
 ishment when convicted of a state offence, 
 society would, perhaps, be disorganized, and 
 certainly a free state would cease to exist. 
 The question, therefore, shrinks to this was 
 it, or was it not ungrateful in the people to 
 relax the penalty of death, legally incurred, 
 and commute it to a heavy fine? I fear we 
 shall find few instances of greater clemency in 
 monarchies, however mild. Miltiades unhap- 
 pily died. But nature slew him, not the Athe- 
 nian people. And it cannot be said with 
 greater justice of the Athenians, than of a 
 people no less illustrious, and who are now 
 their judges, that it was their custom, < de tuer 
 un Jlmiral pour encourapcr les avtres.' " 
 
 This passage affords an example of the 
 determination which Mr. Bulwer generally 
 evinces to justify and support the acts of his 
 darling democracy, however extravagant or 
 monstrous they may have been. Doubtless, 
 we are not informed very specifically as to the 
 nature of the evidence adduced in support of 
 the charge of bribery brought against Miltiades. 
 Doubtless, also, it was necessary to receive the 
 charge when once preferred ; but was it neces- 
 sary to convict him, and send the hero of Mara- 
 thon, the saviour of his country, into a painful 
 exile, which ultimately proved his death? 
 
 That is the point, and, as the evidence is not 
 laid before us, what right has Mr. Bulwer to 
 assume that the Athenian multitude were not 
 ungrateful or unjust in their decision? For 
 their conduct, in this instance, they received 
 the unanimous condemnation of the historian 
 of antiquity, and yet Mr. Bulwer affirms that 
 never was complaint more unjust. The fact 
 is certain, that all the greatest benefactors of 
 Athens were banished by the ostracism, or vote 
 of all the citizens, though the evidence adduced 
 in support of the charges is, for the most part, 
 unknown ; but as these deeds were the acts of 
 democratic assemblies, Mr. Bulwer, without 
 any grounds for his opinion, in opposition to 
 the unanimous voice of antiquity, vindicates 
 and approves them. 
 
 Ii is clear, from Mr. Bulwer's own admission, 
 that the banishment of almost all these illus- 
 trious benefactors of Athens was owing to their 
 resisting democratic innovations, or striving 
 to restore the constitution to the mixed condi- 
 tion in which it existed previous to the great 
 democratic innovations of Solon and Themis- 
 tocles : but such resistance, or attempts even 
 by the most constitutional means to restore, he 
 seems to consider as amply sufficient to justify 
 their exile ! In regard to the banishment of 
 Cimon he observes : 
 
 " Without calling into question the integrity 
 and the patriotism of Cimon, without sup- 
 posing that he would have entered into any 
 intrigue against the Athenian independence 
 of foreign powers a supposition his subse- 
 quent conduct effectually refutes he might, 
 as a sincere and warm partisan of the nobles, 
 and a resolute opposer of the popular party, 
 have sought to restore at home the aristocratic 
 balance of power, by whatever means his 
 reat rank, and influence, and connection with 
 the Lacedaemonian party could afford him. 
 We are told, at least, that he not only op- 
 posed all the advances of the more liberal 
 party that he not only stood resolutely by the 
 interests and dignities of the Areopagus, which 
 had ceased to harmonize with the more modern 
 institutions, but that he expressly sought to 
 estorc certain prerogatives which that assem- 
 bly had formally lost during his foreign expe- 
 ditions, and that he earnestly endeavoured to 
 bring back the whole constitution to the more 
 aristocratic government established by Clis- 
 thenes. It is one thing to preserve, it is 
 another to restore. A people may be deluded, 
 under popular pretexts, out of the rights they 
 lave newly acquired, but they never submit 
 to be openly despoiled of them. Nor can we 
 call that ingratitude which is but the refusal 
 o surrender to the merits of an individual the 
 acquisitions of a nation. 
 
 " All things considered, then, I believe, that 
 f ever ostracism was justifiable, it was so in 
 the case of Cimon nay, it was, perhaps, 
 absolutely essential to the preservation of the 
 constitution. His very honesty made him re- 
 solute in his attempts against that constitution. 
 His talents, his rank, his fame, his services, 
 only rendered those attempts more dangerous. 
 
 "Could the reader be induced to view, with 
 an examination equally dispassionate, the seve- 
 ral ostracisms of Aristides and Themistocles, 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 he might see equal causes of justification, both 
 in the motives and in the results. The firs 
 was absolutely necessary for the defeat of the 
 aristocratic party, and the removal of restric 
 tions on those energies which instantly founc 
 the most glorious vents for action ; the seconc 
 was justified by a similar necessity, that pro- 
 duced similar effects. To impartial eyes a 
 people may be vindicated without traducing 
 those whom a people are driven to oppose 
 In such august and complicated trials the ac- 
 cuser and defendant may be both innocent.' 
 
 Here then is the key to the hideous ingrati- 
 tude of the Athenian people to their two most 
 illustrious benefactors, Anstides and Cimon. 
 They obstructed ike Movement Parly : they held 
 by the constitution, and endeavoured to bring 
 back a mixed form of government. Thi.' 
 heinous offence was, in the eyes of the Athe^ 
 nian democracy, and their apologist, Mr. Bui- 
 wer, amply sufficient to justify their banish- 
 ment: a proceeding, he says, which was right, 
 even although they were innocent of the charges 
 laid against them as if injustice can in any 
 case be vindicated by state necessity, or the 
 form of government is to be approved which 
 requires for its maintenance the periodical 
 sacrifice of its noblest and most illustrious 
 citizens ! 
 
 In another place, Mr. Bulwer observes 
 "Themistocles was summoned to the ordeal 
 of the ostracism, and condemned by the majo- 
 rity of 'suffrages. Thus, like Aristides, not 
 punished for offences, but paying the honourable 
 penalty of rising by genius to that state of eminence, 
 u'hich threatens danger to the equality of republic*. 
 "He departed from Athens, and chose his 
 refuge at Argos, whose hatred to Sparta, his 
 deadliest foe, promised him the securest pro- 
 tection. 
 
 "Death soon afterwards removed Anstides 
 from all competitorship with Cimon; accord- 
 ing to the most probable accounts he died at 
 Athens ; and at the time of Plutarch his monu- 
 ment was still to be seen at Phalerum. His 
 countrymen, who, despite all plausible charges, 
 were never ungrateful except where their, lib- 
 erties appeared imperilled, (whether rightly or 
 erroneously our documents are too scanty to 
 prove,) erected his monument at the public 
 charge, portioned his three daughters, and 
 awarded to his son Lysimachus a grant of one 
 hundred minae of silver, a plantation of one 
 hundred plethra of land, and a pension of four 
 drachmae a day, (double the allowance of an 
 Athenian ambassador.") 
 
 There can be no doubt that the admission 
 here candidly made by Mr. Bulwer is well- 
 founded; and that jealousy of the eminence of 
 their great national benefactors, or anxiety to 
 remove aristocratic barriers to further popular 
 innovations, was the real cause of that ingra- 
 titude to their most illustrious benefactors, 
 which has left so dark a stain on the Athenian 
 character. But can it seriously be argued that 
 that constitution is to be approved, and held 
 up for imitation, which in this manner re- 
 quires that national services should almost 
 invariably be followed by confiscation and ex- 
 ile; and anticipates the overthrow of the public 
 liberties from the ascendency of every illus- 
 
 trious man, if he is not speedily sent into ban- 
 ishment] Is this the boasted intelligence of 
 the masses ] Is this the wisdom which demo- 
 cratic institutions bring to bear upon public 
 affairs 1 Is this the reward which, by a perma- 
 nent law of nature, freedom must ever provide 
 for the most illustrious of its champions 7 Why 
 is it necessary that great men and beneficent 
 statesmen or commanders should invariably 
 be exiled 1 The English constitution required 
 for its continuance the exile neither of Pitt nor 
 Fox, of .Nelson nor Wellington. The Roman 
 republic, until the fatal period when the au- 
 thority of the aristocracy was overthrown by 
 the growing encroachments of the plebeians, 
 retained all its illustrious citizens, with a few 
 well-known exceptions, in its own bosom : ar<d 
 the tomb of the Scipios still attests the num- 
 ber of that heroic race, who, with the exception 
 of the illustrious conqueror of Hannibal, the 
 victim, like Themistocles, of democratic jea- 
 lousy, were gathered to the tomb of their fa 
 thers. There is no necessity in a well-regulated 
 state, where the different powers are duly ba- 
 lanced, of subjecting the illustrious to the os- 
 tracism: good government provides against 
 danger without committing injustice. 
 
 Mr. Bulwer has candidly stated the' perni- 
 cious effect of those most vicious of the many 
 vicious institutions of Athens the exacting 
 tribute from their conquered and allied states 
 to the relief of the dominant multitude in the 
 ruling city; and the fatal devolution to the 
 whole citizens of the duties and responsibility 
 of judicial power. On the first subject he ob- 
 serves : 
 
 "Thus at home and abroad, time and for- 
 tune, the occurrence of events, and the happy 
 accident of great nwn, not only maintained the 
 present eminence of Athens, but promised, to 
 rdinary foresight, a long duration of her glory 
 and her power. To deeper observers, the pic- 
 ture might have presented dim, but prophetic 
 shadows. It was clear that the command . 
 Athens had obtained was utterly dispropor- 
 tioned to her natural resources that her great- 
 ness was altogether artificial, and rested partly 
 upon "moral rather than physical causes, and 
 partly upon the fears and the weakness of her 
 neighbours. A sterile soil, a limited territory, 
 a scanty population all these the drawbacks 
 and disadvantages of nature the wonderful 
 energy and confident daring of a free state 
 might conceal in prosperity ; but the first ca- 
 lamity could not fail to expose them to jealous 
 and hostile eyes. The empire delegated to the 
 Athenians, they must naturally desire to retain 
 and to increase; and there was every reason 
 o forebode that their ambition would soon ex- 
 ceed their capacities to sustain it. As the state 
 jecome accustomed to its power, it would learn 
 o abuse it. Increasing civilization, luxury, and 
 art, brought with them new expenses, and 
 Athens had already been permitted to indulge 
 
 h impunity the dangerous passion of ex- 
 acting tribute from her neighbours. Dependence 
 ipon other resources than those of the native 
 lopulation has ever been a main cause of the 
 destruction of despotisms, and it cannot fail, 
 sooner or later, to be equally pernicious to the 
 republics that trust to it. The resources of 
 v 2 
 
234 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 taxation confined to freemen and natives, are 
 almost incalculable : the resources of tribute 
 wrung from foreigners and dependents, are 
 sternly limited and terribly precarious they 
 rot away the true spirit of industry in th< 
 people that demand the impost they implan 
 ineradicable hatred in the states that concede 
 it." 
 
 There can be no doubt that these observa 
 tions are well-founded; and let us beware 
 lest they become applicable to ourselves. Al- 
 ready in the policy of England has been evinced 
 a sufficient inclination to load colonial industry 
 with oppressive duties, to the relief of the do- 
 minant island, as the enormous burdens im- 
 posed on West India produce, to the entire re- 
 lief of the corresponding agricultural produce at 
 home, sufficiently demonstrates. And if the pre 
 sent democratic ascendency in this country 
 should continue unabated for any considerable 
 time, we venture to prophesy, that if no other and 
 more immediate cause of ruin sends the com- 
 monwealth to perdition, it will infallibly see 
 its colonial empire break off, and consequently 
 its maritime power destroyed, by the injustice 
 done to, or the burdens imposed on, its colo- 
 nial possessions, by the impatient ruling mul- 
 titude at home, who, in any measure calculated 
 to diminish present burdens on themselves, at 
 whatever cost to their colonial dependencies, 
 will ever see the most expedient and popular 
 course of policy.* 
 
 The other enormous evil of the Athenian 
 constitution viz., the exercise of judicial 
 powers of the highest description by a mob 
 of several thousand citizens, is thus described 
 by our author : 
 
 "A yet more pernicious evil in the social 
 state of the Athenians was radical in their con- 
 stitution, it was their courts of justice. Pro- 
 ceeding upon a theory that must have seemed 
 specious and plausible to an inexperienced and 
 infant republic, Solon had laid it down as a 
 principle of his code, that as all men were in- 
 terested in the preservation of law, so all men 
 might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and 
 accuser. As society grew more complicated, 
 the door was thus opened to every species of 
 vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The 
 common informer became a most harassing 
 and powerful personage, and made one of a 
 fruitful and crowded profession : and in the 
 very capital of liberty there existed the worst 
 species of espionage. But justice was not 
 thereby facilitated. The informer was regarded 
 with universal hatred and contempt ; and it is 
 easy to perceive, from the writings of the 
 great comic poet, that the sympathies of the 
 Athenian audience were, as those of the Eng- 
 lish public at this day, enlisted against the 
 man who brought the inquisition of the law to 
 the hearth of his neighbour. 
 
 "Solon committed a yet more fatal and in- 
 curable error when he carried the democratic 
 principle into judicial tribunals. He evidently 
 considered that the very strength and life of 
 his constitution rested in the Heliaea a court 
 the numbers and nature of which have been 
 already described. Perhaps, at a time when 
 
 * How soon has this prophecy been accomplished? 
 Sept. 5, 1844. 
 
 the old oligarchy was yet so formidable, it 
 might have been difficult to secure justice to 
 the poorer classes, while the judges were se- 
 lected from the wealthier. But justice to all 
 classes became a yet more capricious uncer- 
 tainty when a court of law resembled a popu- 
 lar hustings. 
 
 "If we intrust a wide political suffrage to 
 the people, the people at least hold no trust for 
 others than themselves and their posterity 
 they are not responsible to the public, for they 
 are the public. But in law, where there are two 
 parties concerned, the plaintiff and defendant, 
 the judge should not only be incorruptible, but 
 strictly responsible. In Athens the people be- 
 came the judge ; and, in offences punishable by 
 fine, were the very party interested in procuring 
 condemnation ; the numbers of the jury prevent- 
 ed all responsibility, excused all abuses, and 
 made them susceptible of the same shameless 
 excesses that characterize self-elected corpora- 
 tions from which appeal is idle, and over 
 which public opinion exercises no control. 
 These numerous, ignorant, and passionate as- 
 semblies, were liable at all times to the heats 
 of party, to the eloquence of individuals 
 to the whims, and caprices, the prejudices, the 
 impatience, and the turbulence, which must 
 ever be the characteristics of a multitude orally 
 addressed. It was evident also that from ser- 
 vice in such a court, the wealthy, the eminent, 
 and the learned, with other occupation or 
 amusement, would soon seek to absent them- 
 selves. And the final blow to the integrity 
 and respectability of the popular judicature 
 was given at a later period by Pericles, when 
 ic instituted a salary, just sufficient to tempt 
 he poor and to be disdained by the affluent, 
 to every dicast or juryman in the ten ordinary 
 courts. Legal science became not the pro- 
 ession of the erudite and the laborious few, 
 nut the livelihood of the ignorant and idle mul- 
 itude. The canvassing the cajoling the 
 Bribery that resulted from this, the most 
 vicious, institution of the Athenian democracy 
 are but too evident and melancholy tokens 
 f the imperfection of human wisdom. Life, 
 jroperty, and character, were at the hazard of 
 a popular election. These evils must have 
 seen long in progressive operation; but per- 
 laps they were scarcely visible till the fatal 
 nnovation of Pericles, arid the flagrant ex- 
 cesses that ensued allowed the people them- 
 selves to listen to the branding and terrible 
 satire upon the popular judicature, which is 
 still preserved to us in the comedy of Aristo- 
 phanes. 
 
 At the same lime, certain critics and his- 
 orians have widely and grossly erred in snp- 
 ?osing that these courts of ' the sovereign 
 multitude' were partial to the poor, and hostile 
 o the rich. All testimony proves that the fact 
 was lamentably the reverse. The defendant 
 was accustomed to engage the persons of rank 
 >r influence whom he might number as his 
 riends, to appear in court on his behalf. And 
 >roperty was employed to procure at the bar 
 )f justice the suffrages it could command at a 
 >olitical election. The greatest vice of the 
 democratic Helisea was, that by a fine the 
 wealthy could purchase pardon by interest 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 235 
 
 the great could soften law. But the chanc.es 
 were against the poor man. To him litigation 
 was indeed cheap, but justice dear. He had 
 much the same inequality to struggle against 
 in a suit with a powerful antagonist, that he 
 would have had in contesting with him for an 
 office in the administration. In all trials rest- 
 ing on the voice of popular assemblies, it ever 
 has been and ever will be found, that, rcsteris 
 paribus, the aristocrat will defeat the plebeian." 
 These observations are equally just and lu 
 minous ; and the concluding one in particular, 
 as to the tendency of a corrupt or corruptible 
 judicial multitude to decide in favour of the 
 rich aristocrat in preference to the poor ple- 
 beian, in an author of Mr. Bulwer's prepos- 
 sessions, highly creditable. The only surpris- 
 ing thing is how an author, who could see so 
 clearly, and express so well, the total incapa- 
 city of a multitude to exercise the functions 
 of a judge, should not have perceived, that, for 
 the same reason, they are disqualified from 
 taking an active part to any good or useful 
 purpose in the formation of laws or practical 
 administration of government, except by pre- 
 serving a vigilant eye on the conduct of others. 
 In fact, the temptations to the poor to swerve 
 from the path of rectitude, or conscience, in 
 the case of government appointments or mea- 
 sures, are just as much the stronger than in 
 the judgment of individuals, as the subjects 
 requiring investigation are more intricate or 
 difficult, the objects of contention more import- 
 ant and glittering, and the wealth which will 
 be expended in corruption more abundant. 
 And there in truth lies the eternal objection to 
 democratic institutions, that, by withdrawing 
 the people from their right province that of 
 the censors or controllers of government and 
 vesting in them the perilous powers of actual 
 administration or direction of affairs, they ne- 
 cessarily expose them to such a deluge of flat- 
 tery or corruption, from the eloquent or wealthy 
 candidates for power, as not merely unfits them 
 for the sober or rational discharge of any pub- 
 lic duties, but utterly confounds and depraves 
 their moral feelings; and induces, before the 
 time when it would naturally arrive, that uni- 
 versal corruption of opinion which speedily 
 attaches no other test to public actions but 
 success, and leads men to consider the exer- 
 cise of public duties as nothing but the means 
 of individual elevation or aggrandizement. 
 
 We have given some passages from Mr. 
 Bulwer from which we dissent, or in the prin- 
 ciples of which we differ. Let us now, in 
 justice both to his principles and his powers 
 of description, give a few others, in which we 
 cordially concur, or for which we feel the high- 
 est admiration. The first is the description of 
 the memorable conduct of the Laconian go- 
 vernment, upon occasion of the dreadful revolt 
 of the Helots which followed the great earth- 
 quake which nearly overthrew Lacedeemon, 
 and rolled the rock of Mount Taygetus into the 
 streets of Sparta 
 
 "An earthquake, unprecedented in its vio- 
 lence, occurred in Sparta. In many places 
 throughout Laconia, the rocky soil was rent ' 
 asunder. From Mount Taygetus, which over- j 
 hung the city, and on which the women of j 
 
 Lacedaemon were wont to hold their bacchana- 
 lian orgies, huge fragments rolled into the 
 i suburbs. The greater portion of the city was 
 absolutely overthrown; and it is said, proba- 
 bly with exaggeration, that only five houses 
 wholly escaped the shock. This terrible cala- 
 mity did not cease suddenly as it came ; its 
 concussions were repeated; it buried alike 
 men and treasure: could we credit Diodorus, 
 no less, than twenty thousand persons perished 
 in the shock. Thus depopulated, impoverished, 
 and distressed, the enemies whom the cruelty 
 of Sparta nursed within her bosom, resolved 
 to seize the moment to execute their ven- 
 geance, and consummate her destruction. Un- 
 der Pausanias, we have seen before, that the 
 Helots were already ripe for revolt. The death 
 of that fierce conspirator checked, but did not 
 crush, their designs of freedom. Now was 
 the moment, when Sparta lay in ruins 
 now was the moment to realize their dreams. 
 From field to field, from village to village, the 
 news of the earthquake became the watchword 
 of revolt. Up rose the Helots they armed 
 themselves, they poured on a wild and gather- 
 ing and relentless multitude resolved to slay, 
 by the wrath of man, all whom that of nature 
 had yet spared. The earthquake that levelled 
 Sparta, rent her chains ; nor did the shock 
 create one chasm so dark and wide as that be- 
 tween the master and the slave. 
 
 " It is one of the sublimest and most awful 
 spectacles in history that city in ruins the 
 earth still trembling the grim and dauntless 
 soldiery collected amidst piles of death and 
 ruin ; and in such a time, and such a scene, 
 the multitude sensible, not of danger, but of 
 wrong, and rising, not to succour, but to re- 
 venge : all that should have disarmed a fee- 
 bler enmity, giving fire to theirs; the dreadest 
 calamity their blessing dismay their hope : it 
 was as if the Great Mother herself had sum- 
 moned her children to vindicate the long- 
 abused, the all-inalienable heritage derived 
 from her ; and the stir of the angry elements 
 was but the announcement of an armed and 
 solemn union between Nature and the Op- 
 pressed. 
 
 " Fortunately for Sparta, the danger was not 
 altogether unforeseen. After the confusion 
 and horror of the earthquake, and while the 
 people, dispersed, were seeking to save their 
 effects, Archidamus, who, four years before, 
 had succeeded to the throne of Lacedoemon, 
 ordered the trumpets to sound as to arms. 
 That wonderful superiority of man over mat- 
 ter which habit and discipline can effect, and 
 which was ever so visible amongst the Spar- 
 tans, constituted their safety at that hour. 
 Forsaking the care of their property, the Spar- 
 tans seized their arms, flocked around their 
 king, and drew up in disciplined array. In 
 tier most imminent crisis, Sparta was thus 
 saved. The Helots approached, wild, disor- 
 derly, and tumultuous ; they came intent only 
 to plunder and to slay; they expected to find 
 scattered and affrighted foes they found a 
 formidable army ; their tyrants were still their 
 lords. They saw, paused, and fled, scattering 
 themselves over the country exciting all they 
 met to rebellion, and, soon, joined with the 
 
23fi 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Messenians. kindred to them by blood and an- 
 cient reminiscences of heroic struggles, they j 
 seized that same It home which their hereditary 
 Aristodemus had before occupied with unfor- : 
 gotten valour. This they fortified ; and occu- < 
 pying also the neighbouring lands, declared ] 
 open war upon their lords. As the Messe- j 
 nians were the more worthy enemy, so the 
 general insurrection is known by the name of 
 the Third Messenian War." 
 
 The incident here narrated of the King of 
 Sparta, amidst the yawning of the earthquake ! 
 and the ruin of his capital, sounding the trum- 
 pets to arms, and the Lacedjemonians assem- I 
 blirig in disciplined array around him, is one j 
 of the sublimest recorded in history. The | 
 pencil of Martin would there find a fit subject 
 lor its noblest efforts. We need not wonder 
 that a people, capable of such conduct in such 
 a moment, and trained by discipline and habit 
 to such docility in danger, should acquire and 
 maintain supreme dominion in Greece. 
 
 The next passage with which we shall gra- 
 tify our readers, is an eloquent eulogium on a 
 marvellous topic the unrivalled grace and 
 beauty of the Athenian edifices, erected in the 
 time of Pericles. 
 
 " Then rapidly progressed those glorious fa- 
 brics which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully 
 expresses it, endowed with the bloom of a 
 perennial youth. Still the houses of private 
 citizens remained simple and unadorned; still 
 were the streets narrow and irregular; and 
 even centuries afterwards, a stranger entering 
 Athens would not at first have recognised the 
 claims of the mistress of Grecian art. But to 
 the homeliness of her common thoroughfares 
 and private mansions, the magnificence of her 
 public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. 
 The Acropolis that towered above the homes 
 and thoroughfares of men a spot too sacred 
 for human habitation became, to use a pro- 
 verbial phrase, 'a city of the gods.' The citi- 
 zen was everywhere to be reminded of the 
 majesty of the STATE his patriotism was to 
 be increased by the pride in her beauty his 
 taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her 
 splendour. Thus flocked to Athens all who 
 throughout Greece were eminent in art. Sculp- 
 tors and architects vied with each other in 
 adorning the young Empress of the Seas ; then 
 rose the masterpieces of Phidias, of Callicrates, 
 of Menesicles, which, even either in their 
 broken remains, or in the feeble copies of imi- 
 tators less inspired, still command so intense 
 a wonder, and furnish models so immortal. 
 And if, so to speak, their bones and relics ex- 
 cite our awe and envy, as testifying of a love- 
 lier and grander race, which the deluge of time 
 has swept away, what, in that day, must have 
 been their brilliant effect unmutilated in their 
 fair proportions fresh in all their lineaments 
 and hues 1 For their beauty was not limited 
 to the symmetry of arch and column, nor their 
 materials confined to the marbles of Pentelli- 
 cus and -Faros. Even the exterior of the 
 temples glowed with the richest harmony of 
 colours, and was decorated with the purest 
 gold; an atmosphere peculiarly favourable 
 both to the display and the preservation of art, 
 permitted to external pediments and friezes all 
 
 the minuteness of ornament all the brilliancy 
 of colours; such as in the interior of Italian 
 churches may yet be seen vitiated, in the last, 
 by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor did the 
 Athenians spare any cost upon the works that 
 were, like the tombs and tripods of their he- 
 roes, to be ihe monuments of a nation to dis- 
 tant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragable 
 proof 'that the power of ancient Greece was 
 not an idle legend.' The whole democracy 
 were animated with the passion of Pericles ; 
 arid when Phidias recommended marble as a 
 cheaper material than ivory for the great sta- 
 tue of Minerva, it was for that reason that 
 ivory was preferred by the unanimous voice of 
 the assembly. Thus, whether it were extrava- 
 gance or magnificence, the blame in one case, 
 the admiration in another, rests not more with 
 the minister than the populace. It was, in- 
 deed, the great characteristic of those works, 
 that they were entirely the creations of the 
 people : without the people, Pericles could not 
 have built a temple, or engaged a sculptor. 
 The miracles of that day resulted from the 
 enthusiasm of a population yet young full of 
 the first ardour for the beautiful dedicating 
 to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies ho- 
 nourably won, or the treasures injuriously 
 extorted and uniting the resources of a na- 
 tion with the energy of an individual, because 
 the toil, the cost, were borne by those who 
 succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the 
 glory." 
 
 This is eloquently said: but in searching 
 for the causes of the Athenian supremacy in 
 taste and art, especially sculpture and architec- 
 ture, we suspect the historic observer must 
 look for higher and more spiritual causes than 
 the mere energy and feverish excitement of 
 democratic institutions. For, admitting that 
 energy and universal exertion are in every 
 age the characteristic of republican states, how 
 did it happen that, in Athens alone, it took so 
 early and decidedly the direction of taste and 
 art? That is the point which constitutes the 
 marvel, as well as the extraordinary perfection 
 which it at once acquired. Many other nations 
 in ancient and modern times have been re- 
 publican, Corinth, Tyre, Carthage, Sidon, 
 Sardis, Syracuse, Marseilles, Holland, Switzer- 
 land, America, but where shall we find one 
 which produced the Parthenon or the Apollo 
 Belvidere, the Tragedies of ^Eschylus or the 
 wisdom of Socrates, the thought of Thucydides 
 or the visions of Plato? How has it happened 
 that those democratic institutions, which in 
 modern times are found to be generally as- 
 sociated only with vulgar manners, urban dis- 
 cord, or commercial desires, should there have 
 elevated the nation in a few years to the high- 
 est pinnacle of intellectual glory that, instead 
 of Dutch ponderosity, or Swiss slowness, of 
 American ambition, or Florentine discord, re- 
 publicanism on the shores of Attica produced 
 the fire of Demosthenes, the grace of Euripides, 
 the narrative ofXenophon,the taste of Phidias? 
 After the most attentive consideration, we find 
 it impossible to explain this marvel of marvels 
 by the agency merely of human causes ; and 
 are constrained to ascribe the placing of the 
 eye of Greece on the shores of Attica to the 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 237 
 
 same invisible hand which has fixed the won- 1 bucklers, waited with a stern patience the 
 ders of vision in the human forehead. There | time of their leader and of Heaven. Then fell 
 
 are certain starts in human progress, and more 
 especially in the advance of art, which it is 
 utterly hopeless to refer to any other cause but 
 the immediate design and agency of the Al 
 mighty. Democratic institutions afford no sort 
 of explanation of them : we see no Parthenons 
 nor Sophocles, nor Platos in embryo, either in 
 America since its independence, or France 
 during the Revolution, nor England since the 
 passing of the Reform Bill. When we reflect 
 that taste, in Athens, in thirty years after the 
 Persian invasion, had risen up from the in- 
 fantine rudeness of the JGgina Marbles to the 
 faultless peristyle and matchless sculpture of 
 the Parthenon; that in modern Italy, the art of 
 painting rose in the lifetime of a single in 
 dividual, who died at the age of thirty-eight, 
 from the stiff outline and hard colouring of 
 Pietro Perrugino to the exquisite grace of 
 Raphael: and that it was during an age when 
 the barons to the north of the Alps could nei- 
 ther read nor write, and when rushes were 
 strewed on the floors instead of carpets, lhat 
 the unrivalled sublimity of Gothic Cathedrals 
 was conceived, and the hitherto unequalled 
 skill of their structure attained : we are con- 
 strained to admit that a greater power than 
 that of man superintends human affairs, and 
 that, from the rudest and most unpromising 
 materials, Providence can, at the appointed 
 season, bring forth the greatest and most ex- 
 aJted efforts of human intellect. 
 
 As a favourable specimen of our author's 
 powers of military description, no unimport 
 ant quality in an historian, we shall gratify our 
 readers by his account of the battle of Platea; 
 the most vital conflict to the fortunes of the 
 species which occurred in all antiquity, and 
 which we have never elsewhere read in so 
 graphic and animated a form 
 
 "As the troops of Mardonius advanced, the 
 rest of the Persian armament, deeming the 
 task was now not to fight but to pursue, raised 
 their standards and poured forward tumultu- 
 ously, without discipline or order. 
 
 " Pausanias, pressed by the Persian line, 
 and if not of a timorous, at least of an irre- 
 solute, temper, lost no time in sending to the 
 Athenians for succour. But when the latter 
 were on their march with the required aid, 
 they were suddenly intercepted by the auxiliary 
 Greeks in the Persian service, and cutoff from 
 the rescue of the Spartans. 
 
 "The Spartans beheld themselves thus left 
 unsupported, with considerable alarm. Yet 
 their force, including the Tegeans and Helots, 
 was fifty-three thousand men. Committing 
 himself to the gods, Pausanias ordained a 
 solemn sacrifice, his whole army awaiting the 
 result, while the shafts of the Persian bowmen 
 poured on them near and fast. But the entrails 
 presented discouraging omens, and the sacri- 
 fice was again renewed. Meanwhile the Spar- 
 tans evinced their characteristic fortitude and 
 discipline not one man stirring from his 
 ranks until the auguries should assume a 
 more favouring aspect; all harassed, and 
 some wounded, by the Persian arrow?, they 
 yet, seeking protection only beneath their broad 
 
 Callicrates, the stateliest and strongest soldier 
 in the whole army, lamenting, not death, but 
 that his sword was as yet undrawn against 
 the invader. 
 
 "And still sacrifice after sacrifice seemed to 
 forbid the battle, when Pausanias, lifting his 
 eyes that streamed with tears, to the temple 
 of Juno, that stood hard by, supplicated the 
 tutelary goddess of Cithseron, that if the fates 
 forbade the Greeks to conquer, they might at 
 least fall like warriors. And while uttering 
 this prayer, the tokens waited for became 
 suddenly visible in the victims, and the augurs 
 announced the promise of coming victory. 
 
 " Therewith, the order of battle rang instant- 
 ly through the army, and, to use the poetical 
 comparison of Plutarch, the Spartan phalanx 
 suddenly stood forth in its strength, like some 
 fierce animal erecting its bristles and pre- 
 paring its vengeance for the foe. The ground 
 broken in many steep and precipitous ridges, 
 and intersected by the Asopus, whose sluggish 
 .stream winds over a broad and rushy bed, was 
 unfavourable to the movements of cavalry, 
 and the Persian foot advanced therefore on 
 the Greeks. 
 
 "Drawn up in their massive phalanx, the 
 Lacedaemonians presented an almost impene- 
 trable body sweeping slowly on, compact and 
 serried whi!e the hot and undisciplined va- 
 lour of the Persians, more fortunate in the 
 skirmish than the battle, broke itself in a 
 thousand waves upon that moving rock. Pour- 
 ing on in small numbers at a time, they fell 
 fast round the progress of the Greeks their 
 armour slight against the strong pikes of 
 Sparta their courage without skill their 
 numbers without discipline; still they fought 
 gallantly, even when on the ground seizing 
 the pikes with their naked hands, and with the 
 wonderful agility which still characterizes the 
 Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet, 
 and regaining their arms, when seemingly over- 
 come; wresting away their enemy's shields, and 
 grappling with them desperately hand to hand. 
 
 " Foremost of a band of a thousand chosen 
 Persians, conspicuous by his white charger, 
 and still more by his daring valour, rode Mar- 
 donius, directing the attack fiercer wherever 
 his armour blazed. Inspired by his presence, 
 the Persians fought worthily of their warlike 
 fame, and, even in falling, thinned the Spartan 
 ranks. At length the rash but gallant leader 
 of the Asiatic armies received a mortal wound 
 his skull was crushed in by a stone from the 
 hand of a Spartan. His chosen band, the boast 
 of the army, fell fighting round him, but his 
 death was the general signal of defeat and flight. 
 Encumbered by their long robes, and pressed 
 by the relentless conquerors, the Pershns fled 
 in disorder towards their camp, which was 
 secured by wooden entrenchments, by gates, 
 and towers and walls. Here, fortifying them- 
 selves a.s they best migh% they cont Mitl^d suc- 
 cessfully, and with advantage, against the 
 Licedremonians, who were ill skilled in assault 
 and siege. 
 
 "Meanwhile, the Athenians obtained the 
 victory on the plains over the Greeks of Mar- 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 donius finding their most resolute enemy in 
 the Thebans (three hundred of whose princi- 
 pal warriors fell in the field) and now joined 
 the Spartans at the Persian camp. The Athe- 
 nians are said to have been better skilled in 
 the art of siege than the Spartans ; yet at that 
 time their experience could scarcely have been 
 greater. The Athenians were at all limes, 
 however, of a more impetuous temper; and 
 the men who had ' run to the charge' at Mar- 
 athon, were not to be baffled by the desperate 
 remnant of their ancient foe. They scaled the 
 walls they effected a breach through which 
 the Tegeans were the first to rush the Greeks 
 poured fast and fierce into the camp. Appalled, 
 dismayed, stupified, by the suddenness and 
 greatness of their loss, the Persians no longer 
 sustained their fame they dispersed them- 
 selves in all directions, falling, as they fled, 
 with a prodigious slaughter, so that out of that 
 mighty armament scarce three thousand effect- 
 ed an escape." 
 
 Our limits will admit of only one extract 
 more, but it is on a different subject, and ex- 
 hibits Mr. Bulwer's powers of criticism in the 
 fields of poetry and romance, with which he 
 has long been familiar: 
 
 " Summoning before us the eternal character 
 of the Athenian drama, the vast audience, the 
 unroofed and enormous theatre, the actors 
 themselves enlarged by art above the ordinary 
 proportions of men, the solemn and sacred 
 subjects from which its form and spirit were 
 derived, we turn to J3schylus, and behold at 
 once the fitting creator of its grand and ideal 
 personifications. I have said that Homer was 
 his original; but a more intellectual age than 
 that of the Grecian epic had arrived, and with 
 ^Eschylus, philosophy passed into poetry. 
 The dark doctrine of Fatality imparted its 
 stern and awful interest to the narration of 
 events men were delineated, not as mere self- 
 acting and self-willed mortals, but as the agents 
 of a destiny inevitable and unseen the gods 
 themselves are no longer the gods of Homer, 
 entering into the sphere of human action for 
 petty motives, and for individual purposes 
 drawing their grandeur, not from the part they 
 perform, but from the descriptions of the poet; 
 they appear now as the oracles or the agents 
 of fate they are visitors from another world, 
 terrible and ominous from the warnings which 
 they convey. Homer is the creator of the ma- 
 terial poetry, JEschylus of the intellectual. 
 The corporeal and animal sufferings of the 
 Titan in the epic hell become exalted by tragedy 
 into the portrait of moral fortitude defying 
 physical anguish. The Prometheus of ^Eschy- 
 lus is the spirit of a god disdainfully subjected 
 to the misfortunes of a man. In reading this 
 wonderful performance, which in pure and 
 sustained sublimity is perhaps unrivalled in 
 the literature of the world, we lose sight 
 entirely of the cheerful Hellenic worship; and 
 yet it is in vain that the learned attempt to 
 trace its vague and mysterious metaphysics to 
 any old symbolical religion of the east. More 
 probably, whatever theological system it 
 shadows forth, was rather the gigantic con- 
 ception of the poet himself, than the imperfect 
 revival of any forgotten creed, or the poetical 
 
 disguise of any existent philosophy. How- 
 ever this be, it would certainly seem, that in 
 'this majestic picture of the dauntless enemy 
 of Jupiter, punished only for his benefits to 
 man, and attracting all our sympathies by his 
 courage and his benevolence, is conveyed 
 something of disbelief or defiance of the creed 
 of the populace a suspicion from which 
 ^Eschylus was not free in the judgment of his 
 contemporaries, and which is by no means in- 
 consonant with the doctrines of Pythagoras." 
 
 Mr. Bulwer justifies this warm eulogium by 
 some beautiful translations. We select his 
 animated version of the exquisite passage so 
 well known to scholars, where Clytemnestra de- 
 scribes to the chorus the progress of the watch- 
 fires which announced to expecting Greece the 
 fall of Troy a passage perhaps unrivalled in 
 the classical authors in picturesque and vivid 
 images, and which approaches more nearly, 
 though it has surpassed in sublimity, Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott's description of the bale-fires which 
 announced to the Lothians a warden inroad of 
 the English forces : 
 
 " A gleam a gleam from Ida's height, 
 
 By the Fire-god sent, it came ; 
 From watch to watch it leapt that light, 
 
 As a rider rode the Flame ! 
 It phot through the startled sky, 
 
 And the torch of that blazing glory 
 Old Lemnos caught on high, 
 
 On its holy promontory. 
 And sent it on, the jocund sign, 
 To Athos, Mount of Jove divine. 
 
 Wildly the while, it rose from the isle, 
 So that the might of the journeying light 
 
 Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine 
 Farther and faster speeds it on, 
 
 Till the watch that keep Macistus steep- 
 See it burst like a blazing sun! 
 Doth Macistus sleep 
 On his townr-clad steep? 
 No ! rapid and red doth the wild fire sweep ; 
 
 It flashes afar, on the wayward stream 
 
 Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam ! 
 It rouses the lieht on Messapion's height, 
 And they feed its breath with the withered heath. 
 But it may not stay! 
 And away away 
 It bounds in its freshening might. 
 
 Silent and soon, 
 
 Like a broadened moon, 
 
 It passes in sheen, Asopus green, 
 And hursts on Cithseron Cray : 
 
 The warder wakes to the signal-rays, 
 
 And it swoops from the hill with a broader biaee, 
 On on the fiery glory rode 
 Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed 
 To Megara's mount it came ; 
 They feed it again, 
 And it streams amain 
 
 A giant beard of flame ! 
 The headland cliffs that darkly down 
 O'er the Saronic waters frown, 
 Are pass'd with the swift one's lurid stride, 
 And the husre rock glares on the glaring tide, 
 With mightier march and fiercer power 
 It pained Arachne's neiphhotiring tower 
 Thence on our Arsive roof its rest it won, 
 Of Ida's fire the long-descended Son ! 
 
 Brieht ha Hunger of glory and of joy ! 
 So first and last with equal honour crown'd, 
 In solemn feasts the race-torch circlea round. 
 And ihese my heralds ! this my SIGN OF PEACE; 
 Lo ! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece, 
 
 Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy." 
 
 We have now discharged the pleasing duty 
 of quoting some of the gems, and pointing out 
 some of the merits of this remarkable work. 
 It remains with equal impartiality, and in no 
 unfriendly spirit, to glance at some of its faults 
 faults which, we fear, will permanently pre- 
 vent it from taking the place to which it is en- 
 
BULWER'S ATHENS. 
 
 239 
 
 titled, from its brilliancy and research, in the 
 archives of literature. 
 
 The first of these defects is the constant 
 effort which is made to justify the proceedings, 
 and extenuate the faults, and magnify the | 
 merits of democratic societies ; and the equally 
 uniform attempt to underrate the value of 
 aristocratic institutions, and blacken the pro- 
 ceedings of aristocratic states. This, as 
 Fouche would say, is worse than an offence 
 it is a fault. Its unfairness and absurdity is 
 so obvious, that it neutralizes and obliterates 
 the effect which otherwise might be produced 
 by the brilliant picture which Mr. Bulwer's 
 transcendent subject, as well as his own re- 
 markable powers of narrative and description, 
 afford. By the common calculation of chances, 
 it is impossible to suppose that the aristocra- 
 cies are always in the wrong, and the demo- 
 cracies always in the right; that the former 
 are for ever actuated by selfish, corrupt, and 
 discreditable motives, and the latter everlast- 
 ingly influenced by generous, ennobling, and \ 
 upright feelings. We may predicate with per- ' 
 feet certainty of any author, be he aristocratic, 
 monarchical, or republican, who indulges in 
 such a strain of thought and expression, ex- 
 travagant eulogiums from his own party in 
 the outset, and possibly undeserved but certain 
 neglect from posterity in the end. Mankind, 
 in future times, when present objects and party 
 excitement have ceased, will never read or, 
 at least, never attach faith to any works 
 which place all the praise on the one side and 
 all the blame to the other of any of the child- 
 ren of Adam. Rely upon it, virtue and vice 
 are very equally divided in the world: praise 
 and blame require to be very equally bestowed. 
 Different institutions produce a widely different 
 effect upon society and the progress of human 
 affairs: but it is not because the one makes 
 all men good, the other all men bad ; but be- 
 cause the one permits the bad or selfish quali- 
 ties of one class to exercise an unrestrained 
 influence the other, because it arrays against 
 their excesses the bad or selfish qualities of 
 the other classes. All theories of government 
 founded upon the virtue of mankind or the per- 
 fectability of human nature, will, to the end of 
 the world, be disproved by the experience, and 
 discarded by the common sense of mankind. 
 Mother Eve has proved, and will prove, more 
 than a match for the strongest of her descend- 
 ants. Instability, selfishness, folly, ambition, 
 rapacity, ever have and ever will characterize 
 alike democratic and aristocratic societies and 
 governors. The wisdom of government and 
 political philosophy consists not in expecting 
 or calculating on impossibilities from a cor- 
 rupted being, but in so arranging society and 
 political powers that the selfishness and ra- 
 pacity of the opposite classes of which it is 
 composed may counteract each other. 
 
 The second glaring defect is the asperity 
 and bitterness with which the author speaks 
 of those who differ from him in political opi- 
 nion. He in an especial manner is unceasing 
 in his attacks upon Mr. Mitford : the historian 
 whose able researches have added so much to 
 our correct infor.nation on the state of the 
 Grecian commonwealth. Here, too, ij more 
 
 than an impropriety there is a fault. By dis- 
 playing such extraordinary bitterness on the 
 subject, Mr. Bulwer clearly shows that he feels 
 the weight of the Mitford fire ; the strokes de- 
 livered have been so heavy that they have 
 been felt. Nothing could be more impolitic 
 than this, even for the interests of the party 
 which he supports. It is not by perpetually 
 attacking an author on trifling points or minor 
 inaccuracies that you are to deaden or neutra- 
 lize the impression he has made on mankind: 
 it is by stating facts, and adducing arguments 
 inconsistent with his opinions. The maxim, 
 " ars est edare artem" nowhere applies more 
 clearly than here : Lingard is the model of a 
 skilful controversialist, whose whole work, 
 sedulously devoted to the upholding of the 
 Catholic cause through the whole history of 
 England, hardly contains a single angry or en- 
 venomed passage against a protestant histori- 
 an. Mr. Bulwer would be much the better of 
 the habits of the bar, before he ventured into 
 the arena of political conflict. It is not by his 
 waspish notes that the vast influence of Mit- 
 ford's Greece on public thought is to be obvi- 
 ated : their only effect is to diminish the force 
 of his attempted and otherwise able refutation. 
 The future historian, who is to demolish the 
 influence of Colonel Napier's eloquent and 
 able/ but prejudiced and, in political affairs, 
 partial history of the Peninsular war, will 
 hardly once mention his name. 
 
 The last and by far the most serious objec- 
 tion to Mr. Bulwer's work is the complete 
 oblivion which it evinces of a superintending 
 Providence, either in dealing out impartial 
 retribution to public actions, w r hether by na- 
 tions or individuals in this world, or in deduc- 
 ing from the agency of human virtue or vice, 
 and the shock of conflicting passions, the 
 means of progressive improvement. We do 
 not say that Mr. Bulwer is irreligious; far 
 from it. From the brightness of his genius, 
 as well as many exquisite passages in his 
 novels, we should infer the reverse, and we 
 hope yet to see his great powers exerted in 
 the noblest of labours, that of tracing the wis- 
 dom of Providence amidst the mighty maze 
 of human events. We say only that he as- 
 cribes no influence in human affairs to a su- 
 perintending agency. This is being behind 
 the age. It is lagging in arrear of his com- 
 peers. The vast changes consequent on the 
 French Revolution have blown the antiquated 
 oblivion of Providence in Raynal or Voltaire 
 out of the water. The convulsions they had 
 so large a share in creating have completely 
 s.et at rest their irreligious dogmas. Here, 
 too, Mr. Bulwer has fallen into an imprudence, 
 for his own sake, as much as an error. If he 
 will take the trouble to examine the works 
 which are rising into durable celebrity in this 
 country, those which are to form the ideas of 
 la jntnt Jlngletcrre, he will find them all, with- 
 out being fanatical, religious in their tendency. 
 For obvious reasons we do not 'give the names 
 of living authors ; but we admire Mr. Bulwer's 
 talents; we would fain, for the sake of the public, 
 see them enlisted in the Holy Alliance for the 
 sake of himself, fall in more with the risingspi- 
 rit of the age; and we give a word to the wise 
 
240 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 As an example of the defect of which we 
 complain, and to avoid the suspicion of injus- 
 tice in the estimate we have formed of the 
 tendency in this particular of his writings, we 
 shall give an extract. Perhaps there is no 
 event in the history of the world which has 
 fceen so momentous in its consequences, so 
 vital in its effects, as the repulse of the Per- 
 sian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and none 
 ia which the superintending agency of an 
 overruling Providence was so clearly evinced. 
 Observe the reflections which Mr. Bulwer de- 
 duces from this memorable event. 
 
 " When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled 
 back to its eastern bed, and the world was once 
 more comparatively at rest, the continent of 
 Greece rose visibly and majestically above the 
 rest of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latian 
 plains, the infant state of Rome was silently 
 and obscurely struggling into strength against 
 the neighbouring and petty states in which the 
 old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing 
 to decay. The genius of Gaul and Germany, 
 yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce 
 known, save where colonized by Greeks, in the 
 gloom of its woods and wastes. The pride of 
 Carthage had been broken by a signal defeat 
 in Sicily; and Gelo, the able and astute tyrant 
 of Syracuse, maintained, in a Grecian colony, 
 the splendour of the Grecian name. 
 
 "The ambition of Persia, still the great mo- 
 narchy of the world, was permanently checked 
 and crippled; the strength of generations had 
 been wasted, and the immense extent of the 
 empire only served yet more to sustain the 
 general peace, from the exhaustion of its 
 forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the 
 East. 
 
 " Thus, Greece was left secure, and at liberty 
 to enjoy the tranquillity it had acquired, and 
 to direct to the arts of peace the novel and 
 amazing energies which had been prompted 
 by the danger*, and exalted by the victories, 
 of war. 
 
 "The Athenians, now returned to their city, 
 Saw before them the arduous task of rebuild- 
 ing its ruins, and restoring its wasted lands. 
 The vicissitudes of the war had produced many 
 silent and internal, as well as exterior, changes. 
 Many great fortunes had been broken ; and the 
 ancient spirit of the aristocracy had received 
 no inconsiderable shock in the power of new 
 families; the fame of the base-born and demo- 
 cratic Themistocles and the victories which 
 a whole people had participated broke up 
 much of the prescriptive and venerable sanc- 
 tity attached to ancestral names, and to parti- 
 cular families. This was salutary to the spirit 
 of enterprise in all classes. The ambition of 
 the grc-at was excited to restore, by some active 
 means, their broken fortunes and decaying in- 
 fluence the energies of the humbler ranks, 
 already aroused by their new importance, were 
 stimulated to maintain and to increase it. It 
 was the very crisis in which a new direction 
 might be given to the habits and the character 
 of a whole people; and to seize all the advan- 
 tages of that crisis, FATE, in Themistocles, had 
 allotted to Athens, a man whose qualities were 
 
 not only pre-eminently great in themselves, but 
 peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of the 
 time. And, as I have elsewhere remarked, it 
 is indeed the nature and prerogative of free 
 states, to concentrate the popular will into 
 something of the unity of despotism, by pro- 
 ducing, one after another, a series of repre- 
 sentatives of the wants and exigencies of The 
 Hour each leading his generation, but only 
 while he sympathizes with its will ; and either 
 baffling or succeeded by his rivals, not in pro- 
 portion as he excels or he is outshone in ge- 
 nius, but as he gives, or ceases to give, to the 
 widest range of the legislative power, the most 
 concentrated force of the executive ; thus unit- 
 ing the desires of the greatest number, under 
 the administration of the narrowest possible 
 control ; the constitution popular the go- 
 vernment absolute but responsible." 
 
 Now, in this splendid passage is to be seen 
 a luminous specimen of the view taken of the 
 most memorable events in history by the libe- 
 ral writers. In his reflections on this heart- 
 stirring event, in his observations on the 
 glorious defeat of the arms of Eastern despot- 
 ism by the infant efforts of European freedom, 
 there is nothing said of the incalculable con- 
 sequences dependent on the struggle nothing 
 on the evident protection afforded by a super- 
 intending Providence to the arms of an incon- 
 siderable Republic nothing on the marvellous 
 adaptation of the character of Themistocles to 
 the mighty duty with which he was charged, 
 that of rolling back from the cradle of civil- 
 ization, freedom and knowledge, the wave of 
 barbaric conquests. It was FATE which raised 
 him up! Against such a view of human af- 
 fairs we enter our solemn protest. We allow 
 nothing to fate, unless that is meant as another 
 way of expressing the decrees of an overrul- 
 ing, all-seeing, and beneficent intelligence. 
 We see in the defeat of the mighty armament 
 by the arms of a small city on the Attic shore 
 in the character of its leaders in the efforts 
 which it made in the triumphs which it 
 achieved, and the glories which it won the 
 clearest evidence of the agency of a superin- 
 tending power, which elicited, from the collision 
 of Asiatic ambition with European freedom, 
 the wonders of Grecian civilization, and the 
 marvels of Athenian genius. And it is just 
 because we are fully alive to the important 
 agency of the democratic element in this me- 
 morable conflict ; because we see clearly what 
 inestimable blessings, when duly restrained, it 
 is capable of bestowing on mankind ; because 
 we trace in its energy in every succeeding 
 age the expansive force which has driven the 
 blessings of civilization into the recesses of 
 the earth, that we are the determined enemies 
 of those democratic concessions which entire- 
 Iv destroy the beneficent agency of this power- 
 ful element, which permit the vital heat of 
 society to burst forth in ruinous explosions, or 
 tear to atoms the necessary superincumbent 
 masses, and instead of the smiling aspect of 
 early and cherished vegetation, leave only in 
 its traces the blackness of desolation and the 
 ruin of nature. 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 241 
 
 THE REIGN OF TERROR.* 
 
 THE French Revolution is a subject on which 
 neither history nor public opinion have been 
 able as yet to pronounce an impartial verdict; 
 nor is it perhaps possible that the opinions of 
 mankind should ever be unanimous, upon the 
 varied events which marked its course. The 
 passions excited were so fierce, the dangers 
 incurred so tremendous, the sacrifices made 
 so great, that the judgment not only of con- 
 temporary but of future generations must be 
 warped in forming an opinion concerning it; 
 and as long as men are divided into liberal and 
 conservative parties, so long will they be at 
 variance in the views they entertain in regard 
 to the great strife which they first maintained 
 against each other. 
 
 There are some of the great events of this 
 terrible drama, however, concerning which 
 there appears now to be scarcely any discre- 
 pancy of opinion. The execution of the king 
 and the royal family the massacre of the 
 Girondists the slaughter in the prisons, are 
 generally admitted to have been, using Four-he's 
 words, not only crimes but faults; great errors 
 in policy, as well as outrageous violations of 
 the principles of humanity. These cruel and 
 unprecedented actions, by drawing the sword 
 and throwing away the scabbard, are allowed 
 to have dyed with unnecessary blood the 
 career of the Revolution; to have needlessly 
 exasperated parties against each other; and 
 by placing the leaders of the movement in the 
 terrible alternative of victory or death, rendered 
 their subsequent career one incessant scene 
 of crime and butchery. With the exception of 
 Levasseur de la Sarthe, the most sturdy and 
 envenomed of the republican writers, there is 
 no author with whom we are acquainted, who 
 now openly defends these atrocities ; who pre- 
 tends, in Barrere's words, that " the tree of 
 liberty cannot flourish unless it is watered by 
 the blood of kings and aristocrats ;" or seriously 
 argues that the regeneration of society must 
 be preceded by the massacre of the innocent 
 and the tears of the orphan. 
 
 But although the minds of men are nearly 
 agreed on the true character of these sangui- 
 nary proceedings, there is a great diversity of 
 opinion as to the necessity under which the 
 revolutionists acted, and the effects with which 
 they were attended on the progress of freedom. 
 The royalists maintain that the measures of 
 the Convention were as unnecessary as they 
 were atrocious ; that they plunged the progress 
 of social amelioration into an ocean of blood; 
 devastated France for years with fire and 
 sword ; brought to an untimely end above a 
 million of men ; and finally riveted about the 
 neck of the nation an iron despotism, as the 
 inevitable result and merited punishment of 
 such criminal excesses. The revolutionists, 
 
 * TTistoire de In Convention Nationtife. Par M. I, , 
 Convfimionel Paris, 1*33. Foreign Quarterly Review, 
 No. XXV., February, 1831. 
 31 
 
 on the other hand, allege that these severities, 
 however much to be deplored, were unavoid- 
 able in the peculiar circumstances in which 
 France was then placed : they contend that the 
 obstinate resistance of the privileged classes to 
 all attempts at pacific amelioration, their im- 
 placable resentment for the deprivation of their 
 privileges, and their recourse to foreign bayo- 
 nets to aid in their recovery, left to their an- 
 tagonists no alternative but their extirpation ; 
 that in this " mortal strife " the royalists showed 
 themselves as unscrupulous in their means, 
 and would, had they triumphed, been as un- 
 sparing in their vengeance, as their adver- 
 saries ; and they maintain, that notwithstanding 
 all the disasters with which it has been at- 
 tended, the triumph of the Revolution has pro- 
 digiously increased the productive powers and 
 public happiness of France, and poured a flood 
 of youthful blood into her veins. 
 
 The historians of the Revolution, as might 
 have been expected, incline to one or other of 
 these two parties. Of these the latest and most 
 distinguished are Bertrand de Molleville and 
 Lacretelle on the royalist side, and Mignetand 
 Thiers on that of the Revolution, the reputation 
 of whose works is now too well established to 
 require us to enter here .into an appreciation 
 of their merits or defects, or to be affected by 
 our praise or our censure. The work now 
 before us, which is confined to the most stormy 
 and stirring period of the Revolution, does not 
 aspire, by its form, to a rivalry with all or any 
 of those we have just mentioned. It consists 
 of a series of graphic sketches of the National 
 Convention, drawn evidently by one well ac- 
 quainted with the actors in its terrific annals, 
 and interspersed with a narrative composed at 
 a subsequent period, with the aids which the 
 memoirs and historians of later times afford. 
 As such, it possesses a degree of interest equal 
 to any work on the same subject with which 
 we are acquainted. Not only the speeches, but 
 the attitudes, the manner, the appearance, and 
 very dress of the actors in the drama are 
 brought before our eyes. The author seems, 
 VA general, to speak in the delineation of cha- 
 racter from his own recollections ; the speeches 
 which he has reported are chiefly transcribed 
 from the columns of the Moniteur; but in some 
 instances, especially the conversations of 
 Danton, Robespierre, Barrere, and the other 
 leaders of the Jacobins, we suspect that he has 
 mingled his historical reminiscences with sub- 
 sequent acquisitions, and put into the mouths 
 of the leading characters of the day, prophecies 
 too accurate in their fulfilment to have been 
 the product of human sagacity. Generally 
 speaking, however, the work bears the impress 
 of intimate acquaintance with the events and 
 persons who are described; and although from 
 being published without a name, it has not the 
 guarantee for its authenticity which known 
 character and respectability afford, yet, in so 
 far as internal evidence is concerned, we are 
 X 
 
242 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 inclined to rank it with the most faithful nar- 
 ratives of the events it records which have 
 issued from the press. Its general accuracy, 
 we are enabled, from a pretty extensive com- 
 parison of the latest authorities, to confirm. 
 We shall give some extracts, which, if we are 
 not greatly mistaken, will justify the tone of 
 commendation in which we have spoken of it. 
 
 The period at which the work commences 
 is the opening of the Convention, immediately 
 after the revolt on the 10th of August had over- 
 turned the throne, and when a legislature, 
 elected by almost universal suffrage, in a state 
 of unprecedented exasperation, was assembled 
 to regenerate the state. 
 
 Robespierre and Marat, the Agamemnon 
 and Ajax of the democracy, are thus ably 
 sketched : 
 
 " Robespierre and Marat enemies in secret, 
 to external appearance friends were early 
 distinguished in the Convention ; both dear to 
 the mob, but with different shades of character. 
 The latter paid his court to the lowest of the 
 low, to the men of straw or in rags, who were 
 then of so much weight in the political sys- 
 tem. The needy, the thieves, the cut-throats 
 in a word, the dregs of the people, the caput 
 mortuum of the human race, to a man supported 
 Marat. 
 
 " Robespierre, albeit dependent on the same 
 class to which his rival was assimilated by his 
 ugliness, his filth, his vulgar manners, and 
 disgusting habits, was nevertheless allied to a 
 more elevated division of it: to the shopkeep- 
 ers and scribes, small traders, and the inferior 
 rank of lawyers. These admired in him the 
 politesse bourgemfe ; his well-combed and pow- 
 dered head, the richness of his waistcoats, the 
 whiteness of his linen, the elegant cut of his 
 coats, his breeches, silk stockings carefully 
 drawn on, bright knee and shoe buckles ; every 
 thing, in short, bespoke the gentlemanly preten- 
 sions of Robespierre, in opposition to the sans- 
 culottism of Marat. 
 
 "The shopkeepers and the lower ranks of 
 the legal profession never identify themselves 
 with the populace, even during the fervour of 
 a revolution. There is in them an innate 
 spirit of feudality, which leads them to despise 
 the canaille and envy the noblesse : they de- 
 sire equality, but only with such as are above 
 themselves, not such as would confound them 
 with their workmen. The latter class is 
 odious to them ; they envy the great, but they 
 have a perfect horror for those to whom they 
 give employment; never perceiving that the 
 democratic principle can admit of no such 
 distinction. This is the reason which made 
 the aristocratic bmtrgeoise prefer Robespierre ; 
 they thought they saw in his manners, his 
 dress, his air, a certain pledge that he would 
 never degrade them to the multitude; never 
 associate them with those whose trade was 
 carried on in the mnd, like Marat's supporters. 
 Amidst these divisions, one fixed idea alone 
 united these opposite leaders; and that was, 
 to give such a pledge to the Revolution, as 
 would render it impossible to doubt their sin- 
 cerity, and that pledge was to be the blood of 
 Louis XVI." Vol. i. p. 28. 
 
 Roland and his wife, the beautiful victim of 
 Jacobin vengeance, are thus portrayed: 
 
 " Roland was a man of ordinary capacity, 
 but he obtained the reputation of genius by 
 means of his wife, who thought, wrote, and 
 spoke for him. She was a woman of a most 
 superior mind; with as much virtue as pride, 
 as much ambition as domestic virtue. Daugh- 
 ter of an engraver, she commenced her career 
 by wishing to contend with a queen ; and no 
 sooner had Marie Antoinette fallen, than she 
 seemed resolute to maintain the combat, no 
 longer against a person of her own sex, but 
 with the men who pretended to rival the repu- 
 tation of her husband. 
 
 " Madame Roland had great talent, but she 
 wanted tact and moderation. She belonged to 
 that class in the middling ranks that scarcely 
 knows what good breeding is; her manners 
 were too brusque ; she trusted implicitly to 
 her good intentions, and was quite indifferent 
 in regard to external appearances, which, after 
 all, are almost every thing in this world. Like 
 Marie Antoinette, she was master in her own 
 family; the former was king, the latter was 
 minister; her husband, whom she constantly 
 put forward, as often disappeared in her pre- 
 sence, which gave rise to the bon mot of Con- 
 dorcet: 'When I wish to see the minister of 
 the interior, I never can see any thing but the 
 petticoat of his wife.' This was strictly true : 
 persons on business uniformly applied to Ma- 
 dame Roland instead of the minister; and 
 whatever she may have said in her memoirs, 
 it is certain that unconsciously she opened the 
 portfolio with her own hand. She was to the 
 last degree impatient under the attacks of the 
 tribune, to which she had no means of reply, 
 and took her revenge by means of pamphlets 
 and articles in the public journals. In these 
 she kept up an incessant warfare, which Ro- 
 land sanctioned with his name, but in which 
 it was easy to discover the warm and brilliant 
 style of his wife " i. 38. 
 
 These observations exhibit a fair specimen 
 of the author's manner. It is nervous, brief, 
 and sententious, rather than eloquent or impres- 
 sive. The work is calculated to dispel many 
 illusions under which we, living at this dis- 
 tance, labour, in regard to the characters of the 
 Revolution. They are here exhibited in their 
 genuine colours, alike free from the dark shades 
 in which they have been enveloped by one party, 
 and the brilliant hues in which they are array- 
 ed by the other. In the descriptions, we see 
 the real springs of human conduct on this ele- 
 vated stage ; the same littlenesses, jealousies, 
 and weaknesses which are every day conspi- 
 cuous around us in private life. 
 
 The Girondists in particular are stripped of 
 their magic halo by his caustic hand. He dis- 
 plays in a clear light the weakness as well as 
 brilliant qualities of that celebrated party: 
 their ambition, intrigues, mob adulation, when 
 rising with the Revolution; their weakness, 
 irresolution, timidity, when assailed by its fury. 
 Their character is summed up in the following 
 words, which are put into the mouth of Lan- 
 juinais, one of the most intrepid and noble- 
 minded of the moderate party. 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 243 
 
 " The Girondists are in my mind a living 
 example of the truth of the maxim of Beaumar 
 chais : ' My God ! what idiots these men oi 
 talent are !' All their speeches delivered a 
 our tribune are sublime; their actions are in 
 explicable on any principles of common sense 
 They amuse themselves by exhausting thei: 
 popularity in insignificant attacks, and wast< 
 it by that means in such a manner that already 
 it is almost annihilated. They destroyed them 
 selves when they overturned the monarchy 
 they flattered themselves that they would reigr 
 afterwards by their virtue and their brillian 
 qualities, little foreseeing how soon the Jaco 
 bins would mount on their shoulders. At pre 
 sent, to maintain themselves in an equivoca 
 position, they will consent to the trial of the 
 king, flattering themselves that they will decide 
 his fate they are mistaken ; it is the Mountain 
 not they, that will carry the day. The Mountain 
 is so far advanced in the career of crime tha 
 it cannot recede. Besides, it is indispensable 
 for it to render the Gironde as guilty as itself 
 in order to deprive it of the possibility of treat 
 ing separately ; that motive will lead to the 
 destruction of Louis XVI." i. 142, 143. 
 
 These observations are perfectly just; whe- 
 ther they were made by Lanjuinais or not at the 
 period when they are said to have been spoken 
 may be doubtful ; but of this we are convinced 
 that they contain the whole theory and true 
 secret of the causes which convert popular 
 movements into guilty revolutions. It is the 
 early commission of crime which renders sub- 
 sequent atrocities unavoidable ; men engage 
 in the last deeds of cruelty to avoid the pun 
 ishment of the first acts of oppression. The 
 only rule which can with safety be followed, 
 either in political or private life, is uniformly 
 to abstain from acts of injustice ;. never to do 
 evil that good may come of it; but invariably to 
 ask, in reference to any proposed measure, not 
 merely whether it is expedient, but whether it 
 is just. If any other principle be adopted if 
 once the system is introduced of committing 
 acts of injustice or deeds of cruelty, from the 
 pressure of popular clamour, or the supposed 
 expediency of the measures, the career of guilt 
 is commenced, and can seldom be arrested. 
 The theory of public morals, complicated as 
 it may appear, is in reality nothing but a re- 
 petition, on a greater scale, of the measures 
 of virtue in private life ; crime cannot be com- 
 mitted with impunity in the one more than the 
 other, with this difference, that if the individuals 
 who commit the wrong escape retribution, it 
 will fall on the state to which they belong. 
 
 One of the most important steps in the pro- 
 gress of the Revolution, and from which so 
 much evil subsequently flowed, was the failure 
 in the impeachment of Marat by the Girondists 
 in 1792. Marat's defence on that occasion, 
 which is here given from the Moniteur, is a 
 choice specimen of the revolutionary talent 
 which thjn exercised so-powerful a sway. 
 
 "I am accused of having conspired with 
 Robespierre and Danton for a triumvirate; 
 that accusation has not a shadow of truth, ex- 
 cept so far as concerns myself. I am bound 
 in duty to declare that my colleagues, Danton 
 and Robespierre, have constantly rejected the 
 
 idea alike of a triumvirate or a dictatorship. 
 If any one is to blame for having scattered 
 these ideas among the public, it is myself; I 
 invoke on my own head the thunder of the na 
 tional vengeance but before striking, deign 
 to hear me. 
 
 " When the constituted authorities exerted 
 their power only to enchain the people ; to 
 murder the patriots under the name of the law, 
 can you impute it to me as a crime that I in- 
 voked against the wicked the tempest of popu- 
 lar vengeance? No if you call it a crime, 
 the nation would give you the lie ; obedient to 
 the law, they felt that the method I proposed 
 was the only one which could save them, and 
 assuming the rank of a dictator, they at once 
 purged the land of the traitors who infested 
 it. 
 
 "I shuddered at the vehement and disorderly 
 movements of the people, when I saw them 
 prolonged beyond the necessary point; in order 
 that these movements should, not for ever fail, 
 to avoid the necessity of their recommencement, 
 I proposed that some wise and just citizen 
 should be named, known for his attachment to 
 freedom, to take the direction of them, and ren- 
 der them conducive to the great ends of public 
 freedom. If the people could have appreciated 
 the wisdom of that proposal, if they had adopt- 
 ed it in all its plenitude, they would have swept 
 off, on the day the Bastile was taken, five hun- 
 dred heads from the conspirators. Every thing, 
 had this been done, would now have been tran- 
 quil. For the same reason, I have frequently 
 proposed to give instantaneous authority to a 
 wise man, under the name of tribune, or dicta- 
 tor, the title signifies nothing ; but the proof 
 that I meant to chain him to the public service 
 is, that I insisted that he should have a bullet 
 at his feet, and that he should have no power 
 but to strike off criminal heads. Such was my 
 opinion ; I have expressed it freely in private, 
 and given it all the currency possible in my 
 writings ; I have affixed my name to these com- 
 positions; I am not ashamed of them; if you 
 cannot comprehend them, so much the worse 
 for you. The days of trouble are not yet ter- 
 minated ; already a hundred thousand patriots 
 iiave been massacred because you would not 
 isten to my voice; a hundred thousand more 
 will suffer, or are menaced with destruction; if 
 he people falter, anarchy will never come to 
 an end. I have diffused those opinions among 
 he public ; if they are dangerous, let enlight- 
 ened men refute them with the proofs in their 
 hands ; for my own part, I declare I would be 
 he first to adopt their ideas, and to g;ve a sig- 
 nal proof of my desire for peace, order, and 
 he supremacy of the laws, whenever I am con- 
 vinced of their justice. 
 
 " Am I accused of ambitious views ? I will not 
 condescend to vindicate myself; examine my 
 conduct; judge my life. If I had chosen to sell 
 my silence for profit, I might have now been 
 he object of favour to the court. What on the 
 )ther hand has been my fate ? I have buried 
 myself in dungeons; condemned myself to 
 every species of danger; the sword of twenty 
 housand assassins is perpetually suspended 
 ver me ; I preached the truth with my head 
 aid on the block. Let those who ::re now ter- 
 
244 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 rifying you with the shadow of a dictator, unite 
 with me; unite with all true patriots, press 
 the Assembly to expedite the great measure? 
 which will secure the happiness of the people 
 and I will cheerfully mount the scaffold an 
 day of my life." Vol. i. pp. 75, 76. 
 
 We have given this speech at length, be 
 cause it contains a fair sample of revolutionary 
 logic, and displays that mixture of truth anc 
 error, of generous sentiments and pervertec 
 ambition, which characterized the speeches a 
 well as the actions of the leaders. Marat wa 
 well acquainted with his power before he made 
 these admissions; he knew that the armed 
 force of the multitude would not permit a hair 
 of his head to be touched ; he already saw his 
 adversaries trembling under the menaces 
 which encircled the hall, and the applause of 
 the galleries which followed his words; he had 
 the air of generous self-devotion, when in truth 
 he incurred no real danger. The principles 
 here professed were those on which he and 
 his party constantly acted. Their uniform doc- 
 trine was, that they must destroy their enemies, 
 or be destroyed by them ; that the friends of the 
 Revolution were irrevocably engaged in a strife 
 of life or death with the aristocracy ; that there 
 was no alternative in the struggle it must be 
 victory or death. Such were the maxims of 
 the Jacobins, and we should greatly err if we 
 ascribed them to any peculiar or extraordinary 
 ferocity or wickedness in their character. They 
 sprung entirely from their early commission 
 of unpardonable offences, and the recklessness 
 with which they perpetrated acts of violence 
 and spoliation, the moment that they obtained 
 supreme power. The conclusion to be drawn 
 from this is, not that the progress of innova- 
 tion and social amelioration inevitably leads 
 to wickedness, but that the commission of one 
 crime during its progress necessarily occa- 
 sions another, because it is in the commission 
 of the second that impunity for the first is alone 
 looked for; and therefore, that the only way 
 during such trying times to prevent the pro- 
 gress from terminating in disaster, is steadily 
 to adhere to the principles of justice and hu- 
 manity; and if violence is once unavoidable, 
 to revert to the temper and moderation of hap- 
 pier times, the moment that such a return is 
 practicable. 
 
 The Jacobin Club, the Dom-daniel where all 
 the bloody scenes of the Revolution were hatch- 
 ed, must ever be an object of interest and cu- 
 riosity to future ages. The author's picture of 
 it is so graphic, that we shall give it in his own 
 words, for fear of weakening their force by 
 translation; it will also serve as a fair speci- 
 men of his style. 
 
 " Le club des Jacobins etait veritablement le 
 double de la puissance souveraine, et la por- 
 tion la plus energique : on ne pouvait assez 
 la redouter, tant sa susceptibilite etait ex- 
 treme et ses vengeances terribles. II se mon- 
 trait inquiet, pusillanime, mefiant, cruel et 
 fernce ; il ne concevait la liberte qu'avec le 
 concours des prisons, des fers, et a deminoyee 
 dans le sang. Tous les maux, tous les crimes, 
 (outes les resolutions funestes. qui pendant trois 
 annees desolerent la Frnnce, partirent de cet 
 antre d'horreur. Les Jacobins dominerent 
 
 avec une tyrannic epaisse, vaste et lourde, qui 
 nous enveloppa tous comme un cauchemar 
 permanent. Inquisition terrible, violente, et 
 neanmoins cauteleuse, il se nourrissait d'epou- 
 vante calculee, de fureurs, de denonciations, 
 et de 1'effroi general qu'il inspirait. Les plus 
 importans parmi les revolutionaires tirerent 
 de la toute leur force, et en meme temps ne 
 cesserent de flagorner, d'adulerceclub, et cela 
 avec autant de persistance, que de bassesse : 
 a tel point la masse du club abait du pouvoir, 
 et a tel point celui qu'obtenaient des particuli- 
 ers devait remonter a lui, comme a son origine 
 unique. 
 
 "Jamais un homme d'honneur, jamais la 
 vertu paree de ses qualites precieuses ne pure-nt 
 etre soufferls dans cette societe: elle etait an- 
 tipathique avec tout ce qui n'etait pas entache 
 d'une maniere quelconque. Un voleur, un as- 
 sassin, y trouvait plus d amnite que le vole ou 
 le victime. Le propos celebre, Qu'as in fait 
 pour etre pendu, xi I' 'nncicn regime revenait? pou- 
 vait s'applique egalement a la morale, qu'a la 
 politique. Quiconque se presentait avec une 
 vie exempte de reproches devenait suspect ne- 
 cessairement: mais 1'impur inspirait de Tin- 
 teret, et se trouvait en harmonic, ou en point 
 de contact avec les habitues de ce cloaque. 
 Le club se reunissait a 1'ancien convent des 
 Jacobins, dans la Rue St. Honore, au local de 
 la bibliotheque: c'etait une salle vaste de forme 
 gothique. On orna le local de drapeaux tri- 
 colores, de devises anarchiques, de quelques 
 portraits et busies des revolutionaires les plus 
 fameux. J'ai vu, bien anterieurement au 
 meurtre de Louis XVI., deux portraits, ceux de 
 Jacques Clement et de Ravaillac, environnes 
 d'une guirlande de chene, en maniere de cou- 
 ronne civique : au-dessous leur nom, accom- 
 pagne de la date de leur regicide, et au-dessus 
 il y avoit ces mots Us furcnt heurcux Us tuerent 
 un ,-oi." Tom. i. pp. 110 112. 
 
 It may be imagined from these and similar 
 passages that the author is a royalist: but such 
 n reality is not the case. He is equally severe 
 on the other parties, and admits that he him- 
 self acquiesced in all the savage measures of 
 he Convention. The Jacobins in fact have 
 5ecome equal objects of detestation to all par- 
 ies in the Revolution : to the royalists, by the 
 cruelties which they exercised to the republi- 
 cans, by the horror which they excited, and the 
 reaction against the principles of popular go- 
 rernment which they produced. The descrip- 
 ion of them by Thiers and Mignet is nearly as 
 >lack as that given by our author. 
 
 It is a curious speculation what it is during 
 revolutionary troubles that gives an influence 
 o men of desperate character. Why is it that 
 when political institutions are undergoing a 
 change, the wicked and profligate should ac- 
 luire so fearful an ascendency 7 That thieves 
 nd robbers should emerge from their haunts 
 when a conflagration is raging, is intelligible 
 enough, but that they should then all at once 
 >ecome omnipotent, and rule their fellow citi- 
 zens with absolute sway, is the surprising phe- 
 nomenon. In considering the causes of this 
 jatastrophe in France, much is no doubt to be 
 ascribed to the corrupt and rotten state of 
 ociety under the monarchy, and the total want 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 245 
 
 of all those habits of combination for mutua 
 defence and support, which arise from th< 
 long-continued enjoyment of freedom. More 
 however, we are persuaded, is to be ascribec 
 to the general and unparalleled desertion of 
 their country by the great majority of the 
 nobility and landed proprietors, and their im 
 prudent to give it no severer name union 
 with foreign powers to regain their privileges 
 by main force. If this immense and powerful 
 body of men had remained at home, yielded to 
 the torrent when they could not resist it, anc 
 taken advantage of the first gleams of return 
 ing sense and moderation, to unite with the 
 friends of order of every denomination, it is 
 impossible to doubt that a great barrier agains 
 revolutionary violence must have been erected 
 But what could be done by the few remaining 
 priests and royalists, or by the king on the 
 throne, when a hundred thousand proprietors 
 the strength and hope of the monarchy, de- 
 serted to the enemy, and appeared combating 
 against France under the Austrian eagles] 
 There was the fatal error. Every measure of 
 severity directed against them or their de- 
 scendants, appeared justifiable to a people 
 labouring under the terrors of foreign subjuga- 
 tion; if they had remained at home and armed 
 against the stranger, as the worst mediator in 
 their internal dissensions, the public feelin 
 would not have been so strongly roused against 
 them, and many of the worst measures of the 
 Revolution would have been prevented. The 
 comparatively bloodless character of the Eng- 
 lish civil war in the time of Charles I. is in a 
 great measure to be ascribed to the courageous 
 residence of the landed proprietors at home, 
 even during the hottest of the struggle ; and but 
 for that intrepid conduct, they might, like the 
 French noblesse, have been for ever stript of 
 their estates, and the cause of freedom stained 
 by unnecessary excesses. 
 
 Our author visited Dumourier, when he re- 
 turned to Paris, to endeavour to stem the tor- 
 rent of the Revolution. On that occasion, the 
 general addressed him in these remarkable 
 words: 
 
 "If the men of honour in the country would 
 act as I do, these miserable anarchists would 
 speedily be reduced to their merited insignifi- 
 cance, and France would be delivered; but 
 they fear them, and the terror which they in- 
 spire constitutes their whole strength. I shall 
 never permit them at least to extend their pow- 
 er over my determinations." 
 
 " Dumourier was right; it is the weakness 
 of honest men which in every age has consti- 
 tuted the strength of the rabble." Vol. i. 
 p. 128. 
 
 He mentions a singular fact, well known to 
 all who are tolerably acquainted with the his- 
 tory of the Revolution, which remarkably illus- 
 trates the slender reliance which during the 
 fervour of a revolution can be placed on the 
 support of the populace. 
 
 " The Girondists trusted to their patriotism, 
 to the pledges they had never ceased to give to 
 the popular cause; they constantly flattered 
 themselves that the people would keep their 
 qualities in remembrance ; and experience ne- 
 ver taught them that the people, ever ungrate- 
 
 ful and forgetful of past services, have neither 
 eyes nor ears but for those who flatter them 
 without intermission. They had another rea- 
 son for their confidence, in the enormous ma- 
 jority which had recently re-elected Petion 
 to the important situation of mayor of Paris. 
 No less than 14,000 voices had pronounced 
 in his favour, while Robespierre had only 23, 
 Billaud-Varennes 14, and Danton 11. The 
 Girondists flattered themselves that their influ- 
 ence was to be measured in the same propor- 
 tion; that error was their ruin, for they con- 
 tinued to cling to it down to the moment when 
 necessity constrained them to see that they 
 stood alone in the commonwealth. Bailly, the 
 virtuous Bailly, that pure spirit who had the 
 misfortune to do so much evil with the best 
 intentions, had only two votes." Vol. i.p. 130. 
 
 Thus the Girondists, only a few months be- 
 fore their final arrest and overthrow by the 
 mob of Paris, had fourteen thousand votes, 
 while Robespierre and Danton, who led them 
 out to the slaughter, had only thirty-four. 
 Whence arose this prodigious decline of popu- 
 larity in so short a time, and when they had 
 done nothing in the intervening period to jus- 
 tify or occasion it? Simply from this, that 
 having latterly endeavoured to repress the 
 movement, that instant their popularity dis- 
 solved like a rope of sand, and they were con- 
 signed in a few months to the scaffold by their 
 late noisy supporters. 
 
 This respectable writer adds his testimony 
 to a fact now generally admitted, that the well- 
 known novel of Faublas gave a correct picture 
 of the manners of France at the outset of the 
 Revolution. In such a corrupt state of society, 
 it is not surprising that political change should 
 have led to the most disastrous results : nor 
 can any thing be imagined much worse than 
 the old regime. 
 
 'Louvet de Courtray, born at Paris in 1764, 
 was the son of a shopkeeper, and made his 
 debut, not as an advocate, but as a shopman 
 in ihe employment of Brault, the bookseller. 
 He there acquired a taste for literature, which 
 he soon made known by his well-known novel 
 of Faublas. The Revolution commenced, and 
 despite its agitation, the ' Amours and gallant 
 Adventures of the Chevalier de Faublas' soon 
 obtained a deserved reputation. You find in 
 that book a faithful picture of the manners of 
 the age its levity, its follies ; the mode of life 
 of good company is there accurately depicted ; 
 and if decency is little respected, it is because 
 it met with as little respect at the period when 
 the hero of the story was supposed to be liv- 
 'ng." Vol. L p. 145. 
 
 But we must hasten to yet more interesting 
 scenes. The appearance of the Duke of Or- 
 eans when he voted for the death of the king 
 s thus described. 
 
 "Egalite, walking with a faltering step and 
 a countenance paler than the corpse already 
 stretched in the tomb, advanced to the place 
 where he was to put the seal to his eternal in- 
 "amy ; and there, unable to utter a word in 
 >ublic unless it was written down, he read in 
 hese terms his fearful vote : 
 
 " ' Exclusively governed by my duty, and 
 convinced that all those who have resisted the 
 x 2 
 
246 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 sovereignty of the people deserve death, my 
 vote is for DEATH !' 
 
 "'Oh, the monster!' broke forth from all 
 sides; 'how infamous!' and general hisses 
 and imprecations attended Egalite as he re- 
 turned to his seat. His conduct appeared so 
 atrocious, that of all the assassins of Septem- 
 ber, of all the wretches of every description 
 who were there assembled, and truly the num- 
 ber was not small, not one ventured to applaud 
 him : all, on the contrary, viewed him with 
 distrust or maledictions ; and at the conclu- 
 sion of his vote, the agitation of the assembly 
 was extreme. One would have imagined from 
 the effect it produced, that Egalite, by that 
 single vote, irrevocably condemned Louis to 
 death, and that all that followed it was but a 
 vain formality." Vol. ii. p. 48. 
 
 One of the most instructive facts in the 
 whole history of the Revolution, was the una- 
 nimous vote of the assembly on the guilt of 
 Louis. Posterity has reversed the verdict ; it 
 is now unanimously agreed that he was inno- 
 cent, and that his death was a judicial murder. 
 That the majority, constrained by fear, misled 
 by passion, or seduced by ambition, should 
 have done so, is intelligible enough; but that 
 seven hundred men should unanimously have 
 voted an innocent man guilty, is tne real phe- 
 nomenon, for which no adequate apology can 
 be found even in the anxieties and agitation of 
 that unhappy period. Like all other great acts 
 of national crime, it speedily brought upon it- 
 self its own punishment. It rendered the march 
 of the Revolution towards increasing wicked- 
 ness inevitable, because it deprived its leaders 
 of all hope of safety but in the rule of the mul- 
 titude, supported by acts of universal terror. 
 
 The result of the vote which, by a majority 
 of forty-seven, condemned Louis to death, is 
 well described : 
 
 "When the fatal words were pronounced, 
 an explosion of satanic joy was expected from 
 the tribunes : nothing of the kind occurred. A 
 universal stupor took possession of the whole 
 assembly, damping alike the atrocious hurras 
 and the infernal applause. The victory which 
 had been obtained filled the victors with as. 
 much awe as it inspired the vanquished with 
 consternation; hardly was a hollow murmur 
 heard; the members gazed at each other in 
 death-like silence; every one seemed to dread 
 even the sound of his own voice. There is 
 something so over-powering in great events, 
 that those even whose passions they most com- 
 pletely satisfy, are restrained from giving vent 
 to their feelings." Vol. ii. p. 61. 
 
 The death of the king, and its effect on the 
 people, is very impressive : 
 
 "The sight of the royal corpse produced 
 divers sensations in the minds of the specta- 
 tors. Some cut off parts of his dress ; others 
 sought to gather a few fragments of his hair; 
 a few dipped their sabres in his blood ; and 
 many hurried from the scene, evincing the 
 most poignant grief in their countenances. 
 An Englishman, bolder than the rest, threw 
 himself at the foot of the scaffold, dipped his 
 handkerchief in the blood which covered the 
 ground, and disappeared. . 
 
 " In the capital, the great body of the citi- 
 
 zens appeared to be overwhelmed by a general 
 stupor : they hardly ventured to look each other 
 in the face in the street : sadness was depicted 
 in every countenance: a heavy disquietude 
 seemed to have taken possession of every mind. 
 The day following the execution they had not 
 got the better of their consternation, which ap- 
 peared then to have reached the members of 
 the Convention, who were astonished and ter- 
 rified at so bold a stroke, and the possible con- 
 sequences with which it might be followed. 
 Immediately after the execution, the body of 
 Louis XVI. was transported into the ancient 
 cemetery of the Madeleine : it was placed in a 
 ditch of six feet square, with its back against 
 the wall of the Rue d'Anjou, and covered with 
 quick-lime, which was the cause of its being so 
 difficult afterwards, in 1815, to discover the 
 smallest traces of his remains. 
 
 " The general torpor, without doubt, para- 
 lyzed many minds, but shame had a large 
 effect upon others. It was certainly a deplo- 
 rable thing to see the king put to death without 
 the smallest effort being made to save him from 
 destruction ; and on the supposition that such 
 an attempt might have led to his assassination 
 by the Jacobins, even that would have been 
 preferable to the disgraceful tranquillity which 
 prevailed at his execution. I am well aware 
 that all who had emigrated had abandoned the 
 king; but as there remained in the interior so 
 many loyal hearts devoted to his cause, it is 
 astonishing that no one should have shown 
 himself on so rueful an occasion. Has crime 
 then alone the privilege of conferring audacity? 
 is weakness inseparable from virtue? I can- 
 not believe it, although every thing conspired 
 to favour it at that period, when the bravest 
 trembled and retired into secrecy." Vol. ii. 
 pp. 13, 44. 
 
 The Girondists were far from reaping the 
 benefits they expected from the death of the 
 king; Lanjuinais's prophecy in this respect 
 proved correct: it was but the forerunner of 
 their own ruin. 
 
 "The death of Louis, effected by a combina- 
 tion of all parties, satisfied none. The Giron- 
 dists in particular, as Lanjuinais had foretold, 
 found in it the immediate cause of their ruin. 
 Concessions made to crime benefit none but 
 those who receive them: they make use of 
 them and speedily forget the givers. This was 
 soon demonstrated ; for no sooner was the trial 
 of Louis concluded by his death, than the Ja- 
 cobins commenced their attacks on Roland, the 
 minister of the interior, with such vehemence, 
 that on the day after the king's execution he 
 sent in his resignation. 
 
 "The Girondists did every thing in their 
 power to prevent him from proceeding to this 
 extremity: his wife exerted all her influence 
 to make him retain his situation, offering to 
 share all his labours, and take upon herself 
 the whole correspondence. It was all in vain: 
 he declared that death would be preferable to 
 the mortifications he had to undergo ten times 
 a day. What made his friends so anxious to 
 retain him was their, conviction that they 
 could find no one to supply his place. They 
 clearly saw their situation, when it was no 
 longer possible to apply a remedy. The 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 247 
 
 Mountain, strong through their weakness, 
 overwhelmed them : already it broke through 
 every restraint, and the system of terror, so 
 well organized after the revolution of the 10th 
 of August, was put into full activity." Vol.ii. 
 pp. 153, 154. 
 
 It has never yet been clearly explained how 
 Robespierre rose to the redoubtable power 
 which he possessed for sixteen months before 
 his death. His contemporaries are unanimous 
 in their declarations that his abilities were ex- 
 tremely moderate, that his courage was doubt- 
 ful, and his style of oratory often tiresome and 
 perplexed. How, if all this be true, did he 
 succeed in rising to the head of an assembly 
 composed of men of unquestioned ability, and 
 ruled by the oldest and most audacious orators 
 in France? How did he compose the many 
 and admirable speeches, close in reasoning, 
 energetic in thought, eloquent in expression, 
 which he delivered from the tribune, and which 
 history has preserved to illustrate his name? 
 Supposing them to have been written by others, 
 how did he maintain his authority at the Ja- 
 cobin Club, whose noctural orgies generally 
 took a turn which no previous foresight could 
 have imagined, and no ordinary courage could 
 withstand? How did he conduct himself in 
 such a manner as to destroy all his rivals, and, 
 at a time when all were burning with ambi- 
 tion, contrive to govern France with an au- 
 thority unknown to Louis XIV.? The truth 
 is, Robespierre must have been a man of most 
 extraordinary ability; and the depreciatory 
 testimony of his contemporaries probably pro- 
 ceeded from that envy which is the never-fail- 
 ing attendant of sudden and unlooked-for ele- 
 vation. The account of the system he pursued, 
 in order to raise himself to supreme power, is 
 pregnant with instruction. 
 
 "It was at this period (March, 1793) that 
 Robespierre began to labour seriously at the 
 plan which was destined to lead him to the 
 dictatorship. It consisted, in the first instance, 
 in getting rid of the Gironde by means of the 
 Mountain ; and secondly, in destroying by their 
 aid every man of the ancient regime, capable 
 by his rank, his talent, or his virtue, of stand- 
 ing in his way. It was indispensable to reduce 
 to his own level all the heads above himself 
 which he suffered to exist, and among those 
 which it was necessary to cut off, he ranked in 
 the first class those of the queen and of Ega- 
 lite. Having done this, his next object was to 
 destroy the Mountain itself: he resolved to 
 decimate it in its highest summits, in such a 
 manner that he alone would remain, and no- 
 thing oppose his governing France with abso- 
 lute sway. Robespierre at the same time as- 
 sailed with mortal anxiety all the military re- 
 putations which might stand in his way; and, 
 in the end, death delivered him from every ge- 
 neral from, whose opposition he had any thing 
 to apprehend. 
 
 "That this frightful plan existed, is but too 
 certain; that it was executed in most of- its 
 parts, is historically known. That it did not 
 finally succeed, was merely owing to the cir- 
 cumstance that the Jacobins, made aware of 
 their danger before it was too late, assailed 
 him when he was unprepared, and overturned 
 
 him in a moment of weakness." Vol. ii. pp. 
 192195. 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, the well-known public 
 accuser in the revolutionary tribunal, is drawn 
 in the following graphic terms : 
 
 "Fouquier-Tinville, a Picard by birth, born 
 in 1747, and procureur in the court of the 
 Chatelet, exhibited one of those extraordinary 
 characters in which there i '-%uch a mixture of 
 bad and strange qualities as to be almost incon- 
 ceivable. Cioomy, cruel, atrabilious: the un- 
 spariay enemy of every species of merit or 
 rirfl i; ; jealous, artful, vindictive: ever ready 
 co suspect, to aggravate the already overwhelm- 
 ing dangers of innocence, he appeared imper- 
 vious to every feeling of compassion or equity; 
 justice in his estimation consisted in condem- 
 nation ; an acquittal caused him the most se- 
 vere mortification ; he was never happy but 
 when he had sent all the accused to the scaf- 
 fold: he prosecuted them with an extreme 
 acharnemcnt, made it a point of honour to repel 
 their defences: if they were firm or calm in 
 presence of the judges of the tribunal, his rage 
 knew no bounds. But with all this hatred to 
 what generally secures admiration and esteem, 
 he showed himself alike insensible to the allure- 
 ments of fortune, and the endearments of do- 
 mestic life : he was a stranger to every species 
 of recreation : women, the pleasures of the 
 table, the theatres, had for him no attractions. 
 Sober in his habits of life, if he ever became 
 intoxicated, it was with the commonest kind 
 of wine. The orgies in which he participated 
 had all a political view, as, for example, to 
 procure a feu defile on such occasions he was 
 the first to bring together the judges and juries, 
 and to provoke bacchanalian orgies. What he 
 required above every thing was human blood. 
 
 "A feu de file, in the Jacobin vocabulary, 
 was the condemnation to death of all the ac- 
 cused. When it took place, the countenance 
 of Fouquier Tinville became radiant; no one 
 could doubt that he was completely happy; 
 and to attain such a result he spared no pains. 
 He was, to be sure, incessantly at work : he 
 went into no society, hardly ever showed him- 
 self at the clubs : it was not there, he said, that 
 his post lay. The only recreation which he 
 allowed himself was to go to the place of exe- 
 cution, to witness the pangs of his victims : 
 on such occasions his gratification was ex- 
 treme. 
 
 "Fouquier Tinville might have amassed a 
 large fortune: he was, on the contrary, poor, 
 and his wife, it is said, actually died of starva- 
 tion. He lived without any comforts : his 
 whole furniture, sold after his decease, only 
 produced the sum of five hundred francs. He 
 was distinguished by the appearance of po- 
 verty and a real contempt of money. No 
 species of seduction could reach him: he was 
 a rock, a mass of steel, insensible to every 
 thing which usually touches men, to beauty 
 and riches : he became animated only at tl e 
 prospect of a murder which might be com- 
 mitted, and on such occasions he was almost 
 handsome, so radiant was the expression of 
 his visage. 
 
 " The friend of Robespierre, who fully ap- 
 preciated his valuable qualities, he was the 
 
248 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 depository of his inmost thoughts. The Dic- 
 tator asked him one day, what he could offer 
 him most attractive, when supreme power was 
 fully concentrated in his hands. 'Repose,' 
 replied Fouquier Tinville, 'but not till it is 
 proved that not another head remains to fall ; 
 incessant labour till then.' " Vol. ii. 216, 217. 
 
 On reading these and similar passages re- 
 garding the Reign of Terror, and the charac- 
 ters which then rose to eminence, one is 
 tempted to ask, is human nature the same un- 
 der such extraordinary circumstances as in 
 ordinary times; or is it possible, that by a 
 certain degree of political excitement, a whole 
 nation may go mad, and murders be perpe- 
 trated without the actors being in such a state 
 as to be morally responsible for their actions 1 
 In considering this question, the conclusion 
 which is irresistibly impressed on the mind by 
 a consideration of the progress of the French 
 Revolution, is, that the error lies more in the 
 head than in the heart, and that it is by the 
 incessant application of false principles to 
 the understanding, that the atrocious actions 
 which excite the astonishment of posterity are 
 committed. Without doubt there are in all 
 troubled times a host of wicked and aban- 
 doned men, who issue from their haunts, 
 stimulated by cupidity, revenge, and every 
 evil passion, and seek to turn the public cala- 
 mities to their individual advantage. But 
 neither the leaders nor the majority of their 
 followers are composed of such men. The 
 political fanatics, those who do evil that good 
 may come, who massacre in the name of hu- 
 manity, and imprison in that of public free- 
 dom, these are the men who are most to be 
 dreaded, and who, in general, acquire a peril- 
 ous sway over the minds of their fellow citi- 
 zens. When vice appears in its native 
 deformity, it is abhorred by all : it is by as- 
 suming the language and working upon the 
 feelings of virtue that it acquires so fatal an 
 ascendant, and that men are led to commit the 
 most atrocious actions, in the belief that they 
 are performing the most sacred of duties. The 
 worst characters of the Revolution who sur- 
 vived the scaffold, were found in private life 
 to have their humanity unimpaired, and to lead 
 peaceable and inoffensive lives. Barrere is 
 now, or was very recently, at Brussels, where 
 his time is devoted to declaiming on the ne- 
 cessity of entirely abolishing capital punish- 
 ments ; and yet Barrere is the man who pro- 
 posed the famous decree for the annihilation 
 of Lyons, beginning with the words "Lyons 
 faisait la guerre a la libert : Lyons n'est 
 plus;" and constantly affirmed, that "le vais- 
 seau de la Revolution ne peut arriver au port 
 que sur une ocean du sang." 
 
 The origin and composition of the" famous 
 Committee of Public Safety, and the manner in 
 which it gradually engrossed the whole powers 
 of the state, and became concentrated in the 
 persons of the Triumvirate, are thus given: 
 
 "It was on the 6th April, 1793," says our 
 author, "that the terrible Committee of Public 
 Safety was constituted: which speedily drew 
 to itself all the powers in the state. It did not 
 manifest its ambition at the outset: it was 
 useful at starting: it exhibited no symptoms 
 
 of an ambitious disposition, but that prudent 
 conduct ceased after the great revolt of 31st 
 May. Then the Convention, its committees, 
 and in an especial manner that of General 
 Safety, fell under the yoke of the Committee 
 of Public Safety, which performed the part of 
 the Council of Ten and the Three inquisitors 
 in the Venetian state. Its power was mon- 
 strous, because it was in some sort concealed; 
 because amidst the multitude of other com- 
 mittees it veiled its acts ; because, renewing 
 itself perpetually among men of the same 
 stamp, it constantly destroyed the personal re- 
 sponsibility of its members, though its mea- 
 sures were ever the same. 
 
 " The Committee of Public Safety terminated 
 by being concentrated, not in the whole of its 
 members, but in three of their number. Robes- 
 pierre was the real chief, but half concealed 
 from view ; the two others were Couthon and 
 St. Just. There was between these monsters 
 a perfect unanimity down to the moment of 
 their fall : in proportion as the Mountain was 
 divided and its chiefs perished, the alliance 
 between them became more firmly cemented. 
 I have every reason to believe that they had 
 resolved to perpetuate their power in "unison, 
 and under the same title which Bonaparte 
 afterwards adopted at the 18th Brumaire. 
 Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just were to 
 have formed a supreme council of three con- 
 suls. The first, with the perpetual presidency, 
 was to have been intrusted with the depart- 
 ments of the exterior, of justice, and of the 
 finances : Couthon was to have had the in- 
 terior; and St. Just the war portfolio, which 
 suited his belligerent inclination." p. 229. 
 
 One of the most singular circumstances in 
 all civil convulsions, when they approach a 
 crisis, is the mixed and distracted feelings of 
 the great majority, even of the actors, in the 
 anxious scenes which are going forward. A 
 signal instance occurred on occasion of the 
 revolt of 31st May, which overturned the Gi- 
 rondists, and openly established the supremacy 
 of the armed force of Paris over the National 
 Convention. This eventful crisis is thus power- 
 fully described by our author : 
 
 " The assembly, in a body, rose to present 
 itself at the great gate to go out upon the Place 
 de Carousel. We were all uncovered, in token 
 of the danger of the country: the president 
 alone wore his hat. The officers of the as- 
 sembly preceded him : he ordered them to 
 clear a passage. Henriot, at that decisive 
 moment, breaking out into open revolt, ad- 
 vanced on horseback at the head of his aides- 
 de-camp. He drew his sabre and addressed 
 us in a tone, the arrogance of which was de- 
 serving of instant punishment 'You have no 
 orders to give here,' said he, ' return to your 
 posts, and surrender the rebellious deputies to 
 the people.' Some amongst us insisted: the 
 president commanded his officers to seize that 
 rebel. Henriot retired fifteen paces, and ex- 
 claimed: ' Cannoniers, to your pieces!' The 
 troops that surrounded him at the same time 
 made preparations to charge us. Already the 
 muskets were raised to take aim, the hussars 
 drew their sabres, the artillerymen inclined 
 their lighted matches towards their pieces. At 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 249 
 
 this spectacle, Herault de Sechelles, the presi- 
 dent, was disconcerted, turned about, and we 
 followed him. He went to all the other gates, 
 followed by the same escort: traversed the 
 gardens of the Tuileries, and the Place de 
 Carousel, in vain seeking to escape: at every 
 issue a barrier of cannon and bayonets opposed 
 his exit. 
 
 " At the same time, who would believe it 1 
 the greater part of the troops, with their hats 
 on the point of their bayonets, were shouting: 
 ' Vive la Convention Nationale !' ' Vive la 
 Republique !' ' Peace Laws a Constitution !' 
 Some cried out : ' Vive la Montagne !' a still 
 smaller number, 'A la mort Brissot, Gensonne, 
 Vergniaud, Guadet !' A few voices exclaimed, 
 'Purge the Convention! let the blood of the 
 wicked flow !" Pp. 379, 380. 
 
 Yet though the opinions of the national 
 guard, the armed force of Paris, were thus 
 divided, and a minority only supported the 
 violent measures of Henriot and the insurgents, 
 this minority, by the mere force of unity of 
 action, triumphed over all the others, and 
 made their unwilling fellow-soldiers the in- 
 struments in imposing violence on the legisla- 
 ture, and dragging its most illustrious mem- 
 bers to prison. Such was the French Revo- 
 lution ; and such is the ascendency which in 
 all extreme cases of public agitation is acquired 
 by audacious, united wickedness, over irre- 
 solute, divided virtue. 
 
 It is interesting to examine the line of con- 
 duct adopted by the moderate members of the 
 assembly after this crisis, which prostrated 
 the legislature before the municipality and 
 armed force of Paris. The author gives us 
 the following account of the principles by 
 which he himself and the majority of the mem- 
 bers were actuated : 
 
 "Overwhelmed with consternation as all men 
 of property were by the audacity of the revolu- 
 tionists, and convinced of our impotence at 
 that time, (for virtue has but feeble nerves, 
 and none of that vigour which was manifested 
 not only by antiquity, but even by our fathers,) 
 I asked myself, I am not ashamed to confess, 
 whether a public sacrifice to the country would 
 ultimately be more advantageous than a silent, 
 cautious opposition, which in the end might 
 unite to itself all whom the fury of the Moun- 
 tain had spared. My answer was, that every 
 one must carry on war according to his means ; 
 and, as in our case, ah open resistance would 
 have been followed by a speedy overthrow, I 
 resolved to assume the appearance of absolute 
 indifference, which might leave me at liberty to 
 aid many unfortunate persons, and keep alive 
 the hope of finally overturning that abomina- 
 ble tyranny. 
 
 " Having formed this resolution, I immedi- 
 ately proceeded to act upon it. I was present 
 at the assembly; I quitted it without any one 
 being sensible of my presence. I lived on 
 terms of tolerable intimacy with Danton, 
 Tallien, the younger Robespierre, so that by 
 the aid of their hints and indiscretions, I was 
 prepared for every storm which was approach- 
 ing. 
 
 "This line of conduct, which was pursued 
 at the same time by Durand, Garau, Dupuis, 
 32 
 
 I Demartin, and a number 01 others, perfectly 
 succeeded. We were soon forgotten, while 
 the remnants of the Jacobin faction assailed 
 each other without mercy; we were passed 
 over in silence for fifteen months, and that 
 happy state of oblivion proved our salvation ; 
 for all at once, changing our tactics, and de- 
 claring against Robespierre, our unexpected 
 vote gave his opponents the majority, and 
 soon drew after it the whole Assembly. In less 
 than an hour after it was given, we became 
 an authority which it was necessary to con- 
 sult, and which, continually increasing, be- 
 cause it had struck in at the fortunate moment, 
 speedily made itself master of that supreme 
 authority which the Jacobins were no longer 
 in a condition to dispute. 
 
 " I know that our conduct is blamed, and 
 was blamed by many persons. A number of 
 knights of the saloon exclaim against it : I will 
 only ask, which of them, with all their boast- 
 ing, did any thing useful at the fail of Robes- 
 pierre? 
 
 "It is necessary in difficult times to dis- 
 tinguish obstinate folly from measured energy; 
 there would be no wisdom in attempting to 
 overthrow the pyramids of Egypt by striking 
 them with the hand : but in beginning with the 
 upper tier, and successively pulling down all 
 those which compose the mass, the object 
 might be accomplished." Vol. iii. p. 78. 
 
 This passage involves a question of the 
 utmost moment to all true patriots in periods 
 of public danger from civil convulsion; which 
 is, what should be their conduct when they are 
 openly assailed by an anarchical faction? The 
 answer to this is to be found in the situation 
 of the parties, at the time when the collision 
 takes place. If supreme authority, that of the 
 armed force, has not passed into the hands of 
 the anarchists, every effort should be made to 
 retain it in the possession of the holders of 
 property ; but if that is impossible, the conduct 
 pursued by these members of the Convention 
 at that period is not only the most prudent, but 
 in the end the most useful. To " stoop to con- 
 quer" is a maxim often as applicable to politi- 
 cal as to private life; and when the majority 
 of a nation are so heated by passion as to be 
 incapable of appreciating the force of reason, 
 it is only by waiting for the moment when they 
 have begun to feel the consequences, that a 
 favourable reaction can be anticipated. 
 
 The Reign of Terror is thus described: 
 
 "The Reign of Terror was a terrible epoch, 
 when the patriotic party acted with indescrib- 
 able fury, and resistance to it appeared only in 
 the feeblest form ; a frightful struggle, during 
 which punishment was daily inflicted in the 
 name of freedom ; when the people were go- 
 verned with the most despotic forms, and 
 equality existed only for the vilest of assassins. 
 Those who have not lived through it can have 
 no idea of what it really was ; those who do 
 remember it are monsters if they do not do 
 their utmost to prevent its recurrence : any go- 
 vernment, of whatever kind, and from what- 
 ever quarter, should be embraced in prefer- 
 ence. Eternal curses on the man who should 
 bring it back to his country! 
 
 " Yes, I repeat it : that era has no resem- 
 
250 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 blance to any other. I have seen the despot- 
 ism of Napoleon ; I have witnessed the terror 
 of 1815 ; paltry imitations of those tremendous 
 years ! France in 1793 and 1 794 was furrowed 
 in every direction by the revolutionary thun- 
 der; the most insignificant commune had its 
 denouncers and its executioners. Ridicule 
 was frequently joined to atrocity. Recollect 
 that village of the Limousin, from the top of 
 whose steeple the tricolour flag suddenly dis- 
 appeared. A violent disturbance was in- 
 stantly raised; search was made for the daring 
 offender, who could not be found, and in con- 
 sequence a dozen persons were instantly ar- 
 rested on suspicion. At length the fragments 
 of the flag were discovered suspended from the 
 branches of a tree, and it was found that a 
 magpie had made its nest with the remains of 
 the national colour. Oh, the tyrannical bird! 
 they seized it, cut off its head, and transmitted 
 the proces verbal to the Convention. We re- 
 ceived it without bursting into laughter: had 
 any one ventured to indulge himself in that 
 way, he would have run the risk of perishing 
 on the public scaffold. 
 
 " The Jacobins were not ashamed to propose 
 to us, and we passed into a law the decree, 
 which awarded 50 francs to every girl who 
 should any how become a mother. This 
 abominable demoralization flowed naturally 
 from the manners of that period. They made 
 a Goddess of Reason, whose altar was the 
 scaffold. They there sacrificed to crime by 
 massacring virtue ; nothing sacred or respect- 
 able remained : things arrived at length at such 
 a point, that the denunciation of the innocent 
 was recommended as a duty to sons, friends, 
 and servants ; in a word, there was no degree 
 of degradation to which we did not descend." 
 Vol. iii. pp. 42, 43. 
 
 It is well known that when the Duke of 
 Orleans was sent to the scaffold, he was de- 
 tained nearly ten minutes opposite to the Palais 
 Royal, for no intelligible reason which has yet 
 been divulged. The following explanation of 
 that circumstance, which our author says he 
 received from Tallien, is new to us ; we give 
 it as we find it, without either vouching for or 
 discrediting its truth. 
 
 " It was not without full consideration that 
 Robespierre formed his plan in regard to the 
 Duke of Orleans, which consisted in this : 
 two presidents were to be established for 
 France ; the one to preside over the war depart- 
 ment, the other over the interior ; the one was 
 to execute, the other to direct. The first of 
 these places was destined, not for Egalite, but 
 for his son, whose character was unsullied; 
 the second was to be occupied by Robespierre 
 himself. But to cement this alliance, Robes- 
 pierre insisted as a sine qua non that the daugh- 
 ter of Egalite should be given to him in mar- 
 riage. The proposition was made by Couthon, 
 and Egalite consulted his son upon it, whose 
 resolution was decidedly opposed to the alli- 
 ance. It was accordingly refused, with every 
 affectation of regret on the part of the Duke of 
 Orleans ; and thereafter Robespierre's indigna- 
 tion knew no bounds. The proposition, how- 
 ever, was afterwards renewed through Tallien, 
 who had many pecuniary connections with 
 
 Egalite, but with no better success. He 
 evinced an invincible repugnance to such a 
 son-in-law. 'In that resolution,' said Tallien, 
 'I clearly saw the prince of the blood ; he was 
 deaf to all the offers and considerations of 
 advantage which I pointed out.' 
 
 "After Tallien had received this positive 
 refusal, he returned to his constituent, who was 
 immediately seized with a violent fit of rage, 
 and swore to avenge the affront by the destruc- 
 tion of the whole family. Every one knows 
 how, in consequence, he forced Dumourier to 
 throw off the mask, and from that incident de- 
 duced the flight of young Egalite from the king- 
 dom, and the arrest of his father. After he 
 was imprisoned, Robespierre let him know that 
 his fate would be different if he would recon- 
 sider his refusal. The answer was still in the 
 negative; the rage of the Jacobin then knew 
 no bounds, and he decided upon the prompt 
 execution of his intended father-in-law. At the 
 last moment, a new proposal was made, 
 according to Tallien's statement; and if Egal- 
 ite, when the fatal car was stopped opposite 
 the Palais Royal, had made a signal to indicate 
 that he now acquiesced, the means of extri- 
 cating him from punishment by means of a 
 popular insurrection were prepared. He still 
 refused to make the signal, and after wailing 
 ten minutes, Robespierre was obliged to let 
 him proceed to the scaffold. I give the story 
 as Tallien related it to me, without vouching 
 for its truth; but it is well known that this 
 was not the only alliance with the royal family 
 which Robespierre was desirous of contract- 
 ing, and which would have covered with still 
 greater infamy the Bourbon race." Vol. iii. 
 179, 180. 
 
 There is no character so utterly worthless, 
 that some redeeming point or other is not to be 
 found in it. The Duke of Orleans has hitherto 
 been considered as one of the most abandoned 
 of the human race ; and the eye of impartial 
 history could find nothing to rest on, except 
 the stoicism of his death, to counterbalance the 
 ignominy of his life. If the anecdote here told 
 be true, however, another and a nobler trait 
 remains ; and the picture of the first prince of 
 the blood standing between death and an alli- 
 ance with the tyrant of his country, and pre- 
 ferring the former, may be set off" against his 
 criminal vote for the death of Louis, and trans- 
 mit his name to posterity with a lesser load of 
 infamy than has hitherto attached to it. 
 
 The worship of the Goddess of Reason has 
 past into a proverb. Here is the description 
 of the initiatory " festival " in honour of the 
 goddess. 
 
 " The day after the memorable sitting when 
 the Christian religion was abolished, the Fes- 
 tival of Reason was celebrated in Notre Dame, 
 which became the temple of the new divinity. 
 The most distinguished artists of the capital, 
 musicians and singers, were enjoined to assist 
 at the ceremony, under pain of being con- 
 sidered suspected and treated as such. The 
 wife of Monmoro represented the new divinity ; 
 four men, dressed in scarlet, carried her on 
 their shoulders, seated in a gilt chair adorned 
 with garlands of oak. She had a scarlet cap 
 on her head, a blue mantle over her shoulders, 
 
 
THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 251 
 
 a white tunic covered her body; in one hand 
 she held a pike, in the other an oaken branch. 
 Before her marched young women clothed in 
 white, with tricolour girdles and crowned with 
 flowers. The legislature with red caps, and 
 the deputies of the sections brought up the 
 rear. 
 
 "The cortege traversed Paris from the hall 
 of the Convention to Notre Dame. There the 
 goddess was elevated on the high altar, where 
 she received successively the adoration of all 
 present, while the young women filled the air 
 with incense and perfumes. Hymns in honour 
 of the occasion were sung, a discourse pro- 
 nounced, and every one retired, the goddess no 
 longer borne aloft, but on foot or in a hackney 
 coach, I forget which. 
 
 " The most odious part of the ceremony con- 
 sisted in this, that while the worship of the 
 goddess was going on in the nave and in the 
 sanctuary, every chapel round the cathedral, 
 carefully veiled by means of tapestry hangings, 
 became the scene of drunkenness, licentious- 
 ness and obscenity. No words can convey an 
 idea of the scene ; those who witnessed it alone 
 can form a conception of the mixture of disso- 
 luteness and blasphemy which took place. Pros- 
 titutes abounded in every quarter; the mysteries 
 of Lesbos and Gnidos were celebrated without 
 shame before assembled multitudes. The 
 thing made so much noise that it roused the 
 indignation of Robespierre himself ; and on the 
 day of the execution of Chaumette, who had 
 presided over the ceremony, he said that he 
 deserved death if it was only for the abomi- 
 nations he had permitted on that occasion." 
 Vol. iii. p. 195, 196. 
 
 The concluding months of the Reign of 
 Terror are thus vividly depicted : 
 
 " I have now arrived at the solemn period 
 when the evil rapidly attained its height, by 
 the usual progress of human events, which 
 perish and disappear after a limited period, 
 though not without leaving on some occasions 
 bloody marks of its passage. The revolution- 
 ary excesses daily increased, in consequence 
 of the union of the depraved perpetrators of 
 them. One would have imagined that these 
 monsters had but one body, one soul, to such 
 a degree were they united in their actions. The 
 Mountain in the Assembly, the Committees of 
 Public Safety and of General Safety without 
 its walls, the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Mu- 
 nicipality of Paris, the Clubs of the Jacobins 
 and the Cordeliers; all, according to their 
 different destinations, conspired successively 
 to bring about the death of the king, the over- 
 throw of the monarchy ; then all the acts of 
 popular despotism ; finally, the overthrow of 
 the Girondists, who, notwithstanding their 
 faults, and even their crimes, were, fairly 
 enough, entitled to be placed comparatively 
 among the upright characters of the Con- 
 vention. 
 
 " This combination of wicked men had filled 
 France with terrror; by them opulent cities 
 were overturned; the inhabitants of the com- 
 munes decimated; the country impoverished 
 by means of absurd and terrible regulations ; 
 agriculture, commerce, and the arts destroyed; 
 the foundations of every species of property 
 
 shaken ; and all the youth of the kingdom 
 driven to the frontiers, less to uphold the in- 
 tegrity of France, than to protect themselves 
 against the just vengeance which awaited them 
 both within and without. 
 
 "All bowed the neck before this gigantic, 
 assemblage of Avickedness; virtue resigned 
 itself to death or dishonour. There was no 
 medium between falling the victims of such 
 atrocities or taking a part in them. A uni- 
 versal disquietude, a permanent anxiety settled 
 over the realm of France ; energy appeared 
 only in the extremity of resignation ; it was 
 evident that every Frenchman preferred death 
 to the effort of resistance, and that the nation 
 would submit to this horrid yoke as long as it 
 pleased the Jacobins to keep it on. 
 
 " Was then all hope of an amelioration of 
 our lot finally lost] Unquestionably it was, 
 if it had depended only on the efforts of the 
 virtuous classes; but as it is the natural effect 
 of suffering to induce a remedy, so it was in 
 the shock of the wicked among themselves 
 that our only hope of salvation remained ; and 
 although nearly a year was destined to elapse 
 before this great consummation was effected, 
 yet from the beginning of 1794, men gifted 
 with foresight began to hope that heaven 
 would at length have pity on them, throw the 
 apple of discord among their enemies, and 
 strike them with that judicial blindness which 
 is the instrument it makes use of to punish 
 men and nations." Vol. iii. p. 230. 
 
