THE POPULAR ELECTION.
'The greater part carries it.
If he would but incline to the people,
There never was a worthier man.'
And yet, after all, that is what he wants for them, and must have or
he is nothing; for as the Poet tells us elsewhere, 'our monarchs and
our outstretched heroes are but the beggar's shadows.' The difficulty
is, that he wishes to take his 'hire' in some more quiet way, without
being rudely reminded of the nature of the transaction.
But the Poet's toils are about him. The man of science has caught the
hero, the king in germ; the dragon wings are not yet spread. He wishes
to exhibit the embryo monarch in this particular stage of his
development, and the scientific process proceeds with as little regard
to the victim's wishes, as if he were indeed that humble product of
nature to which the Poet likens him. 'There's a differency between a
grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub.' Just on that
step between 'the casque and the cushion,' the philosopher arrests
him.
For this history denotes, as we have seen, a foregone conclusion. The
scholar has privately anatomized in his study the dragon's wings, and
this theatrical synthesis is designed to be an instructive one. He
wishes to show, in a palpable form, what _is_ and what is _not_,
essential to the mechanism of that greatness which, though it presents
itself to the eye in the contemptible physique, and moral infirmity
and pettiness of the human individual, is yet clothed with powers so
monstrous, so real, so terrific, that all men are afflicted with
them;--this thing in which 'the conditions of a man are so altered,'
this thing which 'has grown from man to dragon, which is more than a
creeping thing.' He will show that after all it is nothing in the
world but the _popular power_ itself, the power of the people
instinctively, unscientifically and unartistically exercised.
The Poet has analysed that so potent name by which men call it, and he
will show upon his stage, by that same method which his followers have
made familiar to us, in other departments of investigation, the
elements of its power. He will let us see how it was those despised
'mechanics,' those 'poor citizens,' with their strong arms and voices,
who were throwing themselves,--in their enthusiasm,--en-masse into
that engine, and only asking to be welded in it; that would have made
of this citizen a thing so terrific. He will show how, after all, it
was the despised _commons_ who were making of that citizen a king, of
that soldier a monarch,--who were changing with the alchemy of the
'shower and thunder they made with their caps and voices,' his oak
leaves and acorns, into gold and jewels.
He will show it on the platform of a state, where that vote is
formally and constitutionally given, and not in a state where it is
only a virtual and tacit one. He will show it in detail. He will cause
the multitude to be _represented_, and pass by _twos_ and _threes_
across his stage, and compel the haughty chief, the would be ruler, to
beg of them, individually, their suffrages, and show them his
claim,--such as it is, the '_unaching scars that he should hide_.'
It is to this Poet's purpose to exhibit that despised element in the
state, which the popular submission creates, that unnoticed element of
the common suffrage which looks so smooth on its surface, which seems
to the haughty chief so little worth his notice, when it goes his way
and bears him on its crest. But the experimenter will undertake to
show what it is by ruffling it, by instigating this chief to put
himself in the madness of his private affections, in the frenzy of his
pride, into open opposition with it. He will show us what it is by
playing with it. He will wake it from its unvisited depths, and bid
his hero strive with it.
He will show what that popular consent, or the consent of 'the
commons' amounts to, in the king-making process, by _omitting it_ or
by _withdrawing it_, before it is too late to withdraw it;--according
to the now well-known rules of that new art of scientific
investigation, which was then getting worked out and cleared, from
this author's own methods of investigation. For it was because this
faculty was in him, so unlike what it was in others, that he was able
to write that science of it, by which other men, stepping into his
armour, have been able to achieve so much.
He will show how those dragon teeth and claws, that were just getting
the steel into them, which would have armed that single will against
the whole, and its _weal_, crumble for the lack of it; he will show us
the new-fledged wings, with all their fresh gauds, collapsing and
dissolving with that popular withdrawal. He will continue the process,
till there is nothing left of all that gorgeous state pageant, which
came in with the flourish of trumpets and the voice of the herald long
and loud, and the echoing thunder of the commons, but a poor grub of a
man, in his native conditions, a private citizen, denied even the
common privilege of citizenship,--with only his wife and his mother
and a friend or two, to cling to him,--turned out of the city gates,
to seek his fortune.
