Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844», sayfa 11
“Her hands are woo’d with kisses,
They refuse not the caress,
Closer, closer, ever closer,
Vigorous lips for answer press!
Feasting the hungry silence
Comes, sob-clad, a silver ‘yes.’”
There are several smaller poems interspersed throughout the volume. Mr Tennyson has his “Claribels,” and “Isabels,” and “Adelines,” and “Eleanores”—ladies with whom he frequently plays strange, though, we admit, by no means ungraceful vagaries; and Mr Patmore, as in duty bound, and following the imitative bent of his genius, must also have his Geraldine to dally with. The two following stanzas of playful namby-pambyism, are a specimen of the manner in which this gentleman dandles his kid:—
“We are in the fields. Delight!
Look around! The bird’s-eyes bright;
Pink-tipp’d daisies; sorrel red,
Drooping o’er the lark’s green bed;
Oxlips; glazed buttercups,
Out of which the wild bee sups;
See! they dance about thy feet!
Play with, pluck them, little Sweet!
Some affinity divine
Thou hast with them, Geraldine.
“Now, sweet wanton, toss them high;
Race about, you know not why.
Now stand still, from sheer excess
Of exhaustless happiness.
I, meanwhile, on this old gate,
Sit sagely calm, and perhaps relate
Lore of fairies. Do you know
How they make the mushrooms grow?
Ah! what means that shout of thine?
You can’t tell me, Geraldine.”
Our extracts are now concluded; and in reviewing them in the mass, we can only exclaim—this, then, is the pass to which the poetry of England has come! This is the life into which the slime of the Keateses and Shelleys of former times has fecundated! The result was predicted about a quarter of a century ago in the pages of this Magazine; and many attempts were then made to suppress the nuisance at its fountainhead. Much good was accomplished: but our efforts at that time were only partially successful; for nothing is so tenacious of life as the spawn of frogs—nothing is so vivacious as corruption, until it has reached its last stage. The evidence before us shows that this stage has been now at length attained. Mr Coventry Patmore’s volume has reached the ultimate terminus of poetical degradation; and our conclusion, as well as our hope is, that the fry must become extinct in him. His poetry (thank Heaven!) cannot corrupt into any thing worse than itself.
MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN
Part XIII
“Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?”
Shakspeare.
I had been familiar with the debates of the French Convention, and had witnessed the genius of French eloquence in its highest exertions. Nothing will cure this people of their aversion to nature. With them, all that is natural is poor—simplicity is meanness. The truth of things wants the picturesque, and thus wants every charm. I had listened to some of their public speakers with strong interest, while they were confined to detail. No man tells a story better than a French conteur. There lies the natural talent of the people. Nothing can be happier than their seizure of slight circumstances, passing colours of events, and those transient thoughts which make a story as pretty as a piece of ladies’ embroidery—a delicate toil, a tasteful display of trivial difficulties gracefully surmounted. But even in their higher order of speakers, I could perceive a constant dissatisfaction with themselves, unless they happened to produce some of those startling conceptions which roused their auditory to a stare, a start, a clapping of hands. I had seen Mirabeau, with all his conscious talent, look round in despair for applause, as a sailor thrown overboard might look for a buoy; I had seen him as much exhausted, and even overwhelmed, by the want of applause, as if he had dropped into an exhausted receiver. If some lucky epigram did not come to his rescue, he was undone.
I was now to be the spectator of a different scene. There was passion and resentment, the keenness of rivalry and the ardour of triumph—but there was no affectation. Men spoke as men speak when their essential interests are engaged—plainly, boldly, and directly—vigorously always, sometimes vehemently; but with that strong sincerity which administers eloquence to even the most untaught orders of mankind, and without which the most decorated eloquence is only the wooden sword and mask of harlequin.
Pitt took the lead, in all senses of the phrase. He was magnificent. His exposition of the state of Europe, perfectly unadorned, had yet an effect upon the House not unlike that of opening a volume to a multitude who had but just learned to read. All was novelty, conviction, and amazement. His appeal to the principles by which a great people should shape its conduct, had all the freshness and the strength of feelings drawn at the moment from the depths of his own blameless bosom; and his hopes of the victory of England over the temptations to public overthrow, exhibited all the fire, and almost all the sacred assurance of prophecy.
