"Sir," exclaimed my conductor, suddenly interrupting my meditations, "excuse me if I am troublesome, but before arriving at Mont-Saint-Jean I wish to warn you of a knavish trade you have probably never heard of at Paris."
"A knavish trade unknown at Paris?" I replied, incredulously; "that is rather surprising. But come, tell me what is this new species of industry."
"You can easily suppose," pursued my loquacious coachman, "that after the battle of Waterloo there remained on the field a large quantity of cannon-balls, buttons, small brass eagles, and broken weapons. Well, for the last thirty-four years, the country people have been carrying on a famous business in these articles."
"It seems to me, however, my friend," I observed, "that a sale continued for so long a period, must have left very little to be disposed of at present."
"True, sir; and this is precisely what I would guard you against. Those who obtain a subsistence by such means, purchase the goods new at a manufactory, in shares, and then bury in different parts of the field, and for a wide space around, pieces of imperial brass eagles, thousands of metal buttons, and heaps of iron balls. This crop is allowed to rest in the earth until summer, for few strangers visit Waterloo in winter; and when the fine weather arrives, they dig up their relics, to which a sojourn of eight months in a damp soil gives an appearance of age, deceiving the keenest observer, and awakening the admiration of pilgrims."
"But this is a shameful deceit."
"True again, sir; but the country is very poor about here; and after all, perhaps," added the philosophic driver, "no great harm is done. This year the harvest of brass eagles has been very fair."
We entered the forest of Soignies by a narrow and naturally covered alley, the two sides crowned with the most luxuriant foliage. Poplars, elms, and plane-trees appeared to be striving which should attain the highest elevation. One peculiarity I could not avoid remarking in the midst of this solemn and beautiful abode of nature, and that was the perfect stillness prevailing around. The air itself seemed without palpitation, and during a ride of nearly two hours through this sylvan gallery, not even the note of a bird broke on the solitude. A forest without feathered songsters appeared unnatural, and the only possible reason that could be imagined for such a circumstance might be, that since the formidable day of Waterloo, they had quitted these shades, never to return, frightened away by the roar of the cannon and the dismal noise of war. What melancholy is impressed upon the beautiful forest of Soignies! I cannot overcome the idea, that since Providence destined it should become the mute spectator of the great event in its vicinity, it has retained the mysterious memory in the folding of its leaves and the depths of its shades. Destiny designs the theatre for grand actions. An army of one hundred thousand men perished there. Such was the irrevocable decree.
"Do you think," I inquired of the coachman, wishing to change the current of my thoughts, "there are persons so unscrupulous as to speculate on the curiosity of tourists to Waterloo in the manner you have described?"
"Ah, sir," he replied, "I have not told you half the tricks they practice on the credulous. It would indeed fatigue you if I mentioned all of them, but if you will permit me, I will relate an instance I witnessed myself one day. I was conducting from Waterloo to Brussels a French artist and a Prussian tourist. The Prussian supported on his knee some object very carefully enveloped in a handkerchief, and which he seemed to value greatly. When we had arrived about midway on the road, he inquired of the Frenchman whether he had brought away with him any souvenir of his pilgrimage to Waterloo.
"'In good faith no,' replied the other; and yet I was on the point of making a certain acquisition, but the exorbitant price demanded prevented me: one hundred francs, besides the trouble of carrying off such an article.'
"'What could it have been?' demanded the Prussian, curiously.
"'You must not feel offended if I tell you,' returned the artist; 'it was the skull of a Prussian colonel, a magnificent one! And what rendered it more valuable, it was pierced by three holes, made by the balls of Waterloo. One was in the forehead, the others were through the temples. I should have had no objection to secure this, if I could have afforded it, and have had a lamp made of the skull of a Prussian officer killed by the French. And you, sir?' he continued, looking at the packet carried by his fellow-traveller, 'pray what luck have you had?'
"'I,' replied the Prussian, with an uneasy movement, and looking greatly confused, 'I am astonished at the wonderful resemblance of what has happened to both of us, for I purchased this morning the skull of a French colonel killed by a Prussian at Waterloo.'
"'You, sir?'
"'Y—e—s,' stammered the Prussian, 'and I thought of having it made into a cup to drink the health of Blucher at each anniversary of our victory.'
"'And is the skull pierced by three bullets?' demanded the Frenchman, his suspicions becoming awakened.
"With a look of consternation the Prussian hastily unrolled the handkerchief, and examined the contents. The skull bore the same marks indicated by his travelling companion! It was the identical relic that was French when offered to an Englishman or Prussian, and had become Prussian or English when offered to a Frenchman.
"This, sir," added Jehu, smacking his whip, "you will admit, is worse than selling false brass buttons and the Emperor's eagles."
We have frequently been interested by the clever contributions of M. Philarète Chasles to the Revue des Deux Mondes. They are chiefly on English and American literature, and among them are specimens of acute and genial criticism. M. Chasles has just published in Paris a collection of these papers, and we translate for The International a reviewal of it which appears in a late number of the French journal, the Illustration. Says the writer, M. Hipolyte Babou:
Books are becoming scarce. To be sure, volume upon volume is published every day, but a book that is a book is a rara avis, and if any one should inquire whose fault it is, we reply that it is the fault of the press, constantly requiring the first-fruits of a writer's meditations. The journalist has displaced the author. The fugitive page rules the great world of literature. Wit, talent, genius, science, have not time to consolidate their thoughts, before they are disseminated. They are like the folds of the birchen bark, thrown off as soon as formed, to give place to new ones. And these in their turn fall, and are scattered. But, when we wish it, we can collect our literary leaves. How many handsome volumes are made up of weekly and monthly pages! The binder runs his needle through a collection, and the book is made.
What kind of book? Ah, truly, it is not the venerable work of past days, which took ten years to print and bring to perfection, establishing at once a literary fame. It is simply a series of articles written by steam, printed by steam, and some bright morning bound up under a common title. But what is the story and the attraction of such works? Bless you! there is no story. The attraction is in the style (when there is any) and in the variety of subjects, which generally produces a variety of impressions.
For an ordinary reader, to whom continued attention produces headache, there is nothing more agreeable than those album-pages, or fragments of mosaic. Thinking and serious minds turn rather towards works of consecutive reflection, or whose details contribute to the beauty of some whole. Variety is the wind to the weather-cock; and unity is the inflexible pivot which every weather-cock requires to keep it from being blown away. Thoughtful minds prefer unity above every thing. And yet they are only heavier weather-cocks, which turn round with a grating.
