CHAPTER XXIII.

Two days elapsed without any change in Paulina's situation, as she

found it arranged upon her first arrival at Lovenstein. Her rooms were

not incommodious; but the massy barricades at the doors, the grated

windows, and the sentinels who mounted guard upon all the avenues which

led to her apartments, satisfied her sufficiently that she was a

prisoner.

The third morning after her arrival brought her a still more unwelcome

proof of this melancholy truth, in the summons which she received to

attend a court of criminal justice on the succeeding day, connected

with the tenor of its language. Her heart died within her as she found

herself called upon to answer as a delinquent on a charge of

treasonable conspiracy with various members of the university of

Klosterheim, against the sovereign prince, the Landgrave of X----.

Witnesses in exculpation, whom could she produce? Or how defend herself

before a tribunal where all alike--judge, evidence, accuser---were in

effect one and the same malignant enemy? In what way she could have

come to be connected in the Landgrave's mind with a charge of treason

against his princely rights, she found it difficult to explain, unless

the mere fact of having carried the imperial despatches in the trunks

about her carriages were sufficient to implicate her as a secret

emissary or agent concerned in the imperial diplomacy. But she strongly

suspected that some deep misapprehension existed in the Landgrave's

mind; and its origin, she fancied, might be found in the refined

knavery of their ruffian host at Waldenhausen, in making his market of

the papers which he had purloined. Bringing them forward separately and

by piecemeal, he had probably hoped to receive so many separate

rewards. But, as it would often happen that one paper was necessary in

the way of explanation to another, and the whole, perhaps, were almost

essential to the proper understanding of any one, the result would

inevitably be grievously to mislead the Landgrave. Further

communications, indeed, would have tended to disabuse the prince of any

delusions raised in this way. But it was probable, as Paulina had

recently learned in passing through Waldenhausen, that the ruffian's

illness and delirium had put a stop to any further communication of

papers; and thus the misconceptions which he had caused were

perpetuated in the Landgrave's mind.

It was on the third day after Paulina's arrival that she was first

placed before the court. The presiding officer in this tribunal was the

governor of the fortress, a tried soldier, but a ruffian of low habits

and cruel nature. He had risen under the Landgrave's patronage, as an

adventurer of desperate courage, ready for any service, however

disreputable, careless alike of peril or of infamy. In common with many

partisan officers, who had sprung from the ranks in this adventurous

war, seeing on every side and in the highest quarters, princes as well

as supreme commanders, the uttermost contempt of justice and moral

principle, he had fought his way to distinction and fortune, through

every species of ignoble cruelty. He had passed from service to

service, as he saw an opening for his own peculiar interest or merit,

everywhere valued as a soldier of desperate enterprise, everywhere

abhorred as a man.

By birth a Croatian, he had exhibited himself as one of the most savage

leaders of that order of barbarians in the sack of Magdeburgh, where he

served under Tilly; but, latterly, he had taken service again under his

original patron, the Landgrave, who had lured him back to his interest

by the rank of general and the governorship of Lovenstein.

This brutal officer, who had latterly lived in a state of continual

intoxication, was the judge before whom the lovely and innocent Paulina

was now arraigned on a charge affecting her life. In fact, it became

obvious that the process was not designed for any other purpose than to

save appearances, and, if that should seem possible, to extract further

discoveries from the prisoner. The general acted as supreme arbiter in

every question of rights and power that arose to the court in the

administration of their almost unlimited functions. Doubts he allowed

of none; and cut every knot of jurisprudence, whether form or

substance, by his Croatian sabre. Two assessors, however, he willingly

received upon his bench of justice, to relieve him from the fatigue and

difficulty of conducting a perplexed examination.

These assessors were lawyers of a low class, who tempered the exercise

of their official duties with as few scruples of justice, and as little

regard to the restraints of courtesy, as their military principal. The

three judges were almost equally ferocious, and tools equally abject of

the unprincipled sovereign whom they served.

A sovereign, however, he was; and Paulina was well aware that in his

own states he had the power of life and death. She had good reason to

see that her own death was resolved on; still she neglected no means of

honorable self-defence. In a tone of mingled sweetness and dignity she

maintained her innocence of all that was alleged against her; protested

that she was unacquainted with the tenor of any papers which might have

been found in her trunks; and claimed her privilege, as a subject of

the emperor, in bar of all right on the Landgrave's part to call her to

account. These pleas were overruled, and when she further acquainted

the court that she was a near relative of the emperor's, and ventured

to hint at the vengeance with which his imperial majesty would not fail

to visit so bloody a contempt of justice, she was surprised to find

this menace treated with mockery and laughter. In reality, the long

habit of fighting for and against all the princes of Germany had given

to the Croatian general a disregard for any of them, except on the

single consideration of receiving his pay at the moment; and a single

circumstance, unknown to Paulina, in the final determination of the

Landgrave, to earn a merit with his Swedish allies by breaking off all

terms of reserve and compromise with the imperial court, impressed a

savage desperation on the tone of that prince's policy at this

particular time. The Landgrave had resolved to stake his all upon a

single throw. A battle was now expected, which, if favorable to the

Swedes, would lay open the road to Vienna. The Landgrave was prepared

to abide the issue; not, perhaps, wholly uninfluenced to so extreme a

course by the very paper which had been robbed from Paulina. His policy

was known to his agents, and conspicuously influenced their manner of

receiving her menace.

Menaces, they informed her, came with better grace from those who had

the power to enforce them; and, with a brutal scoff, the Croatian bade

her merit their indulgence by frank discoveries and voluntary

confessions. He insisted on knowing the nature of the connection which

the imperial colonel of horse, Maximilian, had maintained with the

students of Klosterheim; and upon other discoveries, with respect to

most of which Paulina was too imperfectly informed herself to be

capable of giving any light. Her earnest declarations to this effect

were treated with disregard. She was dismissed for the present, but

with an intimation that on the morrow she must prepare herself with a

more complying temper, or with a sort of firmness in maintaining her

resolution, which would not, perhaps, long resist those means which the

law had placed at their disposal for dealing with the refractory and

obstinate.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Paulina meditated earnestly upon the import of this parting threat. The

more she considered it, the less could she doubt that these fierce

inquisitors had meant to threaten her with torture. She felt the whole

indignity of such a threat, though she could hardly bring herself to

believe them in earnest.

On the following morning she was summoned early before her judges. They

had not yet assembled; but some of the lower officials were pacing up

and down, exchanging unintelligible jokes, looking sometimes at

herself, sometimes at an iron machine, with a complex arrangement of

wheels and screws. Dark were the suspicions which assaulted Paulina as

this framework or couch of iron first met her eyes; and perhaps some of

the jests circulating amongst the brutal ministers of her brutal judges

would have been intelligible enough, had she condescended to turn her

attention in that direction. Meantime her doubts were otherwise

dispersed. The Croatian officer now entered the room alone, his

assessors having probably declined participation in that part of the

horrid functions which remained under the Landgrave's commission.

This man, presenting a paper with a long list of interrogatories to

Paulina, bade her now rehearse verbally the sum of the answers which

she designed to give. Running rapidly through them, Paulina replied,

with dignity, yet trembling and agitated, that these were questions

which in any sense she could not answer; many of them referring to

points on which she had no knowledge, and none of them being consistent

with the gratitude and friendship so largely due on her side to the

persons implicated in the bearing of these questions.

"Then you refuse?"

"Certainly; there are three questions only which it is in my power to

answer at all--even these imperfectly. Answers such as you expect would

load me with dishonor."

"Then you refuse?"

"For the reasons I have stated, undoubtedly I do."

"Once more--you refuse?"

"I refuse, certainly; but do me the justice to record my reasons."

"Reasons!--ha! ha! they had need to be strong ones if they will hold

out against the arguments of this pretty plaything," laying his hand

upon the machine. "However, the choice is yours, not mine."

So saying, he made a sign to the attendants. One began to move the

machine, and work the screws, or raise the clanking grates and

framework, with a savage din; two others bared their arms. Paulina

looked on motionless with sudden horror, and palpitating with fear.

The Croatian nodded to the men; and then, in a loud, commanding voice,

exclaimed: "The question in the first degree!"

At this moment Paulina recovered her strength, which the first panic

had dispelled. She saw a man approach her with a ferocious grin of

exultation. Another, with the same horrid expression of countenance,

carried a large vase of water.

The whole indignity of the scene flashed full upon her mind. She, a

lady of the imperial house, threatened with torture by the base agent

of a titled ruffian! She, who owed him no duty,--had violated no claim

of hospitality, though in her own person all had been atrociously

outraged!

Thoughts like these flew rapidly through her brain, when suddenly a

door opened behind her. It was an attendant with some implements for

tightening or relaxing bolts. The bare-armed ruffian at this moment

raised his arm to seize hers. Shrinking from the pollution of his

accursed touch, Paulina turned hastily round, darted through the open

door, and fled, like a dove pursued by vultures, along the passages

which stretched before her. Already she felt their hot breathing upon

her neck, already the foremost had raised his hand to arrest her, when

a sudden turn brought her full upon a band of young women, tending upon

one of superior rank, manifestly their mistress.

"0, madam!" exclaimed Paulina, "save me! save me!" and with these words

fell exhausted at the lady's feet.

This female--young, beautiful, and with a touching pensiveness of

manners--raised her tenderly in her arms, and with a sisterly tone of

affection bade her fear nothing; and the respectful manner in which the

officials retired at her command satisfied Paulina that she stood in

some very near relation to the Landgrave,--in reality, she soon spoke

of him as her father. "Is it possible," thought Paulina to herself,

"that this innocent and lovely child (for she was not more than

seventeen, though with a prematurity of womanly person that raised her

to a level with Paulina's height) should owe the affection of a

daughter to a tyrant so savage as the Landgrave?"

She found, however, that the gentle Princess Adeline owed to her own

childlike simplicity the best gift that one so situated could have

received from the bounty of Heaven. The barbarities exercised by the

Croatian governor she charged entirely upon his own brutal nature; and

so confirmed was she in this view by Paulina's own case, that she now

resolved upon executing a resolution she had long projected. Her

father's confidence was basely abused; this she said, and devoutly

believed. "No part of the truth ever reached him; her own letters

remained disregarded in a way which was irreconcilable with the

testimonies of profound affection to herself, daily showered upon her

by his highness."

In reality, this sole child of the Landgrave was also the one sole

jewel that gave a value in his eyes to his else desolate life.

Everything in and about the castle of Lovenstein was placed under her

absolute control; even the brutal Croatian governor knew that no plea

or extremity of circumstances would atone for one act of disobedience

to her orders; and hence it was that the ministers of this tyrant

retired with so much prompt obedience to her commands.

Experience, however, had taught the princess that, not unfrequently,

orders apparently obeyed were afterwards secretly evaded; and the

disregard paid of late to her letters of complaint satisfied her that

they were stifled and suppressed by the governor. Paulina, therefore,

whom a few hours of unrestrained intercourse had made interesting to

her heart, she would not suffer even to sleep apart from herself. Her

own agitation on the poor prisoner's behalf became greater even than

that of Paulina; and as fresh circumstances of suspicion daily arose in

the savage governor's deportment, she now took in good earnest those

measures for escape to Klosterheim which she had long arranged. In this

purpose she was greatly assisted by the absolute authority which her

father had conceded to her over everything but the mere military

arrangements in the fortress. Under the color of an excursion, such as

she had been daily accustomed to take, she found no difficulty in

placing Paulina, sufficiently disguised, amongst her own servants. At a

proper point of the road, Paulina and a few attendants, with the

princess herself, issued from their coaches, and, bidding them await

their return in half an hour's interval, by that time were far advanced

upon their road to the military post of Falkenberg.

CHAPTER XXIV.

In twenty days the mysterious Masque had summoned the Landgrave "to

answer for crimes unatoned, before a tribunal where no power but that

of innocence could avail him." These days were nearly expired. The

morning of the twentieth had arrived.

