necessarily beyond the province and sphere of human institution and
government. The Roman Catholic, when you disqualify him on the ground of
his religion, may with great justice tell you that you are not his God,
that he cannot mold or fashion his faith by your decrees. You may
inflict penalties, and he may suffer them in silence; but if Parliament
assume the prerogative of Heaven, and enact laws to impose upon the
people a different religion, the people will not obey such laws. If you
pass an act to impose a tax or regulate a duty, the people can go to the
roll to learn what are the provisions of the law. But whenever you take
upon yourselves to legislate for God, though there may be truth in your
enactments, you have no authority to enforce them. In such a case, the
people will not go to the roll of Parliament, but to the Bible, the
testament of God's will, to ascertain his law and their duty. When once
man goes out of his sphere, and says he will legislate for God, he in
fact makes himself God. But this I do not charge upon the Parliament,
because in none of the Penal Acts has the Parliament imposed a
religious creed. It is not to be traced in the qualification oath, nor
in the declaration required. The qualifying oath, as to the great number
of offices and seats in Parliament, scrupulously evades religious
distinctions; a Dissenter of any class may take it, a Deist, an atheist,
may likewise take it. The Catholics are alone excepted; and for what
reason? Certainly not because the internal character of the Catholic
religion is inherently vicious; not because it necessarily incapacitates
those who profess it to make laws for their fellow-citizens. If a Deist
be fit to sit in Parliament, it can hardly be urged that a Christian is
unfit. If an atheist be competent to legislate for his country, surely
this privilege cannot be denied to the believer in the divinity of our
Savior. But let me ask you if you have forgotten what was the faith of
your ancestors, or if you are prepared to assert that the men who
procured your liberties are unfit to make your laws? Or do you forget
the tempests by which the Dissenting classes of the community were at a
former period agitated, or in what manner you fixed the rule of peace
over that wild scene of anarchy and commotion? If we attend to the
present condition and habits of these classes, do we not find their
controversies subsisting in full vigor? and can it be said that their
jarring sentiments and clashing interests are productive of any disorder
in the State; or that the Methodist himself, in all his noisy
familiarity with his Maker, is a dangerous or disloyal subject? Upon
what principle can it be argued that the application of a similar policy
would not conciliate the Catholics, and promote the general interests of
the empire? I can trace the continuance of their incapacities to nothing
else than a political combination; a combination that condemned the
Catholic religion, not as a heresy, but as a symptom of a civil
alienation. By this doctrine, the religion is not so much an evil in
itself as a perpetual token of political disaffection. In the spirit of
this liberal interpretation, you once decreed to take away their arms,
and on another occasion ordered all Papists to be removed from London.
In the whole subsequent course of administration, the religion has
continued to be esteemed the infallible symptom of a propensity to
rebel. Known or suspected Papists were once the objects of the severest
jealousy and the bitterest enactments. Some of these statutes have been
repealed, and the jealousy has since somewhat abated; but the same
suspicions, although in a less degree, pervade your councils. Your
imaginations are still infected with apprehensions of the proneness of
the Catholics to make cause with a foreign foe. A treaty has lately been
made with the King of the Two Sicilies. May I ask: Is his religion the
evidence of the warmth of his attachment to your alliance? Does it enter
into your calculation as one of the motives that must incline him to our
friendship, in preference to the friendship of the State professing his
own faith? A similar treaty has been recently entered into with the
Prince Regent of Portugal, professing the Roman Catholic religion; and
one million granted last year and two millions this session, for the
defense of Portugal. Nay, even in the treaty with the Prince Regent of
Portugal, there is an article which stipulates that we shall not make
peace with France unless Portugal shall be restored to the house of
Braganza. And has the Prince of Brazil's religion been considered
evidence of his connection with the enemy? You have not one ally who is
not Catholic; and will you continue to disqualify Irish Catholics, who
fight with you and your allies, because their religion is evidence of
disaffection?