Nervous and discursive reader! logical and phlegmatic reader! here is a book which will suit you both. M. Philarète Chasles has just published expressly for you his Studies upon the Literature and Manners of the Anglo-Americans in the Nineteenth Century. It is a work by compartments, any of them interesting to the superficial reader, and forming at the same time a perfect whole.
Under the influence of a spirit of order, which professors by their vocation are very apt to possess in an eminent degree, the author has composed his work, not of articles written for journals, but by detailing articles a work whose plan he had before considered. The general design, to which he is obedient, is clearly developed, page by page, in his curious studies upon the Anglo-Americans.
It is a vile term—that of Anglo-American—a pedantic term—and rather surprising from the pen of Chasles. For, professor as he is, he despises pedantry as the plague. There is nothing doctoral in his literary costume; and if he has any pretension, it resembles in no particular the grave assumptions of the cathedrants of the university. It would be a mortification to him to belong to the school of the Sorbonne. He is a member of the free family of the College of France, where individual genius has triumphed more than once over the sterile routine of tradition.
Before filling the chair of professor, the author of Etudes had written much in journals and reviews. He writes still, and is always welcome to the public. For, it may be remarked without malice, he has always had a larger audience of readers than of listeners. And that it is so is rather complimentary than otherwise. How is it, indeed, that the intellectual humorist succeeds better as an author than as a teacher? What does he need to insure, if he wishes it, the enthusiastic admiration of the young public whom he instructs? Has he not at command those vivid flashings of the imagination which, by an electric sympathy, might bring down about him thunders of applause? Is he fearful that his gesture and his voice would not become his thought? Does he disdain to have recourse, hap-hazard, to the little artifices of eloquence? It is very easy to gain popularity by a juggle, when it cannot be done by the force of true oratory. Be enthusiastic of your merits. Mingle with the swellings of poetry a certain dogmatism of opinion—call to your aid assurance, impudence, and all the insipidities of the style printanier—fire, as it were, pistol-shots into the audience, and continue the fire by a brilliant musketry of little fulminating phrases—the victory is yours, unless you are essentially an ass. For youth—verdant youth—will always be carried away by the expression, true or false, of feeling.
M. Philarète Chasles is said to want in some degree that great constituent of humanity—passion. He is one of those refined and delicate writers who employ all their genius to ridicule the mind, and all their reason to drive to shipwreck upon the beautiful waters of poesie the most charming flotillas of the imagination. He belongs to the breed of sharp raillers, whose skepticism points an epigram. In a word, there is no reverse side for his admiration on any question—a habit of judging quite common among many writers, genuine and charlatan.
But this is not saying that the author of Etudes does not feel deeply the irresistible attraction of the beau ideal; or that we are treating of one of those representatives of pompous and stupid criticism, who are so justly despised by the poets. Certainly not. On the contrary, M. Chasles combines a vigorous hate of ornate folly and vulgarity with a profound disgust towards tame or extravagant conventionalism. The academic style has no fascination for him. He likes elbow-room in the discussion of art, and if he finds himself confined by the close-fitting coat of the professor, he rips it asunder, stretching out his arms in a fit of restlessness. A protective literature regards him among its most resolute adversaries. No custom-houses in literature for him, and particularly no excisemen, who, under pretext of contraband, drive their brutal gauge-rods into the free productions of human intelligence.
M. Philarète Chasles is a literary disciple of Cobden. He would not only lower the barriers between province and province, but wholly abolish them between nation and nation. His imagination carries him as a balloon beyond the tops of custom-houses; and after visiting the shores of England and America, he returns to France with some curious samples of foreign literature. By this come-and-go policy of importation and exportation, he has created, or at least developed, a noble spirit of commerce, which may be termed international criticism.
This commerce is particularly useful for us who are always ready to proclaim ourselves in every thing and to every one the first nation of the globe. It is an auspicious time therefore to become acquainted with the weaknesses of our character without losing its force. The glory of the past obliges us to think of the glory of the future, which can be easily lost to us if ambition does not come in time to animate our courage. To deny that there are rivals is no way to conquer them. It is a great deal better to study them attentively, and to consider beforehand the perils of the combat. We are indeed the heroes of genius, but if we misapprehend the tactics, we say it frankly, we shall be beaten.
The author of the Etudes wishes to spare us such a humiliation, by telling us of the enemy as he is; and in this sense his work is truly patriotic, and cannot be unacceptable to any.
Many writers have instituted a relation between us and the Latins and Greeks. M. Chasles thinks that to remember the glorious dead of the south is to engender contempt for the living. It is not then towards the south that he directs his attention. The Saxon race, beyond the British Sea and the Atlantic, preoccupies him. The nations in progress are those most hopeful for new and immortal productions of the muse. The rest of the world is given to an incurable imitation. And M. Chasles is right in bringing us into the presence of the English and the Americans. He is sufficiently conversant with their language to fulfil the delicate functions of interpreter.
I know writers who, on account of studying foreign literature, so bear the imprints of it in their works, that one would say in reading them, that he had before him French translations of Italian or German, or English, or Spanish. The literary temperament of M. Chasles, however, is not changed, notwithstanding his migrations. The author of Etudes thinks in French, writes in French, and what is more, in French inherited from a Gaul. He preserves in his mind the brightness of his native sky, whether he wanders in the fogs of London, or is becoming a victim of ennui among the vapors of New-York. His pen seems to strike out sparks as he writes. He is active and bold, strong and light, independent and courteous. Nothing stops him. He runs oftener than he walks, and leaps over an obstacle that he may not lose time in going round it. Indeed, every thing is accomplished well by the intelligence that judges as it travels. Reflection itself is rapid, and logic hastens the step and smooths the way. A light and tripping foot belongs especially to criticism. If it raises a little brilliant dust in the road, it is no matter, it soon falls again. M. Chasles has no taste for old truths; he prefers much some kind of paradox which is now a truth and now a lie. It is for this reason that foreigners reproach him with being superficial. Very well! let him be so. He is a true Frenchman, for he touches only the flower of ideas, and, for a Frenchman, the flower and the surface are all one.
It is not just, however, to regard this reproach as wholly merited, although (originating beyond the British Sea) it is reproduced among us by those would-be grave men who are dull writers. M. Chasles often allies lightness of expression with great profundity of thought. His style cuts as a blade of steel. He has eloquence, gayety, irony, caprice, and all in a perfect measure. No style resembles less the childish dashes of persons of wit, and who possess nothing else—who play the mountebank by a hundred tricks to astonish the gaping crowd—a light style, if you please, but empty as it is light.