But that is the moment in which the Poet ventures to bring out a
little more fully, in the form of positive statement, that latent
affirmation, that definition of the true nobility which underlies all
the play and glistens through it in many a fine, but hitherto,
unnoticed point; that affirmation which all these negatives conclude
in, that latent idea of the true personal greatness and its essential
relation to the common-weal and the state, which is the predominant
idea of the play, which shapes all the criticism and points all the
satire of it. It is there that the true hero speaks out for a moment
from the lips of that old military heroism, of a greatness which does
not cease when the wings of state drop off from it, of an honour that
takes no stain though all the human voices join to sully it,--the
dignity that rises and soars and gains the point of immutability, when
all the world would have it under foot. But in that nobility men need
training,--_scientific training_. The instinctive, unartistic human
growth, or the empirical unscientific arts of culture, give but a
vulgar counterfeit of it, or at best a poor, sickly, distorted,
convulsive, unsatisfactory type of it, for 'being gentle,
wounded,'--(and it is gentility and nobility and the true aristocracy
that we speak of here,)--'craves a NOBLE CUNNING;' so the old military
chieftain tells us. It is a _cunning_ which his author does not put
_him_ upon practising personally. Practically he represents another
school of heroes. It is the _word_ of that higher heroism in which he
was himself wanting, it is the criticism on his own part, it is the
affirmation which all this grand historic negative is always pointing
to, which the author borrows his lips to utter.
The result in this case, the overthrow of the military hero on his way
to the chair of state, is occasioned by the _premature_ arrogance to
which his passionate nature impels him. For his fiery disposition
refuses to obey the decision of his will, and overleaps in its
passion, all the barriers of that policy which his calmer moments had
prescribed. The result is occasioned by his open display of his
contempt for the people, before he had as yet mastered the
organizations which would make that display, in an unenlightened age,
perhaps, a safe one.
This point of time is much insisted on, and emphasized.
'Let them pull all about mine ears,' cries the hero, as he enters his
own house, after his first encounter with the multitude in their
wrath.
'Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
_Death on the wheel_, or at wild horses' heels,
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still--
_Be_ THUS _to them_.'
[For that is the sublime conclusion of these heroics.]
'You do the _nobler_,' responds the Coryphæus of that chorus of
patricians who accompany him home, and who ought, of course, to be
judges of nobility. But there is another approbation wanted. Volumnia
is there; but she listens in silence. 'I muse,' he continues--
'I muse my mother
Does not approve me further--who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, _things created
To buy and sell with groats_; to show bare heads
In _congregations_, to YAWN, be STILL, AND WONDER,
When one but of my _ordinance_ stood up
To speak of PEACE or WAR. I talk of you [_to Volumnia_.]
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
_False to my nature_? [_Softly_] Either say I _play_
The man I am.
_Vol_. O sir, sir, sir,
I would have had you _put your power well on_,
Ere you had worn it out.
_Cor_. Let go.
_Vol_. Lesser had been
The _thwarting of your dispositions_, IF
You had not shown them _how_ you were _disposed_
Ere they lacked _power_ to cross you.
_Cor_. Let them HANG!
_Vol_. _Ay, and_ BURN _too_!
For that was the '_disposition_' which these Commons, if they had
waited but a little longer, might have 'lacked _power to cross_.' That
was the disposition they had thwarted.
But then it is necessary to our purpose, as it was to the author's, to
notice that the collision in this case is a _forced_ one. It grows by
plot. The people are _put up to it_. For there are men in that
commonwealth who are competent to instruct the Commons in the doctrine
of the _common weal_, and who are carefully and perseveringly applying
themselves to that task; though they are men who know how to bide
their time, and they will wait till the soaring insolence of the hero
is brought into open collision with that enlightened popular will.
They will wait till the military hero's quarrel with the commonwealth
breaks out anew. For they know that it lies in the nature of things,
and cannot but occur. The éclat of his victory, and the military pride
of the nation, films it over for a time; but the quarrel is a radical
one, and cannot be healed.
For this chief of soldiers, and would-be head and ruler of the state
knows no _commonwealth_. His soul is not large enough to admit of that
conception. The walls of ignorance, that he shuts himself up in,
darken and narrow his world to the sphere of his own _microcosm_,--
and, therefore, there is a natural war between the world and him. The
_state_ of universal subjection, on the part of others, to his single
exclusive passions and affections, the state in which the whole is
sacrificed to the part, is the only state that will satisfy him. That
is the peace he is disposed to conquer; that is the consummation with
which he would _stay_; that is _his_ notion of _state_. When that
consummation is attained, or when such an approximation to it as he
judges to be within his reach, is attained, then, and not till then,
he is for _conservation_;--_revolution then_ is sin; but, till then he
will have change and overturning--he will fill the earth with rapine,
and fire, and slaughter. But this is just the peace and war principle,
which this man, who proposes a durable and solid peace, and the true
state, a state constructed with reference to true definitions and
axioms,--this is the peace and war principle which the man of science,
on scientific grounds, objects to. 'He likes nor peace nor war' on
those terms. The conclusions he has framed from those solid premises
which he finds in the nature of things, makes him the leader of the
opposition in both cases. In one way or another he will make war on
that peace; he will kindle the revolutionary fires against that
conservation. In one way or another, in one age or another, he will
silence that war with all its pomp and circumstance, with all the din
of its fifes, and drums, and trumpets. He will make over to the
ignominy of ignorant and barbaric ages,--'for we call a nettle but a
nettle,' he will turn into a forgotten pageant of the rude, early,
instinctive ages, the yet brutal ages of an undeveloped humanity, that
triumphant reception at home, of the Conqueror of Foreign States. He
will undermine, in all the states, the ethics and religion of brute
force, till men shall grow sick, at last, of the old, rusty, bygone
trumpery of its insignia, and say, 'Take away those baubles.'
