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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF GARFIELD
A DISCOURSE
BEFORE THE SOUTH PLACE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY,
SEPTEMBER 25, 1881,
' BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
LONDON :
II, SOUTH
PLACE,
FINSBURY.
PRICE TWOPENCE
�FREDERIC
G. HICKSON & Co.
257, High Ho lb o ku,
Lohdoh, W.C.
�THE LIFE AND DEATH OF GARFIELD.
~jp|~ OW good-hearted is this much abused old world
fr>
of ours-—this great world of men, women and
children! Theologians have pronounced it depraved.
VZ
wrote—
Even poets have called it hard and unfeeling ; as one
“ Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.”
Yet, even in his indictment, the poet suggests the
fundamental goodness of human nature, since he calls
its reverse ‘ inhumanity.’ Were human nature bad,
to be humane would be also bad ; the more humanity,
the more depravity. The race records in its language
the simple verdict on itself, that to be human is to be
good-hearted; the evil heart is inhuman.
Really it is
man’s ignorance of man that makes countless thousands
mourn.
The great world moves on its daily round of
toils and joys, self-centred as its planet, and heeds
little, because it sees little, the agonies of those crushed
ec beneath its wheels. But when it does see such, when
st its unheeding rush and roar is arrested by some salient
tragedy; when its innumerable eyes are fixed upon a
deed in which all the evil powers of nature are seen
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venting their triumphant cruelty upon innocence and
excellence; then the human race has but one heart,
purely good: under it the depraved is shown to be not
man, but monster; the excellent is immortalised.
The great crime against humanity, consummated in
the death of the President, has moved the heart of
humanity.
The Court in mourning reflects a sorrow
felt in every cottage and hall.
The money-changers
turn from their speculations to bow their heads before
a poor man carried to his grave four thousand miles
away. ’Tis a tragedy all can comprehend. There
have been cases where crowned assassins of men and
women have felt in their own hearts the weapon they
had used against others.
Though it be deplorable
that any man of the people should degrade himself
to the foul -weapon of tyrants, we must sometimes say
that, if despots dislike assassination, they should avoid
setting the example.
But in this case there is nothing
to confuse the judgment of mankind.
The eye of the
world is brought face to face with an infrahuman
spirit acting through forces of the human form, and
sees beside the fallen man the real Satan with which
all real saviours have to measure their strength.
The universal cry of horror, sympathy, indignation,
is really a protest of the human heart against the
cruelties of brute nature, and, however unconsciously,
brands the creeds that deify the destructive powers of
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nature.
“ Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord of the
creeds; “Vengeance is mine,” says the assassin of the
President. How does the reciter of the creeds like
deified vengeance when mirrored in the crime of a
vindictive man ?
poet—•
Their real faith is rather that of the
“ A loving worm within its sod
Were cliviner than a loveless God
Amid His worlds.”
Man cannot worship the ancient images of elemental
force. Those old dogmas have left phrases upon our
EiJ lips about the inscrutable dispensations of Providence;
rd but they have no root in the millions of hearts that
now rise in grief and wrath against a great wrong and
oh
calamity.
The ancient sacerdotal theology regarded calamities
of this kind, falling upon eminent men or families, as
the carrying out of fatal decrees of the gods. The
victims might be quite innocent, but they had to suffer
vicariously for the offence of some remote ancestor.
Nor was this notion merely ‘pagan.’
In Christian
theology, all pain and death are the doom of ancestral
sin, and there are instances in the Bible where Jehovah
rh strikes the innocent for the sin of the guilty (Exod. xi.,
2 Sam. xii.), just as the house of Atreus is divinely
hunted down for a remote ancestral offence.
That pitiful providence (if we may so speak of a-
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phantasy of the primitive brain) measuring its strength
against the innocence unsuspecting its malice,—too
weak to punish justly, strong only in cruelty, power
less to protect,—is a providence no longer believed in.
We only know that it was once believed in, by a
bequest of cant phrases, which, if they meant any
thing to-day, would mean that the murderer Guiteau
belongs to the divine administration. Of course, these
dogmatic anachronisms -will survive for a long time
yet, on paper, and in conventional rites and forms.
A great many interests will see to that.
They are
not amenable to reason, because not products of
reason. In a sense, therefore, they are unanswerable.
The Prince of Wales was very ill.
The churches and
chapels all prayed for him, and he recovered.
It was
claimed as an answer to prayer. The President lay long
in agony and peril, which even his assassin pitied. The
churches and chapels of
a hundred millions of
Christians, the very synagogues of Palestine, prayed for
his recovery. He died. (The whole human world, with
one voice, supplicated its God for this one life j and he
who could raise his personal friends out of their graves
in Palestine would not answer the prayer of all man-
kind in behalf of his devout worshipper in A m erica!)
This, of course, is said to be a mysterious dispensation
of God.
assailable.
Whatever the event, Theology is thus un
Common-sense may ask whethei' God cares
�more for Prince than for President ; whether typhoid
fevers and assassins are heavenly ministers, and, if so,
whether physicians should resist the one or judges
sentence the other.
But common-sense will ask in
vain. Theology will go on with its days of thanks
giving or of humiliation, because its appeal now is
to those who do not think, nor inquire (whether from
incompetence or fear) ; and who so cannot realise that
their creeds are the stultification of their true hearts
and sincerest lives.
But let us be of
good cheer!
Amid these
hereditary euphemisms about evil, now and then the
real heart of mankind speaks, and we recognise that
it does not regard wrong and cruelty as divine in any
sense.
It has an unsophisticated answer to the
widow’s cry, “ Oh, why am I made to suffer this cruel
blow ! ” It resents the blow, providential or not. It
hates the villainy and the baseness with loathing.
It loves mercy and justice.
This is the feeling that
lies deep down in all—even in those who pay lip-
service to a God of Wrath and Vengeance. This is the
-divinely human sentiment which has been brought out
legibly, as if on every man’s forehead, by the tragedy
at Washington; and it is a prophecy of the coming
•of the true son of man.
In this passionate sympathy
with goodness and horror of evil, lies the hope of
man’s salvation from all evil.
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The heart of humanity is man’s time providence.
It is that which ever brings good out of evil.
It has
been my lot to witness, and study, the effect of the
dastardly assassination of two of the noblest American
Presidents. Many of you will remember the dismay
spread by the tidings that Abraham Lincoln, liberator
of his country from slavery, had fallen.
The bullet
that pierced his heart evoked all that was best in the
heart of his country and of England.
There had been
up to that time a large number of persons in this
country utterly deceived as to the spirit of slavery,
who still sympathised with the lost cause of the south,
because they did not recognise that those valiant
defenders of slavery were its chief victims.
The
murderous bullet that slew Lincoln slew that party
here.
There was also a spirit of mistaken clemency in
America, which, respecting a brave foe fallen, was
about to make concessions which, it is now seen, might
have repaired the evil system that had engendered
civil strife.
President Lincoln shared that spirit.
But his death revealed to the people the irrecoverable
nature of slavery, and they extirpated it.
So did the
providential human heart educe good out of evih
And it will do so again in this case.
done so.
Already it has
This terrible tragedy has not only revealed
to the peoples on both sides the Atlantic in how
profound a sense they are of one blood—that their
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•common blood is thicker than the ocean of water that
divides them—but it has united the North and the
South in America in a feeling that has not before
■existed between them for two generations.
They are
gathered to-day in the unity of sorrow around their
dead President. The spirit of faction, too, which had
raised
its head
in the North,
some
of
whose
venom the murderer had caught, has received its
check. And all these benefits following a great crime
lay not in that crime at all, but in the good sense and
just heart of the people. They represent in a swift
and startling way the process which, in slow ways, is
always going on.
It is that which has thus far
civilised the earth. The steady pressure of the good
against the evil in the world; the gradual turning of
experience into wisdom, the lessons of suffering
teaching the laws of well-being, shadows of error
pointing to the light of truth—these make the law of
human progress and the evolution of a true man upon
the earth.
The subject that had been named for to-day’s dis
course was, “ Our life estate.”
By that I meant that
to each man his life is an estate which he inherits ; in
which he has a life interest; which even for the poorest
holds many treasures; an estate necessarily transmitted
by each, improved or unimproved, to be the inheritance
of others. The tremendous event which has super
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seded that topic, has, beyond its startling voice, a still
small voice that may well impress upon us this lesson
concerning a man’s life estate, and the way it goes on
after he has died out of it.
Behold the dead President lying in the Rotunda of
the Capitol, where the sympathy of a world surges
around him and breaks into tears!
Prom poor and
honest parents he received his life estate.
It was in
a small corner of the world—a lowly estate—but
all sound and honest, and large enough to give
play to the greatest principles
and activities of
man’s nature. The father came of one of those old
English families that crossed the ocean to build a new
England where conscience might be free. He was a
pioneer of civilisation in the forests of Ohio, and died
of a disease caught while defending his fields from a
forest fire.
The harvest was saved, though the farmer
died. The brave mother and her children struggled on,
and their courage and energy prevailed. The boy had
a strong constitution, a love of work, and a thirst for
knowledge. He earned money by driving the mules that
drew canal boats. There was nothing noble about that;
he was neither proud of it or ashamed of it. It was his
lot in life, and he fulfilled its duties.
to a larger lot.
He studied
But he aspired
hard.
He and his
mother laid up money enough for him to go to
college.
He climbed to
his degree; he climbed
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f
beyond it,
)
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difficulties.
There was no sleight-of-hand in his
culture. He became a scholar, afterwards a College
I,
President. As with every healthy young man, his
religious sentiment began to develop. The region
around him was now populous, even fashionable, and
all the great sects were there. This youth selected to
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step by step, without any leaps over
take his place among a very humble circle, who called
themselves “ Disciples of Christ.” They have no
creed. They are generally believers in the super
natural character of Christ, but refuse to use the word
“Trinity,” or in any way to bind themselves with any
to . of the hereditary formulas called creeds.
This gave
ft them freedom to grow with the mind of their country.
T They are the youngest of the denominations, founded
ii| in 1827, but they have grown fairly well in culture
J
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and influence. A telegram in the London Times says
the funeral to-morrow will be conducted by the late
President’s chaplain. But the President never had
any chaplain. Such an office does not exist; and, if
fj ‘ it did, the late President would have abhorred it.
H He used to gather the students of his college in the
rfe
chapel, and lecture to them on many different sub
©j jects,—sometimes on writings of Tennyson, Carlyle,
Emerson, Darwin, and other contemporary authors.
B His spirit was thoroughly liberal. He had not in him
a drop of sectarian blood ; his Christianity consisted
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in a sincere desire to make the love and heroism and
gentleness of Christ an influence upon the life of
himself and others.
As he had not taken the side of the conventional
and powerful in religion, but associated himself with
humble, creedless, “Disciples of Christ,” so, in politics,
he joined himself to the small band of constitutional
opponents of slavery who knew nothing but defeat.
The republican (then “free-soil”) party which now
rules the United States was laughed at as a feeble
fanaticism when Garfield began speaking and working
for it. It had nothing to offer or to promise him.
Few could have then dreamed that this century would
witness its success.
But slavery had the keen instinct
to foresee its doom in that small concert of free hearts,
and met its slow though steady growth with a mad
blow at the Union.
Then the College President sprang forward to his
country’s rescue. With a hundred students from the
college over which he had presided, to begin with, he
formed, his regiment.
They marched to the front and
won the first Union victory in that war.
When he
had faithfully served his country through the war. his
neighbours sent him to Congress, where he did much
to save the harvest of the battle-field—namely
emancipation, and the constitutional equality of races
which alone could secure it.
For slavery, foiled in
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battle, was aiming to gain political control of the
slaves it had lost.
So did this man bravely and faithfully improve the
life estate he had received from the past—from his
English ancestor who helped to found the freedom of
New England, from his father who cleared forests in
Ohio. ’Tis said there will be sung over Garfield’s grave
his favourite hymn, <£ Ho, reapers of Life’s harvest! ”
Possibly when he used to sing it he remembered how
his father died from trying to save his harvest—the
bread of his family—from a forest-fire.
They who
now sing it will remember that it was while protecting
the great national field from an encroaching evil that
the President received his death-wound.
The reapers
of the harvest of his life will bitterly feel the grief
that he cannot share their harvest-home.
of his own harvest-home?
But what
What becomes of the
faithful servant’s life estate? < Does that die too? Is
that shrunken form of the powerful man, which his
friends shudder to look upon,— is that the end of
James Abram Garfield?
The symbols that surrounded him as he lay in state
in the Capitol, reveal the compassionate longing of
the human heart that the great wrong shall be
righted, and to him personally.
It seems too bad,
too cruel, that one who from the tow-path had
climbed by patient, honest steps up to the White
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House, should have all his honours and joys snatched
away, ere tasted—his highest success turned to dust,
his happiness to agony, his great opportunity made
his death ! So beside him a shaft built of roses has
on its broken top, nestling amid immortelles, the dove
that mourns, with downbent head; while on his
pillow is the dove with uplifted eye and wing, about
to fly away
emblem of his soul.
Over him is sus
pended the crown of righteousness gleaming against
the black draped canopy of the dome.
All these are
symbols of the faith that the late President’s personal
possession of his life-estate has not ended. In earlier
ages such enthusiasms have given rise to beliefs
among men that their heroes were not dead—could
not die—but lived like Arthur in happy valleys, or
invisibly walked the earth like St. John, or led armies
like St. James.
Such beliefs still mould for many
their conception of immortality; but they who confess
their eyes too weak to pierce the veil beyond the
grave, do not the less believe in the actual im
mortality of the life which a good man bequeaths to
the world. A right and true man may be defrauded
of his share in his own estate of life, but mankind
cannot be robbed of it.
For them he will go on
living, and his life will expand in influence as much
as if he were personally alive.
Nay, more !
The
dead will elevate the policy of the living President.
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He binds together nations that were estranged, and
sections which were at strife.
He is not dead, nor
does he sleep.
But there is a life that casts its shadow athwart theworld. Crouched in his ceil is the wretched criminal
who has caused all this agony. Perhaps in all history
■no two lives were ever brought into contact more-
representative severally of the best and the worst
forces that can control human life. The whole life of
that miserable murderer has been tracked, and it has
been found that he has for years been going through
the country like a sort of mad dog, leaving in many
regions traces of his disastrous march. Licentiousness,
fraud, falsehood, faithlessness to woman and to man,,
appear to have been the footprints of his career. And
during all this horrible career he has been possessed
[with the belief that he is a specially religious man.
i. Bor years, and up to the very hour of the murder,
Charles Guiteau was a lecturer against infidelity. HeI was celebrated for his prayers in the meetings of'
Mr. Moodey.
He went about the country defrauding
hotels at the very time that he was denouncing the
wickedness of the Hon. Bobert Ingersoll for dis
believing in Christianity.
Even since the murder,
and in his prison, Guiteau has continually read his
j Bible, is eager to talk theology with the officials,
I fiercely denounces infidelity, and argues for orthodoxy.
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These things I gather from reports that seem unbiassed
and uncontradicted.
I have no disposition to base
upon them any theory against Christians. Orthodox
people generally have as much horror of crime as any
•others. Nay, so long as Protestant orthodoxy was
able to unite morality and religion, and convince men
that crime was punished by a burning hell, it was able
to do something towards restraining the hell of human
passions. But gradually it has developed a theology
which necessarily and logically maintained that the
blood of Jesus could cleanse from all sin.
“ While the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner may return.”
‘The majority of criminals have accepted the blood of
Jesus, after the law had clutched them, and believed
that they were ascending from the gallows to
Abraham’s bosom.
It is not often that a man of
Guiteau’s education is found so utterly demoralised
by a self-righteous theology.
And, although it is
logical for him to stand on his dogmas, and say “ I
the chief of sinners am, yet Jesus died for me,”—it
amounts to moral lunacy.
His combination of piety
and criminality make him a monster.
Goethe said,
“ Nature reveals her secrets in monsters.” And one
may hope that Christians will study this theological
assassin as a specimen showing what certain natures
may deduce from the dogma of salvation by faith
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without works.
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Happily that is not the tendency of
Christians, which is less and less characterised by
dogmatism, more and more by imitation of the
benevolence and charity of Christ.
But there is a
tendency of the old dogmas as they are deserted by
the best minds to gravitate downward among the least
educated and least restrained regions of society, and
to make their vulgar visionaries depend more on
abjectness before God than on rectitude before man
for security after death.
It may be that Guiteau will find no defender on his
trial.
No lawyer may be willing to take on himself
the stigma of having been the counsel of such a
creature.
Yet, I can imagine, a day may come of
calmer judgment when a plea in palliation might be
[ made even for him.
It would show that there was
j bequeathed him as his life estate a morbid temperament which exaggerated all the worst teachings of
morbid dogmas impressed on his mind in early life.
I He was taught that the supreme object of existence
was to save his own soul—that first lesson in selfish
ness taught to millions of children (which only the
j restraining grace of human nature prevents from
I making them soul-less!) He was taught that with
God human goodness availed nothing—neither justice,
| nor pity, nor gentleness, nor sympathy, nor unselfish| ness, nor purity of life.
All these amounted to just
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nothing in the work of bringing man to his highest
joy.
was taught that morality could save nobody,
and good works but filthy rags in the sight of God.
He was taught that death was a small affair, and to a
Christian great gain ‘ passage from an accursed world
to a blissful paradise.
The only fatally wicked thing
was to him unbelief.
These dogmas were given him
ns the guides of his life; they were not merely put on
his lips, as in most cases, but seem to have taken deep
root in him, insomuch that even in prison they were
his meditation day and night, if one may judge by
some reports of his interest in theology.
This is a perilous kind of teaching.
This is the
second time in the last few years that America has
been brought face to face with some of the possible
results of preserving the forms and phrases of
barbarian religion.
One was the case of the Massa
chusetts preacher Freeman, who believed himself
called, like Abraham, to sacrifice his beloved child.
He plunged a dagger in her breast.
The little victim
is in her grave; the father is in a lunatic asylum.
Probably, if the murderer of Garfield could be
thoroughly tried, he also would go to the asylum;
but, as it is, he will probably rest in a nameless and
execrated grave.
But what will theology have to say of this victim
of an enthusiasm for faith without the deeds of the
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law?
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Will the potent blood of Jesus in which he
fervently trusts carry him among the angels with the
blood of Garfield on his hands ?
Or are there limits
to the efficacy of Christ’s blood? That is a problem
we may leave to the theology which has raised it.
For us a more serious question is, What shall be the
result of that evil-doer’s career on earth ? What is
the life estate which he will part from and transmit ?
Has it a vitality, a permanence equal to that of the
President he has slam ? Will his evil career go on
widening into further and larger evil, as the good life
survives in expanding influences of good ? I believe
not.
I find nothing in history or experience to justify
that half-pessimistic view of nature which holds that,
evil in this world has a force co-extensive with that of
goodness. It must be admitted that evil now with
stands good in a passive, obstructive way; but it
must also be admitted that, since the reign of man
began, the good is selected and developed, the evil
steadily diminished and exterminated.
As from the
woods and fields of these islands the wolves and vipers
have nearly disappeared before human culture, so in
the world at large the wolfish and venomous passions
are steadily driven towards their strata of extinction.
The cumulative worth and excellence of the whole
: world form the life estate of the good, and at their
; death is consigned and preserved as a sacred trust to
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right and true men, who will not willingly let die one
benefit transmitted, or one example of excellence.
President Garfield was never so great and strong-
an influence in his life as he now is when borne to his
grave on the shore of Lake Erie.
When he was a
candidate for the highest office in America, partisan
charges were urged against him.
they clung to him.
After his election
Death has dissipated them all.
While he was on his death-bed every secret thing
concerning him was brought to light, and few records
in history have ever come forth from such a search
with such enhanced clearness and brilliancy.
Eact
after fact has been remembered and elicited; and it
has been shown that his life from childhood to death
is one whose heroism had never been recognised. It
never would have been recognised but for this fearful
tragedy, and but for the essential justice of mankind.
He fell a Republican President; he rises as an
exemplar
for the world.
However beneficial his
administration might have been had he lived, he could
nevei' have hoped to unite the sections of his country
as much as his death has united them ; and whatever
his foreign policy, he could never have hoped to bring
together England and America in such close alliance
of affection as they have been brought by sorrow and
sympathy at his grave. This last benefit, indeed, he
partly saw before death, and he was sustained by it
�through, the long agony.
And we may hope that
the wonderful serenity amid pain—the patient, un
complaining sufferance of the terrible eleven weeks—
were those of a mind visited by happy visions of his
country united, North and South—and of an AngloAmerican unity—secured and cemented by his blood
that at first seemed so idly shed.
Let all good men and women try to make that
vision a reality !
Let us remember that the life estate
of all who die falls as a bequest to those who are
living,—to be terminated if it be evil, to be enlarged
and improved if it be good.
The dead President has
TO bequeathed to each and all of us a benefit and a hope
which we little suspected was so near us.
tjI and tragical
His life
death have stirred the hearts of the
two greatest nations of the world,—representing nearly
a hundred millions of people standing in the vanguard
of civilisation,—nations which seventy years ago were
at war, and sixteen years ago
were quarrelling.
It has been the belief of great thinkers that it
would be a token of higher civilisation if these
two great nations could recover their ancient unity on
the broad basis of liberty,—if instead of an extinct
Anglo-Saxon race there could be formed an Anglo-
American race.
The pulses of sympathy and sorrow
every hour beating towards America are far grander
as an expression of civilisation than the mastered
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magnetism that is their messenger.
Old fables tell
of a magical music that built the walls of cities ;
but the ocean cable that vibrates with the love
of nation for nation is a harp-string of earth’s
heart whose music builds ideal civilisation.
This
day the fifty millions of that stricken land behold
on the darkness a star of brightness ; it is a wreath of
flowers laid by the Queen upon the President’s bier,
fragrant with the sympathy and bedewed with the
tears of her people.
Those flowers must live.
It is
for all good men and women to cherish them that they
may never fade.
Their fragrance is more potent than
armies and navies. They are blossoms of a springtide
of civilisation such as our poor blood-stained earth has
vainly sighed foi' through the centuries.
Ah! I know that they will never fade; they will
be cherished in the hearts of children’s children, and
they will still expand in the happy sunshine when all
the battle-flags that ever floated between America and
England are furled and forgotten.
That is General Garfield’s bequest to you and me,—
to help keep fresh those flowers that mean the hopes
of nations. He bequeathes us also the story of his
life.
To every Anglo-American child shall be told the
brave story of how a poor western lad toiled and
studied, and nourished his mind and heart with pure
and patriotic aims, until he rose to greatness and
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hands that had smitten, the hearts that had been
estranged, and bequeathed to humanity the grandest
estate it could have, a heart-union of the two nations
which mainly hold the destinies of the world and
must mould the future of mankind.
So much could one poor lad achieve.
young Englishmen.
Think of it,
Do not suppose that such ascent
and success is peculiarly American. It was English
long centuries before it was American. The German,
Goethe, said to a youth who proposed going to seek
his fortune in America, “Your America is here or
nowhere.”
The science of England and its welfare
are largely forwarded by men who were once poor
lads.
Before enterprise and endeavour, barriers will
yield here as elsewhere.
Your aim is not title or
ostentation; it is to become fully possessed of your
life estate, to make the most and best of all your
powers for the good of mankind, so that no mischance,
no blow of fate, can destroy your work, but it shall
rise on grandly over your grave as by the labours of
your life.
�SOUTH _PLACE_ CHAPEL.
WORKS TO BE OBTAINED IN THE LIBRARY.
BY M. D. CONWAY, M.A.
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Report of the Conference of Liberal Thinkers 1878,1
�LAUREATE DESPAIR
A DISCOURSE GIVEN AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL
DECEMBER nth 1S81.
BY
Moncure D. Conway, M.A.
LONDON
II,
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�LAUREATE DESPAIR.
1T ET me say at once that I am glad the Poet Laureate
J—4 has written the poem called “ Despair/’ which I
((propose to criticise. It is a cry out of the heart of an
1 earnest man; it utters the sorrow with which many
^people in our time see their old dreams fading, and no
Anew ones rising in their place; and it reminds free■fthinkers that theirs is a heavy responsibility and duty.
IThey have to meet and respond to that need and pain
•|which thousands feel wrhere one can give it expression.
AMen of science and philosophers do not always under
stand this. The most eminent of them are pursuing
©deals far more beautiful to them than those that have set.
iThey have special knowledge, or special aims, which
Ikindle into pillars of fire before their enthusiasm, and can
Jnot see how to those of other studies and pursuits their
rfguiding splendour is a pillar of smoke rising from a fair
■world slowly consumed. The 'man of science, hourly
^occupied with discoveries which blaze upon him, star by
Mar, till his reason is as a vault sown with eternal lights,
<eels that he is in the presence of conceptions beside
Which the visions of Dante and Milton are frescoes of a
iime-darkened dome. The enthusiast of Humanity holds
�( 4 )
in his eye a latter-day glory of which history is the pro
phecy and developed man the fulfilment. Such enthu
siasms imply continual studies, occupations, duties, which,
leave little room for attention to the shadows these lights;
cast upon the old world of dreams—each shadow a dogma
or its phantom. Nevertheless, that world of dreams,
shades, phantoms, is still real to many. It is real not
only to the ignorant, whom it terrifies, and to the selfish,
whose power rests on it, but to spiritual invalids, whoneed sympathy. And, beyond this reality, the phantasmson which religion and society wereflfounded possess a
quasi-reality even for robust minds. You mav recall the
saying of Madame de Stael, that “ she did not believe in.
ghosts, but was afraid of them.” After dogmas are dead
their ghosts walk the earth ; and even some who nolonger believe in the ghosts are still afraid of them.
When their intellects are no longer haunted their nerves;
are.
There are others, again, for whose vision or nerves the
pleasant dogmas alone survive in this attenuated, ghostly
form. They no longer believe in the ghosts, but still love
them. Of this class is the literary artist. To the pictorial
artist a ruin is more picturesque than the most comfort
able dwelling. ’Tis said of an eminent art-critic that,
being invited to visit America, he replied that he could
not think of visiting a country where’there were no ruins..
Alfred Tennyson is the consummate artist in poetry. We
all know with what tender sentiment Tennyson has.
�a
(
5
)
painted the scenery of Arthur’s time, with what felicity
described many other reliques of human antiquity.
“ His eye will not look upon a bad colour.” He sees
the mouldering ruins in their picturesque aspects, leaving
out of sight the noxious weeds and vermin that infest
them. Where these loathsome things appear no man
more recoils from them. If the White Ladies of Super
stition haunt them, these he admires ; but he impales the
gnomes and vampyres.
In this, his latest poem, “ Despair,” he shows a childlike
simplicity of desire to retain all the pleasant and reject all
the unpleasant consequences of the same principles. His
�( 6
)
Till you flung us back on ourselves, and the human heart, and.
the Age.
But pity—that Pagan held it a vice—was in her and in me,
Helpless, taking the place of the pitying God that should be I
Pity for all that aches in the grasp of an idiot power,
And pity for our own selves on an earth that bore not a
flower.
Again he says :
Were there a God, as you say,
His Love would have power over hell till it utterly vanish’d
away.
Ah, yet—I have had some glimmer at times, in my gloomiest
woe,
Of a God behind all—after all—the Great God, for aught that
I know :
But the God of Love and of Hell together — they cannot ibe
Tr ?h(,U?ht ■
cwM
It there be such a God, may the Great God curse him and
bring him to nought!
This is what the Poet Laureate thinks of the God of every
creed in Christendom, for every creed maintains an
eternal hell.
But the agnostic, the know-nothing sceptic, is summoned
to bear his share in this tragedy of hopelessness and
suicide, fl he poet does not suggest that disbelief in a
future life or in a Deity would alone lead to suicide. In
his imaginary case unbelief is only a factor. The man
and wife were in terrible trouble. One of their two sons
had died ; the eldest had fled after committing forgery on
his own father, bringing him to ruin. It is under such
fearful circumstances that, without faith or hope, they sink
into despair. The man says :
Why should we bear with an hour of torture, a moment of
pain,
If every man die for ever, if all his griefs are in vain,
�And the homeless planet at length will be wheeled thro’ thesilence of space,
Motherless evermore of an ever-vanishing race ?
*
*
*
*
*
*
For these are the new dark ages, you see, of the popular press,
When the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are
whooping at noon,
And Doubt is the lord of this dunghill, and crows to the sun
and moon,
Till the Sun and Moon of our science are both of them turned
to blood,
And Hope will have broken her heart, running after a shadow
of good.
It is a striking fact, in our sceptical age, that such
lamentations as these are not heard from among the poor
and the drudges of society. They who are asking whether
life be worth living without the old faith in immortality,
and they who say it is not, are persons of position and
wealth. Any one who has taken the pains to observe the
crowds of working people who attend the lectures of
secularists, or to read their journals, will know they are
cheery enough. We never hear any of them bemoaning
the vanished faith. In truth the more important fact is
not that the belief in immortality is gone, or the belief in
Deity, but that belief in a desirable immortality and a
desirable Deity has gone out of the hearts of many. In
one of his humourous pieces Lucian, describing his ima
ginary journey through Hades, says he could recognise
those who had been kings or rich people on earth by theii
loud lamentations. They had parted with so much.
Those who on earth had been poor and wretched were
quiet enough. "We may observe similai phenomena in
�( 8
)
this psychological Hades, or realm of the Unseen and
Unknown, into which modern thought has entered. Those
to whom God has allotted palaces, plenty, culture, beauty,
can eas ly believe Him a God of Love ,• and it were to
them heaven enough to wake from the grave to a continu
ance of the same. But they who have known hunger,
cold, drudgery, ignorance, have no such reason to say
God is Love. Such may naturally say, “ If we have
waked up in this world in dens of misery, why, under the
same providence, may we not wake up to a future of
misery ?” The old creeds met that difficulty. They
showed a miraculous revelation on the subject, by which
God had established an insurance against future misery,
an assurance of future luxury. It was all to be super
natural. By miraculous might poverty was to be changed
to wealth, the hovel to a palace, rags to fine raiment,
ignorance to knowledge, folly to wisdom, and scarlet sin
to snow-pure virtue. Without such tremendous trans
formations the masses of the miserable could have no
interest in immortality. But gradually the comfortable
scholarship and theology of our time, in trying to prove a
God of nature, have done away with the God of super
nature. Their deity of design is loaded with all the bad
designs under which men suffer. Fifty years ago Carlyle
groaned because he could not believe in a Devil any more.
Philosophy had reasoned a Devil out of existence. The
result was to make the remaining power responsible for
all the evils in the world, and ultimately bling him into
�1
w
( 9 X
a ioubt and disgrace too. Dismssing the Devil out of faith
iiias not dismissed evil, the mad work of earthquake, hurri
cane and fire. As we think of the shores with their wrecks,
^is we think of those people in Vienna gathered around the
iiharre .1 remains of their families and friends, must we not
Sisk if this is providential work what would be diabolical
jivork ? Reason says to Theology, “ At least you can be
iKilent, and not malign the spirit of good within us by
Asking us to call that without good which we know to be
lad ! ”
. I Similarly theologians .in trying to rationalise the idea of
Immortality have naturalised it. They have tacked it on
to evolution. But what the miserable suffer by is evolu4ion : unless they can be assured of a supernatural change,
jjf a heaven, they do not want to be evolved any more.
Only a miraculous revelation could promise them that
;.jniraculous heaven ; and the. only alleged revelation is
Rejected by the culture and the charity of our age. It is
[fcenied by Culture, because it reveals some impossibilities ;
my Charity, because it reveals a God capable of torturing
leople more than they are tortured here. What are eight
hundred people burned swiftly in a theatre compared to
millions burning in hell for ages, if not for ever, as Revela
tion declares ? Our Poet Laureate is a man of both
Culture and charity ; he cannot sing of a revelation which
Includes Hell, however he may cling to hopes that came
Ly the sanae revelation, or mourn at thought of pai ting
from a world so fair.
�(
10
)
Candour compels us to admit that there is as yet no
certainty of a future life for the individual consciousness.
The surviving seed of the human organism if it exist has
not been discovered. There is nothing unnatural in the
theory. It would not be more miraculous to find our
selves in another world than to find ourselves in this. If
two atoms of the primeval nebula, thrown together, had
been for one instant capable of speculation, how little
could they have imagined a company of men and women
gathered to meditate on life and eternity 1 All this is
very marvellous if we conceive it contemplated from a
point of non-existence. For all we know there are more
marvels beyond.
But suppose there are none ; suppose death be the end
of us; is there any reason for despair ? Even for the
man and woman on whom life had brought dire
calamities, was there any reason for suicide ? Just the
reverse, I should say. Belief that this life was all were
reason for making the most of it. Belief that their ruin
would not be repaired hereafter were reason for trying to
repair it here, as well as they could. Has Tennyson
evolved his man and woman out of his inner con
sciousness ? It is doubtful if in the annals of freethought
such a case can be pointed out; though many instances
may be shown where believers in a future world slew
themselves to get there. Suicide was a mania in some
old convents until the church fixed its ‘ canon ’gainst self
slaughter.’
�?! ' • However, it may be that instances of the kind Tennyson
& -describes may occur. We are but on the threshold of the
is age when men are to live and work without certainty
S of future rewards and payments. The doubts now in the
t .head must presently reach the heart, then influence the
II hand ; if people have built their houses on the sand of
K mythology, and they fall, it may be that some will not
t have the heart to begin new buildings on the rock.
F-: What then ? It will be only the continuation of the old
1 law—survival of the fittest. Suicides at least do not live
t to increase their race. Only those tend to prevail in
nature who can 'adapt themselves to the conditions ofnature. If nature has arrived at a period of culture when
•supernaturalism passes out of the human faith, then they
"who sink into despair or death, on that account, show
themselves no longer adapted to nature. There will be a
survival of those more adapted to the new ideas ; who
prefer them ; who do not aspire to live for ever, but have
.a heart for any fate, and a religion whose forces and joys
are concentrated in the life that now is. If natuie and
humanity need such a race for their furtherance, such a
race will be produced ; and they will read poems like
this “ Despair,” with a curiosity mixed with compassion,
wondering how their ancestors could have been troubled,
about such a matter.
. Something like this has occurred in the past in several
id instances.
While Christians find fullest expression of
[j their joyful emotions in the psalmody and prophecy of the
�(
I2
)
Hebrews they often forget that those glowing hymns say
no word about a future life. There is no clear affirmation
of immortality in the Old Testament, but much to the
contrary.
Buddhism also, which has awakened the
enthusiasm of a third of a human race, arose as a protest
against theism and immortality. In such instances there
would appear to have been reactions against previous,
theologies, which had so absorbed mankind in metaphysics
and' speculations about the future as to belittle this life and
cause neglect of this world. Despised and degraded nature
avenged this wrong by making asceticism its own
destruction, and worldliness a source of strength and
*
survival.
Some such Nemesis seems to be following
the extreme other-worldliness which, for so many Christian
centuries, has bestowed the fruits of human toil upon
supposed supernatural interests. This earthward swing of
the slow pendulum of faith is not likely to be arrested
until religion has been thoroughly humanised. As a
brave clergyman (Rev. Harry Jones) warned the Church
Congress at York, the Church will never conquer
Secularism, except by doing more for mankind than
Secularism does.
■ '
We must almost remember that no oscillations of the
pendulum between theology and humanity, no reactions,
determine the question. As Old Testament Secularism
* As it is said in Ecclesiasticus: “ He has also set worldli
ness in their heart, which man cannot understand the works
that God does, from beginning to end.”—Dr. Kalisch’s
Translation.
�(
13
)
followed Egyptian Mysticism, Talmudic visions of heaven
} succeeded. Every ebb alternates with a flow in the tides
I of human feeling; and these tides are the generations which
I nature successively creates to fufil successive conditions,
and to find their joy in such fufilment, whatever be the
despair of the ebbing at faith of the flowing tide.
: But, no doubt, these rising and falling ages of speculation
| and religion will show calmer and happiei' phenomena in
the future than in the past. There are traces in the earth
i of tremendous operations in the past, which geology
I was unable to account for by any forces now acting,
until Astronomy discovered that the Moon had been
[ steadily receding from the earth, its mother. The moon
i is now 240,000 miles away, but is proved to have bien
t once only 40,000 miles distant. At that period the tides
were to the tides of our time as 216 to 1. This country
1 and many others must then have been flooded with every
tide, and the enormous geologic results are now under
stood. There would appear to be some correspindence in
I all this with mental and moral phenomena. In religious
! geology also there are traces of convulsions and huge
formations which it has been difficult to account for,—
mighty religious wars, massacres, whole races committing
I slow suicide for the sake of their Gods. Comparative
I studies now show that the lunar theology was much nearer
J to mankind then than now, and the tides more furious.
« The extraneous influence is withdrawing more and more.
] Where theologians used to burn each other they now fight
j combats with pens. Where heretics were massacred they
1
�(
14 )
are now only visited with dislike. Instead of crusades,,
with Richard and Saladin, we have young poets singingon the crest of a sparkling tide, and their elder, from
refluent waves, murmuring rhythmic Despair. There isa vast difference between the emotions awakened
by belief in a deity near at hand, pressing down upon the
life, and those awakened by a hypothetical deity of
philosophy or ethics. When men attributed their every
hourly hap, good or bad, to the personal favour or to the
anger of their deity, their feeling at any supposed affront
to their deity, mingled with selfishness and terror, rose to
a pitch very different from any now known when few
men refer any event to supernatural intervention. Yet
do the great movements of the universe go on, the cycles
and the periods fufil themselves, the planets roll on new
orbits with changed revolutions; and, whatever be the
corresponding changes in human opinion, they cannot alter
the eternal fact.
If immortality be the law of the universe, it will be
reached by believers and disbelievers alike. But, could
the world be made absolutely certain of it beforehand, by
the only means of certainty—scientific proof—what were
the advantage ? It would no longer be a miraculous thing
promising all a leap from earthly sorrow to heavenly
bliss, but merely a law of nature—mere continuance—the
millions rising from their graves to go on with existence,
just as they will rise from their beds to-morrow. There
would be no further note of despair from the Laureates ;
but how would it be with the general world ? One of the
�most powerful poems of our time has been written by a
French lady, Louise Ackermann. It is entitled “Les
Malheueux”—the Unhappy. The last day has come ; the
trumpet has sounded. A great angel descends ; uncovers
all the graves of the dead, and bids them come forth for
everlasting life. Some eagerly come forth, but a large
number refuse. To the divine command that they shall
emerge, their voice is heard in one utterance. They tell
him they have had enough of life in His creation ; they
have passed through thorns, and over flinty paths—from
agony to agony. To such an existence He called them—
they suffered it; and now they will forgive Him only if
He will let them rest, and forget that they have lived.
Such is the despair with which one half of the world,
might answer the joy of the other should a mere natural
immortality be proved.
A great deal of the poetry of the world has invested
with glory man’s visions of heaven and heavenly beings.
The very greatest poets have invested nature and theearth with glory, and set the pulses of the human heart
to music. This has been the greatness of Homer, Shake
speare, Goethe. But the majority have given the world
visions of heaven, divine dramas, and hymns of immor
tality ; and it is these that have been taught to earth’s
millions in their infancy. These happy hymns have for
ages soothed sorrowing hearts, and helped the masses of
mankind to bear the burthens of life—this not only in
Christendom, but in so-called Pagan lands and ages.These have been as the songs of Israfel in Eastern faith.
�(
16 )
They said a sweet singer among the angels left heaven to
go forth over the suffering world and soothe mortals with
his heavenly lyre and his hymns, until all were able to
Tear the griefs of life because of the joys beyond,
rehearsed by Israfel. But once—while this angel was
.singing with his celestial seven-stringed lyre—one string
of it snapped. No one could be found to mend the string
-or supply its place; and, every time Israfel tried to make
music, it was all jangling discords, through that broken
string. So Israfel took his flight, and never returned to
the world. The tale sounds like a foreboding of what has
in these last days befallen the sacred poetry which so long
made the world forget its griefs. The lyre of Israfel is
the human heart, and the snapped string is its faith in a
supernatural heaven. It has been snapped by the
development of nature ; it therefore cannot be restored
unless by a further development: and so Sacred Poetry
has taken its flight from the world—its last great song
being of a Paradise Lost. In other words, the hope of
immortality has ceased to have power to soothe and
uplift those who most needed it, because the recognized
reign of law forbids belief that such life—should it come
—would be very different from the life that uow is.
*
But there is another story of a broken string, with a
■different ending. It comes from Greece (Browning
has finely told it in The Two Poets of Croisic), the land
of Art and of the Beauty that adorns the earth. It is of
a bard who came with his lyre to sing for a prize. He
-came with other competitors before the solemn judges.
�The others had all sung their poems ; now came our youth,
with his. His theme rose high and higher, till at length
he came to the great theme of his song—Love. Just then
he felt beneath his finger that one string of his lyre had
snapt, a string that presently must do its part, or else his
song be put to shame. On, on, his strain went, as if to
its death ; but just as he drew near his note’ of Despair,
lo, a cricket chirped loud, chimed in with just that needed
note ! Saved, he went on, and ever as he returned to this
broken string the cricket duly made good the snapt string,
and thus the judges missed no note of the music, which
won the crown. On the poet’s statue was carved the
cricket which contributed from the lowly hearth the
needed note in that hymn of Love, when the old string
had broken. That tale too, I doubt not, came out of that
truest of all poets, the human heart. For the heart of our
race is aged in such experiences as those which elicit
rhymes of Despair. It has seen beautiful symbols fade in
myriads ; symbols of heavens innumerable, every one
clung to by suffering Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, as
much as any Christian clings to their successors. It has
seen troops of bright gods and goddesses perish, nymphs
and fairies leaving wood and vale desolate ; and yet, just
as its gladdest heart-string has snapt, its faith in heaven
given way, some cheery note from the earth has come to
remind it of the love near at hand, of the divine joy van
ished from its ancient heavens only to be revealed at the
hearth.
A cricket-chirp ! That is all. While our great Laureate
�(
i8
)
is employing his art to sing of despair, and other poets
aspire to ambitious themes, the notes are as yet but few
and humble, which cheer man with a trust in the love that
is near him. But there are such notes making up for the
•creed’s snapt string. Nor are they near only the happy.
The cricket sings from many an overshadowed hearth. It
tells the heart to be brave, and never count life lost so
long as courage remain. It bids man cease thinking so
much about himself—whether he be likely to die next year,
or die for ever—and go fall in love with something, an
out-self; to dispel morbid meditations. It warns us not to
worry over what may never happen, or, if it happen, may
be for the best, but turn to make what paradise we can on
•earth ; nor admit into it the destroyer of every paradise,
■care about the morrow, or about the far future. All these
spiritual despairs are diseases of the imagination. In a
sense, it is hereditary disease. For many generations our
ancestors employed their imaginations for little else than
to realise the charnal-house and picture happiness or
horrors beyond it. So their children have inherited a
morbid tendency of imagination, whereby they may turn
from the happiness they have and make themselves
miserable with dreams about its vanishing. Such work of
the imagination is illegitimate. Imagination is the
brightest angel of the head, as Love is of the heart; they
are twin angels and their office is to make life rich and
beautiful. And they can so enrich and adorn life, though
passed in a hovel, though amid pain, though destined to
end for ever, provided they be not dismissed from their
�(
W )
d post of present duty and sent wandering through clouds
c# to find love’s objects, or digging into graves to find life’s
ul fountain. I love and admire our Laureate for his great
heart and his beautiful art, but will not follow his muse,
nJ singing of Despaii, except with a hope that it is his way
i of writing its epitaph. I will follow the happy minstrel.
That poet who shows life to be environed with beauty,
makes deserts blossom in his song, whose poem is a
fountain of joy for all the living, bringing forgetfulness
to pain, and a sweet lullaby for the dying—that shall be
J my poet. And if, among the minstrels of our time, such
sihappy ones connot be found, because some string of faith
.for heart is snapped, then let us listen to the cheery
if cricket, to the voices of children, to the gentle words of
..S affection, to the unbroken song of the merry hearts in
..1 nature that remember only its loveliness. We will listen
eg to these until the new Poetry shall arise—as arise it will
I-with fresh songs, to bid all spirits rejoice in that which
) the old brought despair. That is the task of Poetry
ad Art. Every new thing destroying the old brings
espair; none brought more than Christianity—shatterlg the fair gods, and Protestantism—over whose havoc of
rayers and pieties Luther’s poor wife wept; but Poetry
id Art did their work, and none now long for restoration
f Aphrodite or Madonna. So also shall our age of
:ience find its poets and artists, and our children shall no
ore long for a buried faith than we for the holy dolls of
•umbled altars, whose power to charm has fled.
�SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL
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Demonology and Devil-lore............................
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Thomas Carlyle
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The Sacred Anthology : A Book of Ethnical Scriptures
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Republican Superstitions
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Human Sacrifices in England
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Intellectual Suicide.........................................
The First Love Again
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Entering Society
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BY Mr. FREDERIC
“ Pantheism and Cosmic Emotion ”...
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HARRISON
BY Dr. ANDREW WILSON.
The Religious Aspects of Health ................
BY A J. ELLIS, B.A., F.R.S., &c.,
Salvation
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Truth...................................................................
Speculation......................................................
Duty...................................................................
The Dyer’s Hand
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Comte’s Religion of Humanity
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BY W. C. COUPLAND, M.A.
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The Conduct of Life ...
Hymns and Anthems
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&C.
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REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS,
1878
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The life and death of Garfield: a discourse before the South Place Religious Society, September 25 1881
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 15 cm.
Series title: South Place Discourses
Notes: Printed by Frederic G. Hickson & Co., London. List of works to be obtained in the Lending Library of South Place Chapel at end of pamphlet. Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 2.
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[South Place Religious Society]
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[1881]
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T341
G4887
G3351
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James A. Garfield
Sermons
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The life and death of Garfield: a discourse before the South Place Religious Society, September 25 1881), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Assassination
Conway Hall Ethical Society
James Abram Garfield
Morris Tracts
Sermons
South Place Chapel
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I
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LITTELL’S LIVING AGE.-NO. 1134.-24 FEBRUARY, 1866.
From the Fortnightly Review.
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
concerned would be in certain expectation
of it, were it not for the general belief that
M. Taine speaks of certain conditions there are in America paramount domestic
under which society becomes nothing more reasons against the adoption of such a polithan tm commerce d’affronts. Whilst .there cy. Such a course would increase the
is reason to hope that the relations be financial burdens, already very heavy, un
tween man and man, or class and class, in der which the country is now struggling;
any society of the, present day, cannot be Msvould indefinitely postpone that return to
properly characterised as an interchange of a settled and normal condition of things
insults, it is to be feared that the phrase is, which trade always craves, and especially
to a sad degree, expressive of the relations after the losses consequent upon war; it
subsisting between nations; Here the skies would call again from their homes the sol
seem always angry, and the volleys of can diers who, after the wear and tear of four
non alternate only with the hurtling of years of hardship and danger, are desirous
recriminations. The historian who shall of rest; it would cost more than any prob
live when there is a community of nations, able result of a foreign war could repay;
will probably, in reading the Blue Books of it would involve the possibility of defeat,
these years, think of Saurian growings which would imply a humiliating downfall
and gnashings in primaeval swamps. It is from the position and prestige which the
therefore with a natural anxiety that one of United States has gained by the thorough
the leading nations is seen holding a brand, suppression of the gigantic rebellion that
and hesitating whether, and whither, to threatened its existence. Nevertheless, con
throw it. It is undeniable that the United vinced as the writer himself is, by these and
States stands in this attitude at the pres higher considerations, that it would be
ent moment, and that the world has reason wrong for the United States to enter upon
to await with profound solicitude the deci a war with any foreign power, he is equally
sions of the present Congress as to the foreign' convinced that there are other considera
policy to be adopted by that nation. I tions calculated to tempt the present Gov
cannot conceive, of a, legislative assembly ernment at Washington to an opposite
gathered under more solemn circumstances course, some of which may be briefly stated
than those which surround this Congress, or here.
of one holding in itself more important
It is an old idea with rulers that, in cer
issues.
tain conditions, a foreign war is conducive
Formation, material expansion, centrali to the health of a nation, — an idea which
sation, and an ambition to lead in the, old countries have outgrown, but one that
affairs of the world, may be traced in his is sure to have powerful advocates in a
tory as the successive embryonic phases young_one. A civil war, says Lord Bacon,
through which nations pass. Unfortunately is like the heat of a fever; a foreign one,, is
history attests also many “ arrests ” on this like the heat of exercise. It need be no
line of development. America, however, longer a secret that, in the few months suc
has thus far advanced well, and has now ceeding the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
reached the last form that precedes a set and preceding the actual determination,
tled nationality. Her foreign policy, hith to coerce the South into the Union by
erto relatively of the least, now becomes of military power, there was a powerful influ
the first importance; for while it seems inev ence at Washington seeking to superinduce
itable that she should now be tempted to a war with England, with the object of
aspire to a leading position in the world, uniting the discordant parties and sections
the temptation is reinforced by some pro by a direct appeal to the patriotism of both.
vocations from without, and by certain This concession to the anti-English senti
strong inducements from within. The con ment— which, for reasons, to be hereafter
ditions for a war policy are so obvious that stated, was hitherto confined to the South
I have little doubt the nations immediately and its ally, the Northern Democratic party
THIRD 3ERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXL
1475.