The Etudes of M. Chasles are not of that superficial character adopted by many. The admiration of ninnies is not his desire. The object that he pursues continues ever a serious one, although a thousand graces ornament the way. He has vivacity without losing precision—two characteristics of good writing seldom found together. If he indulges in digressions, they are not perceptible until the reappearance of his subject shows us how gracefully he has departed from it. He passes rapidly over what is known, while with an especial care he dwells on what is unknown. Thus, in the history of American literature he does not amuse himself long with the popular names of Fenimore Cooper and Franklin. What could he say new respecting these two great ornaments of American science and literature? His instinct of observation and criticism suggested to him the works less known of Gouverneur Morris and Hermann Melville. Between these two writers, of whom one was the contemporary of Washington, and the other still living in some corner of Massachusetts, are ranged according to their date the productions of the writers of the great American nation.
Gouverneur Morris was of a noble spirit. His Mémoires represent to us, with a full and attractive fidelity, the opinion which the young and tranquil republic of the United States entertained at the close of the eighteenth century, of the men and the events of our French Revolution. He was far from misunderstanding the abuses of our ancient society, but he deplored that it was necessary for violence to abolish them. A sensible and polished observer, he criticised them without passion, and with a benevolent irony. Let us hear him tell of a conversation he had, at Madame de la Suze's, with one of the most brilliant leaders of the gay world that had just perished. In a few lines, he presents an admirable sketch of the personage:
'The rest of our party were playing at cards, and quite absorbed in the game, when M. de Boufflers, in want of something better to do, spoke to me of America. The carelessness with which he heard me proved that he did not pay the least attention to what he had asked me.
—"But how could you defend your country from invasion without fleets and armies?"
"Nothing could be more difficult," replied Morris, "than to subjugate a nation composed of kings, and who, if looked upon contemptuously, would respond: 'I am a man; are you any thing more?'"
"Very well," said M. de Boufflers. "But how would you like it, if I should say to one of those citizen-kings: Monsieur, the king, make me a pair of boots!"
"My compatriot," said Morris, "would not hesitate to reply: 'With great pleasure, sir. It is my duty and my vocation to make boots, and I could wish that every one would do his duty in this world."'
M. de Boufflers looked up to the ceiling as if in search of a solution of this enigma, and Morris contemplated him, as much surprised as if, in the forests of the New World, he had heard a humming-bird reason of the affairs of the Republic. And it was thus with all that class of men—the same elegance—the same luxury—the same prattle—the same heedlessness. All these courtiers of the last hour resembled precisely M. de Boufflers. The same day, indeed, of the taking of the Bastile, Morris traced two lines upon the tablettes:
"It is very well that the court should appear to believe that all is tranquil; but to-morrow, perhaps, when the citadelle is in flames, they will agree that there has been some noise in Paris."
Some time before, the grave and gentle American had met Madame de Staël at Madame de Tesse's; the daughter of Necker conversed with him in another style than that of M. de Boufflers. However, quite serious as Corinne certainly was, the dignity of the compatriot of Washington surprised and diverted her.
"Monsieur," she said, after a moment's conversation, "you have a very imposing air."
"I know it, Madame," replied Morris.
The English literature constantly serves M. Chasles, to bring into relief the character of American literature. And thus, he opposes the peaceful inspirations of the work-girls of Lowell with the passionate dithyrambics of Ebenezer Elliott, the blacksmith of Sheffield—a chapter full of just remarks upon what Chasles calls the poetry of vengeance.
The girls of Lowell—the Lucindas, the Alleghanias, the Tancredas, the Velledas—who, after a day's labor, pass into the street in silken dresses, with gold watches shining at their zone, and their beautiful faces shaded by parasols—those Massachusetts weavers, who have even instituted an academy among themselves—do not in their innocent verses, invoke the vengeful muses. They know nothing of that terrible Nemesis, with cheeks hollow and ghastly, armed hands, and eyes red with poverty and weeping, to whom the poor workers of British factories send up the cry of famine and despair. If the female operatives of Lowell read the work of M. Philarète Chasles, they will find there an encouragement to cultivate the smiling thoughts of poetry. He, no more than George Sand, notwithstanding her sympathies for the working classes, either loves or encourages the irritable singers of social sufferings.
"What," he exclaims, "has become of the glorious Apollo of the Greek? Where is the sunny ideal of the hellenistic heavens? Where the sacred sorrows of Christian perfection? Poetry is no more a garden of roses; it is a wild field of thorns, wherein he who walks leaves tracks of blood. At the entrance of this Parnassus stands Poverty, whom Virgil places in faucibus orci. Her complaints are in the midst of curses. She holds in her hand a skull, with strings of iron, and she sweeps them as a lyre with golden chords. Behind her are Crabbe, the Juvenal of the hospitals; Ebenezer Elliott, the singer of hunger; Cooper, the poet of suicide, and the author of Ernest, followed by a miserable train of children, whom manufacturers have famished, and young women whom excessive labor has demoralized and prostituted in the morning of their life. Mournful choir, to which these poets worthily respond."
It is not very pleasant, to be sure, for a reader to pass from some agreeable representation to a frightful array of evils. The spectacle but too true of social infirmities troubles the sleep of the happy, and awakes with a start the drowsy hate of the unhappy. But there is no reason why he who suffers, should not utter his complaint. The Bible itself is not a stranger to vehement protestations against the apparent injustice of destiny. When Job arose from the ashes, surely it was not to sing to the passers-by some touching idylle in the style of Ruth and Naomi. He accused heaven and life, he cursed his friends, and his mother, without troubling himself to know whether his sorrows reached the lovers' palm-groves, or disturbed the wooings of the daughters of Idumea. The Sheffield blacksmith, among flaming furnaces, cannot sing the voluptuous sweets of existence. He strikes the anvil with a ring, and exclaims in a rough voice, amid smoke and fire:
"Accursed be the muse of necessity and suffering! Who wishes her acquaintance? The poor, so despised! Write not their frightful history. Pride and vanity despise your labors. Who is he, I pray you, that artizan who uses the pen? What right has he to do so? Absurd rhymer, let him retire and pare his nails—and renounce a species of industry for which he was never made. You are accustomed only to oaths, and you are only a rough worker in poetry."