He described the system of France as “subversion on principle,” its purpose universal tumult, its instrument remorseless bloodshed, and its success a general reduction of society to the wild fury and the squalid necessities of the savage state. “This,” he exclaimed, turning his full front to the House, raising his hand, and throwing up his eyes to heaven with the solemnity of an adjuration—“This we must resist, in the name of that Omnipotent Disposer who has given us hearts to feel the blessings of society, or we must acknowledge ourselves unworthy to hold a name among nations. This we must resist—live or die. This system we must meet by system—subtlety by sincerity—intrigue by resolution—treachery by good faith-menace by courage. We must remember that we have been made trustees of the honour of the past, and of the hopes of the future. A great country like ours has no alternative but to join the enemy of all order, or to protect all order—to league against all government, or to stand forth its champion. This is the moment for our decision. Empires are not afforded time for delay. All great questions are simple. Shrink, and you are undone, and Europe is undone along with you; be firm, and you will have saved the world!”
The feelings with which this lofty language was heard were intense. The House listened in a state of solemn emotion, hour after hour, deeply silent, but when some chord was so powerfully touched that it gave a universal thrill. But those involuntary bursts of admiration were as suddenly hushed by the anxiety of the House to listen, and the awful sense of the subject. It was not until the great minister sat down that the true feeling was truly exhibited; the applause was then unbounded—a succession of thunder-peals.
I had now leisure to glance at the Opposition. Fox, for a while, seemed good-humouredly inclined to give up the honour of the reply to some of the popular speakers round him; but the occasion was too important to be entrusted to inferior powers, and, on a general summons of his name, he at length rose. The world is too familiar with the name of this celebrated man to permit more than a sketch of his style. It has been said that he had no style. But this could be said only by those who regard consummate ability as an accident.
Of all the public speakers whom I have ever heard, Fox appeared to me the most subtle—of course, not in the crafty and degrading sense of the word; but in the art of approaching an unexpected case, he was a master. He loitered, he lingered, he almost trifled by the way, until the observer began to believe that he had either no object in view, or had forgotten it altogether. In the next moment he rushed to the attack, and carried all by storm. On this occasion he had a difficult part to play; for the hourly violences of the French capital had begun to alienate the principal aristocracy of England, and had raised abhorrence among that most influential body, the middle class. The skill with which the orator glided over this portion of his subject was matchless; no Camilla ever “flew o’er the unbending corn” with a lighter foot. He could not altogether evade the topic. But he treated it as one might treat the narrative of a distressing casualty, or a disease to be touched on with the pity due to human infirmity, or even with the respect due to a dispensation from above. He often paused, seemed to find a difficulty of breathing, was at a loss for words, of which, however, he never failed to find the most pungent at last; and assumed, in a remarkable degree, the appearance of speaking only from a strong compulsion, a feeling of reluctant duty, a sense of moral necessity urging him to a task which burdened all his feelings. I will acknowledge that, when he had made his way through this difficult performance, I followed him with unequivocal delight, and acknowledged all the orator. He had been hitherto Milton’s lion “pawing to get free his hinder parts.” He was now loose, in all his symmetry and power, and with the forest and the plain before him. “Why has the monarchy of France fallen?” he explained, “because, like those on whom the malediction of Scripture has been pronounced, it had eyes and yet would not see, and ears, yet would not hear. An immense population was growing up round it year after year, yet it could see nothing but nobles, priests, and princes. In making this war,” said he, “you are beginning a contest of which no man can calculate the means, no man can state the objects, and no man can predict the end. You are not warring against the throne of France, nor even against the people of France; but warring against every people of the earth which desires to advance its own prosperity, to invigorate its own constitution, and to place itself in that condition of peace, purity, and freedom, which is not more the desire of man than the command of Providence.”
The House burst into loud reprobations of the name of aristocrat and democrat, which he declared to be mere inventions of party prejudice. “Do you require to make political hostilities immortal, give them names; do you wish to break down the national strength, divide it in sections: arm against your enemy, if you will, but here you would arm one hand against the other.”
