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REVIEWS 
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 

REVIEWS 
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 CHARLES H. PEARSON 
 
 Hon. LL.D. St. Andrews, late Fellow of OrielCollege, Oxford, Officier d'Instruction 
 publique and sometime Minister of Education in Victoria 
 
 Author of " A History of England in the Early and Middle Ages", 
 
 and of ^^ Historical Maps of England", and of ^^ National 
 
 Life and Character, A Forecast" 
 
 Edited by H. A. STRONG, M.A., LL.D., 
 Professor of Latin, University College, Liverpool 
 
 WITH A MEMOIR AND PORTRAIT 
 
 METHUEN & Co. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1896 
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
 en 
 
\^%\"\^'^^ 
 
 PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) 
 
 HT H. C. A. THIEME OF NtMEGUKN (HOLLAND) 
 
 AND 
 
 27 SHOE LANE, LONDON, E.G. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Memoir of Charles Henry Pearson i 
 
 REVIEWS AND CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 I. — Personal Memoirs 39 
 
 n. — Caricatures 49 
 
 III. — Cynicism in Literature 61 
 
 TV. — Questions of Casuistry 78 
 
 V. —The Grand Style 89 
 
 VI. — Optimism 99 
 
 vn. — Pessimism m 
 
 VIII. — 1883. Sheridan. First Notice 123 
 
 IX. — Sheridan. Second Notice 138 
 
 X. — 1884. Bismarck 154 
 
 XL — 1883. Emerson 171 
 
 xn.— October 6th, 1883. Mazzini 187 
 
 xm. — iSgo. History in State Schools. Lecture delivered 
 
 in the New Training College, Melbourne 202 
 
 XIV. — The Court of Napoleon. First Notice 239 
 
VIII CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 XV. — The Court of Napoleon. Second Notice 256 
 
 XVI. — Scottish Characteristics 274 
 
 XVII. — Early Life of Renan . . 289 
 
 XVIII. — The Black Republic 305 
 
 XIX. — An Agnostic's Progress 321 
 
 XX. — 1884. High Life in France 331 
 
 Index 346 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 HERBERT A. STRONG 
 
 The subject of the following brief memoir always 
 seemed to me one of the most intellectually gifted 
 men I have ever met. His memory was extra- 
 ordinary, and his power of mastering masses of 
 facts and drawing conclusions from them was 
 equally remarkable. His experience of life, drawn 
 from the observation of persons and events in 
 Europe, was ever at hand to form his judgment. 
 It was this happy faculty of recalling pictures of 
 events in bygone times and in far-off countries 
 which gave his conversation its peculiar charm, 
 which all who conversed with him were ready to 
 acknowledge. 
 
 During the long period of our intimacy in Vic- 
 toria I always looked forward to the Sunday 
 evenings which I usually spent at his house, as 
 
2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 the greatest of intellectual treats. It was gratiiy- 
 ing to notice the frank recognition which his wide 
 learning received in the young colony of Victoria, 
 and it was very pleasant to see the unfeigned 
 admiration with which Dr. Pearson regarded the 
 vigour and force which characterises our colonists. 
 Especially for the young men with whom he was 
 brought into contact he had the greatest sympa- 
 thy. The frankness of the young Victorians, their 
 kindliness and their affection, are traits which all 
 their teachers must appreciate, but these traits 
 were dwelt on with special frequency by Dr. 
 Pearson. 
 
 In politics he was a Liberal, while I am a 
 Conservative. But his school of Liberalism was 
 such as would have only brought honour to his 
 country. Being above all things jealous of the 
 fair name of Britain, he always maintained 
 that concessions should never be granted to Ire- 
 land when she claimed them with menaces, and 
 he could not bear to think of Majuba Hill. 
 His demeanour always retained rather more of 
 academic gravity than is popular with colonists, 
 who wear their hearts upon their sleeve, but those 
 who came into contact with him were not slow 
 to recognize that in him they saw a man of ster- 
 ling stuff and of absolute fidelity. He was the 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 3 
 
 most untiring worker, and it is matter for wonder 
 how after days spent in a Government ofifice or 
 in teaching, he would spend his nights in writing 
 history or literature. 
 
 The late Dr. Pearson was descended from an- 
 cestors who migrated in the i6th century from 
 Lincolnshire into East Yorkshire. The eldest 
 branch of this family to which Major Pierson, 
 the defender of Jersey, belonged, died out in the 
 direct male line towards the end of the last 
 century. 
 
 Dr. Pearson's grandfather, John Pearson, born 
 in 1758, having studied medicine at Leeds under 
 the eminent surgeon W. Hay, was elected sur- 
 geon of the Lock Hospital, and while yet quite a 
 young man, acquired one of the largest practices 
 in London, and refused a proffered baronetcy. 
 
 He married a Miss Sarah Norman, cousin to 
 the well-known Admiral Greig, whose descendant 
 was minister of Finance in Russia. He had seven- 
 teen children, of whom seven survived him. 
 
 Dr. Pearson's father, the Rev. John Norman 
 Pearson, M.A., was the eldest son. He became 
 a scholar of Trinity, Cambridge, and took Holy 
 Orders. 
 
 In 181 5 he married Harriet Puller. 
 
 On his mother's side Dr. Pearson was de- 
 
4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 scended from Sir W. Noyes, the adviser of Ship- 
 Money, and from the famoiis Lord Clarendon. 
 
 The Rev. John Norman Pearson had six sons, 
 five of whom survived him. The two eldest, 
 John and Francis Pearson, distinguished them- 
 selves as members of the Bar, and rose to be 
 Judges of the Supreme Court. 
 
 The Rev. John Norman Pearson came to Is- 
 lington as Principal of the Church Missionary 
 College, where Charles Henry Pearson, his fourth 
 son, was born on Sept. yth, 1830. Taught by 
 his father until he was twelve years old, he was 
 rather solitary, except during the holiday time 
 of his brothers and sisters, who were at school. 
 His father and mother, both influenced by the 
 Calvinistic tone of the Evangelical school, brought 
 up their children on the Puritanical system. He 
 learned French sufficiently weU to read Nicole 
 and Amaud and studied a great deal of Jansenist 
 theology, of which his father had a great collection. 
 
 Some of the poems written by him at the age 
 of eleven were very striking. Some other poetry 
 published by him anonymously was highly praised 
 by the press. 
 
 At the age of twelve he was sent to Rugby, 
 and although youngest but one in a class of sbcty 
 he came out head of the whole class in examina- 
 
CHARLES HEXRY PEARSON 
 
 D 
 
 tion. In 1846 he went to a private tutor, and 
 from him he went in 1847 to King's College, 
 London, of which Dr. Jelf was Principal. The 
 Rev. F. D. Maurice was at this time Professor 
 of Modem Histor}', and Dr. Pearson felt his 
 influence profoundly. From Dr. Brewer's teaching, 
 however, he considered that he received the 
 most stimulating part of his College training. 
 
 That the effect of the King's College training 
 had a powerfiil influence upon his moral character, 
 may be judged from his own words : 
 
 " As it was, the moral tone of the College was 
 exceptionally good. It was considered bad form 
 to be idle, and disgraceful to teU a lie. Copjing 
 at examinations was generally put down by a 
 httle quiet Lynch law; a committee of the elder 
 students waiting upon the offender amd tearing up 
 his papers. Though a good deal of this spirit 
 was attributable to home influences, I believe it 
 was mostly due to the tradition of the place, which 
 had been created by Principal and Professors. 
 Dr. Jelf, the chief for more than twent}' years, was 
 a gentleman of the old school, who was incapable 
 of supposing that anyone would lie to him .... 
 It was an accepted maxim that no one could tell 
 a lie to the Principal, because he always believed 
 what was said .... after a few months at the 
 
6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 College, every student, finding that he was treated 
 as a gentleman, acted up to the gentleman's code 
 of honour. Foul language and coarse wit were 
 absolutely repressed by public opinion. I do not, 
 of course, say that there were no offenders in 
 these respects, but, speaking for a period of 
 fourteen years, I know that the conversation of 
 the Common room was absolutely pure; and that 
 men suspected of lax talk or immoral practices 
 were obHged to form little outside cliques by 
 themselves .... Looking back on the list of 
 old students, I see the names of such well known 
 Liberals as Thorold Rogers, Charles Kingsley, 
 and Frederick Harrison, Fitzjames and LesUe 
 Stephen, Professor Fawcett, and Professor Clifford. 
 The side of orthodoxy is almost as conspicuously 
 represented by Dean Plumptre, Canon Liddon, 
 and Dean Farrar, Bishop Barry, and Dr. Wace. 
 We had morning chapel, and theological lectures, 
 and the influence of two of our teachers, Maurice 
 and Brewer, was distinctly more religious in tone — 
 though reUgion was never obtruded — than any I 
 have known anywhere else. Therefore, that the 
 College and school should have turned out so 
 many thinkers of the broadest type, is, I conceive, 
 absolute evidence that the teaching was not sec- 
 tarian, and presumptive evidence that it left its 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 7 
 
 recipients disposed to occupy themselves with the 
 most important subjects of thought other than 
 theological .... What we really owed to King's 
 College was its influences upon character." 
 
 In June 1847 Charles Pearson gained the 
 Plumptre Prize Poem at King's College by his 
 poem entitled "The Rhine". The loth of April, 
 
 1848, had been chosen by the Chartists for the 
 presentation of a monster petition, backed by an 
 overpowering display of force. All middle-class 
 London armed itself with the special constable's 
 bludgeon. A couple of companies were formed 
 from the King's College Departments of Literature 
 and Medicine, and Charles Pearson was elected 
 Captain of the former. He caught a cold in the 
 discharge of these duties, which ended in pleurisy, 
 and sowed the seeds of mischief from which he 
 never recovered. 
 
 He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, 1 4 June, 
 
 1849. The Provost was then Edward Hawkins, 
 and the Dean, Charles Marriott. At the end of 
 his first year in residence he gained a scholar- 
 ship at Exeter College, and secured a classical 
 First-class in the Michaelmas term of 1852; the 
 late Earl of Carnarvon and Professor Chandler 
 being in the same class. From 1849 to 1861 
 he studied German, Bohemian, Swedish, and Italian, 
 
8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 and was fairly well versed in Schiller, Goethe, and 
 Tegner, before he took his degree. 
 
 In the summer term several public-school men 
 belonging to various Colleges formed a society for 
 intellectual discussion. 
 
 The original seven members were: 
 
 George Brodrick, of Balliol, now Warden of 
 Merton; A. G. Butler, of University, Fellow of 
 Oriel; W. H. Fremantle, of Balliol, now Dean of 
 Ripon; George T. Goschen, of Oriel, Financier 
 and Statesman; H. N. Oxenham, of BalUol; C. 
 Stewart Parker, of University, and Charles H. Pear- 
 son, Exeter. 
 
 The Hon. G. C. Brodrick says, " Pearson was 
 eminent as a speaker at the ' Union ' Society. 
 One of his speeches on a motion applauding 
 Mr. Gladstone for joining the Coalition Govern- 
 ment in 1853, was the finest piece of rhetoric 
 that I heard delivered in my time. There was 
 another speech of his on the Dissolution of Mo- 
 nasteries, which I did not hear, but which I know 
 was much admired." 
 
 Mr. Arthur G. Butler, Fellow of Oriel, first 
 Headmaster of Haileybury, gives some interesting 
 impressions of Dr. Pearson at this time, which 
 he most kindly allows me to record. He says : 
 
 " I knew him first at Rugby, but only by sight. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 9 
 
 There he had the reputation of cleverness, strength, 
 and a somewhat lonely habit of taking his own 
 line, and going his own way. Consequently, no 
 one was much surprised when he left Rugby and 
 went to King's College, where his student ways 
 would find fewer interruptions than in a great 
 boarding-school. And his time was well spent 
 there. When we met again at Oxford he aston- 
 ished all his old Rugby contemporaries by his 
 maturity of thought and knowledge ; and the seem- 
 ingly exhaustive theories of life, which he had ready 
 at his fingers' ends. 
 
 " To his influence we all, I think, owed a great 
 deal. His tone was lofty: in politics he did not 
 belong to any party, nor did he interest himselt 
 much in party politics. What he really cared for 
 was social questions, and here his London expe- 
 rience had given him a knowledge of many of 
 those problems affecting Capital and Labour, which 
 were then seething in the minds only of the more 
 advanced thinkers, whereas now they are the 
 commonplaces of Debating Societies throughout 
 the Kingdom. At the Union, he spoke seldom, 
 but always with the greatest effect. There was 
 an earnestness and loftiness about his tone and 
 voice, as well as a point and brilliancy about his 
 style, which distinguished him even at a time when 
 
lO 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 there were many good speakers. One of these I 
 specially remember, in which he warned the 
 Tories of the changes imminent in the Constitution, 
 and the breaking up of the old state of society. 
 
 " ' In the shade of archiepiscopal Palaces, 
 there were springing up,' he said, ' new principles 
 and new parties, which would convulse and over- 
 turn the present order of things : which might be 
 a blessing, if we would understand and come to 
 terms with them : but otherwise would cause a 
 new revolution in England, to which the old 
 historical Revolution would be mere child's play 
 in comparison.' 
 
 " There was something of solemnity, without a 
 shade of pedantry, in his voice and manner, as he 
 said this, which, for the time, bore down all oppo- 
 sition, and wakened thoughts in men's minds, 
 anticipating many of the movements of the present 
 day, which never before had entered there. 
 
 " And this made him a man of great influence 
 among his contemporaries, and he was looked to 
 as a person from whom much might be expected. 
 
 " So much for his pubHc appearances. In private, 
 in the circle of friends, among whom might be 
 mentioned Professor Conington, Henry Smith, 
 Goschen, Grant Duff, and others not unknown 
 subsequently for their pubUc services, he was 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 1 1 
 
 always a prominent figure. Thoroughly genial, 
 and understanding the varied duties of friendship, 
 he stands out in memory as one always employed 
 on great questions, and bringing the conversation 
 back to them if it wandered. And he had a view 
 on all of these, singularly complete and rounded 
 off, and supported by telling facts, which critics 
 and opponents found difficult to answer. He was 
 a man, who, even in lighter moments, said things 
 which left their mark, and made his hearers think." 
 
 Finally, resolving to enter the medical profes- 
 sion, he stayed in Oxford two years, coaching pupils, 
 and studying anatomy and physiology with Sir 
 Henry Acland's assistance, and chemistry under 
 Neville Story. 
 
 In 1854 Dr. Pearson was elected a Fellow of 
 Oriel College, which then enjoyed the prestige of 
 being a chief centre of intellectual ability in the 
 University. In the long vacation he went with a 
 reading party to the heart of Connemara and 
 while at Maam, at the head of Lough Corrib, took 
 a severe attack of pleurisy which brought him to 
 death's door. 
 
 Dr. Pearson considered that he owed his life 
 at this time to the careful nursing of Mr. Arthur 
 Buder, and to the kind care and skill of Dr. 
 Plunket, and Dr. Marsh of Dublin, and although 
 
12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 he recovered to a certain extent, he was obliged 
 to give up the medical profession, his medical 
 advisers assuring him that he would never have 
 the strength to withstand the exposure and strain 
 of a physician's life. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Butler says: 
 
 "We had settled to go together — being both 
 Fellows of Oriel — to the West of Ireland, to read, 
 see the people, and enjoy ourselves. I was to take 
 a small reading party, and we were to meet at 
 Galway. From this place, rather late in the evening, 
 we started in a car to drive to Maam, at the 
 head of Lough Corrib; and as we drove, a fine 
 Irish rain began to fall, which we seemed to 
 breathe into us, in the pervading damp of the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 "Suddenly I remember, he turned to me, and 
 said — 'I have got pleurisy,' and proceeded to 
 describe the symptoms to me with a minuteness 
 and interest which I shall never forget. Still we 
 had to go on through the rain and darkness, and 
 it was late when we arrived at our destination, a 
 small inn at the head of the lake, which was to 
 be the scene of his illness and my great anxiety, 
 and was the very last place where anyone would 
 wish to face a serious malady. 
 
 " We went to bed, and the next morning, about 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 13 
 
 4 A.M. , he woke me, and begged for certain things like 
 mustard, hot water, etc., and above all that a doctor 
 should be sent for. We were in a house with 
 small provision for sickness, but everything was 
 done which could be done; and a messenger — 'a 
 swift woman,' was at once despatched to summon 
 the doctor, who lived eight miles away, and was 
 no good when he came. It was a long and hard 
 struggle for Ufe, aggravated by Pearson's know- 
 ledge of all his symptoms and by the want of all 
 the usual remedies for such an illness. Moreover, 
 our host was bankrupt, and we had an execution 
 and sale in the house during our stay here, which 
 lessened the comforts of the place, though the 
 unruffled good-temper and goodwill of the people 
 in the inn were proof even against this trial. 
 'Cantabit vacuus' — they had little to lose. 
 
 " At last, however, we made a push on to the 
 Killeries, being in a state of despair, and there 
 found a family doctor of some members of the 
 Plunket family, whose skill and kindness patched 
 him up sufficiently to enable us to get him back, first 
 to Galway by car in a journey of some thirty miles, 
 in which only the excellence of Irish roads pre- 
 vented fatal consequences— and then to Dublm, 
 where I resigned my charge to his brother, who 
 came from London to meet him. 
 
14 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 " This illness must, I fear, have left a mark upon 
 him, all through his life, and, possibly, been in 
 part the cause of his leaving England for AustraUa. 
 Of his demeanour during the illness I can only 
 say that it was all that could be expected from 
 a good and Christian man struggling with a most 
 depressing malady under very unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances. His patience was indomitable, and 
 his consideration for others quite exceptional : but 
 I thought at the time that his recovery was retarded 
 by his disposition to take gloomy views of his 
 condition, and for some time to abandon needlessly 
 every hope of recovery. 
 
 " The circumstances, however, were very trying : 
 they were of a kind to excuse any amount of 
 depression and despondency." 
 
 I have given Mr. Butler's account of this ilbess, 
 because the same characteristics were remarkable 
 also in the one that was destined to be fatal, forty 
 years later; with this exception, however — there 
 was no despondency, only a certain calm cheer- 
 fulness. He was willing to live, and yet more 
 willing to die, with a visible longing for that more 
 perfect knowledge that can be attained only by death. 
 
 Mr. Arthur G. Butler goes on to say: "I 
 do not write for pubhcation, but merely to record 
 and illustrate for private use, the impression that 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 15 
 
 he made upon me of a very fine mind and 
 character, full of sympathy for all sufferers from 
 public wrong and injustice, and indignation against 
 their oppressors. It was this which led him to 
 risk his life during the Polish insurrection, by 
 going there as a kind of war correspondent for, 
 I think, the Daily News. It was not, I should say, 
 a work for which he was specially suited, being 
 a man rather suited for writing and speaking, than 
 for action and adventure : but his warm sympathies 
 and absolutely fearless temper drew him there, 
 and he has doubtless left behind him interesting 
 memorials of his experience. It was unquestionably 
 the same feeling and temper which led him to 
 play the part he played subsequently in the politics 
 of Australia. And it was thoroughly in accordance 
 with all his early utterances in Oxford days." 
 
 Sir Henry and Mrs. Acland, Mr. Hutton and 
 Mr. Townsend of the Spectator, Mr. Bagehot, 
 Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, Sir Mount Stuart Grant 
 Duff, Mr. Goschen, Mr. George Miller, and Mr. 
 Brodrick were amongst those with whom he mixed 
 most freely at this time, besides those already men- 
 tioned as his friends and contemporaries at Oxford. 
 
 In 1855 he was appointed lecturer in English 
 Language and Literature at King's College, London, 
 and within a term also became Professor of Modern 
 
1 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 History in place of Mr. G. W. Dasent who had 
 resigned. Dr. Wace, Professor Clifford, Mons. 
 Naville, and Mr. Izon (now in the Indian Civil 
 Service) were among his pupils. He now con- 
 tributed articles to the Saturday Review, and 
 was thanked by Victor Hugo for reviewing Les 
 Miserables. At this time Charles Pearson was 
 thrown into the society of Dr. George Babington, 
 Lord Macaulay, and Sir James Stephen, who 
 was an old college friend of his father. He 
 obtained in 1857 the prize for a " Poem on a 
 Sacred Subject," awarded once in three years, by 
 his poem "The Death of Jacob." In 1858 he 
 travelled in Russia, and on his return published 
 an interesting account of his travels in a book 
 entitled, Russia by a Recent Traveller. * For 
 several years he travelled much on the Con- 
 tinent, applying himself when abroad to the study 
 of languages and of the people. Believing that 
 his ideas on Biblical inspiration were not in har- 
 mony with those held by the authorities at King's 
 College, he offered his resignation, as he had no 
 intention of concealing his views; but Dr. Jelf 
 declined to accept it. He was more influenced 
 
 * (Bell and Daldy, 1859). The chapter on Russian Literature is 
 probably even now one of the most interesting and able contributions 
 to the subject. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 17 
 
 at this time by Goethe's views of culture than by 
 any desire to make a fortune or a name. He 
 frequently contributed to the Spectator both poetry 
 and prose, and in 1861 he began to write his 
 History of England during the Early and Middle 
 Ages. In 1862 he undertook the editorship of the 
 short-lived National Revieiv just resigned by Mr. 
 Hutton. His connection with this paper lasted 
 just a year. 
 
 In the summer of 1863 Dr. Pearson set out 
 for Cracow, and from thence travelled to War- 
 saw; he mixed with Polish society, and heard 
 much about the insurrection against Russia, which 
 for the moment was enjoying a temporary success. 
 He left Poland sympathizing deeply with the 
 heroic efforts of the people, and charmed by the 
 manners and tone of the upper class. The Spec- 
 tator published his account of the country and 
 its struggles. It was translated into French, re- 
 viewed with high praise, and largely quoted. In 
 1864 Dr. Pearson went to Australia on account 
 of ill-health, Dr. Jelf insisting on his retaining 
 the Professorship for a year, in case he should 
 wish to take it up again. In a year he returned 
 to England, by way of India, almost completely 
 restored to health ; and took a house in Farn- 
 ham Royal, where, in almost unbroken solitude, 
 
1 8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 he revised the first volume of his History of 
 England, during the Early and Middle Ages, and 
 prepared a second. * Miss Clough invited Dr. 
 Pearson to give lectures to large classes of women 
 in Manchester and Liverpool, and as he was 
 strongly in favour of the higher education of 
 women, he accepted. He found the classes 
 largely attended, and the women worked admirably, 
 proving in his opinion that they were fit for the 
 same intellectual training as men. After conclud- 
 ing these lectures he started for America and 
 landed in New York in 1868. At Boston he met 
 Olmsted and many other distinguished Uterary 
 men, including Ticknor, Longfellow, Agassiz, Lo- 
 well, Wendell Holmes, Charles Norton and his 
 wife, Wendell Philips, Bowen, Fields, and Shat- 
 tuck. From the far west he worked his way to 
 Washington, and there enjoyed the society, among 
 others, of Mr. Seward, President Johnson, General 
 
 * The value of this second volume was acknowledged by all, even by 
 Freeman, his assailant of the first, who, as is known, never lost an 
 opportunity of bitterly criticising the works of a contemporary, when 
 these encroached on his ground. A year or two before his death Dr. 
 Pearson said that subsequent reading and researches convinced him 
 that he was right in his conclusions. " On main points, my belief has 
 never been shaken, and I am convinced that the extravagant Saxonism 
 of the present school will be swept away by coming historians as 
 ruthlessly as Thierry's first romantic version of that particular theory 
 has already been." 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 19 
 
 Banks, and Judge Chase. In the struggle between 
 the North and the South he sympathised with 
 the Northerners, and did all in his power to help 
 their cause. On his return to England he predicted 
 that in some twenty-five years America would 
 •cease to be a field for immigrants. 
 
 During the next six months Dr. Pearson de- 
 voted himself to what he considered his best 
 piece of historical work, the Maps of England 
 in the First Thirteen Centuries. He paid dearly 
 for his devotion, for he owed the impairment of his 
 eyesight to the hours spent over the small type 
 -of badly printed maps. His Atlas was at once 
 deemed a masterpiece. The first edition was 
 sold off in three months, and the second very 
 soon paid its expenses. In 1868 Dr. Pearson 
 was offered a prelectorship of Ancient History at 
 Oxford, but declined it on the ground that he 
 had not made Ancient History a special study. 
 
 In i86g Dr. Pearson went to Sweden, and 
 -on his return to England accepted a lectureship of 
 Modern History at Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 As his eyesight was suffering from over-work, 
 he resolved to return to Australia and to settle 
 in the Bush. He arrived in South Australia in 
 ^December 1871. 
 
 On December 6th 1872, he married Edith Lucille 
 
20 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Butler, eldest surviving daughter of Philip Butler 
 of Tickford Abbey, Bucks, and of Mathilda Roe 
 daughter of Captain Roe, R.N., and the niece 
 of General Lyons brother of Admiral Lord Lyons. 
 As the climate of South Australia did not suit his. 
 wife's health. Dr. Pearson gave up sheep-farmings 
 and in 1873 accepted a lectureship on History 
 at the University of Melbourne. 
 
 Always anxious to promote the higher educa- 
 tion of women he undertook, later in the year, 
 the Headmastership of the Presbyterian Ladies" 
 College. Dr. Harper says: "At once the school: 
 took the first place, and every prejudice seemed, 
 to give way. Even ladies whose school days, 
 were past, came to attend lectures which Dr.. 
 Pearson instituted, and the result has been that 
 the whole education of women has been revolu- 
 tionized and the old type of girls' school has. 
 become extinct as the dodo. In large part this 
 was the work of Dr. Pearson, and he brought 
 to it a skill in organization and a scholarship such_ 
 as have rarely been employed in a similar sphere. 
 The tone he established in the school was extra- 
 ordinarily high, and it has so remained, long after- 
 his two years and a half of official connection 
 with it came to an end." 
 
 In June 1877 Dr. Pearson was commissioned. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 21 
 
 by Government to draw up a report on the best 
 and most economical mode of constituting free 
 ■education in Victoria. The preparation of this 
 report involved severe labour and much travelling. 
 
 The report was exhaustive, has been extensively 
 quoted from, and is held as a book of reference 
 in several Universities. 
 
 Dr. Pearson was not a member of the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly when the deadlock occurred be- 
 tween the two Houses. He did not approve of 
 the action of the Liberal Government in dismiss- 
 ing the judges and public officials on account 
 of the Upper House refusing to pass the Supply 
 Bill, but as he was not a member of the House 
 he had no power in the matter. The Deadlock 
 still continuing between the two Houses and all 
 business being obstructed in consequence, Mr. 
 (now Sir Graham) Berry and Dr. Pearson went 
 to England on a diplomatic mission to request the 
 Imperial Government to withdraw certain of their 
 powers from the Upper House, pointing out that 
 all necessary legislation and business for the 
 country was at a standstill. 
 
 The English Government declined to interfere 
 for the time being, but intimated that should 
 such an event occur again the Imperial Govern- 
 ment would reconsider the point. In the mean- 
 
2 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 time the Victorian Council passed the Supply 
 Bill, and the immediate difficulty was at an end. 
 
 In 1878 Dr. Pearson entered the Legislative 
 Assembly as member for Castlemaine (his fellow- 
 member being Mr. Patterson). His advocacy of 
 a progressive land-tax and of a tax on the un- 
 earned increment, stirred up great bitterness against 
 him on the part of the large land-owners. He 
 wrote articles upon the subject in the Age, the 
 Liberal paper, which were the subject of worse than 
 keen counter-criticism in the Conservative Press. 
 
 Owing to Dr. Pearson's great services and 
 sacrifices for the Liberal party, he was made 
 Minister without portfolio in the third Berry Min- 
 istry, from August 1880 to July 1881. 
 
 The post of Agent-General, which had been 
 vacant for a year, and which had been promised 
 for that time to Dr. Pearson, was offered to 
 him on the eve of the compulsory resignation of 
 the Government; but he dechned it, thinking 
 that, under the circumstances, he could not accept 
 it with honour to himself and the Ministry. Mr. 
 Deakin, Mr. Patterson and Mr. Berry pledged 
 themselves to offer him this appointment, should 
 the opportunity again occur. 
 
 In 1883 he was elected member for the East 
 Bourke Boroughs, and held the seat until the 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 23 
 
 general election of 1892, when he did not contest 
 it. On the formation of the Gillies and Deakin 
 administration he became Minister of Education, 
 and held the office till November 1890. During 
 this time he wrote the preface to a new edition 
 of 'Juvenal,' with notes, in conjunction with myself. 
 
 One of the earliest innovations introduced by 
 the new Minister was the establishment of two 
 hundred State school-scholarships, to be competed 
 for by pupils of the State schools. The holders 
 were to have allowances of from ten to forty 
 pounds annually, nearly sufficient to defray their 
 instruction at Grammar Schools. Generally this 
 instruction was to last for three years, being 
 designed to give the most deserving pupils of the 
 State primary schools the benefits of a higher 
 education. Four previously existing scholarships 
 (termed " exhibitions") were then modified and 
 arranged so as to carry the best of the holders 
 of these scholarships through a graduate's course 
 at the University of Melbourne. 
 
 By this school Dr. Pearson sought to establish 
 a link between the primary schools and the Uni- 
 versity, and many young men, now rising to po- 
 sitions of honour and usefulness have to thank 
 him for the helping hand extended to them by 
 his wise and liberal measures. 
 
24 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 In New South Wales something of the kind 
 was attempted by means of State-aided middle- 
 class schools, but the cost of such institutions 
 was great, while in no case did they offer the 
 advantages or the elasticity of the scholarship 
 system. It was considered, therefore, that the Vic- 
 torian system was in itself more beneficial, and 
 served the double purpose of providing rewards 
 for the best State school pupils and at the same 
 time of aiding secondary teaching. When Dr. 
 Pearson became Minister of Education, two or 
 three difficulties had to be faced. 
 
 At a period of exceptional prosperity it was 
 found difficult to secure or to retain young men 
 for the teacher's office. They would serve for 
 two or three years and then quit the service for 
 the greater attractions offered outside. This dif- 
 ficulty could be met by only one course — that of 
 raising the pay of such teachers: — and the Min- 
 ister did not hesitate to take this step in view 
 of the educational interests at stake. But a defi- 
 ciency of male teachers was not the only difficulty 
 to be faced by the Department. Qualified female 
 teachers in abundance could be found for towns 
 and for the centres of population; but few ot 
 them would go to the small bush schools which 
 formed the majority of the Victorian schools, little 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 25 
 
 establishments with twenty or thirty pupils each, 
 in which only a single teacher could be em- 
 ployed. It was the policy and desire of the Edu- 
 cation Department to place women rather than 
 men over these schools, as being cheaper and 
 more suitable teachers. Dr. Pearson provided a 
 yearly allowance of fifteen pounds for such teachers ; 
 enough to induce many women to undertake these 
 schools, though not enough to make a female teacher's 
 salary and allowance the equivalent of that enjoyed 
 by a male teacher. In this way the Minister was 
 able at a less cost to replace male teachers by 
 the gentler and safdr influences of female in- 
 structors. It was the wish of this Minister that 
 the State school-course should be as liberal as 
 was consistent with the wants of the people, and 
 the conditions of the Colony. Hence he did not 
 hesitate to offer facilities to teachers to improve 
 their quaUfications in various ways. Thus, at one 
 time a lady expert from England was commissioned 
 to give lectures on the teaching of needlework; 
 and these lectures were open gratuitously to all 
 female State school teachers. The attention thereby 
 given to this subject is beUeved to have produced 
 lasting benefits; and has had for its result an 
 actual change in the teacher's programme of 
 instruction in needlework. 
 
2 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 The Kindergarten system, so capable of inter- 
 esting little children, of educating their fingers, 
 and of stimulating their constructive powers, found 
 an active sympathiser in him. Seeing the value 
 of its practice, though also recognising that much 
 outlay on its objects w^as not justifiable, he found 
 an expert, and commissioned her to give courses 
 of lectures to the Victorian teachers. These lec- 
 tures were given to hundreds of teachers, who 
 rapidly learnt the system, and who more or less 
 effectively carried it out in many parts of the 
 Colony. In another direction, the Minister was 
 the means of introducing, for the benefit of the 
 most advanced girls in State schools, a course of 
 lessons in simple cookery. These lessons were 
 much prized, and it is probable that, had he 
 remained in office. Dr. Pearson would have con- 
 ferred many other advantages upon the Victorian 
 system of public instruction. i 
 
 He was a firm supporter of secmlar education as 
 established in the Colony, thinking it the only means 
 of securing perfect fairness towards all religious 
 denominations, as attendance at the State schools 
 was compulsory, and the number of sects was large. 
 
 He gave the clergy of the different denomina- 
 tions, however, the right to teach religion in the 
 schools for one hour every day. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 27 
 
 During Dr. Pearson's Ministry the limit of com- 
 pulsory attendance at school was changed from fifteen 
 to thirteen years of age, and the statutory amount 
 of attendances from forty to thirty days a quarter. 
 
 Dr. Pearson's sympathy with practical education 
 is further seen in the establishment of technical 
 schools, of which he really became the founder. 
 
 At the time of his resignation of office he was 
 preparing a scheme for the abolition of payment 
 by results. The system has been abandoned in 
 great measure in England, its original home; few 
 other countries have been persuaded to adopt it, 
 and now Victoria and Mauritius are the only 
 countries where it remains in operation. Dr. Pear- 
 son fathered the Bill for giving the Degrees of 
 the University of Melbourne to Women, carried it 
 through the House, and succeeded in getting it 
 passed. He was also greatly instrumental in get- 
 ting Mr. Shell's Divorce Bill carried ; a Bill which 
 places women on much the same legal footing as 
 men as regards Divorce. 
 
 Dr. Pearson was for some time a member of 
 the Council of Melbourne University, a trustee of 
 the Public Library, also a member of the Council of 
 the Ballarat School of Mines, and of that of the Mel- 
 bourne Working Men's College, which is a technical 
 school with a roll of more than 2,000 students, 
 
28 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 founded by the late Mr. Ormond. When this 
 college was in the course of being established, 
 Dr. Pearson acted as honorary secretary, and 
 Mr. Ormond acknowledged publicly that it owes 
 its success very largely to his efforts. He was 
 one of the few Englishmen honoured by the French 
 Government by the University title of " Officier 
 d' Instruction publique. " 
 
 Dr. Pearson always took a deep interest in the 
 Volunteer Corps, and many of the commanding 
 officers have expressed their thanks to him for the 
 reforms which he brought about in the Drill schools 
 during the time that he was Minister of Education. 
 
 In 1892 the Agent-Generalship became vacant, 
 and it was generally thought that the post would 
 be offered to Dr. Pearson, as a Liberal Govern- 
 ment was in power. * An attack of influenza, 
 followed by pneumonia, caused his medical adviser 
 to order him away on a voyage. He accordingly 
 returned to England with his family, and the 
 change did his health much good for a time. 
 
 There is a passage in the Biographical Sketch of 
 Professor Henry Smith written by Dr. Pearson, in 
 which the author seems to have described the very 
 
 * Mr. Munro, then Premier, and also a Director of the Federal Bank 
 of Australasia which collapsed under painful circumstances, nominated 
 himself with the full consent of his cabinet. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 29 
 
 character and qualities which those who knew him 
 best would be most likely to attribute to Pearson 
 himself. " What impressed me was not so much 
 his marvellous versatility or his thorough mastery 
 of everything he touched, or his conversational 
 brilliancy, though none of all these can be separated 
 from my recollection of him — as his singularly 
 clear judgment, combining insight into the essen- 
 tial truth of whatever he examined with balance 
 in the summing up of it. Never did genius 
 more completely take the form of sublimated 
 common sense; and this effect was undoubtedly 
 enhanced by his unassuming manner. " And again : 
 " He who gave the perfect intellect gave also the 
 fine temperament, the tenderness that shrank from 
 disobliging, the modesty that esteemed no duty 
 undignified, the absolute disregard of self" I 
 have known Dr. Pearson frequently in the midst 
 of arduous public duties spend long hours in 
 aiding- his friends or old pupils in literary work. 
 He would spare no pains in giving the best 
 fruits of his ripe literary judgment to the merest 
 tiro, if only he felt that earnestness and serious- 
 ness of purpose were in the questioner. When 
 in office he treated his subordinates with consum- 
 mate courtesy; to mere errors of judgment he 
 was very lenient, but to deviations from the path 
 
30 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 of duty he was inexorable. His whole nature was 
 incapable of harbouring suspicion against any in- 
 dividual; and this absolute guilelessness on his 
 part not unfrequently led him to continue confi 
 dence in characters after their actions seemed to 
 others to merit distrust. Dr. Pearson's favourite 
 motto was, "To thine own self be true," and 
 holding a peculiarly high ideal of character as his 
 standard for private, as well as for public life, 
 he was as true and devoted a husband and father, 
 as he was fearless and upright in public life. 
 His courtesy to ladies was very marked, and 
 more was intended to be conveyed by it than 
 the ordinary deference paid by a gentleman to 
 one of the weaker sex: for Dr. Pearson was a 
 profound believer in the capacity of women's 
 intellect, and in the accuracy of their judgment. 
 Indeed, as I well remember, his teaching at the 
 Presbyterian Ladies' College raised the whole 
 standard of women's education throughout the 
 colony, and rendered it henceforward impossible 
 to doubt either the capacity of women for receiving 
 the highest education, or the efficacy of the new 
 Headmaster's methods of imparting such education. 
 Even now, after a lapse of many years, a course 
 of lectures on history given by Dr. Pearson to 
 the Ladies' Association of Liverpool, is remembered 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 31 
 
 for its brilliancy. But he was much more than 
 the brilliant lecturer. The rapidity with which he 
 linked thought to thought, and effect to cause, in no 
 way blunted his sympathy for the dullards who 
 came under his care. Indeed, he was slow to 
 admit that any given student was a real dullard. 
 He believed that method was everything in teach- 
 ing; and that as a rule it would be found that 
 the teacher who was troubled with most dullards 
 was least troubled with method. He would take 
 infinite pains to find out the points which possessed 
 interest for his different students, and was always 
 ready with timely counsel for all the teachers 
 under him. 
 
 Owing to pecuniary losses. Dr. Pearson accepted 
 in 1893 what he believed to be the post of perma- 
 nent Secretary to the Agent-Generalship's office — 
 a post alike unworthy of his status and his learning. 
 
 Sir Andrew Clarke, the then acting Agent- 
 General gave it as his opinion, that never had so 
 much work been accomplished in a corresponding 
 time, or done more efficiently, than during the 
 year of Dr. Pearson's term of office. 
 
 In February 1894 he caught a chill, which 
 settled on his lungs. He persisted, however, in 
 attending the office till the very last, in spite of 
 the entreaties of his wife and daughters, who were 
 
32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 with him to the end. A few days before his 
 death he revised his book: National Life and 
 Character, a Forecast for a second edition. 
 Always gentle, and unselfish, he bore his sufferings 
 with heroic fortitude, and expressed his firm belief 
 in the justice and love of God. 
 
 He died on May 29th, 1894. 
 
 To those who did not know the man, this 
 sketch may seem to be too much of a panegyric. 
 Those, however, who knew him well, will recall many 
 noble traits of character and heart that have not 
 been touched upon, and the attempt here made 
 to give a picture of him must seem feeble and 
 ineffective. 
 
 But if I have conveyed a true, although faint 
 idea of his character as a man, and have given 
 some notion of his untiring zeal as a worker, for 
 he was indeed "a master worker", I hope I may 
 be pardoned for not expecting to do more in 
 this brief sketch. 
 
 The Premier of Victoria, in the Legislative 
 Assembly, observed that no more honourable, 
 upright, sincere, energetic, and painstaking man 
 ever sat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, either 
 as a private member or as a Minister of the 
 Crown. Dr. Pearson's great learning, grasp of 
 constitutional history and precedent, together with 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 33 
 
 his ability to bring the historical past prominently 
 and forcibly before the House, was a strong 
 educational factor in raising the standard of the 
 debates. His loss, in these circumstances, was 
 irreparable. 
 
 The Hon. J. G. Duffy in the Legislative 
 Assembly of Victoria, said of his friend Dr. 
 Pearson, that " he had never heard him say an 
 unkind word of any human being. He was a 
 cultivated gentleman, an eloquent speaker, a gra- 
 phic writer, a scholar, a historian, and a gentleman 
 who raised the tone of debate in the House, so 
 that the House and the country benefited " 
 
 The Leader of the Opposition " could call to 
 mind Dr. Pearson's earnest Liberalism, when as 
 headmaster of a College here, and feeling warmly the 
 injury which large landed estates inflicted on a 
 progressive community, he boldly took to the 
 platform, and spoke the truth that was in him, 
 and for doing so, paid a penalty of suffering — 
 Not only was he a distinguished scholar and a 
 courageous statesman, but as a friend his sym- 
 pathy was bound by hooks of steel." 
 
 "Since Dr. Pearson threw in his lot with the 
 country which in the later period of his career 
 he had chosen for his home, he exercised a 
 powerful, though often unobtrusive influence on 
 
 3 
 
34 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 public affairs. Both as a journalist, and a politician, 
 in the press, and in Parliament, he displayed 
 qualities of mind, and character, which commanded 
 the respect and admiration of all who were 
 qualified to appreciate intellect and integrity. 
 Before he came to Australia, Dr. Pearson had 
 achieved reputation as a man of letters ; but it 
 was in the Colonial arena that he established his 
 claims to practical statesmanship. 
 
 " Like Robert Lowe he could point to a brilliant 
 record of university distinction, and he had the 
 same instinctive scorn for the vulgar ideals which 
 bound the horizon of the plutocrat, and the money- 
 grubber. He was unswerving in his adhesion to 
 his conscientious convictions 
 
 " His breadth of view, and keen and cultured 
 intelligence had an educative influence on those 
 with whom he was associated in poUtics, while 
 through the brilliancy of his writings in the press, 
 he contributed largely to the enlightenment of the 
 public mind .... The praise bestowed upon him 
 as a conscientious and able administrator, a 
 thoroughly reliable politician, an admirable jour- 
 nalist, and a philosophic writer of great grasp of 
 thought and depth of insight, is no excess of eulogy. 
 
 " His literary eminence was more fully appreciated 
 among his compeers in England, where his latest 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 35 
 
 work on National Life and Character, a Forecast, 
 written, as he has stated, 'under sentence of 
 death', was recognised as a remarkable contri- 
 bution to modern thought. Here he will be 
 remembered as conferring lustre on political life, 
 and as increasing the high reputation which the 
 best Australian journals have attained."* 
 
 It remains to say a word upon his book on 
 National Life and Character, a Forecast. 
 
 This book was pubUshed in the beginning 
 of 1893 and excited extraordinary interest, and 
 was much discussed. The Westmimter Gazette 
 says : " In its capacity for stimulating thought, 
 its long range, and forecast of speculation, there 
 has been nothing like it since the Classics of 
 the Middle Century — the greater volumes of Mill, 
 Herbert Spencer, and Bagehot — or since John 
 Morley left speculation for history and politics." 
 
 Referring to his style a reviewer says : 
 
 " The elevated style rises at times into measured 
 and stately eloquence, like that of Gibbon, or of 
 the speeches of Mansfield, arresting the reader's 
 -mind, and quickening his reflection." 
 
 The Athenceum speaks of it as " serious, pure, 
 and pleasing, even eloquent, but never high-flown, 
 or rhetorical." 
 
 * Article in the Melbourne Press. 
 
36 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
 
 Had Dr. Pearson lived he would have seen 
 some points in his forecast verified. For the 
 Chinese are already being forced to open up their 
 commerce with Europe. And it is by their com- 
 merce as an Industrial race that he predicted their 
 eventual strength, coupled with their enormous 
 numbers as a nation.* We have already seen one 
 of the yellow races, the Japanese, rise in one genera- 
 tion to the rank of a second-class military power. | 
 
 The fact that the Chinese fell an easy prey to 
 the Japanese, has in some quarters been held 
 to imply that his forecast was mistaken. But 
 in the first place it must be remembered that 
 it is the industrial competition of the Chinese 
 that he most feared, combined with the gradual 
 but sure expansion of the "Yellow Belt", which 
 will, he assumes, in fifty or a hundred years 
 hence, confine the Aryan race to the Temperate 
 Zones. Authorities like Sir Alfred Lyall and 
 the American missionary Mr. Smith, have 
 borne ample testimony to the fact that the 
 industrial capacity of the Chinese is as unim- 
 paired as ever. ** Dr. Pearson had seen in 
 California and in Australia the calm and dogged 
 
 * National Life and Character., a Forecast, p. 129. 
 ■\ National Life and Character, a Forecast, p. 84. 
 ** I call particular attention to the testimony of my friend cind old pupil. 
 Dr. Morrison on this point; — see An Australian in China, p. 223. 
 
CHARLES HENRY PEARSON 
 
 37 
 
 perseverance of the Chinese, their tolerance of 
 climatic extremes, and their bodily vigour on a 
 scanty and often repellent diet. He knew that the 
 Chinese could live and flourish in vast tracts 
 of Australia and other tropical countries, which can 
 never hold a. population of Europeans. And he 
 had the express testiinony of European officers like 
 Gordon that when well led the Chinese made 
 splendid fighting men. Further, testimony is 
 unanimous that the population of China is fabulously 
 great, that it is poor, and that it is probably increas- 
 ing. On our side, we are called upon to remember 
 that our population is more and more displaying a 
 tendency to settle in large towns where the phy- 
 sique of the nation deteriorates, so that in process 
 of time it may be assumed that our qualities as 
 a fighting race will not increase with our numbers. 
 Surely, in the face of these facts, it seems not 
 unreasonable to suppose that a nation like the 
 Chinese may one day develop into a fighting race 
 not inferior to that other Oriental race, who has 
 just wakened into life and ambition before the eyes 
 of a wondering world, and driven Western nations 
 to take counsel whether Japanese civilisation is not 
 destined to alter the plans of Western diplomacy. 
 In this, his monumental book, we read Dr. 
 Pearson's last noble, but mournful words: 
 
38 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 " It is now more than probable that our science, 
 our civilisation, our great and real advance in the 
 practice of government are only bringing us nearer 
 to the day when the lower races will predominate 
 in the world, when the higher races will lose their 
 noblest elements, when we shall ask nothing from 
 the day but to live, nor from the future but that 
 we may not deteriorate. Even so, there will still 
 remain to us ourselves. 
 
 " Simply to do our work in life, and to abide 
 the issue, if we stand erect before the eternal 
 calm as cheerfully as our fathers faced the eternal 
 unrest, may be nobler training for our souls than 
 the faith in progress." 
 
 Herbert A. Strong 
 
 University College. 
 Liverpool, Dec. 1895. 
 
 Sources of Information : Mennel's Diet, of Aiistralian Biog.; Pro- 
 fessor Pearson's Ministerial Career, by George Brodribb, M.A. ; The 
 Times; Westminster Gazette; The Sidney Mail; Private information. 
 Reviews and Critical Essays, published by liind permission of The 
 Ag-e, Melbourne. Nineteenth Century, No. 223, Permanent Dominion 
 in Asia, by Sir Alfred Lyall, K.C.B., K.C.I.E. Chapter 17, Chinese 
 Characteristics, by Arthur H. Smith. (Kegan Paul.) Page 344, 
 National Life and Character, a Forecast, by Charles H. Pearson, 
 LL.D. Macmillan. 
 
 Thanks are due to Mr. Syme of Melbourne for permission cheerfully 
 accorded to reproduce such of the following papers as appeared in the 
 Melbourne Age. 
 
REVIEWS AND CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 I.— PERSONAL MEMOIRS 
 
 Dr. Johnson is recorded to have said that if he 
 thought Boswell were writing his hfe he would 
 take Boswell's. Neither the threat nor the impHed 
 wish prevented Boswell from writing down day 
 by day what his friend said ; and in this instance 
 the world is certainly richer by an imperishable 
 work, and Johnson himself owes his chance of 
 immortality to his biographer. Nevertheless, the 
 question cannot be said to have been settled by 
 Boswell's literary success. Very rarely are an 
 autobiography or a diary or letters of any special 
 interest published, but a cry is raised that con- 
 fidence hais been violated, or, if the revelations 
 be purely personal, that the writer has destroyed 
 his own reputation. To take a very recent case, 
 it has generally been felt that Carlyle's Memoirs 
 were fatal to all hero worship of that particular 
 thinker, and the public resented rather bitterly 
 that its idol had been dashed down from its 
 pedestal. Why, it was asked, should not the 
 
 39 
 
40 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 grave be allowed to close over the recollection 
 that Carlyle thought and spoke depreciatingly of 
 almost all his contemporaries, and that his egotism 
 wearied out the patience of a singularly devoted 
 wife? On the other hand, Mr. Froude, writing, 
 it may be presumed, as a historian, and discard- 
 ing all feelings of private regard, claims that it 
 is essentially right that a man whom the world 
 wishes to remember should be known in his 
 weaknesses as well as in his strength. Neither 
 is it quite easy to controvert this theory. Proba- 
 bly many of us are supremely grateful to time 
 for obliterating all petty gossip about Shakespeare's 
 life, so that the one great artist of the English 
 race is known to us only by his pure and spiri- 
 tual works. If it were possible to conceive that 
 Shakespeare ever wrote such nauseous letters to 
 his wife as have lately been proved against Bulwer 
 Lytton, or conducted himself as brutally in his 
 home, no sane man can desire that the record 
 should be revived. On the other hand, the publi- 
 cation of Lady Bulwer's letters is certainly justified 
 by the fact that her son had deliberately given 
 the world a partial and false estimate of his mother's 
 character. To most of us Bulwer Lytton probably 
 seems a very much overrated man, whose biogra- 
 phy, for all its real value, might easily have been 
 
PERSONAL MEMOIRS 
 
 41 
 
 packed into a single duodecimo volume. From 
 the moment, however, that his reasons for a sepa- 
 ration come to be discussed, it is certainly right 
 that the wife's case should be heard as well as 
 the husband's. 
 
 It is more than probable that as autobiographies 
 get to be more common, they will tell us less 
 of the real characters of the writers. Rous- 
 seau's Confessions have always been regarded as 
 unique in their way for the shameless avowal of 
 blackguard actions and motives, and for the frank 
 unveiling ■ of a morbidly jealous mind. A nine- 
 teenth-century Rousseau would certainly have the 
 intelligence to understand that his predecessor had 
 not profited with posterity by saying so much 
 evil of himself and his enemies. In his case the 
 autobiography is more or less a setting out of 
 facts as the writer wishes the world to judge of 
 them, and it depends on the skill with which 
 this is done whether a penetrative criticism can 
 separate what is true from what is false. In 
 Bulwer Lytton's autobiography there is one highly 
 coloured account of a love episode in the author's 
 youth, where the feelings displayed are all fairly 
 creditable, except that we may suspect a little 
 excess of colouring from an excusable vanity. When, 
 however, we get further on to the various accounts 
 
42 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 of the love passages with Lady Caroline Lamb, 
 it is impossible not to feel that the writer is too 
 much irritated to be severely truthful. A less 
 sensitive and equally unscrupulous man might have 
 produced a far more deadly effect by writing 
 tenderly and respectfully; and a man with the 
 common instincts of a gentleman, who abstained 
 from making a secret that belonged partly to Lady 
 Caroline Lamb public property, would have left 
 the world poorer by an unimportant scandal, and 
 in the opinion of men like Mr. Froude would have 
 defrauded history. The instance in point is a 
 tolerably good one. Lady Caroline Lamb, through 
 her relations with Byron and Lord Melbourne, is 
 more of a public character than women generally 
 are. What Bulwer says about her, though it is 
 very damaging to himself, is to some extent an 
 explanation and a vindication of the great poet. 
 Even so, was the matter one that ever needed to 
 be cleared up? All the world knew that Lady 
 Caroline Lamb was an impulsive woman, who 
 threw herself at Byron's head, and that Byron 
 grew tired of her after a time. The whole affair 
 was a mere episode in the poet's life, and we 
 should not understand him one whit the less if 
 his history for that particular year of London 
 life were a blank to us. 
 
