[134] That it was also, in, some cases, the earliest that the Greeks

gave, is proved by Lucian's account of his first lesson at his uncle's;

the [Greek: enkopeus], literally "in-cutter"--being the first tool put

into his hand, and an earthenware tablet to cut upon, which the boy

pressing too hard, presently breaks;--gets beaten--goes home crying, and

becomes, after his dream above quoted, a philosopher instead of a

sculptor.

LECTURE VI.

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS.

_December, 1870._

181. It can scarcely be needful for me to tell even the younger members

of my present audience, that the conditions necessary for the production

of a perfect school of sculpture have only twice been met in the history

of the world, and then for a short time; nor for short time only, but

also in narrow districts, namely, in the valleys and islands of Ionian

Greece, and in the strip of land deposited by the Arno, between the

Apennine crests and the sea.

All other schools, except these two, led severally by Athens in the

fifth century before Christ, and by Florence in the fifteenth of our own

era, are imperfect; and the best of them are derivative: these two are

consummate in themselves, and the origin of what is best in others.

182. And observe, these Athenian and Florentine schools are both of

equal rank, as essentially original and independent. The Florentine,

being subsequent to the Greek, borrowed much from it; but it would have

existed just as strongly--and, perhaps, in some respects, more

nobly--had it been the first, instead of the latter of the two. The task

set to each of these mightiest of the nations was, indeed, practically

the same, and as hard to the one as to the other. The Greeks found

Phoenician and Etruscan art monstrous, and had to make them human. The

Italians found Byzantine and Norman art monstrous, and had to make them

human. The original power in the one case is easily traced; in the other

it has partly to be unmasked, because the change at Florence was, in

many points, suggested and stimulated by the former school. But we

mistake in supposing that Athens taught Florence the laws of design; she

taught her, in reality, only the duty of truth.

183. You remember that I told you the highest art could do no more than

rightly represent the human form. This is the simple test, then, of a

perfect school,--that it has represented the human form, so that it is

impossible to conceive of its being better done. And that, I repeat, has

been accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And so

narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it

cannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire human

form. The Greeks perfectly drew, and perfectly moulded the body and

limbs; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their

representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand,

the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there

is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by

command of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and his safety

to mortify.

184. The general course of your study here renders it desirable that you

should be accurately acquainted with the leading principles of Greek

sculpture; but I cannot lay these before you without giving undue

prominence to some of the special merits of that school, unless I

previously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though

less disciplined, excellence of Christian art.

In this and the last lecture of the present course,[135] I shall

endeavour, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like

outline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of

the two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison

afterwards; and not answering, observe, at present, for any

generalization I give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and

more qualified statements.

And in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indifferently of works

of sculpture, and of the modes of painting which propose to themselves

the same objects as sculpture. And this indeed Florentine, as opposed to

Venetian, painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly

always did.

185. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest

kind--engravings, or, at least, linear drawings, both; one on clay, one

on copper, made in the central periods of each style, and representing

the same goddess--Aphrodite. They are now set beside each other in your

Rudimentary Series. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus,

authoritatively assigned by Mr. Newton, in his recent catalogue, to the

best period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of

engravings executed, probably, by Baccio Baldini, in 1485, out of which

I chose your first practical exercise--the Sceptre of Apollo. I cannot,

however, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged

to set the restricted type of the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside

the universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air,

earth, and sea; nevertheless the restriction in the mind of the Greek,

and expatiation in that of the Florentine, are both characteristic. The

Greek Venus Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters

symbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the earth by

a single flower in her right hand; but the Italian Aphrodite is rising

out of the actual sea, and only half risen: her limbs are still in the

sea, her merely animal strength filling the waters with their life; but

her body to the loins is in the sunshine, her face raised to the sky;

her hand is about to lay a garland of flowers on the earth.

186. The Venus Urania of the Greeks, in her relation to men, has power

only over lawful and domestic love; therefore, she is fully dressed, and

not only quite dressed, but most daintily and trimly: her feet

delicately sandalled, her gown spotted with little stars, her hair

brushed exquisitely smooth at the top of her head, trickling in minute

waves down her forehead; and though, because there's such a quantity of

it, she can't possibly help having a chignon, look how tightly she has

fastened it in with her broad fillet. Of course she is married, so she

must wear a cap with pretty minute pendant jewels at the border; and a

very small necklace, all that her husband can properly afford, just

enough to go closely round the neck, and no more. On the contrary, the

Aphrodite of the Italian, being universal love, is pure-naked; and her

long hair is thrown wild to the wind and sea.

These primal differences in the symbolism, observe, are only because the

artists are thinking of separate powers: they do not necessarily involve

any national distinction in feeling. But the differences I have next to

indicate are essential, and characterize the two opposed national modes

of mind.

187. First, and chiefly. The Greek Aphrodite is a very pretty person,

and the Italian a decidedly plain one. That is because a Greek thought

no one could possibly love any but pretty people; but an Italian thought

that love could give dignity to the meanest form that it inhabited, and

light to the poorest that it looked upon. So his Aphrodite will not

condescend to be pretty.

188. Secondly. In the Greek Venus the breasts are broad and full, though

perfectly severe in their almost conical profile;--(you are allowed on

purpose to see the outline of the right breast, under the chiton:)--also

the right arm is left bare, and you can just see the contour of the

front of the right limb and knee; both arm and limb pure and firm, but

lovely. The plant she holds in her hand is a branching and flowering

one, the seed vessel prominent. These signs all mean that her essential

function is child-bearing.

On the contrary, in the Italian Venus the breasts are so small as to be

scarcely traceable; the body strong, and almost masculine in its angles;

the arms meagre and unattractive, and she lays a decorative garland of

flowers on the earth. These signs mean that the Italian thought of love

as the strength of an eternal spirit, for ever helpful; and for ever

crowned with flowers, that neither know seed-time nor harvest, and bloom

where there is neither death, nor birth.

189. Thirdly. The Greek Aphrodite is entirely calm, and looks straight

forward. Not one feature of her face is disturbed, or seems ever to have

been subject to emotion. The Italian Aphrodite looks up, her face all

quivering and burning with passion and wasting anxiety. The Greek one

is quiet, self-possessed, and self-satisfied; the Italian incapable of

rest, she has had no thought nor care for herself; her hair has been

bound by a fillet like the Greeks; but it is now all fallen loose, and

clotted with the sea, or clinging to her body; only the front tress of

it is caught by the breeze from her raised forehead, and lifted, in the

place where the tongues of fire rest on the brows, in the early

Christian pictures of Pentecost, and the waving fires abide upon the

heads of Angelico's seraphim.

190. There are almost endless points of interest, great and small, to be

noted in these differences of treatment. This binding of the hair by the

single fillet marks the straight course of one great system of art

method, from that Greek head which I showed you on the archaic coin of

the seventh century before Christ, to this of the fifteenth of our own

era--nay, when you look close, you will see the entire action of the

head depends on one lock of hair falling back from the ear, which it

does in compliance with the old Greek observance of its being bent there

by the pressure of the helmet. That rippling of it down her shoulders

comes from the Athena of Corinth; the raising of it on her forehead,

from the knot of the hair of Diana, changed into the vestal fire of the

angels. But chiefly, the calmness of the features in the one face, and

their anxiety in the other, indicate first, indeed, the characteristic

difference in every conception of the schools, the Greek never

representing expression, the Italian primarily seeking it; but far more,

mark for us here the utter change in the conception of love; from the

tranquil guide and queen of a happy terrestrial domestic life, accepting

its immediate pleasures and natural duties, to the agonizing hope of an

infinite good, and the ever mingled joy and terror of a love divine in

jealousy, crying, "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon

thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave."

The vast issues dependent on this change in the conception of the ruling

passion of the human soul, I will endeavour to show you, on a future

occasion: in my present lecture, I shall limit myself to the definition

of the temper of Greek sculpture, and of its distinctions from

Florentine in the treatment of any subject whatever, be it love or

hatred, hope or despair.

These great differences are mainly the following.

191. 1. A Greek never expresses momentary passion; a Florentine looks to

momentary passion as the ultimate object of his skill.

When you are next in London, look carefully in the British Museum at the

casts from the statues in the pediment of the Temple of Minerva at

AEgina. You have there Greek work of definite date;--about 600 B.C.,

certainly before 580--of the purest kind; and you have the

representation of a noble ideal subject, the combats of the AEacidae at

Troy, with Athena herself looking on. But there is no attempt whatever

to represent expression in the features, none to give complexity of

action or gesture; there is no struggling, no anxiety, no visible

temporary exertion of muscles. There are fallen figures, one pulling a

lance out of his wound, and others in attitudes of attack and defence;

several kneeling to draw their bows. But all inflict and suffer, conquer

or expire, with the same smile.

192. Plate XIV. gives you examples, from more advanced art, of true

Greek representation; the subjects being the two contests of leading

import to the Greek heart--that of Apollo with the Python, and of

Hercules with the Nemean Lion. You see that in neither case is there the

slightest effort to represent the [Greek: lyssa] or agony of contest. No

good Greek artist would have you behold the suffering, either of gods,

heroes, or men; nor allow you to be apprehensive of the issue of their

contest with evil beasts, or evil spirits. All such lower sources of

excitement are to be closed to you; your interest is to be in the

thoughts involved by the fact of the war; and in the beauty or rightness

of form, whether active or inactive. I have to work out this subject

with you afterwards, and to compare with the pure Greek method of

thought, that of modern dramatic passion, engrafted on it, as typically

in Turner's contest of Apollo and the Python: in the meantime, be

content with the statement of this first great principle--that a Greek,

as such, never expresses momentary passion.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--APOLLO AND THE PYTHON.

HERACLES AND THE NEMEAN LION.]

[Illustration: PLATE XV.--HERA OF ARGOS. ZEUS OF SYRACUSE.]

193. Secondly. The Greek, as such, never expresses personal character,

while a Florentine holds it to be the ultimate condition of beauty. You

are startled, I suppose, at my saying this, having had it often pointed

out to you, as a transcendent piece of subtlety in Greek art, that you

could distinguish Hercules from Apollo by his being stout, and Diana

from Juno by her being slender. That is very true; but those are general

distinctions of class, not special distinctions of personal character.

Even as general, they are bodily, not mental. They are the distinctions,

in fleshly aspect, between an athlete and a musician,--between a matron

and a huntress; but in no wise distinguish the simple-hearted hero from

the subtle Master of the Muses, nor the wilful and fitful girl-goddess

from the cruel and resolute matron-goddess. But judge for

yourselves;--In the successive plates, XV.--XVIII., I show you,[136]

typically represented as the protectresses of nations, the Argive,

Cretan, and Lacinian Hera, the Messenian Demeter, the Athena of Corinth,

the Artemis of Syracuse, the fountain Arethusa of Syracuse, and the

Sirem Ligeia of Terina. Now, of these heads, it is true that some are

more delicate in feature than the rest, and some softer in expression:

in other respects, can you trace any distinction between the Goddesses

of Earth and Heaven, or between the Goddess of Wisdom and the Water

Nymph of Syracuse? So little can you do so, that it would have remained

a disputed question--had not the name luckily been inscribed on some

Syracusan coins--whether the head upon them was meant for Arethusa at

all; and, continually, it becomes a question respecting finished

statues, if without attributes, "Is this Bacchus or Apollo--Zeus or

Poseidon?" There is a fact for you; noteworthy, I think! There is no

personal character in true Greek art:--abstract ideas of youth and age,

strength and swiftness, virtue and vice,--yes: but there is no

individuality; and the negative holds down to the revived

conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo, when he tells you how

you are to paint young women, and how old ones; though a Greek would

hardly have been so discourteous to age as the Italian is in his canon

of it,--"old women should be represented as passionate and hasty, after

the manner of Infernal Furies."

194. "But at least, if the Greeks do not give character, they give ideal

beauty?" So it is said, without contradiction. But will you look again

at the series of coins of the best time of Greek art, which I have just

set before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful?

Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren,

and Arethusa, have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure

that if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither

reach even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus

Urania suggests at first, the idea of a very charming person, but you

will find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked

at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples; the best I can find

of art current in Greece at the great time; and if even I were to take

the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one

of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already asserted,

in _The Queen of the Air_, has nothing notable in feature except dignity

and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic type of great

beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could tolerate in

their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by the coin

represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three vases of the

best time, to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was, in popular

art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and finally,--and this you

may accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness to the

most subtle beauty--there is little evidence even in their literature,

and none in their art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in

infancy, or early childhood.

[Illustration: PLATE XVI.--DEMETER OF MESSENE. HERA OF CROSSUS.]

[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--ATHENA OF THURIUM.

SEREIE LIGEIA OF TERINA]

195. The Greeks, then, do not give passion, do not give character, do

not give refined or naive beauty. But you may think that the absence of

these is intended to give dignity to the gods and nymphs; and that their

calm faces would be found, if you long observed them, instinct with some

expression of divine mystery or power.

I will convince you of the narrow range of Greek thought in these

respects, by showing you, from the two sides of one and the same coin,

images of the most mysterious of their Deities, and the most

powerful,--Demeter and Zeus.

Remember, that just as the west coasts of Ireland and England catch

first on their hills the rain of the Atlantic, so the western

Peloponnese arrests, in the clouds of the first mountain ranges of

Arcadia, the moisture of the Mediterranean; and over all the plains of

Elis, Pylos, and Messene, the strength and sustenance of men was

naturally felt to be granted by Zeus; as, on the east coast of Greece,

the greater clearness of the air by the power of Athena. If

you will recollect the prayer of Rhea, in the single line of

Callimachus--"[Greek: Gaia phile, teke kai su teai d' odines elaphrai],"

(compare Pausanias iv. 33, at the beginning,)--it will mark for you the

connection, in the Greek mind, of the birth of the mountain springs of

Arcadia with the birth of Zeus. And the centres of Greek thought on this

western coast are necessarily Elis, and, (after the time of

Epaminondas,) Messene.

196. I show you the coin of Messene, because the splendid height and

form of Mount Ithome were more expressive of the physical power of Zeus

than the lower hills of Olympia; and also because it was struck just at

the time of the most finished and delicate Greek art--a little after the

main strength of Phidias, but before decadence had generally pronounced

itself. The coin is a silver didrachm, bearing on one side a head of

Demeter (Plate XVI., at the top); on the other a full figure of Zeus

Aietophoros (Plate XIX., at the top); the two together signifying the

sustaining strength of the earth and heaven. Look first at the head of

Demeter. It is merely meant to personify fulness of harvest; there is no

mystery in it, no sadness, no vestige of the expression which we should

have looked for in any effort to realize the Greek thoughts of the Earth

Mother, as we find them spoken by the poets. But take it merely as

personified abundance;--the goddess of black furrow and tawny grass--how

commonplace it is, and how poor! The hair is grand, and there is one

stalk of wheat set in it, which is enough to indicate the goddess who is

meant; but, in that very office, ignoble, for it shows that the artist

could only inform you that this was Demeter by such a symbol. How easy

it would have been for a great designer to have made the hair lovely

with fruitful flowers, and the features noble in mystery of gloom, or of

tenderness. But here you have nothing to interest you, except the common

Greek perfections of a straight nose and a full chin.

197. We pass, on the reverse of the die, to the figure of Zeus

Aietophoros. Think of the invocation to Zeus in the Suppliants, (525),

"King of Kings, and Happiest of the Happy, Perfectest of the Perfect in

strength, abounding in all things, Jove--hear us and be with us;" and

then, consider what strange phase of mind it was, which, under the very

mountain-home of the god, was content with this symbol of him as a

well-fed athlete, holding a diminutive and crouching eagle on his fist.

The features and the right hand have been injured in this coin, but the

action of the arms shows that it held a thunderbolt, of which, I

believe, the twisted rays were triple. In the, presumably earlier, coin

engraved by Millingen, however,[137] it is singly pointed only; and the

added inscription "[Greek: ITHOM]," in the field, renders the conjecture

of Millingen probable, that this is a rude representation of the statue

of Zeus Ithomates, made by Ageladas, the master of Phidias; and I think

it has, indeed, the aspect of the endeavour, by a workman of more

advanced knowledge, and more vulgar temper, to put the softer anatomy of

later schools into the simple action of an archaic figure. Be that as it

may, here is one of the most refined cities of Greece content with the

figure of an athlete as the representative of their own mountain god;

marked as a divine power merely by the attributes of the eagle and

thunderbolt.

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.--ARTEMIS OF SYRACUSE.

HERA OF LACINIAN CAPE.]

[Illustration: PLATE XIX.--ZEUS OF MESSENE. AJAX OF OPUS.]

198. Lastly. The Greeks have not, it appears, in any supreme way, given

to their statues character, beauty, or divine strength. Can they give

divine sadness? Shall we find in their artwork any of that pensiveness

and yearning for the dead, which fills the chants of their tragedy? I

suppose if anything like nearness or firmness of faith in afterlife is

to be found in Greek legend, you might look for it in the stories about

the Island of Leuce, at the mouth of the Danube, inhabited by the ghosts

of Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax the son of Oileus, and Helen; and in which

the pavement of the Temple of Achilles was washed daily by the sea-birds

with their wings, dipping them in the sea.

Now it happens that we have actually on a coin of the Locrians the

representation of the ghost of the Lesser Ajax. There is nothing in the

history of human imagination more lovely, than their leaving always a

place for his spirit, vacant in their ranks of battle. But here is their

sculptural representation of the phantom; (lower figure, Plate XIX.),

and I think you will at once agree with me in feeling that it would be

impossible to conceive anything more completely unspiritual. You might

more than doubt that it could have been meant for the departed soul,

unless you were aware of the meaning of this little circlet between the

feet. On other coins you find his name inscribed there, but in this you

have his habitation, the haunted Island of Leuce itself, with the waves

flowing round it.

199. Again and again, however, I have to remind you, with respect to

these apparently frank and simple failures, that the Greek always

intends you to think for yourself, and understand, more than he can

speak. Take this instance at our hands, the trim little circlet for the

Island of Leuce. The workman knows very well it is not like the island,

and that he could not make it so; that at its best, his sculpture can be

little more than a letter; and yet, in putting this circlet, and its

encompassing fretwork of minute waves, he does more than if he had

merely given you a letter L, or written "Leuce." If you know anything of

beaches and sea, this symbol will set your imagination at work in

recalling them; then you will think of the temple service of the

novitiate sea-birds, and of the ghosts of Achilles and Patroclus

appearing, like the Dioscuri, above the storm-clouds of the Euxine. And

the artist, throughout his work, never for an instant loses faith in

your sympathy and passion being ready to answer his;--if you have none

to give, he does not care to take you into his counsel; on the whole,

would rather that you should not look at his work.

200. But if you have this sympathy to give, you may be sure that

whatever he does for you will be right, as far as he can render it so.

It may not be sublime, nor beautiful, nor amusing; but it will be full

of meaning, and faithful in guidance. He will give you clue to myriads

of things that he cannot literally teach; and, so far as he does teach,

you may trust him. Is not this saying much?

And as he strove only to teach what was true, so, in his sculptured

symbol, he strove only to carve what was--Right. He rules over the arts

to this day, and will for ever, because he sought not first for beauty,

nor first for passion, or for invention, but for Rightness; striving to

display, neither himself nor his art, but the thing that he dealt with,

in its simplicity. That is his specific character as a Greek. Of course,

every nation's character is connected with that of others surrounding or

preceding it; and in the best Greek work you will find some things that

are still false, or fanciful; but whatever in it is false or fanciful,

is not the Greek part of it--it is the Phoenician, or Egyptian, or

Pelasgian part. The essential Hellenic stamp is veracity:--Eastern

nations drew their heroes with eight legs, but the Greeks drew them with

two;--Egyptians drew their deities with cats' heads, but the Greeks drew

them with men's; and out of all fallacy, disproportion, and

indefiniteness, they were, day by day, resolvedly withdrawing and

exalting themselves into restricted and demonstrable truth.

201. And now, having cut away the misconceptions which encumbered our

thoughts, I shall be able to put the Greek school into some clearness of

its position for you, with respect to the art of the world. That

relation is strangely duplicate; for on one side, Greek art is the root

of all simplicity; and on the other, of all complexity.

[Illustration: PLATE XX.--GREEK AND BARBARIAN SCULPTURE.]

On one side I say, it is the root of all simplicity. If you were for

some prolonged period to study Greek sculpture exclusively in the Elgin

Room of the British Museum, and were then suddenly transported to the

Hotel de Cluny, or any other museum of Gothic and barbarian workmanship,

you would imagine the Greeks were the masters of all that was grand,

simple, wise, and tenderly human, opposed to the pettiness of the toys

of the rest of mankind.

202. On one side of their work they are so. From all vain and mean

decoration--all weak and monstrous error, the Greeks rescue the forms of

man and beast, and sculpture them in the nakedness of their true flesh,

and with the fire of their living soul. Distinctively from other races,

as I have now, perhaps to your weariness, told you, this is the work of

the Greek, to give health to what was diseased, and chastisement to what

was untrue. So far as this is found in any other school, hereafter, it

belongs to them by inheritance from the Greeks, or invests them with the

brotherhood of the Greek. And this is the deep meaning of the myth of

Daedalus as the giver of motion to statues. The literal change from the

binding together of the feet to their separation, and the other

modifications of action which took place, either in progressive skill,

or often, as the mere consequence of the transition from wood to stone,

(a figure carved out of one wooden log must have necessarily its feet

near each other, and hands at its sides), these literal changes are as

nothing, in the Greek fable, compared to the bestowing of apparent life.

The figures of monstrous gods on Indian temples have their legs separate

enough; but they are infinitely more dead than the rude figures at

Branchidae sitting with their hands on their knees. And, briefly, the

work of Daedalus is the giving of deceptive life, as that of Prometheus

the giving of real life; and I can put the relation of Greek to all

other art, in this function, before you in easily compared and

remembered examples.

203. Here, on the right, in Plate XX., is an Indian bull, colossal, and

elaborately carved, which you may take as a sufficient type of the bad

art of all the earth. False in form, dead in heart, and loaded with

wealth, externally. We will not ask the date of this; it may rest in the

eternal obscurity of evil art, everywhere and for ever. Now, besides

this colossal bull, here is a bit of Daedalus work, enlarged from a coin

not bigger than a shilling: look at the two together, and you ought to

know, henceforward, what Greek art means, to the end of your days.

204. In this aspect of it then, I say, it is the simplest and nakedest

of lovely veracities. But it has another aspect, or rather another pole,

for the opposition is diametric. As the simplest, so also it is the most

complex of human art. I told you in my fifth Lecture, showing you the

spotty picture of Velasquez, that an essential Greek character is a

liking for things that are dappled. And you cannot but have noticed how

often and how prevalently the idea which gave its name to the Porch of

Polygnotus, "[Greek: stoa poikile]," occurs to the Greeks as connected

with the finest art. Thus, when the luxurious city is opposed to the

simple and healthful one, in the second book of Plato's Polity, you find

that, next to perfumes, pretty ladies, and dice, you must have in it

"[Greek: poikilia]," which observe, both in that place and again in the

third book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the

idea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and

sound--the "ravishing division to the lute," as in Pindar's "[Greek:

poikiloi hymnoi]"--runs through the compass of all Greek

art-description; and if, instead of studying that art among marbles you

were to look at it only on vases of a fine time, (look back, for

instance, to Plate IV. here), your impression of it would be, instead of

breadth and simplicity, one of universal spottiness and chequeredness,

"[Greek: en angeon Herkesin pampoikilois];" and of the artist's

delighting in nothing so much as in crossed or starred or spotted

things; which, in right places, he and his public both do unlimitedly.

Indeed they hold it complimentary even to a trout, to call him a

"spotty." Do you recollect the trout in the tributaries of the Ladon,

which Pausanias says were spotted, so that they were like thrushes and

which, the Arcadians told him, could speak? In this last [Greek:

poikilia], however, they disappointed him. "I, indeed, saw some of them

caught," he says, "but I did not hear any of them speak, though I waited

beside the river till sunset."

[Illustration: PLATE XXI.--THE BEGINNINGS OF CHIVALRY.]

