been knighted, (to the affected scandal of his political enemies, who,
apparently, wished to reserve all titular or other recognition for
their own party), and the conspicuous beneficence of his career, while
in office, had gained for him an honourable popularity. But fortune,
so long favourable, now for a time showed itself adverse. In 1809
his affairs became embarrassed, and recourse to the bankruptcy court
inevitable. Happily his friends aided him in saving from the general
wreck the copyright of the _Monthly Magazine_. Its management was a
chief occupation of his remaining years; and his own contributions,
under the signature of “Common Sense,” attracted marked attention.
In his publishing career, the most curious incident was the refusal
of the MSS. of _Waverley_. The author’s demands seem to have been in
excess of the value placed upon the novel by the publisher. It had been
advertised in the first instance (he tells us) as the production of Mr.
W. Scott. The name was then withdrawn, and the famous novel came before
the world anonymously.
Besides the writings already noticed, Phillips compiled or edited a
large number of school books. He tells us that all the elementary
books, published under the names of Goldsmith, Blair and others, were
his own productions--between the years 1798 and 1815. Nor was his
mental activity confined to literary work; mechanical and scientific
inventions largely occupied his attention. To prevent the enormous
expenses of railway viaducts, embankments, and removals of streets, he
proposed suspension roads, ten feet above the housetops, with inclined
planes of 20° or 30°, and stationary engines to assist the rise and
fall at each end. Cities, he maintained, might be traversed in this way
on right lines, with intermediate points for ascent and descent. This
bold and ingenious idea seems to be very like an anticipation of the
elevated railways of New York, although even these have not yet reached
the height Phillips thought to be desirable.
He interested himself, also, in steam navigation. When Fulton was in
England he was in frequent communication with his English friend, to
whom he despatched a triumphant letter on the evening of his first
voyage on the Hudson. This letter, having been shown to Earl Stanhope
and some eminent engineers, was treated by them with derision as
describing an impossibility. Sir R. Phillips then advertised for a
company, to repeat on the Thames what had become an accomplished fact
on the American rivers. After expenditure of a large sum of money in
advertising he obtained only two ten-pound conditional subscribers.
He then printed, with commendation, Fulton’s letters in the _Monthly
Magazine_, and his credulity was almost universally reprobated. It is
worth recording that, in the first steam voyage from the Clyde to the
Thames, Phillips, three of his family, and five or six others, were the
only passengers who had the courage to test the experiment. To allay
the public alarms he published a letter in the newspapers, and before
the end of that summer he saw the same packet set out on its voyage
with 350 passengers.[252]
In 1840, the year following the final edition of his most popular book,
he died at Brighton in the seventy-third year of his age. During his
busy life if, by his reforming energy, he had raised up some bitter
enemies and detractors, he had made, on the other hand, some valuable
friendships. Amongst these--not the least noteworthy--is his intimate
friendship with that most humane-minded lawyer, Lord Erskine, one of
those who have best adorned the legal profession in this country.
XLIII.
LAMARTINE. 1790-1869.
Of aristocratic descent, and educated at the college of the “Fathers
of the Faith” (Pères de la Foi), Du Prat--such was the name of his
family--imbibed in his youth principles very different from those of
his great literary contemporary Michelet. Happily, Nature seems to have
endowed his mother with a rare refinement and humaneness of feeling;
and from her example and instruction he derived, apparently, the germs
of those loftier ideas which, in maturer age, characterise a great part
of his writings. While the first Napoléon was still emperor, he entered
the army, from which he soon retired to employ his leisure in the more
congenial amusement of travel.
In 1820 he first came before the world as the author of _Méditations
Poétiques_, of which, within four years, 45,000 copies were sold, and
the new poet was eagerly welcomed by the party of Reaction, who thought
to find in him a future successor to the brilliant author of the _Génie
du Christianisme_, the literary hope of their party, and the champion
of the Church and royalty--the political counterbalance to Béranger,
the poet of the Revolution--for Hugo had not yet raised the standard of
revolt. Yet this remarkable volume with the greatest difficulty found
its way into print. “A young man, [writes one of his biographers] his
health scarcely re-established from a cruel malady, his face pale with
suffering and covered with a veil of sadness, through which could be
read the recent loss of an adored being, went about from publisher
to publisher, carrying a small packet of verses dyed with tears.
