an Alfred and an Edward, of the monarchs of the feudal times, as well
as of the Emperors of Greece and Rome; it was believed at Venice and at
Genoa, in Lucca and the Helvetic nations in the days of their freedom
and greatness; all the barons of the middle ages, all the free cities
of later times, professed the religion we now profess. You know well my
lord, that the charter of British freedom, and the common law of England,
have their origin and source in Catholic times.
2. Who framed the free constitutions of the Spanish Goths? Who preserved
science and literature, during the long night of the middle ages? Who
imported literature from Constantinople, and opened for her an asylum at
Rome, Florence, Padua, Paris and Oxford? Who polished Europe by art, and
refined her by legislation? Who discovered the New World and opened a
passage to another? Who were the masters of architecture, of painting,
and of music? Who invented the compass, and the art of printing? Who were
the poets, the historians, the jurists, the men of deep research, and
profound literature?
3. Who have exalted human nature, and made man appear again little less
than the angels? Were they not almost exclusively the professors of our
creed? Were they who created and possessed freedom under every shape and
form, unfit for her enjoyment? Were men, deemed even now the lights of
the world and the benefactors of the human race, the deluded victims of
a slavish superstition? But what is there in our creed which renders us
unfit for freedom?
4. Is it the doctrine of passive obedience? No, for the obedience we
yield to authority, is not blind, but reasonable? our religion does not
create despotism; it supports every established constitution which is
not opposed to the laws of nature, unless it be altered by those who are
entitled to change it. In Poland it supported an elective monarch; in
France an hereditary sovereign; in Spain, an absolute or constitutional
king indifferently; in England when the houses of York and Lancaster
contended, it declared that he who was king _de facto_ was entitled to
the obedience of the people.
5. During the reign of the Tudors, there was a faithful adherence of the
Catholics to their prince, under trials the most severe and galling,
because the constitution required it; the same was exhibited by them
to the ungrateful race of Stuart; but since the expulsion of James
(foolishly called an abdication), have they not adopted with the nation
at large, the doctrine of the Revolution: “that the crown is held in
trust for the benefit of the people; and that should the monarch violate
his compact, the subject is freed from the bond of his allegiance?”
Has there been any form of government ever devised by man to which the
religion of Catholics has not been accommodated?
6. Is there any obligation, either to a prince, or to a constitution,
which it does not enforce? What, my lord, is the allegiance of man
divided who gives to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar, and to God what belongs
to God? Is the allegiance of the priest divided who yields submission
to his bishop and his king?—of the son who obeys his parent and his
prince? And yet these duties are more distinct than those which we owe
our sovereign and spiritual head. Is there any man in society who has not
distinct duties to discharge?
7. May not the same person be the head of a corporation, and an officer
of the king? a justice of the peace, perhaps, and a bankrupt surgeon,
with half his pay? And are the duties thus imposed upon him, incompatible
one with another? If the Pope can define that the Jewish sabbath is
dissolved, and that the Lord’s day is to be sanctified, may not this
be believed without prejudice to the act of settlement, or that for
the limitation of the crown? If the Church decree that on Fridays her
children should abstain from flesh-meat, are they thereby controlled from
obeying the king when he summons them to war?
CII.—A BIRTH-DAY OFFERING.
DR. NEWMAN.
Dr. John Henry Newman, a distinguished Catholic Ecclesiastic, was
formerly a minister of the Established Church in England, and
leader of what has been called the Puseyite movement. He is a man
of very remarkable ability.
1. Dear Frank, this morn has ushered in
The manhood of thy days;
A boy no more, thou must begin
To choose thy future ways;
To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,
For maintenance of a noble part.
2. And thou a voucher[628] fair hast given,
Of what thou wilt achieve,
Ere age has dimmed thy sunlit heaven
In weary life’s chill eve;
Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace
Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.
3. My brother, we are linked with chain
That time shall ne’er destroy;
Together we have been in pain,
Together now in joy;
For duly I to share may claim
The present brightness of thy name.
4. My brother, ’tis no recent tie
Which binds our fates in one,
E’en from our tender infancy
The twisted thread was spun;—
Her deed, who stored in her fond mind
Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.[629]
5. In her affection all had share,
All six, she loved them all;
Yet on her early-chosen Pair
Did her full favor fall;
And we became her dearest theme,
Her waking thought, her nightly dream.
6. Ah! brother, shall we e’er forget
Her love, her care, her zeal?