 The first great symptom of this approaching 
 discord was the quarrel between Danton and 
 Robespierre, which terminated in the destruc- 
 tion of the former. It was impossible that two 
 such characters, both eminently ambitious, 
 and both strongly entrenched in popular attach- 
 ment, could long continue to hold on their 
 course together; when their common enemies 
 were destroyed, and the adversaries of the 
 Revolution scattered, they necessarily fell upon 
 each other. It is the strongest proof of the 
 ability of Robespierre that he was able to crush 
 an adversary who had the precedence of him 
 in the path of popularity, who possessed many 
 brilliant qualities of which he was destitute ; 
 whose voice of thunder had so often struck 
 terror into the enemies of the Revolution, and 
 who was supported by a large and powerful 
 party in the capital. It is in vain, after such 
 an achievement, to speak of the insignificance 
 ,of Robespierre's abilities, or the tedium of his 
 speeches. This great contest is thus described 
 Robespierre is addressing the assembly on 
 occasion of the impeachment of his rival. 
 
 "'The Orleans party was the first which 
 obtained possession of power; its ramifications 
 extended through all the branches of the public 
 service. That criminal party, destitute of 
 boldness, has always availed itself of existing 
 circumstances and the colours of the ruling 
 party. Thence has come its fall; for ever 
 trusting to dissimulation and never to open 
 force, it sank before the energy of men of good 
 faith and public virtue. In all the most favour- 
 able circumstances, Orleans failed in resolu- 
 tion ; they made war on the nobility to prepare 
 the throne for him; at every step you see the 
 efforts of his partisans to ruin the court, his 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 enemy, and preserve the throne; but the fall | 
 oi' the one necessarily drew after it that of the j 
 other. No royalist could endure a parricide. | 
 " ' A new scene opens. The opinion of the i 
 people was so strongly opposed to royalty, that ' 
 it became impossible to maintain it openly, j 
 Then the Orleans party dissembled anew; it j 
 was they who proposed the banishment of the 
 Bourbons. That policy, however, could not 
 resist the energy of the partisans of the Revo- 
 lution. In vain did Dumourier, the friend of 
 kings and of Orleans, make his calculations ; 
 the policy of Brissot and his accomplices was 
 soon seen through. It was a king of the Or- 
 leans family that they wished ; thenceforward 
 no hope of peace to the republic till the last 
 of their partisans has expired. 
 
 "'Danton! you shall answer to inflexible 
 justice. Let us examine your past conduct. 
 Accomplice in every criminal enterprise, : you 
 ever espoused the cause which was adverse to 
 freedom ; you intrigued alike with Mirabeau 
 and Dumourier, with Hebert and Herault de 
 Sechelles. Danton! you have made yourself 
 the slave of tyranny; you opposed Lafayette, 
 it is true, but Mirabeau, Orleans, Dumourier, 
 did the same. It was by the influence of Mira- 
 beau that you were appointed administrator 
 of the Department of Paris. Mirabeau, who 
 meditated a change of dynasty, felt the value 
 of your audacity, and secured it; you then 
 abandoned all your former principles, and 
 nothing more was heard of you till the massa- 
 cre in the Champ de Mars. What shall I say 
 of your cowardly desertion of the public inte- 
 rest in every crisis, where you uniformly 
 adopted the party of retreating.' 
 
 " At the conclusion of this incomprehensible 
 tirade, he proposed that Camille Desmoulins, 
 Herault, Danton, Lacroix, Philippaux, convict- 
 ed of accession to the conspiracy of Dumou- 
 rier, should be sent to the revolutionary tri- 
 bunal. 
 
 "Not one voice ventured to raise itself in 
 favour of the accused. Their friends trembled 
 and were silent. The decree passed unani- 
 mously, and with every expression of enthusi- 
 asm. The galleries imitated us: and from 
 those quarters, from whence so often had 
 issued bursts of applause in favour of Danton, 
 now were heard only fierce demands for his 
 head. This is the ordinary march of the 
 public mind during a revolution. Fervid ad- 
 miration of no one is of long duration: a 
 breath establishes, a breath undoes it. In 
 France this change was experienced in its 
 turn by every leader of the Mountain. Vol. iii. 
 p. 338. 
 
 The final struggle which led to the over- 
 throw of Robespierre has exercised the talents 
 of many historians. None have given it in 
 more vivid terms than our author: 
 
 "The battalions of the sections, who had 
 been convoked by the emissaries sent into the 
 different quarters of Paris, arrived successively 
 at the Tuileries around the National Assem- 
 bly. Tallien said to the chief of the civic 
 force ' Depart, and when the sun rises, may 
 he not shine on one conspirator in Paris.' 
 
 "The night was dark; the moon was in its 
 first quarter ; but the public anxiety had sup- 
 
 plied that defect by a general illumination. 
 The defenders of the National Convention 
 followed the line of the quay, bringing with 
 them several pieces of cannon; they marched 
 in silence. Impressed with the grandeur of 
 their mission, they sustained each other's cou- 
 rage without the aid of the vociferations and 
 exclamations which are the resource of those 
 who march to pillage and disorder. 
 
 "The place in front of the H6tel-de-Ville 
 was filled with detachments of the national 
 guard attached to the cause of the insurgents, 
 companies of cannoniers and squadrons of 
 gendarmerie, and with a multitude of indivi- 
 duals, some armed, others not, all inflamed 
 with the most violent spirit of Jacobinism, or 
 perhaps in secret sacrificing to fear. 
 
 " Leonard Bourdon, who was uncertain whe- 
 ther he should commence hostilities by at once 
 attacking the different groups assembled on 
 the place, before coming to that extremity re- 
 solved to despatch an agent of the Committee 
 of Public Safety, named Dulac, a courageous 
 man, but notapt unnecessarily to expose his life. 
 Dulac did so, and read to the assembled crowd 
 the decree of the Convention which declared 
 Robespierre and his associates hors la loi. Im- 
 mediately, the greater part of those who were 
 assembled came over and arranged themselves 
 with the forces of the Convention. Bourdon, 
 however, still hesitated to advance, as the re- 
 port was spread that the Hotel-de-Ville was 
 undermined, and that, rather than surrender, 
 the conspirators would blow it and themselves 
 in the air. Bourdon therefore kept his posi- 
 tion and remained in suspense. 
 
 " Meanwhile every thing in the Hotel-de- 
 Ville was in a state of the utmost agitation. 
 Irresolution, contradictory resolutions pre- 
 vailed. Robespierre had never wielded a sa- 
 bre ; St. Just had dishonoured his ; Henriot, 
 almost drunk, knew not what to do. The mu- 
 nicipal guards, a troop well accustomed to 
 march towards crime, were stupified when 
 they in their turn became the objects of attack. 
 All seemed to expect death, without having 
 energy enough to strive to avert it by victory. 
 
 "At this crisis Payen read to the conspira- 
 tors the decree of the Convention which de- 
 clared them hors la loi, and included in the list 
 the names of all those in the galleries who 
 were applauding their proceedings. The ruse 
 was eminently successful, for no sooner did 
 these noisy supporters hear their names read 
 over in the fatal list, than they dropped off 
 one by one, and in a short time the galleries 
 were empty. They soon received a melan- 
 choly proof how completely they were desert- 
 ed. Henriot in consternation descended the 
 stairs to harangue the cannoniers, upon whose 
 fidelity every thing now depended. All had 
 disappeared ; the place was deserted, and in 
 their stead Henriot perceived only the heads 
 of the columns of the national guard advanc- 
 ing in battle-array. 
 
 " He reascended with terror in his looks and 
 imprecations in his mouth ; he announced the 
 total defection of the troops ; instantly terror 
 and despair took possession of that band of 
 assassins; every one turned his fury on his 
 neighbour; nothing but mutual execrations 
 
^(^THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 253 
 
 could be heard. Some tried to hide them- 
 selves, others to escape. Coffinhal, maddened 
 by a transport of rage, seized Henriot in his 
 arms, and exclaiming, 'Vile wretch, your 
 cowardice has undone us all!' threw him out 
 of a window. Henriot was not destined to die 
 then ; a dunghill on which he fell so broke 
 his fall as to preserve his life for the punish- 
 ment which he so richly merited. Lebas took 
 a pistol and blew out his brains ; Robespierre 
 tried to imitate him; his hand trembled, he 
 only broke his jaw, and disfigured himself in 
 the most frightful manner. St. Just was found 
 vrith a poignard in his hand, which he had not 
 the courage to plunge in his bosom. Couthon 
 crawled into a sewer, from whence he was 
 dragged by the heels ; the younger Robespierre 
 threw himself from the window." 
 
 The scene here described is, perhaps, the 
 most memorable in the history of modern 
 times; that in which the most vital interests 
 of the human race were at stake, and millions 
 watched with trembling anxiety the result of 
 the insurrection of order and virtue against 
 
 tyranny and cruelty. It is a scene which, to 
 the end of time, will warmly interest every 
 class of readers ; not those merely who delight 
 in the dark or the terrible, but all who are in- 
 terested in the triumph of freedom over op- 
 pression, and are solicitous to obtain for their 
 country that first of blessings a firm and well 
 regulated system of general liberty. 
 
 Happen what may in this country, we do 
 not anticipate the occurrence of such terrible 
 scenes as are here described. The progress 
 of knowledge the influence of the press, 
 which is almost unanimous in favour of hu- 
 mane measures the vast extent of property 
 at stake in the British islands the habit of 
 acting together, which a free government and 
 the long enjoyment of popular rights have 
 confirmed, will in all probability save us from 
 such frightful convulsions. If the English are 
 ever to indulge in unnecessary deeds of cruel- 
 ty, they must belie the character which, with 
 the single exception of the wars of the Roses, 
 they ha>ve maintained in all their domestic 
 contests since the Norman Conquest. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830.* 
 
 THOSE who are conscious of a good cause, 
 and of the support of historical facts, should 
 never despair of making truth triumph, even 
 under circumstances the most adverse and ap- 
 parently hopeless. When we began to treat 
 of the French Revolution two years ago, never 
 did a resolute journal attempt to stem a more 
 vehement torrent of public opinion. It was al- 
 most like striving in the days, of Peter the 
 Hermit against the passion for the Crusades. 
 The public mind had been so artfully prepared 
 by the incessant abuse of the revolutionary 
 press in France and England for years before, 
 against Charles X. and the Polignac Adminis- 
 tration, to receive the worst impressions con- 
 cerning them : they were so completely de- 
 ceived by the same channels as to the real 
 nature of the Parisian revolt, the objects to 
 which it was directed, and the consequences 
 with which it was attended, that it was all but 
 hopeless to resist the torrent. But we knew 
 that our case was rested on historical facts ; 
 and, therefore, though not possessed of any in- 
 formation concerning it, but what we derived 
 from the public journals, and shared with the 
 rest of our countrymen, we did not scruple to 
 make the attempt. 
 
 We had looked into the old Almanac, and 
 we did not find it there recorded, that constitu- 
 tions, cast off like a medal at a single stroke, 
 were of long duration ; we did not find that the 
 overthrow of government by explosions of the 
 populace in great cities had been found to be 
 
 * Rlackwood's Magazine, December, 1832. 
 
 Snint C'lminnns sur la Revolution de 1830, et sea 
 Huitcs. Paris, 1832. 
 
 Pfyronnet Questions concerning 1 Parliamentary Ju- 
 rwdirtion. Parin. 1831 ; and Blackwood, Edinburgh. 
 
 Polirnac Consideration* Politiqnes snr 1'Epoque Ac- 
 tuelle. Paris, 1832; and Blackwood, 1832. 
 
 instrumental in increasing the happiness or 
 tranquillity of mankind; we did not know of 
 many examples of industry thriving during the 
 reign of the multitude, or expenditure increas- 
 ing by the destruction of confidence, or credit 
 being augmented by a successful exertion of 
 the sacred right of insurrection ; and we saw 
 no reason to conclude that a government ar- 
 ranged in a back-shop in the neighbourhood 
 of the Hotel de Ville, by half a dozen democrats, 
 supported by shouting bands of workmen, and 
 hot-headed students, and sent down by the dili- 
 gence or the telegraph to the provinces of 
 France, was likely to meet the views, or pro- 
 tect the interests, of thirty-two millions of souls 
 in its vast territory. For these reasons, though 
 possessed of no private information in regard 
 to that important event, we ventured from the 
 very first to differ from the great majority of 
 our countrymen regarding it, and after doing 
 all we could to dispel the illusion, quietly wait- 
 ed till the course of events should demonstrate 
 their justice. 
 
 That course has come, and with a rapidity 
 greatly beyond what we anticipated at the out- 
 set. The miserable state of France since the 
 glorious days, has been such as to have been 
 unanimously admitted by all parties. Differ- 
 ing on other subjects as far as the poles are 
 asunder, they are yet unanimous in repre- 
 senting the state of the people since the R vo- 
 lution as miserable in the extreme. The Roy- 
 alists, the Republicans, the Orleanists, the 
 Doctrinaires, vie with each other in painting 
 the deplorable slate of their country. They 
 ascribe it to different causes; the Republicans 
 are clear that it is all owing to Casimir Pener 
 and the Doctrinaires, who have arrested the 
 people in the middle of their glorious career, 
 
254 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 and turned to gall and wormwood the sweet 
 fruits of popular conquest; Guizot, the Duke 
 de Broglie, and the Doctrinaires, ascribe it to 
 the mad ambition of the democrats, and the in- 
 cessant efforts they have made to agitate and 
 distract the public mind ; Saint Chamans and 
 the Royalists trace it to the fatal deviation 
 from the principle of legitimacy, and the inter- 
 minable dissensions to which the establishment 
 of a right in the populace of Paris to choose 
 their sovereign must necessarily lead ; while 
 Marshal Soult has a clear remedy for all the 
 disorders of the country, and without stopping 
 to inquire whether they are revolting from 
 starvation, ambition, or experienced evils, cuts 
 them down by grape-shot, and charges their 
 determined bands by squadrons of cuirassiers. 
 Men in this country may vary in the causes to 
 which they ascribe these evils, according to 
 the side to which they incline in politics ; but 
 in regard to their existence and magnitude, af- 
 ter such a concurrence in the testimony of un- 
 willing witnesses, no doubt can be entertained 
 by Tory, Reformer, or Radical. 
 
 One single fact is sufficient to place in the 
 clearest light the disastrous effect of this con- 
 vulsion upon the internal industry of the coun- 
 try. It appears from the returns of the French 
 Commerce lately published, that their imports 
 before and after the Three Glorious Days stood 
 thus: 
 
 Franca. 
 
 General imports, 1830, 638,338,000 
 
 Do. 1831, 519,825,000 
 
 Decrease, 118,513,000 
 
 Imports for home consump- 
 tion, 1830, 
 Do. 1831, 
 
 489,242,000 
 374,188,000 
 
 Decrease, 111,054,000 
 Thus it appears, that although the Revolu- 
 tion did not break out till July 1830, so that 
 one-half of the imports of that year was affect- 
 ed by the revolt of July, yet still the general 
 imports in 1831, as compared with 1830, had 
 fallen nearly a fifth, and those for home con- 
 sumption about a. fourth in a single year ! Such 
 is the deplorable effects of popular triumph 
 upon public industry, and the suffering and 
 starvation brought upon the poor by the crimi- 
 nal ambition of their demagogues. 
 
 The progress of events, and, above all, the 
 necessity under which Marshal Soult was laid, 
 of quelling the insurrection of June, 1832, by 
 " a greater number of armed men than com- 
 batted the armies of Prussia or Russia at Jena 
 or Austerlitz,"* and following up his victory 
 by the proclamation of a state of siege, and or- 
 dinances more arbitrary than those which were 
 the immediate cause of the fall of Char-es X., 
 have gone far to disabuse the public mind on 
 this important subject. In proof of this, WP 
 cannot refer to stronger evidence than is af- 
 forded by the leading Whig journal of this city, 
 one of the warmest early supports of the Rp- 
 volution of July, and which is honoured by the 
 communications of all the official men in the 
 
 * Sarrann. 
 
 Scottish metropolis. The passage is as ho- 
 nourable to their present candour, as their for- 
 mer intemperate and noisy declamation in 
 favour of democratic insurrection was indica- 
 tive of the slender judgment, and limited his- 
 torical information, which they bring to bear 
 on political questions. It is contained in the 
 preface with which the " Caledonian Mercury" 
 ushers in to their readers a series of highly in- 
 teresting and valuable papers, by a most re- 
 spectable eye-witness of the Parisian revolt : 
 
 " It has appeared to us desirable to lay be- 
 fore our readers a view of a great event, or 
 rather concatenation of events, so different 
 from any which they have hitherto been ac- 
 customed to have presented to them ; and we 
 have been the more easily induced to give in- 
 sertion to these papers, because hitherto one 
 side of the question has been kept wholly in 
 the shade, and because differing as we do, 
 toto calo, from the author in general political 
 principle, we are, nevertheless, perfectly at one 
 with him in regard to the real origin or primum 
 mobile of the Revolution of July, as well as the 
 motives and character of the chief personages 
 who benefited by that extraordinary event. 
 The truth is, that, in this country, we prejudged 
 the case, and decided before inquiry, upon the re- 
 presentations of one side, which had the ad- 
 vantage of victory to recommend and accredit 
 the story which it deemed it convenient to 
 tell : nor first impressions being proverbially 
 strong has it hitherto been found possible to 
 persuade the public to listen with patience to 
 any thing that might be alleged in justification, 
 or even in extenuation of the party which had 
 had the misfortune to play the losing game. 
 Of late, however, new light has begun to break 
 in upon the public. All have been made sen- 
 sible that the Revolution has retrograded ; that 
 its movement has been, crab-like, backwards; 
 and that the best of republics' has shown it- 
 self the worst, because the least secure, of actual dcs- 
 po'isms ; while the 'throne, surrounded by re- 
 publican institutions' that monster of fancy, 
 engendered by the spirit of paradoxical anti- 
 thesis has proved a monster in reality, broken 
 down all the fantastic and baseless fabrics by 
 which it was encircled, and swept away the 
 very traces of the vain restraints imposed upon 
 it. The empire, in short, has been recon- 
 structed out of the materials cast up by a de- 
 mocratical movement ; with this difference 
 only, that, instead of a Napoleon, we now see 
 a Punchinello at the head of it; and hence .the 
 same public, which formerly be'ieved Louis 
 Philippe to be a sort of Citizen Divinity, now 
 discover in that personage only a newly-cre- 
 ated despot without any of the accessories or 
 advantages which give, even to despotism, 
 some hold on public opinion. A reaction has 
 accordingly taken place: and men are in con- 
 sequence prepared to listen to things against 
 which, previously, they, adderwise, closed their 
 ears, and remained deaf to the voice of the 
 charmer, charm he never so wisely." 
 
 But although from the very first we clearly 
 discerned and forcibly pointed out the disas- 
 trous effects on the freedom, peace, and tran- 
 quillity, first of France, and then of the world, 
 which the Parisian revolt was calculated to 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1 
 
 produce, yet we were not aware of the strong 
 grounds in constitutional law and public jus- 
 tice there were for the ordinances of Charles X. 
 We considered them as a coup d'etat justified by 
 necessity, and the evident peril in which 
 Charles stood of losing his crown, and throw- 
 ing the nation back to the horrors of revolu- 
 tion, if he did otherwise, but as confessedly an 
 infraction of the constitution. Upon this sub- 
 ject we are now better informed: The great 
 and energetic ability of the royalist party has 
 been exerted in France to unfold the real 
 grounds of the question, and it is now mani- 
 fest that the ordinances were not only imperi- 
 ously called for by state necessity, but strictly 
 justified by the Charter and the constitutional 
 law of France. Many of those who now ad- 
 mit the lamentable effects of the overthrow of 
 Charles X. are not disposed to go this length, 
 and are not aware of the grounds on which it 
 is rested. Let such persons attend to the fol- 
 lowing considerations : 
 
 The king's defence of the ordinances is con- 
 tained in the following proposition: 
 
 1. That by an article of the Charter, granted 
 by Louis XVIII. to the French, and the founda- 
 tion of the constitution, power is reserved to 
 the king to make such regulations and ordi- 
 nances as are necessary for the execution of 
 the laws, and the safely of tfte state. 
 
 2. That matters, through the efforts of the 
 Revolutionists, had been brought to such a 
 pass, that the ordinances of July were necessary 
 " for the execution of the laws, and the safety 
 of the state." 
 
 The 14th article in the Charter is in these 
 terms " Reserving to the king the power to 
 make regulations and ordinances necessary to 
 insure the execution of the laws, and the safety 
 of Ike state" On these words we will not in- 
 jure, by attempting to abridge, the argument 
 of M. Peyronnet. 
 
 "The alleged treason is> a violation of the 
 Charter; and how can the Charter have been 
 violated by the exercise of a power, of which 
 it authorized the use 1 It has been asserted re- 
 peatedly, that the Charter authorized the king to 
 make regulations and ordinances, necessary for 
 the execution of the laws, and for the safe'y of the state. 
 'The execution of the laws, and the safety of 
 the state ;' these words demand attention. They 
 were not written without a motive, nor without 
 their signification and force being understood. 
 Those who introduced these words info the 
 Charter, well knew that they expressed two 
 things, between which there was still more 
 difference than analogy. 
 
 " If the first words had sufficed, the latter 
 would not have been added. It is quite ob- 
 vious, that if the framers of the Charter had 
 understood that (he safe.'y of the state was in 
 every case to be provided for only by the execu- 
 tion of the 1'iwf, these last words would have 
 been sufficient. Why give an explanation in 
 a special case, of the execution, of the laic*, after 
 having decreed a general rule, including every 
 case, whatever it might be? Can it be ima- 
 gined, that a legislator could have spoken 
 thus, 'You are to execute the laws: and, 
 farther, if the safety of the state be in danger, 
 still you will execute the laws?' 
 
 " A very obvious 
 mission, either, that the poi 
 the safety of the state, was independent of the 
 power to enforce the execution of the laws ; 
 or, that the rules commonly admitted in legis- 
 lation must be abandoned, to the extent of as- 
 suming that a positive provision, which has a 
 known object an evident meaning a natural 
 and important reference means, however, no- 
 thing by itself, but is confounded and lost, as 
 though it did not exist in the preceding provi- 
 sion, to which it adds nothing. Lawyers lit- 
 erary men all men of sense well know that 
 such an assumption is inadmissible. When 
 the law is clear, nothing remains but to exe- 
 cute it ; and even when it is obscure, the right 
 of interpretation only extends to the preferring 
 one meaning to another; it does not authorize 
 the declaring it of no effect. The interpreter 
 of the law does not annihilate it. He expounds 
 and gives it life. ' Quoties oratio ambigua est, 
 commodissimun cst id accipi, quo res de qua agilur 
 in into sit.' Whenever the meaning of a law is 
 doubtful, that interpretation is to be adopted 
 which will insure its effect. This is what the 
 law pronounces of itself; and this maxim has 
 been transmitted to us by the Romans. 
 
 "Besides, what are the true interpreters of 
 the law? They are, at first, example; and 
 subsequently, the opinions of persons of au- 
 thority, expressed at the period of the publica- 
 tion of these laws. Let the provisions of the 
 Charter be submitted to this double test, and it 
 will be seen, that, from the first days of the 
 Restoration, the most enlightened, the most es- 
 teemed, and the most impartial men, have ex- 
 plained this provision as I have done. Of this, 
 the Moniteur has collected the proofs. It will 
 be farther seen, that in 1814, 1815, and 1816, 
 even the founder of the Charter exercised with- 
 out dispute the right I refer to, sometimes as 
 regarded the press sometimes in relation to 
 the enemies of the Crown and sometimes, but 
 in an opposite sense, as regarded the elections. 
 No one has, however, asserted that the Minis- 
 ters who signed the ordinances have been im- 
 peached as traitors, and threatened with death. 
 On the contrary, they were not only obeyed, 
 but applauded. Some have thought the ordi- 
 nances of 1815 to have been just; others have 
 considered those of 1816 salutary. Approval 
 was general, and was given by all parties in 
 succession. The measures were various, it is 
 true, and could not fail to produce different re- 
 sults; but the source whence they sprang was 
 the same the right to dictate them was the 
 same ; and thus, whoever has approved of 
 these measures, has consequently admitted this 
 right." 
 
 M. Peyronnet proceeds to confirm, by exam- 
 ples, what is here adduced in regard to the 
 power reserved to the king by this clause, and 
 the practice which had followed upon it. The 
 following instances, in none of which the exer- 
 cise of the dispensing power was challenged 
 as illegal, afford sufficient evidence of this po- 
 sition. 
 
 " In 1822, when the law relating to the cen- 
 sorship of the press was proposed, the follow- 
 ing declaration was addressed to the Chamber 
 of Deputies by its commissioners : 
 
256 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 " 'la virtue of the 14th article of the Char- 
 ter, the king possesses the right to decree by 
 an ordinance the measure which is submitted 
 to you, and under this view it might be thought 
 that this proposition was not necessary. But 
 since the government has thought that the in- 
 tervention of the Chambers would be attended 
 with some advantages, they cannot hesitate to 
 consent to it.' 
 
 "In 1828, when a new law was framed to 
 abrogate and replace the former one, the com- 
 missioners, by their reporter M. Simeon, ad- 
 dressed the Chamber of Peers in the following 
 terms: 
 
 " The 14th article of the Charter reserves 
 to the king the power to make the regulations 
 and ordinances necessary to insure the execu- 
 tion of the la\vs, and the safety of the state. It 
 is not therefore necessary that the law should con- 
 firm to him that which he holds from the Charter, 
 and from his prerogative as supreme head of 
 the state. If any danger be imminent, a dicta- 
 torship, to the extent of providing against it, 
 devolves upon him during the absence of the 
 Chambers. He may also, in case of imminent 
 danger, suspend personal liberty.' 
 
 " But all this is only theory. Let us refer to 
 acts. The Charter declared, that the laws 
 which were not inconsistent with it should re- 
 main in force till they should be legally re- 
 pealed. (Art. 63.) 
 
 " It declared, also, that the election of depu- 
 ties should be made by the electoral colleges, 
 the organization of which would be regulated 
 by the laws. (Art. 35.) 
 
 "Thus, then, according to the letter of the 
 Charter, the electoral laws existing previous 
 to 1814, were to continue in force until new 
 laws were made. ' New laws,' be it well re- 
 membered. 
 
 "What happened, however? On the 13th 
 July, 1815, and on the 5th September, 1816, two 
 new and different systems of election were 
 created in turns ; and they were created by or- 
 dinances. 
 
 " Where was the right to act thus found, if 
 not in the 14th article of the Charter? 
 
 "But this is little: The Charter declares 
 that no one can be elected who is not forty 
 years of age, and that no one can be an elector 
 under the age of thirty. (Art. 38 and 40.) 
 
 "What happened, however? On the 13th 
 of July, 1815, it was decreed that a person 
 might exericse the right of an elector at the 
 age of twenty-one, and be chosen deputy at 
 the age of twenty-five. 
 
 "And how was this decreed? By what act 
 was this important change in the Charter ef- 
 fected ? By a law ? No ! By an ordinance. 
 
 " Where was the right to act thus found, if 
 not in the 14th article of the Charter? 
 
 "This is still but of minor importance: The 
 Charter declared that each department should 
 return the same number of deputies which it 
 had hitherto done. (Art. 36.) What, how- 
 ever, happened ? 
 
 "On the 13th July, 1815, the number of depu- 
 ties was augmented from two hundred and sixty- 
 two to three hundred and ninety-five : and by what 
 au'hnrity? Ty an ordinance. 
 
 "Again, what happened? In 1816, when it 
 
 was resolved to return to the number of depu- 
 ties fixed by the Charter, instead of five depu- 
 ties being returned for the department of 1'Ain, 
 three deputies for Corsica, and two for the de- 
 partment of Finistere, as was the case in 1814, 
 three were allotted to the first, two to the 
 second, and four to the third: and by what 
 act? By an ordinance. 
 
 " Where was the right to act thus found, if 
 not in the 14th article of the Charter? 
 
 "Farther, the Charter declared that those 
 persons only could be electors who themselves 
 paid direct taxes to the amount of three hun- 
 dred francs, and those only be deputies who 
 paid them to the extent of one thousand francs. 
 (Art. 38 and 40.) 
 
 " However, what happened ? In 1816, it was 
 decided, that to become an elector, or a deputy, 
 the individual need not possess property in 
 his own right chargeable with those taxes, but 
 that it was sufficient if the requisite sums were 
 paid by a wife, a minor child, a widowed 
 mother, a mother-in-law, a father-in-law, or a 
 father. 
 
 "What farther happened? In 1815, and 
 again in 1816, it was decided that members of 
 the Legion of Honour might be admitted to 
 vote in the minor assemblies of the arrondisse- 
 ment, without paying taxes of any kind; and, 
 on paying only three hundred francs, in the 
 superior assemblies of the departments, where 
 only those were entitled to vote, who were as- 
 sessed at the highest rate of taxation. 
 
 " How were all these things decreed ? By 
 ordinances. And where was the right to act 
 thus found? Evidently it existed only in the 
 14th article of the Charter. Now, let us re- 
 capitulate these facts. A double change of 
 system a double change of numbers a 
 double change as to age a double change as 
 to taxation a change as to the particular 
 rights of three departments. All this without 
 any law. A direct formal, and essential en- 
 croachment on the articles 35, 36, 38, 40, and 
 63, of the Charter. All this without any law ; 
 all established by ordinances; all this by virtue 
 of the 14th article; all this without crime 
 without condemnation without even accusa- 
 tion : and now !" 
 
 These examples are worthy of the most 
 serious consideration, and, in truth, are de- 
 cisive of this legal question How is it pos- 
 sible to stigmatize that as illegal in 1830, 
 which had been exercised to fully as great an 
 cxent, on more than a dozen different occa- 
 sions, from 1815 onwards ? How is the change 
 on the electoral law in 1815 and 1816 to be 
 vindicated? And who ever complained of 
 this ? But, above all, attend to the important 
 changes introduced in 1815, on the qualifica- 
 tion of electors, and the representative body, 
 by ordinances. The age of an elector was 
 lowered from 30 to 21 years, and of a deputy 
 from 40 to 25; the number of deputies in- 
 creased from 262 to 395, by an ordinance. 
 Did the French liberals ever complain of these 
 ordinances as illegal? Did they ever object 
 to that which declared that the 300 francs a- 
 year, which is the qualification for an elector, 
 might be paid not only by the elector, but his 
 wife, child, mother, mother-in-law, father-in- 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 25' 
 
 It is quite another question, whether it was 
 wise or constitutional to have conferred this 
 power on the crown. Suffice it to say, that it 
 did possess it; that its exercise had repeatedly 
 taken place on many different occasions, with 
 the full concurrence and applause of the popu- 
 lar party; and therefore that the legality of the 
 ordinances is beyond a doubt. 
 
 The question remains, whether the exercise 
 of the power was justified by necessity, or 
 called for by expedience? 
 
 Upon this subject, 'if any doubt existed, it 
 has been removed by the events of the last two 
 years. No one who contemplates the state of 
 France during that period can doubt, that the 
 power of the democracy has become too great, 
 not merely for royalty, but for freedom ; that 
 the balance has been altogether subverted ; and 
 that the martial law, arbitrary measures, and 
 relentless prosecution of the press, which has 
 distinguished the administration of Casimir 
 Perier and Marshal Soult, were imperatively 
 called for, to restrain the anarchy which was 
 rapidly conducting society in France to its 
 dissolution. What the power of the demo- 
 cracy was what formidable weapons it pos- 
 sessed how complete was its organization, is 
 proved by what it has done. It has subverted 
 the most beneficent government that ever ruled 
 in France since the days of Clovis; whose 
 wisdom and moderation had gone far to close 
 the frightful wounds of the Revolution ; which 
 gave perfect freedom to individuals, and abso- 
 lute protection to property, during the fifteen 
 years of its rule; and the unexampled pros- 
 perity resulting from whose administration all 
 the anarchy and wretchedness consequent on 
 the Revolution of July have not been able alto- 
 gether to extinguish. The Revolutionists were 
 victorious in the strife; they got a king of 
 their own choosing, and a government of their 
 own formation ; their journalists were made 
 Ministers of State, and the system for which 
 they contended established; and what was the 
 consequence ? Why, that out of the triumph 
 of the Liberals has arisen such turbulence, 
 anarchy, and wretchedness, as rendered it ab- 
 solutely necessary for the Liberals themselves 
 to re-enact Prince Polignac's ordinances with 
 still more arbitrary clauses, and support them 
 by a bloody fight in the streets of Paris, and 
 the array of " a greater number of armed men," 
 as Sarrans tells us, "than combated Prussia 
 or Russia at Jena or Austerlitz." This result 
 is decisive of the question ; it is the experi- 
 menfum cruris which solves the doubt. It 
 proves that Polignac and Charles were correct 
 in their view of the terrible nature of the pow- 
 er they had to combat; that they foresaw, be- 
 fore they occurred, what the progress of events 
 was destined to bring forth, took the measures 
 best calculated to prevent them, and erred only 
 by not duly estimating the magnitude of the 
 physical strength which their adversaries had 
 at their disposal. 
 
 On this subject we cannot do better than 
 quote the able and eloquent observations of 
 the Viscount Saint Chamans: 
 
 * National. June 20th 18.11. ed to the 11th nrticle by the Liberal*, and contends only 
 
 f Sitting of 1) -c. 2.). 1810 -Poliffrnr, .11. F 2. Poti-rnic frr such n power ns is essential to save the remainder 
 Jvatly disclaim* ao arbitrary a power as inhere attritmt- 1 of the constitution. 
 
 33 2 
 
 law, or father? Or that which admitted mem- 
 bers of the Legion of Honour to vote in the 
 minor assemblies without paying any taxes? 
 Why were not the ministers impeached who 
 signed the ordinances in favour of the Liberal 
 parly? Not a whisper was heard of their ille- 
 gality on any of these occasions. But this is 
 the uniform conduct of the Revolutionists in 
 all ages and countries, and in all matters, 
 foreign and domestic. Whatever is done in 
 their favour is lauded to the skies, as the 
 height of liberality, wisdom, and justice; 
 whatever is aimed at their supremacy, is in- 
 stantly stigmatized as the most illegal and op- 
 pressive act that ever was attempted by a 
 blood-thirsty tyrant. Had the ordinances of 
 July, instead of restoring the number of depu- 
 ties to something approaching to that fixed by 
 the Charter, and restraining the licentiousness 
 of the press, been directed to the increase of 
 democratic power, they would have been prais- 
 ed as the most constitutional act that ever 
 emanated from the throne; and Charles X., 
 for the brief period of popularity allotted to 
 conceding monarchs, been styled " the most 
 popular monarch that ever set on the throne 
 since the days of Charlemagne." 
 
 There are many other instances of the exer- 
 cise of the same power by the crown. In 
 particular, in a report made in 1817 to the 
 Chamber of Peers, respecting the jury law, 
 which also contained several enactments, it is 
 declared, to remove the fears expressed by the 
 adversaries of the project of the law, that if 
 these fears were realized, "the king would 
 have the resource of using the extraordinary 
 power provided by the 14'/t article of the Charter" 
 This report was received without opposition 
 by the liberal part of the Chamber. Prince 
 Polignac has adduced two instances, among a 
 host of others which might be adduced, of the 
 manner in which these acts of the crown were 
 received by the Liberal party in France. " The 
 Charter," says the National, " without the 
 14th article, would have been an absurdity" 
 The founder of the Charter said, and was right 
 in saying, " I am willing to make a conces- 
 sion ; but not such a concession as 'would in- 
 jure me and mine. If, therefore, experience 
 proves that I have conceded too much, I re- 
 serve to myself the faculty to revise the constitu- 
 tion, and it is that which I express by the 14th 
 article. This was perfectly reasonable ; those 
 who supported legitimacy and the Restoration, 
 were right in insisting that the king was not 
 to yield up his sword."* 
 
 An equally decisive testimony was borne by 
 a learned writer, in the tribune of the Chamber 
 of Deputies, now a minister of France. " Wh^n 
 the Charter appeared in 1814, what did the 
 supreme authority do? It took care to put in 
 the preamble the word 'octroye,' and in the 
 text the 14th article, which conferred the power 
 of making ordinances for the safety of the 
 state; that is, he attributed to himself before 
 the Charter an anterior right prior to the Char- 
 ier, or, in other words, a sovereign, constituent, 
 absolute power." f 
 
258 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 " The Ordinances of July, and the sedition 
 which followed them, were no more the cause 
 of the Revolution of July than the dismissal 
 of M. Neckar, and the storming of the Bastile, 
 were the cause of the Revolution of 1789. I 
 see in both these events the first acts of a Re- 
 volution, of which the causes had existed long 
 before, but not the origin of that Revolution 
 itself. You might just as well say that the 
 battle of Arbela was the cause of the ruin of 
 Darius : as if, when the enemy had invaded 
 your territory, and penetrated to the heart of 
 your dominions, you had any chance of safety 
 by laying down your arms and submitting to 
 his terms as if it was not better to risk a 
 struggle which would save yon, if it was 
 gained, and renders you no worse than you 
 were before, if it is lost. Such was ihe posi- 
 tion of Charles X. He is unjustly accused of 
 having committed suicide ; but there are many 
 others to whom the reproach can with more 
 reason be applied. 
 
 "Louis XVIII. committed suicide on his 
 race, when he caused his ministers, in 1817, 
 to bring forward a democratic law for the election 
 of Deputies to Parliament, drawn in such a 
 manner as gave little chance of success to the real 
 friends of the monarchy, and when he created 
 sixty Peers to hinder the reparation of that fatal 
 step when it was yet time. 
 
 " The Chamber of Peers committed suicide, 
 when, with a childish desire for popularity, 
 they joined themselves to the Opposition (an 
 unnatural union) to overturn the minister, 
 who stood out as the last defender of mo- 
 narchical and aristocratic principles, and to 
 give a triumph to liberal ideas. They have 
 received their reward in the overthrow of the 
 hereditary Peerage. 
 
 "They committed suicide, the Royalists of 
 every shade and description, who enrolled 
 themselves under the Liberal banners, from 
 whence, after the triumph was completed, they 
 were ignominiously expelled. 
 
 "The courtiers committed suicide when 
 they weakly joined the Liberals, not seeing 
 that the principles of that party are inconsist- 
 ent with their existence. 
 
 "The crowd of commercial and industrious 
 persons committed suicide, when, become the 
 soldiers and pioneers of Liberalism, they at- 
 tacked with all their might, and finally over- 
 turned, that constitution which had conferred 
 such blessings on them, and prosperity on 
 their country, and under which France had 
 enjoyed a prosperity without example. 
 
 "It is in the faults of these parties, in Ihe 
 situation of parties anterior to the Ordinances 
 which resulted from these faults, that we must 
 seek for the causes of the catastrophe, and not 
 in the faults of Charles X. or his Ordinances. 
 It is evident that the event has not created the 
 situation, but only brought it to light; that his 
 sceptre did not fall in pieces at the first stroke, 
 from being then for the first time assailed, but 
 because the blow unfolded the rottenness of 
 the heart, brought, about by anterior causes." 
 S'.. Chamanf, 3, 4. 
 
 We had begun to underline the parts of this 
 striking passage, which bear in an obvious 
 manner on the recent events in this country, 
 
 now, alas ! beyond the reach of redemption, 
 but we soon desisted. Every word of it ap- 
 plies to our late changes ; and demonstrates a 
 coincidence between the march of revolution 
 in the two countries, which is almost miracu- 
 lous. At the distance of about ten years, our 
 liberal Tories and revolutionary Whigs have 
 followed every one of the steps of the Jacobins 
 and Doctrinaires of France. While they were 
 hastening down the gulf of perdition at a gal- 
 lop, we followed at a canter, and have adopted 
 every one of the steps which there rendered the 
 downward progress of the Revolution irretriev- 
 able, and spread unheard-of misery through 
 every part of France. We too have had Roy- 
 alists of every shade inclining to liberal ideas ; 
 and the courtiers entering into alliance with 
 their enemies, and a crowd of commercial and 
 manufacturing citizens combining to overturn 
 the constitution under which they and their 
 fathers had, not for fifteen, but an hundred 
 and fifty years, enjoyed unheard-of prosperity ; 
 and the Crown bringing forward a new and 
 highly democratical system of election ; and 
 the concurrence of the Peers forced by a 
 threatened creation of sixty members. Hav- 
 ing sown the same seed as the French, can we 
 hope to reap a different crop 1 May Heaven 
 avert from these realms the last and dreadful 
 catastrophe to which these measures led on 
 the other side of the Channel! 
 
 With regard to the conduct of Charles X. 
 after ascending the throne, the following ac- 
 count is given by the same writer: 
 
 " The goodness of Charles X., his love for 
 his people, his beneficence, his affability, his 
 piety, his domestic virtues, doubtless have 
 placed his private character beyond the reach 
 of attack. Let us see whether his public con- 
 duct justifies any more the accusations of his 
 enemies. 
 
 "On ascending the throne, he resisted the 
 natural desire of giving the direction of affairs 
 to his political confidants, and, sacrificing his 
 private affections to his public duty, he re- 
 tained the administration of his deceased bro- 
 ther who had raised France to so high a pitch 
 of happiness. When, shortly after, public 
 opinion, misled by the press, became weary 
 of the prosperity of France, and overturned in 
 its madness the ministers who had restored 
 its prosperity within, and regained its conside- 
 ration without, did Charles X. make use of 
 any coup d'etat to maintain in his government 
 the principles which he deemed necessary to 
 the salvation of France? No. He yielded: 
 he sacrificed all his own opinions, he changed 
 his ministers and his system, and in good faith 
 embraced the new course which was pre- 
 scribed to him. He conceded every thing that 
 was demanded. As the reward of the many 
 sacrifices made to opinion, he was promised a 
 peaceable, beloved, and cherished existence. 
 But bitter experience soon taught him that 
 what was conceded passed for nothing, or ra- 
 ther was considered only as the means of ob- 
 tainingfresh concessions; that the party which 
 he hoped to have satisfied, multiplied one de- 
 mand on another, moved incessantly forward 
 from session to session, and evidently would 
 not stop till it had fallen with him into the 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 259 
 
 gulf of democracy; that public opinion, that 
 is to say, its tyrant, the press, was soon as much 
 irritated at the new ministers as it had been 
 at those which preceded them; that his go- 
 vernment was harassed with as great obsta- 
 cles as before ; that the sacrifice made was 
 therefore useless, and that the system on 
 which, against his better judgment, he had 
 entered, instead of being followed by the ad- 
 vantages which had been promised, was in 
 fact precipitating him into those evils, the 
 foresight of which had at first inclined him to 
 a contrary system. 
 
 "Charles X., confirmed by that essay in his 
 first ideas, reverted then to his own opinions, 
 and the men who shared them ; and, whatever 
 calumny may assert to the contrary, neither 
 those men nor those opinions were contrary 
 to the charter. The real violators of the 
 charter were to be found in the majority of 
 the Chamber of Deputies; in the 221 who re- 
 fused to respect the constitutional right of the 
 monarch to choose his ministers, and who 
 were resolved to force him to dismiss them, 
 though they could not allege a single illegal 
 act of which they had been guilty. And, in 
 truth, their administration was perfectly legal 
 and constitutional, down to the promulgation 
 of the Ordinances, on which opinions are so 
 much divided, and which necessity alone dic- 
 tated to prevent the crown being taken off the 
 head of the sovereign. 
 
 "Let the truth then be proclaimed boldly. 
 Prior to the Ordinances, Charles X. merited 
 reproach as little in his public as his private 
 life. I may defy his most implacable enemies 
 and his daily libellers, who have with such 
 fury attacked a fallen victim, to point out one 
 real grievance, or single illegal act of his 
 whole reign. Are there any more reproaches 
 to make to the family who surrounded him] 
 You will find, on the contrary, in them an as- 
 semblage of all the virtues, of the noblest 
 courage in the extremities of misfortune. If 
 these virtues, these qualities, the inheritance 
 of a noble race, are lost to us by our ingrati- 
 tude, they are at least springing up again in 
 another generation ; they are yet growing for 
 France." St. Chtimans, 7, 9. 
 
 In this particular, our own experience of the 
 illustrious exiles in this city fully corroborates 
 the testimony of the French royalists. Never, 
 in truth, did simple, unobtrusive virtue work a 
 more surprising change in favour of any family 
 than that of Charles X. did in the opinion of this 
 city. When he first arrived in Edinburgh, he 
 was regarded by the great majority of the citi- 
 zens, deluded by the revolutionary press, as a 
 blood-thirsty tyrant, who took a pleasure in 
 cutting down the people by discharges of 
 grape-shot, and was intent only on the most 
 arbitrary proceedings. His followers took no 
 pains whatever to disabuse the public mind; 
 not a pamphlet, nor a newspaper paragraph, 
 issued from Holyrood; they lived in retire- 
 ment, and were known only to a limited circle 
 by the elegance of their manners, and to all 
 by the extent and beneficence of their chari- 
 ties, and the sincere and unaffected discharge 
 of their religious duties. By degrees the mask 
 placed by the Revolutionists dropped from 
 
 their faces ; instead of a blood-thirsty tyrant, 
 a beneficent monarch, bravely enduring the 
 storms of adversity, was discovered; and be- 
 fore the royal family departed for the conti- 
 nent, they had secured the interest, and won 
 the affection, of all classes of the citizens. 
 
 "Were, then," continues M. St. Chamans, 
 "the Ordinances the cause of the catastrophe 
 
 which ensued 1 
 useless if the 
 
 Yes ! if the Ordinances were 
 throne and the Constitution 
 
 were not in danger; or if, though in danger, 
 they could have been saved without a coup 
 d'etat. Not, if they were necessary and una- 
 voidable ; if the throne, the dynasty, the Con- 
 stitution, were about to perish; if the illegal 
 attacks of the enemies of the monarchy had 
 left the king no other resource but a des- 
 perate effort. What signifies whether you 
 perish of the operation, or the progress of the 
 disease 1 
 
 " What was the situation of affairs at the 
 epoch of the Ordinances 1 On that depends 
 the solution of the question. 
 
 " The Chamber had been dissolved, because 
 the majority was hostile; the elections had 
 sent back a majority still more numerous and 
 hostile ; the Chamber was to assemble on the 
 3d August. 
 
 " Charles X. could not govern France with 
 that Chamber, but by composing a ministry in 
 harmony with the majority of its members ; 
 that is, by assuming nearly the same men, 
 who, after the 7th August, formed the cabinet 
 of Louis Philippe, and adopting the same 
 system ; for such a ministry could not have 
 existed a day without conceding the same 
 democratic demands which were granted in 
 the modified charter of August 7th. We may 
 judge, then, of the situation in which Charles 
 X. would have been placed, by that in which 
 we now see Louis Philippe. Now, if, in the 
 short space of eighteen months three adminis- 
 trations have been overturned; if the throne 
 itself is shaken without authority, without 
 force, without consideration what must have 
 been the fate of the royalty of Charles X.? If 
 the liberal party has acted in this manner by a 
 king whom they regarded as their own the 
 darling of their own creation, and who by his 
 conduct and his personal qualities possessed 
 all the sympathies of the revolutionary party; 
 if, in spite of so many titles to their favour, 
 that prince has been obliged to throw them out 
 two or three administrations as morsels to de- 
 vour; if the journals, the caricatures, the tu- 
 mults, have troubled his days and his nights; if 
 he has been obliged to deliver up to them even 
 the arms of his race, and to degrade his own 
 palace by effacing the fleur-de-lis ; if they have 
 thus treated their friend, their chosen prince, 
 their citizen king, is it conceivable that they 
 would have respected the crown of a king, the 
 object of their hatred and jealousy, under 
 which they would have incessantly trembled 
 for concessions evidently extorted by force? 
 Who can doubt that in these circumstances 
 the throne of Charles X. would have perished 
 some months sooner than that of Louis 
 Philippe 1 Charles X. delivered over to a 
 ministry and a chamber chosen from his ene- 
 
 mies, would have found 
 
 nearly in the 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 same position as Louis XVI. in 1792. The 
 result would have been the same. If, then, the 
 danger of destruction awaited him equally, 
 whichever course he adopted, it was far better 
 to perish when combating like a king of 
 France than in weakly yielding. An open 
 strife offered at least the chance of safety ; con- 
 cessions offered none." St. Chamans, 11, 12. 
 
 "And that necessity is a sufficient ground for 
 such violent measures as coups d'etat, cannot 
 surely be denied by those whose subsequent 
 conduct has been entirely founded on that 
 basis. What authorized them to revolt against 
 the authority of the king? They answer, 
 necessity, in default of constitutional means 
 of resistance. Who gave them a right to 
 change the dynasty 7 They answer, necessity. 
 Who authorized them to overturn the charter 
 sworn to by all the French ? Necessity. Who 
 authorized them to mutilate the chamber of 
 peers, and to change into a life-rent their rights 
 of eternal property? They answer, necessity. 
 Necessity is their sole law: and, if necessity 
 justifies measures evidently calculated to over- 
 turn, not only the throne but the constitution, 
 with what reason can it be pretended that it 
 does not justify a measure intended to pre- 
 serve both?" Ibid. 18, 19. 
 
 Saint Chamans gives an account of the real 
 causes of the Revolution of July. These are, 
 the democratic law of Feb. 5, 1817, regarding 
 the elections; the licentious press; and the 
 centralization of all the powers of France in 
 Paris. - This part of the subject is of the ut- 
 most importance, and is treated by our author 
 with his usual ability. We shall endeavour 
 only to do justice to the subject in our trans- 
 lation. 
 
 "Two causes have, in an especial manner, 
 precipitated the monarchy into the abyss from 
 which there was no escape. These were the 
 license of the daily press, and the democratic 
 law of elections. It was against them that 
 the Ordinances were directed. 
 
 "I will not here repeat what I have often 
 advanced in regard to the periodical press. I 
 will only say, that ever since it has been unre- 
 strained, it has engaged in a battle of life and 
 death with the authority, whatever it was, 
 which held the reins of government: that it 
 stabbed to the heart the constitutional monar- 
 chy of 1791, established in the first fervour of 
 the Revolution ; that it afterwards slew the 
 Girondists, who had overthrown the monar- 
 chy; that it itself was crushed on three differ- 
 ent occasions, first by the Reign of Terror, 
 then by the cannons of the 13th Vendemiaire, 
 when Napoleon overthrew the sections, and 
 again by the transportations which followed 
 the 18th Fructidor; that having reappeared 
 after an interval of twenty years, it destroyed 
 the ministry of 181U, and shook the throne of 
 the Restoration; that it overturned succes- 
 sively the ministry of Villele, of Martignac, 
 and after that at one fell swoop the ministry, 
 the throne, the charter, and the constitutional 
 monarchy; that since that time it has slain 
 the ministry of the Duke de Broglio and Gui- 
 zot, and of M. Lafitte ; the two last in a few 
 months, and the third has no better lease of 
 life than the popular throne. That is lo say, 
 
 during twenty years that the press has been 
 unfettered since 1789, it has uniformly come 
 to pass, that in a short time it has either over- 
 turned the authority of government, or been, 
 overturned by it, through a violent coup d'etat. 
 It was the shock of these opposing powers, 
 each of which felt that its existence could be 
 secured only by the destruction of its enemy, 
 which produced the terrible struggle and the 
 catastrophe of 1830. To appreciate, in a 
 word, all the force of that demon-like power, 
 it is sufficient to recall to recollection that the 
 press succeeded in a few months in making 
 the weak and unfortunate Louis XVI. pass for 
 a blood-thirsty tyrant; and that latterly it 
 created that strong disaffection, which, in the 
 crisis of their fate, Charles X. and his noble 
 family experienced in the population of Paris 
 and its environs ; the very men who were 
 daily witnesses of their virtues, and literally 
 overwhelmed with their benefactions. 
 
 "As to the law of elections, of February, 1817, 
 it 'was framed in the true spirit of democracy; 
 the necessary result of which was, that it de- 
 livered the whole influence in the state into the 
 hands of the middling class, incapable of any 
 practical instruction in public affairs, passion- 
 ately devoted to change and disorder, from which 
 it hopes to obtain its elevation to the head of 
 affairs, as if it ever could maintain itself there. 
 That law annulled at once the influence both of 
 the higher classes intrusted in the preservation 
 of order, and of the lower, ever ready, no doubt, 
 to disturb the public peace, by the prospect of 
 pillage, but who can never be led into long 
 disorders, by the dream of governing the state. 
 It follows, from these principles, that the law 
 of February 5, 1817, whose enactments regu- 
 lated three-fifths of the electors, gave the ma- 
 jority, and, by consequence, the control of the 
 state, precisely to ihe class the most dangerous to 
 the puliic order, and ever disposed to support 
 revolutions, from the belief that it will benefit 
 by their progress." St. Chamavs, 21, 22. 
 
 "The revolution, long previously prepared, 
 broke out on occasion of the Ordinances, which 
 were directed to the coercion of the press, and 
 an alteration on the law of elections. The 
 press could have been placed under no re- 
 straints if the elections had returned a Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, enemies alike .to order and 
 public repose. It was the law of the elections, 
 therefore, that alone rendered indispensable the 
 employment of a violent remedy. The law 
 of the election of 5th February, 1817, \vith the 
 ordinance of 5th September following on it, 
 and the creation of Peers which was its re- 
 sult these were the true causes of the Revolu- 
 tion of 1830, and these causes existed before 
 the reign of Charles X. He therefore is not 
 to be blamed for it. If the throne has perished, 
 it is not because the battle was engaged, but 
 because it was lost. It was reduced to such a 
 state, that nothing but a victory gained could 
 have saved it. 
 
 "These were the causes which directly pro- 
 duced the catastrophe; but it would neither 
 have been so complete nor so rapid, had it not 
 been for the effects of that absurd centraliza- 
 tion, of which the Constituent Assembly pre- 
 pared the scourge, by dividing France into so 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 261 
 
 many departments, nearly equal, and breaking 
 down all the ties of the provinces cemented 
 by time. That universal levelling paved the 
 way for tyranny, by concentrating the whole 
 moral strength of the nation in Paris. The 
 universal destruction of the provinces has 
 deprived France of all internal strength ; the 
 whole remainder of the country has been re- 
 duced to mimic the movements of Paris, and 
 ape its gestures, like a reflection in a glass. 
 Since that period, the provinces, or rather the 
 departments, have not had a thought or a wish, 
 but what they received from Paris ; they have 
 changed masters ten times, without knowing 
 why, almost always against their will, begin- 
 ning with the 10th August, 1792, and ending 
 with the 29th July, 1830. How, in fact, can an 
 eighty-sixth part of France organize any resist- 
 ance to the central authority ? The neighbour- 
 ing departments first receive the impulse, which 
 is instantly communicated like an electric 
 shock to the others. All France being con- 
 centrated in Paris, there is neither force nor 
 opinion beyond that limited spot. The mo- 
 ment that Paris falls, the whole kingdom in- 
 stantly falls under the yoke of the stranger; 
 the vast monarchy of France is reduced to the 
 circuit of a single city. It was not thus with 
 old France. A king of England reigned six- 
 teen years in Paris, but the provinces resisted 
 and saved France. Guise and the League, and 
 latterly the Fronde, chased the king from Paris ; 
 but the provinces did not abandon their sove- 
 reign, and not. only preserved his throne, but 
 led him back in triumph to Paris. 
 
 "What a deplorable change is now exhi- 
 bited ? The great centralization of Paris is 
 repeated in detail in the little centralization of 
 the chief towns of the departments, which 
 communicate their movement to all the dis- 
 tricts of which they are the head. In each of 
 these, a few of the rabble, headed by half a 
 dozen advocates, make a little revolution, 
 always following the model of the great one. 
 This is what has been seen in bur days, but 
 never before in so extraordinary and disgrace- 
 ful a manner. Who would believe it? A few 
 thousand workmen and students, who had ob- 
 tained the mastery in Paris by means of a 
 sedition, changed the colours of the nation, 
 and hoisted the tri-colour flag. The depart- 
 ments instantly covered themselves with white, 
 blue, and red. Throughout all France they 
 changed their colours, without knowing whose 
 they were to mount; whether those of a re- 
 public, a military despotism, or a democratic 
 government. They knew nothing of all this ; 
 but, as mobs must have a rallying cry, they 
 called out, Viva Id Charte, when they were sup- 
 porting a faction which had overturned it. If 
 you asked them what they wanted, what they 
 complained of, whom they served, what they 
 proposed to themselves 1 They answered, We 
 will tell you when the next courier arrives 
 from Paris.' They are in transports, and ready 
 to lay down their life for whom 1 Why, for 
 the ruler whose name shall be proclaimed 
 from the first mail-coach. Unhappily this is 
 no pleasantry ; the tri-colour was received in 
 several departments many days before they 
 knew what sort of government it was to bring 
 
 them. Thirty or forty shopkeepers in Paris 
 had as many millions in our noble France at 
 their disposal, as if it were a matter which 
 they could mould according to their will. They 
 made use of our illustrious country as a sta- 
 tuary does of a block of marble, who asks 
 himself, ' Shall I make a god, a devil, or a 
 table ]' Be he whom he may, it is certain that 
 he is the very man whom the provinces would 
 most desire, and whom they would instantly 
 love with transport the moment he is on the 
 throne. Who can be surprised after that, if 
 these revolutionary improvisatores are not 
 supported by the same profound affections 
 which ancient habits and old feelings have im- 
 planted in the hearts. How disgraceful to the 
 age to see our countrymen, and precisely those 
 amongst them who are most vociferous in 
 support of liberty, make themselves the mute 
 slaves of Paris, and accept with their eyes 
 shut whoever is crowned there, whether he be 
 a Nero, a Caligula, or a Robespierre !" Cha- 
 rnans, 24 27. 
 
 These observations are worthy of the most 
 serious attention. The utter arid disgraceful 
 state of thraldom in which France is kept by 
 Paris in other words, by twenty or thirty in- 
 dividuals commanding the press there has 
 long been proved,'and was conspicuous through 
 all the changes of the Revolution; and without 
 doubt, the destruction of all the provincial 
 courts, and the annihilation of the whole an- 
 cient distinctions of the provinces, has gone 
 far to break down and destroy the spirit of the 
 remainder of France. But the evil lies deeper 
 than in the mere centralization of all the in- 
 fluences of France in Paris ; its principal 
 cause is to be found in the destruction of the 
 higher ranks of the nobility, which took place 
 during the first Revolution. In no part of 
 France are there now to be found any great or 
 influential proprietors, who can direct or 
 trerigthen public opinion in the provinces, or 
 create any counterpoise to the overwhelming 
 preponderance of the capital. Here and there 
 may be found an insulated proprietor who lives 
 on his estates ; but, generally speaking, that 
 class is extinct in the provinces, and so far 
 from being able to resist the influence of Paris, 
 ts peasant landholders are unable to withstand 
 the ascendant of their prefect, or the chief 
 ;own of their department. Napoleon was per- 
 fectly aware of this. He knew well, that in 
 consequence of the destruction of the higher 
 orders, regulated freedom was impossible in 
 France, and he therefore signalized his first 
 accession to the throne by the creation of a 
 new order of noblesse, who, he flattered him- 
 elf, would supply the place of that which had 
 been destroyed. Imperfectly as a nobility, for 
 the most part destitute of property, can supply 
 the place of one who centre in themselves the 
 great mass of the national property, it yet con- 
 tributed something to preserve the balance of 
 society ; and of this the great prosperity and 
 regulated freedom of the Restoration afforded 
 decisive evidence. But this did not answer 
 the purpose of the revolutionists. It raised 
 few of them to supreme power; the editors of 
 journals were not yet ministers of state, and 
 therefore the" never ceased agitating the pub- 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 lie mind, and spreading the most false and 
 malicious reports concerning all men in au- 
 thority, till at length they succeeded in over- 
 turning, not only the throne, but the hereditary 
 peerage, and have thus destroyed the last bul 
 wark which stood between the Parisian mob 
 and despotism, over the whole of France. 
 Such is the unseen but resistless manner in 
 which. Providence counteracts the passions 
 of individuals, and brings out of the furnace of 
 democracy the strong government, which is 
 ultimately destined to coerce it, and restore 
 society to those principles which can alone 
 insure the safety or happiness of its members. 
 Let us now hear M. St. Chamans on the ef- 
 fects of that great triumph of democracy. 
 
 " Let us now attend to the deplorable effects 
 of the Revolution of 1830. To riches has suc- 
 ceeded misery; commerce, flourishing when 
 the Glorious Days began, is now in the depth 
 of suffering; industry, then so active, is lan- 
 guishing; the bankers, so splendid before that 
 catastrophe, now attract the public attention 
 by nothing but the eclat of their bankruptcies. 
 Before it, consumption was continually in- 
 creasing; order and tranquillity reigned uni- 
 versally in France ; the public revenue was 
 abundant, and easily collected: since it, con- 
 sumption has greatly decreased; disorder and 
 disquietude trouble every man in the country ; 
 the public receipts are constantly diminish- 
 ing, and becoming of more difficult collection. 
 Contrast the moderate imposts which were 
 sufficient when peace was certain, with the 
 extraordinary expenses and total deficiency of 
 the ordinary receipts which have taken place 
 since the Revolution disturbed the peace of 
 Europe, and the disastrous effects of this ca- 
 lamitous event will distinctly appear. 
 
 "Instead of the perfect order which under 
 the Restoration prevailed in France, we now 
 see universally violence going on against 
 churches, priests, juries, electors, and inof- 
 fensive citizens; against the collectors of the 
 public revenue, their registers and furniture; 
 against the organs of the press, and the press 
 itself; royalty is obliged everywhere to efface 
 the word ' Royal ;' government addressing to 
 the departments telegraphic despatches, which 
 the prefects are in haste to affix on their walls, 
 and which the public read with avidity; the 
 great, the important news is, that on such a 
 day, the 14th or 28th of July, Paris was tranquil, 
 Paris was tranquil ! Why, tranquillity was so 
 usual under the former reign, that no one 
 thought of mentioning it, more than that the 
 sun had risen in the morning. 
 
 " Nor have the effects of the Three Glorious 
 Days been less conspicuous in every other de- 
 partment. We see regiments, ill-disciplined, 
 acting according to their fancy; sometimes 
 raging with severity against the insurrections; 
 sometimes regarding, without attempting to 
 suppress them; sometimes openly joining 
 their violence; the theatres alternately shock- 
 ing religion, its ministers, manners, and public 
 decency; the minister opposing nothing to 
 that torrent of insanity, though he knows 
 where to apply the scissors of the censorship 
 when the license extends to his own actions." 
 Ibid. 31, 32. 
 
 i " Thus the Revolution, without having given 
 us one of the ameliorations so loudly demand- 
 ed by the Liberals, has exhibited no other re- 
 sult but anarchy and misery; the one the ob- 
 ject of well-known terror to every friend to his 
 country, the other universal suffering. It is 
 needless to give any proofs of this state of de- 
 cay and suffering ; we have only to open our 
 eyes to see it ; all the world knows it, and not 
 the least the authors of the Revolution of July ; 
 not only those who have been its dupes, but 
 those who have been enriched by it, (if indeed 
 it has benefited any one,) make no attempt to 
 conceal the state of anarchy and disquietude 
 into which France is plunged ; on the contrary, 
 they seek to turn it to their profit, by constantly 
 exhibiting before the public eye a dismal per- 
 spective of evils suspended over our heads 
 disorder, anarchy, a republic, pillage, popular 
 massacres, in fine, the Reign of Terror. They 
 do not pretend that their rule can give us pros- 
 perity, but only that it stems the torrent of ad- 
 versity. 
 
 "These disastrous consequences are ma- 
 turing throughout France with a frightful ra- 
 pidity. The inhabitants of Paris, and possibly 
 the government, are not aware of the extent to 
 which the principles of anarchy have spread 
 in every part of France. They believe that 
 the earth is undermined only where explosions 
 have taken place, but they are in a mistake ; 
 it is everywhere, and on all sides, a bouleverse- 
 ment is threatened. Certainly, if any thing is 
 more deplorable than the present state of 
 things, it is the future, which to all appearance 
 is in store for us. 
 
 " Discord and anarchy have penetrated 
 everywhere ; into most of the regiments of the 
 army, into almost all the departments of 
 France. In the army, it is well known that 
 the non-commissioned officers have more au- 
 thority than the officers ; in the villages, the 
 electors of the magistrates and municipal 
 councils, with the officers of the National 
 Guard, have everywhere created two parties, 
 and distracted every thing. The source of 
 their discord is deeper than any political con- 
 tests ; it is the old struggle of the poor against 
 the rich; it is the efforts of the democracy in 
 waistcoats, trying to subvert the intolerable 
 aristocracy of coats. 
 
 'The disastrous effects of the Revolution of 
 1830 have not been confined to political sub- 
 jects. To complete the picture of our interior 
 condition, it is necessary to add that anarchy 
 has spread not only into the state, but into re- 
 ligion, literature, and the theatres, for it will 
 invariably be found that disorder does not con- 
 fine itself to one object; that the contagion 
 spreads successively into every department of 
 human thought. It was reserved for the lights 
 of the 19th century to draw an absurd and in- 
 credible religion from the principle that ' la- 
 bour is the source of riches.' The first conse- 
 quence they deduce is, that there is no one use- 
 ful in the world but he who labours ; those who 
 do not are useless : The second, that all the 
 good things of this world should belong to 
 those who are the most useful, that is the day- 
 labourers. M. St. Simon thence concludes that 
 a shoemaker is more useful to society than the 
 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 263 
 
 Duchess d'Angouleme. He never hesitated as 
 to his divine mission, and gave himself out for 
 the prophet of a new religion, the high priest 
 of a new church. 
 
 " In literature what a chaos of new and ex- 
 travagant ideas what a torrent of absurd re- 
 volting madness has burst forth in a short pe- 
 riod! It is especially during the last eighteen 
 months, that all men of reflection have become 
 sensible of the reality of our state of perfection ; 
 they have seen that the inefficiency of our lite- 
 rary and political character is at least equal to 
 their pride, and nothing more can be said of 
 them. 
 
 "One would imagine, in truth, that Provi- 
 dence had intentionally rendered the triumph of the 
 Revolutionists so sudden and complete, expressly in 
 order to open the eyes of those by a new example, to 
 whom the first would not suffice. Nothing has con- 
 tended against them but the consequence of 
 their own principles, and yet where are they 1 
 They have declaimed for fifteen years against 
 the undue preponderance of the royal authori- 
 ty, and the want of freedom ; and yet they have 
 proved by their actions that they could take 
 nothing from that authority, and add nothing 
 to that freedom, without plunging us into anar- 
 chy. Follow attentively their reign their own 
 principles have been sufficient to destroy them, 
 without the intervention of a human being. 
 The first ministry, M. Guizot and the Duke de 
 Broglio, had the favour of the king, and of the 
 majority in both chambers. Under the Resto- 
 ration, a ministry could never have been over- 
 turned which stood in such a situation ; but 
 nevertheless it did not exist three months ; 
 without being attacked it perished; disap- 
 peared in the midst of a tumult. The repres- 
 sion of that disorder was the nominal, the prin- 
 ciples of the government itself the real cause. 
 The same causes overthrew in a few months 
 more the succeeding ministry. The adminis- 
 tration of Casimir Perier had also the support 
 of the king and of the chambers, and no one 
 attacked it ; but nevertheless it was compelled 
 to purchase a disgraceful and ephemeral exist- 
 ence, by the suppression of the hereditary 
 peerage. Such is the state of this government ; 
 with all the elements of force it is incapable of 
 governing; with 500,000 men, and an annual 
 budget of 1500,000,000, (64,000,000^.,) which it 
 has at its disposal, it is not obeyed. At Paris, 
 nothing has occurred but revolt upon revolt, 
 which could be suppressed only by abandoning 
 to their fury the Cross, the emblem of Chris- 
 tianity, the palace of the Archbishop, and the 
 arms of the throne ; while in the provinces in- 
 surrections have broken out on all sides, some- 
 times against the authority of the magistrates, 
 sometimes with their concurrence, which have 
 led to such a stoppage of the revenue, as has 
 led to the contraction of debt to the amount of 
 20,000,000/. a year. 
 
 "Whence is it, that with the same elements 
 from whence Charles X. extracted so much 
 prosperity, and maintained such perfect peace, 
 nothing can be produced under Louis Philippe 
 but misery and disorder? It is impossible to 
 blink the question; it is with the same capital 
 that industry and commerce are perishing; with 
 the same manufactures that you cannot find 
 
 employment for your workmen; with the same 
 ships that your merchants are starving; with 
 the same revenues that you are compelled to 
 sell the royal forests, contract enormous loans, 
 pillage the fund laid aside for the indemnity 
 of individuals, and incessantly increase the 
 floating debt; that it is with peace both with- 
 in and without that you are obliged to aug- 
 ment the army, and restore all the severity of 
 the conscription. How is it that the ancient 
 dynasty preserved us from so many misfor- 
 tunes, and the new one has brought us such 
 terrible scourges? I will explain the cause. 
 
 " Confidence creates this prosperity of na- 
 tions. Disquietude and apprehension cause 
 it to disappear. Security, for the future, given 
 or taken away, produces activity or languor, 
 riches or misery, tranquillity or trouble. You 
 have made your election for the wrong side of 
 that alternative, when instead of Right you 
 substitute Might: because Right, which never 
 changes, bears in itself all the elements of 
 stability, while Power, which changes every 
 day, brings home to every breast the feeling 
 of instability. I know well, that to the present 
 triumph of power its leaders strive to annex 
 an idea of right; but it will be just as easy, 
 when the next heave of the revolutionary 
 earthquake displaces the present authority, to 
 clothe that which succeeds it with a similar 
 title to permanent obedience. Every succes- 
 sive party in its turn can rest its pretensions 
 to sovereignty on the authority of the People. 
 On the other hand, our right of succession 
 depends on an immovable basis. If Charles 
 X. or Henry V. is on the throne, every one 
 knows that no person can claim the crown on 
 the same title as that by which they held it: 
 but under the present government, how is it 
 possible to avoid the conviction, that if it 
 pleases 300 persons at Metz or Grenoble to 
 proclaim a republic, or 300 others at Toulouse 
 or Bordeaux, Henry V., and if a general stupor, 
 arising from the weakness of each of the de- 
 partments taken singly, prevents any effectual 
 resistance, the new government will immedi- 
 ately acquire the same title to obedience as 
 that which now fills the throne ?" St. Cha- 
 mans, 57, 58. 
 
 " It is therefore in the principle on which the 
 government is founded, that we must look for 
 the cause of our suffering and our ruin. If to this 
 cause we add the consequences, not less power- 
 ful, of a. democratic constitution, that is, to an 
 organized anarchy, we may despair of the 
 safety of'our country, if it is not destroyed by 
 the seeds of destruction which such a govern- 
 ment carries in its bosom. In no country, and 
 in no age, has democracy made a great state 
 prosper, or established it in a stable manner; 
 and even though it should become inured to 
 the climate elsewhere, it would always prove 
 fatal in France.. The foundation of the French 
 character is vanity; and that feeling which, 
 under proper direction, becomes a noble desire 
 for illustrators, which has been the source of 
 our military glory, and of our success in so 
 many different departments, is an invincible 
 bar to our essays in democracy, because every 
 one is envious of the superiority of his neigh- 
 bour, conceives himself qualified for every 
 
264 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 thing, and pretends to every situation." 
 Ibid. 60. 
 
 "The Revolution of 1830 has lighted anew 
 the torch of experience on many controverted 
 points, and I appeal with confidence upon them 
 to the many men of good faith who exist among 
 our adversaries. They seek like us the good 
 of our common country, and the welfare of 
 humanity; they hold that in the Charter there 
 was too little political power conferred upon 
 the people. Let them judge now, for the proof 
 has been decisive. They will find that on 
 every occasion, without one exception, in 
 which political power, unrestrained by strict 
 limits, has been conferred upon the people, 
 personal liberty had been destroyed,- that the latter 
 has lost as much as the former has gained. 
 Such an extension of political power is no- 
 thing but democracy or supreme authority 
 lodged in the hands of the people. Reflect 
 upon the fate of personal freedom under the 
 democratic constitutions which promised us 
 the greatest possible extension of individual 
 liberty. Was there liberty under the Consti- 
 tuent Assembly, for those who were massacred 
 in the streets, and whose heads they carried on 
 the ends of pikes 1 Was there liberty for the 
 seigniors whose chateaux they burnt, and who 
 saved their lives only by flight? Was there 
 liberty for those who were massacred at 
 Avignon, or whom the committee of Jacobins 
 tore from the bosoms of their families to con- 
 duct to the guillotine 1 Was there liberty for 
 the King, who was not permitted to move be- 
 yond the barriers of Paris, nor venture to 
 breathe the fresh air at the distance of a league 
 from the city ? No, there was liberty only, for 
 their oppressors : the only freedom was that 
 which the incendiaries, jailers, and assassins 
 enjoyed. 
 
 "Since the Revolution of July, has there 
 been any freedom for the clergy, who do not 
 venture to show themselves in the streets of 
 Paris, even in that dress which is revered by 
 savage tribes ; for the Catholics, who can no 
 longer attend mass but at midnight; for the 
 Judges, who are threatened in the discharge 
 of their duties by the aspirants for their places ; 
 for the Electors, whose votes are overturned 
 with the urns which contain them, and who 
 return lacerated and bleeding from the place 
 of election ; for the Citizens arbitrarily thrust 
 out of the National Guard; for the Archbishop 
 of Paris, whose house was robbed and plun- 
 dered with impunity, at the very moment when 
 the ministers confessed in the chambers they 
 could allege nothing against him ; for the 
 officers of all grades, even the generals ex- 
 pelled from their situations at the caprice of 
 their inferiors ; for the curates of churches, 
 when the government, trembling before the 
 sovereign multitude, close the churches to 
 save them from the profanation and sacking 
 of the mob ; for the King himself, condemned 
 by their despotism, to lay aside the arms of 
 his race?" 
 
 " These evils have arisen from confounding 
 personal with political liberty; a distiction 
 which lies at the foundation of thes matters. 
 
 "I call personal freedom the right to dispose, 
 
 without molestation, of one's person and es- 
 tate, and be secure that neither the one nor 
 the other will be disquieted without your con- 
 sent. That liberty Ls an object of universal in- 
 terest; its preservation the source of universal 
 solicitude. I support the extension of that 
 species of liberty to the utmost extent that 
 society can admit; and I would carry it to a 
 much greater length than ever has been im- 
 agined by our democrats. I would have every 
 one's property held sacred ; his person and 
 estate inviolable, without the consent of his 
 representatives, or the authority of the law ; 
 absolute security against forced service of any 
 kind, or against either arrest or punishment, 
 but under the strongest safeguard, for the 
 protection of innocence. 
 
 " The other species of liberty, called Politi- 
 cal Liberty, is an object of interest to the great 
 body of the citizens ; it consists in the right of 
 taking a part in the government of the state. 
 It cannot affect the great body, because in every 
 country the immense majority can influence 
 government neither by their votes nor their 
 writings. This latter kind of liberty should 
 be restrained within narrow limits, for experi- 
 ence proves it cannot be widely extended with- 
 out destroying the other." 
 
 These observations appear to be as novel as 
 they are important. They are not, strictly 
 speaking, new ; for in this Magazine for Feb- 
 ruary, 1830,* the same principles are laid down 
 and illustrated; and this furnishes another 
 proof, among the many which might be col- 
 lected, of the simultaneous extrication of the 
 same original thought, in different countries at 
 the same time, from the course of political 
 events. But to any one who calmly and dis- 
 passionately considers the subject, it must be 
 manifest that they contain the true principle 
 on the subject. The difference, as St. Cha- 
 mans says, between personal and political lib- 
 erty, or, as we should say in this country, be- 
 tween Freedom and Democracy, is the most 
 important distinction which ever was stated ; 
 and it is from confounding these two different 
 objects of popular ambition, that all the misery 
 has arisen, which has so often attended the 
 struggle for popular independence, and that 
 liberty has so often been strangled by its own 
 votaries. 
 
 To produce the greatest amount of personal 
 freedom and security with the smallest degree 
 of political power in the lower classes ; to 
 combine the maximum of liberty with the mi- 
 nimum of democracy, is the great end of good 
 government, and should be the great object of 
 the true patriot in every age and country. 
 There is no such fatal enemy to Freedom as 
 Democracy; it never fails to devour its off- 
 spring in a few years. True liberty, or the 
 complete security of persons, thoughts, pro- 
 perty, and actions, in all classes, from injury 
 or oppression, never existed three months under 
 an unrestrained Democracy ; because the worst 
 of tyrannies is a multitude of tyrants. The 
 coercion of each class of society by the others ; 
 
 * French Revolution, No. 2. February, 1830, written 
 by the author. 
 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 265 
 
 of the impetuosity and vehemence of the po- 
 pulace and their demagogues by the steadiness 
 and weight of the aristocracy; of the ambi- 
 tion and oppression of the aristocracy by the 
 vigour and independence of the commons, is 
 indispensable to the equilibrium of govern- 
 ment and the preservation of freedom; but it 
 is precisely the state of things which the re- 
 volutionists will ever assail with most vehe- 
 mence, because it affords the most effectual 
 coercion to their passions and despotic ambi- 
 tion. The spirit of democracy, that keen and 
 devouring element which has produced, and is 
 producing, such ravages in the world, is to the 
 political what fire is to domestic life. Politi- 
 cal freedom cannot exist without it, and when 
 properly regulated, it vivifies and improves 
 every department of society; but if once al- 
 lowed to get ahead, if not confined within iron 
 bars, it will instantly consume the fabric in 
 which it is placed. 
 
 Napoleon has left the following picture of 
 the manner in which freedom was devoured 
 by democracy, during the first French Revolu- 
 tion : " Liberty," said he, " was doubtless the 
 first cry of the people when the Revolution 
 arose ; but that was not what they really de- 
 sired. The first lightning of the Revolution 
 showed what talents then existed, which the 
 levelling principle would restore to society for 
 the advantage and glory of the state. Thus it 
 was equality which the French people always 
 desired; and to tell the truth, liberty hath never 
 existed since it, was proclaimed. For the proper 
 definition of liberty is the power of freely ex- 
 ercising all our faculties ; and with the excep- 
 tion of some speeches which the orators of the 
 sections were allowed to make in 1795, show 
 me a period when the people were at liberty to 
 say or do what they wished since 1789 ] Was 
 it when the crowds of women and malecon- 
 tents besieged the Convention ! Begone ; think 
 of your business, said they ; and yet these poor 
 people only asked for bread. Will any one 
 pretend that the years 1793 or 1794 were the 
 eras of freedom T Under the Directory, no one 
 dared to open their mouth ; and after the 18th 
 Fructidor in 1797, a second Reign of Terror 
 arose. Never have the people, even under 
 Louis XL or Cardinal Richelieu, or in the most 
 despotic states, had less liberty than during the 
 whole period which has elapsed since the first Revo- 
 lution broke out. What France always wished, 
 what she still wishes, is equality; in other 
 
 words, the equal partition of the means of ris- 
 ing to glory and distinction in the state."* 
 
 This lesson would not suffice. The revolu- 
 tionists saw their despotic rule melting away 
 under the just and equal sway of the Bourbons, 
 and therefore they inflamed the public mind 
 till they got their government overthrown. 
 Despotism of one kind or another instantly re- 
 turned: that of the National Guard, the Pari- 
 ! sian Emeutes, or Marshal Soult's cannoniers, 
 I and liberty has been destroyed by the dema- 
 gogues who roused the people in its name. 
 Thus it ever has been ; thus it ever will be to 
 : the end of time. Individuals may be instructed 
 I by history or enlightened by reflection; the 
 1 great masses of mankind will never learn wis- 
 dom but from their own suffering. 
 
 This distinction between individual freedom 
 and political power, between liberty and demo- 
 cracy, is the great point of separation between 
 the Whigs and Tories. The Conservatives 
 strive to increase personal freedom to the ut- 
 | most degree, and to effect that they find it in- 
 I dispensable to restrain the efforts of its worst 
 j enemies, the democracy. . The Whigs attend 
 | only to the augmentation of popular power, 
 j and in so doing they instantly trench on civil 
 i liberty. When were persons, property, life, 
 j and thoughts, more free, better protected or 
 secured, than in Great Britain from 1815 to 
 1830, the days when the Democracy was re- 
 strained 1 When have they been so ill secured 
 | since the time of Cromwell, as during the last 
 two years, illuminated as they have been by 
 | the flames of Bristol, and the conflagration of 
 Jamaica, the days of democratic ascendency ] 
 Ireland, at present under the distracting rule 
 of O'Connell, the demagogue, is the prototype 
 of the slavery to which we are fast driving, 
 under the guidance of the Whigs : England, 
 from 1815 to 1830, the last example of the 
 freedom from which we are receding, estab- 
 lished by the Tories. What farther evils the 
 farther indulgence of this devouring principle 
 is to produce, we know not, though experience 
 gives us little hopes of amendment till we have 
 gone through additional suffering; but of this 
 we are well assured, that the time will come 
 when these truths shall have passed into 
 axioms, and experience taught every man of 
 intelligence, that the assassins of freedom are 
 the supporters of democratic power. 
 
 * Napoleon, en Duchease Abrantes, vii. 169, 170. 
 
 34 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ASSAYS. 
 
 THE FALL OF TURKEY.* 
 
 THE long duration and sudden fall of the 
 Turkish Empire is one of the most extraordi- 
 nary and apparently inexplicable phenomena 
 in European history. The decay of the Otto- 
 man power had been constantly the theme of 
 historians ; their approaching downfall, the 
 unceasing subject of prophecy for a century; 
 but yet the ancient fabric still held out, and 
 evinced on occasions a degree of vigour which 
 confounded all the machinations of its enemies. 
 For eighty years, the subversion of the empire 
 of Constantinople had been the unceasing 
 object of Moscovite ambition: the genius of 
 Catherine had been incessantly directed to 
 that great object; a Russian prince was christ- 
 ened after the last of the Palceologi expressly 
 to receive his throne, but yet the black eagle 
 made little progress towards the Danube ; the 
 Mussulman forces arrayed on its banks were 
 still most formidable, and a host arrayed under 
 the banners of the Osmanleys, seemingly ca- 
 pable of making head against the world. For 
 four years, from 1808 to 1812, the Russians 
 waged a desperate war with the Turks ; they 
 brought frequently an hundred and fifty, some- 
 times two hundred thousand men into the 
 field; but at its close they had made no sensi- 
 ble progress in the reduction of the bulwarks 
 of Islamism : two hundred thousand Mussul- 
 mans had frequently assembled round the ban- 
 ners of the Prophet; the Danube had been 
 stained with blood, but the hostile armies still 
 contended in doubtful and desperate strife on 
 its shores; and on the glacis of Roudschouk, 
 the Moscovites had sustained a bloodier defeat 
 than they ever received from the genius of 
 Napoleon. In the triumph of the Turks at 
 that prodigious victory, the Vizier wrote exult- 
 in gly to the Grand Seignior, that such was the 
 multitude of the Infidel heads which he had 
 taken, that they would make a bridge for the 
 souls of the Faithful from earth to heaven. 
 
 But though then so formidable, the Ottoman 
 power has within these twenty years rapidly 
 and irrecoverably declined. The great barrier 
 of Turkey was reached in the first campaign 
 of the next war, the Balkan yielded to Russian 
 genius in the second, and Adrianople, the an- 
 cient capital of the Osmanleys, became cele- 
 brated for the treaty which sealed for ever the 
 degradation of their race. On all sides the 
 provinces of the empire have revolted: Greece, 
 through a long and bloody contest, has at length 
 worked out its deliverance from all but its own 
 passions; the ancient war-cry of Byzantium, 
 Victory to the Cross, has been again heard on 
 the JGgean Sea ;f and the Pasha of Egypt, tak- 
 
 * Travels in Turkey, by F. Slade, Esq. London, 1832. 
 Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1833. 
 
 f When the brave Canaris passed under the bows of 
 the Turkish admiral's ship, to which he had grappled 
 the fatal fireship, at Scio, the crew in his boat exclaimed, 
 " Victory to the Cross !" the old war-cry of Byzantium. 
 Gordon's Greek Revolution, i. 274. 
 
 I ing advantage of the weakness consequent on 
 
 so many reverses, has boldly thrown off the 
 
 I yoke, and, advancing from Acre in the path of 
 
 Napoleon, shown to the astonished world the 
 
 justice, of that great man's remark, that his 
 
 I defeat by Sir Sidney Smith under its walls 
 
 j made him miss his destiny. The victory of 
 
 j Koniah prostrated the Asiatic power of Turkey ; 
 
 the standards of Mehemet Ali rapidly ap- 
 
 j proached the Seraglio; and the discomfited 
 
 I Sultan has been driven to take refuge under 
 
 the suspicious shelter of the Russian legions. 
 
 I Already the advanced guard of Nicholas has 
 
 passed the Bosphorus ; the Moscovite standards 
 
 I are floating at Scutari ; and, to the astonish- 
 
 j ment alike of Europe and Asia, the keys of the 
 
 Dardanelles, the throne of Constantine, are laid 
 
 at the feet of the Czar. 
 
 The unlocked for rapidity of these events, is 
 not more astonishing than the weakness which 
 the Mussulmans have evinced in their last strug- 
 gle. The Russians, in the late campaign, never 
 assembled forty thousand men in the field. In 
 the battle of the llth June, 1828, which de- 
 cided the fate of the war, Diebitsch had only 
 thirty-six thousand soldiers under arms ; yet this 
 small force routed the Turkish army, and laid 
 open the far-famed passes of the Balkan to the 
 daring genius of its leader. Christendom 
 looked in vain for the mighty host which, at 
 the sight of the holy banner, was wont to as- 
 semble round the standard of the Prophet. The 
 ancient courage of the Osmanleys seemed to 
 have perished with their waning fortunes; 
 hardly could the Russian outposts keep pace 
 with them in the rapidity of their flight; and a 
 force, reduced by sickness to twenty thousand 
 men, dictated peace to the Ottomans within 
 twenty hours' march of Constantinople. More 
 lately, the once dreaded throne of Turkey has 
 become a jest to its remote provinces ; the 
 Pasha of Egypt, once the most inconsiderable 
 of its vassals, has compelled the Sublime 
 Porte, the ancient terror of Christendom, to 
 seek for safety in the protection of Infidel 
 battalions; and the throne of Constantine, in- 
 capable of self-defence, is perhaps ultimately 
 destined to become the prize for which Mos- 
 covite ambition and Arabian audacity are to 
 contend on the glittering shores of Scutari. 
 
 But if the weakness of the Ottomans is sur- 
 prising, the supineness of the European pow- 
 ers is not less amazing at this interesting crisis. 
 The power of Russia has long been a subject 
 of alarm to France, and having twice seen the 
 Cossacks at the Tuileries, it is not surprising 
 that they should feel somewhat nervous a/ 
 every addition to its strength. England, jea- 
 lous of its maritime superiority, and appre- 
 hensive whether reasonably or not is imma- 
 terial of danger to her Indian possessions, 
 from the growth of Russian power in Asia, has 
 long made it a fixed principle of her policy to 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 267 
 
 coerce the ambitious designs of the Cabinet of 
 St. Petersburg, and twice she has saved Turkey 
 from their grasp. When the Russians and 
 Austrians, in the last century, projected an 
 alliance for its partition, and Catherine and 
 Joseph had actually met on the Wolga to 
 arrange its details, Mr. Pitt interposed, and by 
 the influence of England prevented the design : 
 and when Diebitsch was in full march for 
 Constantinople, and the insurrection of the 
 Janissaries only waited for the sight of the 
 Cossacks to break out, and overturn the throne 
 of Mahmoud, the strong arm of Wellington in- 
 terfered, put a curb in the mouth of Russia, and 
 postponed for a season the fall of the Turkish 
 power. Now, however, every thing is changed ; 
 France and England, occupied with domestic 
 dissensions, are utterly paralysed ; they can no 
 longer make a show of resistance to Moscovite 
 ambition ; exclusively occupied in preparing 
 the downfall of her ancient allies, the Dutch 
 and the Portuguese, England has not a thought 
 to bestow on the occupation of the Dardanelles, 
 and the keys of the Levant are, without either- 
 observation or regret, passing to the hands of 
 Russia. 
 
 These events are so extraordinary, that they 
 almost make the boldest speculator hold his 
 breath. Great as is the change in external 
 events which we daily witness, the alteration 
 in internal feeling is still greater. Changes 
 which would have convulsed England from 
 end to end, dangers which would have thrown 
 European diplomacy into agonies a few years 
 ago, are now regarded with indifference. The 
 progress of Russia through Asia, the capture 
 of Erivan and Erzeroum, the occupation of the 
 Dardanelles, are now as little regarded as if 
 we had no interest in such changes ; .as if we 
 had no empire in the East threatened by so 
 ambitious a neighbour; no independence at 
 stake in the growth of the Colossus of northern 
 Europe. 
 
 The reason is apparent, and it affords the 
 first great and practical proof which England 
 has yet received of the fatal blow, which the 
 recent changes have struck, not only at her 
 internal prosperity, but her external independ- 
 ence. England is now powerless; and, what 
 is worse, the European powers know it. Her 
 government is so incessantly and exclusively 
 occupied in maintaining its ground against the 
 internal enemies whom the Reform Bill has 
 raised up into appalling strength ; the neces- 
 sity of sacrificing something to the insatiable 
 passions of the revolutionists is so apparent, 
 that every other object is disregarded. The 
 allies by whose aid they overthrew the con- 
 stitution, have turned so fiercely upon them, 
 that they are forced to strain every nerve to 
 resist these domestic enemies. Who can think 
 of the occupation of Scutari, when the malt tax 
 is threatened with repeal 1 ? Who care for the 
 thunders of Nicholas, when the threats of 
 O'Connell are ringing in their ears 1 The 
 English government, once so stable and stead- 
 fast in its resolutions, when rested on the firm 
 rock of the Aristocracy, has become unstable 
 as water since it was thrown for its support 
 upon the Democracy. Its designs are as 
 phangeable, its policy as fluctuating, as the 
 
 volatile and inconsiderate mass from which it 
 sprung; and hence its menaces are disre- 
 garded, its ancient relations broken, its old 
 allies disgusted, and the weight of its influence 
 being no longer felt, projects the most threat- 
 ening to its independence are without hesita- 
 tion undertaken by other states. 
 
 Nor is the supineness and apathy of the 
 nation less important or alarming. It exists 
 to such an extent as clearly to demonstrate, 
 that not only are the days of its glory num- 
 bered, but the termination even of its inde- 
 pendence may be foreseen at no distant period. 
 Enterprises the most hostile to its interests, 
 conquests the most fatal to its glory, are un- 
 dertaken by its rivals not only without the 
 disapprobation, but with the cordial support, 
 of the majority of the nation. Portugal, for a 
 century the ally of England, for whose defence 
 hundreds of thousands of Englishmen had died 
 in our own times, has been abandoned without 
 a murmur to the revolutionary spoliation and 
 propagandist arts of France. Holland, the 
 bulwark of England, for whose protection the 
 great war with France was undertaken, has 
 been assailed by British fleets, and threatened 
 by British power ; and the shores of the 
 Scheldt, which beheld the victorious legions of 
 Wellington land to curb the power of Napo- 
 leon, have witnessed the union of the tricolour 
 and British flags, to beat down the indepen- 
 dence of the Dutch provinces. Constantino- 
 ple, long regarded as the outpost of India 
 against the Russians, is abandoned without 
 regret ; and, amidst the strife of internal fac- 
 tion, the fixing of the Moscovite standards on 
 the shores of the Bosphorus, the transference 
 of the finest harbour in the world to a growing 
 maritime power, and of the entrepot of Europe 
 and Asia to an already formidable commercial 
 state, is hardly the subject of observation. 
 
 The reason cannot be concealed, and is too 
 clearly illustrative of the desperate tendency 
 of the recent changes upon all the classes of 
 the empire. With the revolutionists the pas- 
 sion for N change has supplanted every other 
 feeling, and the spirit of innovation has extin- 
 guished that of patriotism. They no longer 
 league in thought, or word, or wish, exclusive- 
 ly with their own countrymen ; they no longer 
 regard the interests and glory of England, as 
 the chief objects of their solicitude ; what they 
 look to is the revolutionary party in other 
 states ; what they sympathize with, the pro- 
 gress of the tricolour in overturning other dy- 
 nasties. The loss of British dominion, the 
 loss of British colonies, the downfall of British 
 power, the decay of British glory, the loss of 
 British independence, is to them a matter of 
 no regret, provided the tricolour is triumphant, 
 and the cause of revolution is making progress 
 in the world. Well and truly did Mr. Burke 
 say, that the spirit of patriotism and Jacobin- 
 ism could not coexist in the same state ; and 
 that the greatest national disasters are lightly 
 passed over, provided they bring with them 
 the advance of domestic ambition. 
 
 The Conservatives, on the other hand, are 
 so utterly desperate in regard to the future 
 prospects of the empire, from the vacillation 
 and violence of the Democratic party who are 
 
268 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 installed in sovereignty, that external events, 
 even of the most threatening character, are 
 regarded by them but as dust in the balance, 
 when compared with the domestic calamities 
 which are staring us in the face. What al- 
 though the ingratitude and tergiversation of 
 England to Holland have deprived us of all 
 respect among foreign states 1 That evil, 
 great as it is, is nothing to the domestic em- 
 barrassments which overwhelm the country 
 from the unruly spirit which the Whigs fos- 
 tered with such sedulous care during the Re- 
 form contest. What although the empire of 
 the Mediterranean, and ultimately our Indian 
 possessions, are menaced by the ceaseless 
 growth of Russia; the measures which go- 
 vernment have in contemplation for the ma- 
 nagement of that vast dominion, will sever it 
 from the British empire before any danger is 
 felt from external foes ; and long ere the Mos- 
 covite eagles are seen on the banks of the In- 
 dus, the insane measures of the Ten Pounders 
 will in all probability have banished the Bri- 
 tish standards from the plains of Hindostan. 
 
 Every thing, in short, announces that the 
 external weight and foreign importance of 
 Great Britain are irrecoverably lost; and that 
 the passing of the Reform Bill will ultimately 
 prove to have been the death-warrant of the 
 British empire. The Russians are at Con- 
 stantinople ! the menaces, the entreaties of 
 England, are alike disregarded ; and the ruler 
 of the seas has submitted in two years to de- 
 scend to the rank of a second-rate power. 
 That which a hundred defeats could have 
 hardly effected to old England, is the very first 
 result of the innovating system upon which 
 new England has entered. The Russians are 
 at Constantinople! How would the shade of 
 Chatham, or Pitt, or Fox thrill at the an- 
 nouncement ! But it makes no sort of im- 
 pression on the English people : as little as 
 the robbery of the Portuguese fleet by the 
 French, or the surrender of the citadel of Ant- 
 werp to the son-in-law of Louis Philippe. In 
 this country we have arrived, in an incon- 
 ceivably short space of time, at that weakness, 
 disunion, and indifference to all but revolu- 
 tionary objects, which is at once the forerun- 
 ner and the cause of national ruin. 
 
 But leaving these mournful topics, it is more 
 instructive to turn to the causes which have 
 precipitated, in so short a space of time, the 
 fall of the Turkish empire. Few more curious 
 or extraordinary phenomena are to be met 
 with in the page of history. It will be found 
 that the Ottomans have fallen a victim to the 
 same passion for innovation and reform which 
 have proved so ruinous both in this and a 
 neighbouring, country ; and that, while the 
 bulwarks of Turkey were thrown down by 
 the rude hand of Mahmoud, the States of West- 
 ern Europe were disabled, by the same frantic 
 course, from rendering him any effectual aid. 
 How well in every age has the spirit of Jaco- 
 binism and revolutionary passion aided the 
 march, and hastened the growth of Russia! 
 
 The fact of the long duration of Turkey, in 
 the midst of the monarchies of Europe, and 
 the stubborn resistance which she opposed for 
 a series of ages to the attacks of the two great- 
 
 est of its military powers, is of itself sufficient 
 to demonstrate that the accounts on which we 
 had been accustomed to rely of the condition, 
 of the Ottoman empire were partial or exag- 
 gerated. No fact is so universally demonstrated 
 by history as the rapid and irrecoverable de- 
 cline of barbarous powers, when the career 
 of conquest is once terminated. Where is 
 now the empire of the Caliphs or the Moors'? 
 What has survived of the conquests, one hun- 
 dred years ago, of Nadir Shah ? How long 
 did the empire of Aurengzebe, the throne of 
 the Great Mogul, resist the attacks of England, 
 even at the distance of ten thousand miles 
 from the parent state 1 How then did it hap- 
 pen that Turkey so long resisted the spoiler] 
 What conservative principle has enabled the 
 O.smanleys so long to avoid the degradation 
 which so rapidly overtakes all barbarous and 
 despotic empires; and what has communi- 
 cated to their vast empire a portion of the 
 undecaying vigour which has hitherto been 
 considered as the grand characteristic of Eu- 
 ropean civilization 1 The answer to these 
 questions will both unfold the real causes of 
 the long endurance, and at length the sudden 
 fall, of the Turkish empire. 
 
 Though the Osmanleys were an Asiatic 
 power, and ruled entirely on the principles of 
 Asiatic despotism, yet their conquests were 
 effected in Europe, or in those parts of Asia 
 in which, from the influence of the Crusades, 
 or of the Roman institutions which survived 
 their invasion, a certain degree of European 
 civilization remained. It is difficult utterly to 
 exterminate the institutions of a country where 
 they have been long established; those of the 
 Christian provinces of the Roman empire have 
 in part survived all the dreadful tempests 
 which for the last six centuries have passed 
 over their surface. It is these remnants of 
 civilization,- it is the institutions which still 
 linger among the vanquished people, which 
 have so long preserved the Turkish provinces 
 from decay; and it is these ancient bulwarks, 
 which the innovating passions of Mahmoud 
 have now destroyed. 
 
 1. The first circumstance which upheld, 
 amidst its numerous defects, the Ottoman em- 
 pire, was the rights conceded on the first con- 
 quest of the country by Mahomet to the dere 
 beys or ancient nobles of Asia Minor, and 
 which the succeeding sultans have been care- 
 ful to maintain inviolate. These dere beys all 
 capitulated with the conqueror, and obtained 
 the important privileges of retaining their 
 lands in perpetuity for their descendants, and 
 of paying a fixed tribute in money and men to 
 the sultan. In other words, they were a here- 
 ditary noblesse ; and as they constituted the 
 great strength of the empire in its Asiatic pro- 
 vinces, they have preserved their privilege 
 through all succeeding reigns. The following 
 is the description given of them by the intelli- 
 gent traveller whose work is prefixed to this 
 article: 
 
 " The dere beys," says Mr. Slade, literally 
 lords of the valleys, an expression peculiarly 
 adapted to the country, which presents a series 
 of oval valleys, surrounded by ramparts of 
 hills, were the original possessors of those parts 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 269 
 
 of Asia Minor, which submitted, under feudal 
 conditions, to the Ottomans. Between the 
 conquest of Brussa and the conquest of Con- 
 stantinople, a lapse of more than a century, 
 chequered by the episode of Tamerlane, their 
 faith was precarious ; but after the latter event, 
 Mahomet II. bound their submission, and 
 finally settled the terms of their existence. He 
 confirmed them in their lands, subject, how 
 ever, to tribute, and to quotas of troops in war; 
 and he absolved the head of each family for 
 ever from personal service. The last clause 
 was the most important, as thereby the sultan 
 had no power over their lives, nor consequent- 
 ly, could be their heirs, that despotic power 
 being lawful over those only in the actual ser- 
 vice of the Porte. The families of the dere 
 beys, therefore, became neither impoverished 
 nor extinct. It would be dealing in truisms to 
 enumerate the advantages enjoyed by the dis- 
 tricts of these noblemen over the rest of the 
 empire; they were oases in the desert: their 
 owners had more than a life-interest in the 
 soil, they were born and lived among the peo- 
 ple, and, being hereditarily rich, had no occa- 
 sion to create a private fortune, each year, 
 after the tribute due was levied. Whereas, in 
 a pashalic the people are strained every year 
 to double or treble the amount of the impost, 
 since the pasha, who pays for his situation, 
 must also be enriched. The devotion of the 
 dependents of the dere beys was great: at a 
 whistle, the Car'osman-Oglous, the Tchapan- 
 Oglous, the Ellezar-Oglous, (the principal 
 Asiatic families that survive,) could raise, 
 each, from ten thousand to twenty thousand 
 horsemen, and equip them. Hence the facility 
 with which the sultans, up to the present cen- 
 tury, drew such large bodies of cavalry into 
 the field. The dere beys have always fur- 
 nished, and maintained, the greatest part; and 
 there is not one instance, since the conquest 
 of Constantinople, of one of these great fami- 
 lies raising the standard of revolt. The pashas 
 invariably have. The reasons, respectively, 
 are obvious. The dere bey was sure of keep- 
 ing his possessions by right: the pasha of 
 losing his by custom, unless he had money to 
 bribe the Porte, or force to intimidate it. 
 
 "These provincial nobles, whose rights had 
 been respected during four centuries, by a 
 series of twenty-four sovereigns, had two 
 crimes in the eyes of Mahmoud II.; they held 
 their properly from their ancestors, and they 
 had riches. To alter the tenure of the former, 
 the destination of the latter, was his object. 
 The dere beys unlike the seraglio dependents, 
 brought up to distrust their own shadows had 
 no causes for suspicion, and therefore became 
 easy dupes of the grossest treachery. The 
 unbending spirits were removed -to another 
 world, the flexible were despoiled of their 
 wealth. Some few await their turn, or, their 
 eyes opened,, prepare to resist oppression. 
 C.ir'osman O^lou, for example, was summon- 
 ed to Constantinople, where expensive em- 
 ployments, forced on him during several years, 
 reduced his ready cash ; while a follower of 
 the seraglio resided at his city of Magnesia, to 
 collect his reve-iues. His peasants, in conse- 
 queuce, ceased to cultivate their lands, from 
 
 whence they no longer hoped to reap profit; 
 and his once flourishing possessions soon be- 
 came as desolate as any which had always 
 been under the gripe of pashas." 
 
 This passage throws the strongest light on 
 the former condition of the Turkish empire 
 They possessed an hereditary noblesse in their 
 Asiatic provinces ; a body of men whose in- 
 terests were permanent; who enjoyed their 
 rights by succession, and, therefore, were per- 
 manently interested in preserving their pos- 
 sessions from spoliation. It was rheir feudal 
 tenantry who flocked in such multitudes to the 
 standard of Mohammed when any great crisis 
 occurred, and formed those vast armies who 
 so often astonished the European powers, and 
 struck terror into the boldest hearts in Christ- 
 endom. These hereditary nobles, however, 
 the bones of the empire, whose estates were 
 exempt from the tyranny of the pashas, have 
 been destroyed by Mahmoud. Hence the dis- 
 affection of the Asiatic provinces, and the rea- 
 diness with which they opened their arms to 
 the liberating standards of Mehemet All. It is 
 the nature of innovation, whether enforced by 
 the despotism of a sultan or a democracy, to 
 destroy in its fervour the institutions on which 
 public freedom is founded. 
 
 2. The next circumstance which contributed 
 to mitigate the severity of Ottoman oppression 
 was the privileges of the provincial cities, 
 chiefly in Europe, which consisted in being 
 governed by magistrates elected by the people 
 themselves from among their chief citizens. 
 This privilege, a relic of the rights of the 
 Muniripea over the whole Roman empire, was 
 established in all the great towns ; and its im- 
 portance in moderating the otherwise intoler- 
 able weight of Ottoman oppression was incal- 
 culable. The pashas, or temporary rulers 
 appointed by the sultan, had no authority, or 
 only a partial one in these free cities, and 
 hence they formed nearly as complete an 
 asylum for industry in Europe as the estates 
 of the dere beys did in Asia. This important 
 right, however, could not escape the reforming 
 passion of Mahmoud ; and it was accordingly 
 overturned. 
 
 "In conjunction with subverting the dere 
 beys, Mahmoud attacked the privileges of the 
 great provincial cities, (principally in Europe,) 
 which consisted in the election of ayans (ma- 
 gistrate's) by the people, from among the nota- 
 bles. Some cities were solely governed by 
 them, and in those ruled by pashas, they had, 
 in most cases, sufficient influence to restrain 
 somewhat the full career of despotism. They 
 were the protectors of rayas, as well as of 
 Mussulmans, and, for their own sakes, resist- 
 ed exorbitant imposts. The change in the 
 cities where their authority has been abolished 
 (Adrianople, e. .) is deplorable; trade has 
 since languished, and population has diminish- 
 ed. They were instituted by Solymnn. (the 
 lawgiver,) and the protection which they have 
 invariably afforded the Christian subjects of 
 the Porte, entitles them to a Christi m's good 
 word. Their crime, that of the dere beys, was 
 being possessed of authority not emanating 
 from the sultan. 
 
 'Had Mahmoud II. intrusted, the govern- 
 
270 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ment of the provinces to the dere beys, and 
 strengthened the authority of the ayans, he 
 would have truly reformed his empire, by 
 restoring it to its brightest state, have gained 
 the love of his subjects, and the applauses of 
 humanity. By the contrary proceeding, sub- 
 verting two bulwarks (though dilapidated) of 
 national prosperity a provincial nobility and 
 magistracy he has shown himself a selfish 
 tyrant." 
 
 3. In addition to an hereditary nobility in 
 the dere beys, and the privileges of corpora- 
 tions in the right of electing their ayans, the 
 Mussulmans possessed a powerful hierarchy 
 in the ulema; a most important body in the 
 Ottoman dominions, and whose privileges 
 have gone far to limit the extent of its des- 
 potic government. This important institution 
 has been little understood hitherto in Europe ; 
 but they have contributed in a most important 
 manner to mitigate the severity of the sultan 
 in those classes who enjoyed no special pro- 
 tection. 
 
 " In each of the Turkish cities," says Mr. 
 Slade, " reside a muphti and a rnollah. A 
 knowledge of Arabic, so as to be able to read 
 the Koran in the original, is considered suffi- 
 cient for the former, but the latter must have 
 run a legal career in one of the medressehs, 
 (universities of Constantinople.) After thirty 
 years' probation in a medresseh, the student 
 becomes of the class of muderis, (doctors at 
 law,) from which are chosen the mollahs, 
 comprehended under the name of ulema. 
 Students who accept the inferior judicial ap- 
 pointments can never become of the ulema. 
 
 "The ulema is divided into three classes, 
 according to a scale of the cities of the empire. 
 The first class consists of the cazi-askers, 
 (chief judges of Europe and Asia;) the Stam- 
 boul effendisi, (mayor of Constantinople ;) the 
 mollahs qualified to act at Mecca, at Medina, 
 at Jerusalem, at Bagdat, at Salon ica, at Alep- 
 po, at Damascus, at Brussa, at Cairo, at Smyr- 
 na, at Cogni, at Galata, at Scutari. The se- 
 cond class consists of the mollahs qualified to 
 act at the twelve cities of next importance. 
 The third class at ten inferior cities. The 
 administration of minor towns is intrusted to 
 cadis, who are nominated by the cazi-askers in 
 their respective jurisdictions, a patronage 
 which produces great wealth to these two 
 officers. 
 
 " In consequence of these powers the mollah 
 of a city may prove as great a pest as a needy 
 pasha; but as the mollahs are hereditarily 
 wealthy, they are generally moderate in their 
 perquisitions, and often protect the people 
 against the extortions of the pasha. The 
 cadis, however, of the minor towns, who have 
 not the advantage of being privately rich, sel- 
 dom fail to join with the aga to skin the ' ser- 
 pent that crawls in the dust.' 
 
 "The mollahs, dating from the reign of So- 
 lyman zenith of Ottoman prosperity were 
 not slow in discovering the value of their 
 situations, or in taking advantage of them ; 
 and as their sanctity protected them from spo- 
 liation, they were enabled to leave their riches 
 to their children, who were brought up to the 
 same career, and were, by privilege, allowed 
 
 to finish their studies at the medresseh in eight 
 years less time than the prescribed number of 
 years, the private tuition which they were sup- 
 posed to receive from their fathers making up 
 for the deficiency. Thus, besides the influence 
 of birth and wealth, they had a direct facility 
 in attaining the degree of muderi, which their 
 fellow-citizens and rivals had not, and who 
 were obliged in consequence to accept inferior 
 judicial appointments. In process of time the 
 whole monopoly of the ulema centred in a 
 certain number of families, and their constant 
 residence at the capital, to which they return 
 at the expiration of their term of office, has 
 maintained their power to the present day. 
 Nevertheless, it is true that if a student of a 
 medresseh, not of the privileged order, pos- 
 sess extraordinary merit, the ulema has gene- 
 rally the tact to admit him of the body : wo to 
 the cities to which he goes as mollah, since 
 he has to create a private fortune for his family. 
 Thus arose that body the peerage of Turkey 
 known by the name of ulema, a body uniting 
 the high attributes of law and religion ; dis- 
 tinct from the clergy, yet enjoying all the ad- 
 vantages connected with a church paramount; 
 free from its shackles, yet retaining the perfect 
 odour of sanctity. Its combination has given 
 it a greater hold in the state than the dere beys, 
 though possessed individually of more power, 
 founded too on original charters, sunk from a 
 want of union." 
 
 The great effect of the ulema has arisen 
 from this, that its lands are safe from confis- 
 cation or arbitrary taxation. To power of 
 every sort, excepting that of a triumphant de- 
 mocracy, there must be some limits; and great 
 as the authority of the sultan is, he is too de- 
 pendent on the religious feelings of his subjects 
 to be able to overturn the church. The conse- 
 quence is that the vacouf or church lands have 
 been always free both from arbitrary taxation 
 and confiscation ; and hence they have formed 
 a species of mortmain or entailed lands in the 
 Ottoman dominions, enjoying privileges to 
 which the other parts of the empire, excepting 
 the estates of the dere beys, are entire strangers. 
 Great part of the lands of Turkey, in many 
 places amounting to one-third of the whole, 
 were held by this religious tenure; and the 
 device was frequently adopted of leaving pro- 
 perty to the ulema in trust for particular fami- 
 lies, whereby the benefits of secure hereditary 
 descent were obtained. The practical advan- 
 tages of this ecclesiastical property are thus 
 enumerated by Mr. Slade. 
 
 "The vacouf (mosque lands) have been 
 among the best cultivated in Turkey, by being 
 free from arbitrary taxation. The mektebs (pub- 
 lic schools) in all the great cities, where the ru- 
 diments of the Turkish language and the Koran 
 are taught, and where poor scholars receive 
 food gratis, are supported by the ulema. The 
 medressehs, imarets, (hospitals,) fountains, 
 &c., are all maintained by the ulema ; add to 
 these the magnificence of the mosques, their 
 number, the royal sepultures, and it will be 
 seen that Turkey owes much to the existence 
 of this body, which has been enabled, by its 
 power and its union, to resist royal cupidity. 
 Without it, where would be the establishments 
 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 271 
 
 above mentioned? Religious property has 
 been an object of attack in every country. At 
 one period, by the sovereign, to increase his 
 power; at another, by the people, to build for- 
 tunes on its downfall. Mahomet IV., after the 
 disastrous retreat of his grand vizir, CaraMus- 
 tapha, from before Vienna, 1683, seized on the 
 riches of the principal mosques, which arbi- 
 trary act led to his deposition. The ulema 
 would have shown a noble patriotism in giv- 
 ing its wealth for the service of the state, but 
 it was right in resenting the extortion, which 
 would have served as a precedent for succeed- 
 ing sultans. In fine, rapid as has been the 
 decline of the Ottoman empire since victory 
 ceased to attend its arms, I venture to assert, 
 that it would have been tenfold more rapid but 
 for the privileged orders the dere beys and the 
 ulema. Without their powerful weight and 
 influence effect of hereditary wealth and 
 sanctity the Janissaries would long since have 
 cut Turkey in slices, and have ruled it as the 
 Mamelukes ruled Egypt. 
 
 "Suppose, now, the influence of the ulema 
 to be overturned, what would be the conse- 
 quence! The mollaships, like the pashalics, 
 would then be sold to the highest bidders, or 
 given to the needy followers of the seraglio. 
 These must borrow money of the bankers for 
 their outfit, which must be repaid, and their 
 own purses lined, by their talents at extor- 
 tion." 
 
 It is one of the most singular proofs of the 
 tendency of innovation to blind its votaries to 
 the effects of the measures it advocates, that 
 the ulema has long been singled out for de- 
 struction by the reforming sultan, and the 
 change is warmly supported by many of the 
 inconsiderate Franks who dwell in the east. 
 Such is the aversion of men of every faith to 
 the vesting of property or influence in the 
 church, that they would willingly see this one 
 of the last barriers which exist against arbi- 
 trary power done away. The power of the 
 sultan, great as it is, has not yet ventured on 
 this great innovation ; but it is well known 
 that he meditates it, and it is the knowledge 
 of this circumstance which is one great cause 
 of the extreme unpopularity which has ren- 
 dered his government unable to obtain any 
 considerable resources from his immense do- 
 minions. 
 
 4. In every part of the empire, the superior 
 felicity and well-being of the peasantry in the 
 mountains is conspicuous, and has long at- 
 tracted the attention of travellers. Clarke 
 observed it in the mountains of Greece, Ma- 
 riti, and others in Syria and Asia Minor, and 
 Mr. Slade and Mr. Walch in the Balkan, and 
 the hilly country of Bulgaria. "No peasantry 
 in the world," says the former, "are so well 
 off as that of Bulgaria. The lowest of them 
 has abundance of every thing meat, poultry, 
 eggs, milk, rice, cheese, wine, bread, good 
 clothing, a warm dwelling, and a horse to ride. 
 It is true he has no newspaper to kindle his 
 passions, nor a knife and fork to eat with, nor 
 a bedstead to lie on ; but these are the customs 
 of the country, and a pasha is equally unhappy. 
 Where, then, is the tyranny under which the 
 Christian subjects of the Porte are generally 
 
 supposed to groan 1 Not among the Bulga- 
 rians certainly. I wish that in every country 
 a traveller could pass from one end to the 
 other, and find a good supper and a warm fire 
 in every cottage, as he can in this part of 
 European Turkey."* This description applies 
 generally to almost all the mountainous pro- 
 vinces of the Ottoman empire, and in an espe- 
 cial manner to the peasants of Parnassus and 
 Olympia, as described by Clarke. As a con- 
 trast to this delightful state of society, we may 
 quote the same traveller's account of the plains 
 of Romelia. " Romelia, if cultivated, would 
 become the granary of the East, whereas'Con- 
 stantinople depends on Odessa for daily bread. 
 The burial-grounds, choked with weeds and 
 underwood, constantly occurring in every tra- 
 veller's route, far remote from habitations, are 
 eloquent testimonials of continued depopula- 
 tion. The living too are far apart; a town 
 every fifty miles, and a village every ten miles, 
 is close, and horsemen meeting on the high- 
 way regard each other as objects of curiosity. 
 The cause of this depopulation is to be found 
 in the pernicious government of the Otto- 
 mans."! The cause of this remarkable dif- 
 ference lies in the fact, that the Ottoman op- 
 pression has never yet fully extended into the 
 mountainous parts of its dominions ; and, 
 consequently, they remained like permanent 
 veins of prosperity, intersecting the country 
 in every direction, amidst the desolation which 
 generally prevailed in the pashalics of the 
 plain. 
 
 5. The Janissaries were another institution 
 which upheld the Turkish empire. They 
 formed a regular standing army, who, although 
 at times extremely formidable to the sultan, 
 and exercising their influence with all the 
 haughtiness of Prnctorian guards, were yet of 
 essential service in repelling the invasion of 
 the Christian powers. The strength of the 
 Ottoman armies consisted in the Janissaries, 
 and the Delhis and Spahis ; the former be- 
 ing the regular force, the latter the contingents 
 of the dere beys. Every battle-field, from 
 Constantinople to Vienna, can tell of the va- 
 lour of the Janissaries, long and justly re- 
 garded as the bulwark of the empire; and the 
 Russian battalions, with all their firmness, 
 were frequently broken, even in the last war, 
 by the desperate charge of the Delhis. Now, 
 however, both are destroyed; the vigorous 
 severity of the sultan has annihilated the 
 dreaded battalions of the former the ruin of 
 the dere beys has closed the supply of the 
 latter, In these violent and impolitic reforms 
 is to be found the immediate cause of the de- 
 struction of the Turkish empire. 
 