But if the Catholic religion be this evidence of repugnance, is
Protestantism the proof of affection to the Crown and government of
England? For an answer, let us look at America. In vain did you send
your armies there; in vain did you appeal to the ties of common origin
and common religion. America joined with France, and adopted a
connection with a Catholic government. Turn to Prussia, and behold
whether her religion has had any effect on her political character. Did
the faith of Denmark prevent the attack on Copenhagen? It is admitted on
all sides that the Catholics have demonstrated their allegiance in as
strong a manner as the willing expenditure of blood and treasure can
evince. And remember that the French go not near so far in their defense
of Catholicism, as you in your hatred of it in your own subjects and
your reverence for it in your allies. They have not scrupled to pull
down the ancient fabrics of superstition in the countries subjected to
their arms. Upon a review of these facts, I am justified in assuming
that there is nothing inherent in Catholicism which either proves
disaffection, or disqualifies for public trusts. The immediate inference
is that they have as much right as any dissentient sect to the enjoyment
of civil privileges and a participation of equal rights; that they are
as fit morally and politically to hold offices in the State or seats in
Parliament. Those who dispute the conclusion will find it their duty to
controvert the reasoning on which it is founded. I do not believe the
Church is in any danger; but if it is, I am sure that we are in a wrong
way to secure it. If our laws will battle against Providence, there can
be no doubt of the issue of the conflict between the ordinances of God
and the decrees of man: transient must be the struggle, rapid the event.
Let us suppose an extreme case, but applicable to the present point:
Suppose the Thames were to inundate its banks, and suddenly swelling,
enter this House during our deliberations (an event which I greatly
deprecate, from my private friendship with many members who might happen
to be present, and my sense of the great exertions which many of them
have made for the public interest), and a motion of adjournment being
made, should be opposed, and an address to Providence moved that it
would be graciously pleased to turn back the overflow and direct the
waters into another channel. This, it will be said, would be absurd; but
consider whether you are acting upon a principle of greater intrinsic
wisdom, when after provoking the resentments you arm and martialize the
ambition of men, under the vain assurance that Providence will work a
miracle in the constitution of human nature, and dispose it to pay
injustice with affection, oppression with cordial support. This is in
fact the true character of your expectations; nothing less than that the
Author of the Universe should subvert his laws to ratify your statutes,
and disturb the settled course of nature to confirm the weak, the base
expedients of man. What says the Decalogue? Honor thy father. What says
the penal law? Take away his estate! Again, says the Decalogue, Do not
steal. The law, on the contrary, proclaims, You may rob a Catholic!
ON THE DOWNFALL OF BONAPARTE
From the Speech of May 25th, 1815
The French government is war; it is a stratocracy, elective, aggressive,
and predatory; her armies live to fight, and fight to live; their
constitution is essentially war, and the object of that war the conquest
of Europe. What such a person as Bonaparte at the head of such a
constitution will do, you may judge by what he has done: and first he
took possession of a greater part of Europe; he made his son King of
Rome; he made his son-in-law Viceroy of Italy; he made his brother King
of Holland; he made his brother-in-law King of Naples; he imprisoned the
King of Spain; he banished the Regent of Portugal, and formed his plan
to take possession of the Crown of England. England had checked his
designs; her trident had stirred up his empire from its foundation. He
complained of her tyranny at sea; but it was her power at sea which
arrested his tyranny on land,--the navy of England saved Europe. Knowing
this, he knew the conquest of England became necessary for the
accomplishment of the conquest of Europe, and the destruction of her
marine necessary for the conquest of England. Accordingly, besides
raising an army of 60,000 men for the invasion of England, he applied
himself to the destruction of her commerce, the foundation of her naval
power. In pursuit of this object and on his plan of a Western empire, he
conceived and in part executed the design of consigning to plunder and
destruction the vast regions of Russia. He quits the genial clime of the
temperate zone; he bursts through the narrow limits of an immense
empire; he abandons comfort and security, and he hurries to the Pole to
hazard them all, and with them the companions of his victories and the
fame and fruits of his crimes and his talents, on speculation of leaving
in Europe, throughout the whole of its extent, no one free or
independent nation. To oppose this huge conception of mischief and
despotism, the great potentate of the north from his gloomy recesses
advances to defend himself against the voracity of ambition, amid the
sterility of his empire. Ambition is omnivorous; it feasts on famine and
sheds tons of blood, that it may starve in ice in order to commit a
robbery on desolation. The power of the north, I say, joins another
prince, whom Bonaparte had deprived of almost the whole of his
authority,--the King of Prussia; and then another potentate, whom
Bonaparte had deprived of the principal part of his dominions,--the
Emperor of Austria. These three powers, physical causes, final justice,
the influence of your victories in Spain and Portugal, and the spirit
given to Europe by the achievements and renown of your great commander
[the Duke of Wellington], together with the precipitation of his own
ambition, combine to accomplish his destruction; Bonaparte is conquered.