PERSONAL MEMOIRS 43 
 
 It may seem that there is a difference between 
 the lives of artists or thinkers and those of prac- 
 tical men, statesmen or soldiers. The artist is 
 often incapable of disentangling his own concep- 
 tion of the work he hcis done. Dr. Johnson got 
 the credit of having written The Traveller, because 
 he explained the opening lines so much better 
 and more readily than Goldsmith was able to do. 
 Even where the writer knows what he has meant, 
 the world may attach greater importance to that 
 which only ranked second in his estimation; just 
 as Goethe is remembered by his poems, and not 
 by his Theory of Colours. The statesman or soldier 
 can at least tell us, if he will, what he was working 
 for, and why each particular step was taken. The 
 misfortune is that the General does not like to 
 admit his blunders, or the statesman his insincerity. 
 Napoleon's account of the battle of Waterloo is 
 clear and vivid and masterly, as every account 
 of a battle that Napoleon ever wrote is; but for 
 truthfulness of detail any military critic would 
 prefer Hooper or Lanfrey. We do not possess 
 a biography of Cromwell from his own hand, but 
 if we had one we can hardly doubt that it would 
 give essentially the same view that his letters and 
 speeches do; that religion would be thrust into 
 the front, and policy and self-advancement kept 
 
44 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 sedulously out of sight. When Frederic II wrote 
 a history of his own time, he prefaced it with 
 remarks on the wickedness of ambition and the 
 miseries caused by war. " What is most disas- 
 trous, " he said, " is the horrible pouring out of 
 men's blood. Europe is like a shambles ; there 
 are bloody battles in every direction ; it might be 
 said that kings have resolved to desolate the 
 earth." "The history of covetousness, " he goes 
 on sententiously to observe, " is the school of 
 virtue. Ambition makes tyrants ; moderation makes 
 wise men." Anyone who took these phrases at 
 their nominal value, and who knew nothing of 
 Frederic II from his letters or the writings of 
 his contemporaries, might well imagine that the 
 most unprincipled among soldiers of fortune was 
 a German counterpart of Marcus Aurelius. Nay, 
 perhaps if we were better informed of the real 
 history of the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius 
 was a Roman Frederic II, with exquisite philo- 
 sophy in his commonplace book, and dreams of 
 ambition in his brain. The proofs which keep 
 us from embracing this latter hypothesis in all 
 seriousness — apart from the internal evidence of 
 his writings — consist of a few fragments and 
 notices that might be compressed into half a dozen 
 pages. 
 
PERSONAL MEMOIRS 
 
 45 
 
 When we have admitted, however, that a man 
 cannot be expected to write with perfect know- 
 ledge or perfect truthfulness about himself, there 
 remains the question whether he is not a com- 
 petent judge of his own contemporaries and rivals. 
 Of course this is disposing altogether of autobi- 
 ography, and reducing us to the simple inquiry, 
 whether the facts of a particular period are not 
 best put into the biographical form by those who 
 knew and studied the chief actors. The difficulty 
 that meets us here is that as a rule the persons 
 who have been best placed to observe are un- 
 wilhng to record or are so strongly biased that 
 their verdicts cannot be accepted. Clarendon is 
 one of the best instances of a prominent actor 
 in a great period sitting down to delineate the 
 character of his contemporaries. He wrote when 
 years had past over his head, and might be 
 supposed to have softened the asperities of party 
 feeling and to have obliterated old rivalries. If, 
 however, we trusted Clarendon's History we should 
 believe that Falkland was the noblest character 
 of the civil war, and that Cromwell, though a 
 man of very great powers, was unscrupulously 
 bad. "Without doubt, no man with more wicked- 
 ness ever attempted anything, or brought to pass 
 what he desired, more wickedly, more in the face 
 
46 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and contempt of religion and moral honesty." 
 Few will now doubt that Cromwell was eminently 
 possessed both of religion and of moral honesty, 
 though he may have put them aside now and 
 again when ambition had to be served. What 
 makes Clarendon's censure in this respect the 
 more remarkable, is that his estimate of Cromwell's 
 statesmanship is full and generous. 
 
 Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister 
 gives us another form of personal biography, in 
 the shape of a diary, in which a man admirably 
 placed to know what is really going on has jotted 
 down the events and estimates of the day. How 
 much of this is real history? Lord Malmesbury, 
 for instance, tells us: — "The Morning Post has 
 received orders from the French Emperor to attack 
 me on every possible occcision. Mr. Borthwick, 
 the editor, saw him at Paris, and got his orders 
 from himself " Sir Algernon Borthwick has written 
 to Lord Malmesbury indignantly denying that there 
 is any truth in this charge, and Lord Malmesbury 
 has reiterated his statement, courteously, but firmly, 
 giving the name of the confidant of the French 
 Emperor from whom his information came. The 
 probabilities are that Sir Algernon Borthwick was 
 not in the pay of the French Emperor, and did 
 not receive orders from him, and was not even 
 
PERSONAL MEMOIRS 47 
 
 consciously influenced, as an English paper sup- 
 poses, by the one bribe to which newspaper editors 
 are sometimes amenable — the promise of early 
 information. What is conceivable is that, being a 
 Napoleonist by conviction like his patron Lord 
 Palmerston, Sir Algernon gave private assurances 
 that he should support the Emperor's policy in 
 London, and the Emperor's confidant interpreted 
 these to proceed from a corrupt motive. Lord 
 Malmesbury, good-natured as he is, seems to have 
 been thoroughly annoyed by the opposition of the 
 Morning Post; and ascertained that the substance 
 of a letter he wrote to the English Ambassador 
 had been communicated by the Emperor to the 
 English ally. It is easy to understand how, feeling 
 as he did and knowing what he did. Lord Malmes- 
 bury accepted his informant's statement, which 
 will seem incredible to any English journalist, 
 as true. 
 
 On the whole, the stock French phrase for 
 biographies — "memoirs, to serve for the history " 
 of a particular time — would seem to be that which 
 best describes their value. They are not history, 
 but they are the rough material out of which 
 history is made. No man writes or can write 
 the full truth about himself or other men, because 
 no man thoroughly knows himself or his neighbours. 
 
48 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and also, it may perhaps be added, because men 
 like to paint themselves a little better than they 
 are. On the other hand, the most skilful apologist 
 of his own actions is tolerably certain to let some 
 damnatory evidence escape him, or if his literary 
 skill enables him to escape this pitfall, will have 
 to entrench himself in evasions or a reserve that 
 are disposed of by other evidence. Talleyrand 
 probably understood this when he directed his 
 Memoirs to be withheld from publication for a 
 certain term of years, that is, till the persons 
 compromised were dead, and till the possibility of 
 contradicting them from first sources was at an 
 end. All this will, of course, be taken into account 
 when his papers at last see the light, but he will 
 still have the advantage of telling a good many 
 stories his own way. Even this, however, is not 
 always certain. Lady Lytton, as we now know, 
 was prepared beforehand with a rejoinder to the 
 cowardly attack made in her husband's name, and 
 Alfred de Musset anticipated George Sand's history 
 of their relations by entrusting his own version 
 to a brother's care. Probably, at some future 
 time, the scandalous memoir will disappear, together 
 with the Society Paper. 
 
II.— CARICATURES 
 
 What relation does the art of the caricaturist 
 bear to satire? At the first blush it might almost 
 seem as if the caricaturist were only a satirist 
 with the pencil, and the satirist only a caricaturist 
 with the pen. A moment's reflection, however, 
 wiU show that while individual satirists have 
 achieved immortality by their masterpieces, the 
 caricaturist never rises beyond the collector's 
 portfolio or the amateur's drawing-room table. 
 We all know the story of Michael Angelo — 
 introducing a troublesome Master of the Cere- 
 monies into Hell in his picture of the Last 
 Judgment; and it was, we think, Horace Vernet 
 who introduced a rich Jew, with whom he had 
 had a quarrel, into a picture of the Storming of 
 Algiers, as a vagabond running off with a bag 
 of treasure. Probably a good many such stories 
 could be collected, but they do not affect the 
 general fact that a painter or sculptor, as a rule 
 
 49 
 
50 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 idealises what he touches, and invariably shrinks 
 from attempting any general efifect that shall call 
 up only grotesque associations. Even where the 
 artist is of the Dutch school, or is a pre-Raphaelite, 
 careful only about accuracy of detail, and calling 
 nothing that comes before him common or unclean, 
 he is still careful to avoid exaggeration, and is 
 held to have fallen short of art if he has provoked 
 a smile. No doubt the satirist comes midway 
 between the artist and the caricaturist. Like the 
 caricaturist, he is more concerned with the moral 
 he has to point than with fidelity of execution, 
 and it is often easy to show the two craftsmen 
 working at the same time to the same end. The 
 Anti-Jacobin, which is none the less a satire in 
 parts for being here and there an extravaganza, 
 attacks the leaders of the French Revolution with 
 the weapons of ridicule very much as Gillray and 
 Rowlandson attacked them. The difference seems 
 to be that literary satire, dealing as it does 
 essentially with character and forms of thought, 
 is restrained for the most part within the boundaries 
 of probabiUty; and as it appeals to a highly 
 educated public, studies perfection of style. If it 
 be mere declamation and invective it will not 
 live. On the other hand, the caricaturist, dealing 
 only with what is outward and visible, and 
 
CARICATURES 51 
 
 appealing very much to those whose brains are 
 in their eyes, is constrained to rely upon gross 
 effects for popularity. If he has not caught the 
 humour of the mob, if he has been too subtle or 
 too equitable, his work is lost. 
 
 It would not be easy to find a better example 
 of the difference between satire and caricature 
 than in Swift's attacks upon the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, and in the comic pictures, of English 
 parentage, that illustrated the life and actions of 
 the First Napoleon for our fathers. Whether 
 Swift had any personal feeling against the great 
 Englishman he attacked may be doubtful, but he 
 certainly meant to write him down, and he was 
 as unscrupulous as a great artist in literary work 
 can be. Nevertheless, his portrait of the Duke 
 is so admirably drawn that it has coloured history 
 from that day to this. He assumes himself to 
 be living at Rome in the time of the first trium- 
 virate, and says that he should have been tempted 
 to write a letter to each of the triumvirs, telling 
 him that fault "which I conceived was most 
 odious, and of worst consequence to the common- 
 wealth." He then gives us a specimen of his 
 quality in a letter to Crassus. " No man disputes 
 the gracefulness of your person ; you are allowed 
 to have a good and clear understanding, cultivated 
 
52 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 by the knowledge of men and manners, though 
 not by literature; you are no ill orator in the 
 Senate ; you are said to excel in the art of 
 bridling and subduing your anger, and stifling 
 or concealing your resentments; you have been 
 a most successful general, of long experience, 
 great conduct, and much personal courage ; you 
 have gained many important victories for the 
 commonwealth," etc. And "yet," Swift goes on 
 to say, " you are neither beloved by the Patricians 
 nor Plebeians at home, nor by the officers or 
 private soldiers of your own army abroad. You 
 are deeply stained with that odious and ignoble 
 vice of covetousness, of which 100,000 instances 
 are produced in all men's mouths." He goes 
 on to tell a trivial story, how Marlborough wanted 
 to keep on his wet boots rather than have them 
 cut from his legs; recommends him to go in 
 disguise among the common people that he may 
 know how he is talked about, and to ask his 
 best friends what his chief fault is. Then, having 
 led up from a fair estimate of Marlborough's 
 character to an exaggerated view of his own 
 great failing. Swift proceeds to assert, most 
 dishonestly, as we believe, that the Duke has 
 sacrificed his troops by stinting their commissariat, 
 and that he has protracted the war only that he 
 
CARICATURES 
 
 53 
 
 may be continued in his command. " The moment 
 you quit this vice you will be a truly great man, 
 and stiU there will be imperfections enough remain- 
 ing to convince us you are not a God. " The satire 
 in this masterly performance is individual, and 
 devoid of any broad moral significance, and in 
 aU hkelihood unfair, but the likeness is essentially 
 the man, chiselled in bronze to all time, with no 
 impossible traits added, and forcing even Marl- 
 borough's friends and apologists to cisk themselves 
 if their hero was not a dangerous servant to the 
 comm onwealth. 
 
 Let us compare this masterly attack by a 
 literary expert with the caricatures of the First 
 Napoleon, which Gillray and Rowlandson and 
 Cruikshank brought out in England. They take 
 up the hero's life from childhood to the exile at 
 Saint Helena. In one we get the young Buona- 
 partes gnawing a shin of beef between them, while 
 their barefooted mother sits on the ground, and 
 the father swaggers about Uke a Corsican brigand, 
 with a pistol in his belt. In another. Napoleon 
 appears blowing up his schoolfellows by a scien- 
 tifically constructed mine. His marriage is seized 
 upon as an opportunity for representing his wife 
 as Barras's mistress, and she is introduced dancing 
 naked before the Director, while Napoleon looks 
 
54 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 on as a humble spectator. The expedition to 
 Egypt is commemorated fairly enough by engrav- 
 ings which show Napoleon pummelled by a 
 British sailor, and unfairly by an engraving which 
 represents him giving orders to poison the sick 
 at Jaffa. "History," as Sir Archibald Alison says, 
 "must acquit Napoleon of criminality in this 
 matter. " The flight from Egypt and the coup d'etat 
 of the 1 8th of Brumaire were fair game for 
 caricature, and have not been overdone ; but as 
 soon as Napoleon began to conquer again the 
 English prints became libellous. An engraving of 
 the time represents him instructing an aide-de- 
 camp, stationed behind a tree, to shoot General 
 Desaix. Napoleon never loved any man so much, 
 and a more atrocious calumny could hardly have 
 been invented. With the peace of Amiens Napo- 
 leon got fair treatment for a time, but when the 
 war began again the caricaturists relapsed into 
 their old extravagant strain. For specimens of 
 genuine bombast commend us to some of the en- 
 gravings of this time. One represents poor half- 
 witted George III as a giant who takes up the 
 pigmy Napoleon, and looks at him through a 
 magnifying glass; another shows us the royal 
 family looking on while a miniature Napoleon 
 manoeuvres a little toy ship about a basin of 
 
CARICATURES 
 
 55 
 
 water. That all this braggadocio was no more 
 than shouting to keep the courage up is shown 
 by the ferocity of some of the sketches. One, for 
 instance, of 1803, represents a countryman holding 
 up Napoleon's bleeding head on a pitchfork. The 
 slanders were continued. In 1804 Napoleon is 
 shown watching the infliction of horrible tortures 
 upon the wife of Toussaint I'Ouverture. It was 
 difficult to vulgarise Napoleon's features if any 
 resemblance was to be preserved, but Talleyrand's 
 club foot is always a prominent object in the en- 
 gravings in which he figures. Even the little 
 King of Rome was caricatured from his infancy, 
 and represented with the cloven hoofs and tail 
 of a devil, or as threatening his mother with a 
 dagger. When the tide of conquest turned, and 
 the news of Leipzig arrived. Napoleon was repre- 
 sented as the Corsican toad under a harrow. 
 There was no generous forbearance even when 
 the final crash came, with the abdication and Elba. 
 To English caricaturists, Napoleon still figured 
 as the Corsican Bloodhound, or as led with a 
 rope round his neck in a Rogue's March by 
 Blucher. Even when he was sent to St. Helena 
 he was depicted as the Devil of Milton expelled 
 from heaven, and addressing the sun, who serves 
 as a frame to the Prince Regent's head and 
 
56 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 shoulders. By this time, however, a little reaction 
 was setting in. Another engraving of the day- 
 represents Napoleon on the ground, and the 
 Prince Regent kicking him, while some of the 
 spectators cry out " Shame ! " On the whole, how- 
 ever, it is painful to look through the caricatures 
 of these twenty-five years, and to think that the 
 greatest man of the century was thus ignobly 
 held up to ridicule. 
 
 It may be said that the caricatures of George 
 Ill's time represent a lower level of taste and 
 refinement than exist now, and that Leech and 
 Tenniel have elevated and transformed the art. 
 With two or three notable exceptions this may be 
 admitted. Probably there has never been a more 
 kindly or genial comic journal than the London 
 Punch, and its influence has told for good upon 
 its English contemporaries. Still, wherever English 
 national feehng is at all stirred, the old ferocity seems 
 to be as strong as ever. It is not altogether pleeisant 
 for an Englishman to remember how Americans, 
 and the noblest man in America — Abraham Lin- 
 coln — were steadily held up to savage ridicule, till 
 the cause of the North triumphed and it became 
 unsafe to laugh. The other prominent exception 
 is the treatment still awarded to Ireland. From 
 the days of O'Connell down to those of Mr. Pamell 
 
CARICATURES 
 
 57 
 
 the favourite weapon of the comic press has been 
 to take the type of the lowest Irish rough and 
 make it do duty for the Irishman. No doubt 
 there is a mystical Ireland which often figures in 
 engravings as a pretty barefooted young woman, 
 but as her position is generally that of a beggar, 
 or of a poor dependent, the Irish are not much 
 conciliated by her introduction. At a time when 
 the problem of how best to govern Ireland is 
 taxing the ripest statesmanship, and when calmness 
 and good temper are of the last importance, it 
 is most deplorable that a high-spirited and sensi- 
 tive people should have English hatred and 
 contempt for them advertised in every shop window. 
 The effect produced by a clever caricature can 
 hardly be overrated. As a rule it tells very 
 little against a native statesman, and indeed serves 
 to advertise him. When, however, it is directed 
 against a foreign sovereign or country the power 
 attacked is apt to regard it as the outcome of a 
 strong national feeling. The London Punch is 
 almost as much dreaded on the Continent as the 
 London Times. 
 
 Latterly, the art of some caricaturists has been 
 taking a more subtle and artistic form. Instead 
 of simply distorting the features, it has aimed at 
 exaggerating a single expression so as to denote 
 
58 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the ruling passion. Hawthorne says in one of his 
 novels, that a good photograph always catches 
 the real thought of the face, the lines, whose 
 purpose is imperceptible to the artist, being repro- 
 duced with terrible realism by the sun. There 
 are two pictures in the Barberini Palace at Rome, 
 popularly called of Beatrice Cenci and her mother, 
 in which the change from a young spiritual girl's 
 face to that of a simpering, foolish, middle-aged 
 woman is expressed, unintentionally, with very 
 striking significance. Curiously enough, among 
 all the scores of malicious attempts to make 
 Napoleon I appear ridiculous, none is so successful 
 as a simple portrait, taken of him at Longwood 
 when he had grown fat and common looking. 
 An artist who could have foreseen the possibility 
 of this change a few years before might have shown 
 him up with considerable effect, and need not 
 have resorted to such expedients as the devil's 
 hoof and tails. It is a characteristic of this form 
 of art that it lends itself to idealisation as readily 
 as to ironical work. When John Brown's death was 
 reported from Virginia, the first man to understand 
 its real moral significance was Victor Hugo, and 
 he issued an admirable etching of John Brown 
 hanging from the gallows in an attitude that 
 recalled the Crucifixion. 
 
CARICATURES 59 
 
 Altogether, a good history of caricatures would 
 be a history of popular passion and ignorance. 
 Less than the writer of songs, incomparably less 
 than the satirist, has the caricaturist, as a rule, 
 associated himself with those movements which 
 have left men better and wiser than before. We 
 possess a caricature of the earliest times. It is a 
 representation of our Lord with an ass's head nailed 
 to the cross, and underneath it some sportive 
 pagan has written, " This is the god of Alexamenos. " 
 Throughout the Middle Ages the caricaturist was 
 busy, but his wit in stone or wood, the represen- 
 tation of deadly sins, or satire on the clergy, 
 served only to familiarise the mind with coarse 
 and obscene images. In later times the carica- 
 turist has never aimed at more than reflecting 
 and exaggerating the feeling of the day. Catholic 
 emancipation, the modification of the Penal Laws, 
 free-trade in food, were all fought out on the 
 platform and in the serious press, before the 
 caricaturist went over to what was by this time 
 a winning side. It can scarcely be said, either, 
 that any great amends is made by a healthy 
 exposure of moral vices. Gavarni's sketches of 
 French domestic life, English jokes upon intoxica- 
 tion, seem rather designed to familiarise the public 
 mind with the vice than to lash the sinner. It is 
 
6o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 in dealing with social foibles that the caricaturist 
 is most successful. From the fop to the snob, 
 from the party giver to the sesthete, he catches 
 up the trifles that neither history nor satire would 
 record, and embalms them in the most translucent 
 of amber. 
 
III.— CYNICISM IN LITERATURE! 
 
 Mr. Samuel Butler, who, we think, is still best 
 known as the author of Erewkon, has published 
 a pleasant little volume of selections from his 
 previous works. They are of a sufficiently various 
 kind. Erewhon was an attack in the form of a 
 philosophical romance upon modem institutions, 
 and in particular upon modern theology; the Fair 
 Haven ^ repeated the onslaught on faith in the form 
 of an ironical vindication of miracles. In his next 
 three works Mr. Butler broke ground in science, 
 attacking the school of Darwin, and he claims to 
 have established the thesis that instinct is uncon- 
 scious memory ; while in Alps and Sanctuaries Mr. 
 Butler makes what we may best describe as a 
 Voltairian journey amongst a Catholic people. Mr. 
 Butler is not eminently an original thinker, but 
 he has what may be called an original humour, 
 
 ' Selections from Previous Works, by Samuel Butler. London : 
 Triibner & Co. 
 ^ Triibner, 1873. 
 
 61 
 
62 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 which amuses itself by preference with speculations 
 on questions of morality and religion. The im- 
 pression which a serious person would derive from 
 reading his works might easily be one of unmixed 
 reprobation. Mr. Butler seems to be restrained 
 by nothing except the demands of good style in 
 his attacks upon everything which the Christian 
 world has agreed for centuries past to regard as 
 holy. On the other hand, a religious person with 
 a little of Mr. Butler's temperament may note with 
 satisfaction that he is constantly girding at scien- 
 tific men and their conclusions, and that as a 
 matter of fact he appears to prefer religion to 
 unbelief and even to science. The prevalent ten- 
 dency of his mind seems indeed to be intolerance 
 of authority, and especially of whatever is con- 
 ventional or formal. Mr. Butler quotes approv- 
 ingly in one of his chapters the famous passage 
 in which Buffon has argued that neither know- 
 ledge, nor thought, nor originality, but command 
 of style, is the real passport to immortality. 
 "The matter is foreign to the man, and is not 
 of him ; the manner is the man, himself " Certainly 
 we may say of Mr. Butler that it is the way in 
 which his arguments are put, rather than the 
 arguments themselves, which attracts us in reading 
 him. If we try to condense the volatile essence 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 63 
 
 of his thoughts, the residuum will be so thin and 
 subtle as to be almost inconsiderable. This, 
 however, is in fact a tribute to the skill with 
 which he has selected his weapons. To have 
 found out that what would be harmless as a pellet 
 may be terribly potent as a gas, is to have made 
 an important discovery in the art of war. Neither 
 does it follow that because humour will not bear 
 to be tested as argument it is therefore worthless. 
 Humour has its own sphere, and, as it appeals to 
 moods which are less liable to shift than thought, 
 may easily have a larger empire than argument. 
 The l^ak of a Tub is not unlikely to outlive all 
 the controversial theology of Swift's time; if, 
 indeed, it has not already outlived it and seen its 
 burial. 
 
 The chief features of Erewhon, an imaginary 
 commonwealth on the west coast of New Zealand, 
 are the parts describing the reception given to 
 inventions by the Erewhonians, what constituted 
 crime amongst them, and what were the relations 
 of Church and State. The first of these was, we 
 think, Mr. Butler's most original conception, and 
 it is a Uttle curious that he has not reproduced 
 the chapter describing it in this volume. He 
 supposed the Erewhonians to have gone on in- 
 venting watches, printing presses, steam engines 
 
6^ REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and other mechanical a])plianc(;s, till then; a])p(;an;(l 
 to be a (lan^-er that machines would su])plant man 
 for all pur|)o,s(;s of toil. 'I'hen ihrn; arose a lar^^e 
 party in the State demandinj^ that all machinery 
 should be annihilated, and, after a furious civil 
 war, peace was concluded on the- condition that 
 only those inventions which had be(;n made prior 
 to a particular epoch should Ix; tolerated. The 
 watch was retained; th(! steam en;^nne abolished. 
 Now it is veiy possible; to und(;rstand an econo- 
 mist f^f (Conservative habits of thouj^'ht usinL,^ an 
 illustration of this kind to show what the danj^ers 
 of democracy mig-ht be; and it is just conceivable 
 that an (;ducated Socialist might imagine a Utopia 
 of this sort in the interest of the working classes, 
 though he would be m(;re likely to represent thc' 
 Stat(; as confiscating inventions, so that th{;y might 
 b(; emjjloyed for the b(;nefit of the whole com- 
 munity. Mr. Bud<;r's jjoint of view seems to be 
 altogether remote from pfjlitics, and essentially 
 that of a pfissimist. lie aj)|)ears to believe in an 
 almost infinite possibility of substituting mere 
 mechanical force's for individual human effort, and 
 though we do not imagine he sympathises with 
 the lOrr.'whonian solution of the difficulty, in all 
 likelihfjod he sees no other way fnit of it. "fiive 
 free play to invention," h(; seems to say, "and 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 65 
 
 you destroy humanity by taking their means of 
 Hvdihood from the poor and the elevating neces- 
 sities of toil from aU men. Determine to preserve 
 these, and you are bound to stifle thought." 
 The ghastl}- dreariness of a view like this is self 
 evident. Mr. Butier, however, is not in the least 
 despondent, and appears to be sustained by a 
 cheerful conviction that the sources of happiness 
 consist, not in what the world is, but in how you 
 take it. 
 
 The Erewhonian system of ethics is arrived at 
 by inverting that usual among men. To us, moral 
 offences are crimes against society- that call for a 
 penalt}-, and diseases, as a rule, are only matters 
 of private concern. Mr. Butler wishes us to 
 remember that crimes are often the result of some 
 congenital imperfection ; a crave for drink or a 
 liability- to frantic fits of passion, or an incapacity 
 to calculate consequences, inherited from vicious 
 parents. If a man pleaded these in a court of 
 justice he would be told that there was no question 
 of how he came to be tempted into crime, but 
 whether he was guilty or not, and that societ\- 
 could not let him loose to transgress the law 
 hereafter under the plea of an uncontrollable propen- 
 sity. In the same way the Erewhonian judge tells 
 the prisoner at the bar that he declines to enter 
 
 5 
 
66 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 into the question of his elementary constitution, 
 but has to consider the effects to society if he 
 were allowed to go at large. "Your presence in the 
 society of respectable people would lead the less 
 able-bodied to think more lightly of all forms of 
 illness ; neither can it be permitted that you should 
 have the chance of corrupting unborn beings. " 
 Being therefore guilty of pulmonary consumption, 
 the criminal is sentenced to imprisonment with 
 hard labour for the remainder of his life. On the 
 other hand, when a leading citizen has defrauded 
 a widow of her substance, what he does is to 
 call in a " straightener, " who orders him to pay 
 a fine of double the amount to the State, puts 
 him on an ascetic diet, and administers a flogging 
 once a month for a year. We may aU admit 
 that the punishment of offenders should aim at 
 reforming them rather than at taking vengeance; 
 and some of us may go some way with the 
 Erewhonians in thinking that a good many diseases, 
 the results of profligacy or criminal negligence, 
 and communicable to others, might very properly 
 be punished by a term of penal servitude. The 
 conclusion really insinuated goes further than this, 
 and suggests that vice and virtue, being merely 
 matters of constitutional diathesis, are no proper 
 subjects for praise or blame. Of course vice is to 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 67 
 
 be stamped out because it is a nuisance in society, 
 but it ought to be cured with pills and dieting 
 and to excite no more reprobation than a cold 
 in the head. 
 
 The attack on the churches in Erewhon may 
 be passed over with very brief notice, as it is one 
 of the least successful parts in the book. The 
 churches are represented as banks, which have a 
 currency distinct from that of the State, which no 
 one really uses, but in which it is supposed all 
 transactions ought to be carried on. Every respect- 
 able person keeps an account at one of these 
 banks, which are called musical, because their 
 business is transacted to a musical accompaniment, 
 but everyone takes care to make his balance as 
 small as possible. What we take to be the test 
 of failure in an illustration of this kind is that it 
 should lend nothing to the argument, and the best 
 passages in this chapter appear to lose more than 
 they gain from the parable. For instance, when 
 the narrator ventures to hint to one of the musical 
 bank managers that the people in general are 
 indifferent to the whole institution, " he said that 
 it had been more or less true till lately, but that 
 now they had put fresh stained glass windows into 
 all the banks in the country, and repaired the 
 buildings and enlarged the organs, and taken to 
 
68 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 talking nicely to the people in the streets, and to 
 remembering the ages of their children and giving 
 them things when they were ill, so that all would 
 henceforth go smoothly. " This is effective, though 
 rather commonplace, writing regarded as an attack 
 upon Ritualism pure and simple; but it becomes 
 incongruous when it is mixed up with the conduct, 
 of a commercial institution. The Bible often 
 employs the analogy of treasure on earth and 
 treasure in heaven, but the Bible does not mix 
 up the heavenly treasure with such a mere acces- 
 sory as music. If it may be permitted to conjec- 
 ture how so great a master of allegory as Swift 
 would have treated this subject upon the same 
 lines, we may surely conceive him representing 
 the introduction of music as a deviation from the 
 charter of the bank, and part of a system for 
 deluding the creditor with false payments — an 
 opera instead of a dividend. Even this, however,, 
 would probably have been too far-fetched for Swift, 
 who took care that his similes should be so- 
 extravagant as to carry a sense of scorn in them, 
 and so clear as to be absolutely transparent. 
 
 It was probably his experience of the difficulty 
 of handling metaphors that led Mr. Butler to 
 adopt a different system in the Fair Haven, and 
 to change the method of the Tak of a Tub for 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 69 
 
 that of the Encyclopcedia, the parable attacking 
 popular theology for an ironical defence of it. 
 The Fair Haven is an examination of miracles, 
 bringing out the strongest arguments against them, 
 and affecting to overthrow these by the weakest 
 that can be urged in their favour. In the volume 
 before us Mr. Butler only reproduces the preface, 
 which professes to be the life of a strong believer 
 who for a time lapsed into unbeHef, because he 
 discovered inconsistencies in his teachers, or in 
 their tenets. There is a good deal of broad fun 
 in the description of the boy who is shocked to 
 discover that a lady visitor does not say her 
 prayers when she can get into bed unobserved, 
 and who objects strongly to his mother's wish 
 that he may become one of the two witnesses in 
 the Apocalypse, and be massacred somewhere in 
 the streets of London. But the humour will not 
 bear analysis, and is essentially in the narrative, 
 not in the point made. Further on, when the 
 boy, grown up, is shocked to discover that the 
 baptised children in a Sunday School are neither 
 better nor worse than the unbaptised, we get 
 ■upon very ordinary ground. The moment Mr. 
 Butler passes from this to irony, he gains very 
 perceptibly in real wit. Thus, for instance, he 
 explains all the wanderings of honest doubt as so 
 
/O 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 many explorations that have to be made before 
 Christianity can be comprehended in its absolute 
 fulness. "The truth which is on the surface is 
 rarely the whole truth. It is seldom until this 
 has been worked out and done with, as in the 
 case of the apparent flatness of the earth, that 
 unchangeable truth is discovered. It is the glory 
 of the Lord to conceal a matter; it is the glory 
 of the king to find it out." Many people will 
 object to the ironical quite as much as to the 
 cynical style of argument. Our only concern is 
 with their literary values. To us, the method that 
 frankly declares something repulsive or unsound 
 to be the best possible system and glories in it, 
 is less artistic than the trick of argument by which 
 the object attacked is praised for virtues that it 
 does not possess in such a fashion that everyone 
 understands the praise to be satire. 
 
 The great masters of satire and irony have, as 
 a rule, been men who had strong convictions of 
 their own. In the age of the reformation satire 
 was the weapon of men who believed in the 
 Bible or the revival of letters; in the eighteenth 
 century of philosophers who had a blind, passion- 
 ate belief in the powers of reason. Even of Swift 
 it can hardly be doubted that he was sincere in 
 his absolute scorn and contempt for the infidelity 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 71 
 
 of his day. Mr. Butler, though he is deeply in- 
 terested in science as he is interested in theology, 
 is not a man of scientific habits of thought. 
 " Our English youth, who live much in the open 
 air, and, as Lord Beaconsfield said, never read, 
 are the people," he tells us, "who know best 
 those things which are best worth knowing — that 
 is to say, they are the most truly scientific." 
 Let us ask ourselves for a moment what this 
 means. A young English peer, with a sports- 
 man's enjoyment of the moor and the covert, and 
 a guardsman's disregard for cram of any kind, 
 is compelled now and again to master some 
 fragment of practical knowledge, and occasionally 
 meets scientific men, who, if they find him 
 intelligent, are flattered by his attention, and talk 
 their best to him. Such a man may go to his grave 
 without finding that he has wanted any knowledge 
 he did not possess, but to call him scientific is 
 surely an abuse of terms. Instinct and knowledge 
 of men may guide him in deciding what scientific 
 teachers he will believe, but he can know nothing 
 of scientific conclusions without mastering a good 
 many books, and will only be confused by these 
 if he does not understand the nature of evidence. 
 In another form Mr. Butler is only repeating 
 Cowper's panegyric upon the village dame — 
 
72 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 "Who knows, and knows no more, her Bible true. 
 A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew." ' 
 
 The upper ten thousand, who learn their Darwin 
 from stray passages in novels and the talk of 
 dinner-tables, are admirably fitted to be a recep- 
 tive medium of knowledge ; and it would be absurd 
 to expect that the mass of men can ever acquire 
 it for themselves. To say, however, that it is 
 these people that have the firmest grip of their 
 knowledge, simply because they have got at 
 results, and do not trouble themselves about pro- 
 cesses, is to invert the scientific point of view, 
 which regards the method — being generally appli- 
 cable — as more important than the individual fact. 
 Neither is there much more conviction in Mr. 
 Butler's argument that though the possession of 
 knowledge is not incompatible with beauty, its 
 pursuit seems to be so since a great many scientific 
 and literary men look ugly and disagreeable. 
 Certainly, the pursuit of knowledge has never been 
 supposed to make its votaries beautiful for ever; and 
 it may be that " the masterpieces of Greek and 
 Italian art " are " the truest preachers of the truest 
 gospel of grace. " What we demur to is the assump- 
 tion that knowledge and beauty are identical, and 
 that those who have not attained to beauty have 
 
 ' Truth, 327. 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 73 
 
 not attained to knowledge. What Mr. Butler really 
 means is that it is pleasanter to enjoy than to create. 
 Mr. Butler's contribution to science is the sug- 
 gestion that instinct is hereditary memory, and 
 that- when, for instance, a dog which has never 
 seen a wolf, is thrown into convulsions of fear by 
 smelling an old piece of wolf's skin, it is because 
 the smell brought up a reminiscence inherited 
 from remote ancestors of the partiality wolves 
 feel for eating little dogs. We have seen a cat 
 thrown into a paroxysm of terror by being intro- 
 duced to the carcase of a wild turkey. Will it 
 be argued that wild turkeys ever molested cats, 
 and is any bird of prey such a danger to cats 
 that instinctive dread of a large bird is likely to 
 pass into the system ? " The duckling hatched by 
 the hen makes straight for the water." The 
 duckling brought up by the hen will acquire all 
 the habits of a land bird; it will not take to the 
 water except by compulsion. What seems to be 
 true is that the duckling having two examples 
 before it, instinctively imitates its own kind rather 
 than the race of its foster parent. However, we 
 are not much concerned with the truth or false- 
 hood of Mr. Butler's theory. What we would 
 point out is its curious affinity to a conservative 
 and materialistic theory of the universe. Christi- 
 
74 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 anity teaches us, and all systems of law and ethics 
 assume, that we are in a state of probation here, 
 that we determine our own lives, and that our 
 acts and thoughts are our good and bad angels. 
 Mr. Butler holds that our most solid notions 
 are memories from past existences which we bring 
 with us into the world, and that whatever we 
 learn here is acquired in a self-conscious and 
 bewildering manner. "It is the young and fair," 
 he says, "who are the truly old and the truly 
 experienced; it is they alone who have a trust- 
 worthy memory to guide them . . . When we 
 say that we are getting old, we should say rather 
 that we are getting new or young, and are suffer- 
 ing from inexperience, which drives us into doing 
 things which we do not understand, and lands 
 us eventually in the utter impotence of death. 
 The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of litde 
 children." This is Platonism inverted with a 
 vengeance. Instead of the child coming into the 
 world with God's thoughts in its mind, and trailing 
 clouds of glory from its divine home, we are asked 
 to believe, not only what is quite conceivable up 
 to a certain point, that it inherits the taint of 
 licentiousness or cruelty, or fetish worship or 
 inaccurate processes of reasoning from its savage 
 ancestry, but that these are the most valuable 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 75 
 
 parts of its knowledge. The present generation 
 can add nothing to them except by transmitting 
 unconscious processes of reasoning to its own 
 descendants. Certainly, if this is the true theory 
 of man, Mr. Butler's cynicism is justified. Natu- 
 rally enough his ultimate theory of society is that 
 the professions will assuredly one day become 
 hereditary. In this way the transmitted instincts 
 of a hundred generations of painters and lawyers, 
 instead of vitalising and diversifying the whole race, 
 wiU be concentrated in castes of unapproachable 
 excellence ! Probably, as in Erewhon, new inven- 
 tions will be excluded from the world when it hcis 
 reached this stage, as there cannot be a heredi- 
 tary aptitude for manipulating fresh discoveries. 
 
 Mr. Butler is too glaringly irreverent and too 
 little academical in his style to be accounted a 
 disciple of Mr. Matthew Arnold, but he lands 
 himself in pretty much the same conclusions. 
 "Starting from premises which both sides admit, 
 a merely logical Protestant," he tells us, "will 
 find himself driven to the Church of Rome." 
 "On the other hand, as good a case could be 
 made out for placing reason as the foundation, 
 inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a 
 faith to be worth anything must be a reasonable 
 one." Having thus placed himself, like the school- 
 
76 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 man's donkey, between two equally attractive 
 bundles of hay, Mr. Butler decides that we are 
 sometimes to bite at one and sometimes at the 
 other. "A man's safety lies neither in faith nor 
 reason, but in temper — in the power of fusing faith 
 and reason, even when they appear most mutually 
 destructive." What this practically means, of 
 course, is that we are to make up a composite 
 religion for ourselves with no great regard for 
 consistency or for abstract truth. Before a man 
 elects to do this he must have satisfied himself 
 that abstract truth is not to be obtained, and 
 when he has made up his mind about that he 
 will probably not be very careful to have a religion 
 at all. Mr. Butler characteristically tells us that 
 "in the rough homely common sense of the 
 community to which we belong we have as firm 
 ground as can be got. " This, of course, means that 
 the worship of Mumbo Jumbo is as good for an 
 African as popular Protestantism for an Englishman. 
 The distinction between the cynic, the humorist, 
 and the satirist is a strongly marked one. Both 
 the cynic and the humorist find food for mirth 
 in the foibles of humanity, but the humorist glides 
 lovingly over foibles and frailties, the cynic lays 
 them bare ruthlessly, and gloats over the exposure. 
 The humorist inclines to sentiment, the cynic to 
 
CYNICISM IN LITERATURE 
 
 77 
 
 wit. The humorist has the wider range, conversing, 
 as it were, with all animated nature, while the 
 cynic invariably lingers as if fascinated in the 
 neighbourhood of man. That the impulse to 
 observe and describe is artistic in both separates 
 them from the satirist, who is essentially a prophet, 
 drawing his moral lessons from the contrasts of 
 good and evil. Of the three the satirist approaches 
 nearest to poetry; but perhaps his superiority in 
 this respect over the humorist is only because 
 metrical forms are more manageable by those 
 whose indignation is almost bound to express 
 itself in declamation or epigram, than by those 
 who aim at expressing delicate differences, giving 
 subtle or suggestive hints, and at times conveying 
 their thoughts by reticences. To those who 
 remember that Jaques was a poet's creation it 
 will seem possible that Sterne and Jean Paul 
 mieht also have made verse the vehicle of humour 
 if they had been so minded — though perhaps not 
 so perfectly as prose. The cynic stands on a 
 different and lower level. His work cannot be 
 put into any form that is congenial to the play 
 of fancy or the localisation of feeling. It differs 
 from poetry, as the articulation of a skeleton or 
 a pathological specimen differs from an artist's 
 rendering of the human form. 
 
IV.— QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 
 
 Within the last few weeks the charge of canni- 
 balism appears to have been brought home to 
 the survivors of the Greely expedition, and to 
 the rescued sailors of the yacht Mignonette. Public 
 sympathy, we are told, is very much excited in 
 favour of the persons incriminated in the latter case, 
 though the precise charge is that they killed their 
 victim, who, however, was mad from drinking 
 salt water, before eating him. It seems reasonable 
 enough that a fund should be raised to defend 
 men who are too poor to secure the services of 
 the ablest counsel themselves; and it is not diffi- 
 cult to understand a strong sentiment of compas- 
 sion for offenders who have endured such protracted 
 agony from exposure, and who find themselves 
 put on their trial for life just as they have escaped 
 the sea. Public opinion in England, however, 
 appears to look beyond these extenuating circum- 
 stances, and to regard it as inevitable and right 
 
QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 79 
 
 that men should preserve their own Hves without 
 regard to another man's right to live. Mr. Leigh 
 Smith, who was lately shipwrecked in the Arctic 
 regions, and who only brought his crew away by 
 great good fortune, has been interviewed by an 
 irrepressible Pall Mall reporter, and says that if 
 he were reduced to straits he would allow his men 
 to eat human flesh if they liked it, but not to 
 draw lots or murder. Dr. Neale, who accom- 
 panied Mr. Leigh Smith, is of opinion that men 
 who had endured a great deal of privation together 
 would gain nothing worth taking into account by 
 eating an emaciated comrade. It is satisfactory 
 to know that in the cases where there is the 
 strongest temptation to cannibalism the advantage 
 derived from it is extremely small, but the argument 
 is very far from being concluded when we know 
 this. Probably most people will agree with Mr. 
 Leigh Smith that the line ought to be drawn 
 between eating human flesh under the pressure 
 of dire necessity and killing someone, who, it 
 may be, is a maniac, and certain to die, for the 
 purpose of eating him. Putting moral sentiment 
 out of the question, and reducing everything to 
 sheer utilitarianism, there is one excellent reason 
 why fellow sufferers should not prey upon a 
 comrade in whom there is yet life. If the rule 
 
8o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 was once established that they could, nothing more 
 ghastly can well be conceived than the relations 
 of men in peril to one another. The weak would 
 combine against the strong; every man would 
 sleep in dread of his life; and the suspicions 
 and the ambuscades would be renewed day by 
 day. It is the general and strong revulsion against 
 cannibalism and a fortunate superstition that human 
 flesh is unwholesome, which have enabled so many 
 men in extreme peril to bear everything rather 
 than raise their hands against one another. 
 
 Putting aside this one particular case, with its 
 ghastly surroundings, which it is not pleasant to 
 dwell upon, we may turn to the question whether 
 it is allowable to save one's own life at the expense 
 of another man's. In a certain general and ab- 
 stract way, society has decided that it is. No 
 one feels any particular scruple at being repre- 
 sented by soldiers in a terrible war, and no private 
 person, as a rule, feels bound to tender his services 
 for a cholera hospital. What is more, a general 
 who can extricate his army by sending a few 
 hundred, or it may be a few thousand men, to 
 certain death, does it without the smallest hesi- 
 tation ; and he and his soldiers would be held to 
 have acted very wrongly if, from a false point of 
 honour, they neglected to save themselves at the 
 
QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 8i 
 
 expense of their comrades. On the other hand, 
 a man clinging- to a spar, who pushes it away 
 from the drowning persons around him or perhaps 
 forces one of them to leave hold of it, is generally 
 held to have done a detestable action. There are 
 two stories connected with wolves which show 
 pretty clearly within what limits the instinct of 
 self-preservation is allowed to prevail. In one, a 
 Russian peasant woman, finding that her sledge 
 is pursued by wolves that are gaining upon her, 
 throws out first one child and then another, 
 gaining just enough time to enable her to reach 
 the nearest village in safety. When she tells the 
 story of what she has done, an indignant peasant 
 cleaves her to the ground with his axe. Prob- 
 ably we shall all share something of his resent- 
 ment, yet it will appear certain, on reflection, 
 that the woman could not have saved the 
 children by throwing herself out to the wolves. 
 Left to themselves, with no one to hold the reins, 
 the horses would undoubtedly have overturned 
 the sledge, and all would have perished. Prob- 
 ably, too, in this particular case, the woman 
 expected to save one child by the sacrifice of the 
 others and was led on one by one to surrendering 
 all. What makes the case so terrible is that we 
 assume a mother to be a monster if her love for 
 
 6 
 
82 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 her children is not stronger than the instinct of 
 self-preservation, and than common sense. Popu- 
 lar sentiment, in fact, demands that the woman 
 should have killed herself uselessly, and it is cer- 
 tain that no ordinary woman could have known 
 happiness or kept her reason after assisting at 
 such a tragedy. The other story is one of a 
 very different kind. In this, which is from Sweden, 
 a nobleman and his wife are being driven by 
 their old family servant through a forest, when 
 they find that a pack of wolves is coming up 
 with them. The coachman suddenly dismounts, 
 puts the reins into his master's hands, and tells 
 him to drive on while he gives himself up to the 
 wolves. With the little start thus given him, and 
 the lightened weight for the horses, the nobleman 
 goes safely to his destination. In this case the 
 action of the servant is, of course, heroic, and the 
 question must be whether his master had any 
 right to take advantage of so much courage and 
 devotion. Putting feudal feeUngs aside, it would 
 seem as if the more highly placed and better 
 educated man was the one who ought to have 
 set the example of dying. In that case, however, 
 there would have been the additional and painful 
 moral problem, whether the wife was not bound 
 to die at her husband's side. That one of the 
 
QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 83 
 
 three was bound to do what was done, and that 
 the other two were justified in profiting by it, 
 can hardly be doubted. Nevertheless, one feels 
 that the man who escaped must have been sad- 
 dened and humiliated for life. 
 
 Questions of life and death are not the only 
 ones in which it is possible to have a conflict of 
 various duties. The case of Enoch Arden has 
 had a great many parallels. In one well authen- 
 ticated story, a young woman of great personal 
 attractions had married a private soldier, and was 
 on her way with him to Canada when the ship 
 foundered in mid-ocean during a storm. The 
 women were hastily thrust into boats, the troops 
 were left in the sinking vessel, and never heard 
 of again. When the boats at last reached the 
 coast of America, the misfortunes and beauty of 
 the young widow attracted a good deal of atten- 
 tion, and an officer, falling in love with her, sent 
 her to a boarding school to be educated, and 
 presently married her. Their married life was 
 one of singular happiness till one day the wife 
 recognised her first, and, of course, her only real 
 husband, in an orderly sent with a message from 
 the commanding officer of another regiment that 
 was then passing through the town. He had 
 been picked up clinging to a spar, but believed 
 
84 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the boat which carried his wife to have been lost. 
 Changed as she was by years, and dress, and 
 position, the wife might have defied recognition, 
 but carried away by a tumult of conflicting 
 emotions she rushed up into her bedroom, put 
 on the old dress which she kept by her, came 
 downstairs again and was recognised. The 
 sequel is a very sad one. The officer had to 
 give up a wife whom he loved ; the wife to return 
 to a husband whom she did not care for, and 
 for whom she was now unsuited ; while the hus- 
 band, being allowed an annuity for his wife's 
 sake by her second husband, contracted habits 
 of drink. In this case it is difficult not to think 
 that the wife ought resolutely to have faced the 
 situation, and to have taken the responsibility of 
 keeping a secret on the inviolability of which the 
 happiness of all depended. No injury was done 
 to public morality if she abided by a marriage 
 which was contracted in perfect innocence. At 
 the same time, we are bound to remember the 
 old adage that hard cases make bad law. In 
 this instance we know what actual bad results 
 followed. It is not certain that an opposite course 
 would have been more fortunate. The wife, if she 
 was sensitively conscientious, might have broken 
 down under the pressure of her terrible secret, 
 
QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 85 
 
 and lost health or the power to make her second 
 husband happy. The first husband might have 
 taken to drink without the excuse of an annuity, 
 and his wife, if she followed his fortunes from a 
 distance, might then have believed that it was for 
 want of her own restraining influence. What the 
 story really seems to indicate is the want of some 
 provision in the English law by which a husband, 
 separated for years from his wife, and whom his 
 wife is justified in believing dead, shall cease to 
 have any claim upon her. 
 