�546 ,
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
— seemed a fine card to play at that junc
ture ; and if the Trent affair could have
occurred sooner than it did, that card might
have been played. That it was not, at any
rate, is due to the moral character of Mr.
Lincoln, and to the strong friendship for
England of the Chairman of the Senatorial
Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Hon.
Charles Sumner. It was plain, too, that
New England, the centre of friendship for
England at that time, would permit no war
to be undertaken on such immoral grounds,
and at the same time that she was deter
mined to make the crisis that had come an
occasion for settling the slavery question
for ever. Thus the foreign war project for
evading the national emergency was smoth
ered. It was essentially a pro-slavery plan
— though it might have encountered a pow
erful opposition from those Confederates of
Virginia and the Carolinas who cared more
for separation than for slavery — and had
it succeeded in uniting the North and
South, slavery would to-day be entering
upon a new lease of existence instead of
being abolished.
Just now the same temptation recurs.
The status of the negro in the South is a
.-subject for agitations and divisions nearly
as .fierce as those which preceded and re
sulted in the civil war. The South and its
old ally, the Democratic party in the North,
are demanding the return of the Southern
States with their governments still commit
ted exclusively to the whites : the Northern
Republicans bitterly oppose this, maintain
ing that.the humiliated slaveholders cannot
be trusted to legislate justly for the blacks,
without whose aid (in the declared opinion
of President Lincoln) the rebellion could
not have been suppressed. The issue is
most important; for, once restored to the
position of equal States, - the Southern
legislatures . could — providing only that
they did not contravene technically the
law against chattel slavery — enact a sys
tem of serfdom, and retain the “ Black
Codes,” which prohibit the education and
Srevent the elevation;of the negroes, the
forth being powerless to interfere unless
another war should arise to arm it with the
abnormal right, which it. now has, to con
trol the section it has ;just conquered.
The security proposed by the Northern Re
publicans is to give the negroes votes, which
the . Southerners and the. Democrats furi
ously oppose. It will ,be seen at once that
.this political situation necessitates the con
tinuance of a bitter sectional strife. The
. arguments of the Southern party about the
constitutional rights of States to regulate
their own suffrage naturally provoke taunts
concerning their four years’ effort to over
throw the constitution; their talk about the
inferiority of the negro leads their antago
nists to place the barbarities of Anderson
ville prison by the side of the long patience
of the negro ; the alleged “ unfitness of the
negro to vote ” is replied to with the tu
quoque based on the disloyalty of the
whites; and so long as this issue is before
the country, the Northern press naturally
parades every current instance of inhuman
ity to the negro, and every expression of
hatred to the Yankees, of which its corre
spondents easily find enough in the South.
All this of course wakes an angry and de
fiant spirit there ; and thus the country is
relegated to the dissension and agitation
about the negro which had prevailed with
out intermission for more than a generation
before the war.
There is no doubt that the late President
Lincoln foresaw this issue, and he has left
on record, in a letter recently published,
his determination to have ended the negro
agitation for ever by demanding equal
rights in the seceded States for the ne
gro. But President Johnson is a very
different man. For more than thirty years
a Southern slave-holder, a Democratic poli
tician, and a steady voter in the Congress
against all New England ideas, he never
theless— simply from a pride in the old
flag — opposed his own section. He vigor
ously resisted the rebellion, though it can
scarcely be said that he clung to the North.
The North rewarded his constancy by elect
ing him to the Vice-Presidency. But,now
that the convulsion is over, he and the
country are discovering that sudden chan
ges are rarely 'thorough. So, in the present
controversy on negro-suffrage, President
Johnson takes the side that might be expect
ed of a Tennessean Democrat, and opposes
the party which elected him. Of course
his cabinet are with him. Nevertheless
President Johnson and his cabinet see that
either by conceding the last hope of slave
ry — “a white man’s government ” — or by
some other means, this controversy must ter
minate, at least for the present, in order
that reconstruction, clamorously demanded
by the national exchequer and by trade,
may take place.
If it has been determined that negro-suf
frage shall not be conceded, what “ other
means ” remain ? Suppose some great and
overpowering national emergency were to
occur— one involving the national pride or
interest — would it not at once divert at
tention from the sectional issue ? If the
�JjjaHfrffii' jwiiuiriiiwij
»
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
I
547
Northern and the Southern man should fight mise of the negro questibn; and if their Gov
side by side for a common cause, against a ernment should attempt to bring on a for
common foe, for some years—the longer eign war for the purpose of suppressing the
the better — would not old differences be agitation of that question, there would not
healed ? And if to carry on such a war be wanting clear-headed men to repeat
Southern States as well as Northern must throughout the country the story of how
furnish quotas of men and money, and raise the original colonies compromised on the
crops for food, then Southern States must be negro question in ord er that they might form
at once reconstituted; and to effect this at a Union “for the common defence,” — that
once, must not the country be persuaded to ■ is, present an unbroken front to George III.
compromise on the negro-suffrage question ? should he seek to subjugate them,—and
The influence at Washington—I need how that compromise has proved to have
not mention names — which four years ago been pregnant with wrongs and agonies
*
urged these considerations to prevent utter which make the tea-tax of our fathers ridic
rupture between North and South, survives ulous. To keep off King George they
to suggest them as furnishing a possible es bowed to King Slavery: their posterity, still
cape from the dilemma of the administra groaning under the terrible results of that
tion which is hardly strong enough to en “policy,” will be very unlikely to extempor
counter the present Congress—the most ise a King George for the purpose of re
radical one that has ever assembled • in peating the blunder. When, however, the
America. And to this influence is now add restoration of the Southern people and lead
ed another, urging a new classof considera ers, and the re-pledging them to the Union,
tions in favour of a foreign war .; chiefly are added to the first consideration, the
this: there are a number of able leading men North-West, to whose prosperity the loyalty
in the South, each influential in his com of the Mississippi river and of both its banks
munity, who are now in disgrace, and who, to the Gulf is esseMQl may not prove to be
if the country settles down to peace, have (^inflexible virtue.
A third reason why a foreign war might
nothing left but to live on in obscurity, una
ble to hold office, and without anything to not be unwelcQme to the Washington Gov
mitigate the deep sense of humiliation or the ernment is, that it has now a large army al
wounds of pride. The flag at which Lee, ready collected and to a certain extent
Beauregard, Johnstone, Mosby, and many drilled, which it is deemed inexpedient, for
others struck, can float only to bring a shad reasous connected with the internal condi
ow upon them. The greatest of them has tion of the country, to dissolve at once, and
already hidden himself in a fourth-class col which is likely to be demoralized if it has
lege. Already the North asks, Which shall nothing to do. Nor would the people of
we prefer, the negro who defended, or the America be willing to support a large army
white who trampled upon, our flag ? A and navy in idleness. And in this connec
foreign war would be the rehabilitation of tion it may be said that whilst the rank and
these Southern men. Indeed, emigration file of the Americm military force would be
seems to be almost the only alternative glad to remain, for a loDg time certainly, in
which would enable them to emerge from their homes, a war would be more welcome to
their disgrace with the American people, the vast number of officers whom the late con
recover position, and claim rights as defend flict raised from obscurity, and for the most
ers of the nation. Moreover, it is not at all part created, and to the large majority of
certain but that they mi"ht— particularly- whom peace is sure to bring the obscurity
in the case of a war with England — be able which it brought them six years ago. The
, ■ to cast a part of the cloud under which they prominent generals of the United States
now sit upon the people and leaders of New were before the war railroad-presidents, sur
' England, who have never applauded the veyors, lawyers, &c.; hardly one of them,
motto, “ Our country, right or wrong,” and excepting Fremont, had a national reputa
• who assuredly could not be brought to fight tion. It need not be a matter of wonder
with anything like the earnestness lately dis-1 that so many among them, General Grant
played in their war with slavery, in an un- ; being of the number, are already widely
necessary or a doubtful war — not at all in ; and justly quoted as favourable to a foreign I
one whose political objects would be precise war policy.
As crowning all these considerations it
ly those which are most repulsive to the
strong moral sense of that section.
must not be forgotten that the old undying
My belief is that New England and the dream of continental occupation, of which
North-West may be relied upon to oppose the “ Monroe doctrine ” is the familiar but
any undisguised postponement by compro- , inexact label, is at present producing more
�548
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
exasperations and is under fewer restraints
than ever before. The Romulus of the
United States, whoever he may have been,
did not surround the country with any fur
row, and the Remuses had not in the first
years even to leap, so long as their filibus
tering expeditions respected those bounda
ries which the average American regards as
the natural ones of his country —i.e. the
Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic on
the east, the Isthmus of Panama on the south,
and the North Pole on the north. Since the
Mexican war, and in recoil from the mean
ness and criminality which led to and at
tended the seizure of Texas, there has been
in the United States a moral sentiment able
to hold in check the disposition to encroach
upon its neighbours, as those representa
tives of a Democratic administration who
met at Ostend a few years ago and pro
posed to obtain Cuba by fair means or foul,
discovered to their cost. But the moral sen
timent which would have continued to shel
ter Mexico would not find a single American to plead its applicability to Maximilian,
unless in the reverse of the obvious sense.
And since it is understood, that the exci
sion of Maximilian by the power of the Unit
ed States means the grateful self-annexation
of Mexico (in some way) to the Union, it
will be at once seen that the passion for ex
pansion and the moral sentiment of the
country jump together in a way that they
never did before. On the other hand,
whilst the desire for Canada is much feebler
than that for Mexico, the restraint of inter
national morality which would have protect
ed it has been removed by the general sense
of wrongs received at the hands of England,
and the representatives of England in Cana
da, and by a current belief that annexation
to the Union is desired by nearly all of the
French Canadians and the Irish.
Whilst these considerations are being
urged at Washington, those who are most
strongly opposed to a foreign war, and were
among the most trusted advisers of Presi
dent Lincoln — as, for example, the Chair
man of the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
before alluded to — are now without the ear
of the President, and range in hostility.to
his plan of reconstruction. Of all the rea
sons that have been mentioned, the consid
eration which will weigh most strongly with
the President and his Cabinet will be the
hope of starving off the negro-agitation, and
of securing the ret urn of the Southern States
without negro-suffrage. If negro-equality
were to be placed beyond question by the
present Congress, every cloud of war would
clear away tor the present, and the Mexican
Empire would be the only thing concerning
which one could anticipate, even at a distant
period, any collision between the United
States and any nation of the Old World.
Hence the friends of peace in America are
as anxiously hoping for the settlement of the
negro question on the only basis which can
be final, and that will not remit the country
to the bitter animosities and agitations of
the past, as the friends of war are indiffer
ent to or anxious to' evade such settlement.
The particular danger is that the Congress
will decide to keep out the Southern States
without imposing negro-suffrage as a condi
tion of their return, in which case the Presi
dent might be induced to try and alter the
conditions under which the question would
come before another Congress, by seeking,
as above indicated, to weld the two sections,
and purge the South of the stain upon its
loyalty, with the fires of a foreign war. I
confess that the probabilities affecting the
question of war or peace between Ameri
ca and France or England seem to me
slightly inclining to the side of war; and I
am sure that the internal considerations
enumerated, much more than the claim
against England, or the Monroe doctrine —
whose importance in the case I am far from
undervaluing — will be the mainspring of
the war policy, if it be adopted.
The next question of interest is whether
a hostile movement, if determined upon, will
be directed against France or against Eng
land.
~
There is in America a traditional friend
liness towards France. At a celebration of
the national American Thanksgiving-day,
by Americans in Paris, December 7, the
heartiest applause was awarded to a toast
proposed by General Schofield in these
words: — “The old friendship between
France and the United States; may it be
strengthened and perpetuated ! ” At the
same festival the Hon. John Jay, the chair
man, alluded to some of the associations
which are stirred in every American’s mind
when France is mentioned. “ Our patriotic
assemblage,” he said, “ in this beautiful Capi
tol, amid the splendours of French art and
the triumphs of French science, recalls the
infancy of our country, and the various
threads of association that are so frequently
intertwined in the historic memories of
America and France. The French element
was early and widely blended with our
transatlantic blood, and it is a fact that two
of the five commissioners wdio in this city
signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783 —that
treaty by which England closed the war and
recognised the American Republic — were
�<
AMERICA, FRANCj
AND ENGLAND.
\
549
of Huguenot descent. In the war now ever, his perception of a growing feeling for
closed, as in that of our Revolution, French territorial expansion among the Americans.
and American officers fought side by side, But an element of .even paramount import
and side by side in our House of Representa ance in this feeling was a dread that the
tives hang — and will continue to hang, as a American Republic might have to struggle
perpetual memento of the early friendship with powerful and hostile forms of govern
between the countries — the portraits of ment. The Monroe doctrine was really
Washington and Lafayette. The territory that for which few Europeans would give it
. of Orleans, including that vast and fertile credit — a conservative policy. Explicitly
valley extending from the gulf to the limits respecting powers already planted on that
of Missouri, was ceded to us by the First continent, it affirmed the limits of the right
Napoleon almost for a song, and there are of intervention for itself, as well as for lorstill perpetuated in its names, habits, and eign powers. It was meant to be, and was,
traditions, pleasant memories of France.” an especial check upon the westward ag
Mr. Jay did not, in Catholic France, hint gressions of American filibusters, by imwhy the Huguenots happened to be in plying that only their unjust encroachments
America; he did not bring to any rude test from aBtid could justify interference with
■of historic criticism the part played, literal- other nations. It recommended <tself to
. ly, by the Marquis de Lafayette in the first, the most thoughtful men of the last genera
or by the young French chevaliers, who en tion in the United SffieB as the means of
joyed their cigars and champagne with keeping for ever out of the Western hemi
McClellan whilst the soldiers of the Union sphere that grim political idol to which the
were being massacred before Richmond, in peace of the old world had been so often
the second revolution; neither did he in sacrificed — the “ balance of power.” It as
quire whether at that time the Emperor of sumed, indeed, the Predominance of the
the French was making proposals to Eng United States on that continent, but then
land to join him in an inte wention favoura the United States open® its arms, its lands,
ble to the South, nor remenfter the Jiisses its honours to the people of all nations.
and cries in the French Assembly which The Monroe doctrine was, then, conserva
drowned M. Pelletan’s voice when he an tive, in that it put a defiq^M check upon the
nounced the downfall of Richmond (which idea of absorbing surrounding countries, and
M. Pelletan declared — mistakenly, it would limited the United States wtheidea of pre
appear — were so loud, tha®they would be dominance. Even this may seem arrogant,
heard across the Atlantic). But, in ignor but it is difficult to see by what other means
ing such questions and crowning his address the New World could have been saved from
with tue toast “ The Empgror of the becoming the mere duplicate of the Old.
French,” Mr. Jay undoubtedly represented To permit the occupation of countries,
the general determination of his country ■ which the United States has restrained her
men to put the best construction possible self from occupying, by foreign governupon everything that France does, and their, nlents of formstessentially hostile, necessi
instinctive disposition to wink at her plain tates an injurious modification of her own.
est offences. This disposition must be con Any such Power, once admitted and estab
sidered prominently in our calculations of lished, must be Watpied; and to watch it
the probable action of the United States implies Expensive fortifications of long fron
upon the Mexican Empire. There can be tiers, standing armies, and young men sup
no doubt that if any other nation than plying them — things utterly opposed to
France had established that Empire, the end the spirit in which the American Republic
of the rebellion in -America would have been was founded. A few ships might prevent
swiftly followed by the march of Federal the landing on those shores of a Power
troops across the Rio Grande.
which, once fixed there, would require that
The Monroe doctrine was of gradual and the Union should become a centralized and
natural development. The earliest ex military nation. Thus there is no principle
pression of the sentiment out of which it that would protect California, or Texas, or
grew was given by the First Napoleon, Louisiana from French encroachment, that
when he assigned as a chief reason for dis would not haye equally have protected
posing of the territory of Orleans — the Mexico. The south-western states have
greater part of the Mississippi Valley — on only to be weak to become food for the fur
the easy terms in which President Jefferson ther growth of “the Latin race/’and the
obtained it, that it was the manifest destiny glory of its new Cmsar. Hence garrisons,
of that territory to become a portion of the .under General Weitzel, and others, are al- ■
United States. . He did but express, how- ready on the south-western border, where
�550
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
x they must stay so long as the representative
of French power stays. The best men in
America, are persuaded that it would be
more favourable to the peace of the world
if such garrisons should cease to exist,
through the removal of the occasion for
them.
‘
.
The traditional friendship of the United
States with France has undoubtedly, been
strained to the utmost by this invasion of
Mexico, and by the circumstances under
which it occurred. The subversion of the
Mexican Republic was consummated in the
face of three unequivocal declarations to
the American Minister at Paris, that the
Government then existing in Mexico should
not be altered by the invasion; it was. ac
complished at a time when, the United
States was prevented from having any voice
in the matter by the gigantic war which
tied her hands; it was for the avowed pur
pose of building up a rival power on the
North American continent; and it selected
as the representative of that flagrant de
fiance of the principle which in America
has a sanctity corresponding to that of .the
“ balance of power ” in Europe, a prince
belonging to a House more unpopular
among Americans, and more associated with
the oppression of weaker peoples, than any
that has reigned on the continent of Eu
rope.
'
If it should ultimately appear that only
by war can the empire thus attempted be
expelled, war will surely come. But there
are reasons why the United States will
strain every nerve to secure that object by
negotiation before resorting to armed force.
The friendly feeling towards France already
adverted to, the equally strong feeling
among the Irish and the Roman Catholics
generally, and the especial affection and
gratitude to France of the Southerners —
whom the foreign war, if undertaken, is ex
pected to rehabilitate —• would all make
the conflict one for which the American
people tiould have little heart. It would
require repeated refusals of any other set
tlement on the part of Louis Napoleon to
generate the amount of popular exaspera
tion requisite for the war. At the same
time I doubt not but that General Scho
field and others will sufficiently convince
the Emperor of the French that the Ameri
can Government and people will never con
sent to the permanent existence of a for
eign monarchy in Mexico. The willingness
to postpone positive action in the matter is
enhanced by the consideration that non-re
cognition and hesitation on the part of the
United States, encouraging as they do the
Juarists to continue their resistance, in
juriously affecting the Mexican loan, and
accumulating the expenditure of France,
constitute in themselves almost a forcible
attack upon Maximilian. There is also
something like a superstitious belief among
the people that no government will stand
long in Mexico until it is consigned by des
tiny to the United States; and I venture to
predict that in that direction the United
States will pursue the Micawber policy of
waiting for something to turn up, and that
this policy will be presently justified by the
evacuation of Mexico by French troops,
with Maximilian close upon their heels.
Much as I regret to say it, I cannot deny
to myself that a war with England — were
there any pretext for it, or anything to be
gained by it — would unite all sections and
classes in America more effectually than one
with any other Power. The reasons for a
war, so far as they are external, weigh
against France; the feeling., against Eng
land. The traditional feeling in America
toward England has been the reverse of
what it has been toward .France. The ori
gin of this anti-English feeling is not won
derful. NextMo those portraits of Wash
ington and Lafayette, mentioned by Mr.
Jay as hanging side by side in the Hall of
Representatives at Washington, may be
found several pictures of the American gen
erals and English generals standing in less
gentle relations to each other. But the
resuscitation and increase of the ill-feeling
toward England are due to causes which it
may be well to explain, for there have been
strong commercial and other reasons why
all animosities between the countries should
Jong ago have passed away. The jealousies
which existed after the separation of 1782,
were such as are often witnessed between
parties just near enough to each other to
make differences irritating—as the right
and left wings, or old and new schools of
Churches — but these tend to subside as the
parties become more and more set and se
cure in their respective’positions. As a
matter of fact these jealousies had almost
disappeared, and but few traces of them can
be found in the generation that preceded this.
The cause of the animosity between the
Northern and Southern States was the cause
also of the revival of an anti-English feeling
in America—Slavery. English Quakers
were among the first agitators for emancipa
tion in the Union. The first abolitionist in
America — Benjamin Lundy — had. by his
side Fanny Wright, who established in Ten. nessee a colony of liberated negroes with
the intent of proving that they were fit for
�AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
551
freedom. The Anti-Slavery Society, which to his immediate withdrawal from that city,
sprang up in the North, was materially as and a determination to proceed no farther
sisted by the English societies ; its watch into the Slave States. But meanwhile this
words were taken from the great anti-slave feeling had a strong reinforcement. The
ry leaders of England, and the utterances Irish were thronging to America by thou
of Sharpe, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and oth sands, and the Irish vote had become the
ers, were hurled with tremendous effect deciding power in every general election.
against the Southern institution. The It is a dreary fact that the Irish elected
*
Methodists were made to remember that every America^ President from 1844 to
Wesley had pronounced slavery to be “the 1860. To win that Irish vote a political
sum of all villanies ; ” and everywhere it party had simply to take the ground of
was held up as a token of the superiority violent antagonism to England: that sure
of England that her air was “ too pure for card the Democratic party had always been
a slave to breathe.” When the “ pro willing to play, and the Irish, almost with
slavery re-action,” as it is termed, set in — out exception, voted for it and its protege,
that is, when the invention of the cotton- Slavery. The denouncers oft England in
gin (about the first part of this century) the North were notoriously the leading
had gradually quadrupled the value of Democrats, who, for party purposes, fanned
slaves, and the Southern politicians began the hatred of this country which every Irish
to reverse the verdict of Washington, Jeff man was sure to bring with him to the Unit
erson, and Henry against slavery per se — ed States. I have no idea that these dema
mutterings against “ English Abolitionists” gogues really felt any sympathy with the
began to be heard. The anti-slavery ggsits, Irish, or that they knew anything whatever
in later times, of William Forster, Joseph about Ireland or its relations to England^
Sturge, George Thompson, and other distin whilst pouring out their invectives against
guished abolitionists, led to a fierce outcry “British Tyranny.” The Fenians have,
in the South that her rights and institutions perhaps, by this time learned (if a Fenian
were threatened by “ British abolitionists,” can learn anything) how much reality there
“ British emissaries,” and “ British gold.” was in this profuse Democratic sympathy
The writer can remember when every po for Ireland ; but when it is considered that
litical gathering in Virginia, his native there are five million Irish haters of Eng
State, was lashed into fury by the use of land in America, and that to obtain this
these phrases. President Jackson, in a great electoral power the Democratic party
Message to Congress, denounced the inter has committed itself to every anti-English
ference of “foreign emissaries” with the policy, it will be seen how vast an. addition
institution of slavery. Boston, because of to the hatred of the enraged pro slavery
its anti-slavery character, was scornfully men has thus been made in these later years.
called “ that English city.” The pro-slave-S In all this time the only section of Ameri
ry re-action gained a complete sway of the ca that could be called friendly to England
Union about twenty years ago ; since which was New England, such friendliness having
time, until 1860, slavery elected every Presi been frequently made the occasion for
dent, and was represented by large though denouncing thatByoup of States. The
gradually diminishing majorities in Con leading men of New England — Emerson,
gress. ,The commercial classes of the North Channing, Phillips, Sumner, Garrison, Low
were its violent adherents on account of ell — had been guests in the best English
the immense value of the Southern trade; homes, and had entertained English gen
and if any merchant became tarnished by a tlemen. The youth of the colleges and
suspici on of his pro-slavery soundness, the universities of New England were kindling
New York Herald published his name—a with enthusiasm for Carlyle, Tennyson,
proceeding which withdrew all dealings Mill, and the Brownings. Along with her
from him, and threatened him with ruin. anti-slavery influence there, went forth also
Thus a vast majority, North and South, from. New England editions of English
came to nourish a deep hostility toward books and English modes of thought; and as
England, for her policy of emancipation in the country at large was, in the years im
her own colonies, and for her alleged inter mediately preceding the war, gradually won
ference with slavery in America. How to an anti-slavery positions^ England be
furious the South was toward England was came, if not generally liked, at least the
shown in those disgraceful scenes — not to most respected of foreign nations. The
be reported here — which are said to have virtues of Queen Victoria were especially
attended the attempt of the Prince of a subject of frequent eulogium throughout
Wales to visit Richmond, Virginia, and led the North; and everything bade fair tO’
�552
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
bring about a reaction in the feeling to
wards the people over whom she ruled.
Indeed the welcome given to the Prince of
Wales at the time of which I now write,
bore witness to the existence of a friendlier
spirit regarding “ the mother country ” than
any one would have ventured to predict
a few years before. The gradual repres' sion of the anti-English prejudice cost the
' Republicans of the North a long period of
political weakness (for they too might have
bid for the Irish vote) ; it was the result of
the laborious diffusion of English literature,
and I know that it was esteemed by the
reflecting Americans to be a victory for
mankind.
The reasons why this friendliness has
been of late replaced by indignation and an
ger, in New England as well as elsewhere,
are too well known to require much elucida
tion here. I am quite sure that if England
had known as much about the United States
five years ago as she knows now, the pres
ent unhappy relations between the two coun
tries could not be subsisting. England
sneered at those who had been her friends,
who were fighting the last battles of a con
flict begun by herself, and gave her sympa
thies to those who had denounced her for
her love of freedom. Not going far enough
to do more than repress for a moment the
traditional animosity of the South, she
went far enough to fill the North with in
dignant surprise, and has left in both sec
tions a sentiment which might easily find
vent in war, if any sufficient object to be
gained thereby should present itself. If it
were England that had occupied Mexico,
war would have been declared against her
ere now; hitherto, as I have intimated,
whilst the war-interest has pointed to
France, the war feeling in America has
been toward England. The feeling of an
ger towards this country is so universal in
the United States that I believe it would
be impossible to find amongst its public
men, or even its literary men, a single ex
ception from it, — unless it be among a few
who, having constant personal intercourse
with England, know how little any quick
generalisations concerning this country, its
character, or its feeling, are likely to be
correct. A few protests against the very
general denunciation of England may have
been uttered there, or sent there by Ameri
cans resident here; but they have been lost
like chips in the rapids of Niagara. I
write these things with profound regret;
but I think the facts should be known.
There have been many instances in his
tory where such a condition of popular
feeling has required the merest pretext to
initiate war. In the present case there is
something which is already regarded in
America as a sufficient occasion for war
(were war desirable), and may be presently
regarded as an adequate cause for it. The
United States has, although so young as a
nation, presented more than a score of
“ claims ” against other nations; and in
every case, I believe, these claims have
been ultmately adjusted to its satisfaction,
though now and then refused at first. The
late claim upon the English Government
for damages committed by the Alabama —■
for those alone would probably have been
insisted upon-—meant much more than
a pecuniary matter to the Americans. As
*
foi the merchants who had suffered losses
by Confederate cruisers they were gener
ally men who a few years ago were so pa
tient and resigned when slavery was scut
tling human hearts and homes, that many
of us smiled with a grim satisfaction at their '
pathetic emotions when some defenceless
sloop with its innocent family of bags and
barrels was sent to the bottom. But withal
the Alabama was regarded as the palpable
symbol of that anti-American sentiment
which had appeared at the outbreak of the
war — a symbol which not the Kearsage,
but England alone, could sink; and the
claim for the losses by hei’ ' signified also a
reclamation for wounds rankling in every
American heart.
I have no intention of discussing here
the case of the A liibama; but the legal case
as it stands in the correspondence between
Earl Russel and Mr. Adams is so different
from the moral case which is at this moment
powerfully agitating the American mind,
that it seems to me important to mention
a few points recently laid by Mr. George
Bemis, the eminent jurist of Boston, before
his countrymen, which are more likely to
poison the future relations between the two
countries than any question raised in the
diplomatic discussion referred to. This
hitherto unwritten, or rather uncollected,
chapter in the history of the Alabama is
derived from the English Blue Boole, and
refers to the last two days’ stay of that
cruiser in British waters, after the Govern
ment had decided upon her detention, and
after the alleged telegraphic order for her
seizure had been sent to the officials of
Liverpool.
.
The Alabama left Laird’s dock in Liver
pool in July, 1862, under pretence of tak
ing out a pleasure party, and went to sea
without ever returning to that port again.
The American Minister having called upon
�I
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
553
Earl Russell for an explanation of this, be well to remind the reader here that, so
wrote home the following as the statement early as July 4th, the British Government
he received at that interview : —
"had promised Mr. Adams that the Custom
House officials at Liverpool should keep a
“ His lordship first took up the case of the strict watch on the movements of the ex
‘290’ [the name by which the Alabama was pected Alabama, and report any further in
first known], and remarked that a delay in de formation that could be collected concern
termining upon it had most unexpectedly ing her.) The Hercules proceeds to fulfil
been caused by the sudden development of her errand, but has not completed her ship
a malady of the Queen’s Advocate, Sir John
D? Harding, totally incapacitating him for the ping of men and warlike equipment until
transaction of business. This made it neces sometime during the morning of the 30th.
sary to call in other parties, whose opinion had During the forenoon, some hours before the
been at last given for the detention of the gunboat, Hercules starts, the AmcMn Consul has
but before the order got down to Liverpool the vessel placed the following note under the eye of
was gone.” *
the head of the Custom House : —
In the debate on the escape of the Ala
“U. S. Consulate, Liverpool,
bama, which occurred in the House of
July 30, 1862.
Lords, Aprd 29, 1864, Earl Russell gave f“Sir,—Referring to myaPMions communi
cation to you on the subject of the gunboat
.' this further explanation : —
■‘No. 290fl|fitted out by Mr. LaiM at Birken
“ The United States Government had no head, I beg now to inform you that she left
reason to complain of us in that respect [in the Birkenhead dock on Monday night [the
ves^mHmorningMrthe 29th] left
regard to the escape of the Alabama], because 28thl
we took all the precaution we could. We col M^M^^^ycomi^wed by the steilm-tug Hercu
les. The Hercules returned last evening, and
lected evidence, but it was not till it was com
was cruising off
plete that we felt ourselves justified in giving the her master stated
orders for the seizure of the vessel. These orders, Port Iypias, that she had six guns on board
however, were evaded. I can tell your lord ship concealed below, and was taking powder from
from a trustworthy source how theyiwere evaded!?’ another vessel.
The Hercules is now alongside the Wood_[Eaii Russell then proceeded to quote a pass
age from Fullam’s ‘ Cruise in the Confederate side landing-stage, taking on board men (forty
States War Steamer Alabama ’ (p. 5), of which or fifty), beams, evidently for guiMcarriages,
and other things, to convey down to the gunthe last paragraph ran as iollows] : —
“Our unceremonious departure [from Liver bo® A quantity of cutlasses was taken on
pool] was owing to the fact of news being receiv board on Friday last.
These circumstances all go to confirm the
ed to the effect that the customs authorities had
orders to board and detain us that morning.” representations heretofore made to you about
this vessel, in the face of which I cannot but
[Upon which Earl Russell adds] : —
“ That was the fact. However the owner regret she lias been permitted to leave the port,
,and I report them to youH^M you may take
came to be informed of it, it is impossible for
me to say. There certainly seems to have been such steps as you may deem necessary to pre
treachery on the part of some one furnishing the vent this flagrant violation of neutrality.
Respectfully, I am your obedient servant,
information.”
“ Thomas H. Dudley, Consul.
On the morning of July 29th, 1862, the “ The Collector of Customs, Liwrpool.”
Alabama put out from the Liverpool docks,
In response to this urgent appeal, Mr. E.
having on board several ladies,and gentle
men of the family of Mr. John Laird, M. P., Morgan, Surveyor of the Port, seems to
and enough of other invited guests to make have been sent to visit the Hercules. The
a show of a pleasure party, and was towed following is the record of his labours: —
by a steam-tug, the Hercules, to a point
Copy of a Letter from Mr. E. Morgan, Sur
fourteen miles from Liverpool. There the
party was transferred to the Hercules, and veyor, to the Collector, Liverpool.
“ Surveyor’s Office, 30 July, 1862.
the Commander of the Alabama made an
“Sir, — Referring to the steamer built by
appointment with the Hercules to return to
the
Liverpool and bring a large portion of hjs boat Messrs. Laird, which is suspected to be a gun
intendedfor some foreign government, —
crew to Beaumaris Bayljabout forty miles ■ “ I beg to state that since the date of my
distant from ’ the town.
The Hercules last report concerning her she has been lying
reached Liverpool on the evening of the in the Birkenhead docks fitting for sea, and
29th, and anchored for the night. (It may receiving on board coals and provisions for her
*The itaZzes here and elsewhere, in paragraphs crew.
“ She left the dock on the evening of the
quoted from the Blue Book,.are, of course, not in
the originals.
28th instant, anchored for the night in the
i
�554 .
AMERICA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND.
Mersey, abreast the Canning Dock, and pro
ceeded out of the river on the following morn
ing, ostensibly on a trial trip, from which she
has not returned.
X “ I visited the tug Hercules this morning, as
she lay at the landing-stage at Woodside, and
strictly examined her holds, and other parts of
the vessel. She had nothing of a suspicious
character onboard —no guns, no ammunition,
or anything appertaining thereto. A consider
able number of persons, male and female, were
on deck, some of whom admitted to me
THAT THEY WERE A PORTION OF THE CREW,
AND WERE GOING TO JOIN THE ‘GUNBOAT.’
“ I have oniy to add that your directions to
keep a strict watch on the said vessel have been
carried out, and I write in the fullest confidence
that she left this port without any part of her
armament on board; she had not as much as a
single gun or musket.
“ It is said that she cruised off Point Lyna,9
1st night, which, as you are aware, is some fifty
miles from this port.
“Very respectfully,
(Signed)
“ E. Morgan, Surveyor.
The Foreign Enlistment Act says very
plainly, that every ship “ having on board,
conveying, carrying, or transporting ” any
person or persons “ enlisted, or who have
agreed or been procured to enlist, or who
shall be departing from his Majesty’s domin
ions for the purpose or with the intent of
enlisting,” “ shall and may be seized by
the Collector,” &c., (Stat. 59 George III. c.
69, s. 6). Mr. Morgan says some of the men
on the Hercules admitted to him “ that they
were a portion of the crew, and were going
to join the gunboat;” he knows that it is
a gunboat, and that it has gone off “ osten
sibly on a trial trip
and yet we find the
following letter sent to the Commissioners
of Customs in London: —
“ Custom House, Liverpool,
30th July, 1862.
“Honourable Sirs,—Immmediately on re
ceipt of the aforegoing communication [not
given, or perhaps Consul Dudley’s, qu. ?], Mr.
Morgan, Surveyor, proceeded on board the
Hercules, and I beg to enclose his report, ob
serving that he perceived no beams, such as are
alluded to by the American Consul, nor any
thing on bourd that would justify further action on
my part.
“ Respectfully,
. (Signed)
“ S. Price Edwards.”
The following • telegram was laid before
The Lords Commissioners of her Majesty’s
Treasury on the morning of July 29 : —
“Liverpool, 29th July, 1862.
“ ‘ No. 290.’
“Sir, — We telegraphed you this morning
that the above vessel was leaving Liverpool.
She came out of dock last night, and steamed
down the river between 10 and 11 a. m.
“ We have reason to believe she has gone to
Queenstown.
“ Yours obediently,
“Duncan, Squarey, & Blackmore.”
Lastly, here is the record of how, when
the horse was stolen, the stable-door was
locked: —
I
“ Thirty-first July, 1862, at about |
half-past seven, p. m.
“ Telegrams were sent to the Collectors at Liver
pool and CorL [at above date] pursuant to
Treasury Order, dated 31st July, to seize the gun
boat (290) should she be within either of those ports. • ,
-- “ Similar telegrams to the officers at Beaumaris
and Holyhead were sent on the morning of the 1stAugust. They were not sent on the 3ist July,
the telegraph offices to those districts being
closed. '
“ And on the 2d August a letter was also
sent to the Collector at Cork, to detain the ves
sel should she arrive at Queenstown.”
It is noticeable that only on the evening
of the 31st of July was any word sent to
Queenstown, where, according to the tele
gram of the 29th, the American agents in
Liverpool “ have reason to believe she (the
Alabama) has gone ! ” And why was no
telegram sent to Point Lynas on the night
of the 30th ? Three days were lost when
all depended upon hours. Nay, there have
been cases when England, feeling herself
aggrieved by such ships, has — as those who
remember the cases of the Terceira and the
Heligoland know — pursued and destroyed
them even in foreign waters. The feeling
was of another kind in this case: the Ala
bama .was followed through English and
other waters, but with plaudits.
Now all this is far lrom pleasant read
ing to an American. Earl Russell him
self, as quoted above, has said that there
seems to have been “ treachery ” in the
proceeding. Nay, in “ Hansard ” for Feb
ruary 16, 1864, he will be found to have
classified it as a “ belligerent operation,”
and as “ a scandal and in some degree a re
proach to British law.” Is it wonderful
then that the United States should prefer a
claim, accompanied by a suggestion of ar
bitration, for the losses by this cruiser,
which for a time swept American ships from
the seas ? Is it wonderful that it should in
terpret the refusal to admit the claim or the
suggestion as a moral confession of judg
ment ? Is it wonderful that, irrespective of
the legal points of the case, Americans
should perceive in the above facts the ex
�janet’s
555
questions.
pression of a hostile animus toward her, as
yet unlaid, so far as any official act is con
cerned, and that they, should, with their
deep sense of wrong, be eager to seize an oc
casion for retaliation ?
The liberation of John Mitchell, at the
request of the Fenians, by President John
son, after he (Mitchell) had rendered himself
so especially odious to the people of the
United States by his treason, was attended
with no popular outcry. ' It could never
have been done had there not been a gen
eral feeling of resentment toward England.
It is a straw only, but it shows the wind to
be setting from a tempestuous quarter.
It may be supposedEhat the very causes
which have operated to alienate the
Northern States from England would im
ply a friendship for her in the South; but
besides the old animosity of the South
toward England, on account of her influence
against slavery, she feels bitterly the sym
pathy of the English masses for the North,
the cold shoulder given to her agents at the
English Court, the repeated refusals of the
British Government to join France in an in
tervention, and its refusal of any aid to
prevent the South being crushed. Thus
every class and section in America has a
grievance against England.
There are, indeed, men in that country
whose thoughts reach beyond the vexations
and passions of the moment, who may be
counted on to do what they can to prevent
such a dire calamity as a war between the
two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon
race would be.
But the fact may not
be concealed that by the refusal to submit
the case of the Alabama to arbitration, in
the present state of American feeling, the
wildest Irishman who would fire a hemi
sphere to boil his potatoes is made stronger
than the most thoughtful statesman. To a
point of ministerial dignity — for the dignity
of a nation cannot depend upon shielding
the blunders of a Cabinet or the “ treachery”
of its subordinates — it must be ascribed,
that the entrance into Parliament of such
friends of the United States as Mill, Hughes,
and Fawcett, and of Forster into the Gov
ernment does not mark the meginning of
an era of good-will between the two na
tions; that the sunken AZaframa leaves
a brood of her kind to be hatched out by
the heat of the next English war, and to
resuscitate a semi-baiMSrs mode of war
fare which had seemed about to pass away;
and that even this ugly programme is the
least disastrous alternative to which the
friends of peace can look forward.
Moncuke D. Conway.
/
!
X
JANET’S QUESTIONS.
Janet ! my little Janet!
You think me wise I know;
And that when you sit and question,
With your eager face aglow,
I can tell you all you ask me :
My child, it is not so.
I can tell my little Janet
Some things she well may prize;
I could tell her some whose wisdom
Would be foolish in her eyes;
There are things I would not tell, her,
They are too sadly wise.
I can tell her of noble treasures
Of wisdom stored of old;
To the chests where they are holden
I can give her keys of gold ;
And as much as she can carry
She may take away untold.
But till her heart is opened,
Like the book upon her knee,
What is written in its pages
She cannot read nor see :
Nor tell till the rose has blossomed
If red or white Twill be.
And till life’s book is opened,
And read through every age,
Come questions, without answers, ■
Alike from child and sage :
Yet God himself is teaching
His children page by page.
I still am asking questions
With each new leaf I see ;
To your new eyes, my Janet,
Yet more revealed may be.
You must ask of God the questions
I fail to answer thee.
— Good Words.
�556
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
From the Quarterly Review.
A History of Caricature and Grotesque in
Literature and Art. By Thomas Wright,
Esq.; with Illustrations from various sour-,
ces, drawn and engraved by E. W. Fair
holt, Esq.
Among the many contributions which
Mr. Thomas Wright has made towards Eng
lish antiquarian research, and, in particular,
towards the familiar delineation of the man
ners and customs of our ancestors, none is,
perhaps, so popular or so well known as his
two volumes entitled ‘ England under the
House of Hanover, illustrated from the Car
icatures and Satires of the day.’ The very
spirited woodcuts with which this book is
adorned by Mr. Fairholt might alone have
sufficed to make its fortune. Published
only in 1848, it is already difficult to pro
cure a copy. Encouraged by his success in
this line, Mr. Wright has now attempted
the wider enterprise announced in this title
page. Wd fear that in'doing so he has been
somewhat over ambitious. A history of the
‘ caricature and grotesque in literature and
art,’ extending over all countries and all
time, comprising not only pictorial represen
tations, but poetry, satire, the drama, and
buffoonery of all descriptions, is a subject
which, if it be attempted at all in a single
octavo volume, could only be so in the form
of a compact and well-reasoned essay, to
which Mr. Wright’s entertaining fragmen
tary sketches bear little resemblance. The
‘immeasurable laughter’ of nations, ancient
and modern, cannot be reduced within so
small a compass. We must therefore con
tent ourselves with thanking Mr. Wright
for his desultory but agreeable attempts for
our enlightenment. And we propose, on
the present occasion, to confine ourselves
entirely to the artistic portion of them: en
livened, as it is, by a new series of Mr. Fair
holt’s excellent illustrations. Our inability
to transfer these to our own pages places
us, as we feel, at a great disadvantage:
many words are required to explain to the
reader the contents of a picture, which
a few outlines by an able hand impress
at once visibly on the recollection. De
prived of this advantage, we must confine
ourselves as well as we can to the points on
which caricature touches the history of
social and political life, rather than those by
which it borders on the great domain of
Art, properly so called.
GROTESQUE
course, an Italian word, derived from the verb
caricare, to charge or load; and therefore it
means a picture which is charged or exaggerat
ed. [“Kitratto ridicolo,” says Baretti s Dic
tionary, “in cui fiensi grandemente accresciuti
i difetti.” The old French dictionaries say.
“ c’est la meme chose que charge en peinture.”]
The word appears not to have come into use in
Italy until the latter half of the seventeenth cen
tury, and the earliest instance I know of its em
ployment by an English writer is that quoted
by Johnson from the ‘ Christian Morals ’ of Sir
Thomas Brown, who died in 1682, but it was
one of his latest writings, and was not printed
till long after his death: “ Expose not thyself
by fourfooted manners unto monstrous draughts
(i. e. drawings) and caricatura representations.”
This very quaint writer, who had passed some
time in Italy, evidently uses it as an exotic
word. We find it next employed by the writer
of the Essay, No. 537, of the ‘ Spectator,’ who,
speaking of the way in which different people
are led by feelings of jealousy and prejudice to
detract from the characters of others, goes on to
say “From all these hands we have such
draughts of mankind as are represented in those
burlesque pictures which the Italians call cari
catures, where the art consists in preserving
amidst distorted proportions" and aggravated
features, some distinguishing likeness of the
person, but in such a manner as to transform
the most agreeable beauty into the most odious
•monster.” The word was not fully established
in oqr language in its English form of carica
ture until late in the last century.’ — p. 415.
This, no doubt, is a serviceable, artistic
definition of the word; but • its popular
meaning is, perhaps, a little more limited.
It would be difficult accurately to distin
guish ‘caricature ’in composition, accord
ing to the above description, from what we
simply term ‘ grotesque ; ’ exaggeration,
that is, of natural effects for the mere
purpose of the ludicrous. In using the word
caricature, we generally add to this notion
that of satire; and the best definition for
our purpose, as well as to suit ordinary ap
prehension, though not at all originating in
the primary meaning of the word, will
be, that ‘ caricature ’ implies the use of the
grotesque for the purpose of satire : satire,
of course, of many kinds, individual, moral,
political, as the case may be.
Looking at our subject from this point of
view, we must never eliminate from it all
those amusing details respecting classical
‘ caricature,’ to which Mr. Wright has de
voted the first part of his work, and which
a clever French writer, M. Champfleury,
hasjust illustrated inalittle book, superficial,
‘ The word caricature is not found in the dic entertaining, and ‘ cock-sure of everything,’
tionaries, I believe, until the appearance of that as the manner of his nation- is, entitled
of Dr. Johnson, in 1755. Caricature is, of ‘ Histoire de la Caricature Antique.’ The
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
557
ancients were passionately fond of the gro erical creatures.’ In others, the desired
tesque : the Greeks intermingled it strange effect is produced, not by these mere fabri
ly, but gracefully, with their inimitable cre cations, but by grouping men and animals
ations of beauty: the Romans, after their together in fanciful or ridiculous conjunc
nature, made it coarse and sensual, where tions. And these — conceived and execut
not merely imitative of the Hellenic.
ed with a prodigality of imagination
_ ‘ The discourses of Socrates resemble the amounting in many instances to genius —
pictures of the painter Pauson.’ Some one constitute, perhaps, the favourite, though
had ordered of Pauson the picture of a by no means the only, style of comic art
horse rolling on the ground. Pauson paint familiar to the classical ancients; one of
ed him running. The customer complained which the known examples have of late
that the condition of his order had not been years greatly multiplied, owing to the disfulfilled. ‘ Turn the picture upside down,’ cowries of ancient paintings at Pompeii and
said the artist, ‘ and the horse will seem to elsewhere. There is a pretty description
roll on the ground.’ From this moderately of a picture of this sort in» the ‘ leones ’ of
facetious anecdote of Lucian Mlom a pas Philostratus. It represents a ‘number of
sage of Aristotle, in which it is said that BQpids riding races on swans: one is tight
‘ Polygnotus painted men better thanBjley ening his golden rein, another loosening"it;
are; Pauson;. worse than they are; PionHSisI one dexterously wheeling round the goal:
such as they are ; ’ and, lastly, from a few you might fancy that you could hell them
lines of Aristophanes, in which some Pau encouraging their birds, and threatening
son or other is jeered at for his poverty, as and qtSffilling with one another, as their
sumed to be the lot of Bohemian artists in very faces represent: one is trying to throw
general; M. Champfleury has arrived at the down his neighbour j another has just thrown
rapid conclusion, that Pauson was the doyen down his; another is slipping off his steed,
of all caricaturists. And he vindicates him, in order to bathe himself in the basin of the
eloquently, from the aspersions of the Sta- hippodrome.’ *
gyrite. ‘ Aristotle,’ says he, ‘ preoccupied
But, to revert to our original distinction,
with the idea of absolute beauty, has not ancient art. though rich in the grotesque,
expounded the scope of caricature, and its does not produce on us the effect of carica
importance in society. This thinker, plun ture ; either it has no definite satirical aim,
ged in philosophical abstractions, despised orDM® has such, the satire is lost .upon our
as futile an act which nevertheless consoles ignorance. The attempts of antiquaries to
the people in its sorrows, avenges it on explain its productions byraWig them a
its tyrants, and reproduces, with a satirical supposed libellous meaning are among the
pencil, the thoughts of the multitude.’
most comical efforts of modern pedantry.
Pliny the elder, after mentioning the seri A laughable scene on an Etruscan vase, repous compositions of the painter Antiphilus, resenting a lover. climbing |l ladder to his
informs us that ‘ idem (Antiphilus) jocoso. mistress’s casement,' figures, we are told,
nomine Gryllum deridiculi habitus pinxit. Jupiter and Alcmena. The capital travesUndb hoc genus picturse Gryll^voeabantur. tie of fEneas and Anchises as monkeys
The meaning of this obscure passage — (PQm») is meant tolMBfee the imitative
whether Grylluswas a ridiculous personage style of Virgil! The well-known and amus
who had the misfortune to descend to posteri ing seejSeifn a paMs studio (tW.) is ‘ an
ty in some too faithful portrait byAntiphibus,' allusion to the deMkiM of art.’ A pigmy
or whether Grvllus was a serious person a.jgl and a fox (GreoorBn Museum) are a phi
perhaps the son of Xenophon and hero of losopher and flatterer. An owl cutting off
Mantinea, whose portrait was placed by the the head of a cock is Clytemnestra mur
Athenians in the Ceramicus, whom Anti dering AgameAon;
a^shopper
philus had the audacity to caricature — driving a parrot in a car (Herculaneum) is
has exercised. the wits of plenty of anti
quaries, and will no doubt give occupation
The ‘ leones. of Flavius Philostratus, a
to many more. However, it seems to be of*the age of the’ Flavian Emperors, contain writer
a rhe
from this anecdote of Pliny that grotesque torical description of a series of pictures which he
figures engraved on ancient gems have re saw, or feigns himself to have seen, in, a ‘ stoa,’ or
colonnaded
four or
ceived the name of ‘ Grylli ’ among the ated ‘in a building® ofthe city live stories,’situ
suburb of
Neapolis.’ The
curious in modern times. This title has subjects described are partly mythological, partly
landscape. Someof them are identical with those
been particularlyKapplied to those which of frescoes of Pompeii, overwhelmed at the same
represent figures ‘ composed of the heads period; and the general description of the style of
and bodies of different animals capriciously treatment such as to remind the reader closely of
united, so as to form monstrous and chim- | those beautiful and singular Specimens of the art
of a world gone by.