 Of the revolt which led to the destruction of 
 this great body, and the policy which led to it, 
 the following striking account is given by Mr. 
 Slade: 
 
 " Every campaign during the Greek war a 
 body was embarked on board the fleet, and 
 landed in small parties, purposely unsupported, 
 on the theatre of war: none returned, so that 
 only a few thousand remained at Constanti- 
 nople, when, May 30, 1826, the Sultan issued a 
 
 * Slade, it 97. 
 
 f Ibid. 15. 
 
272 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 hatti scheriff concerning the formation of a 
 new victorious army.' This was a flash of 
 lightning in the eyes of the Janissaries. They 
 saw why their companions did not return from 
 Greece; they saw that the old, hitherto abor- 
 tive, policy, dormant since eighteen years, was 
 revived ; they saw that their existence was 
 threatened; and they resolved to resist, con- 
 fiding in the prestige of their name. June 15, 
 following, they reversed their soup-kettles, 
 (signal of revolt,) demanded the heads of the 
 ministers, and the revocation of the said fir- 
 man. But Mahmoud was prepared for them. 
 Husseyin, the aga of the Janissaries, was in 
 his interests, and with him the yamaks, (gar- 
 risons of the castles of the Bosphorus,) the 
 Galiondgis, and the Topchis. Collecting, there- 
 fore, on the following morning, his forces in 
 the Atmeidan, the sand-jack scheriff was dis- 
 played, and the ulema seconded him by calling 
 on the people to support their sovereign against 
 the rebels. Still, noways daunted, the Janis- 
 saries advanced, and summoned their aga, of 
 whom they had no suspicion, to repeat their 
 demands to the sultan, threatening, in case of 
 non-compliance, to force the seraglio gates. 
 Husseyin, who had acted his part admirably, 
 and with consummate duplicity, brought them 
 to the desired point open rebellion flattering 
 them with success, now threw aside the mask. 
 He stigmatized them as infidels, and called on 
 them, in the name of the prophet, to submit to 
 the sultan's clemency. At this defection of 
 their trusted favourite chief, their smothered 
 rage burst out; they rushed to his house, razed 
 it in a moment, did the same by the houses of 
 the other ministers, applied torches, and in 
 half an hour Constantinople streamed with 
 blood beneath the glare of flames. Mahmoud 
 hesitated, and was about to conciliate ; but 
 Husseyin repulsed the idea with firmness, 
 knowing that to effect conciliation, his head 
 must be the first offering. Now or never,' he 
 replied to the sultan, 'is the time ! Think not 
 that a few heads will appease this sedition, 
 which has been too carefully fomented by me, 
 the wrongs of the Janissaries too closely 
 dwelt on, thy character too blackly stained, thy 
 treachery too minutely dissected, to be easily 
 laid. Remember that this is the second time 
 that thy arm has been raised against them, and 
 they will not trust thee again. Remember, too. 
 that thou hast now a son, that son not in thy 
 power, whom they will elevate on thy down- 
 fall. Now is the time! This evening's sun 
 must set for the last time on them or us. Re- 
 tire from the city, that thy sacred person may 
 be safe, and leave the rest to me.' Mahmoud 
 consented, and went to Dolma Bachtche, (a 
 palace one mile up the Bosphorus,) to await 
 the result. Husseyin, then free to act without 
 fear of interruption, headed his yamaks, and 
 vigorously attacked the rebels, who. cowardly 
 as they were insolent, offered a feeble resist- 
 ance, when they found themselves unsupported 
 by the mob, retreated from street to street, and 
 finally took refuge in the Atmeidan. Here 
 their career ended. A masked battery on the 
 hill beyond opened on them, troops enclosed 
 them in, and fire was applied to the wooden 
 buildings. Desperation then gave them the 
 
 courage that might have saved them at first, 
 and they strove with madness to force a pas- 
 sage from the burning pile; part were con- 
 sumed, part cut down; a few only got out, 
 among them five colonels, who threw them- 
 selves at the aga's feet, and implored grace. 
 They spoke their last." 
 
 Five thousand fell under this grand blow in 
 the capital alone ; twenty-five thousand perish- 
 ed throughout the whole empire. The next 
 day a hatti scheriff was read in the mosques, 
 declaring the Janissaries infamous, the order 
 abolished, and the name an anathema. 
 
 This great stroke made a prodigious sensa- 
 tion in Europe, and even the best informed 
 were deceived as to its effects on the future 
 prospects of the Ottoman empire. By many 
 it was compared to the destruction of the 
 Strelitzes by Peter the Great, and the resurrec- 
 tion of Turkey anticipated from the great 
 reform of Mahmoud, as Moscovy arose from 
 the vigorous measures of the czar. But the 
 cases and the men were totally different. Peter, 
 though a despot, was practically acquainted 
 with his country. He had voluntarily descend- 
 ed to the humblest rank, to make himself mas- 
 ter of the arts of life. When he had destroyed 
 the Proetorian guards of Moscow, he built up 
 the new military force of the empire, in strict 
 accordance with its national and religious 
 feelings, and the victory of Pultowa was the 
 consequence. But what did Sultan Mah- 
 moud ? Having destroyed the old military 
 force of Turkey, he subjected the new levies 
 which were to replace it to such absurd regula- 
 tions, and so thoroughly violated the political 
 and religious feelings of the country, that none 
 of the Osmanleys who could possibly avoid it 
 would enter his ranks, and he was obliged to 
 fill them up with mere boys, who had not yet 
 acquired any determinate feelings a wretched 
 substitute for the old military force of the em- 
 pire, and which proved totally unequal to the 
 task of facing the veteran troops of Russia. 
 The impolicy of his conduct in destroying and 
 re-building, is more clearly evinced by nothing 
 than the contrast it affords to the conduct of 
 Sultan Amurath, in originally forming these 
 guards. 
 
 " Strikingly," says Mr. Slade, " does the con- 
 duct of Mahmoud, ifi forming the new levies, 
 contrast with that of Amurath in the formation 
 of the Janissaries ; the measures being parallel, 
 inasmuch as each was a mighty innovation, 
 no less than the establishment of an entire new 
 military force, on the institutions of the coun- 
 try. But Amurath had a master mind. Instead 
 of keeping his new army distinct from the na- 
 tion, he incorporated it with it, made it conform 
 in all respects to national usages; and the suc- 
 cess was soon apparent by its spreading into 
 a vast national guard, of which, in later times, 
 some thousands usurped the permanence of 
 enrolment, in which the remainder, through 
 indolence, acquiesced. Having destroyed these 
 self-constituted battalions, Mahmoud should 
 have made the others available, instead of out- 
 lawing them, as it were; and, by respecting 
 their traditionary whims and social rights, he 
 would easily have given his subjects a taste 
 i for European discipline. They never objected 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 273 
 
 to it in principle, but their untutored minds 
 could not understand why, in order to use the 
 musket and bayonet, and manoeuvre together 
 it was necessary to leave off wearing beards 
 and turbans. 
 
 " But Mahmoud, in his hatred, wished to 
 condemn them to oblivion, to eradicate every 
 token of their pre-existence, not knowing tha 
 trampling on a grovelling party is the sures 
 way of giving it fresh spirit; and trampling 
 on the principles of the party in question, was 
 trampling on the principles of the whole na- 
 tion. In his ideas, the Oriental usages in 
 eating, dressing, &c., were connected with the 
 Janissaries, had been invented by them, and 
 therefore he proscribed them, prescribing new 
 modes. He changed the costume of his court 
 from Asiatic to European ; he ordered his 
 soldiers to shave their beards, recommending 
 his courtiers to follow the same example, and 
 he forbade the turban, that valued, darling, 
 beautiful head-dress, at once national and reli 
 gious. His folly therein cannot be sufficiently 
 reprobated: had he reflected that Janissarism 
 was only a branch grafted on a wide-spreading 
 tree, that it sprung from the Turkish nation, 
 not the Turkish nation from it, he would have 
 seen how impossible was the more than Her 
 culean task he assumed, of suddenly transform- 
 ing national manners consecrated by centuries, 
 a task from which his prophet would have 
 shrunk. The disgust excited by these sump- 
 tuary laws may be conceived. Good Mussul- 
 mans declared them unholy and scandalous, 
 and the Asiatics, to a man, refused obedience ; 
 but as Mahmoud's horizon was confined to his 
 court, he did not know but what his edicts 
 were received with veneration. 
 
 " If Mahmoud had stopped at these follies in 
 the exercise of his newly-acquired despotic 
 power, it would have been well. His next 
 step was to increase the duty on all provisions 
 in Constantinople, and in the great provincial 
 cities, to the great discontent of the lower 
 classes, which was expressed by firing the 
 city to such an extent that in the first three 
 months six thousand houses were consumed. 
 The end of October, 1826, was also marked by 
 a genera] opposition to the new imposts ; but 
 repeated executions at length brought the 
 people to their senses, and made them regret 
 the loss of the Janissaries, who had been their 
 protectors as well as tormentors, inasmuch as 
 they had never allowed the price of provisions 
 to be raised. These disturbances exasperated 
 the sultan. He did not attribute them to the 
 right cause, distress, but to a perverse spirit 
 of Janissarism, a suspicion: of harbouring 
 which was death to any one. He farther ex- 
 tended his financial operations by raising the 
 miri (land tax) all over the empire, arid, in 
 ensuing years, by granting monopolies on all 
 articles of commerce to the highest bidder. 
 In consequence, lands, which had produced 
 abundance, in 1830 lay waste. Articles of 
 export, as opium, silk, &c., gave the growers a 
 handsome revenue when they could sell them 
 to the Frank merchants, but at the low prices 
 fixed by the monopolists they lose, and the 
 cultivation languishes. Sultan Mahmoud kills 
 the goose for the eggs. la a word, he adopted 
 35 
 
 in full the policy of Mehemet AH, which sup- 
 posed the essence of civilization and of politi- 
 cal science to be contained in the word taxa- 
 tion ; and having driven his chariot over the 
 necks of the dere beys, and of the Janissaries, 
 he resolved to tie his subjects to its wheels, 
 and to keep them in dire slavery. Hence a 
 mute struggle began throughout the empire 
 between the sultan and the Turks, the former 
 trying to reduce the latter to the condition of 
 the Egyptian fellahs, the latter unwilling to 
 imitate the fellahs in patient submission. The 
 sultan flatters himself (1830) that he is suc- 
 ceeding, because the taxes he imposed, and 
 the monopolies he has granted, produce him 
 more revenue than he had formerly. The 
 people, although hitherto they have been able 
 to answer the additional demands by opening 
 their hoards, evince a sullen determination not 
 to continue doing so, by seceding gradually 
 from their occupations, and barely existing. 
 The result must be, if the sultan cannot com- 
 pel them to work, as the Egyptians, under the 
 lashes of task-masters, either a complete slag- 
 nation of agriculture and trade, ever at a low 
 ebb in Turkey, or a general rebellion, produced 
 by misery." 
 
 The result of these precipitate and monstrous 
 innovations strikingly appeared in the next war 
 with Russia. The Janissaries and dere beys 
 were destroyed the Mussulmans everywhere 
 disgusted; the turban, the national dress the 
 scimitar, the national weapon, were laid aside 
 in the army; and instead, of the fierce and va- 
 liant Janissaries wielding that dreaded wea- 
 pon, there was to be found only in the army 
 boys of sixteen, wearing caps in the European 
 style, and looked upon as little better than he- 
 retics by all true believers. 
 
 " Instead of the Janissaries," says Mr. Slade, 
 the sultan reviewed for our amusement, on 
 the plains of Ram is Tchiftlik, his regular 
 troops, which were quartered in and about 
 Constantinople, amounting to about four thou- 
 sand five hundred foot, and six hundred horse ; 
 though beyond being dressed and armed uni- 
 formly, scarcely meriting the name of soldiers. 
 What a sight for Count OrlofF, then ambassa- 
 dor-extraordinary, filling the streets of Pera 
 with his Cossacks and Circassians ! The 
 2ount, whom the sultan often amused with a 
 similar exhibition of his weakness, used to 
 say, in reference to the movements of these 
 successors of the Janissaries, that the cavalry 
 Here employed in holding on, the infantry knew a 
 'it tie, and- the artillery galloped about as though be- 
 'onging to no party. Yet over such troops do 
 he Russians boast of having gained victories ! 
 'n no one thing did Sultan Mahmoud make a 
 greater mistake, than in changing the mode of 
 mounting the Turkish cavalry, which before 
 iad perfect seats, with perfect command over 
 heir horses, and only required a little order to 
 ransform the best irregular horse in the world 
 nto the best regular horse. But Mahmoud, in 
 ill his changes, took the mask for the man, (he 
 rind for the fruit. European cavalry rode flat 
 iaddles with long stirrups ; therefore he thought 
 t necessary that his cavalry should do the same. 
 European infantry wore tight jackets and close 
 japs; therefore the same. Were this blind 
 
274 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 adoption of forms only useless, or productive 
 only of physical inconvenience, patience; but 
 it proved a moral evil, creating unbounded dis- 
 gust. The privation of the turban particularly 
 affected the soldiers; first, on account of the 
 feeling of insecurity about the head with a fez 
 on ; secondly, as being opposed to the love of 
 dress, which a military life, more than any 
 other, engenders." 
 
 " Mahmoud," says the same author, " will 
 learn that in having attacked the customs of 
 his nation customs descended to it from 
 Abraham, and respected by Mohammed he 
 has directly undermined the divine right of his 
 family, that right being only so considered by 
 custom by its harmonizing with all other che- 
 rished usages. He will learn, that in having 
 wantonly trampled on the unwritten laws of 
 the land, those traditionary rights which were 
 as universal household gods, he has put arms 
 in the hands of the disaffected, which no rebel 
 has hitherto had. Neither Ali Pasha nor Pass- 
 wan Oglou could have appealed to the fanati- 
 cism of the Turks to oppose the sultan. Me- 
 hemet Ali can and will. Ten years ago, the 
 idea even of another than the house of Othman 
 reigning over Turkey would, have been heresy: 
 the question is now openly broached, simply 
 because the house of Othman is separating it- 
 self from the nation which raised and support- 
 ed it. Reason may change the established ha- 
 bits of an old people ; despotism rarely can." 
 
 How completely has the event, both in the 
 Russian and Egyptian wars, demonstrated the 
 truth of these principles ! In the contest in 
 Asia Minor, Paskewitch hardly encountered 
 any opposition. Rage at the destruction of the 
 Janissaries among their numerous adherents 
 indignation among the old population, in 
 consequence of the ruin of the dere beys, and 
 the suppression of the lights of the cities 
 lukewarmness in the church, from the antici- 
 pated innovations in its constitution general 
 dissatisfaction among all classes of Mohamme- 
 dans, in consequence of the change in the na- 
 tional dress and customs, had so completely 
 weakened the feeling of patriotism, and the 
 sultan's authority, that the elements of resist- 
 ance did not exist. The battles were mere pa- 
 rades the sieges little more than the summon- 
 ing of fortresses to surrender. In Europe, the 
 ruinous effects of the innovations were also 
 painfully apparent. Though the Russians had 
 to cross, in a dry and parched season, the path- 
 less and waterless plains of Bulgaria; and 
 though, in consequence of the unhealthiness 
 of the climate, and the wretched arrangements 
 of their commissariat, they lost two hundred 
 thousand men by sickness and famine in the 
 first campaign, yet the Ottomans, though 
 fighting in their own country, and for their 
 hearths, were unable to gain any decisive ad- 
 vantage. And in the next campaign, when 
 they were conducted with more skill, and the 
 possession of Varna gave them the advantage 
 of a seaport for their supplies, the weakness of 
 the Turks wis at once apparent. In the bittle 
 of the llth June, the loss of the Turks did not 
 exceed 4000 men, the forces on neither side 
 amounted to forty thousand combatants, and 
 yet this defeat proved fatal to the empire. Of 
 
 this battle, our author gives the following cha- 
 racteristic and graphic account: 
 
 " In this position, on the west side of the 
 Koulevscha hills, Diebitsch found himself at 
 daylight, June llth, with thirty-six thousand 
 men, and one hundred pieces of cannon. He 
 disposed them so as to deceive the enemy. 
 He posted a division in the valley, its right 
 leaning on the cliff, its left supported by re- 
 doubts; the remainder of his troops he drew 
 up behind the hills, so as to be unseen from 
 the ravine ; and then with a well-grounded 
 hope that not a Turk would escape him, wait- 
 ed the grand vizir, who was advancing up the 
 defile, totally unconscious that Diebitsch was 
 in any other place than before Silistria. He 
 had broke up from Pravodi the day before, on 
 the receipt of his despatch from Schumla, and 
 was followed by the Russian garrison, which 
 had been reinforced by a regiment of hussars ; 
 but the general commanding it, instead of 
 obeying Diebitsch's orders, and quietly track- 
 ing him until the battle should have com- 
 menced, harassed his rear. To halt and drive 
 him back to Pravodi, caused the vizir a delay 
 of four hours, without which he would have 
 emerged from the defile the same evening, and 
 have gained Schumla before Diebitsch got into 
 position. 
 
 " In the course of the night the vizir was in- 
 formed that the enemy had taken post between 
 him and Schumla, and threatened his retreat. 
 He might still have avoided the issue of a bat- 
 tle, by making his way transversely across the 
 defiles to the Kamptchik, sacrificing his bag- 
 gage and cannon; but deeming that he had 
 only Roth to deal with, he, as in that case was 
 his duty, prepared to force a passage; and the 
 few troops that he saw drawn up in the valley, 
 on gaining the little wood fringing it, in the 
 morning, confirmed his opinion. He counted 
 on success, yet, to make more sure, halted to 
 let his artillery take up a flanking position on 
 the north side of the valley. The circuitous 
 and bad route, however, delaying this ma- 
 noeuvre, he could not restrain the impatience of 
 the delhis. Towards noon, 'Allah, Allah her/ 
 they made a splendid charge; they repeated it, 
 broke two squares, and amused themselves 
 nearly two hours in carving the Russian in- 
 fantry, their own infantry, the while, admiring 
 them from the skirts of the wood. Diebitsch, 
 expecting every moment that the vizir would 
 advance to complete the success of his cavalry 
 thereby sealing his own destruction or- 
 dered Count Pah'en, whose division was in the 
 valley, and who demanded reinforcements, to 
 maintain his ground to the last man. The 
 Count obeyed, though suffering cruelly; but 
 the vizir, fortunately, instead of seconding his 
 adversary's intentions, quietly remained on the 
 eminence, enjoying the gallantry of his delhis, 
 and waiting till his artillery should be able to 
 open, when he might descend and claim the 
 victory with ease. Another ten minutes would 
 have sufficed to envelope him; but Diebitsch. 
 ignorant of the cause of his backwardness, and 
 supposing that he intended amusing him till 
 night, whereby to effect a retreat, and unwilling 
 to lose more men, suddenly displayed his 
 1 whole force, and opened a tremendous fire on 
 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 275 
 
 the astonished Turks. In an instant the rout 
 was general, horse and foot; the latter threw 
 away their arms, and many of the nizam dge- 
 ditt were seen clinging to the tails of the del- 
 hi's horses as they clambered over the hills. 
 So complete and instantaneous was the flight, 
 that scarcely a prisoner was made. Redschid 
 strove to check the panic by personal valour, 
 but in vain. He was compelled to draw his 
 sabre in self-defence : he fled to the Kamp- 
 tchik, accompanied by a score of personal re- 
 tainers, crossed the mountains, and on the 
 fourth day re-entered Schumla. 
 
 " This eventful battle, fought by the cavalry 
 on one side, and a few thousand infantry on 
 the other, decided the fate of Turkey im- 
 mense in its consequences, compared with the 
 trifling loss sustained, amounting, on the side 
 of the Russians, to three thousand killed and 
 wounded ; on that of the Turks, killed, wound- 
 ed, and prisoners, to about four thousand. Its 
 effect, however, was the same as if the whole 
 Turkish army had been slain." 
 
 We have given at large the striking account 
 of this battle, because it exhibits in the clearest 
 point of view the extraordinary weakness to 
 which a power was suddenly reduced which 
 once kept all Christendom in awe. Thirty-six 
 thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon 
 decided the fate of Turkey; and an army of 
 Ottomans, forty thousand strong, after sustain- 
 ing a loss of four thousand men, was literally 
 annihilated. The thing almost exceeds belief. 
 To such a state of weakness had the reforms 
 of Sultan Mahmoud so soon reduced the Otto- 
 man power. Such was the prostration, through 
 innovation, of an empire, which, only twenty 
 years before, had waged a bloody and doubtful 
 war with Russia, and maintained for four cam- 
 paigns one hundred and fifty thousand men on 
 the Danube. 
 
 8. Among the immediate and most power- 
 ful causes of the rapid fall of the Ottoman em- 
 pire, unquestionably, must be reckoned the 
 Greek Revolution, and the extraordinary part 
 which Great Britain took in destroying the 
 Turkish navy at Navarino. 
 
 On this subject we wish to speak with 
 caution. We have the most heartfelt wish for 
 the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent, 
 and the liberation of the cradle of civilization 
 from Asiatic bondage. But with every desire 
 for the real welfare of the Greeks, we must be 
 permitted to doubt whether the Revolution was 
 the way to effect it, or the cause of humanity 
 has not been retarded by the premature effort 
 for its independence. 
 
 Since the wars of the French Revolution 
 began, the condition and resources of the 
 Greeks had improved in as rapid a progression 
 as those of the Turks have declined. Various 
 causes have contributed to this. 
 
 The islanders," says Mr. Slade, it may be 
 said, have always been independent, and in 
 possession of the coasting trade of the empire. 
 The wars attendant on the French Revolution 
 gave them the carrying trade of the Mediterra- 
 nean ; on the Euxine alone they had above two 
 hundred sail under the Russian flag. Their 
 vessels even navigated as far as Eng'and. 
 Mercantile houses were established in the 
 
 principal ports of the continent of Europe ; the 
 only duty on their commerce was five per 
 cent, ad valorem, to the sultan's custom-houses. 
 The great demand of the English merchants 
 for Turkish silk, when Italian silk, to which it 
 is superior, was difficult to procure, enriched 
 the Greeks of the interior, who engrossed the 
 entire culture. The continental system obliged 
 us to turn to Turkey for corn, large quantities 
 of which were exported from Macedonia, from 
 Smyrna, and from Tarsus, to the equal profit 
 of the Grecian and Turkish agriculturists. 
 The same system also rendered it incumbent 
 on Germany to cultivate commercial relations 
 with Turkey, to the great advantage of the 
 Greeks, who were to be seen, in consequence, 
 numerously frequenting the fairs at Leipsic. 
 Colleges were established over Greece and the 
 islands, by leave obtained from Selim III.; 
 principally at Smyrna, Scio, Salonica, Yanina, 
 and Hydra; and the wealthy sent their children 
 to civilized Europe for education, without op- 
 position from the Porte, which did not foresee 
 the mischief that it would thereby gather. 
 
 " In short, the position of the Greeks, in 1810, 
 was such as would have been considered 
 visionary twenty years previous, and would, 
 if then offered to them, have been hailed as the 
 completion of their desires. But the general 
 rule, applicable to nations as well as to indi- 
 viduals, that an object, however ardently 
 aspired after, when attained, is chiefly valued 
 as a stepping-stone to higher objects, naturally 
 affected them: the possession of unexpected 
 prosperity and knowledge opened to them 
 further prospects, gave them hopes of realizing 
 golden dreams, of revenging treasured wrongs 
 showed them, in a word, the vista of inde- 
 pendence." 
 
 These causes fostered the Greek Insur- 
 rection, which was secretly organized for 
 years before it broke out in 1821, and was then 
 spread universally and rendered unquenchable 
 by the barbarous murder of the Greek patri- 
 arch, and a large proportion of the clergy at 
 Constantinople, on Easter Day of that year. 
 The result has been, that Greece, after seven 
 years of the ordeal of fire and sword, has ob- 
 tained its independence ; and by the destruction 
 of her navy at Navarino, Turkey has lost the 
 means of making any effectual resistance on 
 the Black Sea to Russia. Whether Greece has 
 been benefited by the change, time alone can 
 show. But it is certain that such have been 
 the distractions, jealousies, and robberies of 
 the Greeks upon each other since that time, 
 that numbers of them have regretted that the 
 dominion of their country has passed from the 
 infidels. 
 
 But whatever may be thought on this sub- 
 ject, nothing can be more obvious than that 
 the Greek Revolution was utterly fatal to the 
 naval power of Turkey; because it deprived 
 them at once of the class from which alone 
 sailors could be obtained. The whole com- 
 merce of the Ottomans was carried on by the 
 Greeks, and their sailors constituted the entire 
 seamen of their fleet. Nothing, accordingly, 
 can be more lamentable than the condition of 
 the Turkish fleet since that time. The catas- 
 trophe of Navarino deprived ilicm of their 
 
276 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 best ships and bravest sailors ; the Greek revolt 
 drained off the whole population who were 
 wont to man their fleets. Mr. Slade informs 
 us that when he navigated on board the Capi- 
 tan Pasha's ship with the Turkish fleet in 
 1829, the crews were composed almost entirely 
 of landsmen, who were forced on board with- 
 out the slightest knowledge of nautical affairs ; 
 and that such was their timidity from inex- 
 perience of that element, that a few English 
 frigates would have sent the whole squadron, 
 containing six ships of the line, to the bottom. 
 The Russian fleet also evinced a degree of 
 ignorance and timidity in the Euxine, which 
 could hardly have been expected, from their 
 natural hardihood and resolution. Yet, the 
 Moscovite fleet, upon the whole, rode triumph- 
 ant ; by their capture of Anapa, they struck at 
 the great market from whence Constantinople 
 is supplied, while, by the storming of Sizepolis, 
 they gave a point d'appui to Diebitsch on the 
 coast within the Balkan, without which he 
 could never have ventured to cross that formi- 
 dable range. This ruin of the Turkish marine 
 by the Greek Revolution and the battle of Na- 
 varino, was therefore the immediate cause of 
 the disastrous issue of the second Russian cam- 
 paign ; and the scale might have been turned, 
 and it made to terminate in equal disasters to 
 the invaders, if live English ships of the line 
 had been added to the Turkish force ; an 
 addition, Mr. Slade tells us, which would have 
 enabled the Turks to burn the Russian arsenals 
 and fleet at Swartopol, and postponed for half 
 a century the fall of the Ottoman empire. 
 
 Nothing, therefore, can be more instructive 
 than the rapid fall of the Turkish power ; nor 
 more curious than the coincidence between the 
 despotic acts of the reforming eastern sultan 
 and of the innovating European democracies. 
 The measures of both have been the same ; 
 both have been actuated by the same principles, 
 and both yielded to the same ungovernable 
 ambition. The sultan commenced his reforms 
 by destroying the old territorial noblesse, ruin- 
 ing the privileges of corporations, and subvert- 
 ing the old military force of the kingdom; and 
 he is known to meditate the destruction of the 
 Mohammedan hierarchy, and the confiscation 
 of the property of the church to the service of the 
 public treasury. The Constituent Assembly, 
 before they had sat six months, had annihilated 
 the feudal nobility, extinguished th^privileges 
 of corporations, uprooted the military force of 
 the monarchy, and confiscated the whole pro- 
 perty of the church. The work of destruction 
 went on far more smoothly and rapidly in the 
 hands of the great despotic democracy, than 
 of the eastern sultan ; by the whole forces of 
 the state drawing in one direction, the old 
 machine was pulled to pieces with a rapidity 
 to which there is nothing comparable in the 
 annals even of Oriental potentates. The rude 
 hand even of Sultan Mahmoud took a lifetime 
 to accomplish that which the French demo- 
 cracy effected in a few months ; and even his 
 ruthless power paused at devastations, which 
 they unhesitatingly adopted amidst the applause 
 of the nation. Despotism, absolute despotism, 
 was the ruling passion of both ; the sultan pro- 
 claimed the principle that all authority flows 
 
 ! from the throne, and that every influence must 
 , be destroyed which does not emanate from that 
 I source ; " The Rights of Man" publicly an- 
 nounced the sovereignty of the people, and 
 made every appointment, civil and military, 
 flow from their assemblies. So true it is that 
 despotism is actuated by the same jealousies, 
 and leads to the same measures on the part of 
 the sovereign as the multitude ; and so just is the 
 observation of Aristotle: "The character of 
 democracy and despotism is the same. Both 
 exercise a despotic authority over the better 
 class of citizens ; decrees are in the first, what 
 ordinances and arrests are in the last. Though 
 placed in different ages or countries, the court 
 favourite and democrat are in reality the same 
 characters, or at least they always bear a close 
 analogy to each other; they have the principal 
 authority in their respective forms of govern- 
 ment; favourites with the absolute monarch, 
 demagogues with the sovereign multitude."* 
 
 The immediate effect of the great despotic 
 acts in the two countries, however, was widely 
 different The innovations of Sultan Mah- 
 moud being directed against the wishes of the 
 majority of the nation, prostrated the strength 
 of the Ottomans, and brought the Russian bat- 
 talions in fearful strength over the Balkan. 
 The innovations of the Constituent Assembly 
 being done in obedience to the dictates of the 
 people, produced for a lime a portentous union 
 of revolutionary passions, and carried the Re- 
 publican standards in triumph to every capital 
 of Europe. It is one thing to force reform 
 upon an unwilling people; it is another and a 
 very different thing to yield to their wishes in 
 imposing it upon a reluctant minority in the 
 state. 
 
 But the ultimate effect of violent innova- 
 tions, whether proceeding from the despotism 
 of the sultan or the multitude, is the same. 
 In both cases they totally destroy the frame of 
 society, and prevent the possibility of freedom 
 being permanently erected, by destroying the 
 classes whose intermixture is essential to its 
 existence. The consequences of destroying 
 the dere beys, the ayams, the Janissaries, and 
 ulema in Turkey, will, in the end, be the same 
 as ruining the church, the nobility, the corpo- 
 rations, and landed proprietors in France. 
 The tendency of both is identical, to destroy 
 all authority but that emanating from a single 
 power in the state, and of course to render that 
 power despotic. It is immaterial whether that 
 single power is the primary assemblies of the 
 people, or the divan of the sultan ; whether the 
 influence to be destroyed is that of the church 
 or the ulema, the dere beys or the nobility. In 
 either case there is no counterpoise to its au- 
 hority, and of course no limit to its oppres- 
 ;ion. As it is impossible, in the nature of 
 things, that power should long be exercised by 
 great bodies, as they necessarily and rapidly 
 "all under despots of their own creation, so it 
 s evident that the path is cleared, not only for 
 despotism, but absolute despotism, as com- 
 pletely by the innovating democracy as the 
 resistless sultan. There never was such a 
 pioneer for tyranny as the Constituent As- 
 
 * Arist. de Pol. iv. c. 4. 
 
THE FALL OF TURKEY. 
 
 277 
 
 sembly, they outstripped Sultan Mahmoud 
 himself. 
 
 It is melancholy to reflect on the deplorable 
 state of weakness to which England has been 
 reduced since revolutionary passions seized 
 upon her people. Three years ago, the British 
 name was universally respected ; the Portu- 
 guese pointed with gratitude to the well-fought 
 fields, where English blood was poured forth 
 like water in behalf of their independence ; the 
 Dutch turned with exultation to the Lion of 
 Waterloo, the proud and unequalled monu- 
 ment of English fidelity; the Poles acknow- 
 ledged with gratitude, that, amidst all their 
 sorrows, England alone had stood their friend, 
 and exerted its influence at the Congress of 
 Vienna to procure for them constitutional 
 freedom; even the Turks, though mourning 
 the catastrophe of Navarino, acknowledged 
 that British diplomacy had at length interfered 
 and turned aside from Constantinople the 
 sword of Russia, after the barrier of the Bal- 
 kan had been broke through. Now, how wo- 
 ful is the change! The Portuguese recount, 
 with undisguised indignation, the spoliation 
 of their navy by the tricolour fleet, then in 
 close alliance with England; and the fostering 
 by British blood and treasure, of a cruel and 
 insidious civil war in their bosom, in aid of 
 the principle of revolutionary propagandism. 
 The Dutch, with indignant rage, tell the tale 
 of the desertion by England of the allies and 
 principles for which she had fought for a hun- 
 dred and fifty years, and .the shameful union 
 of the Leopard and the Eagle, to crush the 
 independence and partition the territories of 
 Holland. The Polish exiles in foreign lands 
 dwell on the heart-rending story of their 
 wrongs, and narrate how they were led: on-by 
 deceitful promises from France and England 
 to resist, till the period of capitulation had 
 gone by; the eastern nations deplore the occu- 
 pation of Constantinople by the Russians, and 
 hold up their hands in astonishment at the in- 
 fatuation which has led the mistress of the 
 seas to permit the keys of the Dardanelles to 
 be placed in the grasp of Moscovite ambition. 
 It is in vain to conceal the fact, that by a mere 
 change of ministry, by simply letting loose 
 revolutionary passions, England has descended 
 to the rank of a third-rate power. She has 
 sunk at once, without any external disasters, 
 from the triumphs of Trafalgar and Waterloo, 
 to the disgrace and the humiliation of Charles 
 II. It is hard to say whether she is most 
 despised or insulted by her ancient allies or 
 enemies ; whether contempt and hatred are 
 strongest among those she aided or resisted 
 in the late struggle. Russia defies her in the 
 east, and, secure in the revolutionary pas- 
 sions by which her people are distracted, pur- 
 sues with now undisguised anxiety her long- 
 cherished aud stubbornly-resisted schemes of 
 ambition in the Dardanelles. France drags 
 her a willing captive at her chariot-wheels, 
 and compels the arms which once struck down 
 Napoleon to aid her in all the mean revolu- 
 tionary aggressions she is pursuing on the 
 surrounding states. Portugal and Holland, 
 smarting under the wounds received from 
 their oldest ally, wait for the moment of British 
 
 weakness to wreak vengeance for the wrongs 
 inflicted under the infatuated guidance of the 
 whig democracy. Louis XIV., humbled by 
 the defeats of Blenheim and Ramillies, yet 
 spurned with indignation at the proposal that 
 he should join his arms to those of his ene- 
 mies, to dispossess his ally, the King of 
 Spain; but England, in the hour of her great- 
 est triumph, has submitted to a greater degra- 
 dation. She has deserted and insulted the 
 nation which stood by her side in the field of 
 Vittoria; she has joined in hostility against 
 the power which bled with her at Waterloo, 
 and deserted in its last extremity the ally 
 whose standards waved triumphant with her 
 on the sands of Egypt. 
 
 The supineness and weakness of ministers 
 in the last agony of Turkey have been such as 
 would have exceeded belief, if woful experi- 
 ence had not taught us to be surprised at no- 
 thing which they can do. France acted with 
 becoming foresight and spirit; they had an 
 admiral, with four ships of the line, to watch 
 Russia in the Dardanelles, when the crisis ap- 
 proached. What had England? One ship of the 
 line on the way from Malta, and a few frigates 
 in the Archipelago, were all that the mistress 
 of the waves could afford, to support the hon- 
 our and interests of England, in an emergency 
 more pressing than any which has occurred 
 since the battle of Trafalgar. Was the crisis 
 not foreseen? Everyman in the country of 
 any intelligence foresaw it, from the moment 
 that Ibrahim besieged Acre. Can England 
 only fit out one ship of the line to save the 
 Dardanelles from Russia? Is this the fore- 
 sight of the Whigs, or the effect of the dock- 
 yard reductions? Or has the reform act 
 utterly annihilated our strength, and sunk o*r 
 name? 
 
 It is evident that in the pitiable shifts to 
 which government is now reduced, foreign 
 events, even of the greatest magnitude, have 
 no sort of weight in its deliberations. Resting 
 on the quicksands of popular favour; intent 
 only on winning the applause or resisting the 
 indignation of the rabble ; dreading the strokes 
 of their old allies among the political unions; 
 awakened, when too late, to a sense of the 
 dreadful danger arising from the infatuated 
 course they have pursued ; hesitating between 
 losing the support of the revolutionists and 
 pursuing the a.narchical projects which they 
 avow ; unable to command the strength of the 
 nation for any foreign policy; having sown 
 the seeds of interminable dissension between 
 the different classes of society, and spread far 
 and wide the modern passion for innovation 
 in lieu of the ancient patriotism of England ; 
 they have sunk it at once into the gulf of de- 
 gradation. By the passions they have excited 
 in the empire, its strength is utterly destroyed, 
 and well do foreign nations perceive its weak- 
 ness. They know that Ireland is on the verge 
 of rebellion ; that the West Indies, with the 
 torch and the tomahawk at their throats, are 
 waiting only for the first national reverse to 
 throw off their allegiance; that the splendid 
 empire of India is shaking under the demo- 
 cratic rule to which it is about to be subjected 
 on the expiry of the charter ; that the dock- 
 2 A 
 
278 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 yards, stripped of their stores to make a show 
 of economy, and conceal a sinking revenue, 
 could no longer fit out those mighty fleets 
 which so recently went forth from their gates, 
 conquering and to conquer. The foreign his- 
 torians of the French revolutionary war de- 
 plored the final seal it had put upon the 
 maritime superiority of England, and declared 
 that human sagacity could foresee no possible 
 extrication of the seas from her resistless do- 
 minion: but how vain are the anticipations 
 of human wisdom! The fickle change of 
 popular opinion subverted the mighty fabric; 
 a Whig ministry succeeded to the helm, and 
 before men had ceased to tremble at the thun- 
 der of Trafalgar, England had become con- 
 temptible on the waves ! 
 
 From this sad scene of national degradation 
 and decay, from the melancholy spectacle of 
 the breaking up, from revolutionary passion 
 and innovation, of the greatest and most bene- 
 ficent empire that ever existed upon earth, we 
 turn to a more cheering prospect, and joyfully 
 inhale from the prospects of the species those 
 hopes which we can no longer venture to 
 cherish for our own country. 
 
 The attention of all classes in this country 
 has been so completely absorbed of late years 
 by the progress of domestic changes, and the 
 march of revolution, that little notice has been 
 bestowed on the events we have been consider- 
 ing ; yet they are more important to the future 
 fate of the species, than even the approaching 
 dismemberment of the British empire. We 
 are about to witness the overthrow of the Mo- 
 hammedan religion ; the emancipation of the 
 cradle of civilization from Asiatic bondage ; 
 the accomplishment of that deliverance of the 
 Hly Sepulchre, for which the Crusaders toiled 
 and bled in vain ; the elevation of the cross on 
 the Dome of St. Sophia and the walls of Je- 
 rusalem. 
 
 That this great event was approaching has 
 been long foreseen by the thoughtful and the 
 philanthropic. The terrors of the Crescent 
 have long since ceased: it first paled in the 
 Gulf of Lepanto : it waned before the star of 
 Sobieski under the Avails of Vienna, and set in 
 flames in the Bay of Navarino. The power 
 which once made all Christendom tremble, 
 which shook the imperial throne, and pene- 
 trated from the sands of Arabia to the banks 
 of the Loire, is now in the agonies of dissolu- 
 tion ; and that great deliverance for which the 
 banded chivalry of Europe fought for cen- 
 turies, and to attain which millions of Chris- 
 tian bones whitened the fields of Asia, is now 
 about to be effected through the vacillation and 
 indifference of their descendants. That which 
 the courage of Richard Ccsur de Lion, and the 
 enthusiasm of Godfrey of Bouillon, could not 
 achieve ; which resisted the arms of the Tem- 
 plars and the Hospitallers, and rolled back from 
 Asia the tide of European invasion, is now in 
 the act of being accomplished. A more me- 
 morable instance was never afforded of the 
 manner in which the passions and vices of 
 men are made to work out the intentions of 
 an overruling Providence, and of the vanity 
 of all human attempts to prevent that cease- 
 
 less spread of religion which has been decreed 
 by the Almighty. 
 
 That Russia is the power by whom this 
 great change was to be effected, by whose arm 
 the tribes of Asia were to be reduced to sub- 
 jection, and the triumph of civilization over 
 barbaric sway effected, has long been appa- 
 rent. The gradual but unceasing pressure 
 of the hardy races of mankind upon the effe- 
 minate, of the energy of northern poverty on 
 the corruption of southern opulence, rendered 
 it evident that this change must ultimately be 
 effected. The final triumph of the Cross over 
 the Crescent was secure from the moment that 
 the Turcoman descended to the plains of Asia 
 Minor, and the sway of the Czar was estab- 
 lished in the deserts of Scythia. As certainly 
 as water will ever descend from the mountains 
 to the plain, so surely will the stream of per- 
 manent conquest, in every age, flow from the 
 northern to the southern races of mankind. 
 
 But although the continued operation of 
 these causes was evident, and the ultimate as- 
 cendent of the religion of Christ, and the insti- 
 tutions of civilization, over the tenets of 
 Mohammed, and the customs of barbarism, 
 certain ; yet many different causes, till within 
 these few years, contributed to check their ef- 
 fects, and to postpone, apparently, for an in- 
 definite period, the final liberation of the 
 eastern world. But the weakness, insanity, 
 and vacillation of England and France, while 
 they will prove fatal to them, seem destined to 
 subject the east to the sway of Russia, and re- 
 new, in the plains of Asia, those institutions 
 of which Europe has become unworthy. The 
 cause of religion, the spread of the Christian 
 faith, has received an impulse from the vices 
 and follies, which she never received from the 
 sword of western Europe. The infidelity and 
 irreligion of the French philosophers have 
 done that for the downfall -of Islamism which 
 all the enthusiasm of the Crusaders could not 
 accomplish. Their first effect was to light up 
 a deadly war in Europe, and array the civilized 
 powers of the world in mortal strife against 
 each other; but this was neither their only nor 
 their final effect. In this contest, the arms of 
 civilization acquired an unparalleled ascend- 
 ency over those of barbarism; and at its close, 
 the power of Russia was magnified fourfold. 
 Turkey and Persia were unable to withstand the 
 empire from which the arms of Napoleon rolled 
 back. The overthrow of Mohammedanism, 
 the liberation of the finest provinces of Europe 
 from Turkish sway, flowed at last, directly and 
 evidently, from the rise of the spirit which at 
 first closed all the churches of France, and 
 erected the altar of reason in the choir of Notre 
 Dame. We are now witnessing the conclu- 
 sion of the drama. When England descended 
 from her high station, and gave way to revo- 
 lutionary passions ; when irreligion tainted her 
 people, and respect for the institutions of their 
 fathers no longer influenced her government, 
 she, too, was abandoned to the consequences 
 of her vices; and from her apostasy, fresh 
 support derived to the cause of Christianity. 
 French irreligion had quadrupled the military 
 strength of Russia : but the English navy still 
 
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 
 
 279 
 
 existed to uphold the tottering edifice of Turk- 
 ish power. English irreligion and infidelity 
 overturned her constitution, and the barrier 
 was swept away. 
 
 The British navy, paralysed by democracy 
 and divisions in the British islands, can no 
 longer resist Moscovite ambition, and the pros- 
 tration of Turkey is in consequence complete. 
 The effects will in the end be fatal to England; 
 but they may raise up in distant lands other 
 empires, which may one day rival even the 
 glories of the British name. The cross may 
 cease to be venerated at Paris, but it will be 
 elevated at St. Sophia: it may be ridiculed in 
 
 London, but it will resume its sway at Antioch. 
 Considerations of this kind are fitted, if any 
 can, to console us for the degradation and ca- 
 lamities of our own country : they show, that 
 if one nation becomes corrupted, Providence 
 can derive, even from its vices and ingrati- 
 tude, the means 'of raising up other states to 
 the glory of which it has become unworthy: 
 and that from the decay of civilization in its 
 present seats, the eye of hope may anticipate its 
 future resurrection in the cradle from whence 
 it originally spread its blessings throughout 
 ! the world. 
 
 THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820.* 
 
 THERE is no subject with which we are more 
 completely unacquainted, or which has been 
 more perverted by artful deception on the part 
 of the revolutionary press throughout Europe, 
 than the convulsions, which, since the general j 
 peace, have distracted the Spanish Peninsula. 
 Circumstances have been singularly favour- 
 able to the universal diffusion of erroneous 
 views on this subject. The revolutionary 
 party had a fair field for the adoption of every 
 kind of extravagance, and the propagation of 
 every species of falsehood, in a country where 
 the ruling class, who opposed the movement, 
 had committed great errors, been guilty of 
 black ingratitude, and were totally incapable 
 of counteracting, by means of the press, those 
 erroneous misrepresentations, with which the 
 indefatigable activity of the revolutionary 
 party overwhelmed the public mind in every 
 part of the world. Their exertions, and the 
 success which they have met with, in this re- 
 spect, have accordingly been unprecedented ; 
 and there is no subject on which historic truth 
 will be found to be so different from journal 
 misrepresentation, as the transactions of the 
 Peninsula during the last fifteen years. 
 
 That Ferdinand VII. is a weak man ; that, 
 under the government of the priests, he has 
 violated his promises, behaved cruelly towards 
 his deliverers, and been guilty of black ingrati- 
 tude towards the heroic defenders of his throne 
 during his exile, may be considered as histori- 
 cally certain. How', then, has it happened that 
 the Revolution has retrograded in a country 
 where so much was required to be done in the 
 way of real amelioration, and the wishes of so 
 large a portion of its inhabitants were unani- 
 mous in favour of practical improvement 1 ? 
 How can we explain the fact, that the French, 
 in 1823, led by the Duke d'Angouleme, under 
 the weak and vacillating direction of the Bour- 
 bons, traversed the Peninsula from end to end, 
 without even the shadow of resistance, and es- 
 tablished Iheir standard on the walls of Cadi/, 
 after the heroic resistance which the peasantry 
 of the Peninsula made to Gallic aggression 
 
 * Essai Histori(|iic sur la Revolution crKsp.-iL'iir. p-ir 
 le Vicomte de Martitrnnc. Paris, Pinard, 1832. Black- 
 wood's Magazine, September, 1832. 
 
 under Napoleon, and the universal hatred 
 which their presence had excited in every part 
 of that desolated and blood-stained country? 
 Immense must have been the injustice, enor- 
 mous the folly, ruinous the sway of the revolu- 
 tionary party, when it so soon cured a whole 
 nation of a desire for change, which all at first 
 felt to be necessary, which so many were 
 throughout interested in promoting, and which 
 was begun with such unanimous support from 
 all classes. 
 
 The Revolutionists explain this extraordi- 
 nary fact, by saying that it was entirely owing 
 to the influence of the priests, who, seeing that 
 their power and possessions were threatened 
 by the proposed innovations, set themselves 
 vigorously and successfully to oppose them. 
 But here again historical facts disprove party 
 misrepresentations. It will be found, upon, 
 examination, that the priests at the outset made 
 no resistance whatever to the establishment of 
 the constitution on the most democratic basis ; 
 that the experiment of a highly popular form 
 of government was tried with the unanimous 
 approbation of all classes; and that the subse- 
 quent general horror at the constitutionalists, 
 and the easy overthrow of their government, 
 was owing to the madness of the popular rulers 
 themselves, to the enormous injustice which 
 they committed, the insane projects of innova- 
 tion in which they indulged, and the weighty 
 interests in all ranks, on which, in the prose- 
 cution of their frantic career, they were com- 
 pelled to trench. Spain, when the veil is 
 drawn aside which party delusions has so long 
 spread before its transactions, will be found to 
 add another confirmation to the eternal truths, 
 that the career of innovation necessarily and 
 rapidly destroys itself; that the misery it im- 
 mediately produces renders the great body of 
 men at length deaf to the delusive promises by 
 which its promoters never fail to bolster up its 
 fortunes, and that there is no such fatal enemy 
 to real freedom as the noisy supporters of de- 
 mocratic ambition. 
 
 The work, whose title is prefixed to this ar- 
 ticle, is well calculated to disabuse the public 
 mind in regard to these important transactions. 
 The author is one of the liberal party in France, 
 
280 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 and bestows liberal and unqualified abuse 
 upon all the really objectionable parts of Fer- 
 dinand's conduct. At the same time, he un- 
 folds, in clear and graphic colours, the ruinous 
 precipitance and fatal innovations of the Re- 
 volutionists, and distinctly demonstrates that 
 it was not the priests nor the nobles, but their 
 own injustice, and the wide-spread ruin pro- 
 duced by their own measures, which occa- 
 sioned the speedy downfall of the absurd con- 
 stitution which they had established. 
 
 We all recollect that the new constitution 
 of Spain was framed in the Isle of Leon, in 
 1812, when the greater part of the Peninsula 
 was overrun by the French troops. M. Mar- 
 tignac gives the following account of the origi- 
 nal formation of the Cortes in that island, to 
 whom the important task of framing a consti- 
 tution was devolved: 
 
 " The greater part of the Spanish territory 
 was at this period overrun by the French ; 
 Cadiz, Gallicia, Murcia, and the Belearic Isles, 
 alone elected their representatives : No condi- 
 tion was imposed on the electors, but every one tvho 
 presented himself iv as allowed to vote. The depu- 
 ties from the other provinces were elected by 
 an equally universal suffrage of all their inhabi- 
 tants who had taken refuge in the Isle of Leon ; 
 and thus the Cortes was at length assembled. 
 Such was the origin of the assembly which 
 gave to Spain its democratic constitution. 
 
 "We cannot now read without surprise, 
 mingled with pity, the annals of that assembly, 
 and the monuments it has left for the instruc- 
 tion of all nations, a prey to the same passions, 
 and the victims of the same fury. The bloody 
 annals of our Convention can alone give an 
 idea of it ; but to the revolutionary fanaticism 
 which they shared with us, we must add, the 
 influence of a burning sun over their heads, 
 and the force of implacable animosities, nou- 
 rished by the Moorish blood which flowed in 
 theiK veins. All the recollections of our dis- 
 asters were there cited, not as beacons to be 
 avoided, but examples to be followed: all the 
 men whose names are never pronounced 
 amongst us but with an involuntary feeling of 
 horror, were there cited as heroes, and pro- 
 posed as models; all the measures of proscrip- 
 tion and destruction which vengeance, inspir- 
 ed by hatred, could suggest, were there pro- 
 posed and supported. One declared that in his 
 eyes the hatchet of the executioner was the 
 sole argument which he would deign to propose 
 to the logic of his adversaries ; another, and 
 that was a priest, offered to take the axe into 
 his own hands; a third, indignant at the scan- 
 dal which Spain had so long exhibited, ex- 
 claimed, 'We have been assembled for six 
 months, and not one head has as yet fallen.' 
 
 " In the midst of these manifestations of a 
 furious delirium, some prudent and sagacious 
 voices were heard, and united among each 
 other to moderate the popular effervescence, 
 which such pains had been taken to excite. 
 Among those who executed with most success 
 this honourable task, the voice of Arguelles 
 was especially distinguished ; of that Arguel- 
 les, whose mind, chastened by reflection, and 
 enlightened by study, had subdued these ex- 
 travagant ideas ; whose eloquence at once cap- 
 
 tivated and entranced his auditors ; and who, 
 in a time and a place where any thing ap- 
 proaching to moderation was stigmatized as 
 blasphemy, had obtained the extraordinary 
 surname of the Divine. 
 
 " Nothing, however, could arrest the torrent 
 of democracy which had now broken through 
 all its bounds. The Cortes had been convoked 
 to overturn the foundations of the Spanish 
 monarchy, and consummate the work of the 
 Revolution, and nothing could prevent the 
 task being accomplished. From the day of 
 their first meeting, they had proclaimed the 
 principle, that sovereignty resides in the na- 
 tion ; and all their acts were the consequences 
 of that principle. The national and rational 
 party, whose conviction and good sense it out- 
 raged, were far from adopting so extravagant 
 a proposition, and in ordinary circumstances 
 they would have rejected it; but all their pro- 
 testations and remonstrances were overturned, 
 by pointing to their young king, a captive in 
 a foreign land, and incessantly invoking the 
 principle of popular sovereignty, as the sole 
 method of awakening that general enthusiasm, 
 which might ultimately deliver him from his 
 fetters. The peril of foreign subjugation was 
 such, that nothing tending to calm the public 
 effervescence could be admitted; and the firm- 
 est royalists were, by an unhappy fatality, com- 
 pelled to embrace principles subversive of the 
 throne. 
 
 "The Cortes, therefore, was compelled to 
 advance in the career on which it had entered, 
 deliberating on the great interests of Spain 
 under the irresistible influence of a furiou,s and 
 democratic press, and under the pressure of po- 
 pular speeches delivered by the visionary and 
 enthusiastic from all the provinces, who soon 
 made Cadiz their common centre. 
 
 "It was in the midst of that fiery furnace 
 that the constitution of Spain was forged : in 
 the bosom of that crisis, the centre of that fer- 
 mentation, in the absence of all liberty of thought 
 and action, from the vehemence of the popular party, 
 that the solemn act was adopted which was to 
 resruiate the destiny of a great people." I. 
 9497. 
 
 A constitution struck out in such a period 
 of foreign -danger and domestic deliverance, 
 under the dread of French bayonets and the 
 pressure of revolutionary fury, could hardly 
 be expected to be either rational or stable, or 
 adapted to the character and wants of the peo- 
 ple. It was accordingly in the highest degree 
 democratical; not only infinitely more so than 
 Spain could bear, but more so than any state 
 in Europe, not excepting England or France, 
 could adopt with the slightest chance of safety. 
 Its leading articles were as follows : 
 
 " 1. The sovereignty resides in the nation. 
 
 " 2. The Cortes is to be elected by the uni- 
 versal suffrage of the whole inhabitants. 
 
 " 3. It possesses alone the legislative power, 
 which comprises the sole power of proposing 
 laws. It votes the taxes and the levies for the 
 army; lays down all the regulations for the 
 armed force; names the supreme judges; 
 creates and institutes a regent, in case of mi- 
 nority or incapacity, of which last it alone 
 is the judge, and exercises a direct control 
 
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 
 
 281 
 
 over the ministers and all other functionaries, 
 whose responsibility it alone regulates. Dur- 
 ing the intervals of its sessions, it is repre- 
 sented by a. permanent deputation, charged with 
 the execution of the laws, and the power of 
 convoking it, in case of necessity. 
 
 "4. The king is inviolable. He sanctions 
 the laws ; but he can only refuse his assent 
 twice, and to different legislatures. On the 
 third bill being presented, he must give his con- 
 sent. He has the right of pardon ; but that 
 right is circumscribed within certain limits 
 fixed by law. 
 
 "5. The king names the public functiona- 
 ries, butyVom a list presented to him by the council 
 of state. The whole functionaries are subject 
 to a supreme tribunal, the members of which 
 are all appointed by the Cortes. 
 
 "6. The king cannot leave the kingdom 
 without the leave of the Cortes ; and if he mar- 
 ries without their consent, he is held by that 
 act alone to have abdicated the throne. 
 
 "7. There is to be constantly attached to | 
 the king's person a council of forty members. 
 Three counsellors are for life, named by the 
 king, but from a list furnished by the Cortes, 
 in which there can only be four of the great 
 nobles, and four ecclesiastics. It is this coun- 
 cil which presents the lists for all employments 
 in church and state to the king, for his selec- 
 tion. 
 
 "8. No part of the new constitution is to be 
 revised in any of its parts, but by the votes of 
 three successive legislatures, and by a decree 
 of the Cortes, not subject to the royal sanction." 
 I. 9799. 
 
 Such was the Spanish constitution of 18V2, 
 to the restoration of which, all the subsequent 
 convulsions of the Revolutionary party have 
 been directed. It was evidently in the highest 
 degree democratical : so much so, indeed, that the 
 President of the American Congress has fully 
 as much real power. The Cortes was elected 
 by universal suffrage : there was no upper cham- 
 ber or House of Peers to restrain its excesses; 
 it was alone invested with the right of voting 
 the taxes, raising the army, and establishing its 
 regulations; it controlled and directed all the 
 public functionaries, and its powers were en- 
 joyed, during the periods of its prorogation, 
 by a. permanent committee, which had the power 
 at any time, of its own authority, to reassemble 
 the whole body. By means of the Council of 
 State substantially elected by the Cortes, and 
 the lists which it presented to the king for the 
 choice of all public functionaries, it was in- j 
 vested with the power of naming all officers, 
 civil, military, ecclesiastical, and judicial; and, ; 
 to complete this mass of democratic absurdity, , 
 this constitution could not be altered in any 
 of its parts but by the concurring act of three 
 successive legislatures, and a decree of the 
 Cortes, not subject to the royal sanction. It is 
 needless to say any thing of this constitution ; 
 it was much more democratical than the con- 
 stitution of France in 1790, which was so soon 
 overturned by the Revolutionists of that coun- 
 try, and Avas of such a kind as could not, by 
 possibility, have failed to precipitate the Pe- 
 ninsula into all the horrors of anarchy. 
 
 The ultimate fate of such a mass of revolu- 
 
 tionary madness, in a country so little accus- 
 tomed to bear the excitement, and so little 
 aware of the duties of freedom as Spain, might 
 easily have been anticipated. Its early recep- 
 tion in the different classes of the community 
 is thus described by our author: 
 
 "To those who are aware of the true spirit 
 of that grave and constant nation, and who 
 were not blinded by the passions or the excita- 
 tion of political fanaticism, it was easy to fore- 
 see the reception which a constitution would 
 receive, by which all the habits of the nation 
 were violated, and all their affections wounded. 
 
 " At Cadiz, Barcelona, and, in general, in all 
 the great commercial towns, the party who 
 had urged forward the Revolution readily pre- 
 vailed over the adherents of old institutions, 
 and these towns expressed their adhesion with 
 enthusiasm ; but in the smaller boroughs in 
 the country, and, above all, in the provinces 
 of the interior, where the new ideas had not 
 yet made any progress, this total prostration 
 of the Royalty this substitution of a new 
 power instead of that which had been the 
 object of ancient veneration, was received 
 with a coldness which soon degenerated into 
 discontent and open complaints. 
 
 " In vain the innovators sought to persuade 
 the people, whose dissatisfaction could no lon- 
 ger be concealed, that the new constitution 
 was but a restoration of the ancient principles of 
 the monarchy, adapted to the new wants and 
 exigencies of society; in vain had they taken 
 care, in destroying things, to preserve names ; 
 this deceitful address deceived no one, and 
 abated nothing of the public discontent. 
 
 "The clergy, discontented and disquieted at 
 the prospect of a future which it was now easy 
 to foresee the great proprietors, who were 
 subjected to new burdens, at the same time 
 that they were deprived of their ancient rights 
 the members of all the provincial councils 
 which were despoiled of their ancient juris- 
 dictions, added to the public discontent. The 
 creation of a direct tax, unknown till that day, 
 appeared to the inhabitants of the country an 
 intolerable burden a sacrifice without any 
 compensation; and as the burden of the war 
 became more heavy as it continued in dura- 
 tion, these two causes of suffering worked the 
 discontent of the people up to perfect fury." 
 100, 101. 
 
 The universal discontent at the new consti- 
 tution broke out into open expressions of de- 
 testation, when the king, liberated from the 
 grasp of Napoleon, entered Spain in 1814. 
 
 " The king entered Spain in the midst of the 
 transports of public joy at his deliverance, and 
 advanced to Valencia, where he was pro- 
 claimed by the army under General Elio. 
 
 " From the frontiers to Valencia, Ferdinand 
 heard nothing but one continued anathema and 
 malediction against the constitution. From 
 all sides he received petitions, memorials, ad- 
 dresses, in which he was besought to annul 
 what had been done during his captivity, and 
 to reign over Spain as his fathers had reigned. 
 There was not a village through which he 
 passed which did not express a similar wish, 
 subscribed by men of all ranks, and even by 
 the members of the municipalities created by 
 2A2 
 
282 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the constitution. The army held the same 
 language ; and those who had shed their blood 
 for the defence of the throne, demanded, with 
 loud cries, ' that the throne should be pre- 
 served pure, and without spot; and that, as 
 formerly, it should be powerful, firm, and ho- 
 noured.' 
 
 " The minority of the Cortes joined their 
 voice to the many others which met the king's 
 ears, and presented the same wishes and peti- 
 tions. These members with that view signed 
 a petition, since well known under the name 
 of the Protestation of the Fathers. Sixty-nine 
 deputies, named by the constitution, suppli- 
 cated the king to destroy the act to which all 
 classes had so recently been bound by a so- 
 lemn oath." I. 107109. 
 
 The result of this unanimous feeling was 
 the famous decree of Valencia of May 6, 1814, 
 by which the monarch annulled the constitu- 
 tion which he had recently accepted in exile. 
 The Cortes made several efforts to resist the 
 change, but the public indignation over- 
 whelmed them all. 
 
 " Resistance to the royal edict was speedily 
 found to be a chimera. The torrent accumu- 
 lated as it advanced, and no person in the 
 state was able to stand against it. After the 
 publication of the Edict of Valencia, the king 
 marched to Madrid ; and he found, wherever 
 he went, the people in a state of insurrection 
 against the constitutional authorities, the pil- 
 lars of the constitution overturned and broken, 
 and the absolute king proclaimed. Everywhere 
 the soldiers, sent, by the Cortes to restrain the 
 transports of the people, joined their acclama- 
 tions to theirs. It was in the midst of that 
 cortege, which was swelled by the population 
 of every village through which he passed, that 
 Ferdinand traversed the space between Va- 
 lencia and Madrid ; and it was surrounded by 
 a population more ardent and impassioned 
 even than that of the 13th May, that he made 
 one of those memorable entries into his capi- 
 tal which seemed to promise a long and tran- 
 quil futurity. 
 
 "Thus fell this imprudent and ephemeral 
 constitution, cradled amidst troubles and war, 
 prepared without reflection, discussed without 
 freedom, founded on opinions and sentiments 
 which were strangers to the soil, applied to a 
 people for whom it was neither made nor 
 adapted, and which could not survive the cri- 
 sis in which it had been conceived." I. 120, 
 121. 
 
 Thus terminated the first act of this unhap- 
 py drama. From the rash and absurd inno- 
 vations, the democratic invasions and total 
 destruction of the old form of government, by 
 the revolutionary party, the maintenance even 
 of moderate and regulated freedom had become 
 impossible. In two years the usual career of 
 revolution had been run ; liberty had perished 
 under the frantic innovations of its own sup- 
 porters ; its excesses were felt to be more 
 formidable than the despotism of absolute 
 power, and for shelter from a host of vulgar 
 tyrants, the people ran to the shadow of the 
 throne. 
 
 The cruel and unjustifiable use which the 
 absolute monarch made of this violent reac- 
 
 tion in favour of monarchical institutions, the 
 base ingratitude which he evinced to the popu- 
 lar supporters of his throne during his exile, 
 and the enormous iniquities which were prac- 
 tised upon the fallen party of the liberals, are 
 universally known. These excesses gave the 
 revolutionary party too good reason to com- 
 plain ; they pointed out in clear colours the 
 perils of unfettered power; they awakened the 
 sympathies of the young and the generous in 
 every part of the world, in favour of the un- 
 happy victims of regal vengeance, whose 
 blood was shed on the scaffold, or who were 
 languishing in captivity ; and therefore, if any 
 events could do so, they left a fair field for the 
 efforts of the constitutional party. Yet, even 
 with such advantages, and the immense addi- 
 tion of power consequent on the defection of 
 the army, the revolutionary party, after being 
 again called to the helm of affairs, again pe- 
 rished under the weight of their own revolu- 
 tionary passions and absurd innovations. 
 
 The events which soon followed ; the insur- 
 rection of Riego, the revolt of the troops as- 
 sembled in the Island of Leon for the South 
 American expedition in 1820, and the compul- 
 sory acceptance of the democratic constitution 
 of 1812 by the absolute king, are familiar to 
 all our readers. The effects of this complete 
 and bloodless triumph of democracy are what 
 chiefly concern the people of this country, and 
 they are painted in lucid colours by our author. 
 
 " As soon as the constitution had been ac- 
 cepted of by the king, its establishment expe- 
 rienced no serious resistance in the kingdom. 
 The great nobles, accustomed to follow the or- 
 ders of a master, hesitated not to follow his 
 example. In the principal towns, all those en- 
 gaged in commerce, industry, and the liberal 
 professions, testified their adherence with the 
 most lively satisfaction. The army expressed 
 its devotion to the constitutional standard 
 which it had erected, and evinced its determi- 
 nation to support it by the formidable weapons 
 of force. The needy and idle ; all who were 
 bankrupt, in labouring circumstances, or des- 
 titute of the industrious habits necessary to 
 secure a subsistence, flew with avidity to the 
 support of a system, which promised them the 
 spoils of the state. The dignified clergy and 
 the monks beheld with grief the triumph of the 
 theories which they condemned; but neverthe- 
 less they obeyed in silence. The magistracy 
 followed their example. As to the people pro- 
 perly so called, that is to say, the industrious 
 inhabitants of the towns, the peaceable culti- 
 vators of the fields, they regarded the change 
 with disquietude and distrust, took no active 
 share in promoting it, and awaited the course 
 of events to decide their judgment." I. 203. 
 
 The usual effects of democratic ascendency 
 were not long in proclaiming themselves. 
 
 " The sixty-nine deputies of the old Cortes, 
 who had signed the address to the king recom- 
 mending the overthrow of the constitution, 
 were everywhere arrested and thrown into 
 prison. This was the first indication of what 
 the constitutionalists understood by the am- 
 nesty which they had proclaimed. 
 
 " Whilst at Madrid, the royal government, de- 
 prived of all moral force, feebly struggled 
 
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1320. 
 
 against the popular power, which had arisen 
 by its side ; whilst the patriotic societies over- 
 turned or displaced the local authorities, in- 
 sulted the majesty of the throne and the royal 
 authority,, preached license and proclaimed 
 disorder; whilst violence was organized, and 
 anarchy systematically constituted, the pro- 
 vinces did not afford a more cheering ex- 
 ample, and in that circle of fire into which 
 Spain was now resolved, the extremities show- 
 ed themselves not less inflamed than the centre. 
 There could be discerned, by the prophetic eyes 
 of wisdom, the black speck which was soon to 
 enlarge and overwhelm the kingdom with the 
 horrors of civil war. 
 
 "In a great proportion of the provinces, 
 separate juntas were formed, while some dis- 
 regarded alike the authority of government 
 and that of the supreme assembly. Each of 
 these assemblies deliberated, interpreted, acted 
 according to the disposition of the majority of 
 its members, and no central authority felt it- 
 self sufficiently strong to venture to subject to 
 any common yoke the local parliaments, each 
 of which, in its own little sphere, had more 
 influence than the central alone possessed." 
 I. 211. 
 
 Amidst the general transports of the revolu- 
 tionary party at this unexpected change, the 
 usual and invariable attendant or revolution- 
 ary convulsions, embarrassments of finance, were 
 soon experienced. The way in which this un- 
 dying load precipitated the usual consequences 
 of revolutionary triumph, national bankrupt- 
 cy, and a confiscation of the properly of the 
 church, is thus detailed: 
 
 "No sooner was the new Cortes installed, 
 than numerous and important cares occupied 
 their attention. Of these, the most pressing 
 was the state of the finances. Disinterestedness 
 is not in general the distinctive character of 
 the leaders of party, and the countries deliv- 
 ered by revolutions usually are not long of 
 discovering what it has cost them. In vain 
 the ministry, in vain the Cortes, terrified aU/ie 
 daily inn-easing deficit in the public treasury, and 
 the absence of all resources to supply it, 
 sought to reduce, by economical reductions, 
 those charges which the state could evidently 
 no longer support. While reductions were 
 effected in one quarter, additional charges 
 multiplied in another. All those who could 
 make out the shadow of a claim of loss arising 
 from the arbitrary government ; all those whose 
 hands had touched, to raise it up, the pillar of 
 the constitution, had restitutions or indemnities 
 to claim, without prejudice to arrears, and new 
 places to demand. Refusal was out of the 
 question ; for it would have been considered as 
 a denial of justice, an act of ingratitude, a 
 proof of servility. Jltnidst the public transports 
 the revenue was incessantly going down" 
 
 It became absolutely indispensable, there- 
 fore, to provide new resources ; but where was 
 a government to find them, destitute of credit, 
 in a country without industry and without com- 
 merce ? The expedient of a patriotic loan was 
 tried, but that immediately and totally failed. 
 The patriots all expected to receive, not to be 
 called upon to give money to government. Re- 
 course was then, from sheer necessity, had to 
 
 283 
 
 the most fatal of all 
 
 which at once ruin the present, anmvmgg^jl. 
 prospects for the future. They made a separa- 
 tion between all arrears, or existing debt, and 
 the current expenses of the year, and appro- 
 priated to this taut t/ic u'iiuU- rrrntiu' of the state, 
 that is to say, they proclaimed public bank- 
 ruptcy as to the national debt, and thus inflicted 
 on public and private credit one of those mor- 
 tal stabs from which they never recover. 
 
 "Having thus got quit of the debt, the next 
 object was to bring up the income to the ex- 
 penditure of the year. For this purpose, they 
 re-established the direct and burdensome land-tax, 
 which had been abandoned on the restoration 
 of royalty, in 1814, and created various new 
 I taxes, most of which, from their extreme unpo- 
 pularity, they were soon compelled to abandon. 
 
 " They next established on the frontier a line 
 of custom-houses, with^a rigour of prohibition 
 which could hardly be Conceived in an indus- 
 trious country, which was unintelligible in 
 ! Spain, and was speedily followed by the esta- 
 blishment, on the frontier, of a system of 
 smuggling, the most vast and organized that 
 ever existed. 
 
 " Finally, they abolished the tithes and feudal 
 tenths, but established the half of them for the 
 service of the state. This was immediately at- 
 tended with the worst effects. The ecclesias- 
 tical tithe was the burden, of all others, which 
 was most regularly and cheerfully paid in 
 Spain, because the people were accustomed to 
 it, and they conceived that, in paying it, they 
 discharged at once a legal obligation and a 
 debt of conscience ; but when it was converted 
 into a burden merely available to the ordinary 
 wants of the state, it was no longer regarded 
 in that light, but as an odious charge, and its 
 collection was instantly exposed to the increas- 
 ing embarrassments of the other imposts. 
 
 "At the time that they voted these different 
 financial expedients, their total inadequacy 
 was obvious to the most inconsiderate; and it 
 soon became evident that additional resources 
 were unavoidable." I. 230, 231. 
 
 Thus the first effect of the triumph of revo- 
 lution in Spain, was the imposition of a heavy 
 income-tax, the destruction of tlie public debt, and 
 the confiscation of tithes, and a large portion of the 
 land rights of tlie kingdom, to the service of the 
 treasury. One simple and irresistible cause 
 produced these effects, the failure of the re- 
 venue, invariably consequent on the suspen- 
 sion of industry, the failure of credit, and con- 
 traction of expenditure, which result from 
 popular triumph. 
 
 The rapid progress of innovation in every 
 other department, in consequence of the re-es- 
 tablishment of the democratic constitution, 
 speedily unhinged all the institutions of society. 
 Its effect is thus detailed by our author: 
 
 "Independent of the financial measures of 
 which I have given an account, and which 
 were attended with so little good effect, the 
 Cortes were occupied with innumerable pro- 
 jects of reform in legislation, administration, 
 and police, so numerous, that it is impossible 
 to give any account of them. Devoured with 
 the passion for destruction, and but little so- 
 licitous about restoring with prudence, the 
 
284 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ardent friends of reform did not allow a single 
 day to pass without denouncing some abuse, 
 declaiming against some remnants of despo- 
 tism and arbitrary power. Projects of laws 
 succeeded each other without interruption ; 
 and as every one of these projects was held to 
 be an incontcstible and urgent necessity, and to 
 hesitate as to it would have been apparently to 
 call in question the principles of the Revolu- 
 tion, and evince a certain mark of aversion 
 for the supremacy of the people, not one of 
 them was either adjourned or rejected. Innu- 
 merable commissions were established to ex- 
 amine the projects of innovation ; reports 
 made ; laws discussed and voted ; and the old 
 legislation of the kingdom daily crumbled into 
 dust, without a single individual in the country 
 having either the time to read, or an opportu- 
 nity to consider the innumerable institutions 
 which were daily substituted, instead of those 
 which had formerly existed." I. 235. 
 
 All these projects of reform, however, and 
 all this vast confiscation of property, both 
 ecclesiastical and civil, could not supply the 
 continually increasing deficit of the treasury. 
 Another, and still greater revolutionary con- 
 fiscation awaited the state, and to this, invin- 
 cible necessity speedily led. 
 
 " From the commencement of the next ses- 
 sion of the Cortes, measures had been taken to 
 facilitate the secularization of the religious 
 orders of both sexes ; and many of them had 
 already left their retreats, and rejoined their 
 friends in the world. 
 
 " At length matters came to a crisis. On 
 the proposition of Colonel Sancho, a law was 
 passed, which confiscated the whole property of the 
 regular clergy to the service of the state. This law, 
 adopted by the Cortes, was submitted to the 
 royal sanction. The king evinced the utmost 
 repugnance to a measure so directly subversive 
 of all the religious opinions in which he had 
 been educated. Terrified at this resistance, 
 with which they had not laid their account, the 
 revolutionary party had recourse to one of 
 those methods which nothing can either au- 
 thorize or justify, and for which success can 
 offer no excuse. 
 
 " Convinced that they could obtain only by 
 terror what was refused to solicitation, they 
 took the resolution to excite a popular sedition, 
 organize a revolt, and excite a tumult to over- 
 come the firmness of the king. For this pur- 
 pose, they entered into communication with the 
 runners of the revolutionary party, took into 
 their confidence the leading orators of the 
 clubs, and concerted measures in particular 
 with the banker, Bertrand du Lys, who had 
 always at his command a band of adventurers, 
 ready to go wherever disorder was to be com- 
 mitted. 
 
 " The signal was given. The mobs assem- 
 bled : Bands of vociferating wretches traversed 
 the public streets, uttering frightful cries, and 
 directing their steps to the arsenal. A slight 
 demonstration of resistance was made ; but the 
 report was speedily spread that the troops 
 were unable to make head against the contin- 
 ually increasing mass of the insurgents, and 
 that the life of the king was seriously menaced. 
 The ministers presented themselves in that cri- 
 
 tical moment; they renewed their instances, 
 spoke of the public peace, order, and the life of 
 the king, for which they declared they could not 
 answer, if the public demands were refused; 
 and finally drew from him a reluctant consent 
 to the measure of spoliation. 
 
 "This success, so dearly bought, was by no 
 means attended with the good effects which had 
 been anticipated from it. The people would 
 have seen, without dissatisfaction, a share of 
 the public burdens borne by the ecclesiastical 
 body; but a total abolition, an entire extinction 
 of their property, appeared to them a cruel 
 persecution, a work of heresy and impiety, the 
 horror of which reacted on all the measures 
 which had the same origin. 
 
 "The revolutionary party might have borne 
 all the unpopularity which that exorbitant 
 measure occasioned, if it had been attended 
 with the immense consequences which had 
 been anticipated in relieving the finances ; but 
 in that particular also, all their hopes proved 
 fallacious. The property of the clergy, when 
 exposed to sale, found few purchasers. The 
 known opposition of the Holy See, the exas- 
 peration of the people, the dread of a revolu- 
 tion : all these circumstances rendered the 
 measure perfectly abortive, and caused it to 
 add nothing to the resources of the treasury." 
 I. 247249. 
 
 This is the usual progress of revolutionary 
 movements. Terror! terror! terror! That is 
 the engine which they unceasingly put in force: 
 Insurrections, mobs, tumults, the means of 
 obtaining their demands, which they never fail 
 to adopt. Demonstrations of physical strength, 
 public meetings, processions, and all the other 
 methods of displaying their numbers, are no- 
 thing but the means of showing the opponents 
 of their measures the fate which awaits them, 
 if they protract their resistance beyond a cer- 
 tain point. Force is their continual argument; 
 the logic of brickbats and stones ; the perspec- 
 tive of scaffolds and guillotines, their never- 
 failing resource. Confiscation of the property 
 of others, the expedients to which they always 
 have recourse to supply the chasms which the 
 disorganization of society and the dread of 
 spoliation have occasioned in the public 
 revenue. 
 
 The usual leprosy of revolutionary convul- 
 sions, Jacobin societies, and democratic clubs, 
 were not long of manifesting themselves in 
 this unhappy country. 
 
 " On all sides, secret societies were formed, 
 whose statutes and oaths evinced but too 
 clearly the objects which they had in view. 
 \ Besides the freemasons, who had long been 
 established, a club was formed which took the 
 title of Confederation of Common Chevaliers, 
 and declared themselves the champions of the 
 perfect equality of the human race, and eman- 
 cipated themselves in the very outset from all 
 the restraints of philanthropy and moderation. 
 To judge, to condemn, and to execute every in- 
 dividual whatsoever, without excepting the 
 king and his successors, if they abused their 
 authority, was one of the engagements, a part 
 of the oath which they took on entering into 
 | the society." 
 i " On the side of these secret societies clubs 
 
 
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 
 
 285 
 
 rapidly arose, which soon became powerful 
 and active auxiliaries of anarchy, wherever it 
 appeared. The most tumultuous and danger- 
 ous of these was the Coffee-house of the Cross 
 of Malta. There, and for long, the king was 
 daily exposed to insult and derision, without //<.s 
 ministers crrr taking the smallest s'cp to put an end 
 to a scene of scandal, with which all loyal sub- 
 jects in the realm were horrorstruck. They 
 hoped by thus abandoning the royal prey to 
 his pursuers, to escape themselves from the 
 fury of party; but their expectations 1 were 
 cruelly deceived. Public indignation speedily 
 assailed them ; the bitterest reproaches were 
 daily addressed to them. All their disgraceful 
 transactions, all the revolts they had prepared 
 to overawe the sovereign, were recounted and 
 exaggerated. The transports of indignation 
 were so violent, that soon they were compelled 
 to close this club, to save themselves. from in- 
 stant destruction." I. 261, 262. 
 
 The Spanish Revolution was fast hastening 
 to that deplorable result, a Reign of Terror, the 
 natural consequence of democratic ascendency, 
 when its course was cut short by the French 
 invasion, under the Duke d'Angouleme. The 
 details on this subject are perfectly new, and 
 in the highest degree instructive to the British 
 public. 
 
 " For long the revolutionary party had borne 
 with manifest repugnance the system of mo- 
 deration which the government had adopted, 
 and the majority of the Cortes had supported, 
 during the last session. That party proceeded 
 on the principle, that terror alone could over- 
 awe the enemies of the Revolution, and that 
 nothing was to be gained with them by mo- 
 deration in language or indulgence in action. 
 It saw no chance of safety, but in a sys/pra of 
 terror powerfully organized. The catastrophe 
 of Naples, the submission of Piedmont, the re- 
 pression of the insurrection attempted in 
 France, furnished them with a favourable op- 
 portunity to renew their efforts ; and from the 
 reception which it then met with, it was evi- 
 dent that the taste for blood was beginning to 
 manifest itself among the people. 
 
 " While things were taking this direction at 
 Madrid, and the people were awaiting with a 
 sombre disquietude the measures which were 
 in preparation, the Reign of Terror and Vio- 
 lence had already commenced in the provinces, 
 by the effects of the supreme popular will, and 
 the progress of anarchy in every part of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 "Individuals of every age and sex were 
 arrested and imprisoned, without the warrant 
 of any of the constituted authorities, by men 
 without a public character, on the mere orders 
 of the chiefs of the revolutionary party, who 
 thus usurped the most important functions of 
 government. They threw the individuals thus 
 collected together into the first vessels which 
 were at hand, or could be found in any of the 
 ports of the kingdom, and transported them, some 
 to the Balearic, others to the Canary Islands, 
 according to the caprice of the revolutionary 
 rulers. 
 
 " This is perhaps the event of all others in 
 the history of modern revolutions, so fertile in 
 crimes, which excites, if not the greatest hor- 
 
 ror, at least the greatest surprise : nothing can. 
 give a better idea of the true spirit of anarchy. 
 Nothing was here done in disorder, or in one 
 of those moments when the exaltation or de- 
 lirium of the moment has become impossible 
 to repress. It was calmly, with reflection, at 
 leisure, and with the aid of numbers, who were 
 ignorant of the spirit which ruled the move- 
 ment, that they imprisoned, led forth from 
 prison, thrust on board vessels, and despatched 
 for a distant destination, a multitude of citi- 
 zens, proprietors, fathers of families, whom no 
 law had condemned, no trial proved guilty ; 
 and all this by the means, and under the orders 
 of a body of men who had no pretensions to 
 any legal authority. 
 
 " These acts were committed in open day, 
 at the same time at Barcelona, at Valencia, at 
 Corunna, and Carthagena. This was anarchy 
 in unbridled sovereignty ; and let us see what 
 the legal authorities did to punish a series of 
 acts so fatal to their influence, and of such 
 ruinous example in a country already devour- 
 ed by revolutionary passions. 
 
 "The government was informed of all that 
 passed; the facts were public and incontest- 
 able; they were acted in the face of day, in 
 the face of the entire population of cities. No 
 prosecution was directed against the crimi- 
 nals; no punishment was pronounced; no 
 example was given. A few inferior function- 
 aries, who had aided in the atrocious acts, 
 were deprived of their situations, and orders 
 secretly despatched for the clandestine recall 
 of the exiles. Such was the sole reparation 
 made for an injury which shook the social 
 edifice to its foundation, and trampled under 
 foot all the rights and liberties of the citizens." 
 I. 287290. 
 
 The famous massacres in the prison on 
 September 2, 1792, did not fail to find their 
 imitators among the Spanish revolutionists. 
 The following anecdote shows how precisely- 
 similar the democratic spirit is in its tendency 
 and effects in all ages and parts of the world. 
 
 " A priest, a chaplain of the king, Don Ma- 
 thias Vinuesa, was accused of having formed 
 the plan of a counter-revolution. This absurd 
 design, which he had had the imprudence to 
 publish, was easily discovered, and Vinuesa 
 was arrested and brought to trial. The law 
 punished every attempt of this description 
 which had not yet been put into execution, 
 with the galleys, and Vinuesa was, in virtue 
 of this statute, condemned to ten years of hard 
 labour in those dreary abodes. This sentence, 
 of a kind to satisfy the most ardent passions, 
 was the highest which the law would author- 
 ize ; but it was very far indeed from coming 
 up to the wishes of the revolutionary clubs. 
 
 " On the 4th May, two days after the con- 
 demnation of the prisoner, a crowded meeting 
 took place at the gate of the Sun, in open day, 
 when a mock trial took place, and the priest 
 was by the club legislators condemned to 
 death. It was agreed that the judges should 
 themselves execute the sentence, and that 
 measure was resolved on amidst loud accla- 
 mations. Having resolved on this, they quiet- 
 ly took their siesta, and at the appointed hour 
 proceeded to carry it into execution, without 
 
286 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 the legal authorities taking the slightest step 
 to prevent the outrage. 
 
 "At four o'clock the mob reassembled, and 
 proceeded straight to the prison doors. No 
 one opposed their tumultuous array ; they pre- 
 sented themselves at the gate, and announced 
 their mission. Ten soldiers, who formed the 
 ordinary guard of the prison, made, for a few 
 minutes, a shadow of resistance, which gave 
 no sort of trouble to the assailants. The bar- 
 riers were speedily broken ; the conquerors 
 inundated the prison ; with hurried steps they 
 sought the cell where the condemned priest 
 was confined, and instantly broke open the 
 door. The priest appeared with a crucifix in 
 his hand; he fell at their feet, and in the name 
 of the God of mercy, whose image he present- 
 ed, besought them to spare his life. Vain at- 
 tempt ! to breasts which acknowledged no 
 religion, felt no pity, what availed the image 
 of God who died to save us. One of the judges 
 of the gate of the Sun advanced. He was 
 armed with a large hammer, and struck a 
 severe blow at the head bowed at his feet. 
 The victim fell, and a thousand strokes soon 
 completed the work of death. Blood has 
 flowed, the victim is no more. 
 
 " But the head which that hammer had slain, 
 could not suffice for the murderers. Besides 
 the criminal there remained the judge. He 
 also was condemned to die, for having only 
 applied the existing law, and not foreseen the 
 judgment which the tribunal of the Sun was 
 to pass on the criminal. The assassins made 
 straight to his house, amidst cries of ' Death 
 to the traitors, Long live the constitution!' 
 They traversed the town, and arrived at the 
 house of the judge ; five men with drawn 
 swords entered the house, after placing senti- 
 nels around it, to prevent the possibility of 
 escape. But Heaven did not permit that new 
 murder to be committed. The judge, informed 
 of what was going forward, had fled, in the 
 interval between the first judgment and execu- 
 tion, and the murderers, after covering him 
 with execrations, dispersed themselves through 
 the town to recount their exploits, and dwell 
 with exultation on the commencement of the 
 reign of terror. 
 
 "In the evening, the clubs resounded with 
 acclamations, and the expressions of the most 
 intoxicating joy; and popular songs were 
 composed and published, celebrating the first 
 triumph of popular justice. No one ventured 
 to hint at punishing the criminals. A few in- 
 sulated individuals ventured to condemn them ; 
 a thousand voices rose to applaud and defend 
 them. The press joined its powerful efforts 
 to celebrate that memorable day; and, in fine, 
 to commemorate the public exultation, a sort 
 of monument was erected to perpetuate its re- 
 collection. Vinuesa had fallen under the blows 
 of a hammer; his murderers, and their pro- 
 tectors, created a decoration, and instituted a 
 sort of order, called the order of the hammer. 
 The ensigns of this new honour were speedily 
 fabricated; they consisted in a little hammer 
 of iron, made in imitation of that which had 
 struck the fatal blow. The new chevaliers 
 proudly decorated their bosoms with the in- 
 signia. It bore an inscription, which, when 
 
 divested of revolutionary jargon, amounted to 
 this : ' On the 4th May, 1321, four or five hun- 
 Ired men murdered in prison an old priest, 
 who implored their pity. Behold and honour 
 one of the assassins.' "I. 297 299. 
 
 The gradual decline of the moderate party 
 under the increasing fervour of the times, and 
 their final extinction in the Cortes, under the 
 ncessant attacks, and irresistible majorities 
 of the revolutionists, is thus narrated: 
 
 "In the second session, it was no longer 
 possible to recognize the Cortes of the first. 
 They were the same individuals, but not the 
 same legislators, or the same citizens. Worn 
 out by a continual struggle with men whom 
 nothing could either arrest or discourage; dis- 
 gusted with discussions, in which they \vere 
 always interrupted by the hisses or groans of 
 the galleries ; irritated by the attempts at civil 
 war which were daily renewed in the pro- 
 vinces ; heated by the burning political at- 
 mosphere in which they found themselves 
 immovably enclosed; the moderate deputies, 
 who, in the preceding year, had formed the 
 majority of the Cortes to combat the forces of 
 anarchy, gave up the contest, and yielded unlhout 
 opposition to whatever was demanded of them. 
 
 '' The most dangerous enemies of the public 
 peace, beyond all question, were the Patriotic 
 Societies. There it was that all heads were 
 exalted that all principles were lost amidst 
 the extravagancies of a furious democracy 
 that all sinister projects were formed, and all 
 criminal designs entertained. A wise law, the 
 work of the first Cortes, had armed govern- 
 ment with the power to close these turbulent 
 assemblies, when they threatened the public 
 tranquillity. But this feeble barrier could not 
 long resist the increasing vehemence of the 
 revolutionists. A law was proposed, and 
 speedily passed, which divested government 
 of all control over these popular societies. It 
 placed these agglomerations of fire beyond the 
 reach of the police forbid the magistrates to 
 be present at their debates substituted inter- 
 nal regulations for external control and, in- 
 stead of any real check, recognised only the 
 'elusory responsibility of the presidents.' 
 
 "Never, perhaps, did human folly to such a 
 degree favour the spirit of disorder, or so 
 weakly deliver over society to the passions 
 which devoured it. Hardly was the law 
 passed, when numbers who had been carried 
 away by the public outcry, were terrified at 
 the work of their own hands, and looked back 
 with horror on the path on which they had ad- 
 vanced, and the vantage ground which they 
 had for ever abandoned." I. 302, 303. 
 
 "The clubs were not slow in taking advan- 
 tage of the uncontrolled power thus conceded 
 <o them. The most violent of their organs, 
 which was at once the most dangerous and 
 the most influential, because he incessantly 
 espoused the cause of spoliation, Romero Al- 
 fuente, published a pamphlet full of the most 
 furious ebullitions of revolutionary zeal, in 
 which he divulged a pretended conspiracy 
 against the constitutional system, whose rami- 
 fications, diverging from Madrid, extended into 
 the remotest provinces and foreign states. 
 The plans, the resources, the names, of the 
 
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION OF 1820. 
 
 287 
 
 conspirators, were given with affected accu- 
 racy ; nothing was omitted which could give 
 to the discovery the air of truth. The electric 
 spark is not more rapid in communicating its 
 shock, than was that infamous libel. Never 
 had the tribune of the Club of the Golden 
 Fountain resounded with such menacing and 
 sanguinary acclamations. They went even so 
 far as to say that the political atmosphere could not 
 be purified but by the blood of fourteen or fifteen 
 thousand inhabitants of Madrid." I. 351, 352. 
 
 "In the midst of these ebullitions of revolu- 
 tionary fury, the provinces were subjected to 
 the most cruel excesses of anarchy. At Cadiz, 
 Seville, and Murcia, the people broke out into 
 open revolt ; the authorities imposed by the 
 Cortes were all overthrown, and the leaders of 
 the insurrection installed in their stead. All 
 the vigour and reputation of Mina could not 
 prevent the. same catastrophe at Corunna. He 
 resigned his command, and Latre, the insurrec- 
 tionary leader, stepped into his place. Every- 
 where the authority 'of government, and of the 
 Central Cortes, was disregarded ; the most vio- 
 lent revolutionists got the ascendant, and so- 
 ciety was fast descending towards a state of 
 utter dissolution. 
 
 "j$ll these disorders, all these excesses, found in the 
 capital numerous and ardent defenders. The press, 
 in particular, everywhere applauded and encou- 
 raged the anarchists; it incessantly exalted the 
 demagogues, for whom it proudly accepted the 
 title of Descamisados, (shirtless,) and for whose 
 excesses it found ample precedents among our 
 Sans Culottes. It condemned to contempt, or 
 marked out for proscription, all the wise men 
 who yet strove to uphold the remnants of the 
 Spanish monarchy. Occupied without inter- 
 mission in detracting from all the attributes of 
 the monarchical power ; in dragging in the gut- 
 ter the robe of royalty, in order to hold it up to 
 the people covered with mire ; it invented for 
 all the monarchs of Europe the most calum- 
 nious epithets and ridiculous comparisons, and 
 offered to the factious of every state in Europe, 
 whatever their designs were, the succours of 
 their devouring influence." I. 357, 358. 
 
 "Three evils, in an especial manner, spread 
 the seeds of dissolution over this agitated 
 country, and spread their ramifications with 
 the most frightful rapidity. These were the 
 press, with its inexpressible violence, and its 
 complete impunity; the petitions which ren- 
 dered the tribune of the Cortes the centre of 
 denunciations, the focus of calumny, and the 
 arena where all the furious passions contended 
 with each other; in fine, the licentiousness of 
 the patriotic societies, where the public peace 
 was every day, or rather every night, delivered 
 up to the fury of an unbridled democracy. The 
 Cortes were perfectly aware of these causes of 
 anarchy ; they had openly denounced them, 
 and declared their intention of applying a 
 prompt remedy. Still nothing was done, and 
 the Assembly was dissolved without having 
 done any thing to close so many fountains of 
 anarchy!" I. 377. 
 
 One would imagine that the accumulation of 
 so many evils would have produced a reaction 
 in the public mind ; that the universal anxiety, 
 distress, and suffering, would have opened the 
 
 eyes of the people to their real interests, and 
 the pernicious tendency of the course into 
 which they had been precipitated by their de- 
 magogues; and that the new elections would 
 have produced a majority in favour of the pru- 
 dent and restraining measures, from which 
 alone public safety could be expected. The 
 case, however, was just the reverse: the revo- 
 lutionary party, by violence and intimidation, 
 almost everywhere gained the ascendency; 
 and the fatal truth soon became apparent, that 
 democratic ambition is insatiable ; that it is 
 blind to all the lessons of experience, and deaf 
 to all the cries of suffering; that like a mad- 
 dened horse, it rushes headlong down the pre- 
 cipice, and never halts in its furious career 
 till it has involved itself and public freedom in 
 one common ruin. 
 
 "The new Cortes commenced its labours 
 under the most sinister auspices ; the circum- 
 stances under which the elections had taken 
 place were sufficient to justify the most serious 
 apprehensions. 
 
 "The elections in the south had taken place 
 under the immediate influence and actual pre- 
 sence of open rebellion. At Grenada, the peo- 
 ple by force intruded into the electoral college, 
 and openly overwhelmed the election ; in all 
 the provinces of the north, the proprietors had 
 absented themselves from the elections, from 
 hatred at the Revolution, and a sense of inabil- 
 ity to restrain its excesses. At Madrid, even, 
 all the partisans of the old regime had been 
 constrained to abstain from taking any part in 
 the vote, notwithstanding the undoubted right 
 which the amnesty gave them. In many 
 places, actual violence ; in all, menaces were 
 employed, with too powerful effect, to keep 
 from the poll all persons suspected of modera- 
 tion in their principles. 
 
 " In the whole new Cortes not one great pro- 
 prietor nor one bishop was to be found. The 
 whole body of the noblesse was represented 
 only by two or three titled but unknown men; 
 the clergy by a few curates and canons, well 
 known for the lightness with which the re- 
 straints of faith sat upon them. Only one 
 grandee of Spain was to be found there, the 
 Duke del Parque, who had abandoned the pa- 
 lace of the Escurial for the Club of the Foun- 
 tain of Gold; and had left the halls of his king 
 to become the flatterer of the people. 
 
 "Among the new deputies great numbers 
 were to be found who had signalized them- 
 selves by the violence of their opinions, and 
 the spirit of vengeance against all moderate 
 men, by which they were animated. The first 
 measure of the Cortes was to elect Riego for 
 president, a nomination which confirmed the 
 hopes of the anarchist party, and excited every- 
 where the most extravagant joy among the par- 
 tisans of the Revolution." I. 383, 384. 
 
 As the other insanities and atrocities of the 
 French Revolution had found their admirers 
 and imitators in Spain, so the overthrow of the 
 constitutional throne of Louis XVI., on the 10th 
 August, 1792, was followed by too close a pa- 
 rallel in the Spanish monarchy. 
 
 The public distress, and the violence of the 
 revolutionary faction in every part of the king- 
 dom, at length produced a reaction. Civil 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 war commenced in Aragon, Catalonia, and An- 
 dalusia, and Spanish blood soon dyed every 
 part of the Peninsula. The crisis which this 
 induced at Madrid, which finally laid the 
 throne prostrate at the feet of the Revolution- 
 ists, is thus described: 
 
 " The session was about to finish, the clos- 
 ing was fixed for the 30th June, 1822. Great 
 fermentation reigned at Madrid, and every one, 
 without being able to account for it, was aware 
 that a crisis was approaching. 
 
 " The king seated himself in his carriage, af- 
 ter closing ihe session. Cries of 'Long live 
 the constitutional king,' were heard on all 
 sides, mingled, in feebler notes, with the cry of 
 ' Long live the absolute king.' The guards re- 
 pulsed with violence those who raised inflam- 
 matory or seditious cries, and blood already 
 began to flow. The tumult redoubled at the 
 moment that the king descended from his car- 
 riage. The guard wished to disperse it ; they 
 experienced resistance, and had recourse to 
 their arms. The exasperation was extreme 
 among the soldiers ; one of their officers, 
 named Landaburo, desirous of restraining 
 them, was insulted by his own men. He drew 
 his sabre, but speedily fell, shot dead by a mus- 
 ket from the ranks. 
 
 "Landaburo was the son of a merchant at 
 Cadiz, and well known for his liberal opinions. 
 His death became instantly a party affair, and 
 excited to the last degree the fury of all those 
 who professed the same principles. The mi- 
 litia were soon under arms; the troops of the 
 garrison and the artillery united themselves to 
 their colours; the' whole officers and non- 
 commissioned officers, who were at Madrid 
 detached from their regiments, joined their 
 ranks. The artillery put their pieces in posi- 
 tion; the municipal body declared its sittings 
 permanent; and every thing announced the 
 speedy approach of hostilities between the 
 court and the people. 
 
 "Had they possessed an able chief and a de- 
 termined will, the guards might have made 
 themselves masters of Madrid. They were 
 more numerous, better armed, more inured to 
 war, than the constitutional bands which com- 
 posed the garrison. They occupied the bar- 
 riers and principal posts. Nothing was easier 
 for them than to have made themselves mas- 
 ters of the park of artillery, and the possession 
 of the park would have rendered all resistance 
 impossible. Nothing, however, was attempt- 
 ed nothing was thought of. 
 
 "Of the six battalions of which it was com- 
 posed, two remained to protect the king ; the 
 four others, afraid of being shut up in their 
 barracks, clandestinely left the town during 
 the obscurity of the night; but this movement 
 was executed with such confusion, that the 
 first battalion, when they arrived at the ren- 
 dezvous, opened a fire upon the others which 
 were approaching. 
 
 "On the other side, the constitutionalists of 
 all descriptions united to resist the common 
 enemy. The militia night and day blockaded 
 the palace ; the regular soldiers soon obtained 
 a formidable auxiliary; this was a band com- 
 posed of men without name, without charac- 
 ter; adventurers and enthusiasts, who were 
 
 organized under the name of the Sacred Sand. 
 Many generals presented themselves, also 
 offering their services and their swords; 
 among this number were Ballasteros and 
 Riego. 
 
 " Negotiations and indecision continued for 
 six days, during which the two parties .re- 
 mained constantly encamped, notwithstanding 
 the tropical sun of the dogdays, venting re- 
 proaches at each other sabre in hand, the 
 torches lighted awaiting only the signal of the 
 combat. At intervals single muskets were 
 discharged, which sounded like the distant 
 peals of thunder, which announced the ap- 
 proach of a frightful tempest. 
 
 "At length the attack commenced. The 
 divisions of the guard at a distance from Mad- 
 rid, marched upon the capital, but they were 
 met and defeated at all points by the constitu- 
 tional forces, and the fugitives in great num- 
 bers fled for refuge to the palace. The militia 
 were everywhere victorious ; triumphant and 
 victorious, they surrounded the royal abode, 
 while Te Dcum was celebrated on the Place of 
 the Constitution, and the walls of the palace 
 resounded with menaces against the king. A 
 capitulation was proposed ; but nothing but 
 an unconditional surrender would satisfy the 
 conquerors. Two battalions agreed to it ; the 
 others, conceiving that a snare was laid for 
 them, fired a volley upon the militia, aban- 
 doned the palace, and rushed out of the city, 
 where they were soon cut to pieces by the 
 popular dragoons and the incessant discharge 
 of grape-shot. This victory was decisive ; 
 the violent party now reigned in uncontrolled 
 supremacy, and nothing remained to oppose 
 even the shadow of resistance to their domi- 
 nation." I. 420 424. 
 
 Such was the state of the Revolution, and 
 the prostration of the throne, when the inva- 
 sion of the Duke d'Angouleme dissipated the 
 fumes of the Revolutionists, and re-established 
 the absolute throne. 
 
 Several reflections arise upon the events, of 
 which a sketch has been here given. 
 
 In the first place, they show how precisely 
 similar the march of revolution is in all ages 
 and countries ; and how little national charac- 
 ter is to be relied on to arrest or prevent its 
 fatal progress. The horrors of the French 
 Revolution, it was said, were owing to their 
 volatile and unstable character, and the pecu- 
 liar combination of events which preceded its 
 breaking out. The Spanish Revolution, not- 
 withstanding their grave and thoughtful na- 
 tional character, and a totally different chain 
 of previous events, exhibited, till it was cut 
 short by French bayonets, exactly the same 
 features and progress. Recent experience 
 leaves it but too doubtful, whether, in the 
 sober and calculating realm of England, simi- 
 lar passions are not in the end destined to pro- 
 duce similar effects. 
 
 In the next place, the historical facts now 
 brought forward demonstrate how enormous 
 is the delusion which the revolutionary party 
 by means of a false and deceitful press, spreac 
 over the world in regard to all the transactions 
 in which their projects are concerned. We 
 put it to the candour of every one of our read- 
 
PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 289 
 
 ers, whether the facts now detailed do not put 
 in an entirely different point of view from any 
 in which they had yet considered it, the Spa- 
 nish Revolution] Certainly these facts were 
 utterly unknown to us, not the least vigilant 
 observers of continental transactions, and the 
 march of revolution in the adjoining states. 
 The truth is, that what Jefferson long ago said 
 of the American, has become true of the Euro- 
 pean press ; events are so utterly distorted, 
 falsehoods are so unblushingly put forth, hos- 
 tile facts are so sedulously suppressed, that it 
 is utterly impossible from the public journals 
 to gather the least idea of what they really are, 
 if they have the slightest connection with re- 
 volutionary ambition. Till the false light of 
 newspapers has ceased, and the steady light 
 of history begins, no reliance whatever can 
 be placed on the public accounts, even of the 
 most notorious transactions. 
 
 Lastly, we now see how inconceivably the 
 British people were deceived in regard to these 
 transactions, and how narrowly we escaped at 
 that juncture being plunged into a war, to up- 
 hold what is now proved to have been, not the 
 cause of freedom and independence, but of 
 anarchy, democracy, and revolution. We all re- 
 collect the vigorous efforts which the Move- 
 ment party in this country made to engage us 
 in a war with France, in support of the Spa- 
 
 nish Revolution ; the speech of Mr. Brougham, 
 on the opening of the session of Parliament 
 in February, 1823, still resounds in our ears. 
 We were told, and we believed, that the Spa- 
 nish constitution conferred upon the people of 
 the Peninsula moderated freedom; that the 
 cause of liberty was at stake : and that unless 
 we interfered, it would be trampled down un- 
 der the bayonets of the Holy Alliance. And 
 what is the fact as now proved by historical 
 documents'? Why, that it was the cause of 
 Pure Democracy which we were thus called on 
 to support; of universal suffrage, Jacobin 
 clubs, and a furious press ; of revolutionary 
 confiscation, democratic anarchy, and unbri- 
 dled injustice; of the most desolating of tyran- 
 nies, the most ruinous of despotisms. Such 
 is the darkness, the thick and impenetrable 
 darkness, in which we are kept in regard to 
 passing events by the revolutionary press of 
 Europe ; and when historic truth comes to 
 illuminate the transactions of our times, the 
 Revolution of July, the Belgian Insurrection, 
 it will be found that we have been equally de- 
 ceived; and that, by the use of heart-stirring 
 recollections, and heart-rending fabrications, 
 we have been stimulated to engage in war, to 
 support a similar system of revolutionary cu- 
 pidity and democratic ambition. 
 
 PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE 
 NETHERLANDS.* 
 
 IT is related by Bourrienne, that it was dur- 
 ing the visit of Napoleon to the shores of the 
 ocean, by order of the Directory, in February, 
 1798, to prepare for the invasion of England, 
 that he first was struck with the vast import- 
 ance of Antwerp as a naval station to effect 
 that great object of Gallic ambition. The im- 
 pression then made was never afterwards 
 effaced; his eagle eye at once discerned, that 
 it was from that point, that the army destined 
 to conquer England was to sail. Its secure 
 and protected situation, guarded alike by pow- 
 erful fortresses and an intricate and dangerous 
 inland navigation; its position at the mouth 
 of the Scheldt, the great artery of the Flemish 
 provinces of the empire; its proximity on the 
 one hand to the military resources of France, 
 and on the other to the naval arsenals of the 
 United Provinces; its near neighbourhood to 
 the Thames and the Medway, the centre of the 
 power of England, and the most vulnerable 
 point of its empire, all pointed it out as the 
 great central depot where the armament for 
 the subjugation of this country was to be as- 
 sembled, as the advanced work of French 
 ambition against English independence. No 
 sooner had he seized the reins of power than 
 he turned his attention to the strengthening 
 
 * Blackwood'a Magazine, Dec. 1832. Written at the 
 time wh n the French army, aided by the English fleet, 
 were besieging Antwerp. 
 
 of this important station: all the resources of 
 art, all the wealth of the imperial treasury, 
 were lavished upon its fortification ; ramparts 
 after ramparts, bastion after bastion, surround- 
 ed its ample harbour; docks capable of hold- 
 ing the whole navy of France were excavated, 
 and the greatest fleet which ever menaced 
 England assembled within its walls. Before 
 the fall of his power, thirty-five ships of the 
 line were safely moored under its cannon ; he 
 held to it with tenacious grasp under all the 
 vicissitudes of his fortune, and when the Allies 
 approached its walls, he sent the ablest and 
 firmest of the republicans, Carnot, to prolong 
 even to the last extremity its means of defence. 
 "If the allies were encamped," said he in the 
 Legislative Body, on the 31st March, 1813, 
 "on the heights of Montmartre, I would not 
 surrender one village in the thirty-second 
 military division." Though hard pressed in 
 the centre of his dominions, he still clung to 
 this important bulwark. When the Old 
 Guard was maintaining a desperate struggle 
 in the plains of Champagne, he drafted not a 
 man from the fortifications of the Scheldt; and 
 when the conqueror was struck to the earth, 
 his right hand still held the citadel of Ant- 
 werp. 
 
 In all former times, and centuries before the 
 labour of Napoleon had added so immensely 
 to its importance, the Scheldt had been the 
 IB 
 
290 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 centre of the most important preparations for 
 the invasion of England, and the spot on 
 which military genius always fixed from 
 whence to prepare a descent on this island. 
 An immense expedition, rendered futile by the 
 weakness and vacillation of the French mo- 
 narch, was assembled in it in the fourteenth 
 century; and sixty thousand men on the shore 
 of the Scheldt awaited only the signal of 
 Charles VI.* to set sail for the shore of Kent. 
 The greatest naval victory ever gained by the 
 English arms was that at Sluys, in 1340, when 
 Philip of France lost thirty thousand men and 
 two hundred and thirty ships of war, in an en- 
 gagement off the Flemish coast with Edward 
 111.,-f- a triumph greater, though less noticed in 
 history, than either that of Cressy or Poictiers. 
 When the great Duke of Parma was commis- 
 sioned by Philip II. of Spain to take steps for 
 the invasion of England, he assembled the 
 forces of the Low Countries at Antwerp ; and 
 the Spanish armada, had it proved successful, 
 was to have wafted over that great commander 
 from the banks of the Scheldt to the opposite 
 shore of Essex, at the head of the veterans 
 who had been trained in the Dutch war. In 
 an evil hour, Charles II., bought by French 
 gold and seduced by French mistresses, enter- 
 ed into alliance with Louis XIV. for the co- 
 ercion of Holland ; the Lilies and the Leopards, 
 the navies of France and England, assembled 
 together at Spithead, and made sail for the 
 French coast, while the armies ~of the Grande 
 Monarque advanced across the Rhine into the 
 heart of the United Provinces. The conse- 
 quence was, such a prodigious addition to the 
 power of France, as it took all the blood and 
 treasure expended in the war of the Succession 
 and all the victories of Marlbo rough, to reduce 
 to a scale at all commensurate with the inde- 
 pendence of the other European states. Mr. 
 Pitt, how adverse soever to engage in a war 
 with republican France, was driven to it by 
 the advance of the tricolour standard to the 
 Scheldt, and the evident danger which threat- 
 ened English independence from the posses- 
 sion of its fortresses by the French armies; 
 and the event soon proved the wisdom of his 
 foresight. The surrender of the Low Coun- 
 tries, arising from the insane demolition of its 
 fortresses by the Emperor Joseph, soon brought 
 the French armies to Amsterdam; twenty 
 years of bloody and destructive war; the 
 slaughter of millions, and the contraction of 
 eight hundred millions of debt by this country, 
 followed the victorious march of the French 
 armies to the banks of the Scheldt ; while 
 seventeen years of unbroken rest, a glorious 
 peace, and the establishment of the liberties 
 of Europe upon a firm basis, immediately suc- 
 ceeded their expulsion from them by the arms 
 of Wellington. 
 
 Before these sheets issue from the press, an 
 English and French fleet will have sailed from 
 the British shores to co-operate with a French 
 army IN RESTORING ANTWERP TO FRANCE. 
 The tricolour flag has floated alongside of the 
 British pendant ; the shores of Spithead, which 
 
 * Sismondi, Hist, de France, xi. 387. 
 + Hume, ii. 230. 
 
 never saw a French fleet but as prizes, have 
 witnessed the infamous coalition, and the un- 
 conquered citadels of England thundered with 
 salutes to the enemies who fled before them 
 at Trafalgar ! Antwerp, with its dockyards 
 and its arsenals; Antwerp, with its citadel 
 and its fortifications ; Antwerp, the outpost and 
 stronghold of France against English inde- 
 pendence, is to be purchased by British blood 
 for French ambition ! Holland, the old and 
 faithful ally of England ; Holland, which has 
 stood by us in good and evil fortune for one 
 hundred and fifty years ; Holland, the bulwark 
 of Europe, in every age, against Gallic ag- 
 gression, is to be partitioned, and sacrificed in 
 order to plant the standards of a revolutionary 
 power on th.e shores of the Scheldt ! Deeply 
 has England already drunk, deeper still is she 
 destined to drink of the cup of national hu- 
 miliation, for the madness of the last two 
 years. 
 
 Disgraceful as these proceedings are to the 
 national honour and integrity of England; 
 far as they have lowered its ancient flag be- 
 neath the degradation it ever reached in the 
 darkest days of national disaster, their impolicy 
 is, if possible, still more conspicuous. Flan- 
 ders, originally the instructor, has in every age 
 been the rival of England in manufactures ; 
 Holland, being entirely a commercial state, 
 and depending for its existence upon the car- 
 rying trade, has in every age been her friend. 
 The interest of these different states has led to 
 this opposite policy, and must continue to do 
 so, until a total revolution in the channels of 
 commerce takes place. Flanders, abounding 
 with coal, with capital, with great cities, and 
 a numerous and skilful body of artisans, has 
 from the earliest dawn of European history, 
 been conspicuous for her manufactures; Hol- 
 land, without any advantages for the fabricat- 
 ing of articles, but immense for their trans- 
 port, has, from the establishment of Dutch 
 independence, been the great carrier of Eu- 
 rope. She feels no jealousy of English ma- 
 nufactures, because she has none to compete 
 with them; she feels the greatest disposition 
 to receive the English goods, because all 
 those which are sent to her add to the riches 
 of the United Provinces. Belgium, on the 
 other hand, is governed by a body of manu- 
 facturers, who are imbued with a full propor- 
 tion of that jealousy of foreign competition 
 which is so characteristic in all countries of 
 that profession. Hence, the Flemish ports 
 have always been as rigorously closed as the 
 Dutch were liberally opened to British manu- 
 factures ; and at this moment, not only are the 
 duties on the importation of British goods 
 greatly higher in Flanders than they are in 
 Holland, but the recent policy of the former 
 country has been as much to increase as that 
 of the other has been to lower its import bur- 
 dens. Since the Belgian revolution, the duties 
 on all the staple commodities of England, coal, 
 woollens, and cotton cloths, have been lowered 
 by the Dutch government ; but the fervour of 
 their revolutionary gratitude has led to no such 
 measure on the part of the Belgians. 
 
 This difference in the policy of the two 
 states being founded on their habits, interests, 
 
PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 291 
 
 and physical situation, must continue perma- 
 nently to distinguish them. Dynasties may 
 rise or foil : but as long as Flanders, with its 
 great coal mines and iron founderies, is the 
 rival of England in those departments of in- 
 dustry in which she most excels, it is in vain 
 to expect that any cordial reception of British 
 manufactures is to take place within her pro- 
 vinces. The iron forgers of Liege, the wool- 
 len manufacturers or cotton operatives of 
 Ghent or Bruges, will never consent to the free 
 importation of the cutlery of Birmingham, the 
 woollen cloths of Yorkshire, the muslins of 
 Glasgow, or the cotton goods of Manchester. 
 But no such jealousy is, or ever will be, felt 
 by the merchants of Amsterdam, the carriers 
 of Rotterdam, or the shipmasters of Flushing. 
 Flanders always has been, and always will 
 desire to be, incorporated with France, in or- 
 der that her manufactures may feel the vivify- 
 ing influence of the great home market of that 
 populous country ; Holland always has been, 
 and always will desire to be, in alliance with 
 England, in order that her commerce may ex- 
 perience the benefit of a close connection 
 with the great centre of the foreign trade of 
 the world. 
 
 Every one practically acquainted with these 
 matters, knows that Holland is at this moment 
 almost the only inlet which continental jea- 
 lousy will admit for British manufactures to 
 the continent of Europe. The merchants of 
 London know whether they can obtain a ready 
 vent for their manufactures in the ports of 
 France or the harbours of Flanders. The ex- 
 port trade to France is inconsiderable; that to 
 Flanders trifling: but that to Holland is im- 
 mense. It takes off 2,000,000/. worth of our 
 exports, and employs 350,000 tons of shipping, 
 about a seventh of the whole shipping of Great 
 Britain. Were it not for the facilities to Bri- 
 tish importation, afforded by the commercial 
 interests of the Dutch, our manufactures would 
 be well nigh excluded from the continent of 
 Europe. The Scheldt, when guarded by 
 French batteries, and studded with republican 
 sails, may become the great artery of Euro- 
 pean, but unquestionably it will not be of Eng- 
 lish commerce. The great docks of Antwerp 
 may be amply filled with the tricolour flag; 
 but they will see but few of the British pen- 
 dants. In allying ourselves with the Belgians, 
 we are seeking to gain the friendship of our 
 natural rivals, and to strengthen what will 
 soon become a province of our hereditary 
 enemies; in alienating the Dutch, we are 
 losing our long-established customers, and 
 weakening the state, which, in every age, has 
 been felt to be the outwork of British inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 But it is not the ruinous consequences of 
 this monstrous coalition of the two great re- 
 volutionary powers of Europe against the 
 liberty and independence of the smaller states 
 which are chiefly to be deplored. It is the 
 shameful injustice of the proceeding, the pro- 
 fligate disregard of treaties which it involves, 
 the open abandonment of national honour 
 which it proclaims, which constitute its worst 
 features. We have not yet lived so long un- 
 der democratic rule as to have become habitu- 
 
 ated to the principles of iniquity, to have been, 
 accustomed, as in revolutionary France, to 
 have spoliation palliated on the footing of ex- 
 pedience, and robbery justified by the weak- 
 ness of its victim. We have not yet learned 
 to measure political actions by their success; 
 to praise conquest to the skies when it is on 
 the side of revolution, and load patriotism 
 with obloquy when it is exerted in defence of 
 regulated freedom. We are confident that the 
 British seamen under any circumstances will 
 do their duty, and we do not see how Holland 
 can resist the fearful odds which are brought 
 against her; but recollecting that there is a 
 moral government of nations, that there is a 
 God who governs the world, and that the sins 
 of the fathers, in nations as well as individuals, 
 will be visited upon the children, we tremble 
 to think of its consequences, and conscien- 
 tiously believe that such a triumph may ulti- 
 mately prove a blacker day for England, than 
 if the army of Wellington had been dispersed 
 in the forest of Soignies, or the fleet of Nelson 
 swallowed up in the waves of Trafalgar. 
 