 We all remember the famous controversy with 
 the Jesuits, in which Pascal denounced the doctrine 
 of reserve. It is probable that the order has 
 never to this day recovered from that scathing 
 exposure ; and that Catholic priests generally incur 
 the odium of believing that it is right to do a little 
 wrong that a great good may be achieved ; to 
 tell a little falsehood that a soul, or many hundred 
 souls, may be saved. We have ourselves heard 
 a Catholic ecclesiastic of some distinction defend 
 this on the ground that if he could save his 
 neighbour's soul by putting his own in danger, 
 he was bound to run the risk. It may safely be 
 said that in this particular instance experience is 
 conclusive against the Jesuit logic, and that for 
 one convert made by an imposture the Church 
 
86 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 has lost ten believers alienated by the moral 
 repulsion which men feel when they are quite 
 uncertain whether their teacher believes what he 
 says. In fact, that unconditional and minute 
 veracity is necessary to the very existence of every 
 society, religious or civil, seems to be pretty well 
 demonstrated ; and the tendency of the times is 
 to plain dealing in diplomacy, probity in trade, 
 and a preference for unembroidered unambiguous 
 speech. Meanwhile, there are some familiar ex- 
 ceptions in which the world has agreed to tolerate 
 insincerity. One instance may be seen every day 
 in the Divorce Court. A man is scarcely ex- 
 pected to admit the truth about his relations with 
 a woman with whom he has sinned. The baseness 
 of denouncing her after he has tempted her to 
 do wrong, seems less venial than a perjury which 
 practically does not count for much in the evidence 
 taken. Even here, however, the toleration of false- 
 hood leads to very serious consequences, for it 
 destroys half the value of the sworn evidence which 
 a really innocent witness can give on behalf of a 
 really innocent woman. A more pardonable kind 
 of falsehood is that which the inhabitant of an 
 enslaved country tells when he is summoned to 
 give evidence that will lead the noblest and best 
 around him to prison or to the block. A man 
 
QUESTIONS OF CASUISTRY 87 
 
 who has been hearing revolt talked in every 
 society he enters for the last three months, and 
 who is himself, perhaps, concerned in a conspi- 
 racy, is called suddenly before the governor of 
 the province, and questioned in such a way that 
 his silence may be just as damaging as his speech. 
 Assume, for instance, that a country gentleman 
 is asked to say whether A and B, with whom 
 he is in intimate relations, are concerned in any 
 plot against Government. It is quite obvious that 
 when he refuses point blank to answer, A and B 
 will at once be set down as guilty. Take, again, 
 the case of a man who from mere motives of 
 humanity has concealed a rebel, and knows that 
 the fugitive will be shot on the spot if he is found. 
 It is difficult to imagine any man who would not 
 sooner take the load of perjury on his soul than 
 give up a man, who had trusted in his honour, to 
 death. Neither can it quite be said that a man 
 ought not to put himself in such a position. 
 Civil war would be more ghastly than it is if a 
 hunted man could not hope to be taken in and 
 sheltered from pursuit now and again, even in 
 the house of a neutral, or it may be an enemy. 
 On the whole, though we no longer possess 
 the institution of a "scruple shop," as Cavalier 
 undergraduates profanely called the conference 
 
88 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 which used to meet at Oxford under the Protector 
 to discuss cases of conscience, it cannot be said 
 that the occupation of the casuist is altogether 
 gone. Indeed, Vanity Fair contrives to interest 
 a good many readers by asking and solving a 
 " hard question" every week. In most instances 
 these problems appear to be rather easy than hard 
 when they deal with moral difficulties; and indeed 
 the straightforward rule of right is so habitually 
 the safe rule to follow that exceptions may prac- 
 tically be distrusted. Englishmen, at least, are not 
 often mixed up in revolutions, and an innocent 
 bigamy does not happen once in a million of 
 marriages. Now and again, however, some ques- 
 tion like that of cannibaUsm under extreme pres- 
 sure frightens us out of our proprieties, and shows 
 us that the ethics of ordinary life are not always 
 adequate for the demands of a great emergency. 
 
v.— THE GRAND STYLE 
 
 "Men are feasting at Genoa: men are dying- 
 at Naples— I go to Naples", are the words in 
 which King Humbert lately declined an invita- 
 tion from the municipality of Genoa, and there 
 seems to be a general consent in the press 
 that the words were worthy of the occasion. 
 Will they seem so to a later age? That King 
 Humbert's act was a grand one will not be 
 disputed. That the words of his telegram exactly 
 correspond to the noble thought which animated 
 him will appear certain. Probably, too, no one 
 will care to dispute that for reasons of statesmanship 
 King Humbert was thoroughly justified in letting 
 his subjects see that he understood the true nature 
 of his duties. There may be thousands of Italians 
 to whom the character of their monarch's act 
 will be brought more vividly home by a nicely 
 balanced antithesis. What may perhaps be asked 
 
 hereafter will be if there is not something a little 
 
 89 
 
90 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 too self-conscious and theatrical about the composi- 
 tion of the royal message, and whether a fine 
 act does not lose a little of the simplicity that is 
 its greatest charm when the world sees that it 
 has been very accurately thought out with a setting 
 of brilliant words. It may be said that in any 
 criticism of this kind we are bound to take account 
 of the difference between southern and northern 
 natures, and that we must allow for a little ex- 
 pansiveness in the Italian where we should demand 
 a good deal of reserve in the Englishman. Our 
 greatest men have eminently not been makers of 
 fine phrases. Nelson's signal at Trafalgar is 
 perhaps the best instance of a happy phrase that 
 could be quoted from all English history; and we 
 know that its generalising form was determined by 
 the want of proper machinery to convey Nelson's 
 original and more simple meaning. The only 
 sentence with which Wellington's name is asso- 
 ciated — .the famous " Up guards and at them," 
 is now transferred in a less pungent form to one 
 of Wellington's subordinates, and would never have 
 possessed the smallest interest for anyone if it had 
 not been for the results of Waterloo. If we add 
 to these Walton's despatch, " I have taken and 
 destroyed the Spanish fleet, as per margin," we 
 get pretty much the highest level of which Eng- 
 
THE GRAND STYLE 
 
 91 
 
 lishmen seem capable. To order the accomplishment 
 of a great act as if it were common everyday duty, 
 to report a victory as if there were nothing strange 
 in it, are the characteristics of this style. In the 
 cases quoted above there can be little doubt that 
 there was no particular attempt at literary effect. 
 Nelson is said to have thought over his signal 
 for a few minutes; but Walton probably cut his 
 despatch short because he disliked despatch writing, 
 and thought that the facts of the victory would 
 speak for themselves. 
 
 Two or three generations ago there can be little 
 doubt that phrase-making played an important 
 part in politics, especially among the French. 
 Louis XVI had a hterary correspondent who 
 used to prime him with royal epigrams. "Your 
 Majesty will soon be going to the races; you 
 will find a notary entering the bets of two 
 princes of the blood; when you see him. Sire, 
 make the remark: 'What is the use of this man? 
 Ought there to be written contracts between 
 gentlemen? Their word ought to be enough.'" 
 The whole scene actually came off as was planned, 
 and the courtiers were full of admiration. " What 
 a happy thought, and how kingly! that is his 
 style." Probably it was the same prompter to 
 whom we owe the still more elaborate scene when 
 
92 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Louis XVI pointed to some carts going out to 
 carry wood to the poor of Paris, and refused to 
 join a sledging pleasure party, with the remark 
 that these were his sledges. Napoleon was never 
 at a loss for a grandiose thought or a terse 
 expression, and no one has ever suspected him of 
 borrowing his style ; but when the Bourbon dynasty 
 was restored, the fabrication of royal utterances 
 began instantly. Louis XVIII was credited on the 
 day of his entry into Paris with the remark, 
 " There is nothing changed ; only a Frenchman 
 the more in Paris." The remark was, in fact, 
 coined by Talleyrand and inserted by authority 
 in the gazettes of the day, without the King 
 having even had the trouble to utter it. It may 
 certainly be said that the King was better served 
 by his Minister in this instance than he could 
 have been by himself. The words Talleyrand 
 put into his mouth are such that they might have 
 seemed to occur naturally to any man, except for 
 the simple fact that they were quite untrue. What 
 must have struck Louis himself was, that the Paris 
 he passed through was completely changed — in 
 buildings, in population and in ideas — from the Paris 
 of the monarchy. What undoubtedly struck the 
 people was that their new king represented an 
 old and a strange order of things. Talleyrand's 
 
THE GRAND STYLE 
 
 93 
 
 art lay in insinuating that there was to be no 
 change, by denying that there had been any, and 
 the conquered people were glad to flatter them- 
 selves that their King had forgotten the past. 
 
 Among Americans, who seem to have a greater 
 gift of speech than Englishmen, the fashion is to 
 prefer racy, idiomatic, and almost vulgar sayings. 
 The tendency is no doubt derived from the realism 
 of the American mind. An American understands 
 instinctively that a rough soldier like Cambronne, 
 fighting for the bare life, maddened with the fore- 
 taste of defeat, and furious at the summons to 
 surrender, is much more likely to explode in a 
 coarse oath, as Cambronne actually did, than to 
 reply with such a stilted phrase as " The old guard 
 dies, but never surrenders. " Thackeray's Prince, 
 who talked several hundred lines of blank verse 
 when it was a question of asserting his claim to 
 the throne by arms, was not more fantastic than 
 a trooper coining epigrams on a battle field would 
 be. "I reckon I shall be of more use when I 
 am hanged than I could be in any other way," 
 John Brown's last words, went home none the less 
 for their simpUcity, and forced American society to 
 ask itself what state of evil that was against which 
 the noblest man was bound to protest, even at the 
 cost of the gallows. President Lincoln owed a 
 
94 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 great deal of his popularity to the fact that while 
 he reflected the heroic exaltation during the War 
 of Independence in all his thoughts and acts, he 
 habitually joked in a way that reUeved the sense 
 of tension. Garibaldi probably owed it partly to 
 his intercourse with Englishmen and Americans 
 that he never degenerated into bombast in addressing 
 his followers. To those who watched his career 
 there is nothing extravagant in the words ne 
 addressed to his Sicilian volunteers; — "Men who 
 follow me must learn to live without food, and 
 to fight without ammunition. " On the other hand, 
 Northern taste recoils instinctively from such a 
 proclamation as the Roman Triumvirs put out in 
 1849: — "Arise and conquer. One prayer to the 
 god of battles, one thought to your faithful brethren, 
 one hand to your arms. Every man becomes a 
 hero ! This day decides the fate of Rome and of 
 the Republic." That is the kind of rhetoric one 
 expects to hear on the stage. 
 
 The grand style has had its day in conversation. 
 No one can read Boswell's faithful reproductions 
 of dinner talk without feeling that there was more 
 or less effort to sustain a part in all the talkers 
 he has thought worthy of commemoration. Johnson, 
 whose reputation with after ages rests almost 
 entirely on what he spoke, scarcely at all on what 
 
THE GRAND STYLE 
 
 95 
 
 he wrote, passed a very curious criticism on his 
 contemporaries when he said there was seldom 
 any conversation worthy of being remembered. 
 "Why, then, meet at table?" asked Boswell, not 
 unnaturally. " Why, to eat and drink together," 
 said Johnson, " and to promote kindness ; and. 
 Sir, this is better done when there is no solid 
 conversation, for when there is, people differ in 
 opinion, and get into bad humour, or some of the 
 company who are not capable of conversation are 
 left out, and feel themselves uneasy. It was for 
 this reason Sir Robert Walpole said he always 
 talked bawdy at his table, because in that all could 
 join. " Society must indeed have been rather an 
 elaborate business when so clever a men as Wilkes 
 prepared for a party, by reading up like a student 
 for examination ; and when George Selwyn, whom 
 the King would not appoint to anything at court 
 because of his wit, was accused of owning 
 
 "A plenteous magazine of retail wit, 
 Vamped up at leisure for some future hit." 
 
 At present it seems as if there were a common 
 consent to take refuge in the merest trivialities 
 and fashionable slang from anything like literary 
 pretentiousness. This has the advantage of Sir 
 Robert Walpole's expedient, but it leaves some- 
 thing to be desired when genius or knowledge 
 
96 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 are of the company. Genius, however, is itself 
 glad now and then to resort to very simple ex- 
 pedients. "When I visited Goethe, in Weimar," 
 says Heine, "and stood before him, I involun- 
 tarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle 
 was not there with the lightning in his beak. I 
 was nearly speaking Greek to him, but as I 
 observed that he understood German, I stated to 
 him in German that the plums on the road 
 between Jena and Weimar were very good. I 
 had for so many long winter nights thought over 
 what lofty and profound things I would say to 
 Goethe if ever I saw him. And when I saw him 
 at last I said to him that the Saxon plums were 
 very good. And Goethe smiled." Judging from 
 what one knows of Goethe, it is just conceivable 
 that if he had been approached with questions 
 about metaphysics or art he would have smiled 
 in a different spirit, and would have set himself 
 to work to mystify the young stranger. 
 
 The place where one might have expected the 
 grand style to be most thoroughly naturalised, 
 and to linger longest, is the English House of 
 Commons. There we get topics very often of 
 supreme and far-reaching interest handled by men 
 of the highest culture. Nevertheless, the grand 
 style may be said to have begun in Parliament 
 
THE GRAND STYLE 97 
 
 with the elder Pitt, and to have died out with 
 Burke. The records of Chatham's speeches are 
 so imperfect that it is difficult to understand the 
 ascendency exercised by a man whose best pas- 
 sages appear tawdry and declamatory as one 
 reads them in cold blood, except by the suppo- 
 sition that Chatham's genius commanded reverence 
 for all he said. Of Burke, putting aside the well 
 known fact that he came latterly to be known as 
 the dinner bell of the House of Commons, there 
 is reason to believe that his best speeches were 
 rather injured than assisted by his perpetual strain- 
 ing after effect. Thurlow once told him that he 
 had " showered a bright confusion of ideas " on 
 his subject; and Horace Walpole, who admitted 
 his genius, speaks of him as often losing himself 
 " in a torrent of images and copiousness. " Later 
 orators have carefully avoided the attempt at 
 sustained rhetoric, with perhaps the single excep- 
 tion of Mr. Shiel, who was always Hstened to with 
 breathless attention, but who never took first class 
 rank as an effective debater. Mr. Canning and 
 the late Lord Derby habitually led up by grave, 
 closely reasoned periods to those magnificent sen- 
 tences, some of which have passed, so to speak, 
 into the English language. The greatest master 
 of language whom the present generation has 
 
 7 
 
98 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 known, Mr. Bright, was remarkable for the studied 
 simplicity of his orations. Probably, if any one 
 passage of modem eloquence could be picked out 
 as conspicuous for its effect, it would be that in 
 which Mr. Bright held the House awed and silent 
 while he denounced the continuance of the Crimean 
 War : — " The Angel of Death has been abroad 
 throughout the land ; you may almost hear the 
 very beating of his wings. There is no one to 
 sprinkle with blood the Hntels and the side posts 
 of our doors that he may spare and pass on; 
 but he calls at the castle of the noble, the man- 
 sion of the wealthy, equally as at the cottage of 
 the humble, and it is on behalf of all these 
 classes that I make this solemn appeal." We may 
 rely upon it that these fine words were not the 
 less effective because they had been preceded and 
 led up to by homely arguments about the collapse 
 of industry and the lessening of wages. 
 
VI.— OPTIMISM 
 
 When we ask what assurance we can derive, 
 from experience or from philosophy, that the order 
 of society will not change decisively for the worse, 
 the reply is not at first reassuring. There seems 
 to be a general agreement that the discoveries 
 of science may just as easily be used to enslave 
 or to impoverish the human race as to emanci- 
 pate it, or to make it more prosperous. Factory 
 labourers are nominally better paid than the village 
 labourer of the last century, but scarcely anyone 
 doubts that the average village labourer led a better 
 and purer life, W£is less exposed to periods of extreme 
 distress, and brought up a healthier family. Rail- 
 ways and arms of precision are doing a great 
 deal to abbreviate war, but they have put the 
 weak races of the earth altogether at the mercy 
 of the strong, and the blood tax was never heavier 
 than it is now. Therefore, though science gives 
 us a great deal to boast of, and may enter for 
 
lOO 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 a great deal into our hopes, the most that can 
 be said in this respect is that it is like a splendid 
 inheritance, which gives the wise man twenty 
 years' start in life, and precipitates the prodigal 
 into irretrievable ruin. First and last, we have 
 to fall back on ourselves, and to ask whether 
 the springs of will are stronger than they were,, 
 the purpose of life nobler, the mental vision keener, 
 and if the habit of unselfish action has become 
 more and more a part of our moral being. There 
 can be no doubt that we are perpetually changing 
 our whole moral point of view. Mere local patri- 
 otism is much less a factor in history now, when 
 men can change their country by living out of 
 it or by taking out letters of naturalisation, than 
 it was in old times, when a fatherland could 
 scarcely be conceived beyond the four walls of a 
 man's native city. So, again, with the institution 
 of the family. From being the foundation and 
 comer stone of the State, marriage is tending to. 
 be little more than a contract for mutual conve- 
 nience, which the State regulates pretty much on 
 the same principles as it might a mercantile part- 
 nership. The power of a father over his childrerL 
 is being perpetually restrained by modern legisla- 
 tion. Socially, the strongest church in the world 
 wields only a very small power compared with that 
 
OPTIMISM 
 
 lOI 
 
 which the churches of Rome and Geneva exercised 
 three or four centuries ago. It is not merely the 
 power over life and individual fortunes that have 
 been lost, but the power to control legislation, 
 and to exercise more or less a complete censorship 
 over the press. Briefly, then, we find that there 
 is a marked decrease of patriotism or loyalty in 
 politics, a relaxation of family ties, and an eman- 
 cipation from the influences of religious faith. 
 Side by side with this, society is becoming more 
 complicated, and the need of organisation and 
 guidance is getting to be more sensibly felt day 
 by day. Some of the old supports have been 
 €ut away, and it looks as if the new ones were 
 not yet fairly in their place. 
 
 In answer, it seems possible to show that there 
 have been certain great advances in morality all 
 over the world. Respect for human life has reached 
 a point that would have been absolutely incon- 
 ceivable even one century ago. The tendency 
 all the world over is to abolish punishment by 
 death, to stamp out duelling, to punish negligence 
 that ends fatally like a crime, and to restrict the 
 horrors of war to actual combatants. When we 
 look at a country like China we see the difference. 
 China has an old civilisation and a religion with 
 a very lofiy morality, but the mere idea that 
 
I02 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 human life can be sacred seems not to be enter- 
 tained by anyone. When an insurrection has 
 to be suppressed, the people of the province, 
 innocent or guilty, are stamped out, literally, by 
 millions. When prisoners, even of rank, are taken, 
 it is as likely as not that they will be mutilated 
 and put to death. In other words the Chinese 
 are a Uttle more pitiless than German armies 
 were at the time of the Thirty Years' War, and 
 we regard Chinamen as barbarians because we 
 forget what our own ancestors tolerated. Death 
 is not the worst outrage that a conqueror may 
 inflict upon his feUow men. Many of the noblest 
 men of past generations — reformers of faith and 
 science, or patriots — were tortured during impri- 
 sonment, that they might be forced to confess or 
 to recant. Something like torture, no doubt, 
 exists at this moment in Russian prisons, but 
 even there it takes the rude form of starvation 
 or blows, and is not elaborated with the rack or 
 the boot. Looking at Western Europe, does 
 anyone dream now that a possible Galileo could 
 be racked for scientific discovery in Rome, or a 
 young man of family tortured and beheaded in 
 France upon a doubtful charge of sacrilege ? We 
 carry the feeling of respect for the body so far 
 that flogging has been abolished in most countries, 
 
OPTIMISM 103 
 
 and is only retained where it still exists as a 
 punishment for offences of a very aggravated or 
 a very dangerous kind. 
 
 It may be said that in this instance it has 
 been the interest of everyone to put down punish- 
 ments of extreme severity. That is only partially 
 true. It hcis been the interest of a good many 
 people to mitigate the penalties on free thought 
 or political opposition, but it was not at all an 
 obvious interest to lessen the apparent safeguards 
 for life and property. Nine people in ten believed 
 that forgers and highwaymen would multiply 
 when their offences were no longer visited with 
 the gallows, and the carrying of the reforms was 
 due to a genuine moral sentiment. A clearer 
 instance, however, of moral sentiment trampling 
 over interest has been the abolition of forced 
 labour all over the world. In England it cost 
 ^20,000,000 to abolish it in the West Indian 
 Islands alone; in North America it cost many 
 hundred millions and tens of thousands of lives; 
 and in France, Germany, and Russia, the abolition 
 was at the time a very costly experiment, and 
 opposed by a great many plausible reasons and 
 honest prejudices. The class that made the 
 change has been almost in every instance a class 
 that would suffer by it. In England, for instance, 
 
I04 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the men whom Wilberforce and Brougham and 
 Buxton led were mostly men of the commercial 
 middle class, who were bound to suffer indirectly 
 if the trade of our richest colonies was destroyed, 
 and who had to pay the greater part of the 
 indemnity. So, again, in our later factory legis- 
 lation. The movement for limiting the hours of 
 labour for women and children has not proceeded 
 to any appreciable extent from the working class. 
 It has come from so-called sentimentalists of the 
 upper and middle ranks of society ; and it has 
 been so strong that without support from below 
 it has triumphed over a great deal of economic 
 prejudice, over the interests of factory employers, 
 and over the class feeling of the numerous Con- 
 servatives, who regard it as a matter of principle 
 to support capital against labour. 
 
 Even more remarkable has been the success 
 of the movements for giving married women 
 something like equal rights with men over property, 
 and for admitting women generally to the profes- 
 sions. From the earliest times women, as a rule, 
 have had no political rights, and no power of 
 influencing the legislature of any country. Their 
 organisations to obtain legal reform of any kind 
 have, as a rule, been very insignificant matters, 
 just enough to keep a question before the public. 
 
OPTIMISM 105 
 
 but not enough to force it upon rising men as 
 "a good cry." If anyone proposed now, for the 
 first time, that a man by marriage should become 
 possessed of his wife's whole estate, the suggestion 
 would, of course, be scouted indignantly ; but the 
 old law grew up gradually, and was part of a 
 very compact system under which the husband 
 assumed all the wife's responsibiKties. Having 
 once become rooted in custom and public opinion, 
 it was very difficult to demolish. Men of a 
 Conservative turn of mind argued that cases of 
 grievance were very rare, that wherever a property 
 was large it was pretty sure to be protected by 
 settlements, and that where a property was only 
 nominal it was not worth while to protect it by 
 establishing a principle which would perhaps carry 
 disunion into married life, and which would 
 certainly make it difficult for creditors to know 
 against which partner they were to recover. So, 
 again, the practice having grown up of excluding 
 educated women from every profession but that 
 of teachers, or actresses, or singers, the proposal 
 to let them be Government clerks, or doctors, 
 or lawyers, was received at first with all possible 
 derision and hatred. By this time, the right of 
 married women over their property and their 
 labour has been secured to them almost every- 
 
io6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 where ; and it has been apparent that there were 
 many thousands of wrongs needing to be righted. 
 The other change is slowly making its way; most 
 slowly, of course, where it is opposed by an 
 organised trades union in the shape of a learned 
 profession. The only explanation of reforms of 
 this kind can be that they seemed manifestly just, 
 and that self-interest was outweighed in the 
 struggle with morality. 
 
 Take, again, the protection of children and ani- 
 mals. The father, by all primitive custom, has 
 the right of life and death over his children. 
 The father by the recognised practice of modern 
 nations may not stint his children of food or 
 clothing, or put them to work beyond their 
 strength, or sell the girls to infamy, and is even 
 bound to see that they receive proper schooling. 
 In several recent cases the Court of Chancery 
 has deprived a parent of immoral habits or erratic 
 opinions of the control over children, whose future 
 prospects in life might be injured by unfortunate 
 surroundings in early years. In the case of poor 
 children whose parents are drunken or profligate, 
 the State habitually taxes itself to give them a 
 proper bringing up. Sixty-three years ago animals 
 of every kind were outside the protection of the 
 law. They are now guarded against overwork 
 
OPTIMISM 107 
 
 and insufficient feeding, and wanton mutilation 
 for purposes of sport, and even to some extent 
 against the specious barbarities of the vivisectionist. 
 No Benthamite theory of human action will explain 
 legislation of this kind plausibly. For all practi- 
 cal purposes animals were protected by the self- 
 interest of their owners. The State has interposed 
 on moral grounds to save an insignificant minority 
 from being sacrificed to carelessness or brutality. 
 It is sometimes argued that religious convic- 
 tions are not as strong as they were in old times, 
 and we may certainly admit that there is an 
 indisposition to believe that heretics will incur 
 hell hereafter, or ought to be punished with fire 
 in this world. It is not altogether a change for 
 the worse that men should allow a larger liberty 
 to speculation, and so long as the State refuses 
 to burn it is difficult to see how martyrs can be 
 manufactured. Here and there of course, we get 
 hundreds of educated men throwing up preferment 
 in England to become Catholics or Freethinkers, 
 or in Scotland that they may join the Free Kirk ; 
 and the Catholics of Poland, the old Lutherans 
 of Prussia, and the Haugianer of Sweden have 
 had to submit to a good deal of actual perse- 
 cution in modern times. Meanwhile, that the 
 fervour for truth is not diminished may be seen 
 
io8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 in regions outside theology. The State, in parts 
 of Europe, has inherited the old tendency to 
 persecute that once was the note of the Church. 
 The passion for nationality and for free institutions 
 has taken the place of the reforming spirit in 
 religion as a great impulse. On the whole, modem 
 society has had as many martyrs as the sixteenth 
 century witnessed. Tens of thousands of men 
 died in America — before and after John Brown — 
 to put down slavery, if we include, as is only 
 fair, the many thousands who joined the great 
 War of Liberation, as so many Harvard graduates 
 did, not for pay, but because they believed firmly 
 in the need of obliterating the great black stain 
 of their continent. During the Austrian wars in 
 Italy there were repeated cases of men who let 
 themselves be shot down without firing in return, 
 because their triumph would have been fatal to 
 Hungary or Italy. At Magenta a whole regiment 
 of Hungarians stood with folded arms to be mown 
 down by the shot, only driving the enemy back 
 if they charged with the bayonet, but refusing to 
 win a victory for their German oppressors. At 
 this moment hundreds of educated men are defy- 
 ing the whole power of the Russian Empire in 
 the struggle for constitutional liberty. Every 
 month sees a score or more of them consigned 
 
OPTIMISM 109 
 
 to a hopeless dungeon or sent to Siberia, and 
 the ranks close up again firmer after every fresh 
 gap. Some of us cannot have forgotten how a 
 crowd of Poles, men and women, knelt down in 
 1 86 1 in the great square of Warsaw, praying and 
 singing hymns, as fifteen volleys of grape shot 
 tore through their ranks. The sacrifice was 
 unavailing; but it is by sacrifices of this sort 
 that national character is regenerated, and as 
 long as the spirit of martyrdom lives, there seems 
 no need to despair of the future of humanity. 
 
 The reply to pessimist arguments has pro- 
 ceeded, it will be observed, on the assumption 
 that there is a tendency for the better in morals. 
 What is terrible in the case for pessimism is the 
 demonstration of seemingly solid grounds that 
 wealth and invention are all capable of being 
 applied to establishing the dominion of a single 
 privileged caste, and are even likely to be so 
 used. To most of us it would seem that if M. 
 Renan's dream were true, and the milUons were 
 cowed into slavery by the scientific combinations 
 of the future, the noblest man would be he who 
 should force on that destruction of the earth and 
 its inhabitants which science will make possible. 
 Happily, we may dream that we are reserved 
 for different times. Life, labour, womanly self- 
 
no REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 respect, freedom of thought, have all conquered 
 enlarged rights, while the very movements were 
 going on which, in the opinion of pessimists, lead 
 to bondage. Let it be granted that mechanical 
 inventions are instruments in the hands of tyranny, 
 and that railways and telegraphs by themselves 
 are exceedingly poor substitutes for faith and 
 freedom of thought. Even so, may we not re- 
 assure ourselves when we remember that behind 
 all man's works are the indestructible human 
 mind and moral sympathies. The will of the 
 collective race is, after all, that which determines 
 its fate, and the experience of past times shows 
 that the race wills to be free rather than bond. 
 
VII.— PESSIMISM 
 
 The tendency of popular thought at this time is 
 certainly to be exultant and sanguine. There has 
 been a long period of comparative peace in the 
 world, accompanied by great industrial develop- 
 ment. A great many countries have been col- 
 onised or opened to commerce within the re- 
 membrance of living men ; and the result has 
 been that legitimate fortunes have been enor- 
 mously multiplied. What is more, the means of 
 enjoying wealth have been almost indefinitely 
 increased. Railways carry away the wealthy man 
 from his surroundings to the moors of Scotland 
 or the picture galleries of Italy, and a thousand 
 trained caterers to the wants of luxury minister 
 in every direction to the senses. With all this, 
 there is a greater sense of security about the 
 enjoyment of wealth. Wars of conquest are not 
 common between civilised nations, and the preda- 
 tory classes are kept well under control by the 
 
112 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 strong hand of the law. Whether the hand-to- 
 mouth workers of the community have profited 
 to any appreciable extent by these changes is, of 
 course, matter of controversy, but it is easy to 
 show that many of them earn higher wages than 
 they did, and buy a good many things cheaper. 
 For them, too, progress has its comforts in the 
 excursion train and the music hall, and its teach- 
 ings in the cheap primary school, and its pros- 
 pects of change for the better in the emigrant 
 ship. Probably it is not too much to say that 
 the general tendency of EngUsh statesmanship is 
 to desire nothing more than that the present 
 state of things should be carried to its highest 
 development. It sees the millennium in more 
 railroads and steamers, and telegraphs and 
 factories, in unlimited free-trade, and invention 
 stimulated to its utmost, and it perhaps conceives, 
 not unreasonably, that there will be some mitiga- 
 tion of the toil exacted from the great mass of 
 the community when organisation and discovery 
 shall have said their last words. 
 
 Meanwhile, as is only natural, there are little 
 eddies of thought in another direction. The doubt 
 which the late Mr. Drummond expressed in the 
 language of old-fashioned theology, whether peace 
 without the coming of the Prince of Peace was 
 
PESSIMIS^I 113 
 
 alter all the highest good for weary men and 
 women, has taken a more despondent form in the 
 utterances of philosophers who are not sustained 
 by Mr. Drummond's religious hopes. "WTiat under- 
 lies these doubts seems to be the obser\-ation that, 
 after all, the world has not gone on steadily im- 
 proving. It is questionable, for instance, if .ve 
 understand art or philosophy better than they were 
 understood in ancient Greece, or jurisprudence 
 better than the legists of Rome; and even our theor}- 
 of mechanics is not so much higher than the best 
 theory of the ancient world, than is that theor)- higher 
 than the best wisdom of the Middle Ages. We have 
 carried agriculture to a point at which we can exhaiist 
 soils very rapidly; but in the art of keeping land 
 permanently productive we are prettj^ much where 
 the husbandmen of Italy have ?jeen for many 
 centuries. What is more, there have been times, 
 like the fifth and sixth centuries, when the burden 
 of life has seemed intolerable to all but the coarsest 
 natures, and times, like the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth, when whole countries were desolated, and 
 the work of civilisation undone. It is easy to say 
 that there will be no fresh invasions of barbarians, 
 because civilised races are in the ascendency all 
 the world over; and it is almost equall}' easy to 
 believe that wars of religion will soon become 
 
 8 
 
114 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 impossible, though the Franco-German war ot 
 1870 was very like one. In the first place, savages 
 and religious fanatics are not the only enemies 
 of peace. In the next place, it is not altogether 
 certain that either savages or fanatics have said 
 their last word in the history of the world. 
 
 The peculiarity of the barbarians who broke up 
 the Roman world was that they lived outside it, 
 and were stronger than it, and lastly, which is the 
 point least observed, that they offered the world 
 something which seemed better than Imperial 
 administration. Scholars have made us tolerably 
 familiar with the fact that the Roman Empire at its 
 greatest extent was very limited ; that it comprised 
 very little of Asia, and not much of Europe east of 
 the Rhine or north of the Danube. At this moment 
 a combination of the parts of Europe that were 
 never really Roman against the parts that once 
 were — of Germany, Austria, and Russia against 
 Italy, France, Spain, Britain, and Turkey — would 
 probably conquer half the countries attacked. No 
 doubt Russia and Germany are stronger now than 
 they have ever before been, but we must bear in 
 mind that in the fourth and fifth centuries Germany 
 undoubtedly drew thousands of recruits from the 
 peasantry of the Roman provinces, who preferred 
 anything to drudgery on the farms which absentee 
 
PESSIMISM 
 
 115 
 
 and alien lords possessed. The so-called conquests 
 of the Goths were, in fact, combined with a Jac- 
 querie of the half-Latinised country population, who 
 •assisted in the sack of towns and the rout of 
 armies, and afterwards went back, perhaps to their 
 old farms, no longer as servants, but as owners 
 ■under a lord. Side by side with this, we find a 
 curious sterility in the dominant race ; so that 
 Romans are not numerous enough even to officer 
 the armies that defend the empire. Large fortunes 
 and habits of expense have killed out the patricians. 
 The men are afraid to have children, lest they 
 should not be able to live as their fathers lived ; 
 the women are aishamed of maternity. Now is 
 it certain that the social features of the nineteenth 
 ■century are altogether unlike this state of things? 
 Can we not imagine a wealthy and privileged 
 minorit}' getting possession of power, and getting 
 smaller every year, as a privileged class invariably 
 does, till It is one day confronted in every country 
 by a rising of the great masses whom it has 
 brutalised by excessive toil and insufficient wages ? 
 Let us admit that in times of great industrial 
 development, such as the last forty years have 
 been, the more energetic among the working classes 
 rise freely into the upper ranks, and recruit and 
 strengthen them. But if we should have forty 
 
ii6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 years of industrial depression, would not these 
 men look round them and count heads and hurl 
 themselves against the whole fabric of society? 
 Might we not, in fact, have the scenes of the last. 
 French Revolution renewed over half Europe?' 
 Such a revolt might even have more savagery 
 about it than accompanied the barbarian conquests^ 
 The chiefs of the Goths were often men who ad- 
 mired and tried to preserve a great deal of the 
 civilisation they saw — the grand public monuments 
 and the churches. Would the insurgent artisan and 
 agricultural labourer have any feeling for churches, 
 or for the private palaces in which wealth Is now 
 concentrated ? 
 
 M. Renan, in his Philosophical Dialogues suggests 
 another solution of the problem of the future of 
 humanity. He points out that the improvement 
 of scientific arms tends to strengthen Governments 
 against the masses; that "in future engines may 
 be invented which, except in skilled hands, may 
 be useless implements merely," and that "we can 
 imagine a time when a group of men may by 
 undisputed right reign over the rest of mankind. " 
 It is true M. Renan's theory is not very artistic- 
 ally worked out. He supposes the dominant class 
 to " maintain in some lost district of Asia a nucleus 
 of Bashkirs or Kalmuks, obedient machines un- 
 
PESSIMISM 
 
 117 
 
 ■encumbered by moral scruples, and prepared for 
 ■every sort of cruelty. " He thinks that the terror 
 inspired by such an organisation, and the impos- 
 sibility of offering efficient resistance, would soon 
 cause the very idea of revolt to disappear. It 
 •seems difficult to imagine the populations of France 
 or England or Spain controlled by a few hundred 
 men, because the rulers can summon an irresistible 
 army of savage executioners by telegram. It is 
 more natural to suppose that a few dozen fanatics 
 like the Nihilists of Russia would destroy the 
 dominant aristocracy by a well planned massacre, 
 and that the savage hordes would be bought off 
 ■or destroyed because the intelligence that guided 
 them had perished. M. Renan, however, points 
 to another possibility. "On the day when a few 
 persons favoured of reason shall really possess the 
 means of destroying this planet their supremacy 
 will be established . . . because they will have in 
 their hands the life of all." A clever American 
 skit, which came out about twelve or thirteen 
 years ago, represented a single man actually pos- 
 sessing himself of the secret how to set water on 
 fire, and proceeding to extort ransom from the 
 different communities of the world. In this case, 
 as soon as he had convinced the people of San 
 Francisco that he had a real secret to dispose of. 
 
1 1 8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the committee appointed to investigate his proposals 
 put him to death. Of course, if he had a dozen 
 secret confederates the murder would have been 
 useless. Even so, there remains the strong safe- 
 guard for society that men will not easily sacrifice 
 their lives to revenge themselves because absolute 
 power is withheld. Every man in a fortress who 
 has access to the powder magazine might on this 
 theory stipulate for a fortune if he abstained from 
 blowing the whole works into the air. Practically, 
 no one ever does it, and scarcely any man making 
 the threat could convince those he addressed that 
 he intended to carry it out. 
 
 Nevertheless, when we have pared off all that 
 seems visionary or overstrained in M. Kenan's 
 anticipations, we must perhaps admit that something 
 very like what he supposes might easily happen 
 in any country. In Russia at this moment, for 
 instance, 80,000,000 of people are absolutely 
 controlled by a governing caste which only numbers 
 a few thousand. The masses of the people are 
 in the state M. Renan paints — too ignorant and 
 too brutish to desire change, too timid to attempt 
 to effect it. The Emperor is powerless in the 
 hands of his Court. If he granted reforms, that 
 would mean depriving almost everyone now 
 privileged of position and wealth, his life would 
 
PESSIMISM 119 
 
 not be worth a day's purchase. In this instance 
 we see precisely how much and how Uttle a highly 
 organised revolt is able to accomplish. The 
 nominal ruler is made miserable, and a brutal 
 official is picked off now and again, but for every 
 blow the revolutionists strike, scores of their own 
 number are sent to Siberia, or are judicially 
 murdered. It seems impossible that the enthusiasm 
 which has sustained the movement so far can last 
 very much longer. When it dies out Russia will 
 be governed, not indeed by the wise people M. 
 Renan dreams of, but by the shrewdest heads of 
 the wealthy and educated class, who will probably 
 carry on for years, till the corruption they have 
 been compelled to tolerate becomes unendurable. 
 Assume Germany to be the seat of the experiment, 
 instead of Russia, and that in Germany the fear 
 of Socialism and the dread of warlike neighbours 
 induce the middle classes to entrust a really 
 absolute power to the Executive. This supposition 
 does not seem a very wild one, but it means the 
 extinction of free institutions, the suppression of 
 free thought, and all power lodged in the heads 
 of departments and the ruling military coterie. 
 Can it be doubted that we should gradually see 
 a return to all the old order of things, because 
 the old order of the world, from which modern 
 
I 20 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 civilisation has been a departure, was distinctly 
 aristocratic? The churches would be filled by 
 order of police; the divine right of kings, and the 
 secondary rights of the nobility, would again 
 become dogmas; foreign trade would be dis- 
 couraged and foreign emigration forbidden; labour 
 would be regulated by law; and society would 
 again crystalise into hard divisions of caste — of 
 noble and priest, of soldier, artisan, and peasant. 
 What the ancient world called hereditary caste 
 the modern world will perhaps call subdivision of 
 labour, but the results will be the same. The 
 toiler will never emerge from his position, and 
 will know that his children's children can only be 
 toilers like himself Gradually, indeed, they will 
 be so far specialised that all intellectual capacit}^ 
 except what is needed for their particular work — 
 puddling or delving — will be atrophied. 
 
 M. Renan does not shrink from the most ex- 
 treme consequence of his theories. " The majorit}^, " 
 he says, "have to think and live by proxy. The 
 idea which prevailed in the Middle Ages of people 
 praying for those who have no time to pray is 
 a very just one. The mass is devoted to labour: 
 a few perform for them the high functions of life; 
 this is humanity." On the other hand, those few 
 are to be elaborated by processes now inconceiv- 
 
PESSIMISM 
 
 121 
 
 able into beings so superior to average men and 
 women, such "incarnations of the good and the 
 true," that there will be joy in being subject to 
 them. Apparently, they are to be above passion 
 and incapable of love, so that it is a little hard 
 to understand in what manner the sympathetic 
 intelligence which seems necessary to a ruling caste 
 will be developed. On the other hand, all their 
 nervous force will be concentrated in the brain, 
 and, as the man was developed from the animal, 
 so from humanity will issue divinity. M. Renan, 
 in fact, reverts to the old promise, "Ye shall be 
 as gods," apparently in forgetfulness that it was 
 made by the serpent, and that, six thousand 
 years after it was made, man is not perceptibly 
 more god-like than he was. 
 
 Mr. Greig's pessimism, it will be noted, fore- 
 shadowed the triumph of savagery over civilisation. 
 M. Renan's pessimism, which he would probably 
 call optimism, represents civilisation triumphing and 
 maintaining the savagery of millions for its own 
 benefit. " If some day, vivisection on a large 
 scale became necessary in order to discover the 
 profound secrets of animate life, I can imagine," 
 he says, " creatures being crowned with flowers 
 to offer themselves up in the ecstasy of voluntary 
 martyrdom." In the same spirit he finds it con- 
 
122 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 ceivable that millions of men should be ready to 
 drudge and die, not that their children may be 
 happier hereafter, but that their chiefs or their 
 chiefs' children may ascend into a subHmated 
 humanity. What will be inconceivable to most 
 people with a moral sense, is that the future 
 leaders of humanity should be willing to accept 
 such a sacrifice, and should grow more god-like 
 from its consummation. 
 
1883 
 
 viii.- siii<;rii)an ^ 
 
 1 1 is iiiirorlimali' that llic siil)jc(t <>{' Slicrid.ui 
 slioulil li.ivc bci'ii .illollcd to Mrs. ( )li|)lianl in so 
 i^ood a sciics ns luii^lisli Mrn of Lctlns. Mrs. 
 OliphaiU's f\(|uisilc' liU'rary laslc and (cclini; for 
 slylf larry lu'r •inly a sliorl way towards an 
 <'stiiiiali' ol tlic hiilliant man who rivalled hox and 
 liurkc in occisional bursts ol oiatory, had no 
 sii|)('rior ill wit, aiul rciiiaiiis to this day our one 
 writer ol comedy since ('oni;reve. A s^Iaiice will 
 show that a greater pari of Mrs. Oliphant's bio- 
 y^raphy is slx'cr l»ookmakin^, a compilalion, and 
 not .1 very succcsslul one, Irom Moore's life, from 
 the l\ciiiiiiis<cnii's <)f iiii (h/oi^r/iittioii, and li'om the 
 n(»tices lelt beliind by I'rolcssor Smyth. Kveii, 
 
 ' S/ut 1,1,111, liy Mia. c)ll|iliiiiil. I.iiiiclnii! Miuniilliin Si <'o. 
 
124 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 however, if Mrs. Oliphant had come to her task 
 equipped with a genuine knowledge of Sheridan's 
 Hfe, instead of having to read it up as she wrote, 
 it may be questioned whether she could have done 
 justice to a difficult subject. Sheridan belongs to 
 history quite as much as to literature; and while 
 he has always had abundant justice meted out to 
 him for the Rivals, the Critic and the School for 
 Scandal, the true nature of his political standing — 
 his real merits and his shortcomings — have never, 
 we think, been adequately determined. Mrs. 
 Oliphant's biography breaks down altogether after 
 1788, when Sheridan was still only thirty-seven. 
 It is singularly meagre in all record of his won- 
 derful conversational powers. It tells us nothing 
 of his position in the House as one of the forlorn 
 hopes of Liberalism during the times of the Re- 
 volution and of the French war. To crown all, 
 it is perversely unjust to Sheridan's party, whom it 
 accuses of having treated him badly, though it 
 fails to show the real services which he had 
 rendered, not only to England, but to the Whigs. 
 For anything the reader is told, Sheridan may have 
 spent the last twenty-eight years of his life in 
 getting drunk and running into debt, and acting 
 not very reputably at all times as the Prince ot 
 Wales's confidential adviser. There is no doubt 
 
SHERIDAN 125 
 
 that Sheridan exposed himself to accusations of 
 this kind, and it was all the more necessary that 
 his latest biographer should vindicate his proper 
 place for him. 
 
 The son of a struggling teacher in elocution, 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan first placed himself, 
 when he was only twenty, by the romance of his 
 marriage. He eloped with Miss Linley, the 
 beauty of Bath, and an attractive singer, cutting 
 out his elder brother Charles, and fighting a des- 
 perate duel with Captain Mathews, who had first 
 tried to seduce Mrs. Sheridan, and afterwards 
 had slandered her reputation. Then, settling in 
 London later on, where they were formerly married, 
 without a profession and with no means but 
 three thousand pounds, which his wife happened 
 to possess, Richard Sheridan loftily announced that 
 he would not allow his wife to sing for pay. " It 
 was questioned," says Boswell, " whether the young 
 gentleman who had not a shilling in the world, 
 but was blest with very uncommon talent, was 
 not foolishly delicate or foolishly proud." Johnson, 
 with all the high spirit of a Roman senator, 
 exclaimed: "He resolved wisely and nobly, to be 
 sure. He is a brave man. Would not a gentle- 
 man be disgraced by having his wife sing publicly 
 for hire? " What is essential to observe is that 
 
126 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the conduct is typical of Sheridan throughout his 
 career. He did many things that are incompa- 
 tible with a high standard of self-respect; but he 
 never lost sight of his personal dignity. He was 
 capable of begging and borrowing money without 
 much thought of repayment, but on his death- 
 bed he sent back the cheque which the Prince 
 Regent had forwarded out of respect for public 
 opinion. He was not always severely scrupulous 
 how he acted by party leaders when they had 
 acted badly by him, but he never deserted his 
 opinions when it was political and social ruin to 
 be stanch to them. Accordingly, the men of his 
 own day did him justice. They felt that Sheri- 
 dan, though a needy man, who could not refuse 
 office if it came to him in any honourable fashion, 
 did not look upon it as the real object of his 
 ambition, and would starve sooner than stoop. 
 The taunt of " adventurer, " which was freely, and 
 we think justly, bestowed upon both Burke and 
 Canning, was scarcely ever hurled at Sheridan, 
 and never really attached to him. This man at 
 least never lobbied for land grants in the West 
 Indies, or tried to quarter himself on the pension 
 list, or crossed the floor to sit with a triumphant 
 majority. Neither was he unconscious of what he 
 lost by the sacrifice. If he could have been, he 
 
SHERIDAN 127 
 
 was sufficiently warned by the brutal candour with 
 which young Canning apologised to him for rat- 
 ting from Liberalism, because Liberalism had no 
 prizes to bestow. The tears rose in the old 
 man's eyes as he remarked to Byron how easy 
 it was for rich noblemen to decline office and 
 boast of their patriotism, and how much the 
 struggle cost those who, with " equal pride, equal 
 talents and not unequal passions, " " knew not in 
 the course of their lives what it was to have a 
 shilKng of their own." 
 
 We have said that though we regard Sheridan 
 as a sufferer through his own magnificent integ- 
 rity, we do not think the Whigs chargeable 
 with having acted badly by him. There is no 
 doubt, however, that they are accused of having 
 steadily thrust him back on account of his want 
 of birth and fortune. Sheridan, it is said, felt 
 the treatment he received ; Canning was driven 
 into Toryism by the example; Lord Beaconsfield 
 has repeated the charge with denunciations of 
 the Venetian aristocracy; and now Mrs. Oliphant 
 endorses it by observing reproachfully that the 
 highest offices Burke and Sheridan could attain 
 to were the subordinate posts of Paymaster of 
 the Forces and Treasurer of the Navy. We 
 cannot discuss Burke's case at length, but we 
 
128 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 may observe that the post of Paymaster of the 
 Forces was incomparably the most lucrative and 
 the most coveted in England. The first Pitt and 
 the first Fox held it ; and the second Pitt and 
 the second Fox were taunted by Rigby with 
 desiring it for themselves. Neither was the place 
 altogether an unimportant one, for Burke very 
 nearly ruined the Rockingham Administration by 
 his conduct in ofifice. However, our immediate 
 concern is not with Burke, but with Sheridan, a 
 very much younger man, who came into Parliament 
 fifteen years later, and who, like Burke, attached 
 himself to the unpopular side. What, then, are the 
 facts about Sheridan ? Two years after he entered 
 Parliament, being then only thirty-one years of 
 age, having taken no prominent part in the 
 American debates, and being only known in a 
 general way as a brilliant and effective speaker, 
 he was made an Under-Secretary of State in the 
 Rockingham Administration. Mr. Gladstone and 
 Mr. Goschen — the most conspicuous instances of 
 early success among modern statesmen — were not 
 higher placed than this at the same age. A year 
 later Sheridan got another step, as Secretary of 
 the Treasury in the famous Coalition Ministry. 
 When that fell to pieces the Whigs were hope- 
 lessly routed, and the breaking out of the French 
 
SHERIDAN 
 
 129 
 
 Revolution completely disintegrated and destroyed 
 them as a party. For a moment in 1789 it 
 seemed as if the Prince of Wales would be 
 Regent, and would summon a Liberal Ministry to 
 the head of affairs. It is said that on this occasion 
 the post of Treasurer of the Navy was intended 
 for Sheridan; and whatever reproach of ingrati- 
 tude attaches to the Whigs, or was brought by 
 young Canning, must have reference to this. It 
 is noticeable, however, that Moore represents 
 Sheridan as considering the prospect of such an 
 appointment with satisfaction and hope; and as 
 he was at that time at the very height of his 
 reputation, and on the most cordial terms with 
 Fox and the Prince of Wales, it is difficult to 
 suppose that his wishes were not consulted, 
 though the post may not have been precisely 
 that which he would have chosen. Seventeen 
 years later, in 1 806, we believe, he accepted this 
 same office with reluctance. Then it was, no 
 doubt, a humiliation to take it, for the acceptance 
 of a subordinate post implied that he did not 
 expect to succeed Fox as leader, whereas in 1789 
 there could be no thought of succeeding Fox or 
 of rising over Burke's head. But it must be 
 borne in mind that an English Cabinet a century 
 ago commonly contained only nine or ten mem- 
 
 9 
 
I30 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 bers ; that the Peers habitually monopolised the 
 larger half; and that both in 1789 and in 1806 
 Fox had to concede to a coalition. In 1806 the 
 pure Whigs, with whom Sheridan had connected 
 himself, were only a fraction of a small Cabinet, 
 and the Whig seceders — such cis Lord Grenville 
 and Mr. Wyndham — who composed the real 
 strength of the administration, were men whom 
 Sheridan had constantly attacked, and whom he 
 disliked more heartily than he disliked Pitt. 
 Therefore, while we are far from denying that 
 each party gives the highest price for what it is 
 most in need of — the Whigs for rank and the 
 Tories for talent — we are not prepared to admit 
 that Sheridan had exceptional causes of com- 
 plaint. He was singularly lucky at first, and 
 got a little less than his due later on. Compar- 
 ing himself with Jenkinson and Addington, he 
 might murmur at Whig exclusiveness, but the 
 fortunes of Canning for thirty years were scarcely 
 more brilliant than his own, though Canning 
 seemed to have every chance in his favour. A 
 preference for slow, safe men over men of bril- 
 liant originality is not confined to a single party 
 in the English Parliament. 
 
 Neither can we consent to regard Sheridan as 
 a statesman of the peculiar ability which the leader- 
 
SHERIDAN 131 
 
 ship of a party demands. In his curiously com- 
 pounded nature high personal honour and patriotic 
 instincts were mixed with a general carelessness 
 for abstract principle. The Liberal watch-words 
 of the day, after the American war, were electoral 
 reform. Catholic emancipation, non-intervention on 
 the continent, and constitutional government at 
 home. On none of these subjects does Sheridan 
 seem to have had a mature opinion. It suited 
 his genius to trust to the inspiration of the emer- 
 gency. Give him his brief, and he would speak 
 to it; would coach up finance for three weeks in 
 order to demolish Mr. Pitt, or would go down 
 in the country for three days to prepare a speech 
 for the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Natu- 
 rally, Sheridan's success was greatest where his 
 audience were least able to check him. His two 
 most famous efforts undoubtedly were the speech 
 for bringing Hastings to trial and the famous 
 Begum speech. In cases of this sort he could 
 draw liberally upon his fancy. When he came 
 to the French Revolution or the state of Ireland, 
 he was nothing more than an impassioned advo- 
 cate, trying to turn the arguments used in debate 
 against the Tory speakers who had employed 
 them. Burke's diatribes against the French Re- 
 -volution, however exaggerated they may be, are 
 
132 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the work of a man who understood thoroughly 
 from history what revolutions are, and who was 
 following the course of this one with the acutest 
 scrutiny. They are better histor}?- to this day than 
 Carlyle or Michelet. Sheridan simply catches at 
 generalities, at the facts as he finds them stated 
 in journals or in debate, to show that they will 
 admit of a different rendering. He could always 
 command an audience — because he was always 
 witty and eloquent — but he never really contributed 
 to stem the tide of opinion. Even his speeches 
 were on a faulty model. It was his singular good 
 fortune to enter the House at a time when the 
 minds of men were highly strung, and when there 
 was great superficial culture among members; 
 when allusions to a passage of the Iliad or the 
 .^neid that seem verj^ commonplace now sent 
 a thrill of delight through the Senate. Sheridan 
 had some advantages over all his rivals. He had 
 more good taste and temper than Burke, more 
 epigram than Fox, and a subtler feeling for rhe- 
 toric than any other member of Parliament. His 
 comparison of the Premier clinging to the Trea- 
 sury bench, with Theseus, who had so grown to 
 his rock that he could only be pulled away with 
 the loss of part of his flesh, is one of the happiest 
 hits of the time ; and we need not quarrel with. 
 