�558
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE
Seneca conducting Nero! Such are a few I tians, they still found pagan emblems and figamong the solemn interpretations which I ures in their models, and still went on imitat
modern sagacity has put on these ‘ capricci, ing them, sometimes merely copying, and
rather than caricatures,’ as M: Champfleury at others turning them to caricat ure or burlesque.
long that, a
truly calls them, with which the spirit of And this tendency continued sostill existedatre
much later date, where there
Greek antiquity, as playful as it was daring, mains of Roman buildings, the mediaeval archi
loved to decorate the chamber and engrave tects adopted them as models, and did not hesi
the gem.
tate to copy the sculpture, although it might
It is painful, and in some degree humiliat be evidently pagan in character. The accom
ing, to note the transition from the light and panying cut represents a bracket in the church
comparatively graceful character of ancient of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth
art, even in its comic forms, to the excessive century. The subject is a monstrous head eat
grossness, meanness, and profanity, which ing a child, and we can hardly doubt that it
characterised the corresponding branch of it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn
in the middle ages in Western Europe. No devouring one of his children.’ — pp. 40-49.
doubt this change was partly a continuation
For our own parts, we should doubt
of that which took place when the brief im
portation of Grecian models into the West greatly whether the sculptor in question had
had ceased, and the coarser Roman style Saturn in his mind at all, any more than
Dante had when he imagined Satan devour
succeeded it.
ing a sinner with each of his three mouths:
‘ The transition from antiquity to what we the illustrations of which passage, in early
usually understand by the name of the middle illuminations and woodcuts, are exactly
ages,’ says Mr. Wright, ‘ was long and slow : like the copy in Mr. Wright’s work of this
it was a period during which much of the tex Mont Majour sculpture. And generally, we
ture of the old society was destroyed, while, at doubt whether Mr. Wright does not attri
the same time, a new life was gradually given bute to classical recollections .too large a
to that which remained. We know very little share in the production of that monstrous
of the comic literature of this period of transi style of art which furnishes our next re
tion ; its literary remains consist chiefly of a markable chapter in the history of carica
miss of heavy theology or of lives of Saints.
. . . The period between antiquity and the ture — the Ecclesiastical Grotesque, such
middle ages was one of such great and general as it exhibited itself especially in France,
destruction, that the gulf between ancient and England, and Germany. It has to our
mediaeval art seem to us greater and more ab minds very distinctive marks of a rougher
rupt than it really was. The want of monu Northern original. However this may be,
ments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradu there is something humiliating, as we have
al change of the ooe into the other; but enough, said, in the degradation of skill and esthet
nevertheless, of facts remain to convince us ic perception which is evinced by these rel
that it was not a sudden change. It is now, ics of generations to which we so often as
indeed, generally understood that the knowledge cribe a peculiarly reverential character.
and practice of the arts and manufactures of
the Romans were handed onward from master No doubt its elements, so to speak, may be
to pupil after the empire had fallen ; and this traced in part to some very ordinary pro
took place especially in the towns, so that the pensities of the human mind. It has been
workmanship, which had been declining in said, probably with some truth, that when
character during the later periods of the em the most prevailing of all common motives
pire, only continued in the course of degrada was an intense fear of hell and of evil
tion afterwards. Thus, in the first Christian spirits, the most natural mode of relief, by
edifices, the builders who were employed, or at reaction, was that of turning them into
least many of them, must have been pagans; ridicule. And however impossible it may
and they would fodow their old models of or
namentation, introducing the same grotesque be, to intellects cultivated after the modern
figures, the same masks and monstrous faces, fashion, to reconcile these propensities with
and even sometimes the same subjects from the a strong sense of the majestic and the beau
old mythology, to which they had been accus tiful, yet we cannot doubt the fact that they
tomed. It is to be observed, a so, that this kind were so reconciled. As. Dante could inter
of iconographical ornamentation had been en mingle his unique conceptions of supernatu
croaching more and more upon the old archi ral grandeur with minute descriptions of
tectural purity during the latter ages of the the farcical proceedings of the vulgarest
Empire, and that it was employed more pfo- possible fiends with their pitchforks, so the
•fusely in the later works, fro n which this task same artists who produced, or at least orna
was transferred to the ecclesiasical and to the
domestic architecture of the middle ages. Af mented, our cathedrals, with those glorious
ter the architects themselves had become Chris- | expressions of thought sublimed at once by
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
559
the love of beauty and the love of heaven, I pride, envy; in fact, all the deadly sins comcould furnish them out with the strangest, I bined in one diabolical whole? — p. 74.
meanest, often filthiest images which a de
The goat-like countenance of the arch
based imagination might suggest. Fortu
nately, age has done so much to veil these fiend is a common mediaeval, as well as mod
debauches of skill with sober indistinctness, ern German, type; but whoever wishes to
that they seldom strike the eye of a casual tracq backward the conception of Retsch’s
observer, in a sacred edifice, very offen Mepnistopheles, should look in particular at
sively. But they lurk everywhere, and in an ivory carving, in the Maskell collection
' disgusting multitudes; in the elaborate at the British Museum, of exquisite work
stonework of ceilings, windows, and' col manship, styled the Temptation of Christ, by
umns ; in battlements, bosses, and corbeils ; Christoph Angermair, 1616.
One more instance, and a very striking
in the wood-carving of stalls, misereres,
and often on the lower surface of folding one, may be mentioned by way of exception
subsellia; while they are equally to be found, to the ordinary meanness and vulgarity
strangest of all, where the Donna Inez of which characterise the mediaeval representa
Lord Byron’s ‘ Don Juan ’ found them, in tions of the supernatural. It is noticed and
the illuminated pages of missals, destined for engraved by Malcolm, in his ‘ History of
purposes of daily devotion. So long as Caricature? The missal of King Richard
these were confined to mere burlesque, no II., preserved in the BrMRi Museum, is full
great harm was done, and certainly non,e of grotesque illustrSions ofEhe ordinary
cast, though beautifully executed.
But
intended.
among them is one of a higher and stranger
turn of invention, the exact meaning of
‘ The number and variety of such grotesque which is unknown. It Represents the choir
faces/ says Mr. Wright, ‘which we find scat of a solemn Gothic chapel. A white monk
tered over the architectural decoration of our old is celebrating mass at the altar; another lies
ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I will prostrate before it; ten of
order, seated
not attempt to give any more particular classifi in iSir stalls, sing the service. Above these
cation of them. All this church decoration was
intended especially to produce its effect upon the appearEeated in a higher range of stalls,
middle and lower classes, and mediaeval art was, five figures dimly drawn, which on examina
perhaps more than anything else, suited to nga tion appear to be robed skeletons — two
diaeval society, for it belonged to the mass and with the Papal tiara, two with coronets, one
not to the individual. The man who could enjoy with a cardinal’s hat. The effect of the
a match at grinning through horse collars, must whole is very terrific, after the fashion of
have been charmed by the grotesque works of the the ghostliest conceptions of Jean Paul
meidteval stone-sculptor and wood-carver; and, Richter, and otheiEGerman masters of the
we may add, that these display, though often spectral and calling back to
mind, at
rather rude, a very high degree of skill in art, a the same: time,(the coincidence the the lines
of
great power of producing striking imagery? —
which Shakspeare has put into the mouth of
p. 1.48.
‘ In all the delineations of demons we have the same monarch —
yet seen,’ he says elsewhere, ‘ the ludicrous is
the spirit which chiefly predominates; and in no ‘For within the hollow crown
one instance have we had a figure which is real That wreathes the mortal temples of a King,
ly demoniacal. The devils are droll, but not Keeps Deith his court: and there the antic sits,
frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least ex Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp?
cite a smile, but they create no horror. Indeed,
But when the prevailing and violent quar
they torment their victims so good-humouredly
that we hardly feel for them. There is, howev rels between different classes of religious
er, one well-known instance in which the me persons in the Church perverted the same
diaeval artist has shown himself thoroughly suc tendency into a taste for licentious ribaldry
cessful in representing the features of the spirit — when it was no longer the Devil who was
of evil. On the parapet of the external gallery piously laughed at in these compositions,
of the cathedral church of Notre Dame in Par but monks, nuns, hermits, and so forth, who
is, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary were introduced as symbols of everything
stature of a man, representing the demon, ap
parently looking wi;h satisfaction upon the in degrading — when grotesque, assuming the
habitants of the city as they were everywhere in attitude of satire, turned, according to our
dulging in sin and wickedness. The unmixed suggested distinction, into caricature prop
evil — horrible in its expression in this coun erly so called — then the practice in ques
tenance — is marvellously portrayed. It is an tion assumed a much darker complexion.
absolute Mephistopheles, carrying in his features The foulest of these representations, and
a strange mixture of hateful qualities — malice, they are only too numerous, can be barely
�560
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
alluded to in a work like Mr. Wright’s. Au
older publication, already noticed, Mal
colm’s very imperfect ‘ History of Carica
ture,’ goes into more details respecting them.
We will only say that those who enter on
the subject had better not carry into the in
quiry exaggerated notions respecting the
decorum or the piety of the so-called ‘Ages
of Faith,’ lest they should be too abruptly
dispelled.
Gradually, and with the progress of en
lightenment, a somewhat more serious,
though still familiar, mode of dealing with
subjects of this description became general;
but the change was not so early as has been
sometimes supposed, since the stalls of Hen
ry VII.’s chapel at Westminster exhibit
some of the very worst of this class of offen
ces against taste and religious feeling. But
in the fifteenth century, under the hands of
its artists, the supernatural, though still
tainted with the grotesque, germinated into
the awful. The union of the two may still
be traced in that marvellous but perishing
series of representations, ranging over all
the known and conjectured regions of life
and eternity, which decorates the Campo
Santo of Pisa—that ‘‘Antechamber of
Death,’ as the Italians call it. From the
same sources of thought arose the profuse
crop of ‘ Danses Macabres,’ dances of death,
coarsely painted on thousands of cemetery
walls, and drawn and engraved by number
less artists, with more or less of spirit; phan
tasmagorias, in which the love of the horri
ble was repulsively mixed with that of the
ludicrous, but still far less ignoble in taste
and character than those early grotesques of
ecclesiastical sculpture, to which our atten
tion has been hitherto drawn.
It is refreshing, however, to turn from this
disagreeable class of subjects to the few
specimens of a freer and healthier turn for
the ludicrous, unmixed with profanity, which
mediaaval art has left us. Probably one of
the earliest specimens of English caricature
drawing, as distinguished from mere gro
tesque, is that described by Mr. Wright, as
follows: — ‘It belongs to the Treasury of
the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes
of vellum, called Liber A and Liber B, form
ing a register of treaties, marriages, and sim-,
ilar documents of the reign of Edward I.
The clerk who was employed in writing it
seems to have been, like many of these of
ficial clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he has
amused himself by drawing in the margin
figures of the inhabitants of the provinces
of Edward’s crown, to which the documents
referred. Some of these are plainly designed for caricature.’ Two of themare evi
GROTESQUE
dently Irishmen, their costume and weapon,
the broad axe, exactly answering to the de
scription given of them by Giraldus Cambrensis. Two are Welchmen — ludicrous
figures enough, whose dress is equally in ac
cordance with contemporary description,
except in one curious particular, which
writers have not noticed. The right legs
are naked, like those of the German hackbutteers in the ‘ Lay of the Last Minstrel ’:—
‘ Each better knee was bared, tr aid
The warrior in the escalade.’
‘ When the official clerk who wrote this tran
script came to documents relating to Gascony,
his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its
rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so
plentifully, and to which, according to old re
ports, clerks seldom showed any dislike; and
accordingly, in the next sketch, we have a Gas
con occupied diligently in pruning his vine
tree.’
From the sculptured and illuminated re
ligious-grotesque of the Middle Ages to the
German and Dutch woodcut-literature of
the period of the Reformation, the transition
is not a very wide one. The style is pretty
similar, the profanity much the same, only
a fiercer element has been added by contro
versial bitterness. Perhaps this class of
works may be justly cited, in chronological
series, as affording the real commencement
of the art of modern political caricature,
properly so called. On both sides of the
question this method of ridiculing antago
nists was most profusely resorted to. The
jovial, popular figure of Martin Luther, in
particular, formed, as it well might, a very
favourite piece de resistance for pictorial sa
tirists in the old interest to work upon. One
cut, preserved by Mr. Wright, ‘ taken from
a contemporary engraving in wood, presents
a rather fantastic figure of the demon play
ing on the bagpipes. The instrument is
formed of Luther’s head, the pipe through
which the devil blows entering his ear, and
that through which the music is produced
forming an elongation of the reformer’s
nose. It was a broad intimation that Lu
ther was a mere tool of the evil one, created
for the purpose of bringing mischief into
the world.’ — p. 251. But, continues Mr.
Wright, the reformers were more than a
match for their opponents in this sort of
warfare. Doctor Martin had been identi
fied, for various cogent reasons, with Anti
christ : —
.
•
‘ But the reformers had resolved, on what ap
peared to be much more conclusive evidence,
�/!
.
561
IN LITERATURE AND ART.-
that Antichrist was only emblematical of the [ he chose, to rank among the most original
papacy : that under this form he had been long | as well as powerful of modern artists — the
dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign I famous Jacques Callot, born at the end of
was then approaching. A remarkable pamph I the century, in 1592 — a man, as Mr.
let, designed to bring this idea pictorially before i Wright truly observes, who was destined
the world, was produced from the pencil of
Luther’s friend, the celebrated painter Lucas j not only to give a new character to the
Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521, under ! then recent art of engraving on copper,
the title of “ The Passionale of Christ and An | but also to bring in a new style of ludic
tichrist.” It is a small quarto, each page of rous and fanciful composition. Inimita
which is nearly filled by a woodcut, having a ble, however, as Callot’s works are, they
few lines of explanation in German below. The belong rathesl to the class of ‘ caprices,’
cut to the left represents some incident in the or ‘ ex-travaganzas,’ than of caricature in
life of Christ, while that facing it to the right the sense in which we have used it; for his
gives a contrasting fact in the history of Papal genius had not the satirical turn, properly
tyranny. Thus, the first cut on the left repre speaking: and the same may be said of his
sents Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly
dignities and power, while on the adjoining page most successful copyisfflDella Bella, a clever )
we see the Pope, with his cardinals and bishops, artist, but who never succeeded in equalling
. supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon his origin IM The works of Romain de
and fortifications, in his temporal dominion over Hooghe, who, brought up in the merely exsecular princes. On another we have Christ travagant school of Callot, was extensively
washing the feet of his disciples, and in con employed in producing ^satirical and em
trast the Pope compelling the Emperor to kiss blematic representations of English political
his toe. And so on, through a number of illus events after the Restoration, perhaps serve
trations, until at last we come to Christ’s ascen
sion into heaven, in contrast with which a troop as the connecting link between the old
of demons, of the most varied and singular ‘ caprice ’ and the modern political carica
forms, have seized upon the Papal Antichrist, ture.
The need for pictorial representations to
and are casting him down into the flames of
hell, where some of his own monks wait to re stimulate the political feelings of the public,
in times when literature was comparatively
ceive him.’— p. 254.
scanty, had been of course as keenly felt in
This style of pictorial satire, as the ad England as in c®Br errantries $ but it was
*
vancing art of wood-engraving began more kept in check, through the public contests >
and more to multiply specimens, attained, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
as we have said, much popularity in the six by the great inferioritjalof our artists, and
teenth century in Germany, and extended particularly our engravers, to those of the
itself from religious to political and purely Continent. Here and there we meet with
social subjects. Its latest employment in ’striking exceptions. The vwodcuts to the
those regions on a large and popular scale first edition of ‘Fox’s Martyrs’ contain,
was perhaps during the Thirty Years’ War ; among the fearful scenes which they gener
but the extremity to which that country was ally representkjcaricature likenesses of Gar
reduced by that dreary contest seems to diner, Bonner, and other well-known per
have extinguished its very life. The works sonages of the time, and are singularly pow
of this class, disseminated through broad erful in execution. But the like of these
sides, printed sheets, large illustrated folios are very few. One odd illustration, per
and popular duodecimos, are frequently ex haps, of the need felt for these pictorial rep
ecuted with considerable spirit as well as resentations, and the defectiveness of the
humour. But often, and especially towards ordinary means for supplying it, is to be
the latter portion of the period, they exhibit found in the peculiar taste of that age for
a strong tendency to become pedantic and employing elaborate devices on banners
allegorical. When the art of caricature, borne in procession or carried in the field,
becoming over-learned, addresses itself to in order to stimulate the ardour of partisans.
particular classes only, and requires a spe It will be remembered how the Scottish
cial education in order to make its products Protestant lords took the field against
understood, it may be-safely pronounced in Queen Mary with (among others) a great
a declining condition.
standard, on which the catastrophe of the
Perhaps the most successful result of the Kirk of Field was represented, with the fig
early wood cut-grotesque was, that it led the ure of Darnley lying on the ground, and.
way for greater achievements in art; and the words ‘ Judge and revenge my cause, O
its influence may be especially traced in the Lord.’ In the Great Rebellion such stand
designs of one who deserves, notwithstand ards were abundantly used, chiefly on the
ing the inferiority of the department which Royalist side, with devices both serious and
THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXII.
1476.
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$
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�562
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
GROTE.SQUE
of the caricature order. Here is an ex
English specimens of art, at first few and
ample of the latter, taken by the Round far between, began to make their way into
heads at Marston Moor, described by Rush favour among these foreign importations;
worth : —
and it is just at this period (the reign of
George I.) that we find them first exhibiting
‘ A yellow coronet: in its middle a lion couch the well-known advertisements,4 Printed for
ant, and behind him a mastiff seeming to Carington Bowles, next the Chapter House
snatch at him, and in a label from his mouth
written, Kimboltoq: at his feet little beagles, in St. Paul’s Church Yard, London,’—a
and before their mouths written, Pym, Pym, house famous in the same line for full a cen
Pym : and out of the lion’s mouth these words tury afterwards.
4 It was a defect of the earlier publica
proceeding, Quousque tandem abutere patientions of this class,’ says Mr. Wright in his
tia nostra ? ’
earlier work, 4 that they partook more of
Another curious vehicle of political cari an emblematical character than of what we
cature in England, in the seventeenth cen now understand by the term 44 caricature.”
tury, generally of very inferior order, was Even Hogarth, when he turned his hand to
that of playing-cards. 4 The earliest of politics, could not shake off his old preju
these packs of cards known,’ says Mr. dice on this subject; and it would be diffi
Wright, is one which appears to have been cult to point out worse examples than the
published at the very moment of the restora two celebrated publications which drew
tion of Charles II., and which was perhaps upon him so much popular odium,44 The
engraved in Holland. It contains a series Times.” ’ The reader will easily under
of caricatures on the principal acts of the stand the distinction, though^it cannot of
commonwealth, and on the parliamentary course be traced out with absolute accuracy
leaders.’ The ace of diamonds, for instance, in comparing different pieces. A design,
: represents 4 The High Court of Justice, or for example, in which political characters
Oliver’s Slaughterhouse.’ Among other are represented under the guise of various
packs of a" similar character which have animals, is generally emblematic or sym
been preserved, one relates to the Popish bolical in character. This is a simple in
Plot, another to the Ryehouse Conspiracy stance ; but the symbolism is often compli
(published in Holland), another to the cated, and not easy of • comprehension.
South Sea Bubble.
Hence a necessity for long letterpress ex
Romain de Hooghe, already mentioned planations in the form of labels issuing
as a follower of Callot, became, together from the mouths of the characters, or other
with others of his countrymen, as we have wise — a device showing inferiority of skill.
seen, the great exponent of English political The most effective caricature explains it
satires during the events of the last Stuart self, and exhibits point instead of allegory.
. reigns. Their productions must have been The favourite plates of the first part of the
widely circulated in England ; and, in fact, Georgian era, which appeared periodically,
, superseded in public estimation the very about 1740, styled 4 The Series of Euro
. inferior articles of domestic manufacture. pean State Jockies,’ and so forth, were
This period of Dutch supremacy among us compositions of many figures, as hiero
may be said to have continued down to the glyphical as the frontispiece to a prophetical
• date of the South Sea Bubble aforesaid ■— almanac. The gradual way in which Eng
‘ the time,’ says Mr. Wright, 4 in which lish comic art became emancipated from
■ caricatures began to be common in Eng this somewhat pedantic mould may be illus
land ; lor they had been before published at trated by a later instance, out of Gillray’s
rare intervals, and "partook so much of the works. Charles Fox was represented by
character of emblems that they are not the caricaturists of his youth with a fox’s
easily understood.’ The earliest of these, head, as his father, Lord Holland, had al
and the best, were of Dutch manufacture, most invariably been before him. And so
yet these were negligently executed. 4 So he is in one or two of Gillray’s first prints.
little point is there often in these carica But Gillray almost immediately abandoned
tures, and so great appears to have been the the old usage, and gave the patriot his own
call for them in Holland, that people seem burly physiognomy. The gradual passage
to have looked up old engravings destined from the emblematic to the simply satirical
■ originally for a totally different purpose, completes the establishment of the modern
. and, adding new inscriptions and new ex- English school of caricature.
The nature of the change cannot be bet
j planations, they were published as carical tures on the Bubble.’ *
ter exemplified than by reference to a piece
which had prodigious vogue in its day, and
* House of Hanover, i, 71.
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
/
x
,
■
• i
■
<
■
563
is repeatedly mentioned with interest by described in the .verses accompanying the
Horace Walpole and other contemporaries. print, which are wittier than the print
Copies of it are still common in collections : itself. Its great success, however, was
we have seen it even jconverted into the evinced by the numerous rival works of art
mounting of a lady’s fan. This is headed of both political colours which it called,
‘ The Motion, 1741/ and commemorates the forth, ‘ the Reason, ‘ the Motive/ ‘ the
failure of a famous attempt to upset Sir Grounds,’ &c. It may perhaps be said with
Robert Walpole’s government. The back truth to be the prototype of that whole
ground represents Whitehall, the Treasury, class of pictorial satires, great favourites
and the adjoining buildings as they then | with Englishmen, in which the small revo
stood. (The spectator is looking down lutions of ministries and oppositions are
Whitehall from a point nearly opposite travestied as scenes of popular life.
the modern Admiralty : to his left is a dead
We need not delay over the other innu
wall along the east side of the street, be- merable caricatures of the same reign; •
hind it private buildings, Scotland Yard, they are generally very ignoble ones; but
&c., extending as far as the Banqueting ghe comparative novelty of the fashion in
House; in front, the gateway over the en England rendered them extremely popular,
trance of what is now Parliament Street, and there was a kind of frank jollity pre
with the inscription ‘ Treasury.’)
dominant in the English body corporate
*>
just at that epoch — the epoch, as Hallam
‘Lord Carteret, in the coach, is driven to satisfied himself, of the maximum of physi
ward the Treasury by the Duke of Argyll as cal well-being to be traced in our history
coachman, with the Earl of Chesterfield as among the mass of the people — which
postilion, who, in their haste, are overturning peculiarly suited this development of broad
the vehicle; and Lord Carteret cries “ Let me
get out!” The Duke brandishes a wavy national humour. One or two specimens
sword, instead of a whip; and between his may detain for a moment the eyes of those
legs the heartless changeling, Bubb Dodington, who turn them over, rare as they have now
sits in the form of a spaniel. . i. . ' Lord generally become, in the collection at the
Cobham holds firmly by the straps behind, as British Museum, or in that far more valua
footman; while Lord Lyttelton follows on ble one amassed in many a year of busy
horseback, characterised equally by his own collectorship by Mr. Hawkins, formerly of
lean form, and that of the animal on which that establishment. There is a wild force
he strides. ... In front, Pulteney, drawl in the very rough execution of the print on
ing his partisans by the noses, and wheeling a
barrow laden with the writings of the Opposi the original broadside of Glover’s famous
tion, the Champion, the Craftsman, Common ballad, ‘ Hosier’s Ghost,’ in which the spirits
Sense, &c., exclaims, “ Zounds, they’re of ‘ English captains brave,areally form a
ours ! ’” *
very spectral crew. Another may be noted
for the quiet savageness of its insult to
This once famous squib affords, as we Lord George Sackville: it is entitled, ‘ A
have said, a good exemplification of the Design for a Monument to General Wolfe
passage from the old and formal to the (1760), or, a Living Dog better than a Dead
modern style of political caricature. It Lion.’ The dead lion reclines below a bust
bears strongly the type of Dutch origin, of this hero : the living dog at his side is a
but without the carefulness of Dutch ex greyhound, and on his collar is the word
ecution. The idea is clever and suggestive, ‘ Minden.’ And, lastly, one more, for the
but the workmanship at once artificial and very oddity of the conception : ‘ Our late
feeble.
The likenesses were no doubt Prime Minister,’ 1743. It is simply the jolly
sufficiently good to amuse the public of that face of Sir Robert Walpole, without any
day; Horace Walpole calls them 1 admira accessories whatever, thrown back as against
ble ; ’ but they are inexpressive. The wavy a pillow, and the jaws relaxed into a most
sword, a relic of the emblematic school, is contagious yawn, with the words, ‘ Lo,
a clumsy piece of allegory, spoiling the what are all your schemes come to ? ’ and
realism of the piece; and so is the figure the lines from the Dunciad : —
of Pulteney, leading the Tory squires by
cords passed through their noses. The ‘ Ev’n Palinurus nodded at the helm
only fun in the composition is to be found The vapour mild o’er each Committee crept,
in the figures of Bubb Dodington as a Unfinished treaties in each office slept,
spaniel, and Lord Lyttelton on horseback And chiefless armies dozed out the campaign,
— ‘ so long, so lean, so lank, so bony,’ as And navies yawned for orders on the main.’
* House of Hanover, i. 179.
i
We cannot, however, pass over the period
�564
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
of George II. without noticing that it seems
to us to be the first in which that much
enduring animal, the British lion, figures
extensively as a popular character. As
yet, people’s eyes were not open to his
ludicrous side, and artists accordingly made
free with him in every variety of emblema
tic action. We have him roaring with in
dignation at the misdeeds of various Minis
ters ; ‘ hocussed ’ apparently, and with the
Spaniard paring his claws, in allusion to
the matter of Jenkins’s ears: frightening
the Gallic cock, defending the Austrian
eagle, led passive in a leash by the Duke of
Newcastle; and, lastly, ‘ embracing George
II.’ (1745), to the discomfiture of the Pope
and Pretender, who exclaim: ‘ We shall
never be a match for George while that
lion stands by him I ’
Some of the names of the hack carica
turists of this epoch are preserved by Mr.
Wright; most of them of as little notoriety
as merit. Among them< however, are some
amateurs of social position ; and one dame
of quality—a Countess of Burlington.
‘ She was the lady of the Earl who built
Burlington House in Piccadilly; was the
leader of one of the factions in the Opera
disputes at the close of the reign of George
I.; and is understood to have designed the
well-known caricature upon Cuzzoni, Fari
nelli, and Heidegger, which was etched by
Guppy, whom she patronised.’
Such were the very undistinguished
characteristics and history of English art
in the grotesque and comic line, when the
appearance of Hogarth on the stage marked
an entirely new epoch in its history. It
would be superfluous here to recapitulate
the details of the life or achievements of
our great domestic painter; the more so,
as his powers in the line of caricature, pro
perly so called, though very great, were
subordinate to his far higher merits as a
painter of ‘ genre,’ as the French phrase it,1
a delineator of popular scenes and incidents
into which the humorous only entered as an
ingredient, although a very important one.
As a political caricaturist poor Hogarth
made a fatal mistake: he took the wrong
side:—
..
4|<
tjUlW
‘It appears evident,’ says Mr. Wright, ‘that
before this time (October, 1760) Hogarth had
gained the favour of Lord Bute, who, by his
interest with the Princess of Wales, was all
powerful in the household of the young Prince.
The painter had hitherto kept tolerably clear
of politics in his prints, but now, unluckily
for himself, he suddenly rushed into the arena
of political caricature. It was generally said
that Hogarth’s object was, by displaying his;
GROTESQUE
1,4
zeal in the cause of his patron, to obtain an in
crease of his pension; and he acknowledges
himself that his object was gain. “ This,” he
says, “being a period when war abroad and
contention at home engrossed everyone’s mind,
prints were thrown in the background; and the
stagnation rendered it necessary that I should
do some timed thing to recover my lost time,
and stop a gap in my income.” Accordingly
he determined to attack the great minister
Pitt, who had recently been compelled to re
sign his office, and had gone over to the oppo
sition. It is said that John Wilkes, who had
previously been Hogarth’s friend, having been
privately informed of his design, went to the
painter, expostulated with him, and, as he con
tinued obstinate, threatened retaliation.’
‘ The Times, No. 1,’ was the first fruit of
Hogarth’s unlucky fit of loyalty ; a labour
ed emblematic print, after the. older fash
ion, to the glory of Lord Bute and discredit
of Pitt. Wilkes attacked the artist in the
‘ North Briton; ’ Hogarth retorted — only
too successfully—in this admirable print
of Wilkes with the cap of liberty: ‘ eventu
que impalluit ipse secundo,’ for Wilkes,
with all his apparent firn and bonhomie,
was a deadly enemy. The nettled patriot
brought his friend Churchill, and a host
more of libellers in letterpress and in cop
perplate, on the back of his unfortunate as
sailant : —
‘ Parodies on his own works, sneers at his
personal appearance and manners, reflections
upon his character, were all embodied in prints
which bore such names as Hogg-ass, Hoggart,
O’Garth, &c. . . . The article by Wilkes
in the “ North Briton,” and Churchill’s metri
cal epistle, irritated Hogarth more than the
hostile caricatures, and were generally believed
to have broken his heart. He died on the 26 th
of October, 1764, little more than a year after
the appearance of the attack by Wilkes, and
with the taunts of his political as well as his
professional enemies still ringing in his ears.’
— pp. 446-449.
Hogarth left no school of followers; his
genius was of too independent and peculiar
an order to admit of this. Perhaps the
nearest to him was Paul Sandby; described
by Mr. Wright as ‘ one of those rising artists
who were offended by the sneering terms in
which Hogarth spoke of all artists but him
self, and foremost among those who turned
their satire against him.’ Sanby was one
of the original members of the Royal Ac ardemy, and is best known as a topographical
draughtsman; but Mr. Wright terms him
the father of water-colour art in England.
As a caricaturist he led the attack against
Lord Bute and the Princess Dowager, as
�I' * >
IN LITERATURE AND ART.
well as against Hogarth ; his sketch of the
two Scotchmen travelling to London on a
witch’s broomstick, with the inscription,
‘ the land before them is as the Garden of
Eden, and behind them a desolate wilder
ness,’ is one of the best of the witticisms
provoked by the miso-Caledonian movement
of that day.
We cannot quite dgree with Mr. Wright
when he says that, ‘ with the overthrow of
Bute’s Ministry (1763) we may consider the
English school of caricaturists as completely
formed and fully established.’ On the con
trary, it seems to us, from such collections as
we have examined, that the political branch
of the art was at a particularly low standard
for nearly twenty years after that event. The
American war produced very little amuse
ment of this kind; it was an affair into
which the nation entered with a dogged and
reluctant seriousness: and Washington and
Franklin, Silas Deane and John Adams,
afforded but drab-eoloured subjects for the
facetious limner. Social topics were just then
much more in vogue ; the extravagances in
dress of the Macaronies and high-flying la
dies'of the day (the acme of absurdity, in
modern costume, was certainly reached in
the years 1770-1780), the humours of Vauxhall,.and Mrs. Cornely’s masquerades, di
verted men’s minds from the bitter disap
pointment of a contest in which nothing
was to be gained either by persevering or
giving way.
*
Perhaps the best specimen
of the pictorial humour of that time was to
be found, not in the shop window prints!
but in the pages of the numerous magazines;
some of these never appeared without an
illustration or two of the jocose order, like
the comic newspapers of our time. But
when the incubus of the American war was
removed, and domestic faction reappeared
on the stage in all its pristine vivacity, the
simultaneous appearance of the ‘ Rolliad ’
and its fellow satires in literature, and of
Gillray and his fellow-workmen in art,
heralded the advent of a new era.
We must hasten to him whom Mr. Wright
terms, with perfect justice in our opinion,
1 the greatest of English caricaturists, and
perhaps of all caricaturists of modern times
whose works are known — James Gillray.’
His father was an out-pensioner of Chel* In one of the caricatures of this period (repro
duced by Mr. Wright in his former work) Lord
Sandwich is represented with a bat in his hand, in
allusion, we are told, to his fondness for cricket;
but it is a curved piece of wood, much more resem
bling that with which golf is played. And the same
peculiarly shaped instrument is put into the hand
of a cricket-loving lady in a.print of 1778 (Miss
Wicket and Miss Trigger).' What is the date of the
bat now used ?
.
‘ 565
sea Hospital, and sexton of the Moravian
burial-ground at Chelsea, where the carica
turist was born in 1757. Belonging by his
origin, and still more by his loose and Bohe
mian habits, to a very ordinary sphere of
life, it is certainly singular that he should
have acquired such a close observation and
intimate knowledge of events as they oc
curred, not only in the political, but in the
fashionable world. His great sources of
information were, no doubt, the newspa
pers ; but occasionally he seems even to have
anticipated the newspapers; more than one
court scandal and state intrigue seems to
have been blazoned first to public notice
in the well-known shop windows of Hum
phreys or of Fores, always crowded with
loiterers as soon as one of Gillray’s novel
ties appeared. It is no doubt true, and af
fords a curious subject of speculation to any
one who may think the inquiry worth pur
suing, that, when Gillray’s fame was estab
lished, many an amateur of the higher cir
cles seems to have assisted him, not merely
in furnishing hints, but also sketches, which
Gillray etched and sold for his own profit.
Some of his best caricatures, if we are not
mistaken J are from outlines supplied by
Bunbury, others were composed by Brown '
low North. But these are exceptions only,
and do-not invalidate the general proposi
tion as to the singularity of the circum
stance that this drunken son of a sexton was
for many years the pictorial Aristophanes
of his day, and aided, at least, by those who
were behind the sceMs. of much which
took place in the inner recesses of high
life.
His fame as a political caricaturist was
first established by his burlesque prints on
Rodney’s victory (1782). The rueful figure
of the unlucky French admiral De Grasse,
in one of them, is among the most charac
teristic of his performances. As we have
said, it was some time before he thoroughly
emancipated himself from the allegorical
style ; and another peculiarity of inferior ar
tists haunted him a long' time, the fashion,
namely, of overloading his compositions
with quantities of letter-press, oratorical or
jocose, proceeding from the mouths of his
characters, as if his pencil had not been fully
powerful enough to speak for itself. He
rushed with an energy all his own into the
war of squibs which succeeded the Fox and
North coalition, and then conceived those
ideals of the leading patriot, and of his
friend Burke, which he afterwards rendered
popular in every corner of the kingdom by
a thousand repetitions. A very admirable
series of sketches, however, of these two
�566
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE
and Lord North, as ‘War, Peace, and
Neither War nor Peace,’ portraits scarcely
touched with grotesque, though in skilfully
exaggerated attitudes, commonly inserted
in the bound volumes of Gillray’s works, is,
we are satisfied, not his; it bears much
more the appearance of Sayer’s workman
ship. Fox and his personal following were
peculiarly the objects of Gillray’s aversion ;
and, not many years later than this, the
unhappy circumstances of the Prince of
Wales’s matrimonial career provoked him
into a series of the most popular, daring,
and spirited of all his works; some of which,
however, it is not easy in our decent age to
indicate even by reference, though they
seem to have been exposed without scandal
in the most frequented thoroughfares of Lon
don. Gillray, however, was ‘ not a hired
libeller,’says Mr. Wright,‘like Sayer and
some other of the lower caricaturists of that
time: he evidently chose his subjects in
some degree independently, as those which
offered him the best mark for ridicule; and
he had so little respect for the ministers or
the court, that they all felt his satire in
turn.’ After exhausting his power of picto
rial invention against the heir apparent,
he found a still more congenial subject of
1 satire in the peculiarities of his Majesty
George III. himself. Here, however, per
sonal spite is said to have given the induce
ment.
‘ According to a story which seems to be
authentic, Gillray’s dislike of the King was em
bittered bv an incident somewhat similar to
that by which George II. had provoked the
anger of Hogarth. Gillray had visited France,
Flanders, >and Holland, and he had made
sketches, a few of which he had engraved. He
accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who
had left his native city of Strasburg to settle
in England, and became the King’s favourite
artist, to assist him in making groups for his
great painting of the ‘ Siege of Valenciennes,’
Gillray sketching groups of figures while
.Loutherbourg drew the landscapes and build
ings. After their return, the King expressed a
desire to see these sketches, and they were
placed before him. Louthesbourg’s landscapes
and buildings were plain drawings, and easy to
understand, and the King expressed himself
greatly pleased with them. But the King’s
mind was already predjudiced against Gillray
for his satirical prints : and when he saw his
hasty and rough, though spirited sketches of
the French soldjers, he threw them aside con
temptuously with the remark, “ I don’t under
stand these caricature fellows.” Perhaps the
„ very word he used was intended as a sneer
upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront
deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a carica
ture which struck at once at one of the
King’s vanities, and at his political predjudices.
George III. imagined himself a great connois
seur in the Fine Arts, and the caricature was
entitled “ a connoisseur examining a Cooper’.”'
It represented the King looking at the celebrat
ed miniature of Oliver Cromwell, by the Eng
lish painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray
had completed this print, he is said to have ex
claimed, “I wonder if the Royal connoisseur
will understand this!” It was published on
the 18th of June, 1792, and cannot have failed
to produce sensation at that period of revolu
tions. The King is made to exhibit a strange
mixture of alarm with astonishment hi contem
plating the features of this great overthrower
of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly
power was threatened. It will he remarked,
too, that the satirist has not overlooked the
royal character for domestic economy; the
King is looking at the picture by the light of a
candle end stuck on a save-all.’
If there is any truth in the story, certainly
never was artist’s revenge more completeThe homely features of the poor old king
— his prominent eyes, light eyebrows, pro
truding lips, his shambling walk, his gaze of
eager yet vacant curiosity — are even now
better known to us through Gillray’s carica
tures than through anything which theMuses of painting and sculpture, in their
serious moods, could effect for him or
against him. Gillray’s etchings, and Peter
Pindar’s verses, were for years among the
minor plagues of royalty. Not, indeed, in
the estimation of the stout-hearted monarch
himself, as impervious to ridicule as to
argument whenever he thought himself in
the right; no man in his dominions laughed
more regularly at each hew caricature of
Gillray than he ; and a whole set, inscribed
‘ for the king,’ forwarded to him as they
came out, is said to be preserved at Wind
sor. But they were more keenly felt by
his little knot of attached courtiers, and
also by sober-minded people in general,
seriously apprehensive, in those inflammable
times, of anything which might throw ridi
cule on the Crown. One of the coarsest
and most powerful, and which is said to
have given especial offence at head-quarters,
is that which represents Queen Charlotte as
Milton’s Sin, between Pitt as Death and
Thurlow as the Devil. Others, of less
virulence, such as ‘ Affability,’ or the King
and the Ploughman ; the ‘ Lesson in Apple
Dumplings ; ’ the conjugal breakfast scene,
where George is toasting muffins, and Char
lotte frying sprats; the ‘ Anti-Saccharites,’
where the Royal pair are endeavouring to
coax the reluctant princesses (charming
figures) to take their tea without sugar, —
these, and numbers more, held up the Royal
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
567
peculiarities, especially the alleged stingi wild and extravagant now grew on him.
ness of the Court, in a manner in which the Doubtless it was sharpened by the effect on
usual coarseness of the execution rather his brain of constant potations, which grad
tended to heighten the exceeding force and ually brought on delirium tremens. His
latest art-debauches — if such we may term
humour of the satire.
But when this country became seriously them — have often a touch of phantasma
involved in hostilities with France, repub goric-pictorial nightmare, like those of Callot,
lican, and afterwards imperial, a change Teniers, and Hollenbreughel. His last draw
came over the spirit of Gillray’s satire. ing is preserved in the British Museum, exe
Thenceforth he gradually ceased his at cuted when he was quite out of his mind — a
tacks, not only on the Royal family, but on madman’s attempt at a portrait, said to be
domestic objects of raillery in general, and that of Mr. Humphreys, the printseller. He
applied himself almost exclusively to sharp died in 1815 ; and the inscription 4 Here lies
ening the national spirit of hostility against James Gillray, the caricaturist,’ marks, or
the foreign enemy. His caricatures against lately marked, the spot of his interment in
the French are those by which he is best the Broadway, Westminster. His works,
known, especially abroad, and occupy the once so popular, had fallen so much in
greatest space in his works. This was, no fashion a few years ago that the plates were
doubt, the popular line to take, and Gillray about to be sold for old copper, when they
worked for money; but it would be doing were rescued by Mr. J. H. Bohn, the pub
great injustice to the poor caricaturist’s lisher, who gave to the public those now
memory to suppose that money was his well-known re-impressions which have pro
main object. The son of the old pensioner cured for the artist a new' lease of fame.
Gillray was the Rubens of caricature, and
was full of the popular instincts of his class.
It was not the French revolution or con the comparison is really one which does no
quests that he opposed; it was the French injustice to the inspired Fleming. The life
themselves, whom he hated with all the ve like realism of the Englishman’s boldlyhemence of a Nelson or a Windham. rounded, muscular figures, and the strong
These later compositions of his are, indeed, expression communicated to them by a few
marvellous performances. But they are so strokes of the pencil, are such as Antwerp
rather from the intensity of imaginative fu in all her pride might not disdain. Any
ry with which they are animated, than from one who has studied some of Rubens’s
crowds of nude figures which approach
the ordinary qualities of the caricaturist.
They are comparatively destitute of his nearest to the order of caricature — his
old humour and fun. Not that he had out sketches of the4 Last Judgment,’for instance,
grown these. His few domestic caricatures in the Munich Gallery —■ will appreciate the
are still full of them; such are those on justice of the parallel. Gillray was undoubt
4 All the Talents ’ (1806), one of which, the edly coarse to excess, both in conception
4 Funeral of Baron Broadbottom,’ is among and execution ; so much so, as to render his
the most comic of all his productions. The last works mere objects of disgust to many ed
survivor of its procession of mourners, the ucated in the gentler modern school. But
late Marquis of Lansdowne, has now been there are also numbers of a taste more re
dead for some years ; the features of the re fined than catholic, who disclaim all admira
mainder are quite unfamiliar to this genera tion for Rubens on the very same grounds.
tion ; and yet it is scarcely possible to look And one quality Gillray possessed which
at it even now without a smile, such as we was apparently discordant from his ordinary
bestow on the efforts of our cotemporaries character. Many of his delineations of female
Leech or Doyle. But when Gillray tried beauty ■ are singularly successful, and he
his vein on a French subject, he passed at seems to have dwelt on them with special
once from the humourous to the grotesque, pleasure, for the sake of the contrast with
and thence to the hideous and terrible. his usual disfigurements of humanity. His
One of his eccentric powers, amounting heroines are certainly not sylphs, but they
certainly to genius, comes out strongly in often are, like the celestials of Rubens, un
these later caricatures ; that of bringing to commonly fine women. Let us refer to a
gether an enormous number of faces, dis few well-known instances only ; such as his
torted into every variety of grimace, and representations of Mrs. Fitzherbert at her
yet preserving a wonderfully human ex best time, notwithstanding the. prominence
pression. We would signalise particularly of the aquiline feature, which it was his
two, one almost tragical, thh 4 Apotheosis of business to enhance ; of George III.’s daugh
Hoche;’ one farcical, the ‘Westminster ters in the 4 Anti-Saccharites,’ and other
Election’ (1804). The tendency to the prints; the Duchess of Richmond as the
�..
568
1
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE
‘ Height of Fashion; ’ the charming seated
figure entitled ‘ Modern Elegance,’ 1795
(said to be Lady Charlotte Campbell, but
is it not an older person ?), in which, though
the costume is playfully exaggerated, the
features are finely drawn; the beauty (evi
dently a portrait also) who is reading Monk
Lewis’s ‘Tales of Wonder’ to a' bevy of
I very homely gossips (1802); and even the
I common ball-room figures, in ‘ A Broad
1
1'Hint of not meaning to Dance’ (1804), in
which, however, the design is Brownlow
North’s.
Still, we fear that Gillray must be gener
ally comprehended in the somewhat auda
cious assertion of M. Champfleury, that
‘satirists, from Moliere down to Prudhon,
only recognise two conditions for women —
those of courtezan and housewife.’ It will
be seen that several of our instances are
taken from what may be termed social,
in contradistinction to political, caricatures,
many of which are quite equally worthy of
the master, although not those on which his
popularity mainly rests. They are often of
a libellous boldness, inconceivable now-adays, and equally so in earlier times; for
the generation to which Gillray belonged
stood out in bad pre-eminence among all
others in English domestic history in respect
of this particular kind of coarseness — a
generation which could see exposed in the
shop-windows such shameless pictorial sa
tires as those directed against Lady Arch
er, and other dames of gambling celebrity;
or the representation of the dashing daugh,
ters of a countess as the ‘ Three Graces in
a High Wind; ’ or of a titled beauty nurs
ing her infant in a ball-dress, as the ‘ Fash
ionable Mamma; ’ or of Lady Cecilia John
ston, an inoffensive lady, of unobtrusive
style as well as character, against whom it
is said the artist had conceived some grudge,
which induced him spitefully to represent
her in all manner of ludicrous situations.
Others of this class, it may be added, related
to darker scandals behind the scenes, and
may not now be met with in the ordinary
collections of Gillray’s works, though they
excited little comment, and no disgust, in
his day. To pass again, for one moment
only, from Gillray’s merit as an artist,
to his specialty as a caricaturist; his strong
i power of seizing likenesses, and giving them
! a ludicrous expression, was, no doubt, the
1 chief element of his popularity. In this he
surpassed all his predecessors, though he has
been equalled by one or two of his succes
sors. But in one bye-quality we are in
clined to think him unrivalled: the faculty
of giving by a few touches a kind of double
expression to a countenance; cowardice
underlying bravado; impudence, affected,
modesty. See, as a specimen, the exceedingly comic representation of Addington
and Napoleon, sword in hand, daring each
other to cross the Channel which flows
between them. A single figure of Burke
as an ‘Uniform Whig’ (1791), admirably
drawn in other respects, conveys much
of this mingled meaning, though not quite
so easily decipherable. The sage is lean
ing against a statue of George III.; he
holds in one hand Burke’s ‘ Thoughts on
the Revolution,’ in the other a cap of liber
ty ; the motto, ‘ I preserve my consistency,
by varying my means to secure the unity of
my end.’ The caricaturist’s experience
had attained for once to ‘something like
prophetic strain.’ His facility of execution
was wonderful. It must, no doubt, be
added, as a natural qualification of such
praise, that his drawing is often incorrect
and careless in the extreme, even after
all allowance for what we have never seen
fully explained, the vast difference, in point
of excellence, between various copies of
what is apparently the same print. He
is said ‘to have .etched his ideas at once
upon £he copper, without making a previ
ous drawing, his only guides being sketches
of the distinguished characters he intended
to produce, made on small pieces of card,
which he always carried about with him.’
Of Rowlandson (born 1756, died 1827),
Mr. Wright speaks in high terms of praise,
saying that he ‘ doubtlessly stands second to ■
Gillray, and may, in some respects, be con
sidered as his equal.
. He was distin
guished by a remarkable versatility of tal
ent, by a great fecundity of imagination,
and by a skill in grouping quite equal to
that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in
forming his groups of a great variety of
figures. It has been remarked, too, that no
artist ever possessed the power of Rowland
son of expressing so much with so little ef
fort.’ We are sorry that we cannot, for our
own parts, subscribe to these eulogies. As
a political caricaturist — to which line he
resorted as a matter of trade, espousing the
Whig side as others did the Tory — he
seems to us dujl enough. In general sub
jects he succeeded better, yet appears to us
endowed with all Gillray’s coarseness, but
with little of his satirical power and none of
his artistic genius.
James Sayer, cotemporary with these
two as an artist, deserves mention as pos
sessed of a certain amount of original tai-'
ent, though not of a very high order. He
was ‘ a bad draughtsman,’ says Mr. Wright
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
—- surely too sweeping a criticism — ‘ and
his pictures are produced more by labour
than by skill in drawing, but they possess a
considerable amount of humour.’ His like
nesses, generally produced by a small num
ber of hard and carefully-executed lines,
seem to us of great merit as such, though
wanting in life and energy. He was almost exclusively a political caricaturist,
and, unlike the reckless ^but independent
Gillray, he turned his talents to good ac. count, devoting himself to the cause of Pitt,
who bestowed on him in return the ‘ not
, unlucrative offices of Marshal of the Court
of Exchequer, Receiver of the Sixpenny
Dues, and Cursitor.’ His most famous
production was the well-known ‘ Carlo
' Khan’s Triumphal Entry into Leadenhallstreet’ (on the occasion of Fox’s India Bill,
1783), still common in collections. Butthis
succeeded chiefly because it fell in with the
humour of the time; though the idea is
good, the execution is cold, and it is encum
bered with symbolical accessories, after the
older fashion which we have described.
Among his minor works, an unfinished proof
of Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, and others of the
Johnsonian clique, with the ghost of the
Doctor himself scowling at them from
above, exhibits a good deal of his peculiar
laborious talent.
