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 V.5 
 
CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 
 E S SAYS: 
 
 COLLECTED AND REPUBLISHED. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 IN FIVE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. V. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, STRAND. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Death of Edward Irving 1 
 
 The Diamond Necklace 7 
 
 MiRABEAU 106 
 
 Parliamentary History of the French Revo- 
 lution 202 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 230 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs 314 
 
 Petition on the Copyright Bill 353 
 
 On the Sinking of the Vengeur 356 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 The Tale, by Goethe .... 
 
 383 
 
MISCELLANIES. 
 
 DEATH OF EDWARD IRVING* 
 [1835.] 
 
 Edward Irving's warfare has closed ; if not in victory, 
 yet in invincibility, and faithful endurance to the end. 
 The Spirit of the Time, which could not enlist him as 
 its soldier, must needs, in all ways, fight against him 
 as its enemy : it has done its part, and he has done his. 
 One of the noblest natures ; a man of antique heroic 
 nature, in questionable modern garniture, which he 
 could not wear ! Around him a distracted society, 
 vacant, prurient; heat and darkness, and what these 
 two may breed : mad extremes of flattery, followed by 
 madder contumely, by indifference and neglect ! These 
 were the conflicting elements ; this is the result they 
 have made out among them. The voice of our ' son of 
 thunder,' — with its deep tone of wisdom that belonged 
 to all articulate- speaking ages, never inaudible amid 
 wildest dissonances that belong to this inarticulate age, 
 which slumbers and somnambulates, which cannot speak, 
 but only screech and gibber, — has gone silent so soon. 
 Closed are those lips. The large heart, with its large 
 bounty, where wretchedness found solacement, and they 
 
 * Fraser's Magazine, No. 61. 
 
 VOL. V. B 
 
2 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 that were wandering in darkness the light as of a home, 
 has paused. The strong man can no more : beaten on 
 from without, undermined from within, he must sink 
 overwearied, as at nightfall, when it was yet but the 
 mid- season of day. Irving was forty-two years and 
 some months old : Scotland sent him forth a Herculean 
 man ; our mad Babylon wore him and wasted him, 
 with all her engines ; and it took her twelve years. 
 He sleeps with his fathers, in that loved birth-land : 
 Babylon with its deafening inanity rages on ; but to 
 him henceforth innocuous, unheeded — forever. 
 
 Reader, thou hast seen and heard the man, as who 
 has not, — with wise or unwise wonder; thou shalt not 
 see or hear him again. The work, be what it might, is 
 done • dark curtains sink over it, enclose it ever deeper 
 into the unchangeable Past. Think, for perhaps thou 
 art one of a thousand, and worthy so to think, That 
 here once more was a genuine man sent into this our 
 2/72genuine phantasmagory of a world, which would go 
 to ruin without such ; that here once more, under thy 
 own eyes, in this last decade, was enacted the old 
 Tragedy, and has had its fifth- act now, of The Mes- 
 senger of Truth in the Age of Shams, — and what relation 
 thou thyself may est have to that. Whether any ? Be- 
 yond question, thou thyself art here ; either a dreamer 
 or awake ; and one day shalt cease to dream. 
 
 This man was appointed a Christian Priest ; and 
 strove with the whole force that was in him to he it. 
 To be it : in a time of Tithe Controversy, Encycloped- 
 ism, Catholic Rent, Philanthropism, and the Revolution 
 of Three Days ! He might have been so many things ; 
 
DEATH OF EDWARD IRVING, 
 
 3 
 
 not a speaker only, but a doer ; the leader of hosts of 
 men. For his head, when the Fog-Babylon had not yet 
 obscured it, was of strong far- searching insight ; his 
 v^ery enthusiasm \vas sanguine, not atrabiliar ; he was 
 so loving, full of hope, so simple-hearted, and made all 
 that approached him his. A giant force of activity was 
 in the man ; speculation was accident, not nature. 
 Chivalry, adventurous field-life of the old Border, and 
 a far nobler sort than that, ran in his blood. There 
 was in him a courage, dauntless not pugnacious, hardly 
 fierce, by no possibility ferocious; as of the generous 
 war-horse, gentle in its strength, yet that laughs at the 
 shaking of the spear. — But, above all, be what he might, 
 to be a reality was indispensable for him. In his simple 
 Scottish circle, the highest form of manhood attainable 
 or known was that of Christian ; the highest Christian 
 was the Teacher of such. Irving's lot was cast. For 
 the foray -spears were all rusted into earth there ; Annan 
 Castle had become a Townhall; and Prophetic Knox 
 had sent tidings thither : Prophetic Knox ; and, alas, 
 also Sceptic Hume ; and, as the natural consequence, 
 Diplomatic Dundas ! In such mixed incongruous ele- 
 ment had the young soul to grow. 
 
 Grow nevertheless he did, with that strong vitality 
 of his ; grow and ripen. What the Scottish uncele- 
 brated Irving was, they that have only seen the Lon- 
 don celebrated and distorted one can never know. Bo- 
 dily and spiritually, perhaps there was not, in that 
 November, 1822, a man more full of genial energetic 
 life in all these Islands. 
 
 By a fatal chance. Fashion cast her eye on him, as 
 on some impersonation of Novel- Cameronianism, some 
 
4 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 wild Product of Nature from the wild mountains ; Fa- 
 shion crowded round him, with her meteor lights and 
 Bacchic dances ; breathed her foul incense on him ; 
 intoxicating, poisoning. One may say, it was his own 
 nobleness that forwarded such ruin : the excess of his 
 sociability and sympathy, of his value for the suffrages 
 and sympathies of men. Syren songs, as of a new 
 Moral Reformation (sons of Mammon, and high sons of 
 Belial and Beelzebub, to become sons of God, and the 
 gumflowers of Almack's to be made living roses in a 
 new Eden), sound in the inexperienced ear and heart. 
 Most seductive, most delusive ! Fashion went her idle 
 way, to gaze on Egyptian Crocodiles, Iroquois Hun- 
 ters, or what else there might be ; forgot this man, 
 — who unhappily could not in his turn forget. The 
 intoxicating poison had been swallowed ; no force of 
 natural health could cast it out. Unconsciously, for 
 most part in deep unconsciousness, there was now the 
 impossibility to live neglected ; to walk on the quiet 
 paths, where alone it is well with us. Singularity 
 must henceforth succeed Singularity. O foulest Circean 
 draught, thou poison of Popular Applause ! madness is 
 in thee, and death ; thy end is Bedlam and the Grave. 
 For the last seven years, Irving, forsaken by the world, 
 strove either to recall it, or to forsake it ; shut himself 
 up in a lesser world of ideas and persons, and lived iso- 
 lated there. Neither in this was there health : for this 
 man such isolation was not fit, such ideas, such persons. 
 
 One light still shone on him ; alas, through a me- 
 dium more and more turbid : the light from Heaven. 
 His Bible was there, wherein must lie healing for all 
 sorrows. To the Bible he more and more exclusively 
 
DEATH OF EDWARD IRVING. 
 
 5 
 
 addressed himself. If it is the written Word of God, 
 shall it not be the acted Word too ? Is it mere sound, 
 then ; black printer's -ink on white rag-paper ? A half- 
 man could have passed on without answering ; a whole 
 man must answer. Hence Prophecies of Millenniums, 
 Gifts of Tongues, — whereat Orthodoxy prims herself 
 into decent wonder, and waves her, Avaunt ! Irving 
 clave to his Belief, as to his souFs soul ; followed it 
 whithersoever, through earth or air, it might lead him ; 
 toiling as never man toiled to spread it, to gain the 
 world's ear for it, — in vain. Ever wilder waxed the 
 confusion without and within. The misguided noble- 
 minded had now nothing left to do but die. He died 
 the death of the true and brave. His last words, they 
 say, were : In life and in death, I am the Lord's.'' — 
 Amen ! Amen ! 
 
 One who knew him well, and may with good cause 
 love him, has said : But for Irving, 1 had never known 
 what the communion of man with man means. His was 
 the freest, brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever 
 came in contact with ; I call him, on the whole, the best 
 man I have ever, after trial enough, found in this world, 
 or now hope to find. 
 
 The first time I saw Irving was six- and- twenty 
 years ago, in his native town, Annan. He was fresh 
 from Edinburgh, with College prizes, high character and 
 promise : he had come to see our Schoolmaster, who 
 had also been his. We heard of famed Professors, of 
 high matters classical, mathematical, a whole Wonder- 
 land of Knowledge : nothing but joy, health, hopeful- 
 ness without end, looked out from the blooming young 
 man. The last time I saw him was three months ago. 
 
6 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 in London. Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, but 
 now from amid unquiet fire ; his face was flaccid, wasted, 
 unsound ; hoary as with extreme age : he was trembling 
 over the brink of the grave. — Adieu, thou first Friend ; 
 adieu, while this confused Twilight of Existence lasts ! 
 Might we meet where Twilight has become Day 
 
7 
 
 THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.* 
 [1837.] 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Age of Romance. 
 
 The age of Romance has not ceased ; it never ceases ; 
 it does not, if we will think of it, so much as very sen- 
 sibly decline. " The passions are repressed by social 
 forms ; great passions no longer shew themselves ?" 
 Why, there are passions still great enough to replenish 
 Bedlam, for it never wants tenants ; to suspend men 
 from bed-posts, from improved- drops at the west end of 
 Newgate. A passion that explosively shivers asunder 
 the Life it took rise in, ought to be regarded as con- 
 siderable : more no passion, in the highest heyday of 
 Romance, yet did. The passions, by grace of the Su- 
 pernal and also of the Infernal Powers (for both have a 
 hand in it), can never fail us. 
 
 And then, as to ' social forms,' be it granted that 
 they are of the most buckram quality, and bind men up 
 into the pitifullest straitlaced commonplace existence, — 
 you ask. Where is the Romance ? In the Scotch way 
 one answers. Where is it not ? That very spectacle of 
 an Immortal Nature, with faculties and destiny extend- 
 ing through Eternity, hampered and bandaged up, by 
 
 * Fraser^s Magazine, Nos. 85 and 86. 
 
8 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 nurses, pedagogues, posturemasters, and the tongues of 
 innumerable old women (named ' force of public opi- 
 nion ') ; by prejudice, custom, want of knowledge, want 
 of money, want of strength, into, say, the meagre 
 Pattern -Figure that, in these days, meets you in all 
 thoroughfares : a ' god-created Man,' all but abnegating 
 the character of Man ; forced to exist, automatised, 
 mummy- wise (scarcely in rare moments audible or visi- 
 ble from amid his wrappages and cerements), as Gentle- 
 man or Gigman ;* and so selling his birthright of Eter- 
 nity for the three daily meals, poor at best, which Time 
 yields : — is not this spectacle itself highly romantic, 
 tragical, if we had eyes to look at it ? The high-born 
 (highest-born, for he came out of Heaven) lies drowning 
 in the despicablest puddles ; the priceless gift of Life, 
 which he can have but once, for he waited a whole Eter- 
 nity to be bom, and now has a whole Eternity waiting 
 to see what he will do when born, — this priceless gift 
 we see strangled slowly out of him by innumerable 
 packthreads ; and there remains of the glorious Possi- 
 bility, which we fondly named Man, nothing but an 
 inanimate mass of foul loss and disappointment, which 
 we wrap in shrouds and bury underground, — surely with 
 well-merited tears. To the Thinker here lies Tragedy 
 enough ; the epitome and marrow of all Tragedy what- 
 soever. 
 
 But so few are Thinkers ? Aye, Reader, so few 
 think ; there is the rub ! Not one in the thousand has 
 the smallest turn for thinking ; only for passive dream- 
 
 * * I always considered him a respectable man. — What do you 
 mean by respectable ? He kept a Gig.' — ThurtelVs Trial, 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 9 
 
 ing and hearsaying, and active babbling by rote. Of 
 the eyes that men do glare withal so few can see. Thus 
 is the world become such a fearful confused Treadmill ; 
 and each man's task has got entangled in his neigh- 
 bour's, and pulls it awry ; and the Spirit of Blindness, 
 Falsehood, and Distraction, justly named the Devil, 
 continually maintains himself among us ; and even hopes 
 (were it not for the Opposition, which by God's grace 
 will also maintain itself) to become supreme. Thus, 
 too, among other things, has the Romance of Life gone 
 wholly out of sight : and all History, degenerating into 
 empty invoice-lists of Pitched Battles and Changes of 
 Ministry ; or, still worse, into ' Constitutional History,' 
 or ' Philosophy of History,' or ' Philosophy teaching by 
 Experience,' is become dead, as the Almanacs of other 
 years, — to which species of composition, indeed, it bears, 
 in several points of view, no inconsiderable affinity. 
 
 * Of all blinds that shut up men's vision,' says one, 
 the worst is Self.' How true ! How doubly true, if 
 Self, assuming her cunningest, yet miserablest disguise, 
 come on us, in never-ceasing, all-obscuring reflexes from 
 the innumerable Selves of others ; not as Pride, not even 
 as real Hunger, but only as Vanity, and the shadow of 
 an imaginary Hunger for Applause ; under the name of 
 what we call * Respectability ! ' Alas now for our His- 
 torian : to his other spiritual deadness (which, however, 
 so long as he physically breathes cannot be complete) 
 this sad new magic influence is added ! Henceforth his 
 Histories must all be screwed up into the ' dignity of 
 History.' Instead of looking fixedly at the Thing, and 
 first of all, and beyond all, endeavouring to see it, and 
 fashion a living Picture of it, not a wretched politico - 
 B 2 
 
10 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 metaphysical Abstraction of it, he has now quite other 
 matters to look to. The Thing lies shrouded, invisible, 
 in thousandfold hallucinations, and foreign air-images : 
 What did the Whigs say of it } What did the Tories ? 
 The Priests } The Freethinkers ? Above all, What will 
 my own listening circle say of me for what I say of it ? 
 And then his RespectabiHty in general, as a literary 
 gentleman ; his not despicable talent for philosophy ! 
 Thus is our poor Historian's faculty directed mainly on 
 two objects : the Writing and the Writer, both of which 
 are quite extraneous ; and the Thing written of fares as 
 we see. Can it be wonderful that Histories, wherein 
 open lying is not permitted, are unromantic } Nay, our 
 very Biographies, how stiff- starched, foisonless, hollow ! 
 They stand there respectable ; and — what more } Dumb 
 idols ; with a skin of delusively painted wax-work ; in- 
 wardly empty, or full of rags and bran. In our England 
 especially, which in these days is become the chosen 
 land of Respectability, Life -writing has dwindled to the 
 sorrowfullest condition ; it requires a man to be some 
 disrespectable, ridiculous Boswell before he can write a 
 tolerable Life. Thus too, strangely enough, the only 
 Lives worth reading are those of Players, emptiest and 
 poorest of the sons of Adam ; who nevertheless were 
 sons of his, and brothers of ours ; and by the nature of 
 the case, had already bidden Respectability good- day. 
 Such bounties, in this as in infinitely deeper matters, 
 does Respectability shower down on us. Sad are thy 
 doings, O Gig; sadder than those of Juggernaut's Car : 
 that, with huge wheel, suddenly crushes asunder the 
 bodies of men ; thou, in thy light-bobbing Long- Acre 
 springs, gradually winnowest away their souls ! 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, 
 
 11 
 
 Depend upon it, for one thing, good Reader, no age 
 ever seemed the Age of Romance to itself. Charlemagne, 
 let the Poets talk as they will, had his own provocations 
 in the world : what with selling of his poultry and pot- 
 herbs, what with wanton daughters carrying secretaries 
 through the snow ; and, for instance, that hanging of the 
 Saxons over the Weser-bridge (four thousand of them, 
 they say, at one bout), it seems to me that the Great 
 Charles had his temper ruffled at times, Roland of 
 Roncesvalles too, we see well in thinking of it, found 
 rainy weather as well as sunny ; knew what it was to 
 have hose need darning ; got tough beef to chew, or 
 even went dinnerless ; was saddle- sick, calumniated, 
 constipated (as his madness too clearly indicates) ; and 
 oftenest felt, I doubt not, that this was a very Devil's 
 world, and he, Roland himself, one of the sorriest caitiffs 
 there. Only in long subsequent days, when the tough 
 beef, the constipation, and the calumny, had clean 
 vanished, did it all begin to seem Romantic, and your 
 Turpins and Ariostos found music in it. So, I say, is 
 it ever ! And the more, as your true hero, your true 
 Roland, is ever unconscious that he is a hero : this is a 
 condition of all greatness. 
 
 In our own poor Nineteenth Century, the writer of 
 these lines has been fortunate enough to see not a few 
 glimpses of Romance ; he imagines this Nineteenth is 
 hardly a whit less romantic than that Ninth, or any 
 other, since centuries began. Apart from Napoleon, 
 and the Dantons, and Mirabeaus, whose fire-words of 
 public speaking, and fire-whirlwinds of cannon and 
 musketry, which for a season darkened the air, are 
 perhaps at bottom but superficial phenomena, he has 
 
12 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 witnessed, in remotest places, much that could be called 
 romantic, even miraculous. He has witnessed overhead 
 the infinite Deep, with greater and lesser lights, bright- 
 rolling, silent-beaming, hurled forth by the Hand of 
 God : around him and under his feet, the wonderfullest 
 Earth, with her winter snow-storms and her summer 
 spice-airs ; and, unaccountablest of all, himself standing 
 there. He stood in the lapse of Time ; he saw Eternity 
 behind him, and before him. The all- encircling mys- 
 terious tide of Force, thousandfold (for from force of 
 Thought to force of Gravitation what an interval!) 
 billowed shoreless on ; bore him too along with it, — he 
 too was part of it. From its bosom rose and vanished, 
 in perpetual change, the lordliest Real-Phantasmagory, 
 which men name Being ; and ever anew rose and van- 
 ished ; and ever that lordliest many- coloured scene was 
 full, another yet the same. Oak-trees fell, young acorns 
 sprang : Men too, new- sent from the Unknown, he met, 
 of tiniest size, who waxed into stature, into strength of 
 sinew, passionate fire and light : in other men the light 
 was growing dim, the sinews all feeble ; they sank, 
 motionless, into ashes, into invisibility ; returned hack 
 to the Unknown, beckoning him their mute farewell. 
 He wanders still by the parting -spot ; cannot hear them ; 
 they are far, how far ! — It was a sight for angels, and 
 archangels ; for, indeed, God himself had made it wholly. 
 One many-glancing asbestos-thread in the Web of Uni- 
 versal-History, spirit- woven, it rustled there, as with the 
 howl of mighty winds, through that ' wild- roaring Loom 
 of Time.' Generation after generation, hundreds of 
 them or thousands of them, from the unknown Begin- 
 ning, so loud, so stormful busy, rushed torrent-wise. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 13 
 
 thundering down, down ; and fell all silent, — nothing 
 but some feeble re-echo, which grew ever feebler, 
 struggling up ; and Oblivion swallowed them all. 
 Thousands more, to the unknown Ending, will follow : 
 and thou here, of this present one, hangest as a drop, 
 still sungilt, on the giddy edge ; one moment, while the 
 Darkness has not yet engulphed thee. O Brother ! is 
 that what thou callest prosaic ; of small interest ? Of 
 small interest and for thee ? Awake, poor troubled 
 sleeper : shake off thy torpid nightmare- dream ; look, 
 see, behold it, the Flame -image ; splendours high as 
 Heaven, terrors deep as Hell : this is God's Creation ; 
 this is Man's Life ! — Such things has the writer of these 
 lines witnessed, in this poor Nineteenth Century of ours ; 
 and what are all such to the things he yet hopes to 
 witness ? Hopes, with truest assurance. * I have 
 * painted so much,' said the good Jean Paul, in his old 
 days, * and I have never seen the Ocean ; the Ocean of 
 ' Eternity I shall not fail to see ! ' 
 
 Such being the intrinsic quality of this Time, and of 
 all Time whatsoever, might not the Poet who chanced 
 to walk through it find objects enough to paint } What 
 object soever he fixed on, were it the meanest of the 
 mean, let him but paint it in its actual truth, as it swims 
 there, in such environment ; world-old, yet new, and 
 never ending ; an indestructible portion of the miracu- 
 lous All, — his picture of it were a Poem. How much 
 more if the object fixed on were not mean, but one 
 already wonderful; the mystic * actual truth' of which, 
 if it lay not on the surface, yet shone through the surface, 
 and invited even Prosaists to search for it ! 
 
 The present writer, who unhappily belongs to that 
 
14 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 class, has nevertheless a firmer and firmer persuasion of 
 two things ; first, as was seen, that Romance exists ; 
 secondly, that now, and formerly, and evermore it exists, 
 strictly speaking, in Reality alone. The thing that is, 
 what can be so wonderful ; what, especially to us that 
 are, can have such significance ? Study Reality, he is 
 ever and anon saying to himself ; search out deeper and 
 deeper its quite endless mystery : see it, know it ; then, 
 whether thou wouldst learn from it, and again teach ; or 
 weep over it, or laugh over it, or love it, or despise it, or 
 in any way relate thyself to it, thou hast the firmest 
 enduring basis : that hieroglyphic page is one thou canst 
 read on forever, find new meaning in forever. 
 
 Finally, and in a word, do not the critics teach us : 
 * In whatsoever thing thou hast thyself felt interest, in 
 ' that or in nothing hope to inspire others with interest ? * 
 — In partial obedience to all which, and to many other 
 principles, shall the following small Romance of the 
 Diamond Necklace begin to come together. A small 
 Romance, let the reader again and again assure himself, 
 which is no brainweb of mine, or of any other foolish 
 man's ; but a fraction of that mystic ' spirit- woven web,* 
 from the ' Loom of Time,' spoken of above. It is an 
 actual Transaction that happened in this Earth of ours. 
 Wherewith our whole business, as already urged, is to 
 paint it truly. 
 
 For the rest, an earnest inspection, faithful endeavour 
 has not been wanting, on our part ; nor, singular as it 
 may seem, the strictest regard to chronology, geography 
 (or rather in this case, topography), documentary evi- 
 dence, and what else true historical research would yield. 
 Were there but on the reader's part a kindred openness. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 15 
 
 a kindred spirit of endeavour ! Beshone strongly, on both 
 sides, by such united twofold Philosophy, this poor 
 opaque Intrigue of the Diamond Necklace became quite 
 translucent between us ; transfigured, lifted up into the 
 serene of Universal History ; and might hang there like 
 a smallest Diamond Constellation, visible without tele- 
 scope, — so long as it could. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Necklace is made, 
 
 Herr, or as he is now called Monsieur, Boehmer, to 
 all appearance wanted not that last infirmity of noble 
 and ignoble minds — a love of fame ; he was destined also 
 to be famous more than enough. His outlooks into th( 
 world were rather of a smiling character : he has Ion/.', 
 since exchanged his guttural speech, as far as possible , 
 for a nasal one ; his rustic Saxon fatherland for a polished 
 city of Paris, and thriven there. United in partnershi}:. 
 with worthy Monsieur Bassange, a sound practical mn 
 skilled in the valuation of all precious stones, in rX,. 
 management of workmen, in the judgment of their v" >t k , 
 he already sees himself among the highest of his g iffd : 
 nay, rather the very highest, — for he has secur 
 purchase and hard money paid, the title of King's 
 ler ; and can enter the Court itself, leaving all othf 
 Jewellers, and even innumerable Gentlemen, Gigmt n. 
 and small NobiHty, to languish in the vestibule. ith 
 the costliest ornaments in his pocket, or borne after him 
 by assiduous shopboys, the happy Boehmer sees high 
 drawing-rooms and sacred ruelles fly open, as with talis- 
 
16 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 manic Sesame ; and the brightest eyes of the whole world 
 grow brighter : to him alone of men the Unapproachable 
 reveals herself in mysterious negligee ; taking and giving 
 counsel. Do not, on all gala- days and gala-nights, his 
 works praise him } On the gorgeous robes of State, on 
 Court-dresses and Lords' stars, on the diadem of Royalty ; 
 better still, on the swan-neck of Beauty, and her queenly 
 garniture from plume- bearing aigrette to shoebuckle on 
 fairy- slipper, — that blinding play of colours is Boehmer's 
 doing : he is Jouaillier-Bijoutier de la Reine. 
 
 Could the man but have been content with it ! He 
 could not : Icarus-like, he must mount too high ; have 
 his wax-wings melted, and descend prostrate, — amid a 
 cloud of vain goose-quills. One day, a fatal day (of 
 some year, probably, among the Seventies of last Cen- 
 tury),* it struck Boehmer : Why should not I, who, as 
 Most Christian King's Jeweller, am properly first Jeweller 
 of the Universe, — make a Jewel which the Universe has 
 not matched ? Nothing can prevent thee, Boehmer, if 
 thou have the skill to do it. Skill or no skill, answers 
 he, I have the ambition : my Jewel, if not the beauti- 
 fullest, shall be the dearest. Thus was the Diamond 
 Necklace determined on. 
 
 Did worthy Bassange give a willing, or a reluctant 
 consent } In any case he consents ; and co-operates. 
 Plans are sketched, consultations held, stucco models 
 made ; by money or credit the costliest diamonds come 
 in ; cunning craftsmen cut them, set them : proud Boeh- 
 
 * Except that Madame Campan {Memoir es, tome ii.) says the 
 Necklace * was intended for Du Barry/ one cannot discover, within 
 manv years, the date of its manufacture. Du Barry went * into 
 half-pay' on the 10th of May, 1774, — the day when her king died. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 17 
 
 mer sees the work go prosperously on. Proud man ! 
 Behold him on a morning after breakfast : he has stepped 
 down to the innermost workshop, before sallying out ; 
 stands there with his laced three-cornered hat, cane 
 under arm ; drawing on his gloves ; with nod, with 
 nasal -guttural word, he gives judicious confirmation, 
 judicious abnegation, censure and approval. A still joy 
 is dawning over that bland, blond face of his ; he can 
 think, while in many a sacred boudoir he visits the Un- 
 approachable, that an opus magnum, of which the world 
 wotteth not, is progressing. At length comes a morn- 
 ing when care has terminated, and joy can not only dawn 
 but shine ; the Necklace, that shall be famous and world- 
 famous, is made. 
 
 Made we call it, in conformity with common speech : 
 but properly it was not made ; only, with more or less 
 spirit of method, arranged and agglomerated. What 
 spirit of method lay in it, might be made ; nothing more. 
 But to tell the various Histories of those various Dia- 
 monds, from the first making of them ; or even, omitting 
 all the rest, from the first digging of them in the far 
 Indian mines ! How they lay, for uncounted ages and 
 aeons (under the uproar and splashing of such Deucalion 
 Deluges, and Hutton Explosions, with steam enough, 
 and Werner Submersions), silently imbedded in the 
 rock ; did nevertheless, when their hour came, emerge 
 from it, and first beheld the glorious Sun smile on them, 
 and with their many- coloured glances smiled back on 
 him. How they served next, let us say, as eyes of 
 Heathen Idols, and received worship. How they had 
 then, by fortune of war or theft, been knocked out ; and 
 exchanged among camp- sutlers for a little spirituous 
 
18 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 liquor, and bought by Jews, and worn as signets on the 
 fingers of tawny or white Majesties ; and again been 
 lost, with the fingers too, and perhaps life (as by Charles 
 the Rash, among the mud-ditches of Nancy), in old-for- 
 gotten glorious victories ; and so, through innumerable 
 varieties of fortune, — had come at last to the cutting- 
 wheel of Boehmer ; to be united, in strange fellowship, 
 with comrades also blown together from all ends of the 
 Earth, each with a History of its own ! Could these 
 aged stones, the youngest of them Six Thousand years 
 of age and upwards, but have spoken, — there were an 
 Experience for Philosophy to teach by ! But now, as was 
 said, by little caps of gold, and daintiest rings of the 
 same, they are all, being, so to speak, enlisted under 
 Boehmer's flag, — made to take rank and file, in new 
 order, no Jewel asking his neighbour whence he came ; 
 and parade there for a season. For a season only ; and 
 then — to disperse, and enlist anew ad infinitum. In 
 such inexplicable wise are Jewels, and Men also, and 
 indeed all earthly things, jumbled together and asunder, 
 and shovelled and wafted to and fro, in our inexplicable 
 chaos of a World. This was what Boehmer called 
 making his Necklace. 
 
 So, in fact, do other men speak, and with even less 
 reason. How many men, for example, hast thou heard 
 talk of making money ; of making, say, a million and a 
 half of money ? Of which million and half, how much, 
 if one were to look into it, had they made ? The accurate 
 value of their Industry; not a sixpence more. Their 
 making, then, was but, like Boehmer's, a clutching and 
 heaping together; — by-and-by to be followed also by a 
 dispersion. Made ? Thou too vain individual ! were 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 19 
 
 these towered ashlar edifices ; were these fair bounteous 
 leas, with their bosky umbrages and yellow harvests ; 
 and the sunshine that lights them from above, and the 
 granite rocks and fire-reservoirs that support them from 
 below, made by thee ? I think, by another. The very 
 shilling that thou hast was dug, by man's force, in Carin- 
 thia and Paraguay ; smelted sufi^iciently ; and stamped, as 
 would seem, not without the advice of our late Defender 
 of the Faith, his Majesty George the Fourth. Thou hast 
 it, and boldest it ; but whether, or in what sense, thou 
 hast made any farthing of it, thyself canst not say. If 
 the courteous reader ask. What things, then, are made 
 by man ? I will answer him. Very few indeed. A Hero- 
 ism, a Wisdom (a god- given Volition that has realized 
 itself) is made now and then : for example, some five 
 or six Books, since the Creation, have been made. 
 Strange that there are not more ; for surely every 
 encouragement is held out. Could I, or thou, happy 
 reader, but make one, the world would let us keep it 
 unstolen for Fourteen whole years, — and take what we 
 could get for it. 
 
 But, in a word, Monsieur Boehmer has made his 
 Necklace, what he calls made it : happy man is he. 
 From a Drawing, as large as reality, kindly furnished 
 by * Taunay, Printseller, of the Rue d'Enfer;'* and 
 
 * Frontispiece of the * Affaire du Collier ^ Paris, 1785 where- 
 from Georgel's Editor has copied it. This ^ Affaire du Collier , 
 Paris, 1785,' is not properly a Book ; but a bound Collection 
 of such Law-Papers {Memoir es pour &c.) as were printed and 
 emitted by the various parties in that famed * Necklace Trial.' 
 These Law-papers, bound into Two Volumes quarto ; with Por- 
 traits, such as the Print-shops yielded them at the time ; likewise 
 
20 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 again, in late years, by the Abbe Georgel, in the Second 
 Volume of his Memoires, curious readers can still fancy 
 to themselves what a princely Ornament it was. A 
 row of seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as 
 filberts, encircle, not too tightly, the neck, a first time. 
 Looser, gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three- 
 wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple pear- 
 
 with patches of MS., containing Notes, Pasquinade -songs, and the 
 like, of the most unspeakable character occasionally, — constitute 
 this * Affaire du Collier which the Paris Dealers in Old Books 
 can still procure there. It is one of the largest collections of 
 Falsehoods that exists in print ; and, unfortunately, still, after all 
 the narrating and history there has been on the subject, forms our 
 chief means of getting at the truth of that Transaction. The First 
 Volume contains some Twenty-one Memoires pour : not, of 
 course, Historical statements of truth ; but Culprits' and Lawyers' 
 statements of what they wished to be believed ; each party Ij/ing 
 according to his ability to lie. To reach the truth, or even any 
 honest guess at the truth, the immensities of rubbish must be 
 sifted, contrasted, rejected : what grain of historical evidence may 
 lie at the bottom is then attainable. Thus, as this Transaction of 
 the Diamond Necklace has been called the * Largest Lie of the 
 Eighteenth Century,' so it comes to us borne, not unfitly, on a 
 whole illimitable dim Chaos of Lies ! 
 
 Nay, the Second Volume, entitled Suite de V Affaire du Col- 
 lier, is still stranger. It relates to the Intrigue and Trial of one 
 Bette d'Etienville, who represents himself as a poor lad that had 
 been kidnapped, blindfolded, introduced to beautiful Ladies, and 
 engaged to get husbands for them ; as setting out on this task, and 
 gradually getting quite bewitched and bewildered ; — most indubit- 
 ably, going on to bewitch and bewilder other people on all hands 
 of him : the whole in consequence of this * Necklace Trial,' and the 
 noise it was making ! Very curious. The Lawyers did verily 
 busy themselves with this affair of Bette's ; there are scarecrow 
 Portraits given, that stood in the Printshops, and no man can 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 21 
 
 shaped, multiple star- shaped, or clustering amorphous) 
 encircle it, enwreath it, a second time. Loosest of all, 
 softly flowing round from behind, in priceless catenary, 
 rush down two broad threefold rows ; seem to knot 
 themselves, round a very Queen of Diamonds, on the 
 bosom ; then rush on, again separated, as if there were 
 length in plenty ; the very tassels of them were a for- 
 tune for some men. And now lastly, two other inex- 
 pressible threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, 
 when the Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves 
 behind into a doubly inexpressible sixfold row ; and so 
 stream down, together or asunder, over the hind-neck, — 
 we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis 
 fire. 
 
 All these on a neck of snow slight- tinged with rose- 
 bloom, and within it royal Life ; amidst the blaze of 
 lustres ; in sylphish movements, espiegleries, coquet- 
 teries, and minuet-mazes ; with every movement a flash 
 of star-rainbow colours, bright almost as the movements 
 of the fair young soul it emblems ! A glorious orna- 
 ment : fit only for the Sultana of the World. Indeed, 
 only attainable by such ; for it is valued at 1,800,000 
 livres ; say in round numbers, and sterling money, be- 
 tween eighty and ninety thousand pounds. 
 
 know whether the Originals ever so much as existed. It is Uke 
 the Dream of a Dream. The human mind stands stupent ; ejacu- 
 lates the wish that such Gulf of Falsehood would close itself, — 
 before general Delirium supervene, and the Speech of Man become 
 mere incredible, meaningless jargon, like that of choughs and 
 daws. Even from Bette, however, by assiduous sifting, one ga- 
 thers a particle of truth here and there. 
 
22 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Necklace cannot he sold. 
 
 Miscalculating Boehmer ! The Sultana of the Earth 
 shall never wear that Necklace of thine ; no neck, either 
 royal or vassal, shall ever be the lovelier for it. In the 
 present distressed state of our finances, with the Ame- 
 rican War raging round us, where thinkest thou are 
 eighty thousand pounds to be raised for such a thing } 
 In this hungry world, thou fool, these five hundred and 
 odd Diamonds, good only for looking at, are intrinsically 
 worth less to us than a string of as many dry Irish 
 potatoes, on which a famishing Sansculotte might fill 
 his belly. Little knowest thou, laughing Jouaillier- 
 Bijoutier, great in thy pride of place, in thy pride of 
 savoir-faire y what the world has in store for thee. Thou 
 laughest there ; by-and-by thou wilt laugh on the wrong 
 side of thy face mainly. 
 
 While the Necklace lay in stucco effigy, and the 
 stones of it were still * circulating in Commerce,' Du 
 Barry's was the neck it was meant for. Unhappily, as 
 all dogs, male and female, have but their day, her day is 
 done ; and now (so busy has Death been) she sits re- 
 tired, on mere half-pay, without prospects, at Saint- Cyr. 
 A generous France will buy no more neck-ornaments for 
 her : — O Heaven! the Guillotine -axe is already forging 
 (North, in Swedish Dalecarlia, by sledge-hammers and 
 fire ; South, too, by taxes and failles) that will sheer her 
 neck in twain ! 
 
 But, indeed, what of Du Barry ? A foul worm ; 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 23 
 
 hatched by royal heat, on foul composts, into a flaunting 
 butterfly ; now dis-winged, and again a worm ! Are 
 there not King's Daughters and Kings' Consorts : is not 
 Decoration the first wish of a female heart, — often also, 
 if such heart is empty, the last ? The Portuguese Am- 
 bassador is here, and his rigorous Pombal is no longer 
 Minister : there is an Infanta in Portugal, purposing by 
 Heaven's blessing to wed. — Singular ! the Portuguese 
 Ambassador, though without fear of Pombal, praises, 
 but will not purchase. 
 
 Or why not our own loveliest Marie- Antoinette, 
 once Dauphiness only ; now every inch a Queen : what 
 neck in the whole Earth would it beseem better ? It is 
 fit only for her. — Alas, Boehmer ! King Louis has an 
 eye for diamonds ; but he too is without overplus of 
 money : his high Queen herself answers queenlike. 
 We have more need of Seventy-fours than of Neck- 
 laces." Laudatur et alget ! — Not without a qualmish 
 feeling, we apply next to the Queen and King of the 
 Two Sicilies.* In vain, O Boehmer ! In crowned 
 heads there is no hope for thee. Not a crowned head 
 of them can spare the eighty thousand pounds. The 
 age of Chivalry is gone, and that of Bankruptcy is come. 
 A dull, deep, presaging movement rocks all thrones : 
 Bankruptcy is beating down the gate, and no Chancellor 
 can longer barricade her out. She will enter ; and the 
 shoreless fire-lava of Democracy is at her back ! Well 
 may Kings, a second time, ' sit still with awful eye,' and 
 think of far other things than Necklaces. 
 
 Thus for poor Boehmer are the mournfuUest days 
 
 * See Memoires de Campan, ii. 1-26. 
 
24 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 and nights appointed ; and this high -promising year 
 (1780, as we laboriously guess and gather) stands 
 blacker than all others in his calendar. In vain shall 
 he, on his sleepless pillow, more and more desperately 
 revolve the problem ; it is a problem of the insoluble 
 sort, a true ' irreducible case of Cardan the Diamond 
 Necklace will not sell. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Affinities : the Two Fixed-ideas. 
 
 Nevertheless, a man's little Work lies not isolated, 
 stranded; a whole busy 'World, a whole native- element 
 of mysterious never-resting Force, environs it ; will catch 
 it up ; will carry it forward, or else backward ; always, 
 infallibly, either as living growth, or at worst as well- 
 rotted manure, the Thing Done will come to use. Often, 
 accordingly, for a man that had finished any little work, 
 this were the most interesting question : In such a 
 boundless whirl of a world, what hook will it be, and 
 what hooks, that shall catch up this little work of mine ; 
 and whirl it also, — through such a dance } A question, 
 we need not say, which, in the simplest of cases, would 
 bring the whole Royal Society to a nonplus. — Good Cor- 
 sican Letitia ! while thou nursest thy little Napoleon, 
 and he answers thy mother- smile with those deep eyes of 
 his, a world-famous French Revolution, with Federations 
 of the Champ de Mars, and September Massacres, and 
 Bakers' Customers en queue^ is getting ready : many a 
 Danton and Desmoulins ; prim-visaged, TartufFe -looking 
 Robespierre, as yet all schoolboys ; and Marat weeping 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 25 
 
 bitter rheum, as he pounds horsedrugs, — are prepaiing 
 the fittest arena for him ! 
 
 Thus too, while poor Boehmer is busy with those 
 Diamonds of his, picking them ' out of Commerce,' and 
 his craftsmen are grinding and setting them ; a certain 
 ecclesiastical Coadjutor and Grand Almoner, and pro- 
 spective Commendator and Cardinal, is in Austria, 
 hunting and giving suppers ; for whom mainly it is 
 that Boehmer and his craftsmen so employ themselves. 
 Strange enough, once more ! The foolish Jeweller at 
 Paris, .making foolish trinkets ; the foolish Ambassador 
 at Vienna, making blunders and debaucheries : these 
 Two, all uncommunicating, wide asunder as the Poles, 
 are hourly forging for each other the wonderfullest hook- 
 and-eye ; that will hook them together, one day, — 
 into artificial Siamese-Twins, for the astonishment of 
 mankind. 
 
 Prince Louis de Rohan is one of those select mortals 
 born to honours, as the sparks fly upwards ; and, alas, 
 also (as all men are) to troubles no less. Of his genesis 
 and descent much might be said, by the curious in such 
 matters ; yet perhaps, if we weigh it well, intrinsically 
 little. He can, by diligence and faith, be traced back 
 some handbreadth or two, some century or two ; but 
 after that, merges in the mere * blood-royal of Brittany;' 
 long, long on this side of the Northern Immigrations, 
 he is not so much as to be sought for ; — and leaves the 
 whole space onwards from that, into the bosom of Eter- 
 nity, a blank, marked only by one point, the Fall of 
 Man ! However, and what alone concerns us, his kin- 
 dred, in these quite recent times, have been much about 
 the Most Christian Majesty j could there pick up what 
 
 VOL. v, c 
 
26 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 was going. In particular, they have had a turn of some 
 continuance for Cardinalship and Commendatorship. 
 Safest trades these, of the cahn, do-nothing sort : in 
 the do- something line, in Generalship, or such like 
 (witness poor Cousin Soubise, at Rosbach*), they 
 might not fare so well. In any case, the actual Prince 
 Louis, Coadjutor at Strasburg, while his uncle the 
 Cardinal- Archbishop has not yet deceased, and left him 
 his dignities, but only fallen sick, already takes his place 
 on one grandest occasion : he, thrice-happy Coadjutor, 
 receives the fair, young, trembling Dauphiness, Marie- 
 Antoinette, on her first entrance into France ; and can 
 there, as Ceremonial Fugleman, with fit bearing and 
 semblance (being a tall man, of six- and- thirty), do the 
 needful. Of his other performances up to this date, a 
 refined History had rather say nothing. 
 
 In fact, if the tolerating mind will meditate it with 
 any sympathy, what could poor Rohan perform } Per- 
 forming needs hght, needs strength, and a firm clear 
 footing ; all of which had been denied him. Nourished, 
 from birth, with the choicest physical spoon-meat, in- 
 
 * Here is the Epigram they made against him on occasion of 
 Rosbach, — in that * Despotism tempered by Epigrams,' which 
 France was then said to be : 
 
 * Soubise dit, la lanteme a la main, 
 J*ai beau chercher, ou diable est mon armee ? 
 EUe etait la pourtant hier matin : 
 Me I'a-t-on prise, ou I'aurais-je egaree ? — 
 Que vois-je, 6 ciel ! que mon ame est ravie I 
 Prodige heureux ! la voila, la voila ! — 
 Ah, ventrebleu ! qu*est-ce done que cela ? 
 Je me trompais, c'est Tarmee ennemie?* 
 
 Laoretelle, ii. 206. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 27 
 
 deed ; yet, also, with no better spiritual Doctrine and 
 Evangel of Life than a French Court of Louis the Well- 
 beloved could yield ; gifted, moreover, and this too was 
 but a new perplexity for him, with shrewdness enough 
 to see through much, with vigour enough to despise 
 much ; unhappily, not with vigour enough to spurn 
 it from him, and be forever enfranchised of it, — he 
 awakes, at man's stature, with man's wild desires, in 
 a World of the merest incoherent Lies and Delirium ; 
 himself a nameless Mass of delirious Incoherences, — 
 covered over at most, and held-in a little, by conven- 
 tional PoHtesse, and a Cloak of prospective Cardinal's 
 Plush. Are not intrigues, might Rohan say, the indus- 
 try of this our Universe ; nay is not the Universe itself, 
 at bottom, properly an intrigue ? A Most Christian 
 Majesty, in the Parc-aux-cerfs he, thou seest, is the 
 god of this lower world ; in the fight of Life, our war- 
 banner and celestial En-touto-nika is a Strumpet's Pet- 
 ticoat : these are thy gods, O France! — What, in such 
 singular circumstances, could poor Rohan's creed and 
 world- theory be, that he should ' perform' thereby } 
 Atheism } Alas, no ; not even Atheism : only Machia- 
 velism ; and the indestructible faith that ' ginger is hot 
 in the mouth.' Get ever new and better ginger, there- 
 fore ; chew it ever the more diligently : 'tis all thou 
 hast to look to, and that only for a day. 
 
 Ginger enough, poor Louis de Rohan : too much of 
 ginger ! Whatsoever of it, for the five senses, money, 
 or money's worth, or backstairs diplomacy, can buy ; 
 nay for the sixth sense too, the far spicier ginger, Ante- 
 cedence of thy fellow- creatures, — merited, at least, by 
 infinitely finer housing than theirs. Coadjutor of Stras- 
 
28 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 burg. Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France, 
 Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Cardinal, 
 Commendator of St. Wast d' Arras (one of the fattest 
 benefices here below) : all these shall be housings for 
 Monseigneur : to all these shall his Jesuit Nursing- 
 mother, our vulpine Abbe Georgel, through fair court- 
 weather and through foul, triumphantly bear him ; and 
 wrap him with them, fat, somnolent Nurseling as he is. 
 — By the way, a most assiduous, ever- wakeful Abbe is 
 this Georgel ; and wholly Monseigneur's. He has scouts 
 dim-flying, far out, in the great deep of the world's busi- 
 ness ; has spider- threads that overnet the whole world ; 
 himself sits in the centre, ready to run. In vain shall 
 King and Queen combine against Monseigneur : " I was 
 at M.deMaurepas' pillow before six," — persuasively wag- 
 ging my sleek coif, and the sleek reynard-head under it; I 
 managed it all for him. Here too, on occasion of Reynard 
 Georgel, we could not but reflect what a singular species 
 of creature your Jesuit must have been. Outwardly, you 
 would say, a man ; the smooth semblance of a man : in- 
 wardly, to the centre, filled with stone ! Yet in all 
 breathing things, even in stone Jesuits, are inscrutable 
 sympathies ; how else does a Reynard Abbe so loyally 
 give himself, soul and body, to a somnolent Monseig- 
 neur ; — how else does the poor Tit, to the neglect of 
 its own eggs and interests, nurse up a huge lumber- 
 ing Cuckoo; and think its pains all paid, if the soot- 
 brown Stupidity will merely grow bigger and bigger! — 
 Enough, by Jesuitic or other means, Prince Louis de 
 Rohan shall be passively kneaded and baked into Com- 
 mendator of St. Wast and much else ; and truly such 
 a Commendator as hardly, since King Thierri, first of 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 29 
 
 the Faineans founded that Establishment, has played his 
 part there. 
 
 Such, however, have Nature and Art combined to- 
 gether to make Prince Louis. A figure thrice- clothed 
 with honours ; with plush, and civic and ecclesiastic 
 garniture of all kinds ; but in itself little other than an 
 amorphous congeries of contradictions, somnolence and 
 violence, foul passions and foul habits. It is by his 
 plush cloaks and wrappages mainly, as above hinted, 
 that such a figure sticks together ; what we call ' co- 
 heres,' in any measure ; were it not for these, he would 
 flow out boundlessly on all sides. Conceive him farther, 
 with a kind of radical vigour and fire, for he can see 
 clearly at times, and speak fiercely ; yet left in this way 
 to stagnate and ferment, and lie overlaid with such floods 
 of fat material : have we not a true image of the shame- 
 fullest Mud- volcano, gurgling and sluttishly simmering, 
 amid continual steamy indistinctness, — except, as was 
 hinted, in vfind.- gusts ; with occasional terrifico-absurd 
 Mud-explosions ! 
 
 This, garnish it and fringe it never so handsomely, 
 is, alas, the intrinsic character of Prince Louis. A 
 shameful spectacle : such, however, as the world has 
 beheld many times ; as it were to be wished, but is not 
 yet to be hoped, the world might behold no more. Nay, 
 are not all possible delirious incoherences, outward and 
 inward, summed up, for poor Rohan, in this one incre- 
 diblest incoherence, that he^ Prince Louis de Rohan, is 
 named Priest, Cardinal of the Church ? A debauched, 
 merely libidinous mortal, lying there quite helpless, dis- 
 solute (as we well say) ; whom to see Church Cardinal, 
 symbolical Hinge or main Corner of the Invisible Holy 
 
30 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 in this World, an Inhabitant of Saturn might split 
 with laughing, — if he did not rather swoon with pity 
 and horror ! 
 
 Prince Louis, as ceremonial fugleman at Strasburg, 
 might have hoped to make some way with the fair young 
 Dauphiness ; but seems not to have made any. Perhaps, 
 in those great days, so trying for a fifteen-years Bride 
 and Dauphiness, the fair Antoinette was too preoccu- 
 pied : perhaps, in the very face and looks of Prospec- 
 tive-Cardinal Prince Louis, her fair young soul read, 
 all unconsciously, an incoherent Roue-ism, bottomless 
 Mud- volcano-ism ; from which she by instinct rather 
 recoiled. 
 
 However, as above hinted, he is now gone, in these 
 years, on Embassy to Vienna : with * four- and- twenty 
 ' pages ' (if our remembrance of Abbe Georgel serve) ' of 
 * noble birth,' all in scarlet breeches ; and such a retinue 
 and parade as drowns even his fat revenue in perennial 
 debt. Above all things, his Jesuit Familiar is with him. 
 For so everywhere they must manage ; Eminence Rohan 
 is the cloak, Jesuit Georgel the man or automaton with- 
 in it. Rohan, indeed, sees Poland a-partitioning ; or 
 rather Georgel, with his * masked Austrian* traitor ' on 
 the ramparts,' sees it for him : but what can he do } 
 He exhibits his four- and- twenty scarlet pages, — who, 
 we find, ' smuggle ' to quite unconscionable lengths ; 
 rides through a Catholic procession. Prospective- Car- 
 dinal though he be, because it is too long, and keeps him 
 from an appointment ; hunts, gallants ; gives suppers, 
 Sardanapalus-wise, the finest ever seen in Vienna. Abbe 
 Georgel, as we fancy it was, writes a Despatch in his 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 31 
 
 name ' eveiy fortnight;' — mentions in one of these, that 
 ' Maria Theresa stands, indeed, with the handkerchief in 
 
 * one hand, weeping for the woes of Poland ; but with 
 
 * the sword in the other hand, ready to cut Poland in 
 
 * sections, and take her share/* Untimely joke ; which 
 proved to Prince Louis the root of unspeakable chagrins ! 
 For Minister D*Aiguillon (much against his duty) com- 
 municates the Letter to King Louis ; Louis to Du Barry, 
 to season her souper, and laughs over it : the thing be- 
 comes a court-joke ; the filially-pious Dauphiness hears 
 it, and remembers it. Accounts go, moreover, that 
 Rohan spake censuringly of the Dauphiness to her 
 Mother : this probably is but hearsay and false ; the 
 devout Maria Theresa disliked him, and even despised 
 him, and vigorously laboured for his recall. 
 
 Thus, in rosy sleep and somnambulism, or awake only 
 to quaff the full wine- cup of the Scarlet Woman his 
 Mother, and again sleep and somnambulate, does the 
 Prospective- Cardinal and Commendator pass his days. 
 Unhappy man ! This is not a world which was made 
 in sleep ; which it is safe to sleep and somnambulate in. 
 In that ' loud-roaring Loom of Time ' (where above nine 
 
 * Memoires de V Abbe Georgel, ii. 1-220. Abbe Georgel, 
 who has given, in the place referred to, a long solemn Narrative of 
 the Necklace Business, passes for the grand authority on it : but 
 neither will he, strictly taken up, abide scrutiny. He is vague as 
 may be ; writing in what is called the * soaped-pig ' fashion : yet 
 sometimes you do catch him, and hold him. There are hardly 
 above three dates in his whole Narrative. He mistakes several 
 times ; perhaps, once or twice, wilfully misrepresents, a little. The 
 main incident of the business is misdated by him, almost a twelve- 
 month. It is to be remembered that the poor Abbe wrote in exile ; 
 and with cause enough for prepossessions and hostilities. 
 
32 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 hundred millions of hungry Men, for one item, restlessly 
 weave and work), so many threads fly humming from 
 their * eternal spindles ; ' and swift invisible shuttles, far 
 darting, to the Ends of the World, — complex enough ! 
 At this hour, a miserable Boehmer in Paris, whom thou 
 wottest not of, is spinning, of diamonds and gold, a 
 paltry thrum that will go nigh to strangle the life out 
 of thee. 
 
 Meanwhile Louis the Well-beloved has left, forever, 
 his Parc-aux-cerfs ; and, amid the scarce- suppressed 
 hootings of the world, taken up his last lodging at St. 
 Denis. Feeling that it was all over (for the small-pox 
 has the victory, and even Du Barry is off), he, as the 
 Ahh€ Georgel records, ' made the amende honorable to 
 God ' (these are his Reverence's own words) ; had a 
 true repentance of three days' standing ; and so, con- 
 tinues the Abbe, * fell asleep in the Lord.' Asleep in 
 the Lord, Monsieur FAbbe ! If such a mass of Lazi- 
 ness and Lust fell asleep in the Lord, who, fanciest thou, 
 is it that falls asleep — elsewhere ? Enough that he did 
 fall asleep ; that thick-wrapt in the Blanket of the Night, 
 under what keeping we ask not, he never through endless 
 Time can, for his own or our sins, insult the face of the 
 Sun any more ; — and so now we go onward, if not to 
 less degrees of beastliness, yet at least and worst, to 
 cheering varieties of it. 
 
 Louis XVL therefore reigns (and, under the Sieur 
 Gamain, makes locks) ; his fair Dauphiness has become 
 a Queen. Eminence Rohan is home from Vienna ; 
 to condole and congratulate. He bears a letter from 
 Maria Theresa ; hopes the Queen wiU not forget old 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 33 
 
 Ceremonial Fuglemen, and friends of the Dauphiness. 
 Heaven and Earth ! The Dauphiness Queen will not 
 see him ; orders the Letter to be sent her. The King 
 himself signifies briefly that he * will be asked for when 
 wanted ! * 
 
 Alas ! at Court, our motion is the delicatest, un- 
 surest. We go spinning, as it were, on teetotums, by the 
 edge of bottomless deeps. Rest is fall ; so is one false 
 whirl. A moment ago, Eminence Rohan seemed waltz- 
 ing with the best : but, behold, his teetotum has car- 
 ried him over ; there is an inversion of the centre of 
 gravity ; and so now, heels uppermost, velocity increas- 
 ing as the time, space as the square of the time, — he 
 rushes. 
 
 On a man of poor Rohan's somnolence and violence, 
 the sympathizing mind can estimate what the effect was. 
 Consternation, stupefaction, the total jumble of blood, 
 brains, and nervous spirits ; in ear and heart, only uni- 
 versal hubbub, and louder and louder singing of the 
 agitated air. A fall comparable to that of Satan ! Men 
 have, indeed, been driven from Court ; and borne it, ac- 
 cording to ability. A Choiseul, in these very years, 
 retired Parthianlike, with a smile or scowl ; and drew 
 half the Court- host along with him. Our Wolsey, 
 though once an Ego et Rex mens, could journey, it is 
 said, without strait-waistcoat, to his monastery ; and 
 there telling beads, look forward to a still longer journey. 
 The melodious, too soft- strung Racine, when his King 
 turned his back on him, emitted one meek wail, and 
 submissively — died. But the case of Coadjutor de 
 Rohan differed from all these. No loyalty was in him, 
 that he should die ; no self-help, that he should live ; 
 c 2 
 
34 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 no faith, that he should tell beads. His is a mud- vol- 
 canic character ; incoherent, mad, from the very founda- 
 tion of it. Think, too, that his Courtiership (for how 
 could any nobleness enter there ?) was properly a gam- 
 bling speculation : the loss of his trump Queen of Hearts 
 can bring nothing but flat unredeemed despair. No 
 other game has he, in this world, — or in the next. 
 And then the exasperating Why ? the How came it ? 
 For that Rohanic, or Georgelic, sprightliness of the 
 ' handkerchief in one hand, and sword in the other,* if 
 indeed that could have caused it all, has quite escaped 
 him. In the name of Friar Bacon's Head, what was it ? 
 Imagination, with Desperation to drive her, may fly to 
 all points of Space ; — and returns with wearied wings, 
 and no tidings. Behold me here : this, which is the 
 first grand certainty for man in general, is the first and 
 last and only one for poor Rohan. And then his Here ! 
 Alas, looking upwards, he can eye, from his burning 
 marie, the azure realms, once his ; and Cousin Countess 
 de Marsan, and so many Richelieus, Polignacs, and other 
 happy angels, male and female, all bhssfuUy gyrating 
 there ; while he — ! 
 
 Nevertheless hope, in the human breast, though not 
 in the diabolic, springs eternal. The outcast Rohan 
 bends all his thoughts, faculties, prayers, purposes, to 
 one object ; one object he will attain, or go to Bedlam. 
 How many ways he tries ; what days and nights of con- 
 jecture, consultation ; what written unpublished reams 
 of correspondence, protestation, backstairs diplomacy 
 of every rubric ! How many suppers has he eaten ; how 
 many given, — in vain ! It is his morning song, and his 
 evening prayer. From innumerable falls he rises ; only 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 35 
 
 to fall again. Behold him even, with his red stockings, 
 at dusk, in the Garden of Trianon : he has bribed the 
 Concierge ; will see her Majesty in spite of Etiquette 
 and Fate; peradventure, pitying his long sad King's- 
 evil, she will touch him, and heal him. In vain, — 
 says the Female Historian, Campan.* The Chariot of 
 Majesty shoots rapidly by, with high-plumed heads in 
 it ; Eminence is known by his red stockings, but not 
 looked at, only laughed at, and left standing like a 
 PiUar of Salt. 
 
 Thus through ten long years, of new resolve and 
 new despondency, of flying from Saverne to Paris, and 
 from Paris to Saverne, has it lasted ; hope deferred 
 making the heart sick. Reynard Georgel and Cousin 
 de Marsan, by eloquence, by influence, and being ' at 
 M. de Maurepas' pillow before six,' have secured the 
 Archbishopric, the Grand- Almonership ; the Cardinal- 
 ship (by the medium of Poland) ; and, lastly, to tinker 
 many rents, and appease the Jews, that fattest Com- 
 mendatorship, founded by King Thierri the Do-nothing 
 — perhaps with a view to such cases. All good ! lan- 
 guidly croaks Rohan ; yet all not the one thing needful ; 
 alas, the Queen's eyes do not yet shine on me. 
 
 * Madame Campan, in her Narrative, and, indeed, in her Me- 
 moirs generally, does not seem to intend falsehood : this, in the 
 Business of the Necklace, is saying a great deal. She rather, per- 
 haps, intends the producing of an impression ; which may have 
 appeared to herself to be the right one. But, at all events, she has, 
 here or elsewhere, no notion of historical rigour; she gives hardly 
 any date, or the like ; will tell the same thing, in different places, 
 different ways, &c. There is a tradition that Louis XVIII. revised 
 her Memoires before publication. She requires to be read with 
 scepticism everywhere ; but yields something in that way. 
 
36 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Abbe Georgel admits, in his own polite diplomatic 
 way, that the mud- volcano was much agitated by these 
 trials ; and in time quite changed. Monseigneur devi- 
 ated into cabahstic courses, after elixirs, philtres, and 
 the philosopher's stone ; that is, the volcanic steam 
 grew thicker and heavier : at last by Cagliostro's magic 
 (for CagHostro and the Cardinal by elective affinity 
 must meet), it sank into the opacity of perfect London 
 fog ! So too, if Monseigneur grew choleric ; wrapped 
 himself up in reserve, spoke roughly to his domestics 
 and dependents, — were not the terrifico-absurd mud- 
 explosions becoming more frequent ? Alas, what won- 
 der ? Some nine-and-forty winters have now fled over 
 his Eminence (for it is 1783), and his beard falls white 
 to the shaver ; but age for him brings no ' benefit of 
 experience.' He is possessed by a fixed-idea ! 
 
 Foolish Eminence ! is the Earth grown all barren 
 and of a snufF colour, because one pair of eyes in it look 
 on thee askance ? Surely thou hast thy Body there yet ; 
 and what of soul might from the first reside in it. Nay, 
 a warm, snug Body, with not only five senses (sound 
 still, in spite of much tear and wear), but most eminent 
 clothing besides ; — clothed with authority over much, 
 with red Cardinal's cloak, red Cardinal's hat; with 
 Commendatorship, Grand- Almonership, so kind have 
 thy Fripiers been ; with dignities and dominions too 
 tedious to name. The stars rise nightly, with tidings 
 (for thee too, if thou wilt listen) from the infinite Blue ; 
 Sun and Moon bring vicissitudes of season ; dressing 
 green, with flower-borderings, and cloth of gold, this 
 ancient ever-young Earth of ours, and filling her breasts 
 with all-nourishing mother's milk. Wilt thou work } 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 37 
 
 The whole Encyclopedia (not Diderot's only, but the 
 Almighty's) is there for thee to spread thy broad faculty 
 upon. Or, if thou have no faculty, no Sense, hast thou 
 not, as already suggested. Senses, to the number of 
 five ? What victuals thou wishest, command ; vv^ith 
 what vdne savoreth thee, be filled. Already thou art a 
 false lascivious Priest ; with revenues of, say, a quarter 
 of a million sterling; and no mind to mend. Eat, 
 foolish Eminence ; eat with voracity, — leaving the shot 
 till afterwards ! In all this the eyes of Marie Antoinette 
 can neither help thee nor hinder. 
 
 And yet what is the Cardinal, dissolute mud- volcano 
 though he be, more foolish herein, than all Sons of 
 Adam ? Give the wisest of us once a ' fixed-idea,' — 
 which, though a temporary madness, who has not had } 
 — and see where his wisdom is ! The Chamois-hunter 
 serves his doomed seven years in the Quicksilver Mines ; 
 returns salivated to the marrow of the backbone ; and 
 next morning, — goes forth to hunt again. Behold 
 Cardalion King of Urinals ; with a woful ballad to his 
 mistress' eyebrow ! He blows out, Werter-wise, his 
 foolish existence, because she will not have it to keep ; 
 — heeds not that there are some five hundred millions of 
 other mistresses in this noble Planet ; most likely much 
 such as she. O foolish men ! They sell their Inherit- 
 ance (as their Mother did hers), though it is Paradise, 
 for a crotchet : will they not, in every age, dare not 
 only grape-shot and gallows-ropes, but Hell-fire itself, 
 for better sauce to their victuals } My friends, beware 
 of fixed-ideas. 
 
 Here, accordingly, is poor Boehmer with one in his 
 
38 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 head too ! He has been hawking his ' irreducible case 
 of Cardan/ that Necklace of his, these three long years, 
 through all Palaces and Ambassadors' Hotels, over the 
 old ' nine Kingdoms,' or more of them that there now 
 are : searching, sifting Earth, Sea and Air, for a cus- 
 tomer. To take his Necklace in pieces ; and so, losing 
 only his manual labour and expected glory, dissolve his 
 fixed-idea, and fixed diamonds, into current ones : this 
 were simply casting out the Devil — from himself ; a 
 miracle, and perhaps more ! For he too has a Devil, 
 or Devils : one mad object that he strives at ; that he 
 too will attain, or go to Bedlam. Creditors, snarling, 
 hound him on from without ; mocked Hopes, lost 
 Labours, bear-bait him from within : to these torments 
 his fixed-idea keeps him chained. In six- and- thirty 
 weary revolutions of the Moon, was it w^onderful the 
 man's brain had got dried a little ? 
 
 Behold, one day, being Court- Jeweller, he too bursts, 
 almost as Rohan had done, into the Queen's retirement, 
 or apartment ; flings himself (as Campan again has re- 
 corded) at her Majesty's feet ; and there, with clasped 
 uplifted hands, in passionate nasal- gutturals, with stream- 
 ing tears and loud sobs, entreats her to do one of two 
 things : Either to buy his Necklace ; or else graciously 
 to vouchsafe him her royal permission to drown himself 
 in the River Seine. Her Majesty, pitying the distracted 
 bewildered state of the man, calmly points out the plain 
 third course : Depecez voire Collier , Take your Necklace 
 in pieces ; — adding, withal, in a tone of queenly rebuke, 
 that if he would drown himself, he at all times could, 
 without her furtherance. 
 
 Ah, had he drowned himself, with the Necklace in 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 39 
 
 his pocket ; and Cardinal Commendator at his skirts ! 
 Kings, above all, beautiful Queens, as far-radiant Sym- 
 bols on the pinnacles of the world, are so exposed to 
 madmen. Should these two fixed-ideas that beset this 
 beautifullest Queen, and almost burst through her 
 Palace-walls, one day unite, and this not to jump into 
 the River Seine : — what maddest result may be looked 
 for! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Artist, 
 
 If the reader has hitherto, in our too figurative 
 language, seen only the figurative hook and the figura- 
 tive eye, which Boehmer and Rohan, far apart, were 
 respectively fashioning for each other, he shall now see 
 the cunning Milliner (an actual, unmetaphorical Millinei^) 
 by whom these two individuals, with their two imple- 
 ments, are brought in contact, and hooked together 
 into stupendous artificial Siamese-Twins ; — after which 
 the whole nodus and solution will naturally combine 
 and unfold itself. 
 
 Jeanne de Saint -Remi, by courtesy or otherwise. 
 Countess, styled also of Valois, and even of France, 
 has now, in this year of Grace 1783, known the world 
 for some seven-and-twenty summers ; and had crooks 
 in her lot. She boasts herself descended, by what is 
 called natural generation, from the Blood- Royal of 
 France : Henri Second, before that fatal tourney -lance 
 entered his right eye, and ended him, appears to have 
 had, successively or simultaneously, four — unmention- 
 able women : and so, in vice of the third of these, came 
 
40 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 a certain Henri de Saint- Remi into this world ; and, as 
 High and Puissant Lord, ate his victuals and spent his 
 days, on an allotted domain of Fontette, near Bar-sur- 
 Aube, in Champagne. Of High and Puissant Lords, at 
 this Fontette, six other generations followed ; and thus 
 ultimately, in a space of some two centuries, — succeeded 
 in realising this brisk little Jeanne de Saint- Remi, here 
 in question. But, ah, what a falling off! The Royal 
 Family of France has wellnigh forgotten its left-hand 
 collaterals : the last High and Puissant Lord (much 
 dipt by his predecessors), falling into drink, and left 
 by a scandalous world to drink his pitcher c?ry, had 
 to alienate by degrees his whole worldly Possessions, 
 down almost to the indispensable, or inexpressibles ; 
 and die at last in the Paris Hotel- Dieu ; glad that it 
 was not on the street. So that he has, indeed, given a 
 sort of bastard royal life to little Jeanne, and her little 
 brother ; but not the smallest earthly provender to keep 
 it in. The mother, in her extremity, forms the wonder- 
 fullest connexions ; and little Jeanne, and her little bro- 
 ther, go out into the highways to beg.* 
 
 A charitable Countess Boulainvilliers, struck with 
 the little bright-eyed tatterdemalion from the carriage- 
 window, picks her up ; has her scoured, clothed ; and 
 rears her, in her fluctuating miscellaneous way, to be, 
 about the age of twenty, a nondescript of Mantuamaker, 
 Soubrette, Court-beggar, Fine-lady, Abigail, and Scion- 
 of- Royalty. Sad combination of trades ! The Court, 
 after infinite soliciting, puts one off with a hungry dole 
 of little more than thirty pounds a-year. Nay, the au- 
 
 * Vie de Jeanne Comtesse de Lamotte (by Herself). Vol. i. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 41 
 
 dacious Count Boulainvilliers dares, with what purposes 
 he knows best, to offer some suspicious presents ! * 
 Whereupon his good Countess, especially as Mantua- 
 making languishes, thinks it could not but be fit to go 
 down to Bar- sur- Aube ; and there see whether no frac- 
 tions of that aUenated Fontette Property, held perhaps 
 on insecure tenure, may, by terror or cunning, be reco- 
 verable. Burning her paper patterns, pocketing her 
 pension till more come. Mademoiselle Jeanne sallies out 
 thither, in her twenty- third year. 
 
 Nourished in this singular way, alternating between 
 saloon and kitchen-table, with the loftiest of pretensions, 
 meanest of possessions, our poor High and Puissant 
 Mantuamaker has realised for herself a ' face not beau- 
 tiful, yet with a certain piquancy dark hair, blue eyes ; 
 and a character, which the present writer, a determined 
 student of human nature, declares to be undecipherable. 
 Let the Psychologists try it ! Jeanne de Saint-Remi de 
 Valois de France actually lived, and worked, and was : 
 she has even published, at various times, three consider- 
 able Volumes of Autobiography, with loose Leaves (in 
 Courts of Justice) of unknown number ; f wherein he 
 
 * He was of Hebrew descent : grandson of the renowned Jew 
 Bernard, whom Louis XV., and even Louis XIV., used to *■ walk 
 with in the Royal Garden,* when they wanted him to lend them 
 money. — See Souvenirs du Due de Levis ; Memoires de Duclos, 
 &c. 
 
 f Four Memoires Pour by her, in this Affaire du Collier ; like 
 ' Lawyers' tongues turned inside out !' Afterwards One Volume, 
 Memoires Justificatifs de la Comtesse de^ &c. (London, 1788) ; 
 with Appendix of * Documents,' so-called. This has also been 
 translated into a kind of English. Then Two Volumes, as quoted 
 above : Vie de Jeanne de, &c. ; printed in London, — by way of 
 
42 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 that runs may read, — but not understand. Strange 
 Volumes ! more like the screeching of distracted night- 
 birds (suddenly disturbed by the torch of Police -Fow- 
 lers), than the articulate utterance of a rational un- 
 feathered biped. Cheerfully admitting these statements 
 to be all lies ; we ask, How any mortal could, or should, 
 so lie ? 
 
 The Psychologists, however, commit one sore mis- 
 take : that of searching, in every character named 
 human, for something like a conscience. Being mere 
 contemplative recluses, for most part, and feeling that 
 Morality is the heart of Life, they judge that with all 
 the world it is so. Nevertheless, as practical men are 
 aware, Life can go on in excellent vigour, without 
 crotchet of that kind. What is the essence of Life ? 
 Volition } Go deeper down, you find a much more 
 universal root and characteristic : Digestion. While 
 Digestion lasts. Life cannot, in philosophical language, 
 be said to be extinct : and Digestion will give rise to 
 Volitions enough ; at any rate, to Desires and attempts, 
 which may pass for such. He who looks neither before 
 nor after, any farther than the Larder and Stateroom, 
 which latter is properly the finest compartment of the 
 Larder, will need no World-theory, Creed as it is called, 
 
 extorting money from Paris. This latter Lying Autobiography 
 of Lamotte was bought up by French persons in authority. It was 
 the burning of this Editio Princeps in the Sevres Potteries, on the 
 30th of May, 1792, which raised such a smoke, that the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly took alarm ; and had an investigation about it, and 
 considerable examining of Potters, &c., till the truth came out. 
 Copies of the Book were speedily reprinted after the Tenth of 
 August. It is in English too ; and, except in the Necklace part, 
 is not so entirely distracted as the former. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 43 
 
 or Scheme of Duties : lightly leaving the world to wag 
 as it likes with any theory or none, his grand object is a 
 theory and practice of ways and means. Not goodness 
 or badness is the type of him ; only shiftiness or shift- 
 lessness. 
 
 And now, disburdened of this obstruction, let the 
 Psychologists consider it under a bolder view. Con- 
 sider the brisk Jeanne de Saint-Remi de Saint- Shifty as 
 a Spark of vehement Life, not developed into Will of 
 any kind, yet fully into Desires of all kinds, and cast into 
 such a Life-element as we have seen. Vanity and Hun- 
 ger ; a Princess of the Blood, yet w^hose father had sold 
 his inexpressibles ; uncertain whether fosterdaughter of 
 a fond Countess, with hopes sky-high, or supernumerary 
 Soubrette ; with not enough of mantuamaking : in a 
 word, Gigmanity disgigged ; one of the saddest, pitiable, 
 unpitied predicaments of man ! She is of that light 
 unreflecting class, of that light unreflecting sex : varium 
 semper et mutahile. And then her Fine-Ladyism, though 
 a purseless one : capricious, coquettish, and with all the 
 finer sensibilities of the heart ; now in the rackets, now 
 in the suUens ; vivid in contradictory resolves ; laugh- 
 ing, weeping without reason, — though these acts are 
 said to be signs of reason. Consider, too, how she has 
 had to work her way, all along, by flattery and cajolery; 
 wheedHng, eaves- dropping, nambypambying : how she 
 needs wages, and knows no other productive trades. 
 Thought can hardly be said to exist in her : only Per- 
 ception and Device. With an understanding lynx-eyed 
 for the surface of things, but which pierces beyond the 
 surface of nothing ; every individual thing (for she has 
 
44 
 
 MISCELLA.NIES. 
 
 never seized the heart of it) turns up a new face to her 
 every new day, and seems a thing changed, a different 
 thing. Thus sits, or rather vehemently bobs and hovers 
 her vehement mind, in the middle of a boundless many- 
 dancing whirlpool of gilt-shreds, paper-clippings, and 
 windfalls, — to which the revolving chaos of my Uncle 
 Toby's Smoke-jack was solidity and regularity. Reader ! 
 thou for thy sins must have met with such fair Irra- 
 tionals ; fascinating, with their lively eyes, with their 
 quick snappish fancies ; distinguished in the higher cir- 
 cles, in Fashion, even in Literature : they hum and buzz 
 there, on graceful film- wings ; — searching, nevertheless, 
 with the wonderfullest skill, for honey ; * wwtamable as 
 flies 
 
 Wonderfullest skill for honey, we say ; and, pray, 
 mark that, as regards this Countess de Saint- Shifty. 
 Her instinct-of- genius is prodigious ; her appetite fierce. 
 In any foraging speculation of the private kind, she, 
 unthinking as you call her, will be worth a hundred 
 thinkers. And so of such untamable flies the untam- 
 ablest. Mademoiselle Jeanne, is now buzzing down, in 
 the Bar-sur-Aube Diligence ; to inspect the honey -jars 
 of Fontette ; and see and smell whether there be any 
 flaws in them. 
 
 Alas, at Fontette, we can, with sensibility, behold 
 straw -roofs we were nursed under ; farmers courteously 
 offer cooked milk, and other countr^r messes : but no 
 soul will part with his Landed Property, for which, 
 though cheap, he declares hard money was paid. The 
 honey -jars are all close, then? — However, a certain 
 Monsieur de Lamotte, a tall Gendarme, home on fur- 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 45 
 
 lough from Luneville, is now at Bar ; pays us attentions ; 
 becomes quite particular in his attentions, — for we have 
 a face ' with a certain piquancy/ the liveliest glib-snap- 
 pish tongue, the liveliest kittenish manner (not yet 
 hardened into ca^-hood), with thirty pounds a-year, 
 and prospects. M. de Lamotte, indeed, is as yet only 
 a private sentinel ; but then a private sentinel in the 
 Gendarmes : and did not his father die fighting * at the 
 head of his company,' at Minden ? Why not in virtue 
 of our own Countesship dub him too Count ; by left- 
 hand coUateralism, get him advanced ? — Finished before 
 the furlough is done ! The untamablest of flies has 
 again buzzed off ; in wedlock with M. de Lamotte ; if 
 not to get honey, yet to escape spiders ; and so lies in 
 garrison at Luneville, amid coquetries and hysterics, in 
 Gigmanity disgigged, — disconsolate enough. 
 
 At the end of four long years (too long), M. de La- 
 motte, or call him now Count de Lamotte, sees good to 
 lay down his fighting- gear (unhappily still only the 
 musket), and become what is by certain moderns called 
 * a Civilian not a Civil-Law Doctor ; merely a Citizen, 
 one who does not live by being killed. Alas ! cold 
 eclipse has all along hung over the Lamotte household. 
 Countess Boulainvilliers, it is true, writes in the most 
 feeling manner ; but then the Royal Finances are so 
 deranged ! Without personal pressing solicitation, on 
 the spot, no Court- solicitor, were his Pension the mea- 
 grest, can hope to better it. At Luneville the sun, 
 indeed, shines ; and there is a kind of Life ; but only an 
 Un-Parisian, half or quarter Life ; the very tradesmen 
 grow clamorous, and no cunningly devised fable, ready 
 money alone will appease them. Commandant Marquis 
 
46 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 d*Autichamp * agrees with Madame Boulainvilliers that 
 a journey to Paris were the project ; whither, also, he 
 himself is just going. Perfidious Commandant Marquis ! 
 His plan is seen through : he dares to presume to make 
 love to a Scion-of-Royalty ; or to hint that he could 
 dare to presume to do it ! Whereupon, indignant 
 Count de Lamotte, as we said, throws up his commis- 
 sion, and down his fire-arms, without further delay. 
 The King loses a tall private sentinel ; the World has a 
 new blackleg : and Monsieur and Madame de Lamotte 
 take places in the Dihgence for Strasburg. 
 
 Good Fostermother Boulainvilliers, however, is no 
 longer at Strasburg : she is forward at the Archiepis- 
 copal Palace in Saverne ; on a visit there, to his Emi- 
 nence Cardinal Commendator Grand-Almoner Arch- 
 bishop Prince Louis de Rohan ! Thus, then, has 
 Destiny at last brought it about. Thus, after long wan- 
 derings, on paths so far separate, has the time come, 
 in this late year 1783, when, of all the nine hundred 
 millions of the Earth's denizens, these pre-appointed 
 Two behold each other ! 
 
 The foolish Cardinal, since no sublunary means, not 
 even bribing of the Trianon Concierge, will serve, has 
 taken to the superlunary : he is here, with his fixed-idea 
 and volcanic vaporosity darkening, under Cagliostro's 
 management, into thicker and thicker opaque, — of the 
 Black- Art itself. To the glance of hungry genius. Car- 
 dinal and Cagliostro could not but have meaning. A 
 
 * He is the same Marquis d'Autichamp, who was to * relieve 
 Lyons,' and raise the Siege of Lyons, in Autumn, 1793, but could 
 not do it. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 47 
 
 flush of astonishment, a sigh over boundless wealth (for 
 the mountains of debt lie invisible) in the hands of 
 boundless Stupidity ; some vague looming of indefinite 
 hope : all this one can well fancy. But, alas, what, to 
 a high plush Cardinal, is a now insolvent Scion-of- 
 Royalty, — though with a face of some piquancy The 
 good Fostermother's visit, in any case, can last but three 
 days ; then, amid old nambypambyings, with effusions 
 of the nobler sensibilities, and tears of pity at least for 
 oneself, Countess de Lamotte, and husband, must off 
 with her to Paris, and new possibilities at Court. Only 
 when the sky again darkens, can this vague looming 
 from Saverne look out, by fits, as a cheering weather- 
 sign. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Will the Two Fixed-ideas unite ? 
 
 However, the sky, according to custom, is not long 
 in darkening again. The King's finances, we repeat, 
 are in so distracted a state ! No D'Ormesson, no Joly 
 de Fleury, wearied with milking the already dry, will 
 increase that scandalous Thirty Pounds of a Scion-of- 
 Royalty by a single doit. Calonne himself, who has a 
 willing ear and encouraging word for all mortals what- 
 soever, only with di^^icult5^ and by aid of Madame of 
 France,'" raises it to some still miserable Sixty-five. 
 Worst of all, the good Fostermother Boulainvilliers, in 
 few months, suddenly dies : the wretched widower, 
 sitting there, with his white handkerchief, to receive 
 
 * See Campan. 
 
48 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 condolences, with closed shutters, mortuary tapestries, 
 and sepulchral cressets burning (which, however, the 
 instant the condolences are gone, he blows out, to save 
 oil), has the audacity again, amid crocodile tears, to — 
 drop hints ! * Nay more, he, wretched man in all 
 senses, abridges the Lamotte table ; will besiege virtue 
 both in the positive and negative way. The Lamottes, 
 wintry as the world looks, cannot be gone too soon. 
 
 As to Lamotte the husband, he, for shelter against 
 much, decisively dives down to the ' subterranean shades 
 of Rascaldom ; ' gambles, swindles ; can hope to live, 
 miscellaneously, if not by the Grace of God, yet by the 
 Oversight of the Devil, — for a time. Lamotte the wife 
 also makes her packages : and waving the unseductive 
 Count Boulainvilliers Save-all a disdainful farewell, re- 
 moves to the Belle Image in Versailles ; there within 
 wind of Court, in attic apartments, on poor water- gruel 
 board, resolves to await what can betide. So much, in 
 few months of this fateful year 1783, has come and 
 gone. 
 
 Poor Jeanne de Saint- Remi de Lamotte Valois, Ex- 
 Mantuamaker, Scion-of- Royalty ! What eye, looking 
 into those bare attic apartments, and water-gruel plat- 
 ters of the Belle Image, but must, in spite of itself, grow 
 dim with almost a kind of tear for thee ! There thou 
 art, with thy quick lively glances, face of a certain 
 piquancy, thy gossamer untamable character, snappish 
 sallies, glib all-managing tongue ; thy whole incarnated, 
 garmented, and so sharply appetent ' spark of Life 
 cast down alive into this World, without vote of thine 
 
 * Vie de Jeanne de Lamotte, &c., ecrite par elle-meme, i. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 49 
 
 (for the Elective Franchises have not yet got that 
 length) ; and wouldst so fain live there. Paying scot- 
 and-lot ; providing, or fresh- scouring, silk court- dresses ; 
 ' always keeping a gig !' Thou must hawk and shark 
 to and fro, from anteroom to anteroom ; become a kind 
 of terror to all men in place, and women that influence 
 such ; dance not light Ionic measures, but attendance 
 merely ; have weepings, thanksgiving efixisions, aulic, 
 almost forensic, eloquence : perhaps eke out thy thin 
 livelihood by some coquetries, in the small way; — and 
 so, most poverty-stricken, cold-blighted, yet with young 
 keen blood struggling against it, spin forward thy un- 
 equal feeble thread, which the Atropos-scissors will soon 
 clip ! 
 
 Surely, now, if ever, were that vague looming from 
 Saveme welcome, as a weather-sign. How doubly 
 welcome is his plush Eminence*s personal arrival; — for 
 with the earliest spring he has come in person,* as he 
 periodically does ; vapourific, driven by his fixed-idea. 
 
 Genius, of the mechanical practical kind, what is it 
 but a bringing together of two Forces that fit each 
 other, that will give birth to a third ? Ever, from Tu- 
 balcain*s time, Iron lay ready hammered ; Water, also, 
 was boiling and bursting : nevertheless, for want of a 
 genius, there was as yet no Steam-engine. In his Emi- 
 nence Prince Louis, in that huge, restless, incoherent 
 Being of his, depend on it, brave Countess, there are 
 Forces deep, manifold ; nay, a fixed-idea concentrates 
 the whole huge Incoherence as it were into one Force : 
 cannot the eye of genius discover its fellow ? 
 
 Communing much with the Court valetaille, our 
 
 VOL. V. D 
 
50 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 brave Countess has more than once heard talk of 
 Boehmer, of his Necklace, and threatened death by- 
 water ; in the course of gossiping and tattling, this 
 topic from time to time emerges ; is commented upon 
 with empty laughter, — as if there lay no farther mean- 
 ing in it. To the common eye there is indeed none : 
 but to the eye of genius ? In some moment of inspira- 
 tion, the question rises on our brave Lamotte : Were 
 not thisy of all extant Forces, the cognate one that 
 would unite with Eminence Rohan's ? Great moment, 
 light- beaming, fire-flashing ; like birth of Minerva ; like 
 all moments of Creation ! Fancy how pulse and breath 
 flutter, almost stop, in the greatness : the great not 
 Divine Idea, the great Diabolic Idea, is too big for her. 
 — Thought (how often must we repeat it }) rules the 
 world. Fire and, in a less degree, Frost ; Earth and 
 Sea (for what is your swiftest ship, or steamship but a 
 Thought — embodied in wood ?) ; Reformed Parliaments, 
 rise and ruin of Nations, — sale of Diamonds : all things 
 obey Thought. Countess de Saint-Remi de Lamotte, 
 by power of Thought, is now a made woman. With 
 force of genius she represses, crushes deep down, her 
 Undivine Idea ; bends all her faculty to realise it. 
 Prepare thyself, Reader, for a series of the most sur- 
 prising Dramatic Representations ever exhibited on any 
 stage. 
 
 We hear tell of Dramatists, and scenic illusion how 
 * natural,' how illusive it was : if the spectator, for some 
 half-moment, can half- deceive himself into the belief that 
 it was real, he departs doubly content. With all which, 
 and much more of the like, I have no quarrel. But what 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 ^ 51 
 
 must be thought of the Female Dramatist who, for eigh- 
 teen long months, can exhibit the beautifullest Fata- mor- 
 gana to a plush Cardinal, wide awake, with fifty years 
 on his head ; and so lap him in her scenic illusion that 
 he never doubts but it is all firm earth, and the paste- 
 board Coulisse-trees are producing Hesperides apples ? 
 Could Madame de Lamotte, then, have written a Ham- 
 let ? 1 conjecture, not. More goes to the writing of a 
 Hamlet than completest * imitation' of all characters and 
 things in this Earth ; there goes, before and beyond 
 all, the rarest understanding of these, insight into their 
 hidden essences and harmonies. Erasmus's Ape, as is 
 known in Literaiy History, sat by while its Master was 
 shaving, and ' imitated ' every point of the process ; but 
 its own foolish beard grew never the smoother. 
 
 As in looking at a finished Drama, it were nowise 
 meet that the spectator first of all got behind the scenes, 
 and saw the burnt-corks, brayed-resin, thunder-barrels, 
 and withered hunger-bitten men and women, of which 
 such heroic work was made : so here with the reader. 
 A peep into the side- scenes shall be granted him, from 
 time to time. But, on the whole, repress, O reader, 
 that too insatiable scientific curiosity of thine ; let thy 
 (Esthetic feeling first have play; and witness what a 
 Prospero's-grotto poor Eminence Rohan is led into, to 
 be pleased he know^s not why. 
 
 Survey first what we might call the stage-lights, or- 
 chestra, general structure of the theatre, mood and con- 
 dition of the audience. The theatre is the World, with 
 its restless business and madness ; near at hand rise the 
 royal Domes of Versailles, mystery around them, and as 
 background the memory of a thousand years. By the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILL/NOfS 
 
52 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 side of the River Seine walks, haggard, wasted, a Jouail- 
 lier-Bijoutier de la Reine, with Necklace in his pocket. 
 The audience is a drunk Christopher Sly in the fittest 
 humour. A fixed-idea, driving him headlong over steep 
 places, like that of the Gadarenes' Swine, has produced 
 a deceptibility, as of desperation, that will clutch at 
 straws. Understand one other word : Cagliostro is pro- 
 phesying to him ! The Quack of Quacks has now for 
 years had him in leading. Transmitting * predictions 
 in cipher ; ' questioning, before Hieroglyphic Screens, 
 Columbs in a state of Innocence, for elixirs of life, and 
 philosopher's stone ; unveiling, in fuliginous clear-ob- 
 scure, an imaginary majesty of Nature ; he isolates him 
 more and more from all unpossessed men. Was it not 
 enough that poor Rohan had become a dissolute, som- 
 nolent-violent, ever- vapoury Mud- volcano ; but black 
 Egyptian magic must be laid on him ! 
 
 If, perhaps, too, our Countess de Lamotte, with her 
 blandishments — ? For though not beautiful, she * has 
 a certain piquancy' et cetera ! — Enough, his poor Emi- 
 nence sits in the fittest place, in the fittest mood : a 
 newly- awakened Christopher Sly ; and with his * small 
 ale,' too, beside him. Touch, only, the lights with fire- 
 tipt rod ; and let the orchestra, soft-warbling, strike up 
 their fara-lara fiddle- diddle- dee ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Marie- Antoinette. 
 
 Such a soft- warbling fara-lara was it to his Emi- 
 nence, when, in early January of the year 1784, our 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 53 
 
 Countess first, mysteriously, and under seal of sworn 
 secrecy, hinted to him that, with her w^inning tongue 
 and great talent as Anecdotic Historian, she had worked 
 a passage to the ear of Queen's Majesty itself. Gods ! 
 dost thou bring with thee airs from Heaven } Is thy 
 face yet radiant with some reflex of that Brightness be- 
 yond bright.? — Men wdth fixed-idea are not as other 
 men. To listen to a plain varnished tale, such as your 
 Dramatist can fashion ; to ponder the words ; to snufF 
 them up, as Ephraim did the east-wind, and grow flatu- 
 lent and drunk with them : what else could poor Emi- 
 nence do } His poor somnolent, so swift-rocked soul 
 feels a new element infused into it ; turbid resinous 
 light, wide-coruscating, glares over the waste of his 
 imagination. Is he interested in the mysterious tidings ? 
 Hope has seized them ; there is in the world nothing 
 else that interests him. 
 
 The secret friendship of Queens is not a thing to be 
 let sleep: ever new Palace Interview's occur; — yet in 
 deepest privacy ; for how should her Majesty awaken 
 so many tongues of Principalities and Nobilities, male 
 and female, that spitefully watch her ? Above all, how- 
 ever, • on the 2d of February,' that day of * the Proces- 
 sion of blue Ribands,' t much was spoken of : somewhat, 
 too, of Monseigneur de Rohan ! — Poor Monseigneur, 
 hadst thou three long ears, thou'dst hear her. 
 
 But will she not, perhaps, in some future priceless 
 
 * Compare Rohan's Memoires Pour (there are four of them), 
 in t)\Q Affaire du Collier^ with Lamotte's four. They go on in the 
 way of controversy, of argument and response. 
 
 t Lamotte's Memoires Justificatifs (London, 1788). 
 
54 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Interview, speak a good word for thee ? Thyself shalt 
 speak it, happy Eminence ; at least, write it : our tu- 
 telary Countess will be the bearer 1 — On the 21st of 
 March goes off that long exculpatory imploratory Let- 
 ter: it is the first Letter that went off from Cardinal to 
 Queen ; to be followed, in time, by ' above two hundred 
 others ; ' which are graciously answered by verbal Mes- 
 sages, nay, at length by Royal Autographs on gilt paper, 
 — the whole delivered by our tutelary Countess.* The 
 tutelary Countess comes and goes, fetching and carry- 
 ing ; with the gravity of a Roman Augur, inspects those 
 extraordinary chicken-bowels, and draws prognostics 
 from them. Things are in fair train : the Dauphiness 
 took some offence at Monseigneur, but the Queen has 
 nigh forgotten it. No inexorable Queen ; ah no ! So 
 good, 60 free, light-hearted ; only sore beset with mali- 
 cious Polignacs and others ; — at times, also, short of 
 money. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, as the reader well knows, has 
 been much blamed for want of Etiquette. Even now, 
 when the other accusations against her have sunk down 
 to oblivion and the Father of Lies, this of wanting Eti- 
 quette survives her; — in the Castle of Ham, at this 
 hour,t M. de Polignac and Company may be wringing 
 their hands, not without an oblique glance at her for 
 bringing them thither. She indeed discarded Etiquette ; 
 once, when her carriage broke down, she even entered 
 
 * See Georgel : see Lamotte's Memoir es ; in her Appendix of 
 ' Documents' to that vohime, certain of these Letters are given, 
 t AD. 1831. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 55 
 
 a hackney-coach. She would walk, too, at Trianon, in 
 mere straw-hat, and perhaps muslin gown ! Hence, the 
 Knot of Etiquette being loosed, the Frame of Society 
 broke up ; and those astonishing ' Horrors of the French 
 Revolution' supervened. On what Damocles' hairs 
 must the judgment- sword hang over this distracted 
 Earth ! Thus, however, it was that Tenterden Steeple 
 brought an influx of the Atlantic on us, and so Godwin 
 Sands. Thus, too, might it be that because Father 
 Noah took the liberty of, say, rinsing out his wine-vat, 
 his Ark was floated ofi^, and a world drowned. — Beau- 
 tiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled low ! For, if 
 thy Being came to thee out of old Hapsburg Dynasties, 
 came it not also (like my own) out of Heaven ? Sunt 
 lachrymcB rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. Oh, is 
 there a man's heart that thinks, without pity, of those 
 long months and years of slow-wasting ignominy ; — of 
 thy Birth, soft- cradled in Imperial Schonbrunn, the 
 winds of heaven not to visit thy face too roughly, thy 
 foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendour ; and 
 then of thy Death, or hundred Deaths, to which the 
 Guillotine and FouquierTinville's judgment-bar was but 
 the merciful end ? I^ook there, O man born of woman ! 
 The bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray 
 with care ; the brightness of those eyes is quenched, 
 their lids hang drooping, the face is stony pale, as of 
 one living in death. Mean weeds, which her own hand 
 has mended,* attire the Queen of the World. The 
 death-hurdle, where thou sittest pale motionless, which 
 
 * Weber : Memoir es concernant Marie -Antoinette (London, 
 1809), tome iii., notes, 106. 
 