There were two interpretations of this summons. By many it was believed

that the tribunal contemplated was that of the emperor; and that, by

some mysterious plot, which could not be more difficult of execution

than others which had actually been accomplished by The Masque, on this

day the Landgrave would be carried off to Vienna. Others, again,

understanding by the tribunal, in the same sense, the imperial chamber

of criminal justice, believed it possible to fulfil the summons in some

way less liable to delay or uncertainty than by a long journey to

Vienna, through a country beset with enemies. But a third party,

differing from both the others, understood by the tribunal where

innocence was the only shield the judgment-seat of heaven; and believed

that on this day justice would be executed on the Landgrave, for crimes

known and unknown, by a public and memorable death. Under any

interpretation, however, nobody amongst the citizens could venture

peremptorily to deny, after the issue of the masqued ball, and of so

many other public denunciations, that The Masque would keep his word to

the letter.

It followed, of necessity, that everybody was on the tiptoe of

suspense, and that the interest hanging upon the issue of this night's

events swallowed up all other anxieties, of whatsoever nature. Even the

battle which was now daily expected between the imperial and Swedish

armies ceased to occupy the hearts and conversation of the citizens.

Domestic and public concerns alike gave way to the coming catastrophe

so solemnly denounced by The Masque.

The Landgrave alone maintained a gloomy reserve, and the expression of

a haughty disdain. He had resolved to meet the summons with the

liveliest expression of defiance, by fixing this evening for a second

masqued ball, upon a greater scale than the first. In doing this he

acted advisedly, and with the counsel of his Swedish allies. They

represented to him that the issue of the approaching battle might be

relied upon as pretty nearly certain; all the indications were indeed

generally thought to promise a decisive turn in their favor; but, in

the worst case, no defeat of the Swedish army in this war had ever been

complete; that the bulk of the retreating army, if the Swedes should be

obliged to retreat, would take the road to Klosterheim, and would

furnish to himself a garrison capable of holding the city for many

months to come (and _that_ would not fail to bring many fresh

chances to all of them), whilst to his new and cordial allies this

course would offer a secure retreat from pursuing enemies, and a

satisfactory proof of his own fidelity. This even in the worst case;

whereas in the better and more probable one, of a victory to the

Swedes, to maintain the city but for a day or two longer against

internal conspirators, and the secret cooperators outside, would be in

effect to ratify any victory which the Swedes might gain by putting

into their hands at a critical moment one of its most splendid trophies

and guarantees.

These counsels fell too much into the Landgrave's own way of thinking

to meet with any demurs from him. It was agreed, therefore, that as

many Swedish troops as could at this important moment be spared should

be introduced into the halls and saloons of the castle, on the eventful

evening, disguised as masquers. These were about four hundred; and

other arrangements were made, equally mysterious, and some of them

known only to the Landgrave.

At seven o'clock, as on the former occasion, the company began to

assemble. The same rooms were thrown open; but, as the party was now

far more numerous, and was made more comprehensive in point of rank, in

order to include all who were involved in the conspiracy which had been

some time maturing in Klosterheim, fresh suites of rooms were judged

necessary, on the pretext of giving fuller effect to the princely

hospitalities of the Landgrave. And, on this occasion, according to an

old privilege conceded in the case of coronations or galas of

magnificence, by the lady abbess of St. Agnes, the partition walls were

removed between the great hall of the _schloss_ and the refectory

of that immense convent; so that the two vast establishments, which on

one side were contiguous to each other, were thus laid into one.

The company had now continued to pour in for two hours. The palace and

the refectory of the convent were now overflowing with lights and

splendid masques; the avenues and corridors rang with music; and,

though every heart was throbbing with fear and suspense, no outward

expression was wanting of joy and festal pleasure. For the present, all

was calm around the slumbering volcano.

Suddenly, the Count St. Aldenheim, who was standing with arms folded,

and surveying the brilliant scene, felt some one touch his hand, in the

way concerted amongst the conspirators as a private signal of

recognition. He turned, and recognized his friend the Baron Adelort,

who saluted him with three emphatic words--"We are betrayed!"--Then,

after a pause, "Follow me."

St. Aldenheim made his way through the glittering crowds, and pressed

after his conductor into one of the most private corridors.

"Fear not," said the other, "that we shall be watched. Vigilance is no

longer necessary to our crafty enemy. He has already triumphed. Every

avenue of escape is barred and secured against us; every outlet of the

palace is occupied by the Landgrave's troops. Not a man of us will

return alive."

"Heaven forbid we should prove ourselves such gulls! You are but

jesting, my friend."

"Would to God I were! my information is but too certain. Something I

have overheard by accident; something has been told me; and something I

have seen. Come you, also, count, and see what I will show you: then

judge for yourself."

So saying, he led St. Aldenheim by a little circuit of passages to a

doorway, through which they passed into a hall of vast proportions; to

judge by the catafalques, and mural monuments, scattered at intervals

along the vast expanse of its walls, this seemed to be the ante-chapel

of St. Agnes. In fact it was so; a few faint lights glimmered through

the gloomy extent of this immense chamber, placed (according to the

Catholic rite) at the shrine of the saint. Feeble as it was, however,

the light was powerful enough to display in the centre a pile of

scaffolding covered with black drapery. Standing at the foot, they

could trace the outlines of a stage at the summit, fenced in with a

railing, a block, and the other apparatus for the solemnity of a public

execution, whilst the saw-dust below their feet ascertained the spot in

which the heads were to fall.

"Shall we ascend and rehearse our parts?" asked the count: "for

methinks everything is prepared, except the headsman and the

spectators. A plague on the inhospitable knave!"

"Yes, St. Aldenheim, all is prepared--even to the sufferers. On that

list you stand foremost. Believe me, I speak with knowledge; no matter

where gained. It is certain."

"Well, _necessitas non habet legem_; and he that dies on Tuesday

will never catch cold on Wednesday. But, still, that comfort is

something of the coldest. Think you that none better could be had?"

"As how?"

"Revenge, _par exemple_; a little revenge. Might one not screw the

neck of this base prince, who abuses the confidence of cavaliers so

perfidiously? To die I care not; but to be caught in a trap, and die

like a rat lured by a bait of toasted cheese--Faugh! my countly blood

rebels against it!"

"Something might surely be done, if we could muster in any strength.

That is, we might die sword in hand; but--"

"Enough! I ask no more. Now let us go. We will separately pace the

rooms, draw together as many of our party as we can single out, and

then proclaim ourselves. Let each answer for one victim. I'll take his

highness for my share."

With this purpose, and thus forewarned of the dreadful fate at hand,

they left the gloomy ante-chapel, traversed the long suite of

entertaining rooms, and collected as many as could easily be detached

from the dances without too much pointing out their own motions to the

attention of all present. The Count St. Aldenheim was seen rapidly

explaining to them the circumstances of their dreadful situation;

whilst hands uplifted, or suddenly applied to the hilt of the sword,

with other gestures of sudden emotion, expressed the different

impressions of rage or fear, which, under each variety of character,

impressed the several hearers. Some of them, however, were too

unguarded in their motions; and the energy of their gesticulations had

now begun to attract the attention of the company.

The Landgrave himself had his eye upon them. But at this moment his

attention was drawn off by an uproar of confusion in an ante-chamber,

which argued some tragical importance in the cause that could prompt so

sudden a disregard for the restraints of time and place.

CHAPTER XXV.

His highness issued from the room in consternation, followed by many of

the company. In the very centre of the ante-room, booted and spurred,

bearing all the marks of extreme haste, panic, and confusion, stood a

Swedish officer, dealing forth hasty fragments of some heart-shaking

intelligence. "All is lost!" said he; "not a regiment has escaped!"

"And the place?" exclaimed a press of inquirers. "Nordlingen." "And

which way has the Swedish army retreated?" demanded a masque behind

him.

"Retreat!" retorted the officer, "I tell you there is no retreat. All

have perished. The army is no more. Horse, foot, artillery--all is

wrecked, crushed, annihilated. Whatever yet lives is in the power of

the imperialists."

At this moment the Landgrave came up, and in every way strove to check

these too liberal communications. He frowned; the officer saw him not.

He laid his hand on the officer's arm, but all in vain. He spoke, but

the officer knew not, or forgot his rank. Panic and immeasurable sorrow

had crushed his heart; he cared not for restraints; decorum and

ceremony were become idle words. The Swedish army had perished. The

greatest disaster of the whole 'Thirty Years' War had fallen upon his

countrymen. His own eyes had witnessed the tragedy, and he had no power

to check or restrain that which made his heart overflow.

The Landgrave retired. But in half an hour the banquet was announced;

and his highness had so much command over his own feelings that he took

his seat at the table. He seemed tranquil in the midst of general

agitation; for the company were distracted by various passions. Some

exulted in the great victory of the imperialists, and the approaching

liberation of Klosterheim. Some, who were in the secret, anticipated

with horror the coming tragedy of vengeance upon his enemies which the

Landgrave had prepared for this night. Some were filled with suspense

and awe on the probable fulfilment in some way or other, doubtful as to

the mode, but tragic (it was not doubted) for the result, of The

Masque's mysterious denunciation.

* * * * *

Under such circumstances of universal agitation and suspense,--for on

one side or other it seemed inevitable that this night must produce a

tragical catastrophe,--it was not extraordinary that silence and

embarrassment should at one moment take possession of the company, and

at another that kind of forced and intermitting gayety which still more

forcibly proclaimed the trepidation which really mastered the spirits

of the assemblage. The banquet was magnificent; but it moved heavily

and in sadness. The music, which broke the silence at intervals, was

animating and triumphant; but it had no power to disperse the gloom

which hung over the evening, and which was gathering strength

conspicuously as the hours advanced to midnight.

As the clock struck eleven, the orchestra had suddenly become silent;

and, as no buzz of conversation succeeded, the anxiety of expectation

became more painfully irritating. The whole vast assemblage was hushed,

gazing at the doors, at each other, or watching, stealthily, the

Landgrave's countenance. Suddenly a sound was heard in an ante-room; a

page entered with a step hurried and discomposed, advanced to the

Landgrave's seat, and, bending downwards, whispered some news or

message to that prince, of which not a syllable could be caught by the

company. Whatever were its import, it could not be collected, from any

very marked change on the features of him to whom it was addressed,

that he participated in the emotions of the messenger, which were

obviously those of grief or panic--perhaps of both united. Some even

fancied that a transient expression of malignant exultation crossed the

Landgrave's countenance at this moment. But, if that were so, it was

banished as suddenly; and, in the next instant, the prince arose with a

leisurely motion; and, with a very successful affectation (if such it

were) of extreme tranquillity, he moved forwards to one of the ante-

rooms, in which, as it now appeared, some person was awaiting his

presence.

Who, and on what errand? These were the questions which now racked the

curiosity of those among the company who had least concern in the final

event, and more painfully interested others, whose fate was consciously

dependent upon the accidents which the next hour might happen to bring

up. Silence still continuing to prevail, and, if possible, deeper

silence than before, it was inevitable that all the company, those even

whose honorable temper would least have brooked any settled purpose of

surprising the Landgrave's secrets, should, in some measure, become a

party to what was now passing in the ante-room.

The voice of the Landgrave was heard at times, briefly and somewhat

sternly in reply, but apparently in the tone of one who is thrown upon

the necessity of self-defence. On the other side, the speaker was

earnest, solemn, and (as it seemed) upon an office of menace or

upbraiding. For a time, however, the tones were low and subdued; but,

as the passion of the scene advanced, less restraint was observed on

both sides; and at length many believed that in the stranger's voice

they recognized that of the lady abbess; and it was some corroboration

of this conjecture, that the name of Paulina began now frequently to be

caught, and in connection with ominous words, indicating some dreadful

fate supposed to have befallen her.

A few moments dispersed all doubts. The tones of bitter and angry

reproach rose louder than before; they were, without doubt, those of

the abbess. She charged the blood of Paulina upon the Landgrave's head;

denounced the instant vengeance of the emperor for so great an

atrocity; and, if that could be evaded, bade him expect certain

retribution from Heaven for so wanton and useless an effusion of

innocent blood.

The Landgrave replied in a lower key; and his words were few and rapid.

That they were words of fierce recrimination, was easily collected from

the tone; and in the next minute the parties separated with little

ceremony (as was sufficiently evident) on either side, and with mutual

wrath. The Landgrave reentered the banqueting-room; his features

discomposed and inflated with passion; but such was his self-command,

and so habitual his dissimulation, that, by the time he reached his

seat, all traces of agitation had disappeared; his countenance had

resumed its usual expression of stern serenity, and his manners their

usual air of perfect self-possession.

* * * * *

The clock of St. Agnes struck twelve. At that sound the Landgrave rose.