Everywhere the poetry and the poet were politely bowed out. At length,
a bookseller, better advised, or seduced by the infinite grace of the
young poet, decided to accept the manuscript so often rejected.” It was
published without a name and without recommendation. The melancholy
beauty of the style, and the melody of the rhythm, could not fail to
attract sympathy from readers of taste and feeling, even from those
opposed to his political prejudices--“A rhythm of a celestial melody,
verse supple, cadenced, and sonorous, which softly vibrates as an
Æolian harp sighing in the evening breeze.”
Its political, rather than its poetical, recommendations, we
may presume, gained for the writer from the Government of Louis
XVIII. a diplomatic post at Florence, which he held until the
dynastic revolution of 1830. For some short time he acted as secretary
to the French Embassy in London, and during his stay in England he
made the acquaintance of a rich Englishwoman, whom he afterwards
married at Florence. A legacy of valuable property from an uncle, upon
the condition of his assuming the name of Lamartine, still further
enriched him.
In 1829 appeared the collection of _Harmonies Poétiques et
Réligieuses_, in which, as in all his poetry up to this time, one of
the most characteristic features is his devotion to Legitimacy and the
Church. The _renversement_ of 1830 considerably modified his political
and ecclesiastical ideas. “I wish,” he declared at this turning-point
in his career, “to enter the ranks of the people; to think, speak,
act, and struggle with them.” One of the first proofs of his advanced
opinions was his pamphlet advocating abolition of “capital” punishment.
He failed to obtain a seat in the Chambre des Députés of Louis
Philippe, whether in consequence of this advocacy or by reason of his
antecedent politics. His enforced leisure he employed in travelling,
and in 1832, with his English wife and their young daughter Juliette
(whose death at Beyrout caused him inconsolable grief), he set sail for
the East in a vessel equipped and armed at his own expense. A narrative
of these travels he published in his _Voyage en Orient_ (1835). In the
following year appeared his _Jocelyn_, a poem of charming tenderness
and eloquence, and, in 1838, _La Chute d’un Ange_ (“The Fall of an
Angel”), in which he, for the first time, gives expression to his
feeling of revolt from the barbarisms of the Slaughter-House. In this
strikingly original poem, one of the most remarkable of its kind in
any language, Lamartine discovers to us that he no longer views human
institutions, the customs of society, and the consecrated usages of
nations through the rose-coloured medium of traditional prejudice. It
is penetrated with a deep consciousness of the injustice and falseness
of a large proportion of those things which are tolerated, and even
approved, under the sanction of religious or social law, and with
ardent indignation against cruelty and selfishness. In the frightful
representation of the practices of the early tyrants of the world saved
from the “universal deluge,” he allows us to see his own feeling. One
of more humane race thus addresses his charming heroine Daïdha:--
“Ces hommes, pour apaiser leur faim,
N’ont pas assez des fruits que Dieu mit sous leur main.
Par un crime envers Dieu dont frémit la Nature,
Ils demandent au sang une autre nourriture.
Dans leur cité fangeuse il coule par ruisseaux!
Les cadavres y sont étalés en monceaux.
_Ils traînent par les pieds des fleurs de la prairie,
L’innocente brebis que leur main a nourrie,
Et sous l’œil de l’agneau l’égorgeant sans remords,
Ils savourent ses chairs et vivent de la mort!_
* * * * *
De cruels aliments incessamment repus,
Toute pitié s’efface en leurs cœurs corrompus.
Et leur œil, qu’au forfait le forfait habitue,
Aime le sang qui coule et l’innocent qu’on tue.
_Ils aiguisent le fer en flèches, en poignard;
Du métier de tuer ils ont fait le grand art:
Le meurtre par milliers s’appelle une victoire,
C’est en lettres de sang que l’on écrit la Gloire._”
From the pages of the “Primitive Book,” which he imagines to have been
originally delivered to men, their hermit-host reads to Daïdha and her
celestial, but incarnate, lover the true divine revelation, which is
thus sublimely prefaced:--
“Hommes! ne dites pas, en adorant ces pages,
Un Dieu les écrivit par la main de ses sages.
* * * * *
La langue qu’il écrit chante éternellement--
Ses lettres sont ces feux, mondes du firmament
Et, par delà ces cieux, des lettres plus profondes--
Mondes étincelants voilés par d’autres mondes.
Le seul livre divin dans lequel il écrit
Son nom toujours croissant, homme, c’est Ton Esprit!
C’est ta Raison, miroir de la Raison suprême,
Où se peint dans ta nuit quelque ombre de lui-même.
Il vous parle, ô Mortel, mais c’est par ce seul sens.
Toute bouche de chair altère ses accents.”