Our catalogue of cotemporaries would
hardly be complete without including in it
the clever and goodhumoured amateur
Henry Bunbury, though no dabbler in
State affairs, like jGillray and Sayer. Bunbury had (as Mr. Wright says) ‘ little taste
for political caricature, and seldom meddled
with it. He preferred scenes of social life
and humourous incidents of cotemporary
manners, fashionable or popular.’ It may
be added that he does not seem to have
often inserted portraits in his .pieces. He
was rather the forerunner of the modern
French ' school of grotesque artists ‘ de
genre,’ of whom we shall have a word to
say presently. His drawing, says Mr.
Wright, ‘ was often bold and good, but he
had little skill in etching.’ After some
early essays in that line, “ his designs were
engraved by various persons, and his own
style was sometimes modified in this pro
cess.’ We have ourselyes seen original
drawings by his hand, very superior both in
force and refinement to the coarse style of
the ordinary plates which bear his name.
z Perhaps the best known and most ludicrous
t of his compositions are his illustrations of
‘ Geoffry Gambado’s Art of Horsemanship.’
Bunbury was brother to the baronet who
married Lady Sarah Lennox, and himself
569
husband of one of Goldsmith’s’ favourite
Miss Hornecks. He died in 1811, the date
of his last work, ‘ A Barber’s Shop in Assize
Time,’ engraved by Gillray.
Passing over Isaac Cruikshank — a very
prolific artist of the same period with Gill
ray, of whom he was a pretty close imitator
— we arrive at his illustrious son George,
who still survives to connect our era with
the last. He is now almost forgotten as a
political caricaturist, in which line he em
barked, fifty years ago, under the auspices
of his father, but soon abandoned it to
achieve his peculiar andaunique celebrity as
an etcher of small figures, chiefly in the
way of illustrations to letterpress, in which
humour and the most exquisite appreciation
of the ludicrous alternate with beauty and
pathos of no common order. ‘ The ambi
tion of George Cruikshank,’ says Mr.
Wright, ‘ was to draw what Hogarth called
moral comedies, pictures of society through
a series of acts and scenes, always pointed
with some great moral; and it must be con
fessed that he has, through a long career,
succeeded admirably.’ Every one is aware
of the zeal with which the amiable artist
has devoted himself to promote the public
good by this employment of his brain, of
which an amusing illustration is furnished
by the current story — for the truth of
which, however, we will by no means vouch
— that he insisted on formally presenting
his ‘Drunkard’s Progress’ to her Majesty!
And yet, to our taste, George Cruikshank’s
most ambitious attempts in this line are
scarcely equal to the trifling productions
which he has now and then thrown off in
mere exuberance of genius and animal
spirits. The first edition of a little book,
entitled ‘ German Popular Stories,’ which
appeared in 1834 (the letterpress was by
the late Mr. Jardine), contains, on the mi
nutest possible scale, some of the most per-1feet gems, both of humour and gracefulness,
which are anywhere to be found. The
reader need only cast his eye on ‘ Cherry,
or the Frog-Bride ; ’ the ‘ Tailor and the
Bear-; ’ ‘ Rumpelstiltskin,’ and the inimi
table procession of country folks jumping
into the lake after the supposed flocks of
sheep in ‘ Pee-wit,’ to learn how much of fun,
and grotesque, and elegance of figures also,
and beauty of landscape, may be conveyed
in how few lines.
The history of English caricature of the
Georgian era would be incomplete without
a notice of the various printsellers who
supplied the material to the public, and
whose shop-windows furnished, not so many
years ago, favourite stages or stations, as it
�570
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
were, for the wandering Cockney, on his
peregrinations between East and West; and
with this Mr. Wright has accordingly fur
nished us. Perhaps the most celebrated
were Humphreys, of New Bond-street and
Piccadilly (whom, however, Mr. Wright
does not mention), and Fores.
‘ S. W. Fores dwelt first at No 3, Piccadilly,
but afterwards establishe i himself at No. 50, the
corner of Sackville Street, where the name still
remains. Fores seems to have been most fertile
in ingenious expedients for the extension of his
business. He formed a sort of library of cari
catures, and other prints, and charged for ad
mission to look at them; and he afterwards adopt
ed a system of lending them out in portfolios for
evening parties, at which these portfolios of car
icatures became a very fashionable amusement
in the latter part of the last century. At times
some remarkable curiosity was employed to add
to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on carica
tures published in 1790, we find the statement
that “ In Fores Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also the
Head and Hand of Count Struenzee. Admit
tance, one shilling.” Caricatures against the
French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear
imprints stating that they were “ published by
S. W. Fores, No. 3 ,Piccadilly, where may be
seen a Complete Model of the Guillotine. Ad
mittance, one shilling.” In some this model is
said to be six feet high.’
Mr. Wright closes his list with George
Cruikshank, as the last representative of
the great school of caricaturists formed in
the reign of George HI. But there is anoth
er, still living among us, whose experience
as an artist goes very nearly back to that
reign, and who may be in the most literal
sense called the last of the political caricatu
rists as he is considered by many the best —
Mr. Doyle, the world-famous H.B. of the
past generation. Those who belonged to it
can well remember the height of popularity
which his lithographed sketches achieved,
the little blockades before the shop-windows
in St. James’s-street and the Flaymarket
whenever a new one appeared, and the con
venient topic of conversation which it was
sure to afford to men of the clubs, when meet
ing each other on the pavement. For it was
to critics of this class that H.B. particularly
addressed himself. His productions wanted
the popular vigour of those of Gillray and his
school. But it is to Mr. Doyle’s high honour
that they were also entirely free from the
scandalous coarseness of his predecessors, and
that he showed the English public how the
purposes of political satire could be fully se
cured without departing a hand’s breadth
from the dignity of the artist or the charac
GROTESQUE
ter of the gentleman. As a delineator of
figures, we cannot esteem him very success
ful. They run too much into the long and
lanky; portions of the outline, the extremities
in particular, are often almost effeminate in
their refinement: when he attempts a really
broad, bluff personage, he is apt to produce
the effect of a fine gentleman masquerading
as a Falstaff. But it was in the likeness of
his portraits, and their expression, that his
chief and singular merit consisted. And in
these, again, his success was extremely va
rious. His fortune, in a professional sense,
may be said to have been made by three
faces — those of the Duke of Wellington,
King William IV., and Lord Brougham.
The provoking, sly no-meaning, establishing
itself on the iron mask of the first; the goodhumoured, embarrassed expression of the
second; the infinite variety of grotesque
fancies conveyed in the contorted features
of the third ; these were reproduced, week
after week, for years, with a variety and
fertility perfectly astonishing. In other
cases he never could succeed in hitting off
even a tolerable likeness : of his hundred or
so representations of the late Sir Robert
Peel, we do not recollect one which conveys
to us any real remembrance of the original.
The Peel of caricaturists in general, not
only of H.B.,was a conventional person
age ; .as is, though in a less marked degree,
the Gladstone of our present popular artists.
Still more remarkable was the failure of
H.B., in common with his predecessors, in
catching the likeness of Gtsorge IV. In all
the countless burlesque representations of
that personage, from the handsome youth of
1780 to the puffy veteran of 1827, there are
scarcely any which present a tolerable re
semblance.
The courtly Lawrence suc
ceed in portraying him well enough ; the
caricaturists, usually so happy, never. H.
B.’s published sketches amount to some nine
hundred, and afford a capital key to the
cabinet and parliamentary history of Eng
land, from the Ministry of Wellington to
the end of Lord Melbourne’s. While num
bers of them *o credit to the artist’s politi
d
cal sagacity as well as his skill, we cannot
forbear to notice one which, to our present
notions, illustrates the ‘ nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futurse ’ — produced
when the Tories, to whom H.B. appertain
ed with all his heart, anticipated the tri
umphs of French over English diplomacy
under the conduct of our then Foreign Sec
retary : it is No. 171 in the series, ‘The
Lame leading the Blind: ’ Lord Palmers
ton, guided into a ditch by Talleyrand.
With the renowned H. B. the line of regu-
�IN LITERATURE AND ART.
lar British caricaturists closes. The taste of
the nation has sought another direction. But
do not let us be misunderstood. The spir
it of the' art survives, and will do so as long
as England is a free country and Englishmen
retain a sense of the ludicrous ; but its form
is so completely changed, by the substitu
tion of the cheap illustrated newspaper for
the comparatively expensive broad-sheet of
the last century, that a more convenient
moment could not be found, for closing the
old chapter in artistic history and beginning
a new one, than that in. which Doyle ceas
ed his labours and the ‘ Punch ’ school of
satirists began theirs. The very distinct
mode of treatment which the small size of
the modern comic newspaper, compared
with the old sheet, necessarily requires,
combines with other causes of difference to
render this new school something quite apart
from the old one. Its success must needs be
obtained more through skill in the delinea
tion of individual faces, and compactness of
wit in the 1 motive ’ of the composition, than
through breadth of treatment, or (generally
speaking) through talent for grouping. In
the delineation of faces, however, and es
pecially in portrait, which is the specialty
of political caricature, the designers with
whom we are now dealing have an immense
advantage over those of former times, in
being able to use the results of the art of
photography. Photographs of faces and fig
ures, always at hand, are a very superior
class of auxiliaries to those hasty ‘ drawings
on bits of card ’ with which Gillray was wont
to content himself. The popularity which
our present favourites have earned is prob
ably more real, certainly much more exten
sive, than that gained by their most success
ful predecessors, from Hogarth to Cruik-1
shank : with whose names that of Leech, so
lately lost to us, and of his living associates
and rivals, of whom we need only name
Doyle the younger and John Tenniel as
specimens, will assuredly find their places
in the future annals of art. But, arrived at
this turning point, we must take farewell of
our subject, devoting only a few pages more
to the cotemporary history of modern
French caricature, on which Mr. Wright
(to our regret) does not enter. We had
hoped to derive considerable assistance
for this purpose from a new publication
of our friend M. Champfleury, entitled
‘ Histoire de la Caricature Moderne,’ which
has just fallen into our hands ; but although
the title is thus comprehensive, the contents
reduce themselves to a few lively pages of
panegyric on two or three recent artists,
which seem to be diotated’in great measure
by personal feelings.
I
571
The general subject can be nowhere so
well studied in a summary way as in the two
volumes of M. Jaime (‘ Musee de la Carica
ture’), with very fairly executed illustra
tions, to which we can only apply the an
cient reproach, ‘ tantamne rem tarn negligenter; ’ for M. Jaime has but treated' the
matter in a perfunctory way, as if afraid
of dwelling too much on it. It has not,
however, the interest which attaches either
to the coarser but bolder style of art inaug
urated by the Germans in the sixteenth cen
tury, or to that which prevailed in the great
English age of political caricature. Callot
was indeed aJFrenchman, by race at least,
though born in Lorraine, then independ
ent ; but his associations were more with
the school of the Netherlands than that of
France. Nor had he any followers of note
in the latter country. The jealous wake
fulness of French government, and the cold
and measured style which French art de
rived from a close addiction to supposed
classical models, were both alike unfavoura
ble to the development of the artistic empire
of ‘ Laughter, holding both his sides.’
French artists of the eighteenth century for
the most part touched ludicrous subjects in
a decorous and timid way, as if ashamed of
them. As the literature of theEeountry is
said to abound in wit, while it is poor in hu
mour, so its pictorial talent found vent rath
er in the neat and effective K tableau de
genrejlthan in the irregularity of the gro
tesque ; or, to employ another simile, French
cbmic art was to English as the genteel
comedy to the screaming farce. And the
same was the case (to treat the subject
briefly) with that of other nations over
which France exercised predominant influ
ence. Chodowiecki was the popular Ger
man engraver of domesti(?fecenes in the last
century, and his copper-plates have great
delicacy of execution and considerable pow
er of expression. He was in high vogue
for the purpose of illustrating with cuts the
novels and the poetry of the great age of
German literature, and his productions are
extraordinarily numerous. But he habitu
ally shrank from the grotesque. His ad
mirers styled him the German Hogarth — a
comparison which he, we are told, rejected
with some indignation, and which Hogarth,
could he have known it, would certainly
have rejected likewise; for Chodowiecki,
with all his other merits, very seldom ap
proaches the ludicrous, and never soars to
the height or descends to the depth of cari
cature.
The unbounded licence of the first French
Revolution, and the strange mixture of the
burlesque with the terrible which attended
�572
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND
its progress, gave of course for some years
the most favourable opportunities possible
for the exercise of pictorial wit, so far as the
nation possessed it. There can be no great
er treat to one who loves to tread the by
ways of history, often the shortest cuts to
truth, than to turn over the series of those
magnificent volumes in the Imperial Libra
ry of Paris, in which the whole pictorial an
nals of the last century or so in France are
preserved; everything arranged as nearly
as may be in order of date, and not of sub
jects : portraits, festal shows and triumphs,
processions, battles, riots, great events, rep
resented under every form down to the
rough newspaper woodcut and street carica
ture, unrolling in one vast phantasmagoria
before the eye. We have much that is val
uable and useful in our Museum, but noth
ing, in the matter of historical art, compara
ble to this collection. An inadequate idea
of it only can be formed from the miscella
neous contents of the well-known three fo
lio volumes of prints, entitled ‘ Tableaux de
la Revolution Francaise.’ The earlier part
of the caricatures of that age are the most
humourous and also the best executed. As
the tragedy deepened, fun became more
and more out of place; and the satirists who
had seen its outbreak having most of them
lost their heads or fled the country, the
business fell into the hands of more vulgar
workmen. One of the first (1788) may be
mentioned, not so much for its execution,
which is tame enough, as because it is (as
far as we know) the real original of a piece
of wit which has since made its fortune in
every language, and been falsely attributed
to many facetious celebrities. Calonne, as a
monkey, has assembled his 1 notables,’ a flock.
of barn-door fowl. ‘ Mes chers administres,
je vous ai rassembles pour savoir a quelle
sauce vous voulez etre manges.’ ‘Maisnous
ne voulons pas etre manges du tout.’ ‘ Vous
vous ecartez de la question.’
But French art, as we have seen, refined
and softened into effeminacy under the class
civilization of the ancien regime, and ren
dered prudish also by its adherence to classi
cal models, had its decorum soon shocked by
too coarse intermixture of the grotesque. In
deed, the reason often given by Frenchmen
of the last generation for the acknowledged
inferiority of their caricatures to ours, was the
superiority of French taste, which could not
accommodate itselfto ‘ignoble’ exaggeration.
On the whole, therefore, those of the revo-<
lutionary series of which we have been
speaking are more interesting, historically,
and also from the keen wit of ten developed
in them, than from their execution. There
GROTESQUE
is no French Gillray or Rowlandson. Here
and there, however, among a multitude of
inferior performances, the eye is struck by
one really remarkable as a work of a higher
order than our English cotemporary series
could furnish. Such is the famous ‘ Arresta-'
tion du Roi d Varennes,’ 1791. The wellknown features of the Royal party, seated
at supper with lights, are brought out with
a force worthy of Rembrandt, and with
slight but marked caricature; while the
fierce, excited patriotic figures, closing in on
them from every side, have a vigour which
is really terrific. Another, in a different
style, is the ‘ Interieur d’un Comite Revolutionnaire,’ 1793. It is said, indeed, to have
been designed by a first-rate artist, Fragonai’S, one who doubtless wrought with a will,
for he had prostituted his very considerable
talents to please the luxurious profligacy of
the last days of the ancient regime, and the
stern Revolution had stopped his trade, an
nihilated his effeminate customers, and re
duced him to poverty. Fragonard’s powers
as a caricaturist are characterised by a wellknown anecdote. He was employed in
painting Mademoiselle Guimard, the famous
dancer, as Terpsichore; but the lady quar
relled with him, and engaged another to
complete the work. The irritated painter got
access to the picture, and with three or four
strokes of his brush turned the face of Terp
sichore into that of a fury. The print now
in question is a copper-plate, executed with
exceeding delicacy of touch. A dozen fig
ures of men of the people, in revolutionary
costume, are assembled round a long table in
a dilapidated hall of some public building.
A young ‘ ci-devant,’ his wife and child, are
introduced through an open door by an ush
er armed with a pike. If the artist’s inten
tion was to produce effect by the contrast of
these three graceful figures with the vulgar
types of the rest of the party, he has suc
ceeded admirably. They are humbly pre
senting their papers for examination ; but it
is pretty clear that the estimable commit
teeman, to whom the noble is handing his
passport, cannot read it. The cunning,
quiet, lawyer-like secretary of the commit
tee, pen in hand, is evidently doing all its
work. At the opposite end of the table an
excited member is addressing to the walls
what must be an harangue of high elo
quence ; but no one is listening to him, and
the two personages immediately behind him
are evidently determined to hear no noise
but their.own. But our favourite figure —
and one well worthy of Hogarth — is that of
the sentinel off duty: he is seated beside a
bottle, pike in hand, enjoying his long pipe,
�iwinM i^i i
IN LITERATURE AND ART.
573
and evidently, from the expression of his tember. It had a brief and feverish revi
face, far advanced from the excited into the val under the Republic of 1848 ; some of
meditative stage of convivial patriotism. A its productions in that period are worth a
placard on the door announces, somewhat moment’s notice, both from their execution
contradictorily as well as ungrammatically, and good humour: we remember two
‘ Ici on se tutoyent: fermez la porte s’il vous of the class of general interest; the 1 Ap
plait! ’ Altogether there is much more of parition du Serpent de Mer,’ a boat full of
the comic than the ferocious about the pa kings, startled by the appearance of the new
triots ; and one may hope that the trembling Republic as the problematical monster of
family, for whom it is impossible not to feel the deep ; and the ‘ Ecole de Natation,’ in
an interest, will this time be ‘ quittespourla which the various Kings and Emperors.of
peur.’
Europe are floundering in a ludicrous, variThe popular governments — Revolutiona ety of attitudes among the billows of revo
ry and of the First Empire — easily tamed lution, while the female rulers of Britain,
the spirit of caricature, as they did that of Spain, and Portugal are kept afloat by their
more dangerous enemies, and it only revived crinolines. But under the decorous rule of
when France was replaced under the. tyran the Empire, no such violation of the re
ny of legitimacy. There is a great deal of spect due to constituted authorities at home
merit in those on the Bonapartist side, of is any longer tolerate^, while ridicule,
1814 and 1815 ; many of them appear to be even of foreign potentates, is permitted
executed by some one clever artist, to us un only under polite restrictions. Debarred
known. We will only notice one of them,' from this mode of expressing itself, French
the ‘Voeu d’un Royaliste, ou la seconde en gaiety finds one of its principal outlets, in
tree triomphante.’ Louis XVIII. is mounted the more innocent shape of social carica
behind a Cossack — the horse and man are ture, which was never so popular, or culti
admirably drawn—while the poor King’s vated by artists of so much eminence, as
expression, between terror and a sense’ of within the last thirty years. And here we
the ludicrous of his position, is worthy of the must notice a singular change in French
best efforts of Gillray or Doyle.
workmanship, which appears to us to have
Caricature continued to be a keen party been occasioned chiefly or wholly by the
weapon in France through the period of introduction of lithography. We have al
the Restoration, and in the early years of ready observed how much difficulty its art
Louis Philippe. The latter monarch’s head ists found in departing from the rules of
especially, under the resemblance of a pear, classical outline and correct drawing, so
which Nature had rendered appropriate, long as the old-fashioned line engraving
was popularised in a thousand ludicrous or prevailed, and the consequent inferiority of
ignominious representations; his Gillray French to English caricature in breadth,
was Honore Daumier, a special friend and its superiority in congjlmess. The intro
favourite of M. Champfleury, but in whom duction and great popularity of lithography
we are unable ourselves to recognize more in'France seems to have altogether changed
than secondary merit. ‘ Entre tous, Dau the popular taste. Artists now dash off,
mier fut celui qui accommoda la poire aux rather than embody, their humorous con
sauces les plus diverses. Le roi avait une ceptions in the sketchiesLof all possible
honnete physionomie, large et etouffee. styles, and that which affords the greatest
La caricature, par l’exageration des lignes licence for grotesque distortions of figure \
du masque, par les differents sentimens and face. Boilly, a clever and fertile lithog
qu’elle preta a l’homme au toupet, le ren- rapher, was perhaps the first to bring
dit typique, et laissa un ineffa?able relief. this style of composition into vogue. But
Les adversaires sont utiles. En politique, to such an extent has the revolution now
un ennemi v.aut souvent mieux qu’un ami.’ gone, while we, on the other hand, have
The genius of Daumier had some analogy been pruning the luxuriance of the old
with that of the sculptor-caricaturist Dan- genius of caricature, that the positions of
tan.
the two countries seem to have become re
But, the liberty of art, like that of the versed, and England to be now the country
Tribune, degenerated into licence, and of classic, France of grotesque art; in the
France has never been able in her long age comic line of which any reader may judge
of State tempests to maintain the line be for himself, by comparing the style of the
tween the two. Political caricature was cuts in ‘ Punch,’, for instance, with those in
once more extinguished in the Orleans the ‘ Charivari.’ We cannot say that we
reign, with the applause of decent people find the change on the other side of the
in general, by the so-called laws of Sep- Channel an improvement, or that we have
�I
574
/
A HISTORY OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.
been enabled to acquire a taste for the
hasty lithographed caricatures of popular
figures and scenes which encumber French
print-shops. The works of Bunbury, among
English artists of this kind of renown, per
haps most nearly approach them ; but these,
rough though they are, have, at all events,
a body and substance, and consequently a
vigour, which their Gallic successors appear
to us to lack, and which they endeavour too
often to supply by loose exaggeration.
However, it is idle to set up our own canons
of taste in opposition to that of a nation,
and a foreign nation into the bargain ; and
we may do our readers more service by
giving them a few short notices of the
leading artists who have risen to popular
ity in modern France by this style of com
position.
Nicolas Toussaint Charlet had an educa, tion and parentage somewhat like those of
our Gillray; born in 1792, the son of an
old dragoon of Sambre-et-Meuse, he began
his career in a not very noble occupation,
being employed in the office where military
recruits were registered and measured: and
it was in that function, possibly, that he
picked up and stored in his memory those
thousand types of grotesque young con
scripts and old grognards, ‘ enfants de
troupe,’ ‘ tourlourous,’ and ‘ gamins,’ with
which he filled the shop-windows while
amusing the multitude with their darling
‘ scenes populaires.’ He was not exactly a
caricaturist in the peculiar sense which we
have given to the word, but an artist‘de
genre; ’ in his own peculiar line few have
surpassed him. It must be noticed that his
sturdy Bonapartism evinced itself in some
ambitious attempts at more serious compo•sitions ; one of which, ‘ La Garde meurt et
ne se rend pas,’ established his fame in 1816,
while an ‘ Episode de la Campagne de
Russie ’ (1836) is ranked at the head of his
works by some of his admirers. But for
our part, we greatly prefer the exquisite
naivete, though without much of the Eng
lish vigour, which characterises some of his
popular scenes; such — to quote one among
a thousand — as that in which a peasant,
looking down with the utmost gravity on a
comrade who is lying in the road, helplessly
drunk, exclaims, ‘ Voilh pourtant comme je
serai dimanche ! ’ Charlet, who died in
1845, left some two thousand lithographed
designs, besides numerous water-colours and
etchings.
Paul Chevalier Gavarni, born in 1801,
ranks at the head of the living caricaturists
of France, unless the Vicomte Amedee de
Noe (under his nom de plume, or rather de
crayon, of ‘ Cham,’ Ham the son of Noah) be
supposed to contest with him that eminence.
The journal ‘ Les Gens du Monde ’ (1835),
and subsequently the ‘Charivari,’ owed to
him the greater part of tlaeir celebrity. If not
equal to Charlet in the ‘ naif’ and simply
popular style, Gavarni excels him in satiri
cal force and in variety. Twenty-five
years hence (says Theophile Gautier) ‘ it is
through Gavarni that the workhwill know
of the existence of Duchesses of the Rue
du Helder, of Lorettes, students, and so
forth.’ Gavarni visited England in 1849,
where, according to his biographer M. de
Lacaze (in the ‘ Nouvelle Biographie Ge
nerale ’), he took so profound a dislike to our
English aristocratic social system (it was
the year, be it remembered, in which the
doctrine ‘la propriete c’est- le vol,’ took
some short hold on Parisian spirits), that
he fell into a fit of‘le spleen,’ became
misanthrophic, and produced nothing fora
long time but sketches of ‘ gin-shop frequent
ers, thieves, street-sweepers, Irishmen, and
the beggars of St. Giles’s and Whitechapel;’
but we are happy to learn, from the same
authority, that he soon recovered his gaiety
in the less oppresive atmosphere of Paris.
His ‘ CEuvres Choisies’ were published as
long ago as 1845, in four volumes. ‘ Deja,’
says Champfleury, ‘ son oeuvre est curieuse
h consulter comme l’expression d’un peintre
de moeurs epris d’ideal elegant dans une
epoque bourgeoise.’
Completing these brief notices of modern
French caricaturists with the mere mention,
of the great artist Gustave Dore, who has
lately condescended to some clever extrava
gances allied to caricature, and of that ec
centric novelty Griset,.we must now con
*
clude our hasty retrospect of the art in
general. The institution of the ‘ comic
illustrated newspaper ’ has now made the
tour of the world ; the United States fur
nish abundant specimens; Germany and
Italy toil manfully in the wake of France and
England; we have even seen political carica
tures from Rio de Janeiro nearly as good as
the ordinary productions of either. But it
is impossible to follow a subject so greatly
widening in its dimensions; and as cheap
ness of execution, while it extends the
popularity of this class of compositions,
diminishes the labour expended on them,
we have not to expect for the future either
productions of so much interest, or artists
of such celebrity, as some of those dealt
with in this article.
�575
REST FOR THE WEARY.
I
,arest for the weary.
“ TRere remaineth therefore a rest to the people of
God/’— Heb. iv. 9.
Dear the storm-won calm of autumn
Brooding o’er the quiet lea;
Sweet the distant harp-like murmur
Trembling from the charmed sea.
Nestling breezes clog the branches;
Leaves lie swooning on the air;
Nature’s myriad hands are folding
O’er her gentle heart, for prayer.
Make the lean grave sleek with treasn
Whilst they, weary, take their rest.
Dead they are not; only sleeping,
Dull although their senses be,
Yet they for the summons listen,
Calling to eternity.
Brothers, sleeping in the Saviour,
Sound their dreamless sleep and ble
But we trust, when this is broken,
There remaineth still a rest !
New-born on the lap of silence,
Cradled on a hoary tomb,
Lo 1 babe evening craves a blessing
As the day forsakes the gloom;
As one lingering sunbeam flushes
The grey spire to golden red,
And the motto “ peace ” is blazoned
Glorious o’er the resting dead.
Peace be to the shapeless ashes,
Perfect once in valour’s mould;
Once on fire for truth and duty,
Now without a spark, and cold..
Smiting was the hero smitten,
Swordless hands now cross his breast;
Share we his mute supplication ;
Weary, may the soldier rest!
Peace to him who braved the tempest,
Polar ice, and tropic wave;
Long the homeless sea who traversed,
Then came home to find a grave !
In this calmest roadstead anchored,
May no more the sailor rove,
Till he lose himself for ever
“ In the ocean of God’s love! ”
Peace to him, the tried and saintly;
Wise to counsel, apt to cheer;
With a sober smile for gladness,
With a hope for every tear.
Earth lies lightly on his bosom,
Faith bedecks his priestly tomb
With the sacred flowers that symbol
Life, and light, and deathless bloom.
Peace to him who bears no legend
Carved above his lowly bed,
Save that he was found, unsheltered
From the storm and winter, dead.
Peace to him, that unknown brother,
Quit of want, and woe, and shame;
Trust we that the nameless stranger
Bears in heaven a filial name 1
From the four winds assembled,
Kindred in the fate to die ;
Eld and infant, alien, homebred,
Neighbours now, how calm they lie!
Valour, beauty, learning, goodness,
With the weight of life opprest,
THE BITTER AND THE SWEET.
Come, darling Effie,
Come, take the cup:
Effie must drink it all —
Drink it all up.x
/
Darling, I know it is
Bitter and bad;
But ’twill make Effie dear .
Rosy and glad.
Mother would take it all
For her wee elf— ,
But who would suffer then?
Effie herself.
If Effie drinks it,
Then, I can tell,
She will go out to play
Merry and well.
' Drink, and then, darling,
You shall have this, —
Sweet after bitter:
Now, first, a kiss.
Ah, darling Effie,
God also knows,
When cups of bitterness
His hand bestows,
1
How His poor children need
Urging to take
Merciful draughts of pain,
Mixed for their sake.
He, too, gives tenderly
Joy after pain,
Sweet after bitterness,
After loss gain.
— Sunday Magazine.
I,
�WERE WOLVES.
From the Spectator.
WERE *
WOLVES.
. A i >; i
In this remarkable little book, remarkable
for a power its external aspect does not
promise and an interest its name will not
create, Mr. Baring-Gould, an author known
hitherto chiefly by his researches in North
ern literature, investigates a belief, once
general in Europe, and even now enter
tained by the majority of the uneducated
class. In widely separated places, and
among races the most distinct, a belief has
been traced in the existence of beings who
combine the human and the animal char
acter, who are in fact men changed either
in form or in spirit into beasts of prey. The
belief, though strong still, was strongest in
the Middle Ages, when men were more un
restrained both in their acts and their cre
dulities. In the extreme North it was so
powerful that Norwegians and Icelanders
had a separate name for the transformation,
calling men gifted with the power or afflicted
with the curse men “ not of one skin.” Mr.
Baring-Gould pushes his theory far when
he connects the story of the Berserkir with
the theory of were wolves, the Berserkir be
ing extant to this day in Asia, calling them
selves Ghazis, and keeping up their fury as
the Berserkir probably did, with drugs ; but
all Scandinavia undoubtedly believed that
men had upon occasion changed into ani
mals, and exhibited animal bloodthirstiness
and power. So did the Livonians. So
down to the very end of the sixteenth cen
tury did all Southern Europe, where the
Holy Office made cases of metempsychosis
subject of inquiry and of punishment. The
very victims often believed in their own
guilt. One man in 1598, Jacques Roulet,
of Angers, stated in his confession that
though he did not take a wolf’s form he was
a wolf, and as a wolf committed murders,
chiefly of children. Even now the peasants
in Norway believe as firmly in persons who
can change themselves into wolves as the
peasants in Italy do in the evil eye, the
Danes think persons with joined eye brows
liable to the curse, the people of SchleswigHolstein keep a charm to cure it, the Slo
vaks, Greeks, and Russians have popular
words for the were wolf, and Mr. BaringGould was himself asked at Vienne to as
sist in hunting a loup garou, or wolf who
ought to have been a human being. In In
dia the belief is immovable, more particu
larly in Oude, where the mass of evidence
collected is so extraordinary that it shook
-for a moment the faith of a man so calm as
the Resident, Colonel Sleeman, and induced
him to give currency to a theory that
wolves might suckle and rear the children
of human beings, who thenceforward would
be wolves. Ultimately, we believe, he
abandoned that notion, but not before he
had puzzled all India with his collection of
exceptional facts, and riveted the supersti
tion of the people of Oude.
A belief so universal and so lasting sug
gests some Cause more real than a supersti
tious idea, and Mr. Baring-Gould believes
he has discovered one. He hold^that in
every human being there is some faint
trace of the wild-beast nature, the love of
destruction and of witnessing the endurance
of suffering. Else why do children display
cruelty so constantly, string flies on knitting
pins, and delight in the writhings of any
animal ? In the majority this disposition is
eradicated either by circumstances, by
training, or by the awakening of the great
influence we call sympathy. In a minority
the desire remains intact but latent, liable
to be called out only by extraordinary inci
dents or some upset of the ordinary balance
of their minds. In a few it becomes a pas
sion, a sovereign desire, or even a mania
entitled to be ranked as a form, and an ex
treme form, of mental disease. It was the
latter exhibition which gave rise to the be
lief in the were-wolves, who were, in Mr.
Baring-Gould’s opinion, simply raving mani
acs, whose wildness took the form either of
a desire to murder or of a belief in their own
power of becoming beasts of prey. So late
as 1848 an officer, of the garrison in Paris
was brought to trial on a charge of rifling
graves of their bodies and tearing them to
pieces, and the charge having been proved
on conclusive evidence, his own confession
included, was sentenced to one year’s im
prisonment. He was mad, but had he lived
before madness was understood he would
have been pronounced either a vampire or
a loup garou. Madness miscomprehended
was the cause of the facts which supported
, the monstrous belief, a theory almost de
monstrated by the history of the case of
Jacques Roulet. The extract is long, but
the story is complete:
“ In 1598, a year memorable in the annals of
lycanthropy, a trial took place in Angers, the
details of which are very terrible. In a wild
and unfrequented spot near Caude, some coun
trymen came one day upon the corpse of a boy
of fifteen, horridly mutilated and bespattered
with blood. As the men approached, two
* Were Wolves. By Sabine Baring-Gould. Lon wolves, which had been rending the body,
bounded away into the thicket. The men gave
don : Smith, Elder, and Co.
�7
\
WERE WOLVES.
577
chase immediately, following their bloody tracks
Jacques Roulet would have been found in
till they lost them; when suddenly crouching sane by any modern jury, and there is scarcely
among the bushes, his teeth chattering with in mediaaval literature a case of lycanthropy
fear, they found a man half naked, with long which cannot be explained upon this sim
/
hair and beard, and with his hands dyed in
blood. His nails were long as claws, and ple theory, — the one at last adopted, and
were clotted with fresh gore and shreds of hu in our judgment proved, by Colonel Sleeman flesh. This is one of the most puzzling man in Oude, but a more difficult question
and peculiar cases which come under our no remains behind. Is it quite certain that all
tice. The wretched man, whose name was cases of long-continued and outrageous cruel
Roulet, of his own accord stated that he had ty presuppose madness ? Is cruelty in fact
fallen upon the lad and had killed him by a natural quality, which can be cultivated,
smothering him, and that he had been prevent or an abnormal desire, the result of extreme
ed from devouring the body completely by the and gradual depravation of the passions
arrival of men on the spot. Roulet proved and the reason ? Take the well known case
on investigation to be a beggar from house to of Gilles de Uetz in 1440. If evidence
house, in the most abject state of poverty. His
companions in mendicity were his brother John can prove anything it is certain that this
and his cousin Julien. He had been given man, head of the mighty House of Laval,
lodging out of charity in a neighbouring vil lord of entire counties and of prodigious
lage, but before his apprehension he had been wealth, did throw up a great position in the
absent for eight days. Before the judges, public service to wander from town to
Roulet acknowledged that he was able to trans town and seat to seat kidnapping children,
form himself into a wolf by means of a salve whom he put slowly te death to delight
which his parents had given him. When ques himself with their agonies. He confessed
tioned about the two wolves which had been himself to eight hundred such murders, and
seen leaving the corpse, he said that he knew
perfectly well who they were, for they were his his evidence was confirmed by the relics
companions, Jean and Julien, who possessed found. He was betrayed by his own agents,
the same secret as himself. He was shown the and in the worst age of a cruel cycle his
clothes he had worn on the day of his seizure, crimes excited a burst of horror so profound
and he recognized them immediately; he de that he, a noble of the class which was be
scribed the boy whom he had murdered, gave yond the law, so powerful that he never at
the date correctly, indicated the precise spot tempted to escape, «vas burnt alive. Was he
where the deed had been done, and recognized mad, or only bad beyond all human ex
the father of the boy as the man who had first perience ? Mr. Baring-Gould inclines evi
run up when the screams of the lad had been dently to the former theory, and it is at all
heard. In prison, Roulet behaved like an idiot. events a pleasing one, but it is difficult for I
When seized, his belly was distended and hard;
in prison he drank one evening a whole pailful thinking men to forget that power has in oth
of water, and from that moment refused to eat er instances produced this capacity of cruelty,
or drink. His parents, on inquiry, proved to to refuse credence to all stories of the cruelty
be respectable and pious people, and they proved of Caesars, and Shahs, and West Indian slave
that his brother John and his cousin Julien holders. It is possible, and we hope true,
had been engaged at a distance on the day of that the genuine enjoyment of pain is rare
Roulet’s apprehension. ‘ What is your name, among the sane, though the Roman popu
and what your estate ? ’ asked the judge, Pierre
Herault. — ‘My name is Jacques Roulet, my lace felt something like it, and though we
age thirty-five; I am poor, and a mendicant/ are ever and anon startled by cases of wil
— ‘ What are you accused of having done ? ’ — ful cruelty to animals, but genuine indiffer
‘Of being a thief—of having offended God. ence to it is frequent, and granted the in
My parents gave me an ointment; I do not difference, any motive may give it an ac
know its composition.’—‘When rubbed with tive form. The thirst for domination is the
this ointment, do you become a wolf? ’ — ‘ No • most common impulse, but in well known
but for all that, I killed and ate the child Cor instances jealousy, fear, hatred, religious
nier : I was a wolf.’ — ‘ Were you dressed as a bigotry, and even vanity, have been equal
wolf?’ — ‘I was dressed as I am now. I had
events the passion
my hands and my face bloody, because I had ly efficacious. At all that it is restraina
been eating the flesh of the said child.’ — ‘ Do differs from madness in
your hands and feet become paws of a wolf ? ’_ ble. Hardly one genuine case on a great
‘ Yes, they do.’ — ‘ Does your head become like scale has been recorded in a civilized coun
that of a wolf — your mouth become larger ? ’ — try for many years, and it seems certain
‘ I do not know how my head was at the time; I that the restraints of order prevent it from
used my teeth; my head was as it is to-day. I acquiring its full sway, and that therefore it
have wounded and eaten many other little is rather the depravation of nature than na
children; I have also been to the sabbath.’ ”
ture itself which is its origin. Gilles de
THIRD SERIES. DIVING AGE. VOL. XXXII.
1477.
V
�578
SCIENCE AND MIRACLE.
,Retz is possible, if he were sane, only in a
class which can indulge every impulse with
impunity, and at a time when law is no
longer to be feared. It may be true that he
belonged to the were-wolf genus, the men
afflicted with homicidal mania, but he may
also have belonged to a class now almost as
exceptional, the men in whom unrestricted
power has developed that thirst for testing
it in its highest, its most frequent, and its
most visible form, the infliction of slow
death-agonies upon powerless human beings.
It was, we fear, the madness of a Ceesar
rather than of a were wolf which influenced
Gilles de Betz, and Mr. Baring-Gould
would, we think, have exemplified his theo
ry more perfectly had he excluded stories
which testify not so much to the instability
of human reason as to the depths of evil
lurking in the human heart. He argues in
deed that Gilles de Betz is the link between
the citizen and the were wolf, but then in so
doing he assumes one tremendous datum,
that madness always shows itself in the ex
treme development of the latent heart, and
not in its radical perversion. One of its
■ commonest forms nevertheless is intense
hatred of those whom the patient has most
genuinely and fondly loved, and the bal
ance of probability is that insanity as often
perverts as intensifies the secret instincts of
its victim. Mr. Baring-Gould has, we
■ think, demonstrated that madness misap
prehended was the root of the were-wolf
delusion, but not that homicidal mania is
the ultimate expression of an inherent ten• dency in universal human nature.
From the Spectator.
SCIENCE AND MIRACLE.
Professor huxley, in the remarkable
lecture on “ improving natural knowledge ”
delivered to the working classes at St. Mar
tin’s Hall, and since published in the Fort
nightly Review, states with a candour and
moderation worthy of all praise, certain
notions destructive of all worship, — ex
cept that very impossible kind of worship
recommended by Professor Huxley, worship
■ of the Unknown and Unknowable, — which
have been gaining more and more hold of
■ merely scientific men for many generations,
and which, we need not say, are absolutely
inconsistent with admitting the activity of
: any supernatural will in the Universe, and
.•.still more the actual occurrence of miracle.
Now it is a matter worth a little considera
tion how far men of pure science are trust
worthy on matters of this kind, how far
their evidence is what we should call on
other subjects the evidence of experts, or
not. On a medical subject, we should never.think of adopting absolutely any theory
rejected by a very large and, perhaps in
creasing, number of the most eminent men
in the medical profession. On a historical
subject, we should think it absurd to take
up with a view against which every fresh
historian of learning and eminence began
with clearer and clearer conviction to pro
test. How far, then, even if it be true, as
it possibly may be, that the tendency of
the highest and calmest scientific thought is
increasingly anti-supernatural, can we con
sider this the tendency of a class entitled
to special intellectual deference, or the re
verse ? Mr. Brooke Foss Westcott, in a
very thoughtful volume which he has just
published on the Gospel of the Resurrec
tion” * freely admits that “ a belief in
miracles decreases with the increase of
civilization,” but maintains, amidst other
weaker and less defensible positions, that
the accuracy of comprehensive views of
nature as a whole, is not only not secured,
but may be even specially endangered, by
too special and constant a study of given
parts of nature. “ The requirements,” he
says, “ of exact science bind' the attention
of each student to some one small field,
and this little fragment almost necessarily
becomes, for him the measure of the whole,
if indeed he has ever leisure to lift his eyes
to the whole at all.” And undoubtedly the
man who has been studying, say, for the
sake of a definite example, the chemical
effects of light all his life, and who knows
that every different substance when burnt
yields a different spectrum, so that you may
know by the number and situation of the
dark lines exactly what substance it is that
is burning, might be inclined to look at the
possibility of miracle, and at faith in the
supernatural will, from a narrow point of
view. He will say to himself, ‘If one of
these spectra were suddenly to change its
appearance, if such a dark line vanished,
and such others appeared, should I not
know with a certainty to me infallible, — a
certainty on the absoluteness of which I
should never hesitate to risk my own life
or that of my family, — that some other
element had been introduced into the burn
ing substance ? Could anything persuade
me that the change was due to divine
volition apart from the presence of a new
* Macmillan.
�SCIENCE AND MIRACLE.
'
'
j
■
579
element or new elements in the burning be equivalent to the positive alteration in
substance ? Must not the Almighty him the essence of a mighty whole, as really
self, if He chose to make the change, make astounding in itself as the change which
it by providing the characteristic element could made oxygen burn (that is, oxidize)
for the purpose,—just as if He chose to or two and two equal to five.
alter the moral traits of a human character,
Now this is, we take it, something less
He could only do it by a process that would than conjecture, — indeed demonstrable
alter the character itself, and not by mak scientific error, if science be taken to in
ing a stupid and ignorant man give out all clude anything more than the laws of physi
the characteristic signs of wisdom and cal phenomena. It is probably true indeed
learning, or a malignant and cruel man put that in some sense the physical forces of the
forth all the moral symptoms of warm be- Universe are an invariable quantity, which
nevolence and charity.’ Sb the scientific only alter their forms, and not their sum
man would argue, and we are disposed to total. If I move my arm, the motion, says
think would argue rightly. For, admitting the physiologist, is only the exact equiva
that the physical qualities of things are lent of a certain amount of heat which has
realities at all, we should say that to make disappeared and taken the form of that
the physical qualities of one thing inter motion. If I do not move it, the heat re
change with the physical qualities of an mains for use in some other way. In either
other, without interchanging the things, is, case the stock of force is unchanged. This
if it be logically and morally possible, as is the conviction of almost all scientific
the Transubstantiationists believe and most men, and is probably true. But whether
other men disbelieve, a piece of divine the stock of physical force is constant or
magic or conjuring, and not a miracle. But not, the certainty that human will can
then, do not many great scientific men like change its direction and application — can
Professor Huxley really infer from such transfer it from one channel to another —
trains of reasoning far more than they will is just the same. And what that really
warrant ? All that such reasonings do tend means, if Will be ever free and uncaused,
to show, is, that if you truly conceive the though of course not unconditioned,—
natural constitutions of things, there are which is, we take it, as ultimate arid scienti
changes which you cannot make without fic a certainty as any in the Universe, — is
destroying those very things altogether, no less than this, — that a strictly super
and substituting new ones. As a miracle natural power alters the order and constitu
which should make two and two five is tion of nature, — takes a stock of physical
intrinsically impossible (Mr. Mill and the force lying in a reservoir here and transfers
Saturday Review in anywise notwithstand it to a stream of effort there, — in short,
ing), so also (though less certainly) a mira that the supernatural can change the order
cle which should make oxygen a combusti and constitution of the natural, — in its
ble gas instead of a supporter of combus essence pure miracle, though miracle of hu
tion, and quite certainly a miracle which man, and not of divine origin. For ex
should make it right to do what is known ample, almost every physiologist will admit
to be wrong, or wrong to do what is known the enormous power that pure Will has
to be right, is intrinsically impossible. But over the nervous system, — that it can pro
the modern scientific inference goes much long consciousness and even life itself for
further than this, and immediately extends certain short spaces, by the mere exertion
the conception of these inherent constitu of vehement purpose. Physicians tell you
tions of certain things and qualities to the constantly that such and such a patient
whole Universe, — assuming, for instance, may no doubt, if it be sufficiently impor
that it is just as impossible, just as much tant, by a great effort command his mind
a breach in the inherent constitution of sufficiently to settle his affairs, but that it
some one or more things, for one who has will be at the expense of his animal force,
been dead to live again, for the phenomena — in short, that it will be a free transfer of
of decomposition to be arrested, the heart force from the digestive and so to say vege
once silent to begin to beat, as for oxygen tating part of his system, to that part of
itself to burn without ceasing to be oxygen. his physical constitution, his nervous system,
The way in which this view would *e de which lies closest, as it were, to the will.
b
fended would be that all matter and all its Nay, we have heard physicians say that
qualities are now almost proved to be modes patients, by a great effort of pure will,
of force, and all force indestructible, so have, as they believe, prolonged their own
that any kind of supernatural change in life for a short space, that is, have imparted,
the phenomena of matter would appear to we suppose, through the excitement pro
�580
SCIENCE AND MIRACLE.
duced by the will on the nervous system
and so downwards, a certain slight increase
of capacity to assimilate food to the failing
organic powers of the body. In other
words, we conclude, just as the organism is
failing to draw supplies of physical force
from the outward world, its power of doing
so may be slightly prolonged,—the out
ward world drained of a small amount of
force it would otherwise, have kept in stock,
and the organism compelled to absorb it —
by a pure volition. Can there be a clearer
case of action of the supernatural on the
natural, — even granting that the sum
total of physical force is not altered, but
only its application changed ?
What more do we want to conceive
clearly the room for Christian miracle, than
the application of precisely the same con
ception to God and Christ ? The students
of the Universe appear to us to be in pre
cisely the same condition with regard to
the Universe, as a scientific observing mind
secreted in some part of a human body
(not the mind moving that body, but some
other) would be in with relation to the
structural, chemical, mechanical laws of
that body. Suppose an atom of your
blood able to retain its identity constantly
in a human body, and to travel about it on
a tour of scientific observation. It would
very soon arrive at the conclusion that
there were great laws of circulation of the
blood and the fluids which supply it,—
such as we see in nature in the astronomi
cal laws, — great laws of force by which
the legs and arms are moved, like the forces
of tides or falling waters in the Universe,
— great structural laws, by which different
tissues, like the hair, the skin, nails, the
nervous and muscular tissues, grow up out
of the nourishment supplied them, just as
we notice the growth of trees and flowers
out of the earth, —and great though some
what uncertain laws of alternation between
activity and repose, — like the laws of night
and day; — and such a scientific particle
as we have supposed would undoubtedly
soon begin to say that the more deeply it
studied these things, the more the reign of
pure law seemed to be extended in the
universe of the body, so that all those un
certain and irregular phenomena (which
we, however, really know to be due to the
changes effected by our own free self-gov
erning power), must be ascribed, it would
say^ not to any supernatural influence, but
to its own imperfect knowledge of the
more complex phenomena at work. And
such a scientific particle would be perfectly
justified in its inferences; for we have sup
posed it only an intellectual observing ma
chine, not a free will with knowledge of its
own that there is a power which is not
caused, and which can effect real modificacations in the relation even of physical
forces which never vary in amount. But
nevertheless it would be wrong, and could
never know the truth, namely, that the
ordering of the succession in these physical
forces, — the interchanges between one and
the other, — the physical influences over
the body exerted by the command of the
appetites and passions, were all of them
really traceable in great part to super
natural power, though to supernatural pow
er which does not either add to or subtract
from the sum total of physical force present
in the Universe. And we maintain that
the men of pure science, as they are called,
—the men who study everything- but Will,
— fall into precisely the same blunder as
such a rationalizing particle of a human
body, and for the same reason. They are
quite right in their inferences from their
premises, but their premises are radically
defective.