He who said, "I will be like the Most High," he who smote the nations
with a continual stroke,--this short-lived son of the morning,
Lucifer,--falls, and the earth is at rest; the phantom of royalty
passes on to nothing, and the three kings to the gates of Paris: there
they stand, the late victims of his ambition, and now the disposers of
his destiny and the masters of his empire. Without provocation he had
gone to their countries with fire and sword; with the greatest
provocation they came to his country with life and liberty: they do an
act unparalleled in the annals of history, such as nor envy, nor time,
nor malice, nor prejudice, nor ingratitude can efface; they give to his
subjects liberty, and to himself life and royalty. This is greater than
conquest! The present race must confess their virtues, and ages to come
must crown their monuments, and place them above heroes and kings in
glory everlasting....
Do you wish to confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe,--a
tyranny founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil
government, tending to universalize throughout Europe the domination of
the sword,--and to reduce to paper and parchment, Magna Charta and all
our civil constitutions? An experiment such as no country ever made and
no good country would ever permit: to relax the moral and religious
influences; to set heaven and earth adrift from one another, and make
God Almighty a tolerated alien in his own creation; an insurrectionary
hope to every bad man in the community, and a frightful lesson to profit
and power, vested in those who have pandered their allegiance from king
to emperor, and now found their pretensions to domination on the merit
of breaking their oaths and deposing their sovereign. Should you do
anything so monstrous as to leave your allies in order to confirm such a
system; should you forget your name, forget your ancestors, and the
inheritance they have left you of morality and renown; should you
astonish Europe by quitting your allies to render immortal such a
composition, would not the nations exclaim: "You have very providently
watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed to
our service,--and do you falter now? In vain have you stopped in your
own person the flying fortunes of Europe; in vain have you taken the
eagle of Napoleon and snatched _invincibility_ from his standard, if
now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you take the lead in
the desertion and preach the penitence of Bonaparte and the poverty of
England."
[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY.]
THOMAS GRAY
(1716-1771)
BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP
The fame of Thomas Gray is unique among English poets, in that, although
world-wide and luminous, it springs from a single poem, a flawless
masterpiece,--the 'Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard.' This is the
one production by which he is known to the great mass of readers and
will continue to be known to coming generations; yet in his own time his
other poems were important factors, in establishing the high repute
accorded to him then and still maintained in the esteem of critics.
Nevertheless, living to be nearly fifty-five and giving himself
exclusively to letters, the whole of the work that he left behind him
amounted only to some fourteen hundred lines.
His value to literature and to posterity, therefore, is to be measured
not by the quantity of his literary contributions or by any special
variety in their scope, but by a certain wholesome and independent
influence which he exerted upon the language of poetry, and by a rare
quality of intense yet seemingly calm and almost repressed genius, which
no one among his commentators has been able to define clearly. The most
comprehensive thing ever written about him--wise, just, witty, yet
sympathetic and penetrating--is the essay by James Russell Lowell in his
final volume of criticism.
"It is the rarest thing," says Lowell, "to find genius and
dilettantism united in the same person (as for a time they
were in Goethe): for genius implies always a certain
fanaticism of temperament, which, if sometimes it seem
fitful, is yet capable of intense energy on occasion; while
the main characteristic of the dilettante is that sort of
impartiality which springs from inertia of mind, admirable
for observation, incapable of turning it to practical
account. Yet we have, I think, an example of this rare
combination of qualities in Gray; and it accounts both for
the kind of excellence to which he attained, and for the way
in which he disappointed expectation.... He is especially
interesting as an artist in words and phrases, a literary
type far less common among writers of English than it is in
France or Italy, where perhaps the traditions of Latin
culture were never wholly lost.... When so many have written
so much, we shall the more readily pardon the man who has
written too little or just enough."
He was born in London, December 26th, 1716, the son of a money scrivener
who had dissipated most of his inherited property, but was skilled in
music, and perhaps transmitted to the son that musical element which
gives beauty and strength to his poetry. Gray's mother was a woman of
character, who with his aunt set up an India warehouse and supported
herself; also sending the young man to St. Peter's College, Cambridge,
after his studies at Eton. Leaving college without a degree, he traveled
on the Continent of Europe with Horace Walpole in 1739; then returned to
Cambridge and passed the remainder of his life in the university, as a
bachelor of civil law nominally,--not practicing, but devoting himself
to study and to excursions through rural England. He had a profound and
passionate love for nature, a kind of religious exaltation in the
contemplation of it and in mountain worship, which was at variance with
the prevailing eighteenth-century literary mood and prefigured the
feeling of Wordsworth. His mother having retired to Stoke Poges,
Buckinghamshire, he often made visits there; and the church-yard of his
deathless 'Elegy' is generally believed to be that of the parish church
at Stoke Poges. It was here that he was laid to rest in the same tomb
with his mother and his aunt, after his death, July 24th, 1771.
