The Liberal Literature of
England--Poetry--Southey--Coleridge--Wordsworth--Burns--Rogers--
Montgomery--Moore--Campbell--Herbert--Byron--Shelley--Keats--Hunt--
Pringle--Nicoll--Peter--Barton--Hood--Procter--Tennyson--Milnes--
Elliott--Horne--Mary Howitt--Eliza Cook--Mackay--Novels--Godwin--
Holcraft--The Drama--Bage--Scott--Miss Edgeworth--Mrs. Opie--Miss
Mitford--Mrs. Hall--Miss Martineau--Banim--Lever--Lover--Bulwer--
Dickens--Essays--Jeffrey--Smith--Brougham--Mackintosh--Macaulay--
Lamb--Hazlitt--Carlyle--Talfourd--Pamphlets--Holland House--French
Literature and Louis Philippe.
Further notice will now be taken of the liberal literature of England,
after the French revolution. We can enter only on the borders of this
large field. Since the modern "revival of letters," the _Poets_ of
England have furnished their quota of friends of Progress and Reform.
Among the strange theories concerning the regeneration of mankind, to
which the great French convulsion gave birth, was a day-dream of
Southey, Coleridge, and Lloyd, three young geniuses, then sojourning at
Bristol. Having vainly endeavored to make England a republic, by writing
a drama on the fall of Robespierre, delivering a course of lectures on
the French revolution, and publishing two or three seditious pamphlets,
they proposed to leave the kingdom in disgust, bury themselves in the
aboriginal forests on the banks of the Susquehanna, and there erect a
"Pantisocracy," in which property should be held in common, every man be
a legislator, and a model democracy be wrought out, that should
consummate the happiness of its founders, while its reflex influence
cured all the ills of European institutions. Unfortunately for the human
race, the three poets happened just then to fall in with and fall in
love with three tempting young Eves of Bristol, the Misses Fricker, one
an actress, one a mantua-maker, and one a school-teacher; and giving up
their scheme of regenerating the world, they wisely concluded, with
Benedick, that it was better to people it, and so all got married. Thus
ended _their_ "Much Ado about Nothing."
Lloyd sunk into obscurity, Southey atoned for his Susquehanna sins by
spending a long life in hostility to civil and religious freedom, and
Coleridge lived and died a moderate friend of liberty and reform.
Wordsworth early became acquainted with Coleridge and Southey,
participated in their French enthusiasm, and, like them, his first
poetic dreams were of freedom. In one of his earliest productions he
proposes to invoke the restorative aid of the Royal Humane Society in
behalf of crowned heads, as follows:
"Oh give, great God! to Freedom's waves to ride
Sublime o'er conquest, avarice, and pride;
And grant that every sceptered child of clay
Who cries, presumptuous, 'Here their tides shall stay,'
Swept in their anger from the affrighted shore,
With all his creatures sink to rise no more"
Through his long career, the productions of the greatest of the "Lake
Poets" have exerted a calm but steady influence in favor of humanity.
About this time Burns appeared, "whistling at his plouw," and teaching
the world that
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that."
He, too, caught some of his inspiration from France. By force of his
genius, the Scotch yeoman opened his way to the highest rank of
cotemporary poets, carrying with him the sympathies of the class from
which he sprung. No writer is oftener quoted to round a period in a
Reform speech. I have seen a meeting of Scotch Chartists go wild with
enthusiasm under the inspiration of one of his songs. The same year that
Burns became an author, Rogers sent his first volume of poems to press,
of whom Lord Brougham, in his Sketch of Grattan, says: "He is one of the
greatest poets whom this country has produced, as well as one of its
finest prose-writers; who to this unstable fame adds the more
imperishable renown of being also one of the most uncompromising friends
of civil and religious liberty who have appeared in any age."
In 1794, James Montgomery, a name honorably associated with the cause of
humanity, published in the _Sheffield Iris_, a newspaper edited by him,
a ballad on the overthrow of the Bastile, which the Pitt Government saw
fit to regard as a seditious libel. He was prosecuted, convicted,
amerced in a fine, and imprisoned three months in York Castle. The next
year the Government again prosecuted the amiable poet for an analogous
offense, upon which he was again fined and shut up six months at York.