 What is chiefly astonishing, and renders it 
 painfully apparent that revolutionary ambition 
 has produced its usual effect in confounding 
 and undermining all the moral feelings of man- 
 kind in this country, is the perfect indifference 
 with which the partition of Holland is regarded 
 by all the Movement party, as contrasted with 
 the unmeasured lamentations with which they 
 have made the world resound for the partition 
 of Poland. Yet if the matter be impartially 
 considered, it will be found that our conduct 
 in leaguing with France for the partition of 
 the Netherlands, has been much more infamous 
 than that of the eastern potentates was 'in the 
 subjugation of Poland. The slightest historical 
 retrospect must place this in the clearest light. 
 
 Poland was of old, and for centuries before 
 her fall, the standing enemy of Russia. Twice 
 the Polish armies penetrated to the heart of her 
 empire, and the march of Napoleon to the 
 Kremlin had been anticipated five centuries 
 before by the arms of the Jagellons. Austria 
 had been delivered from Turkish invasion by 
 John Sobieski, but neither that power nor 
 Prussia were bound to guaranty the integrity 
 of the Polish dominions, nor had they ever 
 been in alliance with it for any length of time. 
 The instability of Polish policy, arising from 
 the democratic state of its government, the 
 perpetual vacillation of its councils, and the 
 weakness and inefficiency of its external con- 
 duct, had for centuries been such that no 
 lengthened or sustained operation could be ex- 
 pected from its forces. It remained in the 
 midst of the military monarchies a monument 
 of democratic madness, a prey to the most 
 frightful internal anarchy, and unable to resist 
 the most inconsiderable external aggression. 
 Its situation and discord rendered it the natural 
 prey of its more vigorous and efficient military 
 neighbours. In combining for its partition, 
 they effected what was on their part an 
 atrocious act of injustice; but will ultimately 
 prove, as Lord Brougham long ago observed,* 
 the most beneficial change for the ultimate 
 
 * Colonial Policy. 
 
292 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 happiness of its people, by forcibly repressing 
 their democratical passions, and turning its 
 wild but heroic spirit into the channels of 
 regulated and useful patriotism. In dividing 
 Poland, the three powers incurred the guilt of 
 robbers who plunder a caravan, which, from 
 internal divisions, is unable to defend itself; 
 Austria was guilty of black ingratitude in j 
 assailing her former deliverer ; but Russia I 
 violated no oaths, broke no engagements, be- 
 trayed no treachery she never owed any thing 
 to Poland she was her enemy from first to 
 last, and conquered her as such. We attempt 
 no vindication of this aggression ; it was the 
 work of ruthless violence, alike to be stigma- 
 tized in a monarchical as a republican power. 
 We observe only how Providence overrules 
 even human iniquity to purposes finally bene- 
 ficent. 
 
 But what shall we say to the partition of the 
 Netherlands, effected by France and England 
 in a moment of profound peace, when its do- 
 minions were guarantied by both these powers, 
 and it had done nothing to provoke the hostility 
 of either! Can it be denied that we, in com- 
 mon with all the allied powers, guarantied to 
 the King of the Netherlands his newly created 
 dominions 1 The treaty of 1815 exists to dis- 
 prove the assertion. Has Holland done any 
 injury to Great Britain or France to justify 
 their hostility 1 Has she laid an embargo on 
 their ships, imprisoned their subjects, or con- 
 fiscated their property? Confessedly she has 
 done none of these things. Has she abandoned 
 us in distress, or failed to succour us, as by 
 treaty bound, in danger ? History proves the 
 reverse : for one hundred and fifty years she 
 has fought by our side against our common 
 enemies ; she has shared alike in the disaster 
 of Lafelt and Fontenoy, and the triumphs of 
 Ramillies and Oudenarde, of Malplaquet and 
 Waterloo. Has she injured the private or 
 public interests of either of the powers who 
 now assail her] Has she invaded their pro- 
 vinces, or laid siege to their fortresses, or 
 blockaded their harbours? The idea of HoU 
 land, with her 2,500,000 souls, attempting any 
 of these things against two nations who count 
 above fifty millions of inhabitants in their 
 dominions, is as ridiculous as it would be to 
 suppose an infant in its nurse's arms to make 
 war on a mounted dragoon of five-and-twenty. 
 What then has she done to provoke the par- 
 tition of the lords of the earth and the ocean ? 
 She has resisted the march of revolution, and 
 refused to surrender her fortresses 'to revo- 
 lutionary robbery, and therein, and therein alone, 
 she has offended. 
 
 But this is not all. Unprincipled as such 
 conduct would have been, if it had been the 
 whole for which this country had to blush, it 
 is but a port of the share which England and 
 France have taken in this deplorable trans- 
 action. These powers were not only allies of 
 the King of the Netherlands ; they had not only 
 solemnly guarantied the integrity of his domi- 
 nions, but they had accepted, with the other 
 allied powers, the office of mediators and arbiters 
 between him and his revolted subjects; and 
 they have now united to spoliate the party who 
 made the reference. To the violence of an ordi- 
 
 nary robber, they have superadded the abandon- 
 ment of a friend and the partiality of a judge. 
 It is this lamentable combination of unprincipled 
 qualities, which makes our conduct in this 
 transaction the darkest blot on our annals, and 
 will ultimately render the present era one for 
 which posterity will have more cause to blush 
 than for that when John surrendered his do- 
 minions to the Papal legate, or Charles gifted 
 away to French mistresses the honour and the 
 integrity of England. 
 
 The Revolution of the Three Glorious Days, 
 which has, for the last two years, steeped 
 France in misery and Paris in blood, having 
 excited the revolutionary party in every part 
 of Europe to unheard-of transports, Brussels, 
 in order not to be behind the great centre of 
 democracy, rose in revolt against its sove- 
 reign, and the King of Belgium was expelled 
 from its walls. An attack of the Dutch troops, 
 ill planned and worse executed, having been 
 defeated, the King of the Netherlands applied 
 to England to restore him by force to the throne 
 which she had guarantied. This took place 
 in October, 1830, when the Duke of Wellington 
 was still in power. 
 
 To have interfered with the land and sea 
 forces of England to restore the Dutch king to 
 the throne of Belgium, would, at that juncture, 
 have been highly perilous. It was doubtful 
 whether we were bound to have afforded such 
 aid, the guarantee contained in the treaty of 
 1815 being rather intended to secure the do- 
 minions of the Netherlands against foreign 
 aggression, than to bind the contracting parties 
 to aid him in stifling domestic revolt. At all 
 events it was certain that such a proceeding 
 would at once have roused the revolutionary 
 party throughout Europe, and would have 
 afforded France a pretext, of which she would 
 instantly and gladly have availed herself, for 
 interfering with her powerful armies, in favour 
 of her friends, among .the Belgian Jacobins. 
 The Duke of Wellington, therefore, judged 
 wisely, and with the prudence of a practised 
 statesman, when he declined to lend such aid 
 to the dispossessed monarch, and tendered the 
 good offices of the allied powers to mediate in 
 an amicable way between the contending parties. 
 The proffered mediation coming from such 
 powers as Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, 
 and England, could not possibly have been re- 
 sisted by the Dutch States ; and the offer of 
 their good offices was too valuable to be de- 
 clined. They agreed to the offer, and on this 
 basis the London Conference assembled. This 
 was the whole length that matters had gone, 
 when the Duke of Wellington resigned in No- 
 vember, 1830; and most unquestionably no- 
 thing was farther from the intentions of the 
 British ministry at that period, as the Duke of 
 Wellington has repeatedly declared in Parlia- 
 ment, than to have acted in any respect with- 
 out the concurrence of the other powers, or to 
 have made this mediation a pretext for the 
 forcible partition of the Dutch dominions. 
 
 But with the accession of the Whigs to 
 power commenced a different system. They 
 at once showed, from their conduct, that they 
 were actuated by that unaccountable partiality 
 for French democracy, which has ever since 
 
PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 293 
 
 1789 distinguished their party, and for which 
 the great writers of its Revolution have them- 
 selves not scrupled to censure Mr. Fox and all 
 his adherents. " The opposition in England," 
 says Madame de Stael, " with Mr. Fox at their 
 head, were entirely wrong in the opinion they 
 formed regarding Bonaparte ; and in conse- 
 quence that party, formerly so much esteemed, 
 entirely lost its ascendency in Great Britain. 
 It was going far enough to have defended the French 
 Revolution through the Reign of Terror; but no 
 fault could be greater than to consider Bona- 
 parte as holding to the principles of the Revo- 
 lution, of which he was the ablest destroyer."* 
 The same blind admiration for revolutionary 
 France, which Lord Grey had manifested from 
 the outset of his career, was imbibed with in- 
 creased ardour by his whole administration, 
 upon the breaking out of the Three Glorious 
 Days; and the King of the Netherlands soon 
 found, to his cost, that instead of an equitable 
 and impartial arbitrator, he had got a ruthless 
 and partial enemy at the Conference, in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The first measure in which this altered tem- 
 per was publicly manifested, was by the per- 
 mission of England to Leopold to accept the 
 crown of Belgium. This at once dissevered, 
 and rendered irretrievable, without a general 
 war, the separation of that country from Hol- 
 land, because it established a revolutionary inte- 
 rest, and that too of the strongest kind, dependent 
 on the maintenance of that separation. This 
 step was a clear departure from the equity of 
 an arbitrator and a judge, because it rendered 
 final and irrevocable the separation which it 
 was the object of the mediation to heal, and 
 which, but for the establishment of that revo- 
 lutionary interest, would speedily have been 
 closed. In truth, the Belgians were, after a 
 year's experience, so thoroughly disgusted 
 with their revolution ; they had suffered so 
 dreadfully under the tyrants of their own 
 choosing; starvation and misery had stalked 
 in so frightful a manner through their popu- 
 lous and once happy streets, that they were 
 rapidly becoming prepared to have returned 
 under the mild government of the House of 
 Orange, when this decisive step, by establish- 
 ing a revolutionary interest on the throne, for 
 ever blighted these opening prospects of re- 
 turning tranquillity and peace. 
 
 But the matter did not rest here. France 
 and England concluded a treaty in July, 1831, 
 eight months after the accession of the Whigs 
 to office , a treaty by which they guarantied to 
 Leopold his revolutionary dominions^ including 
 that part of territory which included Maes- 
 tricht, the frontier fortress of 'the old United Pro- 
 vinces, with the noble fortress of Luxemburg; 
 and the free navigation of the Scheldt. This 
 outrageous step was ruinous to Holland. The 
 terms which it imposed on the King of the 
 Netherlands, especially the surrender of Maes- 
 tricht and Luxemburg, and the navigation of 
 Dutch waters by the Belgians^ were utterly 
 destructive of that country. It was the same 
 thing as if the free navigation of the Mersey 
 and the Thames had been guarantied to the 
 
 * Rev. Franc, ii. 270. 
 
 manufacturers of France and Belgium. The 
 guarantee of Limburg and Luxemburg, includ- 
 ing Maestricht, to Belgium, was still more un- 
 pardonable, because Luxemburg was part of 
 the old patrimony of the Hmixe of Nassau, and 
 Limburg, with its barrier fortress Maestricht, 
 was no part of Belgium, but of Holland, proper- 
 ly so called. Holland could not part with them, 
 if she had the slightest regard to her future 
 safety. After Maestricht, its old bulwark on the 
 side of France, and Antwerp, its new bulwark 
 on the side of Flanders, were lost, its inde- 
 pendence was an empty name. 
 
 Determined to perish rather than yield to 
 such ruinous conditions, the King of the Ne- 
 therlands declared war against the new King 
 of Belgium, and then was seen what a slight 
 hold the revolutionary party possessed of the 
 Flemish people. The revolutionary rabble 
 were defeated in two pitched battles ; the 
 fumes of the Belgian revolt were dissipated"; 
 counter movements were beginning in Ghent 
 and the principal towns in the Netherlands, 
 and Brussels was within half an hour of fall- 
 ing into the hands of its lawful monarch, 
 when the armies of France and the fleet of 
 England, yielding to the demand of Leopold, 
 and bound by the guarantee contained in the 
 revolutionary treaty, advanced to support the 
 cause of revolution. The consequences might 
 easily have been foreseen. The armies of 
 Holland were checked in the mid-career of 
 victory, Brussels preserved for its cowardly 
 revolutionary tyrants, and the ulcer of the 
 Belgian revolts, when on the point of being 
 closed, preserved open in the centre of Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 The King of the Netherlands gained some- 
 thing by this vigorous step ; the French saw 
 the utter worthlessness of their revolutionary 
 allies; the crying injustice of demanding the 
 cession of Maestricht and Luxemburg became 
 too great even for the governments of the me- 
 diating powers, and the protocols took a new 
 direction. Antwerp, and a free navigation of 
 the Dutch waters, became now the great ob- 
 ject on which France and England insisted, 
 though it involved, by transferring the trade 
 of the United Provinces to the Belgian territo- 
 ry, the most serious injury of Holland. That 
 is the point which has since been insisted on ; 
 that is the object for which we are now to 
 plunge into an iniquitous and oppressive war. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, an event took place, 
 which, by drawing still closer the revolution- 
 ary bonds between France and Belgium, de- 
 veloped still farther the system of aggression 
 to which England had in an evil hour lent the 
 weight of her once venerated authority. Leo- 
 pold married the daughter of Louis Philippe, 
 and Flanders became in effect, as well as in 
 form, a French province. This event might 
 have been foreseen, and teas foreseen, from the 
 moment that he ascended" the throne of that 
 country. It was well known in the higher 
 classes in London, that Leopold had more than 
 once proposed to his present queen, before the Bel- 
 gian revolt; that it was her disinclination to 
 go to Greece which made him refuse the 
 crown of that country; and that the moment 
 he mounted the throne of Belgium, he would 
 2n2 
 
294 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 become the son-in-law of the King of France. 
 All this was distinctly known ; it was well un- 
 derstood, that if Antwerp was demanded for 
 Belgium, it was in effect demanded for France, 
 and that the establishment of the tricolour flag 
 on the great arsenals and dockyards of that 
 city, was the necessary result of making it a 
 sine qua non of the pacification of the Nether- 
 lands. All this, we repeat, was thoroughly 
 known before Leopold was counselled by our 
 administration to accept the throne of Bel- 
 gium, or Antwerp was seriously insisted upon 
 at the Conference ; and it was in the full 
 knowledge of that consequence that he was 
 placed on that throne, and the cession of that 
 great outwork of revolutionary France impe- 
 riously demanded by the French and English 
 plenipotentiaries. And it is in the full know- 
 ledge that this effect must follow, that a war is 
 now undertaken by England, the effect of 
 which may be to throw Europe into confla- 
 gration, and the consequences of which no 
 man can foresee. 
 
 And what is the present state of the Belgian 
 question ? The King of the Netherlands, like 
 a worthy descendant of the House of Nassau, 
 refuses to surrender Antwerp to the single de- 
 mand of France and England, but agrees to 
 submit all disputes regarding it to the joint 
 arbitration of the five allied powers. The five 
 powers were the umpires originally chosen ; 
 and the Jive alone have any legal or equitable 
 title to interfere in the matter. But how stands 
 the fact now 1 Have the five powers, whose 
 united and balanced judgment was relied on 
 by the parties to the arbitration have they all 
 combined in the measures of violence against 
 Holland ? Quite the reverse : Austria, Rus- 
 sia, and Prussia, a majority of the arbiters, 
 have solemnly protested against such a mea- 
 sure, and its prosecution is likely to involve 
 France and England in a desperate contest 
 with these Northern potentates. Who then 
 insists on the spoliation ? A minority of the 
 arbiters ; revolutionary France and revolu- 
 tionary England : revolutionary France, pant- 
 ing to regain the frontier of the Rhine, and 
 secure the great fortified harbour of Antwerp, 
 as an advanced post from whence to menace 
 our independence ; and revolutionary England 
 following with submissive steps, like the Cisal- 
 pine or Batavian republic, in the wake of the 
 great parent democracy. . And this is the first 
 fruits of the government of the Whigs. 
 
 This puts, in the clearest point of view, the 
 extravagant injustice of our present attack on 
 Dutch independence. The mediation of the 
 five powers was accepted; the five, taken 
 jointly, have alone the power of fixing the 
 award. Three hold out, and refuse to accede 
 to the violent measures which are now pro- 
 posed ; but two, carried away by an adverse 
 interest, and having formed a marriage con- 
 nection with one of the submitting parties, in- 
 sist upon instantaneous measures of spoliation. 
 What title have the. tiro to drop the pen and take 
 up the sword, in order to enforce measures 
 which the other three refuse to sanction 1 Who 
 gave France and England, taken singly, any 
 rights to act as arbiters between Belgium and 
 Holland ] Who authorized the fleets and ar- 
 
 I mies of the great democratic powers to parti- 
 tion the dominions of the King of the Nether- 
 lands, and force him to give up what his re- 
 volted subjects have not been able to wrest 
 from him 1 It won't do to say, they derived 
 the power from the acquiescence of the King 
 of the Netherlands, in the forcible mediation of 
 the Allied Powers ; for what he acquiesced in 
 was the pacific arbitration of the five, and not 
 the hostile intervention of the two. From what 
 then do they derive their right? From the 
 same title which Russia has to the partition of 
 Poland ; the right of the strongest ; the title of 
 a revolutionary state to extend and strengthen 
 all the subordinate revolutionary dynasties with 
 which in terror at a righteous retribution it 
 has strengthened its sides. 
 
 Setting aside, therefore, altogether the obvi- 
 ous and crying inexpedience of this war, 
 which is to restore to France that important 
 naval station so threatening to England, which 
 it took us so much blood and treasure to wrest 
 from her in the last war; setting aside the ex- 
 treme impolicy of irritating and spoliating our 
 best customers and oldest allies, in the hope- 
 less idea of winning the favour of a fickle and 
 jealous manufacturing rabble ; what we chiefly 
 view with alarm is, the monstrous injustice 
 and gross partiality of our conduct; the total 
 disregard of the faith of treaties, and the obli- 
 gations of centuries which it involves, and the 
 deplorable degradation to which it reduces 
 England, in compelling her, instead of stand- 
 ing forward in the vanguard of freedom, to 
 follow an obsequious vassal in the train of 
 Gallic usurpation. Not if her fleets were sunk, 
 or her armies defeated, not if Portsmouth 
 was in ashes or Woolwich in flames, not if 
 the Tower of London bore the flag of an ene- 
 my and the tombs of Westminster Abbey were 
 rifled by foreign bands, in defence of our liber- 
 ties in a just cause, would we think so de- 
 spondingly of our destinies, would we feel so 
 humbled in our national feelings, as we do at 
 thus witnessing the English pendant following 
 the tricolour flag in a crusade against the 
 liberty of nations. We have descended at 
 once from the pinnacle of glory to the depths 
 of humiliation; from being the foremost in the 
 bands of freedom, to being last in the train of ty- 
 ranny ; from leading the world against a despot 
 in arms, to crouching at the feet of our van- 
 quished enemy. That which an hundred de- 
 feats could not have done, a disgrace which 
 the loss of an hundred sail of the line, or the 
 storming of an hundred fortresses could not 
 have induced upon Old England, has been vo- 
 luntarily incurred by New England, to obtain 
 the smiles of a revolutionary throne. Well 
 and justly has Providence punished the people 
 of this country for the democratic madness of 
 the last two years. That which all the might 
 of Napoleon could not effect, the insanity of 
 her own rulers has produced ; and the nation 
 which bade defiance to Europe in arms, has 
 sunk down before the idol of revolutionary 
 ambition. "Ephraim," says the Scripture, 
 " has gone to his idols ; let him alone." 
 
 Suppose that La Vendee, which is not im- 
 possible, were to revolt against Louis Philippe, 
 and by a sudden effort expel the troops of the 
 
PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 295 
 
 French monarch from the west of France 
 that the Allied Powers of Russia, Austria, and 
 Prussia, were then to interfere, and declare 
 that the first shot fired by the Citizen King at 
 his revolted subjects, would be considered by 
 them as a declaration of war against the Holy 
 Alliance; that, intimidated by such formidable 
 neighbours, France was to agree to their medi- 
 ation ; that immediately a monarch of the le- 
 gitimate race were to be placed by the Allies, 
 without the concurrence of Louis Philippe, 
 on the throne of Western France, and he were 
 to be married with all due expedition to an 
 archduchess of Austria; and that shortly after, 
 a decree should be issued by the impartial me- 
 diators, declaring that Lyons was to be an- 
 nexed to the newly erected dynasty, and that 
 in exchange Tours should be surrendered to 
 the republican party ; and that upon the French 
 king refusing to accede to such iniquitous 
 terms, the armies of the Holy Alliance were to 
 march to the Rhine. How would Europe be 
 made to ring from side to side, by the revolu- 
 tionary press, at such a partition ; and how 
 loudly would they applaud the Citizen King 
 for having the firmness to resist the attempt? 
 And yet this is what France and England are 
 now doing, with the applause of all the liberal 
 press of Europe; and it is for such intrepid 
 conduct on the part of the King of the Nether- 
 lands, that he is now the object of their oblo- 
 quy and derision. 
 
 Ireland, which is perhaps as likely to happen, 
 revolts against England. She shows her 
 gratitude for the important concessions of the 
 last fifty years, by throwing off the yoke of 
 her benefactor, and proclaims a republican 
 form of government. The Allied Powers, with 
 France at their head, instantly interfere de- 
 clare that the first shot fired by England at her 
 revolted subjects, will be considered as a de- 
 claration of war against all Europe, but offer, 
 at the same time, their good offices and media- 
 tion to effect a settlement of the differences be- 
 tween Great Britain and the Emerald Isle. 
 Weakened by so great a defection, and over- 
 awed by so formidable a coalition, England re- 
 luctantly consents to the arbitration, and a 
 truce is proclaimed between the adverse par- 
 ties. Immediately the Allies declare, that the 
 separation must be permanent ; that " it is evi- 
 dent" that England's means of regaining her 
 lost dominions are at an end, and that the 
 peace of Europe must be no longer compro- 
 mised by the disputes between the Irish and 
 English people. Suiting the action to the word, 
 they forthwith put a foreign prince, without the 
 consent of England, on the Irish throne, and, 
 to secure his independence of Great Britain, 
 marry him to the daughter of the King of, 
 France. Immediately after, the Allied Powers 
 make a treaty, by which Ireland is guarantied 
 to the revolutionary king; and it is declared 
 that the new kingdom is to embrace Plymouth, 
 and have right to the free navigation of the 
 Mersey. Upon England's resisting the ini- 
 quitous partition, a French and Russian army, 
 a hundred and fifty thousand strong, prepare 
 for a descent on the shores of Kent. What 
 would the English people, and the friends of 
 freedom throughout the world, say to such a 
 
 proceeding? Yet this is precisely what the 
 English people have been led, blindfold, by 
 their Whig rulers, and the revolutionary press, 
 to do ! If his character is not totally destroyed, 
 terrible will be the wakening of the Lion when 
 he is roused from his slumber. 
 
 The hired journals of government, sensible 
 that the conduct of their rulers on this vital 
 question will not bear examination, endeavour 
 to lay it upon the shoulders of the Allied Powers, 
 and affect to lament the meshes in which 
 they were left by the foreign policy of Lord 
 Aberdeen. Of all absurdities, this is the great- 
 est; Russia, Prussia, and Austria, are so far 
 from sanctioning the attack on the King of 
 the Netherlands, that they have solemnly pro- 
 tested against it- and Prussia, preparing to 
 second her words by blows, has concentrated 
 her armies on the Meuse. The King of the Ne- 
 therlands professes his willingness still to sub- 
 mit the question of Antwerp and the Scheldt to 
 the five Allied Powers, though he refuse to 
 yield them up to the imperious demand of two 
 of them. How, then, is it possible to involve 
 the other Allied Powers in an iniquity of which 
 they positively disapprove, and for which they 
 are preparing to make war ? True, they signed 
 the treaty which gave Antwerp to Belgium, 
 and their reasons for doing so, and the grounds 
 on which they are to justify it, we leave it to 
 them and their paid journalists to unfold. But 
 they have positively refused to sanction the 
 employment offeree to coerce the Dutch; and 
 without that, the revolutionary rabble of Bel- 
 gium may thunder for ever against the citadel 
 of Antwerp. 
 
 But because the three powers who signed 
 the treaty for the partition of Poland, have also 
 signed the treaty for the partition of the Nether- 
 lands, is that any vindication for our joining 
 in the spoliation ? When two robbers unite to 
 waylay a traveller, is it any excuse for them 
 that three others have agreed to the conspiracy? 
 We were told that arbitrary despotic govern- 
 ments alone commit injustice, and that with 
 the triumph of the people, and the extension 
 of democracy, the rule of justice and equity 
 was to commence. How then are revolu- 
 tionary France and revolutionary England the 
 foremost in the work of partition, when the 
 other powers, ashamed of their signature at 
 the disgraceful treaty, hang back, and refuse 
 to put it in force? Is this the commencement 
 of the fair rule of democratic justice? A 
 treaty, which the three absolute powers, the par- 
 titioners of Poland, arc ashamed of, the revolu- 
 tionary powers have no scruple in enforcing 
 an iniquity which Russia and Austria refuse 
 to commit, France and England are ready to 
 perpetrate! 
 
 The pretence that we are involved in all this 
 through the diplomacy of the Tories, is such a 
 monstrous perversion of truth as cannot blind 
 any but the most ignorant readers. When 
 was the treaty which guarantied Leopold's 
 dominions signed by France and England? in 
 July, 1831; eight months after the accession 
 of the Whigs to office.' When was the treaty, 
 giving Antwerp to Belgium, signed by the five 
 powers ? In November, 1831, a year after the 
 retirement of the Duke of Wellington from 
 
296 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 power. What treaty did the Duke of Welling- 
 ton leave binding on his successors, in regard 
 to Belgium'? The treaty of 1815, which gua- 
 rantied to the King of the Netherlands his 
 whole dominions. What incipient mediation 
 did he leave them to complete? That of the 
 five Allied Powers, for the pacific settlement of 
 the Belgian question. And yet we are told he 
 involved Great Britain in a hostile aggression 
 on Holland, and was the author of a measure 
 of robbery by two of the mediating powers ! 
 
 To give a show of equity to their spoliation, 
 the revolutionary powers have summoned 
 Leopold to surrender Venloo, and declare that 
 Holland is to retain Luxemburg and Lim- 
 burg. This is a mere colourable pretext, desti- 
 tute of the least weigh't, and too flimsy to de- 
 ceive any one acquainted with the facts. Lux- 
 emburg always was in the hands of the 
 Dutch ; it formed part of the old patrimony of 
 the house of Nassau, and the Belgians have 
 no more right to that great fortress, or its ter- 
 ritory, than they have to Magdebourg or Lisle. 
 Venloo is a fortress of third-rate importance, 
 about as fair an equivalent for Antwerp as 
 Conway would be for Liverpool. Who ever 
 heard of any works of Napoleon on Venloo, or 
 any effort on his part to retain it as part of the 
 outworks of his conquering dominions ? Ven- 
 loo is situated on the right or German bank 
 of the Meuse, and never belonged to Belgium ; 
 so that to consider it as a compensation for the 
 great and magnificent fortress of Antwerp, the 
 key of the Scheldt, is as absurd as it would be 
 to speak of Harwich as a compensation for 
 London. 
 
 Hitherto we have argued the question on the 
 footing of the real merits of the points at issue, 
 and not the subordinate question on which the 
 negotiations finally broke off. But here, too, 
 the injustice of the proceeding is not less 
 manifest than in the general nature of the 
 transaction. 
 
 It was stipulated by the treaty of 15th No- 
 vember, 1821, signed by all the Allied Powers, 
 that the evacuation of the provinces to be mu- 
 tually ceded on both sides, should take place 
 after the exchange of the ratification of a final 
 peace. Of course, Antwerp was held by Hol- 
 land, and Venloo by Belgium, until that event; 
 and on that footing they have been held for the 
 last twelve months. 
 
 But what do France and England now require ? 
 Why, that Antwerp should be ceded by Hol- 
 land before the treaty is either signed or agreed 
 to, and when weighty matters are still in de- 
 pendence between the contracting parties. 
 The advantages which the King of the Ne- 
 therlands holds, the security he possesses by 
 holding that great fortress, is to be instantly 
 abandoned, and he is to be left, without any se- 
 curity, to the tender mercies of the father-in-law 
 of his enemy, and the friendly sympathy of 
 their democratic allies in this island. Is this 
 just] Is it consistent with the treaty of No- 
 vember, 1831, on which England and France 
 justify their armed interference ? Is it not 
 evidently a violation of both] and does not it 
 leave the revolutionary states as much in the 
 wrong on the last disputed point of the Con- 
 ference as on its general spirit] 
 
 The answer of the King of the Netherlands 
 to the summons of France and England to 
 surrender the citadel of Antwerp, is so deci- 
 sive of the justice of his cause on this point, 
 that we cannot refrain from quoting it: 
 
 " Holland having acceded, not to the treaty 
 of the 15th of November, 1831, but to the 
 greater part of its arrangements, must found 
 its proceedings on the stipulations which it 
 has accepted. Among the articles agreed to in 
 concert with the Conference of London, is in- 
 cluded the evacuation, in a fixed time after the 
 exchange of the ratifications of the territories 
 which were respectively to change hands, 
 which point was regulated by the last of the 
 24 articles of 15th October, 1831, by the treaty 
 of 15th November, and in the projects of con- 
 vention which have followed it. If, on the 
 llth June, the Conference proposed the 20th 
 July, for the evacuation of the respective ter- 
 ritories, it declared, by its note of 20th July, 
 that in making this proposal, it had thought 
 that the treaty between Holland and Belgium 
 would be ratified. To effect the evacuation at 
 a time anterior to the exchange of the ratifica- 
 tions, would be acting in opposition both to 
 the formally announced intentions of the Con- 
 ference, and to the assent which has been 
 given to them by the government of the Ne- 
 therlands." 
 
 "It is true," says the Times, "that the terri- 
 tories were not to be evacuated on each side 
 till the ratifications of a general peace are ex- 
 changed." This puts an end to the argument : 
 we have not a shadow of justice for our de- 
 mand of the immediate evacuation of Antwerp, 
 any more than for the preceding treaty, which 
 assigned it to Belgium. 
 
 The war in which, to serve their new and 
 dearly-beloved revolutionary allies, and enable 
 them to regain their menacing point 1o our 
 shores, we are now about to be involved, may 
 last ten days or ten years : it may cost 500,000/. 
 or 500,000,000*.: all that is in the womb of 
 fate, and of that we know nothing; but the 
 justice of the case in either event remains the 
 same. That which is done is done, and can- 
 not be undone: the signature of England has 
 been affixed to the treaty with revolutionary 
 France for the partition of our allies, and there 
 it will remain for ever, to call down the judg- 
 ment of Heaven upon the guilty nation which 
 permitted, and the execrations of posterity on 
 the insane administration which effected it. 
 
 In this war, our rulers have contrived to get 
 us into such a situation, that by no possibility 
 can we derive either honour, advantage, or se- 
 curity, from the consequences to which it may 
 lead. If the French and English are victorious, 
 and we succeed in storming the citadel of 
 Antwerp for the tricolour flag, will England be 
 a gainer by the victory will our commerce 
 be improved by surrendering the navigation 
 of the Scheldt into the hands of the jealous 
 manufacturers of France and Belgium, and 
 for ever alienating our old and willing custom- 
 ers in the United Provinces] Will our na- 
 tional security be materially improved by 
 placing the magnificent dockyards, and spa- 
 cious arsenals, and impregnable fortifications, 
 which Napoleon erected for our subjugation, 
 
PARTITION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 297 
 
 in the hands of a revolutionary King of France 
 and his warlike and able prime minister? If 
 we are defeated, is the honour of England, the 
 conqueror of France, likely to be upheld, or its 
 influence increased, by our inability to bully a 
 fifth-rate power, even with the aid of our Jaco- 
 bin allies? Whatever occurs, whether Hol- 
 land submits in five days, or holds out bravely 
 and nobly for five years ;, whether the united 
 tricolour and the leopard are victorious or are 
 vanquished, we can derive nothing but humili- 
 ation, danger, and disgrace from the event. 
 We shall certainly incur all the losses and bur 
 dens of war: we can never obtain either its 
 advantages or its glories. 
 
 Everyman in England may possibly soon 
 be compelled to ten pounds in the hundred to 
 undo the whole fruits of our former victories, 
 and give back Antwerp to France ! ! ! And give 
 back Antwerp to France!! ! This is the first 
 fruits of our Whig diplomacy, and our new 
 revolutionary alliance. Will the surrender of 
 Portsmouth or Plymouth, or of an hundred 
 ships of the line, be the second?* 
 
 In making these observations, we disclaim 
 all idea of imputing to ministers any inten- 
 tional or wilful abandonment of the interests 
 and honour of England. We believe that as 
 Englishmen and gentlemen, they are incapa- 
 ble of such baseness. What we assert is, that 
 the passion for innovation, and their long-esta- 
 blished admiration of France, have blinded 
 their eyes ; that they are as incapable of see- 
 ing the real consequences of their actions, as 
 a young man is in the first fervour of love, or 
 an inmate of bedlam in a paroxysm of insanity. 
 
 From this sickening scene of aggression, 
 spoliation, and robbery, we turn with pride and 
 admiration to the firm and dignified, yet mild 
 and moderate language of the Dutch govern- 
 ment. There was a time, when their conduct 
 in resisting the partition of their country by 
 two powerful and overbearing revolutionary 
 neighbours, would have called forth the unani- 
 mous sympathy and admiration of the British 
 people : when they would have compared it to 
 the long glories of the House of Nassau, and 
 the indomitable courage of that illustrious 
 * chief, who, when the armies of Louis XIV. 
 were at the gates of Amsterdam, declared that 
 he knew one way to avoid seeing the disgrace 
 of his country, and that was to die in the last 
 ditch. We cannot believe that revolutionary 
 passions should have so completely changed 
 the nature of a whole people in so short a time, 
 as to render them insensible to such heroic 
 conduct: at all events, for the honour of hu- 
 man nature, we cannot forbear the gratifica- 
 tion of adorning our pages by the following 
 quotation from the last reply of the States- 
 General of Holland to the speech of the King 
 of the Netherlands, announcing the approach- 
 ing attack of France and England. 
 
 " Never did the States-General approach the 
 throne with feelings similar to those of the 
 present moment. They had fostered the well- 
 
 * Of course the surrender of Antwerp to revolutionary 
 HP! pium, governed by the son-in-law of France, is, in 
 other words, a surrender to the great parent democracy 
 itself. 
 
 grounded hope that equitable arrangements 
 would have put a period to the pressure on the 
 country, but this just expectation has been dis- 
 appointed. The States-General are grieved at 
 the course of the negotiations. Whilst we are 
 moderate and indulgent, demands are made on 
 us which are in opposition to the honour and 
 the independence of the nation; a small but 
 glorious state is sacrificed to a presumed gene- 
 ral interest. It makes a deep impression to 
 see that foreign powers entertain a feeling in 
 favour of a people torn from us by violence 
 and perfidy a feeling leading to our destruc- 
 tion instead of experiencing from the great 
 powers aid in upholding our rights. The 
 clouds that darken the horizon might lead to 
 discouragement, were it not for the conviction 
 of the nation that she does not deserve this 
 treatment, and that the moral energy which en- 
 abled her to make the sacrifices already ren- 
 dered, remains in undiminished strength to 
 support her in the further sacrifices necessary 
 for the conservation of the national indepen- 
 dence; that energy ever shone most brilliant 
 when the country was most in danger, and had 
 to resist the superior forces of united enemies ; 
 that energy enabled her to re-establish her po- 
 litical edifice which had been demolished by 
 the usurper; and the same energy mast, under 
 our king, maintain that edifice against the 
 usurpatory demands or attacks of an unjust 
 defection. 
 
 " The result is anticipated with confidence. 
 The nation glories in her powerful means of 
 defence, and in her sea and land forces, which 
 are in arms to obtain equitable terms of the 
 peace that is still so anxiously solicited. 
 
 " The charges are heavy, but the circum- 
 stances that render them necessary are unex- 
 ampled; and there is no native of the country 
 who would not cheerfully make the utmost 
 sacrifices when the honour and independence 
 of the nation are endangered. Much may be 
 conceded for the sake of the peace of Europe, 
 but self-preservation puts a limit to conces- 
 sions when they have approached to the ut- 
 most boundary. The Netherlands have ever 
 made, willingly, great sacrifices for the defence 
 of their rights ; but never have they volunta- 
 rily relinquished their national existence, and 
 many times they have defended them with 
 small numerical forces against far superior 
 numbers. This same feeling now glows in 
 every heart ; and still there is the God of our 
 forefathers, who has preserved us in times of 
 :he most imminent peril. In unison with their 
 dng, the States-General put their confidence 
 'n God; and, strong as they are in their unani- 
 mity of sentiments, and in the justice of their 
 cause, they confidently look forward to the re- 
 ward of a noble and magnanimous perseve- 
 **ance." 
 
 The revolutionary journals of England call 
 his the obstinacy of the king of Holland. It 
 s obstinacy. It is the same obstinacy as Le- 
 onidas showed at Thermopylae, and Themisto- 
 jles at Salamis, and the Roman senate after 
 he battle of Cannee, and the Swiss at Morgar- 
 en, and the Dutch at Haarlem ; the obstinacy 
 which commands the admiration of men 
 through every succeeding age, and, even 
 
298 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 amidst the injustice of this world, secures the 
 blessing of Heaven. 
 
 The Dutch may have Antwerp wrested from 
 them; they may be compelled, from inability 
 to resist, to surrender it to the Allies. All that 
 will not alter the case; it will not ultimately 
 avert an European war; it will not the less 
 prove fatal to the progress of freedom. The 
 Allies, and above all, England, allow the key to 
 the Scheldt, and the advanced post of France 
 against Britain, to remain in the hands of the 
 French, or, what is the same thing, their sub- 
 sidiary ally, the Belgians. In every age the 
 establishment of the French power in Flan- 
 ders has led to an European war; that in 
 which a revolutionary force is intrenched 
 there, is not destined to form an exception. 
 A war of opinion must ensue sooner or later, 
 when the tricolour standard is brought down 
 to the Scheldt, and the eagle of Prussia floats 
 on the Meuse. When that event comes, as 
 come it will, then will England, whether re- 
 publican or monarchical, be compelled to exert 
 her force to drive back the French to their old 
 frontier. A second war must be undertaken to 
 regain what a moment of weakness and infatu- 
 ation has lost in the first. 
 
 But what will be the result of such a war, 
 provoked by the revolutionary ambition of 
 France, and the tame subservience of England, 
 on the interests of freedom 1 If revolutionary 
 ambition prevails, what chance has liberty of 
 surviving amidst the tyranny of democratic 
 power 1 If legitimate authority conquers, how 
 can it exist amidst the Russian and Austrian 
 bayonets ? When will real freedom again be 
 restored as it existed in France under the mild 
 sway of the Bourbons ; or as prosperous a 
 period be regained for that distracted country, 
 as that which elapsed from 1815 to 1830 1 ? It 
 is evident, that freedom must perish in the 
 fierce contest between democratic and regal 
 tyranny: it is hard to say, whether it has most 
 to fear from the triumph of the French or the 
 Russian bayonets. To their other claims to 
 the abhorrence of mankind, the liberals of 
 England, like the Jacobins of France, will add 
 that of being the assassins of real liberty 
 throughout the world. 
 
 It is sometimes advantageous to see the light 
 in which the conduct of Great Britain is view- 
 ed in foreign states. The following article is 
 from the Manheim Gazette of the 8th inst.: 
 " The French ministry and the English Whigs 
 have in vain asserted that they do not mean to 
 rule by the principle of propagandism ; these 
 assurances are no guarantee, since propagand- 
 ism subsists in the system they have establish- 
 ed, and cannot cease till that system is at an 
 end. The delegates of the people, for in this 
 light must be viewed all governments founded 
 upon the principle of popular sovereignty, 
 must of necessity seek their allies among 
 other delegates of the same character; and to 
 endeavour to find friends among their neigh- 
 bours, is to act as if they sought to revolution- 
 ize such states as profess the monarchical 
 principle. In this respect the influence of the 
 Grey ministry is more pernicious than that of 
 the French ministry. The former having com- 
 menced by revolutionizing England, and feel- 
 
 ing itself closely pressed by a reaction at 
 home, feels a greater desire to form alliances 
 with other nations ; and consequently it is less 
 solicitous about treaties and rights than France, 
 who would unite herself more readily with 
 monarchical states, if she were not restrained 
 by the alliance with England. It is evident 
 that England now occupies the place which 
 was occupied by France after the revolution. 
 Already the Grey ministry finds itself com- 
 pelled to repair one extreme resolution by an- 
 other ; and in a very short time, repose, order, 
 and peace, will become impossible. We re- 
 peat, therefore, that it is the Grey ministry 
 which threatens the peace of Europe." Such 
 is the light in which our government is viewed 
 by the continental powers, and such the alarm 
 which they feel at the threatened attack on 
 Holland by the two revolutionary states ; and 
 j yet we are told by the partisans of administra- 
 tion, that they are going to attack Antwerp " to 
 preserve the peace of Europe" 
 
 The ministerial journals have at length let 
 out the real motive of our conduct; the Times 
 tells us that it is useless to blink the question, 
 for if the French and English do not attack 
 Antwerp together, France will attack it alone, 
 and that this would infallibly bring on a gene- 
 ral war. That is to say, we have got into the 
 company of a robber who is bent upon assail- 
 ing a passenger upon the highway, and to pre- 
 vent murder we join the robber in the attack. Did 
 it never occur to our rulers, that there was a 
 more effectual way to prevent the iniquity? 
 and that is to get out of such bad company, 
 and defend the traveller. Would France ever 
 venture to attack Antwerp if she were not 
 supported by England 1 Would she ever do 
 so if England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, 
 were leagued together to prevent the march of 
 revolutionary ambition'? On whom then do 
 the consequences of the aggression clearly 
 rest 1 On the English government, who, 
 against the interests and honour of England, 
 join in the attack, when they hold the balance 
 in their hands, and by a word could prevent it. 
 
 It is evident that it is this portentous alliance 
 of France and England which really threatens 
 the peace of Europe, and must ultimately lead 
 to a universal war. The Manheim Gazette 
 is perfectly right; it is the Grey administration 
 who head the revolutionary crusade. Holding 
 the balance in our hands, we voluntarily throw 
 our decisive weight into the scales of aggres- 
 sion, and the other powers must unite to restore 
 the beam. 
 
 The years of prosperity will not endure for 
 ever to England, any more than to any earthly 
 thing. The evil days will come when the 
 grandeur of an old and venerated name will 
 sink amidst the storms of adversity; when her 
 vast and unwieldy empire will be dismember- 
 ed, and province after province fall away from 
 her mighty dominions. When these days 
 come, as come they will, then will she feel 
 what it was to have betrayed and insulted her 
 allies in the plenitude of her power. When 
 Ireland rises in open rebellion against her do- 
 minion ; when the West Indies are lost, and 
 with them the right arm of her naval strength; 
 when the armies of the continent crowd the 
 
KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 
 
 299 
 
 coasts of Flanders, and the navies of Europe 
 are assembled in the Scheldt, to humble the 
 mistress of the waves, then will she feel how 
 deeply, how irreparably, her character has 
 suffered from the infatuation of the last two 
 years. In vain will she call on her once faith- 
 ful friends in Holland or Portugal to uphold 
 the cause of freedom ; in vain will she appeal 
 to the world against the violence with which 
 she is menaced ; her desertion of her allies in 
 the hour of their adversity, her atrocious alli- 
 ance with revolutionary violence, will rise up 
 in judgment against her. When called on for 
 aid, they will answer, did you aid us in the day 
 of trial ? when reminded of the alliance of an 
 hundred and fifty years, they will point to the 
 partition of 1832. England may expiate by 
 suffering the disgrace of her present defec- 
 tion ; efface it from the minds of men she 
 never will. 
 
 The conservative administration of England 
 
 have had many eulogists, but they have had 
 none who have established their reputation 
 so effectually as their successors : Mr. Pitt's 
 glory might have been doubtful in the eyes of 
 posterity, had he not been succeeded by Lord 
 Grey. The contrast between the firmness, in- 
 tegrity, and good faith of the one, and the 
 vacillation, defection, and weakness of the 
 other, will leave an impression on the minds 
 of men which will never be effaced. The mag- 
 nitude of the perils from which we were saved 
 by the first, have been proved by the dangers 
 we have incurred under the second ; the lustre 
 of the intrepidity of the former, by the disgrace 
 and humiliation of the latter. To the bright 
 evening of England's glory, has succeeded the 
 darkness of revolutionary night: may it be as 
 brief as it has been gloomy, and be followed 
 by the rise of the same luminary in a brighter 
 morning, gilded by colours of undecaying 
 beauty ! 
 
 KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA.' 
 
 NEVER was there a more just observation, 
 than that there is no end to authentic history. 
 We shall take the most learned and enthusi- 
 astic student of history in the country; one 
 who has spent half his life in reading the an- 
 nals of human events, and still we are confi- 
 dent that much of what is about to be stated in 
 this article will be new to him. Yet it relates 
 to no inconsiderable state, and is to be found 
 in no obscure writer. It relates to the history 
 of Russia, the greatest and most powerful em- 
 pire, if we except Great Britain, which exists 
 upon the earth, and with which, sometimes 
 in alliance, sometimes in jealousy, we have 
 been almost continually brought in contact 
 during the last half century. It is to be found 
 in the history of Karamsin, the greatest his- 
 torian of Russia, who has justly acquired an 
 European reputation ; but whose great work, 
 though relating to so interesting a subject, has 
 hitherto, in an unaccountable manner, been 
 neglected in this country. 
 
 We complain that there is nothing new in 
 literature, that old ideas are perpetually re- 
 curring, and worn-out topics again dressed up 
 in a new garb, that sameness and imitation 
 seem to be irrevocably stamped upon, our 
 literature, and the age of original thought, of 
 fresh ideas, and creative genius, has passed 
 away ! Rely upon it, the fault is not in the 
 nature of things, but in ourselves. The stock 
 of original ideas, of new thoughts, of fresh 
 images, is not worn out; on the contrary.it 
 has hardly been seriously worked upon by 
 all the previous efforts of mankind. We may 
 say of it, as Newton did of his discoveries 
 in physical science, that " all that he had done 
 seemed like a boy playing on the sea-shore, 
 finding sometimes a brighter pebble or a 
 
 * Karamsin, Histoire de Russie, 11 vols. Paris, 1819 
 1828. Foreign and Colonial Review, No. VII. July. 
 1844. 
 
 smoother shell than ordinary, while the great 
 ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before 
 him." We complain of sameness of thought, 
 of want of originality in topics, and yet we live 
 in the midst of a boundless profusion of new 
 facts and virgin images, for the first time 
 brought forward by our extended intercourse 
 with all parts of the world, and the heart-stir- 
 ring events of our political history. There 
 never was a period in the annals of mankind, 
 if we except that of the discovery of America, 
 in which new facts and novel images, and the 
 materials for original thought, were brought 
 with such profusion to the hand of genius ; and 
 there never was one in which, in this country 
 at least, so little use was made of them, or in 
 which the public mind seems to revolve so 
 exclusively round one centre, and in one beaten 
 and wellnigh worn-out orbit. 
 
 Whence has arisen this strange discrepancy 
 between the profusion with which new mate- 
 rials and fresh objects are brought to hand, 
 and the scanty proportion in which original 
 thought is poured out to the world 1 ? The 
 cause is to be found in the impossibility of 
 getting the great majority of men to make the 
 " past or the future predominant over the pre- 
 sent." If we add " the absent" to the famous 
 apothegm of Johnson, we shall have a sum- 
 mary of the principal causes which in ordinary 
 times chain mankind to the concentric circles 
 of established ideas. Amidst common events, 
 and under the influence of no peculiar excite- 
 ment, men are incapable of extricating them- 
 selves from the ocean of habitual thought with 
 which they are surrounded. A few great men 
 may do so, but their ideas produce no impres- 
 sion on the age, and lie wellnigh dormant till 
 they are brought to fructify and spread amidst 
 the turbulence or sufferings of another. Thence 
 the use of periods of suffering or intense ex- 
 citement to the growth of intellect, and the 
 
300 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 development of truth. The past and the future i 
 are then made the present ; ages of experience, 
 volumes of speculation, are then concentrated ! 
 into the passing results of a few years, and j 
 thus spread generally throughout mankind, i 
 What original thought was evolved in England 
 during the fervour of the Reformation ! in i 
 France, during the agonies of the Revolution ! ' 
 Subsequent centuries of ease and peace to ' 
 each were but periods of transfer and amplifi- 1 
 cation, of studied imitation and laboured | 
 commentary. There has been, there still is, 
 original thought in our age; but it is confined 
 to those whom the agitation of reform roused 
 from the intellectual lethargy with which they 
 were surrounded, and their opinions have not 
 yet come to influence general thought. They 
 will do so in the next generation, and direct 
 the course of legislation in the third. Public 
 opinion, of which so much is said, is nothing 
 but the re-echo of the opinions of the great 
 among our fathers, legislation among -our 
 grandfathers ; so slowly, under the wise sys- 
 tem of providence, is truth and improvement 
 let down to a benighted world ! 
 
 We have been forcibly led to these observa- 
 tions by the study of Karamsin's History of 
 Russia, and the immense stores of new facts 
 and novel ideas which are to be found in a 
 work long accessible in its French translation 
 to all, hardly as yet approached by any. We 
 are accustomed to consider Russia as a country 
 which has only been extricated by the genius 
 of Peter the Great, little more than a century 
 and a half ago, from a state of barbarism, and 
 the annals of which have been lost amidst 
 general ignorance, or are worthy of no regard 
 till they were brought into light by the in- 
 creasing intercourse with the powers of west- 
 ern Europe. Such, we are persuaded, is the 
 belief of ninety-nine out of an hundred, even 
 among learned readers, in every European 
 state; yet we perceive from Karamsin, that 
 Russia is a power which has existed, though 
 with great vicissitudes of fortune, for a thou- 
 sand years ; that Rurick, its founder, was con- 
 temporary with Alfred; and that it assailed 
 the Bosphorus and Constantinople in the ninth 
 century, with a force greater than that with 
 which William the Conqueror subverted the 
 Saxon monarchy at Hastings, and more pow- 
 erful than were led against it in after times by 
 the ambition of Catherine or the generals of 
 Nicholas ! What is still more remarkable, the 
 mode of attack adopted by these rude invaders 
 of the Byzantine empire was precisely that 
 which long and dear-bought experience, aided 
 by military science, subsequently taught to the 
 Russian generals. Avoiding the waterless and 
 unhealthy plains of Bessarabia and Walachia, 
 they committed themselves in fearful multi- 
 tudes to boats, which were wafted down the 
 stream of the Dnieper to the Black Sea; and 
 when the future conqueror of the east ap- 
 proaches to place the cross on the minarets 
 of St. Sophia, he has only to follow the track 
 of the canoes, which a thousand years ago 
 brought the hordes of Rurick to the entrance 
 of the Bosphorus. 
 
 Complicated, and to appearance inextricable 
 as the transactions of the Slavonic race seem 
 
 at first sight, the history of Russia is yet 
 singularly susceptible of simplification. It 
 embraces four great periods, each of which 
 have stamped their own peculiar impress upon 
 the character of the people, and which have 
 combined to produce that mighty empire which 
 now numbers 60,000,000 of men among its 
 subjects, and a seventh of the surface of the 
 globe beneath its dominion. 
 
 The first of these periods is that which com- 
 mences with the foundation of the Russian 
 empire by Rurick, in 862, and terminates with 
 the commencement of the unhappy division 
 of the empire into apanages, or provisions for 
 younger children, the source of innumerable 
 evils both to the monarchy and its subjects, in 
 1054. The extent to which the empire had 
 spread, and the power it had acquired before 
 this ruinous system of division commenced, 
 is extraordinary. In the 10th century, Russia 
 was as prominent, comparatively speaking, 
 among the powers of Europe, in point of 
 territory, population, resources, and achieve- 
 ments, as she is at this moment. The con- 
 quests of Oleg, of Sviatoslof, and of Vladimir, 
 to whom the sceptre of Rurick had descended, 
 extended the frontiers of the Russian territory 
 from Novogorod and Kieff its original cradle 
 on the banks of the Dnieper to the Baltic, the 
 Dwina, and the Bug, on the west; on the 
 south, to the cataracts of the Dnieper and the 
 Cimmerian Bosphorus ; in the north, to. Arch- 
 angel, the White Sea, and Finland; on the 
 east, to the Ural Mountains and shores of the 
 Caspian. All the territory which now con- 
 stitutes the strength of Russia, and has enabled 
 it to extend its dominion and influence so far 
 over Asia and Europe, was already ranged 
 under the sceptre of its monarchs before the 
 time of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 The second period comprehends the in- 
 numerable intestine wars, and progressive 
 decline of the strength and consideration of 
 the empire, which resulted from the adoption 
 of the fatal system of apanages. This method 
 of providing for the younger children of suc- 
 cessive monarchs, so natural to parental affec- 
 tion, so just with reference to the distribution 
 of possessions among successive royal fami- 
 lies, so ruinous to the ultimate interests of the 
 state, was commenced by the Grand Prince 
 Dmitri, in 1054, and afforded too ready a means 
 of providing for the succeeding generation of 
 princes to be soon abandoned. The effects of 
 such a system may without difficulty be con- 
 ceived. It reduced a solid compact monarchy 
 at once to the distracted state of the Saxon 
 heptarchy, and soon introduced into its vitals 
 those fierce internal wars which exhaust the 
 strength of a nation without either augmenting 
 its resources, or adding to its reputation. It is 
 justly remarked accordingly, by Karamsin, that 
 for the next three hundred years after this fatal 
 change in the system of government, Russia 
 incessantly declined ; and after having attained, 
 at a very early period, the highest pitch of 
 power and grandeur, she sunk to such a depth 
 of weakness as to be incapable of opposing 
 any effectual resistance to a foreign invader. 
 
 The third period of Russian history, and not 
 the least in the formation of its national cha- 
 
KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 
 
 301 
 
 racter, commenced with the Tartar invasion, 
 and terminated with the final emancipation of 
 the Moscovite dominions. In 1224, the first 
 intelligence of a strange, uncouth, and savage 
 enemy having appeared on the eastern frontier, 
 was received at Kieff, then the capital of the 
 Muscovite confederacy, for it no longer de- 
 served the name of an empire; and two hun- 
 dred and fifty years had elapsed before the 
 nation was finally emancipated from their 
 dreadful yoke. This was accomplished by the 
 abilities and perseverance of John III., the 
 true restorer, and, in some degree, the second 
 founder of the empire, in 1480, in which year 
 the last invasion of the Tartar was repulsed, 
 and the disgraceful tribute so long paid to the 
 great khan was discontinued. During this 
 melancholy interval, Russia underwent the last 
 atrocities of savage cruelty and barbaric des- 
 potism. Moscow, then become the capital, was 
 sacked and burnt by the Tartars, in 1387, with 
 more devastation than afterwards during the 
 invasion of Napoleon ; every province of the 
 empire was repeatedly overrun by these ruth- 
 less invaders, who, equally incapable of giving 
 or receiving quarter, seemed, wherever they 
 went, to have declared a war of extermination 
 against the human race, which their prodi- 
 gious numbers and infernal energy in war gen- 
 erally enabled them to carry on with success. 
 Nor was their pacific rule, where they had 
 thoroughly subjugated a country, less degrad- 
 ing than their inroad was frightful and de- 
 vastating. Oppression, long continued and 
 systematic, constituted their only system of 
 government; and the Russians owe to these 
 terrible tyrants the use of the knout, and of the 
 other cruel punishments, which, from their 
 long retention in the empire of the czars, when 
 generally disused elsewhere, have so long ex- 
 cited the horror of Western Europe. 
 
 The fourth period commences with the aboli- 
 tion of the ruinous system of apanages by the 
 mingled firmness and cunning, wisdom and 
 fortune, of John III., about the year 1480 ; and 
 continued till the genius of Peter the Great 
 gave the country its great impetus two hun- 
 dred years after. This period was a chequered 
 one to the fortunes of Moscovy, but, on the 
 whole, of general progressive advancement. 
 Under Vassili, the successor of John III., 
 the Russians made themselves masters of 
 Smolensko, and extended their frontiers on the 
 east to the Dwina. Under John the Terrible, 
 who succeeded him, they carried by assault, 
 after a terrible struggle, Kazan, in the south 
 of Moscovy, where the Tartars had established 
 themselves in a solid manner and formed the 
 capital of a powerful state, which had more 
 than once inflicted, in conjunction with the 
 Lithuanians, the most dreadful wounds on the 
 vitals of the empire. Disasters great and re- 
 peated still marked this period, as wave after 
 wave break on the shore after the fury of the 
 tempest has been stilled. Moscow was asrain 
 reduced to ashes during the minority of John 
 the Terrible; it was again burnt by the Tar- 
 tars ; and a third time, by accident; the vic- 
 torious Poles advanced their standards to its 
 gates, and so low were his fortunes reduced, 
 that that heroic but bloody monarch had at 
 
 one period serious thoughts of deserting his 
 country, and seeking refuge in England from, 
 his numerous enemies. Yet, Russia, thanks 
 to the patriotism of her children and the in- 
 domitable firmness of her character, survived 
 all these disasters ; in the succeeding reign 
 her arms were extended across the Ural moun- 
 tains over Siberia, though her dominion over 
 its immense wilds was for long little more 
 than nominal, and a fortress was erected at 
 Archangel, which secured to her the command 
 of the White Sea. 
 
 The last period commences with the taking 
 of Azoph, by Peter the Great, in 1696, which 
 first opened to the youthful czar the dominion 
 of the Black Sea, and terminates with the pro- 
 digious extension of the empire, consequent on 
 the defeat of Napoleon's invasion. Europe 
 has had too much reason to be acquainted 
 with the details of Russian victories during 
 this period. Her wars were no longer with 
 the Tartars or Lithuanians: she no longer 
 fought for life or death with the khan of Sam- 
 arcand, the hordes of Bati, or the czar of Ka- 
 zan. Emerging with the strength of a giant 
 from the obscure cloud in which she had 
 hitherto been involved, she took an active, and 
 at length a fearful part, in the transactions of 
 Western Europe. The conquest of Azoph, 
 which opened to them the command of the 
 Black Sea the fierce contest with Sweden, 
 and ultimate overthrow of its heroic monarch 
 at Pultowa the bloody wars with Turkey, 
 commencing with the disasters of the Pruth, 
 and leading on to the triumphs of Ockzakow, 
 of Ismael, and Adrianople the conquest of 
 Georgia, and passage of the Russian arms 
 over the coast of the Caucasus and to the 
 waters of the Araser the acquisition of Wal- 
 achia and Moldavia, and extension of their 
 southern frontier to the Danube the partition 
 of Poland, and entire subjugation of their old 
 enemies, the Lithuanians the seizure of Fin- 
 land by Alexander in fine, the overthrow of 
 Napoleon, capture of Paris, and virtual sub- 
 jugation of Turkey by the treaty of Adrianople, 
 have marked this period in indelible charac- 
 ters on the tablets of the world's history. 
 Above Alexander's tomb are now hung the 
 keys of Paris and Adrianople: those of War- 
 saw will be suspended over that of his suc- 
 cessor! The ancient and long dreaded rivals 
 of the empire, the Tartars, the Poles, the 
 French, and the Turks, have been successive- 
 ly vanquished. Every war for two centuries 
 past has led to an accession to the Moscovite 
 territory ; and no human foresight can predict 
 the period when the god Terminus is to recede. 
 There is enough here to arrest the attention 
 of the most inconsiderate ; to occupy the 
 thoughts of the most contemplative. 
 
 History exhibits numerous instances of 
 empires which have been suddenly elevated 
 to greatness by the genius or fortune of a 
 single man ; but in all such cases the dominion 
 has been as short-lived in its endurance as it 
 was rapid in its growth. The successive em- 
 pires of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamer- 
 lane, Nadir Shah, Charlemagne, and Napo- 
 leon, attest this truth. But there is no example 
 of a nation having risen to durable greatness, 
 2C 
 
302 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 or attained a lasting dominion over the bodies 
 and minds of men, but by long previous efforts, 
 and the struggles and sufferings of many suc- 
 cessive centuries. It would appear to be a 
 general law of nature, alike in the material and 
 the moral world, that nothing permanent is 
 erected but by slow degrees, and that hardship 
 and suffering constitute the severe but neces- j 
 sary school of ultimate greatness. In this 
 point of view, there is a remarkable analogy 
 between the history, from the earliest periods, ! 
 of England, France, and Russia, the three 
 powers which stood forth so prominent in the j 
 great fight of the 19th century. Their periods 
 of greatness, of suffering, and of probation, 
 from their infancy have been the same ; and 
 during the long training of a thousand years, 
 each has at the same time, and in a similar 
 manner, been undergoing the moral discipline 
 requisite for ultimate greatness, and the effects 
 of which now appear in the lasting impression 
 they have made upon the world. We do not 
 recollect to have ever seen this remarkable 
 analogy in the annals of three first-born of 
 European states ; but it is so striking, that we 
 must request our reader's attention for a few 
 minutes to its consideration. 
 
 The Russian empire, as already mentioned, 
 was founded by Rurick, a hero and a wise 
 monarch, about the year 860; and ere long its 
 forces were so powerful, that eighty thousand 
 Russians attacked the Bosphorus, and threaten- 
 ed Constantinople in a more serious manner 
 than it has since been, even by the victorious 
 arms of Catherine or Nicholas. This first and 
 great era in Russian story this sudden burst 
 into existence, was contemporary with that of 
 Alfred in England, who began to reign in 871, 
 and nearly so with Charlemagne in France, 
 who died at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 814, leaving 
 an empire co-extensive with that which was 
 exactly a thousand years afterwards lost by 
 Napoleon. 
 
 The two centuries and a half of weakness, 
 civil dissension, and external decline, which in 
 Russia commenced with the system of divid- 
 ing the empire into apanages in 1060, were 
 contemporary with a similar period of distrac- 
 tion and debility, both to the English and 
 French monarchies. To the former by the 
 Norman conquests, which took place in that 
 very year, and was followed by continual op- 
 pression of the people, and domestic warfare 
 among the barons, till they were repressed by 
 the firm hand of Edward I., who first rallied 
 the native English population to the support 
 of the crown, and by his vigour and abilities 
 overawed the Norman nobility in the end of 
 the 13th century. To the latter, by the mise- 
 rable weakness which overtook the empire of 
 Charlemagne under the rule of his degenerate 
 successor; until at length its frontiers were 
 contracted from the Elbe and the Pyrenees to 
 the Aisne and the Loire, till all the great 
 feudatories in the monarchy had become inde- 
 pendent princes, and the decrees of the king 
 of France were not obeyed farther than twenty 
 miles around Paris. 
 
 The woful period of Moscovite oppression, 
 when ravaged by the successful armies of 
 Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and Bati, and 
 
 when the people for two centuries drank the 
 cup of humiliation from Tartar conquests, or 
 purchased a precarious respite by the igno- 
 miny of Tartar tribute, was contemporary with 
 the disastrous English wars in France. The 
 battle of Cressy was fought in 1314; that of 
 Azincour in 1415; and it was not till 1448, 
 that these hated invaders were at length 
 finally expelled from the Gallic shores, by the 
 effects of the heroism of the Maid of Orleans, 
 and the jealousies of the English nobility in 
 the time of Henry VI. If these wars were dis- 
 astrous to France, if they induced the hor- 
 rors of famine, pestilence, and Jacquerie, 
 which ere long reduced its inhabitants a-half, 
 not less ruinous were their consequences to 
 England, exhausting, as they did, the strength 
 of the monarchy in unprofitable foreign wars, 
 and leaving the nation a prey, at their termi- 
 nation, to the furious civil contests of York 
 and Lancaster, which for above twenty years 
 drenched their fields with blood, almost de- 
 stroyed the old nobility, and left the weak and 
 disjointed people an easy prey to the tyrannic 
 rule of Henry VIII., who put 72,000 persons to 
 death by the hand of the executioner in his 
 single reign. It is hard to say whether Rus- 
 sia, when emerging from the severities of 
 Tartar bondage or France, when freed from 
 the scourge of English invasions or England, 
 when decimated by the frightful carnage of 
 York and Lancaster, were in the more deplor- 
 able condition. 
 
 From this pitiable state of weakness and 
 suffering all the three monarchies were raised 
 about, the same period by three monarchs, who 
 succeeded* in each, partly by wisdom, partly 
 by good fortune, partly by fraud, in re-con- 
 structing the disjointed members of the state, 
 and giving to the central government the 
 vigour and unity which had been lost amidst 
 the distractions and sufferings of former times, 
 but was essential to the tranquillity and well- 
 being of society. John III., who achieved this 
 great work in Russia, was the counterpart of 
 Louis XL, who at the same time accomplished 
 it in France. John III. ascended the throne in 
 1462, and reigned till 1505. Louis XI. in 1461, 
 and reigned till 1483. Both were cautious in 
 design, and persevering in execution; both 
 were bold in council rather than daring in the 
 field ; both prevailed in a barbarous age, rather 
 by their superior cunning and dissimulation 
 than the wisdom or justice of their measures. 
 Both had implicitly adopted the Machiavelian 
 maxim, that the end will in all cases justify 
 the means, and employed without scruple fraud 
 and perfidy, as well as wisdom and persever- 
 ance to accomplish their grand object, the re- 
 storation of the throne, and abasement of the 
 great feudatories. Both were equally success- 
 ful. The reunion of the apanages to the crown 
 of the Russian Grand Prince, the subjugation 
 of the ancient republic of Novogorod, the an- 
 nexation of that of Pfosk by his successors, 
 were steps extremely analogous to the defeat 
 of Charles the Bold, and the acquisition of 
 Normandy and Acquitaine by Louis XL, and 
 the happy marriage of Anne of Britanny to his 
 royal successor. Nor was the coincidence of 
 a similar monarch on the throne, and a similar 
 
KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 
 
 303 
 
 revolution in society in England at the same 
 period, less remarkable. Henry VII. won the 
 crown of England on the field of Bosworth in 
 1483, and reigned till 1509. By uniting the 
 rival pretensions of the Houses of York and 
 Lancaster to the throne, through his marriage 
 with the heiress of the former house, he re- 
 constructed the English monarchy ; his avarice 
 left a vast treasure which rendered the crown 
 independent to his vehement successor; his 
 cautious policy broke down the little power 
 which the fierce contests of former times had 
 left to the Norman nobility. John III., Louis 
 XL, and Henry VII. were the real restorers of 
 the monarchy in their respective kingdoms of 
 Russia, France, and England ; and they were 
 men of the same character, and flourished very 
 nearly at the same time. 
 
 The next epoch in the history of Russia was 
 that of Peter the Great, whose genius overcame 
 the obstacles consequent on the remoteness of 
 its situation, and opened to its people the ca- 
 reer of European industry, arts, and arms. 
 Russia had now gone through the ordeal of 
 greatness and of suffering; it had come pow- 
 erful, energetic, and valiant, out of the school 
 of suffering. But the remoteness of its situa- 
 tion, the want of water communication with its 
 principal provinces, the barbarous Turks who 
 held the key to its richest realms in the south, 
 and the Frozen Ocean, which for half the year 
 barricaded its harbours in the north, had 
 hitherto prevented the industry and civilization 
 of its inhabitants from keeping pace with their 
 martial prowess and great aspirations. At 
 this period Peter arose, who, uniting the wis- 
 dom of a philosopher and the genius of a law- 
 giver, to the zeal of an enthusiast and the fero- 
 city of a despot, forcibly drove his subjects in- 
 to the new career, and forced them, in spite of 
 themselves, to engage in the arts and labours 
 of peace. Contemporary with this vast heave 
 of the Moscovite empire, was a similar growth 
 of the power and energy of France and Eng- 
 land ; but the different characters of the Asiatic 
 and European monarchy and of the free com- 
 munity, were now conspicuous. The age of 
 Peter the Great, in Russia, was that of Louis 
 XIV. in France; of the Revolution of 1688, 
 and of Marlborough, in England. The same 
 age saw the victories of Pultowa and Blen- 
 heim ; the overthrow of Charles XII. and hum- 
 bling of the Grand Monarque. But great was 
 now the difference in the character of the na- 
 tions by whom these achievements were effect- 
 ed. Peter, by the force of Asiatic power, drove 
 an ignorant and brutish race into industry and 
 art; Louis led a chivalrous and gallant nation 
 to the highest pitch of splendour and great- 
 ness ; William III. was impelled by the free 
 spirit of an energetic and religious community, 
 into the assertion of Protestant independence, 
 and the maintenance of European freedom. 
 But this great step in all the three nations took 
 place at the same time, and under sovereigns 
 severally adapted to the people they were 
 called to rule, and the part they were destined 
 to play on the theatre of the world. 
 
 The last great step in the history of Russia 
 has been that of Alexander an era signalized 
 beyond all others by the splendour and magni- 
 
 tude of military success. It witnessed the con- 
 quest of Finland and Georgia, of Walacliia, 
 Moldavia, the acquisition of Poland, and the 
 extension of the empire to the Araxes. Need 
 we say with what events this period was con- 
 temporary in France and England? that the 
 age which witnessed the burning of Moscow, 
 saw also the taking of Paris that Pitt and 
 Wellington were contemporary with Alexan- 
 der and Barclay that but a year separated 
 Leipsic and Waterloo? Coming, as it did, at 
 the close of this long period of parallel ad- 
 vance and similar vicissitudes, during a thou- 
 sand years, there is something inexpressibly 
 impressive in this contemporaneous rise of the 
 three great powers of Europe to the highest 
 pinnacle of worldly grandeur this simulta- 
 neous efflorescence of empires, which during 
 so long a period had advanced parallel to each 
 other in the painful approach to worldly great- 
 ness. Nor let the intellectual pride of western. 
 Europe despise the simple and comparatively 
 untutored race, which has only within the last 
 century and a half taken a prominent part in 
 the affairs of Europe. The virtues, whether of 
 nations or individuals, are not the least im- 
 portant which are nursed in solitude ; the cha- 
 racter not the least commanding, which, chas- 
 tened by suffering, is based on a sense of reli- 
 gious duty. The nation is not to be despised 
 which overthrew Napoleon; the moral train- 
 ing not forgotten which fired the torches of 
 Moscow. European liberalism and infidelity 
 will acquire a right to ridicule Moscovite igno- 
 rance and barbarity, when it has produced 
 equal achievements, but not till then. 
 
 All the recent events in history, as well as 
 the tendency of opinion in all the enlightened 
 men in all countries who have been bred up 
 under their influence, point to the conclusion 
 that there is an original and indelible differ- 
 ence in the character of the different races of 
 men, and that each will best find its highest 
 point of Social advancement by institutions 
 which have grown out of its ruling disposi- 
 tions. This is but an exemplification of the 
 profound observation long ago made by Mon- 
 tesquieu, that no nation ever rose to durable 
 greatness but by institutions in harmony with 
 its spirit. Perhaps no national calamities 
 have been so great, because none so lasting 
 and irremediable, as those which have arisen 
 from the attempt to transfer the institutions of 
 our race and stage of political advancement 
 to another family of men and another era of 
 social progress. Recollecting what great things 
 the Slavonic race has done both in former and 
 present times, it is curious to see the character 
 which Karamsin gives of them in the first vo- 
 lume of his great work: 
 
 "Like all other people the Slavonians, at 
 the commencement of their political exist- 
 ence, were ignorant of the advantages of a re- 
 gular government; they would neither tolerate 
 masters nor slaves among them, holding the 
 fruit of blessings to consist in the enjoyment 
 of unbounded freedom. The father of a family 
 commanded his children, the husband his wife, 
 the master his household, the brother his sis- 
 ters; every one constructed his hut in a place 
 apart from the rest, in order that he might live 
 
304 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 more at ease, and according to his own incli 
 nations. A wood, a stream, a field, constitutec 
 the dominion of a Slavonian; and no unarmec 
 person ventured to violate the sanctity of hi 
 domain each family formed a little independ- 
 ent republic ; and the ancient customs, com- 
 mon to the whole nation, served them instead 
 of laws. On important occasions the different 
 tribes assembled to deliberate on their common 
 concerns ; they consulted the old men, those 
 living repositories of ancient usages, and they 
 evinced the utmost deference to their advice. 
 The same system was adopted when they re- 
 quired to elect a chief for one of their warlike 
 expeditions ; but such was their excessive love 
 of freedom, and repugnance towards any kind 
 of constraint, that they imposed various limi- 
 tations on the authority of their chiefs, whom 
 they often disobeyed, even in the heat of bat- 
 tle : after having terminated their expedition, 
 every one returned to his home, and resumed 
 the command of his children and household. 
 
 "That savage simplicity that rudeness of 
 manners could not long endure. The pillage 
 of the empire of the east, the centre of luxury 
 and riches, made the Slavonians acquainted 
 with new pleasures and hitherto unfelt wants. 
 These wants, by putting an end to their soli- 
 tary independence, drew closer the bonds of 
 social dependence: they daily felt more 
 strongly the necessity cf mutual support; 
 they placed their homes nearer each other; 
 they began to build towns. Others, who had 
 seen in foreign countries magnificent cities 
 and flourishing villages, lost all taste for the 
 obscurity of the forests, once endeared to their 
 hearts by the love of independence; they 
 passed into the provinces of Greece; they 
 consented to range themselves under the rule 
 of the emperor. The fate of war placed, for a 
 brief season, a large part of the German Sla- 
 vonians under the government of Charlemagne 
 and his successors; but an unconquerable 
 love of freedom was ever the basis of their 
 character. On the first favourable opportunity 
 they threw off the yoke, and avenged them- 
 selves cruelly on their rulers for their transient 
 subjection: they were never finally reduced 
 to order but by the influences of the Christian 
 religion." Vol. i. p. 68, 69. 
 
 How strongly does this picture of the Sla- 
 vonic race, a thousand years ago, recall the 
 traces of the Poles of the present time! The 
 same love of solitary and isolated freedom, 
 the same passion for independence, the same 
 fretting under the restraints of civilization and 
 the curb of authority, the source at once of 
 their strength and their weakness their glo- 
 ries and their ruin ! 
 
 If it be true, as Shakspeare has told us, that 
 the ruling passion is strong in death ; no slight 
 interest will attach to Karamsin's graphic pic- 
 ture of the character evinced in the supreme 
 hour by the three races which have so long 
 contended for the mastery of the east, viz., the 
 Tartars, the Russians or Slavonians, and the 
 Turks. 
 
 " Cannons for a long time were not regarded 
 by the Russians as a necessary part of the 
 implements of war. Invented as they con- 
 ceived by the Italian artists for the defence of 
 
 fortresses, they allowed them to remain mo- 
 tionless on their carriages on the ramparts of 
 the Kremlin. In the moment of combat the 
 Russians trusted more to their number than to 
 the skill of their manoeuvres; they endea- 
 voured in general to attack the enemy in rear, 
 and surround him. Like all Asiatic nations, 
 they looked rather to their movements at a 
 distance than in close fight ; but when they did 
 charge, their attacks were impetuous and ter- 
 rible, but of short duration. 'In their vehe- 
 ment shock,' says Herberstain, ' they seemed 
 to say to their enemy, Fly, or we will fly our- 
 selves !' In war as in pacific life, the people 
 of different races differ to an astonishing de- 
 gree from each other. Thrown down from his 
 horse, disarmed, and covered with blood, the 
 Tartar never thinks of surrender: he shakes 
 his arms, repels the enemy with his foot, and 
 with dying fury bites him. No sooner is the 
 Turk sensible he is overthrown, than he throws 
 aside his scimitar, and implores the gene- 
 rosity of his conqueror. Pursue a Russian, 
 he makes no attempt to defend himself in his 
 flight, but never does he ask for quarter. Is 
 he pierced by lances or swords, he is silent, and 
 die?." Vol. vii. p. 252. 
 
 These are the men of whom Frederick the 
 Great said, you might kill them where they 
 stood, but never make them fly. "They were 
 motionless, fell, and died !" 
 
 'Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave." 
 
 A devout sense of religion, a warm and con- 
 stant sense of Divine superintendence, has in 
 every age, from the days of Rurick to those 
 of Alexander, formed the ruling principle and 
 grand characteristic of the Russians, and has 
 of all nations which have ever risen to durable 
 greatness. Karamsin tells us that from the 
 remotest period this has been the unvarying 
 characteristic of the Slavonic race: 
 
 "In the 6th century, the Slavonians adored 
 he Creator of Thunder, the God of the uni- 
 verse. The majestic spectacle of storms, at 
 the moment when an invisible hand appears 
 rom the height of the burning heavens to 
 dart its lightnings upon the earth, must ever 
 make a deep impression alike on civilized 
 and savage man. The Slavonians and Antes, 
 is Procopius observes, did not believe in des- 
 iny; but, according to them, all events depend- 
 d on the mil of a Ruler of the world. On the 
 field of battle, in the midst of perils, in sick- 
 ness, in calamity, they sought to bind the Su- 
 preme Being, by vows, by the sacrifice of 
 bulls and goats, to appease his wrath. On the 
 same principle, they adored the rivers and 
 mountains, whom they peopled with nymphs 
 and genii, by whose aid they sought to pene- 
 trate the depths of futurity. In later times, 
 the Slavonians had abundance of idols; per- 
 suaded that true wisdom consisted in knowing 
 the name and qualities of each god, in order to 
 be able to propitiate his favour. They were 
 true polytheists, considering their statues not 
 as images of the gods, but as inspired by their 
 spirit, and wielding their power. 
 
 " Nevertheless, in the midst of these absurd 
 superstitions, the Slavonians had an idea of a 
 supreme and all-powerful Being, to whom the 
 
KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 
 
 305 
 
 immensity of the heavens, dazzling with thou 
 sands of stars, formed a worthy temple ; but 
 who was occupied only, with celestial objects, 
 while he had intrusted to subaltern deities, or 
 to his children, the government of the world. 
 They called him ' Bilibos,' or ' the White God,' 
 while the spirit of evil was named 'Teherm- 
 bog,' or ' the Black God.' They sought to ap- 
 pease the lash by sacrifices: he was represented 
 under the image of a lion ; and to his malig- 
 nant influences they ascribed all their misfor- 
 tunes and miseries of life. The beneficent 
 Deity they considered too elevated to be 
 swayed by prayers, or approached by mortals: 
 it was the inferior executors of his will who 
 alone were to be propitiated." Vol. i. p. 99 
 102. 
 
 It has been already mentioned, that the Rus- 
 sian empire was founded by Rurick, in 862. 
 And it is very remarkable that supreme power 
 was obtained by that great warrior, not by the 
 sword of conquest, but by the voluntary and 
 unanimous will of the people. 
 
 " In Russia," says Karamsin, " sovereign 
 power was established with the unanimous 
 consent of the inhabitants ; and the Slavonic 
 tribes concurred in forming an empire which 
 has for its limits now the Danube, America, 
 Sweden and China. The origin of the govern- 
 ment was as follows : the Slavonians of No- 
 vogorod and the central districts around Mos- 
 cow, sent an embassy to the Varegue-Russians, 
 who were established on the other side of the 
 Baltic, with these words ' Our country is 
 great and fertile, but under the rule of disor- 
 der : come and take, it.' Three brothers named 
 RCTRICK, Sincori, and Trouver, illustrious alike 
 by their birth and their great actions, escorted 
 by a numerous body of Slavonians, accepted 
 the perilous invitation, and fixed their abode, 
 and began to assume the government in Rus- 
 sia, Rurick at Novogorod, Sincori at Bich 
 Ozero, near the Fins, and Trouver at Izborsk. 
 Within less than two years, Sincori and 
 Trouver both died, and Rurick obtained the 
 government of the whole provinces which 
 had invited them over; and which embraced 
 all the central provinces of Russia; and the 
 feudal system was established over their whole 
 extent." Vol. i. p. 143, 144. 
 
 The Dnieper was the great artery of this 
 infant dominion; at once their watery high 
 road, and no inconsiderable source of subsist- 
 ence. It was on its bosom that the innumera- 
 ble canoes were launched, which, filled with 
 yellow-haired and ferocious warriors, descend- 
 ed to the Sea of Azoph, penetrated into the 
 Black Sea, forced the passage of the Bospho- 
 rus, and often besieged Constantinople itself. 
 In less than a century after its first origin, the 
 Russian empire was already a preponderating 
 power in the east of Europe. Before the year 
 950 the conquests of Oleg, Sviatoslof, and Vla- 
 dimir, the successors of Rurick, had advanced 
 its frontiers, on the west, to the Baltic, the 
 Dwina, the Bug, and the Carpathian moun- 
 tains; on the south, to the cataracts of the 
 Dnieper, and the Cimmerian Bo.sphorus ; (in 
 the east and north to Finland and the Ural 
 mountains, and on the south-east nearly to the 
 Caspian Sea; corresponding nearly to the 
 39 
 
 boundaries of Russia in Europe at this time. 
 The words of the Novogorodians, their allies, 
 which the old annalist of Russia, Nestor, has 
 transmitted, expressed the principle of the go- 
 vernment of this vast empire, at this early pe- 
 riod : " We wish a prince who will command 
 and govern us according to the laws ;" that is 
 to say, as a limited monarchy. 
 
 Kieff was for centuries the capital of this 
 rising dominion, its situation on the bank of 
 the Dnieper being singularly favourable for 
 the development of the resources of the em- 
 pire. Of its strength and formidable charac- 
 ter from the earliest times, decisive evidence 
 is afforded by the three great expeditions which 
 they fitted out against Constantinople, and 
 which are recorded alike by the Greek and 
 early religious annalists. Of the first of these, 
 in 905, Karamsin has given us the following 
 animated account: 
 
 "In 905, Oleg, in order to find employment 
 for his restless and rapacious subjects, de- 
 clared war against the empire. No sooner 
 was this determination known, than all the 
 warlike tribes from the shores of Finland to 
 those of the Vistula, crowded to the Dniester, 
 and were ranged under the standard of Oleg. 
 Speedily the Dniester was covered by 2,000 
 light barks, each of which carried forty com- 
 batants. Thus 80,000 armed men descended 
 the river, flushed with victory, and eager for 
 the spoils of the imperial city. The cavalry 
 marched along the banks, and soon the mighty 
 host approached the cataracts of the Dnieper, 
 which were of a much more formidable cha- 
 racter than they are now, when so many sub- 
 sequent centuries, and no small efforts of 
 human industry, have bean at work in clearing 
 away the obstacles of true navigation. The 
 Varagues of Kieff had first ventured with two 
 hundred barks to enter into the perilous ra- 
 pids, and through pointed rocks, and amidst 
 foaming whirlpools, had safely reached the 
 bottom. On this occasion Oieg passed with a 
 fleet and army ten times as numerous. The 
 Russians threw themselves into the water, 
 and conducted the barks by the strength of 
 the swimmers down the rapids. In many 
 places they were obliged to clamber up on the 
 banks, and seeking a precarious footing on 
 the sharp ridges of rocks and precipices, often 
 bore the barks aloft on their shoulders. After 
 incredible efforts they reached the mouth of 
 the river, where they repaired their masts, 
 sails, and rudders ; and boldly putting to sea, 
 which most of them had never seen before, 
 spread forth on the unknown waters of the 
 Euxine. The cavalry marched by land, and 
 though grievously weakened in number by 
 the extraordinary length of the land journey, 
 joined their fleet at the mouth of the Bospho- 
 rus ; and the united force, 60,000 strong, ap- 
 proached Constantinople. 
 
 'Leon, surnamed the philosopher, reigned 
 there ; and incapable of any warlike effort he 
 contented himself with closing the mouth of 
 the Golden Horn, or harbour of Constanti- 
 nople; and secure behind its formidable ram- 
 parts, beheld with indifference the villages 
 around in flames, their churches pillaged and 
 destroyed, and the wretched inhabitants driven 
 2c2 
 
306 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 by the swords and lances of the Russians into 
 the capital. Nestor, the Russian annalist, has 
 left the most frightful account of the cruel bar- 
 barities committed on these defenceless in- 
 habitants by the victorious warriors, who put 
 their prisoners to death by the cruelest tortures, 
 and hurled the living promiscuously with the 
 dead into the sea. Meanwhile the Greeks, 
 albeit numerous and admirably armed, re- 
 mained shut up in Constantinople ; but soon 
 the Russian standards approached the walls, 
 and they began to tremble behind their im- 
 pregnable ramparts. Oleg drew up his boats 
 on the shore, and putting them, as at the cata- 
 racts of the Dnieper, on the shoulders of his 
 men, reached the harbour on the land side; 
 and after launching them on its upper extremi- 
 ty, appeared with spreading sails, as Mahomet 
 II. afterwards did, ready to land his troops 
 behind the chain, and escalade the walls, on 
 the side where they were weakest. Terrified 
 at this audacious enterprise, the Emperor 
 Leon hastened to sue for peace, offering to 
 send provisions and equipments for the fleet, 
 and to pay an annual tribute ; and a treaty was 
 at length concluded, on the condition that each 
 Russian in the armament should receive 
 twelve grionas, and heavy contributions should 
 be levied on the empire for the towns of Kieff, 
 Tchernigof, Polteck, Lubetch, and other de- 
 pendencies of Russia." Vol. i. p. 162 165. 
 
 When the imperial city in the commence- 
 ment of the 10th century was assailed by such 
 formidable bodies of these northern invaders, 
 and its emperors were so little in a condition 
 to resist the attack, it is not surprising that it 
 should have been prophesied in that city 900 
 years ago, that in its last days Constantinople 
 should be taken by the Russians. The sur- 
 prising thing rather is, that in consequence of 
 the lateral irruption of the Turks, and the sub- 
 sequent jealousies of other European powers, 
 this consummation should have been so long 
 delayed as it actually has. 
 
 Passing by the two centuries and a half of 
 weakness, civil warfare, and decline, which 
 followed the disastrous system of apanages, 
 which are uninteresting to general history, we 
 hasten to lay before our readers a specimen 
 of the description Karamsin has given of the 
 terrible effects produced by the Tartar inva- 
 sions, which commenced in 1223. The de- 
 vastation of that flourishing part of Asia which 
 formerly bore the name of Bactriana and 
 Sogdiana, is thus described: 
 
 " Bokhara in vain attempted a defence 
 against Genghis Khan. The elders of the town 
 came out to leave the keys of the city at the 
 feet of the conqueror, but to no purpose. 
 Genghis Khan appeared on horseback, and 
 entered the principal mosque; no sooner did 
 he see the Alcoran there, than he seized it, and 
 threw it with fury to the ground. That capital 
 was reduced to ashes. Samarcand, fortified 
 with care, contained 100,000 soldiers, and a 
 great number of elephants, which constituted 
 at that period the principal strength of the 
 Asiatic armies. Distrusting even these power- 
 ful means of defence, the inhabitants threw 
 themselves on the mercy of the conqueror, but 
 met with a fate as cruel as if they had stood 
 
 an assault. Thirty thousand were put to death 
 in cold blood, a like number condemned to 
 perpetual slavery, and a contribution of 200,000 
 pieces of gold levied on the town. Khiva 
 Tirmel, and Balkh, in the last of which were 
 1200 mosques, and 200 baths for strangers 
 alone, experienced the same fate. During two 
 or three years the ferocious wars of Genghis 
 Khan ravaged to such a degree the wide coun- 
 tries stretching from the sea of Aral to the 
 Indus, that during the six centuries which 
 have since elapsed, they have never recovered 
 their former flourishing condition." Vol. iii. 
 p. 281, 282. 
 
 At length this terrible tempest approached 
 the Moscovite plains. The first great battle 
 between the Moguls and the Russians took 
 place in 1226. 
 
 "Encouraged by a trifling success they had 
 gained over the advanced guard of the enemy, 
 the Russians drew up their army on the left 
 bank of the Kalka, and calmly awaited the ap- 
 proach of the enemy. Soon the innumerable 
 squadrons of the Tartars appeared, and the in- 
 trepid Daniel, overflowing with courage, bore 
 down upon the vanguard, broke it, and had 
 well-nigh gained a glorious victory; but the 
 cowardly Polontsks could not stand the shock 
 of the Moguls, and speedily turned their backs 
 and fled. In the delirium of terror, they pre- 
 cipitated themselves on the Russians, penetra- 
 ted their ranks, and carried the most frightful 
 disorder into their camp, where the princes of 
 KiefF and Tchernigof had made no prepara- 
 tions for battle, as Moteslaf, their general, who 
 commanded the leading column, wishing to 
 engross the whole honours of victory, had 
 given them no warning of the approaching 
 fight. Once broken, the Russians made but a 
 feeble resistance; even the young Daniel was 
 swept away by the torrent, and it was not till 
 his horse stopped on the brink of a stream 
 which it could not pass, that he felt a deep 
 wound which he had received in the com- 
 mencement of the action. The Tartars, in 
 continuing the pursuit to the banks of the 
 Dnieper, made a prodigious slaughter of the 
 flying Muscovites; among others, six princes 
 and seventy nobles were put to death. Never 
 did Russia experience a more stunning ca- 
 lamity. A superb army, numerous, valiant, 
 animated with the highest spirit, almost en- 
 tirely disappeared; hardly a tenth part of its 
 numbers escaped. The base Polontsks, our 
 pretended allies, joined in the massacre of the 
 Russians, when victory had decidedly declared 
 in favour of the Moguls. In the consternation 
 which followed, the few Russian generals 
 who survived threw themselves into the 
 Dnieper, and destroyed all the boats on the 
 river, to prevent the enemy from following 
 after them. All but Moteslaf Romanevich, of 
 Kieff, passed over: but that chief, who was 
 left in a fortified camp on the summit of a hill, 
 disdained to abandon his post, and actually 
 awaited the whole fury of the Mogul onset. 
 Daring three days, at the head of his heroic 
 band, he repulsed all their efforts, and at length 
 wearied with a resistance which they saw no 
 means of surmounting, the Mogul leaders pro- 
 posed to allow him to retire with his troops, 
 
KARAMSIN'S RUSSIA. 
 
 307 
 
 provided a ransom was agreed to, which ca- 
 pitulation was agreed to and sworn on both 
 sides. No sooner, however, had the perfidious 
 Tartars by this device wiled the Russians out 
 of their stronghold, than they fell upon them 
 and massacred the whole, and concluded their 
 triumph, by making a horrid feast of their 
 bloody remains." Vol. iii. p. 289 291. 
 
 The immediate subjugation of Russia seemed 
 presaged by this dreadful defeat; but the dan- 
 ger at the moment was averted by orders from 
 Genghis Khan, who withdrew his forces to the 
 south for an expedition against Persia. But 
 the breathing-time was not of long duration. 
 Before many years had elapsed, the Tartars 
 returned flushed with fresh conquest under the 
 redoubtable Bati. That terrible conqueror, 
 the scourge of Russia, took and burnt Moscow, 
 where the prince, who commanded, and the 
 whole of the inhabitants, were put to the 
 sword, without distinction of age or sex. City 
 after city, province after province, fell before 
 the dreadful invaders, who seemed as irresisti- 
 ble as they were savage and pitiless. Broken 
 down into numerous little apanages, or separate 
 principalities, the once powerful Russian em- 
 pire was incapable of making any effectual 
 resistance. Yet were examples not wanting 
 of the most heroic and touching devotion, 
 worthy to be placed beside the names of Asta- 
 pa and Numantium. 
 
 "Bati sent a part of his troops against Souz- 
 del, which made no resistance. As soon as 
 they had entered it, the Tartars, according to 
 their usual custom, put to death the whole 
 population, with the exception of the young 
 monks at Nuni, who were reserved for sla- 
 very. On the 6th of February, 1238, the in- 
 habitants of Vladimir beheld the dark squad- 
 rons of the Tartars, like a black torrent, sur- 
 round their walls; and soon the preparation 
 of scaling ladders and palisades indicated an 
 immediate assault. Unable to resist this in- 
 numerable army, and yet sensible that it was 
 in vain, as the Moguls would massacre, or sell 
 them all for slaves, the boyards, and nobles, 
 inspired with a sublime spirit, resolved to die 
 as became them. The most heart-rending 
 spectacle followed. Vsevold, his wife and 
 children, and a great number of illustrious 
 nobles assembled in the church of Notre Dame, 
 where they supplicated the Bishop Metrophene, 
 to give them the ' tonsure monacale,' which se- 
 vered them from the world. That solemnity 
 took place in profound silence. Those heroic 
 citizens had bid adieu to the world and to life; 
 but at the moment of quitting it, they did not 
 pray the less fervently for the existence of 
 their beloved Russia. On the 7th of February, 
 being the Sunday of the Carnival, the assault 
 commenced, the Tartars broke into the city 
 by the Golden Gate, by that of Brass and that 
 of Saint Irene. Vsevold and Moteslaf retired 
 with their guards into the old town, while 
 Agatha, the wife of Georges, the general-in- 
 chief, his daughters, nieces, grand-daughters, 
 and a crowd of citizens of the highest rank, 
 flocked to the cathedral, where they were soon 
 surrounded by the ferocious Moguls, who set 
 fire to the building. No sooner did he per- 
 ceive the flames, than the bishop exclaimed, 
 
 ' Oh, Lord ! stretch out your invisible arms, 
 and receive your servants in peace,' and gave 
 his benediction to all around him. In fervent 
 devotion they fell on their faces, awaiting death, 
 which speedily overtook them. Some were 
 suffocated by the volumes of smoke which 
 rushed in on all sides, others perished in the 
 flames or sank beneath the sword of the Tar- 
 tars. The blood-thirstiness of the Moguls 
 could not await the advance of the conflagra- 
 tion ; with hatchets they burst open the gates and 
 rushed in, eager for the treasures which they 
 thought were hid in the interior. The cruel 
 warriors of Bati made scarce any prisoners : 
 all perished by the sword or the flames. The 
 Prince Vsevold and Moteslaf, finding them- 
 selves unable to repel the enemy, strove to 
 cut their way through their dense battalions, 
 and both perished in the attempt." Vol. iii. p. 
 344, 345. 
 
 Another instance of sublime devotion will 
 close our extracts from the scenes of car- 
 nage : 
 
 " After the destruction of Vladimir, the nu- 
 merous Tartar bands advanced towards Ko- 
 zilsk, in the government of Kalonga. Vassili 
 commanded in that town, and with his guards 
 and his people deliberated on the part which 
 they should adopt. 'Our prince is still young,' 
 exclaimed those faithful Russians: 'It is our 
 duty to die for him, in order to leave a glorious 
 name, and to find beyond the tomb the crown 
 of immortality.' All united in this generous 
 determination, resolving at the same time to 
 retard the enemy as much as possible by the 
 most heroic resistance. During more than a 
 month the Tartars besieged the fortress with- 
 out being able to make any sensible progress 
 in its reduction. At length a part of the walls, 
 having fallen down, under their strokes, the 
 Tartars escaladed the ramparts ; but at their 
 summit, they were met by a determined band 
 of Russians, who with knives and swords, dis- 
 puted every inch of ground, and slew 4,000 
 Tartars before they sank under the innumer- 
 able multitude of their enemies. Not one of 
 that heroic band survived ; the whole inhabit- 
 ants, men, women, and children, were put to 
 death, and Bati, astonished at so vehement a 
 resistance, called the town, ' the wicked city ;' 
 a glorious appellation when coming from 
 a Tartar chief. Vassili perished, literally 
 drowned in the blood of his followers." Vol. 
 iii. p. 549, 550. 
 
 And it is at the time when these heroic 
 deeds are for the first time brought under the 
 notice of the people of this country, that we 
 are told that every thing is worn out, and that 
 nothing new or interesting is to be found in 
 human affairs. 
 
 But all these efforts, how heroic soever, 
 could not ayert the stroke of fate. Russia was 
 subdued less by the superior skill or valour, 
 than the enormous numbers of the enemy, who 
 at length poured into the country 400,000 
 strong. For above two hundred and fifty years 
 they were tributary to the Tartars, and the 
 grand princes of Russia were confirmed in 
 their government by the Great Khan. The 
 first great effort to shake off that odious yoke, 
 was made in 1378, wheu Dmitri collected tbestii] 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 scattered forces of the apanages to make head 
 against the common enemy. The two armies, 
 each 150,000 strong, met at Koulikoff, on the 
 7th September, 1378, on which day, four hun- 
 dred and thirty-four years afterwards, Napoleon 
 and Kutasoff commenced the dreadful strug- 
 gle at Borodino. 
 
 " On the 6th September, the army approached 
 the Don, and the princes and boyards delib- 
 erated whether they should retire across the 
 river, so as to place it between them and the 
 enemy, or await them where they stood, in 
 order to cut off all retreat from the cowardly, 
 and compel them to conquer or die. Dmitri 
 then ascended a mound, from which he could 
 survey his vast army. 'The hour of God,' 
 said he, 'has sounded.' In truth no one could 
 contemplate that prodigious multitude of men 
 and horses; those innumerable battalions 
 ranged in the finest order; the thousands of 
 banners, and tens of thousands of arms glitter- 
 ing in the sun, and hear the cry repeated by a 
 hundred and fifty thousand voices, 'Great 
 God, give us the victory over our enemies,' 
 without having some confidence in the result. 
 Such was the emotion of the prince, that his 
 eyes filled with tears; and dismounting, he 
 knelt down, and stretching out his arm to the 
 black standard, on which was represented our 
 Saviour's figure, he prayed fervently for the 
 salvation of Russia. Then mounting his horse, 
 he said to those around, ' My well-beloved 
 brothers and companions in arms, it is by 
 your exploits this day, that you will live in 
 the memory of man, or obtain the crown of 
 immortality.' 
 
 "Soon the Tartar squadrons were seen 
 slowly advancing, and ere long they covered 
 the whole country to the eastward, as far as 
 the eye could reach. Great as was the host 
 of the Russians, they were outnumbered con- 
 siderably by the Moguls. His generals be- 
 sought Dmitri to retire, alleging the duty of a 
 commander-in-chief to direct the movements, 
 not hazard his person like a private soldier; 
 but he replied, 'No, you will suffer wherever 
 you are: if I live, follow me, if I die avenge 
 me.' Shortly after the battle commenced, and 
 was the most desperate ever fought between 
 the Russians and the Tartars. Over an ex- 
 tent of ten wersls, (seven miles,) the earth was 
 stained with the blood of the Christians and 
 Infidels. In some quarters the Russians 
 broke the Moguls ; in others they yielded to 
 their redoubtable antagonists. In the centre 
 some young battalions gave way, and spread 
 the cry that all was lost : the enemy rushed in 
 at the opening this afforded, and forced their 
 way nearly to the standard of the Grand 
 Prince, which was only preserved by the de- 
 voted heroism of his guard. Meanwhile 
 Prince Vladimir Andreiwitch, who was placed 
 with a chosen body of troops in ambuscade, 
 was furious at being the passive spectator of 
 so desperate a conflict in which he was not 
 permitted to bear a part. At length, at eight 
 at night, the Prince of Volhynia, who observed 
 with an experienced eye the movements of the 
 two armies, exclaimed, 'My friends, our time 
 has come !' and let the whole loose upon the 
 enemy, now somewhat disordered by success. 
 
 Instantly they emerged from the forest which 
 had concealed them from the enemy, and fell 
 with the utmost fury on the Moguls. The 
 effect of this unforeseen attack was decisive. 
 Astonished at the vehement onset, by troops 
 fresh and in the best order, the Tartars fled, 
 and their chief, Mamia, who, from an elevated 
 spot beheld the rout of his host, exclaimed, 
 'The God of the Christian is powerful!' and 
 joined in the general flight. The Russians 
 pursued the Moguls to the Metcha, in endea- 
 vouring to cross which vast numbers were 
 slain or drowned, and the camp, with an im- 
 mense booty, fell into the hands of the vic- 
 tors." Vol." v. pp. 7982. 
 
 This great victory, however, did not decide 
 the contest, and nearly a hundred years 
 ?lapsed before the independence of Russia 
 Vom the Tartars was finally established. Not 
 ong after this triumph, as after Boradino, 
 Moscow was taken and burnt by the Moguls; 
 the account of which must, for the present, 
 close our extracts. 
 
 ' No sooner were the walls of Moscow es- 
 caladed by the Tartars, than the whole inha- 
 bitants, men, women, and children, became 
 he prey of the cruel conquerors. Knowing 
 that great numbers had taken refuge in the 
 stone churches, which would not burn, they 
 ut down the gates with hatchets, and found 
 immense treasures, brought into these asy- 
 lums from the adjoining country. Satiated 
 with carnage and spoil, the Tartars next set 
 fire to the town, and drove a weeping crowd 
 of captives, whom they had selected for slaves, 
 from the massacre into the fields around. 
 ' What terms,' say the contemporary annalists, 
 ' can paint the deplorable state in which Mos- 
 cow was then left? That populous capital, 
 resplendent with riches and glory, was de- 
 stroyed in a single day!' Nothing remained 
 but a mass of ruins and ashes ; the earth 
 covered with burning remains and drenched 
 with blood, corpses half burnt, and churches 
 wrapt in flames. The awful silence was 
 interrupted only by the groans of the unhappy 
 wretches, who, crushed beneath the falling 
 houses, called aloud for some one to put a 
 period to their sufferings." Vol. v. p. 101. 
 
 Such was Russia at its lowest point of de- 
 pression in 1378. The steps by which it 
 regained its independence and became again 
 great and powerful, will furnish abundant 
 subject for another article on Karamsin's Mo- 
 dern History. 
 
 We know not what impression those ex- 
 tracts may have made on our readers, but on 
 ourselves they have produced one of the most 
 profound description. Nothing can be so 
 interesting as to trace the infancy and pro- 
 gressive growth of a great nation as of a 
 great individual. In both we can discover the 
 slow and gradual training of the mind to its 
 ultimate destiny, and the salutary influence of 
 adversity upon both in strengthening the 
 character, and calling forth the energies. It 
 is by the slowest possible degrees that nations 
 are trained to the heroic character, the patri- 
 otic spirit, the sustained effort, which is ne- 
 cessary to durable elevation. Extraordinary 
 but fleeting enthusiasm, the genius of a sin- 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 gle man, the conquests of a single nation, may 
 often elevate a power like that of Alexander. 
 in ancient, or Napoleon in modern times, to 
 the very highest pitch of worldly greatness. 
 But no reliance can be placed on the stability 
 of such empires; they invariably sink as fast 
 as they had risen, and leave behind them no- 
 thing but a brilliant, and, generally, awful 
 impression on the minds of succeeding ages. 
 If we would seek for the only sure foundations 
 of lasting greatness, we shall find them in the 
 persevering energy of national character; in 
 the industry with which wealth has been ac- 
 cumulated, and the fortitude with which suf- 
 fering has been endured through a long course 
 of ages ; and, above all, in the steady and con- 
 tinued influence of strong religious impres- 
 sions, which, by influencing men in every 
 important crisis by a sense of duty, has ren- 
 dered them superior to all the storms of for- 
 tune. And the influence of these principles is 
 nowhere more clearly to be traced than in the 
 steady progress and present exalted position 
 of the Russian empire. 
 
 Of Karamsin's merits as an author, a con- 
 ception may be formed from the extracts we 
 have already given. We must not expect in 
 the historian of a despotic empire, even when 
 recording the most distant events, the just dis- 
 crimination, the enlightened views, the fearless 
 opinions, which arise, or can be hazarded only 
 in a free country. The philosophy of history 
 is the slow growth of the opinions of all differ- 
 ent classes of men, each directed by their \ 
 
 ablest leaders, acting and receding upon each 
 other through a long course of ages. It was 
 almost wholly unknown to the ancient Greeks; 
 it was first struck out, at a period when the 
 recollections of past freedom contrasted with 
 the realities of present servitude, by the 
 mighty -genius of Tacitus, and the sagacity of 
 Machiavelli, the depth of Bacon, the philoso- 
 phy of Hume, the glance of Robertson, and 
 the wisdom of Guizot, have been necessary to 
 bring the science even to the degree of matu- 
 rity which it has as yet attained. But in 
 brilliancy of description, animation of style, 
 and fervour of eloquence. Karamsin is not ex- 
 ceeded by any historian in modern times. The 
 pictures he has given of the successive 
 changes in Russian manners, institutions, and 
 government, though hardly so frequent as 
 could have been wished, prove that he has in 
 him the spirit of philosophy; while in the 
 animation of his descriptions of every impor- 
 tant event, is to be seen the clearest indication 
 that he is gifted with the eye of poetic genius. 
 Russia may well be proud of such a work, 
 and it is disgraceful to the literature of this 
 country that no English translation of it has 
 yet appeared. We must, in conclusion, add, 
 that the elevated sentiments with which it 
 abounds, as well as the spirit of manly piety 
 and fervent patriotism in which it is con- 
 ceived, diminish our surprise at the continued 
 progress of an empire which was capable of 
 producing such a writer. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830.* 
 
 EVER since the late French Revolution hroke ! 
 out, and at a time when it carried with it the I 
 wishes, and deluded the judgment, of a large I 
 and respectable portion of the British public, J 
 we have never ceased to combat the then pre- 1 
 vailing opinion on the subject. We asserted ! 
 from the very outset that it was calculated to I 
 do incredible mischief to the cause of real j 
 freedom ; that it would throw back for a very 
 long period the march of tranquil liberty; that 
 it restored at once the rale of the strongest; 
 and, breaking down the superiority of intellect 
 and knowledge by the mere force of numbers, 
 would inevitably and rapidly lead, through a 
 bitter period of suffering, to the despotism of 
 the sword. 
 
 We founded our opinion upon the obvious 
 facts, that the Revolution was effected by the 
 populace of Paris, by the treachery of the 
 army, and the force of the barricades, without 
 any appeal to the judgment or wishes of the 
 remainder of France ; that a constitution was 
 framed, a king chosen, and a government esta- 
 blished at the Hotel de Ville, by a junto of en- 
 thusiastic heads, without either deliberation, 
 
 * Seize Mois, on La Revolution et La Revolutionaires, 
 par N. A. Salvandy, auteur de 1'Histoire de la Pologne. 
 Paris, 1831. Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1832. 
 
 time, or foresight; that this new constitution 
 was announced to the provinces by the tele- 
 graph, before they were even aware that a 
 civil war had broken out; that the Citizen 
 King was thus not elected by France, but im- 
 posed upon its inhabitants by the mob of Paris; 
 that this convulsion prostrated the few remain- 
 ing bulwarks of order and liberty which the 
 prior revolution had left standing, and nothing 
 remained to oppose the march of revolution, 
 and the devouring spirit of Jacobinism, but 
 the force of military despotism. That in this 
 way no chance existed of liberty being ulti- 
 mately established in France, because that in- 
 estimable blessing depended on the fusion of 
 all the interests of society in the fabric of go- 
 vernment, and the prevention of the encroach- 
 ments of each class by the influence of the 
 others ; and such mutual balancing was im- 
 possible in a country where the whole middling 
 ranks were destroyed, and nothing remained 
 but tumultuous masses of mankind on the one 
 hand, and an indignant soldiery on the other. 
 We maintained that the convulsion at Paris 
 was a deplorable catastrophe for the cause of 
 freedom in all other countries; that by preci- 
 pitating the democratic party everywhere into 
 revolutionary measures or revolutionary ex- 
 
310 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 cesses, it would inevitably rouse the conserva- ' revolt? Who has spread famine and desola- 
 tive interests to defend themselves; that in the tion through its beautiful provinces, and 
 struggle, real liberty would be equally endan- 1 withered its industry with a blast worse than 
 gered by the fury of its insane friends and the the simoom of the desert; and sown on the 
 hostility of its aroused enemies; and that the ! theatre of British glory those poisoned teeth, 
 tranquil spread of freedom, which had been so i which must spring up in armed battalions, and 
 conspicuous since the fall of Napoleon, would again in the end involve Europe in the whirl- 
 be exchanged for the rude conflicts of military j wind of Avar 1 The revolutionary leaders ; the 
 power with popular ambition. revolutionary press of France and England; 
 
 Few, we believe, comparatively speaking, I the government of Louis Philippe, and the re- 
 of our readers, fully went along with these' forming ministers of this country; those who 
 views when they were first brought forward;! betrayed the interests of their country in the 
 but how completely have subsequent events j pursuit of democratic support ; who dismem- 
 demonstrated their justice; and how entirely | bered the dominions of a faithful ally, and 
 has the public mind in both countries changed drove him back at the cannon mouth, when on 
 as to the character of this convulsion since it the point of regaining his own capital ; who 
 took place ! Freedom has been unknown in ; surrendered the barrier of Marlborough and 
 France since the days of the Barricades ; be- j Wellington, and threw open the gates of Eu- 
 tween the dread of popular excess on the one ! rope to republican ambition after they had been 
 hand, and the force of military power on the closed by British heroism. Who are answer- 
 other, the independence of the citizens has i able to God and man for the present distracted 
 been completely overthrown; Paris has been state of the British empire? Who have sus- 
 periodically the scene of confusion, riot, and [ pended its industry, and shaken its credit, and 
 anarchy; the revolt of Lyons has only been i withered its resources? Who have spread 
 extinguished by Marshal Soult at the head of j bitterness and distrust through its immense 
 as large an army as fought the Duke of Wei- ! population, and filled its poor with expectations 
 lington at Toulouse, and at as great an expense ' that can never be realized, and its rich with 
 of human life as the revolt of the Barricades ; j terrors that can never be allayed V Who have 
 the army, increased from 200,000 to 600,000 ! thrown the torch of discord into the bosom of 
 men, has been found barely adequate to the ' an united people ; and habituated the lower 
 maintenance of the public tranquillity; 40,000 | orders to license, and inflated them with arro- 
 men, incessantly stationed round the capital, ' gance, and subjugated thought and wisdom by 
 
 t -t .1 I' ,1 ^ n n 1 i A 1 
 
 have, almost every month, answered the cries 
 of the people for bread by charges of caval- 
 ry, and all the severity of military execution; 
 
 the force of numbers, and arrayed against the 
 concentrated education and wealth of the na- 
 tion the masses of its ignorant and deluded 
 
 the annual expenditure has increased from ! inhabitants ? The reforming ministers; the 
 40,000,0007. to 60,000,000/. ; fifty millions ster- j revolutionary press of England; those who 
 ling of debt has been incurred in eighteen | ascended to power amidst the transports of the 
 months; notwithstanding a great increase of j Barricades; who incessantly agitated the peo- 
 taxation, the revenue has declined a fourth in pie to uphold their falling administration, and 
 
 its amount, with the universal suffering of the 
 
 have incurred the lasting execration of man- 
 
 people; and a pestilential disorder following kind, by -striving to array the numbers of the 
 as usual in the train of human violence and nation against its intelligence, and subjugate, 
 misery, has fastened with unerring certainty \ the powers of the understanding by the fury 
 on the wasted scene of political agitation, and I of the passions, 
 swept off twice as many men in a few weeks 
 
 in Paris alone, as fell under the Russian can- 
 non on the field of Borodino. 
 
 Externally, have the effects of the three glo- 
 
 To demonstrate that these statements are not 
 overcharged as to the present condition of 
 France, and the practical consequence of the 
 Revolution of the Barricades, we subjoin the 
 
 rious days been less deplorable? Let Poland ! following extract from an able and independ- 
 answer ; let Belgium answer; let the British ! ent reforming journal. 
 
 empire answer. Who precipitated a gallant 
 nation on a gigantic foe ; and roused their hot 
 blood by the promises of sympathy and sup- 
 
 If a government is to be judged of by the 
 condition of the people, as a tree by its fruits, 
 the present government of France must be 
 
 port, and stirred up by their emissaries the re- j deemed to be extremely deficient in those qua- 
 volutionary spirit in the walls of Warsaw? j lities of statesmanship which are calculated to 
 
 Who is answerable to God and man for having 
 occasioned its fatal revolt, and buoyed its 
 chiefs up with hopes of assistance, and stimu- 
 lated them to refuse all offers of accommoda- 
 
 inspire public confidence and make a people 
 happy for public discontent, misery, commotion, 
 mid bloodshed, have been the melancholy cha- 
 racteristics of its sway. If the ministry of 
 
 tion, and delivered them up, unaided, unbe- Louis Philippe were positively devoted to the 
 friended, to an infuriated conqueror? The | interests of the ex-royal family, they could not 
 revolutionary leaders; the revolutionary press take more effective steps than they have hitherto 
 of France and England ; the government of j done to make the vices of the family be for- 
 Louis Philippe, and the reforming ministers gotten, and to reinforce the ranks of the party 
 
 of England; those, who, knowing that they 
 could render them no assistance, allowed their 
 journals, uncontradicted, to stimulate them to 
 resistance, and delude them to the last with 
 
 which labours incessantly for their recall. 
 
 "With short intervals of repose, Paris has 
 been a scene of emeutes and disturbances which 
 would disgrace a semi-civilized country, and 
 
 the hopes of foreign intervention. Who is ' to this sort of intermittent turbulence it has 
 answerable to God and man for the Belgian ; been doomed ever since Louis Philippe ascended the 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 311 
 
 throne, but more especially since Casimir Perier 
 was intrusted with the reins of responsible go- 
 vernment. It is a melancholy fact that, under 
 the revolutionized government of France, more 
 blood has been shed in conflicts between the 
 people and the military, than during the fifteen 
 years of the Restoration, if we except the three 
 days of resistance to the ordinances in Paris, 
 which ended in the dethronement of Charles 
 the Tenth. 
 
 " Yet we do not know if we ought to except 
 the carnage of those three days, for we recol- 
 lect having seen a communication from Lyons, 
 soon after the commotions in that city, in 
 which it was stated that a greater number of 
 persons, both citizens and soldiers, fell in the 
 conflict between the workmen and the military, 
 than were slain during the memorable three 
 days of Paris. Let us add to this the slaughter 
 at Grenoble, where the people were again 
 victorious, and the sabrings and shootings 
 which have taken place in minor conflicts in 
 several towns and departments, and it will be 
 found that the present, government maintains 
 its power at a greater cost of French blood 
 than that which it has superseded." Morning 
 Herald. 
 
 We have long and anxiously looked for some 
 publication from a man of character and lite- 
 rary celebrity of the liberal party in France, 
 which might throw the same light on the con- 
 sequences of its late revolution as the work of 
 M. Dumont has done on the proceedings of the 
 Constituent Assembly. Such a work is now 
 before us, from the able and eloquent pen of 
 M. Salvandy, to whose striking history of Po- 
 land we have in a recent number requested 
 the attention of our readers. He has always 
 been a liberal; opposed in the Chamber of De- 
 puties all the arbitrary acts of the late govern- 
 ment, and is a decided defender of the Revolu- 
 tion of July. From such a character the tes- 
 timony borne to its practical effects is of the 
 highest value. 
 
 " The Restoration," says he, "bore in its bo- 
 som an enemy, from whose attacks France 
 required incessant protection. That enemy 
 was the counter revolutionary spirit ; in other 
 words, the passion to deduce without reserve 
 all its consequences from the principle of legi- 
 timacy; the desire to overturn, for the sake of 
 the ancient interests, the political system esta- 
 blished by the Revolution, and consecrated by 
 the Charter and a thousand oaths. It was the 
 cancer which consumed it; the danger was 
 pointed out for fifteen years, and at length it 
 devoured it. 
 
 " The Revolution of July also bore in its 
 entrails another curse : this was the revolu- 
 tionary spirit, evoked from the bloody chaos 
 of our first Revolution, by the sound of the 
 rapid victory of the people over the royalty. 
 That fatal spirit has weighed upon the desti- 
 nies of France, since the Revolution of 183.0, 
 like its evil genius. I write to illustrate its 
 effects; and I feel I should ill accomplish my 
 task if I did not at the same time combat its 
 doctrines. 
 
