only on account of its historical interest, but on account of the
strange circumstances which induced its publication, its startling
result, the sensation it has created, and the ultimate effect it may
produce in France in paving the way for legitimacy, by attaching
interest and admiration to the person of its representative--perhaps,
also, because it does honour to the sincerity of the author, and to
the more honest republican party to which he belongs. But we have thus
excluded ourselves from the possibility of giving more than a brief
notice of the other book alluded to above, that of the Vicomte
d'Arlincourt, although, in truth, it merits, in all respects, a far
more extended observation, as a frank and straightforward expression
of the sentiments of the legitimists. We must confine ourselves, then,
principally to the circumstances which, independently of its merits,
have given the little book so great a notoriety in France, and carried
it on to the almost unexampled honours of a forty-eighth edition. They
are curious enough in themselves, and bear some analogy to those which
have determined the publication and the success of the book of M.
Didier, inasmuch as it was the ardency of republicanism which forced
upon the public notice a book, likely to forward the cause of
legitimacy in France. The little work of M. d'Arlincourt is written,
however, avowedly upon legitimist principles, and for the purpose of
awakening the attention of the nation to the cause of the man whom
the author looks upon as the ultimate saviour of the troubled country.
This legitimist book, under the title of "_Dieu le veut_," written
after the bloody days of June, might, in spite of the vigour of its
language, and the justice and good sense of most of its reasonings and
remarks, never have emerged so prominently from the inundation of
political pamphlets which floods republican France, had it not pleased
the government, pushed on by the clamours of a more violent party, to
seize the work, and bring the author to trial. The affair made a
considerable sensation in August last; the court of justice was
crowded: the interest excited was great. The passages more
particularly incriminated were, that which likened the republic to the
plague; that which said the sovereignty of the people, when not a
bloody truth, was a ridiculous mystification; and that which contained
the words, "the Republic will have proved to be the necessary
transition from a revolutionary tempest to a social regeneration. In
the general movement of men's minds is written the happy advent of the
chosen of Providence. He draws nearer! he will come!" After the
defence of his own counsel, M. d'Arlincourt himself rose and
supported, in a striking speech, the honesty of his intentions and his
designs as a _bon citoyen_, without bating one iota of his legitimist
principles. The result was a unanimous verdict of "not guilty" from
the jury. A burst of applause, which no authority could check,
resounded through the court. It was from the common classes, also,
that came the approbation: workmen shouted in the court, "_Dieu le
veut! Dieu le veut!_" to the rhythm of the famous "_des lampions!_"
and, on the morrow, delegates of the _dames de la Halle_, and of the
artisans of Paris came, with _bouquets_, to felicitate the author on
his acquittal. We will not lay an unnecessary weight upon this
movement of a portion of the lower classes, which may arise from the
sentiments of a small minority, although perhaps more considerable
than seems to be generally supposed. The result, however, of the trial
has been to spread the book through the country in its almost
interminable editions, and thus to spread more and more abroad those
legitimist feelings, which, we confidently assert are daily more and
more gaining ground throughout France, and which may one day, in case
of another revolution, that may be brought upon the country by the
excesses of the ultra party, bear their fruits. At all events the
destiny of these two books, in furthering the cause of legitimacy, in
the one case contrary to the opinions of the author, in the other by
the very means intended to check and even crush it, is singular
enough.
Whatever may be written upon the dark pages of a nation's future, it
is very evident that "Legitimacy in France" has made considerable
ground among the masses. It cannot, certainly, be said to have been
from the influence of convictions, or, in the general herd, from any
reliance upon theories of legitimacy, properly speaking. It has arisen
from disgust and distrust of other governments; from the sad
experience of the miseries occasioned to the country by the present
revolution; from despair in the stability of a republican rule, with
insurrection always growling beneath the surface; from hope in a
greater stability and confidence under a legitimate monarchy.
Legitimacy, then, can but grow and flourish in France in the chances
of revolutions; and if it triumphs, it will be by the excesses of its
enemies, and the restless subversive attempts of the ultra-republican
party. But again: who can say confidently that it will triumph? Still
more: who shall dare, in the present state of France, to say that it
_shall not_?
FOOTNOTE:
[23] _Une Visite â Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux._ Par CHARLES DIDIER.
Paris: 1849. _Dieu le Veut._ Par VICOMTE D'ARLINCOURT. Paris: 1848-9.
THE COLLEGE.--A SKETCH IN VERSE.
"Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus."