These persecutions did not quench his zeal for human freedom; and
despite a most offensive critique in the Edinburgh Review of his first
volume of poems, he published another in 1807, celebrating the abolition
of the slave trade, which was distinguished for vigor of expression and
richness of coloring. These, and subsequent publications of kindred
character, have given Montgomery an enduring place in the affections of
Christian philanthropists.
At a later period, two poets appeared, who have exerted a wide sway over
the mind, not of Britain only, but of every land where the English
language is spoken--Moore and Campbell. The political tendency of their
writings (and it has been considerable) is on the side of freedom.
Moore's father was of the proscribed sect of Irish Catholics, who, in
the language of the son, "hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the
French revolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that
the day of his deliverance was near at hand." When Moore was a boy of
twelve, he sat on the chairman's knee at a celebration in honor of the
revolution, when this toast was drank, with three times three: "May the
breezes of France fan our Irish oak into verdure!" The poet has lived to
see the foliage of the oak grow more sere and yellow, though another
breeze from France has swept its branches. But, in all seasons, and when
mixing in the brilliant revelries of London society, the idol of a
devoted band of worshipers, he never ceased to love his native island.
His "Irish Melodies" have inspired a strange sympathy in many climes for
his blighted country, while they have taught Irishmen, in whatever
corner of the earth they wander, to say--
"Wert thou all that I wish thee--great, glorious, and free--
First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea
I might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow,
But, oh! could I love thee more deeply than now?"
Campbell's poetic offerings to the cause of Polish liberty are in the
school-books of two continents, and have fired the indignation of two
generations of youthful orators at that great European felony, the
partition of Poland, when
"Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime."
The heroic struggle for Grecian independence animated the classic soul
of Campbell, and he took an active part in rousing European sentiment in
her behalf. And down to the last moment of his life he was proud to give
his cordial support to the cause of liberty and humanity in every part
of the world.
William Herbert, a scion of the ancient houses of Pembroke and Percy, is
still more illustrious as a scholar of rare attainments, and as the
author of "Attila," which the Edinburgh Review has declared the most
Miltonic poem since Paradise Lost. Some of his poetic effusions were
offered at the shrine of freedom; and while a member of Parliament, he
cooperated with Wilberforce in the abolition of the slave trade; and
after withdrawing from politics, and taking holy orders, and reaching
stations of dignity in the Established Church, he gave his influence to
liberal measures, advocating Catholic emancipation and the Reform bill.
The wayward genius of Byron, though it uttered much that good morals
condemn, recorded nothing hostile to political liberty, but, on the
contrary, something in its favor. On the few occasions that he addressed
the House of Lords, he advocated the liberal cause, once vindicating in
manly tones the character and life of Major Cartwright, the father of
Parliamentary Reform. The conflict for Grecian independence, in which
Byron's last days were spent, throws a broad ray of sunshine across the
dark horizon of his career.