To the charge of defending the French mob, his answer was in the most prompt and daring style.
“Who are the French mob? The French nation. Dare you put eight and twenty millions of men into your bill of attainder? No indictment ever drawn by the hand of man is broad enough for it. Impeach a nation, you impeach the Providence that made it. Impeach a nation, you are impeaching only your own rashness and presumption. You are impeaching even the unhappy monarch whom you profess to defend. Man is every where the creature of circumstances. Nations are what their governments make them. But France is in a state of revolt. Be it so. I demand what nation ever revolted against justice, truth, and honour? You might as well tell me, that they rebelled against the light of heaven; that they rejected the fruits of the earth; that they refused to breathe the air. Men do not thus war against their natural benefactors; they are not mad enough to repel the very instincts of preservation. I pronounce it, fearlessly, that no nation ever rose, or ever will rise, against a sincere, national, and benevolent authority. No nation was ever born blind. Infatuation is not a law of human nature. The monarchy of France was the criminal.”
Another burst, which produced vast effect on the House, referred to the exclusiveness of the chief public employments.
“The people have overthrown the titles and dignities of France. I admit it. But was it from a natural hatred of those distinctions? That I deny. They are congenial to the heart of man. The national hatred lay in the sense of that intolerable injustice which turns honour into shame. For centuries, those titles and dignities were to the people not badges of honour, but brands of scorn. They were not public calls to generous emulation, but royal proclamations of everlasting contempt. They were not ramparts surrounding the state, but barriers shutting out the people. How would such insults to the common origin of man, to the common powers of the human mind, to the common desires of distinction born with every man, be endured in this country? Is it to be wondered at, that France should have abolished them by acclamation? I contend, that this was a victory gained, not for a populace, but for a people, for all France, for twenty-eight millions of men—over a portion of society who had lost their rank, a body already sentenced by their personal inefficiency—a caste, who, like a famished garrison, had been starved by the sterility of the spot in which they had inclosed themselves; or, like the Indian devotees, had turned themselves into cripples by their pretence of a sacred superiority to the habits of the rest of mankind.”
Opposition still exhibited its ranks but slightly diminished, and the chief passages of this impassioned appeal, which continued for three hours, were received with all the fervour of party. Burke then rose. Strong interest was directed to him, not merely for his eminent name, but from the public curiosity to hear his explanation of that estrangement which had been for some time spreading, under his auspices, through the leading personages of the Opposition. Like most men who have made themselves familiar with the works of a great writer, I had formed a portraiture of him by anticipation. I never was more disappointed. Instead of the expressive countenance and commanding figure, I saw a form of the middle size, and of a homely appearance, a heavy physiognomy, and the whole finished by two appurtenances which would have been fatal to the divinity of the Apollo Belvidere, spectacles and a wig. His voice and manner were scarcely less prepossessing; the one was as abrupt and clamorous, as the other was rustic and ungraceful. He had the general look of a farmer of the better order; and seemed, at best, made to figure on a grand jury.
But I soon felt how trivial are externals in comparison of genuine ability; or perhaps, how much even their repulsiveness may add to the power of genius. I had listened but a few minutes when I forgot every thing, except that a man of the highest faculties was before me; with those faculties wrought to the highest tension by the highest subjects. Taking a line of argument, equally distinct from the leaders of the Ministry and the Opposition, he dwelt as little on the political views of England and Europe with Pitt, as he did upon the revolutionary regeneration of France and Europe with Fox. His view was wholly English; the reference of the revolutionary spirit to our own institutions. “I do not charge,” he exclaimed, turning full on the Opposition bench, “individuals with conspiracy; but I charge them with giving the sanction of their name to principles, which have in them all the germs of conspiracy. Sir, the maxim of resisting the beginnings of evil, is as sound in the concerns of nations as in the morality of individual minds. Nay, I am not sure whether mischief is not more effectually done in that incipient state, than when the evil comes full-formed. It is less perceived, and it thus destroys with impunity. The locust, before it gets its wings, destroys the crop with a still more rapacious tooth than when its armies are loading the wind.