But the hero that we deal with here, is but the pure negation of that
heroism which his author conceives of, aspires to, and will have,
historical, which he defines as the pattern of man's nature in all
men. This one knows no _common_-wealth; the wealth that is wealth in
his eyes, is all his own; the weal that he conceives of, is the weal
that is warm at his own heart only. At best he can go out of his
particular only as far as the limits of his own hearthstone, or the
limits of his clique or caste. And in his selfish passion, when that
demands it, he will sacrifice the nearest to him. As to the Commons,
they are 'but things to buy and sell with groats,' a herd, a mass, a
machine, to be informed with his single will, to be subordinated to
his single wishes; in peace enduring the gnawings of hunger, that the
garners their toil has filled may overflow for him,--enduring the
badges of a degradation which blots out the essential humanity in
them, to feed his pride;--in war offered up in droves, to win the
garland of the war for him. That is the old hero's commonwealth. His
small brain, his brutish head, could conceive no other. The ages in
which he ruled the world with his instincts, with his fox-like
cunning, with his wolfish fury, with his dog-like ravening,--those
brute ages could know no other.
But it is the sturdy European race that the hero has to deal with
here; and though, in the moment of victory, it is ready always to
chain itself to the conqueror's car, and, in the exultation of
conquest, and love for the conqueror, fastens on itself, with joy, the
fetters of ages, this quarrel is always breaking out in it anew: it
does not like being governed with the edge of the sword;--it is not
fond of martial law as a permanent institution.
Two very sagacious tribunes these old Romans happen to have on hand in
this emergency: birds considerably too old to be caught with this
chaff of victory and military virtue, which puts the populace into
such a frenzy, and very learnedly they talk on this subject, with a
slight tendency to anachronisms in their mode of expression, in
language which sounds a little, at times, as if they might have had
access to some more recent documents, than the archives of mythical
Rome could just then furnish to them.
But the reader should judge for himself of the correctness of this
criticism.
Refusing to join in the military procession on its way to the Capitol,
and stopping in the street for a little conference on the subject,
when it has gone by, after that vivid complaint of the universal
prostration to the military hero already quoted, the conference
proceeds thus:--
_Sic_. On the sudden,
I warrant him consul.
_Bru_. Then _our office_ may,
_During his power_, go sleep.
_Sic_. He cannot temperately transport his honours
From where he should begin, and end; but will
Lose those that he hath won.
_Bru_. In _that_ there's comfort.
_Sic_. Doubt not, the commoners, _for whom we stand_.
But _they, upon their ancient malice_, will
Forget, with the least cause, these _his new honours_;
Which that he'll give them, make as little question
As he is proud to do't.
_Bru_. I heard him swear,
Were _he_ to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i'the market-place, nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility;
Nor, showing (as the _manner is_) his wounds
To the people, beg their stinking breaths.
_Sic_. _'Tis right_.
_Bru_. It was his word: O, he would miss it, rather
Than _carry it, but by the suit o'the gentry to him_,
And the _desire of the nobles_.
_Sic_. _I wish no better_,
Than have him hold _that_ purpose, and to put it
In execution.
_Bru_. 'Tis most like he will.
_Sic_. It shall be to him then, as our good wills
A sure destruction.
_Bru_. So it must fall out
To him, or our authorities. For an end,
We must suggest the people, in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to his power he would
_Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders_, and
DISPROPERTIED THEIR FREEDOMS: [--note the expression--]
holding them,
IN HUMAN ACTION AND CAPACITY,
Of no more soul _nor fitness for_ THE WORLD
Than CAMELS in their war; who have their provand
_Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them_.