205. I must sum roughly now, for I have detained you too long.

The Greeks have been thus the origin not only of all broad, mighty, and

calm conception, but of all that is divided, delicate, and tremulous;

"variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made." To them, as

first leaders of ornamental design, belongs, of right, the praise of

glistenings in gold, piercings in ivory, stainings in purple,

burnishings in dark blue steel; of the fantasy of the Arabian

roof--quartering of the Christian shield,--rubric and arabesque of

Christian scripture; in fine, all enlargement, and all diminution of

adorning thought, from the temple to the toy, and from the mountainous

pillars of Agrigentum to the last fineness of fretwork in the Pisan

Chapel of the Thorn.

And in their doing all this, they stand as masters of human order and

justice, subduing the animal nature guided by the spiritual one, as you

see the Sicilian Charioteer stands, holding his horse-reins, with the

wild lion racing beneath him, and the flying angel above, on the

beautiful coin of early Syracuse; (lowest in Plate XXI).

And the beginnings of Christian chivalary were in that Greek bridling of

the dark and the white horses.

206. Not that a Greek never made mistakes. He made as many as we do

ourselves, nearly;--he died of his mistakes at last--as we shall die of

them; but so far he was separated from the herd of more mistaken and

more wretched nations--so far as he was Greek--it was by his rightness.

He lived, and worked, and was satisfied with the fatness of his land,

and the fame of his deeds, by his justice, and reason, and modesty. He

became _Graeculus esuriens_, little, and hungry, and every man's

errand-boy, by his iniquity, and his competition, and his love of talk.

But his Graecism was in having done, at least at one period of his

dominion, more than anybody else, what was modest, useful, and eternally

true; and as a workman, he verily did, or first suggested the doing of,

everything possible to man.

Take Daedalus, his great type of the practically executive craftsman, and

the inventor of expedients in craftsmanship, (as distinguished from

Prometheus, the institutor of moral order in art). Daedalus invents,--he,

or his nephew,--

The potter's wheel, and all work in clay;

The saw, and all work in wood;

The masts and sails of ships, and all modes of motion; (wings only

proving too dangerous!)

The entire art of minute ornament;

And the deceptive life of statues.

By his personal toil, he involves the fatal labyrinth for Minos; builds

an impregnable fortress for the Agrigentines; adorns healing baths among

the wild parsley fields of Selinus; buttresses the precipices of Eryx,

under the temple of Aphrodite; and for her temple itself--finishes in

exquisiteness the golden honeycomb.

207. Take note of that last piece of his art: it is connected with many

things which I must bring before you when we enter on the study of

architecture. That study we shall begin at the foot of the Baptistery of

Florence, which, of all buildings known to me, unites the most perfect

symmetry with the quaintest [Greek: poikilia]. Then, from the tomb of

your own Edward the Confessor, to the farthest shrine of the opposite

Arabian and Indian world, I must show you how the glittering and

iridescent dominion of Daedalus prevails; and his ingenuity in division,

interposition, and labyrinthine sequence, more widely still. Only this

last summer I found the dark red masses of the rough sandstone of

Furness Abbey had been fitted by him, with no less pleasure than he had

in carving them, into wedged hexagons--reminiscences of the honeycomb of

Venus Erycina. His ingenuity plays around the framework of all the

noblest things; and yet the brightness of it has a lurid shadow. The

spot of the fawn, of the bird, and the moth, may be harmless. But

Daedalus reigns no less over the spot of the leopard and snake. That

cruel and venomous power of his art is marked, in the legends of him,

by his invention of the saw from the serpent's tooth; and his seeking

refuge, under blood-guiltiness, with Minos, who can judge evil, and

measure, or remit, the penalty of it, but not reward good: Rhadamanthus

only can measure _that_; but Minos is essentially the recognizer of evil

deeds "conoscitor delle peccata," whom, therefore, you find in Dante

under the form of the [Greek: erpeton]. "Cignesi con la coda tante

volte, quantunque gradi vuol che giu sia messa."

And this peril of the influence of Daedalus is twofold; first in leading

us to delight in glitterings and semblances of things, more than in

their form, or truth;--admire the harlequin's jacket more than the

hero's strength; and love the gilding of the missal more than its

words;--but farther, and worse, the ingenuity of Daedalus may even become

bestial, an instinct for mechanical labour only, strangely involved with

a feverish and ghastly cruelty:--(you will find this distinct in the

intensely Daedal work of the Japanese); rebellious, finally, against the

laws of nature and honour, and building labyrinths for monsters,--not

combs for bees.

208. Gentlemen, we of the rough northern race may never, perhaps, be

able to learn from the Greek his reverence for beauty: but we may at

least learn his disdain of mechanism:--of all work which he felt to be

monstrous and inhuman in its imprudent dexterities.

We hold ourselves, we English, to be good workmen. I do not think I

speak with light reference to recent calamity, (for I myself lost a

young relation, full of hope and good purpose, in the foundered ship

_London_,) when I say that either an AEginetan or Ionian shipwright built

ships that could be fought from, though they were under water; and

neither of them would have been proud of having built one that would

fill and sink helplessly if the sea washed over her deck, or turn upside

down if a squall struck her topsail.

Believe me, gentlemen, good workmanship consists in continence and

common sense, more than in frantic expatiation of mechanical ingenuity;

and if you would be continent and rational, you had better learn more of

Art than you do now, and less of Engineering. What is taking place at

this very hour,[138] among the streets, once so bright, and avenues

once so pleasant, of the fairest city in Europe, may surely lead us all

to feel that the skill of Daedalus, set to build impregnable fortresses,

is not so wisely applied as in framing the [Greek: treton ponou]--the

golden honeycomb.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the Florentine,

though necessary for the complete explanation of the subject to my

class, at the time, introduced new points of inquiry which I do not

choose to lay before the general reader until they can be examined in

fuller sequence. The present volume, therefore, closes with the Sixth

Lecture, and that on Christian art will be given as the first of the

published course on Florentine Sculpture.

[136] These plates of coins are given for future reference and

examination, not merely for the use made of them in this place. The

Lacinian Hera, if a coin could be found unworn in surface, would be very

noble; her hair is thrown free because she is the goddess of the cape of

storms though in her temple, there, the wind never moved the ashes on

its altar. (Livy, xxiv. 3.)

[137] Ancient Cities and Kings, Plate IV. No. 20.

[138] The siege of Paris, at the time of the delivery of this Lecture,

was in one of its most destructive phases.

_THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND._

(_Delivered at the R. A. Institution, Woolwich, December 14, 1869._)

I would fain have left to the frank expression of the moment, but fear I

could not have found clear words--I cannot easily find them, even

deliberately,--to tell you how glad I am, and yet how ashamed, to accept

your permission to speak to you. Ashamed of appearing to think that I

can tell you any truth which you have not more deeply felt than I; but

glad in the thought that my less experience, and way of life sheltered

from the trials, and free from the responsibilities of yours, may have

left me with something of a child's power of help to you; a sureness of

hope, which may perhaps be the one thing that can be helpful to men who

have done too much not to have often failed in doing all that they

desired. And indeed, even the most hopeful of us, cannot but now be in

many things apprehensive. For this at least we all know too well, that

we are on the eve of a great political crisis, if not of political

change. That a struggle is approaching between the newly-risen power of

democracy and the apparently departing power of feudalism; and another

struggle, no less imminent, and far more dangerous, between wealth and

pauperism. These two quarrels are constantly thought of as the same.

They are being fought together, and an apparently common interest unites

for the most part the millionaire with the noble, in resistance to a

multitude, crying, part of it for bread and part of it for liberty.

And yet no two quarrels can be more distinct. Riches--so far from being

necessary to noblesse--are adverse to it. So utterly adverse, that the

first character of all the Nobilities which have founded great dynasties

in the world is to be poor;--often poor by oath--always poor by

generosity. And of every true knight in the chivalric ages, the first

thing history tells you is, that he never kept treasure for himself.

Thus the causes of wealth and noblesse are not the same; but opposite.

On the other hand, the causes of anarchy and of the poor are not the

same, but opposite. Side by side, in the same rank, are now indeed set

the pride that revolts against authority, and the misery that appeals

against avarice. But, so far from being a common cause, all anarchy is

the forerunner of poverty, and all prosperity begins in obedience. So

that thus, it has become impossible to give due support to the cause of

order, without seeming to countenance injury; and impossible to plead

justly the claims of sorrow, without seeming to plead also for those of

license.

Let me try, then, to put in very brief terms, the real plan of this

various quarrel, and the truth of the cause on each side. Let us face

that full truth, whatever it may be, and decide what part, according to

our power, we should take in the quarrel.

First. For eleven hundred years, all but five, since Charlemagne set on

his head the Lombard crown, the body of European people have submitted

patiently to be governed; generally by kings--always by single leaders

of some kind. But for the last fifty years they have begun to suspect,

and of late they have many of them concluded, that they have been on the

whole ill-governed, or misgoverned, by their kings. Whereupon they say,

more and more widely, "Let us henceforth have no kings; and no

government at all."

Now we said, we must face the full truth of the matter, in order to see

what we are to do. And the truth is that the people _have_ been

misgoverned;--that very little is to be said, hitherto, for most of

their masters--and that certainly in many places they will try their new

system of "no masters:"--and as that arrangement will be delightful to

all foolish persons, and, at first, profitable to all wicked ones,--and

as these classes are not wanting or unimportant in any human

society,--the experiment is likely to be tried extensively. And the

world may be quite content to endure much suffering with this fresh

hope, and retain its faith in anarchy, whatever comes of it, till it can

endure no more.

Then, secondly. The people have begun to suspect that one particular

form of this past misgovernment has been, that their masters have set

them to do all the work, and have themselves taken all the wages. In a

word, that what was called governing them, meant only wearing fine

clothes, and living on good fare at their expense. And I am sorry to

say, the people are quite right in this opinion also. If you inquire

into the vital fact of the matter, this you will find to be the constant

structure of European society for the thousand years of the feudal

system; it was divided into peasants who lived by working; priests who

lived by begging; and knights who lived by pillaging; and as the

luminous public mind becomes gradually cognizant of these facts, it will

assuredly not suffer things to be altogether arranged that way any more;

and the devising of other ways will be an agitating business; especially

because the first impression of the intelligent populace is, that

whereas, in the dark ages, half the nation lived idle, in the bright

ages to come, the whole of it may.

Now, thirdly--and here is much the worst phase of the crisis. This past

system of misgovernment, especially during the last three hundred years,

has prepared, by its neglect, a class among the lower orders which it is

now peculiarly difficult to govern. It deservedly lost their

respect--but that was the least part of the mischief. The deadly part of

it was, that the lower orders lost their habit, and at last their

faculty, of respect;--lost the very capability of reverence, which is

the most precious part of the human soul. Exactly in the degree in which

you can find creatures greater than yourself, to look up to, in that

degree, you are ennobled yourself, and, in that degree, happy. If you

could live always in the presence of archangels, you would be happier

than in that of men; but even if only in the company of admirable

knights and beautiful ladies, the more noble and bright they were, and

the more you could reverence their virtue the happier you would be. On

the contrary, if you were condemned to live among a multitude of idiots,

dumb, distorted and malicious, you would not be happy in the constant

sense of your own superiority. Thus all real joy and power of progress

in humanity depend on finding something to reverence; and all the

baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain. Now, by

general misgovernment, I repeat, we have created in Europe a vast

populace, and out of Europe a still vaster one, which has lost even the

power and conception of reverence;[139]--which exists only in the

worship of itself--which can neither see anything beautiful around it,

nor conceive anything virtuous above it; which has, towards all goodness

and greatness, no other feelings than those of the lowest

creatures--fear, hatred, or hunger a populace which has sunk below your

appeal in their nature, as it has risen beyond your power in their

multitude;--whom you can now no more charm than you can the adder, nor

discipline, than you can the summer fly.

It is a crisis, gentlemen; and time to think of it. I have roughly and

broadly put it before you in its darkness. Let us look what we may find

of light.