 " The counter-revolution was no ways for- 
 midable, but in consequence of the inevitable 
 understanding which existed between its sup- 
 
 porters and the crown, who, although it long 
 refused them its arms, often lent them its 
 shield. The revolutionary spirit has also a 
 powerful ally, which communicates to it force 
 from its inherent energy. This ally is the de- 
 mocracy which now reigns as a despot over France; 
 that is, without moderation, without wisdom, 
 without perceiving that it reigns only for the 
 behoof of the spirit of disorder that terrible 
 ally which causes it to increase its own power, 
 and will terminate by destroying it. It is time 
 to speak to -the one and the other a firm lan- 
 guage ; to recall to both principles as old as 
 the world, which have never yet been violated 
 with impunity by nations, and which succes- 
 sively disappear from the midst of us, stifled 
 under the instinct of gross desires, rash pas- 
 sions, pusillanimous concessions, and subver- 
 sive laws. Matters are come 16 such a point, 
 that no small courage is now required to un- 
 fold these sacred principles ; and yet all the 
 objects of the social union, the bare progress 
 of nations, the dignity of the human race, the 
 cause of freedom itself, is at stake. That 
 liberty is to be seen engraven at the gate of all 
 our cities, emblazoned on all our monuments, 
 floating on all our standards; but, alas! it 
 will float there in vain if the air which we 
 breathe is charged with anarchy, as with a 
 mortal contagion, and if that scourge marks 
 daily with its black mark some of our maxims, 
 of our laws, of our powers, while it is inces- 
 santly advancing to the destruction of society 
 itself." 
 
 " What power required the sacrifice of the 
 peerage ? Let the minister answer it, he said 
 it again and again with candour and courage. 
 It is to popular prejudice, democratic passion, the 
 intoxication of demagogues, the blind hatred of every 
 species of superiority, that this immense sacrifice has 
 been offered. I do not fear to assert, that a na- 
 tion which has enforced such a sacrifice, on 
 such altars; a. nation which could demand or 
 consent to such a sacrifice, has declared itself 
 in the face of the world ignorant of freedom, 
 and perhaps incapable of enjoying it. 
 
 " That was the great battle of our revolu- 
 tionary party. It has gained it. It is no longer 
 by our institutions that we can be defended 
 from its enterprises and its folly. The good 
 sense of the public is now our last safeguard. 
 But let us not deceive ourselves. Should the 
 public spirit become deranged, we are undone. 
 It depends in future on a breath of opinion, 
 whether anarchy should not rise triumphant 
 in the midst of the powers of government. 
 Mistress of the ministry by the elections, it 
 would speedily become so of the Upper House, 
 by the new creations which it -would force upon the 
 crown. The Upper House will run the risk, at 
 every quinquennial renewal of its numbers, of 
 becoming a mere party assemblage: an as- 
 sembly elected at second hand by the Chamber of 
 Deputies .and the electoral colleges. The ruling 
 party henceforth, instead of coming to a com- 
 promise with it, which constitutes the balance 
 of the three powers, and the basis of a constitu- 
 tional monarchy, will only require to incorporate. 
 itscjfwith '. At the first shock of parties, the 
 revolutionary faction will gain this immense 
 advantage ; it will emerge from the bosom of 
 
312 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 our institutions as from its eyrie, and reign 
 over France with the wings of terror. 
 
 " In vain do the opposing parties repeat that 
 the Revolution of 1830 does not resemble that 
 of 1789. That is the very point at issue ; and 
 I will indulge in all your hopes, if you are not 
 as rash as your predecessors, as ready to de- 
 stroy, as much disposed to yield to popular 
 wishes, that is, to the desire of the demagogues who 
 direct them. But can I indulge the hope, that a 
 people will not twice in forty years commence 
 the same career of faults and' misfortunes, 
 when you who have the reins of power, are 
 already beginning the same errors'? I must 
 say, the Revolution of 1830 runs the same risk 
 as its predecessor, if it precipitates its chariot 
 to the edge of the same precipices. Every- 
 where the spirit of 1791 will bear the same 
 fruits. In heaven as in earth, it can engender 
 only the demon of anarchy. 
 
 " The monarchy of the Constituent Assem- 
 bly, that monarchy which fell almost as soon 
 as it arose, did not perish, as is generally sup- 
 posed, from an imperfect equilibrium of power, 
 a bad definition of the royal prerogative, or the 
 weakness of the throne. No the vice lay 
 deeper; it was in its entrails. The old crown 
 of England was not adorned with more jewels 
 than that ephemeral crown of the King of the 
 French. But the crown of England possesses 
 in the social, not less than the political state 
 of England, powerful support, of which France 
 is totally destitute. A constitution without 
 guarantees there reposed on a society which 
 was equally destitute of them, which was as 
 movable as the sands of Africa, as easily 
 raised by the breaths of whirlwinds. The Re- 
 volution which founded that stormy society, 
 founded it on false and destructive principles. 
 Not content with levelling to the dust the an- 
 cient hierarchy, the old privileges of the orders, 
 the corporate rights of towns, which time had 
 doomed to destruction, it levelled with the same 
 stroke the most legitimate guarantees as the 
 most artificial distinctions. It called the masses 
 of mankind not to equality, but to supremacy. 
 
 "The constitution was established on the 
 same principles. In defiance of the whole ex- 
 perience of ages, the Assembly disdained every 
 intermediate or powerful institution which was 
 founded on those conservative principles, without 
 attention to which no state on earth has ever yet 
 flourished. In a word, it called the masses not 
 to liberty, but to power. 
 
 "After having done this, no method re- 
 mained to form a counterpoise to this terrible 
 power. A torrent had been created without 
 bounds an ocean without a shore. By the 
 eternal laws of nature, it was furious, indomi- 
 table, destructive, changeable ; leaving nothing 
 standing but the scaffolds on which royalty 
 and rank, and all that was illustrious in talent 
 and virtue, speedily fell ; until the people, dis- 
 abused by suffering, and worn out by passion, 
 resigned their fatal sovereignty into the hands 
 of a great man. Such it was, such it will be, 
 to the end of time. The same vices, the same 
 scourges, the same punishments. 
 
 " When you do not wish to fall into an abyss, 
 you must avoid the path which leads to it. 
 When you condemn a principle, you must 
 
 have the courage to condemn its premises, or 
 to resign yourself to see the terrible logic of 
 party, the austere arms of fortune, deduce its 
 consequences ; otherwise, you plant a tree, and 
 refuse to eat its fruits ; you form a volcano, 
 and expect to sleep in peace by its side. 
 
 " With the exception of the Constituent As- 
 sembly, where all understandings were fasci- 
 nated, where there reigned a sort of sublime 
 delirium, all the subsequent legislatures dur- 
 ing the Revolution did evil, intending to do 
 good. The abolition of the monarchy was a 
 concession of the Legislative Assembly ; the 
 head of the king an offering of the Convention. 
 The Girondists in the Legislative Body, in sur- 
 rendering the monarchy, thought they were 
 doing the only thing which could save order. 
 Such was their blindness, that they could not see 
 that their own acts had destroyed order, and its 
 last shadow vanished with the fall of the throne. 
 The Plain, or middle party in the Convention, by 
 surrendering Louis to the executioner, thought 
 to satiate the people with that noble blood ; and 
 they were punished for it, by being compelled 
 to give their own, and that of all France. It 
 was on the same principle that in our times 
 the peerage has fallen the victim of deplorable con- 
 cessions. May that great concession, which 
 embraces more interests, and destroys more 
 conservative principles than are generally sup- 
 posed, which shakes at once all the pillars of 
 the social order, not prepare for those who 
 have occasioned it unavailing regret and de- 
 served punishment! 
 
 "The divine justice has a sure means of 
 punishing the exactions, the passions, and the 
 weakness which subvert society. It consists in 
 allowing the parties who urge on the torrent, to reap 
 the consequences of their actions. Thus they go 
 on, without disquieting themselves as to the 
 career on which they have entered; without 
 once looking behind them ; thinking only on 
 the next step they have to make in the revolu- 
 tionary progress, and always believing that it 
 will be the last. But the weight of committed 
 faults drags them on, and they perish under the 
 rock of Sisyphus. 
 
 "I will not attempt to conceal my senti- 
 ments ; the political and moral state of my 
 country fills me with consternation. When 
 you contemplate its population in general, so 
 
 | calm, so laborious, so desirous to enjoy in 
 peace the blessings which the hand of God has 
 poured so liberally into the bosom of our beau- 
 tiful France, you are filled with hope, and con- 
 template with the eye of hope the future state 
 
 j of our country. But if you direct your look to 
 the region where party strife combats ; if you 
 
 I contemplate the incessant efforts to excite in 
 the masses of the population all the bad pas- 
 
 i sinns of the social order; to rouse them afresh 
 
 I when they are becoming dormant; to enrol 
 them in regular array when they are floating; 
 to make, for the sake of contending interests, 
 
 ! one body, and march together to one prey, 
 
 | which they will dispute in blood ; how is it 
 possible to mistake, in that delirium of pas- 
 
 | sion, in that oblivion of the principles of order, 
 in that forgetfulness of the conditions on which 
 it depends, the fatal signs which precede the 
 most violent convulsions ! A people in whose 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 313 
 
 bosom, for sixteen months, disorder has marched 
 untk i's head erect, and its destroying axe in 
 hand, has not yet settled its accounts with the 
 wrath of Heaven. 
 
 " While I am yet correcting these lines; 
 while I am considering if they do not make too 
 strong a contrast to the public security if 
 they do not too strongly express my profound 
 conviction of the dangers of my country the 
 wrath of Heaven has burst upon that France, 
 half blinded, half insane. Fortune has too 
 cruelly justified my sinister presages. Revolt, 
 assassination, civil war, have deluged with 
 blood a great city ; and it would be absurd to 
 
 of anarchy with liberal hands ; it is a crop 
 which never fails to yield a plentiful harvest. 
 " It is to the men of property, of whatever | 
 
 mate effort for liberation by the crown, the 
 flood of revolution has been at least delayed ; 
 and if the constitution is doomed to destruc- 
 tion, the friends of freedom have at least the 
 consolation of having struggled to the last to 
 avert it.* 
 
 Salvandy gives the basis on which alone, in 
 his opinion, the social edifice can with safety 
 be reconstructed. His observations are sin- 
 gularly applicable to the future balance which 
 must obtain in the British empire: 
 
 " The more democratic the French popula- 
 tion becomes from its manners and its laws, 
 the more material it is that its government 
 
 be astonished at it. We have sown the seeds should incline in the opposite direction, to be 
 
 able to withstand that flux and reflux of free 
 and equal citizens. The day of old aristocra- 
 cies, of immovable and exclusive aristocra- 
 
 party, that I now address myself: to those who j cies, is past. Our social, our political condi- 
 have no inclination for anarchy, whatever may I tion, will only permit of such as are accessible 
 be its promises or its menaces ; to those who ! to all. But all may arrive at distinction, for 
 
 would fear, by running before it, to surrender 
 the empire to its ravages, and to have to an- 
 
 the paths to eminence are open to all ; all may 
 acquire property, for it is an acquisition which 
 
 swer to God and man for the disastrous days, j order and talent may always command. In 
 the dark futurity of France. I address myself such a state of society, is it a crime to insist 
 to them, resolved to unfold to the eyes of my that power shall not be devolved but to such 
 country all our wounds ; to follow out, even to | as have availed themselves of these universal 
 its inmost recesses, the malady which is de- capabilities, and have arrived either at emi- 
 vouring us. It will be found, that, in the last \ nence or property ; to those who have reached 
 result, they all centre in one ; and that is the ! the summit of the ladder in relation to the corn- 
 same which has already cleft in two this great j mune, the department, or the state, to which 
 
 body, and brought the country to the brink of 
 ruin. We speak of liberty, and it is the govern- 
 ment of the masses of -men ivhich ire labour'to cxta- 
 
 they belong? No, it is no crime ; for if you 
 cast your eyes over the history of the world, 
 you will find that freedom was never yet ac- 
 
 blish. Equality is the object of our passionate ; quired but at that price, 
 desires, and we confound it with levelling. I j "It is the law of nature that societies and 
 know not what destiny Providence has in re- nations should move like individuals; that the 
 serve for France ; but I do not hesitate to as- head should direct the whole. Then only it is 
 sert, that, so long as that double prejudice shall that the power of intelligence, the moral force, 
 subsist amongst us, we will A find no order but is enabled to govern ; and the perfection of 
 
 under the shadow of despotism, and may bid a 
 final adieu to liberty." Pp. 2036. 
 
 There is hardly a sentence in this long quo- 
 
 such moral and intellectual combinations is 
 freedom. The party in France who support 
 
 a republic, do so because they consider it 
 
 tation, that is not precisely applicable to this | as synonymous with democracy. They are in 
 country, and the revolutionary party so vehe- j the right. Democracy, without the most power- 
 mently at work amongst ourselves. How ful counterpoises, leads necessarily to popular 
 strikingly applicable are his observations on > anarchy. It has but one way to avoid that des- 
 the destruction of the hereditary peerage, and j tiny, and that is despotism; and thence it is that 
 the periodical creations which will prostrate the | it invariably terminates, weary and bloody, by 
 upper house before the power of the demo- ! reposing beneath its shades." Pp. 44, 45. 
 craey, to the similar attempt made by the revo- | Numerous as have been the errors, and cul- 
 lutionary party in this country ! But how dif- J pable the recklessness, of the Reform rulers of 
 ferent has been the resistance made to the at- ' England ; their constant appeal to the masses 
 ternpt to overthrow this last bulwark of order ! of mankind; their attempt to trample down 
 in the two states! In France, the Citizen intelligence, education, and property by the 
 King, urged on by the movement party, ere- j force of numbers; their ceaseless endeavours 
 
 to sway the popular elections, in every part of 
 the country, by brutal violence and rabble in- 
 timidation, is the most crying sin which besets 
 them. It will hang like a dead weight about 
 their necks in the page of history; it will blast 
 for ever their characters in the eyes of pos- 
 terity; it will stamp them as men who sought 
 to subvert all the necessary and eternal rela- 
 tions of nature ; to introduce a social, far worse 
 than a political revolution ; and subject Eng- 
 land to that rule of the multitude, which must 
 engender a Reign of Terror and a British Na- 
 poleon. 
 * Written shortly after the rejection of the Reform 
 
 ated thirty Peers to subdue that assembly, and bv 
 their aid destroyed the hereditary peerage, and 
 knocked from under the throne the last sup- 
 ports of order and freedom. In Great Britain, 
 the same course was urged by an insane popu- 
 lace, and a reckless administration, on the 
 crown ; and an effort, noble indeed, but, it is 
 to be feared, too late, was made by the crown 
 to resist the sacrifice. The " Masses" of man- 
 kind, those immense bodies whom it is the 
 policy of the revolutionary party in every 
 country to enlist on their side, are still agitated 
 and discontented. But, thanks to the generous 
 efforts of the Conservative party, the noble re- 
 sistance of the House of Peers, and the ulti- 
 46 
 
 BUI by the House of Peers 
 
 2D 
 
314 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Our author gives the following graphic pic- 
 ture of the state of France for a year and a 
 half after the Revolution of July. How exactly 
 does it depict the state of the British islands 
 after eighteen months of popular domination ! 
 
 " For eighteen months the greatest political 
 lessons have been taught to France. On the 
 one hand, we have seen what it has cost its 
 rulers to have attempted to subvert the laws ; 
 on the other what such a catastrophe costs a 
 nation, even when it is most innocently in- 
 volved in it. The state, shaken to its centre, | 
 does not settle down without long efforts. The ! 
 farther the imagination of the people has been 
 carried, the more extravagant the expectations \ 
 they have been permitted to form, the more j 
 difficulty have the unchained passions to sub- j 
 mit to the yoke of constituted authority, or le- 
 gal freedom. Real liberty, patient, wise, and j 
 regular, irritates as a fetter those who, having j 
 conquered by the sword, cannot conceive any j 
 better arbiter for human affairs. To insurrec- ! 
 lion for the laws, succeeds everywhere, and 
 without intermission, insurrection against the ; 
 laws. From all quarters, the desire is mani- j 
 fested for new conquests, a new futurity ; and 
 that devouring disquietude knows no barrier, 
 before which the ambitions, the hatreds, the 
 theories, the destruction of men, may be ar- 
 rested. It appears to the reformers, that all 
 rights should perish, because one has fallen. 
 There is no longer an institution which they do not 
 attack, nor an interest which does not feet itself com- 
 promised. The disorder of ideas becomes uni- 
 versal ; the anxiety of minds irresistible. A 
 city, with 100,000 armed men in the streets, no 
 longer feels itself in safety. Should the public 
 spirit arouse itself, it is only to fall under the 
 weight of popular excesses, and still more dis- 
 quieting apprehension. For long will prevail 
 that universal and irresistible languor ; hardly 
 in a generation will the political body regain 
 its life, its security, its confidence in itself. 
 What has occasioned this calamitous state of 
 things? Simply this. Force popular force, 
 has usurped a place in the destinies of the na- 
 tion, and its appearance necessarily inflicts a j 
 fatal wound on the regular order of human j 
 society. Every existence has been endanger- 1 
 ed when that principle was proclaimed." i 
 Pp. 50, 51. 
 
 " England has done the same to its sovereign \ 
 as the legislators of July; and God has since j 
 granted to that nation one hundred and forty j 
 years of prosperity and glory. But let it be 
 observed, that when it abandoned the principle 
 of legitimacy, England made no change in its 
 social institutions. The Aristocracy still retained 
 their ascendency : though the keystone of the i 
 arch was thrown down, they removed none of 
 its foundations. But suppose that the English \ 
 people had proceeded, at the same time that | 
 they overthrew the Stuarts, to overturn their j 
 civil laws and hereditary peerage. to force 
 through Parliamentary Reform, remodel juries, | 
 bind all authorities beneath the yoke of the po- I 
 pulace, extended fundamental changes into the 
 state, the church, and the army : had it tole- 
 rated a doctrine which is anarchy itself, the doctrine 
 of universal suffrage : suppose, in fine, that it had 
 been in the first fervour of the revolutionary , 
 
 intoxication, that parliament had laid the axe 
 to all subsisting institutions : then, I say, that 
 the Revolution of 1688 would most certainly 
 have led the English people to their ruin ; that 
 it would have brought forth nothing but 
 tyranny, or been stifled in blood and tears." 
 Pp. 59, 60. 
 
 The real state of France, under the Restora- 
 tion, has been the subject of gross misrepre- 
 sentation from all the liberal writers in Europe. 
 Let us hear the testimony of this supporter of 
 the Revolution of July, to its practical opera- 
 tion. 
 
 " The government of the Restoration was a 
 constitutional, an aristocratic, and a free mon- 
 archy. It was monarchical in its essence, and 
 in the prerogatives which it reserved to the 
 crown. It was free, that is no longer contested. In- 
 violability of persons and property; personal 
 freedom ; the liberty of the press ; equality in 
 the eye of law ; the institution of juries ; in- 
 dependence in the judiciary body; responsi- 
 bility in the agents of power ; comprised every 
 thing that was ever known of freedom in the 
 universe. Public freedom consisted in the 
 division of the legislative authority between 
 the king and the people the independence of 
 both Chambers the annual voting of supplies 
 the freedom of the periodical press the es- 
 tablishment of a representative government. 
 
 " Democracy, in that regime, was, God knows, 
 neither unknown nor disarmed. For in a coun- 
 try where the aristocracy is an hotel, open to 
 whoever can afford to enter it, it as necessarily 
 forms part of the democracy as the head does 
 of the body. The whole body of society has 
 gained the universal admissibility, and the real 
 admission of all to every species of public 
 employment; the complete equality of taxa- 
 tion ; the eligibility of all to the electoral body ; 
 the inevitable preponderance of the middling 
 orders in the elections ; in fine, the entire com- 
 mand of the periodical press. 
 
 " At the time of the promulgation of the 
 Charter, France had not the least idea of what 
 freedom was. That Revolution of 40 years' 
 duration, which had rolled over us, incessantly 
 resounding with the name of liberty, had passed 
 away without leaving a conception of what it really 
 u-as. Coups d'etat that is, strokes by the 
 force of the popular party composed all its 
 annals, equally with all that was to be learn- 
 ed from it; and these violent measures never 
 revolted the opinion of the public, as being 
 contrary to true freedom, \vhich 'ever rejects 
 force, and reposes only on justice, but merely 
 spread dismay and horror through the ranks 
 of the opposite party. The only struggle was, 
 who should get the command of these terrible 
 arms. On the one hand, these triumphs were 
 called order; on the other, liberty. No one 
 gave them their true appellation, which was a 
 return to the state of barbarous ages, a resto- 
 ration of the rule of the strongest." Pp. 115, 
 116. 
 
 These observations are worthy of the most 
 profound meditation. Historical truth is be- 
 ginning to emerge from the fury of party am- 
 bition. Here we have it admitted by a liberal 
 historian, that throughout the whole course of 
 the French revolution, that, is, of the resurrec- 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 tion and rule of the masses, there was not only 
 no trace of liberty established, but no idea of liberty 
 acquired. Successive coups d'etat, perpetual 
 insurrection ; a continued struggle for the 
 rule of these formidable bodies of the citizens, 
 constituted its whole history. They fell at last 
 under the yoke of Napoleon, easily and will- 
 ingly, because they had never tasted of real 
 freedom. That blessing was given to them, 
 for the first time, under a constitutional mon- 
 archy and a hereditary peerage ; in a word, in 
 a mixed government. How instructive the 
 lesson to those who have made such strenuous 
 endeavours to overturn the mixed government of 
 Britain ; to establish here the ruinous prepon- 
 derance of numbers, and beat down the free- 
 dom of thought, by the brutal violence of the 
 multitude. 
 
 The following observations are singularly 
 striking. Their application need not be point- 
 ed out; one would imagine they were written 
 to depict the course to which the reforming 
 administration is rapidly approaching. 
 
 " There is in the world but two courses of 
 policy : the one is regular, legitimate, cautious : 
 it leans for support, not on the physical 
 strength, but the moral intelligence of man- 
 kind, and concedes influence less to the num- 
 bers than the lights, the stability, the services, 
 the love of order, of the superior class of citizens. 
 
 " This lofty and even policy respects within 
 the laws, and without the rights of nations, 
 which constitutes the moral law of the uni- 
 verse. It conducts mankind slowly and gradu- 
 ally to those ameliorations which God has 
 made as the end of our efforts, and the com- 
 pensation of our miseries ; but it knows that 
 Providence has prescribed two conditions to 
 this progress, patience and justice. 
 
 "The other policy has totally different rules, 
 and an entirely different method of procedure. 
 Force, brutal force, constitutes at once its prin- 
 ciple and its law. You will ever distinguish 
 it by these symptoms. In all contests between 
 citizens, parties, or kingdoms, in every time 
 and in every place, it discards the authority of 
 justice, which is called the safety of the peo- 
 ple ; that is to say, the prevailing object of popular 
 ambition, or, in other ivords, mere force, comes in its 
 stead. Would you know its internal policy : 
 difference of opinion is considered as a crime ; 
 suspicion is arrest ; punishment, death : it 
 knows no law but force to govern mankind. 
 Regard its external policy. It regards neither 
 the sanction of treaties nor the rights of neu- 
 trals, nor the inviolability of their territories, 
 nor the conditions of their capitulations : its 
 diplomacy is nothing else but war; that is to 
 say, force, its last resource in all emergencies. 
 In its internal government it has recourse to 
 no lengthened discussion, to no delays, no slow delib- 
 erations ; caprice, anger, murder, cut short all 
 questions, without permitting the other side to 
 be heard. In a word, in that system, force 
 thinks, deliberates, wishes, and executes. It 
 rejects all the authority of time and the lessons 
 of experience ; the past it destroys, the future 
 it devours. It must invade every thing, over- 
 come every thing, in a single day. Marching 
 at the head of menacing masses, it compels all wishes, 
 all resistance, all genius, all grandeur, all virtue, to 
 
 1c wires, where there is 
 
 "fcerli'd, -not- worthy 
 Vcalls 
 
 bend before those t 
 thing enlightened 
 ivhich is not buried 
 liberty consists in the 
 
 to the rest of mankind; to f/iT^THPfWPFTJw; seat of 
 justice, to the citizen at his fireside, to the legislator 
 in his curule chair, to the king on his throne. Thus 
 it advances, overturning, destroying. But do 
 not speak to it of building ; that is beyond its 
 power. It is the monster of Asia, which can 
 extinguish but not produce existence." Pp. 
 230, 231. 
 
 At the moment that we are translating this 
 terrible picture, meetings of the masses of man- 
 kind have been convened, by the reforming 
 agents, in every part of the country, where by 
 possibility they could be got together, to control 
 and overturn the decisions of parliament. 
 Fifty, sixty, and seventy thousand men, are 
 stated to have been assembled at Manchester, 
 Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh : their 
 numbers are grossly exaggerated ; disorders 
 wilfully ascribed to them; menacing language 
 falsely put into their mouth in order to intimi- 
 date the more sober and virtuous class of citi- 
 zens. The brickbat and bludgeon system is 
 invoked to cover the freedom of the next, as it 
 did of the last general election, and obtain that 
 triumph from the force of brutal violence, 
 which it despairs of effecting by the sober in- 
 fluence of reason or justice. Who is so blind 
 as not to see in this ostentatious parade of 
 numbers, as opposed to knowledge; in this ap- 
 peal to violence, in default of argument; in 
 this recourse to the force of masses, to over- 
 come the energy of patriotism, the same revo- 
 lutionary spirit which Salvandy has so well 
 described as forming the scourge of modern 
 France, and which never yet became predomi- 
 nant in a country, without involving high and 
 low in one promiscuous ruin? 
 
 "England," says the same eloquent writer, 
 " has two edifices standing near to each other : 
 in the one, assemble from generation to gene- 
 ration, to defend the ancient liberties of their 
 country, all that the three kingdoms can as- 
 semble that is illustrious or respectable : it is 
 the chapel of St. Stephens. There have com- 
 bated Pitt and Fox: there we have seen 
 Brougham, Peel, and Canning, engaged in 
 those noble strifes which elevate the dignity of 
 human nature, and the very sight of which is 
 enough to attach the mind to freedom for the 
 rest of its life. At a few paces distance you 
 find another arena, other combats, other cham- 
 pions : physical force contending with its like ; 
 man struggling with his fellow-creature for a 
 miserable prize, and exerting no ray of intelli- 
 gence, but to plant his blows with more accu- 
 racy in the body of his antagonist. From that 
 spectacle to the glorious one exhibited in par- 
 liament, the distance is not greater than from 
 revolutionary liberty to constitutional free- 
 dom." P. 233. 
 
 To what does the atrocious system of popu- 
 lar intimidation, so long encouraged or taken 
 advantage of by the reforming party, necessa- 
 rily lead but to such a species of revolutionary 
 liberty; in other words, to the unrestrained ty- 
 ranny of the mob, over all that is dignified, or 
 virtuous, or praiseworthy, in society ? It will 
 
316 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 be the eternal disgrace of tj^t party; it will be 
 rhe damning record of the*reforming adminis- 
 tration, that in the struggle for power, in the 
 pursuit of chimerical and perilous changes, 
 they invoked the aid of these detestable allies, 
 and periled the very existence of society upon 
 a struggle in which they could not be success- 
 ful but by the aid of powers which never yet 
 were let loose without devastating the world 
 with their fury. 
 
 " In vain," continues our author, " the Move- 
 ment party protest against such a result, and 
 strive to support their opinions by the strange 
 paradox, that the anarchy, towards which all 
 their efforts are urging us, will this time be gen- 
 tle, pacific, beneficent; that it will bring back 
 the days of legitimacy, and bring them back by 
 flowery paths. This brilliant colouring to the 
 horrors of anarchy is one of the most deplora- 
 ble productions of the spirit of party. For my 
 part, I see it in colours of blood; and that not 
 merely from historic recollection, but the na- 
 ture of things. Doubtless we will not see the 
 Reign of Terror under the same aspect: we 
 will not see a Committee of Public Safety 
 holding France enchained with a hand of iron : 
 we will not see that abominable centralization 
 of power : but what we will see is a domici- 
 liary terror, more rapid and more atrocious ; 
 more destructive than on the first occasion, be- 
 cause it will be more nearly allied to the pas- 
 sion for gain and plunder. What will ulti- 
 mately come out of it, God only knows ; but 
 this we may well affirm, that when the revolu- 
 tionary party shall become master of France, 
 it will slay and spoil as it has slain and 
 spoiled ; that it will decimate the higher classes 
 as it has decimated them. I assert, that those 
 of the present leaders of the party who shall 
 oppose themselves to this horrible result, and 
 assuredly the greater number will do so, will 
 be crushed under the wheels of the chariot 
 which they have so insanely put in motion. I 
 maintain that this is a principle of its existence 
 a law of nature; in fine, the means destined 
 by Providence for its extinction. Existing solely 
 on the support of the masses of mankind : having 
 no support but in their aid, it can admit of no 
 genius to rule its destinies but their genius. 
 Thenceforward it is condemned, for its existence and 
 its power, to model itself on the multitude : to live 
 and reign according to its dictation. And the 
 multitude, to use the nervous words of Odillon 
 Barrot, is ' characterized by barbarity through- 
 out all the earth.' 
 
 "Thence it is that every state, which has 
 once opened the door to democratic doctrines, 
 totters under the draught, and falls, if it is not 
 speedily disgorged. Thence it is that every 
 society which has received, which has become 
 intoxicated with them, abjures the force of rea- 
 son, devotes itself to the convulsions of anar- 
 chy, and bids at once a long adieu to civiliza- 
 tion and to freedom. For the revolutionary 
 party, while they are incessantly speaking of 
 ameliorations and of perfection, is a thousand 
 times more adverse to the progress of the so- 
 cial order and of the human mind, than the party 
 of the ancient regime, which at least had its prin- 
 cipal seat in the higher regions of society ; a 
 region cultivated, fruitful in intelligence, and 
 
 | where the progress of improvement, however 
 | suspended for a time by the spirit of party, can- 
 I not fail speedily to regain its course. But our 
 Revolutionists do more ; they bring us back to 
 the barbarous ages, and do so at one bound. 
 All their policy may be reduced to two points : 
 within, Revolution ; without, War. Every- 
 where it is the same an appeal to the law of 
 the strongest ; a return to the ages of barba- 
 rism." P. 248. 
 
 Salvandy paints the classes whose incessant 
 
 agitation is producing these disastrous effects. 
 
 They are not peculiar to France, but will be 
 
 j found in equal strength on this side of the 
 
 I Channel. 
 
 " Would you know who are the men, and 
 what are the passions, which thus nourish the 
 flame of Revolution ; which stain with blood, 
 or shake with terror the world; which sadden 
 the people, extinguish industry, disturb repose, 
 and suspend the progress of nations 1 Behold 
 that crowd of young men, fierce republicans, 
 barristers without briefs, physicians without 
 patients, who make a Revolution to fill up their 
 vacant hours ambitious equally to have their 
 names insc-ribed in the roll of indictments for 
 the courts of assizes, as in the records of fame. 
 And it is for such ambitions that blood has 
 flowed in Poland, Italy, and Lyons ! The ri- 
 valry of kings never occasioned more disas- 
 ters." P. 270. 
 
 One of the most interesting parts of this va- 
 luable work, is the clear and luminous account 
 which the author gives of the practical changes 
 in the constitution, ideas, and morals, of 
 France, by the late Revolution. Every word 
 of it may be applied to the perils which this 
 country runs from the Reform Bill. It is evi- 
 dent that France has irrecoverably plunged in- 
 to the revolutionary stream, and that it will 
 swallow up its liberties, its morals, in the end, 
 its existence. 
 
 "The constitution of the National Guard," 
 says our author, " is monstrous from beginning 
 to end. There has sprung from it hitherto 
 j more good than evil, because the spirit of the 
 ! people is still better than the institutions which 
 the revolutionary party have given it; and that 
 they have not hitherto used the arms so insane- 
 ly given them, without any consideration. But 
 this cannot continue ; the election of officers 
 by the privates is subversive of all the princi- 
 ples of government. The right of election has 
 I been given to them ivithout reserve, in direct vio- 
 j lation of the Charter, on the precedent of 1791, 
 I and in conformity to the wishes of M. Lafayette. 
 " In this National Guard, this first of political 
 powers, since the maintenance of the Charter 
 is directly intrusted to it in that power, the 
 most democratic that ever existed upon earth, 
 since it consists of six million of citizens, equal 
 among each other, and possessing equally the 
 right of suffrage, which consists in a bayonet 
 and ball-cartridges, we have not established for 
 any ranks any condition, either of election or 
 of eligibility. It is almost miraculous that the 
 anarchists have not more generally succeeded 
 in seizing that terrible arm. The}'- have done 
 so, however, in many places. Thence has 
 come that scandal, that terrible calamity of 
 j the National Guards taking part in the insur- 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 317 
 
 rections, and marching in the ranks of anar- 
 chy with drums beating and colours flying. 
 The sword is now our only refuge, and the 
 sword is turned against us! While I am yet 
 writing these convictions, in the silence of me- 
 ditation and grief, a voice stronger than mine 
 proclaims them in accents of thunder. Lyons 
 has shown them written in blood. It is the 
 handwriting on the wall which appeared to 
 Belshazzar." P. 391. 
 
 Of the changes in the electoral body, and the 
 power of parliament, effected since the Revolu- 
 tion of July, he gives the following account: 
 
 " The power of parliament has been strength- 
 ened by all which the royal authority has lost. 
 It has gained in addition the power of propos- 
 ing laws in either chamber. The elective 
 power, above all, has been immensely extend- 
 ed; for of the two chambers, that which was 
 esteemed the most durable, and was intended 
 to give stability to our institutions, has been so 
 cruelly mutilated by the exclusions following 
 the Revolution of July, and the subsequent crea- 
 tions to serve a particular purpose, that it is no 
 longer of any weight in the state. The whole 
 powers of government have centred in the 
 Chamber of Deputies." 
 
 The right of election has been extended to 
 300,000 Frenchmen; the great colleges have 
 been abolished ; the qualification for eligibility 
 has been lowered one half as the qualification 
 for electing ; and the farmers have been sub- 
 stituted for the great proprietors in the power 
 of a double vote. The power of regulating the 
 affairs of departments has been devolved to 
 800,000 citizens ; that of regulating the com- 
 munes to 2,500,000. The power of arms has 
 been surrendered to all; and the power of 
 electing its leaders given to the whole armed 
 force without distinction. 
 
 " In this way property is entirely excluded 
 from all influence in the election of magis- 
 trates ; it has but one privilege left, that of 
 bearing the largest part of the burdens, and 
 every species of outrage, vexation, and abuse. 
 As a natural consequence, the communes have 
 been ill administered, and nothing but the 
 worst passions regulate the election of their 
 officers. The municipal councils are com- 
 posed of infinitely worse members than they 
 were before the portentous addition made to 
 the number of their electors. To secure the 
 triumph of having a bad mayor, a mayor suited 
 to their base and ignorant jealousies, they are 
 constrained to elect bad magistrates. JLbyssus 
 abyssum vocal. 
 
 " In the political class of electors, the effects 
 of the democratic changes have been still 
 worse. The poivtr of mobs has become irresistible. 
 The electoral body, which for fifteen years has 
 struggled for the liberties of France, has been 
 dispossessed 'by a body possessing less inde- 
 pendence, less intelligence, which understands 
 less the duties to which it is called. Every- 
 where the respectable classes, sure of being out- 
 voted, have stayed away from the elections. In the 
 department in which I write, an hundred 
 voices have carried the election, because 300 
 respectable electors have not made their ap- 
 pearance. In all parts of the kingdom, the 
 same melancholy spectacle presents itself. 
 
 The law has made a class arbiters of the af- 
 fairs of the kingdom, which has the good sense 
 to perceive its utter unfitness for the task, or 
 its inability to contend with the furious torrent 
 with which it is surrounded; and the conse- 
 quence everywhere has been, that intrigue, 
 and every unworthy passion, govern the elec- 
 tions, and a set of miserable low intriguers 
 rule France with a rod of iron. In the state, 
 the department, the communes, the National 
 Guard, the prospect is the same. The same 
 principle governs the organization, or rather 
 disorganization, throughout the whole of so- 
 ciety. Universally it is the lower part of the 
 electoral body, which, being the most numerous, the 
 most reckless, and the most compact, casts the ba- 
 lance ; in short, it is the tail which governs 
 the head. There is the profound grievance 
 which endangers all our liberties. On such con- 
 ditions, no social union is possible among men. 
 
 "Recently our electors have made a dis- 
 covery, which fixes in these inferior regions, 
 not merely the power of election, but the whole 
 political authority in the state ; it is the prac- 
 tice of exacting from their representatives, 
 before they are elected, pledges as to every mea- 
 sure of importance which is to come before them. 
 By that single expedient, the representative 
 system, with all its guarantees and blessings, 
 has crumbled into dust. Its fundamental prin- 
 ciple is, that the three great powers form the 
 head of the state ; that all three discuss, de- 
 liberate, decide, with equal freedom on the 
 affairs of the state. The guarantee of this 
 freedom consists in the composition of these 
 powers, the slow method of their procedure, 
 the length of previous debates, and the control 
 of each branch of the legislature by the others. 
 But the exacting of pledges from members of 
 parliament destroys all this. Deliberation and 
 choice are placed at the very bottom of the 
 political ladder, and there alone. What do I 
 say? Deliberation! the thing is unknown 
 even there. A hair-brained student seizes at 
 the gate of a city a peasant, asks him if he is 
 desirous to see feudality with all its seig- 
 neurial rights re-established, puts into his 
 hands a name to vote for, which will preserve 
 him from all these calamities, and having thus 
 sent him totally deluded into the election hall, 
 returns to his companions, and laughs with 
 them at having thus secured a vote for the 
 abolition of the peerage. 
 
 " As little is the inclination of the electors 
 consulted in their preliminary resolutions. It 
 is in the wine-shops, amidst the fumes of intoxi- 
 cation, that the greatest questions are decided; 
 without hearing the other side, without any 
 knowledge on the subject; without the small- 
 est information as to the matter on which an 
 irrevocable decision is thus taken. This is 
 what is called the liberty of democracy; a 
 brutal, ignorant, reckless liberty, which cuts 
 short all discussion, and decides every ques- 
 tion without knowledge, without discussion, 
 without examination, from the mere force of 
 passion." 
 
 Of the present state of the French press, we 
 have the following emphatic account. De- 
 mocracy, it will be seen, produces everywhere 
 the same effects. 
 
318 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 "At the spectacle of the press of France, I 
 experienced the grief of an old soldier, who 
 sees his arms profaned. The press is no 
 longer that sure ally of freedom, which follows, 
 step by step, the depositories of power, but 
 without contesting with them their necessary 
 prerogatives, or striving to sap the foundations 
 of the state. It is an Eumenides, a Bacchante, 
 which agitates a torch, a hatchet, or a poniard; 
 which insults and strikes without intermis- 
 sion ; which applies itself incessantly, in its 
 lucid intervals, to demolish, stone by stone, 
 the whole social edifice ; which seems tor- 
 mented by a devouring fever ; which requires 
 to revenge itself for the sufferings of a consum- 
 ing pride, by the unceasing work of destruc- 
 tion. In other states, it has been found that 
 calumny penetrates into the field of polemical 
 contest. But France has gone a step farther; 
 it possesses whole workshops of calumny. 
 Insult possesses its seats of manufacture. We 
 have numerous journals, which live by attack- 
 ing every reputation, every talent, every spe- 
 cies of superiority. It is an artillery incessantly 
 directed to level every thing which is elevated, or 
 serves or honours its country. It is no wonder 
 that the observation should be so common, 
 that society is undergoing an incessant degra- 
 dation. A society in the midst of which a 
 disorder so frightful is daily appearing, with- 
 out exciting either attention or animadversion, 
 is on the high road to ruin. It is condemned 
 to the chastisement of heaven." Pp. 394 399. 
 
 One would imagine that the following pas- 
 sage was written expressly for the state of the 
 British revolutionary press, during the discus- 
 sion of the Reform Bill. 
 
 "The more that the progress of the Revolu- 
 tion produced of inevitable concessions to the 
 passion for democracy, the more indispen- 
 sable it was, that the press should have taken 
 an elevated ground, to withstand the torrent. 
 The reverse has been the case. Thence have 
 flowed that perpetual degradation of its ten- 
 dency, that emulation in calumny and detrac- 
 tion, that obstinate support of doctrines subver- 
 sive of society, those appeals to the passions of 
 the multitude, that ostentatious display of the logic 
 of brickbats, that indignation at every historic 
 name, those assaults on every thing that is 
 dignified or hereditary, on the throne, the peer- 
 age, property itself. Deplorable corruption ! 
 permanent corruption of talent, virtue, and 
 genius ! total abandonment of its glorious mis- 
 sion to enlighten, glorify, and defend its coun- 
 try." P. 402. 
 
 "The radical vice in the social system of 
 France, our author considers as consisting in 
 the overwhelming influence given to that class 
 a little above the lowest, in other words, the 10/. 
 householders, in whom, with unerring accu- 
 racy, the Revolutionists of England persuaded 
 an ignorant and reckless administration to 
 centre all the political power of this country. 
 Listen to its practical working in France, as 
 detailed by this liberal constitutional writer: 
 
 "The direct tendency of all our laws, is to 
 deliver over the empire to one single class in society : 
 that class, elevated just above the lowest, 
 which has enough of independence and edu- 
 cation to be inspired with the desire to centre 
 
 in itself all the powers of the state, but too 
 little to wield them with advantage. This 
 class forms the link between the upper ranks of 
 the Tiers Etat and the decided anarchists ; and it 
 is actuated by passion, the reverse of those of 
 both the regions on which it borders. Suffi- 
 ciently near to the latter to be not more dis- 
 turbed than it at the work of destruction, it is 
 sufficiently close to the former to be filled with 
 animosity at its prosperity : it participates in 
 the envy of the one, and the pride of the other 
 in fatal union, which corrupts the mediocrity 
 of their intelligence, their ignorance of the af- 
 fairs of state, the narrow and partial view they 
 take of every subject. Thence has sprung 
 that jealous and turbulent spirit which can do 
 nothing but destroy: which assails with its 
 wrath every thing which society respects, the 
 throne equally with the altar, power equally 
 with distinction : a spirit equally fatal to all 
 above and all below itself, which dries up all 
 the sources of prosperity, by overturning the 
 principles, the feelings, which form the counter- 
 poise of society ; and which a divine legislator 
 has implanted on the most ancient tables of 
 the law, the human conscience. 
 
 "Thus have we gone on for eighteen months, 
 accumulating the principles of destruction : 
 the more that we have need of public wisdom 
 for support, the more have we receded from 
 it. The evil will become irreparable, if the 
 spirit of disorder, which has overthrown our 
 authorities, and passed from the authorities 
 into the laws, should find a general entrance 
 into the minds of the people. There lies the 
 incurable wound of France." P. 405. 
 
 It was in the face of such testimony to the 
 tremendous effect of rousing democratic am- 
 bition in the lowest of the middling class of 
 society ; it was within sight of an empire 
 wasting away under their withering influence, 
 that the Reformers roused them to a state of 
 perfect fury, by the prospect of acquiring, 
 through the 10J. clause, an irresistible pre- 
 ponderance in the state. We doubt if the his- 
 tory of the world exhibits another instance of 
 such complete infatuation. 
 
 Is the literature of France in such a state 
 as to justify a hope, that a better day is likely 
 to dawn on its democratic society ? Let us 
 hear what the friend of constitutional freedom 
 says on that vital subject 
 
 "There is a moral anarchy far worse than 
 that of society, which saps even the founda- 
 tion of order, which renders it hardly consist- 
 ent even with despotism : utterly inconsistent 
 with freedom. We have seen political princi- 
 ples and belief often sustain the state, in de- 
 fault of laws and institutions ; but to what are 
 we to look for a remedy to the disorder which 
 has its seat in the heart? 
 
 " Were literature to be regarded as the ex- 
 pression of thought, there is not a hope left 
 for France. Literary talent now shows itself 
 stained with every kind of corruption. It 
 makes it a rule and a sport to attack every 
 sentiment and interest of which society is 
 composed. One would imagine that its object 
 is to restore to French literature all the vices 
 with which it was disgraced in the last cen- 
 tury. If, on the faith of daily eulogiums, you 
 
EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 
 
 319 
 
 go into a theatre, you see scenes represented 
 where the dignity of our sex is as much out- 
 raged as the modesty of the other. Everywhere 
 the same spectacles await you. Obscene ro- 
 mances are the model on which they are all 
 formed. The muse now labours at what is 
 indecent, as formerly it did at what would 
 melt the heart. How unhappy the young 
 men, who think they ape the elegance of 
 riches by adopting its vices, who deem them- 
 selves original, merely because they are re- 
 trograding, and who mistake the novels of 
 Crebillon and Voltaire for original genius ! 
 It would seem that these shameful excesses 
 are the inevitable attendant of ancient civil- 
 ization. How often have I myself written, 
 that that degrading literature of the last cen- 
 tury flowed from the corruptions of an abso- 
 lute monarchy ! And now Liberty, as if to 
 turn into derision my worship at its altars, has 
 taken for its model the school of Louis XV., 
 and improved upon its infamous inspirations." 
 Pp. 408, 409. 
 
 This revolutionary torrent has broken into 
 every department; it has invaded the opinions 
 of the thoughtful, the manners of the active, 
 the morals of the young, and the sanctity of 
 families. The fatal doctrine of a general di- 
 vision of property, is spreading to an extent 
 hardly conceivable in a state possessing much 
 property, and great individual ability. 
 
 "When the spirit of disorder has thus taken 
 possession of all imaginations, when the revolu- 
 tionary herald knocks with redoubled strokes, 
 not only at all the institutions, but at all the 
 doctrines and opinions which hold together 
 the fabric of society, can property, the corner- 
 stone of the edifice, be respected] Let us not 
 flatter ourselves with the hope that it can. 
 
 " Property has already ceased to be the main 
 pillar of the social constitution. It is treated 
 as conquered by the laws, as an enemy by the 
 politicians. Should the present system con- 
 tinue, it will soon become a slave." P. 416. 
 
 "The proof that the revolutionary torrent 
 has overwhelmed us, and that we are about to 
 retrograde for several centuries, is, that the 
 principle of confiscation is maintained without 
 intermission, without exciting any horror. An 
 able young man, M. Lherminier, has lately ad- 
 vanced the doctrine, that society is entitled to 
 dispossess the minority, to make way for the 
 majority. Well, a learned professor of the 
 law has advanced this doctrine, and France 
 hears it without surprise. Nay, farther, we 
 have a public worship, an hierarchy, mission- 
 aries in fine, a whole corps of militia, who 
 go from town to town, incessantly preaching 
 to the people the necessity of overturning the 
 hereditary descent of property ; and that scan- 
 dalous offence is openly tolerated. The state 
 permits a furious association to be formed in 
 its very bosom, to divide the property of 
 others ! Yet more the French society as- 
 sists at that systematic destruction of its last 
 pillar, as it would at a public game. Lyons 
 even cannot rouse them to their danger, the 
 conflagration of the second city in the empire 
 fails to illuminate the public thought." 
 Pp. 419, 419. 
 
 In the midst of this universal fusion of pub- 
 
 lic thought in the revolutionary crucible, the 
 sway of religion, of private morality, and pa- 
 rental authority, could not long be expected to 
 urvive. They have all accordingly given 
 way. 
 
 "Possibly the revolutionary worship has 
 come in place of the service of the altar, 
 which has been destroyed. Every religious tie 
 has long been extinguished amongst us. JJut now, 
 even its semblance has been abandoned. A Cham- 
 ber which boasts of having established free- 
 dom, has seriously entertained a project for 
 the abolition of the Sunday, and all religious 
 festivals. That would be the most complete 
 of all reactions, for it would at once confound 
 all ages, and exterminate every chance of sal- 
 vation. 
 
 " Such is the estimation in which religion is 
 now held, that every one hastens to clear him- 
 self from the odious aspersion of being in the least 
 degree attached to it. The representatives in 
 parliament, if by any chance an allusion is 
 made to the clergy, burst out into laughter or 
 sneer; they think they can govern a people, 
 while they are incessantly outraging their 
 worship that cradle of modern civilization. 
 If a journal accidentally mentions that a regi- 
 ment has attended mass, all the generals in. 
 the kingdom hasten to repel the calumny, to 
 protest by all that is sacred their entire inno- 
 cence, to swear that the barricades have taught 
 them to forget the lessons of Napoleon, to bow 
 the knee at the name of God." P. 420. 
 
 " In this universal struggle for disorganiza- 
 tion, the fatal ardour gains every character. 
 The contest is, who shall demolish most effec- 
 tually, and give the most vehement strokes to 
 society. M. de Schonen sees well that less 
 good was done by his courage in resisting the 
 attacks on the temples of religion, than evil 
 by the weight lent by the proposition for di- 
 vorce, to the last establishment which was yet 
 untouched, the sanctity of private life. To 
 defend our public monuments, and overturn 
 marriage, is a proceeding wholly for the bene- 
 fit of anarchy; I say overturn it; for in the 
 corrupted state of society where we live, to 
 dissolve its imlissolubility, is to strike it in its 
 very essence." Pp. 412, 413. 
 
 " The recent Revolution has exhibited a 
 spectacle which was wanting in that of 1789. 
 Robespierre, in the Constituent Assembly, pro- 
 posed the abolition of the punishment of death : 
 no one then thought of death, none dreamed 
 of bathing themselves in blood. Now, the 
 case is widely different we have arrived at 
 terror at one leap. It is while knowing it, 
 while viewing it full in the face, that it is se- 
 riously recommended. We have, or we affect, 
 the unhappy passion for blood. The speeches 
 of Robespierre and St. Just are printed and 
 sold for a few sous, leaving out only his speech in. 
 fivour of the Supreme Pcing. All this goes on 
 in peaceable times, when we are all as yet in 
 cold blood, without the double excuse of terror 
 and passion which palliated their enormities. 
 Poetry has taken the same line. The Consti- 
 tutinncl, while publishing their revolting pane- 
 gyrics on blood, expresses no horror at this 
 tendency. Incessantly we are told the reign 
 of blood cannot be renewed ; but our days 
 
320 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 have done more, they have removed all horror 
 at it." P. 421. 
 
 On the dissolution of the hereditary peerage, 
 the great conquest of the Revolution, the fol- 
 lowing striking observations are made. 
 
 " The democrats, in speaking of the destruc- 
 tion of the hereditary peerage, imagine that 
 they have only sacrificed an institution. 
 There never was a more grievous mistake ; 
 they have destroyed a principle. They have 
 thrown into the gulf the sole conservative 
 principle that the Revolution had left; the 
 sole stone in the edifice which recalls the 
 past; the sole force in the constitution which 
 subsists of itself. By that great stroke, France 
 has violently detached itself from the Euro- 
 pean continent, violently thrown itself beyond 
 the Atlantic, violently married itself to the 
 virgin soil of Pennsylvania, whither we bring 
 an ancient, discontented, and divided society; 
 a population overflowing, which, having no 
 deserts to expand over, must recoil upon it- 
 self, and tear out its own entrails ; in fine, the 
 tastes of servitude, the appetite for domina- 
 tion and anarchy, anti-religious doctrines, anti- 
 social passions, at which that young state, 
 which bore Washington, nourished freedom, 
 and believes in God, would stand aghast. 
 
 " The middling rank has this evil inherent 
 in its composition ; placed on the confines of 
 physical struggle, the intervention of force 
 does not surprise it; it submits to its tyranny 
 without revolt. Has it defended France, for 
 the last sixteen months, from the leaden scep- 
 tre which has so cruelly weighed upon her 
 destinies ? What a spectacle was exhibited 
 when the Chamber of Peers, resplendent with 
 talent, with virtues, with recollections dear to 
 France, by its conscientious votes for so many 
 years, was forced to vote against its conviction 
 forced, I say, to bend its powerful head before a 
 brutal, jealous, and ignorant multitude. The class 
 which could command such a sacrifice, en- 
 force such a national humiliation, is incapable 
 of governing France ; and will never preserve 
 the empire, but suffer it to fall into the jaws 
 of the pitiless enemy, who is ever ready to 
 devour it." P. 487. 
 
 "No government is possible, where the mor- 
 tal antipathy exists, which in France alienates 
 the lower classes in possession of power from 
 the ascendant of education or fortune. Can 
 any one believe that power will ultimately re- 
 main in the hands of that intermediate class 
 which is detached from the interests of pro- 
 perty, without being allied to the multitude? 
 Is it not evident, that its natural tendency is to 
 separate itself daily more and more from the 
 first class, to unite itself to the second 1 Com- 
 munity of hatred will occasion unity of exer- 
 tion; and the more that the abyss is enlarged 
 which separates the present depositaries of 
 power from its natural possessors, the more 
 will the masses enter into a share, and finally 
 the exclusive possession, of power. Thence 
 it will proceed from demolition to demolition, 
 from disorder to disorder, by an inevitable pro- 
 gress, and must at length end in the anti-social 
 state, the rule of the multitude. 
 
 "The moment that the opinion of the domi- 
 nant classes disregards established interests, that 
 
 it takes a pleasure in violating those august 
 principles which constitute ^the soul of society, 
 we see an abyss begin to open ; the earth 
 quakes beneath our feet the community is 
 shaken to its very entrails. Then begins a pro- 
 found and universal soise of suffering. Capital 
 disappears: talents retreat become irritated 
 or corrupted. The national genius becomes 
 intoxicated precipitates itself into every 
 species of disorder, and bears aloft, not as a 
 light, but a torch of conflagration, its useless 
 flame. The whole nation is seized with dis- 
 quietude and sickness, as on the eve of those 
 convulsions which shake the earth, and trouble 
 at once the air, the earth, and the sea. Every 
 one seeks the causes of this extraordinaiy 
 state; it is to be found in one alone the social 
 state is trembling to its foundations. 
 
 " This is precisely the state we have been in 
 for sixteen months. To conceal it is impossi- 
 ble. What is required is to endeavour to 
 remedy its disorders. France is well aware 
 that it would be happy if it had only lost a fifth 
 of its immense capital during that period. Every 
 individual in the kingdom has lost a large portion 
 of his income. And yet the Revolution of 1830 
 was the most rapid and the least bloody re- 
 corded in history. If we look nearer, we shall 
 discover that every one of us is less secure of 
 his property than he was before that moral 
 earthquake. Every one is less secure of his 
 head, though the reign of death has not yet 
 commenced; and in that universal feeling of 
 insecurity is to be found the source of the uni- 
 versal suffering." II. 491. 
 
 But we must conclude, however reluctantly, 
 these copious extracts. Were we to translate 
 every passage which is striking in itself, 
 which bears in the most extraordinary way on 
 the present crisis in this country, we should 
 transcribe the whole of this eloquent and pro- 
 found disquisition. If it had been written in 
 this country, it would have been set down as 
 the work of some furious anti-reformer; of 
 some violent Tory, blind to the progress of 
 events, insensible to the change of society. It 
 is the work, however, of no anti-reformer, but 
 of a liberal Parisian historian, a decided sup- 
 porter at the time of the Revolution of July ; a 
 powerful opponent of the Bourbons for fifteen 
 years in the Chamber of Deputies. He is 
 commended in the highest terms by Lady 
 Morgan, as one of the rising lights of the 
 age ;* and that stamps his character as a 
 leader of the liberal party. But he has become 
 enlightened, as all the world will be, to the 
 real tendency of the revolutionary spirit, by 
 that most certain of all preceptors, the suffer- 
 ing it has occasioned. 
 
 Salvandy, like all the liberal party in France, 
 while he clearly perceives the deplorable state 
 to which their Revolution has brought them, 
 and the fatal tendency of the democratic spirit 
 which the triumph of July has so strongly de- 
 veloped, is unable to discover the remote 
 cause of the disasters which overwhelm them. 
 At this distance from the scene of action, we 
 can clearly discern it. "Ephraim," says the 
 Scripture, "has gone to his idols; let him 
 
 * France, ii. 342. 
 
DESERTION OF PORTUGAL. 
 
 321 
 
 alone." In these words is to be found the 
 secret of the universal suffering, the deplora- 
 ble condition, the merciless tyranny, which 
 prevails in France. It is labouring under the 
 chastisement of Heaven. An offended Deity 
 has rained down upon it a worse scourge than 
 the brimstone which destroyed the cities of the 
 Jordan the scourge of its own passions and 
 vices. The terrible cruelty of the Reign of Ter- 
 ror the enormous injustice of the revolution- 
 ary rule, is registered in the book of fate ; the 
 universal abandonment of religion by all the 
 influential classes, has led to the extirpation 
 of all the barriers against anarchy which are 
 fitted to secure the well-being of society. Its 
 fate is sealed; its glories are gone; the un- 
 fettered march of passion will overthrow 
 every public and private virtue ; and national 
 ruin will be the consequence. We are follow- 
 ing in the same course, and will most certainly 
 share in the same punishment. 
 
 In this melancholy prospect let us be thank- 
 ful that the conservative party have nothing 
 with which to reproach themselves ; that 
 though doomed to share in the punishment, 
 they are entirely guiltless of the crime. Noble 
 indeed as was the conduct of the Duke of 
 
 Wellington, in coming forward at the eleventh 
 hour, to extricate the crown from the perilous 
 situation in which it was placed, and the de- 
 grading thraldom to which it was subjected, 
 we rejoice, from the bottom of our hearts, that 
 the attempt was frustrated. Had he gone on 
 with the bill as it stood, from a sense of 
 overwhelming necessity, all its consequences 
 would have been laid on its opponents. The 
 Whigs brought in the Reform Bill let them 
 have the dreadful celebrity of carrying it 
 through. Let them inscribe on their banners 
 the overthrow of the constitution; let them go 
 down to posterity as the destroyers of a cen- 
 tury and a half of glory; let them be stigma- 
 tized in the page of history as the men who 
 overthrew the liberties of England. Never 
 despairing of their country, let the great and 
 noble Conservative party stand aloof from the 
 fatal career of revolution ; let them remain for 
 ever excluded from power, rather than gain it 
 by the sacrifice of one iota of principle ; and 
 steadily resisting the march of wickedness, and 
 all the allurements of ambition, take for their 
 motto the words of ancient duty, **Fais ce que 
 dois : advienne ce que pourra." 
 
 DESERTION OF PORTUGAL* 
 
 LIGHTLY as in a moment of political frenzy, 
 and under the influence of the passion for 
 innovation, we may speak of the wisdom of 
 our ancestors, their measures were founded on 
 considerations which will survive the tempest 
 of the present times. They arose not from any 
 sagacity in them superior to what we possess, 
 but from experience having forced upon them 
 prudent measures from the pressure of ne- 
 cessity. As France is the power which had 
 been found by experience to be most formida- 
 ble to the liberties of Europe, and in an espe- 
 cial manner perilous to the independence of 
 England, our policy for two hundred years has 
 been founded upon the principle, that Holland 
 on the one side, and Portugal on the other, 
 should be supported against it. By a close 
 alliance with these two powers, we extended 
 our arms, as it were, around our powerful 
 neighbour; she could not go far in any direc- 
 tion without encountering either the one or the 
 other. So strongly was the necessity of this 
 felt, that so far back as 1663, in the treaty 
 concluded with Portugal, it was stipulated 
 " that England should resent any insult or ag- 
 gression offered to Portugal in the same way, 
 and with the same power as if its own domi- 
 nions were invaded." 
 
 The result has proved the wisdom of their 
 stipulations. In the two greatest wars which 
 have distracted Europe for the last two centu- 
 ries, the Netherlands and the Peninsula have 
 been the theatre where the armies of France 
 and England have encountered each other. 
 
 ___ 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, December, 1831. 
 
 ' 
 
 France has never been effectually checked but 
 when assailed in Spain and Flanders. Five- 
 and-twenty years' peace followed the treaty of 
 Utrecht, and sixteen have already followed the 
 peace of Paris. All other treaties for the last 
 hundred and fifty years can only be considered 
 as truces in comparison. Such is the import- 
 ance of the Peninsula, that a considerable 
 success there is almost sufficient to neutralize 
 the greatest advantages in the central parts of 
 Europe ; the victory of Almanza had well nigh 
 neutralized the triumphs of Oudenarde, Ra- 
 millies, and Malplaquet, and the cannon of 
 Salamanca startled Napoleon even on the eve 
 of the carnage of Borodino, and when almost 
 within sight of the Kremlin. 
 
 " The sea," says General Jomini, " which is 
 the worst possible base to every power, is 
 the best to England. That which is but a 
 sterile and inhospitable desert to a military 
 power, conveys to the menaced point the 
 fleets and the forces of Albion." It is on this 
 principle, that the strict alliance and close 
 connection with Portugal was formed. Its ex- 
 tensive sea-coast, mountainous ridges, and 
 numerous harbours, afforded the utmost faci- 
 lities for pouring into its bosom the resources 
 and armies of England, while its own force 
 was not so considerable as to render its people 
 jealous of the protection, or averse to the 
 generals, of England. The result proved the 
 wisdom of the choice made of Portugal as the 
 fulcrum on which the military power of Eng- 
 land, when engaged in continental war, should 
 be rested. It is there alone that an uncon- 
 querable stand was made against the forces of 
 
322 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Napoleon. That which neither the firmness 
 of Austria, nor the valour of Prussia, nor the 
 power of Russia could accomplish, has been 
 achieved by this little state, backed by the 
 might and the energy of England. Austria 
 has to lament the defects of Ulm and Wagram ; 
 Prussia the overthrow of Jena; Russia the 
 catastrophes of Austerlitz and Friedland ; 
 but the career of Portugal, in the same terrible 
 strife, was one of uninterrupted success ; be- 
 fore the rocks of Torres Vedras, the waves of 
 Gallic aggression first permanently receded ; 
 and from the strongholds of the Tagus, the 
 British standards advanced to a career of glory 
 greater than ever graced the days of her Hen- 
 rys and her Edwards. 
 
 It is a point on which military men are at 
 variance, whether fortresses are of more value 
 on the frontier or in the centre of a menaced 
 state. Perhaps the question may be solved by 
 a distinction : where the state assailed is one 
 of firstrate importance, as France or Austria, 
 fortified towns on its frontier are of incalcula- 
 ble importance, because, if the invading army 
 stops to invest them, it gives time for great 
 armaments in the interior; if it pushes on and 
 neglects them, it necessarily becomes so weak- 
 ened by the detachments made for the purpose 
 of maintaining their blockade, that it is inca- 
 pable of achieving any considerable success. 
 Two memorable examples of this occurred in 
 French Flanders in 1793, when the invading 
 army, an hundred and twenty thousand strong, 
 was so long delayed by besieging the frontier 
 fortresses of Valenciennes, Conde, Maubeuge, 
 and Landrecy, that time was given for the 
 Convention to organize and equip the great 
 armaments in the interior, which finally re- 
 pelled the invasion ; and in Lombardy, in 1796, 
 when the single fortress of Mantua arrested 
 the career of Napoleon for six months, and 
 gave time for Austria to assemble no less than 
 four successive and powerful armies for its 
 relief. On the other hand, the extraordinary 
 advantage attending the great central fortifica- 
 tions of Wellington at Torres Vedras, and the 
 corresponding successes gained by Skrzynecki, 
 from the possession of Warsaw, Zamosc, and 
 Modlin, during the late Polish war, and by 
 Napoleon, from the fortresses of Dresden, 
 Torgau, and Wittemberg, on the Elbe, in 1813, 
 demonstrate, that where the state assailed is 
 more inconsiderable when compared to the 
 attacking force, fortifications are of more avail 
 when placed in the centre of the threatened 
 state, and when its armies, retiring upon their 
 central strongholds, find both a point d'appui in 
 case of disaster, and an interior line of com- 
 munication, which compensates inferiority of 
 forces, and affords an opportunity for accumu- 
 lating masses on detached bodies of the 
 enemy. 
 
 But his majesty's present government have 
 solved the question in a totally different man- 
 ner. They have relinquished both the frontier 
 and the central fortresses which bridled 
 France ; both those which checked its irrup-y 
 tion into the centre of Europe, and those which 
 afforded a secure and central position on which 
 the armies of England could combat when 
 matters became more serious. We have lost 
 
 | both the frontier barrier of Marlborough in 
 I Flanders, and the interior barrier of Welling- 
 | ton in Portugal ; with one hand we have aban- 
 I doned the safeguard of northern, with the other 
 the citadel of southern Europe. 
 
 Deviating for the first time from the policy 
 of two hundred years, we have not only loaded 
 Portugal with injuries and indignities our- 
 selves, but we have permitted her to be the 
 victim of revolutionary violence and rapine 
 on the part of France. The Portuguese 
 wines, long the favoured object of British 
 protection, have been abandoned; the duties 
 of French and Oporto wines have been equal- 
 ized, and our ancient and irreconcilable ene- 
 my placed on the footing of the most favoured 
 nation ! 
 
 The consequence of this must in time be 
 the destruction or serious injury of the im- 
 mense capital invested in the raising of port 
 wine on the banks of the Douro. The cultiva- 
 tion of wine there has been nursed up by a 
 century's protection, and brought to its pre- 
 sent flourishing state by the fostering influence 
 of the British market. But how is that exces- 
 sive and exotic state of cultivation to continue, 
 when the duties on Portuguese and French 
 wines are equalized, and the merchants of 
 Bordeaux can, from a shorter distance, send 
 wines adapted to the English taste from the 
 mouth of the Garonne ? Two shillings a gal- 
 lon has been taken off French, and as much 
 laid on Portuguese wines; the Portuguese 
 grower, therefore, in competition with the 
 French, finds himself saddled with a difference 
 of duty amounting to four shillings a gallon. 
 It requires no argument to show that such a 
 difference of taxation deprives the Portuguese 
 of all their former advantages, and must in 
 the end extinguish the extraordinary growth 
 of vines in the province of Entre Douro 
 Minho. 
 
 What are the advantages which ministers 
 propose to themselves from this abandonment 
 of their ancient ally ? Is it that the English 
 commerce with France is so much more con- 
 siderable than that of Portugal, that it is worth 
 while to lose the one in order to gain the 
 other? The reverse is the fact the British 
 exports to France are only 700,000/. a year, 
 while those to Portugal amount to 2,000,000/. 
 Is it that France has done so much more for 
 British commerce than Portugal 1 The re- 
 verse is the fact France has, by the most 
 rigid system of prohibitions, excluded all Bri- 
 tish manufactures from its shores ; while Por- 
 tugal has, by a series of the most favourable 
 treaties, given them the greatest possible en- 
 couragement. Is it because a more extend- 
 ed commerce with France may in future be 
 anticipated from the friendly intercourse be- 
 tween the two countries, and a spirit of rising 
 liberality has manifested itself on the part of 
 its manufacturers and merchants? The re- 
 verse is the fact. France, so nearly in its 
 northern parts in the same latitude with Eng- 
 land, has the same coal, the same steam-en- 
 gines, the same manufactures, whereas Portu- 
 gal, exposed to the influence of a vertical sun, 
 without coal or manufacturing capital, is 
 unable to compete with any of the produc- 
 
DESERTION OF PORTUGAL. 
 
 323 
 
 tions of British industry. The consequence 
 is, that the utmost possible jealousy has al- 
 ways, and especially of late years, existed on 
 the part of the French against the British 
 manufactures ; and that all our measures for 
 their encouragement have been met by in- 
 creased duties, and more rigid prohibitions of 
 the produce of our industry. Is it because 
 France has been so much more friendly, of 
 late years, to Britain than Portugal 1 The 
 reverse is the fact. France has, for three 
 centuries, done every thing she possibly 
 could to destroy our industry and our inde- 
 pendence, while Portugal has done every 
 thing in her power to support the one and 
 the other. 
 
 The reason of this difference in the con- 
 duct of the two states, is founded in the dif- 
 ference of the physical situation of the two 
 countries, and of their climate and produce. 
 Portugal, the country of the vine and the 
 olive, without coal, wood, or fabrics of any 
 sort, destitute of canals or carriage-roads, 
 intersected by immense mountain ridges, is 
 as incapable of competing with the fabrics 
 or manufactures of England, as England is 
 of emulating their oil, fruit, and wines. The 
 case might have been the same with France, 
 if it had been possessed merely by its south- 
 ern provinces; but the northern lying nearly 
 in the same latitude as England, with their 
 coal mines, cotton and iron manufactories, 
 are in exactly the same line of industry as 
 the British counties, and their jealousy in 
 consequence of our manufactures is exces- 
 sive. The manufacturers of Rouen and Ly- 
 ons, being a much more opulent and united 
 body than the peasant vine-growers of the 
 south, have got the entire control of govern- 
 ment, and hence the extraordinary rigour 
 with which they exclude our manufactures, 
 and the inconsiderable amount of the trade 
 which we carry on with that populous king- 
 dom. This jealousy, being founded on simi- 
 larity of industry, and the rivalry of the same 
 kind of manufactures, will continue to the end 
 of time. By encouraging the wines of France, 
 therefore, we are favouring the industry of a 
 country which has not only always been our 
 enemy, hut never will make any return in 
 facilitating the consumption of our manufac- 
 tures ! By encouraging the wines of Portugal, 
 we are fostering the industry of a country 
 which has always been our friend ; and, from 
 the absence of all manufacturing jealousy, 
 may be relied upon as likely to continue per- 
 manently to take off the greatest possible 
 amount of our manufactures. 
 
 But this is not all. Not content with in- 
 flicting this severe blow upon the industry of 
 an allied state, which takes of 2,000,000/. a 
 year of our produce, and is so likely to con- 
 tinue to do so, we have insulted and injured 
 Portugal in the tenderest point, and allowed 
 our new ally, revolutionary France, to destroy 
 her national independence, and extinguish all 
 recollection of the protection and the guardian- 
 ship of England. 
 
 Don Miguel, as everybody knows, is dc 
 facto, if not de jure, king of Portugal. He is 
 not a legitimate monarch ; he stands upon the 
 
 people's choice. We do not pretend to vindi- 
 cate either his character or his system of go- 
 vernment. They are both said to be bad, 
 though, from trie falsehood on this subject 
 which evidently pervades the English press, 
 and the firm support which the Portuguese 
 have given him when under the ban of all 
 Europe, there is every reason to believe that 
 the accounts we receive are grossly exagge- 
 rated: but of that we have no authentic ac- 
 counts. Suffice it to say, the Portuguese have 
 chosen him for their sovereign, and, after the 
 experience of both, prefer an absolute monar- 
 chy to the democratic constitution with which 
 they were visited from this country. Now, 
 our government is avowedly founded on the 
 system of non-intervention ; and when the 
 French and Belgians made choice of a revo- 
 lutionary monarch, we were not slow in snap- 
 ping asunder all treaties with the expelled 
 dynasty, and recognising the new monarch 
 whom they placed on the throne. Don Miguel 
 has now held for four years the Portuguese 
 sceptre ; his throne is more firmly established 
 than that of either Louis Philippe or Leopold. 
 He has received neither countenance nor aid 
 from any foreign power; and if he had not 
 been agreeable to the great bulk of the Portu- 
 guese, he must, long ere this, have ceased to 
 reign. On what ground, then, is the recogni- 
 tion of Don Miguel so long delayed 1 Why is 
 he driven into a course of irregular and des- 
 perate conduct, from the refusal of the Eu- 
 ropean powers to admit his title 1 If they 
 acted on the principle of never recognising 
 any one but the legitimate monarch, we could 
 understand the consistency of their conduct; 
 but after having made such haste to recognise 
 the revolutionary monarchs, it is utterly im- 
 possible to discover any ground on which we 
 can withhold the same homage to the absolute 
 one, or refuse the same liberty of election to 
 the Portuguese which we have given to the 
 French and Belgian people. 
 
 But this is not all France has committed 
 an act of the most lawless and violent kind 
 to the Portuguese government; and we have 
 not only done nothing to check, but every thing 
 to encourage it 
 
 Two Frenchmen were arrested, it is said, for 
 political offences in Portugal, and sentenced to 
 pay a heavy fine by the courts there. What they 
 had done we know not. The Portuguese say 
 they were endeavouring to effect a revolution, 
 in that country the French deny the fact, and 
 assert that they were unjustly condemned. 
 However that may be, the French fleet sailed 
 to the Tagus, forced the passage of the forts, 
 and took possession of the fleet without any 
 declaration of war. They required the re- 
 versal of the sentence against their condemned 
 countrymen, the payment of a large sum in 
 name of damages to them, and a public apo- 
 logy ; and having gained all these objects, they 
 carried off the Portuguese fleet along with them to 
 France, while their ambassador still remained 
 on a pacific footing at the court of Lisbon ! 
 Now, this was plainly an act of rapine and 
 piracy. Without entering into the justice or 
 injustice of the proceedings against the ac- 
 cused in the Portuguese courts, supposing that 
 
324 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 they were as unjustifiable as possible, is that 
 any ground for seizing the whole navy of Por- 
 tugal, after the sentence complained of had 
 been reversed, ample satisfaction made to the 
 injured party, and a public apology placarded 
 on the streets of Lisbon by the Portuguese 
 government 1 
 
 Against this flagrant kind of revolutionary 
 violence, England has neither protested nor 
 demonstrated: we have witnessed in silence 
 the spoliation of the Portuguese fleet, as the 
 partition of the Dutch territory, and France 
 can boast of greater naval trophies obtained 
 from the allies of England in peace, than she 
 ever obtained during the twenty years of the 
 revolutionary war. Injuries are often com- 
 plained of by the subjects of one country 
 against the government of another ; satisfac- 
 tion is often demanded and obtained, and da- 
 mages awarded to the aggrieved party. But 
 was it ever heard of before, that after such 
 satisfaction had been obtained, the whole fleet 
 of the power from whom it was demanded 
 should be seized hold of, and carried off as in 
 open war 1 ? If this is a specimen of revolu- 
 tionary justice, and of the new eras of liberty 
 and equality, certainly Astrsea in leaving the 
 world has not left her last footsteps among 
 them. 
 
 In this iniquitous and violent proceeding 
 towards our old and faithful ally, let it always 
 be recollected, the English government has 
 tamely acquiesced. Well might the Duke of 
 Wellington declare in the House of Lords, 
 that nothing in life had ever given him so 
 much pain, and that his cheeks were filled 
 with blushes, when he thought of the conduct 
 of our government towards its ancient ally. 
 Would the government of Louis Philippe, we 
 ask, have ventured upon such a step, if the 
 Duke of Wellington had been at the head of 
 our administration ? Would they have ven- 
 tured on it, if they had not been aware that no 
 violence of theirs towards the Portuguese go- 
 vernment was likely to be resented by our re- 
 forming government 1 ? In what light are we 
 likely to be viewed by posterity, when, after 
 having made such heroic efforts to save the 
 Portuguese from the yoke of France, for eight 
 years during the reign of Napoleon, we suffer 
 them to become the victims of such revolu- 
 tionary violence, the moment that a new ad- 
 ministration is called to the helm of affairs ] 
 
 How can we expect that our allies are to 
 stand by us in periods of peril, when we de- 
 sert them in so extraordinary a manner the 
 moment that a new administration succeeds 
 to our guidance ? Have we arrived at that 
 state of vacillation and instability, so well 
 known as the symptom of weak and demo- 
 cratic societies, that there is nothing stable 
 or fixed either in foreign or domestic policy, 
 but government is tossed about by every wind 
 of doctrine, and at the mercy of every agita- 
 tion raised from the lowest classes of the peo- 
 ple ? Have the reformers brought this country, 
 whose firmness and stability in time past had 
 rivalled that of the Roman senate, to such a 
 state of weakness in so short a time, that the 
 British alliance forms no security against ex- 
 ternal violence, and every stats that wishes to 
 
 avoid plunder and devastation, must range it- 
 self under the banners of our enemies 1 What 
 the motive for such conduct may have been, 
 it is diflicult to divine; but the fact is certain, 
 that we have done so, and every Englishman 
 must bear the humiliation which it has brought 
 upon his country. 
 
 " The meanest Englishman," said Mr. Can- 
 ning, "shall not walk the streets of Paris with- 
 out being considered as the compatriot of 
 Wellington; as a member of that community 
 which has humbled France and rescued Eu- 
 rope." The noblest Englishman shall not now 
 walk the streets of any European capital, with- 
 out being considered as the compatriot of Grey; 
 the member of that community which has par- 
 titioned Holland and deserted Portugal. With 
 truth it may now be said, that the indignities 
 and contempt which now await a traveller 
 among all our former allies, are equalled only 
 by the respect which h formerly experienced. 
 Ask any traveller who has lately returned from 
 Vienne, Berlin, the Hague, or Lisbon, in what 
 light he is now regarded ; whether he has ex- 
 perienced the same kindness or respect which 
 so lately attended the English character? He 
 will answer that they consider the English as 
 absolutely insane, and that the ancient respect 
 for our people is not quite extinguished, only 
 because they look upon our delirium as tran- 
 sient, and trust to the restoration of the ancient 
 spirit of the nation. 
 
 It is impossible it can be otherwise. To see 
 a people suddenly relinquish all their former 
 allies, and connect themselves with their an- 
 cient enemies abandon at one blow the ob- 
 jects of two hundred years' contest, and forget 
 in one year the gratitude and the obligations 
 of centuries is so extraordinary, that to those 
 at a distance from the innovating passions 
 with which we have been assailed, it must ap- 
 pear like the proceedings of men who had lost 
 their reason. Such a proceeding might be in- 
 telligible, if experience had proved that this 
 former policy had been ruinous ; that these 
 ancient allies had proved unfaithful ; that these 
 hereditary obligations had been a source of 
 humiliation. But what is to be said when the 
 reverse of all this is the fact ? when this policy 
 had been attended with unprecedented tri- 
 umphs, these allies having stood by us in the 
 extremity of disaster, and these obligations 
 having brought with them a weight of national 
 gratitude? when the Dutch remind England 
 that it was not till Pichegru had conquered 
 Amsterdam that they withdrew unwillingly 
 from their alliance; and the Portuguese re- 
 count that they remained faithful to their en- 
 gagements, when the spoiler was ravaging their 
 land ; when the army of England had fled from 
 Corunna ; when Oporto was in the hands of 
 Soult; when a devouring flame ravaged their 
 central provinces, and the leopards of England 
 were driven to their last defences on the rocks 
 of Mafral 
 
 The French accuse their government of 
 yielding too much to British ascendency; and 
 it may be judged from the preceding state- 
 ments whether we are not too obsequious to 
 their revolutionary rulers. The truth is, that 
 both charges are well founded. The govern- 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 ments of both countries appear to play into 
 each other's hands, to an extent inconsistent 
 with the honour or the welfare of either. When 
 the revolutionary dynasty of France deem an 
 advance into Belgium, or an assault on Por- 
 tugal, requisite to give an impulse to their de- 
 clining popularity, the reforming ministers of 
 England offer no opposition to the spoliation 
 of their allies. If the reforming ministers 
 here deem their situation critical, by a formi- 
 dable opposition to the projected change in the 
 constitution, the French troops are directed to 
 withdraw from Belgium to encamp on the 
 frontier and preserve their advanced guard, 
 consisting of the Belgian army, led by French j 
 officers alone, in the fortresses of Flanders, j 
 We ascribe no bad motives to our rulers ; we 
 have no doubt that they think they are per- ' 
 forming the part of true patriots : we mention 
 only the facts which have occurred, and pos- 
 terity will judge of these facts with inflexible 
 justice nor excuse weakness of conduct, be- 
 
 | cause it is founded on goodness of inten- 
 tion. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the conduct we 
 j have explained on the part of our present 
 rulers towards Flanders and Portugal, would 
 have been sufficient to have overturned any 
 former administration and that at any other 
 time, the press of England would have rung 
 from shore to shore with indignant declama- 
 tion at the inconsistency and imbecility of our 
 present foreign policy. How, then, has it 
 happened, that this important matter is com- 
 paratively forgotten, and that we hear so little 
 of a course of conduct which future ages will 
 class with the fatal aberration from British 
 policy by Charles II. ? The reason is, that we 
 are overwhelmed with domestic disasters, 
 that revolution and anarchy are staring us in 
 the face at home, and that seeing the danger 
 at our own throats, we have neither leisure 
 nor inclination to attend to the circumstances 
 or disasters of our allies. 
 
 CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN.* 
 
 AMIDST all our declarations in favour of the 
 lights of the age, the influence of the press, 
 and the extension of journals in diffusing 
 correct ideas on every subject of policy, fo- 
 reign and domestic, it may be doubted, whether 
 there is to be found in the whole history of 
 human delusion, not even excepting the be- 
 nighted ages of papal despotism, or the equally 
 dark era of Napoleon's tyranny, an example 
 of ignorance so complete and general, as has 
 prevailed in this country, for the last seven 
 years, as to the affairs of Spain. While a 
 contest has been going on there during all that 
 period between constitutional right and revolu- 
 tionary spoliation; while the Peninsula has 
 been convulsed by the long protracted con- 
 flict between legal government and democratic 
 despotism ; while the same cause which has 
 been supported since 1830 in Great Britain by 
 the arms of reasoning, eloquence, or influence, 
 has there been carried on with the edge of the 
 sword ; while for the last four years a struggle 
 has been maintained by the Basque moun- 
 taineers for their rights and their liberties, 
 their hearths and their religion, which history 
 will place beside the glories of Marathon and 
 Salamis, of Naefels and Morgarten ; while an 
 heroic prince and his heroic brothers have 
 borne up against a load of oppression, foreign 
 and domestic, in defence of legal righl and con- 
 stitutional freedom, with a courage and a skill 
 rarely paralleled in the annals of military 
 achievement, the great bulk of the English 
 nation have looked with supineness or indiffer- 
 ence on the glorious spectacle. They have 
 been deceived, and willingly deceived, by the 
 endless falsehoods which the revolutionary 
 
 *Blackwood's Mairazine, May, 1837. Written during the 
 heroic contest of the Basque provinces for their liberty 
 and independence. 
 
 press and the holders of Spanish bonds spread 
 abroad on this subject; they have been carried 
 away by the false and slanderous appellations 
 bestowed on Don Carlos ; they have been 
 mystified by a denial of his clear and irresisti- 
 ble title to the throne; they have not duly con- 
 sidered the stern and inexorable necessity which 
 compelled him to abandon the humane system 
 of warfare which he at first adopted, and re- 
 taliate upon his enemies the atrocious and 
 murderous rule of war which they had so long 
 practised against him and his followers; and 
 by their supineness permitted the royal arms 
 of England to be implicated in the most savage 
 crusade ever undertaken in modern times 
 against the liberty of mankind, and a band of 
 brave but deluded mercenaries, to prolong to 
 their own and their country's eternal disgrace 
 a frightful conflict between sordid democratic 
 despotism, striving to elevate itself on the ruins 
 of its country, and the free-born bravery of un- 
 conquerable patriots. 
 
 We take blame to ourselves on this subject; 
 we confess ourselves implicated in the charge 
 which, through all the succeeding ages of the 
 world, will attach to the name of England, for 
 its deplorable concern in this heroic conflict, 
 which will go far to obliterate the recollection 
 of all its memorable exertions in the cause of 
 freedom. The calamity is not the defeat sus- 
 tained at St. Sebastian or Hernani : not the 
 disgrace of English regiments being routed 
 and driven back at the point of the bayonet in 
 shameful confusion; these stains are easily 
 wiped out : the national courage, when brought 
 into the field in a just cause, will soon obliter- 
 ate the recollection of the defeat which was 
 sustained in supporting that of cruelty and in- 
 justice. The real disgrace the calamity which 
 England has indeed to mourn, is that of having 
 2E 
 
326 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 joined in an alliance to beat down the liberties 
 of mankind; in having aided a selfish, execra- 
 ble band of Peninsula murderers and plunderers 
 to oppress and massacre our faithful allies ; in 
 having combined with France, in defiance 
 alike of the faith of treaties and the rules of 
 international law, to deprive a gallant prince 
 of his rightful inheritance; in having sent out 
 the royal forces of England, under the old flag 
 of Wellington, to aid a set of Spanish cut- 
 throats and assassins, of robbers and plun 
 derers, in carrying fire and sword, mourning 
 and despair through the valleys of a simple 
 and virtuous people, combined in no other 
 cause but that for which Hampden bled on 
 the field and Sidney on the scaffold. 
 
 "Wo unto thosej" says the Scripture, "who 
 call evil good and good evil ; for theirs is the 
 greater damnation/' It is in this fatal delusion 
 in the confusion of ideas produced by trans- 
 posing the names of things, and calling the cause 
 of despotism that of freedom, merely because 
 it is supported by urban despots and that of 
 freedom slavery, because it is upheld by rural 
 patriots, that the true cause of this hideous 
 perversion, not merely of national character, 
 but even of party consistency, is to be found. 
 We are perfectly persuaded that, if the people 
 of England were aware of the real nature of 
 the cause in which they embarked a gallant 
 but unfortunate band of adventurers; if the 
 government were aware of the real tendency 
 of the quasi-intervention which they have 
 carried on, both the one and the other would 
 recoil with horror from the measures which 
 they have so long sanctioned. But both were 
 deluded by the name of freedom; both were 
 carried away by the absurd mania for the ex- 
 tension of democratic institutions into coun- 
 tries wholly unprepared for them ; and both 
 thought they were upholding the cause of 
 liberty and the ultimate interests of Great 
 Britain, by supporting a band of Spanish Re- 
 volutionists who have proved themselves to 
 be the most selfish, corrupt, and despotic tyrants 
 who ever yet rose to transient greatness .upon 
 the misery and degradation of their country. 
 But, while we thus absolve the government 
 and the country from intentional abuse of 
 power in the deplorable transactions which 
 both have sanctioned, there is a limit beyond 
 which this forbearance cannot be extended. 
 
 This result of our shameful intervention to 
 oppress the free, and aid the murderers in 
 massacring the innocent, is now fixed and un- 
 alterable, and in no degree dependent on the 
 future issue of the contest. What that may 
 finally be, God only knows. It is possible, 
 doubtless, that the weight of the Quadruple 
 Alliance the direct intervention of France 
 the insidious support of England the exhaus- 
 tion of a protracted contest and the extirpa- 
 tion of the population capable of bearing arms 
 in the Basque provinces, may beat down these 
 heroic mountaineers, and establish amidst 
 blood and ashes, anguish and mourning, the 
 cruel oppression of the Madrid democrats in 
 the lovely valleys of Navarre : " Quum soli- 
 tudinem fecerunt, pacem appellant." In that 
 case, the interest of the struggle will be en- 
 hanced by its tragic termination; the sympa- 
 
 thies, the indignant sympathies of mankind in 
 every future age, will be with the unfortunate 
 brave ; like the Poles or the Girondists, the 
 errors of their former conduct will all be for- 
 gotten in the Roman heroism of their fall. 
 They will take their place in history, beside 
 their ancestors in Numantia and Saguntum, 
 who preferred throwing themselves into the 
 flames, to the hated dominion of. the stranger; 
 and the Saragossans or Geronists in later days, 
 who perished in combating the formidable 
 legions of Napoleon, or the gallant patriots, 
 who, with Kosciusko, shed .their last blood, 
 when the grenadiers of Suwarrow were storm- 
 ing the entrenchments of Prague, and the Vis- 
 tula ran red with Polish blood. Or it may be, 
 that Providence has reserved a different destiny 
 for these gallant patriots, and that on this, as 
 on so many previous occasions, the God of 
 battles will bless the righteous side. In that 
 case, their struggle will form one of the most 
 animating periods in the page of history one 
 of the bright and consoling spots in the annals 
 of human suffering, to which the patriot will 
 point in every succeeding age as the animat- 
 ing example of successful virtue, at the recital 
 of which the hearts of the generous will throb, 
 so long as valour and constancy shall be ap- 
 preciated upon earth. 
 
 We speak thus warmly, because we feel 
 strongly because we sympathize from the 
 bottom of our hearts with the cause of free- 
 dom all over the world. But we are not de- 
 luded, as so many of our countrymen are, who 
 never look beyond the surface of things, by the 
 mere assumption of false names. We have 
 learned from our own experience, as well as 
 the annals of history, that tyranny, plunder, 
 and oppression can stalk in the rear of the 
 tricolour flag, and urban multitudes be roused 
 by a ruthless band of sordid revolutionists, to 
 their own and their country's ultimate ruin. 
 We have learned also from the same sources 
 of information, that hearts can beat as warmly 
 for the cause of freedom, and arms combat as 
 bravely in its defence on the mountain as on 
 the plain, in the sequestered valley as in the 
 crowded city, under the banners of religion 
 and loyalty, as under the standard of treason 
 and perfidy. We yield to none in the ardent 
 love of liberty ; but what we call liberty is the 
 lasting protection of the rights and privileges 
 of all classes of the people, not the trampling 
 them under foot, to suit the fanciful theories 
 of visionary enthusiasts, or the sordid specu- 
 lations of stock exchange revolutionists. We 
 look around us, and behold liberty still flour- 
 ishing in the British isles, after a hundred and 
 fifty years' duration, under the banner of reli- 
 gion and loyalty, despite all the efforts of infi- 
 del democracy for its destruction. We cast 
 our eyes to the other side of the channel, and 
 we see freedom perishing, both in France and 
 Spain, after unheard-of calamities, under the 
 ascendant of a revolutionary and freethinking 
 generation. Taught by these great examples, 
 we have learned to cling the more closely to 
 the faith and the maxims of our fathers, to see 
 in the principles of religion and loyalty the 
 only secure foundation for real freedom; and 
 to expect the ultimate triumph of constitu- 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 327 
 
 tional principles, not from the sudden irrup- 
 tion of blood-thirsty fanatics, or the selfish 
 ambition of rapacious democrats, but the gra- 
 dual and pacific growth of a middling class in 
 society, under the protecting influence of a 
 durable government. 
 
 We make these remarks, too, in the full 
 knowledge of the hideous massacres which 
 have so long disfigured this unhappy war 
 having before our eyes the Durango decree, 
 and the Carlist executions ; and yielding to 
 none in horror at these sanguinary atrocities, 
 and the most ardent wish for their termination. 
 We make them also, agreeing with the Stand- 
 ard, that if this frightful system had begun with 
 the Carlists, or had even been adopted by them 
 under the influence of any other cause than the 
 sense of unbearable executions of a similar 
 kind previously suffered by them, and begun by 
 the Revolutionists, and the overwhelming ne- 
 cessity of mournful retaliation, not only would 
 their cause be unworthy of the sympathy of 
 any brave or good man, but that Don Carlos 
 himself would "be a monster unfit to live." 
 But admitting all this, we see it as clearly 
 proved as any proposition in geometry, that 
 this execrable system began ivith the Spanish 
 democrats, and them alone, and was never resort- 
 ed to by the Carlists, till years after they had 
 suffered under its atrocious execution by their ene- 
 mies ; and the Carlist valleys were filled with 
 mourning from the death of old men, women 
 and children, murdered in cold blood by the 
 democratic tyrants who sought to plunder and 
 enslave them. And in such circumstances, 
 we know that retaliation, however dreadful and 
 mournful an extremity, is unavoidable, and that 
 brave and humane men are forced, like Zuma- 
 lacarregui, to sentence prisoners to be shot, 
 even when the order, as it did from him, draws 
 tears like rain from their eyes. Unquestion- 
 ably none can admire more than we do the 
 noble proclamation of the Duke of York in 
 1793, in answer to the savage orders of the 
 Directory to the Revolutionary armies of 
 France to give no quarter. None can feel 
 greater exultation at the humane conduct of 
 the Vendeans, who, in reply to a similar order 
 from their inhuman oppressors, sent eleven 
 thousand prisoners back, with their heads 
 merely shaved, to the republican lines. But it 
 belongs to the prosperous and the secure to 
 act upon such generous and noble principles ; 
 the endurance of cold-blooded cruelty, the 
 pangs of murdered innocence, the sight of pa- 
 rents and children slaughtered, will drive, and 
 in every age have driven, the most mild and 
 humane to the dreadful but unavoidable sys- 
 tem of retaliation. 
 
 We know that the Vendeans themselves, 
 despite all the heroic humanity of their chiefs, 
 were forced in the end to retaliate upon their 
 enemies the system of giving no quarter. We 
 know that Charette, the most humane of men 
 in the outset of his heroic career, for the two 
 last years of his career, found it impossible to 
 act on any other principle. We go back to 
 the annals of our own country, and we see in 
 them too melancholy proof, that even in the 
 sober-minded, or, it may be, right thinking in- 
 habitanls of the British isles, a certain endur- 
 
 ance of suffering, and the commencement of a 
 cruel system of war by one party, will at all 
 times drive their antagonists into a hideous 
 course of reprisals. Have we forgotten, that 
 in the wars of the Roses, quarter was refused 
 on both sides by the contending armies, for 
 nine long years; and that eighty princes of the 
 blood, and almost all the nobility of England 
 were put to death, and most of them in cold 
 blood, by the ruthless cruelty of English 
 armies! Have we forgotten, that utter de- 
 struction was vowed by the Scottish Cove- 
 nanters against the Irish auxiliaries in Mon- 
 trose's army; and that they carried their ven- 
 geance so far, as to massacre all their prison- 
 ers in cold blood, and drown at the bridge of 
 Linlithgow even their innocent babes? Have 
 we forgotten the cruel atrocities of the Irish 
 Rebellion, or the fierce retaliation of the indig- 
 nant Orangemen 1 Seeing then that a certain 
 extremity of suffering, and the endurance of 
 a certain amount of cruelty by intestine oppo- 
 nents, will, in all ages, and in all nations, even 
 the most moderate and humane, induce the 
 dreadful necessity of retaliation, we look with 
 pity, though with poignant grief, on the stern 
 reprisals to which Don Carlos has been driven, 
 and earnestly pray that similar civil discord 
 may long be averted from the British isles ; 
 and that we may not be doomed by a righteous 
 Providence, as we perhaps deserve, to undergo 
 the unutterable wretchedness, which our un- 
 called for and unjust support of those who 
 began the execrable system of murder, has so 
 long produced in the Spanish peninsula. 
 
 In attempting to make amends for our hith- 
 erto apparent neglect of this interesting sub- 
 ject, we rejoice to think that the materials by 
 which we can now vindicate the righteous 
 cause, and explain to our deluded countrymen 
 the gross injustice of which they have been 
 rendered the unconscious instruments, have, 
 within these last few months, been signally en- 
 larged. First, Captain Henningsen's animated 
 and graphic narrative enlisted our sympa- 
 thies in favour of the gallant mountaineers, 
 beside whom he drew the sword of freedom. 
 Next, Mr. Honan's able and well-informed 
 work unfolded still more fully the nature of 
 the contest, and the resources from which the 
 Basque peasantry have maintained so long 
 and surprising a struggle in defence of their 
 privileges against all the forces which have 
 been arrayed against them. Then Lord Caernar- 
 von's admirable disquisition on the war, an- 
 nexed to his highly interesting tour in the Por- 
 tuguese provinces, gave to the statements of 
 his excellent predecessors the weight of his 
 authority, the aid of his learning, and the sup- 
 port of his eloquence. Though last, not least, 
 Mr. Walton has taken the field with two octavo 
 volumes, which throw a flood of light on the 
 real nature of the contest now raging in the 
 Peninsula, the objects of the parties en- 
 gaged, the claims of the competitors to the 
 throne, the consequence of the triumph of 
 the one or the other on the future interests of 
 religion and freedom, the cruel severities to 
 which the Carlists were subjected by their 
 blood-thirsty enemies before they were reluc- 
 tantly driven to retaliation, and the frightful 
 
328 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 consequences which have resulted, and must 
 continue to result while it endures, from our 
 iniquitous co-operation with the cause of op- 
 pression. All these momentous topics are 
 treated in the volumes before us with a clear- 
 ness, temper, moderation, and ability which 
 leave nothing to be desired, and render them | 
 by far the most important work on the affairs 
 of the Peninsula which has yet issued from the 
 European press. When we see the ability 
 and candour, the courage and energy, the learn- 
 ing and eloquence, which, unbought by the 
 gold of the stock exchange, uninfluenced by 
 speculations in Spanish bonds, unsolicited by 
 the rewards of a deceived democratic and com- 
 mission-granting administration, is thus gene- 
 rously and gratuitously coming forward from 
 so many quarters at once in defence of the 
 cause of religious truth and independence, we 
 recognise the revival of the spirit of old Eng- 
 land; we indulge a hope that the press, like I 
 the Thames water, may yet work off its own I 
 impurities; and we are ready to take our | 
 humble part in so good a cause, and bear with 
 equanimity the torrent of abuse with which the 
 servile writers of the Treasury, or the hireling 
 scribes of the stock exchange, will assail our 
 endeavours to give greater publicity than, in a 
 selfish and engrossed age, they might otherwise 
 obtain to their all-important disclosures. 
 
 From the statements proved, and documents 
 brought forward, in Mr. Walton's work, it is 
 manifest, 
 
 1. That the constitution of 1812, so long the 
 darling object of democratic contention in the 
 Peninsula, and now the avowed basis of its 
 government, is an ultra-republican system, 
 which never obtained the legal consent of the 
 nation, but was merely imposed on their 
 countrymen for their own selfish ends by a 
 knot of urban democrats at Cadiz, who at that 
 unhappy period, when four-fifths of the country 
 was occupied by the French armies, had con- 
 trived to usurp the powers, not only of sove- 
 reignty, but of remodelling the state. 
 
 2. That it is not only utterly unsuitable to 
 the Spanish people, and necessarily produc- 
 tive of (as it ever has produced) nothing but 
 plunder, massacre, and democratic oppression ; 
 but is of so absurd and ill-considered a cha- 
 racter as even, if established in England, amidst 
 a people habituated for centuries to the exer- 
 cise of freedom, would tear society to atoms 
 in six months. 
 
 3. That, from experience of the devastating 
 effects of this ultra-radical constitution, and 
 the sordid cupidity of the democratic agents 
 whom it instantly brings to the head of affairs, 
 the great majority of the Spanish nation, almost 
 all who are distinguished by their patriotism, 
 principle, or good sense, are decidedly opposed 
 to its continuance ; that though often established 
 by military violence or democratic intrigue, it 
 has ever fallen to the ground by its own weight 
 when not upheld, as it now is, by powerful fo- 
 reign co-operation; and that at this moment, 
 if this co-operation were really withdrawn, it 
 would sink to the dust in three months, with all 
 its accessaries of democratic spoliation, royal- 
 ist blood, and universal suffering, never more 
 to rise. 
 
 4. That the democratic party, since the time 
 that nine-tenths of the nation had become the 
 decided enemies of their usurpation, fell upon 
 the expedient of engrafting the maintenance 
 of their cause upon a disputed succession to 
 the throne, prevailed on Ferdinand VII., when 
 in a state of dotage, to alter the law of royal 
 succession in favour of his infant daughter, 
 got together the farce of a Cortes, to give their 
 sanction to the illegal act, and have since 
 contrived to keep her on the throne, as a mere 
 puppet, to serve as a cover to their revolution- 
 ary designs, despite the clearly proved voice 
 of the nation, by filling the army and all civil 
 offices with their own creatures, and maintain- 
 ing an usurped and hateful usurpation by the 
 aid of urban democracy, foreign co-operation, 
 and stock-jobbing assistance. 
 
 5. That the title of Don Carlos to the throne 
 is clear, not less on the legitimate principle of 
 legal succession, which we were bound, in 
 the most solemn manner, by the treaty of 
 Utrecht, to guaranty, than on the liberal prin- 
 ciple of a violation of the social contract, and 
 a trampling under foot all the rights and pri- 
 vileges of the people, dissolving the title of a 
 sovereign, how well-founded soever in itself, 
 to the supreme direction of affairs. 
 
 6. That the frightful system of murdering 
 the prisoners was first introduced by the Revo- 
 lutionists; that it was carried on with ruthless 
 severity and heartless rigour by them for years 
 before it was imitated by the Royalists ; that they 
 have repeatedly made endeavours, both pub- 
 licly and privately, to put a stop to its con- 
 tinuance, but always been foiled by the refusal 
 of their savage antagonists. 
 
 7. That the English auxiliaries, both under 
 General Evans and Lord John Hay, lent their 
 powerful aid to the Revolutionary party, not 
 only without the English government having 
 made any effectual stipulation in favour of Ihe 
 abandoning that atrocious system of warfare, 
 but at a time when, without such aid, the war 
 was on the point of being brought to a' glorious 
 termination by the freeborn mountaineers of 
 Biscay and Navarre, and have thus become 
 implicated, through the fault or neglect of 
 their government:, in all the woful conse- 
 quences of a continuance of the struggle. 
 
 8. That the stand made by the Basque pro- 
 vinces is for their rights and their liberties, 
 their privileges and their immunities, enjoyed 
 by their ancestors for five hundred years, 
 asserted by them in every age with a con- 
 stancy and spirit exceeding even the far-famed 
 resolution of the Swiss Cantons, but which 
 were all reft from them at one fell swoop by the 
 ruthless tyranny of a democratic despotism. 
 
 It is impossible, in the limits of an article in 
 a periodical, to quote all the documents, or de- 
 tail all the facts, which Mr. Walton has accu- 
 mulated, with irresistible force, to prove every 
 one of these propositions. If any one doubts 
 them, we earnestly recommend him to study 
 his work; and if he is not convinced, we say, 
 without hesitation, neither would he be per- 
 suaded though one rose from the dead. But even 
 in this cursory notice a few leading facts may 
 be brought forward, which cannot fail to throw 
 a clear light on this important subject, and 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 329 
 
 may tend to aid the efforts of those brave and ! 
 enlightened men who are now striving to pre- ! 
 vent British blood from being any longer shed ! 
 in the most unjust of causes, and hinder the j 
 British standards from being any longer un- 
 furled, in the name of freedom and liberty, to 
 uphold the cause of infidelity, rapine, and op- 
 pression. 
 
 Of the manner in which the Constitution of 
 1812 was fabricated by a clique of urban agita- 
 tors in Cadiz, when blockaded by the French 
 forces in 1810, and thrust, amidst the agonies 
 of the war with Napoleon, on an unconscious 
 or unwilling nation, the following account is 
 given by our author: 
 
 "In the decrees and other preparations made 
 by the central junta, in anticipation of the 
 meeting of Cortes, the old mode of convening 
 the national assembly had been abandoned, the 
 illuminati congregated at Seville being of 
 opinion 'that the ancient usages were more a 
 matter of historical research than of practical 
 importance.' It was therefore agreed, that in 
 their stead a new electoral law should be 
 framed, more congenial to the general princi- 
 ple of representation ; the result of which was, 
 that those cities which had deputies in the 
 Cortes last assembled were to have a voice, as 
 well as the superior juntas, and that one deputy 
 should besides be elected for every fifty thou- 
 sand souls. It was also settled that the South 
 American provinces, at the time actually in a 
 state of insurrection, should, for the present, 
 have substitutes chosen for them, until they 
 sent over delegates duly elected. It is a cu- 
 rious fact, that on the 18th of the previous 
 April, Joseph Bonaparte had convened the 
 Cortes, and it was at the time thought that this 
 example served to stimulate the central junto 
 to perform their long forgotten promise. 
 
 "The new fashioned Cortes opened on the 
 24th of September, consisting only of popular 
 deputies, or one estate, the other two being 
 excluded. When the inaugural ceremonies were 
 over, the members assembled declared them- 
 selves legally constituted in 'general and extra- 
 ordinary Cortes,' in whom the national sove- 
 reignty resided ; or, in other words, they at once 
 declared themselves a constituent assembly. 
 
 " In one respect, the assembly of the Spanish 
 Cortes of 1810, resembled that of the French 
 States-general in 1791, the members being 
 mostly new men whose names had scarcely 
 been heard of before. In another sense, the 
 disparity between the two assemblies was 
 great. The States-general opened their sit- 
 tings under legal forms, with the three orders, 
 and, after stormy debates, one estate ejected or a6- 
 sorbed the other two, when the triumphant party, 
 declaring themselves a constituent assembly, 
 proceeded to enact laws and frame a constitu- 
 tion ; in the end, rendering themselves superior 
 to the authority which had convened them, and 
 no longer responsible to those whom they were 
 intended to represent. The Cadiz Cortes 
 adopted a readier and less complicated plan. 
 In utter defiance of legal forms and ancient 
 usages, the Spanish Commons before hand excluded 
 the two privileged estates; and assembling entirely 
 on their own account, at once voted themselves to 
 be a constituent assembly, possessing all the es- 
 42 
 
 sential attributes of sovereignty, and deliber- 
 ately proceeded to imitate the example of their 
 Parisian prototypes. 
 
 "The examples given in our early pages 
 show the little analogy between the ancient 
 and new Cortes. The latter did not meet to 
 supply the want of a regal power, to provide 
 means of defence, obtain the redress of griev- 
 ances, or reconcile opposite and jarring inte- 
 rests. Their object was not to heal the wounds 
 in the state, to introduce order and concert, or 
 remove those obstacles which had hitherto im- 
 peded the progress of the national cause. As 
 the genuine offspring of the central junta, they 
 rather thought of seizing uponpotver, enjoying its 
 siveets, and carrying into effect those theories 
 with a fondness for which an admiration of the 
 French Revolution had infected many leading 
 members, some of whom were anxious to shine 
 after the manner of Mirabeau, whilst others 
 thought they could emulate the example of 
 Abbe Sieves, or took Brissot as their model. 
 In a word, wholly unpractised in the science 
 of legislation, and unmindful that the enemy 
 was at their gates, they set to work with a full 
 determination to tread in the footsteps of the 
 French Constituent Assembly, and began by a 
 vote similar to that passed by our House of 
 Commons in 1648, whereby they declared that 
 the sovereign pouvr exclusively resided in them, and, 
 consequently, that whatever they enacted was 
 law, without the consent of either king, peers, 
 or clergy." 
 
 The ruinous step by which, to the exclusion 
 of the real representatives of the nation, a 
 band of urban Revolutionists contrived to 
 thrust themselves into the supreme direction 
 of the Constituent Assembly in the Isle of Le- 
 on, is thus explained. 
 
 "On the 10th September, 1810, a fortnight 
 before the opening of the Cortes, the regents 
 issued an edict, accompanied by a decree, in 
 which the impossibility of obtaining proper re- 
 presentatives from the. ultra-marine provinces 
 and those occupied by the enemy, is lamented, 
 and a plan devised to remedy the defect, by 
 means of substitutes chosen upon the spot. It 
 was accordingly ordained that twenty-three 
 persons should be picked out to represent the places 
 held by the French, and thirty for the Indies,' 
 which number of substitutes, incorporated 
 with the real delegates, already arrived or about 
 to arrive, it was thought would compose a re- 
 spectable congress, sufficient, under existing 
 circumstances, to open the house and carry on 
 business, even although others should unfortu- 
 nately not arrive."* 
 
 From the official records of the Cortes, it ap- 
 pears that its numbers stood thus : 
 Members returned by provinces of Spain 
 
 unoccupied by the French, . . 127 
 Substitutes provided at Cadiz, for the 
 
 others, 45 
 
 " It would be almost insulting to the judg- 
 ment of the reader to offer any remarks upon 
 either the illegality or the incongruity of a le- 
 gislature composed of such elements as the 
 preceding sketch presents. Independently of 
 
 * " For the electors and the elected the only qualifica- 
 tions required were to be a householder and twenty-five 
 years of age." 
 
 2 E2 
 
330 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 a total abandonment of ancient usages, and an 
 utter disregard of the elective franchise prac- 
 tised in former times; besides the exclusion 
 of two estates, and the enlargement of the third 
 on a basis not only impracticable but also ri- 
 diculous ; substitutes are put in to represent an 
 infinitely larger proportion of territory in both 
 hemispheres than that which, with the free 
 agency of the inhabitants, is enabled to return 
 representatives, elected according to the scale 
 proposed by the conveners of the Cortes them- j 
 selves, founded on rules of their own framing. 
 The representative principle was thus entirely lout : 
 and how a party of politicians and philoso- 
 phers, circumscribed to a small spot of ground, 
 and protected only by the naval force of an 
 ally, could, during eighteen months, sit quietly j 
 down and frame a constitution for the accept- 
 ance of nearly thirty millions of people, sit-u- 
 ated in three quarters of the globe, and opposed 
 in interests as well as in habits, on a plan so 
 defective in all its parts, is the most extraordi- 
 nary of the many singularities which marked 
 the Spanish contest. 
 
 " In the new representative plan, neither po- 
 pulation nor wealth was taken as a basis. 
 Valencia, with 1,040,740 souls, was allowed 
 nineteen deputies; whilst Granada, including 
 Malaga, and containing 1,100,640, had only 
 two. The ancient kingdom of Navarre, with 
 271,285 souls ; Biscay, with 130,000; Guipus- 
 coa, with 126,789; and Alava, with 85,139, are 
 rated at one each ; whereas the mountains of 
 Ronda had two. Spain, with fourteen millions 
 of souls, is set down at one hundred and fifty- 
 four deputies ; when the South American and 
 Asiatic provinces, by the central junta declared 
 integral and equal parts of the monarchy, and 
 containing a population of more than seven- 
 teen millions, were represented by fifty-four. 
 Never was any thing more monstrous than the 
 organization of the Cadiz legislature more 
 opposed to the practice in ancient times, or 
 more at variance with the objects for which 
 the Cortes were to meet. It was not even in 
 accordance with the wild theories of the day. 
 The absence of opposition was the only sanc- 
 tion given to their labours ; a circumstance 
 which may be easily accounted for in the ex- 
 isting state of the Peninsula." 
 
 These Revolutionists were not long in invok- 
 ing the aid of the same principles which, ema- 
 nating from the Jacobins of Paris, had con- 
 signed France to slavery and Europe to blood. 
 "Eight or nine journals were immediately 
 established in Cadiz, of which one was called 
 ' The Robespierre' " 
 
 "The principles proclaimed by the constitu- 
 tion, if possible, are more monstrous than the 
 manner in which it was constructed. It be- 
 gins by declaring that the legislature is com- 
 posed of the general and extraordinary Cortes 
 of the Spanish nations, represented by deputies 
 from Spain, America, and Asia; that the na- 
 tional sovereignty resides in the Cortes, and 
 that the power of making laws belongs to them, 
 jointly with the king; that the population is to be 
 taken as a basis for the new electoral law, without 
 any defined qualification for eligibility : that the 
 Cortes were to meet every year, and, on closing, 
 leave a permanent deputation sitting, to watch 
 
 over the observance of the constitution, report 
 infractions, and convene the legislature in ex- 
 traordinary cases, and that the king should be 
 at the head of the executive, and sanction the 
 laws. A new plan was also formed for the 
 government of the provinces, the election of 
 municipalities, the assessment of taxes, and a 
 variety of other purposes. In a word, the Ca- 
 diz code deprived the king of the power of dissolving 
 or proroguing the Cortes, and in other respects 
 destroyed the royal prerogative, as well as feudal 
 tenures and the rights of property. It con- 
 founded the various classes, reduced the power 
 of the clergy, extinguished the civil rights of a 
 whole community, cancelled all previous com- 
 pacts made between the sovereign and the peo- 
 ple, broke the bond of union, tore asunder the 
 charters, confiscated the privileges and fran- 
 chises so highly valued by the inhabitants, and, 
 in a word, obliterated every line and feature of the 
 ancient institutions, by transforming Spain into 
 the reverse of what she had been. It was a 
 sweeping proscription of every privileged and 
 corporate body in the country, annihilating the 
 whole, and leaving neither wreck nor vestige 
 behind." 
 
 Of this constitution, which is now the con- 
 stitution of Spain, which the arms, ay, the 
 royal arms of England are employed to uphold, 
 it is sufficient to say that it establishes 
 1, UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE; 2, OXE LEGISLATIVE 
 CHAMBER ; 3, AITKUAI. PARLIAMENTS ; 4, It an- 
 nihilates all the power of the nobles and cler- 
 gy ; 5, Sweeps away all corporate rights and 
 feudal privileges; 6, Exterminates the whole 
 royal prerogative. How long would the British 
 empire withstand the shock of such a constitu- 
 tion ? Not one week. 
 
 Even before it was brought into operation, 
 or the French armies had been driven by Bri- 
 tish valour from the soil of Spain, the ruinous 
 effect of this monstrous constitution was so 
 clearly perceived, that the democratic despots 
 were fearful of its overthrow. 
 
 " Such a transition as that which this code 
 was calculated to effect, was too sudden and 
 too violent not to meet with decided opposition. 
 Its levelling principles and subversive doc- 
 trines were accordingly denounced from the 
 pulpit and by the press. Every epithet of 
 odium and contempt was applied to its of- 
 ficious framers ; and so great was the appre- 
 hension of disturbances entertained by the go- 
 vernment itself, that within a month after its 
 promulgation, they prevented arms from being 
 intrusted to the Galician peasantry. Indivi- 
 duals of rank and 'influence were banished for 
 merely expressing their disapprobation of its 
 provisions, or their dread of the calamities 
 which it was likely to produce." 
 
 The fate of this monstrous democratic abor- 
 tion is well known. On Ferdinand's accession 
 it fell to the ground from its own weight ; not 
 a sword required to be drawn, or a shot fired, to 
 dissolve the destructive fabric. His famous 
 decree from Valencia, on May 4, 1814, at once 
 extinguished the Cadiz constitution. In that 
 instrument, Ferdinand justly said: 
 
 " To this Cortes, in 1810, convened in a man- 
 ner never practised in Spain, even in the most 
 arduous cases, and in the turbulent times of 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 331 
 
 minorities, when the meeting of deputies has 
 been more numerous than in usual and ordi- 
 nary Cortes, the estates of the nobility and cler- 
 gy were not called, notwithstanding the central 
 junta ordered this to be done by a decree, art- 
 fully concealed from the council of regency, 
 who were equally unaware that to them the 
 junta had assigned the presidency of the Cortes ; 
 a prerogative which otherwise never would 
 have been left at the will of the Congress. 
 Every thing was thus placed at the disposal of 
 the Cortes, who on the very day of their instal- 
 lation, and as a commencement of their acts, 
 stripped me of the sovereignty which the depu- 
 ties themselves had just before acknowledged, 
 nominally attributing it to the nation, in order 
 to appropriate it to themselves, and by this 
 usurpation enact such laws as they deemed fit, 
 imposing on the people the obligation of forci- 
 bly receiving them in the form of a new con- 
 stitution, which the deputies established, and 
 afterwards sanctioned and published in 1812, 
 without powers from either provinces, towns, 
 or juntas, and without even the knowledge of 
 those said to be represented by the substitutes 
 of Spain and the Indies. 
 
 "This first outrage against the royal prero- 
 gative was, as it were, a basis for the many 
 others which followed; and notwithstanding 
 the repugnance of many deputies, laws were 
 enacted, adopted, and called fundamental ones, 
 amidst the cries, threats, and violence of those 
 who frequented the Cortes galleries ; whereby 
 to that which was only the work of a faction 
 the specious colouring of the general will was 
 given, and for such made to pass among a few 
 seditious persons at Cadiz, and afterwards at 
 Madrid. These are notorious facts, and thus 
 were those good laws altered which once con- 
 stituted the felicity of our nation. The ancient 
 form of the monarchy was changed, and by 
 copying the revolutionary and democratic 
 principles of the French constitution of 1791, 
 were sanctioned, not the fundamental laws of 
 a moderate monarchy, but rather those of a 
 popular government, with a chief magistrate 
 at its head a mere delegated executive, and 
 not a king, notwithstanding the introduction of 
 the name as a deception to the incautious." 
 