Oft has some fair inquirer bid me say,
What tasks, what sports beguile the gownsman's day;
What cares are ours--by what light arts we try
To teach our sober-footed hours to fly.
List, then, ye belles, who, nursed in golden ease,
No arts need study, but the arts to please;
Who need no science, while with skill ye know
To wield the weapons which your charms bestow--
With grace to thread the dance's mazy throng--
To strike the tuneful chords, and swell the song--
To rouse man's sterner spirit to his toil,
And cheer its harshness with a grateful smile.
Thus my weak muse a bolder flight shall raise,
Lured by the glorious hope of Beauty's praise.
Soon as the clouds divide, and dawning day
Tints the quadrangle with its earliest ray,
The porter, wearied with his watchings late,
Half opes his eyelids and the wicket gate;
And many a yawning gyp comes slipshod in,
To wake his master ere the bells begin.
Round yon gray walls, enchained by slumber's spell,
Each son of learning snores within his cell.
For though long vigils the pale student keep,
E'en learning's self, we know, must sometimes sleep--
So morn shall see him, with a brightened face,
Fresh as a giant, to resume his race.
But hark! the chimes of yonder chapel-tower
Sound the arrival of the unwelcome hour.
Now drowsy Lentulus his head half rears,
To mumble curses on the Dean he fears.
What though his gyp exhort him, ere too late,
To seek the chapel and avert his fate?
Who, when secure his downy sheets between,
Recks of the threatenings of an angry Dean!
Slow rolling round he bids his mentor go
And bear his warnings to the shades below.
Soon shall he, summoned to the well-known room,[24]
Repent his recklessness and learn his doom,
Within the walls a dull constraint to know,
And many a midnight jollity forego.
Far happier he, to whom the harsh-tongued bell
Sounds, as it should, his murdered slumber's knell.
Cold he contemns, and, shuffling on his clothes,
Boldly stalks forth, nor heeds his redd'ning nose.
Straight o'er the grass-plot cuts his dewy line
In mad defiance of the College fine;
Breathless with hurry gains the closing grate,
And thanks his stars he was not just too late.
His name prick'd off upon the marker's roll,
No twinge of conscience racks his easy soul,
While tutor's wines and Dean's soft smiles repay
His prompt submission to the College sway.
The service o'er, by Cam's dull bank of sedge
He strides, while hunger gains a keener edge;
(Though fasting walks I cannot loathe too much,
Since such my custom, my advice be such.)
For him, who straight returns, what horrors wait!
How chill and comfortless his chamber's state.
The crackling fuel only serves too well
To show the cold it vainly strives to quell;
While the grim bedmaker provokes the dust,
And soot-born atoms, which his tomes encrust:
Awhile suspended high in air they soar,
Then, sinking, seek the shelves on which they slept before.
Down bolt his commons and his scalding tea,
Then off to lectures in pedantic glee.
He notes each artifice and master-stroke--
Each musty parallel and mustier joke;
Snaps up the driblets to his share consigned,
And as he cram'd his body crams his mind;
Then seeks at home digestion for his lore,
And slams in Folly's face the twice-barred door.
This hour, perchance, sees Lentulus descend
To seek the chamber of some jovial friend--
Yawn o'er the topics of the passing day,
Or damn the losses of his last night's play;
While well he augurs from the clattering plates,
The glad intelligence that breakfast waits.
From Memory's store the sportive muse may glean
The charms that gild awhile the careless scene--
The song, the anecdote, the bet, the joke,
The steaming viands, and the circling smoke--
The racy cider-cup, or brisk champagne,
Long prompt the merriment and rouse the strain;
Till Pleasure, sated of the loaded board,
Seeks what amusement fresher scenes afford.
Some prove their skill in fence--some love to box--
Some thirst for vengeance on the dastard fox;
Each by his fav'rite sport's enchanting power,
Cheats of its tediousness the flying hour.
Now the dull court a short siesta takes,
For scarce a footstep her still echo wakes,
Save where the prowling duns their victim scout,
And seize the spendthrift wretch that dares steal out.
Come, let us wander to the river's bank,
And learn what charm collects yon breathless rank;
The hope or horror pictured in each face
Marks the excitement of the coming race.
Hark! o'er the waters booms the sound of strife;
Now the hush'd voices leap at once to life;
Now to their toil the striving oarsmen bend;
Now their gay hues the flaunting banners blend;
Now leap the wavedrops from the flashing oar;
Now the woods echo to the madd'ning roar;
Now hot th' enthusiastic crowd pursue,
And scream hoarse praises on the unflinching crew;
Now in one last wild chance each arm is strained;
One panting struggle more--the goal is gained.