SHERIDAN 133 
 
 him for borrowing it from a pamphlet in which 
 it was hopelessly buried. The man who silenced 
 Rigby and Pitt by mere wit was something more 
 than an ordinary debater. So long as Sheridan 
 trusted to wit he was safe. When he attempted 
 the higher eloquence he became declamatory and 
 tawdry and unreal. The interval between his 
 great orations and the fustian of such a play as 
 Pizarro is so slight as to be scarcely measurable. 
 Not a passage or thought of Sheridan's more 
 laboured orations lingers in the memory. The 
 friends who fell on his neck after his Begum 
 speech, who trumpeted his praises, and who were 
 honestly proud of his alUance, never trusted him 
 to lead the attack on any great emergency in the 
 House. 
 
 Sheridan's intellectual deficiencies might have 
 been redeemed by the brilliancy of his genius 
 and the charm of his personal popularity ; but his 
 moral foibles inclined the balance again. It may 
 seem strange to say that a man who was admir- 
 able in all family relations, who never gamed, and 
 was never charged with irreligion, did yet fall 
 below the level of his contemporaries; and men 
 who remember what Sir Francis Dashwood and 
 Lord Sandwich and the first Lord Holland and 
 Rigby and Wilkes had been, and what Sheridan's 
 
134 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 leader, Charles Fox, was, will be disposed to doubt 
 the justice of the charge. It must be remembered, 
 however, that Sheridan came into politics just as 
 a great moral revival was sweeping across the 
 country. The American war and the calamities 
 it entailed shocked the nation into earnestness. 
 The Wesleyan movement and the Evangelical 
 revival gave a religious direction to public senti- 
 ment, and the French Revolution completed the 
 transformation. To disbeUeve in God was supposed 
 to be the first step on the road to the guillotine. 
 The section of the Liberals with which Sheridan 
 associated himself was audaciously and wittily 
 profligate. When they wished to demolish Mr. 
 Pitt, the Whig wits attacked him, in verse and 
 prose that cannot be read, for not getting drunk, 
 and for being commonly respectable, and exploded 
 in Homeric laughter at "the sober, the chaste, 
 the virtuous, the edifying manner in which the 
 immaculate young man passed the recess from 
 public business, not in riot and debauchery, not 
 in gaming, not in attendance on ladies, either 
 modest or immodest, but in drinking tea with 
 Mr. Steel at the Castle in Brighthelmstone. " Ten 
 years later a warm admirer of Sheridan's genius, 
 Mathias, declared in vigorous verse that the Duke 
 of Portland, as leader of the Whigs, was well 
 
SHERIDAN 135 
 
 justified in refusing to admit so immoral a man 
 as the author of the School for Scandal into a 
 Cabinet. Sheridan's faults were, in fact, thrown into 
 terrible relief by the fierce light of the torch he 
 had himself kindled. To the English pubHc of 
 later days — that public which venerated Wilberforce 
 for being good, and liked to see Mr. Percival 
 leading his family to the parish church— Sheridan 
 was little more than a battered and bloated 
 Charles Surface, the apologist of extravagance and 
 seduction, the artist who had represented outspoken 
 vice triumphing over conventional hypocrisy. 
 Neither was it possible for the world at large not 
 to regard Sheridan, the bosom friend of the 
 Prince of Wales, as contaminated by the deep 
 infamy of the Heir Apparent's private life. Some 
 of the graver charges against the Prince are now 
 almost forgotten. It is not remembered that he 
 borrowed money from the infamous Duke of 
 Orleans, and was regarded as his pensioner; or 
 that he procured an order exiling other emigrants 
 to whom he was inconveniently indebted, and who 
 were compelled to return to France, where they 
 perished on the scaffold. Putting this aside, we 
 cannot forget that Sheridan was employed by the 
 Prince to explain away the false denials of the 
 marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert, which Fox had 
 
136 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 been entrapped into making, and which no 
 honourable man ought to have connected himself 
 with except to disclaim. For something like twenty 
 years Sheridan was the confidential adviser of the 
 Prince, who associated with him in his orgies, 
 drafted his State papers, took part with him, on 
 one occasion at least, against the Whig leaders, 
 and on another occasion procured the failure of 
 negotiations which would have restored the Whig 
 party to power. Is it wonderful if his party resented 
 his conduct, or if society regarded Sheridan as 
 responsible in many cases where he was perfectly 
 innocent? An army of Wilberforces could not 
 have kept the heir to the Crown from low vice or 
 from behaving badly to his wife, but where even 
 Fox withdrew from intimacy, it was not wise for 
 Sheridan to be a bosom friend. When it was a 
 question between place and principle, Sheridan could 
 be firm ; but he was not proof against the seduc- 
 tions of royal intimacy and companionship with 
 the first gentlemen of the day. He himself must 
 have blushed when he wrote at his patron's command 
 to entreat Fox not to present a petition in support 
 of Catholic emancipation. " I could not be dis- 
 suaded," Fox replied, "from doing the pubUc act 
 which of all others it will give me the greatest 
 satisfaction and pride to perform." 
 
SHERIDAN 137 
 
 We have tried to show why Sheridan's success 
 in poHtical life was below the real measure of his 
 intellectual powers. We hope in our next notice 
 to show what his indisputable claims to rank as 
 one of the worthies of England are. 
 
IX— SHERIDAN 1 
 
 SECOND NOTICE 
 
 In estimating Sheridan's career as a public 
 man — a career which extended over nearly thirty 
 years — we must take into account that he was 
 never member of a Cabinet and never leader of a 
 party. It is perhaps fortunate for his fame that 
 he was never charged with the severer duties of 
 administration. It is difficult to believe that a man 
 whose private life was conspicuous for the want 
 of all businesslike qualities — except the capacity 
 to obtain advances without security, from unwary 
 financiers — could have done the heavy work of a 
 department of State in critical times. During 
 the few months Sheridan was in office as Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury under the Coalition Ministry, 
 the wags of the day stuck a notice on his 
 official door — "No applications can be received 
 
 '^Sheridan, by Mrs. Olipbant. London: Macmillan & Co. 
 '38 
 
SHERIDAN 139 
 
 here on Sundays, nor any business done during 
 the remainder of the week." Probably Sheridan 
 was condemned beforehand in this respect, from 
 his reputation for carelessness as manager of 
 Drury-Lane Theatre, but there is evidence that 
 in later Ufe, when he held a quasi-Ministerial post 
 under the Prince of Wales, as Receiver of the 
 Duchy of Cornwall, he treated its business pre- 
 cisely as he treated his own. We cannot disregard 
 these traits of character when we have to estimate 
 Sheridan's claims to the coveted leadership of 
 Whigs. The accredited leader of a party is the 
 man whom that party is bound in honour, if it 
 can, to make Premier ; and a Premier of England, 
 even in quiet times, much more in times of general 
 war and embarrassment, ought to be a man with 
 a capacity for dogged hard work. Fox, gambler 
 as he was into middle life and hard drinker as 
 he was to the last, was a man of incessant and 
 restless application ; while Sheridan put all the 
 work he did into elaborating his powers of style, 
 and affected to owe even his oratory to inspiration. 
 Putting aside all claims of party loyalty, we may 
 surely say that Sheridan was not fitted to be a 
 leader. There remains, however, a third position, 
 which men of the highest capacity have often 
 been contented to fill in the EngUsh Parliament — 
 
I40 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 that of independent member in its best sense. 
 What Wilberforce was all his life, what Romilly, 
 Lord Grey and Brougham were for the greater 
 part of their political careers, Sheridan was also 
 fated to be ; not because he did not desire office 
 if he could achieve it honourably, but because he 
 valued his own self-respect too highly to stoop to 
 the compliances that might have lifted him into 
 power. What we have to ask about such a man 
 is, whether the counsels he gave to his own party 
 and the attitude he took up towards hostile 
 Governments are such as the maturest criticism 
 can approve. 
 
 While the Rockingham Ministry held office, 
 the question of acknowledging the right of Ireland 
 to legislate for itself, came up. Sheridan fear- 
 lessly declared that an English Parliament in 
 which Ireland was not represented, had no right 
 to override the Irish legislature. The next im- 
 portant act we know of in connection with his 
 public life is that he earnestly warned Fox against 
 the disastrous coalition with Lord North, whose 
 policy the Whigs had strongly condemned. The 
 advice was eminently sound. Public morality 
 would not have been shocked if it had been 
 followed, and the Whig party would not have 
 been wrecked. It will be remembered that the 
 
SHERIDAN 141 
 
 Coalition Ministry was wrecked on the famous 
 India Bill, drafted by Burke, which embodied 
 the sound principle of transferring the supervision 
 of Indian rule to the Crown, and the faulty 
 principle of transferring Indian patronage to the 
 Whig party. We may surely set it down to 
 Sheridan's good sense that he abstained from 
 committing himself to this measure, and only 
 spoke on the third reading, when he bantered 
 some of the orators who had denounced it in 
 Biblical language, and proved out of the Apoca- 
 lypse that the Whig commissioners, instead of 
 being the seven heads of the beast, were " seven 
 angels, clothed in pure and white linen." Later 
 on the Whig party reverted to their attack on 
 the system of governing a distant empire by a 
 commercial company, and practically changed the 
 whole tenor of English policy by the historical 
 impeachment of Warren Hastings. Then, when 
 there were no side issues of party patronage, Sheridan 
 shared the honours of the contest with Burke, 
 eclipsing him in the first speech in Parliament, 
 when Pitt was compelled to allow a trial to take 
 place, and rivalling him, in the estimation of the 
 time, by the famous Begum oration in West- 
 minster Hall. With 1789 came the French 
 Revolution, and within a few months Burke's 
 
142 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 apostasy, followed by the defection of the great 
 majority of the Whigs. "It has been asserted," 
 Mr. Byng used to say, "that the Whigs could 
 all have been held in one hackney coach. This 
 is a calumny. We should have filled two." 
 Side by side with Fox and Erskine, Fitzpatrick 
 and Tierney, Sheridan held his own in the most 
 gallant struggle against numbers and Court in- 
 fluence and public opinion that the walls of the 
 House of Commons have ever witnessed. Far 
 from us to join in the charges of that day 
 against Burke, that he was corrupt, or in the 
 judgment Mr. Buckle has formulated, that he 
 was insane. We believe he was in age what he 
 had been in youth — a man of great imaginative 
 power and unrivalled learning; but wanting balance, 
 headstrong, and a constitutional pedant. His 
 predictions that France would break up into a 
 knot of federated republics, his declaration that it 
 was almost blotted out from the political map of 
 Europe, are ridiculous in the light of history. 
 Unhappily his advocacy of a merciless crusade 
 against the republic, his abuse of all republicans; 
 from Lafayette, whom he styled a horrid ruffian, 
 to the French people, whom he called murderous 
 atheists and prostitute outcasts, appealed to old 
 passions and to present apprehensions. Burke 
 
SHERIDAN 143 
 
 was the eloquent mouthpiece of king and people. 
 All the greater is the undying debt of gratitude 
 we owe to the noble little knot of statesmen who, 
 without palliating the excesses of French mobs, 
 could understand that the country was in the 
 throes of a new birth. Nevertheless, while Sheridan 
 was exposing himself to the worst obloquy — while 
 Gillray was caricaturing him as practising shots 
 at the effigy of King George, or as assisting to 
 try Pitt for his life while Magna Charta and the 
 Bible were being burned, the Whig patriot was 
 able to show on occasion that he would not serve 
 his party against the State. When the mutiny 
 at the Nore broke out in 1797 there were Whigs 
 who wished to seize the moment and embarrass 
 the Ministry. Sheridan came forward and threw 
 his weight into the balance. "Shall we yield," 
 he said, "to mutinous sailors? Never; for in one 
 moment we should extinguish three centuries of 
 glory." There is another story of his conduct on 
 this occasion which shows the man. He went to 
 Mr. Dundas, and said: "My advice is that you 
 cut the buoys on the river, send Sir Charles Grey 
 down to the coast, and set a price on Parker's 
 head. If the Administration take this advice in- 
 stantly they will save the country ; if not they will 
 lose it; and on their refusal, I will impeach them 
 
144 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 in the House of Commons this very evening." 
 Let it be borne in mind that at this time Sheridan 
 was the real representative of the Whig party, as 
 Fox and his friends had seceded from Parliament 
 in disgust, and the importance of Sheridan's adhe- 
 sion to Government may be estimated. He pur- 
 sued the same policy as regarded measures of 
 war. He had steadily opposed the wicked crusade 
 which George III and Pitt stimulated against the 
 French republic ; he was never remiss in stimulating 
 the resistance to Napoleon's wars of aggression. 
 Almost his last recorded utterance in Parliament 
 was to advocate aid to Spain on the largest scale, 
 and it is noticeable that on this occasion he singled 
 out his old adversaries, Wyndham and Burke, for 
 special eulogy. The only practical recognition of 
 Sheridan's patriotism in these matters came in 
 1809 from the undergraduates of Oxford. At 
 Lord Grenville's installation as Chancellor in 1 809 
 Sheridan's name was not included among the 
 recipients of honorary degrees, through the oppo- 
 sition of two masters of arts, one of whom was 
 the son of a clergyman who found it impossible 
 to collect tithes from the impecunious statesman. 
 Sheridan attended the ceremony as a private guest. 
 But as soon as he Wcis seen in the theatre a shout 
 arose, " Sheridan among the Doctors ; Sheridan 
 
SHERIDAN 145 
 
 among the doctors!" and order could not be 
 restored till he had taken his seat among the 
 honorary graduates. This time, at least, the 
 generous fervour of young men redeemed the base- 
 ness of their seniors; and Sheridan, it is said, 
 counted his reception that day among the highest 
 honours of his life. 
 
 Sheridan's reputation as a dramatist still labours 
 under the damaging criticism of Macaulay, which 
 is reproduced by every successive biographer. 
 Macaulay objected that Sheridan, like Congreve, 
 made all his characters in his own likeness. " Out- 
 lines and tints are forgotten in the common blaze, 
 which illuminates all." "Every fop, every boor, 
 every valet is a man of wit." "The very butts 
 and dupes outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouil- 
 let. " Not for us to dispute the substantial justice 
 of Macaulay's verdict, but we may be allowed to 
 demur to its complete adequacy, and to point out 
 that Macaulay himself has supplied the corrective 
 when he contrasts the " indiscriminate prodigality" 
 of Sheridan with the exquisite judgment of Shake- 
 speare, who made Bardolph and Shallow distinct 
 in individuality from Falstaff. We are not among 
 those who hold that any writer — certainly not any 
 Englishman of the last two centuries — can be 
 compared to Shakespeare. Shakespeare stands by 
 
 10 
 
146 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 himself, unapproachable. If, however, a compa- 
 rison is instituted, it is clear that it ought to be 
 between works of the same description. It is 
 unfair to compare the comedy of manners, in which 
 Sheridan was a master, with the wider and deeper 
 comedy of character, in which Shakespeare found 
 his appropriate field. Such a play as the Merchant 
 of Venice deals with the very springs of human 
 emotion, with friendship in Antonio, and love in 
 Jessica, with moody, passionate revenge in Shylock, 
 with chivalrous idealism in Bassanio, and with 
 meditative insight in Portia. Sheridan is only 
 concerned to catch the humours and the fashions 
 of society during a season or a generation. It 
 has been said, with great truth, of Mr. Trollope, 
 that he described his men and women with such 
 photographic accuracy that his books had a 
 flavour of obsoleteness after they had been pub- 
 hshed two or three years. The talk of his heroes 
 and heroines was already a little antiquated by the 
 time their fashions in dress would naturally have 
 changed. Whoever ridicules what is fleeting and 
 whimsical in life must discount his chances of im- 
 mediate effect by a prospect of rapid oblivion. As 
 it happens, there is one play of Shakespeare's 
 which is a comedy of manners. Loves Labour Lost, 
 as Mr. Dowden puts it, is a " satirical extravaganza 
 
SHERIDAN 147 
 
 embodying Shakespeare's criticism upon contem- 
 porary fashions and foibles in speech, in manners, 
 and in literature. " Now, if we examine this play, 
 we shall find it a coruscation of bright pleasan- 
 tries from beginning to end. Not only the King 
 and Biron and Boyet and the princess and her 
 ladies can cap repartees, but the fantastical Adriano 
 and his page and Costard and Jaquenetta are all 
 infected with wit. No doubt there are foils in 
 the persons of Holofernes and Dull, but even 
 Dull is the exquisite original of Dogberry and 
 Mrs. Malaprop. In short, when he handled the 
 same matter as Sheridan, Shakespeare handled 
 it on the same lines. No doubt Shakespeare is 
 incomparably superior to Sheridan's best work in 
 plot and surrounding. The conception of the 
 Kine and his knig^hts who have withdrawn from 
 the world to study, and who are disconcerted by 
 a vision of fair women, because they have not 
 been able to divorce themselves from the instincts 
 of human nature, is the original of Tennyson's 
 Princess, and is incomparably more natural and 
 better sustained. On the other hand, Sheridan 
 partly retrieves his incoherent plots by the great 
 vivacity of his action, and has the advantage of 
 being more intelligible to a later generation. 
 We may add to this another consideration, 
 
148 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 The eighteenth century was the French century- 
 all the world over, and England felt the influence 
 of French taste in the daily intercourse of society. 
 Never was there such a mob of gentlemen who 
 conversed with ease as between the times of 
 Queen Anne and the French Revolution. For a 
 man to be able to talk epigrammatically or poig- 
 nantly -was a virtue that covered a multitude of 
 sins. Johnson, with his overbearing tone and 
 gross habits, would hardly be admitted to a 
 public dinner in these days. His contemporaries 
 courted and deferred to him, and for his sake 
 tolerated the butt on whom he expended his wit. 
 Johnson himself, with all his prejudices and into- 
 lerance, could not resist the fascinations of Foote 
 and Wilkes. Garrick, a player when players 
 were thought infamous, was asked everywhere 
 because he could talk. Burke retrieved the fail- 
 ures of his ponderous speeches by his brilliancy 
 at the dinner-table. " If Burke, " said Johnson, 
 " should go into a stable to see his horse 
 dressed, the ostler would say : ' We have had an 
 extraordinary man here. ' " Horace Walpole's 
 letters, which give the gossip of the day, are a 
 perfect repertory of good sayings and piquant 
 anecdotes. Sheridan lived in the best set of all; 
 the set which included Fox and Burke, Fitz- 
 
SHERIDAN 
 
 149 
 
 patrick and Hare, Tickle and Lord John Town- 
 send; the set which objected to Dr. Johnson as 
 too coarse, and to George Selwyn as not spon- 
 taneous. It was scarcely possible for Sheridan 
 to describe a world that should seem natural to 
 himself and to make it dull. Spending his days 
 in the green room, in the House of Commons, 
 or at the Club, or at Carlton House, and his 
 evenings in the best houses, he found everywhere 
 a universal sparkle of wit. There was tinsel as 
 well as gold in the current coin of light talk ; but 
 such as it was, everyone had his share, and it 
 all glittered under the lights. The School for 
 Scandal reflects this brilliant society in a way that 
 is often laboured and artificial, but that is very 
 charming at times. All are witty, because wit, 
 or something that did duty for wit, came natur- 
 ally to everyone in those days; and it is, we 
 think, true that in many cases we should scarcely 
 know who was speaking if we shut our eyes. 
 Even this criticism, however, has been carried 
 too far. Lady Teazle throughout is the high- 
 spirited vivacious woman who talks scandal in 
 lightness of heart, goes to the brink of ruin for 
 the fun of flirting, and is at her best when she 
 is teasing her husband. Sir Peter is equally 
 thorough in his way. He is a merchant of the 
 
150 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 old school, with the habit of good society, honour- 
 able and generous, but without the mascuhne 
 fibre. The scene in which Charles Surface ban- 
 ters his uncle and Lady Teazle under circum- 
 stances where common good taste would prescribe 
 silence is simply revolting to the modern reader, 
 but is, we believe, thoroughly true to the fashion- 
 able life of that day. Where Sheridan broke 
 down hopelessly was in sketching a villain. Joseph 
 Surface is a medley of inconsistent motives, in- 
 compatible vices and incongruous phrases. He 
 entangles himself in an intrigue without wishing 
 and without needing it ; is precipitate and sordid ; 
 epigrammatic and canting. Sheridan's failure in 
 this instance marks the precise boundary line of 
 his powers. He detected the foible of mind and 
 the trick of phrase in an instant; but he had no 
 knowledge of the heart. 
 
 What Sheridan himself was in private compa- 
 nionship will, we fear, never be known but by 
 vague report. He lacks a BosweU. In the 
 absence of definite record of his conversations let 
 us hazard a belief that he owed more to a spon- 
 taneous charm of happy phrase and suggestiveness, 
 than to any such power of finished epigram as 
 he evidently affected in his comedies. The reply 
 to Mrs. Cholmondeley when she asked for an 
 
SHERIDAN 151 
 
 acrostic on her name, " It would be so long that 
 I should have to divide it into cantos " ; the retort 
 when Rogers suggested to him that he should 
 make love to the majestic Mrs. Siddons, " I could 
 as soon make love to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury ; " the pleasantry on Rose when he christened 
 his son WiUiam Pitt, " a rose by any other name 
 would smell as sweet," are all of a kind which 
 scarcely bear to be embalmed. It is remarkable 
 indeed that a man who touched and retouched 
 his comedies with such extreme care was parti- 
 cularly successful in what must have been im- 
 promptus. His proposal to accommodate the high- 
 wayman who stopped him with a bill, and his 
 offer on another similar occasion of an empty 
 purse with the hope that the ruffian would let 
 him go halves in whatever was found inside, are 
 instances of the ruling humour under difficulties. 
 The story how he hiccoughed the name of 
 " Wilberforce " when he was picked out of the 
 gutter and asked his address, is too good to be 
 easily forgotten. Not less happy was his rejoinder 
 when a friend asked him, "Sheridan, how could 
 you have the audacity to praise the luminous 
 pages of so obscure a writer as Gibbon?" " I said 
 voluminous, my dear fellow." All these are the 
 overflowings of a rich mind. Sheridan, however, 
 
152 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 was very far from being a mere humorist. He 
 had the fondness of his time for classical study, 
 and once combined with Wyndham to establish 
 a society for reviving the sports of the ancients. 
 His criticism of Dr. Johnson in the longest re- 
 corded passage of his Table Talk is a good an- 
 tidote to Carlyle's raptures, and will bear partial 
 quotation : — "I admire him for his learning, for 
 his patient and enduring industry, but he was a 
 timeserver void of principle. He would bow to 
 my lord and give a kick to a beggar; take tea 
 with Mrs. Thrale and get drunk at the Mitre or 
 the Ship; then staggering home to his lodgings, 
 piously enter into confession, write down his own 
 absolution in the form of a new prayer suitable 
 for all occasions, and being so whitewashed pre- 
 pare himself for all adventures on the morrow." 
 It is a small but curious proof of the careless 
 manner in which Mrs. OHphant has compiled 
 Sheridan's life, that she omits to give the name 
 of his mother, a woman of real ability and writer 
 of one of the best novels of the day. The fact 
 is that Moore, probably from forgetfulness, has not 
 mentioned the maiden name, and every account 
 of Sheridan that has been published since Moore's 
 life seems to be drawn from him. Mrs. Sheridan 
 was a Miss Chamberlayne, of Dublin, the grand- 
 
SHERIDAN 153 
 
 daughter of a Sir Oliver Chamberlayne, who 
 probably belonged to the well known West 
 Country family. The way in which Sheridan got 
 possession of Drury-Lane is absurdly mystified. 
 There can be Uttle doubt that Garrick was 
 alarmed by the successes of Covent Garden, and 
 sold out to Sheridan upon easy terms, allowing 
 Sheridan's part of the purchase money to remain 
 on mortgage. The political part of Sheridan's 
 life has been even more wretchedly slurred over. 
 The unworthy assistance he rendered to the 
 Prince of Wales in the matter of Mrs. Fitzher- 
 bert, and his treachery in concealing the fact 
 that the Tory officers of the Royal household 
 were willing to resign in 1 8 1 2 if a Whig Ministry 
 was formed, are not so much as alluded to. 
 Mr. Rae's short sketch, though far from adequate, 
 is incomparably more life-like and real, and has 
 the merit of doing substantial justice to the orator 
 and the statesman. Meanwhile, a real estimate 
 of Sheridan, especially from the literary point of 
 view, is a work that remains to be done. 
 
1 884 
 
 X.— BISMARCKi 
 
 Dr. Busch, a Prussian publicist, who in 1870 
 was attached to Bismarck for the purpose appa- 
 rently of writing inspired newspaper articles, and 
 who in 1877 published a sort of journal of his 
 experiences under the title of Bismarck in the 
 Franco-German war, has just produced a study 
 of Bismarck's career. Apart from the special 
 quaUfication of having lived on terms of familiar 
 intercourse with his hero. Dr. Busch possesses 
 the further advantage of being absolutely uncritical 
 in his admiration. So far as we can conjecture 
 nothing cynical or brutal has been suppressed, 
 because it has never even occurred to Dr. Busch 
 that the speeches and opinions of a supremely 
 successful man can be anything but admirable. 
 
 ' Our Chancellor: Sketches from a Historical Picture. By Moritz 
 Busch; translated by William Beatty-Kingston. London: Macmillan 
 & Co. 
 
 154 
 
BISMARCK 155 
 
 If there be an exception to this indiscriminate 
 worship, it is probably to be found in the chapter 
 which deals with Prince Bismarck's religious ideas, 
 which we suspect are more of the old orthodox 
 type than Dr. Busch in his heart approves. " Even 
 the greatest intelligences," he remarks disconso- 
 lately, " are susceptible to something besides reli- 
 gious belief that enlightened people are accustomed 
 to designate as superstition." In his present 
 volumes Dr. Busch deals chiefly with Bismarck's 
 early career and with the last twelve years of his 
 life, and only dwells briefly upon the incidents of 
 the great war with France, by which Bismarck is 
 chiefly known outside Germany. Naturally, too, 
 in his present volumes he speaks more of the 
 statesman than of the man, and gives rather a 
 philosophical resume than a narrative of his career. 
 We shall therefore press the earlier work into our 
 service to justify the estimate which Dr. Busch 
 has enabled us to form of the greatest living 
 German; the man who has done more than any 
 one besides, to remodel the map of Europe and 
 redistribute the balance of power. 
 
 By birth and education Otto von Bismarck is 
 essentially a Prussian country gentleman of the 
 old school, which retained the arrogance of feudal 
 times, and the roughness that incessant wars and 
 
156 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 life in camps engender, but united to all this a 
 sentiment of discipline which it was Frederick II's 
 greatest wish to implant. Bismarck derives from 
 nature a superabundant vitality, which, when he 
 was a young man, found expression in violent 
 physical exercise, in the rough horse-play of 
 practical jokes, and in an overbearing contempt 
 for the forms of society. Such a man but for 
 his magnificent brain might have been nothing 
 better than a brutal countr}' squire or a rough 
 colonel of dragoons. Although, however, Bismarck 
 for a long time belonged to what was known as 
 the Junker party — the party of extreme and irra- 
 tional Conservatism — it is evident that his real 
 starting point in politics was something very differ- 
 ent from mere feudalism. Indeed, if we were to 
 search for historical parallels to him, the names 
 of Luther and Cromwell are those that would 
 most readily occur. He has been all his life a 
 German anxious for German unity; a Prussian 
 desirous to procure Prussia's ascendency; unswerv- 
 ingly loyal to his King; a man of deep seated 
 religious convictions, though not of devotional 
 habits; and, strange as it may appear, a Consti- 
 tutionalist. The meaning of this last word must 
 not be misunderstood. Bismarck, though he goes 
 so far as to call himself a Parliamentarian, and 
 
BISMARCK 
 
 157 
 
 thoroughly holds the English doctrine that supplies 
 can only be obtained by vote of the representa- 
 tives of the people, is not a man that would 
 sacrifice the substance of good government to the 
 form, the power of vigorous action to the right 
 of speaking against time. He is, however, con- 
 stitutional in the best sense of considering that 
 royal authority is limited on every side by law; 
 and that even if it be sometimes necessary to 
 overstep technical forms, the transgressor is bound 
 to apply afterwards to Parliament for an act of 
 indemnity. That Bismarck was regarded for years 
 as a mere reactionary is due to the fact that he 
 was in violent opposition to the Liberalism of 
 1848, which aimed at the incompatible objects of 
 weakening the royal authority, reducing the army 
 and the taxation, and promoting German unity. 
 Bismarck felt the contempt of a clever man for 
 these aspirations after a chaos brooded over by 
 the spirit of philosophy. When a Democratic 
 deputy, d'Ester, one day proposed jestingly to 
 him that whichever got the upper hand should 
 protect the other, Bismarck answered, "Should 
 your party prove victorious, life will not be worth 
 having for me ; if we get the upper hand, hanging 
 will be the order of the day, but with politeness, 
 even to the very last gallows bird." 
 
158 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 For several years Bismarck was a diplomatist, 
 first at Frankfort and afterwards at St. Petersburg. 
 At Frankfort, where he had to maintain the posi- 
 tion of Prussia in the days of her deepest degra- 
 dation, against Austrian arrogance, Bismarck allowed 
 himself a savage licence of tone. "I remember 
 once," he told Dr. Busch "at a large party, that 
 reference was made to some Austrian statement 
 which was not in accordance with facts. Raising 
 his voice so that I might hear him, the Austrian 
 envoy exclaimed, 'Well, if that is not true, I 
 must have lied in the name of the Imperial Royal 
 Government,' and then he looked at me. I 
 returned his gaze, and said, carelessly, ' Quite so, 
 your Excellency.'" The upshot was that Prokesch 
 agreed to make the alterations Bismarck had 
 demanded. On the other hand, when he was 
 envoy at St. Petersburg Bismarck produced a ver}^ 
 favourable impression, and went so far in his 
 anxiety to please as thoroughly to master the 
 difficult Russian language. Among his contem- 
 poraries one remarkable person failed altogether 
 to understand him. " He is not a man of real 
 weight" (un homme s6rieux), was Louis Napoleon's 
 verdict after one of their interviews. Although 
 Napoleon Ill's ability has been very much over- 
 rated, he was no fool, and must have contracted 
 
BISMARCK 
 
 159 
 
 some insight into character from the mere habit 
 of meeting clever men. There can be no doubt 
 that he thoroughly appreciated Cavour. What 
 we must probably assume is that Cavour's plans 
 for Italian unity did not appear irrational to him, 
 because he had been a Carbonaro, and understood 
 the intensity of Italian feeUng, but that Bismarck's 
 pretensions on behalf of Prussia seemed extrava- 
 gant, and irrational, because the Emperor, down 
 to the day when his troops were beaten in Worth, 
 never understood Prussia or Germany. Neither 
 was he singular in this. Every map published 
 in London in the beginning of that campaign was 
 a map which assumed that the French were 
 marching upon Berlin. 
 
 The first great success Bismarck achieved was 
 the crushing defeat of Austria in the war of 1866, 
 known popularly as the Brothers' War. If we 
 assume, as surely we must, that a people who 
 had suffered so much from disunion as the Germans, 
 were justified in attaching supreme importance to 
 unity, we have only to consider whether Bismarck 
 might have attained his object by quiet and 
 peaceable means. With respect to this Dr. Busch 
 gives a statement which is derived from Bismarck 
 himself, and which if it be true, as seems not 
 unlikely, ought to be conclusive. Bismarck says 
 
i6o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 that while peace was still possible he proposed 
 to Austria that the two countries should divide 
 the leadership of Germany between them, and 
 unite their forces against France to conquer Alsace 
 and make Strasburg a federal fortress. The 
 Emperor of Austria seemed not disinclined to the 
 proposal, but referred it to his Ministers, and 
 they, believing Prussia would be beaten, rejected 
 it, with the idea that when Austria's supremacy 
 was established they might then enter into the 
 league against France. The blame of the war in 
 Germany would seem, therefore, to rest upon 
 Austria. Bismarck further claims the merit of 
 having saved Austria from any cession of territory, 
 and spared Saxony, her principal ally, in order 
 that the peace might be speedily concluded, and 
 might be durable. This was in direct opposition 
 to the military party, and there can be little doubt 
 that it has been justified by events. We do not 
 suppose indeed that Austria's neutrality during 
 the war with France was due to any gratitude 
 for the leniency with which she had been treated 
 or to any feeling but fear. At that time the 
 wound was too recent to have closed. On the 
 other hand, it is almost certain that the present 
 intimate alliance between North Germany and 
 Austria could not have been formed if Prussia 
 
BISMARCK i6i 
 
 was in military occupation of an Austrian Alsace. 
 It is clear from Bismarck's proposal to Austria 
 that he was then (1866) meditating and prepared 
 for a war of wanton aggression upon France. 
 It was not his interest, however, to begin this 
 immediately after Sadowa, while Germany was 
 still unsettled, and the German army only half 
 organised, so for about four years he allowed the 
 French court to amuse itself with projects by 
 which France and Prussia were to seize and 
 divide neutral territory. Thus it was that when 
 the final breach came Bismarck was able to 
 startle the world with revelations of unscrupulous 
 French ambition, that went far towards isolating 
 Louis Napoleon from his natural allies. Dr. 
 Busch does not inform us how far Bismarck was 
 responsible for Prince Frederic of Hohenzollem's 
 acceptance of the Spanish crown in June, 1870, 
 after he had declined it in 1869. What he does 
 admit is that it was Bismarck who drew up the 
 famous telegram which represented the King of 
 Prussia as refusing to receive the French ambas- 
 sador in such a way that the feeling for war 
 in France rose to a height in which the Govern- 
 ment, had it been so minded, could hardly have 
 kept it down. The proferred mediation of England 
 was now rejected peremptorily by both countries. 
 
 1 1 
 
i62 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Grammont pleaded that Bismarck's telegram was an 
 unpardonable insult, and Bismarck — surely with 
 less reason — declared that if negotiations were to 
 be renewed the French Government must take 
 the initiative. It is difficult to resist the impression 
 that if Bismarck had been half as anxious to avoid 
 war as he wais to bring it about, the friendly 
 relations of the two countries would never have 
 been disturbed. Putting aside all questions as 
 to the horrible wickedness of causing a great war 
 that might be averted, we may surely say that 
 in the present state of society the highest states- 
 manship will rather wait for opportunities than 
 try to create them. Public opinion has not 
 hindered the German armies from forcing Paris 
 to capitulate, or from seizing and retaining a 
 large portion of French territory, but the feeling 
 with which Germany is now watched is one of 
 vigilant suspicion. No one thinks that the war 
 of 1870 was a simple war of defence, or was 
 not carefully planned beforehand and led up to; 
 and no people at this moment feels sure that the 
 next thunder cloud may not burst over its own 
 head. 
 
 The world has done such ample justice to the 
 signal ability with which the operations of the 
 German forces were carried on, that it only seems 
 
BISMARCK 163 
 
 necessary to indicate two or three points with 
 reference to Bismarck's character. One is that 
 the work of organising the Prussian army was 
 entirely carried out under his administration. At 
 the time of Solferino, the Prussian army, if it had 
 taken the field to help Austria, would probably 
 have been defeated in every engagement. Bismarck 
 himself told Dr. Busch that if they had gone to 
 war in 1867 it was a question whether the 
 French would not have been in Berlin. Of course 
 the credit of making technical changes belongs 
 to the military administrators, Von Moltke and 
 Von Roon, and it was the King who designated 
 and supported these men; but even so, they 
 could hardly have done what they did if Bismarck 
 had not co-operated with them intelligently, and 
 understood with rare precision precisely how far 
 he could use them. The next point, which it is 
 impossible to pass over, is that Bismarck seems 
 to have been the hardest and most pitiless of 
 the men in power during the war. Dr Busch's 
 journal gives repeated instances of the way m 
 which he talked during the campaign. "4th 
 
 October. 'The idea of letting those treacherous 
 
 Franc-Tireurs off! There is criminal negligence 
 in not taking them out and shooting them. All 
 tillages where treachery is practised should be 
 
1 64 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 at once burned down, and all the male inhabitants 
 hanged.' On the i st November the Chief said, ' Pris- 
 oners ! That they should ever take Franc-Tireurs. 
 prisoners ! They ought to have shot them down by 
 files.' 29th November. — About five hundred red 
 breeches were taken prisoners. The Chief com- 
 plained bitterly that they would go on taking 
 prisoners instead of shooting them down at once. 
 I St December. — 'If our troops had only burned, 
 down Ch§,tillon in their first rage. Afterwards, 
 in cold blood, it is not so easy to do.' 26th 
 January. — When Arnim told us that a great many 
 prisoners (from Bourbaki's army) had been again 
 taken, he (Bismarck) remarked, 'This does not 
 please me. What are we to come to at last 
 with them all? Why do they make so many 
 prisoners?'" In short, Bismarck would have liked 
 the war to be one in which no quarter was 
 given, not only to irregulars, whom, even when 
 they are in uniform, soldiers view with a justifiable 
 dislike, but to soldiers of the line, beaten and 
 surrendering. In the last case quoted the troops 
 referred to are Bourbaki's men, raw recruits, who 
 were mown down almost unresistingly by the 
 German grape shot, while thousands died of 
 privations and cold. Bismarck seems to have 
 thought it hard that any should escape. The 
 
BISMARCK 165 
 
 savagery of tone seems rather that of a wild 
 beast than of a man. Neither was he very 
 tender of Germans when they stood in his way. 
 " During the historical summer night (1866) when 
 General Manteuffel was about to cross the Elbe 
 and enter the Guelphic kingdom, Bismarck 
 telegraphed to him, 'Treat them as fellow coun- 
 trymen ; homicidally if necessary ! ' " 
 
 During the last thirteen years, though Bismarck's 
 foreign policy has been watched with the greatest 
 interest by every foreign power, there has been 
 no critical episode like a war to test it. That he 
 should have been able to maintain peace, though 
 the German treasury is rich and the army confi- 
 dent of its powers, and that Germany should at 
 this moment be apparently stronger and more 
 secure than ever, are incontestable evidences of 
 his ability. The attention of the world has, 
 however, been even more fixed upon his internal 
 than his foreign policy. The war of 1870 was 
 understood all over the continent as a struggle 
 between Catholicism and Free Thought. Its results 
 have been that the Italians have occupied Rome, 
 that the priests are almost powerless in France, 
 and that education is being secularised everywhere. 
 Nowhere has the battle of enlightenment (Cultur- 
 Kampf) been more fiercely waged than in North 
 
1 66 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Germany, and even those who thoroughly sympa- 
 thised with Bismarck in his objects, and who 
 know from bitter experience how impossible it is 
 to induce the CathoUc Church to subordinate itself 
 to State necessities, may think that the Chancellor 
 has been indiscreet by carrying repressive measures 
 to a point at which they appear dangerously like 
 persecution. At the present moment the German 
 Government has relaxed a good deal of its severity, 
 but has not been able to arrange a treaty of peace 
 with the Pope. As Dr. Busch omits all direct 
 notice of this struggle, we presume it does not 
 in his opinion conduce to Bismarck's reputation. 
 Bismarck's attitude towards Sociahsm promises to 
 be more important historically. He began by 
 arming himself with extraordinary powers to repress 
 the excesses of agitators. Having thus asserted 
 the authority of the State, he proceeded to legislate 
 with the view of reforming social abuses. His 
 programme is very comprehensible to EngUshmen, 
 and comprehends limitation by law of the hours 
 of labour, and compulsory insurance for workmen 
 against accidents and destitution. Besides this, 
 he has recognised the principles of a progressive 
 property tax, and is a decided protectionist. It 
 is noticeable that he is not afraid of a name that 
 is the terror of most continental economists. 
 
BISMARCK 167 
 
 "Why," he said to Dr. Busch, " should the regular 
 soldier, disabled by war, or the ofificial have a 
 right to be pensioned in his old age and not the 
 soldier of labour. This thing will make its own 
 way; it has a future. When I die possibly our 
 policy will come to grief. But State Socialism 
 will have its day, and he who shall take it up 
 again will assuredly be the man at the wheel." 
 
 In private life, Bismarck is profoundly religious; 
 not exactly after the Christian fashion, but as one 
 of the old prophets or law givers of the Jewish 
 people might have been. He ascribed the German 
 victories over the French to the fact " that I know 
 that there is Some One who sees me when the 
 lieutenant does not see me." "Do you believe, 
 your Excellency, that they really reflect on this? " 
 asked Fiirstenstein. " Reflect, no ; it is an instinct, 
 a feeling, a tone, I believe. If they reflect they 
 
 lose it. Thus they talk themselves out of it 
 
 Why should I disturb myself and work unceasingly 
 in this world, exposing myself to all sorts of 
 vexations, if I had not the feeling that I must do 
 my duty for God's sake ... If I were not a good 
 believing Christian, if I had not the supernatural 
 basis of religion, you would not have had such 
 a Chancellor. " Irregular himself in his attendance 
 at Church, on account of his heavy ofificial duties. 
 
1 68 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the Chancellor yet takes the Eucharist regularly 
 twice a year, and allows no work whatever to be 
 done on his estates on a Sunday. When the 
 question of making civil marriages obligatory came 
 up in 1873, Bismarck, who heartily disliked the 
 measure, determined notwithstanding to adopt 
 it, and said, " I am not here to propound dogmas, 
 but to transact politics. From the political point 
 of view I have convinced myself that the State — 
 in the situation to which it has been brought by 
 the revolutionary conduct of the Catholic bishops — 
 is constrained by the dictates of self-defence to 
 enact this law." Altogether, we may sum up the 
 notices of Bismarck's views about the relation of 
 religion and politics by observing that he has all 
 the beliefs of an orthodox German Protestant, but 
 that he holds the State to be supreme over the 
 Church "in the kingdom of this world," and the 
 school to be the chief weapon of the State. 
 
 In Parliament, Bismarck is a poor orator, but 
 a vigorous and able debater. He has often ex- 
 pressed an opinion that a good orator cannot be 
 a sound statesman, because he must be easily 
 inflamed himself if he is to kindle others ; and he 
 appears to set down the best speakers of Germany 
 as windbags. Of his own style. Dr. Busch says 
 that " in close neighbourhood to clumsy and some- 
 
BISMARCK 169 
 
 times almost shapeless sentences one frequently 
 comes across others of admirable construction, 
 expressing his thoughts simply and clearly." We 
 may quote one characteristic specimen of his powers 
 in this direction : " A war made by Prussia to 
 establish the Union would remind one of the 
 Englishman who fought and thrashed a sentry in 
 order to hang himself in the sentry-box, that being a 
 right which he considered it his duty to vindicate on 
 his own behalf, and that of every free-born Briton. " 
 It will easily be understood that his table talk is 
 much more lively and drastic than his orations. 
 Were a good collection of it made, the resem- 
 blance between Bismarck and Luther would be 
 very apparent — the same vigorous solid sense, 
 the same sledge-hammer style, a curiously wide 
 range of information in both, and in both a vein 
 of morbid and singular superstition. Doctor Busch 
 tries to explain away the superstition as a humorous 
 affectation, but it is evident that till very lately 
 he himself believed in it. 
 
 Posterity will no doubt form a clearer estimate 
 of Bismark than we can do. It is difficult to 
 beheve that he will not always rank in German 
 and even in European history as a man who has 
 contributed more than any other to make his 
 epoch and his country and to fashion the map of 
 
170 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Europe anew. Whether a more civilised age than 
 our own will regard him as more than a splendid 
 barbarian — strong, faithless, and unscrupulous as 
 an old Goth — is a speculation we need not now 
 enter upon. 
 
1883 
 
 XI.— EMERSON 1 
 
 Tkere is a curious parallelism between the in- 
 ttillectual development of Emerson and Carlyle up 
 to a certain point. Each personified an inevitable 
 reaction against the Philistinism of Itnglish society 
 and linglish literature in the old and new world. 
 J^lach declared that the undying element in man 
 was in his soul and not in his dress or even his 
 tricks of gait. Whatever was young and hopeful 
 and vigorous drew to the new leaders in either 
 society ; and the two leaders drew towards one 
 another in a very beautiful friendship. Gradually, 
 however, as years went on, it became evident that 
 Carlyle, in spite of what seemed the more massive 
 literary talent, had spoken himself dry, and had 
 
 ' Emrrson at f/nim- unit Abroad, by MoDCurc Daniel Conway. Lon- 
 don : Trdhiior & (,'i>. '/'/if Corri'spoiiili'iuc of T/iomas Car/y/e an J 
 J<al(</i H'nhio liimrson, 1834 — 1872. London: Chalto t>; Windus. 
 
 171 
 
172 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 no more message of any real significance to 
 deliver, though he was shouting louder than ever, 
 as if to reassure himself. In fact the gospel of 
 heroes and heroism, of silent strength and tran- 
 scendental realities, had come in the evangelist's 
 own mouth to be a gospel of all possible unclean 
 things — of fierce contempt for subject races in 
 Ireland and Jamaica, and the United States; of 
 veneration for Lynch law and court martials, with 
 the drill sergeant and the British aristocracy pointed 
 out as the highest outcome of civilisation. It is 
 impossible to measure the loss which England 
 has sustained, as the better men of the time 
 silently concluded that Carlyle, with all his mag- 
 nificent capabilities of intellect, his proclamation 
 of a message to man, was no better than a wind- 
 bag. True, we have had compensation in the 
 great affluence of clear scientific thought; in Mill 
 and Darwin and Huxley; but the very excellence 
 of these men as specialists has widened the gulf 
 between positive knowledge and what we may call 
 speculative insight. So far as the school of Mr. 
 Carlyle exists — and it has a representative of genius 
 in Mr. Ruskin — it has changed from a protest 
 against shams into a protest against common 
 sense. Meanwhile the specific influence of Emerson 
 has appeared to pass away also with the American 
 
EMERSON 173 
 
 war. There is no longer any school of thinkers 
 in Boston affecting a quaint philosophical jargon, 
 and vainly looking out for an object in life. The 
 war took up the aimless heroism and inarticulate 
 faith of New England to its own uses. The long 
 muster roll of Harvard graduates who died fight- 
 ing for freedom in the southern battle-fields attests 
 how thoroughly Emerson and the idealists of Brook 
 Farm had sown the seeds of simple devotion to 
 duty in a materialistic society. Emerson and his 
 teaching are no longer a need of the times, and 
 their fashion has been outlived ; but the man's 
 writings are still a literary influence, colouring even 
 modem thought appreciably; and the memory of 
 the man himself — simple, lovable, truthful, and 
 permitted to see truth to the last — is rather likely 
 to dilate than to dwindle with time. 
 
 We have said that Carlyle impresses us as 
 having been an abler man than Emerson . If we 
 measure genius by priority of conception we think 
 it is evident that Emerson derived the first impulse 
 from the Scotchman ; if we measure it by intensity 
 we know nothing in Emerson that can compare 
 for brilliancy and originaUty with the best passages 
 of the Life of Cromwell and of the French Revo- 
 lution; and if we measure it by volume, Carlyle 
 has unquestionably produced more of various and 
 
174 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 high excellence. On the other hand, we have to 
 discount this estimate by a curious difference in 
 the nature of the two men. Carlyle was perpe- 
 tually speaking, even though his thought had not 
 matured, or was the merest phantasm of a thought. 
 As Emerson says in a singularly fine criticism of 
 Past and Present: "Carlyle must write thus or 
 nohow, like a drunken man, who can run but 
 cannot walk .... Fault perhaps the excess of 
 
 importance given to the circumstance of to-day 
 
 But everything must be done well once; even 
 bulletins and almanacs must have one excellent 
 bulletin and almanac. So let Carlyle's be the 
 immortal newspaper. " Emerson's fault, on the 
 other hand, was a certain reserve of high breed- 
 ing, which seemed to be perpetually checking him 
 back from superfluous speech. On no one did 
 he impose himself as a prophet, a teacher, or 
 even a talker. Again, Carlyle was essentially an 
 artist studying a revolution chiefly for its scenic 
 effects, and discerning essential forms through 
 artistic lines. Emerson, on the other hand, was 
 essentially a metaphysician, working back in a 
 logical New England way to first principles and 
 laws. It was a necessity for Carlyle to overflow 
 his subject in rhetoric. Emerson found a better 
 expression for his thought in epigram. Taking 
 
EMERSON 175 
 
 account of these differences, we can understand 
 the greater exuberance of life and fancy in the 
 Scotchman, while we do justice to the New 
 Englander's unswerving precision of thought. 
 Carlyle's style ran away with him; Emerson's was 
 a restraining influence. 
 
 The father and grandfather of Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson were Nonconformist Ministers of the 
 Armenian School in Concord. Deprived of his 
 father when he was only eight years old, young 
 Emerson owed the first impressions of his life to 
 three remarkable women of the New England type, 
 highly educated, and of extreme religious sensibility. 
 The widow was just rich enough to afford her 
 children a liberal education, and so poor that the 
 philosopher as a boy was often employed to tail 
 his mother's cow. Entering Harvard when he was 
 only fourteen Emerson graduated with some distinc- 
 tion when he was eighteen (1821), and five years 
 later was called to the Unitarian Ministry. His 
 biographer supposes that he chose this profession 
 in order to please his mother, who had been disap- 
 pointed when an elder brother, William, who had 
 imbibed sceptical opinions, declined to take orders. 
 For a time Ralph Emerson seemed likely to win 
 reputation as the fashionable preacher of Boston. 
 Unitarianism appears to outsiders the least exact- 
 
176 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 ing of Protestant sects in its demands upon 
 individual liberty of thought, though we are well 
 aware that its ablest English representatives have 
 had occasion to find their fetters not the less real 
 for being simple and few. His church permitted 
 the young minister to interpret the saving of the 
 soul as the preservation of mind and character; 
 it allowed him to say that all men on whom the 
 light of revelation really shone were substantially 
 of the same mind; and it let him invite anti-slavery 
 lecturers into his church. A time came, however, 
 when even the tolerance of the Boston Unitarians 
 could endure no further change. Having con- 
 vinced himself that the Lord's Supper weis not 
 intended to be imposed as a memorial feeist on 
 the whole world, Emerson requested his flock to 
 let him "disuse the elements and relinquish the 
 claims of authority." The congregation consi- 
 dered and declined the proposal, requesting their 
 minister to continue his services as usual ; but 
 Emerson refused to comply, and resigned his 
 charge after a single explanatory sermon. " This 
 mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to 
 me. That is reason enough why I should abandon 
 it. " Henceforth Emerson was a religious outcast ; 
 and we must not measure the significance of this 
 situation by the latitude now accorded to religious 
 
EMERSON 177 
 
 change in America. Fifty years ago a seceder 
 from all churches was looked upon much as a 
 communist is regarded in France. For years 
 Emerson was denounced in the dialect of Christians 
 everywhere as illogical, a lunatic, and an infidel. 
 The Quakers were the only Church body who 
 showed any tenderness for him. It is surmised 
 indeed that the sight of a Quaker lady, whom he 
 venerated, leaving the church whenever the Lord's 
 Supper was administered was the first occasion 
 of Emerson's doubts as to the intrinsic value of 
 the ceremony. 
 