"Friends and illustrious strangers!" said he, "I have caused one seat

to be left empty for that blood-stained Masque, who summoned me to

answer on this night for a crime which he could not name, at a bar

which no man knows. His summons you heard. Its fulfilment is yet to

come. But I suppose few of us are weak enough to expect--"

"That The Masque of Klosterheim will ever break his engagements," said

a deep voice, suddenly interrupting the Landgrave. All eyes were

directed to the sound; and, behold! there stood The Masque, and seated

himself quietly in the chair which had been left vacant for his

reception.

"It is well!" said the Landgrave; but the air of vexation and panic

with which he sank back into his seat belied his words. Rising again,

after a pause, with some agitation, he said, "Audacious criminal! since

last we met, I have learned to know you, and to appreciate your

purposes. It is now fit they should be known to Klosterheim. A scene of

justice awaits you at present, which will teach this city to understand

the delusions which could build any part of her hopes upon yourself.

Citizens and friends, not I, but these dark criminals and interlopers

whom you will presently see revealed in their true colors, are

answerable for that interruption to the course of our peaceful

festivities, which will presently be brought before you. Not I, but

they are responsible."

So saying, the Landgrave arose, and the whole of the immense audience,

who now resumed their masques, and prepared to follow whither his

highness should lead. With the haste of one who fears he may be

anticipated in his purpose, and the fury of some bird of prey,

apprehending that his struggling victim may be yet torn from his

talons, the prince hurried onwards to the ante-chapel. Innumerable

torches now illuminated its darkness; in other respects it remained as

St. Aldenheim had left it.

The Swedish masques had many of them withdrawn from the gala on hearing

the dreadful day of Nordlingen. But enough remained, when strengthened

by the body-guard of the Landgrave, to make up a corps of nearly five

hundred men. Under the command of Colonel von Aremberg, part of them

now enclosed the scaffold, and part prepared to seize the persons who

were pointed out to them as conspirators. Amongst these stood foremost

The Masque.

Shaking off those who attempted to lay hands upon him, he strode

disdainfully within the ring; and then, turning to the Landgrave, he

said--

"Prince, for once be generous; accept me as a ransom for the rest."

The Landgrave smiled sarcastically. "That were an unequal bargain,

methinks, to take a part in exchange for the whole."

"The whole? And where is, then, your assurance of the whole?"

"Who should now make it doubtful? There is the block; the headsman is

at hand. What hand can deliver from this extremity even you, Sir

Masque?"

"That which has many times delivered me from a greater. It seems,

prince, that you forget the last days in the history of Klosterheim. He

that rules by night in Klosterheim may well expect a greater favor than

this when he descends to sue for it."

The Landgrave smiled contemptuously. "But, again I ask you, sir, will

you on any terms grant immunity to these young men?"

"You sue as vainly for others as you would do for yourself."

"Then all grace is hopeless?" The Landgrave vouchsafed no answer, but

made signals to Von Aremberg.

"Gentlemen, cavaliers, citizens of Klosterheim, you that are not

involved in the Landgrave's suspicions," said The Masque, appealingly,

"will you not join me in the intercession I offer for these young

friends, who are else to perish unjudged, by blank edict of martial

law?"

The citizens of Klosterheim interceded with ineffectual supplication.

"Gentlemen, you waste your breath; they die without reprieve," replied

the Landgrave.

"Will your highness spare none?"

"Not one," he exclaimed, angrily,--"not the youngest amongst them."

"Nor grant a day's respite to him who may appear, on examination, the

least criminal of the whole?"

"A day's respite? No, nor half an hour's. Headsman, be ready. Soldiers,

lay the heads of the prisoners ready for the axe."

"Detested prince, now look to your own!"

With a succession of passions flying over his face,--rage, disdain,

suspicion,--the Landgrave looked round upon The Masque as he uttered

these words, and, with pallid, ghastly consternation, beheld him raise

to his lips a hunting-horn which depended from his neck. He blew a

blast, which was immediately answered from within. Silence as of the

grave ensued. All eyes were turned in the direction of the answer.

Expectation was at its summit; and in less than a minute solemnly

uprose the curtain, which divided the chapel from the ante-chapel,

revealing a scene that smote many hearts with awe, and the consciences

of some with as much horror as if it had really been that final

tribunal which numbers believed The Masque to have denounced.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The great chapel of St. Agnes, the immemorial hall of coronation for

the Landgraves of X----, was capable of containing with ease from seven

to eight thousand spectators. Nearly that number was now collected in

the galleries, which, on the recurrence of that great occasion, or of a

royal marriage, were usually assigned to the spectators. These were all

equipped in burnished arms, the very _élite_ of the imperial army.

Resistance was hopeless; in a single moment the Landgrave saw himself

dispossessed of all his hopes by an overwhelming force; the advanced

guard, in fact, of the victorious imperialists, now fresh from

Nordlingen.

On the marble area of the chapel, level with their own position, were

arranged "a brilliant staff of officers; and, a little in advance of

them, so as almost to reach the ante-chapel, stood the imperial legate

or ambassador. This nobleman advanced to the crowd of Klosterheimers,

and spoke thus:

"Citizens of Klosterheim, I bring you from the emperor your true and

lawful Landgrave, Maximilian, son of your last beloved prince."

Both chapels resounded with acclamations; and the troops presented

arms.

"Show us our prince! let us pay him our homage!" echoed from every

mouth.

"This is mere treason!" exclaimed the usurper. "The emperor invites

treason against his own throne, who undermines that of other princes.

The late Landgrave had no son; so much is known to you all."

"None that was known to his murderer," replied The Masque, "else had he

met no better fate than his unhappy father."

"Murderer! And what art thou, blood-polluted Masque, with hands yet

reeking from the blood of all who refused to join the conspiracy

against your lawful prince?"

"Citizens of Klosterheim," said the legate, "first let the emperor's

friend be assoiled from all injurious thoughts. Those whom ye believe

to have been removed by murder are here to speak for themselves."

Upon this the whole line of those who had mysteriously disappeared from

Klosterheim presented themselves to the welcome of their astonished

friends.

"These," said the legate, "quitted Klosterheim, even by the same secret

passages which enabled us to enter it, and for the self-same purpose,--

to prepare the path for the restoration of the true heir, Maximilian

the Fourth, whom in this noble prince you behold, and whom may God long

preserve!"

Saying this, to the wonder of the whole assembly, he led forward The

Masque, whom nobody had yet suspected for more than an agent of the

true heir.

The Landgrave, meantime, thus suddenly denounced as a tyrant, usurper,

murderer, had stood aloof, and had given but a slight attention to the

latter words of the legate. A race of passions had traversed his

countenance, chasing each other in flying succession. But by a

prodigious effort he recalled himself to the scene before him; and,

striding up to the crowd, of which the legate was the central figure,

he raised his arm with a gesture of indignation, and protested

vehemently that the assassination of Maximilian's father had been

iniquitously charged upon himself.--"And yet," said he, "upon that one

gratuitous assumption have been built all the other foul suspicions

directed against my person."

"Pardon me, sir," replied the legate, "the evidences were such as

satisfied the emperor and his council; and he showed it by the

vigilance with which he watched over the Prince Maximilian, and the

anxiety with which he kept him from approaching your highness, until

his pretensions could be established by arms. But, if more direct

evidence were wanting, since yesterday we have had it in the dying

confession of the very agent employed to strike the fatal blow. That

man died last night, penitent and contrite, having fully unburdened his

conscience, at Waldenhausen. With evidence so overwhelming, the emperor

exacts no further sacrifice from your highness than that of retirement

from public life, to any one of your own castles in your patrimonial

principality of Oberhornstein.--But, now for a more pleasing duty.

Citizens of Klosterheim, welcome your young Landgrave in the emperor's

name: and to-morrow you shall welcome also your future Landgravine, the

lovely Countess Paulina, cousin to the emperor, my master, and cousin

also to your noble young Landgrave."

"No!" exclaimed the malignant usurper, "her you shall never see alive;

for that, be well assured, I have taken care."

"Vile, unworthy prince!" replied Maximilian, his eyes kindling with

passion, "know that your intentions, so worthy of a fiend, towards that

most innocent of ladies, have been confounded and brought to nothing by

your own gentle daughter, worthy of a far nobler father."

"If you speak of my directions for administering the torture,--a matter

in which I presume that I exercised no unusual privilege amongst German

sovereigns,--you are right. But it was not that of which I spoke."

"Of what else, then?--The Lady Paulina has escaped."

"True, to Falkenberg. But, doubtless, young Landgrave, you have heard

of such a thing as the intercepting of a fugitive prisoner; in such a

case, you know the punishment which martial law awards. The governor at

Falkenberg had his orders." These last significant words he uttered in

a tone of peculiar meaning. His eye sparkled with bright gleams of

malice and of savage vengeance, rioting in its completion.

"O, heart--heart!" exclaimed Maximilian, "can this be possible?"

The imperial legate and all present crowded around him to suggest such

consolation as they could. Some offered to ride off express to

Falkenberg; some argued that the Lady Paulina had been seen within the

last hour. But the hellish exulter in ruined happiness destroyed that

hope as soon as it dawned.

"Children!" said he, "foolish children! cherish not such chimeras. Me

you have destroyed, Landgrave, and the prospects of my house. Now

perish yourself.--Look there: is that the form of one who lives and

breathes?"

All present turned to the scaffold, in which direction he pointed, and

now first remarked, covered with a black pall, and brought hither

doubtless to aggravate the pangs of death to Maximilian, what seemed

but too certainly a female corpse. The stature, the fine swell of the

bust, the rich outline of the form, all pointed to the same conclusion;

and, in this recumbent attitude, it seemed but too clearly to present

the magnificent proportions of Paulina.

There was a dead silence. Who could endure to break it? Who make the

effort which was forever to fix the fate of Maximilian?

He himself could not. At last the deposed usurper, craving for the

consummation of his vengeance, himself strode forward; with one savage

grasp he tore away the pall, and below it lay the innocent features,

sleeping in her last tranquil slumber, of his own gentle-minded

daughter!

* * * * *

No heart was found savage enough to exult; the sorrow even of such a

father was sacred. Death, and through his own orders, had struck the

only being whom he had ever loved; and the petrific mace of the fell

destroyer seemed to have smitten his own heart, and withered its hopes

forever.

Everybody comprehended the mistake in a moment. Paulina had lingered at

Waldenhausen under the protection of an imperial corps, which she had

met in her flight. The tyrant, who had heard of her escape, but

apprehended no necessity for such a step on the part of his daughter,

had issued sudden orders to the officer commanding the military post at

Falkenberg, to seize and shoot the female prisoner escaping from

confinement, without allowing any explanations whatsoever, on her

arrival at Falkenberg. This precaution he had adopted in part to

intercept any denunciation of the emperor's vengeance which Paulina

might address to the officer. As a rude soldier, accustomed to obey the

letter of his orders, this commandant had executed his commission; and

the gentle Adeline, who had naturally hastened to the protection of her

father's chateau, surrendered her breath meekly and with resignation to

what she believed a simple act of military violence; and this she did

before she could know a syllable of her father's guilt or his fall, and

without any the least reason for supposing him connected with the

occasion of her early death.

At this moment Paulina made her appearance unexpectedly, to reassure

the young Landgrave by her presence, and to weep over her young friend,

whom she had lost almost before she had come to know her. The scaffold,

the corpse, and the other images of sorrow, were then withdrawn; seven

thousand imperial troops presented arms to the youthful Landgrave and

the future Landgravine, the brilliant favorites of the emperor; the

immense area of St. Agnes resounded with the congratulations of

Klosterheim; and as the magnificent cortege moved off to the interior

of the _schloss_, the swell of the coronation anthem rising in

peals upon the ear from the choir of St. Agnes, and from the military

bands of the imperial troops, awoke the promise of happier days, and of

more equitable government, to the long-harassed inhabitants of

Klosterheim.

