dismal enough, and one is almost inclined to think that the outbreak
was premature; with their ideas so far from ripe, the French had
better, if possible, have endured a little longer the immorality of
Louis-Philippe’s government; but yet, on the whole, one accepts the
thing with gratitude. It will, I think, probably accelerate change in
England: and perhaps you may yet live to see some kind of palingenesy
effected for your repudiated country. [Greek: θαῡμ’ ἂν πόρρωθεν
ὶδοιμην.]
The next topic is Emerson, whom I left yesterday on the deck of the
Halifax steamer, and saw pass rapidly down the Mersey on his way home.
He came to Oxford just at the end of Lent term, and stayed three days.
Everybody liked him, and as the orthodox mostly had never heard of him,
they did not suspect him. He is the quietest, plainest, unobtrusivest
man possible; will talk, but will rarely _discourse_ to more than a
single person, and wholly declines ‘roaring.’ He is very Yankee to
look at, lank and sallow, and not quite without the twang; but his
looks and voice are pleasing nevertheless, and give you the impression
of perfect intellectual cultivation, as completely as would any great
scientific man in England--Faraday or Owen, for instance, more in their
way perhaps than in that of Wordsworth or Carlyle. I have been with him
a great deal; for he came over to Paris and was there a month, during
which time we dined together daily: and since that I have seen him
often in London, and finally here. One thing that struck everybody is
that he is much less Emersonian than his Essays. There is no dogmatism
or arbitrariness or positiveness about him.
Next to myself, ---- is, I suppose, accounted the wildest and most
écervelé republican going. I myself, à propos of a letter of Matt’s,
which he directed to Citizen Clough, Oriel Lyceum, Oxford, bear that
title _par excellence_.
Waterhead: September 4.
I have been visiting Fisher in Patterdale, where he has his first
reading party. He got a first-class duly and honourably at Easter,
πατρὸς ἀμείνων, outdoing his coach.
I believe I shall probably, in about six weeks’ time, publish,
conjointly with Burbidge, a volume of poems.[9] Some of them I hope
you will like, but I don’t think much will come of it. I don’t intend
writing any more verse, but have a notion for essays. I gave my
Tutorship up at Easter, and I seriously think of doing the same with
the Fellowship in October at latest.
_To ----_
Oxford: October 23, 1848.
My relations wrote kindly and temperately (_on hearing of the
resignation of the Fellowship_), on the whole; made the most of
conscientiousness, but were alarmed with ideas of extreme and
extravagant views.
My little book, I hope, will be out in ten days.
_To T. Arnold, Esq._
99 Holywell, Oxford: November 6, 1848.
I have given up the Fellowship, though the Provost still forbears to
go through the formal step of officially announcing my resignation; so
that I am loose on the world, and, being just out of my old place, I am
ready to look at every new place, and likely enough to go to none. Even
if literature does look likely, I confess I should like to knock about
the world a little bit more before I do much in that way; yea, though
I am all but thirty already. I am extremely jolly meantime, rejoicing
in my emancipation. I stay up here; it is now three weeks within
twenty-four hours since I resigned; and people don’t cut me at all. I
dine at some high tables, and generally (retaining my gown, for I don’t
wish to volunteer to cast that off) I am treated as a citizen.
I have an invitation to stand for the Headship of the new University
Hall (on the Oxford and Cambridge College system) to be attached to
University College, London. My poem, ‘The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich,’
in about two thousand hexameters, ‘A Long-Vacation Pastoral,’ has
appeared, and has tolerable success in Oxford; but that its local
allusions might readily give it.
_To his Sister._
December 1848.
It is far nobler to teach people to do what is good because it is
good simply, than for the sake of any future reward. It is, I dare
say, difficult to keep up an equal religious feeling at present, but
it is not impossible, and is necessary. Besides, if we die and come
to nothing it does not therefore follow that life and goodness will
cease to be in earth and heaven. If we give over dancing, it doesn’t
therefore follow that the dance ceases itself, or the music. Be
satisfied, that whatever is good in us will be immortal; and as the
parent is content to die in the consciousness of the child’s survival,
even so, why not we? There’s a creed which will suffice for the present.