56 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 only curses environ, has to stop : a people, drunk with 
 vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking at 
 thee there. Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea 
 of maniac heads ; the air deaf with their triumph-yell ! 
 The Living- dead must shudder with yet one other pang ; 
 her startled blood yet again suffuses with the hue of 
 agony that pale face, which she hides with her hands. 
 There is then no heart to say, God pity thee ? O think 
 not of these ; think of Him whom thou worshippest, 
 the Crucified, — who also treading the wine-press alone, 
 fronted sorrow still deeper ; and triumphed over it, and 
 made it Holy ; and built of it a * Sanctuary of Sorrow,' 
 for thee and all the wretched ! Thy path of thorns is 
 nigh ended. One long last look at the Tuileries, where 
 thy step was once so light, — where thy children shall 
 not dwell. The head is on the block ; the axe rushes 
 — Dumb lies the World ; that wild-yelling World, and 
 all its madness, is behind thee. 
 
 Beautiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled low ! 
 Rest yet in thy innocent gracefully heedless seclusion, 
 unintruded on by me, while rude hands have not yet de- 
 secrated it. Be the curtains, that shroud in (if for the 
 last time on this Earth) a Royal Life, still sacred to me. 
 Thy fault, in the French Revolution, was that thou wert 
 the Symbol of the Sin and Misery of a thousand years ; 
 that with Saint- Bartholomews, and Jacqueries, with Ga- 
 belles, and Dragonades, and Parcs-aux-cerfs, the heart 
 of mankind was filled full, — and foamed over, into all- 
 involving madness. To no Napoleon, to no Cromwell 
 wert thou wedded : such sit not in the highest rank, 
 of themselves ; are raised on high by the shaking and 
 confounding of all the ranks. As poor peasants, how 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 57 
 
 happy, worthy had ye two been ! But by evil destiny 
 ye were made a King and Queen of ; and so both once 
 more — are become an astonishment and a by- word to 
 all times. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 The Two Fixed-ideas ivill unite, 
 
 " Countess de Lamotte, then, had penetrated into 
 the confidence of the Queen ? Those gilt-paper Auto- 
 graphs were actually written by the Queen Reader, 
 forget not to repress that too insatiable scientific cu- 
 riosity of thine ! What I know is that a certain Villette- 
 de-Retaux, with military whiskers, denizen of Rascal- 
 dom, comrade there of Monsieur le Comte, is skilful in 
 imitating hands. Certain it is also, that Madame la 
 Comtesse has penetrated to the Trianon — Doorkeeper's. 
 Nay, as Campan herself must admit, she has met, * at a 
 Man-midwife's in Versailles,' with worthy Queen's- valet 
 Lesclaux, — or Desclos, for there is no uniformity in it. 
 With these, or the like of these, she in the back-parlour 
 of the Palace itself (if late enough), may pick a merry- 
 thought, sip the foam from a glass of Champagne. No 
 farther seek her honours to disclose, for the present ; or 
 anatomically dissect, as we said, those extraordinary 
 chicken-bowels, from which she, and she alone, can read 
 Decrees of Fate, and also realise them. 
 
 Sceptic, seest thou his Eminence waiting there, in 
 the moonlight ; hovering to and fro on the back terrace, 
 till she come out — from the ineffable Interview } * He 
 
 * See GeorgeL 
 D 2 
 
58 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 is close muffled ; walks restlessly observant ; shy also, 
 and courting the shade. She comes : up closer with 
 thy capote, O Eminence, down with thy broadbrim ; for 
 she has an escort ! 'Tis but the good Monsieur Queen's- 
 valet Lesclaux : and now he is sent back again, as no 
 longer needful. Mark him, Monseigneur, nevertheless ; 
 thou wilt see him yet another time. Monseigneur marks 
 little ; his heart is in the Ineffable Interview, in the gilt- 
 paper Autograph alone. — Queen's -valet Lesclaux ? Me- 
 thinks, he has much the stature of Villette, denizen of 
 Rascaldom ! Impossible ! 
 
 How our Countess managed with Cagliostro ? Cag- 
 liostro, gone from Strasburg, is as yet far distant, wing- 
 ing his way through dim Space ; will not be here for 
 months : only his * predictions in cipher ' are here. 
 Here or there, however, Cagliostro, to our Countess, can 
 be useful. At a glance, the eye of genius has descried 
 him to be a bottomless slough of falsity, vanity, gulosity, 
 and thick- eyed stupidity : of foulest material, but of 
 fattest ; — fit compost for the Plant she is rearing. Him 
 who has deceived all Europe she can undertake to de- 
 ceive. His Columbs, demonic Masonries, Egyptian 
 Elixirs, what is all this to the light- giggling exclusively 
 practical Lamotte ? It runs off from her, as all specula- 
 tion, good, bad, and indifferent, has always done, * Hke 
 water from one in wax- cloth dress.' With the lips 
 meanwhile she can honour it ; Oil of Flattery, the best 
 patent antifriction known, subdues all irregularities 
 whatsoever. 
 
 On Cagliostro, again, on his side, a certain uneasy 
 feeling mxight, for moments, intrude itself; the raven 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 59 
 
 loves not ravens. But what can he do ? Nay, she is 
 partly playing his game : can he not spill her full cup 
 yet, at the right season, and pack her out of doors ? 
 Oftenest, in their joyous orgies, this light fascinating 
 Countess, — who perhaps has a design on his heart, 
 seems to him but one other of those light Papiliones, 
 who have fluttered round him in all climates ; whom 
 with grim muzzle he has snapt by the thousand. 
 
 Thus, what with light fascinating Countess, what 
 with Quack of Quacks, poor Eminence de Rohan lies 
 safe; his mud- volcano placidly simmering in thick 
 Egyptian haze : withdrawn from all the world. Moving 
 figures, as of men, he sees ; takes not the trouble to 
 look at. Court-cousins rally him ; are answered in 
 silence ; or, if it go too far, in mud- explosions terrifico- 
 absurd. Court- cousins and all mankind are unreal sha- 
 dows merely ; Queen's favour the only substance. 
 
 Nevertheless, the World, on its side too, has an 
 existence ; lies not idle in these days. It has got its 
 Versailles Treaty signed, long months ago ; and the 
 plenipotentiaries all home again, for votes of thanks. 
 Paris, London, and other great Cities and small, are 
 working, intriguing ; dying, being born. There, in the 
 Rue Taranne, for instance, the once noisy Denis Diderot 
 has fallen silent enough. Here also, in Bolt Court, old 
 Samuel Johnson, like an over-wearied Giant, must lie 
 down, and slumber without dream; — the rattling of 
 carriages and wains, and all the world's din and business 
 rolling by, as ever, from of old. — Sieur Boehmer, how- 
 ever, has not yet drowned himself in the Seine ; only 
 walks haggard, wasted, purposing to do it. 
 
60 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 News (by the merest accident in the world) reach 
 Sieur Boehmer, of Madame' s new favour with her 
 Majesty ! Men will do much before they drown. Sieur 
 Boehmer's Necklace is on Madame's table, his guttural 
 nasal rhetoric in her ear : he will abate many a pound 
 and penny of the first just price ; he will give cheeifuUy 
 a Thousand Louis- d'or, as cadeau, to the generous Scion- 
 of- Royalty that shall persuade her Majesty. The man's 
 importunities grow quite annoying to our Countess ; 
 who, in her glib way, satirically prattles how she has 
 been bored, — to Monsiegneur, among others. 
 
 Dozing on down cushions, far inwards, with soft 
 ministering Hebes, and luxurious appliances ; with 
 ranked Heyducs, and a Valetaille innumerable, that shut 
 out the prose-world and its discord : thus lies Mon- 
 seigneur, in enchanted dream. Can he, even in sleep, 
 forget his tutelary Countess, and her service ? By the 
 delicatest presents he alleviates her distresses, most un- 
 deserved. Nay, once or twice, gilt Autographs, from a 
 Queen, — with whom he is evidently rising to unknown 
 heights in favour, — have done Monseigneur the honour 
 to make him her Majesty's Grand Almoner, when the 
 case was pressing. Monseigneur, we say, has had the 
 honour to disburse charitable cash, on her Majesty's 
 behalf, to this or the other distressed deserving object : 
 say only to the length of a few thousand pounds, ad- 
 vanced from his own funds ; — her Majesty being at the 
 moment so poor, and charity a thing that will not wait. 
 Always Madame, good, foolish, gadding creature, takes 
 charge of delivering the money. — Madame can descend 
 from her attics, in the Belle Image ; and feel the smiles 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 61 
 
 of Nature and Fortune, a little ; so bounteous has the 
 Queen's Majesty been.* 
 
 To Monseigneur the power of money over highest 
 female hearts had never been incredible. Presents have, 
 many times, worked wonders. But then, O Heavens, 
 what present ? Scarcely were the Cloud- Compeller 
 himself, all coined into new Louis-d'or, worthy to alight 
 in such a lap. Loans, charitable disbursements, how- 
 ever, as we see, are permissible ; these, by defect of 
 payment, may become presents. In the vortex of his 
 Eminence's day-dreams, lumbering multiform slowly 
 round, this of importunate Boehmer and his Necklace, 
 from time to time, turns up. Is the Queen's Majesty 
 at heart desirous of it ; but again, at the moment, too 
 poor ? Our tutelary Countess answers vaguely, myste- 
 riously ; — confesses, at last, under oath of secrecy, her 
 own private suspicion that the Queen wants this same 
 Necklace, of all things ; but dare not, for a stingy hus- 
 band, buy it. She, the Countess de Lamotte, will look 
 farther into the matter ; and, if aught serviceable to his 
 Eminence can be suggested, in a good way suggest it, in 
 the proper quarter. 
 
 Walk warily. Countess de Lamotte ; for now, with 
 thickening breath, thou approachest the moment of mo- 
 ments ! Principalities and Powers, Parlement, Grand 
 Chamhrey and Tournellcy with all their w^hips and gibbet- 
 wheels ; the very Crack of Doom hangs over thee, if 
 thou trip. Forward, with nerve of iron, on shoes of 
 felt ; like a Treasure- digger, in silence, looking neither 
 to the right nor left, — where yawn abysses deep as the 
 
 * GeorgeL Rohan's four Memoires Pour; Lamotte's four. 
 
62 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Pool, and all Pandemonium hovers, eager to rend thee 
 into rags ! 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Park of Versailles, 
 
 Or will the reader incline rather, taking the other 
 and sunny side of the matter, to enter that Lamottic- 
 Circean theatrical establishment of Monseigneur de 
 Rohan ; and see there how, under the best of Drama- 
 turgists, Melodrama with sweeping pall flits past him ; 
 while the enchanted Diamond fruit is gradually ripening, 
 to fall by a shake } 
 
 The 28th of July, of this same momentous 1784, has 
 come ; and with it the most rapturous tumult into the 
 heart of Monseigneur. Ineffable expectancy stirs up 
 his whole soul, with the much that lies therein, from 
 its lowest foundations : borne on wild seas to Armida 
 Islands, yet as is fit, through Horror dim- hovering round, 
 he tumultuously rocks. To the Chateau, to the Park ! 
 This night the Queen will meet thee, the Queen herself : 
 so far has our tutelary Countess brought it. What can 
 ministerial impediments, Polignac intrigues, avail against 
 the favour, nay — Heaven and Earth ! — perhaps the 
 tenderness of a Queen ? She vanishes from amid their 
 meshwork of Etiquette and Cabal ; descends from her 
 celestial Zodiac, to thee a shepherd of Latmos. Alas, 
 a white-bearded, pursy shepherd, fat and scant of breath ! 
 Who can account for the taste of females ? But thou, 
 burnish up thy whole faculties of gallantry, thy fifty 
 years experience of the sex ; this night, or never ! — 
 In such unutterable meditations, does Monseigneur 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 63 
 
 restlessly spend the day ; and long for darkness, yet 
 dread it. 
 
 Darkness has at length come. The perpendicular 
 rows of Heyducs, in that Palais or Hotel de Strasbourg, 
 are all cast prostrate in sleep ; the very Concierge re- 
 supine, with open mouth, audibly drinks-in nepenthe ; 
 when Monseigneur, ' in blue greatcoat, with slouched 
 hat,' issues softly, with his henchman Planta of the 
 Grisons, to the Park of Versailles. Planta must loiter 
 invisible in the distance ; Slouched-hat will wait here, 
 among the leafy thickets ; till our tutelary Countess, 
 ' in black domino,' announce the moment, which surely 
 must be near. 
 
 The night is of the darkest for the season ; no Moon ; 
 warm, slumbering July, in motionless clouds, drops fat- 
 ness over the Earth. The very stars from the Zenith 
 see not Monseigneur ; see only his and the world's cloud- 
 covering, fringed with twilight in the far North. Mid- 
 night, telling itself forth from these shadowy Palace 
 Domes } All the steeples of Versailles, the villages 
 around, with metal tongue, and huge Paris itself dull- 
 droning, answer drowsily, Yes ! Sleep rules this Hemi- 
 sphere of the World. From Arctic to Antarctic, the 
 Life of our Earth lies all, in long swaths, or rows, (like 
 those rows of Heyducs and snoring Concierge), succes- 
 sively mown down, from vertical to horizontal, by Sleep ! 
 Rather curious to consider. 
 
 The flowers are all asleep in Little Trianon, the roses 
 folded in for the night ; but the Rose of Roses still 
 wakes. O wondrous Earth ! O doubly wondrous Park 
 of Versailles, with Little and Great Trianon, — and a 
 scarce- breathing Monseigneur ! Ye Hydraulics of Le- 
 
64 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 notre, that also slumber, with stop-cocks, in your deep 
 leaden chambers, babble not of hirriy when ye arise. Ye 
 odorous balm- shrubs, huge spectral Cedars, thou sacred 
 Boscage of Hornbeam, ye dim Pavilions of the Peerless, 
 whisper not ! Moon, lie silent, hidden in thy vacant 
 cave ; no star look down : let neither Heaven nor Hell 
 peep through the blanket of the Night, to cry. Hold, 
 Hold ! — The Black Domino } Ha ! Yes ! — With stouter 
 step than might have been expected, Monseigneur is 
 under way ; the Black Domino had only to whisper, 
 low and eager: ** In the Hornbeam Arbour!" And 
 now. Cardinal, O now ! — Yes, there hovers the white 
 Celestial ; * in white robe of limn mouchetey finer than 
 moonshine ; a Juno by her bearing : there, in that bos- 
 ket ! Monseigneur, down on thy knees ; never can red 
 breeches be better wasted. Oh, he would kiss the royal 
 shoe-tie, or its shadow if there were one: not words; 
 only broken gaspings, murmuring prostrations, eloquently 
 speak his meaning. But, ah, behold ! Our tutelary Black 
 Domino, in haste, with vehement whisper : On vient/* 
 The white Juno drops a fairest Rose, with these ever- 
 memorable words, Vous savez ce que cela veut dire. 
 You know what that means ; " vanishes in the thickets, 
 the Black Domino hurrying her with eager whisper of 
 Vite, vite. Away, away for the sound of footsteps 
 (doubtless from Madame, and Madame d'Artois, unwel- 
 come sisters that they are !) is approaching fast. Mon- 
 seigneur picks up his Rose ; runs as for the King's plate , 
 almost overturns poor Planta, whose laugh assures him 
 that all is safe.* 
 
 * Compare Georgely Lamotte's Memoires Justificatifs, and the 
 Memoir es Pour of the various parties, especially Gay d'Oliva's. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 65 
 
 O Ixion de Rohan, happiest mortal of this world, 
 since the first Ixion, of deathless memory, — who never- 
 theless, in that cloud- embrace, begat strange Centaurs ! 
 Thou art Prime Minister of France without per adven- 
 ture : is not this the Rose of Royalty, worthy to become 
 ottar of roses, and yield perfume forever ? How thou, 
 of all people, wilt contrive to govern France, in these 
 very peculiar times — But that is little to the matter. 
 There, doubtless, is thy Rose (which, methinks, it were 
 well to have a Box or Casket made for) : nay, was there 
 not in the dulcet of thy Juno*s Vous savez'* a kind of 
 trepidation, a quaver, — as of still deeper meanings ! 
 
 Reader, there is hitherto no item of this miracle that 
 is not historically proved and true. — In distracted black- 
 magical phantasmagory, adumbrations of yet higher and 
 highest DalUances * hover stupendous in the back- 
 ground : whereof your Georgels, and Campans, and other 
 official characters, can take no notice ! There, in dis- 
 tracted black-magical phantasmagory, let these hover. 
 The truth of them for us is that they do so hover. The 
 truth of them in itself is known only to three persons : 
 Dame self-styled Countess de Lamotte ; the Devil ; and 
 
 Georgel places the scene in the year 1785; quite wrong. Lamotte' s 
 * royal Autographs' (as given in the Appendix to Memoires Justi- 
 ficatifs) seem to be misdated as to the day of the month. There is 
 endless confusion of dates. 
 
 * Lamotte' s Memoires Justificatifs ; MS. Songs in the Affaire 
 du Collier, &c. &c. Nothing can exceed the brutality of these 
 things (unfit for Print or Pen) ; which, nevertheless, found be- 
 lievers ; increase of believers, in the public exasperation ; and did 
 the Queen, say all her historians, incalculable damage. 
 
66 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Philippe Egalite, — who furnished money and facts for 
 the Lamotte Memoirs, and, before guillotinement, begat 
 the present King of the French. 
 
 Enough, that Ixion de Rohan, lapsed almost into 
 deliquium, by such sober certainty of waking bliss, is 
 the happiest of all men ; and his tutelary Countess the 
 dearest of all women, save one only. On the 25th of 
 August (so strong still are those villanous Drawing- 
 room cabals) he goes, weeping, but submissive, by order 
 of a gilt Autograph, home to Saverne ; till farther digni- 
 ties can be matured for him. He carries his Rose, now 
 considerably faded, in a Casket of fit price ; may, if he 
 so please, perpetuate it as pot-pourri. He names a 
 favourite walk in his Archiepiscopal pleasure-grounds. 
 Promenade de la Rose ; there let him court digestion, and 
 loyally somnambulate till called for. 
 
 I notice it as a coincidence in chronology, that, few 
 days after this date, the Demoiselle (or even, for the last 
 month, Baroness) Gay d'Oliva began to find Countess 
 de Lamotte * not at home,' in her fine Paris hotel, in her 
 fine Charonne country-house ; and went no more, with 
 Villette, and such pleasant dinner-guests, and her, to see 
 Beaumarchais' Mariage de Figaro * running its hundred 
 nights. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Behind the Scenes. 
 
 The Queen Good reader, thou surely art not a 
 Partridge the Schoolmaster, or a Monseigneur de Rohan, 
 to mistake the stage for a reality! — But who this 
 
 * Gay d'Oliva's First Memoire Pour, p. 37. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 67 
 
 Demoiselle d'Oliva was Reader, let us remark rather 
 how the labours of our Dramaturgic Countess are in- 
 creasing. 
 
 New actors I see on the scene ; not one of whom 
 shall guess what the other is doing ; or, indeed, know 
 rightly what himself is doing. For example, cannot 
 Messieurs de Lamotte and Villette, of Rascaldom, like 
 Nisus and Euryalus, take a midnight walk of contempla- 
 tion, mth * footsteps of Madame and Madame d'Artois' 
 (since all footsteps are much the same), without offence 
 to any one } A Queen's Similitude can believe that a 
 Queen's Self, for frolic's sake, is looking at her through 
 the thickets ; * a terrestrial Cardinal can kiss with devo- 
 tion a celestial Queen's slipper, or Queen's Similitude's 
 slipper, — and no one but a Black Domino the wiser. 
 All these shall follow each his precalculated course ; for 
 their inward mechanism is known, and fit wires hook 
 themselves on this. To Two only is a clear belief 
 vouchsafed : to Mon seigneur, a clear belief founded on 
 stupidity ; to the great creative Dramaturgist, sitting at 
 the heart of the whole mystery, a clear belief founded on 
 completest insight. Great creative Dramaturgist ! How, 
 like Schiller, ' by union of the Possible with the Neces- 
 sarily-existing, she brings out the' — Eighty thousand 
 Pounds ! Don Aranda, with his triple- sealed missives 
 and hoodwinked secretaries, bragged justly that he cut 
 down the Jesuits in one day : but here, without minis- 
 terial salary, or King's favour, or any help beyond her 
 own black domino, labours a greater than he. How 
 she advances, stealthily, steadfastly, with Argus eye and 
 
 * See Lamotte ; see Gai/ W Oliva, 
 
68 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ever-ready brain ; with nerve of iron, on shoes of felt ! 
 O worthy to have intrigued for Jesuitdom, for Pope's 
 Tiara; — to have been Pope Joan thyself, in those old 
 days ; and as Arachne of Arachnes, sat in the centre of 
 that stupendous spider-web, which, reaching from Goa 
 to Acapulco, and from Heaven to Hell, overnetted the 
 thoughts and souls of men ! — Of which spider-web stray 
 tatters, in favourable dewy mornings, even yet become 
 visible. 
 
 The Demoiselle d'Oliva } She is a Parisian Demoi- 
 selle of three-and-twenty, tall, blond, and beautiful ; * 
 from unjust guardians, and an evil world, she has had 
 somewhat to suffer. 
 
 * In this month of June, 1784,' says the Demoiselle 
 herself, in her (judicial) Autobiography, * I occupied a 
 ' small apartment in the Rue du Jour, Quartier St. 
 ' Eustache. I was not far from the Garden of the 
 ' Palais-Royal ; I had made it my usual promenade.' 
 For, indeed, the real God's-truth is, I was a Parisian 
 unfortunate -female, with moderate custom ; and one 
 must go where his market lies. * I frequently passed 
 
 * I was then presented * to two Ladies, one of whom was re- 
 
 * markable for the richness of her shape. She had blue eyes and 
 
 * chestnut hair' (Bette d'Etienville's Second Memoire Pour ; in the 
 Suite de V Affaire du Collier), This is she whom Bette, and 
 Betters Advocate, intended the world to take for Gay d'Oliva. 
 ' The other is of middle size : dark eyes, chestnut hair, white com- 
 
 * plexion : the sound of her voice is agreeable ; she speaks perfectly 
 well, and with no less faculty than vivacity :' this one is meant 
 
 for Lamotte. Oliva's real name wasEssigny; the OUva (Olisva, 
 anagram of Valois) was given her by Lamotte along with the title 
 of Baroness (MS. Note, Affaire du Collier). 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 69 
 
 * three or four hours of the afternoon there, with some 
 
 * women of my acquaintance, and a little child of four 
 ' years old, whom I was fond of, whom his parents wil- 
 
 * lingly trusted with me. I even went thither alone, 
 
 * except for him, when other company failed. 
 
 ' One afternoon, in the month of July following, I 
 
 * was at the Palais-Royal : my whole company, at the 
 
 * moment, was the child I speak of. A tall young man, 
 
 * walking alone, passes several times before me. He 
 ' was a man I had never seen. He looks at me ; he 
 ' looks fixedly at me. I observe even that always, as 
 
 * he comes near, he slackens his pace, as if to survey me 
 ' more at leisure. A chair stood vacant ; two or three 
 ' feet from mine. He seats himself there. 
 
 * Till this instant, the sight of the young man, his 
 ' walks, his approaches, his repeated gazings, had made 
 
 * no impression on me. But now when he was sitting 
 ' so close by, I could not avoid noticing him. His eyes 
 
 * ceased not to wander over all my person. His air 
 
 * becomes earnest, grave. An unquiet curiosity appears 
 ' to agitate him. He seems to measure my figure, to 
 ' seize by turns all parts of my physiognomy.' — He 
 finds me (but whispers not a syllable of it) tolerably 
 like, both in person and profile ; for even the Abbe 
 Georgel says, I was a belle courtisane, 
 
 * It is time to name this young man : he was the 
 
 * Sieur de Lamotte, styling himself Comte de Lamotte,' 
 Who doubts it ? He praises * my feeble charms ex- 
 presses a wish to ' pay his addresses to me.' I, being 
 a lone spinster, know not what to say ; think it best in 
 the meanwhile to retire. Vain precaution ! * I see him 
 all on a sudden appear in my apartment 
 
70 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 On his ' ninth visit ' (for he was always civility it- 
 self), he talks of introducing a great Court-lady, by 
 whose means I may even do her Majesty some little 
 secret-service, — the reward of which will be unspeak- 
 able. In the dusk of the evening, silks mysteriously 
 rustle : enter the creative Dramaturgist, Dame styled 
 Countess de Lamotte ; and so — the too intrusive sci- 
 entific reader has now, for his punishment, got on the 
 wrong-side of that loveliest Transparency ; finds nothing 
 but grease-pots, and vapour of expiring wicks ! 
 
 The Demoiselle Gay d'Oliva may once more sit, or 
 stand, in the Palais-Royal, with such custom as will 
 come. In due time, she shall again, but with breath of 
 Terror, be blown upon ; and blown out of France to 
 Brussels. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Necklace is sold. 
 
 Autumn, with its gray moaning winds, and coating 
 of red strewn leaves, invites Courtiers to enjoy the 
 charms of Nature ; and all business of moment stands 
 still. Countess de Lamotte, while everything is so stag- 
 nant, and even Boehmer has locked up his Necklace and 
 his hopes for the season, can drive, with her Count and 
 Euryalus Villette, down to native Bar-sur-Aube ; and 
 there (in virtue of a Queen's bounty) shew the envious 
 a Scion -of- royalty re-grafted ; and make them yellower 
 looking on it. A well-varnished chariot, with the Arms 
 of Valois duly painted in bend- sinister ; a house gal- 
 lantly furnished, bodies gallantly attired, — secure them 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 71 
 
 the favourablest reception from all manner of men. 7'he 
 very Due de Penthievre (Egalite's father-in-law) wel- 
 comes our Lamotte, with that urbanity characteristic of 
 Iris high station and the old school. Worth, indeed, 
 makes the man, or woman; but 'leather' of gig- straps, 
 and 'prunella' of gig-lining, first makes it go. 
 
 The great creative Dramaturgist has thus let down 
 her drop-scene ; and only, with a Letter or two to Sa- 
 verne, or even a visit thither (for it is but a day's drive 
 from Bar), keeps up a due modicum of intermediate 
 instrumental music. She needs some pause, in good 
 sooth, to collect herself a little ; for the last act and 
 grand Catastrophe is at hand. Two fixed-ideas. Car- 
 dinal's and Jeweller's, a negative and a positive, have 
 felt each other; stimulated now by new^ hope, are 
 rapidly revolving round each other, and approximating ; 
 like tv^^o flames, are stretching out long fire -tongues to 
 join and be one. 
 
 Boehmer, on his side, is ready with the readiest ; 
 as, indeed, he has been these four long years. The 
 Countess, it is true, will have neither part nor lot in 
 that foolish Cadeau of his, or in the whole foolish Neck- 
 lace business : this she has, in plain words, and even 
 not without asperity, due to a bore of such magnitude, 
 given him to know. From her, nevertheless, by cunning 
 inference, and the merest accident in the world, the sly 
 J ouaillier- Bijou tier has gleaned thus much, that Mon- 
 seigneur de Rohan is the man. — Enough! Enough! 
 Madame shall be no more troubled. Rest there, in 
 hope, thou Necklace of the Devil ; but, O Monseigneur, 
 be thy return speedy ! 
 
72 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Alas, the man lives not that would be speedier than 
 Monseigneur, if he durst. But as yet no gilt Auto- 
 graph invites him, permits him ; the few gilt Autographs 
 are all negatory, procrastinating. Cabals of Court ; for* 
 ever cabals ! Nay if it be not for some Necklace, or 
 other such crotchet or necessity, who knows but he may 
 never be recalled (so fickle is womankind) ; but forgot- 
 ten, and left to rot here, like his Rose, into pot-pourri ? 
 Our tutelary Countess, too, is shyer in this matter 
 than we ever saw her. Nevertheless, by intense skilful 
 cross-questioning, he has extorted somewhat ; sees partly 
 how it stands. The Queen*s Majesty will have her 
 Necklace ; for when, in such case, had not woman her 
 way The Queen's Majesty can even pay for it — by 
 instalments ; but then the stingy husband ! Once for 
 all, she will not be seen in the business. Now, there- 
 fore, Were it, or were it not, permissible to mortal to 
 transact it secretly in her stead } That is the question. 
 If to mortal, then to Monseigneur. Our Countess has 
 even ventured to hint afar off at Monseigneur (kind 
 Countess ! ) in the proper quarter ; but his discretion 
 in regard to money matters is doubted. Discretion } 
 And I on the Promenade de la Rose ? — Explode not, O 
 Eminence ! Trust will spring of trial ; thy hour is coming. 
 
 The Lamottes, meanwhile, have left their farewell 
 card with all the respectable classes of Bar-sur-Aube ; 
 our Dramaturgist stands again behind the scenes at 
 Paris. How is it, O Monseigneur, that she is still so 
 shy with thee, in this matter of the Necklace ; that she 
 leaves the love-lorn Latmian shepherd to droop, here in 
 lone Saverne, like weeping- ash, in naked winter, on his 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 73 
 
 Promenade of the Rose, with vague commonplace re- 
 sponses that his hour, is coming? — By Heaven and 
 Earth ! at last, in late January, it is come. Behold it, 
 this new gilt Autograph : * To Paris, on a small busi- 
 ness of delicacy, which our Countess will explain,' — 
 which I already know ! To Paris ! Horses ; postilions ; 
 beef-eaters ! — And so his resuscitated Eminence, all 
 wrapt in furs, in the pleasantest frost (Abbe Georgel 
 says, un beau froid de Janvier), over clear -jingling high- 
 ways, rolls rapidly, — borne on the bosom of Dreams. 
 
 O Dame de Lamotte, has the enchanted Diamond 
 fruit ripened, then ? Hast thou given it the little shake, 
 big with unutterable fate — I? can the Dame justly 
 
 retort: Who saw me in it? The reader, therefore, 
 
 has still Three scenic Exhibitions to look at, by our 
 great Dramaturgist; then the Fourth and last, — by 
 another Author. 
 
 To us, reflecting how oftenest the true moving force 
 in human things works hidden under ground, it seems 
 small marvel that this month of January, 1785, wherein 
 our Countess so little courts the eye of the vulgar his- 
 torian, should, nevertheless, have been the busiest of all 
 for her ; especially the latter half thereof. 
 
 Wisely eschewing matters of Business (which she 
 could never in her life understand), our Countess will 
 personally take no charge of that bargain -making ; 
 leaves it all to her Majesty and the gilt Autographs. 
 Assiduous Boehmer, nevertheless, is in frequent close 
 conference with Monseigneur : the Paris Palais -de- 
 Strasbourg, shut to the rest of men, sees the Jouaillier- 
 Bijoutier, with eager official aspect, come and go. The 
 
 VOL. V. E 
 
74 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 grand difficulty is — must we say it ? — her Majesty's 
 wilful whimsicality, unacquaintance with Business. She 
 positively will not write a gilt Autograph, authorising 
 his Eminence to make the bargain ; but writes rather, 
 in a petting manner, that the thing is of no consequence, 
 and can be given up ! Thus must the poor Countess 
 dash to and fro, like a weaver's shuttle, between Paris 
 and Versailles ; wear her horses and nerves to pieces ; 
 nay, sometimes in the hottest haste, wait many hours 
 within call of the Palace, considering what can be done 
 (with none but Villette to bear her company), — till the 
 Queen's whim pass. 
 
 At length, after furious-driving and conferences 
 enough, on the 29 th of January, a middle course is hit 
 on. Cautious Boehmer shall write out, on finest paper, 
 his terms ; which are really rather fair : Sixteen hundred 
 thousand livres ; to be paid in five equal instalments ; 
 the first this day six months ; the other four from three 
 months to three months ; this is what Court- Jewellers, 
 Boehmer and Bassange, on the one part, and Prince 
 Cardinal Commendator Louis de Rohan, on the other 
 part, will stand to ; witness their hands. Which written 
 sheet of finest paper our poor Countess must again take 
 charge of, again dash off with to Versailles ; and there- 
 from, after trouble unspeakable (shared in only by the 
 faithful Villette, of Rascaldom), return with it, bearing 
 this most precious marginal note, ' Bon — Marie- Antoi- 
 nette de France' in the Autograph-hand ! Happy Car- 
 dinal ! this thou shalt keep in the innermost of all thy 
 repositories. Boehmer, meanwhile, secret as Death, 
 shall tell no man that he has sold his Necklace ; or if 
 much pressed for an actual sight of the same, confess 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 75 
 
 that it is sold to the Favourite Sultana of the Grand 
 Turk for the time being.* 
 
 Thus, then, do the smoking Lamotte horses at length 
 get rubbed down, and feel the taste of oats, after mid- 
 night ; the Lamotte Countess can also gradually sink 
 into needful slumber, perhaps not unbroken by dreams. 
 On the morrow the bargain shall be concluded ; next 
 day the Necklace be delivered, on Monseigneur's re- 
 ceipt. 
 
 Will the reader, therefore, be pleased to glance at 
 the following two Life-Pictures, Real-Phantasmagories, 
 or whatever we may call them : they are the two first 
 of those Three scenic real-poetic Exhibitions, brought 
 about by our Dramaturgist : short Exhibitions, but 
 essential ones. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The Necklace vanishes. 
 
 It is the first day of February ; that grand day of 
 Delivery. The Sieur Boehmer is in the Court of the 
 Palais de Strasbourg ; his look mysterious -official, and 
 though much emaciated, radiant with enthusiasm. The 
 Seine has missed him ; though lean, he will fatten again, 
 and live through new enterprises. 
 
 Singular, were we not used to it : the name Boeh- 
 mer," as it passes upwards and inwards, lowers all 
 halberts of Heyducs in perpendicular rows : the his- 
 torical eye beholds him, bowing low, with plenteous 
 
 * Campan. 
 
76 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 smiles, in the plush Saloon of Audience. Will it please 
 Monseigneur, then, to do the ne -plus -ultra of Neck- 
 laces the honour of looking at it ? A piece of Art, 
 which the Universe cannot parallel, shall be parted with 
 (Necessity compels Court- Jewellers) at that ruinously 
 low sum. They, the Court-Jewellers, shall have much 
 ado to weather it ; but their work, at least, will find a 
 fit Wearer, and go down to juster posterity. Monseig- 
 neur will merely have the condescension to sign this 
 Receipt of Delivery : all the rest, her Highness the 
 Sultana of the Sublime Porte has settled it. — Here 
 the Court- Jeweller, with his joyous though now much 
 emaciated face, ventures on a faint knowing smile ; to 
 which, in the lofty dissolute- serene of Monseigneur's, 
 some twinkle of permission could not but respond. — 
 This is the First of those Three real-poetic Exhibi- 
 tions, brought about by our Dramaturgist, — with perfect 
 success. 
 
 It was said, long afterwards, that Monseigneur 
 should have known, and even that Boehmer should 
 have known, her Highness the Sultana*s marginal-note, 
 her * Right — Marie Antoinette of France,' to be a forgery 
 and mockery: the * of France' was fatal to it. Easy 
 talking, easy criticising ! But how are two enchanted 
 men to know ; two men with a fixed-idea each, a nega- 
 tive and a positive, rushing together to neutralise each 
 other in rapture ? — Enough, Monseigneur has the ne^ 
 plus-ultra of Necklaces, conquered by man's valour and 
 woman's wit ; and rolls off with it, in mysterious speed, 
 to Versailles, — triumphant as a Jason with his Golden 
 Fleece. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 77 
 
 The Second grand scenic Exhibition by our Drama- 
 turgic Countess occurs in her own apartment at Ver- 
 sailles, so early as the following night. It is a com- 
 modious apartment, with alcove ; and the alcove has a 
 glass door.* Monseigneur enters, — with a follower 
 bearing a mysterious Casket, who carefully deposits it, 
 and then respectfully withdraws. It is the Necklace 
 itseK in all its glory ! Our tutelary Countess, and 
 Monseigneur, and we, can at leisure admire the queenly 
 Talisman ; congratulate ourselves that the painful con- 
 quest of it is achieved. 
 
 But, hist ! A knock, mild, but decisive, as from one 
 knocking with authority ! Monseigneur and we retire 
 to our alcove ; there, from behind our glass screen, 
 observe what passes. Who comes } The door flung 
 open : de par la Reine I Behold him, Monseigneur : 
 he enters with grave, respectful, yet official air ; worthy 
 Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux, the same who escorted 
 our tutelary Countess, that moonlight night, from the 
 back apartments of Versailles. Said we not, thou 
 wouldst see him once more .^^ — Methinks, again, spite 
 of his . Queen's-uniform, he has much the features of 
 Villette of Rascaldom ! — Rascaldom or Valetdom (for 
 to the blind all colours are the same), he has, with his 
 grave, respectful, yet official air, received the Casket, 
 and its priceless contents ; with fit injunction, with fit 
 engagements ; and retires bowing low. 
 
 Thus, softly, silently, like a very Dream, flits away 
 our solid Necklace — through the Horn Gate of Dreams ! 
 
 * Georgel, &c. 
 
78 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Scene Third : hy Dame de Lamotte. 
 
 Now, too, in these same days (as he can afterwards 
 prove by affidavit of Landlords) arrives Count Cagliostro 
 himself, from Lyons ! No longer by predictions in 
 cipher; but by his living voice, often in rapt com- 
 munion with the unseen world, ' with CarafFe and four 
 candles by his greasy prophetic bulldog face, said to 
 be the ' most perfect quack-face of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury,' can we assure ourselves that all is well ; that all 
 will turn ' to the glory of Monseigneur, to the good of 
 France, and of mankind,'* and of Egyptian masonry. 
 ' Tokay flows like water our charming Countess, with 
 her piquancy of face, is sprightlier than ever ; enlivens 
 with the brightest sallies, with the adroitest flatteries to 
 all, those suppers of the gods. O Nights, O Suppers 
 — too good to last ! Nay, now also occurs another and 
 Third scenic Exhibition, fitted by its radiance to dispel 
 from Monseigneur' s soul the last trace of care. 
 
 Why the Queen does not, even yet, openly receive 
 me at Court? Patience, Monseigneur! Thou little 
 knowest those too intricate cabals ; and how she still 
 but works at them silently, with royal suppressed fury, 
 like a royal lioness only delivering herself from the 
 hunter's toils. Meanwhile, is not thy work done } 
 The Necklace, she rejoices over it ; beholds, many times 
 in secret, her Juno-neck mirrored back the lovelier for 
 it, — as our tutelar Countess can testify. Come to- 
 
 * Georgel, &c. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 79 
 
 morrow to the (Eil-de-Boeuf ; there see with eyes, in 
 high noon, as already in deep midnight thou hast seen, 
 whether in her royal heart there were delay. 
 
 Let us stand, then, with Monseigneur, in that (EiU 
 de-Boeuf, in the Versailles Palace Gallery ; for all well- 
 dressed persons are admitted : there the Loveliest, in 
 pomp of royalty, will walk to mass. The world is all 
 in pelisses and winter furs ; cheerful, clear, — with noses 
 tending to blue. A lively many- voiced hum plays fitful, 
 hither and thither : of sledge parties and Court parties ; 
 frosty state of the weather ; stability of M. de Calonne ; 
 Majesty's looks yesterday; — such hum as always, in 
 these sacred Court-spaces, since Louis le Grand made 
 and consecrated them, has, with more or less impetu- 
 osity, agitated our common Atmosphere. 
 
 Ah, through that long high Gallery what Figures 
 have passed — and vanished ! Louvois, — with the Great 
 King, flashing fire- glances on the fugitive ; in his red 
 right hand a pair of tongs, which pious Maintenon hardly 
 holds back : Louvois, where art thou ? Ye Marechaux 
 de France ? Ye unmentionable-women of past genera- 
 tions ? Here also was it that rolled and rushed the 
 ' sound, absolutely like thunder,'* of Courtier hosts ; 
 in that dark hour when the signal light in Louis the 
 Fifteenth's chamber- window was blown out ; and his 
 ghastly infectious Corpse lay lone, forsaken on its 
 tumbled death-lair, * in the hands of some poor women;' 
 and the Courtier-hosts rushed from the Deep-fallen to 
 hail the New-risen ! These too rushed, and passed ; 
 
 * Campan. 
 
80 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 and their ' sound, absolutely like thunder,' became si- 
 lence. Figures.^ Men? They are fast-fleeting Shadows ; 
 fast chasing each other : it is not a Palace, but a Cara- 
 vansera. — Monseigneur (with thy too much Tokay 
 overnight) ! cease puzzling : here thou art, this blessed 
 February day : — the Peerless, will she turn lightly that 
 high head of hers, and glance aside into the (Eil-de- 
 Boeufy in passing ? Please Heaven, she will. To our 
 tutelary Countess, at least, she promised it ; * though, 
 alas, so fickle is womankind ! — 
 
 Hark ! Clang of opening doors ! She issues, like 
 the Moon in silver brightness, down the Eastern steeps. 
 La Reine vient ! What a figure ! I (vdth the aid of 
 glasses) discern her. O Fairest, Peerless ! Let the hum 
 of minor discoursing hush itself wholly ; and only one 
 successive rolling peal of Vive la Reine, like the movable 
 radiance of a train of fire-works, irradiate her path. — 
 Ye Immortals ! She does, she beckons, turns her head 
 this way ! — Does she not ?" says Countess de La- 
 motte. — Versailles, the (EiUde-Bmuf, and all men and 
 things, are drowned in a Sea of Light ; Monseigneur 
 and that high beckoning Head are alone, with each 
 other in the Universe. 
 
 O Eminence, what a beatific vision ! Enjoy it, blest 
 as the gods ; ruminate and re-enjoy it, with full soul : 
 it is the last provided for thee. Too soon, in the course 
 of these six months, shall thy beatific vision, like Mirza's 
 vision, gradually melt away ; and only oxen and sheep 
 be grazing in its place ; — and thou, as a doomed Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, be grazing with them. 
 
 * See GeorgeL 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 81 
 
 Does she not ?" said the Countess de Laraotte. 
 That it is a habit of hers ; that hardly a day passes 
 without her doing it : this the Countess de Lamotte did 
 not say. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Necklace cannot be paid. 
 
 Here, then, the specially Dramaturgic labours of 
 Countess de Lamotte may be said to terminate. The 
 rest of her life is Histrionic merely, or Histrionic and 
 Critical ; as, indeed, what had all the former part of it 
 been but a Hypoo^isia, a more or less correct Playing of 
 Parts? O * Mrs. Facing-both-ways ' (as old Bunyan 
 said), what a talent hadst thou ! No Proteus ever took 
 so many shapes, no Chameleon so often changed colour. 
 One thing thou wert to Monseigneur ; another thing to 
 Cagliostro, and Villette of Rascaldom ; a third thing to 
 the World, in printed Memoires ; a fourth thing to Phi- 
 lippe Egalite : all things to all men ! 
 
 Let her, however, we say, but manage now to act 
 her own parts, with proper Histrionic illusion ; and, by 
 Critical glosses, give her past Dramaturgy the fit aspect, 
 to Monseigneur and others : this henceforth, and not 
 new Dramaturgy, includes her whole task. Dramatic 
 Scenes, in plenty, will follow of themselves ; especially 
 that Fourth and final Scene, spoken of above as by 
 another Author, — by Destiny itself. 
 
 For in the Lamotte Theatre, so different from our 
 common Pasteboard one, the Play goes on, even when 
 the Machinist has left it. Strange enough : those Air- 
 £ 2 
 
MISCELLANIES. 
 
 images, which from her Magic-lantern she hung out on 
 the empty bosom of Night, have clutched hold of this 
 solid- seeming World (which some call the Material 
 World, as if that made it more a Real one), and will 
 tumble hither and thither the solidest masses there. 
 Yes, reader, so goes it here below. What thou callest 
 a Brain-web, or mere illusive Nothing, is it not a web of 
 the Brain ; of the Spirit which inhabits the Brain ; and 
 which, in this World (rather, as I think, to be named 
 the Spiritual one), very naturally moves and tumbles 
 hither and thither all things it meets with, in Heaven or 
 in Earth ? — So too, the Necklace, though we saw it 
 vanish through the Horn Gate of Dreams, and in my 
 opinion man shall never more behold it, — yet its activity 
 ceases not, nor will. For no Act of a man, no Thing 
 (how much less the man himself !) is extinguished when 
 it disappears : through considerable times it still visibly 
 works, though done and vanished ; I have known a done 
 thing work visibly Three Thousand Years and more : 
 invisibly, unrecognised, all done things work through 
 endless times and years. Such a Hyper- magical is this 
 our poor old Real world ; which some take upon them 
 to pronounce effete, prosaic ! Friend, it is thyself that 
 art all withered up into effete Prose, dead as ashes ; 
 know this (I advise thee) ; and seek passionately, with 
 a passion little short of desperation, to have it reme- 
 died. 
 
 Meanwhile, what will the feeling heart think to learn 
 that Monseigneur de Rohan, as we prophesied, again 
 experiences the fickleness of a Court ; that, notwith- 
 standing beatific visions, at noon and midnight, the 
 Queen's Majesty, with the light ingratitude of her sex. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 83 
 
 flies off at a tangent ; and, far from ousting his detested 
 and detesting rival, Minister Breteuil, and openly de- 
 lighting to honour Monseigneur, will hardly vouchsafe 
 him a few gilt Autographs, and those few of the most 
 capricious, suspicious, soul- confusing tenour ? What 
 terrifico-absurd explosions, which scarcely Cagliostro, 
 with Caraffe and four Candles, can still ; how many 
 deep-weighed Humble Petitions, Explanations, Expos- 
 tulations, penned with fervidest eloquence, with craftiest 
 diplomacy, — all delivered by our tutelar Countess : in 
 vain! — O Cardinal, with what a huge iron mace, like 
 Guy of Warwick's, thou smitest Phantasms in two, 
 which close again, take shape again ; and only thrashest 
 the air ! 
 
 One comfort, however, is that the Queen's Majesty 
 has committed herself. The Rose of Trianon, and what 
 may pertain thereto, lies it not here } That ' Right — 
 Marie Antoinette of France/ too ; and the 30th of July, 
 first-instalment- day, coming ? She shall be brought to 
 terms, good Eminence ! Order horses and beef-eaters 
 for Saverne ; there, ceasing all written or oral commu- 
 nication, starve her into capitulating.* It is the bright 
 May month ; his Eminence again somnambulates the 
 Promenade de la Rose ; but now with grim dry eyes ; 
 and, from time to time, terrifically stamping. 
 
 But who is this that I see mounted on costliest horse 
 and horse-gear ; betting at Newmarket Races ; though 
 he can speak no English word, and only some Chevalier 
 O'Niel, some Capuchin Macdermot, from Bar-sur-Aube, 
 
 * See Lamotte. 
 
84 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 interprets his French into the dialect of the Sister Island? 
 Few days ago I observed him walking in Fleet- street, 
 thoughtfully through Temple -Bar ; — in deep treaty with 
 Jeweller Jeffreys, with Jeweller Grey,* for the sale of 
 Diamonds : such a lot as one may boast of. A tall 
 handsome man ; with ex-military whiskers ; with a look 
 of troubled gaiety, and rascalism : you think it is the 
 Sieur self-styled Count de Lamotte ; nay, the man him- 
 self confesses it ! The Diamonds were a present to his 
 Countess, — from the still bountiful Queen. 
 
 Villette too, has he completed his sales at Amster- 
 dam } Him I shall by and by behold ; not betting at 
 Newmarket, but drinking wine and ardent spirits in the 
 Taverns of Geneva. Ill-gotten wealth endures not ; 
 Rascaldom has no strongbox. Countess de Lamotte, 
 for what a set of cormorant scoundrels hast thou la- 
 boured, art thou still labouring ! 
 
 Still labouring, we may say : for as the fatal 30th of 
 July approaches, what is to be looked for but universal 
 Earthquake ; Mud- explosion that will blot out the face 
 of Nature ? Methinks, stood I in thy pattens. Dame de 
 Lamotte, I would cut and run. — " Run exclaims she, 
 with a toss of indignant astonishment : " Calumniated 
 Innocence run }" For it is singular how in some minds, 
 which are mere bottomless ' chaotic whirlpools of gilt 
 shreds,' there is no deliberate Lying w^hatever ; and 
 nothing is either believed or disbelieved, but only (with 
 
 * Grey lived in No. 13 New Bond Street ; Jeffreys in Picca- 
 dilly (Rohan's Memoir e Pour ; see also Count de Lamotte 's Nar- 
 rative, in the Memoir es Justificatifs), Rohan says, * Jeffreys 
 bought more than 10,000/. worth.' 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 85 
 
 some transient suitable Histrionic emotion) spoken and 
 heard. 
 
 Had Dame de Lamotte a certain greatness of cha- 
 racter, then ; at least, a strength of transcendent au- 
 dacity, amounting to the bastard-heroic } Great, indu- 
 bitably great, is her Dramaturgic and Histrionic talent : 
 but as for the rest, one must answer, with reluctance. 
 No. Mrs. Facing-both-ways is a ' Spark of vehement 
 Life,' but the farthest in the world from a brave woman ; 
 she did not, in any case, shew the bravery of a woman ; 
 did, in many cases, shew the mere screaming trepidation 
 of one. Her grand quality is rather to be reckoned ne- 
 gative : the ' untamableness' as of a fly ; the ' wax-cloth 
 dress' from which so much ran down like water. Small 
 sparrows, as I learn, have been trained to fire cannon ; 
 but would make poor Artillery Officers in a Waterloo. 
 Thou dost not call that Cork a strong swimmer ? Which, 
 nevertheless, shoots, without hurt, the Falls of Niagara ; 
 defies the thunderbolt itself to sink it, for more than a 
 moment. Without intellect, imagination, power of atten- 
 tion, or any spiritual faculty, how brave were one, — 
 with fit motive for it, such as hunger ! How much 
 might one dare, by the simplest of methods, by not 
 thinking of it, not knowing it ! — Besides, is not Cagli- 
 ostro, foolish blustering Quack, still here } No scape- 
 goat had ever broader back. The Cardinal too, has he 
 not money ? Queen's Majesty, even in effigy, shall not 
 be insulted ; the Soubises, De Marsans, and high and 
 puissant Cousins, must huddle the matter up : Calum- 
 niated Innocence, in the most universal of Earthquakes, 
 will find some crevice to whisk through, as she has so 
 often done. 
 
86 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 But all this while how fares it with his Eminence, 
 left somnambulating the Promenade de la Rose ; and at 
 times truculently stamping ? Alas, ill, and ever worse. 
 The starving method, singular as it may seem, brings 
 no capitulation ; brings only, after a month's waiting, 
 our tutelary Countess, with a gilt Autograph, indeed, 
 and ' all wrapt in silk threads, sealed where they cross,' 
 — but which we read with curses.* 
 
 We must back again to Paris ; there pen new Ex- 
 postulations ; which our unwearied Countess will take 
 charge of, but, alas, can get no answer to. However, 
 is not the 30th of July coming? — Behold, on the 19th 
 of that month, the shortest, most careless of Autographs : 
 with some fifteen hundred pounds of real money in it, to 
 pay the — interest of the first instalment; the principal, 
 of some thirty thousand, not being at the moment per- 
 fectly convenient ! Hungry Boehmer makes large eyes 
 at this proposal; will accept the money, but only as 
 part of payment ; the man is positive : a Court of Justice, 
 if no other means, shall get him the remainder. What 
 now is to be done ? 
 
 Farmer- general Monsieur Saint-James, Cagliostro's 
 disciple, and wet with Tokay, will cheerfully advance the 
 sum needed — for her Majesty's sake; thinks, however 
 (with all his Tokay), it were good to speak with her 
 Majesty first. — I observe, meanwhile, the distracted 
 hungry Boehmer driven hither and thither, not by his 
 fixed-idea ; alas, no, but by the far more frightful ghost 
 thereof, — since no payment is forthcoming. He stands, 
 one day, speaking with a Queen's waiting- woman 
 
 * See Lamotte, 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 87 
 
 (Madam Campan herself), in ' a thunder- shower, which 
 neither of them, notice/ — so thunderstruck are they.* 
 What weather- symptoms for his Eminence ! 
 
 The 30th of July has come, but no money; the 30 th 
 is gone, but no money. O Eminence, what a grim fare- 
 well of July is this of 1785 ! The last July went out 
 with airs from Heaven, and Trianon Roses. These 
 August days, are they not worse than dog's days ; 
 worthy to be blotted out from all Almanacs ? Boehmer 
 and Bassange thou canst still see ; but only * return 
 from them swearing.' f Nay, what new misery is this } 
 Our tutelary Histrionic Countess enters, distraction in 
 her eyes : % she has just been at Versailles ; the Queen's 
 Majesty, with a levity of caprice which we dare not 
 trust ourselves to characterise, declares plainly that she 
 will deny ever having got the Necklace ; ever having 
 had, with his Eminence, any transaction whatsoever ! — 
 Mud- explosion without parallel in volcanic annals. — The 
 Palais de Strasbourg appears to be beset with spies ; the 
 Lamottes, for the Count too is here, are packing up for 
 Bar-sur-Aube. The Sieur Boehmer, has he fallen in- 
 sane ? Or into communication with IVIinister Breteuil ? — 
 
 And so, distractedly and distractively, to the sound 
 of all Discords in Nature, opens that Fourth, final Scenic 
 Exhibition, composed by Destiny. 
 
 * Campan. f Lamotte. % Georgel. 
 
88 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Scene Fourth : by Destiny. 
 
 It is Assumption -day, the 15th of August. Don thy 
 pontificalia, Grand- Almoner ; crush down these hideous 
 temporalities out of sight. In any case, smooth thy 
 countenance into some sort of lofty- dissolute serene ; 
 thou hast a thing they call worshipping God to enact, 
 thyself the first actor. 
 
 The Grand-Almoner has done it. He is in Versailles 
 (Eil'de-Boeuf Gallery ; where male and female Peerage, 
 and all Noble France in gala, various and glorious as the 
 rainbow, waits only the signal to begin worshipping : on 
 the serene of his lofty- dissolute countenance, there can 
 nothing be read.* By Heaven ! he is sent for to the 
 Royal Apartment ! 
 
 He returns with the old lofty-dissolute look, inscrut- 
 ably serene : has his turn for favour actually come, then } 
 Those fifteen long years of soul's travail are to be re- 
 warded by a birth? — Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil 
 issues ; great in his pride of place, in this the crowning 
 moment of his life. With one radiant glance, Breteuil 
 summons the OfiScer on Guard ; with another, fixes 
 Monseigneur : De par le Hoi, Monseigneur : you are 
 arrested! At your risk. Officer!'' — Curtains as of 
 pitch-black whirlwind envelope Monseigneur ; whirl oflP 
 
 * This is Bette d'Etienville's description of him : * A hand- 
 
 * some man, of fifty ; with high complexion ; hair white-grey, and 
 
 * the front of the head bald : of high stature ; carriage noble and 
 
 * easy, though burdened with a certain degree of corpulency ; who, I 
 
 * never doubted, was Monsieur de Rohan/ (First Memoir e Pour,) 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 89 
 
 with him, — to outer darkness. Versailles Gallery 
 explodes aghast ; as if Guy Fawkes's Plot had hurst 
 under it. The Queen's Majesty was weeping," whisper 
 some. There wdll be no Assumption-service ; or such a 
 one as was never celebrated since Assumption came in 
 fashion. 
 
 Europe, then, shall ring with it from side to side ! — 
 But why rides that Heyduc as if all the Devils drove 
 him ? It is Monseigneur's Heyduc : Monseigneur spoke 
 three words in German to him, at the door of his Ver- 
 sailles Hotel ; even handed him a slip of writing, which, 
 with borrowed Pencil, ' in his red square cap,' he had 
 managed to prepare on the way thither. * To Paris \ To 
 the Palais- Cardinal ! The horse dies on reaching the 
 stable ; the Heyduc swoons on reaching the cabinet : but 
 his slip of writing fell from his hand ; and I (says the 
 Abbe Georgel) was there. The red Portfolio, containing 
 all the gilt Autographs, is burnt utterly, with much 
 else, before Breteuil can arrive for apposition of the 
 seals ! — Whereby Europe, in ringing from side to side, 
 must worry itself with guessing : and at this hour, on 
 this paper, sees the matter in such an interesting clear- 
 obscure. 
 
 Soon Count Cagliostro and his Seraphic Countess 
 go to join Monseigneur, in State Prison. In few days, 
 follows Dame de Lamotte, from Bar-sur-Aube ; Demoi- 
 selle d'Oliva by and by, from Brussels ; Villette-de-Re- 
 taux, from his Swiss retirement, in the taverns of Ge- 
 neva. The Bastille opens its iron bosom to them all. 
 
 * Georgel, 
 
90 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 CHAPTER LAST. 
 Missa est. 
 
 Thus, then, the Diamond Necklace having, on the 
 one hand, vanished through the Horn Gate of Dreams, 
 and so, under the pincers of Nisus Lamotte and Euryalus 
 Villette, lost its sublunary individuality and being ; and, 
 on the other hand, all that trafficked in it, sitting now 
 safe under lock and key, that justice may take cogniz- 
 ance of them, — our engagement in regard to the matter 
 is on the point of terminating. That extraordinary 
 * Proces du Collier, Necklace Trial,' spinning itself 
 through Nine other ever- memorable Months, to the 
 astonishment of the hundred and eighty-seven assembled 
 ParlementierSy and of all Quidnuncs, Journalists, Anecdo- 
 tists. Satirists, in both Hemispheres, is, in every sense, 
 a ' Celebrated Trial,' and belongs to Publishers of such. 
 How, by innumerable confrontations and expiscatory 
 questions, through entanglements, doublings, and wind- 
 ings that fatigue eye and soul, this most involute of Lies 
 is finally winded off to the scandalous-ridiculous cinder- 
 heart of it, let others relate. 
 
 Meanwhile, during these Nine ever-memorable Months, 
 till they terminate late at night precisely with the May of 
 1786,* how many fugitive leaves, quizzical, imaginative, 
 or at least mendacious, were flying about in Newspapers ; 
 or stitched together as Pamphlets ; and what heaps of 
 others were left creeping in Manuscript, we shall not say; 
 
 * On the 31st of May, 1786, sentence was pronounced : about 
 ten at night, the Cardinal got out of the Bastille ; large mobs 
 hurrahing round him, — out of spleen to the Court. (See Georgel.) 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 91 
 
 — having, indeed, no complete Collection of them, and 
 what is more to the purpose, little to do with such Col- 
 lection. Nevertheless, searching for some fit Capital of 
 the composite order, to adorn adequately the now finished 
 singular Pillar of our Narrative, what can suit us better 
 than the following, so far as we know, yet unedited, 
 
 Occasional Discourse, by Count Alessandro Cagliostro, 
 Thaumaturgist J Prophet, and Arch- Quack j delivered 
 in the Bastille : Year of Lucifer, 5789 ; of the Maho- 
 metan Hegira from Mecca, 1201 ; of the Cagliostric 
 Hegira from Palermo, 24; of the Vulgar Era, 1785. 
 
 * Fellow Scoundrels, — An unspeakable Intrigue, spun 
 
 * from the soul of that Circe-Megsera, by our voluntary 
 
 * or involuntary help, has assembled us all, if not under 
 
 * one roof-tree, yet within one grim iron-bound ring- 
 
 * wall. For an appointed number of months, in the ever- 
 
 * rolling flow of Time, we, being gathered from the four 
 ' winds, did by Destiny work together in body corporate ; 
 
 * and, joint labourers in a Transaction already famed 
 
 * over the Globe, obtain unity of Name, like the Argo- 
 ' nauts of old, as Conquerors of the Diamond Necklace. 
 
 * Erelong it is done (for ring-waUs hold not captive the 
 
 * free Scoundrel for ever) ; and we disperse again, over 
 
 * wide terrestrial Space ; some of us, it may be, over the 
 
 * very marches of Space. Our Act hangs indissoluble 
 
 * together; floats wondrous in the older and older memory 
 
 * of men : while we the little band of Scoundrels, who saw 
 
 * each other, now hover so far asunder, to see each other 
 
 * no more, if not once more only on the universal Dooms- 
 
 * day, the Last of the Days ! 
 
 ' In such interesting moments, while we stand within 
 
2 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the verge of parting, and have not yet parted, methinks 
 it were well here, in these sequestered Spaces, to insti- 
 tute a few general reflections. Me, as a public speaker, 
 the Spirit of Masonry, of Philosophy, and Philanthropy, 
 and even of Prophecy, blowing mysterious from the 
 Land of Dreams, impels to do it. Give ear, O Fellow 
 Scoundrels, to what the Spirit utters ; treasure it in 
 your hearts, practise it in your lives. 
 
 * Sitting here, penned up in this which, with a slight 
 metaphor, I call the Central Cloaca of Nature, where a 
 tyrannical De Launay can forbid the bodily eye free 
 vision, you with the mental eye see but the better. 
 This Central Cloaca, is it not rather a Heart, into 
 which, from all regions, mysterious conduits introduce 
 and forcibly inject whatsoever is choicest in the Scoun- 
 drelism of the Earth ; there to be absorbed, or again (by 
 the other auricle) ejected into new circulation ? Let 
 the eye of the mind run along this immeasurable venous- 
 arterial system ; and astound itself with the magnificent 
 extent of Scoundreldom ; the deep, I may say, unfathom- 
 able, significance of Scoundrelism. 
 
 ' Yes, brethren, wide as the Sun's range is our Em- 
 pire ; wider than old Rome's in its palmiest era. I 
 have in my time been far ; in frozen Muscovy, in hot 
 Calabria, east, west, wheresoever the sky overarches 
 civilized man : and never hitherto saw I myself an aUen ; 
 out of Scoundreldom I never was. Is it not even said, 
 from of old, by the opposite party : ''All men are liars } " 
 Do they not (and this nowise in haste " ) whimperingly 
 talk of " one just person" (as they call him), and of 
 the remaining thousand save one that take part with us ? 
 So decided is our majority.' — (Applause.) 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 93 
 
 ' Of the Scarlet Woman, — yes, Monseigneur, with- 
 out olFence, — of the Scarlet Woman that sits on Seven 
 Hills, and her Black Jesuit Militia, out foraging from 
 Pole to Pole, I speak not ; for the story is too trite : 
 nay, the Militia itself, as I see, begins to be disbanded, 
 and invalided, for a second treachery ; treachery to 
 herself ! Nor yet of Governments ; for a like reason. 
 Ambassadors, said an English punster, lie abroad for 
 their masters. Their masters, we answer, lie, at home, 
 for themselves. Not of all this, nor of Courtship with 
 its Lovers'-vows, nor Courtiership, nor Attorneyism, 
 nor Public Oratory, and Selling by Auction, do I speak : 
 I simply ask the gainsayer. Which is the particular 
 trade, profession, mystery, calling, or pursuit of the 
 Sons of Adam that they successfully manage in the 
 other way ? He cannot answer ! — No : Philosophy it- 
 self, both practical and even speculative, has, at length, 
 after shamefullest groping, stumbled on the plain con- 
 clusion that Sham is indispensable to Reality, as Lying 
 to Living ; that without Lying the whole business of 
 the world, from swaying of senates to selling of tapes, 
 must explode into anarchic discords, and so a speedy 
 conclusion ensue. 
 
 * But the grand problem. Fellow Scoundrels, as you 
 well know, is the marrying of Truth and Sham ; so that 
 they become one flesh, man and wife, and generate 
 these three : Profit, Pudding, and Respectability that 
 always keeps her Gig. Wondrously, indeed, do Truth 
 and Delusion play into one another ; Reality rests on 
 Dream. Truth is but the skin of the bottomless Un- 
 true : and ever, from time to time, the Untrue sheds it ; 
 is clear again ; and the superannuated True itself be- 
 
94 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' comes a Fable. Thus do all hostile things crumble back 
 ' into our Empire ; and of its increase there is no end. 
 
 ' O brothers, to think of the Speech without mean- 
 ' ing (which is mostly ours), and of the Speech with 
 ' contrary meaning (which is wholly ours), manufactured 
 ' by the organs of Mankind in one solar day ! Or call it 
 ' a day of Jubilee, when public Dinners are given, and 
 ' Dinner- orations are delivered : or say, a Neighbouring 
 
 * Island in time of General Election ! O ye immortal 
 
 * gods ! The mind is lost ; can only admire great 
 
 * Nature's plenteousness with a kind of sacred wonder. 
 
 * For tell me. What is the chief end of man ? ''To 
 
 * glorify God," said the old Christian Sect, now happily 
 ' extinct. To eat and find eatables by the readiest 
 ' method," answers sound Philosophy, discarding whims. 
 ' If the method readier than this of persuasive- attraction 
 ' is yet discovered, — point it out ! — Brethren, I said the 
 ' old Christian Sect was happily extinct : as, indeed, in 
 
 * Rome itself, there goes the wonderfullest traditionary 
 ' Prophecy,* of that Nazareth Christ coming back, and 
 ' being crucified a second time there ; which truly I see 
 
 * not in the least how he could fail to be. Nevertheless, 
 ' that old Christian whim, of an actual living and ruling 
 ' God, and some sacred covenant binding all men in 
 ' Him, with much other mystic stuff, does, under new 
 
 * or old shape, linger with a few. From these few, keep 
 
 * yourselves forever far ! They must even be left to their 
 ' whim, which is not like to prove infectious. 
 
 ' But neither are we, my Fellow Scoundrels, without 
 ' our Religion, our Worship ; which, like the oldest, and 
 
 * Goethe mentions it {Italidnische Reise). 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 95 
 
 all true Worships, is one of Fear. The Christians have 
 their Cross, the Moslem their Crescent : but have not 
 we, too, our — Gallows ? Yes, infinitely terrible is the 
 Gallows ; it bestrides with its patibulary fork the Pit 
 of bottomless Terror ! No Manicheans are we ; our 
 God is One. Great, exceeding great, I say, is the 
 Gallows ; of old, even from the beginning, in this world ; 
 knowing neither variableness nor decadence ; forever, 
 forever, over the wreck of ages, and all civic and eccle- 
 siastic convulsions, meal-mobs, revolutions, the Gal- 
 lows with front serenely terrible towers aloft. Fellow 
 Scoundrels, fear the Gallows, and have no other fear ! 
 This is the Law and the Prophets. Fear every emana- 
 tion of the Gallows. And what is every buffet, with 
 the fist, or even with the tongue, of one having autho- 
 rity, but some such emanation And what is Force of 
 Public Opinion but the infinitude of such emanations, 
 — rushing combined on you, like a mighty storm- wind } 
 Fear the Gallows, I say ! O when, with its long black 
 arm, it has clutched a man, what avail him all terrestrial 
 things ? These pass away, with horrid nameless dinning 
 in his ears ; and the ill-starred Scoundrel pendulates 
 between Heaven and Earth, a thing rejected of both.' — 
 (Profound sensation.) 
 
 ' Such, so wide in compass, high, gallows-high in 
 ' dignity, is the Scoundrel Empire ; and for depth, it is 
 
 * deeper than the Foundations of the World. For what 
 
 * was Creation itself wholly, according to the best Philo- 
 
 * sophers, but a Divulsion by the Time- Spirit (or Devil 
 
 * so-called) ; a forceful Interruption, or breaking asunder, 
 ' of the old Quiescence of Eternity } It was Lucifer 
 ' that fell, and made this lordly World arise. Deep } 
 
96 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' It is bottomless-deep ; the very Thought, diving, bobs 
 ' up from it baffled. Is not this that they call Vice of 
 
 * Lying the Adam-Kadmon, or primeval Rude-Element, 
 ' old as Chaos mother' s-v^omb of Death and Hell ; 
 ' whereon their thin film of Virtue, Truth, and the like, 
 
 * poorly wavers — for a day ? All Virtue, what is it, 
 ' even by their own shewing, but Vice transformed, — 
 
 * that is, manufactured, rendered artificial ? Man's 
 ' Vices are the roots from which his Virtues grow out 
 ' and see the light," says one : " Yes," add I, and 
 
 * thanklessly steal their nourishment !" Were it not 
 ' for the nine hundred ninety and nine unacknowledged, 
 
 * perhaps martyred and calumniated Scoundrels, how 
 
 * were their single Just Person (with a murrain on 
 
 * him !) so much as possible.^ — Oh, it is high, high: 
 
 * these things are too great for me ; Intellect, Imagi- 
 
 * nation, flags her tired wings ; the soul lost, baffled' — 
 
 — Here Dame de Lamotte tittered audibly, and 
 muttered, Coq-d'-Inde, which, being interpreted into 
 the Scottish tongue, signifies Bubbly -Jock I The Arch- 
 Quack, whose eyes were turned inwards as in rapt con- 
 templation, started at the titter and mutter : his eyes 
 flashed outwards with dilated pupil ; his nostrils opened 
 wide ; his very hair seemed to stir in its long twisted 
 pigtails (his fashion of curl) ; and as Indignation is said 
 to make Poetry, it here made Prophecy, or what sounded 
 as such. With terrible, working features, and gesticu- 
 lation not recommended in any Book of Gesture, the 
 Arch- Quack, in voice supernally discordant, like Lions 
 worrying Bulls of Bashan, began : 
 
 * Sniff not. Dame de Lamotte ; tremble, thou foul 
 
 * Circe-Megaera ; thy day of desolation is at hand ! 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 97 
 
 ' Behold ye the Sanhedrim of Judges, with their fan- 
 
 * ners of written Parchment, loud-rustling, as they 
 
 * winnow all her chaff, and down-plumage, and she 
 ' stands there naked and mean ? — Villette, Oliva, do ye 
 
 * blab secrets ? Ye have no pity of her extreme need ; 
 
 * she none of yours. Is thy light- giggling, untamable 
 ' heart at last heavy ? Hark ye ! Shrieks of one cast 
 ' out ; whom they brand on both shoulders with iron 
 
 * stamp ; the red hot V," thou Voleuse, hath it en- 
 ' tered thy soul ? Weep, Circe de Lamotte ; wail there 
 
 * in truckle -bed, and hysterically gnash thy teeth : nay 
 
 * do, smother thyself in thy door-mat coverlid ; thou 
 ' hast found thy mates; thou art in the Salpetriere ! — 
 ' Weep, daughter of the high and puissant Sans-inex- 
 
 * pressibles ! Buzz of Parisian Gossipry is about thee ; 
 ' but not to help thee : no, to eat before thy time. 
 ' What shall a King's Court do with thee, thou un- 
 ' clean thing, while thou yet livest } Escape ! Flee to 
 
 * utmost countries ; hide there, if thou canst, thy mark 
 ' of Cain ! — In the Babylon of Fogland ! Ha ! is that 
 ' my London ? See I Judas Iscariot Egalite ? Print, 
 
 * yea print abundantly the abominations of your two 
 
 * hearts : breath of rattlesnakes can bedim the steel 
 
 * mirror, but only for a time. — And there ! Aye, there 
 
 * at last ! Tumblest thou from the lofty leads, poverty- 
 ' stricken, O thriftless daughter of the high and puis- 
 
 * sant, escaping baihfFs ? Descendest thou precipitate, 
 
 * in dead night, from w indow in the third story ; hurled 
 
 * forth by Bacchanals, to whom thy shrill tongue had 
 
 * grown unbearable ?* Yea, through the smoke of that 
 
 * The English Translator of Lamotte^s Life says, she fell from 
 VOL. V. F 
 
98 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' new Babylon thou fallest headlong ; one long scream 
 ' of screams makes night hideous : thou liest there, 
 
 * shattered like addle egg, " nigh to the Temple of 
 
 * Flora O Lamotte, has thy Hypocrisia ended, then ? 
 
 * Thy many characters were all acted. Here at last 
 
 * thou actest not, but art what thou seemest ; a mangled 
 ' squelch of gore, confusion, and abomination; which 
 ' men huddle underground, with no burial- stone. Thou 
 ' gallows -carrion !' — 
 
 — Here the prophet turned up his nose (the broadest 
 of the eighteenth century), and opened wide his nostrils 
 with such a greatness of disgust, that all the audience, 
 even Lamotte herself, sympathetically imitated him. — 
 ' O Dame de Lamotte ! Dame de Lamotte ! Now, 
 ' when the circle of thy existence lies complete : and 
 
 * my eye glances over these two score and three years 
 ' that were lent thee, to do evil as thou couldst ; and I 
 
 * behold thee a bright- eyed little Tatterdemalion, beg- 
 
 * ging and gathering sticks in the Bois de Boulogne ; 
 ' and also at length a squelched Putrefaction, here on 
 
 * London pavements ; with the headdressings and hun- 
 ' gerings, the gaddings and hysterical gigglings that 
 ' came between, — what shall I say was the meaning 
 ' of thee at all.^ — 
 
 ' Villette-de-R^taux ! Have the catchpoles trepanned 
 ' thee, by sham of battle, in thy Tavern, from the sacred 
 
 the leads of her house, nigh the Temple of Flora, endeavouring to 
 escape seizure for debt ; and was taken up so much hurt that she 
 died in consequence. Another report runs that she was flung out 
 of window, as in the Cagliostric text. One way or other she did 
 die, on the 23d of August, 1791 {Biographie Universelle, xxx. 287). 
 Where the * Temple of Flora' was, or is, one knows not. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 99 
 
 ' Republican soil ?* It is thou that wert the hired Forger 
 
 * of Hand- writings ? Thou wilt confess it ? Depart, un- 
 ' whipt yet accursed. — Ha ! The dread Symbol of our 
 ' Faith } Swings aloft, on the Castle of St. Angelo, a 
 
 * Pendulous Mass, which I think I discern to be the 
 
 * body of Villette ! There let him end ; the sweet 
 
 * morsel of our Juggernaut. 
 
 ' Nay, weep not thou, disconsolate Oliva ; blear not 
 
 * thy bright blue eyes, daughter of the shady Garden ! 
 ' Thee shall the Sanhedrim not harm : this Cloaca of 
 
 * Nature emits thee ; as notablest of unfortunate-females, 
 ' thou shalt have choice of husbands not without capital ; 
 ' and accept one.f Know this ; for the vision of it is 
 ' true. 
 
 * See Georgel, and Villette Memoir e, 
 
 t In the Affaire du Collier is this MS. Note : ' Gay d' Oliva, 
 
 * a common-girl of the Palais-Royal, who was chosen to play a part 
 
 * in this Business, got married, some years afterwards, to one Beau- 
 
 * sire, an Ex-Noble, formerly attached to the d'Artois Household. 
 
 * In 1790, he was Captain of the National Guard Company of the 
 
 * Temple. He then retired to Choisy, and managed to be named 
 
 * Procureur of that Commune : he finally employed himself in draw- 
 
 * ing up Lists of Proscription in the Luxembourg Prison, when he 
 
 * played the part of informer (mouton). See Tableau des Prisons 
 
 * de Paris sous Robespierre.^ These details are correct. In the 
 Memoir es sur les Prisons (new Title of the Book just referred to), 
 ii 171, we find this: * The second Denouncer was Beausire, an 
 
 * Ex-Noble, known under the old government for his intrigues. 
 
 * To give an idea of him, it is enough to say that he married the 
 
 * d' Oliva,' &c., as in the MS. Note already given. Finally is 
 added : ' He was the main spy of Boyenval ; who, however, said 
 
 * that he made use of him ; but that Fouquier-Tinville did not like 
 
 * him, and would have him guillotined in good time.' 
 
100 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' But the Anointed Majesty whom ye profaned ? 
 ' Blow, spirit of Egyptian Masonry, blow aside the 
 ' thick curtains of Space ! Lo you, her eyes are red 
 ' with their first tears of pure bitterness ; not with their 
 ' last. Tirewoman Campan is choosing, from the Print- 
 
 * shops of the Quais, the reputed-best among the hun- 
 
 * dred likenesses of Circe de Lamotte :* a Queen shall 
 
 * consider if the basest of women ever, by any accident, 
 
 * darkened daylight or candle-light for the highest. 
 ' The Portrait answers : Never ! ' — (Sensation in the 
 audience.) 
 
 * — Ha ! What is this ? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel, 
 ' and ye other five ; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence ; Power 
 
 * that destroyedst Original Sin ; Earth, Heaven, and thou 
 ' Outer Limbo, which men name Hell ! Does the Empire 
 
 * OF Imposture waver } Burst there, in starry sheen, 
 ' updarting. Light-rays from out its dark foundations ; as 
 
 * it rocks and heaves, not in travail- throes, but in death- 
 
 * throes } Yea, Light-rays, piercing, clear, that salute 
 
 * the Heavens, — lo, they kindle it ; their starry clearness 
 ' becomes as red Hellfire ! Imposture is burnt up : 
 
 * one Red-sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the World; 
 
 * with its fire-tongue licks at the Stars. Thrones are 
 
 * hurled into it, and Dubois Mitres, and Prebendal Stalls 
 
 * that drop fatness, and — ha ! what see I ? — all the Gigs 
 
 * of Creation ; all, all ! Wo is me ! Never since Pha- 
 ' raoh's Chariots, in the Red- sea of water, was there 
 
 * wreck of Wheel- vehicles like this in the sea of Fire. 
 ' Desolate, as ashes, as gases, shall they wander in the 
 
 * wind. 
 
 * See Campan. 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 101 
 
 ' Higher, higher, yet flames the Fire- Sea; crackhng 
 ' with new dislocated timber ; hissing with leather and 
 
 * prunella. The metal Images are molten ; the marble 
 
 * Images become mortar -lime; the stone Mountains 
 ' sulkily explode. Respectability, with all her col- 
 ' lected Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves 
 ' the Earth : not to return save under new Avatar. Im- 
 
 * posture, how it burns, through generations : how it is 
 ' burnt up — for a time. The World is black ashes ; 
 
 * which, ah, when wdll they grow green ? The Images 
 
 * all run into amorphous Corinthian brass; all Dwellings 
 ' of men destroyed; the very mountains peeled and 
 ' riven, the valleys black and dead : it is an empty 
 
 * World ! Wo to them that shall be bom then ! 
 
 * A King, a Queen (ah me !) were hurled in ; did rustle 
 ' once ; flew aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. Oliva's 
 ' Husband was hurled in ; Iscariot Egalite , thou grim 
 
 * De Launay, with thy grim Bastille ; whole kindreds 
 
 * and peoples ; five millions of mutually destroying Men. 
 
 * For it is the End of the Dominion of Imposture (which 
 ' is Darkness and opaque Firedamp) ; and the burning 
 ' up, with unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs that are in 
 
 * the Earth ! ' — Here the Prophet paused, fetching a deep 
 sigh ; and the Cardinal uttered a kind of faint, tremulous 
 Hem! 
 
 * Mourn not, O Monseigneur, spite of thy nephritic 
 ' cholic, and many infirmities. For thee mercifully it 
 ' was not unto death.* O Monseigneur (for thou hadst 
 
 * Rohan was elected of the Constituent Assembly ; and even 
 got a compliment or two in it, as Court-victim, from here and 
 there a man of weak judgment. He was one of the first who, 
 recalcitrating against * Civil Constitution of the Clergy,' &c., took 
 himself across the Rhine. 
 
102 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 * a touch of goodness), who would not weep over thee, 
 ' if he also laughed ? Behold ! The not too judicious 
 ' Historian, that long years hence, amid remotest wilder- 
 
 * nesses, writes thy Life, and names thee Mud-volcano ; 
 
 * even he shall reflect that it was thy Life this same ; 
 ' thy only chance through whole Eternity ; which thou 
 
 * (poor gambler) hast expended so : and, even over his 
 ' hard heart, a breath of dewy pity for thee shall blow. 
 
 * — O Monseigneur, thou wert not all ignoble : thy 
 
 * Mud- volcano was but strength dislocated, fire misap- 
 ' plied. Thou wentest ravening through the world ; no 
 
 * Life- elixir or Stone of the Wise could we two (for 
 ' want of funds) discover : a foulest Circe undertook to 
 ' fatten thee ; and thou hadst to fill thy belly with the 
 
 * east wind. And burst } By the Masonry of Enoch, 
 
 * No! Behold, has not thy Jesuit Familiar his Scouts 
 
 * dim-flying over the deep of human things ? Cleared 
 
 * art thou of crime, save that of fixed-idea ; weepest, 
 
 * a repentant exile, in the Mountains of Auvergne. 
 ' Neither shall the Red Fire-sea itself consume thee; 
 
 * only consume thy Gig, and, instead of Gig (O rich 
 
 * exchange !), restore thy Self. Safe beyond the Rhine- 
 
 * stream, thou livest peaceful days ; savest many from 
 
 * the fire, and anointest their smarting burns. Sleep 
 ' finally, in thy mother's bosom, in a good old age !* — 
 The Cardinal gave a sort of guttural murmur, or gurgle, 
 which ended in a long sigh, 
 
 * O Horrors, as ye shall be called,' again burst forth 
 the Quack, * why have ye missed the Sieur de Lamotte ; 
 
 * why not of him, too, made gallows- carrion } Will 
 ' spear, or sword-stick, thrust at him (or supposed to be 
 ' thrust), through window of hackney-coach, in Picca- 
 ' dilly of the Babylon of Fog, where he jolts disconsolate, 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 103 
 
 ' not let out the imprisoned animal existence ? Is lie 
 
 * poisoned, too ? * Poison will not kill the Sieur La- 
 ' motte ; nor steel, nor massacres. f Let him drag his 
 ' utterly superfluous life to a second and a third genera- 
 ' tion ; and even admit the not too judicious Historian 
 ' to see his face before he die. 
 
 * See Lamotte's Narrative {Memoir es Justificatifs), 
 
 f Lamotte, after his wife's death, had returned to Paris ; and 
 been arrested, — not for building churches. The Sentence of the 
 old Parlement against him, in regard to the Necklace Business, 
 he gets annulled by the new Courts ; but is, nevertheless, * re- 
 tained in confinement' (Moniteur Newspaper, 7th August, 1792). 
 He was still in Prison at the time the September Massacre broke 
 out. From Maton de la Varenne we cite the following grim 
 passage : Maton is in La Force Prison. 
 
 * At one in the morning' (of Monday, September 3), writes 
 Maton, * the grate that led to our quarter was again opened. Four 
 
 * men in uniform, holding each a naked sabre and blazing torch, 
 
 * mounted to our corridor ; a turnkey shewing the way ; and 
 
 * entered a room close on ours, to investigate a box, which they 
 
 * broke open. This done, they halted in the gallery ; and began 
 
 * interrogating one Cuissa, to know where Lamotte was ; who, 
 
 * they said, under pretext of finding a treasure, which they should 
 
 * share in, had swindled one of them out of 300 livres, having 
 
 * asked him to dinner for that purpose. The wretched Cuissa, 
 
 * whom they had in their power, and who lost his life that night, 
 
 * answered, all trembling, that he remembered the fact well, but 
 
 * could not say what had become of the prisoner. Resolute to 
 ' find this Lamotte and confront him with Cuissa, they ascended 
 
 * into other rooms, and made farther rummaging there ; but ap- 
 
 * parently without effect, for I heard them say to one another : 
 
 * "Come, search among the corpses, then; for, Nom de Dieu ! 
 
 * we must know what is become of him." ' {Ma Resurrection, par 
 Maton de la Varenne ; reprinted in the Histoire Parlement air e^ 
 xviii. 142.) — Lamotte lay in the Bicetre Prison ; but had got out, 
 precisely in the nick of time, — and dived beyond soundings. 
 
104 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' But, ha ! ' cried he, and stood wide- staring, horror- 
 struck, as if some Cribb's fist had knocked the wind out 
 of him : ' O horror of horrors ! Is it not Myself I see ? 
 ' Roman Inquisition ! Long months of cruel baiting ! 
 ' Life of Giuseppe Balsamo ! Cagliostro's Body still 
 
 * lying in St. Leo Castle, his Self fled — whither ? By- 
 
 * standers wag their heads, and say : " The Brow of 
 ' Brass, behold how it has got all unlackered ; these 
 
 * Pinchbeck lips can lie no more ! " Eheu ! Ohoo ! ' — 
 And he burst into unstanchable blubbering of tears ; and 
 sobbing out the moanfullest broken howl, sank down in 
 swoon; to be put to bed by De Launay and others. 
 
 Thus spoke (or thus might have spoken), and pro- 
 phesied, the Arch- Quack Cagliostro ; and truly much 
 better than he ever else did : for not a jot or tittle of it 
 (save only that of our promised Interview with Nestor 
 de Lamotte, which looks unlikelier than ever, for we 
 have not heard of him, dead or living, since 1826) — 
 but has turned out to be literally true. As indeed, in 
 all this History, one jot or tittle of untruth, that we 
 could render true, is perhaps not discoverable ; much as 
 the distrustful reader may have disbelieved. 
 
 Here, then, our little labour ends. The Necklace 
 was, and is no more : the stones of it again ' circulate 
 in Commerce,' some of them perhaps in Rundle's at 
 this hour ; and may give rise to what other Histories 
 we know not. The Conquerors of it, every one that 
 trafficked in it, have they not all had their due, which 
 was Death ? 
 
 This little Business, like a little cloud, bodied itself 
 
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 
 
 105 
 
 forth in skies clear to the unobservant ; but with such 
 hues of deep- tinted villany, dissoluteness, and general 
 delirium as, to the observant, betokened it electric ; and 
 wise men, a Goethe for example, boded Earthquakes. 
 Has not the Earthquake come } 
 
 F 2 
 
106 
 
 MIRABEAU.* 
 [1837.] 
 
 A PROVERB says, * The house that is a-building looks 
 not as the house that is built.' Environed with rubbish 
 and mortar-heaps, with scafFold-poles, hodmen, dust- 
 clouds, some rudiments only of the thing that is to be, 
 can, to the most observant, disclose themselves through 
 the mean tumult of the thing that hitherto is. How 
 true is this same with regard to all works and facts 
 whatsoever in our world ; emphatically true in regard to 
 the highest fact and work which our world witnesses, — 
 the Life of what we call an Original Man. Such a man 
 is one not made altogether by the common pattern; one 
 whose phases and goings forth cannot be prophesied of, 
 even approximately ; though, indeed, by their very new- 
 ness and strangeness they most of all provoke prophecy. 
 A man of this kind, while he lives on earth, is * unfold- 
 ing himself out of nothing into something,' surely under 
 very complex conditions : he is drawing continually to- 
 wards him, in continual succession and variation, the 
 materials of his structure, nay his very plan of it, from 
 
 * London and Westminster Review, No. 8. — Memoires 
 hiograpMqueSj litteraires, et poUtiques, de Mirabeau ; ecrits par 
 lui-memey par son Pere, son OnclCf et son Fils Adoptif (Memoirs j 
 biographical, literary, and political, of Mirabeau : written by 
 himself, by his Father, his Uncle, and his Adopted Son). 8 vols. Bvo. 
 Paris, 1834-36. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 107 
 
 the whole realm of Accident, you may say, and from the 
 whole realm of Freewill : he is building his life together 
 in this manner ; a guess and a problem as yet, not to 
 others only but to himself. Hence such criticism by 
 the bystanders ; loud no-knowledge, loud misknowledge ! 
 It is like the opening of the Fisherman's Casket in the 
 Arabian Tale, this beginning and growing-up of a life : 
 vague smoke wavering hither and thither ; some features 
 of a Genie looming through ; of the ultimate shape of * 
 which no fisherman or man can judge. And yet, as we 
 say, men do judge, and pass provisional sentence, being 
 forced to it ; you can predict with what accuracy ! 
 
 * Look at the audience in a theatre,' says one : * the life 
 
 * of a man is there compressed within five hours' dura- 
 ' tion ; is transacted on an open stage, with lighted 
 ' lamps, and what the fittest words and art of genius 
 ' can do to make the spirit of it clear ; yet listen, when 
 
 * the curtain falls, what a discerning public will say of 
 
 * that ! ' And now, if the drama extended over three- 
 score and ten years ; and were enacted, not with a view 
 to clearness, but rather indeed with a view to conceal- 
 ment, often in the deepest attainable involution of ob- 
 scurity ; and your discerning public, occupied otherwise, 
 cast its eye on the business now here for a moment, 
 and then there for a moment ? Wo to him, answer we, 
 who has no court of appeal against the world's judg- 
 ment ! He is a doomed man : doomed by conviction to 
 hard penalties ; nay purchasing acquittal (too probably) 
 by a stiU harder penalty, that of being a triviality, super- 
 ficiality, self- advertiser, and partial or total quack, which 
 is the hardest penalty of all. 
 
 But suppose farther, that the man, as we said, was 
 
108 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 an original man ; that his life- drama would not and 
 could not be measured by the three unities alone, but 
 partly by a rule of its own too : still farther, that the 
 transactions he had mingled in were great and world- 
 dividing ; that of all his judges there were not one who 
 had not something to love him for unduly, to hate him 
 for unduly ! Alas ! is it not precisely in this case, 
 where the whole world is promptest to judge, that the 
 whole world is Hkeliest to be wrong; natural opacity 
 being so doubly and trebly darkened by accidental diffi- 
 culty and perversion ? The crabbed moralist had some 
 shew of reason who said : To judge of an original con- 
 temporary man, you must, in general, reverse the world's 
 judgment about him ; the world is not only wrong on 
 that matter, but cannot on any such matter be right. 
 
 One comfort is that the world is ever working itself 
 righter and righter on such matters ; that a continual 
 revisal and rectification of the world's first judgment on 
 them is inevitably going on. For, after all, the world 
 loves its original men, and can in no wise forget them ; 
 not till after a long while ; sometimes not till after thou- 
 sands of years. Forgetting them, what, indeed, should 
 it remember ? The world's wealth is its original men ; 
 by these and their works it is a world and not a waste : 
 the memory and record of what men it bore — this is 
 the sum of its strength, its sacred ' property forever,* 
 whereby it upholds itself, and steers forward, better or 
 worse, through the yet undiscovered deep of Time. All 
 knowledge, all art, all beautiful or precious possession 
 of existence, is, in the long-run, this, or connected with 
 this. Science itself, is it not, under one of its most 
 interesting aspects. Biography ; is it not the Record of 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 109 
 
 the Wo7^k which an original man, still named by us, or 
 not now named, was blessed by the heavens to do ? That 
 Sphere -and -cylinder is the monument and abbreviated 
 history of the man Archimedes ; not to be forgotten, 
 probably, till the world itself vanish. Of Poets, and 
 what they have done, and how the world loves them, let 
 us, in these days, very singular in respect of that Art, 
 say nothing, or next to nothing. The greatest modern 
 of the poetic guild has already said : ' Nay, if thou wilt 
 * have it, who but the poet first formed gods for us, 
 ' brought them down to us, raised us up to them } ' 
 
 Another remark, on a lower scale, not unworthy of 
 notice, is by Jean Paul : that, ' as in art, so in conduct, 
 ' or what we call morals, before there can be an Aris- 
 ' totle with his critical canons, there must be a Homer, 
 ' many Homers with their heroic performances.' In 
 plainer words, the original man is the true creator (or 
 call him revealer) of Morals too : it is from his example 
 that precepts enough are derived, and written down in 
 books and systems : he properly is the thing ; all that 
 follows after is but talk about the thing, better or worse 
 interpretation of it, more or less wearisome and ineffec- 
 tual discourse of logic on it. A remark this of Jean 
 Paul's which, well meditated, may seem one of the most 
 pregnant lately written on these matters. If any man 
 had the ambition of building a new system of morals 
 (not a promising enterprise, at this time of day), there 
 is no remark known to us which might better serve him 
 as a chief corner-stone, whereon to found, and to build, 
 high enough, nothing doubting ; — high, for instance, 
 as the Christian Gospel itself. And to whatever other 
 heights man's destiny may yet carry him ! Consider 
 whether it was not, from the first, by example, or say 
 
110 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 rather by human exemplars, and such reverent imitation 
 or abhorrent aversion and avoidance as these gave rise 
 to, that man's duties were made indubitable to him ? 
 Also, if it is not yet, in these last days, by very much 
 the same means (example, precept, prohibition, * force of 
 public opinion,' and other forcings and inducings), that 
 the like result is brought about ; and, from the Wool- 
 sack down to the Treadmill, from Almack's to Chalk 
 Farm and the west- end of Newgate, the incongruous 
 whirlpool of life is forced and induced to whirl with some 
 attempt at regularity ? The two Mosaic Tables were of 
 simple limited stone ; no logic appended to them : we, 
 in our days, are privileged with Logic, — Systems of 
 Morals, Professors of Moral Philosophy, Theories of 
 Moral Sentiment, Utilities, Sympathies, Moral Senses, 
 not a few ; useful for those that feel comfort in them. 
 But to the observant eye, is it not still plain that the 
 rule of man's life rests not very steadily on logic (rather 
 carries logic unsteadily resting on it, as an excuse, an 
 exposition, or ornamental solacement to oneself and 
 others) ; that ever, as of old, the thing a man will do is 
 the thing he feels commanded to do : of which command, 
 again, the origin and reasonableness remains often as 
 good as e/2demonstrable by logic ; and, indeed, lies 
 mainly in this. That it has been demonstrated otherwise 
 and better ; by experiment, namely ; that an experi- 
 mental (what we name original) man has already done 
 it, and we have seen it to be good and reasonable, and 
 now know it to be so once and for evermore ? — Enough 
 of this. 
 