“Honourable members have talked largely of their zeal for the constitution. Sir, I am content to follow the wisdom which judges of the faith by the works. In my humble measure, I have been a zealous worshipper of the constitution. There was a time when those honourable gentlemen and myself—and I speak of that time with the regret due to long friendship—took ‘sweet counsel together,’ and bowed before that common worship as friends. That time is past. We have since taken different paths. I have been charged with apostasy. What is my apostasy? That I have not followed the frenzy and ingratitude of the hour; that, while the most awful event in the history of human change has been transacting before us, I have not shut my ears and eyes to its moral; that I have not followed the throng into the valley, and there joined the fabricators of the new idolatry, the priesthood of the golden calf of revolution, and shared the polluted feast and the intoxicated dance; while the thunders of divine vengeance were rolling on the hill above.”
It was obvious from his manner, and his frequent return to the topic, that that charge of deserting his party had deeply wounded his generous and sensitive nature; and nothing struck me as more characteristic of his mind, than the variety and richness of his fine amplification on this subject.
“In those ranks,” said he, “I fought for nearly the half of that portion of life allotted to man; certainly for that portion of my course, in which the desires, the vigour, and the applicability of all the best parts of human nature have their fullest play. I came to it a volunteer—I fought side by side with its foremost—I shared the ‘winter of their discontent,’ as willingly as the summer of their prosperity. I took the buffets of ill fortune, and they were many, with as cheerful a countenance and as unshaken a fidelity as any man. But when I saw a new banner raised among them, blazoned with mottoes of evil, and refused to follow, who were the deserters? They or I?” As he spoke these words, he drew his otherwise rather stooping form to its full height, lifted his hand above his head, and stood like one at once demanding and defying the investigation of the empire.
The roar of applause which followed seemed to shake the very walls. He was powerfully moved; his countenance changed from its usual pallidness to strong suffusion; his hands rather tossed than waved in the air. At last I saw one of them thrust strongly into his bosom, as if the gesture was excited by some powerful recollection. “Do I speak without proof of the public hazards?” he exclaimed. “I can give you demonstration—I need invoke neither powers above nor powers below to enlighten you. I have the oracle within my hand.” The House fixed all its eyes upon him. He dropped his voice, and spoke with a faint, but clear tone which formed a remarkable contrast to his usually bold, and even harsh enunciation: “Sir,” said he, in this half-whispered voice, “before I join these gentlemen in their worship, I must know what deity presides in their temple; I must see that the incense which fumes before its altar is taken from the sacred repositories of the constitution, not the smuggled importation of foreign fabrications of revolt—that pernicious compound of civil mischief and mad metaphysics—which, instead of consummating and purifying the sacrifice, only poisons the air. I must see something of the priest too, before I join in his aspirations; I must see that he is lawfully inducted to his office, that he is not a rebel in the garb of loyalty—a blasphemer where he professes to pray, and a traitor where he propounds allegiance.”
Fox here, evidently taking the description to himself, exhibited palpable signs of displeasure. Burke caught the expression at once, and instantly changed the whole current of his conceptions. “If,” said he, “the honourable gentleman thinks that I designate him as the high-priest of this new worship, he does me as much injustice as himself. No, no! When we shall see the Republican Pantheon thrown open, he, and such as he, will not be called to officiate at the altar. He is much more likely to be the victim. The popular ornaments, now flung so lavishly upon him, will find him no further favour, than the speedier offering on the same abhorred altar, which reeks with so much of the best blood of France.” Here a corpulent noble, peculiarly hostile to Burke, laughed contemptuously. The orator instantly turned upon him. “True,” said he, “there may be a good deal of variety in that procession. There may be the mummer as well as the priest; it may have the mountebank selling his potions, and playing his tricks, as well as the sacrificer with his axe—unless the ambition of the bloated performer should prefer to combine the offices, and be at once the butcher and the buffoon.”