_Sic_. _This as you say, suggested
At some time, when his soaring insolence
Shall teach the people_ (which time shall not want)
_If he be put upon't_; and that's as easy
As to set dogs on sheep; will be HIS FIRE
_To_ KINDLE THEIR DRY STUBBLE; AND THEIR BLAZE
SHALL DARKEN HIM FOR EVER.
[There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased,
The which observed a man may prophesy,
With a near aim of the main chance of things,
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured:
Such things become the hatch and brood of time.--_Henry IV_.]
Coriolanus, elected by the Senate to the consulship, proposes, in his
arrogance, as we have already seen, to dispense with the usual form,
which he understands to be a form merely, of asking the consent of the
people, and exhibiting to them his claim to their suffrages. The
tribunes have sternly withstood this proposition, and will hear of 'no
jot' of encroachment upon the dignity and state of the Commons. After
the flourish with which the election in the Senate Chamber concludes,
and the withdrawal of the Senate, again they stop to discuss,
confidentially, 'the situation.'
_Bru_. You _see_ how he intends to use the people.
_Sic_. May _they perceive his intent_; he will require them
As if he did contemn what they requested
Should be in their power to give.
_Bru_. Come, we'll inform them
Of our proceedings here: on the market-place
I know they do attend us.
And to the market-place we go; for it is there that the people are
collecting in throngs; no bats or clubs in their hands now, but still
full of their passion of gratitude and admiration for the hero's
patriotic achievements, against the common foe; and, under the
influence of that sentiment, wrought to its highest pitch by that
action and reaction which is the incident of the common sentiment in
'the greater congregations,' or 'extensive wholes,' eager to sanction
with their 'approbation,' the appointment of the Senate, though the
graver sort appear to be, even then, haunted with some unpleasant
reminiscences, and not without an occasional misgiving as to the
wisdom of the proceeding. There is a little tone of the former meeting
lurking here still.
_First Cit_. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to
deny him.
_Second Cit_. We may, Sir, if we will.
_Third Cit_. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is
a power that we have no power to do. Ingratitude is _monstrous_:
and for the multitude to be ungrateful, were to make a monster of
the multitude,--
[There are scientific points here. This term 'monstrosity' is one of
the radical terms in the science of nature; but, like many others, it
is used in the popular sense, while the sweep and exactitude of the
scientific definition, or '_form_' is introduced into it.]
--of the which, we, being members, should bring ourselves to be
monstrous members.
_First Cit_. And to make us no better thought of, a little help will
serve: for once, when we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck
not to call us the _many_-headed multitude.
_Third Cit_. We have been called so _of many_; not that our heads
are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, _but that our
wits are so diversely coloured_: and truly I think, if ALL _our
wits_ were to issue out of ONE skull, they would fly east, west,
north, south; and _their consent_ of _one direct_ way should be at
once to ALL the points o'the compass.
[An enigma; but the sphinx could propound no better one. Truly this
man has had good teaching. He knows how to translate the old priestly
Etruscan into the vernacular.]
_Second Cit_. Think you so? Which way, do you judge, my wit
would fly?
_Third Cit_. Nay, _your wit_ will not so soon out as _another
man's_ WILL, 'tis _strongly wedged up_ in a block-head: _but if
it were at liberty_ ...
_Second Cit_. You are never without your tricks:--...
_Third Cit_. Are you _all_ resolved to give your voices? _But that's
no matter. The greater part carries it_. I say, if he would _incline
to the people_, there was never a worthier man.
[_Enter Coriolanus and Menenius_.]
Here he comes, and in the _gown_ of _humility_; mark his behaviour.
We are not to stay _all_ together, but to come by him where he
stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his _requests
by particulars_: wherein _every one of us has a single honour_, in
giving him our own voices with our own tongues: _therefore_ FOLLOW
ME, and I'LL DIRECT YOU HOW YOU SHALL GO BY HIM.
[The voice of the true leader is lurking here, and all through
these scenes the '_double_' meanings are thickly sown.]
_All_. _Content, content!_
_Men_. O Sir, you are not right: have you not known
The worthiest men have done it?
_Cor_. What must I say?--
I pray, Sir?--Plague upon't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace:--Look, Sir,--my wounds;--
I got them in my country's service, _when
Some certain of your brethren roar'd, and ran
From the noise of_ OUR OWN DRUMS.
_Men_. O me, the gods!
_You must not speak of that_; you must desire them
To think upon you.
_Cor_. Think upon _me? Hang 'em!_
I would they would forget me, _like the virtues_
Which our _divines lose_ by them.