A---- belongs, I see, to the new High Churchites, who want to turn all
the quiet people adrift; it is the _New Plot_; but so long as one isn’t
obliged to sign articles, or go to daily service, or prayer-meeting, or
the like, I don’t see why one should excommunicate oneself. As for the
Unitarians, they’re better than the other Dissenters, and that’s all;
but to go to their chapels--no!
_To R. W. Emerson, Esq._
February 10, 1849.
My dear Sir,--How could I tell you of my Pastoral-to-be when it had not
been thought of? It was only begun in September, and when I left you in
July on the deck of your steamer, I had no thought of that or any other
new poem. I hope ere this a little volume, half belonging to me, half
to an old school-friend, will have reached you: this does contain old
things, the casualties of at least ten years.
You may fancy how truly welcome all your kind praise of the first of
them has been to me; so far as praise goes I hardly venture to accept
it, but as recognition I heartily feed on it. Meantime, in England I
shall not be troubled with a very onerous weight of celebrity. Mr.
Kingsley, a chief writer in ‘Fraser,’ devoted the whole of a cordial
eulogistic article to the ‘Pastoral,’ and has made it tolerably known;
but the ‘Spectator’ was contemptuous; and in Oxford, though there
has been a fair sale and much talk of it, the verdict is, that it is
‘indecent and profane, immoral and (!) communistic.’
Will you convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was a reading of
his ‘Evangeline’ aloud to my mother and sister, which, coming after a
reperusal of the ‘Iliad,’ occasioned this outbreak of hexameters?
LETTERS.
FROM 1849 TO 1852.
LONDON.
_To the Rev. ----_[10]
January 4, 1849.
MY DEAR SIR,--After a good deal of thinking and some advising, I find
that I have only to repeat what I stated at your house.
I do not feel myself competent to undertake the conduct or
superintendence of any prayers, nor can I in any way pledge myself
to be present. Any attendance I might give would simply be that of a
private person--no way official; it would be as that of a junior member
of a family at domestic worship; it would be a matter of conformity,
not of individual choice; my own feeling, meantime, being to leave
it, as I understand the Quakers do, to spontaneous emotion; and so I
confess I should prefer any arrangement which would make my absence not
unnatural, as might for instance be the case if prayers were combined
with a Greek Testament lesson not given by me.
Meantime, I am sure I should have every disposition to facilitate
devotional arrangements. In fact, I should not unwillingly concede
that it might be _better_ that your Principal should be one who
could officially join in them, as indeed it might be best could all
your students be expected to attend. But, whether better or worse, I
had conceived your institution was to be one on which this maturer
form would not be fixed, one which would offer a _locus standi_ and a
home for Theology and other subjects excluded from the College, and
would aspire to encourage moral and religious sympathy, but would
nevertheless leave all this to free, quiet and spontaneous development.
I confess I see great advantages in this system, but whether greater or
less than those of the other, it is the only one in which I myself can
co-operate. Not that I entertain any reluctance to attend the worship
of others than those with whom I have hitherto been connected. Far from
it. In Scotland I have always gone by preference to the Presbyterian
churches; I have continually been to Mr. Martineau’s chapel at
Liverpool; I have joined in the prayers of Unitarian families. If
obliged to do one or other, I should probably go to Westminster Abbey
rather than to any either Scotch or English Presbyterian chapel. But
I have expressly testified my dislike to the Thirty-nine Articles,
and you yourselves are quite as likely to attach to me such names as
heretic, as I to apply that word to you.
I need not of course say that I suppose I have on these subjects, if
not convictions, sentiments; not assuredly a definite theological
creed, but what would be called religious views--views which may
prove very different from those commonly entertained by Unitarians.
But of course, too, I can entirely disclaim everything approaching
to a disposition to proselytise; so far from it, I hardly expect to
make up my own mind as yet, and am not likely to meddle with those of
others. At the same time, what a man feels for himself can hardly fail
to affect his communications with his neighbour, nor should I in any
way feel bound to suppress, because of the opinions of a young man’s
parents and friends, anything which other reasons would not induce me
to withhold. Hasty talking would be grievous misdoing, evasive dealing
would vitiate everything; but I should hope to find other matters to
occupy me with the students.
I believe I have only to add my thanks to yourself and your friends for
your kindness and courtesy during our communications, and to subscribe
myself,
Yours faithfully,
A. H. CLOUGH.
_To T. Arnold, Esq._
Liverpool: February 15, 1849.