M. Chasles does not deny the right of artizans to employ the pen. Ignoble or noble—a serf or a lord—whether he is called Burns, or Chasles of Orleans—whether he is a porter, a laborer, or even a drunkard, from the moment that there is seen upon his brow the radiant sign of genius, he is known. To wonder that an artizan is a poet, is to think it marvellous that beauty should bloom upon the cheek of a village maid. The gift is natural, and not acquired; and the mechanic who writes either prose or poetry must be judged with as much severity as if he were a king. It is not astonishing, therefore, that the author of the Etudes judges severely the blacksmith of Sheffield. But the latter seems to have anticipated the severity of the critic, when he says with an accent of the most mournful bitterness:
"Do not read me, ye who love elegance and grace. Alight not, ye butterflies, among thorns—nor upon rocks burning in the sun and beaten by the rains—you may tarnish the gauze of your beautiful wings. But you who honor truth, follow me. I will bring you wild flowers, gathered from the precipice, amid howling tempests."
While we inhale the perfume of the flowers of the heath, we can honor truth, without being foolish flies, and without renouncing the love of the elegant and graceful. Not less did M. Chasles write to the Journal des Débats, a little before the revolution, in those generous words which we are happy to see again in his book:
"It is for you, politicians, to find a remedy for the evils of society. The interests of the masses are in your hands—those who have not enough to eat, and too much work. The verses of famished workmen, which we cannot sing, we weep over. The muse of Cooper, of Elliott, and of Crabbe, is not a muse, but a fury. You are reminded, that in accumulating wealth in one direction, you are increasing poverty in another; and that the poverty which complains at first avenges itself afterward."
I do not know whether these words were prophetic, but I see in them a noble sentiment, unfortunately too rare among those who love elegance and grace. Let us be elegant, if we can; gracious, if we know how. But, besides those desirable qualities of the old French society, let us show in the light of heaven that living active charity which only can strengthen by purifying the existence of the new order of society. The grandchildren of Boufflers, we expose ourselves no more to ridicule in saying: "Monsieur le roi, faite-moi une paire de souliers." The king will make the shoes if it is his vocation. The grandchildren of Boufflers should do their duty—that is to say: contribute with all their mind to find out, according to the expression of Chasles, efficacious remedies for social evils. When workmen are more happy, they will write less poetry, or at least they will write more calmly. See the American spinners of Lowell. Ah! Lucinda or Tancreda has never lifted up her voice to heaven with the despair of Elliott. An amorous complaint suffices her; a sonnet, or a love-sigh, breathed by the light of the stars, consoles her for the labors of the day. American society works first; when it has conquered an independence, it sings. All Americans do not accept the saying of one of their journalists: "Political and practical life is sufficient for man. Imagination is a peril—arts a misfortune." So far from proscribing the arts and imagination, Cooper, Irving, Audubon, and many others are among those who have magnified the literature of their country. But the greater part, with that fruitful wisdom which characterizes them, applaud the advice of Channing:
"I made a resolution of presenting a gift to my country in the form of an epic. But I had prudence enough to postpone it until I should have a fortune. I then commenced to make my business known, after which I retired into solitude with my imagination."
In Europe it is just the contrary. We ask the imagination to make our business known, and we retire into solitude with our fortune or our poverty. Which course avails the more for our glory? Which for our repose?
The conclusion of the work of M. Chasles is, that our literature, our manners, our nationality even, will some day disappear before the rising glory of the great Western Republic, but I can declare without emotion that I have no fear of my country. America offers us examples; we also have some to offer her. The future of the United States is developed day by day in a manner that astonishes Europe. But notwithstanding the patriotes de clocher, and French humanitaires who suppress the very word native country, I believe in the higher destinies of France.
Sir Francis Palgrave's History of Normandy and of England, of which the first volume has just appeared in London, is unquestionably a very important work, illustrating a period of which comparatively little has been known, and of which a knowledge is eminently necessary to the student of British institutions and manners. The subject has been partially handled by French authors—by Thierry, Guizot, Michelet, and in a desultory manner by M. Barante—but not one of these has shown the very intimate relation that exists between the history of Normandy and of England. That intermixture of the histories of the countries may indeed be inferred from old English works, such as Camden, Fortescue, Hale, Britton, Bracton, Fleta, Spelman, Somner, Chief Baron Gilbert, Daines Barrington, and others, and from labors of Bede, William of Malmesbury, Geoffry of Monmouth, and all the older chroniclers. But not one of these writers, in all their varied labors, has undertaken to show how the histories of the two countries act and re-act on each other, or how, represented in the popular mind by the epithets Norman and Saxon, French and English, they have been for a thousand years or more running against each other a perpetual race of rivalry and emulation. A worthy Picard lawyer indeed, of the name of Gaillard, who abandoned the law for literature about a century ago, wrote a work called The Rivalry between France and England, in eleven volumes; but who, in 1851, unless specially dedicated to historical studies, would read a French history on the subject of the rivalry between the two nations, written between 1771 and 1777, especially when it extends to eleven volumes? Independently of this, any French history on such subject is sure to be tinged with prejudice, passion, and vanity. It is true that the judicious Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, Henry Wheaton, in his History of the Northmen, and M. Capefigue, give us more or less insight into Norman history; but none of these authors attempt to show the general relations of mediæval history, or that absolute need of uniting Norman to English history, which it is the chief aim of Sir Francis Palgrave to demonstrate. As deputy keeper of the public records of England, this learned historian has had the best possible opportunities of investigation, and he tells us in his preface that he has devoted to the work a full quarter of a century.
The style of Sir Francis Palgrave is generally heavy, and his work will therefore be more prized by students than by the mere lovers of literature. His manner and spirit and the character of his performance may be most satisfactorily exhibited in a few specimen paragraphs, however, and we proceed to quote, first, from an introductory dissertation, some remarks on the arts, architecture, and civilization of Rome. He says:
"Roman taste gave the fashion to the garment, Roman skill the models for the instruments of war. We have been told to seek in the forests of Germany the origin of the feudal system and the conception of the Gothic aisle. We shall discover neither there. Architecture is the costume of society, and throughout European Christendom that costume was patterned from Rome. Unapt and unskilful pupils, she taught the Ostrogothic workman to plan the palace of Theodoric; the Frank, to decorate the hall of Charlemagne; the Lombard, to vault the duomo; the Norman, to design the cathedral. Above all, Rome imparted to our European civilization her luxury, her grandeur, her richness, her splendor, her exaltation of human reason, her spirit of free inquiry, her ready mutability, her unwearied activity, her expansive and devouring energy, her hardness of heart, her intellectual pride, her fierceness, her insatiate cruelty, that unrelenting cruelty which expels all other races out of the very pale of humanity; whilst our direction of thought, our literature, our languages, concur in uniting the dominions, kingdoms, states, principalities, and powers, composing our civilized commonwealth in the Old Continent and the New, with the terrible people through whom that civilized commonwealth wields the thunderbolts of the dreadful monarchy, diverse from all others which preceded amongst mankind."
