The Squares.--Lincoln's Inn.
A man may be familiar with London streets, he may for years have gone
his weary way amidst these endless rows of bare, narrow, irregular
houses, which are black with fog and smoke, without ever suspecting that
gardens sparkling in idyllic beauty are hidden behind those masses of
sooty masonry.
This is one of the chief distinctions between London and Paris and other
continental capitals. Paris has much outside glitter, much startling
show. Its _Boulevards_, its _Place de la Concorde_, _Place Vendôme_,
_Rue de la Paix_, _Rue Rivoli_, and sundry others of its streets and
public places are unrivalled; London cannot vie with them in
architectural prodigies. But the brilliant points of Paris, of which
Frenchmen are in the habit of boasting, attract our attention only to
divert it from the narrow crooked lanes, and the filth of the other
parts of their town. Paris sports a clean shirt-front merely to hide the
uncleanliness of its general nature. The French are adepts in the art of
_draping_. The English, on the contrary, know nothing whatever of that
noble art. The cut of their clothes is inelegant, but the cloth is the
best of its kind; their dwelling-houses have the appearance of old
chimneys, but the inside is replete with comfort and unpretending
wealth; their language is rough, and without melody; but it is
energetic, flexible, and expressive. Their metropolis, too, conceals its
real beauties. It requires some investigation, some instinct and
discernment to discover and enjoy them.
In the broadest part of Holborn, there are on either side certain
suspicious-looking lanes, in which pawnbrokers and cobblers "hang out,"
and where a roaring, though not a very fragrant, trade is driven in
greens, meat, and fish. The lanes on the north side communicate with
Gray's Inn; on the south, they form an intricate labyrinth, which we
enter on our way to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Travellers proceeding from London to Dover pass through a series of
monstrous tunnels, which have been bored through those mountains of
chalk, the bulwarks of the British islands. As they emerge from the
darkness of the last tunnel, they feel happy and grateful for the fresh
sea-breeze which plays around and the vast, boundless view which opens
before them. In a like manner, do we breathe more freely as we emerge
from the last of these narrow, and by no means sweetly-smelling lanes.
A broad square, filled with trees, flowers, and garden-ground, opens
before us. This is one of the many "squares" of which you, O my beloved
countrymen, entertain such crude and indistinct notions!
"Squares" are wide, open spots, surrounded by houses, exactly like our
own "_Plätze_." But, instead of the monuments of saints, whom the
Anglican Church ignores; instead of the pestilence-columns, which
Englishmen object to (though London, like every other respectable old
town, had its plagues in olden times); and instead of our beautiful
market-fountains, the poesy of which is a sealed book to the English
mind, their "_Plätze_" have been converted into Gardens with broad
commodious streets all round the railings. These gardens are not by any
means so small as the Germans generally believe. Indeed, in the larger
squares, they are of considerable extent. The curiosity of the
passers-by is repelled by trees, shrubs, and carefully-trimmed hedges,
and the shady walks and the grassplots in the centre are strictly
private. Of these squares, Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest; it
covers an area of twelve acres. The joint extent of all the London
squares is one thousand two hundred acres. With the exception of
Smithfield and Trafalgar-square, all the London squares have gardens,
and the trees and shrubs which grow in them improve the air of all the
neighbouring streets. Such gardens are found in all quarters of the
town, and in many cases they are hidden among the narrowest alleys and
gloomiest courts, where the wanderer least expects to find them. They
are the most beautiful spots in London, for they present specimens of
nature's paradise, blooming in concealment, and all the more lovely are
they for that very reason.
Let us return to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
We stand on classic soil. Three sides of this large square are
surrounded with buildings, whose open doors shew at once that they are
not mere ordinary dwelling-houses. One of them attracts our special
attention; it is so black and its columns are so many and so high. It is
the Royal College of Surgeons, where the medical students pass their
examination in surgery. This house, too, shelters the famous Anatomical
Museum which John Hunter bequeathed to the College of Surgeons. All the
other buildings are owned by the guild of the lawyers. In the heart of
the city, the houses, from the cellars to the garrets, are let out as
offices and store-rooms. The houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields, too, are
devoted to the special accommodation of lawyers. A walk up and down, and
a look at the door-posts, which are black with the names of advocates,
suffice to convince us of the lamentable condition of English law.
We have said that this is classic soil. Sir Thomas More, Shaftesbury the
statesman, and Lord Mansfield, studied in the precincts of Lincoln's
Inn; and Oliver Cromwell passed two years of his eventful life in the
same locality. The square has its sad reminiscences too. In the centre
of the gardens, where flowers blow and birds sing, there stood at one
time a scaffold; and on that scaffold died one of the noblest patriots
of England, Lord Russell, an ancestor of Finality John, and son to
William, Earl of Bedford.
The crown of England rested in those days on the head of the second
Charles. At his side was his brother, the Duke of York, the evil genius
of Charles and of England. Charles, and James his brother, listened to
the counsels of France and of Rome, for they wanted money, and the Whigs
would only consent to vote the people's money in exchange for some
crumbs of liberty for the people. Thus it came to pass that England's
honour was sold to France, and the "rebellious" Parliament was
dissolved, and the press put down; the liberties of the city were
curtailed; venal men were placed on the bench, and venal witnesses
thronged the courts; the best men of England were put into jail and
arraigned on charges of high treason. Among the best and bravest was
William Russell.
