ever a town was invested--(but sooner when the design was known) to
take the plan of it (let it be what town it would) and enlarge it upon
a scale to the exact size of his bowling green; upon the surface of
which, by means of a large roll of packthread, and a number of small
pickets driven into the ground, at the several angles and redans, he
transferred the lines from his paper; then taking the profile of the
place, with its works, to determine the depths and slopes of the
ditches,--the talus of the glacis, and the precise height of the
several _banquettes_, parapets, etc.--he set the Corporal to work; and
sweetly went it on.--The nature of the soil,--the nature of the work
itself,--and, above all, the good-nature of my uncle Toby, sitting by
from morning to night, and chatting kindly with the Corporal upon past
done deeds,--left _labour_ little else but the ceremony of the name. . .
When the town, with its works, was finished, my uncle Toby and the
Corporal began to run their first parallel,--not at random, or
anyhow,--but from the same points and distances the allies had begun to
run {78} theirs; and regulating their approaches and attacks by the
accounts my uncle Toby received from the daily papers,--they went on,
during the whole siege, step by step, with the allies.
When the Duke of Marlborough made a lodgment,--my uncle Toby made a
lodgment too;--and when the face of a bastion was battered down, or a
defence ruined,--the Corporal took his mattock and did as much,--and so
on;--gaining ground, and making themselves masters of the works, one
after another, till the town fell into their hands.
To one who took pleasure in the happy state of others, there could not
have been a greater sight in the world than on a post-morning, in which
a practicable breach had been made by the Duke of Marlborough in the
main body of the place,--to have stood behind the horn-beam hedge, and
observed the spirit with which my uncle Toby, with Trim behind him,
sallied forth;--the one with the Gazette in his hand,--the other with a
spade on his shoulder, to execute the contents.--What an honest triumph
in my uncle Toby's looks as he marched up to the ramparts! what intense
pleasure swimming in his eye as he stood over the Corporal, reading the
paragraph ten times over to him, as he was at work, lest, peradventure,
he should make the breach an inch too wide,--or leave it an inch too
narrow!--but when the _chamade_ was beat, and the Corporal helped my
uncle up it, and followed with the colours in his hand, to fix them
upon the ramparts,--Heaven! Earth! Sea!--but what avail
apostrophes?--with all your elements, wet or dry, ye never compounded
so intoxicating a draught.
{79} In this track of happiness for many years, without one
interruption to it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow
due west for a week or ten days together, which detained the Flanders
mail, and kept them so long in torture, but still it was the torture of
the happy:--in this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for
many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the
invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new
conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always
opened fresh springs of delight in carrying them on.
(_Tristram Shandy_.)
HORACE WALPOLE 1717-1797
THE FUNERAL OF GEORGE II
_Horace Walpole to George Montagu_
ARLINGTON STREET,
_November_ 13, 1760.
Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day.
There is nothing but the common saying of addresses and kissing
hands. . . For the King himself, he seems all good nature, and wishing
to satisfy everybody; all his speeches are obliging.
I saw him again yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-room had
lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand
in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping
bits of {80} German news: he walks about, and speaks to everybody. I
saw him afterwards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, sits
with dignity and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the
Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his doctor's
gown, and looking like the _Médecin malgré lui_. He had been
vehemently solicitous for attendance for fear my Lord Westmoreland, who
vouchsafes himself to bring the address from Oxford, should outnumber
him. Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands;
George Selwyn says, "They go to St James', because _now_ there are so
many Stuarts there."
Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night; I
had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag of quality,
which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it.
It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's chamber, hung with
purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of
purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had a
very good effect. The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried
to see that chamber.
The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers
with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horse-back, the drums muffled,
the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all this was very solemn.
But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by
the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing
torches; the whole abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greater
advantage than by {81} day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof,
all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest _chiaroscuro_. There
wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with
priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not
complain of its not being catholic enough. I had been in dread of
being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were not
very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to
keep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry the
Seventh, all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed,
people sat or stood where they could or would; the Yeomen of the Guard
were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the
coffin; the bishop read sadly and blundered in the prayers; the fine
chapter, _Man that is born of woman_, was chanted, not read; and the
anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well
for a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of
Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had
a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a train of five
yards.
Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant; his leg
extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours; his face
bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke, which has
affected, too, one of his eyes; and placed over the mouth of the vault
into which, in all probability, he must himself so soon descend; think
how unpleasant a situation! He bore it all with a firm and unaffected
countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque
Duke {82} of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment he
came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a stall, the archbishop
hovering over him with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his
curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel
with his glass to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand,
and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of
catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat,
felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of
Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble.
It is very theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin was,
attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the
bed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the
King's order.
I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle. The King
of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun. This, which would have
been prodigious news a month ago, is nothing to-day; it only takes its
turn among the questions, "Who is to be the groom of the bedchamber?
What is Sir T. Robinson to have?" I have been to Leicester Fields
to-day; the crowd was immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so.
Good night.
(_Letters_.)