The following is our author's view of the real and the ideal Charlemagne:—
"It seems Charlemagne's fate that he should always be in danger of shading into a mythic monarch—not a man of flesh and blood, but a personified theory. Turpin's Carolus Magnus, the Charlemagne of Roncesvalles; Ariosto's Sacra Corona, surrounded by Palatines and Doze-Piers, are scarcely more unlike the real rough, tough, shaggy, old monarch, than the conventional portraitures by which his real features have been supplanted.
"It is an insuperable source of fallacy in human observation as well as in human judgment, that we never can sufficiently disjoin our own individuality from our estimates of moral nature. Admiring ourselves in others, we ascribe to those whom we love or admire the qualities we value in ourselves. We each see the landscape through our own stripe of the rainbow. A favorite hero by long-established prescription, few historical characters have been more disguised by fond adornment than Charlemagne. Each generation or school has endeavored to exhibit him as a normal model of excellence: Courtly Mezeray invests the son of Pepin with the taste of Louis Quatorze; the polished Abbé Velly bestows upon the Frankish emperor the abstract perfection of a dramatic hero; Boulainvilliers, the champion of the noblesse, worships the founder of hereditary feudality; Mably discovers in the capitulars the maxims of popular liberty; Montesquieu, the perfect philosophy of legislation. But, generally speaking, Charlemagne's historical aspect is derived from his patronage of literature. This notion of his literary character colors his political character, so that in the assumption of the imperial authority, we are fain to consider him as a true romanticist—such as in our own days we have seen upon the throne—seeking to appease hungry desires by playing with poetic fancies, to satisfy hard nature with pleasant words, to give substance and body to a dream.
"All these prestiges will vanish if we render to Charlemagne his well deserved encomium:—he was a great warrior, a great statesman, fitted for his own age. It is a very ambiguous praise to say that a man is in advance of his age; if so, he is out of his place; he lives in a foreign country. Equally so, if he lives in the past. No innovator so bold, so reckless, and so crude, as he who makes the attempt (which never succeeds) to effect a resurrection of antiquity."
The practical character of Charlemagne is thus sketched:—
"We may put by the book, and study Charlemagne's achievements on the borders of the Rhine; better than in the book may the traveller see Charlemagne's genuine character pictured upon the lovely unfolding landscape: the huge domminsters, the fortresses of religion; the yellow sunny rocks studded with the vine; the mulberry and the peach, ripening in the ruddy orchards; the succulent potherbs and worts which stock the Bauer's garden,—these are the monuments and memorials of Charlemagne's mind. The first health pledged when the flask is opened at Johannisberg should be the monarchs name who gave the song-inspiring vintage. Charlemagne's superiority and ability consisted chiefly in seeking and seizing the immediate advantages, whatever they might be which he could confer upon others or obtain for himself. He was a man of forethought, ready contrivance, and useful talent. He would employ every expedient, grasp every opportunity, and provide for each day as it was passing by.
"The educational movement resulting from Charlemagne's genius was practical. Two main objects had he therein upon his conscience and his mind. The first, was the support of the Christian Faith; his seven liberal sciences circled round theology, the centre of the intellectual system. No argument was needed as to the obligation of uniting sacred and secular learning, because the idea of disuniting them never was entertained. His other object in patronizing learning and instruction was the benefit of the State. He sought to train good men of business; judges well qualified, ready penmen in his chancery; and this sage desire expanded into a wide instructional field. Charlemagne's exertions for promoting the study of the Greek language—his Greek professorships at Osnaburgh or Saltzburgh—have been praised, doubted, discussed, as something very paradoxical; whereas, his motives were plain, and his machinery simple. Greek was, to all intents and purposes, the current language of an opulent and powerful nation, required for the transaction of public affairs. A close parallel, necessitated by the same causes, exists in the capital of Charlemagne's successors. The Oriental Academy at Vienna is constituted to afford a supply of individuals qualified for the diplomatic intercourse, arising out of the vicinity and relations of the Austrian and Ottoman dominions, without any reference to the promotion of philology. We find the same at home. If the Persian language be taught at Haileybury, it is to fit the future Writer of his Indian office. He may study Ferduzi or Hafiz, if he pleases, but the cultivation of literature is not the intent with which the learning is bestowed."
Here is the manner in which Sir Francis Palgrave contrasts and compares the two emperors, Charlemagne and Napoleon:—
"Napoleon sought the creation of an anti-christian imperial pontificate—the caliphate of positive civilization; his aspiration was the establishment of absolute dominion, corporeal and intellectual; mastery over body and soul; faith respected only as an influential and venerable delusion; the aiding powers of religion accepted until she should be chilled out, and the unfed flame expire, and positive philosophy complete her task of emancipating the matured intellect from the remaining swathing bands which had been needful during the infancy of human society. And the theories of Charlemagne and Napoleon, though irreconcileably antagonistic, in their conception, would, were either fully developed, become identical in their result, notwithstanding their contrarieties. They start in opposite directions, but, circling round their courses, would—were it permitted that they should persevere continuously and consistently—meet at the same point of convergence, and attain the same end.
"Moreover, the territorial empires of Napoleon and Charlemagne had their organically fatal characteristics in common. Each founder attempted to accomplish political impossibilities—to conjoin communities unsusceptible of amalgamation; to harmonize the discordant elements which could only be kept together by external force, whilst their internal forces sprung them asunder—a unity without internal union. But even as the wonderful agencies revealed to modern chemistry effect, in a short hour, the progresses which nature silently elaborates during a long growth of time, so in like manner did the energies of civilization effect in three years that dissolution for which, in the analogous precedent, seven generations were required."