In pronouncing the following code of morality, the voice of conscience
and of reason coincides with the divine voice in our hearts:--
“Tu ne leveras point la main contre ton frère:
Et tu ne verseras aucun sang sur la terre,
Ni celui des humains, ni celui des troupeaux
Ni celui des animaux, ni celui des oiseaux:
_Un cri sourd dans ton cœur défend de le répandre_,
Car le sang est la vie, et tu ne peux la rendre.
Tu ne te nourriras qu’avec les épis blonds
Ondoyant comme l’onde aux flancs de tes vallons,
Avec le riz croissant en roseaux sur tes rives--
Table que chaque été renouvelle aux convives,
Les racines, les fruits sur la branche mûris,
L’excédant des rayons par l’abeille pétris,
Et tous ces dons du sol où la séve de vie
Vient s’offrir de soi-même à ta faim assouvie.
_La chair des Animaux crierait comme un remord,
Et la Mort dans ton sein engendrerait la Mort!_”
Not only is the human animal sternly forbidden to imbrue his hands in
the blood of his innocent earth-mates: it is also enjoined upon him to
respect and cultivate their undeveloped intelligence and reason:--
“Vous ferez alliance avec les ‘brutes’ même:
Car Dieu, qui les créa, veut que l’homme les aime.
D’intelligence et d’âme, à différents degrés,
Elles ont eu leur part, vous la reconnaîtrez:
Vous livez dans leurs yeux, douteuse comme un rêve,
L’aube de la raison qui commence et se lève.
Vous n’étoufferez pas cette vague clarté,
Présage de lumière et d’immortalité:
Vous la respecterez.
La chaîne à mille anneaux va de l’homme à l’insecte:
Que ce soit le premier, le dernier, le milieu,
N’en insultez aucun, car tous tiennent à Dieu!”
From such more rational estimate should follow, necessarily, just
treatment:--
“Ne les outragez pas par des noms de colère:
Que la verge et le fouet ne soient pas leur salaire.
Pour assouvir par eux vos brutaux appétits,
Ne leur dérobez pas le lait de leurs petits:
Ne les enchaînez pas serviles et farouches:
Avec des mors de fer ne brisez pas leurs bouches
Ne les écrasez pas sous de trop lourds fardeaux:
Comprenez leur nature, adoucissez leur sort:
_Le pacte entre eux et vous, hommes, n’est pas la Mort_.
À sa meilleure fin façonnez chaque engeance,
Prêtez-leur un rayon de votre intelligence:
Adoucissez leurs mœurs en leur étant plus doux,
Soyez médiateurs et juges entre eux tous.
* * * * *
_Le plus beau don de l’homme, c’est la Miséricorde._”
Consistently with, and consequently from, such just human relations
with the lower species are the admonitions to break down the walls
of partition between the various human races, and to the proper
cultivation of the Earth, the common mother of all:--
“Vous n’établirez pas ces séparations
En races, en tribus, peuples ou nations.
* * * * *
Vous n’arracherez pas la branche avec le fruit:
_Gloire à la main qui sème, honte à la main qui nuit_!
Vous ne laisserez pas le terre aride et nue,
Car vos pères par Dieu la trouvèrent vêtue.
Que ceux qui passeront sur votre trace un jour
Passent en bénissant leurs pères à leur tour.
Vous l’aimerez d’amour comme on aime sa mère,
Vous y posséderez votre place éphémère,
Comme an soleil assis les hommes, tour à tour,
Possedènt le rayon tant que dure le jour.
* * * * *
Par un inconcevable et maternel mystère,
L’homme en la fatiguant fertilise la Terre.
Nulle bouche ne sent sa tendresse tarir:
Tout ce qu’elle a porté, son flanc peut le nourrir.
* * * * *
Vous vous assisterez dans toutes vos misères,
Vous serez l’un à l’autre enfants, pères, et mères:
_Le fardeau de chacun sera celui de tous,
La Charité sera la justice entre vous_.
Votre ombre ombragera le passant, votre pain
Restera sur le seuil pour quiconque aura faim:
Vous laisserez toujours quelques fruits sur la branche
Pour que le voyageur vers ses lèvres la penche.
Et vous n’amasserez jamais que pour un temps,
_Car la Terre pour vous germe chaque printemps_,
Et Dieu, qui verse l’onde et fait fleurir ses rives,
Sait au festin des champs le nombre des convives.[253]
It is hardly necessary to record that _The Fall of an Angel_ was far
from receiving, from the world of fashion, the applause of his earlier
and more conventional productions.