_Men_. _You'll mar all_;
I'll leave you: Pray you, speak to them, I pray you,
In _wholesome_ manner.
[And now, instead of being thronged with a mob of
citizens--instructed how they are to go by him with the honor of
their _single_ voices they enter 'by twos' and 'threes.']
[Enter two Citizens.]
Cor. Bid them wash their faces,
And keep their teeth clean._--So, here comes a _brace_,
You know the cause, Sir, of my standing here.
_First Cit_. We do, Sir; _tell us what hath brought you to't_,
_Cor. Mine own desert._--[The would-be consul answers.]
_Second Cit_. Your own desert?
_Cor_. Ay, not
Mine own desire.
[His _own_ desert has brought him to the consulship; his _own_
desire would have omitted the conciliation of the people, and
the deference to their will, that with all his desert somehow he
seems to find expected from him.]
_First Cit_. How! not your own desire!
_Cor_. No, Sir.
'Twas never my desire yet,
_To trouble the poor with begging_.
He desires what the poor have to give him however; but he desires to
take it, without begging. But it is the heart of the true hero that
speaks in earnest through that mockery, and the reference is to a
state of things towards which the whole criticism of the play is
steadfastly pointed, a state in which sovereigns were reluctantly
compelled to beg from the poor, what they would rather have taken
without their leave, or, at least, a state in which the _form_ of this
begging was still maintained, though there lacked but little to make
it a form only, a state of things in which a country gentleman might
be called on to sell 'his brass pans' without being supplied, on the
part of the State, with what might appear, to him, any respectable
reason for it, putting his life in peril, and coming off, with a
hair's-breadth escape, of all his future usefulness, if he were bold
enough to question the proceeding; a state of things in which a poor
law-reader might feel himself called upon to buy a gown for a lady,
whose gowns were none of the cheapest, at a time when the state of his
finances might render it extremely inconvenient to do so.
But to return to the Roman citizen, for the play is written by one who
knows that the human nature is what it is in all ages, or, at least,
until it is improved with better arts of culture than the world has
yet tried on it.
_First Cit. You must think, if we give you anything,
We hope to gain by you._
_Cor. Well then_, I pray, YOUR PRICE O'THE CONSULSHIP?
_First Cit_. The price is, Sir, to ask it _kindly_.
_Cor. Kindly_?
Sir, I pray let me ha't: I have wounds to show you,
Which shall be yours in private.--Your good voice, Sir;
What say you?
_Second Cit_. You shall have it, _worthy_ Sir.
_Cor_. A _match_, Sir:
There is in all two worthy voices begg'd:--
_I have your alms_; adieu.
_First Cit_. But this is something _odd_.
_Second Cit. An 'twere to give again_,--But 'tis no matter.
[_Exeunt two Citizens_.]
[_Enter two other Citizens_.]
_Cor_. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices,
that I may be consul, I have here _the customary gown_.
_Third Cit_. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have
not deserved nobly.
_Cor. Your enigma_?
_Third Cit_. You have been a _scourge to her enemies_, you _have
been a rod to her friends_; you have _not_ INDEED, loved the COMMON
PEOPLE.
_Cor_. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been
common in my love. I will, Sir, flatter my sworn brother the people,
to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition _they account_
GENTLE: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my
hat than my heart, _I will practise_ the _insinuating nod_, and be
_off to them most counterfeitly_; that is, Sir, I will counterfeit
the bewitchment of _some popular man, and give it bountifully to
the desirers_. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul.
_Fourth Cit_. We hope to find you _our friend_; and _therefore_
give you our voices heartily.
_Third Cit_. You have received many wounds for your country.
_Cor_. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make
much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.
_Both Cit_. The gods give you joy, Sir, heartily! [_Exeunt_.]
_Cor_. Most sweet voices!--
Better it is to die, better to starve,
...Rather than fool it so,
Let the high office and the honour go
To one that would do thus.--I am half through;
_The one part suffer'd, the other will I do_.
[_Enter three other Citizens._]
Here come more voices,--
Your Voices: _for your_ voices _I have fought_:
_Watch'd_ for _your voices; for your voices, bear
Of wounds two dozen odd_; battles thrice six,
I have seen and heard of; _for your voices_,
Done many things, _some less, some more_: your voices:
_Indeed, I would be consul_.
_Fifth Cit_. He has done _nobly_, and _cannot go without any honest
man's voice_.
_Sixth Cit_. Therefore let him be consul: The gods give him joy, and
make him _good friend to the people_.
_All_. Amen, Amen.--
_God save thee, noble_ consul! [_Exeunt Citizens_.]