The growth of the fine arts, commonly so called, in this country, has been a fruitful subject of congratulatory observation in the last dozen years. The opera in that time has gained a permanent home here, and our sculptors and painters have gone out into the old fields of art, and claimed equality with their masters—an equality which Italy, Germany, France, and even England, slowly and reluctantly in some cases, but in the presence of the works of Powers, Crawford, Greenough, Leutze, and others, have, at length, confessed. In painting, as everybody knows, with few exceptions our best works have never been seen abroad, and the advance of design here is therefore to be studied only in our own exhibitions, hung with the productions of Durand, Huntington, Eliott, and the crowd of young painters coming forward every season to claim the approval of the people. The general taste keeps pace with every achievement. We hear that the Art-Union was never visited so much as this year; and private galleries, and those of every dealer in works of art, are thronged. The existence in our principal cities, under the control of men of cultivation, of stores for the sale of works in the fine arts, is a fact eminently significant. That of Williams & Stevens, in Broadway, for example, could be sustained only by a community in which there is a refinement of taste such as a few years ago could be found only in limited circles in this country. Beginning with efforts to introduce the finest forms and combinations in looking-glass and picture frames, the proprietors of this establishment have made it a great market-house for artists, and the display upon its walls and in its windows is frequently more attractive to the connoisseur than the exhibitions of the Academies or the Art-Unions. And it is astonishing how many of the best works of the European engravers—works which may justly be called copies of the master-pieces of contemporary foreign art—are sold here, to adorn houses from which the tawdry ornaments in vogue a few years ago have been discarded. The same observations may be made in regard to furniture. The graceful styles and high finish to be seen at many of our stores, and in our recently furnished houses, illustrate a progress in elegance, luxury, and taste, not dreamed of by the last generation. And in all these things it is observable that the advance is in cheapness as well as in beauty. In this respect indeed we have scarcely kept pace with the French and English, but the cost at which a man of taste and a little tact can now furnish a house, so that it shall illustrate not only his own refinement but the condition of the best civilization of the time, is astonishingly small, compared with what it was a few years ago. The fine engraving, with its appropriate frame, to be bought for thirty dollars, is to be much preferred before the portrait or indeed before any painting whatever that is purchasable for a hundred dollars; and though silver is unquestionably silver, the imitation table furniture, of the most classical shapes, that is sold now for a fifth of the cost of the coinable metal, looks quite as well upon a salver. The arts by which beauty is made familiar in the homes of all classes of people are of all arts most deserving of encouragement, and it is among the happiest of omens that they are receiving so much attention—far more attention now than they have ever before received in America. We shall hereafter attempt a more particular exhibition of this subject.
Noticing in the journals some brief but very just remarks upon the character of the eminent Roman Catholic historian of England, who died July 17th, at the good old age of more than four-score years, I am induced to think that an account of a visit which I had the honor to make this celebrated scholar, may not be altogether without interest for your readers.
March 12, 1850, having a leisure day at Lancaster, and having already visited John of Gaunt's castle, in company with several of those genial spirits who afford me an unusually delightful social remembrance of the dingy buildings and narrow crooked streets of that famous old town, one of them happened to mention the name of Dr. Lingard. I instantly inquired after him with interest, and, observing my enthusiasm, Mr. T. J—— proposed a drive to his residence at Hornby, a village some twelve or thirteen miles distant. I of course gladly acceded to the proposal, and we were soon on our way, with a fleet horse, over the absolutely perfect English turnpike road—for the roads in England are always passable, and not "improved," like some of those around New-York, in so continued a manner as to be useless.
After a fine rural drive, crossing the river Loon, and through Lonsdale, we came within sight of an old church and castle. I took the church to be that of the historian, but found, to my surprise, that the famous old sage was placed in entire seclusion, and ministered to a very few, and those very poor, sheep, in a little chapel, or room, under his own roof. In this remote and by no means picturesque village, at an antiquated house, we knocked, and were told by the aged domestic that the venerable historian had been very feeble of late, and had gone out, on this fine day in the spring, for a walk. After many inquiries among the villagers, by whom he was as well known as beloved, I proposed to take the line of the new railway, and, after quite a walk, met a feeble old man, with a scholar's face, a bright twinkling black eye, supporting his steps on a staff, and wrapped up with all the care which an aged and faithful housekeeper could bestow upon a long-tried and most indulgent master. I pronounced his name, and gave him my own; stated that I was a presbyter in the holy (though not Roman) Catholic church, that I had long admired his integrity and faithfulness as an historian, and that it was by no means the least of my happy days in England that I was now permitted to speak to him face to face. The kind and gentle old man seemed truly astonished that any one who had come so far, and seen so much, should care for seeing him, and rewarded my enthusiasm with a hearty grasp of the hand that had wielded so admired a pen. We then walked on together towards his house, and you will not blame me for saying, that I was proud to offer the support of my arm to this fine octogenarian, who had not suffered the spirit of the priest to becloud the candor of the historian. We conversed with the greatest freedom upon our points of difference, and he repeated to me, personally, his entire disbelief in the fable of the nag's head ordination. He seemed to be only historically aware of a disruption between us, for the benevolence of his heart would acknowledge no actual difference.
I cannot refrain from quoting a somewhat amusing illustration of his infinite and childlike simplicity of character, combined with an utter ignorance of those rudiments of modern science which would be much more familiar to our district school-boys than to many men educated in those classic homes of ancient learning, the English universities. Some posts had been set in the ground, and were bound together, for strength, by iron wires; and the venerable sage said, "I suppose this is the Electric Telegraph." I was obliged to insist with a kind of explanatory and playful pertinacity, that this supposition must be incorrect, because electricity could not be conducted, unless the wires were at least continued through the thick posts, instead of being wound around them. At his house, we found the study not very well supplied with books, for the aged scholar had now almost ceased to peruse these. At my request he wrote out very slowly, but in a wonderfully distinct hand for eighty, his own name and the date, "John Lingard, Hornby, March 12, 1850;" and voluntarily added a Latin punning inscription, which he had made the evening before, which he humorously proposed to have engraved upon the new Menai bridge. In this he had spoken of the builder of the bridge, the celebrated Stephens, as Pontifex Maximus. I need not say that I shall preserve these papers among the most precious of my English mementos. I was sorry I could have no hopes that the branch which he gave me from the tree that he had transplanted with his own hands from the battle-field of Cannæ to the quiet of his garden at Hornby, would ever flourish in America. After many hospitable invitations, which other engagements obliged us to decline, and many modest expressions of the gratitude which he seemed deeply to feel for the pains that I had taken to come so far to visit him, we bade farewell to the candid priest, who began, as he told me, an essay to defend his Church against the aspersions of Hume, and had ended by producing a voluminous as well as luminous history.
[For another part of this magazine we have compiled a more full and accurate account of the life of the deceased scholar than has hitherto appeared in this country. See Recent Deaths, post, 285-6.]