Only the other day, in a journal which is a fairly representative

exponent of the Conservatism of our day, and for the most part not at

all in favor of strikes or other popular proceedings; only about three

weeks since, there was a leader, with this, or a similar, title--"What

is to become of the House of Lords?" It startled me, for it seemed as if

we were going even faster than I had thought, when such a question was

put as a subject of quite open debate, in a journal meant chiefly for

the reading of the middle and upper classes. Open or not--the debate is

near. What _is_ to become of them? And the answer to such question

depends first on their being able to answer another question--"What is

the _use_ of them!" For some time back, I think the theory of the nation

has been, that they are useful as impediments to business, so as to give

time for second thoughts. But the nation is getting impatient of

impediments to business; and certainly, sooner or later, will think it

needless to maintain these expensive obstacles to its humors. And I

have not heard, either in public, or from any of themselves, a clear

expression of their own conception of their use. So that it seems thus

to become needful for all men to tell them, as our one quite

clear-sighted teacher, Carlyle, has been telling us for many a year,

that the use of the Lords of a country is to _govern_ the country. If

they answer that use, the country will rejoice in keeping them; if not,

that will become of them which must of all things found to have lost

their serviceableness.

Here, therefore, is the one question, at this crisis, for them, and for

us. Will they be lords indeed, and give us laws--dukes indeed, and give

us guiding--princes indeed, and give us beginning, of truer dynasty,

which shall not be soiled by covetousness, nor disordered by iniquity?

Have they themselves sunk so far as not to hope this? Are there yet any

among them who can stand forward with open English brows, and say,--So

far as in me lies, I will govern with my might, not for Dieu et _mon_

Droit, but for the first grand reading of the war cry, from which that

was corrupted, "Dieu et Droit?" Among them I know there are some--among

you, soldiers of England, I know there are many, who can do this; and in

you is our trust. I, one of the lower people of your country, ask of you

in their name--you whom I will not any more call soldiers, but by the

truer name of Knights;--Equites of England. How many yet of you are

there, knights errant now beyond all former fields of danger--knights

patient now beyond all former endurance; who still retain the ancient

and eternal purpose of knighthood, to subdue the wicked, and aid the

weak? To them, be they few or many, we English people call for help to

the wretchedness, and for rule over the baseness, of multitudes desolate

and deceived, shrieking to one another this new gospel of their new

religion. "Let the weak do as they can, and the wicked as they will."

I can hear you saying in your hearts, even the bravest of you, "The time

is past for all that." Gentlemen, it is not so. The time has come for

_more_ than all that. Hitherto, soldiers have given their lives for

false fame, and for cruel power. The day is now when they must give

their lives for true fame, and for beneficent power: and the work is

near every one of you--close beside you--the means of it even thrust

into your hands. The people are crying to you for command, and you stand

there at pause, and silent. You think they don't want to be commanded;

try them; determine what is needful for them--honorable for them; show

it them, promise to bring them to it, and they will follow you through

fire. "Govern us," they cry with one heart, though many minds. They

_can_ be governed still, these English; they are men still; not gnats,

nor serpents. They love their old ways yet, and their old masters, and

their old land. They would fain live in it, as many as may stay there,

if you will show them how, there, to live;--or show them even, how,

there, like Englishmen, to die.

"To live in it, as many as may!" How many do you think may? How many

_can_? How many do you want to live there? As masters, your first object

must be to increase your power; and in what does the power of a country

consist? Will you have dominion over its stones, or over its clouds, or

over its souls? What do you mean by a great nation, but a great

multitude of men who are true to each other, and strong, and of worth?

Now you can increase the multitude only definitely--your island has only

so much standing room--but you can increase the _worth in_definitely. It

is but a little island;--suppose, little as it is, you were to fill it

with friends? You may, and that easily. You must, and that speedily; or

there will be an end to this England of ours, and to all its loves and

enmities.

To fill this little island with true friends--men brave, wise, and

happy! Is it so impossible, think you, after the world's eighteen

hundred years of Christianity, and our own thousand years of toil, to

fill only this little white gleaming crag with happy creatures, helpful

to each other? Africa, and India, and the Brazilian wide-watered plain,

are these not wide enough for the ignorance of our race? have they not

space enough for its pain? Must we remain _here_ also savage,--_here_

at enmity with each other,--_here_ foodless, houseless, in rags, in

dust, and without hope, as thousands and tens of thousands of us are

lying? Do not think it, gentlemen. The thought that it is inevitable is

the last infidelity; infidelity not to God only, but to every creature

and every law that He has made. Are we to think that the earth was only

shaped to be a globe of torture; and that there cannot be one spot of it

where peace can rest, or justice reign? Where are men ever to be happy,

if not in England? by whom shall they ever be taught to do right, if not

by you? Are we not of a race first among the strong ones of the earth;

the blood in us incapable of weariness, unconquerable by grief? Have we

not a history of which we can hardly think without becoming insolent in

our just pride of it? Can we dare, without passing every limit of

courtesy to other nations, to say how much more we have to be proud of

in our ancestors than they? Among our ancient monarchs, great crimes

stand out as monstrous and strange. But their valor, and, according to

their understanding, their benevolence, are constant. The Wars of the

Roses, which are as a fearful crimson shadow on our land, represent the

normal condition of other nations; while from the days of the Heptarchy

downwards we have had examples given us, in all ranks, of the most

varied and exalted virtue; a heap of treasure that no moth can corrupt,

and which even our traitorship, if we are to become traitors to it,

cannot sully.

And this is the race, then, that we know not any more how to govern! and

this the history which we are to behold broken off by sedition! and this

is the country, of all others, where life is to become difficult to the

honest, and ridiculous to the wise! And the catastrophe, forsooth, is to

come just when we have been making swiftest progress beyond the wisdom

and wealth of the past. Our cities are a wilderness of spinning wheels

instead of palaces; yet the people have not clothes. We have blackened

every leaf of English greenwood with ashes, and the people die of cold;

our harbors are a forest of merchant ships, and the people die of

hunger.

Whose fault is it? Yours, gentlemen; yours only. You alone can feed

them, and clothe, and bring into their right minds, for you only can

govern--that is to say, you only can educate them.

Educate, or govern, they are one and the same word. Education does not

mean teaching people to know what they do not know. It means teaching

them to behave as they do not behave. And the true "compulsory

education" which the people now ask of you is not catechism, but drill.

It is not teaching the youth of England the shapes of letters and the

tricks of numbers; and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to

roguery, and their literature to lust. It is, on the contrary, training

them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence of their bodies and

souls. It is a painful, continual, and difficult work; to be done by

kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise,--but above

all--by example.

Compulsory! Yes, by all means! "Go ye out into the highways and hedges,

and _compel_ them to come in." Compulsory! Yes, and gratis also. _Dei

Gratia_, they must be taught, as, _Dei Gratia_, you are set to teach

them. I hear strange talk continually, "how difficult it is to make

people pay for being educated!" Why, I should think so! Do you make your

children pay for their education, or do you give it them compulsorily,

and gratis? You do not expect _them_ to pay you for their teaching,

except by becoming good children. Why should you expect a peasant to pay

for his, except by becoming a good man?--payment enough, I think, if we

knew it. Payment enough to himself, as to us. For that is another of our

grand popular mistakes--people are always thinking of education as a

means of livelihood. Education is not a profitable business, but a

costly one; nay, even the best attainments of it are always

unprofitable, in any terms of coin. No nation ever made its bread either

by its great arts, or its great wisdoms. By its minor arts or

manufactures, by its practical knowledges, yes: but its noble

scholarship, its noble philosophy, and its noble art, are always to be

bought as a treasure, not sold for a livelihood. You do not learn that

you may live--you live that you may learn. You are to spend on National

Education, and to be spent for it, and to make by it, not more money,

but better men;--to get into this British Island the greatest possible

number of good and brave Englishmen. _They_ are to be your "money's

worth."

But where is the money to come from? Yes, that is to be asked. Let us,

as quite the first business in this our national crisis, look not only

into our affairs, but into our accounts, and obtain some general notion

how we annually spend our money, and what we are getting for it.

Observe, I do not mean to inquire into the public revenue only; of that

some account is rendered already. But let us do the best we can to set

down the items of the national _private_ expenditure; and know what we

spend altogether, and how.

To begin with this matter of education. You probably have nearly all

seen the admirable lecture lately given by Captain Maxse, at

Southampton. It contains a clear statement of the facts at present

ascertained as to our expenditure in that respect. It appears that of

our public moneys, for every pound that we spend on education we spend

twelve either in charity or punishment;--ten millions a year in

pauperism and crime, and eight hundred thousand in instruction. Now

Captain Maxse adds to this estimate of ten millions public money spent

on crime and want, a more or less conjectural sum of eight millions for

private charities. My impression is that this is much beneath the truth,

but at all events it leaves out of consideration much the heaviest and

saddest form of charity--the maintenance, by the working members of

families, of the unfortunate or ill-conducted persons whom the general

course of misrule now leaves helpless to be the burden of the rest.

Now I want to get first at some, I do not say approximate, but at all

events some suggestive, estimate of the quantity of real distress and

misguided life in this country. Then next, I want some fairly

representative estimate of our private expenditure in luxuries. We won't

spend more, publicly, it appears, than eight hundred thousand a year, on

educating men gratis. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what we

spend privately a year, in educating horses gratis. Let us, at least,

quit ourselves in this from the taunt of Rabshakeh, and see that for

every horse we train also a horseman; and that the rider be at least as

high-bred as the horse, not jockey, but chevalier. Again, we spend eight

hundred thousand, which is certainly a great deal of money, in making

rough _minds_ bright. I want to know how much we spend annually in

making rough _stones_ bright; that is to say, what may be the united

annual sum, or near it, of our jewellers' bills. So much we pay for

educating children gratis;--how much for educating diamonds gratis? and

which pays best for brightening, the spirit or the charcoal? Let us get

those two items set down with some sincerity, and a few more of the same

kind. _Publicly_ set down. We must not be ashamed of the way we spend

our money. If our right hand is not to know what our left does, it must

not be because it would be ashamed if it did.

That is, therefore, quite the first practical thing to be done. Let

every man who wishes well to his country, render it yearly an account of

his income, and of the main heads of his expenditure; or, if he is

ashamed to do so, let him no more impute to the poor their poverty as a

crime, nor set them to break stones in order to frighten them from

committing it. To lose money ill is indeed often a crime; but to get it

ill is a worse one, and to spend it ill, worst of all. You object, Lords

of England, to increase, to the poor, the wages you give them, because

they spend them, you say, unadvisedly. Render them, therefore, an

account of the wages which _they_ give _you_; and show them, by your

example, how to spend theirs, to the last farthing advisedly.

It is indeed time to make this an acknowledged subject of instruction,

to the workingman,--how to spend his wages. For, gentlemen, we _must_

give that instruction, whether we will or no, one way or the other. We

have given it in years gone by; and now we find fault with our peasantry

for having been too docile, and profited too shrewdly by our tuition.

Only a few days since I had a letter from the wife of a village rector,

a man of common sense and kindness, who was greatly troubled in his

mind because it was precisely the men who got highest wages in summer

that came destitute to his door in the winter. Destitute, and of riotous

temper--for their method of spending wages in their period of prosperity

was by sitting two days a week in the tavern parlor, ladling port wine,

not out of bowls, but out of buckets. Well, gentlemen, who taught them

that method of festivity? Thirty years ago, I, a most inexperienced

freshman, went to my first college supper; at the head of the table sat

a nobleman of high promise and of admirable powers, since dead of palsy;

there also we had in the midst of us, not buckets, indeed, but bowls as

large as buckets; there also, we helped ourselves with ladles. There

(for this beginning of college education was compulsory), I choosing

ladlefuls of punch instead of claret, because I was then able,

unperceived to pour them into my waistcoat instead of down my throat,

stood it out to the end, and helped to carry four of my fellow-students,

one of them the son of the head of a college, head foremost, down stairs

and home.