We cannot pay the countless debt,
But we must ever feel;
For through her earnestness were shed
Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.
7. Though in the end of days she stood,
And pain and weakness came,
Her force of thought was unsubdued,
Her fire of love the same;
And e’en when memory failed its part,
We still kept lodgment in her heart.
8. And when her Maker from the thrall[630]
Of flesh her spirit freed,
No suffering ’companied the call,
—In mercy ’twas decreed,—
One moment here, the next she trod
The viewless mansion of her God.
9. Now then at length she is at rest,
And, after many a woe,
Rejoices in that Saviour blest,
Who was her hope below;
Kept till the day when he shall own
His saints before His Father’s throne.
10. So it is left for us to prove
Her prayers were not in vain;
And that God’s grace-according love
Has fallen as gentle rain,
Which, sent in the due vernal[631] hour,
Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.
11. Dear Frank, we both are summoned now
As champions of the Lord;—
Enrolled am I, and shortly thou
Must buckle on thy sword;
A high employ, nor lightly given,
To serve as messengers of heaven!
12. Deep in my heart that gift I hide;
I change it not away,
For patriot-warrior’s hour of pride,
Or statesman’s tranquil[632] sway;
For poet’s fire, or pleader’s skill
To pierce the soul and tame the will.
13. O! may we follow undismayed[633]
Where’er our God shall call!
And may His Spirit’s present aid
Uphold us lest we fall!
Till in the end of days we stand,
As victors in a deathless land.
[628] VOUCHˊ-ER, a warrant; a testimony.
[629] EN-SHRINˊ-ED, enclosed.
[630] THRALL, bondage.
[631] VERˊ-NAL, belonging to Spring.
[632] TRANˊ-QUIL, peaceful; undisturbed.
[633] UN-DIS-MAYEDˊ, with courage.
CIII.—SPEECH OF LOGAN, CHIEF OF THE MINGOES.
JEFFERSON.
1. I may challenge the whole of the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero,
and, indeed, of any more eminent orators, if Europe, or the world,
has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to
the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, delivered to Lord Dunmore, when
governor of Virginia. As a testimony of Indian talents in this line, I
beg leave to introduce it, by first stating the incidents necessary for
understanding it.
2. In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed, by some
Indians, upon certain land adventurers[634] on the Ohio river. The whites
in that quarter, according to their custom, undertook to punish this
outrage in a summary[635] way. Captain Michael Cresap, and one Daniel
Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at different times,
traveling and hunting parties of the Indians, who had their women and
children with them, and murdered many. Among these, were unfortunately
the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and war, and long
distinguished as the friend of the whites.
3. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly
signalized[636] himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the
same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhawa,
between the collected forces of the Shawnees, the Mingoes, and the
Delawares, and a detachment[637] of the Virginia militia. The Indians
were defeated, and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen
among the suppliants: but, lest the sincerity of a treaty from which so
distinguished a chief absented himself, should be distrusted, he sent by
a messenger, the following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.
4. “I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin
hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he
clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan
remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for
the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said ‘Logan is
the friend of the white men.’ I had even thought to live with you, but
for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, last spring in cold blood,
and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my
women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any
living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have
killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice
at the beams of peace: but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy
of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his
life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”
[634] AD-VENTˊ-UR-ERS, those who attempt difficult enterprises.
[635] SUMˊ-MA-RY, short; brief.
[636] SIGˊ-NAL-I-ZED, made remarkable.
[637] DE-TACHˊ-MENT, a party sent off from the main body.
CIV.—GOD IS EVERY WHERE.
1. Oh! show me where is He,
The high and holy One,
To whom thou bend’st the knee,
And pray’st, “Thy will be done!”
I hear thy song of praise,
And lo! no _form_ is near:
Thine _eyes_ I see thee raise,
But where doth God appear?
Oh! teach me who _is_ God, and where his glories shine,
That I may kneel and pray, and call _thy_ Father _mine_.
2. “Gaze on that arch above:
The glittering vault admire.
_Who_ taught these orbs to move?
_Who_ lit their ceaseless fire?
_Who_ guides the moon to run
In silence through the skies?
_Who_ bids that dawning sun
In strength and beauty rise?
There view immensity! behold! my God is there:
The sun, the moon, the stars, his majesty declare.
3. “See where the _mountains_ rise;
Where thundering _torrents_ foam;
Where, vailed in towering skies,
The _eagle_ makes his home:
Where savage nature dwells,
My God is present too;
Through all her wildest dells
His footsteps I pursue:
_He_ reared those giant cliffs, supplies that dashing stream,
Provides the daily food which stills the wild bird’s scream.