 He were a sanguine individual surely that should 
 turn to the French Revolution for new rules of conduct. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 Ill 
 
 and creators or exemplars of morality, — except, indeed, 
 exemplars of the gibbetted in-terrorem sort. A greater 
 work, it is often said, was never done in the world's 
 history by men so small. Twenty-five millions (say 
 these severe critics) are hurled forth out of all their old 
 habitudes, arrangements, harnessings, and garnitures, 
 into the new, quite void arena and career of Sansculot- 
 tism ; there to shew what originality is in them. Fan- 
 faronading and gesticulation, vehemence, effervescence, 
 heroic desperation, they do shew in abundance ; but of 
 what one can call originality, invention, natural stuff or 
 character, amazingly little. Their heroic desperation, 
 such as it was, we will honour and even venerate, as a 
 new document (call it rather a renewal of that primeval 
 ineffaceable document and charter) of the manhood of 
 man. But, for the rest, there were Federations ; there 
 were Festivals of Fraternity, * the Statue of Nature 
 pouring water from her two mammelles,' and the august 
 Deputies all drinking of it from the same iron saucer ; 
 Weights and Measures were attempted to be changed ; 
 the Months of the Year became Pluviose, Thermidor, 
 Messidor (till Napoleon said, // faudra se deharrasser de 
 ce Messidor, One must get this Messidor sent about its 
 business) : also Mrs. Momoro and others rode prosper- 
 ous, as Goddesses of Reason; and then, these being 
 mostly guillotined, Mahomet Robespierre did, with 
 bouquet in hand, and in new black breeches, in front of 
 the Tuileries, pronounce the scraggiest of prophetic 
 discourses on the Eire Supreme, and set fire to much 
 emblematic pasteboard : — all this, and an immensity of 
 such, the Twenty-five millions did devise and accomphsh ; 
 but (apart from their heroic desperation, which was no 
 
112 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 miracle either, beside that of the old Dutch, for instance) 
 this, and the like of this, was almost all. Their arena 
 of Sansculottism was the most original arena opened to 
 man for above a thousand years ; and they, at bottom, 
 were unexpectedly commonplace in it. Exaggerated 
 commonplace, triviality run distracted, and a kind of 
 universal ' Frenzy of John Dennis,' is the figure they 
 exhibit. The brave Forster, — sinking slowly of broken 
 heart, in the midst of that volcanic chaos of the Reign 
 of Terror, and clinging still to the cause, which, though 
 now bloody and terrible, he believed to be the highest, 
 and for which he had sacrificed all, country, kindred, 
 fortune, friends, and life, — compares the Revolution, 
 indeed, to ' an explosion and new creation of the world;' 
 but the actors in it, who went buzzing about him, to a 
 ' handvoll mucken, handful of flies.'* And yet, one may 
 add, this same explosion of a world was their work ; the 
 work of these — flies ? The truth is, neither Forster nor 
 any man can see a French Revolution ; it is like seeing 
 the ocean : poor Charles Lamb complained that he could 
 not see the multitudinous ocean at all, but only some 
 insignificant fraction of it from the deck of the Margate 
 hoy. It must be owned, however (urge these severe 
 critics), that examples of rabid triviality abound in the 
 French Revolution, to a lamentable extent. Consider 
 Maximilien Robespierre ; for the greater part of two 
 years, what one may call Autocrat of France. A poor 
 sea-green (verddtre), atrabihar Formula of a man; with- 
 out head, without heart, or any grace, gift, or even vice 
 beyond common, if it were not vanity, astucity, diseased 
 
 * Forster's Briefe und Nachlass, 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 113 
 
 rigour (which some count strength) as of a cramp ; really 
 a most poor sea-green individual in spectacles ; meant 
 by Nature for a Methodist parson of the stricter sort, 
 to doom men who departed from the written confession ; 
 to chop fruitless shrill logic ; to contend, and suspect, 
 and ineffectually westle and wriggle ; and, on the whole, 
 to love, or to know, or to be (properly speaking) No- 
 thing : — this was he who, the sport of wracking winds, 
 saw himself whirled aloft to command la premiere nation 
 de VuniverSy and all men shouting long life to him ; one 
 of the most lamentable, tragic, sea-green objects, ever 
 whirled aloft in that manner, in any country, to his own 
 swift destruction, and the world's long wonder ! 
 
 So argue these severe critics of the French Revolu- 
 tion : with whom we argue not here ; but remark ra- 
 ther, what is more to the purpose, that the French Revo- 
 lution did disclose original men : among the twenty-five 
 millions, at least one or two units. Some reckon, in 
 the present stage of the business, as many as three : 
 Napoleon, Danton, Mirabeau. Whether more will come 
 to light, or of what sort, when the computation is quite 
 liquidated, one cannot say : meanwhile let the world be 
 thankful for these three ; — as, indeed, the world is ; 
 loving original men, without limit, were they never so 
 questionable, well knowing how rare they are ! To us, 
 accordingly, it is rather interesting to observe how on 
 these three also, questionable as they surely are, the old 
 process is repeating itself ; how these also are getting 
 known in their true likeness. A second generation, 
 relieved in some measure from the spectral hallucina- 
 tions, hysterical ophthalmia, and natural panic-delirium 
 of the first contemporary one, is gradually coming to 
 
114 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 discern and measure what its predecessor could only 
 execrate and shriek over : for, as our Proverb said, the 
 dust is sinking, the rubbish-heaps disappear ; the built 
 house, such as it is, and was appointed to be, stands 
 visible, better or worse. 
 
 Of Napoleon Buonaparte, what with so many bulle- 
 tins, and such self-proclamation from artillery and battle- 
 thunder, loud enough to ring through the deafest brain, 
 in the remotest nook of this earth, and now, in conse- 
 quence, with so many biographies, histories, and histo- 
 rical arguments for and against, it may be said that he 
 can now shift for himself ; that his true figure is in a 
 fair way of being ascertained. Doubtless it will be 
 found one day what significance was in him ; how (we 
 quote from a New England Book) ' the man was a 
 
 * divine missionary, though unconscious of it ; and 
 
 * preached, through the cannon's throat, that great doc- 
 
 * trine, *' La carrier e ouverte aux talens, The tools to 
 
 * him that can handle them,'' which is our ultimate Poli- 
 
 * tical Evangel, wherein alone can Liberty lie. Madly 
 
 * enough he preached, it is true, as enthusiasts and first 
 ' missionaries are wont ; with imperfect utterance, amid 
 
 * much frothy rant ; yet as articulately perhaps as the 
 
 * case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American 
 
 * backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, 
 
 * and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not en- 
 
 * tirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft ; 
 
 * whom, nevertheless, the peaceful sower will follow, 
 
 * and, as he cuts the boundless harvest, bless.' — From 
 ' the incarnate Moloch,' which the word once was, 
 onwards to this quiet version, there is a considerable 
 progress. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 115 
 
 Still more interesting is it, not without a touch 
 almost of pathos, to see how the rugged TerrcB Filius 
 Danton begins likewise to emerge, from amid the blood- 
 tinted obscurations and shadows of horrid cruelty, into 
 calm light ; and seems now not an Anthropophagus, but 
 partly a man. On the whole, the Earth feels it to be 
 something to have a ' Son of Earth;' any reality, ra- 
 ther than a hypocrisy and formula ! With a man that 
 went honestly to work with himself, and said and acted, 
 in any sense, with the whole mind of him, there is 
 always something to be done. Satan himself, accord- 
 ing to Dante, was a praiseworthy object, compared 
 with those juste-milieu angels (so over-numerous in 
 times like ours) who * were neither faithful nor rebel- 
 lious,* but were for their little selves only ; trimmers, 
 moderates, plausible persons, who, in the Dantean Hell, 
 are found doomed to this frightful penalty, that ' they 
 have not the hope to die (non han speranza di morte) ; 
 but sunk in torpid death-life, in mud and the plague of 
 flies, they are to doze and dree forever, — ' hateful to 
 God and to the Enemies of God : 
 
 ' Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa ! ^ 
 
 If Bonaparte were the ' armed Soldier of Demo- 
 cracy,' invincible while he continued true to that, then 
 let us call this Danton the Enfant Perdu, and wwenlisted 
 Revolter and Titan of Democracy, which could not yet 
 have soldiers or discipline, but was by the nature of it 
 lawless. An Earthbom, we say, yet honestly born of 
 Earth ! In the Memoirs of Garat, and elsewhere, one 
 sees these fire- eyes beam with earnest insight, fill with 
 the water of tears ; the broad rude features speak withal 
 
116 
 
 MISCELLANIES, 
 
 of wild human sympathies ; that Antaeus' bosom also 
 held a heart. It is not the alarm- cannon that you 
 hear," cries he to the terror-struck, when the Prussians 
 were already at Verdun : " it is the pas de charge against 
 our enemies/' " De I'audace, et encore de VaudacCy et 
 toujours de Vaudace, To dare, and again to dare, and 
 without limit to dare — there is nothing left but that. 
 Poor ' Mirabeau of the Sansculottes,' what a mission ! 
 And it could not be but done, — and it was done ! But, 
 indeed, may there not be, if well considered, more virtue 
 in this feeling itself, once bursting earnest from the wild 
 heart, than in whole lives of immaculate Pharisees and 
 Respectabilities, with their eye ever set on ' character,' 
 and the letter of the law : Que mon mm soit Jletri, 
 Let my name be blighted, then ; let the Cause be glo- 
 rious, and have victory !" By and by, as we predict, 
 the Friend of Humanity, since so many Knife-grinders 
 have no story to tell him, will find some sort of story in 
 this Danton. A rough- hewn giant of a man, not an- 
 thropophagous entirely ; whose ' figures of speech,' and 
 also of action, ' are all gigantic ;' whose * voice reverbe- 
 rates from the domes,' and dashes Brunswick across 
 the marches in a very wrecked condition. Always his 
 total freedom from cant is one thing ; even in his bribe- 
 ries, and sins as to money, there is a frankness, a kind 
 of broad greatness. Sincerity, a great rude sincerity of 
 insight and of purpose, dwelt in the man, which quality 
 is the root of all : a man who could see through many 
 things, and would stop at very few things ; who marched 
 and fought impetuously forward, in the question ablest 
 element ; and now bears the penalty, in a name ' blighted,' 
 yet, as we say, visibly clearing itself. Once cleared. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 117 
 
 why should not this name too have significance for 
 men ? The wild history is a tragedy, as all human his- 
 tories are. Brawny Dan tons, still to the present hour, 
 rend the glebe, as simple brawny Farmers, and reap 
 peaceable harvests, at Arcis-sur-Aube ; and this Dan- 
 ton — ! It is an w/2rhymed tragedy ; very bloody, fuli- 
 ginous (after the manner of the elder dramatists) ; yet 
 full of tragic elements ; not undeserving natural pity 
 and fear. In quiet times, perhaps still at a great dis- 
 tance, the happier onlooker may stretch out the hand, 
 across dim centuries, to him, and say : " Ill-starred 
 brother, how thou foughtest with wild lion-strength, and 
 yet not with strength enough, and flamedst aloft, and 
 wert trodden down of sin and misery ; — behold, thou 
 also wert a man !" It is said there lies a Biography of 
 Danton written, in Paris, at this moment ; but the edi- 
 tor waits till the 'force of public opinion' ebb a little. 
 Let him publish, with utmost convenient despatch, and 
 say what he knows, if he do know it : the lives of re- 
 markable men are always worth understanding instead 
 of misunderstanding ; and public opinion must positively 
 adjust itself the best way it can. 
 
 But without doubt the far most interesting, best-gifted 
 of this questionable trio is not the Mirabeau of the Sans- 
 culottes, but the Mirabeau himself ; a man of much finer 
 nature than either of the others ; of a genius equal in 
 strength, we will say, to Napoleon*s ; but a much hu- 
 maner genius, almost a poetic one. With wider sym- 
 pathies of his own, he appeals far more persuasively to 
 the sympathies of men. 
 
 Of him too it is interesting to notice the progressive 
 
118 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 dawning, out of calumny, misrepresentation, and con- 
 fused darkness, into visibility and light ; and how the 
 world manifests its continued curiosity about him ; and 
 as book after book comes forth with new evidence, the 
 matter is again taken up, the old judgment on it revised 
 and anew revised; — whereby, in fine, we can hope the 
 right, or approximately right, sentence will be found; 
 and so the question be left settled. It would seem this 
 Mirabeau also is one whose memory the world will not, 
 for a long while, let die. Very different from many a 
 high memory, dead and deep-buried long since then ! In 
 his lifetime, even in the final effulgent part of it, this 
 Mirabeau took upon him to write, with a sort of awe- 
 struck feeling, to our Mr. Wilberforce ; and did not, that 
 we can find, get the benefit of any answer. Pitt was 
 prime minister, and then Fox, then again Pitt, and again 
 Fox, in sweet vicissitude ; and the noise of them, rever- 
 oerating through Brookes's and the club-rooms, through 
 tavern- dinners, electioneering hustings, leading articles, 
 filled all the earth ; and it seemed as if those two (though 
 which might be which, you could not say) were the 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman of political Nature ; — and now ! 
 Such difference is there, once more, between an original 
 man, of never such questionable sort, and the most dexte- 
 rous, cunningly- devised parliamentary mill. The differ- 
 ence is great ; and one of those on which the future time 
 makes largest contrast with the present. Nothing can 
 be more important than the mill while it continues and 
 grinds ; important, above all, to those who have sacks 
 about the hopper. But the grinding once done, how can 
 the memory of it endure ? It is important now to no 
 individual, not even to the individual with a sack. So 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 119 
 
 that, this tumult well over, the memory of the original 
 man, and of what small revelation he, as Son of Nature 
 and brother-man, could make, does naturally rise on us: 
 his memorable sayings^ actings, and sufferings, the very 
 vices and crimes he fell into, are a kind of pabulum which 
 all mortals claim their right to. 
 
 Concerning Peuchet, Chaussard, Gassicourt, and, in- 
 deed, all the former Biographers of Mirabeau, there can 
 little be said here, except that they abound with errors : 
 the present ultimate Fils Adoptif has never done picking 
 faults with them. Not as memorials of Mirabeau, but 
 as memorials of the world's relation to him, of the world's 
 treatment of him, they may, a little longer, have some 
 perceptible significance. From poor Peuchet (he was 
 known in the Moniteur once), and other the like labourers 
 in the vineyard, you can justly demand thus much ; and 
 not justly much more. 
 
 Etienne Dumont's Souvenirs sur Mirabeau might not, 
 at first sight, seem an advance towards true knowledge, 
 but a movement the other way, and yet it was really 
 an advance. The book, for one thing, was hailed by a 
 universal choral blast from all manner of reviews and 
 periodical literatures that Europe, in all its spellable 
 dialects, had : whereby, at least, the minds of men were 
 again drawn to the subject; and so, amid whatever 
 hallucination, ancient or new- devised, some increase 
 of insight was unavoidable. Besides, the book itself 
 did somewhat. Numerous specialties about the great 
 Frenchman, as read by the eyes of the little Genevese, 
 were conveyed there ; and could be deciphered, making 
 allowances. Dumont is faithful, veridical; within his 
 own limits he has even a certain freedom, a picturesque- 
 
120 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ness and light clearness. It is true, the whim he had of 
 looking at the great Mirabeau as a thing set in motion 
 mainly by him (M. Dumont) and such as he, was one of 
 the most wonderful to be met with in psychology. Nay, 
 more wonderful still, how the reviewers, pretty generally, 
 some from whom better was expected, took up the same 
 with aggravations ; and it seemed settled on all sides, 
 that here again a pretender had been stripped, and the 
 great made as little as the rest of us (much to our com- 
 fort) ; that, in fact, figuratively speaking, this enormous 
 Mirabeau, the sound of whom went forth to all lands, 
 was no other than an enormous trumpet, or coach-horn, 
 of japanned tin, through which a dexterous little M. Du- 
 mont was blowing all the while, and making the noise ! 
 Some men and reviewers have strange theories of man. 
 Let any son of Adam, the shallowest now living, try 
 honestly to scheme out, within his head, an existence of 
 this kind ; and say how verisimilar it looks ! A life and 
 business actually conducted on such coach-horn prin- 
 ciple, — we say not the life and business of a statesman 
 and world-leader, but say of the poorest laceman and 
 tape-seller, — were one of the chief miracles hitherto on 
 record. O M. Dumont ! But thus, too, when old Sir 
 Christopher struck dovm the last stone in the Dome of 
 St. Paul's, was it he that carried up the stone ? No ; it 
 was a certain strong-backed man, never mentioned (co- 
 vered with envious or unenvious oblivion), — probably of 
 the Sister Island. 
 
 Let us add, however, more plainly, that M. Dumont 
 was less to blame here than his reviewers were. The 
 good Dumont accurately records what ingenious journey- 
 work and fetching and carrying he did for his Mirabeau ; 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 121 
 
 interspersing many an anecdote, which the world is very- 
 glad of; extenuating nothing, we do hope, nor exagger- 
 ating anything : this is what he did, and h^id a clear right 
 and call to do. And what if it failed, not altogether, yet 
 in some measure if it did fail, to strike him, that he still 
 properly was but a Dumont ? Nay, that the gift this 
 Mirabeau had of enlisting such respectable Dumonts to 
 do hod work and even skilful handiwork for him ; and of 
 ruling them and bidding them by the look of his eye ; 
 and of making them cheerfully fetch and carry for liim, 
 and serve him as loyal subjects, with a kind of chivalry and 
 willingness, — that this gift was precisely the kinghood 
 of the man, and did itself stamp him as a leader among 
 men ! Let no man blame M. Dumont (as some have too 
 harshly done) ; his error is of oversight, and venial; 
 his worth to us is indisputable. On the other hand, let 
 all men blame such public instructors and periodical in- 
 dividuals as drew that inference and life-theory for him, 
 and brayed it forth in that loud manner ; or rather, on 
 the whole, do not blame, but pardon, and pass by on the 
 other side. Such things are an ordained trial of public 
 patience, which perhaps is the better for discipline ; and 
 seldom, or rather never, do any lasting injury. 
 
 Close following on Dumont's Reminiscences came this 
 Biography by M. Lucas Montigny, * Adopted Son ;' the 
 first volume in 1834, the rest at short intervals ; and lies 
 complete now in Eight considerable Volumes octavo ; con- 
 cerning which we are now to speak, — unhappily, in the 
 disparaging sense. In fact it is impossible for any man 
 to say unmixed good of M. Lucas's work. That he, as 
 Adopted Son, has lent himself so resolutely to the wash- 
 ing of his hero white, and even to the white- washing of 
 
 VOL. V. G 
 
122 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 him where the natural colour was black, be this no blame 
 to him ; or even, if you will, be it praise. If a man's 
 Adopted Son may not write the best book he can for 
 him, then who may ? But the fatal circumstance is, that 
 M. Lucas Montigny has not written a book at all ; but 
 has merely clipped and cut out, and cast together the 
 materials for a book, which other men are still wanted 
 to write. On the whole M. Montigny rather surprises 
 one. For the reader probably knows, what all the world 
 whispers to itself, that when ' Mirabeau, in 1 783, adopted 
 this infant born the year before,' he had the best of all 
 conceivable obligations to adopt him; having, by his 
 own act (wo/^-notarial), summoned him to appear in this 
 World. And now consider both what Shakspeare's Ed- 
 mund, what Poet Savage, and such like, have bragged ; 
 and also that the Mirabeaus, from time immemorial, had 
 (like a certain British kindred known to us) * produced 
 many a blackguard, but not one blockhead ! ' We almost 
 discredit that statement, which all the world w^hispers to 
 itself ; or, if crediting it, pause over the ruins of families. 
 The Haarlem canal is not flatter than M. Montigny 's 
 genius. He wants the talent which seems born with all 
 Frenchmen, that of presenting what knowledge he has 
 in the most knowable form. One of the solidest men, 
 too : doubtless a valuable man ; whom it were so plea- 
 sant for us to praise, if we could. May he be happy in 
 a private station, and never write more ; — except for the 
 Bureaux de Prefecture, with tolerably handsome official 
 appointments, which is far better ! 
 
 His biographical work is a monstrous quarry, or 
 mound of shot-rubbish, in eight strata, hiding valuable 
 matter, which he that seeks will find. Valuable, we 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 123 
 
 say ; for the Adopted Son having access, nay welcome 
 and friendly entreaty, to family papers, to all manner of 
 archives, secret records ; and v^orking therein long years, 
 with a filial unweariedness, has made himself piously at 
 home in all corners of the matter. He might, vdth the 
 same spirit (as we always upbraidingly think), so easily 
 have made us at home too I But no : he brings to light 
 things new and old; now precious illustrative private 
 documents, now the poorest public heaps of mere pam- 
 phleteer and parHamentary matter, so attainable else- 
 where, often so omissible were it not to be attained ; 
 and jumbles and tumbles the whole together with such 
 reckless clumsiness, with such endless copiousness 
 (having waggons enough), as gives the reader many a 
 pang. The very pains bestowed on it are often per- 
 verse ; the whole is become so hard, heavy ; unworkable, 
 except in the sweat of one's brow ! Or call it a mine, — 
 artificial-natural silver mine. Threads of beautiful silver 
 ore lie scattered, which you must dig for, and sift : 
 suddenly, when your thread or vein is at the richest, 
 it vanishes (as is the way with mines) in thick masses 
 of agglomerate and pudding-stone, no man can guess 
 whither. This is not as it should be ; and yet unfor- 
 tunately it could be no other. The long bad book is so 
 much easier to do than the brief good one ; and a poor 
 bookseller has no way of measuring and paying but by 
 the ell, cubic or superficial. The very weaver comes 
 and says, not I have woven so many ells of stuff,'' but 
 so many ells of such stuff;'' satin and Cashmere- 
 shawl stuff, — or, if it be so, dufiSe and coal-sacking, and 
 even cobweb stuff. 
 
 Undoubtedly the Adopted Son's will was good. 
 
124 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Ought we not to rejoice greatly in the possession of 
 these same silver-veins ; and take them in the buried 
 mineral state, or in any state ; too thankful to have 
 them now indestructible, now that they are printed ? 
 Let the world, we say, be thankful to M. Montigny, and 
 yet know what it is they are thanking him for. No Life 
 of Miraheau is to be found in these Volumes, but the 
 amplest materials for writing a Lfe. Were the Eight 
 Volumes well riddled and smelted down into One Volume, 
 such as might be made, that one were the volume ! Nay 
 it seems an enterprise of such uses, and withal so feasible, 
 that some day it is as good as sure to be done, and again 
 done, and finally well done. 
 
 The present reviewer, restricted to a mere article, 
 purposes, nevertheless, to sift and extract somewhat. 
 He has bored (so to speak) and run mine- shafts through 
 the book in various directions, and knows pretty well 
 what is in it, though indeed not so well where to find 
 the same, having unfortunately (as reviewers are wont) 
 * mislaid our paper of references ! ' Wherefore, if the 
 best extracts be not presented, let not M. Lucas suffer. 
 By one means and another, some sketch of Mirabeau's 
 history ; what befell him successively in this World, and 
 what steps he successivel)^ took in consequence ; and 
 how he and it, working together, made the thing we 
 call Mirabeau's Life, — may be brought out; extremely 
 imperfect, yet truer, one can hope, than the Biographical 
 Dictionaries and ordinary voice of rumour give it. 
 Whether, and if so, where and how, the current esti- 
 mate of Miraheau is to be rectified, fortified, or in any 
 important point overset and expunged, will hereby 
 come to light, almost of itself, as we proceed. Indeed, 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 125 
 
 it is very singular, considering the emphatic judgments 
 daily uttered, in print and speech, about this man, what 
 Egyptian obscurity rests over the mere facts of his ex- 
 ternal history ; the right knowledge of which, one would 
 fancy, must be the preliminary of any judgment, how- 
 ever faint. But thus, as we always urge, are such 
 judgments generally passed : vague plebiscita, decrees of 
 the common people ; made up of innumerable loud 
 empty ayes and loud empty noes ; which are without 
 meaning, and have only sound and currency ; plebiscita 
 needing so much revisal I — To the work, however. 
 
 One of the most valuable elements in these Eight 
 chaotic Volumes of M. Montigny is the knowledge he 
 communicates of Mirabeau's father ; of his kindred and 
 family, contemporary and anterior. The father, we in 
 general knew, was Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mira- 
 beau, called and calling himself the Friend of Men ; a 
 title, for the rest, which bodes him no good, in these 
 days of ours. Accordingly one heard it added with little 
 surprise, that this Friend of Men was the enemy of almost 
 every man he had to do with ; beginning at his own 
 hearth, ending at the utmost circle of his acquaintance ; 
 and only beyond that, feeling himself free to love men. 
 
 The old hypocrite ! " cry man^T-, — not we. Alas, it is 
 so much easier to love men while they exist only on 
 paper, or quite flexible and compliant in your imagina- 
 tion, than to love Jack and Kit who stand there in the 
 body, hungry, untoward ; jostling you, barring you, 
 with angular elbows, with appetites, irascibilities, and 
 a stupid will of their own I There is no doubt but old 
 Marquis Mirabeau found it extremely difficult to get on 
 
126 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 with his brethren of mankind ; and proved a crabbed, 
 sulphurous, choleric old gentleman, many a sad time : 
 nevertheless, there is much to be set right in that matter ; 
 and M. Lucas, if one can carefully follow him, has man- 
 aged to do it. Had M. Lucas but seen good to print 
 these private letters, family documents, and more of 
 them (for he * could make thirty octavo volumes in a 
 separate state ; in mere chronological order, with some 
 small commentary of annotation ; and to leave all the 
 rest alone ! — As it is, one must search and sift. Happily 
 the old Marquis himself, in periods of leisure, or forced 
 leisure, w^hereof he had many, drew up certain ' un- 
 published memoirs ' of his father and progenitors ; out 
 of which memoirs young Mirabeau also in forced leisure 
 (still more forced, in the Castle of If!) redacted one 
 Memoir, of a very readable sort : by the light of this 
 latter, so far as it will last, we walk with convenience. 
 
 The Mirabeaus were Riquettis by surname, w^hich is 
 a slight corruption of the Italian Arrighetti, They 
 came from Florence : cast out of it in some Guelph- 
 Ghibelline quarrel, such as were common there and then, 
 in the year 1267. Stormy times then, as now I The 
 chronologist can remark that Dante Alighieri was a little 
 boy, of some four years, that morning the Arrighettis 
 had to go, and men had to say, They are gone, these 
 villains ! They are gone, these martyrs ! " the little boy 
 listening with interest. Let the boy become a man, 
 and he too shall have to go ; and prove come e duro calle, 
 and what a world this is ; and have his poet-nature not 
 killed, for it would not kill, but darkened into Old- 
 Hebrew sternness, and sent onwards to Hades and 
 Eternity for a home to itself. As Dame Quickly said in 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 127 
 
 the Dream — Those were rare times, Mr. Rigma- 
 role ! " — Pretty much like our own/' answered he. — In 
 this manner did the Arrighettis (doubtless in grim Lon- 
 gobardic ire) scale the Alps ; and become Tramontane 
 French Riquettis ; and produce, — among other things, 
 the present Article in this Review. 
 
 It was hinted above that these Riquettis were a 
 notable kindred ; as indeed there is great likelihood, if 
 we knew it rightly, the kindred and fathers of most 
 notable men are. The Vaucluse fountain, that gushes 
 out as a river, may well have run some space under 
 ground in that character, before it found vent. Nay 
 perhaps it is not always, or often, the intrinsically 
 greatest of a family-line that becomes the noted one, 
 but only the best favoured of fortune. So rich here, as 
 elsewhere, is Nature, the mighty Mother ; and scatters 
 from a single Oak-tree, as provender for pigs, what 
 would plant the whole Planet into an oak-forest ! For 
 truly, if there were not a mute force in her, where were 
 she with the speaking and exhibiting one } If under 
 that frothy superficies of braggarts, babblers, and high- 
 sounding, richly- decorated personages, that strut and 
 fret, and preach in all times Quam parvd sapientid re- 
 gatur, there lay not some substratum of silently heroic 
 men ; working as men ; with man's energy, enduring 
 and endeavouring ; invincible, who whisper not even to 
 themselves how energetic they are.'' — The Riquetti 
 family was, in some measure, defined already by ana- 
 logy to that British one ; as a family totally exempt 
 from blockheads, but a little liable to produce black- 
 guards. It took root in Provence, and bore strong 
 southern fruit there : a restless, stormy line of men ; 
 
128 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 with the wild blood running in them, and as if there 
 had been a doom hung over them (' like the line of 
 Atreus/ Mirabeau used to say) ; which really there was, 
 the wild blood itself being doom enough. How long 
 they had stormed in Florence and elsewhere, these 
 Riquettis, history knows not ; but for the space of those 
 five centuries, in Provence, they were never without a 
 man to stand Riquetti-like on the earth. Men sharp of 
 speech, prompt of stroke ; men quick to discern, fierce 
 to resolve ; headlong, headstrong, strong every way ; 
 w^ho often found the civic race- course too strait for 
 them, and kicked against the pricks ; doing this thing or 
 the other, which the world had to animadvert upon, in 
 various dialects, and find ' clean against rule/ 
 
 One Riquetti (in performance of some vow at sea, as 
 the tradition goes) chained two mountains together : 
 
 * the iron chain is still to be seen at Moustier; — it 
 
 * stretches from one mountain to the other, and in the 
 ' middle of it there is a large star with five rays \ the 
 supposed date is 1390. Fancy the smiths at work on 
 this business ! The town of Moustier is in the Basses- 
 Alpes of Provence : whether the Riquetti chain creaks 
 there to this hour, and lazily swags in the winds, with 
 its ' star of five rays' in the centre, and offers an un- 
 certain perch to the sparrow, we know not. Or perhaps 
 it was cut down in the Revolution time, when there rose 
 such a hatred of noblesse, such a famine for iron ; and 
 made into pikes ? The Adopted Son, so minute gene- 
 rally, ought to have mentioned, but does not. — That 
 there was building of hospitals, endowing of convents, 
 Chartreux, Recollets, down even to Jesuits; still more, 
 that there was harrying and fighting, needs not be men- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 129 
 
 tioned : except only that all this went on with uncommon 
 emphasis among the Riquettis. What quarrel could 
 there be and a Riquetti not in it ? They fought much : 
 with an eye to profit, to redress of disprofit ; probably 
 too for the art's sake. 
 
 What proved still more rational, they got footing in 
 Mai'seilles as trading nobles (a kind of French Venice in 
 those days), and took with great diligence to commerce. 
 The family biographers are careful to say that it was in 
 the Venetian style, however, and not ignoble. In which 
 sense, indeed, one of their sharp-spoken ancestors, on a 
 certain bishop's unceremoniously styling him *Jean de 
 Riquetti, Merchant of Marseilles,' made ready answer : 
 *'I am, or was, merchant of police here" (first consul, 
 an ofiice for nobles only), *' as my Lord Bishop is mer- 
 chant of holy-water let his Reverence take that. At 
 all events, the ready- spoken proved first-rate traders ; ac- 
 quired their hastide, or mansion (white, on one of those 
 green hills behind Marseilles), endless warehouses : ac- 
 quired the lands first of this, then of that ; the lands. Vil- 
 lage, and Castle of Mirabeau on the banks of the Durance ; 
 respectable Castle of Mirabeau, * standing on its scarped 
 
 * rock, in the gorge of two valleys, swept by the north 
 
 * wind,' — very brown and melancholy-looking now! 
 What is extremely advantageous, the old Marquis says, 
 they had a singular talent for choosing wives ; and al- 
 ways chose discreet, valiant women ; whereby the lineage 
 was the better kept up. One grandmother, whom the 
 Marquis himself might all but remember, was wont to say, 
 alluding to the degeneracy of the age : You are men } 
 You are but manikins {sias houmachomes y in Provencal) ; 
 we women, in our time, carried pistols in our girdles, and 
 
 G 2 
 
130 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 could use them too/* Or fancy the Dame Mirabeau 
 sailing stately towards the church-font ; another dame 
 striking in to take precedence of her ; the Dame Mira- 
 beau despatching this latter with a box on the ear 
 {soufflet)y and these words : Here, as in the army, the 
 baggage goes last !'* Thus did the Riquettis grow, and 
 were strong ; and did exploits in their narrow arena, 
 waiting for a wider one. 
 
 When it came to courtiership, and your field of pre- 
 ferment was the Versailles CEil-de-Boeuf, and a Grand 
 Monarque walking encircled with scarlet women and 
 adulators there, the course of the Mirabeaus grew still 
 more complicated. They had the career of arms open, 
 better or worse : but that was not the only one, not the 
 main one ; gold apples seemed to rain on other careers, 
 — on that career lead bullets mostly. Observe how a 
 Bruno, Count de Mirabeau, comports himself : — like a 
 rhinoceros yoked in carriage-gear ; his fierce forest- 
 horn set to dangle a plume oi fleurs-de-lis. ' One day 
 he had chased a blue man (it is a sort of troublesome 
 ' usher at Versailles) into the very cabinet of the King, 
 ' who thereupon ordered the Duke de la Feuillade to 
 ' put Mirabeau under arrest. Mirabeau refused to obey ; 
 * he would not be punished for chastising the inso- 
 ' lence of a valet ; for the rest, would go to the diner du 
 ' roi (king's dinner), who might then give his order him- 
 ' self.*' He came accordingly ; the King asked the Duke 
 ' why he had not executed the order The Duke was 
 ' obliged to say how it stood ; the King, with a goodness 
 ' equal to his greatness, then said, It is not of to-day 
 ' that we know him to be mad ; one must not ruin him," * 
 . — and rhinoceros Bruno journeyed on. But again, on 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 131 
 
 the day when they were * inaugurating the pedestrian 
 ' statue of King Louis in the Place des Victoires (a 
 ' masterpiece of adulation)/ the same Mirabeau, ' pass- 
 
 * ing along the Pont Neuf with the Guards, raised his 
 
 * spontoon to his shoulder before Henry the Fourth's 
 ' statue, and saluting first, bawled out, Friends, we 
 ' will salute this one ; he deserves it as well as some, 
 ' Mes amis, saluons celui-ci ; il en vaut Men un mtrey 
 — Thus do they, the wild Riquettis, in a state of courtier- 
 ship. Not otherwise, according to the proverb, do wild 
 bulls, unexpectedly finding themselves in crockery- shops. 
 O Riquetti kindred, into what centuries and circum- 
 stances art thou come down ! 
 
 Directly prior to our old Marquis himself, the Ri- 
 quetti kindred had as near as possible gone out. Jean 
 Antoine, afterwards named Silverstock {Col d' Argent), 
 had, in the earlier part of his life, been what he used to 
 call killed, — of seven- and -twenty wounds in one hour. 
 Haughtier, juster, more choleric man need not be sought 
 for in biography. He flung gabelle-men and excisemen 
 into the river Durance (though otherwise a most digni- 
 fied, methodic man), when their claims were not clear ; 
 he ejected, by the like brief process, all manner of 
 attorneys from his villages and properties ; he planted 
 vineyards, solaced peasants. He rode through France 
 repeatedly (as the old men still remembered), with the 
 gallantest train of outriders, on return from the wars ; 
 intimidating innkeepers and all the world, into mute 
 prostration, into unerring promptitude, by the mere 
 light of his eye ; — withal drinking rather deep, yet never 
 seen affected by it. He was a tall, straight man (of 
 six feet and upwards) in mind as in body ; Vendome's 
 
132 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 'right arm* in all campaigns. Vendome once pre- 
 sented him to Louis the Great, with compliments to 
 that effect, which the splenetic Riquetti quite spoiled. 
 Erecting his killed head, which needed the silver stock 
 now to keep it straight, he said : Yes, Sire ; and had 
 I left my fighting, and come up to court, and bribed 
 some catin (scarlet woman !), I might have had my pro- 
 motion and fewer wounds to-day V The Grand King, 
 every inch a king, instantaneously spoke of something 
 else. 
 
 But the reader should have first seen that same 
 killing ; how twenty-seven of those unprofitable wounds 
 were come by in one fell lot. The Battle of Casano 
 has grown very obscure to most of us ; and indeed 
 Prince Eugene and Vendome themselves grow dimmer 
 and dimmer, as men and battles must : but, curiously 
 enough, this small fraction of it has brightened up again 
 to a point of history, for the time being : 
 
 ' My grandfather had foreseen that manoeuvre ' (it is Mira- 
 beau, the Count, not the Marquis, that reports : Prince 
 Eugene has carried a certain bridge which the grandfather 
 had charge of); 'but he did not, as has since happened at 
 Malplaquet and Fontenoy, commit the blunder of attacking 
 right in the teeth a column of such weight as that. He lets 
 them advance, hurried on by their own impetuosity and by 
 the pressure of their rearward ; and now seeing them pretty 
 well engaged, he raised his troop (it was lying fiat on the 
 ground), and rushing on, himself at the head of them, takes 
 the enemy in flank, cuts them in two, dashes them back, 
 chases them over the bridge again, which they had to repass 
 in great disorder and haste. Things brought to their old 
 state, he resumes his post on the crown of the bridge, 
 f.helters his troop as before, which, having performed all 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 133 
 
 this service under the sure deadly fire of the enemy's double 
 lines from over the stream, had suffered a good deal. M. de 
 Vendome coming up, full gallop, to the attack, finds it already 
 finished, the vv^hole line flat on the earth, only the tall figure 
 of the colonel standing erect ! He orders him to do like the 
 rest, not to have himself shot till the time came. His faith- 
 ful servant cries to him, " Never would I expose myself 
 without need ; I am bound to be here, but you, Monseigneur, 
 are bound not. I answer to 3^ou for the post ; but take 
 yourself out of it, or I give it up." The Prince (Vendome) 
 then orders him, in the king's name, to come down. Go 
 to, the king and you : I am at my work ; go you and do 
 yours. ^' The good generous Prince yielded. The post was 
 entirely untenable. 
 
 'A little afterwards my grandfather had his right arm 
 shattered. He formed a sort of sling for it of his pocket 
 handkerchief, and kept his place ; for there was a new attack 
 getting ready. The right moment once come, he seizes an 
 axe in his left hand, repeats the same manoeuvre as before ; 
 again repulses the enemy, again drives him back over the 
 bridge. But it was here that ill fortune lay in wait for him. 
 At the very moment while he was recalling and ranging his 
 troop, a bullet struck him in the throat ; cut asunder the 
 tendons, the jugular vein. He sank on the bridge; the 
 troop broke and fled. M. de Montolieu, Knight of Malta, 
 his relative, was wounded beside him : he tore up his own 
 shirt, and those of several others, to stanch the blood, but 
 fainted himself by his own hurt. An old sergeant, named 
 Laprairie, begged the aide-major of the regiment, one Guadin, 
 a Gascon, to help and carry him ofi" the bridge. Guadin 
 refused, saying he was dead. The good Laprairie could only 
 cast a camp-kettle over his colonel's head, and then run. 
 The enemy trampled over him in torrents to profit by the 
 disorder ; the cavalry at full speed, close in the rear of the 
 foot. M. de Vendome, seeing his line broken, the enemy 
 
134 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 forming on this side the stream, and consequently the bridge 
 lost, exclaimed, " Ah ! Mirabeau is dead then a eulogy for- 
 ever dear and memorable to us.' 
 
 How nearly, at this moment, it was all over with 
 the Mirabeaus ; how, but for the cast of an insignificant • 
 camp-kettle, there had not only been no Article Mira - 
 beau in this Review, but no French Revolution, or a 
 very different one ; and all Europe had found itself in 
 far other latitudes at this hour, any one who has a turn 
 for such things may easily reflect. Nay, without great 
 difficulty, he may reflect farther, that not only the 
 French Revolution and this Article, but all revolutions, 
 articles, and achievements whatsoever, the greatest and 
 the smallest, which this world ever beheld, have not 
 once, but often, in their course of genesis, depended on 
 the veriest trifles, castings of camp-kettles, turnings of 
 straws ; except only that we do not see that course of 
 theirs. So inscrutable is genetic history ; impracticable 
 the theory of causation, and transcends all calculus of 
 man's devising ! Thou thyself, O Reader (who art 
 an achievement of importance), over what hairsbreadth 
 bridges of Accident, through yawning perils, and the 
 man- devouring gulf of Centuries, hast thou got safe 
 hither, — from Adam all the way! 
 
 Be this as it can. Col d' Argent came alive again, by 
 * miracle of surgery and, holding his head up by means 
 of a silver stock, walked this earth many long days, with 
 respectability, with fiery intrepidity and spleen ; did 
 many notable things ; among others, produced, in dig- 
 nified wedlock, ' Mirabeau the Friend of Men ; who 
 again produced Mirabeau the Swallower of Formulas; 
 from which latter, and the wondrous blazing funeral- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 135 
 
 pyre he made for himself, there finally goes forth a light, 
 whereby those old Riquetti destinies, and many a strange 
 old hidden thing, become noticeable. 
 
 But perhaps in the whole Riquetti kindred there is 
 not a stranger figure than this very Friend of Men ; at 
 whom, in the order of time, we have now arrived. That 
 Riquetti who chained the mountains together, and hung 
 up the star with five rays to sway and bob there, was 
 but a type of him. Strong, tough as the oak-root, and 
 as gnarled and unwedgeable ; no fibre of him running 
 straight with the other; a block for Destiny to beat 
 on, for the world to gaze at, with ineffectual wonder ! 
 Really a most notable, questionable ; hateable, loveable 
 old Marquis. How little, amid such jingling triviality 
 of Literature, Philosophie, and the pretentious cackle of 
 innumerable Baron Grimms, with their correspondence 
 and self-proclamation, one could fancy that France held 
 in it such a Nature-product as the Friend of Men ! 
 Why, there is substance enough in this one Marquis to 
 fit out whole armies of Philosophes, were it properly 
 attenuated. So many poor Thomases perorate and have 
 ^loges, poor Morellets speculate, Marmontels moralise in 
 rose-pink manner, Diderots become possessed of ency- 
 clopedical heads, and lean Carons de Beaumarchais fly 
 abroad on the wings of Figaros; and this brave old 
 Marquis has been hid under a bushel ! He was a 
 Writer, too ; and had talents for it (certain of the 
 talents), such as few Frenchmen have had since the 
 days of Montaigne. It skilled not : he, being unwedge- 
 able, has remained in antiquarian cabinets ; the others, 
 splitting up so readily, are the ware you find on all 
 market- stalls, much prized (say, as brimstone Lucifers, 
 
136 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 * %^^-bringers ' so-called) by the generality. Such is 
 the world's way. And yet complain not ; this rich, 
 unwedgeable old Marquis, have we not him too at last, 
 and can keep him all the longer than the Thomases ? 
 
 The great Mirabeau used to say always that his 
 father had the greater gifts of the two ; which surely is 
 saying something. Not that you can subscribe to it in 
 the full sense, but that in a very wide sense you can. 
 So far as mere speculative head goes, Mirabeau is pro- 
 bably right. Looking at the old Marquis as a specula- 
 tive thinker and utterer of his thought, and with what 
 rich colouring of originality he gives it forth, you pro- 
 nounce him to be superior, or even say supreme in his 
 time ; for the genius of him almost rises to the poetic. 
 Do our readers know the German Jean Paul, and his 
 style of thought ? Singular to say, the old Marquis has 
 a quality in him resembling afar off that of Paul ; and 
 actually works it out in his French manner, far as the 
 French manner can. Nevertheless intellect is not of 
 the speculative head only; the great end of intellect 
 surely is, that it make one see something : for which 
 latter result the whole man must co-operate. In the 
 old Marquis there dwells vdthal a crabbedness, stiff 
 cross-grained humour, a latent fury and fuliginosity, 
 very perverting ; which stiff crabbedness, with its pride, 
 obstinacy, affectation, what else is it at bottom but want 
 of strength.-^ The real quantity of our insight, — how 
 justly and thoroughly we shall comprehend the nature 
 of a thing, especially of a human thing, — depends on 
 our patience, our fairness, lovingness, what strength 
 soever we have : intellect comes from the whole man, 
 as it is the light that enlightens the whole man. In 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 137 
 
 this true sense, the younger Mirabeau, with that great 
 flashing eyesight of his, that broad, fearless freedom of 
 nature he had, was very clearly the superior man. 
 
 At bottom, perhaps, the main definition you could 
 give of old Marquis Mirabeau is, that he was of the 
 Pedant species. Stiff as brass, in all senses ; unsym- 
 pathizing, uncomplying ; of an endless, unfathomable 
 pride, which cloaks but does nowise extinguish an end- 
 less vanity and need of shining : stately, euphuistic 
 mannerism enveloping the thought, the morality, the 
 whole being of the man. A solemn, high - stalking 
 man ; with such a fund of indignation in him, or of 
 latent indignation ; of contumacity, irrefragability ; — 
 who (after long experiment) accordingly looks forth on 
 mankind and this world of theirs with some dull- snuff- 
 ling word of forgiveness, of contemptuous acquittal ; or 
 oftenest with clenched lips (nostrils slightly dilated), in 
 expressive silence. Here is pedantry; but then pe- 
 dantry under the most interesting new circumstances ; 
 and wdthal carried to such a pitch as becomes sublime, 
 one might almost say transcendental. Consider indeed 
 whether Marquis Mirabeau could be a pedant, as your 
 common Scaligers and Scioppiuses are ! His arena is 
 not a closet with Greek manuscripts, but the wide world 
 and Friendship to Humanity. Does not the blood of 
 all the Mirabeaus circulate in his honourable veins ? 
 He too would do somewhat to raise higher that high 
 house ; and yet, alas, it is plain to him that the house 
 is sinking ; that much is sinking. The Mirabeaus, and 
 above all others this Mirabeau, are fallen on evil times. 
 It has not escaped the old Marquis how Nobility is now 
 decayed, nearly ruinous ; based no longer on heroic 
 
138 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 nobleness of conduct and effort, but on sycophancy, 
 formality, adroitness ; on Parchments, Tailor's trim- 
 mings, Prunello and Coach-leather : on which latter 
 basis, unless his whole insight into Heaven's ways 
 with Earth have misled him, no institution in this god- 
 governed world can pretend to continue. Alas, and the 
 priest has now no tongue but for plate-licking ; and the 
 tax-gatherer squeezes ; and the strumpetocracy sits at 
 its ease, in high -cushioned lordliness, under baldachins 
 and cloth of gold : till now at last, what with one 
 fiction, what with another (and veridical Nature dis- 
 honouring all manner of fictions, and refusing to pay 
 realities for them), it has come so far that the Twenty ^ 
 five millions, long scarce of knowledge, of virtue, happi- 
 ness, cash, are now fallen scarce of food to eat ; and do 
 not, with that natural ferocity of theirs w^hich Nature 
 has still left them, feel the disposition to die starved ; 
 and all things are nodding towards chaos, and no man 
 layeth it to heart ! One man exists who might perhaps 
 stay or avert the castastrophe, were he called to the 
 helm : the Marquis Mirabeau. His high, ancient blood, 
 his heroic love of truth, his strength of heart, his loyalty, 
 and profound insight (for you cannot hear him speak 
 without detecting the man of genius), this, with the 
 appalling predicament things have come to, might give 
 him claims. From time to time, at long intervals, such 
 a thought does flit, portentous, through the brain of the 
 Marquis. But ah ! in these scandalous days, how shall 
 the proudest of the Mirabeaus fall prostrate before a 
 Pompadour ? Can the Friend of Men hoist, with good 
 hope, as his battle -standard, the furbelow of an unmen- 
 tionable woman } No ; not hanging by the apron- 
 
MlRx\BEAU. 
 
 139 
 
 strings of such a one will this Mirabeau rise to the 
 premiership; but summoned by France in her day of 
 need, in her day of vision, or else not at all. France 
 does not summon ; the else goes its road. 
 
 Marquis Mirabeau tried Literature too, as we said ; 
 and with no inconsiderable talent ; nay, with first-rate 
 talents in some sort : but neither did this prosper. His 
 Ecce signum, in such era of downfal and all- darkening 
 ruin, was Political Economy ; and a certain man, whom 
 he called ' the Master,' — that is. Dr. Quesnay. Round 
 this Master (whom the Marquis succeeded as Master 
 himself) he and some other idolaters did idolatrously 
 gather : to publish books and tracts, periodical litera- 
 ture, proclamation by word and deed, — if so were, the 
 wwld's dull ear might be opened to salvation. The 
 world's dull ear continued shut. In vain preached this 
 apostle and that other, simultaneously or in Meliboean 
 sequence, in literature, periodical and stationary ; in vain 
 preached Marquis Mirabeau in his Ami des Hommes, 
 number after number, through long volumes, — though 
 really in a most eloquent manner. Marquis Mirabeau 
 had the indisputablest ideas ; but then his style ! In 
 very truth, it is the strangest of styles, though one of 
 the richest : a style full of originality, picturesqueness, 
 sunny vigour ; but all cased and slated over, threefold, 
 in metaphor and trope ; distracted into tortuosities, 
 dislocations ; starting out into crotchets, cramp turns, 
 quaintnesses, and hidden satire ; which the French head 
 had no ear for. Strong meat, too tough for babes ! 
 The Friend of Men found warm partisans, widely scat- 
 tered over this Earth ; and had censer-fumes trans- 
 mitted him from marquises, nay from kings and prin- 
 
140 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 cipalities, over seas and alpine chains of mountains ; 
 whereby the pride and latent indignation of the man 
 were only fostered : but at home, with the million all 
 jigging each after its suitable scrannel-pipe, he could 
 see himself make no way, — if it were not way towards 
 being a monstrosity, and thing men wanted ' to see : ' 
 not the right thing ! Neither through the press, then, 
 is there progress towards the premiership ? The stag- 
 gering state of French statesmen must even stagger 
 whither it is bound. A light Public froths itself into 
 tempest about Palissot and his comedy of Les Philo- 
 sopheSy — about Gluck - Piccini Music; neglecting the 
 call of Ruin ; and hard must come to hard. Thou, O 
 Friend of Men, clench thy lips together, and wait ; silent 
 as the old rocks. Our Friend of Men did so, or better ; 
 not wanting to himself, the lion-hearted old Marquis ! 
 For his latent indignation has a certain devoutness in it ; 
 is a kind of holy indignation. The Marquis, though he 
 knows the Encj/clopedie, has not forgotten the higher 
 Sacred Books, or that there is a God in this world, — 
 very different from the French Eire Supreme. He even 
 professes, or tries to profess, a kind of diluted Catho- 
 licism, in his own way, and thus turn an eye towards 
 heaven : very singular in his attitude here too. Thus 
 it would appear this world is a mad imbroglio, which 
 no Friend of Men can set right : it shall go wrong 
 then, in God's name ; and the staggering state of all 
 things stagger whither it can. To deep, fearful depths, 
 — not to bottomless ones ! 
 
 But in the Family Circle } There surely a man, and 
 friend of men, is supreme ; and, ruling with wise auto- 
 cracy, may make something of it. Alas, in the family 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 141 
 
 circle it went not better, but worse ! The Mirabeaus 
 had once a talent for choosing wives : had it deserted 
 them in this instance, then, when most needed ? We 
 say not so : we say only that Madame la Marquise had 
 human freewill in her too ; that all the young Mirabeaus 
 were likely to have human freewill, in great plenty ; 
 that within doors as without, the Devil is busy. Most 
 unsuccessful is the Marquis as ruler of men : his fa- 
 mily kingdom, for the most part, little otherwise than 
 in a state of mutiny. A sceptre as of Rhadamanthus 
 will sway and drill that household into perfection of 
 Harrison Clockwork ; and cannot do it. The royal 
 ukase goes forth, in its calm, irrefragable justice ; meets 
 hesitation, disobedience open or concealed. Repri- 
 mand is followed by remonstrance ; harsh coming thun- 
 der mutters, growl answering growl. With unaffectedly 
 astonished eye the Marquis appeals to Destiny and 
 Heaven ; explodes, since he needs must then, in red 
 lightning of paternal authority. How it went, or who 
 by forethought might be to blame, one knows not ; for 
 the Fils Adoptif, hemmed in by still extant relations, is 
 extremely reticent on these points : a certain Dame de 
 Pailly, ' from Switzerland, very beautiful and very art- 
 ful,' glides half- seen through the Mirabeau household 
 (the Marquis's Orthodoxy, as we said, being but of the 
 diluted kind) : there are eavesdroppers, confidential serv- 
 ants ; there are Pride, Anger, Uncharitableness, Sublime 
 Pedantry, and the Devil always busy. Such a figure as 
 Pailly, of herself, bodes good to no one. Enough, there 
 are Lawsuits, Lettres de Cachet ; on all hands, peine forte 
 et dure. Lawsuits, long drawn out, before gaping Parle- 
 mentSf between man and wife : to the scandal of an 
 
142 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 unrighteous world ; how much more of a righteous 
 Marquis, minded once to be an example to it ! Lettres 
 de Cachet, to the number, as some count, of fifty-four, 
 first and last, for the use of a single Marquis : at 
 times the whole Mirabeau fireside is seen empty, except 
 Pailly and Marquis ; each individual sitting in his se- 
 parate Strong -house, there to bethink himself. Stiff 
 are your tempers, ye young Mirabeaus ; not stifFer than 
 mine the old one's ! What pangs it has cost the fond 
 paternal heart to go through all this Brutus duty, the 
 Marquis knows, and Heaven. In a less degree, what 
 pangs it may cost the filial heart to go under (or undergo) 
 the same I The former set of pangs he, aided by Heaven, 
 crushes down into his soul suppressively, as beseems a 
 man and Mirabeau : the latter set, — are they not self- 
 sought pangs ; medicinal ; which will cease of their own 
 accord, when the unparalleled filial impiety pleases to 
 cease .f* For the rest, looking at such a world and such 
 a family, at these prison-houses, mountains of divorce- 
 papers, and the staggering state of French statesmen, a 
 Friend of Men may pretty naturally ask himself. Am not 
 I a strong old Marquis then, whom all this has not driven 
 into Bedlam, — not into hypochondria, dyspepsia even ? 
 The Heavens are bounteous, and make the back equal to 
 the burden. 
 
 Out of all which circumstances, and of such struggle 
 against them, there has come forth this Marquis de 
 Mirabeau, shaped (it was the shape he could arrive at) 
 into one of the most singular Sublime Pedants that ever 
 stepped the soil of France. Solemn moral rigour, as of 
 some antique Presbyterian Ruling Elder : heavy breadth, 
 dull heat, choler and pride as of an old * Bozzy of Auch- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 143 
 
 inleck then a high-flown euphuistic courtesy, the 
 airiest mincing ways, suitable to your French Seigneur ! 
 How the two divine missions, for both seem to him 
 divine, of Riquetti and Man of Genius or World-school- 
 master, blend themselves ; and philosophism, chivalrous 
 euphuism, presbyterian ruling - elderism, all in such 
 strength, have met, to give the world assurance of a 
 man ! There never entered the brain of Hogarth, or of 
 rare old Ben, such a piece of Humour (high meeting with 
 low, and laughter with tears) as, in this brave old 
 Riquetti, Nature has presented us ready-made. For 
 withal there is such genius in him ; rich depth of cha- 
 racter ; indestructible cheerfulness and health breaking 
 out, in spite of these divorce-papers, ever and anon, — 
 like strong sunlight in thundery weather. We have 
 heard of the ' strife of Fate with Freewill ' producing 
 Greek Tragedies, but never heard it till now produce 
 such astonishing comico- tragical French Farces. Blessed 
 old Marquis, — or else accursed ! He is there, with his 
 broad bull-brow ; with the huge cheek-bones ; those deep 
 eyes, glazed as in weariness ; the lower visage puckered 
 into a simpering graciosity, which would pass itself off 
 for a kind of smile. What to do with him } Welcome, 
 thou tough old Marquis, with thy better and thy worse ! 
 There is stuff in thee (very diff^erent from moonshine 
 and formula) ; and stuff is stuff, were it never so 
 crabbed. 
 
 Besides the old Marquis de Mirabeau, there is a 
 Brother, the Bailli de Mirabeau : a man who, serving as 
 Knight of Malta, governing in Guadaloupe, fighting and 
 doing hard sea-duty, has sown his wild oats long since ; 
 and settled down here, in the old * Castle of Mirabeau 
 
144 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 on its sheer rock ' (for the Marquis usually lives at Big- 
 non, another estate within reach of Paris), into one of 
 the worthiest quiet uncles and house -friends. It is very- 
 beautiful, this mild strength, mild clearness and justice 
 of the brave BaiUi, in contrast with his brother's no- 
 dosity ; whom he comforts, defends, admonishes, even 
 rebukes ; and on the whole reverences, both as head 
 Riquetti and as World- schoolmaster, beyond all living 
 men. The frank true love of these two brothers is the 
 fairest feature in Mirabeaudom ; indeed the only feature 
 which is always fair. Letters pass continually: in letter 
 and extract we here, from time to time, witness (in these 
 Eight chaotic Volumes) the various personages speak 
 their dialogue, unfold their farce -tragedy. The Fils 
 Adoptif admits mankind into this strange household ; 
 though stingily, uncomfortably, and all in darkness, save 
 for his own capricious dark- lantern. Seen or half-seen, 
 it is a stage ; as the whole world is. What with per- 
 sonages, what with destinies, no stranger house- drama 
 was enacting on the Earth at that time. 
 
 Under such auspices, which were not yet ripened 
 into events and fatalities, but yet were inevitably ripen- 
 ing towards such, did Gabriel Honore, at the Mansion 
 of Bignon, between Sens and Nemours, on the 9th day 
 of March, 1749, first see the light. He was the fifth 
 child ; the second male child ; yet born heir, the first 
 having died in the cradle. A magnificent ' enormous * 
 fellow, as the gossips had to admit, almost wdth terror : 
 the head especially great ; ' two grinders ' in it, already 
 shot ! — Rough -hewn, truly, yet with bulk, with limbs, 
 vigour bidding fair to do honour to the line. The pa- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 145 
 
 ternal Marquis, to whom they said, N'ayez pas peur, 
 Don't be frightened," gazed joyful, we can fancy, and 
 not fearful, on this product of his ; the stiff pedant fea- 
 tures relaxing into a veritable smile. Smile, O paternal 
 Marquis : the future indeed ' veils sorrow and joy,' one 
 knows not in what proportion ; but here is a new Ri- 
 quetti, whom the gods send; with the rudiments in him, 
 thou wouldst guess, of a very Hercules, fit for Twelve 
 Labours, which surely are themselves the best joys. 
 Look at the oaf, how he sprawls. No stranger Riquetti 
 ever sprawled under our Sun : it is as if, in this thy 
 man-child. Destiny had swept together all the wild- 
 nesses and strengths of the Riquetti lineage, and flung 
 him forth as her finale in that kind. Not without a 
 vocation ! He is the last of the Riquettis ; and shall do 
 work long memorable among mortals. 
 
 Truly, looking now into the matter, we might say, 
 in spite of the gossips, that on this whole Planet, in those 
 years, there was hardly bom such a man-child as this 
 same, in the * Mansion-house of Bignon, not far from 
 Paris,' whom they named Gabriel Honore. Nowhere, 
 we say, came there a stouter or braver into this Earth ; 
 whither they come marching by the legion and the 
 myriad, out of Eternity and Night ! — Except, indeed, 
 what is notable enough, one other that arrived some few 
 months later, at the town of Frankfort on the Maine, 
 and got christened Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Then, 
 again, in some ten years more, there came another, still 
 liker Gabriel Honore in his brawny ways. It was into 
 a mean hut that this one came, an infirm hut (which 
 the wind blew down at the time), in the shire of Ayr, 
 in Scotland : him they named Robert Burns, These, in 
 
 VOL. V. H 
 
146 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 that epoch, were the Well-born of the World; by whom 
 the world's history was to be carried on. Ah, could the 
 well-born of the world be always rightly bred, rightly 
 entreated there, what a world were it ! But it is not 
 so ; it is the reverse of so. And then few, like that 
 Frankfort one, can peaceably vanquish the world, with 
 its black imbroglios ; and shine above it, in serene 
 help to it, like a sun ! The most can but Titanically 
 vanquish it, or be vanquished by it : hence, instead 
 of light (stillest and strongest of things), we have but 
 lightning ; red fire, and oftentimes conflagrations, which 
 are very woful. 
 
 Be that as it might, Marquis Mirabeau determined 
 to give his son, and heir of all the Riquettis, such an 
 education as no Riquetti had yet been privileged with. 
 Being a world- schoolmaster (and indeed a Martinus 
 Scriblerus, as we here find, more ways than one), this 
 was not strange in him ; but the results were very la- 
 mentable. Considering the matter now, at this impar- 
 tial distance, you are lost in wonder at the good Marquis; 
 know not whether to laugh at him, or weep over him ; 
 and on the whole are bound to do both. A more suflfi- 
 cient product of Nature than this ' enormous Gabriel,* 
 as we said, need not have been wished for : * beating his 
 nurse,' but then loving her, and loving the whole world ; 
 of large desire, truly, but desire towards all things, the 
 highest and the lowest : in other words, a large mass of 
 life in him, a large man waiting there ! Does he not 
 rummage (the rough cub, now tenfold rougher by the 
 effect of small-pox) in all places, seeking something to 
 know ; dive down to the most unheard-of recesses for 
 papers to read } Does he not, spontaneously, give his 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 147 
 
 hat to a peasant-boy whose head -gear was defective ? 
 He writes the most sagacious things, in his fifth year, 
 extempore, at table ; setting forth what * Monsieur Moi, 
 Mr. Me,' is bound to do. A rough strong genuine soul, 
 of the frankest open temper; full of loving fire and 
 strength ; looking out so brisk with his clear hazel eyes, 
 with his brisk sturdy bulk, w^hat might not fair breeding 
 have done for him ! On so many occasions, one feels 
 as if he needed nothing in the world but to be well let 
 alone. 
 
 But no ; the scientific paternal hand must interfere, 
 at every turn, to assist Nature : the young lion's-whelp 
 has to grow up all bestrapped, bemuzzled in the most 
 extraordinary manner : shall wax and unfold himself by 
 theory of education, by square and rule, — going punc- 
 tual, all the way, like Harrison Clockwork, according 
 to the theoretic program ; or else — ! O Marquis, 
 World- schoolmaster, what theory of education is this ? 
 No lion's- whelp or young Mirabeau will go like clock- 
 work, but far otherwise. ' He that spare th the rod 
 hateth the child ;' that on its side is true ; and yet Na- 
 ture, too, is strong ; * Nature will come running back, 
 though thou expel her with a fork !' In one point of 
 view there is nothing more Hogarthian comic than this 
 long Peter Peebles' ganging plea of * Marquis Mirabeau 
 versus Nature and others :' yet in a deeper point of view 
 it is but too serious. Candid history will say that what- 
 soever of worst it was in the power of art to do, against 
 this young Gabriel Honore, was done. Not with un- 
 kind intentions ; nay, with intentions which, at least, 
 began in kindness. How much better was Burns's edu- 
 cation (though this too went on under the grimmest 
 
148 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 pressures), on the wild hill- side, by the brave peasant's 
 hearth, with no theory of education at all, but poverty, 
 toil, tempest, and the handles of the plough ! 
 
 At bottom, the Marquis's wish and purpose was not 
 complex, but simple. That Gabriel Honore de Riquetti 
 shall become the very same man that Victor de Riquetti 
 is ; perfect as he is perfect : this will satisfy the fond 
 father's heart, and nothing short of this. Better exem- 
 plar, truly, were hard to find; and yet, O Victor de 
 Riquetti, poor Gabriel, on his side, wishes to be Gabriel 
 and not Victor ! StifFer loving Pedant never had a more 
 elastic loving Pupil. Offences (of mere elasticity, mere 
 natural springing-up, for most part) accumulate by 
 addition : Madame Pailly and the confidential servants, 
 on this as on all matters, are busy. The household 
 itself is darkening, the mistress of it gone ; the Law- 
 suits, and by-and-by Divorce- Lawsuits, have begun. 
 Worse will grow worse, and ever worse, till Rhadaman- 
 thus-Scriblerus Marquis de Mirabeau, swaying vainly 
 the sceptre of order, see himself environed by a waste 
 chaos as of Bedlam. Stiff is he ; elastic, and yet still 
 loving, reverent, is his son and pupil. Thus cruelty, 
 and yearnings that must be suppressed; indignant re- 
 volt, and hot tears of penitence, alternate, in the strangest 
 way, between the two ; and for long years our young 
 Alcides has, by Destiny, his own Demon, and Juno de 
 Pailly, Labours enough imposed on him. 
 
 But, to judge what a task was set this poor paternal 
 Marquis, let us listen to the following successive utter- 
 ances from him ; which he emits, in letter after letter, 
 mostly into the ear of his Brother the good Bailli. 
 Cluck, cluck, — is it not as the sound of an agitated 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 149 
 
 parent-fowl, now in terror, now in anger, at the brood it 
 has brought out ? 
 
 ' This creature promises to be a very pretty subject.' ' Ta- 
 lent in plenty, and cleverness, but more faults still inherent 
 in the substance of him.' ' Onl}^ just come into life, and the 
 extravasation (extravasement) of the thing already visible ! 
 A spirit cross-grained, fantastic, iracund, incompatible, tend- 
 ing towards evil before knowing it, or being capable of it.' 
 ' A high heart under the jacket of a boy ; it has a strange 
 instinct of pride this creature ; noble withal ; the embryo of 
 a shaggy-headed bully and killcow, that would swallow all 
 tbe world, and is not twelve years old yet.' ' A type, pro- 
 foundly inconceivable, of baseness, sheer dull grossness (pla- 
 titude absolue), and the quality of your dirty, rough-crusted 
 caterpillar, that will never uncrust itself or fly.' ' An intel- 
 ligence, a memory, a capacity, that strike you, that astonish, 
 that frighten you.' ' A nothing bedizened with crotchets. 
 May fling dust in the eyes of silly women, but will never be 
 the fourth part of a man, if by good luck he be anything.' 
 * One whom you may call ill-born, this elder lad of mine ; 
 who bodes, at least hitherto, as if he could become nothing 
 but a madman : almost invincibly maniac, with all the vile 
 qualities of the maternal stock over and above. As he has 
 a great many masters, and all, from the confessor to the 
 comrade, are so many reporters for me, I see the nature of 
 the beast, and don't think we shall ever do any good with 
 him.' 
 
 In a word, offences (of elasticity or expansivity) have 
 accumulated to such height, in the lad*s fifteenth year, 
 that there is a determination taken, on the part of Rha- 
 damanthus-Scriblerus, to pack him out of doors, one 
 way or the other. After various plannings, the plan of 
 one Abbe Choquenard's Boarding-school is fallen upon : 
 the rebellious Expansive shall to Paris ; there, under 
 
150 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ferula and short-commons, contract himself and consider. 
 Farther, as the name Mirabeau is honourable and right 
 honourable, he shall not have the honour of it ; never 
 again, but be called Pierre Buffiere, till his ways de- 
 cidedly alter. This Pierre Bvffiere was the name of an 
 estate of his mother's in the Limousin : sad fuel of those 
 smoking lawsuits which at length blazed out as divorce- 
 lawsuits. Wearing this melancholy nickname of Peter 
 Bufliere, as a perpetual badge, had poor Gabriel Honore 
 to go about for a number of years ; like a misbehaved 
 soldier with his eyebrows shaven off ; alas, only a fif- 
 teen years' recruit yet, too young for that ! 
 
 Nevertheless, named or shorn of his name, Peter or 
 Gabriel, the youth himself was still there. At Choque- 
 nard's Boarding-school, as always afterwards in life, he 
 carries with him, he unfolds and employs, the qualities 
 which Nature gave, which no shearing or shaving of art 
 and mistreatment could take away. The Fits Adoptif 
 gives a grand list of studies followed, acquisitions made ; 
 ancient languages (' and we have a thousand proofs of 
 his indefatigable tenacity in this respect ') ; modern 
 languages, English, Italian, German, Spanish ; then 
 ' passionate study of mathematics ;' design, pictorial and 
 geometrical ; music, so as to read it at sight, nay to 
 compose in it ; singing, to a high degree ; * equitation, 
 fencing, dancing, swimming, and tennis if only the 
 half of which were true, can we say that Pierre Buffiere 
 spent his time ill ? What is more precisely certain, the 
 disgraced Buffiere worked his way very soon into the 
 good affections of all and sundry, in this House of Dis- 
 cipline, who came in contact with him ; school- fellows, 
 teachers, the Abbe Choquenard himself. For, said the 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 151 
 
 paternal Marquis, he has the tongue of the Old Serpent! 
 In fact, it is very notable how poor Bufiiere, Comte de 
 Mirabeau, revolutionary King Riquetti, or whatever else 
 they might call him, let him come, under what discom- 
 mendation he might, into any circle of men, was sure to 
 make them his erelong. To the last, no man could 
 look into him with his own eyes, and continue to hate 
 him. He could talk men over, then ? Yes, O Reader : 
 and he could act men over ; for, at bottom, that was it. 
 The large open soul of the man, purposing deliberately 
 no paltry, unkindly, or dishonest thing towards any 
 creature, was felt to be withal a brother's soul. Defaced 
 by black drossy obscurations very many ; but yet shining 
 out, lustrous, warm ; in its troublous effulgence, great ! 
 That a man be loved the better by men the nearer they 
 come to him : is not this the fact of all facts ? To know 
 what extent of prudential diplomacy (good, indifferent, 
 and even bad) a man has, ask public opinion, journalistic 
 rumour, or at most the persons he dines with : to know 
 what of real worth is in him, ask infinitely deeper and 
 farther ; ask, first of all, those who have tried by experi- 
 ment ; who, were they the foolishest people, can answer 
 pertinently here if anywhere. ' Those at a distance es- 
 ' teem of me a little worse than I ; those near at hand 
 ' a little better than I so said the good Sir Thomas 
 Browne ; so will all men say who have much to say on 
 that. 
 
 The Choquenard Military Boarding- School having, 
 if not fulfilled its function, yet ceased to be a house of 
 penance, and failed of its function. Marquis Mirabeau 
 determined to try the Army. Nay, it would seem, the 
 wicked mother has been privily sending him money; 
 
152 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 which he, the traitor, has accepted! To the army 
 therefore. And so Pierre Buffiere has a basnet on his 
 big head ; the shaggy pock-pitted visage looks martially 
 from under horse-hair and clear metal ; he dresses rank, 
 with tight bridle-hand and drawn falchion, in the town 
 of Saintes, as a bold volunteer dragoon. His age was 
 but eighteen as yet, and some months. 
 
 The people of Saintes grew to like him amazingly ; 
 would even ' have lent him money to any extent.' His 
 Colonel, one De Lambert, proved to be a martinet, of 
 sharp sour temper ; the shaggy visage of Buffiere, ra- 
 diant through its seaminess with several things, had not 
 altogether the happiness to content him. Furthermore 
 there was an Archer (Bailiff) at Saintes, who had a 
 daughter : she, foolish minx, liked the Buffiere visage 
 better even than the Colonel's ! For one can fancy 
 what a pleader Buffiere was, in this great cause ; with 
 the tongue of the Old Serpent. It was his first amou- 
 rette ; plainly triumphant : the beginning of a quite 
 unheard-of career in that kind. The aggrieved Colonel 
 emitted * satires ' through the mess-rooms ; this bold vo- 
 lunteer dragoon was not the man to give him worse than 
 he brought : matters fell into a very unsatisfactory state 
 between them. To crown the whole, Buffiere went one 
 evening (contrary to wont, now and always) to the 
 gaming-table, and lost four louis. Insubordination, 
 gambling. Archer's daughter ! Rhadamanthus thunders 
 from Bignon : Buffiere doffs his basnet, ffies covertly to 
 Paris. Negotiation there now was ; confidential spy to 
 Saintes ; correspondence, fulminatioii : Dupont de Ne- 
 mours as daysman between a Colonel and a Marquis, 
 both in high wrath, — Buffiere to pay the piper ! Con- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 153 
 
 fidential spy takes evidence ; the whole atrocity comes 
 to Hght : what wilt thou do, O Marquis, with this devil's 
 child of thine ? Send him to Surinam ; let the Tropical 
 heats and rains tame the hot liver of him! — so whis- 
 pered paternal Brutus '-justice and Dame Pailly ; but 
 milder thoughts prevailed. Lettre de Cachet and the 
 Isle of Rhe shall be tried first. Thither fares poor Buf- 
 fiere ; not with Archer's daughters, but with Archers ; 
 amid the dull rustle and autumnal brown of the falling 
 leaves of 1768, his nineteenth autumn. It is his second 
 Hercules' Labour ; the Choquenard Boarding-house was 
 the first. Bemoaned by the loud Atlantic he shall sit 
 there, in winter season, under ward of a Bailli d'Aulan, 
 governor of the place, and said to be a very Cerberus. 
 
 At Rhe the old game is played : in few weeks, the 
 Cerberus Bailli is Buffiere's ; baying, out of all his 
 throats, in Buffiere's behalf! What ' sorcery' is this 
 that the rebellious prodigy has in him, O Marquis ? 
 Hypocrisy, cozenage, which no governor of strong 
 places can resist ? Nothing short of the hot swamps 
 of Surinam will hold him quiet, then ? Happily there 
 is fighting in Corsica ; Paoli fighting on his last legs 
 there ; and Baron de Vaux wants fresh troops against 
 him. Buffiere, though he likes not the cause, will go 
 thither gladly ; and fight his very best : how happy if, 
 by any fighting, he can conquer back his baptismal 
 name, and some gleam of paternal tolerance ! After 
 much soliciting, his prayer is acceded to : Buffiere, with 
 the rank now of ' Sub-lieutenant of Foot, in the Legion 
 of Lorraine,' gets across the country to Toulon, in the 
 month of April ; and enters * on the plain which fur- 
 rows itself without plough' (euphuistic iov ocean) : * God 
 
 H 2 
 
154 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 grant he may not have to row there one day/ — in red 
 cap, as convict galley-slave ! Such is the paternal be- 
 nediction and prayer; which was realized. Nay, Buf- 
 fiere, it would seem, before quitting Rochelle, indeed 
 
 * hardly yet two hours out of the fortress of Rhe,' had 
 fallen into a new atrocity, — his first duel; a certain 
 quondam messmate (discharged for swindling) having 
 claimed acquaintance with him on the streets ; which 
 claim Buffiere saw good to refuse ; and even to resist, 
 when demanded at the sword's point ! The * Corsican 
 Buccaneer, Jlibustier Corse' that he is I 
 
 The Corsican Buccaneer did, as usual, a giant's or 
 two giants' work in Corsica ; fighting, writing, loving ; 
 
 * eight hours a- day of study;' and gained golden opi- 
 -nions from all manner of men and women. It was his 
 
 own notion that Nature had meant him for a soldier ; 
 he felt so equable and at home in that business, — the 
 wreck of discordant death-tumult, and roar of cannon 
 serving as a fine regulatory marching-music for him. 
 Doubtless Nature meant him for a Man of Action ; as 
 she means all great souls that have a strong body to 
 dwell in : but Nature will adjust herself to much. In 
 the course of twelve months, in May, 1770, Buffiere 
 gets back to Toulon ; with much manuscript in his 
 pocket ; his head full of military and all other lore, * like 
 a library turned topsy-turvy ;' his character much risen, 
 as we said, with every one. The brave Bailli Mirabeau, 
 though almost against principle, cannot refuse to see a 
 chief nephew, as he passes so near the old Castle on 
 the Durance : the good uncle is charmed with him ; finds, 
 ' under features terribly seamed and altered from what 
 ' they were,' bodily and mentally all that is royal and 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 155 
 
 strong, nay ' an expression of something refined, some- 
 thing gracious;' declares him, after several days of in- 
 cessant talk, to be the best fellow on earth if well dealt 
 with, ' who will shape into statesman, generalissimo, 
 pope, what thou pleasest to desire ! ' Or, shall we give 
 poor Buffiere*s testimonial in mess-room dialect ; in its 
 native twanging vociferosity, and garnished with old 
 oaths, — which, alas, have become for us almost old 
 prayers now, — the vociferous Moustachio-figures, whom 
 they twanged through, having all vanished so long 
 since : " Morbleu, Monsieur VAhhe-, c'est un gar^oriy 
 diahlement vif; mats c'est un hon garcon, qui a de V esprit 
 comme trois cent mille diahles ; et parbleu, un homme tres 
 brave.'* 
 
 Moved by all manner of testimonials and entreaties 
 from uncle and family, the rigid Marquis consents, not 
 without difficulty, so see this anomalous Peter Buffiere 
 of his ; and then, after solemn deliberation, even to 
 un- Peter him, and give him back his name. It was in 
 September that they met ; at Aiguesperse, in the Limou- 
 sin near the lands of Pierre Buffiere, Soft ruth comes 
 stealing through the Rhadamanthine heart ; tremblings 
 of faint hope even, which, however, must veil itself in 
 austerity and rigidity. The Marquis writes : ' I pero- 
 
 * rate him very much;' observe ' my man, how he droops 
 
 * his nose, and looks fixedly, a sign that he is reflecting ; 
 
 * or whirls away his head, hiding a tear : serious, now 
 
 * mild, now severe, we give it him alternately ; it is thus 
 ' I manage the mouth of this fiery animal.' Had he but 
 read the EphemMdes, the Economiques, the Precis des 
 Elemens (* the most laboured book I have done, though 
 I wrote it in such health') ; had he but got grounded in 
 
156 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 my Political Economy ! Which, however, he does not 
 take to with any heart. On the contrary, he unhappily 
 finds it hollow, pragmatical, a barren jingle of formulas ; 
 pedantic even ; unnutritive as the east wind. Blasphe- 
 mous words ; which (or the like of them) any eaves- 
 dropper has but to report to * the Master!' — And yet, 
 after all, is it not a brave Gabriel this rough-built young 
 Hercules ; and has finished handsomely his Second La- 
 bour ? The head of the fellow is ' a wind-mill and fire- 
 mill of ideas.' The War- office makes him captain, and 
 he is passionate for following soldiership : but then, un- 
 luckily, your Alexander needs such tools ; a whole world 
 for workshop ! * Where are the armies and herring- 
 
 * shoals of men to come from } Does he think I have 
 
 * money,' snuffles the old Marquis, * to get him up 
 
 * battles like Harlequin and Scaramouch ? ' The fool ! 
 he shall settle down into rurality ; first, however, though 
 it is a risk, see a little of Paris. 
 
 At Paris, through winter, the brave Gabriel carries 
 all before him ; shines in saloons, in the Versailles CEil- 
 de-Boeuf; dines witb your Duke of Orleans (young Char- 
 tres, not yet become Egalite, hob-nobbing with him) ; 
 dines with your Guemenes, Broglies, and mere Gran- 
 deurs ; and is invited to hunt. Even the old women are 
 charmed with him, and rustle in their satins : such a 
 light has not risen in the CEil-de-Boeuf for some while. 
 Grant, O Marquis, that there are worse sad-dogs than 
 this. The Marquis grants partially ; and yet, and yet ! 
 Few things are notabler than these successive surveys by 
 the old Marquis, critically scanning his young Count : 
 
 ' I am on my guard ; remembering how vivacity of heaci 
 may deceive you as to a character of morass {de tourhe) : but. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 157 
 
 all considered, one must give him store of exercise ; what the 
 devil else to do with such exuberance, intellectual and sangui- 
 neous ? I know no woman but the Empress of Russia with 
 whom this man were good to marry yet.' ' Hard to find a 
 dog {drole) that had more talent and action in the head of 
 him than this ; he would reduce the devil to terms.' ' Thy 
 nephew Whirlwind {VOuragan) assists me; yesterday the 
 valet Luce, who is a sort of privileged simpleton, said plea- 
 santly. Confess, M. le Comte, a man's body is very un- 
 happy to carry a head like that." ' ' The terrible gift of 
 familiarity (as Pope Gregory called it) ! He turns the great 
 people here round his finger.* — Or again, though all this is 
 some years afterwards : ' They have never done telling me 
 that he is easy to set a-rearing ; that 3^ou cannot speak to 
 him reproachfully but his eyes, his lips, his colour testify 
 that all is giving way ; on the other hand, the smallest word 
 of tenderness will make him burst into tears, and he would 
 fling himself into the fire for you.' * 1 pass my life in cram- 
 ming him (a le hourrer) with principles, with all that I know ; 
 for this man, ever the same as to his fundamental properties, 
 has done nothing by these long and solid studies but augment 
 the rubbish-heap in his head, which is a library turned topsy- 
 turvy ; and then his talent for dazzling by superficials, for he 
 has swallowed all formulas, and cannot substantiate anything.* 
 * A wicker-basket, that lets all through ; disorder born ; cre- 
 dulous as a nurse; indiscreet; a liar' (kind of white liar), 
 ' by exaggeration, affirmation, effrontery, without need, and 
 merely to tell histories ; a confidence that dazzles you on 
 everything ; cleverness and talent without limit. For the 
 rest, the vices have infinitely less root in him than the virtues ; 
 all is facility, impetuosity, ineff'ectuality (not for want of fire, 
 but of plan) \ wrong-spun, ravelled {defaufile ) in character : 
 a mind that meditates in the vague, and builds of soap-bells.' 
 ' Spite of the bitter ugliness, the intercadent step, the trench- 
 ant breathless blown- up precipitation, and the look, or, to 
 
158 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 say better, the atrocious eyebrow of this man when he listens 
 and reflects, something told me that it was all but a scare- 
 crow of old cloth, this ferocious outward garniture of his ; 
 that, at bottom, here was perhaps the man in all France least 
 capable of deliberate wickedness.' ' Pie and jay by instinct/ 
 ' Wholly reflex and reverberance {tout de reflet et de rever- 
 here) ; drawn to the right by his heart, to the left by his 
 head, which he carries four paces from him/ ' May become 
 the Coryphseus of the Time.' ' A blinkard (myope) precipit- 
 ancy, born with him, which makes him take the quagmire 
 for firm earth — ' 
 
 — Cluck, cluck, — in the name of all the gods, what 
 prodigy is this I have hatched ? Web -footed, broad- 
 billed ; which will run and drown itself, if Mercy and 
 the parent-fowl prevent not ! 
 
 How inexpressibly true, meanwhile, is this that the 
 old Marquis says : * He has swallowed all formulas (il a 
 hume toutes les formules)' and made away with them ! 
 Formulas, indeed, if we think of it, Formulas and Gabriel 
 Honore had been, and were to be, at death-feud from first 
 to last. What formula of this formalized (established) 
 world had been a kind one to Gabriel ? His soul could 
 find no shelter in them, they were unbelievable ; his body 
 no solacement, they were tyrannical, unfair. If there 
 were not pabuhim and substance beyond formulas, and 
 in spite of them, then wo to him ! To this man formulas 
 would yield no existence or habitation, if it were not in 
 the Isle of Rhe and such places ; but threatened to choke 
 the life out of him : either formulas or he must go to the 
 wall ; and so, after a tough fight, they, as it proves, will 
 go. So cunningly thrifty is Destiny ; and is quietly 
 shaping her tools for the work they are to do, while she 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 159 
 
 seems but spoiling and breaking them ! For, consider, O 
 Marquis, whether France herself will not, by-and-by, 
 have to swallow a formula or two ? This sight thou 
 lookest on from the baths of Mount d'Or, does it not 
 bode something of that kind ? A summer day in the 
 year 1777 : 
 
 ' O Madame ! the narrations I would give you, if I had 
 not a score of letters to answer, on dull sad business ! I 
 would paint to you the votive feast of this town, which took 
 place on the 14th. The savages descending in torrents from 
 the Mountains, — our people ordered not to stir out. The 
 curate with surplice and stole ; public justice in periwig ; 
 Marechausse, sabre in hand, guarding the place, before the 
 bagpipes were permitted to begin. The dance interrupted, 
 a quarter of an hour after, by battle ; the cries and fierce 
 hissings of the children, of the infirm, and other onlookers, 
 ogling it, tarring it on, as the mob does when dogs fight. 
 Frightful men, or rather wild creatures of the forest, in 
 coarse woollen jupes and broad girths of leather, studded 
 with copper nails ; of gigantic stature, heightened by the 
 high sabots ; rising still higher on tip-toe, to look at the 
 battle ; beating time to it ; rubbing their sides with their 
 elbows : their face haggard, covered with their long greasy 
 hair ; top of the visage waxing pale, bottom of it twisting 
 itself into the rudiments of a cruel laugh, a ferocious im- 
 patience. — And these people pay the' taille! And you want 
 to take from them their salt too ! And you know not what 
 you strip bare, or, as you call it, govern ; what, with the 
 heedless, cowardly squirt of your pen, you will think you 
 can continue stripping with impunity forever, till the Cata- 
 strophe come ! Such sights recall deep thoughts to one. 
 " Poor Jean-Jacques 1" I said to myself : " they that sent 
 thee, and thy System, to copy music among such a People as 
 these same, have confuted thy System but ill!" But, on the 
 
160 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 other hand, these thoughts were consolatory for a man who 
 has all his life preached the necessity of solacing the poor, of 
 universal instruction ; who has tried to shew what such in- 
 struction and such solacement ought to be, if it would form 
 a barrier (the sole possible barrier) between oppression and 
 revolt ; the sole but the infallible treaty of peace between 
 the high and the low ! Ah, Madame ! this government by 
 blind-man's-buff, stumbling along too far, will end by the 
 
 GENERAL OVERTURN.' 
 
 Prophetic Marquis! — Might other nations listen to 
 thee better than France did : for it concerns them all ! 
 But now is it not curious to think how the whole world 
 naight have gone so differently, but for this very pro- 
 phet ? Had the young Mirabeau had a father as other 
 men have ; or even no father at all ! Consider him, in 
 that case, rising by natural gradation, by the rank, the 
 opportunity, the irrepressible buoyant faculties he had, 
 step after step, to official place, — to the chief official 
 place ; as in a time when Turgots, Neckers, and men of 
 ability, were grown indispensable, he was sure to have 
 done. By natural witchery he bewitches Marie Antoi- 
 nette ; her most of all, with her quick susceptive in- 
 stincts, her quick sense for whatever was great and 
 noble, her quick hatred for whatever was but pedantic, 
 Neckerish, Fayettish, and pretending to be great. King 
 Louis is a nullity ; happily then reduced to be one : 
 there would then have been at the summit of France the 
 one French Man who could have grappled with that 
 great Question ; w^ho, yielding and refusing, managing, 
 guiding, and, in short, seeing and daring what was to 
 be done, had perhaps saved France her Revolution ; re- 
 making her by peaceabler methods ! But to the Su- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 161 
 
 preme Powers it seemed not so. Once after a thousand 
 years all nations were to see the great Conflagration 
 and Self-combustion of a Nation, — and learn from it if 
 they could. And now, for a Swallower of Formulas, 
 was there a better schoolmaster in the world than this 
 very Friend of Men ; a better education conceivable 
 than this which Alcides-Mirabeau had ? Trust in Hea- 
 ven, good reader, for the fate of nations, for the fall of a 
 sparrow. 
 
 Gabriel Honore has acquitted himself so well in 
 Paris, turning the great people round his thumb, with 
 that 'fond gaillardy basis of gaiety,' with that ' terrible 
 don de la familiarite ; with those ways he has. Neither, 
 in the quite opposite Man-of- business department, when 
 summer comes and rurality with it, is he found wanting. 
 In the summer of the year, the old Friend of Men de- 
 spatches him to the Limousin, to his own estate of Pierre 
 Buffiere, or his wife's own estate (under the law-balance 
 about this time), to see whether anything can be done 
 for men there. Much is to be done there ; the Peasants, 
 short of all things, even of victuals, here as everywhere, 
 wear * a settled souffre-douleur (pain- stricken) look, as 
 
 * if they reckoned that the pillage of men was an in- 
 
 * evitable ordinance of Heaven, to be put up with like 
 ' the wind and the hail.' Here, in the solitude of the 
 Limousin, Gabriel is still Gabriel : he rides, he writes, 
 and runs ; eats out of the poor people's pots ; speaks 
 to them, redresses them ; institutes a court of Villager 
 
 * prudhommes, good men and true,' — once more carries 
 all before him. Confess, O Rhadaman thine Marquis, 
 we say again, that there are worse sad- dogs than this ! 
 
162 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 * He is/ confesses the Marquis, * the Demon of the 
 Impossible, le demon de la chose impossible.* Most true 
 this also : impossible is a word not in his dictionary. 
 Thus the same Gabriel Honore, long afterwards (as 
 Dumont will witness), orders his secretary to do some 
 miracle or other, miraculous within the time. The secre- 
 tary answers, " Monsieur, it is impossible." " Impos- 
 sible answers Gabriel : *' Ne me dites jamais ce b^te 
 de mot, Never name to me that blockhead of a word !'* 
 Really, one would say, a good feUow, were he well 
 dealt with, — though still broad-billed, and with latent 
 tendencies to take the water. The following otherwise 
 insignificant Letter, addressed to the Bailli, seems to us 
 worth copying. Is not his young Lordship, if still in the 
 dandy- state and style- of- mockery, very handsome in it ; 
 standing there in the snow ? It is of date December, 
 1771, and far onwards on the road towards Mirabeau 
 Castle : 
 
 ' Fracti bello satisque repulsi ductores Danaum : here, dear 
 uncle, is a beginning in good Latin, which means that I am 
 broken with fatigue, not having, this whole week, slept more 
 than sentinels do ; and sounding, at the same time, with the 
 wheels of my vehicle, most of the ruts and jolts that lie 
 between Paris and Marseilles. Ruts deep and numerous. 
 Moreover, ray axle broke between Mucreau, Romane, Cham- 
 bertin, and Beaune; the centre of four Wine districts : what 
 a geographical point, if I had had the wit to be a drunkard ! 
 The mischief happened towards five in the evening; my 
 lackey had gone on before. There fell nothing at the time 
 but melted snow ; happily it afterwards took some consist- 
 ency. The neighbourhood of Beaune made me hope to find 
 genius in the natives of the country : I had need of good 
 counsel ; the devil counselled me at first to swear, but that 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 163 
 
 whim passed, and I fell by preference into the temptation of 
 laughing ; for a holy priest came jogging up, wrapt to the 
 chin ; against the blessed visage of whom the sleet was beat- 
 ing, which made him cut so singular a face, that I think this 
 was the thing drove me from swearing. The holy man in- 
 quired, seeing my chaise on its beam-ends, and one of the 
 wheels wanting, whether anything had befallen ? I answered, 
 there was nothing falling here but snow." Ah,'^ said 
 he, ingeniously, "it is your chaise, then, that is broken.*' 
 I admired the sagacity of the man, and begged him to double 
 his pace, with his horse's permission (who was also making 
 a pleasant expression of countenance, as the snow beat on 
 his nose) ; and to be so good as give notice at Chaigny that 
 I was there. He assured me he would tell it to the post- 
 mistress herself, she being his cousin ; that she was a very 
 amiable woman, married three years ago to one of the 
 honestest men of the place, nephew to the king's procureur 
 
 at : in fine, after giving me all the outs and ins of 
 
 himself, the curate, of his cousin, his cousin's husband, and 
 I know not whom more, he was pleased to give the spurs to 
 his horse, which thereupon gave a grunt, and went on. I 
 forgot to tell you that I had sent the postilion off to Mu- 
 creau, which he knew the road to, for he went thither daily, 
 he said, to have a glass ; a thing I could well believe, or even 
 two glasses. The man was but tipsified when he went ; 
 happily, when he returned, which was very late, he was 
 drunk. I walked sentry : several Beaune men passed, all 
 of whom asked me, if anything had befallen ? I answered 
 one of them, that it was an experiment ; that I had been sent 
 from Paris to see whether a chaise would run with one 
 wheel ; mine had come so far, but I was going to write that 
 two wheels were preferable. At this moment my worthy 
 friend struck his shin against the other wheel ; clapped 
 his hand on the hurt place ; swore, as I had near done ; 
 and then said, smiling, Ah, Monsieur, there is the other 
 
164 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 wheel!" ''The devil there is!" said I, as if astonished. 
 Another, after examining long, with a very capable air, 
 informed me, Mafoi, Monsieur ! it is'your em" (meaning 
 essieUf or axle) "that is broken."' 
 