Alea jacta est; I stay for the present here. I have accepted the
position at University Hall; and commence there in October, with a good
deal of misgiving it must be confessed; but, on the whole, I believe
myself right. I am not so clear as you are of the rottenness of this
poor old ship here. Something, I think, we rash young men may learn
from the failure and discomfiture of our friends in the new republic.
The millennium, as Matt says, won’t come this bout. I am myself much
more inclined to be patient and make allowance for existing necessities
than I was. The very fighting of the time taught one that there were
worse things than pain, and makes me more tolerant of the less acute
though more chronic miseries of society; these also are stages towards
good, or conditions of good. Whether London will take my hopefulness
out of me remains to be seen. Peut-être.
I like the Manchester people, of whom I have been seeing a little,
better than the Liverpuddlians. They are more provincial perhaps,
but have more character; are less men of the world, but more men
of themselves. Your sanguine friend still puts his trust in master
manufacturers, as in those olden foolish days, when the face of
Fortescue shone triumph in the Decade. Yet why be troubled about
politics and social matters?
Here also, as on the Poirirua road, sweet odours of human nature ascend
to the heavens. To quit the country for altogether is not, so far as I
can tell, my vocation. This may be Ur of the Chaldees, or even Egypt,
but no angel hath as yet spoken to me, either in dreams by night or in
any burning bush of the desert.
February 24.
To-day, my dear brother republican, is the glorious anniversary of the
great revolution of ’48, whereof what shall we now say? Put not your
trust in republics, nor in any institution of man. God be praised for
the downfall of Louis-Philippe. This, with a faint feeble echo of that
loud last year’s scream of à bas Guizot, seems to be the sum total;
or are we to salute the rising sun with Vive l’Empereur and the green
liveries? Meantime, the great Powers are to restore the Pope, and crush
the renascent (_alite lugubri_) Roman republic, of which Joseph Mazzini
has just been declared a citizen.
_To his Mother._
Rome, Hôtel d’Angleterre:[11] April 18, 1849.
I am at Rome; I stayed two days at Paris, where I called on your
American friends the Murats, and saw Madame and her sister. She is now
Mme. la Princesse, and her daughter Mdlle. la Princesse.
There is no immediate expectation of any change in the Government here;
the only difficulty is to get money. They are going to divide the
lands of the Church in small farms among the peasants; but payment will
not be made for some time for these allotments.
St. Peter’s disappoints me; the stone of which it is made is a poor
plastery material; and, indeed, Rome in general might be called a
_rubbishy_ place; the Roman antiquities in general seem to me only
interesting as antiquities, and not for any beauty. The Arch of Titus
is, I could almost say, the only one really beautiful relic I have yet
seen. I have seen two beautiful views since I came, one from San Pietro
in Montorio, the other from the Lateran Church, over the Campagna. The
weather has not been very brilliant.
April 21.
I have seen the Vatican gallery and Sistine Chapel. To-day being the
natal day of Rome, was to have been a great feast, with illumination of
the Colosseum, &c., but it is impossible for the weather.
I see the ‘Times’ tells very odd stories of Rome. People here tell
you that it has been bought by Austria. At any rate the story of the
proposed sale of the Belvidere Apollo to the Americans is as simply a
joke, I am told, as another story, that the Pantheon was sold to the
English for a Protestant chapel.
_To F. T. Palgrave, Esq._
Rome: April 23, 1849.
In my way here I saw Genoa again, and visited the Doria Palace, which
had just been quitted by the victorious Piedmontese soldiery, who had
not, I am glad to say, damaged the frescoes on the ceilings, as far
as I saw (the battle of the Titans, which I suppose is the finest,
was quite uninjured), but in other respects had played all sorts
of furious and beastly pranks. The balcony with the fresco figures
of Andrea Doria and his family is a good deal damaged, one or two
cannon-balls have passed through, and the soldiers have scratched it
with their bayonets. The furniture is all destroyed; it belonged,
they say, to the Prince of Carignano, the King’s uncle or cousin, who
had latterly taken the palace: gilded cupboards and tables, japanned
cabinets and chess-boards, porcelain vases and French clocks, mingled
their precious fragments on the floors with relics of bread and other
deposits, among which empty bottles should be mentioned; the Prince
appears to have had a fine assortment of Madeira. No other damage is
done in Genoa.