Such things are no more; but the fruit of them remains, and will for

many a day to come. The laborers whom you cannot now shut out of the

ale-house are only the too faithful disciples of the gentlemen who were

wont to shut themselves into the dining-room. The gentlemen have not

thought it necessary, in order to correct their own habits, to diminish

their incomes; and, believe me, the way to deal with your drunken

workman is not to lower his wages,--but to mend his wits.[140]

And if indeed we do not yet see quite clearly how to deal with the sins

of our poor brother, it is possible that our dimness of sight may still

have other causes that can be cast out. There are two opposite cries of

the great liberal and conservative parties, which are both most right,

and worthy to be rallying cries. On their side "let every man have his

chance;" on yours "let every man stand in his place." Yes, indeed, let

that be so, every man in his place, and every man fit for it. See that

he holds that place from Heaven's Providence; and not from his family's

Providence. Let the Lords Spiritual quit themselves of simony, we laymen

will look after the heretics for them. Let the Lords Temporal quit

themselves of nepotism, and we will take care of their authority for

them. Publish for us, you soldiers, an army gazette, in which the one

subject of daily intelligence shall be the grounds of promotion; a

gazette which shall simply tell us, what there certainly can be no

detriment to the service in our knowing, when any officer is appointed

to a new command,--what his former services and successes have

been,--whom he has superseded,--and on what ground. It will be always a

satisfaction to us; it may sometimes be an advantage to you: and then,

when there is really necessary debate respecting reduction of wages, let

us always begin not with the wages of the industrious classes, but with

those of the idle ones. Let there be honorary titles, if people like

them; but let there be no honorary incomes.

So much for the master's motto, "Every man in his place." Next for the

laborer's motto, "Every man his chance." Let us mend that for them a

little, and say, "Every man his certainty"--certainty, that if he does

well, he will be honored, and aided, and advanced in such degree as may

be fitting for his faculty and consistent with his peace; and equal

certainty that if he does ill, he will by sure justice be judged, and by

sure punishment be chastised; if it may be, corrected; and if that may

not be, condemned. That is the right reading of the Republican motto,

"Every man his chance." And then, with such a system of government,

pure, watchful and just, you may approach your great problem of national

education, or in other words, of national employment. For all education

begins in work. What we think, or what we know; or what we believe, is

in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what

we _do;_ and for man, woman, or child, the first point of education is

to make them do their best. It is the law of good economy to make the

best of everything. How much more to make the best of every creature!

Therefore, when your pauper comes to you and asks for bread, ask of him

instantly--What faculty have you? What can you do best? Can you drive a

nail into wood? Go and mend the parish fences. Can you lay a brick? Mend

the walls of the cottages where the wind comes in. Can you lift a

spadeful of earth? Turn this field up three feet deep all over. Can you

only drag a weight with your shoulders? Stand at the bottom of this hill

and help up the overladen horses. Can you weld iron and chisel stone?

Fortify this wreck-strewn coast into a harbor; and change these shifting

sands into fruitful ground. Wherever death was, bring life; that is to

be your work; that your parish refuge; that your education. So and no

otherwise can we meet existent distress. But for the continual education

of the whole people, and for their future happiness, they must have such

consistent employment as shall develop all the powers of the fingers,

and the limbs, and the brain: and that development is only to be

obtained by hand-labor, of which you have these four great

divisions--hand-labor on the earth, hand-labor on the sea, hand-labor in

art, hand-labor in war. Of the last two of these I cannot speak

to-night, and of the first two only with extreme brevity.

I. Hand-labor on the earth, the work of the husbandman and of the

shepherd;--to dress the earth and to keep the flocks of it--the first

task of man, and the final one--the education always of noblest

lawgivers, kings and teachers; the education of Hesiod, of Moses, of

David, of all the true strength of Rome; and all its tenderness: the

pride of Cincinnatus, and the inspiration of Virgil. Hand-labor on the

earth, and the harvest of it brought forth with singing:--not

steam-piston labor on the earth, and the harvest of it brought forth

with steam-whistling. You will have no prophet's voice accompanied by

that shepherd's pipe, and pastoral symphony. Do you know that lately, in

Cumberland, in the chief pastoral district of England--in Wordsworth's

own home--a procession of villagers on their festa day provided for

themselves, by way of music, a steam-plough whistling at the head of

them.

Give me patience while I put the principle of machine labor before you,

as clearly and in as short compass as possible; it is one that should be

known at this juncture. Suppose a farming proprietor needs to employ a

hundred men on his estate, and that the labor of these hundred men is

enough, but not more than enough, to till all his land, and to raise

from it food for his own family, and for the hundred laborers. He is

obliged, under such circumstances, to maintain all the men in moderate

comfort, and can only by economy accumulate much for himself. But,

suppose he contrive a machine that will easily do the work of fifty men,

with only one man to watch it. This sounds like a great advance in

civilization. The farmer of course gets his machine made, turns off the

fifty men, who may starve or emigrate at their choice, and now he can

keep half of the produce of his estate, which formerly went to feed

them, all to himself. That is the essential and constant operation of

machinery among us at this moment.

Nay, it is at first answered; no man can in reality keep half the

produce of an estate to himself, nor can he in the end keep more than

his own human share of anything; his riches must diffuse themselves at

some time; he must maintain somebody else with them, however he spends

them. That is mainly true (not altogether so), for food and fuel are in

ordinary circumstances personally wasted by rich people, in quantities

which would save many lives. One of my own great luxuries, for instance,

is candlelight--and I probably burn, for myself alone, as many candles

during the winter, as would comfort the old eyes, or spare the young

ones, of a whole rushlighted country village. Still, it is mainly true,

that it is not by their personal waste that rich people prevent the

lives of the poor. This is the way they do it. Let me go back to my

farmer. He has got his machine made, which goes creaking, screaming, and

occasionally exploding, about modern Arcadia. He has turned off his

fifty men to starve. Now, at some distance from his own farm, there is

another on which the laborers were working for their bread in the same

way, by tilling the land. The machinist sends over to these, saying--"I

have got food enough for you without your digging or ploughing any more.

I can maintain you in other occupations instead of ploughing that land;

if you rake in its gravel you will find some hard stones--you shall

grind those on mills till they glitter; then, my wife shall wear a

necklace of them. Also, if you turn up the meadows below you will find

some fine white clay, of which you shall make a porcelain service for

me: and the rest of the farm I want for pasture for horses for my

carriage--and you shall groom them, and some of you ride behind the

carriage with staves in your hands, and I will keep you much fatter for

doing that than you can keep yourselves by digging."

Well--but it is answered, are we to have no diamonds, nor china, nor

pictures, nor footmen, then--but all to be farmers? I am not saying what

we ought to do, I want only to show you with perfect clearness first

what we _are doing_; and that, I repeat, is the upshot of

machine-contriving in this country. And observe its effect on the

national strength. Without machines, you have a hundred and fifty yeomen

ready to join for defence of the land. You get your machine, starve

fifty of them, make diamond-cutters or footmen of as many more, and for

your national defence against an enemy, you have now, and _can_ have,

only fifty men, instead of a hundred and fifty; these also now with

minds much alienated from you as their chief,[141] and the rest,

lapidaries or footmen; and a steam plough.

That is one effect of machinery; but at all events, if we have thus lost

in men, we have gained in riches; instead of happy human souls, we have

at least got pictures, china, horses, and are ourselves better off than

we were before. But very often, and in much of our machine-contriving,

even _that_ result does not follow. We are not one whit the richer for

the machine, we only employ it for our amusement. For observe, our

gaining in riches depends on the men who are out of employment

consenting to be starved, or sent out of the country. But suppose they

do not consent passively to be starved, but some of them become

criminals, and have to be taken charge of and fed at a much greater cost

than if they were at work, and, others, paupers, rioters, and the like,

then you attain the real outcome of modern wisdom and ingenuity. You

have your hundred men honestly at country work; but you don't like the

sight of human beings in your fields; you like better to see a smoking

kettle. You pay, as an amateur, for that pleasure, and you employ your

fifty men in picking oakum, or begging, rioting, and thieving.

By hand-labor, therefore, and that alone, we are to till the ground. By

hand-labor also to plough the sea; both for food, and in commerce, and

in war: not with floating kettles there neither, but with hempen bridle,

and the winds of heaven in harness. That is the way the power of Greece

rose on her Egean, the power of Venice on her Adria, of Amalfi in her

blue bay, of the Norman sea-riders from the North Cape to Sicily:--so,

your own dominion also of the past. Of the past mind you. On the Baltic

and the Nile, your power is already departed. By machinery you would

advance to discovery; by machinery you would carry your commerce;--you

would be engineers instead of sailors; and instantly in the North seas

you are beaten among the ice, and before the very Gods of Nile, beaten

among the sand. Agriculture, then, by the hand or by the plough drawn

only by animals; and shepherd and pastoral husbandry, are to be the

chief schools of Englishmen. And this most royal academy of all

academies you have to open over all the land, purifying your heaths and

hills, and waters, and keeping them full of every kind of lovely natural

organism, in tree, herb, and living creature. All land that is waste and

ugly, you must redeem into ordered fruitfulness; all ruin, desolateness,

imperfectness of hut or habitation, you must do away with; and

throughout every village and city of your English dominion there must

not be a hand that cannot find a helper, nor a heart that cannot find a

comforter.

"How impossible!" I know, you are thinking. Ah! So far from impossible,

it is easy, it is natural, it is necessary, and I declare to you that,

sooner or later, it _must be done_, at our peril. If now our English

lords of land will fix this idea steadily before them; take the people

to their hearts, trust to their loyalty, lead their labor;--then indeed

there will be princes again in the midst of us, worthy of the island

throne,

"This royal throne of kings--this sceptred isle--

This fortress built by nature for herself

Against infection, and the hand of war;

This precious stone set in the silver sea;

This happy breed of men--this little world:

This other Eden--Demi-Paradise."

But if they refuse to do this, and hesitate and equivocate, clutching

through the confused catastrophe of all things only at what they can

still keep stealthily for themselves--their doom is nearer than even

their adversaries hope, and it will be deeper than even their despisers

dream.

That, believe me, is the work you have to do in England; and out of

England you have room for everything else you care to do. Are her

dominions in the world so narrow that she can find no place to spin

cotton in but Yorkshire? We may organize emigration into an infinite

power. We may assemble troops of the more adventurous and ambitious of

our youth; we may send them on truest foreign service, founding new

seats of authority, and centres of thought, in uncultivated and

unconquered lands; retaining the full affection to the native country no

less in our colonists than in our armies, teaching them to maintain

allegiance to their fatherland in labor no less than in battle; aiding

them with free hand in the prosecution of discovery, and the victory

over adverse natural powers; establishing seats of every manufacture in

the climates and places best fitted for it, and bringing ourselves into

due alliance and harmony of skill with the dexterities of every race,

and the wisdoms of every tradition and every tongue.

And then you may make England itself the centre of the learning, of the

arts, of the courtesies and felicities of the world. Yon may cover her

mountains with pasture; her plains with corn, her valleys with the lily,

and her gardens with the rose. You may bring together there in peace

the wise and the pure, and the gentle of the earth, and by their word,

command through its farthest darkness the birth of "God's first

creature, which was Light." You know whose words those are; the words of

the wisest of Englishmen. He, and with him the wisest of all other great

nations, have spoken always to men of this hope, and they would not

hear. Plato, in the dialogue of Critias, his last, broken off at his

death--Pindar, in passionate singing of the fortunate islands--Virgil,

in the prophetic tenth eclogue--Bacon, in his fable of the New

Atlantis--More, in the book which, too impatiently wise, became the

bye-word of fools--these, all, have told us with one voice what we

should strive to attain; _they_ not hopeless of it, but for our follies

forced, as it seems, by heaven, to tell us only partly and in parables,

lest we should hear them and obey.

Shall we never listen to the words of these wisest of men? Then listen

at least to the words of your children--let us in the lips of babes and

sucklings find our strength; and see that we do not make them mock

instead of pray, when we teach them, night and morning, to ask for what

we believe never can be granted;--that the will of the Father,--which

is, that His creatures may be righteous and happy--should be done, _on

earth_, as it is in Heaven.

FOOTNOTES:

[139] Compare _Time and Tide_, Sec. 169, _and Fors Clavigera_, Letter XIV,

page 9.

[140] See Appendix, "Modern Education," and compare Sec. 70 of _Time and

Tide_.

[141] [They were deserting, I am informed, in the early part of this

year, 1873, at the rate of a regiment a week.]

_NOTES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PRUSSIA._

I am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible

against the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every

subject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write

consistently of war, for the groups of facts I have gathered about it

lead me to two precisely opposite conclusions.

When I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can

choose my conclusion: but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by

the necessities of the time; and forced to act, one way or another. The

conviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of

avoidable human suffering, and that it ought to cease among Christian

nations; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I

try my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind.