A scene like this, what stream can boast beside?
Scarce rival Isis on her fairer tide.[25]
But think not thus could live the rower's power,
Save long privation steeled him for the hour.
The couch relinquished at the voice of morn,
The toilsome exercise, the cup forsworn,
The frugal dinner, and scarce-tasted wine--
Are these no sacrifice at glory's shrine?
Thus with new trophies shall his walls be graced--
Each limb new strengthened, and each nerve new braced.
Some idlers to the pavements keep their feet,
And strut and ogle all the passing street.
And if 'tis Sunday's noon, on King's Parade,[26]
See the smug tradesman too and leering maid;
See the trim shop-boy cast his envious eye
On Topling's waistcoat and on Sprightly's tie,
Bravely resolved to hoard his labour's fruit,
And ape their fancies in his next new suit.
But now the sounding clocks in haste recall
Each hungry straggler to his College hall;
For Alma Mater well her nursling rears,
Nor cheats his gullet, while she fills his ears.
Heavens! what a clatter rends the steam-fraught air--
How waiters jostle, and how Freshmen stare!
One thought here strikes me--and the thought is sad--
The carving for the most part is but bad.
See the torn turkey and the mangled goose!
See the hack'd sirloin and the spattered juice!
Ah! can the College well her charge fulfil,
Who thus neglects the petit-maître's skill?
The tutor proves each pupil on the books--
Why not give equal license to the cooks?
As the grave lecturer, with scrupulous care,
Tries how his class picks up its learned fare--
From Wisdom's banquet makes the dullard fast--
Denied admittance till his trial's past--
So the slow Freshman on a crust should starve,
Till practice taught him nobler food to carve:
Then Granta's sons a useful fame should know,
And shame with skill each dinner-table beau.
High on the daïs, and more richly stored,
Well has old custom placed the Fellow's board:
Thus shall the student feel his fire increased
By brave ambition for the well-graced feast--
Mark the sleek merriment of rev'rend Dons,
And learn how science well rewards her sons.
But spare, my muse, to pierce the sacred gloom
That veils the mysteries of the Fellows' room;
Nor hint how Dons, their untasked hours to pass,
Like Cato, warm their virtues with the glass.[27]
Once more, at sound of chapel chime, repairs
The surpliced scholar to his vesper prayers;
For discipline this tribute at his hands,
First and last duty of the day, demands.
Then each, as diligence or mirth invite,
Careful improves or thriftless wastes the night.
Stand in the midst, and with observant eye
Each chamber's tenant at his task descry.
Here the harsh mandate of the Dean enthrals
Some prayerless pris'ner to the College walls,
Who in the novel's pages seeks to find
A brief oblivion for his angry mind.
Haply the smoke-wreathed meerschaum shall supply
An evenness of soul which they deny.
Charm! that alike can soothing pleasure bring
To sage or savage, mendicant or king;
Sov'reign to blunt the pangs of torturing pain,
Or clear the mazes of the student's brain!
Swift at thy word, amidst the soul's misrule,
Content resumes her sway, and rage grows cool.
Here pores the student, till his aching sight
No more can brook the glimmering taper's light;
Then Slumber's links their nerveless captive bind,
While Fancy's magic mocks his fevered mind;
Then a dim train of years unborn sweeps by
In glorious vision on his raptured eye:
See Fortune's stateliest sons in homage bow,
And fling vain lustre o'er his toilworn brow!
Away, ye drivellers! dare ye speak to him
Of cheek grown bloodless, or of eye grown dim?
Who heeds the sunken cheek, or wasted frame,
While Hope shouts "Onward! to undying fame."
Glance further, if thine eye can pierce the mist
Raised round the votaries of Loo and Whist;
Scarce such kind Venus round her offspring flung
To bear him viewless through the Punic throng;[28]
Scarce such floats round old Skiddaw's crown of snow,
And veils its grimness from the plains below.
Here, too, gay Lentulus conspicuous sits,
Chief light and oracle of circling wits.
Who with such careless grace the trick can take,
Or fling with such untrembling hand his stake?
But though with well-feigned case his glass he sips,
And puffs the balmy cloud from smiling lips,
Care broods within--his soul alone regards
His ebbing pocket and the varying cards;
While one resolve his saddened spirit fills--
The diminution of his next term's bills.
Lamp after lamp expires as night grows late,
And feet less frequent rattle at the gate.
The wearied student now rakes out his fire--
The host grows dull, and yawning guests retire--
Till, all its labours and its follies o'er,
The silent College sinks to sleep once more.