_Cor_. WORTHY VOICES!
[_Re-enter Menenius, with the tribunes Brutus, and Sicinius._]
_Men_. You have stood your limitation; and the tribunes
Endue you with the people's voice: _Remains_,
That in the _official marks_ invested, you
_Anon_ do meet the senate.
_Cor_. Is this done?
_Sic_. The _custom_ of _request_ you have discharged:
_The people do admit you_; and are _summon'd_
To meet anon, _upon your approbation_.
_Cor_. Where? At the senate-house?
_Sic. There_ Coriolanus.
_Cor. May I change these garments_?
_Sic_. You may, Sir.
_Cor_. That I'll straight do, and _knowing myself again_,
Repair to the senate house.
_Men_. I'll keep you company.--Will you along.
_Bru. We stay here for the people_.
_Sic_. Fare you well.
[_Exeunt Coriolanus and Menenius_.]
_He has it now_; and by his looks, methinks,
'Tis warm at his heart.
_Bru. With a proud heart he wore
His humble weeds_: Will you dismiss the people?
[This is the popular election: but the afterthought, the review, the
critical review, is that which must follow, for this is not the same
people we had on the stage when the play began. They are the same in
person, perhaps; but it is no longer a mob, armed with clubs,
clamouring for bread, rushing forth to kill their chiefs, and have
corn at their own price. It is a people conscious of their political
power and dignity, an organised people; it is a people with a
constituted head, capable of instructing them in the doctrine of
political duties and rights. It is the tribune now who conducts this
review of the Military Hero's civil claims. It is the careful, learned
Tribune who initiates, from the heights of his civil wisdom, this
great, popular veto, this deliberate 'rejection' of the popular
affirmation. For this is what is called, elsewhere, 'a _negative_
instance.']
[_Re-enter Citizens_.]
_Sic_. How now, _my masters?_ HAVE YOU CHOSE THIS MAN?
_First Cit_. He has our _voices_, Sir.
_Bru_. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.
_Second Cit_. Amen, Sir: To my poor unworthy notice,
_He mocked us when he begg'd our voices_.
_Third Cit_. Certainly
He flouted us downright.
_First Cit_. No, 'tis his kind of speech; he did not mock us.
_Second Cit_. Not one amongst us save yourself, but says,
He used us _scornfully_: he should have show'd us
His marks of merit, wounds received for his country.
_Sic_. Why, so he did, I am sure.
_Cit_. No; no man saw 'em. [_Several speak_.]
_Third Cit_. He said he _had_ wounds which he could show in private;
And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
'I _would be consul_,' says he,' AGED CUSTOM,
BUT BY YOUR VOICES, WILL NOT SO PERMIT ME;
_Your voices_ THEREFORE:' When we granted that,
Here was,--'I thank you for your voices,--thank you,--
Your most sweet voices:--_now you have left your voices,
I have no further with you:'--Was not this mockery?_
_Sic_. Why, either, were you ignorant to see't?
Or, seeing it, of such _childish friendliness
To yield your voices?_
_Bru_. Could you not have told him
As you were lesson'd--when he had no power,
But was a petty servant to the state,
He was your enemy; ever spake _against_
_Your_ LIBERTIES, and the CHARTERS that you bear
_I'_ THE BODY of the WEAL: and now arriving
A _place of potency, and sway_ o' the state,
If he should still malignantly remain
_Fast foe_ to the plebeii, _your voices might
Be_ CURSES _to_ YOURSELVES.
_Sic_. Thus to have said
As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit,
And _tried_ his inclination; from him plucked,
Either his gracious promise, which _you might,
As cause had called you up, have_ HELD HIM TO;
_Or else_ it would have galled his surly nature,
_Which easily endures, not article
Tying him to aught_;--so putting him to rage,
You should have ta'en advantage of his choler,
And so left him unelected.
[Somewhat sagacious instructions for these old _Roman_ statesmen to
give, and not so very unlike those which English Commons found
occasion to put in execution not long after.]
_Bru_. Did you perceive he did solicit you _in free contempt_,
When he did need your loves; and do you think
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,
When, he hath _power to crush_? Why had your bodies
_No heart among you_, or had you tongues
To cry against THE RECTORSHIP of--_judgment_?
_Sic_. Have you
Ere now, _deny'd the asker_, and now again,
On him that _did not ask, but mock_, [with a pretence of asking,]
bestow Your sued for tongues?
_Third Cit_. HE'S NOT CONFIRMED, _we may deny him_ YET.
_Second Cit. And will deny him:
I'll have five hundred voices of that sound_.