But we must dismiss a galaxy of bright names more summarily--some
without mentioning them, others by the briefest allusions. Shelley, the
unfortunate, calumniated, generous, and supereminent son of
genius--Keats, an evanescent being, whose transparent soul was clad too
thin for this prosaic world--Leigh Hunt, the founder of the London
"Examiner," which ought to live forever, and the Italian "Liberal,"
which ought never to have lived at all, a true son of the Nine, whom
Gifford could not kill, though Blackwood Wilson helped him try--Pringle,
who died at the desk of the Anti-Slavery Society, and whose "Afar in the
Desert" Coleridge ranked among the two or three most perfect lyrics in
the language--Robert Nicoll, a Scotch plowman, an ardent and sincere
radical, who, dying at twenty-three, lived long enough to write "The Ha'
Bible," "We are brethren a'," and other poems, not unworthy of that
other Scotch Robert who has canonized plowmen-bards--William Peter, now
British consul for Pennsylvania, a graceful poet, but better known as a
political pupil of the Fox school, a commoner advocating liberal
measures, and the biographer of Romilly--Bernard Barton, the friend and
correspondent of Lamb, a "Quaker poet," whose effusions show calm
reflection and refined feeling, but have none of the strangely pleasing
blending of the war song of the knight templar with the pastoral ballad
of the mountain shepherd, of Peter the Hermit's crusade-preaching with
Virgil the heathen's classic singing, which give life and beauty to the
lays of _our_ Quaker poet--Hood, the prince of punsters, whose "Song of
the Shirt," sung in all climes, and imitated on all themes, dignified
sympathy with seamstresses, who toil twenty-four hours for twelve
pence--Procter, the Harrow chum of Byron, whose "Rising of the North,"
"The Open Sea," and "Touch us Gently, Time," show that Barry Cornwall's
harp can sound at will the highest and deepest, the wildest and the
tenderest notes, and while giving volumes of "morocco and gilt" to the
nobility and gentry, sends "poetry for the people" through Howitt's
Journal--Tennyson, an inspired singer, whose "Princess" is a
reformer--Milnes, who, though a Tory in the House of Commons, always
appeared as a liberal when he entered the Temple of the Muses--Elliott,
whose Corn-Law Rhymes roused a nation to arms against landlord monopoly,
by kindling sympathy with the poor man's lot, and firing indignation
against taxes on his bread--R. H. Horne, a true poet and sterling
reformer, the author of "Orion," the editor of the "New Spirit of the
Age," and a contributor to the People's and Howitt's Journals--Mary
Howitt, whose sex never was permitted to prevent her doing valiant
service for the right in the battles of freedom with tyranny--Eliza
Cook, not unworthy, as a poetess and a reformer, to be associated with
Mary Howitt--Mackay, whose prophecy of the "good time coming" has been
applauded to the echo by voices that would have smothered in hisses the
same sentiments if uttered in prose:--these, and a glorious company
besides, have laid some of the richest gifts, where all genuine poetry
is welcomed, on Freedom's altar.
In this summary, only here and there a star has been pointed out in the
brilliant constellation which has shone in the firmament of freedom,
during the period we are now glancing over. The catalogue of slavery's
poets is not yet published. It must be rather meager. If the poetry of
liberty is inspired by airs from heaven, the poetry of despotism must
rage in blasts from hell. Dante and Milton have given glowing
descriptions of Pandemonium, and put splendid diction into the mouths of
devils; but neither the descriptions nor the diction have won admirers
for the domicil or its denizens, among the inhabitants of high
latitudes.
Some of the _Novelists_ of this period have contributed not a little to
the cause of political reform.
William Godwin, one of the remarkable men of the times, is known not
only as the writer of that extraordinary tale, "Caleb Williams," but of
the "Inquiry concerning Political Justice," a production whose style is
as vigorous as its doctrines are radical, displaying rare originality
and boldness of conception, and breathing the loftiest aspirations for
the well-being of man. "Caleb Williams," which appeared soon after the
"Inquiry," was intended to give wider currency to the author's views of
social and political reform, by clothing them in the attractive colors
of romance. Had Godwin been an ambitious politician, he might have
placed himself at the head of a school of reformers. He chose to be a
philosophical recluse; and in the storm of the French revolution, he
sent out from his retreat breathing thoughts and burning words, that
gave increased life and vigor to the heaving mass of mind around him.
The friend and counselor of Tooke and Holcroft, he was obnoxious to the
Government, but his retired habits saved him from the prosecutions that
periled the lives of his more active associates. His numerous writings,
like those of Jeremy Bentham, whom he in some respects strongly
resembled, while in others no two men could be more dissimilar, have
left abiding impressions on many of the noblest minds of England.
Holcroft imbibed liberal principles during the time of the French
convulsions. He was the writer of several successful plays, among which
was the highly popular "Road to Ruin." He published various novels,
which, on account of their political sentiments, attracted much notice.