In truth the room for miracle remains as
wide as ever. Admit all the discoveries
of science, and still they only prove a cer
tain constancy in the amount of physical
force, and a certain invisible law of suc
cession between the same phenomena. But
just as a man who puts forth a great effort
to retain his consciousness and reason or
even life for a short time longer than he
would otherwise do, may succeed, — suc
ceed, that is, in pumping up the failing
supply of physical force from the Universe
to his system for a few minutes or hours,
when without such an effort it would have
fled from his body and passed away ipto
other channels, — so miracle only assumes
that a supernatural power infinitely greater
than man’s will might, on sufficient reason,
— which every Christian believes to be far
more than sufficient, — do the same thing
infinitely more effectually, and for a far
longer time. Miracle is in essence only the
directing supernatural influence of free
mind over natural forces and substances,
whatever these may be. In man we do 'not
call this miracle, only because we are ac
customed to it, — and in nature scientific
men refuse to believe that any such direct
ing power exists at all. But nevertheless,
every accurate thinker will see at once,
that free will, Providence, and Miracle do
not differ in principle at all, but are only
less or more startling results of the same
fact, — which true reason shows to be fact,
— that above nature exist .free wills, pro-
�THE DURATION
OF OUR SUPPLY OF COAL.
shall readily understand that the vital ques
tions for the wealth, progress, and greatness
of our country are these : — “Is our supply1
of coal inexhaustible ? and if not, how
long will it last?” — Mr. Jevons enables
us to answer both these 'questions. It is
very far from being inexhaustible ; it is in
process of exhaustion ; and, if we go on
augmenting our consumption from year to
year at our present rate of increase, it will
not last a hundred years. Our geological
knowledge is now so great and certain, and
what we may term the underground survey
of our islands has been so complete that we
know with tolerable accuracy both the ex
tent, the thickness, and the accessibility
of our coal fields, and the quantity of coal
annually brought to the surface and used
up. The entire amount of coal remaining
in Great Britain, down to a depth of 4,000
feet, is estimated to be 80,000 millions of
tons. Our annual consumption was in 1860
about 80 millions. At that rate the avail
able coal would last for 1,000 years. But
our consumption is now steadily increasing
at the rate of
per cent, per annum, and
will in 1880 be, not 80 millions, but 160
millions ; and, if it continues thus to increase,
will have worked out the whole 80,000 mil
lions before the year 1960. Nay it would
reach this climax probably some time earlier ; for our calculation includes all the coal
down to 4,000 feet; and no coal mine has
yet been worked at a greater depth than
2,500 feet; and we do not believe that mines
can be worked profitably, and we have lit
tle reason to think they can be worked at
all, at such a depth as 4,000 feet.
Of course we know that, practically, our
coal-fields will not be worked out within this
period. Of course we are aware that our
present rate of annual augmentation cannot.
be maintained. Every year we have to go
deeper for our supply; and going deeper
means incurring greater and greater ex
pense for labour, for machinery, for ventila
tion, for pumping out the water, for acci
dents, &c. Going deeper, therefore, implies
an enhanced price for the coal raised, and
that enhancement of price will check con
sumption. But it is precisely this imminent '
enhancement of price, and not ultimate ex
haustion, that we have to dread; for it is this
enhancement which will limit our rate of
progress and deprive us of our special ad
vantages and our manufacturing supremacy.
Let us see a little in detail the modus ope
rands The difficulty of working and raid
ing coal increases rapidly as the mine grows
deeper, or as inferior mines have to be
worked ; the heat grows more insupporta
bably of all orders of power, which do not,
indeed, ever break the order of nature, but
’ can and do transform, — as regards man by
very small driblets,— but as regards higher
than human wills in degrees the extent of»,
which we cannot measure, — natural forces
from one phase of activity into another, so
as greatly to change the moral order and
significance of the Universe in which we
live.
?
k
THF DURATION
k’
From the Economist, 6 Jan.
OF OUR SUPPLY OF
COAL.
U$der the title of “ The Coal Question/
Mr. Jevons * has furnished the public with
a number of well-arranged and for the
most part indisputable facts, and with a
series of suggestive reflections, which every
one interested in the future progress and
greatness of his country will do well to pon
der seriously. Few of us need to be re
minded how completely cheap coal is at the
foundation of our prosperity and our com
mercial and manufacturing supremacy.
Coal and iron make England what she is ;
and her iron depends upon her coal. Other
countries have as much iron ore as we have,
and some have better ore ; but no country
(except America, which is yet unde
veloped) has abundant coal and ironstone
in the needed proximity." Except in
our supply of coal and iron we have no
natural suitabilities for the attainment
of industrial greatness; nearly all the
raw materials of our manufactures come to
us from afar ; we import much of our wool,
most of our flax, all our cotton and all our
silk. Our railroads and our steamboats are
made of iron and are worked by coal. So
are our great factories. So now is much of
our war navy. Iron is one of our chief arti
cles of export; all our machinery is made
of iron; it is especially in our machinery
that we surpass other nations ; it is our ma
chinery that produces our successful textile
fabrics; and the iron which constructs this
machinery is extracted, smelted, cast, ham
mered, wrought into tools, by coal and the
steam which coal generates. It is believed
that at least half the coal raised in Great
Britain is consumed by the various branches
of the iron trade.
With these facts present to our mind we
I
* The Coal Question. By W. Stanley Jevons, M.
A. Macmillan, 1865.
581
�582
THE DURATION OF OUR SUPPLY OF COAL.
ble, the shafts and passages longer, the dan
Nor does there seem any escape from
ger greater, the ventilation more costly, the these conclusions theoretically, nor any way
quantity of water to be kept out or got out of.modifying them practically. We may,
more unmanageable. A very short period it is said, economise in the use of coal.
may raise engine coal and smelting coal But, in the first place, the great economies
from 5s to 10s per ton. Now a cotton mill that can be reasonably looked for have been
of ordinary size will often use for its steam- already introduced. In smelting iron ore
power 80 tons of coal per week. This at 5sis we use two-thirds less coal than formerly,
l,000Z a year; at 10s per ton, it is 2,000/. and in working our steam engines one-half
But the cotton mill is full of machinery; less;. and, in the second place, it is only a
and one great element in the cost of this rise in the price of coal that will goad us
machinery is the coal used in smelting and into a more sparing use of it; and this
working the iron of which the machinery is very rise of price is the proof and the meas
made. The railroads which bring the cot ure of our danger. “ Export no more
ton to the mill and take the calico and yarn coal,” it is suggested, and so husband your
back to the place of exportation are made stores. But we could not adopt this expe
of iron and worked by coal: so are the dient, even if it were wise to do so, or con
steamboats which bring the cotton to our sistent with our commercial policy, without
shores and export the yarn to Germany; — throwing half our shipping trade into ton
the cost of carriage, therefore, which is a fusion by depriving them of their ballast
very large item in the contingent expenses trade; and even then the evil would be
of our factories, will be greatly increased scarcely more than mitigated ? “ Why,”
both directly and indirectly by a rise in the ask others, “ should we not, when our own
price of coal. An advance in that price stores of coal are exhausted, import coal
from 5s to 10s per ton, maybe estimated to from other countries which will still be rich
be equivalent to 2,000/ a year on the work in mineral fuel, and thus supply our need ?”
ing cost of a good-sized cotton mill. That Simply because of all articles of trade and
is,, as compared with the present state of industry coal is the most bulky in propor
things, and as compared with foreign coun tion to its value; and that it is the fact of
tries, every manufacturer wouid have a having it at hand, of having it in abundance,
burden of 2,000/ a year laid upon him, and of having it cheap, of having it without the
would have to raise the cost of his goods to cost of carriage, that has given us our manu
that extent. .How long could he continue facturing superiority. With coal brought
to compete with his rivals under this disad from America, with coal costing what coal
vantage, or (it would be more correct to then would cost, we could neither smelt our
say) with his present advantage taken away iron, work our engines, drive our locomo
from him ? And how long would coal con tives, sail our ships, spin our yarn, nor
tinue to be supplied even at 10s a ton ?
weave our broad cloths. Long before we
And, be it observed, the check to the had to import our fuel the game would be
consumption of coal— the retardation i. e. up.
in our progress towards ultimate and abso
Of 136 millions of tons now annually
lute exhaustion — can only come from in raised throughout the world, Great Britain
crease of price, and the moment that it does produces 80 millions and the United States
come, the decline of our relative manufac only 20. But this is only because we have
turing pre-eminence has begun. We shall had the first start, and because our popula
avoid the extinction of our coal in the short tion is far denser, and because our iron and
period of a century ; but we shall do so only our coal lie conveniently for each other and
by using less now; — and using less now conveniently for carriage. As soon as
means producing less iron, exporting less America is densely peopled, to America
calico and woollens, employing less ship must both our iron and our coal supremacy
ping, supporting a scantier population, — and all involved therein — be trans
ceasing our progress, receding from our rela ferred ; for the United States are in these
tive position. We may, it is true, make our respects immeasurably richer than even
coal last a thousand years instead of a hun- Great Britain. Their coal-fields are esti
dred, and reduce the inevitable increase in mated at 196,000 square miles in extent,
its price to a very inconsiderable rate; while ours are only 5,400. But this is not
but we can do so only by becoming stationary ; all: their coal is often better in quality and
and to become stationary implies letting incomparably more accessible than ours, es
other nations pass us in the race, exporting pecially in the Ohio valley. In some places
our whole annual increase of population, the cost at the pit’s mouth even now is 2sjper
growing relatively, if not positively, poorer ton in America, against 6s in England.
'
and feebler.
�HAIR-DRESSING IN EXCELSIS.
From the Spectator.
'583
a man’s hair is naturally as long as a woman’s
strikes them with a sense of surprise, and
have almost ceased to dress it. They use
It is not easy to understand the differen pomade still, or at least hairdressers say
ces in the popular appreciation of the mi so, and a few of them, unaware that a
nor trades. Why is a tailor considered rath mixture of cocoa-nut oil and thin spirit is
er contemptible, when no idea of ridicule in all ways the absolutely best unguent,
attaches to a bootmaker ?
Both make waste cash upon costly coloured oils, but
clothes, and in trade estimation the tailor, hairdressing for men is out of fashion. The
who must always be something of a capital average hairdresser contemptuously turns
ist, is the higher man of the two, but the over the male head to some beginner, who
popular verdict is against him. Nobody snips away till hair and tournure are got
calls a hosier the eighteenth part of a man, rid of with equal speed. Up to 1860, too,
yet strictly speaking his business is only a women wore their hair, even on occasions
minor branch of tailoring. No ridicule at demanding a grand toilette, after a very
taches to a hatter, notwithstanding the lu simple fashion, one which the majority of
natic proverb about his permanent mental them could manage very well for them
condition, but everybody laughs internally selves, and which required only careful
as he speaks of a -hairdresser. Is it because brushing. This fashion was not perhaps
.hairdressers were once popularly supposed altogether in perfect taste. Simplicity has
to be all Frenchmen, and therefore share charms, but still a custom which compelled
the contempt with which dancing-masters women with Greek profiles and complex
are regarded by people who, while they ex lions of one shade only and girls with cherry
press it, would not for the world fail to profit cheeks and turned-up noses equally to wear
by their instructions ? A singing-master is their hair like Madonnas, was open to some
allowed to be an artist, often one of the slight attack on artistic grounds. Madonnas
first class, but a dancing-master is consider should not have laughing blue eyes, or pout
ed a cross between an artist and a monkey. ing lips, or flaxen hair, or that look of esOr are hairdressers despised, like men mil pieglerie which accompanies a properly turn
liners, because their occupation, especially ed-up nose, — not a snub, that is abomina
in modern Europe, where men have aban ble, but just the nez retrousse which artists
doned wigs, long locks, and the careful ar detest and other men marry. The Second
rangement of the hair, is essentially femi Empire, however, does not approve simpli
nine ? That may be the explanation, for city, and gradually the art of dressing hail'
nobody despises the lady’s-maid more or has come again into use. The fashion of
less because if she is “ very superior ” she wearing hair a I’Imperatrice was the first
- can dress hair as well as any hairdresser. blow to the Madonna mania, and young
Or is the sufficient cause to be sought in women with no foreheads, and with pointed
their pretensions, in their constant but un foreheads, and with hair-covered foreheads,
successful claim to be considered artists, all pulled their unruly locks straight back
something a little lower than professionals, because an Empress with a magnificent
but a great deal higher than mere trades forehead chose to make the best of it. Any
men, a claim which induces them to indulge thing uglier than this fashion in all women
in highflown advertisements and the inven with unsuitable foreheads and all women
tion of preposterous names, usually .Greek, whatever with black hair it would be hard
but not unfrequently Persian, for totally to conceive, and the mania did not as a
useless unguents ? The claim is allowed in mania last very long. Then came the day
France, but in England, like the similar of invention, the use of false hair, the in
one of the cook and the confectioners, sertion of frisettes, the introduction of gold
it has always been rejected, a rejection en dyes, the re-entry of the vast combs prized
which excites the profession every now and by our great grandmothers, the admiration
then to somewhat violent and therefore ri of pins stolen from the Ionian and Pompe
diculous self-assertion. They perceive an ian head-gear, and a general attention to
opportunity just at present. For a good the head-dress which we can best describe
many years past the business of the coiffeur by quoting from the Manners and Customs
has been comparatively a very simple affair, of Ancient Greece a paragraph on the hair
rising scarcely to the dignity of a trade and dressing of Athenian women : — “ On noth
entirely outside the province of art.x Men ing was there so much care bestowed as.
all over Europe have adopted the fashion upon the hair. Auburn, the colour of Aph
of the much ridiculed Roundheads, cut their rodite’s tresses in Homer, being consider
hair habitually close, till the assertion that ed most beautiful, drugs were invented in
HAIRDRESSING IN EXCELSIS.
�584
HAIR-DRESSING IN EXCELSIS.
which the hair being dipped, and exposed incident in the annals of modern folly. Some
to the noon day sun, it acquired the covet thirty women had their hair dressed in pub
ed hue, and fell in golden curls over their lic by the, same number of men — not, we
shoulders. Others, contented with their,. are sorry to say, to the accompaniment of
own black hair, exhausted their ingenuity slow music,— an improvement we recom
in augmenting its rich gloss, steeping it in mend to Mr. Carter’s attention — and some
oils and essences, till all the fragrance of two hundred men and women looked on and
Arabia seemed to breathe around them. applauded the result. There was in the
Those waving ringlets which we admire in middle of the room a long table covered
their sculpture were often the creation of with a white cloth, as it were for some sort
art, being produced by curling-irons heated of experiment, but upon the table could be
in ashes ; after which, by the aid of jewel seen nothing but hand-mirrors, which look
led fillets and golden pins, they were ed indigestible. So long were other visitors
brought forward over the smooth white incoming that one visitor, who was con
forehead, which they sometimes shaded to scious of wan ting the scissors and of a total
the eyebrows, leaving a small ivory space absence of bear’s grease, was afraid that one
in the centre, while behind they floated in of the many gentlemen who in winning cos
shining profusion down the back. When tume, and faultless “ ’eads of air,” and un
decked in this manner, and dressed for the mistakable hairdressing propensities, hover
gunascitis in their light flowered sandals ed near the door, would insist upon his
and semi-transparent robes, they were having his hair cut and dressed forthwith,
scarcely farther removed from the state of merely to wile away the time. But fortu
nature than the Spartan maids themselves.” nately, just as a gentleman with a “ ’ead of
The grand triumph of the Ionic barbers, air” which would have done credit to any
the invention of a mode of plaiting which wax figure in any shop window, was ap
occupied many hours, and could therefore proaching with sinister looks, visitors, mas
be repeated only once a week, and requir culine and feminine began to pour in. Then
ed those who wore it to sleep on their backs there was diffused around the room an
with their necks resting on wooden trestles, odour of bear’s grease, and probably cost
hollowed out lest the bed should derange lier unguents, and from the look of the
the hair, has not indeed been repeated, ladies’ hair the writer was under the im
though under the fostering care of Mr. Car pression that he beheld the victims who
ter even that perfection may one
be had been immolated •upon the shrine of
attained. Still we have the auburn dyes, hairdressing, and who were to exhibit the
and the pins, and all the Athenian devices, effects of the sacrifice. But not so. Awhile,
and it is not quite certain that the “ chig and then there came in, each leaning upon
non,” the nasty mass of horsehair and hu the arm of the cavalier who was to “ dress
man hair which women have learnt to stick her,” about thirty-two ladies, from an age to
on the back of their heads, and which is ac which it would be ungallant to allude down
tually sold in Regent Street attached to to (one can hardly say “ bashful ”) fifteen.
bonnets, is not an additional triumph over Their hair was in some instances apparently
nature. We have a picture somewhere of just out of curl-papers, but for the most part
a chignon more than three thousand years hanging unconfined except at the back, where
old, but if we are not mistaken there are it was fastened close to the crown, and then
feathers on it as well as hair, the very idea hung down like a horse’s tail. Among the
which the President of the Hairdressers’ thirty were one or two magnificent cheveAcademy on Tuesday reinvented, and for lures, but we did not see one that quite
which he was so heartily applauded. Of realized the painter’s ideal, one which the
course, with the new rage for artificial ar wearer could have wrapped round her as
rangement, false hair, dyes, chignons, hair Titian’s model must have done, or one on
crepe, hair frise, and we know not what, the which the owner could have stood, as on a
hairdresser’s art is looking up, and the sen mat, as Hindoo women have been known to
sible tradesmen who practise it, sensible in do. Their comic appearance, and the clap
in all but their grandiloquence — which is, ping of hands which arose thereat, showed
we take it, half-comic, half a genuine effort one at once that they were the victims or
at self-assertion — are making the most of (if you please) the heroines. They sat at the
their opportunity.
white-cloth-covered table, and the cavaliers
The soire'e, or “ swarry,” as the doorkeep drew from black bags combs, arid puffs, and
er persisted in calling it, of the Hairdress hair-pins, and what looked like small roll
ers’ Academy, held in the Hanover Square ing-pins, and tapeworms, and bell-ropes,
Rooms on Tuesday, was really a noteworthy and cord off window-curtains, and muslin
�mmM-
/
’
'
•.
'
'
FRENCH AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS.
>
585
and tissue-paper, and flowers and fruits of sheAvould entice oui’ “ golden youth ” (or
the earth imitated in green and gold. Then our golden age, for the matter of that) ?
the “ dressing ” began, and the spectator What manner of woman, then, would set
saw with awe and amazement what art can the fashion in hairdressing ?
And we
do for hair, then one repented of ever hav know what has been the consequence in
ing doubted the truth of ladies who at balls France (if we are not nearly as bad here)
say, with a significant glance at head-dresses, of following in small matters the lead of the
“ Why, how do you do, dear ? I really did demi-monde. On the other hand, two con
not know you.” Some people may think victions at all events we acquired from the
that hair, however plenteous or however spectacle. One is that modern hairdressing
scanty, looks better in its natural state than in its highest form is a branch of jewelling,
when it is made into a flower garden ; and the real art being shown not in the arrange
others may hold that no kind of hair is im ment of the hair, but in the addition of
proved by being interwoven with tape things which are not hair — combs, rib
worms or bell-ropes, or even the cord off bons, flowers, dewdrops, and gilt insects —
window-curtains. But it is certain that by the last a taste essentially inartistic and de
the use of muslin and other materials already praved. The other was that it is not safe
spoken of a result may be obtained which for any man to make a proposal in the
would justify a man in cutting his mother evening.
So utterly were some of the
(on the score of non-recognition, if on no “ subjects” changed by the act of the ope
other), and which would lead one to believe rators, that the possibility of not knowing
that so long as a lady has a couple of hand in the morning the betrothed of the even
fuls of hair left she may, with the help of ing seemed very real indeed, and the mis
art, hold her own against Berenice. When take would be an awkward one for both
all the ladies were “ dressed ” one of the parties.
“ dressers ” made an unexceptionable little
speech in unexceptionable English (for
which our experience of hairdressing had
not prepared us), concluding by saying
that the ladies in their “ dressed ” state
would walk round the table each leaning
From the Economist, 27 January.
on the arm of her “ dresser,” so that the
spectators might all have a full view. As THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THE FRENCH
he said, so did they; nay, they went fur
AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS.
ther, and walked round twice, amidst the
applause of (he assembled witnesses. We
The Emperor of the French has said
were disappointed that no prize beyond many remarkable things, but few more
applause was given; we had thought that remarkable than the short sentence in
at least a small-tooths comb, after the fash which he hints that there is some analogy
ion of those said by Miss Emmeline Lott to between the Constitution of France and
be used in the Turkish harems, would have that of the United States. The statement
been bestowed. But perhaps it would have has been received in England with an
been dangerous to have given so decided a impatience which is. a little unjust, and
preference to the hair of one lady over that is caused by too exclusive an attention
of another, for after all it must be with some to surface differences. Those differences
difficulty that the subjects of the exhibition are of course patent to every one ; but the ■
are collected. After the b< swarry ” came a analogy is not the less real and striking.
ball, at which whosoever danced with the The key-note of the American Constitution
ladies who had their heads powdered was, is the existence of an Executive which dur
if he disliked dust, to be pitied. The com ing its term of office is irresponsible to the
pany seemed to be, for the most part, or at people, which acts by its own volition,
any rate to a considerable extent, connect which can pursue if necessary a policy dia
ed with the hairdressing interest, and that metrically opposed to the wishes of those
they should do all they could to bring their who elected it. That also is the key-note
craft to perfection is not only pardonable, of the system established by the Second
but commendable. Would it, however, be Empire. The President does as he pleases
well if society in general should patronize in all matters within his province just as
such exhibitions ? Opinions happily differ, the Emperor does, and like him is irrespon
but we cannot help thinking evil would come sible to the Legislature — need not, indeed,
of it. What manner of woman, is it that explain to the representatives of the people
must study such matters as hairdressing, if | his own official acts. His ministers are his
�586
FRENCH AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS.
ministers or clerks, bound to obey his or
ders; not bound to pay any heed, and fre
quently not paying any heed, to votes
passed by the popular body. Of course,
in America as in France this absolute
disunion between the Executive and the
body which controls the purse is very
inconvenient, and it has in each country
been met in the same way. In France the
Minister without a portfolio explains to
the Corps Legislatif the plans of depart
ments which he does not control, and in
America a friend or connection or political
ally of the President performs the same
function, Mr. Raymond for example occupy
ing as nearly as possible that position in
Congress, which M. Rouher occupies in
the French Chamber. It is true the French
spokesman is a recognised official, and the
American spokesman is not, but the recog
nition does not diminish “ responsibility ” in
the English parliamentary sense, but rather
increases it. It is true Mr. Johnson cannot
effect through Congress what the Emperor
can effect through his Legislature, but that
is because he has not a majority and the
Emperor has. In theory the French Cham
ber has as much right to reject a bill pro
posed by the Imperial Government as Con
gress has, and were the Emperor less dread
ed it would frequently do so. At the pres
ent moment Mr. Johnson is trying to
“ make a majority ” to support his policy b^
means quite as strong as those used in
French elections. He has ordered that
no radical recommendation for office shall
be listened to, and has it is said threatened
that unless his opponents give way he will
dismiss every official throughout the Union
who owes his election to the recommenda
tion of an opponent, a measure which has
daunted his stoutest adversaries as fatal
to their re-election. They will be in fact,
as in France, struck out of the Government
list. Indeed the prerogative of the Presi
dent is in many ways greater than that
of the Emperor. Each is commander-inchief, but the President can deprive any
officer of his commission by decree, and
the Emperor cannot. A French officer’s
grade is his “property,” and though the
law has once or twice been violated, it
/could not be broken through except for
a State necessity. Emperor and President
are alike masters of the Civil Service, but
the President can and does dismiss at will,
and the bureaucracy of France is perma
nent. An order, such as Mr. Johnson is
said to have threatened to give, would in
France have aroused an unconquerable re
sistance. No doubt the Emperor of the
French can do things infinitely more highhanded than the President could attempt,
but that is not by virtue of the idea of
the French Constitution, but by reason
of his control over a system essentially and
radically despotic, which he did not make,
and which his predecessors also used, the
French police. Mr. Johnson has no such
organisation at his disposal, but when it ex
isted during the first two years of the war it
was used without much regard to anything
but the safety of the Federation. Without
the police aud the immense army, and with
a hostile majority in the Chamber, the Em
peror would be almost precisely in the po
sition of the President.
But the latter is subject to removal at
the expiration of his term ? No doubt Mr.
Johnson is, and has therefore a great temp
tation to make his policy accord with the
policy approved by the electors, and so has
the Emperor Napoleon, who follows opinion
quite as anxiously; but. that deference is no
part of the Constitution, which provides for
change in the individual, but not for change
in the absolute independence of the office.
In changing our Premier, we ensure a
Change of policy, because if the new man
disobeys, he also can be dismissed next day;
but in changing the President, America
merely places one independent and irre
movable official in place of another. The
theories of the Imperial and Republican sys
tems are identical, except in the illogical
peculiarity of the French Constitution, that
it introduces the hereditary element into the
Executive, whereas the right of election
logically includes a right of dismissal at
periods fixed by mutual agreement. But
the freedom of the Press, of speech, of asso
ciation ? Well, these things exist in Amer
ica and do not exist in France; but it is
not in consequence of the Constitution, but
of the popular will. Nothing prevents an
American President, with Congress at his
back, from subverting the freedom of the
Press, by means, for example, of remissible
taxes, if they think that policy sound. The
Emperor and his first Chamber did think it
sound, and so freedom in France ended, a
fact greatly no doubt to be regretted, but
in, no way proving that the principles of the
American and French Constitutions are not
analogous. One very remarkable power
indeed is possessed by the American Legis
lature which is not possessed by the French,
and that is the right of passing a law by a
two-third vote, in defiance of the President.
But the French Chamber is theoretically
just as strong, for it could insist on a certain
law being passed, under penalty of a rejec
�/
/
xico.
s
587
tion of the Budget, and the Emperor must by which alone a constitutional monarch
. either yield, or appeal to a plebiscitum, that can acquire great individual power. At all
is, strike a coup d’etat upsetting the Consti events, should circumstances ever compel
tution, which gives the Chamber such a the Emperor to relax the overstrictness
right of control. That the two sets of insti of his regime, it is to the American rather
tutions are worked in a different way, and than to the British form of freedom that
with a different spirit, is too obvious for re he appears likely to feel his way.
mark ; but that does not destroy the theo
retic analogy to which the Emperor points.
The truth is that apart from the operation
..of the State system, which with many faults
' still organises popular resistance, the Presi
dent of the United States is, during his
From the Saturday Review, Jan. 27.
term of office, an excessively powerful mon
MEXICO.
arch, and the fact, revealed only by the
war, has evidently struck forcibly on the
The position which the Government of
imagination of the Emperor of the French. the United States is prepared to take up
As he acknowleges in his speech he still dis with regard to Mexico is at last clearly and
likes Parliamentary Government, for which finally established, and it is one that is cal
he is himself singularly unfitted, and he culated to excite some apprehension for the
glances at the Union with a passing thought future peace of the world. During the au
that if he ever grants “ liberty,” it will be in tumn months of last year, Mr. Seward was
the American and not in the English form. continually urging on the Federal Govern
Should the thought ever become active, it ment the expediency of the speedy with
is astonishing how little he will have to do drawal of the French troops; and, with
to restore “liberty” after the American many sincere protestations of the most frienimodel as it would appear were the Union ly feeling towards France, he gave the Em
a republic one and indivisible. He would peror to understand that, if his troops were
have to introduce laws establishing the free to stay much longer where they were, a
dom of the press, and the right of associa rupture between the two countries was inev
tion, and the liability of all officials to pros itable. The Emperor would be only too
ecution for illegal acts done in their official glad to get his troops away if he could do so
capacities; and the exemption of all citizens without compromising his own honour, and
from arrest except on criminal charges, and that of France ; and it seemed to him that
the constitutional change would be theoret the best way of arranging the matter would
ically alinost complete. The remaining bethat the French troops. should go, and
changes which would be necessary — such that the United States should recognise the
as abstinence from interference in the elec Emperor Maximilian. • The Mexican Em
tions, recognition of the right of debate, pire, being thus placed on a friendly footing
and restoration of the legislative initiative with the only Power it has to dread, might
to individual members — are scarcely con hope to establish itself and prosper, if pros
stitutional. These changes once accom perity in Mexico is possible for it. France
plished, France would be in possession of a would have succeeded, or, at least, would
great amount of practical liberty, of the not have openly and conspicuously failed;
control of her own Legislature, and of an and all jealousy between Washington and
Executive terribly strong indeed, but not Paris would have been at an end. But Mr.
stronger than that of the American Union; Seward has distinctly and decisively re
rather less strong, because hampered by the jected this proposal. The United States
legal rights of the army, and the customary will not recognise the Emperor Maximil
rights of the civil bureaucracy. That is not ian, nor treat him on any but a hostile foot
a form of Government we admire, because ing. lathe eyes of the Americans, he is
it lacks the one strength of the Parliamen an intruder, and an enemy of an injured and
tary system, the absolute identity of the friendly Republic, and they can never be
Legislature and the Executive power; but content until his enterprise has wholly failed.
it is one which might suit France for a time, Congress, as Mr. Seward remarks, must
and would have the immense advantage of exercise its legitimate influence on the Gov
permitting free thought and its expression, ernment of the President ; and the Pres
and some activity of Parliamentary life ident has not only to announce his own de
without the previous dismissal of the Napo cision, but that of the American people and
leonic dynasty, which will never, we fear, its representatives; and the opinion of the
consent to that incessant intellectual conflict American people is violently against the
�588
MEXICO.
Mexican Empire. Of this there can be no withdrawn; but if this is not done, the time
doubt; for even if the accusations continu must come when they will insist on having
ally brought up in Congress against the Em their wishes fulfilled.
peror Maximilian were true, instead of
This uncompromising language of the
being, as for the most part they are, gross American Government has placed the Em
misrepresentations, still the vehemence and peror of the'French in a very difficult po
pertinacity with which they are urged show sition. He cannot seem to yield to threats;
clearly enough how deep is the animosity but still he knows that, if any way of with
that prompts them. If the whole question drawing his troops with honour can be found,
were simply one of the continuance of the he must use it. He has, therefore, set ear
Mexican Empire, it might be worth while nestly to work to disprove the view which
to discuss these accusations, and to show how the American Government has adopted.
very slight is the basis on which they have He denies altogether that he ever wished to
been reared ; but all matters of detail are set up a Monarchy in Mexico, or to crush a
swallowed up in the gravity of the declara Republic. But the Republican Govern
tion which the United States have now is ment had insulted and offended him, plun
sued. The view of the Government of the dered and murdered his subjects, gave no
United States is, that the French have vio compensation, and perhaps was too weak,
lated the Monroe doctrine in its proper poor, and anarchical to give any. He inter
and original sense. There was a Republic fered merely to get redress, but he did not
established in Mexico, holding its territory see how it was possible to hope for redress
unopposed, in harmony with the country, from, such a Government as then existed in
dear to the inhabitants, and in the most Mexico. Several leading Mexicans pro
friendly relations with the United States. posed to establish a Monarchy, and he con
The French came to pull down this Repub curred in the idea because he thought a Mon
lic, and to set up a Monarchy, and they per archy, which had long been a favourite no
sist in remaining in Mexico to force this tion of many Mexicans, offered the best
alien Empire on an unwilling Republican chance of getting a Government strong, du
people. This is the mode in which the rable, and enlightened enough to pay him
United States have determined, after full what he was owed. This is all. He no
deliberation, to regard the recent history of more wishes to put down a Republic in Mexi
Mexico; and they will not allow any com co than he does to put down a Republic at
promise by which their adherence to this Washington; he merely wished, and wishes,
view might seem to be weakened. So long to have an instrument ready to provide him
as France stays in Mexico, forcing an Em with the redress he asked. The Emperor
pire on the Republicans of a contiguous Maximilian and his Court, and his Orders
State, America will treat France exactly as of the Eagle and Gaudalupe, are only pret
she would expect France to treat her if ty bits of machinery for the recovery of
she sent a fleet, and landed troops, to set up money owing to Frenchmen; and it must
a Republic in Belgium. Much, it is ac be owned that, if this is all, they are about
knowledged, is to be borne from France, as expensive a pi^ce of machinery, in com
which would not be borne from any other parison with the object to be effected, as
country. It will be only in the last resort was ever invented. But then, as the Em
that the language of America would be peror said in his speech, this machinery
come hostile to a country endeared to her has answered, or very nearly answered.
by so many traditions, and bound to her by There is now in Mexico an enlightened
so many ties. The tone of Mr. Seward’s Government triumphant overall opposition,
letter is very conciliatory, and the Govern with a French commerce trebled in an in
ment of President Johnson has been reso credibly short space of time, plentifully sup
lute in preventing any indirect breaches of plied with troops, and quite ready to pay off
amity. The export of arms from California all that is due to France. A few more ar
has been prevented, and still more recently rangements have still to be made with the
a considerable portion of the troops in Tex Emperor Maximilian, so that the stipulat
as has been disbanded. France has nothing ed payments may be fully secured, and then
to complain of in small things; there is only the French troops will be finally and hon
the one great point of difference between her ourably withdrawn. The ecstatic visions of
and the United States, that she has violated M. Chevalier, and the ardent proclama
a doctrine to which the United States at tions of Marshal Forey, are forgotten, or
tach the greatest importance, and which utterly neglected. We hear no more of the
they are resolved to uphold. They now spread of French influence over the West
merely ask that the French troops shall be ern hemisphere, of the necessity of enabling
�MEXICO.
tv
*
589
the Latin race to confront the Anglo-Saxon his own resources. If the Emperor Maxi
race in the New World. The Americans milian would but announce that he was
are told that all that has been done in Mexi- now quite, sure of his throne, and that
. Co has been done simply to redress the French aid was no longer necessary to him,
wrongs and support the claims of French the French might undoubtedly retire with
men; the French’themselves are told that out dishonour. They could not retire at
this most desirable end has been accom once, but it may be presumed that the
plished, and that the troops who have ren Americans would be quite satisfied if a Con
dered its accomplishment possible may soon vention like the September Convention
be expected home. But it is scarcely neces with Italy were agreed on, and if it were
sary to say that neither the Americans nor arranged that all French troops should have
the French will be satisfied. The Ameri quitted Mexico by the end of the present
cans think, and think with perfect truth, year. If the French went, the Austrians
that the experiment of recovering French and Belgians must go too— not necessarily
debts by shooting Republicans until the at the very same time, but before very long;
Austrian Archduke was made Emperor as it is obvious that, if the French have been
would never have been tried unless it had guilty of coming to American soil to tram
been supposed that it could be tried with ple down a Republic and set up a Monarchy,
out the United States being able to inter so have they. The Emperor Maximilian
fere with it. The French know that at least would therefore have to decide whether he
twenty millions of French money have been could possibly hold his own with native
sunk in the experiment, and that if their troops against his domesticV’enemies; and
troops were withdrawn it would be a great secondly, whether, if he thought it possible
deal more difficult to"recover the new debt to succeed, he would also think it worth
than it was to recover the old one. The while to try. It may be assumed, perhaps, that
Emperor, by adopting the view that he is the Emperor of the French would be able
merely trying to get his just dues from Mexi to provide that Mexico should be left alone,
co, has done something to conciliate the and that, if he did not go there, neither
Americans; yet he has made it even harder would the Americans. But if all foreign
than before to justify to France the with troops were withdrawn, the Emperor
drawal of the troops. To throw away twen would have to fight Mexicans with Mexi
ty millions in the attempt to get back a cans. His Mexicans would feel no enthusi
tenth of that sum is as deplorable an invest asm for him, would regard him as a foreign
ment, and as conspicuous a failure, as he er, and would with difficulty be induced to
could well make. The last Mexican loan of believe that his cause was the winning one.
about six millions sterling was almost entire His adversaries would be ardent, stimulated
ly subscribed by the French poor, on the by the encouragement of the Americans,
direct solicitation of the local officials of the panting for revenge, and able to take ad
Government, and it would most seriously vantage of that general disposition to go
impair the confidence of the lower classes in against the existing Government, whatever
the Emperor’s policy if it ended in a loss it may be, which pervades all nations of
to them of money which they only sub Spanish descent. But even if the Emper
scribed because he seemed to ask for it him- or thought that, after a very long and pro
self.
tracted fight, he might possibly hold his own,
The Emperor must, therefore, risk some and retain a precarious possession of some
thing. He might risk either a war with of the richer parts of the Mexican territory,
America, or a blow to his prestige in France. he might very probably hesitate before he
His speech was very judiciously worded, and embarked on so dangerous an adventure,
he seemed to be preserving a firm attitude, and might begin to examine whetherit could
and consulting the dignity of his country, possibly answer to him to take the risk. If
while he prepared a mode of escape from his he stayed as long as the French stayed, and
Embarrassment by asserting that his work found that the pressure of the Americans
was done in Mexico, and that the Emperor was depriving him even of his Austrians 1
Maximilian was firmly established there. and Belgians, he would incur no- disgrace
It will now naturally be his first object to by resigning a position that he might fairly
get the Emperor Maximilian to share this consider untenable. But the French could
opinion ; and the story may be true that he .scarcely withdraw altogether if he went.
has sent over a special envoy to represent They could not acknowledge that their at
to the Emperor of Mexico that he must tempt to obtain redress had been entirely in
consent to the withdrawal of the French vain, and all their money wasted ; and they
troops, and tTy his chance of empire from would naturally seek to make some arrange-
�THE EMPERORS SPEECH.
From the Spectator, 27th January.
ment with the United States by which, if a
Government favoured by the United States
THE EMPEROR’S SPEECH.
was set up, a return to mere anarchy should
be prevented, and the right of the French
The Emperor of the French has opened
to enjoy some sort of guarantee for the settle the Session of his Chambers for the thir
ment of their claims should be recognized. teenth time, and for the thirteenth time his '
speech is the political fact in the European
history of the week. Its interest turns
mainly upon three paragraphs, those relating
[From another article in the same paper, we to Mexico, to Italy, and to his pledge of one
copy the French Emperor’s address.]
day “crowning the edifice” by conceding
liberty. Of course he says other things,
The French Emperor’s address to his but they are so vague or so formal that they
Legislature is generally an interesting study. add nothing to our knowledge either of his
It is feebler and less clever this year than purposes or his position. He will “ remain
usual, but still it is interesting/ The au a stranger” to the internal disputes of Ger
gust author of these compositions has the art many, “ provided French interests are not
of touching all great questions of European directly engaged,” but as he is the sole
concern in a tone of frankness and gener judge whether they are so or not, this
osity, and noble sentiments in a Royal or amounts only to a pledge that France will
Imperial speech are always pleasant and re not interfere with Prussia until her Em
freshing. What, for example, can be more peror chooses, an assertion which makes a
considerate or delicate than the manner in very small draft upon our political faith.
which he handles the Americans? They He promises to restore the right of associa
are reminded of a century of friendship, and tion for industrial purposes, but the liberty
it is politely suggested that Imperialism is thus regained is to be “ outside politics,”
only the Constitution of the United States and to be limited “ by the guarantees which
in a French Court dress. The Mexican ex public order requires ” i. e., by any guaran
pedition is explained in a manner that tee the Emperor thinks expedient. He an
ought to disarm the most suspicious Yankee, nounces a reduction of the Army, but it has
and it seems as if all had been a mistake been effected without a reduction of num
about the Latin race, as it was about the bers, and declares that a financial equili
proposed recognition of the South. Some brium has been secured by the surplus of
body did say something about the Latin revenue, for which surplus his Minister of
race, which has evidently been misconstrued Finance only just ventures to hope on con
a good deal; but the “ American people” dition that everything goes right for two
will now comprehend that “ the expedition, more years. He suggests that France is
in which we invited them to join, was not governed very much like the United States,
opposed to their interests.” France “prays” but does not attempt to explain wherein he
sincerely for the prosperity of the great Re finds the analogy between a Constitution
public, and, just as a French Emperor is only which changes its Executive every four
an American President in disguise, so Im years, and leaves the entire legislative power
perialism in Mexico has been founded “ on to the representatives of the people, and a
the will of the people.” Mr. Seward very Constitution which was intended to make
Hkely never swears. His talent lies chiefly the executive power hereditary, and which
in the line of making other people swear. intrusts the initiative of legislation entirely
But it is possible that some less courteous to the man who is to carry that legislation
Anglo-Saxons in Washington and in New out. On all these subjects, Germany, fi
York, who are anxious about the Monroe nance, co-operation, and the Constitution,
doctrine, after reading all these high-mind the Emperor’s utterance is suggestive, with
ed expressions, and especially the one about out clearly instructing either his subjects or
the French praying for them, will feel in the world. No one, for example, could tell
clined, in the language used in the School without knowing facts which the Emperor
for Scandal by the friends of Joseph Sur does not reveal whether his paragraph on
face, to observe, “ Damn your sentiments.” Germany is a hint to Count von Bismark to
However this may be, and whatever may be go on in his course and prosper, or a.men
the turn the Mexican difficulty is taking, ace that France would not bear a Union, of
one thing is clear, that the French Emper Northern Germany against which its in
terests are directly engaged.
or puts his sentiments neatly and well.
�THE EMPEROR ’S SPEECH.
591
Even on the three points we have excepted die course, and the object of this part of
the Emperor, as his wont is, gives the world his speech is simply to soothe Americans
a riddle to read. What, for instance, is the into waiting until he can retreat with hon
meaning of the sentence which says that our. He who three years ago spoke only of
France “ has reason to rely on the scrupulous strengthening a branch of the Latin race to
execution of the Treaty with Italy of the 15 th resist Anglo-Saxon aggression, now anxious
September, and on the indispensable main ly repudiates any idea of hostility to the
tenance of the power of the Holy Father ? ” Union. He recalls to the Americans “ a
Does it mean that Napoleon regards the noble page in the history of France,” her
temporal power as indispensable, or only assistance to the Republic in its great rebel
the spiritual; that he will put down internal lion, reminds them that he requested them to
revolt in Rome, or suffer Italy to garrison take a part in reclaiming Mexican debts,
the city, provided only the Pope is left spir and almost implores thein to recollect that
itually independent ? Is his dictum a threat “ two nations equally jealous of their inde
to the Revolution or a threat to the priests | pendence ought to avoid any step which
Reading it by the light of the Emperor’s would implicate their dignity and their
character, we should believe the sentence honour.” Is that an assurance or a menintended only to ward off opposition until 1 afte ? For a French Sovereign to speak
the evacuation of Rome was complete, but of possible contingencies as “ implicating
read by the facts in progress, blithe re French dignity and honour ” is a very
cruiting for Rome going on in France, and ^serious thing, but then why these unusual
the pressure employed in Florence to make professions of regard for the Union ? It is
Italy accept the Papal debt, we should be true in a preceding paragraph Napoleon
lieve it implied that while Napoleon will re has affirmed that he is arranging with the
tire, the Pope must remain independent Emperor Maximilian for the recall of his
King of Rome. The maintenance of the army, bumhen their return must be effect-'
Pope’s power is declared indispensable, but ed when it “will not compromise the in
nothing is said of the invisible means by terests which France went out to that dis
which it is to be maintained.
tant land to defend.” When is that ? Do
So with the Mexican declaration. The the interests to be defended include the re
Emperor, we admit, is upon this point placed invigoration of the Latin race ? Nothing is
in a most difficult position. He made the clear from the speech, and according to
singular blunder made by the Times and by the Yellow Book, which is always supposed
the majority of English politicians, but not to explain the speech, the French Army is
made by the people he rules. Careless of only to return from Mexico when the Presi
principle and forgetting precedent, reject dent of the Union has recognized the Mexi
ing the idea that freedom must conquer can Empire, an act which he has refused to
slavery, and overlooking his uncle’s adage do, and which Congress has specifically for
that twenty-five millions must beat fifteen if bidden him to perform. There is nothing in
they can once get at them, he convinced the speech inconsiste^; with that interpreta
himself that the South must break up the tion, and if it is correct the Americans will
Union. Consequently he invaded Mexico, simply contrast the compliments offered
and placed his nominee on its throne. As them in words with the impossible proposal
his subjects, with the strange instinct which submitted in fact, and be less content than
supplies to great populations the place of ever. All they obtain is a promise 'that at
wisdom, had from the first foreseen, he some time not specified, when a result they
erred in his first essential datum. The dislike has been accomplished, the Emperor
South did not break up the Union, but the will, if consistent with his honour, withdraw
Union broke up the South, and Napoleon the troops through whom he has been able
finds himself compelled either to withdraw to accomplish it — not a very definite or
from a great undertaking visibly baffled and very satisfactory pledge.
repulsed, or to accept a war with the oldest
It is on the “ crowning of the edifice ’
ally of France — a war in which, if defeat alone that the Emperor is partially explicit.
ed, he risks his throne, and if successful, can He will not grant a responsible Ministry.
gain nothing except financial embarrass That system of government, always abhor
ment. Neither alternatiye seems to him en rent to him, has not become more pleasant
durable — the former as fatal to the reputa of late years, and he declares for the tenth
tion for success which is essential to his per time that “ with one Chamber holding with
sonal power, the latter as bringing him into di in itself the fate of Ministers the Executive
rect conflict with the wishes of all his peo is without authority and without spirit,” the
ple. He strives therefore to find some mid- “ one ” being inserted either to avoid a di-
�592
BEAU-MONDE AND THE DEMI-MONDE IN PARIS.
ers by an anouncement for which, after
all, both should have been prepared. No
one who is at all conversant with the ordina
ry course of Parisian life — we do not say
familiar with its inner mysteries — ought to
have been astonished at hearing that cer
tain grandes dames of French society had
sought for invitations to a masqued ball
which was to be given by a distinguished
leader of the demi-monde. We have had, in
our own country, certain faint and partial
indications of the same curiosity, revealed
in an awkward and half-hesitating sort of
way. English great ladies once made an
off-night for themselves at Cremorne, in
order to catch a flying and furtive glance,
not of the normal idols of those gay gar
dens, but of the mere scenic accessories to
their attractions and triumphs. But as yet
we have never heard that the matrons of
English society have sought an introduction
to the Lais of Brompton or the Phryne of
May-fair, even under the decorous con
cealment of mask and domino. Nor has it
yet been formally advertised here that the
motive of so unusal a request was a desire
to learn the arts and tactics by which the
gilded youth — and, it might be added, the
gilded age — of the country is subjected to
the thrall of venal and meretricious beauty.
That such a rumour should be circulated
and believed in France is — to use the cur
rent slang — “highly suggestive.” It sug
gests a contrast of the strongest, though it is
far from a pleasing, kind between the
society of to-day and the society of other
days. It was long the special boast of the
French that with them women enjoyed an
influence which in no other part of the
world was accorded to their sex, and that
this influence was at least as much due to
their mental as to their physical charms.
The women of other nations may have been
more beautiful. To the Frenchwomen was
specially given the power of fascination ;
and it was the peculiar characteristic of her
fascination that its exercise involved no dis
credit to the sense or' the sensibility of the
men who yielded to it. A power which
showed itself as much in the brilliance of
bons mots and repartee as ip smiles and
glances, a grace of language and expression
which enhanced every grace of feature
and of attitude, a logic which played in
the form of epigram, and a self-respect
From the Saturday Review.
which was set off rather than concealed by
THE 1 BEAU-MONDE AND THE
DEMI the maintenance of the most uniform cour
tesy to others — such were the arts and
MONDE IN PARIS.
insignia of the empire which the most cele
The Paris journals lately surprised their brated Frenchwomen, from the days of
French, and startled their foreign, read Maintenon and De Sevigne to those of
rect sarcasm upon the English Constitution,
or from a sudden recollection of the part
played by the Prussian Chamber of Peers.
He believes that his system has worked well,
that France, tranquil at home, is respected
abroad, and, as he adds with singular au
dacity, is without political captives within or
exiles beyond her frontiers. Are, then, the
Due d’Aumale, M. Louis iBlanc, and the
author of Labienus at liberty to return
to France ? Consequently nothing will be
changed, but the Emperor, resolving to “ im
prove the conditions of labour,” will await
the time when all France, being educated,
shall abandon seductive theories, and all
who live by their daily toil, receiving in
creasing profits, “ shall be firm supporters
of a society which secures their well-being
and their dignity.” No one can complain
of any obscurity in that apology for the
Empire. Its central ideas are all expressed,
and all expressed with truthful lucidity.
The Emperor is to rule “ with authority and
spirit.” There is to be no political freedom,
no discussion even of “ theories of govern
ment, which France for eighty years has
sufficiently discussed.” Intelligence and cap
ital are still to remain disfranchised, but in
return the labourer’s condition is to be im
proved. “ Bread to the cottage, justice to
the palace,” was the promise of the Venetian
Ten, and Napoleon, if he changes the
second, adheres to the first condition. His
offer is also bread to the cottage, provided
only that there is silence in the palace. It
is for France to decide whether she accepts
an offer which is not a small one, which if
honestly made is capable of fulfillment, and
which would pledge her Government to the
best ad interim occupation it could possibly
pursue. Only we would just remind her
that education in the Emperor’s mouth has
hitherto meant only education through
priests, and improvement in the condition
of the labourer only a vast expenditure out
of taxes which the labourer pays, that the first
result of these works has been the reckless
over-crowding of all towns, and that of these
promises there is not one which liberty
could not also secure.
�BEAU-MONDE ANDTPHE DEMI-MONDE IN PARIS.