* * * * *

The Klosterheimers knew enough already, personally or by questions

easily answered in every quarter, to supply any links which were

wanting in the rapid explanations of the legate. Nevertheless, that

nothing might remain liable to misapprehension or cavil, a short

manifesto was this night circulated by the new government, from which

the following facts are abstracted:

The last rightful Landgrave, whilst yet a young man, had been

assassinated in the forest when hunting. A year or two before this

catastrophe he had contracted what, from the circumstances, was

presumed, at the time, to be a _morganatic_ or left-handed

marriage, with a lady of high birth, nearly connected with the imperial

house. The effect of such a marriage went to incapacitate the children

who might be born under it, male or female, from succeeding. On that

account, as well as because current report had represented her as

childless, the widow lady escaped all attempts from the assassin.

Meantime this lady, who was no other than Sister Madeline, had been

thus indebted for her safety to two rumors, which were in fact equally

false. She soon found means of convincing the emperor, who had been the

bosom friend of her princely husband, that her marriage was a perfect

one, and conferred the fullest rights of succession upon her infant son

Maximilian, whom at the earliest age, and with the utmost secrecy, she

had committed to the care of his imperial majesty. This powerful

guardian had in every way watched over the interests of the young

prince. But the Thirty Years' War had thrown all Germany into

distractions, which for a time thwarted the emperor, and favored the

views of the usurper. Latterly, also, another question had arisen on

the city and dependences of Klosterheim, as distinct from the

Landgraviate. These, it was now affirmed, were a female appanage, and

could only pass back to the Landgraves of X---- through a marriage with

the female inheretrix. To reconcile all claims, therefore, on finding

this bar in the way, the emperor had resolved to promote a marriage for

Maximilian with Paulina, who stood equally related to the imperial

house and to that of her lover. In this view he had despatched Paulina

to Klosterheim, with proper documents to support the claims of both

parties. Of these documents she had been robbed at Waldenhausen; and

the very letter which was designed to introduce Maximilian as "the

child and sole representative of the late murdered Landgrave," falling

in this surreptitious way into the usurper's hand, had naturally

misdirected his attacks to the person of Paulina.

For the rest, as regarded the mysterious movements of The Masque, these

were easily explained. Fear, and the exaggerations of fear, had done

one half the work to his hands, by preparing people to fall easy dupes

to the plans laid, and by increasing the romantic wonders of his

achievements. Coöperation, also, on the part of the very students and

others, who stood forward as the night-watch for detecting him, had

served The Masque no less powerfully. The appearances of deadly

struggles had been arranged artificially to countenance the plot and to

aid the terror. Finally, the secret passages which communicated between

the forest and the chapel of St. Agnes (passages of which many were

actually applied to that very use in the Thirty Years' War) had been

unreservedly placed at their disposal by the lady abbess, an early

friend of the unhappy Landgravine, who sympathized deeply with that

lady's unmerited sufferings.

One other explanation followed, communicated in a letter from

Maximilian to the legate; this related to the murder of the old

seneschal,--a matter in which the young prince took some blame to

himself, as having unintentionally drawn upon that excellent servant

his unhappy fate. "The seneschal," said the writer, "was the faithful

friend of my family, and knew the whole course of its misfortunes. He

continued his abode at the _schloss_, to serve my interest; and in

some measure I may fear that I drew upon him his fate. Traversing late

one evening a suite of rooms, which his assistance and my own

mysterious disguise laid open to my passage at all hours, I came

suddenly upon the prince's retirement. He pursued me, but with

hesitation. Some check I gave to his motions by halting before a

portrait of my unhappy father, and emphatically pointing his attention

to it. Conscience, I well knew, would supply a commentary to my act. I

produced the impression which I had anticipated, but not so strongly as

to stop his pursuit. My course necessarily drew him into the

seneschal's room. The old man was sleeping; and this accident threw

into the prince's hands a paper, which, I have reason to think, shed

some considerable light upon my own pretensions, and, in fact, first

made my enemy acquainted with my existence and my claims. Meantime, the

seneschal had secured the prince's vengeance upon himself. He was now

known as a faithful agent in my service. That fact signed his death-

warrant. There is a window in a gallery which commands the interior of

the seneschal's room. On the evening of the last _fête_,

waiting there for an opportunity of speaking securely with this

faithful servant, I heard a deep groan, and then another, and another;

I raised myself, and, with an ejaculation of horror, looked down upon

the murderer, then surveying his victim with hellish triumph. My loud

exclamation drew the murderer's eye upwards: under the pangs of an

agitated conscience, I have reason to think that he took me for my

unhappy father, who perished at my age, and is said to have resembled

me closely. Who that murderer was, I need not say more directly. He

fled with the terror of one who flies from an apparition. Taking a

lesson from this incident, on that same night, by the very same sudden

revelation of what passed, no doubt, for my father's countenance, aided

by my mysterious character, and the proof I had announced to him

immediately before my acquaintance with the secret of the seneschal's

murder, in this and no other way it was that I produced that powerful

impression upon the prince which terminated the festivities of that

evening, and which all Klosterheim witnessed. If not, it is for the

prince to explain in what other way I did or could affect him so

powerfully."

This explanation of the else unaccountable horror manifested by the ex-

Landgrave on the sudden exposure of The Masque's features, received a

remarkable confirmation from the confession of the miserable assassin

at Waldenhausen. This man's illness had been first brought on by the

sudden shock of a situation pretty nearly the same, acting on a

conscience more disturbed, and a more superstitious mind. In the very

act of attempting to assassinate or rob Maximilian, he had been

suddenly dragged by that prince into a dazzling light; and this

settling full upon features which too vividly recalled to the

murderer's recollection the last unhappy Landgrave, at the very same

period of blooming manhood, and in his own favorite hunting palace, not

far from which the murder had been perpetrated, naturally enough had

for a time unsettled the guilty man's understanding, and, terminating

in a nervous fever, had at length produced his penitential death.

A death, happily of the same character, soon overtook the deposed

Landgrave. He was laid by the side of his daughter, whose memory, as

much even as his own penitence, availed to gather round his final

resting-place the forgiving thoughts even of those who had suffered

most from his crimes. Klosterheim in the next age flourished greatly,

being one of those cities which benefited by the peace of Westphalia.

Many changes took place in consequence, greatly affecting the

architectural character of the town and its picturesque antiquities;

but, amidst all revolutions of this nature, the secret passages still

survive, and to this day are shown occasionally to strangers of rank

and consideration, by which, more than by any other of the advantages

at his disposal, The Masque of Klosterheim was enabled to replace

himself in his patrimonial rights, and at the same time to liberate

from a growing oppression his own compatriots and subjects.

THE SPHINX'S RIDDLE.

The most ancient [Footnote: That is, amongst stories not wearing a

_mythologic_ character, such as those of Prometheus, Hercules, &c.

The era of Troy and its siege is doubtless by some centuries older than

its usual chronologic date of nine centuries before Christ. And

considering the mature age of Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons of

Œdipus, at the period of the "_Seven against Thebes_," which seven

were contemporary with the _fathers_ of the heroes engaged in the

Trojan war, it becomes necessary to add sixty or seventy years to the

Trojan date, in order to obtain that of Œdipus and the Sphinx. Out of

the Hebrew Scriptures, there is nothing purely historic so old as

this.] story in the Pagan records, older by two generations than the

story of Troy, is that of Œdipus and his mysterious fate, which wrapt

in ruin both himself and all his kindred. No story whatever continued

so long to impress the Greek sensibilities with religious awe, or was

felt by the great tragic poets to be so supremely fitted for scenical

representation. In one of its stages, this story is clothed with the

majesty of darkness; in another stage, it is radiant with burning

lights of female love, the most faithful and heroic, offering a

beautiful relief to the preternatural malice dividing the two sons of

Œdipus. This malice was so intense, that when the corpses of both

brothers were burned together on the same funeral pyre (as by one

tradition they were), the flames from each parted asunder, and refused

to mingle. This female love was so intense, that it survived the death

of its object, cared not for human praise or blame, and laughed at the

grave which waited in the rear for itself, yawning visibly for

immediate retribution. There are four separate movements through which

this impassioned tale devolves; all are of commanding interest; and all

wear a character of portentous solemnity, which fits them for

harmonizing with the dusky shadows of that deep antiquity into which

they ascend.

One only feature there is in the story, and this belongs to its second

stage (which is also its sublimest stage), where a pure taste is likely

to pause, and to revolt as from something not perfectly reconciled with

the general depth of the coloring. This lies in the Sphinx's riddle,

which, as hitherto explained, seems to us deplorably below the grandeur

of the occasion. Three thousand years, at the least, have passed away

since that riddle was propounded; and it seems odd enough that the

proper solution should not present itself till November of 1849. That

is true; it seems odd, but still it is possible, that we, in _anno

domini_ 1849, may see further through a mile-stone than Œdipus, the

king, in the year B. c. twelve or thirteen hundred. The long interval

between the enigma and its answer may remind the reader of an old story

in Joe Miller, where a traveller, apparently an inquisitive person, in

passing-through a toll-bar, said to the keeper, "How do you like your

eggs dressed?" Without waiting for the answer, he rode off; but twenty-

five years later, riding through the same bar, kept by the same man,

the traveller looked steadfastly at him, and received the monosyllabic

answer, "_Poached_." A long parenthesis is twenty-five years; and

we, gazing back over a far wider gulf of time, shall endeavor to look

hard at the Sphinx, and to convince that mysterious young lady,--if our

voice can reach her,--that she was too easily satisfied with the answer

given; that the true answer is yet to come; and that, in fact, Œdipus

shouted before he was out of the wood.

But, first of all, let us rehearse the circumstances of this old

Grecian story. For in a popular journal it is always a duty to assume

that perhaps three readers out of four may have had no opportunity, by

the course of their education, for making themselves acquainted with

classical legends. And in this present case, besides the

indispensableness of the story to the proper comprehension of our own

improved answer to the Sphinx, the story has a separate and independent

value of its own; for it illustrates a profound but obscure idea of

Pagan ages, which is connected with the elementary glimpses of man into

the abysses of his higher relations, and lurks mysteriously amongst

what Milton so finely calls "the dark foundations" of our human nature.

This notion it is hard to express in modern phrase, for we have no idea

exactly corresponding to it; but in Latin it was called _piacularity_.

The reader must understand upon our authority, _nostro periculo_, and

in defiance of all the false translations spread through books, that

the ancients (meaning the Greeks and Romans before the time of

Christianity) had no idea, not by the faintest vestige, of what in the

scriptural system is called _sin_. The Latin word _peccatum_, the Greek

word _amartia_, are translated continually by the word _sin_; but

neither one word nor the other has any such meaning in writers

belonging to the pure classical period. When baptized into new meaning

by the adoption of Christianity, these words, in common with many

others, transmigrated into new and philosophic functions. But

originally they tended towards no such acceptations, nor _could_ have

done so; seeing that the ancients had no avenue opened to them through

which the profound idea of _sin_ would have been even dimly

intelligible. Plato, four hundred years before Christ, or Cicero, more

than three hundred years later, was fully equal to the idea of _guilt_

through all its gamut; but no more equal to the idea of _sin_, than a

sagacious hound to the idea of gravitation, or of central forces. It is

the tremendous postulate upon which this idea reposes that constitutes

the initial moment of that revelation which is common to Judaism and to

Christianity. We have no intention of wandering into any discussion

upon this question. It will suffice for the service of the occasion if

we say that guilt, in all its modifications, implies only a defect or a

wound in the individual. Sin, on the other hand, the most mysterious,

and the most sorrowful of all ideas, implies a taint not in the

individual but in the race--_that_ is the distinction; or a taint

in the individual, not through any local disease of his own, but

through a scrofula equally diffused through the infinite family of man.

We are not speaking controversially, either as teachers of theology or

of philosophy; and we are careless of the particular construction by

which the reader interprets to himself this profound idea. What we

affirm is, that this idea was utterly and exquisitely inappreciable by

Pagan Greece and Rome; that various translations from Pindar,

[Footnote: And when we are speaking of this subject, it may be proper

to mention (as the very extreme anachronism which the case admits of)

that Mr. Archdeacon W. has absolutely introduced the idea of sin into

the "Iliad;" and, in a regular octavo volume, has represented it as the

key to the whole movement of the fable. It was once made a reproach to

Southey that his Don Roderick spoke, in his penitential moods, a

language too much resembling that of Methodism; yet, after all, that

prince was a Christian, and a Christian amongst Mussulmans. But what

are we to think of Achilles and Patroclus, when described as being (or

_not_ being) "under convictions of sin"?] from Aristophanes, and

from the Greek tragedians, embodying at intervals this word _sin_,

are more extravagant than would be the word _category_ introduced

into the harangue of an Indian sachem amongst the Cherokees; and

finally that the very nearest approach to the abysmal idea which we

Christians attach to the word sin--(an approach, but to that which

never can be touched--a writing as of palmistry upon each man's hand,

but a writing which "no man can read")--lies in the Pagan idea of

_piacularity_; which is an idea thus far like hereditary sin, that

it expresses an evil to which the party affected has not consciously

concurred; which is thus far _not_ like hereditary sin, that it

expresses an evil personal to the individual, and not extending itself

to the race.

