Denmark Hill, 1st March, 1872.
My Friends,
The Tory gentleman whose character I have to sketch for you, in due
counterbalance of that story of republican justice in California,
was, as I told you, the friend of Friedrich II. of Germany, another
great Friedrich preceding the Prussian one by some centuries, and
living quite as hard a life of it. But before I can explain to you
anything either about him, or his friend, I must develop the statement
made above (XI. 6), of the complex modes of injustice respecting
the means of maintenance, which have hitherto held in all ages
among the three great classes of soldiers, clergy, and peasants. I
mean, by 'peasants' the producers of food, out of land or water;
by 'clergy,' men who live by teaching or exhibition of behaviour;
and by 'soldiers,' those who live by fighting, either by robbing
wise peasants, or getting themselves paid by foolish ones. Into
these three classes the world's multitudes are essentially hitherto
divided. The legitimate merchant of course exists, and can exist, only
on the small percentage of pay obtainable for the transfer of goods;
and the manufacturer and artist are, in healthy society, developed
states of the peasant. The morbid power of manufacture and commerce in
our own age is an accidental condition of national decrepitude; the
injustices connected with it are mainly those of the gambling-house,
and quite unworthy of analytical inquiry; but the unjust relations of
the soldier, clergyman, and peasant have hitherto been constant in all
great nations;--they are full of mystery and beauty in their iniquity;
they require the most subtle, and deserve the most reverent, analysis.
The first root of distinction between the soldier and peasant is in
barrenness and fruitfulness of possessed ground; the inhabitant of
sands and rocks "redeeming his share" (see speech of Roderick in the
'Lady of the Lake') from the inhabitant of corn-bearing ground. The
second root of it is delight in athletic exercise, resulting in beauty
of person and perfectness of race, and causing men to be content,
or even triumphant, in accepting continual risk of death, if by such
risk they can escape the injury of servile toil.
Again, the first root of distinction between clergyman and peasant is
the greater intelligence, which instinctively desires both to learn
and teach, and is content to accept the smallest maintenance, if it may
remain so occupied. (Look back to Marmontel's account of his tutor.)
The second root of distinction is that which gives rise to the
word 'clergy,' properly signifying persons chosen by lot, or in
a manner elect, for the practice and exhibition of good behaviour;
the visionary or passionate anchorite being content to beg his bread,
so only that he may have leave by undisturbed prayer or meditation,
to bring himself into closer union with the spiritual world; and the
peasant being always content to feed him, on condition of his becoming
venerable in that higher state, and, as a peculiarly blessed person,
a communicator of blessing.
Now, both these classes of men remain noble, as long as they are
content with daily bread, if they may be allowed to live in their
own way; but the moment the one of them uses his strength, and the
other his sanctity, to get riches with, or pride of elevation over
other men, both of them become tyrants, and capable of any degree of
evil. Of the clerk's relation to the peasant, I will only tell you,
now, that, as you learn more of the history of Germany and Italy in
the Middle Ages, and, indeed, almost to this day, you will find the
soldiers of Germany are always trying to get mastery over the body of
Italy, and the clerks of Italy are always trying to get mastery over
the mind of Germany;--this main struggle between Emperor and Pope,
as the respective heads of the two parties, absorbing in its vortex,
or attracting to its standards, all the minor disorders and dignities
of war; and quartering itself in a quaintly heraldic fashion with
the methods of encroachment on the peasant, separately invented by
baron and priest.
The relation of the baron to the peasant, however, is all that I
can touch upon to-day; and first, note that this word 'baron' is
the purest English you can use to denote the soldier, soldato, or
'fighter, hired with pence, or soldi,' as such. Originally it meant
the servant of a soldier, or, as a Roman clerk of Nero's time [7]
tells us, (the literary antipathy thus early developing itself in its
future nest,) "the extreme fool, who is a fool's servant;" but soon
it came to be associated with a Greek word meaning 'heavy;' and so
got to signify heavy-handed, or heavy-armed, or generally prevailing
in manhood. For some time it was used to signify the authority
of a husband; a woman called herself her husband's [8] 'ancilla,'
(handmaid), and him her 'baron.' Finally the word got settled in the
meaning of a strong fighter receiving regular pay. "Mercenaries are
persons who serve for a regularly received pay; the same are called
'Barones' from the Greek, because they are strong in labours." This
is the definition given by an excellent clerk of the seventh century,
Isidore, Bishop of Seville, and I wish you to recollect it, because
it perfectly unites the economical idea of a Baron, as a person paid
for fighting, with the physical idea of one, as prevailing in battle
by weight; not without some attached idea of slight stupidity;--the
notion holding so distinctly even to this day that Mr. Matthew Arnold
thinks the entire class aptly describable under the term 'barbarians.'