4. “Look on that world of _waves_,
Where finny nations glide;
Within whose deep, dark caves
The ocean-monsters hide:
His power is sovereign there,
To raise, to quell the storm;
The depths His bounty share,
Where sport the scaly swarm;
Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice,
Which rules the earth and skies, and bids far worlds rejoice.
5. “No human thoughts can soar
Beyond His boundless might;
_He_ swells the thunder’s roar,
_He_ spreads the wings of night.
Oh! praise His works divine!
Bow down thy soul in prayer;
Nor ask for other sign,
That God is everywhere:
The viewless spirit, He—immortal, holy, blest—
Oh! worship Him in faith, and find eternal rest!”
CV.—CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.
BARRINGTON.
Sir Jonah Barrington was born in Ireland in 1767, and died in
1834. He was a member of the Irish Parliament which met in
Dublin before the act of Union in 1800, and which numbered among
its members a great many men of distinguished character and
brilliant talents, such as Grattan, Curran, Plunkett, Flood, and
others. His “Personal Sketches” are racy, humorous, and full of
interesting anecdotes.
1. The Irish people have been as little known, as they have been grossly
defamed, to the rest of Europe. The lengths to which English writers
have proceeded in pursuit of this object would surpass all belief, were
not the facts proved by histories written under the immediate eye and
sanction of Irish governments; histories replete with falsehood, which,
combined with the still more mischievous misrepresentations of modern
writers, form altogether a mass of the most cruel calumnies that ever
weighed down the character of a meritorious[638] people.
2. This system, however, was not without its meaning. From the reign
of Elizabeth, the policy of England has been to keep Ireland in a
state of internal division; perfect unanimity among her inhabitants
has been considered as likely to give her a population and a power
incompatible[639] with subjection,[640] and there are not wanting natives
of Ireland, who, impressed with that erroneous idea, zealously plunge
into the same doctrine, as if they would best prove their loyalty to the
king by vilifying their country.
3. The Irish peasantry, who necessarily compose the great body of the
population, combine in their character many of those singular and
repugnant[641] qualities which peculiarly designate the people of
different nations; and this remarkable contrariety of characteristic
traits pervades almost the whole current of their natural dispositions.
Laborious, domestic, accustomed to want in the midst of plenty, they
submit to hardships without repining, and bear the severest privations
with stoic fortitude. The sharpest wit, and the shrewdest subtilty, which
abound in the character of the Irish peasant, generally lie concealed
under the semblance of dullness, or the appearance of simplicity; and
his language, replete with the keenest humor, possesses an idiom of
equivocation,[642] which never fails successfully to evade a direct
answer to an unwelcome question.
4. Inquisitive, artful, and penetrating, the Irish peasant learns
mankind without extensive intercourse, and has an instinctive knowledge
of the world, without mingling in its societies; and never, in any other
instance, did there exist a people who could display so much address
and so much talent in the ordinary transactions of life as the Irish
peasantry.
5. The Irish peasant has, at all periods, been peculiarly distinguished
for unbounded but indiscriminate[643] hospitality, which, though
naturally devoted to the necessities of a friend, is never denied by him
even to the distresses of an enemy.[644] To be in want or misery, is the
best recommendation to his disinterested protection; his food, his bed,
his raiment, are equally the stranger’s and his own; and the deeper the
distress the more welcome is the sufferer to the peasant’s cottage.
6. His attachments to his kindred are of the strongest nature. The social
duties are intimately blended with the natural disposition of an Irish
peasant; though covered with rags, oppressed with poverty, and perhaps
with hunger, the finest specimens of generosity and heroism are to be
found in his unequaled character.
7. An enthusiastic attachment to the place of their nativity is another
striking trait of the Irish character, which neither time nor absence,
prosperity nor adversity, can obliterate or diminish. Wherever an Irish
peasant was born, there he wishes to die; and, however successful
in acquiring wealth or rank in distant places, he returns with fond
affections to renew his intercourse with the friends and companions of
his youth and his obscurity.