 The joy of the nation at this specific libera- 
 tion from their revolutionary tyrants knew no 
 bounds. It was like that of the English on 
 the Restoration. The journey of the king from 
 Valencia to the capital was a continued tri- 
 umph. 
 
 "Some members and other flaming patriots 
 proposed open resistance, but soon found that 
 they possessed neither physical nor moral 
 power. As far as outward appearances went, 
 they preserved their consistency, or rather 
 their delirium, till the close. Some of the most 
 vociferous were however seized ; and this put 
 an end to the show of opposition. Ferdinand 
 VII. entered the capital on the 14th, amidst ge- 
 neral acclamations and other demonstrations 
 of joy- Persons present attest that never did 
 Madrid witness such a scene of general exulta- 
 tion. When the king alighted, the people took 
 him up in their arms, and triumphantly showed 
 him to the immense concourse assembled in 
 front of the palace, and in their arms conveyed 
 
 him to his apartment. From Aranjuez to Ma- 
 drid, his carriage had been previously drawn 
 by the people. In the afternoon of the 16th, 
 he waiked through several parts of the town, 
 the streets thronged with spectators; but not 
 a single constitutionalist ventured to show his 
 face." 
 
 We have dwelt the longer on the original 
 illegal formation, and revolutionary principles 
 of the constitution, because it lies in truth at 
 the bottom of the whole question. The Cadiz 
 democrats, like all other reckless revolu- 
 tionists, bestowed on the nation at once, without 
 either preparation or reason, the prodigal gift 
 of unbounded political influence. The whole 
 powers of government were by them vested 
 in one Chamber: the Cortes combined the 
 powers of the executive and legislature in 
 England, being vested at once with the exclu- 
 sive right of imposing taxes, passing laws, 
 declaring war and peace. These vast powers 
 were vested in one single assembly, unfettered by 
 any separate House of Peers, or the repre- 
 sentation of the clergy in any shape. And 
 how was this omnipotent assembly chosen? 
 By universal suffrage ; by the votes of every 
 man in Spain who had a house and was twen- 
 ty-five years of age. No qualification was re- 
 quired either in the electors or representatives. 
 A majority of beggars might rule the state, 
 and dispose at will of all the property it con- 
 tained!!! 
 
 The urban revolutionists of Spain, an ar- 
 dent, energetic, insolvent class, instantly per- 
 ceived the enormous advantages which this 
 extravagant constitution gave them. They 
 saw clearly that under this radical constitu- 
 tion, they would in fact be the rulers of the 
 state; that its whole offices, emoluments, in- 
 fluence, and property would ere long be at their 
 disposal ; and that by simply sticking to that 
 one point, "The constitution of 1812," they 
 would soon, and without bloodshed as they 
 hoped, and by the mere force of legislative 
 enactment, strip all the holders of property, 
 not only of their influence, but their posses- 
 sions. In the few great towns, accordingly, 
 which the Peninsula contains, in Madrid, Ca- 
 diz, Seville, Barcelona, Valentia, Bilboa, and 
 Malaga, a cliqiw of agitators was immediately 
 formed, who, destitute of property, education, 
 or character, were yet formidable to the hold- 
 ers of property over the kingdom by their in- 
 fluence over the population in these great 
 centres of profligacy, pauperism, and ambition. 
 They were closely held together by the hellish 
 bond of anticipated plunder. Freedom, liberty, 
 and independence were ever in their mouths ; 
 tyranny, plunder, massacre unceasingly in 
 their hearts. But though a miserable minority, 
 not amounting to a fiftieth part of the whole 
 nation, they had great advantages in the poli- 
 tical strife in which they were engaged, from 
 their position in the great fortified towns of the 
 kingdom, from their sway over the depraved 
 and deluded populace, from the rapid commu- 
 nication which they maintained with each 
 other, from the want of union, organization, 
 or intelligence among their rural antagonists, 
 from the possession of a plausible cri de guerre, 
 "The constitution of 1812," which was sup- 
 
332 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 posed to oe a sovereign charm by its support- 
 ers for every evil ; and from the union, energy, 
 and resolution which present insolvency and 
 the prospect of future plunder had diffused 
 universally through their ranks. 
 
 It is the more material to attend to these 
 considerations, because it is the struggle to re- 
 establish this radical constitution which is the 
 real matter that has ever since been at issue 
 between the two parties in the Peninsula. The 
 Queen at Madrid was from the first a mere 
 puppet; the Estatuto Real a. mere instalment; 
 the revolt of La Gran j a brought to light their 
 real projects, and revealed, in its pristine na- 
 kedness, the violence and iniquity of the de- 
 mocratic faction. By it the constitution of 
 1812 has again become the basis of the con- 
 stitution : a nocturnal revolt, an irruption into 
 the bed-chamber of the queen, a drunken ser- 
 geant and ten treasonable grenadiers were suf- 
 ficient to knock down the phantom of a con- 
 stitutional monarchy, which, as a mask to 
 their ulterior designs, the revolutionists had 
 set up. And it is to support such a cause, to 
 establish such a revolutionary regime, that Gene- 
 ral Evans and his unhappy band have been 
 exposed to defeat and dishonour, and 500,000/. 
 worth of arms and ammunition sent to the de- 
 mocratics of the Peninsula, and the royal flag 
 of England displayed beside the abettors of 
 spoliation, robbery, and murder! 
 
 The evils experienced and anticipated from 
 this radical constitution, however, were so 
 powerful, that it probably never again would 
 have reared its hated head in Spain, were it 
 not that in an evil hour Ferdinand VII. resolved 
 upon an expedition to South America in 1821, 
 to subdue the revolted provinces, and assem- 
 bled 20,000 men in the Isle of Leon for that 
 purpose. This distant service was to the last 
 degree unpopular in the Spanish army; its 
 inglorious dangers, its certain hardships, its 
 boundless fatigues, its remote situation, its 
 probable disastrous termination, were present 
 to every mind, and filled both officers and men 
 with the most gloomy presentiments, and left 
 them in that state of moody despair when the 
 most desperate and flagitious projects are most 
 likely to be embraced with alacrity. The 
 presence of 20,000 men close to Cadiz or with- 
 in its walls, influenced by these feelings, was 
 too favourable an opportunity for the revolu- 
 tionists in that great centre of democracy to 
 let slip for re-establishing their hated do- 
 minion. While the troops were waiting for 
 the transports to convey them across the At- 
 lantic, which, with the usual want of foresight 
 in the Spanish character, were very long of 
 being prepared, intrigues were actively set on 
 foot by the Cadiz clique; and in the subaltern 
 officers of the army, which in Spain is almost 
 wholly destitute of men of property, and filled 
 with mere adventurers, they found the most 
 ready reception. Soldiers, unless restrained 
 by preponderance of property and education 
 in their officers, are never averse to playing 
 the part of praetorians ; they are seldom disin- 
 clined to setting an empire up to sale. The 
 glittering prospect, on the one hand, of escaping 
 a perilous, hateful, and inglorious foreign ser- 
 vice, and on the other, disposing of the whole 
 
 emoluments and advantages of government 
 for themselves or their connections, was more 
 than the military adventurers of the Isle of 
 Leon could withstand ; they revolted ; raised 
 the cry of " The constitution of 1812," amidst 
 the transports of the democratic party over all 
 Spain ; and the king, destitute of any military 
 force to withstand so formidable an insurrec- 
 tion, was, after a trifling attempt at resistance, 
 forced into submission. The promised boon 
 was not withheld from the traitor soldiers, who 
 j had, by violating their oaths, brought about 
 the revolution ; they were retained at home ; 
 the expedition against South America was laid 
 aside, and the crown of the Indies for ever lost 
 to the throne of Castile. But what was that 
 to the Spanish democrats 1 What did it sig- 
 nify that the empire was dismembered, and the 
 transatlantic colonies consigned to an anarchy, 
 despotism, and suffering, unparalleled in mo- 
 dern times ] They had got to the head of af- 
 fairs ; the pillar of the constitution was raised 
 in every considerable town of Spain ; the Ca- 
 diz clique had become prime ministers ; and 
 every province of the Peninsula was placed 
 under the rule of a set of low rapacious revo- 
 lutionary employes, who made use of all their 
 authority to promote the election of such ex- 
 treme deputies for the Cortes as might insure 
 the total revolutionizing of the state. 
 
 Even while the Liberals lay at Cadiz, they 
 had begun their system of rapacious ini- 
 quity : 
 
 " M. Alcala Galiano," says Walton, " assisted 
 in a civil capacity, and when the mutineers 
 were shut up in La Isla, wrote the principal 
 proclamations and addresses which served to 
 extend the insurrection. On reaching Madrid, 
 this civilian became one of the leading speak- 
 ers at the debating society of the Fontana tie 
 Oro, and was afterwards named Intendant of 
 Cordova. In 1822 he was elected to the Cor- 
 tes, from which period he is classed among 
 the leaders of the exaltados. His speeches 
 were marked with impetuosity and extreme 
 liberalism ; but his ideas were not always re- 
 gular, or his conduct consistent. He was among 
 the emigrants in this country, and a warm ad- 
 mirer of radicalism, a blessing of which the 
 last importation into Spain has been pretty ex- 
 tensive. The latter part of his political career 
 was the most successful, his labours having 
 been crowned with the appointment of Minis- 
 ter of Marine. Whilst the army remained at 
 La Isla, the naval arsenals were completely gutted. 
 The copper, brass cannon, rigging, and other valu- 
 ables, were sold to the Gibraltar Jews, who ascended 
 the river of Santi Petri and fetched their pur- 
 chases away." 
 
 The worshippers of the constitution of 1812 
 were not slow in beginning with the first and 
 greatest of all revolutionary projects, the con- 
 fiscation of the property of the church. 
 
 " Various reports," says Mr. Walton, "on the 
 poverty of the treasury, the annual deficit, the 
 arrears of pay, and a variety of other finan- 
 cial matters, had been submitted to the cham- 
 ber, and produced no small degree of embar- 
 | rassment. The expedient of a foreign loan was 
 ! adopted ; and it being no longer necessary to 
 I temporize with the clergy, a plan was formed 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN 
 
 
 for the appropriation of church properly, which it 
 was supposed would yield an abundant har- 
 vest. By a decree passed October 1st, the 
 monasteries were suppressed, excepting a cer- 
 tain number, and also several of the military 
 orders, the revenues of which, it was agreed, 
 should be set apart for the payment of the na- 
 tional debt, after pensions had been secured to 
 Riega, Quiroga, and the other leaders of the 
 La Isla mutiny. The inmates of the sup- 
 pressed convents were to receive stipends 
 from the government; but it was clear that 
 the exigencies of the state, if no other reasons 
 existed, would prevent the performance of this 
 promise. Hitherto the king had remained 
 passive, and sanctioned, certainly against his 
 will, yet without any remonstrance, the various 
 acts tending to destroy the little authority left 
 to him; but when called upon for his assent to 
 the suppression of the regular orders, he hesi- 
 tated. At the end of a month his signature 
 was reluctantly affixed, and the next day he 
 departed for the Escurial." 
 
 Nor were tyrannic measures to enforce the 
 authority of these popular despots wanting. 
 
 " Among the new measures was a decree 
 awarding the penalty of banishment for eight 
 years against any one endeavouring to dis- 
 suade the people from the observance of the 
 constitution, and imprisonment for that period 
 if an ecclesiastic." 
 
 This violent spoliation, however, excited at 
 the time a general feeling of indignation. 
 
 "This precipitate if not unjust measure on 
 the part of the Cortes, could not fail to rouse 
 public indignation and prepare the way for their 
 own dowrifal. Besides the nature of the act, 
 which general opinion regarded as a profana- 
 tion, numbers of persons venerable in the eyes 
 of the people were sent forth from their seclu- 
 sion to beg their bread. The project, there- 
 fore, came before the public stamped with a 
 double title to reprobation. It was pronounced 
 a violent spoliation, as well as a revolting act 
 of irreligion ; and it appears strange that the 
 patriotic senators of 1820, after clashing with 
 the nobles and depriving so many public func- 
 tionaries of their places, should have thus 
 braved the anger of so powerful a body as the 
 clergy. 
 
 " Having obtained possession of the political 
 stage, they formed a confederacy to keep it ex- 
 clusively to themselves ; and if any thing was 
 wanting to complete their usurpation, it was 
 to vote their own perpetuity, as the long par- 
 liament did in 1642, and by means of intimi- 
 dation obtain the king's consent. They had 
 an army at their disposal, and, as was done in 
 the time of Charles I., some of the king's advi- 
 sers were denounced as enemies of the state. 
 The indignity offered to him previously to his 
 abrupt departure for the Escurial, called into 
 action all the elements of collision. The re- 
 duction of the monastic orders might be 
 deemed advisable nay, necessary, so it had 
 been thought before ; but the constitutionalists 
 having resolved upon that important measure, 
 contrived to render it doubly dangerous by the 
 manner and degree in which it was to be exe- 
 cuted, and the time chosen for carrying it into 
 eifect. Religious establishments of this kind 
 
 333 
 
 had been interwd^in jjfrh the frame of society 
 in Spain they weWRifcfieias a principal 
 appendage of the region of the Mate, had 
 been formed by the collective ftmdb of private 
 individuals, were associated with proud recol- 
 lections of the past, and still held in veneration. 
 by all excepting the liberal party. When, 
 therefore, the people saw these establishments 
 suppressed, the aged, who had spent their little 
 all to procure an asylum for life, cast upon the 
 world, and their substance bestowed upon per- 
 sons who had set the worst possible example 
 by heading a military rebellion their resent- 
 ment passed all bounds."* 
 
 The first commencement of the civil war of 
 1822 and of that atrocious system of massacre, 
 which has ever since disgraced the Peninsula, 
 is then given by our author; and as murder 
 was their grand weapon, so they were so dead 
 to all sense of justice or shame, that they ac- 
 tually HAD ITS EMBLEM ENGRAVED ON THEIR 
 
 SKALS. It was in the massacre of a man who 
 had merely counselled "a free and national 
 government." 
 
 "A paper of a mixed character made its 
 appearance in the capital, tending to excite a 
 counter-revolutionary movement. It preached 
 ' No despotism and no anarchy no camarilla 
 and no factious Cortes but a free and national 
 government founded on the ancient institutions.' 
 The author being discovered, was thrown into 
 prison, and his name ascertained to be Vinu- 
 esa, formerly the curate of Tamajon, a small 
 town in the province of Gaudalajara, seven 
 leagues from the capital, and lately one of the 
 king's honorary chaplains. At a moment of 
 public excitement an incident of this kind was 
 likely to produce much noise in a place where 
 idlers and politicians abound. A surmise got 
 abroad that the prisoner, in consequence of his 
 high connections, would be protected, and an 
 evasion of justice was apprehended. This 
 sufficed to rouse the ardent spirits frequenting 
 the Puerta del Sol, and in the true sense of the 
 sovereignty of the people, they rushed in a 
 crowd to the prison, forced open the door, en- 
 tered the curate's cell, and with a blacksmith's 
 hammer beat out his brains.f 
 
 "This murder was a signal for general agi- 
 tation. The nobles, royalist officers, and ex- 
 functionaries, held up to contempt and derision 
 the conduct of those who were unable to pre- 
 vent the commission of such an atrocity. The 
 ejected monks called the peasants to arms, by 
 invoking the altar and the throne, or appealing 
 to their own wrongs. 
 
 * "Quiroga, for example, had capitalized his pension, 
 and thus obtained possession of the Granja de Oernadas, 
 a valuable estate near Betan/.os, in Galida, belonging to 
 the monastery of San Martin, at Santiago, of the Hene- 
 dictine order, upon which he cut a large quantity of tim- 
 ber. Others had obtained estates, the property of the 
 suppressed orders, in a similar manner." 
 
 f "This deed was celebrated in son 1 .'*, sun'.' about the 
 streets and in the guard-houses. In its commemoration, 
 seals were worn with a crest representing a brawny and 
 naked arm holding a hammer in the hand. 7V/ w .--e/jZ be- 
 came, fatihio-nable among the. martillo or hammer faction, 
 and letters at that time, received in England, frequently 
 had that impression upon them. The mob were also in 
 the habit of expressing tbeir displeasure at the conduct 
 of an individual by beating hammers on the pavement 
 under his windows ; a pretty significant indication of the 
 fate which awaited him if he sinned against the sove- 
 reign people." 
 
334 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 " The large cities were, in a contrary sense, 
 agitated by clubs and debating societies. At 
 first these clubs had been the organs of go- 
 vernment; now they wished to dictate the 
 means by which the commonwealth was to be 
 saved. They publicly reproached the minis- 
 ters for their apathy, almost accused them of 
 being leagued with the king, whom they de- 
 nounced as the chief plotter, and his palace as 
 a ready receptacle for the Serviles." 
 
 And now we come to a most important sub- 
 ject one to which we earnestly request the 
 serious attention of our countrymen. It is the 
 COMMENCEMENT of that war of extermination, 
 which, as Mr. Walton justly observes, has ever 
 since raged in the Peninsula. Let us see with 
 whom the responsibility of its introduction 
 rests : 
 
 " Catalonia was the cause of great disquie- 
 tude to the constitutionalists; and in order to 
 put down the Army of the Faith, and dislodge 
 the regency from the Seo de Urgel, Mina was 
 appointed early in September to command that 
 principality, and entered on his duties at Le- 
 rida. As he himself states, he found 'the 
 factious, to the number of thirty-three thousand, 
 masters of almost all the country, in posses- 
 sion of various strong places and fortresses, 
 protected by a great part of the towns, and, 
 what was of still greater importance, they had 
 a centre of union and government, viz., the 
 titular Regency of Spain, established in Urgel ;' 
 adding, 'these were the elements which pre- 
 sented themselves in Catalonia.' After notic- 
 ing his preparations, he proceeds thus: 'I 
 commenced operations on the 13th; and a 
 month and a half sufficed me to organize a 
 small army, to raise the siege of Cervera, and 
 take possession of Castell-fullit. I ordered the 
 total destruction of this last mentioned town, as a 
 punishment for the obstinacy of its rebellious 
 inhabitants and defenders ; and by way of re- 
 torting the contempt with which they replied 
 to the repeated messages I sent them, as well 
 as for a warning to the rest, upon its ruins I 
 ordered the following inscription to be placed : 
 'Here stood Castell-fullit Towns, take warning- 
 shelter not the enemies of your country.' 
 
 " Thus spoke and acted the hero of Cata- 
 lonia at the close of 1822 ! After enumerating 
 a variety of other exploits, the captain-general 
 comes to his attack upon the fortress of Urgel, 
 where he experienced difficulties, and exulting- 
 ly adds, 'that in the end constancy and hero- 
 ism were victorious, and six hundred profligates 
 and robbers, taken out of the prisons, who form- 
 ed the greater part of the faction of the ring- 
 leader Romagosa, the defender of the fortress 
 of Urgel, expiated their crimes on the morning of 
 the evacuation by their death upon the field.' The 
 men thus barbarously butchered were royalists, 
 the countrymen of this savage pacificator: 
 their only crime was that of having embraced 
 a cause opposed to his own. 
 
 "As a proof of the spirit with which the 
 constitutionalists were then actuated, subjoined 
 is an extract from a proclamation, issued by 
 Mina a few days before the Duke d'Angou- 
 leme entered Madrid : ' Art. 1. All persons 
 who may have been members of a junta, so- 
 ciety, or corporation opposed to the present 
 
 system of government, as well as those who 
 may have enlisted men or conspired against 
 the constitution, shall be irrevocably shot the in- 
 stant they are taken. Art. 2. Any town in which 
 the inhabitants are called out against the con- 
 stitutional troops shall be burned to ashes, and 
 till one stone is not left upon another.' At the 
 same time that the governor of Catalonia pub- 
 lished this proclamation, General Villacampa 
 at Seville issued a similar edict, in which he 
 declared that ' every one who by word or deed 
 co-operates in the rebellion shall be held to be 
 a traitor and punished as sitch : further, that any 
 one knowing the situation of the factions and 
 concealing it shall be held to be a traitor, and 
 as such treated.' This edict closes with the 
 following: 'The members of the municipali- 
 ties of towns situated at the distance of six 
 leagues from a constitutional column, who may 
 fail hourly to send in a report of the move- 
 ments of the factious in their vicinity, shall 
 pay out of their own property a fine of ten 
 thousand rials; and if any injury arise out of 
 the omission, he shall be judged in a military 
 manner.'" 
 
 It was, therefore, not without reason, that, 
 on the 20th November, 1822, Count Nessel- 
 rode declared, in a public state paper, expres- 
 sive of the feelings and resolutions of the Allied 
 Powers regarding Spain 
 
 "Anarchy appeared in the train of revolu- 
 tion disorder in that of anarchy. Long years 
 of tranquil possession ceased to be a sufficient 
 title to property ; the most sacred rights were 
 disputed; ruinous loans and contributions un- 
 ceasingly renewed, destructive of public wealth 
 and ruinous to private fortunes. Religion was 
 despoiled of her patrimony, and the throne of 
 popular respect. The royal dignity was out- 
 raged, the supreme authority having passed 
 over to assemblies influenced by the blind pas- 
 sions of the multitude. To complete these 
 calamities, on the 7th July, blood was seen to 
 flow in the palace, whilst civil war raged 
 throughout the Peninsula." 
 
 The armed intervention to which these events 
 in the Peninsula gave rise on the part of France 
 in 1823, is well known, and when put to the 
 proof, it speedily appeared on how hollow a 
 foundation the whole fabric of revolutionary 
 power in the Peninsula, with its whole adjuncts 
 of church spoliation, democratic plunder, and 
 royalist massacre, really rested. The French 
 troops marched without opposition from the 
 Bidassoa to Cadiz ; hardly a shot was fired in 
 defence of the constitution of 1812; even the 
 armed intervention of a stranger, and the hate- 
 ful presence of French soldiers, ever so obnox- 
 ious in Spain, could not rouse any resistance 
 to the invaders. The recollection of the le- 
 gions of Napoleon, and the terrible hardships 
 of the Peninsular war, were forgotten in the 
 more recent horrors of democratic ascenden- 
 cy. But an event happened at Corunna which 
 made a profound impression, and powerfully 
 contributed to stamp on the future progress of 
 the contest that savage character, by which it 
 is still unhappily distinguished. 
 
 " At Corunna the most barbarous occurrence 
 of the many which sullied the annals of the 
 constitutional contest took place. The French 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 335 
 
 guns commanded the bay, in consequence of 
 which a number of royalists confined in a pon- 
 toon rose upon their guards, cut the cables, 
 and drifted out with the tide. Fearful that the 
 other prisoners in the Castle of San Anton 
 might equally escape, the military governor 
 on the 22d ordered fifty-two of them to be 
 brought to the town, and in the afternoon they 
 were lodged in the prison; but the civil au- 
 thorities objecting to this step, in consequence 
 of the crowded state of the prisons, as well as 
 of the convents, the unhappy men were put 
 into a small vessel and conveyed down the bay. 
 After doubling the point on which the castle 
 stands, and in front of the light-house, called 
 the Tower of Hercules, they were brought up in 
 pairs from under the hatches, and bound together 
 back to back and thrown into the sea. One of the 
 victims, seeing the fate which awaited him, 
 jumped into the water before his hands were 
 tied, and endeavoured to escape by swimming ; 
 but, being pursued by some of his execution- 
 ers in a boat, they beat out his brains with their 
 oars. The tide cast the bodies of these unfor- 
 tunate creatures ashore, where they were the 
 next morning found by the French soldiers on 
 guard. General Bourke sent in a flag of truce, 
 complaining of this atrocious act; but the 
 monster in command, who had given orders 
 for its perpetration, had, in the mean time, to- 
 gether with several other patriots, made off in 
 a British steamer, and eventually found his 
 way to England, where he shared that hospitali- 
 ty which was experienced by the other refu- 
 gees. On the 12th August, Corunna capitu- 
 lated." 
 
 Nor were these atrocities confined to the 
 north of the Peninsula. At Granada and Mala- 
 ga, the same scenes were enacted with even 
 deeper circumstances of horror. 
 
 "So insolent had the nationals become at 
 Granada, that royalists and persons of mode- 
 rate politics could no longer live in the place. 
 Of these a party of about fifteen resolved to 
 withdraw into the country ; but no sooner had 
 they left the suburbs than they were denounced 
 as having gone out to form a guerilla. The 
 nationals instantly pursued them, and at the 
 distance of two leagues succeeded in captur- 
 ing seven, the rest escaping. Among the party 
 seized was Father Osuna, an old and venera- 
 ble professor in the convent of San Antonio 
 Abad ; the rest, customhouse guards and officers 
 on half-pay. All, including the friar, were 
 bound to the tails of horses, in this manner 
 led into the city and paraded through the 
 streets ; after which, to add to the indignity, 
 they were cast into the dungeons of what is 
 called the lower or common prison, and herd- 
 ed with felons. Learning some days after- 
 wards where the few who escaped had retired 
 to, the eager nationals again sallied forth, and 
 succeeded in surprising five at the little town 
 of Colomera, situated in the mountains, four 
 leagues from Granada. Their hands being 
 bound behind them, they were brutally assassi- 
 nated on a small ridge of hills overlooking the 
 bridge Cubillas. So ferociously did the nation- 
 als wreak their vengeance upon these victims 
 of their licentious fury, that their mangled 
 bodies could not be recognised by their friends, 
 
 who the next day went out to bury them. 
 Among the victims were two officers of the 
 guards, the handsomest youths in the province. 
 
 " The seven confined in prison demanded an 
 inquiry into the causes of their arrest and de- 
 tention ; but nothing appearing against them 
 beyond their being reputed royalists, which did 
 not exactly warrant the penalty of death, the 
 nationals felt afraid that their victims would 
 escape. In the afternoon of the 4th February 
 they therefore got up a commotion in the usual 
 way, and heated with wine, groups passed 
 along the streets, demanding the heads of 
 Father Osuna and his companions. Reaching 
 the front of the prison, they set up yells, to be 
 heard by the inmates, reiterating their demand, 
 and endeavouring to force a passage through 
 the gate, where a sergeant and a few soldiers 
 were generally posted ; but when the uproar 
 commenced, General Villacampa, the governor, 
 doubled the guard, and stationed a lieutenant 
 there. The mob being disappointed, went away. 
 
 " In the evening the lieutenant was changed, 
 and an officer in the confidence of the nation- 
 als was placed at the prison-gate. The com- 
 motion was now renewed, and the leaders of 
 the mob assembling at a noted coffee-house in 
 the Plaza Nueva, their usual resort, the death 
 of the prisoners was at once decreed. Sure of 
 their game, the brave nationals hurried off to 
 the prison, where they were received with a 
 volley of musketry, pointed so high that the 
 balls struck midway up the wall of the cathe- 
 dral, fronting the prison-gate, where the marks 
 are still seen. This saved appearances, and 
 the commanding officer thought his responsi- 
 bility sufficiently covered. The blood-thirsty 
 mob now rushed into the prison, the leaders 
 with their faces blackened and their persons 
 disguised. Five inmates in separate cells were 
 soon laid prostrate upon the ground covered with 
 stabs. One of them, posted in a corner, man- 
 fully defended himself with a pillow, which 
 dropped from his hands after they had literally 
 been cut to pieces. 
 
 " Father Osuna was now led forth, as the 
 old man supposed, that his life might be saved; 
 but no sooner had he gone fifteen paces be- 
 yond the prison-gate and turned the corner of 
 a narrow street, than he received a sabre-cut 
 on the top of his bald head. He lifted up his 
 hand to the streaming wound, and at the same 
 moment a blow knocked him against the wall, 
 upon which the bloody imprint of his hand 
 was left as he endeavoured to save himself 
 from falling. Dropping to the ground, he was 
 beaten with sticks and cut with knives. Sup- 
 posing him dead, the mob dispersed ; when 
 the jailer, hearing his moans, conveyed him 
 back to prison, where his wounds were dress- 
 ed. The next day, the heroic nationals, hearing 
 that Father Osuna still survived, flew to the 
 prison ; when one of them, after insulting and 
 upbraiding him for his royalist principles, put 
 a pistol to his right ear, and blew his brains upon 
 the opposite wall, where the bloody traces were 
 seen till within the two last years, and till the 
 interior of the prison was repaired. The se- 
 venth victim, who had been conveyed to the 
 upper prison, was murdered under similar cir- 
 cumstances. These scenes ended in a drunken 
 
336 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 frolic; and if they occurred in 1823, can 
 any one be astonished that they should now be 
 repeated 1" 
 
 Our heart sickens at these atrocities ; but 
 the exhibition of them at this crisis is an in- 
 dispensable duty on the part of every lover of 
 truth and justice. It is now the game of the 
 English liberals to withdraw all sympathy 
 from Don Carlos and his heroic followers, by 
 constantly representing him as a blood-thirsty 
 tyrant, a monster unfit to live, with whom the 
 infamous system of giving no quarter origin- 
 ated. The documents and historical facts now 
 quoted may show how totally unfounded is this 
 assertion. Here we have the liberals of 
 Spain, the humane, philanthropic revolution- 
 ists of the Peninsula, committing these atroci- 
 ties when at the helm of affairs, not only before 
 the royalists, but ten years before the death of 
 Ferdinand, and when Don Carlos was still liv- 
 ing secluded in private life. These massacres 
 were commenced by the liberals when in pos- 
 session of the government, the fortresses, the 
 treasury, the army. When such frightful deeds 
 of blood stained their first successes over their 
 helpless royalist antagonists, it is not surpris- 
 ing that a profound feeling of indignation was 
 roused through the whole Peninsula, which has 
 rendered it the most difficult of tasks to mode- 
 rate the sanguinary character of the conflict in 
 subsequent times. Hitherto, be it observed, 
 the massacres had been all on our side ; not 
 one act of retaliation had taken place on the 
 parts of their opponents. 
 
 With truth it may be said, that the revolu- 
 tionary party are ever the same ; they learn 
 nothing, they forget nothing. Mr. Walton thus 
 sums up, in a few words, the series of crimes 
 and follies which had thus twice precipitated 
 the democrats of the Peninsula from the pos- 
 session of absolute authority. 
 
 "The follies and illegalities committed by 
 the Cortes from the moment of their assem- 
 bling at Cadiz may be easily traced in the 
 pages of this narrative ; and yet the same follies 
 and illegalities were at Madrid and Cadiz re- 
 peated in 1820, '21, '22, and '23. The Cortes 
 first became the legislators of the land by 
 means of a flagrant act of usurpation, which, 
 under the pretence of being legally constituted, 
 they sustained at all hazards; the second time 
 they rose into power by the aid of a military 
 mutiny, and were not prudent enough to steer 
 clear of the very shoals upon which they had 
 previously been stranded. The first time, they 
 had a fair opportunity of judging the evils of 
 precipitate and ill-considered legislation: they 
 then beheld events pregnant with lessons of 
 political wisdom, and still had not the sense 
 or the courage to correct old mistakes when 
 chance again placed the helm of state within 
 their grasp. On both occasions they fell from 
 the same causes. Public indignation hurled 
 them from their seats in 1814; and in 1823 
 they were overpowered, not by the arms of 
 France, but by the displeasure of their own 
 countrymen, disgusted and wearied out with 
 the turmoils in which they had been kept, as 
 well as by the many atrocities which they had 
 witnessed. Their army of 96,750 men was 
 gradually frittered away; and while in fortified 
 
 towns they were vainly denouncing vengeance, 
 in the interior the lips of thousands greeted 
 the Duke d'Angouleme, and welcomed him as 
 the liberator of their king and country." 
 
 The situation of Ferdinand VII., when thus 
 a second time restored to his throne, was sur- 
 rounded with difficulties. Not only had the 
 most furious passions been awakened in the 
 royalists by the savage and uncalled-for mas- 
 sacres of their opponents, but the public inte- 
 rests in every department had suffered to a 
 degree hardly conceivable in so short a period 
 as that of the revolutionary domination. 
 
 "The new ministers," says Walton, "who 
 were the best men the country could produce, 
 found every thing unhinged and in disorder. 
 The misfortunes of which the Cadiz code was 
 so lamentable a memorial, daily showed them- 
 selves in some new shape. The more the 
 state of the country was inquired into, the more 
 flagrant the errors, if not the guilt, of the fallen 
 party appeared. The reports from the pro- 
 vinces were appalling the treasury empty, 
 and foreign credit destroyed. On isolated 
 points the shades of opinion might have varied ; 
 but in the condemnation of the acts of the 
 liberals, the public voice was unanimous. 
 Then only was ascertained in. its full extent 
 the galling nature of their yoke." ' 
 
 An amnesty was immediately published by 
 the king. The exceptions were numerous, 
 amounting to nearly two thousand persons ; 
 but " they were chiefly assassins men whom 
 no amnesty could reach." The means of 
 being reinstated in favour were amply afforded 
 to those who were not actually stained with 
 blood; and great numbers were immediately 
 reinstated in their employments. The rest, for 
 the most part, withdrew to France and Eng- 
 land where they lived for many years, main- 
 tained by public or private charity, and an ob- 
 ject of mistaken interest to the English peo- 
 ple, who believed that the selfish projects of 
 aggrandisement from which they had been 
 dashed were those of freedom and public hap- 
 piness. 
 
 The repeated and ludicrous attempts which 
 the Spanish Revolutionists at this period made 
 to regain their footing in the Peninsula since 
 
 1823 to 1830, and the instant and total failure 
 of them all, demonstrated in the clearest man- 
 ner the slender hold they had of the public 
 mind, and the strong sense of the horrors of 
 revolutionary sway which the experience of 
 their government had generally produced. 
 
 Doubtless the government of the Royalists 
 during the period of their ascendency, from 
 
 1824 10 the death of Ferdinand in 1833, was 
 not perfect. The ministers of the king must 
 have been more than human if, in a country 
 in which such a revolutionary party had 
 obtained for so ever short a time an ascend- 
 ency, they could at once have closed the foun- 
 tains of evil. 
 
 "More," says Mr. Walton, "perhaps might 
 have been done many abuses were left un- 
 touched; still commerce and agriculture con- 
 tinued in a progressive state of improvement. 
 The public burdens had also greatly dimin- 
 ished. Under the administration of the Cortes, 
 the general taxes levied were equal to 100 mil- 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 337 
 
 lions of rials, afterwards they were reduced to 
 40, and the provincial rents from 295 millions 
 lowered to 130. The best test is perhaps that 
 of the finances ; an idea of which may be 
 formed from the subjoined approximate state- 
 ments, founded upon correct data. 
 
 The foreign debt created by the 
 
 Cortes from September, 1820 
 
 to October, 1823, . . 19,000,000 
 
 Ditto, by the king, from October, 
 
 1823, to September, 1830, . 5,000,000 
 Foreign debt cancelled by the 
 
 Cortes, None! 
 
 Ditto by the king, .... 1,000,000 
 Interest paid on domestic debt 
 
 by the Cortes, .... None ! 
 Since the restoration, . Paid regularly. 
 Public expenditure under the 
 
 Cortes, 6,648,133 
 
 Ditto since the restoration, . 4,197,772" 
 
 Thus it appears that the Liberal Govern- 
 ment, during their short reign, from October, 
 1820, to October, 1823, that is, in two years, had 
 contracted, in spite of all the produce of the 
 confiscated church lands, NINETEEX MILIIOXB 
 STERLING of debt ; and that, in the next seven, 
 the king's government had only contracted 
 FIVE : that the Cortes paid no interest on the 
 national debt, and the king paid it regularly. 
 Finally, that the annual expenditure of the 
 Cortes was a half greater, besides their enor- 
 mous loans, than that of the king. So much 
 for the realization of the blessings of cheap 
 and good government by the Spanish Revolu- 
 tionists ! 
 
 But the time was now approaching when the 
 cast down and despairing Democrats of Spain 
 were again to be elevated to supreme power, 
 and, by the aid of liberal governments in 
 France and England, a civil war lighted up in 
 the Peninsula, unexampled in modern times 
 for constancy and courage on the one side, and 
 cruelty and incapacity on the other. 
 
 Ferdinand VII., in his latter years, had mar- 
 ried a fourth wife, by whom he had no son, but 
 one daughter. By the Spanish law, which, in 
 this particular, is an adoption, under certain 
 modifications, of the famous Salic law, females 
 were excluded from the succession to the 
 throne; and this order of succession to the 
 Spanish Crown had been guarantied by all the 
 powers of Europe, and especially England, by 
 the treaty of Utrecht. It had regulated the 
 succession to the throne for an hundred and 
 thirty years. Ferdinand, however, was de- 
 clining both in years and mental vigour. The 
 queen was naturally desirous of securing the^ 
 succession to her own offspring, and she was a 
 woman of capacity and intrigue well fitted for 
 such an enterprise. Upon this state of matters, 
 the Liberals immediately fixed all their hopes, 
 and artfully succeeded, by implicating the king 
 and queen in an alteration of the order of suc- 
 cession in favour of their daughter, both to 
 divide the Royalist party, distracted between 
 the pretensions of the royal competitors, to 
 conceal their own selfish projects of aggran- 
 disement under a pretended zeal for the main- 
 tenance of the new order of descent, and to 
 engraft the interest of a disputed succession on 
 43 
 
 the native deformity of a merely sordid revolu- 
 tionary movement. 
 
 The magnitude and importance of the vast 
 change on which the Liberal party had now 
 adventured is thus ably stated by Mr. Wal- 
 ton: 
 
 "The law which excluded females when 
 there was male issue was precise and pe- 
 remptory. It had been enacted with the due 
 concurrence of the Cortes, and formed part of 
 a general settlement of the peace of Europe, 
 at Utrecht, guarantied by England and France. 
 This law was besides recorded in the statute- 
 book, and for one hundred and twenty years 
 had been held as the only rule of succession. 
 Its abrogation, therefore, was a matter of the 
 most serious consideration, affecting not only 
 the prospective claims of the king's brother, 
 strengthened as they were by his popularity 
 and the royalist interest which he represented, 
 but also those of other members of the Bour- 
 bon family who came after him in the line of 
 succession. The undertaking was indeed ar- 
 duous and awful, in consequence of the exten- 
 sive changes which it was likely to introduce. 
 
 " It was not a matter of mere family aggran- 
 disement upon which the queen had set her 
 heart. The proposed measure arose out of no 
 wish to revive a principle successfully main- 
 tained in former times. It was part of a sys- 
 tem of which there was a further action in 
 reserve. More and deeper mischief was con- 
 templated than that of depriving one branch 
 of its hereditary rights. The alteration in the 
 established rule was intended as a seal to a revolu- 
 tion. This was the light in which Ferdinand 
 himself viewed the proposal when first made 
 to him ; and although his scruples gradually 
 gave way when he found himself beset by the 
 creatures and puppets of the queen, there was 
 no other period of his life in which his resolu- 
 tion on this point could have been shaken. 
 Even then the whole scheme would have 
 failed, if a clever and fascinating woman had 
 not been the principal agent. Her great aim 
 was to raise up a barrier between the Infante 
 Don Carlos and the throne, and the king's jea- 
 lousy of his brother's popularity was the chord 
 touched with most effect. The queen also 
 knew that this feeling chiefly led to her own 
 marriage, and it was agreed that the most pro- 
 pitious moment for the development of the 
 plan would be the termination of the rejoic- 
 ings to which the announcement of her preg- 
 nancy had given rise." 
 
 The way in which this extraordinary change 
 in the Constitution was introduced is thus de- 
 tailed : 
 
 "In the Gazette of the 6th April, 1830, to 
 the astonishment of every one, an edict, 
 dated March 29th, appeared with the follow- 
 ing remarkable heading: 'Pragmatic Sanc- 
 tion, having the force of law, decreed by King 
 Charles IV. on the petition of the Cortes for 
 1789, and ordered to be published by his 
 reigning majesty for the perpetual observance 
 of law 2, title 15, partida 2, establishing the 
 regular succession to the crown of Spain;' 
 alleged to have been in force for seven hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 "The publication was also carried into 
 2F 
 
338 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 effect with the usual solemnities. The rain 
 fell in torrents ; nevertheless the magistrates 
 and heralds proceeded to do their duty by 
 reading the decree aloud and posting it up in 
 the public places. The streets of Madrid were 
 thronged with an anxious and inquiring mul- 
 titude, who did not hesitate, in no measured 
 terms, to express their surprise and disgust at 
 this glaring imposture. Nobody could under- 
 stand how the reigning sovereign, of his own 
 will and accord, could venture to sanction a 
 law alleged to have been passed by his father 
 forty-one years before, and which, even if it 
 had then been perfected, (and the reverse was 
 the case,) could not be held valid for obvious 
 reasons." 
 
 It is not our intention to follow Mr. Walton 
 through his able argument against the legality 
 of the change thus unceremoniously intro- 
 duced of the king's own authority, without any 
 recourse whatever to a Cortes or any other 
 national authority. It was not even attempted 
 to get any such authority ; but it was pretend- 
 ed that it had been granted when the altera- 
 tion on the law of succession had been made 
 by Charles IV. in 1789. The absurdity of 
 supposing that so important a matter as the 
 descent of the crown could be legally altered 
 by a pretended act of a king on the petition 
 of the Cortes, without its even being known, or 
 even heard of, for forty years after its alleged 
 enactment, is too obvious to require illustra- 
 tion. Add to this, that the pretended altera- 
 ion by Charles IV. has never yet been produced, 
 v seen by any one ; and that the fact of its 
 existence rests on the assertion of a bed-ridden 
 doting king in favour of his own daughter. 
 And even if such a deed did exist, it would, 
 by the fundamental laws of Spain, be utterly 
 null in a question with Don Carlos, or the 
 princes born before its promulgation, as not 
 having been published to the magistrates of 
 the provinces in the way required by the Con- 
 stitution. The more defective the title of the 
 queen to the crown, however, the better for 
 the Liberals : they had now a revolutionary dy- 
 nasty implicated in their struggle for supreme 
 power. 
 
 Upon the publication of this decree, Don 
 Carlos, the next male in succession, and di- 
 rectly struck at by the ordinance, was solicit- 
 ed by the chief nobles of Spain instantly to 
 assume the government. 
 
 " Several grandees," says Mr. Walton, "now 
 leagued with the opposite party, together with 
 generals and other influential persons, urged 
 the Infante Don Carlos to come forward and 
 accept the crown, not only as his right, but 
 also as the only means of preserving public 
 tranquillity. The conscientious prince reject- 
 ed their offer, though well aware of the extent 
 of his popularity in every part of the king- 
 dom ; alleging that so long as the king lived, 
 he would never do an act derogatory to his character, 
 either as a brother or a subject. He was then in- 
 vited to take the regency upon himself, which, 
 it was argued, could be done without any vio- 
 lation of his principles, on the plea of the 
 king's illness, and to rescue the country from 
 a dreadful crisis ; but again the prince de- 
 clined to interfere, observing, that his rights 
 
 and those of his family were clear and still 
 well protected; protesting that he would not 
 take any step that might hereafter render his 
 conduct liable to misrepresentation. Had the 
 prince then lifted up his hand, the regency, 
 and eventually the crown, would have been 
 his own : Spain would have been saved from 
 the horrors of a long and sanguinary civil war. 
 But where is the man who does not respect 
 the prince's motives of action who does not 
 admire the disinterestedness with which he 
 refused a sceptre already within his grasp 1" 
 
 The Cortes never was assembled to deliberate 
 on the alteration of the order of succession, or 
 consent to it; but a limited number of crea- 
 tures of the court (seventy-six in number) 
 were convoked in June 20, 1833, to swear alle- 
 giance to the king's daughter, as a princess 
 whose title to the throne was unquestionable. 
 A protest was on that occasion taken by the 
 Neapolitan and Sardinian ambassadors against 
 the change, on grounds apparently unanswer- 
 able.* And even all the efforts and influence 
 of the court could not give a national charac- 
 ter to the ceremony, or dispel the gloomy pre- 
 sentiments with which even the humblest of 
 the spectators were inspired. 
 
 "Seventy-six popular delegates had been 
 summoned," says Walton, " to take part in a 
 dumb show, at a moment when two of the 
 most important questions which ever present- 
 ed themselves to public consideration agitated 
 the country. The legality of the alteration in 
 the law of succession, and the appointment of 
 a regent in case of the king's death, were 
 points which, everybody thought, ought to 
 have been submitted to the Cortes, if such was 
 the character of the meeting just dissolved. 
 The world had been ostentatiously informed 
 that, when those of 1789 met for the purpose 
 of acknowledging the Prince of Asturias, the 
 question of succession was introduced, and 
 this circumstance, after the lapse of nearly 
 half a century, made a plea for the establish- 
 ment of a new rule : why then all this silence 
 now, in defiance of public opinion? The 
 queen, at the moment, was supreme, and her 
 rival a voluntary exile in a foreign land. 
 Every precaution had also been adopted to se- 
 cure the return of deputies, if not favourable 
 to her views, at least belonging to the Move- 
 ment party ; and the capital was besides 
 crowded with troops. And yet the queen and 
 her advisers had not the courage to trust the ded- 
 
 * "The law of 1713 was enacted by the chief of a new 
 dynasty, with all the formalities that were requisite and 
 indispensable to its validity, and at a time when a con- 
 currence of extraordinary and distressing circumstances 
 justified the propriety of a new law of succession ; that 
 it i* a law consecrated by more than a century of unin- 
 terrupted existence; that it was the necessary conse- 
 quence of the stipulations which secured the throne of 
 Spain to the grandson of Louis XIV., and to his male 
 descendants, and that the weighty reasons in which it 
 originated continue to subsist. 
 
 "We have further considered, that an order of suc- 
 cession established as this was, by the consent and 
 under the guarantee of the principal powers of Europe, 
 and recognised successively in various treaties con- 
 cluded with those powers, hag become obligatory and 
 unalterable, and has transmitted to all the descendants 
 of Philip V. rights which, as they were obtained by the 
 sacrifice of other rights, they cannot relinquish without 
 material injury to themselves, and without failing in 
 the consideration due to the illustrious head and found- 
 er of their dynasty." 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 339 
 
 sion of two plain questions to a meeting of their 
 own calling; fearful that among its members 
 some lurking royalist might be found to ex- 
 pose their injustice, and argue the illegality 
 of their acts. Any sympathies then excited in 
 favour of the Infante, might have been ruinous 
 to a cause only half consolidated. It therefore 
 became necessary to carry on the delusion, by 
 again resorting to sophistry, tergiversation, 
 and calumny." 
 
 Meanwhile, however, every effort was made 
 to fill all offices of trust in the army and civil 
 department with liberals of known resolution 
 and determined character, who then found 
 themselves, to their infinite joy, in conse- 
 quence of the disputed succession they had 
 contrived to get up to the throne, reinstated a 
 third time in the possession of that authority 
 from which they had been twice chased by the 
 experienced evils of their sway, and the gene- 
 ral indignation of the people. In a few months 
 their preparations were complete. Such had 
 been their activity, that all the offices in the 
 state ; all the fortresses in the country ; all 
 the commands in the army, were in their 
 hands. At the same time Don Carlos was 
 banished; his adherents discouraged; his 
 cause to all appearance desperate. Suddenly 
 reinforced, through the intrigues of the queen 
 for her daughter, by the whole weight of Go- 
 vernment, the Revolutionists had completely 
 regained their ascendant. Yet, even in these 
 circumstances, such was their unpopularity 
 in consequence of the numberless corrupt and 
 atrocious acts of which they had been guilty, 
 that all these preparations would have been 
 unavailing to force an unpopular and revolu- 
 tionary change of government on the country, 
 had it not been for the instant and powerful 
 support which the Liberals in Spain received 
 on the death of Ferdinand from the democratic 
 government of France and England. 
 
 " Ferdinand died," says Walton, " on 29th 
 September, 1833. The account of his decease 
 was transmitted to Paris* by telegraph, and the 
 next day a courier departed with orders to M. 
 de Rayneval to declare that the French govern- 
 ment was disposed to acknowledge the young 
 princess as soon as the official notification of 
 the demise of the crown arrived. This step had 
 doubtless been agreed upon with the British 
 government, in anticipation of an event long ex- 
 pected ; and to this joint determination, and the 
 immediate announcement of it in the Madrid 
 Gazette, it was that the queen chiefly owed the 
 ascendency which she gained in the first period 
 of her regency. At that time the eyes of all 
 Spain were upon England and France. They, 
 as it were, held the balance in their own hands ; 
 for the numerous and influential Spaniards, 
 who were disposed to assert the rights of the 
 lawful heir, intimidated by the extensive pre- 
 parations of the government, and discouraged 
 by the absence of their natural leader, held 
 back from any attempt against the usurped 
 power of the regent, through fear that for the 
 moment opposition would be fruitless. Many 
 colonels of regiments intrusted with command 
 even some liberals of the old school, sensible 
 that the country was on the eve of a civil war, 
 hesitated, and only joined the queen's cause 
 
 when they saw it pompously proclaimed that 
 England and France had declared in her favour 
 and thrown their powerful aid into her scale." 
 
 "The British and French governments may 
 be said to have then assumed the right to 
 dictate to Spain who should reign over her ; and, as 
 if it was not enough to have appointed to the 
 throne, to have taken upon themselves to name 
 a regent; for it is impossible to believe that 
 the governments of the two countries which 
 most contributed to the settlement effected by 
 Philip V. were really convinced of the legality 
 of the last measures of Ferdinand VII. to annul 
 that settlement; or that, with their boasted 
 attachment to the principles of a limited mo- 
 narchy, they could be sincere in professing a 
 belief that the mere testamentary provision of 
 an uxorious and enfeebled king could disin- 
 herit the rightful heir to the throne, and sub- 
 vert the fundamental laws of his country." 
 
 The result of this possession of the treasury, 
 the seat of government, the army, with their 
 powerful foreign support, is well known. The 
 queen was proclaimed throughout the king- 
 dom, and although partial risings in favour of 
 Don Carlos took place in almost every pro- 
 vince, yet as that prince was in exile, and his 
 adherents unarmed and scattered, they were 
 without difficulty suppressed by the military 
 force, 100,000 strong, now at the disposal of 
 the Liberals. But as Mr. Walton justly ob- 
 serves, 
 
 "The Spaniards in the end will redress their 
 own wrongs. They will not submit to insult 
 and proscription ; the popular thunder will 
 never cease to roll until the confederacy formed 
 between the Spanish liberals and their foreign 
 allies is dissolved for ever. Already, indeed, 
 are the oppressors of 1823 and 1833, treading 
 on a terrible volcano, surrounded by every 
 sign of past ravage and impending explosion. 
 Neither the queen, nor the party by which she 
 is upheld, has any hold upon the confidence 
 or affections of the Spanish people : the views 
 of the one, in endeavouring to secure the 
 throne to her daughter by an outrage upon her 
 late husband's memory, are too unjust and too 
 revolting to prosper ; whilst the object of the 
 others, in seizing upon power for a third time, 
 is as apparent now as it was before. Were 
 the liberals really friends of constitutional 
 order known for their adherence to settled 
 systems of reform disposed to admit changes 
 founded upon principles of tried merit taught 
 by experience and adversity to prefer plans 
 of a practical character and easy results to 
 dangerous theories and extravagant notions 
 in a word, were they prepared to sacrifice 
 their party prejudices to the general wants 
 and wishes of the country, they might still 
 have repaired their former errors and spared 
 the effusion of blood. 
 
 " So far, their cry for freedom has only been 
 another name for social disorganization, 
 their return to power the commencement of an 
 uncontrolled career of outrage and murder. Their 
 official existence seems to depend on the 
 repetition of previous follies and crimes. 
 Place and pelf in their opinion cannot be 
 secured unless the Revolution is completed by 
 j the utter extermination of the royalists : they 
 
340 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 equally disregard the laws and the public 
 voice. The Spaniards have always evinced a 
 scrupulous respect for ancient forms, as well 
 as an aversion to changes to their institutions ; 
 and now they are told that they must have 
 nothing that does not bear a modern stamp. 
 They have been distinguished beyond other 
 nations by a jealous love of their country and 
 a horror of foreign dictation ; but they are 
 now informed that they must be satisfied with 
 such rulers, and such a form of government, as 
 the liberals of London and Paris may be graciously 
 pleased to bestow on them. In one breath they 
 are branded as ignorant and prejudiced bigots, 
 and in the next called upon to admit changes 
 of a refined kind long before society is in a 
 state to receive them." 
 
 The civil war soon after commenced in 
 Navarre, and we again pray the particular 
 attention of our readers to the mingled perfidy 
 and cruelty by which, from the very first, it was 
 distinguished by the queen's forces : a cruelty 
 so atrocious, and uniformly adhered to, as to 
 have rendered altogether unavoidable the 
 frightful reprisals which have ever since pre- 
 vailed in the Peninsula. Lorenzo was the 
 Christino general in Navarre Santos Ladron 
 the popular leader. The former, fearful of the 
 issue of the contest, privately conveyed a 
 message to Don Santos, signifying his wish 
 to have a conference to prevent the effusion of 
 blood. 
 
 " This message was cordially received, and 
 in an unguarded moment Don Santos agreed 
 to meet his adversary, judging by this step that 
 he was promoting the interests of humanity 
 and the advancement of the cause which he 
 had so fervently embraced. Without a written 
 engagement or previous formality, a private 
 meeting was agreed upon, and the two gene- 
 rals, with their respective staffs and a few at- 
 tendants, proceeded to the appointed spot, a 
 short distance beyond Los Arcos. 
 
 " Santos Ladron endeavoured to persuade 
 Lorenzo that he was wrong in supporting the 
 queen's cause; and in the most feeling man- 
 ner pointed out the calamities in which the 
 country was about to be involved, it being 
 evident that the laws and the great majority 
 of the people were in favour of Charles V. He 
 alluded to the unfortunate contest of 1820, 
 which, he said, was about to be renewed. He 
 appealed to Lorenzo's patriotism and religion, 
 and, as one older in rank and more experi- 
 enced, implored him to spare the effusion of 
 blood. Finding that he could make no im- 
 pression upon the queen's representative, 
 Santos Ladron reined his horse and was about 
 to withdraw, when Lorenzo's people fired upon 
 him. His horse fell, and as he was extricat- 
 ing himself from his stirrup, the flaps of his 
 frock-coat flew open, and underneath dis- 
 covered the general's sash. The sight of the 
 insignia of his rank inflamed the rapacity of 
 the Christinos, and they rushed upon the dis- 
 mounted chieftain, eager to gain so valuable a 
 prize and the corresponding reward. Santos 
 Ladron, who had been already wounded by 
 the treacherous fire of the Christinos, was 
 conveyed to Pamplona, and, without being ad- 
 mitted to a hearing, was, with thirty-two of 
 
 his companions, subjected to the mockery of 
 a court-martial and condemned to death. In 
 vain the provincial deputation and the Bishop 
 of Pamplona implored the viceroy and the 
 military governor to suspend the execution 
 till the matter could be referred to Madrid; 
 all intercession was vain. It was answered 
 that the formalities of a court-martial had been 
 fully observed, and it was now impossible to 
 alter the sentence. In reality, the authorities 
 were eager to recommend themselves to the 
 Madrid government by executing with pre- 
 cipitate activity the orders of a remorseless 
 policy, and they were xvell aware that nothing 
 could be more distasteful to their employers than 
 any hesitation in discharging the bloody service that 
 was required at their hands. On the 15th of 
 October the wounded general, with his thirty-two 
 companions, was led into the ditch of the fortress, 
 and there privately shot." 
 
 The effect of this atrocity may be easily 
 conceived. 
 
 " The perfidious massacre of thirty-three 
 persons at once proclaimed to Spain and Eu- 
 rope the faithless and remorseless character 
 of the government that sanctioned and re- 
 warded the horrid deed ; as a measure of inti- 
 midation it utterly failed, nay, rather fanned 
 the flame which it was intended to extinguish. 
 The very night after the execution five hun- 
 dred persons, mostly youths of the best fami- 
 lies in Pamplona, quitted the place, and joined 
 the Carlists of Roncesvalles. The next day 
 Colonel Benito Eraso, who had raised the val- 
 ley of Roncesvalles, issued a proclamation to 
 the inhabitants and an address to the soldiers. 
 In the former, after begging those whom he 
 addressed not to be discouraged by the misfor- 
 tune of Santos Ladron, he added, 'No ven- 
 geance ! oblivion of the past, and a religious 
 observance of the decree of Jimnesty ! Let 
 order, union, and valour be your motto, and 
 triumph is certain.' A noble contrast to the 
 barbarous atrocities which his enemies had 
 not only the heart to perpetrate, but the shame- 
 lessness to avow." 
 
 Saarsfield, another of the queen's generals, 
 though of a more mild and pacific character, 
 was nevertheless constrained, by his orders 
 from Madrid, to begin the war with the same 
 system of reckless butchery. 
 
 " It was well known," says Walton, " that he 
 did not belong to the revolutionary school, 
 and the very names of many of those who, 
 fresh from the exile to which Ferdinand had 
 consigned them, were now employed to second 
 his own operations, must have enabled him, 
 long before he crossed the Ebro, to judge of 
 the probable course of impending changes, 
 and have filled him with mingled feelings of 
 discontent and apprehension. He was, how- 
 ever, carried away by events; and the ease 
 with which his advantages were gained, did 
 not restrain his troops from marking their pro- 
 gress by acts of violence, and the wanton effu- 
 sion of blood. His orders, doubtless, were 
 severe, and too peremptory to be trifled with; 
 while the more active and ambitious of his 
 officers must have been allured by the rewards 
 bestowed on the bloody deed of Lorenzo, to 
 imitate his barbarous example, and to adapt 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 341 
 
 their mode of warfare to the taste prevailing 
 in the capital. Every Cat-list chieftain, taken in 
 arms, was accordingly shot without mercy : the 
 same severity was extended to the less respon- 
 sible peasantry, and the most unsparing efforts 
 were made to extinguish the hopes of Charles 
 V. in the blood of every class of his adherents; 
 a merciless, and at the same time impolitic 
 rigour, by which fuel was added to a half- 
 extinguished flame, and the discontent of a 
 bold and warlike population converted into 
 the most bitter and desperate hostility." 
 
 These inhuman massacres, however, did not 
 intimidate the Carlists : but wherever they 
 rose in arms, the same execrable system of 
 murder was pursued by the queen's generals. 
 
 "The Carlists," says our author, " one and 
 all, felt that faith had not been kept with them; 
 that the proclamations of the queen's officers 
 were only intended to entrap the unwary, and 
 that their real aim was extermination. 
 
 "The cries of fresh victims constantly re- 
 sounded in their ears, and they continued to 
 shudder at the remembrance of the butcheries 
 which they had already witnessed. Brigadier 
 Tina, who had been captured and his band 
 dispersed, was on the 26th November shot- 
 near Alcaniz. At Calatayud twenty-one Carlists 
 had previously met with the same fate, and 
 among them two ecclesiastics, a fact sufficient 
 to show the brutalizing effects of the new sys- 
 tem. Morella was entered on the 13th Decem- 
 ber, after a close investment by General Bu- 
 tron, the governor of Tortosa, but the Carlist 
 garrison escaped, and were afterwards over- 
 taken at Calanda, near Alcaniz, when their 
 commander, Baron Herves, his wife and three 
 children, fell into the hands of the queen's 
 troops. Agreeably to an order of the day, 
 published by Viceroy Espeleta, the comman- 
 der of the royalist volunteers of Torreblanca, 
 D. Cristoval Fuste, and D. Pedro Torre, were 
 shot at Zaragoza; in the morning of the 23d 
 December; and on the 27th, Baron Herves, 
 and D. Vicente Gil, commander of the royalist 
 volunteers, shared the same fate. At Vitoria, 
 the son of a rich merchant, for whose ransom 
 five thousand dollars were offered, was also 
 shot by the orders of Valdes, at a moment 
 when a courier from Madrid could not pass 
 without a large escort." 
 
 And now the queen's government, embol- 
 dened by the success with which they had 
 hitherto butchered and massacred whoever 
 appeared in arms against them, resolved on a 
 still more sweeping and unjustifiable act of 
 democratic despotism. This was the destruc- 
 tion of the liberties and rights of the ichole Basque 
 provinces, and the extinction of the freedom 
 which had prevailed in the mountains of Na- 
 varre and Biscay for six hundred years. It is 
 unnecessary to say what these privileges were. 
 All the world knows that these provinces were 
 in truth a free constitutional monarchy, in- 
 serted into the despotic realm of Spain ; that 
 their popular rights were more extensive than 
 those of England under the Reform Bill ; that 
 they exceeded even the far-famed democratic 
 privileges of the Swiss Cantons. For that very 
 reason they were odious to the democratic 
 despots at Madrid, who could tolerate no re- 
 
 straint whatever on their authority, and least 
 of all from freeborn mountaineers, who had 
 inherited their privileges from their fathers, 
 and not derived them from their usurpation. 
 Like their predecessors in the French Direc- 
 tory with the Swiss Cantons, they had accord- 
 ingly from the very first devoted these liberties 
 to destruction, and they seized the first oppor- 
 tunity of success to carry their tyrannical 
 determination into execution. 
 
 "As soon," says Walton, "as the queen's 
 military commanders had established their 
 authority, they declared the Ji<nuji>.e fueros provi- 
 sionally suspended. For some time past the 
 Madrid government had wished to place these 
 provinces under the Castilian law, by carrying 
 the line of customs to their extreme frontiers, 
 and the present opportunity was thought fa- 
 vourable. On the 3d December, Castanon 
 issued a proclamation from his head-quarters 
 at Tolosa, of which the following are the prin- 
 cipal clauses : ' If, after a lapse of eight days, 
 arms are found in any house, the master shall 
 be subject to a fine and other penalties ; and 
 should he have no means of payment, con- 
 demned to two years' hard labour at the hulks 
 any individual concealing ammunition, mo- 
 ney, or other effects belonging to an insurgent, 
 shall be sho! the house of any person who may 
 have fired upon the queen's troops shall be 
 burnt every peasant forming one of an as- 
 semblage of less than fifty men, and taken in 
 arms at a quarter of a league from the high- 
 road, shall be considered as a brigand and shot 
 any one intercepting a government courier 
 shall be shot every village that shall, without 
 opposition, suffer the insurgents to obtain re- 
 cruits, shall be punished with a heavy contri- 
 bution all the property of absentees shall be 
 confiscated every peasant refusing to convey 
 information from the municipalities to head- 
 quarters shall be put in irons, and condemned 
 to two years' imprisonment, or hard labour, in 
 the fortress of St. Sebastian all women who, 
 by word or deed, favour the rebellion, shall be 
 closely confined a court-martial shall be 
 formed to take cognisance of all causes 
 brought before them, and every movable 
 column shall have with it one member of this 
 court for the purpose of carrying into effect 
 the provisions of this proclamation.' 
 
 " The brutal edict was read with horror and 
 disgust. Such of the natives as had embraced 
 the queen's cause now bitterly repented of 
 their error when they saw their privileges 
 trampled under foot by a military despot, and 
 found themselves obliged to receive into their 
 houses, and furnish with every necessary, the 
 soldiers who protected him in his outrageous 
 exercise of illegal power. The mere mention 
 of their fueros being suspended, produced a 
 magical effect, and the Basques now consider- 
 ed their cause more than ever sanctified. 
 Many who before had remained neutral flew 
 to arms, and the war-cry resounded along the 
 mountain ranges. Surrounded by rocks and 
 precipices, the Basque patriots assembled to 
 consider their prospects, and devise revenue 
 for their wrongs. The hardy peasantry re- 
 solved to suffer the last extremities of war 
 rather than submit to the yoke with which 
 2*2 
 
342 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 they were threatened. They required no oath 
 of secrecy, no pledges for each other's fidelity. 
 They called to mind the heroic efforts of their 
 ancestors to resist oppression ; and holding up 
 the printed paper circulated among them, in 
 scorn and in abhorrence, they swore to defend 
 their freedom, and mutually bound each othe"r, 
 as the sword was already unsheathed, never to 
 return it to the scabbard till their fueros were 
 acknowledged and secured." 
 
 Human cruelty, it might have been thought, 
 could hardly have gone beyond the atrocities 
 already committed by the revolutionary gene- 
 rals; but they were exceeded by that perpe- 
 trated in the endeavour to crush this gallant 
 effort of the Basque peasants to rescue from 
 destruction Biscayan freedom. 
 
 " Zavala (a Biscay chief) having seized 
 five noted Christines, took them to his head- 
 quarters at Ganteguiz de Arteaga, a small 
 town on the east of the river Mundaca, where i 
 he treated them with respect. In retaliation, i 
 the enemy sent a detachment of six hundred 
 men from Bilboa to Murguia, to seize his 
 family; after which the same corps advanced 
 upon his position with his children placed in their 
 foremost rank. Zavala was struck with horror 
 at this revolting expedient, and hesitated be- 
 tween his duty as a soldier and paternal ten- 
 derness. If an engagement ensued, his own 
 children would inevitably fall before their 
 father's musketry. In this dreadful dilemma, 
 and hoping still to defeat the enemy without 
 submitting to the cruel necessity of destroying 
 the dearest portion of himself, Zavala with- 
 drew to Guernica. Here he was attacked the 
 next day by the same troops, who again ad- 
 vanced with his children in front of their co- 
 lumn. The same torture awaited the distract- 
 ed parent. He placed his troops in an advan- 
 tageous position, and the fire commenced 
 under the tree of Guernica, that glorious sign 
 of proud recollections to the sons of Biscay 
 the tree under which they swear fidelity to 
 their liege lord, and where he binds himself 
 in turn to keep their privileges inviolate. 
 Victory crowned the efforts of the Biscayan 
 royalists, and scarcely more than a third of 
 the queen's troops escaped. The devoted vic- 
 tims of the atrocious assailants were saved, 
 and restored to the arms of an agonized 
 father." 
 
 The extent to which these early massacres 
 by the revolutionists was carried, was very 
 great. 
 
 " It was about this time estimated," says our 
 author, " that not less than twelve hundred persons 
 had been put to the sicord or executed in the Basque 
 provinces and Navarre alone, besides the many 
 victims sacrificed in other parts of the king- 
 dom. For three months the queen's agents 
 had been playing a deceitful and desperate 
 game. They respected no laws, and even 
 broke the promises contained in their own 
 proclamations. Hence numbers who had laid 
 down their arms, and returned to their homes, 
 again banded together, filled with the most 
 exasperated and vindictive feelings; and if in 
 this state of mind they resorted to acts of re- 
 taliation, those whose previous cruelties pro- 
 voked such severities are justly answerable i 
 
 for the excesses of the Carlists as well as for 
 their own. The horrible atrocities of the 
 queen's partisans gave the contest a deadly 
 and ferocious character; and, as if the former 
 severities had 'not been sufficient, fuel was 
 added to the flame by a decree issued by the 
 queen-regent, and bearing date the 21st of 
 January, in which it was ordered, that all pri- 
 vates, belonging to the several factions, who 
 might not have been shot, should be employed 
 in the condemned regiments of Ceuta, Cuba, 
 Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands, at the 
 same time that the officers w r ere to be punished 
 with the utmost severity of the law." 
 
 Nay, so resolute were the revolutionists on 
 carrying on the war on no other principle than 
 that of indiscriminate massacre, that it was 
 repeatedly announced in official proclamations 
 as the rule of war by the queen's generals. 
 
 ." On the 5th August, 1834, Rodil issued a 
 proclamation," in which he said, " ' that after 
 employing all possible means of clemency, he 
 is convinced that severe chastisement alone 
 can put an end to the rebel faction ; wherefore 
 he decrees, 1st, that every one found in the ranks 
 of the rebels shall be shot as soon as taken ; 2d, those 
 who supply arms, favour their attempts, or 
 obey their summons, shall be equally shot,' &c. 
 This edict is dated Pamplona, and the strictest 
 orders were circulated to carry it into full 
 effect." 
 
 All attempts on the part of the Carlists to 
 establish a more humane system of warfare 
 were in vain. One in particular deserves to 
 be mentioned. In one of Zumalacarregui's 
 victories, a Spanish nobleman of high rank 
 was made prisoner. 
 
 " On the first leisure moment, Zumalacar- 
 regui examined his prisoners, and more espe- 
 cially the count. The Carlist chieftain was 
 pleased with his manly behaviour; and, after 
 several inquiries as to the state of affairs at 
 Madrid, promised to propose an exchange of 
 prisoners, in which the count's rank was to be 
 waived. In the mean while the count was 
 invited to Zumalacarregui's table, and treated 
 with every consideration. A few days after- 
 wards, whilst at dinner, Rodil's answer to the 
 proposed cartel arrived, in which he stated 
 that the prisoners for whom it was wished to 
 make an exchange had been already shot. ' Here, 
 count,' said the Carlist leader, ' take the letter 
 of your queen's commander : read it yourself, 
 and then judge the situation in which I am 
 placed.' 
 
 " The unfortunate count turned pale, and 
 with a start pushed his plate almost to the 
 middle of the table. The repast was at once 
 at an end. After a pause, during which a dead 
 silence prevailed, Zumalacarregui, addressing 
 the weeping count, added, ' I wished to spare 
 you, and such also I know would be my sove- 
 reign's wish ; but with such enemies forbear- 
 ance is impossible. From the first I looked 
 upon you as a deluded youth, of an ardent 
 mind, and I should have rejoiced in being the 
 instrument of royal mercy; but Rodil's out- 
 rages are beyond endurance, they must and 
 shall be checked. Were I considerate towards 
 you, our enemies, as they have done before, 
 would attribute my conduct to weakness. This 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 343 
 
 triumph they shall not obtain. The widows' 
 weeds worn in these provinces will tell you the state 
 of the war better than all you heard in Madrid' " 
 
 Not content with the wholesale murders thus 
 carried into execution on women and children 
 of the adverse party, the democrats in the 
 Spanish great towns resolved to take the work 
 of the butcher in their own hands, and enjoy 
 in their own persons the exquisite pleasure of 
 putting to death their captive enemies. At 
 Zaragoza, thirteen monks were murdered; at 
 Cordova, several convents burnt : at Valencia 
 the mob were only appeased by the sacrifice 
 of six Carlists, who were massacred in cold 
 blood. At Barcelona, the atrocities were still 
 more frightful. 
 
 "On the afternoon of the 25th July, 1835, a 
 mob, arrayed in various bands, each headed 
 by a leader in disguise, paraded the streets 
 with cries of ' Away to the Convents !' and 
 ' Death to the friars !' and forthwith proceeded 
 from words to deeds. Six convents (namely, 
 those of the Augustins, of the Trinitarians, of 
 the two orders of Carmelites, of the Minims, 
 and of the Dominicans) were blazing at once, 
 and soon were reduced to heaps of smoking 
 ruins ; while eighty of their unfortunate inmates 
 perished, some burned in the buildings, others 
 poniarded, and others again beaten to death 
 with clubs and stones. Some escaped through 
 the exertions of the artillery corps, and a few 
 by mingling in disguise with the crowd. Three 
 hundred friars and clergymen took refuge in 
 the castle of Monjuich, and as many more in 
 the citadel and fort Atarzanzas. The military 
 meanwhile paraded the streets, but remained 
 perfectly passive, having received orders not to 
 fire on the populace. Llauder, the captain- 
 general, fled into France, and left the city vir- 
 tually in the power of the rabble." 
 
 Subsequently the savage temper of the Bar- 
 celona liberals was evinced in a still more 
 memorable manner: 
 
 "On the 4th of January, 1836, a crowd 
 assembled in the main square, and, with loud 
 imprecations and yells of revenge, demanded 
 the lives of the Carlist prisoners confined in 
 the citadel. Thither they immediately re- 
 paired, and, not meeting with the slightest re- 
 sistance from the garrison, scaled the walls, 
 lowered the draw-bridge, and entered the 
 fortress; their leaders holding in their hands 
 lists of those whom they had predetermined to 
 massacre. When the place was completely 
 in their possession, the leaders of the mob 
 began to read over their lists of proscription, 
 and, with as much deliberation as if they had 
 been butchers selecting sheep for the knife, 
 had their miserable victims dragged forward, 
 and shot one after another, in the order of their 
 names. The brave Colonel O'Donnt-1 was the 
 first that perished. His body, and that of 
 another prisoner, were dragged through the 
 streets, with shouts of 'Liberty!' The heads 
 and hands were cut off, and the mutilated 
 trunks, after having been exposed to every 
 indignity, were cast upon a burning pile. The 
 head of O'Donnel, after having been kicked 
 about the streets as a foot-ball by wretches 
 who mingled mirth with murder, was at last 
 stuck up in front of a fountain ; and pieces of 
 
 \flesh were cut from his mangled and palpitating 
 body, and eagerly devoured by the vilest and most 
 <!t///-(ivt:<l of women. From the citadel the mob 
 proceeded to the hospital, where three of the 
 inmates were butchered; and from the hospital 
 to the fort of Atanzares, where fifteen Carlist 
 peasants shared the same fate. In all, eighty- 
 eight persons perished. 
 
 " This deliberate massacre of defenceless 
 prisoners, arid the worse than fiendish excesses 
 committed on their remains, satisfied the 
 rioters for the first day ; but, on the next, they 
 presumed to proclaim that fruitful parent of 
 innumerable murders the constitution of 
 1812. This was too much to be borne. Even 
 then, however, two hours elapsed before a 
 dissenting voice was heard; when a note 
 arrived from Captain Hyde Parker, of the 
 Rodney, who not long before, in obedience to 
 the orders of a peaceful administration, had 
 landed fifteen thousand muskets in the city. His 
 offer to support the authorities against the 
 friends of the obnoxious constitution was not 
 without effect. The leaders of the political 
 movement were allowed to embark on board 
 the Rodney, and the tumult subsided, rather 
 from being lulled than suppressed. No pun- 
 ishment whatever was inflicted on the murder- 
 ers and cannibals of the first day; their con- 
 duct, perhaps, was not considered to deserve 
 any. 
 
 " It was expected that when the riots of Bar- 
 kelona were known at Zaragoza, the rabble of 
 the latter city would have broken out into 
 similar excesses ; but the authorities had re- 
 course to the same disgraceful expedient to 
 appease them which had proved successful 
 before. They ordered four officers, a priest, 
 and two peasants, reputed Carlists, to be 
 strangled, and thus prevented the populace 
 from becoming murderers, by assuming that 
 character themselves." 
 
 The humane philanthropists of the capital 
 were not behind their provincial brethren in 
 similar exploits. 
 
 " The first victim was a Franciscan friar 
 who happened to be on the street. A report 
 was then spread that the Jesuits had advised 
 the deed ; and the senseless mob, frantic for 
 revenge, rushed to the college. The gate hav- 
 ing been forced open, the first person who 
 entered was one dressed in the uniform of the 
 urban-militia, who told the students to quit the 
 house, as it was not in search of them that 
 they came. 
 
 "Instantly the college was filled with an 
 armed mob, thirsting for blood, and the mas- 
 sacre began. Professor Bastan was bayoneted, 
 I and Father Ruedas stabbed to death. The 
 I professor of history and geography, Father 
 Saun, was next murdered, and his head beat 
 to pieces with clubs and hammers. The pro- 
 fessor of rhetoric was dragged from his hiding- 
 place, and that he might be the sooner de- 
 j spatched, knives were added to the murderous 
 I weapons which had been before employed. 
 Another master, endeavouring to escape, was 
 1 fired upon by an urbano ; and as the shot 
 1 mi.ssed, he was bayoneted in the back. Three 
 I in disguise escaped into the streets, hoping by 
 i this means to save their lives ; but they were 
 
344 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 murdered by the mob, to whom regular com- 
 munications were made of what was passing 
 inside the building. On every side were 
 heard the groans of the dying, the screams of 
 those who were vainly endeavouring to es- 
 cape, the discharge of muskets, and the ex- 
 ulting shouts of the murderers. The students 
 had been driven from these scenes of horror ; 
 but several returned, in the hope of befriending 
 their masters. One child threw his slender 
 form over the prostrate body of his preceptor, 
 and shared in the wounds under which he 
 breathed his last. 
 
 " In one house perished fifteen individuals, 
 assassinated in the most barbarous manner by 
 those actually employed and armed to keep 
 the public peace, some in regimentals and 
 others in disguise. The provincial regiment 
 of Granada then formed part of the Madrid 
 garrison ; and the officers and men belonging 
 to it, who were not passive spectators, appeared 
 among the murderers. The death of their 
 victims was not sufficient to satiate the fury 
 of the rioters : some had their entrails torn out, 
 others were dragged through the streets with 
 ropes round their necks, and acts of cannibal- 
 ism were perpetrated so abominable and dis- 
 gusting that it is impossible to enter into their 
 loathsome details. The Franciscan convent 
 and other places were the scenes of similar 
 atrocities. These unhappy victims of ruthless 
 liberalism perverting to its own ends the blind- 
 ness of the multitude, had taken no part in 1 
 politics ; their only crime was that they were 
 clergymen and instructors of youth." 
 
 Amidst these hideous atrocities, the Madrid 
 liberals, and the Cadiz and Barcelona cliques, 
 have steadily, and amidst the loud applause of 
 their hungry dependents, pursued the usual 
 selfish objects of democratic ambition. All 
 useful establishments, all which relieved or 
 blessed the poor were rooted out, new offices 
 and jurisdictions were created in every di- 
 rection, numberless commissions were issued ; 
 and the well-paid liberals began to roll in their 
 carriages, and keep their boxes at the opera. 
 The property of the Church, which in Spain is 
 literally the endowment at once of education 
 and the poor, was the first to be rooted out. 
 Its character and usefulness is thus described 
 by our author : 
 
 " The convents in Spain are not like those 
 which we had among us in Catholic times; 
 and their suppression will necessarily excite 
 indignation, besides giving rise to great abuses. 
 They mostly partook of the character of the 
 hospice, particularly in the northern provinces. 
 To the peasants they often served as banking 
 establishments, and greatly favoured agricul- 
 tural improvements. The friars acted as 
 schoolmasters, advocates, physicians, and 
 apothecaries. Besides feeding and clothing 
 the poor, and visiting the sick, they afforded 
 spiritual consolation. They were considerate 
 landlords and indulgent masters. They were 
 peace-makers in domestic broils ; and if a 
 harvest failed, they supplied the seed that was 
 to be confided to the earth the next year. They 
 also provided periodical amusements and fes- 
 tivities, which the peasant will see abandoned 
 with regret. Most of the convents had fivnda- 
 
 ciones, or endowments, for professors who 
 taught rhetoric, philosophy, &c., besides keep- 
 ing schools open for the poor. They also 
 supplied curates when wanted, and their 
 preachers are considered the best in Spain. 
 
 " Without entering into the question of the 
 legality of these suppressions, or pointing out 
 the folly of a government proceeding to such 
 extremes that is not sure of its own existence 
 for half a year, it may be stated, that all the 
 expedients resorted to in our Henry VIII.'s time 
 to bring the monastic orders into disrepute, 
 have been practised by the Spanish liberals, 
 and have failed. On the 19th January, 1836, 
 the monks in Madrid were driven out of their 
 convents at two o'clock in the morning, with- 
 out the slightest regard to age or infirmity. 
 After being grossly insulted and reviled, 
 several were waylaid in the streets by the rayo, 
 or thunderbolt party, and cudgelled in the most 
 unmerciful manner. The measure of eject- 
 ment was simultaneously carried into exe- 
 cution wherever the government could enforce 
 its commands ; the great object in view being 
 to seize on money, plate, and valuables. 
 
 " The liberals have appointed commissions to 
 receive the confiscated property, and the same 
 abuses occur as in 1822. One instance will 
 suffice in the way of illustration. The convent 
 of St. John of God, at Cadiz, well known to 
 many of our countrymen, formerly fed and 
 clothed a large number of poor; and its mem- 
 bers, being mostly medical men, attended the 
 sick and administered medicine gratis. The 
 relief afforded by this institution was incalcu- 
 lable; and yet its funds, economically adminis- 
 tered, and added only by voluntary donations, 
 were sufficient to satisfy every claim. The 
 liberals took its administration upon them- 
 selves ; and the persons intrusted with it soon 
 grew rich and had their boxes at the theatre. They 
 had profits on the contracts for provisions, 
 medicine, and other supplies. The amount of 
 relief afforded was also diminished; and yet, 
 at the end of the first year, the ordinary funds 
 were exhausted, and the new administrators 
 obliged to make public appeals to the hu- 
 mane." 
 
 The destitution thus inflicted on the clergy, 
 and misery on the poor, has been unbounded. 
 
 " The suppression lately ordained by the 
 Christino government may be called a general 
 one, and the number of establishments to which 
 it had extended at the end of last September, 
 was estimated at 1937, leaving 23,699 ejected 
 inmates, whose annual maintenance, if paid at 
 the promised rate, would not be less than 
 400.000/." 
 
 The creation of new jurisdictions, and the 
 extirpation of all the ancient landmarks, was 
 as favourite an object with the Spanish as it 
 had been with the French, or now is with the 
 English revolutionists. 
 
 "The plan for the territorial divisions was 
 
 also put forward. It may be here proper to 
 
 to observe, that formerly Spain was divided 
 
 ; into fourteen sections, unequal in extent and 
 
 | population. It was now proposed to divide the 
 
 I territory, including the adjacent islands, into 
 
 i forty-nine provinces, or districts, taking the 
 
 1 names of their respective capitals, except Na- 
 
CARLIST STRUGGLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 345 
 
 varre, Biscay, Guipuscoa, and Alava, which I 
 were to preserve their ancient denominations. 
 The principality of Asturias was to become 
 the province of Oviedo. Andalusia was to be 
 parcelled out into seven provinces ; Aragon, 
 into three ; New Castile, into five; Old Castile, 
 into eight; Catalonia, into four; Estremadura, 
 into two; Galicia, into four; Leon, into three; 
 Murcia, into two; and Valencia, into three. 
 To each it was wished to give as near as pos- 
 sible a population of 250,000 persons ; and the 
 census taken in 1833, amounting to 12,280,000 
 
 voluntarily joined their standards to those of a 
 power which had begun the infamous system 
 of giving no quarter, and despite all the efforts 
 of the Duke of Wellington's mission, had re- 
 sumed it, and was prosecuting it with relent- 
 less rigour. They marched along with those 
 exterminating bands, into valleys where they 
 had burned every house, and slaughtered every 
 second inhabitant, and clothed in weeds every 
 mother and sister that survived. They march- 
 ed along with these execrable bands, without 
 any condition, without either proclaiming for 
 
 may have been on the Biscayan shore, they 
 have prolonged for two years, beyond the pe- 
 riod when it would otherwise have terminated, 
 
 souls, was taken for a standard. A new j themselves, or exacting from their allies any 
 magistrate, called sub-delegate, was to be j other and more humane system of warfare, 
 appointed to each province, and act under By their presence, however inefficient they 
 the immediate orders of the minister Del Fo- 
 ment o." 
 
 And it is to support SUCH A CAUSE that the 
 
 Quadruple Alliance was formed, and Lord the heart-rending civil war of Spain. If the 
 John Hay, and the gallant marines of England 20,000 English and French auxiliaries, who 
 sent out, and 500,000^. worth of arms and i retained an equal force of Carlists inactive in 
 ammunition furnished to the revolutionary j their front had been removed, can there be a 
 government ! Lord Palmerston says all this ! doubt Don Carlos would have been on the 
 was done, because it is for the interest of Enu, land j throne, and peace established in Spain two 
 to promote the establishment of liberal insti- 1 years ago 1 How many thousand of Spanish 
 tutions in all the adjoining states. Is it, then, j old men and women have been slaughtered, 
 for the "interest of England" to establish uni- j while Evans virtually held the hands of their 
 versal suffrage, a single chamber, and a power- 1 avenging heroes 1 We have thus voluntarily 
 less throne, in the adjoining countries, in order j ranged ourselves beside a frightful exterminat- 
 that the reflection of their lustre there may i ing power; can we be surprised if we are met 
 tend to their successful introduction into this ! by the severities which his atrocities have 
 realm? Is it for the interest, any more than ' rendered unavoidable ? We have joined hands 
 the honour of England, to ally itself with a set i with the murderer; though we may not have 
 of desperadoes, assassins, and murderers, and j ourselves lifted the dagger, we have held the 
 to promote, by all the means in its power, the ; victim while our confederates plunged it in 
 extinction of liberty in those seats of virtuous j his heart, and can we be surprised if we are 
 
 institutions the Basque provinces ? What 
 has been the return which the liberals of Lis- 
 bon have made for the aid which placed their 
 puppet on the throne, and gave them the com- 
 mand of the whole kingdom 1 To issue a 
 decree raising threefold the duties on every, 
 species of British manufacture. A similar 
 result may with certainty be anticipated, after 
 all the blood and treasure we have wasted, and 
 
 deemed fit objects of the terrible law of retri- 
 bution? 
 
 Do we then counsel aid to Don Carlos, or 
 any assistance to the cause he supports ? Far 
 from it : we .would not that one Englishman 
 should be exposed to the contagion of the hide- 
 ous atrocities which the revolutionists have 
 committed, and to which the Carlists, in self- 
 defence, have been driven in every part of 
 
 more than all the character we have lost, from \ Spain. What we counsel is, what we have 
 Evans's co-operation, if he shall succeed in j never ceased to urge ever since this hideous 
 beating down the Carlist cause; because the | strife began in the Peninsula: Withdraw alto- 
 urban democracy, which will then be estab- 1 gethcr from it : Bring home the marines, the 
 lished in uncontrolled power, will be neces- ! auxiliaries, the steamboats; send no more arms 
 sarily actuated by the commercial passions or ammunition from the Tower ; declare to the 
 and jealousy of that class in society. j Christines, that till they return to the usages 
 
 One word more in regard to the Durango j of civilized war we will not send them another 
 decree, on which such vehement efforts have | gun under the quadruple treaty. It is a woful 
 been made to rouse the sympathy and excite ! reflection, that our vast influence with the re- 
 the indignation of the British people. None j volutionary government, after the quadruple 
 can deplore that decree more than we do ; none I alliance, was perfectly adequate, if properly 
 can more earnestly desire its repeal ; and if ! exerted, to have entirely stopt this exterminat- 
 our humble efforts can be of any avail, we im- i ing warfare. But what must be our reflection, 
 plore the counsellors of Don Carlos, for the i when we recollect that we have actually sup- 
 
 sake of humanity, to stop its execution ; to ob- 
 tain its repeal. But when it is said that it is 
 such a stain upon the cause of the Spanish 
 
 ported it! And if hereafter a band of Cos- 
 sacks or Pandours shall land on the coast of 
 Kent, to perpetuate a bloody strife in the realms 
 
 Conservatives, as renders their cause unworthy j of England, to support the savage excesses of 
 of the support of any good man, we are prompt- | an Irish civil war, and spread mourning weeds 
 ed to ask what cause did the English merce- i and wo through every cottage in England, it 
 naries go out to support? Was it the cause is no more than we have done to the Biscay 
 of civilized, humane, legalized warfare ? No ! 
 it was that of murder, robbery, and plunder, of 
 
 massacred babes and weltering valleys, of 
 
 conflagration, rapine, and extermination. They 
 
 .44 
 
 mountaineers, and no more than what, under 
 a just retribution, we may expect to endure 
 from some equally unjust and uncalled-for ag- 
 gression. 
 
346 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 WELLINGTON.* 
 
 MY Lord Provost, and gentlemen, I am 
 not sorry this meeting is not unanimous 
 truth is, in the end, always best elicited by 
 the conflict of opposite opinions, and those 
 who came here to record their sentiments of 
 the merits of the Duke of Wellington need 
 never fear the freest discussion or the most 
 searching inquiry. (Applause.) The gen- 
 tlemen who are of an opposite way of think- 
 ing were entitled to express their opinions. I 
 have done my utmost to obtain for them a fair 
 hearing they have received it their motion 
 has been put and seconded it has been carried 
 against them by a large majority and I now 
 expect from the fair dealing of the opponents 
 of the Duke of Wellington, the same patient 
 hearing which we have given to them. (Loud 
 cheers.) Gentlemen, I agree with part of 
 what has been said by the mover of the coun- 
 ter resolution proposed at this meeting. I ad- 
 mit that war is a calamity, I deplore the fright- 
 ful miseries which in every age have attended 
 its footsteps, and I ardently wish from the bot- 
 tom of my soul that the progress of religion 
 and knowledge may eventually extinguish its 
 horrors, that social conflicts may be carried 
 on with the weapons of truth and argument, 
 and not by fields of slaughter, and that the 
 blood-stained glory of the conqueror may here- 
 after be a tale only of the olden time. (Loud 
 cheers from the Chartists.) But, gentlemen, 
 you are to recollect that these blessings are 
 only the hope of the philanthropist those 
 times have not yet arrived these blessings are 
 only yet in prospect, even to the most enthu- 
 siastic friends of human improvement, and far 
 less had these principles emerged in the days 
 of Napoleon. It was neither by the school- 
 master nor the press ; neither by education 
 nor knowledge, that the legions of "that mighty 
 conqueror were to be withstood. (Loud ap- 
 plause.) A tyranny, compared with which all 
 that is now experienced or shared by men was 
 as dust in the balance, then pressed upon the 
 world, crushing nations by its weight enslav- 
 ing mankind by its chains. Against this tre- 
 mendous power, reason, religion, compassion, 
 and humanity, were alike impotent, the cries 
 of humanity were answered by discharges of 
 artillery the groans of the innocent by charges 
 of cuirassiers. Are we to blame Wellington 
 then 1 Is it a stigma on his name, because 
 thrown into an age of Iron, he combated op- 
 
 * Speech delivered at Glasgow, February, 1840. when 
 proposing the erection of a monument to the I>nke of 
 Wellington in that city, in a public meeting called for 
 that purpose. The cheers and interruptions are given 
 as they appeared in the report of it next day, as the 
 meeting was very stormy, from a strone body of Chart- 
 ists who had taken possession of the centre of the room 
 and endeavoured to drown the speaker's voice, which 
 they had done with the two immediately preceding 
 speakers ; and a great part of the speech bore refer- 
 ence to or was occasioned by these interruptions. 
 
 pression by its own weapons because, the 
 destined champion of freedom, he conquered 
 it by the forces with which itself was assailed 1 
 (Enthusiastic cheering.) Gentlemen, I thank 
 you for the patience with which you have 
 heard me it was what I expected from the 
 fair dealings of Britons; and in what I have 
 to say on the character of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, I hope I shall not utter a sentiment 
 which will not find a responsive echo in every 
 British heart. (Loud cheering.) My lord, it 
 is difficult to say any thing original on a topic 
 on which national gratitude has long since 
 poured forth its encomium, and genius every 
 where exhausted its eloquence, and regarding 
 which, so marvellous in the glory it has to re- 
 count, even the words of truth may seem to be 
 gilded by the colours of panegyric. (Loud 
 cheers.) Gentlemen, if I were inclined to do 
 so, I have been anticipated both in prose and 
 verse, and I gladly avail myself of the words 
 of a noble lord, whose heart I know is with 
 this meeting, and which proves that he has in- 
 herited from his long line of ancestors not only 
 a taste for the splendour but the real spirit of 
 the days of chivalry.* (Loud cheers.) " A 
 Caesar without his ambition a Pompey with- 
 out his pride a Marlborough without his 
 avarice a Frederick without his infidelity, he 
 approaches nearer to the model of a Christian 
 hero than any commander who has yet appear- 
 ed among men." (Loud cheers.) Gentlemen, 
 I will not speak of his exploits, I will not 
 speak of Asia entranced by his valour, nor 
 Europe delivered by his arm. I will recount 
 his career in the lines of the poet, to which I 
 am sure all present will listen with delight, if 
 not from their concurrence in the sentiments, 
 at least from their admiration of the language. 
 
 " Victor on Assaye's esistern plain, 
 Victor on all the fields of Spain ! 
 Welcome ! thy work of glory done, 
 Welcome! from dangers greatly dared, 
 From nations vanquished, nations spared, 
 Unconquered Wellington." 
 
 (Loud cheers.) 
 
 But, my lord, it is not the military glories of 
 Wellington, on which I wish to dwell. They 
 
 | have become as household words amongst us, 
 and will thrill the British heart in every quar- 
 ter of the globe as long as a drop of British 
 blood remains in the world. It is the moral 
 character of the conflict which I chiefly wish 
 to illustrate, and it is that which I trust will 
 secure the unanimous applause of even this 
 varied assembly. (Loud cheers.) He was 
 
 | assailed by numbers he met them by skill ; 
 he was assailed by rapine he encountered it 
 
 | by discipline ; he was assailed by cruelty he 
 vanquished it by humanity; he was assailed 
 by the powers of wickedness he conquered 
 
 Lord Eglinton. 
 
WELLINGTON. 
 
 347 
 
 them by the constancy of virtue. (Immense 
 applause, mingled with cries of" No, no," from 
 the Chartists.) Some of you, I perceive, deny 
 the reality of these moral qualities; but have 
 you forgot the contemporaneous testimony of 
 those who had received his protection, and ex- 
 perienced his hostility ? Have you forgot that 
 that hero who had driven Massena at the head 
 of an hundred thousand men with disgrace out 
 of the war-wasted and desolate realm of Por- 
 tugal, was hailed as a deliverer by millions 
 whom he protected and saved, when he led his 
 triumphant armies into the valleys of France 1 
 (Enthusiastic cheering.) If his career was 
 attended with bloodshed, it was only because 
 such a calamity is inseparable from the path 
 alike of the patriot-hero, as of the ravaging 
 conqueror ; the slaughter of the unresisting 
 never stained his triumphs ; the pillage of the 
 innocent never sullied his career. Prodigal of 
 his own labour, careless of his own life, he 
 was avaricious only of the blood of his soldiers ; 
 he won the wealth of empires with his own 
 good sword, but he retained none but what he 
 received from the gratitude of the king he had 
 served and the nation he had saved. (Loud 
 cheers.) My lord, the glory of the conqueror 
 is nothing new; other ages have been dazzled 
 with the phantom of military renown ; other 
 nations have bent beneath the yoke of foreign 
 oppression, and other ages have seen the ener- 
 gies of mankind wither before the march of 
 victorious power. It has been reserved for our 
 age alone to witness it has been the high pre- 
 rogative of Wellington alone to exhibit a more 
 animating spectacle ; to behold power applied 
 only to the purposes of beneficence ; victory 
 made the means of moral renovation, conquest 
 become the instrument of national resurrec- 
 tion. (Cheers.) Before the march of his vic- 
 torious power we have seen the energies of the 
 world revive; we have heard his triumphant 
 voice awaken a fallen race to noble duties, 
 and recall the remembrance of their .pristine 
 glory; we have seen his banners waving over 
 the infant armies of a renovated people, and 
 the track of his chariot-wheels followed, not 
 by the sighs of a captive, but the blessings of 
 a liberated world. (Enthusiastic cheers, 
 mingled with cries of " No, no," from the Chart- 
 ists.) My lord, we may well say a liberated 
 world; for it was his firmness which first op- 
 posed a barrier to the hitherto irresistible 
 waves of Gallic ambition ; it was his counsel 
 which traced out the path of European deliver- 
 ance, and his victories which reanimated the 
 all but extinguished spirit of European resist- 
 ance. (Cheers.) My lord, it was from the 
 rocks of Tores Vedras that the waves of French 
 conquest first permanently receded; it was 
 from Wellington's example that Russia was 
 taught the means of resisting when the day of her 
 trial arose ; it was from his counsels that there 
 was traced out to the cabinet of St. Petersburgh 
 the design of the Moscow campaign (cheers) ; 
 and it was the contemporaneous victories of 
 the Duke of Wellington that sustained the 
 struggle of European freedom in that awful 
 conflict. When the French legions, in apparently j 
 invincible strength, were preparing for the fight | 
 of Borodino, they were startled by the salvos \ 
 
 from the Russian lines, which announced the 
 victory of Salamanca. (Cheers.) And when 
 the Russian army were marching in mournful 
 silence round their burning capital, and the 
 midnight sky was illuminated by the flames of 
 Moscow, a breathless messenger brought the 
 news of the fall of Madrid (cheers) and the 
 revived multitude beheld in the triumph of 
 Wellington, and the capture of the Spanish 
 capital, an omen of their own deliverance and 
 the rescue of their own metropolis. (Enthu- 
 siastic cheers.) Nor were the services of the 
 Duke of Wellington of less vital consequence 
 in later times. When the tide of victory had 
 ebbed on the plains of Saxony, and European 
 freedom quivered in the balance, at the Con- 
 gress of Prague, it was Wellington that threw 
 his sword into the beam by the victory of Vit- 
 toria, it was the shout of the world at the de- 
 livered Peninsula which terminated the indeci- 
 sion of the cabinet of Vienna. (Great ap- 
 plause.) Vain would have been all the sub- 
 sequent triumphs of the allies vain the 
 thunder of Leipsic and the capture of Pans, 
 if Wellington had not opposed an irrepressible 
 barrier to the revived power of France on the 
 plains of Flanders. For what said Napoleon, 
 when calmly revolving his eventful career in, 
 the solitude of St. Helena 1 "If Wellington 
 and the English army had been defeated at 
 Waterloo, what would have availed all the 
 myriads of Russians, Austrians, Germans, and 
 Spaniards, who were crowding to the Rhine, 
 the Alps, and the Pyrenees?" (Enthusiastic 
 cheers.) 
 
 My lord, I have spoken now only to the 
 moral effects of the military career of Welling- 
 ton. I will not speak of his political career. 
 A quarter of a century has elapsed since his 
 warlike career terminated, and we now only 
 feel its benefits. (Loud groans from the Chart- 
 ists.) A quarter of a century hence, it will be 
 time enough for the world to decide upon his 
 civil career. (Cheers intermixed with loud 
 groans from the Chartists.) Gentlemen, (turn- 
 ing to the Chartists,) I well know what those 
 marks of disapprobation mean you mean we 
 feel the effects of Wellington's career in the 
 weight of the public debt. (Yes, yes, and loud 
 cheers from the Chartists.) What! did the 
 duke create the national debt ? Was there 
 none of it in existence when he began his 
 career 1 ? It was made to his hand it was 
 fixed upon us by Napoleon's powers, and in 
 what state would you now have been, if, when 
 you had the national debt on your backs, you 
 had had the chains of France about your necks? 
 (Rapturous applause, and the whole meeting 
 standing up vociferously cheering, with the ex- 
 ception of the Chartists.) Gentlemen, I have 
 seen what a commercial city suffers from the 
 ambition of Napoleon. I have seen a city once 
 greater and richer than Glasgow, when it had 
 emerged from twenty years of republican con- 
 quest. I saw Venice in 1815, and I saw there 
 a hundred thousand artisans begging their 
 bread in the streets. (Renewed and long-con- 
 tinued cheering.) Gentlemen, there is not a 
 hammer that now falls, nor a wheel revolves, 
 nor a shuttle that is put in motion, in Glas- 
 gow, that its power of doing so is not owing 
 
348 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 to the Duke of Wellington ; and you who now 
 strive to stifle the voice of national gratitude, 
 owe to him the bread of yourselves and your 
 children. (Enthusiastic cheering.) And I tell 
 you, whatever you may now think, so your 
 own children, and your children's children 
 will declare. (Immense applause.) Gentle- 
 men, I have now done with any topics on 
 which division of opinion can arise. I am 
 now to speak on a subject, on which, I trust, we 
 are all agreed, for it relates to the embellish- 
 ment of Glasgow. It is proposed to refer at 
 once to a committee full power to carry into 
 effect the resolutions of this meeting, (cheers.) 
 and I trust that before a year has elapsed, we 
 shall see a noble monument, testifying our 
 gratitude, erected in the heart of this great 
 city. We have seen what has been lost in 
 other places, by not at once coming to a deter- 
 mination, in the outset, on the design. We 
 have seen the subscription for Sir Walter 
 Scott's monument at Edinburgh still unproduc- 
 tive, though seven years have elapsed since 
 the national gratitude had decreed a monument. 
 Gentlemen, while Edinburgh deliberates, let 
 Glasgow act (cheers) ; and let ours be the 
 first monument erected to the Duke of Wel- 
 lington in Scotland. (Loud cheers.) Gentle- 
 men, you will hear the list of the subscriptions 
 already obtained read out, and a noble monu- 
 ment it already is, for the west of Scotland, 
 embracing as it does splendid donations from 
 the highest rank and greatest in fortune, from 
 the first peer of the realm, to those princely 
 merchants who are raising up a fresh aristo- 
 
 cracy in the land. (Cheers.) But, gentlemen, 
 it is not by such testimonies alone that the 
 public gratitude is to be expressed ; it is the 
 multitude who must show "the electric shock 
 of a nation's gratitude." (Cheers.) And grate- 
 ful to the Duke of Wellington as will be the 
 magnificent donations of the leaders of the 
 land, he will be still more gratified by th,e 
 guineas of the citizens, and the half crowns of 
 the artisans. Gentlemen, I am sure that the 
 gratifying result will be witnessed in this great 
 city, and that the monument which will be 
 reared amongst us, will remain through many 
 ages a durable record of the magnificence and 
 gratitude of the west of Scotland. (Loud ap- 
 plause.) And there is a peculiar propriety in 
 erecting in our city a statue to the Duke of 
 Wellington. Glasgow already has a statue 
 to her brave townsman, Sir John Moore, the 
 hero who first boldly fronted the terrors of the 
 Gallic legions. She has a statue to Watts, 
 that matchless sage, whose genius has added 
 a new power to the forces of nature, and who 
 created the wealth which sustained the con- 
 test with Napoleon's power. And now you 
 will have a statue to Wellington, who brought 
 the conquest to a triumphant conclusion; and 
 has bequeathed to his country peace to create, 
 and liberty to enjoy, the splendour which we be- 
 hold around us. (Loud cheers.) I have the ho- 
 nour to move " that a committee be now appoint- 
 ed for the purpose of procuring subscriptions, 
 with full power to name sub-committees, and 
 take all other measures necessary for carrying 
 into effect these resolutions." (Loud cheers.) 
 
 THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION.* 
 
 " ITS the light of precaution," says Gibbon, 
 " all conquest must be ineffectual unless it 
 could be universal; for, if successful, it only 
 involves the belligerent power in additional 
 difficulties and a wider sphere of hostility." All 
 ages have demonstrated the truth of this pro- 
 found observation. The Romans conquered 
 the neighbouring states of Italy and Gaul, only 
 to be brought into collision with the fiercer and 
 more formidable nations of Germany and Par- 
 thia. Alexander overran Media and Persia, 
 only to see his armies rolled back before the 
 arms of the Scythians, or the innumerable le- 
 gions of India, and the empire of Napoleon, 
 victorious over the states of Germany and Italy, 
 recoiled at length before the aroused indigna- 
 tion of the Northern powers. The British em- 
 pire in India, the most extraordinary work of 
 conquest which modern times have exhibited, 
 forms no exception to the truth of this general 
 principle. The storming of Seringapatam, and 
 the overthrow of the house of Tippoo, only ex- 
 posed us to the incursions of the Mahratta 
 horse. The subjugation of the Mahrattas in- 
 volved us in a desperate and doubtful conflict 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, February, 1840. 
 
 I with the power of Holkar. His subjugation 
 j brought us in contact with the independent 
 and brave mountaineers of Nepaul ; and even 
 their conquest, and the establishment of the 
 British frontier on the summit of the Hima- 
 layan snows, have not given that security to 
 our Eastern possessions for which its rulers 
 have so long and strenuously contended ; and 
 beyond the stream of the Indus, beyond the 
 mountains of Cashmere, it has been deemed 
 necessary to establish the terror of the British 
 arms, and the influence of the British name. 
 
 That such an incursion into Central Asia 
 has vastly extended the sphere both of our di- 
 plomatic and hostile relations; that it has 
 brought us in contact with the fierce and bar- 
 barous northern tribes, and erected our out- 
 posts almost within sight of the Russian vi- 
 dettes, is no impeachment whatever of the wis- 
 dom and expediency of the measure, if it has 
 been conducted with due regard to prudence 
 and the rules of art in its -execution. It is the 
 destiny of all conquering powers to be exposed 
 to this necessity of advancing in their course. 
 Napoleon constantly said, and he said with jus- 
 tice, that he was not to blame for the conquests 
 he undertook ; that he was forced on by invin- 
 
THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION. 
 
 349 
 
 cible necessity; that he was the head merely 
 of a military republic, to whom exertion was 
 existence; and that the first pause in his ad- 
 vance was the commencement of his fall. No 
 one can have studied the eventful history of 
 his times, without being satisfied of the jus- 
 tice of these observations. The British empire 
 in the east is not, indeed, like his in Europe, 
 one based on injustice and supported by pil- 
 lage. Protection and improvement, not spo- 
 liation and misery, have followed in the rear 
 of the English flag ; and the sable multitudes 
 of Hindostan now permanently enjoy that pro- 
 tection and security which heretofore they had 
 only tasted under the transient reigns of Baber 
 and Aurungzebe. But still, notwithstanding 
 all its experienced benefits, the British sway 
 in Hindostan is essentially that of opinion ; it 
 is the working and middle classes who are 
 benefitted by their sway. The interest and 
 passions of too many of the rajahs and inferior 
 nobility are injured by its continuance, to ren- 
 der it a matter of doubt that a large and formi- 
 dable body of malcontents are to be found 
 within the bosom of their territories, who 
 would take advantage of the first external dis- 
 aster to raise again the long-forgotten standard 
 of independence; and that, equally with the 
 empire of Napoleon in Europe, our first move- 
 ment of serious retreat would be the com- 
 mencement of our fall. Nor would soldiers be 
 wanting to aid the dispossessed nobles in the 
 recovery of their pernicious auihority. Who- 
 ever raises the standard of even probable war- 
 fare is sure of followers in India ; the war 
 castes throughout Hindostan, the Rajpoots of 
 the northern provinces, are panting for the sig- 
 nal of hostilities, and the moment the standard 
 of native independence is raised, hundreds of 
 thousands of the Mahratta horse would cluster 
 around it, ardent to carry the spear and the 
 torch into peaceful villages, and renew the glo- 
 rious days of pillage and conflagration. 
 
 But it is not only within our natural fron- 
 tier of the Indus and the Himalaya that the ne- 
 cessity of continually advancing, if we would 
 exist in safety, is felt in the British empire in 
 the east. The same necessity is imposed upon 
 it by its external relations with foreign powers. 
 It is too powerful to be disregarded in the 
 balance of Asiatic politics ; its fame has ex- 
 tended far into the regions of China and Tar- 
 tary ; its name must be respected or despised 
 on the banks of the Oxus and the shores of the 
 Araxes. The vast powers which lie between 
 the British and Russian frontiers cannot re- 
 main neutral ; they must be influenced by the 
 one or the other power. " As little," said Alex- 
 ander the Great, " as the heavens can admit 
 of two suns, can the earth admit of two rulers 
 of the East" 
 
 Strongly as all nations, in all ages, have 
 been impressed with military success as the 
 mainspring of diplomatic advances, there is no 
 part of the world in which it is so essential to 
 political influence as in the east. Less in- 
 formed than those of Europe in regard to the 
 real strength of their opponents, and far less 
 prospective in their principles of policy, the 
 nations of Asia are almost entirely governed 
 by present success in their diplomatic con- 
 
 duct. Remote or contingent danger produces 
 little impression upon them ; present peril is 
 only looked at. They never negotiate till the 
 dagger is at their throat; but when it is there, 
 they speedily acquiesce in whatever is exacted 
 of them. Regarding the success of their oppo- 
 nents as the indication of the will of destiny, 
 they bow, not only with submission, but with 
 cheerfulness to it. All our diplomatic advances 
 in the east, accordingly, have followed in the 
 train of military success ; all our failures have 
 been consequent on the neglect to assert with 
 due spirit the rights and dignity of the British 
 empire. The celebrated Roman maxim, par- 
 cere subjectis ct debdlare superbos, is not there a 
 principle of policy ; it is a rule of necessity 
 It is the condition of existence to every power 
 ful state. 
 
 The court of Persia is, in an especial man- 
 ner, subject to the influence of these external 
 considerations. Weakened by long-continued 
 and apparently interminable domestic feuds ; 
 scarce capable of mustering round the stand- 
 ards of Cyrus and Darius twenty thousand 
 soldiers ; destitute alike of wealth, military or- 
 ganization, or central powers, the kings of 
 Tehran are yet obliged to maintain a doubtful 
 existence in the midst of neighbouring and 
 powerful states. The Ottoman empire has 
 long from the west assailed them, and trans- 
 mitted, since the era when the religion of Mo- 
 hammed was in its cradle, the indelible hatred 
 of the successors of Othman against the fol- 
 lowers of Ali. In later times, and since the 
 Cross has become triumphant over the Cres- 
 cent, the Russian empire has pressed upon them 
 with ceaseless ambition from the north. More 
 permanently formidable than the standards of 
 either Timour or Genghis Khan, her disciplined 
 battalions have crossed the Caucasus, spread 
 over the descending hills of Georgia, and 
 brought the armies of Christ to the, foot of 
 Mount Ararat and the shores of the Araxes. 
 Even the south has not been freed from omi- 
 nous signs and heart-stirring events ; the fame 
 of the British arms, the justice of the British 
 rule, have spread far into the regions of Cen- 
 tral Asia; the storming of Seringapatam, the 
 fall of Scindiah, the conquest of Holkar, have 
 resounded among the mountains of Affghanis- 
 taun, and awakened in the breasts of the Per- 
 sians the pleasing hope, that from those dis- 
 tant regions the arms of the avenger are des- 
 tined to come; and that, amidst the conten- 
 tions of England and Russia, Persia may again 
 emerge to her ancient supremacy among the 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 The existence of Persia is so obviously 
 threatened by the aggressions of Russia, the 
 peril in that quarter is so instant and apparent, 
 that the Persian government have never failed 
 to take advantage of every successive impulse 
 communicated to British influence, by their 
 victories in Hindostan, to cement their alliance 
 and dnw closer their relation with this coun- 
 try. The storming of Seringapatam was im- 
 mediately followed by a defensive treaty be- 
 tween Persia and Great Britain, in 1800, by 
 which it was stipulated, that the English mer- 
 chant should be placed on the footing of the 
 most favoured nation, and that no hostile 
 20 
 
350 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 European force should be permitted to pass 
 through the Persian territories towards Hin- 
 dostan. Every successive addition made to 
 our Indian empire; every triumph of our In- 
 dian arms, drew closer the relations between 
 Great Britain and the court of Tehran ; and it 
 was not till the wretched days of economy and 
 retrenchment began, till the honour of 'Eng- 
 land was forgotten in the subservience to popu- 
 lar clamour, and her ultimate interests over- 
 looked in the thirst for immediate popularity, 
 that any decay in our influence with the court 
 of Persia was perceptible. In those disas- 
 trous days, however, when the strong founda- 
 tions of the British empire were loosened, in 
 obedience to the loud democratic clamour for 
 retrenchment, the advantages we had gained 
 in Central Asia were entirely thrown away. 
 With an infatuation which now appears al- 
 most incredible, but which was then lauded by 
 the whole Liberal party as the very height of 
 economic wisdom, we destroyed our navy at 
 Bombay, thereby surrendering the Red Sea 
 and the Persian Gulf to any hostile power that 
 chose to occupy them ; we reduced our Indian 
 army from two hundred and eighty, to one 
 hundred and sixty thousand men, thereby ex- 
 posing ourselves to the contempt of the native 
 powers, by whom respect is never paid but to 
 strength, and weakening the attachment of the 
 native population, who found themselves in 
 great part shut out from the dazzling career of 
 British conquest; and we suffered Persia to 
 combat, single-handed, the dreadful power of 
 Russia in 1827, and never sent either a guinea 
 or a bayonet to save the barrier of Hindostan 
 from Muscovite dismemberment. These dis- 
 graceful deeds took place during the halcyon 
 days of Liberal administration ; when the 
 Tories nominally held the reins, but the Whigs 
 really possessed the power of government ; 
 when that infallible criterion of right and 
 wrong, popular opinion, was implicitly obey- 
 ed ; when the democratic cry for retrenchment 
 pervaded, penetrated, and paralyzed every de- 
 partment of the state ; and when, amidst the 
 mutual and loud compliments of the ministe- 
 rial and opposition benches, the foundations 
 of the British empire were loosened, and the 
 strength of the British arms withered in the 
 hands of conceding administrations. The 
 consequences might easily have been fore- 
 seen ; province after province was reft by the 
 Muscovite invaders from the Persian empire ; 
 fortress after fortress yielded to the terrible 
 powers of their artillery; the torrent of the 
 Araxes was bestrode by their battalions ; the 
 bastions of Erivan yielded to their cannon ; 
 and Persia avoided total conquest only by 
 yielding up its whole northern barrier and 
 most warlike provinces to the power of Rus- 
 sia. It is immaterial to us whether these con- 
 sequences took place under the nominal rule of 
 Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, or the Duke of 
 Wellington ; suffice it to say, that they all took 
 place during the government of the masses ; 
 and that the principles on which they were 
 founded were those which had been advocated 
 for half a century by the whole Whig party, 
 and which were -then, as they still are, praised 
 
 and lauded to the skies by the whole Liberal 
 leaders of every denomination. 
 
 The consequences of this total dereliction 
 of national character and interests, in order to 
 gratify the short-sighted passions of an illibe- 
 ral democracy, rapidly developed themselves. 
 Russia, encouraged by the success with which 
 she had broken the barrier of Hindostan in 
 Central Asia, continued her aggressions on 
 the Ottoman power in Europe. The Turkish 
 fleet was destroyed by the assistance of a Bri- 
 tish force at Navarino ; the Russian arms were 
 carried across the Balkan by British suffer- 
 ance to Adrianople ; and the Ottoman empire, 
 trembling for its existence, was glad to sub- 
 scribe a treaty which virtually surrendered the 
 Danube and its whole northern defences to the 
 Russian power. Not content with this, the 
 rulers of England, during the halcyon days of 
 the Reform mania, descended to still lower de- 
 gradation and unparalleled acts of infatuation. 
 When the Pasha of Egypt revolted against 
 the Ottoman power, which seemed thus alike 
 deserted by its allies and crushed by its ene- 
 mies, and the disastrous battle of Koniah 
 threatened to bring the Egyptian legions to the 
 shores of Scutari, we turned a deaf ear to the 
 earnest prayer of the distressed sultan for aid. 
 Engrossed in striving to conquer Antwerp in 
 northern, and Lisbon in southern Europe, for 
 the advantage of revolutionary France, we 
 had not a guinea nor a gun to spare to pre- 
 serve the interests, or uphold the honour of 
 England in the Dardanelles, and we threw 
 Turkey, as the price of existence, into the 
 arms of Russia. The rest is well known. The 
 Muscovite battalions gave the requisite aid; 
 the domes of Constantinople reflected the 
 lights of their bivouacs on the mountain of the 
 giant; the arms of Ibrahim recoiled before 
 this new and unexpected antagonist, and the 
 treaty of Unkiar Skelessi delivered Turkey, 
 bound hand and foot, into the hands of Russia, 
 rendered the Euxine a Muscovite lake, and for 
 ever shut out the British flag from the naviga- 
 tion of its waters, or the defence of the Turk- 
 ish metropolis. 
 
 The natural results of this timorous and va- 
 cillating policy, coupled with the well-known 
 and fearful reduction of our naval and military 
 force in India, were not slow in developing 
 themselves. It soon appeared that the British 
 name had ceased to be regarded with any re- 
 spect in the east; and that all the influence 
 derived from our victories and diplomacy in 
 Central Asia had been lost. It is needless to 
 go into details, the results of which are well 
 known to the public, though the diplomatic 
 secrets connected with them have not yet been 
 revealed. Suffice it to say, that Persia, which 
 for a quarter of a century had been the firm 
 ally, and in fact the advanced post of the Bri- 
 tish power in India, deserted by us, and sub- 
 dued by Russia, was constrained to throw her- 
 self into the arms of the latter. The Persian 
 army was speedily organized on a better and 
 more effective footing, under direction of Rus- 
 sian officers ; and several thousand Russian 
 troops, disguised under the name of deserters, 
 were incorporated with, arid gave consistency 
 
THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION. 
 