At all events, the word is the best general one for the dominant
rank of the Middle Ages, as distinguished from the pacific peasant,
and so delighting in battle that one of the most courteous barons
of the fourteenth century tells a young knight who comes to him for
general advice, that the moment war fails in any country, he must go
into another.
"Et se la guerre est faillie,
Départie
Fay tóst de cellui païs;
N'arresté quoy que nul die."
"And if the war has ended,
Departure
Make quickly from that country;
Do not stop, whatever anybody says to you." [9]
But long before this class distinction was clearly established,
the more radical one between pacific and warrior nations had shown
itself cruelly in the history of Europe.
You will find it greatly useful to fix in your minds these following
elementary ideas of that history:--
The Roman Empire was already in decline at the birth of Christ. It was
ended five hundred years afterwards. The wrecks of its civilization,
mingled with the broken fury of the tribes which had destroyed it,
were then gradually softened and purged by Christianity; and hammered
into shape by three great warrior nations, on the north, south,
and west, worshippers of the storms, of the sun, and of fate. Three
Christian kings, Henry the Fowler in Germany, Charlemagne in France,
and Alfred in England, typically represent the justice of humanity,
gradually forming the feudal system out of the ruined elements of
Roman luxury and law, under the disciplining torment inflicted by
the mountaineers of Scandinavia, India, and Arabia.
This forging process takes another five hundred years. Christian
feudalism may be considered as definitely organized at the end of the
tenth century, and its political strength established, having for the
most part absorbed the soldiers of the north, and soon to be aggressive
on those of Mount Imaus and Mount Sinai. It lasts another five hundred
years, and then our own epoch, that of atheistic liberalism, begins,
practically necessitated,--the liberalism by the two discoveries of
gunpowder and printing,--and the atheism by the unfortunate persistence
of the clerks in teaching children what they cannot understand, and
employing young consecrated persons to assert in pulpits what they
do not know.
That is enough generalization for you to-day. I want now to fix your
thoughts on one small point in all this;--the effect of the discovery
of gunpowder in promoting liberalism.
Its first operation was to destroy the power of the baron, by rendering
it impossible for him to hold his castle, with a few men, against a
mob. The fall of the Bastile is a typical fact in history of this kind;
but, of course long previously, castellated architecture had been felt
to be useless. Much other building of a noble kind vanishes together
with it; nor less (which is a much greater loss than the building,)
the baronial habit of living in the country.
Next to his castle, the baron's armour becomes useless to him; and
all the noble habits of life vanish which depend on the wearing of
a distinctive dress, involving the constant exercise of accurately
disciplined strength, and the public assertion of an exclusive
occupation in life, involving exposure to danger.
Next, the baron's sword and spear become useless to him; and encounter,
no longer the determination of who is best man, but of who is best
marksman, which is a very different question indeed.
Lastly, the baron being no more able to maintain his authority by
force, seeks to keep it by form; he reduces his own subordinates
to a fine machinery, and obtains the command of it by purchase
or intrigue. The necessity of distinction of character is in war
so absolute, and the tests of it are so many, that, in spite of
every abuse, good officers get sometimes the command of squadrons
or of ships; and one good officer in a hundred is enough to save
the honour of an army, and the credit of a system: but generally
speaking, our officers at this day do not know their business; and the
result is--that, paying thirty millions a year for our army, we are
informed by Mr. Grant Duff that the army we have bought is of no use,
and we must pay still more money to produce any effect upon foreign
affairs. So, you see, this is the actual state of things,--and it
is the perfection of liberalism,--that first we cannot buy a Raphael
for five-and-twenty pounds, because we have to pay five hundred for
a pocket pistol; and next, we are coolly told that the pocket pistol
won't go off, and that we must still pay foreign constables to keep
the peace.