Lamartine was still in the East (we refer to an earlier period),
when news of his election to the Chambre des Deputés by a Legitimist
constituency brought him back to Paris. Among the prominent political
leaders of the day he figured “as a progressive Conservative, strongly
blending reverence for the antique with a kind of philosophical
democracy. He spoke frequently on social and philanthropic questions.”
In 1838 he became deputy for Macon, his native town. During the
Orleanist régime he refused to hold office, professing aversion for the
“vulgar utility” of the government of Guizot and the Bourgeois King,
and in 1845 he openly joined the Liberal opposition. His _Histoire
des Girondins_ (1847) probably contributed to the expulsion of the
Orleanist dynasty in the next year.
In the scenes of the Revolution of February, 1848, he occupied a
prominent position as mediator between the two opposite parties;
and the retention of the tricolour, in place of the Red flag, is
attributed to his intervention. Elected a member of the Provisional
Government, Lamartine served as Foreign Minister of the Republic. In
this capacity he published his well-known _Manifesto à l’Europe_.
But, in spite of the fact that ten departments had elected him as
representative in the Assemblée Constituante, and that he was also made
one of the five members of the Executive Commission, his popularity
was short-lived. With all his, apparently, sincere sympathy with the
cause of the Oppressed, traditionary associations and strong family
attachments (sufficiently manifest in his _Mémoirs_) impeded him in
his political course; and his compromising attitude provoked the
distrust of more advanced political reformers. In competition with
Louis Napoléon and Cavaignac, he was nominated for the presidency; but
he received the support of few votes. From this period he withdrew
into private life and devoted himself entirely to literature. His
_Histoire de la Révolution_ (1849), _Histoire de la Restauration_,
_Histoire de la Russie_, _Histoire de la Turquie_, _Raphael_ (a
narrative of his childhood and youth) _Confidences_ (1849-1851), a
further autobiography--one of the most interesting of all his prose
productions--and various other writings, most of them appearing,
in the first instance, in the periodicals of the day, attested the
activity and versatility of his genius. He also for some time conducted
a journal--_Conseiller du Peuple_. In 1860 he collected his entire
writings into forty-one volumes. Of them his _Histoire des Girondins_
is, probably, the most widely known. But, next to _The Fall of an
Angel_, it is his own Memoirs which will always have most interest
and instruction for those who know how to appreciate true refinement
of soul, and, making due deductions from political or traditionary
prejudice, can discern essential worth of mind. In _Les Confidences_
he allows us to see the natural sensibility and superiority of his
disposition in his deep repugnance to the orthodox table--none the less
real because he seems, unhappily, to have deemed himself forced to
comply with the universal or, rather, fashionable barbarism. Writing of
his early education, he tells us:--
“Physically it was derived (_découlait_) in a large measure from
Pythagoras and from the _Emile_. Thus it was based upon the
greatest simplicity of dress and the most rigorous frugality with
regard to food. My mother was convinced, as I myself am, that
killing animals for the sake of nourishment from their flesh and
blood, is one of the infirmities of our human condition; that it is
one of those curses imposed upon man either by his fall, or by the
obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, as I do still, that
the habit of hardening the heart towards the most gentle animals,
our companions, our helpmates, our brothers in toil, and even in
affection, on this earth; that the slaughtering, the appetite
for blood, the sight of quivering flesh are the very things to
_have the effect_ (_sont faits pour_) to brutalise and harden
the instincts of the heart. She believed, as I do still, that
such nourishment, although, apparently, much more succulent and
active (_énergique_) contains within itself irritating and putrid
principles which embitter the food and shorten the days of man.
“To support these ideas she would instance the numberless refined
and pious people of India who abstain from everything that has had
life, and the hardy, robust pastoral race, and even the labouring
population of our fields, who work the hardest, live the longest
and most simply, and who do not eat meat ten times in their
lives. She never allowed me to eat it until I was thrown into the
rough-and-tumble (_pêle-mêle_) life of the public schools. To
wean me from the liking for it she used no arguments, but availed
herself of that instinct in us which reasons better than logic.
I had a lamb, which a peasant of Milly had given me, and which I
had trained to follow me everywhere, like the most attached and
faithful dog. We loved each other with that first love (_première
passion_) which children and young animals naturally have for
each other. One day the cook said to my mother in my presence
“Madame, the lamb is fat, and the butcher has come for it; must
I give it him?” I screamed and threw myself on the lamb, asking
what the butcher would do with it, and what was a ‘butcher.’ The
cook replied that he was a man who gained his living by killing
lambs, sheep, calves and cows. I could not believe it. I besought
my mother and readily obtained mercy for my favourite. A few days
afterwards my mother took me with her to the town and led me, as
by chance, through the shambles. There I saw men with bared and
blood-stained arms felling a bullock. Others were killing calves
and sheep, and cutting off their still palpitating limbs. Streams
Of blood smoked here and there upon the pavement. I was seized with
a profound pity, mingled with horror, and asked to be taken away.