As mere romances they belong not to the first rank, the plots and
characters being mere frame-work to hold aristocratic doctrines up to
ridicule, and democratic principles to admiration. The dialogue is often
lively and piquant, and many of the portraits are skillfully drawn. And
in this connection, it may be said that the dramatists of this period
poured some of their rills of philosophy, wit and satire into the
popular channels. Even Rolla's fustian address to the Peruvians, which
sounds like Sheridan's speeches against Napoleon, always stimulated the
galleries to a higher pitch of hatred to tyranny. Colman's comedies made
upstart noblemen and pedantic doctors of laws shade their faces, while
the pit shook its sides with laughter. William Tell launched his arrow
not in vain at Gesler, for George IV came near being shot in the royal
box on an occasion when it was played; and Talfourd and Bulwer, in Ion
and the Lady of Lyons, having disguised democracy in classic robes,
introduced it to the admiration and applause of the dress circle. To
return to novelists. Coeval with Holcroft, Robert Bage, a Tamworth
Quaker, not having the fear of George Fox nor the Attorney General
before his eyes, published some good political novels. He, like the
dramatist, had caught some of the fire of liberty at the general
conflagration of the old order of things in Europe, and he bore his
"testimony" against the bigotry of Guelph and the arrogance of Pitt, in
the form of romances, which, though they fell below Holcroft's, received
the imprimatur of Walter Scott, when he included them in his "Novelist's
Library."
The works of the Godwin, Holcroft and Bage school not only introduced a
new era in novel writing, by making fiction the medium of communicating
radical opinions, but they aided in evaporating the rose-water style of
romance, which had so diluted the public taste that "novel" and
"insipidity" had come to be synonymous terms. By and by, the public
appetite was prepared for a more racy and invigorating regimen. Then
appeared the gorgeous but manly and natural historical novels of Scott,
too prone to flatter "blood," wealth, and noble lineage, but wearing an
air of the most genial _bonhommie_, and looking with a brotherly eye
upon humanity in its humblest forms. About the time that Scott was
beginning his Waverley, came the piquant and beautiful stories of Miss
Edgeworth and Mrs. Opie, to be followed by those of Miss Mitford and
Mrs. Hall, who, whether painting life and manners in the cottages of the
lowly or the drawing-rooms of the great, place virtue and philanthropy
in the foreground of the picture. At a later period, the philosophic and
benevolent Miss Martineau, despite the maledictions of the London
Quarterly, admirably succeeded in the till then doubtful experiment of
conveying the principles of politico-economical science to the masses
through the medium of tales and sketches. The English Miss Sedgwick
deserves the thanks of humanity for putting Benthamism into clean purple
and fine linen. Ireland has been prolific in delineators of her
suffering and crimes, jocularities and bulls, both in poetry and prose.
Banim, the author of the _O'Hara Tales_, and other stories, is the
greatest of his class. He paints the times of Ninety-Eight in colors so
vivid that the tragedy leaps living from the canvas. In the
_Nonconformist_ he depicts the evils and cruelties of the Catholic penal
code in figures so graphic and truthful that the veriest bigot can
hardly restrain his indignation at the Protestant oppressors. Lever
places in a strong light the blarney and blunders of the Irish, and his
stories generally begin in farce and end in caricature. Lover puts you
at once into good humor; and, whether you read him, or hear him tell his
stories or sing his songs, he makes you love the genuine Irish
character, and you alternately cry and laugh at its miseries and
drolleries to the end of the volume or ballad. Bulwer's world-read
novels, attractive to the scholastic mind by their acute analysis of
character, and to the poetic temperament by their deep coloring,
though, like Byron's poems, they enunciate a good deal of doubtful
ethics, drawing no very broad line between the morals of plowmen and
highwaymen, yet their political tendencies are decidedly towards
liberalism. But the writer of fiction who has done the most in our day
for his race, is Charles Dickens. He is not merely a novelist, but a
philanthropist, whose overflowing humanity surpasses even his abounding
humor. No right-hearted man ever rose from the perusal of Dickens
without feeling a deeper affection for human nature, a more cordial
contempt for cant and hypocrisy, and a holier hatred of cruelty and
meanness. His Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist have done more to drown
in ridicule and smother in abhorrence the absurd private schools and the
diabolical parish work-houses of England, than the "works" of all the
didactic authors of the kingdom.