About 150 refugees came off with us in the French steamer; the
government paid for them as far as Leghorn, but at Leghorn they
wouldn’t have them, so they came on to Civita Vecchia, and I see
several of them about in the streets; they are incorporated with the
other forces.
Yesterday was the most lively day I have had here. In the morning a
review in the Piazza before St. Peter’s, where Avezzana, the Genoese
commander, who is also an American citizen, and is now Minister of
War, reviewed about 10,000 men and twenty pieces of artillery. In the
evening a grand illumination of the Campidoglio, Forum, &c., all the
way to the Colosseum, which was the great scene. When I entered, it was
mostly dark, and a great crowd filling it, a band somewhere above the
entrance playing national hymns. At the end of the great hymn, of which
I don’t know the name, while the people were clapping, viva-ing and
encoring, light began to spread, and all at once the whole amphitheatre
was lit up with--the trois couleurs! the basement red fire, the two
next stories green, and the plain white of the common light at the top.
Very queer, you will say; but it was really fine, and I should think
the Colosseum never looked better than it did, if not then at least
afterwards, when the plain light was left, and the area got cleared.
The same thing was done again for the outside.
In the afternoon, I had paid my visit to Mazzini; a French envoy or
agent was with him, and I had to acknowledge the triumviral dignity by
waiting almost an hour in the ante-chamber. However, on the envoy’s
retiring, he discoursed with me for half an hour. He is a less
fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected; he appeared
shifty, and practical enough. He seemed in excellent spirits, and
generally confident and at ease. He asked me if I had seen anything of
the pillaging, which the English papers were acquainted with; he said
that any of the English residents would bear witness to the perfect
tranquillity, even greater than before, which prevailed in the city
(and certainly I see nothing to the contrary).
The ‘Times,’ he said, _must_ be dishonest, for the things it spoke of
as facts were simply not facts! émeutes where émeutes had never been
thought of; the only outbreak had been at Ascoli, near the Neapolitan
frontier, where a sort of brigandage had been headed by two or three
priests, but easily suppressed. In Rome there were plots going on
amongst some of the nobles and priests, but they were well known to
the government. The temper of the people and the Assembly alike was
clearly against the restoration of the temporal power; on that point he
believed the Right would go heartily with the Left in the Assembly, and
the people be unanimous. The object at present was rather to repress
violence against the priest-party, or Neri, to which some sections of
the populace were inclined; but this the government was careful to
do. The feeling everywhere is, he says, simply political or national.
Communism and Socialism are things undreamt of. Social changes are not
needed; there are no manufacturing masses, and in the lands there is a
métayer system. You have heard perhaps that they are going to divide
church lands amongst peasants; this is true, but only of a portion, a
surplus he called it, after provision is made for the carrying on of
the services of each establishment. They have got about 22,000 troops,
and mean to have 50,000, so as to be able to take the field, at any
rate not in mere desperation. But he expects foreign intervention
in the end, and of course thinks it likely enough that the Romana
Reppublica will fall. Still he is convinced that the separation of the
temporal and spiritual power is a thing to be, and that to restore the
Pope as before will merely breed perpetual disquiet, conspiracies,
assassinations, &c.; and he thinks it possible the Great Powers may
perceive this in time. The French envoy had asked him if he would apply
to France for protection; he said, No, but that if France or any other
power offered protection, they would welcome it.
So much for Mazzini. Meantime, Rome is very peaceable to all
appearance, rather cold, however, and very rainy: the illumination,
which you should be told was in honour of the _Palilia_, was put off
one day in consequence. I do not observe much enthusiasm for the
Romana Reppublica: but neither do I hear as much complaint as might
be expected from the shop folk and foreigners’ jackals. The religious
customs seem to thrive still; they kissed away yesterday at St. Peter’s
toe as fast as they could have done in its best days. Money, however,
is scarce; one pays 30 per cent. for silver, and Mazzini acknowledged
that the financial crisis was a great difficulty; but, as he said, it
was unavoidable in revolutions. I get on but poorly in lionising, but
have at last to-day seen the Sibyls. How much of this is restoration?
how much is really Raphael? Michael Angelo’s Moses has ‘met my views’
as much as anything I have seen. Are the two figures beside it also
by M. Angelo? And tell me what is M. Angelo’s design for St. Peter’s
exactly? do the huge inside pilasters belong to him? I think it
utterly lamentable and destructive that his plan was not carried out.