The idea of these horrible and repulsive scenes, the necessary
preliminaries of the dishes I saw served at table, made me hold
animal food in disgust, and butchers in horror.
“Although the necessity of conforming to the customs of society
has since made me eat what others eat, I shall preserve a rational
(_raisonnée_) dislike to flesh dishes, and I have always found it
difficult not to consider the trade of a butcher almost on a par
with that of the executioner. I lived, then, till I was twelve on
bread, milk-products, vegetables and fruit. My health was not the
less robust, nor my growth the less rapid; and perhaps it is to
that _regimen_ that I owed the beauty of feature, the exquisite
sensibility, the serene sweetness of character and temper that I
preserved till that date.”[254]
Some years before the publication of his _Fall of an Angel_, Lamartine,
from the height of the National Tribune, had given significant
expression to the feeling of all the more thoughtful minds, vague
though it was, of the urgent need of some new and better principle to
inspire and govern human actions than any hitherto tried:--
“I see [he exclaimed] men who, alarmed by the repeated shocks
of our political commotions, await from providence a social
revolution, and look around them for some man, a philosopher, to
arise--_a doctrine_ which shall come to take violent possession
of the government of minds (_une doctrine qui vienne s’emparer
violemment du gouvernement des esprits_), and reinvigorate the
staggered (_ébranlé_) world. They hope, they invoke, they look for
this power, which shall impose itself by inherent right (_de son
plein droit_) as the Arbitrator and Supreme Ruler of the Future.”
But a few years earlier, in the same place, a still more positive
protest--not the less noteworthy because futile--was heard upon
the occasion of a discussion as to the introduction into France of
foreign “Cattle,” when one of the Deputies, Alexandre de Laborde,
maintained that flesh-meat is but an _object of luxury_; and was
supported, at least, by one or two other thoughtful deputies who had
the courage of their better convictions. It deserves to be noted that
while the Left seemed not unfavourable to the humaner feeling, the
Centre apathetic, and the Right derisively antagonistic, the minister
of the King (Charles X.) threw all the weight of his position into
the materialistic side of the scales. Thus this feeble and last
public attempt in France to stop the torrent of Materialism proved
abortive.[255]
XLIV.
MICHELET. 1797-1874.
The early life of this most original and eloquent of French historians
passed amidst much hardship and difficulty. His father, who was a
printer, had been employed by the government of the Revolution period
(1790-1794), and at the political reaction, a few years later, he found
himself reduced to poverty. From the experiences of his earlier life
Jules Michelet doubtless derived his contempt for the common rich and
luxuriant manner of living. Until his sixteenth year, flesh-meat formed
no part of his food; and his diet was of the scantiest as well as
simplest kind.
Naturally sensitive and contemplative, and averse from the rough
manners and petty tyranny of his schoolfellows, the young student found
companionship in a few choice books, of which A’Kempis’ _Imitation
of Christ_ seems to have been at that time one of the most read. At
the Sorbonne Michelet carried away some of the most valued prizes,
which were conferred with all the _éclat_ of the public awards of the
_Académie_. At the age of 24, having graduated as doctor in philosophy,
he obtained the chair of History in the Rollin College. His manner,
original and full of enthusiasm, though wanting often in method and
accuracy, possessed an irresistible fascination for his readers; and
all, who had the privilege of listening to him, were charmed by his
earnest eloquence.
His first principal work was his _Synopsis of Modern History_ (1827).
His version of the celebrated _Scienza Nuova_ of Vico, of whom he
regarded himself as the especial disciple, appeared soon after. Upon
the revolution of July, Michelet received the important post of Keeper
of the Archives, by which appointment he was enabled to prosecute his
researches in preparation for his _magnum opus_ in history, _L’Histoire
de la France_, the successive volumes of which appeared at long
intervals. It contains some of the finest passages in French prose, the
episode of _La Pucelle d’Orleans_ being, perhaps, the finest of all.
Having previously held a professorship in the Sorbonne (of which he was
deprived by Guizot, then minister), he was afterwards invited to fill
the chair of History in the Collège de France.