Another class of writers have, during the present century, secured a
firm footing within the pale of English literature--the _Essayists_.
Indeed, at one time, it looked as if the new comers would succeed in
excluding everybody from it but themselves. At the head of this class
stand the leading contributors of the Edinburgh Review, of whom Mr.
Whipple has aptly said, "they made reviewing more respectable than
authorship." Jeffrey, for twenty-six years its editor, shed over its
pages a strong, steady, and beautiful light, which tempered and
irradiated the whole. His papers are a rare compend of literary
criticism. Though sometimes more sophistical than philosophical, more
brilliant than profound, and betraying prejudices when he should
elucidate principles, he was, upon the whole, not unworthy to be called
"The Prince of Critics." For a quarter of a century his fiat was law in
far the larger portion of the republic of English letters. Since he left
the throne, many of his canons have been disputed, and some have been
totally annulled. His contributions to the Review, when published in a
separate form, appear more homogeneous, more like a "work," than those
of his brethren who have put theirs to press. Sydney Smith bore
undisputed sway in the realm of wit and sarcasm. Papists, prisoners,
poachers, paupers, school-boys, and chimney-sweepers, owe him a monument
each, for he was their very friend; and if the Pennsylvanians repudiate,
nonconformists might purchase a pension for his heirs with the lawn he
tore from the shoulders of "persecuting bishops." Brougham glared from
the pages of the Review a baleful meteor, striking terror into dunces in
Grub street and charlatans in Downing street, now scorching a poetaster
and then roasting a prime minister, nor quenching his fires till they
had penetrated and lit up the royal harem of Carlton House and Windsor
Castle. Mackintosh made the Edinburgh the medium for exhibiting to the
public eye some of those philosophical disquisitions, laden with the
lore of the school-men, and embellished with the graces of the poets,
which justified the assertion of Robert Hall, that if he had been less
indolent and discursive, he might have attained the first place amongst
modern metaphysicians. Macaulay has been one of the chief literary
attractions of the Review for the last eighteen years. His contributions
are no more _criticisms_ than are his descriptions of the state of
England in 1685, or his sketch of the death-bed of Charles II, in his
recent history. True, he places the title of a book at the head of a
page. But his papers have men for their subjects rather than books, are
essays rather than articles, panoramas of events instead of histories,
living portraits of individuals rather than biographies of the dead.
According to the old standards, they would have been more appropriate in
the history of England than in the Edinburgh Review. But the old
standards have decayed. They are read and imitated in two hemispheres.
The scholar admires their learning, the philosopher their penetration,
the rhetorician their art, the poet their imagery, the million their
politics.
And these five are the greatest of the "Edinburgh Reviewers." Freedom
in every part of the world owes them a heavy debt of gratitude.