In old times, under the pure baronial power, things used, as I told
you, to be differently managed by us. We were, all of us, in some
sense barons; and paid ourselves for fighting. We had no pocket
pistols, nor Woolwich Infants--nothing but bows and spears, good
horses, (I hear, after two-thirds of our existing barons have ruined
their youth in horseracing, and a good many of them their fortunes
also, we are now in irremediable want of horses for our cavalry,)
and bright armour. Its brightness, observe, was an essential matter
with us. Last autumn I saw, even in modern England, something bright;
low sunshine at six o'clock of an October morning, glancing down a
long bank of fern covered with hoar-frost, in Yewdale, at the head of
Coniston Water. I noted it as more beautiful than anything I had ever
seen, to my remembrance, in gladness and infinitude of light. Now,
Scott uses this very image to describe the look of the chain-mail of
a soldier in one of these free [10] companies;--Le Balafré, Quentin
Durward's uncle:--"The archer's gorget, arm-pieces, and gauntlets were
of the finest steel, curiously inlaid with silver, and his hauberk,
or shirt of mail, was as clear and bright as the frost-work of a
winter morning upon fern or briar." And Sir John Hawkwood's men,
of whose proceedings in Italy I have now to give you some account,
were named throughout Italy, as I told you in my first letter, the
White Company of English,--'Societas alba Anglicorum,' or generally,
the Great White Company, merely from the splendour of their arms. They
crossed the Alps in 1361, and immediately caused a curious change in
the Italian language. Azario lays great stress on their tall spears
with a very long iron point at the extremity; this formidable weapon
being for the most part wielded by two, and sometimes moreover by
three individuals, being so heavy and huge, that whatever it came
in contact with was pierced through and through. He says, that [11]
"at their backs the mounted bowmen carried their bows; whilst those
used by the infantry archers were so enormous that the long arrows
discharged from them were shot with one end of the bow resting on
the ground instead of being drawn in the air."
Of the English bow you have probably heard before, though I shall have,
both of it, and the much inferior Greek bow made of two goats' horns,
to tell you some things that may not have come in your way; but the
change these English caused in the Italian language, and afterwards
generally in that of chivalry, was by their use of the spear; for
"Filippo Villani tells us that, whereas, until the English company
crossed the Alps, his countrymen numbered their military forces by
'helmets' and colour companies, (bandiere); thenceforth armies were
reckoned by the spear, a weapon which, when handled by the White
Company, proved no less tremendous than the English bayonet of
modern times."
It is worth noting as one of the tricks of the third Fors--the
giver of names as well as fortunes--that the name of the chief poet
of passionate Italy should have been 'the bearer of the wing,' and
that of the chief poet of practical England, the bearer or shaker of
the spear. Noteworthy also that Shakespeare himself gives a name to
his type of the false soldier from the pistol; but, in the future,
doubtless we shall have a hero of culminating soldierly courage named
from the torpedo, and a poet of the commercial period, singing the
wars directed by Mr. Grant Duff, named Shake-purse.
The White Company when they crossed the Alps were under a German
captain. (Some years before, an entirely German troop was prettily
defeated by the Apennine peasants.) Sir John Hawkwood did not take
the command until 1364, when the Pisans hired the company, five
thousand strong, at the rate of a hundred and fifty thousand golden
florins for six months. I think about fifty thousand pounds of our
money a month, or ten pounds a man--Sir John himself being then
described as a "great general," an Englishman of a vulpine nature,
"and astute in their fashion." This English fashion of astuteness
means, I am happy to say, that Sir John saw far, planned deeply, and
was cunning in military stratagem; but would neither poison his enemies
nor sell his friends--the two words of course being always understood
as for the time being;--for, from this year 1364 for thirty years
onward, he leads his gradually more and more powerful soldier's life,
fighting first for one town and then for another; here for bishops,
and there for barons, but mainly for those merchants of Florence,
from whom that narrow street in your city is named Lombard Street, and
interfering thus so decidedly with foreign affairs, that, at the end
of the thirty years, when he put off his armour, and had lain resting
for a little while in Florence Cathedral, King Richard the Second
begged his body from the Florentines, and laid it in his own land;
the Florentines granting it in the terms of this following letter:--
"To the King of England.