 The few months that succeeded were the " storm 
 and throng" period of Emerson's life. His friend- 
 ships in the congregation were severed ; his mother 
 was deeply grieved; and the death of his wife a 
 little before he took the final step had shut him 
 out from consolation at home. Not unnaturally, 
 the lonely man found refuge in foreign travel, 
 drawn to Europe chiefly, it would seem, by his 
 desire to see certain Englishmen of letters, especially 
 Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, and Carlyle. We 
 gather from his notes of travel that he found the 
 two first eminently disappointing, but considered 
 Landor more than equal to his reputation. With 
 Carlyle, from whom he had expected most, he 
 was charmed; and indeed, Carlyle was at this 
 
 12 
 
178 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 time in the full maturity of his powers. The 
 journey altogether stimulated and refreshed Emer- 
 son, and he returned to America better able to 
 do his day's work. Thenceforward the tenor of 
 his life seems to have been singularly even. In 
 1835 ^6 made a second and very fortunate mar- 
 riage, and enjoyed thenceforth a house and per- 
 manent income of about three hundred pounds 
 a year. His lectures seem to have brought him 
 in another hundred pounds, averaging about four 
 pounds a night, and latterly he received a wind- 
 fall now and again as one of his books sold off 
 On these means he lived simply but liberally, 
 never, so far as we can judge, wasting a regret 
 on the meagre pay accorded to his superlative 
 intellect, and only changing into the man of busi- 
 ness when it became a question of disposing of 
 one of Carlyle's works to the best advantage 
 He had fixed his home in Concord, but his real 
 influence was undoubtedly rather in Boston, where 
 young men of high aspiration and uncertain aims 
 began to look up to him as their teacher. In 
 Concord he was rather the old resident, connected 
 by immemorial family ties with the place and 
 appreciated for his simple kindliness and for certain 
 occasional religious utterances. 
 
 Before many years were over the question 
 
EMERSON 179 
 
 whether Emerson intended to be the founder of 
 a new church or simply an influence in men's 
 hves came before him in a very remarkable way 
 for solution. A number of the most thoughtful 
 men and women in Boston determined to escape 
 out of actual life with its drudgery and sordid 
 aims, and to cultivate philosophy and farming 
 together. The men were to follow the plough, 
 the women to churn or do household work in 
 the morning, and all were to meet in the even- 
 ing to talk over Plato and poetry. Hawthorne, 
 Margaret Fuller, G. W. Curtis, Alcott, and others 
 more or less notable were among the first mem- 
 bers of the community ; and it depends on what 
 we regard as the essential aim of the undertaking, 
 whether we set it down as a failure or a success. 
 Financially, it was not profitable; the site was 
 chosen for its beauty and because it lay conve- 
 niently near Boston, and these considerations did 
 not figure to the profit side in the balance sheet. 
 A graver fault was the want of an efficient manager. 
 "But there were never such witty potato patches 
 and such sparkling corn fields before or since," 
 says G. W. Curtis. " The weeds were scratched 
 out of the ground to the music of Tennyson or 
 Browning, and the nooning was an hour as gay 
 and bright as any brilliant midnight at Ambrose's. " 
 
i8o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Some of us would think six years of our lives 
 well wasted on healthy country life amid such 
 surroundings. Hawthorne, however, it is fair to 
 state, gives a very different view of Brook Farm. 
 He declares that they all worked so earnestly 
 that, when evening came, they were fit for 
 nothing but heavy suppers and sleep, and on 
 Sundays cared for nothing so much as to lean 
 over the pigsties scratching the pigs' backs. 
 Finally, he concluded that a man's soul might 
 " be buried and perish under a dung heap or in 
 a furrow of the field, just as well as under a 
 pile of money, " and declared that even his " custom- 
 house experience was not such a thraldom and 
 weariness." The management that despatched 
 Hawthorne, reserved and fastidious to a fault, to 
 sell a calf in a crowded cattle fair, had certainly 
 lost sight of the guiding principle of socialism — 
 " Every man according to his capacity." Perhaps 
 the world has lost nothing by the disgust that 
 animates Hawthorne's Memories of Brook Farm. 
 His tendency to idealism was so pronounced that 
 nothing but actual disappointment could have 
 inclined the balance in his own judgment to an 
 equipoise. 
 
 We regard it as the highest possible proof how 
 well balanced Emerson's mind was that he resisted 
 
EMERSON i8i 
 
 all the seductions of Brook Farm, and positively 
 refused to become its patriarch at any price, though 
 he visited it from time to time, carrying his own 
 serene light into the chaos of futile work and 
 ambitious thought. The fact is Emerson was in 
 no sense a prophet inaugurating a new order, but 
 a scientific man arranging nature and morals, and 
 his interest lay in the world around and behind 
 him, not in any sense in that which had not yet 
 been lived. 
 
 " Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of that sort, 
 He looks at as merely ideas; in short, 
 As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet," 
 
 says Lowell, in a singularly just estimate of 
 him. Now it is perfectly true that the man who 
 has absolute insight into past and present ought 
 to be equally able to discern the future; but it 
 does not at all follow that he will care to do so. 
 Emerson did not. The world came to him 
 requiring a creed, and he answered it by explaining 
 the laws of God and the conditions of character. 
 Not for him to supply lives with convictions or 
 hands with work, any more than for the physician, 
 who has sweetened the air, to go on and supply 
 muscular motion to the lungs. We do not say 
 that Emerson was the more perfect man for 
 
1 82 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 possessing this evenly balanced judgment. The 
 demonstrator is not above the naturalist, though 
 the demonstrator's specimens may exist centuries 
 long in glass bottles while the naturalist's classifi- 
 cation is superseded in his own lifetime. In fact 
 the need of action — the craving to change our 
 social or religious position from time to time — is 
 so completely a part of human nature that we 
 prefer Utopia with its day-dreams and its dis- 
 illusions to the passionless uneventful life of 
 scientific analysis. Why understand what we are 
 unless we are to move forward into something 
 better and nobler; and how is human life to 
 become perfect if knowledge is absolutely divorced 
 from action.? 
 
 We may now understand the meaning of these 
 supremely shallow and irrational criticisms, according 
 to which Emerson is obscure. The American 
 joke that when Emerson interviewed the Sphinx 
 she said to him "You're another," explains the 
 puzzle of a society which was always asking its 
 teacher for a sign and could get nothing out of 
 him but directions for daily Hfe. Certainly it is 
 that Emerson's style is perfectly simple and lucid. 
 We will not say it is quite unaffected, for there 
 is a flavour of eighteenth century English about it, 
 as if the writer's sympathy with a high-bred 
 
EMERSON 183 
 
 lucidness of style now obsolete had led him to 
 copy even the tricks of speech which were natural 
 to writers of the early Georgian era. No one, 
 however, can doubt what the author has been 
 meaning to say. The remark of one of his 
 humblest hearers at Lexington, "We are very 
 simple people here and don't understand anybody 
 but Mr. Emerson," is conclusive proof that 
 Emerson was in fact not a difficult but a parti- 
 cularly clear writer. Indeed, the fault of his mind 
 was to aim at epigram ; and though a system 
 stated in epigrams would give out rather a jerky 
 light than a diffused radiance, the effort to con- 
 centrate more than compensates this in any but 
 extreme cases by the finish it compels the thinker 
 to give to every separate thought in a long chain. 
 Every sentence in one of Emerson's essays is 
 lucid; and the thought of every sentence agrees 
 with the main argument of the essay. Why 
 readers are sometimes haunted with a sense of 
 insufficiency is because the truths Emerson has 
 stated seem so simple and matter-of-fact that it 
 is difficult not to suppose there is something 
 behind. The experimenter's scalpel has laid the 
 dead body of truth bare, and we see the course 
 of muscles and nerves, but we want life breathed 
 into them again. Given that nature is of this 
 
1 84 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 kind and that human nature has such and such 
 capabilities, is it creditable that a man of Emer- 
 son's power would simply show us what we have 
 eyes to see without going on to explain what we 
 cannot discern? Emerson, of course, is entitled 
 to answer that until science enlightens us we are 
 as little able to see what is around us as what 
 is ahead of us, and that it is no part of his 
 science to touch the springs of will. After all is 
 said we are haunted with a sense that the teacher 
 has wantonly kept us back from a Pisgah, on 
 which he himself stood with infinite prospect 
 stretched out before him. 
 
 The incompleteness of Emerson's powers seems 
 to attach to his life. Full of insight, suggestive, 
 lovable as he was, he was rather a hint than an 
 impulse to his own generation, and added nothing 
 in later life to the promise of early manhood. It 
 is scarcely, we think, accidental that two of his 
 most characteristic pupils, Hawthorne and Thoreau, 
 shrunk from the society of their fellow men and 
 withdrew into isolation. All were capable of 
 sympathising keenly with moral right when they 
 saw it. Thoreau used to shelter fugitive slaves ; 
 Hawthorne turned his keen literary shaft against 
 English support of slavery; and Emerson himself 
 faced a crowd of angry roughs at Boston and 
 
EMERSON 185 
 
 procured a hearing for an anti-slavery speech. In 
 general, however, the slavery struggle was one 
 for which Emerson was not adequately endowed; 
 and we should like some proof of Mr. Conway's 
 statement, that during the war, "no man did 
 better service than Emerson with voice, pen, and 
 means." This is not the only instance in which 
 Mr. Conway misapprehends and over-rates his 
 teacher. We have seldom read anything more 
 ridiculous than the statement that Emerson anti- 
 cipated Darwin's Theory of Development because 
 a passage in an unpublished lecture says " the 
 brother of the hand existed ages ago in the flipper 
 of the seal." The unity of types among the 
 vertebrata was discovered by great and small 
 naturalists before Darwin built up a system upon 
 it, and Emerson may have derived his theory 
 from Lamarck or Oken, or from a score of less 
 known writers. Neither could such an anticipa- 
 tion have had the smallest real value, if the claim 
 to it were well founded, unless it was derived from 
 scientific experiments. 
 
 The two books we have quoted for Emerson's 
 life are of very unequal value. Mr. Conway's 
 book is full of interesting matter, but it Is written 
 in a style of transcendental gush that leaves us 
 much as we were for a knowledge of Emerson's 
 
1 86 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 real position in the world of thought and letters. 
 Let readers contrast Lowell's estimate of Emerson 
 in his Fable for Critics and his article on Carlyle 
 with this rhapsody, and they will see the differ- 
 ence between a consummate artist and an enthu- 
 siastic literary man. The correspondence of Carlyle 
 and Emerson will, we think, prove very disappoint 
 ing. A great part of it is taken up with matters 
 of business. Carlyle's letters are largely made up 
 of rant, and Emerson, especially in his later years, 
 seems to write with a certain reserve, as if afraid 
 of wearing his soul on his sleeve. The most 
 noteworthy passage we have found is one in a 
 letter of 1840, in which he seems for a short 
 moment to have meditated accompHshing the task 
 which the world asked of him : — "I incline to 
 write philosophy, poetry, possibility — anything but 
 history. And yet this phantom of the next age 
 Hmns himself sometimes so large and plain that 
 every feature is apprehensible .and challenges a 
 painter." Character in the shape of fate forbade 
 that even the first pages of this history should be 
 written. 
 
October 6th, 1883 
 XII.— MAZZINI 1 
 
 Mr. Myers is one of a small number of scholarly 
 Englishmen who have made the politics and 
 literature of modern France and Italy their 
 special study, and he unites great critical insight 
 to the command of a singularly perfect style. 
 When we say that Mr. Myers manifestly places 
 M. Renan on a higher pedestal than he assigns 
 to M. Victor Hugo, we have said enough to 
 indicate that Mr. Myers belongs to the Greek 
 school in art, and prefers culture and the reserve 
 that borders on reticence to irregular strength 
 and the inspiration that passes into self-abandon- 
 ment. Accordingly the first essay in the volume 
 — an examination of Mazzini's life and work — 
 appears to us to deserve special attention. The 
 ordinary revolutionist belongs undoubtedly to what 
 
 ^Essays (Modern), by F. W. H. Myers. London: Macmillan & Co. 
 
 187 
 
1 88 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 we may call the romantic school in politics, just 
 as the ordinary statesman belongs to the classical 
 school. The common estimate formed of Mazzini 
 by his contemporaries was that he was an im- 
 practicable fanatic, willing to compass his means 
 by assassination or at any conceivable cost of 
 human suffering, and steadily opposing himself to 
 any reasonable compromise in the shape of partial 
 emancipation or constitutional monarchy. To 
 this a few added that he was vain and am- 
 bitious. If these charges have fallen now into 
 partial oblivion it is not because they have been 
 abandoned, but because Mazzini has been com- 
 paratively forgotten. Cavour and Garibaldi have 
 effaced the man who was a greater political force 
 than either from the memory of this generation. 
 All the more satisfactory is it to find a supremely 
 reasonable critic, such as Mr. Myers, coming for- 
 ward to give a judicial estimate of the very 
 remarkable man, who for twenty years was the 
 incarnation of Italian revolt, whose political dreams 
 have become facts or possibilities, and who pro- 
 duced such an impression of austere morality in 
 the minds of his followers that men died like 
 Quadrio, affirming their belief in "God, Mazzini, 
 and duty." 
 
 Let us first say that we think Mr. Myers does 
 
MAZZINI 189 
 
 a little less than justice to the Italians when he 
 complains of them for not having " learnt to die " 
 thirty years ago, and argues that if every Italian 
 city had fought like the Romans under Mazzini, 
 or the Venetians under Manin, Austria might have 
 been driven out of the Peninsula many years before 
 she actually withdrew, and might have been 
 driven out without French aid. This is, in fact, 
 to assume that 25,000,000 of men who had 
 been misgoverned for centuries, and who were 
 steeped in ignorance, could suddenly have risen 
 to the height of a magnificent heroism. As a 
 matter of fact, there is scarcely an instance of 
 an unaided national rising succeeding against a 
 standing army where the soldiers are stanch. 
 The oppressed people is always obliged to call in 
 foreign help. James II was driven out by Dutch 
 troops after he had crushed English rebellion. 
 The Americans owed their triumph to the French 
 succour under Rochambeau. Belgium could not 
 have shaken herself free from Holland but for 
 French aid. There is no question that Italy had 
 a magnificent chance in 1843, and if the people 
 had all been Mazzinists at that time they would 
 deserve Mr. Myers' reproaches. As a fact, the 
 republicans were never more than a small part 
 of the population of the large towns; they were 
 
I90 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 steadily thrust aside by the Piedmontese ; and 
 when the last moment of the struggle came only 
 a few hundreds of them had been armed and 
 organised long enough to count for soldiers. 
 Neither in their unexpected twelve months of liberty 
 had they been able to agree among themselves 
 what it was they wanted. Rosmini wanted a 
 Church State; Massimo d'Azeglio a cluster of 
 constitutional monarchies; Charles Albert a fed- 
 eration with Piedmont for its Prussia; Mazzini 
 was preaching a republic ; the " Codini " (pigtails) 
 or old nobility wanted to keep their grand dukes 
 and petty courts ; and the " Neri " or priestly 
 party wanted Austria, or absolutism, or anything 
 but free institutions. It was not cowardice, but 
 the want of a steady purpose that paralysed the 
 Italian people at this critical time. Twelve years 
 later they fought magnificently in every part of 
 Italy; and Garibaldi's conquest of Sicily and Na- 
 ples is the most conspicuous instance we know 
 of a rising in which irregulars have driven regular 
 troops out of every position. The fact is — and 
 it is a very fortunate fact — it takes a great deal more 
 than street barricades and tumultuary levies to 
 upset an established order of any kind. The best 
 Italians — men unsurpassed in any country of the 
 world — dedicated their lives to the work. Gari- 
 
MAZZINI 191 
 
 baldi and Victor Emmanuel among heroes ; Cavour, 
 Bismarck, D'Azeglio and Poerio among statesmen ; 
 Rosmini, Tosti, Passaglia and Liverani among 
 churchmen ; Giusti and Leopardi among poets ; 
 Mazzini among transcendentalists, are only a few 
 of the piore conspicuous men who have rolled 
 away the stone from the sepulchre of Italian lib- 
 erty. We doubt if the list can be paralleled 
 from any country in Europe during the same 
 time. 
 
 Mazzini stands alone in this magnificent roll. 
 A statesman by profession, he was more a dreamer 
 than any other great statesman of his time, in the 
 sense that he saw less clearly than they what was 
 possible at the moment; but his dreams were 
 those of a prophet, and have come true. He 
 was right in thinking that Austria must be driven 
 out; right in thinking that it could be done by 
 repeated efforts; right in thinking that all Italy 
 must unite into one nation ; and right in thinking 
 that the nation itself must decide its own form of 
 government. Mr. Myers observes that the best 
 men for a long time held it impossible to dislodge 
 Austria or to unite Italy. The assumption only 
 lately exploded was that Tuscans, Neapolitans and 
 Piedmontese could never be fused into a single 
 people. The dreamer saw better than the poli- 
 
192 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 ticians in this matter. With regard to Mazzini's 
 other particular views we need not quarrel with 
 his preference for a republic, as it was formed at 
 a time when the royal families of Italy appeared 
 to be hopelessly stupid and immoral. He himself 
 was reconciled to the monarchy under a constitu- 
 tional king. There remain, then, only two special 
 points in the analysis given by Mr. Myers. The 
 doctrine that "it is useless to expect help from 
 CathoUcism in regenerating Italy," has been miser- 
 ably verified. The Church had its saving oppor- 
 tunity in a Pope supremely capable of good im- 
 pulses, and Pio Nono faltered, and threw away 
 the one heroic chance of glorifying his faith by 
 the surrender of the temporalities. It was in his 
 power to take the hearts of republicans by storm, 
 and he preferred to ally himself with Louis Na- 
 poleon. So we come to Mazzini's last position, 
 that a purer religion must be preached from Rome, 
 and Rome must once more assume the moral 
 leadership of the world. Certainly there is not 
 much chance of a new gospel from London or 
 Paris or Berlin. If Rome has any new truth to 
 give us, the fields are white for the harvest. 
 
 Those who have followed us thus far will 
 perhaps wonder how it was ever possible to regard 
 Mazzini as a dangerous and sanguinary fanatic. 
 
MAZZINI 193 
 
 The one fault of Mr. Myers' essay lies, we think, 
 in the fact that he has not examined the charges 
 that have been more or less believed against 
 Mazzini's character. They may be stated, we 
 think, as five: — (i)That he sanctioned assassi- 
 nation ; (2) That he incited men to undertake 
 risks which he did not share himself; (3) That 
 he was perpetually promoting revolt against every 
 form of government ; (4) That he was irreligious ; 
 and (5) That in consequence of his long exile he 
 came not to understand the Italian character. Of 
 these the first is incomparably the gravest charge, 
 and as it has been enormously overstated it is 
 important to place the actual facts on record. The 
 charge practically rests on the evidence of Mr. 
 Gallenge, the well known Times correspondent, 
 who has stated that some fifty years ago, when 
 he was a very young man, he communicated a 
 plan for assassinating Charles Albert to Mazzini, 
 who was himself under thirty, and that Mazzini en- 
 couraged him and supplied him with funds and 
 a dagger. Mazzini's answer does not strike us 
 as sufficient. He says that he did his best to 
 dissuade Gallenge, but at last, finding him resolute 
 and believing that he had a mission, he consented 
 to help him with money and a passport, though 
 he disclaimed all responsibility for the enterprise. 
 
 13 
 
194 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 At a later time he seems to have given the dagger, 
 being asked for it. Such as the charge was, it 
 would probably have been forgotten, if there had 
 not been reason to suppose that Orsini was in 
 correspondence with Mazzini shortly before the 
 attempt on Louis Napoleon. Nothing occurred at 
 that time, however, to involve Mazzini in any 
 charge of complicity, and we believe his own 
 statement; but believe also that in some highly ex- 
 ceptional cases he did not Uke to denounce men 
 who regarded death as the fit penalty for spies 
 and renegades. His theory was dangerously loose, 
 but his practice was unimpeachable where he was 
 armed with power. When he was Triumvir in 
 1849 he punished assassination with peculiar 
 severity, threatening to send half his force to 
 Ancona if such crimes were repeated under the 
 name of liberty. He could scarcely have acted 
 thus fearlessly if he had ever preached the theory 
 of the dagger. Let us add that Englishmen who 
 knew him intimately, such as Carlyle, F. D. Mau- 
 rice, and Stansfield, undoubtedly showed by the 
 confidence they placed in him that they held him 
 guiltless of this ignoble form of violence. A final 
 verdict by dispassionate inquirers will, we think, 
 be that he fell short of his duties as a moral 
 teacher and a leader in discussing political murder 
 
MAZZINI 1^5 
 
 as a question of casuistry, and allowing his fol- 
 lowers to suppose that now and again an assassin, 
 under exceptional circumstances, might be God's 
 minister. 
 
 The other charges may be easily disposed of. 
 Mazzini risked liberty and life as fearlessly as any 
 soldier of liberty. No man has ever set the 
 Continental police more fearlessly at defiance. 
 When the French police on one occasion dis- 
 covered his hiding-place, he passed off a friend 
 •upon them as himself, and, while the supposed 
 Mazzini was escorted across the frontier, remained 
 behind to continue his combinations. His adven- 
 tures in Austria and Italy, which he used to visit 
 from time to time, were such as demanded sin- 
 gular audacity and nerve. The Austrian police 
 were constantly informed by their spies that he 
 intended a visit; and are said now and then to 
 have examined the very trains in which he was 
 travelling, but they never penetrated his disguises. 
 One of his favourite make-ups, we believe, was the 
 shovel-hat and apron of an English Dean. Neither 
 was Mazzini deficient in the more vulgar courage 
 of a soldier. " Colonel Medici, " says Mr. Myers, 
 " has described his conduct as a private in the 
 ■disastrous campaign of Garibaldi's volunteers near 
 Milan, in 1848, in terms which recall the well 
 
196 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 known story of the constancy of Socrates in the 
 retreat from Potidsea." Neither is it possible to 
 suppose that a man who had the heroic instinct 
 like Mazzini, who understood how brave men would 
 think, and how men of honour ought to die, would 
 have sullied his actual career by cowardice. On 
 his election as Triumvir the officers of the National 
 Guard told him that most of the guard would 
 refuse to defend the city. "It seemed to me," 
 he says, " that I understood the Roman people 
 better than they," and he put the question to the 
 troops, and was answered by a universal shout 
 for war. Later on, when the defence of Rome: 
 was hopeless, he proposed that all who loved 
 liberty and honour better than life should go in a 
 body into the Campagna and fight there against 
 France and Austria combined tiU they were them- 
 selves exterminated. Garibaldi actually carried out 
 something like this programme with a part of the 
 army ; but Mazzini could not fire the assembly 
 with his magnificent frenzy, and he remained 
 calmly in Rome waiting to see whether some new 
 political combination might not be formed. The 
 French shrunk from the infamy of arresting him; 
 the Papal police from the danger ; and he went 
 away at last in his own good time, the last maa 
 who had not despaired of the commonwealth. 
 
MAZZINI 197 
 
 As we are now touching on the one episode 
 of his life where the dreamer was invested with 
 political power, it may not be improper to notice 
 what use he made of it. M. de Lesseps who 
 conducted the tortuous French diplomacy against 
 him, has written of him: "I have nothing but 
 praise for the loyalty and moderation of his cha- 
 racter, which have won my entire esteem. . . . 
 Now that he has fallen from power I owe an ex- 
 pression of homage to the nobilit}'- of his feelings, 
 the sincerity of his convictions, his high capacity, 
 his integrity and his courage." More than this, 
 Mazzini proved himself an admirable administrator. 
 Never was the city in such order. "The worst 
 thing I have witnessed," says the poet Clough, 
 " has been a paper in ms. put up in two places 
 in the Corso, pointing out seven or eight men for 
 popular resentment. Before the next evening a 
 proclamation was posted in all the streets, from 
 (I am sure) Mazzini's pen, severely and scornfully 
 castigating such proceedings. . . The soldiers are 
 extremely well behaved, far more seemly than our 
 regulars. " " Rome was never so well governed 
 as under the Republic," was the testimony of Mr. 
 Senior, who made enquiries on the spot afterwards. 
 Some families, endangered by French guns, were 
 moved for safety into the empty palaces of the 
 
198 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 nobility, where money and jewels had been left 
 lying about. " Not so much as a brooch was 
 stolen." Nay, Mazzini "exempted the rich men 
 who had fled to Gaeta from taxation, because 
 they had not consented to be taxed!" He was 
 equally respectful towards the Church. Cer- 
 tainly " he protected monks and nuns who wished 
 to re-enter the world," but "when the people 
 took some confessionals to strengthen barricades 
 he ordered them to be instantly replaced, and 
 warned the Romans to shun even the appearance 
 of an outrage against the religion of their fathers. " 
 Let no man dream that this moderation was fruit- 
 less to aftertime. It did not avert the triumph 
 of faithlessness and brute force for a moment; 
 but it created the republican ideal anew in the 
 hearts of Italians. Piedmont had struggled gal- 
 lantly, but had thrown away magnificent chances, 
 and had shown irresolute counsels and disunion 
 in the face of the enemy. Rome with a handful 
 of men beat back a French army time after time, 
 and from the moment Mazzini and Garibaldi 
 entered it its annals were not tarnished by either 
 a baseness or a crime. 
 
 The charge that Mazzini was an anarchist is 
 answered, then, by his government, and it will, 
 perhaps, seem that we have done him less than 
 
MAZZINI ,99 
 
 justice in treating a man who displayed such rare 
 practical intelligence as a dreamer. We have 
 used the term deliberatety, because we hold that 
 Mazzini's very virtues disqualified him for such 
 work of organisation on a grand scale as Cavour 
 achieved with admirable success. In Rome, ais- 
 sociated with men of the highest character, like 
 Garibaldi and Saffi, with the court and the no- 
 bles in exile, with whatever was heroic and gene- 
 rous in young Italy assembled under his eyes, 
 Mazzini succeeded where Cavour would have failed. 
 For Italy, with its different civilisations, its church 
 and nobles and peasantry aiming at different ends, 
 its neighbours dreading Italian union, and dreading 
 more than all an Italian republic, Cavour was 
 indispensable. Let us add that exiles are, as a 
 rule, uncertain counsellors. Exiles, as Giusti 
 pointed out in 1847, cling to the ideas which 
 they carried with them into a foreign country, 
 whilst the people who have remained behind are 
 gaining ground upon another road. Mazzini never 
 forgot the treachery of Charles Albert's early 
 days, even after he had expiated it by laying 
 down his crown. Even Mazzini's religious earnest- 
 ness told against him. He was deeply religious, 
 and Cavour absolutely indifferent; but Mazzini let 
 his difference from the Church be known, while 
 
200 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Cavour kept a confessor in his pay and talked 
 floridly about his respect for a free Church in a 
 free State. 
 
 What, then, were Mazzini's views of religion? 
 We shall allow him to speak as much as pos- 
 sible for himself, and will only premise that the 
 saintliness of his private life was never impugned, 
 even by those who assailed him with the coarsest 
 calumnies as a sceptic. "The religious question," 
 he wrote in 1865, "pursues me like a remorse; 
 it is the only one of any real importance." "The 
 arch of the Christian heaven," he wrote in a 
 letter to the OEcumenical Council in 1871, "is 
 too narrow to embrace the earth. " " God the 
 Father and Educator — the law prefixed by Him 
 to life — the capacity inborn in all men to fulfil 
 it — free will the condition of merit — progress upon 
 the ascent leading to God the result of right 
 choice — these are the cardinal points of our faith." 
 " We believe in the continuity of life. " " We 
 reject the possibility of irrevocable perdition." 
 "We believe that God called us by creating us, 
 and that the call of God can neither be impotent 
 nor false. Grace, as we understand it, is the 
 tendency or faculty given to us all gradually to 
 incarnate the ideal." We may briefly add that 
 Mazzini disbelieved in the possibility of the laws 
 
MAZZINI 20 1 
 
 of the viniverse being violated, but believed in a 
 prophetic faculty and in divine inspiration — "an 
 unforeseen power of action granted to man in cer- 
 tain rare moments of faith, love, and supreme 
 concentration of aU the faculties towards a virtuous 
 aim." Many, of course, will disagree with this 
 creed as Pantheistic, or vague. No one, we 
 think, can doubt that the man who held it pas- 
 sionately, and whose whole hfe was an attempt 
 to incarnate the ideal, is not one who should be 
 lightly disposed of as irrehgious. 
 
iSgo 
 
 XIII.— HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 Lecture delivered in the New Training College, 
 Melbourne 
 
 I HAVE been asked to say a few words to-night 
 on the method of teaching history in primary 
 schools. I approach the subject with one great 
 disadvantage, that the students to whom it has 
 been my fortune to lecture, have habitually been a 
 little older than the pupils of a State school. On the 
 other hand fourteen years' experience as a teacher, 
 and a good deal of various practice as a public 
 examiner, have enabled me to arrive at some 
 conclusions which it may be interesting to you to 
 learn. Let me begin by stating that the indis- 
 criminating popular cry for the introduction of a 
 large measure of historical teaching into our public 
 schools is, to my apprehension, alike foolish and 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 203 
 
 mischievous. Because the approaches of history 
 are easy and fascinating, it does not follow that 
 it is a light matter for a man to become a historian, 
 or that students of any age can appreciate results 
 that are clearly and impressively given. The great 
 classical works of history have never been written 
 by young men. Thucydides was a statesman; 
 Polybius and Xenophon and Csesar were soldiers 
 of middle age, Tacitus was no longer a young 
 man, when they began writing the record of the 
 events of which they had considerable personal 
 knowledge. In our own time, since Gibbon created 
 scientific history it would be difficult to find a 
 man who has done really enduring work till he 
 was forty, or past it. On the other hand it would 
 be easy to quote instances of men like Ranke 
 and Mommsen, Henri Martin and Michelet, Ma- 
 caulay and Palgrave, who have produced or con- 
 tinued to produce masterpieces when the touch 
 of age was already silvering their brows. Time, 
 which robs the poet of inspiration, and which 
 sometimes paralyses the soldier, has its compen- 
 sations for the historian. It allows him the leisure 
 in which he can accumulate and digest his vast 
 materials; and it gives him the practical insight 
 into men and things which are as necessary for 
 comprehending the past as the present. 
 
204 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Now, it is perfectly true that the teacher does 
 not require to be a Gibbon or a Macaulay. Still, 
 the best teachers in every department of work are 
 those who know in and out what they have to 
 communicate, and if history is to be taught in 
 any living manner the man who teaches must do 
 something more than master the pages of the most 
 approved school manual. He must clearly be 
 able to explain what is unfinished or obscure in 
 the text book he uses. To do this he must know 
 the analogies between past and present institutions, 
 must understand, in a general way at least, if he 
 is talking about feudal times, what feudalism really 
 was; or if he is dealing with the American war, 
 what the grievances of the American colonists 
 were. So again, when he comes to talk of per- 
 sons, if he merely knows Charles I and CromweU 
 from some admirable little compendium giving a 
 sort of Liebig's Extract of History without flesh 
 and bones, he will never rivet the attention of his 
 hearers, or enable them to remember more than 
 a few formulas. I would not willingly be thought 
 to underrate even these. By all means let boys 
 of a certain age commit the Petition of Right to 
 memory. Still, as one who has grown up in an 
 age that assisted at the manufacture of a good 
 many paper constitutions I may be permitted to 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 205 
 
 believe, that to understand the men who made 
 constitutional liberty and purity of religion the 
 great purpose of their lives, is even more necessary 
 than to learn by rote the State manifestoes which 
 were issued on either side. These manifestoes are 
 often almost ludicrously below the real dignity of 
 a contest. What are ship money or the billeting 
 of soldiers by the side of lives so full of intense 
 meaning as those of Hampden and Pym, of Crom- 
 well and Blake? 
 
 Now this leads me to another practical point, 
 that while children are for the most part utterly 
 incapable of understanding legal or political in- 
 stitutions, they seize instinctively upon whatever 
 is personal and anecdotical in a narrative. I have 
 repeatedly tried to elicit from scholars under sixteen, 
 or even older, what the causes of the great civil 
 war in England were, and never obtained more 
 than the very smallest percentage of intelligent 
 answers. Nay more, in an examination of middle 
 class schools in England, I found that a large 
 proportion of the scholars knew scarcely anything 
 about Cromwell's life, except two ridiculous legends, 
 that he was carried to the top of a house by a 
 monkey when he was yet an infant, and that 
 when he was a child of six or seven he had a 
 pugilistic encounter with Prince Charles, afterwards 
 
2o6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Charles I. The typical answer wound up with a 
 statement that " afterwards Cromwell cut off 
 Charles I's head," as if the State execution in 
 1649 was the consummation of a vendetta that 
 began in a child's scuffle. On another occasion 
 I was examining the Woolwich cadets in English 
 history of the sixteenth century by word of mouth, 
 and I put the question from time to time, why 
 Philip II attempted to invade England. The 
 almost invariable answer was, " Because Queen 
 Elizabeth had refused to marry him." In a 
 sanguine moment I thought I would convince one 
 of the examinees of the absurdity of the explanation. 
 I asked him the dates of Elizabeth's refusal and 
 of the great Armada, and was answered correctly, 
 1558 and 1588. "Do you not think," I said, 
 " that an interval of thirty years was rather a long 
 time for Philip to cherish resentment?" "Yes," 
 was the immediate answer, " but Philip was fright- 
 fully vindictive." Let me add, gentlemen, that 
 in the popular manual of history which we have 
 adopted, because the great public schools have, 
 so to speak, forced it upon us, this explanation 
 is seriously given. All the labours of Lingard and 
 Ranke, Motley and Froude to explain the great 
 political causes which were at work, how England 
 could not afford to see the States overwhelmed. 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 207 
 
 and how Spain was forced to resent English 
 intervention, have been wasted so far as the com- 
 pilation of one at least of our popular manuals is 
 concerned. 
 
 Now, I think it is correct to say that this 
 incapacity to understand abstract questions and 
 the great political causes that bring about war or 
 revolution, is the result of childishness rather than 
 of ignorance. The boy will outgrow it and if you 
 give him the same manual again at eighteen, will fix 
 on quite a different set of facts from those which 
 interested him at first, will care more for the 
 history of modern times, and less for Alfred and 
 the cakes or Queen Eleanor sucking the poisoned 
 wound. Let me take one paramount instance of 
 the way in which mature insight may go to the 
 heart of historical questions in spite of a deficient 
 education. Shakespeare was not, I think, a learned 
 man, though now and again one is struck by 
 evidences of almost recondite reading, which perhaps 
 proved that he mixed intimately with scholars. 
 Certainly, he was not a student of Roman History 
 in the way in which Machiavel or Hooke, or 
 RoUin, or any number of forgotten historians were 
 students and deeply read. Nevertheless, down to 
 the days of Niehbuhr and Mommsen no historian 
 understood the structure of Roman society, the 
 
2o8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 contrast between nobles and plebeians, so well as 
 Shakespeare; and, perhaps, if we wish to realise 
 the men of those times — Coriolanus with his insane 
 arrogance; his wife and sister with their municipal 
 patriotism ; or Menenius, the cynical political Roman 
 of all times, the prototype of Browning's Ogniben — 
 we had better even now read Shakespeare than 
 any professed historian. What genius and the 
 schooling of experience did in a transcendent degree 
 for Shakespeare is done for all of us in a fashion 
 if we profit by the education of life, and bring 
 judgment and observation to bear upon the books 
 that supply us with ordinary material. Meanwhile, 
 to crowd a child's memory with facts which he 
 does not in the least understand at the time, on 
 the chance that many years later on he may 
 remember them perfectly and understand them, 
 would surely be very dangerous policy. What 
 we teachers have to do is to give the child what 
 it can assimilate; and what the State has to care 
 for is that its growing or adult citizens may have 
 free access to books and instruction of every sort. 
 Therefore, to be explicit, I would say that teachers 
 are bound to disregard all popular cries about 
 imparting history in forms that are of no practical 
 value. It is no disgrace to a child of twelve that it 
 cannot give the names of the kings of England 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 209 
 
 since the Heptarchy; that it does not know the 
 date of the Battle of Brunanburh or the Battle of 
 Towton; that it cannot explain what the feudal 
 system was; or even that it has none but the 
 most general knowledge of the last great struggle 
 in which England fought for existence — the war 
 with the French Republic and Napoleon. The 
 one great principle that gives reality to the teacher's 
 work is that nothing is worth learning at all unless 
 it can be learned well. The record of a man's 
 life in society, bearing, as it does, upon highly 
 complex subjects — the organisation of labour, the 
 consolidation of nationalities, the evolution of law, 
 the clash of religious creeds — is too difficult to 
 be mastered by those to whom manhood and 
 every-day life are little more than far-off problems. 
 On the other hand, if we can teach little we 
 can prepare the mind for receiving a good deal 
 hereafter; we can store the memory with a few 
 matters which are either intelligible to mere 
 children or which will gradually become so as 
 the child develops into the man. Now, in all 
 this we can take no better guides than children 
 themselves. I have mentioned the two or three 
 legendary incidents which seemed to a great many 
 English boys the only memorable facts in Crom- 
 well's career. Those particular instances are 
 
 14 
 
lO 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 unfortunate, as they are grotesque and trivial; the 
 mere scandal of tenth-rate RoyaUst compilers. 
 But it would be possible, and I think easy, to 
 construct an anecdotical history of England, in 
 which every story which has passed into national 
 tradition should find a place without regard to 
 its scientific exactitude so long as it had been 
 consecrated by English poetry, or stirred the 
 pulse with some generous feeling, or I may even 
 say was not paltry or extravagant. I see no 
 reason why the story of Lear and his daughters, 
 since Shakespeare has enshrined it for ever in our 
 legendary records, should not be taught to our 
 young children, who may get a great deal of 
 good from its moral lessons, and who need not 
 be troubled with an impossible inquiry when Lear 
 lived, or what was the kingdom he divided, or 
 how a king of France comes into the story. I 
 should be very sorry to see the stories of Alfred 
 and the cakes, and of Alfred disguised as a harper, 
 omitted from our manuals or not told in perfect 
 simphcity. The first is, of course, a mere people's 
 song, and the second a story that can be traced 
 half the world over, and that is almost provably 
 false of Alfred ; but both carry us back to the 
 primitive times in which they were minted, and 
 the stamp of which it is interesting to trace. 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 211 
 
 The story of Edgar exacting a tribute of wolves' 
 heads, and being rowed by tributary kings; the 
 story of Alphege dying for truth and justice; the 
 tale of the Conqueror's sons quarrelling ; the story 
 of Coeur de Lion's captivity ; how John murdered 
 his nephew; and how the blacksmith refused to 
 fasten chains upon Hubert de Burgh; these are 
 some of the spirit-stirring traditions that a child 
 is the better for knowing, and that a man need 
 not be ashamed to remember. Nothing, I suppose, 
 is more provably false than the story of Eleanor 
 sucking the poisoned wound. The records of the 
 time describe the surgical treatment by which 
 Edward was cured. The story of the wife sav- 
 ing her husband in this way is told of another 
 Princess connected with English history, and was 
 not told of Eleanor till two hundred years after her 
 death, and then by a foreign author of no particular 
 repute. Still, the tale is now one of our national 
 treasures, and the child who hears it will be the 
 better for remembering an instance of heroism 
 which, splendid as it may be, has often been 
 emulated, and the thought of which may be an 
 example in after time. Is there any child who 
 has read the stories of Wallace, of Bruce and of 
 the Black Douglas, as Sir Walter Scott told them, 
 and who has not carried with him a more vivid 
 
2 12 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 apprehension of what goes to make patriots and 
 heroes than if he had mastered the history of 
 those times in a scientific fashion, had known the 
 comparative strength of England and Scotland,, 
 and been able to calculate to a fraction the 
 disparity of conditions over which an indomitable 
 courage triumphed. Even in these later days we 
 crave for the personal element, and look on the 
 leader rather than on the masses that are led 
 into action. In the early days of the French 
 Revolution, when Plutarch's Lives had passed into 
 French history, the Directory thought it worth 
 their while to devise and circulate the legend of 
 a French ship, the Vengeur, whose crew, refus- 
 ing to strike their flag, went down grandly fathoms, 
 deep into the sea, cheering for the Republic. 
 The story of Sir Richard Grenville deliberately 
 fighting two Spanish squadrons with a single ship- 
 in which he might have escaped from them, and 
 commanding his gunner to split and sink the 
 ship when it was left a water-logged hulk after 
 fifteen hours' fight, has the advantage of being 
 literally true. Even in our own times we have 
 seen soldiers, many of them mere recruits, who 
 had been told that they might shift for themselves, 
 return to their ranks when it appeared that they 
 must give up their own lives if the women and 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 213 
 
 •children were to escape, and stand cheerfully wait- 
 ing death as the ship settled down under them. 
 It is, I believe, true that the first Emperor of 
 Germany ordered the story of the Wreck of the 
 Birkenhead to be read out on parade to every 
 •German regiment. 
 
 I have, I hope, made it clear that I think the 
 iirst lessons in history ought to concern them- 
 selves with what is exalted or tragical, adventurous 
 or picturesque in human or national character, 
 and to deal with the acts and words of men and 
 women rather than with the growth of institutions 
 or the rush and turmoil of revolutions. Is not 
 national character, after all, the most real and 
 abiding of our possessions ? Let any man cast his 
 eye over the map, and even in these days of our 
 unparalleled British Empire he may calculate that 
 what we retain is scarcely more than we have 
 been forced to resign or have ceded voluntarily. 
 A third of France, a province of Spain, a kingdom 
 of Germany, Corsica, Majorca and the Ionian 
 Isles, the freehold or expectations of the United 
 States, Java, Afghanistan, are among the long 
 roll of possessions over which the British flag has 
 at one time flown. Two other Englands could 
 be endowed out of what we have lost, and even 
 Chatham might be almost as much startled as the 
 
2 14 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Black Prince at seeing what compensation we 
 have achieved for our losses. Meanwhile there 
 seems to be no change in the essential type of the 
 people. It is now nearly six hundred years since 
 the citizens of the maritime towns of England, being 
 called to order by the King for having made 
 private war against France in redress of certain 
 wrongs they had sustained, replied to the strongest 
 of the Plantagenets, Edward I, in language that 
 can hardly be improved on, so admirably does 
 it express the modern theory of the constitution. 
 " If you please, remember that you are bound to 
 your people to keep the lawful rights and the 
 customs and franchises which your ancestors, 
 kings of England, have given, and yourself granted 
 and confirmed. And be the king's council well 
 advised that if wrong or grievance be done them 
 in any other fashion against right, they will sooner 
 forsake wives, children and aU they have, and go 
 to seek through the seas, where they shall think 
 to make their profit." It may sometimes seem 
 as if this feeling, that the English fatherland is 
 constituted by English law and liberty, has been 
 at times completely obscured; so that the Eng- 
 lishman of the last two centuries has settled down 
 into the most long-suffering of men, not easily 
 provoked to remonstrate against abuses of admin- 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 2 1 5 
 
 istration or law or social organisation. Let those 
 who think so consider how many Englishmen in 
 all time have actually left home with all that home 
 has most dear and gone through the seas to settle 
 in freer lands ; or how, again, the Englishman of 
 the plantations and colonies, disentangled from 
 feudal environments, has shown himself as resolute 
 in maintaining his lawful rights, customs and 
 franchises as ever his ancestors of the 13th cen- 
 tury were. Surely Edward III would have less 
 difficulty in recognising the people he ruled among 
 Americans and Australians than the provinces he 
 governed in the British Empire of to-day. 
 
 Let me now assume that the youngest class in 
 which history is taught has saturated itself with 
 a few dozen vivid stories from old time, taken 
 preferably from English History, but it may be 
 with a few instances from the history of other 
 countries interspersed; the story of Thermopylae 
 or the defence of the bridge by Horatius Codes. 
 The question will now be whether in the class 
 immediately above this, for which I will assume 
 the consecutive teaching of history to be possible, 
 we shall begin with Australian or British history. 
 There are two strong reasons, I think, why we 
 should give the preference to Australian. It is 
 easier for children to learn about their own land, 
 
2i6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and it Is more necessary that they should go 
 out into life with at least this outfit of knowledge. 
 On the other hand, I am free to admit that there 
 are great difficulties attending this particular 
 course of study. There is very little that is ro- 
 mantic or picturesque in the early history of a 
 penal settlement on a continent peopled by some 
 of the lowest savages known. Such history 
 as we have lies within the compass of a few 
 years. We miss the grand procession of the 
 ages ; the conflicts of Church and State ; the wars 
 of rival nationalities; the relations of baron and 
 knight and serf; all the colouring and light that 
 we find in Chaucer, or Froissart or Shakespeare. 
 The present Lord Sherbrooke, haranguing an 
 excited crowd against convict immigration and 
 hurling defiance at the Governor, was perhaps 
 quite as memorable in his way as any of the 
 barons who constrained John to sign the Charter 
 of English liberty, but we do not see him softened 
 and glorified by the mysterious touches of Time. 
 It would be a mistake to confound the bushrangers 
 of our fast receding period with such English 
 outlaws as Robin Hood or William of Cloudeslie. 
 Still, I apprehend that a skilful literary man might 
 find a good deal to tell pleasantly and in the 
 form that children affect about Australian history. 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 2 I 7 
 
 He might paint the wildness of the savage life, 
 and the tribal system which we now understand 
 better than we did; he might find something to 
 cull from the voyages of Dampier and Cook; and 
 something to tell about the early days of settle- 
 ment from such books as Holt's Memoirs of 
 Barrington's History. The story of Bligh has had a 
 great deal of light thrown on it by recent discus- 
 sion, and is eminently adapted for narrative. 
 Then there is the history of exploration — Bass 
 tossing round the coast in his cockle shell; Oxley 
 driven back by a great inland sea, such as Burke 
 is just emerging from; Hume and Hovell labori- 
 ously penetrating, through forests that are now 
 populous shires, into Victoria Felix; Burke and 
 Wills perishing with their work just done; and 
 that marvellous journey by Eyre which Henry 
 Kingsley has commemorated in noble prose. I 
 have little doubt that in the hands of a writer 
 who knew what to select, these journeys, which 
 seem so repulsively tedious from their uniformity 
 to persons outside Australia, might be made to 
 yield passages that would arrest even a child's 
 attention. I remember being vividly impressed by 
 a passage in Captain Hovell's diary, which that 
 gentleman lent me nearly twenty years ago. It 
 was a digression put in a very matter-of-fact way, in 
 
2i8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 which the diarist expressed his contempt for any- 
 one who died of starvation in the Australian bush. 
 It was always easy, Captain Hovell remarked, to 
 get water, by cutting saplings of wattle and letting 
 the sap drain into a pannikin, and the succulent 
 white grub, found at the root of the stringy bark 
 and considered a delicacy by the natives, was very 
 tolerable food at a pinch. Little notices of this 
 kind will bring us the indomitable men who 
 explored the continent, and are likely, I think, to 
 dwell in the memories of children. Then comes 
 the history of pastoral settlement in Australia, 
 and the life of the first squatters among savages 
 and outlaws; the life from which Henry Kingsley 
 and Gordon drew inspiration might, surely, furnish 
 a chapter of some interest. As for the discovery 
 of gold and all that came of it, the outpouring 
 of Europe upon our shores, the exodus to the 
 diggings from runs and farms and cities, the order 
 and disorder among the floating population, the 
 fortunes made and squandered, the conflict with 
 authority culminating in the Eureka Stockade, the 
 feud between Europeans and Chinamen — there is 
 surely material in all this for such tales as boys 
 love. Neither is our political history altogether 
 wanting in interest. On the convict question there 
 is a range of the most various Hterature — from 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 219 
 
 Sydney Smith's light, sensible essays, through Dr. 
 Lang's and Mr. Justice Therry's personal narra- 
 tives, to Marcus Clarke's ghastly picture of convict 
 life in Tasmania. No one would wish such a 
 subject to be dealt with at great length in a school 
 manual, but I think it might be well even in such 
 a book to point out that many of the men trans- 
 ported had committed no real offence at all, like 
 Fysche and Palmer, and that others, like the 
 poachers who were sent out wholesale, were 
 perhaps only guilty of transgressing artificial laws. 
 The subject of transportation leads up necessarily 
 to that other expedient — assisted immigration — for 
 supplying the labour market, and here the admir- 
 able labours of Mrs. Chisholm would deserve to 
 be worthily commemorated. Then we come to 
 the modern period in Australia, beginning with the 
 discovery of gold; and it would surely not be 
 inappropriate for the historian to describe the 
 condition of the British Isles when they furnished 
 us with the fathers of our actual native Australians. 
 England, with its pauper population, on which Lord 
 Shaftesbury's remedial legislation had not had time 
 to tell; England, with its factory operatives 
 working eleven, twelve and thirteen hours a day; 
 England seething with Chartist clubs and still 
 animated by a bitter feeling against landlords, 
 
2 20 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the result of the free-trade agitation; or Ireland, 
 with its redundant population suddenly smitten 
 down by famine and pestilence, and its people 
 leaving their native soil with a fierce hatred of 
 English rule. It is easy to understand the 
 material change when labourers, accustomed to 
 regard seven or nine shillings a week as no 
 inadequate wage, found themselves suddenly in a 
 land where the worth of their work was multiphed 
 ten-fold, where it rested with themselves to say 
 what they would do with the land around them, 
 and under what laws they would live. I suppose 
 if we had to describe the political work done in 
 Australia during the last forty years, in the briefest 
 possible way, we might describe it as the carry- 
 ing out by Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen, 
 on virgin soil, of the reforms they had dreamed 
 of at home. Grote's vote by ballot; the manhood 
 suffrage, which was an article in the charter of 
 1848; Fox and Miall's ideal separation of Church 
 and State ; O' Conn ell's Home Rule ; the Birming- 
 ham League's free and secular education; John 
 Mill's yeoman proprietorship, have all become 
 realities here, while they are for the most part still 
 nothing more than aspirations in England. Of 
 course, it is difficult to make the laws and 
 constitution of any country, even our own, interest- 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 221 
 
 ing to boys and girls of twelve. Still, I conceive 
 that the trained teacher might find a good deal 
 to say of general interest. Take for instance 
 manhood suffrage. It calls up recollections of the 
 old close borough systems of England ; of old 
 Sarum and Gatton with their half-dozen elec- 
 tors returning representatives who could balance 
 the votes of Pitt and Fox; of Lord Camelford 
 threatening to put his black footman into Parliament; 
 of Cochrane's and Sheridan's canvasses ; and of 
 the importance attached to any election like that 
 at Westminster, where the constituency was too 
 large to be bought and sold. The story of the 
 Mayor and Corporation of Oxford putting up 
 their borough publicly for sale, would be an 
 appropriate illustration. Then, again, in connection 
 with the ballot system, some of the stories of 
 elections in England under the old system would 
 tell their own tale. I see no reason why Dickens 
 and Lever should not be drawn upon for matter of 
 this sort; though, in fact, grave historians like Lord 
 Stanhope or May give plenty of useful material. 
 The history of Australia told in this way with 
 reference to that of the mother country would 
 lead up naturally to the history of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, which I will assume to be taught in 
 the fifth and sixth classes. Now, in this connection 
 
2 22 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 a broad question at once presents itself whether 
 we are to attempt to teach all British history or 
 only a small portion of the more modern part. 
 My old friend, the Bishop of Oxford, better known 
 to the historical world as Professor Stubbs, has 
 taken me sorrowfully to task in one of his published 
 lectures because as far back as twelve years I advo- 
 cated the surrender of early English history. Let me 
 say at once that I fuUy admit what Dr. Stubbs 
 contends for, that the present complicated state 
 of English society and law can only be understood 
 by those who go back to the past. I would 
 even go further and say, that I think men who 
 have had to reconstruct English society in new 
 dominions are peculiarly fitted to understand much 
 in English and general history that is obscure to 
 the modern Londoner. For instance, the ana- 
 logy between the Crown Forests of Norman 
 times and the Crown Land system of our 
 early colonial days, is, I think, sufficient to explain 
 a good deal in feudal times that is not altogether 
 easy reading to a man who only knows an Eng- 
 land parcelled out among private proprietors. 
 Again, if we look to national spirit, I take it 
 there is much more of the tameless Elizabethan 
 spirit of adventure in young communities like our 
 own that have never yet been chastened by ex- 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 223 
 
 perience, than England, "the weary Titan", can 
 afford to indulge in. Still, while I freely admit 
 all this, I have to fall back upon my first argu- 
 ment, that children of school age cannot throw 
 themselves into a bygone period, and that the 
 time we can spare for teaching them does not 
 permit of carrying them over more than a short 
 space. Let me add that it is a decided advan- 
 tage to leave for riper years the discussion of 
 centuries, which were largely occupied with the 
 struggles of hostile nationalities and the wars ot 
 rival faiths. Personally, I see no reason why the 
 history of the Reformation should not be treated 
 in a perfecdy impartial spirit. Unhappily, the very 
 great measure of tolerance which has been estab- 
 ished among us by constitutional use and friendly 
 association has not yet been extended to past 
 times, and party feeling is perhaps stronger over 
 Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, over Elizabeth and 
 Mary Queen of Scots, over the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew and the Irish massacre, than it 
 is over any modern causes of differences that are 
 not actually unsettled. The difficulty is shirked 
 at present by leaving out a good deal, and telling 
 the remainder in a lifeless manner that is sup- 
 posed to represent impartiality. In this way 
 Luther and Calvin, Loyola and Philip II, are 
 
224 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 mere fragments that fit into a puzzle; and the 
 child learns names and dates instead of becoming 
 acquainted with thoughts and men. We are 
 really not sacrificing history when we give up such 
 teaching as this. The period that began with the 
 Reformation and ended practically with the Thirty 
 Years' War, is one that ought to be told fuUy if 
 it is told at all. Macaulay and Motley, and Walter 
 Scott and Lingard are writers who described vi- 
 vidly because they felt strongly and knew much. 
 We cannot give their essence if we retrench their 
 spirit and compromise between their conclusions. 
 The diflficulty in modern history is, of course, to 
 know where to begin. There is, however, one 
 date which appears to offer peculiar advantages. 
 The American War of Independence is a dividing 
 point in history. It was not for religion, or for 
 the balance of power, or for territory, but for the 
 very distinct principle that an English people 
 carried the English constitution with it wherever 
 it settled as necessarily as allegiance to the English 
 Crown. No men are more interested than we 
 are in the assertion of this doctrine, and we may 
 almost say that the battle of Australian liberty 
 was won when Cornwallis surrendered to Washing- 
 ton, though Australia was not even a name at the 
 time, and though there was not a solitary white 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 225 
 
 man on the continent. Then, again, I think that 
 we in Austraha, considerately and generously as 
 we have been treated by the Home Government 
 in all essential matters, have yet had sufficient 
 experience in the weak points of the English con- 
 nection to understand the unavowed causes of 
 American revolt. We can parallel the Secretary 
 of State who in the midst of his rejoicings over 
 the capture of Annapolis by colonial troops asked 
 where Annapolis was, by the British officials who 
 confounded the Murray and the Murrumbidgee in 
 tracing our boundaries, and by a good many who 
 are even now not quite sure as to which are the 
 capitals of the colonies. We can remember the 
 days when these colonies were considered an 
 excellent pasture ground for the Englishman with 
 good connections who was incapable of succeeding 
 at home, or who was too cross-grained to be tol- 
 erated, or who was unable to look his creditors 
 in the face. We have all known a little of the 
 irritation produced by what Mr. Lowell gently 
 describes as " a certain condescension in foreigners, " 
 when the "new chum" has rated us for the 
 points in which we heedlessly or deliberately differ 
 from our kinsmen across the water; and we can 
 understand why the yeomen and citizens of New 
 England felt a stern delight in crossing bayonets 
 
 15 
 
2 26 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 with Burgoyne's popinjays. Lastly, we understand 
 the great difference of interests which may arise 
 between a distant dependency and the mother 
 country, which have made us protectionists, where 
 Englishmen are free-traders, and which have forced 
 us to thwart the Imperial policy in such a matter 
 as the admission of aliens. Is it too much to 
 say that an intelligent Australian boy of twelve 
 is far better fitted to appreciate all these points 
 than an equally intelligent English lad of the 
 same age? 
 