 Mirabeau*s errand to Provence, in this winter-season, 
 was several-fold. To look after the Mirabeau estates ; 
 to domesticate himself among his people and peers in 
 that region ; — perhaps to choose a wife. Lately, as we 
 saw, the old Marquis could think of none suitable, if 
 it were not the Empress Catherine. But Gabriel has 
 ripened astonishingly since that, under this sunshine of 
 paternal favour, — the first gleam of such weather he has 
 ever lad. Short of the Empress, it w^ere very well to 
 marry, the Marquis now thinks, provided your bride had 
 money. A bride, not with money, yet with connexions, 
 expectations, is found ; and by stormy eloquence (Mar- 
 quis seconding) is carried : wo worth the hour ! Her 
 portrait, by the seconding Marquis himself, is not very 
 captivating : ' Marie-Emilie de Covet, only daughter of 
 
 * the Marquis de Marignane, in her eighteenth year 
 
 * then ; she had a very ordinary face, even a vulgar one 
 
 * at the first glance ; brown, nay almost tawny (mauri- 
 ' caud) ; fine eyes, fine hair ; teeth not good, but a 
 
 * prettyish continual smile ; figure small, but agreeable, 
 
 * though leaning a little to one side ; shewed great 
 
 * sprightliness of mind, ingenuous, adroit, delicate, 
 
 * lively, sportful ; one of the most essentially pretty 
 ' characters.' This brown, almost tawny little woman, 
 much of a fool too, Mirabeau gets to wife, on the 2 2d 
 of June, 1772. With her, and with a pension of 3,000 
 francs from his father-in-law, and one of 6,000 from his 
 own father (say 500/. in all), and rich expectancies, he 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 165 
 
 shall sit down, in the bottom of Provence, by his own 
 hired hearth, in the town of Aix, and bless Heaven. 
 
 Candour will admit that this young Alexander, just 
 beginning his twenty-fourth year, might grumble a 
 little, seeing only one such world to conquer. How- 
 ever, he had his books, he had his hopes ; health, fa- 
 culty ; a Universe (whereof even the town of Aix formed 
 part) all rich with fruit and forbidden-fruit round him ; 
 the unspeakable ' seed-field of Time ' wherein to sow : 
 he said to himself. Go to, I will be wise. And yet 
 human nature is frail. One can judge too, whether the 
 old Marquis, now coming into decided lawsuit with his 
 wife, was of a humour to forgive peccadilloes. The 
 terrible, hoarsely calm, Rhadamanthine way in which 
 he expresses himself on this matter of the lawsuit to 
 his Brother, and enjoins silence from all mortals but 
 him, might affect weak nerves ; wherefore, contrary to 
 purpose, we omit it. O just Marquis ! In fact, the 
 Riquetti household, at this time, can do little for frail 
 human nature ; except, perhaps, make it fall faster. The 
 Riquetti household is getting scattered ; not always led 
 asunder, but driven and hurled asunder : the tornado 
 times for it have begun. One daughter is Madame 
 du Saillant (still living), a judicious sister : another is 
 Madame de Cabris, not so judicious ; for, indeed, her 
 husband has lawsuits, — owing to ' defamatory couplets* 
 proceeding from him ; she gets ' insulted on the public 
 promenade of Grasse,' by a certain Baron de Villeneuve- 
 Moans, whom some defamatory couplet had touched 
 upon; — all the parties in the business being fools. 
 Nay, poor woman, she by-and-by, we find, takes up 
 with preternuptial persons ; with a certain Brianson in 
 
166 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 epaulettes, described candidly, by the Fils Adoptif, as 
 ' a man who' — is not fit to be described. 
 
 A young heir- apparent of all the Mirabeaus is re- 
 quired to make some figure ; especially in marrying him- 
 self. The present young heir- apparent has nothing to 
 make a figure with but bare five hundred a-year, and 
 very considerable debts. Old Mirabeau is hard as the 
 Mosaic rock, and no wand proves miraculous on him ; for 
 trousseaus, cadeaus, foot- washings, festivities, and house- 
 heatings, he does simply not yield one sous. The heir 
 must himself yield them. He does so, and handsomely: 
 but, alas, the five hundred a-year, and very considerable 
 debts? Quit Aix and dinner - giving ; retire to the old 
 Chateau in the gorge of two valleys ! Devised and 
 done. But now, a young Wife used to the delicacies of 
 life, ought she not to have some suite of rooms done up 
 for her ? Upholsterers hammer and furbish ; with effect ; 
 not without bills. Then the very considerable Jew- 
 debts ! Poor Mirabeau sees nothing for it, but to run 
 to the father-in-law with tears in his eyes ; and conjure 
 him to make those ' rich expectations' in some measure 
 fruitions. Forty thousand francs ; to such length will 
 the father-in-law, moved by these tears, by this fire- 
 eloquence, table ready money; provided old Marquis 
 Mirabeau, who has some provisional reversionary in- 
 terest in the thing, will grant quittance. Old Marquis 
 Mirabeau, written to in the most impassioned persuasive 
 manner, answers by a letter, of the sort they call Sealed 
 Letter (Lettre de Cachet), ordering the impassioned Per- 
 suasive, under his Majesty's hand and seal, to bundle 
 into Coventry, as we should say, into Manosque, as the 
 Sealed Letter says ! — Farewell, thou old Chateau, with 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 167 
 
 thy upholstered rooms, on thy sheer rock, by the angry- 
 flowing Durance : welcome, thou miserable little borough 
 of Manosque, since hither Fate drives us ! In Manosque, 
 too, a man can live, and read ; can write an Essai sur le 
 Despotisme (and have it printed in Switzerland, 1774); 
 full of fire and rough vigour, and still worth reading. 
 
 The Essay on Despotism, with so little of the 
 Ephemerides and Quesnay in it, could find but a hard 
 critic in the old Marquis ; snuffling out something 
 (one fancies) about ' Reflex and reverberance ; ' for- 
 mulas getting swallowed ; rash hairbrain treating mat- 
 ters that require age and gravity; — however, let it 
 pass. Unhappily there came other offences. A certain 
 gaw^k, named Chevalier de Gassaud, accustomed to visit 
 in the house at Manosque, sees good to commence a 
 kind of theoretic flirtation with the little brown Wife, 
 which she theoretically sees good to return. Billet 
 meets billet ; glance follows glance, crescendo allegro ; — 
 till the Husband opens his lips, volcano-like, with a pro- 
 posal to kick Chevalier de Gassaud out of doors. Che- 
 valier de Gassaud goes unkicked, but not without some 
 explosion or eclat : there is like to be a duel ; only that 
 Gassaud, knowing what a sword this Riquetti wears, 
 will not fight ; and his father has to plead and beg. 
 Generous Count, kill not my poor son : alas, already 
 this most lamentable explosion itself has broken off* the 
 finest marriage- settlement, and now the family will not 
 hear of him ! The generous Count, so pleaded with, 
 not only flings the duel to the winds, but gallops ofl^, 
 forgetful of the Lettre de Cachet , half desperate, to plead 
 with the marriage-family; to preach with them, and 
 pray, till they have taken poor Gassaud into favour 
 
168 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 again. Prosperous in this, for nothing can resist such 
 pleading, he may now ride home more leisurely, with the 
 consciousness of a right action for once. 
 
 As we hint, this ride of his lies beyond the limits 
 fixed in the royal Sealed Letter ; but no one surely will 
 mind it, no one will report it. A beautiful summer 
 evening : O poor Gabriel, it is the last peaceably pro- 
 sperous ride thou shalt have for long, — perhaps almost 
 ever in the world ! For lo ! who is this that comes cur- 
 ricling through the level yellow sun-light ; like one of 
 Respectability, keeping his gig ? By Day and Night ! 
 it is that base Baron, deVilleneuve- Moans, who insulted 
 Sister Cabris in the Promenade of Grasse ! Human na- 
 ture, without time for reflection, is liable to err. The 
 swift-rolling gig is already in contact with one, the 
 horse rearing against your horse ; and you dismount, 
 almost without knowing. Satisfaction which gentlemen 
 expect. Monsieur ! No ? Do I hear rightly No } In 
 that case. Monsieur — And this wild Gabriel (korresco 
 referens !) clutches the respectable Villeneuve-Moans ; 
 and horsewhips him there, not emblematically only, but 
 practically, on the king's highway : seen of some pea- 
 sants ! Here is a message for Rumour to blow abroad. 
 
 Rumour blows, — to Paris as elsewhither : for answer, 
 on the 26th of June, 1774, there arrives a fresh Sealed 
 Letter of more emphasis ; there arrive with it grim 
 catchpoles and their chaise : the Swallower of Formulas, 
 snatched aw^ay from his wife, from his child then dying, 
 from his last shadow of a home, even an exiled home, is 
 trundling towards Marseilles ; towards the Castle of If, 
 which frowns out among the waters in the roadstead 
 there ! Girt with the blue Mediterranean ; within iron 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 169 
 
 stanchions ; cut off from pen, paper, and friends, and 
 men, except the Cerberus of the place, who is charged 
 to be very sharp with him, there shall he sit : such 
 virtue is in a Sealed Letter ; so has the grim old Mar- 
 quis ordered it. Our gleam of sunshine, then, is darken- 
 ing miserably down ? Down, O thou poor Mirabeau, 
 to thick midnight ! Surely Formulas are ail-too cruel 
 on thee : thou art getting really into war with Formulas 
 (terriblest of wars) ; and thou, by God's help and the 
 Devil's, wilt make away with them, — in the terriblest 
 manner ! From this hour, we say, thick and thicker 
 darkness settles round poor Gabriel ; his life-path grow- 
 ing ever painfuller; alas, grovdng ever more devious, 
 beset by ignes faiui, and lights not of Heaven. Such 
 Alcides' Labours have seldom been allotted to any man. 
 
 Check thy hot frenzy, thy hot tears, poor Mirabeau ; 
 adjust thyself as it may be ; for there is no help. Au- 
 tumn becomes loud winter, revives into gentle spring : 
 the waves beat round the Castle of If, at the mouth of 
 Marseilles harbour; girdling in the unhappiest man. 
 No, not the unhappiest : poor Gabriel has such a ' fond 
 gaillard, basis of joy and gaiety there is a deep fiery 
 life in him, which no blackness of destiny can quench. 
 The Cerberus of If, M. Dallegre, relents, as all Cerbe- 
 ruses do with him ; gives paper, gives sympathy and 
 counsel. Nay letters have already been introduced ; 
 * buttoned in some scoundrel's gaiters,' the old Mar- 
 quis says ! On Sister du Saillant's kind letter there 
 fall * tears ;' nevertheless you do not always weep. You 
 do better; write a brave Col d' Argent's Memoirs (quo- 
 ted-from above) ; occupy yourself with projects and 
 efforts. Sometimes, alas, you do worse, though in the 
 
 VOL. V. I 
 
170 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 other direction, — where Canteen-keepers have pretty 
 wives ! A mere peccadillo this of the frail fair Can- 
 tiniere (according to the Fits Adoptif) ; of which too 
 much was made at the time. — Nor are juster consola- 
 tions wanting ; sisters and brothers bidding you be of 
 hope. Our readers have heard Count Mirabeau desig- 
 nated ' as the elder of my lads what if we now exhi- 
 bited the younger for one moment } The Maltese Che- 
 valier de Mirabeau, a rough son of the sea in those days : 
 he also is a sad dog, but has the advantage of not being 
 the elder. He has started from Malta, from a sick-bed, 
 and got hither to Marseilles, in the dead of winter ; the 
 link of Nature drawing him, shaggy sea-monster as he is. 
 
 ' It was a rough wind ; none of the boatmen would leave 
 the quay with me : I induced two of them, more by buUy- 
 ings than by money ; for thou knowest I have no money, 
 and am well furnished, thank God, with the gift of speaking 
 or stuttering. I reach the Castle of If : gates closed ; and 
 the Lieutenant, as M. Dallegre was not there, tells me quite 
 sweetly that I must return as I came. " Not, if you please, 
 till I have seen Gabriel.'' — " It is not allowed.*' — " I will 
 write to him." — " Not that either." — " Then I will wait for 
 M. Dallegre." — " Just so; but for four-and-twenty hours, 
 not more." Whereupon I take my resolution ; I go to La 
 Mouret' (the Canteen-keeper's pretty wife) ; ' we agree that 
 so soon as the tattoo is beat, I shall see this poor devil. I 
 get to him, in fact ; not like a paladin, but like a pickpocket 
 or a gallant, which thou wilt ; and we unbosom ourselves. 
 They had been afraid that he would heat my head to the 
 temperature of his own : Sister Cabris, they do him little 
 justice ; I can assure thee that while he was telling me his 
 story, and when my rage broke out in these words : " Though 
 still weakly, I have two arms, strong enough to break M. 
 Villeneuve-Moans's, or his cowardly persecuting brother's at 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 171 
 
 least/' he said to me, Mon ami, thou wilt ruin us both/' 
 And, I confess, this consideration alone, perhaps, hindered 
 the execution of a project, which could not have profited, 
 which nothing but the fermentation of a head such as mine 
 could excuse/* 
 
 Reader, this tarry young Maltese chevalier is the 
 Vicomte de Mirabeau, or Younger Mirabeau ; whom all 
 men heard of in the Revolution time, — oftenest by the 
 more familiar name of Mirabeau-Tonneau, or Barrel Mi- 
 rabeau, from his bulk, and the quantity of drink he 
 usually held. It is the same Barrel Mirabeau who, in 
 the States- General, broke his sword, because the No- 
 blesse gave in, and chivalry was now ended : for in poli- 
 tics he was directly the opposite of his elder brother ; 
 and spoke considerably as a public man, making men 
 laugh (for he was a wild surly fellow, with much wit in 
 him and much liquor) ; — then went indignantly across 
 the Rhine, and drilled Emigrant Regiments : but as he 
 sat one morning in his tent, sour of stomach doubtless 
 and of heart, meditating in Tartarean humour on the 
 turn things took, a certain captain or subaltern demands 
 admittance on business ; is refused ; again demands, and 
 then again, till the Colonel Viscount Barrel Mirabeau, 
 blazing up into a mere burning brandy- barrel, clutches 
 his sword, and tumbles out on this canaille of an in- 
 truder, — alas, on the canaille of an intruder's sword- 
 point (who drew with swift dexterity), and dies, and it 
 is all done with him ! That was the fifth act of Barrel 
 Mirabeau' s life- tragedy, unlike, and yet like, this first act 
 in the Castle of If ; and so the curtain fell, the News- 
 papers calling it 'apoplexy' and * alarming accident/ 
 
 * Vol. ii p. 43. 
 
172 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Brother and Sisters, the little brown Wife, the Cer- 
 berus of If, all solicit for a penitent unfortunate sinner. 
 The old Marquis's ear is deaf as that of Destiny. 
 Solely by way of variation, not of alleviation, the rather 
 as the If Cerberus too has been bewitched, he has this 
 sinner removed, in May next, after some nine months' 
 space, to the Castle of Joux ; an * old Owl's nest, with 
 a few invalids,' among the Jura Mountains. Instead 
 of melancholy main, let him now try the melancholy 
 granites (still capped with snow at this season), with 
 their mists and owlets ; and on the whole adjust himself 
 as if for permanence or continuance there ; on a pension 
 of 1,200 francs, fifty pounds a-year, since he could not 
 do with five hundred ! Poor Mirabeau ; — and poor 
 Mirabeau's Wife ? Reader, the foolish little brown 
 woman tires of soliciting : her child being buried, her 
 husband buried alive, and her little brown self being still 
 above ground and under twenty, she takes to recreation, 
 theoretic flirtation ; ceases soliciting, begins successful 
 forgetting. The marriage, cut asunder that day the 
 catchpole chaise drew up at Manosque, will never come 
 together again, in spite of efforts ; but flow onwards in 
 two separate streams, to lose itself in the frightfuUest 
 sand-deserts. Husband and wife never more saw each 
 other with eyes. 
 
 Not far from the melancholy Castle of Joux lies the 
 little melancholy borough of Pontarlier ; whither our 
 Prisoner has leave, on his parole, to walk when he 
 chooses. A melancholy little borough : yet in it is a 
 certain Monnier Household ; whereby hangs, and will 
 hang, a tale. Of old M. Monnier, respectable legal 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 173 
 
 President, now in his seventy-fifth year, we shall say 
 less than of his wife, Sophie Monnier (once de RufFey, 
 from Dijon, sprung from legal Presidents there), who is 
 still but short way out of her teens. Yet she has been 
 married, or seemed to be married, four years : one of the 
 loveliest sad-heroic women of this or any district of 
 country. What accursed freak of Fate brought Janu- 
 ary and May together here once again } Alas, it is a 
 custom there, good reader ! Thus the old Naturalist 
 BufFon, who, at the age of sixty-three (what is called 
 ' the Saint- Martin's summer of incipient dotage and 
 * new-myrtle garlands,' which visits some men), went 
 ransacking the country for a young wife, had very 
 nearly got this identical Sophie ; but did get another, 
 known as Madame de BufFon, well known to Philip 
 Egalite, having turned out ill. Sophie de RufFey loved 
 wise men, but not at that extremely advanced period of 
 life. However, the question for her is : Does she love 
 a Convent better } Her mother and father are rigidly 
 devout, and rigidly vain and poor : the poor girl, sad- 
 heroic, is probably a kind of freethinker. And now, old 
 President Monnier ' quarrelling with his daughter;' and 
 and then coming over to Pontarlier with gold-bags, 
 marriage-settlements, and the prospect of dying soon } 
 It is that same miserable tale, often sung against, often 
 spoken against ; very miserable indeed ! — But fancy 
 what an effect the fiery eloquence of a Mirabeau pro- 
 duced in this sombre Household : one's young girl- 
 dreams incarnated, most unexpectedly, in this wild- 
 glowing mass of manhood, though rather ugly ; old 
 Monnier himself gleaming up into a kind of vitality to 
 hear him ! Or fancy whether a sad-heroic face, glancing 
 
174 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 on you with a thankfulness like to become glad-heroic, 
 
 were not ? Mirabeau felt, by known symptoms, 
 
 that the sweetest, fatallest incantation was stealing over 
 him, which could lead only to the devil, for all parties 
 interested. He wrote to his wife, entreating in the name 
 of Heaven, that she would come to him : thereby might 
 the ' sight of his duties ' fortify him ; he meanwhile 
 would at least forbear Pontarlier. The wife ' answered 
 ' by a few icy lines, indicating, in a covert way, that 
 ' she thought me not in my wits.' He ceases forbear- 
 ing Pontarlier ; sweeter is it than the OwFs nest : he 
 returns thither, with sweeter and ever sweeter welcome ; 
 and so — ! — 
 
 Old Monnier saw nothing, or winked hard ; — not so 
 our old foolish Commandant of the Castle of Joux. He, 
 though kind to his prisoner formerly, * had been making 
 ' some pretensions to Sophie himself; he was but forty 
 
 * or five -and- forty years older than I ; my ugliness was 
 
 * not greater than his ; and I had the advantage of being 
 ' an honest man.' Green-eyed Jealousy, in the shape of 
 this old ugly Commandant, warns Monnier by letter ; 
 also, on some thin pretext, restricts Mirabeau henceforth 
 to the four walls of Joux. Mirabeau flings back such 
 restriction, in an indignant Letter to this green-eyed 
 Commandant ; indignantly steps over into Switzerland, 
 which is but a few miles off ; — returns, however, in a 
 day or two (it is dark January, 1776), covertly to Pont- 
 arlier. There is an explosion, what they call eclat, 
 Sophie Monnier, sharply dealt with, resists ; avows her 
 love for Gabriel Honore ; asserts her right to love him, 
 her purpose to continue doing it. She is sent home to 
 Dijon ; Gabriel Honore covertly follows her thither. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 175 
 
 Explosions : what a continued series of explosions, 
 — through winter, spring, summer! There are tears, 
 devotional exercises, threatenings to commit suicide ; 
 there are stolen interviews, perils, proud avowals, and 
 lowly concealments. He on his part ' voluntarily con- 
 stitutes himself prisoner ; * and does other haughty, vehe- 
 ment things ; some Commandants behaving honourably, 
 and some not : one Commandant (old Marquis Mirabeau 
 of the Chateau of Bignon) getting ready his thunderbolts 
 in the distance ! * I have been lucky enough to obtain 
 ' Mont Saint-Michel, in Normandy,' says the old Mar- 
 quis ; * I think that prison good, because there is first 
 ' the Castle itself, then a ring- work all round the moun- 
 
 * tain ; and, after that, a pretty long passage among the 
 
 * sands, where you need guides, to avoid being drowned 
 
 * in the quicksands/ Yes, it rises there, that Mountain 
 of Saint-Michel, and Mountain of Misery ; towering 
 sheer up, like a bleak Pisgah with outlooks only into 
 desolation, sand, salt-water, and despair.* Fly, thou 
 poor Gabriel Honore ! Thou poor Sophie, return to 
 Pontarlier ; for Convent- waUs too are cruel ! 
 
 Gabriel flies ; and indeed there fly with him Sister 
 Cabris and her preternuptial epauletted Brianson, who 
 are already in flight for their own behoof : into deep 
 thickets and covered ways, wide over the South-west 
 of France. Marquis Mirabeau, thinking with a fond 
 sorrow of Mont Saint - Michel and its quicksands, 
 chooses the two best bloodhounds the PoHce of Paris 
 has (Inspector Brugniere and another) ; and, unmuzzling 
 them, cries : Hunt ! — Man being a venatory creature. 
 
 * See Memoires de Madame de GenliSy iii. 201. 
 
176 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 and the Chase perennially interesting to him, we have 
 thought it might be good to present certain broken 
 glimpses of this man-hunt through the South-west of 
 France ; of which, by a singular felicity, some Narra- 
 tive exists, in the shape of official reports, very ill- spelt 
 and otherwise curious, written down sectionally by the 
 chief slot- hound himself, for transmittal to the chief 
 huntsman eyeing it intently from the distance. It is 
 not every day that there is such game afield as a Gabriel 
 Honore, such a huntsman tallyhoing in the distance as 
 old Marquis Mirabeau ; or that you have a hound who 
 can, in never so bad spelHng, tell you what his notions 
 of the business are : 
 
 ' On arriving at Dijon, I went to see Madame la Presi- 
 dente RufFey, to gather new informations from her. Madame 
 informed me that there was in the town a certain Chevalier 
 de Macon, a half- pay officer, who was the Sieur Mirabeau's 
 friend, his companion and confidant, and that if any one 
 could get acquainted with him ' — . — ' The Sieur Brugniere 
 went therefore to lodge at this Macon's inn ; finds means to 
 get acquainted with him, affecting the same tastes, follow- 
 ing him to fencing-rooms, billiard-tables and other such 
 places.' — 
 
 ' Accordingly, on reaching Geneva, we learn that the Sieur 
 Mirabeau did arrive there on the fifth of June. He left it for 
 Thonon in Savoy ; two women in men's-clothes came asking 
 for him, and they all went away together, by Chambery, and 
 thence by Turin. At Thonon we could not learn what road 
 they had taken ; so secret are they, and involve themselves 
 in all manner of detours. After three days of incredible fa- 
 tigue, we discover the man that had driven them : it is back 
 to Geneva that they are gone ; we hasten hither again, and 
 have good hope of finding them now.' — Hope fallacious as 
 before ! 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 177 
 
 ' However, what helps Bnigniere and me a little is this, 
 that the Sieur Mirabeau and his train, though already armed 
 like smugglers, bought yet other pistols, and likewise sabres, 
 even a hunting-knife with a secret pistol for handle ; we 
 learned this at Geneva. They take remote diabolic roads to 
 avoid entering France.' * * * ' Following on foot the trace 
 of them, it brings us to Lyons, where they seem to have 
 taken the most obscure methods, accompanied with impene- 
 trable cunning, to enter the town ; we lost all track of them ; 
 our researches were most painful. At length we have come 
 upon a man named Saint-Jean, confidential servant of Ma- 
 dame de Cabris.' — ' On quitting this, along with Brianson, 
 who I think is a bad subject, M. de Mirabeau signified to 
 Saint-Jean that they were going to Lorgue in Provence, 
 which is Brianson's country ; that Brianson was then to 
 accompany him as far as Nice, where he would embark for 
 Geneva and pass a month there.' — 
 
 ' Following this trace of M. de Mirabeau, who had em- 
 barked on the Rhone at Lyons, we came to Avignon : here 
 we find he took post-horses, having sent for them half a 
 league from the town ; he had another pair of pistols bought 
 for him here ; and then, being well hidden in the cabriolet, 
 drove through Avignon, put letters in the post-office ; it was 
 about the dusk of the evening. But now at that time was 
 the chief tumult of the Beaucaire Fair,* and this cabriolet 
 was so lost in the crowd that it was impossible for us to 
 track it farther. However, the domestic Saint-Jean ' — . * * 
 — ' a M. Marsaut, Advocate, an honourable man, who gave 
 us all possible directions.' ' He introduced us to this Brian- 
 son, with whom we contrived to sup. We gave ourselves 
 out for travellers, Lyons merchants, who were going, the 
 one of us to Geneva and Italy, the other to Geneva only : 
 it was the way to make this Brianson speak.' * * * 
 
 ♦ Napoleon's Souper de Beaucaire ! 
 1 2 
 
178 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' When you leave Provence to pass into the Country of 
 Nice, you have to wade across the Var; a torrent which 
 is almost always dangerous, and is often impracticable : it 
 sometimes spreads out to a quarter of a league in breadth, 
 and has an astonishing rapidity at all times : its reputation 
 is greater still ; and travellers who have to cross speak of it 
 with terror. On each bank there are strong men who make 
 a trade of passing travellers across ; going before them and 
 around them, with strong poles, to sound the bottom, which 
 will change several times in a day : they take great pains to 
 increase your fear, even when there is not danger. These 
 people, by whose means we passed, told us that they had 
 offered to pass a gentleman having the same description as 
 he we seek ; that this gentleman would have nobody, but 
 crossed with some women of the country, who were wading 
 without guide ; that he seemed to dislike being looked at too 
 close : we made the utmost researches there. We found 
 that, at some distance, this person had entered a hedge- 
 tavern for some refreshment ; that he had a gold box with a 
 lady's portrait in it, and in a word the same description every 
 way ; that he asked if they did not know of any ship at Nice 
 for Italy, and that they told him of one for England. He 
 had crossed the Var, as I had the honour of informing you. 
 Monsieur, above : I have the honour of observing that there 
 is no Police at Nice.' * * 
 
 * * ' Found that there had embarked, at Villefranche, 
 which is another little haven near to Nice, a private person 
 unknown, answering still to the same description (except 
 that he wore a red coat, whereas M. de Mirabeau has been 
 followed hitherto under a green coat, a red-brown one ' mor- 
 dore,' and a grey ribbed one) ; and embarked for England. In 
 spite of this we sent persons into the Heights to get inform- 
 ation, who know the secret passages ; the Sieur Brugniere 
 mounted a mule accustomed to those horrific and terrifying 
 Mountains, took a guide, and made all possible researches 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 179 
 
 too : in a word. Monsieur, we have done all that the human 
 mind (Vesprii humain) can imagine, and this when the heats 
 are so excessive ; and we are worn out with fatigue, and our 
 limbs swoln/ 
 
 No : all that the human mind can imagine is ineffec- 
 tual. On the twenty-third night of August (1776), 
 Sophie de Monnier, in man's - clothes, is scaling the 
 Monnier garden- wall at Pontarlier ; is crossing the Swiss 
 marches, wrapped in a cloak of darkness, borne on the 
 wings of love and despair. Gabriel Honore, wrapped in 
 the like cloak, borne on the like vehicle, is gone with 
 her to Holland, — thenceforth a broken man. 
 
 * Crime forever lamentable,' ejaculates the Fils Adop- 
 tif ; ' of which the world has so spoken, and must for- 
 ' ever speak !' There are, indeed, many things easy to 
 be spoken of it ; and also some things not easy to be 
 spoken. Why, for example, thou virtuous Fils Adoptif, 
 was that of the Canteen-keeper's wife at If such a pecca- 
 dillo, and this of the legal President's wife such a crime, 
 lamentable to that late date of * forever V The present 
 reviewer fancies them to be the same crime. Again, 
 might not the first grand criminal and sinner in this 
 business be legal President Monnier, the distracted, 
 spleen-stricken, moon-stricken old man ; — liable to trial, 
 with non- acquittal or difficult acquittal, at the great Bar 
 of Nature herself } And then the second sinner in it ? 
 and the third and the fourth } ' He that is without sin 
 among you !' — One thing, therefore, the present reviewer 
 will speak, in the words of old Samuel Johnson: My 
 dear Fils Adoptif, my dear brethren of Mankind, ' en- 
 deavour to clear your mind of Cant!' It is positively 
 the prime necessity for all men, and all women and 
 
180 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 children, in these days, who would have their souls live, 
 were it even feebly, and not die of the detestablest as- 
 phyxia, — as in carbonic vapour, the more horrible, for 
 breathing of, the more clean it looks. 
 
 That the Parlement of Besangon indicted Mirabeau 
 for rapt et vol, abduction and robbery ; that they con- 
 demned him ' in contumacious absence,' and went the 
 length of beheading a Paper Effigy of him, was perhaps 
 extremely suitable; — but not to be dwelt on here. 
 Neither do we pry curiously into the garret-life in Hol- 
 land and Amsterdam ; being straitened for room. The 
 wild man and his beautiful sad-heroic woman lived out 
 their romance of reality, as well as was to be expected. 
 Hot tempers go not always softly together ; neither did 
 the course of true love, either in wedlock or in elope- 
 ment, ever run smooth. Yet it did run, in this instance, 
 copious, if not smooth ; with quarrel and reconcilement, 
 tears and heart- effusion ; sharp tropical squalls, and also 
 the gorgeous effulgence and exuberance of general tro- 
 pical weather. It was like a little Paphos islet in the 
 middle of blackness ; the very danger and despair that 
 environed it made the islet blissful ; — even as in virtue 
 of death, life to the fretfuUest becomes tolerable, be- 
 comes sweet, death being so nigh. At any hour, might 
 not king's exempt or other dread alguazil knock at our 
 garret establishment, here * in the Kalbestrand, at Le- 
 quesne the tailor's,' and dissolve it Gabriel toils for 
 Dutch booksellers ; bearing their heavy load ; translating 
 Watson s Philip Second ; doing endless Gibeonite work : 
 earning, however, his gold louis a-day. Sophie sews 
 and scours beside him, with her soft fingers, not grudg- 
 ing it : in hard toils, in trembling joys begirt with terrors. 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 181 
 
 with one terror, that of being parted, — their days roll 
 swiftly on. For eight tropical months ! — Ah, at the 
 end of some eight months (14th May, 1777) enter the 
 alguazil ! He is in the shape of Brugniere, our old slot- 
 hound of the South-west ; the swelling of his legs is 
 fallen now ; this time the human mind has been able to 
 manage it. He carries King's orders. High Mightiness* 
 sanctions ; sealed parchments. Gabriel Honore shall be 
 carried this way, Sophie that; Sophie, like to be a 
 mother, shall behold him no more. Desperation, even 
 in the female character, can go no farther : she will kill 
 herself that hour, as even the slot-hound believes, — had 
 not the very slot-hound, in mercy, undertaken that they 
 should have some means of correspondence ; that hope 
 should not utterly be cut away. With embracings and 
 interjections, sobbings that cannot be uttered, they tear 
 themselves asunder, stony Paris now nigh : Mirabeau 
 towards his prison of Vincennes ; Sophie to some milder 
 Convent-parlour relegation, there to await what Fate, 
 very minatory at this time, will see good to bring. 
 
 Conceive the giant Mirabeau locked fast, then, in 
 Doubting- castle of Vincennes ; his hot soul surging up, 
 wildly breaking itself against cold obstruction ; the voice 
 of his despair reverberated on him by dead stone- walls. 
 Fallen in the eyes of the world, the ambitious haughty 
 man ; his fair life-hopes from without all spoiled and 
 become foul ashes : and from within, — what he has 
 done, what he has parted with and undone ! Deaf as 
 Destiny is a Rhadamanthine father ; inaccessible even 
 to the attempt at pleading. Heavy doors have slammed 
 to ; their bolts growling Wo to thee ! Great Paris sends 
 eastward its daily multitudinous hum ; in the evening 
 
182 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 sun thou seest its weathercocks glitter, its old grim 
 towers and fuliginous life-breath all gilded : and thou ? 
 — Neither evening nor morning, nor change of day nor 
 season, brings deliverance. Forgotten of Earth; not 
 too hopefully remembered of Heaven ! No passionate 
 Pater-Peccavi can move an old Marquis ; deaf he as 
 Destiny. Thou must sit there. — For forty- two months, 
 by the great Zodiacal Horologe ! The heir of the Ri- 
 quettis, sinful, and yet more sinned against, has worn 
 out his wardrobe ; complains that his clothes get looped 
 and windowed, insufficient against the weather. His 
 eyesight is failing ; the family disorder, nephritis, afflicts 
 him ; the doctors declare horse- exercise essential to pre- 
 serve life. Within the walls then ! answers the old 
 Marquis. Count de Mirabeau ' rides in the garden of 
 forty paces with quick turns, hamper edly, overlooked 
 by donjons and high stone -barriers. 
 
 And yet fancy not Mirabeau spent his time in mere 
 wailing and raging. Far from that ! — 
 
 To whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob. 
 Because he had ne'er another tub, 
 
 was in no case Mirabeau' s method, more than Dioge- 
 nes's. Other such wild-glowing Mass of Life, which 
 you might beat with Cyclops' hammers (and, alas, not 
 beat the dross out of), was not in Europe at that time. 
 Call him not the strongest man then living ; for light, 
 as we said, and not fire, is the strong thing ; yet call 
 him strong too, very strong ; and for toughness, tena- 
 city, vivaciousness, and a fond gaillard, call him toughest 
 of all. Raging passions, ill-governed ; reckless tumult 
 from within, merciless oppression from without; ten 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 183 
 
 men might have died of what this Gabriel Honore did 
 not yet die of. Police-captain Lenoir allowed him, in 
 mercy and according to engagement, to correspond with 
 Sophie ; the condition was that the letters should be 
 seen by Lenoir, and be returned into his keeping. Mi- 
 rabeau corresponded; in fire and tears, copiously, not 
 Werter-like, but Mirabeau-like. Then he had peniten- 
 tial petitions, Pater-Peccavis to write, to get presented 
 and enforced ; for which end all manner of friends must 
 be urged : correspondence enough. Besides, he could 
 read, though very limitedly : he could even compose or 
 compile ; extracting, not in the manner of the bee, from 
 the very Bible and Dom Calmet, a ' Bihlion Eroticon,' 
 which can be recommended to no w^oman or man. The 
 pious Fils Adoptif drops a veil over his face at this 
 scandal ; and says lamentably that there is nothing to be 
 said. As for the Correspondence with Sophie, it lay in 
 Lenoir's desk, forgotten ; but was found there by Ma- 
 nuel, Procureur of the Commune in 1792, when so many 
 desks flew open ; and by him given to the world. A 
 book which fair sensibility (rather in a private way) 
 loves to weep over : not this reviewer, to any consider- 
 able extent; not at all here, in his present strait for 
 room. Good love-letters of their kind notwithstanding. 
 But if anything can swell farther the tears of fair sensi- 
 bihty over Mirabeau's Correspondence of Vincennes, it 
 must be this : the issue it ended in. After a space of 
 years these two lovers, wrenched asunder in Holland, 
 and allowed to correspond that they might not poison 
 themselves, met again : it was under cloud of night ; in 
 Sophie's apartment, in the country ; Mirabeau, ' dis- 
 guised as a porter,' had come thither from a consider- 
 
184 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 able distance. And they flew into each other's arms ; 
 to weep their child dead, their long unspeakable woes ? 
 Not at all. They stood, arms stretched oratorically, 
 calling one another to account for causes of jealousy ; 
 grew always louder, arms set a-kimbo ; and parted quite 
 loud, never to meet more on earth. In September, 
 1789, Mirabeau had risen to be a world's wonder : and 
 Sophie, far from him, had sunk out of the world's sight, 
 respected only in the little town of Gien. On the 9th 
 night of September, Mirabeau might be thundering in 
 the Versailles Salle des Menus, to be reported of all 
 Journals on the morrow ; and Sophie, twice disappointed 
 of new marriage, the sad-heroic temper darkened now 
 into perfect black, was reclining, self- tied to her sofa, 
 with a pan of charcoal burning near ; to die as the un- 
 happy die. Said we not, * the course of true love never 
 did run smooth ?' 
 
 However, after two-and-forty months, and negotia- 
 tions, and more intercessions than in Catholic countries 
 will free a soul out of Purgatory, Mirabeau is once more 
 delivered from the strong place : not into his own home 
 (home, wife, and the whole Past are far parted from 
 him) ; not into his father's home ; but forth ; — hurled 
 forth, to seek his fortune Ishmael-like in the wide hunting- 
 field of the world. Consider him, O reader ; thou wilt 
 find him very notable. A disgraced man, not a broken 
 one ; ruined outwardly, not ruined inwardly ; not yet, 
 for there is no ruining of him on that side. Such a 
 buoyancy of radical fire and fond gaillard he has ; with 
 his dignity and vanity, levity, solidity, with his virtues 
 and his vices, what a front he shews ! You would 
 say, he bates not a jot, in these sad circumstances, of 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 185 
 
 what he claimed from Fortune, but rather enlarges it : 
 his proud soul, so galled, deformed by manacles and 
 bondage, flings away its prison-gear, bounds forth to the 
 fight again, as if victory, after all, were certain. Post- 
 horses to Pontarlier and the Besancon Parlement ; that 
 that ' sentence by contumacy ' be annulled, and the 
 Paper Effigy have its Head stuck on again ! The wild 
 giant, said to be * absent by contumacy,' sits voluntarily 
 in the Pontarlier Jail ; thunders in pleadings which 
 make Parlementeers quake, and all France listen ; and 
 the Head reunites itself to the Paper Efligy with apolo- 
 gies. Monnier and the De Ruffbys know who is the 
 most impudent man alive : the world, with astonish- 
 ment, who is one of the ablest. Even the old Marquis 
 snuffles approval, though with qualification. Tough 
 old man, he has lost his own world-famous Lawsuit and 
 other lawsuits, with ruinous expenses ; has seen his for- 
 tune and projects fail, and even lettres de cachet turn out 
 not always satisfactory or sanatory : wherefore he sum- 
 mons his children about him ; and, really in a very serene 
 way, declares himself invahded, fit only for the chimney- 
 nook now ; to sit patching his old mind together again 
 {cL rehouter sa t^te, a se recoudre piece d, piece) : advice 
 and countenance they, the deserving part of them, shall 
 always enjoy ; but lettres de cachet y or other the like 
 benefit and guidance, not any more. Right so, thou 
 best of old Marquises ! There he rests then, like the 
 still evening of a thundery day ; thunders no more ; but 
 rays forth many a curiously-tinted light-beam and re- 
 mark on life; serene to the last. Among Mirabeau'^ 
 small catalogue of virtues, very small of formulary and 
 conventional virtues, let it not be forgotten that he loved 
 
186 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 this old father warmly to the end ; and forgave his cruel- 
 ties, or forgot them in kind interpretation of them. 
 
 For the Pontarlier Paper Effigy, therefore, it is well : 
 and yet a man lives not comfortably without money. 
 Ah, were one's marriage not disrupted; for the old 
 father-in-law will soon die; those rich expectations 
 were then fruitions ! The ablest, not the most shame- 
 faced man in France, is off*, next spring (1783), to Aix ; 
 stirring Parlement and Heaven and Earth there, to have 
 his wife back. How he worked ; with what nobleness 
 and courage (according to the Fils Adoptif) ; giant's 
 work ! The sound of him is spread over France and 
 over the world ; English travellers, high foreign lord- 
 ships, turning aside to Aix ; and ' multitudes gathered 
 even on the roofs* to hear him, the Court-house being 
 crammed to bursting ! Demosthenic fire and pathos ; 
 penitent husband calling for forgiveness and restitu- 
 tion : — ' ce nest quun claque-dents et un folj" rays forth 
 the old Marquis from the chimney- nook ; ' a chatter- 
 teeth and madman V The world and Parlement thought 
 not that ; knew not what to think, if not that this was 
 the questionablest able man they had ever heard ; and, 
 alas, still farther, — that his cause was untenable. No 
 wife, then; and no money! From this second attack 
 on Fortune Mirabeau returns foiled, and worse than 
 before ; resourceless, for now the old Marquis too again 
 eyes him askance. He must hunt Ishmael-like, as we 
 said. Whatsoever of wit or strength he has within 
 himself will stand true to him ; on that he can count ; 
 unfortunately on almost nothing but that. 
 
 Mirabeau's life for the next five years, w^hich creeps 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 187 
 
 troublous, obscure, through several of these Eight Vo- 
 lumes, will probably, in the One right Volume which 
 they hold imprisoned, be delineated briefly. It is the 
 long-drawn practical improvement of the sermon already 
 preached in Rhe, in If, in Joux, in Holland, in Vin- 
 cennes, and elsewhere. A giant man in the flower of 
 his years, in the winter of his prospects, has to see how 
 he will reconcile these two contradictions. With giant 
 energies and talents, with giant virtues even, he, burn- 
 ing to unfold himself, has got put into his hands, for 
 implements and means to do it with, disgrace, con- 
 tumely, obstruction ; character elevated only as Haman 
 was ; purse full only of debt- summonses ; household, 
 home, and possessions, as it were, sown with salt; 
 Ruin's ploughshare furrowing too deeply himself and 
 all that was his. Under these, and not under other 
 conditions, shall this man now live and struggle. Well 
 might he ' weep ' long afterwards (though not given to 
 the melting mood), thinking over, with Dumont, how 
 his life had been blasted, by himself, by others ; and 
 was now so defaced and thunder- riven, no glory could 
 make it whole again. Truly, as we often say, a weaker, 
 and yet very strong man, might have died, — by hypo- 
 chondria, by brandy, or by arsenic : but Mirabeau did 
 not die. The world is not his friend, nor the world's 
 law and formula ? It will be his enemy then ; his con- 
 queror and master not altogether. There are strong 
 men who can, in case of necessity, make away with 
 formulas {humer les formules), and yet find a habitation 
 behind them : these are the very strong ; and Mirabeau 
 was of these. The world's esteem having gone quite 
 against him, and most circles of society, with their 
 
188 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 codes and regulations, pronouncing little but anathema 
 on him, he is nevertheless not lost ; he does not sink 
 to desperation ; not to dishonesty, or pusillanimity, or 
 splenetic aridity. Nowise ! In spite of the world, he 
 is a living strong man there : the world cannot take 
 from him his just consciousness of himself, his warm 
 open-hearted feeling towards others ; there are still 
 limits, on all sides, to which the world and the devil 
 cannot drive him. The giant, we say ! How he stands, 
 like a mountain ; thunder- riven, but broad-based, rooted 
 in the Earth's (in Nature's) own rocks ; and will not 
 tumble prostrate ! So true is it what a moralist has 
 said : * One could not wish any man to fall into a fault ; 
 
 * yet is it often precisely after a fault, or a crime even, 
 ' that the morality which is in a man first unfolds itself, 
 ' and what of strength he as a man possesses, now when 
 
 * all else is gone from him.' 
 
 Mirabeau, through these dim years, is seen wander- 
 ing from place to place ; in France, Germany, Holland, 
 England ; finding no rest for the sole of his foot. It is 
 a life of shifts and expedients, au jour le jour. Extrava- 
 gant in his expenses, thriftless, swimming in a welter of 
 debts and difficulties ; for which he has to provide by 
 fierce industry, by skill in financiership. The man's 
 revenue is his wits ; he has a pen and a head ; and, 
 happily for him, ' is the demon of the impossible.' 
 At no time is he without some blazing project or other, 
 which shall warm and illuminate far and wide ; which 
 too often blazes out ineffectual ; which in that case he 
 replaces and renews, for his hope is inexhaustible. He 
 writes Pamphlets unweariedly as a steam-engine : On 
 the Opening of the Scheldt, and Kaiser Joseph ; on the 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 189 
 
 Order of Cincinnatus and Washington; on Count Cagli- 
 ostrOy and the Diamond Necklace. Innumerable are 
 the helpers and journeymen, respectable Mauvillons, re- 
 spectable Dumonts, whom he can set working for him 
 on such matters ; it is a gift he has. He writes Books, 
 in as many as eight volumes, which are properly only a 
 larger kind of Pamphlets. He has polemics with Caron 
 Beaumarchais on the water- company of Paris ; lean Ca- 
 ron shooting sharp arrows into him, which he responds 
 to demoniacally, ' flinging hills with all their woods.* 
 He is intimate with many men ; his ' terrible gift of 
 familiarity,' his joyous courtiership and faculty of pleas- 
 ing, do not forsake him : but it is a questionable inti- 
 macy, granted to the man's talents, in spite of his 
 character : a relation which the proud Riquetti, not 
 the humbler that he is poor and ruined, correctly feels. 
 With still more women is he intimate ; girt with a 
 whole system of intrigues, in that sort, wherever he 
 abide ; seldom travelling without a — wife (let us 
 call her) engaged by the year, or during mutual satis- 
 faction. On this large department of Mirabeau's his- 
 tory, what can you say, except that his incontinence 
 was great, enormous, entirely indefensible } If any one 
 please (which we do not) to be present, with the Fils 
 Adoptif, at * the autopsie smd post-mortem examination, 
 he will see curious documents on this head; and to 
 what depths of penalty Nature, in her just self- vindi- 
 cation, can sometimes doom men. The Fils Adopt if \s, 
 very sorry. To the kind called unfortunate-females, it 
 would seem nevertheless, this unfortunate- male had an 
 aversion amounting to complete nolo-tangere. 
 
 The old Marquis sits apart in the chimney-nook. 
 
190 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 observant : what this roaming, unresting, rebellious 
 Titan of a Count may ever prove of use for ? If it be 
 not, O Marquis, for the General Overturn, Culhute 04- 
 nerale ? He is swallovvdng Formulas ; getting endless 
 acquaintance with the Realities of things and men : 
 in audacity, in recklessness, he will not, it is like, be 
 wanting. The old Marquis rays out curious observa- 
 tions on life ; — yields no effectual assistance of money. 
 
 Ministries change and shift ; but never, in the new 
 deal, does there turn up a good card for Mirabeau. 
 Necker he does not love, nor is love lost between them. 
 Plausible Calonne hears him Stentor-like denouncing 
 stock-jobbing (Denonciation de V Agiotage) ; communes 
 with him, corresponds with him ; is glad to get him 
 sent, in some semi-ostensible or spy- diplomatist cha- 
 racter, to Berlin ; in any way to have him stopped and 
 quieted. The Great Frederic was still on the scene, 
 though now very near the side-scenes : the wiry thin 
 Drill-sergeant of the World, and the broad burly Muti- 
 neer of the World, glanced into one another with amaze- 
 ment ; the one making entrance, the other making exit. 
 To this Berlin business we owe pamphlets ; we owe 
 Correspondences (* surreptitiously published' — with con- 
 sent) ; we owe (brave Major Mauvillon serving as hod- 
 man) the Monarchie Prussienne, a Pamphlet in some 
 eight octavo volumes, portions of which are still well 
 worth reading. 
 
 Generally, on first making personal acquaintance 
 with Mirabeau as a writer or speaker, one is not a 
 little surprised. Instead of Irish oratory, with tropes 
 and declamatory fervid feeling, such as the rumour one 
 has heard gives prospect of, you are astonished to meet 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 191 
 
 a certain hard angular distinctness, a totally unorna- 
 mented force and massiveness : clear perspicuity, strong 
 perspicacity, conviction that wishes to convince, — this 
 beyond all things, and instead of all things. You would 
 say the primary character of those utterances, nay of 
 the man himself, is sincerity and insight ; strength, and 
 the honest use of strength. Which indeed it is, O 
 reader ! Mirabeau's spiritual gift will be found, on 
 examination, to be verily an honest and a great one ; 
 far the strongest, best practical intellect of that time ; 
 entitled to rank among the strong of all times. These 
 books of his ought to be riddled, like this book of the 
 Fils Adoptif. There is precious matter in them ; too 
 good to lie hidden among shot rubbish. Hear this 
 man on any subject, you will find him worth consider- 
 ing. He has words in him, rough deliverances ; such 
 as men do not forget. As thus : ' I know but three 
 
 * ways of living in this world : by wages for work ; by 
 ' begging ; thirdly, by stealing (so named, or not so 
 
 * named).' Again: ' Malebranche saw all things in 
 
 * God ; and M. Necker sees all things in Necker !' 
 There are nicknames of Mirabeau's worth whole trea- 
 tises. ' Grandison- Cromwell Lafayette:' write a vo- 
 lume on the man, as many volumes have been written, 
 and try to say more ! It is the best likeness yet drawn 
 of him, — by a flourish and two dots. Of such inex- 
 pressible advantage is it that a man have ' an eye, 
 instead of a pair of spectacles merely ;' that, seeing 
 through the formulas of things, and even * making 
 away' with many a formula, he see into the thing itself, 
 and so know it and be master of it ! 
 
 As the years roll on, and that portentous decade of 
 
192 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the Eighties, or ' Era of Hope/ draws towards comple- 
 tion, and it becomes ever more evident to Mirabeau 
 that great things are in the wind, we find his wander- 
 ings, as it were, quicken. Suddenly emerging out of 
 Night and Cimmeria, he dashes down on the Paris 
 world, time after time ; flashes into it with that fire- 
 glance of his ; discerns that the time is not yet come ; 
 and then merges back again. Occasionally his pam- 
 phlets provoke a fulmination and order of arrest, where- 
 fore he must merge the faster. Nay, your Calonne 
 is good enough to signify it beforehand : On such and 
 such a day I shall order you to be arrested ; pray make 
 speed therefore. When the Notables meet, in the spring 
 of 1787, Mirabeau spreads his pinions, alights on Paris 
 and Versailles ; it seems to him he ought to be secre- 
 tary of those Notables. No ! friend Dupont de Ne- 
 mours gets it: the time is not yet come. It is still 
 but the time of * Crispin- Catiline ' d'Espremenil, and 
 other such animal-magnetic persons. Nevertheless, the 
 reverend Talleyrand, judicious Dukes, liberal noble friends 
 not a few, are sure that the time will come. Abide thy 
 time. 
 
 Hark ! On the 27th of December, 1 788, here finally is 
 the long-expected announcing itself ; royal Proclamation 
 definitively convoking the States- General for May next ! 
 Need we ask whether Mirabeau bestirs himself now ; 
 whether or not he is off to Provence, to the Assembly 
 of Noblesse there, with all his faculties screwed to the 
 sticking-place ? One strong dead-lift pull, thou Titan, 
 and perhaps thou earnest it ! How Mirabeau wrestled 
 and strove under these auspices ; speaking and con- 
 tending all day, writing pamphlets, paragraphs, 11a 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 193 
 
 night ; also suffering much, gathering his wild soul toge- 
 ther, motionless under reproaches, under drawn swords 
 even, lest his enemies throw him off his guard ; how he 
 agitates and represses, unerringly dexterous, sleeplessly 
 unwearied, and is> a very ' demon of the impossible,' 
 let all readers fancy. With ' a body of Noblesse more 
 * ignorant, greedier, more insolent than any I have ever 
 ' seen,' the Swallower of Formulas was like to have rough 
 work. We must give his celebrated flinging up of the 
 handful of dust, when they drove him out by over- 
 whelming majority : 
 
 ' What have I done that was so crimiaal ? I have wished 
 that my Order were wise enough to give to-day what will 
 infallibly be wrested from it to-morrow ; that it should re- 
 ceive the merit and glory of sanctioning the assemblage of the 
 Three Orders, which all Provence loudly demands. This 
 is the crime of your " enemy of peace Or rather I have 
 ventured to believe that the people might be in the right. 
 Ah, doubtless, a patrician soiled with such a thought de- 
 serves vengeance ! But 1 am still guiltier than you think ; 
 for it is my belief that the people which complains is always 
 in the right ; that its indefatigable patience invariably waits 
 the uttermost excesses of oppression, before it can determine 
 on resisting ; that it never resists long enough to obtain com- 
 plete redress ; and does not sufficiently know that to strike 
 its enemies into terror and submission, it has only to stand 
 still ; that the most innocent as the most invincible of all 
 powers is the power of refusing to do. I believe after this 
 manner : punish the enemy of peace ! 
 
 ' But you, ministers of a God of peace, who are ordained 
 to bless and not to curse, and yet have launched your ana- 
 thema on me, without even the attempt at enlightening me, 
 at reasoning with me ! And you, " friends of peace," who 
 
 VOL. V. K 
 
194 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 denounce to the people, with all vehemence of hatred, the 
 one defender it has yet found, out of its own ranks ; — who, 
 to bring about concord, are filling capital and province with 
 placards calculated to arm the rural districts against the 
 towns, if your deeds did not refute your writings ; — who, to 
 prepare ways of conciliation, protest against the royal Regu- 
 lation for convoking the States- General, because it grants the 
 people as many deputies as both the other orders, and against 
 all that the coming National Assembly shall do, unless its 
 laws secure the triumph of your pretensions, the eternity of 
 your privileges ! Disinterested "friends of peace!" I have 
 appealed to your honour, and summon you to state what 
 expressions of mine have offended against either the respect 
 we owe to the royal authority or to the nation's right ? 
 Nobles of Provence, Europe is attentive ; weigh well your 
 answer. Men of God, beware ; God hears you ! 
 
 ' And if you do not answer, but keep silence, shutting 
 yourselves up in the vague declamations you have hurled at 
 me, then allow me to add one word. 
 
 * In all countries, in all times, aristocrats have implacably 
 persecuted the people's friends ; and if, by some singular 
 combination of fortune, there chanced to arise such a one in 
 their own circle, it was he above all whom they struck at, 
 eager to inspire wider terror by the elevation of their victim. 
 Thus perished the last of the Gracchi by the hands of the 
 patricians ; but, being struck with the mortal stab, he flung 
 dust towards Heaven, and called on the Avenging Deities ; 
 and from this dust sprang Marius, — Marius not so illustrious 
 for exterminating the Cimbri as for overturning in Rome the 
 tyranny of the Noblesse !' 
 
 There goes some foolish story of Mirabeau having 
 now opened a cloth-shop in Marseilles, to ingratiate 
 himself with the Third Estate ; whereat we have often 
 laughed. The image of Mirabeau measuring out dra- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 195 
 
 pery to mankind, and deftly snipping at tailors' mea- 
 sures, has something pleasant for the mind. So that, 
 though there is not a shadow of truth in this story, the 
 very lie may justly sustain itself for a while, in the cha- 
 racter of lie. Far otherwise was the reality there : ' vo- 
 luntary guard of a hundred men;' Provence crowding by 
 the ten thousand round his chariot-wheels ; explosions 
 of rejoicing musketry, heaven-rending acclamation ; 
 'people paying two louis for a place at the window!' 
 Hunger itself (very considerable in those days) he can 
 pacify by speech. Violent meal- mobs at Marseilles and 
 at Aix, unmanageable by fire-arms and governors, he 
 smooths down by the word of his mouth ; the governor 
 soliciting him, though unloved. It is as a Roman Tri- 
 umph, and more. He is chosen deputy for two places ; 
 has to decline Marseilles, and honour Aix. Let his 
 enemies look and wonder, and sigh forgotten by him. 
 For this Mirabeau too the career at last opens. 
 
 At last ! Does not the benevolent reader, though 
 never so unambitious, sympathise a little with this poor 
 brother mortal in such a case ? Victory is always joy- 
 ful ; but to think of such a man, in the hour when, after 
 twelve Hercules' Labours, he does finally triumph ! So 
 long he fought with the many-headed coil of Lernean 
 serpents ; and, panting, wrestled and wrang with it for 
 life or death, — forty long stern years ; and now he has 
 it under his heel ! The mountain-tops are scaled, are 
 scaled; where the man climbed, on sharp flinty pre- 
 cipices, slippery, abysmal ; in darkness, seen by no kind 
 eye, — amid the brood of dragons; and the heart, many 
 times, was like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in 
 his extreme need : yet he climbed, and climbed, glueing 
 
196 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 his footsteps in his blood ; and now, behold, Hyperion - 
 like he has scaled it, and on the summit shakes his glit- 
 tering shafts of war ! What a scene and new kingdom 
 for him ; all bathed in auroral radiance of Hope ; far- 
 stretching, solemn, joyful : what wild Memnon's music, 
 from the depths of Nature, comes toning through the 
 soul raised suddenly out of strangling death into victory 
 and life ! The very bystander, we think, might weep, 
 with this Mirabeau, tears of joy. 
 
 Which, alas, will become tears of sorrow! For 
 know, O Son of Adam (and Son of Lucifer, with that 
 accursed ambition of thine), that they are all a delusion 
 and piece of demonic necromancy, these same auroral 
 splendours, enchantments, and Memnon's tones ! The 
 thing thou as mortal wantest is equilibrium, what is 
 called rest or peace ; which, God knows, thou wilt never 
 get so, Happy they that find it without such searching. 
 But in some twenty-three months more, of blazing solar 
 splendour and conflagration, this Mirabeau will be ashes ; 
 and lie opaque, in the Pantheon of great men (or say, 
 French Pantheon of considerable, or even of considered 
 and small-noisy men), — at rest nowhere, save on the 
 lap of his mother Earth. There are to whom the gods, in 
 their bounty, give glory ; but far oftener is it given in 
 wrath, as a curse and a poison ; disturbing the whole 
 inner health and industry of the man ; leading onward 
 through dizzy staggerings and tarantula jiggings, — to- 
 wards no saint's shrine. Truly, if Death did not inter- 
 vene ; or still more happily, if Life and the Public were 
 not a blockhead, and sudden unreasonable oblivion were 
 not to follow that sudden unreasonable glory, and bene- 
 ficently, though most painfully, damp it down, — one 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 197 
 
 sees not where many a poor glorious man, still more many 
 a poor glorious woman could terminate, — far short of 
 Bedlam. 
 
 On the 4th day of May, 1789, Madame de Stael, 
 looking from a window in the main street of Versailles, 
 amid an assembled world, as the Deputies walked in pro- 
 cession from the church of Notre-Dame to that of Saint 
 Louis, to hear High Mass, and be constituted States- 
 General, saw this : * Among these Nobles who had been 
 ' deputed to the Third Estate, above all others, the Comte 
 
 * de Mirabeau. The opinion men had of his genius was 
 
 * singularly augmented by the fear entertained of his 
 
 * immorality ; and yet it was this very immorality which 
 
 * straitened the influence his astonishing faculties were to 
 ' secure him. You could not but look long at this man, 
 
 * when once you had noticed him : his immense black 
 
 * head of hair distinguished him among them all , you 
 ' would have said his force depended on it, like that of 
 
 * Samson: his face borrowed new expression from its 
 
 * very ugliness ; his whole person gave you the idea of 
 
 * an irregular power, but a power such as you would 
 
 * figure in a Tribune of the People/ Mirabeau' s history 
 through the first twenty-three months of the Revolution 
 falls not to be written here : yet it is well worth writing 
 somewhere. The Constituent Assembly, when his name 
 was first read out, received it with murmurs ; not know- 
 ing what they murmured at ! This honourable member 
 they were murmuring over was the member of all mem- 
 bers ; the august Constituent, without him, were no 
 Constituent at all. Very notable, truly, is his procedure 
 in this section of world-history ; by far the notablest 
 
198 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 single element there ; none like to him, or second to 
 him. Once he is seen visibly to have saved, as v^ith his 
 own force, the existence of the Constituent Assembly ; 
 to have turned the whole tide of things : in one of those 
 moments which are cardinal ; decisive for centuries. The 
 royal Declaration of the Twenty -third of June is promul- 
 gated : there is military force enough ; there is then the 
 King's express order to disperse, to meet as separate Third 
 Estate on the morrow. Bastilles and scaffolds may be 
 the penalty of disobeying. Mirabeau disobeys ; lifts his 
 voice to encourage others, all pallid, panic-stricken, to 
 disobey. Supreme Usher De Breze enters, with the 
 King's renewed order to depart. " Messieurs," said De 
 Breze, *' you heard the King's order?" The Swallower 
 of Formulas bellows out these words, that have become 
 memorable : Yes, Monsieur, we heard what the King 
 was advised to say ; and you, who cannot be interpreter 
 of his meaning to the States- General ; you, who have 
 neither vote nor seat, nor right of speech here, you are 
 not the man to remind us of it. Go, Monsieur, tell 
 those who sent you that we are here by wiU of the Na- 
 tion; and that nothing but the force of bayonets can 
 drive us hence !" And poor De Breze vanishes, — back 
 foremost, the Fils Adoptif says. 
 
 But this, cardinal moment though it be, is perhaps 
 intrinsically among his smaller feats. In general, we 
 would say once more with emphasis, He has ' hume toutes 
 les formules.' He goes through the Revolution like a 
 substance and a force, not like a formula of one. While 
 innumerable barren Sieyeses and Constitution-pedants 
 are building, with such hammering and trowehng, their 
 august Paper Constitution (which endured eleven months). 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 199 
 
 this man looks not at cobwebs and Social Contracts, but 
 at things and men ; discerning what is to be done, — 
 proceeding straight to do it. He shivers out Usher De 
 Breze, back foremost, when that is the problem. ' Marie 
 Antoinette is charmed with him,' when it comes to that. 
 He is the man of the Revolution, w^hile he lives ; king of 
 it ; and only with life, as we compute, would have quitted 
 his kingship of it. Alone of all these Twelve Hundred, 
 there is in him the faculty of a king. For, indeed, have 
 we not seen how assiduously Destiny had shaped him 
 all along, as with an express eye to the work now in 
 hand } O crabbed old Friend of Men, whilst thou wert 
 bolting this man into Isles of Rhe, Castles of If, and 
 training him so sharply to be ^%self, not himself, — how 
 little knewest thou what thou wert doing ! Let us add, 
 that the brave old Marquis lived to see his son's victory 
 over Fate and men, and rejoiced in it ; and rebuked Bar- 
 rel Mirabeau for controverting such a Brother Gabriel. 
 In the invalid Chimney -nook at Argenteuil, near Paris, 
 he sat raying out curious observations to the last ; and 
 died three days before the Bastille fell, precisely when the 
 Culhute Generate was bursting out. 
 
 But finally, the twenty-three allotted months are over. 
 Madame de Stael, on the 4th of May, 1789, saw the Ro- 
 man Tribune of the People, and Samson with his long 
 black hair: and on the 4th of April, 1791, there is a 
 Funeral Procession extending four miles : king's minis- 
 ters, senators, national guards, and all Paris, — torchlight, 
 wail of trombones and music, and the tears of men ; 
 mourning of a whole people, — such mourning as no 
 modem people ever saw for one man. This Mirabeau's 
 
200 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 work then is done. He sleeps with the primeval giants. 
 He has gone over to the majority : Abiit ad plures. 
 
 In the way of eulogy and dyslogy, and summing up 
 of character, there may doubtless be a great many things 
 set forth concerning this Mirabeau ; as already there has 
 been much discussion and arguing about him, better and 
 worse : which is proper surely ; as about all manner of 
 new things, were they much less questionable than this 
 new giant is. The present reviewer, meanwhile, finds it 
 suitabler to restrict himself and his exhausted readers to 
 the three following moral reflections. 
 
 Moral reflection first : That, in these centuries men 
 are not born demi-gods and perfect characters, but im- 
 perfect ones, and mere blamable men ; men, namely, 
 environed with such shortcoming and confusion of their 
 own, and then with such adscititious scandal and mis- 
 judgment (got in the work they did), that they resemble 
 less demi-gods than a sort of god- devils, — very imperfect 
 characters indeed. The demi-god arrangement were the 
 one which, at first sight, this reviewer might be inclined 
 to prefer. 
 
 Moral reflection second, however : That probably men 
 were never born demi-gods in any century, but precisely 
 god- devils as we see ; certain of whom do become a kind 
 of demi-gods ! How many are the men, not censured, 
 misjudged, calumniated only, but tortured, crucified, 
 hung on gibbets, — not as god-devils even, but as devils 
 proper ; who have nevertheless grown to seem respect- 
 able, or infinitely respectable ! For the thing which was 
 not they, which was not anything, has fallen away piece- 
 
MIRABEAU. 
 
 201 
 
 meal; and become avowedly babble and confused shadow, 
 and no-thing : the thing which was they, remains. De- 
 pend on it, Harmodius and Aristogiton, as clear as they 
 now look, had illegal plottings, conclaves at the Jaco- 
 bins' Church of Athens ; and very intemperate things 
 were spoken, and also done. Thus too, Marcus Brutus 
 and the elder Junius, are they not palpable Heroes } 
 Their praise is in all Debating Societies ; but didst thou 
 read what the Morning Papers said of those transactions 
 of theirs, the week after ? Nay, Old Noll, whose bones 
 were dug up and hung in chains, here at home, as the 
 just emblem of himself and his deserts, the ofFal of crea- 
 tion at that time, — has not he too got to be a very re- 
 spectable grim bronze-figure, though it is yet only a 
 century and half since ; of whom England seems proud 
 rather than otherwise ? 
 
 Moral reflection third and last : That neither thou 
 nor I, good reader, had any hand in the making of 
 this Mirabeau ; — else who knows but we had objected, 
 in our wisdom } But it was the Upper Powers that made 
 him, without once consulting us ; they and not we, so 
 and not otherwise ! To endeavour to understand a little 
 what manner of Mirabeau he, so made, might be : this 
 we, according to opportunity, have done ; and therefore 
 do now, with a lively satisfaction, take farewell of him, 
 and leave him to prosper as he can. 
 
 ? 2 
 
202 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION* 
 
 [1837.] 
 
 It appears to be, if not stated in words, yet tacitly felt 
 and understood everywhere, that the event of these 
 modern ages is the French Revolution. A huge ex- 
 plosion, bursting through all formulas and customs ; 
 confounding into wreck and chaos the ordered arrange- 
 ments of earthly life ; blotting out, one may say, the very 
 firmament and skyey loadstars, — though only for a sea- 
 son. Once in the fifteen hundred years such a thing was 
 ordained to come. To those who stood present in the 
 actual midst of that smoke and thunder, the effect might 
 
 * London and Westminster Review, No. 9. — Histoire 
 Parlementaire de la Revolution Frangaise^ ou Journal des Assem- 
 blees Nationales depuis 17S9 jusqu^ en 1815 ; contenant laNarra- 
 fAon des Evenemens, les Debats, Sfc. SfC, (Parliamentary History 
 of the French Revolution, or Journal of the National Assemblies 
 from 1789 to 1815 ; containing a Narrative of the Occurrences; 
 Debates of the Assemblies ; Discussions in the chief Popular So- 
 cieties, especially in that of the Jacobins ; Records of the Com- 
 mune of Paris ; Sessions of the Revolutionaiy Tribunal ; Reports 
 of the leading Political Trials ; Detail of the Annual Budgets ; 
 Picture of the Moral Movement, extracted from the Newspapers, 
 Pamphlets, &c. of each Period : preceded by an Introduction on 
 the History of France till the Convocation of the States-General.) 
 By P. J. B. Buchez and P. C. Roux. (Tomes ler__23"^« et seq. 
 — Paris, 1833-1836.) 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 203 
 
 well be too violent : blindiug and deafening, into con- 
 fused exasperation, almost into madness. These on- 
 lookers have played their part, were it with the printing- 
 press or with the battle- cannon, and are departed ; their 
 work, such as it was, remaining behind them ; — where 
 the French Revolution also remains. And now, for us 
 who have receded to the distance of some half- century, 
 the explosion becomes a thing visible, surveyable : we 
 see its flame and sulphur- smoke blend with the clear air 
 (far under the stars) ; and hear its uproar as part of the 
 sick noise of life, — loud, indeed, yet embosomed too, as 
 all noise is, in the infinite of silence. It is an event 
 which can be looked on ; which may still be execrated, 
 still be celebrated and psalmodied ; but which it were 
 better now to begin understanding. Really there are 
 innumerable reasons why we ought to know this same 
 French Revolution as it was : of which reasons (apart 
 altogether from that of ' Philosophy teaching by Ex- 
 perience,' and so forth), is there not the best summary 
 in this one reason, that we so wish to know it } Con- 
 sidering the qualities of the matter, one may perhaps 
 reasonably feel that since the time of the Crusades, or 
 earher, there is no chapter of history so well worth 
 studying. 
 
 Stated or not, we say, this persuasion is tacitly ad- 
 mitted, and acted upon. In these days everywhere you 
 find it one of the most pressing duties for the writing 
 guild, to produce history on history of the French Re- 
 volution. In France it would almost seem as if the 
 young author felt that he must make this his proof- shot, 
 and evidence of craftsmanship : accordingly they do fire 
 off Histoires, Precis of Histoires, Annales, Fastes, (to say 
 nothing of Historical Novels, Gil Biases, Dantons, Bar- 
 
204 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 naves y Grangeneuves), in rapid succession, with or with- 
 out effect. At all events it is curious to look upon : 
 curious to contrast the picturing of the same fact by the 
 men of this generation and position with the picturing 
 of it by the men of the last. From Barruel and Fantin 
 Desodoards to Thiers and Mignet there is a distance ! 
 Each individual takes up the Phenomenon according to 
 his own point of vision, to the structure of his optic 
 organs ; — gives, consciously, some poor crotchety pic- 
 ture of several things ; unconsciously some picture of 
 himself at least. And the Phenomenon, for its part, 
 subsists there, all the while, unaltered ; waiting to be 
 pictured as often as you like, its entire meaning not to 
 be compressed into any picture drawn by man. 
 
 Thiers's History^ in ten volumes foolscap -octavo, 
 contains, if we remember rightly, one reference ; and 
 that to a book, not to the page or chapter of a book. 
 It has, for these last seven or eight years, a wide or even 
 high reputation ; which latter it is as far as possible 
 from meriting. A superficial air of order, of clearness, 
 calm candour, is spread over the work ; but inwardly, it 
 is waste, inorganic : no human head that honestly tries 
 can conceive the French Revolution so. A critic of our 
 acquaintance undertook, by way of bet, to find four 
 errors per hour in Thiers : he won amply on the first 
 trial or two.* And yet, readers (we must add) taking 
 
 * Thiers says, * Notables consented with eagerness' (vol. i. 
 p. 10), whereas they properly did not consent at all; * Parlement 
 recalled on the 10th of September' (for the 15th) ; and then * Se- 
 ance Royale took place on the 20th of the same month' (19th of 
 quite a different month, not the same, nor next to the same) ; 
 ' D'Espremenil a young Counsellor' (of forty and odd) ; * Duport 
 a young man' (turned of sixty), &c. &c. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 205 
 
 all this along with them, may peruse Thiers with comfort 
 in certain circumstances, nay, even with profit ; for he 
 is a brisk man of his sort ; and does tell you much, if 
 you knew nothing. 
 
 Mignet's, again, is a much more honestly written 
 book J yet also an eminently unsatisfactory one. His 
 two volumes contain far more meditation and investiga- 
 tion in them than Thiers' s ten : their degree of prefera- 
 bility therefore is very high ; for it may be said : Call 
 a book diffuse, and you call it in all senses bad ; the 
 writer could not find the right word to say, and so said 
 many more or less wrong ones ; did not hit the nail on 
 the head, only smote and bungled about it and about it. 
 Mignet's book has a compactness, a rigour, as of riveted 
 rods of iron : this also is an image of what symmetry it 
 has ; — symmetry, if not of a living earth-born Tree, yet 
 of a firm well- manufactured Gridiron. Without life, 
 without colour or verdure : that is to say, Mignet is 
 heartily and altogether a prosaist ; you are too happy 
 that he is not a quack as well ! It is very mortifying, 
 also, to study his philosophical reflections ; how he 
 jingles and rumbles a quantity of mere abstractions and 
 dead logical formulas, and calls it Thinking ; — rumbles 
 and rumbles, till he judges there may be enough ; then 
 begins again narrating. As thus : 
 
 ' The Constitution of 1791 was made on such principles 
 as had resulted from the ideas and the situation of France. 
 It was the work of the middle class, which chanced to be the 
 strongest then : for, as is well known, whatever force has 
 the lead will fashion the institutions according to its own 
 aims. Now this force, when it belongs to one, is despotism ; 
 when to several, it is privilege ; when to all, it is right : 
 
206 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 which latter state is the ultimatum of society, as it was its 
 beginning. France had finally arrived thither, after passing 
 through feudalism, which is the aristocratic institution ; and 
 then through absolutism, which is the monarchic one. 
 
 ' The work of the Constituent Assembly perished, not so 
 much by its own defects as by the assaults of factions. 
 Standing between the aristocracy and the multitude, it was 
 attacked by the former, and stormed and won by the latter. 
 The multitude would never have become supreme, had not 
 civil war and the coalition of foreign states rendered its inter- 
 vention and help indispensable. To defend the country the 
 multitude required to have the governing of it : thereupon 
 (alors) it made its revolution, as the middle class had made 
 its. The multitude too had its Fourteenth of July, which 
 was the Tenth of August ; its Constituent, which was the 
 Convention ; its Government, which was the Committee of 
 Salut Public ; but, as we shall see,' &c.* 
 
 Or thus ; for there is the like at the end of every chapter ; 
 
 ' But royalty had virtually fallen, on the Tenth of August ; 
 that day was the insurrection of the multitude against the 
 middle class and constitutional throne, as the Fourteenth of 
 July had been the insurrection of the middle classes against 
 the privileged classes and an absolute throne. The Tenth of 
 August witnessed the commencement of the dictatorial and 
 arbitrary epoch of the Revolution. Circumstances becoming 
 more and more difficult, there arose a vast war, which re- 
 quired increased energy ; and this energy, unregulated, in- 
 asmuch as it was popular, rendered the sway of the loWer 
 class an unquiet, oppressive, and cruel sway.* ' It was not 
 any way possible that the Bourgeoisie (middle class), which 
 had been strong enough to strike down the old government 
 and the privileged classes, but which had taken to repose 
 
 * Chap. IV. vol. i. p. 271. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 207 
 
 after this victory, could repulse the Emigration and united 
 Europe. There was needed for that a new shock, a new 
 faith ; there was needed for that a new Class, numerous, 
 ardent, not yet fatigued, and which loved its Tenth of August, 
 as the Burgherhood loved its Fourteenth of,' &c. &c.* 
 
 So uncommonly lively are these Abstractions (at 
 bottom only occurrences, similitudes, days of the month, 
 and such like), which rumble here in the historical 
 head ! Abstractions really of the most lively, insur- 
 rectionary character ; nay, which produce offspring, and 
 indeed are oftenest parricidally devoured thereby : — 
 such is the jingling and rumbling which calls itself 
 Thinking. Nearly so, though with greater effect, might 
 algebraical x's go rumbling in some Pascal's or Bab- 
 bage's mill. Just so, indeed, do the Kalmuck people 
 pray: quantities of written prayers are put in some 
 rotary pipkin or calabash (hung on a tree, or going like 
 the small barrel- churn of agricultural districts) ; this 
 the devotee has only to whirl and churn ; so long as he 
 whirls, it is prayer ; when he ceases whirling, the prayer 
 is done. Alas ! this is a sore error, very generally, 
 among French thinkers of the present time. One ought 
 to add that Mignet takes his place at the head of that 
 brotherhood of his ; that his little book, though abound- 
 ing too in errors of detail, better deserves what place it 
 has than any other of recent date. 
 
 The older Desodoardses, Barruels, Lacretelles, and 
 such like, exist, but will hardly profit much. Toulon- 
 geon, a man of talent and integrity, is very vague ; 
 
 * Chap. V. vol. i. p. 371. 
 
208 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 often incorrect for an eye-witness ; his military details 
 used to be reckoned valuable ; but, we suppose, Jomini 
 has eclipsed them now. The Abbe Montgaillard has 
 shrewdness, decision, insight ; abounds in anecdotes, 
 strange facts and reports of facts : his book being 
 written in the form of Annals, is convenient for con- 
 sulting. For the rest, he is acrid, exaggerated, occa- 
 sionally altogether perverse ; and, with his hastes and 
 his hatreds, falls into the strangest hallucination ; — as, 
 for example, when he coolly records that ' Madame de 
 ' Stael, Necker's daughter, was seen {on vit) distributing 
 * brandy to the Gardes Fran^aises in their barracks ;* 
 that * D'Orleans Egalit6 had a pair of ma?^-skin breeches,' 
 — leather breeches, of human skin, such as they did pre- 
 pare in the tannery of Meudon, but too late for D'Or- 
 leans ! The history by Deux Amis de Libert^, if the 
 reader secure the original edition, is perhaps worth all 
 the others; and offers (at least till 1792, after which 
 it becomes convulsive, semi-fatuous, here and there, in 
 the remaining dozen volumes) the best, correctest, most 
 picturesque narrative yet published. It is very correct, 
 very picturesque ; wants only foreshortening, shadow, 
 and compression ; a work of decided merit ; the authors 
 of it, what is singular, appear not to be known. 
 
 Finally, our English histories do likewise abound : 
 copious if not in facts, yet in reflections on facts. They 
 will prove to the most incredulous that this French 
 Revolution was, as Chamfort said, no ' rose-water Re- 
 volution that the universal insurrectionary abrogation 
 of law and custom was managed in a most unlawful, 
 uncustomary manner. He who wishes to know how a 
 solid Custos rotulorum, speculating over his port after 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 209 
 
 dinner, interprets the phenomena of contemporary Uni- 
 versal History, may look in these books : he v^ho does 
 not wish that, need not look. 
 
 On the whole, after all these writings and printings, 
 the weight of which would sink an Indiaman, there are, 
 perhaps, only some three publications hitherto that can 
 be considered as forwarding essentially a right knowledge 
 of this matter. The first of these is the Analyse du 
 Moniteury complete expository Index, and Syllabus of the 
 Moniteur Newspaper from 1789 tol799; a work carrying 
 its significance in its title ; — provided it be faithfully exe- 
 cuted ; which it is well known to be. Along with this 
 we may mention the series of Portraits, a hundred in 
 number, published with the original edition of it : many 
 of them understood to be accurate likenesses. The 
 natural face of a man is often worth more than several 
 biographies of him, as biographies are written. These 
 hundred Portraits have been copied into a book called 
 Scenes de la Revolution, which contains other pictures, 
 of small value, and some not useless writing by Cham- 
 fort ; and are often to be found in libraries. A republi- 
 cation of Vernet's Caricatures* would be a most ac- 
 ceptable service, but has not been thought of hitherto. 
 The second work to be counted here is the Choix des 
 Rapports, Opinions^ et Discours, in some twenty vo- 
 lumes, with an excellent index ; parliamentary speeches, 
 reports, &;c., are furnished in abundance ; complete illus- 
 tration of all that this Senatorial province (rather a wea- 
 risome one) can illustrate. Thirdly, we have to name the 
 Collection of Memoirs, completed several years ago, in 
 
 • See Mercier's Nouveau PariSf vol. iv. p. 254. 
 
210 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 above a hundred volumes. Booksellers Baudouin. Edi- 
 tors Berville and Barriere, have done their utmost ; 
 adding notes, explanations, rectifications, with portraits 
 also if you like ; Louvet, Riouffcy and the two volumes of 
 Memoirs on the Prisons are the most attractive pieces. 
 This Baudouin Collection, therefore, joins itself to that 
 of Petitot, as a natural sequel. 
 
 And now a fourth work, which follows in the train 
 of these, and deserves to be reckoned along with them, 
 is this Histoire Parlementaire of Messieurs Buchez and 
 Roux. The Authors are men of abihty and repute ; 
 Buchez, if we mistake not, is Dr, Buchez, and practises 
 medicine with acceptance ; Roux is known as an es- 
 sayist and journalist : they once listened a little to Saint- 
 Simon, but it was before Saint- Simonism called itself *a 
 religion,' and vanished in Bedlam. We have understood 
 there is a certain bibliomaniac military gentleman in 
 Paris, who in the course of years has amassed the most 
 astonishing collection of revolutionary ware : books, 
 pamphlets, newspapers, even sheets and handbills, ephe- 
 meral printings and paintings, such as the day brought 
 them forth, lie there without end.* Into this warehouse, 
 
 * It is generally known that a similar collection, perhaps still 
 larger and more curious, lies buried in the British Museum here, 
 — inaccessible for want of a proper catalogue. Some eighteen 
 months ago, the respectable sub -librarian seemed to be working at 
 such a thing : by respectful application to him, you could gain 
 access to his room, and have the satisfaction of mounting on lad- 
 ders, and reading the outside titles of his books, which was a great 
 help. Otherwise you could not in many weeks ascertain so much 
 as the table of contents of this repository ; and, after days of weary 
 waiting, dusty rummaging, and sickness of hope deferred, gave up 
 the enterprise as a ' game not worth the candle.' 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 211 
 
 as indeed into all manner of other repositories, Messrs. 
 Buchez and Roux have happily found access : the His- 
 toire Parlementaire is the fruit of their labours there. A 
 Number, two forming a Volume, is published every fort- 
 night : we have the first Twenty-two Volumes before us, 
 which bring down the narrative to January, 1793 ; there 
 must be several other Volumes out, which we have not 
 yet seen. Conceive a judicious compilation with such 
 resources. Parliamentary Debates, in summary, or 
 (where the occasion warrants it) given at large ; this 
 is by no means the most interesting part of the mat- 
 ter : we have excerpts, notices, hints of all imaginable 
 sorts ; of Newspapers, of Pamphlets, of Sectionary and 
 Municipal Records, of the Jacobins' Club, of Placard- 
 journals, nay of Placards and Caricatures. No livelier 
 emblem of the time, in its actual movement and tumult, 
 could be presented. The Editors connect these frag- 
 ments by expositions such as are needful ; so that a 
 reader coming unprepared to the work can still know 
 what he is about. Their expositions, as we can testify, 
 are handsomely done : but altogether apart from these, 
 the excerpts themselves are the valuable thing. The 
 scissors, in such a case, are independent of the pen. 
 One of the most interesting English biographies we 
 have is that long thin Folio on Oliver Cromwell, pub- 
 lished some five- and- twenty years ago, where the editor 
 has merely dipt out from the contemporary newspapers 
 whatsover article, paragraph, or sentence he found to 
 contain the name of Old Noll, and printed them in the 
 order of their dates. It is surprising that the like has 
 not been attempted in other cases. Had seven of the 
 eight Translators of Faust, and seventy times seven of 
 
212 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the four hundred four-score and ten Imaginative Au- 
 thors, but thrown down the writing instrument, and 
 turned to the old newspaper files judiciously with the 
 cutting one ! 
 
 We can testify, after not a little examination, that 
 the Editors of the Histoire Parlementaire are men of 
 fidelity, of diligence ; that their accuracy in regard to 
 facts, dates, and so forth, is far beyond the average. 
 Of course they have their own opinions, prepossessions 
 even; but these are honest prepossessions, which they 
 do not hide ; which one can estimate the force of, allow 
 for the result of. Wilful falsification, did the possibility 
 of it lie in their character, is otherwise out of the ques- 
 tion. But, indeed, our Editors are men of earnestness, 
 of strict principle ; of a faith, were it only in the repub- 
 lican Tricolor. Their democratic faith, truly, is palpable, 
 thorough- going ; as it has a right to be, in these days, 
 since it likes. The thing you have to praise, however, 
 is that it is a quiet faith, never an hysterical one ; never 
 expresses itself otherwise than with a becoming calm- 
 ness, especially with a becoming brevity. The hoarse 
 deep croak of Marat, the brilliant sharp- cutting gaiety 
 of Desmoulins, the dull bluster ofPrudhomme, the cack- 
 ling garrulity of Brissot, all is welcomed with a cold 
 gravity and brevity; all is illustrative, if not of one 
 thing, then of another. Nor are the royalist Royous, 
 Suleaus, Peltiers, forgotten ; Acts of the Apostles, King*s 
 Friend, nor Crowing of the Cock : these, indeed, are more 
 sparingly administered ; but at the right time, as is pro- 
 mised, we shall have more. In a word, it may be said 
 of this Histoire Parlementaire, that the wide promise 
 held out in its title-page is really, in some respectable 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 213 
 
 measure, fulfilled. With a fit Index to wind it up 
 (which Index ought to be not good only but excellent, 
 so much depends on it here), this Work bids fair to be 
 one of the most important yet published on the History 
 of the Revolution. No library, that professes to have a 
 collection in this sort, can dispense with it. 
 
 A Histoire Parlementaire is precisely the house, or 
 say rather, the unbuilt city, of which the single brick 
 can form a specimen. In so rich a variety the only 
 diflficulty is where to choose. We have scenes of tra- 
 gedy, of comedy, of farce, of farce-tragedy oftenest of 
 all ; there is eloquence, gravity ; there is bluster, bom- 
 bast, and absurdity : scenes tender, scenes barbarous, 
 spirit-stirring, and then flatly wearisome : a thing waste, 
 incoherent, wild to look upon ; but great with the great- 
 ness of reality ; for the thing exhibited is no vision, but 
 a fact. Let us, as the first excerpt, give this tragedy of 
 old Foulon, which all the world has heard of, perhaps 
 not very accurately. Foulon's life-drama, with its hasty 
 cruel sayings and mean doings, with its thousandfold 
 intrigues, and ' the people eating grass if they like,' ends 
 in this miserable manner. It is the Editors themselves 
 who speak ; compiling from various sources : 
 
 'Towards five in the morning (Paris, 22d July, 1789), 
 M. Foulon was brought in ; he had been arrested at Vitry, 
 near Fontainebleau, by the peasants of the place. Doubtless 
 this man thought himself very guilty towards the people' 
 (say, very hateful) ; ' for he had spread abroad a report of 
 his death ; and had even buried one of his servants, who 
 happened to die then, under his own name. He had after- 
 wards hidden himself in an estate of M. de Sartines' ; where 
 he was detected and seized. 
 
214 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' M. Foulon was taken to the H6tel-de-Ville, where they 
 made him wait. Towards nine o'clock, the assembled Com- 
 mittee had decided that he should be sent to the Abbaye 
 prison. M. de Lafayette was sent for, that he might execute 
 this order ; he was abroad over the Districts : he could not 
 be found. During this time a crowd collected in the square ; 
 and required to see Foulon. It was noon : M. Bailly came 
 down ; the people listened to him ; but still persisted. In 
 the end they penetrated into the great hall of the H6tel-de- 
 Ville ; would see Foulon, "whom," say they, "you are 
 wanting to smuggle off from justice.^' Foulon was presented 
 to them. Then began this remarkable dialogue. M. de la 
 Poize, an Elector : Messieurs, every guilty person should 
 be judged." — Yes, judged directly, and then hanged." — 
 M. Osselin : " To judge, one must have judges ; let us send 
 M. Foulon to the tribunals." — " No, no," replied the people ; 
 "judge him just now." — Since you will not have the com- 
 mon judges," said M. Osselin, "it is indispensable to appoint 
 others." — "Well, judge him yourselves." — "We have no 
 right either to judge or to create judges ; do you name them." 
 — "Well," cried the people, ^'M. le Cure of Saint-Etienne then, 
 and M. le Cure of Saint- Andre." — Osselin : " Two judges are 
 not enough; there needs seven." Thereupon the people named 
 Messrs. Quatremere, Varangue, &c. " Here are seven judges 
 indeed," said Osselin ; " but we still want a clerk." — " Be 
 you clerk." — "A king's Attorney." — "Let it be M. Du- 
 veyrier." — " Of what crime is M. Foulon accused?" asked 
 Duveyrier. — " He wished to harass the people; he said he 
 would make them eat grass ; he was in the plot ; he was for 
 national bankruptcy ; he bought up corn." The two curates 
 then rose, and declared that they refused to judge ; the laws 
 of the church not permitting them. " They are right," said 
 some. " They are cozening us," said others ; and the pri- 
 soner all the while is making his escape." At these words 
 there rose a frightful tumult in the Hall. " Messieurs," said 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 215 
 
 an Elector, *'name four of yourselves to guard him." Four 
 men accordingly were chosen ; sent into the neighbouring 
 apartment, where Foulon was. " But will you judge, then 
 cried the crowd. — Messieurs, you see there are two judges 
 wanting.' —"We name M. Bailly and M. Lafayette."-—'' But 
 M. Lafayette is absent ; one must either wait for him, or 
 name some other." — " Well, then, name directly, and do it 
 yourself." 
 
 ' At length the Electors agreed to proceed to judgment ; 
 Foulon was again brought in. The foremost part of the 
 crowd joined hands, and formed a chain several ranks deep, 
 in the middle of which he was received. At this moment 
 M. Lafayette came in ; went and took his place at the board 
 among the Electors ; and then addressed to the people a 
 discourse, of which the Ami du Roi and the Records of the 
 Town -hall, the two authorities we borrow from here, give 
 different reports.' 
 