{83}
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1728-1774
THE CREDULITY OF THE ENGLISH
It is the most usual method in every report, first to examine its
probability, and then act as the conjuncture may require. The English,
however, exert a different spirit in such circumstances; they first
act, and when too late, begin to examine. From a knowledge of this
disposition, there are several here, who make it their business to
frame new reports at every convenient interval, all tending to denounce
ruin, both on their contemporaries and their posterity. This
denunciation is eagerly caught up by the public: away they fling to
propagate the distress; sell out at one place, buy in at another,
grumble at their governors, shout in mobs, and when they have thus for
some time behaved like fools, sit down coolly to argue and talk wisdom,
to puzzle each other with syllogism, and prepare for the next report
that prevails, which is always attended with the same success.
Thus are they ever rising above one report, only to sink into another.
They resemble a dog in a well, pawing to get free. When he has raised
his upper parts above water, and every spectator imagines him
disengaged, his lower parts drag him down again and sink him to the
nose; he makes new efforts to emerge, and every effort increasing his
weakness, only tends to sink him the deeper. . .
{84} This people would laugh at my simplicity, should I advise them to
be less sanguine in harbouring gloomy predictions, and examine coolly
before they attempted to complain. I have just heard a story, which,
though transacted in a private family, serves very well to describe the
behaviour of the whole nation, in cases of threatened calamity. As
there are public, so there are private incendiaries here. One of the
last, either for the amusement of his friends, or to divert a fit of
the spleen, lately sent a threatening letter to a worthy family in my
neighbourhood, to this effect:
"Sir,--Knowing you to be very rich, and finding myself to be very poor,
I think proper to inform you, that I have learned the secret of
poisoning man, woman, and child, without danger of detection. Don't be
uneasy, Sir, you may take your choice of being poisoned in a fortnight,
or poisoned in a month, or poisoned in six weeks; you shall have full
time to settle all your affairs. Though I am poor, I love to do things
like a gentleman. But, Sir, you must die. Blood, Sir, blood is my
trade; so I could wish you would this day six weeks take leave of your
friends, wife, and family, for I cannot possibly allow you longer time.
To convince you more certainly of the power of my art, by which you may
know I speak truth, take this letter; when you have read it, tear off
the seal, fold it up, and give it to your favourite Dutch mastiff that
sits by the fire; he will swallow it, Sir, like a buttered toast: in
three hours four minutes after he has taken it, he will attempt to bite
off his own tongue, and half an hour after burst asunder in twenty
pieces. Blood! blood! blood! So no more at present from, {85} Sir,
your most obedient, most devoted humble servant to command, till death."
You may easily imagine the consternation into which this letter threw
the whole good-natured family. The poor man to whom it was addressed
was the more surprised, as not knowing how he could merit such
inveterate malice. All the friends of the family were convened; it was
universally agreed that it was a most terrible affair, and that the
government should be solicited to offer a reward and a pardon: a fellow
of this kind would go on poisoning family after family; and it was
impossible to say where the destruction would end. In pursuance of
these determinations, the government was applied to; strict search was
made after the incendiary, but all in vain. At last, therefore, they
recollected that the experiment was not yet tried upon the dog; the
Dutch mastiff was brought up, and placed in the midst of the friends
and relations; the seal was torn off, the packet folded up with care,
and soon they found, to the great surprise of all--that the dog would
not eat the letter. Adieu.
(_Citizen of the World_.)
EDMUND BURKE 1729-1797
DECAY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY
We may amuse ourselves with talking as much as we please of the virtue
of middle or humble life; that is, we may place our confidence in the
virtue of those who {86} have never been tried. But if the persons who
are continually emerging out of that sphere be no better than those
whom birth has placed above it, what hopes are there in the remainder
of the body, which is to furnish the perpetual succession of the state?
All who have ever written on government are unanimous that among a
people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. And indeed how is
it possible? When those who are to make the laws, to guard, to
enforce, or to obey them, are by a tacit confederacy of manners
indisposed to the spirit of all generous and noble institutions.
I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. But I am sure that
the only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy is heartily to
concur with whatever is the best in our time: and to have some more
correct standard of judging what that best is than the transient and
uncertain favour of a court. If once we are able to find and can
prevail on ourselves to strengthen an union of such men, whatever
accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised power, even by the
ordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, and
cannot long be joined without in some degree assimilating to it.
Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact, and the public stock of
honest, manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely
to scrutinise motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is
enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy
to convicted guilt and declared apostasy.
This, gentlemen, has been from the beginning the rule of my conduct;
and I mean to continue it as long as such a body as I have described
can by any possibility {87} be kept together, for I should think it the
most dreadful of all offences, not only towards the present generation
but to all the future, if I were to do anything which could make the
minutest breach in this great conservatory of free principles. Those
who perhaps have the same intentions but are separated by some little
political animosities will I hope discern at last how little conducive
it is to any rational purpose to lower its reputation. For my part,
gentlemen, from much experience, from no little thinking, and from
comparing a great variety of things, I am thoroughly persuaded that the
last hope of preserving the spirit of the English constitution, or of
re-uniting the dissipated members of the English race upon a common
plan of tranquillity and liberty, does entirely depend on their firm
and lasting union, and above all on their keeping themselves from that
despair which is so very apt to fall on those whom a violence of
character and a mixture of ambitious views do not support through a
long, painful, and unsuccessful struggle.