 From the recognition of American Independence 
 we pass to the French Revolution and the wars that 
 arose out of it. Here we get a subject too vast to 
 be thoroughly understood by children, and yet con- 
 taming a great deal that is picturesque and striking 
 and capable of being fixed upon the memory in 
 an intelligible form. If a practised hand were to 
 take, for instance, De TocqueviUe's philosophical 
 review of the old regime and the Revolution, and 
 were to illustrate De TocqueviUe's general principles 
 by anecdotes out of Arthur Young's Travels in 
 France, I think it would be easy to show why 
 the Revolution took the form it did. Neither 
 would it be difficult to demonstrate firom Arthur 
 Young the difference between the English and the 
 French peasantry of that day, so as to explain 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 227 
 
 ■why England remained untouched by the storm 
 of revolutionary opinion, and strongly Conservative. 
 Take, again, the wars between the two nations. 
 The story of the mutiny at the Nore, with its 
 wonderful record of how English seamen behaved 
 in the white heat of revoh, might be contrasted 
 with instances of the disloyal and insubordinate 
 spirit that prevailed in the French navy after 1 789, 
 and which contributed powerfully to the defeats 
 of the Nile and Trafalgar. On the other hand, 
 the compiler of such a book should, I think, use 
 that military history of the war in Spain which 
 General Foy unhappily left unfinished, in order 
 to draw a true picture of the British soldier of 
 that time, who fought so splendidly, and achieved 
 so little, till he found a leader in Wellington ; 
 and the pages of Napier might be consulted for 
 the fine qualities that made the French army irre- 
 sistible till it matched itself against English troops 
 under a competent general. I cannot think that 
 a connected history even of the English wars 
 during this period ought to be attempted. They 
 will be mere names and dates in a small manual; 
 what a boy wants to learn about the Peninsular 
 War are a few characteristic facts about the great 
 chief who turned a motley army of English, Germans 
 and Portuguese into a perfect machine, obeying 
 
228 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 a single will, who could be daring at Badajos: 
 and Vittoria, as well as circumspect at Torres 
 Vedras, who deliberately sent away a third of his. 
 army because the Spanish soldiers were taking- 
 reprisals upon the French peasantry, who protected 
 Paris against the Prussians, and who finally became- 
 the real interpreter of English policy in arranging 
 the conditions of peace. If a child carries away- 
 a general comprehension of what the war was 
 about, and how it ended, and a few picturesque 
 details about Pitt and Fox, Wellington, Nelson 
 and Napoleon, it is as much as we can expect 
 or desire. There may be some who will think 
 that it is unwise to give prominence and interest 
 to so ghastly a subject as war, and that the best 
 subjects for a history of this kind would be a. 
 description of the havoc wrought in Spain by 
 conflicting troops, or the ghastly realities of the 
 retreat from Moscow. Without denying that some 
 prominence should be given to these considerations, 
 I would remind those who think in this way that; 
 war is a terrible necessity, and that a great general 
 like Wellington, fighting only for duty, is God's, 
 antidote to a mere conqueror like Napoleon. 
 What Wellington thought of war we know from 
 his utterances, and, above all, from the fact that- 
 he deHberately reversed his own policy in Ireland 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 229 
 
 sooner than maintain it at the cost of a little 
 bloodshed. 
 
 At the risk of saying what will be very unpopular, 
 I am bound to add in this connection that I think 
 one great advantage of the study of history will 
 be lost if we do not use it to obtain a just measure, 
 which will not always be a flattering one, of 
 national greatness. The belief that an Englishman 
 can beat three Frenchmen, and is generally a 
 match for more than himself, has an advantage 
 for troops going into battle against odds, but is 
 a very dangerous one for a community or its 
 government to entertain. The history of our wars 
 during the short period I have mentioned is, of 
 ■course, very various. We were on the whole sig- 
 nally successful, partly because our fleet was made 
 an unrivalled instrument of war by Rodney, Jervis, 
 and Nelson, and partly because, as a rule, we 
 have only aimed at conquest where conquest was 
 possible. Still, it is well to remember that even 
 our fleet was unable to hold the English Channel 
 during part of the American war ; that two English 
 armies capitulated in America, one of them to a 
 mere militia force ; that we were beaten in Flanders 
 under the Duke of York, and that a second 
 expedition under Chatham was a costly failure; 
 that Sir John Moore, though he saved his men. 
 
2 30 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 lost his horses and guns; and that if Wellington 
 had not been sent out to Spain there is not the 
 smallest likelihood that Beresford or Burrard could 
 have done anything worth remembering; that 
 Whitelocke capitulated disgracefully at Buenos 
 Ayres, and that Pakenham was thoroughly beaten 
 at New Orleans. I may take this opportunity of 
 saying that I beUeve if history teaches us anything, 
 it teaches us that wars are determined, not indeed 
 quite by "great battaUons," but by the genius that 
 can so dispose of its forces as to operate with 
 larger against smaller numbers on the critical 
 point. I scarcely know of an instance where 
 untrained troops have contended successfully against 
 trained; that is if we disregard mere names, and 
 treat a militia that has been constantly in the field 
 as more essentially soldiers than drilled men who 
 have never seen a shot fired in earnest; such a 
 militia as the Americans had at Saratoga or the 
 Boers at Langesnek. Napoleon has left it as his 
 opinion that the great victories of the French 
 RepubUc were won, not by tumultuary levies, but 
 by the officers and men inherited from the 
 monarchy; and Napoleon has also told us that 
 an army of stags commanded by a hon is better 
 than an army of lions commanded by a stag. If 
 the boys whom we train in our cadet corps can 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 
 
 231 
 
 be taught the wholesome lesson that nerve, courage, 
 and strength are useless by themselves and that 
 discipline and skill are what are really needed, the 
 school will be an admirable adjunct to the drill 
 ground and the camp of instruction. 
 
 The period succeeding the Great War is one 
 in which, so to speak, we are still living. As 
 soon as England had time to breathe she began, 
 slowly but determinately, that course of liberal 
 reform which has made her at the present day 
 almost as democratic as the United States, while 
 it has not, so far as we can judge, impaired her 
 power of gathering and grasping empire. The 
 difficulty in this three-quarters of a century is 
 to disentangle from the enormous mass of fact that 
 which is essential and undoubted. Matters like 
 the trial of Queen Caroline or the Battle of 
 Navarino, which filled the mouths of men at the 
 time, are little worth remembering now, certainly 
 not worth explaining at length to boys. On the 
 other hand, I think more time than is generally 
 allowed to it might be given to an explanation 
 of the terrible distress that was endemic in the 
 British Isles for nearly forty years after the peace. 
 The artificial stimulus to labour given by war, the 
 effect of the poor laws, the effect of the factory 
 system, such as it then was, the effects of absentee 
 
232 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 landlordism in Ireland, the actual state of the 
 English and Irish poor during the first years of 
 the present reign, are all matters that even a child 
 might understand. I remember that Beaumont, 
 in his classical work upon Ireland, gives an instance 
 of a district of less than twelve thousand people, 
 seven thousand five hundred of whom had not 
 a single bedstead among them. The England 
 described by Miss Martineau, in which the chil- 
 dren of country labourers " struggled with the 
 pigs for food during the day, and at night huddled 
 down on damp straw under a roof of rotten 
 thatch ; " the England Kingsley has sung of, in 
 which the poor were "worse housed than the 
 squire's hacks and pointers, worse fed than his 
 hogs and sheep ; " the England of which the Poor 
 Law Commissioners reported that the labourers were 
 being turned into paupers and the women demo- 
 ralized by legislative enactment; the England in 
 which I myself have known a parish of fifteen hun- 
 dred, where, within the memory of man, only two of 
 the inhabitants had been able to cast up accounts ; 
 and near which within my own time a Frenchman 
 was tried by the water ordeal, and nearly drowned 
 for being a water wizard ; this England ought to 
 be known under these aspects to the children of 
 the men who came out of it. It is well to under- 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 233 
 
 stand the terrible arrears which a nation that 
 neglects, be it only for a generation or two, to 
 care for the moral and intellectual condition of 
 its people, has to encounter. It is well to remem- 
 ber how, "almost under the shadow of Canter- 
 bury Cathedral," in a district studded with churches, 
 during the reign of Queen Victoria, several hun- 
 dred villagers accepted a lunatic as the Messiah, 
 and had to be dispersed, not without bloodshed, 
 by the military. It is instructive to remember 
 that while the Messiah was at least a name to 
 conjure with in Kent, a whole generation was 
 growing up in the Black Country, as Mr. Disraeli 
 pointed out in Sybil, ignorant of the commonest 
 elements of Christian teaching or Bible history. 
 There is, of course, a brighter side to the his- 
 tory of these times. Twice during the period I 
 am touching upon was England supposed to have 
 lost her place among nations— first after the treaty 
 of Paris, when the surrender of her American 
 colonists left her shorn of the better half of her 
 dominions, and again after the treaty of Vienna, 
 in the very moment of her transcendent military 
 glory, when she appeared to be crippled with 
 debt and unable to bear the load of a pauper 
 population. In the first case she retrieved her 
 pre-eminence by the daring of her people, who 
 
234 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 stripped France of almost the whole of her colonial 
 dominion and of all that she had annexed, and 
 who for a time seemed to monopoUse the carrying 
 and manufacturing trades of the world. But 
 when we come to consider the second period we 
 shall find that the foreign policy of our rulers 
 had little to do with the recovery of English 
 prestige. Canning's magniloquent boast that he 
 " had called a new world into existence to redress 
 the balance of the old" falls rather flat upon 
 those who fifty years later see that the new world 
 counts for absolutely nothing in the balance of 
 power, and is chiefly known for its capacity of 
 incurring debts. The men who have created 
 modern England have been the inventors who 
 have enabled the country to support three men 
 where it supported one, the economists, who have 
 husbanded national wealth, and the founders of 
 new colonies or the extenders of old. Take the 
 inventors. We all know that we can interest boys 
 by the story of the Bridgewater canal ; of Watt 
 and the kettle ; of the first river and ocean steamers ; 
 of George Stephenson and the railway; of Ark- 
 wright's and Hargreaves's inventions, and of the 
 opposition to them ; of Bramah and Maudsley and 
 Nasmyth; of Colt and Bessemer. But it is not 
 merely as instructive anecdotes, or even as episodes 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 235 
 
 in the history of rational life, that these tales 
 need be told. Except for this industrial develop- 
 ment, and for the populous towns with which 
 it has studded England, Great Britain would at 
 this moment be a second-rate power, in all like- 
 lihood deprived of India, and with very unimportant 
 colonial possessions. Take the great statesmen of 
 England, and you will find that above all it has 
 been required of them that they should understand 
 the requirements of commerce. Peel made his 
 first hit by putting the currency on a sound basis, 
 and his last by cheapening food for the working 
 man. Palmerston's foreign policy, if you examine 
 it, aims essentially at opening new markets to 
 trade, especially in the latter part of his career. 
 Meanwhile observe that the industrial change 
 carries with it a great political evolution. The 
 dwellers in towns are, as a rule, democratic in 
 politics, and non-conformist or liberal in their 
 religious views. Accordingly we find the old 
 aristocracy that has governed England either 
 pushed aside or obliged to come over to the new 
 ideas. Neither is the influence of the colonies, 
 as these grow in population and wealth, to be 
 disregarded. At first they are mere outlets for 
 starving men; then they become important cus- 
 tomers and not unimportant allies ; last of all they 
 
236 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 begin to exercise a perceptible ascendency over 
 the mother country. When some of our Australian 
 mstitutions, manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, are 
 incorporated into English law, when we find the 
 eight hours system, free and secular education, a 
 divorce bill or marriage with a deceased wife's 
 sister, supported by Australian precedents in 
 English discussion, do not let us flatter ourselves 
 that we are the originators of something new and 
 unthought of We are only giving body and 
 form to English aspiration; and are more English 
 in the modern sense than England, because we 
 have carried England without some of its outworn 
 mediaeval institutions into the life of a new continent. 
 Now it will be understood that in indicating 
 the industrial and social progress of the people 
 as the matter chiefly to be dealt with in a manual 
 of history, I do not desire that it should be 
 treated in an abstract and philosophical manner. 
 The history of invention, as we all know, is as 
 charming as a collection of fairy tales; and the 
 history of the application of inventions may be 
 made equally fascinating. Take for instance the 
 story of Titus Salt, who finds a cargo of alpaca 
 wool lumbering the Liverpool warehouses, expe- 
 riments with it, buys it up for a mere song, and 
 founds a new industry under which a great town 
 
HISTORY IN STATE SCHOOLS 237 
 
 grows up bearing his name, and from which poverty 
 and drink are banished. Or take one of the most 
 abstract discussions in history, that which Peel 
 condensed into the question, "What is a pound?" 
 and let us ask ourselves if it could not be made 
 popular by illustrations of the artificial currency 
 system, when light sovereigns sold for more than 
 heavy ones, because they could be melted down, 
 or by the tale of the bank panic in 1825? If we 
 wanted to impress the period of financial bubbles 
 vividly on the minds of children, I take it that Sir 
 Francis Head's story of the Scotch milkmaids sent 
 out to Buenos Ayres to make butter, which proved 
 to be valueless because the inhabitants preferred 
 oil, would not easily be forgotten. Take, again, 
 the question of the abolition of the Corn Laws. 
 There is plenty of picturesque incident connected 
 with this, if the man who describes it has the 
 artist's eye. Cobden exhorting Bright over the 
 deathbed of his young wife to devote himself to 
 the rescue of homes in which wives and children 
 were dying of hunger ; the procession of labourers 
 with the big loaf and the small loaf; the Duke 
 of Norfolk's panacea, that the starving people 
 should put curry powder in their food; and last 
 of all, perhaps, that scene so finely described by 
 D'Israeli, when Peel saw the leaders of the Tory 
 
238 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 party, the men who had looked to him for inspiration, 
 passing with averted or defiant faces into the Op- 
 position lobby. Neither would it be inappropriate 
 in such a manual to quote the fine words with 
 which Peel retired from office: "It may be that 
 I shall leave a name, sometimes remembered with 
 expressions of goodwill in those places which are the 
 abode of men, whose lot it is to labour and to earn 
 their daily bread by the sweat of their brow — a 
 name remembered with expressions of goodwill, 
 when they §hall recreate their exhausted strength 
 with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because 
 it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice. " 
 But it is needless to pursue this subject any 
 further. What I have said will, I think, show the 
 general outlines of the teaching I think it is prac- 
 ticable to give. I have spoken of what may be 
 done in a manual; but I need not say to you, 
 gentlemen, that it is only the teacher who can make 
 the book a vivid reality. If he looks upon the past 
 with an apprehension of the human interest that 
 is stored up in it ; if he knows how to arrest the 
 attention and impress the imagination of those who 
 will pass out from his care to make history for a 
 generation; then, and only then, will it have been pro- 
 fitable to put the keys of knowledge into his hands. 
 With you rests the future of the teaching of history. 
 
XIV.— THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 
 
 FIRST NOTICE 
 
 The interest about the first Napoleon seems to 
 be on the increase. The Memoirs of Mdme. de 
 Remusat, the Life and Letters of Mdme. Jerome 
 Btwnaparte, the Memoirs of Count Mioi de Me- 
 liio, and Bingham's Marriages of the Btwnapartes, 
 are among the best read books of the last three 
 years. It is scarcely wonderful that a new edition 
 of the Memoirs of the Duchess of d'Abrantes has 
 been called for. Mdme. Junot is by far the 
 most gossipy and amusing of Napoleon's chroni- 
 clers. It is mainly from her memoirs that Lever 
 drew his ideas of the Court of Fontainebleau, and 
 one of the most incredible of all his stories — that 
 of Tom Burke's French friend, who played leap- 
 frog over the Emperor, mistaking him for Eugene 
 de Beauharnais — will be found in Mdme. Junot, 
 
 where the veritable hero is Isabey, we presume, 
 
 239 
 
240 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 a son of the famous portrait painter. Mdme. 
 Junot was better qualified than most people to 
 write about the Emperor. Her mother, Mdme. 
 de Permon was a Corsican lady, at whose house 
 in Paris Napoleon was a frequent guest while he 
 was at college and in the army, and whom, it 
 she herself may be believed, he wanted to marry. 
 Mdme. Junot herself was a girl of eleven years 
 old at the time to which this proposal is referred 
 by her mother, and undoubtedly saw a good 
 deal of the young general, who was constantly in 
 and out of the house, till he quarrelled with Mdme. 
 de Permon. There is reason to doubt whether 
 the lady did not mistake Napoleon's sentiments 
 for her, but it seems certain that the families 
 were sufficiently intimate to make Mdme. Junot's 
 position at Court after marriage that of a confi- 
 dential friend to all the Buonapartes. Unlike 
 Bourrienne and Mdme. de R^musat, both of whom 
 quarrelled with the Emperor and grew to dislike 
 him, Mdme. Junot, though she certainly cooled 
 as her husband declined in favour and the Empire 
 fell, is throughout creditably loyal to the great 
 man whom Junot idolised and who made Junot's 
 fortunes. Talleyrand has said that the Memoirs 
 are full of inaccuracies, and that they were put 
 together from the duchess's collections, and then 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 241 
 
 amplified from other sources by a professional 
 literary man. It must be borne in mind, however, 
 that Talleyrand himself, whom Mdme. Junot did 
 not love, figures rather discreditably in her Recol- 
 lections. For instance, she tells a story of Na- 
 poleon driving him back against the wall and 
 threatening him with his clenched fist, and height- 
 ens it by recounting how the report got abroad 
 that Napoleon had really struck him, while Tal- 
 leyrand, not knowing what was rumoured, de- 
 scribed it as one of their usual daily scenes, and 
 gave the impression that it was quite a common 
 thing for him to be struck. It was certainly 
 Talleyrand's interest that' Mdme. Junot's book 
 should be set down as a mere bookseller's con- 
 pilation. Our own impression is that it is tho- 
 roughly genuine. There are discrepancies in it 
 now and again, but though they are such as a 
 literary man would avoid, they are no more than 
 are common in everyday life, where people speak 
 very differently of their friends, according to the 
 impression of the moment or the nature of the act 
 commented on. There is also a great falling off 
 in vivacity towards the end. This is natural in 
 Mdme. Junot, who, after she lost her husband, 
 was taken up with serious cares about her children 
 and her fortune, and took more interest in the events 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 that were changing the face of Europe than in 
 Uttle personal gossip on the dissection of character. 
 On the other hand, we think a writer of romance 
 would have been true to his art down to the very- 
 end of the volume, and would have continued to 
 give anecdotes where Mdme. Junot digresses into 
 general history. 
 
 Although there has been a disposition of late 
 years to revive a great many of the worst stories 
 that our forefathers believed about Napoleon, they 
 have happily not found their way into serious 
 history. That he flayed a dog alive when he was 
 a boy; that he poisoned one of his mistresses to 
 get rid of her; that he was a Terrorist as a young 
 man, the admirer of Marat, and the friend of the 
 younger Robespierre; that he murdered Pichegru 
 in prison ; that he did not respect the most sacred 
 ties of relationship in his immorality, and that he 
 was incapable of an unselfish or generous action, 
 are a few parts of the anti-Napoleonic legend. 
 We are not prepared to say that it would be 
 impossible for these qualities to co-exist with the 
 great powers of mind Napoleon possessed. In- 
 tellect often saves its possessor from committing 
 small crimes, because it shows him clearly that 
 they would not serve his purpose, but it does 
 not make him moral if it is his interest to tread 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 
 
 H3 
 
 morality under foot. Augustus Csesar, whom Na- 
 poleon singularly resembled in type of face, is a 
 familiar instance of a man who must have been 
 almost without a moral sentiment, and who cer- 
 tainly was incapable of pity where it was his 
 interest to destroy, but who ripened, nevertheless, 
 into a beneficent and virtuous sovereign when it 
 paid to be beneficent and virtuous. What we think 
 may fairly be urged in favour of Napoleon is that 
 the worst scandals against him are unproved and 
 improbable, and that the persons who knew him 
 best believed him to be capable of kindly and 
 generous sentiments. Indeed, were only the best 
 features of his character and his best acts kept 
 in view, it would be as easy to make him out 
 a hero of faultless perfection as it has been to 
 destroy his reputation by the reverse process. 
 
 One of Michelet's best criticisms upon Napoleon 
 is that he was essentially " Corsican, Catholic, and 
 fatalist." As a boy he was reserved, proud and 
 envious, feeling bitterly his own position as the 
 son of a poor gentleman, without friends or fortune, 
 and very bitter against his school companions, 
 who teased him for his foreign accent and his 
 religious practices. The most noticeable points 
 about his character at this time were the loyalty 
 he always showed to his schoolfellows, when there 
 
244 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 was any question of a punishment to be inflicted, 
 the firmness with which he refused presents of 
 money from strangers, and his amusing attempt 
 to get the discipline of the military school made 
 more severe. This, no doubt, was because he 
 disliked to see others spending money when he 
 could not. After he had been some years in the 
 army he acquired habits of good fellowship, and 
 made no scruples about using the purse of a 
 comrade with whom, as with Junot, he was inti- 
 mate. Mdme. de Bourrienne has made it a charge 
 against him that he used to come to her house 
 bringing his rations with him, as was usual at that 
 time, but always insisted on being supplied with 
 white bread, which it was criminal just then to 
 possess or eat. Mdme. Junot tells us that she 
 never witnessed anything of the kind, but that 
 Buonaparte kept her family suppHed with ammu- 
 nition loaves, which the servants were glad to eat,, 
 and that " he saved more than a hundred families 
 from perishing" by the care he took to supply 
 them with wood and bread. What is still more 
 to his honour is that when M. de Permon was in 
 danger from having offended a Jacobin, Buona- 
 parte went down to the club and defended him. 
 He was exposed to a harder trial when he found 
 that Salicetti was in hiding in Mdme. de Permon's 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 245 
 
 house. Salicetti had put him in prison, and de- 
 nounced him at a time when to be accused as 
 often as not meant to be guillotined. True, 
 Napoleon had been " provisionally" set at liberty, 
 but he had been thrown on the streets without 
 employment, and thought for the time that all his 
 prospects were at an end. In addition to his 
 private grievances, he professed to believe that 
 Salicetti was a scoundrel, and he said, with a 
 great deal of truth, that a man of honour ought 
 not to have compromised a woman by taking a 
 refuge under her roof Nevertheless, though it 
 is evident that Napoleon would have liked to per- 
 suade Mdme. de Permon to refuse Salicetti shelter, 
 he abstained from saying the word that would 
 have brought his enemy to the scaffold. Only 
 when Salicetti was at last able to leave the coun- 
 try, Napoleon wrote a letter to say that he did 
 not like to be thought a dupe, and that he had 
 known all along that he was in the house. " You 
 see, then, Salicetti, that I might have returned the 
 ill you did me .... I might have taken my revenge, 
 but I did not." Without saying, as M. de Permon 
 did, that this conduct was "admirable", we agree 
 with him that "the man who has no wrong to 
 revenge cannot put himself into the place of an- 
 other who has been utterly ruined by one whose 
 
246 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 fate is In his hands." Napoleon had only to drop 
 a hint or send an anonymous letter to the police, 
 and his scores with a deadly enemy would have 
 been cleared for him. Only those who have stu- 
 died the history of times of revolution can know 
 what a terrible motive power this unlimited capa- 
 bility of revenge constantly proves. 
 
 We do not attach much importance to Mdme. 
 Junot's recollections of those days, except that 
 she may be supposed to give the traditions of 
 her family. Now, it is noteworthy that Mdme. 
 de Permon who affected royal proclivities, and 
 surrounded herself with friends from the Faubourg 
 St. Germain, took a decided dislike to Napoleon 
 after his marriage with Josephine, though with 
 admirable feminine consistency she would not allow 
 anyone but herself to abuse him. Mdme. de Per- 
 mon's sister, Mdme. de St. Ange, who had been dis- 
 appointed of Napoleon's co-operation in a job she 
 had devised for selling some cloth and linen to 
 the army, was another of the young officer's 
 enemies. "Joseph," said this lady, "is the flower 
 of the flock. Napoleon is downright ugly, as 
 stupid as a mule, and very ill-behaved." The 
 first of these criticisms seems curious, for Napoleon 
 was the handsomest of the brothers in a family 
 that was remarkable for personal beauty. Mdme. 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 247 
 
 Junot, however, tells us that at this time his com- 
 plexion was yellow and unhealthy, his features 
 angular and sharp, and that he was a great sloven, 
 going about with ill-combed and ill-powered hair, 
 without gloves, and with badly blackened boots. 
 With respect to the charge of stupidity, which, of 
 course, merely means that he was awkward and 
 heavy in the society of ladies, there is a partial 
 truth in this. To the end of his life Napoleon 
 seems to have been unaffectedly clumsy and em- 
 barrassed when he was among women whom he 
 did not know well. He once entertained hia 
 guests at a dinner-party by asking every lady in 
 turn across the table what her age was. We 
 are convinced that many of his most brutal speeches, 
 such as the remark to Mdme. de Chevreuse: " How 
 strange it is, you have red hair," and similar 
 remarks to other ladies: " How red your arms are!" 
 " How badly your hair is dressed!" were in many 
 cases little more than the desperate plunges of a 
 man who was absolutely deficient in small talk. 
 Of course this explanation is not complete. Napo- 
 leon had a child's love of teasing. He would 
 constantly arrange scenes or say things apparently 
 for no other object than to make his wife or his 
 sisters jealous or annoyed, and then was the first 
 to be displeased or overcome when he found that 
 
248 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 he had produced a flood of tears or a fit of 
 hysterics. On the other hand, those who knew 
 Napoleon best were not those who complained of 
 his conversation. He had to some extent the 
 Italian faculty of improvisation, and could throw 
 off a story with a great deal of dramatic energy. 
 Mdme. Junot says that he had a fund of anecdotes, 
 " which were interesting in themselves, and which 
 were rendered doubly so by his original way of 
 telling them." Accordingly, "though he spoke 
 French very badly, and was grossly ignorant on 
 certain points of ordinary education, everyone 
 listened to him with delight." Neither would 
 Napoleon have been considered a duU talker in 
 English society. He would express himself with 
 great vigour and originality. For instance, there 
 is a well known passage in Cinna where Augustus 
 overwhelms the conspirator with his forgiveness 
 and invites him to be his friend. The great Cond6 
 took this simply as there can be little doubt it 
 was meant and shed tears over it. Napoleon 
 told M. de R6musat that he could not understand 
 Corneille putting in anything so weak and foolish, 
 till he saw the piece acted at the theatre, when 
 it flashed across him that the words were policy 
 intended only to dupe Cinna. Then his admira- 
 tion for Corneille redoubled. On the other hand, 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 249 
 
 Napoleon could not endure Moliere, whom he 
 regarded as only giving the gossip of the salons. 
 There we get Napoleon's weak point. He was 
 not French enough to understand the light play 
 of wit, the exchange of parry and thrust, that 
 were the glory of a society in which conversation 
 was one of the fine arts. Curiously enough, 
 Madame Junot herself, though a clever woman, 
 with a good deal of satire in her composition, 
 seems also to have been deficient in this special 
 faculty. She tells us that she once persuaded her 
 husband to take her to a masked ball. On get- 
 ting there, however, she found herself so incapable 
 of talking smartly to the persons she met, though 
 she had the advantage of having guessed who 
 they were, that she was glad when the evening 
 came to a close, and never repeated the experiment. 
 The Empress Josephine, of course, figures pro- 
 minently in Mdme. Junot's memoirs, and about 
 so simple a character as hers there seems to be 
 little difference of opinion. Whether she has not 
 had rather more than justice done her may 
 reasonably be doubted. The legendary version of 
 her life represents her as the good angel of Na- 
 poleon, the one woman who loved him for himself, 
 who constantly interposed with good offices for 
 persons in disgrace when his anger was roused, 
 
2 50 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 who made his fortunes when he started in Ufe, 
 and who took away his star with her when she 
 was divorced. The actual facts are a Httle more 
 prosaic. Napoleon's marriage with Josephine Wcis 
 essentially one of convenience. He wanted to 
 have relations with good society, and apparently 
 had at that time a weakness for women older 
 than himself Josephine, who was very badly 
 off, earning her Uvelihood as a sort of commission 
 agent for ladies who wanted to sell their dress 
 and jewels, affected to despise the young republican — 
 Vend6miaire, as she called him — and finally married 
 him for the sake of an establishment. Whatever 
 love there was between them was for a long time 
 on his side. Her antecedents had not been 
 severely correct, and she had at least two lovers 
 after her marriage: Murat, who boasted of his 
 successes, and M. Charles, who was constantly in 
 the house while Napoleon was in Egypt. Even 
 the morality of that day was scandalised, and her 
 friends told her plainly that she ought to be di- 
 vorced from Napoleon and marry M. Charles. 
 When, however, Napoleon returned from Egypt, 
 fully informed of his wife's conduct, and vowing 
 that he would divorce her, Josephine overwhelmed 
 him with protestations of innocence, and Napoleon 
 consented to take her back, chiefly, it would seem, 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 251 
 
 from his strong affection for her children, Eugene, 
 and Hortense. From that time their relations no 
 doubt were changed : Napoleon became a hero of 
 romance, the first man in France, and was found 
 to be strikingly handsome. Josephine was ageing. 
 She was thirty-three when she married in i 796, and 
 it was her turn to be jealous, not without cause. 
 Whether she had ever been of much use to her 
 husband by her political influence may be doubted. 
 What is certain is that for some time she boasted 
 of what she had done for him in a way that 
 irritated his Corsican pride, and led him to forbid 
 her even to speak about politics. It may also be 
 doubted whether her influence over him was ever 
 very real. She was a Creole, lazy and timid, and 
 afraid of scenes. Mdme. Junot tells an amusing 
 story of one of Josephine's nephews, M. de Cere, 
 who, having fallen into disgrace, got a promise 
 from his aunt that she would present a memorial 
 from him to the General. Unluckily, in the 
 agitation of the moment he gave her his tailor's 
 bill instead of the proper document. His feelings 
 of despair when he found out the mistake that 
 night may be imagined. Next morning, however, 
 his aunt met him with a sweet smile. " How 
 happy I am, I have delivered your memorial to 
 the First Consul, and we read it together, and it 
 
2 52 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 made a great impr^sion upon him. Within a 
 fortnig-ht all will be settled." In the one or two 
 cases where Josephine's intercession was really 
 effectual, as in getting the Kves of M. de PoHgnac 
 and M. de Ri\'iere spared, Josephine was kept up 
 to her dut}^ by the importunit\- of her noble friends 
 in the Faubourg St. Germain, and it may be 
 reasonably suspected that Napoleon was not 
 unwilling to be importuned. It is impossible at 
 this distance of time to say whether Josephine's 
 constant quarrels with aU her husband's relations 
 were altogether her own fault Certainly, the 
 most indefensible act of her life was separating 
 her daughter from Duroc whom she loved, and 
 forcing her to many Louis Buonaparte whom she 
 disliked, and who treated her badly from the 
 first It seems difficult to vmderstand why the 
 brothers did not think it to their own interest that 
 the Emperor's wife should be childless, and it 
 may be a surmise that if Napoleon had not tried 
 to transfer the succession from Louis to Louis's 
 son by Hortense Beauhamais the quarrel would 
 not have been envenomed beyond the possibilit}- 
 of readjustment. It is curious, however, that 
 Marie Louise had the good sense to show proper 
 attentions to Napoleon's mother, who, by Jose- 
 phine's incredible adroitness, \s-as enlisted in the 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 
 
 253 
 
 ranks erf" her eQemks. La^iy, thougii a iabit of 
 
 mdtiaediie^ may seem a ver}- siigfet daing- in aa 
 Empress, it is dear tJiat Jos^imie earned ex- 
 tra-i-agaaoe to a pcsnt that even Napolecm, who 
 Eked peojde about him to be embarrassed and 
 d^yendesrt upon him, found inconvemeat. Bonr- 
 neone t^k vs how on one occaacm, when he 
 was entrusted with the setdemeat, Josephine would 
 cnty oojiless to twentj -four thoTisaud pounds worth 
 of habaBiy, though she admitted that the actual 
 bills ran 1^ to eaghtj'-four thousand pounds. 
 Anjthii^ was more ttderabie fha-n telling the whole 
 truth. Bonrrieane found that a sngie miffiseT's biH 
 ccanprised thirtv'-eaght bonnets for the monfli, one of 
 which was priced at nineSy potands. In most cases 
 the tradesmen were glad to take half as much as 
 thev' asked. It is tnie that this mone\' was not al- 
 together wasted- Jc«ephiae was die best dressed 
 w<»nan in ^^irope, and the Emperor changed 
 very mtich for the worse in st)ie given to his 
 court when he married an Aiistrian Princes, who 
 spent as much as Josephine, and only succeeded 
 in bdng the worst dressed woman in h^ society. 
 Because JosepMnt had less claim on Napoleon 
 than is often Siq>poS(ed, it do^ not follow that he 
 was jusu£<ed in divorcing her. He had condoned 
 all bo- cosqugsl indiscredons twdve years before. 
 
2 54 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and was incomparably more her debtor for the 
 tenderness and devotion with which she served 
 him since then than he had ever been for the 
 rather discreditable support she obtained for him 
 during the first years of their marriage. That 
 any reasons of State policy ought to outweigh 
 honour and gratitude cannot be maintained, and 
 Henry VIII divorcing Catherine because he had 
 come to love a younger woman, is really less 
 contemptible than Napoleon separating from a 
 wife, whom he regarded with real affection, to 
 make a State marriage with a girl who regarded 
 herself in a torpid way as a victim. As a matter 
 of fact, however, the marriage was a bad stroke 
 of policy. It is one of the many blunders in 
 which that much over-rated statesman, Talleyrand, 
 entangled his master, from incapacity to un- 
 derstand Napoleon's real position in the world. 
 Napoleon was a reactionary bringing back the old 
 order which the Revolution had seemed to efface, 
 but he was himself the child of the Revolution, 
 and no alliances could really bring him into the 
 family of Kings. His marriage did not convert 
 Austria into an ally, but it blinded him to his 
 danger on the side of Austria, and probably 
 entered into the calculations which dictated the 
 disastrous Russian campaign. Moreover, though 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 255 
 
 Josephine's influence was not great, it was good 
 as far as it went, and she was often the means 
 of hinting advice, which the Emperor's best friends 
 wished him to hear. Marie Louise was a mere 
 cipher; she did not care for her husband, she did 
 not care for her child; she used to spend her 
 whole days in the most trivial occupations. She 
 actually widened the breach between her husband's 
 and her father's family by eclipsing her step- 
 mother in the splendour of her dress when they 
 were at Dresden together. It seems incredible 
 that any statesman can have supposed that for 
 Napoleon to have a son of his own was to found 
 a dynasty. If he could have remained at peace 
 for twenty years, he might have designated his 
 successor out of any branch of his family. 
 
XV.— THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 
 
 SECOND NOTICE 
 
 Mdme. Junot was a girl of sixteen when she married 
 the big blundering grenadier who had attached 
 himself to Napoleon with a thoroughly spaniel- 
 like fidelity, and whom Napoleon accordingly 
 rewarded with an entire trust in all matters where 
 qualities of the head were required. It is tolerably 
 easy to understand why Junot was made Comman- 
 dant of Paris. Someone was wanted for that 
 post in whose loyalty Napoleon could feel implicit 
 confidence, and Junot being a man of some educa- 
 tion, and thoroughly frank, kind, and hospitable, 
 discharged the social duties of the position admir- 
 ably. Why, however. Napoleon should ever have 
 gone beyond this, and entrusted Junot with the 
 direction of a secret police, is perfectly inconceiv- 
 able. Junot was as helpless as a child in the 
 hands of his agents. He engaged the first man 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 
 
 257 
 
 who applied, and forwarded on the reports as 
 they were sent to him without dreaming that they 
 ought to be verified. The intention was to make 
 use of him as a check upon Fouch6, but Fouch6 
 was not long in discovering the First Consul's 
 device, and amused himself by setting his own 
 men to cram Junot's reporters with the most 
 incredible stories. Finally, as the reports were 
 always seen by the Emperor's private secretary, 
 Bourrienne, he communicated a story that Bour- 
 rienne had gone from Malmaison to Paris on a 
 particular night, and had talked against the First 
 Consul in the drawing-room in the Faubourg 
 St. Germain. That night Bourrienne, ' as it hap- 
 pened, had been working with Napoleon up to 
 three o'clock in the morning. Of course Junot 
 was very soon relieved of his function, which he 
 was, in fact, too honourable a man to exercise 
 properly. Mdme. Junot makes constant references 
 to the vigilance of the secret police which Napoleon 
 maintained. It is evident that he kept his best 
 friends under incessant surveillance, and had a 
 perfect legion of spies, who reported conversations 
 of every kind, very often with colourings of their 
 own. On one occasion, when Mdme. Junot was 
 in a bath at a fashionable establishment, a packet 
 of the most compromising kind was handed in 
 
 17 
 
2 58 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 to her, containing a number of scandalous pam- 
 phlets against Napoleon and a Royalist journal. 
 There can be little doubt that the intention was 
 to compromise the Permon family, as Mdme. 
 Junot's brother received a similar packet about 
 the same time. Happily they were discreet, and 
 communicated the matter at once to Junot, through 
 whom it was properly represented to Napoleon. 
 The use of all this abominable machinery seems 
 to have been worse than none to the head of 
 the State. The most dangerous conspiracy of 
 all, that of Mallet, to seize Paris during the 
 Russian campaign, was never so much as sus- 
 pected by Savary's agents. The only man that 
 really profited by the information obtained, was 
 Fouch6 during his period of office. After the 
 return from Elba he was able to correspond with 
 Metternich, although the Emperor had been 
 warned against him, and to counterplot all that 
 was done by Napoleon's friends. For spies to 
 have been of any use they should have been under 
 a man as able as Fouch6 and as loyal as Junot, 
 and the combination was an impossible one. 
 
 The religious surroundings of Mdme. Junot's 
 marriage were curious. Junot, a child of the 
 Revolution, had not added to his religious im- 
 pressions by military service, and expected to 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 259 
 
 marry his wife at the mayoralty. He soon 
 learned that he would have to take her from the 
 hands of the Church as well. The days when it 
 was permissible to be irreligious in good society had 
 been closed by the Reign of Terror, and Mdlle. 
 de Permon, though quite a girl, was thoroughly 
 equal to the occasion. When Junot pleaded 
 that she was asking him to make a confession of 
 faith she turned upon him with a fine scorn. 
 "'And suppose it is?' said I, 'what was the reli- 
 gion of your fathers ? You have been baptised, you 
 have been confirmed, you have received your 
 first communion, you have confessed. Here, then, 
 are four sacraments of which you have partaken, 
 and when that of marriage comes in its course, 
 suddenly you turn renegade, perhaps apostate.' " 
 The scene ended, of course, in Junot's giving 
 way and asking pardon of his betrothed on his 
 knees, but in deference to Napoleon's wishes the 
 ceremony was performed at night, and Mdlle. de 
 Permon's proper confessor refused to perform it, 
 amiably suggesting that Junot's wish for privacy 
 was dictated by a wish to conceal his union from 
 some former Mdme. Junot, who might turn up and 
 claim him. A few years later Napoleon would 
 have made short work of a refractory clergyman. 
 When the Cur6 of St. Roche refused to read the 
 
26o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 burial service over Mdlle. Chameroi, a dancer 
 who had died under the circumstances of some 
 scandal, Napoleon interposed to get him punished, 
 and gazetted the sentence in a notice which was^ 
 evidently dictated by himself. "The Cur6 of 
 St. Roche in a temporary forgetfulness of reason, 
 has refused to pray for Mdlle. Chameroi, and to 
 admit her remains within the church. The 
 Archbishop has ordered the Cur6 three months"^ 
 suspension to remind him that Jesus Christ com- 
 mands us even to pray for our enemies, and in 
 order that, recalled to a sense of his duty by 
 meditation, he may learn that aU the superstitious 
 practices preserved by some rituals, but which, 
 begotten in times of ignorance, or created by 
 the over-heated imagination of zealots, degrade 
 religion by their frivolity, were proscribed by 
 the Concordat and by the law of the i8th Ger- 
 minal." Evidently the Emperor had not read 
 the history of the GaUican Church when he was 
 a schoolboy without drawing some conclusions 
 of his own as to the relations of State and 
 Church. 
 
 We are not disposed to dispute Mdme. Junot's 
 statement that Napoleon did his best to promote 
 the ameHoration of morals produced by the Re- 
 volution, though she herself admits that it will 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 261 
 
 perhaps excite a smile. The fact is that the 
 morals of Tahiti as described by Canning in the 
 Anti-Jacobin, were scarcely less relaxed than those 
 of the old court had been, and though the Reign 
 of Terror produced a short access of libertinage 
 in a society which determined to make sure of 
 enjoyment as it was uncertain of life, the influence 
 of the Republican movement was in the direction 
 of austerity. Napoleon himself took a business- 
 like view of morals, and regarded them as a 
 necessary element in settled order. His private 
 life, though not irreproachable, was not scandalous, 
 and he enforced a very rigid etiquette among the 
 ladies of his court. His rules for his own conduct — 
 if he had any — were a little remarkable. Some 
 months after Mdme. Junot's marriage, she was one 
 of a large party of ladies atMalmaison. Josephine 
 was away at Plombi^res, and was represented by 
 her daughter, Hortense Buonaparte ijiee de 
 Beauharnais), who was still little more than a girl. 
 There were several other ladies of the party, but 
 the husbands, who were all busy in Paris, only 
 came over for part of the day to join the hunting 
 parties, or take part in the evening circle. Junot, 
 as Commandant of Paris was never at liberty to 
 stay for the night. One morning Mdme. Junot 
 awoke suddenly at five o'clock, and found the 
 
262 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 First Consul at her bedside. " It is really I, " 
 said he, "why so astonished?" and he proceeded 
 to seat himself in a chair by her bedside, and 
 consult her about a number of petitions and 
 business letters that he had received. Next morn- 
 ing the same scene. On the third morning Mdme. 
 Junot thought it desirable to secure herself from 
 intrusion, and being satisfied that her maid, who 
 slept in the anteroom, would not venture to 
 refuse Napoleon admission, she double-locked her 
 door, and put the key under the pillow. The 
 device succeeded, but for a minute only. Napoleon 
 returned with a pass key, and told Mdme. Junot 
 that he had only come to call her, and as she 
 was not living among a horde of Tartars she need 
 not barricade herself again. Mdme. Junot was 
 very perplexed what she ought to do. She felt 
 convinced that Napoleon had no bad intentions, 
 and that he would not dream of seducing the 
 wife of one of his oldest and most attached friends, 
 and that he still looked upon her as the little girl 
 whom he had known almost from her birth. 
 However, she took the wise course of persuading 
 her husband to stay with her that night, and 
 when Napoleon repeated his visit next morning 
 he could do it with some propriety, as Junot was 
 there to receive him. Junot, who knew nothing 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 263 
 
 of the previous visits, was satisfied with the First 
 Consul's explanation that he came to wake Mdme. 
 Junot for a hunting party. Napoleon, however, 
 was very angry, reproached Mdme. Junot in 
 private for not having spoken to himself if she 
 objected to his visits, and agreed that she should 
 leave Malmaison at once and go back to her mother. 
 Mdme. Junot professes to be sure that Napoleon 
 never really cherished any evil intentions, but we 
 think she is a little divided between this theory 
 which justifies her in having allowed him to go 
 so far and a little feminine feeling that Napoleon 
 was not a lover to be ashamed of, though it was 
 right to turn him away. Our own view, we 
 confess, is a good deal less lenient than Mdme. 
 Junot's. At the same time it is fair to observe 
 that although French etiquette is incomparably 
 more rigid than English, the privacy of the 
 sleeping apartment has never been so much 
 insisted on in France as among ourselves. On 
 one occasion the Princess Pauline brought her 
 chamberlain into Mdme. Junot's bedroom to 
 introduce him to her. Bourrienne teUs a story of 
 himself which may serve to illustrate the practice 
 of the time. Being Napoleon's secretary, he had 
 fallen into disgrace by an intrigue of Fouch6's, 
 who entrapped him into an incautious conversation 
 
264 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 with Louis Buonaparte. For three days Napoleon 
 insisted on opening all his letters by himself. 
 "The fourth day," says Bourrienne, "I let Buona- 
 parte go downstairs and go to bed. Half an 
 hour afterwards I went into his room. I was 
 allowed to go in always and at any hour. I had 
 a candle in my hand. I took a chair, and went 
 up to his bed, and put the light on a small table. 
 He woke up, and so did Josephine. 'What is 
 the matter then?' he said to me, in a surprised 
 tone. 'General, I have come to tell you that I 
 cannot stay with you. My position is insupportable 
 if I do not possess your confidence.'" There 
 followed a long conversation, in which Josephine 
 took part, and which lasted into the small hours 
 of the morning. Certainly such an expedient is 
 the last we can imagine an EngUsh secretary 
 adopting to recover the good graces of an offended 
 master. 
 
 To Mdme. Junot at least Napoleon the Emperor 
 was not changed for the worse by the fortune 
 that made him the greatest man upon earth. 
 Throughout her narrative his character is essentially 
 the same — ambitious and profoundly selfish where 
 his sympathies were not touched, but capable of 
 unselfish and generous actions where he was roused. 
 One story that she tells is very Uttle known. Just 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 265 
 
 before he set out to fight the battle of Wagram, 
 one of his Ministers brought him a list of seventeen 
 men of high position who were conspiring against 
 him, but so unskilfully that all their plans were 
 known to the police. The Minister asked what 
 he was to do with them. " Nothing, " replied 
 the Emperor, "nothing at all, my dear Count. I 
 punish my enemies only when their intrigues 
 interfere with my plans for the good of the people, 
 it is for that, not because they oppose me, that 
 I punish them. I am less of a Corsican than I 
 am thought." . The answer was that of a mag- 
 nanimous and of a strong man. On the other 
 hand, Mdme. Junot justly condemns the insulting 
 bulletins in which Napoleon attacked the Queen 
 of Prussia. It was one of the Emperor's greatest 
 weaknesses that he was as sensitive as a child to 
 attacks in the press, and yet was perpetually 
 dictating paragraphs himself Still, even in this 
 Prussian war, which brought out some of the 
 sternest traits of his character, there is the pleasing 
 episode of his tearing up and burning the letter 
 on the evidence of which the Prince de Hatzfeldt 
 had been condemned to death as a spy, because 
 he was moved by his wife's entreaties and tears. 
 M. Paul de R6musat has suggested that the real 
 cause of his generosity was that Napoleon had 
 
266 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 discovered that the evidence was insufficient for 
 the sentence of death. Surely this is a refinement 
 of unworthy suspicion? General Rapp, who was 
 present, says that he was in deadly fear for the 
 Prince's life, and Napoleon himself, in his account 
 of the interview to Josephine, says that in two 
 hours more the Prince would have been shot. In 
 these cases it may be said that Napoleon was 
 generous but not unselfish. Neither was he 
 thinking of his ambition when, hearing that Marie 
 Louise was in danger during her first confinement, 
 he ran hastily downstairs, crying out to the doctor, 
 "Save the mother, think only of the mother." 
 Neither, when the child was first born, did he give 
 it a thought till he had reassured himself as to 
 his wife's condition. Nevertheless Napoleon was 
 a devoted and tender father. Mdme. Junot 
 represents him as constantly playing with his little 
 son, and as taking great pains with his education, 
 and S6gur says that in one of the gloomiest mo- 
 ments of the march upon Moscow he called up 
 the officers and soldiers of the guard to join him 
 in looking at a picture of the young King of 
 Rome, which had just been sent to him from 
 Paris. 
 