This was the evil exemplified in Œdipus. He was loaded with an

insupportable burthen of pariah participation in pollution and misery,

to which his will had never consented. He seemed to have committed the

most atrocious crimes; he was a murderer, he was a parricide, he was

doubly incestuous, and yet how? In the case where he might be thought a

murderer, he had stood upon his self-defence, not benefiting by any

superior resources, but, on the contrary, fighting as one man against

three, and under the provocation of insufferable insolence. Had he been

a parricide? What matter, as regarded the moral guilt, if his father

(and by the fault of that father) were utterly unknown to him?

Incestuous had he been? but how, if the very oracles of fate, as

expounded by events and by mysterious creatures such as the Sphinx, had

stranded him, like a ship left by the tide, upon this dark unknown

shore of a criminality unsuspected by himself? All these treasons

against the sanctities of nature had Œdipus committed; and yet was this

Œdipus a thoroughly good man, no more dreaming of the horrors in which

he was entangled, than the eye at noonday in midsummer is conscious of

the stars that lie far behind the daylight. Let us review rapidly the

incidents of his life.

Laius, King of Thebes, the descendant of Labdacus, and representing the

illustrious house of the Labdacidae, about the time when his wife,

Jocasta, promised to present him with a child, had learned from various

prophetic voices that this unborn child was destined to be his

murderer. It is singular that in all such cases, which are many, spread

through classical literature, the parties menaced by fate believe the

menace; else why do they seek to evade it? and yet believe it not; else

why do they fancy themselves able to evade it? This fatal child, who

was the Œdipus of tragedy, being at length born, Laius committed the

infant to a slave, with orders to expose it on Mount Cithæron. This was

done; the infant was suspended, by thongs running through the fleshy

parts of his feet, to the branches of a tree, and he was supposed to

have perished by wild beasts. But a shepherd, who found him in this

perishing state, pitied his helplessness, and carried him to his master

and mistress, King and Queen of Corinth, who adopted and educated him

as their own child. That he was _not_ their own child, and that in

fact he was a foundling of unknown parentage, Œdipus was not slow of

finding from the insults of his schoolfellows; and at length, with the

determination of learning his origin and his fate, being now a full-

grown young man, he strode off from Corinth to Delphi. The oracle at

Delphi, being as usual in collusion with his evil destiny, sent him off

to seek his parents at Thebes. On his journey thither, he met, in a

narrow part of the road, a chariot proceeding in the counter direction

from Thebes to Delphi. The charioteer, relying upon the grandeur of his

master, insolently ordered the young stranger to clear the road; upon

which, under the impulse of his youthful blood, Œdipus slew him on the

spot. The haughty grandee who occupied the chariot rose up in fury to

avenge this outrage, fought with the young stranger, and was himself

killed. One attendant upon the chariot remained; but he, warned by the

fate of his master and his fellow-servant, withdrew quietly into the

forest that skirted the road, revealing no word of what had happened,

but reserved, by the dark destiny of Œdipus, to that evil day on which

_his_ evidence, concurring with other circumstantial exposures,

should convict the young Corinthian emigrant of parricide. For the

present, Œdipus viewed himself as no criminal, but much rather as an

injured man, who had simply used his natural powers of self-defence

against an insolent aggressor. This aggressor, as the reader will

suppose, was Laius. The throne therefore was empty, on the arrival of

Œdipus in Thebes; the king's death was known, but not the mode of it;

and that Œdipus was the murderer could not reasonably be suspected

either by the people of Thebes, or by Œdipus himself. The whole affair

would have had no interest for the young stranger; but, through the

accident of a public calamity then desolating the land, a mysterious

monster, called the Sphinx, half woman and half lion, was at that time

on the coast of Boeotia, and levying a daily tribute of human lives

from the Boeotian territory. This tribute, it was understood, would

continue to be levied from the territories attached to Thebes, until a

riddle proposed by the monster should have been satisfactorily solved.

By way of encouragement to all who might feel prompted to undertake so

dangerous an adventure, the authorities of Thebes offered the throne

and the hand of the widowed Jocasta as the prize of success; and

Œdipus, either on public or on selfish motives, entered the lists as a

competitor.

The riddle proposed by the Sphinx ran in these terms: "What creature is

that which moves on four feet in the morning, on two feet at noonday,

and on three towards the going down of the sun?" Œdipus, after some

consideration, answered that the creature was MAN, who creeps on the

ground with hands and feet when an infant, walks upright in the vigor

of manhood, and leans upon a staff in old age. Immediately the dreadful

Sphinx confessed the truth of his solution by throwing herself headlong

from a point of rock into the sea; her power being overthrown as soon

as her secret had been detected. Thus was the Sphinx destroyed; and,

according to the promise of the proclamation, for this great service to

the state Œdipus was immediately recompensed. He was saluted King of

Thebes, and married to the royal widow Jocasta. In this way it

happened, but without suspicion either in himself or others, pointing

to the truth, that Œdipus had slain his father, had ascended his

father's throne, and had married his own mother.

Through a course of years all these dreadful events lay hushed in

darkness; but at length a pestilence arose, and an embassy was

despatched to Delphi, in order to ascertain the cause of the heavenly

wrath, and the proper means of propitiating that wrath. The embassy

returned to Thebes armed with a knowledge of the fatal secrets

connected with Œdipus, but under some restraints of prudence in making

a publication of what so dreadfully affected the most powerful

personage in the state. Perhaps, in the whole history of human art as

applied to the evolution of a poetic fable, there is nothing more

exquisite than the management of this crisis by Sophocles. A natural

discovery, first of all, connects Œdipus with the death of Laius. That

discovery comes upon him with some surprise, but with no shock of fear

or remorse. That he had killed a man of rank in a sudden quarrel, he

had always known; that this man was now discovered to be Laius, added

nothing to the reasons for regret. The affair remained as it was. It

was simply a case of personal strife on the high road, and one which

had really grown out of aristocratic violence in the adverse party.

Œdipus had asserted his own rights and dignity only as all brave men

would have done in an age that knew nothing of civic police.

It was true that this first discovery--the identification of himself as

the slayer of Laius--drew after it two others, namely, that it was the

throne of his victim on which he had seated himself, and that it was

_his_ widow whom he had married. But these were no offences; and,

on the contrary, they were distinctions won at great risk to himself,

and by a great service to the country. Suddenly, however, the

reappearance and disclosures of the shepherd who had saved his life

during infancy in one moment threw a dazzling but funereal light upon

the previous discoveries that else had seemed so trivial. In an instant

everything was read in another sense. The death of Laius, the marriage

with his widow, the appropriation of his throne, all towered into

colossal crimes, illimitable, and opening no avenues to atonement.

Œdipus, in the agonies of his horror, inflicts blindness upon himself;

Jocasta commits suicide; the two sons fall into fiery feuds for the

assertion of their separate claims on the throne, but previously unite

for the expulsion of Œdipus, as one who had become a curse to Thebes.

And thus the poor, heart-shattered king would have been turned out upon

the public roads, aged, blind, and a helpless vagrant, but for the

sublime piety of his two daughters, but especially of Antigone, the

elder. They share with their unhappy father the hardships and perils of

the road, and do not leave him until the moment of his mysterious

summons to some ineffable death in the woods of Colonus. The expulsion

of Polynices, the younger son, from Thebes; his return with a

confederate band of princes for the recovery of his rights; the death

of the two brothers in single combat; the public prohibition of funeral

rights to Polynices, as one who had levied war against his native land;

and the final reappearance of Antigone, who defies the law, and secures

a grave to her brother at the certain price of a grave to herself--

these are the sequels and arrears of the family overthrow accomplished

through the dark destiny of Œdipus.

And now, having reviewed the incidents of the story, in what respect is

it that we object to the solution of the Sphinx's riddle? We do not

object to it as _a_ solution of the riddle, and the only one

possible at the moment; but what we contend is, that it is not

_the_ solution. All great prophecies, all great mysteries, are

likely to involve double, triple, or even quadruple interpretations--

each rising in dignity, each cryptically involving another. Even

amongst natural agencies, precisely as they rise in grandeur, they

multiply their final purposes. Rivers and seas, for instance, are

useful, not merely as means of separating nations from each other, but

also as means of uniting them; not merely as baths and for all purposes

of washing and cleansing, but also as reservoirs of fish, as high-roads

for the conveyance of commodities, as permanent sources of agricultural

fertility, &c. In like manner, a mystery of any sort, having a public

reference, may be presumed to couch within it a secondary and a

profounder interpretation. The reader may think that the Sphinx ought

to have understood her own riddle best; and that, if _she_ were

satisfied with the answer of Œdipus, it must be impertinent in us at

this time of day to censure it. To censure, indeed, is more than we

propose. The solution of Œdipus was a true one; and it was all that he

_could_ have given in that early period of his life. But, perhaps,

at the moment of his death amongst the gloomy thickets of Attica, he

might have been able to suggest another and a better. If not, then we

have the satisfaction of thinking ourselves somewhat less dense than

Œdipus; for, in our opinion, the full and _final_ answer to the

Sphinx's riddle lay in the word ŒDIPUS. Œdipus himself it was that

fulfilled the conditions of the enigma. He it was, in the most pathetic

sense, that went upon four feet when an infant; for the general

condition of helplessness attached to all mankind in the period of

infancy, and which is expressed symbolically by this image of creeping,

applied to Œdipus in a far more significant manner, as one abandoned by

all his natural protectors, thrown upon the chances of a wilderness,

and upon the mercies of a slave. The allusion to this general

helplessness had, besides, a special propriety in the case of Œdipus,

who drew his very name (_Swollen-foot_) from the injury done to

his infant feet. He, again, it was that, in a more emphatic sense than

usual, asserted that majestic self-sufficientness and independence of

all alien aid, which is typified by the act of walking upright at

noonday upon his own natural basis. Throwing off all the power and

splendor borrowed from his royal protectors at Corinth, trusting

exclusively to his native powers as a man, he had fought his way

through insult to the presence of the dreadful Sphinx; her he had

confounded and vanquished; he had leaped into a throne,--the throne of

him who had insulted him,--without other resources than such as he drew

from himself, and he had, in the same way, obtained a royal bride. With

good right, therefore, he was foreshadowed in the riddle as one who

walked upright by his own masculine vigor, and relied upon no gifts but

those of nature. Lastly, by a sad but a pitying image, Œdipus is

described as supporting himself at nightfall on three feet; for Œdipus

it was that by his cruel sons would have been rejected from Thebes,

with no auxiliary means of motion or support beyond his own languishing

powers: blind and broken-hearted, he must have wandered into snares and

ruin; his own feet must have been supplanted immediately: but then came

to his aid another foot, the holy Antigone. She it was that guided and

cheered him, when all the world had forsaken him; she it was that

already, in the vision of the cruel Sphinx, had been prefigured dimly

as the staff upon which Œdipus should lean, as the _third_ foot

that should support his steps when the deep shadows of his sunset were

gathering and settling about his grave.