Passing through a brilliant throng of essayists, each man of whom is
worthy of special note, and stopping barely long enough to say of Lamb
that he is one of the most quaint, humorous, witty, genial, and humane
writers in the language, and of Hazlitt, that he is a mine of diamonds,
all rich and disorderly, brilliant and cutting, but of the first water,
we approach with no little awe and diffidence the strange but not
stranger Thomas Carlyle, "a writer of books." He has done yoeman service
in the conflict with "shams," and has made the bankrupt institutions of
England echo their own hollowness, under the heavy blows of his German
truncheon. The obscurity of his style is often alleged against him. In
many passages, an interlined translation, or a glossary, would be
convenient. But, he is readily understood by those familiar with his
fanciful mode of backing up to a question, rather than going straight
forward to it. His defects seem to lie deeper than the obscurities of
his rhetoric. They pierce through words to things. A vein of profound
reflection pervades much of his writing. But no inconsiderable portion
of it is indebted to his style for its seeming profundity. Straighten
some of his crooked sentences, which, _prima facie_, seem to embrace in
their sinuosities some great idea too awful to be uttered in plain
Saxon, and thus, as it were, having thrown out the meaning, lo, the
matter turns out to be rather commonplace. This is not his worst fault;
for no author is bound to be always saying original or profound things,
and he may be excused sometimes for wrapping up a common idea in
superfine clothing. As a writer on social and political evils--his
chosen field--Carlyle whelms the reader deeper and deeper in the abyss
of wide-weltering wrong--_and there leaves him_. He points out no way of
escape; suggests no remedies. Read his "Chartism," his "Past and
Present," his article in a recent Spectator on "Ireland and Sir Robert
Peel"--and what then? He gives you clearly to understand that the
governmental machine is sadly out of gear--that Poor-Laws are a "sham,"
and Emigration a delusion--that the "_sans-potato_ Irish" are rotting
under bad rule--but what then? Why, so far as Mr. Carlyle tells you,
_Nothing!_ Rot to all eternity, for aught he proposes by way of remedy.
His writings abound in hearty expressions of dissatisfaction with
existing things; in vivid pictures of human suffering, more graphic than
limner ever drew, more startling than poet ever painted; but, trusting
to him, you look in vain for any relief, either for your own excited
feelings, or for the pitiable objects in whose behalf he has aroused
your sympathies. He leads you into a foul morass, tells you it is a
"sham," and as you sink out of sight, surrounded by a mass of smothering
humanity, he cries, "God help you," mounts some transcendental crotchet,
and soars into the clouds. It is suspected that Carlyle has a theoretic
remedy for bad government, but dislikes to disclose it. He has no faith
in Toryism, Whigism, Liberalism, or Radicalism. To him, they are "shams
all." If he belongs to any school, it would seem to be the absolute. He
don't believe in the divine right of kings, though he holds that some
men are born to command. Nor would he give the governed the right of
selecting their commander. He recognizes a sort of intellectual and
moral "might," the possession of which confers the "right" to govern.
The abstract theory may be good; the difficulty is in reducing it to the
concrete. Who is to decide as to the possession of the "might?"
Jefferson would refer the decision to the governed; Nichols would leave
it to the accidents of royal procreation; Carlyle says it belongs
to----who knows what he says? He is a great "Hero"-worshiper, and a good
many of his "Heroes" have been splendid tyrants. He despises imbecility,
but idolizes power. His rather obscure chapter in "Chartism" on "Rights
and Mights" can, with little effort, be turned into a special plea for
absolutism. His eulogistic essay, in the Foreign Quarterly, on Dr.
Francia, "the Perpetual Dictator of the Republic of Paraguay," seems to
disclose the kind of government and governor he glories in. Francia was
a man of intellect and decision, and he was a despot. He erected a
"workman's gallows," to terrify and hang laborers who failed to do their
work well--a "not unbeneficial institution," says Carlyle. A poor
shoemaker made some belts for the Dictator's grenadiers. He did not like
the sample shown to him, though the shoemaker "had done his best."
Francia ordered a rope about the neck of the trembling wretch, calling
him "a most impertinent scoundrel," (a "very favorite word of the
Dictator's," says Carlyle,) and had him marched back and forth under the
gallows, in the momentary expectation of being hung. He was at length
released, half dead with terror. Carlyle remarks upon this, in plain
English, (his admiration for the scene is too intense for a crooked
sentence,) that the shoemaker worked with such alacrity all night, that
his belts on the morrow were without a parallel in South America. The
whole story, drawn out through a page, shows that Francia was a brute;
as, indeed, does the whole article in the Quarterly. Carlyle gloats over
him with wild enthusiasm. But, it is often neither just nor generous to
measure others by our own standards. Every man has his _forte_, his
mission. Carlyle's may be to point out existing evils, while leaving it
to time and plain men to suggest remedies. His gigantic soul sits
enshrouded, to common eyes, in clouds. To his own, it may bask in
sunshine. Honest, humane, mystic, magnificent, the world cannot spare
the great mind of the age, whose calling seems to be to set smaller
minds in motion. Long live this "Writer of Books."