The hit was felt on all sides, and the laughter was unbounded. He then rose, as was his custom, into a higher strain. “I can imagine that procession,” said he, “or rather, that triumph, of the principles of change. Like the return of the classical Bacchus from his Indian conquests, the demigod,” and he now cast a look at Fox, “secure of supremacy, exulting in his prowess, and thinking the civilized world at his feet; but not without the companionship of his trusty Silenus”—and here he turned his glance on the noble lord—“that veteran follower, whose ambition is limited to his cups, and the vigour of whose fidelity is shown only in the constancy of his intoxication; the whole procession being drawn by the wild lords of the forest and the wilderness, who, harnessed as they may be for the moment, will no sooner find their food stinted, than they will resume the natural instincts of the lion and the tiger, turn on their drivers and devour them.
“But, sir,” he exclaimed, turning to the chair, “I have higher topics, and to those I now call the attention of the representatives of England. I have alluded to the revolutionary temple. I here have its deity.” With these words, he plucked from his bosom a large dagger, held it for a moment up to the light, and then flung it at the foot of the table. The astonishment, and even the alarm, of the whole assembly was beyond description. They all started from their seats, as if assassination had stood before them in a visible shape. Some crowded round Burke, some seized the dagger, which was eventually carried to the Speaker, and became the object of universal curiosity. All was confusion for a considerable time. At length Burke, in a few words delivered in his most impressive tone, explained the phenomenon. “That dagger,” said he, “is one of thousands, perhaps of millions, which the preachers of philosophy are now forging for popular conviction. You see that by its construction it is equally fitted for the head of a pike, or for a dagger—equally serviceable in tearing down the monarchy in the field, or stabbing its friends in their chambers. You have it, at once the emblem of rebellion and assassination. Those are the arguments of the new school—those are the instruments by which the limbs of the state are to be amputated, for replacement by the inventions of the revolutionary mechanists. Those are the keys by which the locks of cabinets and councils are henceforth to be opened, and the secrets of national wealth laid bare to the rapacity of the rabble.” After this speech nothing was listened to.
The debate had been prolonged through the greater part of the night, and yet such was the interest felt in its subject, that the streets in the neighbourhood continued crowded to the last. All the hotels and coffee-houses were filled with people waiting for the division. Groups, with lighted torches, were lingering everywhere, and passing the intelligence along, as a member happened casually to make his appearance in the course of the night; shouts and expressions of wrath alternately arose, according to the nature of the intelligence, and a species of open-air legislature was held during one of the bitterest nights of winter, with discussions as active, though perhaps not altogether so classical, as those within; yet totally free from tumult, and in the spirit of a people who live with a constant reference to the laws. The rush of the members to the porch, on the breaking up of the debate, produced a corresponding rush of the multitude. Public curiosity was roused to its wildest height—every public sentiment had its full expression; and whether the acclamation was louder when Fox’s corpulent frame was seen toiling its slow way through the pressure, or when Pitt’s slender figure and passionless face was recognised, is a question which might have perplexed the keenest investigators of popular sentiment. All was that uproar in which the Englishman delights as a portion of his freedom.
On returning to my chamber, exhausted, yet animated with a new sense of the value of existence in such a country, and of the noble faculties which she carried in her bosom, I saw a large packet on my table. I gazed on its envelope for a few moments with that strange emotion which sometimes makes us dread to open the very letter which we most desire to receive. It was obviously from Downing Street. At last I opened it. It contained my commission in the Guards!
My destiny was now fixed, and it is impossible to tell how much I felt relieved. I had spent the preceding period in such perplexing indecision, that I felt my heart withering within me. Now all was clear. My course was decided. I was in other hands than my own, and whatever might be the result, I was no longer answerable for either good or ill fortune. No human being who has not felt the trial almost the torment, of being left to decide on the conduct which may make or mar him for life, can conceive the depression into which it plunges the mind. From this I was now relieved; I was wholly free; an established routine, a vigorous profession, a regulated pursuit, and that pursuit one of the most honourable nature, was suddenly prepared for me by the enclosure upon my table. After again and again reading this simple but expressive document, I threw myself on my bed, and attempted to forget it and the world. But I could forget neither; my eyelids would not close; sleep had gone from me. After a useless effort for composure, I rose, relighted my lamp, and spent the rest of the night in writing to my relatives, to Vincent, to Mordecai, and every one to whom I felt his majesty’s sign-manual a vindication of my whole career. There was still one cloud that overhung my prospect, one gloomy and bitter remembrance: but this cloud I had neither the power nor even the wish to dispel; this remembrance was already a part of my being—to extinguish it was impossible. I resolved to cherish it as a sacred recollection, to combine it with the aspirations of my new pursuit, and render them thus still nobler; to reserve it as a treasure inaccessible to the knowledge of mankind, but to which I might return in my hours of discontent with the world, and restore my sense of the beauty of mind and form which might still exist in the shape of human nature.