"Most serene and invincible Sovereign, most dread Lord, and our
very especial Benefactor--
"Our devotion can deny nothing to your Highness' Eminence: there
is nothing in our power which we would not strive by all means
to accomplish, should it prove grateful to you.
"Wherefore, although we should consider it glorious for us and
our people to possess the dust and ashes of the late valiant
knight, nay, most renowned captain, Sir John Hawkwood, who
fought most gloriously for us, as the commander of our armies,
and whom at the public expense we caused to be entombed in the
Cathedral Church of our city; yet, notwithstanding, according
to the form of the demand, that his remains may be taken back
to his country, we freely concede the permission, lest it be
said that your sublimity asked anything in vain, or fruitlessly,
of our reverential humility.
"We, however, with due deference, and all possible earnestness,
recommend to your Highness' graciousness, the son and posterity
of said Sir John, who acquired no mean repute, and glory for the
English name in Italy, as also our merchants and citizens."
It chanced by the appointment of the third Fors, [12] to which, you
know, I am bound in these letters uncomplainingly to submit, that,
just as I had looked out this letter for you, given at Florence in
the year 1396, I found in an old bookshop two gazettes, nearly three
hundred years later, namely, Number 20 of the 'Mercurius Publicus,'
and Number 50 of the 'Parliamentary Intelligencer,' the latter
comprising the same "foraign intelligence, with the affairs now in
agitation in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for information of the
people. Publish'd by order, from Monday, December 3rd, to Monday,
December 10th, 1660." This little gazette informs us in its first
advertisement, that in London, November 30th, 1660, was lost, in
or about this city, a small paper book of accounts and receipts,
with a red leather cover, with two clasps on it; and that anybody
that can give intelligence of it to the city crier at Bread Street
end in Cheapside, "shall have five shillings for their pains, and
more if they desire it." And its last paragraph is as follows:--"On
Saturday (December 8), the Most Honourable House of Peers concurred
with the Commons in the order for the digging up the carkasses of
Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, John Bradshaw, and Thomas Pride,
and carrying them on an Hurdle to Tyburn, where they are to be first
hang'd up in their Coffins, and then buried under the Gallows."
The 'Public Mercury' is of date Thursday, June 14th, to Thursday,
June 21st, 1660, and contains a report of the proceedings at the House
of Commons, on Saturday, the 16th, of which the first sentence is:--
"Resolved,--That his Majesty be humbly moved to call in Milton's
two books, and John Goodwin's, and order them to be burnt by the
common hangman."
By the final appointment of the third Fors, I chanced just after
finding these gazettes, to come upon the following passage in my
'Daily Telegraph':--
"Every head was uncovered, and although among those who were
farthest off there was a pressing forward and a straining to
catch sight of the coffin, there was nothing unseemly or rude. The
Catafalque was received at the top of the stairs by Col. Braine
and other officers of the 9th, and placed in the centre of the
vestibule on a rich velvet pall on which rested crowns, crosses,
and other devices, composed of tuberoses and camellias, while
beautiful lilies were scattered over the corpse, which was clothed
in full regimentals, the cap and sword resting on the body. The
face, with the exception of its pallor, was unchanged, and no one,
unless knowing the circumstances, would have believed that Fiske
had died a violent death. The body was contained in a handsome
rosewood casket, with gold-plated handles, and a splendid plate
bearing the inscription, 'James Fiske, jun., died January 7th,
1872, in the 37th year of his age.'"
In the foregoing passages, you see, there is authentic account given
you of the various honours rendered by the enlightened public of
the fourteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth centuries to the hero
of their day or hour; the persons thus reverenced in their burial,
or unburial, being all, by profession, soldiers; and holding rank in
that profession, very properly describable by the pretty modern English
word 'Colonel'--leader, that is to say, of a Coronel, Coronella, or
daisy-like circlet of men; as in the last case of the three before us,
of the Tammany 'Ring.'