The funeral rites of the lamented Calhoun have been performed. So deeply has the mournful pageant impressed me, so vividly have memories of the past been recalled, that I am incapable of thinking or writing on any other theme. My heart prompts me to garner up my recollections of this illustrious statesman. I can better preserve these invaluable memories by committing them to paper, and as you enjoyed but one brief interview with Mr. Calhoun, these pages shall be addressed to you.
An eloquent member of the House of Representatives, from your state, has compared this southern luminary to that remarkable constellation the Southern Cross. A few years since, in sailing to a West Indian island, I had a perilous voyage, but have ever felt that the sight of that Southern Cross, which had long haunted my imagination, almost repaid me for its excitement and suffering. And thus do I regard an acquaintance with this intellectual star as one great compensation for a separation from my early home. It would have been a loss not to have seen that poetic group, which greets the traveller as he sails southward, but how much greater the loss, never to have beheld that unique luminary which has set to rise no more upon our visible horizon.
Mr. Calhoun's public character is so well known to you that I shall speak of him principally in his private relations, and shall refer to his opinions only as expressed in conversation—for it was in the repose of his happy home, in the tranquillity of domestic life, and in the freedom of social intercourse, that I knew him.
While the clarion-notes of his fame resound among the distant hills and valleys of our land, while those who in political strife crossed lances with this champion of the south nobly acknowledge his valor and his honor, while Carolina chants a requiem for her departed dead, may not one who knows his moral elevation, and who has witnessed his domestic virtues, have the consolation of adding an unaffected tribute to his memory? While his devoted constituents, with impressive symbols and mournful pageants, perform funereal rites, erect for him the costly marble, weave for him the brilliant chaplet, be it mine to scatter over his honored tomb simple but ever green leaflets. While in glowing colors the orator portrays him on his peerless career in the political arena, be it mine to delineate the daily beauty of his life.
In Mr. Calhoun were united the simple habits of the Spartan lawgiver, the inflexible principles of the Roman senator, the courteous bearing and indulgent kindness of the American host, husband, and father. This was indeed a rare union. Life with him was solemn and earnest, and yet all about him was cheerful. I never heard him utter a jest; there was an unvarying dignity and gravity in his manner; and yet the playful child regarded him fearlessly and lovingly. Few men indulge their families in as free, confidential, and familiar intercourse as did this great statesman. Indeed, to those who had an opportunity of observing him in his own house, it was evident that his cheerful and happy home had attractions for him superior to those which any other place could offer. Here was a retreat from the cares, the observation, and the homage of the world. In few homes could the transient visitor feel more at ease than did the guest at Fort Hill. Those who knew Mr. Calhoun only by his senatorial speeches may suppose that his heart and mind were all engrossed in the nation's councils, but there were moments when his courtesy, his minute kindnesses, made you forget the statesman. The choicest fruits were selected for his guest; and I remember seeing him at his daughter's wedding take the ornaments from a cake and send them to a little child. Many such graceful attentions, offered in an unostentatious manner to all about him, illustrated the kindness and noble simplicity of his nature. His family could not but exult in his intellectual greatness, his rare endowments, and his lofty career, yet they seemed to lose sight of all these in their love for him. I had once the pleasure of travelling with his eldest son, who related to me many interesting facts and traits of his life. He said he had never heard him speak impatiently to any member of his family. He mentioned that as he was leaving that morning for his home in Alabama, a younger brother said, "Come soon again, and see us, brother A——, for do you not see that father is growing old, and is not father the dearest, best old man in the world!"
Like Cincinnatus, he enjoyed rural life and occupation. It was his habit, when at home, to go over his grounds every day. I remember his returning one morning from a walk about his plantation, delighted with the fine specimens of corn and rice which he brought in for us to admire. That morning—the trifling incident shows his consideration and kindness of feeling, as well as his tact and power of adaptation—seeing an article of needlework in the hands of sister A——, who was then a stranger there, he examined it, spoke of the beauty of the coloring, the variety of the shade, and by thus showing an interest in her, at once made her at ease in his presence.
His eldest daughter always accompanied him to Washington, and in the absence of his wife, who was often detained by family cares at Fort Hill, this daughter was his solace amid arduous duties, and his confidant in perplexing cases. Like the gifted De Staël, she loved her father with enthusiastic devotion. Richly endowed by nature, improved by constant companionship with the great man, her mind was in harmony with his, and he took pleasure in counselling with her. She said, "Of course, I do not understand as he does, for I am comparatively a stranger to the world, yet he likes my unsophisticated opinion, and I frankly tell him my views on any subject about which he inquires of me."
Between himself and his younger daughter there was a peculiar and most tender union. As by the state of her health she was deprived of many enjoyments, her indulgent parents endeavored to compensate for every loss by their affection and devotion. As reading was her favorite occupation, she was allowed to go to the letter-bag when it came from the office, and select the papers she preferred. On one occasion, she had taken two papers, containing news of importance, which her father was anxious to see, but he would allow no one to disturb her until she had finished their perusal.
In his social as well as in his domestic relations he was irreproachable. No shadow rested on his pure fame, no blot on his escutcheon. In his business transactions he was punctual and scrupulously exact. He was honorable as well as honest. Young men who were reared in his vicinity, with their eyes ever on him, say that in all respects, in small as well as in great things, his conduct was so exemplary that he might well be esteemed a model.
His profound love for his own family, his cordial interest in his friends, his kindness and justice in every transaction, were not small virtues in such a personage.
He was anti-Byronic. I never heard him ridicule or satirize a human being. Indeed, he might have been thought deficient in a sense of the ludicrous, had he not by the unvarying propriety of his own conduct proved his exquisite perception of its opposites. When he differed in opinion from those with whom he conversed, he seemed to endeavor by a respectful manner, to compensate for the disagreement. He employed reason rather than contradiction, and so earnestly would he urge an opinion and so fully present an argument, that his opponent could not avoid feeling complimented rather than mortified. He paid a tribute to the understandings of others by the force of his own reasoning, and by his readiness to admit every argument which he could, although advanced in opposition to one he himself had just expressed.
On one occasion I declined taking a glass of wine at his table. He kindly said, "I think you carry that a little too far. It is well to give up every thing intoxicating, but not these light wines." I replied that wine was renounced by many, for the sake of consistency, and for the benefit of those who could not afford wine. He acknowledged the correctness of the principle, adding, "I do not know how temperance societies can take any other ground," and then defined his views of temperance, entered on a course of interesting argument, and stated facts and statistics. Of course, were all men like Mr. Calhoun temperance societies would be superfluous. Perhaps he could not be aware of the temptations which assail many men—he was so purely intellectual, so free from self-indulgence. Materiality with him was held subject to his higher nature. He did not even indulge himself in a cigar. Few spent as little time and exhausted as little energy in mere amusements. Domestic and social enjoyments were his pleasures—kind and benevolent acts were his recreations.