Thus roll the hours, thus roll the weeks away,
Till terms expiring bring the long-feared day,
When rake and student equal terror know--
That lest he's plucked, this lest he pass too low.
Though different epochs mark their wide careers,
And serve for reck'ning points through fleeting years--
To this a tripos or a Senate's grace,
To that a fox-hunt, ball, or steeple-chase,--
When three short years of toil or sloth are past,
This common bugbear scares them all at last.
The doors flung wide, the boards and benches set,
The nervous candidates for fame are met.
See yon poor wretch, just shivering from his bed,
Gnaw at his nails and scratch his empty head;
With lengthened visage o'er each question pore,
And ransack all his memory for its store.
This Euclid argued, or this Newton taught--
Thus Butler reasoned, or thus Paley thought;
With many a weapon of the learned strife,
Prized for an hour, then flung aside for life.
Ah! what avails him now his vaunted art,
To stride the steed, or guide the tandem-cart?
His loved ecarté, or his gainful whist?
What snobs he pommelled, or what maidens kissed?
His ball-room elegance, his modish air,
And easy impudence, that charmed the fair?
Ah! what avails him that to Fashion's fame
Admiring boudoirs echoed forth his name?
All would he yield, if all could buy one look,
Though but a moment's, o'er the once-scorned book.
--Enough, enough, once let the scene suffice;
Bid me not, Fancy, brave its horrors twice.
The wrangler's glory in his well-earned fame,
The prizeman's triumph, and the pluck'd man's shame,
With all fair Learning's well-bestowed rewards,
Are they not fitting themes for nobler bards?
Poor Lentulus, twice plucked, some happy day
Just shuffles through, and dubs himself B. A.;
Thanks heaven, flings by his cap and gown, and shuns
A place made odious by remorseless duns.
Not so the wrangler,--him the Fellows' room
Shall boast its ornament for years to come;
Till some snug rectory to his lot may fall,
Or e'en (his fondest wish) a prebend's stall:
Then burst triumphant on th' admiring town
The full-fledged honours of his Doctor's gown.
Yes, Granta, thus thy sacred shades among
Join grave and thoughtless in one motley throng.
Forgive my muse, if aught her trifling air
Seems to throw scorn upon thy kindly care.
Long may thy sons, with heaven-directed hand,
Spread wide the glories of a grateful land--
Uphold their country's and their sovereign's cause--
Adorn her church, or wield her rev'rend laws;
By virtue's might her senate's counsel sway,
And scare red Faction powerless from his prey.
And ye, who, thriftless of your life's best days,
Have sought but Pleasure in fair Learning's ways,
Though nice reformers of the sophists' school
Mock the old maxims of Collegiate rule,
Deem them not worthless, because oft abused,
Nor sneer at blessings, which yourselves refused.--U. T.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] _Videlicet_--the Dean's apartment; a visit to which frequently
concludes by the visitor's finding himself "gated," _i. e._, obliged
to be within the college walls by 10 o'clock at night; by this he is
prevented from partaking in suppers, or other nocturnal festivities,
in any other college or in lodgings.
[25] Be not indignant, ye broader waves of Thames and Isis! In the
number of contending barks, and the excitement of the spectators of
the strife, Cam may, with all due modesty, boast herself unequalled.
To the swiftness of her champion galleys ye have yourselves often
borne witness.
[26] The most fashionable promenade for the "spectantes" and
"spectandi" of Cambridge.
[27]
"Narratur et prisci Catonis
Sæpe mero caluisse virtus."--HORACE, _Odes_.
[28] VIRGIL, _Æneid_, i. 415.
JACK MOONLIGHT.