But, on the other hand, I know certainly that the most beautiful

characters yet developed among men have been formed in war;--that all

great nations have been warrior nations, and that the only kinds of

peace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to

the intellect, and the heart.

The lecture on "War," in this volume, addressed to young soldiers, had

for its object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their

profession. It is inconsistent with itself, in its closing appeal to

women, praying them to use their influence to bring wars to an end. And

I have been hindered from completing my long intended notes on the

economy of the Kings of Prussia by continually increasing doubt how far

the machinery and discipline of war, under which they learned the art

of government, was essential for such lesson; and what the honesty and

sagacity of the Friedrich who so nobly repaired his ruined Prussia,

might have done for the happiness of his Prussia, unruined.

In war, however, or in peace, the character which Carlyle chiefly loves

him for, and in which Carlyle has shown him to differ from all kings up

to this time succeeding him, is his constant purpose to use every power

entrusted to him for the good of his people; and be, not in name only,

but in heart and hand, their king.

Not in ambition, but in natural instinct of duty. Friedrich, born to

govern, determines to govern to the best of his faculty. That "best" may

sometimes be unwise; and self-will, or love of glory, may have their

oblique hold on his mind, and warp it this way or that; but they are

never principal with him. He believes that war is necessary, and

maintains it; sees that peace is necessary, and calmly persists in the

work of it to the day of his death, not claiming therein more praise

than the head of any ordinary household, who rules it simply because it

is his place, and he must not yield the mastery of it to another.

How far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the strength

necessary for kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it,

seems to me not at present determinable. The historical facts are that,

broadly speaking, none but soldiers, or persons with a soldierly

faculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no

other men are so gentle, so just, or so clear-sighted. Wordsworth's

character of the happy warrior cannot be reached in the height of it

_but by_ a warrior; nay, so much is it beyond common strength that I had

supposed the entire meaning of it to be metaphorical, until one of the

best soldiers of England himself read me the poem,[142] and taught me,

what I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was

entirely literal. There is nothing of so high reach distinctly

demonstrable in Friedrich: but I see more and more, as I grow older,

that the things which are the most worth, encumbered among the errors

and faults of every man's nature, are never clearly demonstrable; and

are often most forcible when they are scarcely distinct to his own

conscience,--how much less, clamorous for recognition by others!

Nothing can be more beautiful than Carlyle's showing of this, to any

careful reader of Friedrich. But careful readers are but one in the

thousand; and by the careless, the masses of detail with which the

historian must deal are insurmountable.

My own notes, made for the special purpose of hunting down the one point

of economy, though they cruelly spoil Carlyle's own current and method

of thought, may yet be useful in enabling readers, unaccustomed to books

involving so vast a range of conception, to discern what, on this one

subject only, may be gathered from that history. On any other subject of

importance, similar gatherings might be made of other passages. The

historian has to deal with all at once.

I therefore have determined to print here, as a sequel to the Essay on

War, my notes from the first volume of Friedrich, on the economies of

Brandenburg, up to the date of the establishment of the Prussian

monarchy. The economies of the first three Kings of Prussia I shall then

take up in _Fors Clavigera_, finding them fitter for examination in

connection with the subject of that book than of this.

I assume, that the reader will take down his first volume of Carlyle,

and read attentively the passages to which I refer him. I give the

reference first to the largest edition, in six volumes (1858-1865);

then, in parenthesis, to the smallest or "people's edition" (1872-1873).

The pieces which I have quoted in my own text are for the use of readers

who may not have ready access to the book; and are enough for the

explanation of the points to which I wish them to direct their thoughts

in reading such histories of soldiers or soldier-kingdoms.

I.

_Year_ 928 to 936.--_Dawn of Order in Christian Germany._

Book II. Chap. i. p. 67 (47).

Henry the Fowler, "the beginning of German kings," is a mighty soldier

_in the cause of peace_; his essential work the building and

organization of fortified towns for the protection of men.

Read page 72 with utmost care (51), "He fortified towns," to end of

small print. I have added some notes on the matter in my lecture on

Giovanni Pisano; but whether you can glance at them or not, fix in your

mind this institution of truly civil or civic building in Germany, as

distinct from the building of baronial castles for the security of

_robbers_: and of a standing army consisting of every ninth man, called

a "burgher" ("townsman")--a soldier, appointed to learn that profession

that he may guard the walls--the exact reverse of _our_ notion of a

burgher.

Frederick's final idea of his army is, indeed, only this.

Brannibor, a chief fortress of the Wends, is thus taken, and further

strengthened by Henry the Fowler; wardens appointed for it; and thus the

history of Brandenburg begins. On all frontiers, also, this "beginning

of German kings" has his "Markgraf." "Ancient of the marked place." Read

page 73, measuredly, learning it by heart, if it may be. (51-2.)

II.

936-1000.--_History of Nascent Brandenburg._

The passage I last desired you to read ends with this sentence: "The

sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will

depend on the state of the outer sea."

From this time forward you have to keep clearly separate in your minds,

(A) the history of that outer sea, Pagan Scandinavia, Russia, and

Bor-Russia, or Prussia proper; (B) the history of Henry the Fowler's

Eastern and Western Marches; asserting themselves gradually as Austria

and the Netherlands; and (C) the history of this inconsiderable fortress

of Brandenburg, gradually becoming considerable, and the capital city of

increasing district between them. That last history, however, Carlyle is

obliged to leave vague and gray for two hundred years after Henry's

death. Absolutely dim for the first century, in which nothing is evident

but that its wardens or Markgraves had no peaceable possession of the

place. Read the second paragraph in page 74 (52-3), "in old books" to

"reader," and the first in page 83 (59) "meanwhile" to "substantial,"

consecutively. They bring the story of Brandenburg itself down, at any

rate, from 936 to 1000.

III.

936-1000.--_State of the Outer Sea._

Read now Chapter II. beginning at page 76 (54), wherein you will get

account of the beginning of vigorous missionary work on the outer sea,

in Prussia proper; of the death of St. Adalbert, and of the purchase of

his dead body by the Duke of Poland.

You will not easily understand Carlyle's laugh in this chapter, unless

you have learned yourself to laugh in sadness, and to laugh in love.

"No Czech blows his pipe in the woodlands without certain precautions

and preliminary fuglings of a devotional nature." (Imagine St. Adalbert,

in spirit, at the railway station in Birmingham!)

My own main point for notice in the chapter is the purchase of his body

for its "weight in gold." Swindling angels held it up in the scales; it

did not weigh so much as a web of gossamer. "Had such excellent odor,

too, and came for a mere nothing of gold," says Carlyle. It is one of

the first commercial transactions of Germany, but I regret the conduct

of the angels on the occasion. Evangelicalism has been proud of ceasing

to invest in relics, its swindling angels helping it to better things,

as it supposes. For my own part, I believe Christian Germany could not

have bought at this time any treasure more precious; nevertheless, the

missionary work itself you find is wholly vain. The difference of

opinion between St. Adalbert and the Wends, on Divine matters, does not

signify to the Fates. They will not have it disputed about; and end the

dispute adversely, to St. Adalbert--adversely, even, to Brandenburg and

its civilizing power, as you will immediately see.

IV.

1000-1030.--_History of Brandenburg in Trouble._

Book II. Chap. iii. p. 83 (59).

The adventures of Brandenburg in contest with Pagan Prussia, irritated,

rather than amended, by St. Adalbert. In 1023, roughly, a hundred years

after Henry the Fowler's death, Brandenburg is taken by the Wends, and

its first line of Markgraves ended; its population mostly butchered,

especially the priests; and the Wends' God, Triglaph, "something like

three whales' cubs combined by boiling," set up on the top of St. Mary's

Hill.

Here is an adverse "Doctrine of the Trinity" which has its supporters!

It is wonderful,--this Tripod and Triglyph--three-footed, three-cut

faith of the North and South, the leaf of the oxalis, and strawberry,

and clover, fostering the same in their simple manner. I suppose it to

be the most savage and natural of notions about Deity; a prismatic

idol-shape of Him, rude as a triangular log, as a trefoil grass. I do

not find how long Triglaph held his state on St. Mary's Hill. "For a

time," says Carlyle, "the priests all slain or fled--shadowy Markgraves

the like--church and state lay in ashes, and Triglaph, like a triple

porpoise under the influence of laudanum, stood, I know not whether on

his head or his tail, aloft on the Harlungsberg, as the Supreme of this

Universe for the time being."

V.

1030-1130.--_Brandenburg under the Ditmarsch Markgraves, or

Ditmarsch-Stade Markgraves._

Book II. Chap. iii. p. 85 (60).

Of Anglish, or Saxon breed. They attack Brandenburg, under its

Triglyphic protector, take it--dethrone him, and hold the town for a

hundred years, their history "stamped beneficially on the face of

things, Markgraf after Markgraf getting killed in the business.

'Erschlagen,' 'slain,' fighting with the Heathen--say the old books, and

pass on to another." If we allow seven years to Triglaph--we get a clear

century for these--as above indicated. They die out in 1130.

VI.

1130-1170.--_Brandenburg under Albert the Bear._

Book II. Chap iv. p. 91 (64).

He is the first of the Ascanien Markgraves, whose castle of Ascanica is

on the northern slope of the Hartz Mountains, "ruins still dimly

traceable."

There had been no soldier or king of note among the Ditmarsch

Markgraves, so that you will do well to fix in your mind successively

the three men, Henry the Fowler, St. Adalbert, and Albert the Bear. A

soldier again, and a strong one. Named the Bear only from the device on

his shield, first wholly definite Markgraf of Brandenburg that there is,

"and that the luckiest of events for Brandenburg." Read page 93 (66)

carefully, and note this of his economies.

* * * * *

Nothing better is known to me of Albert the Bear than his introducing

large numbers of Dutch Netherlanders into those countries; men thrown

out of work, who already knew how to deal with bog and sand, by mixing

and delving, and who first taught Brandenburg what greenness and

cow-pasture was. The Wends, in presence of such things, could not but

consent more and more to efface themselves--either to become German, and

grow milk and cheese in the Dutch manner, or to disappear from the

world.

* * * * *

After two-hundred and fifty years of barking and worrying, the Wends are

now finally reduced to silence; their anarchy well buried and wholesome

Dutch cabbage planted over it; Albert did several great things in the

world; but this, for posterity, remains his memorable feat. Not done

quite easily, but done: big destinies of nations or of persons are not

founded gratis in this world, He had a sore, toilsome time of it,

coercing, warring, managing among his fellow-creatures, while his day's

work lasted--fifty years or so, for it began early. He died in his

castle of Ballenstaedt, peaceably among the Hartz Mountains at last, in

the year 1170, age about sixty-five.

* * * * *

Now, note in all this the steady gain of soldiership enforcing order and

agriculture, with St. Adalbert giving higher strain to the imagination.

Henry the Fowler establishes walled towns, fighting for mere peace.

Albert the Bear plants the country with cabbages, fighting for his

cabbage-fields. And the disciples of St. Adalbert, generally, have

succeeded in substituting some idea of Christ for the idea of Triglaph.

Some idea only; other ideas than of Christ haunt even to this day those

Hartz Mountains among which Albert the Bear dies so peacefully.

Mephistopheles, and all his ministers, inhabit there, commanding

mephitic clouds and earth-born dreams.

VII.

1170-1320.--_Brandenburg 150 years under the Ascanien Markgraves._

Vol. I. Book II Chap. viii. p. 135 (96).

"Wholesome Dutch cabbages continued to be more and more planted by them

in the waste sand: intrusive chaos, and Triglaph held at bay by them,"

till at last in 1240, seventy years after the great Bear's death, they

fortify a new Burg, a "_little_ rampart," Wehrlin, diminutive of Wehr

(or vallum), gradually smoothing itself, with a little echo of the Bear

in it too, into Ber-lin, the oily river Spree flowing by, "in which you

catch various fish;" while trade over the flats and by the dull streams,

is widely possible. Of the Ascanien race, the notablest is Otto with the

Arrow, whose story see, pp. 138-141 (98-100), noting that Otto is one of

the first Minnesingers; that, being a prisoner to the Archbishop of

Magdeburg, his wife rescues him, selling her jewels to bribe the canons;

and that the Knight, set free on parole and promise of farther ransom,

rides back with his own price in his hand; holding himself thereat

cheaply bought, though no angelic legerdemain happens to the scales now.