 351 
 
 to, the Persian army. The British officers, 
 who had hitherto had the direction of that 
 force, were obliged to retire; insult, the inva- 
 riable precursor in the east of injury, was 
 heaped upon the British subjects ; redress was 
 demanded in vain by the British ambassador ; 
 and Sir John M'Neill himself was at length 
 obliged to leave the court of Tehran, from the 
 numerous crosses and vexations to which he 
 was exposed. Having thus got quit of the 
 shadow even of British influence throughout 
 the whole of Persia, the Russians were not 
 long following out the now smoothed high- 
 way towards Hindostan : the siege of Herat, 
 the head of the defile which leads to the Indus, 
 was undertaken by the Persian troops, under 
 Russian guidance; and Russian emissaries 
 and diplomacy, ever preceding their arms, had 
 already crossed the Himalaya snows, and were 
 stirring up the seeds of subdued but unex- 
 tinguished hostility in the Birman empire, 
 among the Nepaulese mountaineers, and the 
 discontented rajahs of Hindostan. 
 
 There is but one road by which any hostile 
 army ever has, or ever can, approach India from 
 the northward. Alexander the Great, Timour, 
 Gengis Khan, Nadir-Shah, have all penetrated 
 Hindostan by the same route. That road has, for 
 three thousand years, been the beaten and well- 
 known track by which the mercantile commu- 
 nication has been kept up between the plains of 
 the Ganges and the steppes of Upper Asia. He- 
 rat stands at the head of this defile. Its popula- 
 tion, which amounts to one hundred thousand 
 souls, and wealth which renders it by far the 
 most important city in the heart of Asia, have 
 been entirely formed by the caravan trade,which, 
 from time immemorial, has passed through its 
 walls, going and returning from Persia to 
 Hindostan. When Napoleon, in conjunction 
 with the Emperor Paul, projected the invasion 
 of our Indian possessions by a joint army of 
 French infantry and Russian Cossacks, the 
 route marked out was Astrakan, Astrabad, He- 
 rat, Candahar, the Bolan pass, and the Indus, 
 to Delhi. There never can be any other road 
 overland to India, but that or the one from Ca- 
 bool, through the Kybor pass to the Indus, 
 for, to the eastward of it, inaccessible snowy 
 ranges of mountains preclude the possibility 
 of an army getting through ; while to the west, 
 parched and impassable deserts afford obsta- 
 cles still more formidable, which the returning 
 soldiers of Alexander overcame only with the 
 loss of half their numbers. It is quite clear, 
 therefore, that Herat is the vital point of com- 
 munication between Russia and Hindostan ; 
 and that whoever is in possession of it, either 
 actually or by the intervention of a subsidiary 
 or allied force, need never disquiet himself 
 about apprehensions that an enemy will pene- 
 trate through the long and difficult defiles 
 which lead in its rear to Hindostan. 
 
 Since our empire in India had waxed so 
 powerful as to attract the envy of the Asiatic 
 tramontane nations, it became, therefore, a 
 matter of necessity to maintain our influence 
 among the nations who held the keys of this 
 pass. Affghanistaun was to India what Pied- 
 mont has long been to Italy; even a second 
 Hannibal or Napoleon might be stopped in its 
 
 long mountain passes and interminable barren 
 hills. If, indeed, the politics of India could be 
 confined only to its native powers, it might be 
 wise to consider the Indus and the Himalaya 
 as our frontier, and to disregard entirely the 
 distant hostility or complicated diplomacy of 
 the northern Asiatic states. But as long as 
 India, like Italy, possesses the fatal gift of beau- 
 ty ; as long as its harvests are coveted by 
 northern sterility, and its riches by barbarian 
 poverty; so long must the ruler of the land 
 preserve with jealous care the entrance into 
 its bosom, and sit with frowning majesty at 
 the entrance of the pass by which " the blue- 
 eyed myriads of the Baltic coast" may find ? 
 way into its fabled plains. 
 
 There was a time when British influence 
 might with ease, and at little cost, have been 
 established in the Affghanistaun passes. Dost 
 Mohammed was a usurper, and his legal claims 
 to the throne could not bear a comparison with 
 those of Shah Shoojah. But he was a usurper 
 who had conciliated and won the affections of 
 the people, and his vigour and success had 
 given a degree of prosperity to Affghanistaun 
 which it had not for centuries experienced. 
 Kamram, the sultan of Herat, was connected 
 with him by blood and allied by inclination, 
 and both were animated by hereditary and in- 
 veterate hatred of the Persian power. They 
 would willingly, therefore, have united them- 
 selves with Great Britain to secure a barrier 
 against northern invasion ; and such an al- 
 liance would have been founded on the only 
 durable bond of connection among nations 
 mutual advantage, and the sense of a formi- 
 dable impending common danger. The states 
 of Candahar and Cabool were in the front of 
 the danger; the Russian and Persian arms 
 could never have approached the Indus until 
 they were subdued ; and consequently their 
 adhesion to our cause, if we would only give 
 them effectual support, might be relied upon 
 as certain. It is well known that Dost Mo- 
 hammed might have been firmly attached to 
 the British alliance within these few years by the 
 expenditure of a hundred or even fifty thousand 
 pounds, and the aid of a few British officers to 
 organize his forces. And when it is recol- 
 lected that the Sultan of Herat, alone and un- 
 aided by us, held out against the whole power 
 of Persia, directed by Russian officers, for one 
 year and nine months, it is evident both with 
 what a strong spirit of resistance to northern 
 aggression the Affghanistaun states are ani- 
 mated, and what elements of resistance they 
 possess among themselves, even when un- 
 aided, against northern ambition. 
 
 The immense advantage of gaining the sup- 
 port of the tribes inhabiting the valley of 
 AfTghan, thus holding in their hands the keys 
 of Hindostan, was forgone by the British 
 power in India, partly from the dilapidated 
 state to which the army had been reduced by 
 the miserable retrenchment forced upon the 
 government by the democratic cry for econo- 
 my at home, and partly from the dread of in- 
 volvingourselves in hostility with Runjeet Sing, 
 the formidable chief of Lahore, whose hostility 
 to the Affghanistauns was hereditary and in- 
 veterate. There can be little doubt that the 
 
352 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 conclusion of a treaty, offensive and defensive, 
 with the powers of Cabool, would have ex- 
 cited great discontent, if not provoked open 
 hostility, at the court of Lahore. In relinquish- 
 ing their hold of the Affghanistaun states, from 
 the dread of compromising their relations with 
 the wily potentate of the Indus, the British 
 government in India were only acting upon 
 that system of temporizing, conceding, and ' 
 shunning present danger, which has charac- 
 terized all their public acts ever since the in- 
 fluence of the urban masses became predomi- 
 nant in the British councils. But it is now j 
 apparent, that in breaking with the Affghans i 
 to conciliate the rajah, the British incurred the j 
 greater ultimate, to avoid the present lesser J 
 danger. Runjeet Sing, indeed, was a formi- 1 
 dable power, with seventy thousand men, and 
 one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon under 
 his command. But his situation, between the 
 British territory on the one side, and the Aff- 
 ghans on the other, rendered him incapable of 
 making any effectual resistance. His military 
 force was by no means equal to what had been 
 wielded by Tippoo or the Mahrattas, and his 
 rear was exposed to the incursions of his he- 
 reditary and inveterate enemies in the Affghan- 
 istaun mountains. Still, more than all, his 
 territories were pierced by the great and navi- 
 gable river of the Indus the best possible 
 base for British operations, capable of con- 
 veying both the muniments of war and the 
 provisions for an army into the heart of his 
 dominions. In these circumstances, it is evi- 
 dent that the submission of Runjeet Sing must 
 soon have become a matter of necessity ; or, 
 at all events, even if we had been compelled 
 to commence hostilities with him, it would 
 have been a far less formidable contest than 
 that into which we have been driven, by aban- 
 doning the Affghans in the late expedition to 
 Cabool. The one would have been what the 
 subjugation and conquest of Prussia was to 
 Napoleon, the other was an expedition fraught 
 with all the cost and perils of the advance to 
 Moscow. 
 
 Notwithstanding these perils and this cost, 
 however, we have no doubt that, at the time it 
 was undertaken, the expedition to Affghan- 
 istaun had become a matter of necessity. We 
 had been reduced to such a pass by the eco- 
 nomy, concession, and pusillanimity of former 
 governments, that we had no alternative but 
 either to see the whole of Central Asia and 
 Northern Hindostan arrayed in one formidable 
 league, under Russian guidance, against us, or 
 to make a desperate and hazardous attempt to 
 regain our lost character. We have preferred 
 the latter alternative; and the expedition of 
 Lord Auckland, boldly conceived and vigorous- 
 ly executed, has hitherto, at least, been crowned 
 with the most signal success. That it was 
 also attended with great and imminent hazard 
 is equally certain ; but the existence of that 
 peril, imposed upon us by the short-sighted 
 parsimonious spirit of the mercantile demo- 
 cratic communities which for fifteen years 
 past have swayed the British empire, is no 
 impeachment whatever, either of the wisdom 
 or necessity of the adventurous step which 
 was at last resolved on. It only shows the 
 
 straits to which a great nation must speedily 
 be reduced when its government, in an evil 
 hour, yields to the insidious cry for democra- 
 tic retrenchment. 
 
 Already the beneficial effects of this bold 
 policy have become apparent. The crossing 
 of the Indus by a powerful British army; the 
 surmounting of the hills of Cashmere; the 
 passage of the Bolan defile; the storming of 
 Ghuznee; the fall of Candahar and Cabool, 
 and the restoration of Shah Shoojah to the 
 throne of his ancestors; have resounded 
 through the whole of Asia, and restored, after 
 its eclipse of fifteen years, the honour of the 
 British name. The doubtful fidelity of the 
 Rajah of Lahore has been overawed into sub- 
 mission ; the undisguised hostility of the court 
 of Persia has terminated, and friendly rela- 
 tions are on the eve of being re-established ; 
 and the indecision of the Sultan of Herat and 
 his brave followers has been decided by the 
 terror of the British arms, and the arrival of 
 a train of artillery within its ruined bastions. 
 As Britons, we rejoice from the bottom of our 
 hearts at these glorious successes; and we 
 care not who were the ministry at the head of 
 affairs when they were achieved. They were 
 undertaken in a truly British spirit executed 
 by whom they may, they emanated from con- 
 servative principles. As much as the ruinous 
 reductions and parsimonious spirit of Lord 
 William Bentinck's administration bespoke 
 the poisonous influence of democratic re- 
 trenchment in the great council of the empire, 
 so much does the expedition to Affghanistaun 
 bespeak the felicitous revival of the true English 
 spirit in the same assembly. At both periods 
 it is easy to see, that, though not nominally 
 possessed of the reins of power, her majesty's 
 opposition really ruled the state. In the Aff- 
 ghanistaun expedition there was very little of 
 the economy which cut in twain the Indian 
 army, but very much of the spirit which ani- 
 mated the British troops at Assaye and Las- 
 warree ; there was very little of the truckling 
 which brought the Russians to Constantinople, 
 but a great deal of the energy which carried 
 the English to Paris. 
 
 In a military point of view, the expedition 
 to Affghanistaun is one of the most memorable 
 events of modern times. For the first time since 
 the days of Alexander the Great, a. civilized arrny 
 has penetrated the mighty barrier of deserts 
 and mountains which separates Persia from 
 Hindostan ; and the prodigy has been exhi- 
 bited to an astonished world, of a remote is- 
 land in the European seas pushing forward its 
 mighty arms into the heart of Asia, and carry- 
 ing its victorious standards into the strongholds 
 of Mohammedan faith and the cradle of the 
 Mogul empire. Neither the intricate streams 
 of the Punjab, nor the rapid flow of the Indus, 
 nor the waterless mountains of Affghanistaun, 
 nor the far-famed bastions of Ghuznee, have 
 been able to arrest our course. For the first 
 time in the history of the world, the tide of 
 conquest has flowed up from Hindostan into 
 Central j^sia; the European race has asserted 
 its wonted superiority over the Asiatic; re- 
 versing the march of Timour and Alexander, 
 the sable battalions of the Ganges have ap- 
 
 , 
 
THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION. 
 
 353 
 
 peared as conquerors on the frontiers of Persia 
 and on the confines of the steppes of Samar- 
 cand. So marvellous and unprecedented an 
 event is indeed fitted to awaken the contempla- 
 tion of every thoughtful mind. It speaks vo- 
 lumes as to the mighty step made by the human 
 race in the last five hundred years, and indi- 
 cates the vast agency and unbounded effects 
 of that free spirit, of which Britain is the cen 
 tre, which has thus, for a season at least, in 
 verted the heretofore order of nature, made 
 the natives of Hindostan appear as victors in 
 the country of Gengis Khan, and brought the 
 standards of civilized Europe, though in the 
 inverse order, into the footsteps of the phalanx 
 of Alexander. 
 
 Though such, however, have been the mar- 
 vels of the British expedition to Central Asia, 
 yet it is not to be disguised that it was attend- 
 ed by at least equal perils; and never, per- 
 haps, since the British standard appeared on 
 the plains of Hindostan, was their empire in 
 such danger as during the dependence of this 
 glorious but hazardous expedition. It was, 
 literally speaking, to our Indian empire what 
 the expedition to Moscow was to the European 
 dominion of Napoleon. Hitherto, indeed, the 
 result has been different, and we devoutly hope 
 that, in that respect, the dissimilarity will con- 
 tinue. But in both cases the danger was the 
 same. It was the moving forward a large 
 force so far from its resources and the base 
 of its operations, which in both cases consti- 
 tuted the danger. If any serious check had 
 been sustained by our troops in that distant 
 enterprise ; if Runjeet Sing had proved openly 
 treacherous, and assailed our rear and cut off 
 our supplies when the bulk of our force was 
 far advanced in the Affghanistaun denies ; if 
 the Bolan pass had been defended with a cou- 
 rage equal to its physical strength ; if the 
 powder-bags which blew open the gates of 
 Ghuznee had missed fire, or the courage of 
 those who bore them had quailed under the 
 extraordinary perils of their mission ; the fate 
 of the expedition would in all probability have 
 been changed, and a disaster as great as the 
 cutting off of Crassus and his legions in Meso- 
 potamia, would have resounded like a clap of 
 thunder through the whole of Asia. Few if 
 any of the brave men who had penetrated into 
 Affghanistaun would ever have returned ; the 
 Burmese, the Nepaulese would immediately 
 have appeared in arms ; the Mahratta and 
 Pindaree horse would have re-assembled round 
 their predatory standards; and, while the Bri- 
 tish empire in Hindostan rocked to its foun- 
 dation, an Affghanistaun army, directed by 
 Russian officers, and swelled by the predatory 
 tribes of Central Asia, would have poured 
 down, thirsting for plunder and panting for 
 blood,* on the devoted plains of Hindostan. 
 
 Subsequent events have already revealed, 
 in the clearest manner, the imminent danger 
 in which the English empire in the East was 
 placed at the period of the Affghanistaun ex- 
 pedition. So low had the reputation, of the 
 
 * IIpw completely have the subsequent disasters of 
 AflTghanistaun and the massacre of the Coord Cabul Pass 
 proved the truth of those presentiments ! 
 45 
 
 British name sunk in the east, that even the 
 Chinese, the most unwarlike and least preci- 
 pitate of the Asiatic empires, had ventured to 
 offer a signal injury to the British interests, 
 and insult to the British name; and so mise- 
 rably deficient were government in any pre- 
 vious preparation for the danger, that it was 
 only twelve months afler the insult was of- 
 fered, that ships of war could be fitted out in 
 the British harbours to attempt to seek for re- 
 dress. It is now ascertained that a vast con- 
 spiracy had been long on foot in the Indian 
 peninsula to overturn our power; in the 
 strongholds of some of the lesser rajahs in the 
 southern part of the peninsula, enormous mi- 
 litary stores have been found accumulated ; 
 and not a doubt can remain, that, if any seri- 
 ous disaster had happened to our army in 
 Central Asia, not only would the Burmese 
 and Nepaulese have instantly commenced hos- 
 tilities, but a formidable insurrection would 
 have broken out among the semi-independent 
 rajahs, in the very vitals of our power. And 
 yet it was while resting on the smouldering 
 fires of such a volcano, that Lord William 
 Bentinck and the Liberal Administration of 
 India thought fit to reduce our military force 
 to one-half, and shake the fidelity of the native 
 troops by the reduction in many important 
 particulars of their pay and allowances. 
 
 But this proved hostility of so large a por- 
 tion of the -native powers, suggests matter for 
 further and most serious consideration. It is 
 clear, that although the British government 
 has, to an immense degree, benefited India, 
 yet it has done so chiefly by the preservation 
 of peace, and the suppression of robbery, 
 throughout its vast dominions ; and it is pain- 
 fully evident, that hardly any steps have yet 
 been taken to reconcile the natives to our do- 
 minion, by the extended market which we 
 have opened to their industry. The startling 
 fact which Mr. Montgomery Martin* has 
 clearly established, that notwithstanding all 
 that was prophesied of, the trade to India has 
 been, including exports and imports, less for 
 the lust twenty years than for the tiventy years pre- 
 reding, clearly demonstrates some vital defect 
 in our colonial policy. Nor is it difficult to 
 see where that error is to be found. We have 
 :>aded the produce of India sugar, indigo. 
 &c. with duties of nearly a hundred per cent., 
 while we have deluged them with our own 
 manufactures at an import duty of tioo or three 
 per cent. In our anxiety to find a vent for our 
 own manufactures on the continent of Hin- 
 lostan, we seem to have entirely forgotten 
 :hat there was another requisite indispensably 
 necessary towards the success of fcur projects 
 even for our own interests, to give them the 
 means of paying for them. Our conduct to- 
 wards our colonies, equally with that to foreign 
 states, has exhibited reciprocity all on one side 
 with this material difference, that we have, 
 n our blind anxiety to conciliate foreign 
 states, allowed the whole benefits of the reci- 
 
 * See Colonial Magazine, No. I., article "Foreign 
 
 Trade to India," a newly established miscellany, full 
 
 f valuable Information, and which, if conducted on 
 
 ijrht principles, will prove of the very highest import- 
 
 rtcei 
 
 2o2 
 
354 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 procity treaties to rest with them ; while, in 
 our selfish legislation towards our colonial 
 subjects, we have taken the whole to our- 
 selves. 
 
 So vast is the importance of our Indian pos- 
 sessions to the British empire, and so bound- 
 less the market for her manufactures which 
 might be opened if a truly wise and liberal 
 policy were pursued towards our Indian pos- 
 sessions, that there is nothing more to be re- 
 gretted than that there has not hitherto issued 
 from the press a popular and readable history 
 of our Indian possessions. Auber has, indeed, 
 with great industry, narrated the leading facts, 
 and supported them by a variety of interesting 
 official documents. But it is in vain to con- 
 ceal, that his book possesses no attractions to 
 the general reader ; and accordingly, although 
 it will always be a standard book of reference 
 to persons studying Indian affairs, it has not 
 and will not produce any impression upon 
 public thought. It was, therefore, with pecu- 
 liar pleasure that we recently opened the 
 Chapters on Indian History, just published by 
 Mr. Thornton, already so favourably known 
 to the eastern world by his work on India, and 
 its State and Prospects. From the cursory ex- 
 amination we have been able to give to this 
 very interesting work, we have only reason to 
 regret that the author has not been more com- 
 prehensive in his plan, and that, instead of 
 chapters on British India since the adminis- 
 tration of Marquis Wellesley, in one volume, 
 he has not given to the world a full history 
 of the period in three. The work is distin- 
 guished by judgment, candour, and research, 
 and is, beyond all doubt, the most valuable 
 that has yet appeared on the recent history of 
 India. We would beg leave only to suggest 
 to the able author, that his next edition should 
 extend to two volumes, and should embrace 
 the whole events of the period of which he 
 treats ; in particular, that Lord Hastings' war 
 in 1817 should be more fully enlarged upon; 
 and that greater exertions should be made, by 
 the introduction of picturesque incidents and 
 vivid descriptions, to interest the mass of the 
 nation in a subject daily rising in importance, 
 and on which they must soon be called upon 
 to exercise the functions of direct legislation. 
 
 To have engaged in and successfully ac- 
 complished such an undertaking ; to have 
 overcome so many and such formidable inter- 
 vening obstacles, and planted the British guns 
 in triumph on the walls of Herat, is one of the 
 most glorious exploits which have ever graced 
 the long annals of British military prowess. 
 That our ^oldiers were undaunted in battle 
 and irresistible in the breach has been often 
 proved, in the fields alike of Asiatic and Euro- 
 pean fame. But here they have exhibited 
 qualities of a totally different kind, and in 
 which hitherto they were not supposed to 
 have been equal to the troops of other states. 
 They have successfully accomplished marches, 
 unparalleled in modern times for their length 
 and hardship ; surmounted mountain ranges, 
 compared to which the passage of the St. 
 Bernard by Napoleon must sink into insig- 
 nificance ; and solved the great problem, so 
 much debated, and hitherto unascertained in 
 
 military science, as to the practicability of an 
 European force, with the implements and in- 
 cumbrances of modern warfare"" surmounting 
 the desert and mountain tracts which separate 
 Persia from Hindostan. Involved as we are 
 in the pressing interests of domestic politics, 
 and in the never-ending agitation of domestic 
 concerns, the attention of the British public 
 has been little attracted by this stupendous 
 event; but it is one evidently calculated to fix 
 the attention of the great military nations on 
 the continent, and which will stand forth in 
 imperishable lustre in the annals of history. 
 
 There is one result which may and should 
 follow from our undertakings in Affghanistaun, 
 which, if properly improved, may render it the 
 means of strengthening, in the most essential 
 manner, our possessions in the east. The In- 
 dus and the Himalaya are the natural frontier 
 of our dominions ; they are what the Danube 
 and the Rhine were to the Romans, and the 
 former of these streams to Napoleon's empire. 
 The Indus is navigable for twelve hundred 
 miles, and for nine hundred by steamers of 
 war and mercantile vessels of heavy burden. 
 It descends nearly in a straight line from the 
 impassable barrier of the Himalaya to the 
 Indian ocean; its stream is so rapid, and its 
 surface so broad, that no hostile force can pos- 
 sibly cross it in the face of a powerful defen- 
 sive marine. Never was an empire which had 
 such a frontier for its protection ; never was 
 such abase afforded for military operations as 
 on both its banks. Provisions for any num- 
 ber of soldiers ; warlike stores to any amount ; 
 cannon sufficient for a hundred thousand men, 
 can with ease ascend its waves. Vain is the 
 rapidity of its current ; the power of steam 
 has given to civilized man the means of over- 
 coming it ; and before many years are expired, 
 British vessels, from every harbour in the 
 United Kingdom, may ascend that mighty 
 stream, and open fresh and hitherto unheard- 
 of markets for British industry in the bound- 
 less regions of Central Asia. Now, then, is 
 the time to secure the advantages, and gain 
 the mastery of this mercantile artery and fron- 
 tier stream ; and, by means of fortified stations 
 on its banks, and a powerful fleet of armed 
 steamers in its bosom, to gain that impregna- 
 ble barrier to our Indian possessions, against 
 which, if duly supported by manly vigour at 
 home, and wise administration in our Indian 
 provinces, all the efforts of Northern ambition 
 will beat in vain. 
 
 But there is one consideration deserving of 
 especial notice which necessarily follows from 
 this successful irruption. The problem of 
 marching overland to India is now solved ; the 
 Russian guns have come down from Peters- 
 burg to Herat, and the British have come up 
 from Delhi to Cabool. English cannon are 
 now planted in the embrasures, against which, 
 twelve months ago, the Russian shot were di- 
 rected ; and if twenty thousand British could 
 march from Delhi to Candahar and Cabool, 
 forty thousand Russians may march from Jlstraka.il 
 to the Ganges and Calcutta. Our success has 
 opened the path in the East to Russian ambi- 
 tion ; the stages of our ascending army point 
 out the stations for their descending host ; and 
 
THE AFFGHANISTAUN EXPEDITION. 
 
 355 
 
 the ease with which our triumph has been 
 effected, will dispel any doubts which they 
 may have entertained as to the practicability 
 of ultimately accomplishing the long-cherish- 
 ed object of their ambition, and conquering in 
 Calcutta the empire of the east. This is the 
 inevitable result of our success : but it is one 
 which should excite no desponding feeling in 
 any British bosom ; and we allude to it, not 
 with the selfish, unpatriotic design of chilling 
 the national ardour at our success, but in 
 order, if possible, to arouse the British people 
 to a sense of the new and more extended duties 
 to which they are called, and the wider sphere 
 of danger and hostility in which they are in- 
 volved. 
 
 It is no longer possible to disguise that the 
 sphere of hostility and diplomatic exertion has 
 been immensely extended by our success in 
 Affghanistaun. Hitherto the politics of India 
 have formed, as it were, a world to themselves ; 
 a dark range of intervening mountains or arid 
 deserts were supposed to separate Hindostan 
 from Central Asia; and however much we 
 might be disquieted at home by the progress 
 of Russian or French ambition, no serious 
 fears were entertained that either would be 
 able to accomplish the Quixotic exploit of 
 passing the western range of the Himalaya 
 mountains. Now, however, this veil has been 
 rent asunder this mountain screen has been 
 penetrated. The Russian power in Persia, 
 and the British in India, now stand face to 
 face: the advanced posts of both have touched 
 Herat; the high-road from St. Petersburg to 
 Calcutta has been laid open by British hands. 
 The advanced position we have gained must 
 now be maintained ; if we retire, even from 
 tributary or allied states, the charm of our in- 
 vincibility is gone ; the day when the god Ter- 
 minus recoils before a foreign enemy, is the 
 commencement of decline. We do not bring 
 forward this consideration in order to blame 
 the expedition; but in order to show into what 
 a contest, and with what a power, it has neces- 
 sarily brought us. Affghanistaun is the out- 
 post of Russia; Dost Mohammed, now exiled 
 from his throne, was a vassal of the Czar ; and 
 we must now contend for the empire of the 
 east, not with the rajahs of India^ but the 
 Moscovite battalions. 
 
 The reality of these anticipations as to the 
 increased amount of the danger of a collision 
 with Russia, which has arisen from the great 
 approximation of our outposts to theirs, which 
 the Affghanistaun ,expedition has occasioned, 
 is apparent. Already Russia has taken the 
 alarm, and the expedition against Khiva shows 
 that she has not less the inclination, than she 
 unquestionably has the power, of amply pro- 
 viding for herself against what she deems the 
 impending danger. No one can for a moment 
 suppose that that expedition is really intended 
 to chastise the rebellious Khan. Thirty thou- 
 sand men, and a large train of artillery, are 
 not sent against an obscure chieftain in Tar- 
 tary, whom a few regiments of Cossacks 
 would soon reduce to obedience. A glance at 
 the map will at once show what was the real 
 object in view. Khiva is situated on the Oxus, 
 and the Oxus flows to the north-west from the 
 
 mountains which take their rise from the north- 
 ern boundary of Cabool. Its stream is navi- 
 gable to the foot of the Affghanistaun moun- 
 tains, and from the point where water commu- 
 nication ceases, it is a passage of only five or 
 six days to the valley of Cabool. If, therefore, 
 the Russians once establish themselves at 
 Cabool, they will have no difficulty in reach- 
 ing the possessions of Shah Shoojah ; and 
 their establishment will go far to outweigh 
 the influence established by the British, by the 
 
 j Affghanistaun expedition, among the Affghan- 
 istaun tribes. Already, if recent accounts can 
 
 I be relied on, this effect has become apparent. 
 Dost Mohammed, expelled from his kingdom, 
 has found support among the Tartar tribes ; 
 backed by their support, he has already re-ap- 
 peared over the hills, and regained part of his 
 dominions, and the British troops, on their re- 
 turn to Affghanistaun, have already received 
 orders to halt. Let us hope that it is not in 
 our case, as it was in that of the French at 
 Moscow, that when they thought the campaign 
 over it was only going to commence.* 
 
 Regarding, then, our success in Affghanis- 
 taun as having accelerated by several years 
 the approach of this great contest, it becomes 
 the British nation well to consider what pre- 
 parations they have made at home to maintain 
 it. Have we equipped and manned a fleet 
 capable of withstanding the formidable arma- 
 ment which Nicholas has always ready for im- 
 mediate operations in the Baltic 1 Have we 
 five-and-twenty ships of the line and thirty 
 frigates ready to meet the thirty .ships of the 
 line and eighteen frigates which Nicholas has 
 always equipped for sea at Cronstadt 1 ? Have 
 we thirty thousand men in London ready to 
 meet the thirty thousand veterans whom the 
 Czar has constantly prepared to step on board 
 his fleet on the shores of the Baltic? Alas! 
 we have none of these things. We could not, 
 to save London from destruction or the British 
 empire from conquest, fit out three ships of the 
 line to protect the mouth of the Thames, or 
 assemble ten thousand men to save Woolwich 
 or Portsmouth from conflagration. What be- 
 tween Radical economy in our army estimates, 
 Whig parsimony in our naval preparations, 
 and Chartist violence in our manufacturing 
 cities, we have neither a naval nor a military 
 force to protect ourselves from destruction. 
 All that Sir Charles Adam, one of the lords 
 of the admiralty, could say on this subject last 
 session of parliament was, that we had three 
 ships of the line and three guard-skips to protect the 
 shores of England. Never was such a proof 
 afforded that we had sunk down from the days 
 of giants into those of pigmies, than the use 
 of such an argument by a lord of the British 
 admiralty. Why, thirty years ago, we sent 
 thirty-nine ships of the line to attack the 
 enemy's naval station at Antwerp, without 
 raising the blockade of one of his harbours, 
 from Gibraltar to the North Cape. Herein, 
 then, lies the monstrous absurdity, the unpa- 
 ralleled danger of our present national policy, 
 that we are vigorous even to temerity in the 
 
 * How fatally was this sinister presentiment realized 
 in consequence of incredible incapacity on the part of 
 the British authorities in poeaession of Cabool. 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 east, and parsimonious even to pusillanimity 
 in the west; and that while we give Russia a 
 fair pretext for hostility, and perhaps some 
 ground for complaint in the centre of Asia, 
 we make no preparation whatever to resist her 
 hostility on the shores of England. 
 
 The contrast between the marvellous vigour 
 of our Indian government and the niggardly 
 spirit with which all our establishments are 
 starved down at home, would be inconceivable 
 if we did not recollect by what opposite mo- 
 tives our government is regulated in Hindos- 
 tan and in the British islands. Taxation in 
 India falls upon the inhabitants, who are unre- 
 presented; taxation at home falls upon the ten- 
 pounders, who have a numerical majority in 
 parliament. We never doubted the inclination 
 of a democracy to dip their hands in other 
 people's pockets ; what we doubted was their in- 
 clination, save 'in the last extremity, to put 
 them in their own. 
 
 Disregard of the future, devotion to present 
 objects, has, in all ages, been the characteris- 
 tic of the masses of mankind. We need not 
 wonder that the British populace are distin- 
 guished by the well-known limited vision of 
 their class, when all the eloquence of Demos- 
 thenes failed in inducing the most enlightened 
 republic of antiquity to take any measures to 
 ward off the danger arising from the ambition 
 of Philip of Macedon; and all the wisdom of 
 Washington was unable to communicate to 
 the greatest republic of modern times, strength 
 or foresight sufficient to prevent its capitol 
 from being taken, and its arsenals pillaged by 
 a British division not three thousand strong. 
 Unless, however, the Conservative press can 
 succeed in rousing the British public to a sense 
 of their danger on this subject, and the Con- 
 servative leaders in Parliament take up the 
 matter earnestly and vigorously, it may safely 
 be pronounced that the days of the British em- 
 pire are numbered. 
 
 No empire can possibly exist for any length 
 of time which provokes hostility in its distant 
 possessions, while it neglects preparation in 
 the heart of its power; which buckles on its 
 gloves and puts on the helmet, but leaves the 
 breastplate and the cuirass behind. If a Rus- 
 sian fleet of thirty ships of the line appears 
 off the Nore, it will not be by deriding their 
 prowess, or calling them a " pasteboard fleet," 
 that the danger will be averted from the arse- 
 nals and the treasures of England. The Rus- 
 sian sailors do not possess any thing like the 
 nautical skill or naval habits of the British; 
 but they are admirably trained to baH practice, 
 they possess the native courage of their race, 
 and will stand to their guns with any sailors in 
 Europe. Remember the words of Nelson, " Lay 
 yourself alongside of a Frenchman, but out- 
 mano3uvre a Russian." 
 
 The manifest and not yet terminated dan- 
 gers with which the Affghanistaun expedition 
 was attended, should operate as a warning, and 
 they will be cheaply purchased if they prove a 
 timely one, to the British people, of the enor- 
 mous dangers, not merely to the national ho- 
 nour and independence, but to the vital pecu- 
 niary interests of every individual in the state, 
 of continuing any longer the pernicious sys- 
 
 tem of present economy, and total disregard 
 of future danger, which for twenty years has 
 characterized every department of our gov- 
 ernment. Why is it that England has now 
 been compelled in the east, for the first time, 
 to incur the enormous perils of the Affghan- 
 istaun expedition to hazard, as it were, the 
 very existence of our eastern empire upon a 
 single throw ; and adventure a large propor- 
 tion of the British army, and the magic charm 
 of British invincibility, upon a perilous ad- 
 vance, far beyond the utmost frontiers of Hin- 
 dostan, into the heart of Asia"? Simply be- 
 cause previous preparation had been abandon- 
 ed, ultimate danger disregarded; because re- 
 trenchment was the order of the day, and go- 
 vernment yielded to the ever popular cry of 
 present economy ; because the noble naval and 
 military establishment of former times was 
 reduced one-half, or allowed to expire, in the 
 childish belief that it never again would be re- 
 quired. Rely upon it, a similar conduct will 
 one day produce a similar necessity to the 
 British empire. It will be found, and that too 
 ere many years have passed over, that the 
 Duke of Wellington was right when he said, 
 that a great empire cannot with safety wage a 
 little war; and that nothing but present dan- 
 ger and future disaster can result from a sys- 
 tem which blindly shuts its eyes to the future, 
 and never looks beyond the conciliating the 
 masses by a show of economy at the moment. 
 An Affghanistaun expedition a Moscow cam- 
 paign will be necessary to ward off impend- 
 ing danger, or restore the sunk credit of the 
 British name : happy if the contest can thus be 
 averted from our own shores, and by incur- 
 ring distant dangers we can escape domestic 
 subjugation. 
 
 But let not foreign nations imagine, from all 
 that has been said or may be said by the Con- 
 servatives on this vital subject, that Great Bri- 
 tain has now lost her means of defence, or 
 that, if a serious insult or injury is offered to 
 her, she may not soon be brought into a condi- 
 tion to take a fearful vengeance upon her ene- 
 mies. The same page of history which tells 
 us that while democratic states never can be 
 brought to foresee remote dangers, or incur 
 present burdens to guard against it; yet when 
 the danger is present, and strikes the senses of 
 the multitude, they are capable of the most 
 stupendous exertions. That England, in the 
 event of a war breaking out in her present 
 supine, unprepared state, would sustain in the 
 outset very great disasters, is clear; but it is 
 not by any ordinary calamities that a power of 
 such slow growth and present magnitude as 
 England is to be subdued. She now possesses 
 2,800,000 tonnage, numbers an 'hundred and 
 sixty thousand seamen in her commercial na- 
 vy, and a fleet of seven hundred steam-boats, 
 more than all Europe possesses, daily prowl 
 along her shores. Here are all the elements 
 of a powerful marine; at no period could 
 Great Britain command such a foundation for 
 naval strength within her bosom. What is 
 wanting, is not the elements of an irresistible 
 naval force, but the sagacity in the people to 
 foresee the approaching necessity for its es- 
 tablishment, and the virtue in the government 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 357 
 
 to propose the burdens indispensable for its re- 1 
 storation. In the experienced difficulty of | 
 either communicating this foresight to the one, i 
 or imparting this virtue to the other, may be i 
 traced the well-known and often-predicted ef- 
 fects of democratic ascendency. But that 
 same ascendency, if the spirit of the people is 
 roused by experienced disgrace, or their inte- 
 rests affected by present calamity, would infal- 
 libly make the most incredible exertions ; and 
 a navy, greater than any which ever yet issued 
 from the British harbours, might sally forth 
 from our sea-girt isle, to carry, like the French 
 
 Revolutionary armies, devastation and ruin 
 into all the naval establishments of Europe. 
 No such career of naval conquest, however, is 
 either needed for the glory, or suited for the in- 
 terests of England ; and it is as much ft urn a 
 desire to avert that ultimate forcible and most 
 painful conversion of all the national energies 
 to warlike objects, as to prevent the immediate 
 calamities which it would occasion, that we 
 earnestly press upon the country the immediate 
 adoption, at any cost, of that great increase to 
 our naval and military establishments which 
 can alone avert one or both of these calamities. 
 
 THE FUTURE.* 
 
 THAT human affairs are now undergoing a 
 great and durable alteration ; that we are in a 
 transition state of society, when new settlements 
 are taking place, and the old levels are heaved 
 up, or displaced by expansive force from be- 
 neath, is universally admitted; but the world 
 is as yet in the dark as to the ultimate results, 
 whether for good or evil, of these vast and or- 
 ganic changes. While the popular advocates 
 look upon them as the commencement of a new 
 era in social existence as the opening of a 
 period of knowledge, freedom, and general 
 happiness, in which the human race, freed 
 from the fetters of feudal tyranny, is to arrive 
 at an unprecedented state of social felicity 
 the Conservative party everywhere regard 
 them as fraught with the worst possible effects 
 to all classes in society, and to none more im- 
 mediately than those by whom they are so 
 blindly urged forward as conducing to the 
 destruction of all the bulwarks both of property 
 and freedom. While these opposite and irre- 
 concilable opinions are honestly arid firmly 
 maintained by millions on either side of this 
 great controversy, and victory inclines some- 
 times to one side and sometimes to another in 
 the course of the contests, civil and military, 
 which it engenders, " Time rolls on his cease- 
 less course ;" the actors and the spectators in 
 the world's debate are alike hurried to the grave, 
 and new generations succeed, who are borne 
 along by the same mighty stream, and inherit 
 from their parents the passions and prejudices 
 inseparable from a question in which such 
 boundless expectations have been excited on 
 the one side, and such vital interests are at 
 stake on the other. 
 
 The symptoms of this transition state dis- 
 tinctly appear, not merely in the increase of 
 political power on the part of the lower classes 
 in almost every state of western Europe, but 
 the general formation of warm hopes and an- 
 ticipations on their parts inconsistent with 
 their present condition, and the universal adap- 
 tation of science, literature, arts, and manufac- 
 tures to their wants. Supposing the most 
 
 *T 
 
 1635, 
 
 rocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. Paris, 
 , &. London, 1835. Blackwood's Magazine, Jan. 1836. 
 
 decided re-action to take place in public feel- 
 ing in the British dominions, and the most 
 Conservative administration to be placed at 
 the helm, still the state is essentially revolu- 
 tionized. The great organic change has been 
 made, and cannot be undone. Government is 
 no longer, and never again will be, as long as 
 a mixed constitution lasts, a free agent. It is 
 impelled by the inclinations of the majority of 
 nine hundred thousand electors, in whom su- 
 preme power is substantially vested. At one 
 time it may be too revolutionary, at another 
 too monarchical, but in either it can only be 
 the reflecting mirror of public opinion, and 
 must receive, not communicate, the impulse 
 of general thought. France is irrecoverably 
 and thoroughly revolutionized. All the checks, 
 either on arbitrary or popular power, have been 
 completely destroyed by the insane ambition of 
 its populace; and, its capital has been trans- 
 formed into a vast arena, where two savage 
 wild beasts, equally fatal to mankind despo- 
 tic power and democratic ambition fiercely 
 contend for the mastery, but where the fair 
 form of freedom is never again destined to ap- 
 pear. Spain and Portugal are torn by the 
 same furious passions a Vendean struggle is 
 maintained with heroic constancy in the north 
 a Jacobin revolution is rapidly spreading in 
 the southland amidst a deadly civil war, and 
 the confiscation of church and funded property, 
 the democratic and despotic principles are 
 rapidly coming into collision, and threaten 
 speedily there, as elsewhere, to extinguish all 
 the securities of real freedom in the shock. 
 
 It is not merely, however, in the political 
 world that the symptoms of a vast organic 
 change in western Europe are to be dis- 
 cerned. Manners and habits evince a,s clearly 
 the prodigious, and, as we fear, degrading tran- 
 sition, which is going on amongst us. We are 
 not blindly attached to the customs of former 
 times, and willingly admit, that, in some re- 
 spects, a change for the better has taken place; 
 but in others how wofully for the worse ; and 
 how prodigious, at all events, is the alteration, 
 whether for better or worse, which is in pro- 
 gress ! With the feeling of chivalry still giv- 
 
358 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 ing dignity to the higher ranks, and a sense of 
 loyalty yet elevating the lower ; with religion 
 paramount in all the influential classes, and 
 subordination as yet unshaken among the in- 
 dustrious poor, a state of manners ensued, a 
 degree of felicity was attained, a height of na- 
 tional glory was reached, to which the future 
 generations of Europe will look back with the 
 more regret, that, once lost, it is altogether ir- 
 revocable. We do not despair of the fortunes I 
 of our country, still less of the human race ; i 
 but we have no hope that those bright and ! 
 glorious days can ever return. Vigour, in-' 
 deed, is not a wan ting; activity, restless, in- 
 satiable activity, is in profusion ; talent is as 
 yet undecayed ; but where are the elevated 
 feelings, the high resolves, the enduring con- 
 stancy, the religious inspiration, the moral 
 resolution, the disinterested loyalty, the un- 
 shaken patriotism, which gave dignity and 
 grandeur to the past age ? These qualities, 
 doubtless, are still found in many individuals ; 
 but we speak of the general tendency of things, 
 not the character of particular men. Even 
 where they do occur, are they not chiefly to be 
 discerned in those of a certain standing in life; 
 and are they not remarked by the rising ge- 
 neration as remnants of the former age, who 
 are fast disappearing, and will soon be totally 
 extinct ? 
 
 Look at education, above all, the education 
 of the middle and working classes, and say 
 whether a vast and degrading change is not 
 there rapidly taking place ? It is there more 
 than anywhere else that "coming events cast 
 their shadows before." Elevating or ennobling 
 knowledge; moral and religious instruction; 
 purifying and entrancing compositions are 
 discarded ; the arts, the mechanical or manu- 
 facturing arts, alone are looked to. Nothing 
 is thought of but what can immediately be 
 turned into money. The church, and all the 
 institutions connected with it, are considered 
 as not destined to any lengthened endurance, 
 and, therefore, classical learning is scouted 
 and abandoned. The philosopher's stone is 
 alone sought after by the alchymists of mo- 
 dern days; nothing is studied "but what will 
 render the human mind prolific of dollars. 
 To purify the heart, and humanize the aflecr 
 tions ; to elevate the understanding and dig- 
 nify the manners; to provide not the means 
 of elevation in life, but the power of bearing 
 elevation with propriety; to confer not the 
 power of subduing others, but the means of 
 conquering one's self; to impress love to God 
 and good-will towards men, are deemed the 
 useless and antiquated pursuits of the monks 
 of former days. Practical chemistry and sul- 
 phuric acid; decrepitating salts and hydraulic 
 engines; algebraic equations and commercial 
 academies ; mercantile navigation and double 
 and single book-keeping, have fairly, in the 
 seminaries of the* middle ranks, driven Cicero 
 and Virgil off the field. The vast extension 
 of education, the prodigious present activity 
 and energy of the human mind, the incessant 
 efforts of the middle ranks to elevate and im- 
 prove their worldly situation, afford, we fear, 
 no reasonable grounds for hoping that this de- 
 grading change can be arrested ; on the con- 
 
 trary, they are the very circumstances which 
 afford a moral certainty that it will continue 
 and increase. That the energy, expectations, 
 and discontent now generally prevalent among 
 the labouring^ classes, and appearing in the 
 feverish desire for social amelioration and the 
 ready reception of any projects, how vain so- 
 ever, which promise to promote it, will lead to 
 great and important changes in the condition 
 both of government, society, and manners, is 
 too obvious to require illustration. The in- 
 tense and feverish attention to worldly objects 
 which these changes at once imply and pro- 
 duce ; the undue extension of artificial wants 
 among the labouring poor which they ge- 
 nerate; the severe competition to which all 
 classes are in consequence exposed; the 
 minute subdivision of labour which such a 
 high and increasing state of manufacturing 
 skill occasions ; the experienced impossibility 
 of rising in any department without a thorough 
 and exclusive attention to its details, are the 
 very circumstances of all others the most fatal 
 to the improvement of the understanding, or 
 the regulation of the heart. Amidst the shock 
 of so many contending interests, the calm pur- 
 suits of science, which lead not to wealth, will 
 be abandoned ; the institutions which as yet 
 maintain it will be sacrificed to the increasing 
 clamour of democratic jealousy; literature will 
 become a mere stimulant to the passions, or 
 amusement of an hour; religion, separated 
 from its property, will become a trade in which 
 the prejudices and passions of the congrega- 
 tions of each minister will be inflamed instead 
 of being subdued; every generous or enno- 
 bling study will be discarded for the mere pur- 
 suits of sordid wealth, or animal enjoyment ; 
 excitement in all its forms will become the 
 universal object ; and in the highest state of 
 manufacturing skill, and in the latest stages 
 of social regeneration, our descendants may 
 sink irrecoverably into the degeneracy of Ro- 
 man or Italian manners. 
 
 The extension and improvement of the me- 
 chanical arts the multiplication of rail-roads, 
 canals, and harbours extraordinary rapidity 
 of internal communication increasing crav- 
 ing for newspapers, and excitement in all its 
 forms the general spread of comfort, and 
 universal passion of luxury, afford no antidote 
 whatever against the native corruption of the 
 human heart. We may go to Paris from Lon- 
 don in three hours, and to Constantinople in 
 twelve ; we may communicate with India, by 
 the telegraph, in a forenoon, and make an au- 
 tumnal excursion to the Pyramids orPersepo- 
 lis in a fortnight, by steam-boats, and yet, 
 amidst all our improvements, be the most de- 
 graded and corrupt of the human race. Inter- 
 nal communication was brought to perfection 
 in the Roman empire, but did that revive the 
 spirit of the legions, or avert the arms of the 
 barbarians 1 Did it restore the age of Virgil 
 and Cicero 1 Because all the citizens gazed 
 daily on the most sumptuous edifices, and lived 
 amidst a forest of the noblest statues, did that 
 hinder the rapid corruption of manners, the 
 irretrievable degeneracy of character, the total 
 extinction of genius'? Did their proud and 
 ignorant contempt of the barbarous nations 
 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 359 
 
 save either the Greeks or the Romans from 
 subjugation by a ruder and more savage, but a 
 fresher and a nobler race] Were they not 
 prating about the lights of the age, and the un- 
 paralleled state of social refinement, when the 
 swords of Alaric and Attila were already 
 drawn? In the midst of all our excursions, 
 have we yet penetrated that deepest of all mys- 
 teries, the human heart 1 ? With all our im- 
 provements, have we eradicated one evil pas- 
 sion or extinguished one guilty propensity in 
 that dark fountain of evil? Alas! facts, clear 
 undeniable facts, prove the reverse with the 
 spread of knowledge, and the growth of every 
 species of social improvement, general depra- 
 vity has gone on increasing with an accele- 
 rated pace, both in France and England, and 
 every increase of knowledge seems but an ad- 
 dition to the length of the lever by which vice 
 dissolves the fabric of society.* 
 
 It is not simple knowledge, it is knowledge 
 detached from religion, that produces this fatal 
 result, and unhappily that is precisely the spe- 
 cies of knowledge which is the present object 
 of fervent popular desire. The reason of its 
 corrupting tendency on morals is evident 
 when so detached, it multiplies the desires and 
 passions of the heart, without any increase to 
 its regulating principles; it augments the at- 
 tacking without strengthening the resisting 
 powers, and thence the disorder and license it 
 spreads through society. The invariable cha- 
 racteristic of a declining and corrupt state of 
 society, is a progressive increase in the force 
 of passion, and a progressive decline in the 
 influence of duty, and this tendency, so con- 
 spicuous in France, so evidently beginning 
 amongst ourselves, is increased by nothing so 
 much as that spread of education without reli- 
 gion, which is the manifest tendency of the 
 present times. 
 
 What renders it painfully clear that this 
 corruption has not only begun, but has far ad- 
 vanced amidst a large proportion of our peo- 
 ple, is the evident decline in the effect of moral 
 character upon political influence. It used to 
 be the boast, and the deserved boast, of Eng- 
 land, that talents the most commanding, de- 
 scent the most noble, achievements the most 
 illustrious, could not secure power without the 
 aid of private virtue. These times are gone 
 past. Depravity of character, sordidness of 
 disposition, recklessness of conduct, are now 
 no security whatever against political dema- 
 gogues, wielding the very greatest political 
 influence, nay, to their being held up as the 
 object of public admiration, and possibly 
 forced upon the government of the country. 
 What has the boasted spread of education 
 done to exclude such characters from political 
 weight? Nothing it is, on the contrjny, the 
 very thing which gives them their ascendency. 
 The time has evidently arrived when the com- 
 mission of political crimes, the stain of guilt, 
 the opprobrium of disgrace, is no objection 
 whatever with a large and influential party to 
 
 * The curious tables of M Ouerrin proVe that in every 
 department of France, without exception, general rl< pri- 
 vity is jnpt in proportion to tli<- cMm-inn of knoulod :<-. 
 "At one throw," says the candid Mr. Bulwer, "he has 
 howled down all our preconceived ideas on this vital 
 subject." See BULWEH'B France, vol. i, Appendix. 
 
 political leaders, provided they possess the qua- 
 lities likely to insure success in their designs. 
 " It is the fatal effect," says Madame de Stae'l, 
 "of revolutions to obliterate altogether our 
 ideas of right and wrong, and instead of the 
 eternal distinctions of morality and religion, 
 apply no other test, in general estimation, to 
 political actions but success." This affords a 
 melancholy presage of what may be expected 
 when the same vicious and degrading princi- 
 ples are still more generally embraced and ap- 
 plied to the ordinary transactions, characters, 
 and business, of life. 
 
 " If absolute power," says M. de Tocqueville, 
 "were re-established amongst the democratic 
 nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it 
 would assume a new form, and appear under 
 features unknown to our forefathers. There 
 was a time in Europe, when the laws and the 
 consent of the people had invested princes 
 with 'almost unlimited authority; but they 
 scarcely ever availed themselves of it. I do 
 not speak of the prerogatives of the nobility, 
 of the authority of supreme courts of justice, 
 of corporations and their chartered rights, or 
 of provincial privileges, which served to break 
 the blows of the sovereign authority, and to 
 maintain a spirit of resistance in the nation. 
 Independently of these political institutions 
 which, however opposed they might be to per- 
 sonal liberty, served to keep alive the love of 
 freedom in the mind of the public, and which 
 may be esteemed to have been useful in this 
 respect the manners and opinions of the na- 
 tion confined the royal authority within bar- 
 riers which were not less powerful, although 
 they were less conspicuous. Religion, the af- 
 fections of the people, the benevolence of the 
 prince, the sense of honour, family pride, pro- 
 vincial prejudices, custom, and public opinion, 
 limited the power of kings, and restrained their 
 authority within an invisible circle. The con- 
 stitution of nations was despotic at that time, 
 but their manners were free. Princes had the 
 | right, but they had neither the means nor the 
 j desire, of doing whatever they pleased. 
 
 "But what now remains of those barriers 
 | which formerly arrested the aggressions of 
 j tyranny? Since religion has lost its empire 
 j over the souls of men, the most prominent 
 j boundary which divided good from evil is 
 j overthrown ; the very elements of the moral 
 world are indeterminate ; the princes and the 
 people of the earth are guided by chance ; and 
 none can define the natural limits of despotism 
 and the bounds of license. Long revolutions 
 have forever destroyed the respect which sur- 
 rounded the rulers of the state ; and since they 
 have been relieved from the burden of public 
 esteem, princes may henceforward surrender 
 themselves without fear to the seductions of 
 arbitrary pcnver. 
 
 " When kings find that the hearts of their 
 subjects are turned towards them, they are 
 clement, because they are conscious of their 
 'strength; and they are chary of the affections 
 of their people, because the affection of their 
 people is the bulwark of the throne. A mutual 
 interchange of good-will then takes place be- 
 tween the prince and the people, which re- 
 i sembles the gracious intercourse of domestic 
 
360 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 society. The subjects may murmur at the | 
 sovereign's decree, but they are grieved to dis- 
 please him ; and the sovereign chastises his sub- 
 jects with the light hand of parental affection. 
 
 "But when once the spell of royalty is broken 
 in the tumult of revolution; when successive ! 
 monarchs have crossed the throne, so as alter- 
 nately to display to the people the weakness of 
 their right and the harshness of their power, 
 the sovereign is no longer regarded by any as 
 the father' of the state, and he is feared by all 
 as its master. If he be weak, he is depised ; 
 if he be strong, he is detested. He is himself 
 full of animosity and alarm; he finds that he 
 is as a stranger in his own country, and he 
 treats his subjects like conquered enemies. 
 
 " When the provinces and the towns formed 
 so many different nations in the midst of their 
 common country, each of them had a will of j 
 his own, which was opposed to the general 
 spirit of subjection ; but now that all the parts 
 of the same empire, after having lost their im- 
 munities, their customs, their prejudices, their 
 traditions, and their names, are subjected and 
 accustomed to the same laws, it is not more 
 difficult to oppress them collectively, than it 
 was formerly to oppress them singly. 
 
 " Whilst the nobles enjoyed their power, and 
 indeed long after that power was lost, the 
 honour of aristocracy conferred an extraordi- 
 nary degree of force upon their personal oppo- 
 sition. They afforded instances of men who, 
 notwithstanding their weakness, still enter- 
 tained a high opinion of their personal value, 
 and dared to cope single-handed with the efforts 
 of the public authority. But at the present 
 day, when all ranks are more and more con- 
 founded, when the individual disappears in 
 the throng, and is easily lost in the midst of a 
 common obscurity, when the honour of mo- 
 narchy has almost lost its empire without 
 being succeeded by public virtue, and when 
 nothing can enable man to rise above himself, 
 who shall say at what point the exigencies of 
 power and the servility of weakness will stop? 
 
 " As long as family feeling was kept alive, 
 the antagonist of oppression was never alone; 
 he looked about him, and found his clients, 
 his hereditary friends and his kinsfolk. If this 
 support was wanting, he was sustained by his f 
 ancestors and animated by his posterity. But I 
 when patrimonial estates are divided, and when j 
 a few years suffice to confound the distinctions | 
 of a race, where can family feeling be found 1 
 What force can there be in the customs of a 
 country which has changed, and is still perpetu- 
 ally changing its aspect ; in which every act of 
 tyranny has a precedent, and every crime an ex- 
 ample ; in which there is nothing so old that its 
 antiquity can save it from destruction, and no- 
 thing so unparalleled that its novelty can pre- 
 vent it from being done ? What resistance 
 can be offered by manners of so pliant a make, j 
 that they have already often yielded? What; 
 strength can even public opinion have re- j 
 tained, when no twenty persons are connected \ 
 by a common tie ; when not a man, nor a fa- ' 
 rally, nor chartered corporation, nor class, nor ! 
 free institution, has the power of representing ' 
 or exerting that opinion ; and when every citi- 
 zen being equally weak, equally poor, and , 
 
 equally dependent has only his personal im- 
 potence to oppose to the organized force of the 
 government? 
 
 "The annals of France furnish nothing 
 analogous to the- condition in which that coun- 
 try might then be thrown. But it may be more 
 aptly assimilated to the times of old, and to 
 those hideous eras of Roman oppression, when 
 the manners of the people were corrupted, 
 their traditions obliterated, their habits de- 
 stroyed, their opinions shaken, and freedom ex- 
 pelled from the laws, could find no refuge in 
 the land; when nothing protected the citizens, 
 and the citizens no longer protected themselves ; 
 when human nature was the sport of man, and 
 princes wearied out the clemency of Heaven 
 before they exhausted the patience of their 
 subjects. Those who hope to revive the mo- 
 narchy of Henry IV. or of Louis XIV., appear 
 to me to be afflicted with mental blindness ; 
 and when I consider the present condition of 
 several European nations a condition to 
 which all the others tend I am led to believe 
 that they will soon be left with no other alter- 
 native than democratic liberty, or the tyranny 
 of the Caesars." Tocqueville, ii. 247. 
 
 We shall not stop to show how precisely 
 those views of Tocqueville coincide with what 
 we have invariably advanced in this miscel- 
 lany, or to express the gratification we experi- 
 ence at finding these principles now embraced 
 by the ablest of the French Democratic party, 
 after the most enlightened view of American 
 institutions. We hasten, therefore, to show 
 that these results of the French Revolution, 
 melancholy and depressing as they are, are 
 nothing more than the accomplishment of 
 what, forty-five years ago, Mr. Burke prophe- 
 sied of its ultimate effects. 
 
 " The policy of such barbarous victors," 
 says Mr. Burke, "who contemn a subdued 
 people, and insult their inhabitants, ever has 
 been to destroy all vestiges of the ancient 
 country in religion, policy, laws, and manners, 
 to confound all territorial limits, produce a 
 general poverty, crush their nobles, princes, 
 and pontiffs, to lay low every thing which 
 lifted its head above the level, or which could 
 'serve to combine or rally, in their distresses, 
 the disbanded people under the standard of old 
 opinion. They have made France free in the 
 manner in which their ancient friends to the 
 rights of mankind freed Greece, Macedon, 
 Gaul, and other nations. If their present pro- 
 ject of a Republic should fail, all securities to 
 a moderate freedom fail along with it; they 
 have levelled and crushed together all the or- 
 ders which they found under the monarchy; 
 all the indirect restraints which mitigate des- 
 potism are removed, insomuch that if mo- 
 narchy should ever again obtain an entire as- 
 cendency in France, under this or any other 
 dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily 
 tempered at setting out by the wise and virtu- 
 ous counsels of the prince, the most completely 
 arbitrary power that ever appeared on earth." 
 Purke, v. 328 333. 
 
 Similar results must ultimately attend the 
 triumph of the democratic principle in Great 
 Britain and Ireland. The progress may, and 
 we trust will, be different ; less bloodshed and 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 suffering will attend its course; more vigor- 1 pet the slopes of the Alps, and the industry 
 ous and manly resistance will evidently be op- j which bridled the stormy seas of the German 
 posed to the evil; the growth of corruption will, I ocean the burning passions which carried 
 
 .A. i '^^:_*A i , . ! *. ,1 * u A J 4.1 171 ~i_ i _ * L_ /^ j :_ i ^i \7~ i:_ 
 
 we trust, be infinitely more slow, and the de 
 cline of the empire more dignified and becom 
 ing. But the final result, if the democratic 
 principle maintains its present ascendency 
 will be the same. 
 
 If we examine the history of the world with 
 attention, we shall find, that amidst great occa- 
 sional variations produced by secondary anc 
 inferior causes, two great powers have been 
 at work from the earliest times ; and, like the 
 antagonist expansive and compressing force 
 in physical nature, have, by their mutual and 
 counteracting influence, produced the greatest 
 revolutions and settlements in human affairs. 
 These opposing forces are tfOHTHKRy COXQ.UEST 
 and CIVILIZED DEMOCRACY. Their agency ap- 
 pears clear and forcible at the present times, 
 and the spheres of their action are different ; 
 but mighty ultimate results are to attend their 
 irresistible operation in the theatres destined 
 by nature for their respective operation. 
 
 We, who have, for eighteen years, so inva- 
 riably and resolutely opposed the advances of 
 democracy, and that equally when it raised its 
 voice aloft on the seat of government, as when 
 it lurked under the specious guise of free trade 
 or liberality, will not be accused of being 
 blinded in favour of its effects. We claim, 
 therefore, full credit for sincerity, and deem 
 some weight due to our opinion, when we as- 
 sert that it is the great waving pmver in human 
 affairs, the source of the greatest efforts of 
 human genius, and, when duly restrained from 
 running into excess, the grand instrument of 
 human advancement. It is not from ignorance 
 of, or insensibility to, its prodigious effects, 
 that we have proved ourselves so resolute in 
 resisting its undue expansion : it is, on the con- 
 trary, from a full appreciation of them, from a 
 thorough knowledge of the vast results, whether 
 for good or evil, which it invariably produces. 
 It is the nature of the democratic passion to 
 produce an inextinguishable degree of vigour 
 and activity among the middling classes of 
 society to develope an unknown energy 
 among their wide-spread ranks to fill their 
 bosoms with insatiable and often visionary 
 projects of advancement and amelioration, and 
 inspire them with an ardent desire to raise 
 themselves individually and collectively in the 
 world. Thence the astonishing results some- 
 times for good, sometimes for evil which it 
 produces. Its grand characteristic is an-risy, 
 and energy not rousing the exertions merely 
 of a portion of society, Mt awakening the dor- 
 mant strength of millions; not producing mere- 
 ly the chivalrous valour of the high-bred cava- 
 lier, but drawing forth the might that slum- 
 bers in a peasant's arm." The greatest 
 achievements of genius, the noblest efforts of 
 heroism, that have illustrated the history of 
 the species, have arisen from the efforts of this 
 principle. Thence the fight of Marathon and 
 the glories of Salamis the genius of Greece 
 and the conquests of Rome the heroism of 
 Sempach and the devotion of Haarlem the 
 
 the French legions to Cadiz and the Kremlin, 
 and the sustained fortitude which gave to Bri- 
 tain the dominion of the waves. Thence, too, 
 in its wider and unrestrained excesses, the 
 greatest crimes which have disfigured the dark 
 annals of human wickedness the massacres 
 of Athens and the banishments of Florence 
 the carnage of Marius and the proscriptions 
 pf the Triumvirate the murders of Cromwell 
 and the bloodshed of Robespierre. 
 
 As the democratic passion is thus a princi- 
 ple of such vital and searching energy, so it is 
 from it, when acting under due regulation and 
 control, that the greatest and most durable ad- 
 vances in social existence have sprung. Why 
 are the shores of the Mediterranean the scene 
 to which the pilgrim from every quarter of 
 the globe journeys to visit at once the cradles 
 of civilization, the birthplace of arts, of arms, 
 of philosophy, of poetry, and the scenes of 
 their highest and most glorious achievements ? 
 Because freedom spread along its smiling 
 shores; because the ruins of Athens and 
 Sparta, of Rome and Carthage, of Tyre and 
 Syracuse, lie on its margin ; because civiliza- 
 tion, advancing with the white sails which 
 glittered on its blue expanse, pierced, as if 
 mpelled by central heat, through the dark 
 and barbarous regions of the Celtic race who 
 peopled its shores. What gave Rome the 
 empire of the world, and brought the vener- 
 able ensigns bearing the words, "Senatus 
 populusque Romanus," to the wall of Antoni- 
 nus and the foot of the Atlas, the waters of. 
 the Euphrates and the Atlantic Ocean ? Demo- 
 cratic vigour. Democratic vigour, be it ob- 
 served, duly coerced by Patrician power ; the in- 
 satiable ambition of successive consuls, guided 
 by the wisdom of the senate ; the unconquer- 
 able and inexhaustible bands which, for cen- 
 uries, issued from the Roman Forum. What 
 has spread the British dominions over the 
 labitable globe, and converted the ocean into 
 a peaceful lake for its internal carriage, and 
 made the winds the instruments of its blessings 
 o mankind ; and spread its race in vast and 
 nextinguishable multitudes through the new 
 vorldl Democratic ambition; democratic am- 
 bition, restrained and regulated at home by an 
 adequate weight of aristocratic power; a go- 
 vernment which, guided by the stability of the 
 )atrician, but invigorated by the activity of 
 he plebeian race, steadily advanced in con- 
 quest, renown, and moral ascendency, till its 
 fleets overspread the sea, and it has become a 
 natter of certainty, that half the globe must 
 e peopled by its descendants. 
 The continued operation of this undying 
 igour and energy is still more clearly evinced 
 in the Anglo-American race, which originally 
 sprung from the stern Puritans of Charles I.'s 
 age. which have developed all the peculiarities 
 of the democratic character in unrestrained 
 profusion amidst the boundless wastes which 
 lie open to their enterprise. M. Tocqueville 
 has described, with equal justice and eloquence 
 
 paintings of Raphael and the poetry of Tasso the extraordinary activity of these principles 
 the energy which covered with a velvet car- , in the United Slates. 
 
 46 2H 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 " The inhabitants of the United States are i assemblies, the citizens salute the authorities 
 never fettered by the axioms of their profes- j of the day as the fathers of their country, 
 they escape from all the prejudices of Societies are formed which regard drunken- 
 ness as the principal cause of the evils under 
 
 all 
 
 their present station ; they are "not more at- 
 tached to one line of operation than to another ; 
 they are not more prone to employ an old 
 method than a new one ; they have no rooted 
 
 habits, and they easily shake off the influence 
 which the habits of other nations might ex- 
 ercise upon their minds, from a conviction 
 
 which the state labours, and which solemnly 
 bind themselves to give a constant example of 
 temperance. 
 
 The great political agitation of the Ameri- 
 can legislative bodies, which is the only kind 
 of excitement that attracts the attention of fo- 
 
 that their country is unlike any other, and that j reign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of 
 its situation is without a precedent in the ' continuation of that universal movement which 
 world. America is a land of wonders, in which \ originates in the lowest classes of the people, 
 every thing is in constant motion, and every and extends successively to all the ranks of 
 movement seems an improvement. The idea I society. It is impossible to spend more efforts 
 of novelty is there iridissolubly connected with j in the pursuit of enjoyment." 
 the idea of amelioration. No natural boundary j The great system of nature thus expands to 
 Seems to be set to the efforts of man ; and what! our view. The democratic principle is the 
 is not yet done is only what he has not yet great moving power which expels from the 
 attempted to do. j old established centres of civilization the race 
 
 "This perpetual change which goes on in of men to distant and unpeopled regions ; which 
 the United States, these frequent vicissitudes in the ancient world spread it with the Athe- 
 of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen nian galleys along the shores of the Mediter- 
 fluctuations in private and in public wealth, ranean, and with the Roman legions penetrated 
 serve to keep the minds of the citizens in aj the dark and savage forests of central Europe; 
 perpetual state of feverish agitation, which which laid the foundation, in the kingdoms 
 admirably invigorates their exertions, and formed out of its provinces, of the supremacy 
 keeps them in a state of excitement above the ; of modern Europe, and is now with the British 
 ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of j navy extending as far as the waters of the 
 an American is passed like a game of chance, ' ocean roll ; peopling at once the new continent 
 a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. As the same | of Australasia, and supplanting the sable mil- 
 causes are continually in operation through- j lions of Africa ; piercing the primeval forests 
 
 out the country, they ultimately impart an 
 irresistible impulse to the national character. 
 The American, taken as a chance specimen 
 of his countrymen, must then be a man of 
 singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, 
 fond of adventure, and above all of innovation. 
 The same bent is manifest in all that he does ; 
 he introduces it into his political laws, his re- 
 ligious doctrines, his theories of social eco- 
 
 of Canada, and advancing with unceasing 
 velocity towards the rocky mountains of 
 America. Nor is it only by the subjects of 
 Britain that this impelling force is felt. It 
 exists in equal force among their descendants ; 
 and from the seats where the Puritan con- 
 temporaries of Cromwell first sought an asy- 
 lum from English oppression, an incessant 
 craving, an unseen power, is for ever impel- 
 
 nomy, and his domestic occupations; he bears ling multitudes to the yet untrodden forests of 
 it with him in the depth of the back-woods, as the west. 
 
 ; It cannot be denied that the British race 
 
 well as in the business of the city. It is this 
 same passion, applied to maritime commerce, 
 which makes him the cheapest and the quick- 
 est trader in the world. 
 
 "It is not impossible to conceive the sur- 
 passing liberty which the Americans enjoy; 
 
 has acquired an amazing preponderance over 
 all the other European races in the New 
 World; and that it is very superior to them in 
 civilization, in industry, and in power. As 
 long as it is only surrounded by desert or 
 
 some idea may likewise be formed of the ex- thinly-peopled countries, as long as it en- 
 treme equality which subsists amongst them, \ counters no dense population upon its route, 
 but the political activity which pervades the ! through which it cannot work its way, it will 
 
 United States must be seen in order to be 
 understood. No sooner do you set foot upon 
 the American soil than you are stunned by a 
 kind of tumult; a confused clamour is heard 
 on every side ; and a thousand simultaneous 
 voices demand the immediate satisfaction of 
 their social wants. Every thing is in motion 
 around you : here, the people of one quarter 
 
 assuredly continue to spread. The lines 
 marked out by treaties will not stop it ; but it 
 will everywhere transgress these imaginary 
 barriers. 
 
 " The geographical position of the British 
 race in the New World is peculiarly favoura- 
 ble to its rapid increase. Above its northern 
 frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend ; 
 
 of a town are met to decide upon the building | and a few degrees below its southern confines 
 of a church; there, the election of a repre- lies the burning climate of the Equator. The 
 sentative is going on; a little further, the I Anglo-Americans are therefore placed in the 
 delegates of district are posting to the town in most temperate and habitable zone of the 
 order to consult upon some local improve- continent." 
 
 ments ; or in another place the labourers of a 
 village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon 
 
 " The distance from Lake Superior to the 
 Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47lh to the 
 
 the project of a road or a public school. Meet- ! 30th degree of latitude, a distance of more than 
 ings are called for the sole purpose of declar- twelve hundred miles, as the bird flies. The 
 ing their disapprobation of the line of conduct frontier of the United States winds along the 
 pursued by the government; whilst, in other i whole of this immense line; sometimes falling 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 l^rH^e. Wha,ca 
 from havr 
 
 within its limits, but more frequently extending ] inhabitants to 
 
 far beyond it into the waste. It has been cal- can prevent th 
 
 culated that the whites advance every year a numerous a pt 
 
 mean distance of seventeen miles along the "The time will 
 
 whole of this vast boundary. Obstacles, such hundred and fifty million? 
 
 as an unproductive district, a lake, or an In- ing in North America, equal in condition, the 
 
 dian nation unexpectedly encountered, are | progeny of one race, owing their origin to the 
 
 sometimes met with. The advancing column | same cause, and preserving the same civiliza- 
 
 then halts for a while; its two extremities fall tion, the same language, the same religion, the 
 
 back upon themselves, and as soon t 
 are re-united they proceed onwards. 
 
 they 
 This 
 
 gradual and continuous progress of the Eu- 
 ropean race towards the Rocky Mountains has 
 the solemnity of a providential event; it is 
 like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and 
 daily driven onwards by the hand of God. 
 
 Within this first line of conquering settlers, 
 
 same habits, the same manners, and imbued 
 with the same opinions, propagated under the 
 same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is 
 certain; and it is a fact new to tl>e world, a 
 fact fraught with such portentous consequences 
 as to baffle the efforts even of the imagina- 
 tion." 
 It is not without reason, therefore, that we 
 
 towns are built, and vast states founded. In set out in this speculation, with the observa- 
 
 1790 there were only a few thousand pioneers 
 sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi ; 
 and at the present day these valleys contain 
 as many inhabitants as were to be found in 
 the whole Union in 1790. Their population 
 amounts to nearly four millions. The city of 
 Washington was founded in 1800, in the very 
 centre of the Union; but such are the changes 
 which have taken place, that it now stands at 
 one of the extremities; and the delegates of the 
 most remote Western States are already obliged 
 to perform a journey as long as that from 
 Vienna to Paris. 
 
 " It must not, then, be imagined that the im- 
 pulse of the British race in the New World 
 can be arrested. The dismemberment of the 
 Union, and the hostilities which might ensue, 
 the abolition of republican institutions, and the 
 tyrannical government which might succeed 
 it, may retard this impulse, but they cannot 
 prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the desti- 
 nies to which that race is reserved. No power 
 upon earth can close upon the emigrants that 
 fertile wilderness, which offers resources to all 
 industry and a refuge from all want. Future 
 events, of whatever nature they may be, will 
 not deprive the Americans of their climate or 
 of their inland seas, of their great rivers or of 
 their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revo- 
 lutions, and anarchy, be able to obliterate that 
 love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise 
 which seem to be the distinctive characteristics 
 of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge 
 which guides them on their way. 
 
 " Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, 
 one event at least is sure. At a period which 
 may be said to be near, (for we are speaking 
 of the life of a nation,) the Anglo-Americans 
 will alone cover the immense space contained 
 between the polar regions and the tropics, ex- 
 tending from the coast of the Atlantic to the 
 shores of the Pacific Ocean ; the territory which 
 will probably be occupied by the Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans at some future time, may be computed to 
 equal three quarters of Europe in extent. The 
 climate of the Union is upon the whole prefer- 
 able to that of Europe, and its natural advan- 
 tages are not less great ; it is therefore evident 
 that its population will at some future time be 
 proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as 
 it is between so many different nations, and 
 torn as it has been by incessant wars and the 
 barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has 
 notwithstanding attained a population of 410 
 
 tion, that great and durable effects on human 
 affairs are destined by Providence for the Bri- 
 tish race. And it is too obvious to admit of 
 dispute, that the democratic principle amongst 
 us is the great moving power which thus im- 
 pels multitudes of civilized beings into the 
 wilderness of nature. Nothing but that prin- 
 ciple could effect such a change. Civilized 
 man rarely emigrates; under a despotic go- 
 vernment never. What colonies has China 
 sent forth to people the wastes of Asia? Are 
 the Hindoos to be found spread over the vast 
 archipelago of the Indian Ocean ? Republican. 
 Rome colonized the world; Republican Greece 
 spread the light of civilization along the shores 
 of the Mediterranean ; but Imperial Rome could 
 never maintain the numbers of its own pro- 
 vinces, and the Grecian empire slumbered on 
 with a declining population for eleven hundred 
 years. Is Italy, with its old civilized millions, 
 or France, with its ardent and redundant pea- 
 santry, the storehouse of nations from whence 
 the European race is to be diffused over the 
 world ? The colonies of Spain, torn by inter- 
 nal factions, and a prey to furious passions, 
 are in the most miserable state, and constantly 
 declining in numbers!* The tendency of 
 nations in a high state of civilization ever is to 
 remain at home ; to become wedded to the 
 luxuries and enjoyments, the habits and refine- 
 ments of an artificial state of existence, and 
 regard all other people as rude and barbarous, 
 unfit for the society, unequal to the reception 
 of civilized existence, to slumber on for ages 
 with a population, poor, redundant, and declin- 
 ing. Such has for ages been the condition of 
 the Chinese and the Hindoos, the Turks and 
 the Persians, the Spaniards and the Italians ; 
 and hence no great settlements of mankind 
 have proceeded from their loins. 
 
 What, then, is the centrifugal force which 
 counteracts this inert tendency, and impels 
 man from the heart of wealth, from the bosom 
 of refinement, from the luxuries of civilization, 
 to the forests and the wilderness? What sends 
 him forth into the desert, impelled by the 
 energy of the savage character, but yet with 
 all the powers and acquisitions of civilization 
 at his command; with the axe in his hand, 
 but the Bible in his pocket, and the rifle by 
 his side ? It is democracy which effects this 
 prodigy; it is that insatiable passion which 
 
 *TocquevUle, ii. 439. 
 
364 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 overcomes alike the habits and affections of 
 society, and sends forth the civilized pilgrim 
 far from his kindred, far from his home, far 
 from the bones of his fathers, to seek amidst 
 Transatlantic wilds that freedom and inde- 
 pendence which his native country can no 
 longer afford. It is in the restless activity 
 which it engenders, the feverish desire of ele- 
 vation which it awakens in all classes, the 
 longing after a state of existence unattainable 
 in long established states which it produces, 
 that the centrifugal force of civilized man is to 
 be found. Above an hundred thousand emi- 
 grants from Great Britain, in the year 1833, 
 settled in the British colonies ; nearly two 
 hundred thousand annually pass over to the 
 whole of North America from the British isles; 
 and amidst the strife of parties, the collision 
 of interest, the ardent hopes and chimerical 
 anticipations incident to these days of transi- 
 tion, the English race is profusely and indeli- 
 bly transplanted into the boundless wastes 
 prepared for its reception in the New World. 
 As the democratic passion, however, is thus 
 evidently the great moving power which is 
 transferring the civilized European race to the 
 remote corners of the earth, and the British 
 navy, the vast vehicle raised up to supreme 
 dominion, for its conveyance ; so it is of the 
 utmost importance to observe, that if undue 
 power is given to this impelling force, the ma- 
 chine which is performing these prodigies may 
 be destroyed, and the central force, instead of 
 operating with a steady and salutary pressure 
 upon mankind, suddenly burst its barriers, and i 
 for ever cease to affect their fortunes. A 
 spring acts upon a machine only as long as it 
 is loaded or restrained; remove the pressure, 
 and its strength ceases to exist This powerful 
 and astonishing agency of the Anglo-Saxon race 
 upon the fortunes of mankind, would be totally 
 destroyed by the triumph of democracy in the 
 British islands. Multitudes, indeed, during the 
 convulsions consequent on so calamitous an 
 event, would fly for refuge to the American 
 shores, but in the grinding and irreversible 
 despotism which would necessarily and speed- 
 ily follow its occurrence, the vital energy would 
 become extinct, which is now impelling the 
 British race into every corner of the habitable 
 earth. The stillness ,of despotism would suc- 
 ceed the agitation of passion ; the inertness of 
 aged civilization at once fall upon the bounded 
 state. From the moment that British freedom 
 is extinguished by the overthrow of aristocratic 
 influence, and the erection of the Commons 
 into despotic power, the sacred fire which now 
 animates the vast fabric of its dominion will 
 become extinct, and England will cease to 
 direct the destinies of half the globe. The 
 Conservative party in this country, therefore, 
 are not merely charged with the preservation 
 of its own freedom they are intrusted with 
 the destinies of mankind, and on the success 
 of their exertions it depends whether the demo- 
 cratic spirit in these islands is to be pre- 
 served, as heretofore, in that subdued form 
 which has directed its energy to the civiliza- 
 tion of mankind, or to burst forth in those 
 wild excesses which turn only to its own ruin, 
 and the desolation of the world. 
 
 While the naval strength and colonial domi- 
 nions of England have steadily and unceas- 
 ingly advanced in Western Europe, and its 
 influence is in consequence spread over all the 
 maritime regions of the globe, another, and an 
 equally irresistible power, has risen up in the 
 eastern hemisphere. If all the contests of 
 centuries have turned to the advantage of the 
 English navy, all the continental strifes have 
 as unceasingly augmented the strength of RUS- 
 SIA. From the time of the Czar Peter, when 
 it first emerged from obscurity to take a leading 
 part in continental affairs, to the present mo- 
 ment, its progress has been unbroken. Alone, 
 of all other states, during that long period it 
 has experienced no reverses, but constantly 
 advanced in power, territory, and resources ; 
 for even the peace of Tilsit, which followed 
 the disasters of Austerlitz and Friedland, was 
 attended with an accession of territory. Dur- 
 ing that period it has successively swallowed 
 up Courland and Livonia, Poland, Finland, the 
 Crimea, the Ukraine, Wallachia, and Molda- 
 via. Its southern frontier is now washed by 
 the Danube ; its eastern is within fifty leagues 
 of Berlin and Vienna; its advanced ports in 
 the Baltic are almost within sight of Stock- 
 holm ; its south-eastern boundary, stretching 
 far over the Caucasus, sweeps down to Erivan 
 and the foot of Mount Arrarat Persia and 
 Turkey are irrevocably subjected to its influ- 
 ence; a solemn treaty has given it the com- 
 mand of the Dardanelles ; a subsidiary Mus- 
 covite force has visited Scutari, and rescued 
 the Osmanlis from destruction ; and the Sultan 
 Mahmoud retains Constantinople only as the 
 viceroy of the northern autocrat. 
 
 The politicians of the day assert that Russia 
 will fall to pieces, and its power cease to be 
 formidable to Western Europe or Central Asia. 
 They never were more completely mistaken. 
 Did Macedonia fall to pieces before it had sub- 
 dued the Grecian commonwealths; or Persia 
 before it had conquered the Assyrian mon- 
 archy ; or the Goths and Vandals before they 
 had subverted the Roman empire 1 It is the 
 general pressure of the north upon the south, 
 not the force of any single state, which is the 
 weight that is to be apprehended ; that pres- 
 sure will not be lessened, but on the contrary 
 greatly increased, if the vast Scythian tribes 
 I should separate into different empires. Though 
 one Moscovite throne were to be established at 
 j St. Petersburg, a second at Moscow, and a 
 | third at Constantinople, the general pressure 
 j of the Russian race, upon the southern states 
 ! of Europe and Asia, would not be one whit 
 diminished. Still the delight of a warmer cli- 
 mate, the riches of long established civiliza- 
 tion, the fruits and wines of the south, the 
 ! women of Italy or Circassia, would attract the 
 I brood of winter to the regions of the sun. The 
 ! various tribes of ths German race, the Gothic 
 I and Vandal swarms, the Huns and the Ostro- 
 ; goths, were engaged in fierce and constant 
 hostility with each other; and it was generally 
 defeat and pressure from behind which im- 
 pelled them upon their southern neighbours; 
 but that did not prevent them from bursting 
 the barriers of the Danube and the Rhine, and 
 i overwhelming the civilization, and wealth, and 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 365 
 
 discipline of the Roman empire. Such inter- 
 nal divisions only magnify the strength of the 
 northern race by training them to the use of 
 arms, and augmenting their military skill by 
 constant exercise against each other; just as 
 the long continued internal wars of the Euro- 
 pean nations have established an irresistible 
 superiority of their forces over those of the 
 other quarters of the globe. In the end, the 
 weight of the north thus matured, drawn forth 
 and disciplined, will ever be turned to the 
 fields of southern conquest. 
 
 The moving power with these vast bodies 
 of men is the lust of conquest, and a passion 
 for southern enjoyment. Democracy is un- 
 heeded or unknown amongst them ; if im- 
 ported from foreign lands it languishes and 
 expires amidst the rigours of the climate. The 
 energy and aspirations of men are concen- 
 trated on conquest; a passion more natural, 
 more durable, more universal than the demo- 
 cratic vigour of advanced civilization. It 
 speaks a language intelligible to the rudest of 
 men; and rouses the passions of universal 
 vehemence. Great changes may take place 
 in human affairs ; but the time will never 
 come when northern valour will not press on 
 southern wealth; or refined corruption not 
 require the renovating influence of indigent 
 regeneration. 
 
 This then is the other great moving power 
 which in these days of transition is changing 
 the destinies of mankind. Rapid as is the 
 growth of the British race in America, it is 
 not more rapid than that of the Russian in 
 Europe and Asia. Fifty millions of men now 
 furnish recruits to the Moscovite standards ; 
 but their race doubles in every half century ; 
 and before the year 1900, one hundred millions 
 of men will be ready to pour from the frozen 
 plains of Scythia on the plains of Central Asia 
 and southern Europe. Occasional events may 
 check or for a while turn aside the wave ; but 
 its ultimate progress in these directions is cer- 
 tain and irresistible. Before two centuries are 
 over, Mohammedanism will be banished from 
 Turkey, Asia Minor, and Persia, and a hundred 
 millions of Christians will be settled in the 
 regions now desolated by the standards of the 
 Prophet. Their advance is as swift, as un- 
 ceasing as that of the British race to the rocky 
 belt of western America. 
 
 " There are, at the present time, two great 
 nations in the world, which seem to tend to- 
 wards the same end, although they started 
 from different points : I allude to th Russians 
 and the Americans. Both of them have grown 
 up unnoticed: and whilst the attention of 
 mankind was directed elsewhere, they have 
 suddenly assumed a most prominent place 
 amongst the nations ; and the world learned 
 their existence and their greatness at almost 
 the same time. 
 
 "All other nations seem to have nearly 
 reached their natural limits, and only to be 
 charged with the maintenance of their power; 
 but these are still in the act of growth, all the 
 others are stopped, or continue to advance 
 with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding 
 with ease and with celerity along a path to 
 which the human eye can assign no term. 
 
 The American struggles against the natural 
 obstacles which oppose him ; the adversaries 
 of the Russian are men : the former combats 
 the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civi- 
 lization with all its weapons and its arts ; the 
 conquests of the one are therefore gained by 
 the plough-share; those of the other by the 
 sword. The Anglo-American relies upon per- 
 sonal interest to accomplish his ends, and 
 gives free scope to the unguided exertions and 
 common sense of the citizens ; the Russian 
 centres all the authority of society in a single 
 arm; the principal instrument of the former 
 is freedom ; of the latter, servitude. Their 
 starting-point is different, and their courses 
 are not the same ; yet each of them seems to 
 be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway 
 the destinies of half the globe." 
 
 There is something solemn and evidently 
 providential in this ceaseless advance of the 
 lords of the earth and the sea, into the deserted 
 regions of the earth. The hand of Almighty 
 power is distinctly visible, not only in the un- 
 broken advance of both on their respective 
 elements, but in the evident adaptation of the 
 passions, habits, and government of each to 
 the ends for which they were severally des- 
 tined in the designs of nature. Would Rus- 
 sian conquest have ever peopled the dark and 
 untrodden forests of North America, or the 
 deserted Savannahs of Australasia? Would 
 the passions and the desires of the north have 
 ever led them into the abode of the beaver and 
 the buffalo ? Never ; for aught that their pas- 
 sions could have done these regions must have 
 remained in primeval solitude and silence to 
 the end of time. Could English democracy 
 ever have penetrated the half-peopled, half- 
 desert regions of Asia, and Christian civiliza- 
 tion, spreading in peaceful activity, have sup- 
 planted the Crescent in the original seats of the 
 human race 7 Never; the isolated colonist, 
 with his axe and his Bible, would have been 
 swept away by the Mameluke or the Spahi, 
 and civilization, in its peaceful guise, would 
 have perished under the squadrons of the 
 Crescent. For aught that democracy could 
 have done for Central Asia it must have re- 
 mained the abode of anarchy and misrule to 
 the end of human existence. But peaceful 
 Christianity, urged on by democratic passions, 
 pierced the primeval solitude of the American 
 forests; and warlike Christianity, stimulated 
 by northern conquest, was fitted to subdue 
 Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Bible 
 and the printing press converted the wilder- 
 ness of North America into the abode of 
 Christian millions; the Moscovite battalions, 
 marching under the standard of the Cross, 
 subjugated the already peopled regions of the 
 Mussulman faith. Not without reason then 
 did the British navy and the Russian army 
 emerge triumphant from the desperate strife 
 of the French Revolution ; for on the victory of 
 each depended the destinies of half the globe. 
 
 Democratic institutions will not and cannot 
 exist permanently in North America. The 
 frightful anarchy which has prevailed in the 
 southern states, since the great interests de- 
 pendent on slave emancipation were brought 
 into jeopardy the irresistible sway of the 
 2 a 2 
 
ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 majority, and the rapid tendency of that ma- 
 jority to deeds of atrocity and blood the in- 
 creasing jealousy, on mercantile grounds, of 
 the northern and southern slates, all demon- 
 strate that the Union cannot permanently hold 
 together, and that the innumerable millions of 
 the Anglo-American race must be divided into 
 separate states, like the descendants of the 
 Gothic conquerors of Europe. Out of this 
 second great settlement of mankind will arise 
 separate kingdoms, and interests, and passions 
 as out of the first. But democratic habits and 
 desires will still prevail, and long after neces- 
 sity and the passions of an advanced stage of 
 civilization have established firm and aristo- 
 cratic governments, founded on the sway of 
 property in the old states, republican ambition 
 and jealousy will not cease to impel millions 
 to the great wave that approaches the Rocky 
 Mountains. Democratic ideas will not be mo- 
 derated in the New World, till they have per- 
 formed their destined end, and brought the 
 Christian race to the shores of the Pacific. 
 
 Arbitrary institutions will not for ever pre- 
 vail in the Russian empire. As successive 
 provinces and kingdoms are added to their vast 
 dominions as their sway extends over the 
 regions of the south, the abode of wealth and 
 long-established civilization, the passion for 
 conquest will expire. Satiety will extinguish 
 this as it does all other desires. With the ac- 
 quisition of wealth, and the settlement in fixed 
 abodes, the desire of protection from arbitrary 
 power will spring up, and the passion of free- 
 dom will arise as it did in Greece, Italy, and 
 modern Europe. Free institutions will ulti- 
 mately appear in the realms conquered by Mos- 
 covite, as they did in those won by Gothic va- 
 lour. But the passions and desires of an 
 earlier stage of existence will long agitate the 
 millions of the Russo-Asiatic race ; and after 
 democratic desires have arisen, and free in- 
 stitutions exist in its oldest provinces, the 
 wave of northern conquest will still be pressed 
 on by semi-barbarous hordes from its remoter 
 dominions. Freedom will gradually arise out 
 of security and repose ; but the fever of con- 
 quest will not be finally extinguished till it has 
 performed its destined mission, and the stand- 
 ards of the Cross are brought down to the In- 
 dian Ocean. 
 
 The French Revolution was the greatest and 
 the most stupendous event of modern times ; 
 it is from the throes consequent on its explo- 
 sion that all the subsequent changes in human 
 affairs have arisen. It sprung up in the spirit 
 of infidelity ; it was early steeped in crime ; it 
 reached the unparalleled height of general 
 atheism, and shook all the thrones of the world 
 by the fiery passions which it awakened. What 
 was the final result of this second revolt of 
 Lucifer, the Prince of the Morning? Was it 
 that a great and durable impression on human 
 affairs was made by the infidel race? Was 
 St. Michael at last chained by the demon ? 
 No ! it was overruled by Almighty Power; on 
 either side it found the brazen walls which it 
 could not pass ; it sunk in the conflict, and 
 ceased to have any farther direct influence on 
 human affairs. In defiance of all its efforts 
 the British navy and the Russian army rose 
 invincible above its arms ; the champions of 
 
 Christianity in the east and the leaders of re- 
 ligious freedom in the west, came forth, like 
 giants refreshed with wine, from the termina- 
 | tion of the fight. The infidel race which 
 I aimed at the dominion of the world, served 
 ! only by their efforts to increase the strength 
 1 of its destined rulers ; and from amidst the 
 ruins of its power emerged the ark, which was 
 to carry the tidings of salvation to the west- 
 ern, and the invincible host which was to 
 spread the glad tidings of the gospel through 
 the eastern world. 
 
 Great, however, as were the powers thus let 
 into human affairs, their operation must have 
 been comparatively slow, and their influence 
 inconsiderable, but for another circumstance 
 which at the same time came into action. But 
 a survey of human affairs leads to the conclu- 
 sion, that when important changes in the social 
 world are about to take place, a lever is not 
 long of being supplied to work out the prodigy. 
 With the great religious change of the sixteenth 
 century arose the art of printing; with the 
 vast revolutions of the nineteenth, an agent of 
 equal efficacy was provided. At the time, when 
 the fleets of England were riding omnipotent 
 on the ocean, at the very moment when the 
 gigantic hosts of infidel and revolutionary 
 power were scattered by the icy breath of 
 winter, STEAM NAVIGATION was brought into 
 action, and an agent appeared upon the theatre 
 of the universe, destined to break through the 
 most formidable barriers of nature. In Janu- 
 ary, 1812, not one steam vessel existed in the 
 world; now, on the. Mississippi alone, there 
 afe a hundred and sixty. Vain' hereafter are 
 the waterless deserts of Persia, or the snowy 
 ridges of the Himalaya vain the impenetra- 
 ble forests of America, or the deadly jungles 
 of Asia. Even the death bestrodden gales of 
 the Niger must yield to the force of scientific 
 enterprise, and the fountains of the Nile 
 themselves emerge from the awful obscurity 
 of six thousand years. The great rivers of 
 the world are now the highways of civilization 
 and religion. The Russian battalions will 
 securely commit themselves to the waves of 
 the Euphrates, and waft again to the plains of 
 Shinar the blessings of regular government 
 and a beneficent faith ; remounting the St. 
 Lawrence and the Missouri, the British emi- 
 grants will carry into the solitudes of the far 
 west the Bible, and the wonders of English 
 genius. Spectators of, or actors in, so mar- 
 vellous a progress, let us act as becomes men 
 called to such mighty destinies in human 
 affairs ; let us never forget that it is to regulated 
 freedom alone that these wonders are to be as- 
 cribed ; and contemplate in the degraded and 
 impotent condition of France, when placed 
 beside these giants of the earth, the natural 
 and deserved result of the revolutionary pas- 
 sions and unbridled ambition which extin- 
 guished prospects once as fair, and destroyed 
 nergies once as powerful, as that which now 
 directs the destinies of half the globe.* 
 
 * Some of the preceding paragraphs have been trans- 
 ferred into fhe last chapter of the History of Europe 
 during the French Revolution : but they are retained 
 here, where they originally appeared, as essentially con- 
 nected with the subject treated of and speculations 
 hazarded in this volume. 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 GUIZOT.* 
 
 MACHIAVEL was the first historian who seems 
 to have formed a conception of the philosophy 
 of history. Before his time, the narrative of 
 human events was little more than a series of 
 biographies, imperfectly connected together by 
 a few slight sketches of the empires on which 
 the actions of their heroes were exerted. In 
 this style of history, the ancient writers were, 
 and to the end of time probably will continue 
 to be, altogether inimitable. Their skill in 
 narrating a story, in developing the events of 
 a life, in tracing the fortunes of a city or a 
 state, as they were raised by a succession of 
 illustrious patriots, or sunk by a series of op- 
 pressive tyrants, has never been approached in 
 modern times. The histories of Xenophon and 
 Thucydides, of Livy and Sallust, of Caesar and 
 Tacitus, are all more or Jess formed on this 
 model ; and the more extended view of history, 
 as embracing an account of the countries the 
 transactions of which were narrated, originally 
 formed, and to a great part executed by the 
 father of history, Herodotus, appears to have 
 been, in an unaccountable manner, lost by his 
 successors. 
 
 In these immortal works, however, human 
 transactions are uniformly regarded as they 
 have been affected by, or called forth the 
 agency of, individual men. We are never 
 presented with the view of society in a mass; 
 as influenced by a series of causes and effects 
 independent of the agency of individual man 
 or, to speak more correctly, in the development 
 of which the agency is an unconscious, and 
 often almost a passive, instrument. Constantly 
 regarding history as an extensive species of 
 biography, they not only did not withdraw the 
 eye to the distance necessary to obtain such a 
 general view of the progress of things, but they 
 did the reverse. Their great object was to 
 bring the eye so close as to see the whole vir- 
 tues or vices of the principal figures which 
 they exhibited on their moving panorama; and 
 in so doing, they rendered it incapable of per- 
 ceiving, at the same time, the movement of the 
 whole social body of which they formed a part. 
 Even Livy, in his pictured narrative of Roman 
 victories, is essentially biographical. His 
 inimitable work owes its enduring celebrity to 
 the charming episodes of individuals, or gra- 
 phic pictures of particular events, with which 
 it abounds ; scarce any general views on the 
 progress of society, or the causes to which its 
 astonishing progress in the Roman state was 
 owing, are to be found. In the introduction to 
 the life of Catiline, Sallust has given, with 
 unequalled power, a sketch of the causes which 
 corrupted the republic ; and if his work had 
 been pursued in the same style, it would indeed 
 have been a philosophical history. But neither 
 the Catiline nor the Jugurthine war are histo- 
 ries ; they are chapters of history, containing 
 two interesting biographies. Scattered through 
 
 * Blackwood's Magazine, Dec. 1844. 
 
 the writings of Tacitus are to be found nume- 
 rous caustic and profound observations on 
 human nature, and the increasing vices and 
 selfishness of a corrupted age; but like the 
 maxims of Rochefoucault, it is to individual, 
 not general, humanity that they refer; and 
 they strike us as so admirably just, because 
 they do not describe general causes operating 
 upon society as a body which often make 
 little impression, save on a few reflecting 
 minds but strike direct to the human heart, 
 in a way which comes home to the breast of 
 every individual who reads them. 
 
 Never was a juster observation than that the 
 human mind is never quiescent; it may not 
 give the external symptoms of action, but it 
 does not cease to have the internal movement: 
 it sleeps, but even then it dreams. Writers 
 innumerable have declaimed on the night of 
 the Middle Ages on the deluge of barbarism 
 which, under the Goths, flooded the world on 
 the torpor of the human intellect, under the 
 combined pressure of savage violence and 
 priestly superstition ; yet this was precisely 
 the period when the minds of men, deprived of 
 external vent, turned inwards on themselves; 
 and that the learned and thoughtful, shut out 
 from any active part in society by the general 
 prevalence of military violence, sought, in the 
 solitude of the cloister, employment in reflect- 
 ing on the mind itself, and the general causes 
 which, under its guidance, operated upon so- 
 ciety. The influence of this great change in 
 the direction of thought, at once appeared 
 when knowledge, liberated from the monastery 
 and the university, again took its place among 
 the affairs of men. Machiavel in Italy, and 
 Bacon in England, for the first time in the an- 
 nals of knowledge, reasoned upon human 
 affairs as a science. They spoke of the minds 
 of men as permanently governed by certain 
 causes, and of known principles always lead- 
 ing to the same results ; they treated of politics 
 as a science in which certain known laws ex- 
 isted, and could be discovered, as in mechanics 
 and hydraulics. This was a great step in ad- 
 vance, and demonstrated that the superior age 
 of the world, and the wider sphere to which 
 political observation had now been applied, 
 had permitted the accumulation of such an in- 
 creased store of facts, as permitted deductions, 
 founded on experience, to be formed in regard 
 to the affairs of nations. Still more, it showed 
 that the attention of writers had been drawn to 
 the general causes of human progress ; that 
 they reasoned on the actions of men as a sub- 
 ject of abstract thought; regarded effects for- 
 merly produced as likely to recur from a similar 
 combination of circumstances; and formed 
 conclusions for the regulation of future con- 
 duct, from the results of past experience. 
 This tendency is, in an especial manner, con- 
 spicuous in the Discorsi of Machiavel, where 
 certain general propositions are stated, de- 
 duced, indeed, from the events of Roman story, 
 
368 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 but announced as lasting truths, applicable to 
 every future generation and circumstances of 
 men. In depth of view and justness of obser- 
 vation, these views of the Florentine statesman 
 never were surpassed. Bacon's essays relate, 
 for the most part, to subjects of morals, or do- 
 mestic and private life ; but not unfrequently 
 he touches on the general concerns of nations, 
 and with the same profound observation of the 
 past, and philosophic anticipation of the future. 
 Voltaire professed to elevate history in France 
 from the jejune and trifling details of genealogy, 
 courts, wars, and negotiations, in which it 
 had, hitherto, in his country, been involved, to 
 the more general contemplation of arts and 
 philosophy, and the progress of human affairs ; 
 and, in some respects, he certainly effected a 
 great reformation on the ponderous annalists 
 who had preceded him. But the foundation 
 of his history was still biography ; he regarded 
 human events only as they were grouped round 
 two or three great men, or as they were influ- 
 enced by the speculations of men of letters and 
 science. The history of France he stigmatized 
 as savage and worthless till the reign of Louis 
 XIV.; the Russians he looked upon as no bet- 
 ter than barbarians till the time of Peter the 
 Great. He thought the philosophers alone all 
 in all ; till they arose, and a sovereign ap- 
 peared who collected them round his throne, 
 and shed on them the rays of royal favour, 
 human events were not worth narrating ; they 
 were merely the contests of one set of savages 
 plundering another. Religion, in his eyes, was 
 a mere priestly delusion, to enslave and be- 
 nighten mankind ; from its oppression the 
 greatest miseries of modern times had flowed; 
 the first step in the emancipation of the human 
 mind was to chase for ever from the earth 
 those sacerdotal tyrants. The most free- 
 thinking historian will now admit, that these 
 views are essentially erroneous ; he will allow 
 that, viewing Christianity merely as a human 
 institution, its effect in restraining the violence 
 of feudal anarchy was incalculable ; long ante- 
 rior to the date of the philosophers, he will look 
 for the broad foundation on which national 
 character and institutions, for good or for evil, 
 have been formed. Voltaire was of great ser- 
 vice to history, by turning it from courts and 
 camps to the progress of literature, science, 
 and the arts to the delineation of manners, 
 and the preparation of anecdotes descriptive 
 of character; but notwithstanding all his talent, 
 he never got a glimpse of the general causes 
 which influence society. He gave us the his- 
 tory of philosophy, but not the philosophy of 
 history. 
 
 The ardent genius and pictorial eye of Gib- 
 bon rendered him an incomparable delineator 
 of events; and his powerful mind made him 
 seize the general and characteristic features of 
 society and manners, as they appear in dif- 
 ferent parts of the world, as well as the traits 
 of individual greatness. His descriptions of 
 the Roman Empire, in the zenith of its power, 
 as it existed in the time of Augustus of its de- 
 cline and long-protracted old age, under Con- 
 stantine and his successors on the Byzantine 
 throne of the manners of the pastoral nations, 
 who, under different names, and for a succes- 
 
 sion of ages, pressed upon and at last over- 
 turned the empire of the Saracens, who, 
 issuing from the sands of Arabia, with the 
 Koran in one hand and the cirneter in the 
 other, urged on their resistless course, till they 
 were arrested by the Atlantic on the one side 
 and the Indian ocean on the other of the stern 
 crusaders, who, nursed amid the cloistered 
 shades and castellated realms of Europe, strug- 
 gled with that devastating horde " when 'twas 
 strongest, and ruled it when 'twas wildest" 
 of the long agony, silent decay, and ultimate 
 resurrection of the Eternal City are so many 
 immortal pictures, which, to the end of the 
 world, will fascinate every ardent and imagin- 
 ative mind. But, notwithstanding this incom- 
 parable talent for general and characteristic 
 description, he had not the mind necessary for 
 ical analysis of the series of causes 
 
 a philosoph 
 which infl 
 
 religion with a jaundiced and prejudiced eye 
 the fatal bequest of his age and French educa- 
 tion, unworthy alike of his native candour and 
 inherent strength of understanding. He had 
 profound philosophic ideas, and occasionally 
 let them out with admirable effect ; but the turn 
 of his mind was essentially descriptive, and 
 his powers were such in that brilliant depart- 
 ment, that they wiled him from the less inviting 
 contemplation of general causes. We turn 
 over his fascinating pages without wearying; 
 but without ever discovering the general pro- 
 gress or apparent tendency of human affairs. 
 We look in vain for the profound reflections 
 of Machiavel on the permanent results of cer- 
 tain political combinations or experiments. 
 He has led us through a " mighty maze," but 
 he has made no attempt to show it "not without 
 a plan." 
 
 Hume is commonly called a philosophical 
 historian, and so he is ; but he has even less 
 than Gibbon the power of unfolding the gene- 
 ral causes which influence the progress of 
 human events. He was not, properly speak- 
 ing, a philosophic historian, but a philosopher 
 writing history and these are very different 
 things. The experienced statesman will often 
 make a better delineator of the progress of 
 human affairs than the philosophic recluse ; 
 for he is more practically acquainted with 
 their secret springs: it was not in the schools, 
 but the forum or the palace, that Sallust, Ta- 
 citus, and Burke acquired their deep insight 
 into the human heart. Hume was gifted with 
 admirable sagacity in political economy; and 
 it is the good sense and depth of his views on 
 that important subject, then for the first time 
 brought to bear on the annals of man, that has 
 chiefly gained for him, and with justice, the 
 character of a philosophic historian. To this 
 may be added the inimitable clearness and 
 rhetorical powers with which he has stated 
 the principal arguments for and against the 
 great changes in the English institutions 
 which it fell to his lot to recount arguments 
 far abler than were either used by, or occurred 
 to, the actors by whom they were brought 
 about ; for it is seldom that a Hume is found 
 in the councils of men. With equal ability, 
 too, he has given periodical sketches of man- 
 ners, customs, and habits, mingled with valu- 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 369 
 
 able details on finance, commerce, and prices 
 all elements, and most important ones, in 
 the formation of philosophical history. We 
 owe a deep debt of gratitude to the man who 
 has rescued these valuable facts from the 
 ponderous folios where they were slumbering 
 in forgotten obscurity, and brought them into 
 the broad light of philosophic observation and 
 popular narrative. But, notwithstanding all 
 this, Hume is far from being gifted with the 
 philosophy of history. He has collected or 
 prepared many of the facts necessary for the 
 science, but he has made little progress in it 
 himself. He was essentially a skeptic. He 
 aimed rather at spreading doubts than shed- 
 ding light. Like Voltaire and Gibbon, he was 
 scandalously prejudiced and unjust on the 
 subject of religion ; and to write modern his- 
 tory without correct views on that subject, is 
 like playing Hamlet without the character of 
 the Prince of Denmark. He was too indolent 
 to acquire the vast store of facts indispensable 
 for correct generalization on the varied theatre 
 of human affairs, and often drew hasty and 
 incorrect conclusions from the events which 
 particularly came under his observation. Thus 
 the repeated indecisive battles between the 
 fleets of Charles II. and the Dutch, drew from 
 him the observation, apparently justified by 
 their results, that sea-fights are seldom so im- 
 portant or decisive as those at land. The fact 
 is just the reverse. Witness the battle of Sa- 
 lamis, which repelled from Europe the tide of 
 Persian invasion; that of Actium, which gave 
 a master to the Roman world; that of Sluys, 
 which exposed France to the dreadful English 
 invasions, begun under Edward III.; that of 
 Lepanto, which rolled back from Christendom 
 the wave of Mohammedan conquest ; the defeat 
 of the Armada, which permanently established 
 the Reformation in Northern Europe; that of 
 La Hogue, which broke the maritime strength 
 of Louis XIV.; that of Trafalgar, which for 
 ever took " ships, colonies, and commerce" 
 from Napoleon, and spread them with the 
 British colonial empire over half the globe. 
 
 Montesquieu owes his colossal reputation 
 chiefly to his Esprit des Loix ; but the Grandeur 
 et Decadence des Remains is by much the greater 
 work. It has never attained nearly the repu- 
 tation in this country which it deserves, either 
 in consequence of the English mind being less 
 partial than the French to the philosophy of 
 human affairs, or, as is more probable, from 
 the system of education at our universities 
 being so exclusively devoted to the study of 
 words, that our scholars seldom arrive at the 
 knowledge of things. It is impossible to ima- 
 gine a work in which the philosophy of his- 
 tory is more ably condensed, or where there 
 is exhibited, in a short space, a more profound 
 view of the general causes to which the long- 
 continued greatness and ultimate decline of that 
 celebrated people were owing. It is to be re- 
 gretted only that he did not come to modern 
 times and other ages with the same masterly 
 survey; the information collected in the Esprit 
 des Loix would have furnished him with ample 
 materials for such a work. In that noble trea- 
 tise, the same philosophic and generalizing 
 spirit is conspicuous ; but there is too great a 
 
 love of system, an obvious partiality for fan- 
 ciful analogies, and, not unfrequently, conclu- 
 sions hastily deduced from insufficient data. 
 These errors, the natural result of a philoso- 
 phic and profound mind wandering without a 
 guide in the mighty maze of human transac- 
 tions, are entirely avoided in the Grandeur et 
 Decadence des R&rnains, where he was retained 
 by authentic history to a known train of 
 events, and where his imaginative spirit and 
 marked turn for generalization found suffi- 
 cient scope, and no more, to produce the 
 most perfect commentary on the annals of a 
 single people of which the human mind can 
 boast. 
 
 Bossuet, in his Universal History, aimed at a 
 higher object; he professed to give nothing 
 less than a development of the plan of Provi- 
 dence, in the government of human affairs, 
 during the whole of antiquity, and down to 
 the reign of Charlemagne. The idea was 
 magnificent, and the mental powers, as well 
 as eloquence, of the Bishop of Meaux pro- 
 mised the greatest results from such an under- 
 taking. But the execution has by no means 
 corresponded to the conception. Voltaire has 
 said, that he professed to give a view of uni- 
 versal history, and he has only given the his- 
 tory of the Jews ; and there is too much truth 
 in the observation. He never got out of the 
 fetters of his ecclesiastical education ; the 
 Jews were the centre round which he sup- 
 posed all other nations revolved. His mind 
 was polemical, not philosophic; a great theo- 
 logian, he was but an indifferent historian. 
 In one particular, indeed, his observations are 
 admirable, and, at times, in the highest degree 
 impressive. He never loses sight of the di- 
 vine superintendence of human affairs ; he 
 sees in all the revolutions of empires the 
 progress of a mighty plan for the ultimate 
 redemption of mankind; and he traces the 
 workings of this superintending power in all 
 the transactions of man. But it may be doubt- 
 ed whether he took the correct view of this 
 sublime but mysterious subject. He supposes 
 the divine agency to influence directly the af- 
 fairs of men not through the medium of ge- 
 neral laws, or the adaptation of our active 
 propensities to the varying circumstances of 
 our condition. Hence his views strike at the 
 freedom of human actions; he makes men 
 and nations little more than the puppets by 
 which the Deity works out the great drama 
 of human affairs. Without disputing the re- 
 ality of such immediate agency in some par- 
 ticular cases, it may safely be affirmed, that 
 by far the greater part of the affairs of men 
 are left entirely to their own guidance, and 
 that their actions are overruled, not directed, 
 by Almighty power to work out the purposes 
 oif Divine beneficence. 
 
 That which Bossuet left undone, Robertson 
 did. The first volume of his Char es V. may 
 justly be regarded as the greatest step which 
 the human mind had yet made in the philoso- 
 phy of history. Extending his views beyond 
 the admirable survey which Montesquieu had 
 given of the rise and decline of the Roman 
 empire, he aimed at giving a view of the pro- 
 gress of society in modern times. This matter, 
 
370 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 of the progress of society, was a favourite 
 subject at that period with political philoso- 
 phers; and by combining the speculations of 
 these ingenious men with the solid basis of 
 facts which his erudition and industry had 
 worked out, Robertson succeeded in produc- 
 ing the most luminous, and at the same time 
 just, view of the progress of nations that had 
 yet been exhibited among mankind. The phi- 
 losophy of history here appeared in its full 
 lustre. Men and nations were exhibited in 
 their just proportions. Society was viewed, 
 not only in its details, but its masses; the 
 general causes which influence its progress, 
 running into or mutually affecting each other, 
 and yet all conspiring with more or less effi- 
 cacy to bring about a general result, were ex- 
 hibited in the most lucid and masterly manner. 
 The great causes which have contributed to 
 form the elements of modern society the de- 
 caying civilization of Rome the irruption of 
 the northern nations the prostration and de- 
 gradation of the conquered people the revival 
 of the military spirit with the private wars of 
 the nobles the feudal system and institution 
 of chivalry the crusades, and revival of let- 
 ters following the capture of Constantinople 
 by the Turks the invention of printing, and 
 consequent extension of knowledge to the 
 great body of the people the discovery of the 
 compass, and, with it, of America, by Colum- 
 bus, and doubling of the Cape of Good Hope 
 by Vasco de Gama the invention of gunpow- 
 der, and prodigious change thereby effected in 
 the implements of human destruction are all 
 there treated in the most luminous manner, 
 and, in general, with the justest discrimina- 
 tion. The vast agency of general causes upon 
 the progress of mankind now became appa- 
 rent : unseen powers, like the deities of Homer 
 in the war of Troy, were seen to mingle at 
 every step with the tide of sublunary affairs ; 
 and so powerful and irresistible does their 
 agency, when once revealed, appear, that we 
 are perhaps now likely to fall into the oppo- 
 site extreme, and to ascribe too little to indi- 
 vidual effort or character. Men and nations 
 seem to be alike borne forward on the surface 
 of a mighty stream, which they are equally in- 
 capable of arresting or directing; and, after 
 surveying the vain and impotent attempts of 
 individuals to extricate themselves from the 
 current, we are apt to exclaim with the philo- 
 sopher,* "He has dashed with his oar to 
 hasten the cataract; he has waved with his 
 fan to give speed to the winds." 
 
 A nearer examination, however, will con- 
 vince every candid inquirer, that individual 
 character exercises, if not a paramount, yet a 
 very powerful influence on human affairs. 
 Whoever investigates minutely any period of 
 history will find, on the one hand, that general 
 causes affecting the whole of society are in 
 constant operation ; and on the other, that 
 these general causes themselves are often set 
 in motion, or directed in their effects, by par- 
 ticular men. Thus, of what efficacy were the 
 constancy of Pitt, the foresight of Burke, the 
 arm of Nelson, the wisdom of Wellington, the 
 
 * Ferguson. 
 
 genius of Wellesley, in bringing to maturity 
 the British empire, and spreading the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, in pursuance of its appointed 
 mission, over half the globe ! What marvel- 
 lous effect had the heroism and skill of Robert 
 Bruce upon the subsequent history of Scot- 
 land, and, through it, on the fortunes of the 
 British race ! Thus biography, or the deeds 
 or thoughts of illustrious men, still forms a 
 most important, and certainly the most inte- 
 resting, part even of general history; and the 
 perfection of that noble art consists, not in the 
 exclusive delineation of individual achieve- 
 ment, or the concentration of attention on ge- 
 neral causes, but in the union of the two in 
 due proportions, as they really exist in nature, 
 and determine, by their combined operation, 
 the direction of human affairs. The talent 
 now required in the historian partakes, ac- 
 cordingly, of this two-fold character. He is 
 expected to write at once philosophy and bio- 
 graphy: to unite skill in drawing individual 
 character, the power of describing individual 
 achievements, with a clear perception of gene- 
 ral causes, and the generalizing faculty of en- 
 larged philosophy. He must combine* in his 
 mind the powers of the microscope and the 
 telescope ; be ready, like the steam-engine, at 
 one time to twist a fibre, at another to propel 
 an hundred-gun ship. Hence the rarity of 
 eminence in this branch of knowledge ; and 
 if we could conceive writer who, to the ar- 
 dent genius and descriptive powers of Gibbon, 
 should unite the lucid glance and just discri- 
 mination of Robertson, and the calm sense 
 and reasoning powers of Hume, he would 
 form a more perfect historian than ever has, 
 or probably ever will appear upon earth. 
 