To relieve the picture, let us glance at the anti-counterpart of
Carlyle--Thomas Noon Talfourd. He is one of the brightest and purest
specimens of the _literati_ of England. A lawyer, a poet, a dramatist,
an orator, a statesman, an essayist, he has succeeded in each of these
varied departments. The instances are not unfrequent in which persons
have attained a high place both in politics and literature. Instances
of marked success both in law and literature are extremely rare. The
most striking English examples of the attainment of eminence by the same
individual in the profession of law and the cultivation of literature,
are Jeffrey, Brougham, and Talfourd. The latter has achieved this by the
versatility and elasticity of his genius, unaided by the accidents of
birth, family, or wealth. There is a magnetic philosophy, a classical
witchery, an intoxicating enthusiasm, about his literary productions,
that make him one of the most attractive and delightful of authors. As a
lawyer, he is at home in the grave and studied discussions at _banc_,
and in the showy and extemporaneous contests at _nisi prius_. His
defense of Moxon, the poet bookseller, so foolishly and scandalously
prosecuted, a few years ago, for publishing the works of Shelley, was a
splendid vindication of the right of genius to conceive, and enterprise
to print, some of the rarest productions of the century. His rhetoric,
in the quiet retreat of letters, and his eloquence in the bustling road
of politics, have been employed to instruct, delight and elevate his
fellow-men.
There is a department of writing, not yet dignified with the title of
"Literature," which exerts an influence over popular sentiment, second
only to that of the weekly and daily press. It is peculiarly the
offspring of this age, and bears the strong lineaments of its parent. I
will call it the _Literature of Occasional Pamphlets_. In England, the
Catholic Controversy, Parliamentary Reform, Negro Slavery, Chartism, the
Corn Laws, Church and State, General Education, and all those questions
which have moved and do move the nation, have called out a mass of such
literature, which, in intrinsic ability and artistic excellence, will
bear comparison with any cotemporaneous branch of writing. In that
country, and more especially in this, he who does not stock his library
with volumes of selected pamphlets excludes from it some of the most
valuable literature of the nineteenth century.
I cannot close this imperfect view of the liberal literature of
England, without a brief allusion to the peculiar but powerful aid
rendered to it by the late Lord Holland. The nephew of Fox inherited
much of the eloquence, all the democracy, and more than all the love for
learning and the fine arts, of his illustrious uncle. For a third of a
century, which carried England forward a hundred years in the path of
improvement, "Holland House" was the center of attraction for liberal
statesmen, orators, poets, painters, wits, and scholars. Mingling in the
brilliant throngs that so often filled its gorgeous drawing-rooms,
elegant picture-galleries, and ample libraries, were to be seen
statesmen who guided Cabinets, and orators who swayed Senates; men of
letters who had reached the hights of human knowledge, and modest genius
just struggling into notice; poets reposing under the shadow of their
fame, and poets just plucking their first laurel-leaf; sculptors who had
engraven life in the marble, and painters who had impressed beauty on
the canvas; the writer of the first article in the last Edinburgh, and
the author of the best comedy then acting at Drury-Lane; here a Whig
Duke with a long title and a landed air, and there a Radical Editor
under indictment for a seditious libel on the Government; the Duchess of
Sutherland shedding grace around this circle, and Mrs. Opie diffusing
benevolence around that; Buxton, the brewer, discoursing on Prison
Discipline with Bentham, the philosopher; Brougham explaining to a
Polish refugee his plan for educating the people, while Moore delighted
a bevy of belles by singing his last Irish melody; Sydney Smith
enlivening this alcove with his humor, and Mackintosh enlightening that
with his learning--all these varied and diverse elements meeting on
terms of social equality, and impressing upon the literary mind of the
country the all-influential lesson, that, so far from losing caste by
embracing liberal political opinions, the man of letters, of science,
and of art, might find the profession of that faith a passport to
circles where fashion displayed its smiles and power dispensed its
favors.