His own estimate of his price--"Rain gold ducats on my war-horse and me,

till you cannot see the point of my spear atop."

Emptiness of utter pride, you think?

Not so. Consider with yourself, reader, how much you dare to say, aloud,

_you_ are worth. If you have _no_ courage to name any price whatsoever

for yourself, believe me, the cause is not your modesty, but that in

very truth you feel in your heart there would be no bid for you at

Lucian's sale of lives, were that again possible, at Christie and

Manson's.

Finally (1319 exactly; say 1320, for memory), the Ascanien line expired

in Brandenburg, and the little town and its electorate lapsed to the

Kaiser: meantime other economical arrangements had been in progress; but

observe first how far we have got.

The Fowler, St. Adalbert and the Bear have established order, and some

sort of Christianity; but the established persons begin to think

somewhat too well of themselves. On quite honest terms, a dead saint or

a living knight ought to be worth their true "weight in gold." But a

pyramid, with only the point of the spear seen at top, would be many

times over one's weight in gold. And although men were yet far enough

from the notion of modern days, that the gold is better than the flesh,

and from buying it with the clay of one's body, and even the fire of

one's soul, instead of soul and body with _it_, they were beginning to

fight for their own supremacy, or for their own religious fancies, and

not at all to any useful end, until an entirely unexpected movement is

made in the old useful direction forsooth, only by some kind

ship-captains of Luebeck!

VIII.

1210-1320.--_Civil work, aiding military, during the Ascanien period._

Vol. I. Book II. Chap. vi. p. 109 (77).

In the year 1190, Acre not yet taken, and the crusading army wasting by

murrain on the shore, the German soldiers especially having none to look

after them, certain compassionate ship-captains of Luebeck, one Walpot

von Bassenheim taking the lead, formed themselves into an union for

succor of the sick and the dying, set up canvas tents from the Luebeck

ship stores, and did what utmost was in them silently in the name of

mercy and heaven. Finding its work prosper, the little medicinal and

weather-fending company took vows on itself, strict chivalry forms, and

decided to become permanent "Knights Hospitallers of our dear Lady of

Mount Zion," separate from the former Knights Hospitallers, as being

entirely German: yet soon, as the German Order of St. Mary, eclipsing in

importance Templars, Hospitallers, and every other chivalric order then

extant; no purpose of battle in them, but much strength for it; their

purpose only the helping of German pilgrims. To this only they are

bound by their vow, "geluebde," and become one of the usefullest of clubs

in all the Pall Mall of Europe.

Finding pilgrimage in Palestine falling slack, and more need for them on

the homeward side of the sea, their Hochmeister, Hermann of the Salza,

goes over to Venice in 1210. There the titular bishop of still

unconverted Preussen advises him of that field of work for his idle

knights. Hermann thinks well of it: sets his St. Mary's riders at

Triglaph, with the sword in one hand and a missal in the other.

Not your modern way of affecting conversion! Too illiberal, you think;

and what would Mr. J. S. Mill say?

But if Triglaph _had_ been verily "three whales' cubs combined by

boiling," you would yourself have promoted attack upon him for the sake

of his oil, would not you? The Teutsch Ritters, fighting him for

charity, are they so much inferior to you?

* * * * *

They built, and burnt, innumerable stockades for and against; built

wooden forts which are now stone towns. They fought much and

prevalently; galloped desperately to and fro, ever on the alert. In

peaceabler ulterior times, they fenced in the Nogat and the Weichsel

with dams, whereby unlimited quagmire might become grassy meadow--as it

continues to this day. Marienburg (Mary's Burg), with its grand stone

Schloss still visible and even habitable: this was at length their

headquarter. But how many Burgs of wood and stone they built, in

different parts; what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody,

boggy places they had, no man has counted.

But always some preaching by zealous monks, accompanied the chivalrous

fighting. And colonists came in from Germany; trickling in, or at times

streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers terms to the beaten heathen:

terms not of tolerant nature, but which _will be punctually kept by

Ritterdom_. When the flame of revolt or general conspiracy burnt up

again too extensively, high personages came on crusade to them. Ottocar,

King of Bohemia, with his extensive far-shining chivalry, "conquered

Samland in a month;" tore up the Romova where Adalbert had been

massacred, and burned it from the face of the earth. A certain fortress

was founded at that time, in Ottocar's presence; and in honor of him

they named it King's Fortress, "Koenigsberg." Among King Ottocar's

esquires, or subaltern junior officials, on this occasion, is one

Rudolf, heir of a poor Swiss lordship and gray hill castle, called

Hapsburg, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his

prudent, hardy ways; a stout, modest, wise young man, who may chance to

redeem Hapsburg a little, if he lives.

Conversion, and complete conquest once come, there was a happy time for

Prussia; ploughshare instead of sword: busy sea-havens, German towns,

getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and peaceable

cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes, and for the Order a

happy time. On the whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century

and more, was a grand phenomenon, and flamed like a bright blessed

beacon through the night of things, in those Northern countries. For

above a century, we perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men

who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar. The noble soul,

aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had

a beacon burning (as we say), if the night chanced to overtake it, and

the earth to grow too intricate, as is not uncommon. Better than the

career of stump-oratory, I should fancy, and its Hesperides apples,

golden, and of gilt horse-dung. Better than puddling away one's poor

spiritual gift of God (loan, not gift), such as it may be, in building

the lofty rhyme, the lofty review article, for a discerning public that

has sixpence to spare! Times alter greatly.[143]

* * * * *

We must pause here again for a moment to think where we are, and who is

_with us_. The Teutsch Ritters have been fighting, independently of all

states, for their own hand, or St. Adalbert's; partly for mere love of

fight, partly for love of order, partly for love of God. Meantime, other

Riders have been fighting wholly for what they could get by it; and

other persons, not Riders, have not been fighting at all, but in their

own towns peacefully manufacturing and selling.

Of Henry the Fowler's Marches, Austria has become a military power,

Flanders a mercantile one, pious only in the degree consistent with

their several occupations. Prussia is now a practical and farming

country, more Christian than its longer-converted neighbors.

* * * * *

Towns are built, Koenigsberg (King Ottocar's town), Thoren (Thorn, City

of the Gates), with many others; so that the wild population and the

tame now lived tolerably together, under Gospel and Luebeck law; and all

was ploughing and trading.

* * * * *

But Brandenburg itself, what of it?

The Ascanien Markgraves rule it on the whole prosperously down to 1320,

when their line expires, and it falls into the power of Imperial

Austria.

IX.

1320-1415.--_Brandenburg under the Austrians._

A century--the fourteenth--of miserable anarchy and decline for

Brandenburg, its Kurfuersts, in deadly succession, making what they can

out of it for their own pockets. The city itself and its territory

utterly helpless. Read pp. 180, 181 (129, 130). "The towns suffered

much, any trade they might have had going to wreck. Robber castles

flourished, all else decayed, no highway safe. What are Hamburg pedlars

made for but to be robbed?"

X.

1415-1440.--_Brandenburg under Friedrich of Nueremberg._

This is the fourth of the men whom you are to remember as creators of

the Prussian monarchy, Henry the Fowler, St. Adalbert, Albert the Bear,

of Ascanien, and Friedrich of Nueremberg; (of Hohenzollern, by name, and

by country, of the Black Forest, north of the Lake of Constance).

Brandenburg is sold to him at Constance, during the great Council, for

about 200,000_l._ of our money, worth perhaps a million in that day;

still, with its capabilities, "dog cheap." Admitting, what no one at the

time denied, the general marketableness of states as private property,

this is the one practical result, thinks Carlyle (not likely to think

wrong), of that oecumenical deliberation, four years long, of the

"elixir of the intellect and dignity of Europe. And that one thing was

not its doing; but a pawnbroking job, intercalated," putting, however,

at last, Brandenburg again under the will of one strong man. On St.

John's day, 1412, he first set foot in his town, "and Brandenburg, under

its wise Kurfuerst, begins to be cosmic again." The story of Heavy Peg,

pages 195-198 (138, 140), is one of the most brilliant and important

passages of the first volume; page 199, specially to our purpose, must

be given entire:--

The offer to be Kaiser was made him in his old days; but he

wisely declined that too. It was in Brandenburg, by what he

silently founded there, that he did his chief benefit to

Germany and mankind. He understood the noble art of

governing men; had in him the justness, clearness, valor,

and patience needed for that. A man of sterling probity, for

one thing. _Which indeed is the first requisite in said

art_:--if you will have your laws obeyed without mutiny, see

well that they be pieces of God Almighty's law; otherwise

all the artillery in the world will not keep down mutiny.

Friedrich "travelled much over Brandenburg;" looking into

everything with his own eyes; making, I can well fancy,

innumerable crooked things straight; reducing more and more

that famishing dog-kennel of a Brandenburg into a fruitful

arable field. His portraits represent a square-headed,

mild-looking, solid gentleman, with a certain twinkle of

mirth in the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite

wars for Kaiser Sigismund and the Reich, in which no man

could prosper, he may be defined as constantly prosperous.

To Brandenburg he was, very literally, the blessing of

blessings; redemption out of death into life. In the ruins

of that old Friesack Castle, battered down by Heavy Peg,

antiquarian science (if it had any eyes) might look for the

taproot of the Prussian nation, and the beginning of all

that Brandenburg has since grown to under the sun.

Which growth is now traced by Carlyle in its various budding and

withering, under the succession of the twelve Electors, of whom

Friedrich, with his heavy Peg, is first, and Friedrich, first King of

Prussia, grandfather of Friedrich the Great, the twelfth.

XI.

1416-1701.--_Brandenburg under the Hohenzollern Kurfuersts._

Book III.

Who the Hohenzollerns were, and how they came to power in Nueremberg, is

told in Chap. v. of Book II.

Their succession in Brandenburg is given in brief at page 377 (269). I

copy it, in absolute barrenness of enumeration, for our momentary

convenience, here:

Friedrich 1st of Brandenburg (6th of Nueremberg), 1412-1440

Friedrich II., called "Iron Teeth," 1440-1472

Albert, 1472-1486

Johann, 1486-1499

Joachim I., 1499-1535

Joachim II., 1535-1571

Johann George, 1571-1598

Joachim Friedrich, 1598-1608

Johann Sigismund, 1608-1619

George Wilhelm, 1619-1640

Friedrich Wilhelm (the Great Elector), 1640-1688

Friedrich, first King; crowned 18th January, 1701

Of this line of princes we have to say they followed generally in their

ancestor's steps, and had success of the like kind more or less;

Hohenzollerns all of them, by character and behaviour as well as by

descent. No lack of quiet energy, of thrift, sound sense. There was

likewise solid fair-play in general, no founding of yourself on ground

that will not carry, _and there was instant, gentle, but inexorable

crushing of mutiny_, if it showed itself, which after the Second

Elector, or at most the Third, it had altogether ceased to do.

This is the general account of them; of special matters note the

following:--

II. Friedrich, called "Iron-teeth," from his firmness, proves a notable

manager and governor. Builds the palace at Berlin in its first form, and

makes it his chief residence. Buys Neumark from the fallen Teutsch

Ritters, and generally establishes things on securer footing.

III. Albert, "a fiery, tough old Gentlemen," called the Achilles of

Germany in his day; has half-a-century of fighting with his own

Nuerembergers, with Bavaria, France, Burgundy, and its fiery Charles,

besides being head constable to the Kaiser among any disorderly persons

in the East. His skull, long shown on his tomb, "marvellous for strength

and with no visible sutures."

IV. John, the orator of his race; (but the orations unrecorded). His

second son, Archbishop of Maintz, for whose piece of memorable work see

page 223 (143) and read in connection with that the history of Margraf

George, pp. 237-241 (152-154), and the 8th chapter of the third book.

V. Joachim I., of little note; thinks there has been enough Reformation,

and checks proceedings in a dull stubbornness, causing him at least

grave domestic difficulties.--Page 271 (173).