8. An innate spirit of insubordination to the laws has been strongly
charged upon the Irish peasantry; but a people to whom the punishment
of crimes appears rather as a sacrifice to revenge than a measure of
prevention, can never have the same deference to the law as those who
are instructed in the principles of justice and taught to recognize its
equality. It has, however, been uniformly admitted by every impartial
writer on the affairs of Ireland, that a spirit of strict justice has
ever characterized the Irish peasant.[645]
9. Convince him by plain and impartial reasoning, that he is wrong; and
he withdraws from the judgment-seat, if not with cheerfulness, at least
with submission: but, to make him respect the laws, he must be satisfied
that they are impartial; and, with that conviction on his mind, the Irish
peasant is as perfectly tractable as the native of any other country in
the world.
10. An attachment to, and a respect for females, is another
characteristic of the Irish peasant. The wife partakes of all her
husband’s vicissitudes; she shares his labor and his miseries, with
constancy and with affection. At all the sports and meetings of the
Irish peasantry, the women are always of the company; they have a great
influence; and, in his smoky cottage, the Irish peasant, surrounded by
his family, seems to forget all his privations. The natural cheerfulness
of his disposition banishes reflection; and he experiences a simple
happiness, which even the highest ranks of society might justly envy.
[638] MERˊ-I-TOˊ-RI-OUS, having merit, deserving well.
[639] IN-COM-PATˊ-I-BLE, inconsistent.
[640] SUB-JECˊ-TION, under control, being subject to.
[641] RE-PUGˊ-NANT, opposite; inconsistent.
[642] E-QUIVˊ-O-CA-TION, ambiguity of speech.
[643] IN-DIS-CRIMˊ-IN-ATE, not making distinction.
[644] It has been remarked that the English and Irish people form their
judgment of strangers very differently:—an Englishman suspects a stranger
to be a rogue, till he finds that he is an honest man; the Irishman
conceives every person to be an honest man till he finds him out to be
a rogue; and this accounts for the very striking difference in their
conduct and hospitality to strangers.
[645] Sir John Davis, attorney-general of Ireland, who, in the reign of
James the First, was employed by the king to establish the English laws
throughout Ireland, and who made himself perfectly acquainted with the
character of the inhabitants, admits that “there were no people under
heaven, who loved equal and impartial justice better than the Irish.”
CVI.—ADVICE TO A YOUNG CRITIC.
POPE.
1. ’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;
In all you speak, let truth and candor shine;
That not alone what to your sense is due
All may allow, but seek your friendship too.
Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.[646]
2. Some positive, persisting[647] fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so:
But _you_, with pleasure, own your errors past,
And make each day a critic on the last.
’Tis not enough your counsel to be true:
Blunt truths more mischief than slight errors do;
Men must be taught, as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed, as things forgot.
3. Without good breeding truth is disapproved;
That only makes superior sense beloved.
Be niggard[648] of advice on no pretense;
For the worst avarice is that of sense.
With mean complacence[649] ne’er betray your trust
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.
4. But where’s the man who counsel can bestow,
Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know;
Unbiassed, or by favor, or by spite;
Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;
Though learned, well-bred; and, though well-bred, sincere;
Modestly bold, and humanly severe;
Who to a friend his faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the merit of a foe?
5. Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined;
A knowledge both of books and human kind;
Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride,
And love to praise with reason on his side;
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame;
Averse alike to flatter or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend?
[646] DIFˊ-FI-DENCE, want of confidence.
[647] PER-SISTˊ-ING, persevering steadily.
[648] NIGˊ-GARD, meanly; parsimonious.
[649] COM-PLAˊ-CENCE, civility.
CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.
BURKE.
Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such
was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when
England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he
rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman,
to be the great central figure in the array of great names which
shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century.
But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be
added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor
and probity.
1. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789,
the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay,
and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to
indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose.
2. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of
the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by
flight—that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give—that they
were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of
cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with blood, rushed into the chamber
of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards
the bed from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost
naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek
refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for
a moment.
3. This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant
children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and
generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the
most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood,
polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated[650]
carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom.
Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous[651]
slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family, who
composed the king’s body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade
of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the
block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace.
4. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; while
the royal captives, who followed in the train, were slowly moved along,
amidst the horrid yells, and thrilling screams, and frantic dances, and
infamous contumelies,[652] and all the unutterable abominations of the
furies of hell, in the abused shapes of the vilest of women. After they
had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death,
in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted[653] to six
hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very soldiers who had
thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old
palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings....
5. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France,
then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this
orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw
her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere
she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star, full of
life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart I
must have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall!
Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration, to those of
enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged
to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom;
little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen
upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of
cavaliers.