You are to observe, however, that the first of the three, Colonel Sir
John Hawkwood, is a soldier both in heart and deed, every inch of him;
and that the second, Colonel Oliver Cromwell, was a soldier in deed,
but not in heart; being by natural disposition and temper fitted
rather for a Huntingdonshire farmer, and not at all caring to make
any money by his military business; and finally, that Colonel James
Fiske, jun., was a soldier in heart, to the extent of being willing
to receive any quantity of soldi from any paymaster, but no more
a soldier in deed than you are yourselves, when you go piping and
drumming past my gate at Denmark Hill (I should rather say--banging,
than drumming, for I observe you hit equally hard and straightforward
to every tune; so that from a distance it sounds just like beating
carpets), under the impression that you are defending your country
as well as amusing yourselves.
Of the various honours, deserved or undeserved, done by enlightened
public opinion to these three soldiers, I leave you to consider till
next month, merely adding, to put you more entirely in command of
the facts, that Sir John Hawkwood, (Acuto, the Italians called him,
by happy adaptation of syllables,) whose entire subsistence was one
of systematic military robbery, had, when he was first buried, the
honour, rarely granted even to the citizens of Florence, of having
his coffin laid on the font of the House of his name-saint, St. John
Baptist--that same font which Dante was accused of having impiously
broken to save a child from drowning, in "mio bel San Giovanni." I am
soon going to Florence myself to draw this beautiful San Giovanni for
the beginning of my lectures on Architecture, at Oxford; and you shall
have a print of the best sketch I can make, to assist your meditations
on the honours of soldiership, and efficacy of baptism. Meantime, let
me ask you to read an account of one funeral more, and to meditate
also on that. It is given in the most exquisite and finished piece
which I know of English Prose literature in the eighteenth century;
and, however often you may have seen it already, I beg of you to read
it now, both in connection with the funeral ceremonies described
hitherto, and for the sake of its educational effect on your own
taste in writing:--
"We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which
very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my
readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep
them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He
departed this life at his house in the country, after a few
weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his
correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught
a cold at the county-sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an
address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his
wishes. But this particular comes from a Whig justice of peace,
who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters
both from the chaplain and Captain Sentry, which mention nothing
of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honour of the
good old man. I have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so
much care of me last summer when I was at the knight's house. As
my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his heart,
several circumstances the others have passed over in silence, I
shall give my reader a copy of his letter, without any alteration
or diminution.
"'Honoured Sir,--Knowing that you was my old master's good
friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of
his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as his
poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better than we did our
lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last county-sessions,
where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and
her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring
gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good master was always the poor
man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made
was, that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to
touch a sirloin, which was served up according to custom: and
you know he used to take great delight in it. From that time
forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart
to the last. Indeed we were once in great hope of his recovery,
upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he
had made love to the forty last years of his life; but this only
proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this lady,
as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of
silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old
lady his mother. He has bequeathed the fine white gelding that he
used to ride a hunting upon, to his chaplain, because he thought
he would be kind to him, and has left you all his books. He has
moreover bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with
good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his
will, he left for mourning to every man in the parish, a great
frize-coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a
most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants,
commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to
speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown grey-headed in
our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies,
which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our
days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is
not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the
parish, that he has left money to build a steeple to the church;
for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two years
longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain
tells every body that he made a very good end, and never speaks of
him without tears. He was buried, according to his own directions,
among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his father
Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the
pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole parish followed the
corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in
frize, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's
nephew, has taken possession of the Hall-house, and the whole
estate. When my old master saw him a little before his death, he
took him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was
falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to
pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity, which he told
him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The captain truly
seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of
those whom my master loved, and shews great kindness to the old
house-dog, that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would
have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature
made on the day of my master's death. He has never enjoyed himself
since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the
poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This is all from,
"'Honoured Sir,
"'Your most sorrowful servant,
"'Edward Biscuit.
"'P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book,
which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir
Andrew Freeport in his name.'
"This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of
writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that
upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir
Andrew opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts
of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity,
with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir
Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had
disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir
Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another
occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand-writing burst into
tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs
me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in
the club."
I am obliged to give you this ideal of Addison's because I can neither
from my own knowledge, nor, at this moment, out of any domestic
chronicles I remember, give you so perfect an account of the funeral
of an English squire who has lived an honourable life in peace. But
Addison is as true as truth itself. So now, meditate over these four
funerals, and the meaning and accuracy of the public opinions they
express, till I can write again.
And believe me, ever faithfully yours,