VI. Joachim II. Again active in the Reformation, and staunch,

though generally in a cautious, weighty, never in a rash,

swift way, to the great cause of Protestantism and to all

good causes. He was himself a solemnly devout man; deep,

awe-stricken reverence dwelling in his view of this

universe. Most serious, though with a jocose dialect,

commonly having a cheerful wit in speaking to men. Luther's

books he called his Seelenschatz, (soul's treasure); Luther

and the Bible were his chief reading. Fond of profane

learning, too, and of the useful or ornamental arts; given

to music, and "would himself sing aloud" when he had a

melodious leisure hour.

VII. Johann George, a prudent thrifty Herr; no mistresses, no luxuries

allowed; at the sight of a new-fashioned coat he would fly out on an

unhappy youth and pack him from his presence. Very strict in point of

justice; a peasant once appealing to him in one of his inspection

journeys through the country--

"Grant me justice, Durchlaucht, against so and so; I am your

Highness's born subject." "Thou shouldst have it, man, wert

thou a born Turk!" answered Johann George.

Thus, generally, we find this line of Electors representing in Europe

the Puritan mind of England in a somewhat duller, but less dangerous,

form; receiving what Protestantism could teach of honesty and common

sense, but not its anti-Catholic fury, or its selfish spiritual anxiety.

Pardon of sins is not to be had from Tetzel; neither, the Hohenzollern

mind advises with itself, from even Tetzel's master, for either the

buying, or the asking. On the whole, we had better commit as few as

possible, and live just lives and plain ones.

A conspicuous thrift, veracity, modest solidity, looks

through the conduct of this Herr; a determined Protestant he

too, as indeed all the following were and are.

VIII. Joachim Friedrich. Gets hold of Prussia, which hitherto, you

observe, has always been spoken of as a separate country from

Brandenburg. March 11, 1605--"squeezed his way into the actual

guardianship of Preussen and its imbecile Duke, which was his by right."

For my own part, I do not trouble myself much about these rights, never

being able to make out any single one, to begin with, except the right

to keep everything and every place about you in as good order as you

can--Prussia, Poland, or what else. I should much like, for instance,

just now, to hear of any honest Cornish gentleman of the old Drake breed

taking a fancy to land in Spain, and trying what he could make of his

rights as far round Gibraltar as he could enforce them. At all events,

Master Joachim has somehow got hold of Prussia; and means to keep it.

IX. Johann Sigismund. Only notable for our economical purposes, as

getting the "guardianship" of Prussia confirmed to him. The story at

page 317 (226), "a strong flame of choler," indicates a new order of

things among the knights of Europe--"princely etiquettes melting all

into smoke." Too literally so, that being one of the calamitous

functions of the plain lives we are living, and of the busy life our

country is living. In the Duchy of Cleve, especially, concerning which

legal dispute begins in Sigismund's time. And it is well worth the

lawyers' trouble, it seems.

It amounted, perhaps, to two Yorkshires in extent. A

naturally opulent country of fertile meadows, shipping

capabilities, metalliferous hills, and at this time, in

consequence of the Dutch-Spanish war, and the multitude of

Protestant refugees, it was getting filled with ingenious

industries, and rising to be what it still is, the busiest

quarter of Germany. A country lowing with kine; the hum of

the flax-spindle heard in its cottages in those old

days--"much of the linen called Hollands is made in Juelich,

and only bleached, stamped, and sold by the Dutch," says

Buesching. A country in our days which is shrouded at short

intervals with the due canopy of coal-smoke, and loud with

sounds of the anvil and the loom.

The lawyers took two hundred and six years to settle the question

concerning this Duchy, and the thing Johann Sigismund had claimed

legally in 1609 was actually handed over to Johann Sigismund's

descendant in the seventh generation. "These litigated duchies are now

the Prussian provinces, Juelich, Berg, Cleve, and the nucleus of

Prussia's possessions in the Rhine country."

X. George Wilhelm. Read pp. 325 to 327 (231, 233) on this Elector and

German Protestantism, now fallen cold, and somewhat too little

dangerous. But George Wilhelm is the only weak prince of all the twelve.

For another example how the heart and life of a country depend upon its

prince, not on its council, read this, of Gustavus Adolphus, demanding

the cession of Spandau and Kuestrin:

Which cession Kurfuerst George Wilhelm, though giving all his

prayers to the good cause, could by no means grant. Gustav

had to insist, with more and more emphasis, advancing at

last with military menace upon Berlin itself. He was met by

George Wilhelm and his Council, "in the woods of Coepenick,"

short way to the east of that city; there George Wilhelm and

his Council wandered about, sending messages, hopelessly

consulting, saying among each other, "Que faire? ils ont des

canons." For many hours so, round the inflexible Gustav, who

was there like a fixed mile-stone, and to all questions and

comers had only one answer.

On our special question of war and its consequences, read this of the

Thirty Years' one:

But on the whole, the grand weapon in it, and towards the

latter times, the exclusive one, was hunger. The opposing

armies tried to starve one another; at lowest, tried each

not to starve. Each trying to eat the country or, at any

rate, to leave nothing eatable in it; what that will mean

for the country we may consider. As the armies too

frequently, and the Kaiser's armies habitually, lived

without commissariat, often enough without pay, all horrors

of war and of being a seat of war, that have been since

heard of, are poor to those then practised, the detail of

which is still horrible to read. Germany, in all eatable

quarters of it, had to undergo the process; tortured, torn

to pieces, wrecked, and brayed as in a mortar, under the

iron mace of war. Brandenburg saw its towns seized and

sacked, its country populations driven to despair by the one

party and the other. Three times--first in the

Wallenstein-Mecklenburg times, while fire and sword were the

weapons, and again, twice over, in the ultimate stages of

the struggle, when starvation had become the

method--Brandenburg fell to be the principal theatre of

conflict, where all forms of the dismal were at their

height. In 1638, three years after that precious "Peace of

Prag,"... the ravages of the starving Gallas and his

Imperialists excelled all precedent,... men ate human flesh,

nay, human creatures ate their own children. "Que faire? ils

ont des canons!"

"We have now arrived at the lowest nadir point" (says Carlyle) "of the

history of Brandenburg under the Hohenzollerns." Is this then all that

Heavy Peg and our nine Kurfuersts have done for us?

Carlyle does not mean that; but even he, greatest of historians since

Tacitus, is not enough careful to mark for us the growth of national

character, as distinct from the prosperity of dynasties.

A republican historian would think of this development only, and suppose

it to be possible without any dynasties.

Which is indeed in a measure so, and the work now chiefly needed in

moral philosophy, as well as history, is an analysis of the constant and

prevalent, yet unthought of, influences, which, without any external

help from kings, and in a silent and entirely necessary manner, form, in

Sweden, in Bavaria, in the Tyrol, in the Scottish border, and on the

French sea-coast, races of noble peasants; pacific, poetic, heroic,

Christian-hearted in the deepest sense, who may indeed perish by sword

or famine in any cruel thirty years' war, or ignoble thirty years'

peace, and yet leave such strength to their children that the country,

apparently ravaged into hopeless ruin, revives, under any prudent king,

as the cultivated fields do under the spring rain. How the rock to which

no seed can cling, and which no rain can soften, is subdued into the

good ground which can bring forth its hundredfold, we forget to watch,

while we follow the footsteps of the sower, or mourn the catastrophes of

storm. All this while, the Prussian earth--the Prussian soul--has been

thus dealt upon by successive fate; and now, though laid, as it seems,

utterly desolate, it can be revived by a few years of wisdom and of

peace.

Vol. I. Book III. Chap, xviii.--The Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm.

Eleventh of the dynasty:--

There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of

twenty under more distressing, hopeless-looking

circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none;

a mere Protestant appendage, dragged about by a Papist

Kaiser. His father's Prime Minister, as we have seen, was in

the interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's servant, but

Austria's. The very commandants of his fortresses,

Commandant of Spandau more especially, refused to obey

Friedrich Wilhelm on his accession; "were bound to obey the

Kaiser in the first place."

For twenty years past Brandenburg had been scoured by

hostile armies, which, especially the Kaiser's part of

which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or

two hence, Brandenburg became again the theatre of business,

Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644) with intent

"to shut up Torstenson and his Swedes in Jutland." Gallas

could by no means do what he intended; on the contrary, he

had to run from Torstenson--what feet could do; was hunted,

he and his Merode Brueder (beautiful inventors of the

"marauding" art), till they pretty much all died (crepirten)

says Koehler. No great loss to society, the death of these

artists, but we can fancy what their life, and especially

what the process of their dying, may have cost poor

Brandenburg again!

Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies,

was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody

else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him,

suspicious Kaiser on the other: he had to wear semblances,

to be ready with evasive words, and advance noiselessly by

many circuits. More delicate operation could not be

imagined. But advance he did; advance and arrive. With

extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity the young man

wound himself out of this first fatal position, got those

foreign armies pushed out of his country, and kept them out.

His first concern had been to find some vestige of revenue,

to put that upon a clear footing, and by loans or otherwise

to scrape a little ready-money together. On the strength _of

which a small body of soldiers could be collected about him,

and drilled into real ability to fight and obey_. This as a

basis: on this followed all manner of things, freedom from

Swedish-Austrian invasions, as the first thing. He was

himself, as appeared by-and-by, a fighter of the first

quality, when it came to that; but never was willing to

fight if he could help it. Preferred rather to shift,

manoeuvre, and negotiate, which he did in most vigilant,

adroit, and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to

have, and could maintain it, an army of twenty-four thousand

men, among the best troops then in being.

To wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words, how is this, Mr.

Carlyle? thinks perhaps the rightly thoughtful reader.

Yes, such things have to be; There are lies and lies, and there are

truths and truths. Ulysses cannot ride on the ram's back, like Phryxus;

but must ride under his belly. Read also this, presently following:

Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much

in the battle of Warsaw, into which he was dragged against

his will, changed sides. An inconsistent, treacherous man?

Perhaps not, O reader! perhaps a man advancing "in

circuits," the only way he has; spirally, face now to east,

now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sun-clear

to him all the while?

The battle of Warsaw, three days long, fought with Gustavus, the

grandfather of Charles XII., against the Poles, virtually ends the

Polish power:

Old Johann Casimir, not long after that peace of Oliva,

getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways,

abdicated--retired to Paris, and "and lived much with Ninon

de l'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of his life. He

used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no

solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult

and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, _the

talent of obeying_; and has been heard to prophesy that a

glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive

at results which would surprise it.

Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the

world; public men watching his procedure; kings anxious to

secure him--Dutch print-sellers sticking up his portraits

for a hero-worshipping public. Fighting hero, had the public

known it, was not his essential character, though he had to

fight a great deal. He was essentially an industrial man;

great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic

heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles

colonies in the waste places of his dominions, cuts canals;

unweariedly encourages trade and work. The Friedrich

Wilhelm's Canal, which still carries tonnage from the Oder

to the Spree, is a monument of his zeal in this way;

creditable with the means he had. To the poor French

Protestants in the Edict-of-Nantes affair, he was like an

express benefit of Heaven; one helper appointed to whom the

help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them

to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human pity,

as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their

reward. Some twenty thousand nimble French souls, evidently

of the best French quality, found a home there; made "waste

sands about Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in spiritual

Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture which is

still noticeable.

Now read carefully the description of the man, p. 352 (224-5); the story

of the battle of Fehrbellin, "the Marathon of Brandenburg," p. 354

(225); and of the winter campaign of 1679, p. 356 (227), beginning with

its week's marches at sixty miles a day; his wife, as always, being with

him;

Louisa, honest and loving Dutch girl, aunt to our William of

Orange, who trimmed up her own "Orange-burg"

(country-house), twenty miles north of Berlin, into a little

jewel of the Dutch type, potherb gardens, training-schools

for young girls, and the like, a favorite abode of hers when

she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and

earnest; she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever busy

man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal.

Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship; wedding in Holland; the

honest, trustful walk and conversation of the two sovereign

spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes,

fears, and manifold vicissitudes, till death, with stern

beauty, shut it in; all is human, true, and wholesome in it,

interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign persons.

Louisa died in 1667, twenty-one years before her husband, who married

again--(little to his contentment)--died in 1688; and Louisa's second

son, Friedrich, ten years old at his mother's death, and now therefore

thirty-one, succeeds, becoming afterwards Friedrich I. of Prussia.