 Lafayette's speech, according to both versions, is to 
 the effect that Foulon is guilty ; but that he doubtless 
 has accomplices ; that he must be taken to the Abbaye 
 prison, and investigated there. Yes, yes, to prison ! 
 Off with him, off!" cried the crowd. The Deux Amis 
 add another not insignificant circumstance, that poor 
 Foulon himself, hearing this conclusion of Lafayette's, 
 clapped hands ; whereupon the crowd said, See ! they 
 are both in a story Our Editors continue and con- 
 clude : 
 
 ' At this moment there rose a great clamour in the square. 
 " It is the Palais Royal coming," said one. " It is the Fau- 
 bourg Saint- Antoine," said another. Then a well-dressed 
 person (homme bien mis) advanced towards the board, and 
 said, " Vous vous moqiiez! What is the use of judging a man 
 who has been judged these thirty years ?" At this word, 
 Foulon was clutched ; hurled out to the square ; and finally 
 
216 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 tied to the fatal rope, which hung from the Lanterne at the 
 corner of the Rue de la Vannerie. The rope was afterwards 
 cut ; the head was put on a pike, and paraded,' — with ' grass' 
 in the mouth of it, they might have added !* 
 
 The Revolutions de France et de Brabant, Camille 
 Desmoulins's Newspaper, furnishes numerous extracts, 
 in the earlier Volumes ; always of a remarkable kind. 
 This Procureur General de la Lanterne has a place of his 
 own in the history of the Revolution ; there are not 
 many notabler persons in it than he. A light harmless 
 creature ; as he says of himself, ' a man born to write 
 verses but whom Destiny directed to overthrow Bas- 
 tilles, and go to the guillotine for doing that. How 
 such a man will comport himself in a French Revolution, 
 as he from time to time turns up there, is worth seeing. 
 Of loose headlong character ; a man stuttering in speech ; 
 stuttering, infirm in conduct too, till one huge idea laid 
 hold of him : a man for whom Art, Fortune, or himself, 
 would never do much, but to whom Nature had been 
 very kind ! One meets him always with a sort of for- 
 giveness, almost of underhand love, as for a prodigal son. 
 He has good gifts, and even acquirements ; elegant law- 
 scholarship, quick sense, the freest joyful heart : a fellow 
 of endless wit, clearness, soft lambent brilliancy ; on any 
 subject you can listen to him, if without approving, yet 
 without yawning. As a writer, in fact, there is nothing 
 French, that we have heard of, superior or equal to him 
 for these fifty years. Probably some French editor, some 
 day or other, will sift that journalistic rubbish, and pro- 
 duce out of it, in small neat compass, a Life and Remains 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 148. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 217 
 
 of this poor Camille. We pick up three light fractions, 
 illustrative of him and of the things he moved in ; they 
 relate to the famous Fifth of October (1789), when the 
 women rose in insurrection. The Palais Royal and 
 Marquis Saint-Huruge have been busy on the King's 
 vetOy and Lally Tollendal's proposal of an upper house : 
 
 ' Was the Palais Royal so far wrong,' says Camille, ' to 
 cr}^ out against such things ? I know that the Palais Royal 
 Promenade is strangely miscellaneous ; that pickpockets fre- 
 quently employ the liberty of the press there, and many a 
 zealous patriot has lost his handkerchief in the fire of debate. 
 But, for all that, I must bear honourable testimony to the 
 promenaders in this Lyceum and Stoa. The Palais Royal 
 Garden is the focus of patriotism : there do the chosen pa- 
 triots rendezvous, who have left their hearths and their pro- 
 vinces to witness this magnificent spectacle of the Revolution 
 of 1789, and not to witness without aiding in it. They are 
 Frenchmen ; they have an interest in the Constitution, and 
 a right to concur in it. How many Parisians too, instead of 
 going to their Districts, find it shorter to come at once to the 
 Palais Royal. Here you have not to ask a President if you 
 may speak, and wait two hours till your turn comes. You 
 propose your motion ; if it find supporters, they set you on 
 a chair : if you are applauded, you proceed to the redaction ; 
 if you are hissed, you go your ways. It is very much the 
 mode the Romans followed ; their Forum and our Palais 
 Royal resemble one another.'* 
 
 Then, a few days farther on, — the celebrated military 
 dinner at Versailles, with the white cockades, black 
 cockades, and * 0 Richard, 0 mon Roi !' having been 
 transacted : 
 
 VOL. V. 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 414. 
 L 
 
218 
 
 MISCELLANIES, 
 
 ' Paris, Sunday, 4:th October, The King's Wife had been 
 so gratified with it, that this brotherly repast of Thursday 
 must needs be repeated. It was so on the Saturday, and 
 with aggravations. Our patience was worn out : you may 
 suppose whatever patriot observers there were at Versailles 
 hastened to Paris with the news, or at least sent olF de- 
 spatches containing them. That same day (Saturday even- 
 ing) all Paris set itself astir. It was a lady, first, who, 
 seeing that her husband was not listened to at his District, 
 came to the bar of the Cafe de Foi, to denounce the anti- 
 national cockades. M. Marat flies to Versailles ; returns 
 like lightning ; makes a noise like the four blasts of doom, 
 crying to us. Awake, ye Dead ! Danton, on his side, sounds 
 the alarm in the Cordeliers. On Sunday this immortal Cor- 
 deliers District posts its manifesto ; and that very day they 
 would have gone to Versailles, had not M. Crevecceur, their 
 commandant, stood in the way. People seek out their arms, 
 however ; sally out to the streets, in chase of an ti- national 
 cockades. The law of reprisals is in force ; these cockades 
 are torn off, trampled under foot, with menace of the Lan- 
 feme in case of relapse. A militaiy gentleman, picking up 
 his cockade, is for fastening it on again ; a hundred canes 
 start into the air, saying Veto. The whole Sunday passes 
 in hunting down the white and the black cockades ; in hold- 
 ing council at the Palais Royal, over the Faubourg Saint- 
 Antoine, at the end of Bridges, on the Quais. At the doors 
 of the coffee-houses, there arise free conferences between the 
 Upper House, of the coats that are within, and the Lower 
 House, of jackets and wool-caps, assembled extra muros. It 
 is agreed upon that the audacity of the aristocrats increases 
 rapidly ; that Madame Villepatour and the Queen's women 
 are distributing enormous white cockades to all comers in the 
 CEil-de-Boeuf ; that M. Lecointre, having refused to take one 
 from their hands, has all but been assassinated. It is agreed 
 upon that we have not a moment to lose ; that the boat 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 219 
 
 which used to bring us flour from Corbeil, morning and 
 evening, now comes only once in two days : — do they plan 
 to make their attack at the moment when they have kept us 
 for eight-and-forty hours in a fasting state? It is agreed 
 upon/ &c.* 
 
 — We hasten to the catastrophe, which arrives on 
 the morrow. It is related elsewhere, in another leading 
 article ; 
 
 * At break of day, the women rush towards the H6tel-de- 
 Ville. All the way, they recruit fresh hands, among their 
 own sex, to march with them ; as sailors are recruited at 
 London : there is an active press of women. The Quai de la 
 Ferraille is covered with female crimps. The robust kitchen- 
 maid, the slim mantuamaker, all must go to swell the pha- 
 lanx ; the ancient devotee, tripping to mass in the dawn, sees 
 herself for the first time carried off, and shrieks Help I whilst 
 more than one of the younger sort secretly is not so sorry at 
 going, without mother or mistress, to Versailles to pay her 
 respects to the august Assembly. At the same time, for the 
 accuracy of this narrative, I must remark that these women, 
 at least the battalion of them which encamped that night in 
 the Assembly Hall, and had marched under the flag of M. 
 Maillard, had among themselves a Presidentess and Staff ; 
 and that every woman, on being borrowed from her mother 
 or husband, was presented to the Presidentess or some of her 
 aides-de-camp, who engaged to watch over her morality, and 
 insure her honour foi this day. 
 
 ' Once arrived on the Place de Greve, these women 
 piously begin letting down the Lanterne ; as in great ca- 
 lamities, you let down the shrine of Saint Genevieve. 
 Next they are for mounting into the H6tel-de-Ville. The 
 Commandant had been forewarned of this movement ; he 
 
 * Vol. iii. p. 63. 
 
220 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 knew that all insurrections have begun by women, whose 
 maternal bosom the bayonet of the satellites of despotism 
 respects. Four thousand soldiers presented a front bristling 
 with bayonets ; kept them back from the step : but behind 
 these women there rose and grew every moment a nucleus of 
 men, armed with pikes, axes, bills ; blood is about to flow on 
 the place ; the presence of these Sabine women hindered it. 
 The National Guard, which is not purely a machine, as the 
 Minister of War would have the soldier be, makes use of its 
 reason. It discerns that these women, now for Versailles, 
 are going to the root of the mischief. The four thousand 
 Guards, already getting saluted with stones, think it reason- 
 ablest to open a passage ; and, like waters through a broken 
 dike, the floods of the multitude inundate the H6tel-de- 
 Ville. 
 
 ' It is a picture interesting to paint, and one of the 
 greatest in the Revolution, this same army of ten thousand 
 Judiths setting forth to cut off the head of Holofernes ; 
 forcing the H6tel-de-Ville ; arming themselves with what- 
 ever they can lay hands on ; some tying ropes to the cannon- 
 trains, arresting carts, loading them with artillery, with 
 powder and balls for the Versailles National Guard, which is 
 left without ammunition ; others driving on the horses, or 
 seated on cannon, holding the redoubtable match; seeking 
 for their generalissimo, not aristocrats with epaulettes, but 
 Conquerors of the Bastille 1'* 
 
 So far Camille on veto, scarcity, and the Insurrec- 
 tion of Women, in the end of 1789. As it is not fit 
 that all our scenes should be of tragedy or low- tragedy, 
 the reader will perhaps consent now to a touch of the 
 moral- sublime. Let him enter the Hall of the Jacobins 
 with us. All men have heard of the Jacobins' Club ; 
 
 * Vol. iii. p. 110. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 221 
 
 but not all would think of looking for comedy or the 
 moral -sublime there. Nevertheless so it is. Ah ! the 
 sublime of the Jacobins vras not alvrays of the blue-light 
 pandemonial sort ; far otherwise once ! We will give 
 this passage from the Journal of the Jacobins' Debates ; 
 not as one of the best, but as one of the pleasaiitest for 
 English readers. Fancy that high Hall, with its seats 
 for fifteen hundred, ' rising in amphitheatre to the cornice 
 of the dome its Tribune elevated to mid-air ; Galleries 
 and Ladies' Gallery full ; President seated ; shrill Huts- 
 siers perambulating with their rods and liveries, sound- 
 ing forth ''Silence! Silence!" Consider that it is the 
 18th of December, 1791 (free monarchic constitution 
 solemnly accepted six weeks ago) ; and read : 
 
 ' The conflaence of strangers was so great that besides 
 the new gallery erected for them, the old ones were quite 
 full, as well as those on the opposite side of the Hall ; and 
 nevertheless a great multitude of citizens who could not find 
 room or admittance on any terms. 
 
 ' The reading of the announcements and select corre- 
 spondence was scarcely begun, when the Hall resounded with 
 applauses at the entrance of the three united Flags, of the 
 English, the American and French Nation, which were to 
 be placed in the Hall ; as the Society of Friends of the Re- 
 volution in London had placed them in theirs. 
 
 Cries of " Liberty forever! The Nation forever! The 
 three Free Peoples of the Universe forever {Vivent les trois 
 peuples litres de Vunivers) ! " are re-echoed with enthusiasm 
 by the galleries and visitors : the expression, no less sincere 
 than lively, of that ardour, of that love for Equality and 
 Brotherhood, which Nature has engraved in the hearts of 
 all men ; and which nothing but the continued efforts of 
 despots, in all classes, have managed to efface more or less. 
 
222 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' A Deputation of Ladies is introduced ; Ladies accus- 
 tomed to honour the galleries with their presence : they had 
 solicited permission to offer a pledge of their enthusiasm for 
 Liberty to the Constitutional Whig, who came lately to the 
 National Assembly with the congratulation of this class of 
 free Englishmen. 
 
 ' The Deputation enters, amid the applauses of the meet- 
 ing : a young Citizeness carries in her hand the Gift of these 
 Ladies, lays it on the President's table, while the Lady-De- 
 puties mount to the Tribune, to pronounce the following 
 discourse. 
 
 ' The Lady-speaJcer, We are not Roman Dames ; we 
 bring no jewels ; but a tribute of gratitude for the feelings 
 you have inspired us with. A Constitutional Whig (Wigh), 
 a Brother, an Englishman, formed, few days ago, the object 
 of one of your sweetest unitings (etreintes). What a charm 
 had that picture ! Souls of sensibility were struck with it ; 
 our hearts are yet full of emotion (Applause). This day 
 you afford to that Brother, and to yourselves, a new enjoy- 
 ment ; you suspend to the dome of our temple three Flags, 
 American, English, French. 
 
 ' From all sides. The Three Nations, Vivent les trois na- 
 tions f Vive la Liberie ! 
 
 ' Lady-speaker, The union of the Three free Peoples is 
 to be cemented : forbid not us also. Messieurs, to contribute 
 towards that. Your pure feelings prescribe it for us as a 
 duty. Messieurs, accept a garland. — And you, English 
 Brother, accept another from the hands of innocence : it is 
 the work of sisterhood ; friendship gives it you. Receive 
 also, O good Patriot, in the name of the French Citoyennes 
 who are here, this Ark of Alliance, which we have brought for 
 our brethren the Constitutional Whigs ( Wighs) : within it 
 are enclosed the Map of France, divided into eighty- three de- 
 partments ; the Cap of Liberty (Applause) ; the Book of the 
 French Constitution ; a Civic Crown ; some Ears of Wheat 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 223 
 
 {Applause) ; three Flags ; a National Cockade ; and these 
 words in the two languages. To live free or die. 
 
 * The whole Hall. To live free or die ! 
 
 ' Lady -speaker. Let this immortal homage done to Li- 
 berty be, for the English and the French, a sacred pledge of 
 their union. Forget not to tell our brothers how you have 
 received it. Let it be deposited with the brotherliest cere- 
 monial ! Invite all Englishmen to participate in this family 
 act. Let it be precious to them as Nature herself. — Tell 
 your wives, repeat to your children, that innocent maids, 
 faithful spouses, tender mothers, after having done their 
 household duties, and contributed to make their families and 
 husbands happy, came and made this offering to their Coun- 
 try. Let one cry of gladness peal over Europe ; let it roll 
 across the waters to America. Hark ! Amid the echoes, Phi- 
 ladelphia and the Far West repeat like us. Liberty forever ! 
 
 ' The whole Hall. Liberty forever ! 
 
 * Lady -speaker. Tyrants ! your enemies declare them- 
 selves. Nations will no longer battle with each other ; 
 straitly united, they will possess all Languages, and make 
 of them but one Language. Strong in their Freedom they 
 will be inseparable forever. — 
 
 ' Universal applauses : the Hall resounds long with cries, 
 repeated by the Galleries and the Society, of Five la Nation, 
 vive la Liberie! The Three Nations ! The Patriot Women ! 
 
 ' M. de la Source, Vice-president. Since Nature has 
 willed that the world should owe to you its sweetest mo- 
 ments, this enthusiasm of yours with which you fill all 
 hearts shall never be lost, never forgotten in the flight of 
 ages : it stands engraved on our hearts in indelible charac- 
 ters. — (Then turning to the Deputies of the Whigs.) As for 
 you. Brothers, tell your countrymen what we are ; tell them 
 that in France the women too can love their country and shew 
 themselves worthy of Liberty ; tell them that the union, of 
 which you see the emblems, shall be imperishable as the Free 
 
224 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Peoples are; that we have henceforth only one sort of bonds, 
 the bonds which unite us to the Free, and that these shall be 
 eternal as virtue. 
 
 ' The Whig Deputy. Mesdames and M. le President, I 
 really am not prepared to make a speech' (how true to the 
 " leg-of-mutton or postprandial style !") — ' for really I did 
 not expect such a reception ; but I hope you will excuse me. 
 I have written to England, I have described the reception I 
 met with here : I have had answers, but not from our Society, 
 because that requires time ; the Society must meet first and 
 then answer. — I wish it were in my power' (postprandially 1) 
 ' to express what my heart feels. This feeling towards you 
 is not the work of a day, but indeed that of a year (!), for in 
 August last, our Society wrote to M. Petion, who, however, 
 assures me that the Letter never reached him ; and there- 
 fore — ' * 
 
 — and so on, in the postprandial style ; bringing down 
 matters to the solid business-level again. Few readers, 
 it is to be expected, have witnessed on the unelastic 
 stage of mere Earth anything so dramatic as this. 
 
 We terminate with a scene of a very different com- 
 plexion, though but some few months farther on, that 
 is to say, in September 1792 ! Felemhesi (anagram for 
 M^Me Fils), in his Verite toute entiere, a Pamphlet really 
 more veracious than most, thus testifies, after a good 
 deal of preambling : 
 
 ' I was going to my post about half-past two' (Sunday, 
 the 2d of September, tocsins all ringing, and Brunswick just 
 at hand) ; * I was passing along the Rue Dauphine ; sud- 
 denly I hear hisses. I look, I observe four hackney-coaches, 
 coming in a train, escorted by the Federes of the Depart- 
 ments. 
 
 * Tome xiL 370. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 225 
 
 ' Each of these coaches contained four persons : they 
 were individuals' (priests) ' arrested in the preceding domi- 
 ciliary visits. Billaud-Varennes, Procureur- Substitute of 
 the Commune, had just been interrogating them at the 
 H6tel-de-Ville ; and now they were proceeding towards the 
 Abbaye, to be provisionally detained there. A crowd is ga- 
 thering; the cries and hisses redouble : one of the prisoners, 
 doubtless out of his senses, takes fire at these murmurs, puts 
 his arm over the coach- door, gives one of the Federes a 
 stroke over the head with his cane. The Federe, in a rage, 
 draws his sabre, springs on the carriage- steps, and plunges 
 it thrice over into the heart of his aggressor. I saw the 
 blood come out in great jets. Kill every one of them ; 
 they are scoundrels, aristocrats ! " cry the people. The Fe- 
 deres all draw their sabres, and instantly kill the three com- 
 panions of the one who had just perished. I saw, at this 
 moment, a young man in a white nightgown stretch himself 
 out of that same carriage : his countenance, expressive but 
 pale and worn, indicated that he was very sick ; he had ga- 
 thered his staggering strength and, though already wounded, 
 was crying still, " Grace, grace, Mercy, pardon V but in vain ; 
 — a mortal stroke united him to the lot of the others. 
 
 ' This coach, which was the hindmost, now held nothing 
 but corpses ; it had not stopped during the carnage, which 
 lasted about the space of two minutes. The crowd increases, 
 crescit eundo ; the yells redouble. The coaches are at the 
 Abbaye. The corpses are hurled into the court ; the twelve 
 living prisoners dismount to enter the committee-room. Two 
 are sacrificed on alighting ; ten succeed in entering. The 
 committee had not had time to put the slightest question, 
 when a multitude, armed with pikes, sabres, swords, and 
 bayonets, dashes in, seizes the accused, and kills them. 
 One prisoner, already much wounded, kept hanging by the 
 skirts of a Committee-member, and still struggled against 
 death. 
 
 L 2 
 
226 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' Three yet remained ; one of whom was the Abbe Sicard, 
 Teacher of the Deaf and Dumb. The sabres were already 
 over his head, when Monnot, the watchmaker, flung himself 
 before them, crying, " Kill me rather, and not this man, 
 who is useful to our country ! " These words, uttered with 
 the fire and impetuosity of a generous soul, suspended death. 
 Profiting by this moment of calm. Abbe Sicard and the other 
 two were got conveyed into the back part of the room.' 
 
 Abbe Sicard, as is well known, survived ; and the 
 narrative which he also published exists, — sufficient to 
 prove, among other things, that * Felemhesi * had but two 
 eyes, and his own share of sagacity and heart ; that he 
 has m25-seen, miscounted, and, knowingly or unknow- 
 ingly, mistated not a little, — as one poor man, in these 
 circumstances, might. Felemhesi continues, we only in- 
 verting his arrangement somewhat : 
 
 ' Twelve scoundrels, presided by Maillard, with whom 
 they had probably combined this project beforehand, find 
 themselves " by chance'' among the crowd ; and now, being 
 well-known one to another, they unite themselves " in the 
 name of the sovereign people/' whether it were of their own 
 private audacity, or that they had secretly received superior 
 orders. They lay hold of the prison-registers, and turn them 
 over ; the turnkeys fall a-trembling ; the jailor's wife and the 
 jailor faint ; the prison is surrounded by furious men ; there 
 is shouting, clamouring : the door is assaulted, like to be 
 forced; when one of the Committee-members presents him- 
 self at the outer gate, and begs audience : his signs obtain a 
 moment of silence ; the doors open, he advances, gets a 
 chair, mounts on it, and speaks : " Comrades, friends," said 
 he, " you are good patriots ; your resentment is just. Open 
 war to the enemies of the common good ; neither truce nor 
 mercy ; it is a war to the death ! I feel, like you, that they 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 227 
 
 must all perish. And yet, if you are good citizens, you must 
 love justice. There is not one of you but would shudder at 
 the notion of shedding innocent blood. ^' — " Yes, yes V* reply 
 the people. — " Well, then, I ask of you if, without inquiry 
 or investigation, you fling yourselves like mad tigers on your 
 
 fellow-men Here the speaker is interrupted by one 
 
 of the crowd, who, with a bloody sabre in his hand, his eyes 
 glancing with rage, cleaves the press, and refutes him in 
 these terms : Tell us. Monsieur le Citoyen, explain to us 
 then, would the sacres gueux of Prussians and Austrians, if 
 they were at Paris, investigate for the guilty ? Would they 
 not cut to the right and left, as the Swiss on the Tenth of 
 August did ? Weil 1 I am no speaker, I cannot stuff the ears 
 of any one : but I tell you, I have a wife and five children, 
 whom 1 leave with my Section here, while I go and fight the 
 enemy ; and it is not my bargain that the villains in this 
 Prison, whom other villains outside will open the door to, 
 shall go and kill my wife and children in the meanwhile ! 
 I have three boys, who I hope will be usefuller to their 
 country one day than these rascals you want to save. Any 
 way, you have but to send them out ; we will give them 
 arms, and fight them number for number. Die here, or die 
 on the frontiers, I am sure enough to be killed by these vil- 
 lains, one day ; but I mean to sell them my life ; and, be it 
 I, be it others, the Prison shall be purged of these sacres 
 gueux Id,'* — He is right!" responds the general cry.' — 
 And so the frightful ' purgation' proceeds. 
 
 ' At five in the afternoon, Billaud-Varennes, Procureur- 
 Substitute, arrives ; he had on his sash, and the small puce 
 coat and black wig we are used to see on him : walking over 
 carcasses, he makes a short harangue to the people, and ends 
 thus : " People, thou art sacrificing thy enemies ; thou art 
 in thy duty." This cannibal speech lends them new anima- 
 tion. The killers blaze up, cry louder than ever for new 
 victims: — how to stanch this new thirst of blood ? A 
 
228 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 voice speaks from beside Billaud ; it was Maillard's voice : 
 " There is nothing more to do here ; let us to the Carmes !** 
 They run thither : in five minutes more, I saw them trailing 
 corpses by the heels. A killer (I cannot say a man), in very 
 coarse clothes, had, as it would seem, been specially commis- 
 sioned to despatch the Abbe Lenfant ; for, apprehensive lest 
 the prey might be missed, he takes water, flings it on the 
 corpses, washes their blood-smeared faces, turns them over, 
 and seems at last to ascertain that the Abbe Lenfant is 
 among them/* 
 
 This is the September Massacre, the last Scene we 
 can give as a specimen. Thus, in these curious records 
 of the Histoire Parlementaire, as in some Ezekiel Vision 
 become real, does Scene after Scene disclose itself, now 
 in rose-light, now in sulphurous black, and grow ever 
 more fitful, dreamlike, — till the Vendemiaire Scene 
 come, and Napoleon blow forth his grapeshot, and 
 Sansculottism be no more ! 
 
 Touching the political and metaphysical speculations 
 of our two Editors, we shall say little. They are of the 
 sort we lamented in Mignet, and generally in French- 
 men of this day : a jingling of formulas ; — unfruitful as 
 that Kalmuck prayer ! Perhaps the strangest-looking 
 particular doctrine we have noticed is this : that the 
 French Revolution was at bottom an attempt to realise 
 Christianity, and fairly put it in action, in our world. 
 For eighteen centuries (it is not denied) men had been 
 doing more or less that way ; but they set their shoulder 
 rightly to the wheel, and gave a dead-lift, for the first 
 time then. Good M. Roux ! And yet the good Roux 
 
 * Vol. xviii. p. 169. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 229 
 
 does mean something by this ; and even something true. 
 But a marginal annotator has written on our copy, ' For 
 the love of Heaven, Messieurs, humez vos formules / 
 make away with your formulas ; take off your facetted 
 spectacles ; open your eyes a little, and look ! There is, 
 indeed, here and there, considerable rumbling of the 
 rotatory calabash, which rattles and rumbles, concerning 
 Progress of the Species, Doctrine du Progres, Exploita- 
 tions, le Christ, the Verbe, and what not ; written in a 
 vein of deep, even of intense seriousness ; but profitable, 
 one would think, to no man or woman. In this style 
 M. Roux (for it is he, we understand) painfully com- 
 poses a Preface to each Volume, and has even given a 
 whole introductory History of France : we read some 
 seven or eight of his first Prefaces, hoping always to get 
 some nourishment ; but seldom or never cut him open 
 now. Fighting, in that way, behind cover, he is com- 
 paratively harmless ; merely wasting you so many pence 
 per number : happily the space he takes is small. Who- 
 ever wants to form for himself an image of the actual 
 state of French Meditation, and under what surprising 
 shackles a French thinking man of these days finds him- 
 self gyved, and mechanized, and reduced to the verge of 
 zero, may open M. Roux's Prefaces, and see it as in an 
 expressive summary. 
 
 We wish our two French friends all speed in their 
 business ; and do again honestly recommend this His- 
 toire Parlementaire to any and all of our English friends 
 who take interest in that subject. 
 
230 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT.* 
 [1838.] 
 
 American Cooper asserts, in one of his books, that there 
 is ' an instinctive tendency in men to look at any man 
 who has become distinguished.' True, surely ; as all 
 observation and survey of mankind, from China to Peru, 
 from Nebuchadnezzar to Old Hickory, v^ill testify ! 
 Why do men crowd towards the improved - drop at 
 Newgate, eager to catch a sight ? The man about 
 to be hanged is in a distinguished situation. Men 
 crowd to such extent, that Greenacre's is not the only 
 life choked out there. Again, ask of these leathern 
 vehicles, cabriolets, neat-flies, with blue men and women 
 in them, that scour all thoroughfares, Whither so fast ? 
 To see dear Mrs. Rigmarole, the distinguished female ; 
 great Mr. Rigmarole, the distinguished male ! Or, con- 
 sider that crowning phenomenon, and summary of mo- 
 dem civilisation, a soiree of lions. Glittering are the 
 rooms, well-lighted, thronged ; bright flows their undu- 
 latory flood of blonde-gowns and dress-coats, a soft 
 smile dwelling on all faces ; for behold there also flow 
 the lions, hovering distinguished : oracles of the age, of 
 one sort or another. Oracles really pleasant to see ; 
 
 * London and Westminster Review, No. 12. — Memoirs 
 of the Life of Sir Walter Scott y Baronet. Vol. i. — vi. Edin- 
 burgh, 1837. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 231 
 
 whom it is worth while to go and see : look at them, 
 but inquire not of them, depart rather and be thankful. 
 For your Hon-5oeVee admits not of speech ; there lies the 
 specialty of it. A meeting together of human crea- 
 tures ; and yet (so high has civilisation gone) the pri- 
 mary aim of human meeting, that soul might in some 
 articulate utterance unfold itself to soul, can be dis- 
 pensed with in it. Utterance there is not : nay there is 
 a certain grinning play of tongue-fence, and make-be- 
 lieve of utterance, considerably worse than none. For 
 which reason it has been suggested, with an eye to sin- 
 cerity and silence in such lion-soiree^, Might not each 
 lion be, for example, ticketed, as wine- decanters are } 
 Let him carry, slung round him, in such ornamental 
 manner as seemed good, his silver label with name en- 
 graved ; you lift his label, and read it, with what farther 
 ocular survey you find useful, and speech is not needed 
 at all. O Fenimore Cooper, it is most true there is 
 ' an instinctive tendency in men to look at any man that 
 ' has become distinguished and, moreover, an instinctive 
 desire in men to become distinguished and be looked at ! 
 
 For the rest, we will call it a most valuable tendency 
 this; indispensable to mankind. Without it where were 
 star- and- garter, and significance of rank ; where were 
 all ambition, money- getting, respectabiUty of gig or no 
 gig ; and, in a word, the main impetus by which society 
 moves, the main force by which it hangs together ? A 
 tendency, we say, of manifold results : of manifold origin, 
 not ridiculous only, but sublime ; — which some incline 
 to deduce from the mere gregarious purblind nature of 
 man, prompting him to run, ' as dim-eyed animals do, 
 * towards any glittering object, were it but a scoured 
 
232 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' tankard, and mistake it for a solar luminary,' or even 
 * sheep-like, to run and crowd because many have 
 ' already run !' It is, indeed, curious to consider how 
 men do make the gods that themselves worship. For 
 the most famed man, round whom all the world raptu- 
 rously huzzahs and venerates, as if his like were not, is 
 the same man whom all the world was wont to jostle into 
 the kennels ; not a changed man, but in every fibre of him 
 the same man. Foolish world, what went ye out to see ? 
 A tankard scoured bright : and do there not lie, of the 
 self-same pewter, whole barrowfuls of tankards, though 
 by worse fortune all still in the dim state ? 
 
 And yet, at bottom, it is not merely our gregarious 
 sheep-like quality, but something better, and indeed best : 
 what has been called ' the perpetual fact of hero-wor- 
 ship ; ' our inborn sincere love of great men ! Not the 
 gilt farthing, for its own sake, do even fools covet ; but 
 the gold guinea which they mistake it for. Veneration 
 of great men is perennial in the nature of man ; this, in 
 all times, especially in these, is one of the blessedest facts 
 predicable of him. In all times, even in these seemingly 
 so disobedient times, ' it remains a blessed fact, so cun- 
 ' ningly has Nature ordered it, that whatsoever man ought 
 ' to obey, he cannot hut obey. Shew the dullest clodpole, 
 ' shew the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul higher than 
 ' himself is actually here ; were his knees stiffened into 
 ' brass, he must down and worship.' So it has been 
 written ; and may be cited and repeated till known to all. 
 Understand it well, this of ' hero-worship ' was the pri- 
 mary creed, and has intrinsically been the secondary and 
 ternary and will be the ultimate and final creed of man- 
 kind; indestructible, changing in shape, but in essence 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 233 
 
 unchangeable ; whereon polities, religions, loyalties, and 
 all highest human interests have been and can be built, 
 as on a rock that will endure while man endures. Such 
 is hero-worship ; so much lies in that our inborn sincere 
 love of great men! — In favour of which unspeakable 
 benefits of the reality, what can we do but cheerfully par- 
 don the multiplex ineptitudes of the semblance ; cheer- 
 fully wish even Mon-soirees, with labels for their lions or 
 without that improvement, all manner of prosperity ? Let 
 hero-worship flourish, say we ; and the more and more 
 assiduous chase after gilt farthings while guineas are not 
 yet forthcoming. Herein, at lowest, is proof that guineas 
 exist, that they are beheved to exist, and valued. Find 
 great men if you can ; if you cannot, still quit not the 
 search ; in defect of great men, let there be noted men, 
 in such number, to such degree of intensity as the public 
 appetite can tolerate. 
 
 Whether Sir Walter Scott was a great man, is still 
 a question with some ; but there can be no question with 
 any one that he was a most noted and even notable man. 
 In this generation there was no literary man with such a 
 popularity in any country ; there have only been a few 
 vdth such, taking in all generations and all countries. 
 Nay, it is farther to be admitted that Sir Walter Scott's 
 popularity was of a select sort rather ; not a popularity 
 of the populace. His admirers were at one time almost 
 all the intelligent of civilised countries ; and to the last, 
 included and do still include a great portion of that 
 sort. Such fortune he had, and has continued to maintain 
 for a space of some twenty or thirty years. So long 
 the observed of all observers ; a great man, or only a 
 
2U 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 considerable man ; here surely, if ever, is a singularly- 
 circumstanced, is a * distinguished' man ! In regard to 
 whom, therefore, the * instinctive tendency' on other men's 
 part cannot be wanting. Let men look, where the world 
 has already so long looked. And now, while the new, 
 earnestly expected Life ' by his son-in-law and literary 
 executor' again summons the whole world's attention 
 round him, probably for the last time it will ever be so 
 summoned ; and men are in some sort taking leave of a 
 notability, and about to go their way, and commit him 
 to his fortune on the flood of things, — why should not 
 this Periodical Publication likewise publish its thought 
 about him } Readers of miscellaneous aspect, of unknown 
 quantity and quality, are waiting to hear it done. With 
 small inward vocation, but cheerfully obedient to destiny 
 and necessity, the present reviewer will follow a multi- 
 tude : to do evil or to do no evil, will depend not on the 
 multitude but on himself. One thing he did decidedly 
 wish ; at least to wait till the Work were finished : for 
 the Six promised Volumes, as the world knows, have 
 flowed over into a Seventh, which will not for some 
 weeks yet see the light. But the editorial powers, 
 wearied with waiting, have become peremptory ; and 
 declare that, finished or not finished, they will have 
 their hands washed of it at this opening of the year. 
 Perhaps it is best. The physiognomy of Scott will not 
 be much altered for us by that Seventh Volume ; the 
 prior Six have altered it but little ; — as, indeed, a man 
 who has written some two hundred volumes of his own, 
 and lived for thirty years amid the universal speech of 
 friends, must have already left some likeness of himself. 
 Be it as the peremptory editorial powers require. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 235 
 
 First, therefore, a word on the Life itself. Mr. Lock- 
 hart's known powers justify strict requisition in his case. 
 Our verdict in general would be, that he has accomplished 
 the work he schemed for himself in a creditable work- 
 manlike manner. It is true, his notion of what the work 
 was does not seem to have been very elevated. To pic- 
 ture forth the life of Scott according to any rules of art 
 or composition, so that a reader, on adequately examin- 
 ing it, might say to himself, " There is Scott, there is 
 the physiognomy and meaning of Scott's appearance and 
 transit on this earth ; such was he by nature, so did the 
 world act on him, so he on the world, with such result 
 and significance for himself and us : " this was by no 
 manner of means Mr. Lockhart's plan. A plan which, 
 it is rashly said, should preside over every biography ! It 
 might have been fulfilled with all degrees of perfection, 
 from that of the Odyssey down to Thomas Ellwood or 
 lower. For there is no heroic poem in the world but is 
 at bottom a biography, the life of a man : also, it may be 
 said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is 
 a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed. It is a 
 plan one would prefer, did it otherwise suit; which it 
 does not, in these days. Seven volumes sell so much 
 dearer than one; are so much easier to write than one. 
 The Odyssey, for instance, what were the value of the 
 Odyssey, sold per sheet ? One paper of Pickwick ; or 
 say, the inconsiderable fraction of one. This, in com- 
 mercial algebra, were the equation : Odyssey equal to 
 Pickwick divided by an unknown integer. 
 
 There is a great discovery still to be made in Litera- 
 ture, that of paying literary men by the quantity they 
 do not write. Nay, in sober truth, is not this actually 
 the rule in all writing ; and, moreover, in all conduct and 
 
236 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 acting ? Not what stands above ground, but what lies 
 unseen under it, as the root and subterrene element it 
 sprang from and emblemed forth, determines the value. 
 Under all speech that is good for anything there lies 
 a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity ; 
 speech is shallow as Time. Paradoxical does it seem } 
 Wo for the age, wo for the man, quack-ridden, be- 
 speeched, bespouted, blown about like barren Sahara, to 
 whom this world-old truth were altogether strange ! — 
 Such we say is the rule, acted on or not, recognised or 
 not ; and he who departs from it, what can he do but 
 spread himself into breadth and length, into superficiality 
 and saleability ; and, except as filigree, become compara- 
 tively useless } One thinks, Had but the hogshead of 
 thin wash, which sours in a week ready for the kennels, 
 been distilled^ been concentrated! Our dear Fenimore 
 Cooper, whom we started with, might, in that way, have 
 given us one Natty Leathersto eking , one melodious synopsis 
 of Man and Nature in the West (for it lay in him to do 
 it), almost as a Saint- Pierre did for the Islands of the 
 East ; and the hundred Incoherences, cobbled hastily to- 
 gether by order of Colburn and Company, had slumbered 
 in Chaos, as all incoherences ought if possible to do. 
 Verily this same genius of diffuse -writing, of diffuse-act- 
 ing, is a Moloch ; and souls pass through the fire to him, 
 more than enough. Surely, if ever discovery was valu- 
 able and needful, it were that above indicated, of paying 
 by the work not visibly done ! — Which needful discovery 
 we will give the whole projecting, railwaying, knowledge- 
 diffusing, march- of-intellect, and otherwise promotive and 
 locomotive societies in the Old and New World, any 
 required length of centuries to make. Once made, such 
 discovery once made, we too will fling cap into the air, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 237 
 
 and shout, loPcean! the Devil is conquered;" — and, 
 in the me«;2while, study to think it nothing miraculous 
 that seven biographical volumes are given where one had 
 been better ; and that several other things happen, very 
 much as they from of old were known to do, and are like 
 to continue doing. 
 
 Mr. Lockhart's aim, we take it, was not that of pro- 
 ducing any such highflown work of art as we hint at : 
 or indeed to do much other than to print, intelligibly 
 bound together by order of time, and by some requisite 
 intercalary exposition, all such letters, documents, and 
 notices about Scott as he found lying suitable, and as it 
 seemed likely the world would undertake to read. His 
 Work, accordingly, is not so much a composition, as 
 what we may call a compilation well done. Neither is 
 this a task of no difficulty ; this too is a task that may 
 be performed with extremely various degrees of talent ; 
 from the Life and Correspondence of Hannah More, for 
 instance, up to this Life of Scott, there is a wide range 
 indeed ! Let us take the Seven Volumes, and be thankful 
 that they are genuine in their kind. Nay, as to that of 
 their being seven and not one, it is right to say that the 
 public so required it. To have done other, would have 
 shewn little policy in an author. Had Mr. Lockhart 
 laboriously compressed himself, and instead of well-done 
 compilation, brought out the well-done composition, in 
 one volume instead of seven, which not many men in 
 England are better qualified to do, there can be no 
 doubt but his readers for the time had been immeasur- 
 ably fewer. If the praise of magnanimity be denied 
 him, that of prudence must be conceded, which perhaps 
 he values more. 
 
238 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 The truth is, the work, done in this manner too, was 
 good to have : Scott's Biography, if uncomposed, lies 
 printed and indestructible here, in the elementary state, 
 and can at any time be composed, if necessary, by who- 
 soever has a call to that. As it is, as it was meant to 
 be, we repeat, the work is vigorously done. Sagacity, 
 decision, candour, diligence, good manners, good sense; 
 these qualities are throughout observable. The dates, 
 calculations, statements, we suppose to be all accurate ; 
 much laborious inquiry, some of it impossible for another 
 man, has been gone into, the results of which are im- 
 parted with due brevity. Scott's letters, not interesting 
 generally, yet never absolutely without interest, are copi- 
 ously given ; copiously, but with selection ; the answers 
 to them still more select. Narrative, delineation, and 
 at length personal reminiscences, occasionally of much 
 merit, of a certain rough force, sincerity, and pictu- 
 resqueness, duly intervene. The scattered members of 
 Scott's Life do lie here, and could be disentangled. In 
 a word, this compilation is the work of a manful, clear- 
 seeing, conclusive man, and has been executed with the 
 faculty and combination of faculties the public had a 
 right to expect from the name attached to it. 
 
 One thing we hear greatly blamed in Mr. Lockhart ; 
 that he has been too communicative, indiscreet, and has 
 recorded much that ought to have lain suppressed. 
 Persons are mentioned, and circumstances, not always 
 of an ornamental sort. It would appear there is far less 
 reticence than was looked for ! Various persons, name 
 and surname, have ' received pain ; ' nay, the very Hero 
 of the Biography is rendered unheroic ; unornamental 
 facts of him, and of those he had to do with, being set 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 239 
 
 forth in plain English : hence * personality/ * indiscre- 
 tion/ or worse, ' sanctities of private life/ &c. &c. How 
 delicate, decent is English Biography, bless its mealy 
 mouth ! A Damocles' sword of Respectability hangs 
 forever over the poor English Life-writer (as it does over 
 poor English Life in general), and reduces him to the 
 verge of paralysis. Thus it has been said, * there are 
 ' no English lives worth reading except those of Players, 
 
 * who by the nature of the case have bidden Respect- 
 
 * abihty good day/ The English biographer has long 
 felt that if in writing his Man's Biography, he wrote 
 down anything that could by possibility offend any man, 
 he had written wrong. The plain consequence was 
 that, properly speaking, no biography whatever could 
 be produced. The poor biographer, having the fear not 
 of God before his eyes, was obliged to retire as it were 
 into vacuum ; and write in the most melancholy, strait- 
 ened manner, with only vacuum for a result. Vain that 
 he wrote, and that we kept reading volume on volume : 
 there was no biography, but some vague ghost of a 
 biography, white, stainless ; without feature or sub- 
 stance ; vacuum, as we say, and wind and shadow, — 
 which indeed the material of it was. 
 
 No man lives without jostling and being jostled ; in 
 all ways he has to elhow himself through the world, 
 giving and receiving offence. His life is a battle, in 
 so far as it is an entity at all. The very oyster, we 
 suppose, comes in collision with oysters: undoubtedly 
 enough it does come in collision with Necessity and 
 Difficulty; and helps itself through, not as a perfect 
 ideal oyster, but as an imperfect real one. Some kind 
 of remorse must be known to the oyster; certain hatreds. 
 
240 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 certain pusillanimities. But as for man, his conflict is 
 continual with the spirit of contradiction, that is without 
 and within ; with the evil spirit (or call it, with the 
 weak, most necessitous, pitiable spirit), that is in others 
 and in himself. His walk, like all walking (say the 
 mechanicians), is a series of falls. To paint man's life is 
 to represent these things. Let them be represented, 
 fitly, with dignity and measure ; but above all, let them 
 be represented. No tragedy of Hamlet y with the part of 
 Hamlet omitted by particular desire ! No ghost of a 
 biography, let the Damocles' sword of Respectability 
 (which after all is but a pasteboard one) threaten as it 
 will ! One hopes that the public taste is much mended 
 in this matter: that vacuum -biographies, with a good 
 many other vacuities related to them, are withdrawn or 
 withdrawing into vacuum. Probably it was Mr. Lock- 
 hart's feeling of what the great public would approve 
 that led him, open-eyed, into this offence against the 
 small criticising public : we joyfully accept the omen. 
 
 Perhaps then, of all the praises copiously bestowed 
 on his Work, there is none in reality so creditable to 
 him as this same censure, which has also been pretty 
 copious. It is a censure better than a good many 
 praises. He is found guilty of having said this and 
 that, calculated not to be entirely pleasant to this man 
 and that ; in other words, calculated to give him and 
 the thing he worked in a living set of features, not leave 
 him vague, in the white beatified- ghost condition. Se- 
 veral men, as we hear, cry out, See, there is some- 
 thing written not entirely pleasant to me ! " Good 
 friend, it is pity ; but who can help it } They that 
 will crowd about bonfires may, sometimes very fairly. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 241 
 
 get their beards singed; it is the price they pay for 
 such illumination ; natural twilight is safe and free to 
 all. For our part, we hope all manner of biographies 
 that are written in England will henceforth be written 
 so. If it is fit that they be written otherwise, then it is 
 still fitter that they be not written at all : to produce 
 not things but ghosts of things can never be the duty of 
 man. The biographer has this problem set before him : 
 to delineate a likeness of the earthly pilgrimage of a 
 man. He will compute well what profit is in it, and 
 what disprofit ; under which latter head this of offend- 
 ing any of his fellow- creatures will surely not be for- 
 gotten. Nay, this may so swell the disprofit side of his 
 account, that many an enterprise of biography, otherwise 
 promising, shall require to be renounced. But once 
 taken up, the rule before all rules is to do it, not to do 
 the ghost of it. In speaking of the man and men he 
 has to deal with, he will of course keep all his charities 
 about him ; but all his eyes open. Far be it from him 
 to set down aught untrue ; nay, not to abstain from, and 
 leave in oblivion, much that is true. But having found 
 a thing or things essential for his subject, and well com- 
 puted the for and against, he vdll in very deed set down 
 such thing or things, nothing doubting, — having , we 
 may say, the fear of God before his eyes, and no other 
 fear whatever. Censure the biographer's prudence ; dis- 
 sent from the computation he made, or agree with it ; 
 be all malice of his, be all falsehood, nay be all offensive 
 avoidable inaccuracy, condemned and consumed ; but 
 know that by this plan only, executed as was possible, 
 could the biographer hope to make a biography; and 
 
 VOL. V. M 
 
242 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 p 
 
 blame him not that he did what it had been the worst 
 fault not to do. 
 
 As to the accuracy or error of these statements about 
 the Ballantynes and other persons aggrieved, which are 
 questions much mooted at present in some places, we 
 know nothing at all. If they are inaccurate, let them 
 be corrected ; if the inaccuracy was avoidable, let the 
 author bear rebuke and punishment for it. We can 
 only say, these things carry no look of inaccuracy on 
 the face of them ; neither is anywhere the smallest trace 
 of ill-will or unjust feeling discernible. Decidedly the 
 probabilities are, and till better evidence arise, the fair 
 conclusion is, that this matter stands very much as it 
 ought to do. Let the clatter of censure, therefore, pro- 
 pagate itself as far as it can. For Mr. Lockhart it vir- 
 tually amounts to this very considerable praise, that, 
 standing full in the face of the public, he has set at 
 nought, and been among the first to do it, a public 
 piece of cant ; one of the commonest we have, and 
 closely allied to many others of the fellest sort, as 
 smooth as it looks. 
 
 The other censure, of Scott being made unheroic, 
 springs from the same stem ; and is, perhaps, a still 
 more wonderful flower of it. Your true hero must have 
 no features, but be white, stainless, an impersonal ghost- 
 hero ! But connected with this, there is a hypothesis 
 now current, due probably to some man of name, for its 
 own force would not carry it far ; That Mr. Lockhart at 
 heart has a dislike to Scott, and has done his best in an 
 underhand treacherous manner to dishero him ! Such 
 hypothesis is actually current : he that has ears may 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 243 
 
 hear it now and then. On which astonishing hypo- 
 thesis, if a word must be said, it can only be an apology 
 for silence, — " That there are things at which one stands 
 struck silent, as at first sight of the Infinite/' For if 
 Mr. Lockhart is fairly chargeable with any radical de- 
 fect, if on any side his insight entirely fails him, it 
 seems even to be in this, that Scott is altogether lovely 
 to him ; that Scott's greatness spreads out for him on all 
 hands beyond reach of eye ; that his very faults become 
 beautiful, his vulgar worldlinesses are solid prudences, 
 proprieties ; and of his worth there is no measure. Does 
 not the patient Biographer dwell on his Abbots y Pirates, 
 and hasty theatrical scene-paintings ; affectionately ana- 
 lysing them, as if they were Raphael pictures, time- 
 defying Hamlets, Othellos ? The Novel-manufactory, 
 with its £15,000 a-year, is sacred to him as creation of 
 a genius, which carries the noble victor up to Heaven. 
 Scott is to Lockhart the unparalleled of the time ; an 
 object spreading out before him like a sea without shore. 
 Of that astonishing hypothesis, let expressive silence be 
 the only answer. 
 
 And so in sum, with regard to Lockharfs Life of 
 Scott, readers that believe in us shall read it with the 
 feeUng that a man of talent, decision, and insight wrote 
 it ; wrote it in seven volumes, not in one, because the 
 public would pay for it better in that state ; but wrote 
 it with courage, with frankness, sincerity ; on the whole, 
 in a very readable, recommendable manner, as things go. 
 Whosoever needs it can purchase it, or purchase the 
 loan of it, with assurance more than usual that he has 
 ware for his money. And now enough of the written 
 Life ; we will glance a little at the man and his acted life. 
 
244 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Into the question whether Scott was a great man or 
 not, we do not propose to enter deeply. It is, as too usual, 
 a question about words. There can be no doubt but 
 many men have been named and printed great who were 
 vastly smaller than he : as little doubt moreover that of 
 the specially good a very large portion, according to any 
 genuine standard of man's worth, were worthless in 
 comparison to him. He for whom Scott is great may 
 most innocently name him so; may with advantage 
 admire his great qualities, and ought with sincere heart 
 to emulate them. At the same time, it is good that 
 there be a certain degree of precision in our epithets. 
 It is good to understand, for one thing, that no popu- 
 larity, and open-mouthed wonder of all the world, con- 
 tinued even for a long series of years, can make a man 
 great. Such popularity is a remarkable fortune ; in- 
 dicates a great adaptation of the man to his element of 
 circumstances ; but may or may not indicate anything 
 great in the man. To our imagination, as above hinted, 
 there is a certain apotheosis in it ; but in the reality no 
 apotheosis at all. Popularity is as a blaze of illumi- 
 nation, or alas, of conflagration, kindled round a man ; 
 shewing what is in him ; not putting the smallest item 
 more into him ; often abstracting much from him ; con- 
 flagrating the poor man himself into ashes and caput 
 mortuum ! And then, by the nature of it, such popu- 
 larity is transient ; your * series of years,' quite unex- 
 ^ pectedly, sometimes almost all on a sudden, terminates ! 
 For the stupidity of men, especially of men congregated 
 in masses round any object, is extreme. What illumi- 
 nations and conflagrations have kindled themselves, as 
 if new heavenly suns had risen, which proved only to 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 •245 
 
 be tar-barrels, and terrestrial locks of straw ! Profane 
 Princesses cried out, "One God, one Farinelli!'* — and 
 whither now have they and Farinelli danced ? In Lite- 
 rature too, there have been seen popularities greater even 
 than Scott's and nothing perennial in the interior of 
 them. Lope de Vega, whom all the world swore by, 
 and made a proverb of ; who could make an acceptable 
 five-act tragedy in almost as many hours ; the greatest 
 of all popularities past or present, and perhaps one of 
 the greatest men that ever ranked among popularities : 
 Lope himself, so radiant, far- shining, has not proved to 
 be a sun or star of the firmament ; but is as good as lost 
 and gone out ; or plays at best, in the eyes of some few, 
 as a vague aurora-borealis, and brilliant inefFectuality. 
 The great man of Spain sat obscure at the time, all 
 dark and poor, a maimed soldier ; writing his Don 
 Quixote in prison. And Lope's fate withal was sad, 
 his popularity perhaps a curse to him ; for in this man 
 there was something ethereal too, a divine particle trace- 
 able in few other popular men ; and such far- shining 
 diffusion of himself, though all the world swore by it, 
 would do nothing for the true life of him even while he 
 lived : he had to creep into a convent, into a monk's 
 cowl, and learn, with infinite sorrow, that his blessed- 
 ness had lain elsewhere ; that when a man's life feels 
 itself to be sick and an error, no voting of bystanders 
 can make it well and a truth again. Or coming down 
 to our own times, was not August Kotzebue popular } 
 Kotzebue, not so many years since, saw himself, if 
 rumour and hand-clapping could be credited, the greatest 
 man going ; saw visibly his Thoughts, dressed out in 
 plush and pasteboard, permeating and perambulating 
 
246 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 civilised Europe ; the most iron visages weeping with 
 him, in all theatres from Cadiz to Kamtchatka ; his own 
 ' astonishing genius/ meanwhile, producing two tragedies 
 or so per month : he, on the whole, blazed high enough : 
 he too has gone out into Night and Orcus, and already 
 is not. We will omit this of popularity altogether ; 
 and account it as making simply nothing towards 
 Scott^s greatness or non-greatness, as an accident, not 
 a quality. 
 
 Shorn of this falsifying nimbus, and reduced to his 
 own natural dimensions, there remains the reality, Walter 
 Scott, and what we can find in him : to be accounted 
 great, or not great, according to the dialects of men. 
 Friends to precision of epithet will probably deny his 
 title to the name ' great.' It seems to us there goes 
 other stuff to the making of great men than can be 
 detected here. One knows not what idea worthy of the 
 name of great, what purpose, instinct, or tendency, that 
 could be called great, Scott ever was inspired with. 
 His life was worldly ; his ambitions were worldly. There 
 is nothing spiritual in him ; all is economical, material, 
 of the earth earthy. A love of picturesque, of beautiful, 
 vigorous, and graceful things ; a genuine love, yet not 
 more genuine than has dwelt in hundreds of men named 
 minor poets : this is the highest quality to be discerned 
 in him. His power of representing these things, too, 
 his poetic power, like his moral power, was a genius 
 in extenso, as we may say, not in intenso. In action, in 
 speculation, hroad as he was, he rose nowhere high ; 
 productive vdthout measure as to quantity, in quality 
 he for the most part transcended but a little way the 
 region of commonplace. It has been said, ' no man has 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 247 
 
 " written as many volumes with so few sentences that 
 * can be quoted/ Winged words were not his vocation ; 
 nothing urged him that way : the great Mystery of 
 Existence was not great to him ; did not drive him into 
 rocky soHtudes to wrestle with it for an answer, to be 
 answered or to perish. He had nothing of the martyr ; 
 into no * dark region to slay monsters for us/ did he, 
 either led or driven, venture down : his conquests were 
 for his own behoof mainly, conquests over common mar- 
 ket labour, and reckonable in good metallic coin of the 
 realm. The thing he had faith in, except power, power 
 of what sort soever, and even of the rudest sort, would 
 be difficult to point out. One sees not that he believed 
 in anything ; nay, he did not even disbelieve ; but quietly 
 acquiesced, and made himself at home in a world of 
 conventionalities : the false, the semi-false, and the true 
 were alike true in this, that they were there, and had 
 power in their hands more or less. It was well to feel 
 so ; and yet not well ! We find it written, ' Wo to 
 them that are at ease in Zion / but surely it is a double 
 wo to them that are at ease in Babel, in Domdaniel. 
 On the other hand, he wrote many volumes, amusing 
 many thousands of men. Shall we call this great ? It 
 seems to us there dwells and struggles another sore of 
 spirit in the inward parts of great men ! 
 
 Brother Ringletub, the missionary, inquired of Ram- 
 Dass, a Hindoo man-god, who had set up for godhood 
 lately, What he meant to do, then, with the sins of 
 mankind ? To which Ram-Dass at once answered, He 
 had fire enough in his belly to burn up all the sins in the 
 world. Ram-Dass was right so far, and had a spice of 
 sense in him ; for surely it is the test of every divine 
 
248 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 man this same, and without it he is not divine or great, 
 — that he have fire in him to burn up somewhat of the 
 sins of the world, of the miseries and errors of the world : 
 why else is he there ? Far be it from us to say that a 
 great man must needs, with benevolence prepense, be- 
 come a * friend of humanity nay, that such professional 
 self-conscious friends of humanity are not the fatallest 
 kind of persons to be met with in our day. All great- 
 ness is unconscious, or it is little and naught. And yet 
 a great man without such fire in him, burning dim or 
 developed, as a divine behest in his heart of hearts, never 
 resting till it be fulfilled, were a solecism in Nature. A 
 great man is ever, as the Transcendentalists speak, pos- 
 sessed with an idea. Napoleon himself, not the super- 
 finest of great men, and ballasted sufiicieritly with pru- 
 dences and egoisms, had nevertheless, as is clear enough, 
 an idea to start with : the idea that Democracy was the 
 Cause of Man, the right and infinite Cause. Accord- 
 ingly he made himself * the armed Soldier of Demo- 
 cracy and did vindicate it in a rather great manner. 
 Nay, to the very last, he had a kind of idea ; that, 
 namely, of ' La carriere ouverte aux talens. The tools to 
 him that can handle them really one of the best ideas 
 yet promulgated on that matter, or rather the one true 
 central idea, towards which all the others, if they tend 
 any whither, must tend. Unhappily it was in the mili- 
 tary province only that Napoleon could realise this idea 
 of his, being forced to fight for himself the while : before 
 he got it tried to any extent in the civil province of 
 things, his head by much victory grew light (no head 
 can stand more than its quantity) ; and he lost head, as 
 they say, and became a selfish ambitionist and quack. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 249 
 
 and was hurled out ; leaving his idea to be realised, in 
 the civil province of things, by others ! Thus was Na- 
 poleon ; thus are all great men : children of the idea ; or, 
 in Ram-Dass's phraseology, furnished with fire to burn 
 up the miseries of men. Conscious or unconscious, 
 latent or unfolded, there is small vestige of any such fire 
 being extant in the inner-man of Scott. 
 
 Yet on the other hand, the surliest critic must allow 
 that Scott was a genuine man, which itself is a great 
 matter. No affectation, fantasticality, or distortion, 
 dwelt in him ; no shadow of cant. Nay, withal, was he 
 not a right brave and strong man, according to his kind } 
 What a load of toil, what a measure of felicity, he quietly 
 bore along with him ; with what quiet strength he both 
 worked on this earth, and enjoyed in it ; invincible to 
 evil fortune and to good ! A most composed invincible 
 man ; in difiiculty and distress, knowing no discourage- 
 ment, Samson-like, carrying off on his strong Samson- 
 shoulders the gates that would imprison him ; in danger 
 and menace, laughing at the whisper of fear. And then, 
 with such a sunny current of true humour and humanity, 
 a free joyful sympathy with so many things ; what of 
 fire he had, all lying so beautifully latent, as radical 
 latent heat, as fruitful internal warmth of life ; a most 
 robust, healthy man ! The truth is, our best definition 
 of Scott were perhaps even this, that he was, if no great 
 man, then something much pleasanter to be, a robust, 
 thoroughly healthy, and withal very prosperous and 
 victorious man. An eminently well- conditioned man, 
 healthy in body, healthy in soul ; we will call him one 
 of the healthiest of men. Neither is this a small matter : 
 health is a great matter, both to the possessor of it and 
 M 2 
 
250 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 to others. On the whole, that humorist in the Moral 
 Essay was not so far out, who determined on honouring 
 health only ; and so instead of humbling himself to the 
 highborn, to the rich and well-dressed, insisted on dolF- 
 ing hat to the healthy : coroneted carriages with pale 
 faces in them passed by as failures, miserable and lament- 
 able ; trucks with ruddy-cheeked strength dragging at 
 them were greeted as successful and venerable. For 
 does not health mean harmony, the synonym of all that 
 is true, justly-ordered, good ; is it not, in some sense, 
 the net-total, as shewn by experiment, of whatever 
 worth is in us ? The healthy man is a most meritorious 
 product of Nature, so far as he goes. A healthy body is 
 good ; but a soul in right health, — it is the thing 
 beyond all others to be prayed for ; the blessedest thing 
 this earth receives of Heaven. Without artificial medi- 
 cament of philosophy, or tight-lacing of creeds (always 
 very questionable), the healthy soul discerns what is 
 good, and adheres to it, and retains it ; discerns what is 
 bad, and spontaneously casts it off. An instinct from 
 Nature herself, like that which guides the wild animals 
 of the forest to their food, shews him what he shall do, 
 what he shall abstain from. The false and foreign will 
 not adhere to him ; cant and all fantastic diseased in- 
 crustations are impossible ; — as Walker the Original, in 
 such eminence of health was he for his part, could not, by 
 much abstinence from soap and water, attain to a dirty 
 face ! This thing thou canst work with and profit by, 
 this thing is substantial and worthy; that other thing 
 thou canst not work with, it is trivial and inapt : so 
 speaks unerringly the inward monition of the man's 
 whole nature. No need of logic to prove the most argu- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 251 
 
 mentative absurdity absurd ; as Goethe says of himself, 
 
 * all this ran down from me like water from a man in 
 
 * wax-cloth dress/ Blessed is the healthy nature ; it is 
 the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not incoherent, self- 
 distracting, self- destructive one ! In the harmonious 
 adjustment and play of all the faculties, the just balance 
 of oneself gives a just feeling towards all men and all 
 things. Glad light from within radiates outwards, and 
 enlightens and embellishes. 
 
 Now all this can be predicated of Walter Scott, and 
 of no British literary man that we remember in these 
 days, to any such extent, — if it be not perhaps of one, 
 the most opposite imaginable to Scott, but his equal in 
 this quality and what holds of it : William Cobbett ! 
 Nay, there are other similarities, widely different as they 
 two look ; nor be the comparison disparaging to Scott : 
 for Cobbett also, as the pattern John Bull of his century, 
 strong as the rhinoceros, and with singular humanities 
 and genialities shining through his thick skin, is a most 
 brave phenomenon. So bounteous was Nature to us ; 
 in the sickliest of recorded ages, when British Literature 
 lay all puking and sprawling in Werterism, Byronism, 
 and other Sentimentalism tearful or spasmodic (fruit of 
 internal wind), Nature was kind enough to send us two 
 healthy Men, of whom she might still say, not without 
 pride, These also were made in England ; such limbs 
 do I still make there!" It is one of the cheerfullest 
 sights, let the question of its greatness be settled as you 
 will. A healthy nature may or may not be great ; but 
 there is no great nature that is not healthy. 
 
 Or, on the whole, might we not say, Scott, in the 
 new vesture of the nineteenth century, was ii:itrinsically 
 
252 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 very much the old fighting Borderer of prior centuries ; 
 the kind of man Nature did of old make in that birth- 
 land of his ? In the saddle, with the foray- spear, he 
 would have acquitted himself as he did at the desk with 
 his pen. One fancies how, in stout Beardie of Harden's 
 time, he could have played Beardie' s part ; and been the 
 stalwart bulf-belted terrcs filius he in this late time could 
 only delight to draw. The same stout self-help was in 
 him ; the same oak and triple brass round his heart. He 
 too could have fought at Redswire, cracking crowns with 
 the fiercest, if that had been the task ; could have harried 
 cattle in Tynedale, repaying injury with compound in- 
 terest ; a right sufficient captain of men. A man without 
 qualms or fantasticalities ; a hard-headed, sound-hearted 
 man, of joyous robust temper, looking to the main 
 chance, and fighting direct thitherward : valde stalwartus 
 homo ! — How much in that case had slumbered in him, 
 and passed away without sign. But indeed, who knows 
 how much slumbers in many men. Perhaps our greatest 
 poets are the mute Miltons ; the vocal are those whom 
 by happy accident we lay hold of, one here, one there, 
 as it chances, and make vocal. It is even a question, 
 whether, had not want, discomfort, and distress-warrants 
 been busy at Stratford-on-Avon, Shakspeare himself had 
 not lived kilUng calves or combing wool ! Had the 
 Edial Boarding-school turned out well, w^e had never 
 heard of Samuel Johnson ; Samuel Johnson had been 
 a fat schoolmaster and dogmatic gerundgrinder, and 
 never known that he was more. Nature is rich : those 
 two eggs thou art eating carelessly to breakfast, could 
 they not have been hatched into a pair of fowls, and 
 have covered the whole world with poultry ? 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 253 
 
 But it was not harrying of cattle in Tynedale, or 
 cracking of crowns at Redswire, that this stout Border 
 chief w^as appointed to perform. Far other work. To 
 be the song-singer and pleasant tale-teller to Britain 
 and Europe, in the beginning of the artificial nineteenth 
 century ; here, and not there, lay his business. Beardie 
 of Harden would have found it very amazing. How he 
 shapes himself to this new element ; how he helps him- 
 self along in it, makes it too do for him, lives sound 
 and victorious in it, and leads over the marches such a 
 spoil as all the cattle- droves the Hardens ever took were 
 poor in comparison to : this is the history of the life 
 and achievements of our Sir Walter Scott, Baronet ; — 
 whereat we are now to glance for a little ! It is a thing 
 remarkable ; a thing substantial ; of joyful, victorious 
 sort ; not unworthy to be glanced at. Withal, however, 
 a glance here and there will suffice. Our limits are 
 narrow ; the thing, were it never so victorious, is not of 
 the sublime sort, nor extremely edifying ; there is no- 
 thing in it to censure vehemently, nor love vehemently : 
 there is more to wonder at than admire ; and the whole 
 secret is not an abstruse one. 
 
 Till towards the age of thirty, Scott's life has nothing 
 in it decisively pointing towards Literature, or indeed 
 towards distinction of any kind ; he is wedded, settled, 
 and has gone through all his preliminary steps, without 
 symptom of renown as yet. It is the life of every other 
 Edinburgh youth of his station and time. Fortunate we 
 must name it, in many ways. Parents in easy or wealthy 
 circumstances, yet unencumbered with the cares and 
 perversions of aristocracy : nothing eminent in place, in 
 
254 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 faculty, or culture, yet nothing deficient ; all around is 
 methodic regulation, prudence, prosperity, kind-hearted - 
 ness ; an element of warmth and light, of affection, 
 industry, and burgheiiy comfort, heightened into ele- 
 gance ; in which the young heart can wholesomely grow. 
 A vigorous health seems to have been given by Nature ; 
 yet, as if Nature had said withal, Let it be a health to 
 express itself by mind, not by body," a lameness is added 
 in childhood ; the brave little boy, instead of romping 
 and bickering, must learn to think ; or at lowest, what 
 is a great matter, to sit still. No rackets and trundling- 
 hoops for this young Walter ; but ballads, history-books, 
 and a world of legendary stuff, which his mother and 
 those near him are copiously able to furnish. Disease, 
 which is but superficial, and issues in outward lameness, 
 does not cloud the young existence ; rather forwards it 
 towards the expansion it is fitted for. The miserable 
 disease had been one of the internal nobler parts, mar- 
 ring the general organization ; under which no Walter 
 Scott could have been forwarded, or with all his other 
 endowments could have been producible or possible. 
 ' Nature gives healthy children much ; how much I 
 ' Wise education is a wise unfolding of this ; often it 
 ' unfolds itself better of its own accord.' 
 
 Add one other circumstance : the place where ; 
 namely, Presbyterian Scotland. The influences of this 
 are felt incessantly, they stream in at every pore. 
 ' There is a country accent,' says La Rochefoucault, 
 ' not in speech only, but in thought, conduct, character, 
 * and manner of existing, which never forsakes a man.' 
 Scott, we believe, was all his days an Episcopalian Dis- 
 senter in Scotland ; but that makes little to the matter. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 255 
 
 Nobody who knows Scotland and Scott, can doubt but 
 Presbyterianism too had a vast share in the forming of 
 him. A country where the entire people is, or even 
 once has been, laid hold of, filled to the heart with an 
 infinite rehgious idea, has ' made a step from which it 
 cannot retrograde.' Thought, conscience, the sense that 
 man is denizen of a Universe, creature of an Eternity, 
 has penetrated to the remotest cottage, to the simplest 
 heart. Beautiful and awful, the feeling of a Heavenly 
 Behest, of Duty god-commanded, overcanopies all life. 
 There is an inspiration in such a people : one may say 
 in a more special sense, ' the inspiration of the Almighty 
 giveth them understanding.' Honour to all the brave 
 and true ; everlasting honour to brave old Knox, one of 
 the truest of the true ! That, in the moment while he 
 and his cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and con- 
 fusion, were still but struggling for life, he sent the 
 schoolmaster forth to all corners, and said, " Let the 
 people be taught this is but one, and indeed an inevit- 
 able and comparatively inconsiderable item in his great 
 message to men. His message, in its true compass, was, 
 Let men know that they are men ; created by God, 
 responsible to God ; who work in any meanest moment 
 of time what will last through eternity." It is verily a 
 great message. Not ploughing and hammering ma- 
 chines, not patent-digesters (never so ornamental) to 
 digest the produce of these : no, in no wise ; born slaves 
 neither of their fellow-men, nor of their own appetites ; 
 but men ! This great message Knox did deliver, with a 
 man's voice and strength ; and found a people to believe 
 him. 
 
 Of such an achievement, we say, were it to be made 
 
256 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 once only, the results are immense. Thought, in such 
 a country, may change its form, but cannot go out ; the 
 country has attained majority ; thought, and a certain 
 spiritual manhood, ready for all work that man can do, 
 endures there. It may take many forms : the form of 
 hard-fisted money -getting industry, as in the vulgar 
 Scotchman, in the vulgar New Englander ; but as com- 
 pact developed force and alertness of faculty, it is still 
 there ; it may utter itself, one day, as the colossal Scep- 
 ticism of a Hume (beneficent this too though painful, 
 wrestling. Titan-like, through doubt and inquiry towards 
 new belief) ; and again, some better day, it may utter 
 itself as the inspired Melody of a Burns : in a word, it 
 is there, and continues to manifest itself, in the Voice 
 and the Work of a Nation of hardy endeavouring con- 
 sidering men, with whatever that may bear in it, or un- 
 fold from it. The Scotch national character originates in 
 many circumstances ; first of all, in the Saxon stuff there 
 was to work on ; but next, and beyond all else except 
 that, in the Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox. It 
 seems a good national character; and, on some sides, 
 not so good. Let Scott thank John Knox, for he owed 
 him much, little as he dreamed of debt in that quarter ! 
 No Scotchman of his time was more entirely Scotch 
 than Walter Scott ; the good and the not so good, 
 which all Scotchmen inherit, ran through every fibre 
 of him. 
 
 Scott's childhood, school -days, college - days, are 
 pleasant to read of, though they differ not from those 
 of others in his place and time. The memory of him 
 may probably enough last till this record of them be- 
 come far more curious than it now is. ''So lived an 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 257 
 
 Edinburgh Writer to the Signet's son in the end of the 
 eighteenth century/' may some future Scotch novelist 
 say to himself in the end of the twenty-first ! The 
 following little fragment of infancy is all we can extract. 
 It is from an Autobiography which he had begun, which 
 one cannot but regret he did not finish. Scott's best 
 qualities never shone out more freely than when he went 
 upon anecdote and reminiscence. Such a master of 
 narrative and of himself could have done personal nar- 
 rative well. Here, if anywhere, his knowledge was com- 
 plete, and all his humour and good-humour had free 
 scope : 
 
 * An odd incident is worth recording. It seems, my 
 mother had sent a maid to take charge of me, at this farm of 
 Sandy- Kn owe, that I might be no inconvenience to the 
 family. But the damsel sent on that important mission 
 had left her heart behind her, in the keeping of some wild 
 fellow, it is likely, who had done and said more to her than 
 he was like to make good. She became extremely desirous 
 to return to Edinburgh ; and, as my mother made a point of 
 her remaining where she was, she contracted a sort of hatred 
 at poor me, as the cause of her being detained at Sandy- 
 Knowe. This rose, I suppose, to a sort of delirious affec- 
 tion ; for she confessed to old Alison Wilson, the housekeeper, 
 that she had carried me up to the craigs under a strong 
 temptation of the Devil to cut my throat with her scissors, 
 and bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took possession 
 of my person, and took care that her confidant should not be 
 subject to any farther temptation, at least so far as I was 
 concerned. She was dismissed, of course, and I have heard 
 afterwards became a lunatic. 
 
 ' It is here, at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my 
 paternal grandfather, already mentioned, that I have the first 
 
258 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 consciousness of existence ; and I recollect distinctly that my 
 situation and appearance were a little whimsical. Among 
 the odd remedies recurred to, to aid my lameness, some one 
 had recommended that so often as a sheep was killed for the 
 use of the family, I should be stripped, and swathed up in 
 the skin warm as it was flayed from the carcass of the 
 animal. In this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember 
 lying upon the floor of the little parlour in the farm-house, 
 while my grandfather, a venerable old man with white hair, 
 used every excitement to make me try to crawl. I also dis- 
 tinctly remember the late Sir George M'Dougal of Mackers- 
 town, father of the present Sir Henry Hay M'Dougal, joining 
 in the attempt. He was, God knows how, a relation of ours ; 
 and I still recollect him, in his old-fashioned military habit 
 (he had been Colonel of the Greys), with a small cocked-hat 
 deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, and a light- 
 coloured coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military fashion, 
 kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging his watch 
 along the carpet to induce me to follow it. The benevolent 
 old soldier, and the infant wrapped in his sheepskin, would 
 have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators. This 
 must have happened about my third year (1774), for Sir 
 George M'Dougal and my grandfather both died shortly 
 after that period.'* 
 
 We will glance next into the 'Liddesdale raids.' Scott 
 has grown up to be a brisk-hearted jovial young man 
 and Advocate : in vacation-time he makes excursions to 
 the Highlands, to the Border Cheviots and Northumber- 
 land ; rides free and far, on his stout galloway, through 
 bog and brake, over the dim moory Debatable Land, — 
 over Flodden and other fields and places, where, though 
 he yet knew it not, his work lay. No land, however 
 
 * Vol. i. pp. 15-17. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 259 
 
 dim and moory, but either has had or will have its poet, 
 and so become not unknown in song. Liddesdale, which 
 was once as prosaic as most dales, having now attained 
 illustration, let us glance thitherward ; Liddesdale too 
 is on this ancient Earth of ours, under this eternal Sky ; 
 and gives and takes, in the most incalculable manner, 
 with the Universe at large ! Scott's experiences there 
 are rather of the rustic Arcadian sort ; the element of 
 whisky not wanting. We should premise that here 
 and there a feature has, perhaps, been aggravated for 
 effect's sake : 
 
 ' During seven successive years,' writes Mr. Lockhart 
 (for the Autobiography has long since left us), ' Scott made 
 a raid, as he called it, into Liddesdale with Mr. Shortreed, 
 sheriff- substitute of Roxburgh, for his guide; exploring every 
 rivulet to its source, and every ruined peel from foundation 
 to battlement. At this time no wheeled carriage had ever 
 been seen in the district ; — the first, indeed, was a gig, driven 
 by Scott himself for a part of his way, when on the last of 
 these seven excursions. There was no inn nor public-house 
 of any kind in the whole valley ; the travellers passed from 
 the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from 
 the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly 
 welcome of the homestead ; gathering, wherever they went, 
 songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of 
 antiquity, — even such a rowth of auld knicknackets^' as 
 Burns ascribes to Captain Grose. To these rambles Scott 
 owed much of the materials of his Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border ; and not less of that intimate acquaintance with the 
 living manners of these unsophisticated regions, which con- 
 stitutes the chief charm of one of the most charming of his 
 prose works. But how soon he had any definite object 
 before him in his researches, seems very doubtful. He 
 
260 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 was maJcin* himsell a' the time/* said Mr. Shortreed ; " but 
 he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed : 
 at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the queerness 
 and the fun." 
 
 ' " In those days," says the Memorandum before me, 
 " advocates were not so plenty — at least about Liddesdale;" 
 and the worthy Sheriff- substitute goes on to describe the sort 
 of bustle, not unmixed with alarm, produced at the first 
 farm-house they visited (Willie Elliot's at Millburnholm), 
 when the honest man was informed of the quality of one of 
 his guests. When they dismounted, accordingly, he received 
 Mr, Scott with great ceremony, and insisted upon himself 
 leading his horse to the stable. Shortreed accompanied 
 Willie, however ; and the latter, after taking a deliberate peep 
 at Scott, " out-by the edge of the door-cheek," whispered, 
 " Weel, Robin, I say, de'il hae me if I 's be a bit feared for 
 him now ; he's just a chield like ourselves, I think." Half- 
 a-dozen dogs of all degrees had already gathered round " the 
 advocate," and his way of returning their compliments had 
 set Willie Elliot at once at his ease. 
 
 ' According to Mr. Shortreed, this good man of Millburn- 
 holm was the great original of Dandie Dinmont.' * * * 
 ' They dined at Millburnholm ; and, after having lingered 
 over Willie Elliot's punch-bowl, until, in Mr. Shortreed's 
 phrase, they were " half-glowrin," mounted their steeds 
 again, and proceeded to Dr. Elliot's at Cleughhead, where 
 for," says my Memorandum, " folk were na very nice in 
 those days") the two travellers slept in one and the same 
 bed, — as, indeed, seems to have been the case with them 
 throughout most of their excursions in this primitive district. 
 Dr. Elliot (a clergyman) had already a large MS. collection 
 of the ballads Scott was in quest of.' * * * < Next 
 morning they seem to have ridden a long way for the express 
 purpose of visiting one auld Thomas o' Tuzzilehope," 
 another Elliot, I suppose, who was celebrated for his skill on 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 261 
 
 the Border pipe, and in particular for being in possession of 
 the real lilt* of Dick o' the Cow, Before starting, that is, at 
 six o'clock, the ballad-hunters had, "just to lay the stomach, 
 a devilled duck or twae, and some London porter." Auld 
 Thomas found them, nevertheless, well disposed for " break- 
 fast" on their arrival at Tuzzilehope ; and this being over, 
 he delighted them with one of the most hideous and un- 
 earthly of all specimens of " riding music," and, moreover, 
 with considerable libations of whisky-punch, manufactured 
 in a certain wooden vessel, resembling a very small milkpail, 
 which he called Wisdom," because it " made " only a few 
 spoonfuls of spirits, — though he had the art of replenishing 
 it so adroitly, that it had been celebrated for fifty years as 
 more fatal to sobriety than any bowl in the parish. Having 
 done due honour to " Wisdom," they again mounted, and 
 proceeded over moss and moor to some other equally hospit- 
 able master of the pipe. " Ah me," says Shortreed, " sic an 
 endless fund o' humour and drollery as he then had wi' him ! 
 Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and 
 singing. Wherever we stopped, how brawlie he suited him- 
 sell to every body ! He aye did as the lave did ; never made 
 himsell the great man, or took ony airs in the company. 
 I 've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts, grave and gay, 
 daft and serious, sober and drunk — (this, however, even in 
 our wildest rambles, was rare) — but, drunk or sober, he was 
 aye the gentleman. He lookit excessively heavy and stupid 
 when he was/ow, but he was never out o' gude-humour.' " 
 
 These are questionable doings, questionably narrated ; 
 but what shall we say of the following, wherein the 
 element of whisky plays an extremely prominent part ? 
 We will say that it is questionable, and not exemplary, 
 whisky mounting clearly beyond its level ; that indeed 
 
 * Loud tune : German, lallen. 
 
262 
 
 MISCELLANIES 
 
 charity hopes and conjectures, here may be some aggra- 
 vating of features for effect's sake ! 
 
 ' On reaching, one evening, some Charlieshope or other 
 (I forget the name) among those wildernesses, they found a 
 kindly reception, as usual ; but, to their agreeable surprise 
 after some days of hard living, a measured and orderly hos- 
 pitality as respected liquor. Soon after supper, at which a 
 bottle of elderberry wine alone had been produced, a young 
 student of divinity, who happened to be in the house, was 
 called upon to take the " big ha' Bible," in the good old 
 fashion of " Burns's Saturday Night ; " and some progress 
 had been already made in the service, when the good man of 
 the farm, whose tendency,'* as Mr. Mitchell says, was 
 soporific," scandalized his wife and the dominie by starting 
 suddenly from his knees, and, rubbing his eyes, with a sten- 
 torian exclamation of By , here's the keg at last ! '* 
 
 and in tumbled, as he spoke the word, a couple of sturdy 
 herdsmen, whom, on hearing a day before of the advocate's 
 approaching visit, he had despatched to a certain smuggler's 
 haunt, at some considerable distance, in quest of a supply of 
 run brandy from the Solway Frith. The pious " exercise " 
 of the household was hopelessly interrupted. With a thou- 
 sand apologies for his hitherto shabby entertainment, this 
 jolly Elliot, or Armstrong, had the welcome Jceg mounted on 
 the table without a moment's delay, and gentle and simple, 
 not forgetting the dominie, continued carousing about it 
 until daylight streamed in upon the party. Sir Walter Scott 
 seldom failed, when I saw him in company with his Liddes- 
 dale companion, to mimic with infinite humour the sudden 
 outburst of his old host on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, 
 which he knew to indicate the arrival of the keg — the con- 
 sternation of the dame — and the rueful despair with which 
 the young clergyman closed the book.'* 
 
 * Vol. i. pp. 195-199. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 263 
 
 From which Liddesdale raids, which we here, hke 
 the young clergyman, close not without a certain rueful 
 despair, let the reader draw what nourishment he can. 
 They evince satisfactorily, though in a rude manner, 
 that in those days young advocates, and Scott, like the 
 rest of them, were alive and alert, — whisky sometimes 
 preponderating. But let us now fancy that the jovial 
 young Advocate has pleaded his first cause ; has served 
 in yeomanry drills ; been wedded, been promoted Sheriff, 
 without romance in either case ; dabbling a little the 
 while, under guidance of Monk Lewis, in translations 
 from the German, in translation of Goethe's Gotz with 
 the Iron Hand ; — and we have arrived at the threshold 
 of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and the opening 
 of a new century. 
 
 Hitherto, therefore, there has been made out, by 
 Nature and Circumstance working together, nothing 
 unusually remarkable, yet still something very valuable ; 
 a stout effectual man of thirty, full of broad sagacity and 
 good humour, with faculties in him fit for any burden 
 of business, hospitality and duty, legal or civic : — with 
 what other faculties in him no one could yet say. As 
 indeed, who, after lifelong inspection, can say what is in 
 any man ? The uttered part of a man's life, let us always 
 repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small 
 unknown proportion ; he himself never knows it, much 
 less do others. Give him room, give him impulse ^ he 
 reaches down to the Infinite with that so straitly-im- 
 prisoned soul of his ; and can do miracles if need be ! 
 It is one of the comfortablest truths that great men 
 abound, though in the unknown state. Nay, as above 
 hinted, our greatest, being also by nature our quietest. 
 
264 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 are perhaps those that remain unknown ! Philosopher 
 Fichte took comfort in this belief, when from all pulpits 
 and editorial desks, and publications periodical and sta- 
 tionary, he could hear nothing but the infinite chattering 
 and twittering of commonplace become ambitious ; and 
 in the infinite stir of motion no whither, and of din which 
 should have been silence, all seemed churned into one 
 tempestuous yesty froth, and the stern Fichte almost 
 desired ' taxes on knowledge ' to allay it a little ; — he 
 comforted himself, we say, by the unshaken belief that 
 Thought did still exist in Germany ; that thinking men, 
 each in his own corner, were verily doing their work, 
 though in a silent latent manner.* Walter Scott, as a 
 latent Walter, had never amused all men for a score of 
 years in the course of centuries and eternities, or gained 
 and lost several hundred thousand pounds sterling by 
 Literature ; but he might have been a happy and by no 
 means a useless, — nay, who knows at bottom whether 
 not a still usefuller Walter ! However that was not his 
 fortune. The Genius of rather a singular age, — an age 
 at once destitute of faith and terrified at scepticism, with 
 little knowledge of its whereabout, with many sorrows 
 to bear or front, and on the whole with a life to lead in 
 these new circumstances, — had said to himself: What 
 man shall be the temporary comforter, or were it but the 
 spiritual comfit-maker, of this my poor singular age, to 
 solace its dead tedium and manifold sorrows a little ? 
 So had the Genius said, looking over all the world. What 
 man ? and found him walking the dusty Outer Parlia- 
 ment-house of Edinburgh, with his advocate-gown on 
 his back ; and exclaimed, That is he ! 
 
 * Fichte, Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 265 
 
 The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border proved to be 
 a well, from which flowed one of the broadest rivers. 
 Metrical Romances (which in due time pass into Prose 
 Romances) ; the old life of men resuscitated for us : it is 
 a mighty word ! Not as dead tradition, but as a palpa- 
 ble presence, the past stood before us. There they were, 
 the rugged old fighting men ; in their doughty simplicity 
 and strength, with their heartiness, their healthiness, 
 their stout self-help, in their iron basnets, leather jerkins, 
 jack-boots, in their quaintness of manner and costume ; 
 there as they looked and lived : it was like a new dis- 
 covered continent in Literature ; for the new century, a 
 bright El Dorado, — -or else some fat beatific land of 
 Cockaigne, and Paradise of Donothings. To the open- 
 ing nineteenth century, in its languor and paralysis, 
 nothing could have been welcomer. Most unexpected, 
 most refreshing, and exhilarating ; behold our new El 
 Dorado ; our fat beatific Lubberland, where one can 
 enjoy and do nothing ! It was the time for such a new 
 Literature ; and this Walter Scott was the man for it. 
 The Lays, the Marmio?is, the Ladys and Lords of Lake 
 and Isles, followed in quick succession, with ever- widen- 
 ing profit and praise. How many thousands of guineas 
 were paid down for each new Lay ; how many thousands 
 of copies (fifty and more sometimes) were printed off, 
 then and subsequently ; what complimenting, reviewing, 
 renown, and apotheosis there was : all is recorded in 
 these Seven Volumes, which will be valuable in literary 
 statistics. It is a history, brilliant, remarkable ; the 
 outlines of which are known to all. The reader shall 
 recall it, or conceive it. No blaze in his fancy is likely 
 to mount higher than the reality did. 
 
 VOL. v. N 
 
266 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 At this middle period of his life, therefore, Scott, en- 
 riched with copyrights, with new official incomes and 
 promotions, rich in money, rich in repute, presents him- 
 self as a man in the full career of success. * Health, 
 wealth, and wit to guide them' (as his vernacular Pro- 
 verb says), all these three are his. The field is open for 
 him, and victory there ; his own faculty, his own self, 
 unshackled, victoriously unfolds itself, — the highest bles- 
 sedness that can befall a man. Wide circle of friends, per- 
 sonalloving admirers ; warmthof domestic joys, vouchsafed 
 to all that can true-heartedly nestle down among them; 
 light of radiance and renown given only to a few : who 
 would not call Scott happy ? But the happiest circum- 
 stance of all is, as we said above, that Scott had in him- 
 self a right healthy soul, rendering him little dependent 
 on outward circumstances. Things shewed themselves i 
 to him not in distortion or borrowed light or gloom, but 
 as they were. Endeavour lay in him and endurance, in 
 due measure ; and clear vision of what was to be endea- 
 voured after. Were one to preach a Sermon on Health, 
 as really were worth doing, Scott ought to be the text. 
 Theories are demonstrably true in the way of logic ; and 
 then in the way of practice, they prove true or else not 
 true : but here is the grand experiment. Do they turn out 
 well } What boots it that a man's creed is the wisest, 
 that his system of principles is the superfinest, if, wnen 
 set to work, the life of him does nothing but jar, and fret 
 itself into holes ? They are untrue in that, were it in 
 nothing else, these principles of his ; openly convicted of 
 untruth ; — fit only, shall we say, to be rejected as coun- 
 terfeits, and flung to the dogs ? We say not that ; but 
 we do say that ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 267 
 
 is battle (in a good or in a bad cause) with bad success ; 
 that health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can 
 manage it, contrive to be healthy I He who in what cause 
 soever sinks into pain and disease, let him take thought 
 of it ; let him know well that it is not good he has ar- 
 rived at yet, but surely evil, — may, or may not be, on 
 the way towards good. 
 
 Scott's healthiness shewed itself decisively in all 
 things, and nowhere more decisively than in this : the 
 way in which he took his fame ; the estimate he from 
 the first formed of fame. Money will buy money's worth ; 
 but the thing men call fame, what is it } A gaudy em- 
 blazonry, not good for much, — except, indeed, as it too 
 may turn to money. To Scott it was a profitable pleas- 
 ing superfluity, no necessary of life. Not necessary, now 
 or ever ! Seemingly without much effort, but taught by 
 Nature, and the instinct which instructs the sound heart 
 what is good for it and what is not, he felt that he could 
 always do without this same emblazonry of reputation ; 
 that he ought to put no trust in it ; but be ready at any 
 time to see it pass away from him, and to hold on his 
 way as before. It is incalculable, as we conjecture, what 
 evil he escaped in this manner ; what perversions, irrita- 
 tions, mean agonies without a name, he lived wholly 
 apart from, knew nothing of. Happily before fame ar- 
 rived, he had reached the mature age at which all this 
 was easier to him. What a strange Nemesis lurks in 
 the felicities of men ! In thy mouth it shall be svv^eet as 
 honey, in thy belly it shall be bitter as gall ! Some 
 weakly- organised individual, we will say at the age of 
 five -and- twenty, whose main or whole talent rests on 
 some prurient susceptivity, and nothing under it but 
 
268 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 shallowness and vacuum, is clutched hold of by the 
 general imagination, is whirled aloft to the giddy height ; 
 and taught to believe the divine -seeming message that 
 he is a great man : such individual seems the luckiest 
 of men : and, alas, is he not the unluckiest ? Swallow 
 not the Circe- draught, O weakly- organised individual ; 
 it is fell poison ; it will dry up the fountains of thy whole 
 existence, and all will grow withered and parched ; thou 
 shalt be wretched under the sun ! Is there, for example, 
 a sadder book than that Life of Byron, by Moore ? To 
 omit mere prurient susceptivities that rest on vacuum, 
 look at poor Byron, who really had much substance in 
 him. Sitting there in his «elf- exile, with a proud heart 
 striving to persuade itself that it despises the entire 
 created Universe ; and far off, in foggy Babylon, let any 
 pitifullest whipster draw pen on him, your proud Byron 
 writhes in torture, — as if the pitiful whipster were a 
 magician, or his pen a galvanic wire struck into the 
 Byron's spinal marrow ! Lamentable, despicable, — one 
 had rather be a kitten and cry mew ! O, son of Adam, 
 great or little, according as thou art lovable, those thou 
 livest with will love thee. Those thou livest not with, 
 is it of moment that they have the alphabetic letters of 
 thy name engraved on their memory, with some signpost 
 likeness of thee (as like as I to Hercules) appended to 
 them ? It is not of moment ; in sober truth, not of any 
 moment at all ! And yet, behold, there is no soul now 
 whom thou canst love freely, — from one soul only art 
 thou always sure of reverence enough ; in presence of 
 no soul is it rightly well with thee ! How is thy world 
 become desert ; and thou, for the sake of a little babble- 
 ment of tongues, art poor, bankrupt, insolvent not in 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 269 
 
 purse, but in heart and mind. ' The Golden Calf of 
 * self-love/ says Jean Paul, * has grown into a burning 
 ' Phalaris' Bull, to consume its owner and worshipper.' 
 Ambition, the desire of shining and outshining, was the 
 beginning of Sin in this world. The man of letters who 
 founds upon his fame, does he not thereby alone declare 
 himself a follower of Lucifer (named Satan, the Enemy), 
 
 and member of the Satanic school ? 
 
 It was in this poetic period that Scott formed his 
 connexion with the Ballantynes ; and embarked, though 
 under cover, largely in trade. To those who regard him 
 in the heroic light, and will have Vates to signify Prophet 
 as well as Poet, this portion of his biography seems 
 somewhat incongruous. Viewed as it stood in the 
 reality, as he was and as it was, the enterprise, since it 
 proved so unfortunate, may be called lamentable, but 
 cannot be called unnatural. The practical Scott, looking 
 towards practical issues in all things, could not but find 
 hard cash one of the most practical. If by any means, 
 cash could be honestly produced, were it by writing 
 poems, were it by printing them, why not? Great 
 things might be done ultimately ; great difficulties were 
 at once got rid of, — manifold higglings of booksellers, 
 and contradictions of sinners hereby fell away. A print- 
 ing and bookselling speculation was not so alien for a 
 maker of books. Voltaire, who indeed got no copy- 
 rights, made much money by the war- commissariat, in 
 his time ; we believe, by the victualling branch of it. 
 Saint George himself, they say, was a dealer in bacon 
 in Cappadocia. A thrifty man will help himself to- 
 wards his object by such steps as lead to it. Station 
 in society, solid power over the good things of this 
 
270 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 world, was Scott's avowed object ; towards which the 
 precept of precepts is that of lago. Put money in thy 
 purse. 
 
 Here, indeed, it is to be remarked, that perhaps 
 no Hterary man of any generation has less value than 
 Scott for the immaterial part of his mission in any 
 sense : not only for the fantasy called fame, with the 
 fantastic miseries attendant thereon ; but also for the 
 spiritual purport of his work, whether it tended hither- 
 ward or thitherward, or had any tendency whatever ; 
 and indeed for all purports and results of his working, 
 except such, we may say, as offered themselves to the 
 eye, and could, in one sense or the other be handled, 
 looked at, and buttoned into the breeches - pocket. 
 Somewhat too little of a fantast, this Vates of ours ! 
 But so it was : in this nineteenth century, our highest 
 literary man, who immeasurably beyond all others com- 
 manded the world's ear, had, as it were, no message 
 whatever to deliver to the world ; wished not the world 
 to elevate itself, to amend itself, to do this or to do that, 
 except simply pay him for the books he kept writing. 
 Very remarkable ; fittest, perhaps, for an age fallen 
 languid, destitute of faith and terrified at scepticism ? 
 Or, perhaps, for quite another sort of age, an age all in 
 peaceable triumphant motion ? Be this as it may, surely 
 since Shakspeare's time there has been no great speaker 
 so unconscious of an aim in speaking as Walter Scott. 
 Equally unconscious these two utterances ; equally the 
 sincere complete products of the minds they came from : 
 and now if they were equally deep ? Or, if the one was 
 living fire, and the other was futile phosphorescence and 
 mere resinous firework } It will depend on the relative 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 271 
 
 worth of the minds ; for both were equally spontaneous, 
 both equally expressed themselves unencumbered by an 
 ulterior aim. Beyond drawing audiences to the Globe 
 Theatre, Shakspeare contemplated no result in those 
 plays of his. Yet they have had results ! Utter with 
 free heart what thy own dcemon gives thee : if fire 
 from heaven, it shall be well ; if resinous firework, it 
 shall be — as well as it could be, or better than other- 
 wise ! The candid judge will, in general, require that a 
 speaker, in so extremely serious a Universe as this of 
 ours, have something to speak about. In the heart of 
 the speaker there ought to be some kind of gospel- 
 tidings, burning till it be uttered ; otherwise it were 
 better for him that he altogether held his peace. A 
 gospel somewhat more decisive than this of Scott's, — 
 except to an age altogether languid, without either scep- 
 ticism or faith ! These things the candid judge will 
 demand of literary men ; yet withal will recognise the 
 great worth there is in Scott's honesty if in nothing 
 more, in his being the thing he was with such entire 
 good faith. Here is a something, not a nothing. If no 
 skyborn messenger, heaven looking through his eyes ; 
 then neither is it a chimera with his systems, crotchets, 
 cants, fanaticisms, and ' last infirmity of noble minds,' 
 — full of misery, unrest, and ill-will ; but a substantial, 
 peaceable, terrestrial man. Far as the Earth is under 
 the Heaven does Scott stand below the former sort of 
 character ; but high as the cheerful flowery Earth is 
 above waste Tartarus does he stand above the latter. 
 Let him live in his own fashion, and do honour to him 
 in that. 
 