593
Madame Deffand and Madame Roland or of the roturier ; the conflicts of science and
those of Madame Recamier, exercised over theology — all these furnished materials for
the warriors, sages, and statesmen of France. the tongues of the clever women, materials
The homage paid by the men to the brilliant of which the clever women fully availed
women who charmed the society which they themselves. The final result was not, in
had helped to create may not always have deed, wholly satisfactory. How many a
been perfectly disinterested. The friend short sharp sarcasm, shot from the tongue
ship of the women for their illustrious ad of brilliant causeuses,‘rebounded on the gil
mirers may not always have been perfectly ded rooms wherein it first hurtled! How
Platonic. There may have been some im many a satire, sugared with compliment, at
propriety—or, as our more Puritan friends which rival beaux chuckled in delight,
would say, some sin — in the intercourse of came back with its uncovered venom to the
some of the most celebrated Frenchmen hearts of those whose admiration had first
and Frenchwomen. Yet even this could provoked it! How many a gibe of reckless
not have been predicated of all. Madame truth, aimed at courts and nobles, distilled
de Sevigne’s reputation comes out. clear through laquais and waiting-maids into the
and spotless even from the foulest assault of streets of Paris, to whet the after-wrath
wounded vanity and slighted love. We do of that fierce canaille! Many of those
not forget the comprehensive loves and the clever women had better been silent; many
deliberate inconstancy of Ninon. But Ni of those pungent epigrams had better been
non, corrupt, as she may have been, was unsaid. Still, while the spirited talk went
not venal. She did not ruin her lovers by her on, life was illumined by no common bril
covetousness, and then receive their wives liance ; and vice not only decked itself, but
and sisters in her salons. She was courted forgot _ itself, in the guise of intelligence
by elegant and virtuous women, because she and wit.
was the single and solitary instance as yet
But what a change is it now! There are
known of a woman possessing every grace drawing-rooms in Paris which are more
and every charm save the grace and charm brilliant and gorgeous than any that De
of virtue. Whatever may have been the Sevigne or Recamier ever satin
*
But their
relations between the sexes in those days, brilliance and splendour are not of such
it was at least free from grossness. The airy impalpabilities as genius or wit. They
charms which attracted men to the Maison are solid, substantial, tangible. They are
Rambouillet were not those of sense alone, the brilliance and the splendour, not of able
or in a special degree. They were those of men and clever women, but of the uphol
conversation at once spirited, graceful, sterer, the mechanician, and the decorator.
elegant, and vivacious. To an accom There is gold, there is marble, there is lapis
plished man there is perhaps no greater lazuli; there are pictures, statues, ormolu
social treat than to hear good French clocks; there are rich velvets and cloud
spoken by an educated and clever French like lace, and a blaze of amethysts, rubies,
woman. In her hands a language of which and diamonds. There are trains of Impe
both the excellences and the defects eminent rial dimensions and tiaras of Ijnperial bright
ly qualify it for the purposes of conversational ness. And in whose honour is all this grand
combat becomes a weapon of dazzling fence. display ? To whom is the court paid by
Those delicate turns of phrase which imply this mob of sombre-clad and neatly-gloved
so much more than they express fly like men of every age, from twenty to sixty ?
Parthian shafts, and the little commonplaces Who have taken the place of the great
which may mean nothing do what the female leaders of society whose names have
pawns do when manipulated by a clever added lustre to France ? Strange as it
chess-player — everything. And in the age may seem, their successors are secondwhen the empire of Frenchwomen rested rate or third-rate actresses, opera-dancers,
upon their grace and power in conversa and singers at public rooms and public gar
tion, there was ample matter to task their dens. We do not intend to undertake the
remarkable talents. It was an age of new superfluous task of penning a moral dia
ideas. Government, religion, and philoso tribe, or inveighing against the immorality
phy: the administration of the kingdom of the age. Sermons there are, and will
and the administration of the universe ; the be, in abundance on so prolific and provok
rights of kings to be obeyed by their people ing a theme. In every age actresses and
and the right of the Creator to the adora ballet-girls have had their admirers. In
tion of his creatures; the claims of privi every age, probably, they will continue to
lege and the claims of prerogative; the have admirers. But what is worthy of note
pretensions of rank and the pretensions is this. Formerly this admiration was of
THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXI [.
1478.
�594
BEAU-MONDE AND THE DEMIMONDE IN PARIS.
an esoteric kind. The worshippers adored
their divinities in secret. The temples of
the goddesses were, at any rate, not obtrud
ed on the public eye, nor in possession of
the most open, public, and splendid streets.
The cult, too, was confined to a narrower
circle. But now all this is changed; the
fanes of the divinities ‘are splendid and in
the most splendid streets ; the cult is open,
avowed, public. The worshippers are of
every age, and are all equally indifferent to
secrecy. There is no restriction and no ex
clusion, save on two grounds — those of
poverty and intelligence. There is a kind
of intellect admitted into this gorgeous cote
rie, but it is intellect in livery. The dra
matic author and the dramatic critic are
now as much appendages to the dramatic
courtezan as her coachman and her femme de
chambre. Where professional reputation
depends on scenic effect, and scenic effect
depends upon the equivoque put into the
.actress’s mouth, and the applause with
Tvhich their delivery is received, the man
who concocts the equivoque and the man
•who criticises their delivery become equally
•objects of attention to the actress who is
looking ou^ for a clientele. Saving these
necessary exceptions, these assemblies are
• comprised of rich old men anxious to dissi;pate the money which they have made, and
•rich young men as anxious to dissipate the
•wealth which they have inherited. And
;now we hear that the wives and sisters of
these men seek admission to these Paphian
jhalls.
Jt is, indeed, not an unnatural, though it
iis far from a decent, curiosity which prompts
ladies entitled to the reputation of virtue
do examine something of the life and dounestic economy of those ladies whose very
• existence presupposes an entire repudiation
< of virtue. The married women naturally
•■desire to know something of the manners
and mein and language of the-rivals whose
■arts have diverted their own husbands’
■treasures into alien and obnoxious channels.
'When a wife hears that her husband has,
at one magnificent stroke on the Bourse,
(Carried off one or two millions of francs,
; she is curious to ascertain the process by
which no inconsiderable proportion of these
-winnings has been “ affected ” to the payiment of Madlle. Theodorine’s debts or to the
■purchase of Madlle. Valentine’s brougham.
.And the anxious mother, who has long
■dreamed of the ceremony which might
unite the fortunes of her dear Alcide with
"the dot of her opulent neighbour’s daughter,
Is tortured between the misery of frustrated
Slopes and curiosity to understand the mo
tives which impel Alcide to become the
daily visitor of Mdlle. Gabrielle in the Rue
d’Arcade, and her daily companion when
riding in the Bois de Boulogne. Certainly
the subject is a very curious one. But does
the solution of the problem quite justify
the means taken to solve it? Might not
enough be inferred from the antecedent
history of those who are the subjects of it
to dispense with the necessity of a nearer
examination? Take a number of women
of the lower classes from the different
provinces of France — with no refinement,
with a mere shred of education, and with
but small claim to what an English eye
would regard as beauty — but compensating
for lack of knowledge, education, and re
finement by a vivacity and a coquetry pe
culiarly French. Take these women up to
Paris, tutor them as stage supernumeraries,
and parade before them the example of the
arts of the more successful Eorettes. The
rest may be imagined. From these general
premises it is not difficult to conjecture the
product obtained; to conceive that manner
on which jeunes gens dote, a manner made
up of impudence and grimace ; that repar
tee which mainly consists of ,a new slang
hardly known two miles beyond the Made
line ; those doubles entendres of which per
haps memory is less the parent than instinct,
and that flattery which is always coarse and
always venal. It would be erroneous to say
that we have here given a complete picture
of the class which certain leaders of Paris
fashion wish to study. There are, in the
original, traits and features which we could
not describe, and which it is unnecessary
for us to attempt to describe, as they are por
trayed in the pages of the satirist who has im
mortalized the vices of the most corrupt city
at its most corrupt era. Juvenal will supply
what is wanting to our imperfect delinea
tion. English ladies may read him in the
vigorous paraphrases of Dryden and Gif
ford ; ’ while their French contemporaries
may arrive at a livelier conception of what
we dare not express, if only they stay till
the supper crowns the festal scene of the
masqued ball. If they outstay this, they
will have learned a lesson the value of
which we leave it for themselves to com
pute.
.
. .
It is idle to say that curiosity of this kind
is harmless because it is confined to a few.
Only a few, indeed, may have contemplated
the extreme step of being present at the
Saturnalia of the demi-monde. But how
many others have thought of them and
talked of them ? To how many leaders of
society are the doings of these women the
�THE COVERT.
subjects of daily curiosity and daily con
versation ? How many patrician. -— or, at
all events, noble — dames regular attend
ants at mass, arbiters of fashion, and orna
ments of the Church, honour with their in
quisitiveness, women of whose existence,
twenty years ago, no decent Frenchwoman
was presumed to have any knowledge ?
And do these noble ladies suppose that this
curiosity is disregarded by the adventur
esses from Arles or Strasburg, Bordeaux or
Rouen, whom successful prostitution has
dowered with lace, diamonds, carriages,
and opera-boxes ? Do they suppose that
the professed admiration of the young
Sardanapali for the ex-couturieres and bal
let-girls of Paris has not a more potent ef
fect when combined with the ill-concealed
interest of their mothers and sisters ? And
what that effect is on the men in one class,
and on the women in another, a very slight
knowledge of human nature is sufficient to
suggest. That girls of moderately good looks
will contentedly continue to ply the shuttle
at Lyons, or to drudge as household servants
in Brittany, or to trudge home to a supperless
chamber in Paris with the bare earnings of
a supernumerary or a coryphee at a small
theatre, when a mere sacrifice of chastity
may enable them not only to ruin young
dukes and counts, but to become the theme
and admiration of duchesses and countesses,
is a supposition which involves too high a
U 1 •-■! .
belief in human virtue; and the conditions
we have named are found to be fatal to the
virtue of the poorer Frenchwomen. And
as for the men, what must be the effect on
them ? Debarred from the stirring conflict
of politics; exiled, so to speak, from the
natural arena of patriotic ambition ; know
ing no literature save that of novels in
which courtezans are the heroines, and
caring for no society but that of which
courtezans are the leaders; diversifying the
excitement of the hazard-table and the
betting-room with the excitement of the
coulisses; learning from their habitual asso
ciations to lose that reverence for women
and that courteous attention to them which
are popularly supposed to have at one time
characterized the gentlemen of France —
they partially redeem the degradation which
they court by showing that even a mixture
of vapid frivolity, sensual indulgence, and
senseless extravagance is insufficient to cor
rupt a nation, unless also the female leaders
of society conspire to select for their notice
and admiration those creatures for whom
the law of the land would better have pro
vided the supervision of the police and
the certificate of professional prostitution.
When virtuous women of birth and position
rub shoulders with strumpets, protests are
useless and prophecies are superfluous; for
the taint which goes before destruction is
already poisoning the heart of the nation.
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THE COVERT.
The eagle beats his way
Strong-winged through the burning blue:
All through the heat of the day
In the covert the wood-doves coo.
Take the wings of the dove, my soul!
Take the wings of the dove!
For the sun is not thy goal,
But the secret place of love. <
Close to the earth and near,
And hidden among the flowers,
By the brink of the brooklet clear,
The dove in her covert cowers.
>‘ni Wq XT
. .ih
Take the wings of the dove, my soul I
Take the wings of the dove!
For the sun is not thy goal,
But the secret place of love.
<•
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Flee not afar, my soul
Flee not afar for rest 1
.
The tumult may round thee roll,
q
Yet the dove be in thy breast.
Take the wings of the dove, my soul!
Take the wings of the dove!
--X
For the sun is not thy goal,
But the resting place of love.
"ir Mw
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Good Words'
�596
ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE in her inmost nature, she disenthralled re
MARTYR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED ligion from bondage to temporal power,
STATES.
that her worship might be worship only in
Oration of the Hon. George Bancroft,
at the request of both Houses of Congress,
in the Hall of the House of Representa*v lives of the United States, on Monday,
Feb. 12, 1866. !
Senators, Representatives, ofAmerica: —
GOD IN HISTORY.
That God rules in the affairs of men is
as certain as any truth of physical science.
On the great moving power which is from
the beginning hangs the world of the senses
and the world of thought and action. Eternal
wisdom marshals the great procession of the
nations, working in patient continuity
through the ages, never halting, and never
abrupt, encompassing all events in its over
sight, and ever affecting its will, though
mortals may slumber in apathy or oppose
with madness. Kings are lifted up or thrown
down, nations come and go, republics flour
ish and wither, dynasties pass away like a
tale that is told; but nothing is by chance,
though men in their ignorance of causes may
think so. The deeds of time are governed
as well as judged, by the decrees of eterni
ty. The caprice of fleeting existences bends
to the immovable omnipotence which plants
its foot on all the centuries, and has neither
change of purposes nor repose. Sometimes
like a messenger through the thick darkness
of night, it steps along mysterious ways ; but
when the hour strikes for a people, or for
mankind, to pass into a new form of being,
unseen hands draw the bolts from the gates
of futurity; an all-subduing influence pre
pares the mind of men for the coming revo
lution ; those who plan resistance find them
selves in conflict with the will of Provi
dence, rather than with human devices;
and all hearts and all understandings, most
of all the opinions and influences of the
unwilling, are wonderfully attracted and
compelled to bear forward the change which
becomes more an obedience to the law of
universal nature than submission to the ar
bitrament of man.
GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.
In the fulness of time a republic rose up
in the wilderness of America. Thousands
of years had passed away before this child
of the ages could be born. From whatever
there was of good in the systems of former
centuries she drew her nourishment: the
wrecks of the past were her warnings.
With the deepest sentiment of faith fixed
spirit and in truth. The wisdom which had
passed from India through Greece, with
what Greece had added of her own; the
jurisprudence of Rome; the mediaaval mu
nicipalities ; the Teutonic method of repre
sentation ; the political experience of Eng
land ; the benignant wisdom of the exposi
tors of the law of nature and of nations in
France and Holland, all shed on her their
selectest influence. She washed the gold
of political wisdom from the sands whereever it was found; she cleft it from the
rocks; she gleaned it among ruins. Out of
all the discoveries of statesmen and sages,
out of all the experience of past human life,
she compiled a perennial political philoso
phy, the primordinal principles of national
ethics. The wise men of Europe sought the
best government in a mixture of monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy; and America
went behind t^ese names to extract from
them the vital elements of social forms, and
blend them harmoniously in the free Com
monwealth, which comes nearest to the illus
tration of the natural equality of all men.
She intrusted the guardianship of establish
ed rights to law; the movements of reform
to the Spirit of the people, and drew her
force from the happy reconciliation of both.
TERRITORIAL EXTENT OF THE REPULIC.
Republics had heretofore been limited to
small cantons or cities and their dependen
cies ; America, doing that of which the like
had not before been known upon the earth,
or believed by kings and statesmen to be
possible, extended her republic across a
continent. Under her auspices the vine of
liberty took deep root and filled the land;
the hills were covered with its shadow ; its
boughs were like the goodly cedars, and
reached unto both oceans. The fame of
this only daughter of freedom went out
into all the lands of the earth; from her
the human race drew hope.
PROPHECIES ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF
SLAVERY.
Neither hereditary monarchy nor heredi
tary aristocracy planted itself on our soil;
the only hereditary condition that fastened
itself upon us was servitude. Nature works
in sincerity, and is ever true to its law.
The bee hives honey, the. viper distils pois
on ; the vine stores its juices, and so do the
poppy and the upas. In like manner, every
thought and every action ripens its seed,
each in its kind. In the individual man,
�ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
. 597
and still more in a nation, a just idea gives position of Virginia and the South that the
life, and progress, and glory; a false j®pn- clause of Jefferson was restored, and the
ception portends disaster, shame, and death. whole Northwestern Territory — all the
A hundred and twenty years ago, a West' territory that then belonged to the nation
Jersey Quaker wrote : “ this trade of im — was reserved for the labor of freemen.
porting slaves is dark gloominess hanging
over the land; the consequences will be DESPAIR OK THE MEN OF THE REVO’‘£l
" lution.
grievous to posterity.”. At the North the
growth of slavery was arrested by natural
The hope prevailed in Virginia that the
causes; in the region nearest the tropics it abolition of the slave trade would bring
throve rankly, and worked itself into the with it the gradual abolition of slavery ; but
organism of the rising States. Virginia the expectation was doomed to disappoint
stood between the two; with soil, and cli ment. In supporting incipient measures
mate, resources demanding free labour, for emancipation, Jefferson encountered
and yet capable of the profitable employ difficulties greater than he could overcome;
ment of the slave. She was the land of and after vain wrestlings, the words that
great statesmen ; and they saw the danger broke from him, “ I tremble for my coun
of her being whelmed under the rising flood try, when I reflect that God is just, that his
in time to struggle against the delusions of justice cannot sleep forever,” were words
avarice and pride. Ninety-four years ago, of despair. It was the desire of Washing
the Legislature of Virginia addressed the ton’s heart that Virginia should remove
British king, saying that the trade in slaves slavery by a public act; and as the pros
was “ of great inhumanity,” was opposed to pect of a general emancipation grew more
the “ security and happiness ” of their con and more dim he, in utter hopelessness of
stituents, “ would in time have the most the action of the State, did all that he could
destructive influence,” and “ endanger their by bequeathing freedom to his own slaves.
very existence.” And the king answered Good and true men had, from the days of
them, that “ upon pain of-his highest dis 1776, thought of colonizing the negro in
pleasure, the importation of slaves should the home of his ancestors. But the idea of
not be in any respect obstructed. “ Phar colonization was thought to increase the dif
isaical Britain,” wrote Franklin in behalf of ficulty of emancipation; and in spite of
Virginia, “to pride thyself in setting free a strong support, while it accomplished much
single slave that happened to land on thy good for Africa, it. proved impracticable as
coasts, while thy laws continue a traffic a remedy at home. Madison, who in early
whereby so many hundreds of thousands are life disliked slavery so much that he wished
dragged into a slavery that is entailed on “ to depend as little as possible on the labor
their posterity.” “A serious view of this of slaves ; ” Madison, who held that where
subject,” said Patrick Henry in 1773, “ gives slavery exists “ the republican theory be
a gloomy prospect to future times.” In the comes fallaciotis; ” Madison, who in the
same year George Mason wrote to the Leg last years of his life would not consent to
islature of Virginia: “ The laws of impar the annexation of Texas, lest his country
tial Providence may avenge our injustice men should fill it with slaves ; Madison, who
upon our posterity.” In Virginia, and in said, “ slavery is the greatest evil under
the Continental Congress, Jefferson, with which the nation labors, a portentous evil,
the approval of Edmund Pendleton, brand an evil — moral, political and economical —ed the slave trade as piracy; and he fixed a sad blot on our free country,” went mourn
in the Declaration of Independence as the fully into old age with the cheerless words:
corner stone of America: “ All men are “ No satisfactory plan has yet been devised
created equal, with an unalienable right to for taking out the stain.”
liberty.” On the first organization of tem
NEW VIEWS OF SLAVERY.
porary governments for the continental do
main Jefferson, but for the default of New
The men of the Revolution passed away.
Jersey, would, in 1784, have consecrated A new generation sprang up, impatient that
every part of that territory to freedom. In an institution to which they clung should be
the formation of the National Constitution condemned as inhuman, unwise and unjust;
Virginia, opposed by a part of New Eng in the throes of discontent at the self-re
land vainly struggled to abolish the slave proach of their fathers, and blinded by the
trade at once and forever; and when the lustre of wealth to be acquired by the cul
ordinance of 1787 was introduced by Na ture of a new staple, they devised the theo
than Dane, without the clause prohibiting ry that slavery, which they would not abol
slavery, it was through the favourable dis ish, was not evil, but good. They turned
�598
ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
on the friends of colonization, and confi
dently demanded, “ Why take black men
from a civilized and Christian country, where
their labor is a source of immense gain and
a power to control the markets of the
world, and send them to a land of ignorance,
idolatry, and indolence, which was the home
of their forefathers, but not theirs ? Slav
ery is a blessing. Were they not in their
ancestral land naked, scarcely lifted above
brutes, ignorant of the course of the sun,
controlled by nature ? And in their new
abode, have they not been taught to know
the difference of the seasons, to plough, to
plant and reap, to drive oxen, to tame the
horse, to exchange their scanty dialect for
the richest of all the languages among men,
and the stupid adoration of follies for the
purest religion ? And since slavery is good
for the blacks, it is good for their masters,
bringing opulence and the opportunity of
educating a race. The slavery of the black
is good in itself; he shall serve the white
man forever.” And nature, which better
understood the quality of fleeting interest
and passion, laughed, as it caught the
echo: “ man ” and “ forever 1 ”
SLAVERY AT HOME.
A regular development of pretensions fol
lowed the new declaration with logical con
sistency. Under the old declaration every
one of the States had retained, each for itself,
the right of manumitting all slaves by an
ordinary act of legislation ; now, the power
of the people over servitude through their
legislatures was curtailed, and the privil
eged class was swift in imposing legal and
constitutional obstruction, on the people
themselves. The power of emancipation
was narrowed or taken away. The slave
might not be disquieted by education. There
remained an unconfessed consciousness that
the system of bondage was wrong, and a
restless memory that it was at variance
with the true American tradition, its safety
was therefore to be secured by political or
ganization. The generation that made the
Constitution took care for the predomi
nance of freedom in Congress, by the ordi
nance of Jefferson ; the new school aspired
to secure for slavery an equality of votes in
the Senate; and while it hinted at an or
ganic act that should concede to the collec
tive South a veto power on national legisla
tion, it assumed that each State separately
had the right to revise and nullify laws of
the United States, according to the discre
tion of its judgment.
SLAVERY AND FOREIGN RELATIONS.
The new theory hung as a bias on the for
eign relations of the country; there could be
no recognition of Hayti, nor even the Amer
ican colony of Liberia; and the world was
given to understand that the establishment
of free labor in Cuba would be a reason for
wresting that island from Spain. Territo
ries were annexed; Louisiana, Florida, Tex
as, half of Mexico; slavery must have its
share in them all, and it accepted for a time
a dividing line between the unquestioned
domain of free labor and that in which in
voluntary labor was to be tolerated. A few
years passed away, and the new school,
strong and arrogant, demanded and recived an apology for applying the Jefferson
proviso to Oregon.
SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY.
The application of that proviso was inter
rupted for three administrations; but justice
moved steadily onward. In the news that the
men of California had chosen freedom, Cal
houn heard the knell of parting slavery7; and
on his deathbed he counselled secession.
Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison,
had died despairing of the abolition of slav
ery ; Calhoun died in despair at the growth
of freedom., His system rushed irresistibly
to its natural development. The death
struggle for California was followed by a
short truce; but the new school of politicians
who said that slavery was not evil, but good,
soon sought to recover the ground they had
lost, and confident of securing Texas, they
demanded that the established line in the
territories between freedom and slavery
should be blotted out. The country, believ
ing in the strength and enterprise and ex
pansive energy of freedom, made answer,
though reluctantly: “ Be it so ; let there be
no strife between brethren ; let freedom and
slavery compete for the territories on equal
terms, in a fair field under an impartial ad
ministration ; ” and on this theory, if on any,
the contest might have been left to the de
cision of time.
DEED SCOTT DECISION.
The South started back in appallment
from its victory; for it knew that a fair
competition foreboded its defeat. But where
could it now find an ally to save it from its
own mistake ? What I have next to say is
spoken with no emotion but regret. Our
meeting to-day is, as it were, at the grave,
in the presence of Eternity, and the truth
must be uttered in soberness and sincerity.
�ORATION OF THE. HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
In a great republic, as was observed more
than two thousand years ago, any attempt
to overturn the state owes its strength to aid
from some branch of the government. The
Chief Justice of the United States, without
any necessity or occasion, volunteered to
come to the rescue of the theory of slavery.
And from his court there lay no appeal but
to the bar of humanity and history. Against
the Constitution, against the memory of the
nation, against a previous decision, against
a series of enactments, he decided that the
slave is property, that slave property is en
titled to no less protection than any other
property, that the Constitution upholds it in
every territory against any act of a local
Legislature, and even against Congress it
self ; or, as the President tersely promulgat
ed the saying : “ Kansas is as much a slave
. State as South Carolina or Georgia ; slav
ery, by virtue of the Constitution, exists in
every territory.” The municipal character
of slavery being thus taken away, and slave
property decreed to be “ sacred,” the au
thority of the courts was invoked to intro
duce it by the comity of law into States
where slavery had been abolished; and in
one of the courts of the United States a
judge pronounced the African slave trade
legitimate, and numerous and powerful ad
vocates demanded its restoration.
TANEY AND SLAVE RACES.
Moreover, the Chief Justice, in his elabo
rate opinion, announced what had never
been heard from any magistrate of Greece
or Rome — what was unknown to civil law,
and canon law, and feudal law, and comm on
law, and constitutional law; unknown to
Jay, to Rutledge, Ellsworth and Marshall
— that there are “ slave races.” The spirit
of evil is intensely logical. Having the au
thority of this decision, five States swiftly
followed the earlier example of a sixth, and
opened the way for reducing the free negro
to bondage; the migrating free negro be
came a slave if he but touched the soil of a
seventh ; and an eighth, from its extent and
soil and mineral resources, destined to in
calculable greatness, closed its eyes on its
coming prosperity, and enacted — as by Ta
ney’s decision it had the right to do — that
every free black man who would live within
its limits must accept the condition of slav
ery for himself‘and his posterity.
SECESSION RESOLVED ON.
Only one step more remained to be taken.
Jefferson and the leading statesmen of his
day held fast to the idea that the enslave
ment of the African was socially, morally
599
and politically wrong. The new school was
founded exactly upon the opposite idea;
and they resolved first to distract the demo
cratic party for which the Supreme Court
had now furnished the means, and then to
establish a new government, with negro
slavery for its corner stone, as socially, mor
ally and politically right.
THE ELECTION.
As the presidential election drew on, one
of the old traditional parties did not make
its appearance; the other reeled as it sought
to preserve its old position; and the candi
date who most nearly represented its best
opinion, driven by patriotic zeal, roamed
the country from end to end to speak for
union, eager at least to confront its enemies,
yet not having hope that it would find its
deliverance through him. The storm rose
to a whirlwind ; who should allay its wrath ?
The most experienced statesmen of the
country had failed ; there was no hope from
those who were great after the flesh; could
relief come from one whose wisdom was like
the wisdom of little children ?
EARLY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The choice of America fell on a man born
west of the Alleghanies, in the cabin of poor
people of Hardin county, Kentucky — Abra
ham Lincoln.
His mother could read, but not write ; his
father could do neither ; but his parents sent
him, with an old spelling-book, to school,
and he learned in his childhood to do both.
When eight years old he floated down the
Ohio with his father on a raft which bore
the family and all their possessions to the
shore of Indiana; and, child as he was, he
gave help as they toiled through dense for
ests to the interior of Spencer county.
There in the land of free labor he grew up
in a log cabin, with the solemn solitude for
his teacher in his meditative hours.
Of
Asiatic literature he knew only the Bible;
of Greek, Latin, and medieval, no more
than the translation of 2Esop’s Fables; of
English, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
The traditions of Georgfe Fox and William
Penn passed to him dimly along the lines .of'
two centuries through his ancestors, who
were Quakers.
HIS EDUCATION.
Otherwise his education was altogether
American. The Declaration of Independ
ence was his compendium of political wis
dom, the life of Washington his constant
study, and something of Jefferson and Madi
son reached him through Henry Clay, whom
�600
ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
he honoured from boyhood. For the re^t,
from day to day, he lived the life of the
American people; walked in its light; rea
soned with its reason, thought with its pow
er of thought; felt the beatings of its mighty
heart; and so was in every way a child of
nature—a child of the West—a child of
America.
HIS PROGRESS IN LIFE.
At nineteen, feeling impulses of ambition
to get on in the world, he engaged himself
to go down the Mississippi in a flat boat,
receiving ten dollars a month for his wages,
and afterwards he made the trip once more.
At twenty-one he drove his father’s cattle
as the family migrated to Illinois, and split
rails to fence in the new homestead in the
wild. At twenty-three he was a captain of
volunteers in the Black Hawk war. He
kept a shop ; he learned something of sur
veying ; but of English literature he added
to Bunyan nothing but Shakespeare’s plays.
At twenty-five he was elected to the Legis
lature of Illinois, where he served eight
years. At twenty-seven he was admitted
to the bar. In 1837 he chose his home at
Springfield, the beautiful centre of the
richest land in the State. In 1847 he was
a member of the national Congress, where
he voted about forty times in favour of the
principle of the Jefferson proviso. In 1854
he gave his influence to elect 'from Illinois
to the American Senate a democrat who
would certainly do justice to Kansas. In
1858, as the rival of Douglas, he went be
fore the people of the mighty Prairie State,
saying: “ This Union cannot permanently
endure, half slave and half free ; the Union
will not be dissolved, but the house will
cease to be divided.” And now, in 1861,
with no experience whatever as an exec
utive officer, while States were madly fly
ing from their orbit, and wise men knew
not where to find counsel, this descendant
of Quakers, this pupil of Bunyan, this
child of the great West was elected Presi
dent of America.
He measured the difficulty of the duty
that devolved on him, and was resolved to
fulfil it.
HE GOES TO WASHINGTON.
As on the eleventh of February, 1861, he
left Springfield, which for a quarter of a
century had been his happy home, to the
crowd of his friends and neighbours whom
he was never more to meet, he spoke a
solemn farewell: “ I know not how soon I
shall see you again. A duty has devolved
upon me, greater than that which has de
volved upon any other man since Washing
ton. He never would have succeeded, ex
cept for the aid of Divine Providence, upon
which he at all times relied. On the same
Almighty Being I place my reliance. Pray
that I may receive that Divine assistance,
without which I cannot succeed, but with
which success is certain.” To the men of
Indiana he said : > “ I am but an accidental,
temporary instrument; it is your business
to rise up and preserve the Union and lib
erty.” At the capital of Ohio he said:
“ Without a name, without a reason why I
should have a name, there has fallen upon
me a task such as did not rest even upon
the Father of his country.” At various
places in New York, especially at Albany
before the Legislature, which tendered him
the united support of the great Empire
State, he said: “ While I hold myself the
humblest of all the individuals who have
ever been elevated to the Presidency, I
have a more difficult task to perform than
any of them. I bring a true heart to the
work. I must rely upon the' people of the
whole country for support; and with their
sustaining aid even I, humble as I am, can
not fail to carry the ship of State safely
through the storm.” To the Assembly of
New Jersey, at Trenton, he explained: “ I
shall take the ground I deem .most just to
the North, the East, the West, the South,
and the whole country, in good temper,
certainly with no malice to any section. I
am devoted to peace, but it may. be neces
sary to put the foot down firmly.” In the
old Independence Hall of Philadelphia he
said: “ I have never had a feeling politi
cally that did not spring from the senti
ments embodied in the Declaration of In
dependence, which gave liberty, not alone
to the people of this country, but to the
world in all future time. If the country
cannot be- saved without giving up that
principle, I would rather be assassinated on
the spot than surrender it. I have said
nothing but what I am willing to live and
die by.
IN WHAT STATE HE FOUND THE
.COUNTRY.
Travelling in the dead of night to escape
assassination, Lincoln arrived at Washing
ton nine days before his inauguration. The
outgoing President, at the opening of the
session of Congress had still kept as the
majority of his advisers men engaged in
treason : had declared that in case of even
an “ imaginary ” apprehension of danger
from notions of freedom among the slaves,
“ disunion would become inevitable.” Lin-
�ORATION OF THE HOI . GEORGE BANCROFT.
601
coin and others had questioned the opinion of of th© South, or any decision of the Su
Taney; such impugning he ascribed to the preme Court; and, nevertheless, the seced
“ factious temper of the times.” The fa ing States formed at Montgomery a provi
vorite doctrine of the majority of the sional government, and pursued their re
democratic party on the power of a terri lentless purpose with such success that the
torial legislature over slavery he condemned Lieutenant-General feared the city of
as an attack on “ the sacred rights of pro Washington might find itself “ included in
perty.” The State Legislatures, he insist a foreign country,” and proposed, among
ed, must repeal what he called “their un the options for the consideration of Lincoln,
constitutional and obnoxious enactments,” to bid the seceded States “ depart in peace.”
and which, if such, were “ null and void,” The great republic seemed to have its em
or “ it would be impossible for any human blem in the vast unfinished capitol, at that
power to save the Union ! ” Nay 1 if these moment surrounded by masses of stone and
unimportant acts were not repealed, “ the prostrate columns never yet lifted into
injured States would be justified in revolu their places: seemingly the monument of
tionary resistance to the government of the high but delusive aspirations, the confused
Union.” He maintained that no State wreck of inchoate magnificence, sadder
might secede at its sovereign will and than any ruin of Egyptian Thebes or
pleasure; that the Union was meant for Athens.
perpetuity; and that Congress might at
tempt to preserve, but only by conciliation;
HIS INAUGURATION.
that “the sword was not placed in their
The fourth of March came. With inhands to preserve it by force; ” that “ the stincftve wisdom the new President, speak
last desperate remedy of a despairing peo ing to the people on taking the oath of
ple ” would be “ an explanatory amend office, put aside every question that divided
ment recognizing the decision of the Su the country, and gained a right to univer
preme Court of the United States.” The sal support, by planting himself on the
American Union he called “ a confederacy ” single idea of Union. That Union he de
of States, and he thought it a duty to make clared to be unbroken and perpetual; and
the appeal for amendment “ before any of he announced his determination to fulfil
these States should separate themselves “the simple duty of taking care that the
from the Union.” The views off the Lieu laws be faithfully executed in all the
tenant-General, containing some patriotic States.” Seven days later, the convention
advice, “ conceded the right of secession,” of confederate States unanimously adopted
pronounced a quadruple rupture of the a constitution of their own; and the new
Union “ a smaller evil than the reuniting of government was authoritatively announ
the fragments by the sword,” and “ eschew ced to be founded on the idea that slave
ed the idea of invading a seceded State. ry is the natural and normal condition
After changes in the Cabinet, the Presi of the negro race. The issue was made up
dent informed Congress that “ matters were whether the great republic was to main
still worse; ” that “ the South suffered se tain its providential place in the history of
rious grievances,” which should be redress mankind, or a rebellion founded on negro
ed “ in peace.” The day after this message slavery gain a recognition of its principle'
the flag of the Union was fired upon from throughout the civilized world. To the
Fort Moultrie, and the insult was not disaffected Lincoln had said: “ You have
revenged or noticed. Senators in Congress no conflict without being yourselves the ag
telegraphed to their constituents to seize gressors.” To fire the passions of the South
the national forts, and they were not ar ern portion of the people the confederate
rested. The finances of the country were government chose to become aggressors;
grievously embarrassed. Its little army and on the morning of the 12th of April
was not within reach — the part of it in began the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
Texas,' with all its stores, were made over and compelled its evacuation.
by its commander to the seceding insur
UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE
gents. One State after another voted in
convention to go out of the Union. A
It is the glory of the late President that
peace Congress, so-called, met at the re he had perfect faith in the perpetuity of
quest of Virginia, to concert the terms of the Union. Supported in advance by
capitulation for the continuance of the Douglas, who spoke as with the voice of a
Union. Congress in both branches sought million, he instantly called a meeting of
to devise conciliatory expedients ; the ter Congress, and summoned the people to
ritories of the country were organized in a come up and repossess the forts, places and
manner not to conflict with any pretensions property which had been seized from the
�602
ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
Union. The men of the North were trained
in schools; industrious and frugal; many
of them delicately bred, their minds teem
ing with ideas and fertile in plans of enter
prise ; given to the culture of the arts;
eager in the pursuit of wealth, yet employ
ing wealth less for ostentation than for de
veloping the resources of their country;
seeking happiness in the calm of domestic
life; and such lovers of peace that for gen
erations they have been reputed unwarlike.
Now, at the cry of their country in its dis
tress, they rose up with unappeasable patri
otism : not hirelings'— the purest and of the
best blood in the land; sons of a pious
ancestry, with a clear perception of duty,
unclouded faith and fixed resojve to succeed,
they thronged round the President to sup
port the wronged, the beautiful flag of the
nation. The halls of theological semi
naries sent forth their young men, whose
lips were touched with eloquence, whose
hearts kindled with devotion to serve in the
ranks, and make their way to command
only as they learned the art of war. Strip
lings in the colleges, as well as the most
gentle and the most studious; those of
sweetest temper and loveliest character and
brightest genius passed from their classes to
the camp. The lumbermen sprang forward
from the forest, the mechanics from their
benches, where they had been trained by
the exercise of political rights to share
the Hfe and hope of the Republic, to feel
their responsibility to their forefathers,
their posterity and mankind, went forth re
solved that their dignity as a constituent
part of this republic should not be impaired.
Farmers and sons of farmers left the land
but half ploughed, the grain but half plant
ed, and, taking up the musket, learned to
face without fear the presence of peril- and
the coming of death in the shocks of war,
while their hearts were still attracted to the
charms of their rural life, and all the tender
affections of home. Whatever there was of
truth and faith and public love in the com
mon heart broke out with one expression.
The mighty winds blew from every quarter
to fan the flame of the sacred and unquench
able fire.
in an eminent degree attained to freedom
of industry and the security of person and
property. Its middle class rose to greatness.
Out of that class sprung the noblest poets
and philosophers, whose words built up the
intellect of its people; skilful navigators,
to find out the many paths of the ocean;
discoverers in natural science, whose inven
tions guided its industry to wealth, till it
equalled any nation of the world in letters,
and excelled all in trade and commerce.
But its government was become a govern
ment of land, and not of men; every blade
of grass was represented, but only a small
minority of the people. In the transition
from the feudal forms, the heads of the so
cial organization freed themselves from the
military services which were the conditions
of their tenure, and throwing the burden on
the industrial classes, kept all the soil to
themselves. Vast estates that had been
managed by monasteries as endowments for
religion and charity were impropriated to
swell the wealth of courtiers and favorites;
and the commons, where the poor man once
had his right of pasture, were taken away,
and, under forms of law, enclosed distributively within their own domains. Although
no law forbade any inhabitant from pur
chasing land, the costliness of the transfer
constituted a prohibition; so that it was the
rule of that country that the plough should
not be in the hands of its owner. The
church was rested on a contradiction,
claiming to be an embodiment of absolute
truth, and yet was a creature of the statute
book.
HER SENTIMENTS.
The progress of time increased the terri
ble contrast between wealth and poverty;
in their years of strength, the laboring peo
ple, cut off from all share in governing the
State, derived a scanty support from the
severest toil, and had no hope for old age
but in public charity or death. A grasping
ambition had dotted the world with military
posts, kept watch over our borders on the
northeast, at the Bermudas, in the West
Indies, held the gates of the Pacific, of the
Southern and of the Indian Ocean, hover
ed on our northwest at Vancouver, held the
THE WAR A WORLD-WIDE WAR.
whole of the newest continent, and the en
For a time the war was thought to be trances to the old Mediterranean and Red
confined to our own domestic affairs; but Sea ; and garrisoned forts all the way from
it was soon seen that it involved the desti Madras to China.
That aristocracy had
nies of mankind, and its principles and gazed with terror on the growth of a com
causes shook the politics of Europe to the monwealth where freeholds existed by the
centre, and from Lisbon to Pekin, divided million, and religion was not in bondage to
the governments of the world.
the state ; and now they could not repress
GREAT BRITAIN.
their joy at its perils. They had not one
There was a kingdom whose people had I word of sympathy for the kind-hearted
�ORATION OF THE HON
poor man’s son whom America had chosen
for her chief; they jeered at his large hands,
and long feet, and ungainly stature; and
the British' secretary of state for foreign af
fairs made haste to send word through the
palaces of Europe that the great republic
was in its agony,, that the republic was no
more, that a head stone was all that remain
ed due by the law of nations to “ the late
Union.” But it is written: “ Let the dead
bury their dead ; ” they may not bury the
living. Let the dead bury their dead; let
a bill of reform remove the worn-out gov
ernment of a class, and infuse new life into
the British constitution by confiding right
fill power to the people.
HER POLICY.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
603
land. Thrice only in all its history has that
yearning been fairly met; in the days of
Hampden and Cromwell, again in the first
ministry of the elder Pitt, and once again in
the ministry of Shelburne. Not that there
have not at all times been just men among
the peers of Britain — like Halifax in the
days of James the Second, or a Granville, an
Argyll, or a Hdughton in ours ; and we can
not be indifferent to a country that produces
statesmen like Cobden and' Bright; but the
best bower anchor of peace was the working
class of England, who suffered most from
our civil war, but who, while they broke
their diminished bread in sorrow, always en
couraged us to persevere.
FRANCE AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE. ■
*
The act of recognizing the rebel belliger
But while the vitality of America is inde
structible, the British government hurried ents wagLconcerted with France ; France, so
to do what never before had been done by beloved in America, on which she had con
Christian powers, what was in direct con ferred th® greatest benefits that one people
flict with its own exposition of public law in ever conferred on another^ France, which
the time of our struggle for. independence. stands foremost on the continent of Europe
Though the insurgent States had not a ship for the solidity of her culture, as well as for
in an open harbor, it invested them with the bravery and ■ generous impulses of her
all the rights of a belligerent, even on the sons ; France, which for centuries had been
ocean; and this, too, when the rebellion moving steadily in its own way towards in
was not only directed against the gentlest tellectual and policial freewom. The poli
and most beneficent government on earth, cy regarding further^ponization of Ameri
without a shadow of justifiable cause, but ca by European power®!, known commonly
when the rebellion was directed against Ma as the doctrine of Mowoe, had its origin in
man nature itself for the perpetual enslave France; and if it takes any man’s name,
ment of a race. And the effect of this re should bear the name of Turgot. It was
cognition was that acts in themselves pirati adopted by Louis the Sixteenth, in the cabi
cal found shelter in British courts of law. net of which Vergennes was the most imThe resources of British capitalist^ their portant member. It is emphatically the poliworkshops, their armories, their private ar cy of France^ to which, with transient de
senals, their shipyards, were in league with viations, the Bourbons, the First Napoleon,
the insurgents, and every British harbor in the House of Orleans have ever adhered.
the wide world became a safe port for British
ships, manned by British sailors, and arrngfl THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON AND MEXICO.
The late President was perpetually har
with British guns, to prey on our peaceful
commerce ; even on our ships coming from assed by rumors that the Emperor Napoleon
British ports, freighted with British pro the Third desired formally to recognize the
ducts, or that had carried gifts of grain to States in rebellion as an independent power,
the English poor. The prime minister in and that England held him back by her re
the House of Commons, sustained by cheers, luctance, or France by her traditions of
scoffed at the thought that their laws could freedom, or he himself by his own better
be amended at our request, so as to pre judgment and clear perception of events.
serve real neutrality; and to remonstrances But the republic of Mexico, on our borders,
now owned to have been just, their secreta was, like ourselves, distracted by a rebellion,
ry answered that they could not change and from a similar cause. The monarchy
of England . had fastened upon us slavery
their laws ad-infinitum.
which did not disappear with independence;
RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND.
in like manner, the ecclesiastical policy es
The people of America then wished, as tablished by the Spanish council of the In
they always have wished, as they still wish, dies, in the days of Charles the Fifth and
friendly relations with England; and no Philip the Second, retained its vigor in the
man in Europe or America can desire it Mexican Republic. The fifty years of civil
' more strongly than I. This country has al war under which she had languished was
ways yearned for good relations with Eng- I due to the bigoted system which was the
�604
ORATION OF THE HOnJ GEORGE BANCROFT. '
legacy of monarchy, just as here the inheri
tance of slavery kept alive political strife,
and culminated in civil war. As with us
there could be no quiet but through the end
of slavery, so in Mexico there could be no
prosperity until the crushing tyranny of in
tolerance should cease. The party of slav
ery in the United States sent their emissa
ries to Europe to solicit aid; and so did the
party of the church in Mexico, as organized
by the old Spanish council of the Indies,
but with a different result. Just as the re
publican party had made an end of the re
bellion, and was establishing the best gov
ernment ever known in that region, and giv
ing promise to the nation of order, peace,
and prosperity, word was brought us, in the
moment of our deepest affliction, that the
*
French emperor, moved by a desire to erect
in North America a buttress for Imperial
ism, would transform the republic of Mexico
into a secundo-geniture for the house of
Hapsburgh. America might complain ; she
>could not then interpose, and delay seemed
justifiable. It was seen that Mexico could
not, with all its wealth of land, compete in
cereal products with' our northwest, nor, in
tropical products, with Cuba; nor could it,
under a disputed dynasty, attract capital, or
create public works, or develop mines, or
borrow money; so that the imperial system
of Mexico, which was forced at once to rec
ognize the wisdom of the policy of the repub
lic by adopting it, could prove only an un
remunerating drain on the French treasury
for the support of an Austrian adventurer.
THE PERPETUITY OF REPUBLICAN INSTI
TUTIONS.
Meantime, a new series of momentous
questions grows up, and forces themselves
on the consideration of the thoughtful. Re
publicanism has learned how to introduce
into its constitution every element of order,
as well as every element of freedom; but
thus far the continuity of its government has
seemed to depend on the continuity of elec
tions. It is now tobe considered how per
petuity is to be secured against foreign oc
cupation. The successor of Charles the
First of England dated his reign from the
death of his father; the Bourbons, coming
back after a long series of revolutions,
claimed that the Louis who became king was
the eighteenth of that name. The present
emperor of the French, disdaining a title
from election alone, is called the third of his
name. Shall a republic have less power of
continuance when invading armies prevent
a peaceful resort to the ballot box ? What
force shall it attach to intervening legisla
tion ? What validity to debts contracted
for its overthrow ? These momentous
questions are by the invasion of Mexico
thrown up for solution. A free State once
truly constituted should be as undying as its
people; the republic of Mexico must rise
again.
THE POPE OF ROME AND THE REBELLION.
It was the condition of affairs in Mexico
that involved the Pope of Rome in our dif
ficulties so far that he alone among temporal
sovereigns recognized the chief of the Con
federate States as a president, and his sup
porters as a people; and in letters to two
great prelates of the Catholic Church in the
United States gave counsels for peace at a
time when peace meant the victory of se
cession. Yet events move as they are or
dered. The blessing of the Pope at Rome
on the head of Duke Maximilian could not
revive in the nineteenth century the eccle
siastical policy of the sixteenth; and the re
sult is only a new proof that there can be no
prosperity in the State without religious
freedom.
THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA.
When it came home to the consciousness
of the Americans that the war which they
were waging was a war for the liberty of all
the nations of the world, for freedom itself,
they thanked God for the severity of the
trial to which he put their sincerity, and
nerved themselves for their duty with an
inexorable will. The President was led
along by the greatness of their self-sacrifi
cing example; and as a child, in a dark
night on a rugged way, catches hold of the
hand of its father for guidance and support,
he clung fast to the hand of the people, and
moved Calmly through the gloom. While
the statesmanship of Europe was scoffing
at the hopeless vanity of their efforts, they
put forth such miracles of energy as the
history of the world had never known.
The navy of the United States drawing into
the public service the willing militia of the
seas, doubled its tonnage in eight months,
and established an actual blockade from
Cape Hatteras to the Rio Grande. In the
course of the war it was increased five fold
in men and in tonnage, while the inventive
genius of the country devised more effec
tive kinds of ordnance, and new forms of
naval architecture in wood and iron. There
went into the field, for various terms of
service, about two million men; and in
March last the men in service exceeded a
million; that is to say, one of every two
able-bodied men took some part in the war;
and at one time every fourth able-bodied
I man was in the field. In one single month.
�ORATION OF THE HO-N.
GEORGE BANCROFT.1
605
one hundred and sixty-five thousand were Mississippi, which would not be divided,
recruited into service. Once, within four and the range of mountains which car
weeks, Ohio organized and placed in the ried the stronghold of the free through
field, forty-two regiments of infantry — Western Virginia and Kentucky and Ten
nearly thirty-six thouand men; and Ohio nessee to the highlands of Alabama. But
was like other States in the east and in the it invoked the still higher power of immor
west. The well-mounted cavalry numbered tal justice. In ancient Greece, where ser
eighty-four thousand ; of horses there were vitude was the universal custom, it was
bought, first and last, two thirds of a mil held that if a child were to strike its parent,
lion. In the movements of troops science the slave should defend the parent, and by
came in aid of patriotism ; so that, to choose that act recover his freedom. After vain
a single instance out of many, an army resistance, Lincoln, who had tried to solve
twenty-three thousand strong, with its ar the question by gradual emancipation, by
tillery, trains, baggage and animals, were colonization, and by compensation, at last
moved by rail from the Potomac to the Ten saw that slavery must be abolished, or the
nessee, twelve hundred miles in seven days. Republic must die; and on the 1st day of
In the long marches, wonders of military January, 1863, he wrote liberty on the ban
construction bridged the rivers; and where- ners of the armies. When this proclamaever an army halted, ample supplies await tion, which struck the fetters from three
ed them at their ever changing base. The millions of slaves reached Europe, Lord
vile thought that life is the greatest of Russell, a countryman of Milton and Wil
blessings did not rise up. In six hundred berforce, eagerly put himself forward to
and twenty-five battles, and severe skir speak of it in
name of mankind, saying:
mishes blood flowed like water. It streamed “ It is of a very strange nature ; ” “a meas
over the grassy plains ; it stained the rocks; ure of war of a very questionable kind; ”
the undergrowth of the forest was red an “ act of vengeance on the slave owner,”
with it; and the armies marched on with that does no more thanEErofess to emanci
majestic courage from one conflict to anoth pate slaves where the United States authorer, knowing that they were fighting for God ities cannot make emancipation a reality.”
and liberty. The organization of the medi Now there was no pa™ of the country emcal department met its infinitely multiplied braced in the proclamation where the United
duties with exactness and despatch. At the States could not and did hot make emanci. news of a battle, the best surgeons of our jfflffipn a reality. Those who saw Lincoln
cities hastened to the field, to offer the most frequently had nev^fibefore heard
zealous aid of the greatest experience and him speak with bitterness of any human
skill. The gentlest and most refined of being ; but he did not conceal how keenly
women left homes of luxury and, ease to he felt that he had been wronged by Lord
build hospital tents near the armies, and Russell. And he wrote, in reply to another
serve as nurses to the sick and dying. Be caviller: “ The emancipation policy, and
sides the large supply of religious teachers the use of colored troops/gvere the greatest
by the public, the congregations spared to blows yet dealt to the rebellion. The job was
their brothers in the field the ablest minis a great national one ; and let none be slight
ters.