_First Cit. I_, twice five hundred, and their friends to _piece
'em_.
_Bru_. Get you hence instantly, and _tell those friends_,
They have chose a consul that will from them
_Take their liberties_, MAKE THEM OF NO MORE VOICE
THAN DOGS, that are as often BEAT for barking,
As KEPT TO DO SO.
_Sic_. Let them assemble,
And on a safer judgment, ALL REVOKE
Your IGNORANT ELECTION.
_Bru_. Lay
A fault on _us, your tribunes_; that WE LABOURED
NO IMPEDIMENT BETWEEN, but that you _must_
Cast your election on him.
_Sic_. Say, you chose him
More after our commandment, than as guided
By your own true affections, and that your minds,
_Pre-occupied_ with what you rather _must_ do,
Than what you _should_, made you _against the grain_
To voice _him_ consul: lay the fault _on us_.
_Bru_. Ay, SPARE us NOT. _Say_ WE READ LECTURES TO YOU,
How youngly _he began to serve his country_,
How long continued, and what _stock_ he springs of;
The noble house o' the _Marcians_, from whence came,
That Ancus Martius, _Numa's_ daughter's son,
Who, after _great Hostilius_, here was _king_:
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
_That our best water brought by conduits hither_;
And Censoriuus, _darling of the people_,
And nobly named so, being _censor twice_,
Was his great ancestor.
[Of course this man has never meddled with the classics at all. His
reading and writing comes by nature.]
_Sic. One thus_ descended,
That hath _beside well in his person wrought_,
To be set _high in place, we_ did commend
To your remembrances; but _you have found,
Scaling his present bearing with his past_,
That _he's_ your fixed _enemy_, and REVOKE
_Your sudden approbation_.
_Bru._. Say you ne'er had done't,--
_Harp on that still_,--but by _our putting on_,
And _presently_ when you have drawn your number,
Repair to the Capitol.
_Citizens_. [_Several speak_.] We will so. Almost all
Repent in their election. [Exeunt Citizens.]
_Bru_. Let them go on.
This mutiny were better put in hazard,
Than stay, past doubt, for greater;
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
With their refusal, both observe and answer
The vantage of his anger.
_Sic_. To the Capitol:
Come, _we'll be there before the stream_ o' the people,
_And this shall seem, as partly'tis, their own
Which_ WE HAVE GOADED ONWARD.
[See the Play of Henry the _Seventh_, Founder of the Elizabethan
Tyranny, by the same author.]
We have witnessed the popular election on the scientific boards: we
have seen, now, in all its scientific detail, the civil confirmation
of the soldier's vote on the battle-field: we have seen it in the
senate-chamber and in the market-place, and we saw it in 'the
smothered stalls, and bulks, and windows,' and on 'the leads and
ridges': we have seen and heard it, not in the shower and thunder that
the commons made with their caps and voices only, but in the scarfs,
and gloves, and handkerchiefs, which 'the ladies, and maids, and
matrons threw.' We have seen each single contribution to this great
public act put in by the Poet's selected representative of classes.
'The kitchen malkin, with her richest lockram pinned on her neck,
clambering the wall to eye him,' spake for hers; 'the seld-shown
flamen, puffing his way to win a vulgar station,' was hastening to
record the vote of his; 'the veiled dame, exposing the war of white
and damask in her nicely-gawded cheeks to the spoil of Phebus' burning
kisses,' was a tribune, too, in this Poet's distribution of the
tribes, and spake out for the veiled dames; 'the prattling nurse' who
will give her baby that is 'crying itself into a rapture there, while
she chats him' her reminiscence of this scene by and by, was there to
give the nurses' approbation.
For this is the vote which the great Tribune has to sum up and count,
when he comes to review at last, 'in a better hour,' these spontaneous
public acts--these momentous acts that seal up the future, and bind
the unborn generations of the advancing kind with the cramp of their
fetters. Not less careful than this is the analysis when he undertakes
to track to its historic source one of those practical axioms, one of
those received beliefs, which he finds determining the human conduct,
limiting the human history, moulding the characters of men,
determining beforehand what they shall be. This is the process when he
undertakes, to get one of these rude, instinctive, spontaneous
affirmations--one of those idols of the market or of the
Tribe--reviewed and criticised by the heads of the Tribe, at least,
'in a better hour,'--criticised and rejected. 'Proceeding by negatives
and exclusion first': this is the form in which this Tribune puts on
record his scientific veto of that 'ignorant election.'