 It were late in the day to write criticisms on those 
 
272 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Metrical Romances : at the same time, we may remark, 
 the great popularity they had seems natural enough. 
 In the first place, there was the indisputable impress of 
 worth, of genuine human force, in them. This, which 
 lies in some degree, or is thought to lie, at the bottom 
 of all popularity, did to an unusual degree disclose 
 itself in these rhymed romances of Scott's. Pictures 
 were actually painted and presented ; human emotions 
 conceived and sympathised with. Considering what 
 wretched Della-Cruscan and other vamping-up of old 
 worn-out tatters was the staple article then, it may be 
 granted that Scott's excellence was superior and supreme. 
 When a Hayley was the main singer, a Scott might well 
 be hailed with warm welcome. Consider whether the 
 Loves of the Plants, and even the Loves of the Triangles, 
 could be worth the loves and hates of men and w^omen ! 
 Scott was as preferable to what he displaced, as the 
 substance is to wearisomely repeated shadow of a sub- 
 stance. But, in the second place, we may say that the 
 kind of worth which Scott manifested was fitted espe- 
 cially for the then temper of men. We have called it 
 an age fallen into spiritual languor, destitute of belief, 
 yet terrified at scepticism ; reduced to live a stinted 
 half-life, under strange new circumstances. Now vigor- 
 ous whole-life, this was what of all things these delinea- 
 tions offered. The reader was carried back to rough 
 strong times, wherein those maladies of ours had not yet 
 arisen. Brawny fighters, all cased in bufi^ and iron, 
 their hearts too sheathed in oak and triple brass, cap- 
 rioled their huge war-horses, shook their death-doing 
 spears ; and went forth in the most determined manner, 
 nothing doubting. The reader sighed, yet not without 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 273 
 
 a reflex solacement : O, that I too had lived in those 
 times, had never knov^n these logic- cobwebs, this doubt, 
 this sickliness ; and been and felt myself alive among 
 men alive ! Add lastly, that in this new-found poetic 
 world there was no call for effort on the reader's part ; 
 what excellence they had, exhibited itself at a glance. 
 It was for the reader, not the El Dorado only, but a 
 beatific land of Cockaigne and Paradise of Donothings ! 
 The reader, what the vast majority of readers so long to 
 do, was allowed to lie down at his ease, and be ministered 
 to. What the Turkish bath-keeper is said to aim at 
 with his frictions, and shampooings, and fomentings, 
 more or less effectually, that the patient in total idleness 
 may have the delights of activity, — was here to a con- 
 siderable extent realised. The languid imagination fell 
 back into its rest ; an artist was there who could supply 
 it with high-painted scenes, with sequences of stirring 
 action, and whisper to it. Be at ease, and let thy tepid 
 element be comfortable to thee. * The rude man,' says 
 a critic, * requires only to see something going on. The 
 ' man of more refinement must be made to feel. The 
 ' man of complete refinement must be made to reflect.' 
 
 We named the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 
 the fountain from which flowed this great river of 
 Metrical Romances ; but according to some they can be 
 traced to a still higher, obscurer spring ; to Goethe's 
 Gotz von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand; of which, 
 as we have seen, Scott in his earlier days executed a 
 translation. Dated a good many years ago, the fol- 
 lowing words in a criticism on Goethe are found writ- 
 ten ; which probably are still new to most readers of 
 this Review : 
 
 N 2 
 
274 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' The works just mentioned, Gbtz and Werter, though 
 noble specimens of youthful talent, are still not so much 
 distinguished by their intrinsic merits as by their splendid 
 fortune. It would be difficult to name two books which 
 have exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent litera- 
 ture of Europe than these two performances of a young 
 author ; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth 
 year. Werter appeared to seize the hearts of men in all 
 quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which 
 they had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens 
 too, this same word, once uttered, was soon abundantly 
 repeated ; spoken in all dialects, and chanted through all 
 notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a weari- 
 ness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view- 
 hunting, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation, became the 
 staple of literary ware ; and though the epidemic, after a long 
 course of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with vari- 
 ous modifications in other countries, and everywhere abund- 
 ant traces of its good and bad efi'ectsare still to be discerned. 
 The fortune of Berlichingen vnth the Iron Hand, though less 
 sudden, was by no means less exalted. In his own country, 
 Gotz, though he now stands solitary and childless, became 
 the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, 
 feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian performances ; 
 which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their 
 day and generation : and with ourselves his influence has 
 been perhaps still more remarkable. Sir Walter Scott's first 
 literary enterprise was a translation of Gotz von Berlichingen: 
 and, if genius could be communicated like instruction, we 
 might call this work of Goethe*s the prime cfiuse of Marmion 
 and the Lady of the Lake, with all that has followed from 
 the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has 
 lighted in the right soil ! For if not firmer and fairer, it has 
 grown to be taller and broader than any other tree ; and all 
 the nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.' 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 275 
 
 How far Gotz von Berlichingen actually affected 
 Scott's literary destination, and whether without it the 
 rhymed romances, and then the prose romances of the 
 Author of Waverley, would not have followed as they 
 did, must remain a very obscure question ; obscure, and 
 not important. Of the fact, how^ever, there is no doubt, 
 that these two tendencies, which may be named Gotzism 
 and Werterism, of the former of which Scott was repre- 
 sentative with us, have made, and are still in some 
 quarters making the tour of all Europe. In Germany 
 too there was this affectionate half-regretful looking 
 back into the Past ; Germany had its buff-belted watch- 
 tower period in literature, and had even got done with 
 it, before Scott began. Then as to Werterism, had not 
 we English our Byron and his genus ? No form of 
 Werterism in any other country had half the potency : 
 as our Scott carried Chivalry Literature to the ends of 
 the world, so did our Byron Werterism. France, busy 
 with its Revolution and Napoleon, had little leisure at the 
 moment for Gotzism or Werterism ; but it has had them 
 both since, in a shape of its own : witness the whole 
 * Literature of Desperation' in our own days ; the beg- 
 garliest form of Werterism yet seen, probably its expiring 
 final form : witness also, at the other extremity of the 
 scale, a noble- gifted Chateaubriand, Gotz and Werter 
 both in one. — Curious : how all Europe is but like a set 
 of parishes of the same county ; participant of the self- 
 same influences, ever since the Crusades, and earlier; — 
 and these glorious wars of ours are but like parish- 
 brawls, which begin in mutual ignorance, intoxication, 
 and boastful speech ; which end in broken windows, 
 damage, waste, and bloody noses ; and which one hopes 
 
276 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the general good sense is now in the way towards put- 
 ting down, in some measure ! 
 
 But leaving this to be as it can, what it concerned 
 us here to remark, was that British Werterism, in the 
 shape of those Byron Poems, so potent and poignant, 
 produced on the languid appetite of men a mighty effect. 
 This too was a ' class of feelings deeply important 
 ' to modern minds ; feelings which arise from passion 
 ' incapable of being converted into action, which belong 
 ' to an age as indolent, cultivated, and unbelieving as 
 * our own I* The * languid age vdthout either faith or 
 scepticism ' turned towards Byronism with an interest 
 altogether peculiar : here, if no cure for its miserable 
 paralysis and languor, was at least an indignant state- 
 ment of the misery ; an indignant Ernulphus' curse 
 read over it, — which all men felt to be something. 
 Half- regretful lookings into the Past gave place, in many 
 quarters, to Ernulphus* cursings of the Present. Scott 
 was among the first to perceive that the day of Me- 
 trical Chivalry Romances was declining. He had held 
 the sovereignty for some half- score of years, a com- 
 paratively long lease of it ; and now the time seemed 
 come for dethronement, for abdication : an unpleasant 
 business ; which however he held himself ready, as a 
 brave man will, to transact with composure and in 
 silence. After all. Poetry was not his staff of life ; 
 Poetry had already yielded him much money ; this at 
 least it would not take back from him. Busy always 
 with editing, with compiling, with multiplex official 
 commercial business, and solid interests, he beheld the 
 coming change with unmoved eye. 
 
 Resignation he was prepared to exhibit in this mat- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 277 
 
 ter ; — and now behold there proved to be no need of 
 resignation. Let the Metrical Romance become a Prose 
 one ; shake off its rhyme-fetters, and try a wider sweep ! 
 In the spring of 1814 appeared Waverley ; an event 
 memorable in the annals of British Literature ; in the 
 annals of British Bookselling thrice and four times me- 
 morable. Byron sang, but Scott narrated ; and when 
 the song had sung itself out through all variations on- 
 wards to the Don Juan one, Scott was still found nar- 
 rating, and carrying the whole world along with him. 
 All bygone popularity of chivalry-lays was swallowed up 
 in a far greater. What * series ' followed out of Waver- 
 ley y and how and with what result, is known to all men ; 
 was witnessed and watched with a kind of rapt astonish- 
 ment by all. Hardly any literary reputation ever rose 
 so high in our Island ; no reputation at all ever spread 
 so wide. Walter Scott became Sir Walter Scott, Ba- 
 ronet, of Abbotsford ; on whom Fortune seemed to pour 
 her whole cornucopia of wealth, honour, and worldly 
 good ; the favourite of Princes and of Peasants, and all 
 intermediate men. His ' Waverley series,' swift-follow- 
 ing one on the other apparently without end, was the 
 universal reading ; looked for like an annual harvest, by 
 all ranks, in all European countries. A curious circum- 
 stance superadded itself, that the author though known 
 was unknown. From the first, most people suspected, 
 and soon after the first, few intelligent persons much 
 doubted, that the Author of Waverley was Walter Scott. 
 Yet a certain mystery was still kept up ; rather piquant 
 to the public ; doubtless very pleasant to the author, 
 who saw it all ; who probably had not to listen, as other 
 hapless individuals often had, to this or the other long- 
 
278 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 drawn * clear proof at last/ that the author was not 
 Walter Scott, but a certain astonishing Mr. So-and-so ; 
 — one of the standing miseries of human life in that 
 time. But for the privileged Author, it was like a king 
 travelling incognito. All men know that he is a high 
 king, chivalrous Gustaf or Kaiser Joseph ; but he min- 
 gles in their meetings without cumber of etiquette or 
 lonesome ceremony, as Chevalier du Nord, or Count of 
 Lorraine : he has none of the weariness of royalty, and 
 yet all the praise, and the satisfaction of hearing it with 
 his own ears. In a word, the Waverley Novels circu- 
 lated and reigned triumphant ; to the general imagina- 
 tion the ' Author of Waverley ' was like some living 
 mythological personage, and ranked among the chief 
 wonders of the world. 
 
 How a man lived and demeaned himself in such un- 
 wonted circumstances, is w^orth seeing. We would gladly 
 quote from Scott's correspondence of this period ; but 
 that does not much illustrate the matter. His letters, 
 as above stated, are never without interest, yet also 
 seldom or never very interesting. They are full of 
 cheerfulness, of wit, and ingenuity ; but they do not 
 treat of aught intimate ; without impeaching their sin- 
 cerity, what is called sincerity, one may say they do not, 
 in any case whatever, proceed from the innermost parts 
 of the mind. Conventional forms, due consideration of 
 your own and your correspondent's pretensions and 
 vanities, are at no moment left out of view. The epis- 
 tolary stream runs on, lucid, free, glad-flowing ; but 
 always, as it were, parallel to the real substance of the 
 matter, never coincident with it. One feels it hoUowish 
 under foot. Letters they are of a most humane man of 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 279 
 
 the world, even exemplary in that kind ; but with the 
 man of the world always visible in them ; — as indeed it 
 was little in Scott's way to speak, perhaps even with 
 himself, in any other fashion. We select rather some 
 glimpses of him from Mr. Lockhart's record. The first 
 is of dining with Royalty or Prince-Regentship itself ; 
 an almost official matter : 
 
 ' On hearing from Mr. Croker (then Secretary to the Ad- 
 miralty) that Scott was to be in town by the middle of March 
 (1815), the Prince said, " Let me know when he comes, and 
 I'll get up a snug little dinner that will suit him and, after 
 he had been presented and graciously received at the levee, 
 he was invited to dinner accordingly, through his excellent 
 friend Mr. Adam (now Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury 
 Court in Scotland), who at that time held a confidential 
 office in the royal household. The Regent had consulted 
 with Mr. Adam, also, as to the composition of the party. 
 "Let us have/' said he, "just a few friends of his own, and 
 the more Scotch the better and both the Commissioner 
 and Mr. Croker assure me that the party was the most 
 interesting and agreeable one in their recollection. It com- 
 prised, I believe, the Duke of York — the Duke of Gordon 
 (then Marquess of Huntly) — the Marquess of Hertford (then 
 Lord Yarmouth) — the Earl of Fife — and Scott's early friend. 
 Lord Melville. " The Prince and Scott," says Mr. Croker, 
 "were the two most brilliant story-tellers, in their several 
 ways, that I have ever happened to meet ; they were both 
 aware of their forte, and both exerted themselves that evening 
 with delightful eff'ect. On going home, I really could not 
 decide which of them had shone the most. The Regent was 
 enchanted with Scott, as Scott with him ; and on all his sub- 
 sequent visits to London, he was a frequent guest at the 
 royal table." The Lord Chief Commissioner remembers that 
 the Prince was particularly delighted with the poet's anec- 
 
280 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 dotes of the old Scotch judges and lawyers, which his Royal 
 Highness sometimes capped by ludicrous traits of certain 
 ermined sages of his own acquaintance. Scott told, among 
 others, a story, which he was fond of telling, of his old friend 
 the Lord Justice-Clerk Braxfield ; and the commentary of his 
 Royal Highness on hearing it amused Scott, who often men- 
 tioned it afterwards. The anecdote is this : Braxfield, when- 
 ever he went on a particular circuit, was in the habit of 
 visiting a gentleman of good fortune in the neighbourhood of 
 one of the assize towns, and staying at least one night, 
 which, being both of them ardent chess-players, they usually 
 concluded with their favourite game. One Spring circuit the 
 battle was not decided at daybreak ; so the Justice- Clerk 
 said, " Weel, Donald, T must e*en come back this gate, and 
 let the game lie ower for the present and back he came in 
 October, but not to his old friend's hospitable house ; for 
 that gentleman had in the interim been apprehended on a 
 capital charge (of forgery), and his name stood on the For- 
 teous Roll., or list of those who were about to be tried under 
 his former guest's auspices. The laird was indicted and 
 tried accordingly, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. 
 Braxfield forthwith put on his cocked hat (which answers to 
 the black cap in England), and pronounced the sentence of 
 the law in the usual terms — ''To be hanged by the neck 
 until you be dead ; and may the Lord have mercy upon your 
 unhappy soul !" Having concluded this awful formula in 
 his most sonorous cadence, Braxfield, dismounting his for- 
 midable beaver, gave a familiar nod to his unfortunate ac- 
 quaintance, and said to him in a sort of chuckling whisper — 
 " And now, Donald, my man, I think I've checkmated you 
 for ance." The Regent laughed heartily at this specimen of 
 Macqueen's brutal humour ; and " Ffaith, Walter," said he, 
 " this old big-wig seems to have taken things as coolly as 
 my tyrannical self. Don't you remember Tom Moore's 
 description of me at breakfast — 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 281 
 
 " ' The table spread with tea and toast. 
 
 Death-warrants and the Morning Post r ' " 
 ' Towards midnight, the Prince called for "a bumper, 
 with all the honours, to the Author of Waverley and 
 looked significantly, as he was charging his own glass, to 
 Scott. Scott seemed somewhat puzzled for a moment, but 
 instantly recovering himself, and filling his glass to the brim, 
 said, " Your Royal Highness looks as if you thought I had 
 some claim to the honours of this toast. I have no such 
 pretensions ; but shall take good care that the real Simon 
 Pure hears of the high compliment that has now been paid 
 him.*' He then drank off his claret ; and joined with a 
 stentorian voice in the cheering, which the Prince himself 
 timed. But before the company could resume their seats, his 
 Royal Highness, " Another of the same, if you please, to 
 the Author of Marmion, — and now, Walter, my man, I have 
 checkmated you for ance/' The second bumper was followed 
 by cheers still more prolonged : and Scott then rose, and 
 returned thanks in a short address, which struck the Lord 
 Chief Commissioner as " alike grave and graceful.'* This 
 story has been circulated in a very perverted shape.' * * * 
 ' Before he left town he again dined at Carlton House, when 
 the party was a still smaller one than before, and the merri- 
 ment if possible still more free. That nothing might be 
 wanting, the Prince sang several capital songs.'* 
 
 Or take, at a very great interval in many senses, this 
 glimpse of another dinner, altogether w/zofficially and 
 much better described. It is James Ballantyne the 
 printer and publisher's dinner, in Saint John Street, 
 Canongate, Edinburgh, on the birtheve of a Waverley 
 Novel : 
 
 * The feast was, to use one of James's own favourite epi- 
 
 ♦ Vol. iii. pp. 340-313. 
 
282 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 thets, gorgeous ; an aldermanic display of turtle and venison, 
 with the suitable accompaniments of iced punch, potent ale, 
 and generous Madeira. When the cloth was drawn, the 
 burly prseses arose, with all he could muster of the port of 
 John Kemble, and spouted with a sonorous voice the formula 
 of Macbeth, 
 
 " Fill full ! 
 
 I drink to the general joy of the whole table !" 
 This was followed by " the King, God bless him V* and se- 
 cond came — " Gentlemen, there is another toast which never 
 has been nor shall be omitted in this house of mine : I give 
 you the health of Mr. Walter Scott, with three times three !" 
 All honour having been done to this health, and Scott having 
 briefly thanked the company, with some expressions of warm 
 affection to their host, Mrs. Ballantyne retired ; — the bottles 
 passed round twice or thrice in the usual way ; and then 
 James rose once more, every vein on his brow distended : his 
 eyes solemnly fixed on vacancy, to propose, not as before in 
 his stentorian key, but with 'bated breath," in the sort of 
 whisper by which a stage- conspirator thrills the gallery, — 
 " Gentlemen, a bumper to the immortal Author of Waverley !** 
 — The uproar of cheering, in which Scott made a fashion of 
 joining, was succeeded by deep silence ; and then Ballantyne 
 proceeded — 
 
 " In his Lord-Burleigh look, serene and serious, 
 A something of imposing and mysterious " — 
 to lament the obscurity, in which his illustrious but too mo- 
 dest correspondent still chose to conceal himself from the 
 plaudits of the world ; to thank the company for the manner 
 in which the nominis umbra had been received ; and to assure 
 them that the Author of Waverley would, when informed of 
 the circumstance, feel highly delighted — " the proudest hour 
 of his life,'' &c. &c. The cool, demure fun of Scott's fea- 
 tures during all this mummery was perfect ; and Erskine's 
 attempt at a gay nonchalance was still more ludicrously me- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 283 
 
 ritorious. Aldiborontiphoscophornio, however, bursting as 
 he was, knew too well to allow the new Novel to be made 
 the subject of discussion. Its name was announced, and 
 success to it crowned another cup ; but after that, no more 
 of Jedediah. To cut the thread, he rolled out unbidden some 
 one of his many theatrical songs, in a style that would have 
 done no dishonour to almost any orchestra — The Maid of 
 Lodi, or perhaps The Bay of Biscay , Of — or The sweet little 
 cherub that sits up aloft. Other toasts followed, interspersed 
 with ditties from other performers ; old George Thomson, 
 the friend of Burns, was ready, for one, with The Moorland 
 Wedding, or Willie brewed a peck o* maut ; — and so it went 
 on, until Scott and Erskine, with any clerical or very staid 
 personage that had chanced to be admitted, saw fit to with- 
 draw. Then the scene was changed. The claret and olives 
 made way for broiled bones and a mighty bowl of punch ; 
 and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored his 
 powders, James opened ore rotundo on the merits of the forth- 
 coming Romance. " One chapter — one chapter only V* was 
 the cry. After " Nay, by'r Lady, nay and a few more 
 coy shifts, the proof-sheets were at length produced, and 
 James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud what he con- 
 sidered as the most striking dialogue they contained. 
 
 ' The first I heard so read was the interview between 
 Jeanie Deans, the Duke of Argyle, and Queen Caroline, in 
 Richmond Park ; and, notwithstanding some spice of the 
 pompous tricks to which he was addicted, I must say he did 
 the inimitable scene great justice. At all events, the effect it 
 produced was deep and memorable ; and no wonder that the 
 exulting typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah Cleish- 
 botham preceded his parting-stave, which was uniformly The 
 Last Words of Marmion, executed certainly with no con- 
 temptible rivalry of Braham.'* 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 166-168. 
 
284 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Over at Abbotsford, things wear a still more pro- 
 sperous aspect. Scott is building there, by the plea- 
 sant banks of the Tweed ; he has bought and is buying 
 land there ; fast as the new gold comes in for a new 
 Waverley Novel, or even faster, it changes itself into 
 moory acres, into stone, and hewn or planted wood : 
 
 ' About the middle of February' (1820), says Mr. Lock- 
 hart, ' it having been ere that time arranged that I should 
 marry his eldest daughter in the course of the spring, — I 
 accompanied him and part of his family on one of those 
 flying visits to Abbotsford, with which he often indulged 
 himself on a Saturday during term. Upon such occasions, 
 Scott appeared at the usual hour in court, but wearing, in- 
 stead of the official suit of black, his country morning-dress, 
 green jacket, and so forth, under the clerk's gown.' — ' At 
 noon, when the Court broke up, Peter Mathieson was sure 
 to be in attendance in the Parliament Close ; and, five mi- 
 nutes after, the gown had been tossed off ; and Scott, rubbing 
 his hands for glee, was under weigh for Tweedside. As we 
 proceeded,' &c. 
 
 * Next morning there appeared at breakfast John Ballan- 
 tyne, who had at this time a shooting or hunting-box a few 
 miles off, in the vale of the Leader, and with him Mr. Con- 
 stable, his guest ; and it being a fine clear day, as soon as 
 Scott had read the church- service and one of Jeremy Taylor's 
 sermons, we all sallied out before noon on a perambulation 
 of his upland territories ; Maida (the hound) and the rest of 
 the favourites accompanying our march. At starting we 
 were joined by the constant henchman, Tom Purdie, — and I 
 may save myself the trouble of any attempt to describe his 
 appearance, for his master has given us an inimitably true 
 one in introducing a certain personage of his Redgauntlet : — 
 " He was, perhaps, sixty years old ; yet his brow was not 
 much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was only grizzled, not 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 285 
 
 whitened, by the advance of age. All his motions spoke 
 strength unabated ; and, though rather under-sized, he had 
 very broad shoulders, wrs square made, thin-flanked, and 
 apparently combined in his frame muscular strength and 
 activity ; the last soraev^hat impaired, perhaps, by years, 
 but the first remaining in full vigour. A hard and harsh 
 countenance ; eyes far sunk under projecting eyebrov^s, w^hich 
 were grizzled like his hair ; a w^ide mouth, furnished from 
 ear to ear with a range of unimpaired teeth of uncommon 
 whiteness, and a size and breadth which might have become 
 the jaws of an ogre, completed this delightful portrait.'* 
 Equip this figure in Scott's cast-off green jacket, white hat, 
 and drab trousers ; and imagine that years of kind treat- 
 ment, comfort, and the honest consequence of a confidential 
 grieve* had softened away much of the hardness and harsh- 
 ness originally impressed on the visage by anxious penury, 
 and the sinister habits of a black -fisher ; — and the Tom Purdie 
 of 1820 stands before us. 
 
 ' We were all delighted to see how completely Scott had 
 recovered his bodily vigour, and none more so than Constable, 
 who, as he puffed and panted after him, up one ravine and 
 down another, often stopped to wipe his forehead, and re- 
 marked, that " it was not every author who should lead him 
 such a dance." But Purdie's face shone with rapture as he 
 observed how severely the swag-bellied bookseller's activity 
 was tasked. Scott exclaimed exultingly, though, perhaps, 
 for the tenth time, " This will be a glorious spring for our 
 trees, Tom!" — ''You may say that. Sheriff," quoth Tom, — 
 and then lingering a moment for Constable — "My certy," 
 he added, scratching his head, and I think it will be a 
 grand season for our huiks too.' But indeed Tom always 
 talked of our buiks, as if they had been as regular products of 
 the soil as our aits and our birks. Having threaded first the 
 
 * Overseer ; German, grqf. 
 
286 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Hexilcleugh and then the Rhymer*s Glen, we arrived at 
 Huntly Burn, where the hospitaUty of the kind Weird 
 Sisters, as Scott called the Miss Fergusons, reanimated our 
 exhausted bibliopoles, and gave them courage to extend 
 their walk a little farther down the same famous brook. 
 Here there was a small cottage in a very sequestered situa- 
 tion' (named Chiefswood), 'by making some little additions 
 to which Scott thought it might be converted into a suitable 
 summer residence for his daughter and future son-in-law.' 
 * * ' As we walked homeward, Scott being a little fatigued, 
 laid his left hand on Tom's shoulder, and leaned heavily for 
 support, chatting to his " Sunday pony," as he called the 
 affectionate fellow, just as freely as with the rest of the party; 
 and Tom put in his word shrewdly and manfully, and grinned 
 and grunted whenever the joke chanced to be within his 
 apprehension. It was easy to see that his heart swelled 
 within him from the moment the Sheriff got his collar in 
 his gripe.'* 
 
 That Abbotsford became infested to a great degree 
 with tourists, wonder-hunters, and all that fatal species 
 of people, may be supposed. Solitary Ettrick saw itself 
 populous : all paths were beaten with the feet and hoofs 
 of an endless miscellany of pilgrims. As many as ' six- 
 teen parties ' have arrived at Abbotsford in one day ; 
 male and female ; peers, Socinian preachers, whatsoever 
 was distinguished, whatsoever had love of distinction in 
 it ! Mr. Lockhart thinks there was no literary shrine 
 ever so bepilgrimed, except Ferney in Voltaire's time, 
 who, however, was not half so accessible. A fatal spe- 
 cies ! These are what Schiller calls * the flesh-flies 
 buzzing swarms of bluebottles, who never fail where any 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 319-353. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 287 
 
 taint of human glory or other corruptibility is in the 
 wind. So has Nature decreed. Scott's healthiness, 
 bodily and mental, his massive solidity of character, no- 
 where shewed itself more decisively than in his manner 
 of encountering this part of his fate. That his blue- 
 bottles were blue, and of the usual tone and quality, may 
 be judged. Hear Captain Basil Hall (in a very com- 
 pressed state) : 
 
 ' We arrived in good time, and found several other guests 
 at dinner. The public rooms are lighted with oil-gas, in 
 a style of extraordinary splendour. The/ &c. — ' Had I a 
 hundred pens, each of which at the same time should sepa- 
 rately write down an anecdote, I could not hope to record 
 one-half of those which our host, to use Spenser's expres- 
 sion, "welled out alway.'*' — 'Entertained us all the way 
 with an endless string of anecdotes — - came like a stream 
 of poetry from his lips — ' path muddy and scarcely pass- 
 able, yet I do not remember ever to have seen any place so 
 interesting as the skill of this mighty magician had rendered 
 this narrow ravine.' — * Impossible to touch on any theme, 
 but straightway he has an anecdote to fit it.' — 'Thus we 
 strolled along, borne, as it were, on the stream of song and 
 story.' — ' In the evening we had a great feast indeed. Sir 
 Walter asked us if we had ever read Christabel.' — ' Inter- 
 spersed with these various readings, were some hundreds of 
 stories, some quaint, some pathetical.' — ' At breakfast to- 
 day we had, as usual, some 150 stories — God knows how 
 they came in.' — ' In any man so gifted — so qualified to take 
 the loftiest, proudest line at the head of the literature, the 
 taste, the imagination of the whole world !' — ' For instance, 
 he never sits at any particular place at table, but takes,' 
 &c. &c.* 
 
 • Vol. V. p. 375-402. 
 
288 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Among such worshippers, arriving in ' sixteen parties 
 a- day/ an ordinary man might have grown huoyant ; 
 have felt the god, begun to nod, and seemed to shake 
 the spheres. A shghtly splenetic man, possessed of 
 Scott's sense, would have swept his premises clear of 
 them : Let no bluebottle approach here, to disturb a 
 man in his work, — under pain of sugared squash (called 
 quassia) and king's yellow ! The good Sir Walter, like 
 a quiet brave man, did neither. He let the matter take 
 its course ; enjoyed what was enjoyable in it ; endured 
 what could not well be helped ; persisted meanwhile in 
 writing his daily portion of romance-copy, in preserving 
 his composure of heart ; — in a word, accommodated 
 himself to this loud-buzzing environment, and made it 
 serve him, as he would have done (perhaps with more 
 ease) to a silent, poor, and solitary one. No doubt it 
 affected him too, and in the lamentablest way fevered 
 his internal life, though he kept it well down ; but it 
 affected him less than it would have done almost any 
 other man. For his guests were not all of the bluebottle 
 sort ; far from that. Mr. Lockhart shall furnish us 
 with the brightest aspect a British Ferney ever yielded, 
 or is like to yield : and therewith we will quit Abbots- 
 ford and the dominant and culminant period of Scott's 
 life: 
 
 ' It was a clear, bright, September morning, with a 
 sharpness in the air that doubled the animating influence 
 of the sunshine, and all was in readiness for a grand cours- 
 ing match on Newark Hill. The only guest who had chalked 
 out other sport for himself was the stanchest of anglers, Mr. 
 Rose ; but he too was there on his shelty, armed with his 
 salmon- rod and landing-net, and attended by his Hinves, 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 289 
 
 and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in those days the 
 most celebrated fisherman of the district. This little group 
 of Waltonians, bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, re- 
 mained lounging about, to witness the start of the main 
 cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on Sibyl, was marshalling 
 the order of procession with a huge hunting-whip ; and 
 among a dozen frolicsome youths and maidens, who seemed 
 disposed to laugh at all discipline, appeared, each on horse- 
 back, each as eager as the youngest sportsman in the troop. 
 Sir Humphry Davy, Dr. WoUaston, and the patriarch of 
 Scottish belles-lettres, Henry Mackenzie. The Man of Feel- 
 ing, however, was persuaded with some difficulty to resign 
 his steed for the present to his faithful negro follower, and 
 to join Lady Scott in the sociable, until we should reach the 
 ground of our battue. Laidlaw, on a long-tailed wiry High- 
 lander, yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried him nimbly and 
 stoutly, although his feet almost touched the ground as he 
 sat, was the adjutant. But the most picturesque figure was 
 the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come 
 for his favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it 
 successfully with Rose, his travelling companion, for two 
 or three days preceding this ; but he had not prepared for 
 coursing fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir 
 Walter's on a sudden thought, and his fisherman's costume 
 — a brown hat with flexible brim, surrounded with line upon 
 line of catgut, and innumerable fly-hooks — jack- boots worthy 
 of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian surtout dabbled with the 
 blood of salmon, made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, 
 white-cord breeches, and well-polished jockey-boots of the 
 less distinguished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was 
 in black, and with his noble serene dignity of countenance, 
 might have passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie, at this time in the 76th year of his age, with a white 
 hat turned up with green, green spectacles, green jacket, and 
 long brown leathern gaiters buttoned upon his nether ana- 
 
 VOL. V. o 
 
290 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 tomy, wore a dog-whistle round his neck, and had, all over, 
 the air of as resolute a devotee as the gay captain of Huntly 
 Burn. Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded us by a 
 few hours with all the greyhounds that could be collected at 
 Abbotsford, Darnick, and Melrose ; but the giant Maida had 
 remained as his master's orderly, and now gambolled about 
 Sibyl Grey, barking for mere joy like a spaniel puppy. 
 
 ' The order of march had been all settled, and the sociable 
 was just getting under weigh, when the Lady Anne broke 
 from the line, screaming with laughter, and exclaimed, 
 " Papa, papa, I knew you could never think of going with- 
 out your pet." Scott looked round, and I rather think there 
 was a blush as well as a smile upon his face, when he per- 
 ceived a little black pig frisking about his pony, and evidently 
 a self-elected addition to the party of the day. He tried to 
 look stern, and cracked his whip at the creature, but was in 
 a moment obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor piggy 
 soon found a strap round its neck, and was dragged into the 
 background ; — Scott, watching the retreat, repeated with mock 
 pathos the first verse of an old pastoral song — 
 
 " What will I do gin my hoggie die ? 
 My joy, my pride, my hoggie I 
 My only beast, I had na mae. 
 And wow! but 1 was vogie !*' 
 
 • — the cheers were redoubled — and the squadron moved on. 
 
 ' This pig had taken, nobody could tell how, a most 
 sentimental attachment to Scott, and was constantly urging 
 its pretensions to be admitted a regular member of his tail 
 along with the greyhounds and terriers ; but, indeed, I re- 
 member him suffering another summer under the same sort 
 of pertinacity on the part of an affectionate hen. I leave the 
 explanation for philosophers ; — but such were the facts. I 
 have too much respect for the vulgarly calumniated donkey, 
 to name him in the same category of pets with the pig and 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 291 
 
 the hen ; but a year or two after this time, my wife used to 
 drive a couple of these animals in a little garden- chair, and 
 whenever her father appeared at the door of our cottage, we 
 were sure to see Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as Anne 
 Scott had wickedly christened them) trotting from their pas- 
 ture, to lay their noses over the paling, and, as Washington 
 Irving says of the old white-haired hedger with the Parisian 
 snulf-box, '^to have a pleasant crack wi' the laird."'* 
 
 * Vol. V. p. 7-10. 
 
 On this subject let us report an anecdote furnished by a 
 correspondent of our own, whose accuracy we can depend on : — 
 
 * I myself was acquainted with a little Blenheim cocker, one of 
 
 * the smallest, beautifullest and wisest of lapdogs or dogs, which, 
 
 * though Sir Walter knew it not, was very singular in its behaviour 
 
 * towards him. Shandy, so hight this remarkable cocker, was 
 
 * extremely shy of strangers : promenading on Prince's Street, 
 
 * which in line weather used to be crowded in those days, he 
 ' seemed to live in perpetual fear of being stolen ; if any one but 
 
 * looked at him admiringly, he would draw back with angry timid- 
 
 * ity, and crouch towards his own lady-mistress. One day a tall, 
 
 * irregular, busy-looking man came halting by ; the little dog ran 
 
 * towards him, began fawning, frisking, licking at his feet : it was 
 ' Sir Walter Scott ! Had Shandy been the most extensive reader 
 
 * of Reviews, he could not have done better. Every time he saw 
 ' Sir Walter afterwards, which was some three or four times in the 
 ' course of visiting Edinburgh, he repeated his demonstrations, 
 ' ran leaping, frisking, licking the Author of Waverley's feet. 
 
 * The good Sir Walter endured it with good-humour ; looked down 
 ' at the little wise face, at the silky shag-coat of snow-white and 
 
 * chestnut -brown ; smiled, and avoided hitting him as they went 
 
 * on, — till a new division of streets or some other obstacle put an 
 
 * end to the interview. In fact he was a strange little fellow, this 
 
 * Shandy. He has been known to sit for hours looking out at the 
 
 * summer moon, with the saddest wistfullest expression of counte- 
 
 * nance ; altogether like a Werterean Poet. He would have been 
 
 * a Poet, I dare say, if he could have found a publisher. But his 
 
292 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' There ' at Chiefswood ' my wife and I spent this summer 
 and autumn of 1821 ; — the first of several seasons which will 
 ever dwell on my memory as the happiest of my life. We 
 were near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as we 
 liked of its brilliant and constantly varying society ; yet 
 could do so without being exposed to the worry and ex- 
 haustion of spirit which the daily reception of new comers 
 entailed upon all the family, except Sir Walter himself. 
 But, in truth, even he was not always proof against the 
 annoyances connected w^th such a style of open housekeep- 
 ing. Even his temper sank sometimes under the solemn 
 applauses of learned dulness, the vapid raptures of painted 
 and periwigged dowagers, the horseleech avidity with which 
 
 ' moral tact was the most amazing. Without reason shewn, with- 
 
 * out word spoken or act done, he took his likings and dislikings ; 
 
 * unalterable ; really almost unerring. His chief aversion, I should 
 
 * say, was to the genus quack, above all to the genus acrid - quae k ; 
 ' these, though never so clear-starched, bland-smiling, and bene- 
 ' ficent, he absolutely would have no trade with. Their very 
 
 * sugar-cake was unavailing. He said with emphasis, as clearly 
 ' as barking could say it: Acrid-quack, avaunt!" Would to 
 
 * Heaven many a prime minister, and high person in authority, had 
 ' such an invaluable talent ! On the whole, there is more in this 
 ' universe than our philosophy has dreamt of. A dog's instinct is 
 
 * a voice of Nature too ; and farther, it has never babbled itself 
 
 * away in idle jargon and hypothesis, but always adhered to the 
 
 * practical, and grown in silence by continual communion with 
 
 * fact. We do the animals injustice. Their body resembles our 
 
 * body, Buffon says ; with its four limbs, with its spinal marrow, 
 
 * main organs in the head, and so forth : but have they not a kind 
 ' of soul, equally the rude draught and imperfect imitation of ours ? 
 ' It is a strange, an almost solemn and pathetic thing to see an 
 
 * intelligence imprisoned in that dumb rude form ; struggling to 
 
 * express itself out of that ; — even as we do out of our imprison- 
 
 * ment ; and succeed very imperfectly !* 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 293 
 
 underbred foreigners urged their questions, and the pompous 
 simpers of condescending magnates. When sore beset at 
 home in this way, he would every now and then discover 
 that he had some very particular business to attend to on an 
 outlying part of his estate ; and, craving the indulgence of 
 his guests over night, appear at the cabin in the glen before 
 its inhabitants were astir in the morning. The clatter of 
 Sibyl Grey's hoofs, the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and 
 his own joyous shout of reveillee under our windows, were 
 the signal that he had burst his toils, and meant for that day 
 to " take his ease in his inn." On descending, he was to be 
 found seated with all his dogs and ours about him, under a 
 spreading ash that overshadowed half the bank between the 
 cottage and the brook, pointing the edge of his woodraan's- 
 axe, and listening to Tom Purdie's lecture touching the 
 plantation that most needed thinning. After breakfast he 
 would take possession of a dressing-room up stairs, and 
 write a chapter of The Pirate; and then, having made up 
 and despatched his packet for Mr. Ballantyne, away to join 
 Purdie wherever the foresters were at work — and sometimes 
 to labour among them as strenuously as John Swanston, — 
 until it was time either to rejoin his own party at Abbots- 
 ford, or the quiet circle of the cottage. When his guests 
 were few and friendly, he often made them come over and 
 meet him at Chiefswood in a body towards evening ; and 
 surely he never appeared to more amiable advantage than 
 when helping his young people with their little arrange- 
 ments upon such occasions. He was ready with all sorts of 
 devices to supply the wants of a narrow establishment ; he 
 used to delight particularly in sinking the wine in a well 
 under the brae ere he went out, and hauling up the basket 
 just before dinner was announced, — this primitive device 
 being, he said, what he had always practised when a young 
 housekeeper, and in his opinion far superior in its results to 
 any application of ice : and in the same spirit, whenever the 
 
294 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 weather was sufficiently genial, he voted for dining out of 
 doors altogether, which at once got rid of the inconvenience 
 of very small rooms, and made it natural and easy for the 
 gentlemen to help the ladies, so that the paucity of servants 
 went for nothing.'* 
 
 Surely all this is very beautiful ; like a picture of 
 Boccaccio : the ideal of a country life in our time. 
 Why could it not last ? Income was not wanting : 
 Scott's official permanent income was amply adequate 
 to meet the expense of all that was valuable in it ; nay, 
 of all that was not harassing, senseless, and despicable. 
 Scott had some £2,000 a-year without writing books 
 at all. Why should he manufacture and not create, 
 to make more money ; and rear mass on mass for a 
 dwelling to himself, till the pile toppled, sank crashing, 
 and buried him in its ruins, when he had a safe plea- 
 sant dwelling ready of its own accord ? Alas, Scott, 
 with all his health, was infected ; sick of the fearfuUest 
 malady, that of Ambition ! To such length had the 
 King's baronetcy, the world's favour, and ' sixteen par- 
 ties a-day,' brought it with him. So the inane racket 
 must be kept up, and rise ever higher. So masons 
 labour, ditchers delve ; and there is endless, altogether 
 deplorable correspondence about marble- slabs for tables, 
 wainscoting of rooms, curtains and the trimmings of 
 curtains, orange -coloured or fawn-coloured : Walter 
 Scott, one of the gifted of the world, whom his ad- 
 mirers called the most gifted, must kill himself that he 
 may be a country gentleman, the founder of a race of 
 Scottish lairds. It is one of the strangest, most tragical 
 
 * Vol. V. pp. 123, 124. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 295 
 
 histories ever enacted under this sun. So poor a pas- 
 sion can lead so strong a man into such mad extremes. 
 Surely, were not man a fool always, one might say 
 there was something eminently distracted in this, end 
 as it would, of a Walter Scott writing daily with the 
 ardour of a steam-engine, that he might make £15,000 
 a- year, and buy upholstery with it. To cover the walls 
 of a stone house in Selkirkshire with nicknacks, ancient 
 armour, and genealogical shields, what can we name it 
 but a being bit with delirium of a kind.'* That tract 
 after tract of moorland in the shire of Selkirk should be 
 joined together on parchm^ent and by ring-fence, and 
 named after one's name, — why, it is a shabby small- 
 type edition of your vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and 
 conquering heroes, not counted venerable by any teacher 
 of men ! — 
 
 ' The whole world was not half so wide 
 To Alexander when he cried 
 Because he had but one to subdue. 
 As was a narrow paltry tub to 
 Diogenes ; who ne'er was said. 
 For aught that ever I could read. 
 To whine, put finger i' the eye and sob. 
 Because he had ne'er another tub.' 
 
 Not he ! And if, ' looked at from the Moon, which 
 itself is far from Infinitude,' Napoleon's dominions were 
 as small as mine, what, by any chance of possibility, 
 could Abbotsford landed-property ever have become } 
 As the Arabs say, there is a black speck, were it no 
 bigger than a bean's eye, in every soul ; which, once set 
 it a-working, will overcloud the whole man into darkness 
 and quasi- madness, and hurry him balefully into Night I 
 
296 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 With respect to the literary character of these 
 Waverley Novels, so extraordinary in their commercial 
 character, there remains, after so much reviewing, good 
 and bad, little that it w^ere profitable at present to say. 
 The great fact about them is, that they were faster 
 written and better paid for than any other books in the 
 world. It must be granted, moreover, that they have 
 a worth far surpassing what is usual in such cases ; nay, 
 that if Literature had no task but that of harmlessly 
 amusing indolent languid men, here was the very per- 
 fection of Literature ; that a man, here more emphati- 
 cally than ever elsewhere, might fling himself back, 
 exclaiming, Be mine to lie on this sofa, and read ever- 
 lasting Novels of Walter Scott!*' The composition, 
 slight as it often is, usually hangs together in some 
 measure, and is a composition. There is a free flow 
 of narrative, of incident and sentiment ; an easy master- 
 like coherence throughout, as if it were the free dash 
 of a master's hand, 'round as the O of Giotto.'* It 
 is the perfection of extemporaneous writing. Farther- 
 
 * * Venne a Firenze' (il cortigiano del Papa), * e andato una 
 
 * mattina in bottega di Giotto, che lavorava, gli chiese un poco di 
 
 * disegno per mandarlo a sua Santita. Giotto, che garbatissimo era, 
 ' prese un foglio, ed in quello con un pennello tinto di rosso, fer- 
 
 * mato ilbraccio alfianco per fame compasso, e girato la mano fece 
 
 * un tondo si pari di sesto e di profilo, che fu a vederlo una maravi- 
 
 * glia. Cio fatto ghignando disse al cortigiano, Eccovi il disegno.* 
 
 * . . . . Onde il Papa, e molti cortigiani intendenti conob- 
 
 * bero percio, quanto Giotto avanzasse d'eccelenza tutti gli altri 
 
 * pittori del suo tempo. Divolgatasi poi questa cosa, ne nacque il 
 
 * proverbio, che ancora e in uso dirsi a gli uomini di grossa pasta : 
 ' Tu set piu tondo eke V 0 di Giotto.*— Y&saxij Vite (Roma, 1759), 
 i. 46. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 297 
 
 more, surely he were a blind critic who did not recog- 
 nise here a certain genial sunshiny freshness and pic- 
 turesqueness ; paintings both of scenery and figures, 
 very graceful, brilliant, occasionally full of grace and 
 glowing brightness blended in the softest composure ; 
 in fact, a deep sincere love of the beautiful in Nature 
 and Man, and the readiest faculty of expressing this 
 by imagination and by word. No fresher paintings of 
 Nature can be found than Scott's ; hardly anywhere a 
 wider sympathy with man. From Davie Deans up to 
 Richard Coeur-de-Lion ; from Meg Merrilies to Die 
 Vernon and Queen Elizabeth ! It is the utterance of 
 a man of open soul ; of a brave, large, free- seeing man, 
 who has a true brotherhood with all men. In joyous 
 picturesqueness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and 
 heart ; or to say it in a word, in general healthiness of 
 mind, these Novels prove Scott to have been amongst 
 the foremost writers. 
 
 Neither in the higher and highest excellence, of 
 drawing character, is he at any time altogether defi- 
 cient ; though at no time can we call him, in the best 
 sense, successful. His Bailie Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dal- 
 gettys (for their name is legion) do look and talk like 
 what they give themselves out for ; they are, if not 
 created and made poetically alive, yet deceptively enacted 
 as a good player might do them. What more is wanted, 
 then } For the reader lying on a sofa, nothing more ; 
 yet for another sort of reader, much. It were a loner 
 chapter to unfold the difference in drawing a character 
 between a Scott, and a Shakspeare, a Goethe } Yet it 
 is a difference literally immense : they are of different 
 species ; the value of the one is not to be counted in 
 o 2 
 
298 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the coin of the other. We might say in a short word, 
 which means a long matter, that your Shakspeare fa- 
 shions his characters from the heart outwards ; your 
 Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, never get- 
 ting near the heart of them I The one set become living 
 men and women ; the other amount to little more than 
 mechanical cases, deceptively painted automatons. Com- 
 pare Fenella with Goethe's Mignon, which, it was once 
 said, Scott had * done Goethe the honour' to borrow. 
 He has borrowed what he could of Mignon. The small 
 stature, the climbing talent, the trickiness, the mechani- 
 cal case, as we say, he has borrowed ; but the soul of 
 Mignon is left behind. Fenella is an unfavourable 
 specimen for Scott ; but it illustrates in the aggravated 
 state, what is traceable in all the characters he drew. 
 To the same purport, indeed, we are to say that these 
 famed books are altogether addressed to the every-day 
 mind ; that for any other mind, there is next to no 
 nourishment in them. Opinions, emotions, principles, 
 doubts, beliefs, beyond what the intelligent country 
 gentleman can carry along with him, are not to be 
 found. It is orderly, customary, it is prudent, decent ; 
 nothing more. One would say, it lay not in Scott to 
 give much more ; getting out of the ordinary range, 
 and attempting the heroic, which is but seldom the 
 case, he falls almost at once into the rose-pink senti- 
 mental, — descries the Minerva Press from afar, and 
 hastily quits that course ; for none better than he knew 
 it to lead nowhither. On the whole, contrasting Waver- 
 ley, which was carefully written, with most of its fol- 
 lowers, which were written extempore, one may regret 
 the extempore method. Something very perfect in its 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 299 
 
 kind might have come from Scott ; nor was it a low 
 kind : nay, who knows how high, with studious self- 
 concentration, he might have gone ; what wealth Nature 
 had implanted in him, which his circumstances, most 
 unkind while seeming to be kindest, had never impelled 
 him to unfold ? 
 
 But after all, in the loudest blaring and trumpeting 
 of popularity, it is ever to be held in mind, as a truth 
 remaining true forever, that Literature has other aims 
 than that of harmlessly amusing indolent languid men : 
 or if Literature have them not, then Literature is a very 
 poor affair ; and something else must have them, and 
 must accomplish them, with thanks or without thanks ; 
 the thankful or thankless world were not long a world 
 otherwise ! Under this head there is little to be sought or 
 found in the Waverley Novels. Not profitable for doc- 
 trine, for reproof, for edification, for building uj) or ele- 
 vating, in any shape ! The sick heart will find no heal- 
 ing here, the darkly struggling heart no guidance : the 
 Heroic that is in all men no divine awakening voice. 
 We say, therefore, that they do not found themselves 
 on deep interests, but on comparatively trivial ones ; 
 not on the perennial, perhaps not even on the lasting. 
 In fact, much of the interest of these Novels results 
 from what may be called contrasts of costume. The 
 phraseology, fashion of arms, of dress and life, belong- 
 ing to one age, is brought suddenly with singular vivid- 
 ness before the eyes of another. A great effect this ; 
 yet by the very nature of it, an altogether temporary 
 one. Consider, brethren, shall not we too one day be 
 antiques, and grow to have as quaint a costume as the 
 rest ? Tlie stuffed Dandy, only give him time, will 
 
300 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 become one of the wonderful! est mummies. In anti- 
 quarian museums, only two centuries hence, the steeple- 
 hat will hang on the next peg to Franks and Company*s 
 patent, antiquarians deciding which is uglier : and the 
 Stulz swallow-tail, one may hope, will seem as incredi- 
 ble as any garment that ever made ridiculous the re- 
 spectable back of man. Not by slashed breeches, steeple- 
 hats, buff- belts, or antiquated speech, can romance- 
 heroes continue to interest us ; but simply and solely, 
 in the long-run, by being men. BufF-belts and all 
 manner of jerkins and costumes are transitory ; man 
 alone is perennial. He that has gone deeper into this 
 than other men, will be remembered longer than they ; 
 he that has not, not. Tried under this category, Scott, 
 with his clear practical insight, joyous temper, and 
 other sound faculties, is not to be accounted little, — 
 among the ordinary circulating- library heroes he might 
 well pass for a demigod. Not little ; yet neither is he 
 great ; there were greater, more than one or two, in his 
 own age : among the great of all ages, one sees no like- 
 lihood of a place for him. 
 
 What then is the result of these Waverley Ro- 
 mances } Are they to amuse one generation only } 
 One or more ! As many generations as they can ; but 
 not all generations : ah no, when our swallow-tail has 
 become fantastic as trunk - hose, they will cease to 
 amuse ! — Meanwhile, as we can discern, their results 
 have been several-fold. First of all, and certainly not 
 least of all, have they not perhaps had this result : that 
 a considerable portion of mankind has hereby been sated 
 with mere amusement, and set on seeking something 
 better ? Amusement in the way of reading can go no 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 301 
 
 farther, can do nothing better, by the power of man ; 
 and men ask, Is this what it can do ? Scott, we reckon, 
 carried several things to their ultimatum and crisis, so 
 that change became inevitable : a great service, though 
 an indirect one. Secondly, however, we may say, these 
 Historical Novels have taught all men this truth, which 
 looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to 
 writers of history and others, till so taught : that the 
 bygone ages of the world were actually filled by living 
 men, not by protocols, state-papers, controversies, and 
 abstractions of men. Not abstractions were they, not 
 diagrams and theorems ; but men, in bulF or other coats 
 and breeches, with colour in their cheeks, with passions 
 in their stomach, and the idioms, features, and vitalities 
 of very men. It is a little word this ; inclusive of great 
 meaning ! History will henceforth have to take thought 
 of it. Her faint hearsays of * philosophy teaching by 
 experience' will have to exchange themselves everywhere 
 for direct inspection and embodiment : this, and this 
 only, will be counted experience ; and till once experi- 
 ence have got in, philosophy will reconcile herself to 
 wait at the door. It is a great service, fertile in con- 
 sequences, this that Scott has done ; a great truth laid 
 open by him ; — correspondent indeed to the substantial 
 nature of the man ; to his solidity and veracity even of 
 imagination, which, with all his lively discursiveness, 
 was the characteristic of him. 
 
 A word here as to the extempore style of writing, 
 which is getting much celebrated in these days. Scott 
 seems to have been a high proficient in it. His rapidity 
 was extreme ; and the matter produced was excellent, 
 considering that : the circumstances under which some 
 
302 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 of his Novels, when he could not himself write, were 
 dictated, are justly considered wonderful. It is a valu- 
 able faculty this of ready writing ; nay farther, for 
 Scott's purpose it was clearly the only good mode. By 
 much labour he could not have added one guinea to his 
 copyright ; nor could the reader on the sofa have lain a 
 whit more at ease. It was in all ways necessary that 
 these works should be produced rapidly ; and, round or 
 not, be thrown off like Giotto's O. But indeed, in all 
 things, writing or other, which a man engages in, there 
 is the indispensablest beauty in knowing how to get done. 
 A man frets himself to no purpose ; he has not the 
 sleight of the trade ; he is not a craftsman, but an un- 
 fortunate borer and bungler, if he know not when to 
 have done. Perfection is unattainable : no carpenter 
 ever made a mathematically accurate right- angle in the 
 world ; yet all carpenters know when it is right enough, 
 and do not botch it, and lose their wages, by making it 
 too right. Too much pains- taking speaks disease in 
 one's mind, as well as too little. The adroit sound- 
 minded man will endeavour to spend on each business 
 approximately what of pains it deserves ; and with a 
 conscience void of remorse will dismiss it then. All 
 this in favour of easy writing shall be granted, and, if 
 need were, enforced and inculcated. And yet, on the 
 other hand, it shall not less but more strenuously be 
 inculcated, that in the way of writing no great thing 
 was ever, or will ever be done with ease, but with diffi- 
 culty ! Let ready writers with any faculty in them, 
 lay this to heart. Is it with ease, or not with ease, 
 that a man shall do his best, in any shape ; above all, 
 in this shape, justly named of * soul's travail,' working 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 303 
 
 in the deep places of thought, embodying the True out 
 of the Obscure and Possible, environed on all sides with 
 the uncreated False ? Not so, now or at any time. The 
 experience of all men belies it ; the nature of things 
 contradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were they ready 
 writers ? The whole Prophecies of Isaiah are not 
 equal in extent to this cobweb of a Review Article. 
 Shakspeare, we may fancy, wrote with rapidity ; but 
 not till he had thought with intensity : long and sore 
 had this man thought, as the seeing eye may discern 
 well, and had dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and 
 throes, — though his great soul is silent about all that. 
 It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals, being 
 ready to do it. And herein truly lies the secret of the 
 matter : such swiftness of mere writing, after due energy 
 of preparation, is doubtless the right method ; the hot 
 furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure 
 gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakspeare' s plan ; 
 no easy writer he, or he had never been a Shakspeare. 
 Neither was Milton one of the mob of gentlemen that 
 write with ease ; he did not attain Shakspeare' s faculty, 
 one perceives, of even writing fast after long prepara- 
 tion, but struggled while he wrote. Goethe also tells 
 us he * had nothing sent him in his sleep ;' no page of 
 his but he knew well how it came there. It is reckoned 
 to be the best prose, accordingly, that has been written 
 by any modern. Schiller, as an unfortunate and un- 
 healthy man, ' konnte nie fertig werden, never could get 
 done ;' the noble genius of him struggled not wisely 
 but too well, and wore his life itself heroically out. Or 
 did Petrarch write easily ? Dante sees himself ' grow- 
 ing lean' over his Divine Comedy ; in stern solitary 
 
304 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 death- wrestle with it, to prevail over it, and do it, if 
 his uttermost faculty may : hence, too, it is done and 
 prevailed over, and the fiery life of it endures for ever- 
 more among men. No : creation, one would think, 
 cannot be easy ; your Jove has severe pains, and fire- 
 flames, in the head out of which an armed Pallas is 
 struggling ! As for manufacture, that is a different 
 matter, and may become easy or not easy, according as 
 it is taken up. Yet of manufacture too, the general 
 truth is that, given the manufacturer, it will be worthy 
 in direct proportion to the pains bestowed upon it ; 
 and worthless always, or nearly so, with no pains. 
 Cease, therefore, O ready- writer, to brag openly of thy 
 rapidity and facility ; to thee (if thou be in the manu- 
 facturing line) it is a benefit, an increase of wages ; but 
 to me it is sheer loss, worsening of my pennyworth : 
 why wilt thou brag of it to me } Write easily, by steam 
 if thou canst contrive it, and canst sell it ; but hide it 
 like virtue ! Easy writing," said Sheridan, " is some- 
 times d — d hard reading.*' Sometimes ; and always 
 it is sure to be rather useless reading, which indeed (to 
 a creature of few years and much work) may be reckoned 
 the hardest of all. 
 
 Scott's productive facility amazed everybody ; and 
 set Captain Hall, for one, upon a very strange method 
 of accounting for it without miracle; — for which see 
 his Journal, above quoted from. The Captain, on count- 
 ing line for line, found that he himself had written in 
 that Journal of his almost as much as Scott, at odd 
 hours in a given number of days ; ' and as for the in- 
 ' vent ion,' says he, * it is known that this costs Scott 
 * nothing, but comes to him of its own accord.' Con- 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 305 
 
 venient indeed ! — But for us too Scott's rapidity is 
 great, is a proof and consequence of the solid health 
 of the man, bodily and spiritual ; great, but unmiracu- 
 lous ; not greater than that of many others besides 
 Captain Hall. Admire it, yet with measure. For 
 observe always, there are two conditions in work : let 
 me fix the quality, and you shall fix the quantity ! Any 
 man may get through work rapidly who easily satisfies 
 himself about it. Print the talk of any man, there will 
 be a thick octavo volume daily ; make his writing three 
 times as good as his talk, there will be the third part of 
 a volume daily, which still is good work. To write 
 with never such rapidity in a passable manner, is indi- 
 cative not of a man's genius, but of his habits ; it will 
 prove his soundness of nervous system, his practicality 
 of mind, and in fine, that he has the knack of his trade. 
 In the most flattering view, rapidity will betoken health 
 of mind : much also, perhaps most of all, will depend 
 on health of body. Doubt it not, a faculty of easy 
 writing is attainable by man ! The human genius, 
 once fairly set in this direction, will carry it far. Wil- 
 liam Cobbett, one of the healthiest of men, was a greater 
 improviser even than Walter Scott : his writing, con- 
 sidered as to quality and quantity, of Rural Rides, 
 Registers, Grammars, Sermons, Peter Porcupines, His- 
 tories of Reformation, ever-fresh denouncements of Po- 
 tatoes and Papermoney, — seems to us still more won- 
 derful. Pierre Bayle wrote enormous folios, one sees 
 not on what motive-principle ; he flowed on forever, a 
 mighty tide of ditch-water ; and even died flowing, with 
 the pen in his hand. But indeed the most unaccount- 
 able ready- writer of all is, probably, the common Editor 
 
306 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 of a Daily Newspaper. Consider his leading articles ; 
 what they treat of, how passably they are done. Straw 
 that has been thrashed a hundred times without wheat ; 
 ephemeral sound of a sound ; such portent of the hour 
 as all men have seen a hundred times turn out inane : 
 how a man, with merely human faculty, buckles him- 
 self nightly with new vigour and interest to this thrashed 
 straw, nightly thrashes it anew, nightly gets up new 
 thunder about it ; and so goes on thrashing and thun- 
 dering for a considerable series of years ; this is a fact 
 remaining still to be accounted for, in human physio- 
 logy. The vitality of man is great. 
 
 Or shall we say, Scott, among the many things he 
 carried towards their ultimatum and crisis, carried this 
 of ready- writing too, that so all men might better see 
 what was in it It is a valuable consummation. Not 
 without results ; — results, at some of which Scott as a 
 Tory politician would have greatly shuddered. For if 
 once Printing have grown to be as Talk, then Demo- 
 cracy (if we look into the roots of things) is not a 
 bugbear and probability, but a certainty, and event as 
 good as come ! ' Inevitable seems it me.' But leaving 
 this, sure enough the triumph of ready- writing appears 
 to be even now ; everywhere the ready writer is found 
 bragging strangely of his readiness. In a late translated 
 Don Carlos, one of the most indifferent translations ever 
 done with any sign of ability, a hitherto unknown indi- 
 vidual is found assuring his reader, ' The reader will 
 ' possibly think it an excuse, when I assure him that 
 ' the whole piece was completed within the space of ten 
 ' weeks, that is to say, between the sixth of January 
 ' and the eighteenth of March of this year (inclusive of 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 307 
 
 ' a fortnight's interruption from over-exertion) ; that I 
 ' often translated twenty pages a-day, and that the fifth 
 ' act was tiie work of five days/* O hitherto unknown 
 individual, what is it to me what time it was the work 
 of, whether five days or five decades of years ? The 
 only question is. How hast thou done it? — So, how- 
 ever, it stands : the genius of Extempore irresistibly 
 lording it, advancing on us like ocean- tides, like Noah's 
 deluges — of ditch-water ! The prospect seems one of 
 the lamentablest. To have all Literature swum away 
 fi'om us in watery Extempore, and a spiritual time of 
 Noah supervene ? That surely is an awful reflection ; 
 worthy of dyspeptic Matthew Bramble in a London 
 fog ! Be of comfort, O splenetic Matthew ; it is not 
 Literature they are swimming away ; it is only Book- 
 publishing and Book-selling. Was there not a Litera- 
 ture before Printing or Faust of Ment?, and yet men 
 wrote extempore ? Nay, before Writing or Cadmus of 
 Thebes, and yet men spoke extempore ? Literature is 
 the Thought of thinking Souls ; this, by the blessing of 
 God, can in no generation be swum away, but remains 
 with us to the end. 
 
 Scott's career, of writing impromptu novels to buy 
 farms with, was not of a kind to terminate voluntarily, 
 but to accelerate itself more and more ; and one sees 
 not to what wise goal it could, in any case, have led 
 him. Bookseller Constable's bankruptcy was not the 
 ruin of Scott ; his ruin was that ambition, and even false 
 
 * Don Carlos, a Dramatic Poem, from the German of Sghiller. 
 Mannheim and London, 1837. 
 
308 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ambition, had laid hold of him ; that his way of life was 
 not wise. Whither could it lead ? Where could it 
 stop ? New farms there remained ever to be bought, 
 while new novels could pay for them. More and more 
 success but gave more and more appetite, more and 
 more audacity. The impromptu writing must have 
 waxed ever thinner ; declined faster and faster into the 
 questionable category, into the condemnable, into the 
 generally condemned. Already there existed, in secret, 
 everywhere a considerable opposition party; witnesses 
 of the Waverley miracles, but unable to believe in them, 
 forced silently to protest against them. Such opposi- 
 tion party was in the sure case to grow ; and even, with 
 the impromptu process ever going on, ever waxing thin- 
 ner, to draw the world over to it. Silent protest must 
 at length come to words ; harsh truths, backed by 
 harsher facts of a world-popularity overwrought and 
 worn out, behoved to have been spoken; — such as can 
 be spoken now without reluctance, when they can pain 
 the brave man's heart no more. Who knows } Perhaps 
 it was better ordered to be all otherwise. Otherwise, 
 at any rate, it was. One day the Constable mountain, 
 which seemed to stand strong like the other rock moun- 
 tains, gave suddenly, as the icebergs do, a loud- sound- 
 ing crack ; suddenly, with huge clangor, shivered itself 
 into ice-dust; and sank, carrying much along with it. 
 In one day Scott's high-heaped money-wages became 
 fairy-money and nonentity ; in one day the rich man 
 and lord of land saw himself penniless, landless, a bank- 
 rupt among creditors. 
 
 It was a hard trial. He met it proudly, bravely, — 
 like a brave proud man of the world. Perhaps there 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 309 
 
 had been a prouder way still : to have owned honestly 
 that he was unsuccessful then, all bankrupt, broken, in 
 the world's goods and repute ; and to have turned else- 
 whither for some refuge. Refuge did lie elsewhere ; but 
 it was not Scott's course, or fashion of mind, to seek it 
 there. To say, Hitherto I have been all in the wrong, 
 and this my fame and pride, now broken, was an empty 
 delusion and spell ot accursed witchcraft ! It was diffi- 
 cult for flesh and blood ! He said, I will retrieve my- 
 self, and make my point good yet, or die for it. Silently, 
 like a proud strong man, he girt himself to the Hercules' 
 task, of removing rubbish-mountains, since that was it ; 
 of paying large ransoms by what he could still write and 
 sell. In his declining years too ; misfortune is doubly 
 and trebly unfortunate that befalls us then. Scott fell 
 to his Hercules' task like a very man, and went on with 
 it unweariedly ; with a noble cheerfulness, while his life- 
 strings were cracking, he grappled with it, and wrestled 
 with it, years long, in death-grips, strength to strength ; 
 — and it proved the stronger ; and his life and heart did 
 crack and break : the cordage of a most strong heart ! 
 Over these last writings of Scott, his Napoleons, Demon- 
 ologies, Scotch Histories, and the rest, criticism, finding 
 still much to wonder at, much to commend, will utter 
 no word of blame ; this one word only. Wo is me ! 
 The noble warhorse that once laughed at the shaking of 
 the spear, how is he doomed to toil himself dead, drag- 
 ging ignoble wheels ! Scott's descent was like that of 
 a spent projectile ; rapid, straight down ; — perhaps mer- 
 cifully so. It is a tragedy, as all life is ; one proof 
 more that Fortune stands on a restless globes that 
 
310 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Ambition, literary, warlike, politic, pecuniary, never yet 
 profited any man. 
 
 Our last extract shall be from Volume Sixth ; a very 
 tragical one. Tragical, yet still beautiful ; waste Ruin's 
 havoc borrowing a kind of sacredness from a yet sterner 
 visitation, that of Death ! Scott has withdrawn into 
 a solitary lodging-house in Edinburgh, to do daily the 
 day's work there ; and had to leave his wife at Abbots- 
 ford in the last stage of disease. He went away silently ; 
 looked silently at the sleeping face he scarcely hoped 
 ever to see again. We quote from a Diary he had begun 
 to keep in those months, on hint from Byron's Ravenna 
 Journal : copious sections of it render this Sixth Volume 
 more interesting than any of the former ones : 
 
 ' Mhofsford, May 11 (1826).— * * It withers my heart 
 to think of it, and to recollect that I can hardly hope again 
 to seek confidence and counsel from that ear, to which all 
 might be safely confided. But in her present lethargic state, 
 what would my attendance have availed — and Anne has pro- 
 mised close and constant intelligence. I must dine with 
 James Ballantyne to-day enfamille. I cannot help it; but 
 would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go out 
 too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness 
 which struggles to invade me. 
 
 'Edinburgh, — Mrs. Brown's lodgings. North St. David 
 Street — May 12. — I passed a pleasant day with kind J. B., 
 which was a great relief from the black dog, which would 
 have worried me at home. He was quite alone. 
 
 ' Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touch- 
 stone, " When I was at home I was in a better place I 
 must, when there is occasion, draw to my own Baillie Nicol 
 Jarvie's consolation — " One cannot carry the comforts of the 
 
I 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 311 
 
 Saut-Market about with one." Were I at ease in mind, I 
 think the body is very well cared for. Only one other lodger 
 in the house, a Mr. Shandy, — a clergyman ; and, despite his 
 name, said to be a quiet one.' 
 
 * May 14. — A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who 
 are shining so brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you 
 look as if you were looking as bright on the banks of the 
 Tweed ; but look where you will. Sir Sun, you look upon 
 sorrow and suffering. — Hogg was here yesterday, in danger, 
 from having obtained an accommodation of £100 from James 
 Ballantyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am unable 
 to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow myself.' 
 
 ' May 15. — Received the melancholy intelligence that all 
 is over at Abbotsford. 
 
 * Abbot sf or d, May 16. — She died at nine in the mornings 
 after being very ill for two days — easy at last. I arrived 
 here late last night. Anne is worn out, and has had hysterics, 
 which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents were like 
 those of a child, the language as well as the tones broken, 
 but in the most gentle voice of submission. ** Poor mamma 
 — never return again — gone forever — a better place." Then, 
 when she came to herself, she spoke with sense, freedom, 
 and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It would 
 have been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger — what 
 was it then to the father and the husband ? For myself, 
 I scarce know how I feel ; sometimes as firm as the Bass 
 Rock, sometimes as weak as the water that breaks on it. 
 I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my 
 life. Yet, when I contrast what this place now is, with 
 what it has been not long since, I think my heart will break. 
 Lonely, aged, deprived of my family — all but poor Anne ; an 
 impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of 
 my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk down my 
 sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart 
 that must bear them alone. — Even her foibles were of service 
 
312 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 to me, by giving me things to think of beyond my weary 
 self-reflections. 
 
 ' I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not my 
 Charlotte — my thirty years' companion. There is the same 
 symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were 
 once so gracefully elastic — but that yellow mask, with pinched 
 features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, 
 can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression ? 
 I will not look on it again. Anne thinks her little changed, 
 because the latest idea she had formed of her mother is as 
 she appeared under circumstances of extreme pain. Mine 
 go back to a period of comparative ease. If I write long in 
 this way, I shall write down my resolution, which I should 
 rather write up, if I could.' 
 
 * May 18. — * * Cerements of lead and of wood al- 
 ready hold her ; cold earth must have her soon. But it is 
 not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of my youth, the mother 
 of my children, that will be laid among the ruins of Dry- 
 burgh, which we have so often visited in gayety and pastime. 
 No, no.' 
 
 ' May 22. — * * Well, I am not apt to shrink from 
 that which is my duty, merely because it is painful ; but I 
 wish this funeral-day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity 
 hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be 
 doing and talking.' 
 
 ' May 26. — * * Were an enemy coming upon my 
 house, would I not do my best to fight, although oppressed 
 in spirits ; and shall a similar despondency prevent me from 
 mental exertion ? It shall not, by Heaven ! ' 
 
 ' Edinburgh, May 30. — Returned to town last night with 
 Charles. This morning resume ordinary habits of rising 
 early, working in the morning, and attending the Court. * * 
 I finished correcting the proofs for the Quarterly ; it is but 
 a flimsy article, but then the circumstances were most un- 
 toward.— This has been a melancholy day — most melancholy. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 313 
 
 I am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I do not know 
 what other folks feel, but with me the hysterical passion 
 that impels tears is a terrible violence — a sort of throttling 
 sensation — then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, 
 in which I ask if my poor Charlotte can actually be dead.'* 
 
 This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other scenes, 
 in that Seventh Volume, must come, which will have no 
 beauty, but be tragical only. It is better that we are 
 to end here. 
 
 And so the curtain falls ; and the strong Walter 
 Scott is with us no more. A possession from him does 
 remain ; widely scattered ; yet attainable ; not incon- 
 siderable. It can be said of him, When he departed he 
 took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece of 
 British manhood was put together in that eighteenth 
 century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its 
 shaggy honesty, sagacity, and goodness, when we saw 
 it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with 
 care, the joy all fled from it ; — ploughed deep with labour 
 and sorrow. We shall never forget it ; we shall never 
 see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotch- 
 men, take our proud and sad farewell. 
 
 * Vol. vi. pp. 297-307. 
 
 VOL. V. 
 
 p 
 
314 
 
 VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.* 
 [1838.] 
 
 The Lady Rahel, or Rachel, surnamed Levin in her 
 maiden days, who died some five years ago as Madam 
 Varnhagen von Ense, seems to be still memorable and 
 notable, or to have become more than ever so, among 
 our German friends. The widovsrer, long known in 
 Berlin and Germany for an intelligent and estimable 
 man, has here published successively, as author, or as 
 editor and annotator, so many Volumes, Nine in all, 
 about her, about himself, and the things that occupied 
 and environed them. Nine Volumes, properly, of Ger- 
 man Memoirs; of letters, of miscellanies, biographical 
 and autobiographical ; which we have read not without 
 zeal and diligence, and in part with great pleasure. It 
 seems to us that such of our readers as take interest in 
 things German, ought to be apprised of this Publication ; 
 
 * London and Westminster Review, No. 62. — 1. Rahel. 
 Ein Buck des Andenlcens fur ihre Freunde. (Rahel. A Book of 
 Memorial for her Friends.) 3 vols. Berlin, 1834. 
 
 2. Gallerie von Bildnissen aus Rahels Umgang und Brief - 
 wechsel. (Gallery of Portraits from Rahel's Circle of Society and 
 Correspondence.) Edited by K. A. Varnhagen von Ense. 2 vols. 
 Leipzig, 1836. 
 
 3. DenJcwurdigJceiten und vermischte Schriften. (Memoirs 
 and Miscellaneous Writings.) By K. A. Varnhagen von Ense. 
 4 vols. Mannheim, 1837-38. 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE's MEMOIRS. 315 
 
 and withal that there are in it enough of things Euro- 
 pean and universal to furnish out a few pages for readers 
 not specially of that class. 
 
 One may hope, Germany is no longer to any person 
 that vacant land, of gray vapour and chimeras, which it 
 was to most Englishmen, not many years ago. One 
 may hope that, as readers of German have increased a 
 hundredfold, some partial intelligence of Germany, some 
 interest in things German, may have increased in a pro- 
 portionably higher ratio. At all events, Memoirs of 
 men, German or other, will find listeners among men. 
 Sure enough, BerHn city, on the sandy banks of the 
 Spree, is a living city, even as London is, on the muddy 
 banks of Thames. Daily, with every rising of the blessed 
 heavenly light, Berlin sends up the smoke of a hundred 
 thousand kindled hearths, the fret and stir of five hun- 
 dred thousand new-awakened human souls ; — marking 
 or defacing with such smoke-cloud, material or spiritual, 
 the serene of our common all-embracing Heaven. One 
 Heaven, the same for all, embraces that smoke-cloud 
 too, adopts it, absorbs it, like the rest. Are there 
 not dinner-parties, * aesthetic teas scandal-mongeries, 
 changes of ministry, police- cases, literary gazettes } The 
 clack of tongues, the sound of hammers, mounts up in 
 that corner of the Planet too, for certain centuries of 
 Time. Berlin has its royalties and diplomacies, its 
 traffickings, travailings ; literatures, sculptures, culti- 
 vated heads, male and female ; and boasts itself to be 
 ' the intellectual capital of Germany.' Nine Volumes of 
 Memoirs out of Berlin will surely contain something 
 for us. 
 
 Samuel Johnson, or perhaps another, used to say. 
 
316 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 there was no man on the streets whose biography he 
 would not like to be acquainted with. No rudest mortal 
 walking there who has not seen and known experiment- 
 ally something, which, could he tell it, the wisest would 
 hear w^illingly from him ! Nay, after all that can be 
 said and celebrated about poetry, eloquence, and the 
 higher forms of composition and utterance ; is not the 
 primary use of speech itself this same, to utter memoirs, 
 that is, memorable experiences to our fellow-creatures ? 
 A fact is a fact ; man is forever the brother of man. 
 I'hat thou, O my brother, impart to me truly how it 
 stands with thee in that inner man of thine, what lively 
 images of things past thy memory has painted there, 
 what hopes, what thoughts, affections, knowledges do 
 now dwell there : for this and for no other object that I 
 can see, was the gift of speech and of hearing bestowed 
 on us two. I say not how thou feignest. Thy fictions, 
 and thousand and one Arabian Nights, promulgated as 
 fictions, what are they also at bottom but this, things 
 that are in thee, though only images of things } But to 
 bewilder me with falsehoods, indeed ; to ray out error 
 and darkness, — misintelligence, which means misattain- 
 ment, otherwise failure and sorrow; to go about con- 
 fusing worse our poor world's confusion, and, as a son 
 of Nox and Chaos, propagate delirium on earth : not 
 surely with this view, but with a far different one, was 
 that miraculous tongue suspended in thy head, and set 
 vibrating there ! — In a word, do not two things, veracity 
 and memoir-writing, seem to be prescribed by Nature 
 herself and the very constitution of man ? Let us read, 
 therefore, according to opportunity, — and, with judicious 
 audacity, review ! 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSfi's MEMOIRS. 
 
 317 
 
 Our Nine printed Volumes we called German Me- 
 moirs. They agree in this general character, but are 
 otherwise to be distinguished into kinds, and differ very- 
 much in their worth for us. The first book on our list, 
 entitled Rahel, is a book of private letters ; three thick 
 volumes of Letters written by that lady ; selected from 
 her wide correspondence ; with a short introduction, with 
 here and there a short note, and that on Varnhagen's 
 part is all. Then follows, in two volumes, the work 
 named Gallery of Portraits ; consisting principally of 
 Letters to Rahel, by various persons, mostly persons of 
 note ; to which Varnhagen, as editor, has joined some 
 slight commentary, some short biographical sketch of 
 each. Of these five volumes of German Letters we will 
 say, for the present, that they seem to be calculated for 
 Germany, and even for some special circle there, rather 
 than for England or us. A glance at them afterwards, 
 we hope, will be possible. But the third work, that of 
 Varnhagen himself, is the one we must chiefly depend 
 on here : the four volumes of Memoirs and Miscellanies ; 
 lively pieces ; which can be safely recommended as al- 
 together pleasant reading to every one. They are * Mis- 
 cellaneous Writings,' as their title indicates ; in part 
 collected and reprinted out of periodicals, or wherever 
 they lay scattered ; in part sent forth now for the first 
 time. There are criticisms, notices literary or didactic ; 
 always of a praiseworthy sort, generally of small extent. 
 There are narrations ; there is a long personal narrative, 
 as it might be called, of service in the ' Liberation War * 
 of 1814, wherein Varnhagen did duty as a volunteer 
 officer in Tettenborn's corps, among the Cossacks : this 
 is the longest piece, by no means the best. There is 
 
318 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 farther a curious narrative of Lafayette's escape (brief 
 escape with recapture) from the Prison of Olmiitz. Then 
 also there is a curious biography of Doctor BoUmann, 
 the brave young Hanoverian, who aided Lafayette in 
 that adventure. Then other biographies not so curious ; 
 on the whole, there are many biographies : Biography, 
 we might say, is the staple article ; an article in which 
 Vamhagen has long been known to excel. Lastly, as 
 basis for the whole, there are presented, fitfully, now 
 here, now there, and with long intervals, considerable 
 sections of Autobiography; — not confessions, indeed, 
 or questionable work of the Rousseau sort, but discreet 
 reminiscences, personal and other, of a man who having 
 looked on much, may be sure of willing audience in 
 reporting it well. These are the Four Volumes written 
 by Varnhagen von Ense ; those are the Five edited by 
 him. We shall regard his autobiographic memorials as 
 a general substratum, upholding and uniting into a cer- 
 tain coherence the multifarious contents of these publi- 
 cations : it is Vamhagen von Ense's Passage through 
 Life ; this is what it yielded him ; these are the things 
 and persons he took note of, and had to do with, in 
 travelling thus far. 
 
 Beyond ascertaining for ourselves what manner of 
 eyesight and way of judgment this our Memoir- writer 
 has, it is not necessary to insist much on Varnhagen's 
 qualities or literary character here. He seems to us a 
 man peculiarly fitted, both by natural endowment and 
 by position and opportunity, for writing memoirs. In 
 the space of half a century that he has lived in this 
 world, his course has been what we might call erratic in 
 a high degree : from the student's garret in Halle or 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE*S MEMOIRS. 319 
 
 Tiibingen to the Tuileries hall of audience and the Wa- 
 gram battle-field, from Chamisso the poet to Napoleon 
 the emperor, his path has intersected all manner of paths 
 of men. He has a fine intellectual gift ; and what is the 
 foundation of that and of all, an honest, sympathising, 
 manfully patient, manfully courageous heart. His way 
 of life, too erratic we should fear for happiness or ease, 
 and singularly checkered by vicissitude, has had this 
 considerable advantage, if no other, that it has trained 
 him, and could not but train him, to a certain Catholi- 
 cism of mind. He has been a student of literature, an 
 author, a student of medicine, a soldier, a secretary, a 
 diplomatist. A man withal of modest, affectionate na- 
 ture ; courteous and yet truthful ; of quick apprehen- 
 sion, precise in utterance ; of just, extensive, occasion- 
 ally of deep and fine insight : this is a man qualified 
 beyond most to write memoirs. We should call him 
 one of the best memoir-writers we have met with ; de- 
 cidedly the best we know of in these days. For clear- 
 ness, grace of method, easy comprehensibility, he is 
 worthy to be ranked among the French, who have a 
 natural turn for memoir- writing ; and in respect of 
 honesty, valorous gentleness, and simplicity of heart, 
 his character is German, not French. 
 
 Such a man, conducting us in the spirit of cheerful 
 friendliness along his course of life, and delineating 
 what he has found most memorable in it, produces one 
 of the pleasantest books. Brave old Germany, in this 
 and the other living phasis, now here, now there, from 
 Rhineland to the East- sea, from Hamburg and Berlin to 
 Deutsch- Wagram and the Marchfeld, paints itself in the 
 colours of reality ; with notable persons, with notable 
 
320 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 events. For consider withal in what a time this man's 
 life has lain : in the thick of European things, while the 
 Nineteenth Century was opening itself. Amid con- 
 vulsions and revolutions, outward and inward, — with 
 Napoleons, Goethes, Fichtes ; while prodigies and battle- 
 thunder shook the world, and, * amid the glare of con- 
 
 * flagrations, and the noise of falling towns and king- 
 
 * doms,' a New Era of Thought was also evolving itself : 
 one of the wonderfullest times I On the whole, if men 
 like Varnhagen were to be met with, why have we not 
 innumerable Memoirs ? Alas, it is because the men like 
 Varnhagen are not to be met with ; men with the clear 
 eye and the open heart. Without such qualities, me- 
 moir-writers are but a nuisance ; which, so often as they 
 shew themselves, a judicious world is obliged to sweep 
 into the cesspool, with loudest possible prohibition of 
 the like. If a man is not open-minded, if he is ignorant, 
 perverse, egoistic, splenetic ; on the whole, if he is false 
 and stupid, how shall he write memoirs } — 
 
 From Varnhagen's young years, especially from his 
 college years, we could extract many a lively little 
 sketch, of figures partially known to the reader : of 
 Chamisso, La Motte Fouque, Raumer, and other the 
 like ; of Platonic Schleiermacher, sharp, crabbed, 
 shrunken, with his wire-drawn logic, his sarcasms, his 
 sly malicious ways ; of Homeric Wolf, with his biting 
 wit, with his grim earnestness and inextinguishable 
 Homeric laugh, the irascible great-hearted man. Or of 
 La Fontaine, the sentimental novelist, over whose rose- 
 coloured moral- sublime what fair eye has not wept ? 
 Varnhagen found him ' in a pleasant house near the 
 
VARNHAGEN VON EXSE*S MEMOIRS. 321 
 
 Saale-gate ' of Halle, with an ugly good-tempered wife, 
 with a pretty niece, which latter he would not allow to 
 read a word of his romance -stuff, but * kept it locked 
 from her like poison a man jovial as Boniface, swollen 
 out on booksellers' profit, church preferments, and fat 
 things, ' to the size of a hogshead for the rest, writing 
 with such velocity (he did some hundred and fifty weep- 
 ing volumes in his time) that he was obliged to hold in, 
 and ' write only two days in the week this was La 
 Fontaine, the sentimental novelist. But omitting all 
 these, let us pick out a family-picture of one far better 
 worth looking at : Jean Paul in his little home at Bai- 
 reuth, — * little city of my habitation, which I belong to 
 on this side the grave !' It is Sunday, the 23d of Oc- 
 tober, 1808, according to Varnhagen*s note-book. The 
 ingenious youth of four-and-twenty, as a rambling stu- 
 dent, passes the day of rest there, and luckily for us has 
 kept memorandums : 
 
 ' Fisit to Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. — This forenoon 1 
 went to Jean Paul's. Friend Harscher was out of humour, 
 and would not go, say what I would. I too, for that matter, 
 am but a poor, nameless student ; but what of that ? 
 
 ' A pleasant, kindly, inquisitive woman, who had opened 
 the door to me, I at once recognised for Jean Paul's wife by 
 her likeness to her sister. A child was sent off to call its 
 father. He came directly ; he had been forewarned of my 
 visit by letters from Berlin and Leipzig ; and received me with 
 great kindness. As he seated himself beside me on the sofa, 
 I had almost laughed in his face, for in bending down some- 
 what he had the very look our Neumann, in his Versuchen 
 und Hinder nissen, has jestingly given him, and his speaking 
 and what he spoke confirmed that impression. Jean Paul is 
 of stout figure ; has a full, well-ordered face ; the eyes small, 
 p 2 
 
322 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 gleaming out on you with lambent fire, then again veiled in 
 soft dimness ; the mouth friendly, and with some slight 
 motion in it even when silent. His speech is rapid, almost 
 hasty, even stuttering somewhat here and there ; not without 
 a certain degree of dialect, difficult to designate, but which 
 probably is some mixture of Frankish and Saxon, and of 
 course is altogether kept down within the rules of cultivated 
 language. 
 
 ' First of all, I had to tell him what I was charged with in 
 the shape of messages, then whatsoever I could tell in any 
 way, about his Berlin friends. He willingly remembered 
 the time he had lived in Berlin, as Marcus Herz's neighbour, 
 in Leder's house ; where I, seven years before, had first seen 
 him in the garden by the Spree, with papers in his hand, 
 which it was privately whispered were leaves of Hesperus. 
 This talk about persons, and then still more about Literature 
 growing out of that, set him fairly underway, and soon he 
 had more to impart than to inquire. His conversation was 
 throughout amiable and good-natured, always full of mean- 
 ing, but in quite simple tone and expression. lliough I 
 knew beforehand that his wit and humour belonged only to 
 his pen, that he could hardly write the shortest note without 
 these introducing themselves, while on the contrary his oral 
 utterance seldom shewed the like, — yet it struck me much 
 that, in this continual movement and vivacity of mood to 
 which he yielded himself, I observed no trace of these qua- 
 lities. His demeanour otherwise was like his speaking ; 
 nothing forced, nothing studied, nothing that went beyond 
 the burgher tone. His courtesy was the free expression of 
 a kind heart ; his way and bearing were patriarchal, consi- 
 derate of the stranger, yet for himself too altogether uncon- 
 strained. Neither in the animation to which some word or 
 topic would excite him, was this fundamental temper ever 
 altered ; nowhere did severity appear, nowhere any exhibiting 
 of himself, any watching or spying of his hearer ; everywhere 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 323 
 
 kind-heartedness, free movement of his somewhat loose- 
 flowing nature, open course for him, with a hundred tran- 
 sitions from one course to the other, howsoever or whither- 
 soever it seemed good to him to go. At first he praised 
 ever^^thing that was named of our new appearances in Lite- 
 rature ; and then, when we came a little closer to the matter, 
 there was blame enough and to spare. So of Adam Miiller's 
 Lectures, of Friedrich Schlegel, of Tieck and others. He 
 said, German writers ought to hold by the people, not by 
 the upper classes, among whom all was already dead and 
 gone ; and yet he had just been praising Adam Miiller, that 
 he had the gift of speaking a deep word to cultivated people 
 of the world. He is convinced that from the opening of the 
 old Indian world nothing is to be got for us, except the 
 adding of one other mode of poetry to the many modes we 
 have already, but no increase of ideas : and yet he had just 
 been celebrating Friedrich Schlegel's labours with the San- 
 scrit, as if a new salvation were to issue out of that. He 
 was free to confess that a right Christian in these days, if 
 not a Protestant one, was inconceivable to him ; that chang- 
 ing from Protestantism to Catholicism seemed a monstrous 
 perversion ; and with this opinion great hope had been ex- 
 pressed, a few minutes before, that the Catholic spirit in 
 Friedrich Schlegel, combined with the Indian, would pro- 
 duce much good ! Of Schleiermacher he spoke with respect ; 
 signified, however, that he did not relish his Plato greatly ; 
 that in Jacobi's, in Herder's soaring flight of soul he traced 
 far more of those divine old sages than in the learned acumen 
 of Schleiermacher ; a deliverance which I could not let pass 
 without protest. Fichte, of whose Addresses to the German 
 Nation, held in Berlin under the sound of French drums, I 
 had much to say, was not a favourite of his ; the decisiveness 
 of that energy gave him uneasiness ; he said he could only 
 read Fichte as an exercise, gymnastically," and that with 
 the purport of his Philosophy he had now nothing moreto do. 
 
324 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' Jean Paul was called out, and I staid a while alone with 
 his wife. I had now to answer many new questions about 
 Berlin ; her interest in persons and things of her native town 
 was by no means sated with what she had already heard. 
 The lady pleased me exceedingly ; soft, refined, acute, she 
 united with the loveliest expression of household goodness 
 an air of higher breeding and freer management than Jean 
 Paul seemed to manifest. Yet, in this respect too, she 
 willingly held herself inferior, and looked up to her gifted 
 husband. It was apparent every way that their life to- 
 gether was a right happy one. Their three children, a 
 boy and two girls, are beautiful, healthy, well-conditioned 
 creatures. I had a hearty pleasure in them ; they recalled 
 other dear children to my thoughts, whom I had lately been 
 beside i * * * 
 
 ' With continual copiousness and in the best humour, 
 Jean Paul (we were now at table) expatiated on all manner 
 of objects. Among the rest, I had been charged with a 
 salutation from Rahel Levin to him, and the modest question, 
 " Whether he remembered her still ? His face beamed 
 with joyful satisfaction i " How could one forget such a 
 person cried he impressively. " That is a woman alone 
 of her kind : I liked her heartily well, and more now than 
 ever, as I gain in sense and apprehension to do it ; she is the 
 only woman in whom I have found genuine humour, the 
 one woman of this world who had humour ! " He called 
 me a lucky fellow to have such a friend ; and asked, as if 
 proving me and measuring my value. How I had deserved 
 that ? 
 
 ' Monday, 24th October. — Being invited, I went a second 
 time to dine. Jean Paul had just returned from a walk ; his 
 wife, with one of the children, was still out. We came upon 
 his writings ; that questionable string with most authors, 
 which the one will not have you touch, which another will 
 have you keep jingling continually. He was here what I 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 
 
 325 
 
 expected him to be ; free, unconstrained, good-natured, and 
 sincere with his whole heart. His Dream of a Madman, just 
 published by Cotta, was what had led us upon this. He 
 said he could write such things at any time ; the mood for 
 it, when he was in health, lay in his own power ; he did but 
 seat himself at the harpsichord, and fantasying for a while 
 on it, in the wildest way, deliver himself over to the feeling 
 of the moment, and then write his imaginings, — according 
 to a certain predetermined course, indeed, which however he 
 would often alter as he went on. In this kind he had once 
 undertaken to write a Hell, such as mortal never heard of ; 
 and a great deal of it is actually done, but not fit for print. 
 Speaking of descriptive composition, he also started as in 
 fright when I ventured to say that Goethe was less complete 
 in this province ; he reminded me of two passages in Werter, 
 which are indeed among the finest descriptions. He said 
 that to describe any scene well, the poet must make the 
 bosom of a man his camera obscura, and look at it through 
 this, then would he see it poetically. * * 
 
 * The conversation turned on public occurrences, on the 
 condition of Germany, and the oppressive rule of the French. 
 To me discussions of that sort are usually disagreeable ; but 
 it was delightful to hear Jean Paul express, on such occasion, 
 his noble patriotic sentiments; and, for the sake of this rock- 
 island, I willingly swam through the empty tide of uncertain 
 news and wavering suppositions which environed it. What 
 he said was deep, considerate, hearty, valiant, German to the 
 marrow of the bone. I had to tell him much ; of Napoleon, 
 whom he knew only by portraits ; of Johannes von Miiller; 
 of Fichte, whom he now as a patriot admired cordially ; 
 of the Marquez de la Romana and his Spaniards, whom I 
 had seen in Hamburg. Jean Paul said he at no moment 
 doubted, but the Germans, like the Spaniards, would one 
 day rise, and Prussia would avenge its disgrace, and free the 
 country ; he hoped his son would live to see it, and did not 
 deny that he was bringing him up for a soldier. * * * 
 
326 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' October 25th. — I staid to supper, contrary to my pur- 
 pose, having to set out next morning early. The lady was 
 so kind, and Jean Paul himself so trustful and blithe, I could 
 not withstand their entreaties. At the neat and well-fur- 
 nished table (reminding you that South Germany was now 
 near), the best humour reigned. Among other things, we 
 had a good laugh at this, that Jean Paul offered me an intro- 
 duction to one of what he called his dearest friends in Stutt- 
 gart, — and then was obliged to give it up, having irrecoverably 
 forgotten his name ! Of a more serious sort, again, was our 
 conversation about Tieck, Friedrich and Wilhelm Schlegel, 
 and others of the romantic school. He seemed in ill humour 
 with Tieck at the moment. Of Goethe he said : " Goethe 
 is a consecrated head ; he has a place of his own, high above 
 us all." We spoke of Goethe afterwards, for some time : 
 Jean Paul, with more and more admiration, nay with a sort 
 of fear and awe-struck reverence. 
 