 With all his generalizing powers, however, 
 Robertson fell into one defect or rather, he 
 was unable, in one respect, to extricate him- 
 self from the prejudices of his age and profes- 
 sion. He was not a freethinker on the con- 
 trary, he was a sincere and pious divine ; but 
 he lived in an age of freethinkers they had 
 the chief influence in the formation of a wri- 
 ter's fame ; and he was too desirous of literary 
 reputation to incur the hazard of ridicule or 
 contempt, by assigning too prominent a place 
 to the obnoxious topic. Thence he has as- 
 cribed far too little influence to Christianity, in 
 restraining the ferocity of savage manners, 
 preserving alive the remains of ancient know- 
 ledge, and laying in general freedom the broad 
 and deep foundations of European society. 
 He has not overlooked these topics, but he has 
 not given them their due place, nor assigned 
 them their proper weight. He lived and died 
 in comparative retirement; and he was never 
 able to shake himself free from the prejudices 
 of his country and education, on the subject 
 of Romish religion. Not that he exaggerated 
 the abuses and enormities of the Roman Ca- 
 tholic superstition which brought about the 
 Reformation, nor the vast benefits which Lu- 
 ther conferred upon mankind by bringing them 
 to light ; both were so great, that they hardly 
 admitted of exaggeration. His error and, in 
 the delineation of the progress of society in 
 modern Europe, it was a very great one con- 
 sisted in overlooking the beneficial effect of 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 371 
 
 that very superstition, then so pernicious, in a 
 prior age of the world, when violence was uni- 
 versal, crime prevalent alike in high and low 
 places, and government impotent to check 
 either the tyranny of the great or the madness 
 of the people. Then it was that superstition 
 was the greatest blessing which Providence, 
 in mercy, could bestow on mankind; for it ef- 
 fected what the wisdom of the learned or the 
 efforts of the active were alike unable to effect; 
 it restrained the violence by imaginary, which 
 was inaccessible to the force of real, terrors ; 
 and spread that protection under the shadow 
 of the Cross, which could never have been ob- 
 tained by the power of the sword. Robertson 
 was wholly insensible to these early and in- 
 estimable blessings of the Christian faith ; he 
 has admirably delineated the beneficial influ- 
 ence of the Crusades upon subsequent society, 
 but on this all-important topic he is silent. 
 Yet, whoever has studied the condition of 
 European society in the ninth, tenth, and ele- 
 venth centuries, as it has since been developed 
 in the admirable works of Sismondi, Thierry, 
 Michelet, and Guizot, must be aware that the 
 services, not merely of Christianity, but of the 
 superstitions which had usurped its place, 
 were, during that long period, incalculable; 
 and that, but for them, European society would 
 infallibly have sunk, as Asiatic in every age 
 has done, beneath the desolating sword of bar- 
 barian power. 
 
 Sismondi if the magnitude, and in many 
 respects the merit, of his works be considered 
 must be regarded as one of the greatest 
 historians of modern times. His "History of 
 the Italian Republics" in sixteen, of the " Mo- 
 narchy of France" in thirty volumes, attest the 
 variety and extent of his antiquarian researches, 
 as well as the indefatigable industry of his 
 pen: his "Literature of the South of Europe" 
 in four, and "Miscellaneous Essays," in three 
 volumes, show how happily he has blended 
 thesje weighty investigations with the lighter 
 topics of literature and poetry, and the politi- 
 cal philosophy which, in recent times, has 
 come to occupy so large a place in the study 
 of all who have turned their mind to the pro- 
 gress of human affairs. Nor is the least part 
 of his merit to be found in the admirable skill 
 with which he has condensed, each in two 
 volumes, his great histories, for the benefit of 
 that numerous class of readers, who unable or 
 unwilling to face the formidable undertaking 
 of going through his massy works, are de- 
 sirous of obtaining such a brief summary of 
 their leading events as may suffice for persons 
 of ordinary perseverance or education. His 
 mind was essentially philosophical ; and it is 
 the philosophy of modern history, accordingly, 
 which he has exerted himself so strenuously 
 to unfold. He views society at a distance, and 
 exhibits its great changes in their just propor- 
 tions, and, in general, with their true effects. 
 His success in this arduous undertaking has 
 been great indeed. He has completed the pic- 
 ture of which Robertson had only formed the 
 sketch and completed it with such a prodigi- 
 ous collection of materials, and so lucid an ar- 
 rangement of them in their appropriate places, 
 as to have left future ages little to do but draw 
 
 the just conclusions from the results of his 
 labours. 
 
 With all these merits, and they are great, 
 and with this rare combination of antiquarian 
 industry with philosophic generalization, Sis- 
 mondi is far from being a perfect historian. 
 He did well to abridge his great works ; for he 
 will find few readers who will have persever- 
 ance enough to go through them. An abridg- 
 ment was tried of Gibbon; but it had little 
 success, and has never since been attempted. 
 You might as well publish an abridgment of 
 Waverley or Ivanhoe. Every reader of the 
 Decline and Fall must feel that condensation is 
 impossible, without an omission of interest or 
 a curtailment of beauty. Sismondi, with all 
 his admirable qualities as a general and philo- 
 sophic historian, wants the one thing needful 
 in exciting interest descriptive and dramatic 
 power. He was a man of great vigour of 
 thought and clearness of observation, but little 
 genius at least of that kind of genius which 
 is necessary to move the feelings or warm the 
 imagination. That was his principal defect; 
 and it will prevent his great works from ever 
 commanding the attention of a numerous body 
 of general readers, however much they may 
 be esteemed by the learned and studious. 
 Conscious of this deficiency, he makes scarce 
 any attempt to make his narrative interesting; 
 but, reserving his whole strength for general 
 views on the progress of society, or philo- 
 sophic observations on its most important 
 changes, he fills up the intermediate space 
 with long quotations from chronicles, me- 
 moirs, and state papers a sure way, if the 
 selection is not made with great judgment, of 
 rendering the whole insupportably tedious. 
 Every narrative, to be interesting, should be 
 given in the writer's own words, unless on those 
 occasions, by no means frequent, when some 
 striking or remarkable expressions of a speak- 
 er, or contemporary writer, are to be preserved. 
 Unity of style and expression is as indispen- 
 sable in a history which is to move the heart, 
 or fascinate the imagination, as in a tragedy, 
 a painting, or an epic poem. 
 
 But, in addition to this, Sismondi's general 
 views, though ordinarily just, and always ex- 
 pressed with clearness and precision, are not 
 always to be taken without examination. Like 
 Robertson, he was never able to extricate him- 
 self entirely from the early prejudices of his 
 country and education ; hardly any of the Ge- 
 neva school of philosophers have been able to 
 do so. Brought up in that learned and able, 
 but narrow, and in some respects bigoted com- 
 munity, he was early engaged in the vast 
 undertaking of the History of the Italian Re- 
 publics. Thus, before he was well aware of 
 it, and at a time of life, when the opinions are 
 flexible, and easily moulded by external im- 
 pressions, he became irrevocably enamoured 
 of such little communities as he had lived in, 
 or was describing, and imbibed all the preju- 
 dices against the Church of Rome, which have 
 naturally, from close proximity, and the en- 
 durance of unutterable evils at its hands, been 
 ever prevalent among the Calvinists of Ge- 
 neva. These causes have tinged his otherwise 
 impartial views with two signal prejudices, 
 
372 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 which appear in all his writings where these 
 subjects are even remotely alluded to. His 
 partiality for municipal institutions, and the 
 social system depending on them, is as extra- 
 vagant, as his aversion to the Church of Rome 
 is conspicuous and intemperate. His idea of 
 a perfect society would be a confederacy of 
 little republics, governed by popularly elected 
 magistrates, holding the scarlet old lady of 
 Rome in utter abomination, and governed 
 in matters of religion by the Presbyterian 
 forms, and the tenets of Calvin. It is not to 
 be wondered at, that the annalist of the coun- 
 tries of Tasso and Dante, of Titian and Ma- 
 chiavel, of Petrarch and Leonardo da Vinci, 
 of Galileo and Michael Angelo, should con- 
 ceive, that in no other state of society is such 
 scope afforded for mental cultivation and the 
 development of the highest efforts of genius. 
 Still less is it surprising, that the historian of 
 the crusades against the Albigenses, of the un- 
 heard of atrocities of Simon de Montfort, of 
 the wholesale massacres, burnings, and tortur- 
 ings, which have brought such indelible dis- 
 grace on the Roman priesthood, should feel 
 deeply interested in a faith which has extri- 
 cated his own country from the abominable 
 persecution. But still, this indulgence of these 
 natural, and in some respects praiseworthy, 
 feelings, has blinded Sismondi to the insur- 
 mountable evils of a confederacy of small 
 republics at this time, amidst surrounding, 
 powerful, and monarchical states ; and to the 
 inappreciable blessings of the Christian faith, 
 and even of the Romish superstition, before 
 the period when these infamous cruelties be- 
 gan, when their warfare was only with the op- 
 pressor, their struggles with the destroyers of 
 the human race. 
 
 But truth is great, and will prevail. Those 
 just views of modern society, which neither 
 the luminous eye of Robertson, nor the learned 
 research and philosophic mind of Sismondi 
 could reach, have been brought forward by a 
 writer of surpassing ability, whose fame as 
 an historian and a philosopher is for the time 
 overshadowed by the more fleeting celebrity 
 of the statesman and the politician. We will 
 not speak of M. GUIZOT in the latter character, 
 much as we are tempted to do so, by the high 
 and honourable part which he has long borne 
 in European diplomacy, and the signal ability 
 with which, in the midst of a short-sighted and 
 rebellious generation, clamouring, as the Ro- 
 mans of old, for the multis utile beUvm, he has 
 sustained his sovereign's wise and magnani- 
 mous resolution to maintain peace. We are 
 too near the time to appreciate the magnitude 
 of these blessings ; men would not now be- 
 lieve through what a crisis the British empire, 
 unconscious of its danger, passed, when M. 
 Thiers was dismissed, three years and a half 
 ago, by Louis Philippe, and M. Guizot called 
 to the helm. But when the time arrives, as 
 arrive it will, that the diplomatic secrets of that 
 period are brought to light; when the instruc- 
 tions of the revolutionary minister to the ad- 
 miral of the Toulon fleet are made known, and 
 the marvellous chance which prevented their 
 being acted upon by him, has become matter 
 of history ; it will be admitted, that the civilized 
 
 world have good cause to thank M. Guizot for 
 saving it from a contest as vehement, as perilous, 
 and probably as disastrous to all concerned, as 
 that which followed the French Revolution. 
 
 Our present business is with M. Guizot as an 
 historian and a philosopher; a character in 
 which he will be remembered, long after his 
 services to humanity as a statesman and a 
 minister have ceased to attract the attention 
 of men. In those respects, we place him in 
 the very highest rank among the writers of 
 modern Europe. It must be understood, how- 
 ever, in what his greatness consists, lest the 
 readers, expecting what they will not find, ex- 
 perience disappointment, when they begin the 
 study of his works. He is neither imaginative 
 nor pictorial; he seldom aims at the pathetic, 
 and has little eloquence. He is not a Livy nor 
 a Gibbon. Nature has not given him either 
 dramatic or descriptive powers. He is a man 
 of the highest genius; but it consists not in 
 narrating particular events, or describing in- 
 dividual achievement. It is in the discovery 
 of general causes; in tracing the operation 
 of changes in society, which escape ordinary 
 observation ; in seeing whence man has come, 
 and whither he is going, that his greatness 
 consists ; and in that loftiest of the regions 
 of history, he is unrivalled. We know of 
 no author who has traced the changes of 
 society, and the general causes which de- 
 termine the fate of nations, with such just 
 views and so much sagacious discrimination. 
 He is not, properly speaking, an historian ; his 
 vocation and object were different. He is a 
 great discourser on history. If ever the philo- 
 sophy of history was imbodied in a human 
 being, it is in M. Guizot. 
 
 The style of this great author is, in every 
 respect, suited to his subject. He does not 
 aim at the highest flights of fancy ; makes no 
 attempt to warm the soul or melt the feelings; 
 is seldom imaginative, and never descriptive. 
 But he is uniformly lucid, sagacious, and dis- 
 criminating ; deduces his conclusions with 
 admirable clearness from his premises, and 
 occasionally warms from the innate grandeur 
 of his subject into a glow of fervent eloquence. 
 He seems to treat of human affairs, as if he 
 viewed them from a loftier sphere than other 
 men; as if he were elevated above the usual 
 struggles and contests of humanity; and a su- 
 perior power had withdrawn the veil which 
 shrouds their secret causes and course from 
 the gaze of sublunary beings. He cares not 
 to dive into the secrets of cabinets ; attaches 
 little, perhaps too little, importance to indivi- 
 dual character ; but fixes his steady gaze on 
 the great and lasting causes which, in a dur- 
 able manner, influence human affairs. He 
 vieAvs them not from year to year but from 
 century to century; and, when considered in 
 that view, it is astonishing how much the 
 importance of individual agency disappears. 
 Important in their generation sometimes al- 
 most omnipotent for good or for evil Avhile 
 they live particular men, how great soever, 
 rarely leave any very important consequences 
 behind them ; or at least rarely do what other 
 men might not have done as effectually as 
 them, and which was not already determined 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 373 
 
 by the tendency of the human mind, and the 
 tide, either of flow or ebb, by which human 
 affairs were at the time wafted to and fro. The 
 desperate struggles of war or of ambition in 
 which they were engaged, and in which so 
 much genius and capacity were exerted, are 
 swept over by the flood of time, and seldom 
 leave any lasting trace behind. It is the men 
 who determine the direction of this tide, who 
 imprint their character on general thought, 
 who are the real directors of human affairs; it 
 is the giants of thought who, in the end, go- 
 vern the world. Kings and ministers, princes 
 and generals, warriors and legislators, are but 
 the ministers of their blessings or their curses 
 to mankind. But their dominion seldom begins 
 till themselves are mouldering in their graves. 
 
 Guizot's largest work, in point of size, is 
 his translation of Gibbon's Rome ; and the just 
 and philosophic spirit in which he viewed the 
 course of human affairs, was admirably cal- 
 culated to provide an antidote to the skeptical 
 sneers which, in a writer of such genius and 
 strength of understanding, are at once the 
 marvel and the disgrace of that immortal 
 work. He has begun also a history of the 
 English Revolution, to which he was led by 
 having been the editor of a valuable collec- 
 tion of Memoirs relating to the great Rebellion, 
 translated into French, in twenty-five volumes. 
 But this work only got the length of two vo- 
 lumes, and came no further down than the 
 death of Charles I., an epoch no further on in 
 the English than the execution of Louis in the 
 French Revolution. This history is clear, 
 lucid, and valuable ; but it is written with 
 little eloquence, and has met with no great 
 success : the author's powers were not of the 
 dramatic or pictorial kind necessary to paint 
 that dreadful story. These were editorial or 
 industrial labours unworthy of Guizot's mind ; 
 it was when he delivered lectures from the 
 chair of history in Paris, that his genius shone 
 forth in its proper sphere and its true lustre. 
 
 His Civilisation en France, in five volumes, 
 Civilisation Europeenne, and Essais sur VHistoire 
 de France, each in one volume, are the fruits 
 of these professional labours. The same pro- 
 found thought, sagacious discrimination, and 
 lucid view, are conspicuous in them all ; but 
 they possess different degrees of interest to the 
 English reader. The Civilisation en France is 
 the groundwork of the whole, and it enters at 
 large into the whole details, historical, legal, 
 and antiquarian, essential for its illustration, 
 and the proof of the various propositions 
 which it contains. In the Civilisation Euro- 
 peenne and Essays on the History of France, how- 
 ever, the general results are given with equal 
 clearness and greater brevity. We do not 
 hesitate to say, that they appear to us to throw 
 more light on the history of society in modern 
 Europe, and the general progress of mankind, 
 from the exertions of its inhabitants, than any 
 other works in existence ; and it is of them, 
 especially the first, that we propose to give our 
 readers some account. 
 
 The most important event which ever oc- 
 curred in the history of mankind, is the one 
 concerning which contemporary writers have 
 given us the least satisfactory accounts. Be- 
 
 yond all doubt the overthrow of Rome by the 
 Goths was the most momentous catastrophe 
 I which has occurred on the earth since the de- 
 luge ; yet, if we examine either the historians 
 of antiquity or the earliest of modern times, 
 we find it wholly impossible to understand to 
 what cause so great a catastrophe had been 
 owing. What gave, in the third and fourth 
 centuries, so prodigious an impulse to the 
 northern nations, and enabled them, after be- 
 ing so long repelled by the arms of Rome, 
 finally to prevail over it 1 What, still more, 
 so completely paralyzed the strength of the 
 empire during that period, and produced that 
 astonishing weakness in the ancient conque- 
 rors of the world, which rendered them the 
 easy prey of those whom they had so often 
 subdued ? The ancient writers content them- 
 selves with saying, that the people became 
 corrupted ; that they lost their military cou- 
 rage ; that the recruiting of the legions, in the 
 free inhabitants of the empire, became im- 
 possible; and that the semi-barbarous tribes 
 on the frontier could not be relied on to up- 
 hold its fortunes. But a very little reflection, 
 must be sufficient to show that there must 
 have been much more in it than this, before a 
 race of conquerors was converted into one of 
 slaves ; before the legions fled before the bar- 
 barians, and the strength of the civilized was 
 overthrown by the energy of the savage world. 
 For what prevented a revenue from being 
 raised in the third or fourth, as well as the 
 first or second centuries 1 Corruption in its 
 worst form had doubtless pervaded the higher 
 ranks in Rome from the emperor downward; 
 but these vices are the faults of the exalted 
 and the affluent only; they never have, and 
 never will, extend generally to the great body 
 of the community; for this plain reason, that 
 they are not rich enough to purchase them. 
 But the remarkable thing is, that in the decline 
 of the empire, it was in the lower ranks that 
 the greatest and most fatal weakness first ap- 
 peared. Long before the race of the Patri- 
 cians had become extinct, the free cultivators 
 had disappeared from the fields. Leaders and 
 generals of the most consummate abilities, of 
 the greatest daring, frequently arose ; but their 
 efforts proved in the end ineffectual, from the 
 impossibility of finding a sturdy race of fol- 
 lowers to fill their ranks. The legionary Italian 
 soldier was awanting his place was imper- 
 fectly supplied by the rude Dacian, the hardy 
 German, the faithless Goth. So completely 
 were the inhabitants of the provinces within 
 the Rhine and the Danube paralyzed, that they 
 ceased to make any resistance to the hordes 
 of invaders ; and the fortunes of the empire 
 were, for several generations, sustained volely 
 by the heroic efforts of individual leaders 
 Belisarius, Narses, Julian, Aurelian, Constan- 
 tine, and many others whose renown, though 
 it could not rouse the pacific inhabitants to 
 warlike efforts, yet attracted military adven- 
 turers from all parts of the world to their 
 standard. Now, what weakened and destroyed 
 the rural population 1 ? It could not be luxury; 
 on the contrary, they were suffering under 
 excess of poverty, and bent down beneath a 
 load of taxes, which, in Gaul, in the time of 
 21 
 
374 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 Constantine, amounted, as Gibbon tells us, to 
 nine pounds sterling on every freeman 1 What 
 was it, then, which occasioned the depopula- 
 tion and weakness 1 This is what behoves us 
 to know this it is which ancient history has 
 left unknown. 
 
 It is here that the vast step in the philosophy 
 of history made from ancient to modern times 
 is apparent. From a few detached hints and 
 insulated facts, left by the ancient annalists, 
 apparently ignorant of their value, and care- 
 less of their preservation, modern industry, 
 guided by the light of philosophy, has reared 
 up the true solution of the difficulty, and re- 
 vealed the real causes, hidden from the ordi- 
 nary gaze, which, even in the midst of its 
 greatest prosperity, gradually, but certainly, 
 undermined the strength of the empire. Miche- 
 let, in his Gaule sous les Romains, a most able 
 and interesting work Thierry, in his Domina- 
 tion Romaine en Gaule, and his Hist owe des Rois 
 Merovingians Sismondi, in the three first vo- 
 lumes of his Histoire des Frangais and Guizot, 
 in his Civilisation Europeenne, and the first vo- 
 lumes of his Essais sur F Histoire de France 
 have applied their great powers to this most in- 
 teresting subject. It may safely be affirmed that 
 they have got to the bottom of the subject, and 
 lifted up the veil from one of the darkest, and 
 yet most momentous, changes in the history of 
 mankind. Guizot gives the following account 
 of the principal causes which silently under- 
 mined the strength of the empire, flowing from 
 the peculiar organization of ancient society: 
 
 "When Rome extended, what did it do 1 ? 
 Follow its history, and you will find that it 
 was everlastingly engaged in conquering or 
 founding cities. It was with cities that it 
 fought with cities that it contracted into 
 cities that it sent colonies. The history of the 
 conquest of the world by Rome, is nothing but 
 the history of the conquest and foundation of 
 a great number of cities. In the east, the 
 expansion of the Roman power assumed, from 
 the very outset, a somewhat dissimilar cha- 
 racter; the population was differently distri- 
 buted from the west, and much less concen- 
 trated in cities; but in the European world, 
 the foundation or conquest of towns was the 
 uniform result of Roman conquest. In Gaul 
 and Spain, in Italy, it was constantly towns 
 which opposed the barrier to Roman domi- 
 nation, and towns which were founded or 
 garrisoned by the legions, or strengthened by 
 colonies, to retain them when vanquished in 
 a state of subjection. Great roads stretched 
 from one town to another ; the multitude of 
 cross roads which now intersect each other in 
 every direction, was unknown. They had no- 
 thing in common with that multitude of little 
 monuments, villages, churches, castles, villas, 
 and cottages, which now cover our provinces. 
 Rome has bequeathed to us nothing, either in 
 its capital or its provinces, but the municipal 
 character, which produced immense monuments 
 on certain points, destined for the use of the 
 vast population which was there assembled 
 together. 
 
 " From this peculiar conformation of society 
 in Europe, under the Roman dominion, con- 
 sisting of a vast conglomeration of cities, with 
 
 each a dependent territory, all independent of 
 each other, arose the absolute necessity for a 
 entral and absolute government. One muni- 
 cipality in Rome might conquer the world : 
 but to retain it in subjection, and provide for 
 the government of all its multifarious parts, 
 was a very different matter. This was one of 
 the chief causes of the general adoption of a 
 strong concentrated government under the em- 
 pire. Such a centralized despotism not only 
 succeeded in restraining and regulating all the 
 incoherent members of the vast dominion, but 
 the idea of a central irresistible authority in- 
 sinuated itself into men's minds everywhere, 
 at the same time, with wonderful facility. At 
 first sight, one is astonished to see, in that 
 prodigious and ill-united aggregate of little 
 republics, in that accumulation of separate 
 municipalities, spring up so suddenly an un- 
 bounded respect for the sacred authority of 
 the empire. But the truth is, it had become a 
 matter of absolute necessity, that the bond 
 which held together the different parts of this 
 heterogeneous dominion should be very power- 
 ful; and this it was which gave it so ready a 
 eception in the minds of men. 
 
 " But when the vigour of the central power 
 declined during a course of ages, from the pres- 
 sure of external warfare, and the weakness of 
 internal corruption, this necessity was no 
 longer felt. The capital ceased to be able to 
 provide for the provinces ; it rather sought pro- 
 tection from them. During four centuries, the 
 central power of the emperors incessantly 
 struggled against this increasing debility ; but 
 the moment at length arrived, when all the 
 practised skill of despotism, over the long in- 
 souciance of servitude, could no longer keep 
 together the huge and unwieldy body. In the 
 fourth century, we see it at once break up and 
 disunite; the barbarians entered on all sides 
 from without, the provinces ceased to oppose 
 any resistance from within ; the cities to evince 
 any regard for the general welfare ; and, as in 
 the disaster of a shipwreck, every one looked 
 out for his individual safety. Thus, on the 
 dissolution of the empire, the same general 
 state of society presented itself as in its cradle. 
 The imperial authority sunk into the dust, and 
 municipal institutions alone survived the dis- 
 aster. This, then, was the chief .legacy which 
 the ancient bequeathed to the modern world 
 for it alone survived the storm by which the 
 former had been destroyed cities and a mu- 
 nicipal organization everywhere established. 
 But it was not the only legacy. Beside it, there 
 was the recollection at least of the awful ma- 
 jesty of the emperor of a distant, unseen, but 
 sacred and irresistible power. These are the 
 two ideas which antiquity bequeathed to mo- 
 dern times. On the one hand, the municipal 
 regime, its rules, customs, and principles of 
 liberty: on the other, a common, general, civil 
 legislation ; and the idea of absolute power, of 
 a sacred majesty, the principle of order and 
 servitude." Civilisation Europeenne, 20, 23. 
 
 The causes which produced the extraordi- 
 nary, and at first sight unaccountable, depopu- 
 lation of the country districts, not only in Italy, 
 but in Gaul, Spain, and all the European pro- 
 vinces of the Roman empire, are explained by 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 375 
 
 Guizot in his Essays on the History of France, 
 and have been fully demonstrated by Sismondi, 
 Thierry, and Michelet. They were a natural 
 consequence of the municipal system, then 
 universally established as the very basis of 
 civilization in the whole Roman empire, and 
 may be seen urging, from a similar cause, the 
 Turkish empire to dissolution at this day. 
 This was the imposition of a certain fixed 
 duty, as a burden on each municipality, to be 
 raised, indeed, by its own members, but admit- 
 ting of no diminution, save under the most 
 special circumstances, and on an express ex- 
 emption by the emperor. Had the great bulk 
 of the people been free, and the empire pros- 
 perous, this fixity of impost would have been 
 the greatest of all blessings. It is the precise 
 boon so frequently and earnestly implored by 
 our ryots in India, and indeed by the cultiva- 
 tors all over the east. But when the empire 
 was beset on all sides with enemies only the 
 more rapacious and pressing, that the might 
 of the legions had so long confined them within 
 the comparatively narrow limits of their own 
 sterile territories and disasters, frequent and 
 serious, were laying waste the frontier pro- 
 vinces, it became the most dreadful of all 
 scourges; because, as the assessment on each 
 district was fixed, and scarcely ever suffered 
 any abatement, every disaster experienced 
 increased the burden on the survivors who 
 had escaped it ; until they became bent down 
 under such a weight of taxation, as, coupled 
 with the small number of freemen on whom it 
 exclusively fell, crushed every attempt at pro- 
 ductive industry. It was the same thing as if 
 all the farmers on each estate were to be bound 
 to make up, annually, the same amount of rent 
 to their landlord, no matter how many of them 
 had become insolvent. We know how Ion 
 the agriculture of Britain, in a period of de- 
 clining prices and frequent disaster, would 
 exist under such a system. 
 
 Add to this the necessary effect which the 
 free circulation of grain throughout the whole 
 Roman world had in depressing the agricul- 
 ture of Italy, Gaul, and Greece. They were 
 unable to withstand the competition of Egypt 
 Lybia. and Sicily the store-houses of the 
 world ; where the benignity of the climate, anc 
 the riches of the soil, rewarded seventy or an 
 hundred-fold the labours of the husbandman 
 Ga.ul, where the increase was only seven-fold 
 Italy, where it seldom exceeded twelve 
 Spain, where it was never so high, were 
 crushed in the struggle. The mistress of the 
 world, as Tacitus bewails, had come to depenc 
 for her subsistence on the floods of the Nile 
 Unable to compete with the cheap grain raiser 
 in the more favoured regions of the south, th< 
 cultivators of Italy and Gaul gradually retiree 
 from the contest. They devoted their exten 
 sive estates to pasturage, because live cattle o 
 dairy produce could not bear the expense of 
 being shipped from Africa; and the race of 
 agriculturists, the strength of the legions, dis 
 appeared in the fields, and was lost in th< 
 needy and indolent crowd of urban citizens, in 
 part maintained by tributes in corn brough 
 from Egypt and Lybia. This augmented th 
 burdens upon those who remained in the rura 
 
 istricts ; for, as the taxes of each municipality 
 emained the same, every one that withdrew 
 nto the towns left an additional burden on the 
 houlders of his brethren who remained behind. 
 >o powerful was the operation of these two 
 auses the fixity in the state burdens payable 
 y each municipality, and the constantly de- 
 lining prices, owing to the vast import from 
 .gricultural regions more favoured by nature 
 that it fully equalled the effect of the ravages 
 )f the barbarians in the frontier provinces 
 xposed to their incursions ; and the depopula- 
 ion of the rural districts was as complete in 
 taly and Gaul, before a barbarian had passed 
 he Alps or set his foot across the Rhine, as in 
 he plains between the Alps or the Adriatic and 
 he Danube, which had for long been ravaged 
 >y their arms. 
 
 Domestic slavery conspired with these evils 
 o prevent the healing power of nature from 
 losing these yawning wounds. Gibbon esti- 
 mates the number of slaves throughout the 
 empire, in its latter days, at a number equal to 
 hat of the freemen ; in other words, one half 
 of the whole inhabitants were in a state of 
 servitude ;* and as there were 120,000,000 souls 
 under the Roman sway, sixty millions were in 
 hat degraded condition. There is reason to 
 jelieve that the number of slaves was still 
 greater than this estimate, and at least double 
 hat of the freemen ; for it is known by an 
 authentic enumeration, that, in the time of the 
 Emperor Claudius, the number of citizens in 
 the empire was only 6,945,000 men, who, with 
 their families, might amount to twenty millions 
 of souls ; and the total number of freemen was 
 about double that of the citizens.f In one 
 family alone, in the time of Pliny, there were 
 4116 slaves4 But take the number of slaves 
 according to Gibbon's computation, at only 
 half the entire population, what a prodigious 
 abstraction must this multitude of slaves have 
 made from the physical and moral strength of 
 the empire! Half the people requiring food, 
 needing restraint, incapable of trust, and yet 
 adding nothing to the muster-roll of the legions, 
 or the persons by whom the fixed and immov- 
 able annual taxes were to be made good ! In 
 what state would the British empire now be, 
 if we were subjected to the action of similar 
 causes of ruin? A vast and unwieldy domi- 
 nion, exposed on every side to the incursions 
 of barbarous and hostile nations, daily increas- 
 ing in numbers, and augmenting in military 
 skill; a fixed taxation, for which the whole 
 free inhabitants of every municipality were 
 jointly and severally responsible, to meet the 
 increasing military establishment required by 
 these perils ; a declining, and at length extinct, 
 agriculture in the central provinces of the em- 
 pire, owing to the deluge of cheap grain from 
 its fertile extremities wafted over the waters 
 of the Mediterranean; multitudes of turbulent 
 freemen in cities, kept quiet by daily distribu- 
 tion of provisions at the public expense, from 
 the imperial granaries; and a half, or two- 
 thirds of the whole population in a state of 
 slavery neither bearing any share of the pub- 
 lic burdens, nor adding to the strength of the 
 
 * Gibbon. f Ibid. * PHn. Hist. Nat. ixxiii. 47. 
 
376 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 military array of the empire. Such are the 
 discoveries of modern philosophy, as to the 
 causes of the decline and ultimate fall of the 
 Roman empire, Cleaned from a few facts, acci- 
 dentally preserved by the ancient writers, ap- 
 parently unconscious of their value ! It is a 
 noble science which, in so short a time, has 
 presented such a gift to mankind. 
 
 Guizot has announced, and ably illustrated, 
 a great truth, which, when traced to its legiti- 
 mate consequences, will be found to go far 
 towards dispelling many of the pernicious in- 
 novating dogmas which have so long been 
 afloat in the world. It is this, that whenever 
 an institution, though apparently pernicious in 
 our eyes, has long existed, and under a great 
 variety of circumstances, we may rest assured 
 that it in reality has been attended with some 
 advantages which counterbalance its evils, and 
 that upon the whole it is beneficial in its 
 tendency. This important principle is thus 
 stated : 
 
 " Independent of the efforts of man, there is 
 established by a law of providence, which it is 
 impossible to mistake, and which is analogous 
 to what we witness in the natural world, a 
 certain measure of order, reason, and justice, 
 without which society cannot exist. From the 
 single fact of its endurance we may conclude, 
 with certainty, that a society is not completely 
 absurd, insensate, or iniquitous; that it is not 
 destitute of the elements of reason, truth, and 
 justice which alone can give life to society. 
 If the more that society developes itself, the 
 stronger does this principle become if it is 
 daily accepted by a greater number of men, it 
 is a certain proof that in the lapse of time 
 there has been progressively introduced into 
 it more reason, more justice, more right It is 
 thus that the idea of political legitimacy has 
 arisen. 
 
 " This principle has for its foundation, in 
 
 the first instance, at least in a certain degree 
 
 the great principles of moral legitimacy 
 
 justice, reason, truth. Then came the sanction 
 
 of time, which always begets the presumption 
 
 of reason having directed arrangements which 
 
 have long endured. In the early periods of 
 
 society, we too often find force and falsehooc 
 
 ruling the cradles of royalty, aristocracy, de 
 
 mocracy, and even the church; but ever 
 
 where yon will see this force and falsehoo 
 
 yielding to the reforming hand of time, am 
 
 right and truth taking their place in the ruler 
 
 of civilization. It is this progressive infusion 
 
 of right and truth which has by degrees de 
 
 veloped the idea of political legitimacy; it i 
 
 thus that it has become established in moden 
 
 civilization. At different times, indeed, a 
 
 tempts have been made to substitute for thi 
 
 idea the banner of despotic power; but, i: 
 
 doing so, they have turned it aside from its 
 
 true origin. It is so little the banner of des 
 
 potic power, that it is in the name of righ 
 
 and justice that it has overspread the worl 
 
 As little is it exclusive: it belongs neither t 
 
 persons, classes, nor sects; it arises whereve 
 
 the idea of right has developed itself. W 
 
 shall meet with this principle in systems th 
 
 most opposite: in the feudal system, in. th 
 
 municipalities of Flanders and Germany, i 
 
 he republics of Italy, as well as in simple 
 nonarchies. It is a character diffused through 
 he various elements of modern civilization, 
 nd the perception of which is indispensable 
 
 the right understanding of its history." 
 jecture iii. 9, 11 ; Civilisation Europeenne. 
 
 No principle ever was announced of more 
 radical importance in legislating for man- 
 ind, than is contained in this passage. The 
 octrine is somewhat obscurely stated, and 
 ot with the precision which in general dis- 
 nguishes the French writers; but the import 
 fit seems to be this That no system of go- 
 ernment can long exist among men, unless it 
 s substantially, and in the majority of cases, 
 ounded in reason and justice, and sanctioned 
 y experienced utility for the people among 
 rhom it exists; and therefore, that we may 
 redicate with perfect certainty of any institu- 
 lon which has been generally extended and 
 ong established, that it has been upon the 
 whole beneficial, and should be modified or 
 Itered with a very cautious hand. That this 
 reposition is true, will probably be disputed 
 y none who have thought much and dis- 
 lassionately on human affairs; for all human 
 nstitutions are formed and supported by men, 
 ind unless men had some reason for support- 
 ng them, they would speedily sink to the 
 ground. It is in vain to say a privileged class 
 iave got possession of the power, and they 
 make use of it to perpetuate these abuses. 
 doubtless, they are always sufficiently inclined 
 o do so ; but a privileged class, or a despot, is 
 always a mere handful against the great body 
 of the people; and unless their power is sup- 
 jorted by the force of general opinion, founded 
 >n experienced utility upon the whole, it could 
 not maintain its ground a single week. And 
 his explains a fact observed by an able and 
 ngenious writer of the present day,* that if 
 almost all the great convulsions recorded in. 
 listory are attentively considered, it will be 
 found, that after a brief period of strenuous, 
 and often almost super-human effort, on the 
 part of the people, they have terminated in the 
 establishment of a government and institutions 
 differing scarcely, except in name, from that 
 which had preceded the struggle. It is hardly 
 necessary to remark how striking a confirma- 
 tion the English revolution of 1688, and the 
 French of 1830, afford of this truth. 
 
 And this explains what is the true meaning 
 of, and solid foundation for, that reverence for 
 antiquity which is so strongly implanted in hu- 
 man nature, and is never forgotten for any con- 
 siderable time without inducing the most dread- 
 ful disasters upon society. It means that those 
 institutions which have descended to us in actual 
 practice from our ancestors, come sanctioned 
 by the experience of ages ; and that they could 
 not have stood so long a test unless they had 
 been recommended, in some degree at least, 
 by their utility. It is not that our ancestors 
 were wiser than we are ; they were certainly 
 less informed, and probably were, on that ac- 
 count, in the general case, less judicious. But 
 time has swept away their fo'lies, which were 
 doubtless great enough, as it has done the 
 
 * Mr. JAMES'S Preface to Mary of Burgundy. 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 377 
 
 worthless ephemeral literature with which they, 
 as we, were overwhelmed; and nothing has 
 stood the test of ages, and come down to us 
 through a series of generations, of their ideas 
 or institutions, but what had some utility in 
 human feelings and necessities, and was on 
 the whole expedient at the time when it arose. 
 Its utility may have ceased by the change of 
 manners or of the circumstances of society 
 that may be a good reason for cautiously 
 modifying or altering it but rely upon it, it 
 was once useful, if it has existed long; and 
 the presumption of present and continuing 
 utility requires to be strongly outweighed by 
 forcible considerations before it is abandoned. 
 Lord Bacon has told us, in words which can 
 never become trite, so profound is their wis- 
 dom, that our changes, to be beneficial, should 
 resemble those of time, which, though the 
 greatest of all innovators, works out its altera- 
 tions so gradually that they are never per- 
 ceived. Guizot makes, in the same spirit, the 
 following fine observation on the slow march 
 of Supreme wisdom in the government of the 
 world : 
 
 " If we turn our eyes to history, we shall 
 find that all the great developments of the hu- 
 man mind have turned to the advantage of 
 society all the great struggles of humanity 
 to the good of mankind. It is not, ind-eed, im- 
 mediately that these efforts take place; ages 
 often elapse, a thousand obstacles intervene, 
 before they are fully developed ; but when we 
 survey a long course of ages, we see that all 
 has been accomplished. The march of Provi- 
 dence is not subjected to narrow limits ; it 
 cares not to develope to-day the consequences 
 of a principle which it has established yester- 
 day ; it will bring them forth in ages, when the 
 appointed hour has arrived ; and its course is 
 not the less sure that it is slow. The throne of 
 the Almighty rests on time it marches through 
 its boundless expanse as the gods of Homer 
 through space it makes a step, and ages have 
 passed away. How many centuries elapsed, 
 how many changes ensued, before the regenera- 
 tion of the inner man, by means of Christianity, 
 exercised on the social state its great and 
 salutary influence ! Nevertheless, it has at 
 length succeeded. No one can mistake its 
 effects at this time." Lecture i. 24. 
 
 In surveying the progress of civilization in 
 modern, as compared with ancient times, two 
 features stand prominent as distinguishing the 
 one from the other. These are the church and 
 the feudal system. They were precisely the cir- 
 cumstances Which gave umbrage to the phi- 
 losophers of the eighteenth century, and which 
 awakened the greatest transports of indigna- 
 tion among the ardent multitudes who, at its 
 close, brought about the French Revolution. 
 Very different is the light in which the eye of 
 true philosophy, enlightened by the experi- 
 ence of their abolition, views these great dis- 
 tinctive features of modern society. 
 
 " Immense," says Guizot, " was the influence 
 which the Christian church exercised over the 
 civilization of modern Europe. In the outset, 
 it was an incalculable advantage to have a 
 moral power, a power destitute of physical 
 force, which reposed only on mental convic- 
 48 
 
 tions and moral feelings, established amidst 
 that deluge of physical force and selfish vio- 
 lence which overwhelmed society at that pe- 
 riod. Had the Christian church not existed, 
 the world would have been delivered over to 
 the influence of physical strength, in its 
 coarsest and most revolting form. It alone 
 exercised a moral power. It did more; it 
 spread abroad the idea of a rule of obedience, 
 a heavenly power, to which all human beings, 
 how great soever, were subjected, and which 
 was above all human laws. That of itself was 
 a safeguard against the greatest evils of society ; 
 for it affected the minds of those by whom 
 they were brought about; it professed that be- 
 lief the foundation of the salvation of hu- 
 manity that there is above all existing insti- 
 tutions, superior to all human laws, a perma- 
 nent and divine law, sometimes called Reason, 
 sometimes Divine Command, but which, under 
 whatever name it goes, is for ever the same. 
 
 " Then the church commenced a great work 
 the separation of the spiritual and temporal 
 power. That separation is the origin of li- 
 berty of conscience ; it rests on no other prin- 
 ciple than that which lies at the bottom of the 
 widest and most extended toleration. The se- 
 paration of the spiritual and temporal power 
 rests on the principle, that physical force is 
 neither entitled to act, nor can ever have any 
 lasting influence, on thoughts, conviction, truth ; 
 it flows from the eternal distinction between 
 the world of thought and the world of action, 
 the world of interior conviction and that of 
 external facts. In truth that principle of the 
 liberty of conscience, for which Europe has 
 combated and suffered so much, which has so 
 slowly triumphed, and often against the ut- 
 most efforts of the clergy themselves, was first 
 founded by the doctrine of the separation of 
 the temporal and spiritual power, in the cradle 
 of European civilization. It is the Christian 
 church which, by the necessities of its situa- 
 tion to defend itself against the assaults of bar- 
 barism, introduced and maintained it. The 
 presence of a moral influence, the mainte- 
 nance of a Divine law, the separation of the 
 temporal and spiritual power, are the three 
 great blessings which the Christian church has 
 diffused in the dark ages over European so- 
 ciety. 
 
 " The influence of the Christian church was 
 great and beneficent for another reason. The 
 bishop and clergy ere long became the princi- 
 pal municipal magistrates : they were the 
 chancellors and ministers of kings the rulers, 
 except in the camp and the field, of mankind. 
 When the Roman empire crumbled into dust, 
 when the 1 central power of the emperors and 
 the legions disappeared, there remained, we 
 have seen, no other authority in the state but 
 the municipal functionaries. But they them- 
 selves had fallen into a state of apathy and 
 despair; the heavy burdens of despotism, the 
 oppressive taxes of the municipalities, the in- 
 cursions of the fierce barbarians, had reduced 
 them to despair. No protection to society, no 
 revival of industry, no shielding of innocence, 
 could be expected from their exertions. The 
 clergy, again, formed a society within itself; 
 fresh, young, vigorous, sheltered by the pr&- 
 SiS 
 
378 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 railing faith, which speedily drew to itself all 
 the learning and intellectual strength that re- 
 mained in the state. The bishops and priests, 
 full of life and of zeal, naturally were recurred 
 to in order to fill all civil situations requiring 
 thought or information. It is wrong to re- 
 proach their exercise of these powers as an 
 usurpation ; they alone were capable of exer- 
 cising them. Thus has the natural course of 
 things prescribed for all ages and countries. 
 The clergy alone were mentally strong and 
 morally zealous : they became all-powerful. 
 It is the law of the universe." Lecture iii. 27, 
 31 ; Civilisation Europeenne. 
 
 Nothing can be more just or important than 
 these observations ; and they throw a new and 
 consoling light on the progress and ultimate 
 destiny of European society. They are as 
 original as they are momentous. Robertson, 
 with his honest horror of the innumerable cor- 
 ruptions which, in the time of Leo X. and Lu- 
 ther, brought about the Reformation Sismon- 
 di, with his natural detestation of a faith which 
 had urged on the dreadful cruelties of the cru- 
 sade of the Albigenses, and which produced 
 the revocation of the edict of Nantes have 
 alike overlooked those important truths, so es- 
 sential to a right understanding of the history 
 of modern society. They saw that the arro- 
 gance and cruelty of the Roman clergy had 
 produced innumerable evils in later times ; 
 that their venality in regard to indulgences 
 and abuse of absolution had brought religion 
 itself into discredit; that the absurd and in- 
 credible tenets which they still attempted to 
 force on mankind, had gone far to alienate the 
 intellectual strength of modern Europe, during 
 the last century, from their support. Seeing 
 this, they condemned it absolutely, for all times 
 and in all places. They fell into the usual 
 error of men in reasoning on former from their 
 own times. They could not make " the past 
 and the future predominate over the present." 
 They felt the absurdity of many of the legends 
 which the devout Catholics received as un- 
 doubted truths, and they saw no use in per- 
 petuating the belief in them; and thence they 
 conceived that they must always have been 
 equally unserviceable, forgetting that the eigh- 
 teenth was not the eighth century; and that, 
 during the dark ages, violence would have 
 rioted without control, if, when reason was in 
 abeyance, knowledge scanty, and military 
 strength alone in estimation, superstition had 
 not thrown its unseen fetters over the bar- 
 barian's arms. They saw that the Romish 
 clergy, during five centuries, had laboured 
 strenuously, and often with the most frightful 
 cruelty, to crush independence of thought in 
 matters of faith, and chain the human mind to 
 the tenets, often absurd and erroneous, of her 
 Papal creed; and they forgot that, during five 
 preceding centuries, the Christian church had 
 laboured as assiduously to establish the inde- 
 pendence of thought from physical coercion, 
 and had alone kept alive, during the interreg- 
 num of reason, the sparks of knowledge and 
 the principles of freedom. 
 
 In the same liberal and enlightened spirit 
 Guizot views the feudal system, the next grand 
 characteristic of modern times. 
 
 "A decisive proof that, in the tenth century, 
 the feudal system had become necessary, and 
 was, in truth, the only social state possible, is 
 to be found in the universality of its adoption. 
 Universally, upon the cessation of barbarism, 
 the feudal forms were adopted. At the first 
 moment of barbarian conquest, men saw only 
 the triumph of chaos. All unity, all general 
 civilization disappeared; on all sides was seen 
 society falling into dissolution ; and, in its 
 stead, arising a multitude of little, obscure, 
 isolated communities. This appeared to all 
 the contemporaries nothing short of universal 
 anarchy. The poets, the chroniclers of the 
 time, viewed it as the approach of the end of 
 the world. It was, in truth, the end of the 
 ancient world ; but the commencement of a 
 new one, placed on a broad basis, and with 
 large means of social improvement and indi- 
 vidual happiness. 
 
 " Then it was that the feudal system became 
 necessary, inevitable. It was the only possi- 
 ble means of emerging from the general chaos. 
 The whole of Europe, accordingly, at the same 
 time adopted it. Even those portions of so- 
 ciety which were most strangers, apparently, 
 to that system, entered warmly into its spirit, 
 and were fain to share in its protection. The 
 crown, the church, the communities, were con- 
 strained to accommodate themselves to it. 
 The churches became suzerain or vassal ; the 
 burghs had their lords and their feuars; the 
 monasteries and abbeys had their feudal re- 
 tainers, as well as the temporal barons. Roy- 
 alty itself was disguised under the name of a 
 feudal superior. Every thing was given in 
 fief; not only lands, but certain rights flowing 
 from them, as that of cutting wood, fisheries, 
 or the like. The church made subinfeuda- 
 tions of their casual revenues, as the dues on 
 marriages, funerals, and baptisms." 
 
 The establishment of the feudal system 
 thus universally in Europe, produced one 
 effect, the importance of which can hardly be 
 exaggerated. Hitherto the mass of mankind 
 had been collected under the municipal insti- 
 tutions which had been universal in antiquity, 
 in cities, or wandered in vagabond hordes 
 through the country. Under the feudal system 
 these men lived isolated, each in his own ha- 
 bitation, at a great distance from each other. 
 A glance will show that this single circum- 
 stance must have exercised on the character 
 of society, and the course of civilization, 
 the social preponderance; the government of 
 society passed at once from the towns to the 
 country private took the lead of public pro- 
 perty private prevailed over public life. Such 
 was the first effect, and it was an effect purely 
 material, of the establishment of the feudal 
 system. But other effects, still more material, 
 followed, of a moral kind, which have exer- 
 cised the most important effects on the Eu- 
 ropean manners and mind. 
 
 "The feudal proprietor established himself 
 in an isolated place, which, for his own pro- 
 tection, he rendered secure. He lived there, 
 with his wife, his children, and a few faithful 
 friends, who shared his hospitality, and con- 
 tributed to his defence. Around the castle, in 
 its vicinity, were established the farmers and 
 
GUIZOT. 
 
 379 
 
 serfs who cultivated his domain. In the midst 
 of that inferior, but yet allied and protected 
 population, religion planted a church, and in- 
 troduced a priest. He was usually the chap- 
 lain of the castle, and at the same time the 
 curate of the village ; in subsequent ages these 
 two characters were separated ; the village 
 pastor resided beside his church. This was 
 the primitive feudal society the cradle, as it 
 were, of the European and Christian world. 
 
 " From this state of things necessarily arose 
 a prodigious superiority on the part of the pos- 
 sessor of the fief, alike in his own eyes, and in 
 the eyes of those who surrounded him. The 
 feeling of individual importance, of personal 
 freedom, was the ruling principle of savage 
 life ; but here a new feeling was introduced 
 the importance of a proprietor, of the chief 
 of a family, of a master, predominated over 
 that of an individual. From this situation 
 arose an immense feeling of superiority a 
 superiority peculiar to the feudal ages, and 
 entirely different from any thing which had yet 
 been experienced in the world. Like the feudal 
 lord, the Roman patrician was the head of a 
 family, a master, a landlord. He was, at the 
 same time, a religious magistrate, a pontiff in 
 the interior of his family. He was, moreover, 
 a member of the municipality in which his 
 property was situated, and perhaps one of 
 the august senate, which, in name at least, still 
 ruled the empire. But all this importance and 
 dignity was derived from without the patri- 
 cian shared it with the other members of his 
 municipality with the corporation of which 
 he formed a part. The importance of the 
 feudal lord, again, was purely individual he 
 owed nothing to another; all the power he 
 enjoyed emanated from himself alone. What 
 a feeling of individual consequence must such 
 a situation have inspired what pride, what 
 insolence, must it have engendered in his 
 mind! Above him was no superior, of whose 
 orders he was to be the mere interpreter or 
 organ around him were no equals. No all- 
 powerful municipality made his wishes bend 
 to its own no superior authority exercised a 
 control over his wishes ; he knew no bridle on 
 his inclinations, but the limits of his power, or 
 the presence of danger. 
 
 "Another consequence, hitherto not suffi- 
 ciently attended to, but of vast importance, 
 flowed from this society. 
 
 "The patriarchal society, of which the Bible 
 and the Oriental monuments offer the model, 
 was the first combination of men. The chief 
 of a tribe lived with his children, his relations, 
 the different generations who have assembled 
 around him. This was the situation of Abra- 
 ham of the patriarchs : it is still that of the 
 Arab tribes which perpetuate their manners. 
 The dan, of which remains still exist in the 
 mountains of Scotland, and the sept of Ireland, 
 
 is a modification of the patriarchal society: it 
 is the family of the chief, expanded during a 
 succession of generations, and forming a little 
 aggregation of dependents, still influenced by 
 the same attachments, and subjected to the 
 same authority. But the feudal community 
 was very different. Allied at first to the clan, 
 it was yet in many essential particulars dissi- 
 milar. There did not exist between its mem- 
 bers the bond of relationship ; they were not 
 of the same blood ; they often did not speak 
 the same language. The feudal lord belonged 
 to a foreign and conquering, his serfs to a do- 
 mestic and vanquished race. Their employ- 
 ments were as various as their feelings and 
 their traditions. The lord lived in his castle, 
 with his wife, his children, and relations : the 
 serfs on the estate, of a different race, of dif- 
 ferent names, toiled in the cottages around. 
 This difference was prodigious it exercised 
 a most powerful effect on the domestic habits 
 of modern Europe. It engendered the attach- 
 ments of home : it brought women into their 
 proper sphere in domestic life. The little so- 
 ciety of freemen, who lived in the midst of an 
 alien race in the castle, were all in all to each 
 other. No forum or theatres were at hand, 
 with their cares or their pleasures ; no city 
 enjoyments were a counterpoise to the plea- 
 sures of country life. War and the chase 
 broke in, it is true, grievously at times, upon 
 this scene of domestic peace. But war and 
 the chase could not last for ever; and, in the 
 long intervals of undisturbed repose, family 
 attachments formed the chief solace of life. 
 Thus it was that WOUTEX acquired their par- 
 amount influence thence the manners of chi- 
 valry, and the gallantry of modern times ; they 
 were but an extension of the courtesy and 
 habits of the castle. The word courtesy shows 
 it it was in the court of the castle that the 
 habits it denotes were learned." Lecture iv. 
 13. 17; Civilisation Europcenne. 
 
 We have exhausted, perhaps, exceeded, our 
 limits ; and we have only extracted a few of 
 
 I the most striking ideas from the first hundred 
 pages of one of Guizot's works ex uno disce 
 
 , omncs. The translation of them has been an 
 agreeable occupation for a few evenings ; but 
 they awake one mournful impression the 
 voice which uttered so many noble and en- 
 lightened sentiments is now silent; the genius 
 which once cast abroad light on the history of 
 man, is lost in the vortex of present politics. 
 The philosopher, the historian, are merged in 
 the statesman the instructor of all in the go- 
 vernor of one generation. Great as have been 
 his services, brilliant his course in the new 
 career into which he has been launched, it is 
 as nothing compared to that which he has left; 
 for the one confers present distinction, the 
 other immortal fame. 
 
 41 
 
380 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO.* 
 
 THERE is something inexpressibly striking, 
 it may almost be said awful, in the fame of 
 HOMER. Three thousand years have elapsed 
 since the bard of Chios began to pour forth his 
 strains ; and their reputation, so far from de- 
 clining, is on the increase. Successive na- 
 tions are employed in celebrating his works ; 
 generation after generation of men are fasci- 
 nated by his imagination. Discrepancies of 
 race, of character, of institutions, of religion, 
 of age, of the world, are forgotten in the com- 
 mon worship of his genius. In this universal 
 tribute of gratitude, modern Europe vies with 
 remote antiquity, the light Frenchman with the 
 volatile Greek, the impassioned Italian with the 
 enthusiastic German, the sturdy Englishman 
 with the unconquerable Roman, the aspiring 
 Russian with the proud American. Seven 
 cities, in ancient times, competed for the hon- 
 our of having given him birth, but seventy na- 
 tions have since been moulded by his produc- 
 tions. He gave a mythology to the ancients ; 
 he has given the fine arts to the modern world. 
 Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Juno, are still house- 
 hold words in every tongue ; Vulcan is yet the 
 god of fire, Neptune of the ocean, Venus of 
 love. When Michael Angelo and Canova 
 strove to irnbody their conceptions of heroism 
 or beauty, they portrayed the heroes of the 
 Iliad. Flaxman's genius was elevated to the 
 highest point in imbodying its events. Epic 
 poets, in subsequent times, have done little 
 more than imitate his machinery, copy his 
 characters, adopt his similes, and, in a few in- 
 stances, improve upon his descriptions. Paint- 
 ing and statuary, for two thousand years, have 
 been employed in striving to portray, by the 
 pencil or the chisel, his yet breathing concep- 
 tions. Language and thought itself have been 
 moulded by the influence of his poetry. Images 
 of wrath are still taken from Achilles, of pride 
 from Agamemnon, of astuteness from Ulysses, 
 of patriotism from Hector, of tenderness from 
 Andromache, of age from Nestor. The gal- 
 leys of Rome were, the line-of-battle ships of 
 France and England still are, called after his 
 heroes. The Agamemnon long bore the flag 
 of Nelson; the Ajax perished by the flames 
 within sight of the tomb of the Telamonian 
 hero, on the shores of the Hellespont ; the 
 Achilles was blown up at the battle of Trafal- 
 gar. Alexander the Great ran round the tomb 
 of Achilles before undertaking the conquest of 
 Asia. It was the boast of Napoleon that his 
 mother reclined on tapestry representing the 
 heroes of the Iliad, when he was brought into 
 the world. The greatest poets of ancient and 
 modern times have spent their lives in the study 
 of his genius or the imitation of his works. 
 Withdraw from subsequent poetry the images, 
 mythology, and characters of the Iliad, and 
 
 *Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1845. 
 
 what would remain 7 Petrarch spent his best 
 years in restoring his verses. Tasso portrayed 
 the siege of Jerusalem, and the shock of Eu- 
 rope and Asia, almost exactly as Homer had 
 done the contest of the same forces, on the 
 same shores, two thousand five hundred years 
 before. Milton's old age, when blind and poor, 
 was solaced by hearing the verses recited of 
 the poet, to whose conceptions his own mighty 
 spirit had been so much indebted; and Pope 
 deemed himself fortunate in devoting his life 
 to the translation of the Ilia.fi. 
 
 No writer in modern times has equalled the 
 wide-spread fame of the Grecian bard; but it 
 may be doubted whether, in the realms of 
 thought, and in sway over the reflecting world, 
 the influence of DAXTE has not been almost 
 as considerable. Little more than five hundred 
 years, indeed, have elapsed not a sixth of the 
 thirty centuries. which have tested the strength 
 of the Grecian patriarch since the immortal 
 Florentine poured forth his divine conceptions; 
 but yet there is scarcely a writer of eminence 
 since that time, in works even bordering on 
 imagination, in which traces of his genius are 
 not to be found. The Inferno has penetrated 
 the world. If images of horror are sought 
 after, it is to his works that all the subsequent 
 i ages have turned ; if those of love and divine 
 [ felicity are desired, all turn to the Paradise and 
 the Spirit of Beatrice. When the historians of 
 the French Revolution wished to convey an 
 idea of the utmost agonies they were called on 
 to portray, they contented themselves with say- 
 ing it equalled all that the imagination of Dante 
 had conceived of the terrible. Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds has exerted his highest genius in depict- 
 ing the frightful scene described by him, when 
 Ugolino perished of hunger in the tower of 
 Pisa. Alfieri, Metastasio, Corneille, Lope de 
 Vega, and all the great masters of the tragic 
 muse, have sought in his works the germs of 
 their finest conceptions. The first of these 
 tragedians marked two-thirds of the Inferno and 
 Paradiso as worthy of being committed to me- 
 mory. Modern novelists have found in his 
 prolific mind the storehouse from which they 
 have drawn their noblest imagery, the chord by 
 which to strike the profoundest feelings of the 
 human heart. Eighty editions of his poems 
 have been published in Europe within the last 
 half century ; and the public admiration, so 
 far from being satiated, is augmenting. Every 
 scholar knows how largely Milton was indebted 
 to his poems for many of his most powerful 
 i images. Byron inherited, though often at 
 j second hand, his mantle, in many of his most 
 moving conceptions. Schiller has imbodied 
 them in a noble historic mirror ; and the dreams 
 j of Goethe reveal the secret influence of the 
 terrible imagination which portrayed the deep 
 remorse and hopeless agonies of Malebolge. 
 MICHAEL ANGELO has exercised an influence 
 
HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 381 
 
 on modern art, little, if at all, inferior to that 
 produced on the realms of thought by Homel- 
 and Dante. The father of Italian painting, the 
 author of the frescoes on the Sistine Chapel, 
 he was, at the same time, the restorer of an- 
 cient sculpture, and the intrepid architect who 
 placed the Pantheon in the air. Raphael con- 
 fessed, that he owed to the contemplation of 
 his works his most elevated conceptions of 
 their divine art. Sculpture, under his original 
 hand, started from the slumber of a thousand 
 years, in all the freshness of youthful vigour; 
 architecture, in subsequent times, has sought 
 in vain to equal, and can never hope to sur- 
 pass, his immortal monument in the matchless 
 dome of St. Peter's. He found painting in its 
 infancy he left it arrived at absolute perfec- 
 tion. He first demonstrated of what that no- 
 ble art is capable. In the Last Judgment he 
 revealed its wonderful powers, exhibiting, as it 
 were, at one view, the whole circles of Dante's 
 Inferno portraying with terrible fidelity the 
 agonies of the wicked, when the last trumpet 
 shall tear the veil from their faces, and exhibit 
 in undisguised truth that most fearful of spec- 
 tacles a naked human heart. Casting aside, 
 perhaps with undue contempt, the adventitious 
 aid derived from finishing, colouring, and exe- 
 cution, he threw the whole force of his genius 
 into the design, the expression of the features, 
 the drawing of the figures. There never was 
 such a delineator of bone and muscle as 
 Michael Angelo. His frescoes stand out in 
 bold relief from the walls of the Vatican, like 
 the sculptures of Phidias from the pediment 
 of the Parthenon. He was the founder of the 
 school of painting both at Rome and Florence j 
 that great school which, disdaining the re- 
 presentation of still life, and all the subordinate 
 appliances of the art, devoted itself to the re- j 
 presentation of the grand and the beautiful ; to j 
 the expression of passion in all its vehemence ! 
 of emotion in all its intensity. His incom- 
 parable delineation of bones and muscles was 
 but a means to an end ; it was the human 
 heart, the throes of human passion, that his I 
 master-hand laid bare. Raphael congratulated 
 himself, and thanked God that he had given 
 him life in the same age with that painter ; and 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his last address to the 
 Academy, " reflected, not without vanity, that 
 his Discourses bore testimony to his admira- 
 tion of that truly divine man, and desired that 
 the last words he pronounced in that academy, 
 and from that chair, might be the name of 
 Michael Angelo."* 
 
 The fame of these illustrious men has long 
 been placed beyond the reach of cavil. Criti- 
 cism cannot reach, envy cannot detract from, \ 
 emulation cannot equal them. Great present 
 celebrity, indeed, is no guarantee for future 
 and enduring fame; in many cases, it is the 
 reverse ; but there is a wide difference between 
 the judgment of the present and that of future 
 ages. The favour of the great, the passions 
 of the multitude, the efforts of reviewers, the 
 interest of booksellers, a clique of authors, a 
 coterie of ladies, accidental events, degrading 
 propensities, often enter largely into the com- 
 
 * Reynolds's Discourses, No. 16, adfinem. 
 
 position of present reputation. But opinion is 
 freed from all these disturbing influences by 
 the lapse of time. The grave is the greatest 
 of all purifiers. Literary jealousy, interested 
 partiality, vulgar applause, exclusive favour, 
 alike disappear before the hand of death. We 
 never can be sufficiently distrustful of present 
 opinion, so largely is it directed by passion or 
 interest. But we may rely with confidence on 
 the judgment of successive generations on de- 
 parted eminence ; for it is detached from the 
 chief cause of present aberration. So various 
 are the prejudices, so contradictory the par- 
 tialities and predilections of men, in different 
 countries and ages of the world, that they 
 never can concur through a course of cen- 
 turies in one opinion, if it is not founded in 
 truth and justice. The vox populi is often little 
 more than the vox diaboli ; but the voice of 
 ages is the voice of God. 
 
 It is of more moment to consider in what 
 the greatness of these illustrious men really 
 consists to what it. has probably been owing 
 and in what particulars they bear an an- 
 alogy to each other. 
 
 They are all three distinguished by one pe- 
 culiarity, which doubtless entered largely into 
 their transcendent merit they wrote in the 
 infancy of civilization. Homer, as all the 
 world knows, is the oldest profane author in 
 existence. Dante flourished about the year 
 1300: he lived at a time when the English 
 barons lived in rooms strewed with rushes, and 
 few of them' could sign their names. The 
 long life of Michajel Angelo, extending from 
 1474 to 1564, over ninety years, if not passed 
 in the infancy of civilization, was at least 
 passed in the childhood of the arts : before his 
 time, painting was in its cradle. Cimabue had 
 merely unfolded the first dawn of beauty at 
 Florence; and the stiff figures of Pietro Peru- 
 gin o, which may be traced in the first works 
 of his pupil Raphael, still attest the backward 
 state of the arts at Rome. This peculiarity, 
 applicable alike to all these three great men, 
 is very remarkable, and beyond all question 
 had a powerful influence, both in forming their 
 peculiar character, and elevating them to the 
 astonishing greatness which they speedily at- 
 tained. 
 
 It gave them what Johnson has justly 
 termed the first requisite to human greatness 
 self-confidence. They were the first at least 
 the first known to themselves and their con- 
 temporaries who adventured on their several 
 arts ; and thus they proceeded fearlessly in their 
 great career. They had neither critics to fear, 
 nor lords to flatter, nor former excellence to 
 imitate. They portrayed with the pencil, or 
 in verse, what they severally felt, undisturbed 
 by fear, unswayed by example, unsolicitous 
 about fame, unconscious of excellence. They 
 did so for the first time. Thence the freshness 
 and originality, the vigour and truth, the sim- 
 plicity and raciness by which they are dis- 
 tinguished. Shakspeare owed much of his 
 greatness to the same cause ; and thence his 
 similarity, in many respects, to these great 
 masters of his own or the sister arts. When 
 Pope asked Bentley what he thought of his 
 translation of the Iliad, the scholar replied. 
 
382 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 " You have written a pretty book, Mr. Pope ; 
 but you must not call it Homer." Bentley was 
 right. With all its pomp of language and 
 melody of versification, its richness of imagery 
 and magnificence of diction, Pope's Homer is 
 widely different from the original. He could 
 not avoid it. Your " awful simplicity of the 
 Grecian bard, his artless grandeur and unaf- 
 fected majesty," will be sought for in vain in 
 the translation ; but if they had appeared there, 
 it would have been unreadable in that age. 
 Michael Angelo, in his bold conceptions, ener- 
 getic will, and rapid execution, bears a close 
 resemblance to the father of poetry. In both, 
 the same faults, as we esteem them, are con- 
 spicuous, arising from a too close imitation 
 of nature, and a carelessness in rejecting im- 
 ages or objects which are of an ordinary or 
 homely description. Dante was incomparably 
 more learned than either: he followed Virgil 
 in his descent to the infernal regions ; and ex- 
 hibits an intimate acquaintance with ancient 
 history, as well as that of the modern Italian 
 states, in the account of the characters he 
 meets in that scene of torment. But in his 
 own line he was entirely original. Homer and 
 Virgil had, in episodes of their poems, intro- 
 duced a picture of the infernal regions ; but 
 nothing on the plan of Dante's Inferno had be- 
 fore been thought of in the world. With much 
 of the machinery of the ancients, it bears the 
 stamp of the spiritual faith of modern times. 
 It lays bare the heart in a way unknown even 
 to Homer and Euripides. It reveals the in- 
 most man in a way which bespeaks the centu- 
 ries of self-reflection in the cloister which had 
 preceded it. It is the basis of all the spiritual 
 poetry of modern, as the Iliad is of all the ex- 
 ternal imagery of ancient, times. 
 
 In this respect there is a most grievous im- 
 pediment to genius in later, or, as we term 
 them, more civilized times, from which, in 
 earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, 
 public opinion, the dread of ridicule then too 
 often crush the strongest minds. The weight 
 of former examples, the influence of early 
 habits, the halo of long-established reputation, 
 force original genius from the untrodden path 
 of invention into the beaten one of imitation. 
 Early talent feels itself overawed by the colos- 
 sus which all the world adores ; it falls down 
 and worships, instead of conceiving. The dread 
 of ridicule extinguishes originality in its birth. 
 Immense is the incubus thus laid upon the 
 efforts of genius. It is the chief cause of the 
 degradation of taste, the artificial style, the 
 want of original conception, by which the 
 literature of old nations is invariably dis- 
 tinguished. The early poet or painter who 
 portrays what he feels or has seen, with no 
 anxiety but to do so powerfully and truly, is 
 relieved of a load which crushes his subse- 
 quent compeers to the earth. Mediocrity is 
 ever envious of genius ordinary capacity of 
 original thought. Such envy in early times is 
 innocuous or does not exist, at least to the ex- 
 tent which is felt as so baneful in subsequent 
 periods. But in a refined and enlightened 
 age, its influence becomes incalculable. Who- 
 ever strikes out a new region of thought or 
 composition, whoever opens a fresh vein of im- 
 
 agery or excellence, is persecuted by the cri- 
 tics. He disturbs settled ideas, endangers es- 
 tablished reputation, brings forward rivals to 
 dominant fame. That is sufficient to render 
 him the enemy of all the existing rulers in the 
 world of taste. Even Jeffrey seriously la- 
 mented, in one of his first reviews of Scott's 
 poems, that he should have identified himself 
 with the unpicturesque and expiring images of 
 feudality, which no effort could render poeti- 
 cal. Racine's tragedies were received with 
 such a storm of criticism as well nigh cost the 
 sensitive author his life ; and Rousseau was 
 so rudely handled by contemporary writers on 
 his first appearance, that it confirmed him in 
 his morbid hatred of civilization. The vigour 
 of these great men, indeed, overcame the ob- 
 stacles created by contemporary envy; but 
 how seldom, especially in a refined age, can 
 genius effect such a prodigy "? how often is it 
 crushed in the outset of its career, or turned 
 aside into the humble and unobtrusive path of 
 imitation, to shun the danger with which that 
 of originality is beset ! 
 
 Milton's Paradise Lost contains many more 
 lines of poetic beauty than Homer's Iliad; and 
 there is nothing in the latter poem of equal 
 length, which will bear any comparison with 
 the exquisite picture of the primeval innocence 
 of our First Parents in his fourth book. Never- 
 theless, the Iliad is a more interesting poem 
 than the Paradise Lost ; and has produced and 
 will produce a much more extensive impres- 
 sion on mankind. The reason is, that it is 
 much fuller of event, is more varied, is more 
 filled with images familiar to all mankind, and 
 is less lost in metaphysical or philosophical 
 abstractions. Homer, though the father of 
 poets, was essentially dramatic ; he was an 
 incomparable painter ; and it is his dramatic 
 scenes, the moving panorama of his pictures, 
 which fascinates the world. He often speaks 
 to the heart, and is admirable in the delinea- 
 tion of character ; but he is so, not by convey- 
 ing the inward feeling, but by painting with 
 matchless fidelity its external symptoms, or 
 putting into the mouths of his characters the 
 precise words they would have used in similar 
 circumstances in real life. Even his immortal 
 parting of Hector and Andromache is no ex- 
 ception to this remark; he paints the scene at 
 the Scsean gate exactly as it would have oc- 
 curred in nature, and moves us as if we had 
 seen the Trojan hero taking off his helmet to 
 assuage the terrors of his infant son, and heard 
 the lamentations of his mother at parting with 
 her husband. But he does not lay bare the 
 heart, with the terrible force of Dante, by a line 
 or a word. There is nothing in Homer which 
 conveys so piercing an idea of misery as the 
 line in the Inferno, where the Florentine bard 
 assigns the reason of the lamentations of the 
 spirits in Malebolge 
 
 " Questi non hanno speranza di morte." 
 "These have not the hope of death." There 
 speaks the spiritual poet; he does not paint 
 to the eye, he does not even convey character 
 by the words he makes them utter; he pierces, 
 by a single expression, at once to the heart. 
 
 Milton strove to raise earth to heaven ; Ho- 
 mer brought down heaven to earth. The latter 
 
HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 383 
 
 attempt was a much easier one than the for- 
 mer; it was more consonant to human frailty; 
 and, therefore, it has met with more success. 
 The gods and goddesses in the Iliad are men 
 and women, endowed with human passions, 
 affections, and desires, and distinguished only 
 from sublunary beings by superior power and 
 the gift of immortality. We are interested in 
 them as we are in the genii or magicians of 
 an eastern romance. There is a sort of aerial 
 epic poem going on between earth and heaven. 
 They take sides in the terrestrial combat, and 
 engage in the actual strife with the heroes en- 
 gaged in it. Mars and Venus were wounded 
 by Diomede when combatting in the Trojan 
 ranks : their blood, or rather the 
 
 "Ichor which blest immortals shed," 
 flowed profusely; they fled howling to the pa- 
 laces of heaven. Enlightened by a spiritual 
 faith, fraught with sublime ideas of the divine 
 nature and government, Milton was incompa- 
 rably more just in his descriptions of the Su- 
 preme Being, and more elevated in his picture 
 of the angels and archangels who carried on 
 the strife in heaven ; but he frequently falls 
 into metaphysical abstractions or theological 
 controversies, which detract from the interest 
 of his poem. 
 
 Despite Milton's own opinion, the concurring 
 voice of all subsequent ages and countries 
 has assigned to the Paradise Regained a much 
 lower place than to the Paradise Lost. The 
 reason is, that it is less dramatic it has less 
 incident and action. Great part of the poem 
 is but an abstract theological debate between 
 our Saviour and Satan. The speeches he 
 makes them utter are admirable, the reasoning 
 is close, the arguments cogent, the sentiments 
 elevated in the speakers, but dialectic too. In 
 many of the speeches of the angel Raphael, 
 and in the council of heaven, in the Paradise 
 Lost, there is too much of that species of dis- 
 cussion for a poem which is to interest the 
 generality of men. Dryden says, that Satan is 
 Milton's real hero ; and every reader of the 
 Paradise Lost must have felt, that in the Prince 
 of Darkness and Adam and Eve, the interest 
 of the poem consists. The reason is, that the 
 vices of the first, and the weakness of the two 
 last, bring them nearer than any other charac- 
 ters in the poem to the standard of mortality ; 
 and we are so constituted, that we cannot take 
 any great interest but in persons who share in 
 our failings. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest cause of the sustained 
 interest of the Iliad is the continued and vehe- 
 ment action which is maintained. The atten- 
 tion is seldom allowed to flag. Either in the 
 council of the gods, the assembly of the Gre- 
 cian or Trojan chiefs, or the contest of the 
 leaders on the field of battle, an incessant in- 
 terest is maintained. Great events are always 
 on the wing; the issue of the contest is per- 
 petually hanging, often almost even, in the 
 balance. It is the art with which this is done, 
 and a state of anxious suspense, like the crisis 
 of a great battle, kept up, that the great art of 
 the poet consists. It is done by making the 
 whole dramatic bringing the characters for- 
 ward constantly to speak for themselves, mak- 
 ing the events succeed each other with almost 
 
 breathless rapidity, and balancing success al- 
 ternately from one side to the other, without let- 
 ting it ever incline decisively to either. Tasso 
 has adopted the same plan in his Jerusalem 
 Delivered, and the contests of the Christian 
 knights and Saracen leaders with the lance 
 and the sword, closely resemble those of the 
 Grecian and Trojan chiefs on the plain of 
 Troy. Ariosto has carried it still further. 
 The exploits of his Paladins their adventures 
 on earth, in air, and water; their loves, their 
 sufferings, their victories, their dangers keep 
 the reader in a continual state of suspense. It is 
 this sustained and varied interest which makes 
 so many readers prefer the Orlando Furioso to 
 the Jerusalem Delivered. But Ariosto has pushed 
 it too far. In the search of variety, he has 
 lost sight of unity. His heroes are not con- 
 gregated round the banners of two rival po- 
 tentates : there is no one object or interest in 
 his poem. No narrow plain, like that watered 
 by the Scamander, is the theatre of their ex- 
 ploits. Jupiter, from the summit of Garga- 
 rus, could not have beheld the contending 
 armies. The most ardent imagination, indeed, 
 is satiated with his adventures, but the closest 
 attention can hardly follow their thread. Story 
 after story is told, the exploits of knight after 
 knight are recounted, till the mind is fatigued, 
 the memory perplexed, and all general interest 
 in the poem lost. 
 
 Milton has admirably preserved the unity of 
 his poem ; the grand and all-important object 
 of the fall of man could hardly admit of subor- 
 dinate or rival interests. But the great defect 
 in the Paradise Lost, arising from that very 
 unity, is want of variety. It is strong through- 
 out on too lofty a key; it does not come down 
 sufficiently to the wants and cravings of mor- 
 tality. The mind is awe-struck by the de- 
 scription of Satan careering through the im- 
 mensity of space, of the battle of the angels, 
 of the fall of Lucifer, of the suffering, and yet 
 unsubdued spirit of his fellow rebels, of the 
 adamantine gates, and pitchy darkness, and 
 burning lake of hell. But after the first feel- 
 ing of surprise and admiration is over, it is 
 felt by all, that these lofty contemplations are 
 not interesting to mortals like ourselves. They 
 are too much above real life too much out of 
 the sphere of ordinary event and interest. 
 
 The fourth book is the real scene of interest 
 in the Paradise Lost; it is its ravishing scenes 
 of primeval innocence and bliss which have 
 given it immortality. We are never tired of 
 recurring to the bower of Eve, to her devotion 
 to Adam, to the exquisite scenes of Paradise, 
 its woods, its waters, its flowers, its enchant- 
 ments. We are so, because we feel that it 
 paints the Elysium to which all aspire, which 
 all have for a brief period felt, but which none 
 in this world can durably enjoy. 
 
 No one can doubt that Homer was endowed 
 with the true poetic spirit, and yet there is 
 very little of what we now call poetry in his 
 writings. There is neither sentiment nor de- 
 clamation painting nor reflection. He is 
 neither descriptive nor didactic. With great 
 powers for portraying nature, as the exquisite 
 choice of his epithets, and the occasional force 
 of his similes prove, he never makes any la- 
 
384 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 boured attempt to delineate her features. He 
 had the eye of a great painter ; but his pictorial 
 talents are employed, almost unconsciously, 
 in the fervour of narrating events, or the ani- 
 mation of giving utterance to thoughts. He 
 painted by an epithet or a line. Even the 
 celebrated description of the fires in the plain 
 of Troy, likened to the moon in a serene night, 
 is contained in seven lines. His rosy-fingered 
 morn cloud-compelling Jupiter Neptune, 
 stiller of the waves Aurora rising from her 
 crocus-bed Night drawing her veil over the 
 heavens the black keel careering through the 
 lashing waves the shout of the far-sounding 
 sea and the like, from which subsequent poets 
 and dramatists have borrowed so largely, are 
 all brief allusions, or epithets, which evidently 
 did not form the main object of his strains. 
 He was a close observer of nature its lights, 
 its shades, its storms and calms, its animals, 
 their migrations, their cries and habits; but he 
 never suspends his narrative to describe them. 
 We shall look in vain in the Iliad, and even 
 the Odyssey, for the lengthened pictures of 
 scenery which are so frequent in Virgil and 
 Tasso, and appear in such rich profusion in 
 Milton. He describes storms only as objects 
 of terror, not to paint them to the eye. Such 
 things are to be found in the book of Job and 
 in the Psalms, but with the same brevity and 
 magical force of emphatic expression. There 
 never was a greater painter of nature than Ho- 
 mer ; there never was a man who aimed less 
 at being so. 
 
 The portraying of character and event was 
 the great and evident object of the Grecian 
 bard; and there his powers may almost be 
 pronounced unrivalled. He never tells you, 
 unless it is sometimes to be inferred from an 
 epithet, what the man's character that he in- 
 troduces is. He trusts to the character to 
 delineate itself. He lets us get acquainted 
 with his heroes, as we do with persons around 
 us, by hearing them speak, and seeing them 
 act. In preserving character, in this dramatic 
 way of representing it, he is unrivalled. He 
 does not tell you that Nestor had the garrulity 
 of age, and loved to recur to the events of his 
 youth; but he never makes him open his. 
 mouth without descanting on the adventures of 
 his early years, and the degenerate race of 
 mortals who have succeeded the paladins of 
 former days. He does not tell us that Achilles 
 was wrathful and impetuous; but every time 
 he speaks, the anger of the son of Peleus 
 comes boiling over his lips. He does not 
 describe Agamemnon as overbearing and 
 haughty; but the pride of the king of men is 
 continually appearing in his words and actions, 
 and it is the evident moral of the Iliad to rep- 
 resent its pernicious effects on the affairs of 
 the Helenic confederacy. Ulysses never utters 
 a word in which the cautious and prudent 
 counsellor, sagacious in design but prompt in 
 execution, wary in the council but decided in 
 the field, far-seeing but yet persevering, is not 
 apparent. Diomede never falters; alike in the 
 field and the council he is indomitable. When 
 Hector was careering in his chariot round 
 their fortifications, and the king of men coun- 
 selled retreat, he declared he would remain, were 
 
 it only with Sthenelus and his friends. So 
 completely marked, so well defined are his 
 characters, though they were all rapacious 
 chiefs at first sight, little differing from each 
 other, that it has been observed with truth, that 
 one well acquainted with the Iliad could tell, 
 upon hearing one of the speeches read out 
 without a name, who was the chief who 
 uttered it. 
 
 The two authors, since his time, who have 
 most nearly approached him in this respect, 
 are Shakspeare and Scott. Both seem to have 
 received the pencil which paints the human 
 heart from nature herself. Both had a keen 
 and searching eye for character in all grades 
 and walks of life ; and what is a general ac- 
 companiment of such a disposition, a strong 
 sense of the ridiculous. Both seized the salient 
 points in mental disposition, and perceived at 
 a glance, as it were, the ruling propensity. 
 Both impressed this character so strongly on 
 their minds, that they threw themselves, as it 
 were, into the very souls of the persons whom 
 they delineated, and made them speak and act 
 like nature herself. It is this extraordinary 
 faculty of identifying themselves with their 
 characters, and bringing out of their mouth the 
 very words which, in real life, would have 
 come, which constitutes the chief and perma- 
 nent attraction of these wonderful masters of 
 the human heart. Cervantes had it in an 
 equal degree ; and thence it is that Homer, 
 Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Scott, have made 
 so great, and to all appearance, durable im- 
 pression on mankind. The human heart is, 
 at bottom, everywhere the same. There is 
 infinite diversity in the dress he wears, but the 
 naked human figure of one country scarcely 
 differs from another. The writers who have 
 succeeded in reaching this deep substratum, 
 this far-hidden but common source of human 
 action, are understood and admired over all the 
 world. It is the same on the banks of the 
 Simoi's as on those of the Avon on the Sierra 
 Morena as the Scottish hills. They are under- 
 stood alike in Europe as Asia in antiquity as 
 modern times; one unanimous burst of admi- 
 ration salutes them from the North Cape to 
 Cape Horn from the age of Pisistratus to that 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 Strange as it may appear to superficial ob- 
 servers, Cervantes bears a close analogy, in 
 many particulars, to Homer. Circumstances, 
 and an inherent turn for humour, made him 
 throw his genius into an exquisite ridicule of 
 the manners of chivalry; but the author of 
 Don Quixote had in him the spirit of a great 
 epic poet His lesser pieces prove it; une- 
 quivocal traces of it are to be found in the 
 adventures of the Knight of La Mancha him- 
 self. The elevation of mind which, amidst all 
 his aberrations, appears in that erratic cha- 
 racter; the incomparable traits of nature with 
 which the work abounds; the faculty of de- 
 scribing events in the most striking way; of 
 painting scenes in a few words; of delineating 
 characters with graphic fidelity, and keeping 
 them up with perfect consistency, which are 
 so conspicuous in Don Quixote, are so many 
 of the most essential qualities of an epic poet. 
 Nor was the ardour of imagination, the 
 
HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 385 
 
 romantic disposition, the brilliancy of fancy, 
 the lofty aspirations, the tender heart, which 
 form the more elevated and not less essential 
 part of such a character, wanting in the Span- 
 ish novelist. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott more nearly resembles 
 Homer than any poet who has sung since the 
 siege of Troy. Not that he has produced any 
 poem which will for a moment bear a com- 
 parison with the Iliad fine as the Lady of the 
 Lake and Marniion are, it would be the height 
 of national partiality to make any such com- 
 parison. But, nevertheless, Sir Walter's mind 
 is of the same dimensions as that of Homer. 
 We see in him the same combination of 
 natural sagacity with acquired information; 
 of pictorial eye with dramatic effect; of observa- 
 tion of character with reflection and feeling; 
 of graphic power with poetic fervour; of 
 ardour of imagination with rectitude of prin- 
 ciple; of warlike enthusiasm with pacific ten- 
 derness, which have rendered the Grecian bard 
 immortal. It is in his novels, however, more 
 than his poetry, that this resemblance appears ; 
 the author of Waverley more nearly approaches 
 the blind bard than the author of the Lay. His 
 Romances in verse contain some passages 
 which are sublime, many which are beautiful, 
 some pathetic. They are all interesting, and 
 written in the same easy, careless style, inter- 
 spersed with the most homely and grotesque 
 expressions, which is so well known to all the 
 readers of the Iliad. The battle in Marmion is 
 beyond all question, as Jeffrey long ago 
 remarked, the most Homeric strife which has 
 been sung since the days of Homer. But these 
 passages are few and far between; his poems 
 are filled with numerous and long interludes, 
 written with little art, and apparently no other 
 object but to fill up the pages or eke out the 
 story. It is in prose that the robust strength, 
 the powerful arm, the profound knowledge of 
 the heart, appear; and it is there, accordingly, 
 that he approaches at times so closely to 
 Homer. If we could conceive a poem in 
 which the storming of Front-de-Boeuf's castle 
 in Ivanhoe the death of Fergus in Waverley 
 the storm on the coast, and death-scene in the 
 fisher's hut, in the Antiquary the devoted love 
 in the Bride of Lammermoor the fervour of the 
 Covenanters in Old Mortality, and the combats 
 of Richard and Saladin in the Talisman, were 
 united together and intermingled with the in- 
 comparable characters, descriptions, and inci- 
 dents with which these novels abound, they 
 would form an epic poem. 
 
 Doubts have sometimes been expressed, as 
 to whether the Iliad and Odyssey are all the 
 production of one man. Never, perhaps, was 
 doubt not merely so ill-founded, but so decisive- 
 ly disproved by internal evidence. If ever in 
 human composition the traces of one mind are 
 conspicuous, they are in Homer. His beauties 
 equally with his defects, his variety and uni- 
 formity attest this. Never was an author who 
 had so fertile an imagination for varying of in- 
 cidents; never was one who expressed them 
 in language in which the same words so con- 
 stantly recur. This is the invariable charac- 
 teristic of a great and powerful, but at the 
 same time self-confident but careless mind. 
 49 
 
 It is to be seen in the most remarkable manner 
 in Bacon and Machiavel, and not a little of it 
 may be traced both in the prose and poetical 
 works of Scott. The reason is, that the strength, 
 of the mind is thrown into the thought as the 
 main object; the language, as a subordinate 
 matter, is little considered. Expressions ca- 
 pable of energetically expressing the prevail- 
 ing ideas of imagination are early formed; 
 but, when this is done, the powerful, careless 
 mind, readily adopts them on all future occa- 
 sions where they are at all applicable. There 
 is scarcely a great and original thinker in 
 whose writings the same expressions do not 
 very frequently recur, often in exactly the same 
 words. How much this is the case with Homer 
 with how much discrimination and genius 
 his epithets and expressions were first chosen, 
 and how frequently he repeats them, almost in 
 every page, need be told to none who are ac- 
 quainted with his writings. That is the most 
 decisive mark at once of genius and identity. 
 Original thinkers fall into repetition of expres- 
 sion, because they are always speaking from 
 one model their own thoughts. Subordinate 
 writers avoid this fault, because they are 
 speaking from the thoughts of others, and 
 share their variety. It requires as great an 
 effort for the first to introduce difference of ex- 
 pression as for the last to reach diversity of 
 thought. 
 
 The reader of Dante must not look for the 
 heart-stirring and animated narrative the con- 
 stant interest the breathless suspense, which 
 hurries us along the rapid current of the Iliad. 
 There are no councils of the gods ; no messen- 
 gers winging their way through the clouds ; no 
 combats of chiefs ; no cities to storm ; no fields 
 to win. It is the infernal regions which the 
 poet, under the guidance of his great leader, 
 Virgil, visits; it is the scene of righteous re- 
 tribution through which he is led : it is the ap- 
 portionment of punishment and reward to 
 crime or virtue, in this upper world, that he is 
 doomed to witness. We enter the city of la- 
 mentation we look down the depths of the 
 bottomless pit we stand at the edge of the 
 burning lake. His survey is not the mere tran- 
 sient visit like that of Ulysses in Homer, or of 
 JEneas in Virgil. He is taken slowly and de- 
 liberately through every successive circle of 
 Malebolge; descending down which, like the 
 visitor of the tiers of vaults, one beneath 
 another, in a feudal castle, he finds every spe- 
 cies of malefactors, from the chiefs and kings 
 whose heroic lives were stained only by a few 
 deeds of cruelty, to the depraved malefactors 
 whose base course was unrelieved by one ray 
 of virtue. In the very conception of such a 
 poem, is to be found decisive evidence of 
 the mighty change which the human mind had 
 undergone since the expiring lays of poetry 
 were last heard in the ancient world; of the 
 vast revolution of thought and inward convic- 
 tion which, during a thousand years, in the 
 solitude of the monastery, and under the sway 
 of a spiritual faith, had taken place in the 
 human heart. A gay and poetic mythology 
 no longer amazed the world by its fictions, 
 or charmed it by its imagery. Religion no 
 longer basked in the sunshine of imagination. 
 2K 
 
386 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 The awful words of judgment to come had 
 been spoken ; and, like Felix, mankind had 
 trembled. Ridiculous legends had ceased to 
 be associated with the shades below their 
 place had been taken by images of horror 
 Conscience had resumed its place in the direc- 
 tion of thought. Superstition had lent its awful 
 power to the sanctions of religion. Terror ol 
 future punishment had subdued the fiercest 
 passions internal agony tamed the proudes 
 spirits. It was the picture of a future world 
 of a world of retribution conceived under such 
 impressions, that Dante proposed to give; it is 
 that which he has given with such terrible fidelity 
 Melancholy was the prevailing characteris- 
 tic of the great Italian's mind. It was so pro- 
 found that it penetrated all his thoughts ; so 
 intense that it pervaded all his conceptions 
 Occasionally bright and beautiful ideas flitted 
 across his imagination ; visions of bliss, ex- 
 perienced for a moment, and then lost for ever 
 as if to render more profound the darkness by 
 which they are surrounded. They are given 
 with exquisite beauty; but they shine amidst 
 the gloom like sunbeams struggling through 
 the clouds. He inherited from the dark ages 
 the austerity of the cloister; but he inherited 
 with it the deep feelings and sublime concep- 
 tions which its seclusion had generated. His 
 mind was a world within itself. He drew all 
 his conceptions from that inexhaustible source; 
 but he drew them forth so clear and lucid, that 
 they emerged, imbodied as it were, in living 
 images. His characters are emblematic of 
 the various passions and views for which dif- 
 ferent degrees of punishment were reserved 
 in the world to come ; but his conception of 
 them was so distinct, his description so vivid, 
 that they stand forth to our gaze in all the agony 
 of their sufferings, like real flesh and blood. 
 We see them we feel them we hear their 
 cries our very flesh creeps at the perception 
 of their sufferings. We stand on the edge of 
 the lake of boiling pitch we feel the weight 
 of the leaden mantles we see the snow-like 
 flakes of burning sand we hear the cries of 
 those who had lost the last earthly consolations, 
 the hope of death : 
 
 " Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti gnai 
 Risonayan per 1' aer scnza stelle, 
 Perch' io al cominciar ne lacrimai. 
 
 Diverse lingue, orrhili favelle, 
 Parole di dolore, accenti d' ira, 
 Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle, 
 
 Facevano un tumuUo, il qual s' aggira 
 Sempre 'n quell' aria senza tempo tinta 
 Come la rena quando '1 turbo spira. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Ed io : maestro, che e tanto greve 
 A lor che lamentar li fa si forte ? 
 Kispose : dicerolti molto breve. 
 Questi non hanno speranza di morte." 
 
 Inferno, c. iii. 
 
 "Here sighs, with lamentntions and loud moans, 
 Resounded through the air pierced by no star. 
 That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues, 
 Horrible languages, outcries of wo, 
 Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, 
 With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds, 
 Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls 
 Round through that air with solid darkness stained, 
 Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I then : Master ! What doth aggrieve them thus, 
 That they lament so loud ? H< j straight replied : 
 That will I tell thee briefly. These of death 
 No hope may entertain." 
 
 GARY'S Dante, Inferno, c. iii. 
 
 Here is Dante portrayed to the life in the 
 very outset. What a collection of awful images 
 in a few lines ! Loud lamentations, hideous 
 cries, mingled with the sound of clasped hands, 
 beneath a starless sky ; and the terrible an- 
 swer, as the cause of this suffering, " These 
 have not the hope of death." 
 
 The very first lines of the Inferno, when the 
 gates of Hell were approached, and the in- 
 scription over them appeared, paint the dis- 
 mal character of the poem, and yet mingled 
 with the sense of divine love and justice with 
 which the author was penetrated. 
 
 "Per me si va nella citta dolente ; 
 Per me si va nell' eterno dolore ; 
 Per me si va tra la perduta gente : 
 
 Giustizia mosse '1 mio alto Fattore ; 
 Fecemi la divina Potestate, 
 La soinma Sapienza e '1 primo Amore. 
 
 Dinanzi a me non fur cose create, 
 Se non eterne ; ed io eterno duro : 
 Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate." 
 
 Inferno, c. iii. 
 
 "Through me you pass into the city of wo; 
 Through me you pass into eternal pain : 
 Through me among the people lost for aye. 
 Justice the founder of my fabric moved : 
 To rear me was the task of power divine, 
 Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. 
 Before me things create were none, save things 
 Eternal, and eternal I endure. 
 All hope abandon, ye who enter here." 
 
 GARY'S Dante, Inferno, c. iii. 
 
 Dante had much more profound feelings 
 than Homer, and therefore he has painted deep 
 mysteries of the human heart with greater 
 force and fidelity. The more advanced age of 
 the world, the influence of a spiritual faith, the 
 awful anticipation of judgment to come, the 
 inmost feelings which, during long centuries 
 of seclusion, had been drawn forth in the 
 cloister, the protracted sufferings of the dark 
 ages, had laid bare the human heart. Its suf- 
 ferings, its terrors, its hopes, its joys, had be- 
 come as household words. The Italian poet 
 shared, as all do, in the ideas and images of his 
 age, and to these he added many which were 
 entirely his own. He painted the inward man, 
 and painted him from his own feelings, not the 
 observation of others. That is the grand dis- 
 tinction between him and Homer; and that it 
 is which has given him, in the delineation of 
 mind, his great superiority. The Grecian bard 
 was an incomparable observer; he had an in- 
 exhaustible imagination for fiction, as well as 
 a graphic eye for the delineation of real life ; 
 but he had not a deep or feeling heart. He did 
 not know it, like Dante and Shakspeare, from 
 his own suffering. He painted the external 
 symptoms of passion and emotion with the 
 hand of a master ; but he did not reach the 
 inward spring of feeling. He lets us into his 
 characters by their speeches, their gestures, 
 their actions, and keeps up their consistency 
 with admirable fidelity; but he does not, by a 
 word, an expression, or an epithet, admit us 
 into the inmost folds of the heart. None can 
 do so but such as themselves feel warmly and 
 profoundly, and paint passion, emotion, or 
 suffering, from their own experience, not the 
 observation of others. Dante has acquired 
 his colossal fame from the matchless force with 
 which he has portrayed the wildest passions, 
 the deepest feelings, the most intense suffer- 
 ings of the heart. He is the refuge of all 
 
HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 387 
 
 those who labour and are heavy laden of all 
 who feel profoundly or have suffered deeply. 
 His verses are in the mouth of all who are 
 torn by passion, gnawed by remorse, or tor 
 mented by apprehension; and how many are 
 they in this scene of wo ! 
 
 A distinguished modern critic* has said, 
 that he who would now become a great poet 
 must first become a little child. There is no 
 doubt he is right. The seen and unseen fetters 
 of civilization ; the multitude of old ideas afloat 
 in the world; the innumerable worn out chan- 
 nels into which new ones are ever apt to flow ; 
 the general clamour with which critics, nursed 
 amidst such fetters, receive any attempts at 
 breaking them; the prevalence, in a wealthy 
 and highly civilized age, of worldly or selfish 
 ideas ; the common approximation of charac- 
 ters by perpetual intercourse, as of coins, by 
 continual rubbing in passing from man to man, 
 have taken away all freshness and originality 
 from ideas. The learned, the polished, the 
 highly educated, can hardly escape the fetters 
 which former greatness throws over the soul. 
 Milton could not avoid them ; half the images 
 in his poems are taken from Homer, Virgil, 
 and Dante ; and who dare hope for emancipa- 
 tion when Milton was enthralled] The me- 
 chanical arts increase in perfection as society 
 advances. Science ever takes its renewed 
 flights from the platform which former efforts 
 have erected. Industry, guided by experience, 
 in successive ages, brings to the highest point 
 all the contrivances and inventions which mi- 
 nister to the comfort or elegancies of life. But 
 it is otherwise with genius. It sinks in the 
 progress of society, as much as science and 
 the arts rise. The country of Homer and 
 ^Eschylus sank for a thousand years into the 
 torpor of the Byzantine empire. Originality 
 perishes amidst acquisition. Freshness of 
 conception is its life : like the flame, it burns 
 fierce and clear in the first gales of a pure 
 atmosphere; but languishes and dies in that 
 polluted by many breaths. 
 
 It was the resurrection of the human mind, 
 after the seclusion and solitary reflection of 
 the middle ages, which gave this vein of ori- 
 ginal ideas to Dante, as their first wakening 
 had given to Homer. Thought was not ex- 
 tinct ; the human mind was not dormant dur- 
 ing the dark ages; far from it it never, in 
 some respects, was more active. It was the 
 first collision of their deep and lonely medita- 
 tions with the works of the great ancient 
 poets, which occasioned the prodigy. Uni- 
 versally it will be found to be the same. After 
 the first flights of genius have been taken, it is 
 by the collision of subsequent thought with it 
 that the divine spark is again elicited. The 
 meeting of two great minds is necessary to 
 beget fresh ideas, as that of two clouds is to 
 bring forth lightning, or the collision of flint 
 and steel to produce fire. Johnson said he 
 could not get new ideas till he had read. He 
 was right; though it is not one in a thousand 
 who strikes out original thoughts from study- 
 ing the works of others. The great sage did 
 not read to imbibe the opinion of others, but 
 
 * Macaulay. 
 
 to engender new ones for himself; he did not 
 study to imitate, but to create. It was the 
 same with Dante; it is the same with every 
 really great man. His was the first powerful 
 and original mind which, fraught with the 
 profound and gloomy ideas nourished in seclu- 
 sion during the middle ages, came into contact 
 with the brilliant imagery, touching pathos, 
 and harmonious language of the ancients. 
 Hence his astonishing greatness. He almost 
 worshipped Virgil, he speaks of him as a spe- 
 cies of god ; he mentions Homer as the first 
 of poets. But he did not copy either the one 
 or the other ; he scarcely imitated them. He 
 strove to rival their brevity and beauty of ex- 
 pression ; but he did so in giving vent to new 
 ideas, in painting new images, in awakening 
 new emotions. The Inferno is as original as 
 the Iliad; incomparably more so than the 
 JE-neid. The offspring of originality with ori- 
 ginality is a new and noble creation ; of origi- 
 nality with mediocrity, a spurious and degraded 
 imitation. 
 
 Dante paints the spirit of all the generations 
 of men, each in their circle undergoing their 
 allotted punishment; expiating by suffering 
 the sins of an upper world. Virgil gave a 
 glimpse, as it were, into that scene of retribu- 
 tion ; Minos and Rhadamanthus passing judg- 
 ment on the successive spirits brought before 
 them ; the flames of Tartarus, the rock of Si- 
 syphus, the wheel of Ixion, the vulture gnaw- 
 ing Prometheus. But with Homer and Virgil, 
 the descent into the infernal regions was a 
 brief episode; with Dante it was the whole 
 poem. Immense was the effort of imagina- 
 tion requisite to give variety to such a subject, 
 to prevent the mind from experiencing weari- 
 ness amidst the eternal recurrence of crime 
 and punishment. But the genius of Dante 
 was equal to the task. His fancy was prodi- 
 gious ; his invention boundless ; his imagina- 
 tion inexhaustible. Fenced in, as he was, 
 within narrow and gloomy limits by the nature 
 of his subject, his creative spirit equals that 
 of Homer himself. He has given birth to as 
 many new ideas in the Inferno and the Paradiso, 
 as the Grecian bard in the Iliad and Odyssey. 
 
 Though he had reflected so much and so 
 deeply on the human heart, and was so perfect 
 a master of all the anatomy of mental suffer- 
 ing, Dante's mind was essentially descriptive. 
 He was a great painter as well as a profound 
 thinker; he clothed deep feeling in the garb 
 of the senses; he conceived a vast brood of 
 new ideas, he arrayed them in a surprising 
 manner in flesh and blood. He is ever clear 
 and definite, at least in the Inferno. He ex- 
 hibits in every canto of that wonderful poem a 
 fresh image, but it is a clear one, of horror or 
 anguish, which leaves nothing to the imagina- 
 tion to add or conceive. His ideal characters 
 are real 'persons; they are present to our 
 senses ; we feel their flesh, see the quivering 
 of their limbs, hear their lamentations, and 
 feel a thrill of joy at their felicity. In the 
 Paradiso he is more vague and general, and 
 thence its acknowledged inferiority to the 
 Infemo. But the images of horror are much 
 more powerful than those of happiness, and it 
 is they which have entranced the world. "It 
 
388 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 is easier," says Madame de Stael, "to convey 
 ideas of suffering than those of happiness ; for 
 the former are too well known to every heart, 
 the latter only to a few." 
 
 The melancholy tone which pervades Dante's 
 writings was doubtless, in a great measure, 
 owing to the misfortunes of his life ; and to 
 them we are also indebted for many of the 
 most caustic and powerful of his verses per- 
 haps for the design of the Inferno itself. He 
 took vengeance on the generation which had 
 persecuted and exiled him, by exhibiting its 
 leaders suffering in the torments of hell. In 
 his long seclusion, chiefly in the monastery 
 of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana, a wild and 
 solitary retreat in the territory of Gubbio, and 
 in a tower belonging to the Conte Falcucci, in 
 the same district, his immortal work was writ- 
 ten. The mortifications he underwent during 
 this long and dismal exile are thus described 
 by himself : " Wandering over almost every 
 part in which our language extends, I have 
 gone about like a mendicant ; showing against 
 my will the wound with which fortune has 
 smitten me, and which is often falsely imputed 
 to the demerit of him by whom it is endured. 
 I have been, indeed, a vessel without sail or 
 steerage, carried about to divers ports, and 
 roads, and shores, by the dry wind that springs 
 out of sad poverty." 
 
 In the third circle of hell, Dante sees those 
 who are punished by the plague of burning 
 sand falling perpetually on them. Their tor- 
 ments are thus described 
 
 " Supin giaceva in terra alcuna gente ; 
 Alcuna si sedea tutta raccolta ; 
 Ed altra ajidava continuamente. 
 
 Quella che giva intorno era piu molta; 
 E quella meifche giaceva al tormento ; 
 Ma piii al duolo avea la lingua sciolta. 
 
 Sovra tutto '1 sabbion d'un cader lento 
 Piovean di fuoco dilatate falde, 
 Come di neve in alpe senza vento. 
 
 Quail Alessandro in quelle parti calde 
 D' India vide sovra lo suo stuolo 
 Fiamme cadere infino a terra salde." 
 
 Inferno, c. xiv. 
 
 "Of naked spirits many a flock I saw, 
 All weeping piteously, to different laws 
 Subjected : for on earth some lay supine, 
 Some crouching close were seated, others paced 
 Incessantly around ; the latter tribe 
 More numerous, those fewer who beneath 
 The torment lay, but louder in their grief. 
 
 O'er all the sand fell slowly wafting down 
 Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow 
 On Alpine summit, when the wind is hush'd. 
 As, in the torrid Indian clime, the son 
 Of Ammon saw, upon his warrior band 
 Descending, solid flames, that to the ground 
 Came down." 
 
 GARY'S Dante, c. xiv. 
 
 The first appearance of Malebolge is de- 
 scribed in these striking lines 
 
 "Luogo 6 in Inferno, detto Malebolge, 
 Tutto di pietra e di color ferrisrno, 
 Come le cerchia che d' intorno il volge. 
 
 Nel dritto mezzo del campo maligno 
 Vaneggia un pozzo assai \-irso e profondo, 
 Di cui suo luogo contera 1* ordigno. 
 
 Q,uel cinghio che rimane adunque e tondo 
 Tra '1 pozzo e '1 pie dell' alta ripa dura, 
 E ha distinto in died valli al fondo." 
 
 Inferno, c. xviii. 
 
 "There ia a place within the depths of hell 
 Call'd Malebolge, all of rock dark-stained 
 With hue ferruginous, e'en as the steep 
 That round it circling winds Right in the midst . 
 Of that abominable region yawns 
 A spacious gulf profound, whereof toe frame 
 
 Due time shall tell. The circle, that remains, 
 Throughout its round, between the gulf and base 
 Of the high craggy banks, successive forms 
 Ten bastions, in its hollow bottom raised." 
 
 CARY'S Dante, c. xviii. 
 
 This is the outward appearance of Malebolge, 
 the worst place of punishment in hell. It had 
 many frightful abysses ; what follows is the 
 picture of the first : 
 
 "Ristemmo per veder 1'altra fessura 
 Di Malebolge e gli altri pianti vani : 
 E vidila mirabilmente oscura. 
 
 Quale nelF arzana de' Veneziani 
 Bolle F inverno la tenace pece, 
 A rimpalmar li legni lor non sani 
 
 * * * * 
 Tal non per fuoco ma per divina arte, 
 Bollia laggiuso una pegola spessa, 
 
 Che 'nviscava la ripa d'ogni parte. 
 I' vedea lei, ma non vedeva in essa 
 Ma che le Iiolle che '1 bollor levava, 
 
 E gonfiar tutta e riseder compressa. 
 
 * * * * 
 E vidi dietro a noi un diavol nero 
 Correndo su per lo scoglio venire. 
 
 Ahi quant' egli era nelF aspetto fiero! 
 E quanto mi parea nelF atto acerbo, 
 Con F ali aperte e sovre i pie leggiero ! 
 
 L' omero suo ch' era acuto e superbo 
 Carcava un peccator con ambo Fanche, 
 Ed ei tenea de' pie ghermito il nerbo. 
 
 * * * * 
 Lasr<riu il buttb e per lo scoglio duro 
 
 Si volse, e mai non fu mastino sciolto 
 Co tanta fretta a semiitar lo furo. 
 
 Quei s' attulit) e tornb su convolto ; 
 Ma i demon che del ponte avean coverchio 
 Gridar : qui non ha luogo il Santo Volto. 
 
 Q,ui si nuota altramenti che nel Serchio 
 Per6 se tu non vuoi de' nostri grafli, 
 Non far sovra le pegola soverchio. 
 
 Poi F addentar con piu di cento rafti, 
 Disser: coverto convien che qui balli, 
 Si che se puoi nascosamente accaffi." 
 
 Inferno, c. xxi. 
 
 " To the summit reaching, stood 
 
 To view another gap, within the round 
 Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. 
 Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. 
 In the Venetians' arsenal as boils 
 Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear 
 Their unsound vessels in the wintry clime. 
 
 * * * * 
 So, not by force of fire but art divine, 
 
 Boil'd here a glutinous thick mass, that round 
 Lined all the shore beneath. I that beheld, 
 But therein not distinguish'd, save the bubbles 
 Raised by the boiling, and one mighty swell 
 Heave, and by turns subsiding fall. 
 
 * * * * 
 Behind me I beheld a devil black, 
 
 That running up, advanced along the rock. 
 Ah! what fierce cruelty his look bespake. 
 In act how bitter did he seem, with wings 
 Buoyant outstretch'd, and feet of nimblest tread. 
 Hia shoulder, proudly eminent and sharp, 
 Was with a sinner charged ; by either haunch 
 He held him, the foot's sinew g'riping fast. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Him dashing down, o'er the rough rock he turn'd; 
 Nor ever after thief a mastiff" loosed 
 Sped with like eager haste. That other sank, 
 And forthwith writhing to the surface rose. 
 Hut those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge, 
 Cried Here the hallow'd visaee saves not : here 
 Is other swimming than in Serchio's wave, 
 Wherefore, if thou desire we rend thee not, 
 Take heed thou mount not o'er the pitch. This said, 
 They grappled him with more than hundred hooks, 
 And shouted Cover'd thou must sport thee here ; 
 So, if thou canst, in secret mayst thou filch." 
 
 CARY'S Dante, c. xxi. 
 
 Fraught as his imagination was with gloomy 
 ideas, with images of horror, it is the fidelity 
 of his descriptions, the minute reality of his 
 pictures, which gives them their terrible power. 
 He knew well what it is that penetrates the 
 soul. His images of horror in the infernal 
 regions were all founded on those familiar to 
 
HOMER, DANTE, AND MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
 389 
 
 every one in the upper world ; it was from 
 the caldron of boiling pitch in the arsenal of 
 Venice that he took his idea of one of the pits 
 of Malebolge. But what a picture does he 
 there exhibit ! The writhing sinner plunged 
 headlong into the boiling waves, rising to the 
 surface, and a hundred demons, mocking his 
 sufferings, and with outstretched hooks tear- 
 ing his flesh till he dived again beneath the 
 liquid fire! It is the reality of the scene, the 
 images familiar yet magnified in horror, which 
 constitutes its power: we stand by; our flesh 
 creeps as it would at witnessing an auto-da-fe 
 of Castile, or on beholding a victim perishing 
 under the knout in Russia. 
 
 Michael Angelo was, in one sense, the 
 painter of the Old Testament, as his bold and 
 aspiring genius aimed rather at delineating 
 the events of warfare, passion, or suffering, 
 chronicled in the records of the Jews, than 
 the scenes of love, affection, and benevolence, 
 depicted in the gospels. But his mind was 
 not formed merely on the events recorded in 
 antiquity: it is no world doubtful of the im- 
 mortality of the soul which he depicts. He is 
 rather the personification in painting of the 
 soul of Dante. His imagination was evident- 
 ly fraught with the conceptions of the Inferno. 
 The expression of mind beams forth in all his 
 works. Vehement passion, stern resolve, un- 
 daunted valour, sainted devotion, infant inno- 
 cence, alternately occupied his pencil. It is 
 hard to say in which he was greatest. In all 
 his works we see marks of the genius of an- 
 tiquity meeting the might of modern times: 
 the imagery of mythology blended with the 
 aspirations of Christianity. We see it in the 
 dome of St. Peter's, we see it in the statue of 
 Moses. Grecian sculpture was the realization 
 in form of the conceptions of Homer; Italian 
 painting the representation on canvas of the 
 revelations of the gospel, which Dante clothed 
 in the garb of poetry. Future ages should 
 ever strive to equal, but can never hope to 
 excel them. 
 
 Never did artist work with more persever- 
 ing vigour than Michael Angelo. He himself 
 said that he laboured harder for fame, than 
 ever poor artist did for bread. Born of a no- 
 ble family, the heir to considerable posses- 
 sions, he took to the arts from his earliest 
 years from enthusiastic passion and conscious 
 power. During a long life of ninety years, he 
 prosecuted them with the ardent zeal of youth. 
 He was consumed by the thirst for fame, the 
 desire of great achievements, the invariable 
 mark of heroic minds ; and which, as it is 
 altogether beyond the reach of the great bulk 
 of mankind, so is the feeling of all others 
 which to them is most incomprehensible. 
 Nor was that noble enthusiasm without its 
 reward. It was his extraordinary good for- 
 tune to be called to form, at the same time, 
 the Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine 
 Chapel, the glorious dome of St. Peter's, and 
 the group of Notre Dame de Pitie", which now 
 adorns the chapel of the Crucifix, under the 
 roof of that august edifice. The " Holy Fami- 
 ly" in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, and the 
 " Three Fates" in the same collection, give an 
 idea of his powers in oil-painting: thus he 
 
 carried to the highest perfection, at the same 
 time, the rival arts of architecture, sculpture, 
 fresco and oil painting.* He may truly be 
 called the founder of Italian painting, as 
 Homer was of the ancient epic, and Dante 
 of the great style in modern poetry. None 
 but a colossal mind could have done such 
 things. Raphael took lessons from him in 
 painting, and professed through life the most 
 unbounded respect for his great preceptor. 
 None have attempted to approach him in 
 architecture; the cupola of St. Peter's stands 
 alone in the world. 
 
 But notwithstanding' all this, Michael An- 
 gelo had some defects. He created the great 
 style in painting, a style which has made mo- 
 dern Italy as immortal as the arms of the le- 
 gions did the ancient. But the very grandeur 
 of his conceptions, the vigour of his drawing, 
 his incomparable command of bone and mus- 
 cle, his lofty expression and impassioned mind, 
 made him neglect, and perhaps despise, the 
 lesser details of his art. Ardent in the pursuit 
 of expression, he often overlooked execution. 
 When he painted the Last Judgment or the 
 Fall of the Titans in fresco, on the ceiling and 
 walls of the Sistine Chapel, he was incom- 
 parable ; but that gigantic style was unsuita- 
 ble for lesser pictures or rooms of ordinary 
 proportions. By the study of his masterpieces, 
 subsequent painters have often been led astray; 
 they have aimed at force of expression to the 
 neglect of delicacy in execution. This defect 
 is, in an especial manner, conspicuous in Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who worshipped Michael 
 Angelo with the most devoted fervour ; and 
 through him it has descended to Lawrence, 
 and nearly the whole modern school of Eng- 
 land. When we see Sir Joshua's noble glass 
 window in Magdalen College, Oxford, we be- 
 hold the work of a worthy pupil of Michael 
 Angelo; we see the great style of painting in 
 its proper place, and applied to its appropriate 
 object. But when we compare his portraits, 
 or imaginary pieces, in oil, with those of Ti- 
 tian, Velasquez, or Vandyke, the inferiority is 
 manifest. It is not in the design but the 
 finishing ; not in the conception but the exe- 
 cution. The colours are frequently raw and 
 harsh ; the details or distant parts of the piece 
 ill-finished or neglected. The bold neglect of 
 Michael Angelo is very apparent. Raphael, 
 with less original genius than his immortal 
 master, had more taste and much greater deli- 
 cacy of pencil ; his conceptions, less extensive 
 and varied, are more perfect; his finishing is 
 always exquisite. Unity of emotion was his 
 reat object in design ; equal delicacy of 
 finishing in execution. Thence he has at- 
 ained by universal consent the highest place 
 in painting. 
 
 " Nothing," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, "is 
 denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to 
 be attained without it." " Excellence in any 
 
 * The finest design ever conceived by Michael Angelo 
 was a cartoon representing warriors bathing, and some 
 biicklinson their armour at the sound of the trumpet, 
 whirh summoned them to their standards in the war 
 between Pisa and Florence. It perished, however, in 
 he troubles of the latter city ; but an engraved copy 
 remains of part, which justifies the eulogiums bestowed 
 upon it. 
 
 2x3 
 
390 
 
 ALISON'S MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
 
 department," says Johnson, "can now be at- 
 tained only by the labour of a lifetime ; it is 
 not to be purchased at a lesser price." These 
 words should ever be present to the minds of 
 all who aspire to rival the great of former daj^s ; 
 who feel in their bosoms a spark of the spirit 
 which led Homer, Dante, and Michael Angelo 
 to immortality. In a luxurious age, comfort or 
 station is deemed the chief good of life ; in a 
 commercial community, money becomes the 
 universal object of ambition. Thence our ac- 
 knowledged deficiency in the fine arts ; thence 
 our growing weakness in the higher branches 
 of literature. Talent looks for its reward too 
 s-oon. Genius seeks an immediate recom- 
 pense: long protracted exertions are never 
 attempted : great things are not done, because 
 great efforts are not made. 
 
 None will work now without the prospect 
 of an immediate return. Very possibly it is 
 so ; but then let us not hope or wish for immor- 
 tality. "Present time and future," says Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, "are rivals ; he who solicits 
 the one, must expect to be discountenanced by 
 the other." It is not that we want genius ; 
 what we want is the great and heroic spirit 
 which will devote itself, by strenuous efforts, 
 to great things, without seeking any reward 
 but their accomplishment. 
 
 I Nor let it be said that great subjects for the 
 I painter's pencil, the poet's muse, are not to be 
 j found that they are exhausted by former ef- 
 ] forts, and nothing remains to us but imitation. 
 Nature is inexhaustible ; the events of men are 
 unceasing, their variety is endless. Philoso- 
 phers were mourning the monotony of time, 
 historians were deploring the sameness of 
 ! events, in the years preceding the French Re- 
 volution on the eve of the Reign of Terror, 
 the flames of Moscow, the retreat from Russia. 
 What was the strife around Troy to the battle 
 of Leipsic ? the contests of Florence and Pisa 
 to the revolutionary war 1 What ancient naval 
 victory to that of Trafalgar 1 ? Rely upon it, 
 subjects for genius are not wanting ; genius 
 itself, steadily and perseveringly directed, is 
 the thing required. But genius and energy 
 alone are not sufficient; COURAGE and disin- 
 terestedness are needed more than all. Cou- 
 rage to withstand the assaults of envy, to 
 despise the ridicule of mediocrity disinterest- 
 edness to trample under foot the seductions of 
 ease, and disregard the attractions of opulence. 
 An heroic mind is more wanted in the library 
 or the studio, than in the field. It is wealth 
 and cowardice which extinguish the light of 
 genius, and dig the grave of literature as of 
 nations. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 
VC 29504 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY