The old man sits upon the ancient bed of state, in the room which had
been occupied by his father before him, in which his grandfathers and
great-grandfathers had lived and died. Careless of repose for his tired
and aged body, he has not undressed, but motioning off his attendants
with impatient gesture, ungirding his sabre, and throwing off the chain
of gold to which the royal medal was attached, his head sinks weariedly
and sadly upon the oaken table before him. Beyond the bedstead, a gothic
archway vaults through the wall into his private chapel, the antique
lamp of gold still burns upon its altar. He turns not there, as is his
custom, to say his prayers before he goes to rest--he knows no sleep
to-night will close his heavy eyelids. Raising his head, he looks slowly
round at the pictures of his ancestors hung about him; with their fixed,
immovable pupils they return his gaze; but when he would again run round
the circle of the faces of the dead, his eyelids fall, his sight is
veiled by swimming tears.
Have you ever thought, young men, sons of the growing light and lovers
of the storm, how it must be in the souls of the old when all their
plans of life fail, when their _last_ loves on earth are blighted? Ah,
you cannot imagine this, you have not yet tasted the bitter gall of age!
Willing slaves, Time bears you forward on his mighty wings, cleaving
space with arrowy, unceasing motion, and though the stars die out behind
you as he bears you on, yet new ones ever burst upon you as you advance.
'On! on! the infinite is before us!' you cry as you fly. _But the old
have no to-morrows!_ the coffin lies across their threshold, and but one
single star shines down upon them. They kneel to it, and pray: 'Thou art
pure and steadfast. Thou fallest not like the meteor bursting in the
warm summer sky, nor settest like the moon in the far-off lakes of
youth. After our long and restless journey, we bask in thy serene light.
Be faithful to us, shine benignly upon us, that our House may live, that
our descendants may enjoy the earth!'
But even while they pray, the _truth_ creeps into their courtyards,
glides like a serpent on their castle walls, writhes over the threshold,
and, seating herself upon a coffin, chants the death song of delusion,
and as she sings, the last star falls from the sky, and eternal night
becomes the name of the world.
Behold! No glittering haze or golden woof remains in the hands of the
old man from the dying glow of his long Indian summer. Hearken! his
daughter's tears are falling fast on the burning embers of his soul. The
laughter of the careless husband blasts his ear. He starts from the bed,
stalking up and down the room with rapid strides. The snows of seventy
winters have in vain blanched his head; he has been proud of his
accumulated wisdom, but has not divined the secret of life! The
whirlpool of terror, vengeance, vacillation, resolution, engulfs him in
its giddy flow; his soul is on the wheel of torture, his old heart
throbs on the rack of passion. He curses the King of the South--the
prince, his son-in-law--himself; but his heart will not break until a
new day dawns upon the earth!
* * * * *
Completely worn out at last with his restless striding to and fro, he
falls into the old state chair with its broidered blazonry and gilt
escutcheons. His arms hang loosely at his side, his legs fall listlessly
down, his wide open eye is fixed unconsciously on the opposite wall; his
lips are motionless, and yet the tones of his own voice are ringing
through his ears; he lies in immovable and rigid torpor, and yet it
seems to himself that he is rapidly traversing the long galleries of the
castle. He enters the hall of feasting, sees the prince seated among the
throng of revellers, to whom he hears himself cry: 'Away! away, prince,
from an alien soil! My ancestors have risen from the grave to drive thee
hence! Black hetman man, long since buried, strike the foaming cup from
his reckless hands! Roman cardinal, dying in sanctity, pronounce upon
him the thunders of excommunication, and let the church divorce him from
the daughter of our line!'
The great doors are thrown open, the muffled steps of the dead are heard
as they advance from their graves in the Chapel of the Castle, and the
spirits evoked glide solemnly in. The bridegroom, seizing his sword with
one hand, and lifting the cup to his lips with the other, drinks gayly
to the health of the illustrious dead! The old man looks round for a
sword, strives to reach the bright blade hanging on the distant wall,
prays to God to help him to grasp it more speedily, falls to the floor,
drags himself forward on his knees until he meets the Roman cardinal,
whose scarlet robes are bleached and dim with the damp, mould, and
stains of the grave. The church dignitary, laying his icy hand upon his
forehead, says:
'_What the holy priest of God has joined together, that may man not put
asunder!_'
The dead vanish, the hall of festival is riven in twain, the walls
crumble, he sees himself again in his own chamber, sleeping in the
escutcheoned chair of his ancestors. Silence, horror, and remorse are
around him--and at this moment the great clock of the palatines strikes
two!
* * * * *
Horrible and still more horrible grows the vision. The lamp is still
burning in bluish flame, sending a mystic light through the vaulted
archway of the chapel beyond the state bed. 0 God! a white figure kneels
and groans upon the steps of the altar, then, drawing back, approaches
his chair; her bands are meekly crossed upon her breast; like the marble
drapery of a statue, her robe falls in countless snowy folds, none of
which are broken in the onward-gliding motion of the shrouded form. O
God! he knows that lovely face, he has loved it well; it is the sweet
countenance of his young wife: the lips open, but the voice is not as of
old, tender and confiding; it is reproachful--commanding. He tries to
answer, but cannot force a word through his eager lips; he cannot
stretch forth his hand to greet her, but feels himself forced to follow
her wheresoever she may choose to lead him. Down, down through the dark
and narrow vaults of the castle, through the sepulchre where she was
buried, passing by her own coffin without stopping, up through the old
armory, through coats of mail, helmets, and swords, on--on--she reaches
the western tower--passes through the treasury--ascends the
staircase--bolts draw, and locked doors, like silent lips, open
noiselessly before. She beckons the old man on--on, to the arched door,
up to the loophole in the wall looking into the bridal chamber of the
ladies of the castle--there the dead form stops, and beckons him to draw
near and look within.
* * * * *
O God! close by the wedding bed and before the great mirror, he sees his
daughter in the arms of an armed man; he knows the flashing eye and
broad brow of the exile; he hears her familiar voice, sweet, sonorous,
and penetrating as the tones of the harmonica. A glittering blade is in
the hand of the man; his daughter speaks in clear, full tones:
'Strike! strike boldly! it is not thou who dealest the blow--my father
has already killed me!' She rises to meet the stroke of the keen steel
of the chieftain, as if she welcomed a deliverer. The old man tries to
tear asunder the loophole with his hands, but the cold granite does not
move--then it seems to him he falls upon his knees, and shouts to his
kinsman:
'Stop thy rash hand! I will give her to thee as wife. I will fight with
thee the King of the South; do not kill her, my good daughter, my only
child!'
They hear him not; a darkish light is creeping along the walls, the
lamps are dying out, loud talking is heard on the gallery, the
half-drunken bridegroom comes leaping and reeling on, rushes into the
chamber, suddenly seems transfixed to the floor, puts his hand to his
sword, but not finding it at his side, looks back, calls aloud, but no
one follows him. Horror, like living death, paralyzes the old man. The
bridegroom throws himself upon the exile, who exclaims solemnly, as he
thrusts him aside:
'Why do you profane the peace of the dead?'
Something glitters--flashes through the air--once--twice--thrice--a
faint cry--the lamps die out one after the other--a single one still
burns over the great mirror, and by its flickering light the old man
sees the figures of the armed man and the snowy maiden, drenched in
gore, reel, totter, heave, whirl in strange confusion--grow to enormous
height, mount, sink, fall. At this very moment the great clock of the
palatines strikes three--and awakes the old man in the sleeping chamber
of his ancestors, stretched at the foot of the escutcheoned chair.
* * * * *
His attendants, hearing a noise, throng into his room with hurrying
steps and flaming torches; they find their lord lying prostrate on the
floor with bleeding hands and agitated air. He starts to his feet,
crying:
'Save my child! Kill my brother's son!' They crowd around him. 'Is it
still night, or does the day _really_ dawn?'
He staggers to the oaken table, seizes his sword, draws it from the
sheath; the handle turns in his trembling hands, the blade falls to the
ground; again he grasps it, while great tears rain down from his haggard
eyes. The attendants cluster round him, kneel before him, and entreat
him to tell them clearly what he would have them do.
'Follow me! follow me!' he pants in broken voice. He hurries to the
door, half borne on by his people; passes along the corridor, wrestling
with faintness and giddiness as a strong swimmer battles with the waves.
The attendants gaze from one to the other, making the sign of the cross.
The swooning and delirium of the old man over, the retainers follow him
as he totters on to the wedding chamber. Profound repose seems to rest
upon the castle; through the wide range of open double doors the grand
saloon of festival is clearly seen; the tables are deserted, and the
lights dying in their sockets. The morning twilight is already stealing
in through the open windows. Strange! the pages bearing the torches
before the old lord come to a sudden halt; a man runs toward them round
the sharp angle of the gallery; his hair is in confusion, his robe
soiled and torn; no dagger in his belt nor sword at his side; his lips
are blue and shivering, his brow pallid; he looks as if Death were
breathing on him as he passed, and he fled in terror from the fleshless
phantom.
'The father must not advance another step;' and stretching his arms
toward the old man, he seizes one of his hands.
'Where is thy wife? Speak, and tell me!'
The bridegroom kneels before him: 'Stop, father; go back to thine own
chamber; waken not thy sleeping daughter so early.'
'Thou sayest: 'Awake her not.' Will she _ever_ again waken? Speak
quickly. Tell me the naked truth, for evil spirits filled my sleep with
dreams of terror. I saw her pleading for death, but thou wast unarmed as
now; and another stood near, who murdered the child I gave thee. Speak!
Was this all a horrid dream, a fearful jest of the summer's night to
appal my soul?'
The bridegroom bows his head under the unendurable weight of this
question. He shudders, and with lifted hand tries to turn the old man
back.
'Ha! thou darest not speak--thou art silent, I know it all now. God
punishes me because I have bowed to thy king, and sought alliance with
thy craven blood, alien as thou art!'
The window panes rattle as the wild cry echoes from the old man's
quivering lips; all present tremble at the voice of his despair. He
seizes his sword with both his hands, and while it trembles in his
grasp, continues:
'Art thou still silent? My fathers were the enemies of thine; had I a
son, he would have been thy deadly foe. I had an only daughter--I gave
her to thee--she too is gone--take all--there is no one to care for
now--the inheritance is also thine.'
The sword rattles in his hands, the blade falls from his grasp, as he
strikes it against the pillar near him. The bridegroom starts forward
and endeavors to stay the old man. The old man pushes him off, they
wrestle in their bewilderment, and struggle like wild beasts. Despair
nerves the aged arms with iron strength. Young and agile as he is, the
bridegroom feels the hands of his adversary pressing heavily upon his
shoulders, he bends under the weight, the old man hurls him to the
ground, and, no longer requiring aid from others, strides over the
prostrate body. He stalks on with flashing, burning eyes, his gigantic
shadow striding with him on the wall, his wide robes floating on the
wind, his white hair streaming, his form winged with the courage of
despair. The retainers follow, the vaulted ceilings echoing back the
sharp gride of their footsteps. Only one lighted saloon now lies between
them and the chamber of the ladies of the castle. The double door at the
other end is thrown wide open, the walls and windows of the wedding
chamber are crimsoning with the early hues of day, silence and solitude
pervade them, nothing falls upon the air save the twitter of the birds
and the murmur of the fountains. The old man rushes on directly to the
open door and toward the reddening east.
He reaches the threshold, and the immense red face of the just risen sun
dazzles his eyes. Is it the bloody Heart of God he sees pulsating
through the universe? Blinded for a moment, he staggers on at random,
when suddenly he sees the floor is red with blood. The dreadful phantoms
of the night are again around him, no longer floating in misty visions,
but glaring fixed before him in the stern light of dread reality. In the
fierce blaze of its pitiless rays, he sees the dead body of his
brother's son; the bloody form of his only child, his good daughter,
lies pale at his feet. Like a drowning man he gasps for breath, beats
the air wildly around him, as if trying to rescue himself from this hell
of spectres. Then he stands motionless, as if transfixed to the spot.
Awakened by the noise and rumor, guests, feudal retainers, servants, and
attendants rush to the spot, each in turn to be terror-stricken at the
threshold, to move within awed and silent. All eyes wander from the old
lord of the castle to the stiffening corpses at his feet. They lie
together now! The left arm of the exile is round the neck of his sister;
her head rests on his armed bosom just above the spot where the sword
still remains plunged in his breast; his right hand has fallen beside
it. There was no one near to close their dying eyelids, the pupils
glitter glassily in the whitening light of the ascending sun, and the
blood which is everywhere around, on the bridal bed, on the coat of mail
of the young chieftain, on the white robes and snowy bosom of the bride,
already congeals into dark pools or crimson corals. Above this cooling
stream their features rest in marble peace--a faint smile is on the lips
of the young bride--while a passing thought of warlike glory still beams
from the broad, pallid brow of the young hero. So tranquil their repose,
the agonies of death must have seemed light to them, lost in the
ecstasies of faithful spirits.
* * * * *
The old man continues to stand as he first stood--no groan escapes his
lips, no shuddering shakes his frame. The new comers press those already
present forward, but all breaths are hushed, hands are fixed steadily on
sword hilts that they may not rattle, all sound is stilled--they stand
in awe of that dreadful moment when their lord shall awake from his
torpor, and turn to them his face of woe. How will they bear the anguish
written there? despair without a ray of hope!
O God! what a miracle! He turns toward them, greets them imperiously but
courteously, as was his wont, as if, absorbed in thought and doubtful of
the dire reality before him, he was trying to ascertain its truth. Fever
burns in his eye and flames upon his wrinkled cheek.
'Hungarian wine!' he cries.' I will drink to the health of my fellow
citizens.'
No one moves, the bystanders seem turning to stone.
'Haste! This blood must be washed away before my daughter returns to her
chamber. Haste, I say!'
None move, all eyes are cast down; they cannot bear the strange light in
his wandering glances.
'Ah! do you not know we are all dreaming? My sleep is torpid, stubborn,
accursed, but the dawn is here, and I must soon awake!'
So saying he moves out upon the gallery, where suddenly a new thought
appears to strike him; he leans over the marble balustrade, looks to the
right and left, then exclaims:
'Guests, we will go out to seek the young betrothed; it is strange they
should have gone out to walk so early!'
He descends the vaulted stairway by which his nephew had ascended but a
short time before. He stoops at the foot of the hill, picks some roses,
murmuring:
'For my good child. Move silently, friends, she loved this bower of
jessamines; we will surprise her here, and be the first to say good
morning to the bride.'
With drooping heads his guests follow his steps as he glides along under
the sad firs and stately pines. Pathways stretch before them, leading
into forest depths and over mossy banks, or climbing hillsides laden
with vines. The old man often calls his daughter loudly by her name; the
laughing echoes answer mockingly; the followers burst into tears.
Striking his forehead suddenly and violently with his hands, he cries:
'The dream! the nightmare! Why should it look to me so like truth? When
will the _true_ sun rise upon me?' Then he rushes to a sturdy pine,
embraces its rough trunk with both his arms, strikes his head against
it: 'Awake me, thou hard bark--awake me from this dreadful dream!'
Turning back, he seizes one of the nearest of his followers by the
throat, crying: 'Wrestle with thy lord, thou phantom of a servant, and
wake him from his dream accursed!'
The frightened servant slips away and flees. The old man sighs, raises
his eyes to heaven, an expression of submission to a divinely appointed
torment shines for a moment upon his quivering features, as if he humbly
offered to God the tortures of this cruel dream in penance for his sins.
He walks on calmly for a while, then says:
'The bride is certainly on the lake; we will find her there.'
The sun is fully up now, drinking the dews from the leaves, and lighting
up the waves of the lake with splendor. Large beaked boats with heraldic
banners are rocking in the coves. Fastening the roses he had gathered
for his child in his bosom, he walks to the shore, with fever burning
more and more vividly in his face. No one ventures to suggest a return
to the castle. Accustomed to obey the unbending will of their lord, they
still pay homage to it, though it is no longer a thing of this world.
Dark as midnight seems the day dawn to them; their own brains seem
seething into madness.
'Perhaps she sails in one of her own light boats round the lake with her
husband; she may be behind the fringe of willows, or among the little
islands. Hallo! six of you take the oars; we will soon find her.'
They obey, he seats himself within, they push from shore.
'Why do you breathe so hard and look so weary to-day; is the water
heavier than of old?'
They answer not, but row more rapidly. The larger boats are filled with
guests and retainers; many follow the old lord, many remain on shore
from lack of room. One after another the islets fly behind and hide
themselves from view, with their circling wreaths of reeds and sedges.
Rocks and bowlders are scattered over many of them, once sacrificial
altars of old and cruel gods, now draped with hanging weeds and trailing
mosses. Flocks of wild birds are startled up as the boats draw near
them, frightened by the noise and plashing of the oars. Black clouds of
them hang over the boat of the old man at every turn among the labyrinth
of islands. He claps his hands:
'Here! we will surely find her here!' And when nothing is there to be
seen, he asks the winds: 'Where is my child--my good and beautiful
child?'
Having sailed round and round the whole group of islands, he orders them
to row out into the middle of the lake, and then make for the other
shore. He sinks into silence now; he leaves the helm, throwing himself
suddenly down into the boat, while a ghastly pallor settles on his
venerable face. He stretches his hand into the water, dives into it with
his arm, listens to the rippling of the waves, then bursts into a loud
scream of wild laughter. The oarsmen stop, in hopes he will order the
boat to return to shore. He does not speak, but rises up and looks,
first back at the boats following after, then at the mountains, the
plains, the forests, the gardens, the ancestral castle. Constantly
striking his palms together or rubbing his head with his hand, he
exclaims:
'Who will waken me? I dream! I dream! I must, I will awake!'
The oarsmen shudder. Then, collecting his whole remaining force, he
flings himself violently into the depths. Three of the men instantly
plunge in after him; those in the boats hasten to the rescue. Having
seen what had happened, they gaze upon the spot where the whirling,
whistling waves were closing over the old lord and his faithful
servants. The bold divers reappear, bearing in their arms the castle's
lord. Under the heraldic banner they lay the last heir of the haughty
House. In vain they try to resuscitate the venerable form; the dream is
over now, but the mortal life remains under the blue waves of the
ancestral lake.
* * * * *
The foreign prince inherits the ancient castle with all its treasures,
the glories of the honored name, the entire Past of a noble race. He
buries the bodies of his virgin wife and haughty father-in-law with
funereal pomp and honor; but orders the corpse of the exile to be
roughly thrown into unhallowed ground. In the very hall in which he had
spent the first night of his bridal, surrounded by gay revellers,
pledging full cups of ruby wine, with light jests flying from reckless
lip to lip--he spreads, with the same comrades, the solemn Feast of the
Dead. When the next dawn breaks upon them, mounting their vigorous
steeds, they all ride back to the court of the King of the South. The
king rejoices in his heart, giving thanks to the Fates that his leal
subject has inherited vast wealth, and that the alien family, powerful
through so many centuries, is extinct forever.
In the clefts of the mountains they remember and honor the young
chieftain, whose body had been thrown into unhallowed ground. They know
that his dishonored grave lies on that side of the castle through which
will pass their path to victory; and they will plant the cross of
glorious memories upon it as they march to the assault to drive the
foreigner from the Home of his loyal ancestors. Eagles and vultures, led
by some mystic instinct, are often seen to fly from the mountains to the
towers and turrets of the castle. It is certain that in some not distant
day the comrades of the chieftain will pour with resistless strength
into its doomed walls.... Let another chant to you the Hymn of victory;
I have sung the Dirge of agony!
* * * * *
Unhappy maiden! thou vanishest like a thought which cannot shape itself
in any language known on earth, a dream of early love! Thou wouldst not
lose thy snowy wings, and they bear thee on the whirlwind's track, where
the mists fly, the clouds sail, the sound of harps dies, the leaves of
autumn drift, the breath of sighs vanishes! Martyr to thine own dream of
plighted faith, they bury thy fair form in ancestral earth; perchance
the sculptured marble presses on thy faultless brow, for on its snow
they grave the hated foreign name borne by thy alien husband! But the
grass and wild flowers will soon grow unheeded around it, and in the
green and flourishing world of the ever vanishing, thy name is never
spoken.
On the very morning of thy death, the seven old men to whom obedience
was commanded by the chieftain, curse thee because thou borest away with
thee the soul of their hero. In their addresses to the people, with
scorn and scoff upon their lips, they sneer and call thee 'WOMAN;' but
the people weep, and pray: Lord Christ, Son of the Virgin, give to the
maiden ETERNAL PEACE!
THE ENGLISH PRESS.
III.
We have seen that the tone of the newspapers had of late years greatly
improved. Men of eminence and great intellectual attainments were to be
found among the contributors to the various journals, and what is much
more important--for this was pre-eminently the age of bribery and
corruption--men of honesty and integrity. Still there was a large class
of venal hirelings in the pay of the Government. These were described by
Mr. Pulteney as 'a herd of wretches whom neither information can
enlighten nor affluence elevate.' He further expresses his conviction
that 'if their patrons would read their writings, their salaries would
be quickly withdrawn, for a few pages would convince them that they can
neither attack nor defend, neither raise any man's reputation by their
panegyrics, nor destroy it by their defamation.' Sir Robert Walpole,
who, as has been already stated, expended enormous sums in bribes to
public writers, however expedient he may have thought it to retain their
services, does not appear to have attached much importance personally to
the writers either for or against him, at least if we may put faith in
his own words. On one occasion he said: 'I have never discovered any
reason to exalt the authors who write against the Administration to a
higher degree of reputation than their opponents;' and on another, 'Nor
do I often read the papers of either party, except when I am informed by
some, who have more inclination to such studies than myself, that they
have risen by some accident above their common level.'
Among the first rank of newspaper writers at this period must be placed
the undying name of Henry Fielding, whose connection with journalism
originated in his becoming, in 1739, editor and part owner of the
_Champion_, a tri-weekly periodical of the _Spectator_ stamp, with a
compendium of the chief news of the day in addition. The rebellion of
1745, like every other topic of absorbing interest, became the parent of
a great many news sheets, the chief of which was probably the _National
Journal, or County Gazette_, inasmuch as it called forth a Government
prosecution, and procured six months' imprisonment for its printer. In
opposition to the Jacobite journals, several newspapers were started in
the interest of the Government. Fielding brought out the _True Patriot_,
in 1745, and proved no mean antagonist for the sympathizers with the
banished Stuarts. In the prospectus issued with his first number, he has
some rather unpleasant things to say of his literary brethren:
'The first little imperfection in these writings is that there is scarce
a syllable of truth in any of them. If this be admitted to be a fault,
it requires no other evidence than themselves and the perpetual
contradictions which occur, not only on comparing one with the other,
but the same author with himself on different days. Secondly, there is
no sense in them. To prove this likewise, I appeal to their works.
Thirdly, there is in reality nothing in them at all. And this also must
be allowed by their readers, if paragraphs, which contain neither wit,
nor humor, nor sense, nor the least importance, may be properly said to
contain nothing.... Nor will this appear strange if we consider who are
the authors of such tracts--namely, the journeymen of booksellers, of
whom, I believe, much the same may be truly predicated as of these
their productions. But the encouragement with which these lucubrations
are read may seem most strange and more difficult to be accounted for.
And here I cannot agree with my bookseller that their eminent badness
recommends them. The true reason is, I believe, the same which I once
heard an economist assign for the content and satisfaction with which
his family drank water-cider--viz., because they could procure no better
liquor. Indeed, I make no doubt but that the understanding as well as
the palate, though it may out of necessity swallow the worse, will, in
general, prefer the better.'
These sarcasms are probably not much overcolored, for, with one or two
exceptions, newspapers had sunk to a very low state indeed, and this may
be looked upon as one of the most degraded periods in the history of
journalism with which we have had to deal, or shall hereafter have to
encounter. The _Champion_, of course, was intended to be 'the better.'
It did not, however, meet with any very great success, but still with
enough to encourage Fielding in his attacks. In 1747 he dealt another
heavy blow at the Jacobites, by commencing the _Jacobite Journal_, in
which they were most mercilessly ridiculed and satirized. His opponents
replied as best they could, but they were not masters of the keen and
polished weapons which the great novelist wielded, and they were
therefore obliged to content themselves with venomous spite and abuse.
The ablest of these antagonists was a newspaper entitled _Old England,
or the Constitutional Journal_, an infamous and scurrilous publication,
to which, however, the elegant Lord Chesterfield did not think it
derogatory to contribute. Among other celebrities who were associated
with the press at this time, we find Lord Lyttelton, Bonnell
Thornton--the author of the _Connoisseur_, an essay paper, which, though
inferior to the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, may be read with great
pleasure and profit, even at the present time--the famous Beckford,
Edward Moore, and Arthur Murphy. This last started the _Test_, a journal
devoted to the demolition of Pitt, but which called forth an opponent of
no mean pretensions, under the name of the _Con-Test_, for then, as now,
as it always has been, and always will be, a good and taking title
produced a host of imitations and piracies. In spite, however, of
Murphy's great talents and its first blush of success, the _Test_ soon
began to languish, and died of atrophy, after a brief existence of some
eight or nine months. One of the most formidable anti-ministerialist
papers which, had hitherto appeared, was the _Monitor_. It came out upon
the accession of George III., and was especially occupied in attacking
Lord Bute, the young monarch's chief minister and favorite. Its editor
was John Entick, who is best known as the author of a dictionary, which
was largely used in the schooldays of the last generation, and is still
occasionally to be met with in old-fashioned families and out-of-the-way
corners of the world. This _Monitor_ was as terrible to the marquis as
another more modern Monitor was to the Merrimac, and the Scotch minion
was compelled to bestir himself. He called in to his aid Bubb
Doddington, who, during the lifetime of the preceding king, had done
good service for the party of the Prince of Wales, in a journal styled
the _Remembrancer_, and they, in conjunction with Smollett as editor,
brought out the _Briton_ in 1762. It was but a weakly specimen of a
Briton from the very first. There were many causes which contributed to
its downfall. Scotchmen were regarded throughout the nation with
feelings of thorough detestation, and Smollett had made for himself many
bitter enemies, of men who had formerly been his friends, by his
acceptance of this employment. It was the hand of a quondam friend that
dealt his paper the _coup-de-grace_, none other in fact than John
Wilkes, who had started the _North Briton_ in opposition to Smollett.
The _Briton_ expired on the 12th of February, 1763, and upon the 23d of
April, in the same year, appeared the never-to-be-forgotten No. 45 of
the _North Briton_. The circumstances connected with this famous
_brochure_, and the consequences which followed upon its appearance, are
so well known, that it will not be necessary to proceed to any great
length in describing its incidents. This said No. 45 initiated a great
fight, in which both sides committed several mistakes, won several
victories, and sustained several defeats. Wilkes undoubtedly got the
worst of it at first, but his discomfiture was set off by many
compensations in different ways, which his long struggle procured for
him. The obnoxious article, boldly assuming the responsibility of
ministers for the king's speech--for Wilkes always asserted that he had
the highest respect for the king himself--practically charged them with
falsehood. Upon this they issued a general warrant for the apprehension
of all the authors, printers, and publishers of the _North Briton_.
Wilkes was seized and thrown into the Tower, where he was kept for four
days, all access of friends and legal advisers being denied to him. At
the end of that period he was brought before the Court of Common Pleas
upon a writ of _habeas corpus_. Three points were raised in his favor,
namely, whether the warrant was legal, whether the particular passage in
the libel complained of ought not to have been specified, and whether
his privileges as a member of Parliament did not protect him from
arrest. The celebrated Lord Camden, then Chief Justice Pratt, presided,
and ruled against Wilkes on the first two points, but discharged him
from custody on the third. Wilkes hereupon reprinted the article. Both
Houses of Parliament now took up the cudgels in behalf of the
Government, and resolved that privilege of Parliament did not extend to
arrest for libel. The House of Commons also resolved 'that the _North
Briton_, No. 45, is a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, containing
expressions of the most unexampled insolence and contumely toward his
Majesty, the grossest expressions against both Houses of Parliament, and
the most audacious defiance of the authority of the whole legislature,
and most manifestly tending to alienate the affections of the people
from his Majesty, to withdraw them from their obedience to the laws of
the realm, and to excite them to traitorous insurrection against his
Majesty's Government.' They also ordered the libel to be publicly burned
by the common hangman, in front of the Royal Exchange. The authorities
attempted to carry out this order, but an enormous mob assembled, drove
off the officers, rescued the journal from the flames, and, in revenge,
built a huge bonfire at Temple Bar, into which they threw the jackboot,
the favorite emblem for expressing the public dislike of Lord Bute. It
was now Wilkes's turn, and he brought an action in the following year
against the under secretary of state, for the illegal seizure of his
papers. Judge Pratt summed up in his favor, directing the jury that
general warrants were 'unconstitutional, illegal, and altogether void.'
As being the instrument in eliciting this memorable exposition of the
laws, Wilkes deserves the gratitude of every Englishman who cares one
jot for his constitutional rights, and of every lover of freedom
throughout the world. He was not without immediate and substantial
rewards, for the jury found a verdict for him, with L1,000 damages. The
corporation of the city of London, who had taken his part throughout,
eventually chose him sheriff, lord mayor, and chamberlain, and presented
the lord chief justice with the freedom of the city, in token of their
admiration for his conduct. On the other hand, Wilkes was expelled the
House of Commons, on account of the libel, and on the very same day
which witnessed his triumph in the Court of Common Pleas, he was tried
in the Court of the King's Bench, for its republication, and found
guilty. He refused to surrender to judgment, and was accordingly
outlawed. He then proceeded to the Continent, from whence, some three or
four years later, he addressed a petition to the king for a pardon. As
no notice was taken of this, he returned to England, and paid a fine of
L500, his outlawry being reversed. He next petitioned the House of
Commons for readmission; but his petition was rejected, and a new writ
issued, when he was returned by an overwhelming majority. The House
expelled him again, and this farce of expulsion and reelection was
enacted four distinct times, until at last his election was declared
null and void. He subsequently brought an action against Lord Halifax
for illegal imprisonment and the seizure of his papers, and obtained
L4,000 damages. He lived several years after this, but took no prominent
part in political affairs, confining his energies to the sphere of the
city. While he was in exile at Paris he published an account of his
trial, etc., but, as he was unfortunate in his defenders, so was he in
his adversaries. The writings of his friend and coadjutor, Charles
Churchill, the clever writer, but disreputable divine, are wellnigh, if
not entirely, forgotten, but the undying pencil of the immortal Hogarth
will forever hold him up to the gaze of remote posterity. Whatever may
be the feeling as to his political opinions, and however great may be
our gratitude to him in one particular instance, his authorship of the
abominable and filthy 'Essay upon Women'--which, by the way, formed one
count in the indictment against him at his trial in the King's
Bench--will always earn for him the execration of mankind. The success
of Wilkes in his action against the secretary of state, was the signal
for a host of other authors, printers, and publishers, who had been
similarly attacked, to bring similar actions. They generally obtained
heavy damages, and ministers learned a lesson of caution which they did
not soon forget.
But while they persecuted the opposition scribes, ministers did not
forget to reward those writers who advocated the cause of the
Government. Men who had failed in all kinds of professions and
employments, turned their attention to political literature, and, as far
as emolument was concerned, met with great success, for although the
talent was all on one side, the profit was all on the other. Among the
chief of these fortunate scribblers was Dr. Francis, the father of the
celebrated Sir Philip, Dr. Shebbrart, Hugh Kelly, and Arthur Murphy.
We now arrive at another most memorable period in newspaper history--the
appearance of the Letters of Junius. The interest in the discovery of
the source of these withering diatribes has been almost as great as in
that of the Nile, but, unlike that 'frightened and fugitive' river,
their origin will probably never be discovered with any certainty. A
neat little library might be formed of the books and pamphlets that have
been written upon this 'vexed question,' and the name of every man that
was at all eminent at the time of their publication--and of a great many
too that were by no means eminent--has been at some time or other
suggested as the author. This controversy may be looked upon as a sort
of literary volcano, which every now and then becoming suddenly active,
after a period of quiescence of longer or shorter duration, sends forth
great clouds of smoke--but nothing else; and then all things remain once
more in _statu quo_. Our space will not permit us to make any remark
upon the matter, further than to express an opinion that the
preponderance of evidence appears to be in favor of Sir Philip
Francis--the untiring, unscrupulous bloodhound who hunted down Warren
Hastings--having been the author. The first of these famous letters
appeared in the _Public Advertiser_, of April 28, 1767; the last of a
stalwart family of sixty-nine, on January 21, 1772. Let Burke testify to
their tremendous power. To the House of Commons he said: 'He made you
his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You
crouched, and still crouch beneath his rage.' To the speaker he said:
'Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir; he has attacked even
you--he has--and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the
encounter.' And again: 'Kings, lords, and commons are but the sport of
his fury.' Speaking of the 'Letter to the king,' Burke said: 'It was the
rancor and venom with which I was struck. In these respects the _North
Briton_ is as much inferior to him as in strength, wit, and judgment.'
The Government tried every means in their power to discover the author,
but in vain. Woodfall, the proprietor of the _Public Advertiser_, knew
or professed to know nothing about it, asserting that the letters were
found in his box from time to time, but how they came there he could not
tell. Let it suffice us to know that they admirably served the purpose
for which they were written, viz., to defeat tyranny, and to defend
freedom; that they are still allowed to rank as the greatest political
essays that were ever written; and that Junius, whoever he was, will
always be gratefully remembered among us, so long as we continue to
display that watchful jealousy in the preservation of our liberties
which has hitherto ever characterized us as a nation.
The Government prosecuted several newspaper proprietors and printers for
publishing these letters, and more especially that addressed to the
king. Among others who were brought to trial were Woodfall himself; John
Almon, of the _London Museum_; Miller, of the _London Evening Post_;
Baldwin, of the _St. James's Chronicle_; Say, of the _Gazetteer_, and
Robinson, of the _Independent Chronicle_. Almon was, however, the only
one who was punished. The jury consisted of Government employes,
carefully selected, and of course brought in a verdict adverse to him.
Almon was fined and ordered to find substantial bail for his future good
behavior.
The _Public Advertiser_ was a joint-stock concern, chiefly in the hands
of the booksellers, among whom we find names which are still famous in
Paternoster Row, such as Longman, Cadell, Rivington, and Strahan.
Woodfall's ledger supplies us with the following information as to the
expenses of getting it up, some of the items being sufficiently curious:
L s. d.
Paid translating foreign news, etc., 100 0 0
Foreign newspapers, 14 0 0
Foy, at 2s. a day, 31 4 0
Lloyd's coffee house for post news 12 0 0
Home news, as per receipts and incidents, 282 4 11-1/2
List of sheriffs, 10 6
Plantation, Irish, and Scotch news, 50 0 0
Portsmouth letter, 8 5 0
Stocks, 3 3 0
Porterage to the stamp office, 10 8 0
Recorder's clerk, 1 1 0
Sir John Fielding, 50 0 0
Delivering papers fifty-two weeks,
at L1 4s. per week, 62 8 0
Clerk, and to collect debts, 30 0 0
Setting up extra advertisements, 31 10 0
A person to go daily to fetch
in advertisements, getting
evening papers, etc., 15 15 0
Morning and evening papers, 26 8 9-1/2
Price of hay and straw, Whitechapel, 1 6 0
Mr. Green for port entries, 31 10 0
Law charges, Mr. Holloway, 6 7 5
Bad debts, 18 3 6
----------
L796 15 2
The sale was about three thousand a day, and the shareholders received
L80 per share clear profit. The newspapers of those days paid the
managers of theatres for accounts of their plays, as witness the
following entries:
L s. d.
Playhouses, 100 0 0
Drury Lane advertisements, 64 8 6
Covent Garden 66 11 0
---------
L230 19 6
Theatrical advertising had not reached the pitch of development which it
has since attained; the competition was not so severe, and managers did
not find it necessary to have recourse to ingenious methods of
propitiating dramatic critics, such as producing their plays at the
commencement of a new season, or paying L300 a year for the supervision
of the playbills--expedients which have been now and then employed in
our own times.
Among the writers in the _Public Advertiser_ were Caleb Whitefoord,
_dilettante_ and wine merchant, Charles d'Este, who, like the popular
London preacher of the present day, Bellew, first tried the stage, but
not succeeding in that line, entered the pulpit; John Taylor, afterward
editor of the _Morning Post_; Tom Syers, author of the 'Dialogues of the
Dead,' and Woodfall's brother William. This last started the _Morning
Chronicle_, in 1769, a paper whose fate it was, after lasting nearly a
century, to pass into the venal hands of Sergeant Glover (who sold it to
Louis Napoleon, in order that it might become _sub rosa_ a French organ
in London), and to die in consequence in well-merited dishonor.
The _Public Ledger_ was brought out by Newberry, the bookseller, in
1760, and is chiefly remarkable as being the vehicle through which
Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World' was first given to the public.
'Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called 'Noll,'
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,'
received two guineas for his first article, and afterward became a
regular contributor at a guinea an article. William Radcliffe, the
husband of the authoress of 'The Mysteries of Udolfo,' edited the
_Englishman_, a paper to which Edmund Burke contributed, and
subsequently the _English Chronicle_ and the _Morning Herald_. Of all
these he was proprietor, either altogether or in part, and it seems to
have been customary for the editor to be the proprietor, or, more
strictly speaking, for the proprietor to be the editor.
The prosecutions in connection with the letters of Junius were not the
only attacks made upon the press at this time. Parliament again entered
the lists against it. There was a certain Lord Marchmont, whose especial
mission appears to have been to persecute the newspapers. Shakspeare
says,
'The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;'
and whether or no my Lord Marchmont ever did any good cannot now be
ascertained. All that is known of him is that he was very pertinacious
and very successful in his onslaughts upon his victims, for, whenever he
saw the name of any member of the House of Peers in a journal, he used
to make a motion against the printer for breach of privilege, summon him
before the bar of the House, and have him heavily fined. The House of
Commons followed suit. The old bone of contention, the reporting of the
debates, was raked up again. There were then two giants of reporting,
William Woodfall, who, from his wonderful retentive powers, was called
by the _sobriquet_ of Memory Woodfall, and William Radcliffe. It was in
1771 that the House proceeded to active measures by a majority of ninety
votes to fifty-five. Orders were given to arrest the printers,
publishers, and authors of the _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser_ and
the _Middlesex Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty_. The printers went into
hiding, and a reward of L50 was offered for their apprehension. Shortly
afterward, this raid was extended to the printers of the _Morning
Chronicle_, _St. James's Chronicle_, _General Post_, _London Evening
Post_, _Whitehall Evening Post_, and _London Packet_. Some of these
appeared at the bar of the House, and actually _made their submission on
their knees_. Miller, of the _London Evening Post_, declined to
surrender, and was, after some difficulty, arrested under a warrant from
the speaker. He was taken before the lord mayor, who was a member of the
House of Commons. The city's chief magistrate--let his name, Brass
Crosby, be remembered with honor--declared the warrant illegal,
discharged Miller, and committed the speaker's messenger for assault.
The same thing was done in the case of Wheble, of the _Middlesex
Journal_, who was taken before John Wilkes, then sitting as alderman at
Guildhall; and in that of Thompson, of the _Gazetteer_, who was taken
before Alderman Oliver. The ground for their discharge was that the
speaker's warrant had no force within the boundaries of the city,
without being countersigned by a magistrate of the corporation. The
House of Commons became furious, and ordered the attendance of Crosby
and Oliver, but, taught by old experience, did not in the first instance
think it desirable to meddle with Wilkes. The civic magistrates stood
their ground manfully, and produced their charters. The House retorted
by looking up the resolutions passed on various occasions against the
publication of the debates. Meanwhile a mob assembled outside, and
abused and hustled the members on their way to the House. After a fierce
debate, Oliver was committed to the Tower. The attendance of Wilkes was
then ordered for the 8th of April, but, in the mean time, the House,
like Fear as represented by Collins in his Ode to the Passions,
'back recoiled...
Even at the sound himself had made;'
and accordingly got out of the difficulty by adjourning over the day for
which the redoubtable Wilkes had been summoned. On the 27th of April,
however, the lord mayor was sent to the Tower. The whole country rang
with indignation; but, nevertheless, the city magistrates remained
incarcerated until the 23d of July, when the Parliament was prorogued,
and, its power of imprisonment being at an end, they were set free. Such
was the issue of the last battle between the Parliament and the press,
on the question of publishing the debates. It was fought in 1771, and
had been a tougher conflict than any of its predecessors, but it was
decisive. There is no danger of the subject being reopened; the
reporting of the debates is now one of the most important of the
functions of our newspapers; and the members themselves are too sensible
of the services rendered them by the reporters' gallery to be suicidal
enough to inaugurate a new crusade against it. What those services are,
any one who has been patriotic or curious enough to sit out a debate in
the strangers' gallery over night, and then to read the speeches, to
which he has listened, in the newspapers next morning, can readily
appreciate. Hazy ideas have become clear, mutilated and unintelligible
sentences have been neatly and properly arranged, needless repetitions
and tautological verbiage have disappeared; there is no sign of
hesitation; hums and haws, and other inexpressible ejaculations, grunts,
and interpolations find no place; the thread of an argument is shown
where none was visible before, and all is fluent, concise, and more or
less to the point.
Meanwhile the tone of the press had again greatly improved, partly owing
to purification through the trials which it had undergone, and partly
owing to the better taste of the public. Its circulation had rapidly
increased. In 1753 the number of stamps on newspapers in the United
Kingdom was 7,411,757; in 1760, 9,464,790; in 1774, 12,300,608; in 1775,
12,680,906; and in 1776, 12,836,000, a halt in its progress being caused
by Lord North's new stamp act, raising the stamp from one to one and a
half pence. The ordinary price of a news sheet was two or two and a half
pence, but this was more than doubled by its cost of transmission
through the post office, which, for a daily paper, was L5 a year. The
_Morning Post_, the full title of which was originally the _Morning Post
and Daily Advertiser_, first came out in 1772. In 1775 it appeared
regularly every morning, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry Bate,
afterward the Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart. The _Gentleman's
Magazine_--that prolific mine to whose stores of wealth the present
series of articles is beholden times out of number--gives a curious
account of a duel into which this clerical editor was forced in his
clerical capacity. Editorial duels were not unknown in those days.
Wilkes had fought one or two, as well as other editors; but these were
the circumstances of Mr. Bate's encounter:
'The cause of quarrel arose from some offensive paragraphs that had
appeared in the _Morning Post_, highly reflecting on the character of a
lady, for whom Captain Stoney had a particular regard. Mr. Bate had
taken every possible method, consistent with honor, to convince Captain
Stoney that the insertion of the paragraphs was wholly without his
knowledge, to which Mr. Stoney gave no credit, and insisted on the
satisfaction of a gentleman, or the discovery of the author. This
happened some days before, but meeting, as it were by accident, on the
day before mentioned (January 13, 1777), they adjourned to the Adelphi,
called for a room, shut the door, and, being furnished with pistols,
discharged them at each other without effect. They then drew swords, and
Mr. Stoney received a wound in the breast and arm, and Mr. Bate one in
the thigh. Mr. Bate's sword bent and slanted against the captain's
breastbone, which Mr. Bate apprising him of, Captain Stoney called to
him to straighten it, and in the interim, while the sword was under his
foot for that purpose, the door was broken open, or the death of one of
the parties would most certainly have been the issue.'
Another eminent writer in the _Public Advertiser_ was John Horne,
afterward John Horne Tooke, the author of the 'Diversions of Purley,' a
man to be always remembered with gratitude in America, for the part
which he took in the struggle between the colonies and the mother
country. His connection with the press was one long series of trials for
libel, in which he always got the worst of the fray. In fact, he rather
appeared to like being in hot water, for he more than once wrote an
article with the full intention of standing the trial which he knew
would be sure to follow its publication. One of his reasons may have
been that this was the only way in which he could indulge his penchant
for forensic disputation. He had been bred a clergyman, but, disliking
the retirement of a quiet country parsonage, he threw up his preferment,
abandoned his clerical functions altogether, and came to London to keep
his terms at the Temple. The benchers, however, holding the force of the
maxim, 'Once in orders always in orders,' refused to admit him to the
degree of barrister at law. In 1771 he founded the Society of the
Supporters of the Bill of Rights, one of the objects of which was to
uphold the newspapers in their conflicts with their great foe, the law
of libel, and to defray the expenses which were thus incurred. But,
owing to some quarrel with Wilkes, he withdrew from his connection with
this society, and started a new one--the Constitutional Society--which
was founded in the interests of the American colonies. His publication
of the doings of this society procured for him the distinction of
another trial, the upshot of which was that he was fined L200,
imprisoned for a year, and ordered to find bail for his good behavior
for three years more. After two unsuccessful attempts he got into
Parliament, and proved a very troublesome and formidable antagonist to
ministers, as might be expected from a prominent member of the London
Corresponding Society, which, consisting chiefly of working men, had for
its main objects the establishment of universal suffrage and annual
Parliaments. This society owed its origin to the French Revolution, and
it kept up a regular correspondence with the National Convention and the
French Jacobins. It numbered about fifty thousand members, in different
parts of the kingdom, and disseminated its opinions by means of
newspapers, pamphlets, and handbills, which were published at a low
price, or given away in the streets. One of the most influential of
these pamphlets was Tom Paine's 'Rights of Man,' for writing which he
was tried and convicted. Erskine was his counsel, and in the course of
his speech said:
'Other liberties are held under Governments, but the liberty of opinion
keeps Governments themselves in due subjection to their duties. This has
produced the martyrdom of truth in every age, and the world has been
only purged from ignorance with the innocent blood of those who have
enlightened it.'
The effect of these writings was that Government became alarmed, and a
proclamation was issued against seditious speaking and writing. The
_habeas corpus_ act was suspended, and political trials became the order
of the day. Horne Tooke's was one of the latest of these trials, in
1794. Erskine was his counsel, and was more successful than when
defending Paine. The public excitement had by this time very much toned
down, and Tooke was acquitted. One result of this trial was to secure
the fortunes of Erskine; but another and much more important one was to
establish on a firmer basis the right of free discussion and liberty of
speech, and to check the ministry in the career of terrorism and
oppression upon which they had entered. Looking back upon these trials,
at this distance of time, one cannot but feel a conviction that the
fears of the Government and the nation were absurdly exaggerated. The
foundations of English society and British institutions were too firmly
fixed to be easily shaken, even when the whole continent of Europe was
convulsed from one end to the other. But the London Corresponding
Society still continued its efforts, till its secretary was tried and
convicted, and the society itself was suppressed, along with many other
similar associations, by an act of Parliament, called the Corresponding
Societies Bill, in 1799. Tooke's connection with it had ceased some time
before; in fact, it is more than doubtful if he had ever been a
thorough-going supporter of it in heart, or had any other object than
that of making political capital out of it, and of indulging his
belligerent proclivities. He died in 1812, at the age of seventy-six.
In 1777 there were seventeen regular newspapers published in London, of
which seven were daily, eight tri-weekly, one bi-weekly, and one weekly.
In 1778 appeared the first Sunday newspaper, under the title of
_Johnson's Sunday Monitor_.
We have now arrived at the threshold of a very important event--too
important, in fact, to be introduced at the end of an article, and which
we therefore reserve for our next number. That event is the birth of the
_Times_.
THE HOUSE IN THE LANE.
Warm and bright the sun is shining
On the farmhouse far away,
Like a pleasant picture lying
Bright before my gaze all day.
And I see the tall, gray chimney,
And the steep roof sloping down;
And far off the spires rise dimly
Of the old New Hampshire town.
And the little footpath creeping
Through the long grass to the door,
And the hopvine's tresses sweeping
The low roof and lintels o'er.
And the barn with loft and rafter,
Weather beaten, scarred, and wide--
And the tree I used to clamber,
With the well-sweep on one side.
And beyond that wide old farmyard,
And the bridge across the stream,
I can see the ancient orchard,
Where the russets thickly gleam,
And the birds sing just as sweetly,
In the branches knarled and low,
As when autumns there serenely
Walked a hundred years ago.
And upon the east are beaming
The salt meadows to the sea,
Or the hillside pastures, dreaming
Of October pleasantly.
On the west, like lanterns glimmer
Thick the ears of corn to-day,
That I sowed along each furrow,
Singing as I went, last May.
So it hangs, that vision tender,
Over all my loss and pain,
Where the maples flame their splendor
By the old house in the lane.
And, beside the warm south window,
At this very hour of day,
Where the sunbeams love to linger,
With her knitting dropped away,
She is sitting--mother--mother,
With your pale and patient face,
Where the frosted hairs forever
Shed their sad and tender grace.
Are you thinking of that morning
Your last kisses faltered down,
When the summer sun was dawning
O'er the old New Hampshire town?
For my country, in her anguish,
Came betwixt us mightily:
'Save me, or, my son, I perish!'
Was her dread appeal to me.
Youth and strength and life made answer:
When that cry of bitter stress
Woke the hills of old New Hampshire,
Could I give my country less?
And not when the battle's thunder,
Crashed along our ranks its power--
And not now, though fiercer hunger
Drains my life-springs at this hour--
Would I fainter make the answer,
Or the offering less complete,
That I laid, in old New Hampshire,
Joyful at my country's feet!
Though your boy has borne, dear mother,
Watching by that window low,
Through the long, slow hours this hunger
It would break your heart to know.
Though the thought of that old larder,
And the shelves o'erflowing there,
Made the pang of hunger harder
Through the day and night to bear.
And the doves have come each morning,
And the lowing kine been fed,
While your only boy was starving
For a single crust of bread!
But through all this need and sorrow
Has the end been drawing nigh:
In these prison walls, to-morrow,
It will not be hard to die.
Though, upon this cold floor lying,
Bitter the last pang may be--
Still your prayers have sweet replying--
The dear Lord has stood with me!
And His hand the gates shall open,
And the home shall fairer shine,
That mine earthly one was given,
And my life, dear land, for thine.
So I patient wait the dawning
That shall rise and still this pain--
Brighter than that last sweet morning
By the old house in the lane!
* * * * *
When the sunbeams, growing bolder.
Sought him in the noon, next day--
Starved to death, New Hampshire's soldier
In the Libby Prison lay.
MUSIC A SCIENCE.
Much has been written concerning music. Volume after volume, shallow or
erudite, sentimental or critical, prejudiced or impartial, has been
issued from the press, but the want (in most instances) of a certain
scientific foundation, and of rational canons of criticism, has greatly
obscured the general treatment of the subject. Truth has usually been
sought everywhere except in the only place where she was likely to be
found, namely, in the realm of _natural law_, and consequently, of
science. Old tomes of Greek and Latin lore, school traditions, the usage
of the best masters, and the verdict of the human ear (a good judge, but
not always unperverted), have been appealed to for decisions upon
questions readily answered by a knowledge and consideration of first
principles resting upon the immutable laws of sound, upon numerical
relations of vibrations. These principles are strictly scientific, and
capable of demonstration.
So long ago as 1828, the American public was told by Philip
Trajetta,[A] that 'if counterpoint be not a science, neither is
astronomy.' For want of proper expounders, this truth has made but
little impression, and, while the Art of Music has advanced considerably
among us, the Science has remained nearly stationary. In Europe,
erudition, research, and collections of rules have not been wanting.
Much has been accomplished, but an exhaustive work, based upon the
simple laws of nature, has (so far as the writer can learn) never yet
appeared. The profoundly learned and truly great Bohemian musician, W.
J. Tomaschek, who died in 1849, taught a system of musical science
founded upon a series of beautiful and easily comprehended natural laws.
His logical training and wide general cultivation gave him advantages
enjoyed by few of his profession. The result of his researches has
unfortunately never been published, and his system of harmony is
_thoroughly_ known only by his more earnest and studious pupils.
[Footnote A: 'An Introduction to the Art and Science of Music,' written
for the American Conservatory of Philadelphia, by Philip Trajetta.
Philadelphia: Printed by I. Ashmead & Co., 1828.
Trajetta was the son of a well-known Italian composer of the same name.
He was a pupil of the celebrated Conservatorio of Naples, and, as I have
been informed, was about to obtain a professorship in the Conservatorio
of Paris, when political circumstances diverted his course to America.
He was the friend of General Moreau and President Madison. Of noble
appearance, fine manners, and sensitive temperament, he for some time
received the consideration due to his talents and acquirements, but, in
after years, was sadly neglected, and finally died in Philadelphia,
almost literally of want. His musical knowledge perished with him; his
manuscripts (operas, oratorios, etc.) were, I believe, all burned by him
before his death. A sad history, and, in a land where there has been so
little opportunity for the beet musical instruction, a strange one!]
To define the provinces of _science_ and _art_, we may briefly say, that
science is concerned with the discovery of demonstrable principles, and
the deduction of undeniable corollaries; while art is occupied with
expression, performance, and the creative faculty with which man has
been endowed. Music and astronomy are both sciences, that is, founded
upon certain fixed and ascertainable laws; but astronomy is no art,
because man has not the power to create, or even remodel worlds, and
send them rolling through space; while he can produce sounds, and
arrange them in such a way as to result in significant meaning and in
beauty, two of the chief ends of art.
The music of different periods in the world's history has rested upon
the various scales recognized during those periods as fundamental, which
scales have been more or less complete as they have approached or
receded from the absolutely fundamental scale as given by nature. The
scales now in use are not identical with the natural scale, but are, in
different degrees, _derived_ from it.
The natural scale is, in its commencement, harmonic, and is found by the
consideration of the natural progression of sound consequent upon the
division and subdivision of a single string. It ought to be familiar to
every student of acoustics. The sound produced by the striking or
twanging of a single string (on a monochord) is called the tonic, and
also, from its position as the lowest note, the bass. If we divide this
string in half, we will obtain a series of vibrations producing a sound
the _same in character_, but, so to speak, _doubly high in pitch_. This
sound is named the octave, because it is the eighth note in our common
diatonic scale. If we divide the string into three parts, the result
will be a sound called the large fifth; a division into four parts gives
the next higher octave of the bass; into five, gives the sound known as
the large third, commonly called major third; into six, the octave, or
next higher repetition, of the large fifth; into seven, the small
seventh; into eight, the third repetition of the octave of the bass. The
progression thus far is hence: Bass--1st octave of bass--large fifth--2d
octave of bass--large third--1st octave of large fifth--small
seventh--3d octave of bass. Employing the alphabetical names of the
notes (always ascending): C--C--G--C--E--G--B flat--C.
This progression may truly be called _natural_, as it is that into which
the string naturally divides itself when stricken. An attentive ear can
readily distinguish the succession of sounds as far as the small
seventh. The longer bass strings of any piano of full tone and resonant
sounding board will suffice for the experiment. These are also the
natural notes as found, with differences in compass, in the simple horn
and trumpet, and the phenomenon is visibly shown in the well-known
experiment of grains of sand placed on a brass or glass plate, and made
to assume various forms and degrees of division under the influence of
certain musical sounds.
This is not the place to elaborate the subject, or to show the
progression of the natural scale as produced by further subdivisions of
the string. Suffice it to say that the remaining notes of the common
diatonic scale are _selected_ (with some slight modifications) from
sounds thus produced. This scale cannot then be considered, in all its
parts, as the fundamental, natural one. Nature permits to man a great
variety of thought and action, provided always he does not too far
infringe her organic laws. She may allow opposing forces to result in
small perturbations, but fundamental principles and their legitimate
consequences must remain intact.
No one can ponder upon the above-mentioned harmonic foundation of the
musical scale without conceiving a new idea of the beauty and
significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be
based upon laws decreed by the Almighty himself. The one consideration
that, in all probability, no single musical sound comes to us alone, but
each one is accompanied by its choir of ascending harmonic sequences, is
sufficient to afford matter for many a wholesome and delightful
meditation.
Instead, then, of regarding our earthly music as a purely human
invention, we may look upon it as a genuine gift from heaven, a
_legitimate_ forerunner of the exalted strains one day to be heard in
the heavenly Jerusalem.
The laws of vibrations producing sound, of undulations giving rise to
light and color, of oscillations resulting in heat, the movements of the
heavenly bodies, the flow of electric and magnetic currents, the
rhythmical beat of the pulse, the unceasing march of mind and human
events, all lead us to the consideration of _motion_ as one of the
greatest of secondary causes in the guidance of the universe. Do we not,
indeed, find the same element in the Divine Trinity of the Godhead, in
the eternal generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy
Spirit?
THOUGHT.
The stars move calm within the brow of night:
No sea of molten flame therein is pent,
Nor meteors, from that burning chaos, blent,
Shoot from their orbits in a maddening flight.
But in the brain is clasped a flood of light,
Whose seething fires can find no form, nor vent,
And pour, through the strained eyeballs, glances, rent
From suffering worlds within, hidden from sight
And laboring for birth. This chaos deep
Touch thou, O Thought! and crystallize to form,
Resolve to order its wild lightning storm
Of meteor dreams! that into life shall leap
At thy command, and move before thy face
In starry majesty, and awful grace.
THE WAR A CONTEST FOR IDEAS.
One of those curious pamphlets, or _brochures_, as they call them, which
the French political writers make the frequent medium of their
discussions, was lately published at Paris, under the title of 'France,
Mexico, and the Confederate States.' It is less a discussion of the
Mexican question than an adroit appeal, under cover of it, in behalf of
the Southern confederacy. It addresses itself to the enthusiastic
temperament of Frenchmen, with the specious sophism, underlying its
argument, that the South is fighting for _ideas_, the North for _power_.
This is a sophism largely current abroad, and not without its dupes even
at home. The purpose of this paper is to expose the nakedness of it.
Fighting for ideas may be a very sublime thing, and it may likewise be a
very ridiculous thing. The valorous knight of La Mancha set forth to
fight for ideas, and he began to wage war with windmills. He fought for
ideas, indeed, but his distempered imagination quite overlooked the fact
that they were ideas long since dead, beyond hope of resurrection. And
it is but the statement of palpable truth to declare that whatever ideas
the South is fighting for now, are of a like obsolete character. The
glory of feudalism, as a system of society, is departed; and its
attendant glories of knight-errantry and human slavery are departed with
it. Don Quixote thought to reestablish the one, and the South deludes
itself with the hope of reestablishing the other. Times and ideas have
changed since the days of feudalism, and the South only repeats in
behalf of slavery the tragic farce of Don Quixote in behalf of
knight-errantry. Both alike would roll back the centuries of modern
civilization, and, reversing the dreams of Plato and Sir Thomas More,
would hope to find a Utopia in the dark ages of the past.
We do not ridicule, much less deny the power of ideas. On the contrary,
we believe heartily in ideas, and in men of ideas. We accept ideas as
forces of civilization, and we would magnify their office as teachers
and helpers of man, in his poor strivings after good. Man is ever
repeating the despondent cry of the Psalmist, 'Who will show us any
good?' It is the mission of ideas, the ministering angels of
civilization, to lift him into a realm of glorious communion with good
and spiritual things, and so inspire him to heroic effort in his work.
Nevertheless, while thus willing to glorify the office of ideas, we hold
them to be of less worth than institutions. That is, ideas, of
themselves, are of little practical value. An idea, disjoined from an
institution, is spirit without body; just as an institution that does
not embody a noble idea, is body without spirit. An idea, to be
effective, must be organized; an institution, to be effective, must have
breathed into it the breath of life, must be vivified with an idea. It
is only thus, in and through institutions, that ideas can exert their
proper influence upon society.
This is, indeed, the American principle of reform. The thorough
conviction of it in the hearts of the American people has thus far saved
us from the anarchy of radicalism, which is ever agitating new ideas;
and is now destined to save us from the bolder-faced anarchy of
revolution, seeking to overthrow our institutions.
But fighting for ideas, what does it mean? The French Revolution (that
great abortion of the eighteenth century and of history) was fought for
ideas, and ended in despotism. Does fighting for ideas mean despotism?
The French Revolution went directly to the root of the question. It
struck, as radicalism can never help but strike, at the very foundations
of society. Hence, in France, the abolition of institutions (the
safeguards of ideas), and the consequent check of the great principles
which the Revolution set out to establish. Thus it is that the French
Revolution has made itself the great example of history, warning nations
against the crude radicalisms of theorists. It is not enough to fight
for ideas--we must fight also for institutions. Yet society seems never
to learn the lesson which Nature never tires of repeating, that all true
growth is gradual. Political science must start with the first axiom of
natural science, that 'Nature acts by insensible gradations.' Radicalism
is not reform. Radicalism and conservatism must combine together to make
reform. An eminent divine and scholar lately illustrated the point thus:
'The arm of progressive power rests always on the fulcrum of stability.'
This statement is exhaustive, and sums up the case.
But let us examine the question of ideas a little more closely, and see
whether, indeed, it is the South or the North that is fighting for ideas
in this contest. And let us interpret ideas, according to the etymology
of the word, to mean those things which the mind _sees_, and the
conscience accepts and recognizes and _knows_, to be just elements, or
principles, of civilization. For it is only such ideas that call forth a
response from the mighty instincts of the masses. The common conscience
of mankind tests the ideas always, as the apostle teaches us to try the
spirits, 'whether they are of God.'
I. THE IDEA OF POLITICAL EQUALITY.
It will hardly be disputed that the great idea of the age is the
democratic idea, or the idea of political equality. It is the idea that
all men are kings, because equals: just as the highest idea of theology
is, at last, that all men are ordained to be priests unto God, The
problem of political philosophy is to make this idea a reality and fact.
Our institutions have this for their sublime mission. We are seeking to
demonstrate, in the American way, the essential truth of those ideas
which failed of their perfect fruit in France, because not rightly
organized and applied. America is the youngest and last-born of the
nations; and to her it has been intrusted to develop the democratic idea
in the system of representative government. Politics is thus made to
harmonize and be at one with progress. The last-born of nations is set
for the teaching and developing of the last-born of governmental
principles. If, moreover, we regard America, according to the teachings
of physical geography, as the first-born of the continents, we may
discover another beautiful harmony. For our democratic system, in basing
itself on the idea of political equality does, in effect, start from the
very first principle of all true government; and this first principle of
government thus finds its temple and home in the first of the
continents.
But let us not be misled by specious names. Let us not mistake for
political equality the crude fancies of idealists, who would reverse the
order of creation, and declare an equality that does not exist.
Political equality neither assumes nor infers social equality; and
therefore is not subversive of social order. It does not presuppose
natural equality; and, therefore, is not contrary to palpable evidence,
and hence unphilosophical and false. Political equality is but the
corollary and logical result of that maxim of our system, set forth in
our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just
powers from the consent of the governed.'
Political equality is, therefore, the essential condition of our
republic. It is the alpha and omega of our political philosophy. It is
the first factor in the problem of our government. It is the organized
idea of our nation, and is embodied in that nation. It is the lifespring
of our institutions. It is the basis of our government. It is what makes
the United States of America the hope of humanity.
While, therefore, political equality may not be the _fact_ of our
government, the nation stands for that idea. The founders of the
government were content with affirming the great idea; and they left to
the benignant influences of time and conscience and Christianity, under
our institutions, the work of reducing the idea to fact. For more than
half a century the work has gone on, and still 'goes bravely on.' In
peace and war the same magnificent Constitution is over us, and that
Constitution, avoiding designedly the odious word slave, is a chart and
covenant of freedom.
Directly opposed to this idea is the organization of the Southern
confederacy--the essential and substantial antipodes of our system. The
United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at
the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our
system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and
foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for
the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the
principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that
this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that
it is now become the headstone of the corner of a divinely instituted
nation. The blasphemy that hesitated not to declare John Brown equal
with Jesus Christ, is hardly worse than this; for John Brown was, at
least, an honest fanatic. The traitorous chiefs of the Southern
rebellion are neither fanatics nor honest men. They have stifled the
voice of conscience, and are bad men.
If their scheme of society is true, then our faith in God, and our faith
in man as the child of God, are false faiths; 'and we are found false
witnesses of God.' For it has been common hitherto to believe in the
loftiest capacities of man, as the child of God, and made in the divine
image; and this belief has had the sanction of all ages. Cheered and
strengthened by such a belief, men have struggled bravely and steadily
against priestcraft and kingcraft, against the absolutism of power in
every form. The magnificent ideal of a government which the masses of
mankind should themselves establish and uphold, has been the quickening
life of all republics since time began. It is the noblest of optimisms;
and, like religion, has never been without a witness in the human soul,
ever inspiring the genius of prophecy and song, ever moving the great
instincts of humanity. Science, fathoming all things, gave expression to
this instinct and hope and belief of the ages in the principle of
political equality as a basis of government. It is, in other words, the
science of political self-government. It was reserved for the nineteenth
century to develop the idea, for the American nation to illustrate its
practical power and its splendid possibilities. The question of man's
capacity for self-government in at issue now in the contest between the
North and South, and its champion is the North.
II. THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY.
There is another idea involved in this war; and, unlike the idea of
political equality, it is sanctioned by the precedents of all ages and
all nations, so as to preclude any possibility that it should now be
disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's
first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of
society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like
the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.
The Southern confederacy is the organized protest of anarchy against
law. It represents in politics that doctrine in religious thought which
declares every man a law unto himself. It kicks against the restraints
of constitutions and laws, declaring virtually that when a law, or a
constitution ordaining laws, ceases to be agreeable, its binding force
is gone. For a similar and equally valid reason, some men (and, alas!
some women), disregarding the solemn sanctions of the marriage tie, have
been willing to set aside this first law of the family and of home. The
Southern confederacy also makes light of national agreements, disposing
of them according to the facile doctrine of repudiation, which its
perjured chief once adopted as the basis of a system of state finance.
It is eminently in accordance with the fitness of things, that the man
who could counsel his State to repudiate its bonds, should stand at the
head of a confederacy which began its existence by repudiating the
sacred agreement to which the faith and fortune of all its members were
solemnly pledged, and under the broad shield of whose protection they
had grown prosperous and powerful. If one may be permitted to express an
opinion different from Mr. Stephens's, it might be said that the corner
stone of the Southern confederacy is properly repudiation. On the other
hand, the cause of the United States is the cause of order. It is also
the cause of freedom.
It is important to note the union of these two forces of civilization;
for hitherto, in the great wars of history, liberty has generally
opposed itself to order, and has too often seemed to be synonymous with
anarchy. The passions of the masses have too often burst forth, in great
revolutions, like volcanic eruptions, carrying devastation and
destruction in their path; The French Revolution stands for the type and
instance of all these terrible catastrophes. This war of ours presents a
different spectacle; for in the maintenance of it the two principles of
freedom and order go hand in hand. It is this union of them which
demands for the United States, in this contest, the support of both the
great parties of civilization--the conservatives and the radicals. It
is, therefore, preeminently a just war, because waged in the combined
interests of liberty and order.
But, it is objected, you, in effect, deny the right of revolution. No;
on the contrary, we establish it. For the right of revolution is no
right for any people unless they have wrongs. The right of revolution is
not an absolute, it is a relative right. Like all such rights, it has
its limitations--the limitation of the public law and the public
conscience. For neither the public law nor the public conscience
sanctions revolution for the sole sake of revolution. That brave old
revolutionist of early Rome, Brutus, understood this well, and though
his country was groaning under the oppression of Tarquin, he sighed for
'a cause.' There must be a cause for revolution, and such a cause as
will commend itself to men's consciences, as well as to the just
principles of law and equity.
Some men seem to think that revolution is, of itself, a blessed thing.
They love change in government for the sake of change. When Julius Caesar
invaded Gaul he found just such men, and he characterized them, in his
terse military way, as those who 'studied new things,' that is, desired
constantly a renewal of public affairs, or renovation of government. He
found these men, moreover, his most ready tools, even in his designs
against their country's liberties; and it would seem as though this
revolutionary characteristic of the early inhabitants of Gaul had
remained impressed upon their descendants ever since.
We repeat that the right of revolution is a limited right. An absolute
and unlimited right of revolution would only be the other extreme of an
absolute and unlimited government; and this is not the age of absolutism
in matters of government. Just as absolute liberty is an impracticable
thing, in the present constitution of human beings, so the absolute
right of revolution, which derives its highest title from the sacred
right of liberty, is equally impracticable. We must be careful how we
use these words liberty and revolution. Words are things in a time of
earnest work like the present. The war is settling the old scholastic
dispute for us, and is making us all realists. Liberty and loyalty and
law are no longer brave words merely: they are things, and things of
tremendous power; and some men slink away from them. But we need to
remember that liberty does not mean license. The political liberty of
our time, testing the truth of our representative democracy, is
constitutional liberty. It presupposes an organic law, giving force and
effect to it: and without this organic law, liberty is a delusion and a
dream--a vague unsubstantiality. Liberty is like the lightning. To be
made an agent of man's political salvation, it must be brought down from
its home in the clouds, and put under the restraints and checks of
institutions. The institutions protect it; it sanctifies the
institutions. In its unchecked power, like the lightning, it annihilates
and overwhelms man. Unchecked, it becomes a reckless license, disgracing
history and its own fair name with such scenes as the French Revolution,
and causing the martyred defenders of its sacred majesty to cry out, in
bitter agony of disappointment: 'O Liberty, what crimes are committed in
thy name!'
In fact, the liberty that is valuable is the liberty that is regulated
by law; just as the law that is valuable is the law that has the spirit
of liberty. This is the American doctrine of constitutional liberty, as
it has ever been expounded by our great statesmen and orators; and it
commends itself to the sound sense of all reflecting men.
In seeking, therefore, to subvert our Constitution, the South attack the
principle of liberty, which is the basis of it, and which it guarantees.
More than this, they attack the principle of constitutional liberty; for
their secession is in virtue of that unchecked liberty which is license,
that absolute liberty which is anarchy. They are not contending for the
sacred right of revolution. It is treason against that majestic
principle to apply it to the cause of the South. They were not
oppressed; they were not even controlled by a dominant party opposed to
them; their will was almost law, for it made our laws. According to the
_theory_ of our Constitution, they possessed equal rights with all other
sections of the Union; under the _practice_ of it, and in _fact_, they
had gradually come to possess and were actually wielding greater power
than all other sections. It is thus seen how vain and absurd is the plea
that they were driven into revolution to redress wrongs, or that they
revolted and seceded for the purpose of preserving rights. Their rights
were neither actually assailed, nor were likely to be assailed. The
protest of that eminent statesman of the South who afterward ('oh, what
a fall was there, my countrymen!') became the second officer of its
traitorous government, is conclusive evidence on this point. The
Southern rebellion is simply and entirely the effort to secure exclusive
control where formerly the South had a joint control. Robert Toombs
said, in a conversation, in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-'61: 'We
intend, sir, to have a government of our own and we won't have any
compromises.' To the same import is the letter of Mason to Davis, in
1856, which has lately seen the light. To one not blinded by prejudice,
indeed, the evidences are overwhelming of a long-plotted conspiracy on
the part of certain leading politicians, without the knowledge and
contrary to the known intentions of the Southern people. The Southern
rebellion is simply the attempt to break up a constitutional government,
by politicians who had become dissatisfied with the natural and
inevitable workings and tendencies of it, even though administered by
themselves. It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we
have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the
idea of government.
We are not seeking to perpetuate oppressive power. On the other hand,
the rebellion is a flagrant attempt to organize oppression. We are
seeking to perpetuate power, it is true, but a power which has stood for
nearly a hundred years, and must continue to stand, if it stand at all,
as a bulwark against oppression. We are vindicating our right to be, as
a nation. We are proving our title to rank among the powers of the
earth. We are vindicating the majesty of our supreme organic law. That
supreme organic law is the Constitution. It ordains for itself a method
of amendment, so as to leave no right of revolution against it. It
admits no right of revolution, because in ordaining and establishing it
the parties to it expressly merged that right in another principle,
adopted to avoid the necessity of a resort to revolution. In other
words, the right of revolution is in our Constitution exalted into the
peaceful principle of amendment. Instead, therefore, of really being
denied, the right of revolution is, indeed, enlarged and consecrated in
our system of government, which rests upon that right. In vindicating
and maintaining, therefore, that system, we vindicate and maintain with
it the right of revolution. But we deny any such thing as a right of
revolution for the sole sake of revolution; because it leads to anarchy.
We deny the right of revolution for the sake of oppression; because it
leads to absolutism. Revolution in the interests of order, justice, and
freedom, we hold to be the only right worthy of the name, and God help
our nation never to oppose such a revolution!
Since the foregoing was written, an article in _Frazer's Magazine_, for
last October, has fallen under the writer's notice, which discusses the
point under consideration, and expresses similar views with those here
stated. An extract from it is given to show how the question is viewed
from a British stand-point:
'The principle of American independence was, that when a
considerable body of men are badly governed and oppressed by a
government under which they live, they have a right to resist and
withdraw from it; and unless everything in the history of England
of which we have been accustomed to boast, from Magna Charta to the
Reform Bill, was a crime, this principle is perfectly true. To deny
to the United States, as most of our public writers did deny to
them, the right of putting down resistance not justified by
oppression, and to impose upon them the duty of submitting at once
to any resistance whatsoever, whether justified or not, was
equivalent to maintaining that chronic anarchy was the only state
of things which could exist in North America.'
It is refreshing to read in a British periodical so clear a statement of
this just distinction. We cannot forbear to cite another extract from
the same article, because it confirms so clearly the argument of this
paper:
'The Dutch fought the Spaniards for their hearths, homes, and
churches; the French fought all Europe with famine and the
guillotine behind them, and empire and plenty in front. The English
in India had the pride of superior race and the memory of
inexpiable injuries to urge them against the Sepoys; but if ever a
nation in this world sacrificed itself deliberately and manfully to
an idea, this has been the case with the Americans.'
What is this idea to which we have thus bravely sacrificed ourselves,
even a phlegmatic Englishman being the judge? It is the idea of the
nation--the idea that the nation is the gift of God, to be cherished and
defended as a sacred trust; and that we can no more rid ourselves of its
obligations than we can rid ourselves of the obligations of home or the
church. To the reckless assertion of those who say that the United
States is, in this war, actuated by the lust for power, and is not moved
by the inspiration of great ideas, we oppose the foregoing candid
statement of a third party, and one not very likely to be prejudiced in
our favor. It is the testimony of an unwilling witness, and therefore of
great weight.
Summing up the points that have been considered in this paper, it seems
clear that so far as the war is a contest for ideas, the North, standing
for the United States, has the right of it. For, first, we contend for
political equality, the grand idea of the age and the ages;
comprehending within itself, and presupposing, as a logical premise, the
grander idea of liberty. Thus also we vindicate the rights of man, as a
fact of government and as a principle of political philosophy. And,
secondly, we contend for the sacred right of order, as opposed to the
destructive radicalism of revolution for the sake of oppression and not
in the name of liberty.