In this way we obtain a solution of the Sphinx's riddle more

commensurate and symmetrical with the other features of the story,

which are all clothed with the grandeur of mystery. The Sphinx herself

is a mystery. Whence came her monstrous nature, that so often renewed

its remembrance amongst men of distant lands, in Egyptian or Ethiopian

marble? Whence came her wrath against Thebes? This wrath, how durst it

tower so high as to measure itself against the enmity of a nation? This

wrath, how came it to sink so low as to collapse at the echo of a word

from a friendless stranger? Mysterious again is the blind collusion of

this unhappy stranger with the dark decrees of fate. The very

misfortunes of his infancy had given into his hands one chance more for

escape: these misfortunes had transferred him to Corinth, and staying

_there_ he was safe. But the headstrong haughtiness of youthful

blood causes him to recoil unknowingly upon the one sole spot of all

the earth where the coefficients for ratifying his destruction are

waiting and lying in ambush. Heaven and earth are silent for a

generation; one might fancy that they are _treacherously_ silent,

in order that Œdipus may have time for building up to the clouds the

pyramid of his mysterious offences. His four children, incestuously

born, sons that are his brothers, daughters that are his sisters, have

grown up to be men and women, before the first mutterings are becoming

audible of that great tide slowly coming up from the sea, which is to

sweep away himself and the foundations of his house. Heaven and earth

must now bear joint witness against him. Heaven speaks first: the

pestilence that walketh in darkness is made the earliest minister of

the discovery,--the pestilence it is, scourging the seven-gated Thebes,

as very soon the Sphinx will scourge her, that is appointed to usher

in, like some great ceremonial herald, that sad drama of Nemesis,--that

vast procession of revelation and retribution which the earth, and the

graves of the earth, must finish. Mysterious also is the pomp of ruin

with which this revelation of the past descends upon that ancient house

of Thebes. Like a shell from modern artillery, it leaves no time for

prayer or evasion, but shatters by the same explosion all that stand

within its circle of fury. Every member of that devoted household, as

if they had been sitting--not around a sacred domestic hearth, but

around the crater of some surging volcano--all alike, father and

mother, sons and daughters, are wrapt at once in fiery whirlwinds of

ruin. And, amidst this general agony of destroying wrath, one central

mystery, as a darkness within a darkness, withdraws itself into a

secrecy unapproachable by eyesight, or by filial love, or by guesses of

the brain--and _that_ is the death of Œdipus. _Did_ he die? Even

_that_ is more than we can say. How dreadful does the sound fall

upon the heart of some poor, horror-stricken criminal, pirate or

murderer, that has offended by a mere human offence, when, at

nightfall, tempted by the sweet spectacle of a peaceful hearth, he

creeps stealthily into some village inn, and hopes for one night's

respite from his terror, but suddenly feels the touch, and hears the

voice, of the stern officer, saying, "Sir, you are wanted." Yet that

summons is but too intelligible; it shocks, but it bewilders not; and

the utmost of its malice is bounded by the scaffold. "Deep," says the

unhappy man, "is the downward path of anguish which I am called to

tread; but it has been trodden by others." For Œdipus there was no such

comfort. What language of man or trumpet of angel could decipher the

woe of that unfathomable call, when, from the depth of ancient woods, a

voice that drew like gravitation, that sucked in like a vortex, far off

yet near, in some distant world yet close at hand, cried, "Hark,

Œdipus! King Œdipus! come hither! thou art wanted!" _Wanted!_ for

what? Was it for death? was it for judgment? was it for some wilderness

of pariah eternities? No man ever knew. Chasms opened in the earth;

dark gigantic arms stretched out to receive the king; clouds and vapor

settled over the penal abyss; and of him only, though the neighborhood

of his disappearance was known, no trace or visible record survived--

neither bones, nor grave, nor dust, nor epitaph.

Did the Sphinx follow with her cruel eye this fatal tissue of calamity

to its shadowy crisis at Colonus? As the billows closed over her head,

did she perhaps attempt to sting with her dying words? Did she say, "I,

the daughter of mystery, am _called_; I am _wanted_. But, amidst the

uproar of the sea, and the clangor of sea-birds, high over all I hear

another though a distant summons. I can hear that thou, Œdipus, the son

of mystery, art _called_ from afar: thou also wilt be _wanted_." Did

the wicked Sphinx labor in vain, amidst her parting convulsions, to

breathe this freezing whisper into the heart of him that had overthrown

her?

Who can say? Both of these enemies were pariah mysteries, and may have

faced each other again with blazing malice in some pariah world. But

all things in this dreadful story ought to be harmonized. Already in

itself it is an ennobling and an idealizing of the riddle, that it is

made a double riddle; that it contains an exoteric sense obvious to all

the world, but also an esoteric sense--now suggested conjecturally

after thousands of years--_possibly_ unknown to the Sphinx, and

_certainly_ unknown to Œdipus; that this second riddle is hid

within the first; that the one riddle is the secret commentary upon the

other; and that the earliest is the hieroglyphic of the last. Thus far

as regards the riddle itself; and, as regards Œdipus in particular, it

exalts the mystery around him, that in reading this riddle, and in

tracing the vicissitudes from infancy to old age, attached to the

general destiny of his race, unconsciously he was tracing the dreadful

vicissitudes attached specially and separately to his own.

THE TEMPLARS' DIALOGUES.

DIALOGUES.

ORIGINAL ADVERTISEMENT, IN APRIL, 1824.

I have resolved to fling my analysis of Mr. Ricardo's system into the

form of Dialogues. A few words will suffice to determine the principles

of criticism which can fairly be applied to such a form of composition

on such a subject. It cannot reasonably be expected that dialogues on

Political Economy should pretend to the appropriate beauty of dialogues

_as_ dialogues, by throwing any dramatic interest into the parts

sustained by the different speakers, or any characteristic distinctions

into their style. Elegance of this sort, if my time had allowed of it,

or I had been otherwise capable of producing it, would have been here

misplaced. Not that I would say even of Political Economy, in the words

commonly applied to such subjects, that "_Ornari res ipsa negat,

contenta doceri:_" for all things have their peculiar beauty and

sources of ornament--determined by their ultimate ends, and by the

process of the mind in pursuing them. Here, as in the processes of

nature and in mathematical demonstrations, the appropriate elegance is

derived from the simplicity of the means employed, as expressed in the

"Lex Parcimoniæ" ("Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri fas erat per

pauciora"), and other maxims of that sort. This simplicity, however,

must be looked for in the order and relation of the thoughts, and in

the steps through which they are trained to lead into each other,

rather than in any anxious conciseness as to words; which, on the

contrary, I have rather sought to avoid in the earlier Dialogues, in

order that I might keep those distinctions longer before the reader

from which all the rest were to be derived. For he who has fully

mastered the doctrine of Value is already a good political economist.

Now, if any man should object, that in the following dialogues I have

uniformly given the victory to myself, he will make a pleasant logical

blunder: for the true logic of the case is this: Not that it is myself

to whom I give the victory; but that he to whom I give the victory (let

me call him by what name I will) is of necessity myself; since I cannot

be supposed to have put triumphant arguments into any speaker's mouth,

unless they had previously convinced my own understanding. Finally, let

me entreat the reader not to be impatient under the disproportionate

length (as he may fancy it) of the opening discussions on Value: even

for its own sake, the subject is a matter of curious speculation; but

in relation to Political Economy it is all in all; for most of the

errors (and, what is much worse than errors, most of the perplexities)

prevailing in this science take their rise from this source. Mr.

Ricardo is the first writer who has thrown light on the subject; and

even he, in the last edition of his book, still found it a "difficult"

one (see the Advertisement to the Third Edition). What a Ricardo has

found difficult, cannot be adequately discussed in few words; but, if

the reader will once thoroughly master this part of the science, all

the rest will cost him hardly any effort at all.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE.

(SPEAKERS THROUGHOUT THE DIALOGUES ARE PHÆDRUS, PHILEBUS, AND X. Y. Z.)

_Phædrus_. This, Philebus, is my friend X. Y. Z., whom I have long

wished to introduce to you; he has some business which calls him into

this quarter of the town for the next fortnight; and during that time

he has promised to dine with me; and we are to discuss together the

modern doctrines of Political Economy; most of which, he tells me, are

due to Mr. Ricardo. Or rather, I should say, that I am to become his

pupil; for I pretend to no regular knowledge of Political Economy,

having picked up what little I possess in a desultory way amongst the

writers of the old school; and, out of that little, X. obligingly tells

me that three fourths are rotten. I am glad, therefore, that you are in

town at this time, and can come and help me to contradict him. Meantime

X. has some right to play the tutor amongst us; for he has been a

regular student of the science: another of his merits is, that he is a

Templar as well as ourselves, and a good deal senior to either of us.

_Philebus_. And for which of his merits is it that you would have

me contradict him?

_Phæd_. O, no matter for his merits, which doubtless are past all

computation, but generally as a point of hospitality. For I am of the

same opinion as M----, a very able friend of mine in Liverpool, who

looks upon it as criminal to concede anything a man says in the process

of a disputation: the nefarious habit of assenting (as he justly says)

being the pest of conversation, by causing it to stagnate. On this

account he often calls aside the talking men of the party before

dinner, and conjures them with a pathetic earnestness not to agree with

him in anything he may advance during the evening; and at his own

table, when it has happened that strangers were present who indulged

too much in the habit of politely assenting to anything which seemed to

demand no particular opposition, I have seen him suddenly pause with

the air of the worst-used man in the world, and exclaim, "Good heavens!

is there to be no end to this? Am I _never_ to be contradicted? I

suppose matters will soon come to that pass that my nearest relations

will be perfidiously agreeing with me; the very wife of my bosom will

refuse to contradict me; and I shall not have a friend left on whom I

can depend for the consolations of opposition."

_Phil_. Well, Phædrus, if X. Y. Z. is so much devoted as you

represent to the doctrines of Mr. Ricardo, I shall perhaps find myself

obliged to indulge your wishes in this point more than my own taste in

conversation would lead me to desire.

_X_. And what, may I ask, is the particular ground of your

opposition to Mr. Ricardo?

_Phæd_. I suppose that, like the man who gave his vote against

Aristides, because it wearied him to hear any man surnamed _the

just_, Philebus is annoyed by finding that so many people look up to

Mr. Ricardo as an oracle.

_Phil_. No: for the very opposite reason; it is because I hear him

generally complained of as obscure, and as ambitiously paradoxical; two

faults which I cannot tolerate: and the extracts from his writings

which I have seen satisfy me that this judgment is a reasonable one.

_Phæd_. In addition to which, Philebus, I now recollect something

which perhaps weighs with you still more, though you have chosen to

suppress it; and _that_ is, that you are a disciple of Mr. Malthus,

every part of whose writings, since the year 1816 (I am assured), have

had one origin--jealousy of Mr. Ricardo, "quem si non aliqua nocuisset,

mortuus esset."

_X_. No, no, Phædrus; we must not go so far as _that_; though

undoubtedly it is true that Mr. Malthus has often conducted his

opposition in a most vexatious and disingenuous manner.

_Phil_. How so? In what instance? In what instance?

_X_. In this, for one. Mr. Malthus, in his "Political Economy"

(1820), repeatedly charged Mr. Ricardo with having confounded the two

notions of "cost" and "value:" I smile, by the way, when I repeat such

a charge, as if it were the office of a Ricardo to confound, or of a

Malthus to distinguish: but

"Non usque adeo permiscuit imis

Longus summa dies, ut non--si voce Metelli

Serventur leges--malint a Cæsare tolli."

[Footnote: For the sake of the unclassical reader, I add a prose

translation:--Not to such an extent has the lapse of time confounded

things highest with things lowest, as that--if the laws can be saved

only by the voice of a Metellus--they would not rather choose to be

abolished by a Cæsar.]

_Phil_. "Imis!" Why, I hope, if Mr. Ricardo may do for the Cæsar

of the case, Mr. Malthus is not therefore to be thought the Metellus.

"Imis," indeed!

_X_. As to _this_, he is: his general merits of good sense and

ingenuity we all acknowledge; but for the office of a distinguisher, or

any other which demands logic in the first place, it is impossible to

conceive any person below him. To go on, however, with my instance:--

this objection of Mr. Malthus' about "cost" and "value" was founded

purely on a very great blunder of his own--so great, that (as I shall

show in its proper place) even Mr. Ricardo did not see the whole extent

of his misconception: thus much, however, was plain, that the meaning

of Mr. Malthus was, that the new doctrine of value allowed for wages,

but did _not_ allow for profits; and thus, according to the

Malthusian terminology, expressed the cost but not the value of a

thing. What was Mr. Ricardo's answer? In the third edition of his book

(p. 46), he told Mr. Malthus that, if the word "cost" were understood

in any sense which _excluded_ profits, then he did not assert the

thing attributed to him; on the other hand, if it were understood in a

sense which _included_ profits, then of course he did assert it;

but, then, in that sense Mr. Malthus himself did not deny it. This

plain answer was published in 1821. Will it be believed that two years

after (namely, in the spring of 1823), Mr. Malthus published a

pamphlet, in which he repeats the same objection over and over again,

without a hint that it had ever met with a conclusive explanation which

it was impossible to misunderstand? Neither must it be alleged that Mr.