 ' Some beautiful fruit was brought in for dessert. On a 
 sudden, Jean Paul started up, gave me his hand, and said : 
 " Forgive me, I must go to bed ! Stay you here in God's 
 name, for it is still early, and chat with my wife ; there is 
 much to say, between you, which my talking has kept back. 
 I am a Spiessburger*' (of the Club of Odd Fellows), " and 
 my hour is come for sleep." He took a candle, and said 
 good night. We parted with great cordiality, and the wish 
 expressed on both sides, that I might stay at Baireuth an- 
 other time.' 
 
 These biographic phenomena ; Jean PauPs loose - 
 flowing talk, his careless variable judgments of men and 
 things ; the prosaic basis of the free-and-easy in do- 
 mestic life with the poetic Shandean, Shakspearean, and 
 even Dantesque, that grew from it as its public outcome ; 
 all this Varnhagen had to rhyme and reconcile for him- 
 self as he best could. The loose-flowing talk and vari- 
 able judgments, the fact that Richter went along, ' look- 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 327 
 
 ing only right before him as with bUnders on/ seemed 
 to Varnhagen a pardonable, nay an amiable peculiarity, 
 the mark of a trustful, spontaneous, artless nature ; 
 connected with whatever was best in Jean Paul. He 
 found him on the whole (what we at a distance have 
 always done) ' a genuine and noble man : no deception 
 ' or impurity exists in his life : he is altogether as he 
 * writes, loveable, hearty, robust, and brave. A valiant 
 ' man I do believe : did the cause summon, I fancy he 
 ' would be readier with his sword too than the most.' 
 And so we quit our loved Jean Paul, and his simple little 
 Baireuth home. The lights are blown out there, the 
 fruit- platters swept away, a dozen years ago, and all is 
 dark now, — swallowed in the long Night. Thanks to 
 Varnhagen that he has, though imperfectly, rescued any 
 glimpse of it, one scene of it, still visible to eyes, by the 
 magic of pen and ink. 
 
 The next picture that strikes us is not a family- 
 piece, but a battle-piece : Deutsch- Wagram, in the hot 
 weather of 1809 ; whither Varnhagen, with a great 
 change of place and plan, has wended, purposing now to 
 be a soldier, and rise by fighting the tyrannous French. 
 It is a fine picture ; with the author's best talent in it. 
 Deutsch- Wagram village is filled with soldiers of every 
 uniform and grade ; in all manner of movements and 
 employments ; Archduke Karl is heard ' fantasying for 
 an hour on the piano-forte,' before his serious general- 
 issimo duties begin. The Marchfeld has its camp, the 
 Marchfeld is one great camp of many nations, — Germans, 
 Hungarians, Italians, Madshars ; advanced sentinels 
 walk steady, drill-sergeants bustle, drums beat; Austrian 
 generals gallop, * in blue-gray coat and red breeches ' — 
 
328 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 combining ' simplicity with conspicuousness/ Faint on 
 our south-western horizon appears the Stephans-thurm 
 (Saint- Stephen's Steeple) of Vienna ; south, over the 
 Danube, are seen endless French hosts defiling towards 
 us, w^ith dust and glitter, along the hill-roads ; one may 
 hope, though with misgivings, there will be work soon. 
 
 Meanwhile, in every regiment there is but one tent, 
 a chapel, used also for shelter to the chief officers ; you, 
 a subaltern, have to lie on the ground, in your own dug 
 trench, to which, if you can cpntrive it, some roofing of 
 branches and rushes may be added. It is burning sun 
 and dust, occasionally it is thunder-storm and water- 
 spouts ; a volunteer, if it were not for the hope of speedy 
 battle, has a poor time of it : your soldiers speak little, 
 except unintelligible Bohemian Sclavonic ; your brother 
 ensigns know nothing of Xenophon, Jean Paul, of pa- 
 triotism, or the higher philosophies ; hope only to be 
 soon back at Prague, where are billiards and things suit- 
 able. * The following days were heavy and void: the 
 ' great summer-heat had withered grass and grove ; the 
 ' willows of the Russbach were long since leafless, in part 
 ' barkless ; on the endless Plain fell nowhere a shadow ; 
 
 * only dim dust-clouds, driven up by sudden whirlblasts, 
 
 * veiled for a moment the glaring sky, and sprinkled all 
 
 * things with a hot rain of sand. We gave up drilling as 
 ' impossible, and crept into our earth-holes.* It is feared, 
 too, there will be no battle : Varnhagen has thoughts of 
 making off to the fighting Duke of Brunswick- Oels, or 
 some other that will fight. ' However,' it would seem, 
 
 * the worst trial was already over. After a hot, weary - 
 
 * ing, wasting day, which promised nothing but a mor- 
 ' row like it, there arose on the evening of the 30th of 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE*S MEMOIRS. 329 
 
 ' June, from beyond the Danube, a sound of cannon- 
 
 * thunder ; a solacing refreshment to the languid soul ! 
 
 * A party of French, as we soon learned, had got across 
 
 * from the Lobau, by boats, to a little island named 
 
 * Miihleninsel, divided only by a small arm from our 
 
 * side of the river ; they had then thrown a bridge over 
 
 * this too, with defences ; our batteries at Esslingen 
 
 * were for hindering the enemy's passing there, and his 
 
 * nearest cannons about the Lobau made answer/ On 
 the fourth day after, 
 
 ' Archduke John got orders to advance again as far as 
 Marcheck ; that, in the event of a battle on the morrow, he 
 might act on the enemy's right flank. With us too a reso- 
 lute engagement was arranged. On the 4th of July, in 
 the evening, we were ordered, if there was cannonading in 
 the night, to remain quiet till daybreak ; but at daybreak to 
 be under arms. Accordingly, so soon as it was dark, there 
 began before us, on the Danube, a violent fire of artillery ; 
 the sky glowed ever and anon with the cannon-flashes, with 
 the courses of bombs and grenadoes : for nearly two hours 
 this thunder-game lasted on both sides ; for the French had 
 begun their attack almost at the same time with ours, and 
 while we were striving to ruin their works on the Lobau, 
 they strove to burn Enzersdorf town, and ruin ours. The 
 Austrian cannon could do little against the strong works on 
 the Lobau. On the other hand, the enemy's attack began 
 to tell ; in his object was a wider scope, more decisive energy ; 
 his guns were more numerous, more effectual : in a short 
 time Enzersdorf burst out in flames, and our artillery strug- 
 gled without effect against their superiority of force. The 
 region round had been illuminated for some time with the 
 conflagration of that little town, when the sky grew black 
 with heavy thunder : the rain poured down, the flames dwin- 
 dled, the artillery fired seldomer, and at length fell silent 
 
330 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 altogether. A frightful thunder-storm, such as no one thought 
 he had ever seen, now raged over the broad Marchfeld, which 
 shook with the crashing of the thunder, and, in the pour of 
 rain-floods arid howl of winds, was in such a roar, that even 
 the artillery could not have been heard in it.' 
 
 On the moiTow morning, in spite of Austria and the 
 war of elements, Napoleon, with his endless hosts, and 
 ' six hundred pieces of artillery ' in front of them, is 
 across ; advancing like a conflagration ; and soon the 
 whole Marchfeld, far and wide, is in a blaze. 
 
 ' Ever stronger batteries advanced, ever larger masses of 
 troops came into action ; the whole line blazed with fire, 
 and moved forward and forward. We, from our higher 
 position, had hitherto looked at the evolutions and fightings 
 before us, as at a show ; but now the battle had got nigher ; 
 the air over us sang with cannon-balls, which were lavishly 
 hurled at us, and soon our batteries began to bellow in an- 
 swer. The infantry got orders to lie flat on the ground, and 
 the enemy's balls at first did little execution ; however, as he 
 kept incessantly advancing, the regiments erelong stood to 
 their arms. The Archduke Generalissimo, with his staff, 
 came galloping along, drew bridle in front of us ; he gave 
 his commands ; looked down into the plain, where the French 
 still kept advancing. You saw by his face that he heeded 
 not danger or death, that he lived altogether in his work ; 
 his whole bearing had got a more impressive aspect, a loftier 
 determination, full of joyous courage, which he seemed to 
 diffuse round him ; the soldiers looked at him with pride and 
 trust, many voices saluted him. He had ridden a little on 
 towards Baumersdorf, when an adjutant came galloping 
 back, and cried : " Volunteers forward ! " In an instant, 
 almost the whole company of Captain Marais stept out as 
 volunteers : we fancied it was to storm the enemy's nearest 
 battery, which was advancing through the corn-fields in 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE's MEMOIRS. 331 
 
 front ; and so, cheering with loud shout, we hastened down 
 the declivity, when a second adjutant came in, with the order 
 that we were but to occupy the Russbach, defend the passage 
 of it, and not to fire till the enemy were quite close. Scatter- 
 ing ourselves into skirmishing order, behind willow-trunks, 
 and high corn, we waited with firelocks ready; covered 
 against cannon-balls, but hit by musket- shots and howitzer- 
 grenades, which the enemy sent in great numbers to our 
 quarter. About an hour we waited here, in the incessant 
 roar of the artillery, which shot both ways over our heads ; 
 with regret we soon remarked that the enemy's were supe- 
 rior, at least, in number, and delivered twice as many shots 
 as ours, which however was far better served ; the more did 
 we admire the active zeal and valorous endurance by which 
 the unequal match was nevertheless maintained. 
 
 ' The Emperor Napoleon meanwhile saw, with impa- 
 tience, the day passing on without a decisive result ; he had 
 calculated on striking the blow at once, and his great accu- 
 mulated force was not to have directed itself all hitherward 
 in vain. Rapidly he arranged his troops for storming. Mar- 
 shal Bernadotte got orders to press forward, over Atterkla, 
 towards Wagram ; and, by taking this place, break the 
 middle of the Austrian line. Two deep storming columns 
 were at the same time to advance, on the right and left, from 
 Baumersdorf over the Russbach ; to scale the heights of the 
 Austrian position, and sweep away the troops there. French 
 infantry had, in the mean while, got up close to where we 
 stood ; we skirmishers were called back from the Russbach, 
 and again went into the general line ; along the whole extent 
 of which a dreadful fire of musketry now began. This mon- 
 strous noise of the universal, never-ceasing crack of shots, and 
 still more, that of the infinite jingle of iron, in handling of 
 more than twenty thousand muskets all crowded together 
 here, was the only new and entirely strange impression that I, 
 in these my first experiences in war, could say I had got ; all 
 
332 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the rest was in part conformable to my preconceived notion, 
 in part even belov^ it : but everything, the thunder of artil- 
 lery never so numerous, every noise I had heard or figured, 
 was trifling, in comparison with this continuous storm-tumult 
 of the small arms, as we call them, — that weapon by which 
 indeed our modern battles do chiefly become deadly.' 
 
 What boots it } Ensign Varnhagen and General- 
 issimo Archduke Karl are beaten ; have to retreat in the 
 best possible order. The sun of Wagram sets as that of 
 Austerlitz had done ; the war has to end in submission 
 and marriage : and, as the great Atlantic tide- stream 
 rushes into every creek and alters the current there, so 
 for our Varnhagen too a new chapter opens, — the diplo- 
 matic one, in Paris first of all. Varnhagen's experiences 
 At the Court of Napoleon, as one of his sections is headed, 
 are extremely entertaining. They are tragical, comical, 
 of mixed character ; always dramatic, and vividly given. 
 We have a grand Schwartzenberg Festival, and the 
 Emperor himself, and all high persons present in grand 
 gala ; with music, light, and crowned goblets ; in a 
 wooden pavilion, with upholstery and draperies : a rag 
 of drapery flutters the wrong way athwart some wax- 
 light, shrivels itself up in quick fire, kindles the other 
 draperies, kindles the gums and woods, and all blazes 
 into swift- choking ruin ; a beautiful Princess Schwart- 
 zenberg, lost in the mad tumult, is found on the morrow 
 as ashes amid the ashes ! Then also there are soirees 
 of Imperial notabilities ; * the gentlemen walking about 
 
 * in varied talk, wherein you detect a certain cautious - 
 
 * ness ; the ladies all solemnly ranged in their chairs, 
 ' rather silent for ladies.' Berthier is a ' man of compo- 
 sure,' not without higher capabilities. Denon, in spite 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS, 333 
 
 of his kind speeches, produces an ill effect on one ; and 
 in his hahit hahilley with court-rapier and lace-cufFs, 
 * looks like a dizened ape.' Cardinal Maury in red 
 stockings, he that was once Abbe Maury, ' pet son of 
 the scarlet- woman,' whispers diplomatically in your ear, 
 in passing, Nous avons heaucoup de joie de vous voir ici.'* 
 But the thing that will best of all suit us here, is the 
 presentation to Napoleon himself : 
 
 ' On Sunday, the 22d of July (1810), was to be the Em- 
 peror's first levee after that fatal occurrence of the fire ; and 
 we were told it would be uncommonly fine and grand. In 
 Berlin 1 had often accidentally seen Napoleon, and after- 
 wards at Vienna and Schonbrunn ; but always too far off 
 for a right impression of him. At Prince Schwartzenberg's 
 festival, the look of the man, in that whirl of horrible occur- 
 rences, had effaced itself again. I assume, therefore, that I 
 saw him for the first time now, when I saw him rightly, near 
 at hand, with convenience, and a sufficient length of time. 
 The frequent opportunities I afterwards had, in the Tuileries 
 and at Saint-Cloud (in the latter place especially, at the bril- 
 liant theatre, open only to the Emperor and his guests, 
 where Talma, Fleury, and La Raucourt figured), did but 
 confirm, and, as it were, complete that first impression. 
 
 ' We had driven to the Tuileries, and arrived through a 
 great press of guards and people at a chamber, of which I 
 had already heard, under the name of Salle des Amhassadeurs. 
 The way in which, here in this narrow ill-furnished pen, so 
 many high personages stood jammed together, had some- 
 thing ludicrous and insulting in it, and was indeed the 
 material of many a Paris jest. — The richest uniforms and 
 court-dresses were, with difficulty and anxiety, struggling 
 hitherward and thitherward ; intermixed with Imperial live- 
 ries of men handing refreshments, who always, by the near 
 peril, suspended every motion of those about them. The 
 
334 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 talk was loud and vivacious on all sides ; people seeking ac- 
 quaintances, seeking more room, seeking better light. Seri- 
 ousness of mood, and dignified concentration of oneself, 
 seemed foreign to all ; and what a man could not bring with 
 him, there was nothing here to produce. The whole matter 
 had a distressful, offensive air; you found yourself ill off, 
 and waited out of humour. My look, however, dwelt with 
 especial pleasure on the members of our Austrian Embassy, 
 whose bearing and demeanour did not discredit the dignity 
 of the old Imperial house. — Prince Schwartzenberg, in par- 
 ticular, had a stately aspect ; ease without negligence, gravity 
 without assumption, and over all an honest goodness of ex- 
 pression; beautifully contrasted with the smirking saloon- 
 activity, the perked- up courtierism and pretentious nullity 
 of many here. * * ^ 
 
 ' At last the time came for going up to audience. On 
 the first announcement of it, all rushed without order to- 
 wards the door ; you squeezed along, you pushed and shoved 
 your neighbour without ceremony. Chamberlains, pages 
 and guards filled the passages and ante-chamber ; restless, 
 overdone officiousness struck you here too ; the soldiers 
 seemed the only figures that knew how to behave in their 
 business, — and this, truly, they had learned, not at Court, 
 but from their drill-sergeants. 
 
 ' We had formed ourselves into a half-circle in the Audi- 
 ence Hall, and got placed in several crowded ranks, when 
 the cry of " U Empereur !'* announced the appearance of 
 Napoleon, who entered from the lower side of the apart- 
 ment. In simple blue uniform, his little hat under his arm, 
 he walked heavily towards us. His bearing seemed to me 
 to express the contradiction between a will that would attain 
 something, and a contempt for those by whom it was to be 
 attained. An imposing appearance he would undoubtedly 
 have liked to have ; and yet it seemed to him not worth the 
 trouble of acquiring ; acquiring, I may say, for by nature he 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE*S MEMOIRS. 335 
 
 certainly had it not. Thus there alternated in his manner a 
 negligence and a studiedness, which combined themselves 
 only in unrest and dissatisfaction. He turned first to the 
 Austrian Embassy, which occupied one extremity of the 
 half- circle. The consequences of the unlucky festival gave 
 occasion to various questions and remarks. The Emperor 
 sought to appear sympathetic, he even used words of emo- 
 tion ; but this tone by no means succeeded with him, and 
 accordingly he soon let it drop. To the Russian Ambassador, 
 Kurakin, who stood next, his manner had already changed 
 into a rougher ; and in his farther progress some face or 
 some thought must have stung him, for he got into violent 
 anger ; broke stormfully out on some one or other, not of 
 the most important there, whose name has now escaped me ; 
 could be pacified with no answer, but demanded always 
 new ; rated and threatened, and held the poor man, for a 
 good space, in tormenting annihilation. Those who stood 
 nearer, and were looking at this scene, not without anxieties 
 of their own, declared afterwards that there was no cause at 
 all for such fury ; that the Emperor had merely been seek- 
 ing an opportunity to vent his ill humour, and had done so 
 even intentionally, on this poor wight, that all the rest might 
 be thrown into due terror, and every opposition beforehand 
 beaten down. 
 
 ' As he walked on, he again endeavoured to speak more 
 mildly ; but his jarred humour still sounded through. His 
 words were short, hasty, as if shot from him, and on the 
 most indifferent matters had a passionate rapidity ; nay, 
 when he wished to be kindly, it still sounded as if he were 
 in anger. Such a raspy, untamed voice as that of his I have 
 hardly heard. 
 
 ' His eyes were dark, overclouded, fixed on the ground 
 before him ; and only glanced backwards in side-looks now 
 and then, swift and sharp, on the persons there. When he 
 smiled, it was but the mouth and a part of the cheeks that 
 
336 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 smiled ; brow and eyes remained gloomily motionless. If 
 he constrained these also, as I have subsequently seen him 
 do, his countenance took a still more distorted expression. 
 This union of gloom and smile had something frightfully 
 repulsive in it. I know not what to think of the people 
 who have called this countenance gracious, and its kindli- 
 ness attractive. Were not his features, though undeniably 
 beautiful in the plastic sense, yet hard and rigorous like 
 marble ; foreign to all trust, incapable of any heartiness ? 
 
 ' What he said, whenever I heard him speaking, was 
 always trivial both in purport and phraseology; without 
 spirit, without wit, without force, nay, at times, quite poor 
 and ridiculous. Faber, in his Notices sur VInterieur de la 
 France, has spoken expressly of his questions, those ques- 
 tions which Napoleon was wont to prepare beforehand for 
 certain persons and occasions, to gain credit thereby for 
 acuteness and special knowledge. This is literally true of a 
 visit he had made a short while before to the great Library : 
 all the way on the stairs, he kept calling out about that 
 passage in Josephus where Jesus is made mention of ; and 
 seemed to have no other task here but that of shewing off 
 this bit of learning ; it had altogether the air of a question 
 got by heart. * * * His gift lay in saying things sharp, 
 or at least unpleasant ; nay, when he wanted to speak in 
 another sort, he often made no more of it than insignificance : 
 thus it befell once, as I myself witnessed in Saint-Cloud, he 
 went through a whole row of ladies, and repeated twenty 
 times merely these three words, " II fait chaud.'* * * * 
 
 ' At this time there circulated a song on his second 
 marriage ; a piece composed in the lowest popular tone, but 
 which doubtless had originated in the higher classes. Na- 
 poleon saw his power and splendour stained by a ballad, 
 and breathed revenge ; but the police could no more detect 
 the author than they could the circulators. To me among 
 others a copy, written in a bad hand and without name, had 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 337 
 
 been sent by the city-post ; I had privately with friends 
 amused myself over the burlesque, and knew it by heart. 
 Altogether at the wrong time, exactly as the Emperor, 
 gloomy and sour of humour, was now passing me, the words 
 and tune of that song came into my head ; and the more I 
 strove to drive them back, the more decidedly they forced 
 themselves forward ; so that my imagination, excited by 
 the very Rightfulness of the thing, was getting giddy, and 
 seemed on the point of breaking forth into the deadliest 
 offence, — when happily the audience came to an end ; and 
 deep repeated bows accompanied the exit of Napoleon ; 
 who to me had addressed none of his words, but did, as he 
 passed, turn on me one searching glance of the eye, with 
 the departure of which it seemed as if a real danger had 
 vanished. 
 
 ' The Emperor gone, all breathed free, as if disloaded 
 from a heavy burden. By degrees the company again grew 
 loud, and then went over altogether into the noisy disorder 
 and haste which had ruled at the commencement. The 
 French courtiers, especially, took pains to redeem their late 
 downbent and terrified bearing by a free jocularity now ; 
 and even in descending the stairs there arose laughter and 
 quizzing at the levee, the solemnity of which had ended 
 here.' 
 
 Such was Varnhagen von Ense's presentation to 
 Napoleon Buonaparte in the Palace of the Tuileries. 
 What Varnhagen saw remains a possession for him 
 and for us. The judgment he formed on what he saw, 
 will — depend upon circumstances. For the eye of the 
 intellect ' sees in all objects what it brought with it the 
 means of seeing.' Napoleon is a man of the sort which 
 Varnhagen elsewhere calls daimonisch, a ' dsemonic man;' 
 whose meaning or magnitude is not very measurable by 
 men ; who, with his ownness of impulse and insight, 
 
 VOL. V. Q 
 
338 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 with his mystery and strength, in a word, with his ori- 
 ginality (if we will understand that), reaches down into 
 the region of the perennial and primeval, of the inarti- 
 culate and unspeakable ; concerning whom innumerable 
 things may be said, and the right thing not said for a 
 long while, or at all. We will leave him standing on 
 his own basis, at present ; bullying the hapless obscure 
 functionary there ; declaring to all the world the mete- 
 orological fact, // fait chaud, 
 
 Varnhagen, as we see, has many things to write 
 about ; but the thing which beyond all others he re- 
 joices to write about, and would gladly sacrifice all the 
 rest to, is the memory of Rahel, his deceased wife. 
 Mysterious indications have of late years flitted round 
 us, concerning a certain Rahel, a kind of spiritual queen 
 in Germany, who seems to have lived in familiar rela- 
 tion to most of the distinguished persons of that country 
 in her time. Travellers to Germany, now a numerous 
 sect with us, ask you as they return from aesthetic 
 capitals and circles, Do you know Rahel Marquis 
 Custine, in the Revue de Paris (treating of this Book of 
 RaheVs Letters) says, by experience : * She was a woman 
 
 * as extraordinary as Madame de Stael, for her faculties 
 
 * of mind, for her abundance of ideas, her light of soul, 
 ' and her goodness of heart : she had, moreover, what 
 
 * the author of Corinne did not pretend to, a disdain for 
 ' oratory ; she did not write. The silence of minds like 
 
 * hers is a force too. With more vanity, a person so 
 ' superior would have sought to make a public for her- 
 
 * self : but Rahel desired only friends. She spoke to 
 ' communicate the life that was in her ; never did she 
 
 * speak to be admired/ Goethe testifies that she is a 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE's MEMOIRS. 339 
 
 ' right woman ; with the strongest feelings I have ever 
 * seen, and the completest mastery of them/ Richter 
 addresses her by the title geflugelte, * winged one.' 
 Such a Rahel might be worth knowing. 
 
 We find, on practical inquiry, that Rahel was of 
 Berlin ; by birth a Jewess, in easy, not affluent circum- 
 stances ; who lived, mostly there, from 1771 to 1833. 
 That her youth passed in studies, struggles, disappointed 
 passions, sicknesses, and other sufferings and vivacities 
 to which one of her excitable organization was liable. 
 That she was deep in many spiritual provirces, in 
 Poetry, in Art, in Philosophy ; — the first, for instance, or 
 one of the first to recognise the significance of Goethe, 
 and teach the Schlegels to do it. That she wrote no- 
 thing : but thought, did, and spoke, many things, which 
 attracted notice, admiration spreading wider and wider. 
 That in 1814 she became the wife ofVarnhagen; the 
 loved wife, though her age was forty-three, exceeding 
 his by some twelve years or more, and she could never 
 boast of beauty. That without beauty, without wealth, 
 foreign celebrity, or any artificial nimbus whatsoever, she 
 had grown in her silently progressive way to be the 
 most distinguished woman in Berlin ; admired, partly 
 worshipped by all manner of high persons, from Prince 
 Louis of Prussia downwards ; making her mother's, and 
 then her husband's house the centre of an altogether 
 brilliant circle there. This is the ' social phenomenon 
 of Rahel.' What farther could be readily done to under- 
 stand such a social phenomenon we have endeavoured to 
 do ; with what success the reader shall see. 
 
 First of all, we have looked at the portrait of Rahel 
 given in these Volumes. It is a face full of thought, of 
 
340 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 affection, and energy ; with no pretensions to beauty, 
 yet loveable and attractive in a singular degree. The 
 strong high brow and still eyes are full of contemplation ; 
 the long upper lip (sign of genius, some say) protrudes 
 itself to fashion a curved mouth, condemnable in aca- 
 demies, yet beautifully expressive of laughter and affec- 
 tion, of strong endurance, of noble silent scorn ; the 
 whole countenance looking as with cheerful clearness 
 through a world of great pain and disappointment ; one 
 of those faces which the lady meant when she said : 
 " But are not all beautiful faces ugly, then, to begin 
 with?*' In the next place, we have read diligently 
 whatsoever we could anywhere find written about Rahelj 
 and have to remark here that the things written about 
 her, unlike some things written by her, are generally 
 easy to read. Varnhagen's account of their intercourse ; 
 of his first young feelings towards her, his long waiting, 
 and final meeting of her in snowy weather under the 
 Lindens, in company with a lady whom he knew ; his 
 tremulous speaking to her there, the rapid progress of 
 their intimacy ; and so onwards, to love, to marriage : 
 all this is touching and beautiful ; a Petrarcan romance, 
 and yet a reality withal. 
 
 Finally, we have read in these Three thick Volumes 
 of Letters, — till, in the Second thick Volume, the read- 
 ing faculty unhappiljT^ broke down, and had to skip 
 largely thenceforth, only diving here and there at a 
 venture with considerable intervals ! Such is the melan- 
 choly fact. It must be urged in defence that these 
 Volumes are of the toughest reading ; calculated, as we 
 said, for Germany rather than for England or us. To be 
 written with such indisputable marks of ability, nay of 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 341 
 
 genius, of depth and sincerity, they are the heaviest 
 business we perhaps ever met with. The truth is, they 
 do not suit us at all. They are subjective letters, what 
 the metaphysicians call subjective, not objective; the 
 grand material of them is endless depicturing of moods, 
 sensations, miseries, joys, and lyrical conditions of the 
 writer; no definite picture drawn, or rarely any, of 
 persons, transactions, or events which the writer stood 
 amidst : a wrong material, as it seems to us. To what 
 end, to what end } we always ask. Not by looking at 
 itself, but by looking at things out of itself, and ascer- 
 taining and ruling these, shall the mind become known. 
 ' One thing above all others,* says Goethe once ; ' I have 
 ' never thought about Thinking,' What a thrift of think- 
 ing-faculty there ; thrift almost of itself equal to a fortune, 
 in these days : ' habe nie ans Denken gedacht !' But how 
 much wastefuller still is it to feel about Feeling ! One 
 is wearied of that ; the healthy soul avoids that. Thou 
 shalt look outward, not inward. Gazing inward on one's 
 own self, — why, this can drive one mad, like the Monks 
 of Athos, if it last too long ! Unprofitable writing this 
 subjective sort does seem ; — at all events, to the present 
 re\dewer, no reading is so insupportable. Nay, we ask, 
 might not the world be entirely deluged by it, unless 
 prohibited ? Every mortal is a microcosm ; to himself 
 a macrocosm, or Universe large as Nature ; universal 
 Nature would barely hold what he could say about him- 
 self. Not a dyspeptic tailor on any shopboard of this 
 city but could furnish all England, the year through, 
 with reading about himself, about his emotions, and in- 
 ternal mysteries of wo and sensibility, if England would 
 read him. It is a course which leads nowhither ; a 
 course which should be avoided. 
 
342 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Add to all this, that such self-utterance on the part 
 of Rahel, in these Letters, is in the highest degree va- 
 porous, vague. Her very mode of writing is complex, 
 nay is careless, incondite ; with dashes and splashes, 
 with notes of admiration, of interrogation (nay, both 
 together sometimes), with involutions, abruptness, whirls 
 and tortuosities ; so that even the grammatical meaning 
 is altogether burdensome to seize. And then when 
 seized, alas, it is as we say, of due likeness to the phrase- 
 ology ; a thing crude, not articulated into propositions, 
 but flowing out as in bursts of interjection and exclama- 
 tion. No wonder the reading faculty breaks down ! 
 And yet we do gather gold grains of precious thought 
 here and there ; though out of large wastes of sand and 
 quicksand. In fine, it becomes clear, beyond doubting, 
 both that this Rahel was a woman of rare gifts and 
 worth, a woman of true genius ; and also that her genius 
 has passed away, and left no impress of itself there for 
 us. These printed Volumes produce the effect not of 
 speech, but of multifarious, confused wind-music. It 
 seems to require the aid of pantomime, to tell us what 
 it means. But after all, we can understand how talk of 
 that kind, in an expressive mouth, with bright deep 
 eyes, and the vivacity of social movement, of question 
 and response, may have been delightful ; and moreover 
 that, for those to whom they vividly recall such talk, 
 these Letters may still be delightful. Hear Marquis de 
 Custine a little farther : 
 
 ' You could not speak with her, a quarter of an hour, 
 without drawing from that fountain of Hght a shower of 
 sparkles. The comic was at her command equally with the 
 highest degree of the sublime. The proof that she was 
 natural is that she understood laughter as she did grief ; she 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 343 
 
 took it as a readier means of shewing truth ; all had its 
 resonance in her, and her manner of receiving the impres- 
 sions which you wished to communicate to her modified 
 them in yourself : you loved her at first because she had 
 admirable gifts ; and then, what prevailed over everything, 
 because she was entertaining. She was nothing for you, 
 or she was all ; and she could be all to several at a time 
 without exciting jealousy, so much did her noble nature 
 participate in the source of all life, of all clearness. When 
 one has lost in youth such a friend,' &c. &c. . . . ' It 
 seems to me you might define her in one word : she had the 
 head of a sage and the heart of an apostle, and in spite of 
 that, she was a child and a woman as much as any one can 
 be. Her mind penetrated into the obscurest depths of Na- 
 ture ; she was a thinker of as much and more clearness than 
 our Theo sophist Saint- Martin, whom she comprehended and 
 admired ; and she felt like an artist. Her perceptions were 
 always double ; she attained the sublimest truths by two 
 faculties which are incompatible in ordinary men, by feel- 
 ing and by reflection. Her friends asked of themselves. 
 Whence came these flashes of genius which she threw from 
 her in conversation ? Was it the effect of long studies ? 
 Was it the effect of sudden inspiration ? It was the intuition 
 granted as recompense by Heaven to souls that are true. 
 These martyr souls wrestle for the truth, which they have a 
 forecast of ; they suffer for the God whom they love, and 
 their whole life is the school of eternity.'* 
 
 This enthusiastic testimony of the clever sentimental 
 Marquis is not at all incredible to us, in its way : yet 
 from these Letters we have nothing whatever to produce 
 that were adequate to make it good. As was said al- 
 ready, it is not to be made good by excerpts and written 
 
 * Revue de Paris ^ Novembre, 1837. 
 
344 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 documents ; its proof rests in the memory of living 
 witnesses. Meanwhile, from these same wastes of sand, 
 and even of quicksand, dangerous to linger in, we will 
 try to gather a few grains the most like gold, that it 
 may be guessed, by the charitable, whether or not a 
 Pactolus once flowed there : 
 
 ' If there be miracles, they are those that are in our own 
 breast ; what we do not know, we call by that name. How 
 astonished, almost how ashamed are we, when the inspired 
 moment comes, and we get to know them ! ' 
 
 ' One is late in learning to lie : and late in learning to 
 speak the truth.' — ' I cannot, because I cannot, lie. Fancy 
 not that I take credit for it ; I cannot, just as one cannot 
 play upon the flute.' 
 
 ' In the meanest hut is a romance, if you knew the hearts 
 there.* 
 
 ' So long as we do not take even the injustice which is 
 done us, and which forces the burning tears from us ; so long 
 as we do not take even this for just and right, we are in the 
 thickest darkness, without dawn.' 
 
 ' Manure with despair, — but let it be genuine ; and you 
 will have a noble harvest.* 
 
 ' True misery is ashamed of itself ; hides itself, and does 
 not complain. You may know it by that.' 
 
 ' What a commonplace man ! If he did not live in the 
 same time with us, no mortal would mention him.' 
 
 ' Have you remarked that Homer, whenever he speaks of 
 the water, is always great ; as Goethe is, when he speaks of 
 the stars ? ' 
 
 ' If one were to say, " You think it easy to be original : 
 but no, it is difficult, it costs a whole life of labour and exer- 
 tion,** — you would think him mad, and ask no more questions 
 of him. And yet his opinion would be altogether true, and 
 plain enough withal. Original, I grant, every man might be. 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 345 
 
 and must be, if men did not almost always admit mere un- 
 digested hearsays into their head, and fling them out again 
 undigested. Whoever honestly questions himself, and faith- 
 fully answers, is busied continually with all that presents 
 itself in life ; and is incessantly inventing, had the thing been 
 invented never so long before. Honesty belongs as a first 
 condition to good thinking ; and there are almost as few ab- 
 solute dunces as geniuses. Genuine dunces would always 
 be original ; but there are none of them genuine : they have 
 almost always understanding enough to be dishonest.' 
 
 ' He (the blockhead) tumbled out on me his definition of 
 genius : the trivial old distinctions of intellect and heart ; as 
 if there ever was, or could be, a great intellect with a mean 
 heart ! ' 
 
 ' Goethe ? When I think of him, tears come into my 
 eyes : all other men I love with my own strength ; he teaches 
 me to love with his. My Poet ! ' 
 
 ' Slave-trade, war, marriage, working- classes : — and they 
 are astonished, and keep clouting, and remending ? ' 
 
 ' The whole world is, properly speaking, a tragic em- 
 barras.^ 
 
 ' . . . I here, Rahel the Jewess, feel that I am as 
 unique as the greatest appearance in this earth. The greatest 
 artist, philosopher, or poet, is not above me. We are of the 
 same element : in the same rank, and stand together. Which- 
 ever would exclude the other, excludes only himself. But to 
 me it was appointed not to write, or act, but to live : I lay in 
 embryo till my century ; and then was, in outward respects, 
 so flung away, — It is for this reason that I tell you. But 
 pain, as I know it, is a life too : and I think with myself, I 
 am one of those figures which Humanity was fated to evolve, 
 and then never to use more, never to have more : me no one 
 can comfort.' — ' Why not be beside oneself, dear friend? 
 There are beautiful parentheses in life, which belong neither 
 to us nor to others : beautiful I name them, because they 
 q2 
 
346 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 give US a freedom we could not get by sound sense. Who 
 would volunteer to have a nervous fever ? And yet it may 
 save one's life. I love rage ; I use it, and patronise it.' — 
 ' Be not alarmed ; I am commonly calmer. But when I 
 write to a friend's heart, it comes to pass that the sultry laden 
 horizon of my soul breaks out in lightning. Heavenly men 
 love lightning.' 
 
 ' To Varnhagen. . . One thing I must write to thee ; 
 what I thought of last night in bed, and for the first time in 
 my life. That I, as a relative and pupil of Shakspeare, have, 
 from my childhood upwards, occupied myself much with 
 death, thou may est believe. But never did my own death 
 affect me ; nay, I did not even think of this fact, that I was 
 not affected by it. Now, last night there was something I 
 had to write ; I said, Varnhagen must know this thing, if he 
 is to think of me after I am dead. And it seemed to me as if 
 I must die ; as if my heart were flitting away over this earth, 
 and I must follow it ; and my death gave me pity : for never 
 before, as I now saw, had I thought that it would give any- 
 body pity ; of thee I knew it would do so, and yet it was the 
 first time in my life I had seen this, or known that I had 
 never seen it. In such solitude have I lived : comprehend it ! 
 I thought. When I am dead, then first will Varnhagen know 
 what sufferings I had ; and all his lamenting will be in vain ; 
 the figure of me meets him again, through all eternity, no more ; 
 swept away am I then, as our poor Prince Louis is. And no 
 one can be kind to me then ; with the strongest will, with the 
 effort of despair, no one : and this thought of thee about 
 me was what at last affected me. I must write of this, though 
 it afflict thee never so.' . . . . 
 
 ' To Rose, a younger sister, on her marriage in Amsterdam. 
 — Paris, 1801. . . . Since thy last letter 1 am sore down- 
 cast. Gone art thou! No Rose comes stepping in to me 
 with true foot and heart, who knows me altogether, knows all 
 my sorrows altogether. When I am sick of body or soul. 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE's MEMOIRS. 347 
 
 alone, alone, thou comest not to me any more ; thy room 
 empty, quite empty, forever empty. Thou art away, to try 
 thy fortune. O Heaven ! and to me not even trying is per- 
 mitted. Am not / in luck ! The garden in the Lindenstrasse, 
 where we used to be with Hanne and Feu — was it not beau- 
 tiful ? — I will call it Rose now ; with Hanne and Hanse will 
 I go often thither, and none shall know of it. Dost thou re- 
 collect that night when I was to set out with Fink, the time 
 before last ? How thou hadst to sleep up stairs, and then to 
 stay with me ? O my sister, I might be as ill again — though 
 not for that cause : and thou too, what may not lie before 
 thee ! But no, thy name is Rose ; thou hast blue eyes, and 
 a far other life than I with my stars and black ones. * * * 
 Salute Mamma a million times ; tell her I congratulate her 
 from the heart ; the more so, as / can never give her such a 
 pleasure ! God willed it not. But I, in her place, would 
 have great pity for a child so circumstanced. Yet let her not 
 lament for me. I know all her goodness, and thank her with 
 my soul. Tell her I have the fate of nations, and of the 
 greatest men, before my eyes here : they too go tumbling even 
 so on the great sea of Existence, mounting, sinking, swallowed 
 up. From of old all men have seemed to me like spring blos- 
 soms, which the wind blows off and whirls ; none knows 
 where they fall, and the fewest come to fruit.' 
 
 Poor Rahel ! The Frenchman said above, she was 
 an artist and apostle, yet had not ceased to be a child 
 and woman. But we must stop short. One other little 
 scene, a scene from her death-bed by Varnhagen, must 
 end the tragedy : 
 
 ' . . . . She said to me one morning, after a dreadful night, 
 with the penetrating tone of that lovely voice of hers : " Oh, I 
 am still happy ; I am God's creature still ; He knows of me ; I 
 shall come to see how it was good and needful for me to suffer : 
 of a surety I had something to learn by it. And am I not 
 
348 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 already happy in this trust, and in all the love that I feel and 
 meet with ? " 
 
 ' In this manner she spoke, one day, among other things, 
 with joyful heartiness, of a dream which always from child- 
 hood she had remembered and taken comfort from. " In my 
 seventh year,'* said she, " I dreamt that I saw God quite near 
 me ; he stood expanded above me, and his mantle was the 
 whole sky ; on a corner of this mantle I had leave to rest, and 
 lay there in peaceable felicity till I awoke. Ever since, through 
 my whole life, this dream has returned on me, and in the worst 
 times was present also in my waking moments, and a heavenly 
 comfort to me. I had leave to throw myself at God's feet, on 
 a corner of his mantle, and he screened me from all sorrow 
 there; He permitted it.*' * * * The following words, which 
 I felt called to write down exactly as she spoke them on the 
 2d of March, are also remarkable : " What a history ! " cried 
 she, with deep emotion : "A fugitive from Egypt and Palestine 
 am I here ; and find help, love, and kind care among you. 
 To thee, dear August, was I sent by this guiding of God, and 
 thou to me ; from afar, from the old times of Jacob and the 
 Patriarchs ! With a sacred joy I think of this my origin, of all 
 this wide web of pre- arrangement. How the oldest remem- 
 brances of mankind are united with the newest reality of things, 
 and the most distant times and places are brought together. 
 What, for so long a period of my life, I considered as the worst 
 ignominy, the sorest sorrow and misfortune, that I was born 
 a Jewess, this I would not part with now for any price. Will 
 it not be even so with these pains of sickness ? Shall I not, one 
 day, mount joyfully aloft on them too ; feel that I could not 
 want them for any price ? O August, this is just, this is true ; 
 we will try to go on thus ! " Thereupon she said, with many 
 tears, Dear August, my heart is refreshed to its inmost : 
 I have thought of Jesus, and wept over his sorrows ; I have 
 felt, for the first time felt, that he is my brother. And Mary, 
 what must not she have suffered ! She saw her beloved Son 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSe's MEMOIRS. 349 
 
 in agony, and did not sink ; she stood at the Cross. That I 
 could not have done ; I am not strong enough for that. For- 
 give me, God, I confess how weak I am." * * * 
 
 ' At nightfall, on the 6th of March, Rahel felt herself 
 easier than for long before, and expressed an irresistible desire 
 to be new dressed. As she could not be persuaded from it, 
 this was done, though with the greatest precaution. She her- 
 self was busily helpful in it, and signified great contentment 
 that she had got it accomplished. She felt so well she ex- 
 pected to sleep. She wished me good-night, and bade me 
 also go and sleep. Even the maid, Dora, was to go and sleep ; 
 however, she did not. 
 
 * It might be about midnight, and I was still awake, when 
 Dora called me : "I was to come, she was much worse.*' 
 Instead of sleep, Rahel had found only suffering, one distress 
 added to another ; and now all had combined into decided 
 spasm of the breast. I found her in a state little short of that 
 she had passed six days ago. The medicines left for such an 
 occurrence (regarded as possible, not probable) were tried ; 
 but, this time, with little effect. The frightful struggle con- 
 tinued ; and the beloved sufferer, writhing in Dora's arms, 
 cried, several times, " This pressure against her breast was not 
 to be borne, was crushing her heart out : " the breathing, too, 
 was painfully difficult. She complained that " it was getting 
 into her head now, that she felt like a cloud there;" she 
 leaned back with that. A deceptive hope of some alleviation 
 gleamed on us for a moment, and then went out forever ; the 
 eyes were dimmed, the mouth distorted, the limbs lamed ! In 
 this state the Doctors found her; their remedies were all 
 bootless. An unconscious hour and half, during which the 
 breast still occasionally struggled in spasmodic efforts, — and 
 this noble life breathed out its last. The sight I saw then, 
 while kneeling almost lifeless at her bed, stamped itself, glow- 
 ing forever into my heart.' 
 
 So died Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, born Levin, a 
 
350 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 singular biographic phenomenon of this century ; a 
 woman of genius, of true depth and worth ; whose se- 
 cluded life, as one cannot but see, had in it a greatness 
 far beyond what has many times fixed the public admira- 
 tion of the whole world ; a woman equal to the highest 
 thoughts of her century ; in whom it was not arrogance, 
 we do believe, but a just self-consciousness, to feel that 
 * the highest philosopher, or poet, or artist was not 
 ' above her, but of a like element and rank with her.* 
 That such a woman should have lived unknown and, as 
 it were, silent to the world, is peculiar in this time. 
 
 We say not that she was equal to De Stael, nor the 
 contrary ; neither that she might have written De StaeFs 
 books, nor even that she might not have written far 
 better books. She has ideas unequalled in De Stael ; a 
 sincerity, a pure tenderness and genuineness which that 
 celebrated person had not, or had lost. But what then } 
 The subjunctive, the optative are vague moods : there is 
 no tense one can found on but the preterite of the in- 
 dicative. Enough for us, Rahel did not write. She 
 sat imprisoned, or it might be sheltered and fosteringly 
 embowered, in those circumstances of hers ; she * was 
 not appointed to write or to act, but only to live.' Call 
 her not unhappy on that account, call her not useless ; 
 nay, perhaps, call her happier and usefuUer. Blessed 
 are the humble, are they that are not known. It is 
 written, ' Seekest thou great things, seek them not 
 live where thou art, only live wisely, live diligently. 
 Rahers life was not an idle one for herself or for others : 
 how many souls may the ' sparkles showering from that 
 light-fountain * have kindled and illuminated ; whose 
 new virtue goes on propagating itself, increasing itself, 
 
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE's MEMOIRS. 351 
 
 under incalculable combinations, and will be found in 
 far places, after many days ! She left no stamp of her- 
 self on paper ; but in other ways, doubt it not, the virtue 
 of her working in this world will survive all paper. For 
 the working of the good and brave, seen or unseen, 
 endures literally forever, and cannot die. Is a thing 
 nothing because the Morning Papers have not men- 
 tioned it ? Or can a nothing be made something, by 
 never so much babbling of it there } Far better, pro- 
 bably, that no Morning or Evening Paper mentioned it ; 
 that the right hand knew not what the left was doing ! 
 Rahel might have written books, celebrated books. And 
 yet, what of books ? Hast thou not already a Bible to 
 write, and publish in print that is eternal ; namely, a 
 Life to lead } Silence too is great : there should be 
 great silent ones too. 
 
 Beautiful it is to see and understand that no worth, 
 known or unknown, can die even in this earth. The 
 work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of 
 water flowing hidden under ground, secretly making the 
 ground green ; it flows and flows, it joins itself with 
 other veins and veinlets ; one day, it will start forth as 
 a visible perennial well. Ten dumb centuries had made 
 the speaking Dante ; a well he of many veinlets. Wil- 
 liam Burnes, or Burns, was a poor peasant ; could not 
 prosper in his ' seven acres of nursery- ground,' nor any 
 enterprise of trade and toil ; had to * thole a factor's 
 snash,' and read attorney-letters, in his poor hut, 
 ' which threw us all into tears a man of no money- 
 capital at all, of no account at all : yet a brave man, a 
 wise and just, in evil fortune faithful, unconquerable to 
 the death. And there wept withal among the others a 
 
352 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 boy named Robert^ with a heart of melting pity, of great- 
 ness and fiery wrath ; and his voice, fashioned here by 
 this poor father, does it not already reach, like a great 
 elegy, like a stern prophecy, to the ends of the world ? 
 ' Let me make the songs, and you shall make the laws !* 
 What chancellor, king, senator, begirt with never such 
 sumptuosity, dyed velvet, blaring and celebrity, could 
 you have named in England that was so momentous as 
 that William Burns ? Courage ! — 
 
 We take leave of Varnhagen with true goodwill, and 
 heartily thank him for the pleasure and instruction he 
 has given us. 
 
353 
 
 PETITION ON THE COPYRIGHT BILL * 
 
 [1839.] 
 
 To the Honourable the Commons of England in Par- 
 liament assembled, the Petition of Thomas Carlyle, a 
 Writer of Books, 
 
 Humbly sheweth, 
 
 That your petitioner has written certain books, be- 
 ing incited thereto by various innocent or laudable con- 
 siderations, chiefly by the thought that said books might 
 in the end be found to be worth something. 
 
 That your petitioner had not the happiness to re- 
 ceive from Mr. Thomas Tegg, or any Publisher, Repub- 
 lisher. Printer, Bookseller, Bookbuyer, or other the like 
 man or body of men, any encouragement or counte- 
 nance in writing of said books, or to discern any chance 
 of receiving such ; but vnrote them by effort of his own 
 and the favour of Heaven. 
 
 That all useful labour is worthy of recompense ; that 
 all honest labour is worthy of the chance of recompense ; 
 that the giving and assuring to each man what recom- 
 pense his labour has actually merited, may be said to 
 be the business of all Legislation, Polity, Government, 
 and Social Arrangement whatsoever among men; — a 
 business indispensable to attempt, impossible to accom- 
 plish accurately, difficult to accomplish without inaccu- 
 
 * The Examiner, April 7, 1839. 
 
354 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 racies that become enormous, insupportable, and the 
 parent of Social Confusions which never altogether end. 
 
 That your petitioner does not undertake to say what 
 recompense in money this labour of his may deserve ; 
 whether it deserves any recompense in money, or whe- 
 ther money in any quantity could hire him to do the 
 like. 
 
 That this his labour has found hitherto, in money 
 or money's worth, small recompense or none ; that he 
 is by no means sure of its ever finding recompense, but 
 thinks that, if so, it will be at a distant time, when he, 
 the labourer, will probably no longer be in need of 
 money, and those dear to him will still be in need of it. 
 
 That the law does at least protect all persons in sell- 
 ing the production of their labour at what they can get for 
 it, in all market-places, to all lengths of time. Much 
 more than this the law does to many, but so much it 
 does to all, and less than this to none. 
 
 That your petitioner cannot discover himself to have 
 done unlawfully in this his said labour of writing books, 
 or to have become criminal, or have forfeited the law's 
 protection thereby. Contrariwise your petitioner be- 
 lieves firmly that he is innocent in said labour ; that if 
 he be found in the long-run to have written a genuine 
 enduring book, his merit therein, and desert towards 
 England and English and other men, will be consider- 
 able, not easily estimable in money ; that on the other 
 hand, if his book prove false and ephemeral, he and it 
 will be abolished and forgotten, and no harm done. 
 
 That, in this manner, your petitioner plays no unfair 
 game against the world ; his stake being life itself, so 
 to speak (for the penalty is death by starvation), and the 
 
PETITION ON THE COPYRIGHT BILL. 
 
 355 
 
 world's stake nothing till once it see the dice thrown ; 
 SO that in any case the world cannot lose. 
 
 That in the happy and long- doubtful event of th 
 game's going in his favour, your petitioner submits that 
 the small winnings thereof do belong to him or his, and 
 that no other mortal has justly either part or lot in them 
 at all, now, henceforth, or forever. 
 
 May it therefore please your Honourable House to 
 protect him in said happy and long- doubtful event ; and 
 (by passing your Copyright Bill) forbid all Thomas 
 Teggs and other extraneous persons, entirely uncon- 
 cerned in this adventure of his, to steal from him his 
 small winnings, for a space of sixty years at shortest. 
 After sixty years, unless your Honourable House pro- 
 vide otherwise, they may begin to steal. 
 
 And your petitioner will ever pray. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
356 
 
 ON THE SINKING OF THE VENGEUR * 
 [1839.] 
 
 TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQ. 
 
 Dear Yorke, — Shall we now overhaul that story of the 
 sinking of the Vengeur, a little ; and let a discerning 
 public judge of the same ? I will endeavour to begin at 
 the beginning, and not to end till I have got to some 
 conclusion. As many readers are probably in the dark, 
 and young persons may not have so much as heard of 
 the Vengeur, we had perhaps better take up the matter 
 ab ovo, and study to carry uninstructed m^ankind com- 
 fortably along with us ad mala. 
 
 I find, therefore, worthy Yorke, in searching through 
 old files of newspapers, and other musty articles, as I 
 have been obliged to do, that on the evening of the 
 1 0th of June, 1794, a brilliant audience was, as often 
 happens, assembled at the Opera House here in London. 
 Radiance of various kinds, and melody of fiddlestrings 
 and windpipes, cartilaginous or metallic, v/as filling all 
 the place, — when an unknown individual entered with 
 a wet Newspaper in his pocket, and tidings that Lord 
 Howe and the English fleet had come up with Villaret- 
 Joyeuse and the French, off the coast of Brest, and 
 
 * Eraser's Magazine, No. 115. 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 357 
 
 gained a signal victory over him.* The agitation spread 
 from bench to bench, from box to box ; so that the w^et 
 Newspaper had finally to be read from the stage, and all 
 the musical instruments, human and other, had to strike 
 up Rule Britannia^ the brilliant audience all standing, 
 and such of them as had talent joining in chorus, — 
 before the usual squallacci melody, natural to the place, 
 could be allowed to proceed again. This was the first 
 intimation men had of Howe's victory of the 1st of June; 
 on the following evening London was illuminated : the 
 Gazette had been published, — some six ships taken, and 
 a seventh, named Vengeur, which had been sunk ; a very 
 glorious victory : and the joy of people's minds was con- 
 siderable. 
 
 For the remainder of that month of June, 1794, and 
 over into July, the New^spapers enliven themselves with 
 the usual succession of despatches, private narratives, 
 anecdotes, commentaries, and rectifications ; unfolding 
 gradually, as their way is, how the matter has actually 
 passed : till each reader may form some tolerably complete 
 image of it, till each at least has had enough of it; and the 
 glorious victory submerges in the general flood, giving 
 place to other glories. Of the Vengeur that sank, there 
 want not anecdotes, though they are not of a very pro- 
 minent kind. The Vengeur, it seems, was engaged with 
 the Brunswick ; the Bf^unswick had stuck close to her, 
 and the fight was very hot ; indeed, the two ships were 
 hooked together by the Brunswick's anchors, and stuck 
 so till the Vengeur had got enough ; but the anchors at 
 last gave way, and the Brunswick, herself much disabled, 
 
 * Morning Chronicle of June, 1794. 
 
358 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 drifted to leeward of the enemy's flying ships, and had 
 to run before the wind, and so escape them. The Ven- 
 geur, entirely powerless, was taken possession of by the 
 Alfred, by the Culloden, or by both of them together; 
 and sank after not many minutes. All this is in the 
 English Newspapers ; this, so far as we are concerned, 
 is the English version of Howe's victory, — in which the 
 sinking Vengeur is noticeable, but plays no pre-eminently 
 distinguished part. 
 
 The same English Newspapers publish, as they re- 
 ceive them, generally without any commentary whatever, 
 the successive French versions of the matter ; the same 
 that can now be read more conveniently, in their ori- 
 ginal language, in the Choix des Rapports, vol. xiv., and 
 elsewhere. The French Convention was now sitting, 
 in its Reign of Terror, fighting for life and death, with 
 all weapons, against all men. The French Convention 
 had of course to give its own version of this matter, the 
 best it could. Barrere was the man to do that. On 
 the 15th of June, accordingly, Barrere reports that it is 
 a glorious victory for France ; that the fight, indeed, was 
 sharp, and not unattended with loss, the ennemis du 
 genre humain being acharnes against us ; but that, never- 
 theless, these gallant French war- ships did so shatter 
 and astonish the enemy on this 1st of June and the pre- 
 ceding days, that the enemy shore off; and, on the 
 morrow, our invaluable American cargo of naval stores, 
 safely stowed in the fleet of transport- ships, got safe 
 through; — which latter statement is a fact, the trans- 
 port-ships having actually escaped unmolested ; they 
 sailed over the very place of battle, saw the wreck of 
 burnt and shattered things, still tumbling on the v*^aters. 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 359 
 
 and knew that a battle had been. By degrees, how- 
 ever, it becomes impossible to conceal that the glorious 
 victory for France has yielded six captured ships of war 
 to the English, and one to the briny maw of Ocean ; 
 that, in short, the glorious victory has been what in un- 
 official language is called a sheer defeat. Whereupon, 
 after some recriminating and flourishing from Jean-Bon 
 Saint- Andr^ and others, how the captain of the Jacobin 
 behaved ill, and various men and things behaved ill, con- 
 spiring to tarnish the laurels of the Republic, — Barrere 
 adroitly takes a new tack ; will shew that if we French 
 did not beat, we did better, and are a spectacle for the 
 veiy gods. Fixing on the sunk Vengeur, Barrere pub- 
 lishes his famed Rapport du 21 Messidor (9th July, 
 1794), setting forth how Republican valour, conquered 
 by unjust fortune, did nevertheless in dying earn a glory 
 that will never die, but flame there forever, as a symbol and 
 prophecy of victories without end : how the Vengeur ^ in 
 short, being entirely disabled, and incapable of common- 
 place flight, flew desperate, and refused to strike, though 
 sinking ; how the enemies fired on her, but she returned 
 their fire, shot aloft all her tricolor streamers, shouted 
 Vive la Repuhlique ; nay, fired the guns of her upper 
 deck, when the lower decks were already sunk ; and so, 
 in this mad whirlwind of. fire and shouting, and in- 
 vincible despair, went down into the ocean - depths ; 
 Vive la Repuhlique, and a universal volley from the upper 
 deck, being the last sounds she made. This Report 
 too is translated accurately, in the Morning Chronicle 
 for July 26, 1794; and published without the smallest 
 commentary there. The Vengeur with all her crew 
 being down in the depths of ocean, it is not of course 
 
330 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 they that can vouch for this heroic feat ; neither is it 
 the other French, who had all fled by that time : no, 
 the testimony is still more indubitable, that of our 
 enemies themselves ; it is ' from the English News- 
 papers' that Barrere professes to have gathered these 
 heart-inspiring details, the candour even of these ennemis 
 acharnes could not conceal them, — which, therefore, let 
 all Frenchmen believe as a degree truer than truth itself, 
 and rejoice in accordingly. To all this, as was said, the 
 English Newspapers seem to have made no reply what- 
 ever. 
 
 The French, justly proud of so heroic a feat, a de- 
 gree truer than truth itself, did make, and have ever 
 since continued to make, what demonstration was fit. 
 Convention decree. Convention decrees were solemnly 
 passed about this suicidal Vengeur ; the deathless sui- 
 cidal Vengeur is written deep in innumerable French 
 songs and psalmody ings ; a wooden Model of the Vengeur, 
 solemnly consecrated in the Pantheon of Great Men, 
 beckoned figuratively from its peg, ' Aux grands hommes, 
 la patrie reconnaissante !' — and hangs there, or in the 
 Musee Naval, beckoning, I believe, at this hour. In an 
 age of miracles, such as the Reign of Terror, one knows 
 not at first view what is incredible : such loud universal 
 proclamation, and the silence of the English (little in- 
 terested, indeed, to deny), seem to have produced an 
 almost universal belief both in France and here. Doubts, 
 I now find, were more than once started by sceptics 
 even among the French, — in a suitable low tone ; but 
 the ' solemn Convention decrees,' the wooden ' Modele 
 du Vengeur' hanging visible there, the 'glory of France?' 
 Such doubts were instantly blown away again ; and the 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 361 
 
 heroic feat, like a mirror- shadow wiped, not wiped out, 
 remained only the clearer for them. 
 
 Very many years ago, in some worthless English 
 history of the French Revolution, the first that had come 
 in my way, I read this incident ; coldly recorded, with- 
 out controversy, without favour or feud ; and, naturally 
 enough, it hurnt itself indelibly into the boyish imagina- 
 tion ; and indeed is, with the murder of the Princess de 
 Lamballe, all that I now remember of that same worthless 
 English history. Coming afterwards to write of the 
 French Revolution myself ; finding this story so solemnly 
 authenticated, and not knowing that, in its intrinsic 
 character, it had ever been so much as questioned, I 
 wrote it down nothing doubting; as other English writers 
 had done ; — the fruit of which, happily now got to ma- 
 turity so far as I am concerned, you are here to see ripen 
 itself, by the following stages. Take first the corpus 
 delicti : 
 
 1. Extract from Carlyle's * French Revolution.^* 
 
 * But how is it, then, with that Vengeur ship, she neither 
 strikes nor makes off ? She is lamed, she cannot make off ; 
 strike she will not. Fire rakes her fore and aft from victori- 
 ous enemies ; the Vengeur is sinking. Strong are ye. Tyrants 
 of the Sea ; yet we also, are we weak ? Lo ! all flags, streamers, 
 jacks, every rag of tricolor that will yet run on rope, fly 
 rustling aloft : the whole crew crowds the upper deck ; and, 
 with universal soul -maddening yell, shouts Vive la jRepublique, 
 — sinking, sinking. She staggers, she lurches, her last drunk 
 whirl ; Ocean yawns abysmal : down rushes the Vengeur, 
 carrying Vive la JRepublique along with her, unconquerable, 
 into Eternity/ 
 
 * (London, 1837), Vol. iii. p. 335. 
 VOL. V. R 
 
362 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 2. Letter from Rear- Admiral Griffiths, in the ' Sun* News- 
 paper of — Nov, 1838. 
 ' Mr. Editor, — Since the period of Lord Howe's vic- 
 tory, on 1st June, 1794, the story of the Vengeur French 
 74 -gun ship going down with colours flying, and her crew 
 crying Vive la JRepublique, Vive la Liberie, &c. and the fur- 
 ther absurdity that they continued firing the maindeck guns 
 after her lower deck was immersed, has been declared, and 
 has recently been reasserted by a French author. It origin- 
 ated, no doubt, on the part of the French, in political and 
 exciting motives, — precisely as Buonaparte caused his victory 
 at Trafalgar to be promulgated through France. While these 
 reports and confident assertions were confined to our neigh- 
 bours, it seemed little worth the while to contradict it. But 
 now, when two English authors of celebrity, Mr. Alison, in 
 his History of Europe during the French devolution, and Mr. 
 Carlyle, in his similar work, give it the confirmation of English 
 authority, I consider it right thus to declare that the whole 
 story is a ridiculous piece of nonsense. At the time the 
 Vengeur sunk, the action had ceased some time. The French 
 fleet were making off before the wind ; and Captain Renaudin 
 and his son had been nearly half-an-hour prisoners on board 
 H. M. S. Culloden, of which ship I was the fourth lieutenant ; 
 and about 127 of the crew were also prisoners, either on 
 board the Culloden, or in her boats, besides I believe 100 
 in the Alfred's, and some 40 in the hired cutter, commanded 
 by Lieutenant (the late Rear- Admiral) Winne. The Vengeur 
 was taken possession of by the boats of the Culloden, Lieu- 
 tenant Rotheram, and the Alfred, Lieutenant Deschamps ; 
 and Captain Renaudin and myself, who were by Captain 
 Schomb erg's desire at lunch in his cabin, hearing the cries of 
 distress, ran to the starboard quarter gallery, and thence 
 witnessed the melancholy scene. Never were men in distress 
 more ready to save themselves. 
 
 ' ' A. J. Griffiths.' 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 363 
 
 This letter, which appeared in the Sun Newspaper 
 early in November last, was copied into most of the 
 other Newspapers in the following days ; I take it from 
 the Examiner of next Sunday (18th Nov. 1838). The 
 result seemed to be general uncertainty. On me, who 
 had not the honour at that time to know Admiral Grif- 
 fiths even by name, still less by character, the main im- 
 pression his letter left was that this affair was singular, 
 * doubtful ; that it would require to be farther examined 
 by the earliest opportunity. Not long after, a friend of 
 his, who took an interest in it, and was known to friends 
 of mine, transmitted me through them the following new 
 Document, which it appeared had been written earlier, 
 though without a view to publication : 
 
 3. Letter from Rear-Admiral Griffiths to a private Friend 
 (penes me). 
 
 ' Since you request it, I send you the state of the actual 
 fact as respects the sinking of the Vengeur after the action of 
 the 1st of June, 1794. 
 
 ' I was fourth lieutenant in the Culloden in that action.. 
 Mr. Carlyle, in his History of the French Revolution, vol. iii. 
 p. 335, gives, in his own peculiar style, the same account of it 
 that was published to the world under the influence of the 
 French Government, for political and exciting purposes ; and 
 which has recently been reiterated by a French author. Mr. 
 Carlyle, in adopting these authorities, has given English testi- 
 mony to the farce ; farce 1 call it, — for, with the exception of 
 the Vengeur " sinking," there is not one word of fact in the 
 narration. I will first review it in detail : — 
 
 ' " The Vengeur neither strikes nor makes off." She did 
 both. She made off as well as her disabled state admitted. 
 
364 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 and was actually taken in tow by a French eighteen- gun brig; 
 which cast her off, on the CuUoden, Alfred and two or three 
 others, approaching to take possession of her. " Fire rakes 
 her fore and aft from victorious enemies.*' Wicked indeed 
 would it have been to have fired into her, a sinking ship with 
 colours down ; and I can positively assert not a gun was fired 
 at her for an hour before she was taken possession of. " The 
 Vengeur is sinking.'' True. Lo ! all flags, streamers, jacks, 
 every rag of tricolor that will yet run on rope fly rustling 
 aloft."' Not one mast standing, not one rope on which to hoist 
 or display a bit of tricolor, not one flag, or streamer, or ensign 
 displayed ; her colours down ; and, for more than half an 
 hour before she sunk. Captain Renaudin, and his son, &c., 
 prisoners on hoard the CuUoden, — on which I will by and by 
 more especially particularise. " The whole crew crowds the 
 upper deck, and with universal soul -maddening yell shouts 
 Vive la Repuhlique ! " Beyond the fact of the crew (except the 
 wounded) being on the upper deck, not even the slightest, the 
 most trivial semblance of truth. Not one shout beyond that 
 of horror and despair. At the moment of her sinking we had 
 on hoard the Culloden, and in our boats then at the wreck, 
 127 of her crew, including the captain. The Alfred had many ; 
 I helieve ahout 100 : Lieutenant Winne, in command of a hired 
 cutter, a number ; I think, 49. Down rushes the Vengeur, 
 carrying Vive la Repuhlique along with her, unconquerable, 
 into Eternity." Bah ! answered above. 
 
 ' I have thus reviewed Mr. Carlyle's statement; I now 
 add the particulars of the fact. The Vengeur totally dismasted, 
 going off^ before the wind, under her sprit-sail, &c. ; five sail 
 of the line come up with her, the Culloden and Alfred two of 
 these. Her colours down. Lieutenant Richard Deschamps, 
 first of the Alfred, I believe, took possession of her. The next 
 boat on board was the Culloden's, Lieut. Rotheram, who died 
 one of the Captains of Greenwich Hospital. Deschamps 
 went up the side. Rotheram got in at the lower- deck port. 
 
SINKING OF THE VENOEUR. 
 
 365 
 
 saw that the ship was sinking, and went thence to the quarter- 
 deck. I am not positive which boat got first on board. Ro- 
 theram returned with Captain Renaudin, his son, and one 
 man; and reported her state, whereupon other boats were 
 sent. The Vengeur's main-yard was lying across her decks ; 
 Rotheram, &c., descended from its larboard yard-arm by the 
 yard-tackle pendant ; and I personally heard him report to 
 Captain Schomberg the Vengeur's state, That he could not 
 place a two-feet rule in any direction, he thought, that would 
 not touch two shot-holes." Except the Purser, Mr. Oliver, 
 who was engaged in arranging the prisoners in classes &c. as 
 they came on board, I was the only officer who knew any 
 French, and mine very so-so. Captain Schomberg said : " You 
 understand French ; take Renaudin and his son into the cabin, 
 and divert his mind from attention to his ship while sinking.*' 
 Having been in presence of the French fleet for three days 
 prior to the action, he accustomed cooking had not gone on ; 
 the galley-fire was little lighted. But the Captain, foreseeing, 
 had a cold mutton-pie standing by ; this, with wine, was 
 ordered for us ; and I was actually eating it with Renaudin, a 
 prisoner in Captain Schomberg's cabin, when a bustle on deck 
 made us start up ; we ran to the starboard quarter- gallery, 
 and saw the Vengeur, then say a stone's -throw from us, sink. 
 These are the facts. 
 
 * Sept, 17, 1838. A. J. Griffiths. 
 
 ' I have said, I am not certain which boat took possession ; 
 and I gave it to the Alfred, because there arises so much silly 
 squabbling on these trifles. But from Rotheram taking the 
 Captain, it seems probable the Culloden's boat was first. A 
 matter, however, of no moment,' 
 
 Such a Document as this was not of a sort to be left 
 dormant : doubt could not sleep on it ; doubt, unless 
 effectually contradicted, had no refuge but to hasten to 
 denial. I immediately did two things : I applied to 
 
366 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Admiral Griffiths for leave to publish this new letter, or 
 such portions of it as might seem needful; and at the 
 same time I addressed myself to a distinguished French 
 friend, well acquainted with these matters, more zealously 
 concerned in them than almost any other living man, and 
 hitherto an undoubting believer in the history of the 
 Vengeur, This was my letter to him ; marked here as 
 Document No. 4 : 
 
 4. Letter of T. Carlyle to Monsieur 
 
 ' My dear , — Enclosed herewith are copies of 
 
 Admiral Griffiths's two Letters concerning the Vengeur, on 
 which we communicated lately. You undertook the French 
 side of the business ; you are become, so to speak, advocate of 
 France in this matter ; as I for my share am put into the post 
 of advocate for England. In the interest of all men, so far as 
 that can be concerned here, the truth ought to be known, and 
 recognised by all. 
 
 * Having read the story in some English book in boyhood, 
 naturally with indelible impression of it ; reading the same 
 afterwards with all detail in the Choix des Rapports, and else- 
 where ; and finding it everywhere acted upon as authentic, 
 and nowhere called in question, I wrote it down in my Book 
 with due energy and sympathy, as a fact forever memorable. 
 But now, I am bound to say, the Rear- Admiral has altogether 
 altered the footing it stands on ; and except other evidence 
 than I yet have, or know where to procure, be adduced, I must 
 give up the business as a cunningly devised fable, and in my 
 next edition contradict it with as much energy as I asserted it. 
 You know with how much reluctance that will be ; for what 
 man, indeed, would not wish to believe it ? 
 
 ' But what can I do ? Barrere's Rapport does not even pro- 
 fess to be grounded on any evidence except what " the English 
 Newspapers aflforded him. I have looked into various " Eng- 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 367 
 
 lish Newspapers ; " the Morning Chronicle, the Opposition or 
 " Jacobin'* journal of that period, I have examined minutely, 
 from the beginning of June to the end of July 1794, through 
 all the stages of the business ; and found there no trace or hint 
 of what Barrere asserts : I do not think there is any hint of 
 it discoverable in any English Newspaper of those weeks. 
 What Barrere's own authority was worth in such cases, we all 
 know. On the other hand, here is an eye-witness, a man of 
 grave years, of dignified rank, a man of perfect respectability, 
 who in the very style of these Letters of his has an air of art- 
 lessness, of blunt sincerity and veracity, the characteristic of 
 a sailor. There is no motive that could induce him to deny 
 such a fact ; on the contrary, the more heroic one's enemy, 
 the greater one's own heroism. Indeed, I may say generally 
 of England, at this day, that there could not be anywhere a 
 wish to disbelieve such a thing of an enemy recognised as brave 
 among the bravest, but rather a wish, for manhood's sake, to 
 believe it, if possible. 
 
 ' What I should like therefore is, that these circumstances 
 were, with the widest publicity of Journals or otherwise, to be 
 set openly before the French Nation, and the question there- 
 upon put : Have you any counter- evidence ? If you have any, 
 produce it ; let us weigh it. If you have none, then let us 
 cease to believe this too widely credited narration ; let us con- 
 sider it henceforth as a clever fable got up for a great occasion ; 
 and that the real Vengeur simply fought well, and sank pre- 
 cisely as another ship would have done. The French, I should 
 hope, have accomplished too many true marvels in the way of 
 war, to have need of false marvels. At any rate, error, un- 
 truth, as to what matter soever, never profited any nation, 
 man, or thing. 
 
 ' If any of your reputable Journalists, if any honest man, 
 will publish, in your Newspapers or otherwise, an Article on 
 these data, and get us either evidence or no evidence, it will 
 throw light on the matter. I have not yet Admiral Grifl5ths's 
 
368 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 permission to print this second Letter (though I have Httle 
 doubt to get it very soon) ; but the first is already pubhshed, 
 and contains all the main facts. My commentary on them, 
 and position towards them, is substantially given above. 
 ' Do w^hat is fit ; and let the truth be knov^n. 
 
 ' Yours always, 
 
 ' T. Ca-rlyle.' 
 
 From Admiral Griffiths I received, without delay, the 
 requisite permission ; and this under terms and restric- 
 tions, which only did him farther honour, and confirmed, 
 if there had been need of that, one's conviction of his 
 perfect candour as a witness on the matter. His Letter 
 to me is too remarkable not to be inserted here ; as 
 illustrative of this controversy ; nay, especially if we con- 
 sider the curious appendix he has added, as conclusive 
 of it. I have not his express permission to print this ; 
 but will venture to believe that I have a certain implied 
 discretionary permission, which, without my troubling 
 him with farther applications, may suffice : 
 
 5. Letter of Rear- Admiral Griffiths to T. Carlyle. 
 
 ' Sir, — I have received a Letter from ; of which 
 
 follows an extract : 
 
 ' In reply to the above, I have to say that you are at full 
 liberty to use the account I sent you, or that published in the 
 Sun Paper, and copied thence into the Globe, Morning Post, 
 John Bull, &c. ; and to quote me as your authority. But as 
 I have no desire for controversy, or to be made unnecessarily 
 conspicuous, I do not assent to its being published in any 
 other language or Papers, as so put forth hy me. 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 369 
 
 ' I never deemed it worth one thought to awaken the French 
 from their dream of glory in this case ; and should have still 
 preserved silence, had not Mr. Alison and yourself given it the 
 weight of English authority. What I abstained from doing 
 for forty-four years, I feel no disposition to engage in now. So 
 far as I am an active party, I confine my interference to our 
 side of the water ; leaving you to do as you see fit on the 
 other. 
 
 ' The statement I have already made in the case is abund- 
 ant. But I will put you in possession of other facts. The 
 action over ; the British fleet brought-to ; the French making 
 all sail, and running before the wind ; their dismasted hulks 
 having also got before the wind, and following them; — the 
 Vengeur being the sternmost, having a French jack flying on 
 the stump of the foremast. Captain Duckworth of H.M.S. 
 Orion, ordered the first Ueutenant, Mr. Meares, himself to fire 
 a shot over her. This Lieutenant Meares did, and the Vengeur 
 hauled down the flag ! 
 
 ' For his gallant conduct in that action, on his return to 
 France, Captain Renaudin, who commanded the Vengeur, was 
 promoted to be Rear-Admiral, and his flag was flying at 
 Toulon on board the Tonnant, when I was first lieutenant of 
 the Culloden blockading that port. I wrote to remind him of 
 the treatment he had met with when prisoner on board the 
 Culloden ; and soliciting his kindness towards Lieutenant Hills, 
 who had been taken in H.M.S. Berwick, and being recognised 
 as having, in command of a battery at Toulon, at the period 
 of its evacuation, wounded a Frenchman, — was very ill-used. 
 Renaudin's letter now lies before me ; and does him much 
 honour, as, during the fervour of that period, it was a danger- 
 ous sin to hold intercourse with us. I send you a copy ; it is 
 in English. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, very faithfully yours, 
 
 * A. J. Griffiths.' 
 
 R 2 
 
370 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Here next is the * curious appendix* we spoke of ; 
 which might itself be conclusive of this controversy ; 
 
 Copy of Rear- Admiral Renaudin's Letter. 
 
 * ^* On board of the ship Tonnanty Bay of Toulon, 
 the seventeenth Vendemiaire, fourth year of 
 the French Republic, 
 
 ' " I have. Sir, received the favour of your letter. I am 
 extremely obliged to you for the interest you have taken to 
 my promotion. Til never forget the attention you have paid 
 me, as well on board the Culloden as when going to prison. 
 I wish you should be well persuaded that your generosity and 
 sensibility will be forever present to my mind, and that I can't 
 be satisfied before it will be in my power to prove you my 
 gratitude. If your friend. Lieutenant Hills, had not already 
 gone back home, I should have returned to him all the atten- 
 tion you have been so good to paie me. Til be always sin- 
 cerely satisfied when it will be in my power to be of some use 
 to any of the oflScers of the English navy, that the circum- 
 stances of war will carry in my country, and particularly to 
 them that you will denote me as your friends. 
 
 ' " Be so good as take notice of our French officers that 
 you have prisoners, and particularly to Captain Conde that 
 has been taken on the ship Ca-ira. Please to remember me 
 to Captain Schomberg, to Mr. Oliver, and to all the rest of 
 the officers that I have known on board of the Culloden. May 
 the peace between our nations give leave to your grateful Re- 
 naudin to entertain along with you a longer and easier cor- 
 respondence." 
 
 ' Addressed, " To Lieutenant Griffiths, on board of the 
 Culloden, Florenzo Bay, Corse Island." * 
 
 My French friend did not find it expedient to publish, 
 in the Journals or elsewhere, any ' article,' or general 
 challenge to his countrymen for counter- evidence, as I had 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 371 
 
 suggested ; indeed one easily conceives that no French 
 Journal would have wished to be the foremost with an 
 article of that kind. However, he did what a man of 
 intelligence, friendliness, and love of truth, could do : 
 addressed himself to various official persons connected 
 with the Naval Archives of France ; to men of note, who 
 had written French Naval Histories, &c. ; — from one of 
 whom came a response in writing, now to be subjoined 
 as my last Document. I ought to say that this latter 
 gentleman had not seen Admiral Griffiths's written Let- 
 ters ; and knew them only by description. The others 
 responded verbally ; that much was to be said, that they 
 would prepare Memoires, that they would do this and 
 that. I subjoin the response of the one who did respond : 
 it amounts, as will be seen, not to a recantation of an 
 impudent amazing falsehood, but to some vague faint 
 murmur or whimper of admission that it is probably 
 false. 
 
 6. Lettre de Monsieur a Monsieur (24 Dec. 1838.) 
 
 * Mon cher Monsieur, — Je regrette de ne pouvoir vous 
 donner des renseignemens bien precis sur la glorieuse affaire 
 du Vengeur, Mais si ropinion que je me suis formee sur cet 
 evenement peut vous etre de quelque utilite, je me feliciterai 
 de vous ravoir donnee, quelque peu d'influence qu'elle doive 
 avoir sur le jugement que votre ami se propose de porter sur le 
 combat du 13 Prairial. 
 
 ' Je suis de Brest ; et c'est dans cette ville qu'arriva Fes- 
 cadre de Villaret-Joyeuse, apres le combat meurtriere qu'il 
 avait livree a TAmiral Howe. Plusieurs des marins qui 
 avaient assiste a TafFaire du 13 Prairial m'ont assure que le 
 Vengeur avait coule apres avoir amene son pavilion, Quelques 
 hommes de Tequipage de cet heroique vaisseau, furent meme, 
 dit-on, recueillis sur des debris par des embarcations AnglaiFes. 
 
372 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Mais il n'en est pas moins vrai, que le Vengeur ne coula 
 qu'apres s'etre sacrifie pour empecher Tescadre Anglaise de 
 couper la ligne Fran9aise. 
 
 ' Les rapports du terns, et les beaux vers de Chenier et de 
 Le Brun sur le naufrage du Vengeur, n'ont pas manque de 
 poetiser la noble fin de ce vaisseau. C'est aux cris de Vive la 
 Republique, disent-ils, que le vaisseau s^est englouti, avec le 
 pavilion tricolore aux plus hauts de tous ses mats. Mais, je 
 le repete, il est tres probable que si une partie de Tequipage a 
 disparu dessous les flots aux cris de Vive la Republique, tout 
 Tequipage n'a pas refuse d'un commun accord le secours que 
 les vaisseaux ennemis pouvaient offrir aux naufrages. Au 
 surplus quand bien meme le Vengeur ait amene son pavilion 
 avant de couler. Taction de ce vaisseau se fesant cannoner 
 pendant plusieurs heures pour disputer a toute un escadre le 
 passage le plus faible de la ligne Fran^aise, n'en etait pas 
 moins un des plus beaux faits d'armes de notre histoire navale. 
 Dans les bureaux de la marine, au reste, il n'existe aucun rap- 
 port de Villaret-Joyeuse ou de Jean-Bon Saint-Andre que 
 puisse faire supposer que le Vengeur ait coule sans avoir amene 
 son pavilion. On dit seulement dans ces relations du combat 
 du 13, que le Vengeur a disparu apres avoir resiste au feu de 
 toute Tescadre Anglaise qui voulait rompre la ligne pour tomber 
 sur les derrieres de Tarmee et porter le desordre dans tout le 
 reste de notre escadre. 
 
 ' Voila, mon cher Monsieur, tout ce que je sais sur Talfaire 
 qui vous occupe. C'est peu de chose comme vous le voyez, 
 car ce n'est presque que mon opinion que je vous exprime sur 
 les petits renseignemens que j'ai pu recueillir de la bouche des 
 marins qui se trouvaient sur le vaisseau la Montagne ou d'au- 
 
 tres navires de Tescadre Villaret. Recevez Tassurance,' 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 The other French gentlemen that ' would prepare 
 Memoires,' have now in the sixth month prepared none ; 
 the *much' that * was to be said' remains every syl- 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 373 
 
 lable of it unsaid. My friend urged his official persons ; 
 to no purpose. Finally he wrote to Barrere himself, 
 who is still alive and in possession of his faculties. From 
 Barrere no response. Indeed, one would have liked to 
 see the ancient adroit countenance of Barrere perusing, 
 through its spectacles, a request to that effect ! For 
 verily, as the French say, tout est dit. What can be 
 added on such a matter } 
 
 I conclude therefore, dear Yorke, with an expression 
 of amazement over this same * glorieuse affaire du Ven^ 
 geur in w^hich truly much courage was manifested ; 
 but no unparalleled courage except that of Barrere in 
 his Report of the 21st Messidor, Year 2. That a son of 
 Adam should venture on constructing so majestic a piece 
 of blague, and hang it out dexterously, like the Earth 
 itself, on Nothing, to be beUeved and venerated by 
 twenty-five milHon sons of Adam for such a length of 
 time, the basis of it all the while being simply Zero and 
 Nonentity : there is in this a greatness, nay a kind of 
 sublimity that strikes us silent, — as if ' the Infinite dis- 
 closed itself,' and we had a glimpse of the ancient Reign 
 of Chaos and Nox ! Miraculous Mahomet, ApoUonius 
 with the Golden Thigh, Mendez Pinto, Munchausen, 
 Cagliostro, Psalmanazar seem but botchers in compa- 
 rison. 
 
 It was a successful lie too ? It made the French 
 fight better in that struggle of theirs ? Yes, JMr. Yorke ; 
 — and yet withal there is no lie, in the long-run, suc- 
 cessful. The hour of all windbags does arrive ; every 
 windbag is at length ripped, and collapses ; likewise the 
 larger and older any ripped windbag is, the more fetid 
 and extensive is the gas emitted therefrom. The French 
 
374 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 people had better have been content with their real 
 fighting. Next time the French Government publishes 
 miraculous bulletins, the very hadauds v^ill be slower to 
 believe them ; one sees not what sanction, by solemn 
 legislative decree, by songs, ceremonials, wooden em- 
 blems, will suffice to produce belief. Of Nothing you 
 can, in the long-run, and with much lost labour, make 
 only — Nothing. 
 
 But ought not the French Nation to hook down that 
 wooden * Modele du Vengeur,' now at this late date ; 
 and, in a quiet way, split it into brimstone lucifers } 
 The French Nation will take its own method in that. 
 
 As for Rear-Admiral Griffiths, we will say that he 
 has, in his veteran years, done one other manful service : 
 extinguished a Falsehood, sent a Falsehood to the Father 
 of it, made the world free of it henceforth. For which 
 let him accept our respectful thanks. I, having once 
 been led to assert the fable, hold myself bound, on all fit 
 occasions, to wwassert it with equal emphasis. Till it 
 please to disappear altogether from the world, as it 
 ought to do, let it lie, as a copper shilling, nailed to the 
 counter, and seen by all customers to be copper. 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 lO^A June, 1839. 
 
 P. S. — Curiously enough, while this is passing 
 through the press, there appears in some French News- 
 paper called Chronique Universelle, and is copied con- 
 spicuously into the Paris National (du 10 Juin, 1839), 
 an article headed * Six Matelots du VengeurJ Six old 
 sailors of the Vengeur, it appears, still survive, seemingly 
 in the Bourdeaux region, in straitened circumstances ; 
 whom the editor, with sure hope, here points out to the 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 375 
 
 notice of the charitable ; — on which occasion, as is na- 
 tural, Barrere's blague once more comes into play, not a 
 whit worse for the wear, nay if anything, rather fresher 
 than ever. Shall we send these brave old weatherbeaten 
 men a trifle of money, and request the Mayor of Mornac 
 to take their aflidavit ? 
 
 ' Nothing in them but doth suffer a sea-change 
 Into something new and strange!' 
 
 Surely the hlague, if natural, is not essential in their 
 case. Old men that have fought for France ought to 
 be assisted by France, even though they did not drown 
 themselves after battle. Here is the extract from the 
 National : 
 
 ' Six Matelots du Vengeur. 
 
 ' Tandis que la France faisait triompher son independance 
 a toutes ses frontieres, le sol, inepuisable en defenseurs, sufR- 
 sait a peine a la nourrir, et c'etait de TAmerique, a travers les 
 flots de rOcean, que la France etait reduite a recevoir son 
 pain. L'Europe en armes ne pouvait dompter la revolution, 
 TAngleterre essay a de la prendre par famine. Grace a la 
 croisiere de TAmiral Howe sur les cotes de Bretagne et de 
 Normandie, elle esperait intercepter un convoi de deux cents 
 voiles, charge d'une quantite considerable de grains, precieux 
 ravitaillement impatiemment attendu dans nos ports ; mais 
 pour sauver ce convoi une escadre Franc aise etait deja sortie 
 de Brest sous le commandement de Villaret-Joyeuse et la 
 direction du representant du peuple Jean-Bon Saint- Andre. 
 
 ' Le 9 Prairial de Tan II (28 Mai, 1794), les deux armees 
 navales se sont aper^ues, et le cri unanime de nos equipages 
 demande le combat avec un enthousiasme irresistible. Ce- 
 pendant aux trente - trois vaisseaux de ligne et aux douze 
 fregates de Tennemi, nous n'avions a opposer que trente ba- 
 timens, que des matelots enleves de la veille a la charrue, que 
 
376 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 des officiers et un amiral encore novices dans leurs grades, et 
 c'etait contre les marins experimentes de la vieille Angleterre 
 qu'il nous fallait soutenir Thonneur du pavilion tricolore, 
 arbore pour la premiere fois dans un combat sur mer. 
 
 ' On sait que le combat s'engagea des le jour meme, con- 
 tinua des le lendemain, fut deux jours interrompu par une 
 brume epaisse, et recommen9a le 13 (l^"" Juin) a la lumiere 
 d'un soleil eclatant, avec une opiniatrete inome. Notre escadre 
 racheta Tinhabilete de ses manoeuvres par un deploiement 
 extraordinaire de courage, la vivacite terrible de ses feux et 
 Taudace de ses abordages. De quel cote resta la victoire ? 
 Les deux fiottes, cruellement endommagees, se separerent 
 avec une egale lassitude et desespererent d'arracher un succes 
 decisif a la superiorite du nombre ou a Tenergie de la resist- 
 ance. Mais cette journee fut un bapteme de gloire pour notre 
 jeune marine, et la France recueillit le prix du sang verse. 
 Durant cette meme journee, notre convoi de deux cents voiles 
 traversait paisiblement le champ de battaille du 10, encore 
 seme de debris, et abordait nos cotes. 
 
 ' Ce fut au milieu de cette action si memorable qu'il fut 
 donne a un vaisseau Fran9ais de se faire une gloire particu- 
 liere et d'immortaliser son nom. Cerne par les batimens 
 ennemis, convert des lambeaux de ses voiles et de sa mature, 
 crible de boulets et deja faisant eau de toutes parts, le Ven- 
 geur refuse d'amener son pavilion. L'equipage ne pent plus 
 combattre, il pent encore mourir. Au tumulte de la resist- 
 ance, aux clameurs du courage desespere succede un profond 
 silence ; tous montent ou sont portes sur le pont. Ce ne sont 
 plus des combattans, ce sont des martyrs de la religion et de 
 la patrie. La, tranquillement exposes au feu des Anglais, 
 sentant de moment en moment le vaisseau s'enfoncer dans les 
 flots, Tequipage salue d'un dernier regard les couleurs na- 
 tionals flottant en pieces au-dessus de sa tete, il pousse un 
 dernier cri de Vive la Republique/ Vive la Liberie! Vive la 
 France ! et le Vengeur a disparu dans Tabime. Au recit de 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 377 
 
 ce fait, dont TAngleterre elle-meme rendit temoignage avec 
 admiration, la France entiere fut emue et appl audit, dans ce 
 devouement sublime, son esprit nouveau flottant sur les eaux 
 comme il marchait sur la terre, indomptable et resolu a vaincre 
 ou mourir. D'apres un decret de la Convention, le Vengeur 
 legua son nom a un vaisseau en construction dans les bassins 
 de Brest, son image a la voute du Pantheon, le role de Tequi- 
 page a la colonne de ce temple, et tous les arts furent appeles 
 a concourir a la celebration de tant d'heroisme, tandis que la 
 reconnaissance publique s'empressait de secourir les veuves et 
 les orphelins des heros. 
 
 ' Voila ce que fit alors la France ; mais ce qu'elle ignore 
 peut-etre, c'est que du Vengeur les flots n'ont pas tout en- 
 glouti, et que six marins, recueillis par Tennemi et long-temps 
 retenus dans les prisons de TAngleterre, ont survecu jusqu'a 
 cette heure meme, reduits a une condition miserable sur le sol 
 de la patrie qui les honora morts et les oublie vivans ! Six, 
 avons-nous dit, et voici leurs noms, leur age, leur position, 
 leur residence : 
 
 ' Prevaudeau (Jacques), age de 60 ans, demeurant a Mor- 
 nac ; vivant, bien que vieux, du peu de travail qu'il pent faire. 
 
 * Cercle (Jean-Pierre), age de 69 ans, demeurant a La 
 Tremblade ; vivant mediocrement de son travail. 
 
 * David (Jacques), invalide, age de 56 ans, demeurant a 
 La Tremblade ; miserable. 
 
 ' Favier (Jacques), age de 64 ans, demeurant a La Trem- 
 blade ; n'ayant pour vivre que le travail de ses bras. 
 
 ' Torchut (Andre- Pierre), age de 70 ans, demeurant a 
 r Aiguille ; comme ses compagnons, il n'a d'autre ressource 
 que son travail. 
 
 ' Manequin (Fran9ois), age de 70 ans, demeurant au Gua; 
 mendiant son pain et presque aveugle. 
 
 ' Certes, il nous conviendrait peu d'implorer la reconnais- 
 sance publique pour ces six marins ; nous croyons suffisant 
 de les nommer. Qu'on nous permette seulement un mot : 
 
378 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 Sous la restauration, un navire fut expedie jusque dans 
 r Ocean- Pacifi que pour decouvrir sur le lointains recifs les 
 traces du naufrage de la Peyrouse, et ce fut a grands frais que 
 Ton en reunit quelques debris en bois, en fer, en cuivre et en 
 plomb, religieusement conserves dans nos musees. Aujourd'- 
 hui, c'est sur notre plage meme que gisent, ensevelis dans la 
 misere et dans Tobscurite, des debris vivans du naufrage 
 heroique du Vengeur ; la France et le gouvernement de Juillet 
 pourraient-ils n'etre point jaloux d'acquitter la dette nationale 
 envers ces dernieres reliques du patriotisme inspire par notre 
 grande revolution? — Chronique Universelle.' 
 
 The publication of this Paper in Fraser*s Maga- 
 zine gave rise to a certain effervescence of prose and 
 verse, patriotic-objurgatory, in several of the French 
 Journals, Rdvue Briiannique, National, Journal du Peuple, 
 &c. ; the result of v^hich, threatening to prove mere 
 zero otherwise, v^as that ' M. A. Jal, Historiographer of 
 the French Navy,' did candidly, in the Number of the 
 Revue Briiannique for October 1839, print, from the 
 Naval Archives of France, the original Despatch of Cap- 
 tain Renaudin to his own Government; the full official 
 Narrative of that battle and catastrophe, as drawn up by 
 Renaudin himself, and the surviving officers of the Ven- 
 geur ; dated Tavistock, 1 Messidor, An II,* and bearing 
 his and eight other signatures ; — whereby the statement 
 of Admiral Griffiths, if it needed confirmation, is curiously 
 and even minutely confirmed in every essential particu- 
 lar, and the story of the Vengeur is at length put to rest 
 forever. 
 
 In that objurgatory efifervescence, — which was bound 
 
 * Twenty days before that final sublime Report of Barrere's. 
 
SINKING OF THE VENGEUR. 
 