The 'Elegy' was finished in 1749. He had begun writing it seven years
before. This has sometimes been alluded to as an instance in point of
Horace's advice, that a poem should be matured for seven years. The
length of time given to the 'Elegy,' however, may be accounted for
partly by Gray's dilatory habits of writing, and partly by the parallel
of Tennyson's long delay in perfecting the utterance of his meditations
on the death of his friend Hallam through 'In Memoriam.' Gray's dearest
friend, Richard West, died in 1742; and it was apparently under the
stress of that sorrow that he began the 'Elegy,' which was completed
only in 1749. Two years later it was published. It won the popular heart
immediately, and passed through four editions in the first twelvemonth.
Of Gray's other poems, those which have left the deepest impression are
his 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,' 'The Progress of
Poesy,' and 'The Bard.' The last two are somewhat Pindaric in style, but
also suggest the influence of the Italian canzone. In the Eton College
ode, his first published piece, occurs the phrase since grown
proverbial, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." It is a
curious fact that while most readers know Gray only as the author of the
'Elegy,' every one is familiar with certain lines coined by him, but
unaware of their source. For instance, in 'The Progress of Poesy,' he
speaks of
"The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame."
It is in the same place that he describes Milton as "blasted with excess
of light," and in alluding to Dryden, evolves the image of
"Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
His, too, in 'The Bard,' is the now well-known line--
"Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm."
Many of his finest expressions are in part derived from classic or other
poets; but he showed undeniable genius in his adaptation,
transformation, or new creation from these suggestive passages.
Gray was small and delicate in person, handsome and refined, fond of
fashionable dress, and preferred to be known as a "gentleman" rather
than a poet. He was very reticent, somewhat melancholy, and an invalid;
a man also of vast erudition, being learned not only in literature but
in botany, zoology, antiquities, architecture, art, history, and
philosophy as well. He enjoyed the distinction of refusing the post of
poet laureate, after the death of Cibber. On the other hand, he coveted
the place of professor of modern literature and languages at Cambridge
University, to which he was appointed in 1769; but he never performed
any of the duties of his professorship beyond that of drawing the
salary.
He brought forth nothing in the special kinds of knowledge which he had
acquired in such large measure; and the actual ideas conveyed in his
poetry were not original, but savored rather of the commonplace. Lowell
says of the 'Elegy' that it won its popularity "not through any
originality of thought, but far more through originality of sound."
There must, however, be some deeper reason than this for the grasp which
it has upon the minds and hearts of all classes. Two elements of power
and popularity it certainly possessed in the highest degree. One is the
singular simplicity of its language (a result of consummate art), which
makes it understandable by everybody. The other is the depth and the
sincerity of the emotion with which it imbues thoughts, sentiments, and
reflections that are common to the whole of mankind. The very
unproductiveness of Gray's mind in other directions probably helped this
one product. The quintessence of all his learning, his perceptive
faculty, and his meditations was infused into the life-blood of this
immortal poem.
[Signature: George Parsons Lathrop]
[Illustration: _STOKE POGES CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD._
The burial-place of Thomas Gray and the scene of his famous Elegy.
Photogravure from a Photograph.]
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of Pain and Ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,--
Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;
The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
[The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success;
But more to Innocence their safety owe,
Than Power and Genius e'er conspired to bless.]
[Hark, how the sacred calm that broods around
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease,
In still, small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.]
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their names, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies;
Some pious drops the closing eye requires:
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries;
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee who, mindful of th' unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say:--
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
"One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill,
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he:
"The next, with dirges due in sad array,
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne;--
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
["There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."]
THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had,--a tear;
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)--
The Bosom of his Father and his God.
[The stanzas included in brackets were omitted by Gray in the
first edition of the 'Elegy,' and as sanctioned by him or by
later editors are (except as to the third one) of infrequent
appearance in the poem.]
ODE ON THE SPRING
Lo! Where the rosy-bosomed Hours,
Fair Venus's train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring;
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclined in rustic state)
How vain the ardor of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!