 Of Napoleon's sisters, Pauline, the prettiest and 
 the silliest, is the one who figures most amusingly 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 267 
 
 in Mdme. Junot's memoirs. Junot had been madly 
 in love with Pauline when she was quite a girl, and 
 wanted to marry her on his Lieutenant's pay, and 
 the prospect that when his father died he would 
 come in for a capital of eight hundred pounds, 
 but Napoleon took a less sanguine view of the 
 situation, and insisted that they were not rich 
 enough to marry. Why he allowed her to marry 
 General Leclerc is difficult to explain. He had 
 no affection for Leclerc, who was without dis- 
 tinction as a soldier, and was incessantly asking 
 him for money. It was by way of paying his 
 debts that he was sent out to St. Domingo. The 
 fair Pauline was in despair at the prospect of 
 leaving Paris. " I one day found her, " says 
 Mdme. Junot, in a paroxysm of despair and tears 
 quite distressing to anyone who had not known 
 her as well as I did. 'Ah, Laurette,' she said, 
 throwing herself into my arms, 'how fortunate 
 you are. You stay at Paris. Good heaven, how 
 melancholy I shall be ! How can my brother be 
 so hard-hearted, so wicked, as to send me into 
 exile among savages and serpents! '" Mdme. Junot 
 proceeded to comfort her as one would a child, 
 telling her she would be queen of the island, 
 would ride in a palanquin, that slaves would 
 watch her looks to execute her wishes, that she 
 
268 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 would walk in groves of orange trees, that she 
 need have no dread of serpents, as they were 
 worse in the Antilles, and that savages were 
 equally harmless. " Finally, I summed up my 
 consolatory harangue by telling her that she would 
 look very pretty in the Creole costume. Mdme. 
 Leclerc's sobs became less and less hysterical. 
 'You really think, Laurette,' said she, 'that I 
 shall look pretty, prettier than usual, in a Creole 
 turban, a short waist, and a petticoat of striped 
 muslin!'" Mdme. Leclerc rang for all the ban- 
 danas in the house and tried them on, and got 
 so enraptured with the effect in the glass that she 
 insisted on Mdme. Junot and her husband accom- 
 panying her to St. Domingo. " We wiU give you 
 balls and form parties of pleasure among those 
 beautiful mountains. Junot shall be commandant 
 of the capital. What is its name ? " In short, Junot, 
 who had no wish to be exiled from France, was 
 obliged to go off to the First Consul, or a request, 
 as if from himself, would have been sent in for 
 his services from General Leclerc. Pauline was 
 twenty-one years old at the time of this conversation, 
 and she did not get more sensible in later life. 
 When she came back a widow she chafed under 
 the restraints of the seclusion which Napoleon 
 compelled her to observe, though "she looked 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 269 
 
 most angelic in her weeds. " '"I shall certainly 
 perish under this, Laurette,' she said to me one 
 day. 'If my brother determines to shut me out 
 from the world I will put an end to my existence 
 at once. ' " Junot brought back her good humour 
 by observing that though he had heard of a 
 Venus di Medici, and a Venus Victrix, there was 
 no precedent for a Venus Suicide. Happily for 
 herself she was soon after married to the Prince 
 Borghese, a handsome and very stupid man, who 
 Wcis an excellent match for her, and by whom 
 she became possessed of the finest collection of 
 private jewels in Europe. The one blemish in her 
 remarkable beauty was the shape of her ears, 
 which were thin, flat pieces of cartilage, without 
 form or comeliness. Her statue by Canova in- 
 mortahses the graceful outlines of her face and 
 form, and her remark about it is likely to live as 
 long at least as the marble. Being asked by a 
 friend if she did not feel it awkward to sit per- 
 fectly undraped to Canova, she replied with per- 
 fect naivete : " Oh, of course, I took care to 
 have a good fire in the room." . 
 
 Although Napoleon in some ways inspired more 
 awe than sovereigns generally command, and was 
 demoralised by the serviUty he witnessed around 
 him, he could not enforce peace in his own house- 
 
2 70 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 hold, and was now and again right royally hen- 
 pecked. Josephine was a very jealous wife, and 
 unhappily had two kinds of jealousy — lest her 
 husband's affections should be seduced from her, 
 and lest she and her family should be thrust aside 
 by the intrigues of the Buonapartes. Mdme. de 
 R6musat describes her as once sallying forth to 
 interrupt Napoleon in a tete-a-iete with the actress 
 Mdme. Georges, and but for Mdme. de R6musat's 
 timidity it seems that this would actually have 
 been done. Mdme. Junot tells us that Napoleon's 
 attentions to herself was the cause of a scene at 
 a hunting party, where Josephine burst into tears, 
 and sobbed till the Emperor dragged her out of the 
 carriage and scolded her into good behaviour. 
 The Napoleon correspondence shows that he had 
 to bear her suspicions and reproaches when he 
 was away from France. She was perpetually 
 scheming to get the succession settled upon a 
 son of her daughter Hortense or upon her son 
 Eugene. Napoleon's sisters were at least equally 
 troublesome. When the title of "princess" was 
 given to the wives of Joseph and Louis Buona- 
 parte, Mdme. Murat sobbed at the dinner-table, 
 and Mdme. Bacciochi made herself as unpleasant 
 as possible. Napoleon amused himself by doing 
 everything to excite their irritation, and the next 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 271 
 
 day tried to have it out with them in the famous 
 scene in which he remarked : " One would think 
 we were really sharing the inheritance of the late 
 king, our father." The end of it was, however, 
 that he had to pay for his amusement by making 
 Mdme. Bacciochi Princess of Piombino, and 
 Mdme. Murat Queen of Naples, where she was 
 the instigator of her husband's treason. Even 
 Napoleon's generals sometimes remembered their 
 old equality, and told him very rough truths. 
 When he gave the credit of the battle of Eylau 
 to Murat, Lannes remonstrated with him in set 
 terms : " This brother-in-law of yours is a charlatan, 
 with his dress out of the pantomime and his 
 feathers like a dancing dog's. Augereau and I 
 have done our duty and we refuse the honour of 
 this day to your brother-in-law — to His Imperial 
 and Royal Highness, the Prince Murat. And so, 
 because you have marched through blood over 
 this field of execution, you think yourself a great 
 man for your battle of Eylau, and your proud 
 cock of a brother-in-law comes to crow over us. " 
 The notices of her husband in Mdme. Junot's 
 book serve to make us like and respect him very 
 thoroughly, though they cannot alter the verdict 
 of history that he wanted the eye and the decision 
 that are needed to make a great general. He 
 
2 72 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 refused to arrest the English who were in France 
 when war suddenly broke out again between the 
 two nations. He indignantly rejected the proposal 
 of a subordinate to buy up all the cotton in Lis- 
 bon, at a time when regulations of which only 
 he knew were about to treble its value. At 
 Saragossa the canons of the cathedral who offered 
 a third of their treasure to Lannes were told by 
 him that they must first make the same offer to 
 Junot and Mortier. Junot drove them away 
 angrily, being then in a state of great irritation, 
 and Mortier refused the offer more courteously 
 but with equal resoluteness. The result was that 
 Lannes carried off the whole. It is gratifying to 
 find that Junot and his wife were habitually on 
 friendly terms with the English when they met, 
 though Mdme. Junot writes about the English 
 policy precisely as our forefathers write about 
 Napoleon's. Junot was very intimate with Sir 
 Sydney Smith, the Englishman of all others whom 
 Napoleon is said to have hated most. Later on, 
 when Junot was wounded in Spain, the Duke of 
 Wellington went to offer him medical comforts 
 from the English army, and to give him the last 
 news of his wife. Mdme. Junot herself was a 
 debtor to the Duke for a safe journey into France. 
 After the war she made his acquaintance at Vienna, 
 
THE COURT OF NAPOLEON 273 
 
 and learned to regard him as a friend. Yet, so 
 bitter was the feeling between nations at that time, 
 that when she gave a dinner-party in his honour, 
 a French general, whom she invited to meet him, 
 and who was one of the old nobility, came in a 
 riding coat with nankeen trousers and dusty shoes, 
 for the express purpose of showing disrespect to 
 the English general. Yet this was a man who 
 was commonly most punctilious about the forms 
 of society, and he assured Mdme. Junot that all 
 his brother officers would have done as he did. 
 Truly there is a strange alloy of pettiness in the 
 French character. 
 
 18 
 
XVI.— SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 More than fifteen years ago there was a clever 
 article in the London Spectator, inquiring what 
 was the reason why Scotchmen were so success- 
 ful in life. The writer, who had seen a good 
 deal of the Scotch in India, accoiinted for it by 
 their remarkable patience, and gave as an illustra- 
 tion that a Scotchman would always hear a 
 native to the end of whatever he had to say, while 
 an Englishman would cut him short as soon as 
 he thought he had mastered the matter in hand. 
 The fact, assuming it to be correct, is certainly 
 a very important one, and would seem to testify to 
 something more than patience, to courtesy in the 
 relations with an inferior race, and to the tho- 
 roughness in the sifting of evidence. It may be 
 questioned, however, whether the solution is suf- 
 ficient in itself, and whether some other qualities 
 besides patience had not been needed to give 
 the Scotch that remarkable power of rising over 
 
 "74 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 275 
 
 the heads of their neighbours which has by this 
 time become proverbial. George III probably 
 hinted at one cause when he remarked that if he 
 ever asked a Scotchman's countryman about him 
 he was certain to receive the most favourable 
 account of which the case would allow, while an 
 Irishman's countrymen were equally certain to run 
 him down. It must be borne in mind, however, 
 that what we have to account for is not success 
 Tinder ordinary conditions, but success in the face 
 of unusual difficulties. From the fact of his coun- 
 try being too small and too poor to afford a 
 field for his energies, the Scot has been com- 
 pelled for centuries to make a name and carve a 
 future abroad. Scotch cadets have risen to the 
 highest distinction in France, in Austria, in Sweden, 
 in Russia and in Poland, during times when the 
 English jealousy of them was so strong as to make 
 the continent a more profitable field of enterprise 
 than England. It may be added that while the 
 Scotch, from a very early time, have been noted 
 as more courteous than the English, they were 
 •disliked at one time for a certain tone of gasco- 
 :nade, which probably grew upon them as a species 
 of self-assertion. " They are vain and ostentatious 
 by nature," says Don Pedro de Ayala, who visited 
 them in the fifteenth century. " They are the most 
 
2 76 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 courteous, the proudest, and the most impudent of 
 all people, with a conceit and genuine belief that 
 they are the only people in the world," says. 
 Luther, who adds that they are to be found in 
 every city in Germany. " In every country I will 
 myself advance, I will boast myself, I will crack, 
 and face," are the words which Borde, who had 
 Uved in Scotland, put into the mouth of his typical 
 Scotchman. We need not ask if this estimate is. 
 true or false. It it was generally beUeved, the 
 Scot abroad had this also to contend with in 
 addition to all the disadvantages of a strange 
 language, and different creed, and the want of 
 family connection. Nevertheless he succeeded thea 
 as he succeeds now. 
 
 We had hopes that Mr. Paxton Hood's book- 
 on Scotch characteristics would incidentally have- 
 disclosed the secret of Scotch success. Unfortu- 
 nately Mr. Hood's volume is the merest book- 
 making. He, of course, sees that there is some- 
 thing to be explained, and he now and again 
 stops to make us notice "the shrewdness and 
 strength" of the Scotch character, or that the 
 Scotch appear through all ages as " the most; 
 restless of mortals," or that they are far less in- 
 sular than the English, or that they have strong 
 religious convictions. What we want is something 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 277 
 
 like systematic analysis. Englishmen north of the 
 H umber are probably quite as shrewd and strong 
 as the Scotch Lowlander, to whom they are closer 
 akin than to the English Southron, but, though 
 they have a reputation for hardheadedness, they 
 are nowhere in popular estimation as compared 
 with the Scotch for the faculty of getting on. 
 As for restlessness, the English proverb declares 
 that the rolling stone gathers no moss, and it is 
 only the Scotchman and the Yankee who seem 
 irrefutable evidences to the contrary. The chances, 
 of course, are that the Scotchman succeeds in vir- 
 tue of a variety of qualities and a combination of 
 circumstances rather than because he is any one 
 thing pre-eminently. Probably, the race that com- 
 pares best with the Scotch is the Swedish. The 
 Swedes are very much of the same family of 
 nations as the Lowland Scotch, have the same 
 religion, inhabit a small country, are naturally 
 warlike and have had a military aristocracy, are 
 veiy susceptible of polish, and have always culti- 
 vated a close friendship with France. There was 
 a time when Sweden was one of the great powers 
 of Europe, because her small army was wielded 
 by consummate statesmen and generals. Sweden 
 has been outgrown by other powers, and has had 
 no opportunity of associating herself with the 
 
2-/8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 fortunes of a more powerful neighbour. Scotland^ 
 on the other hand, which was kept by England 
 from playing the part of Sweden on the continent, 
 has been richly compensated by the advcintages 
 of a union, which has thrown open the prizes of 
 a great empire to a people who, left to them- 
 selves, must have been as weak as Sweden, and 
 who now contribute very much more than their 
 share to the government of something like a fourth 
 of the human race. 
 
 The famous story of Bruce and the spider may 
 be regarded as a parable that very well illus- 
 trates the dogged tenacity of purpose which is 
 certainly more striking and probably the mam 
 factor in Scotch success. Mr. Hood quotes a 
 characteristic proverb, " He that thrives (or en- 
 dures) overcomes," and gives several instances 
 of the dogged good humour with which a Scotch- 
 man has submitted to rebuffs in order that he 
 might attain his end. One is the story of a com- 
 mercial traveller, who, when he was ordered out 
 of a counting-house, and his hat thrown into the 
 street, as a sign that his presence was not desired, 
 calmly picked it up, came back, and said, "Yon 
 was an iU bird, man, ye'll surely take a look at 
 the gudes now?" In this instance patience and 
 good temper were rewarded, the traveller's stock 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 279 
 
 was examined, and the foundation of a profitable 
 business laid. What is peculiarly striking about 
 it is that this self-control seems thoroughly in- 
 consistent with the fiery temper which from time 
 immemorial has been noted as an attribute not 
 only of Highland chief, but of Lowland laird and 
 yeoman. We can understand the Polish Jew, 
 degraded by centuries of ill-usage, or the Bengalee, 
 ruined and subtle, enduring insults passively and 
 revenging themselves by a good bargain, but such 
 pliancy seems to take us into another world from 
 that of the fiercer people who held their own for 
 centuries against England, and who produced the 
 Covenanters and the Cameronians. We must, of 
 course, assume that in the Scotch character im- 
 pulse, however strong, is subordinated to reason 
 and calculation. In matters of business the Scotch- 
 man knows that anger will not advance his ends, 
 and he deliberately puts it aside as unbusiness- 
 like. In matters of religion and politics, he looks 
 beyond the momentary advantage to the permanent 
 interest, and uses his impetuosity to strengthen 
 his action. In both cases the characteristic of 
 looking beyond the present to the fiiture is equally 
 marked, though in the one case it counsels endu- 
 rance, and in the other opposition. 
 
 A people with this tendency to calculate ought 
 
28o REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 unquestionably to succeed in fields of activity 
 where forces have to be measured. The Scotch- 
 man's intellect is essentially of the scientific rather 
 than of the artistic kind. He is apt to be good 
 in mathematics, though the country has not thus 
 far produced a Newton, a Laplace, or a Gauss, 
 he is a good engineer, a good ship-builder, an 
 admirable strategist. He differs from the Jew 
 from being rather a merchant, a manufacturer, or 
 a planter than a purely speculative operator upon 
 the Exchange. He does not seem to have the 
 Jew's aptitude for music, the most mathematical 
 of the arts, but he competes with him in abstract 
 metaphysics, having a distinct school of Scotch 
 philosophy to set off" against Spinoza and Men- 
 delssohn. Superior to the Englishman in all or 
 most of the respects, he seems to fall below him 
 in the highest imaginative faculty. Shakespeare, 
 Bacon, Newton, Gibbon, Darwin, represent a grasp 
 of imaginative range to which there has not been 
 any parallel as yet among Scotchmen. The vision 
 and the faculty divine that enable a great thinker 
 to look down as if from some intellectual Pisgah 
 upon the whole world of humanity, or the evolu- 
 tion of human action, or the system of the universe, 
 seem to be incompatible with the keen spirit of 
 analysis which is the main element in Scotch 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 281 
 
 observation, Scotch canniness, and Scotch philo- 
 sophy. A people who are fond of nature and 
 capable of strong feeling are almost bound to 
 have some poetical power. Scotland, however, 
 has never risen beyond the poetry of ballads and 
 songs, of which the highest type is to be found in 
 Burns. Her highest approach to creative poetry- 
 is to be found in the prose of the Waverley 
 novels. We may surely say of these that their 
 charm resides in the vivid succession of incidents, 
 in the descriptions of scenery, in the freshness of 
 local colouring, in everything rather than in the 
 delineation of character. Scott, in fact, was an 
 unrivalled story-teller, where the lowest of the 
 Elizabethan dramatists was a poet. 
 
 Ever since Sydney Smith's famous saying that 
 it takes a surgical operation to get a joke into a 
 Scotchman's head, it has been the fashion to 
 assume that the Scotch have no humour, or, as 
 it is sometimes put, that they have only a special 
 endowment known as "wut." Dean Ramsay has 
 done a great deal to remove this reproach, but 
 Mr. Paxton Hood leaves us in doubt whether he 
 himself understands in what humour consists. 
 Many of his stories are nothing more than the 
 blunders of ignorance or conceit. The first point 
 we have to start from in the consideration of 
 
282 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Scotch wit is the undeniable fact that the Scotch 
 mind is apt to be unready. Men who live a 
 great deal by themselves are not likely to be 
 quick at repartee, and a people that has been 
 isolated among its native wastes, and that has 
 trained itself to an austere discipUne of speech, 
 may easily be at a disadvantage when it comes 
 to contend with races that have the habit of 
 society. The records of the best sayings of the 
 best Edinburgh society of old days, when Edinburgh 
 was still a capital, are not to be compared with 
 the reminiscences of Irish wit in the times before 
 the Union that filled the pages of Barrington. 
 Neither must we expect in Scotch humour that 
 subtle penetrative essence which enters so largely 
 into Sterne or the light touch of Goldsmith or 
 Washington Irving. Scotch humour is apt to be 
 dry, Scotch wit bitter. We should be inclined 
 to cite among the best instances of Scotch repartee 
 those of Sir Andrew Mitchell to Frederick the 
 Great. When Mitchell once reported an English 
 victory over the French, with the usual addition 
 that it was won by the help of Providence, 
 Frederick rejoined sarcastically that he had not 
 been aware Providence was among the allies of 
 England. "Yes, Sire," was the rejoinder, "and she 
 is the only one who never asks for a subsidy." 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 283 
 
 In our own time, Carlyle was probably, in his 
 own way, the wittiest among his contemporaries, 
 certainly the wittiest among writers on serious 
 subjects. He has left sentences that seem to 
 sear as with a hot iron. What can be more 
 pungent than that contemptuous description of 
 " the new Gospel of Humanity of which Messrs. 
 Balzac and Sue are the evangelists, and Madame 
 Sand the Virgin?" Was an over-rated man ever 
 more happily reduced to his proper dimensions 
 than in the description of Cobden as " an inspired 
 cotton-spinner, who raves about a calico millen- 
 nium " ? It may be said that Carlyle's wit is not 
 eminently Scotch in its form. If shrewd observa- 
 tion of incongruities, and a great power of bring- 
 ing out contrasts into salient relief are not eminently 
 Scotch, we must shelter ourselves in the general 
 truth that wit in its highest forms ceases to be 
 local. Even so, it will remain true that Scotland 
 has produced one writer whose wit is of the purest 
 quality though it is only a small part of his style. 
 Given a strong, silent, reserved man, prone by 
 intellect to look forward to the future rather than 
 to live in the present, and fond of metaphysical 
 speculations, we get the explanation of that 
 tenacity of religious conviction in the Scotch, 
 which made their reformation so thorough-going 
 
284 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 and so enduring. Beyond this, however, Presby- 
 terianism has been hammered into the race by 
 the persistent efforts of English rulers to hammer 
 it out. What is remarkable is that with so many 
 Scotchmen travelling abroad, and with the Scotch 
 mind so addicted as it is to logical speculations, 
 there should have been so few heretics and free- 
 thinkers in past centuries. There seem to be 
 indications just now of approaching change, and 
 it is not unlikely that if Scotch belief changes at 
 all it will change altogether, and will swing round 
 from Puritanism to Freethought, as it passed from 
 extreme Romanism to Puritanism. Meanwhile it 
 may be noted that in Scotland the love of gain, 
 keen as it is supposed to be, has never led the 
 people into such unworthy compliances as the 
 Dutch practised in Japan. As a rule the Scotch- 
 man has kept his faith wherever he went. StiU 
 more certainly has every Scotch community 
 carried out the Scotch Sabbath and the Kirk to 
 every part of the world in which it has settled 
 down. 
 
 With respect to the Scotch love of travel, we 
 believe it to be as old as over-population in 
 Scotland. It has been the cause of a great deal 
 of wit. As long ago as 1647 the Englishman 
 Cleveland wrote — 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 285 
 
 "Had Cain been » Scot, God would have changed his doom. 
 Not forced him wander but confined him home." 
 
 And Dr. Johnson, a century later, remarked that 
 the finest view a Scotchman ever saw was the 
 high road from Edinburgh to London. The Swiss, 
 the Auvergnats of France, and the Gallicians of 
 Spain are all distinguished by the same charac- 
 teristic, but the Scotch and the Swiss are the 
 most remarked because of their eminent success. 
 That there is any restlessness in the race seems 
 improbable. Indeed, the strong local patriotism 
 of the Scotchman forbids this supposition. The 
 simple fact is that the Scotchman could take un- 
 usual energy and mother wit, as well as in old 
 times unusual education, into the service of foreign 
 countries, and foreign countries would give him 
 in return what he needed, money and a sphere. 
 Why the Scotchman should be better fitted for 
 the continent than the Englishman from being less 
 insular seems more difficult to explain. Both in 
 France and Germany he catches the language and 
 adapts himself to the manner better than his coun- 
 tryman south of the Tweed. Perhaps the simple 
 explanation is that, belonging to his smaller 
 nationality, he has less of that insufferable conceit, 
 which leads the Englishman and the Frenchman 
 to regard themselves as incapable of improvement. 
 
286 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 Certainly the Scot, though he travels a great deal, 
 has never forced his national dishes or his habits 
 upon the people of the continent as the English 
 tourist has done. Paris and Berlin may be searched 
 in vain for a haggis or a sheep's head, while 
 beefsteak and malt liquor follow the Englishman, 
 like his shadow, over all the globe. It must be 
 admitted that where the races are distinguished 
 one from another, the Scotchman — in virtue 
 of his forbearance — is the more popular of 
 the two. 
 
 Books on Scotland suggest a curious question, 
 "Who are the Scotch?" Almost every nation is 
 made up by the fusion of very different races. 
 The Englishman is more Dane than Dutchman 
 in the north, more Dutchman than Dane in the 
 south, has a strong infusion of Welsh blood in 
 the marches, and has a leaven of French blood 
 in the higher classes and some of the older towns. 
 The Frenchman is compounded with Fleming and 
 German and Basque in different parts of his 
 territory. Still in neither of these cases is the 
 original contrast so strong as that which divides 
 the Celtic Highlanders, still speaking Gaelic, from 
 the Lowlander of Saxon ancestry. Go back a 
 century or two, and the contrast, of course, is 
 stronger still. The Highlander was a soldier and 
 
SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS 287 
 
 a drover, often a Catholic by religion, and recog- 
 nised no superior but his chief. The Lowlander 
 was an agriculturist or a dweller in towns, inclining 
 to Puritanism in religion, and a stern asserter of 
 popular liberty against arbitrary government. The 
 Highland traditions are of Fingal and of Ossian, 
 the Lowland of Bruce and the Black Douglas. 
 The Highlander is reputed to be proud, where 
 the Lowlander is "dour", and the Highlander 
 lazy and wanting in resource, where the Lowlander 
 in laborious and inventive. Nevertheless, every 
 writer on Scottish characteristics mixes tales of 
 the Highlander and of the Lowlander almost at 
 random, and no one is struck by the incongruity. 
 Mr. Paxton Hood, for instance, elucidates Scotch 
 culture in the old times by the story of a Highland 
 farmer, who knew French and Latin, and had a 
 good library of standard English works. He 
 illustrates Scotch superstition by stories from the 
 Highlands. Both the appreciation of culture and 
 the superstitious temperament appear to be cha- 
 racteristics of the Lowlander also. We may 
 probably say that the races have intermingled 
 sufficiently to have a good deal in common, but 
 above all a common history, a common civilisation, 
 common interests and a fellowship in a common 
 land have produced a sentiment of unity which 
 
288 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 overpowers the indestructible differences of race. 
 Even so, a better analysis of Scotch character 
 would aim at distinguishing the Saxon from the 
 Celtic element. 
 
XVII. —EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 
 
 M. Renan, the author of the famous Life 0/ ^esus, 
 the man on whose lips London society, ever 
 greedy of a new sensation, was hanging only a 
 few months ago, though he talked of philosophy, 
 has written the history of his early years. It is 
 the record of a Breton who has lost his faith, 
 of a seminarist who has renounced orthodox 
 Christianity, of a sceptic who has restored faith 
 to hundreds of cynical materialists, of a Liberal 
 who, in spite of his sacrifices and his doubts, is 
 looked upon with distrust by French Republicans, 
 and who loses no opportunity of avowing the 
 scorn and hatred he feels for democracy. When 
 we add that, to our apprehension, M. Renan has 
 never ceased to carry the surplice under the 
 academic gown, that he is a priest in every fibre, 
 though he cannot minister at the altar, and an 
 aristocrat by taste and sympathy, though his life 
 
 has been divided between peasants and scholars, 
 
 289 
 
 19 
 
290 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 we have probably said enough to indicate the 
 curious interest his confessions cannot fail to have 
 for the student. At the same time it should be 
 clearly understood that the book is a portraiture 
 and analysis of character rather than the record 
 of a life. M. Renan, who is now ageing, seems 
 anxious before he quits the world to explain the 
 curious position he has held, divided by thought 
 from the men with whom he sympathises, and 
 isolated by taste and feeling from the men among 
 whom his thoughts have driven him. Although 
 he writes with less " gush " than St. Augustine, 
 and with less cynical abandonment than Rousseau, 
 the passages in which he discusses his unworld- 
 liness, his modesty, his politeness, and his strict 
 morality, strike us as bearing the impress of the 
 confessional. No one who had not been trained 
 to regard himself as a mere dead subject for 
 moral analysis could have written so unreservedly 
 about himself, and the outspokenness is the more 
 remarkable in one who has never shaken off the 
 repressive influence of early discipHne. On the 
 other hand, M. Renan writes with the reserve of 
 a gentleman about his own teachers in the church, 
 for whom he evidently retains the kindliest feeling. 
 They, no doubt, look upon him as a lost soul, 
 he feels towards them as the readers of Victor 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 291 
 
 Hugo's Les Misdrables feel towards the model 
 Bishop. " I passed thirteen years of my life under 
 the charge of priests," says M. Renan, "and I never 
 ■saw anything approaching to a scandal. All the 
 priests I have known have been good men." M. 
 Renan's experience is, we imagine, not an uncom- 
 mon one. No one can have watched the revival 
 •of Catholicism in France during the last generation 
 "without understanding that it owes nothing to its 
 intellectual leaders, and everything to the blame- 
 less, self-denying lives of its teachers. That being 
 .so strong it has also been so weak, and is now 
 visibly losing ground, will be fairly intelligible to 
 those who read M. Renan's sympathetic narrative 
 ■of the training that drove him out of the church. 
 M. Renan supposes himself to be by race " a 
 Celt crossed with Gascon, with a slight infusion 
 of Laplander blood," and observes that the mix- 
 ture, according to the scientific theory, ought to 
 represent the maximum of idiotcy and imbecility. 
 He remarks, however, that what science treats as 
 stupidity among the ancient races of men, is often 
 neither more nor less than an extraordinary force 
 of enthusiasm and intuition. To our own recol- 
 lection M. Renan is a typical Breton, with the 
 square build and serious character of the race, 
 and with the reserved manners of an intellectual 
 
292 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 recluse. We do not profess to know what he 
 means by an ancient race of men, or why an 
 earlier type, if there be one, should have a reserve 
 of natural force which a modern type does not 
 possess. To us M. Renan is very naturally 
 accounted for by his own intellectual capacities,, 
 by the descent from generations that had struck 
 root in the most devout province of France, by a. 
 childhood reared in traditions of the saints and 
 of the Revolution, by an education among priests,, 
 and a life among scholars. Some of his stories of 
 the superstitions that still flourished in the Brittany 
 which he knew as a child seem almost incredible 
 to those who have never ascertained for themselves 
 what the country people of England believed thirty 
 years ago. One of his mother's neighbours was a 
 sorceress who consulted the fates to learn whether 
 Ernest Renan, a sickly infant, would live, by throw- 
 ing one of his shifts into a sacred lake. She 
 came back in high glee. "He means to live. 
 No sooner had I thrown the little shift on to the 
 surface than it lifted itself up. Ah, if you had seen 
 how the two arms stretched themselves out ! " 
 Renan's own father was cured of fever as a child 
 by being taken to the chapel of a wonder-work- 
 ing saint. " A blacksmith arrived at the same 
 time with his forge, nails, and tongs. He lighted 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 293 
 
 his fire, made his tongs red-hot and held 
 them before the face of the saint, threatening to 
 shoe him as he would a horse unless he cured 
 the child of his fever. The threat took immediate 
 effect, and my father was curisd. " " In country 
 districts (of Brittany) it is no uncommon thing to 
 find as many as ten or fifteen chapels in a single 
 parish, most of them little huts with a single door 
 and window, and dedicated to some saint unknown 
 to the rest of Christendom. " These are the saints 
 whom the peasants really worship, and whom the 
 clergy, reluctantly enough, are compelled to recog- 
 nise. We doubt if there be any country in Europe 
 where the religious enlightenment is much higher 
 than it was in the better days of the Roman 
 Empire. Then also there was an enlightened 
 religion among the upper classes of society, and 
 then also the popular faith, by whatever name 
 it might be called, was another phase of Paganism. 
 Neither are we very sanguine as to the changes 
 that modern civilisation has wrought. The remark 
 of a French peasant, "I do not believe in God, 
 because I have never seen Him, but I believe in 
 St. Martin of Tours, because I have seen the 
 miracle that he has wrought," strikes us as very 
 characteristic of a time when superstition has sim- 
 ply changed its object and become coarsely ma- 
 
2 94 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 terialistic where it was fanciful. It is only in new 
 communities like America and Australia, where 
 the old associations and legends have been left 
 behind, that education finds the mind like a blank 
 tablet on which the primer and the rule of three 
 can be inscribed. 
 
 Happily for M. Renan even Brittany has been 
 penetrated by the splendid fervour of the Revolution, 
 the war of ideas, in which faith was purified, and 
 the mind partially liberated. M. Renan's mother 
 and grandmother were ardent devotees, sheltering 
 the priests, celebrating mass privately, and meet- 
 ing in prayer at a distance from the town when 
 one of the party was brought to the guillotine. 
 Most of his uncles, on the other hand, were 
 fervid patriots, who let their beards grow when 
 any national calamity happened, such as the 
 treason of Dumouriez, and one of whom openly 
 threatened his cousin to denounce her if she was 
 found concealing the priests or aristocrats. Never- 
 theless, the impression left by the Revolution on 
 Renan's mother, was, on the whole, favourable. 
 She learned the patriotic songs privately, she 
 shared the enthusiasm and wild delight that 
 mingled with scenes of terror, and she taught her 
 son to do justice to the generous motives of the 
 men whom English historians have so unscrupu- 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 295 
 
 lously maligned. "When I see the inveterate 
 persistency of foreign writers," says M. Renan, 
 "to try and prove that the French Revolution 
 was one long story of folly and shame, and that 
 it is but an unimportant factor in the world's 
 history, I begin to think that it is perhaps the 
 greatest of our achievements, since other people 
 are so jealous of it." M. Renan remembers one 
 old man, a stranger in Brittany, who was nick- 
 named M. Systeme, from his philosophical talk, 
 and whom the clergy regarded with absolute 
 horror as the possessor of a sceptical library, the 
 books of which he was willing to lend to his 
 neighbours. When this gentleman died, after a 
 blameless and lovable life, nothing was found to 
 throw light upon the mystery of his earlier years 
 except a packet of faded flowers tied up with 
 tricolour ribbon. M. Renan thinks that there is 
 good reason to believe that the stranger was a 
 terrorist in hiding, and that the flowers were a 
 relic from "the festival of the Supreme Being." 
 Readers of Quinet will remember his story of 
 the old Jacobin, who declared that he and St. 
 Just had been actually filled with a greater pre- 
 sence than animates man when they point to the 
 guns of a battery against the enemies of the 
 Republic. Such men, as M. Renan says, were 
 
296 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 uncompromising in their beliefs, and when they 
 were "left standing alone, Uke the survivors of a 
 world of giants, loaded with the opprobrium of 
 the human race, they could hold no sort of com- 
 munion with the living." 
 
 Naturally enough the influences of the Revolution 
 counted for nothing in Renan's school life. The 
 first schoolmasters were priests who regarded 
 Lamartine with profound suspicion and did not 
 thoroughly trust Chateaubriand himself Their 
 idea, and it was that of M. Renan's teachers at 
 the Issy seminary, to which he afterwards went, 
 was that there had been no French literature of 
 any real value since the death of Louis XIV. 
 We may observe in passing that this opinion was 
 not as extravagant at it may seem. A consum- 
 mate master of French style, Paul Louis Courier, 
 was warning one of his correspondents, not long 
 before M. Renan's birth, against the fallacy of 
 supposing that anyone had written French since the 
 reign of Louis XIV, and declared that a girl of 
 that time could have given lessons in style to the 
 Rousseaus, the Diderots and the D'Alemberts. 
 With entire recognition of what Balzac and George 
 Sand, Michelet and Victor Hugo have done since 
 then for the language, we confess to doubting 
 whether the tessellated mosaic, in which modern 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 
 
 297 
 
 French thought delights, can compare with the 
 lucid symplicity and easy grace of the old school. 
 We suspect a good deal of M. Kenan's literary 
 charm is due to the influence of his early teachers, 
 who taught him to write with the frankness of 
 high bred society, and to avoid straining after 
 effect. "That which constitutes the essence of 
 cleverness, the desire to show off one's thoughts 
 to the best advantage, would have seemed to them 
 sheer frivolity, like woman's love of dress, which 
 they denounced as a positive sin." Naturally, a 
 teaching which did not travel beyond Rollin's 
 compendium of accepted tradition, and which 
 expurgated the story of Telemachus, though it 
 had been written by an archbishop, before the 
 scholar was allowed to read it, left something to 
 be desired on the side of freethought, and the 
 teaching of grammar and philology was not in 
 accordance with the scientific programme of to-day. 
 Nevertheless M. Renan evidently thinks that he 
 gained more than he lost under the system gene- 
 rally. After all, the way in which he learnt 
 Latin was that in which Erasmus and Muretus 
 were fashioned into the best Latin scholars since 
 the days of Cicero, for the mind retained and 
 assimilated better what it had taken in slowly. 
 That the character of the general teaching was 
 
298 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 moral rather than critical was no misfortune 
 to the young peasants, who came to school 
 from a primitive life at home. " We decided that 
 Caesar was not a great man because he was not 
 virtuous, our philosophy of history was as artless 
 and as childlike as might have been that of the 
 Heruli." Of course religious doubt in any shape 
 was impossible in such an atmosphere. It was 
 not brought from home, it was not in the air, it 
 was not in the books read, and it would have 
 seemed monstrous in the presence of simple and 
 austere teachers who recommended their faith by 
 their lives. "There are in reality," says M. 
 Renan, " but few people who have a right not 
 to believe in Christianity. " " Because a Paris 
 flibbertigibbet disposes, with a joke, of creeds, 
 from which Pascal, with all his reasoning powers, 
 could not shake himself free, it must not be con- 
 cluded that the urchin is superior to Pascal." 
 
 The Divinity that shapes our ends ordained 
 that in 1 836 M. Renan should attract the attention of 
 M. Dupanloup, afterwards the well known Bishop 
 of Orleans, by winning all the prizes in his class 
 at the Trdguier College. " Have him sent for," 
 was the order of the impulsive Superior, and the 
 young peasant was straightway transferred to Paris 
 to begin his education for the priesthood in the 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 
 
 299 
 
 seminary of St. Nicholas du Chardonet. "My 
 coming to Paris marked the transition from one 
 religion to another. My old priests with their 
 heavy old-fashioned copes had always seemed to 
 me like the Magi from whose lips came the 
 eternal truths, whereas the new religion to which 
 I was introduced was all print and calico, a piety 
 decked out with ribbons and scented with musk, 
 a devotion which found expression in tapers and 
 small flower-pots, a young lady's theology without 
 stay or style, as composite as the polychromic 
 frontispiece of one of Lebel's prayer-books. " It was 
 the contrast between the puritan and the ritualistic 
 tendencies within the fold of the same visible 
 Church, and many of the students felt it bitterly, 
 the more so as it was aggravated by distance 
 from home and confinement within the college 
 walls. M. Renan's most intimate friend brooded 
 in solitary grief over the change and died. One 
 rather senior student " confessed to me that, every 
 evening, he calculated the distance from his dormitory 
 on the third floor to the pavement in the street 
 below. " M. Renan himself was nearly dying from 
 homesickness. His only consolation was to write 
 to his mother letters full of tender feeling and 
 moist with tears, and as these were seen by the 
 superiors and attracted the favourable notice of 
 
300 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 M. Dupanloup, the young Breton was noticed 
 and drawn out, and gradually exchanged his old 
 sentiment for one of passionate veneration towards 
 his new Superior. In this college the education 
 was of a high literary standard, and M. Renan 
 notes it as an advantage that clerical education 
 " is absolutely independent in everything which 
 does not relate to religion. Literature is discussed 
 under all its aspects, and the yoke of classical 
 dogma sits much more lightly." Those who 
 remember De Maistre's incisive criticism on Voltaire 
 in the Soirees de St. Petersbourg, which M. Renan 
 knew by heart by this time, will appreciate the 
 importance of this iconoclasm. MeanwhUe, the 
 contagion of new ideas was seizing upon the 
 young scholar. He had received no training in 
 positive science, no idea that truth was to be 
 sought rather than received, and his literary 
 acquirements were superficial, but " my Christianity 
 was being worn away, though there was as yet 
 nothing in my mind which could be styled doubtful. " 
 The film was falling off from the eyes, and the 
 student was beginning to see that God's heaven 
 was higher and God's earth wider than the 
 Catholic church. 
 
 A work of change was consummated by study, 
 under almost the same conditions that built up 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 
 
 301 
 
 the boy's faith. The seminaries of Issy and St. 
 Sulpice, in reality one establishment, in which the 
 next four years of M. Kenan's life were spent, 
 exhibit the old Gallicanism in its most perfect form. 
 Sobriety of tone, solidity of doctrine, the unosten- 
 tatious self-sacrifice that finds expression in courtesy 
 and good works, were the characteristics of this 
 school in its best days. Its teachers did not defy 
 the world or trample noisily upon its prejudices, 
 but they let it go on in its own way with a quiet 
 conviction that all its triumphs were a mere flash 
 in the pan. Against themselves, indifference to 
 success, and abjuring theatrical effects, nothing 
 can be said but that they turned out dull men 
 and a lifeless theology. Nevertheless, the first 
 effects of their teaching upon M. Renan were 
 simply to increase his veneration for a faith which 
 was supported by solid erudition, and enforced 
 by holy lives. Nor did physical science Intrude 
 into these precincts with its speculations and Its 
 doubts. It was the study of the Bible in Hebrew 
 that first undermined the student's faith. "The 
 mildest Catholic doctrine as to Inspiration will not 
 allow one to admit that there is any marked error 
 In the sacred texts, or any contradiction in matters 
 which do not relate either to faith or morality." 
 Study forced upon M. Renan the conviction that 
 
302 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 " the Bible contains fables, legends and other traces 
 of purely human composition. " At first he struggled 
 against his doubts, and his director comforted him. 
 "Inroads upon your faith. Pay no heed to that, 
 keep straight on your way. These temptations 
 are but afflictions like unto others." The doubt 
 that is only skin deep can be salved over by 
 pleasant ointments of this kind, but for a Newman, 
 a Clough, or a Renan, for whom to believe rightl}' 
 is the highest function of life, the questions of 
 doubt are the voice of God within the soul. " An 
 inward voice told me thou art no longer Catholic ; 
 thy robe is a lie, cast it off" Even the last 
 terrible dread of breaking his pious brother's heart 
 gave way before the imperious dictates of conscience. 
 Nevertheless in leaving the church, M. Renan did 
 not renounce Christianity. " Belief in the eminent 
 personality of Jesus had been my mainstay in my 
 struggle against theology. Jesus has in reality ever 
 been my master." The secession was without 
 bitterness, on either side. M. Dupanloup sent a 
 generous offer of his purse. M. Renan passed 
 noiselessly into life as a schoolmaster. His mother 
 was compelled to admit that nothing was changed 
 in him except the dress. 
 
 We agree with M. Renan that he is an incom- 
 plete priest, and we think that in proportion as 
 
EARLY LIFE OF RENAN 
 
 303 
 
 he is a priest is he an incomplete man. Let us 
 take a single instance. "One of the injunctions 
 most impressed upon us at the seminary was to 
 avoid 'special friendships'. I fancy to myself at 
 times, like my ancient masters, that friendship is 
 a larceny committed at the expense of society at 
 large, and that in a more elevated world friend- 
 ship would disappear." With it, of course, family 
 tenderness of every kind. Is not this one step 
 towards reducing the world to that dead level of 
 mediocrity, that vacuum, which M. Renan admits 
 to be the distinguishing note of St. Sulpice and 
 the prevision of which animates him in his indict- 
 ment against modern society? Is it not also the 
 natural outcome of seminary life? For the young 
 priest, forbidden to marry, dedicated to the service 
 of his church, and bound to regard society as 
 nothing more than a means of doing good, the 
 idea of individual exclusive friendships is unnatural. 
 So also is the idea of special studies, of original 
 thought, of irregular enthusiasm, of everything that 
 breaks the monotony of everyday life. M. Renan 
 tells us that he is contemptuous of middle class 
 success, and reserves his admiration for the ideal- 
 ist, for " martyrs, heroes, Utopians, friends of the 
 impossible." Thinking this, he is a reactionary 
 in politics, prizing distinction of manner more 
 
304 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 than fearlessness of thought, belongmg by sympathy 
 to a time in which the degradations in rank should 
 be strictly maintained, and denouncing as CaUban 
 and Utopian ideas knocking at the doors of the 
 nineteenth century in the form of democratic 
 equality. Surely it is the sternest condemnation 
 of the old church that such a man — whom forty 
 years of doubt cannot wean from his first love — 
 should find it impossible to remain within the 
 fold. A Breton poet has said that after death 
 M. Renan's soul will fly all night, in the shape 
 of a white bird, round a ruined sanctuary, which 
 it will try to enter in vain. Is not this the picture 
 of every visible communion — a crumbling church 
 that has closed windows and doors against the 
 worshipper and against the light? 
 
XVIII.— THE BLACK REPUBLIC ^ 
 
 Sir Spenser St. John, who was for fourteen 
 years (1863 — 1877) the representative of England in 
 Hayti, has written a very interesting account of 
 the island and its people, which bears directly 
 upon the question how far the negro race is ca- 
 pable of civilisation and self-government. The 
 question is one which is becoming every day of 
 more importance. In the United States of America 
 the negro is in a minority and will have to con- 
 form to the habits of the dominant race. If he 
 refuses to work we may be quite certain that the 
 Americans will decline to support him as a pauper; 
 and if he only works up to the point necessary 
 for his own support he will speedily be supplanted 
 in the towns and on large estates by more docile 
 labourers. Throughout the West Indian islands the 
 case is different. The negro is the permanent 
 
 ^Bayti, or the Black RepuUic. By Sir Spenser St. John. London: 
 Smith, Elder & Co. 
 
 305 
 
 20 
 
3o6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 element in Cuba and St. Domingo, in our own 
 West Indian islands and in Martinique, as also in 
 Reunion, and till lately in the Mauritius. Besides, 
 though races differ, what is true of the negro is 
 likely to be applicable in some degree to Malays 
 and lower caste Hindoos and Chinamen. The 
 liberated blacks of the West Indian Islands are 
 the descendants of several generations that were 
 trained to labour by rude task-masters and con- 
 verted after a fashion to different forms of Chris- 
 tianity. Although the French slave owners in 
 Hayti were not exactly merciful to their hands, 
 they had not the strong prejudice of colour that 
 Englishmen and Americans have, and they never 
 interfered to prevent the negroes from being 
 educated and holding property. The coloured po- 
 pulation a hundred years ago, when it freed itself, 
 contained a good many educated men like the 
 famous Toussaint I'Ouverture, and like Colonel 
 Oge, who was sent to represent his countrymen 
 in Paris. Since 1 8 1 o, Hayti has been left pretty 
 much to itself, and though it would be flagrantly 
 unfair to compare it with any European country, 
 it seems not unreasonable to ask whether it is as 
 prosperous as an average South American repub- 
 lic, and whether it is on the whole going forwards 
 or going back. 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 
 
 307 
 
 Sir Spenser St. John answers this enquiry by 
 declaring his conviction that Hayti is in a state 
 of rapid decadence, that its agriculture is deterio- 
 rating, that the best of its people are being killed 
 off or dying out, and that "there is a distinct 
 tendency to sink into the state of an African 
 tribe." He brings forward a great many facts 
 in support of this opinion, and though it is notice- 
 able that he takes a harsher view of the last few 
 jears, during which he only knows the country 
 by report, than of the time during which he was 
 in residence, there is no reason to assume that 
 he is not substantially well informed. He seems 
 to write not only with great fairness, but with a 
 remarkable absence of race feeling, and to have 
 Jived among coloured men and negroes in such a 
 way as to conciliate their regard and be able to 
 understand their feelings. Those who look only 
 at the charges he brings and substantiates against 
 the Haytians may certainly incline to despair of 
 the future of the race. Those, however, who 
 ■compare Hayti with Peru or Buenos Ayres, and 
 who have never formed sanguine anticipations of 
 the conduct to be expected from liberated slaves 
 of savage ancestry, will perhaps read between the 
 lines and think that the Haytians need nothing 
 "but thirty years of good government to become a 
 
3o8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 moderately well-conducted population. Of course, 
 it may easily happen that they will never have 
 this good fortune. In this case Hayti may, of 
 course, relapse into the state of the Guinea coast, 
 but its decadence will not prove that Liberia or 
 Saint Domingo or any ordinary West Indian Is- 
 land handed over to the blacks may not be more 
 fortunate. 
 
 Hayti was unfortunate in its beginnings. When 
 the French Assembly proclaimed negro emancipa- 
 tion the planters refused to submit, and succeeded 
 in arming the mulattoes against the pure negroes. 
 The result, of course, was a disastrous servile 
 and civil war, in which the people were bruta- 
 lised by familiarity with every kind of horror, the 
 only man of really noble and fine character who 
 emerges during the whole struggle being the 
 negro Toussaint L'Ouverture. Then, when Hayti 
 was enjoying comparative quiet under its most, 
 successful ruler, President Boyer, France sent a. 
 fleet in 1825 to insist on the payment of a large 
 indemnity to the planters, and for thirteen years- 
 the country was kept unsettled by the prospect, 
 of war, and Boyer was ultimately ruined for having 
 patched up the best accommodation he could, or, 
 as his enemies said, sold the country to France. 
 " This wretched debt to France, " says Sir Spenser 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 309 
 
 St. John, " has been the cause of half the misfor- 
 tunes of Hayti." After Boyer's exile there was 
 -an interval of trouble till 1847, when Soulouque 
 made himself at first President and then Emperor 
 {1847 — 1859). The reaction against Boyer had 
 been a party composed of negroes, and Soulouque 
 represented negro ascendency with a great deal 
 that was grotesque and ridiculous. He was savage 
 to his enemies, and involved the country in a foolish 
 war with Saint Domingo, but he treated foreigners 
 generally and Englishmen in particular well. Of 
 Geffrard, his successor, Sir S. St. John says that 
 " of all the rulers of Hayti he was certainly the 
 most enlightened and the most thoroughly devoted 
 to his country." "In manner he is polished and 
 gentle, almost feminine in his gentleness, with a 
 most agreeable expression, a winning smile, and 
 much fluency in conversation." He was also 
 personally brave. His faults were that he was 
 ridiculously vain and treated his Ministers like 
 head clerks. "The blacks wanted a black, the 
 mulattoes wanted anyone else so that there was 
 a change. " The result of this division of counsels 
 in the more intelligent minority has, of course, 
 been that the blacks have got into power again 
 and the present President, General Salomon, 
 fourteen of whose family were shot for conspiracies 
 
3IO REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 in Geffrard's time, governs by the army and ap- 
 pears bent on driving the coloured population out 
 of the country. So far nothing can be worse. 
 All that can be hoped is that Salomon may be 
 driven out, as Soulouque was, or may be replaced 
 by a negro of the same mould as Toussaint 
 rOuverture. 
 
 Of course, Presidents and Ministers are one and 
 all corrupt. The EngUsh exports to Hayti are 
 valued in England at more than double what they 
 are entered for in the custom-house books of Hayti, 
 the profits on smuggling in the balance going into 
 the pockets of the leading members of Government. 
 Soulouque abstracted four hundred thousand 
 pounds for himself and his favourites from the coffee 
 monopoly alone. Under Geffrard's rule, though 
 it was much better, millions of dollars disappeared 
 unaccountably, and when the Chamber of Deputies 
 began to ask inconvenient questions it was sum- 
 marily dissolved. The judges have two or three 
 fixed principles, such as always to condemn po- 
 litical offenders, and generally to decide against 
 any foreigner who will not bribe heavily. As a 
 rule they are not even lawyers by profession, but 
 are partisans of Government, rewarded with judge- 
 ships ; and the wife is often serving behind a 
 counter while the husband is hearing causes on 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 311 
 
 the bench. Many of the bar will sell the client 
 whom they are retained to defend ; and the best 
 among them will wander off from the subject into 
 perfectly irrelevant digressions to air their eloquence 
 or their learning. The police are brutal and in- 
 competent. Ordinary soldiers do the work of 
 constables, under the orders of civil commissaries ; 
 and their great idea is to belabour with clubs per- 
 sons arrested. Spies, who report political conversa- 
 tions, are numerous, but there is no attempt at 
 a detective branch of the service, and criminals 
 go on with impunity till they offend a person of 
 influence. On one occasion Sir Spenser St. John 
 was robbed of eighteen dozen of claret by a 
 servant. The thief sold four dozen to an intimate 
 friend of his master's, and the police having re- 
 covered the other fourteen dozen, divided eleven 
 dozen and five bottles among various high offi- 
 cials. The small remainder went back to the lawful 
 owner, who found out what had become of the 
 bulk by the remark of a Haytian friend, who 
 breakfasting with him and recognising the brand 
 of the wine, said, laughingly, as he took up a 
 bottle, " Now I understand a remark made by the 
 Minister of the Exterior when he said what capi- 
 tal wine the English Minister imported." The 
 Army is as corrupt as the police. A general 
 
312 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 only gets from a hundred and five to a hundred and 
 forty pounds a year, but as Sir Spenser St. John 
 gives an estimate in one place by which one-third of 
 the army are generals, the economy even in this way 
 would not be great unless we assume, as is probably 
 the case, that only generals on active service draw 
 pay. The mass of the soldiers do not attend drill and 
 let the officers appropriate their pay. In the capital, 
 mechanics and tradesmen often pay to be exempt 
 from active service. President Salnave had an 
 efficient regiment which he marched on one oc- 
 casion into the principal street, where he gave 
 them leave to plunder with a quaUfi cation — " My 
 boys, plunder in an orderly manner." 
 