Yet it may be justly supposed that I did not limit my feelings to this lonely abstraction. I spent an anxious period in making enquiries for the Maréchale, in every quarter which offered the slightest probability of discovering her abode. Though I had seen the announcement of Clotilde’s approaching marriage in the public journals, I had seen no mention of its having taken place. My search was wholly unproductive. The captivating duchess, who received me with the kindness which seemed a part of her nature, while she joined me in my praises of the “young, the lovely, and the accomplished Comtesse,” “her dearest of friends,” could tell me nothing more than that she had left London, and she believed with an intention of visiting France. There her knowledge ceased. I learned only further, that she had grown singularly fond of solitude, was melancholy, and had no hesitation in expressing the deepest dislike to the marriage proposed by her family. My enquiry was at an end.
Hopeless as this intelligence was, it relieved me from the certainty, which would have been despair. While Clotilde remained unallied to one whom I could not avoid regarding as an uncongenial spirit, if not a hard and tyrannical master, there was, at least, the chance of happiness remaining for me in a world where every day brought changes more extraordinary than our meeting. If there should be a war, my regiment would be among the first to be employed, and France would inevitably be the first object of a British expedition. The “march to Paris” had been proclaimed by orators, exhibited in theatres, and chanted in street ballads. All before us was conquest, and distinctions of every kind that can captivate the untried soldier, glittered in all eyes. I was young, ardent, and active. My name was one known to the table at which I seated myself on my introduction to the Guards, and I was immediately on the best footing with the gallant young men of a corps which has never suffered a stain. I had even some peculiar sources of favour in their eyes. I had actually made a campaign. This was more than had been done by any man in the regiment. The Guards, always brave and always foremost as they were, had not seen a shot fired for a quarter of a century. The man who had heard bullets whistling about his ears, and had, besides, seen the realities of war on the magnificent scale of continental campaigning, possessed a superiority which was willingly acknowledged by the gallant youths round us; and every detail of that most romantic campaign, reluctantly given as it was by me, was listened to with generous interest, or manly intelligence. And I had actually learned enough, under the Duke of Brunswick, a master of tactics, to render my services useful at the moment. The discipline of the British army was not then, what it has since been, the model to Europe. The Englishman’s nature prompts him to require a reason for every thing; and there was no peculiarly strong reason for the minute toil of foreign discipline, in an army which had never been engaged since the American war. But other days were now obviously at hand, and the passion for discipline, and above all others, for the Prussian discipline, became universal. With the exaggeration common to all popular impulses, the tactics of Frederick were now regarded as the secrets of victory. That great soldier, and most crafty of men, by his private reviews, to which no stranger, even of the highest rank, was ever admitted, and by a series of mystifications, had laboured to produce this impression upon Europe, and had largely succeeded. Mankind love being cheated; and what the charlatanism of necromancy effected a thousand years ago, was now effected by the charlatanism of genius. If I had seen the Prussian troops only at Potsdam, I should probably have mistaken the truncheon for a talisman, like the rest of the world. But the field suffers no mystification. I had seen that the true secret of this great tactician, for such unquestionably he was, consisted in his rejecting the superfluities and retaining the substance; in reducing tactics to the ready application of force, and in simplifying the old and tardy manœuvres of the French and Austrian battalions, to the few expeditious and essential formations required before an enemy in the field. I was offered the adjutancy, and I accepted it rejoicingly.