They accused him of having conspired against the king's life, and sent
him to the Tower. Witnesses were bribed to appear against him; they were
men of proverbial villany. Among them was Lord Howard, of whom the king
himself had said he would not hang the worst cur in his kennel on the
evidence of that man. But that man's evidence sufficed to bring the best
man in all England to the block. It is the old story--a tail-wagging cur
is more considered at court than a thinking man. Lord Russell's head
fell in the centre of this very square. Vainly did his wife implore the
king's mercy. Lord Russell's head fell in the immediate vicinity of his
estates; and the Londoners of those days saw him pass through Holborn on
his way to the scaffold. Many wept--many abused him; others jeered at
him. The people of that time had even less respect for its heroes and
martyrs than the present generation. In our days, even the vilest of the
vile are awed into silence when the princes of this earth deliver their
political adversaries to the hangman's rope or the "mercy" of a platoon
of rifles.
But even in these our own days there is a party in England, there are
Englishmen, citizens, writers, and members of Parliament, and most of
them truly honourable men, who, while they declare that the British
Whigs of those times were patriots and martyrs, do not hesitate rashly
to condemn the "rebellious" Parliaments and political parties of the
continent. No Englishman, not the most conservative, would dare to deny
to Lord Russell one single ray of that glorious crown of martyrdom which
the English people and its historians have placed upon his bleeding
head.
"It cannot be denied," they say, "that Lord William Russell conspired
against an illegal Government; but to conspire against such a Government
was his duty; he was justified in so doing."... But if the Russells of
those days were justified in vindicating the people's rights against the
King, how then can you so smoothly and glibly apply the word "rebels" to
the continental Russells of our own days? If armed opposition is
treasonable, was it less treasonable in days gone by? Do the rights of
mankind dwindle away as century follows century? Or has the great nation
of England so small a mind that it cannot distinguish between the merits
of a cause and its success?
The Russells of the last centuries shed their blood for this generation.
England is free, happy, undisturbed, mighty, strong, tranquil and
reasonable; she develops a brighter future from the benefits she at
present enjoys. The English know it; and in this knowledge is the secret
of their pride. The sanguinary conflicts of the continent, which have
hitherto had no results, provoke in Englishmen a smile of mingled pity
and derision. "Those people don't know what they are driving at," say
some; "if they would be happy they ought to imitate England." And others
say, "They want freedom, but they are not practical enough; they do not
turn their revolution to advantage as our ancestors did, and as we would
do in their place." But I say, it is easy to find fault with others, and
a happy man has all the wisdom of Solomon. These English sages do not
consider how much easier it was to their ancestors to bring the contest
with the power of the crown to a successful issue. The English patriots
were not opposed by large standing armies; the contest lay between them
and a single family and its faction, and--this is a point which has
never been sufficiently dwelt upon--they had no reason to fear a foreign
intervention. For England, as the greatest living author[B] says, never
fought as France did for the freedom of the world, but for its own
freedom. Hence the continental powers paid little attention to the
battles of the Puritans, and the contests between Charles and Cromwell.
Clarendon indeed considered their non-intervention a great grievance.
But this non-intervention of Spain or France was the greatest blessing
for royalty in England. If those countries had interfered, the contest
for the principles of constitutionalism might have been prolonged to
this very day, or perhaps royalty would have been killed outright on the
English battle-fields.
[B] Macaulay's Essays, vol. ii.
The history of England--says Macaulay--is a history of progress. Who
would gainsay it? At the commencement of the twelfth century, a small
and semi-barbarous nation, subject to a handful of foreigners, without a
trace of civilisation--large masses enslaved--the Saxons still distinct
from the Normans--superstition and brutality everywhere, and the law of
the strong hand the supreme law of the land--such was England seven
hundred years ago. Then came the bloody civil wars--brain-scorching,
land-spoiling, men-consuming, sectarian wars--contests abroad and
contests at home--a series of vile, hypocritical, dissolute, and
narrow-minded monarchs--and at intervals bright epochs of great times in
history and politics, and day was changed into night and night into day,
until England attained its present position among the nations of the
earth. From one decade to another there may have been periodical
retrogressions, but each century gave clear and irrefragable evidence of
the progress of England.
If, therefore, in the next years, France should happen again to attain
those giddy heights of freedom, which she gained three times already,
and which three times have vanished beneath her feet, then let not
France, as she is wont to do, wax proud in the scanty shade of her newly
planted trees of liberty, and let her not look down contemptuously on
the cold, thickblooded, clumsy tree of liberty in England. At the end of
the century the two nations may compare their charters; it will then be
seen which of them has really and truly had the greatest gains. The
blood of France has manured the mental soil of all the world; England
should be the last to forget what her liberty has gained by the ideal
conquests of France. France, on the other hand, might make the most
useful study in considering the consistent carrying out of great
political maxims on the British soil.
When two nations express their opinions of one another, and reproach
each other with their faults, they are in the habit of paying too little
attention to the circumstances which promote or obstruct the advance of
freedom. In this respect, the peculiarities of the countries and their
geographical position cannot be too highly estimated. Who can tell what
would be the condition of Germany, if our country were secure from
foreign intervention; and if, as is the case with England, the sea
protected it from the violence of its enemies or the insidious advances
of its political friends.