 379 
 
 by the nature of it either to cease effervescing, and hold 
 its peace, or else to produce some articulate testimony 
 of a living man who saw, or of a dead man who had said 
 he saw, the Vengeur sink otherwise than this living 
 Admiral Griffiths saw it, or than a brave ship usually 
 sinks after brave battle, — the one noticeable vestige of 
 new or old evidence was some dubious traditionary re- 
 ference to the Morning Chronicle of the 16th June; or, 
 as the French traditionary referee turned out to have 
 named it, * le Journal Le Morning du IQ Juin' Fol- 
 lowing this faint vestige, additional microscopic re- 
 searches in the Morning Chronicle of the 16th June and 
 elsewhere did, at last, disclose to me what seemed the 
 probable genesis and origin of Barr^re*s Fable ; how it 
 first suggested itself to his mind, and gathered shape 
 there, and courage to publish itself : the discovery, un- 
 important to all other things and men, is not of much 
 importance even to our criticism of Barrere ; altering 
 somewhat one's estimate of the ratio his poetic faculty 
 may have borne to his mendacity in this business, but 
 leaving the joint -product of the two very much what it 
 was in spiritual value; — a discovery not worth com- 
 municating. The thing a Lie wants, and solicits from 
 all men, is not a correct natural-history of it, but the 
 swiftest possible extinction of it, followed by entire silence 
 concerning it. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE TALE.* 
 
 BY GOETHE. 
 [1832.] 
 
 That Goethe, many years ago, wrote a piece named Das 
 M'dhrchen (The Tale) ; which the admiring critics of Ger- 
 many contrived to criticise by a stroke of the pen ; declar- 
 ing that it was indeed The Tale, and worthy to be called 
 the Tale of Tales {das M'dhrchen aller M'dhrchen), — may 
 appear certain to most English readers, for they have re- 
 peatedly seen as much in print. To some English readers 
 it may appear certain, furthermore, that they personally 
 know this Tale of Tales ; and can even pronounce it to 
 deserve no such epithet, and the admiring critics of Ger- 
 many to be little other than blockheads. 
 
 English readers ! the first certainty is altogether indu- 
 bitable ; the second certainty is not worth a rush. 
 
 That same M'dhrchen aller M'dhrchen you may see with 
 your own eyes, at this hour, in the Fifteenth Volume of 
 Goethe^ s Werke ; and seeing is believing. On the other 
 hand, that English ^ Tale of Tales,^ put forth some years 
 ago as the Translation thereof, by an individual connected 
 with the Periodical Press of London (his Periodical vehicle, 
 if we remember, broke down soon after, and was rebuilt, 
 
 * Eraser's Magazine, No. 33. 
 
384 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 and still runs, under the name of Court Journal), — was a 
 Translation, miserable enough, of a quite different thing ; 
 a thing, not a M'dhrchen (Fabulous Tale) at all, but, an 
 Erz'dhlung or common fictitious Narrative ; having no 
 manner of relation to the real piece (beyond standing in 
 the same Volume) ; not so much as Milton's Tetrachordon 
 of Divorce has to his Allegro and Penseroso ! In this way 
 do individuals connected with the Periodical Press of Lon- 
 don play their part, and commodiously befool thee, O 
 Public of English readers, and can serve thee with a mass 
 of roasted grass, and name it stewed venison ; and will 
 continue to do so, till thou — open thy eyes, and from a 
 blind monster become a seeing one. 
 
 This mistake we did not publicly note at the time of 
 its occurrence ; for two good reasons : first, that while 
 mistakes are increasing, like Population, at the rate of 
 Twelve Hundred a-day, the benefit of seizing one, and 
 throttling it, would be perfectly inconsiderable : second, 
 that we were not then in existence. The highly composite, 
 astonishing Entity, which here as ^ O. Y.' addresses man- 
 kind for a season, still slumbered (his elements scattered 
 over Infinitude, and working under other shapes) in the 
 womb of Nothing ! Meditate on us a little, O reader : if 
 thou wilt consider who and what we are ; what Powers, 
 of Cash, Esurience, Intelligence, Stupidity, and Mystery 
 created us, and what work we do and will do, there shall 
 be no end to thy amazement. 
 
 This mistake, however, we do now note ; induced 
 thereto by occasion. By the fact, namely, that a genuine 
 English Translation of that M'dhrchen has been handed 
 in to us for judgment ; and now (such judgment having 
 proved merciful) comes out from us in the way of publica- 
 tion. Of the Translation we cannot say much ; by the 
 colour of the paper, it may be some seven years old, and 
 have lain perhaps in smoky repositories : it is not a good 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 385 
 
 Translation ; yet also not wholly bad ; faithful to the ori- 
 ginal (as we can vouch, after strict trial) ; conveys the real 
 meaning, though with an effort : here and there our pen 
 has striven to help it, but could not do much. The poor 
 Translator, who signs himself ' D. T.,' and affects to carry 
 matters with a high hand, though, as we have ground to 
 surmise, he is probably in straits for the necessaries of life, 
 — has, at a more recent date, appended numerous Notes 
 wherein he will convince himself that more meaning lies 
 in his M'dhrchen ' than in all the Literature of our century f 
 some of these we have retained, now and then with an 
 explanatory or exculpatory word of our own ; the most 
 we have cut away, as superfluous and even absurd. Super- 
 fluous and even absurd, we say : D. T. can take this of us 
 as he likes ; we know him, and what is in him, and what 
 is not in him ; believe that he will prove reasonable ; can 
 do either way. At all events, let one of the notablest 
 Performances produced for the last thousand years, be 
 now, through his organs (since no other, in this elapsed 
 half-century, have offered themselves), set before an un- 
 discerning public. 
 
 We too will premise our conviction that this M'dhrchen 
 presents a phantasmagoric Adumbration, pregnant with 
 deepest significance ; though nowise that D. T. has so 
 accurately evolved the same. Listen notwithstanding to a 
 remark or two, extracted from his immeasurable Proem : 
 
 ' Dull men of this country,^ says he, ' who pretend to 
 ^ admire Goethe, smiled on me when I first asked the mean- 
 
 * ing of this Tale. " Meaning answered they : it is a 
 ' wild arabesque, without meaning or purpose at all, except 
 ' to dash together, copiously enough, confused hues of Ima- 
 ' gination, and see what will come of them.^^ Such is still 
 
 * the persuasion of several heads ; which nevertheless would 
 ' perhaps grudge to be considered wigblocks.^ — Not impos- 
 sible : the first Sin in our Universe was Lucifer's, that 
 
 VOL. v. s 
 
386 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 of Self-conceit. But hear again ; what is more to the 
 point : 
 
 ^ The difficulties of interpretation are exceedingly en- 
 ^ hanced by one circumstance, not unusual in other such 
 ' writings of Goethe's ; namely, that this is no Allegory 
 ^ which, as in the Pilgrim^s Progress, you have only once 
 ' for all to find the key of, and so go on unlocking : it is a 
 ^ Phantasmagory, rather ; wherein things the most hetero- 
 ^ geneous are, with homogeneity of figure, emblemed forth ; 
 ^ which would require not one key to unlock it, but, at diffe- 
 
 * rent stages of the business, a dozen successive keys. Here 
 ^ you have Epochs of Time shadowed forth, there Qualities of 
 ' the Human Soul 5 now it is Institutions, Historical Events, 
 ^ now Doctrines, Philosophic Truths : thus are all manner 
 ^ of entities and quiddities and ghosts of defunct bodies'' 
 ^ set flying ; you have the whole Four Elements chaotico- 
 ^ creativelyjumbled together, and spirits enough embodying 
 ^ themselves, and roguishly peering through, in the confused 
 ^ wild-working mass » * * * 
 
 ^ So much, however, I will stake my whole money- 
 ' capital and literary character upon ; that here is a wonder- 
 ^ ful Emblem of Universal History set forth ; more 
 ' especially a wonderful Emblem of this our wonderful and 
 
 * woful ^^Age of Transition;" what men have been and 
 
 * done, what they are to be and do, is, in this Tale of Tales, 
 ^ poetico-prophetically typified, in such a style of grandeur 
 ' and celestial brilliancy and life, as the Western Imagi- 
 ^ nation has not elsewhere reached ; as only the Oriental 
 ' Imagination, and in the primeval ages, was wont to at- 
 ^ tempt.' — Here surely is good wine, with a big bush! 
 Study the Tale of Tales, O reader : even in the bald ver- 
 sion of D. T., there will be meaning found. He continues 
 in this triumphant style : 
 
 ^ Can any mortal head (not a wigblock) doubt that the 
 
 * Giant of this Poem means Superstition ? That the 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 387 
 
 ^ Ferryman has something to do with the Priesthood ; 
 ^ his Hut with the Church ? 
 
 ' Again, might it not be presumed that the River were 
 ' Time ; and that it flowed (as Time does) between two 
 ' worlds ? Call the world, or country on this side, where 
 ' the fair Lily dwells, the world of Supernaturalism ; 
 ^ the country on that side. Naturalism, the working 
 ^ week-day world where we all dwell and toil : whosoever 
 ' or whatsoever introduces itself, and appears, in the firm- 
 ' earth of human business, or as we well say, comes into 
 ' Existence, must proceed from Lily's supernatural coun- 
 ^ try ; whatsoever of a material sort deceases and dis- 
 ' appears might be expected to go thither. Let the reader 
 ' consider this, and note what comes of it. 
 
 ' To get a free solid communication established over 
 ^ this same wondrous River of Time, so that the Natural 
 ^ and Supernatural may stand in friendliest neighbour- 
 ' hood and union, forms the grand action of this Phantas- 
 
 * magoric Poem : is not such also, let me ask thee, the 
 
 * grand action and summary of Universal History ; the 
 ' one problem of Human Culture ; the thing which Man- 
 
 * kind (once the three daily meals of victual were mode- 
 ' rately secured) has ever striven after, and must ever 
 ' strive after? — Alas ! we observe very soon, matters stand 
 
 * on a most distressful footing, in this of Natural and 
 ' Supernatural : there are three conveyances across, and 
 ' all bad, all incidental, temporary, uncertain : the worst 
 ' of the three, one would think, and the worst conceivable, 
 ' were the Giant's Shadow, at sunrise and sunset ; the best 
 ^ that Snake-bridge at noon, yet still only a bad-best. 
 ' Consider again our trustless, rotten, revolutionary age 
 ' of transition,'' and see whether this too does not fit it ! 
 
 ' If you ask next. Who these other strange characters 
 
 * are, the Snake, the Will-o'-wisps, the Man with the 
 ' Lamp ? I will answer, in general and afar off, that 
 
388 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' Light must signify human Insight, Cultivation, in one 
 ' sort or other. As for the Snake, I know not well what 
 ' name to call it by ; nay perhaps, in our scanty vocabu- 
 ' laries, there is no name for it, though that does not hinder 
 ^ its being a thing, genuine enough. Meditation; Intel- 
 ' lectual Research ; Understanding ; in the most general 
 ' acceptation, Thought : all these come near designating 
 ' it ; none actually designates it. Were I bound, under 
 ^ legal penalties, to give the creature a name, I should say, 
 ^ Thought rather than another. 
 
 ' But what if our Snake, and so much else that works 
 ^ here beside it, were neither a quality, nor a reality ^ nor a 
 ' state, nor an action, in any kind ; none of these things 
 ^ purely and alone, but something intermediate and par- 
 ^ taking of them all ! In which case, to name it, in vulgar 
 ^ speech, were a still more frantic attempt : it is unname- 
 ^ able in speech ; and remains only the allegorical Figure 
 ' known in this Tale by the name of Snake, and more or 
 ^ less resembling and shadowing forth somewhat that speech 
 ' has named, or might name. It is this heterogeneity of 
 ' nature, pitching your solidest Predicables heels overhead, 
 ^ throwing you half a dozen Categories into the melting- 
 ^ pot at once, — that so unspeakably bewilders a Com- 
 ' mentator, and for moments is nigh reducing him to 
 ^ delirium saltans. 
 
 ' The Will-o'-wisps, that laugh and jig, and compli- 
 ' ment the ladies, and eat gold and shake it from them, 
 ' I for my own share take the liberty of viewing as some 
 * shadow of Elegant Culture, or modern Fine Litera- 
 ^ ture ; which by and by became so sceptical-destructive ; 
 ^ and did, as French Philosophy, eat Gold (or Wisdom) 
 ^ enough, and shake it out again. In which sense, their 
 ^ coming (into Existence) by the old Ferryman's (by the 
 ^ Priesthood's) assistance, and almost oversetting his boat, 
 ' and then laughing at him, and trying to skip off from 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 389 
 
 ^ him, yet being obliged to stop till they had satisfied him : 
 ^ all this, to the discerning eye, has its significance. 
 
 ' As to the Man with the Lamp, in him and his gold- 
 ^ ^it7'/2^, jewel-forming, and otherwise so miraculous Light, 
 
 * which casts no shadow,^^ and " cannot illuminate what 
 ^ is wholly otherwise in darkness,' ' — I see what you might 
 ^ name the celestial Reason of Man (Reason as contrasted 
 ' with Understanding, and superordinated to it), the purest 
 ' essence of his seeing Faculty ; which manifests itself as 
 
 * the Spirit of Poetry, of Prophecy, or whatever else of 
 
 * highest in the intellectual sort man's mind can do. We 
 ' behold this respectable, venerable Lamp-bearer every- 
 
 * where present in time of need ; directing, accomplish- 
 ^ ing, working, wonder-working, finally victorious; — as, 
 ^ in strict reality, it is ever (if we will study it) the Poetic 
 ^ Vision that lies at the bottom of all other Knowledge or 
 ' Action ; and is the source and creative fountain of what- 
 ' soever mortals ken or can^ and mystically and miracu- 
 ^ lously guides them forward whither they are to go. Be 
 
 * the Man with the Lamp, then, named Reason ; man- 
 ^ kind's noblest inspired Insight and Light \ whereof all 
 ^ the other lights are but effluences, and more or less dis- 
 
 * coloured emanations. 
 
 ^ His Wife, poor old woman, we shall call Practical 
 ' Endeavour ; which as married to Reason, to spiritual 
 ^ Vision and Belief, first makes up man's being here below. 
 ' Unhappily the ancient couple, we find, are but in a 
 ' decayed condition : the better emblems are they of Rea- 
 ^ son and Endeavour in this our " transitionary age !" 
 ' The Man presents himself in the garb of a peasant, the 
 
 * Woman has grown old, garrulous, querulous \ both live 
 ^ nevertheless in their " ancient cottage," better or worse, 
 
 * the roof-tree of which still holds together over them. 
 ^ And then those mischievous Will-o'-wisps, who pay the 
 ^ old lady such court, and eat all the old gold (all that 
 
390 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ^ was wise and beautiful and desirable) off her walls ; and 
 ^ shew the old stones, quite ugly and bare, as they had 
 ' not been for ages ! Besides they have killed poor Mops, 
 ' the plaything, and joy and fondling of the house; — as 
 ' has not that same Elegant Culture, or French Philo- 
 ' sophy done, wheresoever it has arrived? Mark, not- 
 
 * withstanding, how the Man with the Lamp puts it all 
 ' right again, reconciles everything, and makes the finest 
 ' business out of what seemed the worst. 
 
 ^ With regard to the Four Kings, and the Temple 
 ' which lies fashioned underground, please to consider all 
 ' this as the Future lying prepared and certain under the 
 ' Present : you observe, not only inspired Reason (or the 
 ^ Man with the Lamp) but scientific Thought (or the Snake) 
 ^ can discern it lying there : nevertheless much work must 
 
 * be done, innumerable difficulties fronted and conquered, 
 ' before it can rise out of the depths (of the Future), and 
 ' realise itself as the actual worshipping-place of man, and 
 ' the most frequented Temple in the whole Earth.^' 
 
 ' As for the fair Lily and her ambulatory necessitous 
 
 * Prince, these are objects that I shall admit myself inca- 
 ' pable of naming : yet nowise admit myself incapable of 
 ' attaching meaning to. Consider them as the two dis- 
 ' jointed Halves of this singular Dualistic Being of ours ; 
 ' a Being, I must say, the most utterly Dualistic ,* fashioned, 
 ' from the very heart of it, out of Positive and Negative 
 ^ (what we happily call Light and Darkness, Necessity and 
 ' Freewill, Good and Evil, and the like) ; everywhere out 
 ' of two mortally opposed things, which yet must be united 
 ' in vital love, if there is to be any Life; — a Being, I 
 ' repeat, Dualistic beyond expressing ; which will split in 
 ' two, strike it in any direction, on any of its six sides ; 
 
 ' and does of itself split in two (into Contradiction), every 
 ' hour of the day, — were not Life perpetually there, per- 
 ' petually knitting it together again ! But as to that 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 391 
 
 cutting up, and parcelling, and labelling of the indi- 
 visible Human Soul into what are called " Faculties," 
 it is a thing I have from of old eschewed, and even 
 hated. A thing which you must sometimes do (or you 
 cannot speak) ; yet which is never done without Error 
 hovering near you ; for most part, without her pouncing 
 on you, and quite blindfolding you. 
 
 ^ Let not us, therefore, in looking at Lily and her 
 Prince be tempted to that practice : why should we try 
 to name them at all ? Enough, if we do feel that man's 
 whole Being is riven asunder every way (in this " tran- 
 sitionary age''), and yawning in hostile, irreconcilable 
 contradiction with itself: what good were it to know 
 farther in what direction the rift (as our Poet here pleased 
 to represent it) had taken effect ? Fancy, however, that 
 these two Halves of Man's Soul and Being are sepa- 
 rated, in pain and enchanted obstruction, from one an- 
 other. The better, fairer Half sits in the Supernatural 
 country, deadening and killing ; alas, not permitted to 
 come across into the Natural visible country, and there 
 make all blessed and alive ! The rugged stronger Half, 
 in such separation, is quite lamed and paralytic; wretched, 
 forlorn, in a state of death-life, must he wander to and 
 fro over the River of Time ; all that is dear and essential 
 to him, imprisoned there ; which if he look at, he grows 
 still weaker, which if he touch, he dies. Poor Prince ! 
 And let the judicious reader, who has read the Era he 
 lives in, or even spelt the alphabet thereof, say whether, 
 with the paralytic-lamed Activity of man (hampered 
 and hamstrung in a transitionary age" of Scepticism, 
 Methodism ; atheistic Sarcasm, hysteric Orgasm ; brazen- 
 faced Delusion, Puffery, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and the 
 whole Bill and nothing but the Bill), it is not even so ? 
 Must not poor man's Activity (like this poor Prince) 
 wander from Natural to Supernatural, and back again. 
 
392 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ' disconsolate enough ; unable to do anything, except 
 ' merely wring its hands, and, whimpering and blubber- 
 ' ing, lamentably inquire : What shall I do ? 
 
 ' But Courage ! Courage ! The Temple is built (though 
 ' underground) ; the Bridge shall arch itself, the divided 
 ' Two shall clasp each other as flames do, rushing into one ; 
 ' and all that ends well shall be well ! Mark only how, 
 ' in this inimitable Poem, worthy of an Olympic crown, 
 ^ or prize of the Literary Society, it is represented as 
 ' proceeding !^ 
 
 So far D. T. ; a commentator who at least does not 
 want confidence in himself ; whom we shall only caution 
 not to be too confident ; to remember always that, as he 
 once says, ' Phantasmagory is not Allegory that much 
 exists, under our very noses, which has no ^ name/ and 
 can get none ; that the ' River of Time ^ and so forth may 
 be one thing, or more than one, or none ; that, in short, 
 there is risk of the too valiant D. T.'s bamboozling him- 
 self in this matter ; being led from puddle to pool ; and so 
 left standing at last, like a foolish mystified nose-of-wax, 
 wondering where the devil he is. 
 
 To the simpler sort of readers we shall also extend an 
 advice ; or be it rather, profier a petition. It is to fancy 
 themselves, for the time being, delivered altogether from 
 D. T.^s company ; and to read this M'dhrchen, as if it 
 were there only for its own sake, and those tag-rag Notes 
 of his were so much blank paper. Let the simpler sort 
 of readers say now how they like it ! If unhappily, on 
 looking back, some spasm of ^ the malady of thought^ 
 begin afflicting them, let such Notes be then inquired of, 
 but not till then, and then also with distrust. Pin thy 
 faith to no man's sleeve ; hast thou not two eyes of thy 
 own? 
 
 The Commentator himself cannot, it is to be hoped, 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 393 
 
 imagine that he has exhausted the matter. To decipher 
 and represent the genesis of this extraordinary Production, 
 and what was the Author's state of mind in producing it ; 
 to see, with dim common eyes, what the great Goethe, 
 with inspired poetic eyes, then saw ; and paint to oneself 
 the thick-coming shapes and many-coloured splendours of 
 his ' Prosperous Grotto/ at that hour : this were what we 
 could call complete criticism and commentary ; what D. T. 
 is far from having done, and ought to fall on his face, and 
 confess that he can never do. 
 
 We shall conclude with remarking two things. First, 
 that D. T. does not appear to have set eye on any of those 
 German Commentaries on this Tale of Tales ; or even to 
 have heard, credently, that such exist : an omission, in a 
 professed Translator, which he himself may answer for. 
 Secondly, that with all his boundless preluding, he has 
 forgotten to insert the Author's own prelude ; the passage, 
 namely, by which this M'dhrchen is specially ushered in, 
 and the key-note of it struck by the Composer himself, 
 and the tone of the whole prescribed ! This latter alto- 
 gether glaring omission we now charitably supply ; and 
 then let D. T., and his illustrious Original, and the Read- 
 ers of this Magazine take it among them. Turn to the 
 latter part of the Deutschen Ausgewanderten (page 208, 
 Volume XV. of the last Edition of Goethe's Weinke) ; it is 
 written there, as we render it : 
 
 ' " The Imagination,^' said Karl, " is a fine faculty ; 
 ' yet I like not when she works on what has actually hap- 
 
 * pened : the airy forms she creates are welcome as things 
 ' of their own kind ; but uniting with Truth she produces 
 ' oftenest nothing but monsters ; and seems to me, in such 
 
 * cases, to fly into direct variance with Reason and Com- 
 ' mon Sense. She ought, you might say, to hang upon no 
 ^ object, to force no object on us ; she must, if she is to 
 ' produce Works of Art, play like a sort of music upon us ; 
 
 s 2 
 
394 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ^ move us within ourselves, and this in such a way that we 
 ' forget there is anything without us producing the move- 
 ' ment/^ 
 
 ' Proceed no farther/^ said the old man, with your 
 ^ conditionings ! To enjoy a product of Imagination this 
 ' also is a condition, that we enjoy it unconditionally ; for 
 ' Imagination herself cannot condition and bargain ; she 
 ' must wait what shall be given her. She forms no plans, 
 ' prescribes for herself no path ; but is borne and guided 
 ^ by her own pinions ; and hovering hither and thither, 
 ' marks out the strangest courses ; which in their direction 
 ' are ever altering. Let me but, on my evening walk, call 
 ' up again to life within me, some wondrous figures I was 
 ' wont to play with in earlier years. This night I promise 
 ' you a Tale, which shall remind you of Nothing and of 
 ' All.' 
 
 And now for it. 
 
 O. Y. 
 
 THE TALE. 
 
 In his little Hut, by the great River, which a heavy 
 rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the ancient Ferryman, 
 asleep, wearied by the toil of the day. In the middle of 
 the night,* loud voices awoke him ; he heard that it was 
 travellers wishing to be carried over. 
 
 * In the middle of the night truly ! In the middle of the Dark 
 Ages, when what with Mahomedan Conquests, what with Christian 
 Crusadings, Destructions of Constantinople, Discoveries of Ame- 
 rica, the Time -River was indeed swoln to overflowing ; and the 
 Ignes Fatui (of Elegant Culture, of Literature,) must needs feel in 
 haste to get over into Existence, being much wanted ; and apply 
 to the Priesthood (respectable old Ferryman, roused out of sleep 
 thereby!), who willingly introduced them, mischievous ungrateful 
 imps as they were. — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 395 
 
 Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps, hovering 
 to and fro on his boat, which lay moored ; they said, they 
 were in violent haste, and should have been already on 
 the other side. The old Ferryman made no loitering ; 
 pushed off, and steered with his usual skill obliquely 
 through the stream ; while the two strangers whiffled and 
 hissed together, in an unknown very rapid tongue, and 
 every now and then broke out in loud laughter, hopping 
 about, at one time on the gunwale and the seats, at another 
 on the bottom of the boat. 
 
 The boat is heeling !" cried the old man ; ^' if you 
 don't be quiet, it will overset ; be seated, gentlemen of the 
 wisp 
 
 At this advice they burst into a fit of laughter, mocked 
 the old man, and were more unquiet than ever. He bore 
 their mischief with patience, and soon reached the farther 
 shore. 
 
 Here is for your labour cried the travellers, and as 
 they shook themselves, a heap of glittering gold-pieces 
 jingled down into the wet boat. " For Heaven's sake, 
 what are you about cried the old man ; you will ruin 
 me forever ! Had a single piece of gold got into the 
 water, the stream, which cannot suffer gold, would have 
 risen in horrid waves, and swallowed both my skiff and 
 me ; and who knows how it might have fared with you 
 in that case : here, take back your gold.'' 
 
 " We can take nothing back, which we have once 
 shaken from us," said the Lights. 
 
 " Then you give me the trouble," said the old man, 
 stooping down, and gathering the pieces into his cap, 
 of raking them together, and carrying them ashore, and 
 burying them." 
 
 The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the old man 
 cried : " Stay ; where is my fare ?" 
 
 " If you take no gold, you may work for nothing," 
 cried the Will-o' -Wisps. — " You must know that I am only 
 
396 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 to be paid with fruits of the earth/' — " Fruits of the earth ? 
 we despise them, and have never tasted them/' — And 
 yet I cannot let you go, till you have promised that you 
 will deliver me three Cabbages, three Artichokes, and three 
 large Onions/' 
 
 The Lights were making off with jests ; but they felt 
 themselves, in some inexplicable manner, fastened to the 
 ground : it was the unpleasantest feeling they had ever 
 had. They engaged to pay him his demand as soon as 
 possible : he let them go, and pushed away. He was gone 
 a good distance, when they called to him : Old man ! 
 Holla, old man ! the main point is forgotten !"* He was 
 off, however, and did not hear them. He had fallen quietly 
 down that side of the River, where, in a rocky spot, which 
 the water never reached, he meant to bury the pernicious 
 gold. Here, between two high crags, he found a mon- 
 strous chasm ; shook the metal into it, and steered back 
 to his cottage. 
 
 Now, in this chasm lay the fair green Snake, who was 
 roused from her sleep by the gold coming chinking down.f 
 No sooner did she fix her eye on the glittering coins, than 
 she ate them all up, with the greatest relish, on the spot ; 
 and carefully picked out such pieces as were scattered in 
 the chinks of the rock. 
 
 Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, with extreme 
 delight, she began to feel the metal melting in her inwards, 
 and spreading all over her body ; and soon, to her lively 
 joy, she observed that she was grown transparent and lu- 
 minous. Long ago she had been told that this was pos- 
 
 * What could this be ? To ask whither their next road lay ? 
 It was useless to ask there : the respectable old Priesthood * did 
 not hear them/ — D. T. 
 
 t Thought, Understanding, roused from her long sleep by 
 the first produce of modern Belles Lettres ; which she eagerly de- 
 vours. — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 397 
 
 sible ; but now being doubtful whether such a light could 
 last, her curiosity and the desire to be secure against the 
 future, drove her from her cell, that she might see who it 
 was that had shaken in this precious metal. She found no 
 one. ' The more delightful was it to admire her own ap- 
 pearance, and her graceful brightness, as she crawled along 
 through roots and bushes, and spread out her light among 
 the grass. Every leaf seemed of emerald, every flower 
 was dyed with new glory. It was in vain that she crossed 
 the solitary thickets ; but her hopes rose high, when, on 
 reaching the open country, she perceived from afar a bril- 
 liancy resembling her own. " Shall I find my like at last, 
 then cried she, and hastened to the spot. The toil of 
 crawling through bog and reeds gave her little thought ; 
 for though she liked best to live in dry grassy spots of the 
 mountains, among the clefts of rocks, and for most part 
 fed on spicy herbs, and slaked her thirst with mild dew 
 and fresh spring- water, yet for the sake of this dear gold, 
 and in the hope of this glorious light, she would have un- 
 dertaken anything you could propose to her. 
 
 At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wet rushy 
 spot in the swamp, where our two Will-o'-wisps were 
 frisking to and fro. She shoved herself along to them ; 
 saluted them, was happy to meet such pleasant gentlemen 
 related to her family. The Lights glided towards her, 
 skipped up over her, and laughed in their fashion. ^' Lady 
 Cousin,^' said they, ^' you are of the horizontal line, yet 
 what of that ? It is true we are related only by the look ; 
 for observe you,'' here both the Flames, compressing their 
 whole breadth, made themselves as high and peaked as 
 possible, " how prettily this taper length beseems us gen- 
 tlemen of the vertical line ! Take it not amiss of us, good 
 Lady ; what family can boast of such a thing ? Since 
 there ever was a Jack-o'-lantern in the world, no one of 
 them has either sat or lain." 
 
398 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable in the com- 
 pany of these relations ; for let her hold her head as high 
 as possible, she found that she must bend it to the earth 
 again, would she stir from the spot ; * and if in the dark 
 thicket she had been extremely satisfied with her appear- 
 ance, her splendour in the presence of these cousins seemed 
 to lessen every moment, nay she was afraid that at last it 
 would go out entirely. 
 
 In this embarrassment she hastily asked : If the gentle- 
 men could not inform her, whence the glittering gold came, 
 that had fallen a short while ago into the cleft of the rock ; 
 her own opinion was, that it had been a golden shower, 
 and had trickled down direct from the sky. The Will-o'- 
 wisps laughed, and shook themselves, and a multitude of 
 gold-pieces came clinking down about them. The Snake 
 pushed nimbly forwards to eat the coin. Much good 
 may it do you. Mistress,^' said the dapper gentlemen : 
 ^* we can help you to a little more.'' They shook them- 
 selves again several times with great quickness, so that the 
 snake could scarcely gulp the precious victuals fast enough. 
 Her splendour visibly began increasing ; she was really 
 shining beautifully, while the Lights had in the meantime 
 grown rather lean and short of stature, without however 
 in the smallest losing their good-humour. 
 
 I am obliged to you forever,'' said the Snake, having 
 got her wind again after the repast, " ask of me what you 
 will ; all that I can I will do." 
 
 Very good !" cried the Lights. " Then tell us where 
 the fair Lily dwells ? Lead us to the fair Lily's palace and 
 
 * True enough : Thought cannot fly and dance, as your wild- 
 fire of Belles Lettres may ; she proceeds in the systole -diastole, 
 up-and-down method ; and must ever ' bend her head to the earth 
 again ' (in the way of Baconian Experiment), or she will not stir 
 from the spot.— D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 399 
 
 garden ; and do not lose a moment, we are dying of im- 
 patience to fall down at her feet/^ 
 
 This service/' said the Snake with a deep sigh, " I 
 cannot now do for you. The fair Lily dwells, alas, on the 
 other side of the water.^' — " Other side of the water ? 
 And we have come across it, this stormy night! How 
 cruel is the River to divide us ! Would it not be possible 
 to call the old man back V 
 
 It would be useless,'' said the Snake ; " for if you 
 found him ready on the bank, he would not take you in ; 
 he can carry any one to this side, none to yonder." 
 
 " Here is a pretty kettle of fish !" cried the Lights : 
 are there no other means of getting through the water ?" 
 — ''There are other means, but not at this moment. I 
 myself could take you over, gentlemen, but not till noon." 
 — That is an hour we do not like to travel in." — " Then 
 you may go across in the evening, on the great Giant's 
 shadow." — How is that ?" — " The great Giant lives not 
 far from this ; with his body he has no power ; his hands 
 cannot lift a straw, his shoulders could not bear a faggot 
 of twigs ; but with his shadow he has power over much, 
 nay all.* At sunrise and sunset therefore he is strongest; 
 so at evening you merely put yourself upon the back of 
 his shadow, the Giant walks softly to the bank, and the 
 shadow carries you across the water. But if you please, 
 about the hour of noon, to be in waiting at that corner of 
 the wood, where the bushes overhang the bank, I myself 
 will take you over and present you to the fair Lily : or on 
 the other hand, if you dislike the noontide, you have just 
 to go at nightfall to that bend of the rocks, and pay a visit 
 to the Giant ; he will certainly receive you like a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 * Is not Superstition strongest when the sun is low ? with 
 body, powerless ; with shadow, omnipotent ? — D. T. 
 
400 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 With a slight bow, the Flames went of ; and the Snake 
 at bottom was not discontented to get rid of them ; partly 
 that she might enjoy the brightness of her own light, partly 
 satisfy a curiosity with which, for a long time, she had 
 been agitated in a singular way. 
 
 In the chasm, where she often crawled hither and 
 thither, she had made a strange discovery. For although 
 in creeping up and down this abyss, she had never had a 
 ray of light, she could well enough discriminate the objects 
 in it, by her sense of touch. Generally she met with no- 
 thing but irregular productions of Nature ; at one time she 
 would wind between the teeth of large crystals, at another 
 she would feel the barbs and hairs of native silver, and 
 now and then carry out with her to the light some strag- 
 gling jewels.* But to her no small wonder, in a rock 
 which was closed on every side, she had come on certain 
 objects which betrayed the shaping hand of man. Smooth 
 walls on which she could not climb, sharp regular corners, 
 well-formed pillars; and what seemed strangest of all, 
 human figures which she had entwined more than once, 
 and which appeared to her to be of brass, or of the finest 
 polished marble. All these experiences she now wished 
 to combine by the sense of sight, thereby to confirm what 
 as yet she only guessed. She believed she could illu- 
 minate the whole of that subterranean vault by her own 
 light ; and hoped to get acquainted with these curious 
 things at once. She hastened back ; and soon found, by 
 the usual way, the cleft by which she used to penetrate 
 the Sanctuary. 
 
 On reaching the place, she gazed around with eager 
 
 * Primitive employments, and attainments, of Thought, in 
 this dark den whither it is sent to dwell. For many long ages, it 
 discerns * nothing but irregular productions of Nature ; ' having 
 indeed to pick material bed and board out of Nature and her irre- 
 gular productions. — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 401 
 
 curiosity ; and though her shining could not enlighten 
 every object in the rotunda, yet those nearest her were plain 
 enough. With astonishment and reverence she looked up 
 into a glancing niche, where the image of an august King 
 stood formed of pure Gold. In size the figure was beyond 
 the stature of man, but by its shape it seemed the likeness 
 of a little rather than a tall person. His handsome body 
 was encircled with an unadorned mantle ; and a garland 
 of oak bound his hair together. 
 
 No sooner had the Snake beheld this reverend figure, 
 than the King began to speak, and asked : Whence 
 comest thou?^' — From the chasms where the gold 
 dwells,'' said the Snake. — " What is grander than gold 
 inquired the King. — Light,'' replied the Snake. — " What 
 is more refreshing than light?" said he. — Speech," 
 answered she. 
 
 During this conversation, she had squinted to a side, 
 and in the nearest niche perceived another glorious image. 
 It was a Silver King in a sitting posture ; his shape was 
 long and rather languid ; he was covered with a decorated 
 robe ; crown, girdle, and sceptre were adorned with pre- 
 cious stones : the cheerfulness of pride was in his coun- 
 tenance ; he seemed about to speak, when a vein which ran 
 dimly-coloured over the marble wall, on a sudden became 
 bright, and diffused a cheerful light throughout the whole 
 Temple. By this brilliancy the Snake perceived a third 
 King, made of Brass, and sitting mighty in shape, leaning 
 on his club, adorned with a laurel garland, and more like 
 a rock than a man. She was looking for the fourth, which 
 was standing at the greatest distance from her ; but the 
 wall opened, while the glittering vein started and split, as 
 lightning does, and disappeared. 
 
 A Man of middle stature, entering through the cleft, 
 attracted the attention of the Snake. He was dressed like 
 a peasant, and carried in his hand a little Lamp, on whose 
 
402 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 still flame you liked to look, and which in a strange man- 
 ner, without casting any shadow, enlightened the whole 
 dome.* 
 
 " Why comest thou, since we have light ? " said the 
 golden King. — " You know that I may not enlighten what 
 is dark/'t — Will my Kingdom end?^^ said the silver 
 King. — Late ornever,'^ said the old Man. 
 
 With a stronger voice the brazen King began to ask : 
 When shall I arise?'' — " Soon," replied the Man.— 
 With whom shall I combine said the King. — With 
 thy elder brothers,'' said the Man. — 'MVhat will the 
 youngest do ?" inquired the King. — " He will sit down," 
 replied the Man. 
 
 I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with a rough 
 faltering voice. J 
 
 While this speech was going on, the Snake had glided 
 softly round the temple, viewing everything ; she was now 
 looking at the fourth King close by him. He stood lean- 
 ing on a pillar ; his considerable form was heavy rather 
 than beautiful. But what metal it was made of could not 
 be determined. Closely inspected, it seemed a mixture of 
 the three metals which its brothers had been formed of. 
 But in the founding, these materials did not seem to have 
 combined together fully ; gold and silver veins ran irre- 
 
 * Poetic Light, celestial Reason ! — D. T. 
 
 Let the reader, in one word, attend well to these four Kings : 
 much annotation from D. T. is here necessarily swept out. — 
 O. Y. 
 
 t What is wholly dark. Understanding precedes Reason : 
 modern Science is come ; modern Poesy is still but coming, — 
 in Goethe (and whom else ?). — D. T. 
 
 X Consider these Kings as Eras of the World's History ; no, 
 not as Eras, but as Principles which jointly or severally rule Eras. 
 Alas, poor we, in this chaotic soft -soldered ^ transitionary age,' 
 are so unfortunate as to live under the Fourth King. — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 403 
 
 gularly through a brazen mass, and gave the figure an un- 
 pleasant aspect. 
 
 Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the Man, 
 How many secrets knowest thou?'^ — Three/' replied 
 the Man. — Which is the most important said the 
 silver King. — " The open one/' replied the other.* — Wilt 
 thou open it to us also said the brass King. — When 
 I know the fourth/' replied the Man.— What care I?" 
 grumbled the composite King, in an under tone. 
 
 " I know the fourth," said the Snake ; approached the 
 old Man, and hissed somewhat in his ear. " The time is 
 at hand ! " cried the old Man, with a strong voice. The 
 temple re-echoed, the metal statues sounded; and that 
 instant the old Man sank away to the westward, and the 
 Snake to the eastward ; and both of them passed through 
 the clefts of the rock, w^ith the greatest speed. 
 
 All the passages, through which the old Man travelled, 
 filled themselves, immediately behind him with gold ; for 
 his Lamp had the strange property of changing stone into 
 gold, wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, 
 and of annihilating all metals. But to display this power, 
 it must shine alone. If another light were beside it, the 
 Lamp only cast from it a pure clear brightness, and all 
 living things were refreshed by it.f 
 
 The old Man entered his cottage, which was built on 
 the slope of the hill. He found his Wife in extreme dis- 
 tress. She was sitting at the fire weeping, and refusing 
 to be consoled. How unhappy am I ! " cried she : Did 
 not I entreat thee not to go away to-night?" — " What 
 
 * Reader, hast thou any glimpse of the * open secret ? ' I 
 fear not. — D. T. Writer, art thou a goose? I fear, yes. — 
 O. Y. 
 
 f In Illuminated Ages, the Age of Miracles is said to cease ; 
 but it is only we that cease to see it, for we are still * refreshed 
 by it.'— D. T. 
 
404 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 is the matter, then?^' inquired the husband, quite com- 
 posed. 
 
 Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing, " when 
 there came two noisy Travellers to the door : unthinkingly 
 I let them in ; they seemed to be a couple of genteel, very 
 honourable people ; they were dressed in flames, you 
 would have taken them for Will-o' -wisps. But no sooner 
 were they in the house, than they began, like impudent 
 varlets, to compliment me,* and grew so forward that I 
 feel ashamed to think of it." 
 
 " No doubt," said the husband with a smile, the 
 gentlemen were jesting : considering thy age, they might 
 have held by general politeness." 
 
 " Age ! what age?" cried the Wife : " wilt thou always 
 be talking of my age ? How old am I then ? — General 
 politeness ! But I know what I know. Look round 
 there what a face the walls have ; look at the old stones, 
 which I have not seen these hundred years ; every film of 
 gold have they licked away, thou couldst not think how 
 fast; and still they kept assuring me that it tasted far 
 beyond common gold. Once they had swept the walls, 
 the fellows seemed to be in high spirits, and truly in that 
 little while they had grown much broader and brighter. 
 They now began to be impertinent again, they patted me, 
 and called me their queen, they shook themselves, and a 
 shower of gold pieces sprang from them ; see how they are 
 shining there under the bench ! But ah ! what misery ! 
 Poor Mops ate a coin or two ; and look, he is lying in the 
 chimney, dead. Poor Pug ! O well-a-day ! I did not 
 see it till they were gone ; else I had never promised to 
 
 * Poor old Practical Endeavour ! Listen to many an encyclo- 
 pedic Diderot, humanized Philosophey didactic singer, march-of- 
 intellect man, and other * impudent varlets ' (who would never put 
 their own finger to the work) ; and hear what * compliments ' 
 they uttered.— -D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 405 
 
 pay the Ferryman the debt they owe him.^^ — What do 
 they owe him?'' said the Man. — " Three Cabbages/' re- 
 plied the Wife, " three Artichokes, and three Onions : 
 I engaged to go when it was day, and take them to the 
 River." 
 
 " Thou mayest do them that civility," said the old Man ; 
 " they may chance to be of use to us again." 
 
 Whether they will be of use to us I know not ; but 
 they promised and vowed that they would." 
 
 Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt low ; the 
 old Man covered up the embers with a heap of ashes, and 
 put the glittering gold pieces aside ; so that his little Lamp 
 now gleamed alone, in the fairest brightness. The walls 
 again coated themselves with gold, and Mops changed into 
 the prettiest onyx that could be imagined. The alteration 
 of the brown and black in this precious stone made it the 
 most curious piece of workmanship. 
 
 " Take thy basket," said the Man, and put the onyx 
 into it ; then take the three Cabbages, the three Artichokes, 
 and the tliree Onions ; place them round little Mops, and 
 carry them to the River. At noon the Snake will take 
 thee over ; visit the fair Lily, give her the onyx, she will 
 make it alive by her touch, as by her touch she kills what- 
 ever is alive already. She will have a true companion in 
 the little dog. Tell her not to mourn ; her deliverance is 
 near ; the greatest misfortune she may look upon as the 
 greatest happiness ; for the time is at hand." 
 
 The old Woman filled her basket, and set out as soon 
 as it was day. The rising sun shone clear from the other 
 side of the River, which was glittering in the distance : 
 the old Woman walked with slow steps, for the basket 
 pressed upon her head, and it was not the onyx that so 
 burdened her. Whatever lifeless thing she might be carry- 
 ing, she did not feel the weight of it ; on the other hand, 
 in those cases the basket rose aloft, and hovered along 
 
406 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 above her head. But to carry any fresh herbage, or any 
 little living animal, she found exceedingly laborious.* She 
 had travelled on for some time, in a sullen humour, when 
 she halted suddenly in fright, for she had almost trod 
 upon the Giant's shadow, which was stretching towards 
 her across the plain. And now, lifting up her eyes, she 
 saw the monster of a Giant himself, who had been bathing 
 in the River, and was just come out,t and she knew not 
 how she should avoid him. The moment he perceived her, 
 he began saluting her in sport, and the hands of his shadow 
 soon caught hold of the basket. With dexterous ease they 
 picked away from it a Cabbage, an Artichoke, and an 
 Onion, and brought them to the Giant's mouth, who 
 then went his way up the River, and let the Woman go 
 in peace. 
 
 She considered whether it would not be better to re- 
 turn, and supply from her garden the pieces she had lost ; 
 and amid these doubts, she still kept walking on, so that 
 in a little while she was at the bank of the River. She sat 
 long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she perceived at 
 last, steering over with a very singular traveller. A young, 
 noble-looking, handsome man, whom she could not gaze 
 upon enough, stept out of the boat. 
 
 " What is it you bring?'' cried the old Man. — ^< The 
 greens which those two Will-o'-wisps owe you," said the 
 Woman, pointing to her ware. As the Ferryman found 
 only two of each sort, he grew angry, and declared he 
 
 * Why so ? Is it because with * lifeless things' (with inani- 
 mate machinery) all goes like clock-work, which it is, and * the 
 basket hovers aloft ; ' while with living things (were it but the 
 culture of forest-trees) poor Endeavour has more difficulty ? — 
 D. T. Or, is it chiefly because a Tale must be a Tale ? — O. Y. 
 
 f Very proper in the huge Loggerhead Superstition, to bathe 
 himself in the element of Time, and get refreshment thereby. — 
 D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 407 
 
 would have none of them. The Woman earnestly en- 
 treated him to take them ; told him that she could not 
 now go home, and that her burden for the way which still 
 remained was very heavy. He stood by his refusal, and 
 assured her that it did not rest with him. What belongs 
 to me/^ said he, I must leave lying nine hours in a heap, 
 touching none of it, till I have given the River its third. 
 After much higgling, the old man at last replied : There 
 is still another way. If you like to pledge yourself to the 
 River, and declare yourself its debtor, I will take the 
 six pieces ; but there is some risk in it.'^ — If I keep 
 my word, I shall run no risk?^' — Not the smallest. 
 Put your hand into the stream,'^ continued he, and 
 promise that within four-and-twenty hours you will pay 
 the debt.'' 
 
 The old Woman did so 5 but what was her affright, when 
 on drawing out her hand, she found it black as coal ! She 
 loudly scolded the old Ferryman ; declared that her hands 
 had always been the fairest part of her ; that in spite of her 
 hard work, she had all along contrived to keep these noble 
 members white and dainty. She looked at the hand with 
 indignation, and exclaimed in a des]3airing tone : Worse 
 and worse ! Look, it is vanishing entirely ; it is grown far 
 smaller than the other.'' * 
 
 " For the present it but seems so," said the old Man ; 
 " if you do not keep your word, however, it may prove so in 
 earnest. The hand will gradually diminish, and at length 
 disappear altogether, though you have the use of it as for- 
 merly. Every thing as usual you will be able to perform 
 with it, only nobody will see it." — I had rather that I 
 could not use it, and no one could observe the want," 
 
 * A dangerous thing to pledge yourself to the Time - River ; — as 
 many a National Debt, and the like, blackening, bewitching the 
 ' beautiful hand ' of Endeavour, can witness. — D.T. Heavens! 
 — O.Y. 
 
408 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 cried she : but what of that, I will keep my word, and 
 rid myself of this black skin, and all anxieties about it.'^ 
 Thereupon she hastily took up her basket, which mounted 
 of itself over her head, and hovered free above her in the 
 air, as she hurried after the Youth, who was walking softly 
 and thoughtfully down the bank. His noble form and 
 strange dress had made a deep impression on her. 
 
 His breast was covered with a glittering coat of mail ; 
 in whose wavings might be traced every motion of his fair 
 body. From his shoulders hung a purple cloak; around 
 his uncovered head flowed abundant brown hair in beautiful 
 locks : his graceful face, and his well-formed feet were ex- 
 posed to the scorching of the sun. With bare soles, he 
 walked composedly over the hot sand ; and a deep inward 
 sorrow seemed to blunt him against all external things. 
 
 The garrulous old Woman tried to lead him into con- 
 versation ; but with his short answers he gave her small 
 encouragement or information ; so that in the end, not- 
 withstanding the beauty of his eyes, she grew tired of 
 speaking with him to no purpose, and took leave of him 
 with these words : " You walk too slow for me, worthy sir ; 
 I must not lose a moment, for I have to pass the River on 
 the green Snake, and carry this fine present from my 
 husband to the fair Lily.^^ So saying she stept faster for- 
 ward ; but the fair Youth pushed on with equal speed, and 
 hastened to keep up with her. " You are going to the fair 
 Lily ! cried he ; then our roads are the same. But 
 what present is this you are bringing her ? 
 
 " Sir,^^ said the Woman, " it is hardly fair, after so 
 briefly dismissing the questions I put you, to inquire with 
 such vivacity about my secrets. But if you like to barter, 
 and tell me your adventures, I will not conceal from you 
 how it stands with me and my presents. They soon made a 
 bargain ; the dame disclosed her circumstances to him ; told 
 the history of the Pug, and let him see the singular gift. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 409 
 
 He lifted this natural curiosity from the basket, and 
 took Mops, who seemed as if sleeping softly, into his arms* 
 Happy beast ! " cried he ; thou wilt be touched by her 
 hands, thou wilt be made alive by her ; while the living 
 are obliged to fly from her presence to escape a mournful 
 doom. Yet why say I mournful? Is it not far sadder and 
 more frightful to be injured by her look, than it would be 
 to die by her hand ? Behold me," said he to the Woman ; 
 
 at my years, what a miserable fate have I to undergo. 
 This mail which I have honourably borne in war, this 
 purple which I sought to merit by a wise reign. Destiny 
 has left me ; the one as a useless burden, the other as an 
 empty ornament. Crown, and sceptre, and sword are 
 gone ; and I am as bare and needy as any other son of 
 earth ; for so unblessed are her bright eyes, that they take 
 from every living creature they look on all its force, and 
 those whom the touch of her hand does not kill are 
 changed to the state of shadows wandering alive.'' 
 
 Thus did he continue to bewail, nowise contenting the 
 old Woman's curiosity, who wished for information not so 
 much of his internal as of his external situation. She learned 
 neither the name of his father, nor of his kingdom. He 
 stroked the hard Mops, whom the sunbeams and the bosom 
 of the youth had warmed as if he had been living. He 
 inquired narrowly about the Man with the Lamp, about the 
 influences of the sacred light, appearing to expect much 
 good from it in his melancholy case. 
 
 Amid such conversation, they descried from afar the 
 majestic arch of the Bridge, which extended from the one 
 bank to the other, glittering with the strangest colours in 
 the splendours of the sun. Both were astonished ; for until 
 now they had never seen this edifice so grand. How !" 
 cried the Prince, was it not beautiful enough, as it stood 
 before our eyes, piled out of jasper and agate? Shall we 
 not fear to tread it, now that it appears combined, in grace- 
 
 VOL. V. T 
 
410 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 ful complexity of emerald and chrysopras and chrysolite 
 Neither of them knew the alteration that had taken place 
 upon the Snake : for it was indeed the Snake, who every 
 day at noon curved herself over the River, and stood forth 
 in the form of a bold-swelling bridge.* The travellers 
 stept upon it with a reverential feeling, and passed over it 
 in silence. 
 
 No sooner had they reached the other shore, than the 
 bridge began to heave and stir ; in a little while, it touched 
 the surface of the water, and the green Snake in her proper 
 form came gliding after the wanderers. They had scarcely 
 thanked her for the privilege of crossing on her back, when 
 they found that, besides them three, there must be other 
 persons in the company, whom their eyes could not discern. 
 They heard a hissing, which the Snake also answered with 
 a hissing ; they listened, and at length caught what follows : 
 " We shall first look about us in the fair Lily^s Park,^^ said 
 a pair of alternating voices ; " and then request you at 
 nightfall, so soon as we are anywise presentable, to intro- 
 duce us to this paragon of beauty. At the shore of the 
 great Lake, you will find us.^' — " Be it so," replied the 
 Snake ; and a hissing sound died away in the air. 
 
 Our three travellers now consulted in what order they 
 should introduce themselves to the fair Lady ; for however 
 many people might be in her company, they were obliged 
 to enter and depart singly, under pain of suffering very 
 hard severities. 
 
 The Woman with the metamorphosed Pug in the basket 
 first approached the garden, looking round for her Pa- 
 troness ; who was not difficult to find, being just en- 
 gaged in singing to her harp. The finest tones proceeded 
 from her, first like circles on the surface of the still lake, 
 
 * If aught can overspan the Time-River, then what but Under- 
 standing, but Thought, in its moment of plenitude, in its favour- 
 able noon-moment ? — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 411 
 
 then like a light breath they set the grass and the bushes 
 in motion. In a green enclosure, under the shadow of a 
 stately group of many diverse trees, was she seated ; and 
 again did she enchant the eyes, the ears, and the heart of 
 the Woman, who approached with rapture, and swore 
 within herself that since she saw her last, the fair one had 
 grown fairer than ever. With eager gladness, from a dis- 
 tance, she expressed her reverence and admiration for the 
 lovely maiden. " What a happiness to see you, what a Hea- 
 ven does your presence spread around you ! How charmingly 
 the harp is leaning on your bosom, how softly your arms 
 surround it, how it seems as if longing to be near you, and 
 how it sounds so meekly under the touch of your slim 
 fingers ! Thrice-happy youth, to whom it were permitted 
 to be there ! 
 
 So speaking she approached ; the fair Lily raised her 
 eyes ; let her hands drop from the harp, and answered : 
 Trouble me not with untimely praise ; I feel my misery 
 but the more deeply. Look here, at my feet lies the poor 
 Canary-bird, which used so beautifully to accompany my 
 singing ; it would sit upon my harp, and was trained not 
 to touch me ; but to-day, while I, refreshed by sleep, was 
 raising a peaceful morning hymn, and my little singer was 
 pouring forth his harmonious tones more gaily than ever, 
 a Hawk darts over my head ; the poor little creature, in 
 affright, takes refuge in my bosom, and I feel the last pal- 
 pitations of its departing life. The plundering Hawk in- 
 deed was caught by my look, and fluttered fainting down 
 into the water ; but what can his punishment avail me ? 
 my darling is dead, and his grave will but increase the 
 mournful bushes of my garden.'^ 
 
 Take courage, fairest Lily ! cried the Woman, wiping 
 off a tear, which the story of the hapless maiden had called 
 into her eyes ; " compose yourself; my old man bids me 
 tell you to moderate your lamenting, to look upon the 
 
412 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 greatest misfortune as a forerunner of the greatest happi- 
 ness, for the time is at hand ; and truly/^ continued she, 
 " the world is going strangely on of late. Do but look at 
 my hand, how black it is ! As I live and breathe, it is 
 grown far smaller : I must hasten, before it vanish alto- 
 gether ! Why did I engage to do the Will-o'-wisps a ser- 
 vice, why did I meet the Giant's shadow, and dip my hand 
 in the River? Could you not afford me a single cabbage, 
 an artichoke, and an onion? I would give them to the 
 River, and my hand were white as ever, so that I could 
 almost shew it with one of yours.'' 
 
 " Cabbages and onions thou may est still find ; but arti- 
 chokes thou wilt search for in vain. No plant in my garden 
 bears either flowers or fruit ; but every twig that I break, 
 and plant upon the grave of a favourite, grows green 
 straightway, and shoots up in fair boughs. All these 
 groups, these bushes, these groves my hard destiny has so 
 raised around me. These pines stretching out like parasols, 
 these obelisks of cypresses, these colossal oaks and beeches, 
 were all little twigs planted by my hand, as mournful me- 
 morials in a soil that otherwise is barren.'' * 
 
 To this speech the old Woman had paid little heed ; she 
 was looking at her hand, which, in presence of the fair 
 Lily, seemed every moment growing blacker and smaller. 
 She was about to snatch her basket and hasten off, when 
 she noticed that the best part of her errand had been for- 
 gotten. She lifted out the onyx Pug, and set him down, 
 not far from the fair one, in the grass. My husband," 
 said she, sends you this memorial ; you know that you 
 can make a jewel live by touching it. This pretty faithful 
 dog will certainly afford you much enjoyment; and my 
 
 * In SuPERNATURALiSM, truly, what is there either of flower 
 or of fruit ? Nothing that will (altogether) content the greedy 
 Time -River. Stupendous, funereal sacred groves, * in a soil that 
 otherwise is barren ! ' — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 413 
 
 grief at losing him is brightened only by the thought that 
 he will be in your possession.'' 
 
 The fair Lily viewed the dainty creature with a pleased, 
 and, as it seemed, with an astonished look. " Many 
 signs combine,'' said she, " that breathe some hope into 
 me : but ah ! is it not a natural deception which makes 
 us fancy, when misfortunes crowd upon us, that a better 
 day is near ? 
 
 * ' What can these many signs avail me ? 
 
 My Singer's Death, thy coal-black Hand ? 
 This Dog of Onyx, that can never fail me ? 
 And coming at the Lamp's command! 
 
 ** From human joys removed forever, 
 
 With sorrows compassed round I sit : 
 Is there a Temple at the River ? 
 
 Is there a Bridge ! Alas, not yet ! " 
 
 The good old dame had listened with impatience to this 
 singing, which the fair Lily accompanied with her harp, in 
 a way that would have charmed any other. She was on 
 the point of taking leave, when the arrival of the green 
 Snake again detained her. The Snake had caught the last 
 lines of the song, and on this matter forthwith began to 
 speak comfort to the fair Lily. 
 
 " The prophecy of the Bridge is fulfilled ! " cried the 
 Snake : you may ask this worthy dame how royally the 
 arch looks now. What formerly was untransparent jasper, 
 or agate, allowing but a gleam of light to pass about its 
 edges, is now become transparent precious stone. No beryl 
 is so clear, no emerald so beautiful of hue." 
 
 " I wish you joy of it," said Lily ; " but you will pardon 
 me if I regard the prophecy as yet unaccomplished. The 
 lofty arch of your bridge can still but admit foot-passengers ; 
 and it is promised us that horses and carriages and travellers 
 of every sort shall, at the same moment, cross this bridge 
 
414 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 in both directions. Is there not something said, too, about 
 pillars, which are to arise of themselves from the waters of 
 the River?'' 
 
 The old Woman still kept her eyes fixed on her hand ; 
 she here interrupted their dialogue, and was taking leave. 
 
 Wait a moment/' said the fair Lily, " and carry my little 
 bird with you. Bid the Lamp change it into topaz ; I will 
 enliven it by my touch ; with your good Mops it shall form 
 my dearest pastime : but hasten, hasten ; for, at sunset, 
 intolerable putrefaction will fasten on the hapless bird, 
 and tear asunder the fair combination of its form for- 
 ever." 
 
 The old Woman laid the little corpse, wrapped in soft 
 leaves, into her basket, and hastened away. 
 
 However it may be," said the Snake, recommencing 
 their interrupted dialogue, " the Temple is built." 
 
 " But it is not at the River," said the fair one. 
 
 " It is yet resting in the depths of the Earth/' said 
 the Snake ; "I have seen the Kings and conversed with 
 them." 
 
 " But when will they arise ? " inquired Lily. 
 
 The Snake replied : I heard resounding in the Temple 
 these deep words, The time is at hand,^^ 
 
 A pleasing cheerfulness spread over the fair Lily's face : 
 ^' 'Tis the second time/' said she, that I have heard these 
 happy words to-day : when will the day come for me to 
 hear them thrice ? " 
 
 She rose, and immediately there came a lovely maiden 
 from the grove, and took away her harp. Another followed 
 her, and folded up the fine-carved ivory stool, on which 
 the fair one had been sitting, and put the silvery cushion 
 under her arm. A third then made her appearance, with 
 a large parasol worked with pearls ; and looked whether 
 Lily would require her in walking. These three maidens 
 were beyond expression beautiful; and yet their beauty 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 415 
 
 but exalted that of Lily, for it was plain to every one that 
 they could never be compared to her.* 
 
 Meanwhile the fair one had been looking, with a satis- 
 fied aspect, at the strange onyx Mops. She bent down 
 and touched him, and that instant he started up. Gaily he 
 looked around, ran hither and thither, and at last, in his 
 kindest manner, hastened to salute his benefactress. She 
 took him in her arms, and pressed him to her. Cold as 
 thou art,^^ cried she, and though but a half-life works in 
 thee, thou art welcome to me ; tenderly will I love thee, 
 prettily will I play with thee, softly caress thee, and firmly 
 press thee to my bosom. ^' She then let him go, chased him 
 from her, called him back, and played so daintily with him, 
 and ran about so gaily and so innocently with him on the 
 grass, that with new rapture you viewed and participated 
 in her joy, as a little while ago her sorrow had attuned 
 every heart to sympathy. 
 
 This cheerfulness, these graceful sports were interrupted 
 by the entrance of the woful Youth. He stepped forward, 
 in his former guise and aspect ; save that the heat of the 
 day appeared to have fatigued him still more, and in the 
 presence of his mistress he grew paler every moment. He 
 bore upon his hand a Hawk, which was sitting quiet as a 
 dove, with its body shrunk and its wings drooping. 
 
 " It is not kind in thee,'' cried Lily to him, to bring 
 that hateful thing before my eyes, the monster, which to- 
 day has killed my little singer.'' 
 
 " Blame not the unhappy bird ! " replied the Youth ; 
 rather blame thyself and thy destiny ; and leave me to 
 keep beside me the companion of my wo." 
 
 Meanwhile Mops ceased not teasing the fair Lily ; and 
 she replied to her transparent favourite, with friendly ges- 
 
 * Who are these three ? Faith, Hope, and Charity, or others 
 of that kin ? — D. T. Faith, Hope, and Fiddlestick ! — O. Y. 
 
416 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 tures. She clapped her hands to scare him off ; then ran, 
 to entice him after her. She tried to get him when he fled, 
 and she chased him away when he attempted to press near 
 her. The Youth looked on in silence, with increasing 
 anger ; but at last, when she took the odious beast, which 
 seemed to him unutterably ugly, on her arm, pressed it to 
 her white bosom, and kissed its black snout with her hea- 
 venly lips, his patience altogether failed him, and full of 
 desperation he exclaimed : Must I, who by a baleful fate 
 exist beside thee, perhaps to the end, in an absent presence ; 
 who by thee have lost my all, my very self; must I see be- 
 fore my eyes, that so unnatural a monster can charm thee 
 into gladness, can awaken thy attachment, and enjoy thy 
 embrace ? Shall I any longer keep wandering to and fro, 
 measuring my drear}^ course to that side of the River and 
 to this ? No, there is still a spark of the old heroic spirit 
 sleeping in my bosom ; let it start this instant into its ex- 
 piring flame ! If stones may rest in thy bosom, let me be 
 changed to stone ; if thy touch kills, I will die by thy 
 hands." 
 
 So saying he made a violent movement ; the Hawk flew 
 from his finger, but he himself rushed towards the fair one ; 
 she held out her hands to keep him ofl", and touched him 
 only the sooner. Consciousness forsook him ; and she felt 
 with horror the beloved burden lying on her bosom. With 
 a shriek she started back, and the gentle youth sank lifeless 
 from her arms upon the ground. 
 
 The misery had happened ! The sweet Lily stood mo- 
 tionless gazing on the corpse. Her heart seemed to pause 
 in her bosom ; and her eyes were without tears. In vain 
 did Mops try to gain from her any kindly gesture ; with 
 her friend, the world for her was all dead as the grave. 
 Her silent despair did not look round for help ; she knew 
 not of any help. 
 
 On the other hand, the Snake bestirred herself the 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 417 
 
 more actively ; she seemed to meditate deliverance ; and 
 in fact her strange movements served at least to keep away, 
 for a little, the immediate consequences of the mischief. 
 With her limber body, she formed a wide circle round the 
 corpse, and seizing the end of her tail between her teeth, 
 she lay quite still. 
 
 Erelong one of Lily's fair waiting -maids appeared ; 
 brought the ivory folding-stool, and with friendly beckon- 
 ing constrained her mistress to sit down on it. Soon after- 
 wards there came a second ; she had in her hand a fire- 
 coloured veil, with which she rather decorated than con- 
 cealed the fair Lily^s head. The third handed her the harp, 
 and scarcely had she drawn the gorgeous instrument to- 
 wards her, and struck some tones from its strings, when 
 the first maid returned with a clear round mirror; took her 
 station opposite ihe fair one ; caught her looks in the glass, 
 and threw back to her the loveliest image that was to be 
 found in Nature.* Sorrow heightened her beauty, the veil 
 her charms, the harp her grace ; and deeply as you wished 
 to see her mournful situation altered, not less deeply did 
 you wish to keep her image, as she now looked, forever 
 present with you. 
 
 With a still look at the mirror, she touched the harp ; 
 now melting tones proceeded from the strings, now her pain 
 seemed to mount, and the music in strong notes responded 
 to her wo ; sometimes she opened her lips to sing, but her 
 voice failed her ; and erelong her sorrow melted into tears, 
 
 * Does not man's soul rest by Faith, and look in the mirror of 
 Faith ? Does not Hope * decorate rather than conceal ? ' Is not 
 Charity (Love) the beginning of music? — Behold, too, how the 
 Serpent, in this great hour, has made herself a Serpent-of- Eter- 
 nity ; and (even as genuine Thought, in our age, has to do for 
 so much) preserves the seeming -dead within her folds, that sus- 
 pended animation issue not in noisome, horrible, irrevocable dis- 
 solution!— D. T. 
 
 T 2 
 
418 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 two maidens caught her helpfully in their arms, the harp 
 sank from her bosom, scarcely could the quick servant 
 snatch the instrument and carry it aside. 
 
 " Who gets us the Man with the Lamp, before the Sun 
 set hissed the Snake, faintly, but audibly : the maids 
 looked at one another, and Lily's tears fell faster. At this 
 moment came the Woman with the Basket, panting and 
 altogether breathless. " I am lost, and maimed for life 
 cried she ; see how my hand is almost vanished ; neither 
 Ferryman nor Giant would take me over, because I am 
 the River's debtor; in vain did I promise hundreds of 
 Cabbages and hundreds of Onions ; they will take no more 
 than three ; and no Artichoke is now to be found in all 
 this quarter.'' 
 
 Forget your own care," said the SnakC; " and try to 
 bring help here ; perhaps it may come to yourself also. 
 Haste with your utmost speed to seek the Will-o*-wisps ; 
 it is too light for you to see them, but perhaps you will 
 hear them laughing and hopping to and fro. If they be 
 speedy, they may cross upon the Giant's shadow, and seek 
 the Man with the Lamp and send him to us." 
 
 The Woman hurried off at her quickest pace, and the 
 Snake seemed expecting as impatiently as Lily the return 
 of the Flames. Alas ! the beam of the sinking Sun was 
 already gilding only the highest summits of the trees in 
 the thicket, and long shadows were stretching over lake 
 and meadow ; the Snake hitched up and down impatiently, 
 and Lily dissolved in tears. 
 
 In this extreme need, the Snake kept looking round 
 on all sides ; for she was afraid every moment that the 
 Sun would set, and corruption penetrate the magic circle, 
 and the fair youth immediately moulder away. At last 
 she noticed sailing high in the air, with purple-red feathers, 
 the Prince's Hawk, whose breast was catching the last 
 beams of the Sun. She shook herself for joy at this good 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 419 
 
 omen ; nor was she deceived ; for shortly afterwards the 
 Man with the Lamp was seen gliding towards them across 
 the Lake, fast and smoothly, as if he had been travelling 
 on skates. 
 
 The Snake did not change her posture ; but Lily rose 
 and called to him : " What good spirit sends thee, at the 
 moment when we were desiring thee, and needing thee, 
 so much 
 
 " The spirit of my Lamp,'^ replied the Man, ^' has 
 impelled me, and the Hawk has conducted me. My 
 Lamp sparkles when I am needed, and I just look about 
 me in the sky for a signal ; some bird or meteor points to 
 the quarter towards which I am to turn. Be calm, fairest 
 Maiden ! Whether I can help I know not ; an individual 
 helps not, but he who combines himself with many at the 
 proper hour. We will postpone the evil, and keep hoping. 
 Hold thy circle fast, continued he,^' turning to the Snake ; 
 then set himself upon a hillock beside her, and illuminated 
 the dead body. Bring the little Bird* hither too, and 
 lay it in the circle The maidens took the little corpse 
 from the basket, which the old Woman had left standing, 
 and did as he directed. 
 
 Meanwhile the Sun had set, and as the darkness in- 
 creased, not only the Snake and the old Man's Lamp 
 began shining in their fashion, but also Lily's veil gave 
 out a soft light, which gracefully tinged, as with a meek 
 dawning red, her pale cheeks and her white robe. The 
 party looked at one another, silently reflecting ; care and 
 sorrow were mitigated by a sure hope. 
 
 It was no unpleasing entrance, therefore, that the Wo- 
 
 * What are the Hawk and this Canary-bird, which here prove 
 so destructive to one another ? Ministering servants, implements, 
 of these two divided Halves of the Human Soul ; name them I 
 will not ; more is not written — D, T. 
 
420 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 man made, attended by the two gay Flames, which in 
 truth appeared to have been very lavish in the interim, 
 for they had again become extremely meagre ; yet they 
 only bore themselves the more prettily for that, towards 
 Lily and the other ladies. With great tact and expres- 
 siveness, they said a multitude of rather common things to 
 these fair persons ; and declared themselves particularly 
 ravished by the charm which the gleaming veil* spread 
 over Lily and her attendant. The ladies modestly cast 
 down their eyes, and the praise of their beauty made them 
 really beautiful. All were peaceful and calm, except the 
 old Woman. In spite of the assurance of her husband, 
 that her hand could diminish no farther, while the Lamp 
 shone on it, she asserted more than once, that if things 
 went on thus, before midnight this noble member would 
 have utterly vanished. 
 
 The Man with the Lamp had listened attentively to the 
 conversation of the Lights ; and was gratified that Lily 
 had been cheered, in some measure, and amused by it. 
 And, in truth, midnight had arrived they knew not how. 
 The old Man looked to the stars, and then began speak- 
 ing : " We are assembled at the propitious hour ; let each 
 perform his task, let each do his duty ; and a universal 
 happiness will swallow up our individual sorrows, as a 
 universal grief consumes individual joys.^' 
 
 At these words arose a wondrous hubbub ;t all 
 
 * Have not your march-of-intellect Literators always expressed 
 themselves particularly ravished with any glitter from a veil of 
 Hope : with * progress of the species/ and the like ? — D. T. 
 
 f Too true : dost thou not hear it, reader ? In this our 
 Revolutionary * twelfth hour of the night,' all persons speak 
 aloud (some of them by cannon and drums !) * declaring what 
 they have to do and Faith, Hope, and Charity (after a few 
 passing compliments from the Belles -Lettres Department), thou 
 seest, haye fallen asleep ! — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 421 
 
 the persons in the party spoke aloud, each for himself, 
 declaring what they had to do; only the three maids 
 were silent ; one of them had fallen asleep beside the 
 harp, another near the parasol, the third by the stool ; 
 and you could not blame them much, for it was late. 
 The Fiery Youths, after some passing compliments which 
 they devoted to the waiting-maids, had turned their sole 
 attention to the Princess, as alone worthy of exclusive 
 homage. 
 
 Take the mirror,^^ said the Man to the Hawk ; and 
 with the first sunbeam illuminate the three sleepers, and 
 awake them, with light reflected from above.^' 
 
 The Snake now began to move ; she loosened her circle, 
 and rolled slowly, in large rings, forward to the River. 
 The two Will-o'-wisps followed with a solemn air : you 
 would have taken them for the most serious Flames in 
 Nature. The old Woman and her husband seized the 
 Basket, whose mild light they had scarcely observed till 
 now ; they lifted it at both sides, and it grew still larger 
 and more luminous ; they lifted the body of the Youth 
 into it, laying the Canary-bird upon his breast ; the 
 Basket rose into the air and hovered above the old Wo- 
 man's head, and she followed the Will-o'-wisps on foot. 
 The fair Lily took Mops on her arm, and followed the 
 Woman ; the man with the Lamp concluded the pro- 
 cession, and the scene was curiously illuminated by these 
 many lights. 
 
 But it was with no small wonder that the party saw, 
 when they approached the River, a glorious arch mount 
 over it, by which the helpful Snake was affording them a 
 glittering path. If by day they had admired the beautiful 
 transparent precious stones, of which the Bridge seemed 
 formed ; by night they were astonished at its gleaming 
 brilliancy. On the upper side the clear circle marked itself 
 sharp against the dark sky, but below, vivid beams were 
 
422 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 darting to the centre, and exhibiting the airy firmness of 
 the edifice. The procession slowly moved across it ; and 
 the Ferryman, who saw it from his hut afar off, considered 
 with astonishment the gleaming circle, and the strange 
 lights which were passing over it.* 
 
 No sooner had they reached the other shore, than the 
 arch began, in its usual way, to swag up and down, and 
 with a wavy motion to approach the water. The Snake 
 then came on land, the Basket placed itself upon the 
 ground, and the Snake again drew her circle round it^ 
 The old Man stooped towards her, and said : What hast 
 thou resolved on V 
 
 " To sacrifice myself rather than be sacrificed,'^ replied 
 the Snake ; promise me that thou wilt leave no stone on 
 shore.'' 
 
 The old Man promised ; then addressing Lily : Touch 
 the Snake,'' said he, " with thy left hand, and thy lover 
 with thy right." Lily knelt, and touched the Snake, and 
 the Princess body. The latter in the instant seemed to 
 come to life ; he moved in the basket, nay he raised him- 
 self into a sitting posture ; Lily was about to clasp him ; 
 but the old Man held her back, and himself assisted the 
 youth to rise, and led him forth from the Basket and the 
 circle. 
 
 The Prince was standing ; the Canary-bird was flutter- 
 ing on his shoulder ; there was life again in both of them, 
 but the spirit had not yet returned ; the fair youth's eyes 
 w^ere open, yet he did not see, at least he seemed to look 
 on all without participation. Scarcely had their admira- 
 tion of this incident a little calmed, when they observed 
 how strangely it had fared in the meanwhile with the 
 
 * Well he might, worthy old man ; as Pope Pius, for example, 
 did, when he lived in Fontainebleau ! — D. T. As our Bishops, 
 when voting for the Reform Bill ? — O. Y. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 423 
 
 Snake. Her fair taper body had crumbled into thousands 
 and thousands of shining jewels : the old Woman reaching 
 at her Basket had chanced to come against the circle ; and 
 of the shape or structure of the Snake there was now no- 
 thing to be seen, only a bright ring of luminous jewels 
 was lying in the grass.* 
 
 The old Man forthwith set himself to gather the stones 
 into the basket ; a task in which his wife assisted him. 
 They next carried the Basket to an elevated point on the 
 bank ; and here the man threw its whole lading, not with- 
 out contradiction from the fair one and his wife, who 
 would gladly have retained some part of it, down into the 
 River. Like gleaming twinkling stars the stones floated 
 down with the waves ; and you could not say whether 
 they lost themselves in the distance, or sank to the bot- 
 tom. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he with the Lamp, in a respectful 
 tone to the Lights, " I will now shew you the way, and 
 open you the passage ; but you will do us an essential 
 service, if you please to unbolt the door, by which the 
 Sanctuary must be entered at present, and which none 
 but you can unfasten.^^ 
 
 The Lights made a stately bow of assent, and kept 
 their place. The old Man of the Lamp went foremost into 
 the rock, which opened at his presence ; the Youth followed 
 him, as if mechanically ; silent and uncertain, Lily kept 
 at some distance from him ; the old Woman would not be 
 left, and stretched out her hand that the light of her hus- 
 
 * So ! Your Logics, Mechanical Philosophies, Politics, Sci- 
 ences, your whole modern System of Thought, is to decease ; 
 and old Endeavour, ' grasping at her basket,' shall * come 
 against* the inanimate remains, and ' only a bright ring of lumin- 
 ous jewels' shall be left there! Mark well, however, what next 
 becomes of it — D. T. 
 
424 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 band's Lamp might still fall upon it. The rear was closed 
 by the two Will-o'-wisps, who bent the peaks of their 
 flames towards one another, and appeared to be engaged 
 in conversation. 
 
 They had not gone far till the procession halted in front 
 of a large brazen door, the leaves of which were bolted 
 with a golden lock. The Man now called upon the Lights 
 to advance ; who required small entreaty, and with their 
 pointed flames soon ate both bar and lock. 
 
 The brass gave a loud clang, as the doors sprang sud- 
 denly asunder ; and the stately figures of the Kings ap- 
 peared within the Sanctuary, illuminated by the enter- 
 ing Lights. All bowed before these dread sovereigns, 
 especially the Flames made a profusion of the daintiest 
 reverences. 
 
 After a pause, the gold King asked : " Whence come 
 ye — " From the world,'' said the old Man.— Whither 
 go ye?'' said the silver King. — Into the world," re- 
 plied the Man. — What would ye with us?" cried the 
 brazen King. — Accompany you," replied the Man. 
 
 The composite King was about to speak, when the gold 
 one addressed the Lights, who had got too near him : 
 Take yourselves away from me, my metal was not made 
 for you." Thereupon they turned to the silver King, and 
 clasped themselves about him ; and his robe glittered 
 beautifully in their yellow brightness. You are wel- 
 come," said he, ^^but I cannot feed you; satisfy yourselves 
 elsewhere, and bring me your light." They removed ; and 
 gliding past the brazen King, who did not seem to notice 
 them, they fixed on the compounded King. " Who will 
 govern the world ?" cried he with a broken voice. — " He 
 who stands upon his feet," replied the old Man. — I am 
 he," said the mixed King. — We shall see," replied the 
 Man ; "for the time is at hand." 
 
 The fair Lily fell upon the old Man's neck, and kissed 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 425 
 
 him cordially. Holy Sage!'' cried she, a thousand 
 times I thank thee ; for I hear that fateful word the third 
 time." She had scarcely spoken, when she clasped the 
 old Man still faster ; for the ground began to move beneath 
 them ; the Youth and the old Woman also held by one 
 another ; the Lights alone did not regard it. 
 
 You could feel plainly that the whole Temple was in 
 motion ; as a ship that softly glides away from the harbour, 
 when her anchors are lifted; the depths of the Earth seemed 
 to open for the Building as it went along. It struck on 
 nothing ; no rock came in its way. 
 
 For a few instants, a small rain seemed to drizzle from 
 the opening of the dome ; the old Man held the fair Lily 
 fast, and said to her: " We are now beneath the River ; 
 we shall soon be at the mark." Ere long they thought the 
 Temple made a halt ; but they were in an error ; it was 
 mounting upwards. 
 
 And now a strange uproar rose above their heads. 
 Planks and beams in disordered combination now came 
 pressing and crashing in, at the opening of the dome. 
 Lily and the Woman started to a side ; the Man with the 
 Lamp laid hold of the Youth, and kept standing still. 
 The little cottage of the Ferryman, for it was this which 
 the Temple in ascending had severed from the ground and 
 carried up with it, sank gradually down, and covered the 
 old Man and the Youth. 
 
 The women screamed aloud, and the Temple shook, 
 like a ship running unexpectedly aground. In sorrowful 
 perplexity, the Princess and her old attendant wandered 
 round the cottage in the dawn ; the door was bolted, and 
 to their knocking, no one answered. They knocked more 
 loudly, and were not a little struck, when at length the 
 wood began to ring. By virtue of the Lamp locked up in 
 it, the hut had been converted from the inside to the out- 
 side into solid silver. Erelong too its form changed ; for 
 
426 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the noble metal shook aside the accidental shape of planks, 
 posts, and beams, and stretched itself out into a noble case 
 of beaten ornamented workmanship. Thus a fair little 
 temple stood erected in the middle of the large one ; or if 
 you will, an Altar worthy of the Temple.* 
 
 By a staircase which ascended from within, the noble 
 Youth now mounted aloft, lighted by the old Man with 
 the Lamp ; and, as it seemed, supported by another, who 
 advanced in a white short robe, with a silver rudder in his 
 hand ; and was soon recognised as the Ferryman, the for- 
 mer possessor of the cottage. 
 
 The fair Lily mounted the outer steps, which led from 
 the floor of the Temple to the Altar ; but she was still 
 obliged to keep herself apart from her Lover. The old 
 Woman, whose hand in the absence of the Lamp had 
 grown still smaller, cried : "Ami then to be unhappy after 
 all ? Among so many miracles, can there be nothing done 
 to save my hand?^^ Her husband pointed to the open 
 door, and said to her : " See, the day is breaking ; haste, 
 bathe thyself in the River.^* — " What an advice cried 
 she 'j "it will make me all black ; it will make me vanish 
 altogether; for my debt is not yet paid." — " Go,'^ said 
 the Man, " and do as I advise thee ; all debts are now 
 paid.'^ 
 
 The old Woman hastened away ; and at that moment 
 appeared the rising Sun, upon the rim of the dome. The 
 old Man stept between the Virgin and the Youth, and cried 
 with a loud voice : " There are three which have rule on 
 Earth ; Wisdom, Appearance, and Strength." At the 
 first word, the gold King rose, at the second the silver 
 
 * Good ! The old Church, shaken down * in disordered com- 
 bination/ is admitted, in this way, into the new perennial Temple 
 of the Future ; and, clarified into enduring silver, by the Lamp, 
 becomes an Altar worthy to stand there. The Ferryman too is 
 not forgotten. — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 427 
 
 one ; and at the third the brass King slowly rose, while 
 the mixed king on a sudden very awkwardly plumped 
 down.* 
 
 Whoever noticed him could scarcely keep from laugh- 
 ing, solemn as the moment was ; for he was not sitting, he 
 was not lying, he was not leaning, but shapelessly sunk 
 together, t 
 
 The Lights,]: who till now had been employed upon 
 him, drew to a side ; they appeared, although pale in the 
 morning radiance, yet once more well-fed, and in good 
 burning condition ; with their peaked tongues, they had 
 dexterously licked out the gold veins of the colossal figure 
 to its very heart. The irregular vacuities which this oc- 
 casioned had continued empty for a time, and the figure 
 had maintained its standing posture. But when at last 
 the very tenderest filaments were eaten out, the image 
 crashed suddenly together ; and that, alas, in the very 
 parts which continue unaltered when one sits down ; 
 whereas the limbs, which should have bent, sprawled 
 themselves out unbowed and stiff. Whoever could not 
 laugh was obliged to turn away his eyes ; this miserable 
 shape and no- shape was offensive to behold. 
 
 * Dost thou note this, O reader ; and look back with new 
 clearness on former things ? A gold King, a silver, and a brazen 
 King : Wisdom, dignified Appearance, Strength ; these three 
 harmoniously united bear rule : <?i5'harmoniously cobbled together 
 in sham -union (as in the foolish composite King of our foolish 
 
 * transition-era'), they, once the Gold (or wisdom) is all out of 
 them, * very awkwardly plump down.' — D. T. 
 
 f As, for example, does not Charles X. (one of the poor 
 fractional composite Realities emblemed herein) rest, even now, 
 
 * shapelessly enough sunk together,' at Holyrood, in the city of 
 Edinburgh ?— D. T. 
 
 X March-of-intellect Lights were well capable of such a thing. 
 — D. T. 
 
428 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 The Man with the Lamp now led the handsome Youth, 
 who still kept gazing vacantly before him, down from the 
 altar, and straight to the brazen King. At the feet of this 
 mighty Potentate lay a sword in a brazen sheath. The 
 young man girt it round him. The sword on the left, 
 the right free!'' cried the brazen voice. They next pro- 
 ceeded to the silver King ; he bent his sceptre to the 
 youth; the latter seized it with his left hand, and the 
 King in a pleasing voice said: Feed the sheep !" On 
 turning to the golden King, he stooped with gestures 
 of paternal blessing, and pressing his oaken garland 
 on the young man's head, said : Understand what is 
 highest ! 
 
 During this progress, the old Man had carefully ob- 
 served the Prince. After girding on the sword, his breast 
 swelled, his arms waved, and his feet trod firmer ; when 
 he took the sceptre in his hand, his strength appeared 
 to soften, and by an unspeakable charm to become 
 still more subduing ; but as the oaken garland came to 
 deck his hair, his features kindled, his eyes gleamed with 
 inexpressible spirit, and the first word of his mouth was 
 " Lily!" 
 
 Dearest Lily ! " cried he, hastening up the silver stairs 
 to her, for she had viewed his progress from the pinnacle 
 of the Altar ; " Dearest Lily ! what more precious can a 
 man, equipt with all, desire for himself than innocence and 
 the still affection which thy bosom brings me ? O my 
 friend !'' continued he, turning to the old Man, and look- 
 ing at the three statues : glorious and secure is the king- 
 dom of our fathers ; but thou hast forgotten the fourth 
 power, which rules the world, earlier, more universally, 
 more certainly, the power of Love.'' With these words, 
 he fell upon the lovely maiden's neck ; she had cast away 
 her veil, and her cheeks were tinged with the fairest, most 
 imperishable red. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 429 
 
 Here the old Man said with a smile : Love does not 
 rule ; but it trains,* and that is more.'' 
 
 Amid this solemnity, this happiness and rapture, no 
 one had observed that it was now broad day ; and all at 
 once, on looking through the open portal, a crowd of alto- 
 gether unexpected objects met the eye. A large space 
 surrounded with pillars formed the fore-court, at the end 
 of which was seen a broad and stately Bridge stretching 
 with many arches across the River. It was furnished, on 
 both sides, with commodious and magnificent colonnades 
 for foot-travellers, many thousands of whom were already 
 there, busily passing this way or that. The broad pave- 
 ment in the centre was thronged with herds and mules, 
 with horsemen and carriages, flowing like two streams, on 
 their several sides, and neither interrupting the other. All 
 admired the splendour and convenience of the structure ; 
 and the new King and his Spouse were delighted with the 
 motion and activity of this great people, as they were 
 already happy in their own mutual love. 
 
 Remember the Snake in honour,'' said the man with 
 the Lamp ; thou owest her thy life ; thy people owe her 
 the Bridge, by which these neighbouring banks are now 
 animated and combined into one land. Those swimming 
 and shining jewels, the remains of her sacrificed body, are 
 the piers of this royal bridge ; upon these she has built and 
 will maintain herself."t 
 
 The party were about to ask some explanation of this 
 strange mystery, when there entered four lovely maidens 
 
 * It fashions {bildet), or educates. — O. Y. 
 
 t Honour to her indeed ! The Mechanical Philosophy, though 
 dead, has not died and lived in vain ; but her vrorks are there : 
 ' upon these she ' (Thought, newborn, in glorified shape) * has 
 * built herself and will maintain herself and the Natural and 
 Supernatural shall henceforth, thereby, be one.— D. T. 
 
430 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 at tlie portal of the Temple. By the Harp, the Parasol, 
 and the folding Stool, it was not difficult to recognise the 
 waiting-maids of Lily ; but the fourth, more beautiful than 
 any of the rest, was an unknown fair one, and in sisterly 
 sportfulness she hastened with them through the Temple, 
 and mounted the steps of the Altar.* 
 
 Wilt thou have better trust in me another time, good 
 wife said the man with the Lamp to the fair one : 
 ^^Well for thee, and every living thing that bathes this 
 morning in the River 
 
 The renewed and beautified old Woman, of whose 
 former shape no trace remained, embraced with young 
 eager arms the Man with the Lamp, who kindly received 
 her caresses. If I am too old for thee,'^ said he, smiling, 
 thou mayest choose another husband to-day ; from this 
 hour no marriage is of force, which is not contracted anew.'' 
 
 Dost thou not know, then,'' answered she, " that 
 thou too art grown younger ?" — It delights me if to thy 
 young eyes I seem a handsome youth : I take thy hand 
 anew, and am well content to live with thee another thou- 
 sand years. "f 
 
 The Queen welcomed her new friend, and went down 
 with her into the interior of the Altar, while the King 
 stood between his two men, looking towards the Bridge, 
 and attentively contemplating the busy tumult of the 
 people. 
 
 But his satisfaction did not last ; for erelong he saw 
 an object which excited his displeasure. The great Giant, 
 who appeared not yet to have awoke completely from his 
 morning sleep, came stumbling along the Bridge, pro- 
 
 * Mark what comes of bathing in the TiME-River, at the en- 
 trance of a New Era !— D. T. 
 
 t And so Reason and Endeavour being once more married, 
 and in the honey-moon, need we wish them joy ? — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 431 
 
 diicing great confusion all around him. As usual, he had 
 risen stupified with sleep, and had meant to bathe in the 
 well-known bay of the River ; instead of which he found 
 firm land, and plunged upon the broad pavement of the 
 Bridge. Yet although he reeled into the midst of men 
 and cattle in the clumsiest way, his presence, wondered at 
 by all, was felt by none ; but as the sunshine came into his 
 eyes, and he raised his hands to rub them, the shadows of 
 his monstrous fists moved to and fro behind him with such 
 force and awkwardness, that men and beasts were heaped 
 together in great masses, were hurt by such rude contact, 
 and in danger of being pitched into the River.* 
 
 The King, as he saw this mischief, grasped with an in- 
 voluntary movement at his sword ; but he bethought him- 
 self, and looked calmly at his sceptre, then at the Lamp 
 and the Rudder of his attendants. " I guess thy thoughts,'' 
 said the Man with the Lamp ; but we and our gifts are 
 powerless against this powerless monster. Be calm ! He 
 is doing hurt for the last time, and happily his shadow is 
 not turned to us.'' 
 
 Meanwhile the Giant was approaching nearer ; in as- 
 tonishment at what he saw with open eyes, he had dropt 
 his hands ; he was now doing no injury, and came staring 
 and agape into the fore-court. 
 
 He was walking straight to the door of the Temple, 
 when all at once in the middle of the court, he halted, and 
 was fixed to the ground. He stood there like a strong 
 colossal statue, of reddish glittering stone, and his shadow 
 pointed out the hours, f which were marked in a circle on 
 
 * Thou rememberest the Catholic Relief Bill ; witnessest the 
 Irish Education Bill ? Hast heard, five hundred times, that the 
 ' Church ' was * in Danger,' and now at length believest it ? — D. T. 
 Is D. T.of the Fourth Estate, and Popish-Infidel, then? — O.Y. 
 
 t Bravo !— D. T. 
 
432 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 the floor around him, not in numbers, but in noble and 
 expressive emblems. 
 
 Much delighted was the King to see the monster's 
 shadow turned to some useful purpose ; much astonished 
 was the Queen ; who, on mounting from within the Altar, 
 decked in royal pomp with her virgins, first noticed the 
 huge figure, which almost closed the prospect from the 
 Temple to the Bridge. 
 
 Meanwhile the people had crowded after the Giant, 
 as he ceased to move : they were walking round him, 
 wondering at his metamorphosis. From him they turned 
 to the Temple, which they now first appeared to notice,* 
 and pressed towards the door. 
 
 At this instant the Hawk with the mirror soared aloft 
 above the dome ; caught the light of the sun, and reflected 
 it upon the group, which was standing on the Altar. The 
 King, the Queen, and their attendants, in the dusky con- 
 cave of the Temple, seemed illuminated by a heavenly 
 splendour, and the people fell upon their faces. When 
 the crowd had recovered and risen, the King with his fol- 
 lowers had descended into the Altar, to proceed by secret 
 passages into his palace ; and the multitude dispersed about 
 the Temple to content their curiosity. The three Kings 
 that were standing erect they viewed with astonishment 
 and reverence ; but the more eager were they to discover 
 what mass it could be that was hid behind the hangings, 
 in the fourth niche ; for by some hand or another, cha- 
 ritable decency had spread over the resting-place of the 
 Fallen King a gorgeous curtain, which no eye can pene- 
 trate, and no hand may dare to draw aside. 
 
 The people would have found no end to their gazing 
 and their admiration, and the crowding multitude would 
 
 * Now first ; when the beast of a SuPERSXiTioN-Giant has 
 got his quietus. Right ! — D. T. 
 
APPENDIX. THE TALE. 
 
 433 
 
 have even sufFocated one another in the Temple, had not 
 their attention been again attracted to the open space. 
 
 Unexpectedly some gold-pieces, as if falling from the 
 air, came tinkling down upon the marble flags ; the nearest 
 passers-by rushed thither to pick them up ; the wonder 
 was repeated several times, now here, now there. It is 
 easy to conceive that the shower proceeded from our two 
 retiring Flames, who wished to have a little sport here 
 once more, and were thus gaily spending, ere they went 
 away, the gold which they had licked from the members 
 of the sunken King. The people still ran eagerly about, 
 ressing and pulling one another, even when the gold had 
 ceased to fall. At length they gradually dispersed, and 
 went their way ; and to the present hour the Bridge is 
 swarming with travellers, and the Temple is the most fre- 
 quented on the whole Earth.* 
 
 * It is the Temple of the whole civilised earth. Finally, may 
 I take leave to consider this Mdhrchen as the deepest Poem of its 
 sort in existence ; as the only true Prophecy emitted for who knows 
 how many centuries ? — D. T. Certainly : England is a free coun- 
 try.— O. Y. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FKANKLYN, 
 
 46 St. Martin's Lane. 
 
V 
 
uNivERsrrv of ILLINOIS-URBANA