The Christian Commission, which ed who bore an honorable part in it. I hope
expended five and a half millions, sent four peace will come soon, and come to stay;
thousand clergymen chosen out of the best, then there will be some black men who can
to keep un soiled the religious character of remember that they have helped mankind
the men, and made gifts of clothes and food to this great consummation.”
and medicine. The organization of private
RUSSIA AND CHINA.
charity assumed unheard of dimensions.
■The Sanitary Commission, which had seven
The proclamation accomplished its end,
thousand societies, distributed, under the for, during the war, our armies came into
direction of an unpaid board, spontaneous military possession of every State in rebel
contributions to the amount of fifteen mil lion. Then, too, was called forth the
lions, in supplies or money — a million and new power that comes from the simultane
a half in money from California alone — ous diffusion of thought and feeling among
and dotted the scene of war from Paducah the nations of mankind. The mysterious
to Port Royal, from Belle Plain, Virginia, sympathy of the millions throughout the •
to Browsnville, Texas, with homes and world was given spontaneously. The best
lodges.
writers of Europe waked the conscience
of the thoughtful, till the intelligent moral
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
sentiment of the Old World was drawn
pi The country had for its allies "the River to the side of the unlettered statesman
�606
ORATION OF THE HONF GEORGE BANCROFT.
of the West. Russia, whose emperor had
just accomplished one of the grandest acts
in the course of time by raising twenty mil
lions of bondmen into' freeholders, and thus
assuring the growth and culture of a Rus
sian people, remained our unwavering
friend. From the oldest abode of civiliza
tion, which gave the first example of an im
perial government with equality among the
people, Prince Kung, the secretary of state
for foreign affairs, remembered the saying
of Confucius, that we should not do to
others what we would not that others should
do to us, and in the name of the Emperor
of China closed its ports against the war
ships and privateers of “ the seditious.”
CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR.
The war continued, with all the peoples
of the world for anxious spectators. Its
cares weighed heavily on Lincoln, and his
face was ploughed with the furrows of
thought and sadness. With malice towards
none, free from the spirit of revenge, victo
ry made him importunate for peace; and
his enemies never doubted his word, or
despaired of his abounding clemency. He
longed to utter pardon as the word for all,
but not unless the freedom of the negro
should be assured. The grand battles of
Mill Spring which gave us Nashville, of
Fort Donelson, Malvern Hill, Antietam,
Gettysburg, the Wilderness of Virginia,
Winchester, Nashville, the capture of New
Orleans, Vicksburg, Mobile, Fort Fisher,
the march from Atlanta and the capture of
Savannah and Charleston, all foretold the
issue. Still more, the self-regeneration of
Missouri, the heart of the continent; of Ma
ryland, whose sons never heard the mid
night bell chime so. sweetly as when they
rang out to earth and heaven that, by the
voice of her own people, she took her place
among the free ; of Tennessee, which passed
through fire and blood, through sorrows and
the shadow of death, to work out her own
deliverance, and by the faithfulness of her
own sons to renew her youth like the eagle
— proved that victory was deserved and
would be worth all that it cost. If words
of mercy uttered as they were by Lincoln
on the waters of Virginia, were defiantly
repelled, the armies of the country, moving
with one will, went as the arrow to its
mark, and without a. feeling of revenge
struck a deathblow at rebellion.
ing him to a second term of service. The
raging war that had divided the country
had lulled; and private grief was hushed
by the grandeur of its results. The nation
had its new birth of freedom, soon to be
secured forever by an amendment of the
Constitution. His persistent gentleness had
conquered for him a kindlier feeling on the
part of the South. His scoffers among the
grandees of Europe began to do him honor.
The laboring classes every where saw in his
advancement their own. All peoples sent
him their benedictions. And at the mo
ment of the height of his fame, to which his
humility and modesty added charms, he fell
by the hand of the assassin; and the only
triumph awarded him was tb,e march to the
grave.
THE GREATNESS OF MAN.
This is no time to say that human glory
is but dust and ashes, that we mortals are
no more than shadows in pursuit of shadows.
How mean a thing were man, if there were
not that within him which is higher than
himself—if he could not master the illu
sions of sense, and discern the connections
of events by a superior light which comes
from God. He so shares the divine impul
ses that he has power to subject interested
passions to love of country, and personal
ambition to the ennoblement of man. Not
in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped
to make this Republic an exatnple of jus
tice, with no caste but the caste of humani
ty. The heroes who led our armies and
ships into battle — Lyon, McPherson, Rey
nolds, Sedgwick, Wadsworth, Foote, Ward,
with their compeers — and fell in the ser
vice, did not die in vain ; they and the my
riads of nameless martyrs, and he, the chief
martyr, died willingly “ that government of
the people, by the people, and for the peo
ple, shall not perish from the earth.”
THE JUST DIED FOR THE UNJUST.
The assassination of Lincoln, who was so
free from malice, has from some mysterious
influence struck the country with solemn
awe, and hushed, instead of exciting, the
passion for revenge. It seemed as if the
just had died for the unjust. When I think
of the friends I have lost in this war — and
every one who hears me has, like myself,
lost those whom he most loved — there is
no consolation to be derivedftom victims on
the scaffold, or from any thing but the es
tablished union of the regenerated nation.
Lincoln’s assassination.
„ CHARACTER OF LINCOLN.
I
Where, in the history of nations, had a
Chief Magistrate possessed more sources of
In his character Lincoln was through and
consolation and joy, than Lincoln? His through an American. He is the first nacountrymen had shown their love by choos I tive of the region west of the Alleghanies to
�ORATION OF THE HON . GEORGE BANCROFT.
i
607
attain to the highest station; and how hap
Lincoln was one of the most unassuming
py it is- that the man who was brought for of men. In time of success, he gave credit
ward as the natural outgrowth and first for it to those whom he employed, to the
fruits of that region should have been of un people, and to the providence of God. He
blemished purity in private life, a good son, did not know what ostentation is; when he
a kind husband, a most affectionate father, became President he was rather saddened
and, as a man, so gentle to all. As to in than elated, and his conduct and manners
tegrity, Douglas, his rival, said of him, “ Lin showed more than ever his belief that all
coln is the honestest man I ever knew.”
men are born equal. He was no respecter
The habits of his mind were those of of persons ; and neither rank, nor reputa
meditation and inward thought, rather than tion, nor services overawed him. In judg
of action. He excelled in logical statement, ing of character he failed in discrimination,
more than in executive ability. He rea and his appointments were sometimes bad;
soned clearly, his reflective judgment was but he readily deferred to public opinion,
good, and his purposes were, fixed; but and in appointing tne head of the armies he
like the Hamlet of his only poet,, his will followed the manifest preference of Conwas tardy in action, and for this reason, and gressBu
A good President will secure unity to his
not from humility or tenderness of feeling,
he sometimes deplored that the duty which administration by his own supervision of
devolved on him had not fallen to the lot of the various departments. Lincoln, who acnever governed
another. He was skilful in analysis, dis cepted advice ^adily
cerned with precision the central idea, on by any member of his Caftnet, and could
which a question turned, and knew how to not be moved from a purpose deliberately
disengage it and present it by itself in a few formed; but his supervision of affairs was
homely, strong old English words that would unsteady and incomplete |Jand sometimes,
be intelligible to all. He delighted to ex by a sudden interference transcoding the
press his opinions by apothegm, illustrate usual forms, he rather confused than adthem by a parable, or drive them home by a vanced the public business. If he ever
story.
failed in the scrupulous regard due to the
Lincoln gained a name by discussing relative rights of Congress, it was so evi
questions which, of all others, most easily dently without design that no conflict
led to fanaticism; but he was never carried could ensue, or evil precefent be estabaway by enthusiastic zeal, never indulged lished. Truth he would receive from any
in extravagant language, never hurried to one ; but, when impressed by others, he did
support extreme measures, never allowed not use their opinions till by reflection he
himself to be controlled by sudden impulses. had made them thoroughly his own.
During the progress of the election at which
It was the nature of Lincoln to forgive.
he was chosen President, he expressed no When hostilities ceased w he who had al
opinion that, went beyond the Jefferson ways sent forth the flag with every one of its
proviso of 1784. Like Jefferson and Lafa stars in the field, was eager to receive back
yette, he had faith in the intuitions of the his returning count^men, and meditated
people, and read those intuitions with rare some new announcement to the South.”
sagacity. He knew how to bide his time, The amendment of the Constitution abolish
and was less apt to be in advance of public ing slavery had his most earnest and un
opinion than to lag behind. He never wearied support. During the rage of war
sought to electrify the public by taking we get a glimpse into his soul from his
an advanced position with a banner of privately suggesting to Louisiana that “ in
opinion; but rather studied to move for defining the franchise some of the colored
ward compactly, exposing no detachment people might be let in,” saying: “ They
in front or rear; so that the course of his would probably help, in some trying time
administration might have been explained to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the
as the calculating policy of a shrewd and family of freedom.” In 1857 he avowed
watchful politician, had there not been seen himself “ not in favor of ” what he improp
behind it a fixedness of principle which erly called .“ negro citizenship: ” for the
from the first determined his purpose and Constitution discriminates between citizens
grew more intense with every year, consum and electors. Three days before his death
ing his life by,its energy. Yet his sensibili- he declared his preference that “ the elect
ties were not acute, he had no vividness of ive franchise were now conferred on the
imagination to picture to his mind the hor very intelligent of the colored men and on
rors of the battle-field or the sufferings in those of them who served our cause as
hospitals ; his conscience was more tender soldiers;” but he wished it done by the
than his feelings.
States themselves, and he never harbored
�608
ORATION OF THE HON. GEORGE BANCROFT.
the thought of ^exacting it from a new government as a condition of its recognition.
The last day of his life beamed with sun
shine, as he sent by the - speaker of this
House his friendly greetings to the men
of the Rocky Mountains and the Pa
cific slope; as he contemplated the return
of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fruit
ful industry; as he welcomed in advance
hundreds of thousands of emigrants from
Europe; as his eye kindled with enthusi
asm at the coming wealth of the nation.
And'so, with these thoughts for his country,
he was removed from the toils and temp
tations of this life and was at peace.
PALMERSTON AND LINCOLN.
Hardly had the late President been con
signed to the grave, when the Prime Minis
ter of England died, full of years and hon
ours. Palmerston traced his lineage to the
time of the conqueror: Lincoln went back
only to his grandfather. Palmerston re
ceived his education from the best scholars
of Harrow, Edinburgh, and Cambridge;
Lincoln’s early teachers were the silent
forest, the prairie, the river, and the stars.
Palmerston was in public life for sixty
years ; Lincoln for but a tenth of that time.
Palmerston was a skilful guide of an estab
lished aristocracy; Lincoln a leader or rather
a companion of the people. Palmerston
was exclusively an Englishman, and made
his boast in the House of Commons that the
interest of England was his Shibboleth;
Lincoln thought always of mankind as well
as his own country, and served human na
ture itself. Palmerston from his narrowness
as an Englishman did not endear his coun
try to any one court or to any one people,
but rather caused uneasiness and dislike;
Lincoln left America more beloved than
ever by all the peoples of Europe. Palm
erston was self-possessed and adroit in
reconciling the conflicting claims of the fac
tions of the aristocracy; Lincoln, frank and
ingenuous, knew how to poise himself on the
conflicting opinions of the people. Palm
erston was capable of insolence towards the
weak, quick to the sense of honour, not
heedful of right; Lincoln rejected counsel
given only as a matter of policy, and was
not capable of being wilfully unjust. Palm
erston, essentially superficial, delighted in
banter, and knew how to divert grave op
position, by playful levity. Lincoln was a
man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest
earnestness at his heart. Palmerston was a
fair representative of the aristocratic lib
erality of the day, choosing for his tribunal,
not the conscience of humanity, but the
House of Commons ; Lincoln took to heart
I the eternal truths of liberty, obeyed them
as the commands of Providence, and accept
*
ed the human race as the judge of his fidel
ity. Palmerston did nothing that will en
dure ; his great achievement, the separation
of Belgium, placed that little kingdom
where it must gravitate to France; Lincoln
finished a work which all time cannot over
throw. Palmerston is a shining example of
the ablest of a cultivated aristocracy; Lin
coln shows the genuine fruits of institutions
where the laboring man shares and assists to
form the great ideas and designs of his
country. Palmerston was buried in West
minster Abbey by the order of his Queen,
and was followed by the British aristocracy
to his grave, which after a few years will
hardly be noticed by the side of the graves
of Fox and Chatham; Lincoln was followed
by the sorrow of his country across the con
tinent to his resting-place in the heart of
the Mississippi valley, to be remembered
through all time by his countrymen, and by
all the peoples of the world.
CONCLUSION.
As the sum of all, the hand of Lincoln
raised the flag; the American people was
the hero of the war; and therefore the re
sult is a new era of republicanism. The dis
turbances in the country grew not out of any
thing republican, but out of slavery, which is
a part of the system of hereditary wrong,
and the expulsion of this domestic anomaly
opens to the renovated nation a career of
unthought of dignity and glory. Hence
forth our country has a moral unity as the
land of free labour. The party for slavery
and the party against slavery are no more,
and are merged in the party of Union and
freedom. The States which would have Ieff“*
us are not brought back as conquered States,
for then we should hold them only so long
as that conquest could be maintained ; they
come to their rightful place under the Consti
tution as original, necessary and inseparable
members of the State. We build monu
ments to the dead, but no monuments of
victory. We respect the example of the
Romans, who never, even in conquered
lands, raised emblems of triumph. And
our generals are not to be classed in the
herd of vulgar conquerors, but are of the
school of Timoleon and William of Orange'
and Washington. They have used the
sword only to give peace to their country
and restore her to her place in the great
assembly of the nations. Our meeting
closes in hope, now that a people begins to
live according to the laws of reason., and re
publicanism is intrenched in a continent.
�
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America, France and England
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907]
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Place of publication: [Boston, Mass.]
Collation: [545]-608 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From Littell's Living Age, vol. XXX11, third series, no. 1134, (24 February 1866): re-published from Fortnightly Review 3: 442-459 (January 1 1866). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed in double columns. Includes comment and letters on the Alabama debate in the House of Commons.
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USA
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (America, France and England), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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Conway Tracts
Foreign Relations
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United States-Politics and Government
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Text
HUMAN SACRIFICES
IN
ENGLAND.
FOUR
DISCOURSES
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.,
Minister of South Place Chapel, and at the Athenaeum,
Camden Road.
LONDON:
TRUBNER AND CO., LUDGATE HILL.
1876.
�CONTENTS.
PAGE
1.
Human Sacrifices
2. The Daughters
of
...
...
...
$
Jephthah ...
...
7
3. Children, and their Moloch ...
... 19
4. The Sabbath-Jugernath
33
5. The Martyrdom
51
of
Reason
�HUMAN SACRIFICES.
I passed a morning of the last week in the St.
Marylebone Police Court, having been summoned
there as a witness. As I waited through the hours
there passed by a dismal gaunt procession or chain
gang of the captives of the ignorance, the brutality, the
shame, sorrow, despair, of this vast metropolis. There
were young men arrested in one drunken brawl, and
women arrested in another. A shop-girl of twentyone, who had been sent by her humble parents from
the country to earn her living, had stolen a little
finery, perhaps for a babe that would soon be born.
A young “ gentleman,” as he was described, who had
run through an estate, was sentenced for assaulting a
young woman, whose downcast eyes and deep blush
of shame confessed to the judge what her lips could
not utter. A woman of twenty-two, who might once
have been comely, had been arrested for intoxication.
During the night she had three times attempted
�4
suicide, and was barely saved for a life of despair. It
is terrible to look upon a face which tells only of a
life in ruins, and to listen to sobs broken by no plead
ing or word indicating any interest, however faint, in
what the next moment may bring. A little boy five
or six years old, wretched and ragged—with hardly
rags enough to cover him—charged with being “ desti
tute.” Every eye that saw him could testify to the
truth of that charge. The poor boy had been found
asleep on the pavement, and said he had slept there
for three weeks. The magistrate set himself to ferret
out the facts, and little by little was revealed his
story. He was one of six children who had been
living with their father and mother, in utter poverty,
all in one room. At length the mother left that
miserable room to wander and live as she could. But
this little boy had followed her, clung to her; she
carried him about with her for one day, in some
strange place he slept with her the same night; but
in the morning she sent him back home. The father
drove him out because he had gone off with his
mother, and so he had found a London pavement the
only pillow extended to his little head.
The magistrate was consideratej he did his best to
do justice to all, but he must have known—it was
plain—that in no case did he judge or sentence the
real criminal. The visible offenders before him were
�5
victims. Behind each stood the grim and awful
shadow of some ghoul that had fastened upon him.
As the wretched men, women, and children were led
away in custody, free and unfettered beside them stalked
their demons,—Ignorance, Strong Drink, Neglect,
Injustice, Hereditary Taint, Malformation of Brain.
These are the real criminals, and it is they that elude
the grasp of the law which can only deal its penalties
to the already punished, the utterly helpless creatures
on whom the ghastly vampires of our time are
battening.
I am about to speak for a few Sundays of what seem
to me the heaviest wrongs of the present time; but I
do not wish to point out wrongs for which there are
no remedies. Indeed, we can only very dimly dis
cover evils, we can not feel deeply concerning them,
until the light of its remedy falls upon each wrong.
The remedies may be, as yet, ideal; but that is not
their fault; they are necessarily ideal until they are
applied : it is the fault of those great Interests, em
bodying public Selfishness or Superstition, which reject
the truth and the justice which threaten them. But I
believe in the power of ideas. In the end they are
stronger than armies. Waiting there at St. Marylebone—as it were in some weird whorl of Dante’s Hell
__till, to my eyes, all present seemed impersonal,
types and shadows of remorseless forces which once
�6
St. Mary-the-Good tried to conjure down with her
tender image, and then departed, leaving only her
name, made way for the police,—there came upon me
by some association, a memory of early days passed
in a land where the Black-tongued Plague was raging.
Hundreds were struck down daily with swift death;
mourning was heard along the streets of every town
and village ; cries were heard in many homes that
had been happy. Every face was pallid ; the strong
est men and women moved about in the silence of
fear. One night the thermometer fell a degree, and
the Plague was dead.
Not swift and sudden, but just as certain is the in
visible power of the air which works through ideas.
“ God is a spirit.” There is an intellectual, a religious
atmosphere, in which lurks the miasma of moral
death, or through which breathes the spirit of life ;
and any least change in that ideal region will tell
upon the earth as surely as on it is recorded in frost
or flower the viewless march of the seasons.
�THE DAUGHTERS OF JEPHTHA.
Jephtha, Judge of Israel, marching against the
Ammonites, made a vow unto the Lord that, if
victorious, he would offer up as a burnt-offering to
Jehovah the first person that should come forth from
his house to meet him. Wife or daughter it must have
been : Jephtha had no other offspring but an only
daughter, and who so naturally should hasten to
welcome a father’s return from war and danger as an
only daughter? So went forth the happy maiden
with timbrels and dances to meet her father, the
Prince. The father was in distress, but it never
occurred either to him or his daughter that the Lord
might sympathise with their love and their reluctance
rather than with the vow, and so the fair maid was
slain and burnt on the Lord’s altar. Some efforts
have been made by casuists to show that Jephtha’s
daughter was not sacrificed literally, but only consesecrated to the Lord by not marrying : but such
attempts are unworthy of notice. Human sacrifices
were a recognised part of the Jewish religion, and
�8
careful provisions were made for the redemption of a
man or woman vowed to the Lord by money,—except
when devoted by anathema, in which case the man or
woman the law declared (Lev. 27) “ shall surely be
put to death.” I do not wonder that theologians
would like to escape the effect of the story, for it is
said “ the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephtha,” in
the Old Testament, and in the New that king who
sacrificed bis daughter is enumerated among saints of
whom the world was not worthy.
Well, the story drifted about the world and had its
effect. Jephtha’s daughter was caught up by the Greek
imagination, and reappeared as Iphegenia (probably
Jephthagenia), the daughter of Agamemnon, who was
nearly sacrificed in obedience to a similar vow made
by her father to Artemis. Human sacrifices were
unknown to the ancient Aryan race until it came in
contact with this dark and horrible Shemitic belief
that the deity required blood—and especially the blood
of some spotless being, as the dove, or the lamb, and
finally the most beautiful virgin. This wild and guilty
superstition may be tracked in blood wherever the
Jewish religion passed, and when Humanity had by
reaction revolted from it, the spirit of it was caught up
and preserved in the Christian idea that the world was
to be saved only by the sacrifice of the one most vir
ginal unblemished Soul, the Lamb offered up on Cal
vary to soothe the wrath of God.
�9
But even after that offering, though it was said to
be a final satisfaction of Jehovah’s universal claim
and thirst for blood, the old superstition survived to
the extent of teaching women that it was a holy
thing to vow their virginity to the Lord, to seclude
themselves from the world, and to count themselves
especially happy if they lost their lives by ascetic
devotion to their invisible Spouse. All the nuns of
Christendom were, and are, Jephtha’s daughters.
But that has been by no means the worst result.
The ancient Hebrew idea that woman is the natural
sacrifice to God coloured the whole relation of that
religion and its civil laws towards the female sex.
Woman became the law’s normal victim. We never
read of a Jewish Queen; we rarely read praises of a
woman of that race, except as part of the estate
of some man who was to her the representative of God.
She is sold and bought with her dead lord’s assets. It is
deemed no blot on Abraham when he drives Hagar
from his door. There is no law in the decalogue, or
elsewhere in the Bible, that mitigates the masculine
decree—“ Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he
shall rule over thee.”
All this was reflected in Christianity. It taught
women to submit to their husbands as to the Lord
himself; never to speak in public, or to appear there
unveiled; to stay at home and obey their husbands,—
�IO
“ as also saith the law,” adds Paul,—and understand
that woman is made for man and not man for woman.
I need not pause here to discuss the origin of this
view of the position of woman. We may admit that,
far away in some hard wilderness, or amid certain
primitive exigencies of society, such a theory of
woman was inevitable as a phase of social evolution.
To keep at home and obey might have been the only
way of continuing to exist, or to escape capture. But
when a particular phase of human evolution gets asso
ciated with divine sanction, it gains a permanence
which fetters progress. Most gods have been the
means of perpetuating the barbarism of the age which
invented them.
The Christian system brought this idea of woman
into Europe. Whatever relation it may have had to
Arabia or Syria, whatever justification it might have
had in savage periods, surely it was out of place and
out of time when imported into Europe. And there
is not a more cruel chapter in history than that which
records the arrest by Christianity of the natural growth
of European civilisation as regards woman. In
Germany it found woman participating in the legisla
tive assembly, and sharing the interests and counsels
of man, and drove her out and away, leaving her to
day nothing of her ancient rights but a few honorary
idle titles, titles that remain to mark her degradation
�11
and ours, as they remind us that a peeress, a duchess,
a baroness, a princess, a queen, are not the political
equals of many an illiterate sot who calls himself a
man. Even more fatal was the overthrow of woman’s
position in Rome. Read the terrible facts as stated
by Gibbon, by Milman, and Sir Henry Maine, read
and ponder them, and you will see the tremendous
wrong that Christianity did to woman. All the laws
by which women were protected in their individual
existence were overthrown. The sum of money which
Roman law demanded should be settled by her father
on every married woman, the new Christian code
caused to be paid to the husband instead of her, as a
dowery, or consolation for taking her off her father’s
hands. The idea that the virgin belonged to God
survived, and her espousal to a man could only be by
payment of redemption-money, which is the marriage
fee.
Christianity struck the fatal blowat the independence
of woman by allowing her but two alternatives,—im
prisonment in a nunnery or servitude in a husband’s
house; anything else was for generations accounted sin.
But am I speaking of the far past ? Is it not true
also this day that women are sacrificed to this old
Jewish regime and its Lord? What woman needs to
day is to have her rights and her wrongs decided in
accordance with the conditions and the needs of
�12
Europe, not those of Judea; what she requires is the
unbiassed verdict of the sense and sentiment and
science of the present day ; and yet her case is yielded
up to the authority and law of an ignorant tribe, whose
very Judge knew no better than to burn his daughter as
an offering to his god.
It is to that same Jehovah,
to the laws he is supposed to have proclaimed, the
Bible he is said to have written, and the religion in
which his ferocity is still reflected through all later
mitigations,—it is to him that womanhood is still
sacrificed; and so long as the name of Jehovah,
the god of Jephtha, is bowed to with awe and
fear, so long will the victim-daughters of Jephtha
surround us.
But how are women sacrificed ?
First of all in education. The intelligence and
common sense of Europe declare that there can be
nothing more important, both for themselves and for
man, than the right and thorough education of women.
As the physical mothers of the race they have the
utmost need to know the laws of life, the nature of
their own frame, the principles of health. As the
intellectual and moral guides of all human beings
during the years when they are most susceptible of
impressions and influences, women have need of the
very best knowledge. Their need of scientific drill
is, if anything, greater than that of men. Yet in
�education they are thrown the mere crumbs that fall
from the table of our male youths. It has been shown
that over ninety per cent, of the provision for education
in this country is devoted to boys and young men. It
has been shown that in our universities there are large
sums of money inadequately used,—wealth accumu
lated from ancient endowments, furnishing annual
revenues to the extent of ^500,000,—and yet amid
all the discussions as to what shall be done with that
money, hardly one voice is heard demanding that it
shall be devoted to redressing the heavy wrongs
which woman has suffered through ages, and now
suffers as she sits famishing in sight of such abun
dance. And while the universities are thus barred
against her, and the keys of knowledge denied her,
she is compelled to hear the very weakness and
ignorance so entailed quoted for her further disparage
ment. We are told, woman cannot reason; she is
not logical; she acts by mere impulse and sentiment;
she is superstitious. Well, why is it so ? Who has so
made her? The god of Jephtha, the deity who
exacted the sacrifice of the fair virgins of Israel, and
who by his Bible still demands that we hold English
women mere appendages to man, against all the best
light and conscience of our own time.
Again, women are morally and physically sacrificed
by the denial to them of the right of freedom to enter
�i4
into all the avocations of life by which human beings
may find support, livelihood and independence. In
the laws made by the worshippers of Jephtha’s god it
was enacted that every woman should be sold to some
man as wife or concubine. It was strictly obligatory.
Even that miserable means of obtaining a livelihood
is impossible in this country, where women are in ex
cess of men by nearly a million; but still we find
male prejudice and law providing that marriage shall
be regarded as the only recognised profession, trade,
or vocation by which women may obtain an honour
able livelihood. Compelled by the over-powering
exigencies of modern life we are tolerating them in a
few other simple occupations, but without according
social equality to such; and we make no adequate
provision for their apprenticeship or training for occu
pations which would yield them that independence
which our theology and conventionality most dread.
The sacrificial results of such a state of things are so
appalling that I can hardly name them. By shutting
the usual lucrative professions and occupations to
women, society is driving them by thousands to sell
that which is alone left to them to sell, their own
honourj that which not one woman in a hundred
would part with, were not pauperism and starvation
the dread alternative ; and thereby society sacrifices to
ancient superstition the health and the purity of both
manhood and womanhood.
�i5
I have named but two out of the many forms in
which women are bound hand and foot on the altar of
Jephtha’s god. Why need I repeat the long catalogue
of her wrongs as a wife and a mother ? Even after
the battles and the appeals of generations have wrung
from the reluctant hand of her master a link or two
from the chain with which she was so long fettered, sheis still liable to alienation of her children, and other
wise subject to the caprice and the cruelty of man.
And yet we are told that her interest and necessities
may safely be entrusted to the care of a legislature in
which she has no voice or representation j and that
personally she is not equal to the task of political
deliberation and voting. The ballot is not my idol. My
desire to see woman enfranchised is not because of
any abstract theory of human rights. I admit that
because of the long thraldom that sex has undergone,
and because of the long denial of education and all re
lation to the large affairs of the world, it would be
better if men could be induced to relieve them of their
oppressions—liberate them from the altar to which
they are in large part bound by chains of their own
superstition, and so prepare them for that share in
political power which should be accorded only to
intelligence and moral freedom. Women need the
full advantages of education far more than they need
votes. What they are perishing for is not a ballot,
�i6
but the opening of all the work and culture which
make the equality and secure the liberties of man.
But, with them, I despair of such practical results until
they are admitted among the constituencies of Par
liament. They have amply proved their case. They
have clearly defined their wrong and its remedy.
They have appealed for redress in vain. They are
met by frivolous sneers, by sentimental evasions, not
by reason and argument. Their sufferings have edu
cated them sufficiently to know at least their own needs,
and the unwillingness of men to respond to them.
Their cry for enfranchisement is the cry of victims
bleeding on the altar of established error j it is the
cry of despair ; and it can only increase in painful in
tensity and grief until it shall be redressed. Indeed,
the very sentiment, no doubt sincere with the great
majority of men, which dreads the departure of woman
from the sacred sphere of domestic life, must ere long
be enlisted on the side of her enfranchisement. It will
become more and more clear that there can be no
peace with injustice ; that women in increasing num
bers are, and will continue to be, excited to protest
against the wrongs of their sex. They will appear on
platforms; they will be public speakers; they will be
stimulated to that very life of political agitation which
so many fear, but are blindly engaged in promoting.
For the sake of peace and quietness, if for no higher
�motive, this justice must assuredly be done to woman,
and my own apprehension is that it will not be done
until society has suffered yet more serious disturbances
through the obstinacy and folly of the opposition to a
measure which, if adopted, could not cause anything
more revolutionary than has been caused by the ad
mission of woman to the municipal franchises they
now possess. That which is to-day demanded in the
name of justice, must to-morrow be conceded in the
interest of social order. But this is a poor, mean way of
securing any measure of justice. When wisdom pre
vails the right will be conceded to reason, not wrested
by agitation. But however men may throw away
experience, it still remains true that trouble tracks
wrong like a shadow, and justice alone is crowned with
peace.
2
��I9
CHILDREN AND THEIR MOLOCH.
Five years ago I clipped from a newspaper the follow
ing letter, addressed to the Editor from Shetland :—
“Lerwick, July, 7, 1871.
“ Sir,—It may interest some of your readers to know
that last night (being St. John’s Eve, old style) I
•observed within a mile or so of this town, seven bon
fires blazing, in accordance with the immemorial custom
■of celebrating the Midsummer solstice. These fires
were kindled on various heights around the ancient
hamlet of Sound, and the children leaped over them,
and ‘passed through the fire to Moloch,’ just as their
ancestors would have done a thousand years ago on
the same heights, and their still remoter progenitors in
Eastern lands many thousand years ago. This per
sistent adherence to mystic rites in this scientific epoch
seems to me worth taking note of.—A. L.”
In ancient times, however, the children had to leap
into the bonfire—which is defined in Cooper’s “ The-
�20
saurus ” as 11 Pyra, a bonefire, wherein men’s bodyes.
were burned,”—and not over it. I have often leaped
over a bonfire myself, with little thought that my sport
was the far away relic of the tragedies of human sacri
fice. Our bonfires of Virginia had been lighted from
those of Scotland, whence the first settlers of the neigh
bourhood had come; and there is some reason to
believe that in some obscure nooks of Scotland the
Midsummer fires are yet kindled, and some may still
be found who believe that it is good for a child to passover them.
The Reformers of Scotland made a tremendous
effort to trample out these survivals of ancient super
stition, and measurably succeeded in suppressing the
outward manifestations of them. But they preserved,
the very atmosphere of superstition amid which such
practices were bred originally, and there is reason to
fear they made matters worse. The sacrifice of chil
dren to Moloch had become a pastime, but their
subsequent sacrifice to Jehovah ofSabaoth was serious.
The Scottish Reformers also exterminated with
fierce piety the superstitions of the Church of Rome.
They particularly punished pilgrimages to the so-called1
holy wells which abounded in that region. On the
28th November, 1630, Margaret Davidson, a married
woman, residing in Aberdeen, was adjudged in an
“unlaw” of £5 by the Kirk Session “ for directing
�21
her nurse with her bairn to St. Fiack’s Well, and
washing her bairn therein for recovery of her health
- . . and for leaving an offering in the well.” The
point of idolatry, as stated by the Kirk Session, was
“in putting the well in God’s room.” After the fine
Margaret, perhaps, put God in the well’s room; but
we may doubt whether the change was of any advan
tage to the bairn. Pure water has its sanative effects,
and it is very likely that the wells became holy because
they were healing. But St. Fiack—a Scottish saint—
had to go, leaving only his name to a vehicle {fiacre),
in which his French devotees travelled to his shrine,
and instead of him was set up a Judaic deity whose
providence was not associated with anything so rational
as the use of pure water. Not one particle of super
stition the less remained in Scotland when the fires of
Moloch and the candles of Rome were put out. The
only religious advantage one could have hoped from
the revolution was not gained. It might have been
hoped that when popular Superstition was divested of its
picturesque features, its pilgrimages to holy wells and
shrines, and bonfires and images, its grim and ugly
visage would have been simply repulsive, and its
further reign impossible. But, strange to say, the
Scotch seemed to cling more to superstition the
uglier it became. A Puritanism arose in which all the
Molochs were summed up, and all human joys were
�22
represented, in Shakspeare’s phrase, as 11 the primrose
way to the everlasting bonfire,” the flowery path tohell. It is passing strange that this hideous system
should have been able to desolate beyond recovery
the “merrie England of the olden time,” and to over
shadow America for more than a hundred years.
There is a singular society which met last week, called
the Anglo-Israel Society, whose object is to persuade
this people that they are the lost tribes of Israel, and
the eagerness with which the majority of this nation
has always laid hold upon everything Semitic, gives
some plausibility to their notion; but one thing is
certain, if we are the tribes that Israel lost, we have
never lost Israel. We have hebraised for ages, made
long prayers, sung psalms, named children Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, and otherwise pertinaciously adhered
to the Semitic idolatry.
When Jehovah was brought to Scotland, Moloch
was nominally dethroned, his bonfires extinguished;
but the change was only nominal; all that was dark and
cruel in Moloch was superadded to all that was dark
and cruel in Jehovah; and the result was a Scotch
Jehovah more harsh and oppressive than the phantasm
which haunted the Jews.
For the ancient Jews do not seem to have generally
entered into the spirit of Moloch,—that old brass
deity, whose head was that of a calf, and whose stomach
�23
was a furnace in which children were consumed. The
Jews generally were careful of their children, and those
of them that worshipped Moloch and sacrificed their
children were sternly denounced. That old idol which,
according to Amos (v. 26) the Israelites bore with
them from Egypt through the wilderness, would per
haps have faded away had it not been for Solomon.
Solomon is odiously memorable for two things. He
erected a temple for Moloch on the Mount of Olives,
where children were burned to death, and he wrote
the sentence—which might appropriately have been
inscribed on that Temple—“ Spare the rod and spoil
the child.” The man who wrote that sentence had, of
course, no idea that any people would exist foolish
enough to believe it the very word of God; but,
nevertheless, in conjunction with human superstition,
he has been the cause of more evil to the human race
than any other one man that ever lived. The rod is
a little thing, but it is full of deadly poison ; it has
fostered in the world more deceit, meanness, cowardice,
servility, stupidity, and brutality than our race will
outgrow for many generations. Mr. Edward Tylor
recently exhibited at the Royal Institution the poison
ous Calabar bean used as an ordeal in Africa,
whose consecration enables the savage kings to put
out of the way every man who proposes any change
in their government; and he (Mr. Taylor) expressed
�24
his belief that the continued savagery of Africa was
in large part an effect of that little bean. And I be
lieve that it can be shown that the rod has been the
means of preserving the savage rule of physical force
in the greatest nations of the world. The parent or
teacher who strikes a child does so because his parent
or teacher struck him; and the child that is struck
catches the idea, transmitted all the way from Solo
mon, that the way to deal with people who don’t do
what you like is to strike them. That is, if you are
stronger than they. If they are little and you large,
that is a sign that the Lord has delivered them into
your hand. You must make the child yield his will
to yours, not by love and persuasion, but by brute
force and pain; break his spirit, though that harms
him far more than breaking his back-bone; make the
child another you : so will your child do the like by
his children, and they by theirs, and independence
and individuality be beaten down by violence, genius
crushed, character made characterless, as
“ To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,”
and all our yesterdays light us on the highway of
commonplace, though not, I hope, to the last syllable
of recorded time.
Does it not strike you that a child consists of an
individuality, a will, a spirit, a mind, and that its real
�25
existence depends upon these; and that if these are
not trained, encouraged, cultivated, the child has no
real existence at all? An animal existence it may
have, but beyond that it were a mere appendix or
sequel to somebody else, unless its peculiar powers
are healthily carried forward to maturity. If these are
sacrificed the child is sacrificed, and the man that is
folded up in him. Will a gardener beat his rose-buds
with a stick to make them grow ? The growing of
thoughts and emotions is more tender work than the
culture of roses. But children will be naughty; of
course they will sometimes be naughty if they are
healthy, and they will require restraint until they can
restrain themselves : they must learn morals as they
learn letters. But one might as well flog a child for
not knowing Greek as to flog it for a deception or for
selfishness. Every blow is an appeal to selfishness,
and a lesson in deception. We pardon our parents
and predecessors in this, for they knew not what they
did. But it is a scandal that the rod should linger in
the homes and schools of England, after Herbert
Spencer and others have proved the evil of it. For
many months now I have been trying to find a school in
Kensington for a boy in his eleventh year, and in that
great parish I cannot find one in which they do not
insist on two things,—Beating and the Bible. I must
leave the parish to find a school which will give me a.
conscience clause on these points.
�26
Now, I may ask any person of intelligence, not
hopelessly blinded by superstition, is the Bible a fit
book to put into the hands of a child ? I do not
believe that a child as it advances to boyhood and
girlhood should, with prudish jealousy, be kept in
ignorance as to the follies and vices of the world in
which it lives.
But our children do not live in
ancient Judea. The Bible, moreover, is not limited to
any years. It is believed by bibliolaters to be so holy
that it can do no harm even to a child of tenderest
years, who so soon as he or she can read is permitted
to receive the unnatural stimulant of perusing narra
tives obscene, shocking and cruel. What would be
a glass of gin in the child’s throat, compared with its
first familiarisation with the grossest vices of semibarbarous tribes; vices many of which are even unfit
for more advanced youth to read about, for they are
not those which they will now find in the world
around them, or require to be guarded against. The
very memory of some of the primitive brutalities of
mankind is kept alive only by the Bible. With its
pages are broadcast narratives which the law does not
permit to be printed in any other book. And when
these crimes and vices are laid before a child as the
word of God ; when it reads in that book that many
of the worst of them were instigated by Jehovah,—
that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and ordered persons
�27
to be stoned to death, and children to be put to thesword, and so on,—why it is enough to slay theirreverence on the spot, and strike them with moral
idiocy. This is, indeed, the way in which, morallyspeaking, the sins of the father are visited on the
children, to much more than the third and fourth
generation. The Bible is an invaluable book, but it
is not a book for children : there are many forms in
which the incidents and chapters suitable for them
can be separately procured; and for the rest, the
volume may be safely left on the shelf to be searched
out when it is wanted.
The Rod, and the Bible which consecrates the Rod,
along with many other barbarities, make up princi
pally the Moloch of children in the present time. The
sacrifice of the young among us is mainly moral and
intellectual. Physically a great deal is done for the
average of them. There are indeed terrible regions
where children are caught up in the great engine of
commerce and labour, and crushed. There are mines,
and fens, and factories where the struggle for existence
means a joyless existence—hunger and pain, and pre
mature death to many a child ; and yet, because it isa struggle for existence we can only look upon it with
sympathy and with resolution that no man shall add tothe anguish of it. But when we follow even such appa
rently inevitable evils as these to their causes, we dis-
�2S
•cover that they could not continue but for the radical
•error of English Christianity—the principle of sacrifi
cing man to God. We can never hope thoroughly to
master the evils of society while the great religious
organisations of the country, and their vast endow
ments, are directed to divine service instead of
human service, and the poor are taught that their
■chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever.
When the wealth and the religious earnestness of this
nation are devoted to the benefit of humanity, instead
•of to the childish notion of personally pleasing and
■.satisfying the deity, there cannot long remain an
unhappy home in it.
But until that Gospel of Pure Reason is heard round
the world, bringing its glad tidings, the weak and
ignorant must still bleed as victims on the altar of an
imaginary being who may be called God, but is much
nearer the ideal of a Demon.
Dogma, too, has still its altar in England upon
which the child is sacrificed. It is true that among the
educated the old doctrine that every child is at birth
a child of the devil, and human nature totally de
praved, has ceased to exist; and even among the
illiterate parental affection has been too strong to
admit of its practical realisation. But still it is taught
by vulgar sects to many millions, and avails to mis•»direct many fathers and mothers, and teachers, in their
�29
dealing with the natural instincts and needs of child
hood. The mirth, the love of beauty, the longing for
amusement, in the young, so indispensable for a healthy
and happy growth, are forbidden, the dance is held tobe sinful, the theatre immoral, and thus many thousands
of children never have any real joy, and pass on to a
youth of precocious anxiety, and a manhood or woman
hood of hard, morose alienation from nature.
The only relief to the gloom of this unnatural
religion, which casts its shadow over so many young
lives, is that dogmatic preaching has become so inhar
monious with the enlightenment of civilised society,
that it tends more and more to sink into the hands of
pulpit mediocrities, who rehearse it in such a dull,
perfunctory way that it loses all impressiveness, and
can now hardly keep congregations awake. Sermon
ising is almost another name for boreing.
In an admirable story just published, called “ The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain,” the
author presents a picture of an average congrega
tional assembly on Sunday, among whom his little
hero was a sufferer. After the lugubrious hymn came
the long, long prayer. “ The boy,” says the author,
“ did not enjoy the prayer, he only endured it—if he
even did that much. He was restive all through it;
he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously
-—for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of
�3°
old, and the clergyman’s regular route over it—and
where a little trifle of new matter was introduced, his
■ear detected it, and his whole nature resented it; he
considered additions unfair and scoundrelly. In the
midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the pew in front
of him ”—but I will pass over the fate of that fly.
The sermon came on. “ The minister,” writes our
author, il gave out his text and droned along monoto
nously through an argument that was so prosy that by
and by many a head began to nod, and yet it was an
argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone,
and thinned the predestined elect down to a company
so small as to be hardly worth the saving. The boy
counted the pages of the sermon; after church he
always knew how many pages there had been, but he
seldom knew anything else about the discourse.”
Once, indeed, he became interested for a moment. It
was when the preacher, instead of his own dreary
thoughts, drew from an ancient poet the picture of the
hosts of the world gathering at the millennium, when
the lion and the lamb should lie down together, and
a little child should lead them. The boy said to him
self that he would like to be that child, if it was a
tame lion.
I suppose there are many poor little sufferers like
this lad, dragged this day into the chapels and churches
of the world, but we may console ourselves partially
�3r
with the reflection that in their sufferings many a false
hood is smothered. The deadly dogma is happily
also dull, and sinks through the vacant mind into the
gulf of oblivion. And yet that boy is passing through
the years which should be sown with the seeds of
truth, and the germs of thought and purpose. His
faculties need encouragement : they say briars and
thorns are non-encouraged buds. So long as those
sweet, susceptible years are passed amid such errors
that apathy to them all is the child’s best hope, we
must still confess that in this age of light innumerable
children are still passing through the fire to Moloch.
�_______ _ __
�33
THE 8ABBATH-JUGERNATH.
On the sands at Puri, in India, stands the famous
temple of Jugernath. It is nearly seven centuries old,
and the building of it cost as much as a half million
sterling. It is six hundred and fifty feet square, and
its sanctity consecrates the soil for twenty miles around
it,—that land being held rent-free on condition of the
tenants performing certain sacred rites in honour of
Jugernath. There are twelve great festivals held every
year at this shrine, and the alleged performances at
these festivals have been the never-ending theme of
mission meetings ever since we can remember. You
must have been fortunate children if you have no
memories of Sunday School days when your childish
heart was harrowed by accounts of poor Hindoos
crushed under the wheels of Jugernath, and a tithe of
all you possessed annually sent away to convert that
hard god into a Christian, and stop that terrible car.
Some old missionary once estimated the immense
amount of money and labour devoted to the care, the
3
�34
ablutions, and other affairs of this temple, and he said
the same amount of wealth and toil usefully bestowed
might make every barren spot of India into a garden ;
and that missionary might have added that the amount
of money which has been evoked from Christian
pockets by that one idol might have made an equal
number of gardens there, or here,—whereas it has all
been spent, and the car rolls on just as grandly as
ever.
And not only this, but we have now learned on the
best authority that all those pictures of Hindoos cast
ing themselves beneath the Jugernath car to be crushed
were purely imaginary. When the car is drawn, with
the sacred image of Vishnu set up in it, the crowd of
the curious and the devotees is enormous, and no doubt
many accidents have happened. It may be, because
some from a distance are ignorant of the danger, or that
enthusiastic devotees put themselves unintentionally in
danger by going too near the image they believe
holiest on earth, or try to draw the car with hundreds
of others when they are too weak or aged to do so.
But there are no intentional sacrifices under the car of
Jugernath, nor could there ever have been at any period.
For Jugernath, or rather Jaganatb, means simply
“ the Lord of Life •” it is a title of Vishnu, and the
temple is purely sacred to Vishnu. Nothing is more
rigidly forbidden than to slay anything that has life in
�35
the neighbourhood of the Lord of Life. The Hindoos
declare that the holy pages of the Vedas themselves
sprang from drops of blood lost by their Saviour while
protecting Agni in form of a dove from Indra in form
of a hawk; and to Vishnu they offer only things that
are fresh and beautiful, like flowers, and even the
. flowers must not be in the least faded. So it is
impossible that there could have been human sacrifices
to Jugernath except by accident. The accidents were
probably very frequent at one time,—at least it is
•charitable to missionary reporters to think so,—the vast
increase of popularity in the festivals having made the
crowd unwieldy. But in recent years British authority
has insisted upon carefulness—threatened to stop the
car if men and women were injured—and there is now
far less destruction of life by the car of Jugernath than
by the London cab.
Happy Hindoos ' who have at hand an enlightened
authority willing to respect their religious customs so
long as they are harmless, but ready to put Vishnu
himself under arrest if he injures humanity. I would
match an Englishman against any man living for good
sound sense in dealing with such superstitions, pro
vided they are not his own. But when that clear
headed English authority which has put out the fires
that burned widows in India comes to deal with laws
that torture women here, it gets confused among
�36
Scripture texts and precedents. When it is needed
to curb a fanaticism here which deliberately sacrificeshuman life—that, for instance, of the Peculiar People,
who, because of a text in the New Testament, refuse
to call medical aid for their sick, letting them die in
numbers every year, even helpless children—why then
all that common sense seems to vanish. When it is
called upon to regulate our Sabbath-Jugernath, beside
which the car at Puri is an innocent toy, beneath
whose wheels millions of hearts and brains are crushed
in this kingdom, why then the intelligence of the nation
grows timid, and its arm is paralysed.
The celebrations of Jugernath, the Lord of Life,
bring to the poor twelve festivals in the year, The
celebrations of the Sabbath, Lord of Lifelessness, bringto our poor fifty-two funereal vacancies in their exist
ence. They ought to be fifty-two festivals of Reason, of
Beauty, of Happiness, but to the poor they are days of
unreason, of ugliness, of torpor and drunkenness ; days
hateful to children and hurtful to all. Now it is not
merely fanciful to bring together the Jugernath and the
Sabbath superstitions. Even in origin their consecra
tion came from the same source. Our theology has
arbitrarily transferred the sanctity of the Jewish Sab
bath, the Seventh Day of the week, to the Sun-day, the
day consecrated to sun-worship, our first day of the
week. I say arbitrarily, for' there is not a word in the
�New Testament consecrating Sunday, but there are
•strong sentences declaring one day as holy as another.
The early Christians when they went among so-called
pagan ” races met for worship on the first day of
■the week because it was a holiday, and they could only
then get at the people. For the same reason we meet
to-day, because it is the day when people are liberated
from business. But the Primitive Christians had as
•little thought of consecrating the “pagan” Sun’s day
as the Jewish Sabbath, just as most of us would abhor
•the notion that any day is less sacred than another.
But Vishnu also was to his provincial worshippers the
-quickening sun, and his chariot is the car of Jugernath.
So the two institutions are linked together archeeologi•cally. But in a more important sense they are related
by the fact that they are both idolatries. lhe Sab
bath is one of the only two visible idols which pro
nounced Protestantism has left standing for a race of
kindred origin to the Hindoos, and like them
naturally loving outward symbols and images. We
•all belong to the Great Aryan race, from which pro
ceeded all the bright gods and goddesses of Greece
and Rome, and Germany, and all their variegated
symbolism.