Some time ago, on the way from Glasgow to Liverpool, amongst the
confusion and bustle in the railway terminus at Greenock, I was
interested by seeing what struck me more by contrast with the rest of
the scene, but, from old associations, would have drawn my attention
at any time. Passengers, porters, and trucks were meeting from both
directions; ladies and gentlemen anxious about their bandboxes and
portmanteaus; one engine puffing off its steam, and another screaming
as it departed. Through the midst of all, a group of six seamen, from
a third-class carriage, were lugging along their bags and hammocks,
dingy and odorous with genuine tar in all its modifications. Five of
the party, of different heights, ages, and sizes, were as dark-brown
mahogany-colour, in face, throat, and hands, as some long sea-voyage
had made them, evidently through latitudes where the wind blows the
sun, if the sun doesn't burn the wind. One was a fine, stout,
middle-aged man, with immense whiskers and a cap of Manilla grass, a
large blue jacket, with a gorgeous India handkerchief stuffed in its
capacious outside pocket, and brown trousers, with boots, whom I at
once set down for the boatswain of some good East-Indiaman. The sixth
was a woolly-pated negro lad, about nineteen or twenty, dressed in
sailor's clothes with the rest, but with his characteristically
shapeless feet cramped up in a pair of Wellingtons, in which he
stumped along, while his companions had the usual easy roll of their
calling. The fellow was black as a coal, thick-lipped and flat-nosed;
but if, like most negroes, he had only kept grinning, it would not
have seemed so ridiculous as the gravity of his whole air. Some young
ladies standing near, with parasols spread to save their fair
complexions from the sun, said to each other, "Oh, do look at the
foreign sailors!" I knew, however, without requiring to hear a single
word from them, that they were nothing else but the regular true-blue
English tars; such, indeed, as you seldom find belonging to even the
sister kingdoms. A Scotchman or an Irishman may make a good sailor,
and, for the theory of the thing, why, they are probably "six and
half-a-dozen;" but, somehow, there appears to be in the English
sea-dog a peculiar capacity of developing the appropriate ideal
character--that frank, bluff, hearty _abandon_, and mixture of
practical skill with worldly simplicity, which mark the oceanic man.
All dogs can swim, but only water-dogs have the foot webbed and the
hair shaggy. The Englishman is the only one you can thoroughly salt,
and make all his bread biscuit, so that he can both be a boy at fifty,
and yet chew all the hardships of experience without getting conscious
of his wisdom.
So I reflected, at any rate, half joke, half earnest, while hastening
to the Liverpool steamer, which lay broadside to the quay, and,
betwixt letting off steam and getting it up, was blowing like a mighty
whale come up to breathe. The passengers were streaming up the plank,
across by her paddle-boxes, as it were so many Jonahs going into its
belly; amongst whom I was glad to see my nautical friends taking a
shorter cut to the steerage, and establishing themselves with a sort
of half-at-home expression in their sunburnt weatherly faces. In a
little while the "City of Glasgow" was swimming out of the firth, with
short quick blows of her huge fins, that grew into longer and longer
strokes as they revolved in the swells of the sea; the jib was set out
over her sharp nose to steady her, and the column of smoke from her
funnel, blown out by the wind, was left, in her speed, upon the
larboard quarter, to compare its dark-brown shadow with the white
furrow behind. At the beginning of the long summer evening the round
moon rose, white and beautiful, opposite the blue peaks of Arran,
shining with sunset. By that time the steamer's crowded and lumbered
decks had got somewhat settled into order; the splash of the paddles,
and the clank of the engine, leaping up and down at the window of its
house, kept up a kind of quiet, by contrast, in spite of the
different noises going on around. Amongst such, a nuisance apparently
inseparable from and peculiar to steamboats, is a blind fiddler, whose
everlasting infernal scrape, squeaking away on the foredeck, one
cannot help blending with the thump and shudder of those emetic
machines on a large scale, and considering it not the least element in
producing the disagreeable phenomena so well known on board of them.
One of these said floating musicians, who thus wander probably in
imitation of Arion, and in revenge for his fate, was now performing to
the groups near the paddle-boxes. Beyond them, however, by the
steamer's patent iron windlass, there was a quiet space at the bow,
where, in a short time, I perceived the figures of the sailors
relieved against the brisk sea-view above the insignificant bowsprit.
I went forward out of the privileged regions to smoke a cigar, and
found the two elder ones sitting over the windlass in conversation
with another seafaring passenger, evidently less thoroughbred,
however. The rest were walking backwards and forwards to a side, with
the quick rolling walk, limited in extent, so characteristic of the
genus _nauta_--the negro turning his head now and then to grin as he
heard the music, but otherwise above mixing in the rabble of already
disconsolate-looking people behind. He was plainly considered by his
shipmates, and considered himself, on a footing of perfect equality:
his skin was no odium to the men of the sea, whose lot he had no doubt
shared, whatever it might have been in the cabin. Their bedding was
already spread under shelter of the half top-gallant forecastle at the
heel of the bowsprit, amongst spars and coils of rope. Although
sailors are understood to go half-fare in steamers, they no doubt
preferred the accommodation thus chosen. It was amusing to notice how
the regular, long-sea, wind-and-canvass men seemed to look down upon
the hermaphrodites of the "funnel-boat," and were evidently regarded
by them as superior beings; nor did they hold much communication
together.