 The picture of production and municipal arrange- 
 ments is not much brighter. Hayti exported the 
 nominal value of ten million pounds, equivalent, it is 
 said, to fifteen miUion pounds of our money, in 1 789. 
 She now exports to the average value of about two 
 million pounds. The great decline has been in sugar. 
 Under French rule eighty thousand tons were 
 exported. Now, though the soil is admirably suited 
 to the production, the people only grow enough 
 cane for their own use, and in the shape of molasses 
 whence they distil rum. The negroes retain a preju- 
 dice inherited from old times against plantation work, 
 but the real reason, Sir S. St. John thinks, is that 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 
 
 313 
 
 the costly factories now needed in the business 
 cannot be put up in a country where property is 
 insecure. The account of the capital, Port-au- 
 Prince, is deplorable. Almost all the grand build- 
 ings which made it a noble city under French 
 rule have been destroyed by civil war or by fire. 
 The only grand building that any native ruler has 
 attempted was the citadel of Le Ferviere, five thou- 
 sand feet above the sea, built by King Christopher, 
 every stone of which is said to have cost a 
 human life. All is of solid masonry, and some of 
 the walls are eighty feet high and sixteen feet thick ; 
 but an earthquake laid it in ruins in a few minutes. 
 The houses in Port-au-Prince are surrounded with 
 the dust heaps and other filth of the inhabitants, 
 and the work of scavenging is done by the great 
 floods which come down in the rainy season. 
 There was an aqueduct, but in 1877 the people 
 in the suburbs were stiU breaking open the old 
 stone work to obtain a source of supply near their 
 dwellings ; and pigs, children, and washerwomen 
 congregated round these spots and defiled the stream. 
 The most damning fact against the Haytians, 
 however, is the existence of what is known as the 
 Vaudoux worship. This abominable superstition, 
 derived, it is said, from a single barbarous tribe, 
 the Mondongues, consists of weapon worship, and 
 
314 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 the sacrifice and eating as food of human beings 
 enters into the ritual. The whole black popula- 
 tion appears now to be tainted with this practice, 
 and as its votaries continue to profess Catholicism 
 and perform their horrible rites in some of the 
 great Church festivals, such as Easter, Christmas 
 Eve and Twelfth Night, it is very difficult to 
 detect them. The priests derive a great deal of 
 their power from their knowledge of vegetable 
 poisons. A case is mentioned of a man who having 
 struck an enemy was threatened that he should 
 be made powerless, and actually became paralytic 
 in fifteen years. In this case a Vaudoux priest con- 
 fessed to having used the poison, and for twenty 
 pounds administered a remedy which completely 
 restored the sufferer to health. Now, whether 
 imagination was or was not the chief acting cause 
 in this instance, it is evident that men whom the 
 community suppose to be armed with such formid 
 able power are likely to be reverenced and obeyed. 
 In general, no ruler dares to punish the Vaudoux 
 priest, even when a human sacrifice is clearly 
 brought home to him. The way of procuring 
 victims is either by stealing children, or by way- 
 laying travellers, or by administering strong narco- 
 tics, under the influence of which the sufferer is 
 buried alive, to be disinterred when night comes 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 315 
 
 and to be dismembered or drained of his blood. 
 The heart, brain, lungs, and liver appear to be the 
 parts specially prized, but there seems to be no 
 doubt that many of the worshippers get an abso- 
 lute craving for human flesh, and will kill their 
 own children to procure it. In one instance 
 where a priest said to a mother, " How could 
 you eat the flesh of your own children?" she 
 answered curtly, "And who had a better right? 
 is it not I who made them?" It is said that the 
 papalois or priests of the Vaudoux die in general 
 covered with leprosy and incurable sores, though 
 at an advanced age; but Sir S. St. John fears 
 that this is only a pious superstition. Except 
 during one year of Gefli-ard's Presidency, no real 
 effort has been made to put down these horrors, 
 and Soulouque and Salnave were themselves 
 Vaudoux worshippers. 
 
 It will probably seem to those who look only 
 at this side of the medal as if Hayti was the 
 most God-forgotten spot on the face of the 
 globe — an earthly Paradise possessed by devils 
 and brutes. There are parts, however, of Sir 
 S. St. John's narrative which leave a very different 
 impression, though the author assuredly did not 
 intend to convey it. For instance, it is no small 
 fact in itself that a community of slaves and co 
 
3i6 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 loured freedmen should have been able to preserve 
 a centralised Government and national unity, in- 
 stead of splitting up into tribes like those of 
 Africa. A people of little more than three-quarters 
 of a million, if so many, which is able to raise 
 more than a pound a head for purposes of Govern- 
 ment, which has kept itself free, and which exports 
 to the value of two millions a year, is very much 
 above Ashantee or Abyssinia, though it may be 
 below the worst governed state in Europe. The 
 Haytians, again, have very much increeised the 
 production of cocoa in the French times, and 
 when the American war broke out they became 
 cotton-producers with very profitable results. 
 Everything seems to show that if they had a 
 strong Government and good roads, they would 
 soon cover the whole country with plantations, 
 though they probably would not work so hard 
 for gain as their forefathers did under the lash. 
 The first care of the enfranchised slaves was to 
 buy little allotments of land from the Government. 
 At present they are not a hard-working race, and 
 they have not been made more industrious by 
 the habit of civil war, but Sir S. St. John steadily 
 assumes that they will work if it is worth their 
 while to do so. Perhaps more than this is not 
 to be expected. Let us bear in mind that the 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 317 
 
 English of the sixteenth century were declared 
 by foreign observers to be as lazy as Spaniards. 
 Scarcely less important in their own way than 
 the capacity to hold together and to labour are 
 the aptitude for taking polish and for enlarging 
 the mind. On these points Sir S. St. John's 
 evidence is conclusive. "The politeness of the 
 country negro," he says, "is very remarkable," 
 and even the town negro does not leave much to 
 be desired, both being infinitely superior to our 
 colonial negroes. Of the mulattoes we read that 
 "foreigners who casually meet Haytians are often 
 only struck by their agreeable manners," and it 
 seems that half the foreign residents in Port-au- 
 Prince have married coloured wives. The excuse 
 given for this was that the women are so superior 
 to the men, but Sir S. St. John gives several 
 instances of highly cultivated men, such as Auguste 
 Eli, a Minister for Foreign Affairs, whose society 
 was sought by the best foreigners, and who had 
 the remarkable power of remembering almost all 
 that he read and of digesting all he remembered. 
 The misfortune is that men of this type are at 
 present very much fewer than accomplished ladies, 
 and the ambition of the fair Haytian is, accord- 
 ingly, to marry a European. The secondary 
 civihsation of cleanliness is not yet thoroughly 
 
3i8 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 naturalised, but the negroes are very fond of 
 bathing and the Haytians have adopted the French 
 fashion of laying in great stores of personal and 
 household linen. "The blacks are, if anything, 
 more particular than the coloured in securing the 
 most expensive underclothing." Mrs. Beecher 
 Stowe used to paint the plantation negro as in- 
 tensely devout. The Haytian seems to wear his 
 religion rather loosely, partly because the native 
 priests were for some time a scandal to society, 
 and partly because the Church made itself unpopu- 
 lar by denouncing Freemasonry. Now, however, 
 French priests have been imported, and the Church 
 has become respectable, and may in time exercise 
 a salutary influence. Education, of course, has 
 been neglected, but there seems to be some thirty 
 thousand pupils in State and private schools, so 
 that twenty per cent, of the population is proba- 
 bly acquiring book learning. There are the be- 
 ginnings of a literature. There have been two 
 native histories of Hayti, each of which Sir S. St 
 John praises highly, and he gives some specimens 
 of poetry in the Creole dialect, which are perhaps 
 a little above the average in feeling. "In mis- 
 cellaneous literature," we are told, "there are 
 many publications of merit. " Comparing Hayti in 
 this respect with the Mauritius, which has not 
 
THE BLACK REPUBLIC 319 
 
 produced a single native historian, the advantage 
 appears to be altogether on the side of the self- 
 governed community. 
 
 There remains, of course, the terrible charge of 
 Vaudoux worship to be disposed of. No one 
 will doubt that it will have to be extirpated like 
 Thuggee in India. Meanwhile it ought in fairness 
 to be remembered that it is derived from African 
 tribes, who practise it openly in their own country; 
 that the Haytians are thoroughly ashamed of it; 
 and that cannibalism is only indulged in by a 
 section of the serpent worshippers. Considering 
 that even under French rule the Vaudoux worship 
 could not be suppressed, it is scarcely wonderful 
 if native rulers, obliged to defer to the prejudices 
 of the black majority, have only succeeded in 
 thrusting it a little into the background. That 
 they have been over timorous in dealing with it 
 seems certain, but it may be believed that a strong 
 Government would stamp out the worst features 
 of it in twenty years. Where that strong Govern- 
 ment is to come from is the insoluble problem at 
 present. A single man of genius may retrieve 
 the fortunes of the country, but if such a ruler 
 should not appear, the best thing that could happen 
 for the Haytians would probably be that some 
 great country, France or England, or the United 
 
320 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 States, should annex them provisionally. That the 
 race is wanting in political capacity seems proved. 
 Meanwhile, that the great grandchildren of insur- 
 gent slaves should be fairly industrious and cleanly, 
 well mannered, capable of improvement in religion, 
 and of proficiency in literature, seems to indicate 
 that the coloured race, at least, need not be de- 
 spaired of It may well be doubted if Guatemala, 
 Venezuela, New Granada or Peru stands on a 
 higher level at this moment than Hayti; yet no 
 one will despair of these States who sees what 
 Brazil, Chili and Mexico are achieving out of 
 similar elements. 
 
XIX.— AN AGNOSTICS PROGRESS ^ 
 
 It is a bold experiment for any writer to chal- 
 lenge comparison with John Bunyan and with 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne ; and the audacity of the at- 
 tempt is not diminished when the allegory addresses 
 itself to a narrower circle of experiences. Bunyan's 
 pilgrim travels from the sense of moral degradation 
 in which aU Christians are brought up to the 
 sense of beatitude that thousands of Christians 
 attain; and Hawthorne's excursionists start from 
 popular reUgion and end in Tophet. In each case 
 there is no doubt or confusion of purpose possible 
 after the straight path has been reached. In the 
 Agnostic's Progress the journey is from the City of 
 Superstition to the Borderland of the Unknown, 
 and it has been a necessity of the artist's concep- 
 tion that the pilgrim's end should be veiled with 
 mystery. As we are not permitted to guess 
 
 ' An Agnostic's Progress, from the Known to the Unknown. Lon- 
 don : Williams and Norgate. 
 
 321 
 
 21 
 
32 2 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 whether the Unknown has any possibilities of life 
 and action and hope for the inquirer, so also we 
 find his friends and companions treading parallel, 
 or it may be divergent paths, with almost equal 
 success. The typical Agnostic, Quaestor, succeeds, 
 it is true, in extricating himself from the Kingdom 
 of Superstition, from the Castle of Despair, and 
 other familiar dangers, but so also does Gracious, 
 who is overpowered by the sophistries of Giant 
 Pope, so do Sanitis, the physical science reformer, 
 and Negatio, the fearless denier. What the author, 
 in fact, seems to claim is no more than that a 
 reverent Agnosticism, declining to recognise any 
 form of theological creed, but not associating itself 
 with any form of speculative unbelief, and occu- 
 pying itself with labours of love, is as wholesome 
 morally as any type of faith, and more respectable 
 intellectually. That is a very temperate conclusion. 
 Probably most orthodox people will be inclined 
 to admit that such a man as Quaestor is repre- 
 sented to be — thoroughly reverent, and filled with 
 the spirit of martyrdom — is not fer from the 
 kingdom of God, whatever his speculative pro- 
 pensities may be. Many will qualify this admis- 
 sion by adding that Quaestor, as he is painted, is 
 no proper example of what humanity without God 
 would be, and that the real Agnostic is repre- 
 
AN AGNOSTIC'S PROGRESS 323 
 
 sented by Audax, who sinks into sheer materialism, 
 or by Negatio, who is blank Atheism. In a word 
 the Agnostic's Progress seems to be a defence of. 
 one particular Agnostic rather than of Agnosticism; 
 and Quaestor would be regarded by unbelievers in 
 general as a sheep in wolf's clothing. 
 
 When this reservation has been made, it will 
 be found that the Agnostic's Progress is a really 
 powerful book and worked out with considerable 
 skill. The new pilgrim is first led out of the City 
 of Superstition by Experience; he passes through 
 the wicket gate of Doubt; he finds in the Inter- 
 preter's House a sanctuary of all knowledge, in 
 which students are led to very different conclu- 
 sions ; and in the House Beautiful he gets his 
 senses quickened with a vision of the regenerating 
 influences of beauty. By a very intelligent tribute 
 to modem changes of thought, Pope and Pagan, 
 Tvho in Bunyan's time were powerless to disturb 
 Christians, Pagan being in fact dead, and Pope 
 paralysed, are represented as vigorous with a new 
 vitality. Pagan, his head crowned with flowers, 
 .and surrounded by " many of rare gifts in poetry, 
 in song, and in music, and in all the fine arts," 
 invites the pilgrims who pass by to join "the 
 realm of Welcome, where everyone does as he or 
 she pleases." Pope, on the other hand, has put 
 
3 24 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 away the triple crown and crosier sceptre, and 
 wears the guise of a venerable old man, with the 
 air and demeanour of a meek martyr. It is here 
 that Quaestor and his friend Gracious — who will 
 not be his wife because she distrusts his doubt- 
 ing temperament — are at last irrevocably severed. 
 Quaestor, though he has recoiled from Pagan's- 
 teaching after he has understood his drift, has 
 not feared to examine it. Gracious has passed 
 over at once into the company of Pope's follow- 
 ers. Nevertheless, Gracious continues her friendly 
 intercourse with Quaestor, and in spite of her 
 spiritual director reads all that he writes when 
 he becomes a journalist in Vanity Fciir. Qusestor 
 goes through a rough novitiate in that famous 
 city. "Next to money, the most potent weapon 
 in Vanity Fair was ridicule, and the highest in- 
 stincts of the soul, the noblest ambitions of the 
 intellect and the purest affections of the heart,, 
 were aU brought to this terrible test by people 
 who could not comprehend or imagine anything 
 better than themselves and their own selfish and 
 petty motives. To every unsympathising nature,, 
 the most elevated, the most tender, and the most, 
 tragic of human circumstances and emotions have 
 their absurd side .... One of the favourite specta- 
 cles and amusements of Vanity Fair, not only of the 
 
AN AGNOSTIC'S PROGRESS 325 
 
 populace, but of those who stood high in estimation 
 and in office, was to put such enthusiasts as had 
 entered through the Gate of Reform into the 
 pillory, and to make them endure all the jeers 
 and ribaldry that could be levelled at them by 
 the populace . . . Quaestor's first opponents, the 
 compact hosts of Philistia, had not much idea of 
 fun in general, but they had one great source of 
 amusement, which was the contrast between the 
 lofty aspirations in the pillory, where any ignorant 
 ragamuffin or drunken rough might pelt him to 
 his heart's content." There can be little question 
 that wit in all its forms except satire flourishes 
 best where there is an absence of moral earnest- 
 ness, and is therefore essentially Conservative, 
 •especially when it caters for the lowest taste, as 
 caricature and buffoonery. In Bunyan's Vanity 
 Fair, written at a time when it seemed as if one 
 earth could not hold those who differed in faith, 
 the passage from ridicule to bloodshed was easy 
 and swift. In the Vanity Fair known to Quaestor, 
 the prophet who could outlive the pillory gradually 
 conquered toleration, and indeed possibly achieved 
 victory for his own views, but not so completely as 
 to secure a hearing for the next preacher of truth. 
 An Agnostic^ s Progress contains incidentally a very 
 subde sketch of Carlyle as a white-haired prophet 
 
326 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 who denounced all existing systems, but was 
 equally indignant against all proposed reforms; 
 and was perhaps less offended by Quaestor than 
 any of his fellows, because " his aims were less- 
 definite than theirs, and his zeal was not excessive 
 in any direction. " The first part of this criticism 
 has often been made. The second part seems 
 singularly penetrative, and suggests the idea that 
 Carlyle was, in fact, so incapable of conceiving 
 in what way change should be effected, and so 
 supremely capable of seeing in what directions 
 failure was inevitable, that he fell back in absolute 
 despair upon the society of those whose thoughts 
 were too vague to be readily tested by any 
 Nemesis in the shape of an event. 
 
 As the description of Vanity Fair is perhaps 
 the part in which the author of An Agnostic's- 
 Progress most visibly exceeds Bimyan's execution — 
 though not Bunyan's conception — so the episode 
 of Simulation is perhaps on the whole the weakest, 
 as it challenges comparison with some of Bunyan's 
 most powerful writing — the argument with By-ends. 
 It is undoubtedly a fault of art that Quaestor is 
 made too dreamy and eclectic, too tolerant of 
 differences of veracity, and that it is difficult to 
 resist the impression that he might have absorbed 
 a good deal that was unhealthy into his system 
 
AN AGNOSTICS PROGRESS 
 
 327 
 
 if he had lived long under any single influence. 
 Accordingly, when the searching wind catches 
 him, and bears him away to the wall beyond 
 which is death, we feel that his victorious life 
 has been a fortunate accident, and half expect 
 him to yield when Gracious urges him to declare 
 that he has real knowledge, through faith, of the 
 Infinite and the Eternal. Indeed, though he dies 
 an Agnostic, Gracious declares that she sees him 
 received by a Glorious Being into what she at 
 least assumes to be the Christian's heaven. 
 
 There can be no question that modem doubt 
 occupies a very different position from the 
 scepticism of a few centuries ago. In times when 
 speculation proceeded by a priori guesses as to 
 the order of the universe, the infidel might be 
 and very often was a man who wanted the scien- 
 tific imagination. The doctrines of the Trinity 
 and the Incarnation as expounded by an Augustine 
 or an Anselm, had a completeness and a symme- 
 try about them which the attack wanted; and it 
 is probable that if Arianism had triumphed, the 
 relapse into Fetish worship which actually took 
 place during the Middle Ages, would have been 
 very much more universal and complete than it 
 is. Modern scepticism does not concern itself 
 with showing theories to be improbable, but with 
 
328 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 demonstrating facts to be false; and the modern 
 Freethinker in his best type is not the man who 
 wants but the man who possesses the scientific 
 imagination. The misfortune is that the personality 
 of God seems now and again to be crowded out 
 in the contemplation of His works and laws, and 
 the quarrel between persons of a religious tempera- 
 ment and the scientific world reduces itself very 
 much to this : that the Christian hesitates to accept 
 an order of the world in which God is not 
 perpetually approached by prayer and revealed 
 by miracles, while the scientific man regards a 
 prayer for rain as revolt against the Divine will, 
 and capricious changes of God's order as impossible. 
 To those who remember that the religious instinct 
 seems part of human nature itself, and that the 
 supposed antagonism of religion and science has 
 perpetually been disproved by scientific men who 
 are religious like Faraday, or religious men who 
 accept science like Thirlwall, it will seem eminently 
 conceivable that our present difficulties will appear 
 very small indeed a hundred years hence. 
 Meanwhile, what is the Agnostic's position towards 
 them ? His choice of a name shows that he does 
 not absolutely reject the theory of a personal 
 God, but simply declares himself to know nothing 
 in the matter. His hesitancy is based upon his 
 
AN AGNOSTICS PROGRESS 329 
 
 acceptance of modern science, and his incapacity 
 to transcend the limitations of what science has 
 revealed. While, however, he shrinks from worship 
 or faith, he accepts the moral teaching of Chris- 
 tianity, at least if he be like-minded with Quaestor, 
 practises purity and the restraint of passion, devotes 
 his life to doing good, and is generally a disciple 
 without a master. That men of this type exhibit 
 a very interesting phase of thought, and are really 
 religious whether they think it or not, may be 
 conceded. That they are more than a fleeting 
 compromise between reason and faith must be 
 doubted. If a reverent ignorance is to be the 
 last word of thought about religion, not only will 
 Christ have died in vain, but science will have 
 toiled to little real purpose. 
 
 The real future for Agnosticism would seem to 
 be rather as a cloak for spiritual incapacity than 
 as a timid form of faith. It seems certain that 
 there are men who are devoid of the religious 
 instinct, or who cannot think themselves into any 
 orthodox position, just as there are men who have 
 no ear for music, no eye for beauty of form and 
 colouring, or it may be no capacity for mathematical 
 analysis. Such men faU easily into their places 
 in society when they confess frankly in what senses 
 they are deficient, and leave the verdict in matters 
 
330 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 of which they know nothing to experts. Religious 
 Agnosticism, faith in something good, which the 
 worshipper cannot define or express, and is afraid 
 to name, is altogether too vague and cloud-like 
 to be more than a mood in persons or in a 
 generation. There was a time when society 
 could build altars to " an unknown God, " but it 
 Wcis the time when men were certain of divinity, 
 and only doubtful whether all its manifestations 
 had been properly catalogued. At present, if 
 religion is to hold its own, it must decide definitely 
 how much it will discard and how much it is 
 prepared to retain. It is certain that the old creeds 
 have been outgrown. It is equally certain that a 
 large part of the world has found nothing better 
 to believe in than the teaching of the Gospels in 
 their simplicity ; and the men who wish to live up 
 to it while they profess to know nothing about it, 
 are nothing more than Christians without Christ. 
 
i884 
 XX.— HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE i 
 
 The late Mr. Grenville-Murray was a very remark- 
 able specimen of the successful literar}- man. 
 Bom to an imfortunate position on the outskirts 
 of the highest society as the natural son of a Duke, 
 he attracted the attention of Lord Palmerston by 
 the singnlar ability of his sketches of Continental 
 life, and was nominated to the Embassy at Con- 
 stantinople. There he quarrelled with his redoubt- 
 able chief, "the great Elchee", Lord Stratford de 
 Redcliffe, and made himself so intolerable by his 
 criticisms in the press that he was for a time 
 literally banished, under pretence of a diplomatic 
 mission, to an obscure Greek island. Mr. Gren- 
 ville-Murray was, however, too strong to be shelved, 
 and he presendy obtained a lucrative and honor- 
 
 ^High Life in France Under the Republic, by E. C. Grenville- 
 Murray. London: Vizetelly and Co. (1888) Author of "Side Lights 
 on English Society," &c. 
 
 331 
 
332 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 able post as consul at Odessa. Before long he 
 embroiled himself in a quarrel with the English 
 merchants of the place on a question of fees, and 
 after much delay Lord Derby, who was then For- 
 eign Secretary, gave his decision in favour of the 
 merchants. Mr. Grenville-Murray threw up his 
 appointment in disgust, and came to London. 
 There he took to satirising some of the leaders 
 of English Society in a fashion that is now fairly 
 common, but that was not understood or tolerated 
 twenty years ago. Lord Carrington, whose father 
 was attacked, horsewhipped Mr. Murray at the door 
 of the Conservative Club, and the Conservative 
 Club expelled Mr. Murray. From that day he 
 settled in Paris, but his contributions to the Pall 
 Mall Gazette and the Cornhill Magazine, as well 
 as some clever novels, kept him before the eyes 
 of the reading public, and were certainly very 
 noticeable. The best are beyond praise in their 
 peculiar way, and the flimsiest and least substan- 
 tial are abundantly readable. Mr. Grenville-Murray 
 was a man who knew the Continent as a whole 
 as few EngUshmen know it, who lived in what is 
 known as good society, and had an observant 
 eye for its foibles and characteristics. His style, 
 though a little infected in his later works with 
 French idioms, is extremely easy and light, and 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 333 
 
 he was a master in the difficult art of flavouring 
 all he wrote with sub-acid epigrammatic touches, 
 while he avoided the brutal directness of the 
 epigram, and that sense of painful iteration which 
 its extravagant use produces. 
 
 Of the various countries Mr. Grenville-Murray 
 described at diflerent times, he succeeded best 
 with France. His sketches of Germany, Greece, 
 and Turkey, amusing and life-like as they were, 
 were derived from a much less thorough knowledge 
 of the countries and the people than that which 
 later in life he acquired of France. His sketches 
 of Russian society are thoroughly superficial and 
 grossly unfair, giving one the impression that in 
 this instance Mr. Murray was deliberately pander- 
 ing to the prejudices of English Jingoes. Neither 
 was Mr. Murray able to write judicially or sym 
 pathetically about England. He had come to 
 hate the society that he had offended so wantonly, 
 and that had punished his offences so bitterly, 
 and his Side Lights on English Society — the last 
 book he issued during his lifetime— are a series 
 of vindictive libels on persons whom the author 
 disliked. On the other hand, France was Mr. 
 Murray's adopted home. He caught the tone of 
 its society; made a thorough study of its institutions 
 in their practical working, and seems to show at 
 
334 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 every turn that he thoroughly enjoys the society 
 he is laughing at. English satire is regarded 
 with considerable dislike and dread in France, on 
 account of its rough tone. We think a fair 
 French critic would admit that Mr. Murray was 
 not more caustic than Reybaud, or Charles de 
 Bernard, or About, and that his criticisms, in 
 every instance, were without gall. In a certain 
 sense Mr. Murray was superficial. He did not 
 know the French peasant or the trading class, 
 except as all the world knows them, from Balzac 
 or from Daudet. Even in the upper classes 
 Mr. Murray's knowledge was superficial and 
 limited in this sense, that he was evidently a man 
 who was not at home with good women or with 
 men of high honour. He has sketched a heroine 
 now and again very charmingly, but she is not 
 specially French, and she is not described with 
 any of that subtle analysis which makes Mr. Mur- 
 ray's portraitures of the woman of fashion or the 
 speculator, the literary man or the police spy, so 
 irresistible. Perhaps this is not a very g^ave 
 demerit in an amusing author. It must be con- 
 fessed that even the description of virtue is apt 
 to keep the moral sense at a state of high pressure, 
 which it is the duty and the charm of light 
 literature to avoid. 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 
 
 335 
 
 What one wants from a book with the title of 
 High Life Under the Republic is to learn in what 
 respect the fashionable society of Paris differs 
 under the Republic from what it was under Louis 
 Philippe and Louis Napoleon. Under both these 
 sovereigns the best society was not to be met at 
 court. Louis Philippe was hated with an inten- 
 sity that it seems difficult to realise now — 
 as the son of Phihppe Egalit6, as the usurper 
 who had expelled Charles X, as the King who 
 wanted the manners and mind of a gentleman. 
 At the same time certain great families like the De 
 Broglies had the courage to recognise Louis Philippe 
 as a constitutional king, and a great many brilliant 
 statesmen and Uterary men— Casimir Pdrier, Guizot, 
 and Thiers — supported him. One of the main ideas 
 of his administration, which failed because it was so 
 feebly carried out, was to ally the court with the 
 commercial classes. Louis Napoleon was much 
 less hated than Louis Phihppe, but he was incom- 
 parably more despised. The men of letters who 
 would accept a pension or an order from him 
 might be counted upon the fingers; and the men 
 of good family were scarcely more numerous. 
 Latterly the scandals that grew up about the 
 court were so numerous that it became disreput- 
 able to be in any way connected with it. Since 
 
336 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 he disappeared society has been left to itself. The 
 old nobility is no longer overshadowed by a 
 pretentious court ; adventurers, speculators and 
 depraved women have ceased to be the disposers 
 of power and the arbiters of fashion, and the 
 Church is out of favour with the powers that be. 
 As for the army, it is broken up into cliques, 
 which reflect the disorganisation of the country. 
 One result of these changes seems to be that the 
 country looks less than it did to the Administra- 
 tion for guidance. One cannot imagine Mr. 
 Murray having written a long book about French 
 Society under the Empire, and omitting aU men- 
 tion of the Emperor and his court. President 
 Gr6vy, however, is scarcely mentioned in these 
 papers. Ministers and prefects are only noticed 
 to show how insignificant and how corrupt they 
 are. In the next place, let it be said to the credit 
 of the Republic that immorality — having no Em- 
 peror to sustain it — is no longer in fashion. 
 Civilised men and women are, of course, pretty 
 much the same in all countries; but it makes an 
 appreciable difference whether the Head of the 
 State patronises a singer of loose songs and 
 chooses pictures with licentious subjects for his 
 collection, or whether he practises austerity and 
 domestic virtue. 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 337 
 
 It is evident that in Mr. Grenville-Murray's 
 estimation Frenchwomen are the real rulers of 
 France.^ There is nothing new in this. Why it 
 should be that the nation which prided itself on 
 the Salic law should be so unconditionally sub- 
 ject to feminine rule would take long to explain, 
 but every student of French history knows that 
 the women of France have governed its Kings 
 and animated its revolutions. The first Napoleon 
 kept himself independent of the sex, and was brutally 
 hostile to it; but then the first Napoleon was not 
 a Frenchman. What makes the mystery more 
 insoluble is that Frenchwomen seem to be trained 
 fi-om their tenderest years to a life of absolute 
 submission. The young girl is brought up in a convent 
 under the most caressing and most vigilant of des- 
 potisms. She is perhaps summoned from her lessons 
 — as Mr. Murray describes in one of his sketches — 
 to be introduced to the gentleman whom she is 
 to marry in about two months. Even if she is not 
 disposed of so rapidly, and goes home for three 
 or four years, she will not be expected to talk to 
 the partners with whom she dances at balls, or to 
 speak to strangers of the other sex in drawing- 
 rooms, or to go about visiting in country houses. 
 
 [' See French Traits, an Essay in Comparative Criticism, by W. C. 
 Brownell, New York, Scribners Sons, 1889: Especially Chap. vi. Ed.] 
 
 22 
 
338 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 According to the French ideal she is to be inno- 
 cent and ignorant as a child till the day she be- 
 comes a wife. Thereafter her husband by all 
 theory is to mould her as he chooses. There- 
 after it is she by all fact who moulds her husband 
 and determines his fortunes. She comes to him 
 without education, except in the most superficial 
 accomplishments, and without knowledge of the 
 world ; but she carries about her somehow the 
 secret of empire. Mr. Murray's longest sketch in 
 the volume before us is the history of the fortunes 
 of a journalist, M. Tartine, who being debarred 
 from literature for a time in consequence of an 
 unlucky partnership, determines to venture into 
 matrimony. He puts himself in the hands of his 
 family notary, and is introduced to a charming girl 
 with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, whose 
 mother has been an opera dancer, and is now anxious 
 to rehabilitate herself by marrying her daughter 
 respectably. M. Tartine has married with the very 
 natural idea of founding a newspaper, which shall 
 become the admiration and delight of Paris, and 
 which shall give him fortune and power. But his 
 mother-in-law, Mdme. de Frailski, is better advised. 
 She points out to him that there will always be 
 time enough to found a newspaper, and that it 
 will be infinitely better for him to enter Govern- 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 339 
 
 ment service as a prefect. The instincts of the 
 •old Bohemian revolt. He has never seen a high 
 dignitary ply his avocations in an embroidered 
 swallow-tail without feeling stricken with mirth ; 
 and it takes a good deal of practical argument 
 from Mdme. de Frailski to convince him that as he 
 is now prosperous he is bound to place himself 
 on the side of authority. Even when he has 
 ■consented to become a candidate, M. Tartine's 
 negotiations for office would miscarry if they were 
 left to himself The Minister does not like jour- 
 nalists who have been in opposition, and M. Tartine 
 does not exactly conciliate confidence by stating 
 that if Government were to commission him to 
 proclaim that cauliflowers grew with their heads 
 Tinder ground he would do it cheerfully. A 
 Minister likes that temper of obedience in an offi- 
 cial, and may generally, as we all know, count 
 •on it, but he does not like it to be announced 
 beforehand with a cynical outspokenness. Cyni- 
 cism is not in keeping either with the deference 
 -of good breeding or with the faith that accom- 
 panies a sound morality and belief in the principles 
 of order. However, Mdme. de Frailski and her 
 charming daughter pay secret visits not in vain 
 to the Minister, who is wise enough to know that 
 a man cannot go very wrong if his wife and 
 
340 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 mother-in-law are right-minded. M. Tartine is 
 appointed prefect of Singebourg. He is a Uttle 
 ashamed of his promotion when it first comes to 
 him; and feels more galled by the collar than 
 pleased by the gilt. Moreover, for some time he 
 is stupid enough not to understand that women 
 are better fitted than men to succeed in a very- 
 mixed society, where all depends upon finding 
 out where the elements of strength are, and allying^ 
 yourself with them. 
 
 Society in Singebourg is happy enough not to- 
 contain more than five principal divisions. There 
 are the Church party, with the Bishop at its head ; 
 the Orleanists, who are favoured by the General; 
 the party of Government, presided over by the 
 Chief Judge; the ordinary Republicans, whose 
 spokesman is the Mayor, and the Extreme Left, 
 represented by a Darwinian journalist. It will be 
 seen that two important sections are not prominent 
 in Singebourg. The Legitimists we must suppose 
 are buried in their country seats, or are dying 
 out ; and the Napoleonists are probably demoralised, 
 by the double split in their party. M. Tartine 
 ought to find the path before him strewn with 
 roses, but M. Tartine cannot discover the secret 
 of government. He is badgered by the Bishop 
 who wants the nuns to teach in the municipal 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 
 
 341 
 
 schools, and by the General who complains that 
 his officers have been kicked out of the public 
 theatre for disturbing a performance. The Liberals 
 •denounce him as too gentle; and, in fact, his 
 chief clerk cannot persuade him to adopt the 
 favourite expedient of prefects out of favour, and 
 imprison an anarchist. M. Tartine has a sneaking 
 liking for anarchists. Driven furious by the repri- 
 mands he receives from his official superior M. 
 Tartine is on the point of ruining himself and 
 compromising the Government by filling the official 
 gazette with a flaming invective against the Bishop 
 and the General, penned in his very best style, 
 when the horrified chief clerk calls Mdme. de Frailski 
 in. We are only allowed to peep behind the veil 
 and see how the unruly man was reduced to 
 submission by his better angels. " Of course, his 
 young wife had shed tears on learning that he 
 wished to behave like an infidel, and Mdme. de 
 Frailski had remarked that quarrelling with a 
 General was but the first step to surrendering 
 Nancy and all that remained of Lorraine to the 
 German Empire. " Luckily, Mdme. de Frailski is 
 not contented with averting a scandal, but instructs 
 M. Tartine in the method of governing paternally ; 
 that is, of exerting a silent but perceptible pressure 
 upon all his surroundings. The Bishop is gently 
 
342 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 admonished to submit his next pastoral to Mdme. 
 de Frailski's orthodox censorship, as the Govern- 
 ment are so anxious " to live on good terms with 
 the Church." The General gets a hint wrapped 
 up in a compliment like a pill in a bonbon, that 
 he may be recommended for service in Africa if 
 he continues to show himself restless at being 
 cooped up in a small town. The Mayor is reduced 
 to pliancy by a promise of the ribbon of the 
 Legion of Honour; a discontented chandler is 
 appeased with a contract for candles ; the Royalist 
 Club is shut up; and the radical journalist only 
 escapes Mdme. de Frailski's lash because, before 
 she assumed supreme power, she had already 
 procured his dismissal from his editorship. Under 
 this rigime the people of Singebourg " ran in 
 harness, felt the curb, and the whip was not 
 spared; " but Frenchmen love the whip, and the 
 Singebourgers said to one another : " Monsieur 
 Tartine is a rough prefect. . . . He is dreaded 
 and even liked. . . . From all which it is possible 
 to derive a new moral: Let us love, honour and 
 obey our mothers-in-law." Provided, of course, 
 they be Frenchwomen. 
 
 The ablest literary man in the world can only 
 give out what is in him, and it would not be 
 fair to complain of Mr. Grenville-Murray because 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 343 
 
 the women he has met with and understood and 
 sketched are all worldly, and intriguing and 
 finessing like Mdme. de Frailski, though they 
 are generally free from the dubious social antecedents 
 which kept back that clever little woman for a 
 time. Very charming and amusing are the por- 
 traits he gives us of Madame de Roseth6, the 
 great Legitimist lady, and of her fashionable 
 friends, Mesdames de R6s6da and de Mignonette ; 
 of the actresses whom these ladies visit, of Madame 
 de Susurre, who entangles a judge into giving a 
 false judgment; of Madame de Sabretache, who 
 conspires for the empire; and of Madame de 
 Fine-Mouche, who is a police spy. Happily for 
 France, all these ladies live in a very small world, 
 and are counterpoised by the wholesome influences 
 of a great many women who are the strength of 
 every good movement and every noble cause. 
 Mr. Murray has not attempted to explain the secret 
 of feminine ascendency in France, but appears to 
 put it down to superior tact. No doubt French- 
 women have that talent in perfection; but women 
 all the world over have it more than men. May 
 not part of the reason be that a despotism — and 
 France, with rare exceptions, has been governed 
 despotically for centuries — does more to demoralise 
 men than women? Men find all the avenues of 
 
344 
 
 REVIEWS AND ESSAYS 
 
 success closed against them unless they will deny 
 their convictions, and cannot even accept pro- 
 fessional failure and speak out. For all but the 
 sacred few who have the courage of their opinions, 
 a life of subserviency or the most frivolous dis- 
 sipation are the only careers possible. Women, 
 as a rule, have greater liberty of speech, and do 
 not suffer from a professional career being closed 
 to them. Those among them who are sincerely 
 religious, as it is still possible for many French 
 women to be, are sustained by the inspiration of 
 faith; and self-sacrifice and devotion to a cause 
 perhaps come most naturally to the more impul- 
 sive and ardent sex when it is a question of some 
 great national uprising against a foreign enemy. 
 May it not be that it is the higher moral tone as 
 well as the more subtle tact that make up a 
 Frenchwoman's power? 
 
 Mr. Murray's sketches of men do not include 
 any from the Quartier Latin, if indeed there be 
 a Quartier Latin still ; but he seems to have mixed 
 a good deal with military men, and throws a 
 great deal of curious light on the constitution of 
 the army. The higher nobility now enter the 
 army as officers, and their money and the influence 
 they command make them very unpopular with 
 their comrades in the mess. Even in the great 
 
HIGH LIFE IN FRANCE 
 
 345 
 
 military school of St. Cyr the cadets are "divided 
 into two camps, who hate each other with all 
 their souls." The prospect would seem a melan- 
 choly one for France, but perhaps the change 
 from the days of Napoleon III, when scarcely 
 any gentleman would enter the army, though a 
 great many joined the navy, is not for the worse. 
 Nothing was more deplorable than to notice twenty 
 years ago how the young men of historical name 
 and unblemished family traditions were condemned 
 to pass their lives in an ignoble obscurity, because 
 they could not take service under " the man of 
 the 2nd of December." It is the isolation of those 
 days which is partly to blame for the bitterness 
 of caste feeUng, and one may hope that if a day 
 of trial ever comes again for the French armies, 
 the titled and untitled officers will become real 
 brothers in arms in the presence of the foe. 
 
INDEX 
 
 "Agnostic's Progress, An," 321 ; a 
 defence of one particular agnostic 
 rather than of agnosticism, 323 ; 
 contains a very subtle sketch 
 of Carlyle, 325-326; compared 
 with Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress, 
 325-326 ; religious instinct part 
 of human nature itself, 328. 
 
 Agnostic, position of the, 328. 
 
 Agnosticism, real future for, 329. 
 
 Art, or Philosophy, questionable if 
 we understand them better than 
 they were understood in Ancient 
 Greece, 113. 
 
 Australia, how history of, should 
 be taught to children, 215-221; 
 political work in, during the 
 last forty years, 220. 
 
 Australian Institutions, 236. 
 
 Bismarck, the greatest living Ger- 
 man, birth and education of, 
 155; historical parallels of, are 
 Luther and Cromwell, !$(>; 
 Louis Napoleon's verdict of, 158 ; 
 first great success of, the Bro- 
 thers' War, 159; religious re- 
 pressive measures of, dangerous 
 by like persecution, 160; propo- 
 sal to Austria, and famous tele- 
 gram by, 161 ; character of, most 
 pitiless of men in power during 
 the war, 163; savagery of, 164- 
 165 ; foreign and internal policy 
 of, 165 ; recognises progressive 
 property tax, and is a protection- 
 
 ist, 166; views on State Social- 
 ism, and on Religion by, 167; 
 views on relation of church and 
 state by, 168. 
 
 Blood tax never heavier than it is 
 now, 99, 
 
 Bligh, story of, 217. 
 
 Borthwick, Sir Algernon, and the 
 French Emperor, 46. 
 
 "Boswell's Johnson", on conver- 
 sation at table, 95. 
 
 Bourrienne, 257. 
 
 Brown, John, 58; last words of, 93. 
 
 Bright's denunciation of continu- 
 ance of the Crimean War, 98. 
 
 Burke's diatribes against the French 
 Revolution, 132. 
 
 Cambronne, 93. 
 
 Canning, fortune of, for thirty 
 years scarcely more brilliant than 
 Sheridan's, 130; closely reasoned 
 periods of, 97. 
 
 Camelford, Lord, 221. 
 
 Casuistry, Questions of, 78. 
 
 Carlyle, Life of Cromwell, and 
 French Revolution by, 173 ; 
 school of, changed from a protest 
 against shams, into a protest 
 against common sense, 172. 
 
 Catholicism in France owes every- 
 thing to the blameless self- 
 denying lives of its teachers, 291. 
 
 Convict question, 219. 
 
 Crown Forests of Norman times, 
 and the Crown Land system of 
 
INDEX 
 
 our early colonial days, 222. 
 Cynicism in Literature, 62. 
 
 Emerson, points of resemblance 
 between Carlyle, and, 171 ; paral- 
 lel between Carlyle, and, 171; 
 literary influence of, rather likely 
 to dilate, than to dwindle with 
 time, 173 ; early life of, 175 ; as 
 Unitarian Minister, 176; retire- 
 ment from the ministry of, and 
 his travels, 177 ; refuses to be- 
 come the patriarch of Brook 
 Farm, 181 ; a scientific man 
 arranging nature and morals, 1 8 1 ; 
 style of, perfectly simple and 
 lucid, 182 ; character of, rather 
 a hint than an impulse to his 
 own generation, 184; estimate 
 of, by Lowell and Conway, 186. 
 
 EngUsh statesmanship, tendency of, 
 112. 
 
 England, History of, how it should 
 be taught to children, 222-230; 
 the great statesmen of, above all 
 required of them that they should 
 understand the requirements of 
 commerce, 235. 
 
 Ethics of ordinary life, 88. 
 
 Exploration, History of, 217, 
 
 Factory legislation, 104. 
 
 Fair Haven, the, 69, 
 
 Family, institution of the, 1 00. 
 
 Fox and Miall's ideal separation 
 
 of Church and State, 220. 
 Frederick II, on history of his 
 
 own time, 44. 
 Froude on Carlyle, 40. 
 
 Garibaldi never degenerated into 
 
 bombast, 94. 
 Gavarni, sketches of, on French 
 
 domestic Hfe, 59. 
 George III, caricature of, as a giant, 
 
 54. 
 Goethe and Heine, 96. 
 Grand style, the, has had its day. 
 
 94 ; English House of Commons 
 and, 96 ; began with the elder 
 Pitt and died out with Burke, 97. 
 
 Greig's pessimism andRenan's, I2i. 
 
 Grote's vote by ballot, 220. 
 
 Hayti, The Black Republic of, 306 ; 
 Sir Spenser St. John declares his 
 conviction that Hayti is in a state 
 of rapid decadence, 307 ; planters 
 refused to submit to negro 
 emancipation, 308 ; Soulouque 
 made himself at first President 
 then Emperor of, 309 ; Gefirard, 
 the most enlightened and most 
 thoroughly devoted ruler of, 309 ; 
 General Salomon President of, 
 309 ; President and Ministers of, 
 309 ; army in, corrupt as the 
 police, 311; Production, and 
 Municipal arrangement of, 312; 
 Le Fervi^re the citadel of, 313 ; 
 Vaudoux worship in, and its 
 horrors, 313, 314, 315; Haytians 
 will work, if it is worth their 
 while to do so, 316; aptitude 
 for taking polish, 317; state and 
 private schools in, 318; what a 
 strong government could do in 
 twenty years in, 319; Haytian 
 politeness and manners, the wo- 
 men, often married young foreign 
 residents, 317. 
 
 Highlander and Lowlander, 287. 
 
 History, great classical works of, 
 never have been written by young 
 men, 203 ; children incapable of 
 understanding legal or political 
 institutions, 205 ; teachers of, 
 should give the child what it can 
 assimilate, 208 ; anecdotal ma- 
 nual of, required for children, 
 210; first lessons in, ought to 
 concern themselves with what is 
 exalted, tragical, adventurous or 
 picturesque, 213; the teacher 
 only can make of the historical 
 manual, a vivid reality, 238. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Insincerity, exceptions which the 
 world has agreed to tolerate, 86. 
 
 Issy, and St. Sulpice seminaries, 
 301. 
 
 Instinct, unconscious memory, 61. 
 
 Italy in 1843, 189. 
 
 Italians paralysed by want of a 
 steady purpose, 190. 
 
 Josephine, Empress, 249 ; influence 
 over Napoleon, 252; jealousy of, 
 270. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., and Bos well, 39. 
 
 Lamb, Lady Caroline, 42. 
 
 Leech and Tenniel have elevated 
 and transformed the art of the 
 caricaturist, 56. 
 
 Leclerc, Pauline, 266. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 56. 
 
 Louis XVI primed with royal epi- 
 grams, 91. 
 
 Louis XVIII's remark on his 
 entry into Paris, 92. 
 
 Louise, Marie, 255. 
 
 Mazzini, political dreams of, have 
 become facts or possibilities, 188 ; 
 last position of, 192; character 
 of, and five charges against, 193 ; 
 charge against, that he sanctioned 
 assassination, 194, 195; charge 
 against, that he incited men to 
 undertake risks which he did 
 not share himself, 195; one of 
 his favourite make-ups, shovel 
 hat, and apron of an English 
 Dean, 195; Lesseps, Mons. de, on, 
 197 ; charge of perpetually pro- 
 moting revolt against every form 
 of Government, 197 ; has not 
 tarnished Rome, by either a 
 baseness or a crime, 198 ; charge 
 against, that he was an anarchist , 
 198; charge that he was irreli- 
 gious, views on religion by, 200. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, likeness 
 chiselled in bronze to all time, 53. 
 
 Marriage Laws, and women socially 
 
 and politically, 105, 106. 
 Malmesbury, Lord, Memoirs of an 
 
 Ex-Minister by, 46. 
 Man's works; behind all are the 
 
 industrial human mind and moral 
 
 sympathies, 1 10. 
 "Men are feasting at Genoa, men 
 
 are dying at Naples, I go to 
 
 Naples," 89. 
 Men, the greatest, not makers of 
 
 fine phrases, 90. 
 Michelet's criticism upon Napoleon, 
 
 243. 
 Middle Ages, caricaturist of the, 59. 
 Morality, great advances in, 10 1. 
 Modern Society, as many martyrs 
 
 as the l6th Century, 108. 
 
 Napoleon on Waterloo, 43; cari- 
 catures of, S3, 54, 55, 56; his 
 appearance rendered ridiculous 
 in a simple portrait, 58; verdict 
 of Bismarck by, 158; worst 
 scandals against, unproved 243 ; 
 early character of, 243 ; refrained 
 from saying the word that would 
 have brought his enemy to the 
 scaffold, 245 ; appearance of, in 
 early life, 247 ; brutal speeches 
 to ladies of, 247 ; on Comeille, 
 248 ; weak points of, in French 
 salons, 249; real position by, in 
 the world, 254; views of Mdme 
 Junot and on morals, 2,6 1 ; cha- 
 racter of, 264 ; generals of, some- 
 times remembered their old 
 equality, and told him rough 
 truths, 271. 
 
 O'Connell's Home Rule, 220. 
 
 Pascal's famous controversy with 
 
 the Jesuits, 85. 
 Patriotism, mere local, much less 
 
 a factor in history now, 100. 
 Peel, 238. 
 Popular thought, tendency to be 
 
 exultant and sanguine, III. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Port-au-Prince, 313. 
 Punch, London, dreaded on the 
 Continent, 57. 
 
 Quadrio, men died like, 188. 
 
 Renan, philosophical dialogues by, 
 116; early life of, 290; super- 
 stition that flourished in Brittany 
 when a child, 292 ; mother of, 
 294 ; on the Revolution, 295 ; 
 in the seminary of St. Nicholas 
 du Chardonet, 298; was begin- 
 ning to see that God's Heaven 
 was higher than God's earth, 
 and wider than the Catholic 
 church, 300 ; leaves the Church, 
 302 ; in proportion as he is a 
 priest, is he an incomplete man, 
 302-303. 
 
 Rousseau's Confessions, 41. 
 
 Russia at this moment, 118. 
 
 Sheridan, marriage and romance of, 
 125; would starve rather than 
 stoop, 126; party of, accused of 
 treating him badly, 127 ; political 
 career of, 228; most brilliant 
 speeches by, 131; oratory of, 
 133; moral character of, 134; 
 success in political life, 136-137; 
 wag's notice on official door of, 
 139; would not serve his party 
 against the State, 143; policy of 
 war, 144; among the Doctors, 
 145; as a dramatist, 145; he 
 Uved in the best set, 149; " School 
 for Scandal", 149; wit and hu- 
 mour of, 151; Criticism of Dr. 
 Johnson by, 152; mother of, 
 
 153. 
 Salic Law, and feminine rule, 337. 
 Sarum and Gatton, 221. 
 Scottish Characteristics, 274; im- 
 
 pulse of, however strong, sub- 
 ordinate to reason and calculation 
 279. 
 
 Scotch, who are the? 286 ; humour 
 of the, 281, 282, =83; 
 Scotchman, and the Jew, 280; 
 Englishman and the, 280 ; Faith 
 of the, 284; why better fitted 
 for the Continent than the Eng- 
 lish, 285. 
 
 Satire and Irony, great masters of, 
 70. 
 
 Satirist comes midway between the 
 artist and caricaturist, 50; indivi- 
 dual satirists have achieved im- 
 mortality by their masterpieces, 
 
 49- 
 
 Science, 329. 
 
 Shakespeare not a learned man 
 like Machiavel or Hooke or 
 Rollin, 207. 
 
 Sherbrooke, Lord, 216. 
 
 State, should give its growing ci- 
 tizen free access to books and 
 instruction of every sort, 208. 
 
 St. John, Sir Spenser, robbed of 
 eighteen dozen claret by a ser- 
 vant, 311. 
 
 Talleyrand, Memoirs of, 48 ; cari- 
 cature of, 55 ; Napoleon and, 
 241. 
 
 Tale of a Tub, not unlikely to 
 outlive all the controversial theo- 
 logy of Swift's time, 63. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, talk at table, 
 
 95- 
 Wellington, Duke of, famous " Up 
 Guards, and at them", by, 90; 
 costume of French general din- 
 ing with the, 273.