Tell Blackett he really must defend S. P. Q. R. in the ‘Globe.’ It is
a most _respectable_ republic; it really (_ipse dixit_) thought of
getting a monarch, but couldn’t find one to suit.
_To his Sister._
Rome: April 30, 1849.
Perhaps it will amuse you hereafter to have a letter commenced while
guns are firing, and I suppose men falling dead and wounded. Such is
the case on the other side the Tiber, while I peacefully write in
my distant chamber with only the sound in my ears. I went up to the
Pincian Hill and saw the smoke and heard the occasional big cannon, and
the sharp succession of skirmishers’ volleys--bang, bang, bang--away
beyond St. Peter’s. They say the French have settled down in three
positions, and do not mean to enter till the Neapolitans arrive. And
the affair of to-day is probably only with their advanced guard: the
Romans profess to have carried off four cannon and fifty prisoners, but
who knows?
May 2.
600 prisoners and 500 killed and wounded, they say. The French have
certainly retired. But the Neapolitans are at hand.
_To his Mother._
Rome: May 11, 1849.
The war would seem to you very small if you saw it; and except for the
nuisance of all galleries being shut, I should be very well content.
We are all safe and comfortable, with British flags hanging out of our
windows; and Lord Napier, an attaché of the British Embassy at Naples,
has been here, and is at present, I believe, at Palo, a port between
this and Civita Vecchia, where H.M.S. ‘Bulldog’ is lying, and has
arranged with Marshal Oudinot that his troops are to behave politely
to us. Which troops came again yesterday within three miles, but have
done nothing, and are said to be retiring. The Neapolitans, _i.e._
a detachment of 7,000 men near Palestrina, are stated to have got a
severe licking from the corps of Garibaldi, about 5,000, the day before
yesterday.
The only awkward thing that has happened in the city has been the
killing of four or perhaps five priests by the mob, soon after the
news of the advance of the Neapolitan army. Some say that one of them
had fired out of a window and killed a soldier; others, that they were
found making off to the Neapolitans. However, some, I don’t know the
exact number, were killed in the street. Next day the government sent
out a proclamation, and I have heard of no more outrages of this kind.
Some plundering by the troops has given trouble, but they seem to be
suppressing it.
Meantime the gates are all shut, and the streets strongly barricaded.
The Pincian gardens, the great resort for walking, are closed and
fortified, and between the Trinità dei Monti and Sta. Maria Maggiore,
in one line of streets, you can count, I think, six barricades, besides
smaller ones in the side streets.
My great affliction is that the Vatican is shut up. I got into the
Sistine Chapel, however, and St. Peter’s of course is open. These and
the Pantheon are my resources. Many of the churches are occupied as
hospitals (the Frenchmen who were taken up wounded are very kindly
and lovingly treated there, I am told; and they have sent back their
prisoners without stipulation), and the Palaces are mostly shut up.
May 16.
Two French commissioners arrived here yesterday, and it is understood
that France has more peaceful intentions than appeared before.
May 17.
Hostilities are suspended between us and the French. I shall be as
greatly surprised as pleased if the two republics come to a good
understanding. The people here will not like to have the Pope except as
Head of the Church, and the French will insist on something more.
_To the same._
May 28, 1849.
At last I have got my permit for the Vatican. Once having seen a couple
of lines from Mazzini, how the officials skipped about for me! I was
ashamed really to take all they offered me, good creatures. If I could
have got this paper before, it would have been much better; but I had
great reluctance to obtrude myself on the Dictator, as the ‘Times’
calls him, and some difficulty to get at him at last, he being, of
course, ‘moltissimo occupato.’
Bulbs from the fountain of Egeria I have no chance of getting, nor
shall I see Tivoli, Albano, or Nemi, for it requires a permit from the
Minister of War, and I cannot for shame bother the Dictator any further
with my trivial English-tourist importunities.
The Romans are content the French should remain at Civita Vecchia, or
even Viterbo (for the sake of health). They sent them the other day an
immense quantity of cigars and snuff for a present.
_To T. Arnold, Esq._
Rome: May 24, 1849.