There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the stedfastness of some
men has been put to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for
well-formed minds to abandon their interest, but the separation of fame
and virtue is a harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made
unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power we begin to
acquire the spirit of domination and to lose the relish of an honest
equality. The principles of our forefathers become suspected to us,
because we see them animating the present opposition of our children.
The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more
shocking to us than the {88} base vices which are generated from the
rankness of servitude. Accordingly, the least resistance to power
appears more inexcusable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of
authority. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as a
superstitious panic. All shame of calling in foreigners and savages in
a civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the consequences
inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a
mercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering
over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil
war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of
lenity, moderation, and tenderness of the privileges of those who
depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state.
It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breeds
such notions and dispositions without some great alteration in the
national character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so
fortified against all other things, and so unarmed to whatever
approaches in the shape of disgrace, finding these principles, which
they considered as sure means of honour, to be grown into disrepute,
will retire disheartened and disgusted. Those of a more robust make,
the bold, able, ambitious men who pay some of their court to power
through the people, and substitute the voice of transient opinion in
the place of true glory, will give in to the general mode; and those
superior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice will
confirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operating
towards a gradual change in our principles. {89} But this American war
has done more in a very few years than all the other causes could have
effected in a century. It is therefore not on its own separate
account, but because of its attendant circumstances that I consider its
continuance or its ending in any way but that of an honourable and
liberal accommodation as the greatest evils which can befall us. For
that reason I have troubled you with this long letter. For that reason
I entreat you again and again neither to be persuaded, shamed, or
frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so many of you to
abhor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be among
the first who renounce the maxims of our forefathers.
(_Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of America_.)
WILLIAM COWPER 1731-1800
THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT
_To the Rev. John Newton_.
_March_ 29, 1784.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--It being his majesty's pleasure that I should yet have
another opportunity to write before he dissolves the parliament, I
avail myself of it with all possible alacrity. I thank you for your
last, which was not the less welcome for coming, like an extraordinary
gazette, at a time when it was not expected.
{90} As when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the water finds its way
into creeks and holes of rocks, which in its calmer state it never
reaches, in like manner the effect of these turbulent times is felt
even at Orchard side, where in general we live as undisturbed by the
political element, as shrimps or cockles that have been accidentally
deposited in some hollow beyond the water mark, by the usual dashing of
the waves. We were sitting yesterday after dinner, the two ladies and
myself, very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such
intrusion in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting,
and the gentleman winding worsted, when to our unspeakable surprise a
mob appeared before the window; a smart rap was heard at the door, the
boys halloo'd, and the maid announced Mr Grenville. Puss was
unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his
good friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry,
and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach.
Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would
rather, I suppose, climb in at a window, than be absolutely excluded.
In a minute, the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour, were filled. Mr
Grenville advancing toward me shook me by the hand with a degree of
cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many more
as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of his
visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit.
I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined to
believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr Ashburner, the {91}
drapier, addressing himself to me at this moment, informed me that I
had a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a
treasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion,
by saying, that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where
it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr
Grenville squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and
withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon
the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very
young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his
head, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many nice
and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore
suspended by a ribband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the
dogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of
obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the
adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity,
never probably to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however,
happy in being able to affirm truly that I had not that influence for
which he sued; and which, had I been possessed of it, with my present
views of the dispute between the Crown and the Commons, I must have
refused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is comfortable to
be of no consequence in a world where one cannot exercise any without
disobliging somebody. The town however seems to be much at his
service, and if he be equally successful throughout the county, he will
undoubtedly gain his election. Mr Ashburner perhaps {92} was a little
mortified, because it was evident that I owed the honour of this visit
to his misrepresentation of my importance. But had he thought proper
to assure Mr Grenville that I had three heads, I should not I suppose
have been bound to produce them.
Mr Scott, who you say was so much admired in your pulpit, would be
equally admired in his own, at least by all capable judges, were he not
so apt to be angry with his congregation. This hurts him, and had he
the understanding and eloquence of Paul himself, would still hurt him.
He seldom, hardly ever indeed, preaches a gentle, well-tempered sermon,
but I hear it highly commended: but warmth of temper, indulged to a
degree that may be called scolding, defeats the end of preaching. It
is a misapplication of his powers, which it also cripples, and teases
away his hearers. But he is a good man, and may perhaps outgrow it.
Many thanks for the worsted, which is excellent. We are as well as a
spring hardly less severe than the severest winter will give us leave
to be. With our united love, we conclude ourselves yours and Mrs
Newton's affectionate and faithful
W. C.
M. U.
(_Letters_.)
{93}
EDWARD GIBBON 1737-1794
YOUTH