He always seemed willing to converse on any subject which was interesting to those about him. Returning one evening from Fort Hill, I remarked to a friend, "I have never been more convinced of Mr. Calhoun's genius than to-day, while he talked to us of a flower." His versatile conversation evinced his universal knowledge, his quick perception, and his faculty of adaptation. A shower one day compelled him to take shelter in the shed of a blacksmith, who was charmed by his familiar conversation and the knowledge he exhibited of the mechanic arts. A naval officer was once asked, after a visit to Fort Hill, how he liked Mr. Calhoun. "Not at all," says he—"I never like a man who knows more about my profession than I do myself." A clergyman wished to converse with him on subjects of a religious nature, and after the interview remarked that he was astonished to find him better informed than himself on those very points wherein he had expected to give him information. I have understood that Mr. Calhoun avoided an expression of opinion with regard to different sects and creeds, or what is called religious controversy; and once, when urged to give his views in relation to a disputed point, he replied, "That is a subject to which I have never given my attention."
Mr. Calhoun was unostentatious and ever averse to display. He did not appear to talk for the sake of exhibition, but from the overflowing of his earnest nature. Whether in the Senate or in conversation with a single listener, his language was choice, his style fervid, his manner impressive. Never can I forget his gentle earnestness when endeavoring to explain his views on some controverted subject, and observing that my mind could hardly keep pace with his rapid reasoning, he would occasionally pause and say, in his kind manner, "Do you see?"
He did not seek to know the opinion of others with regard to himself. Anonymous letters he never read, and his daughters and nieces often snatched from the flames letters of adulation as well as censure which he had not read. Although he respected the opinions of his fellow-men, he did not seek office or worldly honor. A few years since, one to whom he ever spoke freely, remarked to him that some believed that he was making efforts to obtain the presidency. At that moment he had taken off his glasses, and was wiping them, and thus he replied: "M——, I think when a man is too old to see clearly through his glasses, he is too old to think of the presidency." And recently he said to her, "They may impute what motives they please to me, but I do not seek office." So much did he respect his country, that he might have been gratified by the free gift of the people; so much did he love his country, that he might have rejoiced at an opportunity to serve it, but would he have swerved one iota from his convictions to secure a kingdom? Who that knew him believes it?
It has been said by that brilliant satirist Horace Walpole, that every man has his price. I never did believe so evil a thing; I have been too conversant with the great and good to believe this libel; and I doubt not there are others beside Mr. Calhoun who value truth and honor above all price or office.
Highly as our great statesman regarded appreciation, yet he could endure to be misrepresented. While his glorious eye would light with more brilliant lustre at the greeting of friendship or the earnest expression of confidence, he rose superior to abuse or censure. I believe it was ever thus while in health. The last winter, dying in the Senate chamber, his feeble frame could ill repel the piercing shafts of his antagonists. The ebbing currents in his pulses were accelerated. He could not desert his post, though the contest raged fiercely, but his great soul was wounded. He loved his country, he loved the Union, and it was a great grief to him in his last hours to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Still, he was consoled by the thought that in the end he would be appreciated. Some one remarked to him that he was a very unpopular man. He replied, "I am, among politicians, but not among the people, and you will know this when I am dead."
Though Mr. Calhoun acknowledged, in his own winning way, the involuntary tributes of friendship and admiration, he courteously declined, whenever he could with propriety, public testimonies of homage which were offered to him. His wife shared with him this unostentatious spirit, preferring the voice of friendship to the acclamations of the multitude. I have heard some of his family say that they coveted nothing, not even the presidency, for him. They, with many of us who knew him, felt that even the first gift of a great nation could not add one gem to his crown—that crown of genius and virtue, whose glorious beauty no mortal power could illumine with new effulgence.
His sincerity was perfect. What he thought he said. He was no diplomatist. Some of his theories might seem paradoxical, but a paradox is not necessarily a contradiction. He has been accused of inconsistency. Those who thus accuse him do him grievous wrong.
Nothing is more inconsistent than to persist in a uniform belief when changing circumstances demand its modification. How absurd to preserve a law which in the progress of society has become null and obsolete! for instance, granting to a criminal "the benefit of clergy." "Nothing," says a distinguished English writer, "is so revolutionary as to attempt to keep all things fixed, when, by the very laws of nature, all things are perpetually changing. Nothing is more arrogant than for a fallible being to refuse to open his mind to conviction." When Mr. Calhoun altered his opinion, consistency itself required the change.
However some of his political sentiments might have differed from those of many of the great and good of the age, he was sincere in them, and believed what he asserted with all the earnestness of an enthusiastic nature, with all the faith of a close and independent thinker, and with all the confidence of one who draws his conclusions from general principles and not from individual facts. Time will test the truth of his convictions. It has been said that he was sectional in his feelings, but surely his heart was large enough to embrace the whole country. It has often been said that he wished to sever the Union, but he loved the Union, nor could he brook the thought of disunion if by any means unity could be preserved. Because he foresaw and frankly said that certain effects must result from certain causes, does this prove that he desired these effects? In his very last speech he speaks of disunion as a "great disaster." But he was not a man to cry "peace, peace, when there was no peace." Although like Cassandra he might not be believed, he would raise his warning voice; he was not a man to hide himself when a hydra had sprung up which threatened to devastate our fair and fertile land from its northern borders to its southern shores. And while he called on the south for union, did he not warn the conservative party at the north that this monster was not to be tampered with? And did he not call on them to unite, and arise in their strength, and destroy it?
And how could he, with his wise philosophy, his knowledge of human nature, and universal benevolence, view with indifference that unreflecting and wild (or should I not say savage) philanthropy, which in order to sustain abstract principles loses sight of the happiness and welfare of every class of human beings? How often did he entreat that discussion on those subjects, beyond the right of legislation, should be prevented, that angry words and ungenerous recrimination should cease! Did he not foresee that such discussions would serve to develop every element of evil in all the sections of the country—a country with such capacities for good? Did he unwisely fear that the ancient fable of Cadmus would be realized—that dragon-teeth, recklessly scattered, would spring up armed? And did he not know that the southern heart could not remain insensible to reproach and aggression?