And in this so carefully selected and condensed combination of
historical spectacles--in this so new, this so magnificently
illustrated political history--there is another historic moment to be
brought out now; and in this same form of 'visible history,' one not
less important than those already exhibited.
In the scene that follows, we have, in the Poet's arrangement, the
great historic spectacle of a people 'REVOKING THEIR IGNORANT
ELECTION,' under the instigation and guidance of those same remarkable
leaders, whose voice had been wanting (as they are careful to inform
us) till then in the business of the state; leaders who contrive at
last to inform the people, in plain terms, that they 'are at point to
lose their liberties,' that 'Marcius will have all from them,' and who
apologise for their conduct afterwards by saying, that 'he affected
one sole throne, _without assistance_'; for the time had come when the
Tribune could repeat the Poet's whisper, 'The _one_ side shall have
_bale_.'
This so critical spectacle is boldly brought out and exhibited here in
all its actual historical detail. It is produced by one who is able to
include in his dramatic programme the whole sweep of its
eventualities, the whole range of its particulars, because he has made
himself acquainted with the forces, he has ascended, by scientifically
inclusive definition, to the 'powers' that are to be 'operant' in it;
and he who has that 'charactery' of nature, may indeed 'lay the future
open.' We talk of prophecy; but there is nothing in literature to
compare at all with this great specimen of the prophecy of Induction.
There is nothing to compare with it in its grasp of particulars, in
its comprehension and historic accuracy of detail.
But this great speech, which he entreats for leave to make before that
revolutionary movement, which in its weak beginnings in his time lay
intreasured, should proceed any further--this preliminary speech, with
its so vivid political illustration, is not yet finished. The true
doctrine of an instructed scientific election and government, that
'vintage' of politics--that vintage of scientific definitions and
axioms which he is getting out of this new kind of history--that new
vintage of the higher, subtler fact, which this fine selected, adapted
history, will be made to yield, is not yet expressed. The fault with
the popular and instinctive mode of inquiry is, he tells us, that _it
begins with affirmation_--but that is the method for gods, and not
men--men must begin with negations; they must have tables of _review_
of instances, tables of negation, tables of rejection; and _divide_
nature, not with fire, but with the mind, that divine fire. 'If the
mind attempt this affirmation from the first,' he says, '_which it
always will when left to itself_ there will spring up _phantoms, mere
theories_, and _ill-defined notions, with axioms requiring daily
correction_. These will be better or worse, according to the power and
strength of the understanding which creates them. But it is only for
God to recognise forms affirmatively, at the first glance of
contemplation; _men_ can only proceed first by negatives, and then to
conclude with affirmatives, after every species of rejection.' And
though he himself appears to be profoundly absorbed with the nature of
HEAT, at the moment in which he first produces these new scientific
instruments, which he calls tables of _review_, and explains their
'facilities,' he tells us plainly, that they are adapted to _other
subjects_, and that those affirmations which are most essential to the
welfare of man, will in due time come off from them, practical axioms
on matters of universal and incessant practical concern, that will not
want _daily correction_, that will not want revolutionary correction,
to fit them to the exigency.
The question here is not of 'heat,' but of SOVEREIGNTY; it is the
question of the _consulship_, regarded from the ground of the
tribuneship. It is not Coriolanus that this tribune is spending so
much breath on. The _instincts_, which unanalytic, barbaric ages,
enthrone and mistake for greatness and nobility, are tried and
rejected here; and the business of the play is, to get them excluded
from the chair of state. The philosopher will have those instincts
which men, in their 'particular and private natures,' share with the
lower orders of animals, searched out, and put in their place in human
affairs, which is _not_, as he takes it, THE HEAD--the head of the
COMMON-weal. It is not Coriolanus; the author has no spite at all
against him--he is partial to him, rather; it is not _Coriolanus_ but
the instincts that are on trial here, and the man--the so-called
_man_--of instinct, who has no principle of state and sovereignty, no
principle of true _man_liness and nobility in his soul; and the trial
is not yet completed. The author would be glad to have that revolution
which he has inserted in the heart of this play deferred, if that were
possible, though he knows that it is not; he thinks it would be a
saving of trouble if it could be deferred until some true and
scientifically prepared notions, some practical axioms, which would
not need in their turn fierce historical correction--revolutionary
correction--could be imparted to the _common mind_.
But we must follow him in this process of _division_ and exclusion a
little further, before we come in our plot to the revolution. That
revolution which he foresees as imminent and inevitable, he has put on
paper here: but there is another lurking within, for which we are not
yet ripe. This locked-up tribune will have to get abroad; he will have
to get his limits enlarged, and find his way into some new
departments, before ever _that_ can begin.