Malthus might not have seen this third edition; for it is the very

edition which he constantly quotes in that pamphlet.

_Phæd_. What say you to this, my dear Philebus? You seem to be in

perplexity.

_X_. But an instance of far greater disingenuousness is this: Mr.

Ricardo, after laying down the general law of value, goes on to state

three cases in which that law will be modified; and the extraordinary

sagacity with which he has detected and stated these modifications, and

the startling consequences to which they lead, have combined to make

this one of the most remarkable chapters in his books. Now, it is a

fact, gentlemen, that these very restrictions of his own law--so openly

stated as restrictions by Mr. Ricardo--are brought forward by Mr.

Malthus as so many objections of his own to upset that law. The logic,

as usual, is worthy of notice; for it is as if, in a question about the

force of any projectile, a man should urge the resistance of the air,

not as a limitation of that force, but as a capital objection to it.

What I here insist on, however, is its extreme disingenuousness. But

this is a subject which it is unpleasant to pursue; and the course of

our subject will of itself bring us but too often across the blunders

and misstatements of Mr. Malthus. To recur, therefore, to what you

objected about Mr. Ricardo--that he was said to be paradoxical and

obscure--I presume that you use the word "paradoxical" in the common

and improper sense, as denoting what has a specious air of truth and

subtlety, but is in fact false; whereas I need not tell _you_ that

a paradox is the very opposite of this--meaning in effect what has a

specious air of falsehood, though possibly very true; for a paradox,

you know, is simply that which contradicts the popular opinion--which

in too many cases is the false opinion; and in none more inevitably

than in cases as remote from the popular understanding as all questions

of severe science. However, use the word in what sense you please, Mr.

Ricardo is no ways interested in the charge. Are my doctrines true, are

they demonstrable? is the question for him; if not, let them be

overthrown; if _that_ is beyond any man's power, what matters it

to him that the slumbering intellect of the multitude regards them as

strange? As to obscurity, in general it is of two kinds--one arising

out of the writer's own perplexity of thought; which is a vicious

obscurity; and in this sense the opponents of Mr. Ricardo are the

obscurest of all economists. Another kind--

_Phæd_. Ay, now let us hear what is a virtuous obscurity.

_X_. I do not say, Phædrus, that in any case it can be meritorious

to be obscure; but I say that in many cases it is very natural to be

so, and pardonable in profound thinkers, and in some cases inevitable.

For the other kind of obscurity which I was going to notice is that

which I would denominate elliptical obscurity; arising, I mean, out of

the frequent ellipsis or suppression of some of the links in a long

chain of thought; these are often involuntarily suppressed by profound

thinkers, from the disgust which they naturally feel at overlaying a

subject with superfluous explanations. So far from seeing too dimly, as

in the case of perplexed obscurity, their defect is the very reverse;

they see too clearly; and fancy that others see as clearly as

themselves. Such, without any tincture of confusion, was the obscurity

of Kant (though in him there was also a singular defect of the art of

communicating knowledge, as he was himself aware); such was the

obscurity of Leibnitz (who otherwise was remarkable for his felicity in

explaining himself); such, if any, is the obscurity of Ricardo; though,

for my own part, I must acknowledge that I could never find any; to me

he seems a model of perspicuity. But I believe that the very ground of

his perspicuity to me is the ground of his apparent obscurity to some

others, and _that_ is--his inexorable consistency in the use of

words; and this is one of the cases which I alluded to in speaking of

an "inevitable obscurity;" for, wherever men have been accustomed to

use a word in two senses, and have yet supposed themselves to use it

but in one, a writer, who corrects this lax usage, and forces them to

maintain the unity of the meaning, will always appear obscure; because

he will oblige them to deny or to affirm consequences from which they

were hitherto accustomed to escape under a constant though unconscious

equivocation between the two senses. Thus, for example, Mr. Ricardo

sternly insists on the _true_ sense of the word Value, and (what

is still more unusual to most men) insists on using it but in

_one_ sense; and hence arise consequences which naturally appear

at once obscure and paradoxical to M. Say, to Mr. Malthus, to the

author of an Essay on Value; [Footnote: I forget the exact title; but

it was printed for Hunter, St. Paul's Church-yard.] and to all other

lax thinkers, who easily bend their understandings to the infirmity of

the popular usage. Hence, it is not surprising to find Mr. Malthus

complaining ("Polit. Econ.," p. 214) of "the _unusual_ application

of common terms" as having made Mr. Ricardo's work "difficult to be

understood by many people;" though, in fact, there is nothing at all

unusual in his application of any term whatever, but only in the

steadiness with which he keeps to the same application of it.

_Phil_. These distinctions of yours on the subject of obscurity I

am disposed to think reasonable; and, unless the contrary should appear

in the course of our conversations, I will concede them to be

applicable to the case of Mr. Ricardo; his obscurity may be venial, or

it may be inevitable, or even none at all (if you will have it so). But

I cannot allow of the cases of Kant and Leibnitz as at all relevant to

that before us. For, the obscurity complained of in metaphysics, etc.,

is inherent in the very _objects_ contemplated, and is independent

of the particular mind contemplating, and exists in defiance of the

utmost talents for diffusing light; whereas the objects about which

Political Economy is concerned are acknowledged by all persons to be

clear and simple enough, so that any obscurity which hangs over them,

must arise from imperfections in the art of arranging and conveying

ideas on the part of him who undertakes to teach it.

_X_. This I admit: any obscurity which clouds Political Economy,

unless where it arises from want of sufficient facts, must be

subjective; whereas the main obscurity which besets metaphysics is

objective; and such an obscurity is in the fullest sense inevitable.

But this I did not overlook; for an objective obscurity it is in the

power of any writer to aggravate by his own perplexities; and I alleged

the cases of Kant and Leibnitz no further than as they were said to

have done so; contending that, if Mr. Ricardo were at all liable to the

same charge, he was entitled to the same apology; namely, that he is

never obscure from any confusion of thought, but, on the contrary, from

too keen a perception of the truth, which may have seduced him at times

into too elliptic a development of his opinions, and made him impatient

of the tardy and continuous steps which are best adapted to the

purposes of the teacher. For the fact is, that the _laborers of the

Mine_ (as I am accustomed to call them), or those who dig up the

metal of truth, are seldom fitted to be also _laborers of the

Mint_--that is, to work up the metal for current use. Besides which,

it must not be forgotten that Mr. Ricardo did not propose to deliver an

entire system of Political Economy, but only an investigation of such

doctrines as had happened to be imperfectly or erroneously stated. On

this account, much of his work is polemic; and presumes, therefore, in

the reader an acquaintance with the writers whom he is opposing.

Indeed, in every chapter there is an under reference, not to this or

that author only, but to the whole current of modern opinions on the

subject, which demands a learned reader who is already master of what

is generally received for truth in Political Economy.

_Phil_. Upon this statement it appears at any rate that Mr.

Ricardo's must be a most improper book as an elementary one. But, after

all, you will admit that even amongst Mr. Ricardo's friends there is a

prevailing opinion that he is too subtle (or, as it is usually

expressed, too theoretic) a writer to be safely relied on for the

practical uses of legislation.

_X_. Yes. And, indeed, we are all so deeply indebted to English

wisdom on matters where theories really _are_ dangerous, that we

ought not to wonder or to complain if the jealousy of all which goes

under that name be sometimes extended to cases in which it is idle to

suppose any opposition possible between the _true_ theory and the

practice. However, on the whole question which has been moved in regard

to Mr. Ricardo's obscurity or tendency to paradox or to over refinement

and false subtlety, I am satisfied if I have won you to any provisional

suspension of your prejudices; and will now press it no further--

willingly leaving the matter to be settled by the result of our

discussions.

_Phæd_. Do so, X.; and especially because my watch informs me that

dinner--an event too awfully practical to allow of any violation from

mere sublunary disputes--will be announced in six minutes; within which

space of time I will trouble you to produce the utmost possible amount

of truth with the least possible proportion of obscurity, whether

"subjective" or "objective," that may be convenient.

_X_. As the time which you allow us is so short, I think that I

cannot better employ it than in reading a short paper which I have

drawn up on the most general distribution of Mr. Ricardo's book;

because this may serve to guide us in the course of our future

discussions.

Mr. Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy consisted in the second

edition of thirty-one chapters, to which, in the third edition, was

added another, making thirty-two. These thirty-two chapters fall into

the following classification:--Fourteen are on the subject of Taxation,

namely, the eighth to the eighteenth, [Footnote: The eleventh is on

Tithes; and the eighteenth on Poor Rates; but these of course belong to

the subject of Taxation properly defined. The present Lord Chancellor

(late Earl of Eldon) said on some cause which came before him about a

year ago, that Tithes were unjustly called a Tax; meaning only that

Tithes were not any arbitrary imposition of the government, but claimed

by as good a tenure as any other sort of property. In this doctrine no

doubt the Chancellor was perfectly right; and only wrong in supposing

that any denial of that doctrine is implied by the Political Economists

in calling Tithes a Tax; which, on the true definition of a Tax (as I

shall show hereafter), they certainly are.] inclusively, the twenty-

second, twenty-third, and twenty-ninth; and these may be entirely

omitted by the student, and ought at any rate to be omitted on his

first examination of the work. For, though Mr. Ricardo has really been

not the chief so much as the sole author of any important truths on the

subject of Taxation, and though his fourteen chapters on that head are

so many inestimable corollaries from his general doctrines, and could

never have been obtained without them, yet these general doctrines have

no sort of reciprocal dependency upon what concerns Taxation.

Consequently, it will greatly lighten the burden to a student if these

fourteen chapters are sequestered from the rest of the work, and

reserved for a separate and after investigation, which may furnish a

commentary on the first. The chapters on Taxation deducted, there

remain, therefore, seventeen in the second edition, or eighteen in the

third. These contain the general principles, but also something more--

which may furnish matter for a second subtraction. For, in most

speculations of this nature it usually happens that, over and above the

direct positive communication of new truths, a writer finds it

expedient (or, perhaps, necessary in some cases, in order to clear the

ground for himself) to address part of his efforts to the task of

meeting the existing errors; hence arises a division of his work into

the doctrinal or _affirmative_ part, and the polemic [Footnote:

_Polemic_.--There is an occasional tendency in the use and practice

of the English language capriciously to limit the use of certain words.

Thus, for instance, the word _condign_ is used only in connection with

the word _punishment_; the word _implicit_ is used only (unless by

scholars, like Milton) in connection with _faith_, or _confidence_. So

also _putative_ is restricted most absurdly to the one sole word,

_father_, in a question of doubtful affiliation. These and other words,

if unlocked from their absurd imprisonment, would become extensively

useful. We should say, for instance, "condign honors," "condign rewards,"

"condign treatment" (treatment appropriate to the merits)--thus at once

realizing two rational purposes: namely, giving a useful function to a

word, which at present has none; and also providing an intelligible

expression for an idea which otherwise is left without means of

uttering itself, except through a ponderous circumlocution. Precisely

in the same circumstances of idle and absurd sequestration stands the

term _polemic_. At present, according to the popular usage, this

word has some fantastic inalienable connection with controversial

theology. There cannot be a more childish chimera. No doubt there is a

polemic side or aspect of theology; but so there is of _all_

knowledge; so there is of _every_ science. The radical and

characteristic idea concerned in this term _polemic_ is found in

our own parliamentary distinction of _the good speaker_, as

contrasted with _the good debater_. The good speaker is he who

unfolds the whole of a question in its affirmative aspects, who

presents these aspects in their just proportions, and according to

their orderly and symmetrical deductions from each other. But _the

good debater_ is he who faces the negative aspects of the question,

who meets sudden objections, has an answer for any momentary summons of

doubt or difficulty, dissipates seeming inconsistencies, and reconciles

the geometrical smoothness of _a priori_ abstractions with the

coarse angularities of practical experience. The great work of Ricardo

is of necessity, and almost in every page, polemic; whilst very often

the particular objections or difficulties to which it replies are not

indicated at all--being spread through entire systems, and assumed as

_precognita_ that are familiar to the learned student.] or

_negative_ part. In Mr. Ricardo's writings, all parts (as I have

already observed) have a latent polemic reference; but some, however,

are more directly and formally polemic than the rest; and these may be

the more readily detached from the main body of the work, because (like

the chapters on Taxation) they are all corollaries from the general

laws, and in no case introductory to them. Divided on this principle,

the eighteen chapters fall into the following arrangement:

Chap. Affirmative Chapters.