Through certain historic combina
tions our Aryan race as it migrated westwaid, became
invested with a Shemitic religion, one which had no
arts and pictures itself, and regarded them as impious
�38
in others. In obedience to this alien religion, our
race now wrote on its temples, “Thou shalt not make
to thyself any graven images, or pictures of anything
in heaven, earth or sea.” But it was one thing to say
this, another to practise. The Eastern Church evaded
the law by putting up certain holy pictures with
frames in relief, which are something like sculpture.
The Roman Church boldly disregarded the law in its
lordly way of requiring the Bible to accommodate itself
to the Pope. In this country all the sacred visible
images were swept away by Puritanism from its own and .
many other churches—leaving all the more graven
images in the mind ; but that race-instinct, that love
of outward symbols and objects of worship with which
the Eastern Church compromised, and to which the
Romish Church succumbed—that instinct and senti
ment remained in our people, and in the empty niche
of the Madonna, on the altar from which god and
goddess and crucifix had been successively swept,
there were now set up the only two visible images of
determined Protestantism—the Bible and the Sabbath.
There are some branches of the Church of England
which approximate to the Catholic Church enough to
preserve other symbols—exalting the sacrament, mag
nifying the cross, or the liturgy—and such care less tomake overmuch of the Sabbath, and respect saintly
tradition as much as the Bible. But when you find
�an out-and-out Evangelical, or a Calvinist, or a member
of a sect which has nothing symbolical about it, you
find one who will fight for the literal Bible and the
literal Sabbath, exactly as a barbarian fights for his
idol. They are his idols. They are to him precisely
what the Jugernath is to the devotee in India. The
Bible and the Sabbath are all he has left; and if you
were to really take from the average sectarian his
idolatry of those two visible objects, he would feel as
if he had nothing to lean upon at all. For this aver
age religionist has not a vivid interior life, he has not
the mystical sense cognisant of pure ideals, most
visible when the outward eye is closed. He needs to
have something he can see and handle, and feel
physically, or realise by physical effects.
There is not the least use in trying to argue with an
idolator. Nothing can be influenced by reasoning
which was not reached by any effort of reason. Real
thinkers, even in the sects themselves, have tried their
strength against this miserable Sabbath superstition,
Luther and Calvin, and George Fox, as well as the
most learned men of the English Church. But the
Sabbath stands like the Hindoo Temple described in
the curse of Kehdma :—
“ And on the sandy shore, beside the verge
Of ocean, here and there a rock-cut fane
Resisted in its strength the surf and surge
That on their deep foundation beat in vain.”
�40
Even so, deep-cut in the plutonic rock of human
ignorance, is this idol shrine, against which all our
protests, appeals, facts, and arguments will beat in
vain, until the ignorance itself shall be undermined and
crumble away.
There is no advantage, therefore, in pleading with
Sabbatarians. The more we groan the better they
feel, for it shows them that Jehovah is having his will
by crushing ours. But there is great reason that we
should appeal to the constituted rulers of England, in
the name of our religious liberty, against the claim of
Sabbatarians to oppress consciences that are not
Sabbatarian. The right of any individual to be him
self a simpleton seems inalienable. We do not deny,
though we may deplore, the claim of Sabbatarians to
pass their “ holy time ” in any depth of sanctimonious
stupor they like.
But they have no right to bind on
the altar of their ugly idol the life of other people.
That they are still able to do so is not due to any
Sabbatarianism in those who make our laws. There
is not one member of our Government or Parliament
who does not violate the Judaic Sabbath law every
week of his life. Nearly fifty years ago, William Lovett,
and several thousand working men with him, drew up a
petition to Parliament, declaring their conviction that
much of the drunkenness and crime in London is due
to the absence of proper resources for instruction and
�amusement on Sunday. Honest Joseph Hume pre
sented their petition and appealed to Parliament for
the opening of such resources. Since then the appeal
has been repeated by Sir Joshua Walmsley, Peter
Taylor and others, but steadily refused, even while
the principle has been conceded by the opening of
museums in Ireland, where Puritanism is not strong.
The last-named valiant member of Parliament has
now for some years moved that body to admit the
poor drudges of this metropolis to gain some know
ledge, to catch some gleam of light and beauty, on the
one day when they are released from toil, in our grand
national collections which they help to support but
never see—institutions which represent the secrets of
nature and ideality of poets and artists, the history of
man in his steady mastery of the earth by skill and
genius, the sacred story of heroes, saints, saviours of
humanity. But at last that member has declined to
renew his appeal, because, as he has stated to me, he
has ample evidence that while the majority of the
House are quite convinced that his motion is right,
and have no respect for Sabbatarianism, they yet vote
for it. The Puritan Sabbath can always roll up a
majority even in a House that applauds arguments
against it. The member referred to is naturally not
willing to go on convincing men already convinced.
But why then do these politicians vote against the
�42
relief of suffering non-Sabbatarians ? Why, because
they do not wish to be also victims of the Sabbath.
To the average Member of Parliament his seat there
is the immediate jewel of his soul. He would, no
doubt, like to have right on his side, but he must have
his borough. He knows perfectly well that if he
votes for opening museums and picture galleries to the
people, on the very next Sunday his constituency
will be listening to awful burdens against him from
all the reverend Chadbands and Stigginses and
Mawworms and Cantwells and Pecksniffs, whose com
bined power can defeat any man in England, as their
like defeated the great man in Jerusalem who broke
the Sabbath, and declared it subject to man, not man
to it. Nevertheless, we must not proceed upon the
opinion that the average Member of Parliament is so
much afraid of this power behind him, or so tenacious
of his seat, that he will carry it to the extent of sup
porting what he felt to be a very serious oppression.
All the honour and courage have not entirely gone
out of this nationality. Men will be found ready to
risk their seats when they have fully apprehended
the nature and extent of the wrong that is
suffered. Parliament consists mainly of wealthy
gentlemen, whose every earthly need is so com
pletely answered that they can only with difficulty
realise the wants of the poor. On Sunday they have
�their carriages to drive in, their right to visit botanical
and zoological gardens, their libraries, pictures, clubsand billiard-rooms. Their Sunday is free enough.
They turn it to repose or recreation as they may need,
In all their lives they have never had one day of
serious want, not one day of confinement in a miserable
lodging with no alternatives but the chill street or thegin-shop. In some way it must be brought before
these gentlemen, and kept before them— like the
widow’s plea in the parable before the judge, who waswearied out at last—that the lot of the masses whose
labour makes so much of their comfort is a mean and
miserable lot. They must be made to know that
there are millions who from the cradle to the grave,
toil—and toil—and toil, year in and year out, and
whose life is one long want. It must be impressed
upon them that a large part of the sorrow and heavi
ness of the poor man’s and poor woman’s fate is the
presence in them of mental and moral faculties and
possibilities which are a perpetual hunger without any
supply, which never rise to be real intellects and tastes
because they are kept by drudgery as seeds under the
sod, unquickened by any beam of light shining from
all the knowledge around them, unsunned by any ray
of beauty. Then they will comprehend that a fearful
system of human sacrifice is going on around them,
and they will not find their parliamentary seats easy
�44
if retained by any connivance with those sacrifices.
There is an Eastern fable of a throne luxuriously soft
to any monarch who sat upon it, until a wrong had
risen somewhere in his realm; then the throne became
so hard that no sovereign could sit upon it, until the
wrong was sought out and redressed; and there is
•conscience enough among our commoners to change
many a legislative seat to flint, when its holder shall
know that he maintains it only as a coward, through
the servility that dare not grapple with serious in
justice because it is in the majority.
Those are the men who must ultimately listen to
our cause and decide it rightfully. And our cause is
that the brain and heart, and even the work of the
poor, is suffering grievously because of the restrictions
placed by superstition upon that day of the week
which represents their all of opportunity for any high
enjoyment or improvement. The Sundays of life
represent one-seventh of every man’s time; but for
the drudges of the world it represents the whole of
their time. All the rest of life is not their time; it
belongs to their employer; it is mortgaged by physical
toil. What life is at their own disposal is counted by
.Sundays. If those free days are unimproved or
unhappy the whole life goes sunless to the grave.
What provision does this nation make, and wnat
■does it permit to be made, for the elevation, instruc
�tion, and happiness of those whose other days, asGeorge Herbert said, “trail on the ground,” on the
one day susceptible to nobler impressions ?
First it provides sermons.
Twenty thousand
churches are open this day for the people, and in
them are places for a limited number of the poor.
Well, let us forget how many dull sermons are
preached, how many gloomy, false, repulsive dogmas,,
how many threadbare superstitions, and how few work
ing people have any disposition to enter these assem
blies, or such dress as would let them feel comfortable
when there. Let us pass over all that. Admitting
that one hour and a half or two hours of the poor
man’s only leisure day may be so passed, what provision
is made for the remainder ?
Why, there are the parks in which he may walk.
But that is a very inadequate reply. Our English
weather renders the park attractive for but a small
part of the year. Much of the labour done is too
wearisome to render mere walking on Sunday any
delight to the workers. Nor is there anything in that
merely physical exercise which answers the real
demand, a demand not of the feet but of the head.
Well, there is the great provision that comes next
to the church, the public house. This great nation
has been appealed to by some of its noblest scholars
for permission to accompany the poor on Sunday
�46
■afternoons, when churches are closed, through the
national collections of art and science, to explain to
them the objects of interest, to interpret for them the
wonders of nature and unfold the splendours of art.
But thus far our rulers have replied, “ No, we will
deliver you to the publican, but never to Dr. Carpenter;
Ruskin shall not teach you the glory of Raphael’s
•cartoons, but you may gaze at pleasure on the interior
decorations of the gin-palace; you must not see the
grandeurs of art, nor the fine traceries of skill, nor the
antiquities of humanity, nor the wondrous forms and
•crystals of Nature, but do not complain : do we not
allow you limitless supplies of whiskey and beer?”
And just here, by the way, I remark a little sign of
hope. The Sabbatarians begin to perceive the scandal
that the beer-house should be kept open while the
museum is closed, and they begin to demand the
closing of the public-house also. They have carried
a. measure of that kind for Ireland, and I sincerely
hope they will manage to carry one for England. For
the day that sees the beer-house close will see the door
•of the museum start. The great ally of the Sabbatarian
has been the publican, and when that alliance is broken
our success will draw near. The parson drugs the
people’s brains with superstition, and the publican
drugs with beer those whom the parson cannot reach;
and the streams from church and tap-room blending
�47
together reinforce the Lord’s-day people, so that they
can always outnumber us. If the Sabbath were not
an idol it would long ago have recoiled from all this
part of its work.
It would have said, “ Open a
thousand museums rather than drive the poor to find
their only Sunday amusement, and spend the means
for which their wives and children suffer, in drink !”
But an idol may always be recognised by just this
fact: z? demands human sacrifices. It may not always
demand the cutting-up or burning of its victims; but,
if not that, it will demand the sacrifice of his intellect
or his affections, his happinesss or his welfare; in
some way a human body, or heart, or brain will be
found bound wherever an idol stands. And though
I cannot, in such brief space, enter into all the details
of the holocaust of human benefits offered up to the
Sabbath, I will affirm for myself that the more I have
considered the needs of this people, and the lost
opportunities of meeting them, the more have I felt
that there is now no cause worthier of a good man’s zeal
than the overthrew of this Sabbath oppression. It is
a wrong for which I have no toleration at all. I can
tolerate any man’s religious conviction about the
Sabbath or anything else ; but I cannot tolerate him
when he insists on binding his dogma upon others.
I will not tolerate his intolerance. This is no issue of
abstract opinion for theological fencing. It is no
�48
sentimental grievance.
The hunger of a million
famished souls is in it. It is a great heart-breaking
wrong, crushing lower and lower one class of society
at a time when other classes are rising higher daily.
And that the poor do not feel it to be so, are in boozy
contentment with their beer or their prayers and
demand nothing better, is only a proof of how fully
the oppression has done its miserable work.
Yet they use this as an argument against us ! They
cry, “The workmen do not want it; behold our
majority.” I answer, the majority is always wrong.
The majority crucified' Christ and poisoned Socrates.
Part of the masses you have deceived by the con
temptible fiction that their day of release from toil will
be endangered by that which would make it more
attractive and therefore more precious; and a larger
part you have so besotted with beer and ignorance
that they are pauperised in soul as well as body, and
hug their own chains. Theirs is not the real voice of
the people.
A true statesman will take the only
suffrage they are competent to cast from their degraded
foreheads and their brutalised forms and faces. The
gardener will not follow the will of the weeds, though
they report the soil he works in. At any rate a rational
man’s duty is clear. The authority of the Sabbath
rests upon what every intelligent mind knows to be
fiction; upon a deity who is said to have created the
�49
universe in six days and rested on the seventh, and
then ordered that anyone working on the seventh
should be stoned to death. That is a fiction. There
is no deity who did anything of that kind. We are told
this is the Lord’s day. We know that if that Lord be
other than a phantom every day is his day. J esus
said, 11 My Father works on the Sabbath and so will
I.” Rest is not stupor. It is well to change our
occupation occasionally, but never well to be idle.
There is no ground whatever for this superstition.
The day of rest originated no doubt in a human want,
afterwards invested with sanctity: but the sanctity
must be entirely removed if the day is to be changed
from a curse to a human benefit.
4
��51
THE MARTYRDOM OF REASON.
Reason is that supreme faculty of man by which he
is cognisant of principles apart from their applica
tions, of laws as distinct from particulars, of ideas as
separate from relations. It differs from the under
standing, which is concerned with those special appli
cations and relations, as a code of laws differs from
the various decisions of courts and judgments made
under that code. A man may reason rightly when his
understanding is in error. A Hindoo walking out saw
a large and dangerous cobra, as he supposed, across
his path, preparing to dart upon him ; it so overcame
his nerves that he fainted; the object proved to be a
piece of rope. The man had reasoned correctly; he
knew the nature of the cobra, and rightly inferred the
danger, but his judgment was in error. Now judg
ment is at the point of distinction between reason
and understanding. By origin it is an organ of rea
son, by result it is the agent of the understanding.
�52
When we consider our human faculties in this
abstract way, we find them perfectly harmonious.
They move in their appointed orbits, in constant rela
tion and interaction, but without collision or jar, their
very differences completing the harmony. Abstractedly
no mortal can conceive of a special judgment with no
general principles to guide it, and none can think of
ideas and laws as things inapplicable to the particulars
of nature and life.
And yet we find in all races and ages a wide-spread
suspicion of reason. Even at this day, and in nations
which are daily reaping and enjoying the fruits of
reason, we find vast numbers of people who have an
impression like that which Shakspere puts into the
mouth of Caesar, “ He thinks too much ; such men
are dangerous.” Still more general is the notion that
the man of ideas must be unpractical. It is easy to
perceive the origin of that notion; it is suggested in
the common saying, “That is well enough in theory,
but it won’t do in practice.” Of course the phrase is
a mistake ; it should be, “ That is wrong in theory, for
it won’t do in practicebut it discloses the fact that
there has been so much false reasoning in the world
that many have come to distrust reason itself.
And just here arises a misunderstanding and a
quarrel between the theorist and the practical man.
One says the error is in the theory, the other that it is
�53
in the application of it. Among educated people the
matter would be tested by experiment. Science, for
instance, has long affirmed that when salt water freezes
it loses its saltness; but the Arctic explorers melting
the sea-ice found it so briny that they could not drink
it. The result is, of course, a revision of theory by
experiments which will probably show that the salt
does not remain strictly in the ice, but between its
crystals, that the theory is not wrong but requires more
careful statemeht to include the practical fact. In this
way the old feud between theory and practice has
entirely ceased from the domain of science.
• But it is in religion that we find the distrust of rea
son most intense and familiar.
On that distrust
Christianity is founded. Christ appealed to reason;
but Christianity has very little to do with him ; it re
lapses into barbaric ages and finds its corner-stone in
a fable that the first effort of intellect led to the cor
ruption of the whole human race. It said that when
God made man and woman he put them into a para
dise for enjoyments sensual and sensuous. The one
thing he was opposed to was knowledge. So resolute
was the Creator on that point, that he did not hesitate
to accompany his prohibition of that one fruit with a
deception. He told them that on the very day they
should eat of the tree of Knowledge they would die.
The serpent persuaded the woman that this was a
�54
fiction, as it proved to be. The truthful serpent also
said, “ Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,”
and no sooner was the fruit eaten than Jehovah,
making no mention of what he had said about their
dying, acknowledged the veracity of the serpent.
“ Behold,” he said, “ the man is become as one of us
(gods) to know good and evil.” Then, lest the gods
should have no advantage at all, and man should eat
of another fruit and become immortal, the first pair
were expelled from Paradise. This fable, which re
presents the first priestly scream against education,
shows us a deity cursing knowledge and a demon en
couraging it; it shows a deity trying to delude man to
remain in ignorance, while the demon speaks the
truth, and secures the birth of intelligence for man and
woman, where Jehovah meant them to live only the
life of the senses. On that fable the whole Plan of
Salvation is founded. The knowledge gained that day
brought on mankind the curse of total depravity, and
doom of eternal torture. To avert that the Son of
God became incarnate on earth and suffered in a few
years all the agonies which the whole human race
would have suffered if every man, -woman and child
that ever lived were damned to all eternity. All of
this is meaningless, and the whole theology of Chris
tendom mere chaff, except to avert the wrath and undo
the curse which fell from a deity jealous of the attain
�55
ments of his own creature, upon man, because of his
first endeavour to gain knowledge.
Fortunately, while that is the theology it is not the
religion, and still less the morality of this country. It
is a sublime example of the kind of theory which does
not do in practice. Nevertheless we must not under
rate the results of the long pressure of instructions like
these upon every human being through a period of
sixteen hundred years. Even now, in the most en
lightened nations, the money devoted to teach that
theology is counted by millions where the money
devoted to pure knowledge is counted by tens. And
we need not wonder that the spirit of that old curse
on knowledge still survives to haunt every seeker of it
for its own sake. It is still strong enough to cast a
certain odium on the tasks of reason. To the popular
mind there is something uncanny about the rationalist,
which means a reasoner, and the sceptic—literally, he
who considers a thing—has still an evil name. Thou
sands who shout for every other kind of freedom will
cry down freethought. They will mourn over an en
slaved African thousands of miles away, but have no
tears to shed for fettered minds at their own door.
Nay, even among those liberated from the old
theology, how much suspicion of reason do we en
counter ! How often do we hear such speak of science
as cold, and of the intellect as inferior to something
�56
they call faith or intuition ! They who have no doubts
about reason are still comparatively few. And yet our
age is full of the grandest facts and illustrations, proving
that it is among the devotees of reason and science
that the divinest life and fire of our age is manifest. I
have just been reading a history, written by the leading
rationalist minister in America, of what is called “ the
transcendental movement” in that country.
*
And it
is well called a “movement ;” for the chief impres
siveness of it lies in the fact that what had been mainly
a speculative philosophy in Europe, there, among one
of the most shrewd and practical nations of the world,
blazed out into a movement, a noble enthusiasm for
humanity, a passionate religion which kindled the hearts
of young men and women, and made them Reformers,
Apostles, Martyrs, who gave up all their goods for the
poor, who brought glad tidings to woman and lifted the
heaviest burthens of her life, and who broke off the
bonds of the slave. There was not an orthodox man
or woman among them. They were rationalists. The
Bible they studied was Kant’s “ Critique of Pure
Reason,” Goethe’s Works, Carlyle’s Essays, Cousin’s
Philosophy: the ideas of Europe became ideals in
America, rose up like pillars of flame; they became a
* Transcendentalism in New England. A History. By Octavius
Brooks Frothingham. New York : E. P. Putman & Sons, 1876.
�57
gospel in the genius of Emerson, the mind of Parker,
and the heart of Margaret Fuller, and under its charm
humble people formed themselves in communities,
ceasing to care for worldly wealth and honours. There
is no type of character that is beautiful in the past
which did not reappear. St. Francis d’ Assisi, Fenelon,
Madame Guion, Berkeley, Sydney, they all had true
counterparts in the piety, devotion, virtue, and genius,
which characterised that movement. This is the
hundredth birth-year of America as a nation; they
who established its independence in the name of
humanity were free-thinkers—Washington, Jefferson,
Adams, Franklin, Thomas Paine—and they broke for
ever the power of a priesthood in the State. And now
remark, in that country where conscience is free, a
hundred years has witnessed but one great religious
movement—but one which corresponds with the
movements under George Fox, and Wesley and Whit
field in this country—but one which exhibited power
to command the passions, conquer selfishness, and
trace itself in practical reforms and a new Church
and that one was a movement born of pure reason.
Such has ever been the work of reason where it has
been set free. And yet there are eloquent men, like
Pere Hyacinthe, who are going about imploring the
priests and prelates of Europe to make a holy alliance
of Anglican, Greek, and Gallican Churches against
�58
this terrible monster—Rationalism. I rejoice to hear
they think there is need of a new league. It is a valu
able testimony to the stream of tendency that makes
for truth. But we must not allow the good father’s
confession, that many people are not only, like him
self, denying that two and two make five, but even
running into the excess of denying that two and two
make three—a radicalism he so much deplores—we
must not allow that to make us over-confident. We
must still face the fact that Reason is a sacrifice and a
martyr amid the great institutions around us.
What is the history of nearly every child born
in this country? The few who are brought up by
rational methods, and taught to cultivate and obey
reason as their highest guide, are hardly notice
able as to numbers.
A large proportion are
neglected, so far as Christian fables are concerned,
but they are victims of popular superstitions, believe
in ghosts and goblins, fortune-telling and the evil eye,
their minds overgrown with rank weeds. The ave
rage Christian child is taught superstition above every
thing else ! Other and true things may be taught, but
they spring up only amid those briars which choke
each other growth before it can bear its fruit. Car
dinal, and bishop, and cabinet, alike agree that no
seed of wheat shall be sown in any mind without a
tare of fable or dogma beside it. Of what use is
�59
geology if one believes that Jehovah created the
universe in six days ? What is the use of any science
to a mind which believes that the laws of nature are
arbitrary, have often been suspended, and may be
changed and altered by the breath of a mortal’s peti
tion ? There can be no reason cultivated where the
law of cause and effect is disregarded. To believe in
the connection of things that have no connection—for
instance, that a man’s word can raise the dead to
life—is to strangle reason. To believe in an effect
without adequate cause—for instance, that the
world stopped revolving that a captain might have
more daylight to fight by—vastates the mind. To
believe in anything whatever for which there is no
evidence, or insufficient evidence, is superstition; and
the essence of superstition is that reason is dethroned
and a mere compulsion of habit, fear, or self-interest
set up in its place to direct the life.
Well, the ordinary studies of the average Christian
child having thus been prevented from developing his
reasoning powers in the direction of religion, he is
completely subjected to the powerful stimulants of
those preternatural fears and hopes which make the
ordinary sanctions of what is called religion, but
really is selfishness. He is warned to avoid certain
things, and do others, because he will go to hell if
he doesn't comply, but will enjoy eternal bliss if he
�6o
does,—motives of calculating self-interest, which it is
the very mission of Reason to restrain and to remand
for the work of mere physical self-preservation.
While we despise the man who loves and serves a
wife or a friend from such base calculations of interest,
children are taught to love God and serve him for
fear of punishment and hope of reward.
But let us follow the growth of the child thus in
structed. The time comes when he must enter into
life. Physical cares, business, the healthy work of
the world claim him. Amid them he is pretty sure to
discover that the theology he has been taught is not
confirmed by experience. Then, haply, he may be
able to assert the rights of his own reason. But, sup
posing he does not, one of several other results will
follow, i. He may believe that the doctrines he has
been taught must have a formal homage as divine
mysteries which he is not expected to understand, but
only blindly to obey. 2. He may become a hypocrite.
3. He may become utterly indifferent to the whole
thing, and utterly reckless. In either case his sacred
reason has been sacrificed.
But do we fully appreciate the tragedy which has
thus happened ? Do we fully realise that even when
men and women do not become either hypocrites or
reckless, they are almost certain, as things now stand,
to reach some day the appalling discovery that they
�6i
have wasted the best years of their life on a sham and
a fraud ?
In the twenty-five years during which I have been
in a position to receive the confidences of those who
were struggling amid doubts, and in the pangs of
transition, the chief agonies I have witnessed have
been those whose awakening came too late for oppor
tunities to be recovered. Youth is gone, enthusiasm
has gone, the time for study and devotion for ever
passed away, and the collective force of all the light
around them enters at last only to bring the bitter
consciousness that the glory of life has been cast away
upon the barren deserts of delusion.
These are the martyrs whom every devotee of
reason should see around him. There is no sorrow
equal to theirs. No doubt rationalism may bring
with it many trials so far as the world is concerned.
There may be separations, friendships clouded, affec
tions wounded ; for superstition can turn hearts to
stone even against their own blood where its autho
rity is denied. There may be intellectual doubts,
too, not to be satisfied, some loved legends vanish
ing, and some pretty dreams made dim along with the
nightmares escaped. But amid all these there is
nothing half so terrible as the fate of those who have
no alternatives but either to slay their reason
.altogether, or to admit its testimony only to find
that the whole life has been a gigantic mistake.
�62
Therefore it is the high duty of every human being
to maintain openly and valiantly the verdict of his
own faculties. Unfortunately the guardians of the
young are so eager to teach them how to say
prayers, and keep sanctimonious on Sunday, and to
refrain from kneeling down to graven images, that few
have ears to hear the great decalogue announced in
their own time. The first of the new commandments
is this,—Seek truth ! and the second is like unto it,
Live the Truth in thought, word, and deed 1 So little
has the virtue of self-truthfulness been taught, that we
often meet people who actually make a merit of con
cealing their convictions, especially if they think they
are thereby saving somebody’s feelings. There is a
great deal of selfishness, as well as sentiment, sheltered
under Paul’s dangerous maxim about being all things
to all men, and a great deal of Jesuitism hides itself
under Christ’s admonition against casting pearls before
swine, which is true only if read by the light of his
own martyrdom for speaking the truth. As a rule the
men and women you meet are not swine, and you
need not fear to offer them—it is cruel to refuse them
—your pearls of truth and sincerity. Many of them,
indeed, are going about silently seeking those very
pearls. No doubt there are times for reserve, no doubt
there are rocks of prejudice and ignorance which have
to be slowly pulverised into a soil before any seed can
�63
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be sown in them. But no one will ever lack wisdom
for all occasions who is animated purely by that love
which is not seeking his own, nor vaunting himself,
but seeking only to advance Truth. Reason supplies
an instinct adequate to all emergencies. Remember
again what reason is, and the ground of its supremacy I
Remember now and always, that its very soul is dis
interestedness. It is the clear vision of the mind as
it rises above all the considerations of self-interest, pre
judice, conventionality, passion, which would lower and
discolour its pure light. Reason is to see things as
they are, and not as majorities or institutions say they
are, or wish them to be. And it is just as much as a
mind can do to keep that holy lamp burning steadily
through life in a world where the most powerful threats
and bribes are continually used to sway and pervert
the judgment. In legal affairs no judge is allowed to
decide a case involving his own interest; a heavy
punishment follows any attempt to bribe judge or jury
man. So we can get just verdicts. But how are
we to get just verdicts on religious questions,
when untold millions and all social advantages
are set apart by Church and State to influence every
mind in favour of creeds and dogmas, as against pure
reason? We can hope for a true verdict only from
those who have ascended above such considerations,
and surrender themselves wholly to the guidance of
reason and right.
�64
When the poet Heine was in Paris, poor, sick,
wretched, he renounced his rationalism. His friends
in Germany heaped scorn upon him. Heine then
wrote :—“ They say Heine has changed and become
a reactionist. Ah, well, lately I went to the Louvre,
and knelt before our lady of Milo. Many tears did I
shed as I gazed upon her beautiful form and face, but
I rose and left her, for she had no arms. She had no
arms, and I was poor and needy.” So he turned to
our lady of the Church, for she had arms and hands,
all full of rich gifts to reward any poet for singing her
praises.
We cannot help feeling compassion for those who
yield to rich and powerful superstition the homage
which is due to reason alone: but the standard cannot
be lowered, whoever may go away sorrowful. He
alone is a true man who stands firm to the mandate of
the Sinai within him, and sees that whatever may
bend or break, it shall not be his fidelity to truth.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Human sacrifices in England : four discourses
Creator
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 64 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Contents: I. Human sacrifices -- 2. The daughters of Jephthah -- 3. Children and their Moloch -- 4. The Sabbath-Jugernath -- 5. The martyrdom of reason. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Trübner and Co.
Date
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1876
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N178
G3343
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Religion
Rationalism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Human sacrifices in England : four discourses), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Child Rearing-Moral and Ethical Aspects
Children
Children's Rights
Education
Morris Tracts
NSS
Rationalism
Reason
Religion and Civil Society
Sabbath
Social Justice
Women-Religious Aspects-Christianity
Women's Rights
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Text
2SZ-l> mag
OUR CAUSE AND
ACCUSERS.
ITS
A DISCOURSE
GIVEN AT
THE ATHEN/EUM, CAMDEN ROAD,
UNE
1 1TH,
1876.
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
��OUR CAUSE AND ITS ACCUSERS,
It is not because the believer in rational religion has
not clear convictions that he will not shape them into
a creed. It is because the experience of the world
has proved that however well a creed may express the
thought of one generation it is very certain to impede
the thought of another. An oriental Prince once sent
his servant some miles to get a bit of salt for his meal
while out hunting; but when he found that his
messenger had not paid for the salt he sent him all
the way back with some money; for, he said, though
the pinch of salt is a trifle, precedent is not a trifle,
and if he should take even so little without payment
the custom might grow until some prince of the
future might desolate the country. As great despotisms
have grown from small beginnings, so have oppressions
�4
for the human mind and conscience grown out of the
bad habit which our ancestors had of putting their
opinions into dogmatic shape. For when a creed is so
made they who believe it commit their pride of
opinion to it; they get a party to build schools and
churches to teach that creed ; then many people have
pecuniary interests invested in such schools and
churches, are furious with those who question the
creed which props their power and wealth, and do
them all the mischief they can. This is why the
church never burned people for immorality, but only
for doubting or denying their creed. All this amounts
to systematic discouragement of thought; and, as the
rationalist desires to encourage thought, he refuses to
formulate his opinions as dogmas or creeds, or to
build his organisation on any corner-stone which may
crush intellectual liberty beneath it. I have no claim,
therefore, to commit those who have for many years
honoured me with their confidence to any belief
except belief in this liberty of mind and conscience.
We are aiming to build a science of religion and of
morals, based upon the facts of consciousness, the
history of man, the laws of nature,- and in science
there can be no finality, no authority. In stating the
views of rationalists, I speak only as one who has had
long acquaintance with such, and has devoted his life
to study of their principles.
Occasionally, indeed, some few liberals—not exactly
�5
rationalists—have wished for something like a set of
articles; but I think we are justified in our repugnance
to everything of that kind not only by the history
of persecution for opinion’s sake, but by what is now
occurring around us, even here in the most enlightened
metropolis of the world. The transfer of our little
Society to a larger hall than that in which we have
gathered for near ten years in quietness, has been the
occasion of denunciations which could not have been
more fierce had we during those years demoralised
the whole neighbourhood. We have been vilified,
accused, misrepresented, and for what offence ? For
inability to subscribe to a creed framed in an age
when science did not exist, by men who believed more
childish superstitions than the Church of Rome,
a creed which our assailants themselves could not
and would not believe were their faculties unfettered.
Here are two printed sermons directed against us, and
all who tolerate us, by the Vicar of St. Luke’s, West
Holloway. One is entitled “ The Lord’s Derision of
Opposer’s Schemes;” and in it he describes his God as
laughing, but with an awful angry laugh, at our opposi
tion to the Vicar’s creed. The other is called “ The
Lord’s Question to those who harbour his enemies,”
the question being that which Jehovah is said to have
asked Balaam, “ What men are these with thee ? ” The
Vicar talks about his God in this way :—“ First, then,
it is a question of Surprise. It is asked even by God
�6
in a tone of surprise and of startled wonder. What!
God seems to say ; is it possible ? ” And again “ the
question is also one of anger and high indignation"
He also represents Balaam as being killed in battle
because he had joined Jehovah’s enemies.
Now this so-called deity is familiar to all students
of superstition. The God that laughs at the calamity
of his own creatures and mocks when their fear
cometh, and sends into the world opposers only to
deride and then kill them,—even as he hardened
Pharaoh s heart in order, as he said, that he might
show his own glory upon him,—this fearful phantasm
of a semi-barbarous Syrian tribe, is known to us. But
how comes it that he is held up as a real god here in
London, in an age of refinement and culture ? How
comes it that the graduate of a University is prepared
to bid men love their enemies in one breath, and in
another bid them worship a God who derides, mocks,
pursues, and slays his enemies, even though he made
them himself voluntarily ? Why the reverend gentle
man himself shows us how it has come about. He says,
ii There is a false and mock liberality which says that
we may allow people to think and do as they like I
Now that might be true if God had given us no rule,
no law to guide us ; but as He has, men have no such
liberty.” I honour that clergyman’s candour. He
confesses that what he preaches is not his own thought,
not what he might like or believe if he should indulge
�7
in the wickedness of reasoning without prejudice. He
thinks only as authority has prescribed; and because
for ages men like him have laboured not to discover
what is true but to defend the incredible creeds of the
world’s infancy, around which temporal interests and
institutions have grown, we find this idol of the Stone
Age artificially preserved to disgrace the Age of
Reason. This clergyman says our God is “ a clot on
the brain.” I can assure him that I do not believe his
startled, angry, jealous, plotting god is a clot on the
brain : it is the yet uncrumbled fragment of an ancient
cosmogony occupying the place where a brain ought
to be at work in the life that now is, and in the light
shining for its direction.
It is a formidable thing for a man to take such a
conception of God into his mind, and set it up on the
tomb of his freedom; for the day has passed by in
which it can be maintained by fair and honourable
means. As the angry, jealous, mocking god gives no
sign or miracle to attest his existence at a moment
when in all the ranks of literature and science no un
professional defender of that existence is discoverable,
they whose all is based upon that superstition are
tempted to support it by intemperate language, by
personal misrepresentations, and foul aspersions. I
do not feel animosity towards the Vicar on account of
the injustice he has done my friends and myself,
because his sermons reveal the earnestness of his
�8
feeling. His pain and alarm are at least more creditable
than the hypocrisy of the hirelings who flee when they
see the wolf approaching their fold. The only sorrow
I have is that so candid and earnest a gentleman should
mistake me for a wolf, for he cannot help fighting me
as such, without being particular as to his weapons.
Not being a wolf, and indeed trying to watch
beside a flock of my own, I am compelled to
remonstrate against his misrepresentations.
He
tells his people that I call their Lord and Saviour
“ a dead Jew.” That is not true. This phrase,
il a dead Jew/’ is taken from a book of mine,
*
and by detachment is made to seem like an epithet
on Christ, instead of a rebuke to those who ignore
his grand humanity. I remember once to have had
a fear that some one might fancy that sentence was a
slur upon the Jewish race, which I honour for its
genius and its high record in art and philosophy ;
but it did not occur to me that it would ever be so
hopelessly wrested from its meaning as it has been by
the Vicar of St. Luke’s. In the preceding sentence I
speak of laying my “ palm before the heroic prophet
of Jerusalem,” and immediately after on the same
page of “the brave reformer” sacrificed to “the High
Church of Palestine.” When, therefore, I asked in
that connection, “ What shall we say of the cultivated
* The Earthward Pilgrimage. Chatto and Windus, 74,
Piccadilly, W. The reference is to p. 240.
�9
Europeans whose god is a dead Jew ?” I was plainly
not expressing my conception of Christ, but that of
the Churches generally. I heartily wish it were
otherwise. I wish that the sweet humanity of Christ,
his heroic struggle with the Established Church of his
time, his poetry and eloquence, were recognised by
the orthodox; but unhappily it is untheological to
dwell on the human characteristics of Christ. They
insist that he was going through a prescribed routine
in a perfunctory way; his temptations, difficulties, all
unreal, as, being God, he could not sin, and was never
in any danger of failing. So there is no man there at
all. According to that view, so far as his humanity
is concerned, he is merely a dead Jew, his death
being the only seriously important thing about him.
Again, my reverend critic writes as follows :•—“ Can
you ‘ receive into your house’ men who speak thus
of the sacred mystery of the Incarnation. . .
‘ His infant head, (said the poets)—alluding thus, it
would appear, to that most reverent and devout
hymn of good Bishop Heber—and where can
Rationalism find among its disciples such a specimen
of pure high morality, to say nothing of heavenly
spirituality, as we can present it with in Heber ?—
£ Low lies His head, mid the beasts of the stall ’:—‘ His
infant head was laid down amid the beasts of the
stall.’ And now listen to the way in which the Son
of God, your Saviour, and His holy Gospel are
�IO
spoken of: ‘Its helpless infancy must be confided
to donkeys, who shall mingle many a bray with this
new Gospel.’ ”
Such is the fate of my honest effort to save faith in
the wisdom and the greatness of Christ from being
hid and lost for rational people by reason of the stu
pidity and bigotry which for ages have been taking
him under their fatal protection, making him into
their own image, until it is almost impossible to con
vince able men that there was any grandeur in him
at all. In charity I must suppose that some one
must have handed the Vicar the extract, for if he had
read it in its connection he must have known that he
was conveying to his people an impression widely
different, and, so far as related to Christ, exactly the
reverse of what is said in my book. I must now ask
you to listen to what I there wrote:—“ Who is he that
overcometh the world, but he that can pierce through
its glittering shows, and see this Nazarene peasant to
be the Son of God? From that moment the old
heavens begin to fade: on the soul’s eye shines
already the new heaven to whose every tint the new
earth must respond. ... A thousand revolutions ger
minated when the people knelt before a right and
true, and a poor man. He was born amid the wild
winter, said the poets; his infant head was laid low
amid the beasts of the stall; his cause must struggle
with the hostile elements of an icy conservatism; its
�II
helpless infancy must be confided to donkeys, who
shall mingle many a bray with this new gospel. All
the old fables about Jahve, Zeus, and the rest, shall
swathe this babe. Nevertheless, to us this child is
bom; where he enters idols shall fall, oracles be
struck dumb, and all the signs of the heavens hold
themselves honoured in weaving an aureole about
the brow of a Man. This babe shall consecrate
every babe; this mechanic shall establish the dignity
of labour; this pauper shall liberate slaves and strike
off the burdens of the poor.”
Such is the page in which the Vicar detects blas
phemy. I have given it at length, because it is of
very serious importance to me that I shall not be
held up before this community as falling beneath any
man living in my homage to Christ. In a ministry
that has now lasted a quarter of a century no word
concerning that great soul has yet fallen from my
tongue or pen that was not inspired by reverence,
love, and even enthusiasm.
•So much in self-defence. The next point in the
Vicar’s attack is a more serious one, and it involves
the whole Rationalistic community. He virtually
charges it with sensualism. He tells his hearers
■that if they even tolerate us God will withdraw his
light from their mind and his grace from their heart.
“ You will become,” he says, “ first a sceptic, and
then an infidel, and then a scoffer, and then, at last
�12
the openly immoral sensualist!” What is a sceptic?
It is a Greek word, meaning a man who “ considers.”
What is infidel? It means a man who disbelieves
what the majority^believe. It was what Paul con
fessed to when he said, “ This I confess, that after
the way they call heresy so worship I the God of
my Fathers.” According to the Vicar, to consider
(o-KeTTTeiv), and to adopt an individual opinion, in
religion, is the sure path to immorality. Well, Christ
was called a blasphemer and a friend of sinners, and
in league with Beelzebub ; and if priests spoke so of
him we need not be disturbed when priests say hard
things of us. But we have the right to ask the Vicar
to prove his case. The Liberal religious body is of
respectable age, and the Vicar should point out the
examples of immorality in its record of eminent men.
Will he select Channing, or Belsham, or Priestley—
whose house a Christian mob tore down—in the past,
or Martineau and John James Tayler, Dr. Carpenter
and Miss Mary Carpenter of recent years ? Or,
taking more pronounced rationalism, will he name
as sensualists Professor Newman, or Miss Cobbe, or
Sir Charles Lyell, or Mr. Justice Grove, or Lord
Houghton, or the Duke of Somerset, or the poet
Tennyson, or Matthew Arnold, or Herbert Spencer?
These are men who have carried scepticism and
rationalism to its fullest logical results. Are they
known as sensualists, or even as men who bear false
witness against their neighbours ?
�r3
I think most persons will agree that Mr. Gladstone
is about as good a judge of the religious world as the
Vicar of St. Luke. In his article on “ Modern Reli
gious Thought,” Mr. Gladstone speaks of those whom
the Vicar calls Sensualists, in the following terms :—
“ There are within it,” he says, speaking of the
Unitarian, theistic, and rationalistic class generally,
“ men not only irreproachable in life, but excellent;
and many who have written both in this country and
on the Continent with no less power than earnestness,
in defence of the belief which they retain. Such are,
for example, Professor Frohschammer in Germany,
and M. Laveleye in Belgium ; while in this country,
without pretending to exhaust the list, I would pay a.
debt of honour to Mr. Martineau, Mr. Greg, Dr. Car
penter and Mr. Jevons. . . . They are generally men.
exempt from such temptations as distress entails, and
fortified with such restraints as culture can supply.
. . . We should not hastily be led by antagonism of
opinion to estimate lightly the influence which a
School, limited like this in numbers, may exercise on
the future. For, if they are not rulers, they rule those
who are. They belong to the class of thinkers and
•teachers ; and it is from within this circle, always, and,
even in the largest organisations, a narrow one, that
go forth the influences which one by one form the
minds of men, and in their aggregate determine the
course of affairs, the fate of institutions, and the hap
piness of the human race.”
�14
Such is the judgment upon the men and the influ
ences at work in the rationalistic movement uttered
by one who has given as much attention to religious
subjects as any man of our time.
The Vicar challenges us to show in the ranks of
rationalism any man so moral and spiritual as Bishop
Heber. That kind of argument is more absurd than
if I were to ask him to point out among rationalists
one so coarse as the present Bishop of Gloucester
and Bristol, who advised the landlords, when Joseph
Arch and other leaders of the Agricultural Unions
came, “ to duck them in the nearest horsepond.” It
is at least more pertinent to illustrate the character of
an existing belief by living examples than by going
back to one dead over fifty years. There was a time
when the saintliest souls in Europe were Roman
Catholics. The falsity of the system had not then been
exposed: Since Bishop Heber died the religious
mind of England has been revolutionised by the great
discoveries of science, the generalisations of philo
sophy, and the opening to us of the religions of the
East. It is under such influences as these that the
Hebers of the past have become the Thirlwalls, and
Colensos, and Temples of the present. For the ra
tionalist movement in England has been fed at a
fountain which is now the most living in the English
Church. Possibly the Vicar of St. Luke’s may have
excommunicated the late Bishop of St. David’s, when
�he refused to act as a reviser of the Bible translation,
if a leading Unitarian were excluded from the Com
mittee ; and perhaps he is ready to excommunicate,
the rationalist Bishop Colenso, and the Bishop of
Exeter, and Dean Stanley, and Stopford Brooke who
extols the poet Shelley, and the Rev. Mr. Haweis whodeclares that prayer can have no possible effect on the
unalterable course of Nature.
Nevertheless, I
will venture to suggest that it is not one of
the thirty-nine articles that the neighbouring Vicar
shall represent all the wisdom in the Church,
of England. At any rate, it is plain that he
can hardly expect to exterminate our humble society
here until he has dealt with those who in his owrL
Church are fraternising with heretics. We may return,
upon him “the Lord’s question” to Balaam—“What
men are these with thee ? ” Here, for instance, is the
Rev. Dr. Mark Pattison of your own Church, who
answers for us your threat of endless despair, telling us.
that to act in any way “ because God is stronger than
we and able to damn us if we don’t,” argues “a sleek
and sordid epicurism.” Here is the late Professor
Baden Powell who tells us that “ in nature and from
nature, by science and by reason, we neither have, nor
can possibly have, any evidence of a Deity working
miracles.” Here is the present Bishop of Exeter who
declares that men who do not use their reason in perfect
freedom without restraint from any external authority,.
�i6
are “under the law.” “Such men,” he says, “are
sometimes tempted to prescribe for others what they
need for themselves, and to require that no others
should speculate because they dare not. They not
•only refuse to think, and accept other men’s thoughts,
which is often quite right, but they elevate those into
•canons of faith for all men, which is not right.” And
finally I will quote from a man who occupies the
highest educational position in Great Britain,—a man
•to whom this nation has entrusted a position of in
fluence in the training of young men, second to none
<on earth. I refer to the Rev. Professor Jowett, the
Head Master of Balliol College, Oxford. In words
that should have their weight for every mind that hears
•me, he says:—“ The suspicion of Deism, or perhaps of
, Atheism, awaits inquiry. By such fears a good man
refuses to be influenced; a philosophical mind is apt
to cast them aside with too much bitterness. It is
better to close the book (the Bible), than to read it
•under conditions of thought which are imposed from
•without. Whether those conditions of thought are
-the traditions of the Church, or the opinions of the
religious world—Catholic or Protestant—makes no
•difference : they are inconsistent with the freedom of
■the truth and the moral character of the Gospel.”
Do not imagine that I have got these testimonies
-from the Vicar’s clerical brethren by garbling their
»thoughts as he garbled mine : you will find such
�thoughts the main burden of the “ Essays and Re
views,” from which I have taken them. I supposeour accuser does not wish his Church to monopolise
rationalism, nor think that such thoughts become'
sound if one only wears a surplice. Consequently I
have a right to ask him, “ What men are these with
thee ? ” Are you quietly submitting to them, frater
nising with them, getting your living from a church
that exalts them, and then denouncing as blasphemers
and sensualists humbler people who are animated by
the same spirit and honestly carrying out the same prin
ciples? Is it the high Christian spirit to hush up the
heresies of a Bishop or a Dean, and then turn with
fury on the press that gives their views fair play ; to
threaten with vengeance from Heaven English gentle
men who refuse to aid in barring freedom of speech
out of this Athenseum; or is it Christian to conspirefor the injury of an institution because it will not turn
itself into a prison to restrain and punish thought and.
inquiry ?
It may be Christian, but it is not like Christ. It is.
not the spirit of him who said, “ Of yourselves judge
ye what is right,” and “ The truth shall make you free.”
It is not that of his early followers, who said, “ Try
the spirits; prove all things, hold fast that which is.
good; where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty.” Intolerance burned the books of Copernicus,,
and the bodies of scholars, in the past, and it may
�i8
•still trample on the book it cannot answer, and doom
to hell-fire those whom it can no longer bum with
earthly fire; but it is in sharp discord with the civili
sation of our age, which protects the freedom which
is essential to the elucidation of truth, and inhar
monious with that spirit of inquiry which is the great
need of our time, and the charity which is the need
of every time.
Of these tendencies of our age our Society is one
result among many,—an inevitable result. We are
not prepared to adopt any sectarian shibboleth what
ever. We admit ourselves unable to comprehend the
•divine existence, while we feel the reality of that
supreme influence which is expressed by humanity in
the word God. We find in the Bible a sacred reve
lation of the human heart—able to stimulate into
activity our own hearts, but we cannot call that book
the Word of God in any sense that would localise or
limit the spiritual sunshine which has illumined every
race and period. While we love to think upon Christ,
•and study his words, and recognise his unparalleled
•grandeur, we decline to call ourselves “ Christian,”
technically, because, in the first place, we do not wish
to separate ourselves from those brought up in other
religions—Israelites, Hindoos, Mahommedans—among
whom Christianity has for ages carried fire and sword,
unwilling to raise any name by them historically as
sociated with their subjugation and suffering, as a bar
�I9
to that common Religion of Humanity for which we
long and hope. Nor do we wish to raise any sectarian
name, like Christian, which would imply that the
religious culmination of our race has already taken
place in the distant past. We believe that in religion,
as in knowledge and civilisation, the law is progress.
That indeed is the essence of our faith in God. Jesus
called himself by the name of no preceding religion
or sect; neither did the disciples or apostles call
themselves Christian; that word has no sanction
in the New Testament. In the day when souls
are breaking their ancient bonds they cannot
live on memories of days that have set, but keep
their faces ever to the sunrise. There shines the
light that can alone transfigure the life of to-day, and.
in its glory Moses and Elias will again ascend, in it
Christ and all the Prophets and Saviours of the world
shall be glorified.
This is our cause. We have no fear for it. We
love it, for it means to us reverence for all that is
sweet in the past and pure in the present; we have
faith in it, for it means to us pursuit of truth and
fidelity to it; we rejoice in it, for in it we see germi
nating the freedom and fraternity of man, and in it
all the great hopes of Humanity climbing to fulfilment.
�NOTE.
Without undertaking to speak for the Committee
of the Athenseum, who are able to speak for them
selves, it may be well enough to say here that
our
Society regards the
contract for the hall
as purely a business arrangement, made in accord
ance with the usage under which the building
is let for orderly meetings of various characters, and
not in the least as implying any sympathy with our
opinions on the part of that Committee.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Our cause and its accusers: a discourse given at The Athenaeum, Camden Road, June 11th 1876
Creator
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907 [1832-1907]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 19, [1] p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Includes a bibliographical reference.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1876]
Identifier
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G3333
Subject
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Rationalism
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Our cause and its accusers: a discourse given at The Athenaeum, Camden Road, June 11th 1876), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Morris Tracts
Rationalism