1.

4. on Value;

30.

2. on Rent;

3.

5. on Wages;

6. on Profits;

7. on Foreign Trade;

19. on Sudden Changes in Trade;

21. on Accumulation;

25. on Colonial Trade;

27. on Currency and Banks;

31. on Machinery.

Chap. Negative (or Polemic) Chapters.

20. on Value and Riches: against Adam Smith, Lord Lauderdale,

M. Say;

24. Rent of Land: against Adam Smith;

26. Gross and Net Revenue: against Adam Smith;

28. Relations of Gold, Corn, and Labor, under certain

circumstances: against A. Smith;

32. Rent: against Mr. Malthus.

Deducting the polemic chapters, there remain thirteen affirmative or

doctrinal chapters; of which one (the twenty-seventh), on Currency,

&c., ought always to be insulated from all other parts of Political

Economy. And thus, out of the whole thirty-two chapters, twelve only

are important to the student on his first examination; and to these I

propose to limit our discussions.

_Phæd_. Be it so, and now let us adjourn to more solemn duties.

* * * * *

DIALOGUE THE FIRST.

ON THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

_Phæd_. To cut the matter short, X. Y. Z., and to begin as near as

possible to the end--is there any one principle in Political Economy

from which all the rest can be deduced? A principle, I mean, which all

others presuppose; but which itself presupposes none.

_X_. There is, Phædrus; such a principle exists in the doctrine of

Value--truly explained. The question from which all Political Economy

will be found to move--the question to which all its difficulties will

be found reducible--is this: _What is the ground of exchangeable

value_? My hat, for example, bears the same value as your umbrella;

double the value of my shoes; four times the value of my gloves; one

twentieth of the value of this watch. Of these several relations of

value, what is the sufficient cause? If they were capricious, no such

science as that of Political Economy could exist; not being capricious,

they must have an assignable cause; this cause--what is it?

_Phæd_. Ay, what is it?

_X_. It is this, Phædrus; and the entire merit of the discovery

belongs to Mr. Ricardo. It is this; and listen with your whole

understanding: _the ground of the value of all things lies in the

quantity_ (but mark well that word "quantity") _of labor which

produces them_. Here is that great principle which is the corner-

stone of all tenable Political Economy; which granted or denied, all

Political Economy stands or falls. Grant me this one principle, with a

few square feet of the sea-shore to draw my diagrams upon, and I will

undertake to deduce every other truth in the science.

_Phæd_. Take it and welcome. It would be impossible for most

people to raise a cabbage out of the sea-shore, though the sand were

manured by principles the noblest. You, therefore, my dear friend, that

promise to raise from it, not a cabbage, but a system of Political

Economy, are doubly entitled to your _modicum_ of sand, and to

your principle beside; which last is, I dare say, a very worthy and

respectable principle, and not at all the worse for being as old as my

great-grandfather.

_X_. Pardon me, Phædrus; the principle is no older than the first

edition of Mr. Ricardo's book; and when you make me this concession so

readily under the notion that you are conceding nothing more than has

long been established, I fear that you will seek to retract it, as soon

as you are aware of its real import and consequences.

_Phæd_. In most cases, X., I should hesitate to contradict you

peremptorily upon a subject which you have studied so much more closely

than myself; but here I cannot hesitate; for I happen to remember the

very words of Adam Smith, which are--

_X_. Substantially the same, you will say, as those which I have

employed in expressing the great principle of Mr. Ricardo: this is your

meaning, Phædrus; and excuse me for interrupting you; I am anxious to

lose no time; and therefore let me remind you, as soon as possible,

that "the words" of Adam Smith cannot prove any agreement with Mr.

Ricardo, if it appears that those words are used as equivalent and

convertible at pleasure with certain other words not only

irreconcilable with Mr. Ricardo's principle, but expressing the very

doctrine which Mr. Ricardo does, and must in consistency, set himself

to oppose. Mr. Ricardo's doctrine is, that A and B are to each other in

value as the _quantity_ of labor is which produces A to the

quantity which produces B; or, to express it in the very shortest

formula by substituting the term _base_, as synonymous with the

term _producing labor, All things are to each other in value as their

bases are in quantity_. This is the Ricardian law: you allege that

it was already the law of Adam Smith; and in some sense you are right;

for such a law is certain to be found in the "Wealth of Nations." But,

if it is _ex_plicitly affirmed in that work, it is also _im_plicitly

denied: formally asserted, it is virtually withdrawn. For Adam Smith

everywhere uses, as an equivalent formula, that A and B are to each

other in value as the _value_ of the labor which produces A to the

_value_ of the labor which produces B.

_Phæd_. And the formula for Mr. Ricardo's law is, if I understand

you, that A and B are to each other in value not as the _value_,

but as the _quantity_ of the labor which produces A to the

_quantity_ which produces B.

_X_. It is.

_Phæd_. And is it possible that any such mighty magic can lurk in

the simple substitution of _quantity_ for _value_? Surely, X., you are

hair-splitting a little in this instance, and mean to amuse yourself

with my simplicity, by playing off some logical legerdemain upon me

from the "seraphic" or "angelic" doctors.

_X_. The earnestness and good faith of my whole logic and reasoning

will soon become a pledge for me that I am incapable of what you

call hair-splitting; and in this particular instance I might appeal

to Philebus, who will tell you that Mr. Malthus has grounded his entire

opposition to Mr. Ricardo on the very distinction which you are now

treating as aërial. But the fact is, you do not yet perceive to what

extent this distinction goes; you suppose me to be contending for some

minute and subtle shades of difference; so far from _that_, I mean

to affirm that the one law is the direct, formal, and diametrical

negation of the other: I assert in the most peremptory manner that he

who says, "The value of A is to the value of B as the _quantity_

of labor producing A is to the _quantity_ of labor producing B,"

does of necessity deny by implication that the relations of value

between A and B are governed by the _value_ of the labor which

severally produces them.

_Phil_. X. is perfectly right in his distinction. You know, Phædrus, or

you soon will know, that I differ from X. altogether on the choice

between the two laws: he contends that the value of all things is

determined by the _quantity_ of the producing labor; I, on the other

hand, contend that the value of all things is determined by the _value_

of the producing labor. Thus far you will find us irreconcilable in our

difference; but this very difference implies that we are agreed on the

distinction which X. is now urging. In fact, so far are the two

formulae from presenting merely two different expressions of the same

law, that the very best way of expressing negatively Mr. Ricardo's law

(namely, A is to B in value as the _quantities_ of the producing labor)

would be to say, A is _not_ to B in value as the _values_ of the

producing labor.

_Phæd_. Well, gentlemen, I suppose you must be right; I am sure

you are by the logic of kings, and "according to the flesh;" for you

are two to one. Yet, to my poor glimmering understanding, which is all

I have to guide me in such cases, I must acknowledge that the whole

question seems to be a mere dispute about words.

_X_. For once, Phædrus, I am not sorry to hear you using a phrase

which in general is hateful to my ears. "A mere dispute about words" is

a phrase which we hear daily; and why? Is it a case of such daily

occurrence to hear men disputing about mere verbal differences? So far

from it, I can truly say that I never happened to witness such a

dispute in my whole life, either in books or in conversation; and

indeed, considering the small number of absolute synonymes which any

language contains, it is scarcely possible that a dispute on words

should arise which would not also be a dispute about ideas (that is,

about realities). Why, then, is the phrase in every man's mouth, when

the actual occurrence must be so very uncommon? The reason is this,

Phædrus: such a plea is a "sophisma pigri intellectus," which seeks to

escape from the effort of mind necessary for the comprehending and

solving of any difficulty under the colorable pretext that it is a

question about shadows, and not about substances, and one therefore

which it is creditable to a man's good sense to decline; a pleasant

sophism this, which at the same time flatters a man's indolence and his

vanity. For once, however, I repeat that I am not sorry to hear such a

phrase in your mouth, Phædrus: I have heard it from you before; and I

will frankly tell you that you ought to be ashamed of such a plea,

which is becoming to a slothful intellect, but very unbecoming to

yours. On this account, it gives me pleasure that you have at length

urged it in a case where you will be obliged to abandon it. If that

should happen, remember what I have said; and resolve never more to

shrink effeminately from the toil of an intellectual discussion under

any pretence that it is a verbal dispute. In the present case, I shall

drive you out of that conceit in less time than it cost you to bring it

forward. For now, Phædrus, answer me to one or two little questions

which I will put. You fancy that between the expressions "_quantity_ of

producing labor" and "_value_ of producing labor" there is none but a

verbal difference. It follows, therefore, that the same effect ought to

take place whether the value of the producing labor be altered or its

quantity.

_Phæd_. It does.

_X_. For instance, the production of a hat such as mine has

hitherto cost (we will suppose) four days' labor, at three shillings a

day: now, without any change whatsoever in the _quantity_ of labor

required for its production, let this labor suddenly increase in value

by twenty-five per cent. In this case, four days' labor will produce a

hat as heretofore; but the value of the producing labor being now

raised from three shillings a day to three shillings and nine pence,

the value of the total labor necessary for the production of a hat will

now be raised from twelve shillings to fifteen shillings. Thus far, you

can have nothing to object?

_Phæd_. Nothing at all, X. But what next?

_X_. Next, let us suppose a case in which the labor of producing

hats shall increase, not in value (as in the preceding case), but in

quantity. Labor is still at its old value of three shillings a day;

but, from increased difficulty in any part of the process, five days'

labor are now spent on the production of a hat instead of four. In this

second case, Phædrus, how much will be paid to the laborer?

_Phæd_. Precisely as much as in the first case: that is, fifteen

shillings.

_X_. True: the laborer on hats receives fifteen shillings in the

second case as well as in the first; but in the first case for four

days' labor, in the second for five: consequently, in the second case,

wages (or the value of labor) have not risen at all, whereas in the

first case wages have risen by twenty-five per cent.

_Phæd_. Doubtless: but what is your inference?

_X_. My inference is as follows: according to yourself and Adam

Smith, and all those who overlook the momentous difference between the

quantity and the value of labor, fancying that these are mere varieties

of expression for the same thing, the price of hats ought, in the two

cases stated, to be equally raised, namely, three shillings in each

case. If, then, it be utterly untrue that the price of hats would be

equally raised in the two cases, it will follow that an alteration in

the value of the producing labor, and an alteration in its quantity,

must terminate in a very different result; and, consequently, the one

alteration cannot be the same as the other, as you insisted.

_Phæd_. Doubtless.

_X_. Now, then, let me tell you, Phædrus, that the price of hats

would _not_ be equally raised in the two cases: in the second

case, the price of a hat will rise by three shillings, in the first

case it will not rise at all.

_Phæd_. How so, X.? How so? Your own statement supposes that the

laborer receives fifteen shillings for four days, instead of twelve

shillings; that is, three shillings more. Now, if the price does not

rise to meet this rise of labor, I demand to know whence the laborer is

to obtain this additional three shillings. If the buyers of hats do not

pay him in the price of hats, I presume that the buyers of shoes will

not pay him. The poor devil must be paid by somebody.

_X_. You are facetious, my friend. The man must be paid, as you

say; but not by the buyers of hats any more than by the buyers of

shoes: for the price of hats cannot possibly rise in such a case, as I

have said before. And, that I may demonstrate this, let us assume that

when the labor spent on a hat cost twelve shillings, the rate of

profits was fifty per cent.; it is of no consequence what rate be fixed

on: assuming this rate, therefore, the price of a hat would, at that

time, be eighteen shillings. Now, when the _quantity_ of labor

rose from four to five days, this fifth day would add three shillings

to the amount of wages; and the price of a hat would rise in

consequence from eighteen shillings to a guinea. On the other hand,

when the _value_ of labor rose from twelve shillings to fifteen

shillings, the price of a hat would not rise by one farthing, but would

still continue at eighteen shillings.

_Phæd_. Again I ask, then, who is to pay the three shillings?

_X_. The three shillings will be paid out of profits.

_Phæd_. What, without reimbursement?